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ugh-againwiththenames · 3 years

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A Musical Social Experiment...Destiel.

Alright, so I thought to myself, while playing along with @thenightwemetnatural‘s Destiel song picks, that despite my musical tastes, and them tending typically (although not exclusively) towards the Metal genres, that EVERY song can in some way, be paralleled to Destiel. This is such a ridiculous experiment, and I apologize, but I’m at the cottage, and it’s fucking pouring with rain, so let’s play…

Here are the rules: take your Music library and throw it on Shuffle – every song that comes on for an hour(ish), connect it to Destiel...(below the cut for my results).

You can access the playlist here (if you have any interest in listening along!). I am not going to necessarily describe every possible connection - I think that a lot of them are SUPER obvious...like *eyes rolling out of my head* obvious...

In the End – Black Veil Brides – Well we’re off to a hell of a start, as this song from start to finish screams Destiel and sacrifice. In the end As my soul's laid to rest What is left of my body Or am I just a shell? And I have fought And with flesh and blood I commanded an army Through it all I have given my heart for a moment of glory Who will remember this last goodbye 'Cause it's the end and I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to die A Modern Way - The Exies – only on song 2, and it’s once again, really hard to cut out any of this song, as the repeating “I’m bound by my insecurities” SCREAMS Dean at me.

I’m Bound by my insecurities

Open your eyes and Throw your arms around me I need the right not to fight To breathe

Swallow the lies I'm the one to blame Having no voice left to choose Am i so blind, feeling justified When i'm alone and confused

Brother – NEEDTOBREATHE – I have to laugh…as I added this after watching Jensen sing this at a Con (for J*red), and no lie, I’m in LOVE with it, but it’s somehow now determinably connected to the brothers for me but I can/WILL draw the lines here…EASY.

Everybody needs someone beside em’ shining like a lighthouse from the sea Face down in the desert now there’s a cage locked around my heart I found a way to drop the keys where my failures were Now my hands can’t reach that far I ain’t made for a rivalry I could never take the world alone I know that in my weakness I am strong, but It’s your love that brings me home Summoners Rift – Dangerkids – Um. Well. The first line of this song just made me laugh out loud.

There's no room for martyrs in a dying scene Well I'm not quite dead I'm something in between

And if I had another chance I would tell you

I guess I'm not afraid of what comes after We are the only ones We stand alone in the dark

Question everything you blindly follow Truth's a bitter pill, it's hard to swallow You think you're winning but your time is borrowed We are the only ones We stand alone in the dark

Royal Beggars - Architects - I mean…the repetition of my sentiments is going to get a bit silly…so i will not. read on...

All hope is dead, but we're coping

Somebody save our souls

Like a bird in a cage, trying to fly away Is this the price that we have to pay? Overflowing with rage, yet we still obey 'Cause we're asleep in a hurricane

We sit on a throne, waiting for God to bend the knee But we're nothing more than royal beggars

Edge of your Bed - Thousand Below - “why’d you have to go and keep calling out my name” Calling out my name” pure purgatory “where’s the ANGEL” “I prayed to you Cas, Every night” The rest of the next verse is also poignant, very Dean again “where I can only feel peace when the wave hits”, “and I’ve become what I thought was wrong, I love the feeling when it feels too strong”.

Why'd you have to go and keep calling out my name? Calling out my name

I found sorrow at the edge of your bed

Is it now a bad habit? Where I can only feel peace when the wave hits And I've become what I thought was wrong I love the feeling when it feels too strong

Animals – Siamese - “It takes a killer that thinks he’s a saint, it takes believing to be this insane” – well. yes. ok.

Shattered not broken We stand our feet Houses rebuild on These bloody streets I fill my lungs into this beat With closed eyes we're hoping for remedy

It takes a killer That thinks he's a saint It takes believing To be this insane

Spineless Crow - Hands Like Houses

We were young together but I've grown ancient Cracked and weathered and filled with regret Waiting to sink, rushing to sink in my sleep

The realization sinks in through the skin Like a disease, a blight inside of me Missing your touch, your weight on my fingers

My Underworld - Tonight Alive

Now we sail into deep blue storm clouds Overhead now, strangely I feel at peace as I dive into My underworld, world I dive into my underworld, world Down in these depths I'm adding up the numbers Of all I've suffered in past lives, tied down in the darkness Finally I begin to learn what I've returned tonight Time has come to begin again, leave something else behind

Ever After - Marianas Trench - All this talk of being someone’s disaster – Welp! Hello!

Don't you move Can't you stay where you are, just for now I could be your perfect disaster You could be my ever after

Apologies, I'm not myself but I can guarantee That when I get back, you won't believe That you knew me well Don't want to think about it

I'm fuckin' tired of getting sick about it Now stand back up and be a man about it And fight for something, fight for something, fight for something Nobody told ya this is gonna fold ya We go marching in like toy soldiers To have and hold ya over sold ya They’re marching like toy soldiers I'll be your disaster, ever after So fire away Goodbye

Room 138 - Asking Alexandria - While this song is clearly actually about an overdose of some kind, it’s parallels shockingly well to the post confession scene. So these are the walls that have to hold this moment Somebody hear me, someone open up the door Get me up off of this floor and stop the shaking, the shaking Through the haze I saw a face A second chance, another life to live How did you forgive me? Held my head against your chest Told me everything's alright, don't be afraid Close your eyes and rest

Witness – Daughtry

Does it feel like you're just wasting time Here without a reason or a rhyme The answer you've been looking for Is standing right before your weary eyes And if the weight of the world is on you now But you know you can turn it all around again How Many Walls - Rise Against - Guys, seriously, I’m not even going there...How many years have we wasted….how many walls can you put up? How many guns til you feel safe? This is a song about war – this is Rise Against, this is purely political and somehow can STILL be pulled together with Destiel.

How many walls can you put up?

How many guns 'til you feel safe? How many times can we watch this story Over and over and over again? And how many years have we wasted Counting the lies that we've been fed? For something to change we have waited Over and over and over again Pray – Picturesque - Nope. Don’t even need a description here. Once again this is FAR TOO OBVIOUS!

I should pray a little more and think a little less The devils in my head and he won't let me rest Everyday just like the last since you up and left I should pray a little more, I shouldn't pray for death I Knew You Were Trouble – We Came as Romans (Swift Cover) - SwiftNatural is a thing for a reason…

It's like a kaleidoscope of memories. It just all comes back. But he never does. I knew his world moved too fast and burned too bright. But I just thought, how can the devil be pulling you toward someone who looks so much like an angel

I think that the worst part of it all wasn't losing him. It was losing me. Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago I was in your sights, you got me alone You found me

I knew you were trouble when you walked in (you were right there, you were right there) So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground Texas Is Forever - Pierce the Veil – lack of communication anyone? I don’t know, do we know anyone like that? If anything should happen to me I want you to know, I’ve loved you since ever…

Here we are If anything should happen to me I want you to know I've loved you since ever since then Don't dance around me I know what it means No communication, cannot be received But I'm such a sucker for the rain, yeah Oh, here we are Butterfly - Wearing Scars – the Butterfly/Angel parallel alone…go with it.

Seems we're alone We're fixated Just waiting for something As time goes by And when we're way up high We'll look back down with different eyes Let's take our time Awake this life So spread your wings And take my hand Tonight will be the end

With Grace - The Weight of Atlas

This place looks like hell to me I cast myself into the sea Picked up my conscience and left my disease I don't know, I don't know if I can make it through this storm Keep your eyes shut it will be okay. Will we make it out alive? Will we make it out alive. When all you have is hope I will be your anchor I know that I can let you down But I swear I'll pick up the pieces. And be reborn again I Always Wanted to Leave - The Plot In You

I guess it's a shame I'm so damn destructive And you're so reluctant to mean what you say The way you act so abused The things you confuse You know I always wanted to leave "Hello... You can sing, I'm here And I love you more than anyone or anything With all my heart."

Unsteady - X Ambassadors – just a stay parallel. Don’t leave, don’t let go. If you love me. Don’t let go. #I haz the sads.

Hold on to me 'Cause I'm a little unsteady If you love me Don't let go Bury Me Alive - Normandie – pick a line – ANY LINE!!!

I guess I'm not going to heaven now I got caught in the chase Now I'm falling from grace But I never stood a chance Could've given me a sign I'd be giving you blind obedience Mantra – Bring Me The Horizon Before the truth will set you free, it will piss you off Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one 'Cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra Could I have your attention, please? It's time to tap into your tragedy Think you could use a new abuser Close your eyes and listen carefully Imagine you're stood on a beach Water gently lapping at your feet And now you're sinking, what were you thinking? That's all the time we have this week

Oh Lord - In This Moment – cutting any of this out was actually hard. Cas, my love, are you there?

Oh Lord won't you save me Save me from my soul Oh Lord won't you forgive me For I have lost control Oh Lord won't you tell me Am I the righteous or the damned? Oh Lord won't you please hear me Do I obey or do I command? Oh Lord please forgive me For what I'm about to do Oh Lord won't you believe me I'll burn in hell for you Oh Lord won't you teach me Teach me how to see Oh Lord tell me you love me Am I Lillith or am I Eve?

Bleeding is a Luxury - Atreyu

I’ve talked the talk, I've walked the walk, It's taken ten fucking years, For them to see I don't need their approval. I've paid the piper, I've stayed my course, Lived chomping at the bit. With only blood, sweat, and tears to adhere to- Take it for granted, Forsake the costs, Wear a big, shit-eating grin (with only blood, sweat, and tears to adhere to) Now bear the burden to chase your fate Grind your teeth 'til it fucking hurts So they can see I don't need their approval. Seize the day, Take your beatings, Lead the way, Or decay as you fall down... You fall down.

Would you Still be There - Of Mice & Men – wow, this song in full. All of it. I can’t.

If I could find the words, if I could shake the world, If I could turn back time would you still be there? I can't stop thinking about the way I left you sinking with no escape. Now there's no lifeline, no way to save. But maybe next time I won't throw it all away. Dislocated, I lie awake Suffocating in my mistakes. I lost my halo when I fell from grace, But maybe next time I won't throw it all away. I ask myself everyday... If I could find the words, if I could shake the world, If I could turn back time would you still be there? If I could find the words to say, If I could shake the world to break you down, Then would you still be there?

The Broken - 3 Doors Down

This is the call to the broken, the broken Take it from me. They don't care if you're lonely. As you can see, They don't care if you're scared. Your heart Is the only friend you have in this whole world. Don't start, Think you can do this yourself. I know what you're thinking. You say you're tired of keeping score, keeping score. Trust me, You're not the only one going through this. You see, I've been through this before, this before.

Wow, I Hate This Song - The Used – this one took a little imagination – hardest one so far – because it really is just about hating a song! So we’re HC’ing the Zepp track that reminds Dean most of Cas, post Empty.

Every time I hear the key I see you in the melody It never was a part of me Heart feels like it's being stabbed Kills me emotionally Dirty Little Secret - Bullet For My Valentine – let’s take this back to – take your pick…Leviathan!Cas, Godstiel, Casifer, any of the times that Cas did the wrong thing for the right reasons…and did not tell his boy.

There once was a time Where everything was just so perfect Now everything has changed And you've become a total stranger I've seen another side to you I never even knew existed Dirty little secrets, dirty little secrets Giving in to your primal instincts There once was a time When anything I do is for you But everything has changed And I've become a lonely prisoner I'd kill, even die for you You never even tried resisting

Kill Plan - Parabelle

I'm sitting stunned just like a lesson I never learned Made of emotions and mistakes And what you say Leaves me lost and in the way And that's the place you stay Remember silence Now we're painted into corners So we can watch the world get sold out Hold me closer don't let the sun in Hold me closer don't let the sun in Cuz the setting sun feels like a cage Don't let me defend the kill plan

Roman Sky – Avenged Sevenfold – This song only has a few lyrics, but we can definitely make them work.

As the embers rose through the Roman Sky Tell me, were you calm when they took your life? Just before you go, tell us how the heavens flow Weightless evermore, as you walk beyond that door Shine forever true To Those Left Behind – blessthefall – these boys might be my favourite band ever, but these are ANGRY lyrics – these are about betrayal. This is a relationship gone wrong. I feel these best work with the divorce arc, the Angry Dean that we see, or Dean’s mood after any of the “Cas fucked up again” moments. You found me at my worst When I was far too weak to grow In spite of all my fears And how I may have lost my way Only now I know the truth

Awake and coming clean

If you can't sleep It's your conscience That's eating away At the mess you made So let's end this Sew this last stitch Lift this weight off my chest I'll put you to rest The past should stay dead

How did we find ourselves here? Haunted by our own design With everything that's come to pass Makes it harder to confine

#supernatural #destiel #dean #cas #spotify #song challenge #i challenge you to do the same #can you also connect dots?#why was this so EASY #I guess 12 years of pining helped #so much possible material to draw on #look I was bored and music is my thing #this is dumb but it was also really kind of fun #I love these two idiots

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roseskiesandbutterflies · 4 years

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Pain Is So Close To Pleasure (modern!Queen x platonic!reader) - Chapter 2

Summary: As a recently promoted Soloist for the Royal Ballet, you move closer to Covent Garden with your three-year-old daughter, Rose. But your new neighbour turns out to be the last person you'd expect to pop up on your doorstep.

A/N: This chapter, but really this whole fic, has such a specific vibe and I love it?? Like I can relate to a lot of the things I describe, and I don’t know if that’s a me thing, or a British thing, or just a thing. Anyways I’m here for it. And if you’re not British and don’t relate to this fic in the way I do, and you’ve wondered what it’s like to live in Britain, this might give you a rough idea.

The chapter count for this crept up again because I’ve had about two or three more ideas for this. I think now would be a good time to mention that I’m treating this as more of a load of one-shots set in the same verse, rather than a story with a plot. That’s why it will start to seem more like a series of vignettes, not as a storyline.

As always, I hope you’re all doing okay with everything that’s going on, and I hope to have another update for you all soon. I hope you enjoy!

Warning(s): swearing

Word Count: 3.3k+

Inspiration: Incandescent by @immistermercury on AO3, Outed by @platawnic on Tumblr, Rock Angel by @mirkwoodshewolf on Tumblr, Brian’s Instagram, Modern Times Rock ‘N’ Roll by @rhapso-kei on Tumblr and AO3, this silly lockdown business, the fact that I should have gone to see Queen over two weeks ago but it’s fine

Taglist: @bhmay @briarrose26

Series Taglist: @banana-tree-freddiemercury @lillycarlyn (darling you didn’t say which taglist so if you want me to put you on the perm one then let me know)

Ask to be on either! Make sure to specify!

You popped your head round the door to the studio and smiled to yourself when you found it void of people. You switched the lights on, the charcoal-grey clouds outside casting a darkness over the Opera House; uncharacteristic for midday, but then it was London, and it was February. You couldn’t expect too much from good old British weather.

It wasn’t often that you had the opportunity of having a studio all to yourself, so when you did, you simply had to make the most of it. The way your timetable for the day had worked out meant that you had a longer lunch break than everyone else, not by much, but fifteen minutes was more than enough time to go over a routine you’d crafted yourself. So, seeing as you could afford to eat later on, and everyone else was either in the canteen or some café in Covent Garden, you decided to book one of the studios for your own use.

You connected your phone to the mostly unused speaker in the corner of the room and quickly found the song. Time was of the essence here, and you were most conscious of that. You lightly ran to the centre of the room, making sure you weren’t facing the wall-length mirror for watching yourself dance made you rather self-conscious, replacing passion with technicality. This dance was your own, you had created it, cradled it, held it oh-so-close to your heart; unlike anything you’d ever done professionally, this dance was all about the enthusiasm and the love with which you danced.

Freddie’s voice rang out through the studio, clear as day and filling each and every particle with the richness of his voice. The singular note was soon accompanied by harmonies and then the familiar piano motif of Somebody To Love. You smiled despite yourself as you began the routine.

You promised yourself that one day you’d perform this to someone, even if it was just Rose. But that day was a long way off yet.

The way you danced was unlike how you had ever done so on stage. You performed with a vivacity that many dancers lost so early on in their careers when they valued the physical quality of their dancing over the raw emotion of it. You considered yourself quite lucky that you hadn’t yet surrendered to that particular temptation.

You considered this song to be a crescendo in and of itself, just building and building as its many layers unfolded. You’d made sure that this was reflected in the choreography. Each section was grander a more extravagant than the last. You quite liked the simultaneous challenge and familiarity of it; it made for a good dance to return to when you found your head overflowing with your thoughts and anxieties. You made more and more use of the space as the song progressed, like you were contained by an invisible circle that gradually grew.

When the third verse came around, and Freddie’s voice temporarily faded into silence, fooling the nonchalant listener into thinking it was the end, you had a second to pause. You used it to inhale deeply before starting the fouettés that accompanied the acapella. One, then another, then another, more, more, more until you genuinely thought you were going to fall over. You persevered, however, pushing through all forty of the turns, and even though by the end you wanted nothing more than to lay on the ground and watch the world spin, you couldn’t stop yourself from beaming because holy shit you’d never done them all before. You shook off the feeling, allowing yourself to revel in it later; right now, you had the rest of the dance to get through.

You breezed through the rest of it, the highest jeté seeming insignificant compared to the dizzying hell you’d just put yourself through. When everything quietened down once again, and Freddie faded back into his falsetto, you came to a still in the centre of the ‘stage’, going up on pointe and gradually raising one leg into the air so that it was parallel to your upper body and then to your face. When the music kicked in again, you dropped it back down and returned to your original flow. With the last tiny piano chord of the song, you did a cheeky little jump with the biggest grin on your face, before curtseying to your non-existent audience.

Or so you thought.

A slow clap sounded from the doorway and you whirled round to look at the intruder, blushing furiously with the embarrassment of being seen without knowing. Your smile made a comeback, however, when you recognised the face.

“Wow, that really was something, (Y/N),” Brian whistled, “I’m impressed, truly.”

“Thank you,” you ducked your head, panting heavily. Your muscles screamed with exhaustion, and even though you wanted to just lay down and maybe have a nap, you stayed strong, refusing to appear rude to Brian.

Somehow, he seemed to read your mind, “You can sit down, you must be knackered. Don’t mind me.”

You smiled at him gratefully before sinking down in the corner of the studio next to your bag and grabbing your water bottle with desperation. You gestured to the spot next to you which he took gladly. “How much of that did you see?”

“Pretty much all of it,” he laughed, “I was about pop in for a chat but I saw you put the song on, and I thought I might as well watch.”

“Gosh,” you muttered, beginning to take off your pointe shoes to relieve your aching feet. You’d had back-to-back classes all morning and doing a routine such as that one after all of that just didn’t help.

“I didn’t know you guys danced to non-classical music,” he said.

You managed to get one shoe off, and you started on the other one, wrinkling your nose at the quite frankly disgusting smell that Brian was politely showing no reaction to, “We don’t. Well, I haven’t heard of it anyway. Even if people did somewhere, it would be an awfully long time before the Royal started doing it.”

He shot you a confused look, “Then how…”

“It’s my dance. I choreographed it a while back,” you shrugged, not really understanding what the big deal was, “That’s probably the best run I’ve done of it.”

“Wow, I,” he ran a hand through his hair, “That looked like something from an actual ballet.”

You ducked your head again with the kind of embarrassed pride that comes with compliments, “Thanks, Brian, that means a lot. I only made it a while ago. I,” you laughed self-deprecatingly before saying, “I’d just done quite possibly the worst audition of my life, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how shit it was. So, I just freestyled to some of my favourite songs and that happened.”

“You just made that up?” he asked incredulously.

“It wasn’t nearly as good as it was just then. I’ve been working on it for months until it became what you just watched. It’s been my little side project,” you mused, shoving your phone and both of your pointe shoes into your ballet bag. You poked your head up and peered through the huge window on the opposite wall, cringing at the heavy rain and how that wasn’t a good mix with the non-waterproof trainers you were now putting on, “Oh, shit, I thought it wasn’t going to rain until later. I don’t think I packed my umbrella,” you said, forgetting about your shoes for a second and rifling through your bag.

Brian placed a hand on your arm, “Relax, I have one, we’ll just have to share, if that’s alright with you?”

“Thanks,” you looked at him gratefully before returning to doing your laces.

“Where are you going anyway? You haven’t finished work already, have you?”

“Oh, I wish,” you laughed sadly. You did love your job, but today was just one of those days where you had no energy and just wanted to cuddle up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a box of Quality Street chocolates all to yourself and binge watch Miranda on Netflix. “No, I didn’t bring any lunch with me, so I thought I’d have a look and see which cafes have free tables. You’re more than welcome to join me if you want.”

About five minutes later, you found yourself running through Covent Garden Market while it was hammering it down with rain, sharing an umbrella with Brian that was way too small for the both of you. You were trying your hardest not to slip on the shining cobblestones beneath your feet, while also trying not to knock into any other pedestrians who, like you, were also running for cover. It wasn’t long until you reached your destination, a café that was a favourite haunt of yourself and Rose. It served at Rose’s Friday treat after she had finished preschool for the day, when the weather wasn’t too good and you couldn’t go to the playground in St James’s Park. You also frequented it on bank holiday weekends or half-terms where you’d been in the flat for three days straight and were in desperate need of some fresh air but had absolutely nothing to do.

You held the door open for Brian, hearing the little bell ring when it came into contact with the door, and you grabbed the umbrella from him as he entered. You shook it rather aggressively outside and popped it into the bucket next to you, filled to the brim with the umbrella of fellow patrons who unluckily got caught in the rain and had dived into the nearest establishment for sanctuary. You made your way to the only free table left while Brian queued up to order your food and drinks.

This wasn’t actually the first time you two had done this, though it was the third. The first time had been rather awkward, as from the second you put your shoes on to leave to the second you said goodbye, you were both repeatedly stopped by people wanting to talk to Brian. And even though neither of you ever complained, you had later admitted to each other that you had found it rather annoying. The second time wasn’t as bad, though at one point you had been stopped by a guy from some tabloid you’d never heard of asking for an interview. Much to your amusement, and Brian’s embarrassment, the guy had actually been looking to talk to you instead of him. You’d politely declined, offering to do it another time, but as soon as you’d sat down to eat, you teased Brian mercilessly about it, and still did every now and then. All it took was for you to say Brian look I’m more famous than you for him to blush furiously and ask you to please change the subject. Considering this was the third time now, the initial shock of oh my God I’m just casually having lunch with Brian May this is fine had passed. Now it was merely having lunch with a friend. Just that that friend just so happened to be an international icon. No big deal.

You looked up to see Brian making his way over to you, carrying a tray of food, and you smiled when you noticed that he’d remembered from last time when you’d told him what, in your opinion, was the best food this particular café had to offer. He sat down opposite you and plonked the tray down on the table, as you both started to work out who’s food and drink was who’s.

“How’s work been this week?” he opened up the conversation as he stirred his latte that had fake milk in it because I don’t know if their milk is locally sourced, (Y/N)!

“Not too bad, actually,” you said, taking a sip of your own drink and cringing when it scalded your tongue, “We’re just in our last week of rehearsals for The Winter’s Tale right now. Someone got injured on Tuesday, and our first performance is next Tuesday, so that’s not exactly ideal. But we’ll get through it, it’ll be fine, I’m sure,” you shrugged. The show must go on, you supposed. Pun not intended.

“Listen, (Y/N),” he started, his more serious tone intriguing you already, “I need to talk to you about something.”

You nodded slowly, “Okay…” You weren’t all too sure where he was going with this, and it was impossible to tell if the news he was about to impart was good or bad.

“I know this is very sudden, and there’s no guarantee that this will even happen, but I thought I’d ask you first,” he rambled for a moment.

“What, what are you on about?” you laughed impatiently.

He took a deep breath and said, “I have a business proposition for you.”

**************

The after-school pick-me-up was carnage at the best of times, let alone on a Friday which also just so happened to be the last day of half-term. Parents crowding around the doorway, desperate to reunite with their child and careless of who they had to shove out of their way in order to reach them. Children spilled out of the school, arms full of lunch boxes and month-old paintings that were meant to be rainbows and dragons but resembled something similar to an oil spill. Teachers waved goodbye with the odd word to the overly concerned parent, not-so-secretly relieved that their week off was edging closer, and hurrying everyone off because the sooner they left, the sooner half-term started. Something which parents had very split feelings over.

Not for you, however. You were more than happy to get Rose to yourself for the week, finding the flat way too still and silent and void of a child’s laughter for you to find remotely comfortable. And even though half-term would always mean a busy show week for you due to the sheer amount of families desperately needing something to do, you were still grateful for the time you got together. That may or may not be because you had spent the far majority of your adult life being a parent, but you weren’t complaining.

As per usual, you heard Rose’s shout long before you saw her face, but you decided that you wouldn’t have it any other way when you saw her run straight towards, “Mummy!”

You crouched down and hugged her tightly when she collided into your arms, almost overbalancing from the sheer force of it, “Hello, darling, did you have a good day?”

She pulled away and grinned at you, “Yeah! We had a dance party and we played games and we played musical chairs and I won and I got some chocolate!”

“Oh, wow, that’s really good Rose, well done you,” you bopped her nose and turned to the things she was holding, “What’s all this?”

She thrust a piece of sugar paper under your nose, “I did a glitter painting yesterday and it’s dry now! It has every colour in the whole world!”

You took it from her and looked at it, pretending to inspect it like a pretentious artist and putting on the poshest voice possible, “Well, I do think it’s rather splendid, if I do say so myself. Absolutely spiffing.”

She dissolved into giggles, “Mummy, you’re silly.”

You gasped in mock offence as you took her hand and started to lead her out of the crowd, “Excuse me, I’m not silly! I’m a very serious grown-up, don’t you know?”

“I don’t want to be a grown-up! Grown-ups are boring. I want to be little forever and ever and ever.”

“I’m a grown-up, do you think I’m boring?” you asked.

“Only sometimes,” she said very seriously, “Only when you talk about boring grown-up stuff.”

You chuckled slightly, “What about Rog and Bri? Are they boring?”

She laughed again as if you’d just said the funniest thing she’d heard all day, “No! They’re fun because they give me ice cream and they think of really good games,” she paused for a second, “Mummy, are we going to the park today?”

“Well, it is Friday so if you want to go then we’ll go. It is a very sunny day today,” you said, frowning when you noticed Rose’s face, “What’s up, sweetheart?”

She pouted as if deep in thought, “I don’t think I want to go today.”

“It’s perfectly alright if you don’t want to, darling. It’s half-term next week so we can always go another day,” you assured her, “Why don’t you want to go?”

“I feel a bit tired,” she said sheepishly, “I don’t want to fall asleep on the swings and fall off!”

“Oh, baby,” you said, heart swelling with the simultaneous silliness and adorableness of her logic, “I’d catch you before you fall, don’t worry. But we can go home if you want. We’ll find something else for your Friday treat.”

Her eyes lit up, “Can we have cookies? The nice ones with the big chocolate bits?”

“Good idea, darling, we can have cookies,” you did a quick mental run-through of what your biscuit tin was looking like at the moment and said, “I don’t think we have any of those ones at home so we’ll stop off at the bakery on the way home.”

“Yay!” she squealed before singing, “We’re having cookies! We’re having cookies!”

Rose spent the entire journey home singing that song, and even though you wanted nothing more than to never hear that tune again, you wouldn’t dare burst her bubble of joy. Besides, you didn’t think you could tell her to stop if you tried; she really was that cute. Or maybe you just told yourself that, so you didn’t feel like a terrible parent. You guessed you would never know. At least the lady who worked at the bakery found it endearing that a child could be that excited for something as relatively simple as cookies.

By the time you’d shoved the key in the door and the two of you had spilled into your flat, it was around half past four and Rose was positively exhausted, despite her best attempts to look and sound awake. You’d decided to have the cookies with some milk you’d warm up once you’d sorted out Rose’s stuff and gotten her changed from her long day at preschool. Then you just supposed you’d have some cuddles, and, with any luck, she’d fall asleep because the poor girl really needed it.

You put the radio on in the background before snuggling down on the sofa with her comfortably in your lap and your favourite honey-golden blanket draped over the both of you.

“I love you, Mummy,” she murmured against your chest before nibbling on the cookie that was bigger than her hand.

“I love you too, baby,” you said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and feeling her snuggle in more, as if that was even possible. You suddenly remembered your lunch with Brian, and the news you needed to impart, “I had lunch with Bri today,” you started, feeling her nod and carrying on, “He had a very cool idea, darling.”

“What was it?” she whispered, large, curious eyes looking up at you.

“He asked me if I wanted to work on a film, and I said yes,” you smiled, watching her face light up with the muted excitement that was usually paired with some element of confusion.

“A film? Is it a big film? Like Tangled?” she asked, suddenly much livelier than before.

“Yes, sweetheart, a bit like Tangled, except there’s going to be real people in it instead of animated people,” you explained.

“What’s the film about?” she was getting more curious by the second and it just made your heart leap with pride.

“It’s about the band that Rog and Bri are in, darling. It’s the story of how they got famous,” you grinned.

“Who are you in it?”

“Ooooooh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that yet, I’ve got to keep it a secret,” you said judiciously, smiling when she pouted at you, “I’ll tell you another day, sweetheart, don’t you worry.”

“Promise?” she asked hopefully.

You brought her into a hug again and whispered, “Promise.”

#ballet #royal ballet #queen band #ballet au #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor imagine #Brian May #brian may imagine #brian may x reader #Queen #queen x reader #queen x reader platonic #queen imagine

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oghoneytryst · 6 years

Text

edge of the universe.

request: y/n is a few years younger than harry and he subsequently holds back his feelings.

where harry fears that he will ruin y/n’s youth.

a/n: I am the absolute worst and I apologize to anyone that has requested something for me to write. After months, here is a finished piece, I hope you enjoy and I’m sorry if it’s not worth the long wait for me to put something out but oh well what can ya do

send me your thoughts on this piece right here :-)

PICTURE CREDIT: revivalstyles on Instagram

-----

Harry shivers in the grey of September.

His tucked heart peers dangerously from the home of his sleeve. His coat—refined with every stitch of faux fur—suffices just enough to shelter him from the breeze that sings to the city. He shoves his hands in the loose, warm pockets, and gazes out to the drunken London streets.

Ever-bright stars rest upon the pillow clouds of an obscure night; the universe blankets over both. Harry focuses on the glimmer of a single celestial body and sends it a discreet kiss with regards from his more youthful, now-fulfilled wishes.

Hopeless, torturous, frightening nights like these—he prays the angels listen instead.

“I can give ya my coat,” Harry speaks up, licking away at the dry patches of his lips. “If you’re cold. I don’t mind.”

“I’m not.”

“Really, y/n, it’s not a big—”

“I’m fine,” she repeats herself. The bitterness is cruel on her tongue.

Harry sighs. Her long-sleeve arms cross stubbornly over her chest. He notices the subtle attempt she makes to shift closer to the warmth of the street lights; a cute little schoolgirl-crush type of sway. Her face, however, seethes with an annoyance that causes his bottom lip to shrivel between his teeth.

“Alright,” Harry mumbles. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” she retaliates. It’s clear that she favors having the last word.

A muffled marriage of music and cheers vibrate from the brick pub’s interior. In spite of it, the silence of the night washes over their scribbles and scribbles of thoughts.

Harry coughs.

Dim street lights illuminate their stress: knitted eyebrows, pensive lips, adverted eyes. Oh, her eyes; the tension in her eyes float heavenly and its frustrates him so, so much.

“It’s late,” Harry points out, leaning back against the grimy pub wall. The search for her evergreen soul—skipping from pub to pub to pub—has exerted the weakness in his youthful, yet aging bones.

“Not really,” is her quick dismissal.

Harry shuts his eyes, resting his head against the uneven surface. “Not really? 2 in the morning isn’t late for you?”

Y/n shrugs, disguising her shiver beneath it. “Didn’t it used to not be for you? Don’t you remember a time when 2 in the morning meant the night was just getting started?”

Harry curiously opens his left eye, and raises the corresponding eyebrow.

“It was more around 1 am, which I never really learned was a mistake, cos’ I’d have to be up by 5 in the morning. Still, feels like ages ago.”

Y/n nods, and silence ensues again.

Nothing. She does absolutely nothing, and still, she excites him. She exudes a fearless charisma that is parallel to his own confidence, and even so, she carries something that has been unknown to him before.

“How did you,” y/n begins, then clears her dry throat. “How’d you find me?”

Harry opens his eyes. He knuckles at them, a quiet “Uhhh” slugging off the tip of his tongue. “I kind of just ... I know that you’re prone to celebrate more passionately than most. The harder part was figuring out where exactly you’d do that. I know that back in your hometown, you like going to the pub by the field, but here ... it was just a harder game to play.”

She scrunches her face at his cryptic words, chubby cheeks raising to her eyes. There is a question stuck in the back of her throat, but she almost doesn’t even want to hear the answer.

“How long have you been looking for me, Harry?”

The older man puckers his lips shyly. He raises his hand up to his eyesight, the needle in his watch ticking the precious seconds away.

“About ... two hours almost. One hour and 47 minutes.”

Y/n blinks. Then, a short, minuscule, half-hearted laugh. “You should’ve just went to sleep. I would’ve been fine.”

“It’s a large city, y/n. A lot of people.”

“Really? Huh. Never knew that a lot of people resided in a large city.”

“Y/n,” he repeats, a sharp thorn of a warning, but his tone as soft as the rose’s petals. “You know what I mean.”

“Care to elaborate?” she teases, tilting her head to belittle him.

Harry purses his lips. He should repent pursuing a relationship with someone four years his junior, but he doesn’t. He just doesn’t.

“Of course,” he agrees, following along with her act. “I will in the car.”

“The car?” she repeats. She pronounces it so slowly, as though she were biting right through the words.

“It’s just around that corner there.” Harry points to the left. “We can go back to the hotel, where it’s nice and warm. Maybe watch a movie.”

“A movie?”

“Yes, do I also have to explain where the movie will be? There’s a thing called Netflix. You can access it on a contraption called a television.”

Y/n laughs, but it lacks the humorous tone that fills Harry with fulfillment. It’s condescending. Ridicule.

“No, I’m uh, I’m not going back.” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t planning to tonight, anyway. I have some people inside the pub that offered me their couch to spend the night on—”

“You’re not sleeping on some stranger’s couch just to get piss drunk and bitter.”

Harry has never really spoken to her that way. It’s far too passive aggressive for his taste, but he feels obligated to look after this reckless being that he adores. He will chase after her until he has wasted away.

Y/n, however, never asked to be babied.

“I missed the part where I asked for your permission,” she retaliates, but doesn’t give him the opportunity to respond before her legs are carrying her back to the entrance.

As sluggish as he feels, Harry’s instinctive reaction is to grab her back by the arm. His soft hand clutches and pulls, and in an instant, he hears them. The simultaneous clicking of pesky and peering camera shutters.

Y/n notices them too, but avoids staring into the void of the lenses. Instead, she stares up at Harry, scowling at him with her eyes, warning him to let her go.

“I spent two hours of my night,” Harry whispers, “looking for you—”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“I don’t care. I did it anyway, because I was worried about you, because despite what you may think, I care about you, y/n. A lot. So, please, save me the trouble of having to be tomorrow’s cover story and get in the car so that we can talk about this.”

Y/n’s bad-tempered expression refuses to fade away, but there is something, a tiny little something that sinks back into the whites of her eyes. Harry can see it crumble within her, even if she doesn’t say anything to confirm it. He can only accept her delicate tug from his soft hold, and admire the poise in her walk as she follows the path to his chariot.

In the vehicle, the silence crashes against the tinted windows that imprison their echoing thoughts. It is unwelcomed and unloved. It is the spontaneous cliff-hanger, the brokenhearted letter of a lover, the consequence of insecurity and self-loathing.

Harry has his suspicions over how naked and bare his heart will become in a matter of minutes. Albeit, he refuses to taint his charming tongue with the frightening truths of his beautiful mind.

He stalls in the meantime. He tells y/n, “I’ve been writing some stuff down,” but does not recite the words that surely must be memorized by a song-writing genius such as himself.

“That’s good,” y/n chastely replies. The heaters begin to defrost London’s bitter air from her crossed legs and arms, twisted like a salted pretzel.

Though the response is bare, she truly does feel joy for him. She has listened to his agony for the past couple of months, which has strained her heart more than she cares to admit. His doubts overpower his confidence, and at rare occasional moments, he hates himself. She assumes it is these doubts that are to blame for his hesitance over the issue at hand.

He, instead, wishes to pause this moment with her. He desires an impossible manipulation of time where their actions do not impact the outside world surrounding them, and vice versa. Perhaps then he will be table to push these troubles of theirs away until they fall off the edge of the universe. For now, he can only hope that nothing has been permanently written in the autumn stars.

“S’nothing that can be used for a song,” he continues. “It doesn’t rhyme, but I guess I could tweak it a little bit—”

“Harry,” y/n interrupts, unaware of how her manicured hand reaches over to blanket his red knuckles on the gear shift. It’s annoying how much she cares for him. She loathes how natural it has become to comfort him in his stress, especially since he has made it rather clear that he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need the security that she carries in her touch, or else he’d scream it to the sun, and compose a romantic medley that breathes his air into her lungs.

“I don’t know what could possibly be going through your head right now,” y/n admits, her vision cascading across his features bathed in gloom, “but I want to. You’re so hidden in your own mind and it’s hard to tell if any of this is worth anything.” The young girl shakes her head. Her much smaller hand returns to the familiar pudge of her lap, and she continues, “I don’t want to be like everyone else who barely knows who you are or how you’re feeling.”

“You’re not,” Harry says, pulling his own hand away, only to play with the steering wheel.

“I sure hope not,” she replies, but it is difficult to detect the tone of her voice. “That’s why I’m giving you a minute. One minute to collect your thoughts and tell me why I’m in this car right now, and not someone else whose time you can waste. Or else, I’m walking out and you better not come looking for me.”

It is a cruel proposition that seems fair enough to her. Harry has spent hours searching for her tonight. He must have conjured up a million thoughts while doing so, and now she weighs his shoulders with the pressure of a minute. 60 seconds to figure out how to say it all in a way that will make her understand something that he can’t even comprehend himself.

A handful of seconds later, and Harry huffs the nerves out of his system.

“I am,” he pauses, shifts his vision from right to left, then continues, “I’m devoted to you. Hopelessly, like Olivia Newton-John would say. I know that it doesn’t ... really come out that way, erm, but I guess, I don’t know, it’s cos’ I can’t really say it, properly with my own words. And m’sorry ‘bout that. M’sorry that I didn’t say it back.”

Those final words that swim past his precious lips are the ones she least expects and suddenly her own throat runs very dry. She had expected him to swivel and swerve his way through a series of erm’s and um’s, struggling to connect similar ideas in the midst of his fear and confusion. In some strange and parallel universe, he does all that and more.

But here, the stars shine brighter, and the crisp air is daunting, and the city drinks away. And two lovers sit in an ambience of uncertainty with a set of minds beautiful enough to waste their daydreams on each other.

“M’sorry if I upset, you,” Harry continues when his counterpart does not reply. “Back at the hotel room, when you asked about this. It wasn’t ... I didn’t ...” he softly groans, the waves of his grown-out curls bouncing as he leans his head back in frustration. “I just ... wasn’t expecting it, alright?”

“Alright,” y/n repeats, as though it were vile for her newly found voice. “It was alright when I’d said it months ago. It was alright because I didn’t expect you to say it back and I didn’t want you to. I wanted you to say it when you felt comfortable enough, when you actually meant it. And if you didn’t think you’d ever feel the same, I at least expected this to be over. But you kept me waiting for months, Harry, and you still have me waiting.”

“Y/n, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, of course not,” she interrupts. “You never mean to, but you do it anyway. I just don’t like feeling with way, H. Waiting around for you to build up the courage that you don’t even have. I mean, when’s the last time you told someone you loved them, in that way?”

Harry’s bottom lip hides between his square teeth. He searches the depths of his poor mind, even if it is useless. Has he felt love for a person once so significant to him? Of course; he has played the role of a helpless fool much too many times. His only problem is his incapability of expressing it.

No lover wants to feel unloved, and none of his have ever been so patient. Not with him, and not with the manner in which he lives.

Secluded, despite being photographed wherever he goes.

Bombarded with the attention of raging fanatics who are invested in every detail of his every affair.

Fearsome, in constant, constant fear – must everyone be the same? Must everyone that he welcomes kindly in his life drain him of his trust every time they leave?

She has been patient. She has endured endless hell with him, because she loves him, and that is where the difference lies. She loves him, and instead of leaving him in the bitter dust, she gives him a chance, practically begging to him to find a reason worth her time.

She has been patient, and he has taken advantage of that.

The silence is frightening to him. It feels as though at any second, she will stay true to her word, and he knows that the pain that crosses him will be well-deserved.

Harry makes a decision then. In such an abrupt manner, he reaches into his back pocket, and slides out his phone covered in a pale and pretty pink case. The screen illuminates with the time – almost three in the morning – and the scenery that he has assigned as his lock screen. His right thumb works quick to unlock the device, a simple pattern of six numbers that people all across the world would love to know.

The device makes a quiet noise, indicating that his many secrets are unlocked. His many apps appear on the screen, right over the home screen wallpaper that not many people get to see. Y/n is very fond of social media, even if she admits that it can be rather troubling. She’s particularly amused by Snapchat, and the many silly filters available for her pictures. His home screen wallpaper is a picture she had taken in an extravagantly large mirror at some restaurant somewhere, the two of them wrapped up in each other’s arms, with an animated bear of some sort appearing over their playful faces.

He doesn’t know if she has caught a look at it, but it’s not meant for her. It’s his reminder, one that will please his eyes whenever he goes to do something related to work or simply for his leisure.

He taps onto his notes application and hands the phone to y/n without a second thought.

“Go to the first note,” he instructs, placing the device carefully on her lap. He scoots away then, closer to the window, cowering in silent fear.

Y/n grabs onto the phone, examining it due to the rarity of having it fall into someone else’s hands. She does as he says and taps a finger onto the note, the typed words not nearly as appealing to her aesthetic senses as she’s hoped.

Spring in her step

Livelier than summer

Deranged thrill

In her youth

Evergreen soul

Y/n knits her eyebrows. She attempts to scroll, curious to see if there is anything else worth reading, then asks, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“It’s ... I wrote it. ‘Bout you.”

She shifts her eyes back to the note and squints her eyes at the tiny font. “Deranged?”

“Yeah, but it’s ... it’s not like, what you think. I know it’s like, shit, but I did say I have to tweak it a little. I don��t normally like to write things down on my phone, but it was just kind of ... I haven’t been writing to make sense. I’ve just been writing what comes to me.”

“And what came to you is that I am deranged?”

“No, dammit, y/n, stop focusing on that,” Harry blurts, losing a fraction of his temper. “Can you take this seriously please?”

“Can I take this seriously?” Y/n sits up, clutching the phone tight in her hand. “What exactly am I supposed to take seriously here? The fact that I tell you I love you and months later you respond with a measly stanza on how insane I am?”

“No! That’s completely opposite of what I meant.” Harry sighs. Out of the anger that boils in his blood, he reaches over and snatches the phone back, revising the typed words that he assumed would fix everything. “I’m trying to open up to you. Let you in on my thoughts. M’sorry if a measly stanza isn’t perfect for you. Next time I’ll write a whole fucking album, would that satisfy you?”

“Harry, where is it that you’re getting so lost in translation? Whatever you typed down in there doesn’t tell me anything about how you feel. It’s just as cryptic as anything else you’ve written or said. I don’t want a song dedicated to me, or an album, or a poem. I just you want you to be honest with your emotions, and you can only seem to do that in a song.”

“That’s not true,” he denies, but his nostrils flare, and his kind eyes cannot meet hers.

“It is,” she nods, “and do you know why? It’s because songs can’t hurt you, Harry. They can’t leave you. They can’t break your heart. Not really. If anything, the most painful songs are what help heal our broken hearts. It’s therapy. But real pain, that is telling the person in front of you why you can’t look them in the eyes right now. And maybe then she’ll tell you that it’s okay to be afraid of getting hurt.”

She really is deranged, Harry thinks to himself, locking his phone and shoving it deep inside the pocket of coat. He’s made a habit of closing his eyes whenever the stress of a situation becomes too much. This time, he hopes that it will somehow block out her words that swarm and buzz through his throbbing head.

It’s remarkable, this effect she has. She is so young, but her heart confesses as though it has lived through years of wisdom and experience. And that is the problem of it all.

“M’not afraid of getting hurt,” he says, voice low and weak. He opens his eyes; he turns to look at her and remembers her the way that she is – in case if it is all a dream. “And I will open up to someone from time to time, as you can see I’ve just tried to do. If not, I’d go insane.”

“So, what then?” she asks. “This whole thing, the reason we’re sitting here at 3 in the morning. What’s this all about?”

“You,” he says, simple and straightforward. “It’s about you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Me?” she repeats for clarification. “Your problem is with me?”

“You’re not a problem. I just ... I don’t want to ruin you, y/n. At your age, I had to prove myself to everyone, and everyone was older than me. I wanted to impress them, so I matured sooner than I needed to, and that was fine for me. I enjoyed it. But years later, you come around, and you still have this innocence about you. You haven’t seen the world the way I have and you shouldn’t have to, but you will, and all I can think about is protecting you from it. And a part of me says that you need protection from me, from this whole lifestyle of being followed around by cameras and getting shit-faced at bars because your boyfriend upset you.”

Y/n’s lips part. The words begin to absorb into her brain like a soaked sponge, but it is rather overwhelming to hear so many words come out of Harry’s mouth. So many words that suddenly connect the pieces of a broken puzzle.

“You deserve better in your youth, y/n,” he says, “and I don’t want to ruin you. But I am.”

It hits her like the cold, bitter London air. The mere stanza is a call to her youth. She is something fresh to him, new and evergreen. She is quick on her toes and her energy mirrors the warmest season of all. She is not deranged – there is simply a madness to her age, one that drives her to storm out of their hotel room and disappear for hours; the excitement of it all clouds her better judgement because it is a thrill to be rebellious and independent.

It explains why he has devoted hours of his night to her, and hours of his life. It explains why he has held himself back for months, keeping her suffering in such a prolonged waiting period.

“Your problem isn’t with me,” she realizes. “It’s with how young I am?”

Harry nods, almost as if he has reached a limit on his spoken words.

“I don’t ... I don’t really see how that’s a problem,” she says, though she’s trying very hard to understand. “I mean, it’s not like I’m some child incapable of taking care of herself. I’m not a child at all.”

“I know you’re not,” Harry inputs, “but you’re still ... it’s new to me. Being with someone that’s not only younger than me, but significantly younger than me.”

“I’d hardly say that four years is significant. My birthday is coming up anyway.”

“If you have to say that your birthday is coming up, y/n, then you’re younger than you realize.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Y/n turns away, tucking her legs in a crisscross manner.

Harry chuckles. “Believe me, I wish I could. It’s not possible, y/n. It doesn’t matter how much I hold back, I can’t...”

Harry’s words trail off, his sentence unfinished with an infinite number of endings. He stops himself, but y/n catches on quick, and her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Can’t what?” she presses on, leaning towards him in anticipation.

He shakes his head and changes the direction of his words. “I don’t want to change you, y/n. I hate seeing you so caught up in this, this routine. What I’ve done in the past, I don’t necessarily like it, but I’ve done it and there’s nothing I can do. But I can at least try to keep you from making the same mistakes.”

“And what mistakes would that be?” she ponders sarcastically. “Getting shit-faced at a pub? Having even a lick of alcohol? News flash, my family has been sneaking me sips of their drinks since I was 15. It’s a normal way for someone to relieve themselves. And as for the part about me getting hurt,” y/n shrugs and whispers, “too late.”

Harry despises the feeling in his chest. He hates himself more than usual, to know that the one thing he wanted to avoid is something that he unintentionally let play out. It is his fault – he is to blame for all of this, all because of his own fear.

But if there’s anything y/n has taught him, anything that her youthful mind has so brilliantly expressed, it is that fear is power. To embrace fear is the most elegant gift a person can give to themselves. To fear the love that he has for someone is natural, and despite his trouble with communication, he refuses to push away from her any longer.

He wonders if the cameras are still lurking around. Whether they are or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether there are wanderers lost in the city who happen to peak into his tinted car, it doesn’t matter. Harry leans closer, cups her soft cheek and jaw with his enormous, ring-clad hand, and presses a warm kiss onto her cold lips. He holds himself there, breathing in her frosty scent, memorizing the taste of her youth, and pulls away to meet the loving gaze that lives in his imagination. And there, in the early morning shadows, he whispers to her the words she has longed to hear; the words he fears the most.

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that-curly-haired-lesbian · 5 years

Text

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo + Taylor Swift: a master post - Part 2/6

Hi guys, welcome to part 2 of my masterpost regarding parallels between Taylor Swift and Evelyn Hugo, the fictional actress from the book The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by author Taylor Jenkins Reid!

Before proceeding please be aware that there will be

**MAJOR SPOILERS**

for the book ahead and please also read my disclaimer!

It’s very important that you read these in order so if you haven’t yet go ahead and check out the previous part right here, thank you and enjoy!

Monique goes home for the weekend consumed by the question “who the hell was Evelyn Hugo in love with?” This goes to the point that she finds herself no longer dwelling on her own relationship problems, but instead focuses on Evelyn’s love life for the whole weekend. (pg. 37)

This of course is similar to how Taylor’s fans and media instead of relating songs to their own love lives and experiences or writing about the quality of the music are obsessed with finding out who in her life she wrote the songs about. (x)

Essentially Taylor’s stories substitute or overpower fans’ own love lives and her love life overshadows whatever could be written about her in a professional sense…Apparently??

Similarly instead of wanting to ask Evelyn something regarding her remarkable career (or her childhood, or what have you) Monique finds herself immediately drawn to (both as a journalist and a consumer, she’s sure to point out, just like how both the fans and the media are drawn to this aspect of Taylor’s public persona) asking about the men in Evelyn’s life, which is frankly, a very sexist angle to take.

When it comes to Taylor fans and media seem especially interested in (or unable to let go of) Taylor’s “relationship” with Harry Styles and likewise Monique’s best guess for who the love of Evelyn’s life could be is the appropriately named Hollywood producer Harry Cameron aka beard/husband #5. A man who we later find out (pg. 72-73) is not only very flamboyantly gay, but also Evelyn’s best friend and closest confidant, the friend who she trusts to tell everything without fearing it might get out.

At her second wedding Evelyn and Harry have an interesting conversation, Evelyn asks Harry why he’s never tried to flirt with her (like most men she encounters in the industry has after all.) He asks Evelyn if she ever wanted anything to happen between them (since she’s the one asking him about this) she says no, but Harry catches onto the fact that Evelyn wanted him to want something to happen and she offers:

“’And what if I did? Is that so wrong? I’m an actress, Harry. Don’t you forget that.’ Harry laughed, ’you have actress written all over your face. I remember it every single day.’ ” (pg. 72)

In response to why nothing has ever happened between the two Harry vaguely implies that he’s gay and Evelyn immediately gets it, but says nothing about it until years later when Harry is the first person she comes out to after realizing her own queerness. After which the two agree to always tell each other everything.

Harry’s vague coming out at the wedding is however not what interests me about that scene, instead it is the use of the word “actress” of course in Evelyn’s case this is literal, she is in fact an actress, but it’s Harry’s response that causes me to reach…

On the surface his comment seems to be him admitting that despite his preference for men he can see that Evelyn is an attractive woman (like actresses generally are), but if we are to put this in a different light let’s consider that Taylor often either uses the word “actress” in her songs:

She's not a saint and she's not what you think She's an actress

I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams

or implies that she’s playing a role a few examples being All of Blank Space, and I Did Something Bad and parts of Don’t Blame Me.

I’ve gone on record in my analysis of the song Better Than Revenge as saying that the acting theme may be a reference to bearding and if we are also to look at the fact that Harry comes out to Evelyn in this scene it reads to me as if the underlying subtext is someone who beards (like Taylor) asking a gay male friend why they have never bearded together despite this friend’s knowledge that this Someone (Taylor) beards a lot (or is an “actress”) the friend agrees that he knows she is indeed a prolific bearder and that anyone with eyes can see she’s gay (the fact that she is gay and beards, or “is an actress” if you will, is “written on her face”.)

This might seem like an extreme reach even for this context, but given the fact that Evelyn and Harry actually end up bearding together later in the book and Evelyn does mention shortly before this conversation with Harry takes place that she sometimes feels like her public persona is someone she’s pretending to be (aka a role she’s playing, just like Taylor implies she feels about her public persona in the songs mentioned above.) I just found the conversation and Taylor’s bearding-connection to the word “actress” interesting in this context…

On Monday Evelyn tells Monique:

“People have so closely followed the most intricate details of the fake story of my life. But it’s not…I don’t…I want them to know the real story. The real me.’” (pg. 38)

Similar to how Taylor told us:

“We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us.”

“When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory” (x)

Monique responds:

“’Alright, show me the real you then and I’ll make sure the world understands.’”

Like I said before people like Evelyn and Taylor are famous enough that this flies, they call the shots. Just like we are agreeing that Taylor is coming out in her own time, Monique agrees to listen to whatever Evelyn has decided she has to say. Meanwhile we’ll keep speculating and so does Monique.

At one point she even questions if Evelyn is capable of telling the truth after all those years of hiding it? (pg. 38)

I’ve personally had more than one anon questioning why Taylor keeps “lying” about her personal life and whether she’ll be able to ever stop and just come out? (For my thoughts on all that, please read this.)

As Monique agrees to Evelyn’s terms she’s put in a bit of a bind, given that Evelyn contacted her through Vivant when the story was truly never intended for the magazine but for Monique this basically means that one of their writers is about to steal a story from one of the most famous magazines in the world and she could of course be fired for this. With a sinking stomach Monique realizes that the only plan she has is to lie to her boss about how the story is going and act as if she’s still doing the original piece for Vivant in order to save her own career. (pg. 32)

She even points out later that being fired from Vivant for stealing a story would be disastrous for her reputation in the industry. (142)

I imagine that Monique’s confusion about what to do with Vivant mirrors a young Taylor’s initial unwillingness to “lie” to us (the public and the fans) regarding her sexuality at risk of losing her contract with a label.

Being let go from a contract and a label for making her sexuality publicly known would’ve been disastrous for her reputation in the industry and probably harm her chances at ever being mainstream famous/get on the radio. Had she gone against the advice she was getting at the time and made her sexuality public knowledge/decided to sing about girls or whatever she could’ve lost her career, her job.

In Monique’s case she would literally be fired form a job, in Taylor’s case it’d be more in the sense of falling from grace in the court of public opinion, or being left out of the community in Nashville. Something that country singer Chely Wright has mentioned was a legitimate fear for her upon coming out. (x)

When Frankie does find out what’s going on this is what happens:

“’She used us to get to us?’ Frankie says as if it’s the most insulting thing she can think of. But the thing is she used me to get to Evelyn, so…” (pg. 142)

This scene is yet another reminder that it’s all power play, a game and lowkey blackmail in the entertainment industry and that everybody does it, even the media.

…Baby let the games begin

And so Evelyn’s story starts once and for all. She tells us how she wanted to run away from her abusive father after her mother died and how she at fourteen romanticized Hollywood and believed her life would get better if she could only get there:

“It would take me years to figure out that life doesn’t get easier simply because it gets more glamorous. But you couldn’t have told me that when I was fourteen.”

New to town with a made up name in the angel's city,

Chasing fortune and fame.

And the camera flashes, make it look like a dream

You had it figured out since you were in school.

Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now I didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

14* but close enough, right? What I’m saying is, major Lucky One/Fifteen mashup vibes…

Evelyn does eventually get to Hollywood, by seducing a dude named Ernie who is a light technician on movie sets, she doesn’t love him and she lies about her age (she says she’s 16 when she truly is 14) but she gets a ride to Hollywood as she puts it, out of their marriage (pg. 44)

Having arrived in The City of Angels Evelyn does what she has to in order to launch her career and that included doing something rather bold for such a young, inexperienced actress:

“I did something not many other actresses at my level would have had the guts to do, I knocked at Harry Cameron’s door.” (Pg. 47)

This of course reminded me of:

“Hi, I'm Taylor. I'm 11; I want a record deal. Call me.” (x)

At this point in the book Evelyn is 16 or 17 and not yet explicitly queer, so that isn’t what Harry (here representing the movie/music industry) points out they have to “get rid of” when it comes to Evelyn’s image if she wants to make it. Instead, when Evelyn does get her audience with Harry Cameron she’s immediately told she has to get a more American-sounding name (her maiden name was Herrera, and now being married to Ernie her name is Diaz which in the industry’s eyes isn’t much better) and dye her hair blonde.

Instead of her queerness it’s her Hispanic heritage that has to go, in Taylor’s case however, it was of course the queerness, even in the early days. Moving to Nashville at 14 (just like Evelyn and Hollywood) Taylor signed with Big Machine Records at 16 and after seemingly previously being out she was back in the closet by the time her first album was being recorded.

To begin with Ernie is supportive of Evelyn’s attempts to make it in acting, but eventually he gets resentful when she doesn’t wanna be a house wife or give him children. This understandably frustrates Evelyn:

“I’d told him I was someone else. And then I started getting angry that he couldn’t see who I really was.” (pg. 47)

Of course I wouldn’t truly know, but I don’t think Taylor has ever used someone as a beard/for PR without their consent the way that Evelyn does to Ernie here, but if it is to be claimed that Taylor Swift did what she had to get her career off the ground then the obvious example of this would be her closeting, she told us she was someone else (with the aggressive heterosexuality of The Old Taylor™) she thought the closeting was a price worth paying for the professional success, at first…and then it started to frustrate her that she couldn’t be open to us about who she really is.

Just like Taylor though, Evelyn is all too happy to agree to the studio’s bigoted terms if it means she’ll get to be an actress, so she agrees:

“And in so doing I set the star machine in motion.” (Pg. 50)

Hmm, interesting choice of words, Evelyn…

As Evelyn’s image is starting to take shape Harry introduces her to the concept of bearding or in this case, since she hasn’t realized she’s queer yet, “dating” for publicity:

“The studio thinks it would be a good idea if you were seen around town with some guys…*proceeds to list various fictional male celebrities*” (Pg. 52)

So Evelyn Swiftly (pun intended) divorces Ernie and starts being seen around town with fellas of New Hollywood™

Here she shares her thoughts on those early days of bearding:

“I was OK with it for it for two reasons. One I had no choice but to be all right with it because I didn’t hold the cards. And two, my star was rising. Fast.” (Pg. 60) (x) (x)

“Don and I had been seen around town, our photos taken at every hot spot in Hollywood. … And we knew what we were doing, parading around in public. I needed Don’s name mentioned in the same sentence as mine, and Don needed us to look like he was part of the New Hollywood. Photos of the two of us went a long way toward solidifying his image as a man-about-town.” (Pg. 68)

Bearding 101…

It’s not just bright sides to the bearding and PR though, on page 56 Monique calls Evelyn “calculating” that word (or a less kind option, “manipulative”) is often thrown around by both media and antis when describing Taylor both in her professional life and in her love life…. (x) (x) (x)

There are also dark sides to not just the bearding but to fame and Hollywood itself as we’ll soon find out.

At this point in Evelyn’s story she has genuinely fallen in love with one of her PR boyfriends (she’s bi and don’t you forget that) and so they decide to get married and at first Evelyn’s second marriage is going swimmingly (again, pun):

“We had pool parties nearly every weekend, drinking champagne and cocktails all afternoon and into the night.” (Pg. 74)

*TIWWCHNT plays loudly in background*

However sadly Evelyn is about to learn just why they can’t have nice things, it turns out her new husband Don is both physically and emotionally abusive and it doesn’t take long for him to start regularly hitting her and this ruins the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

“I’d made my way three thousand miles from where I was born, I had found a way to be in the right place at the right time. I had changed my name. changed my hair. Changed my teeth and my body. I’d learned how to act. I’d made the right friends. I’d married into a famous family. Most of America knew my name. and yet…And yet.” (Pg. 78)

And they tell you that you’re lucky.

But you’re so confused,

'Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used.

“I got up off the floor and wiped my eyes. I gathered myself. I sat down at the vanity, three mirrors in front of me lined with lightbulbs. How silly is it that I thought that if I ever found myself in a movie star’s dressing room that meant I’d have no troubles?” (Pg. 78)

The same sadly seems to go for a singer’s dressing room I’m afraid…

Just like in Taylor’s case it’s not just Evelyn’s personal life that gets affected by various PR strategies though, her career does too. Ever since Evelyn heard that the studio was planning to adapt Little Women she’s been pushing to get cast as Jo and Harry is saying she will get that role, if she agrees to doing a few more run of the mill movies alongside her famous boyfriend. Evelyn all but rolls her eyes and asks Harry if he’s saying she should be predictable in her career choices, Harry denies this:

“I’m saying you should be predictable and then do something unpredictable, and they’ll love you forever” (Pg. 67)

This strikes me as very similar to what Taylor did in her transition from country to pop, she put out three full-on country album and then came RED and Taylor famously said that album isn’t “sonically cohesive” why? Well, it straddles the line between the two genres, but not enough to make anyone uncomfortable, it’s still country, she’s still being “predictable” and THEN she dropped 1989 her first 100% pop album and just as Ha-I mean Big Machine probably predicted, we loved her forever!

Evelyn agrees to not doing Little Women right away and admits she didn’t have much choice in the matter:

“My contract with Sunset was for another three years if I caused too much trouble, they had the option to drop me at any time.” (Pg. 67)

While I fully believe that Taylor is in charge of her PR these days we cannot forget that she was a minor when all this started and back then I think she let “the adults” handle her PR, she would do whatever they thought was best as long as it’d get her on the radio long-term, including staying closeted. However, now that the contract with her old label is up and the Rep tour has basically been one giant glass closeting event we’ll see what’s to come in terms of bold PR moves.

When she finally gets to do pop Little Women Taylor Swift Evelyn Hugo meets Karlie Kloss Celia St. James. Celia is an actress too and they become fast friends complete with Celia calling Evelyn out on her bullshit over milkshakes:

“So many women around here are full of crap in everything they say and do. I like that you’re full of crap only when it gets you something.” (Pg. 97)

Just like Taylor Evelyn is genuine…for the most part and Karlie and Celia know this.

Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me

Flashback to my mistakes

My rebounds, my earthquakes

Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me

You must like me for me

Both Evelyn and Celia realize that Celia is a better actress than Evelyn while Evelyn is better at playing the PR game than Celia, so the two agree as their friendship blossoms to teach each other what the other knows better.

Evelyn says about Celia:

“She did teach me to find moments of emotional truth in false circumstances.” (Pg. 101)

This is of course in regards to acting, but it made me think of what Taylor’s early girlfriends and her exposure to PR games and bearding must have taught her, to find moments of emotional truth in false circumstances. That’s how she can write and sing songs with the wrong (male) pronoun and make it seem so genuine, she projects the feelings she has for the women she dates onto these wrong pronoun, it’s like I pointed out before, to some degree Taylor has always told the truth about her own emotions, even when she’s hid them behind male pronoun and false heterosexuality the emotion has been real all along. Moments of truth in false circumstances.

Even genuine friendship can be played up for PR in the world of celebrity and when Evelyn has to deal with some bad publicity Harry suggests using a shopping spree with Celia to get Evelyn back in the tabloids’ good graces.

It has been speculated over the years among Kaylors and non-Kaylors alike that parts of Kaylor’s 2014 glass closeting could have been played up to “get Karlie’s name out there.” Even genuine friends (or girl pals) call the paps from time to time, but in this case Harry’s suggestion that they could “call Photoplay and let them know Evelyn and Celia will be on Robertson” is shot down by a scheming Evelyn with a better idea, she is going to fake a miscarriage to get some sympathy and make the press eat their words about her “not giving Don a baby.” (Pg. 102-104)

“’How did you learn all the underhanded, sneaky stuff you know?’ Celia asked. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said coyly. ‘You’re smarter than you let on to just about anybody.’ ‘Me?’ I said.” (Pg. 109)

We play dumb but we know exactly what we're doing

Taylor is smart, she knows just how to play the game. See: Blank Space.

Similarity Evelyn has learnt the industry by now, she manufactures her own scandals, playing with her own narrative for professional benefit.(x)

One night when Don is away somewhere (probably in the club doing I don’t know what) Celia comes over to Evelyn’s and they drink some wine…As you can probably tell it’s about to be gay up in here! Celia calls Evelyn the most gorgeous woman to have ever been created and Evelyn immediately counters, saying Celia is a KNOCKOUT with her BIG BLUE EYES

(Karlie’s eyes do look blue in some lights…See: “Oh damn, never seen that color blue”)

The night continues and as it gets chilly the girls decide to make a fire…Yes, seriously: “I asked her if she knew how to make a fire. ‘I’ve seen people do it,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Me too, I’ve seen Don do it. But I’ve never done it.’ ‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘We can do anything.’” (Pg. 109)

(s)he built a fire just to keep me warm

What follows is all from page 111-112:

As the night progresses Celia spills some wine on herself and has to borrow a clean shirt from Evelyn, they go into the bedroom and Celia decides that now is the right time to get personal. She asks Evelyn if she loves Don, Evelyn is caught off guard and finds herself answering that she used to love him but doesn’t think she does anymore. Celia asks if it’s all for publicity and when Evelyn denies this Celia asks if she’s sexually attracted to Don (and by extension, men in general) Evelyn says yes, Celia is jealous and uncomfortable and she seems to feel she’s said or asked too much. The scene that plays out embodies:

Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it chill that you're in my head?

'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)

Is it cool that I said all that

Is it too soon to do this yet?

Just like these lines from Taylor’s song could (in my opinion at least) represent sneakily trying to find out if your new crush is gay too and worrying that the questions will make them uncomfortable as the subject is delicate. Celia’s awkward question seem to really be her trying to ask Evelyn if it’s cool that she thinks of her in a gay way and that she talks about that fact?

The word delicate even shows up in the scene when Evelyn describes Celia as being more delicate than her when trying to find a clean shirt that might fit.

Finally she does find a shirt and hands it over to Celia who comments on how gorgeous it is, Evelyn agrees and confesses she stole it from the set of one of her movies and asks Celia not to tell anyone. As she takes off the soiled shirt Celia says:

“I hope you know by now that all your secrets are safe with me?”

Evelyn comments on how she’s sure that line was something Celia said casually, but that it meant a lot to her nonetheless. Because as Celia said it Evelyn realized she believed her and she’d never had that with anyone.

“People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is ‘You’re safe with me’ — that’s intimacy.”

Secrets and truth (and intimacy) are, of course a huge theme on Reputation:

1. “No one has to know” (…Ready For It?)

2. You've been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks, so here's the truth from my red lips (End Game)

3. But when you get me alone, it's so simple/ But when I get you alone, it's so simple (So It Goes…)

4. “Your love is a secret I’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep” (King of My Heart)

5. “I loved you in secret” (Dancing With Our Hands Tied

6. “Our secret moments in a crowded room” (Dress)

7. “Even in my worst lie you saw the truth in me” (Dress)

“I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone? […] To throw your lot in with theirs and think, ‘whatever happens, it’s you and me’”

Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared And you're turning away I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong Or we're making mistakes”

Celia goes to put on the shirt and says that she’s not sure it will fit her, Evelyn says that if it does fit Celia can have it.

Other people we know share/wear a lot of similar clothes too.

Just as Celia gets her own shirt off and Evelyn starts checking her out (spoiler alert: it’s really gay) Don enters the room and teasingly asks just “what is going on in here?” Just like that the spell is broken and Evelyn hurriedly assures her husband that “Absolutely nothing” is going on in that bedroom.

Here Don represents the shippers and the media alike starting to question the nature of Kaylor’s relationship during the height of their glass closeting forcing Taylor to assure “Don” aka us that “absolutely nothing” is going on between her and Karlie, but I’m getting ahead of myself, more on #Kissgate later…

Anygayyyy, let’s just say that those two pages are, as they say A LOT™ for my Kaylor feels!!

Thanks for reading, please read part 3!

#tshoeh #tshoeh spoilers #the seven husbands of evelyn hugo #gaylor swift #kaylor #masterpost

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sablelab · 5 years

Text

Santa Baby - Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: This nine part story is a Sam and Caitriona fanfic. This is a complete work of fiction and as such is an entirely fabricated tale created in my imagination. I do not know the people in my story, nor do I proclaim to know anything about them whatsoever about their status or their life in general. This is a complete fantasy story concocted from the Christmas song “Santa Baby” which was used as a prompt for my writing.

SYNOPSIS : Sam returns home after a whirlwind Outlander promotional tour to Australia and Japan and catches Caitriona singing in the shower. She has visions of Sam dressing up as her “Santa Baby” for Christmas and everything that that might entail. Based on the Christmas song “Santa Baby.” ENJOY!!!

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 (S) / Chapter 4 (S) /

Chapter 5 (NSFW) / Chapter 6 (S) / Chapter 7 (S)

THANK YOU for reading my Christmas tale of the Heughan family. Please ENJOY the next chapter.

CHAPTER 8

12 months later…

A lot had happened in the Heughan household over the past year. Not only had they settled down in their home in the highlands but they had finished the fourth year of Outlander set on Fraser’s Ridge. In many ways the story paralleled their own. They had been so happy in their home and now that they had their baby daughter life was blissful. Their little ray of sunshine, Isla Claire Heughan was born after a trouble free pregnancy for Caitriona. The birth of their child was the most wonderful thing that had happened to them. They both felt so much overwhelming love for this child conceived in love that they were over the moon that their baby was a girl. She had the most beautiful little chubby face and her hair was a gorgeous auburn colour. There were so many, many parallels in their life to the characters that they were playing in Outlander that it was only right that her middle name be Claire after Caitriona’s alter ego.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wrapped up snugly in a woollen blanket Sam sat by the fire nursing his baby girl in his arms while Eddie rested on the couch purring happily in the warmth from the flames that created a cozy atmosphere in the lounge room. Caitriona was upstairs having some much needed rest and he was doing the night feed for their adorable offspring. Baby Isla had finished her bath and bottle and was now drunk on the taste of her mother’s breast milk. She had a euphoric look on her face that always made Sam smile … she was milk punch drunk. Her little pudgy face contorted in a blissful milk stupor feeling as she nestled happily in her father’s arms.

Sam loved these bonding times with his daughter so much and relished the chance to talk to his baby girl and kiss her chubby cheeks, to hug her and gently squeeze their little one in his powerful arms. She was the most precious person in his life next to her stunning mother and the love he had for her knew no bounds.

Isla Heughan cooed happily as her father lovingly rubbed her sweet baby cheeks. At a couple of months old she was just at that stage where she was observant of whom her parents were as she smiled at the man who held her so tenderly. Her little legs pushed against his chest as she rested in his arms gurgling and babbling happily on her full tummy. Several little bubbles formed on her rosebud lips as she looked lovingly into her father’s mesmerizing eyes while he held her hand and softly spoke to her. She knew her daddy’s voice and her eyes fixated on his face as he spoke to her. She seemed captivated by Sam’s facial expressions while unconsciously learning about emotions and communication with those who loved her. Her father’s voice was soothing but when he blew raspberries on her tummy it made her giggle out loud and Sam laughed when he saw Isla’s adorable gummy grin bow her lips.

“I love you baby girl … so much that my heart swells. I will never let anyone hurt you or make you sad. Your daddy will protect you from all harm and make sure that no one makes you cry. We will go Munro climbing together and mamma can come too and we will show you the world. Your mummy and I love you to the moon and back and then into the universe and beyond.”

Sam tenderly placed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead then picked up the photo album that was lying on his lap to show her pictures taken since she had been born. Nestling baby Isla so that she could see, he opened up the first page where there were several pictures of their little family.

“This is you Bubba … Daddy is taking you for a walk to the park while mummy had a long, long rest. You love going to the park and seeing all the children playing. Remember when we heard that little sparrow whistling and you laughed and laughed? Oh and we also took you to the SIDS marathon. Daddy pushed your pram with lots of other mummies and daddies there too. Do you like the photo mummy took? “

He looked at his baby adoringly and continued. “And there’s mummy watching you play with the ball Granny Chrissie gave you and there you are in mummy’s arms. That was soon after you were born. You were the cutest little baby in the hospital… but I’m not biased one little bit … no I’m not.”

Sam dotingly stroked Isla’s chubby little cheek and she in turn answered with a smile that melted his heart all over again.

Turning the page over in the photo album once more he showed Isla photos taken in her Christmas hat and the family photos taken when they took her to meet Santa for the first time.

“Look at you Bubba. So cute in the little red hat Granda Balfe got for you to wear at Christmas. We couldn’t wait to see you in it. Look how pretty you are. Mummy is wearing a hat and so am I too. That was when we went to see Santa. You were such a good girl, you didn’t even cry.”

Sam held her sleepy eyes with his and showed her another photo.

“Mummy bought you that Santa Baby T-shirt. She saw it on line and had to get it for you. Don’t let your mother get you interested in the internet Isla. She spends all her money on line. Naughty mummy, but it has a special meaning for your mumma and me you see. I knew you would look adorable in it and you are our special little Santa baby, because we love you so, so much. That is Eddie and Lion too. You love little Tiger the lion, he’s very special just like you are Bubba. He’ll keep all of those nasty monsters under your bed away from scaring you.”

Closing the album, Sam tenderly kissed his baby daughter on the cheek but her little eyes had closed and her cupid bowed mouth was smiling as she slept. Leaning down he inhaled the special smell that little babies had and his heart filled with immense unconditional love for their precious little angel.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Caitriona had been blissfully observing her husband for a little while conversing with their baby daughter. Very quietly she approached where he was sitting on the couch and gently rested her hands on his shoulders kissing her love on the top of his head.

“What are you doing honey?” she asked.

Sam looked up and saw that Cait was standing behind him in her night robe. He was surprised to see her but since having risen from their bed it was only natural that she had come downstairs to join him and baby Isla.

“I’m talking to our baby girl darling and showing her the family album.”

Peering over his shoulder at their beautiful daughter she asked, “Did she like the pictures in the album?”

“Aye she did Cait. Isla remembers all of those being taken.”

“How do you know that Sam?”

“She was smiling and cooing and talking to me … that’s how I know.”

“Talking was she? And did she answer you?”

“Of course. She is quite fluent already in baby talk. ”

“Well that makes sense to me hon.”

Her husband was too adorable for words. He was besotted with their baby girl and she smiled at the answers he gave. Caitriona knew that Sam would be a wonderful, hands on father and having watched their interaction she was proven right. He was a fierce Papa Bear and their child meant everything to him. It was also evident that their precious baby was indeed a clever little possum. Cait kissed her husband, then their sleepy daughter in his arms before asking tongue in cheek.

“Does she have a dodgy accent?”

Sam laughed hearing this question on her lips. “Ah, yes. I remember saying that. Her accent is just right … isn’t it Bubba?” he cooed looking into his child’s innocent little face as she slept soundly in his arms “She can speak Gaelic already and her Scottish accent with a touch of Irish is magnificent. She is the cleverest baby that ever was born.”

“Oh honey … I love you … so much. I totally agree. Our daughter is adorable. Anyone can see that.”

A proud father smiled at Isla and caressed her cheek gently with the pads of his fingers, “We’re not in any way biased are we Cait?”

“No Sam … not at all. We are no different from any other first time parents; we are enamoured with our child. She is perfect in every way. She is the best of you and the best of me. We created the most perfect human being and we love her with all our hearts.”

“I just told her that babe … I told her how we would protect her, care for her and love her in all the ways that matter.“

Caitriona leaned forward wrapping her arms around her husband’s head and leaning over his shoulder looked at their baby snuggled in her father’s arms. Kissing the side of his cheek, Cait’s next question had a touch of mirth in it.

“And did you tell her she would go Munro bagging with you.”

“Ahhh … I may have said something along those lines,” he replied a little sheepishly.

“Sam honey, you are incorrigible. I don’t think you will be able to climb those seven mountains in a weekend like you used to with little Isla and return Sunday night … no way will that be possible.”

“There’s no reason why we can’t all go Cait. There are special baby harnesses for climbing and we can do little mountains together. The fresh air will be good for her.”

“Oh Sam… I do love you. Never change. If you want to go MIA for a weekend Munro climbing, then I will be left holding the baby … but I don’t mind really.“

"I won’t.”

“So are you saying that you are going to be the good cop to my bad cop?”

“You’re a wonderful disciplinarian Caitriona … you know I’m a softie. Isla will be able to wrap me around her little finger, just like she already has her tiny hand wrapped around my heart.”

“Oh, the power of tiny, baby girls over their daddies!”

Sam pulled Cait’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, “Yep … I’m a sucker for this little girl who looks just like her beautiful mother.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Isla was the cutest, most adorable little cherub and the most placid baby ever to be born. Sam was not stating anything that was not true but she was the most stunning baby there ever was. No bias on his behalf … everyone said so and her mother was the most wonderful mother that she was always meant to be. He adored Caitriona so much and every time he looked at Isla he saw only a miniature version of her mother. Cait had taken to motherhood like a duck to water like it was second nature to her. His wife was a natural. Having friends with babies the same age they would exchange dialogue about their offspring and the conversations between Laura and Cait were interesting to say the least and Ron had needed to set up a small crèche on set as Cait was still breast feeding and nurturing with their child. He loved watching her feed their baby. It was the most natural and wonderful thing to behold. At times he was a bit jealous of their connection but if Cait expressed her milk he was able to do the night feed and bath and those times were magical and were special bonding times with her daddy.

They had chosen the name Isla because they had found peace and seclusion on the Isle of Islay when they attended the Laphroaig 200 year’s celebrations last year. Their magical night on the island had resonated and the fact that Cait had gone incognito and they managed to have the most wonderful time there, it seemed a beautiful name for their child. They had returned there many times since those celebrations and Caitriona was convinced that Isla was conceived the last time they were there for the weekend and who could argue with their other half. Certainly not he. If Cait said that was where it happened then that is where it happened.

Their last night on Islay had been magical that’s for sure and as he held their daughter on his lap Sam couldn’t help but reflect on Caitriona musings as to Isla’s conception.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Penny for your thoughts honey?”

“I was just thinking how wonderful last Christmas was finding out that you were expecting our baby. Caitriona my heart swelled with a joy I couldn’t describe. The feeling was an all encompassing happiness and I was totally in love with this little bean the very moment you said the words.”

“I know Sam, I just couldn’t wait to tell you but I couldn’t over the phone when you were in Australia, I needed to see your reaction. I was so overjoyed and happy it was hard to hold it in. We certainly made everyone happy on Christmas Day with our news.”

“Aye that we did and now we have our gorgeous little cherub. It is going to be a wonderful first Christmas this year.”

“Why don’t you put Isla back down in her crib honey? I’ll be up in a moment. I’ll tidy up here first and then join you.”

Okay,” he smiled back placing a kiss to her lips. It’s been a long day and Isla threw up on me so I need to wash off the baby vomit smell before I join you in bed.”

“Have a quick shower then, that should do the trick.”

Sam leaned into her space capturing Caitriona’s chin in his palm and staring into her eyes softly stroked his wife’s face with the backs of his fingers, “I think I will. Don’t be too long honey … you still need to rest.”

Cupping her hand over her husband’s and pressing it firmly to her face, Cait replied, “No … No you go on up. I’ll be there shortly.”

Sam’s eyebrow lifted as he gave his wife a little teasing smirk, “I’ll be … in the shower then, after I put Isla down.”

His blue eyes sparkled with mischief, unashamedly communicating that he didn’t expect to be alone for long. “You’ll know where I am if you decide to join me.”

He rose from the couch with their baby daughter cradled gently in his arms and made his way towards the staircase. As he neared the stairs, Sam looked up and saw the mistletoe and signs that Caitriona had promised to put up this year. He smiled knowing what happened every time they were near those signs.

“Cait … I’m under those mistletoe signs. Come over here and I’ll give you a wee kiss.”

“You know it won’t be a wee kiss Sam. It never is.”

“Yes it will … I’m holding Isla, what mischief could I possibly get up to?”

“Hmmm? … A lot.”

“Come over here then darling and we’ll put that to the test … or are you too chicken Balfe?”

“Never let it be said that I ignored a challenge Heughan,” Caitriona replied walking over to where her husband stood grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Their lips gently met and Cait felt her knees begin to buckle as Sam systematically deepened the kiss. Her response was to automatically wrap her arms around her husband’s waist as they kissed passionately while both cocooning their child in an embrace close to their hearts.

A little breathless, when they severed the kiss, Caitriona rested her forehead on Sam’s as she gazed into his sparkling eyes. “See … I knew that would happen.”

“Bite me then … I confess, I’m a liar.”

“I just might do that …”

Sam merely smiled enigmatically as he broke away and reluctantly headed towards the stairs. “I’ll be eagerly waiting for that payback. Don’t be too long, honey,” he called to his love as he retreated up the stairs with a sleeping baby daughter in his arms.

“I won’t. That’s a promise.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A little flustered Caitriona sat back down on the couch and waited a short while until she could hear sounds coming from their bathroom. The noise of an electric shaver echoed down the stairs and then she heard the sound of running water from the shower. The next sound she heard was Sam singing off tune to Michael Buble’s version of Santa Baby. This made her chuckle as she thought of what had happened last year round about the same time, when Sam had come home and found her singing that very same song.

Santa baby, slip a Rolex under the tree For me I’ve been an awful good guy Santa buddy, and hurry down the chimney tonight

Knowing she had a small window of opportunity, Cait got up from the couch and hurriedly went up after him her eyes luminous with mischievous intent and biting her bottom lip in excitement. She had planned to do something special for her husband to remember what had happened last Christmas Eve when Sam had pretended to be Santa Baby and she’d bought the CD for him as an early Christmas present. He’d laughed when he saw what the song was that she had given him, but there was also an underlying eroticism in the eyes that were remembering what had occurred last year. She had waited her moment over the past few days and given that it was Christmas Eve, it was her turn to turn the tables on her husband. The fact that Sam was singing the same song made Caitriona think he knew exactly what her motives were and was indulging her fantasies once more.

Having finished his quick shower, Sam was whistling along to the words of the song. Steam had, as usual, fogged up the bathroom somewhat and he had playfully written his and Cait’s initials in a heart shape on to the mirror as he took another towel to dry his wet hair.

Santa buddy, a sixty five convertible too Steel blue I’ll wait up for you, dude Santa buddy, and hurry down the chimney tonight

On entering the bathroom Caitriona saw Sam wrapped in a large bath towel tucked into his waist that clung to his hips. The sight of him left her quite breathless and transfixed to the spot where she stood. Her man was gloriously half naked standing there in his towel. The room was steamy but the sight of her husband draped in the towel with his dampened hair in riotous curls had her all in a tizz. Cait watched as some droplets of water trickled down his magnificent muscular back. She couldn’t take her eyes from watching the path of the rivulets as they disappeared into the rim of the towel caressing Sam’s hips. She watched as his back muscles flexed, and the sight of his chiselled torso and toned arms had her in a flabbergasted flummox.

Caitriona found it difficult to breathe.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Think of all the fun I’ve missed Think of all the hotties that I haven’t kissed Next year I could be just as good If you check off my Christmas list

Sam immediately sensed that his wife had entered the bathroom even though he had not heard Caitriona’s soft footfalls on the tiles. He knew she was there but he hadn’t bothered to look her way and had kept humming along to Michael Buble. Feeling her presence in the bathroom was good enough so he decided to clandestinely play along pretending he was oblivious to her existence. Lifting up his arms Sam ran his hands through his damp locks trying to tame them a little, but not with much success. As he did so the muscles of his back contracted and Caitriona was mesmerised by the magnificent torso of her hot, semi naked husband.

He’d felt her gaze as surely as if his beloved had touched him with her hands.

Cait’s eyes, washed over the man she adored, taking in the sight of him possessively. Trembling, she inched forward until she was practically standing behind her husband, then reaching out her hand she lazily traced her fingertips down his spine. She felt the ripples of his muscles contracting in reaction to her touch and she was thrilled knowing that this small gesture always caused the same effect.

“What took you so long honey?” Sam inquired huskily as ever so slowly; he turned around piercing his wife’s gaze with a look that had her nearly expiring on the spot.

Capturing Caitriona’s hand, he placed it to his chest right over his heart. As he did so Sam was gobsmacked at the vision that was standing in front of him. His eyes roamed over her from head to toe for his beautiful wife was dressed in her Christmas version of Mrs Claus. She looked smoking hot with a shimmering body suit corset that clung to all her womanly curves and laced all the way down her back, just begging to be taken off slowly and meticulously. The Santa hat atop her head was the piece de resistance. His Cait looked sultry, sexy as hell and so delectable she made him salivate.

With seductive glances Caitriona’s eyes looked down and then back up to see her husband’s sparkling eyes examining her with a smirk on his lips. Sam was very pleased with himself. However, as their eyes reconnected his look suddenly changed. He captured her gaze with eyes blazing with arousal and burning desire in such a profound look that her insides melted. She could see that he was already somewhat aroused under that towel as his eyes glided over her body in her provocative outfit.

For her … time stood still with that look, and memories of last year’s Santa performance by her love suddenly came flashing back to her. Cait wondered if she could possibly emulate his routine, for her insides were churning both with excitement and trepidation.

“I like your outfit babe … Did you have that on under your robe downstairs?”

“I did.”

“Oh, my god Caitriona! If I had known that I would have put Isla in her downstairs bassinette and made love to you in front of the fire.”

“I was afraid of that … so…”

Sam finished her sentence, “You sent me up here to clean up knowing you intended to have your wicked way with me.”

“Well? Maybe?”

“God I adore you woman. Come here.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ end Chapter 8/9 Only one more to go!!!

#sam and cait #samcaitfanfic #outlander:christmas #santa baby #outlander fanfic

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kclenhartnovels · 6 years

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Engine Oil and Rosewater

So, since I decided I am actually going to write Eve’s book(s), I was thinking more about the long history she has that isn’t talked about between 1800s France, and present-day America. So I decided to break my own heart and delve into one of her meaningful relationships. Here it is from Eve’s journal.

Her name was Mary.

Her husband always called her 'lamb', and she hated it. I met her in 1943, building engines for fighters and bombers that would bring freedom to Europe. Her husband had been deployed for six months. Six days a week, she and I would punch our cards in the factory and work alongside each other, and within the first few months we could assemble an engine in our sleep. She told me about growing up in a small town, planting roses with her mother and learning to sew from her grandmother. Her grandmother had come to America from Italy, and never learned a word of English, but could stitch such beautiful, even lines that every woman in town would flock to her for wedding dresses. She told me about watching her father's face when he heard about Pearl Harbor, the despair that seeped down every wrinkle. It was the first time she'd seen him cry. He died two weeks later; she was sure his heart had broken.

Six days a week, she would tilt her head close to mine and I would ask her again about her life, our arms stained with grease from fingers to elbows. She told me how she had grown up across the street from her future husband. His name was Joseph. Their parents were best friends, and it seemed they were destined from birth to wed. When their mothers got tipsy on wine, they would titter about creating another holy couple—Mary and Joseph. Then they would cross themselves and ask God to forgive them while still giggling beside the fire. She told me how they got married in the town's only Catholic church, and how through the whole ceremony she could do nothing but study the stained-glass windows that had framed her life. She said she found God only in those greens, blues, yellows, reds, the little squares that told stories best when the sun came lancing through like His fingers to touch her cheeks. She read me the letters Joe wrote to her from France.

Six days a week, she would touch my arm when we took a break for lunch. I would make bread, and she would bring cured meat and hard cheese, and we would sit outside of the factory on a broken rail, making rough sandwiches and letting our hair dry in the sun. She would ask me how I made my bread, and I would tell her I lived in a French monastery and learned their secrets, and she would laugh. She asked where I was from, and I begged her instead for more stories of her Italian grandmother, sewing lace and singing songs of the sea. I helped her write letters back to Joe. She never knew what to say to him.

On Sunday, June 25, 1944, I was in her house. I had gone with her to church that morning, and I promised I would show her how I baked bread. We stood under her kitchen window, flour covering our arms from fingers to elbows, kneading while the sun shone through the pane like the fingers of God. A man in uniform knocked on her door, and with one government-sealed letter, her husband was dead.

I cradled Mary in my arms all night. She didn't cry. Joe had always left her feeling hollow. Their marriage was for their parents, maybe for him, but never for her. He had been mean while drunk and absent while sober. When he was drafted, she didn't cry. She kissed him goodbye. He touched her cheek. Then his absence was a part of her life, too. But now he would never be returning, and she felt like an empty pew, nothing but a promise of salvation and love. I held her against my chest. Her hair smelled like engine oil and rosewater.

In the dark, she told me all her secrets she couldn't confess in the factory and in the sun. She and Joe had a child the first year they were married, but when he was two he died of polio. She still mourned him. Joe had become so much more angry after the death of his son. He drank more. He blamed her. He blamed her for never having another. She took medicine her mother gave her to ensure she would not bear him another child. She felt like a bad Catholic. She felt like a strong woman. She wasn't sure she could be a good Catholic and still feel like herself. I slid my fingers into her hair and she listened to the sound of my heartbeat.

On Monday, June 26, 1944, I moved into her home.

Time makes some memories hazy, but I will never forget Mary in the kitchen, in the sunshine. I was the first one to initiate a kiss. She had pulled bread from the oven, and her smile left me breathless. I had to taste her lips. She kissed me back, and I felt such chills I forgot it was summer.

Living together brought so many questions she never asked me. Her fingers traced over my scars the first time we lay naked together, but she never asked. She would stare into my eyes, and I would see her look from one to the other, but she never asked why one was blue and one was green. The first time she found a bright white feather outside the bathtub, she looked at me and I feared she would call me angel. The only question she ever gave was why I never took off my gloves. I had cut off the fingertips so I could touch her, but I dared not let the skin of my palms ever come close to brushing her. I didn't know how to answer her question. I told her first I was hiding scars. She touched the parallel scars across my temple and said she didn't care about them. I begged her not to ask me again.

She didn't ask again.

On September 2, 1945, the war ended.

People flooded the streets, cheering, praising God, opening bottles of champagne. Mary and I held each other in front of the radio, squeezing so tight I feared we would pull the breath from each other. She ran her hands up my back, and for the first time she found the feathery base of my wing. I kissed her. I took her to the bedroom, and I told her everything. When I couldn't find the words to explain what I was—how could I, when even I don't know?—she traced every scar on my body, she closed my eyelids with her fingertips, and with both hands explored the wing that kept me forever off-balance and afraid of exposure. She came away with a feather, and started laughing. She laughed until she cried, but her smile never ceased. She said she could see why I had both angel and demon in me. I asked her why. She said an angel would never shed so many feathers for her to sweep.

Mary and I lived on that little street for fourteen years. I went to church with her every Sunday. We would lay a bible across our knees and hold hands underneath it. The light from the stained glass gave such life to her smile. I missed the smell of engine oil, but when the men returned, our jobs disappeared. Mary got the deed to her father-in-law's shop, where he would buy and sell goods. When he died, we became pawn brokers. The little street thrived. Roads were paved, commerce boomed, the city seemed to grow around us. Mary swept feathers from the pawn shop floor. I bought flowers for the mantle.

On May 13, 1959, Mary got sick.

For fourteen years, I had held her in my arms every night and watched her glorious dark hair earn silver streaks. For fourteen years, I held her face in my hands and watched the wrinkles form, first at the corners of her eyes from her perpetual smile, then around the curve of her mouth. For fourteen years, she looked in the mirror and laughed how I had ruined her girlish figure with warm bread. For fourteen years, I didn't change.

On December 23, 1959, I carried Mary into the church, curled up with her beneath the moonlight turned red by the stained glass, and cried into her hair. I felt her last breath against my cheek, the tangle of her fingers against my back, holding onto downy feathers as if they would carry her to a heaven I could never get to. She died with a whisper on her lips—she promised she would wait for me. I told her I could never reach her again. She said she would find me. I buried her outside of the church, where the morning sunlight hit first and lingered all day. I leave her bowls of rosewater for her hair.

Today, someone traded in their grandfather's toolkit. In it was a bottle of engine oil, the can so rusted it was a wonder it hadn't leaked. I took it to Mary, and I sat beside her in the sun. I told her when I go home, I'll make another batch of bread, but I'm still waiting on her to join me for lunch. I told her fifty-eight years was a long time for her to find me again. When I go home, and the bell chimes above the pawn shop, the sun lances through the front window like the fingertips of an unfair God.

I'm still waiting.

#writing #abomination #excerpt #abomination series #eve #honey why you gotta make me cry while writing

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superaus10 · 6 years

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24 months: December

First of all, thanks to @bills-pokedex, @shadowshrike, @melohax and @littletoughpuff for making this AU possible. Enjoy! ---

En la puerta del Sol, como el año que fue

Seriously, Xander didn’t knew what was wrong with him. It was the second time they celebrated New Year’s Eve in that hotel and he was being late again. He just hoped it wouldn’t become a tradition, as surely Odin, no, Owain, would say. And everything because he couldn’t find his watch. The one he got at Christmas from Ángel, he still needed to improve his pronunciation, and Celine decided that it was shiny enough to take it as a treasure. And then it was getting Celine in the transport. How much he wished for get Celine there like Angel’s Midori in her pokeball. But of course, he always had to dance with the ugliest.

Finally, he reached the Tide Song Hotel and Celine wasn’t so bothered. But of course everyone were there already, including his little sister, Elise. When Laslow, Íñigo, tried to explain him how parallel realms worked and how many different versions of one self could exist, he just got a big headache and decided that it didn’t matter in the end, his family was his family even from other realms.

-There you are big brother! The others are in the dinner hall by now! -exclaimed Elise from the reception, ready to throw herself into his arms. He grab her and give her a spin in his arms. By the Dusk Dragon, how much he missed those moments two years ago. When everything ended, when everything started.

otra vez el champagne y las uvas y el alquitrán, de alfombra están. Los petardos que borran sonidos de ayer y acaloran el ánimo para aceptar que ya, pasó uno más.

After leaving Celine and the birthday present, trying to get Elise not to squeal and disturb it. They went to the dining hall.

-By the way Xander… There is someone in the table that I haven’t met before

-Really? Who is it? -he asked, not expecting anyone except some friends and the Reyes family.

-I don’t know, but he is very cute with his black eyes and green hair and…

-Uncle Xander!

-Huh? -he turned his head to the voice’s direction. He felt tears on his eyes -Jordan! Wha-What are you doing here?

The teenager run towards him and they hugged each other. Xander could hear the kid trying no to cry. He wasn’t in a different situation.

-I missed you a lot Xander

-Me too, little sprout. But tell me, what are doing here?

-Oh! Don’t worry about it! Ms. Schiller allowed me to come and I’ve been in the hotel since noon with Mr. Reyes

-You should have told me, Jordan -he scolded, patting his shoulder.

-But then it wouldn’t be a surprise! Ángel and I were preparing these since November

Xander eyed the table, looking for the accomplice, but his frown couldn’t last too long after seeing them.

He was beautiful tonight, wearing an elegant beige robe, with long sleeves and embroidered with chrysanthemums, roses, peonies and other flowers Xander couldn’t recognize with different colours and shapes. He also had an decorated obi, which rested at his chest, with a decorative, bow at the end. The light brown bangs were styled a bit at his side, with a big peony working as a hair clip, the usual pixie cut was neatly styled too, in contrast of its usual way. He wore a bit of makeup too, so his eye bags weren’t noticeable, and a sharp brown eyeliner. Most of their friends complained that Ángel was wasting his talent to make a winged eyeliner with such simple forms, but he couldn’t care less. He was beautiful with or without makeup.

-Hey! What’s up Xander? Did you went to the moon or what? -said the other holding a laugh. Xander couldn’t help but sigh at the light tease, but decided to play a bit more.

-I’m sorry, but I was admired at how much do you look like my boyfriend, though he usually has eyebags for working at night.

The other couldn’t help but laugh. -Oh really? Well maybe can you tell me why is Nohr’s sky cloudy tonight? I can’t see the stars -that was really smooth even coming from him, and Xander hoped the concealer hid his blush as it hid his freckles when he kissed the other. He wouldn’t stand another compliment like dad or he would melt. The other guests rolled their eyes at the scene.

-But seriously Ángel, you look wonderful tonight

-It’s all Gabriel’s fault. He was so heartbroken I had to work on Christmas so I couldn’t go to Mexico that he got a Johtonian Kimono as a present. An actual Johtonian Kimono! Do you know how expensive is this? I’m going to get married with this for The Guardians’ sake

At the mention of marriage, Xander suppressed a shiver.

Y en el reloj de antaño como de año en año cinco minutos más para la cuenta atrás. hacemos el balance de lo bueno y malo cinco minutos antes de la cuenta atrás.

After greeting everyone, he sat in front of Ángel, because both Elise and Jordan wanted to be with him. Jordan told him everything he did in Japan after they arrested the former director of his orphanage, and how he passed last year’s subjects with a notable. It wasn’t like Xander didn’t knew already, he was always in touch with the teenager since he found him by himself, but he was so proud of that green haired teen. Xander told them different tales of his work at Aether Foundation, winning the table’s laughs and Ángel’s ever loving look. It was so hard for him to not just lose himself in those sharp, violet eyes and loving smile.

Marineros, soldados, solteros, casados, amantes, andantes y alguno que otro cura despistao. entre gritos y pitos los españolitos enormes, bajitos hacemos por una vez, algo a la vez.

And there they were, eating together and remembering this past year’s events, hearing Owain’s jokes, Íñigo’s travels stories, Lucio and Angel’s experiences at the hospital, Elise’s Island Challenge, she nearly defeated Alolan Champion! And so on. It was so nice to see everyone enjoying an evening together. It was surprising how many different people could be there, in peace. So different from anything he was used to live.

Y en el reloj de antaño como de año en año cinco minutos más para la cuenta atrás. hacemos el balance de lo bueno y malo cinco minutos antes de la cuenta atrás.

They finished the delicious menu the hotel served them, and they left to the room, better said hall, they rented for the night, where Ángel’s birthday presents waited for him. It wasn’t his real birthday, he didn’t remember it, but it was the day when Gabriel found him, and he decided to adopt that date as his birthday, or as Jordan proposed to called it, rebirthday. That kid was a ball of sunshine, and he and Elise rapidly became friends. Even Elise’s Eevee, Michaela, liked him.

They entered the hall, beautifully decorated for a Christmas party. There was a counter where they could get drinks, a sound mixer, he could see Lucio’s eyes lighting up, some sofas and coffee tables for those who wouldn’t want to dance, and a big Christmas tree where the presents were placed underneath.

-Oh my-! There are so much presents! What were you thinking when you bought me these!-he breathed, putting his hands on his face in embarrassment.

-You deserve every single one of them, little angel -his tutor interrupted. -So please, don’t be ashamed and open them before this year ends

All laughed, including the birthday boy. Lucio got the idea to sit Ángel, even though he was already sat on his wheelchair, in the center on the room and each one giving him their present, as it wasn’t enough embarrassment for the poor man. Xander wanted to be the last, and so everybody gave their gifts: a shiny bracelet Íñigo bought in Kalos, a grooming set from Severa, one of the limited editions of “The Silmarillion” Owain knew he would love, a new set of wheelchair modifications from Lucio, they were deep purple and green, and a silver pendant from Gabriel, Ángel said that the kimono and the pendant was too much but Gabriel dissed him saying he bought it for Christmas, before de kimono. When it was Xander’s turn, he box began to move, surprising everyone but Elise and Gabriel.

-Well, you know. I know you and the girls -Xander began signaling Midori, Ángel’s phantump, and Sweetie, Gabriel’s Mimikyu. They were properly dressed for the occasion. -were heartbroken after you couldn’t keep the sneasel you found. And you have recently made a friend in Aether Foundation. And since that little rascal wouldn’t want to go back in the wild…

-Xander, what did you? -Ángel asked, seeing three holes at the box said, opening it. Inside, an Alolan vulpix looked at Kaze with its wide eyes partially hidden by a hood. When the tiny pokemon recognized him, it jumped at him, howling in excitement. Ángel petted the little creature’s soft hair, in awe.

-Xander, why? It’s so small, I don’t know I can take care of it properly

-I know you can, Ángel. And it likes you more than any other trainer. And I’m the one watching over it every day at the Foundation! So please, let it be with you

Ángel watched Xander, then Sweetie, Midori and finally the vulpix. All of them wore that abandoned puppy look. He then looked at Gabriel, who instead had a knowing smile. Ángel was sure his tutor had something to do with all of this.

-You are a troublemaker Xander -he sighed, but with a smile underneath- don’t worry little thing, you’re coming with me tonight! -he laughed, lifting her. The room broke in applauses and hails while the tiny vulpix curled itself in Ángel’s lap. He would have to clean the kimono after, but he didn’t care.

Y aunque para las uvas hay algunos nuevos a los que ya no están le echaremos de menos y a ver si espabilamos los que estamos vivos y en el año que viene nos reímos. 1, 2, 3 y 4 y empieza otra vez que la quinta es la una y la sexta es la dos y así el siete es tres. Y decimos adiós y pedimos a dios que en el año que viene, a ver si en vez de un millón pueden ser dos.

After all the presents were given, the moved to the balcony. Severa and Owain prepared the champagne and non alcoholic drinks for the kids and Íñigo brought some party poppers and blowers. Lucio took photos of all of them. And in the balcony they were waiting and counting for the new year.

10!

All the pokemon stopped playing and came to the balcony.

Neither Jordan nor Elise could hide their excitement, and began to bounce.

The atmosphere was tense with the anticipation.

Xander looked at Ángel, which smiled at him.

Even at that moment, he couldn’t get past of how beautiful the other’s eyes were.

So full of determination and strength. So familiar…

Just like his.

It didn’t mattered how much time it passed, he seemed always stuck in the past.

But he was living a new life now. And how much grateful he was

Happy New Year everyone!

The fireworks began, and both Íñigo and Owain used the party poppers, filling the air with confetti. Xander bend down and kissed Ángel.

He couldn’t believe how much his life changed in the short span of two years. He still remembered how it began, very far away from there, when he actually had the duties of a Crown Prince on his shoulders.

En la puerta del sol como el año que fue otra vez el champagne y las uvas y el alquitrán, de alfombra están.

#xander #elise #odin #laslow #severa #kaze #gabriel reyes #lucio correia dos santos #midorikawa ryuuji #phantump #mimikkyu #alolan vulpix #eevee #fire emblem fates #overwatch #inazuma eleven #pokemon

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astoldbyacertifiedunicorn · 7 years

Text

Japril Appreciation Week: Day 3 ⇒ A song or quote that reminds you of them

Halo by Beyoncé

Remember those walls I built?

Well, baby they're tumbling down

And they didn't even put up a fight

They didn't even make a sound

I found a way to let you in

But, I never really had a doubt

Standing in the light of your halo

I got my angel now

Jackson Avery couldn't understand why exactly he was feeling so angry. It was a hard emotion to pin down for a 7 year old. He just knew, that despite all the coddling his mother has been trying to do, and all the yelling his granddad had done, he had an inexplicable need to act out.

And now here he was, at a doctor's office, where his mom said that his behavior at school meant he'd have to talk to this doctor and tell her what was wrong. He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure what was wrong, so there was nothing to tell her. He hadn't meant to push Pete off the swing. He really hadn't. But Pete had been talking about how his dad was teaching him to play baseball and how they'd gone for ice cream after, and he hadn't stopped when Jackson had asked him to. So, he'd pushed him, and Pete had gotten a scrape on his forehead and he'd cried real hard. Jackson had felt terrible. It wasn't Pete's fault he was feeling awfully angry this whole month.

"Jackson, please stop being difficult. You're an Avery. You can't act out like this in public." Catherine told him, through gritted teeth, as she dragged him along a hallway leading to the doctor he was supposed to see.

He didn't care much at the time that he was an Avery, it didn't mean anything to him. He just knew he was having a particularly bad day and he needed to scream. A lot.

"Honey, please stop screaming." Catherine huffed, looking completely lost as to what to do with a screeching child who was kicking, arms flailing wildly as she carried him to the psychiatric ward to meet a child therapist, with as much grace as she could muster.

"I don't want to go! I don't want to go!" He bent his body, and let his feet hit the floor, attempting to pull his mother to screeching halt.

"Honey, you have to. The school isn't letting you back until the doctor says you're... fine." Catherine explains, in a hushed voice, both to soothe and avoid scandal.

"I am fine!" He says indignantly, even though he knows that feeling like you're fine means you want to play on the Nintendo instead of feeling like throwing it across the room.

"You're not, Jackson. And it's okay. You're da-"

He screamed as loud as he could, lungs puffed out, and the veins in his throat almost popping through the thin skin. She was going to say a name he didn't want to hear.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I won't bring him up. Just... please. Behave." Catherine tried to no avail, since Jackson was still belting out high pitch yells, and she had no option but to carry him into the room.

Maybe it was the stillness of the room itself, or the many faces that turned their way when they entered, but the moment they stepped into the room, Jackson went quiet. He looked around, observing the area with his eyes, unsure of what exactly this place was. It had bright coloured walls, and a play area a little off to the place where adults were all seated, flipping through magazines. His mother, finally looking relieved, was asked by a lady seated at a desk, to wait for some time before the doctor could see him.

She took Jackson's hand and led him into the play area, "Please, please, play nice."

He turned around, a scowl permanently etched on his face, as he walked forward, kicking all the toys that lay in his path as hard as he possibly could. There were 2 kids to the right, coloring and a little girl who was playing in the toy house all by herself. He chose a spot nearer to the door, sat cross legged, and took to the task of throwing any object in his vicinity as far as he possibly could. He did this for a while, happy with the rush he got every time a toy bounced so hard it almost broke.

"Hi."

He stopped, a toy truck in hand, wheels almost falling off from being thrown numerous times, and looked to his right.

"I'm April Kepner. But you can call me April. Do you want to be my husband?"

He blinked, completely taken aback by this bold little girl in front of him, who was holding out her hand towards him. Her red hair was pulled up by two pigtails, and she had on a pair of dungarees, a wide smile, and a pair of massive glasses, she kept pushing up her nose.

"Me and Lizzy are playing house," She clarifies, pointing to a battered down doll, "I'm her mommy, and so if we get married, you can be her daddy."

He turns red, and his hands ball up into fists. He didn't want to play house with this girl. She was annoying, and he hated her. Just like he hated everyone, especially his dad.

"I don't want to play a stupid game with you. Leave me alone!" He yells at her, and although most kids he knew, now flinched around him, April seemed to stay steady.

"It's not a stupid game." She insists, and smiles wider, "We have to go to work, and come home, and look after Lizzy. Like mommy's and daddy's do."

"It's a stupid game because not all daddy's do that!" He tells her, rolling his eyes. Some daddy's don't come back home.

"What do you mean?" She asks, putting her hands into her pockets.

"Nothing." He mumbles, because he doesn't talk about that day.

He doesn't talk about the day his daddy said he'd just be going to work, and he never came back after that. He doesn't talk about how Jackson had waited every day for a whole month, on the step outside his house, like he always does. Maybe he'd gone on a trip, Jackson had thought, he'll come back. He always goes on trips, but he always comes back. He'd waited, and waited, thought of all the stories he'd tell his dad when he came home, and all the games they'd play. He couldn't wait. He sat there, on that step, from the time he got home from school, all the way until the sun had set, waiting for his dad to just come home. He'd done that, until his mom had patted his head, and told him, in the same tone she used when his pet goldfish Frank had died, that dad wasn't coming back.

"Dads are dumb. I don't want to be a dad." He tells her, and she thinks this over for a second.

"Hm, then you can be the mom!" She tells him, gleefully, and Jackson feels like laughing for the first time in a while.

"I can't be the mom, stupid." He tells her, and instantly feels bad when she looks hurt.

"Hey! Don't call me stupid. I'm really smart. I read a lot, and know big words, like approximately."

Jackson nodded, quite impressed, and muttered an apology.

"It's okay," She smiles, "So do you want to be the mom?"

Jackson nods, hesitatingly. He doesn't want to play, but there was something about April he now decided that he quite liked.

"Okay." Because at least moms don't leave.

"Why do you hate dads?" She asks, and he purses his lips, before he relents.

"They leave you."

"No they don't." She argues, looking baffled.

"Mine did." Jackson shrugs, carefully picking up Lizzie from April.

"Oh." She says, and pouts for a moment, "Well then he's a bad daddy."

Jackson looks up at her, and feels angry for a second. He new he should probably defend his father, but even at 7 years old he knew it wasn't true.

"Yeah he is."

"Is that why you're so mad?" She asks him, and Jackson takes a while before he nods, "Well, that seems fair. I'd be so angry if my daddy left too."

He didn't know there would be anyone who'd think he was right to feel the way he did.

"Thanks."

She smiles at him, a toothy grin, and Jackson notices how she's missing a couple of teeth, but she was cute for a girl, even though rumour was they all had cooties.

"Hey Jackson," April says, as they get ready to go to work, and he feeds Lizzy with a tube they're pretending is a bottle, "I won't leave. I'm going to be the best daddy!"

He smiles, and something happens for the first time since his dad left. He doesn't feel so angry anymore.

Hit me like a ray of sun

Burning through my darkest night

You're the only one that I want

Think I'm addicted to your light

I swore I'd never fall again

But this don't even feel like falling

Gravity can't forget to pull me back to the ground again

“Hey, April!”

His best friend, who was sitting cross legged on the floor, near the play area, looked up from her book, and waved him over. She was wearing a sweater with a long skirt, and had apparently broken her glasses from the looks of it, since it was being held together by a white plaster of some sort.

April and him had been friends ever since they’d met when they were seven years old, right here, in the waiting room of Mass Gen’s psych ward. Now they were both 14, and they still came here every Friday. She made these appointments his mother forced him to go, more bearable.

When he reaches her, she scoots over to make space for him, as he takes a seat, pushing his legs in front of him.

“What are you reading?” He asks, peaking at the words in her books, which were far too small for his liking.

“Ulysses by James Joyce. It’s the Latinised name of the hero, Odysseus in Homer’s poem Odyssey. It's really interesting because throughout the novel you see parallels of the poem and the novel, like the characters structural experiences and the thematic exploration of modernism-”

He chuckles quietly to himself, as April basically narrates a book report right in front of him. She was a bit of nerd, and he said that with pride. His best friend was one of the smartest people he knew. Heck, that’s why she was here in the first place. As a kid, April had never paid attention in class, and her teachers had found her difficult to teach since she doesn’t seem to be interested in her lessons. Her parents had gotten worried and brought her here, just to make sure April didn’t have any learning difficulties. Turns out, it was quite the opposite. She wasn’t challenged enough, because she was too smart for the grade she was in. So, she’d gotten bumped up a few grades, and was now a high school student at 14.

“Sounds boring.” He teases, and pushes her with his elbow.

“Shut up! It’s really good. It’s just-” She bites her lip, and hesitates.

“Unnecessarily overcomplicated and a tiny bit over hyped?” He guesses, and she shyly chuckles before agreeing.

“Yeah. It is. But it’s still good though.” She says, and closes the book before placing it back into her bag pack.

“Says you, nerd.”

She pushes him away, and rolls her eyes,

“How was school?”

"Same old, same old. Nothing exciting,” He shrugs, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.

April stares at him, eyes narrowed and he can tell that she knows he’s bluffing.

“I know when you’re lying! What happened?”

He waits a second, letting her grow slightly impatient as she whines for him to stop being an asshole, and just tell her. He gives in, smirking fully, as he deposits his report card on her lap. She opens it up, and begins to squeal so loud she gets hushed by Nurse Ria.

"Sorry,” She mutters to Ria, as she throws her hands over his shoulders, hugging him tightly, “I told you, you could do it”

He grins at her, and nods his head, “You did. Thank you for tutoring me… and you know, for believing in me and stuff.”

He’s awkward with these kind of talks, but he really wants her to know how much he appreciates her friendship. His family never really cared to push him. His mom excused pretty much anything he did because of his dad, and his grandfather didn’t see any potential in him, which he never once failed to remind him. Jackson was just a sad, pretty face and he knew that nothing was expected of him. Well, by his family at least. April, on the other hand, had spent the last couple of months, tutoring him and pushing him trying to prove to him that if he worked hard, he could be really smart. He’d been unwilling at first, but the more time went on, Jackson had realized that he wasn’t failing because he wasn’t smart, but because no one cared enough to tell him otherwise. Except for April. So when he’d received his report with all A’s, he knew there was just one person he wanted to show it to.

“I am so proud of you.” She smiles at him, her eyes beaming and her tone so genuine. His stomach did that weird flip it did whenever she looked at him like that. He wasn’t sure why.

“So what’s up with you?” He asks her, as she hands him his report back.

She opens her mouth as if to say something, and then shakes her head, faking a smile, “Nothing.”

“You know, I can read you too, right?” He asks, and she drops her smile, instead choosing to pout, “April, come on, tell me. Did someone do something? Did they say something?”

“They always do that.” She shrugs, as if she’s used to it, even though she really shouldn’t have to be. April had never had an easy time fitting in. She was smart, imaginative and a little strange, and even though those were all his favorite things about her, it also meant that she was an easy target for bullies. It also didn’t help that her classmates were all almost 4 or 5 years older than her. It was another reason why she still came here.

“Hey, come on. Tell me.”

She takes a deep breath and turns to him, “It’s so stupid, I shouldn’t even be upset.”

He raises his brows at her, and clears his throat, putting on his best impression of their psychiatrist, Dr.Jones, “Your emotions are always valid. You have a right to be upset about even the smallest, most inconsequential of things.”

April laughs, but it feels too forced, and it makes him want to punch whoever hurt her.

“We have senior prom coming up, and I didn’t even want to go. You know I don’t like parties,” She tells him, and he nods, “Anyway, Jake, this guy in my biology class, asked me to go with him, and he’s… cute and kind of smart, so I said yes.”

Jackson unconsciously clenches his fist. He already didn’t like where this story was going.

“So, it turns out, it was all going to be a prank. He wasn’t going to turn up on that day. I overheard them when I went back after class to get this book I’d left behind.”

She wipes her eyes, and he watches a stray tear roll down her cheeks. What a dick, he thinks. What kind of a horrible, disgusting, pathetic human being has to make someone feel like this so that they can feel better about themselves? April didn’t deserve this. Heck, no person deserved this.

"What a fucker.” He mumbles, and April look shocked at how cold he sounds.

“Jackson, don’t curse.” She mutters back, as she quickly shoots a glance around the room.

“Do you want me to beat him up?” He asks, all serious, because even though he was younger than this guy, Jackson was quite built for his age, so he could probably take him out. He would, for her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you do anything stupid like that I will go straight to your mother, okay?”

“Whatever.” He mutters, but he knew she wasn’t joking about that.

“April Kepner.” Nurse Ria, points at the door, indicating to April that she could go in.

“We’re still on for tomorrow, right?” She asks, standing up, and patting her skirt down. They had movie night every Saturday at his place.

“Yeah,” He says, but there’s something else he’s itching to ask her.

“April?”

“Hm?”

He gulps, wondering when he’d gotten so nervous, “Do you… do you maybe want to go to prom with me?”

She looks confused for a while, and a little astounded at his question.

“You mean your junior prom?”

He nods.

“Yeah. All our friends will be there. Alex, Cristina, Lexie and Mark.”

She smiles, “I do miss the gang.”

“So, you… want to go?”

She looks at him, and blushes, tugging on her bag.

“April, go in!” Nurse Ria ushers her, clearly impatient.

She looks over her shoulder, and turns back to him.

“Okay.”

He grins, almost breaking his jaw.

“Okay.”

It's like I've been awakened

Every rule I had you breakin'

It's the risk that I'm taking

I ain't never gonna shut you out

It had been 2 weeks of hell for Jackson. He sat in the car, head on the steering wheel, thinking about how he wasn't at all ready to go have a therapy session where he'd undoubtedly have to bring up the events of the past 2 weeks.

God, did he regret it. He regretted it every single day since it happened. He could barely sleep or concentrate on his classes, he was disengaged from his friends and he didn't really give a shit that he'd been an angry, intolerable douche as his mother loved to remind him.

He groaned, realizing he was just delaying the inevitable, and got down from his car. He walked towards the hospital, and caught his reflection on the mirror. He hadn't shaved in a while, and he looked like he felt on the inside, absolutely shitty.

"Hi, Jackson. You're early this week."

He manages a smile at the receptionist, and nods his head, "Yeah, I, uh, got caught up in a class last week."

No he hadn't. He'd come here, sat in his car in the parking lot and waited until he'd seen April leave the hospital, to get down and leave for his appointment. It had only been a week, and it was too fresh.

"Alright, well, you'll go in after April." She winks at him, and he lowers his head in shame. Of course, everyone here still thought they were together.

He doesn't say anything, instead nods a goodbye and walks towards the room. He slowly opens the door, and heads inside, while some faces look up to see who had entered. He smiles at Jake, a 32 year old with severe social anxiety. They never talked, but sometimes Jackson would play video games in the waiting room with him, until April was done.

April. There she was, tucked into a corner, seemingly reading through some notes from class. She looked amazing, he thought. She was wearing a pale blue skater dress, with sandals, and her red hair was piled at the top of her head in a messy bun. April was, as always, effortless.

He hesitates for a slight second, wonders if he should maybe stay outside the waiting area for some more time, but honestly it would make him more of a coward than he already was.

He walks up to her, and she senses his presence, tearing her eyes from her notes to glance up at him. She looks up at him, and her face is conflicted with a mixture of emotions. She looks sad, angry and resigned. The worst thing is through it all he sees what he saw that night, when she told him she loved him, and he had gotten too scared to say it back.

"Can I sit here?" Jackson asks, softly, pointing to the two chairs in the corner.

She nods, and looks away from him, as he sits down, throwing his bag on the other chair.

They sit in silence for a while, before he decides he needs to say something, because damn it, he misses her.

"How are you?" He asks and she turns to face him. It breaks his heart once more when he sees the bags under her eyes and the pale skin, and red eyes. He did this to her.

She frowns, clearly annoyed by his question, and even he has to admit it was a dumb one.

"I'm sorry, that was a really stupid question." He laughs, humorlessly.

He knows he's really fucked up when she doesn't even reply. Heck, he knew he really fucked up the moment she'd stormed out of his room, crying her eyes out 2 weeks ago. They'd tip toed around each other for the majority of their teenage years, after they'd gone to junior prom and lost their virginity to each other. When they’d gone to college he’d finally grown the balls to ask her out, and when they'd started dating, Jackson had thought they'd finally figured it out.

"April, I-I really am so sorry. I don't want to hurt you. God, April, that's the last thing I want to do." He tells her with a melancholic smile on his lips, "I regret it, so damn much, but... I don't know, it's for the best? Trust me, it's is. You don't... you don't want to love me."

She sighs, and shakes her head, letting her hair fall over her face. He knows she does this when she's mad at him and wants to block him out, but it's an indication she's listening so he goes on.

"Do you hate me? Please don't hate me." He whispers.

"I don't hate you."

She tells him, rolling her eyes, finally coming out of the hair veil she had going on.

"Yeah?"

"Of course I don't hate you, Jackson! That's the whole problem! The problem is I love you so much that it almost feels unhealthy." She groans, burying her face in her hands.

"April-"

"No!" She yells, a little too loud, and her face flushes having remembered that they're in public. She settles on a stern, hushed tone, "You don't get to do this, Jackson. You don't get to break me, and then come here and say you're sorry, and act like regretting it will make everything alright again. It doesn't work like that!"

"I didn't think that. I swear I didn't. I just wanted to explain-"

"Explain what? That you don't love me back? Don't worry, message received. Loud and clear. Just... please leave me alone, Jackson. Go back to avoiding me like you've been doing these last 2 weeks. Go back to acting like we never happened."

Yes, he had avoided her. He'd intentionally avoided places she visits, and kept to his campus. She goes to Yale, and he goes to Harvard, something he'd for once be grateful for. He just couldn't bear seeing her, and be reminded of the choice he'd made.

"Okay, you're right. I avoided you. I'm sorry. I should've handled that better."

"You don't say." She replies, sarcastically.

"But don't... don't say I don't- that I don't-" His words fail him, like they did that day, when he needs it the most.

He waits for a second, gathers his thoughts. He had to make a decision, because one thing was for sure. He did love her. It was that overwhelming realization that had led to them breaking up in the first place. He loved her, but he had no idea what love was. He wouldn't ever try to love April without knowing exactly how to love her right. But, he also needed her in his life. Selfish or selfless? Maybe he was too young to make the right choice. Either way, she needed to know why.

"I have never felt like this. I've never felt so overwhelmed by something, by someone, like I do with you. April, everything I feel for you, overwhelms me. And it's scary. It's terrifying, because I know I'm just going to end up failing you."

He admits, and looks up at her staring back at him, completely shocked. She'd definitely not guessed that, he could tell. God knows what conclusions she'd come to, with all her insecurities and anxieties.

"What? No you won't." She says, as if the mere thought was ridiculous.

"I will, April! I will! I don't know how to love someone. I'll screw it up and I'll hurt you, more than I already have, and you'll hate me. I can't have you hating me." He'd give her up, if it was for her best. Selfless, it is then.

"No, no, you won't. I know you won't." She insists.

"April-"

"No! You listen here. You are not your father. You are not Robert. You're Jackson. You are a completely different person. I know he screwed you up, Jackson, I know that. But are you really going to let him screw everything up for the rest of your life? Don't give him that kind of power!" She pokes him in the chest, once, twice, to prove her point.

She takes in a deep breath, and calms herself, considering her outburst had gotten her riled up.

"I'm not saying you have to love me-"

"I do."

She smiles at him, a warmth reaching her eyes that had only minutes ago looked dead. How could he not love her when she knew him better than anyone else?

"Yeah?" She asks, and he nods.

"You're just scared to say it out loud?"

He nods, again.

"Well then you should've just told me that, doofus!"

He pushes him back, and he lets himself have a laugh for the first time since he'd called them off, since he'd decided that he wasn't someone who deserved April.

She places both her hands in his face.

"I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I know you think you're unlovable, Jackson, because you think he couldn't love you but that's not true. I love you. I love you so much. I-"

She was the ultimate risk. The blind jumping into a bottomless pit. But God, was she worth all the damage it could do.

"Love you. I love you."

She kisses him then, and he can almost feel the older man next to him rolling his eyes at their public display of affection. She pulls back, studies him, and kisses him once more.

"You are not him."

He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't deny it either.

April brings an arm to his shoulder and lightly pulls his body towards her. She brings her mouth towards his ear, and gently bites on the lobe.

"Want to skip today?" She murmurs, and like the 20 year old, hormonal boy he is, he can feel himself embarrassingly react to just her words, "Maybe, some makeup sex? I hear it's really good."

He smirks, and surreptitiously puts his hand under her dress, snapping the elastic of her underwear.

"Well, let's go find out."

Everywhere I’m looking now,

I’m surrounded by your embrace,

Baby I can see your halo,

You know you’re my saving grace,

You’re everything I need and more

It’s written all over your face

Baby, can feel your halo

Pray it won’t fade away

“Mom, remember that Samuel tends to walk around a lot, so keep an eye on him even if you put him in the play pen, and Harriet will fuss for April at bedtime so just play that recording I sent to your phone, and she’ll calm down.”

Jackson tells his mother, as he walks paces the hallway outside of the now very familiar waiting room, although he comes here less often over the years and it looks very different than it did when he first came here. He listens to his mother rattle on about how she’s perfectly aware and capable of handling her own grandchildren, and that he should stop worrying about this, and worry about something that actually required his attention, like his marriage. It was, after all, the reason why he was back here, after almost 5 years.

He cuts the line, after telling her to stay out of his business, and goes back inside to rejoin his wife. He walks up to her, and sees her attempting to sit down on the chair, with an 8 month pregnant belly, which he knew now, after 2 other babies, was no easy feat.

“Hey, hey, let me help.”

She stares daggers at him, but nonetheless takes his hand, and lets him sit her down. She doesn’t thank him these days. She’s not very amicable towards him at all these days, and honestly, he doesn’t blame her. He’s been a little impossible to like as of lately.

“How’s the baby?” He asks, placing a hand on her belly.

“Kicking on my bladder, doing cartwheels around my belly and craving raisin pudding. I hate raisin pudding. Basically, making my life as difficult as possible. That’s how I’m sure it’s your child.” She gives him a withering look, as she uncomfortably adjusts herself on the chair.

He shakes his head, used to the jabs she takes at him nowadays, “Is that why you’re sure? Not because you recall that vacation in Cancun when you wanted me so bad, you refused to let me get up and go get a condom?”

She widens her eyes, and as she used to do even back then, when he’d said or done something inappropriate in this waiting room, quickly scans the crowd to see if they’re listening. Once she realizes they aren’t, she turns back to him.

“I’m not in the mood to joke with you, Jackson. If you’re feeling particularly talkative today, please feel free to instead talk to our therapist about-”

“There is nothing to talk about, April. God, we’re just wasting our time here.”

She scoffs at him, “It’s nice to see that you think saving our marriage is a waste of your time.”

“That’s not fair! You know that’s not what I-”

“Doctors Avery, if you could maybe try to resolve your issues in my office and not the waiting room, that would be great. I can assure you I’m more qualified of an audience than Lilly over here.”

Rashida, their counselor, points to the 5 year old little girl who sees enamored by their hushed argument.

April flushes a bright red, and gets up with his help, to follow Rashida into her office. They sit down, and the tension settles back in.

“Alright, did we do our homework for this week?” Rashida asks, staring earnestly at them.

“Yes.” April nods, albeit too enthusiastically, and he smirks at how his genius of a wife never stopped being the cute nerd who taught him the word ‘approximately’.

“Okay, then, April would you like to tell me what you’ve written down. Now remember Jackson, this is a list of all the things you did that affected April negatively. I don’t want you interrupting until she’s done.” He warns her, because he had a tendency to be quite defensive.

“Okay, so he’s been more and more distant lately-”

“Oh come on!” He groans, and immediately looks bashful since it had only been a second since he’d been told not to interrupt and he was already doing it, “Sorry.”

“So he’s been distant. He keeps trying to distract me with sex, and honestly, I’m over that. And last week, he yelled at me because I asked him if he wanted my help giving Harriet a bath. It’s like he thinks I’m questioning him as a parent, and-”

He sighs, as April lists off all his recent failures as a husband. He hates that she feels so disappointed. It was not at all his intention, to ever hurt her or make her feel like they’re marriage wasn’t strong enough. When they’ve gotten married, he’d made her promise him that divorce would never be an option for them. So last month when she’d given him the ‘therapy or else’ ultimatum, he knew she didn’t mean a divorce, but that the word would become an option for her.

“I just want him to open up to me. I just want him to stop telling me nothing is wrong-”

“Nothing is wrong, April. I am fine, I keep telling you this, but you’re not listening to me. You’re reading into nothing.” He groans, running a hand over his face.

“That’s not true. I’ve known you since I was 7 years old, Jackson! I’ve been your best friend for almost 28 years, we’ve been married for over 10 years. I know you! I know when you’re upset.” She insists.

“April, I love you. I love our kids. My life revolves around the three of you. I live for the three of you. Is that not enough?”

“Of course I know you love me, Jackson, that’s not the problem. I love you too, so much. I just don’t think my husband should go through something that is making him into someone I don’t recognize because of it.”

“Did you know Dr.Jones was my father?”

They break their gazes away from each other to look at Rashida.

“Really?”April asks, sounding pleasantly surprised.

“Small world.” He comments.

Rashida smiles warmly, “Did you know you were his favorite patients? He used to talk about the two of you at home. Of course, he never said any names, but after reading your files, I figured out it out. He thought it was crazy romantic that you two met here, at seven, and ended up dating. He loved that you two asked him to come to your wedding. It’s sad he passed away before it happened.”

“It broke our hearts.” April admitted, and he did remember how sad she was that he couldn’t be there. They hadn’t even been able to make it to the funeral.

“Did you know that you two talked about each other at every single one of your sessions?” She asks, and they both nod, knowingly but surprised that the other also did the same, “It’s sweet. Aprils talked about how she finally found someone that seemed to truly like her, and Jackson talked about how he’d found someone he could maybe picture himself having a family with. You found healing, not only within yourselves, but also within each other. I just… urge you not to forget about your incredible history. Remember this when you’re confused about Jackson’s feelings or when April seems to read into yours a little too much, just don’t forget-”

“I found my dad.”

The silence that set in the room was so loud, Jackson wished someone would say something. April looked so shocked, her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide. She gasps, as she brings a hand up to her mouth.

“You….uh…. dad… um, what?” She stutters, eyes rapidly blinking, trying to decipher this information.

“I found him. I hired this guy to look into him, and he finally found him. He lives in Montana. He owns a bar and he sells chicory coffee on Etsy. It’s really fucking weird.”

“Oh, honey.”

April scoots closer to him, taking hold of his hand, and hugging it to her chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me this? Gosh, Jackson, I can’t believe you dealt with all that by yourself.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to worry you. I know how you get with my dad, April. You feel bad, and you think talking to him is going to solve it, and I don’t know what I even want to do with this information. I’m torn between wanting to talk to him, and punching his lights out, or both,” He admits, and then looks sheepishly at April. He knew she didn’t like any kind of violent talk, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’d like to punch him myself, to be honest.” She says, and he smiles at her.

“Look, Jackson, it’s definitely up to you, but from what I read in your files, you always talk about closure. Maybe this is the closure you’ve always wanted.” Rashida says, and he shrugs. He’s torn between that and never wanting to see him again.

“I just want you to tell me when you’re going through something this big. I’m your wife, Jackson. You don’t have to deal with this alone.” April tells him, running a hand through his hair, “I will come with you, if you decide to go. I will be there for whatever you need. I am your wife. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

If Jackson was to look at his life through a series of snapshots, the one person who would always be there was April. When his father had left, all those years ago, there had been a hole in his life, he’d never thought he could fill, but as fate would have it, he met April. April his friend, April his best friend, April his girlfriend, and April his wife. They’d all filled up that gaping hole, bit by bit, piece by piece until there were only faint scars of what had happened.

“Thank you.” He says, as he leans forward and kisses her.

If there was a thing as a guardian angel, well he’d found his at seven, and he had held on for dear life.

Baby, I can feel your halo,

Pray it won’t fade away.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

I’m not too happy with this one, so sorry if it wasn’t all that good <3

#japril #japril fanfiction #japril week 2017 #japril week #japril appreciation week

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hogwarts-houses-as · 7 years

Text

Studying Angels

AUTHORS NOTE: heyy. This is what ive written of the book so far. I hope you enjoy. Criticism is accepted but don’t be a dick. Oh and I’m in slytherin btw- Sara

Tw: social anxiety, depersonalisation and mild swearing

Amy’s notes- oh, not bad at all! I’ll give you 15 points for it, bringing slytherin up to 761

It’s seems stupid to think that we know everything. Geniuses are only seen as superior because they have the confidence to say what people really think and fools aren’t taken seriously because they screwed up one situation and they’ve never been able to dig out of the humiliation. And we call this ‘normal.’ We occupy 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003% of the known universe (not counting parallel/outer universes) and we oh-so humbly named ourselves “Wise man.” Absolutely insane.

Chapter 1 I can strongly assure you that I dislike isolation. I can also assure you that the prospect of fucking up an interaction with another human being terrifies me even more. That’s the reason that the only people I’ve spoken to in 18 days are my professors and Siri. Social phobia is a dreadful thing. Now, a thing that I’ve learned recently is that a book makes a perfect shield for any extroverts that may want to approach but it isn’t always 100% affective – after all, what is? “Good afternoon ma'am. Do you mind if I sit with you? It’s just that every other place is taken.” Piped up an innocently seeming peer at Cambridge University (or as I like to call them 'victims of level 7 of hell’). She almost seemed too normal but I just put it down to the fact that my brain was completely fucked 98% of the time. She was incredibly pale but had a certain radiance that made her look more human. The gorgeously freckled kind of pale. Light auburn hair streamed just past her shoulders while dazzling azure eyes shone softly against the punkish attire she sported. Ripped jeans, a baggy black t-shirt, heavy-duty doc martens and a plaid shirt thrown over her shoulders. Meanwhile, I looked like a gender-warped David Mitchell. Nerdy and awkward with the sex appeal of the average road accident. “So,” She started, somehow pulling me from my book as she sipped her latte, “What are you studying here?” “Sociology. Because I like finding out exactly how screwed humanity is.” I replied reluctantly. She laughed. She laughed at my sarcasm and not being absolutely horrified at it. Interaction isn’t that bad. Or it could be just her. Screw it. “Same.” She said through giggles, “So are most of my roommates -the absolute nightmares. The block of dorms I’m in are under repair so, me and 12 other lunatics are all crashing on the same sofa which isn’t exactly the best of experiences. At least it’s free though.” I smiled at her dry humour. A thought sprang to mind. No, I’m completely forgetting myself. Is that a terrible thing? Well, it’s too forward… you know what? Fuck the anxiety. “Well, if you like, you could maybe chill at my place.” I never wish to say that phrase ever again in this life or the next, “The college gave me no roommates for, uh, reasons,” Wow. Good job I totally don’t sound suspicious, “Therefore I’ve got a spare bedroom. Obviously, you don’t-” “That sounds lovely, actually.” Two fingers to you, anxiety. “If I could just get your number then I’ll be around as soon as possible. Oh, I’m Louise by the way.” She said, stretching out a hand. “I’m Sam,” I replied, at once shaking said hand, “T'was a pleasure doing business with you.” She chuckled with me. “You too. I’ll see ya then.” “See ya.” What the bloody hell is wrong with me? It’s as if I’m overcoming my psychological chemical imbalances. Holy shit I’m overcoming my psychological chemical imbalances.

Chapter 2 “Good morning.” She greeted through yawns, her hair scraped into a messy bun. She hadn’t come back last night until about 2am most probably because of some party that I wasn’t invited to. I’m not complaining because if I was mentally able enough to have a social life then I certainly wouldn’t invite an obstinate prick who is trapped in their own brain and hasn’t felt reality in 8 months. “'Morning. You slept well?” I asked as I tried to hide the fact I was downing the handful of pills that were needed to keep me sane. Key words here being 'kind of’ and 'attempting.’ “Yeah thanks.” Her gentle stare met mine and her face dropped. Oh god, “What are they?” She inquired, pointing at the packets upon packets in the metal case next to me. “Umm, they’re, um, they’re-” Come on brain, you can think up seventeen thousand ways a situation can go wrong but you can’t think of one excuse to what these pills are. “Anti-depressants, derealisation meds and 4 kinds of anxiety meds, Jesus Christ Sam!” She exclaimed rummaging through the case. “Look, it’s nothing, really. I just need… I just need to knock some systems into…into place. I’ve…I’ve got to go.” I scampered out of my dorm room. I fled…like an absolute coward. “You fucking coward, you twat, Sam.” I mumble to myself as I start pacing up and down the corridors because everything else is going downhill and everybody else thinks that I’m insane what’s the point in caring. Something grabs my arm. Oh god she thinks I’m pathetic. She could be one of them idiots who thinks that you can control mental health because it’s all in your head. The nice ones are always idiots. “Look, this connects so many dots an-” “Oh yeah, it makes so much sense that I’m clinically insane. Thanks.” Her face softens with an expression that I hadn’t seen in a long while. “It just explains why people stereotype you in such a way. They don’t understand what’s up. And I know we aren’t that close but, but I think I can help you.” I turned around, just feeling like a huge, overreacting oaf. “Thanks, Louise. I’m, uh, I’m sorry.” I said sheepishly. I’ve known her for a day and she already must deal with a chemically imbalanced nightmare “Don’t worry mate. Shit’ll be okay.” She assured with a smile. Well, I’m truly screwed now, aren’t I? Chapter 3 “Every stereotype is stupid unless the people or person that you are talking about has been proven to conform to that stereotype. But then that’s not a stereotype, it’s a fact.” Louise ranted as we strolled towards our sociology class. “Yeah. It’s one of those things that everybody thinks is normal even though it’s just a paradox wrapped in an enigma wrapped in generations of unneeded acceptance.” Wow. I don’t sound like a nerd at all, “I understand that the social contract theory has to be followed unless you wish to live like an animal without a society but I still don’t get why how you’re born should define what you should or need to do. It’s just utterly bizarre.“ I uttered as we set down our bags in our classroom. The room was surprisingly real. Almost too real to be real. I assumed that my DPDR was beginning to thrive again.

Now, you probably don’t know what DPDR is but I can assure you that you have most probably experienced it. It’s the constant feeling of unreality. A neurological limbo where you can’t tell if you’re conscious or not. An odd phase where dreams feel more like reality than reality and your brain starts flurrying with 'perhaps I’m already dead and this is what they meant when they said that your life flashes before your eyes’. You begin to forget what it’s like to be in the real world. You can’t remember what it’s like to properly focus on the bird chirping in the morning or tea seeping down your esophagus at 3am on a cold Saturday or soft carpet nuzzling against your feet when you finally get up in the morning or the delight of going to see a film with a close friend and laughing over the Scottish character who exclaims "oh my dear lord” at the site of explosions or the delightfully beautiful way the close friend laughed as their eyes lit up in a sense that settled you with a feeling that could only be described as 'you give me comfort in the best kind of way and I hope that we stay friends until we’re draped with suits in coffins’ …or even smiling because you want to rather than because your brain says that something is nice. It’s depressing to think that I may never be able to be in those moments ever again. Its brutally petrifying.

But I’ll stop rambling now.

As we started escaping to different universes (hers was the land of whatever music she listened to whereas mine was the harry potter universe) a plethora of seemingly drunk students came into the classroom in a way that could only be described as 'falling’.

“Did they actually come into class hammered?” I muttered disapprovingly to Louise.

“No,” She stammered with a chuckle, “They’re just the clumsy ones. The nerds.”

“They’re the nerds? Well, doesn’t that out me at an odd point in the Uni hierarchy.

"Who has a good place in any kind of hierarchy? The concept of a hierarchy was made by our society to make you feel that you will never be good enough.” She mumbled, scrolling through albums worth of my chemical romance’s discography.

“I’ve heard that 'mama’ is a pretty good song. And an opening line of 'mama we all go to hell’ says more about Gerard than any other words ever could.” I uttered as I lazily through my tatty book into my rucksack, only to resurface and find Louise staring at me with a confused but impressed look on her face. “What?”

“It’s just that you don’t look like the typical MCR fan.”

“What do I look like then? A stereotypical Dad who thinks that Lionel Richie is the king of the music industry?” I uttered through giggles as out sociology teacher (Mr Bennet) waltzed in.

“Good morning.” He greeted in his amazingly fed-up way, throwing down his bag. “Right as per usual, let’s get on with the debate. Anybody have a controversial subject that they’re afraid they have opinions on that are ever so slightly different to everybody else’s?” He asked like he was one more sleepless night away from a straight-jacket.

Now, I haven’t raised my hand in class since the social anxiety disorder kicked in but for some reason, almost as if I was possessed, my hand shot up.

“Sam.” Bennet said as he gave a vague nod in my direction, thoroughly shocked at my participation.

“The 2016 election in America.”

(Hope you enjoyed that :))

#house cup #submission

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