#like need i remind you that the entire fucking reason the court is stacked with those fascists

[legionofcrows]

"telling people to 'vote' after the scotus decision is released isn't helpful right now" and "implying/promoting the idea that voting is useless is a stupid af move" are two ideas that really need to coexist in American politics

[shedobewritingalittle]

Not A Team-Part 1: The Start

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: The Reader tries to live a normal life, but her memories won’t leave her alone. Rhodey comes to visit the reader with a proposition.

Rating: T

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Talks of death, talks of mental illness, mentions of feeling alone

Four Months Ago

"Y/N, do you think you can tell me why you're here?" The female therapist asks, clicking her one before setting it down on her notepad. The ex-hero shifts on the charcoal grey couch, wanting to be anywhere but here. While she knows that the room should be sort of calming, but it has the directly opposite affect on Y/N. Her stomach is twisting in knots and she feels like her breakfast is going to come up.

"I was told I had to come here." Y/N replies, looking down at her chipping burgundy nail polish. There was hardly any color left on her nails, but what was left was stubbornly holding on, a constant reminder of what she had painted them for.

"Yes, but why were you told to come here?" The doctor-whose name was escaping Y/N at the moment-pushes, shifting in her own seat. Y/N continues to stay silent, which makes the therapist sigh, "Look Y/N, you have to be here. The only way you are able to get out of this is when I am able to determine that you aren't a danger to yourself or others. The government needs to know that you are okay. It's apart of the Acco-"

"I-I messed up. I messed up bad." Y/N cuts her off, wanting to get this all over as quickly as possible.

It's the understatement of the century.  I messed up bad. That's what you say when you crash your car or get too drunk and text your ex. "Messing up bad" doesn't land you in court mandated therapy. No, Y/N hadn't "messed up bad", but she couldn't say what she had actually done. Even if she couldn't get the words out of her mouth, she was well aware if she had done. The smell of burning flesh used to be something she would wear like a perfume. Now it threatens to invade her nose, forcing her to go back to that night. Y/N tries her best to ignore it, but it's so hard to forget a smell like that.

"And when you say mess up-"

"I used my powers and people got hurt." Y/N answers, her hands getting hot. She glances down, trying to will away the heat and the fire that will surely follow. The therapist writes down a few more notes. Y/N finds herself hating the way the pen scratches at the paper, the sound almost deafening.

"Is it hard to control your powers?" The doctor asks, to which Y/N immediately shakes her head. She looks back up at the therapist, clasping her hands tightly together. Y/N is trying to look as normal and okay as possible, hoping that the therapist believes her little act.

"No. It-They're just slightly influenced by my emotions and I was just really emotional that day." Y/N replies as she feels the heat move away from her hands. She shifts on the couch, hating the attention she's getting right now, hating the way the therapist's eyes seem to notice every little movement and thought. The therapist writes that down, nodding.

"Why were you so emotional, Y/N?" The woman questions. The ex-Avenger looks back down at her hands, her wedding ring shimmers in the light that's streaming through the windows. Just seeing it makes her stomach sink, her throat tightening with that same emotion.

-

Now

Y/N has always hated silence.

It's the reason why she loved being in the city so much. It was constantly awake. There was never a moment of silence, no the city was always screaming and shouting. Y/N had welcomed the sound with open arms. Even when the Avengers moved out of the city and went upstate, it was still loud. Everyone kept different hours, everyone had different tasks so the base was never completely quiet. Life on the run with Steve, Sam, Wanda, and Nat wasn't quiet either. The five of them were a family, always constantly talking and bickering.

But now, she lived alone.

It was raining out today. The incessant pounding of the water droplets against the roof and the ground outside provided a much needed melody as Y/N moved around the house. Boxes still littered the rooms, precariously stacked on top of each other. She's been leaving here for a while, but some boxes she can't bring herself to unpack. For example, the large one in the middle of the living room that was labeled "WEDDING DRESS + BOUQUET" was now being used as an impromptu side table. Another one that was shoved into the second bedroom had "PICTURES FROM COMPOUND" scrawled on the side in sharpie. She doesn't think she'll ever open that one, not knowing how she handle all of those memories.

Y/N forces herself to pick up one of the boxes in the kitchen, this one labeled "WINTER CLOTHES". Usually, she would be outside tending to the garden (her therapist had told her that she needed a hobby to keep herself busy) or doing small tasks that needed to be done. However, because of the rain she was stuck inside with all the boxes that she had yet to unpack. The box is heavy, most of the weight most likely coming from her bulky winter coats.

Y/N had left the city she had loved so much, packing up her life to move to a small little house upstate. The city didn't feel like home anymore. Living in Steve's apartment without him felt wrong. It had never felt like home, didn't feel like she belonged there. They never lived at the apartment together, they didn't share any memories here. No, this place was all Steve. She was constantly surrounded by Steve-his things, his memory, his smell. It was suffocating, being surrounded by a man that had abandoned you.

Five years she was gone. Five years he had grieved and mourned over her and then-almost immediately when Y/N came back, Steve decided he didn't want to stay with her. He didn't tell her what he was going to do. Maybe he knew that if he had, she would've tried to talk him out of it. Y/N knows that she would've begged for him to stay with her. She was a. proud woman, but she wasn't proud enough to beg.

She had expected him to come back to her. Y/N thought he was going to return the stones and come back. She had thought they were going to be able to continue where they had left off, they were going to able to be together after all this time. They were finally going to be able to settle down and start that family that Steve had always hinted at. Get a house with a white picket fence and get a cute little dog. The fucking American Dream.

And then he had came back as an old man, with a gold wedding band that she hadn't given him on his finger. Steve gave Sam his shield and his legacy, no longer able to carry the mantle of Captain America. And Y/N-well Y/N's world just crumbled around her, her dreams shattering because Steve decided that he was going to move on.

She still loved him, she even still loves him now. It was impossible not to love him, even though he had left her behind. Y/N tried her best to hate him-told herself that Steve had betrayed her and that he didn't want her. She tried to tell herself that Steve didn't even love her, because if he had loved her why would he be so willing to abandon her, especially after he had just got her back? It didn't matter how much he hurt her or what he did to her, Y/N's heart would always belong to Steve whether she liked it or not.

Feeling incredibly conflicted, Y/N had forced herself to stay her by husband's side as he got sick. She didn't ask for an apology, even as Steve told her over and over that he was incredibly sorry for what he did. Y/N knew that he wasn't actually sorry because if he was actually sorry, he wouldn't have lived an entire life with Peggy. She wouldn't tell him how hurt she was or how looking at her wedding ring made her feel sick now. No, Y/N had played the role of the dutiful wife. She held his hand as his condition worsened and made sure his affairs were in order. Her feelings didn't matter as she tried to make his last days more comfortable.

And then he died.

Steve died, leaving her behind. She didn't dare talk about what had happened, what he had put her through. Y/N, even with all of the bullshit he had put her through, didn't want to tarnish his legacy. Steve Rogers was a hero and she wasn't going to be the one that ruined that for everyone. Even Sam tried to ask her if she was okay and she had just brushed it off, telling him that she was glad that Steve had picked him to carry on the legacy attached to the shield he had received.

Y/N had tried to carry on after Steve was buried, but it was hard. She was dropped into a world where all of her friends were gone, a world that had moved on without her. It was a world that she didn't belong in and she knew it. Y/N tried her best to return to normal, but she quickly learned that there was no such thing as the normal she was used to. Everything felt wrong, felt off in some minuscule way that made her unable to adapt to regular life again.

Y/N just kept bottling up her emotions, the pressure continuing to build up as the days went on. She was drowning it and there was no life preserver in sight. Everyone else went back to normal, going back to school or getting a job or finding ways to get busy. Y/N knows that she should've gotten help, that she should've tried talking to someone, but she didn't. Maybe a part of her didn't want to admit there actually was a problem, that Steve hadn't been the perfect husband and she felt abandoned by the man she married.

And that had led to her completely losing it.

Y/N would later be told that it was a nervous breakdown. A nervous breakdown. She felt-and still feels-like that name wasn’t what she experienced. It was so much more than just a nervous breakdown.

It had led to innocent people getting hurt, people that hadn't cause her pain, people that were most likely suffering just as much as she was. Her emotions were just too high and her powers-her powers decided to act on her impulses and her feelings. She had just been so God damn angry at Steve-

Y/N has to drop the box she was holding, her hands growing hot. She mutters curse words as she hears what sounds like glass shattering inside the box as she forces herself to calm down. She does the breathing exercise that the therapist had told her to do, attempting to rein in her emotions. Her eyes shut, breathing in through her nose, and out through her mouth. Y/N tries to pull the heat back inside of her, but it just won't go back in.

Her heart is beating fast in her chest as she quickly moves back into the living room, her feet carrying her to the front door. Her bright red hand grabs ahold of the doorknob, throwing the door open.

The rain is much louder now, making it almost hard to see with how much is coming down. It hits the ground violently, a cold wind trying its best to cool Y/N off, to no avail.

She quickly walked down the steps of the porch as the heat crawled up her arms, her temperature rising. Y/N knows she won't have the time to take off her clothes and she also knows that she's gone past the point of attempting to rein her powers in. Her hands catch first, bright yellow and orange flames quickly covering her skin, coating them until no skin remained.

The flame crawls over her body, burning away  her clothes before the flames take over her entire body. The rain turns into steam as soon as it hits her fire covered body, a cloud surrounding her. Y/N feels more relaxed as the flame licks at her skin, covering her from head to toe. It's easier to calm down after she does this, getting some of those stronger feelings released in order to return back to normal.

-

Hours later while she is in the middle of cooking, someone knocks on her door. Y/N sighs softly, putting her slotted spoon back down on the counter, quickly wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She makes her way to the front door, not bothering to look through the peephole before she opens the door.

Rhodey stands before her, dressed in far more causal clothing that he usually is in. Y/N's eyes are immediately drawn to the thick manila folder in clutched tightly in his hands. He gives her a small smile. Y/N knows that he isn't just here to visit. No one ever comes to visit.

"Hey." Rhodey says gently, almost as if he's testing the waters. They haven't seen each other in a few months, not since the events that had led her to moving all the way out of here, not since she got out of the psych ward she had voluntarily gone to after her accident. Voluntarily is the wrong word here. The US Government had all but strong armed her into going.

"Hi. Uh-Here, come in. It's cold out." Y/N responds, opening the door a little wider. Rhodey's smile grows as he steps inside. He stops for a moment, looking around at her home. It's small, almost more of a cottage than an actual home. He takes note of the lack of any personal items, no pictures out on display, no tchotchkes. Boxes still litter the living room even though she's lived here for a few months.

"It looks good. Real cozy." Rhodey comments as Y/N shuts the door. She nods, giving him a polite smile as she moves past him to go back into the kitchen.

"Why'd you come by? I know it isn't for dinner." Y/N cuts straight to the point. She doesn't even bother looking at him as she checks to see if her pasta is ready. Rhodey's smile falters for a moment while she strains the pasta. He clears his throat, quickly regaining his composure.

"I-Well I stopped by because I wanted to talk to you about something." Rhodey walks into her kitchen, leaning against the counter as she pours the pasta back into the now empty pot. Y/N holds out her hand for the folder, which he immediately hands over. She flicks through it, seeing the plans for an exhibit honoring her husband. Rhodey shifts slightly as he sees her eyebrows knit together. As she goes through the pictures, she can see that it wasn't in the preplanning phase. They had their exhibit ready, all done up with a fresh paint job.

She's seen the exhibit before. Y/N had teased Steve constantly over it, thinking it was the funniest thing that he had a whole exhibit dedicated to him, a man who couldn't even use a cell phone. Steve told her once that he didn't mind the teasing, told her that it was one of his favorite things about her.

But that was then and this is now.

"The Smithsonian wants to expand their exhibit on Steve. I don't exactly see why this has anything to do with me." Y/N's eyes catch on a picture of her and Steve at their wedding, big stupid smiles stretched across their faces. The page notes possibly names for this part of the exhibit, all of them making that emotion crawl up into her throat.

"They want you to speak at the opening. You and Sam." Rhodey answers, watching as her face drops. Y/N closes the folder, still looking down at it. The papers suddenly feels like they're a million pounds, weighed down so many memories. For a second, Rhodey gets his hopes up, thinking that she is actually considering it.

"Get someone else to do it." Y/N tells him, handing the folder back over to the man. Her voice is a lot colder than it was before and her friend could practically see Y/N building her walls back up. Rhodey sighs, holding it for a moment before setting it down on the counter.

"They want people who knew him, Y/N."

"Then get someone else because I sure as hell didn't." She snaps, the fire on the stove growing. Y/N quickly shuts off the burners, shaking her head, "Ask Barnes, ask literally anyone else."

Rhodey opens his mouth before shutting it. He didn't know how to respond. He knew that his friend was upset, but as soon as Steve did what he did, she had shut herself off. Rhodey had tried and tried to get through to her and after what she had did...Rhodey knew she was going through a lot and that Y/N wouldn't tell him or anyone else how she was feeling. She just wasn't that type of person, never has been.

Y/N swallows the lump in her throat that threaten to swell up, serving Rhodey a plate full of food without him asking if he wants one. She ignores all the memories that flash in her mind, trying to keep it together. She hands the plate to Rhodey without saying a single word before serving herself . Y/N grabs them both drinks and napkins, moving around the kitchen in complete silence. They both sit down at her little table, the only sounds being the two of them breathing and their forks hitting their plates.

"How are you doing?" Rhodey breaks the silence, looking across at her. Y/N pushes her food around her plate, shrugging her shoulders.

"Doing better. I go to therapy once a week like I'm supposed to. It's-It's a lot easier to breathe out here." She replies, setting her fork down. Rhodey gives her a small smile.

"I'm glad you're doing better. I'm sorry I haven't been checking in on you. I know you wanted space and some time." He says softly, to which Y/N shakes her head, taking a sip of her drink. She knew that Rhodey felt guilty over her situation, but the man has enough on his plate. He doesn't need to adding 'taking care of Y/N' to his long list of tasks.

"You've been busy. There's a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done and you shouldn't have to be checking in on me." She looks up at him attempting to give him some peace of mind, "I'm doing better, I promise."

It wasn't the biggest lie she's ever told. She was doing better, but she still wasn't herself. Although, Y/N didn't know if she could ever return to being herself pre-Blip. Before all of this shit, she had Steve to lean on. Now...well now she didn't have anyone, and she didn't want to burden any of her friends with her issues. They had their own shit they were going through. They didn't need to deal with hers.

Later on, long after dinner had finished and the rain decided that it was done working for the day, Rhodey stood up from his spot on the couch. Y/N smiled warmly at him, walking with him to the front door. When they step outside onto the porch, the night air is cool and calm, the lovely smell of rain surrounding them.

"Y/N, I just wanted to say that I didn't want to ask you. I know-I know you're still healing. They told me I had to ask, but I didn't want to. I just want you to know that." Rhodey suddenly announces, turning towards her. Both of them were barely illuminated by the porch lights and the light spilling out from her front door. Y/N nodded, that lump in her throat returning.

"I know. I know, Rhodey." She replies, her voice cracking slightly. Y/N stands there for a moment, both of them looking at each other before she decides to throw her arms round him. Her friend is a little surprised by the action, but hugs her back happily. Y/N shuts her eyes for moment, resting her chin on his shoulder. He rubs her back soothingly, wondering if this is the first hug she's had since Steve's funeral. They pull part, once again looking at each other.

"You take care of yourself okay? I'm going to try to come and visit more, but I need to take care of yourself." Rhodey tells her, giving her a kind smile, "And don't be afraid to text, okay? You can tell me about anything, it doesn't even have to be important."

"I'll be sure to text you all about the growth of my sunflowers and whether or not I am capable of fixing a sink." She teases, which makes the man laugh.

"That's all I ask. It was nice seeing you Y/N." Rhodey tells her, making his way down the steps of his porch. Y/N leans against one of the posts, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It was nice seeing you too." Y/N responds as she watches him walk over to his car. He gives her a small wave before climbing inside. She stays on the porch until he drives away, not moving until she can no longer see his tail lights.

Y/N relaxes her shoulders, sighing softly as she turns on her heel and walks back inside. The ex-hero shuts and locks her door. She walks back into the kitchen, gathering the discarded and used plates. As she is putting them in the sink, her eyes land on the manila folder resting on the counter.

Y/N knows that Rhodey most likely deliberately left it behind. She reaches out and picks it up again, a picture slipping out and falling into the floor. Y/N bends over to grab it, holding it gently between her thumb and forefinger. She flips it over, being greeted with the sight of her husband smiling back at her. Y/N knows the picture well-it's one she took.

She finds herself smiling back at him, her finger tracing over the image. She took it after a mission. Steve's hair is a mess from his helmet, his face dirty and he has a split lip. The shield is propped up in the seat beside him and he's just smiling at her. He looks incredibly tired, but he's still smiling at her. This is the Steve she fell in love with, the Steve that had promised to give the world. The one she had seen herself raising a family with.

Y/N leans against the counter, resting the photograph beside the open folder. She flicks through it again, her eyes studying the exhibit dedicated to her and her relationship with Steve Rogers. 'Two Heroes United' was the name they ended up on. It makes tears brim in her eyes as she looks over all of the pictures that make up this part of the exhibit. While normally she didn't like sharing her personal relationships with the world, this felt okay somehow, it felt almost cathartic.

She shuts the folder, taking another glance at it. Her finger traces the embossed Smithsonian logo on the cover of it. If she did it, she wouldn't be doing it alone. If Sam could do it, it couldn't be that bad.

Right?

[wildfey]

Anon from yesterday back again! About the set-up, a post on twitter explained the theory much better and I gotta look up the name. The gist is that Phoenix could've proved that he was set up. He did not have the time to have a forgery done since he got the job for defending Zak only the day before. Plus the money. Instead, there is no evidence at all he even tried. Why? Because he'd seen the courts' corruption before and decided it didn't matter anymore, plus too dangerous.

(continued) You could even point at his reply to the Judge's words and wonder if Phoenix has nothing to say because he knows it's useless to argue. Hidden powers have already decided that they will attack him and try to drag him down.

okay, okay, hello again anon, good to see you back with another excellent ask.

I always think that there are two ways to look at Phoenix's disbarment:

a) that the problem was straight-up with bringing forged evidence into court, no matter what the circumstances were.

b) that the problem was that Phoenix was assumed to have created the forged evidence and bought it into court intentionally.

Ace Attorney really flips around on which of these is true in universe (it's a plot point to some extent in 1-5, 3-3, 4-1, and 4-4) but considering that Phoenix gets his badge back almost immediately after it's proved that the second wasn't the case, I'm going to assume that presenting forged evidence accidentally is either not an issue or less of an issue. This tends to be the fanon majority stance too. (It's worth noting that Edgeworth is implied to have pulled some strings irt getting Phoenix's badge back. Ymmv and so on.)

With our framework safely in place, the question arises: If Phoenix could have avoided punishment, or at least public shaming, by revealing the set-up, why wouldn't he? As you point out, the forgery doesn't make sense once you start to look into it and we know that Phoenix did put a lot of these pieces together. Hell, he could have made these arguments when Misham testified during the Gramarye trial. But he doesn't. (Warning: this is a more headcanon-y meta than my last one, because the 7yg is... a gap and we have very little concrete info on what the fuck Phoenix was up to. He got a kid, worked on jury trials, played good poker + bad piano, and had some sort of frenemyship with Kristoph. That's pretty much all we've got).

Firstly: Corruption. The AA court system is ridiculously corrupt, and at the point that Phoenix is disbarred, he becomes emblematic of this - he's a man with a history of revealing injustice - notably Von Karma & Gant, but even without them he still won some high profile cases - and once he's disbarred, it's implied that the narrative is flipped, turning him into a figurehead for that which he fought against (dark age of the law, etc). The obvious conclusion is that his disbarment was a convenient way to discredit him - powerful and corrupt figures (and in AA there are many) don't need to fear Phoenix Wright if he isn't a lawyer and his reputation is ruined. The counter argument is that Phoenix... has always done some questionable things with evidence (1-5, 2-4, and 3-3 stand out to me). But no more so than anyone else in this fucked-up universe. Either way, Phoenix has always worked in a system stacked against him, and it's very possible that he suspected there to be manoevering behind the scenes (and there was! We know Kristoph existed and was purposefully working against Phoenix.) HOWEVER, I don't believe that any of this would stop him on it's own, because it's been long established that Phoenix Wright does not give a shit about bad odds.

So, what would make him accept it? Anon, you mention danger in your ask, and I do see that as partially true - Phoenix isn't concerned about danger to himself, but he has a kid to care for. I would say, however, that especially when we come to Kristoph, as much of a bastard as he is, Phoenix had no evidence that he could be violent to the point of murder until 4-1. Before that, his influence was long-distance life ruining, rather than active threat (though long-distance life ruining is pretty scary on its own when you're raising a small child with low funds). I do see that as a cause, but one of many, and this is the point where I'd like to go back to the conversation on motivation.

I am going to make the argument here, as I did in the other answer, that Phoenix, in the 7yg and possibly elsewhere, is depressed, and that one symptom of that is a loss of motivation. It's implied by the game itself, and makes more sense than most of the alternatives.

(I won't get too personal, but the years of my life where I dressed like this... not good years lol)

My headcanon has always been that by the point that Phoenix had sorted out his guardianship of Trucy and got himself out of that initial low that came from having his life ruined, it was too late to fix his disbarment and he had to change tracks, and that's when he became interested in MASON. (Not to self-promote, but I'm realising that a lot of what I've said here is rephrased ideas from The Path Once So Clear, so if you want 15,000-ish words on the subject, it's there). Of course, when talking about Phoenix's 7yg depression, I think it's also important to mention that Phoenix in AA4 is very much implied to be putting on an act (which is pretty common in AA4 in general. Most characters in that game have both a public and private face). Being 'Beanix' - eg. the piano/poker player with no prospects who works in a shitty restaurant and takes nothing seriously - is a convenient cover while he works on the things that he doesn't want to be targeted for (and here we come back to the corruption angle).

As to how far the depression helps that act... well, that could be a whole conversation on its own. Once again, I'm very much coming into headcanon here, but I'm reminded of the phenomenon where someone with depression will deliberately exacerbate it, either as a form of self-harm or as some attempt to fit a role (artists are especially prone, due to the 'depressed artist' stereotype. I see it most in the emo scene). Beanix has always seemed to me as someone who is deliberately messing up his own life - he repeatedly provokes Apollo, essentially sabotaging their relationship, he puts himself into dangerous situations for no real reason (this is a general Phoenix trait), and despite the fact that we KNOW Maya and Edgeworth were supportive of him during this period, we never actually see them around, presumably because he's keeping them at a distance. How much of this is for the act, and how much is real?

Again, we've come very much off topic (whoops) but I see a lot of this as another aspect of Phoenix's low self worth - is there a difference between the image he projects of a man who has given up due to being disbarred, and the real Phoenix who is still actively working behind the scenes but is very obviously not doing well because he can't 'save people' - the thing which so much of his identity relies upon? I think there is, but I also think the image too often becomes the reality, and AA4 does carry this underlying theme of how wearing these masks of a public persona can affect your 'true self'.

As always, I genuinely love to see other people's takes on this, either in the tags, in reblogs, or via asks. This one is very headcanon-y, and I know there some entirely different perspectives out there, some of which I really like. (Also this one got to be heavy. Look after yourselves guys.)

[laurenairay]

Take a Chance - D. Hamilton

Word Count: 12.7k

Summary: Ashley Miller is a Sunday-morning regular at her local coffee shop. Dougie Hamilton is the associate art curator who catches her eye.

Warnings: coffee shop au, some bad language, a lot of cute fluff, anxiety

A/N: This is my @hockeynetwork​ winter gift exchange fic for @huttons​! I had a lot of fun researching & creating this fic gift, and I tried to incorporate all of the preferences you stated and that we discussed. This is very self-indulgent too, definitely the longest thing I’ve written on here, and I’m not going to go into the very niche research rabbit holes I fell down! Bringing this OC to life made me so happy, and I had a blast incorporating the coffee shop au element. I hope you enjoy this! 💚

Also tagging @danglesnipecelly​, @texanstarslove​ and @itsbadgerbadgermushroom​ because they all listened to me stress while writing hah.

*

“Large latte for Ashley!”

Ashley Miller looked up from her laptop, smiling at her favourite barista at the counter. She got up from her table, leaving her laptop and scone briefly as she collected her drink, before heading back to her seat. Sunday mornings were the same every week – arrive at Storm Surge coffee shop when they opened at 7am, park herself at a table in the back corner, and consume a steady flow of coffee as she worked. Sure, her work might vary – teaching Medieval History at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill meant her lesson topics were all over the spectrum – but she just found that everything from writing notes for her classes that week to marking essays at the end of the semester became easier if she had the thrum of the coffee shop around her.

That, and she knew she’d just spend her entire weekend burrowed in her house if she didn’t get out.

Having moved to Raleigh 6 years ago to undertake her PhD, Ashley had accepted a teaching job at the very same university she’d studied at when she’d completed her studies a year ago, and she hadn’t looked back since. There was just something about Raleigh that she had fallen in love with, only a 30 minute drive away from her workplace, something that had spoken to her very soul, and actually being able to pass on knowledge about the subject that she was so passionate about made her so incredibly happy. Sure, her parents had never understood her love for 11th to 13th century European history (nor anyone else from her small town in South Dakota) but Ashley had never cared about that – New York had given her the opportunity to grow as a person during her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, but Raleigh had given her the opportunity to thrive.

And she would forever be grateful for that.

Sundays though…Sundays were something she cherished. This independent coffee shop had been a blessing when she’d found it early on in her PhD research, and they had never complained about her taking up a table for essentially the whole day (and she did pay for each of the many coffees she consumed). Baristas and bakers had come and gone over the past 6 years, but there were a couple that had stuck around recently - and a year ago when she officially became ‘Dr Ashley Miller’, her favourite barista Andrei had even given her a piece of chocolate cake on the house to celebrate. Storm Surge coffee shop was a home away from home.

Of course, there was another reason that Sunday coffee shop time was one of her favourite things in her week…

Tall Cute Guy.

He was a regular every Sunday morning, and had been for the past year - three Sundays a month he would order a mocha and an americano to go, but one Sunday a month he would come in an hour earlier and order just an americano, and drink it in the shop instead while reading an old paperback book. Every single time, like clockwork.

Okay, yes, that sounded a little stalkerish. But he was so cute. Ashley pretty much always had her earphones in playing music so she had never caught his name, but his blonde curls, pretty blue eyes and warm smile had caught her eye straight away. And he was so tall, she couldn’t have missed him if she’d tried. She’d never spoken to him, never even said hi in passing, but occasionally she would link eyes with him and he would smile at her. And that smile was enough to send her heart fluttering. Ridiculous really, but it brought her a little joy.

What was the harm in smiling back at a cute guy every now and again, right?

*

Dougie Hamilton walked into the North Carolina Museum of Art with a smile on his face. To be honest, it could’ve been for a multitude of reasons. His career was finally heading upwards, having moved museums to become Associate Curator of European Art a couple of years ago, and he loved his work. He had recently renovated his kitchen, which was now looking pretty sleek and awesome, if he did say so himself. His colleagues had genuinely become some of his closest friends, and he had a standing monthly poker night with several of them. But his smile today wasn’t because of any of that.

No, his smile today was because it was Sunday morning, and he’d just picked up his regular coffee order for him and his boss.

Speaking of…

“So, did you finally talk to your coffee shop crush, or did you just awkwardly stare at her like a weirdo again?”

“Oh fuck off,” Dougie grumbled, feeling his cheeks heat up in a fierce blush as his boss Jordie’s words.

It was far too early for this – he’d only just walked into their shared office for fuck’s sake! Jordie just hooted laughter at his embarrassment as he took his mocha from Dougie, making Dougie groan. “One day you’re going to have to talk to her, man. It’s just getting sad now,” Jordie teased.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t we have a museum to open?” Dougie scowled.

Jordie just beamed even more, wiggling his eyebrows as he left their office. Dougie groaned again, running his hands through is unruly hair before he sighed. Coffee shop crush. Hah. Jordie wasn’t wrong though. Not really. His crush…Mystery Laptop Woman…was one of the reasons he always volunteered to pick the two of them up coffee before the museum opened up on a Sunday morning. Jordie had come along with him only once to pick up their coffee, about 6 months ago, and ever since then he hadn’t let Dougie’s shy smile at her go. Of course, Dougie barely knew anything about her – only that she was always in early on a Sunday, always completely consumed by her work, and she had such a super cute concentration face, whatever it is that she worked on. He could never quite tell – sometimes she had a book or two with her, sometimes it was a stack of papers – but he knew for sure that she appeared to mainline coffee like a pro. Probably some kind of teacher?

He’d certainly never had a teacher that beautiful, that was for sure.

Her long dark hair was always down and always a little messy, like she ran her hands through it often (which she did, he’d noticed). Her warm hazel eyes were hidden behind tortoiseshell glasses, and her lips were always coloured in varying shades of dark pink and red. He’d only seen her standing a couple of times, but he’d caught enough of a glimpse of her long legs to have some very inappropriate thoughts. She just looked so kind, so friendly…and so beautiful. Dougie had never been able to catch her name though – she’d always had a full coffee or at least half a coffee left whenever he was in the shop, so he couldn’t even find out sneakily that way. But whoever she was, whatever she did, when he occasionally got lucky enough for her to look at him, her smile made his entire body light up like a fireworks show. It was a bit pathetic really, how much just a smile from her made his entire day, but he was a year into it now and he wasn’t going to stop that for anything. He had a great career, some great friends, and a pretty great life, even if he was tragically single.

What was the harm in smiling at a beautiful woman whenever he got the chance, right?

*

“Alright, we’ve nearly run out of time now, but just one final thing I want you to think about for Monday’s love in the middle ages class,”

On cue, her students groaned, making Ashley grin.

“Hey, I’m giving you a head’s up here – I could just let you walk into our general lecture blind?” she shrugged, teasing.

That got her a few laughs at least. She’d take that.

“Okay, so we know through our focus on the Medieval Expansion of Europe that one of the biggest tales about Eleanor of Aquitaine in the latter half of the 1100s was of her role in the courts of love. What I want you all to look into is whether these courts of love have the possibility of being a real thing, or whether they feed into the chivalric notions of her contemporaries and were fabricated from the courtly love dynamics of knights and maidens. Just to give us some talking points, okay?”

Her students murmured their agreement, with most of them writing down a reminder. That would have to be good enough for her. At least this way, hopefully someone would discuss the talking points with her in class – she’d found out the hard way last year that there was nothing worse for a university professor than completely uninterested students. She needed something to feed off.

“Alright then, class dismissed. Have a great weekend everyone!”

Ashley moved to her laptop, switching off the projected powerpoint presentation as her students filed out of the classroom, but jumped in shock slightly as she noticed the head of her department sitting in the back corner. How long had he been there?! What was he doing there in the first place? She just hoped her smile didn’t look as nervous as she felt, as he walked up to the front of the room.

Rod Brind’Amour was a legend in the History department for a good reason. His knowledge of military history pre-1800s was unmatched by anyone, but it was his research on the first and second crusades that had inspired Ashley through much of her PhD. Sure, he wasn’t her direct supervisor, but their work interlinked enough that she’d spent many office hours with him debating the second crusade with fervour. For such a big man, he was such a nerd, and he’d made her feel so welcome as soon as he offered her the teaching position at the end of her PhD, with the promise that she would be able to continue her research to inspire future minds. She had been so moved by his words that she hadn’t hesitated to accept the job. How could she not, when someone of his calibre believed in her?

One year in, she wasn’t regretting it at all

“Very smart, setting up some talking points for Monday’s class. I’m so glad I volunteered you to run this year’s Love in the Middle Ages lectures. You’re much better at them than I was,” Rod mused.

Ashley snorted, rolling her eyes playfully. Oh thank god. It’s true that this seminar was one part of the large mandatory Medieval and Early Modern Studies course…but it suited her perfectly.

“That’s because my research focuses on Medieval Queens and the exchange of power they brought to their marriage countries, whereas yours is the effect of each of the crusades through military history. Bleurgh,” she snickered, “Linking today’s Medieval Expansion of Europe class with the generic Love in the Middle Ages lectures on Mondays is just easy,”

“Speak for yourself,” Rod laughed, “give me military tactics any day,”

Ashley just grinned. Some things never changed. “Was there anything you wanted in particular?” she asked, packing up her laptop into its case.

“Just wanted to check in with you, in general,” Rod shrugged, sitting down on the edge of her desk.

Ashley couldn’t help but smile at the thoughtfulness. “I’m doing okay yeah, thanks. Last year’s first semester was more of a struggle for sure, but I don’t have that transition from PhD student and TA to full teaching this time round. I’ve definitely settled in quicker – and this batch of freshman feel a lot more engaged already,”

“That’s good! It definitely shows that you’re handling things well,” Rod nodded, smiling back at her, “But I meant in your life outside of the university too,”

Ashley frowned. What? “What do you mean?” she asked, confused.

Rod laughed softly at her expression. “I know last year you were trying to find your stride, but this year you’ve already got it, so I’m just checking that you’ve got things balanced outside of work too. It’s far too easy to make teaching your entire life – and I don’t want you to burn out,” Rod explained. “I value you here too much for that,”

Ashley’s heart melted a little at his concern, but she just shook his head. “I may not have much going on for me outside of work, but I do get out. I spend my Sundays in a local coffee shop,” she admitted.

Her mind briefly flashed to Tall Cute Guy, but she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind before she started blushing. So not appropriate for work.

Rod frowned slightly, but nodded. “At least you’re getting out of the house. Just promise me you’ll work on finding time for yourself too?”

“I promise,” Ashley nodded, “I intend to be here for a long time, so I definitely don’t want to burn out,”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Rod grinned, “I’d better get going – see you at the faculty meeting later?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ashley grimaced.

Rod just laughed at her disgruntled face, lifting his hand in a wave as he left the room. As she packed the rest of her belongings, Ashley couldn’t help but to think over Rod’s words. Was she in danger of a burn-out? Surely not, so early on in her career? Maybe she did need more of a balance in her life…but how?

*

Another Sunday, another early morning. Sure, Ashley could give herself a lie in every now and again, but that would mean not being able to relax on her Sunday evening, to not have the chance to unwind and reset before the working week starts up again on Monday morning. Spending all weekend in her little 2 bed house wouldn’t do her any good, even as comforting as she’d made it.

Besides, Storm Surge coffee shop was such a part of her routine now, that it would feel wrong to not go in at her usual time. Seeing Andrei the morning barista, Marty the supervisor and Jaccob the baker (who occasionally popped his head out) always made her happy – and as Rod said only a couple of days ago, she needed to make sure she actually kept a balance in her life.

So, as always, just after 7am, Ashley walked through the coffee shop door. She’d skipped eating any breakfast this morning, intent on getting one of the shop’s amazing scones fresh out of the oven, and as soon as she spotted her favourite blueberry-lemon scones in the display, something in her chest settled. Yes, this was exactly why she came every week. This feeling of home.

“Good morning Ashley! Your usual latte?”

Ashley smiled at Andrei, nodding. “Yes please. And one of the blueberry-lemon scones!”

Andrei smiled even wider, if that was possible, and immediate set about inputting her order into the cash register. It was then that she noticed something new on Andrei’s nametag. A pink sparkly kitten sticky. Huh. That was new.

“Nice sticker,” she teased.

“Very sparkly, no? Marty gave it to me,” Andre nodded.

“Oh, Marty did huh?” Ashley grinned.

Interestingly, Andrei blushed. She knew she hadn’t been imagining things. The poor Russian guy just blushed harder, spluttering incoherently, until Ashley took pity on him. It wasn’t like she could be mean to Andrei – he was just too adorable.

“I think the sticker is really cute, Andrei. It was sweet of Marty to give it to you,” Ashley said with a fond smile.

“Thank you! I will tell Marty you like it,” Andrei beamed.

Bless him.

Andrei handed her a scone on a plate, allowing her to go to her usual table in the back corner, setting up her laptop while she waited for her coffee to be ready. She heard a door out the back open, and Andrei quickly slipped away, making her smile.

“AHHHHHHHHHH MR SVECHNIKOV!”

Marty. Ashley just giggled, shaking her head before putting her earphones in for her background music. Yeah, this coffee shop definitely felt like home.

She quickly got lost in writing her lecture notes, going off on tangents that she knew she’d have to rein in later when she edited. It was a full hour before she even looked away from her screen, only to see the shop busy and bustling, every single table full. What the hell? She looked over to see both Andrei and Marty working the counter, only confirming her suspicions that they really had gotten busy while she was lost in her thoughts. Wow. Full at 8am was a new one for sure. Maybe a convention of some kind?

And it was then that she saw Tall Cute Guy walk in. Today he was wearing a pretty blue sweater, bring out the beautiful blue in his eyes, making her smile on instinct. So cute. But then she noticed him being given just the one coffee…he was planning on drinking in, and there were no tables? No!

It made her heart clench to watch him looking around the coffee shop, becoming more and more disheartened…until he noticed her. Maybe, could she, yes. Ashley bit her bottom lip but tilted her head towards the empty chair at her table, earning the biggest smile. She actually did it. She actually offered him the chair at her table. Shit. Her heart started beating faster as he walked over, and she took her earphones out as he came to a stop next to her seat, looming over her.

“I, uh…do you mind if I sit with you?” he asked softly.

Huh. Such a gentle voice on such a big man. Yeah she could totally handle this.

“Please, go ahead,” Ashley nodding, smiling as she waved her hand to indicate, “it’s so busy in here today,”

Oh no. Was that too forward, acknowledging that they’re both regulars?

“Definitely busier than usual, eh?” he mused, “I’ll try not to disturb your work, I’ll only be here for about an hour,”

Ashley laughed, but shook her head. She was just glad he hadn’t been weirded-out by her acknowledgement. That would’ve been so awkward. Her stomach was filled with enough butterflies as it was. “You won’t disturb me, I promise. Sit as long as you like,”

He smiled widely at her, pulling out the chair opposite and sitting down, Ashley just quickly shuffling her papers out of the way for him. He nodded his thanks at her, pulling a paperback book out of his satchel. Then he cleared his throat, so she looked up at him curiously.

“I’m Dougie, by the way,” he said, almost a little shy.

Dougie. That was a nice name. Oh, wow, she finally knew his name! Ashley couldn’t help but smile at him. “I’m Ashley,”

He smiled back at her. “It’s nice to meet you properly,” he said happily.

Ashley just laughed, nodding as she blushed lightly. To have him acknowledge their smiling-from-a-distance definitely sparked something inside of her. Nice to finally meet him indeed.

They sat in comfortable silence, Ashley typing up her tangent notes so far for the morning, and she couldn’t help the feeling of contentment that sat in her chest. The cute guy she’d been smiling at for a year was sitting at her table with her…and it wasn’t awkward at all. In fact, it was really quite nice. And he’d introduced himself!

No, cool it, keep calm Ashley. No-one got anywhere by acting like a giddy schoolgirl. Play it cool.

That promised hour flew by far too quickly. Every now and again she would glance up and find his eyes on her. Every now and again she would glance up only for him to look up and catching her looking. Every time she would blush. Every time he would send her a wonderful smile. But all too soon her table companion was standing up and putting his book in his bag.

“Um…”

Ashley looked up from her work at him, a smile naturally spreading across her face at his nervous expression. Why was he nervous?

“Yes, Dougie?” she said softly, smiling at a little more at finally getting to say his name.

Dougie. Dougie. Dougie.

“I’ll see you soon?” he said, almost hopefully.

“I’ll be here,” she nodded.

Oh god. Well that was stupid. Of course she’d be here. Why couldn’t she just act smoothly for once in her life?

But then Dougie smiled, such a happy little smile that it made her breath catch in her throat.

“Until next time then,” Dougie murmured, “Bye, Ashley,”

“Bye,” she breathed, watching him walk way.

Well, that could’ve been worse. What a Sunday.

*

Things felt different after that fateful Sunday. Dougie (she knew his name!) hadn’t sat down with her again, or even sat in the shop again yet, but now…now he always made a point of waving at her, waiting until she had waved back to smile. Those waves sent her into even more of a tizzy, a light blush always on her cheeks, and she couldn’t help but cherish them. Maybe it was a bit pathetic, but he was so handsome and he noticed her. It didn’t hurt to pretend it was more than friendly acknowledgement, right? A girl could dream at least.

It was only Wednesday today, but that meant only one thing. Her weekly phone call with her mom. Knowing Susan Miller, Ashley could picture exactly what her mom was doing. Her phone would be propped up on speakerphone while she pottered around the kitchen, finishing off making dinner while also planning what desserts to bake at the weekend. Her mom led a simple life, a retired teacher herself (although she’d taught at the local elementary school rather than ever leaving town), but it was a happy life. And it was these phone calls that were the only thing that made Ashley miss home.

Nothing was the same as a hug from her mom with a slice of homemade apple pie. But those were the sacrifices she made for her love of Medieval History. They never stayed on the for more than half an hour, but it was just enough to fill Ashley’s heart, at least for a little while.

“And I swear, if he doesn’t stop leaving those nasty cigar butts on the front porch, I’m going to whoop some sense into him!”

“You’ve been saying this for over 20 years mom – I don’t think dad is going to change at this point,” Ashley mused, rolling her eyes fondly.

Her dad had been set in his ways for as long as she could remember. Nothing was going to change that, not even a little nagging from the love of his life.

“Yes, well, he could at least clean up after himself,”

Her parents really were ridiculous human beings – but they loved each other, and that was all that mattered. Even if her dad didn’t clean up his cigar butts.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you weren’t complaining about his cigar butts,” Ashley grinned. “Maybe threaten not to make that corned beef hash he likes. That might help,”

The laughter that flowed down the phone made her smile even more. Fuck she missed hearing her mom’s laugh in person.

“Oh I miss you sweetpea. Are you sure you’re okay down there by yourself?”

“Yes mom, you know I love my work and my life down here,” Ashley said, sighing softly.

Here we go again.

“I just worry about you rattling around in that old house by yourself!”

Rude. It wasn’t that old.

“I promise I’m fine!” Ashley insisted.

Her mom stayed silent, making Ashley bite her lip to stop herself getting frustrated. Her mom would come out with it eventually…

“I worry about you being lonely, that’s all. You’re such an introvert, you always have been,”

And there it was.

“How could I be lonely mom? I have great colleagues that I talk with. And I’m around students all day and I interact all the time with them! And the baristas at my coffee shop know me by name and we chat too,” Ashley listed.

“The baristas don’t count, Ash,”

Poor Andrei. He definitely counted. Ashley couldn’t help but giggle at the sigh in her mom’s voice though. “Okay maybe not, but there is a guy that I’ve talked to,”

“Ooh a guy?”

Oh no. Oh what had she done? She had to nip this in the bud now.

“No, mom, not like that, just a friendly face to wave at,” Ashley insisted.

Dougie’s shy smiles filled her mind, but she shook her head. Now was not the time.

“Oh boo, you should work on changing that,”

Hah. If only.

“You’re impossible, mom,” Ashley sighed fondly.

“I love you too darling,”

*

Today he was going to do it. Today Dougie was going to get to Storm Surge coffee shop a little early, get his americano to drink in…and hopefully sit with Ashley again. Ever since that amazing Sunday morning where she offered him a seat at her table (she offered him!), he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He could kick himself for not being able to do more than wave at her the past three Sundays, but even just the few smiles he seen in passing since have blown him away. Especially with that cute little blush she always had when she waved back at him.

But today he was coming in an hour before he had to get to work, just to have that chance to sit with her and talk with her. Was it a little desperate? Sure. But Dougie never claimed to be anything other than desperate to get to know the beautiful woman he’d only ever seen in passing until now. His schedule didn’t usually allow him the chance – every Sunday the North Carolina Museum of Art opened from 10-5, and he usually got there just after 9 with coffee for him and Jordie, but every fourth Sunday Jordie came in a little later, so Dougie took the time to sit in and read a little before heading into work…and it was the fourth Sunday today. He could only hope that all the nerves and butterflies would be worth it.

Oh fuck, what if she wasn’t even there?

No, she would be. She always was. Enough stalling.

Still…

Dougie walked into Storm Surge with a little ball of nervous anxiety in his chest, praying that Ashley wouldn’t stray from her routine, until he looked over into the back corner…and there she was. He waited until Ashley looked up at him to wave at her, earning a sweet smile and a wave back. Wow, her blush really was so sweet.

“Dougie! You must be drinking in today, yes?”

He snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of Andrei’s voice, quickly nodding. “Yeah just the usual americano, thanks,”

“You got it,” Andrei nodded, beaming at him.

Dougie quickly paid and moved to the end of the counter to wait for his coffee. The shop was only half-full at this time in the morning, unlike last month, so he didn’t have the excuse of busy tables. Maybe…he could just walk up to her, right? He could take that chance, right? Yeah, he could do this.

“Here you go!” Andrei said cheerfully.

“Thanks,” Dougie murmured.

The barista gave him a strange look at his distracted tone, and Dougie knew that Andrei was watching as he walked over to Ashley’s table…but here goes nothing. He could totally do this. He was an adult. He paid his taxes on time and everything. He could definitely ask a pretty woman if he could sit with her again.

“Hey, Ashley,”

She looked up from her laptop with a bright smile, making his breath catch in his throat.

“Dougie! Hi!” she said happily.

She remembered his name! Wow. No, focus.

“Do you, um…do you mind if I sit with you again?” Dougie asked.

Oh god, why couldn’t he just sound cool for once in his life? Why did he always have to be the least smooth version of himself that he could possibly be?

Ashley took one look around at all the empty tables and blushed even more, before she bit her lip and nodded. “Sure, go for it,”

That was a good sign, right?

Dougie sat down with a nervous smile, putting his coffee gently on the table.

“So, um, how have you been?”

Ashley looked surprised (oh god, was she only being polite before?) before that melted into a pleased look. Okay, he could work with that.

“I’ve been pretty good thanks, yeah. I’m just revising the list of essay topics that I’m giving my students on Monday, so not too much work to do today thankfully,” she said, “How about you?”

“I’ve been alright yeah. Work has been a little nuts with the new exhibition at the museum but it’s all come together really well!” Dougie said, beaming. What? Could a man not be excited about artwork? “what do you teach?”

Ashley smiled shyly, looking a little hesitant again. Dougie couldn’t help but frown a little. Had people made her feel awkward about her work before? That wasn’t okay! “I’m a Medieval History professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My general focus is on the power of Medieval queens, but I teach everything from the expansion of medieval Europe to love in the middle ages, as well as on the general medieval and early modern history modules. I did my undergraduate and masters degrees at NYU, but I moved down here for the PhD opportunity. It’s now my second full year teaching and I just…I love it so much,”

A PhD?! Holy shit, that’s impressive. Wow. Just…wow. How could she be any more perfect?

“That’s incredible!” was all that Dougie could say.

“You don’t have to pretend, I know having a PhD isn’t exactly the coolest thing in the world, especially in medieval history,” Ashley mused.

Well it was definitely pretty fucking cool to him, no matter what other people had ever said to her. “I’m definitely not pretending, I promise. Medieval history is fascinating,” he insisted.

Ashley pursed her lips like she didn’t believe him, making Dougie laugh.

“I’m serious! I may not have a PhD but my masters thesis was a specialism in Rembrandt’s work. I’m a total art history nerd – 14th-17th century in particular,” Dougie explained.

Come on, let the nerdiness pay off for once…

Her face immediately lightened, her mouth forming into a surprised ‘o’, making him laugh again. At least, he hoped it was a good surprise?

“One of the classes I’ll be teaching next semester is Italian Renaissance and European History to 1650,” she murmured.

Holy shit. What a match up.

“Told you I wasn’t pretending to be interested,” Dougie grinned, “I’d definitely love to learn more about that class when you start it,”

Ashley blushed again, but her nervous smile had shifted into a full beaming smile, and his heart could only just about take it. Then she froze slightly, blinking, as if she’d forgotten something. What?

“Sorry, did you say museum earlier?” Ashley said suddenly, “like, you work at a museum?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m an associate curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art,” Dougie nodded.

He did his best not to puff out his chest in pride. He’d worked damned hard on his career and he was proud of it.

“I just…wow, I wouldn’t have expected it,”

Dougie laughed, raising an eyebrow at her sheepish smile.

“A guy who looks like you, like such an athlete’s build…oh god, sorry, that’s so rude of me,” she groaned, burying her face in her hands.

But Dougie just laughed, shaking his head. “Believe me, it’s far from the first time I’ve heard that,”

And never with such appreciation of his body either…

Look, he knew how the world perceived him on first glance. Tall, muscled guy, blonde hair and blue eyes, probably an all-american jock right? How he loved proving them wrong.

“Still doesn’t make it okay,” Ashley winced, “so I’m sorry,”

“Apology accepted,” Dougie mused, “I love my work, so it’s fun surprising people. Especially people with similar interests,”

Ashley bit her lip again but nodded and smiled, tilting her head to show she was listening. Wow, he could definitely get used to her looking at him with this much interest.

“Like I said, I’m an associate curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art. I’m actually Canadian, but I finished my masters degree in Boston and went straight into working at the MFA, but after working on a brief project in Calgary, I realised I wanted to work more in my specialist interests, y’know? So I applied for a role at the Museum of Art here, and became the associate curator of European Art. It’s…it’s everything I could’ve wished for, when I was studying,”

Dougie took a sip of his coffee while Ashley processed that flood of information, hoping he hadn’t come across too strong. People really did tend to zone out when he talked about his work…but hopefully because she also had an interest in European history and art, she wouldn’t be put off?

“I can definitely relate to following and achieving my passions for a niche subject,” Ashley grinned, “and I love that you love it so much. It’s rare, to find someone who gets such genuine joy out of their work. Even though work can sometimes be super stressful,”

“Stressful, but worth it. Especially when a new exhibition comes together so well,” Dougie agreed.

“Oh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dougie licked his bottom lip, trying not to look too nervous. This exhibition is such a big deal, and it had been such a lot of work. He could get a little excited about it now, right?

“Yeah, I’ve been working solidly for the past few months on the new exhibition – it’s opening next weekend. It’s a collection of Italian Renaissance Art,” Dougie said, a little hesitant.

Hesitant…because maybe that was a bit flashy? Did it sound like he was bragging? He really hoped not – not just because he was so proud of his work but he genuinely did want to excite Ashley…

“Oh no way! Really?” Ashley gasped.

Dougie bit his lips to control his grin. Oh thank fuck. Finally, someone he could actually impress with his love of art history. “Yeah, last quarter the museum acquired over 30 paintings from the 14th century from various collectors and this will be the first time they’ve all been together in the same room,”

“I bet they’ll be so beautiful all together after so long,” Ashley said, her voice a little wistful.

Wistful? He could fix that. Maybe. Yes, this was the perfect opportunity…

“Maybe we could…I know this might feel a little soon, but I’m…

Dougie trailed off with a frustrated groan, making Ashley giggle. For once, just once, let him be smooth! He took a deep breath, before trying again.

“Would you like to come to the exhibition opening with me?” he asked softly.

Ashley’s jaw dropped slightly, but she quickly nodded, making Dougie’s heartbeat kick up a notch. “Really?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got a plus one as the associate curator, and there’s no-one else I could imagine going with. I think you’d love it,” Dougie explained, “and I’d love to show you the artwork,”

Was that too desperate?

“I’d…wow, I’d love to go with you,” Ashley said, her expression shy but pleased.

Shy but pleased. He could work with that.

“Great, it’s a date!”

Oh God. Dougie could only freeze…but then Ashley smiled. Huh, maybe not so cringey?

“A date huh? I’d love that too,” Ashley said shyly.

Oh thank fuck. Ashley just giggled at Dougie’s blush.

“Give me your number and I’ll text you the details?” Dougie suggested, trying to salvage at least a little bit of his dignity.

As Ashley took his phone from him and entered her phone number, Dougie could only sit in shocked silence. He’d done it. He’d actually asked her on a date. On a date where he could impress her with a topic they both loved so much. All he had to do now was not fuck it up.

That wouldn’t be so hard, right?

*

Ashley had been in a little bit of a daze when Dougie had left for work. He’d asked her on a date. On a date! And they’d exchanged numbers, Dougie having sent her a little smiley face so she had his number in return. She was just thankful that there wasn’t much work for her to do that day – there was no way she wouldn’t been able to focus otherwise.

And then throughout the week, they’d started exchanging cute little messages. Just sweet little things, like how was your day? and look how cute this dog is and I had the loudest school tour group come through the museum today and which of these texts is going to give me the worst teacher rating? – it was all silly and sweet and fun, and Ashley couldn’t remember the last time that the potential of a relationship had excited her so much.

There was just something about Dougie that made her heart beat a little faster every time she thought of him. It was bad enough when he would smile at her in passing in Storm Surge…but now, with every little text, she felt herself smiling even more than she could’ve imagined, like a giddy little schoolgirl with a first crush.

Because at the moment, it really was just a crush. They hadn’t gone out on their first date yet – in reality, they’d only sat together twice, with one of those times essentially being the exchange of their names. They’d only had one conversation in person. And the texts were so sweet and lovely…but they were just texts. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself and get her hopes up, you know? God knows that had happened enough times.

She couldn’t help but hope that finally, she had met someone with real potential. Dougie made it easy to hope.

Ashley supposed that their first date would be the real test of whether she’d just built up all the excitement of Tall Cute Guy in that coffee shop fantasy in her head, or whether he was the real deal. Their conversation in person on Sunday had been such a good start, but fuck please make him the real deal.

Was it really that much to ask?

Finally Friday rolled around and she was finished with work for the week. Well, mostly. Ashley had just come out of a bi-monthly faculty meeting and just had to check some emails before she could go home for the weekend (and to shave her legs because she found the cutest dress for her date on Saturday) – but as she got to her office, she noticed that Rod had stopped in the doorway, waving to some of their colleagues as they strolled past. Hmm.

“So…you’re looking incredibly chipper for someone who just got out of a tedious faculty meeting,” Rod teased, leaning against her doorframe.

Ashley just laughed, rolling her eyes fondly as she sat at her desk. “I don’t know why you complain so much – you’re the one who runs them,”

“Not through choice, I promise that,” Rod mused, shaking his head, “But you are looking extra cheerful today. Just feeling a little nosy, I guess,”

Ashley bit her bottom lip, hesitating. Should she tell him about her date? It’s not like Rod was a gossip…and it’s not like she had a whole host of friends to tell…

“I may or may not have a date tomorrow night,” Ashley eventually admitted.

His eyes immediately lit up. Oh God.

“Ooh a date, exciting!” Rod gasped dramatically, fanning himself like a southern belle.

“Oh my god, shut up,” Ashley giggled. That could’ve gone worse – but his excitement definitely lit up the butterflies in her stomach all over again.

Rod just laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m just glad you’re giving someone a chance to sweep you off your feet,” he teased, “Who is he and where is he taking you?”

“He’s a guy I met in that coffee shop I go to on a Sunday, and he’s taking me to the new Italian Renaissance exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art,” she explained.

And she couldn’t wait.

“A cultured guy or a try hard?” he smirked.

“A cultured guy,” Ashley giggled, rolling her eyes, “he’s actually the associate curator who worked on setting up the exhibition,”

“Don’t we all love a man who knows his history, even if it is art,” Rod grinned, winking dramatically, earning another giggle, “Let me know how the exhibition is - I know my wife would love to go if it’s any good,”

“I’ll give you a full review on Monday,” Ashley agreed, nodding.

“And a full review of your date,” Rod grinned.

“Okay, out, out. I need to finish these emails before I leave,” Ashley laughed.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Rod mused, “If you need anything, even an escape clause tomorrow night, send me a text, okay?”

Her heart softened a little at his kind gesture, and she found herself nodding. “I don’t think it’ll come to that, but thank you, I appreciate it,”

“Any time,” Rod nodded.

Ashley bit her bottom lip to hide her grin as he shut the door behind him on the way out, and the butterflies in her stomach were still there. Saturday night couldn’t come soon enough.

*

Tonight was the night. Ashley only had a few minutes left before her uber arrived to pick her up to take her to the museum, and she couldn’t resist having a final glance in the mirror by her front door. She’d had a little panic over what the hell the dress code would be for a gallery opening, but after Dougie confirmed it wasn’t black tie, just formal dress, Ashley had consulted with some of her college friends (who were buzzing about the fact that she was actually going on a date), and decided that a midi cocktail dress was the way to go.

And she’d found the perfect one.

The dress she’d picked out in a local boutique was a beautiful forest green colour, complimenting her dark hair and hazel eyes perfectly. It fell to the middle of her shins, as her friends had recommended, and had thick shoulders straps, no sleeves but a neckline with a deep enough v that it should a little cleavage (classy cleavage of course, very sophisticated in her opinion). Her favourite part though was the Marilyn Monroe-esque twirl to the skirt – something she’d tested out several times already – and she just felt glamorous in it. She’d straightened her usually-messy hair and put on a little make-up too, to match the effort she was making with the dress. To be honest, Ashley felt beautiful, and she honestly couldn’t wait to see Dougie’s reaction. It was a hell of a lot different to her usual Sunday Storm Surge outfits, that’s for sure.

Soon enough, her uber was pulling up outside of the Museum of Art, and she thanked the driver as she got out. Thankfully, Dougie was already waiting at the top of the steps for her, and the smile that he sent her way made her breath catch in her throat. Ashley took the time to check him out as she walked up towards him, and she felt those butterflies start up again. He was wearing a gorgeous navy blue suit with a white shirt and grey tie, bringing out the colour of his eyes beautifully, and the stunned expression on his face as he looked at her made her blush a little. That was a good reaction, right?

“Wow. You look…amazing,” Dougie murmured, looking her up and down with awe.

Definitely a good reaction.

“You look really good too,” she grinned.

Dougie grinned back at her, before offering her his arm. “Shall we?”

Ashley fought not to squeal as she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. What a smooth move. “Lead the way,”

Dougie walked her inside, picking up a glass of champagne each after they dropped their jackets off. Then they were off. The two of them wandered around through the exhibition, Dougie guiding her and giving her the most indepth information she could’ve possibly hoped for. She’d never had such a personal tour like this, and he was so shy yet so knowledgeable that she couldn’t help but to drink up every word. This was what she had hoped for out of tonight, that passion coming through Dougie, and she was receiving it tenfold.

“This one is one of my favourites. Batoni’s The Triumph of Venice. There’s just so much going on, and I swear I notice something different every time I look at it,”

Ashley looked at the painting, taking in the many figures, the details, the colours, and couldn’t help but smile. It truly was a masterpiece.

“Oil on canvas? Maybe…early 1700s?” she guessed.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Dougie breathed.

He immediately flushed bright red, making Ashley giggle. Good to know that her vague art history knowledge was paying off. And that she could make him react like that…

“I love all the finessed detail in this one. Especially on the carriage – it’s exquisite,” Ashley murmured, looking back at it.

“Isn’t it?” Dougie grinned.

Ashley squeezed his arm gently, smiling up at him, earning a happy smile back. He was so clearly in his element, and she was loving every second. The way his entire face lit up when he talked about art…there was something just so beautiful in that. Those beautiful blue eyes were even more alive than ever, that spark of passion adding such a gorgeous element, and she really wanted to see more of it. That was a good sign, right? That she was already imagining more.

They moved on to the next painting, and Ashley’s breath caught in her throat. Wow.

“And this…this is the star of the collection. Giotto’s Peruzzi Altarpiece, the only complete altarpiece by the artist outside of Italy,”

Her jaw dropped a little. That was a big deal. “The only one?”

“The only one,” Dougie nodded.

“Holy shit,” Ashley mumbled, eyes wide.

Dougie grinned at her. “My sentiments exactly,”

“All of that gold. So much gold. And the details in their faces. Holy shit,” Ashley murmured.

“One of my favourite frescos, and I get to see it every day,” Dougie sighed happily.

“Well count me as jealous,” Ashley teased, nudging him with her shoulder.

Dougie just smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. He was just so cute.

“Would you, um…would you like a new drink?”

“Sure, another couldn’t hurt,” she nodded.

It’s not like she drank champagne that often after all. And it was a special occasion…

They stayed in the museum for another hour, looking over some of the art again as well as mingling with Dougie’s colleagues (including a mostly silent guy Dougie introduced as ‘Foegs’, who gave Dougie a double thumbs up when he thought she wasn’t looking, and a very enthusiastic big blonde man named Jordie, who she learned was Dougie’s boss – which, wow). Their conversation just flowed, and the doubts that she’d had earlier were easily shoved to the back of her mind.

She’d never thought it would feel so natural spending the evening arm-in-arm with a guy, but Dougie had just blown her away.

All too soon, it was time to leave the museum though, and while Dougie got their jackets, Ashley opened her phone to request an uber. 5 minutes away. Perfect.

“I had a really great time tonight,” Dougie murmured, when they were waiting outside.

His own uber was only a couple of minutes behind hers.

“Me too,” Ashley admitted, smiling up at him, “Thank you for inviting me,”

“There’s no-one else I would’ve wanted to take. I just glad you enjoyed it,” Dougie smiled back.

“I enjoyed spending time with you. The exhibition was just a bonus,” she said softly, looking up at him through her lashes.

Holy shit she just flirted. Blatantly flirted. Too much?

But then Dougie blushed a little, before a small smirk spread across his lips. “Yeah?”

Ashley just bit her lip, nodding. Dougie’s blue eyes flashed a little darker, sending a hot jolt running through her body. Oh wow. Just like that huh. But then her phone buzzed, the uber car pulling up to the curb, breaking her out of her thoughts just before they started to spiral.

Calm down Ashley, it’s only the first date!

She waved at the uber driver to signal that she’d seen him before turning back to Dougie. “See you tomorrow?” Ashley asked hopefully.

“Yeah, I’ll be starting work a little later on the one off, as it was the exhibition opening tonight,” Dougie nodded, “I’ll be there,”

Ashley grinned at him, before leaning up and pressing a kiss to his cheek, laughing softly as his jaw dropped.

“Bye, Dougie,” she said softly, walking over to the car.

“Bye,” she heard him murmur, just as she closed the door.

“Hot date?” the uber driver teased.

“The hottest,” she grinned back.

That earned her a laugh, and she couldn’t help but smile as the driver pulled away from the curb. Ashley glanced out of the window, only to see that Dougie hadn’t moved at all – other than his fingers brushing over where she’d kissed his cheek, a hopeless smile on his face.

What a first date indeed.

*

To: Ashley

From: Rod

So how did the date go?

~

To: Rod

From: Ashley

The exhibition was incredible. You need to take your wife, for real.

~

To: Ashley

From: Rod

I actually meant the guy but sure…

~

To: Rod

From: Ashley

He was a perfect gentleman and…amazing.

You’ll get your full gossip on Monday.

~

To: Ashley

From: Rod

Boo fine.

I’m glad you had a good time though!

See you on Monday

*

 “I had a really great time tonight,”

“Me too,”

“I had a really great time tonight,”

“Me too,”

“I had a really great time tonight,”

“Me too,”

Wasn’t the saying that if things seemed too good to be true, then they probably were not?

Ashley had gone to bed feeling over the moon, elated, bubbling with excitement. But when she’d woken up, it was like a dark cloud had settled over her, a heavy rock of anxiety sitting on her chest. Everything had gone so well last night. So well. Too well? This wasn’t the first time that she’d gotten her hopes up only to have things fall apart around her – and her hopes had skyrocketed last night. All she felt was like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it made her feel sick.

That niggling negativity had swum around her brain over and over again, and she hadn’t been able to shut it off – not when she showered, not when she got dressed, and not when she sat on the sofa debating whether or not to actually turn up at the coffee shop.

Was this really what things had come down to? Tempted to break her solid routine, the exact routine she’d had every week, just because a guy made her nervous? Was he really that important? Was she really that much of a coward?

She sat on the sofa so long that she passed the time she would normally leave. Hell, she passed the time she would normally be sitting down at her usual table. Oh god she couldn’t take this. It was too much. Her legs bounced nervously as she pulled up the message thread she had with him, typing out a message to cancel…

…and then she deleted it.

Fuck that shit. No matter how anxious this whole dating thing made her feel, nothing was worth this. She couldn’t just not show up, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t her. Fuck this. As quickly as she could, Ashley grabbed her laptop and her handbag, driving as fast as she could to Storm Surge.

When she parked her car, she noticed that she had a few texts from Dougie. Oh god.

~

To: Ashley

From: Dougie

Hey, I’m coming a little earlier than usual today!

~

To: Ashley

From: Dougie

Are you running late?

~

To: Ashley

From: Dougie

Are you coming?

~

Oh god. Ashley winced, practically running to the shop, immediately spotting Dougie at her usual table in the back. The sheer relief on his face made her wince again. Fuck. His expression dimmed at little, but she quickly ordered her usual latte from Andrei, who looked an interesting mix of confused and concerned, but she headed over to Dougie without hesitating.

“Hey, um, sorry I’m late,” she murmured, setting her coffee and her laptop down on the table.

Dougie frowned at her briefly, clearly taking in whatever the hell her face was showing.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly.

Ashley bit her bottom lip, hesitating. Might as well tell him the truth, right?

“I, uh, I was second-guessing everything?”

“Second-guessing?” Dougie asked, frowning harder.

Ashley just sighed. “Yeah, um, it’s dumb. I just…it all seems too good to be true? I woke up feeling like I’d gotten my hopes up and…fuck, I’m sorry. I just feel stupid now,”

Looking up at Dougie’s sad face immediately made her regret telling the truth, but it was too late now. Fuck. Why did she have to ruin everything? The fact that he was staying silent just made everything worse. Should she just go?

“What do you want to do now then?” Dougie eventually asked “or do you not know?”

Ashley swallowed heavily, looking down at her hands briefly. Hah. The million dollar question. “I know that I like you?” she offered.

Dougie huffed a laugh. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to get mad if you don’t want to go on another date,” Dougie said with a sad smile.

Oh god that was worse. He should never sound that disheartened – it wasn’t right. And it was all her fault.

“Would you even want to go on a date with me again when I’m this much of an anxious mess?” Ashley sighed.

After last night, this really wasn’t where she’d seen her day going. Self-sabotage was a bitch. But it was her own damn fault. It always was. But then Dougie reached his hand forward, fingers brushing over hers lightly to get her attention, making her blush as he smiled a bit more genuinely.

“Yeah, I would like to,” he nodded, “I had a really great time yesterday night, and I still want more,”

Oh, so maybe she hadn’t ruined everything then. What? Well shit, she was grabbing this second chance with both hands.

“I had a great time too,” Ashley admitted, blushing a little bit more, “even with this stupid anxiety,”

“Good. That’s…that’s really good,” Dougie laughed, “well, not the anxiety part, but I’m going to prove to you that this isn’t just getting your hopes up,”

“I’d like that,” she murmured.

Dougie smiled at her, a truly genuine happiness, making her breath catch in her throat. Fuck she didn’t deserve this. But there was no way she was going to let herself ruin this, not now.

“Maybe we could just talk for a couple of hours before I have to go into work? Have some coffee, a couple of those delicious blueberry-lemon scones, and just see where things go?” Dougie suggested.

Ashley nodded, the tight ball in her chest immediately loosening. God, he was such a nice guy. “I’d definitely like to get to know you more,” she agreed.

“Scones are on me then,” Dougie grinned.

Hope. A second chance. Bring it on.

*

When Dougie eventually walked into work, his shared office had more people in it that he cared for. Well, okay, that was a little mean. But right now was not the best time for the combination of Jordie and Foegs as well as Sebastian and Teuvo, especially not when all four of them had met Ashley last night. Not when they were all so intense. Not while things were still so tentative.

“So, how did it go?” Jordie asked excitedly, “it looked like the two of you were having fun!”

And here we go.

“Well last night, at the exhibition, went really well, but…”

Jordie and Foegs frowned as he trailed off, Sebastian and Teuvo just looked confused. Dougie sighed and sat down heavily at his desk.

“She was really hesitant this morning. Like, so full of anxiety that she almost didn’t show up for coffee,” he admitted, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck awkwardly.

“What do you mean?” Jordie asked, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

“She thinks it’s too good to be true?” Dougie winced.

Foegs looked a little stunned, Jordie’s jaw dropping. But then Sebastian jumped to his feet from where he was sitting on Jordie’s desk.

“Well then you’ll just have to sweep her off her feet!” Sebastian said firmly.

Really? Dougie sent him an unimpressed look, but Sebastian’s pout stayed serious as Teuvo giggled.

“As much as I hate to say it, Sepe has a point,” Foegs shrugged, making Sebastian stick out his tongue at him, “the two of you looked like you’d really hit it off when we were all talking, and the fact that Ashley did meet you this morning means a little anxiety shouldn’t stand in the way,”

“Take her on another date. Wine and dine, man. It’s a classic for a reason,” Jordie added, nodding seriously.

Well shit, if Jordie was being serious then maybe it would work.

“Thanks guys,” Dougie murmured, smiling softly.

“Anything to land you the woman of your many dreams,” Jordie beamed.

Dougie just blushed. Sebastian wriggled his eyebrows, Teuvo just punching him on the arm. It was almost a nice moment.

He waited until Foegs, Sebastian and Teuvo had left to start working before he pulled his phone out, biting his bottom lip as he thought of what to say.

~

To: Ashley

From: Dougie

Hey, I’m glad I saw you today.

I hope you’re still doing okay.

How do you feel about getting dinner with me?

~

Dougie jiggled his leg nervously as he logged into his computer, waiting with baited breath for any reply.

And then eventually, his phone buzzed. Ashley. Thank god.

~

To: Dougie

From: Ashley

I’m alright thanks. That scone definitely helped ;)

I would love to get dinner with you.

~

Dougie couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Good. This was good. They exchanged a few more messages, eventually figuring out that because of his next few late nights with the exhibition and her essays she had to mark, neither of them were really free until next Saturday. A whole week away again. Fuck. No, this was going to work. Dougie knew it was worth it – and if she needed him to text a lot over the next few days to remind her that he was all in, that he wasn’t just going to disappoint her like those other guys, then he absolutely would.

Wine and dine next Saturday. He could absolutely do this.

“Hey, what was the name of that place you took your wife out for date night a couple of weeks back?” Dougie asked, looking up at his boss.

Jordie’s face lit up. “Oh man, it was so good…”

*

As Dougie promised himself, they kept texting throughout the week. He told her fun stories from visitors to the exhibition. She told him silly comments her students made that she couldn’t respond to without laughing in class. He told her all about his time in Boston. She told him all about her time in New York. He sent her a picture of the cutest trio of dogs his neighbours adopted. She sent him a picture of a sunset that took her breath away. Things were…good. He was just glad that Ashley seemed as enthusiastic as she was before their first date.

All he could hope was that he was proving to her that he was different. That he was serious about giving their budding relationship a shot. He hadn’t bonded with someone as quickly as this, as deeply as this, ever – so he wanted to see where it went. The unknown with Ashley genuinely excited him, and he wanted her to feel the same excitement.

He could only try to be good enough to deserve her.

By the time Saturday rolled around, Dougie was a nervous wreck. He’d left work exactly on time for once, Jordie giving him a thump on the shoulder and Foegs a thumbs up (he mostly ignored Sebastian and Teuvo’s shimmies), racing home to change into a nice sweater and his favourite pair of smart jeans. Casual but like he cared about making an impression. That was what he was aiming for.

And then Ashley arrived 10 minutes early, just after he’d arrived himself, looking nervous but happy in the prettiest baby blue tea-dress he’d ever seen, with her hair curled and wearing a pretty pink lipstick. Wow.

“You look beautiful,” he blurted.

Oh god. Mr Smooth, again.

Ashley just blushed, smiling up at him. “Thank you. I love your sweater,”

Dougie blushed in return. What a pair they made.

“After you,” he said, opening the restaurant door for her.

As much as her anxiety had worried him, he was so glad he didn’t give up – she was absolutely worth it. They were lead to their table, Dougie being a bit extra and pulling out Ashley’s chair for her, but the giggle he got in return was what he was aiming for. Wine and dine. Sweep her off her feet. That’s all that he wanted to do, and if it was working then he wasn’t going to stop now.

“I was thinking we could split a bottle of wine tonight, if you want?” Dougie offered.

“Yeah that sounds good to me,” Ashley nodded, “Maybe a white wine?”

That was more than okay with him. Red wine made him a little…over the top? He definitely talked too much when he had red wine, he knew that much, and he wanted to save at least a little dignity tonight. Hopefully, at least.

The wine was ordered, and by the time they each had a cold glass of sauvignon blanc, Ashley looked as relaxed as Dougie felt. He could only hope the rest of this night turned out the same way.

“So did I tell you what one of Rod’s students said to him yesterday?”

Dougie grinned, shaking his head. “No you didn’t!”

Ashley grinned back. “Well…”

They talked for hours, sharing stories about their jobs, their interests, their families, not stopping when any of their three courses came, not hesitating even once. Nothing was awkward in the slightest – their conversation just flowed like they’d known each other for years, and Dougie’s heart was just so happy. This was everything he’d wanted for so long, someone he could truly been 100% himself with, and he couldn’t believe that she seemed as into him as he was into her.

How was this possible, after only two dates?

Time flew by so fast, too fast, and they did eventually have to leave their table, even as much as Dougie didn’t want the night to end. He just felt utterly consumed by her, completely and utterly lost in her very being, and he didn’t want this feeling to stop for anything.

It probably didn’t help that they’d split three bottles of wine though.

It wasn’t enough to make either of them sloppy drunk, not with the delicious food they’d eaten, but Ashley was definitely a bit more giggly than usual, and he was definitely smiling like an idiot.

“I wish your uber wasn’t on its way,” Dougie sighed, when they were outside.

“I’m actually not a far walk from here, so I was just going to walk home?”

At this time of night? Absolutely not! Ashley saw the look of indignation of his face and burst into laughter, making him blush (again). What? He wasn’t wrong for being worried about her getting home safely.

“You could always walk me home?” she suggested.

Oh. Oh. Oh yeah okay, he could do that.

“Yeah, definitely,” Dougie nodded quickly.

Dougie’s heart started beating a little faster as she looped her arm through his, and it was all he could do not to smile at her too helplessly. How did she manage to affect him like this? He’d never fallen so head over heels so quickly. And she seemed completely oblivious to how gone he was for her – in the most innocent of ways.

They walked slowly, leaning on each perhaps a little more than they would without the wine, but it just meant that they had more time for talking. Dougie was blissfully happy to let Ashley rant about the indignity of the black myth surrounding Eleanor of Aquitaine, taking in everything that she was trying to teach him. He loved how much she loved her medieval history, just like he loved his art. It was quirky and different and so unique to her. And honestly, he could picture them doing this together for years, discussing their passions and their love for their careers and…

“Okay this is me,” Ashley announced, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Dougie looked up at the old two-storey home with a smile. So this was her home. Pretty.

“That wasn’t so bad a walk,” Dougie grinned.

“I feel bad now though, making you get further away for your own journey,” Ashley frowned.

But Dougie shook his head. “It’s fine really. I’m sure there are plenty of ubers still running around here,”

“Well…”

Ashley trailed off, biting her lip, making Dougie smile. What was on her mind?

“You can stay, if you want?” Ashley said, a shy smile on her face.

Oh fuck. Stay? Ashley saw the shock on his face, before she blushed furiously, quickly shaking her head.

“I have a spare bedroom! I swear I didn’t mean it like that,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands.

Dougie couldn’t help but laugh, tugging her hands away gently. Not that he was opposed to…sharing a bed with her, but that wasn’t the vibe of tonight. Tonight was for building them up, getting them to a more comfortable level. And fuck did it feel good tonight.

Waking up to see her first thing in the morning would only be icing on the cake.

“I would love to stay, as long as you don’t mind,” he said softly, brushing his hand against hers.

Ashley inhaled sharply but nodded, wordlessly reaching in her handbag for her keys. They stayed silent as they walked into the house, Dougie barely moving a foot away from her as she showed him the kitchen, the bathroom and then the spare bedroom. He could do a proper tour in the morning, he knew that. He was just a little stunned that he was even still with her, to be honest.

“So here’s some basketball shorts that my cousin left last time he visited. I don’t have a shirt big enough for you though,” she apologised, handing him a soft bundle.

Dougie just shook his head, smiling. “This is more than enough. I usually sleep shirtless anyway,”

Ashley’s lips parted a little in surprise, her eyes glazing over slightly, making Dougie grin as she shook her head as if to clear it. Good to know he had that effect on her.

“There are spare toothbrushes under the sink from when I last when to the dentist’s office, so help yourself to whatever one?” she offered.

Dougie just nodded, squeezing her hand as he walked into the bathroom. He willed himself to retain at least a little bit of chill as he got changed, quickly washing his face and cleaning his teeth with one of the toothbrushes she’d offered. This was all still a little bit surreal, being honest. But he was going to seize this with both hands – this was a chance he was never going to get again if he fucked up.

Ashley couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off him as they swapped places in the bathroom, and Dougie tried not to grin as he flexed his abs a little, making her blush. He could have a little fun, right? Especially since he knew the boundaries he needed to stay behind, he wasn’t dumb.

By the time he’d put his phone on charge and folded his clothes onto a chair for tomorrow, and then headed back out into the corridor, Ashley was back, dressed in a cute little pair of shorts and a giant t-shirt. Oh wow, he could definitely imagine her wearing his t-shirt to bed one day. No, not the time!

“Hey,”

Ashley’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, and he couldn’t help but smile down at her.

“Hey,” he murmured.

“See you in the morning?” she said hopefully.

Like fuck he was going to leave. “Bright and early,” he nodded.

But when she didn’t go anywhere, her hand moving to rest on his bare arm, Dougie couldn’t stop himself from stepping towards her. Fuck. She inhaled sharply, but didn’t push him away, and that was all he needed.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked lowly.

Ashley’s lips parted in a soft gasp, but she nodded. “Yeah, please,”

Dougie raised a hand to cup her face, giving her one last out, but as she raised up on her tiptoes he didn’t hesitate any further. He leant his head down, and pressed his lips to hers softly, barely able to stop the moan that wanted to tear from his throat. Holy shit. Ashley clutched at his biceps, leaning up into the kiss even more, making Dougie’s head spin as he kissed her softly, slowly, over and over again. This was so not what he expected from tonight, or even hoped for, but fuck did it fill his body with butterflies. Holy shit, kissing her was everything. Eventually, he brushed his tongue against hers gently, before pulling away, knowing there was a stupid smile on his face.

“Wow,” he breathed.

“Wow,” she nodded, laughing softly, “That’s one hell of a goodnight,”

Dougie laughed softly too, pecking her lips in a soft kiss one last time before stepping away. She leaned against the wall, looking a little stunned, making him grin as he walked into her spare bedroom. If he didn’t walk away, he knew he would do something stupid to break them out of this perfect little sweet bubble, and that wasn’t what he wanted. Not tonight.

Tonight had been perfect. 

*

Ashley woke up slowly, a little groggy, feeling like she was forgetting something. Then she heard the bathroom door opening, and everything came flooding back to her. Dougie was here. He’d stayed over after their date last night. They’d kissed. Holy shit. Holy shit. She took a deep breath to calm herself, fingers rising to her lips without a second thought, and it was all she could do to smile.

Dougie had kissed her. And it was everything.

She squealed softly into her pillow, feeling stupidly giddy, before quickly picking out a cute jumper and her comfiest skinny jeans to wear. She could hear him moving in the spare bedroom, so she quickly darted into the bathroom, washing and then brushing her teeth, unable to stop the smile that spread across her face at the sight of the toothbrush that Dougie used resting in the holder. There was just something about it that felt right.

She took a deep breath, running her hands down her sweater to smooth it, before she headed out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. It didn’t take long for Dougie to join her, and he accepted the glass of juice that she passed him with a smile.

“Good morning,” he murmured.

“Good morning,” she said softly back.

Dougie seemed to hesitate slightly, before his face became determined. She didn’t have time to ask him what was wrong before he leant down and pressed his lips to hers in a firm kiss. Ashley whimpered softly into his mouth, earning a soft noise back, and it was all she could do to clutch at his sweater. Holy shit. This was just as incredible and sweet as she remembered from last night. Wow. Dougie cupped her face with his free hand, thumb brushing over her cheekbone as he slowed the kiss down to a few gentle pecks, before he pulled away with a smile. Ashley just smiled back up at him, a little overwhelmed in the best way. Wow.

“Coffee shop?” he said.

“Yeah, if that’s alright,” she nodded.

He understood her routines. And he didn’t care that she wanted to stick to them. How could she not appreciate that?

Dougie just nodded in response, smiling as he sat down at her kitchen table, taking a sip of the juice she’d given him. “I wouldn’t mind changing out of last night’s clothes though. Not really my vibe,” he teased.

Ashley giggled, understanding perfectly. It wasn’t her vibe either.

“I could drive you over to yours, to get a change of clothes, and then we could head to Storm Surge together?” she suggested.

“Yeah? You want to walk in together like that?” Dougie asked, a little hopeful.

Holy shit, that would be one hell of a declaration. But…

“Yeah, I want that,” she nodded.

The grin that spread across Dougie’s face made the butterflies in her stomach worth it.

“Let me just put on some mascara and lipstick, and we can go?”

“Sure, whatever you want,” Dougie smiled.

Now that was a dangerous thought.

All too soon, Ashley was parked down the street from the coffee shop. She took a deep breath, Dougie sending her an encouraging smile, before she steeled herself and got out of the car. This was nervewracking. Storm Surge was her home away from home, her safe space, her comfort, and now she was completely changing the status quo. But as Dougie walked to her side, smiling down at her with such hope in his eyes, she knew it was worth it. He was worth it.

“Ready?” Dougie asked, holding out his hand.

Holy shit. Bring it on.

Ashley smiled up at him, taking his hand in hers, embracing the butterflies that came with the warmth of his grasp. They walked to the coffee shop together, Dougie squeezing her hand gently as she opened the door and walked through.

“Ashley! And…Dougie?”

Andrei’s gasp made her blush, Dougie just laughing. Then Andrei’s face broke into a huge grin, and he spun around.

“Marty! It’s happened! It’s finally happened!” Andrei yelled into the back of the shop.

What the hell?

A door slammed open in the back, and then Marty came barrelling out. He took one look at them holding hands before punching his fist in the air.

“LET’S GOOOO!”

Ashley flinched at Marty’s loud voice, but couldn’t help but giggle when he bounded over to Andrei, swinging an arm over his shoulders.

“Finally! Do you know how long we’ve been rooting for you two?” Marty beamed.

Oh god. Ashley blushed furiously, as did Dougie, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Was I that obvious?” Ashley asked shyly.

“Both of you were. It was so frustrating but so sweet,” Marty shrugged, Andrei nodding enthusiastically in agreement. “We just hoped you guys would take a chance,”

Take a chance. Hah. That’s definitely a good way to describe it. And he was so worth taking a chance on. Dougie smiled fondly down at her, before pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“Well I’d say our second date went pretty well,” Dougie said softly, squeezing her hand.

Ashley smiled back, nudging him with her shoulder, earning coos from Marty and Andrei.

“Okay, you two are giving me cavities,” Marty said cheerfully, not even slightly annoyed, “Coffee and anything you want to eat, on the house. I need to tell Slavs – he’s going to be thrilled!”

Ashley just giggled, leaning into Dougie’s body as she looked over the cakes and pastries on display. Being with Dougie, this fledgling relationship, was scary – but it was also so exciting. She couldn’t wait to see what happened next. This was the start of something amazing, she just knew it.

[captain-danwilds]

I’ve been waiting for so long (to feel like I’m home)

A RBB 2021 Fic  AO3 Accompanying Art by @mareofthesky​

Summary: Palmetto Public Hospital was just supposed to be another meaningless stop in Neil Josten's life.  He doesn't have a reason to keep running to a new hospital every few months, but that doesn't mean he's learned how to stay.  And there's something about the rest of the staff on the burn ward that makes him want to try, especially the physical therapist. 

This fic was written for the 2021 AFTG Reverse Big Bang. Thank you @gluupor for organizing! I had the joy of being paired with @mareofthesky. She’s absolutely incredible, both as an artist and as a human being. I seriously couldn’t ask for someone better.   

This work takes place in a hospital in pre-COVID times.  I am not a nurse, doctor or physical therapist, let alone a burn survivor.  I do not know everything they go through.   I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but recognize that I’m going to be wrong about some things.  There’s only so far research can take you.

While I don’t think this work is more graphic than canon, it does deal with some distressing stuff, namely: burns, blood, hospitals, child abuse, violence, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, torture, mutilation of corpses (referenced) and Baltimore references.  

Nathaniel Wesninski was thirteen when his mother almost died.  

In another universe, this would have been the thing that killed her.  She would have gotten her hands-on fake passports and they would have traveled across Europe until he was fourteen and Stefan got shot in Germany.  But they would have still ended up in Seattle, her blood spilling on the leather seat as her son drove down the coastline.  

In this world, their plans to head to Europe fell through quickly.  There hadn't been a couple million dollars to pave the way, just two desperate souls fleeing in the night because Nathaniel couldn't live up to the standards his father set for him.  

Nathan Wesninski was the head of his own empire, eager for his son to take over.  There was no Yakuza demanding a show of loyalty.  If Nathaniel had shown promise, he would have been able to take over the family operation.  

The problem was, in both worlds,  Nathaniel hadn't shown promise.  It took years for him to learn how to watch his father butcher a man without crying.  He could never master Lola's style of knife play, refusing to draw out the pain any more than strictly necessary.  As he got older, his eyes would go stony, his hands moving automatically.   But he was moving through water.   He barricaded himself into his own head so that he didn't register the stickiness of the blood on his hands until he'd left the basement.  The sound of screams became so ubiquitous, he could tune it out.   There was no joy, certainly no drive to continue the Butcher's legacy.  

He had merely nodded when his father had announced he expected Nathaniel to take care of the traitor in his ranks.  He kept his feet trained on the floor, on the puddles of blood slowly inching toward the central drain.  

But Mary saw the gleam on her husband's face, the unspoken or else.  She also happened to know the traitor in question.   One of the servants who liked to sneak Nathaniel snacks while he worked on his homework.  There was no way that Nathaniel could force himself to do it.  He'd be left with new scars if he was lucky.   Knowing her husband and his current frustration over territory losses, Nathaniel wasn’t going to be lucky.

So she'd grabbed what she could, contacted the few contacts she had with her family that could do good work for cheap and escaped into the night.  

When they met Nathan and his ilk in Seattle, they had only been on the run for three years.   Linda and Alex, their 8th set of names, had settled into the type of neighborhood where no one noticed another kid with desperation in their eyes, where no one had the energy to poke into anyone else's business during the break between second and third jobs.   Alex was fine, good at following orders, a natural at stitches.  He could blend in just fine, answer questions the right way, but he certainly wasn't ready to start out on his own.  

For every time they successfully changed identities, he complained about not joining the track team or jostled against the restrictions of coming home directly after school without hanging on the monkey bars or meeting friends.   For all their time on the run, for all the times she'd tried to beat it out of him, Alex was still a child.  

And even if he had been ready to stake out on his own.  A child, especially one as small as Alex, would always draw attention when traveling alone.  

Despite that, he had been able to drive the beaten down car, the phone book stacked beneath him giving him just enough extra height to see the road.  His maneuvering was perfect as he weaved through traffic.  They hadn't spent weeks training as Caroline and Sam in backroads lined with corn in Iowa for him to fail when escape was their only option.  

Mary applied pressure to the bullet wound with one hand and frantically called the local FBI office with her other.   Her family might have been able to help her, but she wouldn't live to see them arrive from England.  In dire circumstances one had to make do.  

And Mary had years’ worth of insider information of her husband's dealing she could easily trade for her treatment at a hospital and her son's continued safety.

So Nathaniel was 13 when his mother almost died, and he entered the witness protection program.   He was thirteen when he became Neil Josten.  

"Isn't it too similar to his real name?"  Mary huffed, giving the trio sent to her hospital room a jaunty smile.    

The mousy-haired social worker pushed up her glasses as she gave them a placating smile.  "We find young children tend to adapt better when allowed some connection to their genuine selves."

Mary had rolled her eyes, but Neil had merely frowned.   He had no idea what she meant by genuine self.   Was he supposed to be like creative like Sam?  Or logical like Owen?  His life had been a mass of contradictions.   The only thing he knew for certain was he didn't want to be brutal like Nathaniel.    

The only thing he'd consistently been his entire life was scared.    

He was fifteen by the time arrests were started to be made in Baltimore.  

"You needed two years for that?"  Mary spat as she talked to their handler over the phone from their Millport townhouse.  "Fucking Moorhouse and Redler?

Neil dutifully filled out his homework as he sat sprawled out in the living room with the patio door open so he could smell his mother's cigarettes as she badgered tonight's lucky caller.

"I would have thought that you'd have something more to show for yourselves.  Truly the incompetence is astounding."  

Neil smirked as Mary's natural brogue colored her words.  She could speak half a dozen languages with the precision of a local but rile her up enough and anyone would be able to tell she’d spent her childhood running wild in Manchester.    

Neil pressed his pencil hard into the paper as he underlined yet another one of the rules for pickleball.  Sure he couldn't even run around the neighborhood anytime soon, let alone play a game he's actually interested in, but the epitome of his online gym education truly was learning rules and regulations for sports he wasn't even sure were real.    

"I'm allowed to lie on this one right?" He sarcastically asked his caseworker as he laid out the exercise tracker worksheet.  "Like I'm not about to put myself in federal custody for claiming I have access to an Exy court? Since you guys said I had to be totally honest and everything"  

She had rolled his eyes at him, but she didn't ask about Mary's late night phone calls to Uncle Stuart, so Neil took it for the win it was.  

In another world, he was nineteen when his father’s people found them.  Instead, he was fifteen.   Fifteen with a limited skill-set since there are things that can be taught on the run that can’t be taught in a small flat under government surveillance.  

The only bright side was that in this world, there was no car.  He was not crammed in a trunk with Lola tool close, practically grinding on top of him as she reminded him how much he looked like his father. It’s a small victory.  

Instead there’s screaming and knives and he had to watch.  He had to watch with his heart in his throat as Romero showed no mercy.  Watch as his mother died, watch until he can’t recognize her corpse anymore.  

They took enjoyment in this.   Lola’s practically laughed as he slammed into the wall, as she dragged her knife down his chest.  

Neil spit in Lola’s face as she poured the gasoline. With his squirming, it only managed to douse half his body, but it was enough to finally wrench the screams from his throat as the flames bit into his flesh.  

He was scared.  He fought back anyway.  

But that really wouldn’t have changed in either world.  

The bullets that finally came, that finally bring everything to an end, did not come from his Uncle in revenge.  

Instead they are fired by federal officers aiming to main so as not to lose the opportunity to interrogate the criminals that might have enough knowledge to bring all of East Coast’s organized crime to its knees.  

The weeks that followed weren’t kind to him.  Neil saw the pictures later and he didn’t even recognize his own face.

But for once, the people were kind.  Kind enough to give him hope even as the rest of the world collapsed around him.  

Somewhere else a scared boy finds his family and himself at nineteen on an Exy court.  In this world, Neil Josten is twenty-six and finds them in a hospital.  This is that story.  

"It really was lucky that we found you with such short notice."  

In general, Neil Josten didn't believe in luck.  He certainly wouldn't call it luck when Palmetto Public Hospital had posted exactly the type of job he looked for on all the travel nurse job boards.   Just desperate sounding enough to cause people to not ask too many questions, while professional enough to not make a big deal of his scars.  

Neil took Chief Nurse Danielle Wilds' hand with a carefully constructed smile on his face.  "I'm glad I'm able to help.  Although I was under the impression, I'd be your replacement."  

Wilds let out as a laugh as she seemed to instinctively cradle her baby bump.  "My husband, Matt, you'll be working with him too, thinks I'm being ridiculous, wanting to show you around myself, but I'd truly hate for you to get the wrong impression of us."  

Neil just barely kept himself from rolling his eyes.  Every hospital thought they were so special. Like a family or some shit.   Every hospital was wrong.  

Procedure might differ slightly, and some places had more people worth avoiding.   But in the end, all that mattered was that the nurses showed up,  did their job and offered some kindness.  Even if he’s no Abby, even if his version of kindness wasn’t so much sympathy as it is experience, kindness was essential.  

He can never claim to know exactly what the patients are going through.  Even if they showed up with third degree burns down half their body, a punctured lung, a broken arm and some knife wounds, he wouldn’t really know.  He’d just know they’d hurt like hell.  Even if the injuries were the same, their story would be very different.

No one breaks the same way.  

Still the things a broken person can say to another broken person can often carry more weight.  

It’s one thing to offer sympathy.  It’s another entirely to nod in understanding that your body doesn’t entirely feel like yours anymore, that it might never feel like yours, but you just have to keep going forward.  

Over the years, Neil got very good at moving forward.  

Neil tossed his running shoes by the door.  It took him less than ten minutes for Neil to add his things to the furnished apartment.   He'd discovered only two hospitals ago that people ask less questions if his clothes weren't covered in wrinkles from staying packed.   So Neil haphazardly moved the folded scrubs onto the cheapest hangers he could find.

3:08 PM I'm all moved in.  

The responding string of smiley faces to Neil's message was instantaneous despite the fact it was the middle of the afternoon and Abby was likely still on shift.  (Or maybe precisely because she was on shift and had her phone on to stay up to date on patients as opposed to cutting herself off from the rest of the world to try and squeeze out some sleep.)  

He didn't feel guilty per say as he closed his phone.   Abby knew better to expect much from him.  

"Kiddo, I'm going to take what I can get. I understand you aren’t used to having someone in your corner."  She said as she bundled him up for college, doing far more than anyone had expected of her.  

Well he should have expected it of her.  Abby had practically laughed in his case worker's face when Cindy had brought up the different moveout options for when Neil turned 18.      

It was a strange thing to have someone, even if he kept her at arm's length.  

It's for her own good.  The little traitorous voice in his head whispered.  

Logically, Neil knew that Abby was already in too deep.  Anyone, including any of his father's men seeking retribution could find her by simply looking for his file.   He didn't need to maintain a relationship with her in order for Abby to be at risk.   She had housed him during the trial.  That would be enough for them.   There was no need to push her away, to prevent her from actually knowing him.  

But he felt a little bad that she knew him well enough to not ask why he had a new number or what his address was.  Moving so soon after getting a housewarming package of cookies hadn’t been an overreaction and he stood by that.

When he finally met him, Matt was more of an overexcited puppy than an actual person.  He dragged Neil down to the cafeteria every day they shared a break.  Matt carried the conversation easily needing only the slightest input from Neil to keep going.  He talked about any and everything, from college exploits to TV shows to worries that he wouldn’t be a good dad.  

“It’s not like I had the best example, you know?”  Matt joked even as his eyes are serious.  

Neil nodded, understanding a bit too well.  “Still an example.  Just an example of one way to fuck up.  You’ll be fine.”  

He ducked his head as Matt beamed too brightly at him.  

Words were a weapon he’s used to, but everything about conversations with Matt felt wrong.  

Matt made him feel unbalanced.  He offered up genuine parts of himself so easily.  Neil wished he had something to give him in return for his easy friendship and trust, but even what was safe to say felt like it belonged to a different person entirely, a person he didn’t want to be anymore.  

And what was left after that?  The fact he didn’t like books or movies or vegetables.  It wasn’t a fair trade. Matt shouldn’t be content to accept the breadcrumbs Neil offers in return for his raw insecurities.  

But he was.  

And that made Neil want to try.  Try to force himself into a person Matt deserved, someone real.

Creating that person was fucking exhausting.  

After two weeks, he had more than enough.   Neil had a bag lunch and a mission.

Neil slipped into the stairwell without anyone spotting him and headed up.  He might be able get onto the roof.  But he would settle for just one of the upper floors.  As long as there was no well-meaning coworker attempting to engage him in the break room or bring him down to the cafeteria, Neil would consider it a win.

The door marked “Roof Access – Maintenance Staff Only" looked like it should be locked.   But a few jiggles of the handle had it opening easily enough.  

The roof wasn't empty like he expected.  Instead there's a figure sitting cross-legged near the front edge of the roof.  Even from here, Neil could tell the man is short.  Small but not delicate.   Probably a former athlete from the width of his shoulders, the bulk visible even through the loose black scrubs.  His short blonde hair is slightly windswept, enough so that he can see the man’s black earrings.

Neil tried to place him.  He is not the best with names.  He didn't see the point of attempting to remember when he’d be gone soon.   But Dan had wanted to introduce him to everyone, saying something about them not being a whole bunch of "do-nothings" and it would do him some good to know the typical inhabitants of the burn ward.  

Allison had taken that a step farther.  Probably because she wanted gossip and hearing vague descriptions wasn't very helpful to her.  

Neil stared for a second, cataloguing the man from behind, before it clicked.  

Andrew Minyard, Physical Therapist.  

”Monster Minyard” Allison said as she brought him around with her one day, telling him everything he should know about his new coworkers.  “Bites worse than his bark. If he wasn’t so good with hopeless cases or getting rid of particularly overbearing visitors, I wouldn’t even know why we kept him around.”

The little Neil’s seen already was more than enough to know Andrew’s good.  

The only way the nickname seemed to fit at all was that the man was intimidating when he wanted to be, that he could turn himself into a threat with ease.  Neil had seen him practically threaten a relative with a scalpel to the chest before turning on the dime and gently helping the patient bend the joints covered with skin grafts.

But the most remarkable thing was how Andrew always let his patients set the pace.  

There were sections of his own skin where Neil had lost sensation.  There were days when they'd ache or itch, but he couldn't feel much beyond heat. He'd nearly decked the first doctor who touched his arm without warning him.  Neil hadn't even realized he was there until the hand moved to a less ravaged spot.  Everything about it had made him feel unsteady.   He couldn't rely on his body to stand guard for him anymore.  

But Minyard never let his patients be surprised.   He narrated everything he did before he did it.  Nothing was a surprise.  They could say no if they didn't feel ready or if something hurt particularly bad that day.  He was flexible with the patients in a way he never was with the staff.  

Neil hadn't actually heard Minyard utter a word that wasn't directly related to their jobs.   He moved silently through the halls, meeting attempts to socialize with deep scowls.  

Maybe he'd be better off scouting out somewhere else.  There was no rule that Minyard owned the roof.  But Neil was also used to spotting dangerous people and everything about Minyard screamed trouble.      

“What are you doing up here?”  

Neil hadn’t realized Andrew had even known he was up here yet.  He didn’t bother turning when Neil forced the door open.  

“Trying to avoid company.”  Neil moved across the room until he sat next to Andrew.  They’re not quite at the edge, but there’s no guardrail.  It’s unnerving.  

Andrew gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement, still not looking at him.  

“What are you doing on the roof?”

“Used to smoke.  Never broke the habit.”

Neil merely nodded as he unwrapped his sandwich.  

Andrew tilted his head just slightly to the side.  “I thought that you’d be put off by smoking.”

“Is it bad to say I like the smell?”  

Andrew’s nose scrunched ever so slightly.  "You lie.  All the time."  

Neil only nodded again at the accusation.  

This time it isn’t quite a lie.  He did like the smell.  It’s not quite the same as the Lucky Strikes his mother would blow through after she thought he was asleep.  But it’s close, certainly a lot closer than the smell of burning human flesh.  

But it's not like Minyard's wrong either.  He did lie all the time.  Sometimes it felt like lying came easier than breathing.  

The rest of the staff hadn’t seemed as bothered about the lies. They were practically amused by them.  Neil had smirked when he passed the break room and overheard them sharing some of the most outrageous ones.  

“I heard him say to 402’s kid that he was trying to steal treasure from a palace guarded by lava, and he hadn’t been able to jump far enough on his way out.  

“At least that one’s child appropriate, he told 407 that was a victim of secret government trials of new chemical warfare weapons.  As if anyone with a brain couldn’t tell those were accelerant flame not pure chemical burns.” Allison added.  

No one mentioned “International Jewel Thief tortured for trade secrets.” And Seth didn’t bring up “I dabbled in porn to get through college.   Got a bit too into temperature play” even if it had made patient 406 laugh uproariously.  It was almost a shame his best lies were unappreciated.  

They’d even started a bet on what the real reason could be.  It would never be settled since it required asking him directly and none of them would do that.  They all liked to pretend to have morals even as they bet on everything under the sun. Besides what sort of example would it set to their patients? The one staff member that actually looked like them and yet they couldn’t even show basic decency with regards to his privacy.  

Maybe they have a whole separate bet about who’s finally going to work up the courage.  Neil didn’t think any of them had put money on that person being Minyard.  

Minyard turned to face Neil for the first time, "Tell me something true."

It wasn’t concern on Minyard's face.  The look in his eyes barely qualified as interested, but Neil still wanted to answer him.  He didn’t know what to say but he can't dismiss the fact that he wanted to answer. It was easy to admit to himself he doesn't typically want anything.  

"I don't see the point of icebreakers."  

Minyard tapped his fingers aggressively against  the roof.  "I'm not asking for party tricks.  I'm asking for something true."  

Neil wasn't sure he even had something true to offer.  What does that mean when he existed as a lie stacked atop another lie? The things he’s already told Matt don’t hold enough substance to be something true.  

"I didn't even think about becoming a nurse until after all this."  He gestured to himself.  He can't call it an accident even if that would make it simpler.

It was no accident where Lola pressed the dashboard lighter into his face, no accident in the way she poured the gasoline.  Every one of her actions had been designed to cause him the maximum amount of pain.  This wasn’t an accident.  

"My roommate forced me into PT.  Thought that since it was his new purpose in life, it would be mine too."  

"It's not like he was wrong."  

"You disgust me Josten."  

"I mean you can't be so good at your job without feeling something."  

"It's more interesting than other options."

"So you like it then."  Neil teased easily.  

“Give me one good reason to not push you off the side.”

"Just try.  I'd drag you with me. It's a long way down.”

It grew from there. Going to the roof was no longer about avoiding the others by spending time with Minyard, but instead about just talking with Andrew.  Eating on the roof together felt easy.  The conversation had rules.  Answer for answer, truth for truth.  There was no awkward imbalance or a desire to be something more for Andrew.  They could just talk.  

Neil practically collapsed into his spot on the roof with his lunch in hand.  He was painfully aware of how he’d gradually crept closer since their first conversation.  "Why'd you choose Palmetto?"

"Brother didn't want me in Chicago."

Neil’s head shot up from the banana he was peeling.  "You have a brother?"

Andrew glared as if to say it isn't your turn idiot.

He raised his hands in mock surrender.  "All right I get it. Go on. Ask your question."

"And if I think we should be done for the day?"

Neil shrugged. "I can wait."

And he could. With each day spent on the roof, Neil only craved to know more about Andrew. But he liked what they had and wouldn't dare ruin that with his impatience. The roof felt safe in a way the rest of the hospital didn't.

Andrew grunted. “What's with the orange?"  

Neil rolled his eyes.  "You gave me a hard time for my question and you're asking that?"  

"That wasn't an answer."  

"And if I just like orange?"  

"You're being ridiculous."  

They sat in silence for a while before Neil offered up more.  

"College colors.  Just never outgrew them I guess.  They make me feel..."  

Safe wasn't the right word.  He practically spent all of college categorizing every exit on campus.  Like he was a part of something feels wrong too.   He left his apartment for class and an ever-changing cubicle in the library. There wasn't a whole lot to be a part of.  

But Andrew nodded anyway like he actually finished the thought instead of trailing off into silence.  "Feeling is dangerous."  

Andrew's words were simple, but Neil could tell from the way he looked at the edge of the roof that they meant something more.   It was a confession and an accusation wrapped all into one.  

"So is not feeling.  What are you supposed to keep living for if everything is grey and I say that as someone who actually likes grey."

Andrew scoffed, but didn’t say anything more.

Even knowing that Andrew had a mysterious estranged brother couldn’t make Neil break the silence.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of pressing too far.  Andrew wouldn’t let him.  But he knew what it’s like to feel exposed and Andrew had already shared more than usual today.  

They sat in comfortable silence until a pager goes off.  

Neil wasn’t sure what the others think about the two of them.  

The hospital chaplain with her oddly died hair likes to smile at him whenever she came to their floor.  He thought she might be friends with Andrew, but he didn’t really care what she thought as long as she stayed out of his way.

Matt complained that he never got to eat with his new buddy anymore, but Neil wasn’t sure the rest of them even noticed.

They must have though, because their friendship was no longer confined to the roof.   There were conversations in the hallways, extra food left in the break room that Neil certainly hadn’t brought himself, jokes cracked in the locker room when only Neil could hear.   What they had wasn’t something that could be easily hidden away.  

It certainly helped that they shared patients.   They could walk down the hallway, a patient between them and debate plans for the zombie apocalypse.  402, Luis Hernandez, was a particular good sport about it, even if he was a bit too moral about the end of the world.  

Neil did not have soft spots for patients.  He was the epitome of professionalism.  But he could admit that he liked how he had an excuse to talk to Andrew longer with Hernandez around.  

"You don't have to like your scars you know?"  Neil said lightly as he perched next to Hernandez’s bed, grabbing more antibiotic for the man's face.  "Don't have to hate them either."  

Hernandez gave a half-hearted shrug, clearly trying to stay still while gesturing to the brochures in his lap. "Everyone keeps bringing up plastic surgery."

Neil hummed. “They're going to keep doing that.  I'm not saying they're an eyesore or even particularly noticeable.”  He uncapped a new jar of ointment.   “It’s just easier for them if they can pretend it never happened.  No scars. No problem.”

“But that doesn’t mean-“

“I’m not saying it would.  People are just good at ignoring what isn’t directly in front of them. And if they’re forced to see it, they have to actually acknowledge you’ve been through some shit.”    

"It doesn't change what happened."  

“They see something wrong, keep trying to find ways to fix things even if you don't particularly think you're broken.”

"And if I want to be fixed?"  

"Then that's on you. You're recovering quicker than we expected.  I don't see why you wouldn't respond positively to cosmetic treatment." Neil sighed as he laid down the old wrappings "You've just got to be the one to want it. You've gone through too much to want to start living for anyone else now."  

He heard a cough behind him and only barely resisted the urge to whip around.    Instead he waited until he’d finished smearing the antibiotic across this section of the man’s chest.   He turned to see Andrew leaning easily against the doorframe.  

“You’re good to take lunch when you’re done here.”  

Neil looked upwards and Andrew nodded.    

It took very little time for Neil to finish knowing that Andrew would be waiting for him on the roof.  

“Did you seriously believe all that shit you were telling Hernandez?”  

Neil looked at his lap where his unopened lunch sat.  He suddenly wasn’t feeling particularly hungry.  “People always look at the scars.  Drove me mad with their staring.  Hard to be invisible when you’re this fucking distinctive.”  

Andrew snorted.  “The scars are the least of your problems then.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  

Neil felt the weight of Andrew’s stare as it slowly scanned up and down his body.   He huffed, wanting an actual answer.

“Are you an idiot?”  

“Considering you call me that about six times a week, yes?”  

Andrew angled his body toward Neil instead of the steep drop of the roof.  “People find you attractive.”  He shrugged, “I’d blow you.”

The confession was dropped in the middle of the conversation so easily as if it didn’t send Neil’s entire world spinning.  He dug his hands into his legs trying to focus himself in any way he could.  

“You like me."  

"I hate you," Andrew corrected him, but Neil barely heard him, even as the other men left.  

Neil got to work slightly ahead of schedule, rolled his eyes slightly at the night nurse giving him the pedantic recap of today's patients, somehow managing to drone on for ten minutes without saying anything of actual value.  

Andrew would be in later, he thought absentmindedly as he washed his hands.  They might be able to coordinate their breaks if he was lucky.  And you might even be able to convince him at gunpoint that lately he was pretty lucky.  (Although that might also be because Matt was managing the schedules and his smile was a bit too knowing.)  

Still today shouldn’t be too bad.  There was only so much on the burn ward he hadn’t seen before and if they had had new patients, they weren’t any of his.  

412's patient was a finnicky older woman who only seemed to be living out of pure spite.  She'd been in a few days now and Neil's sharp tongue had done little to endear himself to her.  So it was truly a matter of his job security to get in and out as quickly as possible.  If he had to hear one more complaint about ungrateful grandchildren or idiot politicians, he would snap.

The television was turned up loud in order to reach the women's bed.  Despite insisting her hearing was just fine thank you very much, this meant the news could be heard down the hall.    Still, Neil had gotten used to putting his head down and doing his own business.  

There were enough signs that he should have known. After all, he knew it had to be interesting in order to keep Linda from complaining about the slight pinch as he repositioned her IV.  

He should have heard it before he turned around to see his father's face plastered across the screen with the bold red font "Serial Killer Nathan Wesninski found dead in Baltimore Penitentiary."   They'd chosen one of the trial photos as opposed to the mugshot.  He looked handsome in his expensive suit with the smile he only pulled out at the business parties that left Neil sore for days.  

His feet were moving before he fully registered what the headline read.  

It was pure instinct to put as much distance as he could between himself and his father as possible even if it was just the picture.  

Neil couldn't hear the clatter as he knocked over one of the vases.  He was sure Linda was having a conniption, but he couldn’t hear it.   He’s not here anymore.

He was thirteen again.  And his father wore a much more dangerous grin, the kind that meant no mercy.  

Neil's hands were covered in blood as he dragged his mother to the car.  Hands digging into her chest as if he could force her to stay with him.

He was eight and his father had crossed the line that was even too much for his mother.  

His hands shook as he tried to thread his own needle.  He held the needle with his mouth, trying to thread it with one hand and using the other to force the wound together.   There was just so much blood and not enough time.  

You can't stop running.  

He thought he heard someone calling his name.  Too close. He’s too close.  

You're never safe.      

He darted through the closest door.  It was a dead end, but it was out of sight.  

When you fight back, do so quietly and quickly.   You cannot risk attracting another opponent Abram.    

He forced himself into the corner.  There should be something here, anything really to block the door.  But he didn’t see anything, and he heard footsteps. Resounding thuds against the linoleum floor. They were too close.  

And if you can’t run.  You hide.  You hide until I come get you.

There’s space on the lower shelf.  It wasn’t very big, but he’s always been small.  It should be just big enough.   Neil shoved the folded bedsheets and patient gowns out of the way.  He would look out of place, easy enough to find if someone cared to look hard enough, but for now he just hugged his knees to his chest.

Everything felt like it’s moving too fast.  His heart was pounding so loudly he’s sure it’s about to give him away.  His mind wasn’t even forming full thoughts anymore, just racing ahead of him.   He squeezed himself even tighter as if he can force out the emotions.

He only vaguely felt his right hand digging into his left arm over the burn scars.  He knew he should stop.  He hadn’t picked at them in years, tried not to irritate them more than necessary so they didn’t draw attention to him. But it’s not like it mattered now.  He’d be dead soon.   He should be worrying about if Abby would be able to find the body and how long it’d take the hospital to notify her since after everything she was still his emergency contact.  

He should have tried to think his way out of this.  

But he couldn’t get his thoughts to stop for a fucking second. Just one second might be enough to find a miracle. But even if Neil Josten had ever deserved a miracle, he’d used up his share.  He’d made it to twenty-six.  But now, he was going to die.  

He knows it won’t be a painless death.  There’s only so much a human body could take, a line at which point the mind can’t comprehend the pain anymore.  But Nathan Wesninski knew the line and played it like a violin.  He’d want to take his time, really make his son feel every inch of his displeasure.  There was no way Neil would be able to contain his screams for long enough to satisfy him.  His father would risk getting him out of this hospital if it meant he could take his time.  

Neil wouldn’t let himself be taken. To lose consciousness now was to accept a long painful death. He would not leave this hospital, not ever again.  He would take a quick painful death over a long painful one any day.

But to get a quick death though he needed to be here. And he couldn’t seem to force himself to be.  He kept seeing flashes of other moments.  

Blood snaking down toward the drain of their concrete basement.  Romero’s fingernails digging into his skin as Lola brandished her knife.  His father’s grin menacing and horrible.  

It spoke to his terror that he didn’t notice when the door opened.  

"Hey." The voice is soft, gentle in a way the Butcher of Baltimore was never capable of sounding even when he was playing pretend as a productive member of society.

Still the sound has Neil's head shooting up, just to be sure.  Andrew is standing with his back to the door.

"You're Neil Josten. You're in the supply closet at Palmetto Public Hospital.  You're safe."  The words wrapped around him like a caress.  

It felt less like he was drowning.  

Neil still couldn’t move, so he just stared.    Stared as Andrew moved forward, every step light, his arms raised in front of him to show his empty hands.  

Andrew repeated the refrain as he squatted down near Neil's hiding spot in the linens.   His hazel eyes stared into Neil's.  They're warm like sunlight, like they could cut through the shadow of Neil's soul.

"It’s over.  You're safe.  Can you breathe with me?"

Neil didn't move.  He couldn’t force his tongue to wrap around the words, couldn’t even decide what the words should be.  

"We're going to do this together."   Andrew shifted from his squat to sitting cross-legged next to him.   He's close to the shelving unit, but he wasn’t trying to force Neil out.   Andrew exaggerated his own breathing.

He didn’t know how long they sit there before Neil feels his own breathing falling in sync.  They're not deep breaths.  Just shallow rasps, but he's trying.

Andrew put his hand out in front of him.  "Can I touch you?"  

He nodded haltingly.  

Neil didn’t move away when Andrew gently cupped the side of his face, running a finger over the puckered skin.  “You’re not there.”  His voice was soft, but it practically echoed in the small closet.

When Neil nodded this time, it feels more natural.  

Neil shifted in his position on the lowest shelf.  He wiggled his limbs slowly, taking stock of all ten toes and fingers.  He's all in one piece. He's fine.

He didn’t know what Andrew sees in his glance, but he's happy when Andrew backs up so he can crawl out of the shelving unit.  "Yes or no?"  

He hated how broken his voice sounded.  His father wasn't even here.  His father was dead.  He shouldn't sound so lost.  

Andrew's stare was penetrating.  "To what?  I'm not going to kiss you.  You're having a mental breakdown Josten."  

Neil bit his lip.  That hadn't been what he was thinking of at all.  He almost wished he had been, because it would have been nice to just lose himself in the sensation, let his body be consumed with raw need for Andrew until there was no room for fear.  

"Just touching you.  Leaning on you."  

Neil knew Andrew didn't like being touched.  It felt wrong to want to envelop himself in Andrew, to even ask knowing that, but he's desperate.  

"It's a yes,"  Andrew said as he settled down again legs extended in front of him.  

Neil curled easily against his side, Neil's head resting in the crook of his neck.  It's nice to sit there just listening to Andrew breathing, knowing that there will never be a future where Nathan Wesninski will get his hands on this bright spot in his son's world.  

"I should be happier."  

"Bullshit.  There is no should."  

"He's dead. He's finally dead. That has to mean something."  

Andrew adjusted himself to free one of his hands. He threaded it easily through Neil's hair.  "Maybe someday it will.  When was the last time you thought about him before today?"  

Neil wanted to snap back that he'd never stopped thinking about his father, that every decision he made was just one in a long way of keeping himself safe from Nathan Wesninski and his subordinates.   But he couldn't.  For the last month or so, Palmetto had felt safe.  

He'd spent nights marathoning movies in Andrew's apartment and stolen moments on the roof.  He treasured Matt's laughter and the yell of joy at grocery deliveries that was quickly hushed because babies are fickle things that never stop crying.  He even thought of Allison trying to convince him to let her take him shoe shopping.  

Slowly Neil had built something, something untouched by his father.   And then his gloating face had come crashing into it, ruining something even in death.  

Andrew took his silence as a sign that he was right.   “They come where they aren’t wanted.  Doesn’t mean they get to stay.  

Neil hummed and leaned more of his weight onto Andrew.  

“Do you have any other clothes?”  

Neil looked up at him confused.  

“You’re not staying here,” Andrew said as if talking to a small child.    

Neil pushed himself into a standing position, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet to try to give credence to his protests.  “I’m fine. I’ve got a whole shift ahead of me.”  

Andrew glared.  “I’m taking care of that.”  

Neil wanted to call bullshit, but he didn’t.  

He let himself be manhandled into the locker room where Andrew tossed him some clothes. The black sweats are too short, but the sweatshirt hung comfortably off him.  The grey material smelt like Andrew, so he hugged it tighter to himself as he waited for him to get back.  

He didn’t jump when Andrew wrapped an arm around him and directed him toward the parking lot.  

Maybe he was just done feeling, because he couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised by the GS Andrew pushed him into.  It was much nicer than anything a PT should be able to afford.  

They drove in silence.  At first, Neil stared out the window letting the surroundings blur as they got on the highway.  Eventually though he shifted to stare at Andrew.   Neil wasn't sure how long it had been when Andrew finally pulled off the highway into a dingy gas station.  The sun had set at some point, but that wasn't much of a clue.  Neil didn't even bother to check the clock when Andrew turned the car back on with his hands full of junk food.  

"Do you want to go back to your apartment?"   Andrew asked as he viciously bit into the twinkie.    

"No."  The answer was instantaneous even if Neil didn't know why.  He should want to go curl up in the far corners of his bed with the door locked and the world unable to touch him.   But the thought of leaving this moment, leaving Andrew felt like too much.  

He didn't know when Andrew turned into a safe place.  Neil was used to standing on his own, but now it felt like he didn't have to.  It wasn't just today.   Andrew had been there today, but the trust had been building gradually until Neil realized it felt like Andrew could protect him from the world.  

"Kevin's going to ask questions."  

Neil barely stifled his groan.  While he'd only met the man a handful of times, Andrew's roommate was a common topic of conversation on the roof.  

"Why do you even live with him if you hate him so much?"  Neil asked.  

"Don't ask stupid questions."   Andrew said his eyes still focused on the road.  

Because he's one of yours. Neil thought to himself.

Kevin was Andrew's in a way Neil could never be.  Kevin was the person who stayed even after he fulfilled his end of a deal in college.  Andrew may complain about his constant nagging, his hypocrisy when it came to Andrew's sweet tooth, his attempts to get Andrew to join his countless intermural sports teams.  But at the end of the day, even when Aaron rejected him, Kevin stayed.  And for that Andrew would never let him go.  

Still the thought of dealing with Kevin’s seemingly endless energy felt like too much right now.  

"The hospital's fine.  I can get home from there."  

Andrew gave him a disparaging look.   "Now is not the time Rabbit.  Give me the address."  

"I'm surprised you don’t already have it.  The lock on staff records too hard to break?"  

Andrew snorted as he changed lanes.

He still felt rubbed raw from the way he'd broken so easily even if it had been nearly six years since he'd been near his father at all.   So he knew Andrew was right, he couldn’t handle other people.  He gave his address even as Andrew smirked.  

After leaving the safety of the car, he'd ran about eight miles on the treadmill that had certainly seen better days.  Typically he'd prefer to run outside and let the breeze carry his worries away from him.  But the thought of people made him want to shrink.   He'd take the cheap gym with locker rooms that smelt vaguely of mold if it meant he could avoid interactions with all but two people.      

He ran to the hospital the rest of the week too.  It wasn't worth trying to navigate the subway when he'd be looking over his shoulder the entire way.  

Neil wasn't being paranoid.  His father was dead. So were Romero and Jackson.  Lola and the majority of the minions he'd met were in prison.  But there had to be some he hadn't met.  People the FBI hadn't even thought to warn him about.  He hadn't expected to live this long and if he had to keep one eye over his shoulder, his duffel bag always packed and a new city every few months to keep living he'd do it.    

But for now, he had time.  He could make the most of his time at Palmetto.  

He knew now that Andrew wanted him, and even though he’d never given the thought of kissing much thought before.   He was suddenly desperate for Andrew’s lips on his.   Andrew made him feel like he didn’t have an expiration date, like the future didn’t actually matter.  For someone always thinking three steps ahead, that felt entirely new.  But he thought he could get used to it.  

Neil had just finished helping Hernandez check out when Dan walked back onto the unit for the first time.  

He did a double take at first. He still had three weeks left on his contract and being reminded of just how little time he had left made him grit his teeth.  

Typically he’d already have his next location lined up, but Neil hadn’t even sent in his application yet.  

He wasn’t an idiot.  He knew prolonging the inevitable wasn’t a good idea.  Pretending he could stay long enough to memorize the feel of Andrew’s hands on his scars and their mouths pressed together desperately would do him no favors.  Neil knew when he started that anything they started had a clear expiration date.    

But seeing Dan with her little yellow bundle made him realize how close that date actually was.  

Luckily Neil was spared from giving Dan more than a cursory nod due to Allison practically sprinting down the hallway to the front desk.  

Allison’s smile was dazzling as she gestured toward the baby.  “I’m so glad to see you.  Now give me my niece.”

Dan merely rolled her eyes.  She looked more tired than the last time Neil had seen her, but also happier.  The dark bags under her eyes were matched by a brilliant smile.  

When she hesitated to hand her newborn over, Allison put her hands on her hips.  "You're in a hospital Dan.  It's not like we don't know how to take care of her"  

"And when was the last time you did an OBGYN rotation?"  

Allison flipped her blond ponytail dramatically.   "I'll have you know I could do it any day.  I just like you too much to be reassigned."

"And you'd be a bitch to replace. Here."   Dan smirked even as she handed over the baby.

"Oh She's absolutely precious, Auntie Allie's going to absolutely spoil you. Yes she is"   Allison cooed as she held the newborn.      

Dan watched her with a smile.  "Randy's a lifesaver, but I'm not about to say no to more babysitters."  

"Wait until she's older. I’ve got enough diapers to change as is.”  

Dan snorts.  

"So when are you back officially then?  I need my bestie back."

"I'm still working out the details."  

Allison snorted.  

Neil busied himself with sorting through the pain medication records for 409, pretending to ignore the weight of Dan's stare.  

But Allison had no intention of ignoring it.  "You mean we get to keep him?"  

"Honestly Al, he's not a stray cat."    

"So?"  

"And I haven't asked him yet, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't scare him away in the meantime."  

"Of Course Dan.  I wouldn't dare."  Allison smiled again at the baby before announcing that clearly Auntie Allie was the only one who could give a proper tour and that maybe "We'll even find daddy in time for him to change your diaper."      

Dan rolled her eyes but wasted none of her newfound baby-free time in waiting to approach Neil.    

"I'm so glad I was able to catch you.  I've heard nothing but good things about you since you started."  

Neil glanced up from the paperwork, but kept his fingers wrapped tightly around the clipboard.   "Most of them from your husband I assume."  

Dan laughed good naturally.  "You’d certainly think so.   I swear if I hadn't already cemented myself as his favorite person, I'd be worried."  

Neil grimaced.  

"But it isn't just him."  Dan stepped closer.  "How are you enjoying Palmetto Public Neil?"  

"It's fine."  

Despite his lackluster answer, she seemed undeterred.  "I'm glad to hear it, because we've been so happy to have you here.  And since we're always short-staffed, I was able to get the board to approve your transition to a full-time position if you want it."  

Neil swallowed, a pit already forming in his stomach.   "That's-"

"You don't have to give me an answer now.  I was just stopping in today and wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you could get your affairs in order."  

She smiled so eagerly at him.  He almost felt guilty when he said, "No.  I'm grateful for the offer and all, but I can't stay."  

"Oh."  Dan's voice was so small.   She looked absolutely heartbroken.  

He grimaced again.    

"Well, if you change your mind, just know you're always welcome here."  

Neil forced himself to turn back to the paperwork to give her a chance to slink away. He wasn't actually reading, probably couldn't even if he tried.  

They wanted him to stay.  

And that very fact made him want to run until he couldn’t move anymore.  

Neil at least stopped himself from running out of the hospital.  He went to the roof, where things had always been just a little bit clearer.   Maybe if he could just think, he could make his heart stop pounding.  

"Why are you being such an idiot?"  Andrew's voice was angrier than he'd ever heard him as he slams the door open.  "I can't believe you."  

"What's there to believe?"  

Andrew stalked across the room toward him.  Neil knew what angry men could do, but he wasn't afraid not even as Andrew practically spit in his face.  "That you're just going to run off again like a fucking rabbit."

"It's better for everyone." His voice sounded empty even to his own ears.  

Andrew dug his hand into Neil's shoulder. "Don't give me that shit."

Neil looked at him blankly.  

"He's dead."  

"So?"  

"So stop running."  

"I don't know how."  The words were small, but he felt the truth in every ounce of his body.   He's never had somewhere worth staying or anyone worth staying for.  

Abby had tried, tried so much harder than anyone else.   But it wasn't the same.   He couldn't stop feeling like the scarred boy who'd come into her care determined not to need anyone.  And she was all too willing to watch him walk away.  He didn't need to stay anywhere to be worth something.  

He couldn't explain why this time was different.  Why he ached at the thought of never listening to Allison tease him.  Why never talking to Matt again made him want to curl in on himself.  He certainly couldn't explain why the thought of not being able to laugh with Andrew, not being able to see him every day physically pained him.  He needed Andrew in a way he hadn't needed anyone since his mother died.    

Neil was desperate for him to understand.   "Tell me to stay.  You have to tell me to stay."  

"Why should I?  Nothing will come of it."  

"What's that supposed to mean?"  

Neil wanted to scream.   Scream that maybe if Andrew just asked he'd be able to.  He'd be able to force down all the impulses telling him to run, just like he was able to stop himself from running out of the hospital entirely at Dan's offer.  Instead he ran to the roof, where it was safe, where Andrew made it safe.  

Andrew pushed him away and Neil already felt himself stepping forward unconsciously, trying to close the distance between them.  

"It means I'm self-destructive, not stupid.  I'm not going to ask when you clearly don't want to.  I won't make you."  

I'd never make you.  

Andrew didn’t say that, but Neil heard it anyway.  Because Andrew never pushed when it came to consent, to wanting this thing between them.    

It's why he's so desperate for Andrew to understand now.    

"It's always been 'go.  It's always been 'lie' and 'hide' and 'disappear'."   Neil gestured wildly as if trying to grab the words from thin air. "I've never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. You can't expect me to just know how to-”

Neil trailed off when he saw Andrew's face.  It was stony even to his impassioned plea.

He didn't know how he could fix this.  He felt like he was hanging on by a fraying thread as it was.  "I'm so tired of being nothing."  

"Then stop making yourself be nothing.   Let yourself have this."  

Neil felt himself floundering even more.  "It's not that simple."  

Andrew huffed and turned away from him.  "I don't have time for rabbits or idiots."  

He let the door slam as he left.  

Getting through the rest of the day was a blur.  Neil just kept thinking about Andrew walking away from him and the rooftop door echoing too loudly as it closed.  His apartment was no better.

There was nothing in the little apartment that Neil was renting that looked remarkably like home.  He was used to packing his life up in to the grey duffel bag every few months.  Nothing he bought couldn’t be replaced at any big box store.  

It never really bothered him before.  

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t noticed how other people’s spaces seemed to fit them.  But he had spent so long trying to blend in that he wasn’t even sure what he could add to make the space feel more like him.

He didn’t have the college pictures to string along his wall like Dan and Matt.   He didn’t even have the dime-a-dozen motivational posters that Kevin seemed to favor the few times he’d been to the apartment he shared with Andrew.   He certainly didn’t have the wall of books that Andrew kept in his own room.  

Up until recently he wouldn’t have cared.

But for the first time in his life, Neil was starting to feel like a real person.  A real person was supposed to have something that other people could remember them by, to identify them with.  Neil had his job and the scars on his face.

And Andrew.   Andrew who didn’t seem to care about either.  

If anything Andrew scoffed at the desperation he brought to his job when they both know that you couldn’t save everyone, and that most of the time you couldn’t save the people who deserved it either.  

But Neil could see the way he cared even if he didn’t make it his entire personality or guiding force.   His chart notes were too detailed.  His frown all the deeper when things went wrong.  He was too good at his job to not care at least a little bit.  And there was no one at Palmetto that could deny that Andrew was brilliant at his job.  

While others could look at Neil and see nothing but his injuries, there was a way that Andrew looked at him, his eyes pooling like honey that made Neil feel like Andrew was seeing everything but his scars.  

Somehow he even looked happy with what he found.  

It made him want to stay, to take that little feeling and nurture it until Neil could see something in himself too.  Something worth being happy about.

He sent out three texts one right after the other.  

The first was to Andrew.  “I���m not an idiot or a rabbit.”

It was simple, but it said everything.  Neil wasn’t running from this, wasn’t running from Andrew.  Tomorrow they could talk, but for now it had to be enough.  

“Can I really stay?”  

It was less professional than it should be, considering Dan would be his supervisor if everything worked out.  But he didn’t have another way to ask.  It felt like pulling teeth to even write those four words.  

Neil shouldn’t have turned her down so quickly this afternoon. He should have let himself realize how much he wanted this, realize how forcing himself to move again felt like he was leaving a part of himself behind that he didn’t even know he had before.  

But he needn’t have worried.  Dan’s reply was practically instantaneous.  “Of Course!!!! I’ll make sure to go over all the paperwork tomorrow.”  

The last message was one he should have sent twelve weeks ago.  It was only his address.  But Abby would know what it meant.   She always did.  

[weeklyfangirl]

Frat Boy Pt. 13

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12

HI WOW TIME HAS SERIOUSLY FLOWN BY FOR ME - enjoy your fratty frat boy in all his angsty glory ;) Let me know what you guys think I miss you!!

“Down to watch Hocus Pocus and pass out candy to wee ones? My parents invited me down.”

Renny’s eyes softened, imagining the cuteness of last year when a toddler showed up dressed as a magnet with an attached note card saying “chick.”

“Okay, usually, yes, but the-”

“DG’s,” I groaned.

Midterms were creeping up and I was slowly dying between late night grading biology tests and the stress that’d been building up wondering about what in the fuck Harry had going on in his mind. He was hot, he was cold, and I wasn’t sure if this was all a massive game to him. It’d been relatively silent on the Harry front ever since the day of island paradise. The memory of his penetrating eyes examining me on the pier, and the twinge of electricity between us had inspired my wandering fingers more than once. I wouldn’t admit that to him, hell, I could barely admit that to myself.

I’d been too stubborn to text him, but not too stubborn enough to wear his sweatshirt out this morning. If we were friends, wearing his sweatshirt wouldn’t be weird. Technically he’d just invited me to meet his dad, which I admit, stung a bit, but a part of me couldn’t give up that he wasn’t into me. Could eyes lie so easily?

The ball was technically in my court to tell him whether or not I’d be going, so…

I slurped a scalding sip of tea, cringing at the inevitable. “Welp, if you’re going to ditch me for the DGs then I might as well go to Harry’s.”

She smirked, “I know.” 

I smacked her arm. “Is that why you’re ditching me?!”

“Hey, I’m not ditching you. It’s a thing for new recruits. You were invited, too.”

My ear still ringed with my mom’s shrill scream on the other end of the line when I’d told her - though I’m not sure if she’d be more excited by the fact that her daughter was going to visit the Styles residence or a sorority party.

Renny continued, “And please, as if you’d really go hang out at your parent’s alone when you have an offer to play co-host with Mr. Hunky Mystery Man. We’re sad sometimes, but we’re not that sad. Actually…”

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I’m surprised Harry isn’t going to be at the frat’s party.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “He said it was a family tradition.”

Renny’s brows rose at the F word. 

“Okay, but their house is also huge, I doubt it’s going to be an intimate affair.” Truthfully, I was excited to see how their house would be decorated. When I told my mother I probably wouldn’t be coming home to pass out candy, she’d told me not to worry. The neighbors were coming over and they had a couple of cheap wine bottles to drain. I’m sure not telling her I was going to the Styles's house wasn’t going to be that big of a deal.

“Are you kidding me? If Harry hands out a grand to cabana men then I can’t imagine what they’re going to spend on this party. Honestly, I’m kind of jealous.”

“Wait- what? He gave Ben a thousand dollars?”

 “Is Ben the cabana man?”

 “Yes.”

 “Then yes. Or about a grand, I mean I didn’t count it myself but it was a thick. Stack.” Renny’s brows shot up. “You seriously didn’t see that?”

 No wads of cash were in my memories. I was too busy retreating away to the golf cart to notice any grandiose money exchange. Ben’s words when he was saying goodbye to me at the golf cart suddenly flashed in my mind - tell him thank you for me.

 Thank you.

 I hadn’t even assumed the reason why. Probably because out of all things, I wouldn’t have guessed that.

 Renny tapped on her lips, signalling to mine that I painted a nice neutral. “Like the shade. What’s it for?”

 I looked to my watch. “Zayn. And I’m actually going to be late.”

 “Ugh, not fair!! Why can’t I have an artist draw me?”

 “Please, Felix was practically drooling over you last year, and he’s a graphic designer, right? I’m sure he has some sketches of you locked away in a cabinet somewhere.”

 Something that resembled a blush spread on her cheeks.

 “Oh my god. Does he?!”

 “He probably got rid of it by now.”

 I shook my head, scooping up my tea and 50 pound school bag with me. Leave it to Renny to have a collection of men up her sleeve at any given time. Even the beautiful brainy boy.

 “Tell Niall to try drawing,” I called back. The mention of the frat star turned a few heads at the crowded campus coffee shop, and I bit my lip at the scene, skirting across campus to the art studios where people wishing to escape found their haven.

 ---

 “A little to the left,” he murmured. His golden brown eyes peered over the white canvas, tirelessly scrupulous as they focused on each feature, and I felt my heart beat faster at the intensity of attention. “A little up.”

 My head tilted to his command, my exposed neck feeling even more naked as I noticeably swallowed.

 Did he hear that? Did the music need to be played louder?  

 “Beautiful.” He reached for another charcoal pencil in his kit. “Have you been in here before?” His voice gently rose over the Coldplay softly playing from the speaker system.

 “No, not yet,” I admitted. “I was going to take a ceramics class, but I dropped it the first week. Not exactly the sculptor type.”

 “So you’re not the artist, more the painting?”

 My brows furrowed. “What?”

 “I’m taking ceramics,” he said, not bothering to clarify.  

 “Yeah? You like it?”

 He didn’t answer, sweeping his pencil across the page - the aesthetic lulling of the way it scratched along the paper making me realize that yes, he’d definitely heard me gulping earlier.

 The soothing noise didn’t stop, and he didn’t answer for a time that seemed much longer than a minute. I wonder what Harry was doing right now? Was he in class? Practice? Not that I should even be thinking about him.

 The little smug version of me was dancing in my brain, delighting in the fact that somebody else was paying attention to me, that there were other people who found me desirable besides Harry. Sure, this was solely for Zayn’s assignment, and yeah, Harry could easily have any number of women he merely glanced at - but me? I could get by without him just fine, and-

 “Your face comes across so soft on paper. Gentle,” he said, glancing first at his work, then up to me, as if trying to see if the reality mirrored the copy.

 I shifted nervously, but the swivel chair was more sensitive than I’d thought and I almost went flying off the other side. He laughed a bit, before taking his top lip between his fingers.

 “Look, I’ve nearly got this one finished right. I’ve got your basic outline to finish the rest on my own, creative liberties ‘n that, but I’ll need a few more still lifes from you if that’s…”

 “Yeah! That’s fine.”

 “Might be a longshot with the holiday, but do you mind coming in this weekend?”

 Plans of the Styles’ Halloween bash rang as a reminder, and it buzzed throughout my entire body. “I can’t, actually. I’m going to a party, I think.”

 “Really!” he set down the pencil dramatically. “Am I going to see you in a plaid skirt up your bum again, missy?”

 “Ouch, no! But fair. Cringeworthy, but fair.” I slid down the chair, crossing my arms. His eyes didn’t change in their intensity even if he wasn’t holding a pencil. “It’s the Styles’ Halloween bash Saturday. I’m guessing it’s a family-friendly affair so no, I will not be in anything showing any skin, anywhere. I guess they do it every year.”

 Realization sunk in, but it seemed a bit of a show. “Harry, yeah, that’s right. Are you two…?”

 I shook my head, thinking of what Harry must say when (or if) he got asked the same question. There was no doubt in my mind.

 “No.”

 It was some weird “in between” with us, but no was a much easier answer.

 “Right, well, that’ll be interesting then.” He bit his cheek, mulling over something he wasn’t quite sure he should say.

 “What?”

 He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Nothing, it’s just… I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a part of that family. It’s got a lot of history.”

 “Yeah? Like what?”

 “Let’s just say there aren’t that many British boys that get adopted by Americans.”

 I tilted my head back, put off at the slight arrogance in his tone. There was a protective side of me that wanted to rear its head and bristle whenever somebody talked down to Harry, and I wasn’t sure how to put it away.

 “I’m not sure what you mean.”

 “You can look up the story, but-”

 A knock at the door, and a petite black-bobbed Asian girl peered her head in.

 “Hi, I have the room at 5:30.”

 I glanced to the clock on the wall, just a little past.

 “We’re finishing up,” he said. She nodded, not budging. A little territorial over the studio space. Which, I completely get. Once midterm season hits, the library starts to resemble a refugee posting with people camped outside cubicles and “quiet rooms,” hoping for the prior group to leave a little earlier if they didn’t have reservations of their own.

 “Yeah, we’re done.”  I picked up my bag, and put my beanie over my head.

 “Well, I’ll be in touch then. Sometime next week?” He followed me to the door, and placed a hand to my lower back. I stopped, trying to discern if there was something else behind his eyes. Maybe this hadn’t just been for a project.

 But his hand was removed just as quickly, and with a little “See ya,” he closed the door behind me.

 -----------

 Lines of vintage cars parked outside the Styles’s home wasn’t what I’d been expecting when Harry had shot a text that it was a masquerade gala. Maybe it should’ve, but it wasn’t. I squinted my eyes at a woman in a neon vest waving around her flashlight to the approaching cars and signalling them to available spots along the street.

 How was I meant to find him in this madness?

 “Here is fine,” I told the Lyft driver. I’d bit the bullet (or rather, my wallet) to get a ride. I thought I’d bypass the embarrassing “car dying” scenario again and just play it safe. Not that I was expecting to spend the night again… the toothbrush I’d stuffed in my purse screamed otherwise, and seemed to burn a hole into my thigh.

 But still, totally not expecting to spend the night.

 Totally …. not ….

 The sound of the Uber leaving made me realize I was doing this. Again. Willingly walking into the lion’s den simultaneously with at least ten other well-dressed individuals.

 Expect me tonight, I’d sent. It was a little bold. I had to refrain from sending any emojis, but I’d done it. Played it cool.

 Wear a mask, he’d replied. And I felt my stomach drop a little bit. He hadn’t said-

 Cool! Gee, thanks for letting me know! Wow that’s so nice to hear! You made my day!

 No.

 Just a simple three word request. Actually, more like demand. I bristled the same moment my phone buzzed.

 Please.

 I sighed. I guess it was four words.

 Of all the themes to pick though… I rolled my eyes at “masquerade.” Renny had done the opposite, and flew to her dresser, opening a drawer full of toys and masks and - oh my gosh was that a leash? She handed me one, black lace over the eyes that could lift up and over the cat headpiece. I didn’t ask any questions for why she had this so readily available, because guessing from the other contents in the drawer, I already knew the answer.

 “You look-” Renny kissed her fingertips- “Bellissima.”

 Older, sophisticated silver foxes arm-in-arm with their wives took the time to glance at the young woman approaching the estate.

 I blamed it on the deep red dress Renny stole from the theater department (or borrowed as she insisted). It fanned out with dramatic flair like an 18th century production of Shakespeare would - or how our school’s production of Much Ado About Nothing would (which was now short one costume).

 The doors opened to the tinkling of a piano.

 Amidst cocktail waiters weaving between the masked strangers, someone was actually playing it. He had brown curly hair and I practically raced to his side to avoid standing in the foyer alone any longer.

 “I didn’t know you could play.”  

 The man quirked his face, his hands not stopping.

 Even with the mask I could tell it wasn’t Harry.

 “Oh, sorry,” I said, stumbling back.

 Hands gripped my shoulders, as lips went to my ear-

 “Not well.”

 Twisting in his grasp, the familiar curve of his smirk appeared. His green eyes were highlighted by golden flakes etched into a black mask, and my breath quite literally caught in my throat. Somehow, each time, I forgot the magnetism they held. And somehow, each time, I forgot that I was absolute putty in his hands.

 “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

 Something flashed in his eyes and I knew it didn’t come out right. “The house looks… amazing.”

 I was floundering, FLOUNDERING.

 His nose crinkled the same time he placed a hand to the small of my back. “Too many cobwebs.”

 And without a word, he started leading me through the crowded rooms. Cobwebs over the banister and scary paintings of haunted people replaced the usual art in their home - except for the centered family portrait, intimidatingly framed in gold. The cobwebs were a fitting touch. I wondered how many secrets these walls held, how many years things have been kept in the dark, or swept under the rug.

 Every family had them, but something told me this place had enough storage in all its rooms to hold more than I could imagine.  

 We passed a room set-up with aisles of empty chairs and a projector screen that read “Jane Foundation.” Pamphlets and envelopes were lain on each of the chairs, but we walked too quickly for me to get a closer read.

 “What’s that for?”

 “Later. You don’t know?”

 I shook my head. He slowed to a halt in the hallway.

 “My parents put on a fundraiser every year for the children’s hospital. It’s how we end the evening.”

 My mouth opened and again- floundering. He scratched behind his ear.

 “Yeah, I thought.. I don’t know, I thought everyone knew. But I shouldn’t assume I guess.”

 I just shrugged my shoulders, accepting that his family had the capacity to pull something like this off. That the were pulling this off. That I was even here. Clearly living ten minutes away was certifiably living under a rock.

 He paused, a slight quirk in his lips. With the distraction of the music and the people, I hadn’t had the chance to really look at him. Or him, at me. If anyone ever asked, I’d call him shameless, but I wouldn’t even call it that as he drank me in. It didn’t seem as intentional as that. It was instinctive.

 I drank him in as well, and even if it was just a brief moment facing each other in the hallway with masked strangers streaming through, it felt like it was just him and I. How long had we been like this? Broad shoulders in a nice suit, a tall frame that could cover and protect, brown curls that looked so soft to touch, and eyes that spoke of scary pasts and a soft heart that locked me still in place. He was walking poetry and as much as it made me sick, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted him closer, to lean in closer...

 “Come on,” he murmured, but this time he was in front of me.

 I followed, straight to the dining room.

 “Oh, you are trying to get me to not fit into this dress,” I said. It was full of catered food from the nicest restaurants in Coast Hills. Last time I’d been in this room, it hadn’t been the most comfortable encounter. Now that the corset was digging into my ribs and I was a little short of breath, I predicted I was in for Awkward Dinner Part II.

 “You aren’t hungry?” He faltered, turning to face me.

 I gave a coy smile. “Well I didn’t say that…”

 “Hey! So good to see you.”

 Gemma burst through a small cluster of people, Charlie right behind her. His navy suit matched her slip dress, tapering off at the ends like the foam from a wave.

 She embraced me, Charlie soon after. But it was the same side-hug squeeze that made me remember him. Harry noticed my grimace. Charlie noticed Harry noticing me.

 “All good?” Charlie pulled back.

 “My brother did that all the time,” I said. Harry handed me a glass full of champagne, and I took it, happy to have something else occupy my mouth. I hadn’t expected to say that at all.

 “I didn’t know you had a brother,” Harry said.  

 “You don’t know a lot of things.”

 Gemma perked up. “That’s right, put him in his place.”

 “He’s not around much so, I don’t think to talk about him much.” I left it at that, a slight offering to make Harry feel less offended. His expression was impossible to read, and I wasn’t sure if my words had actually helped or hurt.

 “I have a sister like that. Moved to Lisbon with her boyfriend. We see her on holidays though.” Charlie jumped with a chill. “Jiminy- it’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

 “Have more wine babes, it’ll cheer you up,” Gemma said. And just like me, a champagne flute was suddenly in his hands.

 “Well we were just headed to get some food,” Harry mentioned, eyes slightly widening when they locked with mine - a silent plea to take his cue.

 “Wait! Let me take a picture really quickly.”

 “Gemma,” he sighed.

 “Just a little one! Just a quick...second...” She dug in her purse, struggling to juggle the wine and the mini plate of couscous and falafel.

 I took a step to the side as soon as she pulled the camera out.

 “Hello? Where do you think you’re going? Get back in there.”

 Harry raised his brows to me, both in annoyance and apology. I stood next to him, and he placed an arm around me. It was just for a moment, but I still felt him. Always.

 Gemma smiled at her phone. “Aww, this is perfect. I’ll send it to mom, too. She’ll like it.” She said the last bit cautiously.  

 Harry’s face turned unreadable, his eyes complete stone.

 “One for me now,” she said, reaching down for something else.

 “I swear, she can hide an elephant in that bag and the only reason someone would know is because it’d trumpet during the previews.”

 She pulled out a polaroid camera. Somehow, in the past five seconds, he’d gone from mildly annoyed and embarrassed to deadpanned over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually growled.

 She held up the camera so I smiled, but as the flash went off and I looked beside me - he was gone.

 “Oh! Harry,” she scolded, but he’d already walked too far away. I saw him weave his way towards the windows of the house and look out.

 “You shouldn’t have mentioned her.” Charlie kicked his shoe. He saw Harry too, looking vigilantly out the window. A second longer and he turned on his heel. He stood taller as he made his way back.

 “Well, at least it’ll be a good picture of you. I’m creating a little collage of the evening.” Gemma put the camera away in her big bag. She reminded me of a mom on prom night and suddenly I felt like I should send that photo to someone, too.

 “That’s so cool! I’m sure it’s going to look so… cute.” Through the crowd, Harry motioned to the food. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to say brief goodbyes to his sister.

 “We won’t keep you. Get the pasta pops though. To die for,” Gemma said. “Charlie and I were going to take a stroll by the pool if you want to join us after.”

 “Yes! Oh, and would you mind sending me the photo, too? My mom wants proof I’m alive tonight.”

 “God, of course. Here.” She gave the champagne flute to Charlie, typed in my number, and sent it off.

 “We’ll see you later,” Charlie said.

 “The pasta poppers!” she exclaimed, flute in the air as they weasled their way out to the patio.

 Before I could wonder where Harry was, he met me by the Sprinkles cupcakes stand.

 “Going for dessert first?”

 “Looking for the moon?” I picked one of the mini cupcakes and plopped it in my mouth to spite him. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away for a split second before looking back. His smile grew.

 “Damn it.”

 My heart picked up its pace.

 “You caught me.”

 He held another cupcake to my lips but I shook my head. “I’m hungry for real food right now.”

 He nodded, and without me saying another word, he took my elbow to bring me to his side. It was comforting to have his hand at my back as we walked through the spread of food. Even if it was lightly placed, in a crowd full of people I didn’t know, at least I had a place with him. My eyes widened when I saw them. The glorious, innovative Pasta Pops. AKA rolled up ball of pesto pasta on chopsticks… I grabbed four.

 “So, when am I seeing your dad?”

 “What?” He piled more food on top of the mountain already growing on his plate.

 “Your dad. The reason why you invited me.” I didn’t believe it. Not anymore. The host of the party wasn’t going to sit down and talk about a potential internship at his own full-fledged party.

 I put a Pasta Pop in my mouth. His attention broke and he watched my lips go over the ball, puckering as I pulled it to the tip. It’s when my lips came off with a “pop” that he sucked in a cheek, smirking.

 “You won’t be talking with Lionel long. Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself in the meantime.”

 But when I reached over someone’s arm to grab a slider, they stopped me.

 “Hey, you.”

 His eyes lit up and instantly I was drawn in for an awkward hug. Behind his back, I mouthed did you plan this?

 He shrugged his shoulders and looked away with a sly look.

 Lionel pulled away from our quick embrace and looked to my pile of food. It was my turn for the awkward shrug.

 “No, it’s good! Keep going! We have enough food here to feed a small country. Are you still thinking about medicine?”

 “Yeah, not much has changed in the past couple of weeks. Same old, same old.”

 He paused, raising a finger. “I gave you my card, right?”

 How could I forget the card that’s been burning a hole through my dresser…

 “Yes. I’ve been meaning to call you, but I’ve been so busy studying with these midterms, and work, too...” I let my voice fade.  

 “What do you do for work?”

 Harry slowed as he picked up a napkin, and I knew he was listening in even if he wouldn’t stop and join the conversation. I watched his eyes skirt across the table close to where my hand toyed with the serving spoon.

 “Well, I’m a T.A. right now, but I’m also working in the physical therapy room on campus. It’s pretty easy for the most part, blood doesn’t scare me.”

 “Good. You’ll need a strong stomach for most cases.” A man tapped him on the shoulder, stealing his attention. “Give me a call when you can, we’ll set something up at the practice.”

 He leaned in behind Harry, both hands on his back. “Take care of her tonight.”

 Harry stiffened. I’m not sure why. Lionel had such a warm look in his eyes, I automatically trusted him. As he left with his friend, he flashed us one white smile, and I felt loved.

 What the heck was in this family. What kind of beauty steroids did they take?

 “Penny for your thoughts?”

 The quip sounded weird coming from Harry, the Vogue Italia model, leaning against the table. But then again, I was looking after his father with a dazed look on my face that was screaming “I wish I was 40 and you weren’t married.” I snapped out of it and mimicked his pose, equally skeptical.

 “If I hadn’t seen your dad here just now, I swear I wouldn’t have seen him at all. I barely recognize the place with so many…”

 “People?”

 I nodded.

 “I promised that you’d talk to him.”

 “Riiiight.”

 “You don’t trust me?”

 My brows rose. “That’s a loaded question.”

 A spark of indignance puffed up his chest. “What? You actually have to think about that?”

 “I’m just saying. Communication is usually the key to building that up. Just, you know, a friendly tip to help you with those future relationships.” I tapped his chest, and he reached for my wrist. A bold move, sober. He thought so, too, for he dropped it a second later. I was waiting for a, “You can trust me,” but instead he turned serious.

 “Smart girl.”

 He looked at me that way again. A little too deep, a little too long, and I cursed myself for not knowing what to do. He took a bit of his bottom lip between his teeth.

 “I didn’t know you worked in the therapy room.”

 “That’s because you never noticed me before.”

 “Ah, ah,” he raised a finger like his father. “That’s because I’ve never been injured before.”

 I let out a short laugh. “You’re an arrogant thing, aren’t you.”

 “Just honest.”

 Honest.

 But would you answer if I asked, Harry? Would you answer if I asked you what in the heck we were doing? Did I even want to know the answer?

 “I’m really glad you’re here,” he said. And it looked like there was something more swimming behind those eyes.

 “I am, too,” I said. “Much better than a sorority party...” My eyes narrowed. “What in the-”

 “Y/N?”

 Clearly, Viv was just as surprised to see me. Mary Styles was beside her, and she raised her glass to me in a distant hello before giving Viv a kiss on the cheek, excusing herself.

 “What are you doing here?” The silver blue dress she wore was glued to her skinny frame like snakeskin. Harry shifted his feet as she came closer and I wonder if he noticed how tight it was.

 “I followed the noise and traffic directors and decided to hop the gates,” I said.  

 “You didn’t get the initiate invite?”

 An almost pitiful look befell Harry. “You had somewhere else to be?” His puppy dog eyes confused me.

 “Technically, yes. I just, um” - I looked to Viv - “decided to spend my evening somewhere else. You didn’t care to go either?”

 “Oh, I come every year. I practically live in the guest room anyways.”

 I pictured Viv laying poolside during summer barbeques, coming around for Christmas parties, and waking up in her silk pajamas to Sven handing her delicious pastries.  

 “Well this’ll be fun anyways. We’ll have our own little sorority party here.” She turned to Harry. “Can I speak to you for a second?”

 “Yeah.”

 She looked at me apologetically, then back to him. “Alone.”

 His eyes narrowed just the slightest, but he didn’t even have to think about it. He placed a hand at my back. “I’ll just be a second.”

 Viv gave me a half-smile as she interlinked her arm through his, and they left, abandoning me in a swarming crowd with cold sliders. Without him beside me, I fought the ever-present urge that I didn’t belong, but wandering to the glass doors, I saw the red gown in the reflection, the black lace of my mask. I didn’t look like regular ‘ol me tonight. Nobody knew me tonight. A rush of confidence ran through me.

 I was somebody. With, or without Harry.  

 A twinkling bell carried through the halls the same time I stood a little taller. The piano music died down and everyone quieted.

 “I hope everyone is enjoying their evening,” the shrill voice of Mary Styles carried higher as she placed herself atop the spiral staircase. Some people clapped a little prematurely and she smiled at them graciously. “If everyone could please begin filing into the foundation room, we are about to begin the programme.”

 I stole another flute of champagne. Programme.

 The twinkling sound rang again and people began handing their plates over so they could grab their wallets. Several men apologized as they bumped into me, trying to move around the cocktail waiters. Wherever Harry was, he’d just have to find me later. I followed the crowd when my blood ran cold.

 There was something sweet in the air.

 The air around me seemed thinner. I looked around, quickly, but all I saw were masks. Even if they didn’t have them on, their faces were starting to blur in my mind.

 But that too-sweet scent would never.

 It was the man from Kean’s.

 I inhaled again, but it was gone, carried away and overpowered by Dior perfume and Gucci cologne. Were they here? Were they watching me? Were they waiting to get me alone?

 They’d done it before. Maybe it’d be easier this time...

 My mind went to horrible places, and suddenly I was running against the sea.

 I scanned as I ran, but it was futile. I burst through the kitchen doors and froze. There, Mary Styles was heaving over the trashcan spitting out strands of pesto pasta.

 She looked up at me with the emptiest eyes I’d seen.

 “I’m-I’m sorry.”  I bumped into the counter, stumbling out the way I came. Her glossy eyes were haunting. Had I just seen Mrs. Styles eject the contents of her stomach?

 Alone, I shook it off, trying to calm my breathing. They couldn’t do anything to me here. Hell, Mrs. Styles was on the other side of the door. I would scream. People would hear me.  

 “Hey, you okay?”

 And even though I recognized the voice, when his hands were placed on my shoulders I flinched.

 “I smelled them,” I said, looking over my shoulder to the kitchen.

 “Who?” Harry’s eyes followed my gaze. He took a step toward the kitchen.

 “I wouldn’t,” I said.

 He stopped, confused. “I mean, you can, but I think your mom is sick,” I continued.  

 My tone wasn’t convincing. He bit his cheek. “Right.”

 And even though we both knew that his mom didn’t have food poisoning, that was a conversation for another time.

 “They’re here, Harry.”

 “What are you talking about?” He paused. His eyes saw the panic in mine and he swallowed, hard.

 “They can’t be. There’s security.”

 “I walked through the door, no one searched me or checked my name off a list.”

 “You’re a girl, it’s different. The security has a list of faces to watch out for, and trust me, they’d stand out.”

 “No- Harry,” I stammered. He wasn’t get it. “Their cologne. I haven’t smelled it since Kean’s.” The name tasted bitter on my tongue. “I was there- and your mom was talking and I was following these people but I smelled them. And it was so crowded so I ran and she was in the kitchen, and I don’t- I don’t know how, but they’re here. I didn’t imagine that. And no one else would be wearing that. No one else could smell like that.”

 I gasped for air, not realizing that I was on the verge of sobbing until Harry’s arms came around me.

 “Hey,” he soothed. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

 I let him hold me, but I wasn’t sure if I believed him. Their living area was too empty now. Too quiet. And even in his arms, even knowing what he’d done to them before, I didn’t feel safe. What was the point of having a massive castle if you couldn’t defend it? Your wealth just made you a sitting duck. A giant target.

 “Why would they be here?” I asked.

 “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here,” he reassured me.  

 “You probably think I’m crazy.”

 “No, don’t do that to yourself.” He pulled back just enough. “You’re not crazy.”

 And with no one to see, he took my hand, leading me past the foundation room. A part of me actually wanted to see the auction, but my mounting paranoia was stronger. We passed by the bar on the way to his room. It’d been empty for my last visit, but now the caterers were taking full advantage of its liquor storage capacity.

 “Let’s see,” his voice drawled as his fingers shifted through the bottles. He didn’t ask before pouring us two cocktails.

 “After you,” he said, nodding towards his room. By the time I’d sat down at the foot of his bed, he shut the door behind us with both drinks, and the vodka handle in the crook of his arm.

 “Is the foundation for your sister? Jane?”

 Harry avoided eye contact as he set the bottle down, pushing his hair back, brows raised.

 “Uh, kind of. I never knew her.” He turned to me finally, shrugging with an apathy that had taken years to perfect. “I mean it’s sad, we don’t have to talk about it now.”

 “Is it ever a good time?”

 He looked at me, giving me the chance to take back what I did. I didn’t.

 “She died before I was adopted.”

 “Oh.” My stomach dropped. There was so much I didn’t know, but I hadn’t been expecting this. His eyes didn’t hold any sadness, but guilt still pricked my heart. “I’m sorry.”

 He looked out the window again, distracted.

 “Again, I didn’t know her. It’s sad, but I don’t…” -he tried to find the right words, loosened his tie- “It’s not my grief.”

 I nodded; that made sense. It was his parents. The Styles. But the legacy of that pain couldn’t have had zero repercussions on their second child. There was more to the story than he was sharing, but I didn’t press. I walked closer, slowly toying with my drink.

 “So you find it hard to miss something you never had,” I clarified.

 He took a deep breath. “Cheers.” He raised his glass to me and I mimicked him, cringing at the stiff drink.

 “How are you feeling?” he asked.

 “Warm.”

 He nudged me, growing serious. “You know what I mean.”

 How was I feeling? The inner me cleared her throat and yelled from a soap box.

Jealous.

Scared.

Confused.

ANNOYED at how many windows this house had. I looked at Harry’s dark mask, the swirling madness in his emerald, the way the suit fit snug against his toned body… we were very much alone.

 Add turned on to my emotional cocktail.

 “I’m feeling a lot.”

 “Hm,” he hummed. “I’m feeling a lot too.” And it was so quiet. So bizarre to hear him say something even remotely close to feelings that I stood completely still. Was his drink as strong as mine?

 Our eyes were locked, but he didn’t turn away. I fought every fiber in my screaming to break the intense spell.

 He leaned in closer, tilted his head lower. Our noses brushed.

 Panic.

 “Are you and Viv…?”

 “I’m not up here with her am I.”

 Relief.

 But I didn’t have the courage to say she’d probably been up here before.

 “You know” - he pulled me closer, waists closing in - “I’m going to need a lot of help with that midterm,” he mumbled.

 Elation.

 An almost laugh that just lasted for a moment, because school seemed so trivial for what was happening in this house. There seemed to be split parts of me - the one I’ve always known and the one with him. Which one was more real to me now? I wasn’t sure if I was the same person that I once was - happy alone, solely immersed in school or netflix nights in. I’d been fine. I’d been safe. Maybe a little bored, but I hadn’t known there was more. With him there was a chaos that burned off his shoulders, that simmered in his eyes, and I drank in the warmth like a person frozen from snow.

 His hands squeezed my sides, and my eyes fluttered closed. “How are you feeling now?”

 “Good.”  

 He didn’t say anything more, but our breath was now in sync. It didn’t matter what he couldn’t say. What mattered was him, and the fact that when he looked at me, I felt everything he couldn’t say.

 Eyes couldn’t lie. Not like that.

 So I lifted my lips, and he went in for the kiss.

 It was like I’d been starved of oxygen when his soft lips encompassed my own. Oh God, I’d missed this buzz. I’d missed him.

 His hands cradled my face as he backed me up to the edge of the bed, lips never parting. A greedy hand shifted lower and he gripped the curve of backside. I whimpered a little, lips parting to allow his tongue to sneak in as he marked what I was so willing to give. He wasn’t pulling away this time. He wasn’t telling me no.

 I sat at the edge of the bed where he’d placed us, and leant back, his body falling atop mine. His delicious weight pinned me down, and he kissed down my neck, nibbling, biting. With a particularly hard suck, I moaned and when I looked down I saw him paused, hooded eyes looking up at me from the sound. His hands travelled down, slowly, from my waist to the ends of my dress. He was heavy but not crushing, deliberate but with respect. He waited for an answer.

 I nodded.

 He bit his lip in a smirk as he hitched up my dress. One hand clutching the soft skin of my hips, as the other supported him above me, Harry rolled his hips against me.

 Oh.

 Against the thin fabric of my underwear, I felt him harden between my folds. Gentle kisses were peppered along my chest and I pulled him closer.

 “Harry,” I whispered, lifting my hips against his. He groaned into my ear, a playful bite at the lobe.

 I shivered the same time his fingers travelled lower against my stomach. He stopped at the band of underwear, my breath catching when he cupped my sex.

 “Is this okay?” he whispered.

 I nodded, hummed, as his hand slowly rubbed against me. I could feel him watch me intently, but mostly I could feel him. Up, down, up... the friction against my bundle of nerves made my lips part. Again, and again, my breathing deepened and soon I was rutting against his hand. The damp patch he created was evident as he took several fingers and ran them against it. He applied pressure at my center and I wanted him to do more.

 He kissed my neck and a “please” stumbled out of my mouth. He smiled, letting out a small breath. He kissed my lips as his fingers pulled aside the lace. The cutest gesture of reassurance when there was nothing to reassure.

 I’d dreamt about this too many times for me to back out. This time I wouldn’t shy away. I took his bottom lip between mine. Go.

 But a glass shattering scream carried up the stairs.

 The commotion from downstairs grew louder, and I didn’t need to say anything.

 I’d already known.

 His hand retracted, and as quickly as it started, he’d rolled off to his side, my comforting weight gone.

 “What the fuck,” he muttered. He stood dead still at the edge of the bed but when he heard someone coming up the stairs, he lunged for the dresser, reached for the top drawer -

 From outside, “Harry! Harry, are you up here?”

 The door flew open.

 His arm fell to his side.

 Gemma stood at the doorway, slightly out of breath.

 “You need to come downstairs. Now.”

 I pulled my dress down, but Gemma wasn’t paying attention to me. There was a wild look in her eye only Harry could understand.

 He didn’t look back to me as he barrelled past her, she followed suit. I sat at the edge of the bed; alone, dishevelled, disoriented. I was scared to follow.

 Everything could change in a moment.

 There were footsteps at the door again and I looked up just in time to see Harry striding across the floor to me.

 “What are you-”

 His lips crashed into mine, and my breath was suspended again. There was an urgency in the kiss that hadn’t been there before. Deep, hard, a hand tangled in my hair when another hitched up my skirt. His fingers swiped at my entrance once and before I could kiss him back he pulled away.

 He let out an exasperated breath, and leant his forehead against mine.

 “I have to take care of this.”

 Unflinching, he drew the fingers that’d just pressed against my center up to his parted lips before swiping them against my own.

 He stood tall as he walked away, broad shoulders subtly moving beneath the suit as he drew a key from his pocket and closed the door behind him.

 There was no way in hell I was staying here.

 I shot up, running to the door - but it was locked. I pounded against it.

 “Harry? Harry let me out this isn’t funny!”

 I jiggled the handle again. Nothing.

 I wanted to scream, debated about screaming as I paced around the room. My eyes went to the top drawer of his dresser. I stopped. He’d reached for something there.

 When I pulled it open it was just some old band t-shirts, but my hand hit something in the back. Pushing aside the shirts was a black box.

 I quickly undid the clasp.

 A black handgun.

 I shoved the box to the back as quickly as I’d opened it.

 Fuck no.

 Frickity fracking fuck no.

 He’d been reaching for a gun.

 What kind of threats was he used to that he needed a gun?  

 I took a bobby pin from my hair, and with an expert skill that only growing up with a sibling could teach you, the lock was picked.

 It took me at least five minutes, but the door opened. I booked it downstairs, a flounder of red dress heading into a quiet commotion.

 I didn't see him when I made it down the stairs. There were too many confused bystanders huddled around their phones and switching social circles, whispering frantically about the scene before them.

I didn’t need to see anything in the crowd. For up on the wall, between collectors’ paintings was a vacant space.

 The family portrait was gone.

 And in its place was a snake that matched the one I’d seen tattooed on skin, the same snake that had been wrapped around my neck.

part 14

[realfuurikuuri]

For Fox Sake

MMHOPH Missing Arm! AU fic Chapter 2

WC: 2,888

AN: Again, made using the MissingArm!AU created by @spookylovesboba And it’s now on Ao3 if any of y’alls want so read it there. I reccomend you do becuase chapter 1 had some editing issues that were fixed. Writing this chapter was fun. I like Rufus and Reggie. They force things to be less about fights and more about words. A song rec for this chapter would be Won’t Get Fooled Again - The Who (the cultured among you will notice that it’s also the theme song to CSI: Miami). Will tamble in tags some more. AO3 Link

Mao Mao sat on a bench, nursing a cup of coffee that had started to become tepid. Adorabat and Badgerclops were there with him. They weren’t doing much either. They tapped away on their games without a care in the world. He thinks it was called Mini-mons, or something. Mao Mao would have reminded them that they were on patrol if the day wasn’t so slow. The only thing he did was give Pigguns another driving ticket, which he does every day, so it wasn’t anything but routine at this point.

In his boredom, Mao Mao’s mind began to wander. The first of which being Jǐngtì. He probably went back to meet up with Tanya. Hopefully, she could give the kid the talk Mao Mao couldn’t. The next thought that passed his mind was the valley itself. It was a strange place. He knew that it was guarded by the Ruby Pure Heart. Did the thing have to do with the sweetipies? They were strange creatures. Despite their age, they all seemed like children. Destructive, naive, gullible, children. Even the ones who he assumed were older were still flagrantly immature. Snugglemane and Camille being prime examples.

“Hey, Badgerclops,” he said.

“What do you want Daddy Issues I’m doing -Oh C’mon not Dirtmon,” he said, tapping buttons on the game even harder.

“You think the Ruby Pure Heart has something to do with the sweetipies?”

“Elaborate.”

“I mean do you think it has to do with why they’re all so… immature… and feral?”

“Nah, dude I think that was just the barrier thingy. No problems; no need to learn, right?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“You need to find something to do. You always get so questiony when you’re antsy.”

“I would if there was something to do.”

“Play Mini-mons with us?”

“No.”

“Then go find some sweetiepies or something. All they do is commit crimes, to be honest. Shouldn’t Puggin’s be speeding around now?”

He couldn’t say Badgerclops was wrong about that. Mao Mao got up and threw away his coffee. “No he gets his daily ticket at 4:00, but you have a point. I’ll see you around.”

“Okay dude I’ll be… losing to this child. Get me a pie if you’re going to the bakery.”

Mao Mao almost told him to go get it himself when he sighed and decided to go along with it.

* * *

Rufus could barely believe his luck. He sat at the table watching Muffin stack all sorts of valuables on the table. Golden coins, priceless gems, paintings, and a menagerie of riches that would fit a king. He was eyeing a golden watch on this ugly little mouse’s wrist, searching his head for a con, when the thing walked up to him. He was eyeing a golden watch on this ugly little mouse’s wrist, searching his head for a con, when the thing walked up to him. Somehow Reggie managed to pull a scam out of nowhere that the creature actually believed.

Just an hour ago he was looking for yet another town to go to where his face was unknown to run another scam, only to find a surprise kingdom that wasn’t on any maps. Even better than that was that everyone here was dumb as bricks! Rufus kicked back to watch more savings be put on the table when a strange cat walked in. To be fair, the black cat only looked strange relative to the technicolor weirdos.

“Can I get another Everyberry...” The cat’s voice died out as it caught sight of Rufus Regg and the stack of treasures.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed,” Muffins, what are you doing?”

“Well, I was making some pies when these two nice gentlemen come in. They looked like the wanted to talk to me, so I go up to them and it turns out their distant relatives who are looking to set up a branch of the company here. They just need some investment to set up shop, and well you don’t say no to family,” Muffin said.

“You're savings,” he did a double-take looking at the stack of treasures before shaking it off,” that… comes later. Muffin, right now you need to stop giving them their money.”

Rufus began to wonder if things were starting to sour.

“Why not help family?”

“Muffins you are a yellow mouse. That is a raccoon and fox.”

“And?”

The cat looked like he was about to strangle the mouse when he took a deep breath,” listen, they aren’t your family. They’re scam artists taking your money.”

“A preposterous claim, under what authority do you have to make those allegations,” Rufus asked with all the feigned bravado he could muster.

“The crown’s.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m the sheriff.”

* * *

Mao Mao watched the fox’s eyes go wide as he forced himself to wear a smile. “Ahhh, I see. Well, you must be a busy person, as are we, so you must understand if we have to cut this engagement short. We have places to be you know.”

“You’re both under arrest.”

“Run!”

Rufus quickly grabbed his companion and bolted out the door.

Mao Mao checked his watch. It was 3:50. If he did this quick he should be able to give Pigguns his ticket. After giving them a fair head start before he crashed through the storefront to give chase. It was pretty disappointing, to be honest. The grifters weren’t particularly fast or smart. They made the horrible choice to run right to the kingdom gates. Mao Mao knew twenty different shortcuts that could have put him ahead of them, but he didn’t need to use any of them. He checked his watch; It was 3:58. Mao Mao picked up the pace, closing in on them at blinding speed.

He drew his sword and leaped forward. He screeched to a halt at the last intersection. Instead of giving chase, he rested his arm on Geraldine, and began to write on his notepad.

“Ha-Ha! Yes! We did it Regg. We’re free! We’re-”

Rufus learned why the sheriff stopped when Slim-Pigguns careened down the road. Mao Mao calmy stuck yet another ticket onto Pigguns’ car as it zoomed by, and waited. When the smoke cleared the fox was kneeling next to his roadkill companion. Unfortunate that it didn’t hit both.

What a great day! He captured the scammers and gave Pigguns his ticket all at once. Whoever said a “ bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”could go get fucked. For once in his life, Mao Mao was feeling proud of himself. That and his little joke must’ve been why he laughed. He laughed, and he did it quite loudly.

Slowly, Sweetipies began to crowd around, murmuring amongst themselves.

The sweetipies pushed past Mao Mao, crowding around the raccoon. “Poor thing, who did this to you?”

A wicked glint ignited in the foxe’s eye,” it was the sheriff. He did this.”

“Oh my god, you think anyone is actually going to believe... that.”

The mob turned to face Mao Mao, moving like a single angry creature.

“What a monster,” a sweetiepie said

“I knew he’d lose it eventually,” said another.

“Oh, come on! You can’t actually believe him!”

“What a horrid man.”

The crowd began to close in on Mao Mao.

“That’s preposterous. I would never do something like that… without reason, at least. Either way, you can’t just believe a couple of strangers right?”

“I knew we shouldn’t have made him sheriff.”

“Woah, woah, woah, that’s enough,” Badgerclops said over is police siren hand to get through the crowd.

“What on earth happened here?”

“The sheriff attacked this innocent man.”

He and Adorabat looked over to the Reggie then back to Mao Mao.

“You seriously can’t believe them,” he said.

Adorabat sucked air in through her teeth,” Badgerclops, should I tell him?”

“Now. Now let’s not make assumptions,” Badgerclops said before immediately huddling down and speaking in a whisper. “What the fuck, dude? I know I already have bags packed, but geez.”

“I didn't do it! It was Slim Pigguns who did this!”

“Can you prove it,” the fox choked out.

“Prove it?” Mao Mao marched through the crowd, grabbing, shoving and tossing Sweetipies out of the way, grabbing the fox by the collar. “Of course, I can prove it. Its what happened!”

“Could you prove it in a court of law?”

“Sure!”

“Then we will. I sue the Pure Heart Valley Sheriff’s Department.”

“What,” Mao Mao, Badgerclops and Adorabat screamed in unison.

“No. In fact, we’ll sue the Pure Heart Valley itself. We’ll sure for everything it owns.”

Mao Mao and the three of them quickly formed a team-planning hug. “He can’t actually sue the entire valley for everything it owns, can he,” Adorabat asked.

“Don’t ask me. Ask Mao Mao.”

“Well… they might. The article that relates to suits against the kingdom doesn’t exactly put a limit on what can be demanded.”

“Don’t worry Daddy Issues. I already got our bags packed and-”

“We are not running!”

“Why not, I don’t really wanna be here when you lose the case.”

“I won’t lose the case because I didn’t hurt him.”

“You sure,” they asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. He got run over by Slim Pigguns. I didn't hurt him. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because that would be ridiculously on-brand for you. It's not an ‘if’ but ‘when’. I already have bags packed for when it happens.”

“You have what now?”

“Nothing. Anyways, if you want to challenge them then we go to court,” Badgerclops said.

“I’ll handle the case and you... try not to be yourself. Or at least don’t be yourself in front of the sweetipies.”

“What?”

“Oh! Oh! Oh! What do I do,” Adorabat asked.

“You’ll be his PR,” Badgerclops explained.

“Yay!”

Mao Mao began to consider if it was time to use those emergency packs.

* * *

Mao Mao didn’t know if the sweetipies had any foresight or common sense. Rufus could literally sue the valley for everything it owns, and for some reason, the sweetipies were taking Rufus’ side. The fact that Snugglemane was in control of the proceedings was the shit icing on top of the shit cake. Mao Mao tapped his fingers against the table. The court was taking too long to start. The jury was seated and the spectators mumbled amongst themselves. Snugglemane fiddled with the white wig he was wearing over his usual one. Rufus and Reggie weren’t here yet. Badgerclops wasn’t present either. Only Adorabat was here, which wouldn’t be much help since she’s his “PR” and a child.

Everyone turned when the doors opened. Rufus rolled his friend in on a stretcher. Despite the obvious greed in his eyes, Mao Mao could see genuine concern for his friend. Granted, that didn't stop him from wanting to see the fox on a stretcher as well.

“Oh good, the prosecution is finally here. Let's get this thing started,” the king said banging his gavel.

“But my defense isn’t here yet,” Mao Mao objected.

Adorabat took the stage. “Don’t worry,” she said,” I got this.”

“Aren’t you like... Six?”

“Seven, actually.”

Snugglemane considered it for a moment before banging his gavel. “Good enough for me. The Prosecution has the stand.”

Rufus stepped up. Mao Mao thought it was weird for Rufus to be speaking for himself, then again it's not like the valley has any lawyers.

Rufus cleared his throat, speaking in a pained voice,” Thank you, your… Honor? Majesty?”

“Call me both.”

“Alright, you're Honorific Majesty.”

The king giggled; the sheriff rolled his eyes.

“As you all know,” he began,” I had come to the Pure Heart Valley to visit a relative. Muffin, a distant cousin of mine-”

“Oh, c’mon. You are a fox. Muffin is literally a yellow mouse,” Mao Mao interrupted.

“Silence,” the king demanded with his gavel. “The prosecution has the floor.”

“As I was saying. I came to the valley because I’d come across some financial troubles. I’ve been trying to start a business of mine. A newspaper in fact. Everything was going smoothly till that brigand appeared.”

The crowd hissed and booed at Mao Mao. The king didn’t bother to stop that interruption.

“This foul creature chased me all the way through town. When he finally caught up with me. He proceeded to do… this to my friend.”

The crowd winced and ooed in sympathy for that awful fox.

“A heartbreaking tale,” the King sniffled. “Does the defense have anything they want to say?”

“Yes,” Adorabat said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then speak your piece.”

“Um.. line?”

Mao Mao pinched the bridge of his nose.

* * *

Mao Mao did not expect much from a defense set up by a seven-year-old, but by god, it was somehow worse. Adorabat was naive and easy to manipulate. Rufus found it easy to set up leading questions.

“Do you think the sheriff is responsible for his actions?”

“Ehm… yes?”

“Is he one of those hateful people willing to attack others?”

“I suppose.”

“Does his tendency to attack first without asking questions often bring others to harm?”

“King, I object,” Mao Mao interrupted.

“Say the full titles.”

Mao Mao swallowed his fury. “I object to his questions, your Honorific Majesty.”

“On what grounds?”

“Well, the fact that they’re all loaded questions and Adorabat actually being a seven-year-old toddler.”

“That’s no grounds for an objection. You elected her to be your defense of your own accord. It conflicts with no rules or laws.”

“Laws here make no sense, though. The fact that you’re suing an entire county for everything it owns is proof enough.”

Rufus and Mao Mao began to argue more and more. Snugglemane pounded his gavel demanding order, but no one listened. Things just got louder and louder, wilder and wilder until Rufus and Mao Mao were grappling on the floor of the courtroom.

“I’ll tear your eye out you armless bastard,” Rufus yelled.

“I’d like to see a corpse try,” he responded.

They only calmed down when the guards pried them apart When the guards finally pried them apart they were both left beaten and bloody. Mao Mao punched Rufus in the stomach; Rufus bashed him in the nose, along with the countless bumps and bruises they shared. Although, Rufus was definitely worse for wear. His left arm was twisted in all the wrong ways. Mao Mao couldn’t even feel proud of that. His head was throbbing and there was this awful hum.

No the hum wasn’t in his head. More heads began to turn when the noise got louder and louder. It was a hum, that grew into a rumble; a rumble so loud he courtroom began to shake. It sounded like a car… no, it was a car. Mao Mao quickly shook himself free of the guards, grabbing Adorabat as the wall caved in with a mighty crash.

Mao Mao waved the smoke away, clutching Adorabat to his chest. “You alright,” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she coughed out.

Despite the damage, no one seemed to be hurt. Pinky was laughing maniacally, so the sweetipies were fine, the king peeked his head from behind the podium, and unfortunately, the grifters were still alive. Despite the car belonging to Slim Pigguns Badgerclops stepped out first. He took a few tentative steps before he threw up his lunch. Slim Pigguns stepped out more concerned for his car than anything else.

“What is the meaning of this,” the king growled.

“Well… god damn… that was horrifying,” Badgerclops heaved in between breaths,” I have proof that… Mao Mao didn’t… do it.”

“What’s the proof?”

“Witness... testimony. I call to the stand… Slim Pigguns!”

The fox’s eyes went wide.

“Hm?” Pigguns poked his head up, not even paying attention to the court.

“Mr.Pigguns, could you tell us what happened when you ran over the raccoon?”

“Yeah. I was going for my daily drive, when I got near the gate I felt a bump.”

“And you didn’t stop?”

Pigguns just shrugged,” it happens.”

“This is just testimony! Can you prove he was even there,” Rufus objected.

“I still have the sticker Mao Mao gave me.”

“That’s a speeding ticket,” Mao Mao added from the back.

Rufus began to sweat. Nm “Do you have any physical evidence?”

“Does the fender with your face still dented into it count?”

“I’ve been meaning to buff that out,” Pigguns mumbled.

Everyone turned to face Rufus. He pulled at his collar. His calm, collected demeanor beginning to give way to panic.

“Does the prosecution have anything to say,” the king asked.

Rufus balled his hands into fist before sinking low,”... no, your honor.”

“Say it right.”

“Just give us the verdict, already.”

“So rude,” the King banged his gavel,” I deem the defendants not guilty of assault and declare that the prosecution be jailed upon charges false accusations and wasting the courts time. The defendant's punishment shall be to clean up this mess.”

“What, why?”

“Because you’re all rude. So very rude.”

“Could you at least take me to jail first,” Rufus asked.

“I’m not going to put you in jail,” Mao Mao said.

“What?”

“I am, however, going to put you in the hospital.”

Mao Mao pounced at him when Bagderclops grabbed him out the air,” as I said. It's not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’.”

[wellhellotragic]

Be Alright 2/?

Summary: Sometimes all it takes is one phone call to completely turn our lives upside down.

He'd left. That was all she'd known. He'd packed up in the middle of the night after a stupid fight, leaving no trace behind of where he'd gone. But when David's phone rang one night telling them that Killian was in a hospital in Boston, everything changed. For Emma, it was the last call she ever expected and it meant facing the ghosts of her past and releasing everything she'd kept bottled up and hidden away.

But then again sometimes it's the tragedies in our lives that finally let us feel again.

A/N: Surprise! In honor of National Pancake Day I give you pancakes!

If AO3 is more your thing...

Chapter: 1

She clung to him, the warmth of his body shielding her from the cold air. Her shirt lost somewhere in his living room, her bra in the hallway. In the six months they’d been sleeping together, he’d always been so adept at removing the buttons and clasps holding her clothes together. She’d always heard stories in college from his conquests on how gifted he was, but experiencing him for herself had been something entirely different. Just his breath on her shoulder blade was enough to leave her a trembling mess.

The first few months had been pure passion. They couldn’t get enough of each other, despite their best attempts to stay apart. He’d arrive at her door and before she could even get out the word hello, he’d be on her. Mouths fused, teeth scraping against the skin of her neck. He’d leave marks all over her body, just as she’d leave scratches on his back.

They’d excuse themselves early from family dinners. Cancel plans with friends at the last minute. They’d even called in sick a time or two from work. A primal need to be connected. But at the end of every escapade, one of them would leave, returning to their own apartment. An emotional detachment ever present, just the way Emma preferred it. Can’t get left if you’re already halfway out the door yourself.

And although months had passed, their hunger for each other hadn’t faded, but it had changed. Killian began to take his time with her, making sure to massage her shoulders after a particularly hard day. He’d have dinner waiting for her if she had a late shift. He’d undress her slowly, letting his tongue and lips taste every inch of her body, working her higher and higher as he went. He’d whisper her in ear, trail his fingertips up and down her torso and legs.

When he took her, it was slower, more meaningful. She’d felt the shift. He wasn’t just fucking her anymore. No. He made love to her, and while he’d never say the words out loud first, he made sure she felt it. He’d stay the night, his arm on her hip, her cheek on his chest listening to the rhythm of his heart. And she’d stay too.

They fought occasionally over their arrangement. Killian wanted to court her, she wanted things to stay as they were. Undefined. It was one of those fights that led to the words slipping from her lips. Something she couldn’t take back, despite how her gut clenched at the idea of him knowing how much power he held.

That had been the end of of their squabble. He’d let his mouth and hands do the rest. He taken her in his arms, undressing her along the way. She’d told him all of the things she wanted him to do to her. A distraction. He’d always loved the dirty talk. She was just building to her high again when he finally spoke.

“Say it again.” His voice was low, strained.

“Say what again?” She’d already whispered so many filthy things in his ear that night.

“Emma,” the use of her first name made her breath hitch. “Say it again.”

She watched the way his eyes changed. The hunger giving way to something more. His ministrations slowed, his fingers tracing a path up her torso until his hand sat perched just above her heart. Killian’s eyes never left hers and she knew.

“I love you.”

He drove back into her, hitting that spot that always caused her to see stars. It was almost too much, and not enough at the same time. He came just after her, the straining cords in his neck apparent as he gave a grunt before collapsing. The full weight of his body on hers. They stayed like that, quiet filling the room around them until he rose, heading to the bathroom. Killian returned with a washcloth and once both of them had cleaned up enough to feel comfortable sleeping, they curled back up next to each other. Slumber calling her name.

“I love you too, Swan. More than words could ever do justice.” She’d almost been asleep, unsure if his words had been real or a dream, but he’d kissed her temple and held her just a bit tighter. He loved her.

She woke with a start. Machines blaring all around her. Nurses rushing into the room. Instinctively she stood up, backing into the corner to give them more room to work, listening to every word they said.

Page Doctor LaHenge.

He’s burning up.

Check his bandage.

We need to get him into surgery now.

His bed was rushed from the room and Emma was left there, all alone.

Again.

She stayed there, melding into the awful yellow wall paint, tears stinging her eyes, unsure of what else to do. Minutes passed, feeling like hours before the nurse that had let her into the room on that first day returned. The same nurse that had watched her have a near meltdown upon seeing him. Upon hearing that he had a wife.

Emma had barely even been able to stay in the room. The weight of the woman’s words hitting her at full force. He’d moved on. He’d left her and fucking moved on. In less than a year he’d made a whole new life. He’d fucking married someone, and she was still mourning him.

No. There was no way. He loved her. He’d told her as much every damn day. He couldn’t have moved on that fast.

It took all of her strength to plant her feet. To not run. But as she looked at him again, seeing how small and frail he looked, she sat next to him and took his good hand. She’d stayed awake for as long as she could, but it was late, and she just couldn’t fight anymore.

Two more days passed. Nurses came and went. Doctors came and went, speaking in gibberish. They changed out the bandages. His hand had been completely mangled. She’d heard the first nurse tell her as much, but it wasn’t until she saw for herself that she realized just how bad it was. They checked his temperature constantly. The blood pressure machine had been set to go off every fifteen minutes, sometimes startling her awake in the middle of the night.

Emma did the best she could to bathe in the bathroom using washcloths and hand soap that left her skin dry. Someone was nice enough to give her a toothbrush and toothpaste from the hospital supply closet. She had food delivered to the room twice, but both times she’d been unable to eat, too worried about Killian and why he hadn’t woken up yet.

But if she could take it back. If she could have him lying there peacefully in front of her again she would.

“It’s going to be awhile dear. They’ve taken him back into surgery.” The nurse stayed and explained that unfortunately, the original surgery to repair and graft his hand didn’t seem to have taken. The blood flow to his hand had been compromised. That when she looked under the bandage everything had turned black.

They were worried about sepsis so they rushed him back to amputate the hand. That it would be a long and painful road, filled with pain and physical therapy, but there was no reason that he wouldn't be okay eventually.

The nurse told her that she should try to eat, having noticed Emma’s diminished appetite, but she still wasn’t hungry, even less so knowing that Killian was losing his hand. The same hands than had not only brought her pleasure, but the hands he used to build his boats. Would he still be able to do that? To do something that had brought him back to life after losing Liam?

She couldn’t stay there in that quiet room, letting her thoughts consume her any longer.

“I- uh. Do you have a computer I can use.”

The nurse tilted her head, looking at her. Emma could feel the woman’s judgement. See it written all over her face. Or maybe she just thought she did.

“We have public computers in the library on the third floor. If you go back to the main entrance and take those elevators it’ll take you directly to it.”

Emma thanked her, making her way slowly to the front of the hospital, stopping outside long enough to get some fresh air. The storm had passed, leaving over a foot of snow in its place. The hospital had clearly plowed the entrance, but she could see much of the parking lot was still buried. Her car was likely trapped under a mountain of snow, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about it. She’d called out sick from work, vaguely telling David that she just didn’t feel well. Surprisingly he hadn’t pushed the subject. Eventually she’d either have to return home or tell him the truth, but that could wait one more day.

The chill from the cold winter air began to set in around her. Looking at her watch, she realized she’d only been outside for less than ten minutes. That it would still be hours before Killian was out of surgery. The library was just where the nurse had said it would be. It was larger than she expected, finding that it encompassed at least three stories. There were display cases filled with medical instruments from throughout history, and models of the human body. Portraits lining the walls of what she assumed where medical pioneers. Stacks of books reminding her of her own college library.

The computer lab was in the back corner. A sign stating public hours were from seven to five. With only a few minutes until seven, Emma sat down, figuring no one would mind if she started just a little early. She began checking her email. Making sure she wasn’t missing anything of too much importance. Her phone hadn’t had the most spot on service and getting a signal had been hit or miss. The only email that caught her attention was the invitation for Ruby’s birthday the next month. Then she pulled up a few gossip sites, seeing what all of the celebrities were up to.

But soon she ran out of ways to distract herself, and her mind started running again. Images of Killian invading her every thought. Imagining what his future would be like. Wondering what he’d been up to during their missing year. She hadn’t meant to, but her fingers had started typing without her permission, and soon she had a new website pulled up. Massachusetts State Public Records.

Four months. He’d been married for four months to a woman named Milah Gold. Paralyzed, Emma sat there, staring at the page before her, unable to look away. Four fucking months. Had she really meant so little to him that he’d moved on so quickly? Before she knew it, she was down a rabbit hole, looking up every bit of information she could find on Milah. She was a couple of years older than Killian. She was also a professor at the University of Boston specializing in Maritime Law. Had been.

It was the image of Milah on her screen though that had Emma transfixed. The woman was stunning. Raven curls, ice blue eyes. It was easy to see why Killian would have been attracted to her. Milah’s facebook showed her to be adventurous. They were night and day. Milah appeared bold compared to Emma’s reserved facade. Fun. Mesmerizing. She was everything Emma wasn’t.

She wasn’t sure how she made it to the cafeteria. Everything from the last hour a jumble. Her entire world had be turned upside down again. He emotions jumbled. She was on autopilot, grabbing a tray and ordering pancakes from one of the food kiosks. She didn’t even remember paying. Wasn’t sure if she even had paid. The pancakes sat long cold on the table before her as she became lost in thought once more.

The next morning she woke to the smell of coffee and pancakes, but a cold and empty bed. Looking around, she remembered that her own clothes we scattered around his apartment, so she grabbed his favorite shirt from his dresser. A Matchbox Twenty t-shirt he’d bought as a teenager. One that no longer fit him but he refused to part with. One that always made his eyes sparkle with mischief when he saw her in it.

He hadn’t turned around but he must have heard her coming. The wood floors always creaked when she tried to surprise him, giving her away.

“How many pancakes would you like love?”

“Who said anything about me wanting food?”

With that he finally turned, taking her in. His eyes lingering on her bare legs for a second before catching sight of the faded old shirt she was wearing. A smile breaking across his face, the pancakes long forgotten.

“You’re going to burn them.”

He stepped closer to her, mischief written all over his face.

“Screw the pancakes. They’re just from a box. I can always make more.”

And then he kissed her as if his very life depended on it. His hands slipping under the shirt only to realize that she hadn’t put on any underwear. There was a feral growl on his part, but before they could go any farther they were interrupted by the smoke alarm just above the stovetop. With a few muttered curses, he left her to deal with the mess he’d created, trying to disperse the smoke with a tea towel, before giving up entirely and nearly ripping the alarm off the wall.

She’d laughed and he’d feigned offense. It had been perfect. They hadn’t discussed their declarations from the night before, but they didn’t need to.

Once the smoke had cleared, Emma grabbed the bowl of remaining batter, along with a fresh pan and began setting about making new pancakes, minus the char. Killian cleaned and scraped the old pan as she worked, mumbling that it might be ruined now. She’d just flipped the third pancake when she felt him behind her, his hands massaging her shoulders as the pan in front of her sizzled.

Everything was perfect.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, massaging the tense muscles. It felt so real.

Then she heard her name in an accent that was close, but just not quite right.

“Emma?”

Snapping out of her daydream, Emma looked up to find Graham standing right behind her. Mary Margaret and David stood across the table from her, worry obvious in their eyes.

“What- What are you guys doing here?”

“The storm passed,” Mary Margaret began. “We wanted to check in on him so we all drove up. We thought you were sick though so we were just going to let you sleep. I’m actually really surprised to see you here given…”

Mary Margaret may have trailed off, but Emma knew the way the sentence would have ended. Given the way things ended between you two . Her friends had never known the truth. That they’d broken up. But they did know that Killian had basically left in the middle of the night without so much as a word to any of them. That he’d left his best friend all alone and heartbroken for their friendship. It was the same reason they hadn’t asked her to join them the first time.

“But if you’re all here, who’s watching the station?”

This time it was David that cut in.

“Emma, Storybrooke isn’t exactly a mecca for crime. Leroy is on standby if anyone needs something, but I really think the town can last a day or two without us.”

She nodded, still stunned by their presence.

“Emma,” Graham squeezed her shoulder again. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming down here? I would have come with you.”

And there it was. She hadn’t told them that she was coming, not ready for all of the questions. How could she tell the man that she was still dating that she was terrified that the love of her life would die? How could she explain why she was there without giving everything away?

Instead, she changed the subject, asking them if they’d heard the latest news. They of course hadn’t. Finding her in the cafeteria had been a complete coincidence. They’d left Storybrooke so early they hadn’t had breakfast themselves so they stopped by the cafeteria for a bite before returning to Killian’s room.

She recounted everything she’d been told about Killian’s hand. How they’d tried to save it but couldn’t. How he’d be in pain but they’d do their best to control it. That he could be fitted for a prosthetic once the wounds were healed. Some other things she hadn’t really understood.

And then she told them about Milah. She left out the bits about how she’d spent the morning researching her, instead giving the barest of information. Just that Killian had been married but his wife had died in the accident. Tears formed again as she told them, and when Graham hugged her, trying to console her, she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. This man, so pure had no idea of the war inside her heart. She was the worst person ever.

[team-science-mega-nerds]

30 Miles East: Chapter One

This was starting to become a problem. Not just because she was doing it alone, but because she couldn’t stop. It was an even mix of loneliness and boredom that was pushing her to go from closing her apartment door to pouring a glass of whiskey every single day. Before, during, and after dinner she found herself holding that same glass, sometimes on refill number six before she actually slumped down on her couch and dozed off.

That was on a good day. Other days she found her thumb hanging over Maggie’s icon in her contacts - a picture of Maggie wearing Alex’s alma mater’s sweater, a picture that Kara took when she was doing her annual donation to Goodwill run and insisted that Alex needed a fresh wardrobe - but she never actually called. Or texted. She just let the thought fade into the next drink, and then the other, until she woke up the next day drooling on the floor, already late for work.

Vasquez was the first to say something. Not about the drinking of course, but about Alex’s tardiness. It was pretty well known that Alex did not do late, or sloppy, but over the past few weeks, she’d been both. Vasquez spun around to face Alex on a particularly mundane day and frowned. “Shower much.” That was Vasquez. To the point, a bit of snark, a few years spent floating under the radar meant she had to be the voice of reason, or no one would. Alex scoffed, but when Vasquez returned to her array of computers, Alex lifted up her arm and took a whiff.

Alex had forgotten to shower last night because she was eight drinks deep, and this morning she barely managed to crawl her way into her clothes, let alone make herself presentable. “Shut up.” But Alex knew that Vasquez was right, and she knew that she was slowly beginning to lose herself in the bottle.

This was all way too familiar.

She didn’t want Kara to have to drag her out of the gutter. She couldn’t stand the look on Kara’s face if she had to call her over to hold her hair back and carry her to bed. She had spent the past few years, building and re-building their relationship. First, it was to find a way to work with Supergirl, and then it was to find a way to come out, and now everything seemed to be about Kara figuring out who she really wanted to be. Alex couldn’t let her problems get in the way of that, not again.

So Alex got on her Ducati - drunk - and drove to an AA meeting in some terrifyingly quiet suburb of National City. She couldn’t ever risk seeing someone she knew, that would ruin both her personal and professional life and besides she was entirely certain that this was just a one-time thing. Alex just needed to see a bunch of sad people who had ruined their lives, so that she would feel bad enough about herself to move from six glasses a night to two.

As she approached the building, she quickly came to the realization that it was a church, and she kicked herself for clicking on the wrong link in her drunken state. At least it was in the basement, so Alex didn’t have to feel like she was going to be smited the moment she trailed down the stairs.

When she actually walked into the room she noted the table lined with donuts, cookies, coffee, orange juice, and...pizza? She remembers back in her partying days when J’onn had taken her to AA a few times in the city. The most they ever had was stale coffee and dried out donuts. This almost made the trip out to the smaller community worth it.

The second thing she noticed was that this meeting was tiny in comparison to the way they were packed into chairs like sardines at her old meetings. There was no parole officer making them sign their forms at the start, middle, and end of the meeting so they could prove to the judges that they were actually complying with the court ordered regulations. There was no podium, no AA handbook sitting at the front of the room, waiting to be read. No junkies waiting outside to meet up with their wayward friends. No slight smell of urine. No leaky ceiling. No way to hide.

This was going to be a long night.

“Help yourself to some snacks. Barb’s husband made the cookies.” Alex turns when she hears the warm voice directed toward her. It startles her, which is surprising. Usually, Alex’s leather jacket, motorcycle helmet dangling from her hand, and stoic face is a turn off for the more chatty alcoholics. But this guy smiles at her, and so she’s forced to give him an approving nod, as she makes her way to the table.

She eyes the cookies, which do actually look very good, and grabs a few, sticking one into her mouth as she heads over to take a seat. Alex slides her helmet under her chair and tries not to look as awkward as she feels, but the chairs are set up in a circle, and that means that Alex can’t just sink in her seat and zone out.

She starts to seriously begin questioning her motives and morals when a business suit-clad woman takes a seat across from Alex. She’s on the phone, half-whispering, half-trying-not-to-smile, and Alex is completely stunned. Not just because Alex is thrown off by how beautiful this woman is, but also because Alex now has to spend the next two hours trying not to look at her.

Barb, as it turns out is celebrating her sixth year today. Everyone seems thrilled, and even Alex finds herself smiling as the cookie guy - known by the rest of the world as Andre - brings out a little cake, and leads them all in singing happy birthday. It all isn’t singing and cake though. Alex does actually learn a bit about this lady named Catherine when she shares her story with them. She has a really funny way of saying her ‘A’s that makes Alex think that she might be from Metropolis or something, but her story is interesting. Long winded, but she has a sort of raw honesty that seems to knock the room off balance. Alex likes her. Or at least she likes the fact that Catherine isn’t as scared of herself as Alex is of her own shadow.

No one asks Alex to share, which is a good thing. Because after sitting for so long, somehow she feels drunker, and she isn’t certain that she wouldn’t slur her words if she spoke up. She does get a chance to hear the beautiful woman’s name though. It’s Sam, and she just moved here with her daughter, and she’s starting her new job the next day. Andre pats Sam’s shoulder and tells her that she’ll love it in National City, and Alex has to bite her tongue so that she doesn’t blurt out some stupid thing about how the suburbs aren’t really the city like some kind of elitist.

The meeting then turns into everyone sharing their favorite thing to do in the city, and Alex straight up cackles when Catherine says that her favorite thing used to be drinking a giant 64-ounce margarita at the pub on 28th. “You’ve never been to The Red Lion then.” Alex accidentally says.

“Oh shit, yeah, they’ve got good stuff too,” Catherine exclaims. Andre quickly steers the conversation back to typical AA things before the meeting is over. It’s only then that Alex sort of replays what she said earlier, and figures that she probably slurred “never been” in a way that made it sound more like nevaben. She wants to facepalm but that wouldn’t do much now, so she grabs her helmet, and heads back to the food table to grab a few cold slices before she leaves.

Alex is in the middle of double stacking two slices and taking a huge bite like some kind of Kara when Sam eyeballs the six pieces left in the box. “Did you bring the pizza? My kid waits up for me, and second dinner is never a bad idea.” Alex’s mouth is so full that she has to choke down a mountain of cheese for a few seconds before she realizes that she doesn’t have to actually speak, and instead she just shakes her head ‘no’.

“I think Barb might’ve brought it,” Alex suggests.

“Cool, I’ll ask her.” Sam shuffles her way back through the room to catch up to Barb before she leaves. Alex slips out relatively unnoticed, except when she and Andre do an awkward little dance by the door as they try to walk up the stairs at the same time. He reminds her of the meeting times and tells her that on the weekends they have two meetings on Saturdays and Sundays, probably because he’s not an idiot and can smell the liquor on Alex.

She starts to feel like a particularly heinous breed of monster but pushes down the feeling by reminding herself that she actually did something okay by showing up somewhere other than a bar for a change. Just as she’s swinging her leg over her bike, she spots Sam carrying a box of pizza and jogging - in heels - toward her. “Hey, you...uh…” Alex holds off on putting on her helmet, while she waits for Sam to stop looking so frantic.

“Alex.”

“Right, Alex...I um…” Sam is not good at making Alex feel comfortable. Her awkwardness is about to become contagious, and Alex knows in that moment that she will never be coming back to this meeting ever again. “Okay, so you’re drunk,” Sam says very matter of fact and Alex sort of wishes that the awkward and unsure woman would return. “I can call you a Lyft if you want.” Alex resists the urge to blow up at Sam. She wants to tell her off, to say something like fuck you, I’m not drunk, but lying to a fellow alcoholic about alcohol is a bit tacky, and it would never work.

“Okay.” Even though she knows it’ll be a pain in the ass to have to come and get her bike tomorrow, at least she’ll have a reason to go to another meeting, and there’s no way that will hurt. Alex tries not to look at Sam, because she has a serious fear of being a disappointment to strangers, but when she finally does look, Sam actually appears to be kind of...proud? “What?”

“I thought I’d have to fight you on that.” Sam shakes her head. “Here, put in your address.” Sam hands Alex the phone with the Lyft app up on it. After Alex types in her address, she hands the phone back to Sam who looks very surprised. “The city? Wow, you’re what, like thirty minutes out of the way?”

“It goes quick on the bike,” Alex says with a shrug.

“You live right by where I’m gonna work,” Sam says kind of offhandedly. Alex knows that the woman is lingering, and it’s driving her crazy.

“I know how to get into a car, you don’t have to stay,” Sam responds by rattling off something about her phone location, and some other poor excuse about why she has to stay. It’s because she doesn’t trust Alex. It’s because she thinks that some idiot who’d show up to an AA meeting drunk would also flake, and get herself killed driving home that way. Or at least Alex thinks Sam thinks that but there’s also the possibility that she was just this caring, and this nice, and that was a bit unsettling for Alex.

“Was this your first time?”

“No. You?”

“No.” Sam drums her fingers against the pizza box. “I’ve been on and off for a long time, stress brings things on in waves for me, and with the move, and new job, and...well you get it.”

Alex does get it. “It works if you work it.”

“You don’t believe that.” Sam bites the inside of her cheek.

“So, what? It seemed like you needed to hear it.” Alex shrugs. She can see the Lyft driver getting confused about which driveway to enter, so she slides off her bike, and gives Sam a small nod. “I owe you.” It’s a half-assed thing to say to someone she might not ever see again, but Sam smiles anyway.

“Be safe.” That feels oddly maternal, Alex thinks. Then she’s quickly reminded as Sam heads over to a minivan that Sam’s a mom, dumbass, so of course, she would be going out of her way to take care of some total stranger. When she slides into the back of the car, the driver eyes her through the rearview mirror.

“Sam?” Alex nods is lieu of explaining that she’s tipsy, and probably couldn’t drive home, and that’s why she accidentally hit her helmet against the seat when she got in. Alex just slumps against the door and closes her eyes on the long ride home.

Alex returns the next evening. She has a massive gash on her arm from a rogue alien escape, and the bandage she’s wearing is bleeding through, so she plans a route to stop at a drug store on the way home. Before she can hop on her bike and get the hell out of there, Catherine locks her car and motions toward the church doors. “Ever had Pączki?” Alex is very caught off guard until she sees a glass dish covered in foil in Catherine’s hands. “Fucking delicious, I swear.” So Alex ends up following her inside and staying for the meeting and the seven Pączki that she wolfs down throughout.

She does feel bad that she makes it to game night late, which causes an uproar on behalf of Winn who was banking on reprising his role as banker for Monopoly before Alex could swoop in and claim it. But Alex has a scheme going with Lena to slip her extra cash, and as soon as Lena sees Alex step through the door she exclaims, “Thank god, you’re here. I thought I might actually lose.”

Winn sinks so low in the couch that James considers putting a pillow on top of him so that Kara will sit on him when she returns from the kitchen, but he decides that Winn’s already too upset to do so. Instead, James nudges Winn over so that Alex can sit down. “You’re lateee.” Kara sing-songs, but she’s holding out a take-out box of lo mein toward her anyway. “Where were you?” Alex takes the box and plops down on the couch next to Winn.

“Out.” Alex shrugs.

“Is that code?” Winn stage whispers to James. Alex kicks his ankle, and he reacts with a loud yelp.

“I was grocery shopping.” Alex lies. No one even catches the lie except Lena who’s looking at her in an entirely nonjudgemental, but curious way.

Even if Kara suspects that Alex only ever grocery shops for liquor, she doesn’t say anything except, “I hope you got those cheesy puff things.” Unsurprisingly, Alex knows exactly what Kara’s talking about, and she makes a mental note to pick up two bags on her way home tonight.

Monopoly is fun, like always. Lena almost gets pressured into emoting halfway through the game ruining her calm-cool-and collected streak of six weeks. But she quickly recovers and absolutely obliterates James to the point of Alex subtly wondering if they’re still dating. Alex loses early because she’s way too focused on trying to slip Lena money and not drink that she forgets that strategy is actually a part of the game.

Alex doesn’t mind losing, but it does leave her a decent chance to catch up on what’s going on in everyone’s lives. Winn has been using Tindr a lot lately, and he has some pretty hilarious stories about this guy who wanted to roleplay as Superman. Kara covers her entire face with a pillow, while Lena makes some comment about how Supergirl has better arms, and Alex punches Kara so hard in the shoulder that she actually thinks it hurts.

There’s so much laughing going on that Alex legit has to excuse herself so she can wipe the tears off her face. When she emerges from the bathroom, Lena is standing there looking as shy as Alex has ever seen her. She didn’t even know Lena could be nervous until now. “What?” Alex sounds harsher than she means to, but by jumping the gun on defensiveness she’s quick to scramble out an apology before Lena takes offense.

Because Alex actually likes Lena. She thinks she smart, and brave, and she thinks that she was hilariously naive to ever think that Lena of all people was one of the bad guys. “Do you think I could invite someone else to game night?”

“I’m not taking attendance, Kara is. I don’t mind.” Alex thinks about that again, “as long as it’s not a guy. I don’t want James to start making jokes about even odds.”

“Don’t worry. She’s just someone I work with.” Lena assures Alex. “I just wanted to ask you first. Kara might be in charge of game nights, but I know you’re protective.” It only occurs to Alex later on that Lena was saying that because she doesn’t feel like she’s really a part of the group. Which is ridiculous because Kara would literally die for Lena. And Alex might too.

So when everyone’s grabbing their things to head home, and Winn is throwing out suggestions for next week like he always does, Alex lingers long enough to walk out with Lena. When they make it outside, Lena doesn’t call her ride just yet. “We should have game night at your place sometime,” Alex suggests.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’d be fun. And Kara wouldn’t have home court advantage during Pictionary.” Alex adds the last part because she knows it would make Lena laugh, and it does. “Plus, I have to go through the hundreds of rare books you probably have lining your walls.”

“You’re a nerd.”

“Look who's talking.” Alex rests her helmet on the back of her head for a moment. “We gotta find another way to cheat by the way. Your boyfriend is onto us.” Lena’s face falls.

“We’re not dating anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay,” Lena says with a shrug. It kind of hits Alex all at once that love and relationships are fleeting. After Alex gets on her bike she goes to the store, buys those cheese puff things, and a bottle of whiskey.

Alex avoids AA for a bit after that. She’s too ashamed to admit anything to anyone just yet, so she just kind of floats through the days without relying too much on anything or anyone. Vasquez is racing Winn to hack into a subsector of Cadmus when a thought hits Alex like a freight train.

“Do you like games?” Alex asks Vasquez. Vasquez keeps typing, but her fingers trail through her hair like she actually needed to consider the question. “Or movies? Or like...people?”

“Yes?”

“Ooooh, are we playing twenty questions?” Winn interjects. “What’s your favorite food?”

“Shut up, Winn. I was just asking to see if Vasquez wanted to come to game night.” It terrifies Alex to think that they’ve been casual friends for so long, but she never actually thought to invite her. Actually, everyone who was ever there came because of Kara. “What do you say?”

“Sure.” Alex could see the gears turning in Vasquez’s head. “Kara has asked me a few times actually, but I didn’t want to intrude.”

“No way, you’re not intruding,” Winn assures Vasquez with a warm smile.

“Thanks.” And then Vasquez out hacks Winn with ease, causing Winn to kick his chair back, but high five Vasquez on her technique anyway.

Alex is relatively surprised that the week has gone by so fast. But that’s what happens when you spend hours doing nothing and drink hours away. But Alex is relieved when Kara texts her that there’s been a change of plans, and they’re actually having game night at James’. Moments later Winn texts her explaining that Kara had flown through her own window because she heard a kitten crying outside, and now he and Kara would be late because they needed to get kitten stuff.

Alex rolled her eyes and knocked on James’ door. When Alex is let in with a hug, Alex remembers that she hadn’t been to James’ apartment for at least a year. It was much larger than Kara’s place, but it felt just as homey outside of the sleek framed photographs all around.

Vasquez shows up next, and she looks very happy that Alex is at least there, because she doesn’t really know much about James. Vasquez brings a fruit platter which Alex thinks is hilarious, but James looks genuinely thankful, and Alex wonders if he knows how to be mean.

They don’t even have to see Kara to know that she’s there because she’s practically screaming as James opens the door and lets Kara, Winn, and a little black and white shorthair kitten into the apartment. Vasquez actually does scream, and everyone finds out that she’s the proud mom of four cats named after the planets - Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Pluto. Alex is seriously seconds away from calling Lena so that she can actually start making fun of people for being total dweebs, but Kara is thrusting the cat in her face, and she has no choice but to become a surrogate mom for a few minutes while Kara sets up the food and water bowls.

When there’s a knock at the door again, Kara makes her answer because James is pulling out homemade tarts - because of course he is - and Kara thinks that Alex looks hilarious holding such a tiny bundle of joy, when she’s a bundle of grumpiness. Alex doesn’t care, because she’s slowly falling in love with the kitten, and she’s all but certain that everyone already knows that.

Nothing can ruin her mood until she opens the door, and sees who’s standing behind Lena. Sam. Sam from AA. Sam who Alex was never supposed to see again. Lena’s intuitive, so she knows that Alex’s reaction is because of Sam, and no matter how quickly Alex tries to cover it up with a welcoming smile, Lena still knows.

“This is Sam,” Lena says. “Sam, this is Kara’s sister, Alex.” Sam nods like she’s playing along with some kind of game, and Alex wants to grab her and quickly explain the rules before she enters the apartment.

“Lena, there are blueberry tarts!” Kara yells from where she’s standing beside James. “And a cat.”

“Yeah, I see.” Lena extends her hands and guilts Alex into handing her over. They all enter the room, Sam eyeing Alex curiously as she does so. “Everyone this is Sam.”

“Hi, Sam.” They all say with varying degrees of interest. Kara takes the lead and starts giving Sam a quick elevator pitch about everyone in the room. When she gets to Alex, she says, “And Alex is my big sister. She works in security. FBI actually. She’s also a doctor, technically.” Kara is obviously too excited to keep track of her lies, and Alex is almost certain that she’s eventually going to out herself as Supergirl tonight. Which is actually the least of Alex’s current worries. Right now, Alex is basically a bundle of nerves, terrified of Sam saying something about AA.

It is anonymous, but still.

“The pizza’s are ready too, guys. Dig in.” James points at Kara. “Save some for the rest of us.”

“No promises,” Kara says already stacking a few slices onto her plate. “We’re playing Cards Against Humanity,” Kara adds before she moves onto grabbing another plate.

“But there’s no skill involved in that game.” Winn wines.

“The skill is a sense of humor,” Vasquez says, and Alex already loves having her there to berate Winn while she’s too busy having a mental breakdown.

“Can you believe he made fruit tarts? Regretting that breakup yet?” Alex jokes.

“Wait, that’s James?” Sam says, her jaw practically hitting the floor. “You never told me how hot he was.” Sam nudges Lena. Alex laughs and grabs herself a plate.

“I did, you just never listen to me.” Lena reminds Sam, and it’s very clear that these two have been friends forever if their unsubtle bickering is any indication. Lena ends up holding Alex and Sam up by the food, while Kara and James explain how the game works to Vasquez who has apparently been living in a hole.

“Alex, I got your favorite whiskey.” James hollers from the couch. Alex knows because she’s been eyeing it the entire time Lena has been pouring herself a glass of wine.

“Thanks.”

“I’ve got whatever in the cabinet, Sam, if you want something.” James sincerity is creating a tension that only Sam, Alex, and apparently Lena can see.

“I’ll just take water, I have to drive.” Alex admires her ability to hold back, and she’s sure that telling a bunch of strangers that she’s an alcoholic is probably very daunting. Alex still pours herself a drink and refuses to look at Sam for the entire night.

And, of course, it turns out that avoiding Sam’s gaze is impossible. She’s funny, quick as a whip, and smart as hell too. Lena obviously downplayed things when she said she was bringing an employee, because Sam was the new CFO of L-Corp, and she was a steal according to Lena. Sam fit in remarkably well, and even Vasquez seemed comfortable joking around with her.

Kara won, which surprised no one. Her good nature and the fact that she was from a different planet actually made her more ridiculous, which was the key to winning. Alex finally gets the cat back from Lena, and about halfway through the game, the kitten is sleeping on her shoulder causing Kara to squeal and take about a hundred pictures.

After the game they move on to watching some 80s horror film, which everyone is into except Sam, so Lena takes pity on her, and the pair retreat to James’ study to talk. Alex doesn’t really feel like she belongs in either room, but Lena has the scotch, so she follows them. “So how was day one?” Lena asks.

“You were there. It was great, mostly. That one guy...with the hair?”

“Austin,” Lena supplies.

“Yeah, he got me caught up really fast. And Jess? Oh my god, she’s amazing.”

“Told you.” Lena takes another drink. “It wasn’t too much? Or too overwhelming?” Sam leans back, amused by the sincerity of Lena’s concerns.

“She’s babying me,” Sam tells Alex. “Lena, I loved it. I love you. You were right, I needed a change.”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Suddenly Alex feels like she’s intruding.

“She’s worried that I’ll go off the deep end again. Last time I crashed my car into a pole and broke my kid’s arm.” Sam’s words come out harsh, and Alex is taken aback by the outburst. Lena isn’t. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lena says, squeezing Sam’s hand.

“In terms of fuck-ups, you’re in good company. I’m a total fuck-up, and Lena’s fuck-up adjacent.” Alex says it with a fond smile, and she likes that Sam actually appears to be more relaxed.

This time Alex doesn’t have to strategize her exit. She just sort of ends up in the same elevator as Sam, and they happen to be parked pretty close in the lot for James’ place. It takes ages for Alex to actually get the courage to say anything, let alone what actually comes out, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Sam isn’t playing naive, it’s a genuine question.

“You needed an ally in there. I should’ve been it.” Alex sticks her hands into her pockets. “To be honest, I have no idea why I went to that meeting. And I really...I appreciate you helping me out the other day, I just-.”

“It’s called anonymous for a reason. I won’t say anything,” Sam assures Alex. “Catherine organized this bowling thing, and she was like a Polish phenom. And she and Barb’s husband have been rotating on the snacks, and Andre is worried that it’s starting to become a competition because last Thursday Barb brought in an entire turkey.” Sam laughs at the memory, Alex laughs too because she thinks that Sam’s rant is as charming as it is hopeful. “You don’t just come to an AA meeting because you stumbled thirty minutes east and ended up in the basement of some church. You came because you think you need help. So...accept help sometimes, or did they not teach you that in FBI-security-doctor school?”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Good.” Sam smiles and unlocks her car door. “On that note, Lena is coming down here, and calling you a cab.”

“What?”

Alex turns when she hears high heels clacking against the ground. Suddenly Lena is handing the cat to her along with a bag filled with cat food, toys, a litter box, litter, and two silver bowls. “Kara says the cat is yours now,” Lena says with a frown. “But I named her Xena, and as my friend, you have to at least give me that.”

“Fine.” Alex happily takes Xena, thinking about how this is probably the closest she’ll ever come to being a parent. And with those dark brown eyes staring back at her, she almost thinks that it might be enough.

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[wingsofanillyrian]

The Dance: Chapter 2

Summary:  Everyone knows the High Lord of the Night Court is a monster. Not that Rhysand has ever cared what the other Fae of Prythian think, but when he meets Feyre, Tamlin’s betrothed, he realizes everything is about to change.

Chapter Masterlist

Before anyone asks, YES I do plan on continuing this!!

Gasping, I landed at the foothills of the mountains and fell to my knees. I hadn’t even known where I wanted to go, my only thought was getting away from Mor and Cassian and Azriel and their prying gazes. The club had been too small of a space, the walls closing in and Mor had wanted to comfort me, as if she’d known what happened. Had Tamlin felt it too? Oh Gods, what if he hurt her because of it?

Snapping my eyes shut, I forced myself to take a deep breath and retract the claws that had sprung out. No, I knew Tamlin- at least I had at one time. He wouldn’t hurt Feyre, she was the closest thing he had to a mate. After a few moments, I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings, a tiny portion of the tension in my shoulders eased as I recognized them.

I had winnowed to the cabin.

I walked, rather than flew, the mile from the snowy steppes to the quaint log cabin, where white smoke was already pouring from the chimney. No doubt a fire was burning in the hearth, summoned by the need to dry my cold, wet clothes.  My skin prickled when I passed through the wards that guarded the area and I stumbled to the threshold.

I’d bring Feyre here, I thought, and immediately regretted it. The pang of longing for my mate hit like an arrow to the chest, causing each breath to come in a rasping pant. The physical ache of knowing I would never have her, of knowing another male warmed her bed. Falling to my knees, I tried pushing back against the rising tide inside me, fingers clawing at my chest as if to rip out my heart.

I’d never felt so lost and hurt in my entire life.

After what could have been hours, my breathing steadied to somewhat normal levels, and I leaned forward to rest my head against the cool wood floor. I couldn’t go back to Velaris, not like this. The ache in my soul would render me useless.

The cabin would be my home until I learned to live with the pain.

***************

I stared at the report in my hands, reading but not absorbing the words. The giant stack of papers had appeared this morning at the kitchen table, a note from Mor sitting atop the pile like a crown.

I’ll be visiting you in the afternoon.

Please wear pants.

Her crude attempt at humor did nothing to comfort me.

I threw the pages down and sighed, leaning back and pinching the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t get anything done. All I could think about was Feyre; she’d absorbed my mind wholly and completely.

The scene kept replaying over and over in my head: Tamlin’s hands on her body, the look of disgust on her face when Mor told her what he’d done, the warmth of her hand in mine, and finally the terror she unknowingly blasted down that bond when she ran from me.

Her terror was justified, I suppose. Certainly, Tamlin had nothing nice to say about me and the ruthlessness of the Court of Nightmares was common knowledge. Few knew the truth behind that façade: the Court of Dreams. The one thing that I managed to do right in this life was keep Velaris alive and thriving, hidden from the rest of the world.

But of course, Feyre didn’t know that side of me. Hell, she barely knew me at all, besides what Tamlin might have told her. I didn’t know anything about her either, not her last name or even what she enjoyed doing.

The only thing I knew for certain was that she was my mate, and I had blown my only chance to woo her.

A tentative knock broke my self-loathing. “Come in,” I croaked, voice hoarse from weeks of disuse. A head of blonde hair poked around the door, and I sighed again. This wouldn’t be a fun conversation.

“What is it, Mor?”

She stepped into the tiny cabin, clicking the door shut behind her. “Just wanted to see how you were doing.” Tucking her hair back, she sank into the chair opposite me. “Cass and Az are concerned. Amren is too, though she won’t admit it.”

“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile to my face. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Mor’s brow furrowed and she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. I braced myself for what she would undoubtedly say, averting my eyes to the ground.

“You’ve been gone for weeks, Rhys. You’ve never been away from Velaris nor neglected your duties for so long.” She toyed with the hem of her dress, reminding me of the way Feyre had nervously tugged at her dress when we met. I went rigid at the memory, looking away to pin my gaze over Mor’s shoulder.

“We all felt it snap into place,” she said, speaking softly as if not to further upset me. “Rhys, we’re here for you-“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I picked up a random stack of papers, studying them intently. “I have a lot of work to do.”

“Rhysand.” I ignored the command that laced the word, frowning as if the report concerned me. Mor growled, the sound bubbling out of her chest as she slammed a hand on the table.

“Damn it, Rhys! You aren’t okay.” Her eyes were wild, searching my face when I finally looked up. “Feyre is your mate, and she’s with someone else. Don’t you care at all?”

“Of course I fucking care!” I spat, rising from my chair. “She’s malnourished. She’s with Tamlin- living with him. Even after you showed her how much of a fucking prick he is, she still ran back to him, even though she’s terrified of him. And she’s scared of me too.” Hot tears built behind my eyes, and I clenched my hands into fists.

For two weeks I had shoved that interaction down, determined to forget about it. Feyre didn’t know we were mated by the Cauldron, and she never needed to. I had given her a chance to come with me, but she had chosen the High Lord of Spring. And why shouldn’t she? I’d done so many horrible things in my life, maybe meeting her only to lose her minutes after was punishment for those things.  I scrubbed a hand over my face as those pent-up emotions threatened to spill over.

“Rhys,” Mor whispered, moving around the desk and placing her hands on my arms. “She doesn’t know the real you. She only knows the mask. You just have to find a way to show her who you truly are.”

I laughed harshly and stepped back. “And how the hell do you suppose I do that?”

Morrigan squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, staring me down. “You go back to that club and you prove to her that you aren’t the High Lord of Nightmares, but of Dreams.”

“She won’t trust me.” My voice was barely more than a whisper. “She’s terrified of me.”

“Show her Velaris.” Mor said unflinchingly, and I looked at her, utterly shocked.

“I can’t! What if she runs back to Tamlin and tells him? Then everything I have worked so hard to protect would be in danger.”

Mor shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to trust her.”

***************

The nightclub was just as I had remembered, with the hot press of slick bodies on all sides and the salty scent of sweat coating the air. I clung to the shadows to the side of the dancefloor, blending in well enough in a black button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. I stuck out like a sore thumb being here by myself and wearing so much clothing. Observing the other Fae on the dancefloor had me undoing the first few buttons of my shirt, revealing the tattooed chest that sent males and females alike swooning at the sight.

It had been two hours since I arrived, and I had accomplished nothing. I waved off the few stray admirers that had dared approach me, and was damn near ready to give up when she walked in.

I waited for Tamlin to show his ugly mug, but it seemed she was instead escorted by the russet haired Fae with the golden eye- Lucien, if memory served. Not a very effective body guard either- his attention was immediately locked on the first female he saw, leaving Feyre to wander to the bar on her own.

“Just one tonight, sweetheart?” The barkeep drawled, eyes sweeping over her body. I couldn’t blame him, the form-fitting black dress she wore worked wonders for what little curves she did have. She smiled meekly at the grubby male and nodded, and I pushed off the wall and slid onto the stool next to her.

He returned with the drink, and I passed him two silver coins. “I’ve got this one,” I drawled, sensing Feyre’s curious stare. To her credit, it only took her a few moments to discern who I was.

“Rhysand?”

The corner of my mouth twitched upward and I ran a hand through my hair as I turned to face her fully.

“In the flesh and blood,” I purred, meeting her eyes of dull blue-grey. There was no spark in them, although I somehow knew that they once had been filled with passion and fight.

“What are you doing here?” Her gaze flitted around the bar, scanning for any of Tamlin’s minions. It snagged on Lucien, who was completely unaware of my presence, too wrapped up in some pretty female. Feyre curled her shoulders inward, whispering angrily, “I know who you are, and if Lucien sees you-“

“I know,” I said, instinctively dropping my voice to match hers. “But I had to see you again- to know you were okay.” Her brow furrowed and she studied me with a calculating gaze. There- that was a remnant of the spark I knew resided within her, her assessing gaze raking against my defenses.

“Why does it matter to you?”

I didn’t want to lie, not to her. I settled for the vague truth. “Because I care about you.”

“But you’re the High Lord of the Night Court,” she blurted, then clapped her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to call you out!”

Shaking my head, I said, “No one else can hear us. I’ve put up a wall between them and us, precisely for that reason.” My eyes were drawn to her lip, which she had bitten nervously. Gods, such full, pink lips. What I wouldn’t give to kiss them all night long, to feel them on my neck, chest, and-

“Rhysand?” My gaze flicked back up to her eyes, noting the slight rose tint of the blush on her cheeks. I quirked a brow in silent question.

“Why do you care about me? I’m only another Spring Court Fae, and Tamlin’s betrothed to boot.” She said it with such malice that I knew she wasn’t with him for love, but for some other deeper, hidden reason.

I swirled the amber liquid in my glass, contemplating how to respond. I didn’t want to endanger her by telling her we were mates. Tamlin’s temper was a thing of legend, and I had seen him pissed off enough that I knew I didn’t want Feyre to endure that kind of rage.

Mor’s words echoed in my mind. Prove to her you aren’t the High Lord of Nightmares, but of Dreams.

“I’m not as horrible of a person as everyone leads you to believe,” I murmured, swiveling to face her. “My Court of Nightmares? It’s only a front. A mask to hide the true gems of my Court, one city in particular.” I reached for her hand, and to my delight she didn’t pull away. Her skin was cool and rough, possessing none of the warmth I had been expecting to find.

“I’d like to show you, if you would allow it.” I could see the wheels turning in her head as she weighed her options. My heart pounded in my chest, and although I desperately wanted her to say yes, I also knew that by showing Feyre my secret, I would be betraying my city.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the atmosphere in the room shifted in the space of a blink. The gathered Fae murmured anxiously as someone cut a path through the center of the dance floor. Something was wrong- whoever it was wasn’t well liked by the crowd.

A single name surfaced in my mind as I caught a glimpse of blond hair: Tamlin. Urgency flooded my system, causing me to squeeze Feyre’s hand in hopes of speeding her decision.

“There’s not much time,” I said, double checking my glamor and the shield of air surrounding us. High Lords could recognize glamors, however, and Tamlin was nearing the bar where we sat. My violet eyes beseeched her as I studied her face.

“I promise you, Feyre, that I am not a monster. I want nothing more than to prove that to you. Please let me show you Velaris.”

She fidgeted in her seat, frowning at our clasped hands. It seemed like an eternity before she nodded slowly. “I think I would like that.”

“Great, we can go now!” I squeezed her hand, the glare of the lights on Tamlin’s mask near blinding as he drew nearer. I prepared to winnow us, the edges of my vision turning black when an arm latched around my neck. The tip of a dagger dug into my side, effectively pinning me in place. Feyre’s hand slipping from my grasp as Tamlin stauntered up.

“Well well, what have we here?” He cocked his head to the side, a predatory grin on his face as he circled me. “High Lord of Night’s come to play, eh?”

Tagging: @spegetty @viajandosinalas @personpersonper @thisisnotmynamefml @photofeesh @4clovermania @highladyofluna @darlingfireheart @highladyofidris

[questions-within-questions]

Gale Reads Warlocks of the Sigil: Chapter Four

Warlocks of the Sigil is by Peri Akman and is available on Amazonand is currently on sale (!?) for Kindle at £3.07 and as paper back at £11.57 You can find my first post in this let’s read here. ++++++++

Is Kole just immune to magic? The Asim’s wind wouldn’t effect her, and now Tellack’s sounds aren’t either.  So Kole’s kind of tricked Quinn into doing the apprentice bonding thing, I mean, he agreed to be her apprentice, but she didn’t tell him that she was doing it NOW, rather than at the ceremony in an hour. It comes across as horribly opportunistic; like she didn’t trust Quinn not to change his mind.  ALSO Kole has this curse, or something, anyone who touches her skin might die in the space of a few months. This explains the bandages.  Quinn is angry that he’s not being told important stuff ahead of time. Too right! No one’s listening, in fact Teacher Brandie seems to be pointlessly taking Kole’s side on a technicality. Bleh. Who needs morals when you have rules to be obedient to.  Kole, again, agrees with Quinn, but, come on Kole, you can’t keep agreeing with Quinn without actually changing how you act, you’re just a hypocrite at this point. And offering Quinn agency over what city state they go to next or a pet is just a shallow bargaining rather than any real evidence that Kole is gonna stop pulling this shit. You even say out right that you’d be pissed if someone did this to you! Quinn’s being careful about what he tells Kole, I’m not sure if that’s because he’s suspicious of her, or because he’s eager to please, sadly, it’s probably the latter. Again, regardless, Kole throws Quinn’s effort back into his face “You trust me, wow you’re an idiot, I could be a murder.” Kole really does value being bitter and full of it more than, well, people. This honesty would be really refreshing for Quinn if it wasn’t so cruel and thoughtless.   Jeez, this is dark. So trying out magic without care and tutoring runs a risk of causing you to explode, like, a really big explosion, and Kole’s just wildly speculating that people might impersonate other warlocks to to acquire children to be used as bombs.  Kole jokes that this is what the government REALLY does with kids who age out of school, she clarifies that she was joking though. Mostly to gloat about how Quinn fell for it. Perhaps she felt bad about Quinn’s dismay, or perhaps she didn’t want to commit to that lie.  So Kole speculates, or seems certain of it, that the general populas is happy with how the government treats warlocks because it keeps them a safe distance from their houses; means you can sleep easy knowing your neighbour isn’t going to suddenly explode one night. It also adds a new meaning to aged out kids having to keep a brand one their face; so that the people feel empowered to avoid them. Makes me wonder why the villagers never made a massive fuss about Kay’s regular trips into town. Can the towns people vote for the government? Or is the voting population, who are so terrified of Warlocks, elsewhere? It also explains why Quinn and everyone’s parents would seemingly so easily give up their children. Also! Less than a hundredth of the population are Warlocks. Which, I mean, for a medieval-flavour society that’s a lot I’d guess, warlocks are not the rarity I first thought.   Earlier Kole mentioned that they could pick and choose what city state they went to, that’s a lot more freedom than I expected for a woman on parole. Not to mention ‘city states’ make me think they’re all independently governed, The Government with a capitol G must be a federal government then of some sort. I wonder if The Government does much outside of manage the Warlock population of a whole lot of different city states. 

Now the bonding ceremony is happening and I can see who got paired with whome. Kay (Who turns out is massive and stacked!) has Asim of course. Lyra has Sordidhe, and I’m already getting characters confused. Mackie has Han-Yue, BOOO! Mackie deserves better. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE. Hogarth has Lakinn, and I don’t remember anything about Lakinn. Actually Quinn can’t even remember the name of the next warlock. Yes Quinn, there are a lot of characters here I relate.  Asim is pissed at Kole doing the ceremony already. Just what is going on? Did Kole do it early to avoid giving Asim an opportunity to do something? I don’t know, I’m trying not to think about it; I’m not Sherlock Holmes. If Kole does or does not have skin disease Asim wouldn’t know either way because obviously the last time he saw her she wasn’t a mummy.  Most of the Warlocks who didn’t get wards took off before the end of the ceremony. Wow. Way to care about these kids’ futures guys. Kole isn’t entirely despised it seems; another Warlock does have a laugh with her about the fuss she’s causing.  Quinn is having a quiet sad moment realising he has nothing of worth to pack. Probably because the shit school he lives in never let him have any opportunity to be a person of the world with money or possessions or independence, but Quinn’s afraid it’s because he’s a boring person. Quinn resolves to steal his uniform because it’s good quality cloth and YES, bravo Quinn, steal that shit, you’re owed that and more.  Kole immediately points out that their living conditions travelling are going to be rough and a box isn’t going to hold up. Maybe you could BUY HIM A TRUNK. Kole you’re making your own life difficult by ensuring your ward has an inconvenient life. And don’t act like Quinn should be thankful you’re not yelling at him. Eat a turd. NO KOLE. Stop acting like you’re the victim in this! Quinn is a minor and shouldn’t be proving you with emotional labour! Kole you’re fucked up and I hate that you’re the only person who speaks any sense in this setting.  Kole rolls her Ls when she’s annoyed. It gives me warm pleasure knowing that Quinn has the ability to pick a nerve with her. And bravo Quinn for being brave enough to do it.  Quinn’s already figuring out how Kole’s emotions flip. Impressive considering she’s literally not visible under those bandages. I told you Quinn was good at people.  KOLE IF YOUR STICK CAN STORE UP TO FIFTY POUNDS OF ITEMS IN IT, why, why didn’t you do that straight away when you saw Quinn with his flimsy box? Why are you like this Kole. Why.  KOLE. KOLE. PLEASE. Please this is NOT an opportunity to hold all of Quinn’s possessions hostage. Quin at this rate you’re going to have to murder this gal. She’s a felon. No court of law will convict you, and even if they do you’ll just be forced to work for the government like you would anyway.  Quinn’s subtly noticed that Kole had already decided what their next stop is and her offer to let him decide was a lie. Yeah that’s right Quinn, you stay smart.  Quinn’s got an hour before they leave, I hope the next chapter is him getting to say some good byes. But at the same time I’m excited to actually see the world.  I might flick back a couple chapters and remind myself who Lyra and Lakinn and Sordidhe are, they may never turn up again, but I like to know who people are.  Anyway, Kole is pissing me off, and I can’t really pretend it’s not in an engaging way. I really hope Kole, or someone, anyone, is critical of the government for reasons beyond enjoying feeling superior.  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ You can read my let’s read of chapter five here

[possibly-meaningless]

Dailies - Home from home

23.07.19

It’s technically morning, with the fans snoring like pirates in hammocks, or alternatively white rattlesnakes, and the water outside taking it’s turn to blow unevenly on my singular body which cannot sleep. Someone is fading in new lights at the window, just fast enough to get your attention. New Haven, picking an outfit. Not for us, mind you. Never for us. For logics unknown and in no need of explaining, for no sake at all, but certainly decided.

24.07.19

You walk out into the morning which is like drinking from a stream., putrescence consistent, insect karaoke, packed lunch of sandwich and plumb. Your career is waiting in the howling tunnel, but for now you are walking errands and eating sunscreen. Answer your own question, if no one else can, buy what you want for breakfast. I’d rather a life than your kind of efficiency, the grind of a waiter scraping your own. 

Je suis complètement larguée, perdue, levée d’ancre, un petit rafiot qui traverse la rue dix fois pour en retrouver un grand, vide, rudimentaire, à peine construit, alors que la nuit grésille et présente des étoiles. Il n’y a pas de maison en mer, et quand vient la fatigue, les seules certitudes qu’il y a ne sont pas reposantes. 

25.07.19

It was one of those moments you know can exist, where you receive a long and genuine moment of practical kindness from a cook vinyl collector whose girlfriend sold you plates and glasses, who knew New Haven so pretty well and drove to your street without a GPS, and helped you pick up a table and chairs, and when you listened to music to remantle the table you found your apartment beautiful, and when you left you talked to someone fixing something big and funny in the grass with tape, and walked past the smell of fresh pizza. And if you pay attention you’ll notice your gait is wider, your shoulders back, that loud cars are listening to music they like, and that the power poles sing just as well as cicadas.

26.07.19

Blasted be this bus– bad day I suppose. Learn from mistakes only. I’m torn between a headache and a dedication to being Buddha-like, to mourning the unlikely refund, the upcoming exhaustion on the Uber, Lis’ exhaustion at her work. I chose to be here, yes. And I will make of it what I can. There is no reason not to be, once I have cradled my little suffering, to coo like the toddler in the yellow dress and earrings, you are traveling, you are traveling, your time is never wasted. 

It’s as if I cannot be on this Jersey Turnpike at any time but at eye-hitting sunset. As if the world will not allow it. Perhaps it was the first loving thought I had for this place that assigned me to it, and that I am now the sole designated lover of the gold cutouts on the Passaic river, this residence of cars where mere accumulation forms our departing products in the dust. If so, I am to see it as itself, not as a shallow safari of white and red metal birds, not as a child’s toy-strewn floor, the working hand on a veiny body. I am to see it strange billboards and all, a land bent to utility, understanding of its own gas-fumed complexity, tarmaced and bolted, where flatness is walls, having picked me.

27.07.19

Auntland is just so damn well written. And Lis is working god knows where but always impressing me. My friends are beautiful in a way that simply means I love them. She stops in the antique store where I do not, tells the Roman coins to me. How does one organize a store like this, where paintings are stacked, unnamed, painted wood and cursed carved jade? What went on in a Mayan mind, in this unpolished mosaic mirror? We should buy a castle together. We don’t recognize the Manson murders. We eat cumquats from the branch, and figure out how we are gods. I paint, and Eli knows government secrets. The buses are socialist free. Ten meters of crying DiCaprio, whose girlfriends are never over 25. I decide who lives or dies, who gets to take the scooter home. What a delightful Chekov’s gun, what a connection of inanities. And with the would-be limes that glued circles into my palm so that I must fill them with wisteria fuzz, we took to the painted wood and wrote: OAI. And in the Georgetown chalk dust of the building we found nothing exciting at all but sent off our exploring nonetheless, we took the eraser and wrote: OAI. 

28.07.19

We buy plums, small and mottled, skin the best, and get them in a plastic bag. We joke about the poem, freezer plums, while the heat gets at my shoulders you touch, use your neck to protect me. The juice flecks our elbows with purple paillettes, and the lace at my breast. I’m intrigued that you like me, intrigued if you like me. A line of sweat rolls down your back from your bra and another from of the fold of my butt. I say, not to you, “see what I meant about fruit?” with the slit of the plum open at my thumb and use my tongue to finish the fleshy pit.

29.07.19

É, T, ohielleu. Je m’appelais comme ça avant. Maintenant il y a à ma place quelqu’un de très bien, mais de complètement différent, en chemises rayées, les yeux fermés au soleil, riant ou riante selon le jour, montant une étagère seul(e) et repensant à ce que moi j’ai senti en me disant ayant sept ou huit ans. Ça me va. Cette person ferme les yeux et voit une photo qui n’existe pas, d’un balcon espagnole en sépia. Elle s’amuse à habiter n’importe comment, et aime beaucoup, tout court, d’une manière que je ne pouvais imaginer que par le biais de moi même. Elle pose toujours des questions, ça c’est bien. Elle pleure d’autres choses que de désespoir. Elle a fait la paix avec elle même, et sait que tellement d’autres trucs vont venir lui foutre dans la gueule. Celle dont elle a le plus peur de voir en colère c’est moi. 

30.07.19

The dump outside my apartment seems to be getting fuller every time I go home. Every day, I encounter a new insect. I think « I’ll come back for this later, and if it’s gone, then it’s gone » almost as if I’m thinking it was meant to go. The world has been trying to make me believe in predestination. My bottle of Gamsol spills in my suitcase, but it pools entirely into the dustpan at the bottom. When I lift it up, it spills, but only into the suitcase cover. And it cleans the spray paint off my hands. The ruins of cardboard valleys smell, that is the clearest reminder. They enter a state of being trash and immediately start to smell. I reach into the dumpster for what I need— magpie mind, magpie means. This is the sink I will be drinking in for the next year, and the stove doesn’t work. I walk the cupboards into the house like Easter Island heads.

31.07.19

Warm and sticky, legs and teeth, rain or percussion, swipe and reloading. Misspell a dinosaur. Cool yourself down, cold brownies in the fridge, muggy but just muggy, not hot, waiting for imaginary clothing, talking about drawing clothing, think of opening the window to the wet air, stay pinned by your laptop like by an at-home cat. Film over your teeth, laugh track in a song, chattering gutter, TV-show noises, waiting to go to a task, ignoring the pressing one, pick up your phone, write down a number, stand up, be light headed, sugar nourished.

Skill number one: drink water when you are drunk. Ceaselessly gulp, breathe like a bull into your glass. Why drink, when you are embarrassing enough sober. Blind men would find you bottomlessly stupid. Find the time to find this funny. Laugh about what matters. Think about going dry. See yourself stumble, again and again and again, off the walls, into bed, into formless conclusions.

01.08.19

Something not quite like a headache leaning against the side of my head. It’s the screens, I know that, and maybe the lack of sleep that I intent to maintain, and the beer today after the last night’s Old Fashioned, the earbuds I stole from a lost and found just parsing sound through my ears. My phone screen is sick now too, necrotic pixels growing only when you check, like the pea plant on the windowsill. A vision clouding while I continue to smile, not to sound morbid, of course.

02.08.19

If your body has decided you are going to cry, and no amount or quality of your usual thinking is going to save this (remember, this is also matter of luck and means) find yourself a comfortable place or places to do it. Jaywalk and scowl at the cars, ask the sun for cancer-freckles, worry your music with volume, drop yourself from finger-height like a pill into a glass— any form of cutting off will do. Don’t actually hurt yourself. Learn to recognize the good habits from the bad, the healthy from the fucked, palpate your own side, train yourself to make the right decision.

03.08.19

This place is one big noxious noise and I am not using it to its full effect. I am the one white Bollywood dancer who goes on the dance floor to think. I do this during sex too. My thoughts take monster forms on the dance floor, legged, entering. I dance like a writing, like a thinking, like unlocking the heart of an encyclopedia: Americans dance on their heels, and I would stomp if I wanted to be masculine. Eye contact changes everything, not only for you, especially for others. Look at the two women grinding— couldn’t that be you? Would you know how to give yourself properly to that hand? Would you squirm? Would you fear? You’ve stopped asking if you seem awkward or brave. The question has been eradicated. You’re working out of line, and doing nothing at all. You are looking at the halo lights and watching your carrousel mind melt in a black plastic shape where you’ve decided to put yourself for nothing. Couldn’t you do more? White woman you are, cleavage-key, dancing sexy for the Hindu gods? What a waste.

04.08.19

The sea reminds us the strongest, because every ripple is a mountain where one crest is the sand and another is the sky, because a half of you is pushing through jade hip by hip, because you are driftwood-sun-dried and the water takes your breath in weight or in drowning lap. We are reminded when we sit on rock, and the wind and heat does the all of us, when our bodies are just another thing for the world to be on, when the being there is just being at all, smelling seagull fallings (fish, shit) while the ocean talks to itself.

05.08.19

We dolly our furniture in dark processions, clack and bonking from pavanent to pavement, sweating evenly. Once again a ferry, this time two-manned, this time jolly, stopping traffic like spirits on the street, chatting shotgun through the tower of trays, legs, drawers, scraping wrists and ankles, puzzling at our load on a corner then off again. Simone can’t tell if she pisses Matan off. In living with strangers she doesn’t mind being bossy. Dish towels are clean and not for cleaning. She refutes claims of her dirtiness. I find she is someone who is very sensitive to gender roles. Abby Adult says adult beds are not in corners. I climb up the walls to give myself a red canopy. Stash and steal and crowd and clutter, Howl’s bed, magpie’s mind, treasure box. Let me live somewhere I can get lost.

06.08.19

I am folding myself into this house like into a blanket, filling every corner with some hand-sized glee. The moving and choosing fires off the part of my brain that is a mouse pushing levers, saving grains, planning for later, living like cooking, by habit and precaution. Cameron had nothing in their room. These are two sides extreme, both beautiful, both in their own flavor correct. My choice is to be fret-tired and worn in a moment; rather than lacking or scavenging later, bumped and familiar with frustration or money-spending. I like the bartering, the cooking with nothing, the piling and stringing things up. “Your DIY aesthetic” says Matan, strange and insightful again. Birds will make a nest to see it torn down the next year.

07.08.19

The storm like me back it seems. I talk about her incessantly, of when the kites fly low and remind me of the sea, of the way the sky presses on the city and makes you notice it, doing what you’re doing but doing it with your eyes on a corner between roofs were you see her scheming the rain, first drizzle then pour. And I make my ferry way, pressing my umbrella between my fingers and phone, braced and ready for the trick to fall, eager in the waiting like happy prey. And when you do start love, you have humor: you growl somewhere to the side-ear and fall just on the chorus of Don’t Let Me Down while I join in and soften just as it stops. You have me laughing clamorous and soaked and clear.

08.08.19

I dream that I am Theo, lost and boyish and cut-off from everything and especially myself expect girls and history and whatever excites the mind to marvel. Let me read again, now that I am slightly weak, now that my mind is playing tricks on me again, listlessly making me believe I am worth no one’s time. I want something to sparkle for me or damnit I will go and find it. I will go to a play tomorrow and I will be in New York and I will read on the train. By God I will be good at this if nothing else.

09.08.19

“Pay attention” says Ethan, “to how your body feels.” Is your phone less reactive, or is it the cover screen? The chord, the block, or the device? I stand evenly on both feet in the line at UPS. I return every eye that meets me, insistently— look at me, I am looking too. Pay attention. My face feels gathered like a half-raised first. My step clacks, my back is straight, I am no floater, Theo. Where is my benevolence? Why must it depend on, vaguely, if Adrian is sleeping with Lis, if Holly cancelled on me, how my body decides to wake up? Who am I being so cool for, so impenetrable, when I have said so often that I refuse to defend myself against people?

10.08.19

C’est drôle comme rapidement je me remets à aimer. Il faut aller trouver ces choses: la pièce de théâtre indépendante et un peu étrange, l’établissement au nom russe, la tartine un peu brûlée. Florence me pose les questions comme il faut: non pas, comment vas tu faire (qui est une bonne question, mais pas la première) mais que vas tu faire. Je sais déjà ce qui me fait frémir. Tout ça je le sais. Il s’agit d’être radical. De savoir être radical. De choisir. D’aller chercher. Savoir rester heureux est vraiment un art— étrange d’ailleurs, vu que le monde a tellement à donner pour être heureux.

The AC in the train starts up again. There’s a helpfulness in the air today, like the summer doesn’t want to end, is sunny, and sea-like, glowing and streaked with clouds. But the movies are closed until September, and I don’t understand it. The coast has put on its best, I can tell, but doesn’t dare ask me to stay and I am ignoring it— going home. Never have I felt so invited to roam little Connecticut alone. But I am going back to my duties, sad-no smiling to the sun, as if I am an adult who truly must. How symbolically heart-ending if I were to sit inside today! I’ll go, no I will. I’ll take Natalie or no one but I will. You cultivate what you want to be, Caleb said it, we all agree— nothing has so clearly been that occasion for a good habit.

11.08.19

And we didn’t go to the beach in the end— we will, because we have a car now, but we have not yet. Instead we took the car to Lowe’s and the storage unit, and made a copy of the keys. I sat in the back seat with the sea in my hand like a toy I’d been told to be quiet with. Trent slid his hand over the wheel and he and Natalie held arms over the front seat like parents, in a way signaling to one another they’ve just felt affectionate, but must for now keep it seemly for the children. I take Natalie in, big eyes on her for long moments. Bare-chested Trent eating strawberries over a chair makes me stare. I want a moment with Nat alone (walking to the car, at home while errands are run by Trent and her mom) to raise the back of my hand up and point to my finger: the ring? As if to ask: how are you? How much of who you are with me can I still expect to see? And then, no matter the response, to say: alright, I’m glad.

12.08.19

The walk to work is always interesting. I face the sun both ways, cross like an accomplished idiot, stride as if to prove to the summer session students, and the tourists, and the construction workers, that this place is mine. The air is carpeted with the hum of HVAC and wired with cicadas, cool and rustling near the graveyard and parking-lot hot near the Whale. A painter camouflages a new building into the sky and an old man coughs on the steps of his house, wearing all red. New Haven calls for climate emergency, and for gun lessons, and for a twin pack of cigarettes (and of course, to Tax Yale). I am only a certain amount of native here.

13.08.19

Last night called for rain which came and stood, grey boots in the window at my awakening. Thanks to it now I am under the burbling skylight, wedged into the service stairs like a young délinquant, barefoot, sandal-tanned and flecked with black with but only waiting for my flats to dry. Donna Tartt narrates over me in alliterative phrases stuck there since high school English: “widow Dido,” “Popchik, Popchik.” She makes the packing of my lunch seem frantic. I am misted in parts and soaked in others. I contend with the parts of my commute I have the least affection for when they offer me shelter. Boring duties are renewed with care (I check my bag like a friend) and the umbrella surprises me with a watery caresse. The pour stops and starts in uncaring moods, while I marvel at the fleck of dry sand on my fingernail, as expertly dropped as a seagull’s bird shit.

Making food, spiked-seltzer drunk, feels like something I should be doing in my early twenties. Still in my shoes, not quite bumping into our move-in mess, navigating to the stove where my peppers are patiently cooking. Technically drinking alone, I suppose, although Nat and Trent are in the room next door. They’re as if teenagers had gotten married, playing locked-up video games, eating pop tarts and pop corn. I’m being mean, but still. Give me a friend other than myself to be arrogant and drunk with. 

14.08.19

The day has felt like a skipping record. I sit with my shoes awkwardly up on the bar of the old geology classroom table where we have our lab meeting, legs apart, changing the position of my hands to look more like the men on the team. I’ve been wanting to project to them, and to convince myself, that I am confident, and unashamed of myself as a researcher. The flattened squamate skull Kelsey has been segmenting all summer spins evenly on the projection screen like a rainbow screensaver. “It took me a lot longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to make it loop in PowerPoint,” she says, in the bored and awkward silence preceding Anjan’s arrival, “does anyone hear that ominous beeping noise?”

As the meeting goes on I feel bad for my cynicism. Anjan is helpful, and full of feeling; he kicks his voice into a fury about how the auditorium in the new science building will have no exhibits for modern research, only stupid, dead, drunkard white guys, dried out carrions in their graves whose work we refuse to shut up about. Pisses him off; he’ll go up and give them a piece of his mind. “How about you Alice?” eventually he turns as he does for each of us to ask about my progress, paused and attentive, a gooey ring of white exposed all around the iris. “That’s good!” I flicker my eyes around the room, unsure if I have ended my explanation. “If you’re working on vomeronasal projections you should look up nervus terminalus– nerve zero. It’s kind of an old theory, might be totally wrong but you never know. It’s worth looking up. Some of those old dudes tend to say more interesting things than some people in the field nowadays.”

I think back to the ominous beeping at the apartment, poked through my reading by the musical sting of Trent’s medieval strategy game a room away. He and Nat hadn’t realized I was home at first, and had cooed at one another in a way I knew I would only hear now as they would never do it around me again, and talked about how mushrooms tasted like cum, Trent explaining that he had, yes, sampled his own cum which is why he knew what it tasted like. I made myself coffee, which I never do, half milk and three spoons of sugar, feeling like a thief for taking from Nat’s Knick-knack teapot. Worse, I catch myself wanting a drink, in pathetic emulation of Theo’s own self-seriousness, the brooding, world-bereaved young man, for whom defensiveness is not only perfectly reasonable, but noble.

15.08.19

Jack, you came up in conversation with Nat. There’d been a build up to it all week, me thinking about morality and self-image, feelings of guilt, feelings of rancor. I sat on the couch, wrapped up into myself, furrowing my brow because I wanted to feel myself do it, wanted to put myself here, guilting profusely over every movement and word I said. I was too arrogant, didn’t notice when Nat stormed out that morning, I steered the conversation wrong (“how do you learn to do that right?” had asked Max) toward myself, or towards the wrong kind of comfort or advice or recognition, sloppy, really. Just sloppy, when you can be deft. And I thought about how guilty I felt for what I’d done to you I said, “if I forgive myself for what I did, then I am no better than him for forgiving himself, for absolving himself of the need to think of the pain he’s caused, and the pain he might cause in the future.” The difference, of course, and I don’t need a shrink to remind me, is that I need to hold us both to the same standard. That does not mean I’ll happily dismiss you to my advantage as deranged, or a dick, as you surely do me (I can almost hear it) but it does mean that I can expect for you to think on your behavior as much as I have mine, and when you do not (I have no way of confirming that you do) work accordingly. Same standard for you and I Jack— simple as that. For me and you and everyone else. Mix and match.

16.08.19

The next day I wake up thinking “let’s try impunity” and what an immediate delight. I walk and I see: GMC pickup, electric pole panel, security camera, parameter, when was this constructed? Are they working on Payne Whitney? Yale facilities vans have reference numbers. Brick patterns on the windows, tinted glass, where does this bus go? My voice picks up, I am un-embarrassed to speak, I listen to rap and move around the lab. I work. On the way back the air is breath-hot, and mercury light pushes out from behind the clouds in blingy prelude to a storm. I’ve selected a song of Lis’ that pulls my confidence all the way up through my spine, two gender-fucking voices, one slapping and modern, the other age-old and trilling.

17.08.19

I didn’t think I wanted to swim until my feet were in the water. Perhaps it is like weighted blankets and hugs that make you cry: being held never uses the front door of the mind. There is movement, my froggy propulsion through the water, and then there is the off-handed way the ocean sloshes to the shore with you still in it. I cannot conceive of the volume in any other way but the sea. Knowing what it is like to drown can change everything. Barnacle cuts are pink and radiant but impossible to feel, the opposite of paper cuts, which I suppose makes sense in more ways than one. I tie my ribbon around my hand like a tribal fisherman, hung up by all limbs in the water. I accost the dead skin on my heel. I speak and sing to myself. I do not notice the fog until it is in.

18.08.19

Shovel-fulls of visions arrested on their way to meaning. The day is jumpy and bored until. I am marvel-bound until I am talking, at which point I am stringing conversation and looking at your tattoos. Your eyes are clear, like lemon beer. The walls flake, and your photographs are grainy with dark, looking for fish in the deep. A sense of light, an understanding not semantic. A re-wiring. I climb and make, I sit in your smoke, I show the different angle which is absurd and funny, makes us tiny toys. You are from Moldova, I have to remember. I hold your hand on the backseat. You were talking yesterday about the moving holes of LSD. 

19.08.19

The sequence of the day has seemed completely natural— something a hobbit would set their watch to from the porch, looking out into the turning of the world. Chris was around, and will be for the next few days since his New York conference got cancelled. We both understood the afternoon so well before carrying it out: we would both get chai lattes and bump around the Willoughby's unembarrassed when our orders get messed up, say we should “make the usual walk to the Div school” and stop to sit in a tree by the observatory, perch in the stormy wind like two academic birds in the Marsh Hall belfry, and chat about efficiency, and language, and morality. At work, it storms. I pack up to walk home some half hour after the rain and head to Stop and Shop in the gold-dripping postdiluvian afternoon: an excuse to see a neighborhood that isn’t mine, where streets fan out into the unknown, sparse with people and rife with churches, a zone I’ve not yet added to my mental map. I buy bread, hair ties for my roommate, “nice” jam for the other, slot them in my technicolor backpack, and glide home on the sound of crickets and seagulls beaming through the limpid air.

20.08.19

I’ve decided not to go to work (Laurel hasn’t asked for me, I’ve figured out the extraction problem on my own, I’m getting lunch with Chris and Julia near the med school, I’m not even getting paid anymore, I have other things to do, and if she needs me she can just text). The only thing I’ll be missing is the chill of the lab, without which we are faced with an unclenching strip of hot, humid weather than I scroll across the weather app on my phone. The apartment is still as whispery as a wood: spoon tinkling once against my chosen mug of tea, Trent or Natalie taking a rising sip from the vape pen, mindlessly clicking at a video game, against the faraway in-and-out of chittering cicadas.

21.08.19

Around 1:30am we left Viva’s and dropped Jenna off with her three-year-faithful, less-successful-than-her boyfriend (Andrew? It would be weird if Chris slept over with him walking around the one bedroom apartment in the morning) but the rest of us had other prospects. I guarded Christina like a puffed bird while she changed in the trunk of the car from a black striped shirt to a black striped sweater, and helped list the roofs in the area. I could do Dwight, Kris had the password to the Howe Street roof, and Cameron still technically had keys to the whole building, but their first suggestion had already taken it: the creepy, stony walls of St Lawrence Cemetery mausoleum. 

Next, drinks: I had half a bottle of mango-nectar orange juice in the fridge, and a flask of vodka that’d last been used at dinner on Friday for one of Christina’s mosquito bites. Nat and Trent had moved in with a dreg of Maker's Mark, which was waiting on the kitchen counter, and Kris, of course, had more vodka at home. Halfway out of the apartment, waiting for Natalie to get dressed and join us, I couldn’t help but laugh at our situation: we’d pulled into the parking lot like a bunch of gangsters, crouched over the giant electric fan in the back seat, Kris smoking and blasting some dark, full, floor-of-the-mind Witchhaus for the entire tenement to hear. We were making things exactly as we wanted them, speeding off onto a road that was empty and ours with the arrogance of a Neo-Tokyo biker gang. 

Campus, which had felt like a kingdom until yesterday, has been retaken without a breath of effort. The air smells like a firecracker, and the dorms like shoe-box houses. People have started partying, and practicing, and working, as if they had spawned there already in the act.

22.08.19

I am drunk and sober enough to write. We are magnificent tonight, you would see it. Our kisses barely hold back— I kiss Kris on her rough, shorn head, I rasp at her slenderness, the meeting angle of smile and cheek, I kiss Keduse on his good man’s t-shirt, on his Egyptian locks, the enamored look in his eyes and hands, I kiss Cameron with hands around the waist, into bony rebellion, hated and going, spirit that knows me in a pair, dyed hair. 

And for those who are not with us, I have planted a kiss on your neck— feed me more alcohol. For those who are too lost to stay— you are guiding yourself, and we are here waiting. For those who are trying us, getting their feel— our love extends to you too. We are the city, that much I can tell. She is in the blinking foreign, she is in the dollhouse lights, she is in the streets of police and the things out of their sight. The drug dealer, the broke, the roped-up nervous boy, and those who’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to look for. 

She is the stage for us, the in between. She knows I see her— she is the mint I bring to my lips with inexpressible longing: wilderness of love. I cannot smell it without knowing it exists. After all, she is here: kiss them, she says, for I cannot quite do it in a way they will understand. Dutifully I do, and imagine hers, smiling sadly, pearled horizon, born dressed. I will miss you, Christ! God I will miss you! How much I owe, and this fantastic longing, it stands for all the rest of it! What tender love I will feel until I am torn from this.

[asaforestonfire]

Grim

Hey I wrote a weird fic thingy in like, 6 hours and have not edited it at all and prolly won’t cause I’m lazy but hey, here, take it:

In your youth, you would rest on a blanket in the depths of a lab, protected by the watchful eyes of stuff kittens provided to you by the kind hearts who cared about you. White sheens of hard shells crafting soft features of felines with two too many eyes in the dim lights of pulsing green checkerboards that surround your bed. When the glean would fade, the quiet clinking of hard joints against each other cease to fill the room, the calm serenity would be replaced. You would hear them. The voices. The choir of chatterings and soft screeches that would combine into an unnatural melody of promises.

The sentinels lovingly made to guard the young wizard, covered in old sheets and clutching onto her portal to the realm of her friends, shift in the night. Their curious white eyes turn cold when you writhe, small hands plugged over your ears. You want them to fend off the noises, to repel them back, to let you sleep. But they cannot. They sit. They watch. You are young when you learn to ignore them, to simply repel their voices and quiet them to nothing more than a soft buzz. The eyes stare. The figures stay stuck to their seats. The bottles slowly block them out.

Your adolescence goes by in a blur. You are reminded of the moments in your youth, the few words made out among the cacophony of cries bleeding into your sleeping mind, when you first handle the controls below the wide grey screen. Delicate hands travel across the panel in a method that only someone familiar with the technology could perform. The screen lights up, blue light causing your vision to falter for a moment, before fixing itself. An young man sits in a room, red sky behind him as sparks fly off a metal pipe, welding mask over his face and arms exposed. You take brief note of his figure… only to hear the sounds again. They never came up when you were awake and out of bed, you assumed they were resigned to night and when you were teetering on consciousness. It hurts. The voices, they hurt beyond imagine. You can barely hear your thoughts above anything else. You slide down the front of the panel, hands cradling your head and knees moving to protect your face. Without your touch, the screen blinks out, leaving only the pulsing green you are familiar with to fill the darkness.

A month later, you try again. The novels you have written have already stacked tall against the far wall, and your drawings are tiring with nothing new to go on, so you turn to the last source of curiosity. Your hands move in another pattern, different from last time. The target today: a kindly woman sits in a home, leaned over a counter and idly writing in a large book, annotating pages with dense text. For some reason, you are captivated. You lean against the console and watch her for hours, admiring how nice her home looks, the gentle smile on her face, her pretty handwriting… until the screen cuts out when she enters some room you don’t recognize. Frustrated, you try to go back to that setting, to return to what had seemed so simple and pleasant, only to wind up staring at someone with similar features, but in the middle of felling a large beast. You hop back as the screen flares with a gunflash. The man takes a moment, confused, before looking at what you feel like is yourself. You are… unnerved.

Later that night you cannot sleep. No matter how many bottles stack you can never seem to drown them out. They cry out to you, they call you by name, demanding you help them, save them from their agony. They promise you a life free from your residence, to provide you the ability to meet those faces. They reach out and quell the sickening green you are too familiar with, and brush against your face. You feel them around you. You feel… nothing.

The barrel of the blunderbus kicks up into the air and you recoil, complaining that he’s getting to excited and reminding him there’s no reason to fire in the middle of the damn house!!! Sure you did finally manage to mix something that didn’t explode, but all you need is a fucking hug instead of the full 21 gun salute. In seconds you are wrapped in his burly arms, and spun around, getting stupid mustache hair in your mouth. You don’t care though. You’re more than happy to hug him back and giggle as your spun. It’s been years since you saw him on that screen, and now, he’s taken you on as an intern for his business. From the first moment you create a decent adhesive, you start propelling forward in the field of chemistry, advancing rather quickly to the point that you outpace the entirety of the initial team he had assembled. You feel… accomplished. When he pats your head or takes you out for lunch you are entirely focused, kept completely in the moment. You don’t see the void in your dreams.

Normally, normally though, you have taken to manifesting in the empty void, surrounded by nothing and everything at once. There are thousands of eyes peering at you, blinking, unfeeling, curious. But then there is nothing. You are alone. You are crushingly empty. You are nothing.

You have returned to your old home, snow surrounding the brown brick building covering the sprawling complex below. A tinge of pain runs through your body as you step through the light dusting of white, body tensed beyond belief. The silver of your flask touches your lips, a swell of courage courses through your veins, and you suddenly remember everything you had spent so long forgetting. The wrinkles on your face deepen, exasperating by the second as you trail down the winding steps to your childhood home. You need to do this. You need to ignore the unflinching eyes of your former guardians and clean the space. There is work to be done, and you will do whatever you can to ensure it moves along smoothly.

They keep calling to you. Every. Single. Night. They reach out to you and try to wrap their whims onto your soul, always trying to sway you with promises of knowledge and protection, of love and desire, of a spot in their court so long as you accept their gifts. You know, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are not who they want. Yet they call.

Sometimes they strike a nerve, others they manage to catch you in a good mood. But recently, they have talked the only language you listen to. They promise you meaning.

The home has finally become a real home. After your trip to meet the one woman who made you feel calm, you returned home with a new purpose. Her face is too bright for you to look at sometimes, her smile illuminating the dark that had haunted you for so long. She grasps at your fingers and babbles to you as you drive her home. Even without the knowledge you have been provided, you would have known she would do great things, anyone this perfect had to be meant for something greater. In the moments you spend, cradling her close to your breast as you walk the path up to your door, the flask you had carried since you left the labs, falls and rests in a snowbank behind you. She deserves the best, and you will do your damndest to provide it for her.

She’s read her way through half the library at this point. You are amazed at how hungry she can be at such a young age, so concerned about how this works and why that functions like it does. Whenever those bright purple eyes look up at you from your lap, and those cute lips part to ask you why some acids are lethal and others simply erode certain substances, you can feel yourself regain some of that spark you lost. On her third birthday, you present her a sentinel, this one able to bat away the various daytime beasts who end up making your sunshine jump. She cries when you tell her he is hers.

Two years later, he turns up dead on the beach. There are bags under your eyes. The sun is hidden behind dark clouds as you carry the kitten back to the home, a stagger in your step and a few tears staining your cheeks. You wanted to find him a place to rest while the casket can be made, somewhere out of her view, but she noticed. She sits at the counter to do her school work, today scribbling a series of symbols on a piece of black construction paper in red crayon, only to drop it on the floor. She cries. You quake. The darkness slowly creeps into your vision.

Nothing works any more. No matter how much you try and make up for it, how much you beg for them to let you make it better, you can’t. So you drink. Not to keep them quiet, but to forget. To try and find some way out of this shitty fate for her, but no. No every day just makes her more distant and you more tired. She’s stopped going to school, you both knew she never needed it but once you got to drinking often, and she finished elementary, there was no way she could even leave. You’ve trapped her. You know you have, but fuck it! You were doomed from the start and they taunted you with it. They still fucking offer you options, to take their hand and join them but no. No if you are going to be a shit role model may as well make sure it’s not for everything. So you drink, you cry, and you let her hate you. You try to make her not but she always does.

The meteors have started to fall. You watch them on the screen, sitting around your cats and trying to pass the time. It’ll be over soon. She’ll be fine soon. Everything will be okay soon.

They still talk with you. Now you simply talk back. You wander the landscapes they set up with their dreams. Feet traversing the same paths they had arranged you to, you reflect quietly. Their songs are quite peaceful now.

Her land is nice. You missed the feeling of monsters falling to your fist, or the feeling of making the shot that felt absolutely impossible. It reminds you of the smell of mustache wax and burnt gunpowder. You make sure to leave her enough to keep her swimming in resources for as long as she needs. The ruins are calm, the consorts kind, and the lights nice and bright. You take the time to memorize every inch of the surface of this planet, you want to have something new to travel.

He is kind. You never saw him in your viewport, but god you feel like he is everything you could have ever wanted. Tall, kind, able to bake, resourceful… a bit creepy but only in so far as being almost too much of a gentle man, even the pipe smoke somehow makes him appealing. He makes you feel safe. The old man picks you up on his ship, and the meeting is brief. You share a quiet conversation, wine on your breath making his smile waver, the wear on his gun causing your gaze to turn. It is almost over.

You spend the rest of the ride chatting with the partner chosen to guide you into the last moments of your life. He is surprisingly well spoken, passionate about these funny little mundanities, but set against the goofy nature of his interest in pranks. You remember… the woman from the view port. He must be her son. That explains the tranquility. He asks about your interests, you crack a few jokes about the only interest of yours being the interesting field of managing to never see the bottom of your glass. He gives you a slight worried glance, but politely laughs along. Then you say your daughter, and he smiles. That smile rivals hers. It’s a different kind of warmth, more, the kitchen when his wife used to cook, but warm nonetheless. You ask him about his son and the warmth is almost overpowering.

He pours you a drink, you smile. For once, you feel at peace. He holds your hand, pipe by his side, and you hold his, wine in your off hand. And then you feel it. You feel them. They’re back and they’re here and. The darkness comes creeping in above you. No, no no no. You were told this would happen after you were gone. They sing to you in dissonant tones, a thousand different voices screaming at once. You recoil into a small ball, curled up on the ground, hands covering your ears. No. No no no no no no no no no no.

It is dark. You sit back in the void, cradled in the tentacles of Yogthragth, surrounded by the circle. They remind you that they had warned you, and that there is still something left. They offer you a chance to buy some time before the timeline collapses. The light is lost, now all there is left is to return to nothing.

Ink rains from the sky, coating the checkerboard fields enough to render them unrecognizable. Tendrils of thorny black lift your prone form from the ground, setting you on your feet. There is a castle to find, and a grave to lay in.

A sword pierces your gut. A sea of ink flows from your mouth as you hunch over, fist clenched around the mutt’s throat.

Then. It all goes black.

Your vision,

The battlefield,

The planet,

Everything.

As you fade, you think you see them, the sentinels, watching over you with their curious eyes. The darkness overtakes you, and the mutants who had watched idly, take their leave, watching over you again in a different line.