#my cousin fucked me over so hard I just tend to assume it’s my fault though

[cantgetoutofmyheda]

Omg can you write a one shot where Lexa is paid by her college peers to write love letters to their gfs/ppl they want to date. So Finn asks her to write for Clarke and it becomes a constant. Until one day clarke goes up to her and says I know its you

OKAY. So this has been sitting in my asks for like a year. There will be a few (but short-ish) parts to this. And before anyone asks, this is not based off of “The Half of It” ... but here ya go.

---

Letters

PART 1

It was Polis Record’s fault. Lexa’s atrocious week was definitely Polis Record’s fault. Had Titus not been a complete asshat of a manager and dicked the schedule around, Lexa certainly wouldn’t be having this predicament. Had Lexa’s hours not have been cut back, she wouldn’t be where she was. Had Lexa not known that her next paycheck would be half of what it normally was, she wouldn’t be writing a fake love letter to the devastatingly beautiful girl in her Astronomy class. Had Finn Collins not offered her cash to do so, she wouldn’t be writing this letter on his behalf, even though she was the one that’s had an earth-shattering crush on the recipient ever since their Freshmen orientation, four long years ago.

Let’s rewind.

“Titus, are you kidding me?” Lexa huffed at the bald-headed man who was scurrying around the break room like a headless chicken. “You did what?”

“Lexa, listen,” he tried to calm her down. “The schedule will be back to normal before you know it. I had to hire her. There wasn’t another way around it.”

She was mad. No. More than mad, “There was. But you just didn’t have the balls to tell your mistress’ best friend that you already had a full roster of people on your fucking schedule.”

“Can you keep it down!” He hissed. “This is temporary. I’m sorry. I couldn’t dock my cousin, okay? The schedule will even itself back out. You’ll be back to selling these shitty, scratched up vinyls in no time. Ride it out for two weeks, it won’t kill you.”

What he didn’t realize was that two weeks of half-pay because of shitty scheduling could actually kill her. He just didn’t realize that. There was the pressure of doing well in school, that was one thing. But there was also the pressure of doing well enough to keep her GPA high enough to keep her partial scholarship. And then the pressure of her shitty part-time job at the local record store to help make early payments to her student loans so she wouldn’t have to worry about crippling herself into debt once she figured out what to do with a fucking degree in Geology.

“Two weeks,” she warned him as she started to storm out. “This better be fixed in two weeks, Titus.”

Spoiler alert: Two weeks had come and gone, and Lexa was still screwed off of her work schedule.

“C’mon,” Finn pleaded at Lexa’s side. He had managed to weasel his way into the vestibule of Lexa’s apartment building. “I took that writing class with you last year. I know you’re good. I just need one letter. Typed. That’s it.”

She was already on the verge of a massive outburst after her conversation with Titus. The dickwad that he was, managed to screw her hours up for another week, even though he promised he wouldn’t, “This is not a good time, Finn. Seriously.”

“$200.” He stood tall in front of her. “$200 in cash right now, and all you need to do is type up a page of words that will have her vaguely interested in the person who wrote it, and that’s it. $200 right now. If you do this, then I’ll never bother you for anything again.” He scratched the back of his neck, “Listen, I just need a good way in. I can take the rest from there, okay?”

$200 was enough to cover a good portion of what she would be missing out on for the week. $200 was enough to get by. $200 was enough to get her mind to start churning.

“$300 and it’s a deal,” she tried to match his height. She straightened her back and broadened her shoulders as far as she could.

He laughed at the request, “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“You’re the one that needs me,” she reminded me.

He let out a huff and pulled another Benjamin out of his leather wallet and clumped it with the other two. “Fine,” he shook his head as he handed her the wad of cash.

Lexa nodded as she took the money. She buried the pang of guilt she felt into her pocket, alongside the earnings she just made and was ready to make way up the two flights of stairs when she felt Finn grab her arm.

“Hey,” he called out. “Wait a sec. I started a letter already, but didn’t get very far. You can just go off of this,” he handed her a folded piece of paper.

She opened it and read it aloud, “Have you ever felt like you couldn’t breathe? Like the weight of everything you’ve been carrying has amounted to this one moment in your life? Like there’s this burden placed so heavy on your chest that has left your lungs struggling for any ounce of air?”

Finn nodded as the words poured out of Lexa’s mouth. He was more than proud of what he thought was eloquently poetic. Lexa’s look of confusion went missed by him as he crossed his arms over his chest, “Pretty good, right?”

“Finn,” she deadpanned. “It sounds like you just described having the fucking Spanish Flu. I’m not using this. You sound like a serial killer.”

“What?” he yelped. “It’s poetic!”

“It’s a terrifying beginning to what’s supposed to be a love letter,” she deadpanned again. She shook her head as she finally made her way to the flight of stairs, “Give me a few days, I’ll come up with what we need.”

He rolled his eyes, “Fine. But you better make it good.”

She made it good. She made it really fucking good.

Clarke ran her fingertips over the paper as she scanned the words again. She had no idea who had left it for her—she walked into the lecture hall a few minutes early, as she normally did, and saw an envelope pinned to the corkboard with “Clarke” scribbled on it. She looked around, wanted to see if anyone in particular was looking in her direction. It was the usual suspects that always got to class a little bit early. Monty, the one who was always quiet in class but loudest at the neighborhood bar during happy hour. Echo, the girl who always sat in the back row and snoozed as soon as the professor opened her mouth. Finn, the boy who always found a way to have an uncalled for argument with the professor. Lexa, the one who was always in the front row and tended to herself.

Not a single one of them was paying her a piece of mind, so she let her eyes scan the letter one last time before the room filled up.

Clarke,

I was sitting on the lawn behind the library catching up on reading for a class last week. I was skimming through Voltaire’s words:

“Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.”

This particular passage struck a chord with me, and it was mostly because when I looked up after reading it, I immediately saw you consoling who I’d assume to be a friend of yours. I’m not sure what had happened, but she looked like she was crying and you showed up with a blanket to sit on, a bowl of fresh fruit, and sat with her and listened intently while she spoke. It was life imitating art, right before my eyes.

Voltaire’s writing is mostly straight and to the point. It isn’t hard to decipher the messages he often tries to relay, but it was most certainly a breath of fresh air to finish that passage to find a parallel to present day. Your actions on that lawn helped me see things a little clearer.

I suppose I just wanted to thank you for that. SO, thank you for being the catalyst for making something in my brain click.

Before I close this letter off, I do have a question for you. And if you feel so inclined to indulge and answer it, you can drop it back into the envelope where you found this one and pin it back to the board.

Has anything happened to you recently that struck a chord? Something that stood out to you, but you haven’t had a chance to dive deeper into it? I’d like to know.

Enjoy your week, Clarke.

Upon tucking the printed note under her laptop, she took another look around the hall, which was now practically full. She moved her computer to the side and pulled a notepad out of her bag. The professor had started her lecture, but Clarke’s mind wandered from the images pulled up on the projector from the Spritzer space telescope as her pen started to move across the page.

Hello,

I believe you’re at an unfair advantage here. You know my name. You know what I look like. Yet I have absolutely no idea who you are. So if you write back to this, I’m hoping you’ll share some insight on the person behind the pen (or keyboard, in your instance).

I’m happy that the interaction you saw helped bring better insight into what you were working on. Coincidentally, the friend that I was with when you saw me is also reading a Voltaire piece for an assignment. I wonder if you’re in the same class?

She’s taking “Romance Studies” as an elective. I tried to convince her that there was no point harping on what was considered to be “romantic” through archaic literary pieces that are now long gone, and replaced with mediocre-at-best Netflix series about teenage love.

It always seemed that with the way things were going in our lifetime… that all “romance” really was, was when two people swiped right on Tinder.

With that said… I guess I can honestly say that your letter is what struck a chord with me. Especially after freshly coming out of that conversation with my friend.

I don’t want to be presumptuous. But it seems that this gesture of yours, whether it was meant to be platonic, or if it was meant to imply a sense of something more, is making me realize that maybe—just maybe—the practice of sharing words on a page isn’t so archaic after all.

-Clarke

She was happy with the end result of what was hurriedly committed to the page. Clarke quickly tore it from her notebook and tucked the loose piece of paper back into the envelope. She scanned her fellow students to see if anyone was watching her. She slunk further into her seat and wondered if the recipient was there, sitting in that very room. Unfortunately for her, the lecture that was being given on the Nebular Theory kept the attention of every other person in the hall, so she quickly reached for her computer to start typing notes on the theory’s premise of how every planet in the system was formed.

A tedious hour later, her fellow classmates started packing up and rushed towards the exit door. Clarke took her time shutting her computer down and tucking things away into her bag. She was suddenly aware that the person who wrote to her—the person she now wrote to—could be in the room watching her to see if she had a written response back.

She waited a few more minutes, and finally deemed it safe when the last few people in the room seemed to be chatting with one another or finishing up straightening their notes from the lecture. With a big exhale, she pinned the envelope back onto the board and made a swift exit.

Lexa felt a tap to her shoulder, which caused her to look up, “What do you want?”

“I think it worked. She put the envelope back!” the excitement in Finn’s face didn’t go unnoticed.

“Okay,” Lexa lowered her head to finish writing out her notes from the class. “Job’s done.”

“I’m gonna go get it so we can read it and figure out what to do next,” he giddily let out before darting out of Lexa’s peripheral.

She let out a sigh of distaste when he came back half a minute later and pulled a chair close to where she was sitting. “Finn, you said one letter. I did it. This is on you now. And if you don’t mind, I need to finish up here,” she raised her hand, showing she was still trying to get some of her notes done.

“Fine, suit yourself,” he propped his feet onto the table in front of them while he silently read Clarke’s reply. “Hmm, Voltaire?”

The author’s name caught Lexa’s attention. She suddenly looked up to where he was sitting, “What about him?”

“I don’t know. Clarke said something about him. That’s the bad dude from Harry Potter, right?” Finn brought his attention back to the letter. “What did our letter even say? You never even showed me.”

He handed Lexa the notebook page with loopy and wide writing on it. The edges were jagged, as if Clarke did the whole thing in haste.

“What do you want me to do with that?” Lexa eyed the piece of paper.

“Read it and let me know if you think she likes me,” Finn shrugged. “But also, why didn’t you put my number or something on it?”

“Because it’ll probably take more than one letter for her to even be open to the idea of you,” Lexa chided in her reply. She let her eyes quickly scan the girlish handwriting and folded the paper back up. “She’s definitely intrigued.”

Finn finally set his feet on the floor as he leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, “Okay, great! So what do we do now?”

“We,” Lexa pointed her pen between the two of them. “Do nothing. You can write another letter and see if she wants anything to do with you, Finn.”

“C’mon,” he nudged her shoulder. “I’ll pay ya for another one. Another $300. But we need an exit plan for when we move this from letters to texting or something.”

“Her reply literally just said that we’ve opened the idea to her that letters are romantic,” Lexa shook her head. “Your take on that was to immediately turn this to a texting conversation?”

He grabbed the letter from Lexa, “What? Where’d she said that? It doesn’t say that, Lexa.” He scratched his head.

Lexa let out a defeated sigh, “Finn. She literally said something like, ‘maybe the practice of sharing words on a page isn’t so archaic’ or something. Did we not just read the same piece of paper?”

“See, Lexa,” he smiled as he patted her shoulder. “This is why I need you. Just one or two more. Same price per letter. I just need a little more help and then I’ll be outta your hair. Promise.”

She took her palm to her forehead and rubbed her thumb into her temple. One more wouldn’t hurt. Mostly because the $300 definitely wouldn’t hurt.

“Fine,” she finally let out. “One more. Give me her letter back. I’ll have our reply ready for this same class next week.”

“Excellent,” he grinned as he handed the piece of paper over to her. “You’re a lifesaver, Lexa.”

She felt anything but that. But at least it meant she’d be able to get by for the next week or two, while Titus still screwed around with her hours at the record store.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 79

Chapter Summary -   Danielle's decision.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously

Right so, a few things, football is referencing Gaelic Football, it is an Irish sport and the season ends in September with the final game being played on the third Sunday of the month and there is huge excitement surrounding it and most Irish country people would go to Flannery's or Coppers in Dublin for it, both are...shall I say, unique places, more like a cattle mart than a pub/night club.

Connemara is a Gaeltacht region in County Galway, the first language is Irish and it is a general farming area.

There are a few airports in Ireland, I had Danielle land in Cork Airport as if she didn't suffer enough (I am from Cork, so I like to joke it is terrible....I'm not joking, it is.)

Siobhan is pronounced Shiv-awn.

We are going to be with Danielle's family for a bit, her aunt will be based on my mother-in-law, spiteful, filled with self-importance and an all-round female genitalia.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly @salempoe​ @wolfsmom1​

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

Danielle sat on the plane, she was under no false pretences, she knew she looked like hell. If she was not so heartbroken she would have made a joke that she had some sort of superpower. She had a willing, handsome Tom Hiddleston, asking to pleasure her, and she declined him. Tom's face at her pushing him off her told how much she was crushing him, the only consolation she could give was that her own face mirrored his. She kissed him chastely on the cheek as she sat up on the bed, then she apologised and left.

As it moved on the runway, she felt the tears fall down her face. She wanted to be in bed with Tom, kissing and cuddling him but she knew it was for the best. She had said it to him before she left, they needed to take the time to assess themselves, perhaps, after some reflection, they may arrive at the same point once more, when Tom asked her what about if they did not, she could only shrug and say that at least they had tried. The flight was fairly full and the man next to her gave her a confused look as she wiped the tears from her face and looked out the small window.

When she arrived in Ireland, the Welcome sign caused her to feel some pang of joy in her stomach. She was relieved to have gotten the evening flight back, though it was to the wrong part of the country. Rather than driving, she went and got a taxi into the city and from there got on a bus to bring her back to Galway. A text to her cousin telling her she was arriving at midnight to the city was responded to with one that said that she had been drinking, so to stay there until morning. Not wanting to get a cab all the way to her grandmothers, she started to Google hotels in Galway, scoffing to herself about how she was a far cry from a globe-trotting singer, before becoming upset once more about how things had gone with Tom. As if by fate, he sent a text, just asking if she minded if he kept onto Mac until the day before he was going to Milan, he promised to walk and care for him properly. She could only bring herself to text back the word "sure" though several times she felt like texting more, saying that she was sorry, that she still loved him, but she stopped herself, as hard as it was, she was not going to be weak and rush back to him, she was going to look after herself, ensure she was happy before she even considered Tom and a relationship.

*

In London, the one-word reply filled Tom with relief that she had responded at all. As he looked at Mac, who seemed to sense there was a severe upheaval after occurring and was looking at him, he was glad to have the dog for company. In the time since his mother and sister had the dog accidentally brought to them in London before Christmas, he had become incredibly attached to the canine. He remembered the day he had found him on set, underfed and incredibly mangy, he rang Danielle out of instinct. She was not a vet, but she was a paramedic and the daughter of one, and he remembered how she told Emma how she used to tend to the weaklings for her dad, so he assumed immediately she would have some inkling as what to do. Since then, he had thrived as a loved pet and companion, and in truth, Tom was heartbroken at the idea that it was highly plausible that as well as losing Danielle, he could lose Mac too. Mac seemed to know what Tom was thinking and responded by getting up and walking over to him. "Hey, Mac." The dog groaned. "I am sorry for all of this, it is my fault." At that, the dog whined. "I am really going to miss you and our walks." The word 'walks' caused the dog to raise his ears in interest. "Not at this hour. At least I get to have you a few more days." Mac wagged his tail. "Do you think she'll give me access to you?" he half-joked, thinking about how his parents seemed to spend more time arguing after the divorce over where he and his sisters went on particular days and holidays than they ever did talking when they were married.

*

Danielle sat in the car with her cousin, whose only words were "You look as bad as I feel" since seeing her as they drove back to Connemara.

"Just so you know, you are Mam's focus at the moment," Siobhan warned her as they passed a sign telling them there were coming into the Gaeltacht region.

"Dare I ask?"

"'Your parents were married before they were your age, your dad is rolling in his grave that you fecked off to England and what good has it done you,' you know how she is."

"I am sure he wouldn't be too put out by it," Danielle stated, looking out the window again.

"Hey, are you alright, like, you're not going to puke or anything?"

"No, I am just tired, Travelodge is not renowned for its comfy beds."

"No." Her cousin agreed. "So, what's the craic, why are you here today and not on Wednesday like you said?"

"I needed to come home."

"Who do you owe money to?" Her cousin joked.

"I rather owe the money."

"What is worse than that?"

"There are things far worse." Siobhan looked at Danielle as though she was mad, but at only twenty-two, she had little idea of what issues Danielle had. "Has Laura not got someone new for your Mam to scare off?" She decided to get the conversation off her.

"Yes and no. There's a fella from her job, lovely guy and everything, Evan, but Mam doesn’t know about him."

"Good plan."

"Yeah, so you know, if you could not tell her..."

"Call me Jon Snow."

Siobhan laughed, Danielle gave a small smile. "So what about you, any hunky English lads?"

"At present, no." Danielle felt as though her chest hurt saying that.

"Meaning?"

Danielle cursed at her cousin's curiosity. "It's complicated."

"What happened?" There was a genuine tone to Siobhan's voice, one that told Danielle it was not about her making small talk, but intrigue.

"Well, one guy was a bit too full-on, really nice, but was too ready for commitment, we were not really compatible, he is actually engaged, or maybe even married now and has a baby coming."

"Well, as long as they're happy, what else."

"Another, we were not really…it just isn't working."

"How d'you mean?"

"It just went off track," Danielle explained.

"You realise that makes no sense, right?" Siobhan scoffed. "But I think I get it, it stopped being fun."

"There was a thing with him talking about his ex, it made me feel like shit."

"Yikes, fair enough, no one wants the ex pulled out and thrown in their face." Siobhan agreed. "How bad?"

"Effectively how it broke his heart, which is grand, at the time, but he said this over half a year later and after four months with me, in a very public manner."

"Okay, and the asshole of the year award goes to…what was his name?"

"Tom."

"Tom, welcome to the 'Asshole Hall of Fame’."

Feeling her hurt was after being justified but also not wanting to talk about it any longer, Danielle turned the conversation around, "What about you, any lads in college?"

"Maybe."

"So a yes, then."

"We are just having some fun, I mean, we met in Flaherty's last year…"

"Say it was after the All-Ireland, say it, I beg you…" Danielle pleaded.

The football," Siobhan admitted, causing Danielle to erupt in hysterics.

"Where's he from?"

"Waterford."

"Do they even know what a football is?"

"Shut up," Siobhan growled. "He's nice, but…"

"You're twenty-two so it's not like you are looking into a mortgage with him?"

"Exactly. Speaking of houses, Mam is going to try and push to sell Nan's place."

"What?"

"Yeah, she wants to do up hers and dads, but she is stretched with loans for other things, so she wants Nan’s sold so she can use the money from the sale to do it."

"It won't get a hundred grand, divide it up and that is less than twenty each way after solicitors," Siobhan said nothing. "What? What are you trying to say?"

"Right, you have to swear you won't tell Mam or Laura this?"

"Siobhan, I swear on Mam and Dad's graves, I will not tell anyone this." Danielle placed her hand on her heart as she spoke.

"Mam wants you out of the sale."

"What?"

"She thinks that because you are a grandchild, you shouldn't get a say." Siobhan seemed as though a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders by telling her.

"Fuck that, Dad left me his share of nan's, that house is a quarter mine."

"You never were interested in that stuff."

"I'm not, but I am not being swindled out of it either. I said it before, I didn't give a fuck who used the house for what gathering, but when I came home, I get to use a room, since I am barely around. I pay my share of the property tax, the repairs and the upkeep so I am not getting pushed out so your Mam can get some overpriced kitchen for it, she can fuck the fuck off."

Siobhan laughed. "You are so like your dad."

"Good, he was the only one she couldn't bully, I'll have to visit him before I deal with her to ask him to give me the strength to."

"Want to go now?"

Though she was exhausted, Danielle knew there was a turn not too far away that would bring her to her parents' graves, so she nodded. "Yeah, if you're not busy."

"It's only twenty minutes extra, Mattie was always so good to me, sneaking me a two euro for the shop."

"God you are so young, it was fifty pence for us."

"Well, the rate of inflation," Siobhan laughed, putting on the indicator of the car to go the road to the graveyard.

Danielle looked at the ornate stone in front of her, and the plot that contained her parents remains. Her gaze fell on the carvings that were their names and dates of birth and death. She hadn't realised her mother was older than her father until her mother died. When they celebrated their birthdays, numbers were never used. She'd felt somewhat foolish that she hadn't known that. She thought about her dad and herself, standing at the grave after her mother had passed, she never felt much point about graves, they never meant anything to her, she rather think of her mother down in the library and community centre, going to the active retirement with the other women, or doing knitting, she never really thought of her in some hole in the ground, and her father was someone she thought of going for a walk or turning turf, but it felt right to visit the grave, if just to think about them for a moment.

When she returned to the car, Siobhan gave her a sad smile. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just weird being back, not having them here."

"Did you leave because they were gone?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Do you like England?"

"It's grand, I think I would rather be here, but it's easier to get work there."

"I think I am going to go to Canada or Australia as soon as I am done."

"England wants nurses too." Danielle pointed out

"Maybe, but the further from Mam, the better."

"Fair enough, it's as easy to get from London as it is Dublin really."

"Too easy for my liking," Siobhan agreed. "You swear you won't tell her?"

"I am not going to tell her you told me, but I am going to prepare for it."

"I sorta guessed you would." There was still a slight doubt in Siobhan's tone.

"Look a secret for a secret, fair?" Danielle suggested. She always liked her younger cousin, they rarely talked growing up because of the age gap and because Matthew and Bernadette Hughes, though siblings, spent as little time together as they could, meaning Danielle, Laura, Siobhan and their brother Richard were seldom in each other's company, but the rise of social media meant that Siobhan and Danielle interacted online often enough. Siobhan nodded, seemingly relieved that Danielle was trusting her too, though she doubted anything Danielle would tell her would be too important, she had already explained to Siobhan about non-disclosure agreements. "I only sort of broke up with my boyfriend yesterday."

"Okay," Siobhan had to assume that that was not the secret, it was something noteworthy, but hardly a secret.

"You don't like comic book movies, sure you don't?"

"No."

"Right, hmm." Danielle had to think for a minute. "You like Taylor Swift, right?"

"Her songs are good, yeah." Siobhan had no idea what Danielle was getting at.

"Do you know anything about her boyfriends?"

"She is with them for about forty seconds, I don't think she knows anything about them. Like, is she even with half of them or just after publicity, honestly?"

"I have no idea," Danielle conceded. "I really don't. Not the point, do you know who Tom Hiddleston is?"

"Oh, the really sexy guy from The Night Manager."

Danielle cursed herself for not thinking of that, to begin with. "Yes, him."

"Yeah, one of the girls in college is in love with him, like fucking obsessed, she has a page to him and everything online, she made us watch a few things with him in it."

"Really, what did you think?"

"He's hot, but not obsessive hot, he has a really sexy ass, I saw him in this ghost movie, the man is…why are we talking about an actor?"

"The Tom I am sort of no longer with, that's him."

"What?"

"I was with Tom Hiddleston."

"And no one knew?"

"Well, his family, our friends in London…"

"But the media?"

"No, we made sure we were never seen together in public."

"So there is no proof you were with him?" Siobhan asked sceptically.

"We have pictures, just not published."

"How the hell did you bag an actor?"

"I just did." Danielle shrugged.

"But it's gone?"

"Yes," Danielle stated sadly.

"Why did you break it off, you look really upset?"

"Because he did an interview about Taylor Swift a month ago and the way he spoke was as though she was the love of his life and he was with me so I feel like it just was too much of a low blow."

"Okay, your boyfriend saying that sort of thing in front of people you know is just mean, saying it in an interview to the world, that is fucking cruel, but no one knows about this?"

"No, and they won't either, will they?" Danielle looked at her cousin.

"Not from me, they won't," Siobhan swore.

[this-is-a-love-story-fleabag]

Dial-a-priest (2/2)

A man slips his phone number into our favourite Fleabag’s back pocket, but it turns out to be a wrong number, connecting her directly to a priest. Chapter 2 of 2. Click here to read Chapter 1. Also on ao3.

"Is this the part where you ask me what I'm wearing?"

"What are you wearing?"

He looked down at himself. "Pyjamas."

"It's 7PM."

"They're comfy."

One night when he was just settling down with a cup of tea and another book, his phone rang.

"Hi," he said when he picked up.

"Hello, Father," said her voice at the other end of the line. English accent, a bit posh, wryly amused.

"You make voice calls? I thought you were a millennial."

"I'm old school. You're Irish."

"I know."

"I should have known. I was curious."

"Is this the part where you ask me what I'm wearing?"

"What are you wearing?"

He looked down at himself. "Pyjamas."

"It's 7PM."

"They're comfy."

"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm wearing?"

"OK, but we're not having phone sex."

"I'm wearing the world's least comfortable cocktail dress and about three rolls of tit tape."

"Do I want to know what tit tape is?"

"Probably not. I went to a bar again."

Interesting. "Why?"

"I don't know. The last time I talked to someone in a bar he clearly thought I was in dire need of the phone number of an Irish Catholic priest."

"What did you say to him?"

"I think I was probably charming. I usually am."

He chuckled. "You're not wrong. Did you have a good time?"

"No. Someone grabbed my arse and I left. Didn't even have a drink."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Usually I would have ended up going home with him. I didn't want that. I think I just wanted to... make a friend?"

"Do you have other friends? Family?"

"Not really. My sister lives in Finland half the time. I haven't talked to her in a long time. Do you have a sister?"

"No. Why haven't you talked to her?"

"She thinks I tried to shag her husband, which is patently ridiculous because her husband is loathsome."

The urge to give priestly advice was too difficult to overcome. "Why don't you try calling her? If it's been a while, she might be glad to hear from you."

"I guess. Do you have a brother?"

"Yes. Why does she think you tried to fuck her husband?"

"Are you close with your brother?"

He laughed. "No. You didn't answer my question."

"Why aren't you close with your brother?"

"Come on."

"I fucked my best friend's boyfriend and then she walked into traffic and that's why she's dead," she said in a rush. He could hear the wince in her voice.

"Fuck."

"So when I told my sister that her husband tried to kiss me on her birthday and he told her that it was the other way around, she chose to believe that slimy bastard instead of me."

He took a long moment to digest this new information before responding. "You're walking around with a lot of pain inside you, aren't you?" he said gently, his heart aching in sympathy.

"Yeah, but..."

"What?"

"I just..."

"What?"

"It's my fault," she said simply. "All of it, I caused it. That's why I'm trying... to be better. I don't want to do that any more."

"Everyone makes mistakes."

She huffed a laugh. "That's why they put rubbers on the end of pencils."

"I like that."

"You can have it for free. My next witticism will be priced on a sliding scale."

"You're funny."

"For the right price."

Unknown number: I texted my sister

Unknown number: we're going to have coffee

"I think I might be going crazy," he said without preamble when she picked up the phone.

"Well, you do have bats in the belfry."

"They're in the attic, and that's a bit of a sore spot at the moment, so fuck off."

"Why do you think you're going crazy?"

"OK so I was on a train."

"Yes?"

"We were delayed at East Croydon and I looked out the window."

"Sane so far, continue."

"There was a fucking fox! In the window! It was looking right at me! Nobody else seemed to notice it but I know I saw it."

"That's not outside the realms of possibility. There are a lot of foxes about."

He shuddered. "Don't remind me. But it was looking right at me. Right in my eyes."

"You're cute, why wouldn't it look at you?"

"We were there for half an hour and it didn't stop staring at me!"

"Why were you at East Croydon for half an hour?"

"Southern Rail."

"Ah, I take it back. Southern Rail? You are completely insane."

"Fuck you." He paused, backtracking a few sentences in the conversation. "Wait, I'm cute?"

"Goodnight, Father."

"Uh, goodnight then, I guess."

"Don't let the foxes bite."

"You don't need to tell me twice."

After a few weeks of this, he was ready to admit that theirs was the closest friendship he had.

She knew that he was really grateful for Pam's help but that he also found her annoying nearly all the time. She knew about his parents, and his brother, and his weird cousin who kept sending him conspiracy theories on Facebook. She knew about the puns he made in the parish newsletter, and she knew where he hid the G&Ts.

He knew about her dead best friend, and her family, and the way her guinea pig was kind of a jerk sometimes. He knew that she tended to call late at night or just after the lunch rush was over. He even looked up her café online (there weren't that many guinea pig-themed cafés in the world, it turned out) and it was only a few streets away.

Which was a total fucking disaster.

He was a priest, for fuck's sake. He'd made a vow to love only God and to love God's people as a father, and most certainly not to pin beautiful, witty, acerbic women to the nearest flat surface and kiss them until he can't breathe.

It was imperative that they never meet in person. He was careful not to tell her which church was his, never to mention local shops and restaurants. He very conscientiously avoided going within a mile of the café.

There was no way they were ever going to meet, and he'd nearly convinced himself that it was a good thing.

The priest was leafing through the hymnals to see which ones needed to be replaced and trying very hard not to think about his problems, when he noticed one of the Youthie Band loitering in the doorway.

"Hi Jake," he called. "Are you alright?"

"I forgot my bassoon," he said in a mournful tone. "My aunt is bringing it."

Strange kid, but probably harmless. "Oh, fun. How are your bassoon lessons going?"

Jake trained his attention on someone over the priest's shoulder, ignoring the question entirely.

"Where's Claire?" he asked plaintively.

"Hi, Jake," said a woman's voice, strangely familiar. "She didn't want to come with me because she thinks you're creepy."

"What?"

"I'm joking, she's at work."

The priest turned around to greet the new arrival (and possibly to stand up for Jake, although his creepiness was undeniable and probably deserved to be addressed), and his heart just about stopped. Standing before him was the physical manifestation of his ungodly desires made flesh, walking around as though his world wasn't about to explode.

"Here's your clarinet," she said, handing Jake the case.

"It's a bassoon," he protested.

"It's a birth control device."

"You must be Jake's aunt," said the priest, regaining the ability to speak.

"Step-aunt," she corrected, turning to him. She gave a little start when she made eye contact but other than that managed to maintain her composure. "Hello, Father," she said with a smirk, holding out her hand.

He shook it, noticing distantly that her slender hand had a firm grip. "So Claire's your sister?" he managed, drinking in the sight of her, even more lovely in reality, a walking temptation.

A complicated series of emotions flashed across her face, all of which he could actually decipher given all of their long conversations about her family situation - and isn't that weird? Being able to completely read someone when you're meeting them in person for the first time?

"Yeah, Claire's my sister."

Jake made a little squeaking sound on hearing the word "Claire", making the priest remember that he was still standing there.

"Do you have a rehearsal to get to, Jake?" he prompted gently.

Jake nodded and walked away without a word.

"OK, good talk," said the priest to Jake's retreating back. He turned back to her, suddenly nervous. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Uh, welcome to my church. Do you like tea?"

In answer, she gave him an incredulous look and made a bee-line for the third pew from the back of the church, bending over to retrieve the cache of G&Ts that he'd mentioned in passing the other day.

"I'd think we need something stronger than tea given the situation, don't you?" she said, throwing one to him.

He fumbled to catch the can and dropped it on the floor inelegantly with a few murmured curses.

"Now I think of it, I remember you mentioning that you were bad at sports," she said with an apologetic grimace.

He picked up the can and opened it gingerly, took a large and restorative swig, then ushered her into a side room for some privacy. They perched on rickety folding chairs opposite each other, and she stared into his eyes, studying him in a way that made him feel uncomfortably exposed.

"So you live ten minutes from my café," she stated flatly. He nodded. "Did you know this the whole time?"

He winced. "I figured it out a few weeks ago. I can't, I'm sorry, I didn't want to intrude," he lied. He had wanted to intrude, in so many ways.

She shrugged, amenably accepting his explanation. "I just assumed you lived in Ireland. I didn't know we still had Catholics here."

"We send a few over every year as a punishment for when you enslaved our whole country."

They laughed together, such an easy connection, and his fingers itched with the urge to grab her and kiss her.

"The photos didn't do you justice," she said, giving him a thorough and obvious once-over. The blood thrummed in his veins as his eyes drifted down her body in return.

He sucked in a breath and tried very hard to keep his cool.

"You're the single most beautiful human being I've ever seen, and the fact that you're in my church right now is ruining my fucking life," he blurted out.

Fuck.

She softened visibly and stood up, draining the rest of her drink. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do. We can just talk on the phone." She was watching him with immense gentleness, seeing right through into his very soul. "I like talking to you. It's OK."

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't want to send you away, I just-" He stood up, rubbing his temples with one hand. "I like talking to you, too," he said softly, looking utterly lost.

She crossed the room and took his face in her hands, bringing their foreheads to rest together. "I'm glad I met you," she whispered, slipping her fingers to card through his hair. He leaned into the touch like a needy cat and let out a shuddering breath.

She pulled away to press a chaste kiss to his forehead, getting ready to leave, and something inside him snapped. He backed her up against the crumbling brick wall, and finally let himself taste the ruby-red lips that had been whispering in his ear for weeks. She made a pleased noise and kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.

"Are you sure?" she asked as they broke for air.

"I'm sure," he panted, hiking up her legs to wrap around his waist, and let the life he'd built crash down around them.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Into the Dark (10/?)

The Wakandans leave, happy and with trade charters in hand. New Asgard is bartering Magic for technology and working together to forge the two into new variations of both. T’challa leaves without the last shard of your heart and leaves you still faithful to your husband. 

It had taken all your self-control not to press him into the nearest wall and kiss him until he was so drunk on you that he would have had no choice but to take you to bed. Goddess Above did he leave you longing. But you stayed faithful. You could look at Thor in the eye with no shame. Thor could not say the same. Just knowing that you had resisted when you, as far as Thor was concerned, had every right not to made him feel like even more of an ass. 

Thor stood with Brunhilde, watching you spar with Loki. It was not often Loki sparred with anyone if he could avoid it. Too many childhood memories of never being enough for his father no matter how many warriors he bested. But he would spar with you. Much like dancing it had always been a way for you two to have semi-private conversations. He couldn’t hear you but reading Loki’s face when he could catch a glimpse of it told him that you were being funny. 

He wished you’d be funny with him but you tended to restrict your comments about anything to bare facts and simple acquiescence. 

“Yes, husband.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“The Guardians of the Galaxy are here to speak with you, your majesty.”

Everyone else got to see you be funny. Got to see you be silly or dramatic. The parts of you that you hid from him because he’d made it clear he did not appreciate them. The parts of you that he swore would make you a poor queen. They very things that when you reclaimed them, made an actual Valkyrie more loyal to you than to him in many ways. The things that made Loki of all people want to protect you. 

Loki lost his dagger as you executed a very pretty little maneuver that threw him off his game. You caught the blade handily and held it, offering it back to him with a laugh. He took it and shook his head, “How do you do that?” he asked. You shrug, “I’m not really sure. I’ve had a sword in my hand since I was 4 years old. I started with wood and they just worked my way up... When I wasn’t doing my schooling among the mortals, I was traveling. Learning whatever there was to learn and working alongside my mother, learning how to be queen.” Loki took a drink of water and you picked up your own bottle, “I studied under quite a few master swordsmen and women when I was small,” you say, “Mother wanted me to have a well-rounded education.”

Thor looked at you in surprise, “So you studied in human schools?” You nod, “Went to college too. I studied economics and political science.” All this was delivered calmly but Thor could only blink at you. He had just assumed you were good at resituating Asgard because of Faery’s proximity to the mortals but no. You had literally had your entire life studied to be queen. You had more knowledge after 30 odd years alive than Thor had acquired in centuries. 

He’d been too preoccupied with fucking, feasting, and fighting to ever really learn how to be a good king. Odin hadn’t been particularly good at teaching him either. 

Brunhilde smiled a little and picked up her own blade, “Got another round in you today, your majesty?” she asked teasingly. “If I win, you get to pay for drinks,” you shoot back tossing your water into the grass carelessly and falling back on your heels in a fighting stance. 

The Valkyrie attacks then and you block about to launch your own attack when suddenly, your head whips in the direction of the breeze, “Drums,” you say rolling out of the way and trotting off that direction, “Someone’s coming.”  You hardly have time to catch the person that falls through the doorway ripped open from Faery. Two someones. Your mother and the younger cousin. The one who hadn’t just taken over as Queen. “Loki,” you shout, “Get me healers, now.” They are bleeding, profusely. Blood soaks your clothing and the grass and you lay them out. 

In between ragged breaths, they tell you that the Queen of Air and Darkness has declared war on the Houses of Summer. That your older cousin is dead. That you must assume the throne. That you must lead the army and beat her back into the Winterlands. You stand slowly, “I invoke the powers of hospitality,” you speak, energy shimmering forth. “Take them to my cottage. As my guests. See to their every need.” You kiss your cousin’s cheek gently, “Try not to bleed on my furniture, darling. It’s new.” She laughs weakly and you kiss your mother before she is carried away. 

Another shimmer of magic kits you out for battle. Hair up, fighting sword in hand to replaced the blunted practice sword. The magic of a Fairy queen flowing around you like a river. A crown of golden leaves woven into your hair and silver battle tattoos lining your skin. Runes and sigils to enhance your abilities. You look like a Goddess to all the Asgardians present and several fall to their knees in awe.  Thor looks at you and swallows hard, “I’m going with you,” he said.

“This is not a fight for Asgard,” you say, calm cat eyes regarding him coolly. “For the good of new Asgard, I go alone. Fey have long memories and this is bound to cause several slights. I’d prefer to not be fighting various gentry for the next 1000 years. This is a fight for my people.”

“These are your people,” Thor says, “And it is my duty to go with you. To protect you.” You shake your head, “It didn’t matter before,” you say, “So why would it matter now. It isn’t as if we have a child on the way.” You give parting orders to Loki and Brunhilde and Thor stands there dumbfounded as you step through a portal into Faerie. Leaving him behind with grim determination. You take no joy in this task. Another throne you never wanted. More duties and responsibilities. Another war to fight. 

When you’ve gone, a silence descends on the field. The queen is gone and with her, the rudder in this strange new world is gone too. Loki and Brunhilde may know what you want done but without your steady hands at the helm, it’s going to be difficult. 

And it is difficult. Weeks go by with no word. Finally, after 3 weeks, Amira and Loki manage to at least see you. You’re sitting beside a fire, sitting in a war council. Your eyes are sharp and attentive and a knight is watching you. Staring at you hungrily while you sit obliviously. Thor feels a nasty sensation in his stomach. Fear. This man is going to hurt you and there is no way for him to protect you. Amira explained that by invoking hospitality, so long as Asgard did not take part in the war, The Queen of Air and darkness had no grounds to exact retribution. As you and Thor had had no children to properly bind the two courts together, Faerie did not see her as a proper queen of Asgard. Thus her actions were entirely of Faerie. 

When you do stagger through a portal, tired and pale from exertion and weeks of battles without end in sight, Thor catches you. Your body is fine but your spirit needs rest. He strips your armor off carefully in your room, unwilling to surrender you to anyone else. 

You have bruises and new scars that are healing to nothing. He can sense the emotional damage it had done to watch your friends die. But there’s something else. You’ve never been shy of your body. Faeries just are not that way. But now you are trying to cover yourself as he starts a bath and goes to remove your clothing. It isn’t until his hands brush your bare skin that he can feel it. That his moment of fear had been correct. That you hadn’t been able to fight back hard enough. You felt like you’d broken a vow. That you’d failed. And it was eating you up inside despite how many times Thor had broken it. 

“Oh sweetheart,” he murmurs, pulling you into him. Stopping what he’s doing and pulling you to him, locking his arms around you and rocking you gently. “I’m sorry,” you murmur sinking your nails into the palm of your hand to keep from crying. “I’m not angry at you,” he said softly, “I’m angry that it happened to you. It isn’t your fault.” He says it and prays you believe him because he means every single word. “Let’s get you a nice hot bath,” he soothes. You nod mutely. Just the fact that you don’t have to tell him details means a lot. 

Thor’s hands are gentle as he helps you into the water. The one extravagant thing in your cottage is the tub. Big enough for 3 people at least. A place for you to sulk and read books. You sink into the water with a grateful sigh and Thor kisses the bruise on your shoulder gently without thinking. He doesn’t speak much. Not beyond quiet endearments and asking if he can do things for you. 

He washes your hair carefully and spends ages washing the skin he can reach without being invasive or making you feel like he’s being pushy.  When you’re ready to get out, worn out from crying and relaxed from the heat of the water, Thor helps you out and wraps you in towels, letting you dry yourself to avoid touching you too intimately. “Can you sleep?” he asked gently.

You shake your head, “I haven’t been able to since... everything,” you say. Thor nods, “Then we’ll just watch movies,” he says, “I’ll go start the kettle and see if I can sweet talk Loki into dragging Brunhilde up here with pizza.” You nod mutely, shuffling off to get dressed and Thor makes a phone call.

It doesn’t take much explaining to get the Valkyrie and Loki to come to the cottage. It’s quiet with your mother and cousin still sleeping upstairs but Thor and Brunhilde make a decent sized nest of blankets and pillows on a pull-out sofa and Loki brings pizza and alcohol. They know you’ll deal with your emotions silently in your own time but for now, they won’t leave you alone.

The cuddle pile on the pull out sofa is peak comfortable for you. There’s not much talking, just people near enough that you can feel them if you need them. Warm gentle hands that brush away quiet tears and softness. Thor is careful with you, staying near you but not pulling you close unless he notices you drifting into some dark corner of your mind. Somewhere between the 3rd movie and your 6th beer, you realize how good it feels to be close to him.

His belly makes a nice pillow and so that’s how you fall asleep. Your head on his stomach as you lay across Loki’s lap and Brunhilde lays her head on your thigh, using your legs as a body pillow. Before long you are asleep. Warm and comforted by the presence of the Asgardians. Thor pets your hair gently and puts an arm around Loki. “Don’t fuck this up, Thor,” the trickster cautioned. 

Thor looked down at you and swallowed hard. You’d actually leaned into him. You reached for him. You’d needed comfort and you reached for him. He couldn’t feel much pride about it, but he did feel his heart race slightly when you nuzzled into him in your sleep. Thor hushed Loki quietly and watched you. You needed rest. Not just for your body but your mind. 

He realized that he loved you. Desperately. And then he cursed himself. Almost 13 years wed and he only now started to love his wife. Only after she’d been broken and rebuilt. Only after he’d done the breaking. He really was the worst type of man. 

Tags:  @lancsnerd@innerpaperexpertcloud@stevieang@peachykeen3502@vxidnik, @past-perfect-future-tense, @trumpettay, @buckysblondie, @golddaggers

[biacostas-blog1]

what’s shackin bacon i’m tink or leo whichever floats your boat, this is my lil bean bia some of the inspo on her blog is for the traveler so pls don’t mind me as i edit some things around to fit her new label the beauty guru if you wanna plot feel free to hit me up here or on discord ( leothelion#0738 ) if you’re a shy coconut smash that heart and i’ll come to you. 

( bia costas, demigirl, she/they, 24, ines silva, the beauty guru ) 

the basic backstory 

the costas family comes from portugal, they’ve been invested in oil and politics since the countries independence. her mother was a beauty queen turned stay at home mom and her father runs the business, the two first met on the day they got married so they may not have been madly in love but bia still has fond memories of her time with her parents

bia actually doesn’t have any memories of portugal because in 1970 her family was run out of the country ( basically it came out to the public that her family wasn’t just providing oil they were also making weapons for the FRELIMO - which is the group essentially fighting for Mozambique to gain their independence ) though they still have money invested in the country and her father will go back from time to time, he didn’t think it was safe to raise their family there 

so growing up she went to school in the netherlands and spent a lot of time traveling with her family, her mother would take her on trips to new places every time she came back with good grades on her report card and that’s where she says her love of travel started. 

however the two bonded over more than just travel her mother put her in her first pageant when she was only 6 months old and until she was 19 she was competing. she loved the competition of pageants and really enjoyed getting to try new skills, learn new routines and meeting all of the girls, she even wound up competing in the mrs universe pageant where she was second runner up 

as soon as she finished the pageant her mother was talking about next year and tbh bia just lost it, she’d been trying to explain to her mom that she wanted to take a break from the pageant world but it was her mom’s dream to be mrs. world but she never made it quite that far and all she wanted was for bia to finish the job but it was driving her lk crazy so she quit doing pageants and decided to take her trust fund and dip 

she spent a year in paris, designing clothing, hanging out with the locals and taking very aesthetically pleasing instagram photos which very quickly grew her a following. people kept asking her if she’d ever make a youtube and the idea of it wasn’t that far off, she loved going live and hanging out with her instagram followers and youtube just felt like an extension of that 

tbh the only reason she made her first video though was because of a bet, her cousin bet her 10k that she couldn’t get 2k subs in less than a month. being the competitive lil bean she is, she took that bet and by the end of her first month on the platform had 10k 

as much as she enjoys making videos, part of her is a little thrown off by the whole thing because it’s people who are obsessed with how she looks who assume that she’s just an air headed pageant girl 

lk reminds of of jeffree starr in that you either looovve her or you hate her content there’s not much in between 

personality wise

sag sun, libra moon, cancer rising aka a whole hot fucking mess 

bia is passionate to a fucking fault, she has such a bleeding heart that she tends to stick up for everyone ever which leads her to a bit of trouble here and there 

she’s gotten arrested in foreign countries multiple times for shooting off at the mouth, she usually has her money and influence to get her out of a tight squeeze but her parents are constantly begging her to chill 

she was raised muslim but stopped practicing around age 15 

on the internet she’s an open book, she doesn’t mind when people dig up her beauty queen pics or ask her what she’s mixed with the only thing that’s a hard limit is her family she actually waited almost 2 years to finally put her family on her channel bc she was so anxious about people saying rude things about them 

but in person she’s a bit more closed off, she’s not the biggest fan of really talking about her personal life ( her family, her thoughts and feelings nah ) but she’s still really really bubbly and outgoing, she can very beautifully mask her i’m really uncomfortable right now by giving you just enough of an answer and then pivoting to make the convo about you or telling a story that’s related but not really 

she’s sUCH a soft goober it’s awful, she’s been known to just hand out money to children selling things on the streets and she’ll randomly cash app her subscribers money because she’s just like wAT DO I NEED ALL THIS FOR? I COULDN’T SPEND A BILLION DOLLARS IF I TRRRIIIEEED

she’s not the type to rub her wealth in your face, she’s that person who will buy a 30 dollar dress from target and then pair it with a 3,000 dollar pair of shoes because ‘i’ve gotta be subtle but still flashy’ 

she loooovves animals, she currently has a mastif she’s in love with his name is kurtus hemingway 9/10 of her videos include her cooing over a pup on the street 

she’s lk a reformed party girl?? after she stopped doing pageants she lk went WILDT because she could and boy can i tell ya my girl made up for all of the lost time though now it’s pretty rare for her to be sloshed. she’ll still have a drink from time to time but she’s much more in control of herself than before

wants to be a good role model for ppl but also has nooo idea how to do that so she’s got a few apology vids for being insensitive or stupid >.< 

a few wcs

someone who wasn’t v close with bia but one day they needed to get away for a while so bia invited them on a trip, the two spent weeks together hanging out, getting drunk and exploring brazil together 

someone who bia is always trying to convince to do a collab with her but always come up with a reason not to do it 

the person everyone ships bia with but the two have ZERO romantic feels for each other but from time to time they’ll do something click baity like act like they’re gonna kiss for the thumbnail but cut the video before the kiss happens 

roommate?? tbh bia could live alone but she’s really paranoid about being on her own so she has a roommate 

someone who has a dog/cat/pet of some sort that bia is OBSESSED with, this is optional but i think it’d be lk funny if she doesn’t really like the person that much but she puts up with them bc she loves their animal  

[adrenaline-whump]

In the Wind - Chapter 1

It’s fucked up, in a way. None of it would have happened if any little thing had been different. If I’d been more alert – but Hank’ll tell you it was all his fault. He said he didn’t blame me, that he would have done exactly what I did.

Usually we don’t run into much drama. I mean seriously, forget anything you’ve seen on TV. Half the time the “fugitives” we bring in are people who forgot when their court date was, or couldn’t get a ride there. A few skips are dangerous, sure, but if you’re smart and careful and keep your head on a swivel, it’s a manageable risk. And “smart and careful” is pretty much the definition of Hank, so when he wants to put together a pickup team, we’ll go wherever he tells us to.

So when he called and was like, “Hey, Cade, what do you think about heading over to North Carolina?” that wasn’t typical but I was interested. North Carolina’s a fair haul from Memphis, but Hank had gotten some leads on a pair of skips, Owen Casey and Tara Michaels, who were supposed to be traveling together, and the payoff for both of them would make the trip worth it, assuming we could find them. What’s funny is that I’d picked up Owen once before, like three years earlier with a different crew, and drove him back from Franklin. I told Hank what I remembered about the guy, basically that he was average size, and when we rolled him up before, he didn’t put up a fight.

The other reason we went was because Amy’s family has a cabin up there, and they said we could use it for a few days. Amy’s one of our part-time crew, ex-Army like Hank. Hank likes to have her along if we’re after a female, since it seems like girls feel safer surrendering to another girl. On the other hand, males tend to get distracted or confused when they encounter Amy in full gear, so that works too.

The place she told us about was usually rented out, but her folks thought they were going to be up there that week, and then they changed plans. Amy didn’t come with us on this trip, but they gave us the family rate anyway, and the cabin was a lot nicer than what we’d typically get. It was up a mountain and down a little road, nice view from the back deck. The inside was all wood and dark green and navy blue, and the lamps and curtains and stuff all had bears on them. Donnie thought it was hilarious and said he was going to decorate his apartment entirely in bear as soon as we got back.

So it was Hank and me and Donnie and Alex, and the first day we didn’t have much luck, but the second day Tara turned up at her mama’s trailer and we managed to roll her up there. She didn’t fuss and just seemed sort of resigned. For girls we typically don’t go all raid mode anyway; we just tell them who we are and ask them nicely to come with us.  Her mama was a little freaked out, but Hank calmed her down by being polite and respectful.  He’s good at that kind of thing.

Tara wouldn’t say where Owen was, which wasn’t too surprising, but we were hoping to find them together. We couldn’t really hang on to her and look for him at the same time. Hank told Donnie he’d drawn the short straw, and he got to run Tara back to Memphis while we looked a little more for Owen. That was Hank being nice; Donnie was the least intimidating of us four to look at. Hank’s the tall wiry type; I’m pretty average, I guess; and Alex is a fucking wall. Dude’s probably got thirty pounds on me and it’s not fat. Donnie’s a little on the short side, friendliest guy you’ll ever meet, always in a good mood, and an absolute viper in a fight. People underestimate him, and it’s so damn funny every time. If you want up-front intimidation, you bring a big boy like Alex, but if you want an ace in your back pocket, you bring Donnie.

There was some discussion of whether Donnie wanted to stop back by the cabin and get his stuff, but Hank said we’d probably only stay another day at most, and we could bring it back with us. So Donnie headed west with Tara, and the rest of us put heads together on where we might dig up Owen. The most likely was that he would show up at the mama’s place in Sylva, where he thought Tara was, unless he was still in Asheville where Hank and Richard had been tracking him.

Hank talked to the mama a little more, who as it turned out wasn’t a fan of her daughter’s no-good skip of a boyfriend, and mama promised to call Hank if Owen showed up looking for Tara. We went on to Asheville, the three of us.

We nosed around where Hank’s info had pointed us, and managed to turn up an old black guy running a soul food dive, who rubbed his chin and said yes, he’d talked to those kids. They were looking for some cash work, and he told them he might have something next week, but they said they had to go on to Charlotte and did he know anyone there who might need some temporary help. Which was interesting because Hank had an address for a cousin of Owen’s near Charlotte.

We talked through the options. We might hear from Tara’s mama, but Owen probably wouldn’t stay put once he knew Tara had been picked up. He’d probably run, and he might just go on to the cousin’s place. You wouldn’t think skips would be that obvious, running to family, but they do it all the time. If we could get ahead of him and be waiting for him, if and when he showed up at the cousin’s, that would be perfect. The thing was, we were standing in Asheville, Donnie was on the way back to Memphis in one truck, the three of us were in Hank’s Tahoe, and a bunch of our stuff was in a cabin an hour the wrong way.

No problem. Hank looked up a car rental place and we got there before they closed. I was tasked to go back and get all our crap, then meet them in Charlotte. If they saw Owen before I got there, they’d contact the local cops to ask for an assist. I tossed my gear in the back seat of the rental and headed back to the cabin.

***

You know, you instinctively think of the place you sleep as safe, even if it’s more home base than home. The cabin was just like we left it, door locked and all, nothing out of the ordinary. I flipped on the nearest light, dropped my jacket on a chair, and walked into the kitchen. There was a red and gold sunset that was perfectly framed by the window over the sink.

And a voice behind me said, “Don’t fucking move, Cade.”

Do you know what an adrenaline dump is? It’s when shit goes seriously wrong and that wave of hot and cold punches you in the gut, crashes over your head, and races down to your toes in about a second and a half. I’ve had it happen enough to recognize it, and it gets a little easier to deal with, but not much. I waited out the wave, then slowly turned my head to look over my shoulder, just enough to see Owen step out of the hallway, pointing something dark and metallic my way with both hands.

“I said don’t fucking move,” he repeated, furiously intense. “If you twitch the wrong way, I will turn your head inside out.”

I believed him. I still had my Glock on my hip. He knew it, I knew it, and we both knew his trigger pull would be faster than my draw.

In my head, I was like WHAT. THE. FUCK. Because how in the fucking hell was he here of all places? He circled behind me like a stalking wolf.

“Step to your left,” he said, “and put your hands on the cabinet in front of you.”

I could guess where this was going, but I didn’t have any bright ideas for how to win this particular scenario. I’d lost as soon as I dropped my guard inside the cabin. It’s the kind of stupid that can get you killed. I moved as directed and listened to the floor creak as he approached me – slowly, like you’d walk toward a snake that you didn’t know if it was the poisonous kind or not. Cold metal grazed the back of my neck.

“Don’t twitch,” he warned again. A whole string of four-letter words went through my head, but I stayed still as he snagged my Glock from its holster.

“Put your left hand behind your back,” he ordered.

I didn’t immediately move. I was trying to think of something, anything, to redirect this encounter. “Owen…” I started, before he cut me off. I’m not sure what I was going to say.

“Shut it, Cade,” he said savagely. “You wanted to find me; you found me. Now it’s up to you, do you want to die right now? Or do you want to cooperate with me?”

I answered with about the same heat, “Well, if it’s a choice between getting shot in the head now, or later, you might as well fucking get it over with.”

It might have been a mistake; hell, it could have been the last thing I ever said. I said it because – well, partly because of adrenaline, and partly because – it’s hard to explain. I didn’t know what the hell he wanted, and him showing up to confront me made not a damn lick of sense. I thought there was a good chance I was going to be straight up executed, and something in me said fuck it, I’d rather just get shot, than dragged out to the woods and shot. I mean, why go along with it if it doesn’t make a difference?

He didn’t answer for a moment, and I stood there wondering if you actually hear the bang that kills you, but then he said, “Look, I want to talk to you. But I don’t fucking trust you, OK? Left hand. Now.”

OK, so we might at least have something to negotiate about. That is, if I could give him the answer he wanted, and if he felt like letting me live after he got that answer. Still, a slim-to-none chance is better than zero. I was furious at myself, at him, at fucking everything, and one of the hardest things I’ve ever done was shove all that down and make myself move like he said.

He had zip ties, not really a surprise. Hardware store kind, two of them with one connected through the other. I moved my right hand when he told me to, and tried not to sweat too obviously as the second one zipped tight.

The cabin’s kitchen, living room, and dining room were one big open area. Owen dragged one of the dining room chairs a little distance from the table and turned it a quarter turn, then shoved me into it. He walked around in front of me, still covering me with what turned out to be a beat-to-shit Ruger. He’d gotten a few more tattoos since the last time I’d seen him, and bulked up some. A lot of guys do that when they’re inside, from boredom and sometimes for self-preservation. But it wasn’t just the physical; his whole attitude was different. If you deal with skips for long enough, you start to get a spidey sense about which ones might be a problem, and Owen…yeah. Too bad for me I hadn’t seen him first.

“Where’s Tara at?” he demanded.

Shit. “We rolled her up this afternoon.”

“Answer the fucking question.”

I blinked. “You mean where is she right this second? I don’t know, probably halfway to Memphis.” I’m not sure what he thought the answer was going to be, but it wasn’t that.

“Why the hell would she be halfway to Memphis?”

“Because that’s what we do, you know that. We always go straight back when we pick someone up.”

“But you’re still here.”

“We sent her back with one of our guys.”

He looked at me like he didn’t want to believe me, but I’d answered too quick and straightforward to be lying.

“There were four of you.  Where’re the other two?”

We locked eyes for a minute, and I didn’t answer him.

A muscle on the side of his jaw twitched, and he closed the distance between us in two steps, grabbed the front of my shirt, and jammed the end of the Ruger under my chin. “We can play this game if you want to, Cade,” he said tightly. “But if someone pulls into this driveway in the next couple minutes, things are going to get loud, and you’re probably going to end it here. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah,” was all I said. I was seething at the absolute insanity of all this. I wouldn’t have minded as much if I was actually, you know, working at the time, because what we do is dangerous and we know that. But it was going to fucking piss me off to bleed out in Amy’s parents’ cabin when I was only there to grab our stuff and get out.

“Who’s Tara with?”

“One of our guys.”

I had maybe a half-second warning as he pulled the Ruger away, and then it smashed into the side of my head. It rocked me pretty well, and I guess it woke up my one smart brain cell, because it occurred to me that escalating the situation probably wasn’t the best strategy.

“What’s his name, Cade?”

“Donnie,” I said through gritted teeth, wondering why the hell he cared.

“The shorter guy?  Gray T-shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“Black F-150?”

“…Yeah.”

“So your other two guys are in the Tahoe.”

I looked at him.  He waited.

“Yeah.”

He let go of me and went to look out the front window.  

So that was unsettling. He knew how many of us there were; fine, someone could have let him know there were four guys looking for him. It happens. But someone actually describing us in detail, like down to names? I mean, what the actual fuck? It’s not like we go around introducing ourselves to everyone we run into. Maybe he’d seen us somewhere without us seeing him. But even if he had, how the hell had he found this place?

“If you called Donnie and told him to come back, would he?” he asked.

“No. There’s no reason we’d need him to do that. He’d know something was up.”

He muttered something under his breath and glared out the front window for a while longer. Then he looked back at me speculatively, checked the window again, and finally nodded to himself. The Ruger disappeared into a low-profile waistband rig, and he pushed one of the living room chairs a few feet over to block the front door. They were big old chunky wood-frame chairs, the kind you always see in mountain cabins. Another one was angled toward me, and he sat down on the arm of it.

“What do you think are the chances,” he asked, “that your crew would trade Tara for you?”

~~~

[Chapter 2]

[whalefairyfandom12]

Lie To Make Me Like You

Summary: 

“Phil Lester.” Dan supplied. “He’s my plus one.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, eyes darting between the two of them suggestively. “Oh? How long have you two been together?”

Dan blanched. “Sorry, we’re not...actually--”

“A little over seven years, isn’t it Dan?” his mum piped up cheerfully. “I remember the first time you stayed over at Phil’s. You still haven’t stopped talking about him.”

“Maybe the next Howell wedding will be yours,” Mae teased, flicking the end of his tie.

Dan shot a look towards Phil, panic rising. Enough awkward socializing had made them fairly fluent in speaking through eye contact and minute gestures, and as their eyes met Phil smiled lightly as if to say ‘I’m okay with it if you are.’ Dan, being the incompetent, horribly introverted idiot he was, latched onto the idea and ran with it.“Yeah,” he said, laughing in a way that he hopes comes off more as fond and less what the fuck did I just get myself into. “Maybe.”

Notes: This was written for alittledizzy as part of Fandom Trumps Hate using the following prompt:

-Someone assuming Dan and Phil are a couple who doesn't recognize them and Dan and Phil letting them assume that and enjoying being able to act like a couple.

I had a lot of fun writing this and getting to work with you; thank you so much for bidding on my writing and I really hope you enjoy it :))

Word Count: 2302

    For the most part Dan tried to keep his personal and business lives separate. He wasn’t very close with most of his family, and enough encounters with viewers who didn’t quite grasp the concept of boundaries only served to reinforce this decision. Aside from his immediate family he rarely saw the rest of the Howell Clan, and so it was a bit of a surprise to receive an invitation to his cousin Mae and Charlie’s wedding.

    He vaguely remembered Mae--a precocious eight year old with a habit of pulling his hair, and the smiling woman on the front of the card bore a passing resemblance. To be perfectly honest he’d forgotten she existed; he didn’t think they’d spoken since they were children and he’d never heard of Charlie. His mum had wanted him to go, though, so naturally he’d forced Phil to come and suffer with him. While Phil might have had reservations about taking Dan to the Lester family gatherings, he had no such qualms about taking him to the Howells.

    His parents loved Phil, and even Adrian had a grudging respect for the man. Besides, Phil was better at tying ties, remembering general wedding etiquette, and covering Dan’s social ineptitude so there was that, too. The wedding ceremony had been quite long, but the food had more than made up for it. Dan had finished dinner feeling so full he felt a little like throwing up, but based on the heaping pile of food on Phil’s plate it didn’t look like the feeling was mutual.

   “It looks like you took half the dessert table,” he noted, taking a bite of the cake--some sort of lemon with vanilla frosting.

   Phil made a satisfied noise, popping another biscuit in his mouth. “It’s not my fault, I’m a growing boy.”

   “You’re pushing thirty.”

   He smiled sweetly. “You should keep a better eye on your cereal, then.”

   Dan noticed absently that Phil’s tie was the same shade of blue as his eyes. “I gave up a long time ago. I did try, but somebody kept stealing it.”

    Phil tried to straighten his features into the picture of casual concern, but the glimmer in his eyes betrayed him. “Hmm. Maybe you should try hiding it in a smarter place.”

    Dan rolled his eyes. “Or maybe I should find a new roommate.”

    “You wouldn’t.”

    “No, I wouldn’t,” he agreed. Someone tugged on the back of his hair, and he turned to find Mae standing behind him, beaming. It was good to know some things never changed. “Congratulations,” he said, the sentiment echoed by the rest of the people at the table. Charlie wrapped his arms around Mae’s waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. She smiled, resting a hand on his cheek.

    "I don’t think we’ve met,” Charlie said, eyes warm and brown.

    “Dan, Adrian, Donna, Steve, and…” Mae trailed, off, making a face and gesturing at Phil. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met either.”

    “Phil Lester.” Dan supplied. “He’s my plus one.”

    Charlie raised an eyebrow, eyes darting between the two of them suggestively. “Oh? How long have you two been together?”

    Dan blanched. “Sorry, we’re not...actually--”

    “A little over seven years, isn’t it Dan?” his mum piped up cheerfully. “I remember the first time you stayed over at Phil’s. You still haven’t stopped talking about him.”

    “Maybe the next Howell wedding will be yours,” Mae teased, flicking the end of his tie.

    Dan shot a look towards Phil, panic rising. You didn’t live together for half a decade as openly bisexual men without some rumors circulating, and that wasn’t counting the speculation online. But while he and Phil weren’t strangers to people assuming they were in a relationship, this was the first time it had been shoved unavoidably in front of them.

    Enough awkward socializing had made them fairly fluent in speaking through eye contact and minute gestures, and as their eyes met Phil smiled lightly as if to say ‘I’m okay with it if you are.’ Dan, being the incompetent, horribly introverted idiot he was, latched onto the idea and ran with it.

    “Yeah,” he said, laughing in a way that he hopes comes off more as fond and less what the fuck did I just get myself into. “Maybe.”

    He startled at Phil’s hand, the other man’s fingers curling around his reassuringly. It helped quell the impending anxiety by about five percent. “We don’t want to rush things,” Phil said smoothly.

     Mae snorted. “You’ve waited seven years. That’s way longer than Charlie and I did.”

     He shrugged. Dan had no idea how he was able to keep his calm so convincingly. “Neither of us would mind getting married someday, but our relationship has never been confined by things like that.” Phil’s gaze drifted back towards Dan, soft and gentle. They might be in danger of overdoing it,now. “Our--our bond has never been that simple. All I know is Dan is the most important person in my life, and I don’t think I could ever sum up all that means in one label.”

     His mum cooed, patting Phil’s cheek affectionately while Adrian mimed gagging from across the table. Mae was saying something else, but everything had faded into white noise. Dan found his eyes locking with Phil’s again, and he ducked his head, neck flaming crimson.

     Because the thing was, cheesiness aside, Phil sort of had a point.

    “I think you might’ve stolen the show for cutest couple,” Mae said.

     Charlie feigned hurt, pressing a hand to his heart. “Is it too soon to ask for a divorce?”

     “You never made an official announcement, but we always knew,” Donna said serenely, patting Phil’s free hand. “I’m just so glad you finally feel like you can tell us.”

    “What she means is you’re about as subtle as a fucking train inside of Buckingham Palace,” Adrian grumbled.

    A laugh escaped Dan, Phil’s brow furrowing in bemused amusement from beside him. “Nice analogy,” he said dryly, pushing down any lingering guilt from his mum’s statement. Sometimes he envied Phil’s relationship with Martyn; the two had always seemed close while his and Adrian’s relationship had been more turbulent. It was getting better now that they weren’t forced to live together, but they still had a long way to go.

    “How did you two meet?” Charlie asked.

    For some reason, explaining that he’d basically stalked Phil until they’d become friends tended to concern people. “Work,” Dan said. Technically it wasn’t a complete lie, but it was a far cry from the whole truth. Before the inevitable question of what he did for work could be asked, he tugged on Phil’s hand and dragged him towards the dance floor. “Sorry,” he said. “They're playing our song, but we’ll be back.” Needless to say, they didn’t have a song, but Phil smiled anyway and followed his lead.  

    “I didn't know Justin Bieber was our song,” the other man said once they'd reached the center of the floor, stepping closer and resting his free hand on the small of Dan’s back.

    “What else would it be?” Dan could sense his family's eyes boring into the back of his head, but he kept his focus trained on Phil. “Just pretend we’re back at the Brits.”

    “I’ll try not to step on your toes this time.” Phil led him backwards into an awkward makeshift shuffle, eyes trained on his feet in concentration.

    “You did beat me at Dance Evolution. Maybe it’s a sign you're getting over your clumsiness.” As if on cue, Phil’s elbow collided with the couple beside them.

    Phil cringed. “Sorry!”

    Dan snorted. “If we weren't dancing that'd be worthy of a slow clap. After all, this is you we’re talking about.”

    “Alright Mr. ‘Fell Up An Escalator,”

    “Thanks for reminding me. Way to reopen the repressed, aching wounds on my heart.”

    It's not often Phil makes barbed comebacks, but whenever he does there's a sparkle in his eyes that's otherwise absent. “What heart?”

   Dan stepped on the man’s foot a little too hard to pass off as an accident. “If only your subscribers could see you now, they'd know what a black cloud you are.”

    “A black cloud?”

    “Everyone thinks you're the sun, but we both know the truth.”

    “Huh. That's strange, I could've sworn I saw multiple gif sets on Tumblr of you calling me the sun.”

    Dan grumbled, slumping against Phil in defeat. “I changed my mind.”

    “At least I'm not darker than your soul. That's impossible.” At Dan’s glare Phil widened his eyes slightly, blinking up at him with a bright smile. Despite their (many) years of living together, Dan was still weak to Phil’s puppy dog eyes and the they both knew it.

    “I'm breaking up with you,” Dan said, pushing him away in an exaggerated movement as the song drew to a close. “I thought what we had was real, but I guess I was wrong.”

    “Not that I don't like being dumped, but do you want to continue this conversation outside?” Phil asked. “It's getting a little hot in here.”

    Dan grimaced, pushing his own sweaty fringe further off his forehead. “Good idea.” His hand found Phil’s again, the two weaving their way through the crowd and past the doors outside. He collapsed on one of the benches, Phil sitting beside him. The garden was almost empty, and the few people that were outside were talking in hushed tones.

     “It's a lot quieter outside,” Phil said softly. “Mae did a lovely job with the decorations.” Dan made a noise of agreement, the lanterns lining the path casting everything in a rosy glow.

    A couple are sitting on the bench across from them, heads bowed together and giggling quietly. It strikes Dan that their position is almost identical to theirs. “It's funny.”

   Phil started, head tilting to face his. “Sorry?”

   “Mum thought we were a couple all this time, but she never told me. And it's not just her, Dad and Adrian thought the same thing.”

    Phil shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Martin asked me if we needed to have a ‘special talk’ after meeting you.”

   Dan smiled slightly, picking at a loose thread on his tie. The next question bursts out before he can stop it. “Does it bother you that everyone thinks we’re dating?”

    “Not really, no. Does it bother you?” The implications behind the question were loaded, and Dan knew they were both thinking of 2012. But things had changed since then, and he'd come a long ways as a person.

    “No.” Dan said quietly, stomach twisting into knots as he pressed forwards. Something had been nagging him all night, but he was almost afraid to ask. “But...do you wonder if maybe they have a point?”

    “It's not like much would change,” Phil pointed out. “If we started dating.” He ducked his head, almost shy, and Dan wondered if he was just as nervous. “I’d still steal your cereal, leave my contacts on top of the sink, and leave every cupboard open,”

    “And I’d still yell at you for forgetting.”

    “And I’ll still knock on the wall and tell you to be quiet when you're awake at three in the morning.”

    “As long as you still make me a cup of tea when that happens I guess I’ll survive.”

    Phil eyes were bright, and something warm began to unfurl. “Only if I can pick the next anime.”

    Dan sighed, shaking his head. “You drive a hard bargain, Phil Lester.” He wondered when they'd started talking in ‘wills’ instead of ‘would’ves.’

    “So is that a yes?”

    “You haven't asked me anything yet,” Dan said, fighting the rising smile.

   Phil took a deep breath, eyes meeting Dan’s resolutely. “We could try it, if you want.”

    “Dating?” Phil nodded. “Does this mean I can change my Facebook status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship?’”

    Phil rolled his eyes, punching him lightly in the arm. “If you're not careful you'll have to change it back to ‘single.’”

    “You love me too much.” As soon as the words left Dan’s mouth he froze. He hadn't meant the ‘l’ word to slip out so soon, (or easily,) but Phil didn't look phased.

    “I do.”

    Dan smiled, the feeling almost as warm as Phil’s body beside his. “I love you too. So does that make this our one and a half minute anniversary?”

    “I think you’re right. Happy one and a half minute anniversary,” Phil said. Dan laughed, resting his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder.

    “You too.”

    “I still get to pick the next anime,” Phil said seriously. “We made a deal.”

    Dan sighed. “I guess I’ll trust your judgement just this once, but you’d better not let me down.”

    “Will you dump me if I do?”

    He considered this for a moment. “Depends on what anime it is.”

    Phil laughed, shaking his head. “You’re the worst.”

    They sat in a companionable silence for the next few breaths, music and laughter drifting through the open door outside. Before meeting Phil, Dan had never thought it would be possible to fully relax and feel comfortable sitting in silence with another person. Phil was always proving him wrong, though, and Dan wouldn’t have it any other way.

    “How long have you two been together?” The couple across from them had finally separated, and the woman was regarding them curiously.

    Dan glanced down at his phone. “Three minutes and fifteen seconds.” He stifled a laugh at the surprised look on her face, turning to look at Phil instead.

    “Come on,” Phil said, pulling Dan to his feet. “I’m hungry.”

    “You're always hungry.” Dan rolled his eyes good naturedly, though he happily followed his boyfriend back inside. For once the crowds didn't feel suffocating, Phil’s hand warm and grounding in his.

[iswearimtoooldforthis]

I’m way beyond feeling like I’m a broken record...

Where to start... First things first. Back at the end of March I had to walk away from coaching and managing the new women’s football team here in Sacramento due to poor ownership. It was extremely hard for me to do because I felt like I was letting down my players but it was just an unhealthy situation and my gut told me it was the right thing to do. Turns out my gut was right because the team folded after only 2 games. I still keep in touch with most of my players which brings me to part of why I am starting to feel like a broken record... 

I know I am different. I’m not a “typical” female by any means. It has also taken me almost all of my life to finally be like “Fuck It” I don’t care what others think, I’m going to be true to myself and who I know I am as a person. With that being said, I’ve recently needed to explain my sexual orientation and how I identify repeatedly over the last few months. I’ve even been given a new term of endearment which is “Gaydar Killer” and I honestly find it quite a bit confusing as I do funny because after 26 years, I thought I had heard them all (oh, and there is a list). As always, I make no apologies for who I am or the things I have done in my life. I own every decision/choice I’ve made, good, bad, or indifferent. Most of my close friends are very aware of this and know that I have no reason to lie about anything but most of all, which sexual orientation I identify with. Trust me I completely get where the confusion comes from. I’m not an idiot. I know that the way that I look, dress and present myself falls into a typical stereotype. I’ve said it before in earlier posts. It doesn’t offend me. I’m flattered when a woman hits on me. Unfortunately, I have honestly never felt real sexual attraction toward any female in my life (except for a few times when I thought they were guys but we will get to that later). I think women are beautiful, gorgeous even, and I’ve been jealous of some of their bodies but I’ve never felt that sudden flush, butterflies in the tummy, or the ache to be with a woman. Please, don’t say “You won’t know unless you try” because I have and all the times I tried, I just felt like I was going through the motions or better yet, like I was acting in some sort of play or movie disguised as my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the same with guys more times than I would like to admit but with women it just never developed or manifested into the feelings I get when I’m with guys. In all honestly, being true to who I am, it puts me at a disadvantage because guys tend to not want women that look and act like I do but I’m aldo at the point in my life where I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not in order for someone to want to be with me. But I digress, back to being with women. In the end I just felt bad and like I was using these women for my own personal experiment and by no fault of their own, I just felt nothing toward them in a romantic or sexual way. Ok, to be super honest... I felt like a complete asshole because if a guy did to me (they have) what I felt like I had done to them (they did), I would be pissed (I was). It was not my proudest period in my life and I didn’t set off to do it intentionally but a lot of alcohol was involved so my inhibitions were just about non-existent and I didn’t even know that a few of them were women until clothes started coming off. Not that I’m saying that my misconception about their gender was an excuse for my behavior, because it wasn’t, and I still went through with everything after the fact (which in my personal opinion made me a huge dick). It was a total dick move on my part and I own up to it. I’ve been on the receiving end of that dick move a few times myself (my marriage being one of them) and it is just not a cool thing to do to someone. I felt dishonest. Part of me at the time even hoped that doing it would trigger something inside me, flip a switch so to say, that would awaken the part of me that wanted to be with women because at least then other aspects of my life and personality would start to make better sense. It sucked feeling the need to explain this part of my past to my players that were CONVINCED I was a lesbian but like I said, I own up to the things I’ve done. So again, with that being said, the question I was asked today shocked me because it was from someone that I’ve had in depth conversations with (recently even) only this time it wasn’t my sexuality that was being questioned but my identity. Today was the first time I was asked if I was transitioning... and the shocking part was not that I was asked but how much the being asked stung me. Just to be crystal clear... I was not offended by the question but the reason it stung was because this person honestly thought that I hated the gender that I was born. I have trans friends that I love dearly. Some I knew before and after they transitioned and others I only got to know after they transitioned but from them I know how very personal their transitions were. I love being female. I don’t love my menstrual cycle or being told I can’t do something because I’m female but I don’t feel that I was born in the wrong body (even if one of my cousins swears that I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body). I can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like to look at oneself in the mirror and see anatomy that contradicts what you feel it should be. One of the most depressing moments of my life was being told by my doctors that I would more than likely never have biological children of my own (that needs to be covered in a separate post) because the one thing I’ve always wanted to be, my entire life, was a mother. So, I had this very in depth conversation with this friend today and she explained why she asked. Why I’ve always “confused” her. Why am I like the way that I am. Most of which we had talked about before in one form or another and like usual I didn’t have a cookie cutter response to give her for the “why I am the way that I am.” I don’t know why. I’ve never been able to give any answer except I am the way that feels true to me. I feel that I don’t fall in the typical “straight” category because I am not feminine at all and never really felt comfortable pretending to be but I don’t fall within the LGBTQ category either because I don’t feel I am the wrong gender and so far I’ve only been sexually attracted to the opposite sex. I’ve always felt that I was in this grey area or where the two circles overlap. I feel more comfortable around my LGBTQ friends because my outward appearance, personality and traits mesh better with them than with my “straight” friends but my sexual orientation still keeps me on the outside to a certain extent with them also. It does hurt me to an extent because I never really feel like I fit in with either side completely but if I change any part of myself just to fit in one way or another, that would be false and to me living that lie would be worst. It doesn’t mean that I don’t understand where they are coming from. I do. If the terms I use in this next bit are not politically correct, I apologize in advance but I’m going to do my best in order to explain why I understand where my LGBTQ friends are coming from. The best way I can put it is like this. Just because I have black friends, and I dress like them, talk like them, hang out with them, that doesn’t mean that I know what its like to be a black person in America. I don’t know what it is like to be LGBTQ in America. I’ve caught passing glimpses because people assume that I am LGBTQ when they look at me (especially when I worked concert security) and have been called things and even escaped a few attempted “gay” bashings (I have this problem with not backing down and tend to fight back) but at the end of the day, I always identified as heterosexual. I never had to live in fear that I could be fired for falling in love. I never had any doubt that I would be able to marry the person I fell in love with. Or if the time came when I need to adopt in order to have a family, I wouldn’t be discriminated against because of the person I loved and chosen to have the family with. But some of my friends did have to worry about those things and that wasn’t okay to me. I didn’t care if it alienated me from my entire biological family or my new adopted family I married into, when it came to supporting and fighting for my friends and family to obtain the same rights as I had, I did it loud and proud. 

Dude, she and I went DEEP during this conversation and it was emotionally draining. This is finally how I put it and I think she understands for the most part (wait until you read her response at the end to see if you agree)... At the end of the day, I believe with my entire being that love is love (among consenting adults). You fall in love with the person you fall in love with and when you truly fall in love with someone, they become your every sexual desire. At least that is how it is for me. When I fell in love with my husband, he wasn’t my typical “type” by any means but when I fell for him, I fell hard and completely. In my life so far, I have only felt that way toward men. Does that mean that I won’t one day meet someone that is a woman, trans, or however they identify, that will make me feel the same way... I honestly don’t know. Because of what I believe love to be, I can’t definitively say that it won’t happen nor can I say that it will. All I can say that as of right now, it hasn’t. One of my favorite scenes from a movie is when Holden asks Alyssa in Chasing Amy “why him and why now” and she replies “... The way the world is--how seldom you meet that one person who gets you--it’s so rare. My parents didn’t really have it. There was no example set for me in the world of male/female relationships. And to cut oneself off from finding that person--to immediately half your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender... that just seemed stupid. So I didn’t. But then you came along. You--the one least likely; I mean, you were a guy... And as I was falling for you. I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remember why I opened the door to women in the first place--not to limit the likelihood of finding that one person who’d complement me so completely. And so here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you, and I feel justified lying in your arms--because I got here on my own terms, and have no question that there was someplace I didn’t look. And that makes all the difference.” And after hearing all this, my friend said... “Ok, based off what you just said about how you feel about love and just how you are, I’m just gonna say that you are queer and leave it at that because you said there still maybe a possibility.” FACE-PALM... I was like fine, if that’s what it takes to end this conversation so be it.

In all honesty, I’m so sick of having this conversation over and over again (sometimes with the same people) because I really don’t care at this point in my life. I’ve been through so much and have battled against what my family tried to turn me into for so long, in all reality I hate labels in general (except “tomboy” because I always felt it adequately described me) . A girl is suppose to dress a certain way, do certain things, only have certain interests, and is to be defined by the man she is with... BULLSHIT! A girl/woman can dress anyway she wants, do anything she wants, have what ever interest she wants... and she can love who she wants. The most important part is the “she wants” part and that is how I choose to live my life as long as it doesn’t intentionally hurt anyone else. 

It is way past my bedtime and I swear that I should be TOO OLD for this...