#our landlord is ass and acted like it wasn’t a big deal when we first told them about this issue

[tariah23]

Also, those birds in the wall are so loud tonight lol.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 3

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter three

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."

Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

always, always, always because of @thisonesatellite​​ and @profdanglaisstuff​ thank you AGAIN to the amazing team at @captainswanbigbang​

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) AO3 chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

chapter summary:   Emma’s tracked down her suspect but then he looks into her eyes like he can see her, like he recognizes her--

And it’s a big fucking problem. She doesn’t trust him.  They are not a team.  No matter what he says or how blue his eyes are when he reads her like an open book.

--

“I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting,” James Hook said. “A woman such as yourself deserves my full and prompt attention.”

His voice was familiar; exactly as she had heard it in her dream down to the cadence of his accent.

“Does that line ever work?” Emma asked.

His eyes twinkled with appreciation. “I,” he said seriously, “will let you know, yeah?”

He was wearing eyeliner, kohl smudged around his eyes. Blue button-up shirt--partially undone, matched his eyes, would look even better on the floor--buttoned waistcoat, jeans that showed off his--

Fuck.

Emma needed a drink before she ended up like one of the co-eds.

“MacCutcheon,” she said simply.

“How do you like it?”

“In a glass,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Tough lass,” he said with a laugh, pouring her a shot.

“Yeah, well,” she said, picking up the shot glass and downing it in one. The condensation left a ring on the cocktail napkin. “It’s been a long day, and I’m thirsty.” She looked around, taking in more of the place--anything to look at instead of staring at Hook and his partially-unbuttoned shirt. “What’s with all of the swords?” Emma asked, gesturing at a wall covered in weapons.

The Rabbit Hole fell on the upside of ‘dive’, but only just barely. Maybe it was the Edison bulbs. The soft yellow glow gave everything a patina of ‘vintage’ instead of ‘grimey’. 

“And what are those, boat hooks?”

“Aye,” he said.

“What are you, some kind of sailor?”

“In another life,” he said, the fake grin stretching across his face, “I served in the Royal Navy.”

“You’ve practically got an armory in here,” she said.

“That’s the idea,” he agreed.

“You don’t seem like the type of guy to collect old-fashioned weapons.”

“Aye,” he said again, the eyes twinkling--again. “I collect blondes from bottles, too.”

Emma was a natural blonde--probably another legacy from one of her parents. She returned his gaze and said only, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

There it was: the real smile. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps I would. James Hook.” He held out his right hand to her, and Emma shook it, which was when she noticed that he only had the one.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “So you’ve heard of me? Well, it’s always nice to leave an impression.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “You have. You’re handsome, and charming--”

“Do go on,” Hook said, shifting his weight against the back counter.

“The kind of guy who--now, stop me if I’ve got this wrong--steals a man’s wife and leaves a boy motherless, then keeps up the grudge by breaking into his home and stealing from him again.” Emma watched him during her recitation. This was her favorite part: skips always broke down when the hot piece of ass they’d been planning on nailing turned the tables and cuffed them.

Not in the fun way, either.

But Hook just looked at her, stepping forward again and bracing his elbow against the bar, his chin in his hand. His fingers curled against his upper lip, his eyes were wide and innocent, and the fake grin had returned; the change was so smoothly done it was--almost--imperceptible.

“Sounds like a lovely tale,” he said. “But I’m going to wager the truth is rather more gruesome.”

Emma was calm. She was focused. And he was not lying.

“Besides,” Hook said evenly, “I’m going to need you to be a mite more specific in your accusations; you see, I’ve had many a man’s wife.”

“And I need you,” Emma said, matching his tone, “to return what you’ve stolen.”

His smile--the fake smile--faltered. Just for a second. “Tell me something, love,” Hook said, leaning into her personal space, his eyes never leaving hers, “If a woman comes to you and begs you to take her away, is that theft?” He ran his tongue over his lower lip and winked at her.

“But--why would she leave him?” Emma asked before she could stop herself. The son, they had a son--

What were they even talking about?

“Because he was a coward,” Hook said easily. “Because she loved me.”

Emma pulled herself away from his gaze. Whatever was going on here--he wasn’t lying.

“So, lass,” he said, “you know who I am, but you won’t even tell me your name?”

“What fun would that be?” Emma said.

“If you’re helping Rump--Gold,” Hook said, with particular emphasis on the name, “I’m afraid you’re fighting for a lost cause.”

“I’m not fighting for anything,” Emma said, “except for my fee. Tell me what you know about Graham Humbert’s death.” She grabbed his wrist. “And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret--I’m pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”

“He came in here the other evening, on the hunt,” Hook said, biting down hard on the ‘t’. “He often did. It’s rather a target-rich environment, as you can see.” He gestured at the crowded room and leered. “That’s the last time I saw him.”

Emma smiled, the kind that showed no teeth, that was small and controlled, and tightened her grip on his wrist. With her other hand, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it and scrolled to David Nolan’s entry. “He came here looking for you the night he died,” she said. “A fact I think the sheriff--” Emma held up the phone to show him “--will find fascinating, don’t you?”

He started to pull away, but Emma twisted his wrist just enough to put pressure on it--enough that pulling away would make a scene and potentially force someone to call the sheriff anyway. The singer finished a song to a scattering of applause, and Emma kept her grip and her gaze on Hook.

“Well done, lass,” he said. Emma let go of him and his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. He had rings on two of his fingers and his thumb, and a freaking earring, a black stud. “You’ll be Emma Swan, then.”

“There goes my air of mystery,” she deadpanned.

“On the contrary, love,” Hook said, licking his lips again. “You’ve bested me. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has done that.”

“Is that a joke?” Emma said drily. “Because you’re a terrible liar.”

“Ask me what you’ve really come here to ask, Swan,” he said, and something in his face had shifted, like he had dropped the act of whatever part he was trying to play. His eyes were serious and the tone of his voice had lowered.

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not,” Hook said.

Emma believed him. Shit.

--

“Now then,” Hook said. “Emma Swan. Bail bonds, private investigations. Twenty-eight years old?”

They weren’t in the bar anymore.

According to the paperwork Graham had pulled, Hook had owned The Rabbit Hole for more than twenty years--clearly a typo as the man appeared exactly as Gold had described him: mid-thirties, no more, no less. It was difficult to picture him running off with a woman Gold’s age.

He’s older than he looks, Gold smirked, and had looked at Emma in a way that made her want to shower. And rather partial, I’m afraid, to brunettes.

Emma had confirmation of this, at least, when Hook had called out to a beautiful brunette in a micromini, tights and an artfully ripped t-shirt. Lacey, my darling, cover for me here, will you?

She’d laughed and given him--and Emma--a wink, and it was obvious what she thought Hook and Emma were doing, and why they needed cover. I’ve got this, Jamie, she’d said.

And he’d taken Emma to a small but immaculate office, dimly lit, rimmed with books, and offered her a chair with a bow before taking a seat behind the desk. She’s new, Hook had said of Lacey, but she does the job like she’s been here for decades. Something about that had amused him; Hook seemed consistently to be amusing himself with jokes only he understood. Any man who kept a skull-and-crossbones on the wall was definitely a man with an unusual sense of humor--in fact, this room had a distinct nautical theme, with a red flag draped above the black one and an honest-to-goodness ship in a bottle on his desk, and it was all a far cry from the badly-curated murder-tinged whimsy that made up the decor of the main bar.

“That’s oddly specific,” Emma countered. “Do I, like, get a prize if you’re right?”

“An educated guess,” Hook answered, and said nothing else as his eyes settled over her. Emma felt like she was being evaluated; not the first time that had happened, and she had no idea what he thought he was looking for.

“So, then,” he said. “Your Graham Humbert came looking for me.”

“He wasn’t my anything,” Emma said quickly. Maybe too quickly.

“Aye,” Hook said. “Of that I’m well aware.” He twisted his thumb against the metal of one of his rings and broke eye contact, looking down and away from her. “We weren’t friends, you know. Barely even acquainted. But you might say that we had certain connections in common.” Hook looked at her quickly and looked away again. “I hadn’t seen him in as long as I can remember.”

There was something strange underlying the words. Not a lie, but not the truth. And something about the phrase tickled Emma’s memory, like she had heard it somewhere before.

“He was involved with Regina Mills,” Emma said, realizing it at the same moment she said it.

“Indeed he was.” Hook made a sound, almost like a bark, and it took Emma a moment to realize it was a laugh. There was no amusement in it. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but she rather held his heart in her hands.”

Emma winced.

“Apologies, love,” Hook said quickly, and with apparent sincerity. “That was in rather poor taste, I admit.”

“You were too, weren’t you?” Emma asked instead of acknowledging his half-assed apology. “Involved with her?”

Another harsh laugh escaped him. “Indeed I was,” he said, “though not in the way you’d think. I did some work for the family. A long time ago.”

Emma smirked. “A man who used to be a sailor and now owns a bar?”

“‘Used to be’ is right, Swan,” he said, “but one might consider the bar payment.” He did that thing again, where he over-emphasized the harsh consonants. “For services rendered.”

“You realize you are the only one in this entire neighborhood who owns their property outright instead of paying rent to Robert Gold?”

“Am I?” He examined his fingernails. “That’s fortuitous.” It was obscene, the way Hook made words sound, but Emma knew a distraction when she saw one. This man used words as deflections, armor not unlike her collection of leather jackets.

“She came to see me,” Emma said.

“Did she?” That got Hook’s attention. “And what did you think of Her Majesty the Queen?”

“Her what now?”

“Regina, love. Latin.”

“You speak Latin?” Emma’s eyebrows definitely went up.

“And Greek,” he pointed out, smirking.

“They teach you that in the Royal Navy?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Emma’s head was beginning to hurt. This was shaping up to be the world’s worst first draft of “Who’s on first”--she wasn’t getting anywhere, and she needed another drink.

“What did she want?” Hook asked, and for the first time, there was genuine curiosity in his tone. He twisted behind him, pulling out a bottle, then repeated the process and came up with two glasses pinched between his thumb and forefinger, placing one in front of her. He pulled the cork with his teeth, poured himself a shot, and then gestured at her with the bottle.

Emma gave him a look.

“You’re something of an open book, Swan,” Hook said, the picture of innocent hospitality, “or did you not want another drink?”

“Regina wanted to know,” Emma said, ignoring his outstretched hand, “what I was doing about Graham’s death.”

“Don’t make a man drink alone, love.”

“I don’t want a drink,” she lied. “Or a man.”

Hook pouted. “Now who’s not telling the truth?”

Emma took the bottle from his hand and poured herself three fingers’ worth.

“I do find that spirits can be an excellent solution to so many of life’s problems,” Hook said with false cheerfulness, “so I am glad to see that you are making progress.”

Emma left the glass on the desk and leveled a glare at him.

“Are you?” he said, raising his eyebrows, “making progress?”

There was a knock on the door at the same time as it opened, and a young man stepped in. Nearly as tall as Hook, he had long, dark blonde hair that he’d slicked back, leaving some fringe to fall messily at his temples.

“Alright, Liam?” Hook said.

The young man--Liam--coughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, only Lacey said you were back here--”

“And you wanted to interrupt?” Hook asked, a mix of exasperation, fondness and something sharper in his voice.

Liam shrugged.

“Swan,” Hook said, “allow me to present my lit--younger brother, Liam, who was just leaving.”

Emma nodded at him, with his slightly-less-blue eyes and the curious way they watched her.

There was a look in Hook’s eyes as his brother walked out that Emma was not prepared to acknowledge. She pushed her untouched tumbler of rum back toward him and snapped, “Enough. Why did Graham come here to see you?” Emma demanded.

Hook shrugged.

“He tracked you down through property records,” Emma said. “Because the Mills Organization paid you in real estate for work you did for them a long time ago?”

“So it would seem,” he said.

“You know it says on the deed that you’ve been the owner here for as long as I’ve been alive?”

“Does it?” he smirked. “And yet I’ve retained my youthful glow.”

There it was again--not a lie, but not the truth.

He’s older than he looks.

Emma sat, toying with the tumbler she had pulled back toward her seat, running her forefinger around the ring of the glass and saying nothing.

“What can I say, Swan,” he said. “‘I contain multitudes.’ Not unlike your Graham Humbert.” He looked at her as though he was expecting a reaction; Emma stared at him.

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Ah,” he said, as though to himself. “Not a believer, then--well, surely that will stop you getting killed.”

Hook considered her for a moment before tossing back his shot, then said: “Walt Whitman, lass. American poet.”

“Didn’t study poetry at any of the high schools I got kicked out of,” Emma said. “What does my listening to you recite poetry and mutter to yourself have to do with Graham?”

Hook shook his head. “Absolutely nothing, love,” he said. “Merely pointing out that you might be surprised by what they teach you in the Royal Navy.”

“You don’t know anything about what I believe,” Emma said sharply.

His blue eyes blazed. “I know that everything you think you believe is wrong,” he said.

“A man is dead, Hook,” Emma said. “I need you to stop fucking around and give me back whatever it is you’ve taken.”

“She’s dead, Swan,” he said sadly, the fire gone just as quickly as it had come, “and whatever that bloody crocodile has you looking for, I don’t have it.”

He had that look again.

Crocodile.

“Just like Milah, when the crocodile took her from me.”

“His wife?” Emma said. “Look, I’m sorry she died, but Graham--Graham was murdered.”

“Died,” Hook snorted. “Like it was some kind of accident--”

“That’s not what I said,” Emma protested, feeling suddenly on the defensive.

“--lass, it was no more of an accident than Humbert laid out in the alley.” Hook poured himself another shot and held it. “And you, Swan, helping him? I fear we’re working at cross purposes.”

“I’m just here to retrieve something on behalf of my client,” Emma said, exasperated and confused, “and to get paid Same as Graham, only he ended up dead and I would prefer to avoid that.”

“It’s a shame, really, Emma,” he said, apparently not listening. “I think we could make quite the team.”

“And what,” Emma wanted to know, “would our objective be?”

Hook paused and looked at her before he drank the second shot, and Emma still had no idea what he was looking for. He took a breath and said: “To avenge your partner,” he said, as if it would be that simple. “To exact revenge on the man who took my hand, Rumplestiltskin.”

--

“Swan!” Hook called, rushing after her. “Swan, wait up!”

Emma was ten or fifteen feet out the door of The Rabbit Hole when she doubled back quickly and pushed herself against him. “Whoa!” she cried. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Hook smiled at her and pulled them closer together. “It’s about bloody time.”

Emma hit him. “I seem to have a shadow,” she said, gesturing at the figure running into the darkness--the one that had lunged itself at her and forced her up against Hook.

“I suppose,” Hook said, pretending to consider it, “that’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time don’t stand on ceremony.”

Was the man insane? “Do you have any idea what you sound like right now? Who the fuck is Rumplestiltskin?”

Hook’s face fell. “I sound like a crazy person,” he said. “Apologies, love, I realize Humbert didn’t--” He paused, took a breath. “Would you settle for ‘dashing rapscallion’?”

“Excuse me?” Emma stuttered.

“As opposed to ‘crazy person’, Swan,” Hook pushed, and then leaned in closer at her continued silence, angling his head so their eyes were level. “Scoundrel, perhaps?”

He was close enough to--

He was very close.

“I think, Swan,” he said, very softly, his eyes boring into hers, “that you are not the only one with a shadow. Don’t turn,” he warned, “just look at me.”

The full focus of this man’s attention was nearly unbearable. Emma desperately needed to break eye contact and maintain her wits, which was how she noticed the red streak on his shoulder.

Where she’d grabbed him.

Unfortunately, that drew his eyes to the spot as well, and he knew immediately what it was.

“Swan,” he said, and he sounded disappointed. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” Emma insisted. “Just, the jerk who came after me must have had a knife or something.”

“Give me your hand,” Hook said.

“What?” Emma said, trying to pull away.

He wouldn’t let her. “It’s cut,” he said, getting impatient. “Let me help you.”

“No,” Emma said, taking a definitive step back. Hook countered by stepping forward, back into her personal space. “It’s fine.”

“Swan,” he sighed. “It’s not.”

And he ran his hand down her arm, curling his fingers around her wrist and lifting it for closer inspection, balancing her hand on his left wrist against his prosthetic.

“I’m not taking medical advice from a man who has named himself after a character in a fairy tale and who thinks my client can spin straw into gold,” Emma muttered. “Not even when he suddenly decides to be a gentleman.”

Hook’s face twisted, that already-familiar smirk pulling at his mouth as he took something out of his pocket. “I,” he said, and his tone was serious in spite of his expression, “am always a gentleman.” He looked at Emma through eyelashes that were thicker than hers were after several rounds of lash primer as he repeated his bit with the cork and moved to pour the contents over the small slash in her palm.

“What is that?” Emma asked suspiciously, then swore as the liquid hit her skin.

“It’s rum,” Hook said. “And a bloody waste of it.” He handed the flask to her before she could refuse and pulled out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, pressing it into her hand before Emma could try to pull away again and tying it off with his teeth.

Just--his teeth . Why?

His eyes never left hers, not even as he stepped away from her.

“He’s gone,” Hook whispered.

Emma sighed and took a swig of the rum in resignation. “Scoundrel it is, then,” she said, taking a definitive step backward and crossing her arms across her body in the universal signal for back off. Because she knew what he was doing, she had seen this movie before, and it hadn’t ended well.

They were not a team.

They could not be a team.

“Why were you following me?”

“I wanted to continue our conversation,” he said. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Emma shook her head slowly.

He grinned, shrugged. “And," he said, "I would like to see Regina Mills. I was hoping you would be so kind as to facilitate transportation.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I don’t drive a car,” Hook said. “It’s not by choice that I live here in the city, love, it’s by necessity.”

Emma felt her resistance wavering. “What makes you think I’d be willing to help you?”

“You seem,” Hook paused, as if searching for the correct word, “motivated.”

“What happened to cross purposes?”

“I look at this very simply,” Hook said. “I help you get what you want, and it gets me what I want. No more, no less. Besides, I find that I quite fancy you--when you’re not yelling at me, that is.”

“I don’t understand you,” Emma said.

“The mystique is part of my charm, I assure you,” Hook said, raising his eyebrows.

But she had already given in to whatever scheme this was, had given in the minute she pushed herself against him.

The minute he had held her arm and pushed into her space.

Emma gestured for him to go ahead, and they started walking to her car. Hook took in the careworn yellow Beetle with a grin on his face. “Quite a vessel you captain here, Swan,” he said, pulling the door open on the passenger side.

“It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Emma said softly, meaning it, momentarily hating herself for how wrong she had been--and how much this felt like the same beginning all over again. She ran a quick address search on her phone and came up with nothing; it was odd, given the extent of the Mills Organization’s influence.

“I know where she lives, lass,” Hook said. “I’ll navigate.”

Emma pulled out of her spot, the silence growing between them, interspersed at odd intervals with his muttered directions until he spoke. “You know, Swan, most people would find your silence off-putting, but I should warn you that I love a challenge.”

“No challenge,” Emma said. “I’m not looking for someone who’s gonna give his heart to the world, or some true love riding to my rescue.”

“But?” Hook prompted.

“I mean,” Emma said, dripping with sarcasm, “somewhere in the universe, there's gotta be a guy who'll keep me warm when I'm cold, feed me when I'm hungry and maybe, on occasion, take me dancing.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not it. You’re afraid--to talk, to reveal yourself.”

“Am I?” Emma said flatly. “What are we doing now? What happened to ‘a bit of an open book’?” She finished with a horrible imitation of his accent.

“You’re afraid to trust me.”

“Afraid to trust the guy who believes in fairy tales, Captain Hook?” Emma snorted. “However did you guess?”

“Bartender’s a sympathetic ear, love,” Hook said, “but I don’t need you to share. You have that look in your eyes.”

Emma’s entire body went still.

“The one,” Hook said, as if she didn’t already know--didn’t own a freaking mirror--hadn’t seen the look on his face that very night, “you get when you’ve been left alone.”

“Now I’m some kind of lost girl?” Emma forced herself to laugh. “Nice try, Hook, but my world ain’t Neverland.”

He made a noise, halfway between the unamused bark-laugh and a sigh, and said: “My point, Swan, is that an orphan’s an orphan.”

Emma said nothing, but Hook pressed on. “And True Love--well, that’s the rarest magic of all, or so they say. Have you ever even been in love?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him, took a deep breath, and lied. “No,” she said simply. “I have never been in love.” She pulled the car against the curb and turned off the ignition. “We’re here,” she said.

“Who’s the guy, Swan?” he said, and his voice was almost free of affect. She could--almost--believe he meant it.

“What guy?” Emma said, because fuck him and his open-book bullshit.

“The one,” Hook said as if it was obvious, “who left you with such a high opinion of me.”

Emma got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her.

--

@kmomof4​ @shireness-says​ @spartanguard​ @optomisticgirl​ @eirabach​ @winterbaby89​ @stahlop​ @teamhook @iamlaxdris71 @snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @scientificapricot​ @ultraluckycatnd @therealstartraveller776 @wyntereyez @nikkiemms @searchingwardrobes​ @courtorderedcake​

[ryik-the-writer]

Rumbelle fic: A Sitting Deal

A Sitting Deal 6/6

A03 Link

Rating: T+

Summary: With the threat of a rent increase being held over her head, Lacey E. French makes a deal with Mr. Gold to babysit his three-year-old son. Soon however the town troublemaker finds herself getting close to her landlord and son…which just can’t be good!

Note: for my Rumbelle Secret Santa recipient…@of-princes-and-savages, based off the prompt: Hey, who’s kid is this

Lacey began ripping off her clothes as soon as she entered her apartment, releasing a new curse as each item hit the floor.

“Mother everlasting son of a bitch!” she howled as she turned the shower to the hottest level, welcoming the burn.

She scrubbed her skin hard, taking deep breaths to ease away her wracking sobs.

What was she going to do? She was falling hard for the Golds and it was the most unnatural feeling in the world. Lacey wasn’t supposed to fall prey to domesticity. She wasn’t supposed to rearrange her life for other people!

Yet the very idea of doing just that was possessing her. How bad would it be really? To be a friend and companion to a trifling landlord and his heart-stealing little boy?

She was being ridiculous, she thought. Gold says a few nice words and his kid learns her name and she melts? What the hell!

“This is so damn stupid!” Lacey groaned as she collapsed into her bed in nothing but a towel.

There had to be a way for her to wrap her head around all of this, to come up with a plan. She could just quit, but the idea of not seeing that curly-haired heartthrob every day was too painful to think of at the moment.

And Lacey E. French was no quitter, at least not anymore…

The shadow of the past sprang forth an idea for the confused barfly. It was a long-shot, and would probably end in a thorough smackdown, but it was the only shot she had.

With a truckload of hesitation, she called the one person who could help her sort through her most recent pile of wreckage.

“Hello?”

Lacey gulped at the familiar accent. “Belle?”

There was a brief pause and Lacey expected a tone dial to follow, but instead she heard a slight strangled noise.

“Oh my gosh Lacey!” Belle cried. “I…how are you?”

Lacey released a wet laugh, grateful for her twin’s invitation.

“Um, that’s complicated Belle. How about we start with you?”

“Okay,” Belle replied, sounding positively giddy.

Lacey listened somberly as Belle relayed her job as a grad assistant, her rough edged but soft-hearted fiancé, and of course wedding plans.

“I’m sending out wedding invintations later this week. Nick wanted me to have this grand wedding, but I know he hates big to-dos. I said I would be just fine going to the courthouse and then our favorite bar afterwards, but he said his colleagues would string him up over the physics department if he denied them this.”

Lacey chuckled. “I like this guy,”

“You’ll love him. He reminds me of you in a way.”

Lacey frowned. She certainly hoped the man holding her sister’s heart wasn’t a thing like her.

“Now,” Belle continued. “Let’s here about you. How’s old Storybrooke?”

Lacey scoffed. “Same as ever, though Granny added spaghetti to her menu for some reason.”

“Wow, it’s really come up,” Belle joked. “How about you? Will you be bringing a date to my wedding?”

Lacey blushed at the very idea of being serious enough with Gold that he would come to such an affair with her. Although she’d imagined him and Bae both would look just charming in a tux—

“Son of a bitch!”

“Lace?” Belle gasped.

Lacey groaned. “Belle, I’m in real shit here.”

She quickly relayed to her sister the weeks happenings, her deal with Gold, her time with Bae, and her strange uncertain feelings she didn’t know what to do with.

“Whoa.” Belle sighed on the line. “That’s…different.”

“It’s fucking stupid is what it is!” Lacey returned. “I don’t get it! I have one conversation with the guy and share some animal crackers with his kid and suddenly I’m a pig-tailed lamebrain!”

“Did you really put your hair in pigtails?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lacey barked. “Tell me what to do! What the fuck’s wrong with me?”

“Sounds like to me Lacey that you’re in love,” Belle teased. “Or more like falling in it.”

Lacey covered her mouth to keep from screaming, the words sounding more terrifying now that they were out in the open.

“I can’t do that Belle,” Lacey sobbed. “I can’t be…that!”

“What, happy?”

“In love, or whatever this shit is!” Lacey yelled. “I’m not right for them! I’ll drag them down with me! I’ll hurt Gold and Bae someway…I don’t want to do that!”

“Lacey calm down,” Belle soothed. “Please.”

Lacey took a moment to breathe, the light tint of static over the phone soothing her back into place.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Belle coached. “It’s okay to not be ready for this. But it’s not like you have to marry him.”

“Oh god!”

“Hush, let me finish. You don’t have to jump into something you’re not ready for. If Gold’s really as decent as you say he is, he’ll understand! Just talk to him. Let him know how you feel and that you want to take this slow.”

“But Belle…” Lacey cried, her heart pounding. “He deserves so much better than me. I pay my rent in change and my first job since high school has been a half-ass babysitter!”

“Well…maybe we can open you up a checking account, and babysitting is a damn good gig,” Belle encouraged. “And as for you not being good enough for them…”

Lacey held her breath at the long pause Belle took, wondering if she was about to hang up on her and leave her to stew in her own disaster.

“I know what you did for me,” Belle said at last. “I know you didn’t go to college so that I could.”

Lacey’s blood went cold. “The fuck how?” she hissed. She thought she had covered her tracks!

“You’re careless Lace,” Belle pointed out non-accusingly. “You set your acceptance letter on fire, but you didn’t stick around to see if it burned. I found a piece of it left, and I put two and two together.”

Lacey groaned. Classic Lacey move.

“And while we’re on the subject,” Belle voice cracked. “I’m so sorry.”

Lacey blinked. “For what? You did great, and you’re doing exactly what you wanted to.”

“But you didn’t,” Belle stressed. “I should have pushed you to go to school, to do what you wanted. We could have split the money and taken out loans to make up the difference. But I was so selfish, and I thought you just weren’t ready but when you never mentioned Mum’s trust, I figured it out.”

“You were never selfish Belle,” Lacey promised. “You’re kind of right, I wasn’t ready, not really. And you were always destined to do something with your life, to leave this place. You didn’t need to wait around for me to do the same.”

“I would have gladly waited,” Belle said. “But you can’t keep stalling. You deserve to be happy.”

Lacey closed her eyes, feeling a comforting numbness seep into her bones. For so long she had been holding herself back, and now she needed to take a leap.

“I’m scared,” Lacey laughed.

“That’s okay,” Belle consoled. “No matter what happens it will happen because you were in control. And if by some one in a million chance it doesn’t work out, you know where to find me.”

Lacey nodded, wishing her sister were in front of her so that she could hold her.

“Thanks Belle,” Lacey said, the words coming deep from her heart.

“You got it sis,” Belle returned. “Now just what are we going to do?”

Lacey licked her lip, thinking over her options. She’d never been good a planning, and it wasn’t until now that hesitation appeared in her dictionary.

Maybe things would work out if she winged it after all?

“I’ve gotta make a blue print,” Lacey said as she jumped up to find clothes.

“What?”

“Call you tomorrow bye!”

“Lacey wa—”

Lacey hung up on her beloved sister and prepared to meet her fate.

 0-0-0-0-0-0-0

He shouldn’t have tried to kiss her? What the hell had he been thinking.

Gold had bathed and clothed Bae and taken him upstairs for a story before bed. The boy had longed fallen asleep in his lap, but Gold had yet to leave the rocking chair.

He’d been fearing the worst when he first hired Lacey. He kept closing the shop early just to check in on her and catch her in the act, but he had been woefully shocked to find that—while she had created chaos—it was less damaging than he had expected.

She actually bonded with Bae and did so in her own unique way. It made him proud of her in that moment, proud in his own decision to entrust his son to her.

But his admiration of Lacey French had begun long before they made their deal. Long before he’d even taken in Bae at that.

She hated him as a landlord like any other of his tenants, but she didn’t gripe or moan. She pushed through, even if he had a jar of pennies by the time he got her rent. She’d wink at him when they passed each other in the streets but never expanded on the low-key flirting. She held her self with the upmost confidence and could look men twice her size in the eye without hesitation.

Yet all this time she had been carrying a deep self-loathing. Why hadn’t he seen that she was so sad?

Because he was a cold-hearted bastard. It was a simple but true answer. He hadn’t really cared for anyone, and Milah’s abrupt departure had him wondering why he should try.

But Lacey had changed that somehow, pulled the withered remains out into the light to rejuvenate.

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he felt for her, but if his want to kiss her early today was any indication, it was bordering on passion that her rushing out meant she did not want to receive.

Gold kissed Bae’s curls and carefully laid him in his bed. What kind of young woman wanted an old man with a kid? She was too young, too free to be tied down to such a commitment.

He decided as he took off his tie that he’d talk to her about it tomorrow. She’d probably feel uncomfortable and quit, but he’d swallow his hurt and pay her well before she left. He’d even offer to cash in a favor with a colleague from the nearest university to get her in so she could follow her dream.

He’d hate to see her go and lose the small spark of friendship they’d manage to create, but she deserved to take back the happiness she put on hold.

Maybe one day when she was done with her degree she’d teach him to play pool, or she’d come by his shop and just talk.

Or maybe he’d get use to being alone forever.

Just as he was undoing his belt, the doorbell wailed throughout the house. Gold held his breath, counting down and sighing deeply when his son did not begin hollering.

He grabbed his cane and swore to ram it down the throat of whoever was there. He had it poised to kill when he opened the door and found Lacey standing on his front step.

“Lacey,” he breathed, his heart picking up a beat. “It’s late what are you doing here?”

“We need to talk,” she stated simply, pushing past him.

Gold swallowed and closed the door behind him. “What’s going on Lacey—”

“I like you,” she blurted out, only a second of hesitation following her proclamation. “And hell, I like your kid. I don’t know why and I don’t know what to do about it, but I don’t want to act like I don’t feel it.”

Gold watched her fidget and tried to figure out if he was dreaming or not.

“And…years from now when I’m playing dinosaurs with Bae and I tell him about his mom, I want him to know that she was a total idiot because the second he was in my arms it felt impossible to ever let him go.”

Gold blinked, her words filling his chest with a suffocating tightness.

“Look,” she said as she hastily wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, or what I really feel right now. Maybe I’m just being crazy or some shit but I…just wanted you to know how I felt so that we can get any bullshit that might happen over with.”

Gold stared at her for the longest time, his mouth slightly gaped.

“What!” Lacey cried. “So help me I will punch you in the ribs if you don’t—”

She watched him step closer—slow and careful as to not startle her. When there was only a gap between them, Lacey knew what he was about to do. He was hesitating, just like her. He was uncertain too, not wanting to push something that wasn’t ready to go forward. But he was awaiting her permission as well, and Lacey gave it to her by edging up on her toes and bringing her lips to him.

His were soft, the small bristled of unshaved hair rubbing comfortingly against her cheek. Her hand reached up to his shoulder, slowing rubbing it back and forth. The hand he placed around her waist was lighter, almost afraid.

When they pulled back Lacey was struck with just how brown his eyes were, and the faint scar on his lip that she hadn’t noticed before.

His eyes searched over her like he couldn’t believe what was happening. He had Lacey French in his arms and…she liked him. She actually like him!

“We need to be slow,” he husked.

“Yeah,” Lacey agreed with an excited gulp. “Figure this thing out,”

Gold nodded and for while they stayed comfortably in close proximity, catching whiffs of each other.

But Lacey French wasn’t one to stay still for long.

“Wanna have sex?”

Gold actively flinched, and Lacey waited rather patiently for his response.

“I…” he hesitated, trying to wrap his mind around the audacity that was Lacey French.

Finally, he just stopped thinking and took Lacey’s hand.

“Yes, I believe I do,”

Lacey smirked. “Great,” she began pulling him up the stairs. “Bedroom?”

“First door on your right.”

Lacey bit back an ecstatic smirk.

“Got it, gocha.”

Yes!

[artistlove17]

Losing my Nana

3 March 2019.

This was the day I lost one of, if not THE most important person in my life.

A little backstory: 👇

I had been living with my fiance in a rental trailer. Our landlord had admitted that he had been going into our house when we weren't home, which freaked us out because that is an insane invasion of privacy, not to mention it really creeped me out because there have been several "incidents" at that house and due to work shifts there were days that I was home alone... So we really wanted to move. Before this my fiance had lost his job and then after that I ended up losing mine. So we knew we WANTED to leave... and then we HAD to leave anyway because we couldn't pay rent anymore.

My Nana has always been my biggest supporter and has always made sure I knew that she loved me (she would tell me 200 times a day) and would always let me know she was there for me and that she understood. We had a really deep conversation about life and things before she died. She took care of me when I had the chicken pox at 19 years old. She was the first person I ever smoked weed with. She actually gave up doing any kinds of pills so she could be around me.

She asked us to live with her. She had been asking for a while, and now my fiance and I had nowhere else to go so she was super excited about us moving in with her finally.

I was kind of happy about it too because she didnt live in the best neighborhood and I liked that I would be there to make sure she was ok and I could do things for her (like cook for her and take her to her appointments and things like that).

At this point we had just started moving into the room that previously belonged to my meth head cousin. Yea... it's as bad as it sounds. He had been in and out of prison for many MANY drug, weapon, and theft charges. He would break into houses (including my dads house when I lived there) and steal all kinds of collectables and valuables and then go pawn them for meth money.

My Nana hated him. She was constantly kicking him out. But... she had a really big heart and if you apologized enough then she'd forgive you. So my other cousin Candy (the meth heads mom and my Nana's Niece) was constantly abusing this fact. She knew my Nana was a pushover. But there were times Nana told her no as well and then Candy resorted to threatening.

She'd tell Nana that she would "cut her off" which meant Nana would have no one to take her to her doctors appointments or to the store or things like that. Nana didnt drive or have a car, so she relied on Candy for these things. Nana had actually been asking my Uncle to buy her a car so she wouldn't have to deal with Candy anymore... but Candy was always pretending to be Nana's best friend and spent time with Nana when it was convenient for her. (One of Nanas sons had a lot of medical issues, the other lived 13 hours away, and my dad was just an asshole. So my nana relied on rides from Candy almost every day.)

The last time that Nana kicked out my meth head cousin he had hit her (which I didn't know about until after he landed in prison once again... otherwise he'd be dead and I'd be in prison). But Candy brought him back over there while Nana was gone and made him take a shower and get comfortable and everything... and then when Nana raised hell about him being there and told Candy that he had hit her... Candy literally threatened my Nana and told her "Well you better not ever hit him back! I'll be done with you if you do! Touch him and see if I ever help you again..." She literally didn't give a shit that her meth head son had hit my Nana... the woman that she "claimed" was her best friend and she cared sooo much about.

She didn't give a fuck about my Nana... she was just using her and I realize that now.

Candy also got my Nana started on drinking. Candy has been a drunk for as long as I can remember and a lot of my family have told me she used to be on meth and cocaine and has probably tried just about every drug. In the end she just turned to alcohol because it was legal and she thinks no one can say anything about her drinking since it's legal.

She was constantly trying to get my Nana to drink, despite knowing Nana had an addiction problem in the past and Nana telling her she didn't want to drink because she knew she shouldn't. For a year I watched her slowly water Nana down to it... for a year Nana kept saying no and then on a bad day Candy made her a mix drink and she finally accepted it.

This started Candy constantly buying Nana bottled and jugs of Jim Beam whiskey and me watching Candy come over already buzzed in the mornings and making mixed drinks for herself and Nana.

Should also mention that Candy has a really rich husband. He owns a huge shipping corporation in my town and would give Candy anything she asked for. He bought her 2 cars (a brand new Mercedes convertible and a Jeep Wrangler), a nice house that he let her remodel, and a huge swimming pool and hot tub. He takes her on trips wherever she wants to go... but they CONSTANTLY argue and fight because Candy won't let her sons deal with their own shit. Both of them are thieving meth heads who are in prison and she bends over backwards trying to get them out and works just so she can send them money in prison. She has bailed the younger one out more times than I could tell you... he has a whole list of charges and arrests. But she keeps acting like he's done nothing wrong and gives him whatever he asks for. This is something I had a problem with long before any of what I'm about to tell you happened.

(There are also accusations that Candy stole from her husband and gave the money to her sons after she bailed them out once. And she has made jokes herself about how he wouldn't even notice anything was missing and made jokes about how much money she could get if she divorced him. Which her stupid self doesn't realize wouldn't be that much, maybe her 2 cars, because everything else was his inheritance from his dad who originally built the company and she legally isn't allowed to touch his inheritance.)

-

My fiance and I had moved our bed and some of our stuff to my Nana's and spent one night there. It was peaceful and comforting. That night Nana came in our room and joked about how we needed to put our big TV in the living room for her to watch. (We had plans to buy her one at Christmas).

The next day we got up and went and got donuts from my favorite place down the road. After we ate my fiance and I fell asleep watching a movie. At this point we didnt even know my Nana was in the house... we hadn't seen or heard from her since we had been up and assumed she had gone somewhere with Candy like usual. (Turns out Nana had already started to cut Candy off and had called and told her not to come that day, telling her she was just going to rest.)

My Great Aunt Pat had been staying in the living room for a couple of nights because she had been staying with Nana. Nana hated being alone in her apartment, which is why Pat was staying there with her until we got moved in.

My fiance and I got woken up just as it was getting dark out by my Aunt knocking on the door. She came in and said she was worried about Nana because Nana told her she was just going to rest today and had went to her room to lay down. Pat was worried though because that had been 3-4 hours ago and she hadn't seen Nana since.

This is when I knew. And you might find that crazy because how could you know?

Nana never slept that long. She slept that long at MOST on a really GOOD night. Otherwise she would sleep an hour, maybe 2 and then at least get up to go to the bathroom or turn on a movie if she couldn't go back to sleep. 9 times out of 10 she would be awake through any hour of the night that I got up to go to the bathroom. We both had terrible sleeping habits and would often be in the kitchen at 3 am making breakfast...

So when Aunt Pat said she hadn't seen or heard from her in that long... I knew something wasn't right...

I sat on the bed for a second and just leaned back against the headboard while my Aunt walked back to the living room... I think she knew what I did but she didn't want to be the one to... find her.

I didn't want to get off that bed... but my fiance (who didn't realize what my Aunt and I did) said "You should go check on her. I would but she's probably in a nightgown and that might be kind of weird."

So I took a deep breath and went to her door.

- (Warning: GRAPHIC)

I opened the door slowly and the bed was empty... and I felt my heart stop.

In the floor I could see her hair fanned out around the foot board of the bed.

I walked over... not knowing what to expect, but just hoping like hell that maybe she just passed out...

Her lips were blue... but I didn't let that stop me from shaking her and calling to her and begging her to wake up. Her skin was cold and her body was stiff and ungiving, nothing like the warmth and love that I always felt from her.

-

I fell back on my ass and leaned against the dresser... so in shock that the tears hadn't even come yet. I couldn't breath. My chest felt like it was tight and my lungs wouldn't work anymore.

But I finally made myself get up and I called for my Great Aunt and fiance to call 911. My fiance called them and I heard him in her room telling the operator that he was trained in CPR but there was no point. She was gone. She had been gone for too long.

The first tear didnt roll down my cheek until I heard my Aunt screaming at Nana's body and crying for her to wake up. That's when I realized she was actually gone... it wasn't just a bad dream.

I got up to ask my fiance to call my mom and family and broke down in the hall while he stepped outside to do that. They wouldn't have been able to hear him over my Aunts painful sobbing. I sat in the hallway floor, staring at the 30+ pictures she had hung up all through the hallway...most of them were me. Her one and only grandchild. I remember crying silently and thinking "this can't be happening."

My fiance came back in after calling my mom and he took me to the living room and made me sit in my Nana's recliner. She had broken it a while back when my uncle came to visit and he sat in her lap and it flipped over with them in it. Nana had told me the story so many times, she didn't care about the chair being broken, she just thought it was a funny memory.

Minutes later... I don't really know how long because it was like my brain stopped perceiving time... the paramedics and the coroner came in. They asked us some questions after they examined her and the coroner pronounced her dead. I can't even remember what he asked other than about her medication and him telling us that she had been gone a while and there was nothing any of us could have done.

After this my mom came in and I called my Uncle and tried to tell him what had happened but couldn't get the words out so I handed the phone to my fiance who stepped outside and came back in later to tell me my Uncle had booked a flight and would be here in the morning.

After that more of my family showed up, my other Uncle and Great Aunt and then I called my Dad... who I didn't think was going to come for a second...

And finally everyone was there and everyone was crying and confused and asking what happened. And then Candy came in.

She ran straight to me and started screaming and bawling "Is Aunty dead!? She can't be dead! This isn't real!" And fell back in Nana's recliner and started kicking and screaming and crying like a 5 year old throwing a fit.

Now I know everyone reacts to things differently and grieves differently... but you could smell the alcohol on her and could tell she was out of her mind. And here she was throwing a fit and showing her ass while the rest of the family cried and talked amongst each other. I didn't really think about it or say anything at the time because I was so out of it, but my fiance brought it up later how just batshit crazy she seemed and how stupid she made herself look.

-

It was at this point that the coroner had us all in the kitchen and told us she had been gone for a while and that he believed she fell after she got up and the way she hit her head on the brick wall instantly killed her. He said she was gone before she hit the floor.

So she had gotten up, probably to go to the bathroom or something like usual... and just lost her balance, cracked her head on the wall... and was gone before she hit the ground.

-

After giving birth at 15 to my dad, and then having my younger uncle by surprise in her 30s. After fighting ulcers and stomach cancer and 2 knee replacements. After defeating her drug abuse problems... that's how she goes. Something so fucking simple!? Something that could happen so... easily...

Candy proceeded to tell the coroner that Nana had been put back on Neurontin at her last doctor visit. Candy and Mom both said the last time she was on that shit she had loss of speech and balance. Mom said she had been on it before and knew that it could mess with people really bad sometimes and that Nana had told her before about how bad it was last time they put her on it.

It's crazy how quickly drama ensued after that...

Our crazy landlord called my fiance and told him we needed to get our cats and the rest of our stuff out of "his house." Even though it had only been 2 days since we notified him that we were leaving. He threatened to throw our cats out to the neighbors dogs if we didn't have them out by morning because "his house wasn't a kennel." And that statement is what pissed me off the most because we hadn't even moved half of our stuff out of that house yet and here he was threatening us to pretty much move out over night, even though he legally had to give us 60 days.

So we had to go out there with my mom and dad and pack all of our stuff into their vehicles and move everything THAT NIGHT. We literally left to do that as the funeral home pulled up to get my Nana's body out of the house...

And my psychotic ass cousin decided for some reason that SHE should be the one to take Nana's purse. Candy literally grabbed Nana's purse and went and put it in her car before anyone even noticed and then told everyone that she had a key to the apartment and not to worry about it. (At this point I should mention that Candys meth head sons stuff was still in Nana's apartment, we had just started moving it the night before. Even though he had been in prison for several weeks at this point.)

The next day I got called to the funeral home with my dad and Uncles. They made the funeral arrangements with my input and said that everything should be left to me because I was the only grandkid and was so close to Nana.

The funeral was set to the next day, March 5, because one of my Uncles had to have surgery on the 7th and wanted to have it before then.

I held it together at the funeral pretty well, I only started crying when they played the song she used to sing to me all the time. I had smoked a blunt before going in Nana's honor and to make it a bit easier for me... Nana loved weed. She said it helped with her mental state as well as her arthritis and other physical pains. She always loved it more than any pills she ever took. Her and my Papaw used to smoke all the time before I was born. They gave it up to make sure they were good parents to my youngest uncle and great grandparents to me. And they were... despite the fact that I think they'd have been even cooler if they had kept smoking weed.

But the next day hell began all over again. My favorite Great Aunt called me and asked me to come to my Nana's apartment because Candy and her crackhead friend were over there packing up whatever they wanted. My youngest Uncle who had flown in said it looked like a couple of rats running in and out of the apartment...

My Aunt kept making little comments to Candy about how greedy she was acting and Candy kept getting bitchy with her and claimed all she was getting was her sons stuff. She tried to say she hadn't touched anything that was Nana's because she knew that was mine.

What bullshit. She had already packed up and taken all of Nana's collectable stuff that was on top of the cabinets in her kitchen, including an eagle set that Nana told me herself were hers and that she was pissed at my cousin because he kept stealing them off her cabinets and putting them in his room.

The next day my Aunt and I showed up to get some clothes for my other Aunt (Nana had like 5 sisters, so I have 5 great Aunts)... I had to climb through the window that Candy stupidly left open even though she deadbolted the door to keep me out...

While we were there Candy came flying up in her jeep (the neighbors had called her and told her we were there). And she barged into the apartment and immediately walks up to me in the hallway accusing me of stealing her sons TV and telling me I better bring it back... literally catching an attitude with me and accusing me of stealing something that WAS my Nanas. And I know the TV was my Nanas because my Uncle told us he and his wife bought it for her at Christmas!! But here this bitch is claiming she's not a thief or a liar... while lying and accusing me of stealing something that was NOT her sons. She was trying to get a free TV out of me because she thought I was too sweet and naive to tell her no and disagree with her... and she learned real quick that that wasn't happening.

She turned to my Aunt and started cussing her and telling her she had no business being in MY NANAS apartment that was left TO ME by my dad and uncles... telling my Aunt to leave her own sisters apartment.

I went off on the bitch, I had had enough. I told her my aunt wasn't going anywhere and that it was MY apartment and that SHE was the one who needed to get the fuck out. She finally left when my Aunt dialled the police.

So we went back to getting what we were there to get (some clothes that I had already been through the day before and was now taking my other Aunt.) When my Uncle pulled up. I had put Nanas plant in the trunk of my great aunts car and had walked out with a box in my hands. Candy jumped out and made a b-line for the trunk and tried to grab the plant so I rammed the box in to her and said "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" And she went off on me about how that was "her" plant and nana would have wanted her to have it and then... then she told me... that my Nana would be disappointed in me...

She's lucky I had a box in my hand or I really and truly would have beat the shit out of her in that moment... I rammed the box into her harder and shoved her back towards my Uncles car (who had just got out and was trying to get between us) and I started yelling "Take your drunk ass home you stupid fucking bitch!!"

And honestly... I know a lot of people will say that's childish and I shouldn't have done that... but she needed to hear it from me. She needed to hear it from someone she thought truly loved her and would never say something like that to her. She needed that truth shoved down her throat to get it through her head. She is a drunk no matter how much she denies it. She shook her head at me and got back in the car and my Uncles Wife took her home.

She posted all over Facebook after that about "karma" going to get someone. And then called me a couple times and left a voicemail crying about how she wanted to talk to me and wanted me to come see her. But never once said sorry... never once admitted that what she did was fucked up.

And the best part... I wanted to save this for the end.

Candy blamed me.

The day after Nana's funeral... she came in Nana's room while I was packing some things and crying into Nana's pillows and told me "Well if I had been here Aunty wouldn't be dead! I even talked to (methehead son) and he said if he had been here she wouldn't have been dead!'

The coroner said she was gone before she hit the floor and that there was nothing we could've done. Candy had been the one buying Nana alcohol and making her mixed drinks even when she knew Nana was put back on that medication, that the doctor specifically told her not to drink alcohol with.

But Candy blamed me.

And as far as her son goes... if he had found Nana dead he would have packed everything valuable in that house and ran. He was already being searched for and had several warrants in several states... no fucking way would he have helped her or called the police.

Fuck Candy and her son. Nana was done with both of them anyway... but Candy was so delusional she didn't even realize it. She didnt realize Nana wanted me there so she wouldn't HAVE to have rides from Candy and Candy couldn't use her anymore.

Candy has since then tried to tell the whole family that my Aunt and I were bullying her and being mean to her and accusing her of shit. And at this point... I don't give a fuck if they believe her. I'll cut them off just like I did her.

(Sorry for not giving a lot of names, I'm not really comfortable doing that on here.

Hope you enjoyed a story from my crazy, fucked up life.)

Ps: Crazy Candy also took flowers off her own mother's gravestone because it was my Aunt that shes pissed at that put them out there. So, my Aunt put flowers on her sisters headstone and Candy took them off because she's pissed at her right now... took flowers from her own mother like that did anything but make her look like the piece of shit she is.

[skysplinter]

3. Long Haul

First chapter here.

Previous chapter here.

Next chapter here.

Cyril Turner wasn’t just a cargo hauler. He never had been, even back when he and Ol’ Wheelie had been working for Forsyth’s, the biggest distributor in the sector. No, even when they had both been carting refined Rigelian oxen manure from one system to the next, he knew he was more than just your average run-of-the-mill delivery driver.

Cyril Turner was an entrepreneur. He was going places. And now that he and Ol’ Wheelie had branched out on their own, it only made them more deserving of respect. They were running a well-established business here! The tagline slapped on the side of their ship summed it up well enough. “Turner & Wheeler Delivery Company”, it said, in happy yellow letters across both sides of the hauler, “no complaints filed for four whole years”. Four whole years! Out of the nine years they had been up and running, that was pretty good going.

It was just a shame, he thought, when he had to deal with customers that clearly didn’t respect his line of business. It really made him sad to think that, in this modern galaxy they lived in, there were still people out there willing to step all over the guys who were doing all the hard work behind the scenes.

Taking these Lodestar folks as a prime example - he was sure they were good people if you got to know them. Most of the ones he had met seemed reasonable enough, and as he and Ol’ Wheelie watched them working with their fancy tools and their hi-tech doodads, he recognized that they were probably all pretty smart cookies.

Problem was, none of them had a clue how business worked. When someone drops off a delivery at your ship, you’re supposed to pay them. Surely that wasn’t too hard a concept to understand, or so Cyril thought. But these scholarly types had a different way of thinking of things, it seemed, and apparently that way of thinking didn’t involve giving money to the guys who busted their butts carrying very delicate cargo halfway across the galaxy.

He really hoped their commander would see reason and be able to solve their problem before things got ugly. Otherwise, he and Ol’ Wheelie would be forced to take legal action, and he really didn’t want to even look inside another courtroom for as long as he lived - not after the hell he’d been put through with his last divorce.

This Commander Thorn character still took her sweet time to see to them. Poor Ol’ Wheelie was halfway through a nap, slumped on top of their cargo, when the sharp-looking lady with the crewcut finally walked in, her sweet little second-in-command in tow. Cyril woke up his partner with a sharp nudge in the side, and she snorted herself back to life.

‘Whassup, T…?’ Wheelie gave him a dazed look and wiped the drool from her chin.

‘The commander, you dummy,’ Cyril hissed. He turned to face the Thorn lady, who looked at him like he’d just been scraped off the bottom of her boot. Somehow he got the feeling that business negotiations weren’t going to go as well as he had hoped. ‘Yo, Thorn,’ he said, flashing her his most professional smile, his hand shooting out to meet hers. ‘Nice to finally meet the proprietor of this fine vessel. Sorry for, uh, you know… pulling you from your duties. Good to see you though, really. Hopefully you can, uh, you know… sort this mess out for us.’

The Thorn Lady, however, just gave him a look that reminded him of eerily of his first wife. ‘I suppose you could put it like that,’ she said. ‘I heard there were two idiots refusing to leave my ship, so I came down to find out what was going on before I kicked you off.’

‘Nice to meet you too, lady,’ Wheelie muttered under her breath.

Hoping to save this little transaction from tanking before it even started, Cyril leapt forward, wrapped one bandy arm around the commander’s shoulders and shoved Wheelie out of the way of the merchandise. ‘Don’t mind my associate here, she’s a little, uh, you know… uncouth at times,’ he said, beaming. ‘What I’m sure she meant to say was that it’s pretty clear we got off on the wrong foot here. There’s been a pretty, ah, a pretty big misunderstanding on one side of this exchange; looks like whoever buys in your stock here forgot to register this particular delivery on your system.

‘And, uh, you know… No bother, no bother at all. We’re used to these little mix-ups every now and then,’ he continued. ‘All part of our line of business, eh, Wheelie?’

‘Oh,’ Wheelie yawned, clearly still a few sandwiches short of a picnic after her nap. ‘Yeah, all part of our business.’

‘But, uh… unfortunately, we can’t exactly, ah, deliver this stuff without going through the proper procedures, if you know what I mean,’ said Cyril. ‘Namely, uh, you know… payment.’

The Thorn lady shrugged his arm off her shoulders and gave him a look that could cut through steel before turning her attention to the large, rectangular storage unit which housed their cargo. ‘Tell me what you’ve brought onto my ship,’ she snapped.

‘Your delivery,’ Cyril explained helpfully. Turning on his heels, he spread his arms out towards the storage unit and flashed her another winning smile. ‘No damage, no tampering, no questions asked. Exactly what you ordered, lady.’

‘We didn’t order anything,’ said the commander. She was glaring at the cargo like he’d just fished it out of the toilet. ‘Now tell me what you’ve brought onto my ship.’

Cyril sighed. ‘Lady, if you didn’t order nothing, then that’s we would have brought you. You know, uhh… nothing.’ He slapped the side of the unit with a satisfying “klong”. ‘Clearly this ain’t nothing.’

Before her commanding officer bust a blood vessel, the cute little lady behind her chimed in. ‘I think the commander wishes to know what that storage crate actually contains,’ said Durant, smiling sweetly. ‘For clarification, so we can actually get to solving the problem. If you could show her what’s inside, like you showed me before…?’

Clearly, the brains of the outfit here wasn’t the commander, Cyril realized. This Durant lady was the only one who made even a lick of sense on the whole ship. He found himself sucking in his gut as he talked to her. ‘Oh, of course,’ he cooed. ‘Right away. Anything for you, ma’am.’ He turned and nudged Wheelie sharply in the ribs. ‘Just pop it open again, wouldja? For our nice lady friends here.’

Ol’ Wheelie grumbled as she stumbled to the back of the unit. Cyril could hear the manual locks springing open, and after Wheelie had disabled the security countermeasures, the front panel of the storage crate finally rose up to reveal the cargo.

It was still in pretty good condition, Cyril thought. Especially considering how old the thing apparently was. Sure, there was a bit of a ding on the underside of it from him and Ol’ Wheelie carrying it from the warehouse to the ship, but that was just a minor detail; nothing the customers would really notice. All the stuff that mattered was still in the same place - all the gold detail, the fancy jewels, the big creepy face slapped on the front of it - it was all there, and clearly it was well worth the credit they were asking for. Perhaps now that the Thorn lady could see it in all its glory, this silly little misunderstanding would blow over.

Unfortunately, as Cyril turned to the commander, he saw that she looked anything but pleased.

‘It’s a coffin,’ she said.

‘Uhh,’ Cyril raised a hand. ‘Technically, it’s a, uhh, you know… a sarcophagus.’

‘My apologies. It’s a really fancy coffin,’ the commander corrected herself, no less disapproving of it. ‘Why have you brought me a coffin?’

From behind the crate, Wheelie cleared her throat. ‘Excuse you,’ she said. ‘It ain’t like we just brought the box and forgot about the stiff inside it.’

Apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to say. ‘Oh joy,’ Thorn seethed. ‘You brought a coffin and a dead body onto my ship. Well, I guess that just completes the whole damned set, doesn’t it? Makes it a lot more useful to me, I’m sure. I can’t imagine why I would want to order a coffin without a shrivelled up corpse to put in it first.’

Something about her reaction felt a little off to Cyril. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but she wasn’t acting like someone who had ordered a sarcophagus. In fact, he was tempted to think that, in fact, she might not have ordered it at all.

But that wasn’t right. He couldn’t allow himself to think that way, because letting such thoughts cloud his better judgement was all but resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to get paid for his work. Not getting paid simply wasn’t an option. He started feeling that horrible itchy feeling all over himself again, just like the time his landlord had called him up and told him his last check had bounced.

‘Lady,’ he said smoothly, hands on his hips to stop his fingers from clenching up. ‘I’m not trying to be rude or nothing, but, uhh, you know… I don’t exactly care what crawled up your ass. We did our part of the job, we need paying.’

The commander was having none of it. She was still looking at the sarcophagus. ‘Durant.’ The cutie next to her nodded. ‘Is there any logs on our system documenting any incoming deliveries of a coffin? Or for that matter, a dead body?’

Durant swiped her pretty little fingers across a datapad for a few seconds. ‘Nothing here, commander,’ she said.

‘Then how about a delivery from Turner and Wheeler? Anything?’

Another few long seconds ticked by. Cyril’s palms started getting sweaty, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Lieutenant Commander Hotstuff shook her head. ‘Nothing again.’

‘Well then,’ said Thorn. Her lips flattened into a horrible little line. ‘There you have it. No records.’

‘But -’ Cyril began.

‘We don’t want it,’ she told him. ‘We didn’t order it. It isn’t ours. We’re not keeping it. Take it off my ship.’

‘But -’

‘But. Nothing.’ Thorn turned and pinned him in place with those eyes of hers before stalking away. ‘You will take that thing off my ship. We’re not paying for it. I’m giving you an hour. If you’re still here by then, I will personally throw you out the airlock.’

‘But -’

‘Nothing.’

And then, just as quickly as Thorn and her hot assistant had arrived, they were gone.

Cyril started chewing on his knuckles. His head felt like it was slowly filling up with cottage cheese.

From behind the storage crate, he could hear Wheelie chuckling to herself. ‘Didn’t sound like our negotiations went too well, huh?’ She emerged, smiling vacantly, like she hadn’t been present for the last ten minutes. Knowing her, maybe that wasn’t too far away from the truth. ‘So, uh, what are we gonna do, T?’

Pulling the skin of his hand with his teeth, he turned back to his associate. He wrinkled his nose in something that only vaguely resembled a smile. A brief flash of energy had frazzled its way through his brain, the shock of the commander’s bull-headedness and the fear of losing money on yet another job sparking a sudden wealth of panicked thoughts.

Thankfully, Cyril Turner was smart enough to ignore all of them. You didn’t get anywhere in business by giving into thinking. He swaggered over to Ol’ Wheelie and threw an arm around her. ‘Don’t you worry about it, Wheelie,’ he grinned smarmily. ‘She’s just blowing off some hot air, that’s all. You know these types in uniform. We’ll, uhh, you know… we’ll give her that hour to calm down. She’ll come to her senses, you’ll see.’

Wheelie smacked her lips and yawned. ‘Does that mean I can get back to my nap?’

‘You do what you want to, pal,’ said Cyril. He patted her backside as she started closing up the storage unit again, and tried to hide his fading smile. ‘You’ll see, that Thorn lady’ll come round to our way of thinking. You’ll see.’

‘If you say so, T,’ said Wheelie.

‘Yeah,’ Cyril mumbled. ‘If I say so.’

[avecorviidae]

Fic: Aubade - Chapter Six

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100 Rating: M Relationship(s): Kageyama Ritsu/Suzuki Shou Word Count: 3834

Ao3 Link

Rye street is… nice, he thinks. A few apartment buildings, some small businesses, a convenience store, a couple of fast food takeaway joints, even a little cafe with a fence around the outside tables, looking like it’s straight out of some soft indie film. It’s all pretty average, which at first was honestly more than Ritsu had dared to hope for. The landlord of the building is a fairly stout man with perpetually ruddy pink cheeks, and he stands shorter than even Shou, much to Shou’s obvious delight. He shows the two of them around the building, (five floors, he tells them like it’s some sort of selling point, I’ll show you gentlemen the one you were looking at on the third, of course, but wouldn’t you like to see some of our empty ones on the top floor? Only a little extra rent, I assure you, and the view is–

No, thank you, Ritsu interrupts before Shou can say something decidedly less polite, we’re just interested in the one we saw online.) It’s hardly their first choice, and unless there’s some great disaster, it almost certainly won’t be the place they end up living. It’s a little cramped, a little run-down, and even looking around now at the flaking paint on the exposed pipes, the suspiciously dark patch on the ceiling of the hallway (is that mould?), Ritsu could see quite a few maintenance issues in their future, if they ended up here. Besides, it’s too far away from the school to walk, and not even nearly close enough to a bus stop for Ritsu’s lazy ass. The only reason they’re actually visiting in the first place is because, well, he can’t help but feel like he needs a test run, a general idea of how these things work before anything’s actually at stake. Figure out what to look for now, before they end up in a perfectly nice place with no air conditioning and a toilet in the living room.

He tunes back into reality just in time to grab Shou’s shoulder, barely stopping him from crashing right into the landlord. Apparently both of them had zoned out of his little extravagant speech, so they hadn’t realized they were coming to a stop at one of the doors.

Jeez, looks like someone had a nice game of hallway golf, he notes with vague amusement. Maybe Dad’s client was here with his stapler.

He wonders, if they were seriously considering this place, what would be an absolute dealbreaker, because he has the somewhat foreboding feeling that this place is going to get worse than that dent in the door.

The landlord (Mr. Amori? No, that was his year three teacher. Anami? Anami. Maybe,) seems to think that if he’s loud and fast enough, maybe, just maybe they won’t notice. Playing dumb, he follows him into the apartment, trailing a few steps behind Shou. He doesn’t have to feign polite interest as he looks around the main room, though he does have to stifle a smile at the way Shou immediately bounds off like a dog let off its leash, one moment poking his head through the curtains to look out of the little window, the next rummaging through the empty kitchen cabinets. He’s ooohing and aaahing every now and again, and tossing questions in the landlord’s direction which are both completely irrelevant to the apartment and in too much of a rapid fire succession for the poor man to even think about answering.

Probably-Anami is watching Shou with almost frightened bewilderment, so Ritsu takes pity on him and starts asking real questions.

“There’s AC and heating, right?” The man smiles gratefully at him, clearly glad to be on familiar ground.

“Yes, yes, of course! Air conditioning, heating, a refrigerator, an oven, even a microwave! Well, the microwave may have some, some very minor issues, but I can assure you…” I asked what utilities there were, not appliances, dumbass, he thinks, letting his eyes glaze over as the man continues to talk at him. He tries to think what questions he’s supposed to ask next, his fingers itching at his side to reach for the folded piece of paper in his pocket. Did it count as ridiculous, planning this far ahead, looking up what questions you were supposed to ask your landlord? Shou had called him uptight, but jokingly, and it’s not as if he’s much of a standard to go by anyways, Mister Mad-Dash-Across-LAX-Because-He-Didn’t-Check-His-Flight-Times.

He waits and nods along until Probably-Anami seems to be probably finished speaking, and then starts on a small barrage of questions as they come flooding back to him like a set of definitions memorized the night before a test, and he takes incredible satisfaction in the pure anxiety on Anami’s face every time he’s asked a question that he’d almost definitely wanted to avoid.

Are utilities included in the rent? Apparently not, that’s an additional fee, joy oh joy.

What are the circumstances that allow the landlord to let himself into the property? There are none, and he can come in at any time. Well, then.

How often are the locks changed? Hm, it seems that since the last tenants left so suddenly there just hasn’t been time to get the locks changed, how reassuring. Are there quiet hours? Anami is halfway through the beginning of an answer when Ritsu feels light tapping on his shoulder, and by the time he’s turned around, Shou is already half-dragging him into the nearby bathroom, ostensibly to show him something, although the manically delighted grin on his face says otherwise.

The bathroom is disgustingly dirty, Ritsu notes absently, scuffed white tiles and black grout, some ominous damp mush gathering in the line between the tiny bathtub and the floor. Sure, he wasn’t one to leap at bathroom duty in his dorms or at home, but christ, he’d never let it get this bad. It was probably more on the last tenants than the landlord, but did he not clean before he showed the place to prospective tenants? Had they left yesterday, or something? “So,” Shou starts, and then pauses, clearly hoping to build up anticipation for his big reveal. “So,” Ritsu echoes, crossing his arms over his chest and letting his tone lilt up into an expectant question.

Shou’s grin widens fractionally. “Those ‘minor issues’ with the microwave?” He leans closer into Ritsu’s space, and when he’s speaking again, it’s in a conspiratorial whisper. “Cockroach crispies.” “Augh, no!” He gives Shou exactly what he wants, letting disgust colour his voice and scrunching his face as Shou collapses into hysterical laughter.

“No, no, nope absolutely not,” Ritsu says, making for the door, “we’re done here.” “Aw, you’re telling me you don’t want to see it for yourself?” Shou is obviously only fake disappointed, his tone more teasing than anything, because apparently he knows Ritsu far too well for his own good.

“One look. Then we’re leaving.”

-

Their second appointment on Barley Avenue is not much better.

It was a little after eleven by the time they’d finally managed to worm their way out of Anami’s grasp, and the first thing they did was make a beeline for the nearest place that had food, some food literally any food, dear god why had they not thought to bring, god, like a granola bar or something.

Once Shou’s not allegedly starving to death, he’s back to full energy and he is ready to go, and he keeps weaving ahead of Ritsu on the street, his orange spikes disappearing into the crowd until he’s lost him completely. Ritsu might worry, but Shou always ends up trailing back within a few minutes, once he remembers that he has no actual idea where the bus stop is.

-

The landlady, Yamada Sachiko, is typically professional, with a soft yellow blouse and black pencil skirt and a clear plastic clipboard piled with neatly sorted paperwork held to her chest. Her hair is pulled into one of the strictest buns he’s ever seen, and it’s giving him a sympathy headache just to look at.

She’s waiting for them in the lobby of the building when they arrive, and he gives an appropriately polite greeting as she shakes his hand. There’s an uncomfortable pause after he pulls away, as her previously warm smile turns plastic and patronizing, and she seems to hesitate before holding out a hand for Shou to shake as well. Jeez, and she’s actually looking down at him, could she be any more like a teacher?

Admittedly, between the height, the hair, and the skinny jeans, Shou usually looks a good few years younger than he actually is. You certainly wouldn’t know from looking at him that he’s spent the last five or more years cleaning up his father’s messes, including dealing with whatever high-profile business associates he may have had.

Which is why it’s viscerally satisfying to see the slight shock on Yamada’s face when Shou straightens his shoulders, holds his head up to meet her eyes, shakes her hand firmly, and says with a saccharine smile, “Miss Yamada, a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for taking the time to show us around, we’ve been looking forward to it.” Ritsu’s not sure if he’s imagining a particular emphasis on we. It’s entirely an act, of course, and Ritsu can sense the hostility underneath it, even moreso once they all step into the elevator and the tension thickens between them all in the stale air. Yamada is shifting, somewhat uncomfortably, while Shou seems to be revelling in it. So, Shou’s decided to put on a show. Ritsu isn’t entirely sure why, yet, but he’s perfectly willing to play along.

The elevator pulls to a stop and Yamada leads them out into the hallway, never faltering as she strides across the thick patterned carpet, despite her insanely high heels.

While the other apartment building had given off the general atmosphere of a horrifying mutant hybrid between a dormitory and a prison, this place feels like a hotel, generically ornate carpets underfoot and not-quite-faded wallpaper on either side, interrupted by fancy lamps whose gold paint was peeling to reveal black metal underneath.

The smell of stale air freshener is making his nose itch.

Even so, he probably comes off as overeager with how quickly he steps into the apartment once Yamada unlocks the door, quickly making his way to the middle of the room and looking around.

This place had been his favourite of the ones they’d looked at online, and truth be told, he was already most of the way to sold on it. It had an open floor plan that left a nice amount of space without feeling empty, rich hardwood floors, a kitchen bigger than a matchbox, and god, did it ever have windows. Sunlight fell into the room in bits and pieces, dappling the kitchen counter through half-shuttered blinds, making the beige-ish couch and scratched up coffee table look more warm and rustic than worn and torn.

He hears Shou come in behind him, but surprisingly, he doesn’t wander off to explore like last time. Instead, he stays hovering at Ritsu’s elbow, looking around the apartment with an almost blank curiosity.

Yamada is clearly more practiced at this than Anami had been; she shows them around the main living space in a way that highlights its most attractive features, explains the utilities and appliances that come with the place with clinical objectivity that still manages to sound almost welcoming. All in all, it’s incredibly pleasant.

Ritsu has never been more uncomfortable in his life.

There’s something about the way the woman looks at him, a little too personal, a little too… intimate? Regardless, it’s putting him on edge, even as he plasters on a smile in return, asks cordially about the hours for the building’s laundry facilities, what forms the rent money is accepted in, about the security deposit.

She steps into his space, looks up at him. He can smell lavender, cloying and artificial, too strong to be anything but cheap perfume.

“Of course,” she says, with an alarming smile and a new undertone to her voice that Ritsu can’t identify and doesn’t want to, “you’ll be welcome to contact me at any time. I’d be happy to help.” “Uh,” Ritsu says eloquently, taking a half-step back. Too close, she’s too close for him to think. And then there’s sudden warmth at his side, and his right arm is looped around a set of —oh thank god, familiar— shoulders. Shou, he thinks, with a rush of relief. He hadn’t even really noticed him wander off, hadn’t missed him until he was back.

The physical closeness, that’s not unusual, but the way Shou is looking at him, head pressed back against Ritsu’s shoulder so that he can meet his eyes upside-down, a soft, dopey sort of smile on his face, well that’s– that’s not something he sees every day, and for good reason. They only do this when they need an out, and Ritsu knows an escape rope when he sees one. Shou’s aura embraces him like a safety blanket, but he can feel the defensiveness, the way it prickles at the edges, little hedgehog spines surrounding them protectively.

“Ritsu,” and it’s said pleadingly, softly, like Yamada isn’t standing right there, “Can we choose a bedroom already?” Ritsu lets himself relax, returns Shou’s smile with a small, exasperatedly affectionate one of his own. He slips his arm more snugly around Shou, makes to move towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms, then spares a cursory glance at Yamada, as if she’s an afterthought, rather than the main cause of his little panic. “If we could...?” he says, and it’s not a question, not really.

She nods sharply regardless, looking suitably ruffled, and without further ado Ritsu steers them as quickly as is appropriate into the hallway and into the first bedroom. The tension doesn’t fully slip from his shoulders until the door clicks shut behind them, and he slumps against it with a sigh. Shou follows his movement, and he hears him mutter “creep” half into shoulder.

“Mhm,” he mutters by way of agreement, scrubbing his free hand over his face. He didn’t think he was getting worked up over nothing, but he also couldn’t pinpoint exactly why Yamada made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t– it wasn’t overtly inappropriate, or rude, or flirtatious…

Wait, was it? The saccharine smiles, the too-close-for-comfort tour, the intimate tone of voice, the perfume, the– the flash of sudden recognition in her eyes when Shou had stepped in, the step backwards she’d taken and–

“Jesus, she was coming on to me, wasn’t she?”

There are a few moments of silence as Shou goes rigid against him, and then he collapses into fits of giggles, leaning his weight on Ritsu in earnest now as he muffles his laughter into Ritsu’s shirt.

Ritsu sighs, but as usual, there’s no real heart to it. That Ritsu has a tendency to miss those sorts of specific social cues is a given, and since they were kids, that Shou will help him out of those situations is one too. The one-year gap had stretched between them again, in that respect, and Ritsu reflects that he can certainly take being made fun of a little if it means he gets this again, Shou leaning into him and pulling him away from situations like this, his laugh making the discomfort and panic tight in the back of Ritsu’s throat dissipate like so many butterflies, well. Seems like a fair tradeoff to him.

-

They don’t last too long in that apartment after that. Arguably, Yamada would still rent to them, but Ritsu is feeling strange and shaky around her, too distracted to see the idealized apartment, keeps focusing on the threadbare curtains, the weird smudge on the sofa, the way some of the floorboards sort of bounce under his feet (didn’t his dad once say that meant they had water damage?) and frankly, it’s enough to turn him off the place entirely. Besides, Shou’s clearly made an enemy of the woman, and Ritsu can’t think of a single possible benefit of having a landlord that hates your guts.

On the bus, Shou looks distracted, harried, staring out of the window and not meeting his eyes. He looks exactly how Ritsu feels: I didn’t think it would be this hard.

Frankly, it shouldn’t be as draining as it is; they’ve looked at one place seriously, and one-and-a-quarter bad experiences does not a disaster make. Still, as Ritsu finds with all Adult Responsibilities, he can’t help but feel that it’s disproportionately difficult for what it actually is. He just wants for this day, no, this move to be done with, wants a bed in a new apartment with his best friend for him to collapse into and fall asleep already.

On impulse, he reaches out and grabs Shou’s hand, squeezes it once. “Third time’s the charm?” It’s as much to reassure himself as it is Shou.

Shou, for once in his life, doesn’t have anything to say beyond a quiet hum of agreement that’s almost lost in the constant muted sound of the engine, but the quick squeeze of fingers around his speaks volumes.

-

Whatever powers-that-be have been fucking with them all day have finally decided to let up, apparently.

Their third landlord, Nishigori, is the kind of man who seems to face the world with a genuine and gentle smile. He shows up a little less than ten minutes late to their appointment, and his explanation-cum-apology about his newborn triplets makes sense of the shadows under his eyes, the slightly rumpled effect of his clothes and hair, the fact that the man looks absolutely, utterly exhausted, and is somehow happy about it.

He seems to find Shou’s hyperactivity genuinely amusing, and he answers Ritsu’s questions informally, but honestly.

The apartment itself is smaller than the last one, with a bit more of an awkward layout; the front door leads into a straight hallway with doors on either side, leading to the living room, the bathroom, a couple of cupboards, and the bedrooms. Nishigori tells him which door leads to what, but Ritsu immediately forgets and finds himself lost, so he just follows the him into the living room. Shou, in his usual exploration mode, seems to have opted for trial and error, because he distantly hears two or three doors opening and closing before Shou finally pokes his head into the living room and strolls inside.

“Carpets in the bedrooms,” Shou reports to him, sounding impressed.

Oh, nice. Most of the apartment seems to be like the last one, darkish hardwood interrupted periodically by a rug, or sectioned off like the bathrooms and the kitchen into slate grey tile. A wooden-floored bedroom wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for him, but he’d definitely prefer carpet.

Interestingly enough, while nothing in the apartment is what he thought he’d wanted, it is in its own way shaping up to be ideal. It’s pretty sparsely furnished (IKEA, reads the final bullet point of the list in his back pocket, and won’t that be a shopping trip and a half,) but not enough to make the place feel empty. It seems like the white walls should be clinical, boring even, but as evening turns the sky grey Nishigori wanders around turning on lamps that seem to warm the rooms, make the empty spaces smaller, hell, makes the whole place homey. It doesn’t look like something out of a furniture catalog or a movie, particularly, but it looks soft, comfortable, lived in.

For the third time that day, he and Shou step into another room for a little private conference. For the first time that day, it’s not to shittalk about how completely fucking awful everything is.

They’ve moved into one of the bedrooms, the one with the blue-grey sheets on the bed and little lamps on the bedside table and the dresser, and Ritsu notes the plush of the tan carpet under his feet as he goes to sit on the bed. Shou plops down beside him and leans forward, elbows on his knees and chin in his palms. “I really like this place,” Shou says without preamble.

“Me too,” he replies, equally as frank.

He thinks, thinks, that Shou shares the same worry and hesitation as him: that he likes this place, that he’s ready to decide on this place, but that the feeling isn’t mutual. There’s a heavy silence as Ritsu tries to think of what to say, to test the waters.

“It doesn’t have to be now that we decide. I mean, we’ve still got appointments tomorrow, we could find something better.” He thinks that more reluctance shows through in his tone than he intended.

Shou doesn’t answer right away, instead falling backwards so that he’s half-lying on the bed, feet still grazing the floor. After a few more beats, he says, “Dibs on this bed.”

-

He asks as they’re going over a basic packet of paperwork, the first steps to putting in a security deposit and getting their names down on the lease.

“Mr. Nishigori? Shou and I, we’re…” Hm, how to phrase it, and he decides last minute on a half-truth, “...We’re about to be out of a place to live, honestly. Of course,” and at this he rubs his hand at the back of his neck, reluctant, sheepish, “I know it’s unconventional to let your tenants start living in the apartment before they’ve even signed the lease, but…” Nishigori blinks at him, surprised, and then smiles. “Nonsense! You’re certainly moving in, yes? Might as well make the transition easier and start now.” He claps Ritsu softly on the shoulder, and he has the distant, tired thought of, he’s going to be a good dad.

“If nothing else,” their new landlord jokes, “it’ll make it easier for me to track you down and get you to sign all this damn paperwork.”

-

Ritsu dozes off on top of the blankets of the blue-grey bed at almost one in the morning, pressed thigh to shoulder with Shou, propped up against the pillow monster they’ve made of the headboard. Ritsu’s laptop is balanced somewhat precariously between them, tinnily blaring some shitty B-movie that Shou had drug out of the dredges of his old hard drive for them to laugh at.

He’s not paid much attention, a little too tired to follow the plot, a little too giddy, occasionally just repeating Apartment 401, 37 Amaranth Street, Grain City to himself in his head.

Ritsu dozes off on his first night in his new apartment with his best friend, and the laptop on his leg is too warm but his feet are too cold, and the gelled spikes of Shou’s hair are vaguely tickling his face, and he’s going to have to do everything tomorrow, but beyond the easy, drowsy happiness of we actually fucking did it, he can’t really bring himself to care.

[dashdotdashbackslash]

Well, here in my little University town, it is officially move in day for the residence students. That means that not only is campus flooded with new students and their folks, but the 7-11 I go to every freakin Sunday for my junk food meal of chicken wings and a corn dog is going to be beyond packed and utterly destroyed. That also means that Casa del Failure is packed again.

Once again it’s me, your favourite failure, with my precious Bowser Kitten and the Amazingly Awesome Boyfriend taking care of the place. I do most of the general cleaning int he common areas and small repairs; AAB does all the yard work, the really dirty work, and scrubs out rooms when people move out; and Bowser Kitten is in charge of pest control. We have our quirky and quite strange roommate A, who failed to learn how a slow cooker works in his 46 years on this planet (at least I think he’s from this planet), on the main floor with us. In the basement is our young student C, who Bowser absolutely adores right now, taking up the most recently vacated room. And our newest addition is a recent masters graduate we’ll call J, whose girlfriend was my next-door neighbour and babysitting charge more than 15 years ago in a whole other city.

Yes, once again I am living in a house full of dudes. This is a two ovary household still.

So far, things don’t seem too bad. The only real problem we had was with the people moving OUT of rooms. Over the years that I’ve been here, our basement has become quite the collection of randomness that people seem to think I either want or have a burning desire to get rid of for them. Seriously, our little storage area in the basement (which is really just a wide open area when you first come down the stairs with no organizational structure at all) is beyond filed, with things spilling out into the basement common area (where we keep the really really comfy couch).

  Yes, that is a random tire, a whole bunch of styrofoam, an old broken fan, and a box of old used beer pitchers.  Seriously, what the hell do people think I’m going to do with this crap? It’s not like they left it behind and said, “I don’t have access to a truck to haul this off to the dump. Can I leave it here so you can take it the next time you go?”. They just left it behind in a big pile down there. And that’s not all that’s been left behind over the years, either.

  That right there is most of a Christmas tree, a treadmill, a box of Christmas lights (which I am actually keeping and putting up in the living room because the lighting sucks in there), and a box of Christmas ornaments. A few of those ornaments were made for the guy who left them here by his freakin son!  So now not only do I have to find a way to get all of this crap to the dump, I have to haul a fucking treadmill up the ridiculously awkward basement stairs!

It gets worse too, Sunshine. When AAB moved in here, the landlord cut a deal with him and paid him to clean out the rooms and bathroom in the basement. Why? Because the last tenant who lived down there (who left the tires, a box of wires and chords, and a few old alarm clocks) was a huge pig. It looked like he had tried to sweep before leaving, but just left piles of dirt and debris all over the bedroom floor. There were old McDonald’s bags from months before, random school papers everywhere, and the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned once in the year he was living down there. AAB spent days down there hauling up garbage, scrubbing layers of mold off the bathroom shower, and basically sanitizing the entire basement.

Sad thing is, this isn’t the first or last time this has happened.  The most recent dude to leave here left behind the tree, Christmas things, random end tables everywhere (who the hell has so many tables for no reason? I mean besides me now), and just garbage everywhere. And of course, no one can forget the guy who lived in my room before me who didn’t vacuum for more than a year. Even after vacuuming the carpet multiple times, I wound up having an allergic reaction to something that had been ground in there and was covered in hives for 94 days.

Yes, 94 fucking days of hives. In the middle of summer, when sweat made the hives worse.

Living in a house you don’t own doesn’t give you free reign to trash the place or disrespect the owners (or your roommates). There are so many simple, little things that you can do to avoid pissing off everyone and someday ending up on some random person’s blog as their Roommate From Hell. So, here for your reading pleasure, I give you…….

The Failed GrownUp’s Guide to Not Being a Complete And Total Ass Waffle of a Roommate

#1: Clean Up Your Fucking Messes

This doesn’t just mean “scrape the berries off the ceiling after you try to make a smoothie in a blender with no lid and cause a giant purple delicious explosion in the kitchen”. Did you use the kitchen counter? Then grab a rag, or a clean sponge, or one of those disinfectant wipes, and wipe the fucking thing down. Use dishes? Fucking wash them!

It’s not rocket surgery here, but it’s the one thing I hear the most complaints about from people I know who are living with roommates. There’s nothing worse than coming home at the end of a long day, wanting nothing more than to throw a bunch of shit into a pot on the stove and make random deliciousness, and finding out that every fucking pot in the damn house is dirty and sitting in the sink. What makes it even worse is when you realize you haven’t touched the pots in days, they were clean right after you used them, and it’s the same fucking roommate using up everything all the time and just leaving it for you to clean.

This isn’t just in the kitchen, either. I could’ve avoided 94 fucking days of hives if someone had just picked up a vacuum every now and then and ran it across the carpet. It’s not a huge room, it only takes a few minutes. Hell, I got a shitty little handheld vacuum with a hose attachment to spot vacuum when I need it in here!

Just generally, clean up after yourself. You know all the shit your parents always bitched at you for, like picking up your socks and not leaving wet towels on the floor? I mean that shit. Pick up things you drop on the floor. If you take stuff into a common area, unless there’s a specific place you can put it, take it with you when you leave. I’m fucking horrible for this, always have been. I’ll take a pile of books, papers, and pens and just leave it somewhere when I leave the room. It’s something I consciously try to avoid doing, though, because I don’t want to be an asshole.

#2: Unless You’re Actually Trying to Wake the Dead, Pipe the Fuck Down

The student life is fucking weird, and you keep the most bizarre hours sometimes. I can remember staying up for like 36 hours sorting through research once, taking a nap at like 10 am and then waking up at 2 pm to start writing for the next 5 hours. Between the classes, the class work, working a job or two, volunteering, clubs and societies, parties, and some semblance of a social life, you find yourself doing strange things like going to 7-11 at 3:30 am for coffee and a RockStar, and then going back again at 3:30 pm for the same thing. There is no one set schedule that all, or even most, students live on. That’s why it’s so damn important to pipe the fuck down.

If you have roommates, unless you’re sitting in the same room together right this very second, you don’t know if they’re sleeping. Or, at the very least, trying to sleep. I once had a roommate who had this big old tv in her room, which was right next to mine. She didn’t care if I worked late the night before, or was up all night writing papers. By 10 am her TV was on and cranked as loud as it would go. I could go downstairs to the living room, turn on the tv down there, and STILL hear her TV. I couldn’t sleep during the day in my own room, let alone take a quick nap unless I had hit the point of total exhaustion where I could sleep through anything.

I admit that I’ve been the loud and annoying roommate at times. Sometimes, if I know everyone is awake, I love to blast some tunes in the shower and sing along. And just so you know, the Bowser Kitten has a better singing voice than I do, and he’s a fucking cat. Still, I now try to do that only when I know everyone is awake and most (if not all) of them are out of the house.

You generally don’t know when someone is sleeping, or napping, or trying to concentrate. I’m not saying you have to tiptoe around the house as quiet as a fucking mime. Let’s be honest here, mime’s are fucking creepy and I would never tell you to act like one! Just be a little considerate. Keep your shows and music at a somewhat reasonable volume.

Why am I sounding more and more like my mother while I write this?

#3: Not Everyone Is Your New Bestie

I’m a pretty solitary person usually. I practice voluntary hermit-ism. If it wasn’t for AAB, I would only leave my room to go to work and take a shit. I’m not totally anti-social or anything. I mean, if I run into a roommate while we’re both in the kitchen or something, I’ll chit chat. I’ve had roommates before who I was friends with, and we would sit around at night and watch tv together. I’m not living here to make friends, though.

All those TV shows where random people live in close proximity to each other and instantly become inseparable best friends for life are a lie. A bold-faced, spit in your eye, slap you across the face, help you move into a new apartment while they fuck your girlfriend in the closet at your old place, LIE!  Living under the same roof does not instantly make you best friends.

My one roommate “A” is constantly trying to strike up a conversation with me. If I’m chilling in the kitchen, I’ll chit chat for a bit while I cook. That’s fine with me. But just a few minutes ago I was cleaning the basement out. I was picking up mattresses and throwing them into a pile, moving the junk people have left behind, and “A” came downstairs. So there I am, hoisting a mattress up over my head while trying to walk around piles of junk, and he just starts rambling on to me about something-or-other. Next thing I know, he’s trying to push mattresses around back into the spaces I was pulling them out of! While I’m pulling stuff out of a tight spot, he’s pushing against and just rambling on about random bullshit.

I know, he’s lonely. He’s always trying to talk to anyone within earshot around here. I’ve taken to hiding when I hear his door open sometimes. It’s just annoying. Like, I just wanted to throw some old mattresses around and check all the Christmas lights that were down there in total peace. It’s my procrastination from writing. I clear my mind, blow off some steam, and lift heavy things over my head for a bit. I didn’t need him undoing my work while rambling my fucking ear off.

Don’t think that everyone in your house will want to sit around and let you talk their ear off. I have had roommates that I grew to be good friends with, some that I actively hate, but most of them were just sorta here. We didn’t chat, or hang out, or go out anywhere together. Sure, we talked when we were in the same room. I can tell you a few things I learned about each of them, and we had some laughs. Hell, I had a roommate I never spoke to outside of our kitchen who I bonded with over a few very large bottles of red wine while we tried to learn about wine tasting in an effort to sound smart at networking events (we failed massively and wound up very hungover instead). He’s moved out since then, and we don’t keep in touch. It’s not a big deal, we’re just not friends.

When you’re renting with random people or people you don’t know very well, don’t try and force the friendship. You might wind up friends with some of them, you might not. It’s no big deal, you don’t have to be everyone’s friend.

And NEVER, under any circumstances, try to force a new roommate into a “fun-filled” night in with you and all your favourite things. A friend had a new roommate try this, and said roommate pitched a fit when my lactose-intolerant vegetarian friend wouldn’t sit around eating burgers and drinking milkshakes for hours during one of the busiest weeks before exams.

#4: Is That Yours? Then Why The Fuck Are You Using It?

Years ago I had to walk home in the pouring rain, and the only thing that kept me going was the thought of grabbing my biggest pot and making ALL the pasta for me and a friend. Like, we were walking in the freezing cold, rain soaking through our clothes, umbrella ripped to shreds from the wind, and all we could talk about was smothering pasta in butter and sopping up the butter with fresh hot bread. Pretty sure the rain was washing away massive amounts of drool. We finally get to my place, change out of our wet clothes, head to the kitchen to start cooking……. and all my pots are gone. I had four fucking pots, and they were ALL gone! A few minutes of snooping and we found all four of them, full of my roommate’s food, used up in the fridge.

This wasn’t the first time, or the last time, this particular roommate took my cookware. I’d come home from class and my stuff would just be gone. When I announced I was moving out, he actually had the nerve to try and hide some of my stuff from me! In the end, I did lose a few things in the move because of him. He grabbed stupid random shit (a toaster, a fan, frying pan, three plates and a bowl from a 4-person place setting) and locked it in his room for the week while he was out of town.  I couldn’t get them before I left.

If you’re my roommate and you ask me if you can borrow something, 99% of the time I’ll let you. I can’t help it, I’m Canadian to a fault and way too fucking nice to say ‘no’ to someone in need. All you have to do is ask. And I know a shit tonne of people who are the same way.

If you’re the one who needs to borrow something, don’t just reach for it unless you know you can use it. Don’t assume that just because your roommate doesn’t hoard their things in their bedroom, they’re fair game for everyone to use.  This kinda brings us to my last point for the day……

#5: Treat Everyone’s Shit As If It Was Your Shit

An old roommate had a bunch of roommates over the years in his house. Most of them were pretty chill, easy enough to live with. One turned out to be a disrespectful piece of shit who cost my friend and his landlord money over the time of this guy’s lease. Carpets had to be replaced because he never vacuumed them or cleaned up spills. He would burn cookware and just throw it back into the cupboard. He’d borrow a jacket or a sweater and just leave it somewhere random. He peeled paint off the walls, left food to rot on the counters, and even put holes in one of the walls. Nice enough guy, just a fucking nightmare to live with.

You’re paying money to live in someone else’s house. Don’t treat it like you’re Motley Cru and it’s a hotel room in 1986. It’s someone’s fucking property, their home. How would you feel if this was your place and someone treated it that way? Nevermind the anger from being disrespected, you’d probably be fucking pissed off about the money you’ve got to shell out for repairs!

If you borrow something from someone, treat it like it’s your own. Take care of it, wash it, give it back in one piece, and if something does happen to it then you damn well better replace it. Don’t treat your place and your roommate’s stuff like this is your personal playground.

  All in all, if you want to not follow any of these tips, just remember one thing: someday you might need a reference. Most of the apartments in this area require AT LEAST one former landlord as a reference and more and more are asking for references from former roommates. So if you’re a giant dickwad to your roommates, lose and destroy their things, destroy the room you’re renting, and are just a horrible fucking human in general when it comes to renting, what are the chances anyone would want to give you a good reference?

Well Sunshine, the sun aint’ shining anymore today. I’m going to grab my sandwich and a glass of whiskey, throw on the comfy pants, and throw on a horror movie or three. Hope any of you moving for the start of the school year made it through the move safely, and without losing your shit (literally and figuratively).

The Failed GrownUp’s Guide to Not Being a Complete And Total Ass Waffle of a Roommate Well, here in my little University town, it is officially move in day for the residence students.