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#like I just can’t help but to think Jefferson is so proud of his son for dating such a polite man
thejadecount · 1 year
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So I recently just got into Miles x Mikey (Shellshocked my beloved) and I just can’t help but to imagine Mikey getting ahold of a cloaking brooch and meeting Miles’ parents for the first time.
Rio: You can stay for the night if you li—
Jefferson: YOU CAN STAY FOREVER!
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daveeddiggsit · 3 years
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The Plan
WIDEOUT MASTERLIST
Series: WIDEOUT (chpt viii)
Note: Thank you @braidedchallah for proofreading. Reminder — before you kill me — there is one chapter left (and an epilogue). Keep that in mind. Enjoy. Feel free to yell at me afterwards. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry for what you’re about to experience.
Word Count: 12.2k
Pairing: Football Player!Thomas Jefferson x Tutor!Reader
Warnings: angst. possible breakup. perhaps some crying. implied sex (more than once). thom being a perfect boyfriend. thom looking fine af in denim (i’m trash).
Summary: Goodbyes are hard.
Tags: @coololdsoulpoetlove @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @lilangeldevil006 @pana-ce-a @merrahonthawall @katierpblogg @thespianbooks @a-hopeless-fan @uniquelystarchildthedragon @wcreech @sabbrriiinnaa @imperial-martian @harpersmariano @icanneverbesatisfied @underthewillowtreerycb @i-know-i-can @astralaffairs @braidedchallah​ (if i forgot anyone i apologize, just lemme know for next time)
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As one of the smartest kids in your graduating class, you have a certain reputation to uphold. Maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA isn’t easy, which means that you have to choose all the right answers and make all the right decisions. 
As it turns out, you seem to be pretty good at that. Being right about a lot of things, academic or not, seems to come naturally to you. Especially when it comes to a certain curly-haired athlete who also happens to be your boyfriend of over a year.
You had been right when you told him that he would recover from his ankle injury on the night it happened. Well, you can’t be entirely sure of that yet since he’s still not clear to engage in full-action sports, but it’s incredibly clear that he’s well on his way to recovering fully.
Almost exactly seven weeks after the incident, he’d gotten his cast removed and replaced with a boot so that he could put weight on his ankle again. Since then, he’s been in physical therapy almost daily in order to make sure that he’s healing the right way. According to him, he’s progressing well every week and is slowly regaining his mobility, strength, and speed. Just two weeks ago he ditched the boot so that he could finally put on a pair of shoes; you remember the grin on his face when he gave you a little dance to show off the new kicks he’d gotten as celebration.
He’s not 100% healthy yet, and he certainly won’t be back on the field (or track) for another couple months until he’s clear to practice, but you’re proud that he’s been able to recover as much as he has in relatively so little time.
On the night of his injury, you’d also been right about another thing: the fact that Thomas would receive college offers.
And that’s what you’re celebrating today.
After weeks and weeks of advocating for himself and sending his player reel and personal letters to the head coaches of schools he wanted to attend, he finally got an offer from one of his top college choices: the University of Virginia.
While their football team isn’t the most notable in the nation, their program is one of the best in the state of Virginia at a Division I level, and that’s pretty much all Thomas wants. After he recovers fully, Thomas will make an excellent asset to the team since one of their starting wide receivers is entering the NFL Draft after this year. 
At UVA, Thomas would get the play time he needs to shine and show his true colors and talent as a wide receiver all while having a coaching staff there to support him and his every need. Their academic program for liberal arts is also something Thomas has been looking at in a school since he plans on majoring in English.
With all of that said, the Jefferson household decides to host a special dinner for their son in celebration of the wonderful news. 
And while under normal circumstances, you would feel happy and excited for your boyfriend and his amazing accomplishment, instead you have a voice that lingers in the back of your mind reminding you of the similar news you had received just a week prior.
Thomas isn’t the only one with a huge scholarship offer.
After applying to many different schools with somewhat notable engineering programs in-state (because let’s be real, out-of-state tuition is absurdly expensive), you’ve received only a few grants from NYU and Syracuse University, but it isn’t enough to cover all of tuition.
But when you’d received an email last week from the one out-of-state school you had applied to last minute, your heart had just about dropped from your chest.
UCLA is offering you a full-ride.
You should be happy that you have an incredible offer. You should be elated for Thomas with his scholarship offer, too. However, you can’t help but feel a looming sense of stress every time you think about telling him.
That’s why you haven’t told him yet; it’s been nine days.
“Y/N?”
Thomas’ voice snaps you out of your thoughts and suddenly you are brought back to reality. You’re dressed up and sitting at the dinner table with Thomas across from his parents. The menu of the night consists of a couple different French dishes that his mother had learned to make a few years back when they visited Paris for an entire summer. His mother’s rendition of the food is nothing short of amazing.
Your eyes meet the warm brown ones that belong to your boyfriend as you turn your head to glance at him next to you. “Hmm?”
”You didn’t hear anythin’ I said, did you?” Thomas chuckles, biting his lip as he watches you put on a guilty simper.
“No, sorry.” You breathe out a small laugh in order to cover up your underlying nervousness. “I zoned out for a minute there. What were you saying?” 
“Well, I’m arguin’ a case here. Technically, a hot dog — a piece of meat held together by two pieces of bread - is a sandwich, right? In simple terms and by definition this should be true, so don’t overthink it. My dad keeps saying it’s not, but please, Y/N, you gotta side with me this time.”
You take a breath in and click your tongue. “I don’t know, Peter, I think I gotta go with Thom on this one.”
“Yes!” Thomas celebrates, throwing his arms up dramatically. “I told you!”
Mr. Jefferson’s mouth drops at your response. “How dare you take his side. Did all those other times teaming up at dinner and making fun of him mean nothing to you?”
If it hadn’t been evident prior to this moment where Thomas gets his overdramatics from, then it’s certainly clear now.
“Case closed.” Thomas smirks, crossing his arms, proud of himself.
“What are you talking about? The case is far from closed.” His father retorts, splaying his arms out, causing Thomas’ mom to speak out. 
“Hey, calm down, you two. You’re gonna make a mess if you keep on bangin’ the table like that.” She chastises them. They both mutter their apologies before Thomas’ father continues on defending himself.
“Y/N, why’d you choose his side? You know I’m right. Don’t let that boy guilt trip you; he’s still gonna love you if you disagree with him.”
“Sorry, Peter.” You shrug, sneaking a glance at Thomas who’s watching you with a glint in his eyes. “As much as I don’t want to agree with your son on this one, I unfortunately do.”
Thomas pauses to narrow his eyes as you in puzzled manor. “‘Unfortunately?’ Your words wound me, sweetheart, really.” He says in a teasing tone before his smile turns smug as he directs his attention towards his father. “But you see, Dad? It’s 2 against 1. ‘M sorry to say, but your opinion is overruled.”
Mr. Jefferson waves his son off dismissively. “That’s horseshit; your mother hasn’t sided with anyone yet. We still have one more vote to count.”
“Language, Peter.” The woman in question warns, giving him a look that’s only half serious.
“Well, honey? You agree with me, don’t you?” Peter asks his wife with pleading eyes, causing her to roll hers.
“Sure, sweetie.”
You shake your head and smile, leaning back in your chair to watch the antics unfold.
“What? Ma, why you takin’ his side?” Thomas jumps in. “I’m supposed to be your favorite, you know.”
“Of course you’re my favorite; you’re my only child, Thomas.” His mother deadpans, causing Thomas to frown.
It’s Peter’s turn now to smirk at Thomas and you. “See? Now we’re tied. Opinion very much not overruled, thank you.”
“Wait, what was your side of the argument again?” Mrs. Jefferson asks her husband. “You said a hot dog is a sandwich, right?”
“No, that’s what I said.” Thomas interjects.
“Oh, well then I agree with Thomas.”
“Ha!” Your boyfriend exclaims, pointing at his dad. “I told you! Your opinion is not valid. Hot dogs are sandwiches. End of story.”
“They are not sandwiches! They are a different entity. How can you compare a ham and cheese to a weiner between two buns? Well I’ll tell you. You can’t!”
“For the last time, Dad. It’s a piece of meat in between two pieces of bread. That is classified as what? A sandwich!”
“With that logic, you’d say that a burger is a sandwich, too?”
“Yup.”
“There is somethin’ wrong with y’all.” Peter shakes his head, picking at the leftover food on his plate. “I thought I raised you better, T. Y/N, I expected you to take my side on this one.”
“Sorry, Mr. J.” You shrug. “Tommy’s right. A piece of meat in between two pieces of bread does indeed technically classify it as a sandwich.”
“Y’all got me thinkin’ that I’m the crazy one now.” Peter sighs defeatedly.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that nonsense.” Thomas’ mother chuckles, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “Thomas, honey, your father and I are very proud of you and are excited for your opportunity at UVA.”
“Thanks, Ma.” Thomas grins. “I’m excited, too.”
Under the table, Thomas’ hand finds yours and laces your fingers together. Its warmth is comforting and the small moment makes you forget about everything for just a moment. A small silence stretches on for a bit before Peter speaks up.
“So, Y/N, how are your college applications going? Have you gotten any scholarships yet? I feel like you’re too smart to not get anything.”
Your stomach drops at the question. You really hadn’t expected to be put on the spot like this, and while it is a simple question that you should be able to answer quickly… you don’t. You hesitate and Thomas notices. 
You want to tell the truth, you really do, but you can’t. This is Thomas’ night to celebrate and the last thing you want to do is mess it up with news that you’d be going to school across the country. Tonight is supposed to be about him, not you.
So you lie.
“Oh, um, no, not yet.” You chuckle nervously. The hand holding Thomas’ fidgets slightly and he squeezes lightly to try and help calm your nerves. “I mean, I’ve gotten into NYU and Syracuse so far. Still waiting to hear from Columbia. I haven’t heard much as far as scholarships, though, unfortunately. I’ve received a few grants here and there, but nothing too big.”
“Columbia, wow. What’s their acceptance rate? 10%?” Mrs. Jefferson asks, seemingly interested.
“6%.” Thomas jumps in to answer before glancing at you with a small smile. “I don’t think Y/N will have any trouble getting in, though.”
You send him the biggest smile you can muster, though you feel like it sort of comes out as a grimace. “Thanks, T.” You say softly.
Beat.
“What time is it? I think it’s past my bedtime.” Peter yawns, checking his watch. “10 o’clock? Where did the time go? Y/N, are you going to be okay driving home this late?”
“It’s not that late, Mr. Jefferson. I should be fine.” You’ve definitely driven home from Thomas’ place past 10pm before (multiple times), but you’re not telling him that. “I do think I should probably leave soon, though.”
“You wanna go get your things upstairs, then I can walk you out?” Thomas asks you with a mischievous look in his eye. Knowing him, he probably just wants to get you alone for a bit before you leave. Even through your nervousness to tell him the truth, you can’t deny his charm.
“Yeah, that sounds good, Tommy.”
Then, both you and Thomas excuse yourselves from the table. You make sure to thank Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson for dinner and the invite. You’re always honored to be included in their family events even if it’s something as small as dinner on a Friday night.
When you make it up to Thomas’ room, he doesn’t waste another moment before he kisses you softly, his hand reaching up to cup your cheek after he gently shuts the door.
“Been waitin’ to do that all night.” He grins afterwards, softly brushing over the skin of your cheek with his thumb.
You smile as you bring your hands up to his shoulders, wordlessly leaning forward to sweetly press your lips to his again.
“Missed you.” He mumbles as he pulls away to lean his forehead against yours. “Feel like we haven’t been seeing a lot of each other lately.”
He’s right. With both of you not having any classes together this year, you both worried about college applications, Thomas not in football season anymore and in and out of PT almost constantly, you two haven’t been seeing each other as much as you’d like. Another reason why you haven’t been able to tell Thomas about UCLA (aside from the fact that you simply don’t have the guts to do it).
“I know.” You sigh, looking off to the side for a second. “I’m sorry.”
“‘S not your fault. We’ve both been busy.”
“Yeah, but still.” You say softly. “Feels bad. I miss you.”
He chuckles. “Well, I’m right here, baby. Don’t need to go far.”
You smile haphazardly and roll your eyes as you bring your hand up to the back of his neck and pull him into another kiss. Who knows how many more of these you’ll get before you both graduate and have to go your separate ways.
Before it can go too far, you pull away again.
“T?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m so proud of you.” You say genuinely because you really want him to know. You feel like you don’t tell him enough (even though that’s not the case).  “Really, I am. You deserve that scholarship and so much more.”
“Thanks, love.” He murmurs while a soft smile adorns his face. “Hey, if none of these in-state schools give you anything, I think you’d have a good chance at getting something at UVA. They have an honors college that gives up a ton of grants and shit, you should look into it. I’m not sure if the applications are still open, but worth a try.”
You purse your lips before you give him your response. “Maybe, we’ll see.”
“I’m sure you’ll get something anyway, but just wanted to bring that up and let you know.”
“Appreciate the thought, Thom.”
Thomas grins, giving you one last peck on the lips before finally turning away to remove his overcoat. He double takes when he sees your face drop slightly. His eyebrows furrow as he notices your mood shift. “Hey, what’s wrong? Somethin’ botherin’ you? Not gonna lie, you’ve been a little off all night, sweetheart...”
You hesitate, not able to look him in the eye, the guilt eating you alive. The pressure of holding everything in is building up and while Thomas is normally your rock, the one you can go to for anything, you can’t this time, and you can feel it wearing you down.
You take in a shaky deep breath before you go to sit down on his bed, eyes cast towards the ground. “I’m okay, T, I’m just… stressed. With school.” You say, finally willing yourself to look up into his caring gaze. It hurts to lie to him, but you keep telling yourself that it’s his night.
“You sure?” He asks, taking a seat next to you to gently grab your hand in his. “Seriously, baby, I know when somethin’s up. What’s on that brilliant mind of yours, huh?” He lightly bumps his shoulder against yours in a teasing gesture, causing you to let out a half-hearted chuckle. He always knows how to get a laugh out of you, doesn’t he? “I know you’re worried about more than that stats test you have next week. Tell me what’s really botherin’ you.” He says softly, catching your gaze again.
Sighing once more, you tear your eyes away from his pleading ones. “I um…” You trail off after trying and failing to come up with another lie or excuse. 
Thomas always draws your worries and frustrations out of you; he knows you so well to the point where he knows exactly what to say to convince you to tell him something. Honesty has never been a problem in your relationship, and the last thing you want is to push it to a point of no return. You already feel terrible for withholding the truth; you want to be free from this secret you’ve been holding.
And suddenly seven words echo in your head:
“Tell him. He’ll understand. He loves you.”
Your eyes flit back up to meet his concerned gaze. Here it goes.
“I did get a scholarship. All tuition and expenses paid. I got the email a week and a half ago and I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
His eyes widen at the confession, taken aback by how big the news is.
“Holy shit, Y/N, that’s… that’s amazing, baby. I’m so proud of you. Not surprised, but proud nonetheless.” He says genuinely, a smile evident on his face before it drops slightly. “Why didn’t you wanna tell me?” There’s a moment of silence before he speaks again. “Wait, why’d you lie at dinner when my dad asked?”
You give him a sad smile before you look away again, fidgeting with your fingers on the hand that Thomas isn’t holding. “I didn’t want to take over your night, T. And I didn’t tell you when I found out because… the school’s in Cali.” You say, releasing a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.
He cocks his head to the side slightly, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “I thought you only applied to schools in-state.”
You shake your head, pursing your lips before you respond. “That’s what I had planned originally, but my advisor pushed me to apply for this scholarship program at UCLA and… well, I got in.”
Thomas goes silent for a few moments as he looks off to the side, breathing deeply. It’s hard to tell what he’s feeling. Then, he lets out a low whistle. “Full-ride to UCLA, huh?” He says softly before he turns to look at you. 
“Thomas…” You start, your voice soft and full of worry, but he continues to talk.
“Are you going to accept it?” He asks and you nod slowly. 
Ideally, you have no other real choice; by going to UCLA you’d graduate with zero debt. And with UCLA’s engineering program and opportunities that other schools can’t fulfill, it fills all the boxes you want in a university.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Really. I’m glad they recognize how amazing you are.” The tone in Thomas’ voice is fond and he’s absolutely sure of the words he’s saying. “It’s far away, I know, but we can make it work.” 
The emotions in his eyes are conflicting, but they still hold unrelenting love and support in them. When you hesitate to respond, his eyes search yours, trying to find some sort of answer in them, but before he can decipher anything, you tear your gaze from his.
“Right?” He asks as his grip on your palm loosens until your hand falls back into your lap, the warmth from Thomas’ fingers completely vanished. “Baby, talk to me. Please.”
“Thom, I… I want to think that but I’m not sure.” You admit quietly, and having said that, you can see something in Thomas’ composure crumble.
He shakes his head. “Nah, don’t you say that. We can make this work, Y/N.” His voice wavers slightly as he stands up and runs a hand over his curls, smoothing them back and away from his face. “I haven’t accepted the offer at UVA. I can decline and apply to UCLA—”
“T, I’m not going to ask you to do that—” You start, but he cuts you off.
“You don’t have to ask me, love. I’m willing to do this all on my own. Like I said, we can make this work. I’ll improvise. My parents can afford it, then I can just join the football team as a walk-on. I’m confident I’ll make it. Since they didn’t give me an offer I’ll prove them wrong and be the best damn walk-on they ever had.”
“Thomas, don’t—”
“I can also have my dad send the head coach a letter. I didn’t wanna pull that for any other schools because I wanted to earn all my offers — and because of the whole nepotism thing — but I’ll make an exception for—”
“Thomas, please!” You raise your voice and when he finally stops, you immediately regret it. You’ve never raised your voice like that with him before and doing so right now feels terrible. 
“Please, T, just stop. I don’t want you to do any of that for me. How long have you been waiting for UVA to give you a chance? How many letters have you personally written to Coach Michaels, begging him to consider you for one of their open receiver positions?”
Thomas is silent as you speak, knowing full well that you have a point. You continue.
“You’ve been set on UVA as your top school for a couple months now. Don’t forget how hyped you were when you finally got the offer this morning. And now you want to just throw that away? No. I’m sorry, Thom, but I am not going to be the one to take it away from you.”
“You’re not.” He says earnestly. “Taking it away from me, I mean. I want to do this for you. For us. UCLA has a good football program, too, all I have to do is pull some strings if you’ll let me.”
You shake your head at him. “Okay, well I’m not letting you do that. Thomas, it’s not as easy as you’re making it seem. Think about this, okay? Think about yourself and your football career and all the opportunities that you’ll have for yourself down in Virginia. Don’t let me get in the way of that! I don’t want each of us to be an obstacle in each other’s successes.”
Thomas gives you an incredulous look and stills himself. “Are you serious? Is that what you consider our relationship? An obstacle?”
You look away, sighing. “No, T, I… I didn’t mean it like that, you know that.”
“No, Y/N. I don’t know that.” He looks at you with a distressed gaze, all traces of comfort and playfulness gone and replaced with hurt… caused by you — something you never would have thought you’d see in his eyes. 
“Look, I don’t wanna talk about this right now. Today’s supposed to be your day.”
“Let me get one thing straight, Y/N. Our relationship is not an obstacle… it never has been and it never will be.” Thomas says coldly and you cringe when he calls you by your full name in a tone that’s less than friendly.
“I just don’t want our love for each other to get in the way of…” You trail off, but decide against speaking mid-sentence. “You know what, nevermind.”
“Get in the way of what?”
“Thomas,” you start, making eye contact with him once again. “I don’t want to get in the way of your football career. It’s unfair; I can’t do that to you, T. You deserve to make the most of your career in college so that you can make it to the NFL. That’s your dream, right? To play in the NFL for the New York Giants like your father did. Am I right?”
His jaw clenches slightly as he nods, and you continue.
“The coach at UVA believes in you — even through your injury. Why are you going to throw that away? In order to be with your high school girlfriend? Do you see how childish that sounds?” A beat of silence passes before you continue in a softer tone. 
“I just… I don’t want you to do that, Thomas, it’s too big of a risk. You have a solid spot at UVA to prove yourself on the field. If you drop that for a walk-on position at UCLA, it’ll be a mistake. Instead of proving yourself to NFL recruiters, you’ll be set on proving yourself to college coaches just to get a chance on the field. I want you to have the best chances at making it to the NFL.” Now it’s your turn to stand up. You pace away from him as you continue to speak. 
“Let’s say you do follow me to UCLA and join the football program. What if… what if something happens while we’re in college and we’re not together anymore? What will happen? You’d have potentially messed up your career for me and I don’t want that to happen, T. I’m sorry but I won’t let that happen.”
Thomas holds a hand up to stop you from your ramblings. He speaks his next words slowly.  “Wait, wait, hold on now. You think we’re going to break up in college?”
You roll your eyes in frustration, crossing your arms defensively. “That’s not what I said—”
“No, no that’s exactly what you said.” He responds coldly, narrowing his eyes at you. “I’m starting to question our intentions in this relationship, Y/N. Did you ever plan on us being long term?”
“See, this is why I didn’t wanna tell you. I didn’t want this to happen.” You say, annoyed that it’s gotten to this point of you two having an argument.
“You just gonna ignore my question?”
“Before applying to schools, T, I wasn’t even thinking about the future. I was taking things day by day. We were both pent up in our little perfect world, but right now we need to face reality.”
“Okay, so then why’d you keep this a secret from me? Were you plannin’ on keepin’ this to yourself until graduation? I don’t know if you knew this, sweetheart, but a relationship is a two-way street and involves a little somethin’ called communication.” His snarky tone fills the room and has you rolling your eyes again. “Girlfriends aren’t supposed to lie to their boyfriends and then get mad at him for reacting a certain way when she finally decides to tell him huge news.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” You say, breathing out another sigh and softening up at his last sentence. He’s right; you shouldn’t have kept it a secret. “I wanted to tell you, I just, I don’t know what’s gonna happen after we graduate, okay? And I’m scared.”
“You don’t think we can work through that together? As a team?” Thomas’ eyes are begging you to reason with him. “I’m scared, too, but we’ll figure something out. Right?”
The look in your eyes is distant as you cast them down to the ground. “Yeah.”
“Maybe we could do a long distance thing. I’ve seen other couples do it.”
You fiddle with a loose thread on your sweater. “I don’t know, T. We’ll see if we can come up with something.”
He rolls his eyes and huffs out a hot-tempered laugh. “Okay.” He says shortly.
“What?”
“So you don’t want me to drop everything and go to UCLA with you, which is fine. I understand that. But now you’re telling me that you don’t wanna do long distance?”
“I didn’t say that, I just— we need to be realistic, Thom.”
“What does that even mean?!” He yells, and it’s the first time he’s ever raised his voice at you. You hate it.
“We have to keep the future in mind!”
“I want you in my future! Don’t you want me in your future?”
“We both have different ideas of what we want. Different dreams, okay? You can’t have your dream of making it to the NFL and also have me when I plan on going to an engineering program across the country!” 
You’re deflecting and he knows it.
“Answer the damn question, Y/N.” He says lowly, his voice taking on a dangerous edge.
“Of course I want you in my future, Thomas!” You say exasperatedly, looking at the ceiling. “What kind of question is that?”
“Forgive me if I’m strugglin’ to believe that when you’re actin’ like this.” He says, his voice taking a more neutral tone, but he sounds exhausted. “You’re going to school across the country and you were hesitant to tell me - fine. I fucking get it. But you can’t just say that we’ll probably break up in college and think that that is fucking okay. It’s not! And you can’t say ‘I don’t know’ about dating long distance when that’s literally the only other option we have.”
“That’s the thing, Thomas. I don’t know if that’s the only other option we have.”
His face looks puzzled as he looks at you for a few seconds before realization finally settles in. Thomas narrows his eyes at you once again, his gaze cold, making your heart drop in your chest. “You wanna break up, don’t you?”
“No.” You state, choosing your words carefully. “I don’t want to. But we have to think about—”
“Our future, yeah. I get it.” Thomas snaps, cutting you off. “You know what? You want to talk about the future? Fine. Maybe we should.” He says simply, crossing his arms. “If you think we’re just going to break up in college anyway, maybe we should just speed up the process and get it over with.”
You shake your head at him. “Thomas, don’t do this. That’s not what I want.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s not.”
“I find that extremely hard to believe.”
“I’m done arguing with you, Jefferson.” You breathe out tiredly, running a hand through your hair.
He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks completely drained as he speaks again, his voice now calm. “What are we doing here, Y/N?”
A small silence fills the air before you answer quietly. “I don’t know, T.”
What are you both doing? Arguing about whether or not your relationship should continue after high school? Maybe you are being a little irrational about it, implying that you should break up before college and all. Thomas’ reaction to it all is understandable because he doesn’t want to lose you. However, he needs to be truthful to himself. Is this relationship going to work when the two of you are seeking entirely different career paths on opposite coasts?
What a fucking mess.
You hate that it’s gotten to this point. Your fear about telling Thomas and it going downhill has come true, and knowing that makes you even more emotional.
“Tommy… I…” You say sotto voce, on the edge of tears as you slowly reach for him, but he puts a hand up stopping you from moving any further. He turns his face so you can’t see his expression.
“Don’t, Y/N.” Thomas’ voice is firm, but it breaks slightly when he says your name. “Just don’t.” He whispers.
You watch him and he struggles to keep himself together. You hate that you’ve done this to him, that you’re making him feel this way… you hate that you’ve caused this.
“I’m gonna go…” You voice (barely above a whisper) after a long silent pause, not trusting your normal voice due to the shaky deep breaths that begin to rack your body. You’re on the verge of breaking down.
Thomas nods. “I think you should.”
And that breaks your heart.
You feel weird leaving like this, gross even. You don’t want to leave things off like they are. You don’t want to leave things unresolved and you don’t want to leave with Thomas still angry at you. Still, though, you grab all your things and head to the doorway of his room.
Pausing to look back at him, you open your mouth to say something, but hesitate. Deciding against it, you turn to open the door and leave without another word.
⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆
You call Maria as soon as you get to your car. She helps you keep your composure as you drive to her house, keeping you company via phone. You make sure to send your family a quick text of your whereabouts and that you plan to spend the night at Maria’s place.
As soon as you arrive in her bedroom and drop your bag to the ground, you break down and begin to sob, crashing into the welcoming arms of your best friend. You cry until you can’t anymore, and Maria is there for you the entire time hugging you and easing you through it.
She stays there, quiet and still, allowing you to let out all of your emotions. You don’t tell her the details about what happened until after you have no tears left to cry.
“Don’t be mad at T, please, none of this is his fault.” You sniffle, wiping at your nose with a tissue Maria gave you. “It’s all mine.”
“Y/N, don’t blame yourself for all this. You just want what’s best for the both of you in the long run. If he doesn’t understand that, then he’s just not seeing the whole picture.”
“I just hate arguing with him, Maria.” You say weakly, wiping at your face to dry your tears. “This is our first fight and I hate how I feel right now. I don’t want things to end on bad terms. How am I supposed to get over this feeling once we… if we break up before college?”
“You don’t have to end things on bad terms, Y/N.” Maria says softly. “You both need to be on the same page about this. If you both make a plan and sort things out, then maybe you can leave things on a positive note. Not as a goodbye, but as a see you later, you know? And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You’ll meet again one day and you can pick up where you left off. But if it’s not, then at least you guys can cherish what you had when you were just two kids in high school who didn’t know any better and made the most of their teenage years.”
You nod slowly. She does have a point, and this is all what you were thinking when you had even brought up the thought of breaking up after graduation.
“How do you always know the right thing to say?”
“It’s my best friend superpower. I can’t help it.” She shrugs, making you laugh, even if it was only a half-hearted one. “Seriously, though. You two need to have an honest conversation with one another.”
You sigh, wiping the rest of your drying tears away with the tissue. “I think we both could use some space right now, though. I’m going to wait until Monday.”
Maria nods. “Monday. But you have to talk to him. You can’t chicken out. I know you, Y/N.”
“Sometimes a little too well…”
“All for the best.” She grins.
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After a long and lonely weekend, Monday finally comes and you make sure to wake up earlier than usual in order to make it to school in time for when Thomas comes out of his physical therapy session with his track trainer.
You haven’t called, texted, or seen each other since Friday night and the guilt and heaviness from what happened still weighs on your chest despite the reassuring words from Maria. 
Patiently and nervously, you wait outside the boys’ locker room like you have countless times before, only this time, things feel much different. The anticipation lingers in the air surrounding you and you feel the stress push at your shoulders until the door finally opens and Thomas walks out.
After over a year of dating, you still get butterflies at the sight of him even though he’s just wearing simple black jeans and a t-shirt.
As he shrugs on his jean jacket and backpack, he glances up through a few stray curls that fall down in front of his eyes. His eyes flicker to you as he walks in your direction before he rips them away quickly. 
“T, hey how was…?” You try to speak to him, but he just continues to walk past you.
You watch him as he goes on like nothing, completely disregarding your presence.
“You’re still mad…” You trail off, falling into step with him and his pace doesn’t falter.
He doesn’t say a word.
“Listen, I know you probably don’t wanna see me right now, but please hear me out.”
Still nothing.
You know he’s still upset; he only gets quiet when he has a lot on his mind or he’s going through something. Taking in a deep breath, you speed up so that you can get in front of him.
“Thomas, hey, stop.” You say, putting a hand on his chest. You know that if he really wants to charge past you he can, but instead he stays there, halted by your touch. He looks down at you, his face nearing yours, and your eyes plead with his. “Please.” You whisper, your fingers curling into his black shirt to hold him there (or maybe it’s more of a way to ground yourself).
Thomas’ detached gaze lingers on your face and as your eyes search his, you note just how devoid of energy he looks. 
“I just want to talk. I…” You watch him as he breaks your gaze to look at the ground. “I know I fucked up; I said some things I shouldn’t have. Just please let me make it up to you. I need you, T. I want to fix this while we still can.”
You sneak a glance around you to see that you’ve attracted some attention from your fellow classmates who are unapologetically staring. Do they know about you and Thomas’ fight? How could they possibly know? You two are hardly making a scene, but then again… people are vultures who will perk up at even the slightest bit of drama.
“Can we go somewhere private? Please? Just the two of us.”
Thomas licks his lips as he looks around, then back at you lazily. “Can this wait? We have class in six minutes, you know.”
“Let’s skip.” You say, causing him to raise his eyebrows in surprise. “This is more important than class today, okay? How about we go to that diner down the street?”
“It’s a little too early for a milkshake and fries, isn’t it?”
“They have eggs and waffles, too.” You say, your eyes pleading him to accept your offer. “Please? I know you love breakfast.”
He’s quiet for a few more minutes and you wait in anticipation for his answer. Just when you get your hopes down and think he’s going to reject you, he speaks up.
“Okay.” He responds finally. “But only because I really don’t want to watch boring presentations about the social cognitive theory in my Psych class…”
You breathe out a sigh of relief. “That’s good enough for me, T.”
“Bribin’ me with breakfast. You know that shit’s my weakness…” He mutters under his breath as he shakes his head. You’re not sure if he’d meant for you to hear that, but either way it makes a hint of a grin form on your lips.
“Come on, I’ll drive.”
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When you get to the diner, it’s fairly empty except for an elderly couple at a booth and a man at the counter drinking a cup of coffee. The smell of eggs and bacon wafts through the air and enters your nostrils as you breathe in.
A waitress greets you when you two slide into a booth, sitting across from each other. She hands you both menus and gets your drink orders before she’s off.
Silence fills the air between you as you both look over your menus. Thomas doesn’t say anything and it feels weird, suddenly reminding you of why you’re here in the first place. While from an outside perspective it may look like a normal outing between you two, you can feel the lingering tension in the air that’s leftover from Friday night. Unspoken feelings and unresolved problems still remain. 
You sneak a glance at him over your menu only to find him already staring back at you. As soon as your eyes meet, he looks away.
“I feel really bad about Friday.” You finally break the silence, your voice small. Wanting nothing more than to let him know how you feel, you try to catch his gaze. When his brown eyes finally meet yours, you continue. “I hate the way we left things…”
“Me too.” He finally says softly. You two stare at each other for a few more seconds and Thomas opens his mouth to continue. “I…”
Then, the waitress comes back with a couple water cups and two black coffees, interrupting whatever it was that Thomas was about to say. You and Thomas direct your attention to her with fake smiles as she asks for your orders. 
After she takes your menus and leaves, you let out a sigh as you look down at your fidgeting hands.
“Listen, T…” You begin, regret and guilt evident in your voice. You make sure to look up and meet his gaze one more time before you continue. “I'm sorry for lying to you and your family — I should have told you the day I found out, but I was too afraid of losing what we have. And I'm sorry for fucking up your day when we were supposed to be celebrating instead.” 
You stop to take in a shaky deep breath, looking down at your hands once again. “I’m so sorry if I made it seem like I was doubting our relationship or… or if I made you feel like I didn’t… like you weren’t…” Struggling to find the right way to express how sorry you are, your tone gets more and more emotional as you stumble over your words.
Thomas saves you from your struggle, however, as his hand reaches across the table to cover yours, causing you to look up at him with surprise. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
“What?” You voice breathlessly. “I… I thought you were still mad. It shouldn’t be that easy. Why are you…?”
He shrugs slowly. “Because you’re not entirely at fault… and as much as I want to stay angry, I can’t stand seein’ you in distress like this.”
You purse your lips and squeeze his hand in yours. “I’m still really sorry, T. I want you to know that. I said some things I regret and…”
“I know you are. Especially after seeing you try to fix things today by not takin’ no for an answer earlier. We both said some things we regret and it’s okay, Y/N. Really.” His voice is soft as he responds. “I’m sorry for yellin’ and not fully listenin’ to what you were sayin’. And for bein’ kind of a dick to you earlier when I ignored you. I was in denial. I just felt like you were givin’ up on us too quickly and I… I don’t wanna mess up what we have. I really don’t.”
Your eyes soften at his words. “I know. Me neither.”
You both are quiet for a few seconds as you both struggle to find a way to address the elephant in the room. 
Luckily, you both get interrupted by the waitress again who comes back with your orders. You let go of each other’s hand when your plates are placed in front of you. Your mouth waters at the sight of your food, and you thank your waitress before she leaves again, telling you to let her know if you need anything else.
A comfortable silence falls in the space between you and Thomas, and though you feel that the tension from Friday night has now dissipated, the stress of the upcoming conversation still sits on your shoulders.
Surprisingly, Thomas is the one who initiates it.
“So…” He starts after chasing a mouthful of pancakes with a sip of water. “I’m guessin’ you won’t be comin’ back to town on holiday breaks?”
You cringe at the bluntness of the question. “What made you assume that?”
He shrugs, chewing his food before swallowing. “Just the way you were so helpless with your options. Thinking back to it, I figure that you probably wouldn’t have jumped to the possibility of breaking up unless you’d already thought things through somewhat.”
Very observant of him.
You nod before letting out a small sigh. “Yeah. My family’s planning on moving to Miami once I move out. Apparently they’re tired of the cold weather and wanted to wait to move until I graduated high school. They let me know when I told them the news.”
“Erik, too?”
“He’s staying in Philly until he graduates next Spring.”
“Well, that sucks.” He says, picking at the leftovers on his plate.
“Yeah.” You reply softly. “I just… I don’t know what to do anymore, Thomas. I thought the answer was clear, but now I’m not so sure.”
He sighs, putting his fork down before looking up at you. “I think I do.”
Your eyebrows furrow as you tilt your head in confusion.
Thom sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Well, for starters, you’re always right, let me just put that out there.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Well, for this instance, at least.” He says simply before he continues. “As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think we’ve got options here.”
“Yes we do, you said it yourself, T.”
“We don’t, Y/N, you were right. I didn’t wanna believe it before but now, I don’t think I have a choice.” He says, holding your gaze firmly. “The two of us going to the same school is out of the picture. Especially with application deadlines already being passed - I checked and I don’t know what I was thinking on Friday. And with us not going to be able to see each other even on holiday breaks… I don’t think that leaves anythin’ else on the table.”
“Thomas, really, you don’t have to do this. Don’t let me pressure you into something you don’t wanna do. Like you said, a relationship’s a two way street. We can work something out. I don’t know what, but we’ll try something else.”
“You’re not pressuring me, Y/N. What would that ‘something else’ be? Long distance? The chances of us visiting each other are slim, especially since I’ll be stuck at UVA for the majority of summer break for training camp. Especially since you’ll be in California and especially since you have no incentive to come back to town after you graduate.”
“You’re my incentive, T.”
He licks his lips and lets out a small laugh. “Baby, don’t fight me on this; you wanted this. Why the shift?”
“I don’t wanna lose you.” You say, voice quiet and close to tears.
Thomas reaches out across the table for your hand again. You lace your fingers with his and hold tightly. “I know. I don’t want to lose you either, but you were right, sweetheart. Seeing each other once a year isn’t good enough, let’s be real. I think we’d be hurting more than we'd be happy.”
You let out a long, deep sigh, squeezing his hand. He’s absolutely right and you knew this when you started this conversation on Friday — doesn’t mean that you don’t want to avoid it, though.
“We… we should…” He hesitates to continue the sentence. “We— God, why is this so hard?”
“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, T.”
He takes a deep breath before the words finally come out. “We should break up. This summer.”
It sounds foreign coming out of his mouth and his change in viewpoint surprises you still, even after talking it through with him.
“I don’t wanna be your shackle, Y/N.” He says, squeezing your hand comfortingly. “I want you to do great things without worryin’ about me. Just like you were sayin’ on Friday. And I don’t wanna risk getting to a point where we grow too distant we lose all hope.”
Your eyes tear up a little bit and you reach up to wipe at your eyes with your free hand.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m lettin’ you off easy, missy.” Thomas looks at you pointedly, his voice wavering slightly. He lets out a small bittersweet laugh before he continues. “I’m gonna consider this more of a ‘see you later’ than a ‘goodbye forever’ kinda thing. At some point, I don’t know or care when, we’ll continue where we left off. Mark my words.”
You laugh, wiping away a stray tear. You’ve definitely heard those words before. “Have you been talking to Maria lately?”
He gives you a confused look. “No, not since we went on that double date with her and Ellie like two weeks ago, why?”
“She said a similar thing to me when I vented to her this weekend.”
“Really? Oh. I thought I was clever for that one.”
“You were.” You smile, rubbing small circles on the top of his hand.
A comfortable silence settles. The waitress comes back with the check and you give her your card against Thomas’ protests. It’s not long before she comes back and wishes that you both have a good rest of your day.
“This is gonna fucking suck.” Thomas suddenly says bluntly.
“Yeah, it is.” You sigh. “But you know what? We’re gonna make the most of the next three months. We’ll laugh together, we’ll cry together, we’ll enjoy the good times, and when the time comes… we won’t look back. Then, maybe one day, when I’m an engineer and you’re in the NFL… we’ll meet again.”
He sends you a watery smile, giving your hand a small squeeze. “I’m countin’ on it, sweetheart.”
You reciprocate his smile as a small silence stretches in between you two.
Thomas’ eyes fall onto his untouched (and probably now cold) coffee and with his free hand he reaches for the cream. You take that as a sign to let his hand go to let him tend to his glorified bean water, but as you try to withdraw your fingers from his, he just holds on tighter.
“Um, excuse me? What do you think you’re doin’?” He asks, glancing at you like you just committed a sin. 
“Don’t you need to pour creamer?” You raise an eyebrow, wondering what the big deal is. “I don’t want you to spill it.”
“Girl, I can pour creamer with one hand, thank you very much.” And there’s the Thomas you know and love, not that he was ever absent in the first place, but it’s good to see him messing around again. “Let me hold your hand in peace because God knows how many more times I’ll get to do it. I gotta savor it.”
“Stoppp.” You whine, drawing the word out. “This is how you’re gonna act until graduation, isn’t it?”
“You complainin’, sweetheart?” He fake pouts as he carefully pours the cream in his coffee and stirs with a spoon. “I thought you loved me.”
You roll your eyes. “You know I love your dramatic ass.”
“Mhm. In more ways than one.” Thomas hums before he takes a sip of his coffee. He cringes when he realizes it’s cold and you laugh at his reaction.
“Ready to go yet?” You ask, amused.
He nods. “We’re not going back to class, though, are we? Because if that’s the case, then no.”
“What? Hell no. Who do you think I am?” You say as you both mutually let go of each other’s hand to get up from the booth.
“A goody-two-shoes, that’s what you are. Really, baby, I didn’t expect you to mention skipping class. That’s like… blasphemy for you.”
You shrug as he holds the front door open for you. “Guess you’re rubbing off on me.”
Thomas gives you a suggestive look and that causes you to smack his arm. “God, Thomas, not like that. Jesus.”
He lets out a full-bodied laugh as you approach your car and he grabs you by the waist as he leans back against the driver’s door. He presses a kiss to your forehead, hugging you close to him. “Just messin’.”
You roll your eyes before you pull back to look him up and down.
“When’d you get this jacket? Haven’t seen you in it before.” You muse, bringing your hands up to grab the denim on each side of his collar.
“A week ago? Maybe two? This is my first time wearing it, though.” He answers before he smirks. “Why? You like it?”
“Yeah, you look good in denim.”
“Do I, now?” He cocks his head slightly, amused as your face drifts closer.
“Mhm. The jacket really suits you.” You hum, releasing the material with one of your hands to slide it up to his jaw. You give him a soft kiss on his lips before you pull back. “Might look better on the floor, though. I don’t know. We’ll have to try and find out.”
Thomas’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise; he hadn’t expected you to turn the suggestive talk around on him. A smirk forms on his lips as he presses them to yours one more time.
“Your parents home?” He mumbles against you.
You pull away slightly to think about it for a second. “No, actually.”
“Well, then I guess we’re about to find out.”
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Over the next few months, you and Thomas keep the promise you gave to each other at the diner. You’ve stayed positive and lived in the moment and, to be honest, those three months have probably been the best three months of your life.
You and Thom are both making the most of your time, making sure to spend almost every weekend together. 
You study together even though you don’t share any classes. Most of the time is spent doing homework in silence, but you still enjoy each other’s presence.
For spring break, you go on a trip to the beach with Thomas, Maria, Ellie, James, Aaron, and a few more mutual friends. The week is full of banter and lots of fun-filled memories that you’ll remember for many years to come. It’s definitely one of the many highlights of senior year.
Thomas, being his over-the-top self, asks you to prom by spelling ‘Prom?’ out with bouquets of roses on your front lawn. And as if that isn’t enough, you wake to the sound of a live orchestral quartet playing your favorite song. You groggily walk over to your window to see where the sound is coming from and you’re met with the sight of your boyfriend grinning up at you with his arms gesturing around him proudly.
Of course you say yes. 
You would have said yes even if he had asked you casually — but what can you say… you’re a sucker for flowers and he knows it.
Prom night is an absolute blast. You feel like a stunner in your dress and Thomas looks unbelievably handsome in his fitted tux. You stay together the entire night, dancing, singing, laughing, and joking around with both your and his friends.
You almost lose track of the amount of date nights you have with Thomas. You have movie nights, some nights you go rollerskating, concerts, restaurants, hell, you even go paintballing together, which is something that neither of you had ever thought you’d get into.
But as June grows closer and closer, you can’t help but feel that heaviness settle back into your chest. You’d be lying if you said that you haven’t thought about backing out of this agreement the two of you have. In fact, you’ve spent countless nights lying wide awake (sometimes right next to Thomas), trying to figure out how things would go if you decide to stay together.
With your parents deciding to move down to Miami a week after you graduate, it pushes the day you move out to LA earlier than you had originally intended, which makes the idea of staying together seem next to impossible. Your mother says that it’ll be a good opportunity for you to get to know the LA area before classes start in August. 
This causes you and Thomas to have a more in-depth conversation about the plan and it ends with you two deciding to break it off a week before your big move. Both of you are in agreement that it would be best for the both of you, so that you have some time to recover. You figure it will be easier that way.
So, when the time comes to start packing your things for your move to California (and your parents’ move to Florida), you get stressed out. You notice that Thomas’ and your enthusiasm/positivity starts to fade as the date of graduation creeps closer and closer.
Which brings you to the present.
On the day of graduation, reality finally hits you. Because not only are you recognizing the fact that you’re leaving the love of your life in eight days to go to school in Cali, you’re also leaving Maria who has been a constant in your life since elementary school.
Maria plans to stay in town and go to community college to knock out all her general education classes before she transfers to a four-year university. Luckily, her girlfriend Ellie has the same idea, so they’ll be taking the same path after high school.
At least they will be together.
Unlike you and Thom, who are currently posing for a photo together for his and your parents who stand behind their phones grinning and teary eyed. You both give your best smiles to the cameras, trying to preserve the memory as best as possible without breaking.
Surprisingly, you and Thomas have stayed strong despite the impending suspension of your relationship that lingers in the atmosphere between you. Although teary eyed because you are saying goodbye to a lot of friends and faculty you’ve gotten to know over the years, you and Thomas don’t cry on graduation day. You don’t cry during the ceremony, you don’t cry during the many pictures you take that day, and you don’t cry at the large family dinner the Jefferson household holds for both you and Thomas.
You’ve both toughed it out both privately and in public. But graduation day eventually comes to its inevitable end, and the day after begins, marking your last day with Thomas Jefferson as your boyfriend.
The two of you make your last day special and have a day-long picnic in a nearby park. You wake up early and spend the entire day together, laughing, kissing, talking, and having as much fun as you can with the inevitable future looming over your heads. You both make the best of your time together, and that’s really all you can ask for.
As the day goes by, your time together begins to run out. And both of your composures begin to fade as each second passes.
While your curfew to be back home is 10pm, you and Thomas decide to hold onto each other a bit longer, so he drives you home and you sneak him into your room when your parents are too busy packing in the basement. They know that this is your last day with Thomas, so when you’re distracting them while Thomas makes his way up the stairs, you tell them that you’re going to sleep early. They comfort you for a few minutes but leave you to your own grief, knowing to respect your wish of ‘sleeping the night off.’
Little do they know, you and Thomas decide to have one more special night together. 
When you finally make your way up to your bedroom, Thomas is sitting on your bed, glancing at the half-empty boxes in the corner of your room that need to be filled. Half of your room is packed up, but you’ve put off packing lately to spend time with Thom before you physically can’t anymore.
You let out a sniffle and you don’t realize that you are on the verge of crying until you see Thomas begin to break, too.
“Come here.” He murmurs, standing up from your bed to pull you into a tight hug. 
You both cry into each other’s shoulders, fully letting yourselves go emotionally as you let out your pent up sadness. You’re getting each other’s clothing wet with tears, but neither of you care as you cling onto each other, not wanting to let go.
You don’t know how long you stay there or how long it takes until both of you calm down enough so that your tears fall silently.
“I told you this was gonna fucking suck.” Thomas mumbles against you, causing you to let out a laugh and sob at the same time.
You don’t respond, but after a few seconds, you pull away from his shoulder to look at him. Silence stretches between you before you whisper, “I love you.”
“I love you.” He echoes without hesitation before he leans his forehead against yours. You both bask in each other’s presence for a few more beats until Thomas speaks again, his words shaking. “Football won’t be the same without you, Y/N. I won’t be the same without you.”
“You played football for years before I became a part of your life. You’ll be fine, T.” You say quietly, though you are absolutely sure of your words. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek and wipe some of his tears away. “You’re gonna move on and be great and show people what you’re capable of.”
Silence stretches between the two of you before you take a step away from him as you remember something. Thomas frowns at your sudden withdrawal, but you explain yourself as you both wipe at your faces to dry them as best as each of you can.
“That reminds me…” You say, digging into one of the open boxes in the corner of your room until you feel a familiar piece of fabric. You pull out Thomas’ purple hoodie — the one he gave to you the night you officially became a couple. Damn, it feels so long ago now, but it hasn’t even been two years. “Here. You should probably take this back.”
He lets out a small laugh and takes the purple fabric from you to examine it. He seems lost in thought, but after a few moments, he shakes his head and hands it back to you. “Nah. Keep it.”
When you don’t take it, his hand reaches out to one of yours and he wraps your fingers around the fabric. You try to protest, but he continues.
“Don’t want you forgettin’ about me, now, do we?” He chuckles dryly.
“I won’t forget you, Thomas.” Your voice sounds so sure of your words that Thomas has no choice but to believe you.
He swallows and looks down for a second before he glances back into your eyes. “I know.”
“You’re gonna forget about me, though.”
Thomas shakes his head and his eyebrows scrunch together and he looks like he’s about to break again before he reaches out to pull you close.
“Never.” He mumbles into your hair before he pulls back. “Hey, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget you, Y/N Y/L/N. I couldn’t even if I tried.”
He brings his hands up to cup both sides of your face. His thumbs brush some fresh tears away before he continues to talk. “These eyes? Unforgettable. This beautiful face? Ingrained in my brain forever, sweetheart, I promise you that.” One of his thumbs lightly brushes over your lips. “Don’t even get me started on these lips. I’ll miss them for sure.”
Thomas pauses for a second before his beautiful brown eyes gaze into yours, letting you know that he truly means his next words. “I’m never going to forget any part of you, Y/N.”
You stay there, gazing at one another with nothing but pure love and admiration. Without breaking eye contact, you gingerly put Thomas’ hoodie (which is apparently yours now) back in the box you removed it from. You reach up to pull Thomas’ lips down to yours passionately. 
Thomas responds, instantly reciprocating the kiss with the same amount of emotion that you pour into it. He moves his hands from your cheeks to pull your body closer to him. Your hand digs into the material of his shirt and suddenly, you can’t get enough of each other. You both need more — to be closer — but neither of you rush anything. You take it slow and try to take in every little detail about each other.
As layer after layer of clothing comes off, you two savor the feeling of each other’s lips, bodies, and touch. Every soft moan, every sigh, every gasp, every kiss… each and every moment that you spend with each other is savored in one final heat-filled act of love.
Afterwards, you both lie in your bed under the blankets, Thomas’ arm around your naked body and your head on his bare chest. You cherish each other’s presence for one final time, basking in silence until Thomas finally breaks it, his voice barely above a whisper.
“You still sure about this, sweetheart?”
You are quiet for a few seconds before you answer, sotto voce. “Yeah, T.” You listen to his steady heartbeat as you bring your hand up to rest on his torso. “You?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah.”
A few seconds pass and you subconsciously trace little circles on his abdomen with your thumb. Thomas’ arm tightens around your waist as he pulls your closer.
“I’m sorry things have to end this way.” He mumbles against you, his deep voice reverberating throughout his chest.
“Don’t be.” You murmur, exhausted from the emotional toll this day has taken on you. But you wouldn’t trade it for the world — unless there’s a way where it doesn’t end with you and Thomas going your separate ways.
You shake your head at yourself for thinking so negatively. You promised each other something back at that diner.
“It’s not the end, T.” You speak out loud, shifting so that your head rests on the pillow and you’re face to face with Thomas. “You said it yourself before and now it’s my turn to say it: this is a ‘see you later,’ alright? So I better fucking see you later, or else.”
He laughs (oh, you’re gonna miss that laugh) and his hand slides up the curve of your hip to pull himself closer to you. “Back at ya, princess.”
You both sniffle, but you know that your time together, for the time being, at least, has come to an end — especially as both of you begin to drift off no matter how hard you try to stay awake.
“I don’t want to say goodbye.” You whisper in Thomas’ warm embrace.
Thomas responds after he brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear. “You don’t have to.” 
So neither of you do. 
And you both fall asleep, bodies entangled with one another, content to be in each other’s embrace one last time before you move away.
The next morning, Thomas wakes up before you do and he slowly untangles himself from you as he wills himself to stay strong. He dresses himself as quietly as he can before he presses one last kiss to your temple.
Then, he takes one last look at your sleeping form before he leaves, keeping his word to you and not giving either of you a chance to say your goodbyes.
⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆
A week later, your heart beats frantically as you drop a box of things you plan on leaving behind against the wall outside of your room.
It’s minutes before you’re supposed to leave for the airport — you want to leave early in case something goes wrong and you get delayed. Sighing, you walk back into your empty room to check for any last things you may have missed packing into the many boxes that are already stashed into your parents’ car.
“Y/N?” You hear your brother call out from downstairs. “I think there’s someone waiting for you outside.”
Who could it be? You’ve already said your goodbyes to Maria earlier that day when she’d helped you finish packing.
Erik gives you a sad smile as you pass by and you give him a confused look.
“What? Who is it?” You ask, eyebrows raised. “You know we have to leave in a few, right?”
“You’ll see.” Erik says, causing you to sigh.
After determining that your final sweep (even though you’ve done it three times now) is done, you make your way past Erik and open the front door. When you make it onto your driveway, you’re shocked to see Thomas Jefferson standing there with a sheepish grin and his hands in his pockets, looking as handsome as ever.
“Thomas…” You trail off, surprised to see him after your last day together the week prior. “What are you doing here?”
Your boyfriend (well… ex now, technically) walks closer and takes his hands out of his pockets. You can see him fidgeting with his fingers as he speaks. “I uh…” He breathes out a nervous laugh before one of his hands reaches up to rub the back of his neck. 
You watch him from a few feet away as he struggles to get his words out.
“Well, I… as your… not-boyfriend wanted to say goodbye.” He says softly, shifting his eyes to the ground briefly before looking back up to gaze into yours. “I changed my mind. Leaving without saying goodbye just gutted me and made me feel like we had unfinished business. I had to see you one more time, Y/N. I-I’m sorry.” Thomas’ voice is unstable as he apologizes and you feel tears well up in your eyes as he continues. “I know this breaks our agreement and everything, but I couldn’t just let you leave before—”
You cut him off by stalking forward to wrap him into a crushing hug — a hug the two of you desperately need at the moment. Thomas doesn’t waste a second before his arms encircle your waist to hold you just as tightly to him.
Even though you had spent the entire day with each other just a week prior, the need to see each other — to feel each other — one last time has consumed you both. You agree that waking up to an empty bed without saying a proper goodbye (even though it’s what you had initially wanted) had crushed you, and it had caused you to be an emotional wreck to the following two days.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, sniffling before letting out a bittersweet laugh. “I just made this so much more fucking difficult for us.”
“It’s okay.” You reciprocate his laugh as tears stream down your face. “It’s so worth it, T.”
A few minutes pass by as you hold each other close.
“I know I’ve said this before, but I’m really gonna miss you.”
“I’m gonna miss you too, T.” You say quietly. “So much.”
You’ve lost track of time and your mother is the one to finally bring you and Thomas back to reality.
“Y/N, we gotta go, honey…” Your mom speaks as softly as possible from her position at the front door, and you can see the guilt on her face as she watches her daughter’s heart break. “You’re gonna be late for your flight.”
You turn back to Thomas and give him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry…”
“Don’t apologize, Y/N. You gave me the best year and eight months I could ever ask for… so thank you.”
You look up at him for a second before you sob and crash into his chest. “I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too.” He replies softly before he steels himself. “But you have a flight to catch. Which means you need to go.”
You give him one last kiss, it’s watery from both of your tears but neither of you care.
“Go be great.” He says when you pull back. “You deserve the world, Y/N.”
He holds your hand until the grip slips when you take a step towards the car.
“See you later, Thomas.”
He smiles through his tears before he replies. “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”
You get in the car and a few seconds later, your mother pulls out of the driveway (apparently Erik and your father are going to drive separately). As the car drives away, Thomas waves from your driveway until you can’t see him anymore. You know that’s the last you’ll see of him for a while.
And maybe, just maybe, you regret leaving him behind.
But a voice lingers in the back of your mind that gives you some sort of relief:
If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.
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moved-attre · 3 years
Text
Rewriting Cyberpunk 2077 into a bullet point list! LET’S GO!
(Disclaimer: I’m trying to be realistic. So no, “every single detail of the game changes based upon every single choice V makes” but just things I expected in an RPG from an AAA company in 2020. I take a lot of inspiration from the old trailers, and rumors of pre-2018 development.)
And this is really long, too. Sorry. 😜
Okay, so first off: Act 1 generally goes off the same as it does in canon. I’m open to other ideas, but I don’t think it’s a bad starting point. I do think V and Jackie should have had more time together, doing smaller jobs until Dex calls. Like, there should’ve been side jobs that were only available in Act 1. You have to get a minimum of 5 street cred before you get the conversation with Jackie about Dex.
The heist still goes to shit; Yorinobu kills his father, Takemura rebels against him and Arasaka factions split. V inserts the chip into their head, Jackie still dies and Dex shoots V in the head. Takemura rescues V, kills Dex, V wakes up in Vik’s and is told they have 4 months to live. (2 weeks is not enough!)
On to Act 2! The origins actually affect the game, so there’s three versions of it you can play. (Some things happen regardless of the origin, though.) For example: Corpo V has contacts in the Corpo world and pursues leads about the Relic there through their old friends. Street Kid V has contacts in the gangs, like the Valentinos or Maelstrom, who have dirty dealings with corporations and can get V in on Arasaka knowledge, Nomad V has leads out in the badlands about the corporations and gets in that way, hijacking transports to get some info. All origins can work with the corporations (like Hanako’s branch of Arasaka, Militech, Biotechnia, etc.) or against them. Like, the point is to snoop around the corporations and dig up some dirt on the Relic and Yorinobu’s Arasaka branch specifically but each origin goes about it differently?
Maelstrom vs Meredith Stout choice actually matters. It’s one point in a subplot I mentioned above, where V continually makes choices on whether they’re gonna side with the corporations or the gangs/people of NC against Arasaka in order to be rid of the Relic. Also affects V’s relationship with Johnny. You can also have a real, long term relationship with Meredith if you pick her side and get Militech support, or count on Maelstrom to help you in the main plot against Arasaka. Both sides will still attack V if they poke their nose in, meaning random encounters can still happen.
^ The subplot is like, making a deal with the devils (The corpos) or... other devils (The gangs). One person objectively could say one is better than the other, but they’re both awful. Night City is kind of rotten to the core, and V’s problems can’t be fixed by a pursuit of justice. V can still be a good person in either case, and it’s still kept kind of punk by going against the head honchos. I think this more suits the “Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a city to burn.” quote because V is churning up a path to the top, even if their methods are purely selfish. V themselves can be uninterested in righting wrongs, but they kind of turn NC on its head by challenging Arasaka so changes come anyway.
Point, is you fuck everything up either way. THEN, V can choose whether to trust the corporations and work with Hanako to “change the system from within” without disrupting people’s day-to-day lives (short term good choice I suppose?) or to let the gangs rise up and cause total anarchy. (long term good? since the downtrodden are rising up and maybe there shouldn’t be absolute power in the hands of a few.)
T-Bug doesn’t die. V thinks she’s dead, but sometime in Act 2 gets an anonymous call and meets up with T-Bug. She went underground after the botched heist, and isn’t eager to work with V again. Maybe you do a few missions with her, and she comes around? Or you fuck up and never hear from her again. I imagine she’d love to poke around at the Relic, if V helps her.
Giving Jackie’s body to Vik has real consequences. If you give his body to his mother, you attend the ofrenda and get his bike, his mom allows you to use his den as a place to stay... It’s basically the ‘good’ choice, if you care about the characters. If you give his body to Vik, you unlock a side mission where Arasaka steals his body to find the relic. You have to go and find it but it was destroyed(?) at some point by Arasaka. You can get his pistols (Which are, aside from Johnny’s pistol, the best weapons in the game. I don’t get why they aren’t in canon...) in this route and whole lotta angst, so his mom basically hates you because she blames you for not being able to bury her son and the bar is off limits. No getting the bike, either.
More content involving Alt Cunningham. V still witnesses the scene with her and Johnny, her kidnapping and death. But, Ghost AI Alt allows V to look into Alt’s memories for information on Mikoshi. V accidentally accesses some more personal memories. We can see Alt as more of a fleshed out actual person, not just a tragic backstory for Johnny. Some of the memories do involve Johnny, and the tone is very different from her perspective. We see that Alt has genuine affection for him, but Johnny is possessive and abusive... It’s far from the relationship Johnny recalls. Of course, Johnny can see all this too since he lives in V’s head. He and V have a heart to heart afterwards, with Johnny realising how badly he treated Alt and yeah. I wasn’t satisfied with how Alt was just used as a sob story for Johnny, but I was sent an ask by an anonymous person about how the memory was from his perspective and thus biased. It really got me thinking! If I was more creative, I’d come up with a way for Alt to live... But Johnny still needs to bomb Arasaka and Alt’s death was the reason why he did that.
You have to return one of your apartments/safe houses every few days to wash and sleep. If not, V will get a penalty that means they are less accurate when aiming and slower when breaking in a vehicle. Also some NPC’s will refuse to talk to you if you don’t bathe, because... stinky.
And you have to eat! Otherwise you get hungry, and get penalties for that too. Can’t concentrate on an empty stomach. I’d say eating once or twice a day would be enough.
Instead of fast travel points (that are supposed to be taxi services, I think...? But we never see a taxi! And why can’t we just call Del? Ugh.), V takes the metro. There are side missions that can sometimes only start once you get on or off of a train. (You meet NPC’s in the train, or waiting for one.)
Takemura and Johnny are romance options, and are available for all genders. They’re the most difficult to romance, with some (kind of obvious) dialogue choices ending the possibility. Like, for example: Takemura’s romance ends badly if you choose to go against the corporations, and Johnny’s ends badly if you go with the corporations. It’s the same with Meredith, essentially, in that going against her won’t allow you to romance her. I know a rival-mance system is possible, but I think that might be too complicated.
Takemura and V’s relationship is much, much deeper. They have more time together, and grow closer. Takemura trains V in combat, and takes over from Coach Fred in the street fights side missions. You go with Takemura to fights, he’s your coach, is very proud when you win. (He’s basically training V in the event that they have to take on Adam Smasher and Oda. Like, why did we have no training montages with Takemura?!) V is able to choose romance or stay friends with him. There’s plenty more missions with Takemura too, mainly espionage stuff against Yorinobu. Finding out his weaknesses, replacing his staff with people that are loyal to Hanako, digging for dirt on him. Lots of stake outs, hehe. 😉 Romance!™️ Also makes it that much more tragic if V doesn’t choose to trust the corporations, since Takemura will end things and leave NC.
There are garages to upgrade your cars but Panam can upgrade it further if you do her missions + befriend her, and you can find super secret parts for your cars that Panam needs all around NC by stealing them from gangs or Corpos! Like, make your car go 200 mph fast or a setting to make it hover. 😎
FOUND FAMILY TROPE... Involving the LI’s + more characters. I wanted Misty, Vik, Judy, Panam, River and Kerry to all know each other and be friends. Also, somewhere for them to hang out. Judy coming down and hanging out with Misty and Vik would’ve been so cool.
Missions involving Vik. I think he deserved his own personal missions. Also, he’s gotta be romanceable! I’ll add more to this later.
I’m still figuring out how Johnny’s romance would go. It’s a tricky one. Lots of tension, jealously if V flirts with anybody... Heart to hearts... Holding hands... Passive aggressive confessions of love...
River is introduced in the main story. Maybe you team up to hunt down somebody who knows stuff about the Relic, like Anders Hellman, or something else to do with it. River’s like “What the fuck is going on?” but V doesn’t really tell him. Then, of course, you meet him later on and recognise him in the BD given to you by Jefferson.
Meeting Kerry earlier in the story, say mid Act 2? Ideally there would have been 5 Acts, and maybe I’ll edit this to include more once I figure out how the story could have gone. AND he’s part of the main story.
Less generic, “get in, get item and get out” side missions from Fixers and more side missions like the Peralez’s and that guy who got crucified. More freaky Cyberpunk subjects like what constitutes a soul, what is “intelligence” (What makes a machine different than a human? Without shitty false racism analogies), human rights abuses (and in that: classism, racism, ableism, transphobia), pollution, more on “Cyberpsychos” and how harmful that term is, etc. Nauced and thought-provoking. Reminding us that this is a dystopia and the issues are different but not all that wildly so from today. I would’ve developed Brendan’s mission more, because it seemed like we were going to see an earnest discussion on Artificial Intelligence but instead it was just confusing and “Haha, tricked you!” 🥱 Like, what if he really was a person capable of free thought and emotion? And that company still owns him and can overwrite him? Isn’t that fucked up?! It didn’t need a happy ending, just something to unnerve me.
Adding to that, Delamain had plenty of opportunities to discuss AI and the rights of individual contructs. His “children” could be freed, but nothing really happens as a result? I wanted consequences! The emails about human staff being made redundant because of Delamain were so interesting, too. I wanted to see something about the consequences of that in a city with no basic universal income. What happened to them? What can be done to help people who are made redundant by machines? So many possibilities for truly emotional and scary side missions!
I’m gonna watch black mirror for more inspiration, but stuff like the IRL blocking feature? Freaky as hell and totally plausible. Would’ve loved if one of the side missions involved V getting involved in some dispute involving something like that. “I can’t see his face!” or the copyright stuff about people’s appearances! Imagine if there was a Johnny lookalike? Engram Johnny would either find it hilarious or get really pissed off.
I’m hoping the DLC will deliver on more Takemura, so I’ll hold my breath for critiquing the Arasaka ending.
More to come! I’ll probably edit this later, if there’s any mistakes and/or I realise I hate an idea hehe.
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treatian · 3 years
Text
The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse
Chapter 56: The Madness of the Evil Queen
Ordinarily, he would have dismissed Regina's ramblings as the whinings of a girl about to lose everything. But something about her behavior left him unsettled for the day. He knew Regina. He knew that this part would be a risk. When Regina was under pressure, she did stupid things. Hell, the last time she'd been this upset at her step-daughter and he'd given her the Curse, she'd gone out and settled for a poison apple. That had ultimately been fine, he supposed. It was a delay, but all had turned out okay in the end. This time, however, he didn't have the patience for stupidity anymore. And he didn't want it to be like last time where he had to wait for her to come and brag to him about a stupid idea she'd put into place. He wanted as much information as he could get.
He didn't like not having eyes on Emma throughout the day, but Dove hadn't called back regarding his parents, and he wasn't too terribly worried about her at the moment. Fortunately, he was happy to still have eyes on Regina. One of Dove's cousins was still watching the woman, and he was all too eager to call the bird and order him to pay close attention to the Evil Queen. He wanted to know what she was doing, where she was going, and what she was thinking; though in this world, knowing what she was thinking was only something he was going to get to the bottom of if he knew the first two. He didn't know how to prepare himself for what he found out throughout the day.
Regina hadn't gone to her office after he'd spoken with her. Instead, she'd gone home to fetch something. Mark couldn't tell what it was, but she'd put it in her car and then driven to the school. It was the strangest thing. Mark said that Regina had gotten out of her car, walked around a bit, and then gotten right back into her car. When she'd first pulled up, Mark had expected Henry forgot something, and she was there to drop it off, or perhaps she was planning on picking him up early from school. But as far as he noticed, she hadn't seen or spoken to anyone, not even her son, even though school let out only thirty minutes later. According to Mark, she'd been there all of five minutes before she'd gone back to her office.
It was nerve-racking. That visit looked like nothing. That was how he knew it couldn't actually be nothing. But he was helpless to do anything except wait at the store for more information, more clues to help him put this together.
The next clue came maybe an hour later in the form of a text message. Just left her office with a man, they got into a car, following."
He didn't bother to send a return message. He wanted Mark's eyes on Regina, not his phone. So he waited. He went into the back, sat at his wheel, and spun for a time to relieve some of the tension he felt. He wanted to know everything. Where they were going, what they were doing, who the stranger she was with could possibly be…
When the call finally came, the information made him sick to his stomach. The man who couldn't be identified was none other than Jefferson. Mark had been able to get a better look at him and properly identify him when they'd arrived at their destination, the Storybrooke cemetery. Specifically, the Mills family crypt. Mark reported that they'd both gone in together, spent perhaps twenty minutes total inside, and then come out again and gone their separate ways. Regina had been carrying something in her hand that she hadn't been carrying when she'd gone in.
Fuck.
He couldn't see Jefferson because of the deal they'd made. He'd promised he'd never see his face on his doorstep ever again. But he could call him, get him to tell him what he knew.
"Why on earth would you work with the Evil Queen, and what did she want from you?" he demanded in as smooth a way as possible.
"What everyone wants from me, a ticket into other worlds. I'm tired of waiting. I want my daughter back!"
"Regina will betray you."
"If she can get me my daughter, then that's what I'll do, damn the risks. I've taken risks in the past, and you better believe I'm going to take one to get my daughter back."
"You think this is what your daughter wants? That she'll be proud?"
"I don't care, and I know you don't either, so don't pretend like you do. Regina can do what you can't. I've waited long enough."
And then he heard a click, and the line went dead.
He swore loudly at that reaction. His old friend didn't sound well. He sounded crazed and frenzied, angry in a way that he hadn't ever known him to be. He wanted to go over there himself and get his answers, but he felt certain that it would break their deal, and if the Curse did break, he wasn't about to suffer those consequences. He could send some of his thugs out after Jefferson, but when he thought of all they'd been, he couldn't stomach it. Besides, it wouldn't work. Jefferson knew how he worked, what steps he'd take. He knew not to go home for fear of all that. His next play, whatever it was, would be unpredictable as Regina's. Oddly enough, he was fine with that.
Jefferson hadn't dealt well with the loss of his child, at least not the way that he had. And he couldn't really blame him. All these years, he'd had the reassurance of a Seer that he'd be reunited. Jefferson had…what…his word? Regina's word? What was that worth to a man missing his child? No, Jefferson was beyond his help now unless he was able to break the fucking Curse! And right now, all hope on that rested with a puppet who hadn't told him what was going on.
At sunset, he got another call from Regina's guard. Something odd had happened, odd enough that Mark felt the need to call while he drove. After Jefferson, Regina had gone back to her house. And who had shown up? None other than Emma Swan.
Why had she arrived? He hadn't a clue, only told him that the women seemed fairly cordial as they spoke. Regina invited Emma in. The visit was two, three, maybe five minutes tops, and then Emma Swan left the premises carrying something with her. What was it? He didn't know that either. It was a plastic container of something.
Roughly five minutes after Emma left, so did Regina. She was on her way back into town. He assumed it had been for her office, perhaps to do some of the work that was surely piling up while she ran around doing whatever in the fuck she thought she was doing. But she didn't.
He hid it well, barely glancing up from his ledger when the bell to his store went off again, but the truth was that he nearly sighed in relief. Finally, a conversation with the Queen, herself. He could get things out of her that his men couldn't. And he was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of whatever game she was playing.
Regina came sauntering into the place, looking like a woman pleased with herself. That excited him…a proud Regina meant she'd want to do some gloating, and gloating meant that her tongue would be loose enough to reveal more than a couple of facts he was dying to know.
"I hope you bought travel insurance because no one's going anywhere," she stated with the arrogance of a child in her voice.
"Oh, really?" he questioned, feigning a lack of true interest. "And why's that?"
"Because I found a solution to my Emma Swan problem."
"Oh, yes?" he prompted, continuing to work even as she bragged. She wanted to act like a child. He'd treat her as one…one throwing a temper tantrum that didn't deserve recognition. She'd be so irritated he didn't care more that she'd make his job a lot easier.
"An old, reliable solution."
He froze, unable to hide his shock at what she'd just said. . "Old and reliable"…where had he heard those words before. Regina might be a child having a tantrum, but she was a child that potentially had magic. Suddenly he recalled the plastic container that Mark had seen Emma leaving Regina's property with. Food was kept in containers like that. It was impossible, given that they were in the middle of a Curse, but…if he was right, and she'd done what she was hinting at, then she really had gone with an old plan, hadn't she?
"A Sleeping Curse," he assumed, watching her expression for confirmation. Her gaze said it all, and it took every fiber in his being not to swear out loud at her. How the hell had she managed that?! "Might I ask how you managed to obtain one here in Storybrooke?"
"By sacrificing the last bit of magic I had left."
He nearly laughed. For one so bright as she was, sometimes she could also be utterly stupid. Magic wasn't just about mastering the trickier spells; it was also about remembering the basics. Perhaps she'd forgotten in her years here.
"So, you made magic from magic. Well, I'm sure I don't have to remind you that, uh, all magic comes with a price."
Regina leaned forward. "Then you can pay it. Because now, the Curse is going to be stronger than ever. And you will be right here where you belong."
He had to walk away from her. He had to keep thinking, to keep busy, anything but let a single hint of expression show on his face. "Stronger than ever"…he had hope in the fact that he knew this Curse didn't work like that. It had a weakness, and the weakness was here, closer than she'd ever been. She was angry at Regina, and Regina was angry at her. Didn't she see? All this did was have the opposite effect. It was making the Curse weaker. And as for "old reliable"…how quickly she'd forgotten just how unreliable that plan of hers had been. He hadn't. But he also hadn't forgotten how much of a hand he'd played on making sure "old reliable" hadn't worked. He'd done it once; he could do it again.
"Don't you understand?" Regina shouted at him as he moved around the table, following after him, acting like some kind of puppy dog seeking gratification. Sometimes she really did remind him of her mother and sister. "I won! So, whatever plan you had, whatever reason you wanted the curse broken…too bad. Because it's never going to happen."
She placed her hand on the globe in front of her and gave it a spin before exiting dramatically. He wished he could state that an exit like that was unnecessary. Given the situation he suddenly found himself confronted with, he couldn't say that.
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emospritelet · 4 years
Note
Since the KOL!babies are married when can they expect their own baby? Maybe Gold thinks Belle got the virus again when he hears she's at the hospital. - 41. “What did the doctor say?”
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Prompt list here
Follow-up to Late Shift in the Kiss of Life verse
[AO3]
x
Seven a.m.
Stirling Gold stared into his coffee, his body feeling heavy and slow, weariness weighing down on him. The kitchen tiles were cold beneath his bare feet, and he shifted his toes a little, pressing them down hard before pulling them off.  Belle was cooking eggs, humming to herself as she did so, and he could smell the pleasant aroma of hot toast. He was almost too tired to feel hungry, but he knew he needed to eat. Several days of working twelve to fifteen hour shifts took their toll. He took a sip of his coffee, relishing the bitterness as it spread across his tongue. Seven hours until he had to be at the hospital again. Seven hours to rest, recuperate, and spend some quality time with his wife. His wife. He wasn’t sure he would ever get over the wonderful feeling that went through him every time he realised that they were married.
With the library closed until further notice and him working seven days a week to cope with the influx of patients, Belle was alone for much of the day. Or the night, depending on how his shift pattern fell. It wasn’t how he had expected the first year of their marriage to be, but there again he hadn’t expected a deadly disease to sweep across the nation. There was the faintest glimmer of hope that they might be over the worst of it; the number of new cases each day had stopped rising a few days ago, and Gold was keeping everything crossed that the falling numbers would continue. They had already had their hopes dashed more than once.
Belle stopped humming, the pan clattering on the stove as she dished up, and Gold took another sip of his coffee, setting down his cup and leaning back in his chair. She set a plate of buttered toast and scrambled eggs in front of him, bending to kiss his cheek before sliding into the seat adjacent to him with her own plate. She grinned at him, blue eyes shining, and he couldn’t help smiling back. She had been clear of the virus for a week, and was back to her old self.
“You look tired,” she said. “Didn’t you sleep?”
“I did,” he admitted. “But not enough.”
“Go back to bed,” she suggested, and her eyes gleamed. “Maybe I could join you.”
“I think we both know that neither of us would get any rest at all in that scenario,” he said sternly, and she giggled, scooping up eggs with her fork.
“Okay, suit yourself,” she said. “At least I get you all to myself for the morning.”
He grinned at her, and turned to his breakfast, eating a forkful of eggs and cutting off a piece of buttered toast to follow them. Belle poured herself some tea, and there was a moment of silence while they ate.
“I thought we might take a walk today,” she said. “It would do you good to get some fresh air. I don’t think you’ve done anything but work and sleep these past three weeks.”
“Well, there was that hour on Sunday when neither one of us was asleep...” he said, and she smirked, reaching for her cup.
“Ah yes, I remember,” she said. “I don’t think that counts as exercise, though. At least not in the fresh air.”
“We could do it in the back garden, if you insist.”
Belle giggled.
“I think the cold weather might have something to say about that.”
“Fair point,” he said. “Very well, a walk it is. Not too far, though. You’ve been complaining of tiredness a lot recently, and I don’t want you coming down with this thing again, okay?”
Belle rolled her eyes.
“I keep telling you, I’m fine!”
“And your sudden passion for mid-afternoon naps is a coincidence, is it?” he remarked. “Listen to your doctor and get some rest.”
“Maybe the doctor should take his own advice,” she said dryly.
Gold grinned, and turned back to his breakfast. His appetite seemed to be improving, and he cleared his plate, gulping the rest of his coffee down. His phone buzzed from its place on the table, the noise insistent, and he felt his heart sink as he reached for it. Belle watched him anxiously as he swiped at the screen.
“Jefferson,” he said, and Belle’s face fell.
“Hey,” said Jefferson, sounding as tired as he felt. “Look, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate…”
“You need me to come in early,” guessed Gold.
“I’m really sorry,” said Jefferson sincerely. “Whale almost collapsed on the ward, and he’s burning up - I sent him home.”
“He’s positive?” asked Gold, worried, and Jefferson sighed.
“No, it looks like just a regular cold, but he’s exhausted. He’ll probably be out for a few days at least. Which means we’re a doctor down. I can cover his patients as well as my own, but we’ll need you to handle the ones that aren’t virus-related. At least that means you don’t have to suit up in PPE to the extent I do.”
“I’ll be there by eight.”
“You’re a life-saver,” said Jefferson. “Which I guess isn’t hyperbole, huh?”
“See you soon.”
Gold hung up, putting his phone down on the table and sighing heavily. Belle was watching him, looking troubled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I - I really wanted to spend some time with you.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said immediately, putting a hand over his. “Really it is. I married a doctor. Nine to five was never gonna happen, and I knew that. You go and do what you do best, okay?”
He smiled broadly, and leaned in to kiss her.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
x
As always when he was working, Gold’s weariness had disappeared like smoke as soon as he stepped onto the ward in his scrubs. The hospital was never quiet, but in the midst of a pandemic it was hectic, and he had almost collided with a porter pushing a wheelchair. He did his round of the children’s ward first; there were thankfully very few children in there needing attention. He had half-expected Henry Swan-Mills to have come down with the virus; the boy was accident-prone and always in and out of hospital, but he had seen nothing of him since treating him for a broken collarbone three weeks ago. He suspected that the Mayor and Sheriff between them were pretty strict on enforcing the lockdown on their son.
Six hours into his shift he was beginning to flag, and went to the canteen for coffee and the lunch that Belle had put together for him while he was dressing. He smiled as he saw the little note she had placed on top of his sandwiches: I love you and I’m proud of you xxx. 
There had been a shift change, so when he got back out on the ward the personnel looked fresh-faced and ready to face the day. He was pleased to see them. Less pleasing was the fact that Zelena Mills was among them. 
He had thought that Zelena would have gotten over her weird obsession with him since he was now very happily married, but while she had certainly backed off a little, she still made inappropriate comments on a regular basis. He was able to ignore her for the most part, but with staffing levels dwindling by the day, it was likely that he was going to have to work with her more often. The virus had a lot to bloody answer for, in his opinion. 
She veered towards him as soon as he entered the room, and he took two steps back to maintain six feet between them. Zelena pouted, but there was a predatory gleam in her eyes which he had learned not to trust.
“Dr Gold,” she said, with a simper that made his teeth clench. “On your own today?”
“Dr Whale is ill,” he said dismissively, reaching for the nearest patient’s chart. “Dr Milliner is covering his patients as well as his own, and I’m covering everyone who isn’t infected with the virus. I’d appreciate any help you can give in that regard. Maintaining the necessary social distancing at all times, of course.”
Zelena’s pout grew sulky.
“It’s hard to flirt when we can’t go within six feet of each other,” she said, and Gold wanted to roll his eyes.
“A good thing we’re here to work, then,” he remarked, making a note on the patient’s chart. “Are you short of tasks to occupy yourself with? I’ll have a word with Nurse South, if so.”
Zelena scoffed.
“Hardly,” she said. “Dorothy left us in the lurch. Didn’t show up to her shift. Typical.”
Gold looked up.
“Dorothy didn’t show?” he said. “That’s not like her. Did anyone call her?”
“I did.” Glinda South had walked into the room, and was eyeing Zelena sternly. “Nurse Mills, you’re here to do your job, not distract Dr Gold. Go and change the beds in Arendelle Ward; we’re changing it from prenatal care to an overflow ward to deal with virus patients.”
Zelena huffed, stomping off, and Gold gave Glinda a grateful look.
“Is Dorothy okay?” he asked, and she sighed.
“Well, she has the virus,” she said gloomily. “She doesn’t feel too bad, so at least that’s something, but it means she’s self-isolating. We’re short on staff as it is.”
“I should call her,” he said. “I know how awful this thing can be. How are we for shift cover?”
“It’s tight,” she admitted. “We should just about be okay, though.”
“Good.”
Gold moved on to the next patient, checking the chart and nodding to himself. Some improvement. Good. 
He continued on his rounds, working his way through the wards, and managed almost an hour before Zelena caught up with him again. 
“Ah, Dr Gold,” she said, walking towards him with her hips swaying. “I have to say I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Yes, seeing the doctor in the hospital must indeed have been a shock to the senses,” he remarked, picking up a patient’s chart and scanning it. “Next you’ll be telling me you saw patients being treated.”
“Well, I don’t know about being treated,” she said airily. “But I did see Belle French.”
Calling Belle by her old name was a habit of hers, and usually it was only a minor annoyance, but Gold wasn’t in the mood. He opened his mouth to snap at her that Belle’s name was now Gold and that she was his wife, when something she had said made prickles of anxiety run over his skin.
“You saw Belle?” he said. “Here?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes glinting wickedly. “She went rushing past me, said she needed to see a doctor.”
Gold licked his lips.
“She was probably looking for me.”
“Didn’t look that way to me,” she said, looking at her fingernails. “Oh, is she sick? How tragic that would be...”
Gold tossed the chart aside and stormed out as fast as he could. She was making up beds in Arendelle Ward. That’s the ward we’re using as overflow for the virus patients. Oh God, please don’t let her be sick again! I should have fucking noticed when she said she was feeling tired all the time, I should have known!
He burst through the double doors, almost sending a nurse flying and throwing an apology over his shoulder. His leg was hurting, the pain of being on it for hours and walking too fast, but he didn’t care. He turned the corner at speed and almost collided with Belle, her eyes widening as she put out an arm to stop him.
“Stirling!” she said. “Slow down! Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” he gasped. “What - what are you doing here? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” she said assuredly. “Everything’s fine.”
“But - Zelena said you’d been rushed in, that you were seeing a doctor…” 
He flailed, trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent. Belle put a hand on his arm, smiling up at him, and at once her touch seemed to calm him, to ground him.
“Stirling,” she said gently. “Yes, I did need to see a doctor, but I’m fine, really. And you should learn not to take any notice of Zelena. She always pushes your buttons when you’re stressed.”
“Right.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling a little better. “Right. So you’re not sick?”
“I’m not sick,” she confirmed, and Gold felt anxiety drain out of him, leaving only relief and weariness in its wake.
“Good,” he said absently. “That’s good. What did the doctor say?”
Belle’s smile grew, and he wondered why he had only just noticed how radiant she looked. As though she was filled with light, with joy. With life.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Gold felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. He staggered back, hand gripping the handle of his cane to steady himself. She was beaming at him, and he could feel tears prick his eyes as his heart swelled with love for her. Belle stepped forward, hands sliding around his waist, and he reached up to cup her cheek, feeling his heart thumping hard in his chest.
“A baby?” he whispered. “We’re having a baby?”
“We are,” she said. “You’re going to be a father. How does that sound?”
Gold bent his head to kiss her, eager for the taste of her lips and the softness of her mouth. She melted into him with a tiny moan, and he pulled back gently, resting his forehead against hers as he breathed her in.
“It sounds wonderful,” he whispered. “It sounds perfect.”
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woodelf68 · 4 years
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Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
My long-promised homage to @worryinglyinnocent‘s Playtime ‘verse, because she managed to write fifty installments without doing hippies, and I had to rectify that. Also my contribution to @rumbelleishope. Rated E. 
***
The large cardboard box bearing items from the estate sale was like a time capsule from the late 1960s. Gold sorts through the items, fond memories of his early childhood stirred by such things as the beaded curtain and concert posters and the heavy stack of albums, their cardboard covers worn along the edges but still bright with the distinctive graphics of the era. The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Iron Butterfly. Donovan, too, Glasgow-born like himself. He can hear them in his head, like a soundtrack to the Summer of Love, and he wonders if Belle will like any of them. He’s fairly certain that she’ll like the clothes, and holds up a loose, flowing smock with wide sleeves and delicate flowers embroidered around the neckline and hem.  It’s a pretty thing, and he can easily see Belle wearing it, hopes that she’ll want to.
Methodically he sorts through the contents of the box, dividing everything into three piles. One to be priced and sold – the two posters were what had drawn him to bid on this lot in the first place, and he knows that he can sell them for a pretty penny – one of things he thinks Belle might be interested in, and one of a few items of clothing that he looks at doubtfully, unsure if he wants them to fit or not. But he thinks of Belle in the short dress, thinks of surprising her with a scenario they haven’t played out yet, knows he won’t regret any temporary feelings of silliness at wearing what are, after all, fairly normal clothes compared to some of the things he’s put on for her. Making up his mind, he goes into the shop’s small bathroom and locks the door.
Several minutes later he’s studying his reflection, and surprisingly not feeling too ridiculous. although he would die of embarrassment if anyone other than Belle were to see him wearing a suede leather vest adorned with long fringes. But the undyed linen shirt with the open neck and band collar is soft and comfortable, and if it’s a little too big, it’s not overly so, and he can roll up the sleeves. Same with the trousers, he’s sure that the flare-legged rust denim was originally meant to fit a bit more tightly than they do on his frame, but although he knows that Belle would no doubt appreciate that, he’s gotten used to more freedom of movement. With a belt and the cuffs turned up if he doesn’t want them to drag on the ground, the jeans fit well enough. The clothes remind him of his childhood, those years after he had been taken in by his aunts, where he had learned the feeling of security, and being wanted, and what it was like to be praised and encouraged instead of constantly belittled. Whether it’s the warm memories associated with the era, or simply the fact that he knows his ten year old self would have loved to have had a fringed leather vest, he’s satisfied with his image.  Now all he has to do is suggest a scene. He thinks about it as he changes back into his suit and tucks the vintage garments into a bag. The shop is small, and would be easily decorated, but far too public for more than a quickie. The large Victorian house filled with fine antiques is not right at all. That leaves the cabin, he decides.
Saturday morning, he drops Belle off at the library and hands her a box tied with string that he’d stashed in the back seat of the Cadillac. “Don’t open it until lunchtime,” he says, knowing the pleasure of an anticipated surprise. “I won’t be in the shop today; I’ve got some other business to take care of.”
“All right; see you later.” Belle watches him drive off, mystified by the package in her hands. By the time lunchtime rolls around, she’s more than ready to tear off the box lid and find out what’s in it. A piece of paper sits on top of some tissue paper-covered contents, with the heading “Playtime?” She forces herself to read the rest before folding back the tissue paper and seeing what awaits her. “It’s 1968. Fibre artist and co-founder of Storybrooke’s new “Enchanted Forest” commune “Rumpelstiltskin” Gold has agreed to an interview with the hip young reporter from the local newspaper.  Please confirm interview at 6 pm Saturday.”  Intrigued, she folds back the tissue paper and nearly squeals with delight, instantly picking up the beaded, white leather headband that lays on top of the other items and tying it around her head. She gets out her compact mirror to admire how it looks for a moment before texting Rum back.
“Interview confirmed. Looking forward to it.”
He must have been waiting for her reply; his return message is swift. “Dove will have the car there for you at five; I’ll see you later.”
Dove arrives with the keys to the Cadillac before she closes the library at five, and as soon as she locks the front door, she retires to the restroom to change into her outfit. It’s a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and she drives out to the cabin as instructed, deciding what she’s going to say when she gets there.  Parking, she starts to head for the door of the cabin when she hears music coming from around the side of it and alters her course.  Gold is there, sitting on top of the picnic table, his spindle hanging down and twirling as he spins a smooth yarn from the basket of wool roving in the basket beside him. He is dressed – well, he is dressed to match her, obviously, and it suits him. It suits him incredibly well.  He looks softer, younger, his dark hair set off by the off-white linen shirt, feathering out over the band collar, the open neckline displaying the line of this throat and a string of love beads, mostly black with a few white and sky blue ones mixed in at regular intervals.  The rust-coloured denim of his jeans sits low on his hips and flares out below the knees and the fringed vest…she’d like to see him move with it on, see the fringes flare out. She kind of wants to borrow it herself, and thinks about what it would feel like to wear it with nothing on underneath.  Preferably while she was riding him in bed, rocking back and forth, the open edges of the leather rubbing back and forth against her bare skin… She swallows hard, and pushes that image back to take out and play with again later. Gold looks both snuggly, and sexy, and she wants nothing more than to go over to him and slide her fingers into his hair to hold him still while she kisses him breathless, but she has a part to play first.
”Mr. Gold?” she asks, approaching. “I’m Belle French, with the Storybrooke Mirror. You agreed to an interview.” She holds out her hand and he lets go of the dangling yarn forming between his fingers to reach out and shake it.
“Call me Rum, please.” He goes back to smoothing the spinning fiber into a smooth, even yarn, and Belle can’t help but watch his hands.
“That’s a nickname, right?” She takes out a pen and notebook from her purse, ostensibly jotting it down. “For Rumpelstiltskin, because of the spinning.”
“It is. I quite like it.”
“How did you get into spinning?”
“My aunts taught me. We had a wee croft, a few sheep, chickens, that sort of thing. Turned out that I was quite good at it. I like the rhythm of it, and there’s a lot of satisfaction in taking a bit of dirty, rough wool and combing it clean and spinning it into a strong, even twist of yarn that can be made into things.”
“Do you use the yarn yourself? Make it into things?”
“Aye, we do a fair bit of that here, at the commune. Granny’s our champion knitter, ponchos and scarves and mittens, they always sell really well at the Miner’s Day Festival. And my son and his girlfriend like to make dreamcatchers with the wool; they’re another popular item. And of course we make things for ourselves as well.”
“So is that part of your goal here? To be as self-sufficient as possible?” Belle drops her bag on the grass and sits down beside it, cross-legged, resting her notebook on her thigh and glancing back up after scribbling a few things down in it.  It’s a lazy sort of day, and for once she isn’t in a hurry to rush to the sex, instead interested in the unusually detailed background story he’s made up about himself, and hinted at in the letter he’d written. She wouldn’t mind being a journalist if she wasn’t a librarian, she thinks, and wonders if the Mirror might be interested in her starting a weekly column about books.
“Aye, I suppose. It’s cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it, for example, and better for you. You’ll have to talk to Anton, our crops expert, if you want to know more about that side of thing. He’ll talk your ear off about beans if you show even the slightest bit of interest.”
Belle grins, thinking of the gentle giant who ran the local health food store, and knowing it was actually true. “You mentioned your son; tell me about him.”
Gold smiles fondly. “He’s an artist. Does portraits when he can get a commission, freelance political cartoons, sign painting, anything really.”
Neal is indeed a good artist, she knows, even if he has chosen the steady paycheck that came with a job at the hardware store over any artistic dreams, preferring to keep it a hobby. “You sound very proud of him .”
“I am.”
“What about those other people you mentioned? His girlfriend, and Granny. Do they live here, too?”
“Aye, Emma and her parents are fairly new here. Her mother’s our respectable member of society – she’s a teacher at the school – and her father can do just about everything around here. Good with the animals, construction work, anything that needs doing. And I can’t even be jealous of him because he’s so nice, too.”
Belle laughs; it really is a good summation of David.
“And Granny, well, she’s been here since the beginning.”
Belle makes a note, and looks back up to watch the whirling spindle, his fingers never still as he forms the yarn between his fingers. “Tell me about the beginning. What made you decide to start a commune?”
“Well, we didn’t, not really, certainly not at first. When my son was young – “ he hesitates, and then continues. “His mother left us, and there I was, needing to go to work and having a wee boy to take care of at the same time. We didn’t have any family, or friends. But I knew the woman in the flat across from ours had taken in her granddaughter recently and was raising her on her own – there’d been some scandal with the mother, from what Milah had gathered. But the lass looked hearty enough, so I figured that the woman knew how to take care of a bairn and I was desperate. I went knocking on her door, thinking she might be willing to look after Neal for what little money I could offer her, since it would be in the convenience of her own home. And he was a sweet, well-behaved boy, no trouble at all.”
Belle looks up at him uncertainly, knowing that he was talking about his own real life here; at least as far as Neal’s mother leaving them went, and wonders about it. He normally never talks about that period of his life, maybe this was one way he could do so?  She isn’t sure about the Granny part; they don’t seem to have that sort of relationship. She stops herself from asking if Granny had really watched Neal, though, not wanting to break character yet. Rum has gone through a lot of trouble putting together a backstory for this particular scenario, and she doesn’t want to break the mood. She realises that she knows even less about Granny’s past, or Ruby’s parents, and makes a note on her pad to ask later. She squints against the sun, positioned behind his head and outlining the locks of hair falling forward into his face, and tries to think what would be the next question that a journalist would ask.
“Were you working as a spinner then?”
“Lord, no, an accountant. It’s only been in the last few years that people have begun appreciating handcrafted items again, enough to pay a little more for them than mass-produced factory goods. It was when the last of my aunts died that I took it up again. They’d left me their cottage, and everything in it, including their wheels and a good stash of both raw wool and spun yarn. I would have moved back to Scotland and lived there, but Neal had his friends and his life here, and wanted to stay, so I sold the place and brought as many of their things home with us as possible, things that I remembered from my childhood, even though I had to place most of it in storage. But I made Neal a scarf for Christmas from the yarn, and his friend Emma then asked if I could make her a hat, and paid for it with her allowance money, and then Granny’s Ruby wanted one, and pretty soon the boutique in town contacted me about selling some of my stuff there. I took a leap of faith and quit my job, but if I was going to spend all day at home spinning and weaving, then I wasn’t going to do it in my tiny apartment. This cabin was for sale, needed a lot of fixing up, but Neal was old enough to help by then and enlisted a bunch of his friends from woodshop at school as well. We had it fixed up and livable in quite a short amount of time, and well, that was the start of things.”
Belle mentally sorts out the facts from fabrication. His aunts had been real, she knows, but the cabin has never been more than a weekend getaway place. She is saved having to think of another question by the music in the background coming to a stop and Gold putting aside his spindle and going over to the record player to flip over the disc. A new song begins playing, with what she thinks is a bass line, a deep, thumping riff that gets under her skin and makes her want to move. She stands up, leaving her notepad and pen lying on her bag in the grass, and goes to meet Gold. “I like this song,” she says, beginning to sway in place as he turns back around to face her.
“Do you?”
“Mm-hm.” She takes his hands, trying to get him to dance with her. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey, don’t you know that I love you,” she sings, and nearly laughs at the way his eyebrows go up in surprise, biting back the remark that Storybrooke does have an oldies radio station, and it’s kind of hard to forget a song that seems to go on forever. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby, don’t you know that I’ll always be true?” She lifts his arms up, spinning beneath him, and smiling; he helps twirl her,  her lightweight skirt flaring out around her.
“Oh, won’t you come with me,” she sings, and her mind completely derails in a sexual direction. “Won’t you take my hand?” With a filthy smirk on her face she tugs at his hands, backing away, and he follows, entranced, helpless to do otherwise. “Oh, won’t you come with me and walk this land? Please, take my hand.” She stops as they reach the picnic table, putting her hands on his shoulders, swaying to the music, forcing him to move as well, his feet staying planted but hips and shoulders moving to the beat.
“That’s it,” she encourages, and he smiles, drawing her close with his hands on her hips, pulling her flush against his body. She loops her arms around his neck, playing with his hair, her gaze drawn to the open collar of his shirt. “You look good,” she says.
“Do I?’ He tilts his head, grazes his lips against hers.
“Mm-hm. You should wear light colours more often.” She dips her head, pressing a kiss against his collarbone, mouthing against the warm skin.
“Have we moved into the second portion of the programming?” he asks, amused, leaning in to run his tongue around her earlobe.
“New questions. Like, do you believe in free love?” She runs her hand up his back, feeling each bump in his spine through the soft shirt, and then back down again, slipping up underneath the sun-warmed fabric.
“Oh, most definitely,” he assures her, his breath ghosting over hers as the music throbs in the background, a primal beat that makes him want to move against her, inside her. He debates the practicalities of just lifting her up onto the top of the picnic table and taking her right there.
“And is there a reason for that picnic blanket that you spread out so thoughtfully in the shade of the tree over there?”
“There are twigs and bugs in the grass,” he says, and Belle snorts. “And I thought, if any visitors should wish to recline in comfort…”
“Well, then,” she says, and takes his hand, leading him behind her towards the blanket. She sinks down upon it and he sits down beside her, facing her,  and she can’t think of anything else to say, because all she wants to do is touch him. She slides her hand beneath his hair at the nape of his neck and draws him closer and he tilts his head and then they’re kissing languorously, need slowly building between them. Belle slips her hands up under the hem of his shirt, then back out again, tugging at the hem. “Off,” she instructs.
Gold breaks away from the path he’d been nuzzling along her neck to grin at her. “Run out of questions, have you?”
“The only thing I want to know is what you’re going to look like spread out naked before me,” she says, her voice gone a bit husky.
Gold sheds his vest first and then reaches back and yanks his shirt off over his head, his eyes darkening. The light breeze rustling the leaves above them feels good on his heated skin as he shakes his hair out of his eyes, reaching out to splay his hands over Belle’s ribs before she can touch him herself, very much aware that she isn’t wearing a bra and grazing his thumbs over her nipples. Her breathing quickens and her head falls back as he rubs them, back and forth and back and forth, feeling them tighten and swell until she moans and reaches down to grab the hem of her own shirt. Gold obligingly drops his arms so that she can pull it off and cast it aside, the motion lifting her breasts and stretching out her taut belly. She kicks off her sandals and Gold takes the opportunity to remove his own low cut boots and socks, shifting more comfortably now onto his knees, and drawing Belle forward to straddle one of his thighs before kissing her again, more urgently than before.
Belle begins moving, riding his hard thigh, rubbing herself against him. His belt buckle digs into her stomach, and she reaches down, tugging it open and free impatiently, and then going for the snap and zipper of his jeans, wanting only warm skin against her, feeling Gold slide his hands up under her skirt, his palms smoothing along her legs. She slips her hand inside his jeans, palms his growing hardness, and Gold makes a desperate sort of noise, pressing up against her and then pulling back, scrambling to his feet to shove down his jeans and underwear together, while Belle makes quick work of removing the rest of her clothes and tossing them to the side,  where she spots his discarded vest and, with a small smile, pulls it on over her bare chest.  It feels as good as she had imagined, the suede soft but with just enough of a roughness to its texture to make her very aware of it as it shifts over her breasts, the edges grazing her nipples. Gazing up at Gold, she thinks it’s a good angle, his cock already half hard and lifting away from his body, and she thinks about rising back onto her knees and taking him into her mouth,  but as she shifts onto her knees and curls a hand around his ankle, he braces his hands on her shoulders and lowers himself back down to the blanket, stretching out above her, one hand supporting her lower back, and she lets him ease her down, enjoying the weight of his hips pressing her down against the ground. They kiss, long and slow, and then he begins working his way down her body, touching and tasting, fingers and lips and tongue as her head falls back and her body arches into him.
She buries her fingers in his hair and gazes up into the branches of the tree as he suckles at her breasts. Something glints there, catches the sun and magnifies it. She closes her eyes briefly against it, becomes more aware of the pulse of the music in the background, the pulse of her blood in her veins. She opens her eyes again as his mouth leaves her and he moves further down, leaving her nipples wet and swollen and aching. She looks down at her body as she lifts her hands to cup her own breasts, to tug and pinch at the nipples and sees small rainbows dancing over her chest, her skin dappled in light and shade from the sun filtering through the leaves. She looks up in puzzlement, and then smiles in delight and reaches up as if she could reach the crystals she spots hanging from the branches of the tree, their prisms catching the light and breaking it up into the bands of colour that paint her skin and increase the dreamlike quality of the moment. She knows at once where they’re from, thinking of the box in the shop’s back room full of dismantled chandelier parts, but the knowledge doesn’t lessen their magic.  She traces one along her skin, then takes one of the vest’s long fringes and shifts it back and forth over her nipple, sucking in a breath as it catches briefly before rolling over. Gold runs a hand along her thigh and she lets her legs fall apart and half closes her eyes as his fingers slip inside her, drawing out her moisture and using it to draw slow circles over her clit.
He watches her rolling the fringe back and forth over her nipple, the flesh visibly puckering around the hardening nub,  and his own cock hardens in response. He longs to take her into his mouth, but cannot look away.
“You would fit right in at Woodstock,” he says huskily. “Imagine us there, listening to the music, and I’m standing right behind you, and we’re swaying to the music. You’re wearing nothing but your skirt and that vest, and it’s open, and I’m cupping your breasts in my hands, and playing with your nipples.“
Belle’s hips jerk, as the image goes straight to her core.
Gold dips his fingers into her again, and feels the effect his words are having on her. There’s plenty of slick now, for his thumb to glide easily over her flesh, that light, grazing touch that causes her clit to swell and harden in response. His voice drops in pitch, his Scottish accent strengthening without him being quite aware of it. “There’s people all around us, but it doesn't matter, no one does more than glance our way.” He searches his memory for images from the documentary of the famous concert. “It’d been pouring rain earlier, and your shirt had gone drenched and transparent in minutes. Other people were stripping off their wet things, and you’d boldly done the same; there’s no shame here, no constraints. Bodies are natural, they’re beautiful, there’s no need to hide them.  There’s people with body paint, offering their services. Perhaps we’ll ask one to decorate your breasts; would you like that?”
Belle can’t keep from squirming, her eyes wide as they rake over his smooth, lightly tanned chest and lower, his cock blatantly erect for her.
“If we could paint you, too.  What about you? Is your shirt off?”
“Oh aye, my chest is bare against your back, and my jeans are clinging to me like a second skin, and my cock is straining against the zipper; anyone who looks at me would know how much I want you. I want to take you away from the crowd and find a place to lay you out on the ground and rut into you like a wild beast, but I need you to come first, come on my hands, come for everyone to see  – “ He slid his free hand up her chest, pushing the suede leather of the vest aside, completely baring her front, and cupped her breast in his warm hand, his hips shifting and pressing down against her pubis as he leans over her, thumb being replaced by middle finger, changing the angle, rubbing relentlessly. “Come on, sweetheart,” he urges, kneading her breast, his touch rougher here where she prefers lighter down below. 
The music pulses in time with her blood and Gold’s hair falls forward to hang in his face. He blocks out the sun, he is haloed by it, sun and shade and the scent of grass and incense and she is here and she is there at the same time and his cock is heavy and stiff against her thigh and the hard knot of pleasure bursts within her and she comes with all her muscles clenching tight and her fingers digging into his skin where she’d reached for him. His finger stills against her, knowing not to move again until she relaxes, the tension sagging out of her body, and she feels good but it’s not enough, there’s an aching emptiness inside her that needs to be filled. She sits up abruptly, tumbling him onto his back, and straddles his hips, taking hold of his cock and stroking it firmly. 
“We’ve gone away from the crowd now,” she tells him. “Found a place by the lake, behind some bushes. They offer us some privacy, but we can hear people nearby, going down to the lake, to bathe, to swim. Someone could easily come upon us, if they came in just the right direction.”  She rubs her thumb over his slit, coaxing out a bead of moisture, and he lets out a nearly inaudible whine. “I don’t care, though. I want you, and I don’t want to wait. Are you willing to risk it? Willing to risk someone seeing me riding you into the ground?” 
“Hell, yes.” He can’t wait, either. “Let them see. Let them see a beautiful woman like you wants someone like me.”
“You say “someone like me” as if I’m not dripping wet for you, as if I don’t want to have you buried inside me more than anything in the world,” she says, and rises up, positioning him at her entrance so he can feel the truth of her words. “You have to be quiet,” she warns, mischievously, and sinks down. 
Gold swallows down the noise that wants to escape his throat as she engulfs him. “I don’t know if I can promise that.” He splays his hands out on her waist, just under the edge of the vest, his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Hanging open as it is, the vest only half covers them, baring a lovely wide strip of pale flesh right down the center of her body, adorned only by the love beads she still wore around her neck. As she shifts above him, the edges of the vest fall back, just revealing her nipples, and his cock throbs in response. He bucks up, everything feeling tight, and hot, and urgent. “That vest is a good look on you; we should keep it.”
Belle grins. “I’m glad you think so; I quite like it myself.” She leans forward over him, resting her weight on her hands, and begins to ride him, deliberately shifting continuously in a way that keeps the edges of the vest moving and rubbing against her breasts, her nipples staying hard and sensitive from the teasing friction. She undulates; rising and falling and pleasuring herself on his shaft, the long fringes falling forward as she lowers herself above his body. 
Gold arches up as the leather fringes trail over his belly and swing forward to drag over his nipples, driving himself deeper inside her as he seeks more of the teasing sensation. He cups his hands over her breasts, rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, and Belle moans. He grins. “I thought we had to be quiet.”
"I never said I would be." She lifts herself up until just the head of his shaft remains within her, glancing down to see the hard column of his flesh joining their bodies. She tightens her muscles around him, squeezing as hard as she can. 
Gold's whole body jerks as he cries out, his balls tightening and drawing up. He drags her back down upon him and rolls them over, pulling back out just enough to slam forward into her, rocking her backwards. He thrusts into her again, all control gone, feeling his climax rapidly approaching. 
"That's it." Belle braces herself with drawn up knees and urges him on. "Come on, Rum, give it to me." He is all lean, wiry muscle, and dark hair falling forward and shielding his eyes from her view. She arches up into his next thrust, digging her fingers into his lean buttocks and feeling him long and thick and solid inside her. "That's it, so good, come on, come for me."
He snaps his hips forward, driving deep again and again until his body seizes with pleasure and he stills, braced on his forearms with his hips sealed against hers while the hot flood of his release spills inside her. After a few seconds his muscles unclench and he lowers himself to lay atop her, panting and letting his eyes fall shut as he savours the fading rush of ecstasy, his cock twitching a few times in aftershock as he softens inside her. He feels her fingers run through his hair and turns his face into her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin and the smell of crushed grass beneath the blanket, the air moving lightly over his sweaty back. A bird chatters above them, and he realises that the record had stopped playing at some point, unnoticed. He takes in a deep breath and rolls off to the side, blinking up at leaf-dappled sunlight and rainbows dancing in the air. He turns his head to the side and the corner of his mouth quirks up as Belle does the same and meets his eyes. She looks as debauched as he feels. 
"So, Rumpelstiltskin," she says, reaching out to twine her fingers with his. She feels thoroughly well-used and it is about all she has the energy for at the moment. "Do you have any final words for the readers of our paper?"
Gold's smile widens into a grin. "Yeah. Turn on," He draws their joined hands to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles.  "Tune in, and drop out." He lifts his free hand and flashes her a peace sign, feeling utterly sated and stupidly happy. He thinks of the box from the estate sale. 
Best buy ever. 
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emberfrostlovesloki · 4 years
Text
To Be Held Chapter 2 - Running Out
Here is chapter two! 
Chapter warnings: Description of kidnapping. Mention of torture. Homophobic ideology. Description of sexual assault.
Spencer was on his side sleeping when his phone rang with a piercing shrill. He rolled onto his back, and he extended his long arm out to reach the phone on the bedside table. He didn’t even look at the name when he answered, “Reid here.” When he heard the voice of Garcia he sat up, suddenly awake. “Hey genius. Sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep, but I got your girl. “Give me a second.” Spencer said while turning on the lamp above his bed. The light hurt his eyes. He grabbed his notepad and a pen and sat down cross legged on the mattress. “I’m ready.” “Well, Venus Rising’s other name is Levi Hill. She’s an English lecturer at...” Before Penelope could get the rest of her sentence out Spencer filled in the last few words with, “Washington State University.” The computer whiz laughed and responded with, “Bingo. She teaches Queer theory, a class on Milton, and early British literature.” Spencer jotted down the information, and asked, “How long has she been teaching in Washington?” “Three years. It looks like she moved here from Ohio after getting her masters degree at Notre Dame. She’s twenty three, and before you ask, she doesn’t have a big social media presence, so I can’t find that much more about her.” Spencer replied to this tide of information with, “You did a great job Garcia. With this information we have a connection between Mr. Pyne at the university and Ms. Grost at Fantasy Girls.” Spencer was always impressed by Penelope, and sometimes he was scared of her too. “Anything for a fellow friend with a superior intellect.” Garcia said, then continued by saying, “I’ve sent Ms. Hill’s profile from Washington State over to you, along with her LinkedIn, and just for a bonus, her dissertation. One last thing you might want to know, pretty boy, she’s got office hours at 1:00 tomorrow, office number 212.” Spencer checked his email and found the attachments. “Thanks again.” Spencer said. Garcia replied happily, “No problem, now it’s my time for my beauty sleep.” The line dropped, and Spencer ran his hand through his hair. The clock read 5:00 A.M. ‘At least I have a few hours to read over this material’ Spencer mused. He grabbed his glasses off the table. Got up and started making some of the lousy instant coffee. It was going to be a long day. 
The team entered the East precinct of the Seattle Police Department at 8:00 A.M. No one had really slept, which was usual in an active case. J.J. kindly handed Hotch, Gideon and Spencer a cup of coffee before pouring her own. As the coffee crew assembled around the milk and sugar. Gideon was adding a packet of sugar and stated, “This unsub feels very unstable to me, yet he’s methodical and calculated. It doesn’t make sense.” Hotch looked up from stirring the milk into his coffee and replied, “The unsub must be mission-oriented. We’re looking for someone that has a problem with religion or politics. He probably holds extreme beliefs.” The four members of the BAU moved into the room they had set up in and jumped into their assignments. Hotchner started by saying “I’m meeting Mr. and Mrs. Pyne at 10:00 A.M. today. Elle, will you come with me?” Elle nodded and said, “Of course.” Gideon then said, “I’m going down to the coroner's office to look at the death certificates of the victims, then I’ll go over to the forensic labs that ran the test on the orange fibers found at the scene. Spencer will join me. I might need your expertise at the lab.” “Actually I’m meeting a potential target that the unsub might have had contact with. Her name is Levi Hill. She’s a professor at Washington State, and an employee of Fantasy Girls.” The team looked  at him, surprised that he had found a connection between the two victims. Spencer continued, “I was hoping J.J. would go with me. I’ll go to the coroner’s office with you, but Ms. Hill’s office hours are at 1:00 P.M. and I plan on being on time.” Gideon chuckled that Spencer hadn’t just said he couldn’t go with him to the lab. But Jason also knew that Spencer didn’t like conflict and avoided it when possible. He smiled at the genius while saying, “Sounds like a plan.” J.J. finished the conversation by saying, “I’ve set up a press conference at 5:00 P.M. today. The media is getting restless and it would be best if we give them, and the police a profile by then.” The team grouped up and into their assignments and headed out to the cars. 
Mr. and Mrs. Pyne lived in a modest house on the edge of town. Hotchner and Elle were seated on a couch which faced another couch facing them, where the Pyne’s sat. Pictures were spread across the coffee table that showed Jefferson Pyne; the photos ranged from the smiling blond haired boy as a child to an adult version of the child standing outside of a dorm on the Washington State campus. “So, Mrs. Pyne, you said that Jefferson was doing well in school? Did you notice any changes in him in his sophomore year? Were there people who disliked your son?” Mrs. Pyne swallowed and wiped at a tear that fell down her face. Before she responded Mr. Pyne squeezed her hand reassuringly. She started by saying, “Jefferson excelled in school. He loved living in the dorms and meeting new people. During his freshman year he came out as gay.” Before Mrs. Pyne could continue, Hotchner interjected, “And how did you react to your son’s coming out?”  Mr. Pyne smiled a little and said, “We try to be very open in this household. We told our son when he was younger that he could love anyone he wanted when he grew up.” After Mr. Pyne finished answering the question his wife continued by saying, “I was so proud of him the day he told me that he was gay, so, so proud.” Mrs. Pyne then bent over with a sob. She tried to hold back her tears, but they flowed down her cheeks. Mr. Pyne held her close to him and continued answering the questions with, “In Jefferson’s sophomore year he moved back home and commuted to school everyday. He wanted to live in an apartment, but we were having some financial troubles and it would be much cheaper. Mr. Pyne stood, allowing his wife to sit and gather her emotions. He gestured for Elle and Hotch to follow him. The trio walked up the stairs to the second story of the house. Mr. Pyne opened the second door on the left and said, “This room was Jefferson’s. We haven’t moved much in here except for some of the photos you saw downstairs. We’ll be downstairs, take all the time you need.” Mr. Pyne stepped out of the room and walked down the stairs, and went back in the direction of Mrs. Pyne. 
The bedroom had a bed, desk and lamp. A pride flag adorned the wall next to a BYX banner. Hotch looked around the room and noticed the banner. “What fraternity is BYX? I haven’t heard of it before?” He looked to Elle. She was examining the book shelf that held a lot of college textbooks. She replied, “BYX stands for Brothers Under Christ. It’s a Christian fraternity that is known for their service to the community.” Elle didn’t know how much she believed in Christian fraternities or sororities, but she had a feeling about Jefferson. She told Hotch, “I don’t see anything suspicious about this kid. I suppose that he could be getting some backlash for coming out, but other than that, I don’t think he had enemies.” Hotch replied, “I agree. The parents don’t seem like likely suspects. Let’s go down and look at Jefferson’s laptop. If he was getting hate for being gay we might see it online.” The pair of agents stepped out of the room. Elle gingerly closed the door to Jefferson’s room and followed Aaron down the stairs into the living room. 
The coroner’s office was very cold inside. Spencer folded his arms over his chest. Conserving the heat between his arms, shirt and maroon vest, and his body. After a minute an older man walked toward them. The man extended a hand toward Jason and said, “I’m doctor Stanley. I examined the bodies and wrote the cause of death” Gideon retracted his hand and said, “My name is Agent Gideon, and this is Dr. Reid.” Dr. Stanley took the time to look at Reid with unbelief. Stanley even rolled his eyes until Jason asked, “Do you have the files on Mr. Pyne and Ms. Grost ready for us?” The older doctor said, “Follow me.” He turned on his heel and walked quickly down a white tiled hallway. Spencer and Gideon followed behind him. Stanley unlocked a room that held a metal table and chairs. On the table lay two files. Stanley said, “Here are the files, if you have any questions you can page me.” With that being said the coroner walked away. Reid couldn’t help but sarcastically say, “What a professional man.” Gideon replied, “Agreed.” In the same tone as Spencer. The two men sat down, each grabbing a file off the table. After fifteen minutes of silently reading Spencer found something odd in the report on Ms. Grost. “Gideon, it says in the report that we got at headquarters that she had been raped. In Dr. Stanley’s report he only states that “‘the body was bruised in the primary sexual organs. If she was raped, why wouldn’t he have written that?” Gideon looked at the page that Spencer had handed him and replied, “Let’s find out,” while punching the button to Dr. Stanley’s pager. 
Stanley walked reluctantly into the room with Spencer and Gideon. “Did you have a question?” the older man asked with condescension, looking at Spencer as he asked. Spencer looked back at the doctor unfazed and said, “I was wondering why in one report rape was explicitly stated, but in your analysis of the body you don’t?” Stanley cleared his throat and responded by saying, “The body hadn’t been penetrated by male genitalia. It was clear that an object was used. Under certain definitions that would not be considered rape.” Spencer looked a little sick at this information, and Gideon was angry. Jason stood, holding the page in his hand pushing it in front of the coroner. “You didn’t think it was important to tell us that the victim had been raped with an object instead of a dick.” Gideon breathed out harshly and turned to Spencer saying, “We have the information we need. Let’s go.” Jason’s tone calmed when he looked at Reid. Reid made him feel like a father again, and he couldn't let himself be mad around the younger agent. Spencer stood and neatly placed the folders on top of eachother on the table. As He and Gideon walked toward the door. Before Reid left the room he turned to Dr. Stanley and stated cooly, “I’ll be talking to your superior when this is over, about your apparent lack of empathy and understanding of medical terms dealing with trauma.” With that Spencer turned on his heel and left the cold room behind. As he and Gideon walked to the car Reid took a moment to close his eyes and feel the sun on his skin. The long night was getting to him. 
In an unknown location a cabin surrounded by trees came to life with a shrill cry. Inside a man was tied to a wooden table. His legs and arms were bound in the shape of the cross. A figure dangled a cross above the body of the man who was tied down. “God told me that I should give you the chance to repent. You claim to be a man of God, preaching his word to those people who will burn in hell. It’s heretical!” The tormented man breathed laboredly, and coughed up some blood. The man stammered out shakely, “God states that he loves all people. Therefore I practice giving love to all people .” The man standing over the preacher laughed grimily and responded to his captive comment by saying, “God said that there would be false teachers in the end times, what a blessing I’ve found one. Now repent, or I’ll send you to the pit.” The preacher couldn’t say anymore, he was in so much pain that his mind couldn’t put words together anymore. Before the pastor passed out from the exhaustion of his position, he thought, ‘Lord save me. Lord.” 
Gideon dropped Spencer off outside the main campus of Washington State University. Just as Spencer got to the student union he spotted J.J. standing outside the campus bookstore. When J.J. noticed him, she walked to him, and he asked, “How was it today in the station?” J.J. sighed at the memory and said, “The press had so many questions that are going to be answered in four hours if they were just patient. Instead I was forced to copy and paste the same response to fifteen different outlets.” Spencer had spotted the coffee shop above the bookstore and checked his watch, which read 12:25 P.M. “That does sound very boring. How would you feel about grabbing a coffee before going to office hours?” J.J. smiled at the idea and agreed. The two of them climbed the stairs. The date to the football game had made it clear that she and Spencer weren’t meant for eachother. But that didn’t invalidate their friendship. With coffees in hand the duo from the BAU found the English building and waited outside office 212. Spencer was leaning against the doorframe reading a basic philosophy book when he heard footsteps coming their way. He closed the book and stashed in his shoulder bag. The young women who walked toward her office didn’t look like what J.J. or Spencer had expected. “May I help you?” Professor Hill asked as she attempted to grab the keys to her office while holding a large box of blue exam books. Spencer pulled out his badge and said, “I’m Dr. Reid and this is agent Jareau. We’re from the Behavior Analysis Unit from the FBI. We have a few questions for you profesor Hill.” Ms. Hill looked surprised for a second, but she quickly replied with, “It’s nice to meet you Dr. Reid, and you agent Jareau. If you give me a second, we can go into my office. I’m happy to answer any questions you have.” Spencer quickly put his badge away and offered to hold the blue books. With the package out of her hands, Ms. Hill was able to grab her keys from her backpack and quickly unlocked the door to her office. She flipped on an office light and plugged in two lamps on each side of the desk, lastly she pulled a chair from one wall and placed it next to another chair at the desk. After she had finished all this she said, “Come in.” J.J. went in and took a seat, Spencer followed. He shut the door to the office with his foot, still holding the box of empty exam books. “I can take those now, thank you.” She took the box out of Spencer’s hands and placed it on an empty shelf of an overflowing bookcase. She sighed at the sight of the exams and then sat in the chair across from the agents, just as Spencer took his seat. 
With notepad and pen at the ready Spencer began the interview with, “How long have you been living in Seattle Professor Hill?” Ms. Hill replied, “I’ve been living here for three years now. I was offered an adjunct position at the university during my final semester at Notre Dame.” Next, J.J. asked, “When did you start working at Fantasy Girls?” At this question Hill’s eyes briefly glanced over to her Master’s degree hanging on the wall before she looked at J.J. and said, “My second semester of teaching at this university made me realize that I wasn’t going to pay off my student loans as a professor. Even with financial aid and scholarships my debt after school was more than I could pay off in twenty years with my current position. In December I got an advancement in the University and I signed up to work at Fantasy Girls.” Spencer nodded his head at hearing about needing to pay off debt. Although he was fortunate that his parents had paid for his education, he knew people that were consumed with debt for the rest of their lives, it destroyed them. Spencer continued the conversation by inquiring, “Were you friends with Sydney Grost, or was she just a colleague?” Hill smiled at the question and said, “I remember my first night hosting; I had a client that was very insistent that I go back to his apartment with him. Well Sydney walked over to him and said, “‘If you keep harassing her, I’ll go over to your apartment and break every window I see with a brick.’” Sydney was very protective of all the girls. She and I worked a lot of jobs together and we’d always get coffee at the end of the night. Sit and talk about what we were doing tomorrow. She was great.” As Hill finished the answer she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. It was clearly an attempt to stop herself from crying. Spencer looked away from the professor for a second too, not wanting to make her feel awkward. J.J. then asked kindly, “I know this is a sensitive question, but have you, Sydney, or any other women you work with gone back to a client’s apartment or house?” Ms. Hill ran her hand through her short hair. She took another breath and looked at J.J, and said, “The people I work with, they're like a family. We see each other at least three times a week. We see each other nude, or almost nude, and we complain about our lives. Whether or not some of the escorts have worked in that way I can’t say with certainty. We have to have some boundaries and that’s one of them.” She looked to J.J. to see if that was enough, “I’m sorry I have to ask this, but have you solicited sex after work?” J.J. did feel horrible having to ask a question like that. The blond agent knew that the work paid and therefore had to ask. Hill shook her head before answering, “No. I’ve never wanted to risk my position, not even for that much money.” J.J. nodded and jotted down the answer. Spencer placed his head on the side of his hand and tried to think of something he was forgetting. He thought for a moment, and then he it hit him, “‘social media.’” After realizing there was something strange about the professor’s media he quickly asked, “You don’t really have any social media. Is there someone you’re trying to avoid, or get away from?” Ms. Hill replied, “Being an escort isn’t really seen as a moral profession. If anyone found out what I do I’d lose my job, my friends in church and the opportunities I might have once I can move forward from here. The only person I’m trying to actively avoid is my father, but he lives in Florida, so I doubt he’s trying to find out where I am.” J.J. then said, “I think you’ve given us a lot of good information Professor Hill. I know you have class in twenty minutes. We’ll get out of your hair and let you get ready for that. Thank you so much for your time.” Ms. Hill smiled and wrote something down on a sticky note. As she handed the note to J.J. she said, “Here’s my cell number, email, and schedule for my other job. I hope you find the person who’s doing this, and stay safe.” When she finished saying this she stood and extended her hand to J.J. and Spencer. The FBI agents stood and Spencer opened the door for J.J. As the blond agent stepped out Spence pulled out his card and handed it to Hill and said, “If you see anything weird, or you feel unsafe, feel free to call me.” Ms. Hill smiled and said, “Thank you Dr. Reid.” 
Gideon had picked up the results from the orange fibers. They had from a basic rope and could be bought at any hardware store in town. Although that lead had been disappointing Jason hoped that once Reid had a loot at the retort he would have more input on the evidence. As he was leaving the lab he got a call from Chief Best. “Gideon here.” The leader of the BAU listened for a moment before quickly picking up the forensic evidence and ran out of the lab. As he slid the seat of his car Jason replied to the police chief by saying, “I’ll let the team know, and I’m headed to the house right now. 
The latest crime scene had new features that the others had not. Firstly, it was fresher than the other scenes. Secondly the victim had enemies in the community. James Reeve was a pastor and had been scrutinized by some of the other churches for teaching a doctrine of tolerance for some communities often marginalized by denominations of the Christian faith. As Morgan walked around the room he commented, “Reeve’s church is close to the Washington State Campus. It’s the central point to all of these cases.” Reid was confused by the new victim and said, “Why would the unsub take a college pastor? It doesn’t fit the profile. It’s likely the unsub is around the same age as Mr. Reeve. There seem to be a thousand directions this case could go.” Hotchern replied, “If the unsub is changing his targets every time he finds a new victim he could be trying to throw us off the trail. Or maybe he’s becoming more unstable. Afterall, this is the first time that he’s shown a sign of forced entry.” Gideon looked up from the door that had been forced open and said, “I’m certain that all of these victims are related in some way. The unsub is just getting bolder, braver with his abductions. I think that he’s making his final preparations for an important kill. We have to go back to the station and give a profile. Once the officers have it we need everyone looking for a person that meets the profile. We’re running out of time.” 
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timelordthirteen · 4 years
Text
In All Things 5/?
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Mr. Gold/BelleFrench, Explicit (eventually)
Summary: A Rumbelle arranged marriage AU.
Chapter Summary: After Gold leaves, Belle discovers some of the wonders of the garden, and makes a new acquaintance. Later, Gold returns home to a surprising scene.
Notes: I don't know why this chapter was a struggle but it was. It's like my brain wants to get to the meatier chapters and move faster, but I can't just yet. For the 31 Days prompt: light.
[AO3]
Previous: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Belle pulled her shawl tighter around her as she followed the path through the hedgerow.
Beyond the hedges were two neat columns of flowers intermixed with tall, wispy grasses, and shrubs with broad, dark leaves. She smiled and inhaled deeply the scent of red and pink roses and white wisteria, the chill in the air forgotten in the rapture of the garden still in full bloom and bathed in the warm sunlight. The two rows of flowers bordered a small park space with a cluster of multicolored petunias surrounding a small fountain. There were benches on either side of the water feature, and she crossed to one of them and sat down. The sound of trickling water was quite pleasing, particularly when paired with the occasion twittering of birds.
It was nearly idyllic, and she imagined she might be able to spend many hours in the spring and summer in such a setting. Indeed, retreating to the calming embrace of nature could end up being a welcome respite from the stilted companionship she might otherwise find inside Thornhill. Sighing, she twisted on the bench and trailed her fingertips through the water.
“Ah,” came a voice. “Here I find you at last.”
Belle looked up, shaking the water off her hand and quickly wiping it dry on the edge of her shawl. A man was coming towards her, wearing a red velvet coat with long tails above a pair of dark striped breeches and tall leather boots. His hair was dark and wavy, and his attire was bold and slightly mismatched, though not so much that any one part of it was out of place when taken with the whole. On his head was a top hat in a style that had gone out of fashion a number of years ago, yet also seemed to suit him, surprisingly.
She blinked and started to smile as she took in his appearance. “I was not aware that I was lost, sir.”
The man grinned widely and then stopped to give her a low, sweeping bow, complete with a flourish of his hat. “Well, you couldn’t possibly be now that you are found, could you?”
She let out a soft giggle and shook her head at his strange, but charming turns of phrase. “Indeed I could not, but then how would I have known that I was in the first place when I knew perfectly well where I was?”
He tipped his head back and laughed, holding his hat in his hands in front of him until his glee had subsided. “Oh, you are a delight, aren't you,” he said as he came to sit beside her. “I’m Jefferson, the Steward, and general jack of all trades around this place.”
He held out his hand to her, and she stared at it for a moment before finally taking it and allowing him to give her a firm handshake. It was an odd and unexpected greeting, but it pleased her in a way she couldn’t explain. It seem to fit with the rest of him, eccentric, charming, and endearingly strange.
“Belle,” she replied. “And it’s lovely to meet you, Mr. Jefferson.”
“Just Jefferson, my lady.” Jefferson let go of her hand and looked around the garden. “And how are you finding the natural splendors of Thornhill?”
“I’m finding them very well. And, please, you must call me Belle, I insist.”
“As you wish,” he said, giving her a slight tilt of his head and a smile. “So, Belle, would you care to take a turn with me around the garden?”
At her nod of agreement, he stood again and offered her his arm. They strolled slowly away from the fountain, following a stone path through a second hedgerow. On the other side, the path widened and curved downward, winding along a small hill with a series of steps and landings, lined with trees on either side that shaded the walkway. At the bottom Belle could see another layer to the garden made of shaped shrubs set in planters. The paths among them were made of flat tiles that outlined each of them in a square and themselves formed a pattern of ever increasingly larger squares, the biggest of which outlined the entire area.
She gasped softly, and Jefferson smiled at her.
“A bit much, isn’t it? It seems to go on forever.”
Belle looked at him oddly. “Whatever do you mean? I think it’s wonderful to have so many terraces and gardens, though it might take me all spring to become properly acquainted with them.”
He chuckled lightly. “It might indeed. Though take care with the maze, lest you get lost in it for the whole of summer.”
Her eyes widened and she laughed. “Lord Gold mentioned a hedge maze to me on our trip here. It sounds like a fine adventure.”
“Lord Gold,” he repeated with a small shake of his head and a gentle pat on her hand, “so formal with your new husband?”
She stiffened and looked away. It would have been easy to take that as an opportunity to pry into the details of his earlier discussion with Gold, a matter that for the most part she’d managed to put out of her mind. In doing so she would expose her unintended eavesdropping, and the thought made her face heat.
“Well, I don’t mean to be, but I have to confess that calling him by his given name still feels wrong.”
Jefferson nodded. “Yes, I imagine so. Your situation is - unique.”
Belle flashed a smile. “That’s certainly a word for it. I fear that it may take some time to come to terms with everything that’s happened, and to find out I might fit in here.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said, “you’ve done admirably with me so far.”
She grinned again, finding Jefferson’s manner appreciably easy and comfortable, and wishing that her husband's could be the same. “I haven’t met very many people so far, and I’m afraid that apart from Ms. Potts and you, I haven’t had the best of luck.”
He frowned and lead her passed two tall shrubs trimmed to look like birds with long tail feathers. “Have you been properly introduce to young Bae?”
She blew out a breath. “Oh, I have, brief as it was. I don’t think he found me very impressive.”
“Well, he is a ten year old boy, not much impresses him beyond animals, mud, and sweets.”
“True, but -” She sighed and they stopped walking for a moment. “I feel like it was more than that. I feel like he was cross with my very existence.”
Jefferson gave her a sympathetic look and tucked her arm back in his as they continued on. “I have to admit that he wasn’t keen on his father’s plan to marry, but he won’t take it out on you, he’s not like that. I trust that his dismay will be short lived as it usually is, give him a few days.”
Belle pondered his words as they made their way back to the manor house, winding through the first level of the garden. He lead her on an extra lap around the fountain at an increasing pace, each trying to outdo the other by walking faster and faster, until they were both laughing at their shared silliness. She felt her heart lighten of its earlier fears. There may be secrets between Gold and her, and an indifference from his son, but Jefferson was on his way to being a dear friend and she was most grateful for it.
They came to stop at the doors into the drawing room, still laughing together, when Jefferson pulled Belle around to face him, his hand holding her arm gently.
“Belle, if I may caution you a bit, Gold is - well, he’s - he’s…” He stopped and sighed, rolling his eyes at himself. “Complicated is perhaps too harsh, and I don’t want to speak out of turn.”
“Speak honestly,” she said, her head tilting to the side, “and there shall be no censure from me, not ever.”
He gave a short nod at that and exhaled. “I have known him for some years now, and I am proud to call him a friend in spite of his demeanor. But I promise you that he is - he is more than he seems. Does that make any sense?”
Belle gave Jefferson’s hand a squeeze and nodded. “Yes, I believe I understand you. Thank you, Jefferson.”
“Would you care for some tea?” he asked, holding the door open for her to pass ahead of him.
“Tea sounds lovely.”
Jefferson made his way to the kitchen, preferring to fetch the tea tray himself, rather than ring for Ms. Potts, and Belle made herself comfortable on the lounge in front of the fireplace. Her eyes drifted over to the table where she and Gold had their breakfast just a couple of hours ago as she fiddled with the ends of her shawl. His note had put her in such a bright mood that morning, but Bae’s reaction to her presence and Gold’s gruff tone with Jefferson had disrupted her mood. It was silly, but she couldn’t help it. She felt as though there was nothing to ground her, or give her a sense of purpose in this place, and she could only hope that when Astrid arrived things would feel a little more normal.
Jefferson’s words had also left her a bit confused. They felt like a warning, as if he was trying to tell her that the sharpness and anger she’d heard from Gold was more true to his personality than the gentle awkwardness she’d known so far. But coming from someone who counted Gold as a friend such an implication seemed out of place. She knew she needed some time to think on it, and wondered if she might beg off having dinner with Gold when he returned and have some time to herself in her room.
A moment later, Jefferson returned with a silver tea tray in his hands which he set on the table. He was followed by Baeden who was excitedly informing him of all the names of the kittens he’d visited. The way he rattled off the names and described what each one looked like was as impressive as it was sweet, and Belle smiled as she watched Jefferson pour the tea.
“Well, Bae, it sounds like you’ve had quite a morning already,” Jefferson said. “I wonder that you’ll have any energy left for your lessons this afternoon.”
Bae made a face. “It’s not sums is it?”
“Bae…”
He let out a plaintive whine and slumped. “I hate sums. Can’t we do more reading instead? I’ll do a whole chapter, I promise.”
Belle pressed her lips together, remembering when she had made nearly the same argument to her governess.
Jefferson straightened with a cup and saucer in his hand and eyed Bae. “You made the same deal with me yesterday as I recall… You’ll not trick me again, young Master Gold!”
Bae huffed. “Fine.”
With that Jefferson turned and offered the tea to Belle, who accepted it readily as Bae suddenly realized there was another person in the room.
“Hello,” she said, smiling.
Bae looked down at his shoes and then met her gaze. “Hi.” A beat later he turned to Jefferson. “Can we have cakes with the tea?”
Jefferson whirled around on his heel, sending the tails of his coat twirling out behind him. “Hmm. I’m not sure…”
“Please, Jefferson? We can’t have tea without cakes!”
“Oh, can’t we? Is that illegal now? Has there been a royal decree I’m unaware of?”
Bae gave Belle a pleading glance, and she bit her lip.
“What say you, Belle?” Jefferson asked. His eyes darted to Bae and then back to her as his lips twitched.
“I’m afraid I must agree,” she said with a feigned heavy sigh. Bae's face fell for an instant, and she bit her lip as she grinned. “Tea without cakes is simply not done, Jefferson.”
Bae let out a whoop of victory and beamed at her, and she felt the tension in her body ease. The boy came to sit next to her on the sofa, swinging his legs over the edge as he gave Jefferson a rather imprudent look. Conceding defeat, Jefferson pressed a hand to his chest and departed to the kitchen for a platter of small cakes and cookies.
Gold returned well after dark, much to his dismay.
His business in Amsburg had taken far longer than necessary, and had not come out as well as he’d hoped. Combined with the travel, it had put him in quite a coarse mood, and he hoped that Belle had not waited on him to have dinner. He feared he would make poor company this evening, and he didn’t want to put her off. Even on some of his best days his tone could be rude and surly, and while Jefferson and Bae and most of the staff were used to it by now, Belle was not. He wanted to have an amicable relationship with her, especially as she was to be his son’s future guardian, and subjecting her to his darker moods would not help matters in that direction.
He waved off the maid inside the door and took off his own coat, laying it over the table in the hall before making his way to the drawing room. His leg was aching terribly and he longed for a hot bath and a brandy to ease his pains.
In the doorway, he stopped, and took in the scene. Sitting on the sofa near the fireplace were Belle and Bae, with a book laid open between them. Bae was reading aloud about a knight on a quest to slay a dragon as Belle listened and helped him with some of the harder words. Gold started to smile as an ache spread out from the center of his chest. It was a light, warm sensation, and for this small moment he felt as though he'd made the right choice. Bae seemed to have set aside his objections to Belle now that he'd met her properly, and he hoped that would be the end of that particular disagreement.
The floor creaked beneath his cane, and the two of them looked up in surprise.
"Papa!" Bae immediately set the book to the side and came over. "I was reading to Belle about James the brave knight."
Gold ruffled the boy's hair and smiled. "I heard. How was your day?”
“Good, except Jefferson made me do sums again,” Bae replied, giving Gold a small squeeze. “But I got to help name all the kittens.”
He chuckled. “Well, that’s very good. I’m sure you can tell me all about them tomorrow, yes? It’s time for a bath and bed.”
Bae sighed. “Can we finish the book tomorrow, Belle?”
“Of course we can. I’d be delighted to have you read to me some more. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Bae smiled and left the room, and a moment later, his fast, heavy steps could be heard on the stairs.
She shook her head and smile as she laid a ribbon along the book and closed it to mark their place. “And how was your trip?”
Gold sighed and sank down into an arm chair across from her. “Not as good as I wanted it to be. Seems like you had a much better day.”
Belle nodded, her fingers fiddling with the end of the ribbon where it stuck out from the middle of the book. “Yes, it - it went well. I met Jefferson, did a turn around the garden, and then we had tea with Bae.”
“Ah.” He leaned back in the chair and stretched his bad leg out in front of him, holding back a wince as the cramped muscles tensed. “Well, I’m glad he’s warmed to you a bit, though I am still sorry about earlier.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, don’t worry about it. He’s a young boy, and I don’t imagine I’d be very amenable to someone coming into my life unannounced.”
Gold frowned at her choice of words, but let it go. She hadn’t been entirely unannounced, but he couldn’t fault her for not knowing the full circumstances when he hadn’t been very forthcoming about telling her them. At some point that would have to change, but it had been a long day and he wasn’t in the right mindset for that kind of conversation.
“We, um, we ate dinner already,” she said after a moment. “We didn’t know for sure when you’d return and I was hungry so… I’m sorry.”
“No matter,” he sighed. “I’m not fit company anyway this evening.”
Belle gave him a strange look, and then set the book on the side table. “Well, goodnight then.”
Gold swallowed and nodded. “Goodnight.”
After she left, he sat for a while, ignoring both the hunger pains in his belly and the sharp throb in his leg as he stared into the fire. That moment when he’d come in the room and saw Belle and Bae together had struck a chord with him. Bae had been too young to remember his mother when she left, and she was back for such a short time that even though he’d been old enough to know her, he hadn’t formed much of a bond. It had always left Gold wondering if he should have remarried sooner, if he should have found his son a mother to help raise him. Perhaps Belle could become something of a mother figure, even though he knew Bae would likely never think of her that way. She could still help guide him down the right path and be his friend, she could be there for him later in life when there was no one else, when his father was gone too.
Pushing aside the maudlin thoughts, Gold made his way to the kitchen with the hopes of finding some food for himself, and turned his mind to how he might salvage his deal in Amsburg before the month was over.
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arcadiafound · 4 years
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It is the first thing he is advised to not do. His lawyer, his lawyer, not the Prescott family lawyer, is an unfamiliar face but she is the only person Nathan has seen in weeks, and the only person since the news broke who has been able to step foot in the Prescott manor. Perhaps her presence is comforting yet suffocating at the same time. She stands half a foot shorter than him, heels clicking on the linoleum as she paces around the kitchen, answers to his questions visibly juggling around on her tongue. Her jaw tenses, and untenses, and Nathan feels his anxiety spike just looking at her. She pauses only to take a sip of her coffee, and when her hands land palm-down on the marble island, Nathan feels pinned under her gaze.
“You cannot talk to Rachel during any of this. Do you understand?”
Her brown eyes land on him and he suddenly feels very uncomfortable. Most likely because the answer she gives him is not the answer he wanted to hear. He was alone in this enormous house, and Rachel was the only person who ever understood what he had been going through. Especially now, he thinks, but he can’t be too sure. While she was being examined in the hospital, her parents allowed no visitors and there have been no answers to his texts. Rachel emerged from the underground only to become a ghost again. All Nathan wanted was to see her, not even speak. What would they talk about, anyway? There was no point in asking if she was okay, because he out of anybody else on this planet knows that she isn’t. 
He goes back to slouching in his seat at the kitchen island. “I just want to get her something. Flowers, or whatever. Everybody has been giving her flowers.”
His lawyer moves just a few inches closer to him and it sets off the alarms in his head. Nathan jerks away from her. “Nathan, I don’t know if you’ve ever had to deal with D.A. Amber, but he’s headstrong as it is. You say everybody in this town wants you dead, but I think that’s the only man here who will actually do it.” Her eyes are pleading. “Just hunker down in here for a few more days. They’re almost done with Rachel. A couple more days of cross-examination and then it’s your turn. You have to prepare to see your father again.”
Your father. Two words that immediately shut him down. He stays awake at night paralyzed with fear imagining what Sean was going to do the second his eyes landed on his son. Nathan’s eyes drop to the floor. “I get it,” he tells his lawyer, and even though the look on her face tells him that she barely believes him, the topic is dropped. It’s not enough to stop him from driving down Route 6 and stopping at Josie’s Floral Arrangements just a day later, picking up the special I’m Sorry bouquet full of flowers he does not recognize and driving right back to the Amber residence. In the middle of the day, all of the curtains are pulled shut. Half-melted candles litter the walkway up to the front door and Nathan just watches the house for a bit, thinking about the times he drove her home after theatre rehearsals and forcing out a few smiles just to ease her mind. Driving home with blush leaking down his neck after she parted ways with a kiss on his cheek. 
The flowers sit heavy in the passenger’s seat. His lawyer’s words ring out in his skull. Does he really want to do this? (Maybe Rose Amber will open the door instead.) Nathan keeps the car stalling when he exits, grabs the bouquet and cradles it in his arms when he knocks on the front door. He avoids eye contact with the door’s peephole and only raises his head when the door opens in front of him. He watches as James Amber’s face contorts, his lips raise and curl to expose his teeth and he explodes in a fiery rage. 
“A Prescott has the balls to show up at my door with the knowledge of what he’s done to my daughter? I’m shocked.” He steps forward, effectively making Nathan cower and back down from the front door. “You know full well what I think of you showing up here. Rachel has gotten cross-examined by lawyers for days now and you have the audacity to show up and, what, expect her to talk to you? Give you all of the details so you can spend mere hours in court and leave not guilty? I catch you roaming these streets free and I swear…”
“James?” A voice calls from inside. Nathan finally lifts his head.
“I just wanted to give her…”
Hands rip the bouquet from his arms. When he looks behind James, into the house, Nathan can see Rose emerge from the kitchen and Rachel from upstairs. She catches glimpse of him standing outside and pauses coming down the stairs. They make eye contact and Nathan wants to melt in a puddle of all the words he’s been meaning to say to her.
“You are giving her nothing, do you understand that? You’ve given her nothing but trauma the entire time you’ve been at Blackwell together. Arcadia Bay is ruined permanently and has been the second your family stepped foot in it.” James throws the bouquet onto the stone stairs below them and steps on it to approach Nathan. “If I ever…”
“James, enough.” Rose’s hands wrap around his bicep. “Please.”
He doesn’t stop. 
“If I ever see your face again, you’re going to wish they had given you life in prison.”
Rachel finally speaks from her position on the stairs. “Dad,” her tone is begging, “please. Just leave him alone. He’s leaving.” Nathan looks at her again but he rips his gaze away when James looks towards him.
“Right,” he stammers. “I’m leaving.” His hands are thrown up. “You’ll never see me again.”
The Amber family watches as he trips over his loafers to make his way to his truck.
Rachel texts him later that night. I'm sorry about earlier, it reads, but Nathan is shaking with anxiety. Too much to reply. The next day his portion of the trial began, and he wakes up after a mere 45 minutes of sleep to pull his closet open and fish out the suit Caroline had fitted for his graduation. Navy blue, she had picked out, cradling his face in the tailor shop as it was just the two of them. Behind her watery eyes, Nathan could see how proud of him she was. Graduating just like his sister before him. Just how Martin would’ve done. The hug was awkward, but needed, but she is nowhere in the manor to give Nathan another.
He drives with his lawyer to Portland.
The stairs to the court are littered with press and familiar faces. Nathan wants to collapse when he catches sight of Hayden, Victoria, Dana, even Max Caulfield. This was his biggest fear come to life. He was going to sit in front of everybody who knew him and confess all of his sins. Unload his brain and give everybody some free ammunition for them to throw back at him. When he manages to push past the press to enter the courthouse, he finds Rachel sitting between James and Rose. She looks up at him and smiles. 
Nathan swallows down bile.
It never goes away. No amount of preparation could’ve gotten him ready for the glares delivered by his father, or for the questions said by the lawyers. They all watch him crumple in on himself on the witness stand, staring at the twitching and shaking hands in his lap. When they ask him about his relationship with Mark Jefferson, he lifts his hands to grip the stand ahead of him and throws desperate looks towards the judge. “Can I have a recess, please?” He asks from a sour throat, and the judge nods.
“After you answer these questions.”
He bares it all to them just to have that fifteen minute recess. Nathan glows red in the face when he talks about how he craved having someone be proud of him, and Mark gave him that. There were good years with Sean, great even, but something switched when he got that Blackwell acceptance letter. Nathan began losing track of who he was, he was no longer able to track his moods or how his mind moved. He went from therapist to therapist after Sean deemed them unable to help, and the few that stuck were slipped bills to ensure that Sean was relayed everything Nathan spilled. He had no privacy, and in the summer before his freshman year at Blackwell Nathan morphed from Sean’s son to his legacy. 
Kristine leaving was the worst decision she could’ve made. It ruined his life, he says, detailing the way Sean would hit him after Kristine, supposed heir to the Prescott fortune, took her girlfriend and her life and left. Sean would slap and beat him black and blue and send him right off to class, just like that. Every meltdown Nathan had was his own fault. Mark Jefferson’s arrival to Blackwell saved his life.
The reassuring smiles when Nathan began shooting photos in black and white, the claps of hands on shoulder when Nathan sought out Frank for supplies, and reassurance that they are doing something amazing for the both of them when Nathan is assigned the task of drugging these girls. Nothing felt off, nothing felt real, he couldn’t tell what was and what wasn’t after Mark gripped his wrists and showed Nathan his twitching digits, asking him if that was something that was okay. Did these twitches feel normal? They started with his medication, so why even bother taking them if these rapid movements of wrists and fingers were going to fuck up their shots? 
Sean Prescott’s glare reduces him to tears. Nathan Prescott is breaking apart in front of everybody he knew.
“How long have you been alone?” Rachel asks over the phone that night, after answering his call for the first time in months. She sounds sad for him after he reveals that Kristine and his mother took off for Fort Lauderdale, where the family had lived before. They wanted no association with the Prescott name or fortune or legacy. He was stuck with it.
“A while,” he admits, unsure if he’s only counting the months since this story broke. “It’s okay.”
“Is it?”
It isn’t, they both think.
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hoseokutie · 5 years
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Market Boy pt. 8
You guys, the last time I updated Market Boy was a year ago today on his birthday. I’m awful, I’m so sorry. Please enjoy this update I’m sorry.
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Previous parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Words: 1.9K
Warnings: Fluffy Jungkook, making out, Jungkook crying
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“What if when I go up there to get my diploma I trip up and bust my ass?” Jungkook asked you as you help him with his cap and gown.
“Baby, I can tell that you’re nervous, but you gotta breathe. You aren’t going to fall, you are going to get your diploma and you will look amazing while doing it.” You reassured him.
He nodded his head and looked over at you letting another nervous breath slip past his lips, you held up two thumbs and he smiled.
“Nope sorry, I can’t calm down, my high school graduation was different. After this that’s it. I’m like a serious adult.” He said holding his chest.
You walked over to him and kissed him, he relaxed in your embrace and wrapped his arms around your waist pulling you as close to him as possible. He bit your bottom lip and lifted your leg so that it rested on his hip. You pulled away and started panting, pressing your hands on his chest.
“Alright lover boy this is very nice, but you have to go and I need to get ready.” You told him as he tried to kiss you again.
“Aren’t you riding with us?” He asked looking upset.
You kissed his cheek and shook your head.
“No, I’m riding with Yoongi and Jimin. I still need to get ready before I go anywhere. But no worries I’ll be right there waiting to hear your name get called.” You reassured him and he still kept a pout on his face.
“Baby girl you’re gorgeous, come with us!” He whined and you shook your own head, gently pushing him away.
“Jungkook, leave her alone so we can leave before we are late, you know mom hates being late.” His older brother said and you nodded in agreement.
Jungkook looked between you and his brother and huffed in defeat.
“You both win this time, next time I will take victory.” He said while pouting.
You and his brother both chuckled in unison, Jungkook pulled you into his arms again and kissed you before being pulled away by his brother.
You waved goodbye to the both of them and made sure that the door was locked as well. Your phone rang, and once you made sure you knew who it was you answered the phone.
“Hey Chim, what’s up. Is everything still going smoothly?” You asked, making your way into your bedroom so that you could finish getting ready.
“Yes everything is fine, stop worrying woman. I was calling to let you know that we’re on our way and that your bags need to be packed and ready to go. Did his brother pack him a bag as well?” Jimin asked, the GPS could be heard in the background. Yoongi missed a turn and started cursing in Korean.
“Yeah he did, I had to put it under the bed so that Jungkook wouldn’t ask questions. You know how curious that boy is.” You told him looking through your closet for an outfit to wear.
“Yeah you’re right, well when we get there, we’ll put the bags in the trunk, drive to the graduation area, celebrate, and take you to the airport. Sounds good?” He ran everything by you just to double check.
“That sounds perfect Jimin, thank you so much for everything. He is going to love this.” You thanked him, and began to undress yourself.
“Not as much as he loves you though.” You heard Yoongi say from the drivers side.
You laughed, and sighed out in happiness.
“Well according to Yoongi’s shitty GPS, we will be there in 15 minutes, so you got some time.” Jimin said.
“Cool, I’ll see you soon. Get here safely boys.” You told them before hanging up the phone.
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Once you and the boys arrived at the venue and got to your seats, you sat through all of the introductions, and then came to the name calling.
“Finally, damn I thought we would never get here, my lord.” His brother said, grabbing his camera.
His mother hit his arm and shook her head, you and Taehyung laughed in unison before looking back at the stage waiting to hear Jungkook’s name.
“Sarah Jefferson.” The announcer called, and her family cheered for her.
“Oh my gosh he’s next!” You said standing up quickly, ready to cheer for Jungkook.
“Jeon Jungkook.” The moment his name was called the boys and his family stood up quickly and began cheering loudly, not caring if you disturbed those around you.
He grabbed his diploma and began shaking their hands, once he got to the end he looked in the direction of everyone’s cheers and waved wildly blowing kisses as well.
You teared up at how cute he looked and blew some kisses back, taking pictures and videos as well.
“That’s my baby boy! He did it!” His mother said, crying at her sons success.
You went over to her and hugged her for the rest of the ceremony, she held onto you as well, even when the ceremony was over.
You all stood up from your seats and went to look for Jungkook, it took some time but you eventually found him talking to a group of friends.
His family and the boys all ran over to him and tackled him with hugs, kisses, and praises. Jungkook laughed loudly and tried to return all of the love as much as he possibly could.
“Oh my goodness, I'm going to suffocate with all of this attention!” Jungkook said.
While you stood to the side, awaiting your turn, you decided to take pictures of Jungkook being swarmed with love.
“Hold on, somebody is missing from this love fest.” Namjoon teased you and everyone moved over so that you and Jungkook could have a moment of your own.
“Congratulations baby!” You exclaimed, holding your arms open for him.
He ran over to you and lifted you up from the floor, holding you close to him, spinning you around in his arms.
“I’m so proud of you.” You told him,taking off his cap, putting it on top of your own head and running your fingers through his hair.
“I couldn’t have done it without you guys.” He said, tilting your chin downwards to place a kiss on your lips.
You happily kissed him back and wrapped your arms around his neck, he rubbed your back and set you back down onto the grass pressing his forehead against your own.
‘You wore the dress I picked out, I didn’t even know you bought this.” He said, playing with the fabric.
“Yeah I know, I’m good like that.” You smirked and took his hand in yours.
“Alright cuties, we still have dinner to go to, so let’s go before we are late.” His mother said, taking Jungkook's other hand into her own.
“Can I ride with you now?” He asked looking down at you.
You shook your head and laughed when he started whining like a small child, he even threw in a pout to try and change your mind.
“Why not!? It’s my special day.” He whined.
“Reasons.” You replied nonchalantly.
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Once everyone made it to dinner, you were all seated, eating and even having a few drinks. It was now time for Jungkook to open the graduation presents that everyone had given him.
“This is from Seokjin and Namjoon.” You handed him a small box, containing a new phone case.
“Thank goodness, I don’t have to go and buy myself one.” He said, opening the box revealing the protective phone case.
The pair smiled and raised their glasses before sipping happily from them.
“We know how clumsy you can be.” Seokjin said.
“This one is from Taehyung and Hoseok.” You handed him a large bag.
“Awe it’s a hat, a gift card, and a shirt….with my face on it. I look crazy.” He pointed out and everybody at the table started laughing.
“You’re welcome, the shirt was my idea.” Hoseok said, sitting back in the booth. Jungkook shook his head and blew him a kiss.
“This one is special, it’s from your parents and brother.” You handed him another bag.
He took the bag from your hands and pulled out a brown book with Korean words written on the front.
“It’s a photo album.” He mumbled, you all watched as he opened the book slowly.
Inside the album contained pictures of Jungkook, his family, the boys, and even you. The pictures ranged from when his mother was still pregnant with him, all the way up until this moment.
“We gave your brother one when he graduated, and we figured, why not make this a family tradition.” His mother said, getting teary eyed.
Jungkook closed the book and stood up, walking over to his parents and brother, giving them all big hugs and kisses.
You couldn’t help but tear up at the beautiful moment that was unfolding in front of you, Jimin pulled you to his side and rubbed your side.
“He doesn’t get like this a lot, but when he does, it is so cute.” He mumbled to you, and you nodded in agreement.
“You still have one more gift.” His dad said, rubbing his back.
“You guys, you really don’t have to ge me anything else. I have everything I could ever want, all right here.” He said, sitting down next to you and Yoongi.
“That’s greatly appreciated baby, but I think you might really want this one, considering the fact that it's way too late for us to return it.” You handed him another bag.
He raised an eyebrow at you and took the bag from your hands. Inside this bag was an empty scrapbook waiting to be used. When he opened the book, an envelope fell out. On the envelope was you, Yoongi, and Jimin’s names.
“Is there money in here you guys?” He asked instead of opening the envelope.
“Kook, you gotta open the envelope before you ask questions.” Yoongi said.
Jungkook bounced around eagerly and used to butter knife on the table to open the envelope.
When he finally got the envelope to open, he took out its contents. His eyes widened when he realized it was two plane tickets for a trip to Busan. He looked at the three of you and didn’t know what to do.
“I-I you guys didn’t, this is a joke, are you kidding? Please tell me you’re not kidding.” He started tearing up again and you laughed at how cute he was being.
“You’re going home young one.” Jimin said, patting his shoulder.
Jungkook pulled the three of you into his arms and held you as tightly as he possibly could.
“I love you all so damn much, oh my god, how did you manage to do this?” He asked in excitement.
“That is for us to know and for you to never find out. And besides, your girlfriend was in charge of most if not all of this.” Yoongi said, smiling at you.
“That may be somewhat true, but everybody pitched in to help so I can’t take all of the credit.” You smiled at him and he took your hand into his own, kissing it gently.
“I love you, so damn much.” He looked into your eyes and kissed you passionately.
“I love you more Jeon Jungkook. Now finish eating We don’t have to be at the airport for another two hours.” You reassured him, taking another bite from your meal.
“I’m too excited to eat.” He said, wrapping his arms around your waist instead of finishing his food.
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Okay, so first off happy birthday to the best damn maknae of all maknaes Mr. Jeon Jungkook himself!
Also, thank you all for your patience and support with and towards me. I hope you’re enjoying this series. There may be possible smut in the next part. Before I go, if you haven’t heard I am writing a new series but I can’t decide who I want to be the main male lead so if you could check the link down below for me and go vote that would be awesome!
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nerdasaurus1200 · 5 years
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Back when I was in the Hamilton fandom, I noticed that Alexander never wrote a farewell letter to his before the duel. I decided to remedy that.
[New York, July 4, 1804]
This letter shall shall be read by all of my children. Should the Lord decide my time is up in the coming battle in which I am about to face, I have written my own special goodbyes to you, my greatest accomplishments.
Angelica, my sweet little angel. When you were born, a small part of me died inside; I loved you so much. Make sure to keep up your piano skills with your mother and dance lessons from Nana Martha, dear. And remember, never lose a debate to Jefferson. Although I firmly believe there is no man or woman alive or dead on this Earth that is worthy of you, I hope you find someone who makes you as happy as your mother have made me. And you needn't worry, for my spirit shall comfort you in every storm you will soon face.
Alexander Junior, my namesake. Of all my possible regrets, my biggest one will be missing your graduation. I have no doubt in my mind that you will make the family, the law, and the country very proud. Last night, your sister tattled on you and informed me you are also considering going into the military as well. Perhaps I have told you too many stories and you want to be exactly like your Pops. Nonetheless, I couldn't be prouder of you, my boy.
Frances, the last thing I expected when your birth father Edward came to my doorstep that rainy Tuesday evening was decreeing that your mama, father and I take you in and raise you as our own. However, I do not regret one moment of it. I don't expect you to forgive us from hiding the truth from you for so long, but we feared you'd think the death of your parents was your fault. You may never be my daughter by birth, but you'll always be my little free one. I beg that you stay with the family, for neither of us could bear the heartbreak of losing another of our children.
James, as always, you are following in your brother's footsteps. It seems if I involve my name in my sons', they are destined to follow the path I made. My only request of you in your law career is that you work with your brother whenever you can. You boys will make an excellent team.
John, from the moment you took your first steps in my office and tried to pull out one of the thicker books from the bottom shelf, I'd known books would be your closest companion. I want you to help your mother tell my story when I'm gone. But first, I want you to finish that thesis of Shakespeare that you've been working on. I can't wait to hear it. Never stop reading or writing, son.
William, the only person alive who's temper rivals mine. Deep down, I suspect you will loathe me for leaving you at such a young age, and despise Burr for taking me away from you. I beg you, don't let your hate corrupt you. Use it to keep the family together. And for goodness sake, please don't set anything on fire after you read this just to calm yourself down.
Eliza, my little Lizzy. I never thought your mother and I would be blessed with another daughter, especially one as sweet as you. You probably won't understand why I'm gone, or even why I'm writing this until you are older. I hope that your health in restored quickly, for I cannot bear to lose another of my family to sickness. Make sure you keep everyone around you smiling, for they will need some joy in the years to come.
Little Philip, if I do die by Burr's hand, please forgive me. Though you will have every right to hate me for the rest of your life and probably will, know this. I love you, son. I love you so much. Hate me all you want for not being there for you as my father was for me, but never forget how much I love you.
Now that you've finished, you may all wonder why I'm telling you this. But there is no need to be afraid. Have faith, and pray that I return home. Stay together, and stay strong. If not for the sake of your mother, then for mine. It would tear me apart knowing my death meant the death of your bond. I know you think I'm going to be taken away from you forever, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Visit my grave, linger in my office; it doesn't matter. I will always be with every single one of you, no matter where you are. Make sure to always fight like your running out of time just as I did, and never throw away your shot. I love you all very much and hope to see you again in a better world. I will tell your brothers you said hello.
Your proud father,
A H
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intothewickedwood · 5 years
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Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 1x20 The Stranger
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I’m liking this brot3 with Emma, MM and August
MM looks so proud of Emma.
I forget why August added the Pinocchio story.
The Pinocchio movie used to freak me out when I was younger. To tell the truth it still does. It was that freaking donkey scene!
Here comes the shady lady.  
Hmmm. Interesting conditions you got there Blue. You know, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that she made those conditions part of the spell herself. That way she’d have someone to do her bidding as she pleased. Maybe for something to do with the curse. Reminds me of her needlessly turning Jiminy into a cricket. Yes, he asked for that to happen, but a decent person would have seen that he was in a moment of despair and would have helped him by other means. Seems like she turned Pinocchio into a real boy just when it seemed convenient. She probably knew the curse would be cast soon and she probably knew they would need Geppetto to build the wardrobe and she would’ve known he’d make sure his son would take a spot. You know, I wonder if there was room for more than 2 people to go through. She just wanted Emma separated from her parents as part of her evil plan!!
How can Regina think that MM would think it wasn’t Regina who framed her after that conversation they had in the sheriff’s office?
MM is so much stronger than I am. I’m not sure I could forgive what Regina did to her.
“Your life must be filled with such incredible loneliness if your only joy comes from destroying everyone else’s happiness. It’s so sad Mayor Mills, because despite what you think it won’t make you happy. It’s only going to leave a giant hole in your heart.” MM be preaching the truth to Regina! This is another reason I love her so much; she’s so full of compassion and empathy. She understands why Regina did what she did (with the context she’s given) more than even Regina does.
Henry: “Go ahead and try. It won’t work. No matter what you do, Snow White will have her happy ending. She and Prince Charming will be together. The curse will end. Good will win. And I’m not transferring classes.” Look at Henry go!
That’s a pretty clock.
Poor Jiminy!
Poor Pinocchio’s living in fear that the Blue Fairy might change him back! I think the Blue Fairy meant for him to be afraid of her. So she could have power over him for her future evil plans!!
Geppetto: “So we must stop her (the Evil Queen).” Blue: “It’s too late for that.” Mmmhm, sure it is Blue.
Funny how you didn’t tell Rumple about enchanted wardrobes when he was looking for a way to the LWOM! You just intentionally lead him to finding out about the dark curse!
So Regina, your car just happened to break down right in front of the pet shelter where David works?
Regina leaving a blank note on the table, pretending Henry wrote that he couldn’t be home for dinner xD!
Blue, we all know this is exactly what you wanted Geppetto to do. That’s why you turned Pinocchio into a real boy in the first place, isn’t it?
Although, it’s a terrible situation, I do understand Geppetto’s decision. He’s doing what he thinks is right for his son. Most parents would’ve done the same.
Wooden Swan is cute as hell!
Regina has made a lot of Lasagne for 2 people! If it was vegetarian I’d totally have some. Dammit, now I’m hungry!
Wow, she’s got the romantic candles and everything.
Why does it look so delicious! Help!
Regina is so obviously flirting. David is so oblivious, bless him.
That distorted image in the mirror! I need to understand the symbolism here!
I know August is harmless but Emma, haven’t we talked about meeting handsome men in the woods? Haven’t you learnt from Jefferson??
Wait! That tree they came from was in Storybrooke? But how, if Storybrooke wasn’t created yet? I guess Storybrooke could have been built to include that LWM forest.
August confessing he believes the book is real and Emma’s just like “Here we go again.” But at this point the evidence is glaring right at her.
“We both came into this world through this tree.” Hehe xD! Emma, say hello to your mamma!  
When Emma says “not gonna happen” it seems like she almost believes but she won’t allow herself to fully embrace her destiny.
“One of us is losing it here, and it’s not me.”
“I don’t want them to need me.”
“You’re saying that I am responsible for everyone’s happiness? That is crap! I didn’t ask for that. I don’t want it.”
“Right now. A little while ago, you didn’t want Henry, either. But then, he came to you, and now, you are fighting like hell for him.”
“For him! Because that is all I can handle right now. And I’m not even doing a good job at that! Now, you’re telling me I have to save everyone? That is beyond ridiculous. I don’t want any of it.” I do feel for both of them here.
“That doesn’t change the truth. You are our only hope.”
“Then you’re all screwed.” That is the statement of someone who’s starting to believe! Poor Emma though, having spent most of her life alone only to learn that a whole town is depending on her to save them.
Aww. This scene with August and Marco is so heartwarming.
He just wants to bond with his Papa!!
Emma, no! You can’t run off with Henry! You’ll make everything worse!
I think August just really scared her.
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cozy-possum · 5 years
Text
Rosalie and Emmett - Healing
This got so out of hand 
Rosalie is quiet when she brings the man in. Carlisle doesn’t say anything as he seems to sleep off the morphine, they all know better. The only sounds are his occasional screams and half dying mumblings. Calling for his mother, his siblings, possibly a wife and children. Rosalie cringes back. Had she taken him from a peaceful burial surrounded by his family? She waits; he wakes and stays silent, watching her from the corner of his eye. Edward keeps quiet shooting the man looks and nods, smiles and shakes of the head.
Rosalie doesn’t move towards him. He hovers around her, watching her hunt. She worries he is reminded of someone as much as she was of Henry. His hands drift, hovering over hers. “Dad, uh Carlisle, said you saved me. Thank you.” His voice is quiet, soft and too gentle for his hulking body and newborn strength. “Did they tell you about this?” she gestures from herself to him and he offers a crooked sort of smile. “Got the basic a rundown, for future reference, if you bring anyone else you find in the woods back, morphine gets burned out real quick.” He laughs and Rosalie lets her hands tangle in his. “We can’t cry anymore.” She states watching the forest moving around them. He doesn’t say anything so she continues, her voice staying level, staying quiet and calm, only wavering slightly.
“Your family will think your dead. We’ll have to move soon, where did you live we can- Emmett?” She frowns as his grip tightens on her hand. “Better off I’m dead. I live- lived in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, we’re still in Tennessee right?” He casts a look to the forest. “South Carolina actually, I carried you over 100 miles to here to-“ Emmett doesn’t let her finish, pulling her into an almost delicate huge and mumbling thanks into her hair. She tries to quell the thanks, knowing its taking the place of his tears. “What does your mother look like? Your family? Your wife?” She smiles sitting back on the porch steps. Emmett rolls his eyes.
“No woman would ever want to marry me. My ma, she’s great, never appreciated her enough, shoot, they’re gonna be in trouble.” His face stretches with panic before it’s gone. “James is the oldest, he has his own family, they moved up north, we don’t see them much.” He shrugs slightly “William, and  Jefferson are younger, eleven and seven respectively. My brothers, hellion’s the lot of them. My sisters, Ella, and Lila, they’re both ten. And Julia is only six. She’s gonna be so sad.” He coughs slightly. She knows its his body’s way of trying to cry. “what do they like? Do they have favourite colours? I bet you know everything about them.I never had siblings.” She lies smiling broadly. He turns a flicker of excitement. “Julia loves purple! It’s her favourite, shame we can never afford it, William and Jeff don’t much care, think they’d be happy with something without holes for once. Ella and Lila, they love blue’s any shade.” He laughs again, choking slightly. Rosalie watches his fingers dance around a ribbon he’s pulled from his pocket. He smiles sheepishly as he hands it to her. “Julia’s she gave it to me for good luck.” She pulls him into a hug as he ties it around her wrist. “My ma has her hands full and I went and got myself killed, its gonna be tough for- Rosalie?” He frowns as she stands.
“I’m going to hunt, no you can’t come, I’m going close to a human area. Not a good idea with your nose.” She winks and they retreat into the house. She pulls the bottom drawer from her vanity; the daily allowance Carlisle had given her. The money they saved on food, she laughs silently, pulling it out. She guesses on sizing, assuming Mrs. McCarty can sew and take them in, better too big than too small. She buys six dresses for each girl, five pairs of pants for the boys and twelve shirts for each of the kids and four skirts for the girls each. She also snags a range of shoes. She turns from the clothing store, adding a few bolts of fabric and a stylish hat she hopes Mrs. McCarty will like. She piles them into a spot in the forest as she rushes back into town buying half the grocer’s worth of food. She repeats this buying a few dresses in Esme’s size hoping it’s close enough and adding them to the growing pile. She scowls at the stray dog that’s eaten half the sausages. It runs from her as she picks the rest of her purchases up and starts towards Gatlinburg.
She makes it in less than an hour, keeping her supplies bundled up in a tree as she walks into town. She knows they’re all watching her. Staring in wonder as she weaves her way through the town. “Do you need help Ma’am?” She smiles at the general store owner that stops her. “Yes could you tell me where the McCarty house is?” The man stills slightly. “Past those roads take a left, last house on that road. You be careful now.” She nods following the directions and spotting two boys scrambling after a dog. She laughs, turning around and retrieving her supplies. The woman comes out the minute she hears the dog yelp, about to yell at the boys who stare wide eyed. “Mrs. McCarty?” The woman eyes her suspiciously. “Emmett ain’t home.” She hisses and Rosalie backs up. “I’m sorry I just, here.” She shoves the bundle forward and onto the porch. She doesn’t say a word and Mrs. McCarty nods for her to come inside. “Is he safe?” Rosalie chokes slightly at how pained she sounds. “Of course. He just, he can’t come home.” Mrs. McCarty thanks her for her too generous items. Rosalie leaves. She doesn’t understand why she returns later in the week. Bringing toys and fresh vegetables. Emily, Rosalie learns knows her son is dead. She fully believes it, trying to convince herself that Rosalie is a secret lover, a hidden girlfriend, another one of his flings being eaten away by guilt.
They talk into the early morning. Rosalie offering to get everyone ready for school, and to clean the house while she sleeps. Emily wakes to the house spotless, the stove fixed a pile of letters on the table and note tacked to a new silk dress. -Emmett doesn’t know- She reads each of the letters he had written apologizing, over and over to each of his siblings; wads of cash stuffed in each envelope. Rosalie comes back once a week; they sit and talk, Rosalie being vague enough to not mention Emmett as her new beau. Julia takes a shine to her and Rosalie finds herself walking her to and from school when she can manage. Its been two weeks without a visit and even though the envelopes arrive through the mail, no return address Emily still leaves the door open slightly.
She returns from the market, crumbling to the ground as Emmett looks up from the porch. “Ma! Calm down! Ma stop it!!” He scowls as he’s crushed into a hug, laughing as she refuses to let go of him. They talk well into the next day, as Rosalie leaves with Julia to bring he to school Emmett drops his voice nervously watching his mother for a reaction. “There’s this girl, and Ma I know. I know what you’re thinking but please can I have it. Please?” Emily McCarty is silent as she retreats to her room, pulling out her and her husband’s wedding bands. “You treat her right or so help me will find you. Do you hear me Emmett Mason McCarty, you do anything to mess it up with that angel and I will hunt you down. She is a godsend. And-“ “Ma I know, I know. Rosie, she’s indescribable. She’s the most magnificent creature to grace my presence. Believe me Ma I know, she’s saved me. I could never be enough, not a thousand lifetimes would be enough with her.” She closes her hand over his smiling.
“Thank you. For coming back. Rosalie said you weren’t allowed.” Emmett stands as Rosalie appears, Emily hugs Rosalie first thanking her. Rosalie pulls her to the side slightly. “Nothing will change, we just won’t visit as much. I promise. We need you as much as you need him.” “Both of you. Thank you so much Rosalie. You’ve done more to ease my mind than you know. You’re far too strong for your own good. Helping keep me afloat as well as yourself.” Emily presses a kiss to her forehead.
“I love you so much dear. I’m so proud of you.” Rosalie nods hiding her face as she steps away. She wishes more than anything she could cry. To prove to Emily McCarty how true her words were. Emmett holds onto his mom for five full minutes before he remembers he needs to pretend to breathe and his mother just laughs not noticing, taking his gasp as him stuffing sobs away. “You be good. You be good to her.” Emmett nods inching himself away from his mother and the house he grew up in.
It’s a year later when she gets the letter in the post. Frowning at the handwriting and the sudden appearance of a return address. She looks confused at the set of house keys and the piece of paper that has an address scrawled on it. She pulls the other paper, think and heavy, smelling faintly of roses. She opens it reading the delicate hand written script. Mr. Emmett McCarty and Ms. Rosalie Hale request your presence at their wedding on the seventh of December. Emily McCarty sighs in relief, finally exhaling after watching her son leave a year ago. She carefully props the letter up on the table, finally able to heal after all of the waiting. She knows her son is healing as well.
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treatian · 4 years
Text
The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse
Chapter 65:  Flight of the False Prince
The Queen was making excellent progress with her magic, simply excellent! In the last year or so, as Snow White and her dear father began to travel more and the Princess became dedicated to riding, Regina was filled with a bitterness that egged her on her progress. She didn't like the King, but she was a woman, his wife, and he could sense her needs. She needed attention. She desired approval, craved the ability to be good at something, anything that might make him glance her way. In the end, the Dark One's approval was all she was left with. Her growing talents helped and sometimes, when she wore her tight low cut gowns, those helped too. There once was a time that she questioned everything, took her steps slowly, and it was a struggle to get her to commit to anything other than their lessons. Now things had changed. Now she obeyed every command he gave to her, took risks that frequently paid off when coupled with her desperation, and late at night when he checked in on her in her quarters, he saw her practicing. Better yet, she had a lair, a workspace of her own now. A room she'd created with her magic, ready and full to the brim with boxes for hearts that she was slowly collecting. Mostly they were her servants, nobodies who had seen something they shouldn't, but every now and then, when she found someone was particularly irksome and she could get a private moment with them, a heart was taken. She was now the proud owner of a soldier's heart, a noble's heart, the heart of her step-daughter's favorite tutor, and after the most recent bell in a far away Kingdom, a princess's heart.
And he couldn't have been prouder.
The progress she was making was good, it was leaps and bounds ahead of his own. The curse he needed her to cast still eluded him. He looked for it always, constantly. But so far, there had been no luck. He tried to calm himself day after day. He tried to tell himself that between his searching and Jefferson's searching they were bound to stumble upon it. And there was still time. There was lots of time left to find it, but that didn't change the fact that he knew he'd feel a lot better on the day that he held the curse in hand. Though his books and visions helped him know some of the ways he needed still to prepare Regina, he knew that he couldn't truly know anything until he saw it for himself. And then came the task of convincing her to do it. Regina wasn't her sister, crazed and desperate to please that she'd ruin an entire realm for him. No, Regina was going to be a tricky beast. He was going to have to stoke the animosity between her and her step-daughter so that it grew until she resented not only her Snow White, but the entire realm for supporting her. He had to make it so that the curse was her only option at "winning". For that he had to be sure the board was set and every chess piece was in his control. And he wasn't going to do that until he had the damn curse in hand!
A knock at the door suddenly summoned him from his thoughts. It was a good time for visitors. Summer had passed just enough that hiking up the great mountain to see him was no longer a terrible burden, but it was before the cool of Winter set in up in the higher altitudes making it perfect. All this translated to was "a beautiful time" for those seeking the Dark One's assistance, and a "busy time" for the Dark One himself. He couldn't wait until Winter truly came, and he could leave this chilly existence for more travel…hopefully this season he'd find his curse. Until then…
He heard the knock on the door, but his mind was too busy spinning nearly as fast as his wheel that he couldn't be bothered to get it. Instead he simply allowed his magic to unlock and open, if the fool wasn't brave enough to step inside and find him then he didn't want whatever it was he sought hard enough to be worth his time.
"Hello?!" someone called. "Is anyone here?"
He didn't respond. Partially because he didn't know how. He recognized that voice, he recognized it and felt his stomach drop and his heart begin to race. That was the Shepherd. It was David's father. He lived weeks away from him, what on earth was he doing here? Had something happened to David? And why was he so fearful of that if James was the one he was supposed to be worried about?
"Six years ago, you took my son!" he called, his footsteps as well as the echo indicating that he was in the room. Obviously the open door had been easy enough to follow. "And now I need your help."
Was that it? Could he simply be unaware of the issues surrounding the King's boy and wanted his other son back? That was something he could handle. A simple spell would be all he needed to ensure James stayed safe and arrived back in the hands of his father the King?
"Well, I'm sorry! A deal's a deal!" he laughed, smiling over his worry as he worked the wool in his hand. "Can't give you back the boy."
"I'm not asking for that," he replied. "But James...he's missing. I want you to help me find him."
Missing. Was he really? The boy would only be about six now, he'd not thought to check in on him as often as he had Regina over the years though now he knew precisely what he'd be doing when he got up from his place at the wheel. Double-checking what the hell King George was doing that a six-year-old prince was able to go "missing". The boy was important, he couldn't afford to lose him. Luckily, whether he knew it or not, the boy had another father who appeared was more than willing to help in his search. Perhaps he would be able to get James back where he needed to be without ever having to leave this castle. And a good thing too, he knew that blood was the best, often the most dedicated, to finding what they lacked. Perhaps dear Robert was just what the boy needed.
"Ah. And what would you offer me for this little feat of magic?" he questioned.
"I have nothing to offer!" the man proclaimed. Honesty. He could always appreciate that.
"Not much of a negotiator, are you?"
"You owe me," he stated in reply.
"So..." Finally, he stopped his spinning and turned to face the poor father. "You finally grew a spine…"
"I think I finally became a father," he corrected. "I'd do anything to see my boy...and tell him I'm...I'm sorry."
Ah…so a father he had become. And a truthful one at that, for his advance was often times enough to make strong men suddenly weak but as he walked toward him Robert didn't take a step back. the poor man rocked a little unsteady on his feet, perhaps, smelled of stale alcohol, certainly, but waver out of fear? Not at all. He had to look away from such a man. For a moment he feared and hoped he might look into the eyes of his own father and hear words like that, for just a moment, he heard those own words repeating over and over in his head, one of the things he was determined to say to Baelfire again, one day, when they were together. Perhaps then his son might break this terrible tradition they had in their family. But the truth was that Robert was neither Pan, nor the Black Fairy, not Baelfire, nor him! And, in fact, he owed him nothing. It was a good transaction, clean, fair, and honest. But he hadn't expected the parents to always see it that way. Having Robert here, now, it was proof that time had finally arrived. How good for dear Ruth.
"You know, I don't have time for maudlin stories! And everything has a price," he insisted suddenly, perhaps a bit too loudly. That was certainly not the character that Robert needed out of him at the moment. And frankly, he had a sudden desire, looking at Robert, to get him out of this castle and dispose of this memory at the wheel. Clearly the hopes of a child never really died, just hid themselves well. "Although I-I could be persuaded to help you in exchange for, uh...one hair off your head. Small things can have great power!"
Robert nodded. "Fine. It's yours." Good, the sooner this was over the sooner he could figure out what was actually going on. He couldn't use a mirror charm because he didn't know where the boy was to look in a reflection, nor could he use the blood of his father because that kind of spell took far too long, a locator potion or spell would never work as his father had nothing of his and frankly, following something around in that way would look a tad suspicious. Instead, he summoned the glass ball to him and looked deep inside of it.
Though sound was still elusive this little toy had come in quite handy since he'd acquired it. He was able to easily see the reason the Wizard had gained such notoriety through it, despite having no magic himself. In fact, it had done the very thing he'd wanted it to do. Through this very crystal ball, he'd seen the Apprentice. He'd seen the house at the bottom of the mountain that Jefferson had described and confirmed his suspicions. The old man in the red robe was, in fact, The Apprentice. Somehow, he'd managed to hide his house and his presence from right under his nose. But the crystal, being magic that didn't belong to him, was something the Apprentice could not have prepared for. Of course, he didn't dare approach the Apprentice or do much more than watch him in this ball at the moment. For now, the Apprentice believed that it was he who was watching him and not the other way around, which meant that for once the Apprentice was right where he wanted him to be. There was no telling what he might do if he was caught and gave him the idea that he knew where he was. He was closer than any Dark One had ever been to conquering that old fool. Now was the time for patience. Among other things of course.
As he gazed into the crystal ball, he focused on Prince James and the images that came to it were not ones he expected, but made sense all the same.
"Curious…" he commented as he watched the image of a brown-haired boy crawl out of bed, dress hastily before grabbing a rucksack, and then leave his bedroom quietly so as not to wake the guard who was sleeping outside.
"The boy wasn't abducted at all. He ran away." The images changed, the boy meeting some very unsavory men, men who snuck him on a ship and then laughed about it after he was hidden. The place they'd taken him, an island, one that he was aware of only because he'd been watching Jiminy, who was keeping an eye on Geppetto, who had recently invented a wooden puppet the Blue Bug had brought to life only to have it run away to the same place. That incident had left both Geppetto and Jiminy in great distress, but gave him not a care for there was still no sign of the dark-haired man who would know his son. What were the chances that both Pinocchio and James would both end up on Pleasure Island…this was a situation that would require watching.
"But where he went to...you don't want to follow."
"Why?! Where is he?!" Robert insisted as he set the glass bauble aside.
"In a land built from temptation. And I have an extra ticket in."
In the palm of his hand, he produced a ticket for the man that would get him on a ship that would take him to James. Robert lunged and he was quick to pull it away. A deal was, after all, a deal; no matter how simple and cheap the pricetag.
"Ah! Hair first!" he insisted. Robert leaned forward willingly and allowed him to pluck one hair from the top of his head with barely a wince, for the moment he'd plucked it off, that was the moment Robert took the ticket from his hand. A perfect exchange. "Our second deal is now complete," he concluded stepping up to Robert. Still the man showed no sign of fear or anxiety. Instead, he offered a small bow and muttered a quick "thank you" before grabbing the bag at his feet, dragging it to the door, and leaving.
He reclined against the table as he left and inspected the hair he'd plucked. "Small things can hold great power…" he muttered in a singsong voice, mocking his own words. Of course, they were true words, small things could have great power but as he looked this small hair in his hand over, he was more than confident that this thing, had no power at all. Not for him. He had the very strong urge from the Seer that Robert would be dead soon, and with his interest laying mostly in the False Prince, Robert was of no consequence. And so, he felt nothing when he brushed his hands and let the hair float to the ground where it would turn to dust. Right along with Robert. But…perhaps, because of this, he might get the chance to know the son he'd allowed him to take, if only for one brief moment before his life was extinguished, perhaps he might become in that moment the father that his son's deserved. That was all he ever hoped for himself, that someday, when the moment came he was face to face with his own son again, he might become that very same thing. Someday. Someday.
"Someday...may we all be reunited with our sons…"
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tjovalboy · 5 years
Note
lmao the first one was so good so im sending another jsjsjs cyrus helping tj come out to his parents and tj raps it and cyrus is like ?? I didnt expect you to do it that way but alright
There was a lot Cyrus didn’t know about TJ.
He never mentioned his older sister in high school, his extensive vinyl collection, and his job at a children’s gym until far into their friendship, making it seem to Cyrus like he hid things. It was secretive, like he had this whole world buzzing inside him that Cyrus couldn’t get into.
The biggest problem came when he took action. He had ideas, bad ones, that Cyrus couldn’t predict until it was too late. His poker face was solid.
However, on Saturday night, he fidgeted in fear.
They sat on the edge of TJ’s bed, Cyrus rubbing his back comfortingly.
“Breathe. Everything is going to work out fine,” he assured him.
TJ’s eyes were locked outside his window. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“Well, you don’t know it’ll be bad, either,” Cyrus argued, shifting closer.
He remained silent, lost in thought.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
Cyrus bit his tongue so he didn’t scream at him and decided to change the subject.  “So you remember the plan we talked about?”
He nodded simply, and Cyrus stared at him until he recited it back. “We walk downstairs and ask them to pause their movie. I say ‘Mom and Dad, I have something important I want to tell you.’ to get their attention politely. Then, I just come out to them using words from my heart.”
“Right!”
Cyrus was fidgety, himself. How would TJ’s mom and dad react? Would they be okay with their son, the student athlete since diapers wanting to marry a boy? All Cyrus could do was help him learn the social cues of an emotional, serious conversation and hope to goes well. He gripped TJ’s arm, forcing him to look up.
“And you’re sure they’re watching some stupid comedy movie down there they wouldn’t mind you interrupting?”
TJ chuckled, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, Cyrus, they are. Trust me, okay. I’ve practiced for hours today, and I’m not gonna mess up any part of the plan, let alone the most obvious.”
Cyrus nodded and steadied his breath, trusting him for the first time in a while. Of course he knew what he was doing, he convinced himself. He’s coming out to his parents and he was always one to get the results he wanted.
“You ready to go?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He tiptoed down the dark, wooden stairwell behind TJ, careful not to misstep and fall. Nearing the doorway to the living room, an indiscernible conversation played out between characters as soft lights flashed from the screen. Adam Sandler, he expected.
However when the screen emerged into full view, all the breath left Cyrus’s lungs.
Fucking Schindler’s List
Before he could yank the dumbass back up to the second story, the room lit up and the screen went black. His heart broke for TJ’s mother and father, curled up together on the couch, their faces wet with Liam Neeson induced tears, while TJ stood chest puffed out in front of them ready to take more of the touching moment and crumble it under his socks.
But the biggest shard to the rib was Jefferson Middle School offering Beginning Spanish as an elective that year.
“Madre, ‘Fadre’, I have something important I want to tell you.”
He imagined TJ chucking the script they wrote together in the garbage can.
“Honey, what is it?” his mother asked through her sniffles.
Cyrus’s heart hammered in his chest and he felt himself go dizzy thinking about what the next words coming out of his mouth would be. There was too much freedom in the plan; too much wiggle room for TJ to do something stupid. His parents were frozen, waiting expectantly.
Then, TJ took a breath.
It was a small and insignificant, but Cyrus recognized it. He had the same small inhale and exhale, along with the somber look in his eyes, months prior when he and Cyrus were starting to get close. It was one of the first of many unexpected talents he revealed to him.
And now, he was going to come out to his parents that way, and there was nothing Cyrus could do to stop him.
“Kaitlyn, Jenny, Clarissa, and Jane;
All the girls you used to tease me ‘bout like Lois Lane.
Had them whip-smart, pretty faces, home after school.
Now they dating round Jefferson with boo boo the fools.
I never really subscribed, never kept up with the drama,
But I’ve been hecka hearin’ Jenny’s hecka grounded by her mama.
Kaitlin’s in some trouble, Lester says she been suspended.
And Jane and Clary both got B.F.’s driving with no license.
Nothing ‘gainst the straight girls but I know that things be different
If I’d gone to dating them, my life would turn rebellious.
Yeah, they dummy influences, but that’s really not the point.
The problem is they female, and girls just not my type.”
TJ’s parents only gave each other warm smiles, still curled up between blankets on the couch.
“Lookit, Mom and Dad,
I’m gay and ‘aint no synonym
For the gritty love I got for you from L.A., York, and Texas, even
Cheering hard at soccer games
B-ball, football, frisbee winning
Got my C-plus on the fridge before I saw the grade, myself, last season.
I’m reaching for the boys living in all of little Shady County.
Cy and I are swinging crazy, but not the way you’re thinking, really.
I know it won’t be peasy,
But it’s dudes that make me cheesy,
And I know my folks believe me,
Cause they wake up every morning loving me like all the world is easy.”
TJ regained his breath and sighed in relief, baffled at himself. Cyrus watched as Mr. and Mrs. Kippen, looking nothing but proud, ran over to their son to hold him tightly at the same time, his arms locked down by theirs.
It appeared that there was no one method to do it, after all. Cyrus laughed to himself, thinking about the absurdity of his precious plan. TJ was one of a kind, and when there was no stopping him, it was probably best anyway that he let him do his own thing.
When TJ finally broke free, he jogged over to Cyrus and, surprisingly, hugged him, too. As he let go, he hoped he didn’t see his cheeks go red.
“Sorry, I made a few minor adjustments. I hope that wasn’t too weird or unpredictable for you.”
Cyrus laughed, because it totally was. “It was perfect.”
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Text
A Father Sacrifice (Hamilton story)
Hello, my fellow sunshine, my little rainbow sprinkles, my little bumpkin.
Esmi here and I gotten permission from the lovely and beautiful: @qinxiin who does amazing Hamilton fanarts. Luckily enough I was able to write a fanfic based on her fan art which I’ll put the link down for you to click
Fan art link: Boxer AU
Boxer Au x Single Dad AU
Jefferson POV
Left.
Right.
I tried defending myself but Hamilton was moving way too fast for me. Couldn’t even tell when he was gonna strike next. I manage to get a few punches from here and there but that doesn’t do. Whenever I attack he dodges or goes in defense mood. If I tried using the same tactics it would backfire on me. Since when did this little gremlin get so strong over the years. I heard that return to New York after spending a few years back in the Caribbean. Basically his home island at Nevis with his eight children. Wasn’t sure what happened between him and Eliza but I do know they ain’t together anymore. Thought she was getting custody of the children but nope. Guess little Hammie did in the end and haven’t seen for five years until now. He has gotten a bit tanner and bit more muscular which were the minor things I didn’t pay attention to.
Next thing I know is that I’m on the ground of the ring while Hamilton stares intensely at me. Raising one of his arms in the air in order to punch me in the face. But it never came but instead, he punches the ground right next to my face. Just a few centimeters away as I felt my heart pumping furiously against my chest. I was frozen and shock that I never saw this side of Hamilton before. What was he doing for the past five years?  Breathing heavily due to fear as I saw this little gremlin giving me this smug smirk look on his face.
“Not so tough, now. Huh?” Hamilton taunted
Still, stunned by how Hamilton defeated me in a single boxing match in which I never knew how talented he is. Continuing lay down on the floor of the ring as the immigrant was wiping the sweats of his face and drinking from his water bottle. Slowly getting back onto my feet as Alexander has his boxing gloves hanging around his neck. Nearly limping over him as I sat next to this nonhuman being that I just dealt with in one single boxing match. I mean I didn’t know he has that in him. Apparently, he should be a full-time boxer instead of a part-time. Then again he has his bakery to think, so yeah ain’t happening any time soon.
“You good, Thomas?” Hamilton asks
“Yea....just shock” I inquired
Hamilton chuckles a bit before getting a phone call from what I assume is one of his kids. Answering his phone which the conversation took about five minutes or less. Having a genuine smile on his face while telling all his children that he loves them. I could tell that this man loves his children more than anything in this life. Having to raise all eight children by himself with the help from Peggy, Mulligan, Lafayette, and his brother which I didn’t know he had. But anyway, I witness him smiling at the pictures of all his children. The way his eyes sparkle like stars glimmer from the night skies. I never saw any father more proud of their children and cherish them in my entire life.
“You really love your kids, huh Hamilton” I question
Hamilton nodded before heading up to one of the punching bags but beating the shit out of it. He has forgotten to mention me in the freaking last minute. He does kickboxing as well cause I saw him during an intense roundhouse kick. Just hearing his leg pounding against the leather of the punching bag. It just scared the shit out of me. At least, I learn not to piss him off ever again but I’m scared to know if someone dares to mess or threaten his children. Another thing to add to my list of not dying. I hate to say it, but Alexander is a great father toward his kids. I see the way they would hug him, laugh with him, but also bond with him. I wonder if him becoming a boxer is one of the reasons why does for his kids.
“No, that not the reason why I did boxing” Hamilton proclaim
Nearly jumping out of skin wondering if either this man is a psychic or I was thinking out loud. But anyway, might as well ask to see where this conversation will go.  
“Then why did do start boxing?” I ask
Before giving the punching bag one last time with no mercy might I add. Sighing of what I assume is either stress or regrets.
“I started boxing when I return home in Nevis. At first, it was a hobby but it was more for me to use as a self-defense tactic. You know in case I needed to protect either myself or my children. They were so young and helpless. Without a mother to care for them or love them. I took up both role as a mother and father. Boxing is a big thing in the Caribbean since you can earn yourself a loan of money if you become pro. But I didn’t want that...instead, I took up a few underground boxing matches” Hamilton paraphrase
“What?! You did illegal boxing matches. You do realize that you could’ve gone to jail...shit maybe even prison!!” I scolded
“You don’t think I know that!! I have done everything I could to bring food on the table. Clothes, shoes, house supplies just for my children. I will and still would sacrifice everything to my children. Either I win or lose I got my fair share of a few hundred dollars. It may not seem much to others. But for me...it was worth it. A single black eye...I got into a fist fight while working “security” at a small office. A bloody nose or a cut on the cheek. Nearly got jump by “gang members” but we handle them. Many nights I would lie to my children about the money, my wounds, and everything else”
Tears were flooding down his face by quickly wiped them away while I sit there in shock. This man...whom I consider my enemy since high school and college. Wasn’t the same man I knew from all those years ago. He wasn’t the same man that used to be loud, obnoxious, and carefree...anymore. He was a single father of eight kids. Have to take a job in order to get money off what people would normally call it dirty money. Have to lie and assure his children that he was fine while secretly working as a full-time boxer at the Caribbean in order to have money the next day. I could never be strong as Hamilton did for his children. I can’t imagine having to lie not only to yourself but also your children that depended on you as a role model. But yet, he made sacrifices that could’ve put him in prison for a lifetime. Yet, he continues it out of regret but also loves for his children.
Gently patting him on the shoulder comforting these man at the moment. I never realize...apparently not any of his friends or his in-laws ever knew about this. I assume he was afraid of being judged or be disgusted by his actions. I wouldn’t blame him if I've done the same thing for my daughter. Anyone could be judged for the simplest things especially if things that aren’t accepted within society. But there are sacrifices that many parents, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, and cousins aren’t proud of. In the end, we move on with our future and put the past behind us.
Hope y’all enjoy it 
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