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medicallyinevitable · 4 years

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Medically Inevitable

Chapter 14:- Pitiful Pining

Characters:- Ethan Ramsey, Arielle Valentine, Sienna Trinh, Ethan Ramsey, Harper Emery, & Danny Cardinal

Pairing:- Ethan Ramsey x Arielle Valentine (F!OC)

Warnings:- Light angst & minor language

Word Count:- 2000+ words

And a special thank you to @akshara16 for pre-reading this chapter💞

Arielle’s PoV:-

You’re reading your 18th, well actually what seems like the 100th text book when someone knocks on your bedroom door. You answer with a more irritated tone then you meant.

"Hey, you okay?" The door opens to reveal Sienna with two mugs in her hands.

"Yeah...”, you try to smile but even you know it doesn't quite reach your eyes.

"You don't seem okay though," Sienna says as she comes inside and hands you a mug. You look inside the mug to see what's in it. "I made us some hot chocolate."

You smile, accepting your cup with a genuine thank you as you move, making space for Sienna to sit.

"So what is it?" Sienna asks sitting beside you.

You shake your head, just thinking about the case makes your head spin. "Just a patient’s case. I’ve been running test after test but every result was negative.", you sigh, "and the patient happens to be a major asshole to say the least.", You smile sadly.

"Is it the P. I. T. A?" She asks.

"P. I. T. A?"

"Pain in the ass," she laughs, so do I.

"Oh yeah… Danny mentioned that earlier. That name fits him perfectly!" I respond laughing.

"So what do you think he has?"

"I don't know anymore," you sigh again, "I ran almost as many tests as possible."

"I'm not any expert but maybe if the two of us try to find it, it'll be easier?"

You look at her a bit surprised, "You'll spend your free time diagnosing my patient?"

She smiles at me, "Of course. That's what friends are for right? To help you."

You look at her with a grateful smile. "Thank you."

"You can thank me with strawberry glazed doughnuts once we're finished with this.”, she replies with a silly wink.

"Deal."

You spent the next thirty minutes discussing the symptoms as you catch her up with the diseases you've managed to ruled out.

In between, you notice Sienna acting a bit weird. But whenever you try to bring it up, she deflects your question so you decide not to press further.

Another half an hour goes by with Sienna’s weird antics and you decide you’ve had enough. You close your book and turn towards Sienna. She tries to act like she doesn’t notice you looking at her but eventually she looks up.

"What is it, Sienna? I can tell you want to ask me something but you’re not.”, you say.

"Uh-what?" she asks nervously, her eyes darting around everywhere but you.

"I don't know what you’re talking about."

"Don't lie, Si!," you narrow your eyes.

But she doesn’t budge. You keep asking her until she finally accepts.

“Come on Si, no secrets between us right?”

"Okay fine!... you’re hiding something, Ari,", shesays catching you off guard.

"I-Me? I'm not hiding anything," you try to laugh it off.

Now it's her turn to narrow her eyes. "You are! See, you’re behaving really weird."

"I'm not behaving weird," you oppose.

"You are. And don't you dare deny it again.”, she says in a serious tone.

"You can talk to me, you know that right?” Her voice changes to the caring and concerned tone reserved for her closest friends.

You ponder for a minute, whether or not to tell her. You’ve shared so many secrets with Sienna before, you know she's your best friend and that you trust her completely.

Before you know it, you start blurting out everything. From how Dr. Ramsey assigned you the case, to how he wouldn’t reassign him to someone else, and then your confrontation which was probably the most idiotic thing you could have done. Then how you both shouted at each other, you completely blanking out at the fact that he was your supervisor and could pull you from the program the next second if he wished, and how that lead to triggering a panic attack, then lastly…

“I don’t know how, our faces were mere inches apart, breathing ragged, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing-“ You throw your hands up, cutting yourself off as you jump up and pace around the room.

“I mean I could have kissed him for God’s sake! What was I even thinking?! If it weren’t for my pager I don’t know what I would’ve done…”

“Woah, calm down Arielle. You need a break.” She makes you sit down and drink a glass of water, waiting until you’ve calmed down a bit.

“Now, tell me what else happened.”

“What?! Nothing else happened!” How Sienna knows you so well eludes you, nonetheless you try to hide it.

“Something else happened, or else you wouldn’t be spiraling this much. I know you Ari, you always have a cool head under any circumstance.”

You sigh, knowing there’s no use in hiding it. “Well I did see something…”

“Go on.”, she says urging you,

“Well it all started after the whole almost kiss thing, my brain was like scrambled eggs and my shift had already ended so I took my car and drove around until I realised I had no idea where I was, and to top that disaster off I was starving…”

———————A few hours before———————

“Ugh, I think I drove all the way to the other side of town. And I’ll have to drive all the way back to the apartment and then start research for Nigel’s treatment again. And I’m hungry because instead of eating lunch, I decided to unleash my wrath of Dr. Terminator. Ohh, can this day get any worse-“ In the midst of your little blabbering session, you spot a classy French cafe across the street.

“Well at least a day this bad always has room for improvement, and right now I’m starving.”, you park your car and head inside.

The smell of roasted coffee and baked buttery goods hits your senses the moment you enter the cafe. The serenity is a nice change of pace compared to always busy and bustling Edenbrook, dimly lighted and decorated with beautiful vintage items.

“At least I won’t bump into anyone here that I know.”, you think as you stand in the queue.

You decide to order a vanilla frappe with drizzled salted caramel and go for a regular chocolate doughnut to satisfy your sweet tooth. After the barista brings your order, you move towards a nice secluded corner and sit down at the table.

You slowly finish your doughnut and coffee, savouring the taste as you gaze out the French style window. You’re about to dispose of your trash when a familiar sweater shirt catches your eye.

“No way…” As you hide your face with a medical journal which you randomly fished out of your purse, you peek over the top to see Dr. Ramsey sitting across…

“Is that Dr. Emery?”, your mind recalls the time when you saw them in a patient’s room, quite cozy with each other. And now they sit a few tables away from you, talking as her hand is over his. You pretend to read your journal as you watch both of the doctors get up and throw away the remains. You follow pursuit and slowly exit the cafe making sure they don’t notice. You stand at the side of your car door and watch as they both edge closer and closer, her hand now on his jaw. Their faces are barely an inch apart now, as he leans in to close the distance.

“That’s- I can’t-“

Not being able to look at them, you get in your car, slamming the door and speed away as fast as you possibly can, ignoring the tears that brim in your eyes.

————————end of flashback———————

”Oh Arielle…..I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”, you assure her when pretty much everything going on in your life is anything but alright. She gives you a look.

“I- okay well there’s nothing I can do about it, and it’s not like anything would have happened, it was merely a stupid crush.”, you reply wondering whether you’re trying to convince Sienna or yourself. A long but comfortable silence passes, you both just sit and immerse in everything you’ve just blurted out.

"How are things between you and Wayne?", you say desperate for a topic change.

"It's as usual I guess?" she says now as gloomy as me. "We haven't had a proper conversation in a while."

You try to comfort your best friend as you mentally curse the idiot.

"He's an idiot, Si, " you tell her. "If he can't value you, he's not worth it Si."

"He was not always this way you know... We've had happy days. But ever since I started my residency he became... distant."

You put your hand on top of hers in a comforting manner and give her an understanding smile.

"You can always talk to me about it, Si. You know that right?"

She nods and shoots me a smile, a sad one, nonetheless a smile. That’s a slight improvement.

We talk about our messes of relationships for a bit more before Sienna decides we had enough gloom and doom and it was time to make some happy memories.

“Okay, what did you have in mind?”, you ask.

A grin forms on her face as she tucks her knees in and speaks, "Why did the Dalmatian go to the eye doctor?"

“Medical joke hmm?” She nods and nudges me to try to answer. After thinking for a moment, I shrug.

"Because he kept seeing spots.", she says following with a fit of laughter. The joke isn’t even that funny but even you end up laughing your heart out. That's the thing with best friends, everything becomes a thousand times better when they’re by your side.

"Oh-" Sienna tries to say recovering from her previous laughter session, "There's another one."

"What did one tonsil say to the other tonsil?"

"Umm...What?" you ask when you fail to find an answer.

"Get dressed up, the doctor is taking us out!" We both break into another fit of laughter, laughing till tears form in the corner of your eyes.

You wipe tears from your eyes, still smiling broadly.

Your own reflection catches your eye in the mirror. Your balayage hair is now slowly falling out from the messy bun you tied up before, your eyes now have bags in addition to your dark circles and lastly you look like a zombie with your smeared makeup.

“I look like a hot mess.”

Sienna laughs. “Well I have a night shift today so I’ll look worse than you after it.

You join her in another wave of laughter until Sienna’s phone goes off from her room.

You watch her as her eyes light up and then morph into worry as she looks at herself. You give her a look.

“Oh uh… Danny said that he would give me a lift to my shift and stop by to get coffee.”, she shouts as she rushes into her room. You chuckle watching her frantically trying to make herself presentable as she grabs her bag and heads downstairs.

“Bye Si! I’ll see you later-“ She’s already run off. With a smile, you head towards your room for a bath, dinner and then a date with more textbooks.

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

Authors’ Note:- Hey everyone, Chapter 14 of Medically Inevitable is finally out! We know that the release was scheduled much much earlier but life happens unfortunately and it took us quite a long time but from now on, our regular schedule will continue again!

Anyways, let us know if you enjoyed this chapter and your predictions of what will happen next! Are Harper and Ethan really a couple? And if they are, why did Ethan almost kiss Arielle? And what’s happening with Danny and Sienna? As always, it means a lot to us if you comment and reblog and have a great day/night everyone!

Love,

@drariellevalentine & @mysticaurathings

Medically Inevitable Taglist:-

Let us know if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

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emberfrostlovesloki · 4 years

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# 5 Daddy Issues

Gif credit: @undertheniall

Prompt: Daddy Issues - When the reader attacks an unsub the team doesn’t know how to react. After an awkward day in the office Spencer works up the courage to find out what is going on with the reader, and they both find out they have a similar childhood fear.

Couple: Spencer Reid/ Reader (female)

Category: Angst / Comfort

Content Warning: Hostage situation, mentions of child abuse, language

A/N: Well here I am writing angst again. I really like the way this story turned out. I wanted to thank everyone for all the interaction with my posts, it means a lot. Also, I only have a basic knowledge of rock climbing, sorry if I got some things wrong. I hope you enjoy this new addition! Like/ Reblog please.

_y/n_ = your name

_y/l/n_ = your last name

_f/s_ = face shape

_h/l_ = hair length

Link to other stories

Word Count: 5k

The current case that the BAU team was facing was related to three seemingly unrelated murders in a small town in Ohio. It wasn’t until more information had come forward that Spencer nailed down the unsub’s identity. Jason Kloch, married father of three, had killed his family's bank teller, pastor and wife’s best friend once he heard that his wife was planning on divorcing him. Jason was currently holed up in his two story house, holding his family hostage. The team had made multiple calls to try and negotiate a peaceful resolution for the innocent members of Jason’s delusions, however nothing had come from those conversations. Now the team was driving over to the house to confront the unsub face to face. The FBI had tapped the family’s phone line and found out that Jason was planning on killing his wife and children and then himself that evening. With this information the team immediately took action, thus speeding to the family residence. Once they got to the picturesque white home the team split up into smaller units. J.J., Gideon and Spencer went to look at the backyard. Hotchner, Morgan, _y/n_ and Prentiss crept inside the home. Aaron signaled for _y/n_ and Derek to take the upstairs, while he and Emily would check the downstairs and basement. _y/n_ carefully walked up the stairs, avoiding the weak spots that would squeak with their weight. _Y/n_ could hear a one sided conversation coming from the largest bedroom and pointed in that direction. The duo approached the closed door. Both agents held their guns in front of their chests. Morgan used his fingers to count down, three, two, one. At one _y/n_ kicked the door in and pointed her Colt M4 in the direction of the bed. Jason was on the bed with his wife. The unsub had a gun that he immediately pointed at his wife’s head. The woman made a terrified sound against her gag as the deranged man threatened her. _Y/n_ said, “Mr. Kloch you don’t want to do this,” as Derek joined the female agents in pointing his weapon at the unsub. Jason pulled his wife off the bed with him. He pressed the metal barrel closer to his wife’s head. He replied, “You don’t understand anything.” The unsub looked _y/n_ up and down and continued, “You look like a real treat. I bet if I had married you you wouldn’t have tried to leave me like this bitch did.” _Y/l/n_ ignored the comment and took a step closer to the unsub. Morgan then said, “Jason, I know you want to keep your family together, but by killing them you won't accomplish any of that. If you let Mary [Jason’s wife] go you can have a chance to see your children again. Jason was starting to slip out of reality and he shouted, “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do! She does it all the time.” Jason waved his gun around wildly before he put it behind Mary’s cranium again. As the man began to slide his finger further on the trigger _y/n_ had one last attempt to stop yet another murder. She said in a seductive voice, “You said I was a treat earlier. Would you like to see some more?” The unsub was clearly startled by the offer and momentarily pulled the gun away from Mary’s skull. The man focused again and said, “Yeah, if I’m gonna die today I might as well see some cute tit’s and ass before I do.”

` Morgan looked over to _y/n_ and shook his head no at her. _Y/l/n_ looked back at him with as reassuring a glance as she could muster. The female agent slipped off one side of her blazer, then switched her gun from one hand to the other. With another shake the blazer fell to the floor. _Y/n_ took a step toward Jason. She still held onto her gun with her right hand, with the left she started unbuttoning her shirt. The woman stopped at the fourth button, where her shirt intersected with her bullet proof vest. Now that the woman’s clavicle was on display she stepped even closer to the unsub. When she was about two feet away from him she asked, “Do you like it.” At this statement Jason’s hand, holding the gun started shaking violently. Once the tip of the deadly weapon was off of Mary’s head agent _y/l/n_ lunged at the man. The pile of bodies on the floor writhed in a mess of arms and legs. Morgan ran over to the group and quickly pulled Mary out of the way and helped her to the bed. While this was happening _y/n_ had kicked the gun from Jason’s hand, and was punching him on the head and chest. For a moment the man flipped over on _y/n’s_ chest and tried to overpower her. The agent quickly kneed the man in the groin and bucked her hips up causing Jason to flip onto his back. _Y/n_ gave one last strong upper cut and the man was knocked out. Seeing this fact Morgan relaxed for a moment. Aaron entered the room to see what was happening to his team. When he ascertained the situation he lowered his gun. Unfortunately _y/n_ was still hitting the body of the unconscious man. With a voice of authority Hotch said, “Agent _y/l/n_ stop. The woman had heard her supervision but continued to beat the man. Morgan quickly got up and grabbed _y/n’s_ waist and easily lifted the lithe girl off the unsub. Derek held on to her with enough strength that she couldn’t move her hands anymore. Morgan said, “I need you to calm down _y/n_. Take some deep breaths.” After a minute or two the agent relaxed in his arms, she looked up to Aaron with a sad expression. Her supervisor returned the look with one of apprehension.

Thirty minutes later, when Mary and her children had been taken to the hospital for a check up, and Jason had been cuffed and taken into custody, Spencer, and the FBI team that had helped them with the case were filling out a report on the room. In another corner of the room Aaron was having a conversation with Derek about what had happened in the room before he got there. From what Spencer could hear it didn’t sound like _y/n_ had acted like herself at all. Spencer stood up from his position on the floor and momentarily looked out the window. He could see J.J. and _y/n_ were having a conversation. Or, what looked more like an argument. J.J. was standing with her arms crossed across her chest and _y/n_ was gesturing with her hands. After another minute the media liaison shook her head and walked away from the other agent. Spencer could see _y/n_ shoulders moving up and down as if she was trying to control her breathing. Then the agent pulled her fist back and hit the side of the house sharply. Spencer flinched at the action. It looked like it must have hurt. Before the svelte agent could consider what had happened between his coworker one of the other groups FBI agent’s approached him with a form to look over and sign. In another two hours the team was on the jet back to Quantico. There was a strange tension on the plane. _Y/n_ was not her normal bubbly self. She had even refused to play Spencer at chess, one of her favorite things. Instead, the agent had put on headphones and took a seat at the back of the jet. She had her legs pulled up to her chest and had wrapped her arms around them, like a child when they were frightened. The team gave her a wide breadth, not wanting to disturb her. They didn’t really know what to do, because she had never acted this way before. They all hoped that tomorrow she would be back to normal. When the plane landed Morgan gave her a hug as they exited the aircraft. As she passed by Aaron he looked at her with a blank expression, this made the young woman shiver before she quickly moved toward her car.

The next day at headquarters when _y/n_ entered the bullpen Hotchner called her up to his office. The young agent closed the door behind her and stood in front of his desk. Aaron looked up at her and said, “Please take a seat _y/l/n_.” The agent did and placed her arms at the edge of her supervisor's desk. Hotchner tilted his head slightly and said, “You know why you’re here, right.” Upon hearing this _y/n_ hung her head and replied, “Yes Sir.” Hotch nodded and said, “Would you like to tell me what happened yesterday with Jason Kloch?” _Y/n_ kept her head down but turned her eyes to the man that she saw as a father figure and said, “I apologize that my emotions got in the way of my job yesterday. I know that it was unprofessional and unneeded.” Hotch took in the words and replied, “You not only acted unprofessionally with your outburst, but you also put yourself in unnecessary danger by approaching the unsub in the manner that you did. Unfortunately I’m going to have to ask you to take a psychiatric evaluation. Pending the results of your exam I will decide whether or not to include it in your file.” _Y/n_ nodded. She knew that her actions could get her fired, and she was grateful that he was giving her this much of a chance. Hotchner had one last question, so he looked up at her and honestly asked, “I need to know what’s happening with my team _y/n_. I’m asking you to tell me truthfully what caused your outburst yesterday? What’s going on?” The female agent sat silently for a minute, thinking about how to reply. After the uncomfortable silence she said, “The relationship you had with your father Sir, it’s the same kind of relationship I had with mine. Every time I see an unsub that’s abusing their power over innocent women and children I see my father beating the crap out of me again. I see him hitting my mom and sister, holding us hostage. Mr. Kloch made me do something I never thought I would. I’m going to have to live with that the rest of my life, Hotch.” At hearing the story Aaron pressed his lips together making them form a thin line. Hotchner knew how the girl was feeling, what it was like to face a person just like the one you were forced to live with when you were young. He got the pent up anger, and fear of becoming the same thing yourself. The supervision replied, “I understand you agent _y/l/n_. I’ve scheduled your exam for tomorrow morning. You're free to go.” _Y/n_ stood up, and as she reached the door Hotch said, “I’m sorry.” _Y/n_ gave the smallest smile, nodded and left the room. Hotch sat back down and thought, ‘I don’t think the results will be a problem. But if they are I’ll get _y/n_ the help she needs. And I’m sure as hell not letting her off the team.’

_Y/n_ had stayed quiet after her evaluation the next day. She was working through the case files on her desk when Spencer approached her. The tall agent had decided that he needed to find out what was bothering his friend. When she was acting too differently the whole team dynamic shifted to a weird nebulous area of hesitation. Spencer wasn’t doing this only for his own comfort, he was doing it because he remembered how many times other members of the team had offered to help him when he needed it. He knew that _y/n_ trusted him, in fact she would tell him loads of information, about her day, her best friend, the new film she had seen. And he loved hearing her enthusiastic conversations. When he was stressed, or having trouble sleeping he would call her and let her go on and on. Spencer also liked that she didn’t just talk to talk, the woman had a thesis and sources to back up her rants. This reminded him of himself, and he found it comforting. Their conversations had become such a staple of their working relationship that she would call him when she was stressed, and ask him to talk about his latest paper, or how the thermodynamics of the universe worked. He wanted to hear her voice again. Therefore he was standing beside her desk. _Y/n_ looked up at him and smiled. She set down the file she was examining and said, “Hey Spencer, what’s up?” Reid smiled back, he was about to make an offer that she couldn’t refuse. He replied, “I’ve been wanting to go to Earth Treks after work for a while, and since we don’t have a case I was wondering if you wanted to come with?” At hearing this _y/n’s_ eyes lit up. Earth Treks was a rock climbing gym close to the Quantico base. Spencer knew that _y/n_ had a membership and went at least three times a week after work. One time after a difficult case for him, she had dragged him to the gym to clear his head. It had been beneficial, because all he could really do was focus on his footing and handholds. He wasn’t good, but he had tried. Spencer snapped back to reality when she replied, “I’d love that Spence. I’ll meet you in the garage at five.” Reid smiled and said, “Cool, see you then.” The tall agent moved back to his desk a few feet away, relieved that his plan had worked.

Spencer met _y/n_ at the parking garage after the work day was over. She gave him a hug and he opened the passenger side door of his car for her. The sound of classical music on Spencer’s car stereo filled the silence for a few minutes before _y/n_ asked, “So, what makes you want to go climbing all of a sudden?” Reid kept his eyes on the road as he replied, “I just wanted to do something different. You know how work can be, how I can be. If I get caught up in my head I work less efficiently.” _Y/n_ giggled at his response and said, “Spencer, even if you were working at fifty perscent capacity I don’t think anyone on the team could work as quickly as you do. Excluding Penelope, because she’s also super fast, but more chaotic, and more likely to break a law to stalk an ex-boyfriend.” Reid smiled and took a second to look over to his passenger and continued the conversation saying, “Well, honestly this last case has made me a little uneasy, I’ve missed seeing and talking to you.” _Y/n_ looked over at Spencer when he finished the statement. She looked hurt for a second, and then disappointment took its place on her _f/s_ features. She knew that she had seen Spencer everyday since the case. She knew he wasn’t just talking about missing her presence, he missed the person she was before their last case. She turned her eyes away from him so she wouldn’t have to see her friend be unsure of her. It really hurt her that this whole situation was happening. She didn’t want to have to explain herself to the whole team; or more accurately, that she would have to talk to Spencer about why she was acting this way. She didn’t want to burden him more.

When the pair got to Earth Treks they got out of the car and entered the building. _Y/n_ swiped her membership card and went to the front desk to get Spencer in for free using her rewards points. As Spencer signed a release form and got his pair of shoes from the worker at the desk, _y/n_ was taking off her shoes and putting her duffle bag and tennis shoes in a cubby hole. Spencer walked up to her and started doing the same. Both agents had their workout clothes and shoes and moved past the gym space and into the bathrooms and changing areas. Both went into their respective gender’s area and changed and put on their climbing shoes. Spencer and _y/n_ came out of the changing rooms at the same time and started to walk back to the area that they needed to drop their personal belongings at when _y/n_ saw that one of the belays was open on the wall at the far end of the gym. She turned to Spencer and said, “Hey Spence, I’ll put your clothes up if you run over and grab that spot.” _Y/n_ pointed to the wall and Reid said, “Sure thing.” He handed his clothes to his friend and started toward the far wall. _Y/n_ held Spencer clothes close to her chest, feeling their warmth. She quickly snapped out of her reverie and moved to the storage space. She wanted to think about how calming being close to Spencer made her, but she knew now was not the time for those mental fantasies. She stuffed her clothing into the slot she had selected, but took the time to fold Reid’s clothes and place them next to his converse. When _y/n_ finished with her friend's clothes she grabbed her harness and ropes to belay with. When she arrived at the wall with Reid she looked at the routes open on the wall. She looked at Spencer and asked, “Do you want to go first? I can belay.” The lanky man looked up at the high wall, an appearance of apprehension on his face. _Y/n_ saw this and said, “If you look at the pink route I think you’ll be able to make it. It’s only an A 5.3 grade. I can walk you through it if you need help.” Spencer looked at the beginner climb and said, “Okay, I’ll try it, but only because I know you want to use this wall.” _Y/n_ gave a slight huff, knowing that Spencer was being honest. The more adept climber pulled the ropes down and handed Spencer the two clips to attach to his harness, while she oriented the ropes in a safe way for her to pull up her friend. Once she had done this she looked to Spencer who was still trying to attach the main safely clip to his harness. She sighed and grabbed the karabener from him and slipped it open. She then grabbed the loop on the harness that encircled Spencer’s waist. _Y/n_ tried not to think too hard about the area her hands were close to as she clipped the final safety precaution to her friend. The woman tugged up on the two ropes to ensure they were on correctly before quickly moving her hands away from his body.

Spencer’s train of thought was clearly somewhere more focused as the man put his hands and feet at the beginning of the ascent. _Y/n_ grabbed the ropes from the belay and stepped a few feet back and said, “Alright you’re good to go.” Spencer moved up the wall easily until about half way up the route. When he started getting nervous _y/n_ told him where to move his limbs that led him to the top of the wall. After Spencer had finished his climb _y/n_ found an employee of the gym to belay her while Spencer watched her complete a more difficult ascent. After another hour and a half of climbing on the tall walls and the bouldering section of the gym the agents were tired out. The friends ended up changing and heading out of the gym _y/n_ had almost forgotten the awkward circumstances they had arrived in. She asked Spencer, “Hey, would you like to go to Insomniac, it will be my treat?” Spencer smiled at the offer and said yes. Insomniac was his favorite coffee shop in D.C. It was the first place that he and _y/n_ had hung out after work. As he drove them to their next destination Spencer couldn’t stop looking at _y/n_, and her relaxed face as it leaned back against his car seat. She had her eyes closed, enjoying the smooth movements of the road moving beneath her. Spencer reminded himself that he was here to find out what was bothering his friend, nonetheless he still had a hard time letting go of the warm feeling he had in his chest.

When his car pulled into the gravel driveway of the coffee shop the two walked into the building and placed their regular orders; like they belonged there. Once _y/n_ had her matcha latte and a shot of espresso and Spencer had his coffee with a cup of sugar, the pair moved to the outside seating area. As _y/n_ teased her friend about his sugar consumption the man looked around and the twinkling lights that surrounded the patio they were seated in. Reid breathed in time with the twinkling lights until his heart rate calmed. He couldn’t really understand why his breath had been racing before. Once _y/l/n_ had taken a short respite on her conversation about the primary themes of Inception, a topic she would bring up once a month at least, always presenting a new case to why it was the best 21st century film, Spencer held up his hand. _Y/n_ looked up to him as he said, “_Y/n_ I need to know what’s going on with you. I can’t be a good friend to you if I don’t know what’s bothering you.” The pained look was back on _y/n’s_ features as she heard what he had to say. The woman quickly replied, “Do you not trust me Spencer. Does seeing me act differently make you uncomfortable, do I make you uncomfortable now!” She said it with more anger than she intended, and when the statement was out she shut her mouth quickly, angry that her emotions had so prominently made themselves known. Spencer said, “I’ll always trust you _y/n_. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.” When Spencer said this tears started forming in _y/n’s_ tear ducts. She looked away from him and took a deep breath before turning to him. She put her hand out on the table, hoping that he would place his fingers over hers. She quickly pulled her arm back when she realized that this was an inappropriate thing to want or assume from him. He didn’t owe her physical affection, even if she wanted it. She looked down at the table and made the decision that if she didn’t let Spencer into her past she might lose him forever. She continued by saying, “My mother left me, my older brother and sister when I was seven. I always assumed she would come back and she never did. It was fine at home until my brother left for college, which my father paid for. He had assured all of us that he would help us some way once it was our turn to leave home. Well once my brother was gone my father changed his tune. When it was close for me to apply to universities my dad told me that women belonged in the home, and that I should be looking for a husband, not a degree. He started drinking. He’d come home and try and beat my sister. I stopped him.” When she said this Spencer noted how she clutched her arms over her chest in a protective gesture.

She continued with the story, “One night during a screaming match with my father he told me that he had saved up money for our college fund. But after our brother had moved out he had spent the rest of the fund on gambling and a ponzi scheme that had failed. When I turned eighteen I took my sister and ran, like my mom had years before. I worked my ass off to get where I am today. I still work my ass off because I’m paying for half of my sister’s college education.” It was at this point that the tears fell down from her face. Talking about the past reopened old wounds that she had ignored for years. Again she turned her face away from him, trying to hide her pain. Spencer felt very bad about this and he reached across the table to put his right hand over hers. He squeezed her palm, applying consistent pressure in an interval of ten seconds with a break of five seconds. He knew that it was a way to physiological calm the human body. After a few minutes the woman relaxed. Spencer said, “I’m so sorry to hear that. Your childhood doesn’t determine your current situation.” He was trying to be very logical with his approach, but when she replied, “I know that. But I don’t want you or anyone on the team throwing me a pity party. I’ve already done enough of that. But Spencer,” She looked at him squarely in the face and said, “But more importantly, yesterday with the unsub I absolutely went off on the unsub. Derek had to pull me off of him. The unsub reminded me of my dad and I lost control. Spencer what if I become just like my father? I can’t live with myself if that’s what I become.” _Y/n_ was absolutely shaking with fear. And Spencer realized that earlier, after the case and in the office and in his car, that she wasn’t afraid of anyone else, she was afraid of herself. The lithe man got up from his chair and knelt down next to her chair and pulled his arms around her neck. Her tears fell hot and large on his shoulder. The man used his right hand to rub circles into her upper back and his left to run up and down through her _h/l_ hair. He didn’t let go when she stopped sobbing, instead he said, “You know my father left me and my mom?” Spencer could hear her swallow and felt her head move up and down, saying yes. He continued, “Well after I got my third degree I tried reaching out to him. He sent me a letter telling me to fuck myself, and never speak to him again. Then a year later I got hired by the BAU. I stopped seeing my mom. I thought that I had abandoned her like he had. Once I thought about that I was doing I started writing to her daily. I remind myself that I’m not the man he was, and I never will be.” At hearing Spencer’s confession _y/n_ moved her hands to either side of Spencer’s head and pulled his face up to look at hers. When they were looking at each other he said, “You’re not the monster your father was. You’re a hundred times stronger than him because you catch people like him everyday, and you’re still happy, optimistic and lovely to be around. _Y/n_ shifted in her seat so Spencer’s waist and hips were between her legs. She placed her forehead on his and asked, “Do you ever go home and think that there’s a black shadow stalking you. Mocking everything you’ve accomplished?” Spencer had his eyes closed and was considering how her breath smelled like grass and steamed milk with the addition of coffee and replied, “For me it’s more like a black hole. Something that should have been there, but never really existed in the first place; or only existed in my head.”

The pair stayed in their current position for a moment before _y/n_ asked, “Can I kiss you Spencer? Can I understand what it feels like to be that close to you?” He nodded his head yes, He didn’t say yes verbally, more of a ‘un’ sound. _Y/n_ leaned in as he raised his chin up and their lips met in a moment of pure peace. There was no pity or shame in the past, just a secureness of the moment. After the pair had separated they shared stories and moment’s of their lives that made sense to know about each other. And with each passing word they both felt more secure in each other's arms. The next morning _y/n_ went to each member of the team and individually apologized for how she had acted over the past two days. When she saw Hotchner he said that her results from the psych eval came in. Her supervisor held up the file and dropped it in the waste basket beside his desk, giving the girl a hug after she had apologized. Morgan couldn’t ignore that she and Spencer were wearing the same clothes as they had been yesterday, and that _y/n’s_ car had stayed in the parking garage all night. Spencer and _y/n_ hadn’t done anything too indecent yet. They had just gone back to Reid’s apartment and watched Inception while they debated the theme and kissed some more. However, Derek did see the two sneak a kiss at the coffee pot in the break room. He wouldn’t bring it up in front of the whole team, instead he would corner Spencer and demand an explanation. Morgan was very happy for them and he couldn’t wait to be a third wheel on one of their dates, he was sure it would be interesting to watch.

#spencer reid #dr. spencer reid #criminal minds #cm #reader x spencer reid #reader x dr. spencer reid #reid x reader #spencer reid x reader #emily prentiss #j.j.#aaron hotchner #jason gideon #i just finished S2 E15 and I am so fucked up rn #angst #comfor #one shot #fanfiction

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iffeelscouldkill · 4 years

Text

Mission Log: REDACTED

A/N: Now that Yuletide reveals are revealed, I can go ahead and own this fic I wrote for the awesome Mousek for Yuletide! It’s quite long (14,999 words), so I’m not going to post the whole thing here, just enough to give people a flavour and lure them to AO3 for the rest.

This fic is written in an “audio narrative” format, in the same style as the From the Archives ficlets if you’ve read those. Slightly spoilery warning (skip over this to remain unspoiled but please read if you’re concerned about potential triggers): this fic features people’s memories being modified (though not completely irreversibly) without their consent.

Enjoy, friends!

Summary: Canon divergence AU from mid-episode 9. Instead of executing Plan B, the Rumor crew learns about a top-secret Regime project that is being carried out at ADVANCE Labs - and that the fate of the crew of the Iris is not what they thought it had been.Violet Liu goes in undercover, posing as a member of the lab team. But can she undo what the Regime has done to the crew and free them - without losing herself in the process?

Read on AO3!

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“This is Agent McCabe. Two weeks have now passed since our last update. Based on the continued lack of audio input via this swarm of Strain H, we can assume that the crew of the Rumor have acted on the intel given to them by the insurgents, Thasia and Violet Liu, and successfully cured themselves of the VCN nanocloud infection.

“As a result, pending further developments in this case, the Strange Case of Starship Iris is now considered closed. Footage from the case remains available in the archives and can be accessed on request by submitting form B7-081 with a superior’s signature.

“My thanks to Major General Frederick, Agents Bauman and Cross, and the specialists at Procyon, as well as Junior Agent Goodman for their assistance in this case. Long live the Republic.”

SYSTEM: E.L.L.A.

USERNAME: EMILY CRADDOCK

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED 26 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, it’s me. I just wanted to check in and say that I’m fine, I’m safe and I passed the background checks without any problems. I kept thinking the whole time that someone from the intake process would recognise me, but – none of them seemed familiar, and I guess I wasn’t either. Just a very small cog in the vast machine of the Reg- the Republic. God, I’ve got to get used to saying that again.

“I’m all settled in in my apartment – it’s twice the size of my room on the Rumor, but I can’t help thinking how much I miss that space.” Quiet laughter. “And you all. I… guess I’ll talk to you soon. I’ll have more to update you with tomorrow, after I start work at the lab. And I’ll be able to let you know whether our intel was good.

“Until then… Violet Liu out.”

“This is uh, lab report 05, week two? Analyst Brannon reporting on behalf of Gamma Team at ADVANCE.

“Over the past few days, our lab has continued work on synthesizing the NDMA proteins, and Specialists Chang and Yeboah report that they have made some positive advancements in this area. We have provisionally moved up the timeline for the first round of testing with this in mind, though Specialist Yeboah cautions that we need to monitor how the new proteins react with other molecules in the solution first, and then with the blood cell samples.

“A new member also joined our team today – specialist Huang. I wasn’t aware that we’d actually been hiring for our vacancy, but uh, she seems very qualified? A little over-qualified, even. In addition to her qualification from Brightwell she has extensive experience with this type of lab work, which makes us lucky to have her as part of the team. She’s joined Analyst Vázquez and Assistant Hudson in their work on the histone deacetylases.

“My specialism is in a completely different area, and I’m pretty sure our work histories have never overlapped, but – she seems familiar somehow. Except she said she was based on Mars up until six months ago, and I’ve been working on New Jupiter since… uh…

“Sorry – lost my train of thought for a minute there. I’ve been getting these persistent headaches… I think it’s all that poring over modelling data. Though I never get them while I’m working, so maybe they’re delayed-onset headaches? Heh. It could be the lab lighting; I might ask Supervisor Kaaka if we can swap out the bulbs for a lower wattage.

“Uh, anyway. This is Analyst Brannon signing off. Long live the Republic.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 27 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, it’s me. Oh my god… oh my god, I can barely process what’s been happening. I was going to send this message as soon as I got back to my apartment, and instead I’ve just been sitting and staring into space because it’s just so… surreal…

“They’re alive. They’re all just… alive and working in a lab at ADVANCE on New Jupiter.

“I mean, we haven’t ruled out the possibility of highly advanced duplicates, but why would the Repub- the Reg- the IGR go to all that trouble? The simplest explanation - even if it still sounds pretty far-fetched - is that they're the same crew.

“Brian, if you’re listening to this – Alvy's alive. I know I didn’t work with him that long but I’m sure, I’m so sure it's really him. But it’s like Thasia and Other Violet said – none of them remember who they were, or their real names. Everyone here calls him Analyst Brannon – Michael Brannon.

“We’re not working very closely together, but I found an excuse to go over to his workstation and introduce myself, and – it seemed like he recognised me. I’m gonna try and find ways to talk to him – the real Alvy Connors is still in there, Brian, I’m sure of it.

“Is there anything you want me to… ask him? Maybe a question that only he would know the answer to?

“Sorry, I don’t have much more time – the IGR has listening devices planted throughout every Republic-issued apartment; everywhere except the bathroom. Even they have to draw the line somewhere. I scanned it, and it’s clean, but if I remember right there are still sensors that will activate if you go above a certain noise, light or heat, threshold – y’know, in case anyone takes it upon themselves to… build a bomb in here or something. And I don’t want the bugs outside to pick up what I’m saying, which is why I’m whispering.

“But I can’t stay in here too long, or they’ll get suspicious, so – I’m fine, and so far I haven’t messed up or called the Republic the Regime or anything in earshot of anyone. And no-one has recognised me. Well, except for Alvy, maybe.

“I’m still trying to figure out what exactly they’re working on, here. If you’re going to go to the trouble of staffing a lab with the crew of an… of an exploded space ship, it must be important, right? Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just a test, to see how well they assimilate.

“I’ll let you know when I know more. Until then… stay safe. I will too. Violet Liu out.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 27 JULY 2191.

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“Hi, Liu. It’s me.

“I’ll keep this to the point, since I know you probably don’t have much time to spend playing back these messages. We’re all fine here. Kind of in a holding pattern, since there’s not much to do until we hear more from you or from Thasia and the other Violet, but it’s not too bad.

“Jeeter’s really happy, by the way, since he listened to your message. I mean, I think he’s still – processing – because he thought Connors was dead, he even wrote to his parents, and now we find out he’s alive, but not… y’know. Not Connors any more.

“But he’ll be fine. Krejjh is helping, which means the two of them are being even more nauseating then they usually are, and that’s saying something.

“Anyway. Listen, I know you want to try and get through to Connors, but… just be careful, okay? None of us, including Jeeter, wants you to get hurt or – worse – on the off chance that we might be able to bring him back. We always knew it was gonna be a long shot.

“Tripathi said to tell you the same, by the way. Well, she said it in a more… Tripathi… way, but the idea was the same. Find out what you can, but don’t get caught. We can’t afford to lo- to mess this up.

“Okay, I should go. Arkady Patel out.”

“This is lab report 06, week three. Analyst Brannon reporting on behalf of Gamma Team at ADVANCE.

“Since my last report, we have introduced the synthesized NDMA proteins to the solution and tested their interactions with samples representing different blood types. Six out of eight of the samples produced expected results, but two of the samples produced some unexpected interactions with the AB type blood cells, which warrants further testing and study.

“Specialist Huang, Analyst Vázquez and Assistant Hudson are progressing with their work on the histone deacetylases, which should be ready to introduce in the next phase of the solution, pending resolution of the AB blood cell issue.

“Okay, what else… Oh, Specialist Huang is integrating well with the team. She and I have had a couple of conversations, though our second one was unfortunately cut short when my headache started up again. Maybe I should bring it up with Dr. Starling…

“Damn it. Is that the time? I was supposed to go for my treatment a half hour ago – damn it, damn it.

“Uh… I should probably redact that from the final report. This is Analyst Brannon, signing off. Long live the Republic.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 30 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey guys, it’s me again. Violet. It feels kind of nice to use my own name for a change instead of being called ‘Specialist Huang’ all the time… I almost forgot to react to it once, though luckily Vázquez thought I was just focused on my work.

“Not a whole lot to report still – I’m still trying to figure out what it is the Regime is doing in these labs. It’s something to do with DNA methylation and synthesized NDMA proteins – well, I won’t bore you with the science, but why would the IGR be working on that? Could be they’re trying to develop a neural enhancer, but for what? I haven’t ruled out the possibility of there being some kind of link to the nanobots, but no-one here has mentioned nanites, and there are no nanotech specialists working in the lab.

“They keep us very siloed, too. I know what I’m working on, or at least what I have to do, but I don’t know why, and none of the people I work directly with seems to know what we’re developing here. Just something about a solution and blood cell samples. We might not even be the only lab working on this, which means I’ll have to find another way to get at the bigger picture.

“I spoke to Alvy a couple times – I was careful, Arkady, don’t worry. We didn’t manage to talk for long anyway – people don’t socialise much here. I’d kind of forgotten what it was like to work in this kind of environment, where no-one trusts anyone or lets their guard down, because people will backstab each other for the slightest thing. Maybe they had a professional disagreement, or don’t get along, or they wanted to get the credit for the other person’s work. It doesn’t take much of an insinuation to get someone transferred or – worse.

“Nothing’s happened, not yet, and it’s still nowhere near as bad as that student internship I did during the war. But it feels… tense, almost hair-trigger. I think I heard we’re having an inspection later on this week.

“Anyway, Alvy – I didn’t get to talk to him for very long, not just because of the environment, but because he had this headache come on the second time we talked. I’m not sure if it means anything – he said he gets them often. Brian, do you… remember him saying anything about that before?

“He seems a little different to the way I remember him on the Iris – a little more serious, less laid-back, though he’s still the friendliest person on the team. I didn’t… get to know him under the best circumstances, so I’m not sure if that’s due to the memory wipe or not.

“He also mentioned that he’s been seeing a doctor for these treatments – they all have. It could just be something to do with the away shuttle explosion, some kind of recovery program – there was an explosion, even if it didn’t really kill anyone, and Alvy’s got these – support struts in one of his legs, I think they’re carbon fibre. He walks with a slight limp sometimes.

“It could be nothing, but I feel like it might be worth digging into? Arkady, are you able to poke around in ADVANCE’s systems a bit, see if you can find anything that resembles medical reports?

“I’d better go. I brought my makeup bag in here as a cover for taking a bit longer – I don’t even know if the IGR has cameras in these apartments, but better to be safe than sorry – but there’s only so long you can take to put on the bare minimum I wear.

“Send me a message when you can. Violet Liu, out.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 30 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, Liu. Good instincts on the medical treatment thing. I didn’t spot anything like that in my initial sweep of the system when I forged your interview and acceptance records, but I wasn’t on the lookout for it either.

“There’s a limit to what I can access without jacking directly into ADVANCE’s mainframe computer or piggybacking on their local network, but I’ll dig around as much as I can.” Jokingly: “ Worst comes to worst, we could always send Jeeter in with an earpiece and make him pose as a computer technician.

“Oh, also, Jeeter says he doesn’t remember Alvy ever mentioning any kind of migraines or head pain. Apparently he’d go on these all-night coding benders and then sleep for two hours and be completely fine the next morning. Maybe it caught up to him, but – well, I’m not gonna jump to any conclusions. I’ll see what I can find in the medical records.

“Also – be careful with the inspection, okay? Your ID will hold up, Campbell doesn’t skimp on the quality, and you look different enough from the physical description they have on file, but those Regime higher-ups will ask some weird shit to catch you out.

“You’ve got the comm if you need us for anything. Just… keep your head down.

“Arkady Patel, out.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, Liu, listen. You were right. There’s something weird going on with these treatments.

“I managed to track down the medical records for the whole crew. Wasn’t easy, but I’ll save the tales of my security-defying exploits for another time. Anyway, I managed to hack into an account belonging to someone called Dr. Starling. They were brought onto ADVANCE’s payroll on June 1st – two days before the away shuttle exploded.

“There are files for all of them, and the scientific stuff doesn’t mean much to me, but from what I can tell, they’re monitoring them all for signs of what Starling calls ‘leakage’ – memories from their previous lives. Five of the other crew members have reported experiencing head pains, and it’s not a physical injury – Starling seems to think the pain is set off by them thinking back beyond a certain point, or being reminded of something from their past life. They upped the frequency of the ‘treatments’ to try and counter it, but so far it hasn’t worked.

“I think that’s what they’re for, the treatments – they’re keeping the crew’s memories suppressed. Which means, if they can be interfered with somehow…

“Bad news is, I can’t get into the scheduling system, not without access to the local network. But in Starling’s notes it says that Alvy was meant to come in for a treatment earlier today- well, yesterday technically, since it’s after 3am. But he didn’t show. So maybe you could get through to him.

“Obviously, don’t blow your cover, but if Alvy’s been getting these headaches a lot, it could mean he’s trying to remember? You said he got a headache when you guys talked – what were you talking about?”

A stifled yawn. “Shit, I’d better sleep, Sana wanted me to help encrypt some intel to send to Thasia and the other Violet Liu first thing in the morning. I’ll talk to you later. Arkady Patel out.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Arkady, you’re a genius! Oh my god, I could kiss you.

“I’ve only skimmed the records you copied, but they make references to a solution that sounds a lot like the one we’re developing in the lab. What if that’s the answer? What if that’s what the IGR is having the crew develop, another version of the treatment – maybe one that’s more permanent…

“…Oh god, that’s so dark. They’re having the crew work on erasing their own memories. It’s so inhuman, so – exactly what the IGR would do.

“–I have to go, I’ve got work in half an hour, but – this really helps. And I’ll try to talk to Alvy today, see if he seems any different after his missed treatment. Violet Liu out.”

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“You, uh—” The sound of awkward throat-clearing. “You are welcome. Yeah. Like I said, it’s uh, it’s what I do! So, no, uh thanks required. Though if you wanted to, I—

“Shit, I’ve gotta go, Sana needs me. Uh, Arkady Patel out.”

Read the rest here!

#fic #TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Yuletide #Yuletide fic #mission fic #Violet Liu #Arkady Patel #Alvy Connors #RJ McCabe #Vikady #I really enjoyed writing the dorky Violet/Arkady interactions in this fic #I mean I really enjoyed writing all of this #but especially that aspect #also please ignore the sciencey jargon #though I've been told by someone who is more sciencey than I am that it is not bad jargon #it took me way too long to come up with 😂 I wanted it to be vaguely plausible #but it's not necessary to understand the fic

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argylemnwrites · 4 years

Text

Change of Plans - Part 3

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Romance (An It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment universe AU, set nearly 3 years after that epilogue)

Word Count: ~4700

Rating: NC-17 (language, 30 diamond scene)

Summary: Living in NYC in March 2020 is redefining normal for Drake and Riley. Life doesn’t always go according to plan during a pandemic, after all.

Author’s Note: Finally finished up the third and final installment of my AU inside my AU. Sorry the word count got away from me a bit here, but hopefully you all like this conclusion to the journey even further into the real world for these two. (I might have fallen in love with this version more than my planned version... oops)

Just like parts 1 and 2, this does hint at or reference some events from the prologue and the first couple of chapters of Why Are We Still Waiting?, but it does not spoil the core content of the story. And again, Trigger warning for coronavirus discussions. Also, explicit adult content in this part.

Part of Drake couldn’t quite believe that today was actually real. It felt sort of surreal still, even though he had the marriage certificate in his hand and was wearing a ring on his finger. Even though the officiant’s words still ran through his mind, pronouncing them married. It felt too much like a dream. But they were married. She was his wife.

They were in their cab, back to their apartment. Obviously, no reception. No bars or restaurants were even open, except for takeout. But that was alright. Being married to her, that was what mattered. Who really cared if it didn’t happen as they planned?

“So, for our honeymoon, what do you think about Brooklyn?” Riley asked, settling in under the arm he’d thrown across her shoulders after giving the driver their address.

Drake chuckled, “Sounds great. You have a place in mind?”

“Yup! I found this little one bedroom apartment with absolutely no amenities, but it does come with a corgi.”

“Perfect. Hopefully it comes with the opportunity for digital filing of cases, because that’s what I really want to do.”

“But you finished your work for today, right?”

Drake nodded. It had been a pain in the ass, but he’d been able to take care of enough between last night and this morning that he would probably not draw attention to the fact that he’d taken this afternoon off. It had seemed stupid to tell his supervisor his plan when he’d been able to get the work done. The firm might be letting people work from home, but that didn’t change the fact that the leadership on his team was a bunch of frat bro assholes that would have absolutely made him use a half day of vacation.

“Good,” she said, turning her head and leaning over slightly so that her lips were practically on his ear, “I’ve got plans for you.”

Drake swallowed roughly, sparing a quick glance towards the cab driver before turning his head and kissing her. The only thing hotter than the promise her words held was the fact that she was now saying them as his wife.

After a few moments, Drake pulled back, not wanting to make the driver too uncomfortable, but Riley tugged him down again, deepening the kiss slightly. However, after several seconds, a loud buzzing sound interrupted them. Riley leaned back slightly, pulling her phone out of her purse.

“What the hell?” she said as she unlocked her phone. “I have six texts from Maxwell. Wait - seven.”

Drake watched her open up her messaging app, and she let out a big sigh almost instantly. She quickly titled her phone so he could read the screen.

😲😃😭🤗😤🥳

That’s all my feelings

Because

OMG

YOU GUYS GOT MARRIED

YAY!!! 👰🤵🥂

WITHOUT ME

BOO!!!! 😡👎👿

Drake glanced up from her phone, “How does he know?” They had decided it was better to tell Liam and Iris, Hana and Catherine, and Maxwell, Savannah, Bertrand, and the kids at the same time, and since they had plans for a Zoom call this weekend, that had seemed like the perfect opportunity. No hurt feelings at being the last to know, no guilt trips from Maxwell, and no judgement from his sister for eloping. However, Maxwell had apparently found out within 15 minutes of the ceremony.

“I have no idea how he-” Riley started, but stopped abruptly, “Shit. Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“I want to check if Daniel posted our photos to Pictagram.”

“Liu, I don’t have Pictagram.”

“Yes, you do. Maxwell and I set that up for you like a year ago.”

“Yeah… I deleted it as soon as he left town.”

Riley rolled her eyes at him, but closed out her message thread with Maxwell and opened up her Pictagram account. Sure enough @liuthebagelbitch and @dw519 were tagged in numerous photos in Daniel’s account and story. Them signing the paperwork. Sitting on the couch waiting. Holding hands and saying vows. Putting on their rings. Kissing at the end of the ceremony.

“Maxwell must follow Daniel,” Riley said, scrolling through the feed, “Yup, squidwiththemoves has liked every single photo.” She sighed, exiting the app. “And he’s texted me ten more times. We have to call him.”

Drake nodded, but before Riley could even open her contacts list, a Facetime request popped up from Maxwell Beaumont. Letting out one last sigh, Riley swiped to accept the call.

“Hey Maxwell!”

“What the hell? I’ve been working on my speech for your ceremony for years, Riley!”

“Wanna try that again?” Riley asked, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

Maxwell sighed, “I mean, congratulations! I’m so happy you decided to get married without telling me or inviting me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry we didn’t consider you in our wedding,” Drake called out, leaning into the view of the camera and rolling his eyes.

“Drake! How could you do this to me, buddy?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question, buddy?”

Riley elbowed him slightly, probably wanting him to not escalate the situation. Truth be told, Drake was only mildly annoyed at Maxwell making their wedding all about him. The bigger issue was going to be getting Maxwell to keep quiet about it until Sunday. That was basically four full days from now, and Maxwell had barely been able to contain himself back when he found out that he and Riley were involved for half that time.

“Sorry, Maxwell. But we didn’t want to wait again. Plus, I lost my health insurance, so now I’m able to go on Drake’s.”

“Why didn’t you guys tell me, though?”

“Because we wanted to keep this quiet and not make it everyone else’s business,” Drake grumbled.

“And,” Riley added, shooting him a look before she continued, “we were planning to tell all you guys together on Sunday.”

“I just can’t believe I wasn’t there,” Maxwell said, shaking his head sadly.

“We wish you could have been. We really do. But you understand why that wasn’t an option, right?”

Maxwell nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

“And do you think you could not mention it to anyone before we see everyone on Sunday?”

There was a long pause following Riley’s question before Maxwell responded, “I promise not to tell anyone else.”

“Maxwell… who have you told already?” Drake asked, the word ‘else’ jumping out in his mind.

“Not that many, people I swear!”

“Well, I just got a ‘congratulations’ text with several question marks from Hana,” said Riley, glancing at the notification that had flashed across the top of her screen.

“I had to find out if you had told her and not me!” Maxwell said, gesturing towards the screen emphatically with his free hand.

“And Iris just asked me if what she’s seeing is real,” Riley continued as another notification popped up.

“I wanted to make sure she wasn’t more looped in that I was!”

“And now Savannah’s asking if I really married her brother today.”

“Wait, why is my sister texting you and not me?” Drake asked as Maxwell continued his defense, saying “I mean, we live under the same roof, so of course I asked her what she knew.”

“Maxwell, is there anyone you didn’t tell?” Riley asked, shaking her head.

“Well, Liam didn’t answer my calls, so he probably doesn’t know.”

“You told Iris!”

“Yeah, okay… fair,” Maxwell trailed off, clearly trying to find someone he hadn’t told. “This really isn’t my fault, though! You posted those pictures!”

“Daniel was our witness and photographer. He’s the one who posted them.”

“Well, then blame him. I just acted the way any normal person in my position would have acted.”

“Wanna try that again?” asked Drake, prompting a chuckle from Riley.

“Fine, I just acted in a way that you guys should have totally predicted. In fact, part of me wonders if you wanted me to find out so that I would tell everyone, and you wouldn’t have to deal with the drama of telling them that you got married without them.”

“Maxwell!”

“Fine, I’ll let you go be nauseating newlyweds. Congrats, you two!” With a little wave, Maxwell ended the call.

“Well, I guess people know,” said Riley after a moment.

Drake let out a sigh, tipping his head back against the top of the seat.

“You aren’t really upset, are you? I mean, I know we decided to tell everyone at once, but it’s not such a big deal that they know, is it?”

“Nah, it’s just annoying that instead of this just being our thing for now, we’re gonna spend our entire wedding night on the phone with people.”

Riley let out a little burst of laughter at that, so Drake twisted his neck to glance at her. “What?” he asked.

“I think you are severely overestimating how many close friends we have. I bet we can finish this up before we even get back to our place.”

“Really.”

“You take Liam and Iris; I’ll take Hana and Catherine. All our New York friends can wait, don’t you think?”

“What about Savannah?”

Riley paused for just a moment, “We can set up a video call with her and your mother tomorrow.”

“But she lives with Maxwell. She knows that-”

“She owes us our wedding day, Drake.”

Drake nodded. As much as he wished that Riley and his sister got along perfectly, he knew that Riley had a good point there.

“So, I’m gonna call Hana. If you give Liam a call now, it can just be our time when we get home.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice, so as she tapped Hana in her contact list, he unlocked his phone and scrolled to Liam in his recent contacts. The phone only rang twice before Liam answered.

“Yes, Iris. I see. Please let me actually talk to him, love?” Liam asked, his voice muffled and quiet initially before growing much louder. “Drake, I’m glad you called. You are apparently the source of great excitement here tonight.”

“Yeah… I didn’t mean to be-”

“Well, you are, my friend. Between my three missed calls from Maxwell about, and I quote ‘something that I probably wouldn’t consider an emergency, but he sure did’ and Iris bursting into my office with pictures of Riley and you pulled up on her phone, I’ve not been able to get very far in reviewing my nightly briefings.”

“Sorry about that. But, I… er, do have some news.”

“So I am gathering. It appears congratulations are in order,” Liam said. In the background, Drake heard a quieter “Congrats, you two,” that presumably came from Iris.

“Uhh, yeah. We decided to get married.”

“I’m guessing this was Riley’s idea?”

“What makes you say that?”

“She’s just a touch more prone to impulsive action than you.”

“Well, you’re wrong this time.”

“This was you?” The shock was evident in Liam’s voice, and it did bring a smile to Drake’s face. It wasn’t often that Drake was able to surprise him.

“It was.”

“Congratulations, Drake,” Liam replied after a moment, “I’m truly very happy for both of you.”

“Sorry we didn’t-”

“No. I’m happy for you. I’m not accepting any apologies as there is nothing that happened today for which you should feel even remotely sorry.”

“Thanks, Liam.”

“Can I talk to Riley?”

Drake glanced over at Riley, “She’s on the phone with Hana,” but she held up one finger and then held her free hand open, “but I think she’s about to wrap up and wants to talk to you, too.” Riley nodded in agreement.

“Excellent. And I mean it Drake, I know how much this means to both of you. So, truly, I wish you congratulations and nothing but happiness.”

Feeling a lump in his throat, Drake swallowed roughly. But before he could process the words of his oldest and dearest friend, Riley was snatching his phone out of his hand and passing her phone to him.

Hana and Catherine wished him brief, but heartfelt congratulations, but Riley was still on the phone with Liam after he said goodbye to them. He could only really hear her half of the conversation, and she wasn’t saying much, mainly listening to him apparently. Every so often, she would throw in an “of course” or “you know I will,” but other than a few chuckles, she was largely silent. Every so often, he would catch a word or two from Liam, but their conversation was basically a mystery to him.

It was a little strange, to think about how a couple of years ago, having to sit as an outsider while Liam and Riley shared something private would have filled him with a mix of jealousy and guilt and anger. Now, it was certainly a bit odd that his best friend seemed to have more to say to his… his wife than he did to him, but it wasn’t a bad feeling, necessarily. If anything, he was mostly curious, with just a bit of fear about what tales from their youth and adolescence he could be telling her. Those stories would require more explanations than he wanted to give tonight.

Eventually, the cab stopped in front of their building. As Drake paid their fare, Riley wrapped up the call with Liam.

“Thanks, Liam. We’re actually home now… Yeah, I know… You too. Stay safe, and we’ll talk to you guys in a few days.”

“What was that about?” Drake asked as Riley ducked under his arm as he opened the door to their building.

“Oh, he just had a lot of really mushy things to say about you.”

“I’m serious, Liu.”

“I wasn’t kidding. I think he basically gave me his best man speech just now,” she said with a shrug as she unlocked the door from the mailroom and started up the stairs to the second floor, “He just wanted to make sure I knew how lucky I was, I think.”

“Well, that’s fucking dumb. I’m the lucky one here.”

“This has all the markings of going on for a while. Why don’t we just agree that we’re both mad lucky and call it even?” Riley called over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway and pulled her keys out of her purse.

“Wait! I’m supposed to carry you through, right?” Drake remembered as Riley moved to push open the door.

She let out a little chuckle and rolled her eyes, but stood there expectantly, so Drake stepped up and scooped her into his arms, sliding one hand forward to turn the knob and open their door. Anderson came trotting over, eager to see his two humans, while Drake placed Riley down close to the door, not wanting to track their shoes and jackets too far into the apartment.

“He could probably use a walk,” Drake said, “and we should probably shower after spending hours out in public. How about I take him while you get started since washing your hair is always a… process.”

Riley swatted his chest lightly, but nodded in agreement. “You’ll join me when you get back?”

“Absolutely.”

Anderson took care of his business quickly, so it wasn’t too long before Drake was back in their apartment, hanging his sport coat up next to Riley’s jacket and kicking off his shoes. After washing his hands, he made his way into their bathroom, where the shower was running. The steam was already starting to get thick in the room, and eager to get out of his clothes and to join her, Drake quickly moved to drop his shirt on top of the pile of clothing she’d left next to the sink, but a scrap of tan lace caught his eye.

“I knew you were bluffing!” he called out as he fully removed his shirt and started undoing his belt and jeans.

“Huh?” asked Riley, peeking her head out from behind the shower curtain.

“About not wearing underwear. I knew you were full of shit,” Drake said as he stepped out of his pants and boxers, kicking them on top of the pile before climbing into the tub and under the water, sliding his hands into her long, black hair, somehow even darker now that it was wet, as she placed her chin against his chest and her hands on his hips, turning her face up towards his with a playful little smile.

He dropped his head to hers, pulling her into a passionate kiss, trailing his hands through her hair and down to her back. After a few moments, she tilted her head back. “As much as I like where this is headed, we should actually probably shower and not get too distracted,” she teased, trailing her hands around and squeezing his ass with a wink before she ducked past him and started rinsing out her hair. “Besides,” she added, “our track record for shower sex is not great.”

Drake couldn’t help but laugh as he opened up his bottle of shampoo and started lathering up his hair. Something about the floor of this tub was extra slippery, as they had learned the hard way not long after they moved in and then foolishly required repeat lessons about at numerous times. The worst was the time that he’d needed three stitches behind his ear after colliding with the tap as he fell backward, but the time Riley nearly dislocated her shoulder was a close second. “Yeah, a trip to urgent care would be pretty far from ideal at this point,” he said as he dropped a kiss to her forehead.

And so they both showered, trying to keep any touches light and loving, not wanting things to escalate just yet, but the sight of Riley with water trailing all over her naked curves was obviously turning Drake on. Based on the way she dragged her hand across him as she reached for her body wash, she was feeling the same way. By the time she was rinsing off and stepping out of the shower, Drake was scrambling to finish up, wanting to join her as soon as possible.

When he finally turned off the water and stepped out, there she was, wrapped up in her lime green towel, working a comb through her hair. She smiled at him through the mirror, her skin still looking like it was almost glowing from the warmth and water. As he drew up behind her, he slid his hands around her waist and dropped his lips to her shoulder, prompting Riley to shake her head.

“Drake, at least let me finish working out the tangles,” she said before letting out a little sigh as he worked his way over to the side of her neck, biting down ever so lightly when he reached that spot that always drove her wild.

“Who cares?” Drake mumbled into her skin, working his fingers to gather up the towel and moving one hand to her now-exposed thigh, “You aren’t gonna be seeing anyone anyway.”

Riley shuddered, dropping her comb to the counter before snaking her hand behind his neck as he slid his fingers to her center, his touch still light and teasing. “Maybe I want to look good for my husband,” she sighed out, moving her other hand to the knotted portion of the towel across her chest.

Drake groaned. Was her statement supposed to slow him down? Because hearing the word ‘husband’ coming from her lips? Talking about him? Well, fuck. It turned him on even more. Riley had to know what that sentence would do to him, right? So, he increased the pressure of his fingers, stroking her in the way he knew she loved before sliding a finger inside her. The angle wasn’t perfect, but he could feel her arousal and the fact that she practically growled “Fuck” as she clawed her fingernails into his neck seemed to indicate that she was just as ready to keep going as he was.

After a few moments, Drake stilled his motion when Riley grabbed his wrist. She spun, letting the towel fall to the ground and hopped up onto the small counter. She tugged him between her legs, but Drake shook his head.

“Our bed is just a few feet away,” he protested as Riley wrapped her hand around him, causing him to question why he was trying to change anything going on here.

“But it’s nice and warm in here,” she responded, dropping kisses along his jaw, “and I’ve never been good at waiting, Drake. We can be all tender and gentle later. For now, I just want you to fuck your wife.” She punctuated the last words by biting down lightly on his earlobe. Letting out a groan, he brushed her hand away and lined himself up, sinking into her. He hadn’t wanted their first time as a married couple to feel like some frantic quickie, but it had always been nearly impossible for him to deny her anything. So he started rocking his hips into her, reveling in the feel of her around him. The scrape of her nails along his shoulders. Her breath across his cheek.

As he shifted his stance slightly to fill her an angle he knew would be better for her, he caught a glimpse of their reflection in the mirror. There it was, a gold band on his ring finger, resting along her spine. It was almost hard to look away, so he just kept staring at it, soaking in the sight that proved they were married. It mixed with the feel of her hands digging into his skin and her legs hooked around his back, the sound of her breathy sighs and whispered “fucks,” the taste of her skin of her neck, and the smell of her peach body wash, spurring him on and increasing his pleasure.

Sensing that he was heading towards his peak a little quicker than she was, he tore his left hand off her back, sliding it between their bodies. He glanced down to where they were joined, his thumb circling roughly right above that, his ring pressed against the skin of the thigh he clutched. He slammed his eyes shut and dropped his face into the crook of her neck, not needing any additional stimulation. But soon, he felt Riley’s leg clench around him a little more.

“Are you close?” he murmured into her ear.

“Yes,” she moaned out, arching her back slightly. He wasn’t sure if she was specifically answering his question or not, but her response was enough of an answer regardless. Picking up his pace, Drake stroked his thumb harder. He knew he was seconds away from release when he felt her clench around him. He barely was able to recognize her climax before he shattered, spilling into her as he groaned into her skin.

After a few breathless moments, Drake felt his awareness returning. He slid out of her and shifted up, reaching behind her for a washcloth off the rack, dropping a kiss along her cheek as he stood up fully and helped her off the counter.

He wanted to tell how much he loved her. How much he would always love her. How he would always try to prevent her from ever regretting today. But any words he could think of didn’t feel like they were enough to actually describe his feelings, so he settled for gentle caresses and light kisses as they got cleaned up. Before they moved to go to their bedroom to get dressed, Drake grabbed her wrist and tugged her back to him, kissing her deeply.

“I’ll make us something nice for dinner, Liu. Okay?” he said as he pulled back, running his hand through her wet hair.

She nodded and gave him a bright smile before responding, “And I have an idea for dessert.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, “You have an idea in the kitchen?”

Riley just shook her head. “Yes, you ass. And not only will I not mess it up, but I know you’ll like it.”

Dinner was a quiet affair, Riley having thrown on some acoustic cover songs in the background and lighting a couple of candles they had leftover from their Valentine’s dinner while Drake cooked up a couple of steaks, some roasted potatoes, and some sauteed frozen squash. It wasn’t a perfect meal, but he thought he’d done a decent job finding something special for them out of their stock. He’d been surprised when Riley had set their glasses of whiskey on the coffee table instead of their dining table, but he got it once she’d tucked her legs under herself and curled up against his side on the couch. It was cozy and warm and intimate and felt right for the way they’d gotten married.

After they finished eating, Drake started loading the dishwasher and soaking the pans while Riley dug around in the tall cupboard they used as their pantry and then pulled something out of the fridge.

“You better not be baking something,” Drake told her over his shoulder, “Eggs are too hard to find these days to use them in a kitchen adventure of yours,” chuckling lightly as he felt a towel whip between his shoulder blades.

“If you’re done being a smart ass, I’m ready for you.”

Drake shut off the faucet and turned to face her, a smile slipping onto his face as he took in the graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars on the counter.

“I know it’s not exactly a wedding cake, but I figured we could do s’mores over the stove,” she said, settling in next to him.

“It’s perfect, Riley,” he said, slipping his hand into hers as he noticed an apple sitting off to the side, “but why the apple?”

“Oh, well I thought we could still do the apple-cutting,” she said with a little shrug, placing her chin against his shoulder, “I mean, I wasn’t sure if someone else needed to be there for this tradition or not, but I just thought it might be nice.”

Drake squeezed her hand, grabbing a knife out of the block and handing it to her. That she had remembered the one Cordonian wedding tradition he’d mentioned incorporating into their reception and thought to do it today was so perfectly her. Not snarky her, when she was annoyed at others or the world or at him. Not playful her, who would tease and laugh and lighten the room. But thoughtful her, who saw forgotten and neglected and broken people and made sure that at least for a moment, they felt seen and heard.

“So, just carve your initials,” Drake instructed, reluctantly dropping her hand so she could pick up the apple.

“Old or new?”

“What?”

“My old initials or my new initials?”

The weight of the day hit him again. Maybe this wasn’t the wedding they’d planned, but it was still their day. Their commitment. Their promise. And that meant more than having Maxwell as the officiant or getting married where his parents did or hearing toasts from Liam or Hana ever could. Watching the woman he’d loved for years, who he knew he’d love for all the years ahead, carve “RW” into that apple was plenty special.

He knew Riley could read him and his mood. She had always been good at that even before they lived together, so it didn’t surprise him that she kept quiet as he carved his own initials into the apple, then cut out a slice for them to share. She had to know he was dangerously close to being overwhelmed, so she didn’t push, just ate her portion of the apple before taking a step to the side and lighting one of the burners. After spearing a couple of marshmallows onto two forks, she grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the stove with her. They toasted their marshmallows without saying anything and without letting go. They were ready to face the good and the bad, together and united. The world was changing, but their world felt steady and sure.

Permatag: @ravenpuff02 @octobereighth @drakewalker04 @kimmiedoo5 @speedyoperarascalparty @mfackenthal @lilyofchoices @thequeenofcronuts @jamesashtonisbae

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir: @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @dcbbw @yaushie

Drake x MC only: @jovialyouthmusic @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @riley--walker @notoriouscs @butindeed @axwalker @drakesensworld

It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment: @wickedgypsymoon @thesumofmychoices @cosigottahavefaith @thequeenchoices @katedrakeohd @feartheendlesssummer @ao719 @ooo-barff-ooo @sunnyxdazed

Change of Plans: @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria @burnsoslow

#drake walker #drake x mc #trr fanfic #trr au #trr au fanfic #tw: coronavirus #n*sfw #30 diamonds

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katehuntington · 5 years

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Title: Ride With Me (part six) Fandom: Supernatural AU Characters series: Reader, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Ellen Singer-Harvelle, Jo Singer (Harvelle), Benny Lafitte, Ash Miles, Garth Fitzgerald IV, Castiel Novek, and many more. Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader (eventually) Word count: ±1900 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family. Summary part six: Y/N is getting lost in the feelings that she’s developing for Dean, and it doesn’t take long before Jo takes notice. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: Check out ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Thank you @kittenofdoomage and @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish for helping me. You girls are awesome betas.

Ride With Me Masterlist

Okay, maybe the tequila last night wasn’t such a good idea. Neither was that margarita the previous night, or the drinking game the night before that one. Or was it the other way around? Y/N cannot seem to recall, but today is Friday, so at least tomorrow she can sleep her way through the headache. Never ever did she drink as much as she did this week. Normally that would bother her, especially considering she’s not here on Spring break. But when the drinks are offered in a time when she needs a little something to stop thinking about that damned Dean Winchester, she couldn't care less about the increase of alcohol consumption.

She found the balance quite quickly, too. Intoxicated enough to let go of the complexity that comes with growing fondness of the head wrangler, but sober enough to stop herself from doing anything stupid. The consequence is, however, that on this morning ride, her brain feels like it’s trying to expand beyond the size of her head. Thank God her stomach isn't acting up, because Joplin is trotting under her nervously. Seems like Y/N is having trouble finding the ‘walk’ button this early. The hot-blooded mare fails to respond when her rider asks her to slow down by saying ‘ho’ with a calm voice, but when Y/N breathes out, relaxes her legs, and shifts deeper in the saddle only by a fraction of an inch, the black horse transitions to walk.

“Good girl,” Y/N compliments her.

Three days without riding were more than she could handle. Meadow needed some time to recover from the long journey and to get used to her new home, but Y/N needed to restrain herself from climbing on the mare’s back anyway. She imagined this was a glimpse of what it would be like to kick an addiction cold turkey, going into withdrawal from the lack of her drug. As if not being able to train her own horse wasn't enough, it took another extra day before Y/N got onto any horse at all. It wasn't until yesterday morning that the supervisor decided that she deserved a shot at proving herself as a wrangler. She had to earn that by mucking, shit scooping, cleaning tack, and turning horses in and out. Which she gets, of course. Dean and Bobby wanted to see what she is made of before they let her ride one of their animals. But boy, was she frustrated. She even got to the point that Garth almost caught her muttering a promise to herself that if she had to clean up some horse’s massive dump one more time without a reward, she would be out of here.

Yesterday she finally got to accompany a few guests on a trail. It was amazing to feel the horse move under the saddle again, the experience of the communication that she established within a second, and how the perfect fit on his back felt like home. Apparently, she did well, because on this morning ride, she is allowed to come along too.

Content, she looks ahead at the large group of inexperienced riders, who find their way down the hill with some difficulty. The respect Y/N holds for the trail horses has grown, because their patience and ability to keep their clumsy passengers in the saddle hasn't ceased to amaze her. Bruce, a draft horse mix, has halted several times already, waiting motionless until his overweight German load has pulled himself back into the saddle after slowly tipping to one side. It's quite entertaining to watch.

As she smiles at what’s playing out in front of her, the sound of hoofsteps close by on the rocky surface reaches her hearing. When she glances over her shoulder, a beautiful buckskin is just about to transition to an easy walk after catching up. Her eyes glide up until they meet his rider.

“So, how are you this morning?” Dean wonders, a playful smile on his face. It takes a short moment for her to answer, taken aback by her body’s response to the sight of the wrangler. A whirlwind starts to twist in her stomach, yet the headache suddenly doesn't seem as tormenting as it was a minute ago. “I'm okay,” she claims. He grins. “Sure about that? You had quite a few drinks last night.” “I can handle myself,” she returns defensively, narrowing her eyes at him a little. “Oh, I’m sure you can.”

He chuckles, the warm and low sound rumbling deep in his throat triggering Y/N to peek at him from the corner of her eye. Was that a nervousness she detected? Did she just make him uneasy? He looks down, his lips drawn in a small smile. The sun from the east outlines the sharp lines of his jaw, edged by a scruff; apparently he didn't take the time to shave this morning. Boy, is she glad he didn’t.

“Okay, I'll admit,” she says, trying to take away his insecurities. “My stomach might be a little… unsettled.” Y/N isn’t lying, although alcohol has nothing to do with the butterflies that came to life inside of her. He doesn't know that, thankfully, yet he keeps a hold of his intern’s gaze for a little while longer, reading her. As if Dean’s horse wants to help love a little, the Quarter sways closer to her horse Joplin, the two of them now riding stirrup to stirrup. His knee slightly brushes against hers every other step and despite that it's barely a touch, she’s highly aware of the physical contact.

“Don't throw up on your horse if you want to leave a good impression with me. Believe me, it ain't pretty,” Dean half jokes, half flirts. She throws her head back in a laugh. “Don't worry, I won't. But please don't tell me you have seen that happen.” “More than once, I'm afraid,” he remembers, turning in his saddle to face his younger cousin. “Ey, Jo?” The blonde cowgirl, who is about thirty yards behind them, throws him a confused look, since she hasn't picked up a word of their conversation. Puzzled, she watches, inducing the riders further up to laughter. “No way!” Y/N cries out. “I ain’t kiddin’,” Dean sniggers. “I'll save that story for another time. Y’know, when your stomach isn't ‘unsettled’ by the same tequila that started Jo’s tale.”

He spurs his horse, who canters forward to meet the group of guests up ahead. She observes Dean as the morning sun portrays the cowboy and his horse in a romantic light. Out here, away from the city, the Arizona landscape would have anyone believe that they traveled back to the time, when the Wild West was still the real deal. Cacti surround them, peculiar mountain peaks shaped by ten thousand years of wind erosion obstruct the far edge of the world. And in this perfect portrait rides a handsome cowboy, one with his horse, clouds of dust in their wake. An amused smile allows a glimpse of Y/N’s true feelings to shine through. There it is again, that tingly sensation in her belly. Sure, Dean. Blame it on the tequila, she thinks to yourself.

“What the hell was that?” Now that Dean left his spot next to her, Jo has caught up, gently pulling the reins as she sits back to bring her horse’s pace down. Feeling caught, Y/N looks at her, brought off balance by the spite in the cowgirl’s voice. “What do you mean?” “Oh, c’mon, Yankee. I wasn’t born yesterday, and neither were you. You just completed your master in business, don't act like you're stupid,” Jo counters. “You and Dean, what’s going on?” The cowgirl eyes her in shock, her jaw dropping unpleasantly surprised. Was it really that obvious? How is she going to talk herself out of this one? “I - I don't--” she stutters, blood rushing to her face. “There - there's nothing--” She’s not sure if it’s her shameful expression or the fact that she lost her tongue, but Jo knows enough. She closes her eyes and sighs deeply. “Y/N…” her friend starts, a mixture of disappointment and pity present in her voice. “Please don't go down that road. He will hurt you so bad you're gonna wish you never gone on that flight that got you here.” Now the intern sighs too. Denying will not do her any good. Jo is smart enough to see right through it. “Listen, I really like having you around. You're good company, you're a hard worker, you're great with the horses, and I don’t wanna lose my sis,” the ranch owner’s daughter says genuinely. “I would hate to see you leave because of my heartbreaker of a cousin. I've seen this play out so many times already, don't walk into that trap.” “I think that ship has sailed,” her friend admits out loud.

The words startle the woman who speaks them just as much as they stun Jo; she didn't intend to share that with her new friend already. But now that the comment is hovering between them without a way to take it back, a part of her is glad it’s out there. Dean has been about the only thing on her mind since she first saw him. Not being able to talk about that with anyone was driving her mad. She needs to vent to someone, someone she can trust.

Shocked by the bombshell that Y/N just dropped, Jo turns her head to orient her big eyes towards the man in question. That son of a bitch.. “Well, that didn't take long…” The cowgirl shakes her head, then looks her in the eye after her confession. It's clear she feels sorry for her friend. “I'll talk to him.” “No! Jo, please don't. Look, I didn't forget about your warning and I’m surely not going to act on these... feelings,” she guarantees, barely able to get out the word. “But I can't shut this off. It caught me by surprise as well.” “He tends to have that effect on women,” Jo mutters. “I won't do anything stupid,” Y/N assures her. Jo glances at the intern from under her hat. “Promise?”

She looks backs at her new friend. Honestly, she isn’t sure if she’s strong enough to resist Dean, but this agreement might help her stick to the plan. The plan to complete her internship successfully and return home to start her own ranch. It's all she ever wanted, it has been her life goal for as long as she can remember. Is she really going to let some cowboy stop her from fulfilling that dream? A very handsome, sweet, and utterly irresistible cowboy, but nonetheless. She will reach for the stars and she will have her wish, nothing will stand in her way, not even him. And so a reassuring smile forms on her lips.

“I promise.”

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part seven here

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imagine-loki · 6 years

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Lilacs on a windowsill -Trigger Warning death

TITLE: Lilacs on a windowsill CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: One-shot AUTHOR: written-loki-imagines ORIGINAL IMAGINE:Imagine you being an Asgardian healer chosen to see to the younger princes wife throughout her pregnancy. After a mishap in the birthing of the first royal grandchildren you’re very quick to blame yourself of the losses of that day. Loki, the mourning prince takes the time to speak to you after you stumble into an area you don’t belong in. RATING: T+ NOTES/WARNINGS:Trigger warning - infant death/death in childbirth

Loki stared at the same lilac curtains wistfully stuck in the recesses of his own mind. He had sat in that same rocking chair in the same lonely corner for months unfeeling since his dearly loved wife and infant died. That’s how you always saw him or thought of him.

It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault yet you still felt like you indirectly caused it. You were a healer that was chosen to tend to the young mother through out her pregnancy. She chose you out of all the older more experienced choices just because she was kind and aiding in the birthing the first royal grandchild was quite the accomplishment for you. The two princes were away on a trip when she went into labor leaving her scared and alone without her husband.

She expressed that she didn’t want to go through the birth of her first child without him being there and you promised she would be fine. She wanted to hold your hand but it just wasn’t possible since you were her healer and primary physician.

Everything happened so quickly you didn’t have time to react before there was a new crisis. The baby was a stillbirth and she kept losing blood after it was delivered.

There was nothing you could do.

In twenty four hours she lost her battle and traveled on to Valhalla to celebrate her life that was the tale you told yourself to remain hopeful and not in pieces.

You knew her personally in a way, she gave you kind glances in the halls and polite waves. Walks in the garden together was a Saturday tradition. She was nobility from another realm and being here was out of her element but she came to you with questions about traditions since she thought of you as sort of friend.Throughout her pregnancy she asked you a number of questions expressing her worry and asking you to reassure her with your knowledge

Everything was supposed to be okay.

Not even her husband the prince could console her nerves like you could whether late at night or early in the morning.

You told her it would be okay and everyone gets jitters especially since it was her first child. Like you knew or had felt what she was going through. It just felt like the correct thing to say.

You didn’t mean to lie to her.

All of Asgard mourned the loss of the beloved princess in their own way. The warriors put up their weapons to commemorate her losing her battle. The people released small boats and lanterns just as they did when the queen mother died. Even the guards stood weaponless at their posts for a day of peace and purity.

And you?

You cried. Alone in the safety of your servant quarters away from public eyes.

You were the last person who should shed a tear for her but it was your fault and you were ashamed. You weren’t experienced enough or quick enough to see what was happening. You didn’t try hard enough or disapprove of her choosing you to take care of her. The guilt was crippling and you didn’t know how to grieve a person you felt like you killed. You had hoped when the princes came back Loki would be furious at you or blame you as much as you blamed yourself but when his brother broke the news to him he simply hardened.

He hadn’t spoken since the day he arrived to the news four months ago nor has he eaten or drank anything either. The Gods of the Aesir didn’t need food or drink to stay alive but it was by now integrated into your society and concerning of him to quit doing. Castle gossip says he’s also refused to eat any golden apples that are used by the Gods for longevity.

Nonetheless everyday he comes to the room she was in when… everyday he comes to one of the treatment rooms and sits. Always by the corner near the window and always bringing fresh flowers no matter if the ones from the previous day were still fresh.

He would leave the discarded flowers on the windowsill and pour the old water out before replenishing it. No one went into the room while the prince was inside of it and no one but you entered when he left.

You kept it clean and the linens fresh you also took the discarded flowers and pressed them into the pages of one of your notebooks to keep and document. Everyday you did this then sat and read quietly to yourself from a spot on the floor. You were going to study until you knew everything there was to know about the topics so that no one would ever die by your hands again.

Today was like any other, you waited until the prince would surely have left to hustle inside the room old textbooks in hand and your notebook made for pressing flowers as well.

Only this time you were startled by his still well known presence inside of the room. He was standing facing the window looking out of it calmly. Upon seeing him you fumbled and let the items in your arms slip and clatter on the ground making a horrendous sound.

“I’m so sorry your highness I didn’t know you were still here.” You said quickly scrambling to pick up the books as quickly as possible.

He turned slowly to look down at you and his stern features made you shiver as did his rigid stance. “What is your name little one?” He said hardly blinking or offering any assistance.

You thought he was going to report you to your supervisor for being an idiot so without a second thought you started to beg him not to.

“I’m so sorry i didn’t mean to your highness please don’t-

"Name, what is your name,” He repeated watching you stand up and juggle the heavy books.

“(Name), ” you whispered watching him walk towards you with his arms folded behind his back.

“You were the healer of my wife correct?”

“Yes, your highness,” you flinched at every step he took fully expecting him to yell at you for ruining his life.

“Was it a girl or a boy?”

“Excuse me?”

“They never told me the gender of her child.” He said in a cold voice, his use of the word her child instead of our child made you wonder what exactly he meant by it.

“It was a girl sir.”

His thin lips pulled into a bone chilling bitter smile,“hm… tragic.” It had to be the most horrible thing to say you had ever heard. You were taken aback and didn’t know want to say at first but then anger and sadness surged through your blood.

“How can you say that? Your wife is dead, your only daughter is dead. You truly are the monster people say you are."You had officially forgotten your place and screamed at the prince. He looked confused and froze for a moment or two so there he stood looking at you blankly with moss colored eyes.

"You don’t know do you?”

“Know what?” you hissed back wanting to throw a book at him.

“My wife wasn’t my own, her heart belonged to another as did her first born. It was a forced marriage, she was going to leave Asgard to go off with her lover and live as a family with the true husband of her heart. That was not I.” His callous words stung as if you were the one it hurt.

You didn’t know how to explain it but you felt worse somehow. As if her trip to Vallhalla might not have been because of her own life choices. Still you felt guilt and misery for her and you had been feeling this for so long. This dreaded hurt that you had been running from somehow finally caught up to you.

Tears were assaulting your eyes but you tried your hardest to not let them fall. Your vision blurred and you and the numerous books you carried collapsed to the ground in a heap.

You shook your head and tried to make sense of what he was telling you about that kind woman you had known.

“Then why did you leave flowers and stop eating? Why were you so silent… why?”

“She was my good friend and I mourned her respectfully, I must say I never neglected my diet to a risky attempt. No one spoke to me, they all expected me to wallow in sadness but our relationship never ran deep enough for me to live in misery. I never realized this news would hurt you so. I knew you had spoken to her but i never realized you were both this close.”

You weren’t.

It was a strictly professional relationship and yet you still mistreated yourself after her death.

You sat there crying at his feet silently until he bent down to place a hand on your forehead. A strange feeling fell over you but once he retracted his hand his voice was softer and much more caring, “ Oh darling, have you been carrying around all that guilt for this long?” His hand moved to cup your cheek and his thumb wiped away some tears. You nodded and sniffled like a child in his hand until he wrapped his long arms around you as to comfort you.

“I assure you it wasn’t your fault. That was left up to the fates please don’t think any less of yourself as a healer or a person. Don’t cry.”

His warmth spread very you and it was almost as your brain answered letting your tears dry and your breath come back to you.

“Your highness, you are needed in the great hall.” A servant called from behind you causing your head to snap up to look at Loki’s face. It was stern again but when he waved her away and looked back down at you his gentleness returned.

“Such caring creatures feel the worst pain.” His words were simple but nothing else needed to be said as he stood back up to take his leave.

“Keep studying (Name), and just to ease your mind she hated flowers, they were for you to preserve.”

And with that he left, leaving you with lilacs on the windowsill and a heap of books scattered around the cold tile floor.

As all things do maybe it was time your guilt subsided.

Maybe it was the time to be happy again.

#Loki #Lover #Angst #Submitted one shot #submission #lilacs on a windowsill #trigger warning #infant death #death in childbirth #Written-Loki-Imagines

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sil3nt-nick · 6 years

Photo

In 2013, Tumblr became my escape from an excruciating environment high school had created. I’d gone from earning the highest grades I’d achieved in my academic career to constantly receiving poor grades in a chemistry class. It may not seem as big of a deal today, yet at the time, I felt it defined me as a person. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine. I must have been some kind of idiot.

I created a Tumblr account and began blogging about my depression. Countless other people my age were doing the same thing. I began feeling comfortable expressing my feelings and sexuality to the point where I posted images relating self-injury and eating disorders. This soon consumed my free time; I was constantly exposed to graphic, bloody images and emaciated bodies.

I cut myself all the time. Opposed to the eleven-year-old who started to get a rise out of his bullies years before, I hid my wounds in places people wouldn’t see. On my thighs, my upper arms and abdomen. Nobody would tell me I was seeking attention. I went a few days at a time without doing so, which was a milestone, but often didn’t stay “clean” for a few months at a time.

Sometime during the winter, after inflicting a few wounds to my arms, I decided to take a photo of myself, exposing my wounds and also exposing my life story. I wanted people to know what I was feeling and that girls weren’t the only ones who did it. Within an hour, I had 500 notes on the post. Months later, it was thousands. Someone used my photo in another post and that garnered tens of thousands. Some people from school recognized me and contacted me over the website or in person.

I look back now and can’t help feeling embarrassed. Did I really like posting this sort of thing? Wasn’t I angry about people thinking self-harm was for attention and was this asking for it? I was sixteen at the time and still struggling to find myself. I figured this was normal for some kids. I know now that I should have turned away from this content as soon as possible. It wasn’t until senior year that I deleted my original account. By then, I’d have hundreds of scars that I’ll have for the rest of my life.

When I was eighteen, I considered myself recovered. I’d gone about a year without cutting. I was proud that my horrible first job hadn’t triggered a relapse. I had just started college and was going above and beyond my goals for grades. By the time winter started (I suffer from seasonal affective disorder) I started feeling down again. My new job started triggering more negative feelings and I eventually relapsed. For the two years I worked at the establishment, a pizza restaurant, I’d had unrequited feelings for a coworker that pushed me over the edge. I was borderline insane from being rejected and contemplated suicide for the first time in years.

I later found a new job at a retail chain when I was nineteen. We faced, perhaps, harsher customers, yet I was getting paid much more. I don’t recall exactly when I relapsed again, but I remember the first winter working there, I’d began downing my depression with alcohol. I was twenty and had my coworkers buy my vodka until I turned 21 in the summer. I’d had a few spells here and there with cutting, which I wasn’t too worried about. On some occasions, I recall stress from classes or negative experiences from work that triggered a few spells, sometimes bad enough to leave the water running red in the shower for a long period or staining clothing and sheets that I would have to throw away.

I grew my hair out, dyed it black and straightened it every day. I was called “ma’am” frequently. Although I preferred the label “scene,” everyone said I looked like a legitimate emo kid. I lived this way for months until I cut my hair and was unrecognizable to my coworkers.

The same coworker I knew from my second job had been hired again. I’d initially had my feelings for him resurface and fallen back into severe depression when he began a relationship with another worker who repulsed me. I started smoking and was still drinking. Finally, I confronted him and finally got the straight answer I needed. I wasn’t his type. It stung at first, yet I was able to forget my feelings of not knowing and soon grew to accept the label of “just friends.” However, I began exploring dating apps that started a new part of my life.

In the fall of 2017, I’d made my way up to being a supervisor at the retail chain. The stress was still there, now to a bigger level, but I made more money than I ever had and it seemed worth it. I had a few people I chatted with online who could be potential significant others. Many just wanted sex and quite a few were interested in me who were twice (or even thrice) my age. A lot of people I was interested in ignored me.

A guy who had initially blown me off messaged me one day. I remember being so excited and couldn’t wait to have a conversation. We messaged a few times but it was short lived. Then he seemed to ignore me again. One stressful day, I remember deciding to relapse. I would buy a pack of razors and cut once I got home. I’d never have the chance to be with someone. Especially someone I liked.

After drinking tequila and schnapps, I opened the razors and removed my pants. Quick, sharp cuts formed on my right upper leg. I felt an intense euphoria from the pain, a phenomenon that releases endorphins in the brain. Wiping the blood from the floor, I went to my room and went to bed. I was surprised the next morning to discover one of the cuts hadn’t stopped bleeding, like they always did the by the morning after. I hid the blood leaking through my pajamas as I made breakfast. I went to work and wore dark clothing. By lunchtime, it hadn’t stopped.

I drove home and tried making a makeshift bandage. I kept telling myself to stop bleeding, although I knew it wouldn’t work. I returned to work, panicking about my wound. I was getting blood on my uniform. Someone would notice eventually. I later told a coworker who’d gone through similar problems. She convinced me to go home. It was the first time I left work early.

When I got home, I stayed out of view. I still lived with my family and didn’t want them to find out. My dad later came into my room and I was forced to explain what was going on. For the first time in my life, I knew he was scared. He said I probably hit an artery. We tried to bandage it up but the blood always leaked through. After a few hours, he drove me to the emergency room. The workers there stated they couldn’t do stitches. It had been too long and I was at risk for a staph infection. Devastated, we left after all they said they could do was bandage me up.

Later on, we went to buy a stretching bandage that would apply pressure after it was applied. He bandaged up my leg and we propped it up, waiting to see how it would end up in the morning. The experience brought us closer, yet it was so traumatic. I hated getting other people involved in my mistakes. Thankfully, by morning, the bleeding miraculously stopped. It took weeks before it was fully healed over.

Thirteen months later, I can say I haven’t cut since. I am now twenty-two and back in college. I vowed after that night I would never do it again. Sometimes it’s still in the back of my mind when something negative happens, but I force myself to remember how scared I was and how I could never go back to that point. My depression is still there. I suffer from it daily and stopped taking my medicine, as I have had no success with antidepressants for the past decade. I fear a relapse, but I’ve somehow managed to keep myself from it for so long. Now that I’m away from home and on a leave of absence from work, I drink considerably less.

In the end, I’m hoping I don’t fall back into my old habits. It’s a long and uncertain road ahead with my education, yet I believe I can make it. If I can make it this long, I might never do it again. I’m still uncomfortable talking about my history and have had awkward conversations with potential romantic partners. Honestly, what I can say saved me was my positive peer group and my therapist who supported me every step of the way.

#self harm #cutting #cutter #update #depression

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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the tangled web of fate we weave: vi

shh, this is very therapeutic.

part v/AO3.

Lucy gets through the next several weeks mostly on autopilot. There’s spring break in there somewhere, but she doesn’t really notice, since she spends it working anyway. Her dissertation is inching toward the final finish line, though she still has to write a conclusion, put together her bibliography (which will be an absolutely torturous process of going through the whole thing and copy-pasting every footnote – why hasn’t someone invented a better way to do this yet?) and add her acknowledgments: places she went for trips, foundations who gave her scholarship money, people she’s collaborated with, that kind of thing. Most of it is straightforward, but when Lucy gets to the personal section, where people thank their parents, significant others, grade school teachers, supervisors, etc., she stares at the screen until it goes out of focus. Ordinarily she’d write, Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad, no problem at all, but how can she do that now? Thanks for everything, Mom and Henry Wallace, except for never telling me who my biological father was? Thanks for everything, Mom, but Benjamin Cahill, why?

Lucy leaves that part undone, just adds Amy for now, and finally pushes back her chair and lets out a hoarse war cry of victory, punching the air with both fists and startling the nearby students. She emails it to her supervisor, Dr. Kate Underwood, with the triumphant subject line FIRST COMPLETE DRAFT!!!!, then cleans out her carrel with something probably akin to what a new mother feels, when they finally hand her the baby after the sweat and strife of labor. Not that Lucy’s interested in kids, at least for a while, but still.

She sleeps like the dead for the entire weekend (her neighbors are actually still being quiet, and she certainly isn’t going to tell them that she’s probably never going to see Flynn again) then gets up and goes off to her final review meeting with Dr. Underwood on Monday. Most of the changes she suggests are small, though there’s one part of the last chapter that she pushes Lucy to do a little more with. Nothing outside her usual corrections, but since that was the chapter Lucy was dramatically interrupted from writing with the Weekend of Total Insanity, it triggers something in her. In one of the more embarrassing moments of her life, she bursts into tears in Dr. Underwood’s sunny office, as her supervisor looks bewildered, gingerly hands her Kleenex, and finally asks if everything is all right.

Lucy figures that last-minute nervous breakdowns are far from uncommon for PhD students just about to submit, and there’s a ready-made way to play this off as just that, which she more or less does. There are student counseling services that she could probably make an appointment with, though they’re busy enough at crunch time that it would be another few weeks until anyone saw her. And she just can’t picture sitting across from some graduate-student psychiatrist-in-training and actually making sense of this. Has the usual feeling that she doesn’t need to burden people with her first-world problems – “starving kids in Africa syndrome,” one of her friends called it. This is a little more than ordinary, perhaps, but still.

Having promised that she will have the changes in by next Monday, Lucy confirms the date for her oral examination, six weeks from now, and realizes that she has no idea what she will be doing for that time, aside from sleeping and bingeing on TV shows. Her work is done, she has class to finish teaching but only two days a week, and her schedule gapes perilously wide open. She isn’t good at sitting around and doing nothing; can manage maybe a week or two, then she starts feeling that she needs to be productive. Another gift from her mother. She never let Lucy just veg out during the summer as a kid. She had to be doing an extracurricular, or preparing for a AP exam, or off at Young Achievers Camp, which is exactly as nerdy as it sounds. She’s not sure she even knows how to rest.

Once Dr. Underwood has sent her off with advice to get some sleep and feel proud of her accomplishment, Lucy staggers out into the world beyond Stanford like Rip Van Winkle. It’s a nice day, warm and summery and almost difficult to remember that that whole ridiculous seventy-two hours ever happened, and she pauses. Then on a sudden impulse, she digs out her phone and scrolls through her contacts. Hits call, and waits.

Wyatt Logan picks up on the last ring, sounding slightly breathless. “Hello? Lucy?”

“Hi. I’m sorry, is it a bad time?”

“No, it’s fine. What’s up? Are you all right?”

“I. . . yeah, I am. I just. . . finished my dissertation, actually. And I thought if you were in San Francisco, maybe we could meet up and grab a coffee, or. . . or something?” Her heart flutters in her throat. “Just, you know, to catch up?”

There’s a slightly awkward pause. Then Wyatt says, “I’m, uh, I’m back in San Diego, I’m based out of Pendleton. And I promised my wife we’d go to the beach today, or whatever.”

“Your w – ” Lucy can feel her cheeks turning the color of a fire engine. “Oh my God, I didn’t – I really wasn’t – of course. No, no, of course. I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt coughs. “Congratulations on finishing your dissertation, that’s an amazing accomplishment. Nothing else weird has happened recently?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. Maybe they’ve given it up.” Lucy knows this is too easy, but she wants to think so. Likewise, she both does and doesn’t want to ask. “Have you heard from Flynn?”

Wyatt hesitates. “No. I called back to the hospital a week later, they said they let him out, but I have no idea where he went. Probably off the grid. I would, if I was him. There’s an APB out, anyone who sees him is supposed to call it in. Whoever Rittenhouse is, they’re still very, very pissed.”

Lucy struggles to take this in. On the one hand, it’s good news, of a sort, that Flynn somewhat recovered and was released from the hospital, but was this because he was ready to roll again, or because he didn’t want to take the risk of lying there waiting for his enemies to show up? There are a nearly unlimited number of ways that they can kill him in a hospital and make it look like an accident, after all. If he is officially persona non grata for a lot of powerful and high-ranking people, and he’s hurt, that doesn’t sound like a good combination. Maybe he’s fled the country, gone up and crossed into British Columbia and hidden out somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. Lucy reminds herself that either way, she shouldn’t care. Whatever the hell his actual feelings on her might be, he made himself clear.

“Thanks,” she says, after a too-long pause. “Let me know if. . . well, whatever happens, all right?”

“Do my best. Congrats again on the dissertation.” Wyatt clears his throat. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Lucy echoes, cheeks still hot, and hangs up rather quickly. Well, that was a disaster. She should have known that the only guy she’s even attempted to ask out recently was unavailable, though there’s a cute-ish geek with glasses who smiles at her whenever he sees her in the coffee line. Lucy thinks his name is Alan. But not even for the principle of the thing can she really work up any desire for a closer approach. After a final moment, she fishes her keys out of her purse, heads to her car, and tries to decide if 280 or 101 will be more congested at this time of day. She ends up taking the latter, despite the unpleasant associations of recent escapades on it, up to Amy’s apartment in South San Francisco.

Lucy turns into the complex, parks, and heads up the steps to Amy’s place. She rents it with two of her friends, one of whom is named Sage Tranquility and the other of whom is usually getting arrested at protests. There’s plenty of room at the Preston house in Mountain View, it’s not like Amy had to move out, but she’s always butted heads with their mother far more than Lucy has. Said that she would rather live in a shitty apartment, away from Carol’s domineering and constant questioning about why she’s doing this sociology degree and wasting her potential, and build something that was hers. Lucy doesn’t know how much she should tell Amy, but she is the only person she feels like confiding to.

Amy opens the door a few moments after Lucy’s knock, her headphones around her neck still emitting the echoes of her music, but she pauses it at the sight of her sister. “Hey, you. What are you doing here? Aren’t you still working on your dissertation?”

“No, I just finished it. Just. Hey, are you doing anything right now?”

“No. Come in.” Amy frowns. “You don’t seem super jubilant, Luce.”

“I. . . have a lot on my mind.” Lucy blows out a breath. “I’d kind of like to talk.”

Amy agrees, gestures her in, and goes to fetch some cookies from the kitchen, before they got to the secondhand futon, Amy sits down, and beckons Lucy to put her head in her lap. “Okay,” she says. “So talk.”

As Amy gives her a head rub, which feels heavenly, Lucy closes her eyes, tries to find somewhere to start, and can’t think of any way to do this delicately. She teeters and stumbles at the edge, then finally comes clean about Flynn, about Rittenhouse, about Benjamin Cahill, about Wyatt, about everything. That it turns out they’re only half-sisters, that Carol has lied to them – to her – her entire life. That her real father is Corporate Darth Vader, and all of this. . . all of this. . . she’s slowly losing her mind, and has just squashed it down and put it away to concentrate on finishing. Now that’s done, and she’s. . . here.

Amy stays quiet as Lucy talks, until she finally chokes up and can’t finish. Then she grips Lucy’s shoulder hard and says fiercely, “We’re sisters, all right? We’re sisters. I don’t care what Mom did or did not tell you, it doesn’t change anything. We’re just the same as we’ve always been, and nothing is ever going to take that away from us.”

“Thanks.” Lucy’s voice remains stuck in her throat. “I just. . . this has been a lot.”

“Shyeah.” Amy reaches over her for a cookie, breaks off a bite, and dangles it above Lucy’s mouth like a zookeeper feeding the seals. Lucy manages a weak laugh and snaps it up, as a sigh shudders through her from head to heel. They remain in silence for several more moments, until Amy says, “So, this Flynn guy. You have feelings of some kind for him, but he’s a complete emotional disaster, not to mention possibly on the run from the feds for God knows what or where or why. Accurate?”

“I don’t – ” Lucy opens and shuts her mouth. “I wouldn’t say I have feelings feelings for him, he’s – I don’t really – ”

Amy raises one eyebrow. “Now who’s being the emotional disaster?”

Lucy feels as if this is rather unfair – she’s here sharing her problems and trying to work through them like a grownup, even if, yes, she did repress them for several weeks beforehand and hope they would go away. “I’m not the one who set my phone passcode as the day he saved my life, then told me not to fool myself that he wanted to see me again and basically vanished off the face of the earth!”

“Fair.” Amy considers this. “But you do feel something.”

“He saved my life. Twice. He did endanger it the second time, but. . .” Lucy stops. “Maybe there was something between us, or I believed a little too hard in fate or design or whatever. I could have been imagining it, but. . .”

“But you don’t think you were,” Amy completes. “He just blew it. Super hard. Complete buffoonery.”

Lucy snorts. “Remind me why I bother with men again?”

“You could always date another lady,” Amy points out. “I liked Carine.”

Strictly speaking, this is true, and does have a certain appeal after the recent overabundance of testosterone in Lucy’s life. But she dated Carine Leclerc, a journalism student from Montreal, for eight months in her senior year, and while Carine was making noises about looking for jobs in California after she graduated, it stalled over the fact that Lucy never got around to introducing her to Carol. It wasn’t exactly a secret – Amy knew, her friends knew, they went to a pride parade, there were pictures – but Lucy never talked about it directly with her mom. It wasn’t the queer thing, exactly. Just that whenever Carol discussed Lucy’s future, it always seemed to involve a husband and kids. Not because of any awe or reverence for the patriarchy – Carol gave both her daughters her own surname, rather than, apparently, either of their fathers’, and was a women’s studies professor for many years – but, well. It just did. And while you can obviously have a family by non-traditional methods – adoption, fostering, surrogacy, whatever – Lucy somehow didn’t get the impression that was what her mom had in mind. The kids just seem to be part of it. It’s why, although she’s not really had any enthusiasm for the idea now, she’s subconsciously penciled it in for five or eight years in the future, once she’s presumably met Mr. Right. Lucy has all kinds of arguments with herself over whether that makes her a bad feminist. But because it’s what her mom wants –

“Oh, God,” Lucy says hoarsely. She raises both hands to her face, then drops them. “You’re right. I really have let Mom dictate my life, haven’t I?”

The expression on Amy’s face clearly says, no duh, although she charitably refrains from uttering it aloud. Instead she says, “I still think you should have followed through on that band thing. At least it would have shown her that you can stand up to her.”

“I – no, that was definitely a bad idea, I’m glad I didn’t.” Lucy is still Lucy, and thus cannot believe that she ever treated the prospect of her education so frivolously. “But maybe if I went over there now and confronted her about Cahill – ”

“You’re sure that’s a good idea?”

“What? You’re always the one telling me to push back against her more!”

“Yeah, I know.” Amy chews on a thumbnail. “But this is more than about just that, isn’t it? From what you said about Cahill, it sounds like he’s mixed up in some pretty skeevy shit. I give Mom a hard time a lot, but maybe she did have a good reason for separating us from all that. Are you sure you want to know?”

“If they come back, I should at least know the truth.” Lucy rubs at her tired eyes with her fingertips. “I’d like to think they just gave up, but I’m not sure. Maybe if I tell her that I know, it might help clear the air.”

Amy gives her a probing look. “And are you going to tell her about Flynn?”

That catches Lucy short. She wants to say that she will, that if she’s demanding or even requesting honesty from her mother, she should be prepared to return the favor. But something – she doesn’t even know what, not quite what it was with Carine – gives her pause. “Why would I?” she says feebly. “It’s not like anything actually happened.”

“Aside from him turning up and you two going on a three-day joyride that ended with him getting shot and telling you to go piss up a rope.” Amy’s tone is more or less lighthearted, but her expression is serious. “That’s definitely something that happened.”

Lucy opens her mouth, then shuts it. She reaches for the last cookie and eats it, partly to give herself an excuse not to talk, then brushes off the crumbs and gets to her feet. “Well, if I am heading over there today, I should get going before the traffic gets too bad. I should at least tell her that I finished.”

“Because you’re hoping she’ll finally tell you that she’s proud of you?” Amy glances up at her. “You know you did a good job even if she can’t choke it out, right?”

“Of course I know.” Lucy manages a smile, picking up her purse. “See you later, Ames.”

Her baby sister hugs her, not without a final look, and Lucy lets herself out, heading to the parking lot and getting into her car. She drives down to the Preston family home in Mountain View, the attractive four-bedroom ranch house on an affluent, leafy street where Lucy grew up. Worth a tidy chunk of change if Carol decided to downsize, since it’s currently just her living there, but she has held onto it. Not good at letting go of things, Carol Preston. It is only in the last few days that Lucy has realized just how much, and it saddens her.

A light is on in the kitchen as Lucy parks by the curb and gets out. She heads up the front steps, noting that the plants could use some watering; it’s not like her mother to let things droop, or look anything less than perfect, daughters or azaleas alike. This is her house as much as anyone’s, and yet Lucy stands there for a long moment, feeling as unwelcome as a door-to-door salesman or friendly local Jehovah’s Witness. It feels as if she finally got here the way she was intending to do seven years ago – before the accident, before nearly dying, before Flynn, before Flynn’s reappearance, before Benjamin Cahill and Rittenhouse, before everything that’s brought her back. She tries to rehearse words in her head, questions, justifications. Nothing really occurs to her.

Lucy swallows hard, and rings the bell.

It takes a bit before she hears footsteps, and then Carol Preston opens the door. She looks down at her eldest daughter in surprise, or perhaps confusion. Something about her seems as off, less than pristine, as the drying flowers, and her makeup is slightly smeared, though Lucy can’t imagine her mother actually crying. “Lucy,” Carol says. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been finishing my dissertation.” Lucy twists her fingers together anxiously. “I – I did finish, by the way. Just today. Dr. Underwood gave me her final changes, Dr. Gardener in anthropology still has to look it over as well, but he’s at a conference until Friday, so that will take a little longer. But – yeah, it’s done, I did it.”

“I see.” Carol considers, then steps back. “I think we should talk. Come in.”

Lucy follows her mother inside, wondering if Carol’s guessed somehow, if Cahill came by to creep on her as well or ask why she never told Lucy the truth, and feels absurdly guilty for causing more trouble. She almost starts to apologize, though with no idea what for, and a tiny, ridiculous part of her half-hopes that Flynn will be sitting in the kitchen, somewhat recovered if doubtless no more tactful, come by to ask Carol what she knows about Rittenhouse. Which seems like a bold move, given that he’s a wanted fugitive from the government, but reality doesn’t have much to do with Lucy’s thought process just now.

Nonetheless, it comes crashing back in in a cold, sobering wave when they step ins. There’s a piece of paper lying on the counter, and Lucy can’t see the wording, but it looks clinical. Hospital. Carol turns it over as Lucy tries to get a better look, then says, “Tea?”

“No, it’s all right, I was just over at – ” Lucy stops. “Mom, is… is everything…?”

“I went to get that cough checked out, like you wanted,” Carol says, after a slight pause. “And, well, the scan turned something up in one of my lungs. They’re going to run more tests, they can’t be sure, but there’s a possibility it’s malignant.”

She says this like the professor she’s been for thirty years, explaining a difficult fact with her usual classroom voice, and so it takes Lucy a moment to understand. Then she does, and it feels as if the world has gone out from under her feet. “M… malignant? As in cancer?”

“Yes.” Carol takes a deep breath. “I suppose it’s not entirely unexpected – your father was a heavy smoker, after all, and I never picked up the habit until I met him. I stopped when he died, of course, but if this does come back positive…”

Part of Lucy wants to inform Carol point-blank that she knows Henry Wallace isn’t her father and never was. The rest of her wonders how awful you have to be, to confront your mother about that when she’s just told you that she might have cancer. “I – I, I’m so sorry,” she stammers, once more as if this is her fault, has not gotten the right score on a test or has whined about never having summers off. “Mom, I’m sure it’s fine, but if – ”

“But if it’s not?” Carol looks at her levelly. “I know we’ve had a bit of distance recently, Lucy, but this is the sort of news to put things in perspective. Of course, there’s medicine, there’s chemotherapy, there’s options. We don’t know anything yet. But if the worst-case scenario does come to pass, I really want to make the most of whatever time I have with you. There’s still so much I need to teach you, to talk with you about.”

Yes, Lucy thinks, there is. But any urgent desire to force answers to all her questions has vanished in her flood of guilt and fear and concern. “Of course, Mom, of course. If there’s anything I can do – and I’m sure Amy too, we’d both be happy to – ”

“I’m not sure about Amy.” Carol sighs. “But if you have finished your dissertation, like you said, and therefore don’t need to be at campus every day… I’ve seen that apartment of yours, Lucy. It’s terrible. Is there any way you might consider moving back in? We would be closer here, we’d be together. It would be easier, and if I did get sick…”

“No, of course. Of course I’ll move back in. Absolutely, you don’t have to worry about that at all. My lease on campus runs through the end of the school year, but – ”

“I’ll pay your early termination fees.” Carol takes Lucy’s hand. “I really want us to be together again. Believe me.”

“Me too,” Lucy says in a rush. “But – if the test did come back clean – if you’re not really… well.” She can’t bring herself to utter the name aloud, speak of the devil and he will appear. “If you’re not… sick, do you… will you still want me back?”

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?” Carol looks hurt. “Do you think I only love you when you’re useful? You are my daughter, my eldest daughter. So much like me, my historian. You’re so bright and you’ve worked so hard. Of course I want you back.”

Lucy opens and shuts her mouth, then reaches out, and Carol wraps her arms around her, pulling her close, as Lucy rests her chin on her mother’s shoulder and has to struggle to blink back tears. And so, within ten minutes of going home with the intention of some final confrontation, some ultimatum or insistence on separating herself from Carol’s trunk, Lucy instead cleaves back in, root and branch, and promises that she will never bring it up again.

There really isn’t time to arrange a move – even a short-range one – between the last-minute rush of dissertation edits, job applications, and graduation plans, and Lucy’s apartment has a few pitiful half-full boxes sitting around, which she will toss things into when she remembers. She feels like a terrible daughter, which is not helped when Amy calls her up at the end of the week and wants to know what happened to telling Mom off. “You know how she is, Lucy! Even if – God forbid – she was actually sick, doesn’t this seem a little…?”

“A little what?” Lucy challenges. “Are you really going to accuse our mother of faking possible lung cancer just because she wants – I don’t know what, something?”

“I didn’t say she was faking,” Amy says reluctantly. “I’ve been worried about her health too. But Mom has a couple nest eggs, you know she does. If it got to the point that she needed a live-in helper, she could hire someone who actually knew what they were doing and would get properly paid for it. That’s not your job. You’re not that kind of doctor.”

“I know.” Lucy shifts the phone to her other shoulder. “But – look, I know what we talked about, I know what we said. I just don’t think this is the right time to bring it up.”

Amy doesn’t argue with her again, but Lucy can sense that she still isn’t pleased. And yet, all of that goes out the window when Carol calls them both and says they should come by, there’s something she needs to tell them. That doesn’t sound like the kind of invitation that ends with “and nothing’s wrong, the doctor said I’m fine,” and indeed, it doesn’t. The biopsy results came back. It’s cancer. Carol’s prognosis isn’t terrible – they caught it before it was already irreversible – but it’s not particularly great either. The words fifty-fifty chance are used. A lot will depend on how she responds to treatment.

Amy starts to cry – she and Mom have fought a lot, but they do still love each other – and Lucy puts an arm around her, feeling numb. It feels crass to ask for any graduation celebration, even if she’d like one. Suddenly, even applying for jobs is up in the air. Lucy doesn’t want to complain about being inconvenienced by her mother’s serious illness, but she was so ready to start her own life, do something else, stretch her wings, and now she’s back in the birdcage, throwing away the key. It just doesn’t seem (and she winces at the thought) fair.

Lucy finishes the rest of the revisions recommended by her second supervisor in a blur. At the last meeting before this three-hundred-page monster is sent off to the committee for reading and to the printing service for binding, Dr. Underwood mentions that she’s been in contact with the history department at Kenyon College in Ohio. Kenyon is a small liberal arts college, upper-tier and avant-garde, and while it would unfortunately mean living in Ohio, there is currently an opening in the faculty for a junior lecturer with almost exactly Lucy’s research specialty. Dr. Underwood has passed her name on, and the people at Kenyon would like to speak to her next week, if that works.

Lucy’s first reaction is delight and disbelief. Tailor-made opportunities for academic jobs at places where you would like to work, and that are looking for your research interests, are as rare as the proverbial rain on the Sahara. She’s thought for a while that she’d like to teach at a small liberal arts school, one of the places that doesn’t think SAT scores are a good measure of academic performance and give a lot of focus to student development – somewhere in the Northeast, maybe. Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Middlebury, Wellesley, something in that vein, the usual schools described as “diehard liberal” by U.S News and World Report in their college rankings. Stanford is obviously Stanford, but it takes a lot of work not to get lost in the machine, and plenty of students who come through Lucy’s classes now are clearly just checking elective boxes and playing on their laptops during lecture. At a place like Kenyon, she could actually talk to them more, have smaller and more immersive seminars, supervise senior projects and have more of a say in shaping the department. Have that exact chance to make it her own, rather than following in predestined footsteps.

At that, however, something catches Lucy short. She remembers Benjamin Cahill essentially promising her that he could get her any dream job she wanted, anywhere in the country. Is this Rittenhouse’s clever new strategy? Realize that the face-to-face approach backfired bombastically, and take a more subtle approach, pull some strings and call in some favors so this fat juicy worm just happened to land on the right hook? Would she move there and find herself surrounded by their people, or expected to pay something substantial back?

Asking Dr. Underwood about this, however, just makes Lucy sound crazy. She doesn’t mention anyone by name, but she delicately probes whether anyone just happened to call up and offer this, and if so, why. Dr. Underwood is puzzled, says that no, this has been in the works for a while and it just happened to time well with Lucy’s completion. Due to someone who knows Dr. Underwood, who supervised so-and-so’s thesis, etc. – not the creepy Rittenhouse networks of patronage, but just the usual byzantine channels of academia – Lucy currently holds right of first refusal on the job. If she turns it down, they’ll shop it more broadly, but assuming she doesn’t completely bomb the interview, buys some winter clothes, and is all right exchanging Palo Alto for Gambier, it’s hers if she wants it.

“I…” Lucy hesitates. “My… my mom was just… she was actually just diagnosed. With cancer. She wants me to move back in and spend more time with her. I don’t know if I could justify going to Ohio instead. That’s the exact opposite of what she wants.”

Dr. Underwood hastens to offer her sympathy, and appreciates that this is a difficult decision for Lucy to make. However, while she knows family commitments are important, ultimately Lucy needs to think about what she wants from her career and getting established and so on. If Lucy does decide to stay in California, there will probably be several teaching opportunities at Stanford for her, and she’ll submit papers to journals and attend conferences and the rest of the rigmarole that it takes to be a Professional Academic ™. It’s not necessarily the wrong thing to do. But Dr. Underwood thinks Lucy should consider the Kenyon job carefully. She knew Carol when they were both faculty in the department, knows what kind of personality she had, and maybe it’s not the worst thing for Lucy to go.

Lucy nods and smiles, even as she wants to go somewhere private, put her face in a pillow, and scream. At least the damn dissertation is done, exam date is firmly set, no more of that, no more, praise Jesus, NO MORE. She picks up her bag, swings it to her shoulder, and heads out of Dr. Underwood’s office, riding down the elevator and stepping out into the foyer. As she does, she collides with someone coming the other way, and starts into the usual apology. But as she does, she catches a glimpse of the face under the hat, and freezes. Reaches out to grab at his jacket sleeve, her voice a hiss.

“Flynn?”

Garcia Flynn has not been having the greatest week. Or two. Or three.

He stayed for six days in the hospital, being cared for by a doctor named Noah who was entirely professional to all outward manners and appearances, but who kept shooting him looks out of the corner of his eye that made Flynn suspect the worst. Either he’s a Rittenhouse agent, or he used to be some sort of gentleman acquaintance to Lucy, and Flynn would almost prefer the former. At least that way he could kill him without anyone being too upset about it.

Of course, and regretfully, killing is off the table, at least for the moment. At least for Flynn himself, as he’s fairly sure that Rittenhouse has authorized everything short of public beheading to apprehend him, and which was why he decided that he was no longer going to trust to the dubious safety of Santa Rosa Memorial and the judgment of Noah. . . whatever his damn last name is, Flynn hasn’t been arsed either to find out or remember it. So he checked himself out against medical advice, gave a fake name and address for the bill (the American health system is a racket anyway, and technically he’s supposed to have insurance – yes, the NSA does offer dental) and left the rental car in the garage. It’s too conspicuous, and he has bigger fish to fry than whether he is blacklisted by Enterprise in the future. They can take it up with John Thompkins, later.

After which, Flynn rode a Greyhound (yes, it’s as miserable as you’d think, especially when you’re six-foot-four) to some shithole Inland Empire city, somewhere in California close to the Nevada border where nobody goes if they can possibly avoid it, probably still riddled with decades-old radiation from the Las Vegas test site. Rented a room in some motel that definitely has one filled with haunted clown dolls, laid low, gingerly tended his raw wounds with over-the-counter antibiotics and sutures, and was forced to admit it was a good thing he did not die of septicemia. He hasn’t succeeded in coming up with a new plan just yet, as it’s clear that he’s been cut off from the usual channels with extreme prejudice. He has kept his old phone with the NSA numbers, but keeps it switched off and hasn’t used it. He can’t risk calling Karl to see what he did, or did not, know about the Wyatt Logan fiasco.

And so, Flynn grimly considers his options. He can try to throw together another fake identity and go to Canada, or travel on his real name back to Europe and hope they haven’t gotten Interpol on this, or just lie here in a motel room that might literally be the manifestation of hell on earth, with air conditioner that barely works in 25-plus Celsius heat and a stain that looks like a murder victim on the carpet. If Rittenhouse is after him, no holds barred, he may just be able to avoid their notice if he stays, especially for a man whose professional tradecraft is disappearing. And yet.

The more Flynn thinks it over, the more he can’t account for everything going sideways as fast and as comprehensively as it did, unless Rittenhouse was plugged into the whole thing almost from the beginning. They must have multiple high-level operatives across several branches of government, focusing on the ones you’d expect – CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland Security, whoever’s stealing your personal information these days – but by no means limited to them. They could be salted through every level of middle bureaucracy (he wonders if all DMV and IRS workers get an automatic membership) and beyond. It sounds ridiculously, relentlessly paranoid, like that prizewinning intellectual who insists that the Royal Family and other leading British celebrities are all secretly lizard people. But given what Flynn saw at the gala, Cahill and his powerful, well-connected, wealthy friends, this also might not be entirely off the ranch, and that means he has to do more digging. Where?

It takes him a bit, but he recalls what Lucy said to him at their first (well, first real) meeting. Something about David Rittenhouse, who Flynn discovered to be a famous eighteenth-century astronomer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and asking if he founded it. Flynn doesn’t know the answer to that question, but it seems to strain credulity that the man it’s literally named after has nothing to do with it. It also is not a given that Rittenhouse’s secret archives are housed somewhere at UPenn, but there are several things named after the man in Philadelphia. It’s not entirely implausible.

That, therefore, is where Flynn is faced with the final part of the plan. It’s going to be hard enough for him to get in as it is, what with the Take Dead or Alive order they probably have out on his head. But if he didn’t appear to be attached to it – if it was just an innocent research visit from an up-and-coming academic who would have plenty of legit business with UPenn’s history collections on colonial America, and he just so happened to appear –

Flynn is well aware that this is quite a reach. That it’s dangerous, that it’s unfair, that he doesn’t really have any right to ask it, given how their last parting went, and what he said then. That she has any number of things to do right now, and none of them necessarily involve dropping all her work and heading cross-country to pick up, again, the world’s most demented and dangerous scavenger hunt with him. No sir.

He checks out of the motel and hops a ride with a trucker the next morning.

As they stare at each other for a very long and very excruciating moment, all Lucy can think is that he shouldn’t be here. Rittenhouse could have been watching her from afar, guessing (correctly, apparently) that she will prove too tempting a target for Flynn to resist contacting again. Maybe this is the moment they jump out and dogpile them both, or – or –

Lucy hesitates only a split second before tightening her grip on Flynn and dragging him around the corner into an unused classroom. She bangs shut the door behind them and leans against it, legs trembling. “You need to get out of here.”

“You just shut me in.” Trust Flynn to have a smart-aleck response readily at hand, as he watches her from under hooded eyes. “We would need to try reversing that first.”

“Just be quiet.” Lucy clenches her fists, fighting a brief urge to slap him. “Did anyone see you?”

He shrugs. “It’s a public university, I imagine they did. Nobody who seemed to recognize me, though.”

Lucy blows out a breath, getting the table between them just so there will be something to prevent her – or him – from anything intemperate. “You’re such a bastard.”

A hard, sardonic smile glimmers in the edges of his mouth. He seems unruffled by the accusation, almost even pleased. He does not bother with small talk, explaining where he’s been, or why he said everything he did in the hospital. (Don’t fool yourself that I want to see you again. . . this is my war, I don’t need you and yet, lo and behold, here he is. He’s a disaster.) Instead he says, “Did you finish your dissertation?”

“Yes,” Lucy says, curt and unwilling. “I have a lot going on, a lot, so why don’t you just – ”

“Is there anything else you can pretend to be working on?”

“What?” Screw the table, she might want to do something intemperate after all. “Why?”

His eyes remain on hers, cool and unswerving. “I need your help.”

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #the tangled web of fate we weave

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elizabetskaya · 4 years

Text

$758

Life sometimes gives you lemons. Sometimes challenges. Sometimes both.

For me, quarantine had not been experienced in full. Until today.

Starting mid-March Europe, USA and a lot of other countries started imposing strict rules for their citizens to fight the pandemic. When I had to go to Russia in the beginning of March due to health reasons [not Covid], I escaped the US where the process had just started. Whilst I was having my time during those 2 weeks in Russia, where there were no signs of the upcoming disaster at that time at all, America was doing a complete home lockdown. It felt as it was a pure luck because by the time I had to go back to the US, American government started to lift up some of the hard-core anti-pandemic measures as the first peak was behind. And I remember when I landed in Los Angeles on March 27th, everyone seemed to be already pretty chilled about the situation. Yes, there were significantly less people in the streets and no cafes open, but at least you were allowed to go outside – in contrast to Russia, where people were forced to sit at home and allowed to leave their homes only twice a week to buy essentials like medicine and groceries.

I felt lucky again. In LA I could freely go running in the mornings, then work during the day, and see my ‘already-quarantined’ friends later in the evening to enjoy walks by the beach. I felt jealous of myself, you know. Los Angeles seemed like the best option to spend quarantine in, in contrast to the rest of the world.

But not me.

* * *

Today is Sunday. June 14th. And I’m not in Los Angeles. I’m in… Hawaii.

And unfortunately it is not a kind of a trip I’ve imagined it would be. I mean, Hawaii still looks beautiful to me – to the extent that I can enjoy views of Hawaii from my hotel room, which I am not allowed to leave for the next 12 hours.  Oh yes, one more thing: my flight back to LA is in12 hours. Sounds confusing, isn’t it?

Welcome to Hawaii fucking real quarantine, baby.

* * *

Six days ago it was Monday. And I was in Los Angeles.

That Monday a lot of things have happened: I successfully submitted one project, surprisingly got fired from another…

Well, not fired. It was a an agreed mutual decision but it still felt horrible like I was used..

And not only this. The main ‘trigger’ of me buying tickets to Hawaii was a conversation with my mum I had that night: same old ‘mummy/daddy issues’ that, as a result, undermine your value, question your existence in general, make you feel like a complete garbage and, most importantly, MAKE YOU DO SOME IMPULSIVE SHIT THAT YOU HAVEN’T REALLY THOUGHT THROUGH.

I am not trying to blame it on anyone here. Actually… there’s nothing to regret about at all! Life is an experience, and every failure is a lesson.

So how I ended up in Hawaii. [ To be more precise, being stuck in a hotel room in Hawaii. ]

In short, I’d put it this way: I read a right book, saw a sign from above, got completely lost, and couldn’t wait anymore.  In long…

1. By the book I mean Julia Cameron’s ‘Artist Way’, and I called it ‘right’ in a sense that this book found me in a right place in a right time. My boss, who fired me – asshole, said that I might be confusing two things: “being creative with just being able to executive someone else’s creativity in a professional form”. Basically, he called me “not creative enough”. And for a person who’s been always drawn to art in its various shapes and forms, that felt like a painful punch right in my face and, most importantly, my heart. Looking ahead, it turned out that he’s а rogue who used me, my skills and my time, and left me with just £179 for 3 weeks of intense work instead of £600 (the sum which, in my head, was supposed to be spent on any sort of a short well-deserved vacation), but that’s a whole different story. So, when I found myself in a situation that someone tried to diminish my self-worth as a creator, I had to find a way to make sure that I can still be considering myself as a creative person and that I have actually never lost this title at all (as it can never be taken away ;). So I opened my notes with books to read and the name ‘Artist’s Way’ immediately caught my attention. I am not sure who has recommended it to me but I just instantly felt it is the answer to my dilemma of self-identification. Most of the exercises in the book focus on bringing our hidden subconscious thoughts to the surface so we could take them into account when trying to make our mind on different things. As I was reading through and doing all exercises with all my heart, I saw one thing coming up over and over again – Hawaii. When I had to choose one childhood dream that I haven’t fulfilled yet, that was Hawaii. When I had to visualize a quiet place where I could mentally go to right now, that was Hawaii. When I had to think of at least one thing that could definitely make me happy at that moment, the first thing that came to my mind (and I guess would be for most people too) was a completely change of a scenery and surrounding environment – and, once again, that was Hawaii.

2. A ‘vivid sign’ was a moment when I went to check new job listings on the Russian (!) website which I used regularly, and the first thing I see is a ‘helicopter supervisor in Hawaii’. It could not be any more random, you know…

3. Me being ‘lost’ refers to the frustration I had after losing a job, AND my mum’s heart-breaking comment that ‘I was the biggest disappointment in her and dad’s life’. 1). The irony is that she said it not knowing that I’ve lost my job. 2). Now we have talked through this situation with her and it appears that I misinterpreted her words that day. Well…

4. And four. ‘I couldn’t wait anymore’. I couldn’t wait for any sort of a miracle to come to me. In the given circumstances, I truly believed I needed to DO something, to FEEL something, in order not to fall into the deepest depression since 2016. I had to create this life-saving life-changing miracle myself.

And I did.

* * *

Friday June 12th 2020. 8:16am. LAX. I am at Hawaiian Airlines’ baggage drop-off. They take my passport, they take my luggage and go: ‘Well, you know that you’d have to self-isolate where you’re planning to stay for 14 consecutive days as a part of quarantine measures, right?’. And the only thing I could say – so I don’t look likeSOME STUPID SHIT WHO HAS BASICALLY JUST WASTED $758 - ‘yes, I know’.

Long story short – I arrive to Hawaii, go straight to my hotel, do check-in and close the door of the room n1105 behind me for 4 consecutive days. Apparently, the State of Hawaii extended mandatory out-of-state visitor 14-day quarantine policy for another month on the day I purchased my tickets. And non of the booking websites ever mentioned that…

You know, at least now I can legitimately say that I’ve been through a REAL quarantine. I am not allowed to use hotel’s swimming pool, room service or any other activity that involves human interaction or me physically touching any hotel’s surface apart from my room’s.

I obviously DID read the news (when I arrived), and the reason why I am not planning to violate Hawaiian anti-rona regulations is that it looks like these guys are taking it way more seriously, and they do arrest people who do not obey the law. The State Department of Transport called directly to my hotel room yesterday at 9am in the morning to make sure that I am aware of mandatory quarantine, and that I am staying in.

YES, I’M FUCKING STAYING IN, guys. Because I don’t have extra $5,000 if you catch me chilling at the Waikiki beach. And I also do not want to have my first appearance on a news cover it being a mugshot and my name under it (cos I really doubt they’ll provide me with a full make up service before taking a picture).

* * *

They say, be careful what you wish for, son.

I wished for an escape.

I wished I could delete all of my social media (which I did) and become completely non-existent for most people for half a week.

I wished for an experience which would somehow push me out of my comfort zone, make me re-evaluate current state of things in my life and probably become that ‘restart button’ which I definitely was in the need of.

But most importantly, I wished to finally see the place of my childhood dreams. Nobody told me it would be limited to me exploring Hawaii from the hotel room balcony.

P.S. There’s actually a little addition to this story but I do not want to get in trouble with Hawaiian law (if you know what I mean) so I will leave it here and tell the rest to my closest friends in person... hehe

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rfsak2 · 7 years

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Cactus, Part IV

I hope you like it!

Cactus, Part IV Summary: Damn if he didn’t know what he was doing. Harry/Jamie Warnings: Talking about past tramas. Hopefully nothing too triggering though.

Mitch sipped his cocktail and hit her thigh with the back of his hand. She jumped a bit, pleasantly buzzed on a mixture of whiskey and Harry, and said man grumbled from where he leaned against her, prickly cheek against her forehead.

“What about you, Jamie-Wamie? Any great stories from your extensive tenure in the music industry?”

“You get verbose when you’re drunk, Mitchy-moo.” She grinned, one hand idly carding through the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck.

Jeff grinned. “Oooh… verbose. Big word.”

“Thanks. Took a lotta doin’ to educate the white trash outta me.”

Harry chuckled against her hair. “I think yeh sound very educated, love.”

“Thanks, Haz.”

Mitch smiled against his glass. “No, but I’m serious. You’ve been doin’ this for a while now..”

“Now you’re callin’ me old?”

Harry snorted. “Yer like twenty-two. Tell a story, girl!”

“Okay.. Okay.” She sighed. “Lessee… One time, I walked in on the drummer from a band I was working with doing lines of coke off a prostitute’s breasts.”

Harry stiffened beside her and Mitch breathed out a shocked ‘fuck’.

Jeff nodded with a small smile, sitting across the table. “I remember you telling me about that. You were what…. Eighteen?”

“Sixteen.” She let out a breathless little chuckle.

Harry straightened suddenly. “Wha? Sixteen? Wha’ happened?”

She shrugged. “He’s just casually doin’ lines, the prostitute was moaning like.. Well, she was moaning and I just say ‘hi’.” She paused and rub soothingly at Harry’s shoulder. “He grins, but then if the number of little, plastic bags on the floor are to be taken at face value, he’d probably done 200 bucks in blow so I’m not sure he really knew what was goin’ on anyhow. I’m just frozen. I had no idea what to do. He grins and waves me over. ‘Ya want some?’ I stutter out, ‘No, sir’ and grab my guitar and run.”

Jeff huffed. “This business, man.”

“It gets better… or worse. I had a supervisor, I guess he’d be called… He was the one I ‘reported’ to with the label as far as the government was concerned. I went to him to tell him that this happened. I mean it’s illegal, right? And dangerous, he could’ve OD’d or… Like fifteen different scenarios had run through my mind by that point. Anyway, he just laughs, calls me a prude and then quirks my chin like I’m just some silly, little girl. Tells me to toughen up.”

She smiled. “Then he sends me back to the studio, because if I’m so worried then I should go check up on him. Make sure he don’t OD.” Harry made a noise deep in his chest and gathered her against his side.

“I hesitate as one would expect and he asks me if ‘it was going to be a problem?’” She smiled at Mitch. “I say ‘no’ and go and check up on him, because I really was worried. He’s passed out and the lady is gone. I call my boss and he says to just turn him on his side so he doesn’t choke.” She sneered. “‘We’ll cancel work today. See you tomorrow. Go get a pedicure or whatever it is broads like you do.’ I just stood there and stared down at him for a solid hour, trying to figure out if I should call the cops.”

“But you didn’t.” Jeff wet his lips. “Call the cops I mean.”

She shook her head. “No, of course not. How could I? And flush every dream I had ever had down the toilet? Get myself in some deep shit with a label that literally owns me and my music? I could only imagine what they’d do to keep that shit quiet.” She sipped her whiskey. “Anyways, I’m apparently maudlin when I’ve had too much to drink. Sorry for being a buzzkill. Jeff probably has better...funnier stories than I do.”

The conversation took a turn and she quieted, relaxing back against the couch. Harry sighed. “Tha’s mad, monster.”

She smiled and settled against his chest. “I definitely was. But then you’ve probably seen as much as me. This industry doesn’t let people stay young for very long.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair.” He sighed and favored her with a crooked smile. “The album is done…”

She smiled. “And now, the end is near…”

He grinned. “And so I face the final curtain.” He chuckled. “Yeh have a lovely singing voice, love.”

She shrugged.

“Yeh should tour wi’ us.” She breathed deep and Harry booped her nose. “Yeh thought I’d forget, didn’t yeh, love?”

She smiled. “I was hopin’ so, yeah? Don’t like disappointin’ people.”

“Then don’t.” He pulled back and caught her eye. “Look… I don’t want this to be the end of this-” He motioned between them “-I know it doesn’t have to be and ‘course, I have no intention of ending it because yeh say no, please know tha’. But it will get harder when I tour. I just want t’spend time wi’ yeh and I wanna keep makin’ music wi’ yeh.”

“I don’t want this to end, either.” She smiled and shifted so she was sort of half in his lap, one hand coming up to run a thumb over his chin. “But, Harry, I really… I shouldn’t.”

“Why?” He shrugged. “I know yer probably too talented for it-”

She shot him a look. “That’d be a real bitchy thing for me to think.”

He winced. “I don’t mean it like that...Obviously.”

“Why do you think it is that I don’t tour?”

“I assume it’s because yeh only tour when it’s something ye’re proud of.”

She smiled and grabbed his face, staring him down. “I don’t tour for a reason.. A reason I may one day tell you, but I’ve been a bit too much of a downer today as it is, so not tonight. I can tell you that it has nothing to do with being proud or not being proud. I love what we’ve done here. I really do. Aside from having more fun then I have had in years, I am immensely pleased with how your album turned out and I’m proud to have worked on it.”

He nodded, eyes on hers. “Okay… I have an idea.” He grinned. “Do th’promo performances wi’ us. Be there for tha’ and we’ll shelve the tour shite for a later conversation.”

She sighed around a smile.

He smiled broadly, dimple appearing. “Please, love. Yer such a fantastic guitarist and I want te share it wi’ yeh.”

“Alright. Fine.” She pressed a pert kiss to his cheek. “That dimple can get you whatever you want, honestly.”

“No I dig it, babe.” She traced one of the big black buttons on his romper with the tip of her finger. “It...it works for me. It really does.”

Almost absentmindedly, she licked her lips and Harry sucked in a breath. “Tha’s no’ fair, love.”

“Hmm?” She didn’t look up and he really didn’t think she was aware that she was doing it. “What was that, Haz?”

He leaned into her space, fingering the gold lace of her skirt. “Yeh shouldn’t lick yer lips like that when yeh look so pretty. ‘S no’ fair, love.”

She blushed, hand flattening against his ribcage. “Oh!... Sorry.”

“Yeh haven’t put lippy on yeah?”

She frowned. “What the fuck is lippy?”

He grinned and decided to test for himself.

She hadn’t.

She gasped into his mouth and he wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her into the kiss. “Pretty little thing, aren’yeh?”

“Shit.” She laughed against his mouth. “Who’s not being fair now?”

He chuckled and leaned in for another kiss. Someone knocked on the door and he just managed to stifle the groan.

They stepped away from each other and she coughed. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Jeffrey popped his head in. He glanced between the two of them. “Really?”

Harry flicked him off. “Can we assist yeh?”

Jeffrey stuck his tongue out. “No, I don’t need yeh. I need your girl. Jamie-Wamie, you or Mitch for solo?”

“It’s Mitch.”

“Okay we’ll set Mitch closer to center and then you next to him, yeah?”

“Base in the back?” She nodded. “That should work. What do their sound guys say the acoustics are like?”

“That’s how they said they preferred to do it.”

“Sounds good to me.” He left, closing the door behind him, and she chuckled. “I pretty sure he just wanted to interrupt. He didn’t me to answer any of those questions.”

Harry nodded and leaned in to kiss her again. “It’s probably for the best. Can’t get to worked up just yet.”

She smiled. “I need to put lippy on.”

“Not yet.” He kissed her once more and then set his hands on her shoulder. “There now.”

He was phenomenal.

It was silly to feel so damn proud of someone who’d been doing this and doing it well for seven years, but she was so bloody proud.

There was so much joy in every bounce and pace. He was energetic and charismatic and the crowd was feeling him and he was feeling the crowd.

She was feeling him and his damn romper. He just looked so good.

Every time he turned her way, his smile was wide and contagious and she just couldn’t help returning it.

She had to admit, he knew what he was doing when he asked for her to do this with him. She honestly couldn’t see herself doing anything else right now.

She couldn’t miss this and have to live with the regret for the rest of her life.

He held the door for her and motioned her into the restaurant. “M’lady.”

She stuck her tongue out.

“Not very lady-like.” He winked at her and she rolled her eyes as she indicated to the hostess that they needed a table for two.

The girl gaped, but nodded. “Yeah, course.”

She led them to a table, glancing back at Harry every once and awhile on their way through the crowded restaurant. Harry, for his part, pretended to not notice that everyone’s eyes were on him, his hand firm in the small of her back.

When the girl had left, Jamie smiled. “Everyone is so aware of you. Are you sure that you don’t want to go somewhere quieter?”

He shook his head, looking down at the menu. “Yeh said this place reminded you of home. ‘My favorite restaurant in LA, Haz,’ yeh said.”

She nodded and did the same. “Right then.”

“It’ll be the same no matter where we go. This is just how it is.” He glanced up. “Does it bother yeh?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. If it doesn’t bother you-”

He snorted. “It does bother me, of course it does, but I’m not going to hide away and I’m not going to act like I’m ashamed of myself or of yeh.” He looked up and she was smiling at him. “Wha’?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He grinned, blushing. “Wha’ do yeh ge’ here, monster?”

“Fajitas usually. That’s true Tex-Mex there.”

“Wanna share, then?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Wanna share a coronarita?” He grimaced. “That sounds...interestin’.”

She made a face. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear you say that.”

He laughed. “Why?”

“Corona? Really, baby? If we gonna go Mexican beer, it can’t be that. It tastes like piss.”

“Can I get you two some drinks?”

The waiter smiled a bit too broadly. He’d obviously been sent out to avoid the inevitable catfight over who would wait on Harry fucking Styles.

She smiled. “D’ya have Victoria on draft?” The waiter nodded. “Two of those, please and some water.”

“Sure. I’ll be back with those and some chips and salsa for you.”

“Thanks, mate.” Harry grinned at her. “You look beautiful tonight.”

She scoffed. “I didn’t even bother to put my contacts in today and my hair is stiff with hairspray from last night.”

He shrugged. “Big hair, don’t care and I like you in your specs. You’re cute, plus you have a hickey just there.” He poked at her collarbone.

She started and attempted to pull at her shirt. “Harry! You didn’t tell me!”

“How did yeh miss it, love? It’s dark.” He grinned. “It’s alright. I like my marks on yeh.”

She blushed, but didn’t say anything, waiting for their approaching waiter to set down their drinks and take their order. “You’re oddly okay with this. Shouldn’t you be more worried about the media gettin’ wind of all this?”

“What? Of us?” He shook his head. “If they do, they do. As long as they don’t run yeh off, I’m not sure I care anymore. They’re gonna do it anyway, right? Normally with women I’ve never even bloody met. If they’re gonna do it, I’d prefer for it to be real. I’d prefer it to be with someone I am fond of, someone I want to be in a relationship with.”

She beamed. “I don’t think they could beat me off with a stick.”

He threw his head back against the booth. “They shouldn’t do tha’ either, love.”

She sipped her beer. “So is this…” She winced. “I don’t know how to say it.”

He grinned, munching on a chip. “I want yeh. I’ve wanted yeh since I met you last year, love. Committed Relationship or Secret Lovers. As long as I have yeh, I don’t care. Whatever yeh want.”

“You can have whatever you like.”

He laughed. “What d’yeh say, monster? What is this?”

“I say Committed Relationship. You?”

“You can have whatever you like.” He smiled. “Yeh’ve always been m’girl, y’know tha’, yeah? Up here,” he tapped his temple, “whenever I thought about yeh, yeh were my girl.”

She blushed. “Same here, pretty boy. I was all in from day one.”

“Good.” He leaned over the table and kissed her, aware that someone was likely taking a photo.

Their food came and she grinned at Harry as he gaped, watching her throw a couple jalapenos onto her fajita. “That’s intense.”

She snorted. “No what’s intense is that that girl over there is definitely snapchatting this. If we’re lucky her friends aren’t saving it.”

He sighed. “Are yeh okay?”

She shrugged. “I’m okay with you. I don’t particularly like feeling like I’m being watched, but I’ll deal with it for you, because I’m okay with you.”

“Is that why you don’t tour?” He winced. “I mean because you don’t like being watched?”

She froze, fajita half-way in her mouth, before forcing herself to relax. “No. I mean I like performing as much as anyone else.”

“Wha’ happened?” He stilled, almost as if he was forgetting to breathe. “Yeh don’t have to say if yeh don’t wan’ te. Sorry. Dun mean t’make yeh feel uncomfortable, love.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I wanted to tell you anyways really.” She smiled. “But first I want you to know that I had so much fun doing the promo stuff. I’m glad you convinced me to do it and if the offer is still available, I’d love to tour with you.”

He sighed in relief, hand over his heart. “Thank God. Of course it is.” He reached for her hand. “Now what happened, love? I have a feeling that it wasn’t pleasant.”

She sighed. “My parents weren’t comfortable with me going on tour until I had turned eighteen for obvious reasons and even then they still weren’t really comfortable, but when the band that I had been working with that summer asked me to tour with them, I jumped at the chance. I was going to be a background guitarist, nothing flashy, for the opening act, but I was so excited. I was going to be going on my first tour, I’d be getting some great experience and I really thought that I was going to have fun.”

She sipped her beer and Harry felt a pit in his stomach.

“The first ten shows, we’ll say, they were fine. I was having fun, I clicked with the band, and I got to have all these little jam sessions with the guitarists from both bands. I was learning so much. I learned to play Voodoo Child on that tour, in fact. Then one day, the tour was in Austin and my family came up to see me. I had gone out to dinner with my family and I returned to the hotel we were in late. I…” She smiled and took a deep breath, Harry squeezed her hand.

“I had to walk past the pool.. spa thing to get to the stairs. The lead singer of the main band must have seen me. He...uh… he grabbed and he tried to drag me into the changing rooms, but he didn’t know that my brother, Ryan and my father were following me in. I was running up to grab something from my room for them to take back home with them. Ryan saw me get pulled into the door and he has...had anger issues back then, he’s a lot better now. You can imagine. I had just managed to jump away from him when Ryan bursted through the door. If he had still had his hands on me when Ryan got there, Ryan’d probably be in prison.”

“Fuck.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her hand. “I… Shit I wish I hadn’t asked, baby. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I wanted to tell you.” She covered his hand with her free hand. “I stayed on the tour. My parents didn’t want me to obviously and Ryan was livid that I would even consider it but I wanted it so bad and I was so stubborn. I just I couldn’t let it go, but then the rest of the tour was miserable. I chose to keep it quiet. I think the singer thought I didn’t say anything because I was ashamed.. or afraid. I managed to convince myself that I just didn’t want him to be able to take it away from me. Anyways, he kept trying to corner me. The drummer from the opener started to notice. He’s a nice guy. I’d say four shows after the pool incident, he pinned the lead singer to a wall and threatened him.”

“Good.”

“‘She’s barely eighteen, ya disgustin’ old fuck. Ya-’ He’s from Boston, I think- ‘Ya touch her again, I kick ya dentures down ya throat and make you beg for her forgiveness. If she don’t want ta forgive ya, Imma bury you in so much litigation you’ll owe ever’thin’ to ya lawyers.’” She smiled. “At the end of that tour, I was pretty happy to never have to tour ever again. I tour with my band, because they’re my brothers, literally and figuratively and I trust them.”

He nodded. “Yeh don’t have to tour with us, I promise. Yeh can say no.”

“I know.” She kissed his knuckle. “I know. That’s why I want to do it. I trust y’all. I trust you and I want to share this with you. Besides I can’t afford to miss the possibility of you wearing that romper again.”

“You liked it then?” He grinned slow around his glass.

“You don’t even know.”

Part III Up Next: Part V

#harry styles #harry styles/reader #harry styles/oc #harry styles fanfiction

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airoasis · 5 years

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Here's why you'll NEVER make money in Forex. The Forex Cycle of Doom...

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/heres-why-youll-never-make-money-in-forex-the-forex-cycle-of-doom/

Here's why you'll NEVER make money in Forex. The Forex Cycle of Doom...

You’re on no account going to make any cash trading the currency exchange market! Trust me! I am a thirty-years experienced veteran trader. Hey there! Now, a few of you’ll have already noticeable this video that we’re uploading today. And that is on account that for some strange cause, the common variant had its rating eliminated with the aid of YouTube. Now, this could be a number of explanations most likely, since other channels had been stealing our content…Who knows? Both means, because the publicity we have been getting and the relevance within the topic that I was once discussing, we will reupload it in view that……I think it can be a real shame. We have been helping so many traders be taught an extraordinarily valuable lesson. So, for all you new and aspiring merchants, Thanks for tuning in and i’m hoping you experience it! One of the crucial essential explanations why most merchants fail in the currency trading market… …Is due to the fact they turn out to be getting trapped to what I call, the "Cycle of Doom". So, what’s the Cycle of Doom? I hear you cry! Well, the Cycle of Doom is basically this… Let’s expect now, you off buying and selling the currency exchange markets. You could have received yourself a technique. Now… …You could have developed the method yourself. You would have copied it from a different successful dealer. Certainly, you would have purchased it from someplace on the internet or so forth. So, now you will have your approach and you’re about to trading this with reside money.You putting the trigger and off the bat, you making some money! The whole thing’s going nice. Then the inevitable happens. You begin shedding some money. The strategy starts… …Taking cash away from your trading account. 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You’re going to hop between that historical approach and a new process.The identical factor will occur, you start to generate profits… …And then the inevitable occur, you’ll be able to start to tweak it, after which circular and round the circle, the cycle of doom, you go. Hopping and altering between methods within the hope that you are gonna find that Holy Grail. Well, get this, It would not exist! How do you be certain you don’t get trapped in that cycle of doom? Good, first thing you have got to do is you must trust in the process that you are enforcing out there. Well, how do you gain self assurance in your process? Well, you have to thoroughly……Backtest the strategy. You ought to put it by way of the entire old information, so you realize the characteristics of that approach. You understand how it’ll perform in… …Successful durations, and you know how it’s going to perform within the shedding periods. And it can be simplest then when you recognize, and …Expect to have shedding intervals that your no longer going to lose faith in that approach, relocating ahead…. …And you are gonna continue… …Buying and selling that procedure, knowing that it’ll come back and provide the earnings that you just so… …Want, and that you so you’ve obvious within the again trying out. That is one of the crucial foremost factors, why most traders fail on this trade. The other fundamental rationale I suppose, why plenty of merchants fail on this trade is when you consider that they come in with… …Fully, the wrong expectations. Now, they’ve read the entire… …Advertising hype from the professionals and the educators; how you can trade from the seaside, which you could give up your day job, which you can tell your boss to head and bounce in the lake. You are now a… …Foreign exchange trader and you do not must try this day job anymore! Well, that is comple hogwash! It’s now not gonna happen in a single day! The opposite thing, you know, misguided……Bs that’s in the market is that you could start off buying and selling and make a ton of cash with a $500 trading account! Once more, that isn’t going to occur. Now, that’s to not say you cannot make a good dwelling with a small buying and selling account, but it will take time and it’s going to take work on your behalf. Why do you believe it’s? The brokers offer you such bonuses to return and join them. In the event you put in five hundred greenbacks, they are going to healthy it with 5 hundred greenbacks. They try this for one predominant cause, considering they be aware of you are gonna blow that buying and selling account! Let’s anticipate, a dealer signs up 100 new consumers a week, each and every with a… …$500 buying and selling account, small trading account. Yeah? Now, they recognize that you’re gonna lose that cash! That hundred greenbacks, that hundred clients, per week, is a two-and-a-half of… …Million-greenback-a-year industry for that broker, since they know that you are going to blow that money, due to the fact that you are coming in with the fallacious… …Expectations.You have got to be… …Sensible about what you can attain in the forex market. A hedge fund, hedge fund supervisor would give his proper arm, for example, to have a 25 percent… …Return of funding. Imagine, you off with a 500 greenback buying and selling account, and you’ve got a first-rate yr. You’ve gotten made… …25% in your preliminary… …Deposit along with your brokerage. That is about a hundred and twenty bucks, $a hundred twenty five or some thing it is now. That’s infrequently ample to pay your web! However you could have acquired to ensure that you’re coming into this with the proper expectations. As I stated in future videos, i will exhibit you how one can turn small bills right into a profitable business. Do ensure, you assess out my videos on that! Additionally, the opposite primary rationale why persons lose cash on this trade is that they over leverage.Ok? They’re taking up… …Unnecessary risk. And why are they taking useless chance? It’s for the reason that they’ve unrealistic targets. Again, you’ve gotten obtained to ask yourself a question. Why is it that the broker will offer you, a hundred, 200, 500 to at least one leverage? Considering that they be aware of the greed mentality of most folks! You are gonna lose that leverage, and you are gonna blow and wipe out your trading account! So ensure you do not get trapped in the cycle of doom.I’m going to provide an explanation for about that in extra movies, as good. Make sure you have got… …The realistic expectations in regards to the forex market and what it may possibly supply you. If which you can begin off and …Get your head around those two data, then you are gonna be midway there to fitting a effective trader. Now, that is about it for this video! Should you just like the video, give me a thumbs up. If don’t like the video, no concern, supply me a thumbs down. Any questions at all, any feedback, in case you determined yourself in the cycle of doom, please let me recognize! I might love to hear from you; hear your…Experiences, and spot if we will aid you! So look, I seem forward to seeing you on the subsequent video! In the meantime, satisfactory of success with your buying and selling endeavors! .

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batterymonster2021 · 5 years

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hottytoddynews · 7 years

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Dr. Chandrashekhar Joshi is leading the fight against a disease that has revaged Native Americans across the country.

Juantina Johnson was speeding southbound toward Meridian for her daughter’s dance performance when she noticed a mother and daughter retreating from a car stranded alongside the bustling highway.

“As a single parent I know how tough it is, so I pulled over,” Johnson said.

The family, members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, were commuting more than 50 miles to Anderson Regional Medical Center when their car suddenly slowed, then came to a sickening stop. They had been making the hour-long trip for an appointment with a specialist the reservation’s outdated health center couldn’t offer.

Johnson lent a hand, a ride, and a can of gas to the family to help get them back on their way. She never made it to her daughter’s performance.

“I didn’t feel that bad about it because I helped a family that really needed it rather than my 4-year-old daughter who wouldn’t really remember me being there any way,” Johnson said.

Many other Choctaw families, on limited income and facing health issues, have had to make the agonizing decision of whether to spend money on gas to travel almost an hour away for an appointment or to skip it altogether.

“Truthfully, that is so many of their stories,” said Johnson, the Choctaw Health Center’s chief medical officer.

“Those are the kinds of stories that really broke my heart and showed the need to bring specialists to the Choctaw Health Center.”

The new health center has a larger diabetes unit to tackle the tribe’s most serious health concern.

Years later, a new, bigger, better-equipped Choctaw Health Center, which opened in March 2015, is doing just that. Mississippi’s Choctaw, almost wiped out by European diseases centuries ago, further thinned out by federal removal to Indian Country, then ravaged again by the worldwide flu pandemic in the early 1900s, now boast state-of-the-art medical technology, consistent staffing, and a slew of specialists.

Today the tribe can offer a badly needed, much larger dental clinic with an oral surgeon, a bigger diabetes unit to battle the tribe’s single most serious health concern, and an impressive array of other services — cardiologists, optometrists, mental health counselors, WIC, pediatric dental and primary care units, 20 inpatient rooms, a vast pharmacy, a women’s wellness center, an audiology unit, pain management clinic, pulmonology clinic and more.

“In the old facility we were busting out at the seams,” CHC Deputy Director Mary Harrison said. “Here we have room for the patients and their families to be comfortable.”

The old and cramped one-story facility with baby blue walls and orange carpets, built in 1976, was built to serve 4,000 patients, less than half today’s tribal population. Its waiting rooms were so packed that sometimes people had to stand shoulder to shoulder. Some offices were the size of broom closets.

Now patients flock to a modern, three-story building with sleek, timeless colors and wide-open areas that offer more and better care, a monument to just how effective Choctaw-run health care for the Choctaw can be.

The project, on an old stickball practice eld, was a joint venture between the tribe, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Indian Health Service (IHS). Chief Phylliss Anderson negotiated with IHS, which normally runs medical facilities on reservations, to agree to pay the tribe to operate the facility.

“The chief said we know best how to run it for our own people,” said tribal spokesperson Misty Brescia Dreifuss.

“We knew what it felt like to run out of room and so we planned this building so we would have room to grow,” Acting Health Director Tina Scott said.

Transitioning into the new center was like buying a new home. It doesn’t happen within a day, but after stepping over the threshold for the first time, it’s hard to think of anything other than the endless possibilities of what can happen within these walls.

Even the wallpaper speaks of Choctaw culture. Basket-weaving textures and diamond-shaped details frame large windows. Here, patients and staff alike have room. There are large lobbies on every floor and each patient has his or her own individual room— a bed, a couch where family members are encouraged to stay the night, and a bathroom large enough to do a cartwheel in.

“Patients have choices of where they want to go and we want to make it easy for them to choose here,” Johnson explained. “Now we are able to have patients see multiple specialists here rather than have to drive all the way to Meridian or Jackson.”

Once specialists see the facility, they’re much more eager to set up shop there.

“Build it,” Scott said. “And they will come.”

Physical expansion has also led to an expansion of opportunities. The health center is now able to control its own funding, create contracts with providers to bring in specialists, and “catch up with the norms.”

For example, “we’ve been able to have consistent staffing so they know the patients and their needs better,” Scott says.

One of those staff members is Gail Wilson, who works on the second floor in the dental unit.

Wilson, the dental assistant supervisor and long-time employee, is proud of her 16-chair clinic. She shows it off with a beaming smile.

“At the old hospital we had a four-chair clinic that could fit into our new lobby,” Wilson said.

Dr. Timothy Adams, a podiatry specialist, conducts an examination.

The place is busy, busy, busy. Most chairs are full and dentists scurry from patient to patient. People pour in for routine exams and cleanings, an oral surgeon visits every week, seeing about eight to 10 patients each time, and stickball mouth guards are molded in large quantities.

In the old laboratory, employees were crammed in like sardines, always bumping into each other. Now, the lab is four or five times larger and tasks are cranked out with ease, like making 75 mouth guards in a single morning.

The clinic is manned by 23 staff members, including five dentists and 14 dental assistants.

Wilson said if the center could secure more dentists, they’d be ready to expand immediately.

The tribe’s population is about 10,800. But as an IHS facility, the health center also serves those who are members of federally recognized tribes and their dependents.

The center also offers a spacious diabetes clinic, where the staff finds itself on the front lines of a long-term war against an epidemic that has plagued tribes across the United States. Diabetes has become such a problem that President Barack Obama extended a special diabetes program offered under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. It provides $150 million a year for support programs.

Darlene Willis and Dr. Chandrashekhar Joshi are two of many workers striving to help the Choctaw battle the reservation’s leading health concern.

About 1,900 Choctaw have been diagnosed with the disease, especially type 2 diabetes primarily caused by lifestyle habits—poor diet and lack of exercise. About 1,600 of those are classified as active, meaning they receive services at the center at least once a year.

U.S. health care officials report a 16.1 percent diabetes prevalence rate among Native Americans, as opposed to a 12 percent Mississippi rate and 9 percent national rate. The statistics don’t adequately describe the human carnage – amputations, kidney failure, blindness, heart disease, death.

For a long time, diabetes statistics among the Choctaws were murky, but the extent of the disease has become more obvious because on the reservation the tribe is like a captive audience, making screening highly effective. At least the tribe knows what it faces.

Willis, who has been the diabetes prevention coordinator for 18 years, said when she started, only about 55 people on the reservation had been diagnosed. With more efficient screening, more people are being diagnosed and advised on ways to better their health.

The number of diabetics has remained high for decades. Things have improved in recent years but it’s a slow, long-term siege.

“Change is going to be hard. Change is hard for these people,” Willis admitted. “They’re going to do what they do. They’re going to eat what they eat.”

Traditional Choctaw foods such as fry bread and fried chicken are major perpetrators in the poor diets that trigger the disease. The diabetes unit works to teach patients the benefits of a healthier low-fat diet, nutrition, exercise, and complete lifestyle change. But Joshi says all the preaching and cajoling in the world can’t solve the problem unless patients decide to change their ways. The toughest part of his job, he says, is fixing general attitudes toward diabetes.

“People do not change because somebody tells them to change,” Joshi said. “The only solution that is left is you have to make them want to do it. Change is going to happen very slowly.”

Joshi, who has been practicing medicine for 41 years with almost 30 dedicated to the reservation, has been lovingly dubbed an “honorary Choctaw” by the staff and has big dreams for the tribe and its future.

With a growing grin, Joshi admits his dreams are not practical but he still dreams them. He describes an ideal reservation that is virtually car-free to promote walking and exercise, healthy foods on sale at the grocery store, junk food sold at inflated prices, and more.

He has genuine hope for what is to come.

“I have never really had negative thoughts in the respect that nothing will change, that things would remain the same,” Joshi said. “Sooner or later. It will take time. It will happen.”

By Lana Ferguson. Photos by Chi Kalu.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Ariel Cobbert, Mrudvi Bakshi, Taylor Bennett, Lana Ferguson, SECOND ROW: Tori Olker, Josie Slaughter, Kate Harris, Zoe McDonald, Anna McCollum, THIRD ROW: Bill Rose, Chi Kalu, Slade Rand, Mitchell Dowden, Will Crockett. Not pictured: Tori Hosey PHOTO BY THOMAS GRANING

The Meek School faculty and students published “Unconquered and Unconquerable” online on August 19, 2016, to tell stories of the people and culture of the Chickasaw and Choctaw. The publication is the result of Bill Rose’s depth reporting class taught in the spring. Emily Bowen-Moore, Instructor of Media Design, designed the magazine.

“The reason we did this was because we discovered that many of them had no clue about the rich Indian history of Mississippi,” said Rose. “It was an eye-opening experience for the students. They found out a lot of stuff that Mississippians will be surprised about.”

Print copies are available October 2016.

For questions or comments, email us at [email protected].

The post The Choctaw: Taking Care of Their Own appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

#hottytoddy #olemiss #oxfordms #oxford ms #mississippi #university of mississippi #the grove

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batterymonster2021 · 5 years

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airoasis · 5 years

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