#there's quite a couple of songs sitting in my inbox also i should get to those soon as well

[hiyari8]

Dunno if you like “cutesy” songs but I think that KagomeP had a galaco song where shes just singing about enjoying ramen? Lol surprised to not see more food ad jingles but yeah

i'm rarely a fan of cute songs and such but i'll look for it later <3

[stardustshelb]

"Orange Juice" Part One

TW: Language. Your name (female) + Danny. 3,157 words.

The song "Orange Juice" by Noah Kahan inspired me to write this story; each part of the story is inspired by a different part of the song. Also, I'm in my sad girl era so you all must suffer with me.

“Feels like I've been ready for you to come home for so long.

That I didn't think to ask you where you'd gone.

Why'd you go?” - NK

I should have known when my dad texted me to check my email that there’d be something interesting waiting for me in my inbox. The organizers of my high school reunion had no idea how to get in touch with me, so they went through him. Part of me wished he would have just deleted the email and never said anything. How has it already been 10 years since I graduated? I swear it was only yesterday that Sam and I were daydreaming about record deals and tours while sitting in class. My parents were never too hard on me about school because I still made time for both my studies and my band. But I think they always knew that I was never going to need to know chemistry or calculus because I was going to have a career in music. Though, none of us would have ever dreamed I’d be where I am today.

Josh and Jake skipped out on their high school reunion a couple years ago, and Sam was planning to do the same for ours. It would probably cause more trouble than it’s worth if we showed up. Truth be told, I wasn’t dying to go but I was curious to know if you’d be there. We haven’t spoken since I left Frankenmuth. Hell, we stopped talking while I was still there. I’ve heard stories about you from my mom. “The girl who got away is in rehab again,” she’d say casually over the phone. Something about the way she’d say again angered me, but I knew she meant well. 

Judging by the date on the invitation, I still had a few months to decide whether I was going to attend or not. Maybe I could find out if you were planning on going while I’m home later this week for Christmas. I wondered if you’d even be around town or if you’d even want to see me. Our friendship didn’t end on the best of terms and that still bothered me nearly a decade later. I wonder if you’ve ever forgiven me for that night. It took a while for me to forgive myself.

…

“Let me help,” Dad said as he grabbed my guitar case out of the back of the SUV I rented for the week. I tried to pack light for the quick trip but between my suitcase, guitar, and the presents I bought for my family, I ended up checking more luggage than I expected. I could smell Mom’s cooking from the driveway, and I had to swallow the lump of nostalgia that formed in my throat. I rolled my suitcases up the walkway and before Dad could even turn the knob, Josie ran through the front door and practically tackled me. 

“Easy, easy,” I said as I tried to keep from falling backward on top of my luggage.

“I’m so happy you’re home!” she squealed as she let go of our hug. She grabbed the larger suitcase from my hand and followed our dad inside. Christmas music was lightly playing throughout the house which told me that Mom was in charge of the stereo. I was home for Christmas but I didn’t quite feel like I was home. I almost felt like a stranger walking through the house I was raised in. Maybe I was tired from traveling, maybe I just wasn’t in the Christmas spirit this year, or maybe thoughts of you crept in as soon as the plane’s wheels touched down in Michigan.

“Daniel, did you hear me?” my mom’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

“Do you want to put your things away and then come to the kitchen to help me finish dinner?” she repeated.

“Sure, yes, be right there,” I said as I dragged my belongings to my childhood bedroom. When I walked through the door, I was glad to see nothing had been moved. Mom and Dad were always sentimental; therefore, I come by it naturally. I glanced around the room and tried to balance the surreal feeling of being back home. It was just as I left it the last time I visited. Unmade bed and all. “It’s not going to make itself,” I could hear my dad say like he did my entire life. I never understood the point in making a bed if I was just going to sleep in it every night anyways. I moved closer to the disheveled comforter and lifted the mattress. I pushed my hand between the mattress and the box springs searching for my secret stash of notes you had written me many lifetimes ago. Worn and faded folded notes brushed against my fingertips and I gently pulled them out. 

“Daniel?” I heard my mom call from the kitchen. Suddenly, I opened the top drawer to my nightstand and threw the notes inside. I would have to read them at another time. I got up and made my way into the kitchen where Mom was mixing something on the stove.

“Hey, Mom,” I said as I leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hello, hun,” she said as she placed her hand against the side of my face. The unfamiliar feeling I had earlier was slowly going away. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, turning away from me and back to her cooking. 

“What about?” I said as I began slicing the carrots she laid out on the cutting board.

“I saw y/n the other day. And… we spoke,” she said, still keeping her back to me. I remained focused on my task of cutting the carrots.

“About?” I asked.

“You mostly,” she said. I winced.

“What about me?” I asked.

“She looks great,” my mom answered, obviously avoiding my question.

“What about me?” I repeated.

“Your music, your success, you coming home for Christmas,” she said as her tone changed.

“Did she seem interested in any of that information?” I asked.

“I think so, but then again, she could have been playing nice,” Mom said as she came over to take the knife that I was just holding. I realized I had stopped cutting the carrots since I was fixated on this conversation. You were back in town and you knew I was here too. 

“I can do it,” I said as I held the knife firmly. Mom patted my shoulder and walked back to the stove.

“I think she’s staying sober this time,” my mom added.

“I hope so,” I said quietly. 

…

“Not one nick on your finger, you just asked me to hold you.

But it made you a stranger and filled you with anger.” - NK

I’ve spent two days at home, yet I still feel like an outsider. I don’t think anyone has noticed because I am able to wear a figurative mask well. That ability comes in handy for shows and interviews when I’m feeling sick or tired. I offered to help my mom finish her grocery shopping for Christmas dinner, so I put on my baseball hat backwards and grabbed my keys. She texted me a list of things she still needed which I was grateful for. She even included pictures of the items as if I were an idiot, but in her defense, I haven’t shopped for my own groceries in years. Our staff knows what I like and it just appears in our green rooms. Maybe this trip home will humble me a bit. 

I decided to drive a little further outside of Frankenmuth to go to a less crowded grocery store. I don’t normally draw much attention when I’m alone in public, but I didn’t want to take the risk. I wasn’t feeling like myself and I didn’t want to project negative feelings on my fans. I pulled into the parking spot furthest away from the entrance and reviewed the list on my phone as I walked through the automatic doors. I grabbed a basket and made my way toward the spices/seasonings aisle. I scanned the shelves looking for Mom’s specific brand of garlic powder. When I spotted it, I threw one container in my basket and turned to make my way down the rest of the aisle. As I began to walk, I noticed an employee abruptly turned the opposite direction and left. Strange. I continued my quest of finding my mom’s requirements with my basket getting heavier by the minute. 

When I had finally acquired everything she needed, I made my way to the front of the store to check out. With it being only two days until Christmas, the store was crowded despite it being in such a small town. There looked to be only two cashiers working, so I stood in line behind what I thought would be the quickest one. Of course, I chose wrong. I tried to hide my impatience by scrolling on my phone when I heard your name.

“Y/n, come to register three, please. Y/n, come to register three,” was announced over the intercom. 

Suddenly, the employee who eluded me earlier now made her appearance. It was you. Avoiding my gaze (and probably open mouth), you snuck behind an empty cash register. I hesitated on whether to go to your line or not. It was obvious you tried to avoid me at all costs, but I felt a pull to see you. Talk to you. Listen to your voice. Against my better judgment, I made my way to join your line. As I got closer to needing to check out, I could see your cheeks getting more red. I held my breath in anticipation until it was my turn.

“Did you find everything ok?” you asked without looking up from the groceries you were scanning out of my basket.

“I did, yes,” I muttered. You stopped scanning and stared down at the bag of brown sugar in your hands for a brief moment until you carried on with your task. I watched you continue to take my groceries and scan them without ever looking to meet my eyes. You were flustered; I could tell. I tried not to stare but I was almost in disbelief that you were right in front of me. Even though it has been a decade, you haven’t aged. Your face has changed but you still look like you always did to me.

“Your total is $98.44. Will you be using cash or credit today?” you asked again without looking at me. You were trying so hard to focus on the screen in front of you.

“Uh, cash,” I said as I reached for my wallet in my jean pocket. Suddenly, I couldn’t find it. I reached into the other pocket and still couldn’t find it. I began to panic. Did I lose my damn wallet in this store? Was it stolen? Then I realized, I never grabbed it off the nightstand when I grabbed my keys before I left. 

“Shit,” I said as I hung my head. “I don’t have my wallet. Do you know if your system takes ApplePay? I have my card on my phone,” I explained.

“No, we don’t. Our technology isn’t updated, but don’t worry about it,” you said as you bent down to get into your purse beneath the register.

“No, I can’t have you pay for this. I’ll just come back with my wallet if you can set it to the side,” I pleaded.

I watched you grab the card reader and stick your own credit card in the chip reader. I was bewildered.

“Y/n,” I spoke so quietly I wasn’t sure if you heard me.

“Merry Christmas,” you said as you handed me the receipt. And for the first time, you met my eyes. They had a sadness to them that I couldn’t quite place. A sadness that matched mine. 

“What time do you get off? I am going to come back to pay you back,” I said.

“Have a great day, sir,” you answered, avoiding my question. I watched you direct your attention to the customer behind me. “Ahem,” he said as a sign for me to move.

I grabbed my bags of groceries and made my way to the rental SUV. I needed to get home quickly to grab my wallet and make it back to pay you. But I knew I didn’t need to go over the speed limit since I was now illegally driving without my license. I fought the urge to speed but remained as level-headed as I could be. 

 …

After putting the refrigerated bags of groceries away, I quickly ran up stairs to grab my wallet. I checked to make sure I had enough cash to pay you back and then some. I shoved it in my back pocket and raced down the hallway.

“Whoa, where are you going in such a hurry?” Josie asked as I tried to avoid running into her.

“I have to go back to the store. I forgot something,” I said in practically one breath.

“Why do I feel like you’re lying to me?” she asked as her brows furrowed.

“I’m not. I just need to get back there,” I explained.

“I can come with you,” she offered.

“Sure, yeah, that’s fine,” I said. I didn’t really want company but maybe you’d be more apt to talk to me if my sister was there. You two always got along so well. Sometimes I wondered if you were more her best friend rather than mine.

“So what did you forget?” Josie asked as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“My wallet,” I said.

“So how did you make it home with all of the groceries?” she asked.

“The cashier paid for my stuff, so now I’m on my way to pay her back,” I said. I left out the detail that you were the cashier. 

“Well that was awfully nice of her,” Josie said with a suspicious tone in her voice.

I pulled into the parking lot and nearly forgot to turn off the ignition before jumping out of the car. I ran through the automatic doors and made my way to your line. As if you could sense I was watching you, you kept your gaze locked on your task again. 

“Thanks for waiting on me,” I heard Josie sarcastically say as she came up beside me. 

“Sorry,” I said. 

“Wait,” she said. I looked down to see her staring at you. “Oh, ok, now I get it.”

“I’m just paying her back,” I said.

“I’m going to go look at… that display over there,” Josie said as she turned on her heel.

“Josie…” I said.

“I won’t be far,” she said as she began to walk away. When it came my turn, you kept your eyes locked on the screen in front of you. I stood there waiting for you to acknowledge me for what felt like eternity.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I found everything ok?” I asked.

“Don’t mock me,” you said with a sense of anger in your voice.

“I wasn’t!” I exclaimed. Suddenly I felt my cheeks getting warm. “I would never.” You continued not to look at me, but I could see what I thought may have been tears forming in your eyes. My heart swelled.

“I came to pay you back,” I said as I held out two $100 bills. You glanced at the money in my hand.

“That’s significantly more than what your total was,” you said.

“I know. Just consider the rest a thank-you gift,” I said.

“I’m not a damn charity case,” you said with a bite in your voice.

“Y/n, I don’t think that. I just wanted to–” I began.

You interrupted, “If I take the money, will you leave?” 

“If that’s what you want, then yes. I will leave,” I said solemnly. Suddenly, you reached out and quickly grabbed the money from my hand. I felt my heart break as I noticed you were fighting back tears.

“Thank you,” you said quietly.

“I know I’m the last person you want to see, but–” I started.

“You are,” you interrupted.

“But if you could find the time, I’d really like the chance to visit with you,” I finished.

“You told me you would leave if I took the money,” you said looking past me and at the line forming behind me. 

“Good bye, y/n,” I said sullenly before turning to walk away. And all of the guilt and pain that I thought I left behind when I abandoned this town suddenly came rushing back.

 …

I sat on the edge of my childhood bed and stared at my feet on the floor for what felt like eternity. I had the urge to read our notes that I hid in my nightstand, but seeing you today might be all that I can take. You are still angry with me, and I figured you always will be. I don’t know why I expected that anger to go away after 10 years. Maybe it’s because it did for me. I felt the need to talk to you even more now than I did before. I opened the drawer to my nightstand and started to sift through our notes. There were dozens of faded, folded notes. I gently unwrapped the one where you drew a middle finger on the front of. I smiled as I read through the lines of teenage angst. Oh how our problems back then seemed to be so much more important. I remember you were mad at me because I let Sam ride shotgun in my car even though you claimed it before school that morning. I told you to take it up with Sam, but clearly you thought I should have been on your side. You didn’t talk to me until lunch that day when you handed me this note and told me you hoped I choked on my breadstick. Then you laughed hysterically when I immediately grabbed the breadstick off my plate and choked myself with it. Doing something stupid like that was all it took to make you smile and forgive me. I made sure Sam stayed in the backseat the rest of the school year.

I opened another note and scanned it until I found my holy grail: Your phone number. This was one of the first notes you ever wrote me. I wondered if you still had the same number all of these years later. I know mine has changed several times, but my circumstances were different. I decided to take a leap and dialed the ten digits written in a glittery blue gel pen. I held my breath as I heard it ring.

"Hello?" I heard your voice answer.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/10/21

got a bunch of followers (many of you are Cool Teens, so also a reminder im 26 and an adult and you’re responsible for curating your own internet experience) anyway there’s a bunch of new folks since the last time this was a regular series, so i am going to pre-answer some things that popped up in my inbox last week.

a quick reminder that this is empathetically NOT a recommendations or review blog series. this is a quick snapshot of what i’m thinking about with regards to mass media this week, and sometimes i’m funny about it and sometimes i also do interesting diy shit

a work can be culturally or historically relevant and important in the history of a genre AND be extremely difficult to recommend unless i know you very well due to. hm. let us say many pitfalls due to the inherent nature of the genre or the time it was made in it any number of other factors that make it unpalatable to modern audiences but still worth knowing about. doesthedogdie dot com will be your friend here for anything i talk about ever

being critical of a work doesn’t just mean pointing out its flaws- was it successful in telling the story it wanted to tell? were the techniques it used effective? were the emotions it elicited in me probably the ones the creators set out to elicit? these are key components of a good review and often help me break down what i want to say about a particular piece of media in any given week, but this isn’t a review series of blog posts either.

i am literally just some guy and you should question everything i say

listening i’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair (from the musical South Pacific) brought to you by a random mix of classic movie musicals bc apparently im that kinda gay this week.

like a lot of other fifties media that aged like milk, i have fond memories of watching this with my grandmother. this isn’t even my favorite song from the musical (that would be bali hai’i) but i think it is one of the more technically interesting non-solo ones. specifically, the faint siren-y dissonance on “ahoy, ahoy!” has really been stuck in my head. the melancholy “ah fuck we’ve broken our hearts again” vibe on “rub him out of the roll call/and drum him out of your dreams” with all the girls singing is probably a result of a soprano-heavy cast, but it’s almost chimey in a way? the rhyme scheme of those lines has an excellent mouthfeel. ms gaynor singing “cancel hiiiiiim” has a very different vibe in 2021

two (really three? maybe four? the world is large and mysterious) things can be true at the same time: i don’t think i could watch this musical again as an adult because i don’t think there’s a good way to salvage or update it. the very qualities of this musical that make me go “fuckin yikes” as adult were the very qualities that made my grandmother love it so much. i can hold a bittersweet memory of a rare late movie night with a complicated lady and at the same time wish she were a better person. the dead never leave you with answers.

reading yet another fallow week. this field is turning back into forest

watching i often say “AAA video game (derogatory)” when talking offline about the bad batc/h, but this was a real bioshock ass lookin episode. i don’t think this show is succesful at making or having a point. mostly because it cannot contradict any existing lore in one of the most traversed time periods of this franchise, even with the expanded universe reboot. it falls into the uncomfortable realm of most starred wars media: this is a franchise for children but it also has to cater to legions of grownup fanatics with lots of money. but by god does it “feel” like starred wars. something not all the sequel trilogy movies or much of the clone wars series were successful at.

as a sidebar to that last sentence. the most memorable (imo) scene of the fucking sequel trilogy is the back-to-back battle couple thing in ep seven, which i have just rewatched, and it simply does not hold up. there are too many cuts to other sideplots, which kills any tension dead, and it’s mostly fighting on opposite sides of the room in frantic desperation instead of what i wanted, which was more than five seconds of synergy. it’s a bad rhyme of the final throne room fight in rotj and my memory of the thing is so much better, which is always disappointing.

back to the main point, i think a big part of something “feeling” like starred wars is big setpieces and fights that make you go “HAHA YES FUCKIN SICK WHY NOT!!!!” like, nobody ever Just gets shot in the head and temporarily incapacitated, they get half-vadered by the engines of a derelict ship trying to go to hyperspace while it’s grounded. this franchise has never met a location it couldn’t destroy in a beautiful and awful shower of light while the string sections of three combined orchestras play their hearts out.

this franchise is so fucking stupid and i am so invested in it

playing got my hands on the death trash early access, very hype to play it, have been too busy turning this apartment into a functional and comfortable space to live in for three separate people with their own separate toiletries and groceries and work from home/school schedules

making related to the above, the fucking kitchen table and chairs are done.

things wot i did friday night/saturday morning:

new rubber feeties on everybody

wrapped the legs that structurally couldn’t get new rubber feeties in jute to be kinder to my rental linoleum

bolted the legs back on the table and rebalanced it bc the jute wasn’t quite even

did a very halfassed job of fixing the drawer rails on the table

bolted the chair tubing back together

took all the old decorative tacks out of the backs of the chairs

scrubbed the seats and backs and the pieces the tacks were holding down with mild detergent (partially effective, it still has some patina but is sanitized)

re-covered the bottoms of the chairs in remnant black polyester to replace mildewed black canvas

put in new decorative tacks on the seat backs

bolted the vinyl parts to the chrome tubing parts (a long and frustrating process since there were two sizes of decidedly non-standard nuts and bolts)

wiped everything down again for idk good luck

sitting at my kitchen table in the sun eating a breakfast sandwich and some terrible iced tea on sunday morning was very nice. i lived in the south just long enough to get Opinions on iced tea and how the north can’t get it right. shouldn’t be gritty. shouldn’t be bitter. how is this even happening

some very very halfassed “during” pics

[hurricanery]

i get by

A/N: Here’s a little something I wrote combining elements of this prompt, this prompt & a few other prompts sitting in my inbox requesting sleepy Amelink featuring Jo. Please continue to send prompts! I’d like to get a few more out this week. And feedback is always appreciated! Also, can you tell I love incorporating songs into my writing....? If you have songs that remind you of Amelink pls send them my way!!

_______

Oh, baby I get by

(By with a little help from my friends)

_______

“Amelia,” Link’s tired voice breaks through the quiet of the kitchen, making Amelia jump slightly from her standing position, where she’s swaying gently back and forth with Scout in her arms. “What are you doing up?”

Link flips the overhead lights on, illuminating the room, and the both of them squint at the sudden change of brightness. Amelia glances at the clock on the wall. It reads 3am.

“Scout was crying,” she whispers gently, looking down at the newborn's wide eyes and curious expression. “I can’t get him back to sleep….so we’ve just been strolling around the house. Didn’t want to wake you.” She smiles tiredly and looks back up at Link, who still stands in the doorway. Concern takes over his features as he crosses the kitchen towards the pair. He rubs Amelia’s shoulder gently, and looks down at their bright-eyed son. He can’t help the smile that creeps across his face.

“Here, let me take him,” Link reaches, “I’ll put him down and meet you back in bed, ok?” He looks pointedly at Amelia, who only takes a moment to think before reluctantly passing Scout off.

Once her arms are empty, Amelia stands up on her toes to reach and place a chaste kiss to Link’s cheek, smiling at him gratefully. “Deal,” she mumbles. “Meet you back up there.”

_______

When Link re-enters their bedroom 15 minutes later, he’s met with the sight of his girlfriend sound asleep, sprawled across the center of the bed, passed out on top of the covers. He laughs to himself quietly before encroaching on her blissful state.

“Amelia,” he whispers, shaking her arm gently. “Amelia scootch over.”

“Hmmm?” She mumbles sleepily, lifting her head slightly and peering up at Link.

He laughs at her confused expression, starting to lift some of the blankets as he slides in next to her. “Here, get under the covers.”

Amelia seems to shake completely from her reverie, now fully awake. “You got Scout to sleep?” she sighs as she pulls some of the covers over herself and snuggles into Link’s side, head falling onto his chest.

“Yes, indeed,” he replies smugly, reaching to push back some of the hair covering Amelia’s face as she rests against him, then letting his fingers run through it in a repetitive motion.

Amelia’s eyes fall shut again but she speaks quietly into the room. “Scout’s just like me,” she mumbles. “Likes to be awake when the rest of the world is sleeping.”

Link laughs under his breath at this, and Amelia loves the feeling of it in his chest.

“Well I hope Scout is like you, because-”

Link’s words get cut off suddenly by the sound of Scout’s cries over the baby monitor.

“Ugh,” Amelia groans in response, starting to sit up. She swings her legs off the bed and starts to get up.

“No, stay. I’ll get him,” Link assures her, also beginning to climb out of the bed.

“Link,” Amelia stares at him incredulously, moving toward the door. She turns back to him. “It’s my day off tomorrow, not yours. Get some sleep.”

Link collapses back down in the bed. “Fine. But tomorrow night I’m on duty.”

Amelia smiles at this for a moment, before she’s interrupted again by her son’s cries. She turns back toward the doorway as she hears Link mumble sleepily “he’s sooo needy.”

Amelia laughs as she makes her way into the hallway. “Like I said.... He’s just like me.”

_______

Link is surprised the next morning to see Amelia moving about the kitchen making coffee and breakfast. He enters the room fresh out of the shower, dressed for work.

“Why aren’t you sleeping in?” He asks Amelia. “Scout’s still down. Now’s your chance.”

Amelia turns toward him with two cups of coffee in hand, passing one to Link. “Eh, I couldn’t really get back to sleep last night.”

Link raises his eyebrows at this, taking a sip of coffee.

“He was fussy the rest of the night,” Amelia continues. “We ended up down here on the couch. Infomercials are really interesting in the middle of the night, by the way,” she smiles sarcastically, nodding toward the TV.

Link sighs at this, putting down his coffee and gripping Amelia by the shoulders. He studies her expression, noting how truly exhausted she looks. Dark circles and unbrushed hair. Amelia avoids his gaze until he places a finger under her chin, forcing eye contact.

“You need rest,” Link says sternly.

“I’m fine,” Amelia brushes him off, stepping out of his grip. She busies herself by finding a travel mug for Link to pour his coffee into.

“Amelia,” Link says slowly, watching her get his coffee all set.

“Link,” she retorts.

“I’m serious. You should try and get some sleep while the baby’s still down.”

And just on time, Scout’s cries flow through the house, originating from the second floor. Amelia raises her eyebrows at this. She moves toward the stairs, patting Link on the back as she passes him. “Welp, someone’s probably hungry,” she sighs.

Link watches as his girlfriend disappears, calling after her. “Please, try to relax today Amelia!”

He doesn’t get a response. He shrugs on his jacket and grabs his keys. In a last effort before leaving the house, Link grabs his phone and opens up his contact list before dialing a familiar number.

_______

Amelia feels like she’s blinking manually against sleep as she sits up against the cushions of the couch, repositioning her shirt before trying to get Scout to latch on. She’d been having so much trouble feeding Scout lately and it feels even more exhausting when she’s by herself. Without Link’s positive affirmations to encourage her, she feels less motivated than ever.

Three harsh knocks against the front door shock Amelia from her thoughts. She frowns before slowly standing up, placing Scout in the bassinet in the corner and adjusting her shirt, Amelia walks toward the door. Scout immediately begins crying at the loss of contact but Amelia pushes forward.

She unlocks the door and pulls it open, surprised to see Jo Wilson standing before her.

“Jo?” Amelia greets her, bewildered. Jo looks almost the way Amelia feels, she thinks, as she takes in the woman’s appearance. Makeup free, hair unkempt, dark circles under her eyes.

“Hey,” Jo smiles, but the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

The two stand awkwardly. Amelia still blocking the doorway. Scout wailing desperately somewhere behind them.

“Link isn’t here, ya know,” Amelia explains. “He’s at the hospital.”

Jo looks unphased. “I know that,” she states matter-of-factly. “I’m here for you.”

Amelia just frowns at this, completely confused. Jo grows more impatient as Amelia’s uncertainty grows.

“Well, aren’t you going to let me in?”

_______

“Link called you?!” Amelia questions harshly as she busies herself in the living room. Picking up blankets and random toys. Fluffing the pillows on the couch. Jo watches from the opposite corner of the couch, where she’s now sat holding Scout, rolling her eyes at Amelia’s restlessness.

“Mhm,” Jo mumbles, glancing at the baby adoringly. She gently rubs a finger against Scout’s cheek, smiling widely at the baby’s expressiveness. She looks back up just as Amelia begins pulling the vacuum into the room. “Amelia what are you doing?”

“Cleaning,” she responds curtly. “I never have time for this,” she nods toward Scout resting peacefully in Jo’s arms, “so thank you.”

“Amelia,” Jo exclaims in disbelief, blinking toward the ceiling and trying not to laugh. “Link sent me here so you could relax, not do all of this!” She gestures with her free hand toward Amelia’s path through the living room.  Scout coos slightly at the movement and Jo quickly readjusts, resuming her fingers pattern against the baby's tiny features.

Amelia sighs, truly considering her options right now. She finally collapses into the opposite corner of the couch, smiling at Jo gratefully.

They weren’t that close. Jo and Amelia. But this was one of Link’s best friends. And Link was Amelia’s best friend. So there was commonality here somewhere down the line.

Comfortable silence falls between them and Amelia begins to feel her exhaustion catch up with her again. In an effort to stay awake and not be completely rude to her unexpected guest, Amelia reaches for the remote, clicking on the TV, hoping it will distract her from totally succumbing to sleep.

She settles for a random baking show, and realizes that Jo is completely infatuated with Scout, not paying any mind to the TV anyway. Amelia smiles to herself sleepily as she settles deeper into the cushions, her back against the end of the couch, she pulls her feet up to rest between them.

“He’s just perfect,” Jo mumbles, mesmerized.

“Ha,” Amelia laughs sarcastically. “Only when he lets me sleep through the night.”

Jo turns toward Amelia. Fatigued eyes meeting fatigued eyes. Amelia smiles wearily.

“I’m sorry, Jo,” Amelia murmurs. “About what happened with Alex, I….I never had the chance to tell you that.”

Jo shakes her head, dismissive. “We don’t have to talk about that.”

Amelia frowns slightly.

“Thank you, though,” Jo mumbles. She looks back down at Scout in her arms. “Ah, he fell asleep.”

Amelia blinks, readjusting, “I should probably get him upstairs.”

“I can do it,” Jo pipes up.

And Amelia accepts the help, settling back down onto the couch. She smiles up at Jo appreciatively as Jo stands, turning toward the front staircase.

Amelia only dozes off for a couple of minutes before she’s startled by Jo’s re-entrance. Jo places a baby monitor on the coffee table in front of them before she resumes her position on the opposite end of the couch.

“You can sleep,” Jo laughs. “That’s why I’m here.”

Amelia laughs under her breath. “Mhm, I might.” She closes her eyes but her face doesn’t quite relax. “Ugh, this couch is going to kill my back, but I just can’t bring myself to move upstairs right now,” she mumbles.

Jo giggles at her in disbelief. “Well, you are half-sitting. Here, slide down,” she offers as Amelia adjusts herself to fully lay down on the couch. As Amelia does this, Jo reaches forward to pull Amelia’s feet onto her lap.

Amelia opens her eyes only briefly, peeking at Jo amusedly. Jo squeezes her fuzzy sock-clad feet in response.

“You can sleep,” Jo repeats.

Moments later Amelia’s breathing evens out in a way that can only signify deep sleep. Jo leans her head back against the cushions, looking up at the ceiling. She slowly lets her own eyes shut, too.

_______

Link returns home to an oddly dark and seemingly empty house. He enters through the back door, setting down his keys and coffee mug from the morning, then tossing his jacket over one of the kitchen chairs.

He slowly moves throughout the first floor of the house, entering the dimly lit living room and letting his eyes adjust. The light from the TV illuminates a scene on the couch in front of him that he wasn’t expecting. That of his girlfriend sleeping soundly, feet resting in the lap of his best friend, also sleeping. A smile spreads across Link’s face as he takes in Jo’s grip on Amelia’s feet. He doesn’t realize he is laughing out loud until Jo stirs from her sleep, head lifting up from the cushions as she looks at him bewildered.

“Oh, hey,” she mumbles, voice still laced with exhaustion.

“Hey,” Link laughs.

Jo continues to readjust her position, shifting forward and placing Amelia’s legs down gently behind her.

“We fell asleep.”

“Yeah,” Link agrees, “I’m jealous. You’re kind of in my spot.” He then nods toward Amelia. “Looks like you were a fine replacement, though.”

Jo smiles, and this time around it begins to reach her eyes.

“Scout asleep?”

Jo nods, stifling a yawn. “I’m going to head out. I didn’t realize how late it was.”

Link nods at this, glancing again at his girlfriend, who somehow remains asleep despite the conversation happening around her.

“Thanks for calling me today, Link,” Jo adds, shrugging on her jacket. “I….somehow kinda needed this,” she smiles. “You can call me to come over and hold your baby anytime. I’ll be here.”

Link smiles at her gratefully as she makes her way to the front door. Jo turns around to give a quick wave to Link, before nodding toward Amelia on the couch. “You need me to carry her upstairs, too? Or you got that part?” She questions sarcastically.

“I got that part,” Link laughs.

_______

Amelia wakes with a start as Link places her gently in their bed.

“Huh?” she mumbles, “Link?”

“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs.

Amelia takes a moment to gather herself. “Did Jo leave? Where’s Scout?”

“Jo left. Scout’s still sleeping. You should be too.”

Link climbs into the bed next to her. Amelia turns to him. After another moment she speaks again into the space between them. “Thanks for calling her today. I kinda needed that.”

Link smiles, facing her, tucking a stray chunk of hair behind her ear. “We all need a little bit of help sometimes.”

_______

Gonna get by with my friends

(Try with a little help from my friends)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna try

(Try with a little help from my friends)

[calm-and-wine]

(I’ll give you) the best years

PART VI / EPILOGUE (masterlist)

here we are, the last part, more of an epilogue really. it’s quite short, but it also felt right, so hopefully you won’t be too disappointed.

as it is the end, i want to say the biggest thank you to everyone who has read and interacted with my little story. i’m so glad you loved and accepted Nulu, it truly means the world. also, if you’d ever wonder about anything or want to talk about this little family, please feel more than welcomed to pop into my inbox! i love you all, happy reading!

PART VI / EPILOGUE

September 2030

Lucy was tired, but content. She was probably supposed to be wiped out, sleeping for hours on end would be acceptable too. After spending over 8 hours yesterday in the car with children, a whining almost 4 years old and a fussy 6 months old, she had every reason to feel half dead. Even though Niall provided her a little break, sending her grocery shopping while he watched the kids, she was still half dead. She actually really liked going to the supermarket, might have even spent extra long roaming the aisles, just to get a bit more alone time. She loved her children, of course she did, but everyone needed a small break once in a while.

But none of that stopped her from getting up early, starting the preparations, then waking the kids before they started crying, and doing the rest of cooking with both her daughters in tow. She was in a great mood, any tiredness or lack of sleep forgotten. After all, it was Niall’s birthday. And her husband deserved all the good things, always.

“Mummy, can I decorate? I wanna make them all pretty.” Evelyn, her eldest asked, her big blue eyes pleading, just in case her mum declined. It was almost impossible to say no to her when she looked at someone like that, a power she was perfectly aware of. Sometimes Lucy could not believe she wasn’t even four yet, she was way too smart.

“Sure, Eve, but just a few, okay? We’ll put the fruits and everything else on the table, so everyone can make their own.” She put a few pancakes on a plate before placing it in front of her daughter. Evelyn was nothing if not helpful. Lucy looked to her other side, where Olivia was sitting in her high chair, playing with her teddy and a wooden spoon. Apparently there were no better toys than kitchen appliances or whatever else you could find lying around the house.

There was soft music playing in the background, the last of the pancakes sizzling in the pan, a bubble of excitement fluttering in Lucy’s stomach. Life was good, better than good. She had everything she could have ever wanted, more than she even dared to dream about. Sure, it wasn’t always perfect and it definitely wasn’t easy, but they were healthy, and most importantly, there was a lot of love to hold it all together. 

Evelyn was born on the 14th of December 2026 and neither Lucy nor Niall knew what to do with the happiness and love bursting through them for this perfect little bundle they created. In the following months, Lucy was very glad Niall was home, because no matter how peaceful she might have looked, Evelyn was no angel. And Lucy would probably lose her mind, if it weren’t for him. He worked in the studio with the boys, but it wasn’t any crazy schedule, just slowly putting songs together, always making sure not to put too much on his wife’s shoulder. She was also very glad he convinced her to go ahead with the training centre, which opened in February of 2027, because it became a source of normality for her, a reason to leave the house and clear her mind, usually for a few hours twice a week. 

One Direction released their second album since reactivating in September of 2028 and then embarked on a tour, Lucy and Evelyn joining them for most of it. It was crazy at times, but Niall said nothing would ever beat standing on stage in front of thousands of people and turning your head to see your wife and kid dancing hidden on the side stage. She found out she was pregnant again on that very tour. They weren’t really trying for another kid, but they also weren’t actively preventing anything, just letting the universe work however it wanted to. So, on the 14th of March this year, Olivia was born. She was much calmer than her sister, which Lucy took as a blessing, only hoping it wouldn’t come doubled as a toddler rebellion or something. And once again, Niall finished tour early December, spending the last couple of months of her pregnancy home, helping her and being her rock, then enjoying another newborn bliss together. The band came back to work since, once again popping into the studio every once in a while, but there was no rush. Harry welcomed his second child recently, joking that Niall should pick up his pace, because he had been married way shorter, yet they had the same number of offsprings, his kids only a year apart. 

But for Lucy and Niall, there was no rush. She loved what they had, had felt this way for years upon years, pure contentment. She couldn’t even pinpoint a moment when she wanted something more than she already had, since she started dating Niall, not really. 

She put the last pancakes on the plate, the ones Evelyn decorated were already placed at the table, so she picked Olivia up, settling her on her hip, grabbing Evie’s hand and going upstairs. Her eldest giggled excitedly, letting go of her mum’s hand as soon as she opened the door to the master bedroom and sprinting before jumping on the bed. Lucy only hoped she wouldn’t land on Niall or kick him in the ribs. There was no stopping her when she got like this, though.

“Dada! Wake up! It’s your birthday!” she screamed, jumping up and down on the bed. 

Niall hummed, scrunching his eyes for a second, which earned him a giggle from his daughter, before opening them and instantly grabbing her to bring her down on top of him, tickling her before blowing a raspberry on her stomach.

“Hello, pumpkin,” he said, planting a kiss on her cheek, her eyes glistening and a huge smile showing all of her teeth.

“We made breakfast, you have to hurry,” she said proudly, going to stand up on the bed, Niall’s hands instantly going up to secure her in case she lost balance. He sat up looking at his wife, who stood near the doorway, their other daughter tucked in her arms, hiding her face in her neck. Their daughters couldn’t have been more different, Evelyn was a natural firecracker, while Olivia seemed timid and shy, he couldn’t wait to see them grow into two amazing women. “Dada!” Evelyn pulled on his hand, rushing him. 

“Okay, okay, I’m getting up, Evie,” he laughed, standing up and helping her down from the bed. He grabbed a sweater to cover his bare chest, barely managing to pull it over his head, before Eve started pushing on his leg, trying to make him move. “Go ahead, I’m right behind you,” he said, which earned him a huff.

“Just not too fast, bub,” Lucy reminded, when Eve rushed out of the room.

Niall stopped in front of his wife, a huge smile on his face, his hair a complete mess and his eyes still sleepy. 

“Happy birthday, baby,” she said, when he wrapped an arm around her, planting a sweet kiss on his lips.

“Thank you,” Niall said, giving her another peck, before kissing the daughter in her arms on the head. “And you, what got you all shy, bug?” he asked, pinching her leg lightly. Olivia finally looked at her dad, twisting in Lucy’s arms and reaching for him. Niall laughed lightly, taking her from his wife and tickling her before she let out the most beautiful giggle and hid her face in his neck. She was too cute. Both their daughters were absolutely adorable and as much as he loved it and was a proud dad, it sometimes made it hard being a parent.

“Come on, or Evie will lose her mind and the pancakes will get cold,” Lucy said, intertwining her fingers with Niall’s free hand and leading them downstairs.

“I really don’t know where she gets her lack of patience from.”

“Oh, you don’t?” Lucy snickered, looking at him with a raised brow.

“Okay, so maybe I have a slight idea,” he chuckled, “but I’m not that bad.”

“Yeah, but you’re also not 4.”

He looked at his wife, both their eyes glistening with glee. “Point taken.”

They reached the kitchen and Niall stopped in the doorway surprised. It was more than he expected, the table was perfectly set, fresh fruit, chocolate and maple syrups, bacon and even whipped cream laid out, along with a stack of pancakes way too big for them. 

He looked at his wife incredulously. “You did all that? With two kids to look at?” he asked, forever in awe of his wife.

“They were on their best behaviour,” she assured.

“You’re an angel,” he whispered in her ear, kissing her cheek.

“Dada! I helped! And I have a present for you!” Evelyn said, practically jumping by the kitchen table.

Niall put Olivia in her high chair, while Lucy shook her head at their eldest’s antics. They were supposed to have cake and give him presents later, but at this point she wasn’t even surprised Evelyn couldn’t wait.

“Okay, come here then,” Niall said, sitting in a chair, grabbing Eve and sitting her on his lap. “Oooh you made me a card?” he asked, his voice excited, when his daughter handed him a colorful piece of paper.

“Mumma helped with spelling,” she noted, looking up at him with the biggest smile.

“It’s beautiful, I love it. We’re gonna hang it back home. Thank you, pumpkin.” His heart was so full, he couldn’t even comprehend it. He kissed her cheek, then the other, then the crown of her head, until she giggled.

“Can we hang it here until we leave?” Evelyn asked, looking at him with her usual big eyes. They came to their house in Ireland for a few days to change the scenery. And because Lucy always tried to get him here for his birthday, knowing how much he loved his home country. He appreciated the gesture a lot, even though now his home was wherever his family was, the place didn’t matter much.

“Of course,” he assured, placing the card on the edge of the table so it wouldn’t get dirty. “Let’s eat now, yeah?”

She nodded, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. She was a perfect mix of Niall and Lucy, the hair was all her mother’s, but the eyes were just like her dad’s. She made a move to get off his lap, but he secured an arm around her waist to keep her with him. 

“Don’t leave me, it’s my birthday!” he said dramatically, earning himself another chuckle. It was his favourite thing to do, trying to make his girls laugh, all three of them. 

Lucy finally moved, going to make some coffee for him, taking a minute to watch her family, while it was brewing. They were all in pajamas, Evelyn wearing a blue robe with pink hearts on it, Niall in plaid bottoms and a sweater, she was wearing cotton pants as well, with Niall’s hoodie. He was feeding Olivia, her high chair turned towards him, while making sure Evie didn't fall off his lap, completely adored by his daughters, just as much as he adored them.

“Hey, come eat,” he said, looking at her, a lopsided smile on both their faces.

She nodded, pouring the coffee and bringing it over for him, before sitting herself on the other side, so she could admire her family. 

The house was filled with chatter and giggles, Lucy and Niall’s eyes shining with emotions, the smiles constant on their faces. When they ate over half of the pancakes and their bellies were full, cheeks hurting from laughing, she got up to clean up a bit, hanging Eve’s card up on the fridge. Niall got up too, placing Evie on his chair, and came up to do the washing, ignoring Lucy’s protest that he shouldn’t do any cleaning on his birthday, while she put the leftovers into the fridge. 

When they were both done, he pulled her into his body, before they joined their kids. They should get dressed and go out for a walk, but he wanted a minute with his wife. 

“I love you so much, Lulu,” he said softly, after kissing her, their first proper kiss of the day.

“Love you, baby,” she reciprocated, raking a hand through his hair.

He stood with his arms around his wife, planting soft kisses across her face and on her neck, while watching the kids over her shoulder, their eldest daughter gabbering on and on about something she was clearly very passionate about, while their 6 months old looked at her sister with big eyes, probably not understanding a word, but giving her her full attention. Niall’s heart was so full, he was sure it must burst one of those moments. He felt that way whenever he had his three girls right with him, just like this. Not even doing anything special, just being together, being a family. He truly did not know what the hell did he do to deserve it all, the most amazing wife and two beautiful daughters. 

He drew his eyes back to Lucy and just knew she was filling similar things, one of her hands clasped on the back of his neck, while the other was travelling up and down his side. 

The way they looked at each other and were together, made her feel like they were two teenagers in love. Crazy about each other, with heart eyes and butterflies in their stomachs. It didn’t mean their love wasn’t mature, their relationship stable. But in those moments, she felt incredibly lucky. That after all these years, the spark between them didn’t dim. That her body still felt warm whenever he was near, her heart skipping a beat whenever he looked at her. It was something she was incredibly appreciative of, their love evolving, growing to new heights, but never really changing. Deep down she not only hoped, but knew that it would be like that forever. That not only this was the man she’d grow old alongside and spend the rest of her life with, but that she’d be completely in love with him for every minute of every day. And for just as long, she’d be utterly, absolutely loved by him.

taglist: @stylishmuser​ @verorax​ @georgiahoranxx​ @exoticniall​ @awomanindeniall​ @soullikestyles​ @bopbopstyles​ @nannav47​

[mercurygray]

It turns out when you reblog things late at night, like sketches of mermaids, you get nice messages in your inbox like this one:

@junojelli Because I am a terrible enabler of AUs, Joan as a mermaid of Zell Lake *runs away*

How much damage can Merc do on this prompt with two uninterrupted hours of time? A lot, it turns out.

A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

- William Butler Yeats

The locals say there are mermaids in the lake.

Have been for centuries - it used to be quite a tourist attraction in the seventeen-hundreds, coming to see the mermaids of Zell am See. It was part of the grand tour, almost like the haunted castles of France and the vampyrs of Romania and buying art in Italy. Very fashionable, to come and sketch them, or write poetry about them, or, better still, start an affair, which was extremely en vogue for a little while. There's probably a great deal of very nice jewelry at the bottom of that lake - but then, no one's tried to dive for it.

Mermaids, they say, can be very possessive.

But then the Enlightenment happened, and the Scientific Revolution after that, and several other revolutions meant there wasn't quite as much ready money for long, protracted trips through Europe for the idle rich, and a deal fewer idle rich to take them, and these sorts of quaint customs sort of fell out of fashion. It had been temporarily revived for a bit in the late 1870s by the arrival of the Americans, who, in their usual way, gave it new life by changing it and making it a thing for young women rather than young men, to go to the mountain lake at Zell am See as a stop on their own Grand Tours, the headstrong Buccaneers ready to trade American cold hard cash and good looks for European panache and husbands with titles.

That was the first American incursion into Austria. This, however, is the second, and it comes not in a four-in-hand coach but a four-wheel drive truck.

Magical creatures aren't totally new news to the Americans - there are all kinds of magical sorts floating around the greater 48. Winters reads the security memorandum from the Battalion S2 who's replaced Nixon, shakes his head, and passes the word down to Lieutenant Lipton: "Don't let Malarkey go near the lake."

That's the fear they have, the stories they've all been raised on, of the sirens who would have dragged Ulysses down to the depths of the sea with their songs. Their long wandering through this war is almost over - they're almost home! Be a shame to survive the damn war and lose their men to mermaids. Malarkey's been a man on the edge since Bastogne, for good reasons, and of all the men under his command, Dick Winters is afraid particularly that once happy-go-lucky Don from Astoria, Oregon, will hear something in that lake that will keep him underneath forever.

He's right - but not in the way he thinks.

One morning, Don is down by the lake sitting on the pier, and in the water next to him, bold as brass, is a lovely looking lady with dark hair, winsome eyes, and a tail like the better class of rainbow trout, dappled and flashing. And they're just...talking. She doesn't seem particularly interested in dragging anyone under the lake - but she is drinking in the story of Don's war.

(The mermaids, it turns out, speak excellent English - all those tourist Buccaneers and their maiden aunts! Sounds a little like your grandmother, but it works.)

Lipton observes for a while and decides to leave the man there. By dinnertime, Don comes back in looking like a changed man - there's an actual spring in his step. That's the magic of the mermaids of Zell Am See - they'll steal your cares away in the best way possible.

After Malarkey's surprising discovery, it's hard to keep the men away from the lake. There are a few familiar faces now, though none of them are bold enough to leave a name. (The locals say that's expected. If you know a mermaid's name, you could compel her to leave the lake.) And here, on the side of a lake in Austria, Easy Company slowly processes their war. Lewis spends a lot of time talking with Malarkey's mermaid, whom they are calling Eileen after a girl Malarkey went to school with. Dick privately thinks that this is a good thing - Lewis is processing a lot more than just his war.

When Dick finally goes down to the lake, it's not to talk. He goes early in the morning, just after the sun comes up. He's tired of running and calisthenics. He wants to swim, and the usual suspects are not at the pier yet. (Sometimes they're out early in the morning like seals in the zoo, doing each others' hair and giggling in the way girls everywhere do when they're assembled in large groups.)

Good. That's the point of this exercise - he wants to be alone.

The water is crisp and refreshing, and so, so needed. Dick Winters hasn't done anything for himself - really for himself - for months now, and this is probably the first real treat he's given himself since ordering in all that ice cream a few weeks ago.

He's all the way out in the deep part of the lake when he realizes he's picked up a training partner.

She's following him - at a respectful distance, mind you - just...watching. Is she afraid he's going to drown? (The mermaids are protective, not possessive - it's different. Wouldn't let you drown in the lake unless they thought you deserved it.) But there's a competitive streak in Dick Winters, and he decides, just for fun, to pick up his pace.

She matches him.

They are nearly at the other side of the lake when he stops, treading water, his heart pounding, regretting his decision to try and race a woman who's literally half-fish, and then, suddenly, she is sailing up over him like a dolphin. (None of the others have ever done this.) Show-off, thinks one part of his brain. The other part watches in silent, smiling wonder. It hadn't really clicked with any of the others before - the mermaids are beautiful. Or at least, this one is.

Up, up, up, she goes, body arching and glistening in the sun, spangling the air with water, and then dives out of sight. Did he scare her off? Offend her?

Then she's back, bobbing in the water a few feet away. "Aren't we going to finish the race?" she asks, smiling.

"A guy should know when he's beat," he manages with a smile. "You win."

"Usually men don't make it this far out," she says. "It's impressive." She's the type who isn't usually impressed, he can tell. They've all got personalities, and now that they're talking, he recognizes her - she's not usually out with the others. Lewis has talked with her a couple of times - she's the one who makes him laugh. Lewis calls her Duchess - she's got a sort of high society feeling and she seems to be nominally in charge.

He's still trying to catch his breath - and the shore is so incredibly far. "Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to make it back."

Her eyes light up a little. "Ask me nicely," she says. Ask you for what? he wonders, his body exploring possibilities it wasn't exploring ten minutes ago. (She notices, of course, and laughs.)

In the end, she takes his hands and tows him. "Hold your breath - and squeeze my hand if you need to stop."

It feels like flying. One minute they're at rest, and the next they're charging through the water, her tail pumping powerfully, her hands still locked around his wrists. This would be how she drowns a man, to take him down to where he couldn't breathe, but they're only a foot or two beneath the surface. He's reminded, oddly enough, of parachuting, the rush of air along his face, the adrenaline. He looks at her, muscles straining in the clear water, strong as anything, smiling and laughing for the sheer joy of being alive.

Oh, yeah, he's a goner.

Slowly word gets around that anyone up at the crack of dawn can see Winters and his new friend taking an early morning swim together. Good for him, the feeling is. That man needs something for himself.

(Certain parties who've also been up at the crack of dawn may have also been treated to the sight of Major and the mermaid, embracing on the tiny spit of beach near the hotel. Lew asks him about it one afternoon and, strangely, Dick doesn't blush about it.)

[smolbeandrabbles]

Protector - Director Orson Krennic x Reader 3 (Rogue One)

Gif Credit: X

I Think He Knows (Part 1) / Hero (Part 2)

Author’s Note:  Just when you thought they were gonna get away with this...

Part 3 of this series that has come from the brilliant mind of @purebloodwitch​ ❤

I got you your angst and drama this time 😉😉

She also introduced me to this song Protector - City Wolf and quite honestly if it isn’t the theme, not just for this series, but for this couple then I don’t know what is! Give it a listen, it’s a truly excellent track! 👌🎉

* I spelled Scarif correct this time-!

Disclaimer: Rogue One characters not mine / lyrics not mine / gifs not mine / I’m sure I take liberties with the SW universe... but here we are!

Premise: In the aftermath of your actions on Scarif, you are reprimanded and grounded until further notice. The Empire need you, however - and are about to make you an offer they think you can’t refuse...

Words: 6762

Warnings: Swearing / angst/hurt 

______ You don't have to be alone all by yourself Tired of doing things just to save your mental health You made a wish and then you lost it down the wishing well But when you're with me There's no need to be So tell me is there somewhere else that you wanna go? Cause you've been running round in circles, stuck in slow-mo I've got that feeling that you really wanna hit the door If you've lost the fight Then let's win the war When you're tired of hiding And you've gotta run, hop right in Sit shotgun, I'm driving I'll be your protector Who's gonna be there when Everything is tumbling down? Who's gonna be there when You fall to keep you off of the ground? I'll be your shelter They'll never get ya So stay with me and I'll be your protector No it ain't easy to survive up in these city streets Lookin' for someone to help you when you scrape your knees Takin' too many punches, now it's getting hard to breathe I'll be your reason so you can believe Are you waiting for someone? Just hold on, here I come To fix when you're undone You're standing on the edge now, stay close I'm going twelve rounds, ready for another dose Steel chin, and a fist made of metal Look at my face, serious as a heart attack Comin' in your corner, shades on, dressed in black I'll be your shelter They'll never get ya So stay with me and I'll be your protector ---

News of the aftermath of your involvement with the battle over Scarif reached the upper echelons of the Empire a little slower than you expected. That or they had to deliberate a long time on it. Funnily enough the rumours swelled first and a lot of the lower ranked officers now liked staring at you in awe. “Is she the one that decked Tarkin-!?” “She’s got balls-! Damn-!”

That joy didn’t last too long though. And you eventually got called into your commanding officers office and reprimanded. (Although apparently his personal opinion was good on you) However, his opinion didn’t count for much and they grounded you until further notice. When you politely enquired as to how long that would be, no one could tell you, or refused to entertain the question.

Tully was right though; they didn’t take your ship away or demote you. They’d need you in this war with the Rebellion and would probably spring something on you without a moments warning. Which meant although you were grounded, your ship was still out there in space - Jerod at the helm until you came back. You supposed you were lucky they didn’t give her to someone else - but wondered, with the way you’d built up your crew, how many would mutiny at the very idea of someone else as their captain.

Krennic now has some spare time on his hands and was trying to gather his reputation again. Now he found his project load a lot quieter, they had him running some mundane intelligence missions. Which meant you found him hanging around Coruscant a lot, drawing. Often when you were running back and forth between military briefings. Because grounded you may have been, but in the know you still were. Which was great, because he’d always be waiting in just the right place, and you could give him updates. Although the first couple of times he did it Krennic did manage to startle you, until you caught on: “Are you following me-!?” “Knowing where you are at all times is my job.” “The Bureau has you tailing me-!?” “No...” he tipped his head “I just figure you’re going to be the one who has the vital information on  what I’ve been asked to do - therefore, who better to tail?” He had a point you supposed; but his stalking meant that sometimes you got to admire his architectural sketches and it was one of your favourite parts of the day. If you had time you liked to sit and ask what he was working on. Perhaps gather some intelligence of your own that you could take into your next meeting, and of course, give him a kiss on the cheek before you hurried off that Orson so thoroughly deserved.

 ***

Eventually you started receiving offers for work elsewhere. Though you weren’t looking to be anywhere but back on The Resolution right now. And then, one evening you got an offer that was far more interesting, pinged into your inbox. ‘Y/N, I am under the impression that you dislike being grounded. As I have been notified that you are consistently requesting a timeframe on the ending of this. There is a way around staying here, and it’s fairly simple. Grand Moff Tarkin will be on Coruscant in the coming days for final preparations in the efforts against the rebellion. Meet me tomorrow and we can discuss arranging a briefing with him. Further details to follow.’

 Of course the first thing you did was alert your intelligence beau to the meeting time and place. For one, it seemed awfully shady - even if it was going to get you in the sky again - and you didn’t really want to turn up to a meeting like this without backup. When you walked cautiously into the government building, Krennic was already there - leaning so casually against an inlying colonnade he almost blended in.  You paid each other no mind as you continued to walk through into the main hallway. It appeared deserted; save for the single person you knew you were here to meet. “General L/N.” You held you hand out to shake with a smile; “Baryon, I hear you can get me off the ground again.” “Indeed I can - if you’re ready?” You laughed, politely, “Far more than ready. If only you’d presented the solution earlier-!” He smiled, but it was thin, and lacked warmth. Immediately you were on high guard, you didn’t like where this could go; “Yes.” When he offered no more conversation, you prompted; “I believe your email message told me it was simple...?” “Very. If you would be inclined to apologise to Tarkin.” You very nearly scoffed, but decided you might be able to swallow your pride on that one to get your crew back. “Oh. Yeah, that doesn’t sound so hard. Forgive and forget and all that.” You hoped you didn’t sound as sarcastic as you seemed “Yes,” he nodded, “There is one other, small thing...” This was where it started becoming less easy, you decided. “Go ahead.” “The Death Star plans.” Ah, shit, here we go... “What of them?” You feigned ignorance. “Well it’s no secret that you and Director Krennic are close.” You didn’t exactly appreciate the way Baryon decided to say it either, causing your response to sound affronted. “Correct.” “Well. Then you must have access, or at least know a way to gain access to his files?” You folded your arms, “Mhm.” In fact, you knew all of Krennic’s passwords and where he stored all his backup drives too, but you weren’t about to tell this man that “You could say that.” “Then this should be easy for you.” He spread his hands as if it was all so obvious. “You haven’t told me what I’m supposed to do, yet.” “It’s simple. We need the plans, Krennic has them - you’re our in.” You blinked a couple of times, “Sorry... let me get this straight... you would like me to steal the Death Star plans, for you-!? After someone – the Rebellion, I might add! - just attempted the same thing on Scarif!?” “Steal? He’ll simply give them to you.” You’d have laughed the guy out of the building right then and there if you didn’t think this information intriguing. Krennic wouldn’t let you touch any of that unless it was over his dead body. Especially not now. “What if he says no?” “Someone with as much insight into the Director as you must have a way... Charm him.” Sleep with him to get the plans? Was that what they were really suggesting? You bit your lips together; Well. Looks like I’m still grounded. “What if I refuse?” “Then you won’t get back to your beloved Resolution.” You tipped your head, pretending for a moment that it was a hard choice. At least Jerod was in charge. But there was no way in hell that you could do that to Krennic. Not after all this. “I’m sorry. I can’t do what you’re asking of me.” Baryon’s face fell for a second before he tried again, “If you will not charm him - force him. You can give it up now, Krennic’s next to worthless...” He gave a shrug “and when you give us those plans, he’ll be even more so.” Your eyes narrowed; “Give what up?” “The front.” “What front?” “The relationship.” Suddenly the Empire’s angle on your relationship came into focus, and your relatively stoic nonchalance for the whole situation became a hard glare – and you put all your agitation into your words; “I ask again - What. Front.” “Ah, God. You’re not actually in love with him-!?” You measured him up for half a second, deciding he was serious; “Fuck you. This conversation is over.” “General-!” You wheeled around from the walk away you’d already begun, deciding to correct him first; “High General. You thinking I’d give the plans up was laughable, before what you just said. Don’t you ever contact me again.” Baryon sighed, and none too gently; “The next person that comes for them won’t be half as nice...” You scoffed, opting to return to your walk away before answering back; “Let them come. My answer will be the same-!!”

Your mind was reeling. Was that the only way back-!? Giving up everything your partner had worked so hard for to the other side? All that research!!? They had the weapon, and had stolen that from him too, what the hell did they want with the rest of it? To take everything about his greatest achievement away so he couldn’t use it? Well then they’d want all the backups too, wouldn’t they? They’d have to know he made copies. Someone would certainly know, who could casually drop it into conversation – and you wouldn’t put it passed anyone who wanted to climb the ladder by pushing someone else off it. They’d want him to destroy all his copies? Maybe they wondered what could be on them that the rebels would want? Maybe they just couldn’t work the damn thing without him and we’re too stubborn to admit it.

You slowed only when you approached the colonnades again, knowing he would still be there.  And would have heard every word. Your eyes darted to both sides searching for him and eventually Krennic had to clear his throat to get your attention. You checked you weren’t being followed before you strolled over to him; “Can you believe this shit-!?” “Yes. To be honest.” Orson leant his head back to gaze at the ceiling “Thank God you said no!” “You know what they’re trying to do right!?” “Use us against one another...” He mused, “luckily I can trust you and know it won’t work. But this time it’s personal – and they are out for blood, clear as day.” “Well what have intelligence asked you for-!?” “Checking in on all your movements, they know what happened on Scarif, Y/N - they want to know your reasons.” “Are you telling me they think I’m working with the rebels-!?” “I didn’t say that.” Though the look on his face gave his true answer “FUCK-!” You thought twice about punching the stone; “What is this!?” “Easy. They want you back up there and me with nothing. But I already cleared you, so, that’s probably why he sent you the message in the first place. Doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping an eye on you.” “Orson...” You shook your head, “Babe, you know I would never...” “Of course I do. Don’t worry about it. But they’ll want me to relay this conversation. Byron might even report back that you were on the verge of agreement...” Krennic tipped his head, “One thing is clear they want us apart,” he pointed behind him, “this has all come from Tarkin, Make no mistake...” You breathed out gently, in agreement “Yeah. I know that. I do know that...”

 *** The agent was right – he wasn’t the only one who tried to solicit you with promises of getting back into space if you only handed over the Death Star documents. Most of the time they got a snarky reply back like; Well if Tarkin hadn’t destroyed Scarif there would be plans there-! And by the fifth time, when they got a little more urgent and a lot less polite about it – you were getting sick of repeating yourself. “Do you actually have copies of all your work just lying around?” Krennic paused his stroll across the living room and turned back to you cautiously; “…Why?” “Well this would be simpler if there weren’t any.” He looked momentarily horrified – “You know damn well how long that research took me! Took US! Everyone that worked on this project – that’s ALL we have left. My copies.” You held your hands up defensively, hoping he didn’t think that it would cross your mind even once to deliver the Empire those copies. For one, you thought they ought to be coming to him for them. Why weren’t they, was a more interesting question. Maybe they just wanted to see how far they could push your relationship – they’d be sorry they ever did. “…I’m just thinking that if they were somewhere I didn’t know about, we’d be safer?” He inclined his head slightly, piercing blue eyes squinting at you; “We’d?” “…We’ve both been thinking it Orson, this is about FAR more than just the plans. And I’m-” Scared? Worried? Upset? Angry? All of the above? You swallowed and opted not to continue. Krennic strode back to you slowly, holding his hand out to take yours; “Darling, we’ll be fine… But if it would make you feel better, I can move all my research somewhere safer – that you won’t have access to. Therefore when they enquire, you really won’t know.” You used his outstretched hand to pull yourself up and into his arms; “Babe, I’m just-” you buried your face into his shoulder and mumbled it; “I don’t know what’s going on.” He kissed your hair softly, his own voice quiet and thoughtful; “I’ll look into it, okay? Someone in the Bureau must know what’s going on. Be careful, I don’t like it either. Not when it’s this persistent.” You pulled away from him – voice suddenly commanding; “Hide those plans, Director.” Orson smiled gently at the dead serious look on your face, “Yes M’am.”

 So he did so – and you had no idea where. Before you knew it his digging around in intelligence had him exploring leads off planet, and upon your instruction to follow them, Krennic had to kiss you goodbye. “Just, keep me updated. Discreetly.” “Of course. You be careful down here. And if they do call you back, well, obviously I want to be the first to congratulate you…” He smirked over the word congratulate and you shook your head, “Well you better be ready to get your new ship over to mine then.” “Ah-! You heard!” He grinned. Of course you knew – people within engineering had already complained loudly enough before, when he’d had the first ship built. After it’d been ruined on Scarif, Krennic needed a new one – but he wanted an upgraded version, faster, lighter, sleeker. And you had heard the screaming from your office: “HE WANTS WHAT-!? I’M NOT BUILDING THAT OBSOLETE MODEL FOR A SECOND TIME!!!” And had simply chuckled into your coffee. It had been built though, but you hadn’t seen it yet. “It’s faster than the old one, I’d be with you in no time.” “Good…” You couldn’t help but smirk back, and brush your lips to his one more time; “Then you can get that ass of yours in my bed.”

*** It was hard being away from him, considering you’d both had to be here for so long and by now you’d grown used to his company. But it got interesting when the Resolution got pulled into docking. With Krennic updating you as often as he could, you were happy to tell him that you got to see your ship again. Jerod was there to receive you, looking pretty good in his command uniform, as you sprinted down the dock ramps to him. “What did you do to my ship-!?” “Nothing, General, she’s fine!!” “Fine, my ass--!” You reigned yourself into a walk, and then slowed to a halt in front of him, cheerful smile on your face “What are you doing in dock?” “To be honest we don’t know.” He gave a genuine shrug; “We thought you might be able to fill us in.” You folded your arms, “I’ve heard nothing. Been bribed plenty. I hope they don’t think that because Orson’s off planet I’ll cave. But seeing her…” You traced your eyes over the hull of the Resolution with a smile, she was gorgeous, and you missed being her captain terribly. But you refused to give up the work of the man you loved so much to be aboard her again. Your heart could yearn this as much as it wanted – it would have a harder time betraying him, and yearning for a love it had lost for itself. You shook your head as several unfathomable emotions coursed through you, and you pursed your lips. You weren’t sure the right way to finish that sentence either. “Maybe they’re going to give her back to you.” “Ha.” You scoffed, and highly doubted it. But then maybe Tully was right – maybe they really couldn’t do this without you. Maybe they had finally given up. “Perhaps. I guess I’ll wait that one out.” You turned your eyes on him, and then decided to grin; “…In the meantime, thank you for looking after her Jerod.” “Oh!” His smile was bashful and he bowed to your rank, “You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure.” *** You read the title of the email twice. Wine glass half way to your lips – although you’d quite forgotten about it. Everything was suddenly frozen in time. And the chimes coming from your datapad to alert you to other incoming messages and documents couldn’t draw your attention from those words. “For the Urgent Attention of High General F/N L/N.” it appeared to have no sender, and it wasn’t even the urgent that grabbed you, you’d seen people pull shit like that all the time in the clamour to catch the attention of a busy General such as yourself. It was the next part that had you; “Presence Requested on Mustafar.” No one ever got called there, not for anything good. And the one time Krennic went it hadn’t exactly been his finest hour. But you?!  What exactly had you done that warranted an audience with Vader? You swallowed hard. Now you were really in trouble. And you knew even dating someone in intelligence couldn’t save you.

 You threw the email to Orson just in case – asking him what the hell he thought was up. Krennic came back barely a second later imploring you to go, but that he had no idea. And neither did he respond with any further information than that, suggesting that he’d come to a dead end. Or there was something more worthy of his time, considering what he was actually off planet for. You made a stop off to the Intelligence Bureau one last time, because there was only one other man you trusted in that entire organisation. But he already knew you were coming. ‘Y/N I can’t help you’ ‘So you know?!’ ‘It’s out of my hands’ ‘You DO know!’ ‘Perhaps, but on my head be it should I disclose it to anyone. Go, for the sake of everything you have ever worked for, and tell the truth. They’ll understand. And between you and I, Tarkin deserved to be put in his place after Scarif – I lost a few good friends out there. Make sure you go to that meeting and do it again…’ *** So that’s how you ended up on your shuttle out across the Galaxy towards Mustafar now. Due to the grounding of the Resolution, Jerod was the one in the pilot seat. And although you spend the majority of your journey sitting chewing your lip and running your big speech over in your mind, you were glad of friendly company. He only offered small talk on a few occasions, when he thought you might want a pause from overthinking. You were happy to provide it and it was a welcome respite – but you couldn’t stop yourself pondering this. As long as it wasn’t for your alleged scheming with the rebels – or whatever rumour was going around, you thought you’d probably be fine. If it was, you might find yourself reprimanded even further for screaming about how ludicrous it was.

All of that was thrown out the window about 3 minutes before you landed, because as Jerod slowed your jets for the landing strip – a second cruiser was visible in the heat haze – slick black-on-black against the red and amber glowing fire of sluggish molten rock.   “Is that Krennic’s?” You wished he hadn’t voiced it. “Yeah.” Your reply was quiet; it looked brand new, polished to within an inch of its life and just out of the factory. A close resemblance to the last one, but sleeker and sharper. You pitied it having to stand here in heat like this so soon. “Did he tell you he was coming?” “No.” Which hurt more than just a little, if he was called here why wouldn’t he tell you? You had told him; but perhaps Orson didn’t want to add to your anxiety. Or perhaps he’d come to your aid – to back up your story. You wondered if that would at all be welcomed. “Shut the engines off, but stay here. And stay cool – this shouldn’t take too long.” “Yes M’am.” You patted his shoulder as you rose from your seat, taking a deep breath before swallowing hard. Jerod caught your wrist; “Y/N.” You turned back to him, “Be careful.” “I will. You too.” Though you weren’t exactly sure why you were saying that. But, you reminded yourself, you weren’t to trust anyone in the Empire these days. You hurried down the ramp from your ship and were too inquisitive in the new look of his not to wander over and inspect. It was beautiful and classic, if obsolete. You stared up at the wings, the way the red reflected off them; harsh the light might have been, but the engineering was stunning. You slowed your pace, still staring at it – it was larger, but you reckoned that was because it had bigger engines and more power. But it was cut more economically, and though you thought you’d be asking for a death wish suggesting the old model was anything less than perfect, this one looked a lot less clunky. And you would bet it didn’t make that annoying whirring noise as it cut through the air.

You turned back to the walkway leading up into the fortress and took another deep breath. It wasn’t a long way to walk, but you bet already it’d be the longest of your life. You could already see a figure waiting for you at the top ready to lead you to god knows where.  You knew it wasn’t Krennic, he’d already be sprinting back down towards you if that was the case. You straightened yourself and began your march – time to be as professional and presentable as possible. Except you had to loosen your collar just slightly, damn this place for being so stiflingly hot it was nearly insufferable. How the hell Orson dare come back in the uniform he insisted on wearing was beyond you; how did he stand it? Mind you, Krennic would suffer for the aesthetic. When you reached the figure, an older man huddled in a black cloak – he stooped slightly in what you presumed was a bow - “High General F/N L/N. We have been expecting you. Please, follow me.” We!? Oh, you didn’t like this one bit. You didn’t think it would help in this situation, and you weren’t the quickest draw, but you still checked your blaster was on your hip – it made you feel just a little safe. Against Lord Vader, Y/N? You’ll be dead before you can even reach for it! You scowled at yourself; Not Helpful! You followed him down a series of passages, and realised you must be getting closer to the core of the planet… or volcano… where else could you possibly be led? Strangely enough, it wasn’t as warm here – and you wondered what exactly caused the temperature to drop. If it was a cooling instillation you were going to need that number just to give props to them. Eventually your guide stopped, and pulled to one side, holding his arm out to present yet another ramp. He stooped again; “Lord Vader awaits your presence.” Even though “Thank you.” came out of your mouth, what you were really thinking was Oh. Shit.  

*** You’d only taken two steps down but already had forgotten most of the things that you’d set out to say. Indeed, he was waiting at the other end of a circular platform – already you were beginning to feel uneasy. You weren’t even the tiniest bit force sensitive, but you didn’t think there was anyone in the Galaxy that couldn’t feel that aura. He was alone on the platform save for an odd looking bundle to one side, that you noticed but deemed irrelevant enough to ignore. You hoped more than anything that your fight or flight response would allow you to stand your ground, and argue your case, rather than back down and shy away from any conflict. You wanted your ship back – but you would not give Krennic or his work up to be there. And you’d given him your word. You kept your eyes on Vader, aware of the beads of sweat gathering on your forehead, and trickling down the side of your face. And you weren’t even sure that was the apparent heat. Annoyingly all that was filling your head was a million ways to die. You glanced down at the lava running below you and swallowed thickly again. God Damn… You raised your eyes again - You can do this. If Krennic can get out of here, then you can. You were about five steps away from the platform now – and were figuring out that etiquette was probably to let him speak first. Only the bundle you were so intent on ignoring moved at precisely the wrong second. You stumbled your last two steps – eyes wide, horrified, if you hadn’t simultaneously lost the ability to breathe, let alone speak, then you probably would have yelled something. There was only one reason that he’d been left on the platform. That wasn’t just a warning but a display. Krennic wasn’t dead, and – man that he was – probably didn’t even wish it. But that pristine white uniform was nearly dyed red. The only cuts you could see were the ones visibly across his face and anything that had cut through his uniform – he couldn’t even stay on his hands and knees properly, and his arms shook with the effort. You were frozen – not because you didn’t want to sprint across the platform to him, but in that doing so would prove the point. You stood up straight, fighting every urge in you to scream, or run, or cry. To get you both through this – you could do none of those things. His head raised slowly, and he turned those blue eyes on you, now desperate. Orson’s lips parted – but whether to say he was sorry, or to beg for you to leave you’d never quite know. You gave a single shake of your head, but barely moved. Save it. Stay alive. Before you turned your eyes back to Vader. “General L/N.” “Lord Vader.” Your voice at least sounded self-assured, which you thought was better than you could possibly have expected – near enough a miracle. You used that confidence to spur yourself forward, and took a step, straightening your back further – folding your arms behind you to keep it that way. “It’s been a while.” You tried not to flick your eyes to Krennic, who was still staring at you. You weren’t sure how best to tell him to quit it – so all you could do was try and tune him out. But that was hard, because he was hurting, and the only thing you wanted to do when he was hurting was hold and protect him. That’s what you did. You’d been doing that for years – even back when he didn’t realise it. And he did the same for you, but right now you were both balancing on a knife edge and you were one tiny wrong move from toppling you both off of it. “It has,” you gave a nod “due to project intersections – my team and facility have been busy on great things for the Empire – and then of course when I was then given the opportunity to make a difference in the war with The Resolution I’ve been on the forefront of many a battle. Now that I find myself grounded…” You gave a shrug, “I am participating in many a strategic meeting.” “A lot all at once.” It was his turn to take a step, “Your rise through the ranks has not gone unnoticed. Neither has your commandeering of The Resolution and your instrumental handling of many strategic battles in this war we wouldn’t have won without you.” Despite the desire to swell with pride at these remarks coming from Darth Vader himself, you took all of that with a pinch of salt, because there was a punchline somewhere. And you didn’t think it was going to be humorous; “…But also your disregard for Officers at higher rank.  Consistently.” You would have disagreed with that. You ‘d only punched Tarkin in the face the once. “Officer Tarkin’s handling of the situation on Scarif was unprofessional in itself. We lost many lives, so much more data. A good outpost; before we think of the Star Destroyers and lives lost in the battle itself.” Okay, maybe it was the only physical punch you’d ever given anyone you disagreed with. “Perhaps building something not so problematic would lead the issue not to lie with the Governor?” If he was asking you to place the blame on Krennic, you would deflect. “Tarkin gave the order and I didn’t witness him attempt to evacuate. If you would ask me to change my log, my apologies, but I will not.” You were surprised you could just say that out loud. And thought maybe later you’d give yourself a slap on the wrist. Ballsy! “You were summoned here to explain yourself. And that you have at least done. But if you think that’s an excuse.” You blinked a few times and then allowed your eyes to return to Krennic, and whatever had just clicked in your head was also obviously on his face. Vader and Tarkin were in league here. This was more than likely a trap. And you and your lover had both just walked into it. That put you on the offensive; “I firmly believe that Scarif should not have been lost to stop Rebels in the way it all happened. The Death Star plans are worth saving – but the cost is too great in numbers for my liking and all I wanted Tarkin was to be aware of exactly what he had cost the Empire.” Then you took a breath, and added “Sir.” “Another great loss, Y/N, is yours in our ranks. And we can give you that back.” You noticed that his walk track changed, and each step was now towards Krennic, whose blue eyes flickered to obvious fear noticing this. But at least they were off you. Orson could barely move, but he still attempted to move away. “All you need to do is hand over the plans that you already have.” You answered without a moment’s hesitation or second thought; “I don’t have them.” “Come now, Y/N.” You froze for a second time, as this voice came from behind you. “We all know that isn’t true.” Tarkin was practically right behind you before you heard his footfall. “All you need to do is hand them over, and all this will go away.” You turned your head towards him, “I don’t know where they are. And I will not hand Director Krennic’s life’s work over to you. That is his to give.” Especially not Tarkin. It was hard to keep the spite out of your voice. Tarkin raised an eyebrow with a deep sigh and he crossed the platform towards Vader, hands crossed behind his back; “I rather think the Director incapable of doing anything right now…” and you didn’t miss the smug smirk across his face; “You BASTARD! You did this!” You took another few steps, quite prepared to shove him into liquid fire. But the next step Vader took was firm and too close, and you had to stop. Allowing Tarkin to turn to you; “Oh no. You did this. Y/N.” You glared at him, voice bitter; “I suppose you want an apology too?” “Wouldn’t say no.”  You scoffed, and couldn’t help yourself. No. Way. “But I know I can forget it.” He nodded to Krennic, “Can he?” “The choice is yours, General.” Vader and Tarkin stood together, and there was not a person in the Galaxy that could stand with you against them, the one man that would was bleeding on the floor and they had caused it. “Hand the files over, or your Director dies.”

You blinked hard for a moment, and thought you might just have misheard. But here in this situation, there was absolutely no way you could have. They were about to bargain with you for Krennic’s life! How the hell were you supposed to negotiate your way through this?! You had to get both of you out of here alive. You wouldn’t leave without him, and they were counting on that. “I don’t have it.” You gritted your teeth – he’d hidden it and you’d asked him to, so what the hell did they expect you to do with that-!? “You honestly expect us to believe that?” Tarkin chuckled, and you were about ready to kill him, “This is his life we’re talking about now. Surely you care about that.” You took another deep, slow breath and looked to him again. Krennic gave you the same small head shake that you’d given him - and you could have killed him too. There was no way you were letting him die. But you knew exactly what he meant. The problem was, if you still refused, and they killed him… And then killed you, what would that accomplish? You couldn’t live without him and they knew that just as much as you did. They’d likely leave you alive and broken just to spite you. There was silence for a moment, and it was just a second too long for Tarkin’s liking; “Have it your way.” Krennic went from looking at you to the floor almost immediately – reaching for his neck. For a moment everything felt very surreal, you’d heard about this and you’d heard about it from Orson himself – but actually watching him choke for breaths he couldn’t take was more sickening than anything you could have possibly seen in a warzone. And they could tell it was affecting you, by the visible pain on your face – tears were already stinging your eyes. “Stop it! You can’t just-” “Can’t we?” You looked between them again, Krennic’s forehead was to the floor now and he had seconds if that. “He didn’t DO anything!” You were desperate and this time you sounded it. “Director Krennic has done a great many things, General, he’s lucky he hasn’t met an untimely demise before this.” You tore your eyes from him again, this was unbearable – and you couldn’t stand by and watch him die. Not for anything. Not even if he never forgave you. “STOP IT!” This time you screamed it; “I’ll give you what you want just let him GO!” You knew they’d need more than just your word, and though you probably couldn’t have hated yourself any more – you pulled the disk from inside your uniform jacket. Vader released the Force Choke and even just hearing Krennic take a ragged breath and spluttering cough had relief flooding you. Tarkin stared at the disk suspiciously; “What is that? The data packs on Scarif were huge. It took an entire tower to transmit things like those plans, you can’t honestly think we’d belie-” “They’re access codes. All of them, to every file he has on the project.” They turned to each other in silent conversation before Tarkin seemed satisfied, and crossed to prise the disk from your hands. “Well. At least we know you can make one good decision Ms. L/N.” You narrowed your eyes at him not calling you by rank, but you were still aware your lover was taking breaths that sounded painful, sprawled out on the floor. “I’ll see you reinstated to The Resolution. Even without an apology. I have been thoroughly entertained.” He stepped back to Vader, satisfied. “Well, I believe we’ve got what we wanted, Lord Vader.” He turned back, with that same smug smirk. “And now we can impart the rest of the information.”

You flinched, surely they had both done enough. What else could they possibly do. “Director.” Krennic raised his head from the floor, breathing still shaking his body. He wasn’t yet ready to speak. And you didn’t think you’d ever seen Tarkin look crueller. “Orson Callan Krennic, you are hereby stripped of rank-” You couldn’t help but gape, what the FUCK!? “-and office. You will no longer work for the Advanced Weapons Division, or the Intelligence Bureau. Or hold a position within the Empire ever again. You will be blacklisted throughout the Galaxy… Good Luck finding a job, Krennic.” You could only stare in disbelief, hurting him wasn’t enough, now they had to break and humiliate him? And Orson had never been very good at hiding his emotions. But Tarkin and Vader had just turned him from Director to Civilian. And you had absolutely no leverage to waltz into someone’s office and demand it be reinstated. ‘Make yourself indispensable,’ you had said ‘and you’ll be safe.’ all it sounded like was the biggest lie. Tarkin turned back to you, smile almost cheerful, and he waved the disk. “Congratulations, General. You’ve done this yourself.” He swivelled his head back to Krennic, with a tut, “It’s not like he was much use to the Empire anyway…”

You couldn’t talk either, for different reasons. They were about to walk away with Krennic’s life’s work. And leave you with a broken man whose work you had just handed over. There wasn’t any way you were coming out of this intact. You had promised him you’d never give it up – you had broken that promise for his life. And yet Tarkin had taken it from him anyway. “Welcome back, General - you made the right choice. I look forward to seeing you in the air again.” If you thought you could even reach for your blaster right now with your emotions racing the way there were and your hands shaking, you’d have sent a bolt through his heart. By the tone in his voice he wasn’t even really addressing you, but Krennic; yes, Orson she did choose her own ambition over you. Whereas the reality couldn’t have been more different; his life over his work. And nagging in the back of your mind somewhere - and perhaps your only consolation prize, was that they still didn’t know about the fault. “I suppose you want to move now?” Tarkin addressed you again as he turned away; “With your ship reinstated I see no reason to make you stand around here and wait for any more. He’ll probably need medical attention, General. You may wish to see to that.” With that they both left. And you sprinted.

“Orson! Orson! Oh my god-!” The bleeding was a lot worse than it looked, by the way that he was huddled. But he pushed you away, devastated; “You gave it up-! You PROMISED ME!!” “It was your LIFE! Your LIFE! I couldn’t LOSE YOU! I can’t LOSE YOU!” “MY LIFE-!? THEY JUST DESTROYED MY LIFE--!” He choked again, finding the strength to push you once more “I have nothing. Leave me.” “I am NOT leaving you! Don’t you dare say that… I…” You were already both crying. “Orson, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry-! If I’d have thought for one second that they’d…” Your eyes traced his body; hurt and bleeding - all you wanted to do was protect him from everything, and you were regretful most of all for not being able to protect him before now, if you’d have got here earlier, could you have spared him this? And then you were sobbing and this time he let you pull his fragile body into yours – which only made him sob into your uniform, hands tangling in your jacket he buried his head in your chest in an attempt to hide himself from the world – and your arms could do nothing more than hold him. You weren’t even sure you’d done your job at protecting him now – you’d failed at the only job that really mattered; “Baby, I’m so sorry…” --- @menndelsohn​ @3134045126​​ @happyskywhale​ @wltz-bby​ #MendoTagSquad

[lightwoodsmagic]

I’m worried about Liam and his album and I didn’t know where to go but you always seem rational. I feel awful because there’s only a few songs I like and the album isn’t getting good reviews but Liam DESERVES good things, and then everything with ‘both ways’ happened. I’m so sad for him, but do you think he’ll be okay? I don’t want him to be cancelled, but the song was such a bad choice? His image in the eyes of the public seems ruined. Please tell me what you think :(

Hi anon, 

Thank you for thinking of me, and for thinking that I’m rational. I know this has been sitting in my inbox for the better part of a day, but in order to be rational and approach this properly, I had to take some time to let myself play out all of my emotions. 

I’m here now! And I think I’m ready. This post is long though, so I’ve popped it under the cut. 

Before I start properly, there’s a few things I want to say first. 

- I love Liam, an absolutely ridiculous amount. Liam’s music isn’t the usual genre I would listen to, but I will always support him and his music, and his fashion, and everything else he does. 

- I am incredibly proud of him for finally being able to release his album.

- As anyone who follows me knows, I strongly believe Liam is queer, and closeted, and in a relationship with Zayn. Here’s a masterpost I made about it earlier this year.

- I’m realistic. Some things below may not be what people agree with, or wanna hear, but you asked for my opinion.

Okay. Here we go. I’ve divided it into sections to address your ask properly. I’m also aware that this is pretty late in terms of fandom, and I haven’t been on Tumblr, so people have no doubt said many of the things I’m about to say. 

LP1

First thing: don’t feel bad for only liking a couple of songs on Liam’s new album. Everyone’s music taste is different and it is completely possible to love and support someone even if you don’t absolutely love their music. It does not make you a fake fan, or mean that you love Liam less, or anything like that. Please don’t worry about that. It’s okay not to love the album. Completely okay. 

Also, YES. Liam does deserve good things, always.

You’re right; it hasn’t been getting great reviews, but even though I really enjoyed the album despite my musical preferences, some people are frustrated, and not just reviewers. People are frustrated that a third of it is collabs, that half of it is songs we’ve heard before (that weren’t just released as a lead up to the album), and that Liam seemed to hardly write on it. We’ve known for a while that something’s been up with Liam’s album, especially when last year he said he had a full album ready to go, and then suddenly it was like it was scrapped, and he had to start again. 

We also know that Liam is a brilliant writer; he wrote so much for One Direction. So many people completely disregard this because Liam once said that he was more about the melodies, and Louis more the lyrics. Under no circumstances does that mean he does not, and did not, write great lyrics, or just good songs in general. That kind of thinking is also what leads to a lot of Liam’s erasure from Home, which is something I also touched on in the masterpost I linked above. It’s something that frustrates me a lot, when people forget about his writing ability. It doesn’t help though when he didn’t, or maybe wasn’t allowed to, write more on his own debut album. 

Overall, in terms of his album in general, I’m exceptionally proud that it’s been released, and sad for him that it’s not getting great reviews. Reviews don’t always matter, though! The support for the album from other sources has been really brilliant, and I’m sure he was feeling the love (and still is, despite recent stuff that I’ll touch on now).

Both Ways

No matter how you look at the situation, no matter who you are or what you think of Liam, it is baffling to me that this song went through numerous people to be released, especially knowing that a large part of Liam’s fan base consists of young, queer women from his days in the band. 

It should never have been a surprise that the reception was bad; the people who are upset about it are allowed to be upset, and their feelings are valid. In a world where bisexual and pansexual people are constantly fetishised, it’s a kick in the face for some people. I’m pan, and while personally I wasn’t overly offended by the song, I did cringe at a couple of bits, and I have no right to tell other people how they should or shouldn’t feel. 

To me, there’s a couple of options as to what happened here:

- It was genuinely just a gross misjudgement on everyone’s behalf. People make mistakes. I hate cancel culture. At the moment, if this is the case and they all genuinely didn’t think it would be this bad, I’m not sure if Liam addressing it would be a good thing, or if it’d just make things worse. If he apologises, it’s going to seem disingenuous to a large number of people, but if he doesn’t, it’s like he doesn’t care at all about the people that’ve been hurt. It’s not a good place to be in. 

- It was a purposeful song put into his album by his team to push his narrative. Liam’s in a shit spot at the moment. A very large majority of the media attention leading up to his album used negative promo, like his ‘relationship’ with M*ya and the fight at the bar during Thanksgiving. Aside from very recently, Liam’s team have been a nightmare, and it’s frustrating when people can’t see that he’s in a situation just as bad as some of the other men. Would I be surprised if this explanation is the correct one? Abso-fucking-lutely not. I’ll touch on it a bit more in the next bit though. 

No matter what, the song was not a good decision, and was not going to go down well. Alllll of this leads onto…

How it affects Liam’s image

I’m separating this into three parts to explain it the way I think I need to; the part of the fandom who believes he’s queer and closeted, the part of the fandom who don’t, and the general public.

The part of the fandom that believe Liam is queer and closeted

Liam’s image hasn’t changed here. This whole thing has made this section of the fandom angry, frustrated, and sad. At a time when everyone should be able to just relax and enjoy Liam’s new album, we’re bombarded from all over the internet with people trying to cancel him. Angry because Liam is being absolutely attacked, especially at a time when he’s just spoken about how fragile his mental health is, and because there’s quite a few hypocrites around at the moment. Frustrated because there’s nothing that can really be done at this point, and when it comes to Liam, people never seem to care as much as they should. Sad because we love him so much and he deserves such good things, and people never seem to care enough to recognise that.

It’s also frustrating that people can’t, or refuse to, realise that Liam is just as closeted, has had just as much PR bullshit including at the moment, and suffered through forced interview after forced interview, and been made to say a million things. It’s also important to note that if Harry can have a stunt song, and Louis can have a stunt song, Liam can also have a song (even if not directly stunt related) added to his album to push through his current narrative. They’re different situations, different songs, and different explanations, but they all have the same running cause. Just something to think about. 

The part of the fandom that don’t think that

Fuck me, I never realised how massive a chunk of this fandom there is that does not give a shit about Liam James Payne. Can’t relate, but okay. In terms of his image here, it kinda depends; for some people, they’re not fussed enough to pay attention, but that can mean that they’ll just believe he’s an arsehole here because they can’t be fucked to look into it. People don’t have to be invested in all five of them, of course they don’t, but it might be a big negative here. 

For other people, the ones that seem to hate him for some reason, this adds so much more fuel to the fire. There’s a lot of people currently calling him out for homophobic things he said about Harry, which I’ve spoken about before but can’t find my own damn post but the masterpost I tagged at the start of this mentions it a tiny bit. When this swirled up again recently in the last month or so, which interesting timing, the media ran a TONNE of articles about how Liam had been talking shit about Harry. Harry liked the very next tweet Liam posted, even though it had nothing to do with him or the situation, and Harry wasn’t just on a liking spree. It seemed very much like a ‘hey, don’t worry, we’re all okay, don’t believe this shit’. This section of the fandom is exceptionally unlikely to change their mind about him unfortunately. 

I spoke about this very recently, but the fact that people can’t see Liam’s situation for what it is, and can see the others, is beyond frustrating because the patterns are INCREDIBLY similar, and there’s very similar situations. 

Also, Liam and Louis’ friendship is 100% legit. They’re very close. If there’s anyone out there who loves Louis and thinks he’s closeted, but hates Liam, do you really think Louis would love Liam so much if this was really who he was? Someone who doesn’t care about the community that Louis is obviously so fiercely proud of, and someone who talks legitimate shit about Louis’ partner? Of course he wouldn’t, because Liam is also closeted and stuck in a shit situation and made to say things in interviews to stir up One Direction drama for the media. Speaking of the media though…

The general public

When I woke up this morning and Mar told me about the hashtag that was trending on Twitter, I was instantly so emotional, for a lot of reasons. As I said before, I hate cancel culture in the easy way it exists. People are allowed to make a mistake, or slip up, or make a wrong move; everyone is human. It’s how they respond to it that should change things. 

There’s a couple of problems here, though.

- Liam can’t really respond to it in the way he needs to. Like I said before, I don’t know whether it’d be better or worse for him to talk about it. The only genuine way he could is to come clean about everything, and he can’t fucking very well do that, can he? So the apology will just be a lie, and people probably won’t believe it anyway. 

- People are more willing to forgive someone if it’s one mistake, but Liam’s team have fucked with his image so much that to the general public, it’s not one mistake. We know they’re not real, but if we step back from the fandom and try to look at it through the eyes of someone who knows not very much about him and only knows what the media pushes, it’s a slightly horrifying image. 

When I speak to my friends about Liam, people often think he’s arrogant, conceited, and your standard ‘gym bro’. The GP may remember the times he was made to say homophobic things, and if they don’t remember, they’re reminded in every new article. They see him as the young guy who dated a woman in her mid 30’s and got her pregnant, and who hardly sees his ‘son’ and therefore is a deadbeat ‘dad’. They see him now as the man in his mid 20’s who’s ‘dating’ a teenager, and the articles I’ve seen today all mention her, some mentioning the debate about her age and others trying to say the song is about her even though it was being written about three years ago. They see him as a man who has fights outside bars, and are told it was because of his underage ‘girlfriend’. They see him as an artist who sings about getting wasted, sex, and being rich. 

I know I’m setting a bleak image, anon, and I’m sorry, I am. I don’t believe a single word of the above obviously, and NO ONE should, but it’s the reality of the situation for the GP, and it shouldn’t be pushed to the back as if we should only blame other sections of the fandom for his image, or that this isn’t, realistically, how it looks for Liam right now. 

We know Liam as the kind, sweet, caring, protective, talented, queer man that’s been there for us through his music and his words, who’s been there for the boys the entire time since the band started, who’s suffered through addiction and mental health problems to come out the other side stronger than ever. 

They don’t know that, anon, and I don’t know what Liam will do to come back from this massive of a social media hit. There’s numerous articles slamming him, the hashtag trended for almost a whole day in Australia at least, and for some of the GP, it’s the final thing in a long list of bullshit that Liam’s supposedly done. Each article mentions all of the above things again too, and Apple Music even mentions Ch*yl and B*ar directly by name. 

I’m hoping for his sake that in a few days, this will all blow over, and it’ll be handled the way it needs to be handled. The problem is that I don’t know what the right way to handle it is. 

I think he’ll be okay. I believe he’ll be okay, I do, but I think in terms of the GP, he has a way to go. I want the very best for Liam, always, and I will always continue to love and support him. Everyone else should too, because right now, he needs it from us more than ever.

[arthurjdrake]

A chance bonding experience over pie, tea and haunted tape recorders with @damn-fine-cup-of-tea

“February twenty-ninth, it is 9.30am. The air still reeks of fish although I could swear that it has gotten better since I first got here. I still haven’t managed to get the name for those beautiful pine trees they have here. I was told they had moose. I must see a moose before I leave this town. I’m going to the bakery. Carol, if you ever get up this way, the apple pie at the diner is to die for. I must find out if they make it themselves, or if it is the same as the one from the baker. They don’t have proper tea here, and I had to go to Bangor to get my hands on tea leaves. Remind me to tell you how much that was. The people here are quite lovely, although I will have to notify the ATF and possibly the NSA about some of the inhabitants.” The agent stood still in the office they had given him at the police station. A tape recorder in his hand, Javier glanced and nodded politely at a police officer passing by the door before he went on : “I had the strangest dream last night. One of the deceased, a woman called Catherine Brissaud visited me in my dreams and kissed me. She looked beautiful but there was something off about her voice, she spoke gibberish. Then, she opened her mouth and a man’s voice came out of it telling me that it would kill again. There was this music in the back I cannot get out of my head, Carol. This is all very upsetting. I still have no clue on who could possibly have done it, why, or how? None of the victims showed wounds, and still, their entrails are all missing. All of it. I might need to stay here a bit longer than we imagined.” Grabbing his coat from the back of his chair, the man decided to head to the bakery by foot, his thermos of tea in his hand. At last, a good proper cup of tea. Pushing the door to the bakery, he waited in line, glancing around the shop, searching for something, anything that would possibly catch his eye. That man in the corner with a cockatiel pattern on his tie surely seemed interesting.

With the recent keying of his car, Arthur had taken to walking places. Better that than risk further damages to his property from Freyja’s vague and self-serving ire. The very thought of everything that had happened online was enough to send him stir crazy if he stayed inside any longer. No, he needed a trip out to one of the few places he found some peace in this mad place. There was also the current issue of sorting out Nadia’s identity and Adam’s current curse from that blasted chalice. Jobs and side-tasks were stacking up faster than he could keep up with but in a way he was thankful for the distractions. Explaining how he ended up joining the queue tapping out a couple of quick replies to several of the emails in his inbox. With those sent he tucked his phone away and he could turn his attention to a few of the other patrons of the quiet bakery and associated coffee shop. He looked at the display case and hummed in thought unsure what to get - he never had been very good at making decisions. “Sorry,” he said to the man in front of him hoping it wasn’t a real bother “excuse me, I’m rather stuck on what to go for… Do you think the apple or the passionfruit one is better?”

“No harm done,” Javier turned around and gave the man a thorough look, his eyes travelling all across him before he gave him a pat on the arm. “I think, and this is only my opinion, that there is nothing better than a good, old fashioned, properly made, apple pie,” he released the man’s arm to point his finger at the pie behind the glass. “And this, looks exactly like a good, old fashioned, properly made, apple pie.” The crust/filling ratio appeared to be nearing perfection, as did the cooking of the apple, or the color of the dough that covered it all. And, this was really the cherry on top of it all : the pie was decorated very tastefully. Maybe this would help him forget about the town’s apparent aversion for a proper cup of tea. “You are British, aren’t you?” Javier was sure of that, but it never hurt to ask. “What do you think of the tea situation in this town?”

Arthur was quite accustomed by now to being inspected by strangers, and in a town like this his accent tended to make him stick out like a sore thumb. He didn’t mind, so he waited and smiled politely taking in the other man’s appearance in kind, at a guess he seemed of an age to himself - at least physically. The greeting was friendly in kind, which settled any initial concerns that he might have bothered this stranger with his question. It was a nice change considering it seemed a majority of those he’d met significantly younger. At least beyond Carrington but that was another dynamic entirely and gave merit to the fact that you could hardly tell people’s actual ages from initial observation. “I think you might be right,” Arthur found himself agreeing tapping his bottom lip thoughtfully “especially with this wintery weather.” The cold hardly bothered him but it hardly meant a warm treat every now and then wouldn’t go amiss. “I feel like I haven’t had a good apple pie in ages,” baking hadn’t been the highest of priorities on his list lately but it was something he was keen to get back into. His smile grew a tad wry at the stranger’s next question, “damn, what gave it away?” he asked in light jest. “Definitely not the accent, was it my fondness for weather discussions and freshly baked goods?” His grin turned to a mournful look though the humour remained in his tone, “oh gods it’s atrocious. Don’t even get me started. I turned up for my first day and asked where the kettle was - they didn’t even have one. They microwave it.” He shook his head in mild disbelief over this “have to get people from back home to send me yorkshire brew or else I’d lose my mind.” He glanced at the thermos, “I’m guessing you feel the same?”

“The weather is quite something,” Javier commented, idly tapping his finger on top of his thermos, in tune with that song he had heard in his dreams. God, that thing was stuck in his head. “Talking of which,” it may have not smelled like fish in the shop, and in fact, the whole place smelled very nice, but the agent had to ask about that damn smell. “Does it always smell like fish in this town?” It seemed odd to him that people would ever decide to settle and live in such a place. He kept a stern look on his face, although there was always a hint of playfulness in his eyes as he spoke. “Then you must have a slice of apple pie. Maybe you can sit with me. I’ll share the tea,” he offered. It would be a great opportunity to discuss with the locals, who, even if they were not connected with his case, helped him draw a better picture of the town and what could possibly be insidiously corroding, gnawing it. “I will say, that the accent sold you out, and the talk of weather and pastries confirmed my doubts,” he politely replied, glancing over the man’s shoulder to have a look at someone who had just walked in. Their socks did not match. He wondered if this had been done on purpose or not. “Funny.” He said, turning his attention back on the British man. “Of course they would. I have had people tell me that tea in bags was not so bad. It’s atrocious !” He shook his head, clearly disapproving of that kind of affirmation. “You are the third person who tells me they have to order tea from across the sea. I’m sure there’s a lot more of upset tea lovers in town.” Something had to be done about this. As it was his turn to order, the agent turned toward the saleswoman with a bright smile. “I will have a slice of pie, please,” he glanced at the man. “And the man after me, will have another one of those.”

Arthur had become relatively accustomed to the smell, but at least it had stopped raining fish. Small mercies. Yet, as the other man asked after it he shrugged. “I have no idea honestly… There was some weird meteorological event… Raining fish. Whole town was covered. But it’s definitely been getting a damn lot better since that stopped.” He didn’t mention the chest, or the fact that since he’d heard through the grapevine that it’d been opened that the weirdness had stopped. “How can I deny an offer like that?” he smiled, genuinely grateful for the offer this stranger extended out. “Then at least let me buy you some of the apple pie to say thank you for the kindness of sharing the tea,” it was the least he could do. The laugh that was drawn from him was light, “ahhh, guilty as charged.” It wasn’t entirely true, but true enough for this lifetime that he’d subscribed to the general notion. “Heathens, the lot of them. I’m telling you.” The disapproving look the stranger got was rather amusing overall. “Oh, most definitely. We should start a club.” They moved up and Arthur let the other man order for them both, taking his card out to cover the payment “I’m Arthur by the way, I didn’t catch your name mister-?”

Raining fish. It must have been a local expression, a derivative of it’s raining cats and dogs. Although, Javier could imagine that a storm could cause fish to end up in the atmosphere and rain down on a coastal town such as White Crest. There was nothing too weird here. “That’s funny,” he let a thin smile tug the corner of his lips upward. The town seemed to be rather normal, but the people here were a bit odd. The man he was talking to seemed quite normal, compared to the rest of them, although it was a bit early to be certain about that. “That is a very kind offer,” he nodded politely and moved aside to let his new tea friend pay for the pie. Javier wondered whether he should be introducing himself as an agent or as a citizen. It was unlikely that this person would have anything to do with his case, or he was truly the luckiest investigator this town had ever seen. “Javier, I’m Javier Sterling,” he had made his choice. Little did he know that he would not be able to be just a citizen for long, or that his tape recorder had developed a mind of its own and decided to record his conversation with Arthur. Sitting at a table by the windows, Javier walked back to the counter to ask for cups. If he clearly disapproved of paper cups, he did not comment on it as the saleswoman handed him those, and he walked back to the table to pour them each a cup of tea. This one had been advised by one of the people he spoke to online, and he had high hopes and expectations about it.

“You think I’m joking?” he glanced at the man, and the look on his expression earned a momentary thought of ah, of course you do. A majority of the cod and salmon had been cleared away from the streets, but Arthur still noticed the occasional one dotted around down. One had even been on the spear of a statue in down, talk about being skewered. “Least I can do,” Arthur said pleasantly as Javier stepped aside and he could pay for the two slices of pie. With the introduction Arthur offered an extremely warm hand out for a polite greeting “Arthur Drake if you’re going for full formality.” Once they were cut and served on plates with a couple of forks, Arthur picked them up and carried them over to the table. “So, what brings you to White Crest?” he queried as he slid into one of the seats at the table pulling one of the two plates over as Javier sorted out the tea “I mean, beyond the picturesque scenery and excellent apple pie? Somehow you don’t strike me as the small town kinda guy.”

Javier looked at the man with a perplexed look on his face, trying to figure out if this was some sort of elaborate joke. The puzzled look on his face did not really fade away until Arthur held out his hand and Javier shook it firmly, hoping that this conversation about the falling fish would stop now. “Drake. El dragón,” he commented, before he turned his back on the man. Sitting at the table, he took some time looking outside, although there was nothing special that caught his eye this time. Getting his coat off of his shoulders, the agent unbuttoned his suit’s jacket to get more comfortable. Besides, nothing looked worse than a man sitting with a closed jacket. “What brings you to White Crest?” The question was repeated, with echo, the chatter of the bakery amplified. Javier had just opened his mouth to reply, but the sound did not come from his mouth, but rather from his coat. The agent frowned, glancing at the piece of clothing. Could he have both pushed the record and play buttons by accident? There was a sound of rewinding tape for a couple seconds before the tape recorder started saying : “ get out of my head, Carol. This is all very upsetting. I still have no clue on who could possibly have done it, why, or how? None of the victims showed wounds, and still, their entrails are all missing. All of it.” When Javier got his hands on the tape recorder, he realized that none of the buttons were pushed, and still the tape played. Great, the damn thing was broken. “Excuse me,” he said, ejecting the tape and putting it away in a case. “I’m here with the FBI,” he sighed.

Ah well, he would learn soon enough. Arthur was hardly here to blow the man’s mind, so left him to his ignorance for the time being. “Indeed,” the translation that Javier picked up on was just part of the irony of each name he picked. Though most tended to overlook the fact. Pulling the cup towards him he first took a sip and hummed quietly in appreciation. Just the right strength. He waited on Javier’s response to his question, but what happened next had Arthur furrowing his brows in confusion. Victims, wounds, entrails missing? He looked to the coat in question suspiciously and then at Javier frantically fiddling with it once he’d pulled out the apparent recorder. “Uh…” he blinked a little caught off guard while Javier dealt with his screwy technology “sure…” Though he couldn’t help but frown a little with the clarification that Javier was with the FBI, “I see…” he caught himself and sat up a little straighter already having a suspicion this man was here for more than just the apple pie “well, seems like something important brought you to town.” He tilted his head in mild curiosity, “a case?”

Javier pursed his lips. Putting the tape recorder next to his cup of tea, he grabbed the latter and took a sip of it before he answered Arthur's question. Judging by the look on the man’s face, it was necessary for Javier to explain himself. He idly snapped his fingers, staring at them as he focused on what he would tell him. “A case.” He repeated, grabbing his fork to take a bite of the apple pie. His eyes shut closed as a pleased expression erased any trace of worry the tape recorder had given him. Groaning happily, the agent snapped out of it after a few long seconds. Right, the case. “We have five people with their insides missing,” he added, having swallowed his bite. “That apple pie is, excuse me, fucking amazing,” he stared at his place with the most delighted look on his face. “What about you? Where do you work?”

Arthur couldn’t entirely help how his eyes flickered to the tape recorder, a paranoid part of his mind wondering whether their conversation had been recorded. Were there others in town like him? Did that mean that other people might’ve been recording and documenting things? It was a slight worry inducing thought and he couldn’t help the slight tap of his foot. He’d forgotten about the apple pie in his minor moment of paranoia, but as Javier began to explain why he was here he felt some of the knotted tension ease. Well, at least they weren’t here for other reasons… At least not yet. “Sounds rather suspicious…” he remarked as he thought on the roster of things that might be capable of such violence or potential feeding habits, though admittedly he didn’t know them off by rote “but… the recording said there were um-- no wounds did it say?” It was only at Javier’s remark that Arthur remembered that he too had some, picking up his fork he cut through the pie and had a bite pleasantly surprised at the explosion of cinnamon and sugary apple that hit his palate. “Damn… You’re right.” He took another bite, but at Javier’s question Arthur swallowed and took a sip of tea to clear his mouth. “Ah, just up at the college... I lecture in the history and mythology department.”

Javier pointed at his face, his round cheeks suggesting that he was in the middle of eating another bit of that superb pie. Chewing slowly, he took his time to finish his bite as it took more than a discussion about missing guts for the agent to lose his appetite. “No wounds, nothing in common between the victims, no traces of effraction. It’s as if a ghost murdered them all,” picking up the paper napkin to wipe at the corner of his mouth, he glanced again at the tape recorder. He could have sworn that he had seen it move. He did not recall pushing any of the buttons, and yet the pause button was pressed in. And now the stop button, without him touching it. “Well that is odd,” he took the machine in his hand, inspecting it closely. “I’ll have to order a new one,” he thought aloud, putting it away in his coat. "That sounds fantastic,” he gave the man a thumb up, picking up his cup to take a sip of tea. “I find both of those subjects to be absolutely fascinating,” he explained. Javier was delighted that he had had the chance to run into a teacher as he believed that this was one of the most generous professions one could have.

He didn’t particularly wish to rush the pie as it was exceptionally good, so he took to sipping on his tea mulling over the tidbits of the case this agent was working on. This was hardly the first time he’d discussed weird and gruesome things over food so he wasn’t particularly put off by it. “Strange, is there any sort of similarity between the victims? Gender, ethnicity, age?” Most killers had some sort of profile that they worked to, Arthur might not have been in the service in this lifetime but he knew the protocol. Had stuck to it himself in recent lifetimes. As Javier picked up the tape recorder that had seemingly pressed its own buttons, Arthur narrowed his eyes a little suspicious of the little device that seemed to have developed a mind of its own. “Can I have a look at that?” Javier had taken the tape out so Arthur hardly saw any harm in asking to have a closer look. The thumbs up earned a humbled smile, “ah, they certainly are that. Though the FBI seems like a fascinating job. Serving your country and keeping people safe, I’m sure there’s nothing else quite like it.”

Javier rubbed at his chin for a moment as he thought about the different victims. They had nothing, truly nothing in common, aside from being found dead, with nothing left inside their abdomen. Thinking about this reminded him of his dream and that woman he saw. Catherine Brissaud. Shaking her out of his mind, he sipped silently on his tea. “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Ethnicity, age, gender, hair color, fragrance, occupation, hobbies. I have been looking at their whole lives and nothing is similar so far,” he explained. He had not expected that Arthur would find his tape recorder to be so interesting, and now that there was no tape in it, what wrong could it do. He handed over the device, not sure what the man could probably do to fix it, although maybe Arthur had a few other skills up his sleeve. “It is an amazing job. I do not think I could really make a change any other way.” Javier had considered working as a police detective a long long time ago, but travelling and working on cases like this one was a lot more gratifying to him.

“Well… That sounds both horrifying and utterly perplexing,” Arthur couldn’t help but be equally fascinated and terrified by the thought of something like that. “And you’re certain it’s the same…” he caught himself from saying thing “person… doing this? What about location? No apparent circle theory?” Arthur knew a little about psychological models of criminal behaviour, having studied history of different eras it was pertinent to have some understanding of how criminals behaved and acted in their attempts to avoid capture. As Javier retrieved the tape recorder, Arthur slid it over and turned it over thoughtfully inspecting the buttons. Pressing one to let it play though no sound came out (as he expected) considering there was no tape. He tested each button individually, finding nothing out of the ordinary about it. Interesting. “I suppose most people think of the police or the army when they think about serving their country, but the FBI is pretty darn impressive.” As he spoke, Arthur ensured all buttons weren’t pressed or locked and set it back down on the table in front of him mostly to keep an eye on it. “How’d you come into that field? Not something you just walk into surely? If you don’t mind me asking that is.”

“The way of killing is too specific to be done by several people, unless we’re looking at a cult, of course.” Javier rubbed his fingers against his jawline for a moment. “Considering the murders have been taking place in the same town, there is not a lot we can do to establish a possible location for the culprit’s home.” Obviously whoever was doing this must have been from White Crest, but drawing a profile for them was nearly impossible. “I expect that they’ll make a mistake. They always do,” serial killers were not very original, but how long it took them to start being reckless, to start playing with the press, or law enforcement, was never a set number of days. If only it had been so simple. Javier watched Arthur inspect his tape recorder. He remained quiet, although he still wondered what it was the man was trying to achieve, pushing buttons and staring at them. There was no judgement in his eyes, and he looked at him with marvel in his eyes. “People tend to forget that we also serve our country and not just the Bureau. We have to thank television for this,” looking out the window, his eyebrows raised as he saw a familiar silhouette standing on the other side of the road. Once again, they disappeared the moment something blocked his view. “I’ve always wanted to work in law enforcement. Back when I was a child, we used to hear about the FBI a lot on television. I started sending letters to the FBI director that summer.”

“Not something you could rule out I suppose,” Arthur remarked as he mulled over the few bits and pieces that Javier had provided regarding his reasoning for being here. “I mean if it’s in the same town then surely the culprit has to be living within the vicinity of the town? So, it narrows it down at least in that regard…” He looked out the window towards the street, watching as a couple of people walked by unassuming. How many people could this case put at risk? Too many. Perhaps it was a good idea to offer assistance and simply observe this agent’s progress. Putting such a creature away would likely benefit everyone, but there was a small concern in the back of his mind that innocents could equally incriminate themselves considering the… special population variation that White Crest possessed. “Perhaps, but how long do you wait until that happens?” Arthur completed his inspection and frowned, turning his attention to Javier with his remark. “Yes, television provides a great many unhelpful stereotypes. Perhaps success will make some think differently at least?” He could understand the draw of law enforcement. It was a noble profession. “That’s quite a direct approach, I guess you made quite an impression if that’s how you got into the business,” Arthur grinned wryly at the thought of a young boy writing to the FBI asking to join them one day. It was rather endearing in a sense. “And you’ve been with them ever since? That’s rather impressive.”

“It has not been ruled out.” Javier had, over the years, specialized in working on crime related to those sort of organizations. All these grotesque deaths, however… Those didn’t happen all too often. Usually with them, it was rituals that ended up in an accident, or, a human sacrifice. This seemed different. There seemed to be nothing that indicated a freak accident or a sacrifice. There were no signs, sigils, drawings, books. He took out his notebook and wrote himself a memo to have a look at all the books in the victims’ homes. A chore, but one that he would do anyway. “Maybe they’ve already done it,” he looked up from his notebook as he closed it, putting it away. He probably had missed something, a detail, when he went to those crime scenes. He would have to be more thorough. “Well, I only joined when I finished training at the academy,” he scoffed. The thought of 11 years old him running around with a cardboard badge after his older brother came back to his mind and he laughed some more, shaking his head. Boy, did he bore his brother to death with his stories back then.

“How long has all this been going on for?” he asked curiously “no symmetry with calendar dates or lunar cycles?” There was always some sort of pattern that came with things like this, or at least there tended to be. It was simply a matter of finding it that was the issue. Arthur lightly drummed his fingers on the table in thought. “Are all the crime scenes in town? Perhaps there is something that might have been overlooked?” While he had no particular investment in assisting, a part of him couldn’t help but be curious as to what might be responsible for these murders. “Perhaps you need another set of eyes aiding you with the case?” In a past life this had been the exact same sort of work he’d been employed to do. To locate and track moving targets and attempt to pinpoint their location, admittedly on a larger scale than a single murderer or cult potentially responsible for such things. “Was there any sign of forced entry at the properties?” Of course, he knew Javier had no particular reason to divulge any information regarding the case at all but it never hurt to ask. Did it?

“There is some sort of regularity to this,” it had nothing to do with the moon, or with a day of the month in particular, but there was indeed a pattern. More or less every three weeks, a person died. This comforted him in his idea that he was dealing with a cult. They killed when they needed to, no more, no less, taking only what was necessary. The agent finished his slice of pie and wiped his mouth with a lot of attention before he replied. “There is no doubt that we missed something. Either that, or we are dealing with a ghost,” he shook his head and sighed. Rubbing at his face, Javier looked at Arthur through his fingers for a moment, entirely still and silent. “We’ll see. We don’t usually ask our consultants to inspect crime scenes. But if you find something interesting, I might have to make you tag along,” his hands dropped down onto his lap. He shook his head at Arthur’s next question, a thin smile appearing on his face. He could tell that the man was interested, but Javier wondered if his interest would falter as he found out that there was, so far, no way to identify the killer, or even start drawing a loose portrait of them.

“Oh? And what’s that?” considering they were already discussing this at length he didn’t see any harm in asking. It was only in the interim of discussion that Arthur chose to look down at the tape recorder and frowned a little at how a couple of the buttons he’d unpressed earlier were now pressed and the little cogs turning inside of the machine. Interesting. “You know, in this town I wouldn’t say that too loudly… Some people might really believe you if you said you were dealing with a ghost… Lots of folks believe in that around here, maybe it’s why your killer is getting away with things so freely hm?” he smiled a touch wryly at the agent, more in good humour the man sat opposite him was painfully human in his limited mindset. It was unfortunate really, he wouldn’t catch anything with that sort of mindframe. Arthur reached for a napkin which he unfolded and set on the table on top of which the recorder was placed. Next, he took one of the salt shakers and carefully unscrewed the lid and made a ring of salt around the device. A rite was spoken under his breath, and a grey cloud of something intangible shot out of the little speaker of the device. With this done, he picked up the recorder and inspected it once more. “I know you don’t,” Arthur said in simple understanding, he knew the protocols perhaps not the modern day ones but things hadn’t changed all that much in a century. The objective was still the same, gather the relevant evidence and hunt down the killer in question. “But, and correct me if I’m overstating - but I’m not sure the typical means of case operation will solve this mystery and I think you might’ve already begun to realise that… Plus, if I find something - it gives you a lead. If not…” he tilted his shoulder a little “no harm done. So, what do you say detective?” The question was posed with the offering of his tape recorder back - likely in fully functioning condition now if what Arthur suspected had been inhabiting it was right.

“I think it will happen again. In a week or so,” Javier replied, picking up his cup of tea and frowning at it. Lukewarm. Wrinkling his nose, he looked away from Arthur as he emptied a salt shaker on the table, too busy pouring himself a new cup of tea. If could see what he was doing from the corner of his eyes, it was not until he had put his thermos away that Javier looked at the state of the table then up at Arthur’s face. If he remained completely silent, you could tell from the look on his face that he disapproved of this. Picking up the napkin carefully, he wrinkled it in his hand so as not to make a mess, and put it in his plate, making sure that not one bit of salt would fall to the floor or on the table. “There was no need to pour out the salt shaker. I better not start mentioning folklore monsters that require being stabbed to you,” not that they had cutlery that could cause a problem, but Javier had already been stabbed with a fork in the past, and knew that this was far from pleasant. “So, people think ghosts are real then. What else?” Vampires, fairies, Big Foot, el Cuco? Having spent quite some time near New Orleans, Javier was used to people believing in weird stories, or telling them to their children to traumatize them (which was a custom Javier did not understand). Having taken care of this salty mess, the agent took his tea cup and listened to the professor’s explanation. It was not an unexpected offer, and on other occasions, he had been given the same one by other men and women before. All he needed to know was whether or not Arthur would pose a problem in the future. He did not seem like someone who would get in his way, or do dangerous things for the sake of helping him. First taking the recorder back from Arthur’s hand, he nodded quietly before explicitly replying : “Alright. I suppose we have an agreement here.”

His point made and task completed, Arthur looked slightly amused at the disapproving look Javier fixed him with. “Just trying to make a point at the strange thing people will do if you mention stuff like that around here.” The act was both meticulous in its layout and answered certainly enough what he’d suspected about Javier having no clue about the truth of this town. “Actually, most folklore indicates that beheading is usually the best course of action against most of those tall-tale beasties.” But he tipped a shoulder as Javier mentioned about ghosts, “I’ve actually found the people here believe in a lot more than just ghosts…. You’ll see soon enough.” He clasped his hands in front of him on the table waiting quite patiently, Javier didn’t have to take him up on the offer but it was there regardless and his interest was quite plain to see. “Very well,” he took out his wallet and fished out a simple black card embossed with his details in calligraphic silver script which he slid across the table with his index and middle finger. “Contact me a time that suits, I’ll be happy to come and offer any assistance I can that might be of any pertinent use.” He stacked the plates and cutlery, picking up the spare cup. “Thank you again - for the tea and the company. I look forward to hearing from you,” with a polite dip of his head Arthur delivered the plates to the counter to save the waitress from collecting them, collected his bag and made for the door.

[thecoleopterawithana]

Hello! I really adore your blog and all the work you put into it! It's well appriciated. Anyways, a real question - how do you feel about Paul and Jane's relationship? Because it confuses me on so many levels. I find it very hard to believe she didn't know about his many affairs while they were together, yet the public reason for their break up is his adultery with Francie who denied that (I mean who even reported that?). 1/3

The other thing that confuses me is the fact that he was writing basically break up songs (but I didn’t register a lot of love there tbh) back in 66 and they somehow managed to last until 68, even though they totally didn’t give the impression of a good match (her ambition and his desire for housewife/bachelor life) nor did they seem as if they loved each other very much (at least publically).

The last part of the question, are you aware of a love song he wrote for her? I know some people think Here There and Everywhere but her brother apparently disagrees. Anyways, these are just my feelings and idk if I am not under a wrong impression here or something. I also don’t want it to sound like I am theoretizing here about it being a cover up for mclennon - because I am not! I think of it more as a publicity stunt for publicity…

…(even though I think it evolved into that over the course of time and it began more like Paul showing off with this pretty actress he managed to woo). What do you think? Thank you for your answer and sorry for the lenght, haha! R. 😎

Hey there! Thank you so much for the ask and a million apologies for taking so long to answer! It’s just that I had no opinion to speak of, at the time. 

I was just beginning to attempt getting a grasp on Paul– and to better comprehend my main interest of Lennon/McCartney– and hadn’t branched into the other people in his life yet. But to reach a true understanding, it is crucial to look at the full picture; and Jane was very much part of that picture, during a long and formative time!

Now, I must warn you that I’m nowhere near a Jane Asher connoisseur! This post comes with the disclaimer that I don’t feel adequately informed to answer it. But you asked, and it has been sitting in my inbox long enough, so… take my personal opinions for what they (always) are: honest (but probably flawed) attempts at understanding the emotional workings of human beings, based on the information available to me at the time. 

But because I feel like there is more information out there that I just didn’t find in the targeted research for this post, I urge more knowledgeable fans to give their contributions and/or correct me if I make some factual mistake. 

So, disclaimer given, here’s the actual answer:

I understand and empathize with your confusion regarding their relationship. I think it’s just a feeling that arises from the lack of information. After all, theirs was a relationship under intense public scrutiny from the very beginning, but whose actual inner workings were kept – through the effort of both parties – determinately private and personal. That’s always how Paul prefered it. And, effectively demonstrated by her resolute silence since, so has Jane. 

The main feeling I get from Paul and Jane is that they were both incredibly similar people, who also had somewhat separate interests. And this seems to have been both what attracted them to one another, and what eventually made them grow apart. 

Both of them were very socially adept; “good mixers”. Brian Sommerville (the Beatles’ publicity manager from 1963-1964) describes Jane as “a very sweet, extroverted girl […] bright, very conversational and full of fun”. This kind of sounds like Paul at his most gregarious. 

They were incredibly intelligent. And if Jane was cultured and knowledgeable, Paul was intensely curious, and soon became cultured and knowledgeable himself. And Paul himself openly admits that he was always attracted to “intelligent and talented people”. 

And we must acknowledge that the Asher’s lifestyle as a whole was something that captivated Paul (enough to have him literally move in with them as soon as he could). It had been instilled into him from early on, after all, this great appreciation for education and the drive to do better and rise out of his circumstances. 

[My parents] aspired to a better life. That idea that we had to get out of here, we had to do better than this. This was okay for everyone else in the street but we could do better than this. She was always moving to what she saw as a better place to bring her kids up.

[…]

My parents aspired for us, very much indeed. That is one of the great things you can find in ordinary people. My mum wanted me to be a doctor. ‘My son the doctor’ - and her being a nurse, too. No problem there. And my dad, who left school at fourteen, would have loved me to be a great scientist, a great university graduate. I always feel grateful for that. I mean, God, I certainly fulfilled their aspirations, talk about overachieving! That was all bred into me, that.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

People call Paul a “social climber” to demean him; and because the term is used to attack him, others defend him by saying his relationship with Jane had nothing to do with social climbing. But I don’t think this should be derogatory in the first place! 

Paul was ambitious; he did want to gain a higher social status. Not because he felt that made him inherently better than others; he’d just been raised to feel a sense of responsibility for being the best that he could be, and not live in poverty anymore! And what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know? 

All the Beatles wanted success, fame and status, so all of them were social climbers, in a sense. 

So what if one of the things that attracted Paul to Jane was that she was educated and cultured? It seems like a perfectly valid reason to be genuinely into someone to me.

Of course, both of them were beautiful. As Tony Barrow (the Beatles’ press officer) put it: “There was something about seeing them together that was magical. With those two gorgeous faces and all that incredible charisma, they looked like a couple of Greek gods.”  So the physical attraction was also obviously there.

And I don’t doubt that Paul was proud to have such a beautiful, talented and interesting person as a girlfriend, and might have felt like showing her off to friends. But I don’t think that lessens how enamoured they were with one another. If the whole relationship was being performed for outwards appreciation, I feel like there’d be a lot more performing going on. Instead, they never revealed more than they needed to, nor did they stop living to hide from the public eye. 

If there publicity strategies to it, they never came from Brian Epstein himself, who actually thought that the Beatles having girlfriends was a marketing mistake:

There was a considerable difference of opinion over the Jane Asher situation. Brian made a terrible fuss about it, saying that it would offend the fans. But, in effect, Paul just told him to mind his own business. Brian was probably just being over-cautious, and Paul more far-sighted, knowing that that sort of thing didn’t matter. But at the time it was a textbook rule of publicity that the artist must appear single and available.

— Brian Sommerville, in Chris Salewicz’s McCartney (1986).   

So the relationship wasn’t arranged as a publicity stunt. I feel like everything points to them just genuinely liking each other. 

(And now just an honest question to those of you who’ve been longer in the fandom: is George’s relationship with Pattie Boyd also suspected to be a publicity stunt? Because I don’t know if this has just escaped my notice, or if this claim is something that afflicts only Paul and Jane specifically. And if so, why do you think that is?)

But going back to their similarities, both Jane and Paul were incredibly independent, self-assured and work-oriented. And I think it was the clash of their strong personalities that actually caused the bumps in the relationship. 

Paul likes to be in control of himself and to some extent the environment around him. And he’d grown up in a society where it was acceptable for that to extend to his girlfriends. 

John and I lusted after Brigitte Bardot in our teen yearsand tried to make our girlfriends look like her. […] I had a girlfriend called Dot, Dorothy Rohne, who was my steady girlfriend forquite a long time in Liverpool. She and John’s girlfriend, later wife, CynthiaPowell, came over to Hamburg and I remember buying her a leather skirt andencouraging her to grow her hair long so she’d look like Brigitte.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997). 

Jane, of course, wasn’t willing to be moulded so easily.

That’s typical Paul [wanting me to stay inside the George V Hotel with the band instead of going out by myself to see Paris]. It’s just so silly of me to stay at the hotel. It’s just that he’s so insecure. For instance, he keeps saying he’s not interested in the future, but he must be because he says it so often. The trouble is, he wants the fans’ adulation and mine too. He’s so selfish, it’s his biggest fault. He can’t see that my feelings for him are real and that the fans’ are fantasy. Of course, it’s the trouble with all boys.

—Jane Asher, c/o Michael Braun, Love Me Do!: The Beatles’ Progress. (1964)

This little passage shows us Jane’s insights into the “darker” sides of Paul’s character that other’s wouldn’t often see. His insecurities: fear that Jane would betray him, anxieties about the future and his need to be liked. And this level of understanding shows either an incredible perceptiveness and emotional intelligence on Jane’s part, or it is another sign of how close they were and how well they knew each other. 

That Paul was understood like that by another person is extremely important! As he was reported saying after their breakup in 1968: 

Jane wasn’t just my woman, she was my closest friend. I’ve told her everything inside me. She knows what makes me tick down to things that happened as a kid. I went right through all the stuff about my mother dying and how I dealt with that. With Jane, I could just relax completely and be myself and that seemed to be what she wanted. With the other women, I’m a fucking millionaire rock star who just happens to be about as shallow as a puddle.

—in Alistair Taylor’s With the Beatles (2003).

Or just before that, as observed during the extensive interviews for the Beatles’ authorized biography, in 1967:

[Paul’s] life is much quieter and more ordered now. Paul is very communicative about himself, unlike the others. He talks everything over with Jane. She knows what he’s thinking.

— in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

And I can’t stress enough how significant it is that Paul was open in such a way! It just shows how much he respected and trusted Jane. 

And I think she also trusted him. With this I don’t mean to say that she trusted him not to sleep around; I don’t believe for a minute she didn’t know about it. And because she doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who would endure it if she was actually betrayed and hurt by this, my personal opinion is that this was a given; something known and accepted between them. And probably not just one-way either. They spent long periods apart, after all, and I think both Paul and Jane had agreed between themselves that it was okay to have affairs. I don’t know exactly the specifics of it, or if this was revoked when they got engaged. 

But I don’t think that was the (main) reason the engagement was called off either.

It is clear they enjoyed the other’s company, from the amount of time they spent on outings and holidays alone together. But both also seem rather uncompromising in respects to their personal careers, and that probably lead to clashes. During 1965 they spend a lot of time apart when Jane pursues her acting career in Bristol Old Vic company.

My whole existence for so long centred around a bachelor life. I didn’t treat women as most people do. I’ve always had a lot around, even when I’ve had a steady girl. My life generally has always been very lax, and not normal.

I knew it was selfish. It caused a few rows. Jane left me once and went off to Bristol to act. I said OK then, leave, I’ll find someone else. It was shattering to be without her.

— Paul McCartney, in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

Paul’s frustrations were exercised through ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘I’m Looking Through You’:

I wrote quite a lot of stuff up in that room actually [in Jane Asher’s family home]. I’m Looking Through You I seem to remember after an argument with Jane. There were a few of those moments. […]

As is one’s wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or not see eye to eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing. This one I remember particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment. She went down to the Bristol Old Vic quite a lot around this time. Suffice to say that this one was probably related to that romantic episode and I was seeing through her façade. And realising that it wasn’t quite all that it seemed. I would write it out in a song and then I’ve got rid of the emotion. I don’t hold grudges so that gets rid of that little bit of emotional baggage. I remember specifically this one being about that, getting rid of some emotional baggage. ‘I’m looking through you, and you’re not there!’

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

You’re thinking of me the same old wayYou were above me, but not todayThe only difference is you’re down thereI’m looking through you and you’re nowhere

Why, tell me why, did you not treat me right? Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight

I’m looking through you, where did you go I thought I knew you, what did I know You don’t look different, but you have changedI’m looking through you, you’re not the same

Paul was especially shaken by this episode when it became apparent that she might actually leave him for her other boyfriend:

I remember more one time when she was working at the Bristol Old Vic and she’d got a boyfriend in Bristol and was going to leave me for him. That was wildly traumatic, that was ‘Uhhhh!’ Total rejection!

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

So to lead a better life, Paul needs his love to be here, but Jane was pursuing her own dreams:

Jane loved acting and Jane loved Paul, but she wasn’t about to give one up for the other. […] Of all the plum roles that had come her way, the Subservient Beatles Woman was the only one Jane Asher refused to play. […] She had too much going for her to take a backseat to anyone, much less her mate. From the beginning, Paul had a hard time keeping up with her. Jane’s diary, which she lived by, was a clutter of fascinating appointments and social commitments. “I was amazed by the diary,” Paul admitted. “I’ve never known people who stuffed so much into a day.” There were auditions, meetings with television and movie producers, vocal lessons, acting classes, fittings, gallery debuts, screenings, recitals, opening nights. […] “Paul was clearly in awe of her,” says Peter Brown. 

— in Bob Spitz’s The Beatles: The Biography (2005).

And though they both loved culture and the swinging London scene, Jane wasn’t into all the drugs or the rock-n’-roll world. So when they moved together to Cavendish in March 1966, their slightly different social circles often didn’t mix well.

At Wimpole Street, he and Jane had kept their social lives mainly separate. At Cavendish, she naturally wanted to entertain her theatre friends, and the mix of luvvies and rockers could sometimes be awkward. One evening when she had some fellow actors to dinner, Paul arrived home with John, who–whether the result of drink or pot or just plain Lennonness–was at his most maliciously provocative. When one of the actresses at the table nervously requested an ashtray, he knelt beside her and facetiously offered one of his nostrils for the purpose. Jane, with her usual sangfroid, simply extended a foot and pushed him over.

— in Phillip Norman’s Paul McCartney: The Biography (2016).

On this same month, during a skiing holiday in Switzerland, Paul writes ‘For No One’.

It was very nice and I remember writing 'For No One’ there.I suspect it was about another argument. I don’t have easy relationships withwomen, I never have. I talk too much truth.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

It’s interesting to me that Paul’s problem in his relationship with women is “talking too much truth”. But by the lyrics in the song, we see that once again Paul is struggling with Jane’s self-reliance and her perceived lack-of-interest for him (which I also find endlessly ironic):

She wakes up, she makes upShe takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurryShe no longer needs you

You want her, you need herAnd yet you don’t believe her when she says her love is deadYou think she needs you

You stay home, she goes outShe says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s goneShe doesn’t need him

Your day breaks, your mind achesThere will be times when all the things she said will fill your headYou won’t forget her

And in her eyes you see nothingNo sign of love behind the tearsCried for no oneA love that should have lasted years!

The next big separation comes in 1967, when Jane goes on a tour of the US for the first five months of the year. This was, of course, a time of tectonic changes within the Beatles and in Paul’s life. 

When I came back after five months, Paul had changed so much. He was on LSD which I hadn’t shared. I was jealous of the spiritual experiences he’d had with John.

—Jane Asher, in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

It must have been extremely disorientating to come back to the tripping, summer-of-love, looking-for-the-Meaning Paul. But to their credit, they did try to get to know one another again; reconnect:

On Jane’s return from America, she and Paul made a last-ditch stand to consolidate their relationship. Jane, unusually, even accompanied Paul to a recording session on 20 July 1967 […] Two days after the session, Jane accompanied Paul to Greece with the other Beatles. In August Jane was with him on the trip to Bangor to be initiated by the Maharishi, and during the difficult days following Brian’s death she was clearly a great source of strength and comfort to him; someone familiar and safe he could trust and confide in; someone with all the attributes of a wife. They spent the first three weeks of December alone together in Paul’s remote Scottish farm­house and four days later, on Christmas Day, 1967, they announced to Paul’s family - perhaps slightly to their own surprise - their engagement.

— in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

Jane and Paul make a very loving and lovely couple. Everyone agrees on this. […] Paul and Jane have more time together, on their own, than probably the other Beatle couples. They do get away together, to places like their Scottish home, thanks to Jane. They were the first to want to move to the country for good, to a quieter smaller house, which John and George now also want to do.

—in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

When they got engaged, on Christmas Day 1967, all these problems were in the past. Maharishi, for a long time, was the only little point of difference, although it was all amicable. Jane didn’t fall for him when the others did, although she understood the attraction. She would obviously have preferred to try to reach a spiritual state on their own. Paul wasn’t as committed as George and John when he went with Jane to India in 1968, but he felt there was something there that would help him, that might answer his questions. So Jane agreed to go with him. 

— in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

Suffice it to say, Paul didn’t get his answers. In fact, the reality he knew was about to crumble.

The summer of 1968 was a horrible storm of drugs, anxiety and heartbreak, where he had to take care of this budding enterprise while managing a band and losing both his partners. And I think Alistair Taylor’s descriptions of a completely wrecked Paul reflect all of that. 

It’s curious then how Paul recalls his reaction to the calling off of the engagement later:

I don’t remember [his and Jane’s eventual] breakup as being traumatic, really. I remember more one time when she was working at the Bristol Old Vic and she’d got a boyfriend in Bristol and was going to leave me for him. That was wildly traumatic, that was ‘Uhhhh!’ Total rejection! We got back together again but I had already gone through that when we eventually split up. It seemed it had to happen. It felt right.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

They were eventually both at peace with the decision. Paul has expressed that he had an intuitive unconscious reticence over actually marrying Jane. And Jane herself had felt that they’d grown too much and apart as people. She surmises: 

“And I had four [wonderful years].

“No, it wasn’t love at first sight on my side. It was several months before I felt at all certain. And of course, I was young. Only seventeen. Inevitably, one changes. After all, Paul himself was only twenty when we met.

“I knew in my bones that the break must inevitably come a long time before it actually happened. Although we had this emotional thing for each other, we found it difficult to be really happy together.”

I remembered, then, the character in another play who had cried: “I am not offering you happiness, but love.” And I remembered, too, how that great J. L. Garvin had once told me when I was Jane’s age: “Everything in life makes either for happiness or experience.”

“And sometimes the experience is more important,” I suggested now.

She nodded as she got up to go.

“I long to improve as an actress and I hope what’s happened to me will make me understand more fully the characters I am asked to play. Anyway, I promise you, I wouldn’t not have had it happen. I mean, I am very, very grateful for those four years. And I am not going to look back in bitterness or anger, but only forward.

“People are such bores who make a drama out of their lost loves. In every case someone has to fall out of love first.”

—Jane Asher, interview w/ Godfrey Winn for The Australian Women’s Weekly: Girl with a broken love affair. (April 23rd, 1969)

So here’s my overview of Paul and Jane. 

I feel like their relationship was very genuine and organic, so much so that they eventually grew in different directions. But they were nevertheless very important and formative figures in each other’s lives. 

And it was personally very interesting for me to see this side of Paul too, the one whose needs are left unmet by a driven, work-oriented, independent partner, and how he reacted to that. 

Jane herself is an awesome woman in her own right, and I loved this chance to get to know her a little better.

As for love songs written from Paul to Jane, I would ask for the help of more well-informed fans! I’m sure many of the feelings expressed in his love songs were also inspired in part by his experiences with Jane. Is there one particular song out there which has been stated to be about her?

[gremlinkween]

Bad Moon Rising

Part 2: Mermen, Vampires, and Werewovles, Oh My! 

Summary: The reader finds and rescues a hurt merman who tells her that his name is Jim. She helps him without a second thought, but his presence might attract the attention of other supernatural creatures she never knew existed. This will eventually be a foursome (Jim Mason x Michael Langdon x Duncan Shepard x Reader) mythology/supernatural au.

A/N: I'm not dead! Instead of just saying that I was gonna do something, I figured my welcome back post would be the next revised chapter of BMR as an apology. I had some repressed memories come up and they were repressed for a reason so that rocked my boat real hard, but hi everyone! I'll get to the asks sitting in the inbox hopefully tonight, but it might have to be tomorrow. So for the new readers, the last one of the foursome is introduced, but we’ll get to actually see more of Michael and Duncan in the next part. There is an oc in here, Rory, that we’ll see more later. I’ve had him for awhile and he’s actually one of my fave characters ever. You can totally imagine Cillian Murphy for him. Again, if you want to be on the tag list, just hit me up and let me know what you think!

Warnings: No smut yet, sorry. There is blood, injury, mentions of mental illness, depression, crying, concern about having a total break from reality.

Word Count: 2.3k

Tagging List: @langdonsinferno, and @moonagecordelia and remember, my tag list is all sorts of messed up so please lmk if you want to be on it! either for this story or all my work! 

Previous Parts: Part 1

“I thought that vampires fed off of humans? Why did he go for you instead of me?”

“Well, yeah, vampires feed off of humans, but that’s not their only food source. Faerie blood is actually more nutritious and flavorful for vampires, just humans are more readily available and easier to hunt. He probably smelt my blood and sought me out.”

“… Wow, I mean makes sense, I guess?” It really didn’t, nothing made sense to her, but also Jim could tell her that the sky was actually purple and the ocean was orange, and she’d believe him at this point.

“You should probably take care of him.”

“Yeah, probably. Do I need something stronger than rope.”

He scoffed, “Yes, probably something more like a stake through the heart.”

She looked to the darkly angelic figure passed out on the floor. He looked helpless now, and she could see that the wounds that were on the cat adorned and tarnished his skin. He was hurt, and probably just looking for a way to heal himself. She felt bad, but on the other hand, Jim was in danger. So was she. This was fucked up. “No.”

Jim gave her a look like she might be insane.

“I said no. He’s just trying to survive like you. I’ll get like, chains or something. That should hold him?”

Jim looked at her with such bewilderment, she felt like she was the weird one in the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s probably going to end badly.”

She was still looking at the vampire. Probably, she was thinking, but that’s not what she said. “I think it’s going to be fine.”

“…. Okay, if you say so.” Jim was still so unsure of this. “Just move him please.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

—————————

Moving the vampire that was nearly double her size wasn’t an easy feat, but she did it. Thank god for the hauls of fish she’s been lugging around her whole life or this might actually be impossible. She had him propped up against the support beam in the living room. That was the sturdiest place in her house she could think of, but you knew you needed to move fast. There was no telling how much time you had before he woke up, and she couldn’t imagine he’d be happy when he did. Now, the next problem was finding chains and a lock that was probably heavy duty enough. She figured the boatyard, but she’d really have to move her ass.

She grabbed the keys to her dad’s old beat up pick up truck and a jacket and hurried out the door. She was humming to herself in a tense song, a habit she did out of nervousness, and fumbled with the keys.

“Hi there, Y/N, a little la-” a familiar voice called, but with the night’s events, she was already under so much pressure, and she yelped and nearly threw the keys. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Hi, Rory. Sorry, it’s been a night.” Oh Rory, the older Irish gentleman that ran the dock’s favorite bar to go to in the evening, and her next door neighbor. She had known him her whole life, a steady constant in this crazy shit show her life had been these past couple of months. She really wasn't alarmed with him being out so late. With his business, he always had been a night owl.

“I can see that,” his thick accent rang out with a chuckle, and she blanched for a second. “Dragging in buckets of sea water?”

“It’s an art project,” She answered maybe a little too fast and he cocked an eyebrow. “You know, for processing trauma. I read about it.”

“Okay then, Y/N,” he was unsure, but he was going to drop it. He knew grief made people do some strange things sometimes. 

“I’m going out for more things.” She didn’t know when to stop talking apparently.

“Well, good luck with that at 3 am. Just be careful,” he wished her well, “It’s a full moon, all the crazies are out tonight.”

She just chuckled uneasily, if she could only tell him. “Will do, you get some rest.”

“You too, dear.”

She was finally able to get the truck open and started, and she sped off to the boatyard.

————————————

The yard was desolate and particularly eerily this night. Mist from the water was creeping over the place and gave it an all too fitting gothic appearance. She really wished that the world would stop being so poetic for a change. She found herself pulling her jacket tighter as she walked in between the older and busted up boats, something making the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end. A presence was following her, but she was all too tired of the night's weirdness to give into the thought. Surely, tonight couldn't get weirder. 

She had to kick the door down to the supply shed, but she doubted anyone would really care. This was the forgotten side of town anyway. She found heavy duty chains and a padlock fairly quickly, a feeling of satisfaction filled her that was quickly overshadowed by something else. Her head whipped up to the door and then to the window. She saw nothing, but she swore she felt eyes on her. Very intent eyes. God damn it. At this point, she was just hoping for another human.

The best thing to do was just get the hell out of there regardless, she decided, and without actually breaking into a run, she moved as fast as she could.

Outside, she swore she hear footsteps of something. It was much too big to be a person, but she didn’t know what it could be. Could be anything. She didn't know, and she was getting tired of this one night getting so fucking weird. There was an idea trying to creep into her mind, one that she was trying to violently shut out. She actually might just give up if she was right.

There was a movement and then a soft growl. She blanched again, but sighed. Of course. No, of course this would be the night that even more insane shit has to happen. She turned to the boat she saw the movement coming from and her eyes widened, yet she was somehow not surprised. A giant wolf monster sat perched up on the cabin and she nodded. “Sure. Yep. This might as well happen. Let’s just get this over with.”

It glowered at her as it crept down and off the boat, but in the bright moonlight, she saw the deep wounds ruining the lay of the coat. It growled again and began to stand on this back legs, standing at it’s full eight foot height, but she held dropped the chains and held up her hands. “Don’t even think about it, buddy,” she said firmly and the wolf’s ears pitched forward, clearly curious about the lack of fear.

“I’ve got a hurt merman and a vampire I need to restrain soon or he’s going to try to eat the merman at home. I see that you’re hurt. I can take care of you, but I need you to stop being a dick.”

It looked like it was debating something it’s head before settling down on all fours and cautiously moved towards her before gently nuzzling into her neck, smelling and licking her, she figured that this was some kind of greeting that werewolves had, but he was being friendly, but she just rolled with it. It was that kind of night that was already weird enough. She scratched behind it’s ears and it practically mewled and she had to smile, that was pretty cute.

“Come on, let’s go. I have to get back before the vampire wakes up.”

He limped along with her, and she had to help the poor thing up into the bed of the truck, but he was behaving quite well. She covered him up, with one of the tarps she used for the fish, and hopped in. Hopefully, she wasn’t too late, and she felt worry pit itself in her stomach.

———————————————–

She had to make sure the lights on in Rory’s house were off before she uncovered the newest friend and boy from her truck and hurried him into the house.

The first thing she did was check to make sure that the vampire was still out and passed out where she left him. Thankfully, he was, and she was able to breathe a sigh of relief. She went back to the kitchen as the werewolf began sniffing around. “Go upstairs, it’s the room with the lights on.”

The wolf looked at her uneasily, but he relented and sulked up the stairs on all fours, looking over its’ shoulders at her.

She grabbed the chains and quickly secured the vampire to the post. There was a moment that nearly had her passing out, his nose flared a couple of times when she got closer, but luckily that was his only response to her.

She didn’t waste anymore time though, grabbed the medical box for the third time tonight, and she was running up the stairs. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she saw the large furry head pop out of the doorway. It was odd to have such a large creature in her house, but she didn’t think about that just yet. She sat the box down on the desk and she heard it growl softly.

“Come on, I know this is going to hurt a little bit, but,” the wolf cut her off with another, more aggressive growl.

“Uhhh, Y/N,” Jim called from the bathroom. “What was that?”

She turned around and went to the door. “I might have made another new friend tonight.” The wolf’s head popped into sight from the door to look at where the other voice came from out of curiosity, and Jim went white.

“That’s an alpha werewolf.”

She grunted as he pushed his way into the bathroom and began smelling and licking at Jim’s neck like he had done with her, and Jim couldn’t help the giggles that escaped his mouth and it only encouraged the wolf to tickle him more, but he eventually pushed him off gently.

Jim smiled shyly at the wolf before looking to her again. “Why was he growling at you?”

“I was just getting ready to stitch up his wounds.”

The monstrous animal’s ears pinned back at the word and Jim swatted his muzzle, startling the wolf.

“Be nice. She doesn’t know anything and you can’t talk in that form,” Jim chided with a small smile.

“You don’t need to rub it in!” She was almost defensive, but Jim was laughing.

“Werewolves don’t need stitches, particularly alphas. He’ll be fine by tomorrow night, you won’t even know that he was hurt.”

She nodded, but then stopped. “Why did he come with me then? If he didn’t need help.”

Jim’s eyes were practically shining with mischief. “He probably thinks you’re cute.”

She was bright red now and she looked at the clear amusement both of them had.

“Or he had other reasons, I’m just,” He had to think about it. He wasn’t sure about the human word for this. “Having my fun?” He had a little shy smile, and while she was scowling, her heart melted a bit at the expression.

“I didn’t realize I was opening my door to such jokesters,” but even she had to laugh.

She let out a yawn, and she realized how tired she was out. It hit like a freight train now that she didn't have a murderous vampire on the loose and she no longer had to play doctor. “Well, I think I’m going to be retiring for the night. Jim would you like a pillow or something?”

He cocked he eyebrow. Right, that makes sense that they wouldn’t have them in the ocean.

“I’ll go get one for you away.”

The wolf followed her out of the bathroom and crawled up on the bed for no regard to his weight as he circled like any dog would before settling down on the bed. She grabbed one of the extra pillows and returned to stuff it in the corner between the wall and the bathtub and Jim hesitantly rested his head against it before his eyes lit up.

“This is very comfortable. What did you call this?”

She chuckled, “A pillow. Goodnight, Jim.”

He smiled, “Goodnight, Y/N. Thank you. again.”

“It’s no problem.” With that, she left again for the bedroom.

She looked at the wolf, seemingly asleep, and she decided what the hell. She took her bra off and her pants, leaving herself in just a shirt and underwear. She crawled into bed under the blankets and tried to get comfortable, but sleep wasn’t coming to her at all. She was just replaying the events of the night.

So, at the beginning of the night, it was crippling loneliness and a solid crying session, then late night sailing on the boat …. Then she saved a merman …. Then they got attacked by a vampire ….. and then she picked up a werewolf ….. and now there’s a merman in  her bathtub, a vampire chained up in the living room, and a werewolf in bed with her. She sighed. This was…. weird. This was a weird night. This couldn’t have happened, could it? This stuff was made up. Oh god, she was having a mental breakdown. She was breaking and this wasn’t real. None of this was real.

She was starting to hyperventilate, panic gripping her, but then she felt a warm head, a very warm, very large, and very fluffy head nuzzle into her chest. A strong, furry arm ending in a hand with extremely long and sturdy claws wrapped around her abdomen and pulled her tight. An animal’s tongue licked her cheek and she had to laugh at how much it tickled. She heard the wolf make a noise deep within its throat in approval and she relaxed. This was real. It was very very real and she had the feeling that this wolf wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

Sleep soon took over, and for the first time in what felt like years, there was a smile on her face.

[ewankoseyo]

my person || mark imagine

A/N: This request has been sitting in my inbox for about two weeks, so apologies to the anon who sent this and I hope you enjoy this one! Prequel/sequel to the “your song” drabble I did, so check it out if you haven’t yet! Also the reasoning behind “Build Me Up Buttercup” being “your song” may also be loosely based off of real life (if you really want the story behind that, lmk lol)

“I’m so in love with your Mark “your song” story, could you do a continuation? Like, the reader goes on a drive with him and then they start talking about their relationship and what happened within the months of not talking to each other? And pls make it fluffy I love fluffy Mark. If not, it’s totally fine! Thank you!!”

“You staying up tonight?”

That text is how it always starts. Before you know it, you’re pulling up in Mark’s car to the nearby mart to buy snacks and energy drinks for another all-nighter.

“You know, if you started sooner, you wouldn’t have to cram a whole semester’s worth of material into one night,” Mark teased as he held the door open for you.

“Hey, it’s not might fault I got the professor from hell who expects us to live, breath, and eat o-chem,” you jabbed back. “You’re the one who decided to study for his final at the last minute.”

“Because I had no choice. I had two other projects due this week and I had to handle logistics for the club’s fundraising event,” Mark gave you an unamused look. “You can walk home if you want.”

“Touché, Mr. I’m-in-a-competitive-major-AND-the-backbone-of-this-club,” you resigned, giving him a light shove. Whenever you’d make fun of him, Mark had to have the last word by reminding you that you were always mooching off of him for rides. “Stop messing around and get some snacks. I have a paper to submit before 11:59.”

“You’re lucky I don’t charge you for gas.” He stuck his tongue out at you before walking off to the nearest aisle of unhealthy goods.

Mark already had some chips, a couple packs of ramen, and three cans of coffee in his basket when he heard a familiar tune play in the overhead speakers. Right on cue, he heard rushed footsteps coming from behind him.

“It’s like they know we’re here!” You tossed some snacks into his basket before dancing in place to the song.

“This song is haunting us,” he joked, bopping his head along as he scanned the shelves for more food. You sidled up next to Mark and held out your hand.

“Dance with me.”

He rolled your eyes and gently shoved you away. “You’re wasting time! I thought you had a paper due?”

“You’re no fun,” you frowned before continuing to sing. “Why do you build me up, buttercup baby...”

“No, I’m just more responsible,” he bantered. “Is this everything?” You nodded, taking the basket from him as you sang along.

It seemed like many students had the same idea of staying up late to study, as there was a bit of a line at the only checkout stand open. Ever since coursework in your respective majors had picked up in the middle of the semester, this became a regular occurrence for you and your best friend. You would text Mark asking if he was planning to stay up late to get work done. After picking you up to grab snacks with him, Mark would take you back to his studio for a busy night. You had stayed over at his place so many times, you kept extra toiletries and clothes there. Tonight was no different.

Mark softly sang along to the tune as he walked over to join the queue, following your animated form.

“I need you, more than anyone darling, you know that I have from the start...”

Mark, deciding to play along just once, pretended to hold up a microphone to your lips and looked at you expectantly for you to sing. You shot him a grin as you happily obliged.

“So build me up, buttercup, don’t break my heart...”

You giggled at the silliness of the situation as you finished your part, averting your attention to the line shortening in front of you. As you quietly waited for your turn, you couldn’t help but feel a pair of eyes on you. You glanced back at Mark, who stared back down at you shamelessly, a small smile playing on his lips. 

“What?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. Mark was usually one to shy away from any kind of attention, but at that moment, it was as if he was subtly begging you for it.

“Nothing,” he shook his head, his smile casually turning into a smirk. “I was just thinking about something.”

“About what?”

“About how I’d be nothing without you,” Mark replied simply before glancing in front of you. “Oh, there’s space now.” Disregarding your stunned expression, he moved in front of you and began loading out contents from your basket onto the conveyor belt. 

“Wha...” You silently stood there dumbfounded as Mark paid for the snacks. He took the bags from the cashier and was about to start leaving when he noticed you weren’t following him. 

“Hurry up, fool,” he playfully scolded, smirking at your frozen form. “Didn’t you say you had a paper due before midnight?” You shook yourself out of your thoughts and gave him another shove in response, not quite trusting your voice at that moment. You rushed out of the store before him, giving yourself some time for the winter air to bring your inflamed cheeks back to normal body temperature. 

“Nothing without you?” What on earth was he talking about?

Mark never brought those words up again the rest of that night. They plagued you, distracting you from your word document and forcing your attention back to the boy splayed out on his bed and reading in front of you. He’d look up and respond to your gaze with a smile, teasingly pointing to your laptop as if silently scolding you to keep working, before returning to his textbook. 

He never brought those words up ever again.

——

You found him leaning against the front of his car with his hands in his pockets, staring off into the distance. With the way his hair was done up and his outfit was a far cry from his usual hoodies and soccer pants, you wondered where he could have come from at this hour. 

“Mark?” The boy immediately shot up from his relaxed position when he heard his name, hurriedly straightening himself out before looking at you. As you walked closer to him and got a better look at Mark’s face, you found his expression unreadable. 

He couldn’t read yours either.

“H-hi.”

“Hi.” You both stood there a few feet apart, silently staring at one another and waiting for the other to say something. Awkwardly clearing his throat, Mark took the initiative. 

“Oh, uh, you should get in, it’s kind of cold,” he rushed over to the passenger side and opened the door for you. You nodded a silent thanks before getting into the car. The two of you remained quiet as Mark slid into the driver’s seat, the ignition starting up being the only sound permeating the air. He hummed softly as he drove through the neighborhood. You stared at the buildings passing by, shooting furtive glances at the boy next to you. 

“How have you been?” You asked hesitantly. It had almost come out as a whisper.

“Okay,” Mark replied, his tone as undecipherable as his expression. He kept his attention on the road before him. “How are you? Did you finish your research paper?”

“Yeah, got it done under an hour. Like I said I would.” 

“I see.” Resume silence. Mark made a left turn out of the neighborhood. As he drove along the waterfront, you knew exactly where he was going. Night drives with Mark usually took you to a mountain overlooking the city. Whenever school and your impending futures became too much to bear, you two would end up there to clear your heads.  

“Saw that y—” 

“Haven’t—” 

“No, you,” you both said simultaneously. You laughed awkwardly. Perhaps you made a mistake in replying to his text?

You shook your head. “I was just going to say that it’s been awhile since I ventured out of the city, is all. What were you going to say?” 

Mark glanced over at you. “Oh, I was going to say...I saw, uh, that you were listening to some music.” He mentally slapped himself for making this situation weirder than it already was. “You were listening to the song.” 

 “You were listening to it too...” you mentioned quietly, staring out the window. “Is that why...?”

“Yes,” Mark nodded solemnly. “It came up in the playlist, and I, um, I guess I just thought of you.”

“Oh.” After pulling into the familiar destination, Mark parked the car and switched the engine off. It was now completely silent as you both gazed out the window at the city lights below. Could he hear how rapidly your heart was beating in your chest? 

Because Mark was pretty sure you could hear his. 

“I was thinking about you too.”

Mark unbuckled his seat belt and turned in his seat to look at you properly. “You were?”

You nodded, shifting yourself to face him. As your eyes scanned over him, you almost wanted to cry. Mark was real. He wasn’t just a a tagged guest feature in a mutual friend’s Instagram post or a memory that Snapchat used to remind you of how happy you were a year ago. Your old best friend, your person, was sitting right in front of you, giving you the softest look—just as he used to do.

But for some reason, it felt like he was lightyears away. 

“Was that the first time you’ve thought of me? Ever since—”

“Why did you leave me?” Mark cuts you off suddenly. 

“I’m sorry?” Did you hear that correctly?

His hands fumbled around in his lap. “You think I didn’t notice how you blocked me on every social media platform? I’m surprised you didn’t block my number. I only knew you didn’t delete your accounts because I once saw Jackson tagging you in a picture he was posting.” He shook his head and sighed at the thought. “You disappeared, I only heard about you when a friend mentioned you. So...why’d you basically delete me from your life?”

You looked at him in disbelief. “I deleted you from my life?” Mark nearly jumped from the sudden volume increase in your voice. It was sharp as a knife, cutting through him with every word. “You think I wanted to ignore you?”

“W-why else wou—”

“Do you know how much it hurt me to see you happy with all of our friends and still be doing well after we stopped talking?” Tears welled up in your eyes and you began to feel yourself choking up on your words, but you continued. You didn’t realize until then how much the hurt had been eating away inside of you for so long. Once you were started, you couldn’t stop. “I was dying on the inside every single day because I couldn’t talk to you, but you seemed perfectly fine with everything. It was as if...you weren’t affected at all.” You quickly wiped the tears away with your sleeve. “So that’s why I blocked you. It hurt too much to see you doing fine when I was already hurting.”

Mark stared back at you cluelessly. “I’m sorry, but I’m a bit confused,” he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Why couldn’t you talk to me in the first place? I mean, it was like one day we were the best of friends and then the next, you became a ghost.”

You stared at him in bewilderment. Did he really not understand where you were coming from? Had you been experiencing this whole situation differently than him?

"Do you even realize how this all started?” He slowly shook his head and you sighed before continuing. “Everything was going fine until I felt like you were starting to act weird with me.”

Realization began to dawn on him. “I wasn’t being weird, but you were just—”

“Just listen to me, you’re doing it again!” You cried out, pointing at him accusingly. “Suddenly, I felt like things were different between us. You didn’t approach me like you would and whenever I’d try to talk to you, you’d give me short answers and brush me off. I would ask if you wanted to grab food and you’d say you had work to do, but then I would see you eating with another friend. When I’d text asking you if you were mad at me or if we were okay, you would just say you weren’t mad and that there was nothing going on. 

So I took your word for it and thought things were fine. I tried to approach and talk to you whenever I’d see you, but I noticed you were still kind of standoffish with me. I couldn’t exactly ask you about it in person because you were always surrounded by everyone.”

“You texted asking to meet with me,” Mark recalled aloud, nodding slowly.

“Yeah, and I told you in person how I felt. I told you that I noticed things were different. I told you that I felt too intimidated to reach out and talk to you first in person because I was afraid of you brushing me off in front of everyone. I even apologized if I did anything to hurt you and begged to for us to talk it out. And then do you remember what you said back?” You asked bitterly, continuing before he could try to answer. “You told me that you didn’t understand where this was all coming from. You were so certain that you weren’t acting any different and that you didn’t have a problem with me. You said that this was just my problem, not yours. That you were just living your life, and that if I was going to keep making a big deal out of something that shouldn’t be, you were going to leave because you didn’t need to put up with anymore of my BS.” 

Mark stared at his lap and shook his head regretfully. “Yes, I remember.” 

“I was really trying to talk to you in a way that didn’t made it sound like I was blaming you, because you had voiced to me before how you hated feeling attacked. I stressed to you that this was all how I felt,” you explained shakily. “Then all you had to say was that it was just my problem. Do you have any idea how awful that was for me? You made me feel guilty for feeling. You made me feel like my emotions were invalid. You made me feel like I was going crazy.”

“I-I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

You rolled your eyes amid the tears at the lame apology. “I couldn’t pretend everything was fine and talk to you normally after that without feeling afraid of your response, and you obviously weren’t going to approach me first, so that’s how we stopped talking.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly at your realization. “It sounds like you had a lot of time to think about this.”

“Yeah, well, thinking is all you can do when you don’t have anyone to talk to about this,” you sighed dejectedly, sniffling a bit. “Everyone worships you, Mark—how smart you are, how talented you are, how quietly snarky you are. You never ask for attention, but they’re more than happy to give it to you. You’ve got them all in the palm of your hand without even trying. If I were to explain to anyone else how I felt, they would think I was crazy too.”

Silence filled the air once again, besides your attempt to suppress your hiccups, as you both let your words simmer. You had been over all of this before, only this time it seemed like Mark was actually listening to you rather than passing off your words as nonsense. Whatever happened next, the ball was in Mark’s court. 

"I freaked out,” Mark finally admitted.

“What?”

“Did you ever hear what everyone was saying? About us?” He looked almost embarrassed as he asked. 

You had an idea of what he was getting at but decided to press on. “What were they saying..?”

Mark sighed, anxiously running a hand through his neat hair. “How...they thought I liked you. Like liked you. How they thought we were already together. How they all apparently shipped us together. Freshmen from the club who I barely talked to kept coming up to me asking when we were going to be a thing. One even told me that they all secretly called us mom and dad.”

“Oh.” You stared out at the city lights wistfully, suddenly feeling small under Mark’s gaze. You had heard it all before. Even when you two would just be sitting next to each other, people would shoot you a knowing look without Mark noticing. You had secretly enjoyed all the talk, believing that if everyone else saw the chemistry between you guys, maybe Mark soon would too. You should have known better, Mark was talking about these rumors as if they were a bad thing to believe. “But you never cared what people said about you, truth or rumor. Why were you so stressed over that rumor?” 

“Because it wasn’t a rumor,” he replied effortlessly. Just like you, once started, Mark couldn’t be stopped. Without a word, he gently took one of your hands from your lap and laced your fingers through his. You had forced Mark to hold your hand before—“That guy just can’t take the hint that I’m not into him. Mark, hold my hand and pretend we’re together!”—but he had never initiated. Actually, he rarely initiated skinship with you, but you were also the only one he let cling onto him like a leech. “You know me, I’m not one to talk about my feelings. If everyone else catches onto them, it becomes a whole ordeal.” His other hand came up to your face and he gently caressed the tears away with his thumb. You made no move to shy away from his touch. “I’m supposed to be the guy who just focuses on doing well in his major and on leading our club. Whoever I liked, if there was anyone I liked, would just be a mystery for everyone to gossip about behind my back and I was fine with that.”

“Mark, why couldn’t you just tell me how you felt?” You asked, disappointment laced in your voice. “We’re best friends, we tell each other everything.”

“Exactly, you’re my best friend.” Mark drew his hands away from you and looked back down at them in his lap shamefully. You instantly missed his hand holding yours. “I thought I was really good at hiding my feelings. If everyone else was able to see them, that probably meant that you did too. And I,” He sighed, sparing you a glance. “I was afraid of what would happen if you did, so I tried not to be so obvious.”

“So that’s why you became distant with me?”

He nodded. “I figured that if I was, no one would suspect a thing. You wouldn’t suspect a thing. How was I going to risk our friendship by you knowing how I really felt?”

“Well you pretty much destroyed our friendship when you stopped talking to me, so you really had nothing to lose,” you pointed out almost bitterly.

“I deserve that,” he replied sadly, pursing his lips as he looked at you. “And more. You think I’ve been doing okay all this time? The truth is that I’ve been a mess. I didn’t know what was going on with you. If I didn’t see you in Jackson’s photo or Bambam’s story, you could have been dead for all I knew. I couldn’t ask anyone about you without them being suspicious of how I felt or asking me why we weren’t together as much as before, so I kept quiet.” 

“But I saw you hanging out with everyone else, you seemed so happy,” you shook your head in disbelief, widening your eyes at that boy before you. “And you were always so busy with your classes and the club, I really thought that I was getting in your way.”

Mark gave you a sad smile, his eyes softening as he gazed into yours. “When have you ever listened to me when I was being distant and stubborn? When I was being me? You were always the persistent in our friendship.”

“With the way you were acting strange and not approaching me, I thought you needed space from me.”

“No, I realized I was being stupid. I needed my person. I needed you,” he said softly. “I’ve been nothing without you.”

“Mark...” He gently cupped your face as he noticed your tears beginning to resurface. He kissed your forehead before placing his against yours. 

“I’m so sorry for hurting you,” Mark whispered, his voice heavy with regret. “You didn’t deserve to suffer just because I was being immature and didn’t know how to handle my feelings. I didn’t reach out to you tonight expecting anything from you, I just had to see you again if even for only a second.”

“Did you suffer without me?” 

“Every single day.”

“Then we’re even,” you replied softly before pressing your lips against his. You clung onto his blazer to pull him closer to you, subconsciously afraid he would vanish into thin air if you weren’t holding onto him for dear life. He cradled your neck with one hand and caressed your cheek with the other, gently taking your bottom lip between his lips.

Your lips were soft and sweet. You tasted like vanilla and sunshine amid pockets of pain and sadness and regret. You tasted like home.

Mark tasted like he'd been longing to go home.

Pulling away for air, you gazed into each others’ eyes, tears of happiness respectfully making their appearance as you both laughed at one another. Gently, albeit clumsily, Mark picked you up over the middle console and placed you on his lap, earning a giggle from you. You buried yourself in his chest and inhaled the scent you had missed for too long as Mark held you tight.

“Don’t leave me ever again.”

“Then don’t send me way ever again,” you shot back, looking up at him and grinning. 

He kissed your forehead once again before placing his chin on top your head and holding you tighter. As you updated him on what you’ve been up to in the last couple of months, Mark silently promised himself to not let you go, because he was truly nothing without you.

——

[btshogwartsfics]

Detention Song | 01

Summary: Everyone is always so quick to judge you, but after five years you’ve long since gotten used to it. Cue an angelic Gryffindor who’s way too cute for his own good and maybe things will start to change. So long as you don’t get in over your head, what’s the harm in making a new friend?

Pairing: Jimin x Hufflepuff!Reader

Word Count: 10.7k

Chapter: 1| 2

Tag: @peachymilkis​

A/N: So here is the first chapter of the long awaited Jimin fic! I’m a horrible procrastinator with a tiny attention span so I’m very sorry for the slight wait! Now originally, this whole fic was just supposed to be in two parts, but I found out pretty quickly that doing it that way would not work. So, if everything goes to plan, there should be about eight, maybe nine chapters total, all around this length. I haven’t written the whole thing yet, I just barely got this finished, so I don’t know how long the wait for the rest of the chapters will be. Also, something to note, I tried hard to break the house stereotypes with this OC. More on that character to come. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the first chapter of my first big project! Let me know what you think, my inbox is always open!

*WARNING: Terribly boring relationship building and somehwat (?) of a slow burn! You have been warned*

[]{}[]

The air around you was cold as it nipped at your cheeks and bare fingers. October has just arrived to Hogwarts and along with it a natural chill. You shiver, huddling further into your coat as you make your way to the courtyard. Your eyes scan the area until they fall on one boy.

Kane Glore, your roommate's ex-boyfriend. The couple had just split the other day and she was absolutely heartbroken. She was too upset to even tell you the reason they had parted, the only thing coming from her mouth were sobs in broken fragments. You were going to talk to him yourself, you really were, but then you heard some questionable things from your friends in all houses. Rumor mill has it he cheated on her during the summer and that he just couldn’t be bothered with her anymore.

You couldn’t quite believe it to be honest. Throughout their entire relationship, Kane had been a respectful and affectionate boyfriend. The impression he had given you was the exact opposite of a cheater. However, you’ve been through your share of relationships and you’ve learned that it’s always the ones you least expect to hurt you that do the most damage.

So, keeping this in mind, you hid behind the large tree on the far left side of the courtyard, thankful that not many people were here today. Kane sat by the fountain in the very middle of the courtyard, talking amicably to three of his friends.

You readied your wand, the tip pointing directly at Kane, but a quiet voice in the back of your head stopped you from doing anything. The rumors could be false, they said, maybe he really didn’t do anything.

You shook your head, casting the doubtful thoughts aside. Whether or not the rumors are true, he still hurt your friend. She’s still sniffling about it and she can’t even meet his eyes these days. Whatever he did, it warrants a consequence. Embarrassment should be punishment enough.

Adjusting your wand, you trained your eyes on your target, excitement building up inside you. Making sure no one could see you, you said, “Cantis.”

Kane stopped mid-laugh as he screamed a high note. Immediately your hand flew to stifle your laugh as he broke out into song, all the while a look of pure confusion spread across his features. You couldn’t help yourself as you giggled, watching as his friends frowned up at him.

“Tarantallegra.” You whispered, tiny sparks spouting from your wand.

In the middle of his song, Kane stood up straight, his arms and legs flailing wildly in an unknown dance. His long limbs took him across the courtyard in large strides as laughter could be heard from everyone present. Even his friends let out a snicker or two as they waited for him to stop.

Gasping for breaths between your laughs, you steady your wand for your final spell. “Melofors.”

You watched in amusement as a pumpkin encases Kane’s entire head. The boy in question lets out a surprised scream, eliciting laughs from his fellow students. Your friend’s ex stumbles around the courtyard blindly, his singing now muffled by the big orange fruit on his head, and his legs still trying to keep up with their dance.

Having climbed up the tree, you sit on a large branch, coming out of your hiding place. Your laughter grows as Kane continues to flail around, now sounding more like a loud cackle. The courtyard is filled with laughter, even after Kane tumbles to the ground in a singing mess of limbs. Your laughing so hard your stomach begins to hurt when you hear-

“Finite Incantatem!” 

Kane stopped singing and a hush fell over everyone. The laughter quiets as students stare at Professor McGonagall, fuming with anger. The Professor helps pull Kane to his feet as she casts a look around the courtyard. “Who did this to Mister Glore?”

Looks are thrown around the courtyard as people search for a guilty expression among them. Sensing unwanted problems, you quickly and silently climb down from your branch, trying your hardest to slip past unnoticed. You were able to make it about seven steps out before your name was called.

“Miss Y/L/N.” Your steps halted and your shoulders slumped in disappointment. Damn.

You turned around, a fake smile plastered on your face. You waved a hand. “Hey, Professor. How are you?”

She frowned in the way that only she does, her eyes knowing. Crossing her arms over her chest, she heaves a sigh. “I assume you are responsible for this fiasco with Mister Glore.”

You feigned offense, a hand flying to your chest. “What? Me?” You asked, eyes wide and shocked. “Where is the trust?” McGonagall arched an eyebrow, frown prominent on her face. She stood, unamused, and with a huff, you nodded your head.

“I wish I could say this was the first time you’ve done something like this, but sadly it is not.” McGonagall shook her head, disappointed and ran a hand down her face. “Miss Y/L/N, you will take Mister Glore to the hospital wing and then join me after school for detention every day for the next month.”

“What!” You exclaimed, more of a protest than an actual question. “But Professor, I-”

“Y/N dear, I appreciate your spirit but not when it comes to the expense of other students. You know that magic outside the classrooms and Great Hall is prohibited and chose to disobey our rules; continuously. I’m afraid I have no other choice.”

For a moment you just splutter, your mouth hanging open and your brain whirling, searching for ways to avoid this punishment. But unfortunately, seeing no possible way out of this, you allow your mouth to fall shut and you nod lamely. With much reluctance, you walk mutely over to Kane, your brain reeling with the thought of having detention with McGonagall for a month.

But as you try to explain to Madam Pomfrey why exactly you had attacked your fellow student, you decided that really, it was so worth it. 

[]{}[]

Your spirits hung heavy as you packed away the rest of your things from Divination. A frown was tugging down the edge of your lips as you made your way to McGonagall’s for your first day of detention.

“Hey. Y/N! Wait up!” You heard your roommate, Laya, call from behind you. You slowed down for her to catch up to you. “You off to McGonagall’s?” she asked as she fell into step beside you.

Nodding your head, you tried hard not to think about what McGonagall would make you do today. Would she make you sit alone in a room for a whole hour (or more) or would she give you tasks to do while she grades papers? You sincerely hope she doesn’t decide to get too creative with your punishment, you’re going to be there for a whole month after all.

Laya pouts to herself, her eyes turning sad as she gives you a pitiful look. Bottom lip trapped between her teeth, she reaches an arm out to stop you. You turn to look at her, your brow knitted in confusion. She continues to chew on her lip, seemingly torn as she tries for words.

“You know, I really appreciate what you did for me, Y/N.” Laya settles, giving a smile as she takes her arm back from your shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that, but I’m really happy that you did.”

Your frown disappears as she says this, offering her a small smile back. You shrug, starting back on your way to detention. “It’s no problem, Lay. Was there ever any doubt that I would?” You joke as she laughs, apparently deciding to walk you to the Transfiguration classroom.

“No, definitely not.” The Hufflepuff conceded, nodding to herself. She smirked, a faint blush painting her cheeks in embarrassment. “You always stick up for me.”

The mention of this has you grinning for real this time. With Laya being as sweet and shy as she is, it’s safe to say this definitely isn’t the first time you’ve broken some rules on her behalf. But really, it isn’t your fault. You try to settle things the right way, but not many people seem to care about doing the same.

“And I always will.”

Laya perks up, beaming from ear to ear. By this time though, you’re just a hall away from McGonagall’s room, so instead of responding back just as sweetly, like she usually would, she settles for giving you a hug before she departs.

You watch her go, feeling lucky to have such a kind a friend as her. You tell yourself that you’re glad you have someone worth getting detention for.

You turn around, no longer dreading detention. You’re only going to be there for an hour, maybe two max. What’s the worst that can happen? With this in mind, you cross the last hall to get to McGonagall’s. However, as you near her door, you hear an unfamiliar voice.

The voice seems to be male, you deduct as you listen more intently. The person in McGonagall’s room appears to be singing and doing a rather good job at it, too. It’s a song you’ve never heard before, you think as you take in the gentle lyrics, sung by an even gentler voice.

You smile to yourself, already growing quite fond of the song, and whoever is singing it. Feeling a smirk form on your face, you walk up to the door and knock, startling the unknown boy from his private concert.

When he turns to face you, a wild expression on his face, you’ll admit you’re a bit surprised. Not by his fluffy blonde hair, wide chocolate eyes, or his plump pink lips. No, you’re more surprised by the name attached to the face.

“Park Jimin?” You ask, though clearly you know who he is. With all his popularity, you’d have to have been living under a rock not to. “What are you doing here?”

The Gryffindor blinks, processing your question slowly. His cheeks tint slightly pink and he rubs the back of his neck shyly. “Um, I’m here for detention.” He mumbles, so low you had to strain to hear him.

Your frown returns upon hearing his admission. You may not be any more than acquaintances with Jimin, but everybody and their mother knows that Jimin and detention are just things that don’t belong in the same sentence. Being a Gryffindor, you’ve heard your fair share of stories about him, but he somehow always ends up wriggling himself out of detention, the teachers never quite having the heart to punish him so harshly. So why now? What on earth could he have done this time to warrant such a punishment from his head of house of all people?

You’re about to ask just this when he beats you to the punch.

“So I take it the rumors I heard at lunch today are true, then.” He grins, all hint of bashfulness gone from his features. “You used magic on another student in the courtyard this morning?”

You blink, your thoughts about asking him about his detention fleeing from your mind at a rapid speed. Instead, you feel a smirk growing on your face as his words catch up to you.

“Wow, Park Jimin, were you talking about me?”

“What? No! Well, I mean the gossip was getting around to everyone, I just heard it from my friend Jung-”

You burst out into laughter as he fumbles to explain himself. You throw your head back as you laugh and Jimin joins you this time. His eyes disappear as he laughs, forming a sort of crescent moon and he shows off a set of perfect pearly white teeth.

No wonder he’s so popular, you think, he looks like he belongs on the walls of a damn art museum.

“What did they do to deserve such cruel treatment?” He prompted, steadying his breaths after all that laughing.

You shrug, leaning against the door frame that you still stood in. “Pretty sure he cheated on my best friend.” You divulged, to which he chuckled.

“Pretty sure? Didn’t bother asking to make sure?”

“Okay well, he still really hurt my friend, regardless of what he did or didn’t do!” You defended, a grin lifting your lips ever so slightly as you watch Jimin, cracking up at the sight of you getting all riled up.

Jimin nodded, a smirk that mirrored yours from minutes ago playing on his lips. “Mmhmm.”

“I’m serious!” You laughed, punching playfully at his shoulder, eliciting another chuckle from him. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

“I never said you were.” He pointed out with a smile; one that was warm and playful and made the thought of spending an entire hour in detention not so bad anymore.

“Besides,” he shrugs, making a show of looking around and leaning in close. “I’m not his biggest fan, anyway.”

Your arched your brow at this, intrigue prickling at your mind. “Really? And why not?”

Again Jimin looks around as if to make sure no one would be able to hear what he’s about to disclose. He whispers, “He always cheats off of me in Divination and- stop laughing this is a real problem! He’s getting all the credit for my work and I’m sick of it!”

Your hand flew to your side in your fit of laughter, the sound bouncing off the walls as Jimin waited for you to respond to his faux displeasure. “You tell him, Jimin.” You encouraged, causing Jimin to shake his head and puff out his chest.

“You know what, I will.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

He shook his head, the smile on his face seems to be temporarily stuck there. “I may be a Gryffindor, and even though breaking the rules appears to be our thing, but you seem to forget that we’re here for detention-”

“That you are, Mister Park.” Another voice replied from behind you, provoking you to turn your head to address the newcomer.

McGonagall glanced down at you before she walked past you to her desk. You and Jimin stayed quiet while she laid out her things. Their professor ignored you both as she went about organizing some papers on her desk before she turned back to confront you.

“I apologize for being late this afternoon, I was meeting with Professor Sprout about your detention, Miss Y/L/N,” McGonagall explained, causing you to offer her a little guilty smile. “And Mister Park, I’ve already told the Gryffindor Quidditch team that you will be late for practice this evening.”

You remained silent as she talked, your head cast down and your eyes struggling to stay in one place. You’ve never been one for regret, but you always feel like a scolded puppy under McGonagall’s condescending glare. She just has that sort of effect on people, you suppose.

“Now while I’m glad you two are getting along since you will be spending a lot of time together, this is not some sort of detention party- it is a punishment for strictly disregarding the school’s rules…”

You zoned out here, thoughts whirling around in your head. Does she mean to say that Jimin will be in detention with you for the whole month? Did he manage to land himself detention for a month as well? Was whatever he did that bad? You can’t even imagine the sweet, albeit admittedly cheeky, boy beside you doing something so drastic.

“... so as for today, the two of you will be cleaning the trophy room. Top to bottom.” McGonagall’s voice came back, dragging you away from your queries.

Sharing a look with Jimin, the two of you nodded your heads mutely, muttering a synchronized “Yes, Professor.”

“Good, now, unfortunately, I won’t be able to join you because I have much work to do. So I am trusting you both to get the job done.” You recall, eyes shifting over to you in a knowing manner. She’s about to let the two of you go before she seems to remember something and holds out both her hands. “And I would like your wands, please.”

“What?” You wondered aloud, eyes straying to her outstretched palms dubiously.

“You will clean the trophy room without magic, Miss Y/L/N.” She answered, her hands still open and empty.

Your professor gestured to her hands again and you and Jimin heaved heavy sighs, giving up the argument before it could even start. You know a lost cause when you see one.

Reaching into your pocket, you hand over your wand, which joins Jimin’s on McGonagall’s desk. She takes a seat and gestures for you two to get going.

Preparing yourself for a long hour of cleaning trophy cases, you and Jimin drag your feet to the staircase. 

[]{}[]

You swear someone had it out for you.

Maybe it was Kane, being so loud and causing such a ruckus that he attracted the attention of teachers and got you caught. Or perhaps it was McGonagall, with her eyes like a hawk and her knack for handing out punishments. Truly though, in your heart of hearts, you think it’s the universe or the fates that have a bone to pick with you.

All that you know for sure is that you’ve never been this bored in your entire life and you’re only a quarter into your first day of detention.

Walking over to the next set of trophy cases, you wonder what the Head Boy from ‘47 would think if he knew that his case has collected more dust than your grandmother’s old wardrobe. You can hear Jimin wandering around on the opposite side of the room per your suggestion that the two of you split the work.

You can practically feel your brain cells diminishing from lack of stimulation and you decide that if you don’t want to end up with an IQ of negative two, you need to find something interesting to talk about.

“So, Jimin?” You say, addressing the only other person in the room for some sort of distraction. He hums a reply, letting you know that he’s listening as you work a little bit closer to where he’s currently cleaning the quidditch cups. “Are you ever going to tell me how you ended up with detention for a whole month?”

You can almost sense his embarrassment more than you can see it. “Oh, um, nothing too bad or anything. Really it’s not as interesting as you think.”

“How do you know what I think?” You mock, curious as to why he keeps putting it off. “Park Jimin, you are so cryptic, I swear. What could you possibly have done to finally, after five years of constantly managing to wriggle your way out of it, earn yourself a whole month’s detention?”

The blonde ceased his cleaning and looked over to you from across a rather rusted house cup. You could see the exasperation clear as day on his face, but you also didn’t miss the sliver of amusement he wasn’t quite able to hide.

“You’re not going to give this up, are you?” He inquired, though it was obvious he knew the answer before he even asked.

You shook your head gently, a smirk painting your lips and eyes filled with mirth. You leaned over the flat case, your head resting in your palm. You wiggled your eyebrows at him playfully as you waited for him to reveal his secret.

Jimin chuckled at your antics, but carefully set down his duster nonetheless. Facing you, he scratched the back of his neck, suddenly turning shy. “Well, long story short I- uh, snuck into the Ravenclaw common room and I-”

“You snuck into the Ravenclaw common room? Really?” You grinned, eager to hear how he’d accomplished such. You could feel your boredom slowly fading away like dust in the wind. Finally, you have something to talk about.

Sensing your excitement, Jimin nodded, his smiling expression growing to match yours. Questions popped up in your mind like mushrooms, one after another. Both your dusters lay forgotten on the ground, neither of you paying them any attention as you revel in this new bit of information.

“How did you even get in?” You asked, not bothering to hide the intrigue and astonishment that laced your tone. “Aren’t you supposed to answer some riddle to even get inside? Not to mention the fact that the Ravenclaw portrait would never let in a Gryffindor, anyway.”

“Well, I borrowed some robes from a friend of mine and it wasn’t too hard after that.” He shrugged, acting as if it were no big deal. However, to you, this was news. You would have thought it would be harder to sneak into the Ravenclaw common room, but you suppose not everything in Hogwarts is foolproof.

At this point, you were buzzing with interest and you couldn't stop yourself from asking question after question, your mouth running to catch up with your brain. Jimin laughed at your eagerness, answering each and everyone with a smile and a laugh.

“But seriously,” You exclaim, as you pick your duster back up to clean a house cup from ‘02. “Why did you even sneak in in the first place?”

For a second he didn’t answer, seemingly very interested in his discarded duster. He picked at it for another few seconds, almost in thought, before returned with a reply. “My uh- my friend Tae stole one of my textbooks that I left my homework in and he refused to give it back. So…”

“So you decided to break into his dorm and get it back.”

“Hey, don’t judge me! A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do!”

“Who said I was judging?” You held your hands up in mock surrender, throwing Jimin a playful wink and causing him to laugh. “I was just wondering why he thought to steal your textbook in the first place.”

“If I’m being honest, I don’t know why Tae does half the things he does.” He rolled his eyes, but you still caught the faint hint of fondness in them before he went back to dusting.

“Sounds like a pretty cool guy to me.” You reply with a smirk, glancing back behind you to catch Jimin rolls his eyes.

“Of course you would say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You countered, turning to face him, a single hand on your hip.

Jimin’s eyes went wide as he took in your expression. His hands came up in the universal surrender gesture. He shook his head fervently, spouting a series of no’s. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way, I swear.”

You cocked your head to the side, taking in his worried demeanor. “Then what did you mean?”

“Just that I think you and Tae would get along.” He confessed, chocolate eyes searching yours for signs that you believed him. “Us Gryffindors are supposed to be the troublemakers, but sometimes I think you two might do a better job.”

“How so?”

Jimin looked close to pulling his hair out as he picked his words carefully. “I don’t know. I mean, word gets around and from what I’ve heard you seem pretty… rebellious for a Hufflepuff.”

You nod at this, letting his words sink in. You weren’t mad, really you weren’t. It’s not like you’ve never heard that before because you have. Many times actually people have commented on how different you seem. It’s as if there is always something wrong with who you are. People say you’re too bold or too wild to be a Hufflepuff and only a few truly agree with the house which you reside in.

Still, that doesn’t matter much to you anymore. Maybe it did once, but you’re long past caring about what people think of you. You actually think you’ve gotten used to always being talked about.

Looking at Jimin now though, you wonder if he would understand. He is one of the most popular kids in Hogwarts, let alone your year. You can only imagine the standards people put on him, being Gryffindor’s star Quidditch player, fifth-year prefect, and one of the lead singers in Muggle Choir. It suddenly hits you that as quickly as you two hit it off, you really don’t know him.

“Y/N?” The soft voice pulled you from your thoughts, shaking them out of your head. You glance up to see Jimin eyeing you with a look of concern, his perfect brows knitted together in worry. You hadn’t even realized you spaced out. “I didn’t offend you, did I?”

You shook your head quickly, which visibly eased some of the tension in his back. He grinned, his eyes doing that crescent thing again and making you return one back. “Don’t worry, I’m made of stronger stuff than that.”

“That’s good.” Jimin agreed. “I’d hate to offend one of the most interesting people at Hogwarts.”

You barked out a laugh as you scrubbed hard enough to see your reflection in the trophy case. “Wow, what a charmer we have here.” This made Jimin scoff, but you swore you heard some sort of laugh follow it.

You waited a while before you said anything else, but you couldn’t help yourself from telling him, “Hey, Jimin?”

“Yeah?” He replied as he busied himself with the rest of the Quidditch cups.

“You’re pretty interesting, too.”

Unfortunately, you didn’t happen to see him struggle to hide his smile behind his hand as he continued on with his cleaning. Though to be fair, he didn’t hear you as walked back to your dorm that afternoon by yourself, humming along to a song you don’t know. 

[]{}[]

The Great Hall was buzzing with energy as students milled around, trying to get in some breakfast before their morning classes. A loud chatter was cast over the Hall, conversations flowing between friends as they usually did during meals. Meanwhile, you tasked yourself with making sure Laya didn’t fall asleep in her cereal.

“Hey! Wake up!” You scolded her for the third time that morning. Your roommate blinked furiously and rested her cheek against her palm, trying hard not to fall back asleep.

Laya frowned as she stared at you. She pouted in confusion as she let her eyes fall back closed. “I don’t understand how you’re not tired. We both stayed up doing that Herbology homework.” The raven-haired girl whined, catching herself before her head hit the table. “Why aren’t you exhausted?”

“I told you,” You rolled your eyes. “I went to bed before you did because I couldn’t find my Potions textbook.”

The Hufflepuff continued to pout as she pushed her cereal away in favor of the blueberry muffin that wouldn’t get milk in her hair. “Where’d you even lose that, anyway? Didn’t you have it in class yesterday?”

“I don’t know. The last time I remember having it was in class. Maybe I left it there.” You supplied between a mouthful of toast.

You heard a snicker from the person to your left and you turned around to see who had laughed at you. Your suspicion left once you saw that it was only your friend, Hoseok (who is extremely hard to miss with that bright red hair), knowing full well that that boy is sweeter than actual sugar.

“Something funny, Hoseok?”

Hoseok bit back into his apple as he answered, his eyebrows wagging playfully. “Oh nothing, it’s just the fact that you lose practically everything and just your luck, the homework that you left in it is due in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t remind me.” You slumped, your mind trying to figure a way out of having to go to class empty-handed.

As you thought about how upset Professor Slughorn would be if you came to class without your finished assignment, you heard a voice call your name from across the hall. A familiar voice.

“Jimin?” You called as you met the already familiar set of brown eyes. The boy in question smiled as he neared you, slowing his light jog down to a quick walk. You could practically feel multiple sets of eyes on you and so you decided to get up and meet him halfway so that no unwanted eavesdroppers are given the chance to intrude on your (probably harmless) impending conversation.

“What’s up?” You asked when the two of you finally stood face-to-face. You took this short moment to take in his appearance; slightly disheveled today with his hair not quite brushed and his tie somewhat askew.

And he still looks fucking gorgeous, damn.

Jimin feigns hurt with a dramatic hand to his chest. “What, no ‘good morning’? No ‘how are you today, Jimin’?” He teases, his lips sullen in a pouty frown.

You rolled your eyes, however, you still had to restrain from smiling at his dramatic behavior. “Okay, I just saw you yesterday. Like, literally a few hours ago.”

“Something could have happened in a few hours, you know. You don’t know until you ask.”

“Did it?”

“...no- hey don’t look at me like that! Something could have happened and then you would feel bad for not asking.”

This time you didn’t even bother trying to conceal your smirk and Jimin huffed before shaking his head. “Was there a reason you wanted to talk to me or…” You laughed, steering the conversation back to where it was supposed to be.

“Oh, yeah! Here, one second.” The blonde shuffled around in his bag a moment before pulling out something familiar. “You left your textbook in the kitchens yester-”

“Oh my God! Jimin, thank you, you’re a lifesaver!” You snatched the book from his hands, immediately going to check if your homework was still where you’d left it.

Thankfully, your extremely important homework, one that you were proud of seeing as you’d actually done it for a change, was exactly where it was yesterday, tucked gently between page 571 and 572. You exhaled in deep relief and instantly packed it into your bag hanging off your shoulder.

You looked back up at Jimin and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you so much, Jimin. You have no idea how crazy I was going looking for this last night.”

“No problem, Y/N.” He bowed teasingly like he had just done something monumental instead of simply returning your textbook. Though, you suppose it was rather significant if your Potions grade is of any concern. “Happy to help.”

“Yeah yeah.” You laughed at him, finding it hard to resist when he smiles at you like that. “I’ll see you in detention, right?”

“Yep.” He nodded, his head bobbing wildly and his hair falling a little ways into his eyes. “Kitchens again, today. Well, unless McGonagall gives us something else to do.”

“Right. Well, I’ll see you in Defense. Later, Jimin, I owe you one.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

The two of you waved your goodbyes and parted ways to your separate tables. It wasn’t until then you noticed exactly how many people seemed interested in yours and Jimin’s conversation.

As you turned around, people seemed unable to look you in the face. Their eyes dart away from yours like bullets, a tell-tale sign that they had been watching you. This makes you frown in confusion. Why would they be so curious about you and Jimin? Yeah, Jimin has a fair amount of popularity surrounding him and quite the (decent) reputation and perhaps you’ve heard your name whispered a few times, but what exactly do they think is going on? It’s not like you were forming some sort of cult or professing an undying love.

You try to ignore the stares of your peers as you walk back to your table with a lighter heart, something you’ve long since learned how to do. It's no secret that people find you peculiar or as Jimin put it, interesting. But you find that you don’t rather care, another thing you’ve learned during your time here. There always seems to be something not right with you, but you’d rather be odd than ordinary.

Sitting directly back down in your seat, you immediately go to finish your breakfast. However, as you eat, you can still feel a few more stares. When you look up, both of your friends are eyeing you expectantly.

Arching your brow and swallowing, you say hesitantly, “Yes?”

Laya doubles back as if you’d said something completely outrageous. “What do you mean ‘yes’? Since when did you talk to Park Jimin?”

You blink. “...since we became friends.”

Laya facepalms, her whole body rigid with exasperation. “Obviously, but since when were you friends?”

“Yeah,” Hoseok cuts in, licking orange juice off his lips. He regards you with a thoughtful expression, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was suspicion.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you and Jimin were friends? I’ve known him since my second year, he’s kinda like a little brother to me!” Hoseok stops then, his face turning pensive and contemplative, a look not often seen on the sunny, carefree boy. A hand flies to his chin as he seems to get even deeper into his thoughts. “Actually now that I think about it, why didn’t Jimin tell me? We talk every day, what the-”

“Okay, calm down, Hoseok.” You finally stopped his rapidly growing ramble before he could really freak himself out. You rolled your eyes at your two nosy friends as you set your toast back down. “We’ve literally only hung out for like, three days so chill.”

“Three days?” Laya frowned again, her expression growing to match Hoseok’s. “Really? How? You haven’t really gone anywhere but detention this week.”

“Jimin’s had detention all week, too,” Hoseok answered, beating you to the punch.

“What he said.” You shrugged, eyeballing your toast in hopes of finally finishing it before Potions.

Laya didn’t say anything right away, but eventually, she turned to you with her eyes oddly serious. “You do know people will talk about this, right?”

You whined, struggling not to pout like a child. Will nobody let you eat your breakfast in peace? “What do you mean?”

“Jimin is one of the most popular boys in our year and you’re one of the most popular girls. You don’t think people will try to make something out of it?” Laya explained matter-of-factly, arching her brow as Hoseok nodded back in earnest.

“I guess they might, but I don’t care.” You scoffed with an air of indifference. “They always talk so what’s the point? It’s not like it’s anything new.”

“I’m just saying.” Laya held her hands up in surrender, giving up and grabbing an apple. “Just be careful. Rumors spread like fire at this school.”

“I agree, Y/N,” Hoseok adds, his food finished like you wished yours was. With a point of his finger for emphasis, he steadies you with a knowing look. “I don’t think Jimin would do anything to make it worse, but people do love to talk. It’s just the way things go.”

“Okay, okay. I appreciate it guys, really I do. And I guess I’ll be careful, but can I just eat my breakfast now?” You groaned, your empty stomach practically yelling at you for food.

Hoseok stole a quick glance at his watch and shook his head. “Looks like you’ll have to eat it on the way. First classes are starting soon.”

“What?” You swivel your head around to check the clock in the Great Hall, pouting when you see that he’s right. Fucking great.

“C’mon, Y/N, let’s go.” Laya picks your bag up off the floor beside you and hands it to you when you wrap the rest of your barely eaten toast in a napkin. “Wouldn’t wanna be late.”

“Yeah, whatever. You guys owe me food!” You point an accusatory finger at the two of them.

Hoseok rolls his eyes and leaves for his Charms class and Laya sighs good-naturedly. “Yeah, okay, sure, whatever, but let’s go. I’d rather not be late for Slughorn’s class for the second time in three days.” Suddenly you smirk, an idea popping into your head and you turn to smile at Laya.

“Hey, Laya?” The girl turns to you and you can feel your smirk widen. “Race ya!”

You take off down the hall without waiting for her response and you can hear her call out behind you. She splutters and yells, “Hey no fair! Wait up!”

[]{}[]

Your feet dragged along the stone floor tiredly. The rest of your body sags along with them, shuffling as you mindlessly drift away from the Quidditch pitch. The practice was a bitch today and you desperately want some rest after dinner tonight.

Thankfully, you had only been a half hour late because Professor Sprout let your team know you had detention today. They agreed to wait a bit to start practice, but Hoseok definitely didn’t go easy on you for missing warm-ups. You swear that boy turns into a completely different person out on that pitch.

Currently, your teammate is blathering on about a new play and you’re struggling to pay attention to her words. Right now your focus is only on one thing. Jimin.

You had mentioned to him in detention today that you’re lagging a bit behind in Divination. After a short conversation, Jimin offered to lend you his notes to study from. Knowing that Jimin is unbelievably good at this class, you immediately jumped at the chance. He said he'd give you his notes during dinner, but you have to actually find him first.

“-but I really think we’re gonna win our match against Ravenclaw with this play. Don’t you- Y/N are you listening?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.” You reply, not meeting her eyes as you continue to search for that familiar head of blonde hair.

“Oh really? Then what did I just say?”

Your eyes roam the Great Hall for the hundredth time when you finally, finally spot him right in the middle of the Gryffindor table. You recognize that smile immediately, having become fairly accustomed to it in the span of four days.

“Yeah, that’s great Daisy, can you excuse me for a second?” You don’t wait for her to respond before you’re off, beelining straight for the Gryffindor table. Truthfully, you feel a little bad for just leaving her like that, but you can just apologize later when your Divination grade isn’t in jeopardy.

As you get closer, you’re thankful to find that the seat next to Jimin is conveniently empty. Without any sense of hesitation, you squeeze yourself in beside him, plopping your hands onto the wooden table with a less than dramatic flourish.

As you expected, multiple sets of eyes instantly glared at you, more than likely for interrupting some conversation or another, but that wasn’t really your concern.

“Hey, Y/N!” Jimin smiled immediately, the familiar twist of his lips falling easily into place on his carefully constructed face. “Practice go alright?”

You’re about to answer when you catch the eyes of the surrounding Gryffindors. You don’t know any of them except for a girl in your year, Lisa. They don’t say a word, simply stare as you try to have a conversation with Jimin. You suppose it’s not really that surprising or outlandish. It’s not often that students eat their meals with someone other than their own housemates. Even if there is a healthy number of inter-house friendships- and other bonds- usually people don’t bother to leave their table for whatever reason, you’re not sure.

Besides, you’ve only just made friends with Jimin, so you’ve never had a reason to sit anywhere else, especially not the Gryffindor table. In your five years at Hogwarts, you’ve come across your fair share of self-righteous Gryffindors. However, as you glance at Jimin, looking at you expectantly with his trademark grin and crescent moon eyes, you can’t help but feel relieved that not all Gryffindors are that bad. Even if you’re starting to realize that maybe not all his fellow lions are as welcoming of your presence as he his, you find that you don’t really care as long as Jimin doesn’t.

Looking back to the boy in question, you nod swiftly, silently debating if grabbing a roll would be overstepping your boundaries. Deciding that anyone who objects can get over a single missing roll, you stretch your hand out to take one. You hear Jimin chuckle under his breath at this and you offer him a grin.

He returns the gesture and you swallow the bread before you continue. “Are your Divination notes still on the table?”

“Of course.” He replies with fake shock over his stunning features. “You really think I would just retract such a kind offer from my detention buddy? I thought you knew me better than that.”

You scoff, but it quickly turns into a laugh. You’re starting to find that you’re doing that a lot more often this past week. “We’ve only known each other for a week.” You point out to him. “Not even, actually, it’s just been four days.”

“Not true!” He objects, gesturing with his fork wildly. “Technically we’ve known each other for five years, we’ve just never been friends until now.”

“Oh, so is that what we are?” You arch an eyebrow at him, playfully. “That’s my mistake. I thought we were partners in crime.” You shrug, feigning indifference.

From your peripheral vision, you see Jimin shake his head with a fond smile. He nudged at your shoulder to grab your attention and you marvel in the way his smile seems to reach all the way to his eyes. You like that.

“We can definitely be partners in crime if that position is still open.” Jimin urges with a smirk, his statement coming out as more of a question towards the end.

You hum and pretend to mull it over. “I don’t know.” You sigh heavily as if such thoughts were deeply tiresome. Your left hand rubs pensively at your chin as you regard Jimin curiously. He just smiles sweetly at you in return, looking somehow simultaneously adorable and yet thoughtfully serious, and you swear he’s doing it on purpose.

“Aw, come on, Y/N.” He pleads, lightheartedly. “I’m giving you my notes and everything!”

His eyes seem to widen comically as if to accentuate just how grand a notion sharing his notes is and you can’t help the laugh that suddenly pushes past your lips. How can one boy be that cute?

After your small fit of laughter subsides, you nod your head to Jimin. “I guess you can continue being my partner in crime.” You tease.

“Great!” Jimin cheers gleefully, not hesitating for a second to show his relief. As if he hadn’t known you were just messing with him.

You chuckle lightly at his dramatics, even going as far to tell him so. He scoffs and glances back over to your own dining table, hardly sparing a look at the sea of gold. “You think I’m so bad, you obviously haven’t met the Head Boy.”

You smirk, your eyes landing on the tall and handsome Hufflepuff across the hall, stuffing his face with pumpkin pasties. “I’ve had a few conversations with him.”

Jimin nods and arches his brow as if to say, ‘You know I’m right’. You sigh, conceding. “And I guess I can admit that he’s slightly more dramatic than you.”

Jimin clicks his tongue in agreement, not quite smiling but still beaming with satisfaction. “Thank you.” The words roll off his tongue with ease and he goes to dig through his bag after finishing the vegetables on his plate.

You wait silently for him to find whatever he’s searching for, trying your hardest not to look at the other Gryffindors around you. But you can hear their whispers, mixing and fading along with those of the students behind you from the Slytherin table. You can practically feel their eyes on you and even if you can’t make out what exactly they’re saying, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who they’re referring to.

Instead of gifting them with the reaction they’re looking for, you stick to picking apart another roll and popping it happily into your mouth. It’s as you are finishing it that something akin to triumph leaves Jimin’s mouth and he’s pushing a few pieces of parchment into your hands.

“There you are, Y/N.” He smiles -when is he not smiling? you hope you never find out- looking rather proud of himself. “Those are the notes from today’s class, but if you ever need some others to study with you can just ask. I always keep all my notes in case I need to check back with them.”

Your eyes run over the parchment quickly, briefly looking it over. The notes are organized nicely and written in perfectly neat handwriting. He’s even made a bulleted list and you're taken a bit by surprise by just how neat and organized everything is.

Looking back up at him, you nod your head with a smile. “Thanks, Jimin. I guess now I owe you two.”

“I don’t really mind.” He waves off your concerns like batting away a fly. “Partners in crime help each other out.”

You chuckle at the use of the term you’d made up just to tease him. He seems to notice this and his smile widens and display his set of perfectly white teeth. You have to refrain from rolling your eyes at how unfairly gorgeous he looks without even trying.

“Well thanks, anyway.” You return, beginning to collect your things from where you’d laid them beside you. “I promise I’ll give them back in detention tomorrow. I just really need to look over them first.”

Jimin shrugs, not even batting an eyelash as he dismisses your words. “It’s fine, Y/N. I’ve gone over them several times so take as long with them as you need.”

Instead of replying, you just offer him a lift of your lips and he grins in response. Did he ever stop grinning? You’re not sure, but you are certain that you could look at that smile of his all day.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jimin.”

“See ya, Y/N!”

Even after your conversation has ended, you find yourself smiling. You have no idea how, but Jimin just seems to have that kind of power over people. It’s as if the mere thought of him is enough to make someone’s day better. You wish more people were like that.

It’s as you’re lost in your thoughts, just vaguely aware of making your way to your own table, that a shout of your name registers behind you.

You turn, expecting to see Jimin who may have forgotten a paper or had given you one too many by mistake, but instead, you see Lisa jogging to meet you where you stand.

To say that you’re surprised is a bit of an understatement. You’d only ever talked to Lisa a handful of times before, like when you’d worked together on your Astronomy project last year, for example. She was fairly popular herself and well-liked among students across all houses and years. It’s not hard to understand why, either. With her long blonde hair and dazzling eyes, not to mention a killer sweet smile and charming personality, it’s difficult not to. You’d even made plans to talk and hang out more often after last year’s assignment. Granted they never came into fruition, but you have to say that she’s definitely one of the more humble and kind Gryffindors you’ve met over the years.

Still, none of this could explain why she would want to speak with you. Sure, you know each other and, yeah so you got along last year, but it’s not as if you two were exactly friends. In fact, even after you’d gotten closer during your project, you’d have to admit that Jimin is more of a friend to you than she is.

“Y/N.” She called out as you came within speaking distance of one another. The girl was radiating pleasantry as she stood in front of you and your curiosity is starting to grow as she rocks back onto the balls of her feet. “Hey, I didn’t get the chance to say hi back there.”

“Hey, Lisa. What’s up?” You ask, never one for beating around the bush.

The Gryffindor recognizes this and nods to herself. “So, I wanted to ask you because Jimin isn’t saying anything and there are some rumors going around, but I just wanted to be sure if they were true.”

You sigh, not quite sure if you know where this is going. “Rumors? What rumors?”

“Everyone is saying that you and Jimin are together.” She surmised, biting her lip as she eyed you carefully.

You frowned, but your face refused to give anything away. Turning the thought over in your head, you huffed in exasperation. “Really? I swear people will make up anything just to entertain themselves.”

“So it’s not true?” Lisa wondered, her pretty brown eyes alight with interest.

“No, it’s not. We literally just met a few days ago. We’re just friends.” You shook your head, not quite believing that people would make this up for fun. Can’t a boy and a girl simply just be friends?

Lisa nods in understanding, a look almost similar to the Cheshire Cat on her face. “Oh okay, I get it. You two seem pretty close for only knowing each other a few days, though.”

“Not you, too.” You groan, but there’s no malice in your tone. In fact, you enjoy talking to Lisa again. From the little time that you’ve known her, you’ve become aware that’s she’s not interested in the latest gossip as most others are. Still, she’s never exactly out of the loop.

“We’re just friendly people.” You defend with a pout, causing Lisa to laugh.

Her laugh rings in your ears, soft and sweet. “I’m just messing with you, I understand.” The blonde assures and you believe her. “I’ll tell everyone to stop spreading those rumors around if you want.”

“That’d be nice, thank you.”

“No problem.” She gives you a nice pat on the back, before she’s off, though not without telling you that the two of you should hang out soon. With easy agreement from you, you’re left to wander back towards your fellow Hufflepuffs and finally sit down to eat your dinner.

It wasn’t until Lisa brought it up that you noticed all the lingering stares and faded whispers that have seemed to surround you these days. For whatever reason, people just lived to talk about you, so it’s nothing you weren’t already used to. However, the rumor about you and Jimin seemed to be a widely believed one, if the extra gossip around you is of any indication.

If you’re being honest, you don’t mind the attention so much. Sure, you wish people wouldn’t make things up just because they have nothing better to do, but truthfully you’re more worried about how Jimin will take it. Being as popular and admired as he is, you’re sure he can handle it, but you wonder if the thought makes him uncomfortable.

Whatever the case, you hope it won’t drive a wedge between you and your new friend and you hope people will stop making things up for their own interest.

[]{}[] 

It’s finally Friday and normally you’d be buzzing with excitement at the thought of the weekend. The always fierce competition between Gryffindor and Slytherin is in two days and you and Laya planned on wasting your Saturday away just doing whatever you want. However, today was different.

Today, you’re still stuck in detention, assisting the house elves with tonight’s dinner. As you stir the stew that the elf Talby asked you to, you try your hardest not to fall asleep mid-stir. The only sounds coming from within the four walls of the kitchen being that if the numerous elves running around in preparation.

At this point, you’re just thanking your lucky stars that you have-

“Hello? Earth to Y/N? Are you dead or just sleeping? How can you sleep standing up? That’s what horses do, are you a horse?”

-Jimin.

You sigh, reluctantly opening your eyes to steady Jimin with a glare. He just shrugs with a smirk, continuing to mash the assortment of potatoes in front of him.

Turning back to the stew, you stare at it regretfully. You love the house elves, really you do. They’re kind and some of them brutally honest, and most of the time their company is better than that of your fellow students. They always love to see you and Laya (and Hoseok but everybody loves him) and you’d be lying if you said the two (three) of you haven’t spent a few hours down there helping them out. Unfortunately, the fact remains that there are still quite a few more appealing alternative ways you’d rather spend your Friday evening.

You’re bored and lethargy is seeping into your bones and closing your eyes from lack of stimulation. Even Jimin, who isn’t much better off than you are despite his ever prominent smile, is blinking back his boredom.

You pout, stretching your arms above your head with a yawn. “I’m bored.” You drawled with a childish whine.

Jimin nods his agreement, resting his head in his palm. “Me, too. I wish we at least had some music or something.”

“Yeah me, too. Sucks that Hogwarts doesn’t invest in a set of speakers.” You lament, your shoulders slumping in disappoint from the simple thought.

“I wish, but Hogwarts just barely began to allow cell phones.” The boy shrugs with an air of disbelief, his hands pushing back his blonde hair. “I doubt they’d be willing to install speakers in such an old and historic castle.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” You sigh dejectedly, the sight of your stew beginning to annoy you. Maybe it’s just your mind creating something and making things up from sheer and utter boredom, but you swear it’s taunting you. Like it knows it’s just a reminder of how awful your Friday is going.

It’s quiet for a second, but then Jimin’s words come back to you. “Wait,” You paused, mulling over his words again. “Do you have speakers at your house?”

Jimin may be your newly acclaimed partner in crime, but you did just meet him five days ago. There’s still a lot of things you don’t know about him. The way he just so casually understood how speakers worked had you a little more than excited.

Jimin looked confused for only a moment until he nodded. “Yeah, my mum insisted that we have them. She’s always loved music and she told my dad that living without them would be equivalent to living in the Stone Age.”

“Thank God!” You exclaimed, your time in detention already seeming to lighten up. “Finally someone understands my struggle. Laya doesn’t understand because she’s lived in the wizarding world her whole life. I seriously think I’m having some sort of withdrawal being without the internet here.”

A snicker falls from Jimin’s lips, his potatoes now abandoned on the table. “Yeah?”

“Hell yeah.” You shot, your stew forgotten and your interest piqued. “Do you know how many times this year I’ve tried to play Spotify only to find that I can’t use it?”

“How many times?” He smiles, clearly amused and biting back a laugh.

“Too many.” You bristle with dissatisfaction, not bothering to hide your resentment.

Jimin’s falls silent for a moment and you glance over in his direction. He’s absentmindedly mashing the potatoes in their bowl now, his eyes glossed over. He seems to be lost in thought, his expression pensive. You decide to give him his time, dutifully going back to your stew.

After another minute or so, he finally responds. “How does internet work in the muggle world? Does it work the same as in the wizarding world?”

Your brows furrowed in confusion. Did he not live in the muggle world? He knows how speakers work and you’d thought he knew how the internet worked, too.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived in the wizarding world.” You explained to which Jimin frowns. However, he recovers quickly, smiling back at you and asking another question.

“What’s the muggle-world like? My mum tells me a lot of stories but I’ve never gone unless it’s to visit my grandparents.” His voice sounds slightly sad or disappointed as he talks, not meeting your eyes. Instead, they’re trained firmly on his hands which continue to squish a new set of potatoes. “They don’t live in any of the cities, though, so I’ve always wondered what’s it’s actually like out there.”

Admittedly, you were excited to be able to talk about the muggle-world with someone. Laya’s never been to the muggle-world and although Hoseok’s a fellow muggle-born, usually he’s off with Jimin and their other friends so you don’t get to talk to him as much as you’d like. But seeing Jimin now, looking at you with a smidge of hope and a little more curiosity, you decide that you don’t mind so much. It’s cute the way he’s staring at you now and if telling him all about your mundane world will keep that spark in his eyes, then you’ll do it happily.

Jimin is still waiting patiently for you to reply when you come back from your thoughts and you can’t help but laugh.

“I’m not sure there’s much to tell, to be honest.” Just the thought of someone who’s spent their whole life in a world full of witches and wizards finding your own world fascinating makes you chuckle under your breath. “Really it’s pretty boring compared to the wizarding world.”

Jimin shakes his head, a tiny smirk lifting his lips upward. “I think there’s more to it than what you give it credit for. I mean, without muggles us wizards wouldn’t have the internet.”

“That’s true.” You murmur, a feeling of satisfaction at the realization and a swell of pride rising within your chest. A smile threatens to play on your mouth and you don’t even try to suppress it. “Okay, then what do you want to know first?”

A hum radiates from his chest as he thinks, choosing his first question carefully. As he does this, you wonder if he’s never asked his other friends before. Hoseok himself is part of his little tight-knit bunch and you’re pretty sure Namjoon, a sixth year Ravenclaw is as well. If you’re correct, Namjoon is also a muggle-born, and they’ve known each other for years.

You’re about to ask him about this when his face lights up and you can see the gears in his head turn. He looks to you with excitement and anticipation shining in his soft eyes. “What’s your music like? Is it different from ours?”

A smile is gracing his features in a perfect twist of his lips and his eyes are alight and dancing with mirth. You can see real curiosity and intrigue growing in them the longer you stare and personally, that’s more fascinating to you than anything else.

“I’m not very familiar with your music, but I’m not sure how different the two could get.” You begin to think hard, trying to remember the very few songs you’ve heard from the wizarding world. It’s more difficult than you thought, considering you’ve only ever been exposed to that music while riding the Hogwarts Express.

Your eyes flicker back over to Jimin as he waits for you to finish your thought. As you look at him, a memory suddenly comes to mind. “Is that song that you're always singing from the wizarding world?”

He blinks, his face frozen as he stares at you mindlessly. For a moment, you’re not sure if he even registered what you said, but then pink begins to dust his cheeks and you know that he must have. Jimin sputters and seems to close into himself, all trace of the curious boy gone and a timid, bashful one in his place.

“Jimin?” You ask, reaching out to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. Fear that you’ve somehow offended or embarrassed mind floods your mind, and you desperately hope that isn’t the case.

His eyes avoid yours as he goes back to his task of mashing potatoes. You begin to panic, wondering what you said to cause such a shift, but then he speaks, quelling a few of your worries. “Wh-what song?”

“What do you mean, the song that you sing every day? Don’t you know what song it is?”

It’s like a light goes off in his head and his body tenses. He still doesn’t look at you, but he puts his kitchen tools down as he answers, “That song doesn’t exactly have a name.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“How does it not have a name? That makes no sense.”

“It doesn’t have a name because, well, it’s not exactly finished yet.”

You frown in confusion as he says this, trying to understand what that means. If it’s incomplete and doesn’t have a name, how does Jimin know it, and so well at that? Where did he hear it from?

Your mind whirls as you ponder these questions, jumping from answer to answer until finally, it clicks. It suddenly makes so much more sense to you now. Why Jimin was so shy and tense and why he’s refusing to look you in the eye…

“Jimin,” You lick your lips, taking a step toward him cautiously. “Did you…write that song?”

“...Maybe.”

Immediately you’re grinning, your face split in half from how wide you’re beaming at him. You grasp onto his shoulder, a laugh spilling past your lips. “Jimin that’s great!” You exclaim, your excitement unrestrained.

Jimin turns slightly to face you. His eyes lift up to take a hesitant peak at yours. Like this, he looks rather shy and small, even if he does stand taller than you. He looks... vulnerable almost.

You hate it.

“Really?”

“Of course!” You try to encourage him, selfishly craving the warmth that you hadn’t realized his smile brings. “I’ve only heard what you’ve been singing so far, but it sounds amazing.”

“It does?” He mumbles, as if afraid you’re lying to him. He glances down at you through the hair that’s fallen in his face and you fight the urge to move it out of the way.

You nod fervently, doing your best to silence his worries. “Definitely! It’s soft and pretty and I’ve had it stuck in my head all week.”

“You have?”

A laugh pours out unbidden. His bashfulness has been replaced with that hopeful look, which you think, looks far better on him. “Yeah, I have. I’ve even caught myself singing it probably as many times as I’ve heard you sing it.” You tilt your head, your expression turning smug. “You do realize that you sing that song every day, right?”

Your companion blushes, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “No, I- uh, wasn’t aware.”

“It’s okay, I don’t really mind.” You assure him, giving him a pat on the back and turning back to your stew. You pick up the spoon and start to stir. “I like it, hearing it makes me happy.”

You can practically feel the way his smile splits his face in half. His eyes sparkle like actual stars and you swear he seems to get taller. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him happier than at this moment and the thought that you caused it gives you an odd sense of accomplishment.

“You really mean that?” His voice is laced with uncertainty, but somehow he still looks optimistic. His eyes search yours for an answer, nervously, and you’re happy to give him the one he’s looking for.

“I really do.” You say sweetly, your mood lifted and feeling much more awake than you did at the start of detention.

Jimin laughs, his spirit much brighter now than a minute ago. “Thank you, Y/N. That means a lot to me.”

“Any time, Jimin.”

Time passes much more smoothly after that. You tell Jimin all about the muggle world while he educates you on life in its wizarding counterpart. The house elves may have gotten onto the two of you a few times for treating your detention like a time to catch up, but neither of you cared. It didn’t stop you from getting into a tiny food fight or from screaming Jimin’s song at the top of your lungs.

[smoochcal]

numb without you (part five)

a/n: maybe 25 notes is too much to ask on each part before you get the next part of the series, so for now once the previous part gets to 20 notes then I will post the next part. thank you again for always standing by me and supporting my writing. it truly means the world to me. if there is anything you would like to see happen or any predictions, you have for the next part please inbox me and let me know :)

pairing: readerxluke

word count: 1.5 k

summary: luke apologizes for shutting you out / spending time with bestfriend!luke

playlist: numb without you by the maine, sink or swim by lewis watson, fallout by marianas trench, sorry by halsey

warnings: swearing, mentions of a hookup and nausea

----------------------------------------------------

Luke’s POV:

This is it. You’re in the car with her and she’s driving so you have about thirty minutes to state your case and give her a million reasons to not push you out of the car while driving away. You know you fucked up. Majorly. Big time. One of your worst fuck ups in the history of fuck ups. But you have to make this right, and now is your chance.

You clear your throat and wipe your hands on the tops of your jeans.

“Look I know what I did was a shitty thing to do, especially in a situation like this, but my anger got the best of me. I mean you really fucked my other best friend behind my back and didn’t mention it nor planned on mentioning it until you realized you were pregnant with his child. That shit hurts, Y/N. So yeah it was shitty for me to shut you out like I did but it was also shitty of you for keeping me in the dark for this long about something pretty serious between you and Calum. But you two are going to have a baby now I guess which is cool. Super stoked for the both of you. I just…god I don’t know. I just don’t want this baby to force the two of you into something neither of you want. I will be by your side throughout this entire pregnancy, if you’ll have me. I still care about you, Y/N. Always have, always will. And I’m sorry again. I’m so so so so so sorry.”

-------------------------------------------------------

Y/N’s POV:

Well, there it was. There was Luke’s big apology. You are happy he made the effort, considering you know how hard it is for him to admit his flaws at times. You kind of wish he wasn’t giving this long speech while you were driving the half hour home, knowing if you weren’t so focused on driving that you would be able to better comprehend his words. By the time he’s finished half of your drive is over. You know you should forgive him. You did put him in a tough situation, and he is your best friend after all. You clear your throat ready to give him a response.

“I accept your apology, but it was a really shitty thing to do. Especially to someone who is now prone to be highly emotional. I know I put you in a rough spot, but you have to know this wasn’t purposeful in the slightest. I’m going to be a mom now and there is nothing I can do but be all in for it. And you have to support me with that,” you reply, taking a deep breath and turning on some music so you can delay the conversation you two need to inevitably finish.

Luke plays around with the music on your phone until he lands on a song that he deems perfect for the last few minutes of your drive. You recognize the song almost immediately, causing you to smile until you really listened to the words blaring through your car speakers.

“An empty room, I'm empty too And everything reminds me of you So many things I shouldn't have missed The more that I push And the more you resist It's easy to say it's for the best When you want more While you leave me with less I know you're fine, but what do I do? I know you're fine, but what do I do? I'm awake, and trying While you're sleeping like a babe Beside him”

As you pull into the driveway, you wipe the tear threatening to fall from your left eye hoping Luke didn’t see you. This song always got you feeling extra emotional, but especially now that you sort of relate to it. And Luke knew that. He had to, he’s your best friend.

You park the car and go into your apartment, expecting Luke to follow which he does. You throw your car keys on the hook by the door and settle in on your couch. Luke sits on the other end, much farther than you would like him to be but you don’t want to give him that satisfaction that he is right. Even though he is.

“Do you want me to get you some salted caramel ice cream? I know you don’t have any in the freezer, but I could go to the store and pick up a couple of tubs? And then we can binge watch some Parks and Rec until you want me to go home?” Luke says, nervous that you will turn down his offer.

You smile and nod and he mumbles that he will be back in twenty minutes and asks you to put his favorite blankets that you own into the dryer so they are nice and warm for when he gets back.

Him being gone gives you some time to think to yourself about all of the events that happened in the past 24 hours. It also allows you to think about the feelings you’ve had for Luke that you have shoved way down in the pit of your stomach and haven’t allowed anything else to bring back up. And that leads to you thinking about how you were planning to make a move with Luke the night you hooked up with Calum. And obviously you didn’t but maybe that is because you assumed he was going to try something that night. And once he didn’t you were thoroughly disappointed and went outside to get some air. You know the rest. That’s how you ended up here.

You like him, anyone can see it. Except him. Which is the exact reason why this situation is so frustrating. You could also mention the fact that you are currently carrying his band member’s child. But you really don’t want to get in to that tonight. Bottom line is you like him… a lot. But what can you do about it now that you are in the current situation you are in?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke comes back with four tubs of your favorite ice cream (salted caramel) and you pull the now warm blankets out of the dryer. He puts three of the tubs of ice cream back in your freezer and finds two spoons in your silverware drawer. You two meet back at the couch and you cover both of your legs with the blankets. You can feel his jeans against your leggings, but you try not to make a big deal out of it. You grab the remote to your tv and put on the latest episode you were watching. Not like you and Luke haven’t watched this show four times over already. The two of you sit together comfortably, watching the characters on the show tackle yet another ridiculous project as you shovel spoonfuls of ice cream into your mouth.

Luke smiles at you every time one of the characters does something dumb and you return his smile with a laugh at the dumb jokes made. Sometimes you wish your life was as simple as the characters in this show, mainly because of the one thing that happens with this kind of show. Happily, ever afters. That’s all you really wanted with Luke but it’s not like you can tell him that. Not now, maybe not ever.

You pass the tub of ice cream back and forth until the two of you cannot eat any more. Luke offers to get up and take the half melted half eaten tub back to the freezer. You thank him for allowing you to already stay off your feet, but you also remind him that you are not even showing yet and barely feel any different. He still insists on helping you out anyway he can, assuring you that this is how he is going to make it up to you for all the shitty things he has done the past couple days.

By the time the two of you are done eating and the episode you were watching was finished, Luke decided it would probably be best if he goes home. You don’t fight it as you have had an already emotional and busy day and you are quite tired. You walk him to the door and thank him for the wonderful afternoon that the two of you have shared. He reminds you that the pleasure is all his and calls an uber to get him home.

The minute he gets in the car, you feel an overwhelming wave of nausea. It looks like your worst nightmare has already started.

Morning sickness.  

[scabopolis]

LV AU Week: Day 2 - “Secret Relationship”

Here’s another pseudo-outline-pseudo-fic thing. Not vague enough to be mistaken for an outline, not developed enough to be a satisfying piece of writing. Fun, huh!

Actually, this was tremendous amounts of fun to write and dream up, and is going to be something that I (hopefully, please!) one day finish in its entirety. Right now the emotional heart of the piece is much more outline while the plot is very developed. 

An AU where Logan works at a music magazine out of LA - a job he never saw himself having in an industry he never dreamed of having anything to do with - but he’s always been charismatic; able to make people feel comfortable with his ne’er-do-well attitude that can easily morph into compassion tinged with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. LA types love that. So he finds himself in an industry he never imagined being in, in a job as a 30-year old that while barely above entry level is something he loves. The goods of it all far outweigh the bad. But the bad takes the form of --

“Decided to finally come back from vacation and stop leaving the actual work to the rest of us?” The bad takes the form of entitled, self-indulgent, sycophants like the bottom-feeding work that is Sean Friedrich.

“So it was someone else, then, who spent 30-days doing yoga in Nepal and left the rest of the department to meet all their deadlines?”

“That was for a story.”

“And the amount of hash you smoked was, what, gratis?” Sean and his bullshit is usually something Logan distances himself from and does not engage in. But, he was on vacation, and it didn’t exactly go as he’d hoped, and to have his first encounter back be with the slimy bag of bones that’s Friedrich?

He sits down at his desk, keeping it quiet as Jackie, his deskmate, is currently in a heated conversation with the manager of someone who, from what he’s picking up, has a client she was supposed to meet with that afternoon. He tries, really he does, to sit down and keep his eyes focused on the work in front of him, but his gaze drifts to the glass walls of his boss’ office. He frowns when he doesn’t see her there. Takes a look at the time. 8:20 AM. He knows for a fact that -- it’s just that --

Jackie slams the receiver down and he barely registers her tirade -- “That walking, talking, waste of -- that -- him and his -- smelly fuck goblin” -- when she smacks his shoulder with that month’s issue. “How was Mexico?”

“I came, I saw, I surfed. Also, ‘fuck goblin?’”

“It’s not even 8:30. I haven’t had time to warm up yet.”

Even after deleting the junk emails, it still leaves Logan with more than 100 in his inbox to deal with, and if that isn’t incentive to never go on a vacation again, what happened on the vacation itself would convince him of the fruitlessness of the exercise.

He makes it to just after 2 o’clock before he asks Jackie: “Where’s Mars, anyway?”

“Susie said she called yesterday and extended her business trip another couple of days. Poor girl. Thought her head was going to explode when she had to reschedule all those meetings.”

Mars, the senior editor of their whole outfit (and, frankly, the one who does most of the work), does in fact return two-days later, and his breath does this little thing once he sees her that he isn’t too proud of. It’s not an uncommon reaction for her to engender. Mars has incredibly high standards for magazine. It took time to get used to -- but after working there a few months Logan understood why their outfit has never fallen prey to a Rolling Stone / UVA type of scandal. Veronica Mars has no room for that type of incompetence.

Coming off from what was supposed to be a 10-day business trip to New York, that turned into an almost 14-day one, she apparently has no-time for him either. She makes it a point to meet with all the feature writers once a month, to check-in, and do some professional development. His is scheduled with her for three days after she gets back and Susie, her assistant, cancels it the day of. “The editor at Nylon won’t take no, and Ms. Mars says it’s the only time in her --”

“Don’t worry about it, Susie.” And he means it. Because he knows what’s happening. Should have expected it really when he told her -- shit. How’d they even get to this point?

Getting cancelled on - he won’t say dumped - by Mars ends up being a blessing as he’s at his desk when the manager for a little garageband who no one has heard of gives him a call. Logan has been trying to get said manager to call him for months, but his client keeps insisting they don’t want the publicity. Something must have happened, though, because Logan now has an interview with the band scheduled for the following day. A band whose song is currently sitting at number one on the Billboard rock charts. Not sung by them. And charting there without so much as a hazy song-writing credit on the album. The worst kept secret in the music industry: big record labels and music producers blatantly stealing songs from unknown artists with the knowledge that the legal fees mean they’ll never be challenged.

Logan doesn’t even realize how late he’s been working until the lights of the office go off, automatically timed to do so at 7:00pm. He’s got another hour of work to do, at least, but he needs to get some food or he’ll be worthless. And of course this is when it happens: Logan rounding the corner back into the office with a falafel and greek fries from the spot on the corner, his phone cradled between his chin and neck, when he crashes into Mars. She drops her briefcase and her own phone and as he tries to save his dinner he hears her say, “I’ll call you back, Dad.”

Her chapstick, vanilla mint he knows without even looking at it, fell out of her bag, and he holds it out to her. She takes it without even glancing at him, tosses her phone in the bag, and walks past.

Something about that, the way she won’t even look at him, is what does it. She makes it to the elevator before he calls out: “So, I guess we broke up, huh?”

She does this subtle rocking forward onto her toes, tightens her grip on her bag, but those are the only indications she’s heard him.

He stares at her back, sees her watching him out of her periphery, and he’s -- what is he supposed to do here? “Fuck this,” he says under his breath. Walks away.

“Excuse me?” / “What?”

“I thought we were going to be adults about this.” / “You breaking up with me suddenly while we were on vacation and then refusing to discuss it is you being an adult? Good to know.”

“What do you want me to say, exactly, Logan?” / “Something. Saying something would be nice. Seeing as all I got before was you packing up and leaving. Not even a souvenir shot glass left behind to ever prove you were there.”

Veronica hesitates. “Things seemed good,” Logan says. “They were good, and then I told you I loved you, and then you got a phone call and they weren’t good.”

“You think I left because you told me you loved me?”

“Well the timing --”

“You are the smartest jackass I’ve ever met in my life. Seriously? Falling in love with you was the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever done.” / “Then why did you?”

The phone call, it turns out, was from her best-friend Wallace. His gym buddy, Piz, works at the magazine as a low-level researcher and he apparently saw Logan and Veronica grocery shopping together. Out of ‘concern for Veronica,’ he communicated to Wallace that it wasn’t a good look for her. Logan suspects Piz’s motives for sharing this information weren’t entirely altruistic.

“You’re up for a promotion,” she says. “You’re not supposed to know that. But you are. And what would it look like if everyone finds out we were dating and then two weeks later your promotion is announced?”

“Fuck, Veronica. The people who know you --” / “No one at work knows me, Logan. On purpose.”

“I know you. And fuck what anyone else thinks.” He knows it’s not that simple, though. Veronica is fantastic at her job. So good it’s terrifying. But he knows how people talk about her when they think no one important is listening. The subtle undercurrent of how her being a woman in the music industry isn’t ever going to work. Maybe for someone else it wouldn’t be a big deal to date a member of their team. It would be used against her, though, and Logan knows it.

Logan doesn’t attempt to convince Veronica she’s wrong. Veronica doesn’t meltdown during a meeting and confess she still loves him (though he’s certain she does). What happens instead is that Logan takes a few ‘personal days’ and in those days applies for jobs at every other magazine with 30 miles of Los Angeles. Some he’s never heard of prior to applying. He has to fit in interviews between his deadlines at work - the oddest one being over quesadillas at Del Taco - but it doesn’t take long to get offered a job. It takes longer for him to get offered a job somewhere he’s actually interested in working.

He tells Veronica at the end of work on Thursday - a night they both work so late they’ve gone through multiple cliff bars each and then gave in and ordered a pizza. He waits until she has a mouth full of pepperoni to tell her.

“You quit?” / “Yes.”

“Louis was going to offer the promotion next week.”

“Yeah, well, I got a better one.”

And it doesn’t take her long to figure out he did this for her. He doesn’t say it, she doesn’t explicitly ask, and he knows she’s far too stubborn to even allow a twitch of her brow to reveal her feelings on the subject.

Logan tries to keep his departure quiet, mainly to avoid the obligatory post-work farewell happy hour, but it’s hard to avoid the questions when he folds up the picture frames and his assignments get farmed out to others.

On his last day, he turns in his badge and keys to Veronica. A Veronica who barely makes eye contact. He’s promised himself he’s not going to argue that she should feel a way she doesn’t want to feel, but he wants to be clear.

“I only want you, you know.” She looks up at him, her expression softer than she ever allows it to be at work. “And you’re the best person I’ve ever worked for.”

He begs off early from the happy hour he was informed by Jackie was compulsory and sits at home on his couch, kind of watching but not watching Sports Center. He starts a new job next week, and it’s fucked because he really liked his old one. And why did he do it? As some sort of grand gesture? Was it a mistake? Should he have --- ?

He’s interrupted by a knock at his door, tosses aside the absolutely hideous pillow his sister gave him for Christmas that year, and answers it.

He doesn’t even have time to register how beautiful she looks before Veronica invites herself into the apartment by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.

They agree to wait a month after Logan’s left to start letting people know. Once the news is leaked (all Veronica has to do is casually mention something to Gia in the breakroom, ‘you haven’t seen The Quiet Place yet? Hard to say if it was me or Logan who jumped higher at the end.’) there’s not really anything more to do than be together.

And maybe gloat a little when his article on plagiarism in the music industry, a lead he took with him to his new job, wins him a California Journalism Award.

[samwpmarleau]

Prompt; elia having a flashback of time when rhaegar used to be nice and write and perform songs for her before anyone else but is distracted when Arthur brings a big teddy bear for her. Sorry if i am being too demanding and flooding your inbox.

She still finds it hard to believe it’s come to this. Today would have been their eleventh anniversary, and now she’s boxing up what’s left of his belongings, the white line around her finger not yet faded from where her ring had been for so long, the ring itself in a box ready to return to him with various other valuable knick-knacks she’d gotten over the years.

She’d thought for a while about keeping it, perhaps to sell, perhaps to melt down the setting but keep the diamond to put in a necklace or bracelet, perhaps simply to retain as an heirloom. Ultimately, she’d decided against it. While it brings her simple regret now to think of how happy it had once made her, she knows the regret could easily become insidious bitterness.

Most of the other stuff is just superfluous crap: forgotten button-downs; a broken watch that neither of them had remembered to take to the jeweler’s; a few of his nice fountain pens. Yet she hesitates when she scrounges through the attic and comes across the keyboard she’d once bought him.

It’s dusty now from disuse, and had been sentimental more than anything else, since he was plenty rich enough to buy himself a grand piano ten times over. But she remembers the times he did use it, and the memories tug unpleasantly at her heart.

He still writes and performs songs so far as she knows, but it’s been years since he did so just for her. He used to do it all the time, for birthdays or anniversaries or when she was sick, or just because. Oh, how spellbinding and soothing his voice had been, how soulful his lyrics. He never declared a song finished until she had offered her thoughts, had heard its tune. Some songs he never performed, even for his own family; the songs were simply theirs. Hers.

They had loved each other once. Maybe it hadn’t been the love that’s in all the fairy tales they told the kids at bedtime, but a love made of respect and friendship and perseverance.

Feeling not quite herself, she plugs in the instrument and begins to play one of her favorites of his, woven to her fingers in muscle memory. Her mother had taught her piano when she was little, but she hadn’t truly taken to it until Rhaegar’s passion for music had encouraged her to try again.

It’s bittersweet, dancing through the familiar chords. He had hummed it when she needed it most, during her difficult labor with Rhaenys and her agonizing one with Aegon and the postpartum depression that had ensnared her for six weeks after them both. During her father’s funeral, when she had to maintain her composure. It had not been the only thing that helped her pull through those trials, but it had calmed her.

The song isn’t particularly long, having been composed early on before he’d perfected his methods, and the final note reverberates around the room like a dirge. She shuts her eyes, trying to keep any further memories of the good days at bay. It’s no use reflecting on those, not when their divorce has been newly finalized and she’s shed god only knows how many tears.

“You play beautifully.”

She doesn’t startle; Arthur had mentioned he would be coming over this afternoon to pick up the boxes and bring them to Rhaegar’s apartment for her. She’s grateful that he had volunteered for the task, for she wouldn’t be able to guarantee her actions or emotions if she were to see Rhaegar face-to-face right now. Even mediation, in which they were reminded in endless detail of the terms of their prenup, had been an utter slog to get through.

“It’s one of Rhaegar’s old tunes,” she answers. “I found the keyboard and got hit by nostalgia.”

Arthur climbs up the rest of the ladder and sits beside her on the floor. “As it happens, I found something, too.”

He holds out a stuffed bear with a polka-dot bowtie. Touched, she asks, “You got this for me?”

“Yeah, I was picking up a couple things for my nephew’s birthday and I saw that,” he explains. “I know the past few months haven’t been easy, so I thought this might cheer you up.”

Elia smiles at his sweetness. “It does. Thank you.”

She hadn’t been certain whose side Arthur would take once she and Rhaegar set their divorce in motion. He had been Rhaegar’s friend first, after all, and some of their other mutual friends had sided with Rhaegar or tried to be moderate, giving a myriad of worthless explanations that in some cases made her wonder if they chose him because they too had those skeletons in the closet.

But Arthur had chosen her, principally citing her own argument–if Rhaegar’s eye was caught by another woman, then he should have ended the marriage then and there, not carried on the deception–and summarily cut ties.

However, that also left the two of them in a weird place. He’d never been just her friend before, and she’d never known him especially well. Sure, they’d had plenty of conversations and had similarities Rhaegar couldn’t properly relate to, like coincidentally having grown up in the same area and thus sharing turns of phrase he didn’t understand and cuisine he couldn’t handle, but they hadn’t really had reason to spend a wealth of time together.

Arthur has helped, though. Not just with his support, but with trying to piece together why Rhaegar may have done what he did, and that it had nothing to do with her. Her pride and self-esteem are nowhere near restored yet, but it’s a start.

“Is this going, too?” Arthur asks, gesturing towards the keyboard.

She ponders that. It had been a gift, an expensive one at that, and she does enjoy playing. Plus, Aegon has already shown a keen interest in music despite being only seven, and she could save this for him one day.

But that would mean that even in such a small way, she would be sharing something with Rhaegar that had been given out of intimacy, and she doesn’t want that. Their children are both of theirs; the keyboard had been for him.

“Yes, please. I’m moving forward.”

“You deserve to,” he says. “Well, I’d better start getting everything loaded. Is the rest all packed up?”

She takes one last look around the room, as she had methodically done previously for everywhere else in the house. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“Sounds good. I won’t be long.”

He goes to pick up the first box, when she finds herself suggesting, “Hey, um…I was thinking of making a celebratory dinner tonight. You know, in honor of de-Rhaegaring the place. I’m not really in the mood yet to hear Oberyn eviscerating Rhaegar or anything, and the kids are still at their grandmother’s, so it’s just me at the moment. You’re welcome to join. If you want. It’s the least I can do.”

Arthur looks apprehensive, and she’s not entirely sure why. It’s just dinner, isn’t it?

But the expression is gone in short order. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll swing by once I drop these off.”

She smiles, feeling her mood lift. “I’ll hold you to that.”