#my entire sunday has been dedicated to this chapter

[fleet-of-fiction]

Jake Kiszka x Narrator & Sam Kiszka x OC.

Chapter One

Summary: The Jones Family are new additions to the sleepy community of Beech Run. A tight knit scattering of rural houses, where everyone knows everyone. Deeply religious and overbearingly strict, the daughters of the family are kept under lock & key by a fanatical Father and submissive Mother. They watch from bedroom windows as their neighbours, The Kiszkas, draw intense curiosity and desire to be free. Madness of youth , hope & obsession collide to bring the danger of forbidden love to poetic ends. (Era A/U)

A/N: I want to dedicate this fic to all my beautiful friends who have loved and supported me through what could only be described as a difficult time. Their belief in me as a person, who tries to be good even though I'm prone to making hellish mistakes, has been unwavering and as such I wanted to create a piece of writing that I felt they would enjoy and immerse themselves in. So, this ones for you @writingcold @sanguinebats @thewritingbeforesunrise @takenbythemadness @edgingthedarkness @katuschka @lvnterninthenight @its-interesting-van-kleep @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @gretavangroupie and everyone else who has been with me on this journey.

Warnings: Religious trauma. Parental trauma. Intense emotions including desire, obsession, grief and yearning. Loss of virginity. Explicit sexual activity. Heavy praise kink. Severe edging. Oral sex m/f. Fingering. Masturbation. Dirty filth talk.

Summer 1984

The Kiszka's were like catching that scent of freshly cut grass on warm summer air. Nostalgic for something I'd never had. Books that I dare not open because my love for the cover meant that I was too afraid to start something I knew I'd never be able to put down. They were Sunday morning distractions, like I'd never known a day without putting my hand to glass and letting their chaos drift in through the open window.

The first time I saw them I didn't know the sound of laughter could make my heart want to die. The sort of rambunctious envy I felt was a thief to any joy I might have found, standing in the dust as I carried boxes into the new house. Theirs was a summer of freedom. And mine was like trying to find solace in the darkness.

The girl was pretty when she smiled. I thought, perhaps, in some other life she and I could have been friends. Sometimes I imagined it, that she would knock on our door and ask for me by name. A delusion I centred within myself whenever I saw her ride by on the yellow push bike that was always leaning against their porch steps. The boys weren't like that, though. No part of me could imagine myself in that wild entanglement. Fires and swearing, ripping their shirts off in the midday heat to wrestle in the dirt. Guitars littering their garage door, riffs that drifted in on the wind making me want to rise from the doldrums.

It just wasn't like that for us. Any hope that I'd carried into Beech Run was dashed the moment my Father shook hands with the patriarch of our neighbours, and immediately insisted that we weren't to go near those people. Godless and bohemian. Without decency. Without enough fear of a faceless, impalpable being that seemed to rule over nobody save for us.

He was a pastor and we paid for that dearly. With our curfews and our diligence and our punishments if we didn't honour God precisely how we should. I stopped believing that an almighty power would have chosen this life for me a long time ago, but nothing felt more certain until we moved to Beech Run. Only the devil would have put us next to the Kiszka's.

"They're so pretty."

Jolene was sitting on the windowsill, playing with her hair as she admired them. She had that faraway look in her eye that most girls had when they were seventeen. Romanticising them, giving them entirely fictionalised morals and wondering what her name would sound like on their lips.

"Come away from the window." I warned, the torture of it something I had already decided I would not endure all summer.

She would bite down on her lip and sway against the glass. Insufferable. Lost in a sea of their sweaty bodies tearing across the front lawn, having water fights and jam sessions in the garage. All the things we were denied. She and I, lumbered with reading lists and prayer groups that made me want to rip out my immortal soul and offer it to the highest bidder.

"The tall one, he looks as if he might sweep you off your feet. He keeps tucking his hair behind his ear, I think I'd like to do that for him."

No good would come of it. I could see the whispering angels and demons perched on my sister's shoulders. Consorting with her. The fathomless ages of young girls who had come before her in their tragic echoes, doomed to desire and the shadow of a breaking heart hanging above her head.

"Come." I encouraged, "Sit and read with me a while. And then shall we see if Ben will take us into town?"

The freedoms allowed to our brother were tantamount to our lack of it. He was the eldest and therefore had the privileges of that. He was male, and existed in a world that Jolene and I did not encompass. Sometimes he would take pity on us and drive us into town to get an ice cream or watch a movie. Sometimes he would be cruel and drive there without even telling us.

"I'm fine here." She sighed, and I suspected she wanted them to see her.

I was far too practical to follow her into that folly of romance. I thought myself immune to it, happy to just read about it in books that would remove me from my present circumstances. Something which had made me a target, previously, for underhand comments as I walked down the school halls or sat in the library just turning pages.

"Fine, until you send yourself silly with all this nonsense." I sighed, putting my book aside and shimmying to the end of my bed.

"I want to know what it feels like, don't you?" She was a dreamer, a conjurer of a fate I could already feel the chill of spilling down my back. "To be taken for a ride in a car, and have them open the door for you. And kiss you goodnight, making you feel like you're the prettiest thing they ever saw. Don't you want that, Bonnie?"

If I had ever wanted it, the moment had passed. Perhaps I was hopeful once, but then hope could be so easily dashed. My sister was beautiful in an uncommon way. Simple and understated, the sort of beauty that was caught at the right angle and once perceived, it was devastating. With long auburn waves and a set of dreamy blue eyes, she had lips that were full and round in complete contrast to what I had to offer.

"No." I replied without hesitation. "I don't want deal with any foolishness, least of all from a man. Don't we put up with enough of that from our own dear brother?"

She rolled her eyes in contention. "It's not the same, and you know it's not. Brothers are nuisances. In the same way Dads are."

With that, I couldn't disagree. Ours was a formidable creature who liked to keep us so pure it was as if any man would contaminate us by breathing the same air. Something which had begun to take it's toll. I had given up, and Jolene was merely awaiting her chance to break all the rules.

"Oh, but not these boys." She sang, returning her gaze to the frivolities unfolding across the street. "These boys are handsome and good. I just know that they are sweet and kind and up close I bet they have all these little nuances that only stand to make them even more handsome."

She would walk into a pit of fire if it promised to love her and adore her. Willing to walk to her heart break like ascending to the gallows with a smile upon her face and would willingly do it all over and over again just for a taste of something like passion. A part of me envied her.

"Maybe you're right." I agreed, deciding it might be worth a peek. "Maybe they are handsome and good. And maybe they will take you riding in a car and kiss you goodnight. But that doesn't change the fact that Dad would never allow it."

There were three of them. The elder of the twins was a lithe and charismatic thing. With a mop of curls and a penchant for wearing his pants low enough that my Dad had balked at the sight of him upon introductions. The younger twin was a little more reserved, hiding behind a curtain of long dark hair. His smile was entirely unexpected just by looking at the depth and darkness of his eyes. Neither of which were mirrored in their younger brother, who had all the hope and exuberance of a puppy dog that hadn't been trained on how to behave around company.

And Jolene was right. They were so infuriatingly pretty. All three of them with the same magnetic curse that had drawn my attention whether I wanted it to or no. I was no better than she, leaning my hand against the glass so that I might see them better. Rolling my tongue around in my mouth as I tried to appear calm.

"I'll jump out of a thousand windows before I ever let Daddy tell me who I can or cannot love."

I believed her. There was something in the way she stared out of that window that made me truly believe she would never let such a thing come between her and her desires. And as I looked down at the object of her affection, he saw me for the very first time.

Shirtless and sweaty, his hair wet and slicked back. He raised a hand to his brow and stared directly into our bedroom window. His brother, coming to see what had distracted him, followed his line of vision. Raising his hand, the two of them drenched and flushed pink as they stood at the end of their driveway regarding us. And we, against our better judgement, stared back.

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how I might be regarded by another. It was a terrible thing to be young and have innocence imposed. I would trail my fingers down my breasts and imagine that the handsome boy who had peered into my window was standing in the darkness behind me.

I couldn't see him. He wasn't a perfect image. His face was blurred from the distance of where he'd stood in my memories of that day. But it was him that I summoned whenever I touched myself. There was no other who came to mind. It was always the younger twin, the one with the long hair who had dared to stand and watch.

Perhaps it was his boldness that had made him stay with me. There was something bookish about his demeanour, like he'd been written by a woman for other women to fantasise about. Simply by standing there in the summer heat, taking note of me. Like I wasn't a ghost, after all.

"Open the door, Bonnie."

His voice ran through me like the prickle of a stinging nettle against flesh. To hear it whilst I stood there, naked, made my skin crawl.

"Just a second." I replied, pulling on my robe and hurrying to obey.

My Father was on the other side, standing there with a sourness that questioned precisely why I had been in the bathroom quite as long as I had. He would ask if I had been partaking in a sin, but at the same time he wouldn't speak it into existence. He simply cleared his throat and nodded at me.

"Your Mother and I were thinking, for the service this coming Sunday, that you and your sister would like to say a few words about how welcoming our flock have been since we arrived here."

His suggestion drew an audible sigh of disappointment. That I would be expected to stand in front of our neighbours and peers as if I were somehow grateful felt like a deception in the house of God. I could imagine their faces, thinking us good little Christian girls and what perfect examples of the lord's word. A credit to our loving Father. And our Mother, who would sit there in her perpetual silence and allow it to unfold without so much as an uttering against it.

"Of course." I replied obediently, "As you wish, Daddy."

He nodded his approval, clenching his jaw as if he'd anticipated a different response.

"I'd like the congregation to see what lovely girls we have." He mused, the grey flecked moustache that sat above his upper lip twitching. "They need to see that their pastor is the head of a good, solid foundation."

I had already agreed to his demand. There was no requirement for him to stand there and justify it any further. I was consciously aware of my state of undress, and felt it necessary to continue to nod my agreement as I scurried back to my room.

"Oh, and Bonnie?" He caught my arm, firm but not enough to cause pain. "Please make sure your sister stays away from the window tonight."

He would feel superior and I would feel beholden to it. As I smiled and nodded, as if I somehow held the reigns of my sister's deeds. He was smug and I was left wondering how he even knew that she'd been standing there.

"Yes, Daddy." I muttered, knowing it would have been futile to try and convince him otherwise.

She was feigning sleep as I came into the room. Making rudimentary noises and shuffling about as if in dream. I dressed quickly and quietly and it wasn't until I had switched off my lamp and laid my head down that she decided to end her performance.

"Bonnie?"

I flicked the lamp back on. "Yes?"

"Do you think Daddy will let us go to down to the creek this summer? I heard the Kiszka's talking about it outside. They said there was going to be a heat wave and all the kids from Beech Run and the next town over would be heading there. I sure would like to go."

There was an effervescent hope in her voice. That somehow, if she could only say it out loud, it might make it come true. I ruminated on the right way to tell her I couldn't see it being a possibility, not wanting to shatter her dreams entirely.

"Perhaps, if Ben is there escort us, there might be a chance." I offered, knowing that our brother had no intention of escorting us anywhere during his first summer in a new place with all the freedoms and folly of a youth that was extended to him.

She was leaning on her palm. Playing with a thread on her pillow case, her mouth all smushed up as she contemplated what I'd said.

"I just want to be like all the other girls." She sighed, before turning over and signalling the end of her part in our conversation.

"Dad wants us to say a few words at service this Sunday." I told her, plunging the room back into darkness, "Maybe we'll tell them all how he keeps us here like prisoners."

I heard a small, almost indiscernible titter from Jolene's side of the room. But I let her be. Sinking into my bed sheets and trying to imagine I time where I'd ever been satisfied.

He was there, again. Standing in the darkness. Haunting me. His imperfect face just beyond where I could see, the shape of him calling out to me. A set of deep set brown eyes appraised me, squinting through sunlight to get a better look at me. And I replayed it over and over until it was scratched into my memory like an old cassette that had worn it's self down to white noise.

I just wanted to know his name.

It was a Thursday evening. When the wall clock in the kitchen stopped. Summer rain began to fall. My Mother lost her most treasured thimble whilst sewing a set of curtains in the chair by the front window. And my Father was berating us for a less than exuberant attempt at writing a speech for the up coming church service.

He had us standing there like sentinels. Brushing his disappointment over us as if we were his canvas. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck begin to prickle, a deep rooted need to protect my little sister from this sort of tirade starting to bubble away beneath the surface.

"I don't feel your gratitude, Jolene." He scorned, scrunching her script up in his hands like it was a tissue he'd used to blow his nose. "Try something a little more heart felt."

She was on the verge of tears. I could see them welling up in the corners of her eyes. I looked over at my Mother and felt a sense of abandonment whilst she was still in the room as she searched for the thimble she had lost. Silently willing her to step in, to say something. Anything.

"We'll have something appropriate drawn up by Sunday." I assured him, waiting to be dismissed.

His dominance was always at it's most ferocious when I dared to even tread into defiance. Sometimes I wondered if he took pleasure in it. The way Jolene trembled beneath his word and I tried and fought in vain to protect her. I wasn't the one prone to rebellion and yet it felt as if I always took the brunt simply because I always tucked Jolene behind me, safely squirrelling her away from his overbearing eye.

"See that you do." He simply replied, waving a cursory hand that allowed us to leave.

I heard my Mother rejoice as the lost thimble was found. My heart sinking that this was her biggest joy. That she had barely taken note of her daughters and our pain and the way we were slowly sinking into oblivion. Why was I even trying to obey?

Perhaps I closed my bedroom door a little more aggressively than I'd intended. It caused the pictures on my wall to shudder. The bottle of perfume on my nightstand rolled over. And Jolene fell into her pillows, leaving the stains of tears in the folds of fabric.

"They'd never convict him a court of law because he doesn't beat us." She sobbed, screaming silently into blankets.

Perhaps he would have if the marks would've been translucent. I often wondered if my Dad had ever thought about beating us into submission. Sometimes the bloody veins in the whites of his eyes and the tiny speck of spit in the corner of his mouth as he raged at us made me wonder if he curled his fist up at just the right moment if he would strike.

"I thought, when we moved here, that things might be different." I dared to wonder, "But if anything, he's worse."

Jolene's face was all blotchy and pink. Sodden with tears and her hair stuck to her wet cheeks.

"He knows, Bonnie." She sniffed. "He knows that if we were given half the chance we'd be across the street. With those boys."

Would it have been so bad? To have known a summer of love? I was eighteen years old. Never been kissed. Never been taken on a date and had a door opened for me. I had tried so hard to ignore it, but I could no longer look away from it. The way I'd been spending more time on it, touching myself and imagining him in the place of my own hand.

"You don't care, anyway." She added, with a little more malice. "You don't want any of it. You're always trying to stop me from looking at them. You're always burying your head in a book, as if that will help."

Perhaps I deserved that. I didn't dare tell her that I'd had a change of heart, of late. That my usual stance had begun to shift. Where once I'd thought the wanting had passed, it had started to become an insatiable curiosity. Even my waking thoughts were plagued by it.

"That's not true." I confessed, laying a careful hand in her hair. "I'm sorry if I ever made you feel alone in this. I promise, you're not."

Her nose wrinkled as she looked at me. As if seeing me for the first time. Allied in our awakening interest in the boys across the street.

"I can't stop thinking about him, Bonnie. Every night before I sleep and every morning when I wake up. I wish I could wash him out of my mind. But he's there, all the time, looking up at our window."

"I know, I know..." I soothed, "I've tried to forget that they exist, too."

I'd forgotten to draw our blinds. In our haste to appease our ever demanding Father, I'd left the curtains open too. From the corner of my eye I noticed a light flicker on outside, drawing my attention. I turned and took note of the Kiszka house, the glowing square in the upstairs left quarter was like a beacon against the rural darkness of our street.

"Look." I said, waiting for my sister to follow my gaze.

It was the elder of the twins who appeared. A towel sat snugly around his waist as he ruffled another through his hair. He was lean and perfectly cut, not dissimilar to his counterpart. I felt a sudden shame at watching him, but there seemed to be no care for his close proximity to the window.

He was talking to someone. His mouth moving in soft intervals, as if engaging in a conversation we could not hear. I was enthralled, nonetheless. Wondering what he was talking about. Who he was talking to. He carefully ran his hands through his curls, making sure they were perfectly sculpted. His stomach taught and his arms raised above his head, but it was only inquisitiveness that made me continue to look.

I felt nothing until he appeared. Tossing his brother a clean t-shirt. Doing nothing of value. Padding around and making me feel like the most detestable of voyeurs.

"He's the one, isn't he?" Jolene asked softly, taking note of my how my breath hitched as he appeared. "We can't just pretend like this isn't happening."

"They don't even know we exist." I dismissed her, forcing myself to look away.

"That's not true." She replied fluidly, her voice rising like a song. "We were introduced when we first moved here. They've seen us watching them. Even if it's the only thing they know, it's that we exist."

I wanted so badly for it to be true. I watched him stand there poetically in the window, talking to his brother and running a hand through his long hair. Casual. No care within the world for him. And I envied not only the fact that I couldn't be close to him, but also that I ached to be him.

I didn't settle at all that night. Fretting, feeling as if I held all the anguish in the world in the pit of my stomach. Jolene had nodded off as soon as the light across the street went out. But I continued to stare at the void a while longer. Silent tears streaking my cheek, the salt on my lips like a bitter reminder that it was all I could do to let it out.

I could see my reflection in the glass. A spiritual spectre that didn't have a voice. I stood there in my white linen night gown, ruffled at the sleeves and thought myself truly a ghost. The window was cold to the touch. The night was cool and calm whilst within me raged a tempest.

I didn't want to go to bed and lay down and have my thoughts ruin me. It would have been nightmares that came to me, ones about being locked in a cage. And so I stood there, in the window I had promised not to let my sister stare out of.

That warm glow from across the street reignited. It almost made me flinch. The way the darkness was all consuming, and then there it was. The light on in the room upstairs. I held my breath, as if somehow they'd be able to hear me. Lip trembling as he reappeared, this time alone. A look of forlorn sadness in his face as he went to pull the curtains closed.

He thought he could see something. He thought himself mad as he peered out further, squinting into the darkness as he caught the sight of me. It was in my mind to turn and disregard him, but I was rooted to the spot. Afraid that if I moved I would never feel again the way I felt right then in that moment.

I knew that he could see me. Certain as I knew that he was watching me right back. I could feel the pull of my heart strings dragging it down, into a flurry that churned my stomach like butter. He stood there, his forearm against the glass as he rested his head against it. Staring at me as if he couldn't quite believe I was real.

And then he raised his hand and waved. And I, inexplicably, waved back.

I sat in the choir loft as parishioners began to filter in. Gripping my insincere little speech in my hand, the paper felt as heavy as granite as I turned it in my hands.

I'd barely slept. Keeping vigil the past two nights, waiting for Jake to appear. That was his name. So graciously given to me, scrawled on a piece of paper as we exchanged messages from our respective windows.

It felt like poetry in motion. The first time he held up a crude scribble and asked for my name. It felt like I had been truly seen. I'd hastily scrambled for a pen and a notebook, holding it against the glass whilst he nodded his understanding. Waiting with my heart beating a muffled drum within my chest as he wrote something back.

He asked me why we never came to the creek. Why we never seemed to linger in the wide open spaces all around us. Why we were always in town with our brother. He seemed intrigued. Telling me about his passion for his guitar through page after page of rushed sentences.

The last of which had told me to wait for him in the choir loft before Sunday service.

Only a fool would have agreed to this. To sit there in my Sunday best, knees clicking together in consuming nerves of what I was about to do. Keeping a watchful eye on my Father as he stood at the podium and graciously welcomed his congregation. I'd never seen Jake or his family at church on any Sunday since we'd moved there. I questioned why he'd asked me to wait for him up in the rafters, but not enough to stop myself from agreeing to it.

"Bonnie?"

I clutched the hem of my skirt, knuckles white and my cheeks pale as I swallowed hard. He slid into the seat behind me. Graciously foregoing the seat beside me, I kept my eyes focused forward and felt as if I might melt into the very grain of the wooden pews. He leaned forward, resting elbows on the back of my pew, his breath warm and silken against the curve of my neck.

"Jake." I replied, my mouth suddenly ravenously dry.

What did I even anticipate that the pay off of this risk would be? Just to feel my own heart beating so wildly in my chest that I thought, perhaps, that I might pass out? To have a moment of stolen sin? I could smell the soap he'd used to wash with that very morning and the hint of coffee and toothpaste in the warmth of his breath. Was this ever going to be enough?

"You don't know how long I've wanted to talk to you." He confessed in hushed tones that forced me to close my eyes against the sincerity of the words. "Ever since you moved here. You've been somewhat of an enigma."

Nobody had ever spoken to me like that before. With careless want and an honesty that threatened to choke me. I could feel my palms grow sweaty, a compelling heat rising in my cheeks.

"We're not allowed to talk to boys." I replied earnestly, opening my eyes to a reality I did not want nor could I any longer tolerate.

He scoffed at the insinuation that he was a boy. "I'm twenty years old, I'm hardly that."

There was an innocent playfulness in the way he chased his brothers around their front yard. Their boyish natures belying their true age. I envied more than ever that they'd been granted that. Feeling naïve that I could have ever considered him a mere boy. Now that he was sitting so close to me, I could feel the urge to sin like effervescence bubbling off his skin. Something only men could feel.

"Forgive me." I faltered, bowing my head in solemn regret that I had been so fruitless in my estimation.

But he didn't berate me. "Oh, you're a caged little bird aren't you?"

If I could have let myself cry, he'd have witnessed a dam bursting. I sat there twisting my skirt, almost ripping the paper against it, letting hatred and regret and desire course through my veins. I hoped, more than anything I'd ever hoped for before, that he couldn't see the anguish.

"Are you ridiculing me?" I dared to ask, turning my head ever so slightly to catch him in my periphery.

I could see his lips parted as he lingered at my ear.

"No, never that." He reassured. "But I've seen the way he keeps you behind glass. I've seen you standing at the window watching us. And I tortured myself wondering if you knew that we had been watching you, too."

My breath stilled. "We?"

He boldly leaned a little further forward. Joining me in my gaze as I stared down at the growing crowd below. His chin almost rested on my shoulder, his hair almost brushed against my cheek. I couldn't stand it, the close proximity and the way I felt as if I couldn't move an inch.

"My brother Sam, and I." He confirmed. "He thinks your sister is damn near the prettiest little thing he's ever seen. But I told him no, that's not true. There's more grace and beauty in the older sister. She is where my mind runs to when I look towards your house."

To consider that he had thought of me made the centre of my chest begin to throb with a yearning I had never endured before. It filled that empty space between my ribs. Aching to crawl out and consume the rest of my body. I could scarcely breathe. My hand instinctively dropped the hem of my skirt and flew to my collar bone. Resting there as I tried to calm my beating heart.

"I didn't think you knew we even existed." I whispered, letting his confidence shine down on me, a part of me feeling fearless enough to make these confessions.

"On the contrary." He replied, sweeping his breath across my cheek bone, quite unintentionally as he lingered close to me. " I've thought of you often ever since you arrived. Wondering if you were ever going to make friends with my sister so that I could have the opportunity to talk to you. It was the greatest disappointment when we realised it wasn't meant to be."

His dream had been mine. The two of us worlds apart, and yet staggeringly close. Wanting the same wants. Needing the same needs. Laying his head down each night with that same blurred image of me that I had kept of him, too. God had finally answered my prayers.

"There is nothing more that I want that that." I replied wistfully, "But he would never allow it. We'd be punished. Called wicked. Or worse."

Jake shook his head and slinked back, taking away the heat of his body and leaving me cold.

"There's nothing wicked about the desire for connection." He surmised, tucking his hair behind his ear and pulling out a cigarette from his shirt breast pocket. Putting it between his lips for later. "You tell that air headed brother of yours to bring you down to the creek tomorrow."

"Ok." I replied quietly, feeling the essence of hope leave with him as he scurried away.

He didn't linger. I couldn't see his face in the crowd as I stood at the podium. He'd slipped out as easily as he'd slipped in, and I was grateful. I didn't want him to see me up there. Making a breath full of lies for ears that would have listened to any old garbage I could have come up with.

It was all I could think about as I talked about how the sanctity of strong family values held our bonds with God together. Something about honouring thy Father. As I pictured Jake sitting behind me, hot breath on my skin and the scent of his cologne still in the air I breathed. If I was wicked, I was already going to hell.

Ben was sitting in the car, his arm draped casually over the back of the passenger seat. His hair was neatly combed to the side, his shirt tucked into his slacks as he checked his teeth in the rear view mirror.

"We don't want to go into town today." Jolene complained, slumping into the back seat with a pout that she would never let our Dad ever see. "Why can't you just take us to the creek?"

He turned and pointed an ominous finger. I was inclined to bat it out of my way as I slipped in beside Jolene. Knowing she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"You're going to town. I got a date with Harriet Dinsmore. I've been trying to pin her down for weeks. So don't start with all this going to the damn creek nonsense." He spat, carefully running a palm down the perfectly sculpted slicked hair that made him look uncannily like our Dad.

Jake had been unflinchingly correct in his estimation of our brother. For Ben, life meant never having to use much intelligence. He would fly off the back of our Fathers coat tails. No doubt becoming a pastor himself. Not for God but for the glory of it. But whilst he still held the keys to the car in his hands, I'd be smart.

"Oh, come on." I rallied, "You don't want your little sisters moping around while you try to court a pretty girl. We're better off at the creek. You can pick us up after."

I caught him roll his eyes in the mirror. "You would have me lie to Dad?"

Jolene popped her bubble gum, smirking as she stared out of the window over towards the Kiszka's house.

"It's only a lie if you tell Dad you're taking us into town with you. Has he asked where you're taking us?"

She knew there'd be a presumption made. But would use the semantics to her advantage. I felt a cool sense of pride in her, exchanging a knowing look as Ben rolled the thought around in his tiny little mind.

"Harriet Dinsmore? Isn't she the girl who works at the ice cream place?" I feigned interest. "She sure is pretty."

All it took was a few soft words about her hair. Her eyes. The way she served ice cream so deftly. She never spilled a drop. I wondered if he'd been so pliant before, if we'd had opportunities missed because we were so afraid of what our Father might do if he found out.

I was fuelled by that simple demand. That we get our air head brother to bring us to the creek. For what purpose, I didn't care. But I knew that if I didn't try I would reek of regret. And once Ben agreed to take us, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I'd never managed before.

Jolene was ratified in her excitement. Staring out of the window, beholden to a freedom so rarely afforded to us. We were given fair warning, of course, to keep to ourselves and not talk to any interested boys. To be on our best behaviour and not give him him any cause to have to tell Dad where we had been.

I did wonder what went through his mind as he dropped us at the side of the road, where the gate that lead down to creek stood open against a rickety old fence. I could hear voices in the distance. Jovial ones. And suddenly I was stricken with the stupidity of what we were about to do.

"Did he really say that?" Jolene asked, pulling down her little linen shorts and pulling fingers through her loose curls. "Did Sam Kiszka really say that I was damn near the prettiest thing he'd ever seen?"

If not for her, then for who? I set aside my reservations. Flattened down the pleat in my sun dress and pulled down the edge of my hat. I would make a fool of myself if it meant that she got to have just five minutes talking to the boy she liked. No more standing at the window wondering.

"That's what I hear." I replied, taking her hand as we sauntered through the gate and down the incline of the field towards the river bank at the bottom.

The tall grass weaved between my bare legs. Brandishing sleek little kisses against my inner thighs. The tips almost brushed against my crotch, each step like a feather dancing against my flesh. And it did not serve me well. I could see him standing on the embankment. Shirtless and long hair blowing in the warm breeze. I felt my stomach tie itself in knots over the sight of him, feeling as if the grass itself was inviting me to arousal as I walked towards him.

"Are you nervous?" Jolene asked, her hand still clutched firmly in the curl of my own. "I'm real nervous."

"Just stay close by." I soothed, "Don't leave my side, and we'll be just fine."

There were pockets of people dotted up and down the tree lined incline. Some were splashing around in the creek bed, where it met a wide opening that created a shallow pool, others were bathing in the sunshine. An array of colourful bathing suits on display. It was hot. The sort of hot where everything felt sticky and wet. There were balls and frisbee's being tossed around. Music playing from a boom box hanging from a broken tree branch. Beers sitting in coolers. Cigarettes and a sense that perhaps I'd bitten off more than I was willing to chew.

They were all there. All three of them and their sister, sitting in folding chairs and on blankets dotted around the clearing next to the water. There were a few faces I didn't recognise, too. Friends, no doubt. I didn't know where to look. It felt as if perhaps we were intruding, on account of the fact we weren't dressed appropriately for the occasion. We didn't even own bathing suits. It was apparent that we'd made a mistake.

Everyone was staring at us. Eyes boring into us as we approached. Jolene's hand squeezed mine. A silent plea for whatever we had walked into to stop feeling like a trap. Why did it feel as if I was feeding not only her, but myself to the wolves? They appraised us like creatures who belonged in a zoo. Eyes widened and sun shades slipped down their noses to get a better look at the Jones sisters.

"You came." Jake said breezily, greeting us at the edge of his little pocket. "I didn't think you would."

It was still in my mind to turn around and head back. But there was something in the way he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand that made me willing to stay.

"You said to come." I hedged, every inch of me burning from the curious stares.

He was wearing a pair of denim shorts, cut at the knee. With a waist band so low I could make out the edge of whatever he had on underneath. With his body on unapologetic display, I didn't know where to politely look. There was only his eyes that could have accepted my gaze appropriately. And they were so intense I could feel myself wanting to back off.

"I did." He agreed, "And here you are. Let's get you introduced."

We accepted the seats we were offered. But declined the beers. Jolene sheepishly grinned as names were thrown at us and I tried so hard to commit them to memory. There was the Kiszka's; Jake, Josh, Sam and Ronnie. Danny Wagner and another friend from school, Lewis Dinsmore. Who's poor sister was stuck on a date with our unbearable brother. I was grateful for it, regardless. It provided an initial talking point which ingratiated us into the group, enabling me to calm my nerves as I sat there trying to act as if I didn't feel like a duck out of water.

"So, Bonnie. Are you a senior or did you graduate?" Ronnie Kiszka asked, hands on her hips as she supped on a bottle of beer and eyed the length of my dress.

"Umm, I graduated." I replied, "At our last school, in Ohio."

"So, what's the plan? College?" She continued, her questions posed innocently enough. But I felt like I was under the microscope. "I'm going to Michigan State in the fall."

"Oh, that's great." I tried to keep my voice steady and casual. "I'd love to go to college, but I'm needed at home to help my Mom."

Josh was sitting on a blanket, resting on his palms with his chin tilted up towards the sky. Languishing in a similar state of undress as his brother.

"Oh, is she sick or something?" He asked, pushing his shades up into his mess of curls as he looked over at me.

"No." I replied, looking down into my lap. "No, nothing like that..."

Jolene was more than happy to answer their questions. The intrusion didn't seem to phase her, she lapped up the attention like a neglected pup as I sat there wondering what they must have thought of us. Uncomfortable at the idea of it. Of them knowing our Dad would keep us at home rather that receiving a college education. That we were supposed to be somewhere else, and I wondered if any of them would know to keep our being there under wraps.

I couldn't hide my disdain. I smiled and nodded where required, but offered nothing in the way of conversation. I sat in the shadows whilst my sister took the reigns. Her desire to be part of something beyond our house was being fed to bursting and I could see the colour rise in her cheeks the more they enquired. Especially when Sam addressed her directly, their eyes finding each other in undeniable attraction. And all I could do was witness it unfold, hoping that my silence wasn't being mistaken for ill manners.

"You wanna get out of here?"

I looked up. Jake was standing at my feet, his hand extended for me to take.

"I probably shouldn't leave Jolene." I fretted, seeing how much she didn't need me.

"Probably shouldn't." He echoed, keeping his hand firmly offered. "Or is it because you're afraid of what might happen if you do?"

He'd been so kind. So humble. Introducing us to his friends and family. Like we weren't the spectacle we'd been when we first arrived. He'd been hospitable. Making jokes and including us in them. He'd made me laugh. Not just a giggle, but from my belly upwards. Making me radiate a smile that had been hidden for so long I hadn't even known I could smile like that.

"Afraid, of what?" I asked, although I suspected it was what he'd wanted.

He didn't say it out loud. There was only a hint of it in the way he curled his fingers up and urged me to go with him. I thought, perhaps, that he could see my uncertainty etched there in my face as I tried to fit in. All the things I wouldn't confess to. That I was afraid I'd spend my whole life never knowing what it truly felt like to be adored. Afraid that I'd always be a vessel for thoughts and feelings that would never be allowed to be expressed. Afraid that I'd never get to explore what it meant to be a woman. Fears that seemed to go unspoken. And yet, he heard me.

Jolene was sat with her chair practically on top of Sam's. Their heads bowed together in a conversation nobody else was invited to. I could see his hand edging towards coming to rest upon her knee, but he kept graciously stopping himself. Peering into her eyes instead, letting her ramble on about nothing in particular. Enchanted by her. And she, in turn, seemed entirely smitten with him. Blushing every time he tucked his hair behind his ear. Every time he threw his head back and let out the most infectious laugh I'd ever heard. He was being gentle with her.

"Come on." Jake said, "I know a spot we can go to."

Nobody seemed to care as he took one of the blankets and began to lead me away. Jolene looked over, silently watching as he took my hand. Too afraid that if she made a comment she would break the spell between her and Sam. I tried not to think too hard about it, grateful that people had finally gotten bored with our presence.

I would have let him take me anywhere. It felt like a sonnet that hadn't been written yet. The way he held my hand so casually, leading me back into the tall grass. All I could do was watch the way his hair moved in the breeze. Dancing against his flexing shoulder blades. His hips moving gracefully as he stepped between the long blades, blanket tucked under his free arm. The afternoon sun was beating down so hard, my cheeks began to burn. Grateful when he finally led me to a shaded area of tree's a little further down the creek where nobody else had bothered to venture.

I watched him as he laid the blanket down, flattening the grass and making sure we were shrouded by it. Inviting me to sit with him, the sound of flowing water and leaves moving in the dull wind as our soundtrack.

"You ever just lay in the grass and look up at the clouds?" He asked, rolling onto his back and placing arms behind his head.

I wrapped the hem of my dress around my knee's, conscious of the breeze as I laid down beside him. Through the canopy of the tree's around us, I could see wisps of cloud moving slowly against the brilliant blue.

"Not since I was a little kid." I replied, trying to remember the last time I'd done anything quite like this.

He was quiet for a brief moment. But it didn't feel like it needed to be filled.

"I hope you didn't get in any trouble yesterday. I don't think anyone saw me talking to you." He said, pulling out a small bottle of something honey coloured out of his pocket. "Sometimes people can't see what's happening right under their noses."

There was a flash of something in his grin as he lifted his head to take a swig, offering me some before dashing it onto the blanket at his side when I declined. I liked the way his side profile looked as I turned my head to look at him. There was something about the way his nose pointed at the tip, the way his mouth had the most enigmatic curl at the corners. It was obvious that he hadn't brushed his hair that day, but it didn't matter. It only served to suit him well.

I started to feel as if I could climb on top of him. The way he laid there, the muscles in his arms flexed as he laid them behind his head. I'd never been close enough to ever drink him in. I tried to commit to memory all the little nuances that were entirely him, knowing that I'd think of him later in more detail than I ever had before. It made me nervous.

"Clever." I surmised, impressed by his critical thinking. "Do you often do things right under people's noses?"

He smirked and turned his head, knocking me off my steady perch and into a panicked mess as his eyes met mine. I didn't dare look away. I didn't want to make the obviousness of my gaze even more obvious. I hoped that he couldn't tell I could hear the great whoosh of my own pulse when he looked at me. But I suspected that he did, letting his eyes fall down the rest of my body before coiling back up.

"Not everything." He damn near whispered, leaning up to rest on his forearm. "Some things I prefer to do where no one else can see."

It was getting hotter. The air felt warm in my lungs as I breathed. Even in the shade, it was sticky and sweltering. My dress was becoming increasingly drenched, beads of sweat pooling between my breasts. He was glistening in the sun light, his neck saturated as sweat ran down the peak of his adam's apple. Both of us tangibly giving in to the impetuous heat.

"Like what?" I asked, reaching for the bottle to quench a dry thirst that was forming in my mouth.

It tasted like fire. Did nothing to alleviate the dryness, only served to almost choke me and make me cough. Much to his delight as he placed a hand to my back and waited until I'd composed myself before offering his arm for me to lay against as I sank back down.

"Wouldn't want your Daddy catching us here, like this. Would you?" He asked, the sweat of his arm sliding against the back of my neck. "Wouldn't want anyone catching us here like this. I like being here, with you, just the two of us."

The weight of what was transpiring between us almost felt too heavy to bear. I could feel it, travelling up and down my body in waves of undulated panic and arousal. He wouldn't stop staring at me. Making it harder for me to deny myself.

"I like it too." I confessed quietly, allowing him to curl his arm up, making me inch closer to his face.

All the hours of wonder couldn't have stood up to the reality of him. The sweet and gentle nature of him coveting me, with nothing more than a simple gaze and the support of his arm beneath me. He made no attempt to touch me further, and I almost felt like begging him would have ruined the moment.

"Don't you get lonely up there sometimes?" He asked, grazing his bottom lip between perfectly set teeth. "I see your face sometimes and I can't stand the way you look so sad."

Oh, he'd noticed. My heart soared and broke all at once. That he had known not only that I existed, but taken the time to notice my mood made me feel as if our lives were not merely shadows.

"Not lonely." I shrugged, settling on a different word. "Perhaps, sometimes, it's a little melancholy."

He wrinkled his nose and thought about it. Reaching for a blade of grass behind him and ripping it from the ground in order to satisfy his need to keep his hands busy.

"If you were mine I'd never want to see anything but a smile on that pretty face of yours forever more." He said, running the blade of grass against my cheek playfully.

I shrank away. The sensation of it too intimate for me to appropriately deal with. I giggled, but my unease was there in the way my eyes couldn't settle back on him.

"I'm sorry." He apologised, throwing down the grass and trying to settle the vibe between us back into something a little more innocent.

But it was too late. I could feel a familiar throb begin to beat away between my thighs. Latent misery in being unable to satisfy my desires kept me tethered to the blanket, unable to confess that I wanted him to do it again.

"Don't be sorry." Was all I could say, a little more passionately than I'd intended. "I'm just...well, I'm no good at this sort of thing."

He seemed to go quiet all over again. Looking down at our bodies side by side. Swallowing so hard I could see his throat flex. Like he, too, was lost in a sea of words he so desperately wanted to say but couldn't.

"You're not like the other girls." He gulped, pointing out one of my deepest flaws. "I don't want you to be like the other girls. They aren't worth the risk like you are."

How could he have known my worth? Beneath that starry eyed exterior, was he just as nervous as I was? It seemed to me that he could scarcely hold himself back as his eyes moved between my lips and my gaze. Flitting up and down as if in conflict.

"All I've ever wanted was to be like the other girls." I sighed, noticing for the first time that he had moved closer. "Other girls get to be taken out on dates and have doors opened for them. And have goodnight kisses."

The subtle shake of his head intimated that none of that mattered.

"Other girls don't write their name for me in notes I can only see from my window." He said earnestly. "Other girls don't drive me crazy every time I see them come out of their front door on a Sunday morning wearing those pretty little dresses."

I felt like I'd fallen asleep and I'd woken in a dream. I could smell the liquor on his breath he lingered so close. The heat of the day dissipating as the heat of his body took over.

"Other girls don't make me write songs for them, before I've ever even spoken to them..." He stopped, right before his lips would trespass against mine.

"You...wrote a song...for me?" I breathed into his mouth, fingertips digging into the blanket folds at either side of my stilled body.

"For a good Christian girl, you sure do make me feel damned." He posed, speaking with his lips a feather light touch away from mine. "Damned to write songs for a girl I can't ever have."

Was it not enough that I dwelled beneath his touch? Whatever madness made him think he could not have me, I wished for such a fallacy to be gone from his mind. If God had put the attraction that was so palpably clear between us within our hearts, why would God punish us for acting upon it?

True. I was a little apprehensive. Not for the punishment of God, but from a Father who truly believed his word and actions stemmed directly from the all seeing eye above. But, like Jake had already so pointedly said, we were here alone. Just the two of us. No other man nor God in sight.

"Have me." I whispered.

I heard him hold in his breath. Already so close to my mouth, all he had to do was let it happen. Nobody was ever free from temptation, and I was sordidly aware of my need to walk directly into it's aching path.

If God truly did exist somewhere between this mortal coil and the thereafter, I believed that he would not blindly lead me to be tempted beyond my ability. That I may be able to endure it. My spirit and my body in unison for the very first time.

"You would hate me if I did." He whispered back, "I'm wicked, Bonnie. So much more wicked than you could ever imagine."

I didn't believe that anyone quite so beautiful as him could ever truly be wicked. Perhaps wicked in the ways that only brought pleasure, if you were so inclined to allow yourself to enter into that sort of thing.

Was I? That sort of person? He was only two years older than me but exuded an experience which far surpassed mine. Even with his boyish charm and child like nature, he was a man nonetheless. A man that held me in his arms on a hot summer day with the wind chiming through the leaves above us and the softness of the ever trickling water as it ran over rock and earth.

Heaven.

"I ache to know wickedness." I pleaded, feeling insanity wash over me as he still refused to kiss me. "It's not for anyone else to decide."

That one sentence brought him to his conclusion. I could see it there as his brow knitted together delicately, his gaze intensifying.

"You don't know what you've done."

Perhaps not. But I didn't have space for regret. Not when he let our worlds collide. At first, there was nothing but the gentle feel of his lips as they brushed against mine. Softly venturing, exploring what depths he could take with me. A solemn pull back as he checked in with me, I could feel his hand against my balmy cheek. Alabaster turning pink as the blood began to pump harder in my veins. I was breathless without even having to move.

When he'd ascertained that I wanted it, he returned to me. Pressing his lips against mine a little harder. Letting his head tilt to the side, our noses pressed flush into each others cheeks.

I don't know what it was that I expected. Certainly not the rush of adrenaline as he opened his mouth. Nor the moisture gathering between my legs that was certainly not due to the weather as I felt the slippery tip of his tongue converge into my mouth. It was soft and slow, only brushing against mine with subtle intimation that he wanted more.

I suspected that this was purposeful. Nobody had watched us as closely as he had and not drawn the conclusion that I had never been kissed before. I suspected that he knew this was my first time. And he treated it as such. Sweeping his thumb against my cheek bone, letting me whimper softly into his mouth as he pulled away only to slake his hand around the back of my neck and pull me up into an embrace that had more meaning behind it.

And then he stopped. Forehead rested against mine, breathless and lips drenched in each other. He didn't let me go, clutched me harder in fact. Made me wonder if patience truly was a virtue.

"I have thought about this moment over and over." He swallowed, kissing me again so briefly I barely had time to reciprocate before he'd pulled away again. "And always, I'm painfully aware of your virginity. I don't want to hurt you, Bonnie."

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was something else. I let my knees unfold, the hem of my dress crawling up my thighs. Immediately I was aware of just how tightly I'd been clenching them, my body immediately softening in his grasp.

"Take it." I offered. "It is yours."

He would have it. Retrieving his senses at the shock of such a thing, he ran a gentle palm down my stomach and his hand came to rest at my waist.

"You're not a good Christian girl at all, are you?" He ventured, kissing me with a little more fervence.

Although the presumption was made based on my willingness to part with my virginity and give it up to him, I knew I'd been a sinner for far longer than I cared to admit. My thoughts had been impure before we moved to Beech Run. The levels of depravity increasing ever since Jake had made his presence known. I wasn't a good Christian girl at all. Not behind closed doors. Not anywhere where thoughts were free.

"I've committed all manner of sins in my mind." I replied honestly, my tongue lilting against my teeth, prepared for another kiss. "Wouldn't you? If you couldn't do anything? Have anything?! Wouldn't you imagine what it felt like?"

"Oh, I would." He replied, licking into my mouth with all the urgency of a man who had been granted his greatest wish. "But I don't want you to imagine anymore. I want to give you everything you've ever wanted."

He laid me back down. Sinfully slow. Taking in the sight of me, hair fanned out on the blanket and my lips swollen. My breasts sitting comfortably beneath a modest neckline, my sun dress being something I would have worn to church. Wondering if he felt the same fear that I did.

"Give it to me, then." There it was, that little beg that had been threatening to spill out of my mouth ever since he'd put the blanket down.

His hand travelled further south. Parting my knees. He ripped another blade of grass and settled it between his thumb and index. Teasing it above my face in the air, making me nuzzle into his chest as I tried to run from it.

But he didn't run it against my cheek. I soon realised it was for a far more nefarious purpose. I dared to peek out from his embrace. A look of total devotion there as he swept the blade up my inner thigh. The almost breath like touch of it reminded me of how it had felt as I'd walked towards him. I held my breath. My dress sat just below where my underwear could be seen, everything else on display. And he unashamedly caressed me, using the blade as his guide.

"Soft little babygirl." He crooned, "It'd be almost cruel to ruin you."

I didn't need his protection from it. The inflection of annoyance at his suggestion that my virginity was something I wanted to keep was hard to hide. My expressions betraying me as I looked up at him.

"Lucky for you, I can be cruel." He added, marking his territory on my heart. "Would you like me to be cruel?"

"If the devil so wishes." I replied, "I fear I'm already ruined by my own intrusive thoughts."

The tip of the blade ran down the fabric which sat between it and my naked flesh. At it's most vulnerable spot.

"You don't have to be virtuous with me. Not anymore." He promised, "I'm not your Daddy."

It was clear invitation to step into my desires.

"Tell me I'm a good girl, Jake." I needed it. "You can be as cruel as you like, just tell me I'm good."

I don't know why I needed to hear it. Maybe there was a part of me that still dwelled in the church where I needed to be holy in order to exist.

His eyes widened at my demand. Staring at me, like I was Jesus on the cross and he had come to worship. He let the blade of grass go. Preferring to run his hand up my thigh instead. I shuddered. Let my lip curl into my teeth. Never taking my eyes off him as he brushed a fingertip against my moist crotch.

"Such a good fucking girl." Partnered with the curse word, his praise left me bound to him. "Does my good little girl want to get fucked?"

The abruptness of his question left me open mouthed. I wasn't shocked because it offended me, I was shocked because the answer was an unequivocable yes. They way he claimed me with that one, solitary use of the word my left me dizzy. Of course I was his. And all I could do was nod my consent.

"You tell me you're innocent and beg to get fucked with the same mouth." He breathed against my lips, hooking a solitary finger around the fabric of my panties, his knuckle brushing against my slit. "That's my extra specially good girl, isn't it?"

He was playing with me. Strumming me like his guitar, like a song written just about me. Pulling down my underwear until they sat at my knees, I was completely at his whim.

"I'm not going to fuck you, though." He said softly, raking those same calloused fingertips that had held my face as he kissed me through the sodden valley of my pussy lips. "Not yet."

I knew it was futile to beg. Not when he so gently and pliantly planed his fingers down the edges of what I could tolerate. He would bring me to the brink and tell me it was what I needed. Dancing with the devil, my sinful thoughts brought to light. I'd never been happier than I was right there on that blanket in the tall grass. In the shade of the grove of tree's that surrounded us, in the hottest summer I'd ever recall.

"You're so fucking beautiful." He said, leaning back into a kiss that was now familiar, his tongue edging into my mouth enough to send a flood onto his fingertips. "You tempt me so..."

"Anything, Jake." I breathed, "Anything you want, just tell me what to do."

He softly ran the pad of his thumb over my aching, swollen clitoris. I moaned, let my eyes close, turned my face away in fear that I would look ridiculous to him. I'd never dared to venture to that part of myself before. Letting the throb ebb and flow whenever I was aroused, never allowing myself a moment to indulge in it.

"Pull my zipper down." He instructed, rutting his hip into my side. "It's kinda uncomfortable down there."

In the furore of him touching me, I'd failed to notice his maddening bulge. I felt foolish and girlish, stupid for not realising he was aroused too. My hand wasted no time in releasing him. Pulling down his zipper and opening the button of his denim shorts. I didn't dare put my hand inside, still feeling a little trepidation of touching him back. But the relief was there as he eyes rolled back, grateful just to be free of the constraints against his hard on.

"I want so badly to sink my fingers inside you and ruin this pretty little pink thing." He murmured against my ear. "Tell me it's ok. Tell me I can feel you from the inside."

I couldn't bear it. The need to be penetrated coupled with the fear of whatever pain might accompany it. But he was too beautiful to deny. The tip of his nose pressed against my cheek, his breath warm and like fire.

"I'm ready." I replied, even if my mind had not been quite up to speed with my body, I still would have let him have his way.

Not simply because of the way he turned me on. But the way he made me feel so cherished whilst doing it.

"Relax for me, sweet girl." He whispered, lips pecking kisses against my temple, hands opening my thighs a little wider. "Just let me take care of you."

The sting of a single digit cast aspersions throughout my body. He was slow in his intention, hissing back a soft moan as he let it slide all the way to his knuckle. I fought against my body's responses to cry out in pain. It hurt. But everything else was a welcome distraction. His voice. His scent. The feel of his body next to mine. All of it.

"Look at you." He praised, railing his kisses back down to my mouth. "The goodest of all girls."

He began to slowly pull it back, savouring the way my mouth opened at the sensation of him sliding it back inside. He didn't attempt to add more fingers, or ruin me the way he'd promised. He simply enjoyed the way I felt. The way I showed him my devotion in simpering moans and errant panting. His middle finger buried deep inside, palm pressed against my wet clit. Completely at his mercy.

"You've bewitched me, Bonnie." He confessed in soft whispers, "With your tight little innocent pussy. And that fucking smile, I can't stay away from you..."

No church girl could ever do witchcraft any justice. But I believed him.

"Then don't" I urged, not knowing what it would mean when the time would come for us to pick up this blanket and leave.

"Never..." He buried his tongue into my mouth, venturing deeper than he had before. "Will you cum for me, pretty little sweet thing?"

I didn't know what he meant. And I wouldn't spoil whatever spell I had managed to weave by asking him. If I were a flower I could feel my petals begin to wilt and fall. How could I tell him that I didn't know what he asked of me? I didn't want him to stop until I was completely deflowered. And whatever it was that he meant by cum, I hoped that I could do it for him.

"Anything...anything you want." I moaned, louder, arching my back to feel his fingertips deeper.

"That's it, oh, you're close..." He said, curling his finger up inside me, in a beckoning motion that almost sent me over the precipice. "You'll know when you get there, my little Ingenué."

His use of another language was unexpected. And his face said it all as I bashfully smiled into another insatiable kiss. He was right, though. I did know when I arrived. There was nothing about it that was anything I could have expected. With no knowledge that such a thing even existed, I was ebbed towards it like I was blind and seeing for the very first time.

At first it was like a muffled song I could hear from another room. The melody was there, I just couldn't pick up the lyrics. All I could see was those beautiful, deep brown eyes of his with the dark circles beneath watching me in wonder as it cascaded over me. The song no longer muffled, the crescendo of a great symphony in my eyes as I finished against his palm. The way he looked so satisfied letting me know that I'd done good.

"Ssssh...sssshhh..." He soothed, "It's ok sweet girl, I promise...it's ok."

I didn't know that there were tears falling down my cheeks until I tasted the salt of them on my lips. The sweet relief of something I hadn't known I'd needed filling me up from the soul upwards. He slipped his finger out and pulled up my panties, making sure that I wasn't hurt.

"I feel so foolish..." I cried, "How could you want me? When I'm like this?"

"It's because of this that I want you." He reassured me, grabbing the length of his aching cock beneath his boxer shorts and adjusting himself to a more comfortable position. "Don't you get it? It turns me on. The thought of nobody before me. That you'd be mine, entirely. And I can promise you here and now, I will protect you no matter the cost."

I couldn't wrap my head around what the cost might be. Only the way he didn't expect me to touch him back in that moment. He started to soften eventually as we laid there together, his hand running gentle strokes through my hair as I calmed. And he tucked himself away, promising that he would save it for another time.

The afternoon was growing late as we packed up and sorrowfully left our quiet little spot. The grass where we had laid all flattened in the perfect shape of where our blanket had been. A sorry reminder that the moment had fleetingly passed. I kept catching his eye as he tucked it underneath his arm, and he reached out to take my hand again.

"What now?" I asked.

"I don't know." He replied, with equal sadness. "But something tells me it'll be worth it."

We walked back in contemplative silence. Content just to be together a few more moments until it would be cruelly snatched from us. I could see that some of the crowds had already begun to disperse as we headed towards the plunge pool. A little less heavy on the noise. I could see Josh and Danny standing by their little group, deep in conversation whilst Ronnie packed up the boom box and cooler. Lewis was idly folding chairs, stacking them up ready to be carried back to the road.

"Where the fuck did you guys go?" Josh asked, watching us approach hand in hand. "Was about to send out a search party. We might have to, if Sam and Jolene don't get back here soon."

I had no concept of the time. I could feel the coolness of late afternoon on my skin, where once it had burned. The sun was still beating down as earnestly as it had been, but it was a little further towards the west.

"Shit, what time is it?" I asked, bile rising in my throat as I began to wonder if Ben was waiting for us up by the gate.

"It's a quarter to six." Josh replied, shaking his wrist as he checked his watch. "Why?"

I let go of Jakes hand. Circling the area for a visual of my missing sister. I couldn't see her anywhere.

"No, no this can't be happening...Ben will be here to pick us up in fifteen minutes..." I panicked, visibly shaking as I ran down towards the creek edge.

I called out her name. But there was no reply.

To be Continued...

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@caprisunsister @thewritingbeforesunrise @takenbythemadness @katuschka @its-interesting-van-kleep @lvnterninthenight @writingcold @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @edgingthedarkness @velveteencatch @lyndz2names @nina-23-45 @itsafullmoon @vikingisthenewsexy @char289

[bookinit02]

s5 script info/faq

hi guys! in exactly a week, i'm going to start posting my original stranger things s5 script. here's a general info/faq post for easy reference :)

about the script:

what: this script is designed to be a culmination of my ongoing rewrite series, which is a fanfic version of each season of stranger things, written through the lens of alternating byler pov. since season 5 hasn't released yet, and we've still got a ways to go, i decided to write an original script to base my last installment off of. the script will be 10 episodes, at about 60 pages each, and serve as a companion to my season 5 fic.

where: script episodes will be posted here on my tumblr, and be linked to a pinned post (which will go up in a few minutes). fic chapters will be posted on my ao3, as usual.

when: currently, i'm planning to have at least one post a week: the script episode will release on a sunday, and then the two accompanying chapters on the next two fridays. so, for example, the first few releases will look like this: script 1 on sunday 9/3, chapter 1 on friday 9/8, and chapter 2 on friday 9/15. this gives you about a week to read each new post! of course, you can read however you'd like: script first, or fic first, depending on your preference. i decided to post the scripts first to try and mimic the rest of the rewrite experience: "watching" the show, then reading the fic. if there's any schedule delays due to typical life stuff, i'll let you guys know!

frequently asked questions:

will the script cover every plotline?: yep! with 60 pages per episode, there's a bit of time dedicated to every character, as much as i can feasibly manage. of course, this means that the script will be less byler-focused than the fic series has been (but still more than the original show, lol). but not to worry—the fic companion will add extra scenes and plenty of byler content. this also means that some of the plots will only be accessible through the script, as the fic is entirely from byler pov. but it's still up to you whether you would like to read or not!

will there be any character deaths?: i'm going to answer this right now: there will be no character deaths. i want the script to be realistic, but it's also my version, and i always try to give my characters happy endings :) this doesn't mean that there won't be some close calls, though. we'll have to see. :)

will there be a playlist?: yes! i've spent some time testing out playlists for the first two episodes, and they're both fully completed. they'll be linked along with the script, along with a timing guide for anyone (like me) who likes being insane about the details. playlists are always tricky because everyone reads at different speeds, so i've written out which scenes go with each song, and you can skip along as needed. if you prefer not to listen with music, of course you don't have to—though i will say that most songs are just soundtrack instrumentals to set the mood :) it might be a little finicky, so i'm sorry in advance! i'll always try to perfect them as much as possible before posting.

will you do another rewrite after s5 releases?: currently, i'm planning on it. of course, we have no idea how much longer it's going to take, or what exactly will happen in canon (or in life), but if i'm in a place to write fic, then yes! i'll do a typical rewrite and add it to the end of my series, so you guys can have your choice of endings :)

how do we leave comments?: if you want to leave a comment on the script, i'm happy to receive them in asks, messages, or post comments! you can also leave them on the fic chapters if you'd like. edit 9/1: you should be able to leave comments in the google doc! be mindful of what account you are using, as these comments will be public. for a more comprehensive comment policy, click here.

do i have to read the rest of the rewrite series first?: reading the rest of the rewrite isn't necessary, but it is a good idea. i know it's a lot to read, so don't feel pressured, just know that some things might not make as much sense without the prior context! my rewrite series is pretty canon-compliant, but a lot of relationship dynamics are developed in a very specific way, and we pick up right where we left off at the end of a new place to be from. so, essentially: no, but you'll probably want to.

do i have to read the script?: definitely not. if you prefer to just read the fic, you absolutely can! it'll make sense on its own, you might just miss out on some of the extra plotlines and context.

that's about all i can think of for now—if you have any questions that weren't answered in this post, please send me an ask and i'll edit this post to include your question! i've been working on this project for a few months now, and i'm really excited to share it with you guys :) thank you all for giving it a shot! see you next sunday <3

[goodluckclove]

I think the thing that stops me from writing is myself. I need to talk about my projects to stay interested but the second I tell anyone about my ideas, the interest is gone and my inner dialogue starts tearing my books apart. So then I end up in the plotting stage forever, or at chapter 3 with no clue how to progress and no interest to start. Doesn’t matter how long I work on the project for, it still happens. I end up in my own head about my projects and it sucks

Hi King. It's late Sunday night for me here in Portland - Wife has started what they call their "pre-sleep" ritual, which they claim is very useful for their specific type of ADHD wiring. I'll be handing off control of my blog to one of my novel's protagonists for the entirety of tomorrow (good luck, Edgar), but I've been thinking about your question since you sent it and I wanted to make a point to answer before dedicating my whole Monday to long-form roleplaying.

So people post about their projects online and it's cool. They talk about what they're working on, and sometimes they get loads of accolades and encouragement from well-meaning strangers online. It's very neat and it's very good, but at it's core it's not really something a writer needs at that stage. In fact, I think there's an argument towards saying that too much involvement in that culture can be actively toxic to a new writer's craft.

This may sound hypocritical coming from someone who's essentially liveblogging their quartet as they write it. But keep in mind that Migration Patterns is my fourteenth book. And in the fifteen years I've been writing I really wouldn't tell people about an idea until I was at least 10k words in. Maybe more. Maybe never. I have entire novels that no one in my life, not even my wife, know anything about.

It's fine. it's lonely and it's fine, and that's kind of the thing about our line of work in my thought.

An idea is a fragile thing. It's like an egg that needs to be supported on some kind of foundation to be displayed properly and safely, and for some people it takes a long time to build that foundation. I run a writing blog where I almost exclusively talk about writing and to writers, but in my Real Human Life I do not act like that.

I think I have two close people in my life that I bounce ideas off of the most - my wife and my best friend - and that's only because they're most likely to be nearby while I'm actively writing. It's helpful to talk out ideas. But what are you looking for when you talk about your ideas? Because people can't praise or critique what you write in any meaningful way until you actually write it, which I could see leading to frustration and ultimately losing interest in the work.

Here are some of the things I say when I talk about my writing:

"Hey give me a name for a person/place/thing."

"How do you think I could get out of [insert plot point here]?"

And that's pretty much it.

A writing blog does help if you don't post expecting feedback. I will screenshot excerpts I'm very proud of and post it with some commentary, something I've never had the courage to do until now, and it feels good just to hang in on the proverbial fridge. Most people just like it and move on, because they don't have the full context of the situation. But just seeing someone liked it is cool.

Ultimately though, if my entire audience despawned right now - well, I'd have some grander existential issues to worry about. But I'd still write. I'd talk about my writing to myself and to my characters. I'd go back to imagining what I'd say in interviews that'll likely never happen. All of that is fun and free and cops hate it.

Maybe the interest leaves when you talk to other people about your projects because they can't see it the way you can. That's not their fault, and it's not your fault. It certainly doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Overall, as much as I enjoy the sense of community here on Writeblr, we should definitely acknowledge the point in which it actually works against us and our craft.

Once you write enough of a project, assuming you've developed a productive work strategy, you will discover motivations to be interested. You are a perpetual motion machine of artistic development and no one else will build a track for you to follow that makes more sense than your own.

Hope that helps, friend.

[lola-andheruniverse]

Sunday FanFiction recommendation. An oldie but a goodie. Black Moon Blues by Haitus 80 on FanFiction .net. A time travel fix it and Deep Down in the Hollow Ground by Ravenesque 2 also on FanFiction.net finished and the unfinished version on nine lives. It’s a different twist on Carol’s banishment. Wonderful works by wonderful authors. I bet they would love a review.Caryl on

Hi, @southerncountrygirl! It took me a few days but here I am with your recs! Thanks for sending them my way. I hope you don't mind but both fics gave me that feeling 'oh my imagine if THAT really happened' so I decided to put them on our 'fix it wednesday' tag. 😁 Okay, let's go!

Black Moon Blues, written by Haitus 80 is posted on FF.net.

Summary: What if there was a way to prevent the events that brought the group to the prison? What if there was a way to save every single person they have lost along the way? What if second chances at the end of the world actually existed? Will they be strong enough to save the others? This story has given me many sleepless nights but I think it has been worth it. Rating: M / Mature Word count: 251.626 (66 chapters) Aug 25, 2013 - COMPLETE

Time travel! It doesn't get better than time travel for me unless we get a baby at some point, love me a caryl baby because there's no other way to guarantee a cleaner slate than this. One of TWD biggest problems is disposing characters for shock value so time travel fics are great because they can course correct these errors. Our author here makes them pop around effortlessly and it's great to see them all alive again, wonder how they'll survive their canon deaths and celebrate when a different thing happens that ensure their survival. This fic also does a great job in putting S3/S4 Carol on pre-S1 Carol's shoes. This entire work is a celebration of her strength and growth. Do read it, dear fellow caryler, this fic is a intriguing, surprising and very satisfying ride. Oh, and the caryl moments? Adorable!

Deep Down in The Hollow Ground, by Ravenesque2, it's also posted on FF.net. (the version on 9Lives is only updated up to chapter 10).

Summary: No one is quite sure how much time has passed since the fall of the prison. All they know is the reality of always moving on, always surviving, whatever cost it might bring. At least they mostly found each other, but for those they've lost along the way, there is a chasm that can barely be filled. Caryl story.

Rating: M / Mature Word count: 67.142 (22 chapters) Published: Dec 18, 2013 - COMPLETE Carol's banishment on S4 is one of our favorite moments to explore on fandom, right? This fic works on it by taking a very interesting route. It has suspense and drama fueled by a lot of miscommunications, and incredible twists that change everything constructed by canon. This is definitely a caryl story (so much romance, so much tenderness, so much beauty), but our author dedicated time to develop all TF characters, giving them substancial emotional arcs, so it really feels like an alternate version of TWD from the fall of the prison. It's a great read, please give it a try! Thank you again, southerncountrygirl, for your recs. I really appreciated them! As you said, bet these authors would love to get a review notification. So, if you decide to read any of these fics, dear fellow caryler, don't forget to give them a little bit of appreciation. Feedback is LOVE. And we really need more love in this fandom. Caryling on, caryling on!

[i-sveikata]

Hola my dear autor Thank you so much for the amazing chapter 💯😚👌🏻Wanted to post this since long ago but let me tell you that I spent all that first Sunday reading it and when was time for go to bed I just HAD TO finish it and it was totally worth the wait. Poor Pete it was his time to insist like a looot to Vegas to finally open his eyes and not do what he was doing. Like I'm really impress with his perseverance 😅 he never give up on Vegas 🥺 but really Kan had to die so Vegas could be free of his father because 😖 he really didn't want to stop the coup not even for Pete 💔When you write that note never imagined THAT level of make up hahaha like boys there is some gunfire in the same room as you 🙄😆 but well Pete did everything in his power to deter Vegas ☹️As a favor for VegasPete 😉 absolutely not to me😉 they deserve the fuck of their lives 🤭 😉 Pete totally letting it go and being true to his desires Thank you thank you thank you for the story, I really don't want it to end, all this past months omg noooo 😭 and btw Congratulations on its first anniversary!!!🎉✨

hellllllllloooooo anon!! ah youre so very welcome and im so glad you dedicated so much time to it as soon as it was posted!! yeah poor pete he was carrying all of the common sense in that last chap trying to keep vegas from doing the stupid thing!! yeah im not sure if he would have been able to cut himself off from his dad entirely, not unless his father backed him into a corner about pete and tried to kill him in front of vegas- then i think vegas would have made his choice even if hed agonise over it for the rest of his life. this way hes still going to agonise over it but pete isnt involved in a way that would strain their relationship. omg hahahahahah they were so dumb like literally making out everywhere, pete trying to figure out if they can sneak off someone for a quickie whilst bullets are flying everywhere and ppl are dying like cmon dude focus!!! ahhaah

yeah i dont think there was any other option for pete he had to do everything in his power to try and stop him otherwise hed never be able to live with himself after. ha they totally do ur so right anon! but vegas' injuries and petes uncertain feelings are going to deter them for a bit!! promise they will get there- we all know they can't resist each other.

you're so very welcome!! oh i totally get that!! but all good things have to end eventually! im just so happy that everyone has enjoyed the ride. ahhhh thank you so much i didnt even realise this had happened until u guys mentioned the anniversary!! what a wild thought!!

[wendellcapili]

On Sunday, several students from my G.E. English classes years back, particularly those on athletic scholarships, will officially graduate. In anticipation of this formal ceremony, various UP colleges have been conducting recognition events to honor their students. My home college, the College of Arts and Letters, has scheduled its recognition ceremony for 27 July. Considering those adversely affected by Typhoon Carina (Gaemi), this date was thoughtfully adjusted to 2 August.

Many of these students have been uprooted from Visayas and Mindanao. They often come from challenging backgrounds characterized by dysfunction and financial instability. Many have had to live away from their immediate families and support systems. The onset of the public health emergency posed significant challenges for these students. Many found themselves unable to return home due to financial constraints and limited access to transportation services.

As the pandemic began to ease, these students returned to campus under strict safety protocols. However, the limited availability of on-campus accommodations meant many were left without proper housing. Some track and field team athletes had to stay in bodegas at the College of Science. Girls from the softball team were temporarily housed in a multipurpose hall that had previously served as a mortuary for the university's protestant chapel.

Looking back, the resilience of these students is truly commendable. The track athletes who endured the hardships of living conditions garnered multiple medals and two UAAP championships. At the same time, the softball team clinched a silver, which was unprecedented considering their struggles at the bottom of the rankings previously. A number will receive their degrees with honors, showcasing their dedication and hard work in the face of adversity.

Despite enduring the challenges posed by the pandemic, grappling with physical and mental health issues, navigating financial hardships, and experiencing frequent bouts of hunger, many of these students have persevered. While some unfortunately fell behind, they are now embarking on various paths toward recovery. It is momentous to recognize that these young individuals possess remarkable grit and determination despite their vulnerabilities.

As they prepare to graduate, I hope they will define their notions of happiness and success, unencumbered by the judgments of those who have belittled them for their struggles or dismissed them as lacking sophistication. “Graduation” is merely a physical ceremony. What lies ahead is an entirely new and challenging journey. I encourage these students to embrace this new chapter with courage and openness, knowing that their experiences thus far have equipped them with the strength to navigate future provocations.

[poweredbyhisgrace]

Faith, not feelings.

On May 28th, 2023, I re-surrendered my life to Christ.

The first time I found Jesus was almost two decades ago as a college freshman. It has been an on-and-off relationship since then, but what I can tell you this time around is it’s not as ‘explosive’ as the first time. If my memory serves me right, the first time was almost an overnight change. This time though, things are coming to me in phases.

Some transformations are (almost) instant. For example, I dropped porn and daily masturbation right away, and I made it a habit to set aside time every day for Bible reading and devotion. My Sundays are now dedicated to attending church, and I signed up for a D-group because I want to be surrounded by people I can talk to about Jesus on other days of the week.

And then some changes that I thought would happen quickly, did not. Like, praying before mealtimes — it may sound like a small thing, but I get frustrated when I forget.

What trips me up the most is the lack of that ‘overwhelming’ feeling. When I was 16 and a spanking new Christian, the feeling of salvation and new life was so profoundly exciting. I couldn’t wait to tell the world about Jesus! I read the Bible during lunchtime and silently prayed for strangers on the train. It really felt like I was a new person.

This time though, things seemed a little ‘quieter.’ While I know that God said, “ask and ye shall receive” and all that, I wonder sometimes whether I am truly saved because ‘it doesn’t feel like it.’

Anyway. I was reading Hebrews chapter 11 the other night. Seasoned Christians, you know what this chapter is all about: faith. I’m not a huge fan of the King James Version of the Bible, but the way it defined faith is just beautiful:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

I read the entire chapter and highlighted several verses, but to be honest, it didn’t hit too deep.

Thankfully we have a God who wants to be intimate with us, and He will make sure that we won’t miss Him. As I was driving to work yesterday listening to YouTube where Lisa Harper was talking about Abraham’s story, the dots connected: Abraham was mentioned in Hebrews 11 as one of the heroes of faith. He answered God’s call to get out of his hometown even when he had absolutely zero idea where God was calling him to. And you know what else was mentioned about Abraham? He did not live to see God’s promise happen.

…these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance… -Hebrews 11:13 (MSG)

That right there is faith in action. Abraham believed that God would do as He said, even as Abraham wasn’t feeling the completion of the promise. In fact, it would take at least 400 years for any of Abraham’s descendants to set foot on the Promised Land.

And that’s how it hit me. Here I am, whining for the past 1.5 months about not feeling saved enough, effectively forgetting the most fundamental component of our life in Christ: FAITH.

Let this be a reminder for me (and you) that God’s Word can still be trusted even when the feelings don’t match what we’re praying for.

Cheers!

(Photo by Carolinie Cavalli on Unsplash)

[ainchase]

Rosé.

Rosé.

Rosé.

Has anyone ever called my name so lovingly before...? He calls it as if the very name is precious... like it’s the most lovely name in the world...

I don’t know if he does it knowingly... No. You wouldn’t know. 

The only reason you can be this cruel is because you don’t know... You don’t know what your words do to me.

“This Doesn’t Have A Title and I Am Sorry In Advance (II)”

Previous: This Doesn’t Have a Title and I Am Sorry In Advance (I)

Note: This fanfic is meant to be read with Romance in C Major as its BGM. (Right click on the video and select ‘Loop’)

Usually thirty minutes is pretty short for a lunch break, but I found myself being pleasantly surprised at how much time we still have left. We have a good fifteen minutes before we have to stop staring at the clouds and go back to class. Suddenly, I had a burning desire to ask the question I never bothered to ask before. I broke the silence.

“You know, I’ve been wondering...” “Yeah?”

Ain answered without taking his eyes off the horizon.

“Why do you do that?” “Do what?” “Pretending to be nice to people you hate? If you hate them so much, just tell it to their faces. It’s good to be honest.”

Ain nervously laughed at the question.

“You wouldn’t understand...”

He raised his eyebrows as if amused at his sudden realization. But his eyes were still fixed on the clouds.

“... Then again, I guess you’re the only one who could understand.” “What do you mean?” “You know my family’s history.”

He let out a deep sigh. I stared at him. Something unfortunate happened to his family when we were kids, but only my parents knew the full details. They never told me exactly what occurred, and I never asked Ain in fear of overstepping my boundaries. He fiddled around with the empty can for a bit then opened his mouth.

“My family’s business collapsed because of my father — my brilliant father — who trusted people too easily. After he killed himself, my mother had to raise me.. She expects the perfect son so that she could have her old life back.”

I always assumed his father died of an accident. They stopped coming to church ever since his death, and I wondered if that had anything to do with it. I began to understand why his mother was so strict with him.

“Because he trusted the wrong man... we lost everything. I don’t trust anyone, Rosé. Human beings especially. Not a single one. Those pieces of shit who used my family for their own gain and discarded us... Those who ignored us when we needed their help... I hated them, until I realized the truth: this is how the world runs. 

I can’t be like my father, giving endlessly. I’ll use who and whatever I can.  The ones who approach me? They’re trying to use me too. I understand that. Yeah, it fucking sucks, and it’s shitty as hell, but that’s reality.”

I was appalled while my mind scrambled to find words. When I managed to do so, they bursted out of my mouth.

“What about me?”

Ain finally looked in my direction, shocked at the hostility in my voice.

”...What about you?” "What's my purpose? Am I...to be discarded later too?"

His eyes widened at the accusation. He calmed down and gave me a concerned expression mixed with guilt and pain.

“...You know I don’t think that way about you, Rosé.” “No, I don’t know that. Can you hear yourself? What am I to you?”

I knew my words sound like an interrogation. I wanted to avoid this god-awful, awkward silence so I took it as a chance to apologize.

“I’m sorry, I just... I got scared... that I might be tossed away.”

I looked up at his face to see if he was upset. Surprisingly, he smiled.

“Not possible. You’re precious to me.”

P-Precious. He just said... precious. I’m precious to him. I hid my face behind the curtain of hair and hoped they will cover my embarrassment. Luckily, Ain didn’t notice and continued.

“They can’t understand why I do this... why I live like this. They can never understand the suffocating pressure I live in... constantly.”

He peered down into the empty soda can as though he’s peeking inside to find words that can help explain his feelings.

“But you’re different. You’re the only one who can understand me. Because you’re my... only friend. The only one I can call my friend.”

He looked up once again and stared at the horizon.

"I can only be honest with you. I can feel the burden on my chest becoming lighter, you know? I...really cherish our moments together."

He sighed and closed his eyes to muster up the strength to say the next words.

“I’m... always trying to be careful around you, Rosé. I never want to do anything that could jeopardize our friendship. I don’t want to lose what we have right now... Ever.”

From that moment until the bell rang, we sat in silence. My mind spun from my confused emotions. On one hand, I was beyond ecstatic to hear from his own lips that I am precious to him. Yet, the agonizing truth dragged me to the depth of hell. I knew what he was trying to say: 

“We would be friends... really good friends... and nothing more.”

Where the hell is he?

School festival approached, and the Student Council was at its busiest time of the year. There were mountains of papers to review with Ain, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. 

I passed by an empty classroom and glanced into it through the window. A familiar figure lay on the floor.

...Ain?

I rushed into the classroom. He was sprawled on the floor with his back against the wall. He stared at the ground and refused to look up even when I entered.

“Ain, are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

I put my hand on his shoulder, but he waved it away. He breathed very slowly.

"I'll be fine...Just give me a moment. It'll go away...T-This happens s-sometimes." “You... You don’t look well. Are you sure?” “...Leave me alone.” “Can you stand? Let’s go to the nurse’s office.” “I said leave me alone.” “Ain, let me save you... please.”

Ain scoffed.

“Save... me?”

When he raised his head to look into my eyes, I froze at the sheer contempt. He shook his head.

“No one can save me, Rosé.”

A sharp pang of pain stabbed me. My vision blurred from these bottled up emotions.

“Something's obviously wrong, but you won't tell me...! All I've ever done was sit and listen to you talk.”

Looking annoyed from having to repeat the same point again and again, Ain took his gaze away from me and scrutinized the ground.

“Listening alone... is fine. That’s enough for me.” “Isn’t it normal for friends to help each other? You said I was your only friend.”

He narrowed his eyes at me at the mention of the word ‘friend.’

“Yeah, I did say that. I said you’re the only one who can understand me, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to interfere with how I live my own damn life.”

My jaw dropped; my tears couldn't stop falling. It's no use. I don't care anymore...

“Interfere...? Worrying about you is interfering?!” “Rosé!”

Ain shouted. I’ve never heard him shout at anyone before. Who knew I’d be the first person he would shout at? The shock stopped my tears. His cold eyes told me to back off.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Leave me alone.”

He closed his eyes and began massaging his arms. It looked like he was used to doing this. It must have happened many times before.

“I... I don’t want to get attached to you. No, I’ve gotten attached to you already, to the point of loathing myself for it.”

He looked up at me with guilt in his eyes.

“ I'm sorry...I don't want to get used to you. If I always receive your help...I'll start to rely on you...and...I...I-I'm afraid, when I get used to you, Rosé...I'm afraid...I won't be able to function without you.”

Remorse, guilt, shame—which of them left my heart shattered? No...It's fine...I don't mind at all... If only I could say those words...

"Can't we stay the way we are...? That's all...I won't ask for more."

What do I have to do? 

... What can I do?

Must I only watch at a distance? I want to help. I...I want to reach out and embrace you. I want to save you...Why can't I be the one to save you? You're suffering, yet you would rather be all alone. Why...? Am I useless...after all?

Ain... Did you know?

You are afraid of being attached to me...but I...I...

I'm already used to you—your voice that calls out my name, your way of smiling at me, your way of telling me I'm special to you. Your words are like the sweetest poison I cannot live without, slowly destroying me from the inside...

I put my head down on the desk and waited for a reply.

I closed my laptop shut and collapsed into my bed. 

I don’t know anymore. I don’t want to force my own opinion on him and have our friendship break because of that. I should... respect his opinion... but are things going to be okay?

Maybe Zero is right... maybe I was being selfish... 

“I miss you.” “You're mine, Rosé." Such sweet words are but impossible dreams in the sky. But I know...these feelings...aren't purely because of my greed...

Why do these hands not hold anything? Why can't these hands hold anything? I'm...falling into an abyss...as I watch those feelings consume him. I'm chained to the ground and the only thing I can do is watch as he drowns.

Am I...really this worthless? Can't I do anything? Is there something I can do...but wouldn't? If so...should I act upon it? No matter what the costs? 

Even if I lose everything in the process?

Next: Your Limit - 1

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 3

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Winter soldiers on, the cold and occasional snow giving way to the promise of spring. Her birthday comes and goes, celebrated at her mother’s with her family as it had been before there was someone else to lay claim to her time on special days. The vacant spaces in her apartment that had been occupied by Ethan’s books and clothes, his toiletries, and VHS collection, begin to be filled by evidence of her new, single life. Her solitary toothbrush in the cup by the sink starts to look normal, the indent on her finger where his ring lived begins to fade, and the silence she arrives home to at the end of her workday becomes mundane instead of painful. Though this change was initiated and welcomed by her, change is always hard. She goes through the motions of being okay until one day in early April, she realizes that she is. The budding crocuses bring with them the optimism of a new life, another chance. A third chance, as it were, to get it right. Now she only has to figure out what right is.

Though they’ve always been close, she and Missy become even closer, taking up the space in each other’s lives that would otherwise be consumed by boyfriends or lovers. They are each other’s better half, sharing the minutiae of their workdays and staying available for unexpected illness or the need to move heavy furniture. While every human needs other humans to thrive, the Scully sisters fill that need with each other, shunning the idea of casual dating simply for the sake of companionship. There is no companion more perfect than the one who has known you since before you could understand the need for such a partner in life, and who is by your side not out of obligation, but because their soul is stitched so firmly to your own. They have always pledged their dedication to each other through thick and thin, and the new year of 1997 proves that to be a sincere promise on both their parts.

As such, they sit at their favorite local coffee shop on Sunday afternoon when Missy finally dares to ask her sister the question she’s avoided for the past four months. Not because she was afraid of her reaction, but because she knew Dana wasn’t ready to talk about it.

“Have you heard from Mulder at all?” she asks so casually that Dana flicks her eyes up and stares in disbelief, not sure that she heard her right.

“What?” Dana asks, her heart having lept for one single beat at the mention of his name.

“Mulder. Have you had any contact with him, or seen him?” Missy is misleadingly casual, acting as though this is not a question she’s been waiting months to ask.

“No,” Dana says flatly, her eyes dropping down to her coffee cup. “I wouldn’t expect to.”

“Does he know that you and Ethan split?” Missy asks next, her feet folded underneath her in the oversized armchair.

“I don’t see how he would,” Dana posits.

“Have you considered reaching out to him?” Missy tries, watching her sister for signs that she is going to shut the conversation down.

Dana shakes her head glumly. “After what I put him through, I’m sure I’m the last person he wants to hear from. That was nearly nine months ago, he’s probably long since moved on.”

“Have you? Moved on?”

Dana pulls in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I don’t know how to answer that. What does it mean, to move on?”

“Do you still think about him?” No assertions, just gentle questions, leading her sister to the conclusion she knows she needs to come to.

Dana nods softly. “All the time. Every day.”

“Then I think your answer would be no. You should contact him, Dana. It feels like unfinished business.” Missy has a thing about unfinished business. She believes it prevents you from achieving your full potential in life.

“Missy...what would I even say? ‘Sorry I broke your heart, good news is it didn’t even work out so it was all for nothing’? I don’t want to cause him more pain than I already have.” Her tone is resigned and defeated. Another regret she will come to live with, pinned to her lapel with a collection of other mistakes that she can never quite atone for.

Missy shrugs. “You know what I think. The rest is up to you.”

Missy is right. The trouble is, she doesn't trust herself to make these decisions anymore. She’s proven to herself that she doesn’t know how to make the right one.

———

“Excuse me,” a rough, nasally voice calls from behind her. She turns to see a red nosed young man in the doorway of the pathologist’s office, slumped against the doorframe with watery eyes. “I’m here to pick up an autopsy report, for, um...I think it’s Richards or something.”

Scully has worked with this courier before, and compared to his typical demeanor it’s easy to tell that he’s unwell.

“Are you alright?” she asks as she uses her feet to push her rolling chair over to the file cabinet, retrieving the report in question.

“Uh, not really, no. But if I call out sick one more time I’m gonna get canned.” He leans his head against the cool metal of the doorframe. She suspects he’s feverish.

“You don’t look well enough to work. Where is this headed?” she asks, still holding the file in her hand.

The young man blows out a stream of air and she holds her breath for a moment, not wanting to inhale whatever he’s infected with. He pulls a slip of paper from his pocket. “Hoover Building, Behavioral Science Unit. Agent Kissop.” He stuffs the paper back in his pocket and looks around, taking refuge in the extra chair near the end of her desk.

She feels a little flutter in her belly; what are the odds?

“I’ll tell you what,” she begins, “I was just about to head out for the day and I live in Georgetown, so I’m going that way anyway. Can I drop this off for you? You don’t look well enough to drive and I’d hate to see you on the news in the morning if you cause an accident.”

He sighs deeply, the biggest display of excitement he can muster. “Are you sure? I’d really appreciate it,” he says, his eyelids barely maintaining half-mast.

“No problem at all,” she replies, gathering her coat and purse. “You get home and take some Tylenol, okay? And get some rest.”

He nods weakly and she leaves him there, climbing into her car with the file and a pounding heart. She can’t help but feel like this is a sign. She’s been thinking about signs a lot lately, and she’s recently resolved to start paying attention to them.

———

Mulder stands beside the copy machine, doing his Wednesday afternoon ritual of fighting with the toner cartridge and cursing profusely. From around the corner, he can hear AD Kirkbride drumming up his own song of profanity, which is more of a daily ritual than a weekly one.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kirkbride is shouting. “Now that dipshit is conning goddamn doctors into doing his pathetic job?”

Another much softer voice answers him, but Mulder can’t quite make out the words. He moves closer to the open door, bored enough to bother eavesdropping and seeing which of his colleagues is going to get their ass handed to them today.

“Yeah, I’m sure he is sick, that fucking lowlife. He’s sick every fucking week, it’s always something with him!”

“Sir, I don’t know what the history is between you and the courier,” answers the other voice, and it’s familiar in a way that makes him stop in his tracks, his stomach clutching in a mix of nervousness and excitement. “Can you direct me to Agent Kissop, please? Then I’ll be on my way and you can work it out with the courier service.”

It’s Scully. It’s her, he’s sure. He’s been dreaming of that voice for months, the soft sibilant S’s and the way her plush lips rest against her adorable overbite. Without thinking, he enters Kirkbride’s office and sees her standing in front of his desk with a file in her hand and an exasperated look on her face.

“Scully?” he asks, and she turns to him. Her hair is a bit longer, now just past her shoulders, and she’s wearing black slacks and a white blouse. She’s as beautiful as ever, maybe even more than he remembered. She doesn’t look all that surprised to see him. If anything, she looks relieved. Emotion boils up in his chest immediately and he feels his throat constrict.

“You know her?” Kirkbride asks, gesturing to Scully, and Mulder nods. “Great, then show her where Kissop sits so I can call the fucking courier service and tell them to fire that lazy asshat before I strangle him.”

Scully walks towards him and he turns wordlessly to show her out of Kirkbride’s office and down the hall to where Kissop sits. His heart is beating slowly but firmly, his pulse resounding in his ears. What is she doing here? Did she come here to see him? And if so, why? When they arrive at Kissop’s desk, Scully hands her the file and they exchange words that Mulder doesn’t bother to listen to. Then Scully looks at him hesitantly and slowly turns to walk away, towards the exit. He feels suspended, unsure if he can believe his own eyes that she is really here, and entirely conflicted over what to do about it if she is. He’s spent nine months trying to forget her, but she’s as real and alive as ever, standing before him. His self-protective instinct says to let her go, but his heart says to run after her.

“Quit standing here like a dumbass and go talk to her,” Kissop orders him, clearly picking up on some tension though she doesn’t have the faintest idea what’s causing it.

Shaken from his daze, Mulder follows Scully into the hallway.

“Scully,” he calls out, and she stops walking but doesn’t turn around. When he catches up to her, he touches her shoulder and she turns to face him with wet eyes.

They stand there for a moment, looking at one another, an expectant feeling hanging over them. He wants to touch her, to feel the press of her body against his again, but he doesn’t dare. That would seem like a relapse, of sorts.

“Would you have coffee with me?” she finally speaks, her voice small and unsure. It’s an invitation she is not at all confident he will accept.

“Okay,” he answers, and they walk out of the building side by side, silently.

They seem to understand without saying so that Mulder will lead them to where they ought to go, which is a little cafe called Burial Grounds just a block from the front doors of the Hoover Building. They stand in line stoically, tension crackling between them like static as they order something that will occupy their hands and give them a safe place to avert their eyes while they talk. They sit at a small table near the door and wait, glimpsing at each other’s faces and then away, summoning courage. Because this was at Scully’s invitation, it seems like she should have the floor.

“Ethan and I aren’t together anymore,” she finally blurts out, and his first instinct is to look at her hand, which is indeed bare of any jewelry. Next he looks at her face, considering her expression and whether she takes this to be good news or bad. She looks pained, but not about what she’s just said. She’s had this look on her face since he first spotted her in Kirkbride’s office. He’s unsure if he should be offering congratulations or condolences, and irritated that he’s being put in the position to figure it out, so he says nothing.

“I’m sure that I’m just about the last person you want to see,” she continues, her ocean irises tracing the logo printed on her cup. It wasn’t a question, but if it were he’d tell her that she’s the only person he wants to see, the only one he ever thinks about. The reason he can’t sleep and, when he does, the only thing he dreams about. “If it’s okay, there are some things I’d like to say to you. I understand if you don’t want to hear them.”

She flicks her eyes up to meet his for a moment and he nods softly, keeping his expression neutral. She returns her gaze to the skull and crossbones bearing the name of the coffee shop.

“I have always believed that life is about making the right choices. That we are presented with an ongoing series of options, opportunities and situations, and that we are tasked with determining the right choice that will put us on the path towards the best possible life. But as of late,” she pauses to take a sip of her coffee, stealing a glance at him before she continues, “I’ve come to believe that there is actually only one choice. One path we’re supposed to be on, and there are signs along the way to pay attention to. The choices might not always make sense at the time, but in the grand scheme of things, they are the ones you need to make in order to have the best possible life. Or the right life, the one you’re supposed to have.”

She pauses and slides her hand across the table, covering his with her own. The soft warmth of her skin electrifies him a little, sending a flush to his belly. She brings her eyes up to meet his, her brows knit with emotion as her chin gently puckers. She’s so beautiful it physically hurts.

“I ignored the signs,” she says tightly. “I made the wrong choice, Mulder. I thought I was doing the right thing, the best thing, but I was wrong. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”

He feels his chest tighten, a telltale precursor to tears, and he looks away from her. Why is she doing this? To make herself feel better? She pulls her hand back and sniffs, then stands and slings her purse over her shoulder.

“Thank you for having coffee with me,” she says, and then he watches her leave. He sits there, staring at the pink lipstick that stains the rim of her cup, wishing she’d given him some more time to absorb it all. Wishing she’d never made the wrong choice.

[seriouslyhooked]

The Best Bad Idea

Three-part CS AU where Emma and Killian are doctors working at the same hospital (world without pandemic). They’ve yet to meet, but Emma has definitely seen the sexy Dr. Jones in her travels at Mist Haven Medical. It’s generally a bad idea to get involved with a colleague, but a little fantasizing never hurt… right? Inspired by the song ‘Bad Idea’ by Ariana Grande and a TV couple who set the bar for true love stories. 

Available on FF Here and AO3 Here. 

A/N: Hey all! Here is a little something I made instead of being a responsible writer and finishing my other projects. I’ll be back to my other WIPs soon (God willing), but in the meantime here’s my 1000th attempt at writing a Captain Swan meet cute. I needed to get some words on the page, and this is the result. Hope you all enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, Thump. Steady, sure, and even. A solid pulsing sound with no inconsistencies and no delays or false starts.

In this particular patient, that fourth set of beats was the most important. Prior to his recent operation, Earl MacDonald’s heart had been weak and skipping needed pulses, then constricting far too harshly on every fourth measure. That type of arrhythmia had potentially disastrous consequences, but those worrying beats were seemingly behind them. The rhythm Emma heard through the stethoscope was a regularly circulating drumline, the tell-tale song of a heart that was working, and working well. Her surgical intervention had been successful.

She gently released the breath she was holding, a sign of the stress that she carried while waiting for patients to recuperate. Emma never let the patients see her sweat, but she had been worried on multiple levels in this case. Earl was going on 80, and not a logical contender for intensive cardiac mediation, but Emma’s gut had told her he could handle it, and she was rarely ever wrong. Earl forged through the surgery like a much younger man, and his outputs post-operation had all been extremely encouraging. It was shaping up to be another win, another life saved thanks to the power of medicine, and that filled Emma with real joy. She always did her absolute best to create good outcomes, and this time there was so much more on the line than one life. This was a man who was loved and cherished by the people closest to him, and who would be sorely missed if something were to happen.

“Anything you want me to note for the chart, Doctor Swan?” 

Emma bit back a witty retort at the pointed use of the word ‘Doctor.’ She was one of the few surgeons in this hospital who didn’t care what people called her, as long as they called on her early enough to actually save the patient’s life. But with Belle, a person Emma considered a dear and true friend, there was an added lilt of sass when using her title. Her friend was one of the nurse practitioners that Emma had been working with for years, since the day she landed here as a medical intern, but despite their differences in degrees, Belle was easily the most well-read and brilliant resource when it came to medical literature in this hospital.

“Just that Mr. MacDonald is healing nicely.”

“Did you hear that Lorraine?” Earl asked, with a Cheshire cat smile on his face, and the glint of true pride in his eyes. “Doctor Emma says I’m healing nicely.”

“Hard not to hear, seeing as I’m right beside you,” Loraine quipped, but she squeezed his hand affectionately, and offered a warm smile to her husband all the same.

“You know, usually being dubbed ‘nice’ is the kiss of death for a man.”

“Earl!” Loraine chastised, clearly not liking his word choice. Earl smiled wider, looking almost boyish in his delight.

“Well, so to speak. But I was going to say that I think we can make an exception this time. I’ve never been so happy to be referred to as ‘nice’ in my life.”

“Technically Doctor Swan was referring to your vital signs, Earl,” Belle taunted from across the room, holding back a smile Emma knew she was bound to let loose soon enough.

“Aw come on, you both know I am your favorite patient. I mean I’m not exactly pressed for competition. Have you seen the people on this floor? Good grief.”

“Ignore him, ladies. He’s all talk. He hasn’t left this room since we got here,” Loraine said, rolling her eyes, as if these antics were a constant occurrence. Based on her small window of experience with Earl, Emma would believe it. “Every meal, every visit, every moment has been within these four walls. Even his PT has been in here.”

“His PT has been here?” Emma asked, surprised that Mary Margaret, their head Occupational Therapist, had allowed for that. She was normally a by-the-book professional, and Emma never knew her friend to provide rehab consults outside of her studio.

“Yup. I told Miss Mary Margaret that I had a wife to keep an eye on and she relented.”

“No, actually what you said was, ‘Excuse me, Ms. Blanchard? You probably heard I just had heart surgery. Well, the thing is, my heart is sitting in this room. I’d like to be with her. Doesn’t seem right to be separated so soon, given what we’ve been through.’ Then you pointed at me, and used your puppy dog eyes on her. Next thing I knew, she had lugged enough equipment to fill the room here. No questions, just action.”

“I bet she ate that right up,” Belle said with a wink. “Mary Margaret loves nothing more than love itself.”

Belle and Mrs. MacDonald discussed Mary Margaret’s love of love, and Earl’s improved mobility, for a few more minutes while Emma continued checking his stats, but ultimately Earl’s patience was wearing thin. He really only had one thing on his mind, and he was now determined to ask about it. Emma was honestly shocked that he managed to wait this long. She knew it was only a matter of time and she was ready for the showdown.

“So, what do you think, Doc? Am I making it home in time for the party?”

“The one for your grandson on Sunday?” she asked, noting the three-day window between now and then. She had heard about this party non-stop, since the moment Earl woke up from the procedure. It was a central fixation for the old man, a celebration that would host his entire family, and a goal he had been carrying for over a week. Earl nodded and Emma hesitated for a few seconds, before smiling and giving the good news away. “Yes, I am confident that Jayden’s ‘Pop Pops’ will be in attendance when he turns four. But you know the rules…”

“I know, I know: no good food, no strenuous exercise, no having fun.”

“Earl.” Just the utterance of the old man’s name from his wife was enough to have him looking like a kid with his hand caught in the candy jar. Emma and Belle both chuckled at that child-like expression. It was hard not to; the old married couple was just too sweet.

“I’m sorry. I know this is serious, but what is life if you can’t have a little fun?”

“Fun comes in all shapes and sizes, Mr. MacDonald, and despite what you may think about your prescribed lifestyle changes, you’re forgetting two things. First, most of these less-alluring prescriptions will be temporary, and second, you’re a man who clearly loves a challenge.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you know that, Doc?” 

“Well for one thing, you somehow landed a lady as remarkable as Loraine. There’s no way she came easy with these corny jokes of yours. You must have worked harder than you ever worked in your life to persuade her to give you a chance.”

The laughter from the older couple was boisterous and heartwarming, and Emma knew she was right on the money. At this point, she had the ability to sniff out true affection, and these two had it in spades. Many couples she saw facing emergency room disasters together didn’t have the same good luck.

“You got that right, Doc. You know the first time we met was at the -,”

Earl’s story was unceremoniously interrupted by the crackling of the PA system specific to this room. It buzzed for a few moments before a message was delivered in a saccharine sweet voice that sounded nothing like the announcer’s normal tone.

“Paging Doctor Swan to the Nurse’s station. Doctor Swan to the Nurse’s station, code 741.”

Emma waited for the feed to cut off and began to tell Earl to please go on with the story, but the call came out again.

“Paging Doctor Swan to the Nurse’s station. Doctor Swan, code 741.”

“You know she’s just going to keep doing that until she gets her way,” Belle murmured. Emma nodded. It was no use. What Ruby Lucas wanted, Ruby Lucas got. That just seemed to be the way of the world.

“Belle, would you mind telling Ruby I’m with a patient at the moment? I will be there when I can. She can always proceed without me.”

Belle snorted out a laugh, knowing that last part would never happen, but gave a swift affirmation that she would relay the message before waving goodbye to the MacDonald’s and promising to see them soon. As her friend headed out, Emma sighed, knowing there was no way Ruby was going to give things up that easily. She had a matter of moments before some new tactic would be deployed.

“I’m sorry about that. You were saying?”

“Eh it’s kind of a long story, and you’ve got places to be, Doc. Just know, true love won out in the end with me and my Loraine. It always does.”

Emma couldn’t deny that their love appeared true even after their fifty plus years together. She personally had never experienced a love like that, but she was wondering more and more if maybe it was out there, somewhere in the later chapters of her story. For years she thought herself above that kind of need. She found validation in herself and in her work. She dedicated herself to helping others, and that had always been enough. But the loneliness that became a constant when she was growing up in foster care still lingered, and she wondered if someone might ever come along who could inspire her to take a chance and risk her heart.

“You know, I actually worked as a nurse before my kids were born,” Loraine commented easily. Emma nodded and smiled as she checked the last of Mr. MacDonald’s IV drips. Emma was aware of the older woman’s solid medical understanding. Loraine had continued to demonstrate it the entire time her husband was admitted in this ward. “I’m trying to remember if I ever ran into a code 741.”

“Oh, uh, I think – well, erm, I mean you probably didn’t,” Emma said, hoping she didn’t turn beet red at the passing comment from the older woman. She was already stuttering, which was completely out of character and eighty shades of embarrassing. Loraine’s words feigned ignorance, but her eyes told a different story. Still Emma tried to play it off. “It’s really not a big deal. Just a non-emergent protocol.”

Another alert sounded, but this time it came through the ceiling unit reserved for announcements to the wider reaches of the hospital. “Attention to all surgical ward personnel. We are paging Doctor Swan to the nurse’s station. Doctor Swan, you are needed at the nurse’s station immediately for a code 741.” The talking stopped, but the air crackled signaling that the line was still live. “Immediately.”

“Sounds pretty urgent to me,” Loraine replied. The curiosity in her gaze told Emma that the older woman was onto them, but it was Earl’s comment that cut too close for comfort.

“When I was in the war, all of our numeric codes corresponded to letters. So 7 was H, 4 was D, 1 was A. H – D – A. HDA, now what could that be….?” Uh oh. Now Emma really had to get out of here before she accidentally admitted Ruby’s code’s meaning – Hot Doctor Alert. That would be the cherry on top of a full-blown mortification sundae.

“All righty, well like I told Belle, all your scans look good. Doctor Whale is on shift this evening during the next series of rounds, so I’ll make sure your file is ready for him.”

“Of course, dear, and good luck with your doctor, er – I mean – code.”

Emma stammered out something like an ‘okay thanks,’ while leaving. She tried to get her bearings once she was out of sight of the room, but she had nowhere to go. Everyone on this floor had just heard her page, and there were bound to be at least a few who understood the meaning. She was so embarrassed, and more than a little ticked at Ruby. She was supposed to be her best friend, but she was always pulling these crazy stunts. They were mostly harmless, but for Emma, who hated being the subject of hospital gossip, it was anxiety inducing to say the least.

“Please tell me that you did not just broadcast that to the entire hospital,” Emma said, arriving at the nurse’s station with a sense of urgency, and watching some of the other nurses scurry off to avoid the confrontation. Ruby, however, was unfazed. Actually, the nurse manager just rolled her eyes, grabbing her bag and phone from her cubby, as if Emma was the one who was annoying and not the other way around.

“And here I was thinking we were the best of friends. Soul sisters, kindred spirits, friends for life. But no, ye of little faith, you actually believe I would broadcast the hot doc alert to all of Mist Haven? What kind of friend would do that?”

“But if you didn’t… then how did you…?” Emma’s questions trailed off, but her arms flailed towards the ceiling and the look on her face spoke for itself – how had Ruby used the hospital wide PA system without actually broadcasting to the entire hospital?

“You know Tink up in nuero?” Emma nodded, well acquainted with the nurse manager who had Ruby’s job on the fifth floor but with a specialization of the brain and nervous system. She was a tiny woman, but she ruled that ward with more than capable hands. “She and I bribed the IT guys to make the nurse managers an override. Now we can circumvent the PA software whenever we want. Bring some of you more stubborn Doctors to heal when it comes to answering our pages.”

“That’s… well, actually that’s genius,” Emma admitted.

“I like to think so,” Ruby teased, offering a genuine smile. The two friends laughed at all of this, and Emma felt so much better knowing that their secret was still relatively secure. The last thing she wanted was everyone knowing how she was spending her lunch breaks these days.  

“Gus, you’re holding down the fort while I’m gone, right?” Ruby asked, her smile turning slightly wicked with the purposeful jest aimed at the new nursing aid sitting behind the desk.

“Me?” The new hire replied, suddenly white as a sheet. Emma had never seen the man so stricken, and as a new nurse he had plenty of high-stress moments to look alarmed during. “I – uh – well – I -,”

“It’s called comedic relief, Gus. Commonly referred to as joking. Do me a favor, learn about it by the end of shift, kay?” Ruby pivoted to the person she actually trusted to man the fort. “Thirty minutes work for you, Belle?”

“I’ve got it handled.”

“Excellent. We’ll return with a full report,” Ruby said, grabbing Emma’s arm and moving them down the hallway before Emma could even say goodbye. “Newbies – can’t live with them, can’t pawn off scut work without them.”

“You are terrible. And yet… the look on his face just now…? Priceless,” Emma acquiesced. “But seriously, Ruby, can we PLEASE find another way to page me for this? My patients are not stupid, and the code isn’t exactly original. It’s kind of…” Ruby’s grin was so big that it stopped Emma in her tracks. She was currently trying to hold her friend to account, but Ruby looked like she’d won the lottery. “What?”

“You are so totally into him! I mean listen to you right now.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Emma said, feeling her cheeks flush against her will. 

“Exactly,” Ruby said. “You’re telling me to be more discreet when I send the bat signal, but you still want me to send it. Do you realize how unlike you that is?”

“Despite what you may think, Ruby. I’m a doctor, I’m not dead. I can appreciate a hot guy now and again.”

“Doubtful. Remember last month when all those pro hockey players were here after Ocheski collapsed on the ice? You had a room full of crazy sexy men. Like virile, hot, muscled men who get paid big money to beat each other up on the ice. Most women would die for that chance, and to make it even better, most of them were hitting on you. And what did you do? Nothing. You didn’t even blink.”

“They were not hitting on me,” Emma affirmed, but the words were hollow. They had been trying to flirt with her. A few had even attempted to get her number.

“They were hitting on you,” Ruby said adamantly.  

“He was a patient, and the rest of them were essentially his family. You know I’d never cross that line. Doesn’t count.”

“Fine, then what about Dr. King? When he came for that conjoined twins case last year, you had no interest. Zero. Zilch.”

“King was an asshole, you know that,” Emma said, belatedly catching her use of profanity and checking that no patients were around. Luckily the coast was clear.

“So? You didn’t have to marry the guy. Hot is hot, honey. That’s just how things are.” 

Emma barked out a laugh at even the thought of marrying someone like that. Arthur King was just about the worst person she could fathom to spend a life with. He was narcissistic and carrying around one of the biggest god-complexes she’d ever seen, and she was a surgeon, so she was an expert on god-complexes. 

“Your face really says it all, Emma. I mean honestly, poker would be a terrible game for you to take up. Your contempt for King is obvious, but, meanwhile, as soon as I mention Doctor Jones… aha! See, totally shifted.”

Emma didn’t know what to say to that. She could try and protest, but her friend knew her too well for that. The best thing to do was say nothing, and she was saved by their arrival at their destination. The coffee cart in the center of the action, near the entrance of Mist Haven. Here was where the wards crossed paths. Her surgical wing met up with the specialties departments, the ER, the community clinic, and more. It was also swarmed with both hospital workers and visitors. Typically, this was the last place she wanted to be, but recently it had become a highlight of her day.

“Emma? Ruby? What’s brought you out here?” a voice asked. It was Mary Margaret, and given her street clothes and jacket, Emma would guess she was just starting her shift.

“Haven’t you heard? There’s fresh meat from the ER. Two showings a day, but we favor the afternoon delight.”

“Oh right,” Mary Margaret said, nodding, like Ruby’s words were totally normal, and for Ruby they were. “I heard about the new ER Chief. Doctor Nolan? I meant to get down there and bring him something to welcome him, but I’ve been so swamped this week. My caseload is crazy at the moment. I hope he won’t think too badly of me for being a bit late.”

“Mary Margaret, literally no one in a hospital brings people cupcakes as a welcome gift, especially not new guys in other departments.” Ruby was not wrong. Hospitals were hardly the most happy-go-lucky of places. At least not usually. “Believe me, the man will be grateful whenever they come. If he even eats them. He’s fit – like fit, fit. Keto diet and a personal trainer fit. The kind of fit that makes you -,”

“Careful, Ruby,” Emma teased. “What if Graham heard you saying that?”

“God, I wish. You know how worked up he gets, and how he works out his frustrations.” Ruby’s tone was dripping in suggestion. “It’s one of the many reasons I live to drive him crazy.”

Emma and Mary Margaret laughed at Ruby’s apt assessment of her relationship with her boyfriend. Ruby had been dating the fireman for almost a year now, since he came in on one of the ambulance bays with a victim he’d rescued from a fire, but Ruby was hardly the predictable type, and Graham seemed to love that about her. They were still going strong despite her willful, wild child nature, and Emma suspected they may be built to last.

“Doctor Nolan must really be something to get you out here, Emma,” Mary Margaret said, moving forward in the line, inching ever closer to the mediocre coffee the cart promised.  

“Ha! Hardly. Emma’s not here for Nolan. She’s here for Jones.”

“Jones?” Mary Margaret asked.

“Girl, where have you been? Doctor Killian Jones, trauma surgeon extraordinaire. Chief Mills brought him here for a ‘collaboration’ with the ER, but she’s totally trying to recruit him for head of his own department. Turns out he and David Nolan are old friends. Same medical school maybe? I don’t know, no one’s gotten me those details yet. Anyway, Regina hardly leaves him alone. She only misses this little window because she’s hooking up with Doctor Locksley in the supply room on the 2nd floor.”

“She’s WHAT?!” Emma and Mary Margaret yelled at the same time and Ruby looked aghast for the first time today. Some other hospital staff in the area glanced over, but no one paid much mind beyond a head nod. Everyone was absorbed in their own need for caffeine, and no one was the wiser of the bombshell Ruby had just dropped.

“Oh shoot, I wasn’t supposed to say that. I promised Ella, damn it!”

“Ella, her assistant? I thought she quit,” Mary Margaret stage whispered.

“Oh she did. Made it a whole two months, which, you know, makes sense given the fact that Regina is a nightmare. But the last week she was here, she learned a crucial secret regarding her Majesty. She spilled last week at The White Rabbit, but I promised her I wouldn’t tell until she’s settled at her new job at GMH. So you did not hear this from me, and I did not hear this from her, capische?”

“I can’t believe the Evil Queen is dating someone,” Mary Margaret said, deeply disturbed by the idea. She shuddered at the thought, and this was someone who loved love. But love and Regina Mills didn’t really feel like concepts that belonged in the same sentence. Scratch that, they didn’t really even belong in the same book. “She’s just so…”

“Evil?” Emma responded. The nickname worked for a reason, after all. The hospital Chief was downright tyrannical.

“Exactly.”

“Well dating is a stretch. She’s screwing someone. But then again, who knows. Ella said she actually saw her smiling in those final days. And not that evil one she’s famous for. Like a real, genuine, I have a heart, smile.”

“No way,” Emma said at the same time Mary Margaret murmured, “Well would you look at that.”

“Don’t worry. I’m on the case. The temp is a totally easy mark – Sydney something. I’m buying him lunch tomorrow. I’ll have the whole story before you know it.”

“Won’t Graham be proud,” Emma chuckled, but her joke fell on deaf ears as something caught Ruby’s attention across the way. Her friend’s countenance changed immediately, putting Emma on alert.

“Ooh, they’re coming! Act normal.”

Normally, Emma would have laughed at that command, but she was too busy feeling the spike of adrenaline at the impending arrival of one Doctor Killian Jones. He really was a world-renowned trauma surgeon, who was working on a number of cutting-edge techniques that saved lives and gave critical care patients better chances to recover. She had actually heard of him a few years ago when reading about a new procedure to treat arrhythmia in patients with traumatic injury. He engineered it in the field, while serving in the British naval forces, and his paper had been circulating in cardiac wings around the country, but she never saw the man before last week when he arrived in Boston.  Suffice it to say she could not have imagined that this marvel of modern medicine would also be so roguishly handsome.

Spotting him today across the great hall, Emma was struck again by just how attractive this man was. She couldn’t even comprehend it really. All she knew was that she had yet to find a fault in him. Every day she’d stolen secret glances, and every time he proved better than her memory. It was crazy, and very reminiscent of schoolgirl crushes and teenage day dreams, but she couldn’t help the way she felt. It was intoxicating, and despite her best efforts, she was powerless to turn Ruby’s invites to the show down when she could witness this each and every day.

The first thing that she’d noticed about him was his general presence. His posture was strong and straight and assured. He looked ready for anything, but somehow laid back, like he was totally in control. People naturally parted when he walked by, as if he silently willed the flow of the hospital traffic. Ruby called it swagger. Emma called it… well something not quite safe for work. Couple that general aura of authority with the classically gorgeous features of his face, and Emma was lost. On that first day (and okay, maybe on the others as well), she actually felt her knees get weak. She always thought that was a bogus cliché, but nope, it was real, and she was the proof of it. From there she was hooked, and over time she’d chronicled more and more things to like about him.

Yesterday it had been his hair. As she watched him across the atrium, she noticed that the shade shone bright in the sun, but that it was nearer to midnight than any color brown. It was slightly longer than most of the other male doctors wore theirs, but not so long that it looked unkempt or unprofessional, at least not yet. She knew for a fact that the military never would allow for such a style, and it felt like a bit of rebellion, or maybe a lack of care for what others thought. Both sent a delicious thrill through Emma, even though she had no real confirmation one way or another. Maybe he was just lazy, but that wasn’t how she imagined him…

And oh boy did she imagine him. At first she hadn’t meant to. She just had these flashbacks to seeing him that she carried through the day. These visceral visions always started the same: he would walk by, looking downright delicious and impossible to resist, then he would turn his eyes her way here in the middle of the hospital hustle and bustle. She’d feel caught in his stare, sense the hunger even from the distance, and her heart would quicken to a maddening crescendo as he walked her way. The rest of the world would fade from view, and it would feel like they were the only two people alive. Her gaze would stay transfixed on his almost cocky composure and the hard line of his bearded jaw. The attraction in his blue eyes would light a fire in her, and then, without so much as a word like ‘hello’ or ‘nice to meet you,’ he’d pull her into his embrace and kiss her senseless. She could practically taste him on her tongue, and yet she’d never even heard him speak. People who had, who were later interrogated by Ruby, mentioned that he had an accent. British or Irish, or something along those lines. That tidbit had played oh so sweetly in Emma’s mind this week. God, she’d love to hear him say her name -,

“Emma,” a voice beside her said, but it didn’t pull her out of the fog. “Oh my God, Emma, he’s looking right at you.”

“He’s what?” Emma said, blinking back to reality before finding that Doctor Jones was looking this way. She’d been so busy fantasizing, she stopped paying attention to what was right in front of her.

In the middle of the room, the man who had intrigued her for over a week was standing totally still, disregarding the swarm of people on all sides. His entire attention had shifted from the task ahead of him, and he was looking at her, staring with a blend of intrigue and something Emma couldn’t describe. Doctor Nolan had stopped as well, but he was clearly confused as to the delay. He seemed to ask his friend what was wrong, and Emma watched spell bound, as the lips she’d envisioned kissing her moved in some kind of unheard reply. She couldn’t make out his words, but she shivered at the passion and determination etched across his being. David then looked their way, and Emma knew that Doctor Jones – Killian - had asked about them. No, forget that, he had asked about her. He was looking right at her, and that spark of heat and desire she’d always imagined was nowhere near as tantalizing as the real thing. He was looking at her with the same hunger she’d reserved for her wildest imaginings. Holy crap, what was she going to do?

“Ruby?” she asked, her voice squeaked out in alarm. She tore her gaze from the approaching object of her desire and looked to her best friend with overt confusion and mild panic.

“Took him long enough to spot you. It’s been almost a week. I thought I was going to have to hire a marching band or one of those giant arrow guys they have at outlet malls.”

Emma didn’t understand, and then it dawned on her – her friend had planned this. Emma looked at Mary Margaret, but she was still staring in the distance. Only when Emma followed her gaze did she realize that Mary Margaret wasn’t looking at Killian. She was looking at David.

“Hey, ladies, you looking to order, or what? I ain’t got all day!”

The three of them jumped at the barista’s interruption and Mary Margaret surged ahead to the line. She rattled off an order, giving way too much money to the attendant while grabbing her cup with shaky hands. Then she looked at David and back to Emma with an expression that said Mary Margaret may just bolt. Ok, what the actual hell was going on?

Before she could begin to answer that internal question, Doctor Jones and Doctor Nolan were within ear shot. Emma wracked her brain for something to say when they finally got here, but was spared when David broke the ice.

“Doctor Swan,” he said with a head nod and a polite smile. They knew each other peripherally at this point. Emma had consulted on numerous ER cases since Doctor Nolan started his new position. But she wouldn’t call them friends. They were very much acquaintances. “I heard Earl MacDonald is recovering nicely. He most definitely has you to thank for that.”

“And you too,” she said, offering credit where it was due. “A quick diagnosis makes all the difference. I’ve noticed the ER is filled with them since you started.”

“That’s kind of you. I don’t believe you’ve met my friend, Doctor Jones.”

“Killian,” Doctor Jones said immediately, before offering a heart stopping smile of his own. Emma had yet to see the man smile, and her heart skipped a beat, the rhythm of her pulse skittering in an almost blissful way. “A pleasure to meet you, Swan.”

He offered his hand to her, and Emma took it, shaking in greeting even though it was uncommon for doctors or nursing staff to do so. Chief Mills stressed that germ management was a top priority at Mist Haven, and she’d come as close to banning the practice as was legal in the state of Massachusetts. Usually Emma didn’t mind, but germs were the farthest thing from her radar when their fingers touched. Instead, Emma was filled with the zapping sense of promise and a thrill of warmth that made her head swim.

“Emma,” she whispered. A beat passed between them, and Emma lost herself for too long. Only the clearing of a throat beside them brought her back to the moment. She let go of his hand, but tracked the slight disappointment on his face when she did. It filled her with a rush of something long forgotten. A sense of peace and elation she hadn’t tasted in years. “Um these are my friends, Ruby Lucas and Mary Margaret Blanchard. Ruby’s the head nurse in the cardiac unit. And Mary Margaret runs OT for the surgical division.”

Emma tore her gaze from Killian, watching her friends make their greetings. Ruby handled her own completely, and Mary Margaret seemed to have gathered her courage, but now it was David who looked shocked and spell bound. Everyone appeared to be thrown off kilter, and it was only Ruby in control of herself. To say her friend was positively delighted with these new developments would be an understatement. That glee rang out clear as day in her invite to both the attending doctors.

“So… Doctor Nolan, Doctor Jones, any way we could convince you to join us? The coffee’s just all right, but the company’s not half bad.”

Both men agreed immediately, and Emma fought her hardest not to blush. It was hard though, and her pulse was racing in the face of this development. Killian came to stand by her, the space between them so small but still too much to bear. She tried to get her bearings as the cranky barista handed her a latte. She struggled to think of something – anything – to say, but she was tongue tied. Instead, she looked at Killian, finding an openness in his expression that said he felt the same exact way. That gave her comfort and removed some of the tension from the moment.

“The hospital’s been buzzing since you got here,” Emma offered, waiting with him while he ordered a no nonsense coffee of his own. “A lot of people are hoping you’ll stay on past the month.”

“And you, love? Have you such hopes?” his words were earnest but laced with an almost cocky easiness that sent Emma’s mind humming in delight. Still, she played it cool. At least she hoped she did.

“Jury’s still out,” she replied, smiling when he looked a little crestfallen. “Well can you blame me? I hardly even know you. Still haven’t seen what you’re capable of.”

“Only a matter of time, Swan. You can trust in that.”

His words may seem benign, but they were loaded with hidden meaning, and Emma knew he meant each one. She swallowed harshly, thinking of the things he might be capable of. Damn, was it hot in here? Or was it just the devil on her shoulder spinning another one of those dirty dreams of hers?

When they’d all gotten a coffee, the five of them moved off to the patio just outside, reserved for hospital staff. The grounds were manicured beautifully, maintaining an oasis that seemed totally disconnected from the hectic nature of the hospital. This was one of Emma’s favorite places here, and she was surprised to hear that neither David nor Killian had been here yet. They all spent a few minutes making non-threatening small talk, with mostly Ruby moving the conversations along. But despite the fluttering feeling she was grappling with, Emma couldn’t say she hated this building anticipation. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had enjoyed herself so much. She was seated next to Killian, fully aware that all of his attention was devoted to her, and she reveled in it. At one point, while the others were talking about something with the OT department, Killian whispered to her and her alone.

“This might be presumptuous of me, love, but I find I’m helpless to resist. I was wondering – that is, I was hoping that perhaps, you and I, we could…” His eyes looked from hers down to her lips, and Emma wet them absentmindedly. She heard a low growl, and realized it was coming from him. She shifted in her seat, turned on in a way she had never been before. Instinctively she moved closer, sensing the sinfully sweet current between them, like lightning just before it cracked across the summer sky.

“We could…” she continued, hoping he would elaborate and put into words what she herself was wishing for.

“That we could -,”

“Paging all staff to the ER. All staff to the ER for an incoming trauma, category 4.”

This time the PA was most definitely broadcasting a hospital wide announcement, and the irony wasn’t lost on Emma. Ruby looked positively forlorn at the interruption, but it was somewhat poetic after how they’d gotten here.

“Category four,” David repeated, standing immediately, prompting all of them to do the same. “We haven’t had a four since I started. We’re gonna need all hands on deck. Killian?”

“Aye, mate. I’m with you.” He looked back to Emma, and only had time for the swiftest goodbye. “Until next time, love.”

Emma and her friends watched them go, running towards the ER. Belatedly, they realized that if a trauma of that magnitude was coming into the hospital, there were bound to be surgical cases flooding their ward soon enough. They hustled back to their wing, focused once more on their jobs and the lives on the line that they were sworn to help heal and make better. But Emma still carried that moment with her for the rest of the day, and when the shift was over and done, and she’d done all she could to help the people in her care, she was left wondering what exactly Doctor Jones was hoping to ask, and when, oh when, he may try to do so again.

Post-Note: So there we have it. This was originally going to be a oneshot for my CS mixtape series, but alas, the muse wants what she wants, and this time that’s a three part mini-story for all of us to share. Hope that you guys have enjoyed so far and I would love to hear what you think! As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope you are all staying well in this crazy time! xE

[need-a-fugue]

Trustworthy (Chapter 4)

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years teaming up with Santiago Garcia on every mission you had a hand in coordinating… and the past several months plotting with him to take down the biggest bad to hit your radar. But even all your time at the DEA and all your experience in the field couldn’t have prepared you for this.

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader (slow burn)

Warnings: Violence, language

Okay, yeah, sure, fine, you and Santi might not have been 100% honest about what you were planning in the jungle.

In fairness, neither of you ever actually said that this recon mission was at the behest of the CNP or Colombian military or any other government entity. You may have hinted at it. You may have neglected to correct the guys when they assumed. But you never actually told them that anyone had requested the raid on Lorea’s house.

What you had said was that there was a good chance this could turn into… something more. Something that might end up in a hefty pay day for all of you. You just never told the group of men that you and Garcia were actually banking on it.

You didn’t love the idea of lying to a bunch of strangers whom – if they agreed to everything – would end up holding your very life in their hands. Frankly, just the thought of doing so felt… sleezy. Especially considering that these men were Santi’s trusted friends. His brothers. But Santiago insisted that it needed to be played this way – They’ll never go for it if we tell them what we’re really up to. But I promise you, bonita, once they’re here, once they see… they’ll be all in.

He clearly knew his team because after just that single two-hour recce, a couple rounds of beers at a local bar, and a rather stirring, pointed speech, they were, in fact, all in.

And why not, really? The only one of them who had anything to lose – a family beyond those seen at the occasional holiday, wedding, or funeral – was Tom. And he’d been struggling so badly lately with impending alimony and child support and two kids’ worth of college tuitions – eight years minimum – that the money alone did all of their convincing for them.

It was illegal, yes. It was, as the captain said, “downright criminal.” But it wasn’t wrong. And as long as everything went according to plan, no one would know anything about any of it.

In the end, the world would be down at least one piece-of-shit, megalomaniacal drug lord murderer.

Some of the struggling people of Leticia – because you and Santi had promised each other and Yovanna that you’d drop a good chunk of the money into the hands of local charities – would have better lives.

Tom’s girls could go to college without having to worry about paying off student loans until they die.

Will could finally get rid of his old junker and buy a nice car – maybe not the Ferrari Ben was angling for, but a nice car all the same – to get him back and forth across the country for all those rousing speeches he insisted he would not stop giving.

Benny could invest in better training, at better gyms with better equipment… and real trainers. Or, hell, he could give all that shit up and quit getting his ass handed to him by kids ten years his junior, all in the hopes of capturing what was almost always one hell of a disappointing purse.

And Frankie? Well, Frankie wasn’t sure what he’d do with his share. But it sure would be nice to not have to worry so damn much. To not have to scramble to make the house payment every month. To not have to beg that dick who owns the local airfield to let him take on a few jobs just so he could settle into a cockpit for a bit. To maybe have the time – and funds – to take a woman on a date every now and then… not that he had a clue who that woman might be.

And you and Santi? Well, after years of accomplishing nothingin the fight against Lorea – the fight against the drug trade that had ruined and taken so many lives around the world – you two could finally say that you’d actually made a difference. Even if you couldn’t quite say it aloud for everyone to hear.

000

By the time you get to the compound early Sunday morning, rain’s already been falling for hours. The area’s nearly flooded, so your off-road path is basically a sprawling swampland. You barely slept, your hip is aching like crazy from an old injury, and the minute you step out of the SUV you damn near squeal like a stuck pig as you suddenly sink up to your calf in thick, sucking mud.

“Shit,” Frankie mutters under his breath – under a breathless laugh, you’re pretty sure – as he hops out and wraps a steadying arm around your waist. “Let me help,” he says, the words so soft, you can barely hear them over the unyielding pounding of the rain.

You try to balance, holding onto the door, one foot just barely sinking into the soft earth as Frankie leans down to pry the other from what feels like an utterly engulfing quicksand. He struggles, still holding you around the waist while his left hand works to grip your leg, your boot, your ankle… whatever he can wrap his fingers around. But it’s no use. The op has yet to even begin and already you’re stuck. In the disgusting mud. Deep in the endless jungle. With no hope of ever getting out.

You let out a painfully dramatic, completely despairing sigh and glance up only to see Benny laughing. Really laughing… not even trying to hide his utter, unabashed amusement at your awful predicament. You shoot him as threatening a glare as you can muster. But it only makes him laugh harder.

“Go get into position,” Tom orders, slapping him on the shoulder and shaking his head – once again in a seemingly all-too-practiced dadway – before he bends down to help Frankie out.

Finally, finally, the two men manage to free you. Shockingly, your boot leaves the earth as well, though you can feel the muck inside squelching beneath your instep and in between your toes. Your lip curls in disgust as you haphazardly wipe the boot – bottom, sides, and top – on the wheel well, a bit of mud getting squeezed out near your ankle as you do so. “I’m gonna get jungle rot,” you mutter bitterly as you continue to smear grime along the body of the SUV.

Tom swats your leg away. “Just be sure you don’t give away your location with all the squishing,” he says with a hint of a smile. Then, patting Frankie on the back, he finishes with a much more stern, “Let’s do this,” and takes off to find his position, face and shoulders both set as he easily drops into soldier mode.

“I’m still not sure if I like that guy,” you begin as you and Frankie head for the high ground, “or really freaking hate him.”

He bites out a quick laugh, turns to show off that too-damn-perfect smile, and replies with an easygoing, “Yup.”

Once you make it out of your drop-in point, everything else seems to be smooth sailing. The worst part is just waiting, especially with the rain. Waiting for Garcia’s informant to drop off the van. Waiting for the guards to leave for church, the family not so quickly following suit. Waiting for the guys to move in – Frankie shooting a quick wink alongside, “Watch my six,” as he heads out to join them. Waiting for the all-clear from Benny before you can finally enter the house yourself.

The house. Lorea’s house.

You’d been waiting for this for too damn long. Years of hunting the man had led to these last few months of building out this very plan with Santiago… and then to the last week of recon and final plans with these soldiers whom you barely even know. For all of the initial mistrust heaped upon you by them – and you honestly don’t blame them for any of it – the truth is, they know they have each other to depend on. You’re the odd man out here. You’re the one who should be questioning them… their dedication to this mission. Their loyalty to Santi, and by extension, to you. Their desire to end Lorea’s reign of terror.

You’re in this to take that man out. And if just one of these guys decides that’s not going to happen – for whatever reason – you’re shit out of luck. You should trust them only as far as you can throw them, which would be… not very far. But as you catch sight of Ben standing inside the front door, eagerly waving you in, and as you see the trail of blood leading into the kitchen, a voice over the coms calmly declaring, we had to shoot one of the guards in the leg, something inside of you shifts and settles and all of the worries about who may or may not be trustworthy simply flit away to nothing.

But other concerns quickly rise to take their place.

Watching the highly trained special ops team move about you – each man light-footed and fluid, so quiet that their breathing is nearly inaudible, even as one of them leans over your shoulder from his position behind – is nerve wracking enough to make your legs begin to tremble. You knew what you were getting into here. You knew that this would be dangerous, that it would require a certain level of skill and technique and training. But it isn’t until you actually see these men – these elite soldiers – in action that you realize how woefully inept and unprepared you are in comparison.

Self-doubt begins to seep from the cracks now forming in your carefully crafted façade. Uncertainty, insecurity, fear starts to build up and rise within you, burning like bile creeping up the back of your throat. By the time you and Santiago finish the second sweep of the downstairs and begin climbing the steps to the second-story landing, your entire body is vibrating with regretful apprehension.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you hear as you approach the study upstairs. It’s the room where your informant took the picture of the stacks of cash after her delivery, the holding area where all of Lorea’s blood money sat, just waiting to be counted. But when you enter, there’s no money to be found, just pissed-off-looking soldiers surrounded by the empty bags they had planned to fill with cash.

“Your girl burned us,” Frankie mutters blankly, eyes full of regret and annoyance as he leans heavily against one wall. His dark gaze collides with yours for just a fraction of a moment before he shakes his head and breathes out, “We gotta get outta here.”

Your brow crinkles in confusion, all of the insecurity bubbling through your body suddenly settling and getting replaced by a sort of righteous indignation. “Whoa, wait,” you spit out, sidestepping Santi and rushing to the center of the room. “We’re not leaving. We’re not done here.”

Will gives you an almost disappointed look and blankly mutters, “Nothing here, sweetheart,” before dropping heavily into a chair in the corner.

You shake your head, a pointed certainty to your words as you level him with a heated stare and say, “Lorea’s here. He’s always here. He does not leave.”

Tom scoffs. “Yeah, well, he left today,” he says, tone full of spite. “And he took the money with him.”

You spin to face him, “No,” pouring from your lips in a firm and unyielding tenor. “He’s here. And so is the money.”

“We did a full sweep,” Will breathes out.

“So we’ll do another,” Santiago chimes in, suddenly at your back.

You look around at all the forlorn faces and roll your eyes, realizing all at once that, for all their training in war, these men don’t have a freaking clue about the kinds of things you deal with in your job. They’re used to encountering soldiers – enemy combatants, trained mercenaries, militias… people who’s purpose is to fight. That’s not what Lorea is. That’s not what he does. He didn’t move deep into the jungle to fight, to wage war, to build an army. He came here to hide.

“You guys are fucking idiots,” you declare with a huff. “I once spent two hours tearing apart a houseboat before finding the guy we were after squatting in a hidden cutout near the bilge. A few years ago, we found fifty thousand dollars under a false bottom in a hot tub while serving a search warrant. Another raid ended with us tearing apart a kid’s tree house that had cash hidden under the floorboards. You think because Lorea isn’t sitting here behind his desk, counting his millions like fucking Scrooge McDuck that they’re not here? That he’s not here?”

“Didn’t McDuck swim in his money?” Benny inquires from behind, the question earning quick huff of a laugh from his brother.

You feel Santi step away from your side. “She’s right,” he says, his eyes dancing around the room, looking for… something. They land on a mostly empty can of paint, and he smiles, sniffing quickly at the air. “Fresh paint.”

Tom’s eyes widen and tick towards the wall to his left as his lips split and out pours what you had all along seen as being an obvious truth. “The house is the safe.”

000

When it rains, it pours. You’d been the one to say that, to inanely mutter the adage through the coms with a huff as Benny took off back inside the house – the safe – while you sat in the now heavily weighted van, so full of money that the suspension sags to the point of extremeconcern.

The guards are coming back, the sound of their SUV’s engine just barely chugging atop the steady beating of the downpour that had engulfed you all for the past few hours. They’re coming back, and everyone but you is still inside.

Call it greed. Call it vindictiveness. Call it whatever the fuck you want. But you all had agreed to get as much plata out of that house as possible, to fill the cars to the freaking brim with as much of that motherfucker’s money – his lifeblood, his love, his everything – before setting fire to the whole damn thing. You’d been in this business long enough to know that bringing down one cartel merely opens up a door for others to grow. But still, the idea of watching Lorea’s empire burn makes you wet in a way the torrential rain beating on the roof on the van never could.

You toss a glance back, over you shoulder at the mound of duffel bags, a child’s suitcase thrown into the pile as well, all filled to bursting with cash. It’s pretty unbelievable. Incredible. You’d never been the type to really worry about money, no more so than the average guy. But damn if being surrounded by millions of dollars doesn’t make you a little lightheaded. And the fact that it’s Lorea’s money?

Despite Santi’s little bullshit pep talk the other night about how all of you deserve this – for serving your country and fighting for what’s right… blah, blah, blah – you honestly don’t feel like you deserve this money any more than anyone else. But Lorea sure as shit doesn’t deserve it. And you trust yourself – and each of these men by your side – to put it to far better use than he ever would.

You can’t see the guards, can’t see the SUV carrying them from your vantage point in the van. But Benny had told you to stay put, he’d get the others and he wanted you ready to drive as soon as they came out. Still, you know now that the first car must’ve arrived at the compound because – aside from the steady pounding of the rain and the wild pulse of your heartbeat echoing in your ears – everything is suddenly silent. No more hum of an engine. No choppy callouts over the radio as Ben seeks out the guys. Everything is silent and still. Until… pop-pop, short and sudden, muffled by the thick walls of the house.

Over the coms you hear – in a calm, controlled tone – Two down in the entryway. Another sharp pop, followed by a voice you’ve come to easily recognize. That’s three.

There’s something in the way their words are uttered, something in the utterly placid tenor of each of their voices. Something also to the sparse shots – so unlike the rapid, automatic gunfire you’re used to being thrown into amid scared and untrained local police and inexperienced, foolhardy kids hired as cheap labor by the cartels. There’s something about the way they all rush suddenly into your line of sight – fast but calm, controlled – as they pour out of the house, a few racing past to find the guards’ SUV, the sounds of their footfalls and quick breaths nearly drowning out the whir of the engine as you turn the ignition. There’s something about it all that leaves you feeling – despite the fact that things did not go as planned and you can see that all-too-recognizable, pissed-off scowl tugging at Santiago’s features as he flies past your window – calm as well. Safe, even.

Frankie climbs quickly into the passenger side of the van just as you fire up the engine, Will slowly pulling himself into the seat behind him. “Shit,” you mutter, eyes widening as you take in the grimace on the man’s face, the blood on his hands and shirt. “What the hell happened?”

“S’fine,” he tells you, punctuating the statement with a nod, a directive to look forward. “Let’s move.”

You put the van in gear and hit the gas, maneuvering steadily through the compound and towards the front entrance. “Did you get shot?” you inquire again, your voice showing less concern and more simple curiosity.

“Yeah,” he groans, a thick breath hitching as you hit a particularly big bump in the road. “Your friend Lorea popped out of his little hidey hole and got me. Guess you called that.”

You whip around to face him, eyes now like damn saucers. “You got him?”

Frankie grabs your arm and gives a little tug to get you turn back towards the front, only speaking, answering for Will, once you do so, once you settle a still-wild stare on the path ahead, “Yeah. Pope took him out. He’s dead.”

You say nothing for a long moment, letting those words seat inside of you. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. How long have you wanted to hear those words? How long have you been gunning for that son of a bitch, waiting for someone to take him out… hoping that someone might be you? Santi doing it is the next best thing, you figure.

A sudden explosion lights up in front of you as you approach the gate and Benny blows past it, and past the van, angrily muttering to himself all the while. “He looks pissed,” you comment blithely, looking to Frankie for something akin to permission before flooring it and ramming through the gate like you’re just itching to do.

He gives a staunch nod forward. “Can’t blame him,” he says, capping it off with a softer, rather encouraging, “Go for it.”

You hit the gas, glancing in the rearview mirror and asking, “The others are in the SUV?” as the guards’ car pulls up behind you and waits for Ben to jump in.

Frankie nods – “Yeah.” – and his eyes suddenly tick your way, narrowing a bit as they rove your body before coming to rest on your hands as they tightly grip the wheel.

“What?” you ask, feeling his stare burn into you.

Will laughs from behind – a swift, stilted thing that tells you just how much pain he’s actually in – and lets out an amused, “Fish always drives.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you say, voice dripping with put-on sincerity as you continue down the unpaved road. “Do you want me to pull over?”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s no hiding the plainly obvious pout tugging at his lips when he looks over at you and mutters, “Just watch where you’re going.”

The first half or so of the long drive up to the airfield is spent in tense silence. You don’t fight it, don’t force any sort of conversation, don’t inquire about what exactly happened in that house. You can tell that these men need a long-ass moment to come down from everything. Hell, your own adrenaline still has your pulse thrumming endlessly through your ears. And you’d been safely ensconced inside this van for most of the action. It’s not like you had to fight your way out of there. It’s not like you got shot.

Your eyes bounce up to the rearview mirror, finding Will curled into himself in the backseat. “How you doing, Ironhead?” you ask, purposefully infusing the ridiculous name with a mocking intonation.

He looks up and catches your gleaming eyes in the mirror, notes your slight smirk, and gruffly replies, “Well, I’m not dead yet.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Frankie supplies from your right. He spins around to give his friend a quick once over. “He’s fine.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous,” you challenge, raising a brow. “Didn’t see you coming out of there with a new hole in your body.”

“Didn’t realize you were so focused on my body,” he returns with a bit of a lilt.

Will groans loudly from the back. “Don’t start flirting up there,” he practically orders before the no-argument tone slips into something softer, almost jovial. “I’m suffering enough back here as is.”

“You’re fine,” Frankie shoots back, turning bodily in his seat and craning his head towards his friend. “You act like you’ve never been shot before.”

“I’m retired,” he replies. “Think I forgot how much this sucks.”

You nod, almost to yourself, emitting a simple, assenting, “Yeah.”

Frankie leans back, still remaining sideways in the seat, his stare now wholly on you. You glance over and see his brow scrunch in… is it concern? Or merely curiosity? “You’ve been shot?” he asks, an odd edge to his voice.

Again, you nod. “I have. Didn’t care for it.”

“See, Fish,” Will mumbles from the back as he slips further down the seat in an effort to find some semblance of comfort. “Maybe you’ve been so busy flying around rich businessmen in the private sector that you’ve also forgotten how shitty this is.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he mutters with a frown.

Will cocks his head at you – not that you can see it, eyes remaining trained on the road lest you get another watch where you’re goingevil stare from the man by your side. “What happened to you, sweetheart?”

You snort out a short laugh, glancing quickly at Frankie and saying softly – and more than a little bit condescendingly – “He likes to call me sweetheart.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man in the back sighs out, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Guess I’m just a run-of-the-mill chauvinist.”

You shrug. “I never said anything about you being run-of-the-mill.” And from your right, you hear a soft snicker. A gentle smile spreads across your face and your hands loosen their death grip on the steering wheel just a bit as you feel the air filling the van begin to lighten, tension seeming to slowly spill away. After a lingering – but not at all wrought – moment, you shift a bit in your seat and say, “Went on a raid just outside of Tijuana. My first down in Mexico. And I took a bullet in the hip.”

“Shit,” Will intones. “Hell of a bienvenido.”

“Yeah,” you breathe out, suddenly all-too conscious of the old ache in your joint that’s been plaguing you all day. “But on the plus side, I’m now always the first to know when it’s about to rain.”

Both men laugh. You laugh – despite the pain in your hip and the worry about the guy in back… and your terribly distracting infatuation with the wide smile now painted on Frankie’s face. You all sit in the van – on your way to flee the country after committing a terrible crime – and laugh about the fact that, despite each of you being a little bit broken, none of you are dead yet.

Taglist:

@tweedlydumbtweedlydoo @icanbeyourjedi @greeneyedblondie44 @mrscrain-x7 @kyjoraven@elephants-are-a-thing @nakhudanyx

[clockwork-fayz]

The Most Perfect Proposal Chapter 4 (LUTTEO)

CHAPTER ONE     CHAPTER TWO    CHAPTER THREE   Ao3 

Matteo paced the floor of the locker room at the Jam and Roller. It was nearing eight, the roller rink closed for the night but nowhere close to being empty. Final preparations were being made around the rink. Pedro was testing the music in the sound system. Jim and Yam were going to each of the friends making sure the outfits were perfect. Delphi and Jazmín were arguing over camera settings.

Gastón and Simón walked into Matteo muttering the words to the song to himself.

“Matteo, you are going to wear a path into the floor if you keep pacing like that,” Simón laughed. Matteo looked up at his accomplices.

“Is everything ready?” he asked them.

Gastón pulled out his phone, looking at the extensive list they had made. Matteo wanted every part to be planned.

“Let’s see. Simón , is the place decorated?”

“Check,” responded Simón .

“Everyone is dressed like they are going to a dang gala?”

“Check.”

“Song is queued up?”

“Check.”

“ Jazmín  has the camera ready?”

“Check.”

“Ring?”

Simón started to pat down his pockets and Matteo looked at him with wide eyes. Simón started to laugh.

“I’m kidding, I have it here.” He held up the little black box. “And I promise I will not let it out of my hands.”

Matteo sighed. “Don’t do that to me Simón , I think I might have a heart attack, I am so nervous.”

Gastón patted his shoulder. “Matteo, you have been dating Luna for years. You know that she is going to say yes.”

“Still, I am more anxious right now than I have ever been in my life. I’ve performed a hundred times and nothing compares to the nerves I have at asking Luna to marry me.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” Simón said, “But it will be perfect. We have worked so hard.”

The three thought of all the work they have been doing the past two months to prep for this moment. They had to bring all of their friends into their confidence to pull off this show. There were secret practice sessions, having to lie to the girls to cover up where they were going, not to mention the bill it cost to pull this whole thing off. But nothing was too much for Luna.  

A phone buzzed and Símon checked what it said. “ Ambár says that they just asked for the check. I am going to guess we have about 15 minutes. Vamos Matteo, get your skates on so we can mic you up!”

Matteo sat down, pulling on his skates. They looked a little out of place against his formal outfit, but he knew Luna would appreciate him wearing them.  She had, afterall, designed them.

Matteo smiled at the memory of how excited Luna was for weeks before his birthday. Luna was terrible at keeping secrets, and he knew that she was hiding something. She would slam her laptop shut when he would go by or quickly change the topic of her and Nina’s conversation when he walked in the room. It was amusing for him to watch her try to be secretive, yet he had no clue how special his present was until he opened it first thing that morning on his birthday.

They were white skates with black wheels and laces. On the side was doodles that Luna herself had drawn. Some of the highlights were a strawberry, a moon, and a heart with a L + M inside them.

“I present you with a Luna Valente original, one of a kind design. Each drawing hand drawn by your loving girlfriend.” She looked at him with her big doe eyes. “Do you like them Matteo?”

He was in shock as he stared at the skates. “Luna, this is the best gift I have ever gotten,” he said, “How am I ever supposed to wear them, I don’t want to ruin them.”

“Oh you are so going to wear them,” Luna  had said, “Because I'm making you design a similar pair  for me in pink and it’s going to be super cute.”

Matteo double checked that Luna’s skates were in her locker, taking one out to look at the doodles on them.  It took him an entire week to draw the design for her pink skates. He was not the best at drawing, but Luna had cried when the package arrived anyways, exclaiming that they were perfect.

“They are on their way!” Simón said, holding up his phone and snapping Matteo out of his thoughts. “We got to get everyone into their places!”

Gastón set his hand on Matteo’s shoulder.

“Ready?” his friend asked.

Matteo smiled, the memory of Luna in his mind.

“Definitely.”

……

Luna had been surprised that Ambár had wanted to go to such a fancy restaurant with her and Nina on a random Friday night. But Ambár had made the excellent point that they didn’t need a special occasion to dress up nice and go out with just the girls. Ambár had even come over to pre-approve Luna's dress. Apparently she did not care what Nina was wearing.

It was a nice meal, a little expensive but Ambár said it was on her. During dinner, Ambár’s ring kept sparkling to catch Luna’s eye. It was a few weeks ago that Simón had told Luna that he was going to propose to Ambár . Ambár told all the girls a few days later every detail of the proposal and Luna couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy.

Luna had been waiting a very long time for Matteo to propose to her. They had talked about getting married a few times. Just small conversations while they were laying in bed on Sunday mornings, dreaming about what their wedding would look like.  But Luna’s happiness for Simón and Ambár was genuine and she tried to squash the envy down and let Ambár have her moment.

As the three girls walked out of the restaurant and to the car,  Ambár looked at her phone and groaned.

“I am so sorry girls, but do you mind if we stop by the roller rink before we bring you home. I have to pick up some paperwork.”

“Of course not,” Luna replied, Nina agreeing.

The driver drove them up in front of the building. Ambár opened the door and then paused when she noticed Luna was not moving.

“Uhm do you mind coming in with me? Nina you too.” Ambár asked.

“Won’t it only take a minute?” Luna asked, “We can wait here, right Nina?”

“No I need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Just come!” Ambár snapped. “Please!”

Luna exchanged a confused look with Nina before unbuckling her seatbelt.

Ambár unlocked the front door, opening it so Luna could walk in first. Luna walked in to see Jazmín standing in front of them, holding Luna’s skates in one hand and a camera in the other.

“What is happening?” Luna asked, she looked at Nina and Ambár for help.

Nina shook her head, not a clue what was happening. Ambár held her hands up.

“I was told two things. Make sure you look good and bring you here after dinner.”

Jazmín handed Luna her skates and gave a little squeal. “This is so exciting! Put these on. You are going to need them.”

Luna sat on a chair and carefully laced them up.

“ Jazmín , what is going on?”

Jazmín smiled but pretended to zip her lips. “I am not going to spoil anything! Here let me help you.”

Jazmín pulled Luna up to her feet, still recording with the camera. She took Luna’s hand and started to pull her along to the rink.

“Alright, Luna is going first. Nina and Ambár you can sit in the bleachers please.”

Luna was shaking from the buzz of anticipation as let Jazmín lead her towards the rink. Her mind was spinning too fast to try and solve the mystery of what was happening.

It was pitch black when Jazmín led her to the edge of the rink and let go of her hand. “Stay there,” Jazmín s said, leaving Luna standing by herself .

Music started to play from unseen places and someone started to sing. Although she could not see, Luna knew that voice from the first note. It was the voice that was in her mind every minute of everyday.

“ That first night we were standin at your door, fumbling for your keys and I kiss you.”

A spotlight illuminated the middle of the floor, and there he was, her Matteo, standing in a white tux with his hand in his pockets.

“Ask me if I wanna come inside cause we don’t wanna end the night”

He skated towards her, his hand outstretched.

“Then you took my hand and I followed you.”

She reached out and took it, her fingers holding on to his, her heart beating faster. He pulled her into an impromptu routine, her laughing as he twirled her around as he sang.

“And I see us in black and white, crystal clear on a starlight night. In all your gorgeous colors, I promise that I love you for the rest of my life. See you standin in your dress, swearin in front of all our friends there’ll never be another I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”

He pulled her out to the middle of the floor, and then let go. Pink lights came on and danced around the room, leaving her in awe as he skated circles around her.

Now we’re sitting here in your livin room. Tellin stories while we share a drink or two. And there’s a vision I’ve been holding in my mind, we’re sixty-five and you asked when did you first know, I always knew.”

The lights came on around them, and out came others on rollerskates. Luna covered her mouth, smiling but tears threatening her eyes as the voices came into unison with Matteo’s. A choreographed was playing out in front of her.

“ And I see us in black and white, crystal clear on a starlight night. In all your gorgeous colors, I promise that I love you for the rest of my life.”

Although the dancers were her friends, Luna could not focus on them. All of her headspace was dedicated to Matteo.  He was gazing at her and he moved like he didn’t even have to think of the steps.

“See you standin in your dress, swearin in front of all our friends there’ll never be another I promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”

He came up and kissed her hands on that line, before pulling away and belting.

“And I want the world to witness when we finally say I do. It’s the way you love, I gotta give back to you.

He winked at her, as he skated backwards to the rhythm of the music.

“And I can’t promise you picket fences or sunny afternoons.

Luna didn’t notice that Simón had skated behind Matteo, handing off a tiny black box that Matteo slipped into his suit jacket pocket.

“But at night when I close my eyes.”

The music slowed and started to fade out and Matteo skated towards her again, grabbing her hands in his, admiring his girl through crystal clear eyes.

I see us in black and white, crystal clear on a starlit night. There’ll never be another.”

He bent down on one knee. Luna gasped, her heart beating out of her chest.

I promise that I’ll love you.

“Luna Valente,” Matteo said, “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I cannot imagine how boring life would have been if you hadn’t run into me that day in Cancun. I want to spend every moment of every day for the rest of my life with you.” .  

Matteo reached into his pocket, pulling out the ring box and opening it. Luna’s hand went over her mouth as she saw the ring.

Nestled in the velvet cushion was a rose  gold ring with a sun around the center diamond and two moons adorning the sides.

“Luna Valente. Will you marry me?”

Luna had her arms around him before he even finished the words. She almost knocked the box out of his hand.

“ Si!”

The room erupted into cheers as they kissed. Luna was crying as she held onto him, unwilling to stop kissing him. It was such a long kiss that Símon shouted, “Put it on her finger!”

They parted and Luna saw that Matteo also had tears running down his cheek but the biggest smile on his face. Matteo pulled the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger.

They kissed one more time before their friends tackled them into hugs. Luna showed off her ring to the girls. They awed over how fitting it was for her.

Simón  and Gastón skated over and hugged Matteo.

“That was a success if I were to say so,” Gastón said.

“Completely,” Matteo grinned, then lowered his voice. “Two down, one more to go.”

Gastón paled a little and Matteo laughed, clapping his shoulder. “Don’t worry hermano, so far the success rate is 100%”

Matteo skated back over to Luna, wrapping his arms around the back of her.

“I love you so much Luna,” he said into her hair. Luna turned her body around to face him in his arms.

“And I love you Matteo,” Luna smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “How did you do this? ”

“Mmm I can not reveal my secrets,” Matteo grinned.

“Please.”

Matteo shook his head and kissed her on the nose. “Not going to happen chica. Now what do you say about going for a late night skate through the park and leaving everyone else to clean up?”

Luna grabbed his hand, intertwining her fingers with him.

The two snuck away from their friends, seen only by Nina and Gastón .

“That was really sweet,” Nina said to her novio, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Did you help set that up?”

“Of course,” Gastón replied. “Did you like it?”

“Si, very much.”

Gastón kissed her hair, silently anticipating the upcoming day where he would get to do the same for Nina.

[spine-buster]

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 1

A/N: To celebrate William “Thirst Trap” Nylander’s birthday last Friday, I’m going to do a double post this week!  (Also maybe because he’s technically not in this chapter).  Make sure you set your clocks for Thursday at 7:30pm cause that’s when I’ll post Chapter 2.  Chapter 3 will then proceed next Monday on our regular once-a-week schedule.

September 3rd, 2019

Aberdeen Bloom was still looking for a job.

She was still sending out her resume to companies.  She was still making follow-up phone calls.  She was still creating alert notifications for jobs she’d be interested in.  She was still going for interviews.  She was still shaking hands and thanking people for their time.  She was still writing follow-up thank you emails.  She was still getting rejection calls.  She was still submitting work to writing contests and magazines.  She was still getting “It’s not what we’re looking for right now” emails.  

She sighed.

So maybe getting the dream gig was harder than she thought.

It wasn’t like the bank had let her go.  She was still earning something to keep her afloat, but it was the bank.  It wasn’t writing, it wasn’t anything else.  It was the same stuff every single day and Aberdeen was starting to resent it.  She didn’t move downtown to stay a bank teller.  She moved downtown to start her career, and this was not starting her career.

But then a phone call came on Sunday – peculiar, she thought, since it was a long weekend and had expected everybody and their mothers to be at a cottage – asking if she wanted to come in for an interview.  To MLSE.  For the personal assistant job.  Aberdeen didn’t even remember applying to MLSE.  But she was desperate, so she said yes, and now she found herself looking in the mirror with her best “interview outfit” on ready to ace it.

She took a deep breath.  She could do this.  She packed her bag, made sure she had her wallet at keys, and left the condo, deciding to walk the short way to 50 Bay Street so she could pick up breakfast on the way.  Even while eating the ham and swiss sandwich, she could feel the butterflies in her stomach – it didn’t calm her nerves at all.  For some reason, she felt like this was her last chance to build something towards her career.  If she didn’t, she’d be stuck bank-telling forever.  When she stood outside the doors of 50 Bay Street, she took a deep breath before walking in.

“When you arrive, tell the receptionist you are looking for Frances Munro” the woman on the other line had told her when she called for the interview.  As she approached the receptionist, she tried to look as confident as possible.  “Hi, my name is Aberdeen Bloom.  I’m here for an interview with, um, Frances Munro?”

“Aberdeen Bloom?” another voice called out.  

Aberdeen looked up to see another woman lurking in the back, a clipboard in hand, dressed impeccably well.  “Yes.  Hi.”

The woman looked at her.  Aberdeen could see her give a quick up-down.  “Great.  Human resources certainly has an odd sense of humour,” she quipped, chuckling for nobody but herself.  “Follow me.”

Aberdeen did as she was told, giving a polite nod to the receptionist who was already ignoring her.  She circled around the desk and followed Frances, who walked through the door but didn’t hold it open.  “Okay, so I was Brendan’s personal assistant but I recently got promoted so now I’m looking for someone else,” Frances explained.

“Oh, so you’re replacing yourself.”

“Well, I’m trying to.  We tried to be proactive and hire early but the last two Brendan sacked after only a few weeks.  We need to find someone who can survive here – who can survive Brendan’s schedule and survive the pressure of the Leafs.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.  Absolutely.”  Aberdeen looked around awkwardly.  “Who is Brendan?”

“What?” Frances stopped dead in her tracks to look back at Aberdeen.  “Oh my God, I will pretend did not just ask me that – Brendan Shanahan, he’s the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs,” she practically hissed at her, continuing her walk.  “Not to mention a hockey legend.  If you work a year for him you can get a job in any adjacent field you want – sports, media, journalism, writing, whatever.  A million people would kill for this job.”

Writing.  Writing.  WRITING!!!!!  Alarm bells were going off in Aberdeen’s ears.  “It sounds like a great opportunity.  I’d love to be considered.”

Frances giggled, pushing her clipboard up to cover the smile on her face.  They had stopped in front of a series of doors and Aberdeen felt like she was going to have to pick the one without the tiger in it.  “Aberdeen…the Toronto Maple Leafs are a hockey club.  An interest in hockey…even just a little bit, is crucial,” she explained condescendingly.  Aberdeen wondered how someone like this could even get promoted.  “Do you play hockey?

“No.”

“Do you watch hockey?”

“No.”

Frances looked shocked.  “Do you know who the Toronto Maple Leafs are?”

“Of course I know who the Toronto Maple Leafs are,” Aberdeen huffed.  “I just don’t…I mean, I don’t…”

“If I put a picture of Mats Sundin in front of you right now could you pick him apart from Wendel Clark or Doug Gilmour?”

There was an awkward pause.  “Are those Mr. Shanahan’s right-hand men?”

“Oh my God,” Frances muttered under her breath.  “Have you ever been to a game?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

“No – no, I’m not lying,” Aberdeen said quickly.  “One of my friends – her dad gets tickets through clients or whatever.  I’ll go to maybe one a year with her family.  But it’s not – I’m not like…the experience is fun.”

Before Frances could respond with something that was ruder than the last thing she said, her phone let out a really loud notification.  She balanced the clipboard on one hand as she took out her phone.  But as she looked at the message on the screen, her face dropped.  “Oh my God, oh my God, no!”

Aberdeen’s face dropped too.  “What’s wrong?”

Frances dropped her clipboard onto the desk and ran around it, grabbing the phone receiver and dialling a number.  Almost automatically, she began talking.  “He’s on his way.  Tell everyone the story needs to be retracted now,” she barked before hanging up.  A man walked through another door and suddenly, it was complete mayhem.  People were running through everywhere.  

“He wasn’t supposed to arrive until 9:30.  What happened?” the man asked Frances.

“Those idiots at the Sun had the audacity to actually post the story about his daughter online.  God, these people!” Frances huffed.  

Aberdeen stood awkwardly as everyone seemed to go into mayhem mode.  Frances was running around like a chicken with her head cut off, that one guy had mysteriously disappeared, and men in suits were in and out of everywhere with panicked looks on their faces.  She watched as Frances whipped into the office and began putting stuff out on the desk – a glass of San Pellegrino water, a venti Starbucks, and the sports sections of all the local newspapers.  When she was done, Frances grabbed the clipboard from her desk, a pen, and ran back down the corridor they just came from, leaving Aberdeen there, standing alone.  Awkwardly.  

Eventually, she could hear Frances’s voice again – much more polite this time – and footsteps of very expensive shoes clacking down the hallway.  “Yes Mr. Shanahan, of course.”

“And tell David at The Sun that I’m this close to revoking media access to the locker room if he publishes another article to do with my children ever again,” a voice Aberdeen could only assume was Brendan Shanahan’s was echoing down the hallway.

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Then tell Ben up in the legal department to draw up the paperwork necessary for that to scare them,” she heard, and finally, they rounded the corner.  Frances and Mr. Brendan Shanahan, President of the Toronto Maple Leafs.  He was angry.  Aberdeen could tell, even if she didn’t hear any of his last sentences – his body language showed it all.  She stepped back a few steps so he could get into his office unimpeded, where he would very obviously yell at the top of his lungs once he shut the door.  

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Frances stood in front of Aberdeen, shielding her from Brendan’s view as he looked back at Aberdeen from inside his office.  “Nobody – well – human resources sent her about the personal assistant job and I was going to interview her…but, but she’s hopeless,” she chuckled out, “and totally wrong for the job—”

“Well clearly I’m going to have to do that myself, since the last two you sent me were completely inadequate,” he deadpanned.  Frances’s back stiffened at the words.  “So send her in,” he finished as he sat down at his desk.  

Frances walked out of Mr. Shanahan’s office.  “Mr. Shanahan would like to see you,” she said politely, loud enough for him to hear.  It was when she leaned in closer that she began to whisper so he couldn’t.  “Brendan Shanahan is the absolute nicest person you will ever meet,” she began, “but he is also the busiest, most intense, most dedicated hockey professional in the entire National Hockey League.  Do you understand?”

Aberdeen gulped.  “Yes.”

“And I hope you know that this is a very difficult job for which you re totally wrong, and if you mess up my head is on the chopping block.”

‘That might not be so bad’, Aberdeen thought.  She would have appreciated some words of encouragement, like what Kasha had given her this morning, rather than the shpeal she was getting now.  But Aberdeen digressed, and nodded her head.  She took out a copy of her resume from her purse before walking in.

When she did, she couldn’t help but notice all the fine detailing of his office.  A lot of oak, bookcases, a lot of framed pictures of his family, and a giant Toronto Maple Leaf logo plastered – literally plastered – onto the wall.  He even had a giant oak desk – so regal – in the middle of the room.  

“Who are you?” Brendan asked in a tone much softer, but still angry.

Aberdeen took a deep breath.  This was her time to shine.  “Hi Mr. Shanahan.  My name is Aberdeen Bloom,” she said, stepping forward awkwardly to place her resume on his desk.  “I recently graduated from the University of Toronto—”

“And what are you doing here?” he asked.

Aberdeen blanked.  What was she doing here?  “Um, well, I think I could do a good job as your assistant, and um…” she started, noticing that Brendan was putting on his glasses.  Her gave her a look as those words left her mouth.  He grabbed the newspapers off his desk and placed them in front of him, over her resume.  

‘Alright Aberdeen.  Cut the bullshit’ she told herself.  “Yeah, so, I graduated U of T and want to become a writer.  I sent my resume out everywhere, and my work to try to get published, and finally I got a call from the MLSE human resources department, and…well, basically it’s this or bank-telling.”

Brendan didn’t look up from his newspaper.  “So you’re not a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs.”

Aberdeen’s body stiffened.  “Uh…no?”

“And before today you had never heard of me.”

“…No.”

There was an awkward pause.  Brendan didn’t seem like he had any more questions in him – if he even cared.  It was so clear that he didn’t and that she was bombing this interview.  But Aberdeen felt more words coming.  “I was recently published in Acta Victoriana, the oldest continuous university magazine in Canada – twice, actually – and was also published in the Hart House Review—”

“I think we’re done here,” Brendan said, not looking up from the newspaper.  That was it.  Cut throat.  Didn’t care.

Aberdeen swallowed her pride.  So this interview was a dumpster fire from the get-go.  But it was him that came in angry and him that came into this without an open mind.  She couldn’t help but scoff at how he dismissed her; he didn’t even have the courtesy to look up.  She turned to walk out.

‘Don’t let it end like this’ her mind told her.  ‘You have so much within you that he doesn’t want to see’.

So she turned around.  “You know what?  You’re right.  I know nothing about hockey,” she began, her voice as strong and powerful as she could make it.  “The woman who brought me in asked if I knew the difference between Matt…Gilmour and something…something Sundin, and I didn’t.  I don’t fit in here,” she continued, noticing that he finally looked up.  “I’m a girl who grew up in an old bungalow in Etobicoke with immigrant parents.  I’m an English major with a double minor in classics and film.  But I’m smart.  I’m really f…really smart, and I learn fast, and I will work hard if you give me the chance to do so here—”

“Good news – they’ve agreed to take down the story,” somebody burst into the room interrupting her speech.  Brendan looked at her until the person laid their iPad down in front of him.  “The tweet linking the article is gone and it’s completely gone off their website.  Adrienne Batra wants to call you to personally apologize.”

“There’s no way I’m speaking to that woman,” Brendan mumbled.  “Tell her I want it in writing.  And one to my daughter as well.”

“Thank you for your…time,” Aberdeen said, as if he gave her any.  She walked out of his office and out of his life forever.  

Aberdeen decided to take the stairs, slowly walking down the flights of stairs, hearing her shoes clack against the bare concrete.  There, she could at least wallow in her self-pity after that train wreck of an interview.  She could deliberate about her next choices and steps.  Keep bank-telling?  Go back and get her Master’s?  Take a new course?  Tell her parents how she was failing?  Move back home?  Never do anything with her life?  Live in her parents’ basement for the rest of her life?  Maybe she should just stay in this stairwell.  Maybe she should start living here, since there was nothing else for her out there in the big wide world.  Maybe she’d become a hermit.

As she finally reached the ground floor, she thanked the receptionist again, who ignored her again.  Typical.  As she was about to walk out of 50 Bay Street, she heard her name being called.  “Aberdeen!”

She turned around.  Frances was waving her back, rolling her eyes at the same time.  Aberdeen furrowed her brows.  Did she forget something?  What was going on?  She scurried over to Frances.  “What’s wrong?”

“Brendan wants to speak to you.”

Aberdeen gulped.  She was going to get yelled at by the President of the Toronto Maple Leafs.  He was going to completely obliterate her entire life and not-yet-burgeoning career for that little stunt she pulled inside his office with that speech, and she’d never be able to find a job anywhere in Toronto again.  She may as well just move into her parents’ basement now.  

As they both rode the elevator back up, Aberdeen’s heart kept beating faster and faster.  “Do you know what he wants to speak about?” Aberdeen asked.

“I have no clue,” Frances said absent-mindedly, typing something into her phone.

When they arrived back upstairs, Frances led her straight back into Brendan’s office.  He was working on his laptop now, instead of reading his newspaper over Aberdeen’s resume.  “Brendan, I have Aberdeen back for you,” Frances announced.

“Excellent,” he said, his voice much more upbeat than what is was five or ten minutes ago.  “Franny, I’d like you to take Aberdeen to get her picture taken for her new MLSE identification badge,” he said.

Frances’s eyes bulged out of her head.  So did Aberdeen’s.  “W-What?” Frances stuttered out.

“And after that, I’d like you to take the town car and take Aberdeen to the Eaton’s Centre to get her an iPad Pro with a keyboard so we can start the process of downloading all the necessary apps and internal mail server she’ll need to do the job.”

Aberdeen’s stomach dropped.  “I…I got the job?” she asked, completely flabbergasted.  Was he nuts?  Completely, certifiably insane?

“You start next Monday.  Is that fine with you?”

Aberdeen found herself nodding.

***

“I’m so glad Steven could get that done for you today,” Brendan said as he rounded the corner of his desk so he could sit in his fancy big chair.  Aberdeen nodded, looking at the screen of her new iPad Pro.  Steven, one of the guys from tech support, had helped her download everything she needed to have on it.  

“Yeah.  It was all really fast.”

“After you finish up here today you may need to go back to the Eaton’s Centre,” Brendan informed her.  “You’re going to need to purchase a work wardrobe.  Keep every receipt because MLSE will reimburse you.  I prefer black, but really…get whatever you think is appropriate for an office.”

“Okay.”

“No heels necessary.  When we travel, I obviously don’t mind something more laid back – especially trips to the west coast.  Do you have a valid and working passport?”

“Yes sir.”

“Make sure you have it when traveling.  Our charter plane will still need to see it.  We’ll make copies.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ll need to be available every game day.  We usually have Sundays off, but it’s a very untraditional schedule.  You’re okay with that?”

“Yes sir.���

“And I have your contract for you,” he said, grabbing some paperwork on the desk.  “We’ll have someone from the legal department come and explain it shortly,” he handed it to her, “but you’ll see the salary at the bottom of the first page.”  Aberdeen looked down.  Her eyes bulged at the number.  “If everything is to your liking, then we can sign.”

“Okay,” she nodded her head.  She gulped.  

Brendan looked at Aberdeen and could tell she was nervous – it was obvious in her short “Yes sir” responses anyway, but she looked like she wanted to curl into her shell.  “Before Ben from legal gets here, I would like to apologize about this morning,” he said.  “A local newspaper ran an article about one of my daughters, and my children…well, my children are completely off-limits.  Everybody knows that.  But sometimes some journalists like to see how far they can take things, even though they know family is off limits.”

Aberdeen understood where he was coming from.  If anyone ever said anything bad about Siena or Camden, she’d have their head on a spike.  She couldn’t even imagine what it was like for a father, or any parent for that matter, to have an article published about their child without their permission.  “I understand, Mr. Shanahan.”

“We are like a family here, you know – MLSE, but the Leafs especially.  You will feel part of that family soon enough.”

Aberdeen nodded nervously.  “I’m sure I will, Mr. Shanahan.”

“Well…” he shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair and smiling at her.  “Congratulations, Miss Bloom.  You are now an employee of MLSE.”

***

“With the Leafs?!” Kasha was shocked when Aberdeen told her.  She’d started pouring glasses of wine when Aberdeen told her she got a job, but once she revealed the specifics, Kasha was shocked.  “Gosh Aberdeen, remember when my dad would bring me, you, and Siena to games with the company season tickets?”

“I know.”

“And now you’re working for them?!”

“For the President.  I’m his personal assistant.”

“Oh my God!” Kasha exclaimed.  “Seriously though, I bet a million jocks would kill for that job,” she commented as she finished pouring the wine.  

“Yeah.  Great,” Aberdeen shrugged her shoulders.  “Thing is, I’m not one of them.”

“Well, you gotta start somewhere, right?” Kasha offered.  She picked up both wine glasses, handing one to Aberdeen.  Kasha held her glass up.  “To jobs that pay the rent.”

Aberdeen giggled.  “To jobs that pay the rent.”

[kmomof4]

Of Darkness, Vampires, and Soulmates

IT’S HERE Y’ALL!!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am to share my second true MC with you all! I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

A/N This fic has been a looooooong time coming. It started as an idea last fall of Vampire Killian rising from the bed where he had just turned Emma, and saying to her “Arise, my love. Join me, forever.” That idea turned into Vampire smut written for @thisonesatellite​’s birthday last October, which you can find here if you’d like to read it. But the more I thought about it, more of a story started to come to me, until I finally decided that since we were going to have one more go round of the @cssns​, I should probably write for it, for once. So Arise, My Love was the jumping off place that birthed this entire fic. Not everything from that has made it into this one, which is why I’ve kept AML up on ao3 as a stand alone fic instead of deleting it. 

I owe a TREMENDOUS THANK YOU to @profdanglaisstuff​ for her stellar beta services, hand holding, and sharing her wealth of knowledge about the French Revolution, and to @hollyethecurious​ for being my sounding board and brainstorming partner over the many months I worked on this. I would also be remiss if I did not thank the ladies of the CSSNS and CSMovieMarathon discord for their encouragement and their help with selecting a title. And finally to @spartanguard​ for her INCREDIBLE and GORGEOUS artwork!

For the purposes of this fic, much established vampiric lore has been thrown out. My vampires eat, drink, sleep, and have sexual relations just like people do, and they can also go out in the day. The fic is complete and after I post Ch 1 this Sunday, I’ll be updating every Wednesday. Ao3 link

Tagging my peeps: @hollyethecurious​ @winterbaby89​ @snowbellewells​ @stahlop​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @jennjenn615​ @kingofmyheart14​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @branlovestowrite​ @thisonesatellite​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @flslp87​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @let-it-raines​ @shireness-says​ @kymbersmith-90​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @bethacaciakay​ @searchingwardrobes​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @teamhook​ @aprilqueen84​ @qualitycoffeethings​ @superchocovian​ @artistic-writer​ @donteattheappleshook​ @doodlelolly0910​ @seriouslyhooked​ @tiganasummertree​ @lfh1226-linda​

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed. Under the cut unless Tumblr ate it.

Prologue The Battle Begins

Approximately 1000AD

Once Upon a Time…

There was an only son of a Lord. A Lord of wealth and lands. A Lord who was honorable, kind, and true. The son had been taught these same virtues and was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. However, this son was fascinated by all things dark, magic included. Once he came of age and his parents were gone, he began a careful and diligent study into magic in general and dark magic in particular. The Dark Magic, a nebulous, formless entity that had existed since the dawn of time, became aware of his dedicated explorations and after about a decade of watching from afar, finally approached.

The Darkness had been waiting untold millennia to find a suitable host for itself. Reading with ease the desires of the man’s heart, desires of wealth, power, and long life, and a willingness to do anything to get them, it coalesced, revealing itself to this amateur. It chuckled to itself as it held out everything the naive, novice practitioner of magic ever wanted. All the Darkness wanted in exchange was a host. A host that could physically do all the things that the Darkness longed to do. Blinded by his greed and ambition, Rumplestiltskin easily agreed to what it offered.

When The Reul Ghorm discovered that the Darkness had finally found a host, she took action. Forming a dagger of twisted and dark beauty, she intended to tie the Darkness to the dagger. Once the binding was complete, she planned to kill the host with the implement, destroying the Darkness forever.

She flew into Rumplestiltskin’s chamber, manifesting in her full-size form as the moonlight poured into the room. She approached the bed where he lay and raised the dagger over him. As she recited the incantation over his sleeping form, the Darkness fought back. A veritable tornado blew up in the room, whipping the draperies and anything else not weighted down into a frenzy. Rumplestiltskin’s eyes flew open, the pupils red as the dawn. His mouth opened in a scream that was heard for miles, fangs on prominent display. A thin tendril of darkness emerged from his open mouth and hovered around the blade. The fairy was frightened for the first time in her long existence, but knowing exactly what was at stake, she strengthened her resolve and maintained her grip on the magical instrument. She watched as the tendril was absorbed into the dagger, completing the spell.

The Darkness was tied to the dagger. Rumplestiltskin’s name emblazoned on the shaft confirmed it. Unfortunately, the brief moments that she stared at her handiwork would prove costly.

Before the Blue Fairy could follow through with her intent, Rumplestiltskin leapt from his bed. Waving his hand as the Darkness surged in him, the dagger appeared in his fist and his enemy was thrown across the room. His cackle rang through the chamber as the stunned fairy shook her head, trying to get her bearings about her. He advanced on her holding the dagger aloft, malicious intent in his red eyes.

Blue shook away her disorientation and realized he was speaking to her. Her eyes widened as she comprehended what he said.

“I’d get out of here while you still can, dearie.” She knew the high pitched voice was that of the Darkness. The blood red pupils and exposed fangs set in an almost reptilian hide shimmered in the low light. The horrifying visage sent her heartbeat into even more of a gallop then it was already. “This is mine now, and if you stay, I’m going to carve out your heart with it and feast on your blood.” He waved his hand again, this time at the dark device. Dark magic fell from his hand and enveloped the blade. “And now, no one with magic will be able to even touch it.” His lips drew back into a cruel grin as he continued to stalk toward her.

Finally getting herself together, The Reul Ghorm disappeared with a cascade of light magic just as the demon lunged at her. Releasing a cry of frustrated victory, Rumplestiltskin gloated as he returned to his bed. Knowing exactly where to hide the deadly, and powerful instrument, he waved his hand over it again, sending it to the vault hidden below his castle. Satisfied with himself and the outcome of the confrontation, he lay himself back on his bed and fell into dark dreams.

The battle was far from over, however.

~*~*~

Thank you for reading. Chapter 1 will be posted on Sunday.

[bipercabeth]

love me, won’t you

THIS FIC. i’ve been saying i’m going to write an essay about it for ages and that time has finally come so take a seat y’all it’s about to get fun. 

when i first saw the disclaimer (”and imma formally apologise now because neither of us are Greek and our knowledge is based solely on google searches”) i was the 👀 emoji personified. some background: i’m greek! that’s the whole reason i picked up pjo in the first place. my yiayia is from mykonos, i did traditional dancing k-12, i went to greek school on sundays and learned the basics of the language. very greek. so i knew i was going to enjoy the fic bc hannah and sophii have never written anything less than amazing, but i was ready to enjoy while putting aside my own knowledge.

and then i saw the last names. 

LISTEN. i saw the words “romeo and juliet au” and that annabeth’s family surname is onassis and absolutely lost my shit. percy’s family’s surname being kapetanidis sent me over. 

then it was little details in the first chapter. family being inescapable, the entire town loving gossip, always having family members home, the way percy talks about his proyiayia. all golden AND all consistent throughout the fic. annabeth’s theios calling her agapi after an argument absolutely took me out because it can be read two ways! agapi is a term of endearment most of the time, but it’s a powerful guilt trip after arguments too. and i absolutely love that. 

okay i cannot properly gather my thoughts on the plot itself because i need to stew in my feelings and probably do a whole ass reread but like. my god. the consistent themes of love as seeing and being seen! the characterization! the nuance and time dedicated to relationships outside of percabeth, especially annabeth’s with her mother! i’m losing my mind!

thank you for writing such a masterpiece i’m sorry this is so half baked. this is me rn: 

[violetsmoak]

The Specter at the Feast [1/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556579/chapters/59300599

Summary: A tragic incident as a child left Tim Drake with the ability to commune with the dead. It’s a skill he’s used to close some of the most confounding cases to come across his desk at Gotham City’s Major Crimes Unit. But when he learns of an apparent murder-suicide that could link to a very personal case he’s been working for ten years, he might need more than a connection to the afterlife to solve it. Especially when Detective Jason Todd, a man in denial about his own psychic abilities, is assigned lead on the same case.

Sparks immediately fly between the two detectives—and not necessarily in a good way—as they are forced to work together to take down a macabre serial killer before it’s too late.

Disclaimer: This story uses characters, situations and premises that are copyright DC Comics, Inc. No infringement pertaining to graphic novels, television series or films is intended by violetsmoak in any way, shape or form. This fan-oriented story is written solely for the author’s own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Author’s Note: Here’s one of the stories I’ve been working on for JayTimWeek. As I mentioned on tumblr, I got hit by a big blast of inspiration for one of my original stories and have kind of been working on that like mad for the past three weeks, so unfortunately I didn’t have time to dedicate to the prompt fills for JTW as I wanted to. As soon as I run out of steam for that, I’ll get back to filling the prompts. So, bad news I probably won’t post anything else during the event, but eventually my prompts will all crop up once I recapture my attention span :P Huge thank you to strawberyjei for taking the time to beta-read this chapter!

_______________________________________________________________

“That stuff will kill you one day.”

Tim Drake frowns and glances to his right, noticing the half-amused and half-exasperated smile playing on his best friend’s face.

“Will not,” he retorts with the instantaneity of an oft-repeated argument and leans more securely against sun-warmed stone. He takes a defiant sip from his jumbo travel mug, enjoying the bitterness of his favorite morning indulgence—slow-brewed light roast with three shots of espresso. “Besides, how else do you expect me to be awake enough to drive out here at this hour?”

He doesn’t have to see Kon to know he’s rolling his eyes.

“You don’t actually have to—you’re the one who keeps showing up; I just wait here.”

There’s something buried in the joking tone, and Tim shifts in discomfort as he detects the unspoken scolding. Choosing to ignore it, he swallows another mouthful of coffee and stares past the well-kept shrubbery, observing the gentle waves on the river.

From a distance, Gotham’s elegance is deceptive. By daylight, the riot of architectural styles jutting into the horizon appear whimsical instead of grotesque, and the layers of filth and decay suggest character as opposed to rampant corruption. Even on a Sunday, it teems with energy.

I guess that’s what still convinces people to move to the crime capital of America.

Tim knows from experience that the city’s grandeur is not as noticeable when combing her streets for the criminal element.

That knowledge doesn’t stop him from digging out his cellphone and snapping a few lazy photos. The quality won’t compare to shots taken with the Nikon he has at home, but it’s rare to perceive the city of his birth as something other than sinister; he won’t squander the opportunity.

“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Tim suggests in a light tone. “I could just be out here, minding my business, taking in the scenery—”

“Hah!”

“—and you’re stalking me.”

“Stalking’s your thing.”

“Is it really stalking if you get paid for it?”

“Whatever you say, detective,” Kon sneers without true malice and crosses his arms across his chest. Despite the chilly early spring air, he’s wearing only a black t-shirt with a red Superman symbol. Tim gave it to him for his birthday a few years ago, but the sight of it these days still elicits a nostalgia-induced lump in his throat. “Either way, you’re the chump who showed up here on his first day off in forever. Sunday, remember? You’re supposed to be spending the day lounging at your fancy estate, getting ready to gorge yourself on Alfred-made dinner, not bumming around with me.”

“That’s not for hours,” Tim dismisses, “and to be honest, I’d rather skip it.”

Kon glances sideways at him. “Haven’t you missed it all month?”

“I was working the entire time. Everyone in the family has to do the occasional weekend rotation, Alfred knows that. Besides, I see them all at some point or another every week.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Kon taunts. “I thought we agreed you needed to stop isolating yourself?”

The furrow in his brow is one that Tim recognizes as a prelude to concern, though, and he suspects he won’t be able to deter his friend.

“I’m not isolating myself.”

“That so? When was your last date?”

And there it is.

“I left myself wide open for that one,” Tim sighs.

“You know I’m right.”

“Here it comes…”

“I’m serious—you can’t still be carrying a torch for your ex—”

“There are no torches.”

“—hoping it’ll work out—”

“I’m not!”

“—because that ship has sailed,” Kon concludes. “She’s dating your sister for God’s sake.”

“I’m aware.”

“And it’s been two years.”

“I’ve been on dates in the last two years,” Tim protests.

“Cassie doesn’t count,” Kon replies. 

That earns a wince. “We agreed never to speak about that.”

“And I told you I was fine with it, man, it’s not like I was there.”

There’s a heavy sensation in Tim’s chest at that reminder, and he scowls at Kon for bringing it up. That usually earns a shrug or palms-up gesture of surrender, but today Kon squares his shoulders and raises an eyebrow in challenge.

“I already told you it meant nothing. We were both hurting and just…needed someone,” Tim insists.

Kon ignores him. “Which I’m okay with—relieved, even. I know you guys wouldn’t have looked at each other if circumstances were different. Which brings me back to Cassie, not counting.”

“She was there for me as much as I was there for her—can we please talk about something else?”

“Depends—do you have a better example than my last girlfriend?”

“Hey, I’ve been with other people! Remember Tam?”

“Yeah, your dad’s former business manager’s daughter,” Kon deadpans, “who you only started dating because everyone thought it was convenient. And she left you because you weren’t interested enough in the relationship.”

“What are you talking about? I was interested!”

“You didn’t even get to second base with her, man.”

“Are you seriously using the baseball metaphor?”

“Then there’s Bernard Whatshisname for the occasional booty call.”

“I regret ever telling you about that.”

“And don’t even get me started on that cop from Hong Kong that you hooked up with last month.”

“Okay, that one was a mistake,” Tim admits.

“But none of those were actual relationships. You haven’t had one of those since Steph.”

“I don’t recall you being this judgy before.”

“You’re one of my only sources of entertainment,” Kon deflects. “It’s like binge-watching Netflix and yelling at the idiot hero to stop screwing up his life. Except in this case, the idiot hero can actually hear me and have to listen.”

“‘Have to’ is debatable…”

Kon pushes off the stone they are both leaning against and turns to face him. It always annoys Tim when he pulls this, given he’s three inches taller and has twice the upper body strength.

“This is what you do, Tim. You keep people at a distance and on the rare occasion where they disappoint you or hurt you, you close yourself off,” Kon sighs. “You need to relax, man.”

Tim’s phone rings, granting him a welcome distraction.

“The last time I relaxed, I got stabbed,” he reminds Kon as he glances at the device. He blinks in surprise when he recognizes his brother’s scowling face and phone number flashing up at him. “Speak of the devil.” He swipes at the screen and answers, making a face at his best friend. “Gremlin.”

“Timothy,” is the terse answer, and Tim can almost hear the scowl in the younger man’s voice.

Huh. First name today. Either something bad happened, or he wants something.

Tim ignores the tiny edge of worry blossoming at the thought; if it were a family emergency, Alfred or Dick would call him, not Damian.

It must be the second thing.

“What do you want?”

“Where are you this morning?” the younger man asks, ignoring the question.

“It’s Sunday, where do you think I am?” he shoots back, deciding two can play ‘answer-with-a-question.’

Except Damian seems to have no intention of following the usual script.

“Of course,” he says instead, sounding distracted. “Then you should be close enough.”

“…For what?”

There’s a beat of hesitation, and then Damian says, “I may have stumbled upon something you’d find…interesting.”

Because that doesn’t sound ominous…

“Define ‘interesting’.”

“I’m at work,” Damian says. “Securing a crime scene.”

That moves Tim along the spectrum from wary to defensive at once. He goes to substantial lengths to avoid working with any of his siblings in a professional capacity. It’s a necessity in a family where law enforcement is all but synonymous with the name Wayne. Even if their older brother Dick hadn’t started the tradition of downplaying that link in the professional sphere, Tim has always been diligent in establishing professional boundaries. So far, his family has respected them. Damian, in particular, has always been gleeful—almost militant—in keeping to that maxim; for him to break it, something must have upset him. 

And for him to reach out to me instead of Dick is…I don’t think it’s ever happened.

“Are you sure you should have called me then?” Tim queries in a careful tone, wanting to make sure he’s not misreading the situation. “Dick might be a better option.”

“Richard wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t view it the same way.”

“The same way,” Tim repeats, the words sparking something—a flicker of suspicion begins to take shape.

“I shouldn’t even be telling you this,” Damian continues, “so you’d better be appreciative—”

“Spit it out, Damian.” Tim doesn’t have the patience for the adult version of ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know’.

“Murder-suicide. Apparently. The bodies were posed,” Damian says, voice low as if he doesn’t want someone to overhear him, “And all the victims are holding hands.”

Tim’s mouth goes dry and his entire body tenses. “All?”

“Five,” Damian tells him shortly.

That makes Tim close his eyes in dismay. “Other than the number it’s the same MO as the others?”

“The crime itself, yes. Don’t your files say the last one was five years ago?”

Tim knows it should irritate him that Damian’s been poking around his casefiles—he always considered office protocol as more guidelines than law. But the infraction pales next to the knowledge blossoming into being.

It’s happening again.

“If you want to see for yourself, get here before whoever they assign as the lead detective does,” Damian is saying.

Torn, Tim’s eyes flick to Kon, who clearly knows what is being said and whose expression is all-too knowing for Tim’s liking.

“Where is it?” Tim asks at last.

“Diamond District. Gotham Tower Apartments.”

“That’s unusual,” Tim grunts, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest. Only one of the earlier cases took place in what either of them would consider an upper-class neighborhood. “Also, outside of my jurisdiction.”

“That wouldn’t stop me if I were in your position.”

There’s a click and then a dial tone.

Tim gives a slow exhale, closing his eyes.

He and Damian were never the closest, but once the early friction between them eased, they developed their own dynamic. And one specific shared understanding that they bonded over in secret, away from the prying and often unintentionally judging eyes of family.

“How is he a jerk even when he’s trying to be helpful?” Tim mutters more to himself than Kon. He’s already calculating how long it will take him to get across the bridge from Metropolis.

Half an hour, with no traffic.

It will be cutting it close, assuming Damian holds off giving his own precinct the details until the last second.

He must be serious about this if he’ll risk being called up on discipline for not following protocol.

Tim turns to Kon. “Sorry, but I need to head out.”

“Like I won’t see you again next week,” Kon dismisses with a grim smile. “After all, you’re always here.”

“You say that like you don’t want me to be,” Tim replies, suspicious.

“Don’t put words in my mouth. You’re my best friend, I obviously want you to visit. But you need more in your life than work, checking in with me and—I dunno—chasing some white whale.”

“Really?” Tim deadpans. “You, of all people? You want me to give up trying to get justice—”

“Not what I’m saying,” Kon interrupts. “I’m just trying to tell you there’s more out there and you deserve to find it.” He pauses. “And   agrees with me.”

Tim cuts off a curse with a hiss. “That is a low blow, you two ganging up on me.”

“What can I say? You’d better listen, or he’ll do something impulsive, if he hasn’t already.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tim grumbles, keying the coordinates of the crime scene into his phone’s GPS.

“Remember,” Kon calls after him, “ ”

“Always do,” Tim replies. As he heads for the gates of the cemetery, brushing his fingers against the headstone that reads: Connor Kent, Beloved Son, Brother, Friend—Brave Fireman of the Metropolis Fire Department.

⁂

“Six days,” Jason Todd fumes, glaring down at the muddle of papers and file folders in front of him. “I’m gone for six days, and you jerks decide to turn my desk into an episode of Hoarders.”

“Relax, Todd, it’s just paper, not toxic waste,” Detective Adams drawls as she passes by, unapologetically grabbing a few of the offending folders on her way.

“This? This is not just paper, it’s a potential biohazard.”

His desk, usually the immaculate outlier in the chaotic, open concept dumping ground of the 12th Precinct, is now covered in empty coffee cups, old take-out cartons, and other detritus.

“Says the man who filled my desk drawer with a cubic foot of golf balls the last time I was on leave.”

“None of which were covered in saliva—I mean, come on!” He holds up several crumpled napkins. “It’s just common fucking courtesy!”

“Take it up with Rayner.”

“Of course it was him. Guy has it out for me…”

“You did shoot him.”

“One time! And it was a shoulder wound! If I hadn’t, both our covers would have been blown and we’d both be dead.”

“Cry me a river, Todd,” Adams snorts. “I’ve got a lead on the Kirano case and don’t have time to wipe away your tears of manly angst.”

She stalks away, totally missing how he flips her the bird. Not that his heart is in it; he’s actually fond of Onyx and would even work with her if she could stand him. But the one time they were partnered together, it ended with them running away from an exploding truck and a two-inch-thick shard of metal through her shoulder.

Still trying to figure out how I got the blame for that one…

It’s not like he goes into a situation intending to get the people next to him injured. For some reason, he just happens to be better at intuiting incoming threats, whether it be a perp taking a swing with a knife or stopping just short of being shot.

It happens, sometimes, this inexplicable intuition. Roy always called it a sixth sense, but Jason takes issue with any of that hokey paranormal crap. He gets hunches—gut feelings that have served him extremely well in his career and helped him rise quickly through the ranks.

But he doesn’t like to think of himself as psychic.

He likes thinking of the possible reason for his “hunches” even less.

Finally getting the worst of the garbage into the trashcan beneath his desk, Jason starts on the wayward papers, pleased that most of it can be shredded and won’t require a trip to the file room. There’s one folder, however, that doesn’t fit anywhere: some arson report that has nothing to do with any of his ongoing cases.

He skims through the particulars of the folder and notes the name on the CSI report—B. Allen—which suggests it isn’t even recent. He’s been friends with the new ME, Stephanie Brown, for two years now, and never met the guy that was here before her.

Maybe someone’s trying to find a pattern or something.

Jason decides to bring it to the captain; if anyone’s missing a file related to their case, she’ll have a better idea.

He skirts around uniformed officers moving to and fro, some leading handcuffed offenders to the holding cells at the back of the building, others talking over their cases with each other or on the phone. He passes the office corkboard, filled with everything from sketches of perps at large (it seems Dr. Pamela Isley is up to her usual eco-terrorism) to reminders about the Gotham General Blood Drive (anyone who donates in uniform gets the rest of the day off, as well as the next one).

By the time he reaches the captain’s office, he’s sweating. It might be crisp outside, but inside there are so many bodies moving around that it might as well be the hottest day of summer.

Raising his hand to knock, he’s surprised when the door opens inward and the captain steps out.

“Todd,” she says with a blink, then nods to herself. “Right. You’re back today. That works. Get in here—I’ve got a case for you.”

He’s too used to Artemis’ brusque manner to be bemused; instead, he ducks into her office and closes the door behind him.

“It’s not another missing kid, is it?” he asks apprehensively; the last case involved a fourteen-year-old girl. “No promises I won’t break some scumbag’s teeth again if that’s the case.”

“You’d better not break anyone’s teeth,” Artemis chides him, a warning glint in her eyes. “Especially since you just got off suspension.”

And that for using “unnecessary force” in apprehending a drug dealer selling his shit to a bunch of kids.

“But no,” she continues, sitting behind her desk and reaching for a file, “it’s not. The officers on the scene are reporting it as an apparent murder-suicide.”

“And you thought that’s how I wanted to spend my first day back at work? I’m touched. Whatever made you think of me?”

“The fact that you were conveniently in front of me when I opened the door.”

“Aw, here I was expectin’ you to say something like, ‘well, you’re a constant pain in my ass, but you’ve also got the best record for closin’ cases in this department’.”

“You don’t need the ego boost. Now either take it and be grateful, or I’m giving it to Adams as I planned—”

“Gimme,” Jason interrupts, snatching the file folder from her.

“That’s what I thought.”

He settles into one of the chairs in front of the captain’s desk and opens the folder.

“I want this one looked into and closed as soon as possible,” Artemis goes on.

“Why?”

“Because of who the victim is.”

Jason frowns, scans through the preliminary report to see that the victim—victims—have, in fact, been identified. His eyebrows shoot upward.

“J. Devlin Davenport.” He looks up at Artemis, askance. “The investment guy? The one being investigated for embezzlement?”

“Fraud Squad’s been building a case against him for six months now,” Artemis confirms. “The guy set up a fake company and defrauded his investors out of 200 million. They’re still trying to track the stuff he funneled through the Bahamas.” 

“If they find it, send it my way,” Jason says, still skimming through the papers.

“Could you sound any more cliché?”

“If I tried, maybe,” he replies, distracted as he slides the folder he brought to one side of her desk. 

“What’s that?” Artemis asks.

“Dunno. File was on my desk. Arson, I think. Figured someone left it there.”

“We don’t have any arson cases ongoing at the moment, but I’ll ask around. Maybe someone’s doing case research.”

“Uh-huh,” Jason murmurs. He taps the paper in front of him. “Listen, if they’re saying this is a murder-suicide, that’s probably what it is.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Look at the transcript from when it was called in.”

“‘Bodies of the deceased were…arranged around the dinner table’,” Jason reads. “What the… ‘lack of struggle might suggest sedation before they were removed to the dining room and posed’—posed? Like a photographer does?” He makes a face. “Kind of a lot of effort for someone who just committed suicide right after…”

“If I’m not mistaken, that would be the thing that needs investigating.”

Jason ignores the sarcasm, checking to see who called this in.

Al-Ghul. Huh. Well, at least he’ll keep the place from being overrun. Kid’s scary good at keeping the rubberneckers away.

And pissing off the MEs by lurking around while they work.

Jason knows the new officer just wants to learn, but he also tends to be a bit of an entitled know-it-all like most of his generation. It’s a trait he’ll lose the longer he walks a beat and works up through the ranks, but right now it makes most people want to punch him.

Jason might be one of those people if it weren’t for the fact Al-Ghul is meticulous about taking statements, prompt in securing crime scenes, and entirely willing to go the extra mile to help a detective close a case even when he’s off the clock. He recognizes the ambition and the need to prove himself from his own first years as a cop.

If he adjusts that attitude a bit, I might even put in a recommendation to put him on detective track…

Jason closes the folder and grins at Artemis.

“So, who’s the unlucky bastard you’re pairing me with today?”

He doesn’t work well with a partner, given his tendency to ignore rules in favor of his gut instincts. Especially since it’s never steered him wrong. Most other detectives can’t stand that, with the exception of his last partner, Roy Harper, who transferred to Star City six months ago to be closer to his daughter. Then again, Roy always considered rules arbitrary anyhow.

Since then, Jason’s been cycled through almost all the detectives at the 9th Precinct, all without finding a decent fit.

Pretty sure it’s Artemis’ way of torturing me since plenty of other guys work their cases solo.

It’s a blatant implication that he needs a babysitter.

“Rayner wrapped up most of his cases last week,” Artemis replies without even checking the duty roster on her desk.

“Hell no.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I giving you the impression you have a choice?”

“Unless you want me back on suspension, you’re not putting me with that asshole.”

“Well, Jason,” she says, finally looking up at him with an expression that suggests she’s fully ready to call his bluff, “you have this tendency to either piss off or sleep with whoever gets assigned to you. At least if you’re working with someone that pisses you off, I’m less likely to need to fill out the paperwork to reassign them afterward.”

“And if they happen to fall into both categories?” he leers at her in an exaggerated manner. She was one of his partners once, both on the job and briefly outside of it. He prods at the plaque on her desk that reads Captain A. Bana-Migdhall. In retaliation, she reaches over and raps him on the knuckles with it. “Ow!”

“You’re not helping your case right now.”

“You know, it’s not my fault Eddie decided he’d rather play Bond Babe for the scary CIA chick with the one eye. And Miguel’s the one who couldn’t keep his hands off me, so…”

“Just…go find Rayner,” Artemis sighs, waving her hand in dismissal. “I need that crime scene checked over and wrapped up quickly. The Mayor’s office wants an answer on this pronto.”

Jason sneers at that. “Of course they do. Because the Waynes and Davenports are old country club buddies, right?”

“Maybe fifty years ago. But Bruce Wayne spent more time as a cop than some rich college co-ed. He got elected based on his tough-on-crime stance, so it’s more likely he just wants to make sure the high-profile target of a class-action suit hasn’t been the victim of foul play.” Artemis pauses. “Especially since, having met the man, I’m pretty sure Wayne would have liked to beat the truth out of Davenport personally.”

“Now there’s a reality show I’d watch.”

“On your own time. Now go do your job.”

“Or Rayner.”

Artemis drops her pen and stares. “What?”

“Well, from what you said before, I figure if I fuck Rayner, it means you won’t ever make me work with him again, so—”

“Get the hell out of my office!” Artemis barks, throwing her tissue box at his head. Jason ducks and slips out of her office with a grin on his face.

There are a few good-natured laughs from his coworkers—“In trouble again, Todd?”—and he heads across the room to Kyle Rayner’s desk.

“What do you want?” the other detective demands, nose wrinkling at Jason like he’s just smelled something rank. It’s his default expression whenever they cross paths.

It’s also the expression that drives Jason to mess with him whenever he can.

Time for a bit of payback for the desk thing.

“Not me,” he says, affecting a nonchalant shrug. “Captain wanted to know if you could head down to the 7th.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Apparently her opposite number there has something she needs to be sent over and doesn’t want to wait on official channels to slow everything down.”

“What do I look like, a courier?” Rayner growls, but Jason can see from the way he smooths a hand through his hair that he’s got him.

It’s not exactly a secret that Jason’s workplace nemesis has a thing for Precinct 7’s Captain Troy, or that he’ll take any excuse to go flirt with her.

It’s unrequited, of course, and Jason’s bound to get an earful from Donna the next time they run into each other, but worth it to get Rayner out of his way.

“Whatever, man, I just work here,” he says, only half-pretending irritation. “You want to tell Captain ‘no’, it’s your balls in a vice, not mine.”

“Yeah, that’d be a switch, wouldn’t it?”

But the other man pushes back his chair and grabs his jacket.

Jason smirks at his retreating back and spins on his heel, returning to his own desk to grab his car keys.

Maybe the day’s looking up a bit.

⁂

There’s a gaggle of reporters already on the scene when Tim arrives, and he wonders not for the first time just how many of them have their own inside sources in the various police precincts of Gotham. There are also two ambulances on the scene, but thankfully someone had the foresight to park them in a way that shields the entrance of the high-rise apartment.

Officer Kelley, Damian’s partner of six months, is walking back and forth along the police tape to ensure none of the intrepid rubberneckers can get through. Head down and dark glasses firmly in place, Tim hurries past the press before they can recognize him (it thankfully doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it’s a pain in the ass) and approaches Kelly. Though they’ve met before, he flashes his badge and identifies himself. 

All of Tim’s official identification name him as Timothy Drake-Wayne and have since he was about seventeen, but he only uses the latter name if he absolutely must. With regards to work, he’s only ever used it during official meetings with the Commissioner or during obligatory police ceremonies.

Or when Bruce makes up some official sounding excuse to check up on me when he feels he hasn’t heard from me in a while.

He's endured at least one of those this past month.

Kelley barely raises an eyebrow, suggesting Damian must have warned her who he was calling and waves him through. It speaks to how much they trust each other as partners that she’s going along with what’s clearly a personal issue. Most other cops would question the need for two law enforcement officers from the same family needing to be at the same crime scene.

There are two elevators in the lobby, one of which is already open with a sign posted to warn residents from using it. Another officer Tim doesn’t recognize is waiting beside it, and Tim once again flashes his badge before heading up.

He’s subjected to a brief interlude of elevator muzak, before the doors open to the foyer outside of what has to be the victims’ apartment. Two ambulance techs are just exiting, carrying with them tools that are clearly useless here. He waits for them to pass and slips inside, taking in the stylish décor of the hall and nearby living room. Inside the latter, there’s a small woman speaking to another EMT, a blanket over her shoulders as she tries to speak through sobs.

Damian is watching the scene from across the room, mouth pulled into his habitual frown; this deepens when he sees Tim. Undeterred, Tim strides over—he was invited, after all.

“So, are you going to tell me why I’m risking Cassie’s wrath this morning?” he asks as he joins the younger man. Tim's friend might not be the type of captain to fire him for the flagrant conduct unbecoming, but she can make his life miserable for the foreseeable future.

“The bodies were found this morning by the cleaning lady,” Damian says, also not bothering with such trite pleasantries as a greeting. “No signs of break-in or struggle.”

“Cleaning lady? This early on a Sunday? They must have been paying her overtime.”

Damian raises an eyebrow. “Pennyworth works Sundays.”

“Only because it would take the same amount of phenobarbital to stun a moose as it would to make Alfred take a day of rest.” They exchange a wry look of agreement, and Tim returns to the subject at hand. “So, she identified the bodies?”

“Yes. Joseph Devlin Davenport, his wife Lina, and the three teenaged offspring—Neil, Irene, and Roderick.”

Tim’s eyes go wide; he’s met every one of them before. “Shit.”

“Indeed.” Damian flips through his notepad, though they both know it’s for show. “All the victims were executed by two gunshots to the head, except Davenport himself; the medical examiner was here, and her preliminary findings suggest the husband shot his wife and children first, then turned the gun on himself. There are no signs of struggle, no bruising, or markings on the bodies…”

“None of that’s particularly extraordinary though.”

“And then there’s their hands.”

They share a look.

“Did you mention that when you called it in to your superiors?”

“No, when I called it in I gave them the basics. Since then I’ve noticed a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the fact a firearm was discharged several times in a residential complex and no one heard anything,” Damian says. “Yet I didn’t find a suppressor anywhere on the scene; just the weapon itself.”

“Is the penthouse soundproofed?” Tim asks.

“No. When I spoke to the downstairs residents, they told me they had even made several noise complaints to the building management in the past. Nothing ever came from it, of course—money talks—but someone should have heard something.”

“Assuming they recognized the sound of gunfire. This isn’t exactly Burnley. Which…could be a good thing. Buildings like this tend to have good security systems.”

“Obviously that was my next thought,” Damian drawls. “While Kelley was calming down the help, I went to speak with the security guards in case the camera system caught sight of anyone suspicious.”

"And did they?"

“No. They apparently had to run a routine update on their software, which knocked out the feed between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.”

“And you think this is when the shooting took place.”

“I imagine Brown will find the time of death to be around that point,” Damian agrees with a smug upward quirk of his lips. “For Davenport to decide to kill himself at the exact time when the security feeds go offline is rather coincidental.”

Tim shakes his head. “Maybe, maybe not. Anything else?”

“What about the fact Davenport was left-handed but shot himself with his right hand?”

Tim blinks. “And how do you figure he was left-handed?”

“Please,” Damian dismisses with a snort, “I’ve been forced to attend enough fundraisers with Father in the past, and Davenport was often present. Even you would remember that ham-fisted troglodyte trying to sip from a champagne flute had you ever deigned to attend.”

Tim tilts his head in acknowledgment of both the barb and the observation. “Fair. Though so far all of this sounds pretty circumstantial—nothing really screams 'second shooter' here. And other than the hand thing—”  

“Go see for yourself. The bodies are in the dining room. I imagine your specific talents will confirm my suspicions.” Tim starts into the apartment. “By the way, if you’re still here when the lead detective gets here, I’ll deny knowing you.”

Tim snorts. “As expected.”

“And you are not to tell Richard I was involved in this. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Tim has to hold back a chuckle at that; Damian is even more acquainted with Dick’s mollycoddling than he is.

“Noted. Let Alfred know I might be a bit late for dinner tonight.”

“It’s not Alfred you have to worry about.”

Tim heads down the hall, accepting a pair of plastic gloves from one of the passing investigators. As he pulls them on, he takes note of the doors to the bedrooms that remain open, and the photographs and paintings hanging on the walls. Nothing is disturbed, no signs of a struggle like there would be if the victims had been dragged from their beds, and there’s no sign of blood on the floors leading from the rooms or even the hallway itself.

That means the victims either walked voluntarily—which is unlikely—or sedated and carried.

It’s looking like Damian’s instincts might be on-point here, but it’s not until Tim steps foot in the dining room that he realizes just how much that’s the case.

He freezes in place, hit with a familiar jarring of his senses at something not meant to be perceived.

Davenport was a man in his mid-forties, tall and with the look of a skinny person that’s suddenly gained a whole lot of weight, and not in a healthy manner. Tim remembers meeting him at some dinner with his parents when he was younger, and his mother disparaging the man behind his back as a social-climbing schemer.

And that was before the Ponzi scheme.

The man’s blond hair implants are now plastered with blood and brain matter that oozes down the left side of his head. His eyes roll in wild fear, tears and snot running down his face, which is immobilized in a stiff smile from regular Botox injections. That mouth is now twisted in a grotesque scream that makes Tim wince even in its silence, the unsettling sensation of nails on a chalkboard traveling up through his nervous system.

Tim is careful not to draw the attention to himself, not just because of the crime scene team still milling about the scene, but because the last thing he needs right now is a panicked ghost latching on to him. Davenport’s spirit is still in too much shock for rationality and may fixate on Tim if he discovers he can see him. Which he knows from experience is not fun.

The newly dead are like drowning victims—if they catch hold of you, they’ll drag you under with them. Best case scenario, Tim experiences a few seconds of possession and a week of dissociative identity issues; worst-case scenario, he could die from the same trauma.

Unfortunately, given the lack of control newly dead spirits have, the latter is most likely.

The ghost is luckily far enough from the dining room table that Tim can edge past him without ostensibly acknowledging its presence; instead, he studies the actual bodies and tries not to regret his coffee that morning.

The five victims have not yet been moved, but the placement of tarps over them suggests the crime scene photographers have already been by. Going from one body to the next, Tim lifts the sheets carefully, trying not to disturb anything too much in his investigation. The victims are all dressed in their nightclothes, seated around the table on wooden, cloth-back chairs. 

Damian wasn’t lying; all of them holding hands.

The dining room table is fully laden with dishes and cutlery, glasses filled with orange juice and bowls with the soggy remnants of cereal and milk. Other than the angry red entrance wounds on their foreheads—two shots each—there are no other visible injuries. Only the body of the presumed shooter, based on the position of the gun and his hand, is splayed out unnaturally across the table, ostensibly from the force of the gunshot.

Otherwise, it looks like they were all just sitting down to breakfast at the time of death.

His stomach roils a bit at the notion, not only because of the clearly depraved mind behind arranging the tableau but because the scene is familiar to him in a way he wishes it wasn’t.

Teeth clenched, Tim digs out his phone and starts to take his own pictures, not wanting to have to contact the lead detective and beg for copies. In the periphery, Davenport’s ghost continues to spasm and flail, making it hard for Tim to concentrate.

His eyes rest on the spot where the murder weapon fell and is struck by a sudden idea. Hoping he’s right, he takes a quick tour of the rest of the apartment but makes deliberate stops in the bedroom and the home office.

It’s another fifteen minutes of taking pictures and lightly rummaging through the belongings of the dead before he finds something. Striding out of the office and back toward the scene of the murder, Tim shoots a text message off to his friend Victor at the ATF.

Running gun serial numbers might be a little more complicated than on TV, but the guy owes me a favor. And if I’m right—

His thoughts cut off as he notices movement out of the corner of his eye, a movement that belongs to someone living this time.

There’s a newcomer on the scene, and from the way he flashes the badge, Tim would guess it’s the detective who’s actually supposed to be here. He’s redheaded, wearing a leather jacket and a loose tie that looks like he threw it on in a hurry. Even from this distance, Tim can make out a couple of days’ worth of stubble on his chin and the edge to his mouth that’s inherently challenging. The man’s whole esthetic reads scrapper, but his posture and carriage inarguably declare cop. Tim would know, his family is made up almost entirely of them.

Pretending like he hasn’t noticed the stranger, Tim shifts to face the scene once again, continuing to study him under his lashes as the man exchanges words with Damian.

He blames Kon entirely for the way his attention rests on the man’s muscular thighs, before the man turns toward Tim and starts forward, conversation with Damian clearly over.

Well shit…

⁂

Jason has an uneasy feeling in his stomach even before he even arrives at the Davenports’ penthouse apartment.

It’s not an anticipatory reaction to seeing the aftermath of a murder—he’s worked homicide long enough to have developed a means of distancing himself from the crimes he investigates. The feeling is more like expectation, a nagging sense that something huge is about to happen.

Never a good sign in my experience.

“Detective Todd?”

Jason pauses as he finishes putting on a pair of plastic gloves and glances up at the speaker.

“Officer Al-Ghul,” he replies, more formal than usual as he tries to shove the weird feeling to the back of his mind. “What’ve we got?”

The kid excuses himself from the small, tearful woman he’s speaking to and strides over.

“It seems to be a murder-suicide,” he says and launches into a report that’s almost word-for-word the transcript of what he called into the precinct, with a few extra additions. Jason lets the words wash over him, keeping an ear out for anything that deviates too much from what he already knows while casting his eyes about the apartment.

Geeze, you could fit three Crime Alley families in the living room alone. Who the fuck needs all this space?

His eyes fall upon someone across the room that he doesn’t recognize.

Young—maybe a bit younger than Jason—with an athletic build and good looks that, despite being clean-cut, give no clue as to whether they’re male or female. Whoever it is, they’re not dressed as a CSI or in an officer’s uniform, but they’re studying the crime scene with the eye of someone in the business. When the stranger notices Jason, he or she turns around, apparently fascinated by the photographs on the living room wall.

“Who’s that?” Jason interrupts Al-Ghul. “New CSI?”

Al-Ghul scowls in annoyance, either at the interruption or at the subject of the question, Jason isn’t sure.

“Major Crimes,” he says after a beat. 

That immediately puts Jason’s back up. “What the hell is MCU doing here?”

Al-Ghul shrugs, as if to say, ‘that’s your problem, not mine’, and returns his attention to the woman from before. Deciding this is a welcome distraction from his own unease, Jason stalks toward the stranger, ready to rip them a new one.

“Hey, buddy—wanna tell me what you think you’re doing at my crime scene?”

“Just taking a look around,” the detective replies, not turning around immediately.

Jason’s eyes flick to the photos on the wall, wondering what seems so captivating.

Most of them are glamor shots, professionally done, but some are clearly personal photos. Davenport and his wife on a golf course, the teenagers lounging around against a tropical beach backdrop, and another of Davenport sitting in a bed surrounded by his kids. Though his surroundings seem comfortable, he’s hooked up to some kind of IV stand, and despite the smile on everyone’s faces, there’s a haunted edge to it.

Oh yeah, now I remember.

A while back there was something in the news about him undergoing treatment for some kind of blood cancer. He actually tried to use that to discourage his case from being investigated. Just proves what kind of scumbag Davenport is.

Was.

Which brings him back to the present.

“I’m gonna need a bit more than that unless you want me making a call to the brass up at MCU,” Jason warns.

The detective turns to offer Jason what is clearly intended to be a disarming smile. “No need for that, I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

Jason prides himself on not being susceptible to that sort of thing, but—

Holy shit, he’s hot up close.

And yes, that’s definitely a male face studying him with an air of appraisal, in spite of the deceptively delicate features. The guy is mostly clean-shaven and wearing a smart-looking peacoat that offers a compliment to his eyes, which are very blue. It’s the intense color you don’t see very often outside of newborn babies, but with a pronounced gleam of intelligence that feels almost penetrating.

There’s also a confident set to his shoulders and a stubborn bend to his lips that instantly puts Jason’s mind on the defensive (and other parts at attention).

“Detective Drake,” the guy goes on, offering a hand to Jason. His voice is warm and smooth, the kind that’s more suited for phone sex than reciting Miranda rights. “Major Crimes, as you already seem to be aware.”

Jason refrains from taking the hand. “Detective Todd. 12th Precinct. Homicide. There a reason you guys are sticking your noses into a murder-suicide?”

“There’s reason to believe this may actually be the work of a serial murderer,” Drake replies, looking unbothered by the rebuff.

“Really,” Jason says flatly. “And what are you basing that on? Because the report I got is leanin’ pretty hard on this guy killing his wife and kids, then himself. That’s probably how the city’s going to record it. This isn’t a scene that needs in-depth investigating and there’s no need for one lead detective here, let alone two—especially not a guy who’s clearly out of his jurisdiction.”

‘Detective Drake’ doesn’t appear to notice the clear marking of territory.

“Have you been in there yet?” he asks instead.

“No, because I’m wasting my time explainin’ protocol to a smart-ass out of his jurisdiction.”

Drake smirks at that, sharp and unwavering. “Well, when you get around to it, you’ll probably cotton on to the fact the murder weapon was a .32 automatic with the serial filed off.”

“So?”

“So, first of all, the neighbors would have heard the discharge if it was fired without a decent suppressor, but there’s no evidence of one at the scene of the crime.”

Which, Jason can admit, is out of the ordinary. Most people committing suicide don’t care about how loud the shot will be that takes them out, but if they did use one, it would still be attached to the gun.

“Second, Davenport was an ardent supporter of gun rights. I remember seeing a clip of him on the news, going at it with the Mayor over his proposed gun-control laws.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “Your point being?”

“My point is that generally, gun rights activists own guns. Which Davenport did—you’ll find them in his closet and his study, next to all the relevant paperwork: 9mm Glocks. And they have serial numbers.” Drake levels a challenging stare at Jason. “What’s the point of procuring an unregistered weapon when you have your own within easy reach? And why chisel the number off if you’re just going to commit suicide? It’s not like you need to care about it being traced once you’re dead.”

“The guy was rich—rich people do weird things. Probably some convoluted insurance thing,” he suggests.

“Or it wasn’t his.”

“So maybe he was holdin’ it for a friend. It happens. Still doesn’t change the fact this tool offed his own family.”

“And what about the fact that the same model gun has been found at the scene of at least fourteen other murder-suicides in this city in the past ten years?”

“It’s Gotham. Play the probabilities game long enough, you’ll get a bunch of seemingly random crimes that resemble each other.”

“Maybe. But in the ninety-something years before that—in fact, as long as the city’s kept records on this sort of thing—there have been only two murder-suicides that could fit that pattern, and those had enough additional evidence to solve immediately. But in the past decade, we've got two particular years where a series of murder-suicides were committed using an unregistered .32, where neighbors didn’t hear any of the gunshots and yet there was no sign of a suppressor. Five years ago, and ten years ago,” Drake tells him grimly. “Both those years there were exactly seven incidents, and then they stopped. None of those have been solved.”

“That says more about the investigating cops than the crimes themselves. You don’t solve a murder-suicide—the evidence is right there,” Jason insists, though what Drake has to say is uncomfortably close to what his own gut was telling him when he walked into the apartment.

“And the fact that in each situation, the victims are found holding hands?” Drake challenges, with the air of someone presenting a winning argument.

And, yeah, that’s a bit of a weird coincidence, but still not an argument for a major investigation.

“If that’s an actual detail in all these supposed cases of yours, it would have been noted.”

“Not if no one thought it was worth noting,” Drake retorts. “Not if whoever made those reports just thought it was some kind of death pact or…cult related suicide. They weren’t looking for it.”

“But you are.”

“Clearly.”

Jason peers at him another beat and then shakes his head. “Look, I have about seven other cases of actual homicide that need my attention, so if you could just—"

“Seriously?” Drake demands, losing some of his smooth calm at last. “You don’t find any of that compelling enough to—”

“To what? Start imagining serial killers where there are none? No, I don’t,” Jason snaps. “All I see so far is some rich bastard got caught running a Ponzi scheme, so he decided to take the easy way out and dragged his poor family with him. It’s what rich people do when things get hard; because if they can’t have it, no one can.”

That earns him a cold look. “Out of the other fourteen cases, only one of them involved a couple who could be considered rich.”

“Fourteen other cases where only you seem to notice the pattern. I dunno what you want me to say, buddy. Clearly, you got an ax to grind, so do me a favor and grind it away from my scene.”

Despite his words, it’s not a suggestion, and Drake recognizes it.

Scowling at Jason in something like disgust, he straightens up. “Fine. I’m going. But when another family is slaughtered by this nutjob—and it will happen—you’ll remember this discussion. Hopefully, before you have to answer another six homicide calls.”

Drake spares Jason one final judgmental look and heads for the front door.

Jason watches him, briefly admiring the man’s ass as he walks away, and then puts the encounter out of his mind. He’s got a job to do, and Artemis said she wanted this sorted out today.

Squaring his shoulders and preparing himself for another grim sight—he hates crime scenes that involve kids—he heads out of the living room toward the back of the apartment and the scene of the crime.

Crossing the threshold to the dining room, Jason’s earlier disquiet morphs, evolving from nervous apprehension to a full-blown dip towards dread. He barely catches a glimpse of the tarps draped over the bodies, when his stomach pulls tight, shoulders tensing as if waiting for a blow from the right, but there’s no one there. Something far too close to fear chokes at his throat, forcing him to pause in the doorway and put a steadying hand on the doorframe.

Spots appear across his vision, a chill winding up his spine, and—

—sobbing, hysterical tears, please don’t do this, please just let them go, heart racing, blood thundering, please no, I’ll give you anything, someone help, click, bang, agony, nothing—

Jason shudders as he comes back to himself, reeling back a step.

The sensations ebb a little but don’t completely vanish, and he has to take a few breaths to regain his control. Now that he expects it, it won’t be too hard entering the room, but the fact it hit him like that...

Jason glances back to the entrance of the apartment, mouth setting into a grimace. He’s cleaned up plenty of suicides, and they never hit him with that degree of dread before.

 He has a bad feeling that Detective Drake might have been right—whatever happened in the apartment, it wasn’t as simple as it's meant to look.

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