#<- adding g/t tags just because if a person WERE in this picture they’d only come up to her shoulder below the wing

[clumsiestgiantess]

Day 2: Wings

Oops! Looks like you spooked my sona, Tselani, on a walk through the woods.

Just try to act uninteresting and she’ll ignore you. …hopefully.

(forgot to tell y’all yesterday but I’m mainly using @bittykimmy13’s October prompt list — some days swapped out with @gt-con’s g/t-specific prompt list!)

[raysofcrosby]

REASON

“𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩...𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.” – 𝙅𝙤𝙝𝙣 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙣, 𝘼𝙣 𝘼𝙗𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙆𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨

𝘨𝘪𝘧 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵 (𝘹)

𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥: yes | no

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨(𝘴): bad words here and there plus some alcohol consumption otherwise its just full of moody!nolan and quite angsty tbh.

𝘸𝘰𝘳�� 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 4,698

𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺: break up in a small town by sam hunt

𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦: yikes i’m back with another piece i wrote for my creative writing class but obviously i changed the names– i couldn’t have my professor thinking i was writing about hockey players ya know anyway like i said above, it’s pretty angsty lmao idk why i love writing sad things so much but oh well!!! enjoy!!! ;-) 

"Nolan hurry up back there! We need to get back soon!" Travis called out from the front of the store as he placed his booze of choice for the night up onto the counter.

"Yeah, yeah I'm coming," Nolan replied, turning his attention back to the liquor in front of him. He'd been home in Winnipeg now for a good month or so since the Flyers season had ended with no playoff bid. Yeah it sucked, actually, it really fucking sucked– but there was nothing he could do about it now. So when Nico had called and said he was coming to visit, Nolan took the opportunity to invite Travis too. Because what better way to get your mind off of the lack of playoff hockey, than by spending it out on a lake and drinking with your best friends?

In the few days that they'd been here, the three boys had already wreaked enough havoc in the Patrick home, that Nolan knew he was only one inappropriate joke away before his mom would book the three of them a hotel room and tell them to stay there. But they couldn't help it, their friendship was tight and after the whirlwind of a season both of their teams had– they needed a little fun.

Which is why he was standing in front of five rows of liquor, trying to decide which one he'd make his poison for the night. An old friend from Juniors was throwing a party at his house, and obviously Nolan, Travis and Nico were invited. The old friend said that the party was for Nolan, so to speak, a celebration on his return back from Philly and to commemorate the fact that he'd actually left his house for once. But in reality, it was just a get together with old friends while getting wasted on incredulous amounts of liquor all while sloppy games of beer pong, suck and blow and every other cliche high school drinking game Hollywood could manage into one movie, played on in the background.

Not that Nolan was complaining or anything. He was actually excited about the party since he hadn't really seen or talked to most of the people who would be in attendance since last summer. That, and he was always down for a party. His eyes skimmed across two separate bottles of vodka, unsure of which to choose for tonight as 'eenie meenie miney mo' played in his head.

"You should go with Belvedere," Nolan straightened up and looked to his left to see you standing maybe a foot or two away from him. "Black Cow usually made you throw up."

He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't make the words come out. Hell, he couldn't even find the words if he wanted to. He could barely even believe that you were there, standing right in front of him...in person, after all this time. He blinked once, twice, adding a third time for good measure to make sure that his mind wasn't playing any tricks on him. But you were still standing there.

"Hi, Nolan." You laughed, tossing some of your hair over your shoulder as you motioned towards the bottles in front of him. "You don't mind if I..."

"No, g-" he cleared his throat and stepped back from the shelves, "go ahead."

You smiled and walked closer to the shelves, bending down and causing your hair to fall back over your shoulders. You grabbed two bottles of Ciroc and stood back up, a bottle in each hand. "Thanks," you said, biting the inside of your cheek, a habit you wished you could rid yourself of but never had the willpower to do so. "Well, I guess I'll see you later?"

Nolan nodded while simultaneously swallowing the lump that had grown in his throat. You lightly laughed and turned away, walking to the end of the aisle and disappearing out of his sight. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to figure out if what just happened was one huge mindfuck. "Nolan what the fuck, come on!" Travis called out. Nolan opened his eyes t see Travis standing there at the end of the aisle with an annoyed look on his face. "We're about to leave without you and your alcohol."

Nolan rolled his eyes as turned away from his teammate. "Calm the fuck down, I'm coming. I just couldn't decide." He looked at the shelves and grabbed both the Belvedere and Black Cow vodkas. At this point, he knew that he'd probably be needing both bottles for tonight.

He walked down the aisle and brushed past Travis, putting his bottles on the counter and looking at Nico. "Sorry, I couldn't decide what to get."

"Well, at least you're here now," Nico shrugged, handing his I.D. and credit card over to the cashier. "Because now we can get home faster and then start drinking and therefore get wasted."

Nolan laughed, shaking his head as he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. "Yeah, I couldn't decide between the two, so I got both."

"Did you talk to Y/N?" Travis asked, resting his elbow on the counter and causing Nico to look at him.

"Y/N? Y/N was here?" He asked, looking at Nolan. "Where?"

"You guys were still grabbing something. I let her check out before us since she already had all of her stuff." Travis replied, picking up the two cases of beer off the counter. "So Patty, did you talk to her?"

Nolan scrunched his nose and bit the inside of his cheek as he thought about whether or not he should lie to his best friends. Would it even benefit them if he told them that he had talked to her? Instead, he just sighed. "Kind of. She told me not to get Black Cow because I always had the habit of throwing up after drinking it all," he replied, grabbing the bag holding his two bottles in it.

"And yet you bought it anyway?" Nico asked, putting his I.D. and credit card back into his wallet and giving Nolan a confused look. "Can I ask why?"

"I need to get drunk and that's the way to do it," Nolan replied, shrugging his shoulders and walking out of the liquor store with his friends right behind him.

"God, I knew we were best friends for a reason." Travis sighed, as he got into the drivers' side of his car, Nico in the passenger side and Nolan in the back with all of the alcohol.

Nolan dug into his front pocket and brought his cellphone out, unlocking it and opening Instagram. He didn't feel the need to scroll down the feed filled with empty smiles of the people he followed, nor did he pay any mind to the red number over in the top right of his screen showing just how many DM's he'd received from the many girls who vied for his attention and the endless amount of fans who congratulated him on the season. Nope, he went straight to your profile and scrolled down to find what he was looking for.

He didn't know how many times he'd stared at this picture, millions perhaps. Or however many times it takes for it to bur a picture into one's mind further than it already was. It was the last picture you and him had taken together, about three weeks into the new season. You had come out and stayed with him and Travis for the weekend since it was your fall break. He could still see you sitting there, wearing his jersey and talking amongst the other WAGs at warm-ups. It had been the best weekend of his life, he thought that nothing could get better than this very moment.

After that weekend, you flew back home to return to school and he couldn't wait till you could come down again. He was already planning your second trip, not paying any mind to the fact your facetime calls had gotten shorter, the texts didn't come in multiples and you both were playing a consistent game of phone tag every day. A week after you'd gone back to school, you broke up with him. And when the Flyers came up to Winnipeg for a game, you still showed up with his family, only this time you weren't wearing his jersey, and when the Patrick's invited you out to dinner after the game, you didn't go out.

And Nolan was pissed. Not only because of the fact that you had broken up with him a week after just spending hours in bed together, cuddling and talking about the future, but because you hadn't spoken a word to him or even given him a full reason as to why you broke off your 2-year relationship. All he got from you, hours before the game was that you didn't think that being in a relationship was healthy for the two of you right now. When he asked you what you meant by that, you just said that you would 'tell him later.'

Well, here he was, five months later at home and still no explanation. It fucked him up bad five months ago, he wasn't afraid to admit it. Travis had called him out on his shitty appearance once or twice and even Nico had noticed his different behavior whenever they were able to get in a talk. Yeah, you had fucked him up real bad and truth be told, he hasn't been able to get it completely out of his mind since.

"Nolan, you good man?" Nico asked, waving his hand in front of Nolan's face and causing him to jump.

Nolan turned to see that it was Nico and sighed, locking his phone and sliding it back into his pocket. "Yeah, I'm good." He brought his solo cup to his lips and took a long drink, the vodka numbing his mouth for a partial moment as the burning feeling traveled down his throat.

Nico sighed and shook his head as Nolan turned around to face him. "Why don't you just talk to her, Nolan?"

Nolan took another sip of his drink. "Two reasons. Reason number one," he said, holding up his index finger. "She hasn't reached out to me in months. And reason number two," Another sip as the burning feeling followed soon after and he held up his middle finger. "She's not even here, so I couldn't talk to her even if I could."

"Well it looks like it's your lucky day buddy," Nico said, bringing the cup to his lips and nodding in the direction behind Nolan. "Because she's making herself a drink right now."

Nolan turned to see you standing at the designated liquor counter, making yourself your signature drink– captain and coke. Nico patted his shoulder and stood next to him. "It's now or never," Nolan went to say something but Nico waved him off. "And no, never is not an option."

"Well, you can't say it's not an option AFTER you give it as an option!" He yelled out as Nico waved him off and walked towards a beer pong table.

Nolan took a deep breath again, exhaling before bringing the brim of his cup back to his lips and chugging the rest of his drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood a bit taller before making his way to the counter. As he neared you, he hesitantly reached out for your arm, only to back out at the last minute and turn around. "Nolan?" He stopped in his tracks and took another deep breath before turning around and putting on his best 'happy' smile that he could. "I thought that was you."

"What gave it away?" He asked, putting his empty cup onto the counter.

"Honestly? The hair," you replied, looking up at his hair. "It's gotten longer. I don't think there are many guys in the world who could pull off that length of hair."

"Yeah, my mom says I need to get a haircut soon," He laughed, running his fingers through his hair.

"What's your poison for the night?" You asked, bringing the orange solo cup to your lips.

"Belvedere," He said, grabbing the bottle off of the counter and pouring it into his cup, filling it. "As suggested."

"Well, at least you'll be sure to remember your night then," you laughed, brushing the hair out of your face.

Nolan nodded and put the cap back onto the bottle, setting it back down onto the counter. He took a sip, pondering his thoughts on just how he could get you alone to talk about why you split up. You were looking around the room and sipping from your drink, smiling and waving at just about everyone you knew...which was just about everyone in attendance. The only person that you couldn't seem to keep your eyes on for more than a few seconds though, was him– and he took notice.

He couldn't help but wonder how it got to this point. How the once comfortable silence between you two that could be there for hours on end, suddenly flipped a switch and no longer seemed comfortable. Had it been something he did? Was it the way he approached you? But you had seemed so comfortable when he came over, open to conversation. "Hey, I was wondering if–"

"Hey over here!" You perked up, raising your arm into the air and waving it before looking back at Nolan. "Sorry, hold that thought. I'll be right back though, okay?”

Nolan just nodded and took another sip of his drink as you smiled and disappeared into the crowd. "You fucking idiot," he mumbled, downing another sip as he nerves began to take over the more he thought about talking to you. 

After you first broke up, he was set on needing to see you. He needed for you to tell him in person that this was all a mistake. That you didn't mean to break up with him. And then a few days later, he found himself never wanting to see you again. He always knew that it would be near impossible to do, never seeing you again, especially since you shared all of your friends and every hangout around town and he had nowhere to go in the summers BUT home. So he kept that plausibility in the back of his mind, which is why he was so shocked about seeing you in the store so soon. He thought that he'd at least have until the end of the summer– but he was a damn fool, that's for sure.

He took another long sip of his drink, feeling less of the burn this time around. He looked around the room, spotting Travis and Nico playing beer pong against two girls that Nolan couldn't make out. As his eyes wandered more, he found himself more focused on trying to find where you had gone, wondering what was taking so long and who you went to see. When his eyes landed on the front door, he felt his stomach drop into his shoes. His lips tightened and he turned back to the counter, grabbing his unopened bottle of Black Cow and pushed himself away from the counter and through the crowd.

"Nolan, hey! Dude where are you going?" Travis yelled, his voice still a mumble among the loud music.

Nolan had heard him, sure. But he didn't care to stop and look to see what he wanted. Nope, he was on a mission and that mission took him towards the glass back door and into the backyard.

There weren't as many people out here, but he kept walking until he hit the old playground set- taking a seat onto one of the swings and opening the bottle. His breathing was heavy as he replayed the image in my mind again and again. A mix of anger, hurt and betrayal was running through him at a higher level than he knew what to do with. So he did the only thing that he thought could help it. He brought the bottle to my lips, taking a long hard swig- no longer feeling the burning in his throat.

He always knew that there was a big chance that he'd see you around town, or that you'd move on from your relationship. But he never thought that you'd move onto someone he knew...someone who was one of my close friends back in school and spent countless of hours with on the ice growing up. He took another swig and looked at the night sky.

Yeah, I never expected that bullshit.

He hadn't walked back into the house since he saw you. He could barely get himself to move, so on the swing he stayed. He brought the bottle back to his lips and tossed his head back, taking all the alcohol it had left to offer. When the bottle was empty, he stood himself up the best that he could, only to stumble a bit to his left. He reached out for the chain of the swing and kept himself from falling down. "Nolan, hey!" Nico called out, jogging over to him from the porch.

"Dude where have you been for the past hour?" Travis added, following behind him.

"Drowning myself i-in vodka and feelings," Nolan slurred, holding up the empty bottle. "Not really the b-best mix."

"Holy shit Patty, did you drink all of that?" Nico asked, his eyes wide.

"Yep!" Nolan yelled, throwing his arms in the air and laughing. "And i-it was delicious."

"What the hell were you thinking? You're going to be throwing up for a week!" Travis reached for the bottle and Nolan pulled it back. "Give me the fucking bottle Nolan."

"I had to drown out the image man. I can't stop s-seeing it." He slurred, holding the empty bottle tight in his grasp.

"What image? Seeing what Nolan?"

"Y/N AND NOAH!" Nolan didn't even recognize his own voice as it echoed against the night sky, barely a blip on the radar of anyone in attendance of the party. "I went to talk to her and she le-left to get someone," he hiccuped again, looking at his two best friends. "I saw her kissing h-him!"

It was then that the began to notice the slight churning of his stomach. It only began to escalate when he saw the look on his two best friends faces. He expected them to look surprised, but imagine his own surprise when he noticed just how casual they looked instead. He opened his mouth to say something, yell something at them, but he couldn't bring himself to.

"We know, Nolan. That's why we've been kind of pushing you so hard to talk to her." Nico said, reaching for the bottle.

Travis gave Nolan a guilt-ridden look. He knew he fucked up by not telling Nolan, but he also didn't expect for you to be at the party either.  "Yeah man, we didn't want you to be caught off guard by it.."

"Well, it didn't fucking work you assholes." Nolan threw the bottle down and swallowed the horrible gut feeling he had before standing tall. "I'm going to talk to her."

"Oh no you're not," Nico said, grabbing an arm and pulling him back as Travis grabbed the other one. "We're taking you home."

"Let go!" Nolan yelled, snatching one arm free and working on the other. "If you were my best friends you'd let me do th-this."

"We are your best friends Nolan, which is exactly why we're not letting you do this."

Nolan glared at the two of them with a look that could send them both six feet under if at all possible. He opened his mouth to yell a bunch of obscenities at them when he felt his stomach begin to churn again, only this time it was much more violent. He grabbed onto the swingset and bent over, dry heaving until his stomach began to empty himself. As the first wave ended, he felt supportive pats on the back from his two friends. "Feel better?" Nico asked.

Nolan went to speak again, only to throw up even more. "I'll take that as a solid no," Travis mumbled, continuing to pat Nolan on the back.

"Hey Travis, is everything okay? Did you find him?"

"Yeah Y/N, we're–"

"Actually we're not," Nolan said, wiping his mouth and standing up as straight as he could, putting some weight against the swing set so he could seem like he was a tad bit sober.

"Nolan, I told you Black Cow always made you throw up," you laughed, bending down and picking the bottle up from the grass.

“Well, at least you told me something."

"What's that supposed to mean?" You asked, letting the bottle fall to your side as you looked at the hot mess that was Nolan Patrick. His hair was sticking to the sweat on his forehead from puking and the splotches on his cheeks had already turned tomato red.

"You know what I'm talking about Y/N." He sneered, waving his hands around.

"I really don't Nolan...." You looked at Travis and Nico for support, only to get shoulder shrugs and confused looks. "We're going to take you home."

As you walked towards him, it was all Nolan could do not to run into your arms. This had been the very thing he'd dreamed about and wanted for the last five months. For you to be there with him. But not like this, this wasn't how he had imagined it going– drunk on a bottle of vodka with bad breath. "No! Not until you give me a reason!"

You were starting to get mad. You couldn't understand what the hell he was drunk rumbling on and on about. "A reason? Nolan, what the hell are you talking about?"

This was it, he was going to throw up again. He could feel it in his chest as he opened his mouth to speak. "The reason why you broke my heart!" He yelled, a bit shocked at just how loud and assertive his voice had sounded. He noticed the way your face fell and that you had taken a few steps back, and he felt proud for a moment because he could see that you remembered.

"Yeah, now you know what I'm talking about. You said you would give me a reason and you never did. And now here I am, wanting to talk to you and see if maybe you could tell me something– ANYTHING! But no," he dropped his hands to his side and looked at her, shaking his head. "Instead I see you all over Noah."

You looked at him with the most gut-wrenching look he had ever seen in his life. A look that could cause even the person with the coldest heart in the world, to cave. And for a moment, that proud feeling he had turned into regret. He could see the tears begin to build in your eyes as you stared at him. He wanted you to be angry at him, to yell at him. He wanted you to feel something the way that he had felt these last five months...and yet you showed nothing. And that hurt him more than anything ever could...he couldn't help but wonder what the hell he had become.

"Nolan, I think it's time we go..." Travis said, standing in front of him clearing his throat as Nico turned his attention to you.

"Do you still love me?" Nolan croaked, looking over Travis's shoulder.

"Nolan I–"

"Just tell me Y/N, I need to know. Do you still love me?" He stared at you, searching your face for maybe even the slightest insight into what you were thinking and what your answer would be. "I need to know the answer so I can prepare myself for when I see you around town every summer. Because Y/N it's going to be so...fucking hard to see you at every stop light, every store. To see your car driving down the block and realizing that you're not mine anymore. That there's someone else's house you'll be going to for midnight dates. Someone else's arms you'll be crying in whenever you watch 'The Last Song.'" You stared at him, mouth dropped from his confession and tears stinging in your eyes. "Just tell me...please."

You took a shaky breath and hugged yourself, trying your best to keep your tears at bay. "Nolan, it's– it's complicated, okay?"

Nolan ran his tongue against his cheek and laughed to himself as he looked up at the sky in disbelief. "No, it's not. You just gave me your answer." He looked at Nico and stood up fully. "I'm ready to go home."

He stumbled his way by you, brushing against your shoulder and keeping his focus on the back gate. "Nolan, wait!" You called out, the desperation in your voice loud and clear to Nolan.

He took a deep breath and kept on walking as Nico and Travis joined him, each with an arm over his shoulders. "You okay buddy?" Travis asked, looking at him.

"I don't feel too hot," Nolan mumbled as they walked along the outside of the house.

"You'll feel better soon Patty, no doubt in my mind you won't."

"Ha, GOT YOU FUCKER!!!" A faint voice yelled as a slapping sound followed it.

Nolan opened his eyes slowly and saw that he was in his bedroom. He sat himself up slowly realizing very quickly that it wasn't the best decision to make since his world literally began to spin. He closed my eyes tight and sat there for a few moments before hearing a few more yells coming from outside his room, but too faint to really hear what was being said. When his case of the spins ended, he stood himself up and shuffled his way to his bedroom door, opening it and walking down the hallway. The closer he got to basement stairs, the clearer the voices became.

He pushed open the door to see Nico and Travis all sitting on the couch playing NHL '18. "Dude, are you even trying?" Travis taunted, throwing his arms in the air. "GOAL!!! LOOK AT THAT FRESH CELLY."

Nico rolled his eyes and looked up, clearing his throat. Travis looked at him and saw his eyes looking in Nolan's direction and then looked at Nolan. "Good morning sunshine, how are you feeling this morning?" He asked, smiling.

"Like I got ran over by a truck," Nolan said, his voice very hoarse. "How long have you guys been down here?"

"We slept here, dude," Travis said, looking at him. "Didn't really want to be in your puke stench of a room honestly."

"Yeah, no offense. But we still checked on you throughout the night." Nico added, shrugging his shoulders.

The doorbell rang and Nolan took a deep breath, looking out into the hallway expecting to hear his parents or his sisters move towards the door, but hearing nothing. "And my parents and sisters?"

"Your mom and sisters went out to brunch and your dad went golfing with a work friend," Travis replied, looking away from the tv. "So it looks like you'll be the one answering the door."

"Don't fuck up my man-cave," Nolan said, leaving the man-cave and walking further down the hallway until he reached the living room. He walked around the couch and over to the front door, looking through the peephole and not seeing anyone on the porch. Weird, but he didn't dwell much on it before he unlocked the door and opened it, looking out and not seeing anyone in visible distance. He shook his head, it was probably just some neighborhood kids messing around with the Nolan Patrick. 

God, kids were annoying sometimes.

Nolan went to turn away when something on the ground caught his eye. He bent down and saw an envelope lying face down on their welcome mat. Picking it up, he flipped it over to see it had his name written on it....in your handwriting. He opened the envelope and tilted it to the side, letting everything that was in it, slid into his hand. There was a letter and a Polaroid picture of the two of you and on the front, "always & forever" was written in your beautiful cursive handwriting. He flipped it over and instantly recognized the chicken scratch on the back...it was his own handwriting.

𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯��𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶. ||  2/14/17

He remembered that picture perfectly. It was a few months into your relationship and you had flown in to surprise him for Valentine's day. He hadn't expected you to come in, so he had absolutely nothing planned. The best part is that Claude and Ryanne had you two tag along on their Valentines day plans– which included a dinner and a stroll through some of Philly's landmarks. You were most excited to see the Rocky statue and Nolan could still remember the way his heart skipped a few beats when he saw you running up the steps, laughing on your way. You had asked Ryanne to take a picture of the two of you, handing over your polaroid camera he had gotten you for Christmas. And when she laughed and told you to pose, Nolan remembered looking down at you and smiling at just how goofy you looked– like a kid in a candy store.

The memory came to an end as he held the picture in his other hand with the envelope and unfolded a piece of paper that looked like it was from a journal. It had deep creases as if it had been unfolded and refolded multiple times as well. He flipped it over to the other side and saw your handwriting and on the top right corner, a date. But it wasn't just any date...it was the day after she broke up with him.

11/18/2018

N,

I don't know if I'll ever get the guts to actually give this to you, but you asked me for the reason why I ended things and this is the way you're going to get it. It seems selfish, I know. You deserved so much more than what I've already told you and I hope one day I'll be able to truly tell you why I did what I did. We spent two amazing years together and there's nothing in this world that I would trade them for and I never thought that we would end up where we are today...never in a million years. But things happen and things change and we can't fast-forward time to know if it's all really worth it, so we just trust our hearts and hope it turns out right. And I never really minded putting all that trust into my heart because with you, I didn't have to think twice or question myself- I kind of already knew what I wanted. 

I'm rambling now, I know, but I swear I'm getting to the point. Things got so hard once you left Nolan and none of it was your fault, so don't you dare ever think it was. I just missed your a lot more than I thought I would- and it's really hard when you miss people. But you know what they say; if you miss someone that means you're lucky. It means you had someone special in your life, someone worth missing. The Skype calls and text messages and snapchats only partially filled the void, so when I flew out to visit you... I thought that everything would be okay, that everything would be perfect and wonderful again. But that last night with you, God I swear it made it worse. And I still remember that night. The night when everything fell together so perfectly and I wished it would last forever because I felt like everything was normal again...but it didn't. 

So when I flew back home, it dawned on me N, it dawned on me that maybe this is supposed to be the end of us, maybe we're not meant to be together anymore. Maybe we were here to teach one another a lesson and once the lesson was taught, we were supposed to leave. Maybe you being on this amazing journey is teaching us a great lesson in life, one that we both needed to learn; that sometimes growing up means letting go of the dreams you aren't able to achieve...like those dreams of growing old together, the ones we talked about when we'd lay down on a blanket in your backyard and look at the stars.

 You've got so many dreams and achievements ahead of you N and I want you to go out there and achieve them and be free while you do. I want nothing more than to see you succeed because that's what loving someone is all about. Putting them before yourself so they can flourish. So me breaking up with you has nothing to do about not loving you. It's not that we didn't love each other, it's just that love wasn't enough. So I think I have to let go...we have to let go. I really believe you were the greatest thing that ever happened to me N. And no matter where we go in life, you will forever be the person I'll never stop looking for in a crowded place.

Always and Forever, Y/N

He bit the inside of his cheek and sighed, looking up from the crinkled paper and wiping his face on his t-shirt sleeve. He took a deep breath and looked back down at the paper, folding it back up and putting the picture back into the envelope as well and walked back into his house, closing and locking the door behind him. "Hey Nolan, who was at the door?" Travis asked, his voice making Nolan jump.

       "Oh uh, no one. Just the paper." He said as he opened the fridge. "Can you toss me a soda please?"

       He tossed him a soda and grabbed himself one, then closing the door and meeting him in the living room. "Paper huh? Where is it?" He asked, looking down at the envelope in his hands.

       "Oh, it's uh-" Nolan scratched the back of his neck, trying to come up with a lie.

       He laughed and plopped his hand onto his shoulder. "It's 12:30 dude, your parents already got the paper. But I'm sure whatever it is, must have been worth the read."

       "Yeah...it was," Nolan said, looking down at the envelope in his hands.        "What do you say? Let's watch me kick Nico's ass in NHL '18 for the hundredth time huh?" He smiled, walking ahead of him and down the stairs, back into the man- cave.

       Nolan nodded and followed him, stopping just outside the door and opening the envelope again and pulling out the small polaroid. He ran his thumb over your handwriting on the front and smiled.

Though it still hurts, he finally got his reason...and that's better than nothing.

[frauleinsmaria]

The Facebook Flub (1/3)

Summary: When Emma accidentally sends a friend request to the wrong person, she doesn't expect much to come of it. But maybe this accident is the best decision she's ever made.

Rated: T for now, potentially high T/low M in the future

Also on AO3

A/N: Inspired by a comment I came across on Instagram asking people to share how their long distance relationships began: "I added the wrong guy on Facebook that I met at the bar...the guy I added lived in Germany and I was in Canada. That accident...is now my husband."

A few changes to make it fit Captain Swan, plus a whole lot of support and cheerleading from @wellhellotragic , @profdanglaisstuff , and @thejollyroger-writer later, here we are! Thanks a million, ladies, you’re the best.

Going out was the last thing Emma wanted to do tonight. She had a long week dealing with a tough case at work, the weather reports were calling for snow, and she had a headache- not to mention the fact that she didn’t feel like being hit on by some drunk low life.

“Those are all reasons for you to go out then,” Ruby insisted when Emma relayed all of this to her over the phone. “It’s Friday night. You need to come let loose with your friends and forget about whatever else is on your mind. And you know I’ll gladly fight off anyone who bothers you.” It took similar texts from Elsa, Graham, David, and Mary Margaret for her to finally give in and join them. Which is how she found herself sitting at the bar at one of their favorite burger and beer places downtown.

She was drinking one of her favorite beers, with Graham on her left side flirting with the guy behind the bar, and a stranger on her right who had been talking her ear off about some upcoming movie since he sat down an hour ago. Emma wasn’t all that interested- in both him or whatever this movie is- but she listened anyway. She didn’t have the energy to join the rest of her friends at the dart boards, and at least this guy wasn’t trying to flirt. So when he suggested she add him on Facebook before he left, she’d had enough to drink that she saw little reason to object.

It wasn’t until he was gone when she opened the Facebook app on her phone and realized she wasn’t one hundred percent sure of his name. He’d introduced himself when he first took the seat beside her, but that had been several beers ago, not to mention the loud music in the bar making some of his words hard to hear.

It had been something different that she’d never heard before. Killiam James, maybe? she thought as she typed it into the search bar.

“I should’ve known.” Ruby appeared behind her, holding a glass of whatever she’d picked for her poison tonight. “Don’t tell me you came out just to sit on your phone by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself. Graham’s he-” She turned and saw that the man in question had apparently slipped off with the bartender without her noticing.”Huh. Or maybe not.”

Ruby sighed. “Come on, Emma. You know you wanna watch Mary Margaret kick David’s ass at darts.”

That was a statement she couldn’t argue with. “Hang on. Let me do this first.” But Ruby instead grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the dart boards, causing Emma to hit “add friend” for the first option in her search results without paying much attention to the name or profile picture.

The guy from the bar and the friend request had been forgotten about by the next morning when she woke up with a pounding headache and wondered exactly when she’d started getting old.

The events of that Friday night didn’t cross her mind again until the next weekend. She’d gone to see Captain Marvel with David and Mary Margaret, who were always willing to join her to watch any superhero movie despite both of them losing track of the plot at least half an hour in. It wasn’t the same as getting to experience it with someone as invested as she was, but years of going to the movies by herself when she was younger made Emma grateful for their company regardless.

They arrived at the theater early, battling the lines at the ticket booth and again at the concessions stand for overpriced popcorn and candy. The theater was already filling up after they’d gotten snacks. Emma stepped on quite a few feet to get to the only empty three seats together. Once they were settled, she pulled out her phone and opened the front camera. “Smile, guys!” Mary Margaret got the memo, but David looked like a deer in headlights in their selfie. This was definitely getting posted.

She made a few adjustments to the lighting before posting the photo on Facebook and Instagram. It’s Captain Marvel time!

The lights in the theater dimmed as the first movie trailer began to play on the screen. Emma silenced her phone and dropped it into her purse before grabbing a fistful of popcorn and settling into her seat.

It was over two hours later when the movie had ended and the three of them had arrived back at David and Mary Margaret’s house before she thought to check her phone again. There was a new text from Elsa about the shirt she’d borrowed last week and a handful of social media notifications. She opened Facebook first to see the response to her pre-movie selfie. It was when she started scrolling through the list of various reactions that an unfamiliar name caught her eye. Of course since she’d tagged David and Mary Margaret in the photo, several people who’d liked it weren’t Facebook friends of hers or people she knew. But this one stood out- it belonged to a person she’d never heard of before, and one who was apparently on her friends list.

Killian Jones. She frowned and clicked the link to open his profile page. They had no mutual friends, but sure enough, they were friends with each other. The brief amount of information listed under his personal details told her he lived in London and worked for a company named Ship Shape.

Emma quickly began to question just how she knew this Killian Jones. They hadn’t gone to college together; his profile listed him as an alum of a university in London she’d never heard of. He wasn’t in her line of work, so that wasn’t a possibility.

What if he had been a previous one night stand? No, that definitely wasn’t the case. She rarely got men’s names when those happened, let alone befriended them on social media.

And there was no way she would have forgotten a face like his. His current profile picture was taken from a distance on a beach somewhere, which made his features a bit harder to notice. The handful of previous ones were closer shots though. There were a few that looked like they were taken at some kind of professional event and a selfie with a dog she presumed was his. He was gorgeous, she realized as she quickly flipped through them. Piercing blue eyes, a head of dark hair that successfully toed the line between messy and polished with a five o’clock shadow to match. Yeah, she definitely would have remembered him.

Emma scrolled through a few more photos before she started to feel like she was crossing some sort of line. She had zero ideas on who this Killian Jones even was, and yet there she sat combing through the details of his Facebook profile as if they were close friends.

Contacting him seemed like the most logical thing to do. She opened Messenger, still annoyed that the feature wasn’t included with the regular Facebook app anymore, and typed out a brief message. Hey. Sorry if this seems weird, but I was wondering how you and I knew each other?

Her phone chimed with a response only a few minutes later. Not weird, love. Although I was wondering the same thing considering you’re the one who added me.

She stared at her phone screen and read the message again. There had to be some kind of mix up. Her friends list was on the small side, mostly former classmates and coworkers, and the people she regularly interacted with now. What reason would she have for sending a friend request to Killian Jones all the way in London-

And then it hit her. “Killiam James,” she groaned, remembering the guy from the bar the weekend before. If that was even his name. Emma blamed the combination of beer and loud music for the mix up, which explained why she’d added this guy with such a similar name.

What was she even supposed to say to Killian Jones now? The truth was ridiculous, and she couldn’t think of a lie that sounded even moderately believable.

Honesty won out in the end. “What does it matter? He’s never gonna meet me anyway,” she muttered as she started to reply. So, funny story. I thought I was sending a friend request to a guy with a name that’s really similar to yours and I just now realized my mistake. I’m sorry again because I know how weird this all probably sounds to you.

She hadn’t expected another reply. He’d probably delete her from his friends list after learning the reason behind the mishap and forget all about their brief interaction. What she got instead was a huge surprise. That’s quite alright. I suppose it could have happened to anyone. But, while we’re here, can I ask how the movie was?

Movie? Oh, right. She’d gone to see Captain Marvel tonight. His liking her photo was what started all of this. I liked it a lot. Keep in mind I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know how accurate anything was. But it’s a great addition to the MCU if you ask me. And the cat was awesome.

I’m glad to hear that. I don’t know much about the comics myself, I just like the films as well. I’ll have to keep my eye out for the cat you speak of when I see it for myself.

This conversation was already a positive changed compared to the ones she usually had about Marvel movies. Most people, men especially, would make fun of her or call her a “fake fan” when she admitted she wasn’t familiar with the comics and didn’t really have plans to change that. Not only was Killian Jones not making fun of her preferences, he actually seemed to share them.

Emma soon found herself discussing everything from Endgame theories to the newest Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer with him. It wasn’t until her eyes grew heavy and she started yawning that she realized it was after midnight. Had this guy really stayed up until five in the morning to talk superheroes with her? Crap. I just realized what time it is. I’m really sorry if I kept you up. You’re probably exhausted.

No worries, Swan- can I call you that? As coincidence would have it, I’m a bit of an insomniac. I likely would still be awake now regardless. Plus, I work for my brother, so he can’t fire me for sleeping on the job unless he wants to lose his kids’ favorite babysitter.

Swan is fine- after all, it is my name. Although I still feel like you may need to apologize to your brother on my behalf.

Truthfully, she didn’t expect to hear from Killian again. Sure, they’d had a long conversation about a shared interest of theirs, but that didn’t mean he had any desire to continue talking to a stranger in the middle of the night. Or at any other time, for that matter.

Which is why Emma was caught off guard when she received another Facebook message from him a few days later. Hello, Swan. I know it’s the middle of the day where you are so you’re probably working, but I just saw Captain Marvel with a friend of mine and I needed someone to discuss the end credits scene with since he’s not nearly invested in this.

Their conversation soon left movies entirely and shifted to their everyday lives. Within the next hour, she learned that he was thirty-one, worked as a marketing executive for the shipping company owned by his brother, was the proud uncle of a nephew and two nieces, and spent most of his free time hiking or reading whatever fantasy novel was next on his to read list. Emma was more hesitant when it came to sharing specifics about herself for several reasons: talking about herself wasn’t exactly something she enjoyed, she barely knew this guy, plus, what if he really wasn’t the person he claimed to be?

If there’s one of us that ought to be suspicious, it’s him, she thought. You added him first; you could be the one Catfishing for all he knows.

Their once sporadic conversations soon became a nightly occurrence, switching from Facebook Messenger to texts once they felt comfortable with sharing numbers. (The short amount of time this took didn’t go unnoticed to Emma. She refused to let herself think too much about it.) Over time, it soon became easier to open up to him about a number of different things. Some days it was her favorite color or flavor of ice cream, others it was conspiracy theories she believed that dealt with people like Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain. Emma rarely brought up her upbringing or personal life, and he never asked.

On nights when Killian’s insomnia was particularly brutal, they watched Netflix together, one of the few pastimes they could share considering the distance between them. They usually chose comedies, preferring shows like The Good Place and Parks and Rec so they wouldn’t miss much of the story if they got caught up in whatever conversation they were having at the same time.

The first phone call happened by accident when they’d been talking about three months. Emma had just got in from work and was debating between Chinese and pizza for dinner when her phone began to vibrate. She froze at seeing Killian’s name on the screen. Why was he calling her? They had never talked outside of Facebook and texts. Phone calls had never even come up once in their conversations.

“H-hello?” she answered after a moment. “Killian?”

“Oi, Jones, is this your girlfriend?” Not Killian then, although another man with an accent who sounded far from sober. She heard some sort of commotion in the background, followed by, “Give me back my bloody phone!”

“Um, hello, Swan.” His voice sounded exactly as she’d imagined. (Not that she’d spent that much time thinking on the subject. Not at all.) The accent was there, of course, but his voice was softer and he sounded considerably more under control than whoever had greeted her. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine. Killian, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you calling me? Where are you?”

“Well, you see, a few of us brought Liam to the pub tonight for his birthday, but I realized I’d forgotten to tell you about it earlier. I know you wanted to start Brooklyn 99 tonight since we finished New Girl. Anyway, I was in the middle of typing out a message to you explaining all of this when Will took my phone and called before I could stop him.” He sighed. Emma had a feeling Will would get an earful as soon as this conversation was over; she heard a lot about him from Killian, mostly complaints. “I’m terribly sorry, love. I’m sure this must be awkward for you.”

“It’s fine, Killian. I appreciate you for telling me, but I know you probably have better things to do on a Friday night than watch Netflix with a stranger in Boston.” Although that was the gist of their relationship from an outside perspective, Emma’s heart sank at her own words. She thought more for this virtual stranger than she did most of the people she saw in person on a regular basis.

“Don’t talk like that, Swan. Besides, it would’ve been bad form to leave you hanging without an explanation.”

She should have known he would be a stickler for manners, even for something as trivial as a regular Netflix binge. “Thanks, Killian. Seriously though, go enjoy your night out. Sing ‘happy birthday’ obnoxiously loud to your brother and maybe don’t let anyone else take your phone. We’ll catch up on Netflix later, alright?”

“Alright, love. Goodnight.”

The next time Killian called, it was intentional. Neither of them thought much of it.

The calls (via WhatsApp to keep from spending a fortune) soon became a semi-regular part of their “routine.” They didn’t happen as often as the texts, however, since it was harder to both talk and vaguely pay attention to whatever show they were watching at any given moment. Talking on the phone often made it easy to forget the difference in time zone and the ocean between them, even when Killian said something particularly British, like “tosser” or “knackered.”

She and Killian had their first shared experience with FaceTime the night before the surprise party she and Mary Margaret have planned for David. Emma had been asked to make cupcakes, something she now regretted agreeing to as she stood in her kitchen dumbfounded by the assortment of ingredients strewn out across the counter.

As if on cue, her phone vibrated.

Killian: How are the cupcakes coming along?

Emma: They’re not.

Do I really have to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately? They all go in the same bowl in the end. And how much batter do I put in the cupcake liners without them blowing up like mushroom tops? I don’t get why I had to pick a recipe that calls for baking soda AND powder too.

Basically, I need to be able to snap my fingers and have a professional chef in my kitchen to take care of this.

Killian: I’m no professional, but if you want to FaceTime, I could possibly help walk you through it.

Of course he could. She’d quickly learned that Killian Jones was one of those people who was unfairly good at most if not all things.

Emma opened the camera app on her phone to get a look at her current appearance. An old Rolling Stones t-shirt that probably should have been thrown out years ago, her-square rimmed glasses, hair thrown up on the top of her head in a messy knot, and no makeup, not to mention the zit on her chin that she hadn’t gotten the chance to get rid of yet. It would have to do. They were friends, and he already knew what she looked like thanks to social media. And she didn’t have time or energy to freshen up before she got the stupid cupcakes taken care of.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered.

Her phone screen was taken up by Killian’s smiling face seconds later. “Hello, Swan.”

“Uh, hi.” Somehow he was even better looking in real time. It wasn’t fair. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“Come now, love. How hard can it be?”

“Consider who you’re dealing with, Killian. I almost cooked an oven mitt last week.” She didn’t add that it had happened due to their intense conversation on nineties one hit wonders and she’d been so distracted she hadn’t paid attention to where she’d placed the mitt after taking pizza out of her oven.

He barked out a laugh. “Something tells me chocolate cupcakes will smell much better. Do you have the recipe up?”

“Yeah. I’m sending it to you.”

Killian, being the good sport that he was, spent the better part of the next two hours going through the recipe step by step with her. Which was much easier said than done.

“You mean to tell me that not only do I have to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, but I can only mix half of each together at a time?”

“Aye, that’s what the woman recommends.”

Emma had long since forgotten the name of the woman who’d posted the recipe online, but she had quickly become her worst enemy. “I should’ve just told Mary Margaret to make the damn cupcakes herself.”

“I highly doubt she could’ve gotten away with making cupcakes for her husband’s surprise party in their own house,” Killian noted.

How was it that he seemed to know her own family better than she did. “Yeah, well, then I should have bought cupcakes from the store and brought them to the party on one of my plates.” It would have at least saved the trouble of having a kitchen covered in flour, butter, and the other dozen or so ingredients she’d added to the mix.

She had just began pouring batter into one of the slots in her cupcake tin when Killian spoke up. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Swan.”

“Killian, I may have the cooking skills of a dustpan, but I do know that cupcakes have to be baked.”

“Right you are, but what about liners?”

“Come again?”

“You know, the paper things? You’re going to have an awfully difficult time without them.”

Of course. “Shit!” Hurling the mixing bowl at the wall now seemed like a great idea. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that.”

“Hmm.” She heard the sound of computer keys typing as Killian looked something up. “Do you have parchment paper? Several sites list it as a possible substitute.”

“Wouldn’t that look kind of tacky though?”

“You don’t exactly have a lot of options, love, unless you’re willing to make a trip to the store.”

Emma glanced at the clock above her oven. It was past ten. A handful of stores would be open, but she didn’t have the energy or motivation to change into decent clothes to leave the apartment. “Parchment paper’s fine, I guess. What does it say I’m supposed to do?”

He quickly walked her through the process, which was much simpler than she presumed. After cutting the parchment paper into squares and folding them around a glass that was the same size as the slots in the cupcake pan, the problem was solved. They rewatched one of their favorite episodes of The Good Place while the cupcakes baked. She was so caught up in the show that she wouldn’t have remembered to turn off the oven if Killian hadn’t reminded her.

“So far, so good,” she told him once the pans had been taken out of the oven and placed on her counter. “They smell incredible.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Killian groaned. “The only form of chocolate I have in my flat is unsweetened cocoa powder.”

“Well, that’s just depressing.”

The icing process, while tedious, went over much more smoothly than the baking had.

“Swan, you’ve got chocolate icing all over your cheek now.”

“Maybe so, but I’ve got two dozen nice looking cupcakes. Isn’t that all that matters?”

“I suppose,” he agreed. “Although you’re just giving me something else to make fun of you for.”

He laughed when she stuck her tongue out at him.

She’d gone this far without sampling anything, too concentrated on not botching the cupcakes. But the sound of her stomach growling reminded Emma she’d never eaten dinner. “You think I can justify having a cupcake now if I don’t eat one at the party tomorrow?”

“After all the work you’ve put in, I believe you could justify two.”

“You, Jones, are a bad influence,” she said, taking the nearest cupcake and pulling off the parchment sheet liner.

“A bad influence who reminded you of the importance of cupcake liners.”

“Ugh. I hate it when you’re right.” Emma took a hearty bite of the cupcake and couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped her lips. “Ohmgod.”

Killian was quiet for a moment. Then, “I presume it’s good?”

“It’s not good, it’s fantastic. I never thought I’d say that about something I made.” Another bite elicited the same reaction, her eyes closing as she savored the rich chocolate taste. This caused her to miss Killian blush as his eyes shifted away from the screen.

“Erm, well, I’m very glad to hear that.”

The cupcakes, thankfully, are a hit. Several people at David’s party ask Emma for the recipe, a few eve complimenting the unique choice of liners. Her own brother was skeptical that she’d made them herself.

“I did!” she insisted. “I mean, Killian provided moral support via FaceTime, but all the manual labor was my accomplishment.” Her family and friends have known about her unconventional friendship with Killian for awhile now. Most of them went along with the idea, although a few were skeptical that her virtual friend was really the person he claimed to be.

“You and this guy have gotten pretty close, haven’t you?” David was one of those skeptical people.

She shrugged. “Kind of. I guess we’re as close as friends can get when they’re on opposite sides of the pond and have never met in person.”

“And you’re sure he’s not, what’s the word, fishing with you?”

“The term is catfishing, David. And the answer is no, considering we FaceTimed during the cupcake ordeal and his face matches the one in all of his pictures.”

“If you say so. I just don’t want you to risk getting hurt.” He almost always went into Protective Big Brother mode whenever Emma referenced a guy in any capacity, and this was no exception.

“I appreciate that you care about me, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about considering the circumstances. The chances of the two of us meeting are basically nonexistent.”

A few days later, they were on their third episode of Schitt’s Creek of the night and discussing each other’s uneventful work days when he brought it up. “So, uh, Liam has been talking about sending me away for work sometime soon.”

“That’s cool. Does he want you to go back to the Dublin office again?” Emma remembered that he’d taken a short trip to Ireland for business not long after they’d became friends.

“Actually, no.” He paused. “He’s made a few comments about Boston this time.”

Any interest she had in the episode they’d been watching was long gone. “Oh really?”

“Yeah. Sometime next month, if nothing changes.”

Her next words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I know a semi decent tour guide who lives in that neck of the woods if you have some free time while you’re here. And, y’know, if you’d be up for that.”

“I think that could be arranged.” She couldn’t see Killian, but somehow she knew he was smiling.

Emma didn’t start freaking out until the day before his flight. She was at Elsa’s apartment with Mary Margaret and Ruby, drinking wine and eating Elsa and Anna’s homemade cookies at the kitchen table. She was on her third- okay, maybe it was her fourth- snickerdoodle, only half participating in the conversation when she glanced up and saw the three of them staring at her.

“Do I have something on my face?”

Mary Margaret gave her a knowing look. “Have you been listening to anything we’ve said?”

“Yeah, of course I have.”

“Emma, I just said that Granny was having surgery next month, and your response was, ‘that’s cool,’” Ruby deadpanned.

Her face flushed red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. Just have a lot on my mind I guess.”

“Is something goin- oh!” Elsa exclaimed. “Aren’t you finally meeting that friend of yours from London tomorrow?”

“Yeah. His plane is supposed to come in at two, then I’m meeting him for dinner and a little sightseeing before his meetings start the next day.”

“That’s really all you’ve got planned for him?” Ruby waggled her eyebrows over the rim of her wine glass.

Emma rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Ruby. He’s just my friend.”

“Your very attractive male friend, who you talk either to or about nonstop,” Mary Margaret added.

She shot her an annoyed glance. “I thought family was supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side! I want you to be happy, and I’m just saying maybe you should be open to the possibility that Killian could have something to do with that.”

Leave it to her sister-in-law to bring Emma’s love life (or lack thereof) into the conversation. ““Don’t get any ideas, Mary Margaret. I love that you’re an eternal optimist, but everything else aside, he lives over three thousand miles away. I never thought we would actually meet.”

“People do long distance all the time,” Elsa chimed in. “Anna and Kristoff did for several months when he was away doing research about climate change in the North Pole. It wasn’t easy, but they got through it and are happier than ever now.”

She wanted to remind Elsa that her sister and her fiance had been together for over two years before this, but disregarded the thought. “I know you all mean well- even though it seems like Ruby just wants me to get laid- but can we change the subject? Killian is my friend. That’s all there is to it.”

Even as she said the words, Emma wondered for the first time whether that was actually true.

Her intention had been to sleep in the next morning since she’d gone ahead and taken the day off. But, much to her dismay, she was wide awake at seven. By ten she’d gone for a run, showered, eaten breakfast, and cleaned most of her apartment. It was tempting to blame the random burst of energy on wanting to be productive while she had the time to spend at home, but that wasn’t it.

She was excited to see Killian. And the closer that came to happening, it terrified her too.

For starters, what if they didn’t mesh as well in person as they did online or over the phone? It sounded silly just to think about, but maybe actually being in each other’s space for the first time would somehow change how their friendship worked.

The conversation she’d had with her friends the day before wasn’t helping matters either. What they’d said shouldn’t have been getting to her like it was. Every argument she’d made against their insinuations about her and Killian had been true.

Then why have you barely paid attention to other guys since the two of you started getting close? The thought came to her once she’d started walking laps around the apartment just to keep her busy. Dating for her had been a rare occurrence since Neal almost ten years earlier. Walsh was the one exception, and things with him hadn’t gone much better. One nighters happened now and then when she wanted to scratch an itch without having strings attached. But even one of those hadn’t happened in months.

She didn’t even know whether or not Killian had been seeing anyone. Her first assumption was no. He’d never once mentioned dating, and, regardless, he’d spent the majority of his nights over the past handful of months talking to her. His unconventional friendship with her on top of his job and his family didn’t give her the impression he had a lot of time for dating.

Emma glanced at the clock on her phone. It was just after twelve. “Dammit.” Even with traffic, it would be at least another hour and forty-five minutes before she needed to leave unless she just wanted to drive in circles around the airport.

“Screw it,” she said at one-thirty after she’d won her fourth game of solitaire. TSA might give her hell about parking if she had to wait a bit for Killian, but she couldn’t sit around her apartment much longer without losing her mind.

There was a knock on her door just as she was pulling on her jacket and boots. She went to the door and found her brother standing with his arms crossed over his chest. “Hey, David.”

“Oh, good. I was hoping I’d catch you in time.”

“In time for what?” she asked. “I’m about to leave for the airport.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m coming with you.”

He’d known she was going to meet Killian today for over a week and had yet to mention this to her. “What? Why?”

“I don’t want you going alone, Emma. It’s not safe; you’ve never met this guy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I could understand if I’d met a guy on a dating site or something, but I’ve known Killian for months now, David. I’m pretty confident that I’m not picking up a serial killer.”

The frown on his face hadn’t budged. “Either way, I’d still like to meet him before I leave you alone with him. Gotta let him know what he’s dealing with if he hurts you.”

Emma checked the time on her phone again. “Ugh. Let’s go,” she groaned. “You’re not gonna let this go, and I don’t have time to argue with you about it.”

Any nerves she’d felt before had briefly been alleviated by the desire to strangle David. The drive to the airport was spent with her hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel so she wouldn’t wrap them around his neck instead.

“Are you gonna insist on spending the day with us too?” she asked as she pulled into the airport’s parking lot and looked for the garage for short term parking.

He shrugged. “Not sure yet. Ask me again once I’ve met him and had a chance to evaluate.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“I’m your older brother. That’s my job,” he insisted.

Emma parked in the short term garage connected to the airport. There was no point in trying to wait at the curb since she knew they’d be asked to move. She and Killian had decided to meet at the landside area, so she sat and waited for a text that he’d arrived and tried to ignore David tapping his fingers against the passenger door.

Her phone vibrated a few minutes later. Hello, Swan. Just wanted to let you know I’m waiting for my luggage and then I should be good to go.

Emma swallowed hard as she got out of the car on shaking legs. This was it.

She was too anxious to object when David followed her out of the garage and into the airport; she’d known better than to expect him to wait in the car for them.

When they’d entered the waiting area, Emma quickly scanned the room for a familiar face, coming up short. This was the place where they’d agreed to meet, wasn’t it? He’d sent her the text just minutes ago confirming their plans. What were the chances the nerves had gone to her head and made her mix something up?

She was so lost in thought she failed to hear the footsteps coming up behind her. “Someone in particular you’re looking for, love?”

They’d FaceTimed on several occasions and shared more ridiculous Snapchats than necessary. Emma knew what to expect. And yet, somehow, she’d been all wrong. His eyes were so much brighter and vibrant in person, there was no way to accurately capture that on camera. There was a tinge of red to his hair and scruff she’d never noticed. She liked it. A lot.

“Hello, Swan.” Shit. His already perfect smile was somehow better in person too. It wasn’t fair.

“Killian. Hi.” How could she have talked to him for hours on end over the past few months and be at a loss for words now?

They stood in silence for a moment, each trying to take the other in. Emma wasn’t sure how she was supposed to greet him. Was their friendship advanced enough to permit a casual hug? Or should she stick to a handshake?

David solved that problem for her, stepping between the two of them and extending his hand to Killian. Emma had all but forgotten that he’d come with her.

“So,” he said, using what could only be called his Protective Big Brother voice, “you’re the British guy.”

“Seriously?!” Emma hissed loud enough for only him to hear as Killian accepted the handshake.

“Aye. And you must be David.”

Her brother looked taken aback. He must have been under the impression Killian had no idea he existed. “Uh, yeah. Emma’s mentioned me then?”

“Oh, yes, several times. She tells me you’re quite the Orioles fan.”

Uh oh. This had the potential to be a recipe for disaster. David did not take comments about his notoriously terrible favorite team lightly. If Killian made any patronizing remarks about the Orioles, any chance at getting on her brother’s good side was doomed.

“I’ve caught highlights from a few games online before,” Killian continued. “Always admired Ripken.”

Emma let out an audible sigh of relief. Killian may very well have been lying through his teeth to appease David, but at least he’d avoided making a bad first impression. “Yes, well,” she butted in, “David’s just here for the ride. We’re dropping him off back at his apartment on our way.” She shot her brother a look that told him not to argue.

The first few minutes in the car were filled with awkward silence as Killian fidgeted in his seat, clearly used to a steering wheel in front of him on the right side, while she tried to ignore David’s presence in the back.

“How was your flight?” she asked after a moment as they headed in the direction of David and Mary Margaret’s building.

“All right. Bit of turbulence, but nothing terrible. The airplane food, on the other hand.” Emma saw him cringe out of the corner of her eye and tried not to laugh. “I’ll be more than happy to see what restaurants you have to recommend in the city.”

“Anything particular you’re up for? Most places aren’t gonna be busy at this time of day. And no, he’s not coming,” she added, glaring at David in the rearview mirror before he had a chance to chime in.

Killian pursed his lips. “Eh, would you judge me if I said I just wanted a good, American cheeseburger?”

She laughed. “That was the last thing I expected. But no judgment here, Tony Stark.”

“I’m perfectly fine with that comparison.” He grinned. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist…”

“I’m sorry, playboy?” David questioned. Someone didn’t know his movie references.

They arrived in front of David’s building minutes later. “Okay, here we are, you’re welcome for the ride home, talk to you later, bye.” Emma must have gotten her point across since he got out of the car with no objection other than a shake of his head.

“I’m really sorry about that.” She glanced at Killian apologetically as she pulled back out into traffic. “I didn’t know he was going to show up and insist on coming with me, or I would have warned you.”

“It’s quite alright, Swan. He was just looking out for you. If I’m being truthful, not wanting you to be alone when you met someone you’d come across online isn’t an unreasonable request.”

“I totally get that to a certain extent, but I know you well enough to trust that you’re not, like, a serial killer. Unless you have something you wanna tell me.”

He barked out a laugh. “Rest assured, love, I have no blood on my hands. At least, none but my brother’s when we were lads.”

“Let me guess, it was always Liam who started it?”

“Sure. We’ll go with that.”

Traffic was light at that point in the afternoon, the two of them arriving at Emma’s chosen destination sooner than she was expecting. “This place might not look like much,” she told him as she pulled into a parking spot in front of Granny’s, “but she’s got the best burgers and fries, excuse me, chips, in town as far as I’m concerned.”

“And grilled cheese and onion rings as well, I presume?”

“You’re a smart man, Killian.”

The diner was fairly empty as well, just an older couple drinking milkshakes at the bar and a group of college students crowded around a table with a stack of textbooks.

“Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to sit?” she asked Killian.

“No. It’s your pick.”

They took a booth near the back of the diner. Emma handed him one of the plastic menus and flipped through one herself, even though her order had been virtually the same over the years. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt her to branch out a little more with her choices, even if it was just getting a burger or chicken club instead of a grilled cheese for once.

A waitress came to take their orders after a few minutes. Killian requested the cheeseburger he’d wanted with fries, the American term sounding foreign on his lips. She ordered the same.

“No grilled cheese and onion rings? Are we sure this is the real Emma Swan?” Killian asked, feigning concern.

She shrugged. “I’m trying to live a little. And for someone like me, that’s apparently as simple as ordering a burger. Or maybe you’re just a bad influence,” she teased.

“Oi! I wasn’t a bad influence when I helped you make cupcakes in your time of need.”

“Yeah, yeah, technicalities.”

There was a long pause as Emma tried to figure out what to say next. She wondered if Killian was having similar thoughts. This was an easier problem to remedy when they were texting or talking on the phone and she could turn the conversation to whatever show they were on at the time. Even still, there wasn’t the added component of having him across from her to sense any awkward tension between them.

Killian broke the ice. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Swan, have you ever seen One Day At a Time? Been seeing a lot about it online lately.”

“I haven’t actually.” She should have remembered most of their best conversations began with shows. “You know how I feel about good sitcoms though.”

“Aye. Perhaps we’ll add it to our unofficial to watch list?”

“I like the way you think, Jones.”

They talked for awhile about the season of Schitt’s Creek they were working on until the waitress brought their food a few minutes later. The conversation had somehow turned to which of Moira’s wigs would look best on him. It was hard not to laugh as Killian nearly swallowed his beloved cheeseburger whole.

“Don’t judge me,” he said through a mouthful of fries when he noticed Emma snickering. “I was bloody starving.”

“Clearly.” She dipped one of her own fries in the generous pile of ranch dressing on the side of her plate. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have so easily done away with all that English charm us Americans aren’t civilized enough to have.”

“What do you mean ‘done away with’? I’ll have you know I’m always charming, love.”

“Says the man who has ketchup on his chin.”

Killian’s face reddened as he grabbed a napkin and wiped off said ketchup. It was barely enough to be noticeable, but she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to tease him a bit.

As they ate, the conversation shifted from shows to Killian’s work and what he’d be doing in Boston over the next few days. She didn’t know much about his job, other than that he worked for Liam and their company provided parts and equipment for ships. While the company’s primary clientele was located in the London area near their home office, they were looking to expand to other areas as well, hence the meetings Killian had flown over to attend.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why were you the one to make the trip instead of Liam?” she asked. “I don’t really know how a lot of business procedures work, but it seems like he would be the one to handle stuff like that considering he’s over everyone else.”

“Aye, you would think so. But the truth of the matter is, Liam’s tied up with so much within our office. Not to mention he doesn’t like making trips now since he’s got Belle and the kids. From both of those angles, it makes more sense for me to handle as much of the international business as I’m qualified for since I truly have nothing tying me down in London nowadays.”

Emma hated the way her heart skipped a beat at his words. If he had nothing tying him down at home, did that also mean there was no girlfriend there too?

(Could she ask him something like that without him seeing right through her?)

“That’s, uh, great,” she told him, trying to get back to the point of the conversation. “That you’re able to travel for him. I’m sure you get a lot of cool opportunities and stuff.”

“Opportunities like getting to eat an American cheeseburger while I have a face to face conversation about sitcoms?”

“Exactly.”

Killian asked a handful of questions about her job, how she liked her boss and coworkers, if she’d dealt with any major cases lately.

“Not really. It’s mostly the usuals, cheating husbands and deadbeat parents.”

He frowned. “Pity situations like those occur enough to be ‘usuals.’”

“It’s enough to make me want to throw in the towel sometimes if I’m being honest. These people are lucky enough to have a family in the first place, and they just throw it to the side like it means nothing to them.”

Emma didn’t realized what she’d said until it was too late. While she’d become comfortable enough with Killian to share certain details about her personal life over the past few months, her upbringing in foster care was the one subject she’d avoided. She’d heard stories of his and Liam’s upbringing by their single mother, who died when Killian was in college. The only family she’d ever mentioned to him was David, and he didn’t even know they weren’t actually siblings.

But that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have at Granny’s in the middle of the afternoon. She wasn’t sure how much time he had free to spend with her, or when she would see him again. If you even will, she thought.

Sensing her discomfort, Killian reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “Is everything alright, love?”

The feeling of his hand in her own stopped Emma’s train of thought. She almost hated how comforting it was. “Yeah, it’s nothing.” She gave what she hoped looked like a genuine smile. There was no need to waste her time with him focusing on bad memories. “What do you say we pay the bill and go do some sight seeing? Boston isn’t New York or LA, but it can be fun. I think so anyway.”

“Sounds like a plan, love.”

They bickered at the cash register over who was going to pay. Killian wanted to be a gentleman, Emma wanted him to feel like her guest in some way. She somehow won. “You can buy me a bear claw at my favorite bakery later if you really want to,” she told him as she swiped her debit card through the reader and he stood to the side pouting.

She and Killian were heading for the door when a familiar face entered the diner. The sight of Ruby made Emma consider grabbing Killian and hiding him.

“Emma!” Her friends’ eyes lit up when she spotted them, red lips breaking out into a grin.

“Hey, Rubes. I didn’t think you were working today.” She would have taken Killian to eat somewhere else otherwise. Emma loved her friend, but something told her Ruby would have less of a filter than usual around him.

“I wasn’t, but Ashley had a doctors’ appointment and asked me to cover her shift.” She glanced around Emma to get a look at Killian. “Oh, is this the English guy? You didn’t tell me he was hot.”

The urge to crawl under the nearest table was tempting. “Uh, yeah,” she said, her face reddening, even more so when she realized it sounded like she was agreeing with Ruby’s comment. She turned to Killian. “This is my friend, Ruby. Granny’s is, well, her grandmother’s.”

Ruby held her hand out to him. “It’s so nice to  put a face with the name. Emma talks about you all the time.”

Emma shot her a death stare as Killian accepted the handshake and brought her hand to his lips. “It’s a pleasure, love. I’ve heard quite a bit about you as well.”

“Such a charmer.” Ruby’s grin widened. “I love it.”

“Yeah, well, we were just leaving, and I know you have to get to work.” She grabbed Killian’s hand and pulled him out the door before Ruby had another chance to embarrass her. “Bye!”

Emma groaned as soon as the door to Granny’s had shut behind her. “I’m sorry about that. She means well, but she tends to come off a bit strong.”

“No worries, Swan. I can’t say I have many objections with a woman who so freely acknowledges my good looks.” He smirked, and she couldn’t help but think how much she wanted to kiss the smile off of his face.

Which she wasn’t going to do. Because that would be ridiculous. “Yeah, I’m never gonna let her live that down.”

She moved her car to a free public lot and spent the next hour with Killian, walking around downtown Boston to show him some of her favorite spots in the area. She pointed out the precinct where she often dropped off bail jumpers, the library, her favorite coffee shop, and the bakery that made the best bear claws in town.

“You can definitely return the favor from lunch now,” Emma told him when they entered the shop and she caught a whiff of something that smelled like butter and cinnamon.

“Whatever the lady wishes.”

“The lady definitely wishes for a bear claw. Or five.”

In the end she requested one, although Killian told the attendant to add another to her bag. “In case you’d like one for the weekend and don’t feel like making the trip.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll let it go uneaten for that long.”

They sat at a bench outside the bakery since the weather was nice. Mid September in Boston was often ideal since it was still warm without being unbearably hot. Emma took one of her bear claws out of the paper bag and bit into it, letting the warm dough melt in her mouth. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she told Killian, who had started eating his blueberry scone.

“I’ll take your word for it, Swan. You know I’m not fond of raisins.”

“Whatever.” She feigned disappointment. “More for me.”

It occurred to Emma that she had yet to ask another important question. She had no idea how long he would be in Boston, and if she would get to see him again after today. Killian had mentioned in previous conversations that he had a handful of meetings over the following two days, but nothing about what his schedule looked like or when he would be flying back.

Killian picked up on her unspoken apprehension. “What’s going on in that head of yours, love?”

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Hadn’t she decided she wasn’t going to waste time worrying while he was there? “It’s nothing,” she insisted again. Killian’s expression suggested he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t press the issue.

“Did I tell you my nephew is into Peppa Pig now?” she asked, knowing he might like this change of subject. “He’s, like, fascinated with the British accents and tries to talk like the characters all the time now. It’s hilarious.”

His eyes lit up. “Is that so? I like this lad already. Although I do prefer Percy Pigs myself. It’s a type of candy,” he explained when her eyebrows shot up. A quick Google search provided a photo of what he was referring to, which was, as suggested, a gummy in the shape of a pig’s head.

It was weird, if she was being frankly honest, but Leo would love them. “Kid’s definitely getting an order of these for his next birthday.”

Emma finished her bear claw and wiped her mouth with a napkin from the bakery. But she must have not done an adequate job. Killian leaned over. “You missed a spot, love,” he said, brushing his thumb at the corner of her mouth. Any reply she had was forgotten with the gesture as she became hyper focused on the brief but startling feeling of his touch.

“Uh, thanks.” The words came out raspy and uneven.

Her reaction seemed to make Killian realize what he’d done. “Apologies, Swan. I wasn’t thinking.”

She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the question that followed. “What are we doing here, Killian?”

[punkassrichie]

you lied: part two

2/?

A/N: okay, first of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH! i REALLY wasn’t expecting so much positive feedback. i honestly thought all of you would hate me for this lmao but i’m glad you didn’t! anyway, as always, let me know what you thought of it and i hope you enjoy!

Warnings: A N G S T, swearing, underage drinking and smoking, grinding, making out, probably some sex jokes(richie is in this, duh), cheating(don’t hATe me), sexual implications(hardly), mentions of abuse(any kind you can think of), a rather aggressive Richie, a bit of violence [more will be added as the story goes on, if needed]

Summary: “He was fucking everything to me, Stan.” Richie sniffled. “Of course, it’d be easy for you all, especially him and her, to just say ‘get over it.’” Richie nearly shouted, trying not to say their names because he feels like if even says or hears them, he’ll break down.

“You guys aren’t the one in pain. You aren’t the one that got betrayed by the person who was suppose to love you the most.” Richie’s voice was cracking with every word he kept saying. “He said he loved me, Stanley…” Richie began sobbing.

Soon, Richie’s knees bucked and hit the floor. Stan walked over to wrap his arms around him. Stan felt bad. He wanted to cry with him. But no, he had to be the strong one here, especially because he wasn’t hurting.

They stayed like that on the floor for a little bit. Stan shushing him and telling him he was there. That everything would be okay.

Pairings: mentions of Reddie? & Stozier (others will develop as the story goes on)

Tags: at the bottom.

(Let me know if you want to be tagged.)

*They are aged up in this. In no way am i picturing them as kids, that’s gross, if you do, that’s your problem, not mine. There’s fan casts of them as teens everywhere on Tumblr, so y’all can imagine that or something. They will be 16/17. I mean not all that much but teens these days do worse shit, k? cool.*

—

Richie laid in his bed with his eyes bloodshot. He walked home that night and ran to his bedroom and sobbed until he physically couldn’t produce anymore tears. That went on for hours. Afterwards, he just laid there, curled into a ball with a strong pain feeling in his chest.

He was sniffling and sobbing, but no tears were coming out.

He was hurting and all he could do was just feel it.

He honestly wished he hadn’t walked in on them. He wished he could’ve pretended like it never happened.

But he couldn’t. Because it did.

He knew deep down that he didn’t mean any of the stuff he said to Bev. He really didn’t. He was just incredibly angry. There was no excuse for what she and Eddie did but he knows he shouldn’t have lashed out on her the way he did. She hadn’t told anyone about her abusive home life besides Richie and he pretty much shouted it to the whole world. He feels really bad but then he remembers what she did. What Eddie did. The anger returns and then he doesn’t wish he could take it all back. It’s like a cycle.

A cycle he hates and he just wished it would all go away.

He knows it isn’t fair in a way but he’s angry and couldn’t care less. He wanted to hurt her as bad as she hurt him. And there was a point when he thought that still wasn’t enough.

One thing he was happy about was school being out. He wouldn’t have been able to face them. At least like this, he could avoid them for as long as he wanted.

He tried sleeping that night but instead, he stayed up, all alone in his own thoughts. Asking himself why he simply wasn’t good enough for Eddie. Asking himself if Eddie was just using him to experiment. If Richie was just a one-time thing that Eddie needed to get out of his system.

Just why’s and if’s.

And then he thought about Eddie. How much he loved him. How much he’s sacrificed to be with him. How he would do it all over again because he was worth it. He just couldn’t really understand why he had to go and hurt him like this. Especially since he was so sure about Eddie’s sexuality. And with Bev of all people. He might’ve been feeling less like shit if it was another guy. But it wasn’t. It was a girl and it was Bev. He hated the fact that he didn’t even hate him for it. In fact he still loves him very much.

And now the tears were returning.

—

Everything was left a mess.

Bill was upstairs trying to comfort Bev since she physically couldn’t stop crying and Ben was trying to tend to Eddie’s bruise in the bathroom.

But that was hard because Eddie was also sobbing uncontrollably.

Mike and Stan went out to look for Richie but he wasn’t anywhere to be found and it was already past midnight.

No one talked about it. No one asked. It was too soon and Bev and Eddie just needed some rest.

They still had no idea what happened but they could only imagine the worst.

Bev and Eddie preferred to be separated because they couldn’t bare to look at each other.

Stan and Mike stayed with Eddie in the living room while Bill and Ben stayed with Bev in Bill’s room.

They both felt terrible and ashamed. They knew in the back of their heads that what they were doing was wrong. But it wasn’t enough stop them. They never meant to hurt Richie the way they did. Especially not Eddie. He intended on keeping his promise but a little too much alcohol ruined that.

He knew things weren’t ever going to be the same after this.

—

It had been weeks since the incident. Everyone knew now and they weren’t so happy about it. That didn’t mean they shunned Bev and Eddie. All of the other losers knew they felt bad so they didn’t stay angry at them for too long.

Except everything was ruined. No one hung out together anymore. If they did, it was always with the three of them missing. Richie, Eddie, and Bev.

They hadn’t even heard of Richie since that night, but they knew he was alive and well, or as ‘well’ as he could be, because Bill and Mike tried to check on him and he didn’t let him them in his house. Richie didn’t want their pity and if he was being completely honest, he was embarrassed.

He felt embarrassed because of how he reacted to everything, how he thought about physically hurting Bev and actually hurting Eddie. (But they hurt him.) And because he feels like he knows now that Eddie is straight and Eddie was just trying to mess around or experiment.

Ever since he did what he did with Bev, Richie was sure of it now and he feels stupid for thinking that Eddie actually loved him.

He didn’t think he’d still be feeling horrible about it, weeks after, but he was worse. He drank more than usual and smoked three packs of cigarettes everyday. Sometimes more if he could get his hands on them. He didn’t get up from bed, not even to eat or shower. He knew he was doing bad and that’s why he didn’t want pity from anyone. He didn’t care. He wanted to deal with this and get over it by himself. Ever since Eddie betrayed him, he feels like anyone could and doesn’t trust anyone. Not even himself, for falling for a straight boy. A boy he still loved.

Eddie was quite the opposite. He didn’t leave his house though, in fear of catching something, and spent his time tidying up or disinfecting something. He was also embarrassed and ashamed for what he did and couldn’t face his friends. He felt like he didn’t deserve them because they didn’t hate him for what he did. He hated himself, so why shouldn’t they? He swore to never drink again and to avoid parties for as long as he lived. He also cried when it was night time and he was alone.

He wanted to talk to Richie so bad but he knew Richie didn’t want to talk to him. He messed up but he still wanted to let Richie know it was a mistake and he loved him very much. He didn’t even care that Richie hit him, because he knew he deserved it. He deserved any horrible thing that came his way because he hurt his lover, who deserved the world. He doesn’t know why he did. He really didn’t. But it happened nonetheless.

Bev on the other hand, was more promiscuous than ever. She was also drinking herself to near death and smoked as much cigarettes as she could, which was a lot. She avoided everyone because she knew what they thought of her. She knew they agreed with what Richie said. Except, that wasn’t the case. They wanted to help her get out of her abusive home and tell her they were there for her. It was still no excuse for what she did, but it was obvious she needed someone. She felt bad for getting in between her best friends and more that she lost both of them. All because she had too much to drink. Much like Eddie, she didn’t know why she did it either. Richie was right, he was the only one that was there for her and she ruined that. She convinced herself that Richie was right with everything. That she was a whore so she started acting like one. She knew Richie would never forgive her, nor would Eddie ever see her the same, so she didn’t bother to make amends with anyone. Every night she’d cry herself to sleep because of the insults Richie threw her way. Mostly because it hurt but also because he was right. That’s what she told herself, anyway.

It broke the other loser’s hearts to see them like this. They just wanted things to go to how they were. But somehow they knew that wasn’t possible.

Then they decided that enough was enough. It was nearly a month and they couldn’t stand around, watching their friends self destruct over something that was clearly a mistake.

They decided to divide and conquer. They thought if they all separated to talk to them, then they’d agree to hang out and finally get together and talk it out. Stan and Ben thought it was the worst plan ever but Bill stood by it. It was his plan after all.

Since Bill and Mike already tried going to Richie’s house, Stan decided that he’d go and try to talk to him. He was the calmest of them all so he knew Richie wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Bill and Ben obviously fought over who got to go and talk to Bev, but that argument was cut short when Mike stepped in and told them he’d take care of Bev while they both went to Eddie.

They had it all figured out and split up to do their job.

Stan biked over to Richie’s. He was pretty nervous to say the least, afraid of being rejected by Richie, but he kept his head held high. Richie needed someone and Stan was going to that someone. He was determined.

He arrived and left his bike on his lawn, walked over to the door and knocked.

It was a while before Stan realized his parents weren’t home and Richie must’ve been upstairs.

He sighed, and tried twisting the doorknob to see if it was open.

And it was. Which made his OCD act up in the most horrible way because he can’t sleep unless he’s locked his front and back door at least sixteen times. That was only on his bad days though.

He tried to ignore it for Richie’s sake and started walking up the stairs after he closed it and locked it.

Just like it should’ve been in the first place, he thought.

He saw that Richie’s door was cracked, but he couldn’t see through it. He somehow felt him on the other side of the door.

‘Cause if he wasn’t there, where could he be? He just hoped he hadn’t run away, or worse… hurt himself.

So he cautiously opened his door, hoping to see a breathing Richie and not his corpse.

When he saw a body curled into a ball on the bed, he wasn’t all that relieved. He was breathing but something was still off.

He finally cleared his throat and said something after a few minutes of just standing in the middle of Richie’s room. He took in the messy scene and had to gather his thoughts for a moment before he spoke.

“Richie?”

Richie didn’t move. He didn’t even respond.

Stan thought he must’ve been sleeping.

He turned on his heel to walk back out and wait downstairs but then Stan was stopped by the sound of Richie’s voice.

“Stan? That you?” Richie asked, still not turning around to face him. His voice sounded hoarse and raspy. Like he’d been crying.

Of course he had, Stan thought. He just got his heart broken.

Stan turned back around and nodded before he realized Richie wasn’t looking at him.

“Yeah, Rich. It’s me.” Stan said with a hint of pity in his tone.

“What do you want?” Richie grumbled.

Stan sighed, “I just wanted to see how you were.”

“I’m fucking amazing, Stan.” Richie scoffed. “Just fuckin’ amazing..”

Stan gulped. “Look, Richie. I’ll say what i came to say and i’ll leave if you want.”

Richie didn’t respond.

“I know you’re hurting. I mean i haven’t been in your place but i know it must hurt. But you shouldn’t go through it alone. We’re all here for you.” Stan began, pausing a bit to see if Richie had any reaction or response.

“I don’t need anyone.” Richie said in a small voice.

“I didn’t say you did. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a shoulder to cry on. Someone to talk to—“

Stan was cut off.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Richie said as he raised his voice with a harsh tone in it.

Stan raised his hands in mock surrender, “Alright, Rich. We don’t have to talk. We can sit in silence for as long as you want. But please, let me be there for you. I’m worried. We all are. You’ve clearly been drinking and smoking more than usual. It’s been nearly a month. You need to start healing, start moving on—“

Suddenly, Richie stood up in anger to face Stan.

“None of you get it.” Richie raised his voice again. “None of you fucking get it!”

His body started shaking. He was trying to keep the tears in his eyes from falling. Stan flinched as Richie started shouting.

“He was fucking everything to me, Stan.” Richie sniffled. “Of course, it’d be easy for you all, especially him and her, to just say ‘get over it.’” Richie nearly shouted, trying not to say their names because he feels like if even says or hears them, he’ll break down.

“You guys aren’t the one in pain. You aren’t the one that got betrayed by the person who was suppose to love you the most.” Richie’s voice was cracking with every word he kept saying. “He said he loved me, Stanley…” Richie began sobbing.

Soon, Richie’s knees bucked and hit the floor. Stan walked over to wrap his arms around him. Stan felt bad. He wanted to cry with him. But no, he had to be the strong one here, especially because he wasn’t hurting.

They stayed like that on the floor for a little bit. Stan shushing him and telling him he was there. That everything would be okay.

Eventually, Richie’s sobbing faded and it got quiet for a moment. Then Stan started talking as he kept holding Richie.

“Rich, I cant imagine how you feel. But i know, trust me, i know you’re hurting.” Stan paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. “But you can’t keep living like this… This can’t be what you want. You can get through this.”

Richie began sobbing again.

“No, Stan. No, I-I can’t..” He said between hiccups.

Stan shut his eyes tight, attempting to keep his own tears in. “Yes you can. I know you can. And i’m going to be right there to help you. To hold you. To listen. Like i said, we don’t even have to talk. Alright, bud? You just have to let me.”

He pulled back to look into Richie’s eyes. They were sad and bloodshot. Richie looked back into his, whose were filled with concern. Then he nodded. Stan pulled him back into the hug, Richie putting his face in the crook of his neck and continued to sob.

He didn’t think he had any tears left in him, and yet here he was. But Richie knew he could count on Stan. Calm, well-spoken, understanding Stan.

“He promised, Stan..” Richie sobbed harder than earlier. “He said he wouldn’t do this to me. He-He promised that he wouldn’t hurt me.”

Stan held him tighter than before and shut his eyes tight as he stroked Richie’s head.

“I know, Richie. I know…” Stan responded in a comforting tone.

—

Tag list:

@toziertrashmouth @pastelreddie @losersclubreddie @shamelessvegas @kylieee827-blog @reddie-is-canon @camgarden12 @time-for-tozier @bxxpbxxprichie @bitchierrichie @strangerbeeps @everheardofastaphinfection @richiefreakingtozier @amandalrke @muruchwitch @the-slytherin-ice-queen @raesamess (couldn’t tag one of you, sorry!)

Part one: https://t-rash-m-outh.tumblr.com/post/166888343979/you-lied-part-one

[terresdebrumestories]

Chapter 2/22: Demon

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: The Shadowhunters Chronicles RATING: Mature. WORDCOUNT: 6 281 words PAIRING(S): Clary Fray/Izzy Lightwood, other pairings to be revealed as the story goes. CHARACTER(S): Clary Fray/Fairchild/Morgenstern, Alec Lightwood, Izzy Lightwood, Jace Wayland/Morgenstern, Magnus Bane, Maryse Lightwood, Robert Lightwood, Jocelyn Fray, Luke Garroway, and most of the other canon characters. GENRE: Urban fantasy with a dash of coming of age and lesbian romance. TRIGGER WARNING(S): - NOTE(S): - SUMMARY: Clary’s life plan from her eighteenth birthday onward is fairly simple: do her internship with her mother at Moonlight Tattoos, become a world-renowed tatoo artist, and find herself a girl she can spend the rest of her life with, pretty much in that order.

The part where she tries to save a girl from a would-be rapist and ends up having to fight demons kinds of throws a wrench into that, though.

(Or: This is what I wish we’d had in City of Bones.)

[Also available on AO3]

“Going out already?”

Clary stops on her way to the front hall, and answers her mother’s worried look with a reassuring smile.

“I’m up for it,” she promises with a gesture at her face and general demeanor, “see? All rested. Besides, you know Aminata’s going to kill me if I miss her first reading.”

Clary has been following her friend to Java Jones’ poetry readings for almost as long as she’s known her, mostly because words are as essential to Aminata’s well-being as pictures are to her own. That spot at the microphone is too much of an accomplishment to let it pass now, especially when the entire country is about to wedge itself between them.

“You only woke up two hours ago,” Jo points out, “are you sure you don’t want to stay here and rest some more?”

Dismissal is Clary’s first reflex—she has, after all, slept more than long enough to feel completely refreshed—but the frown on her mother’s face, when she actually pays attention, is far too deep to be only about that. Clary’s eyebrows rise with understanding, and she makes herself smile again:

“It’s the middle of the day, mom, and it’s not like Pandemonium is right next door. I’ll be fine. ‘Sides, if I stay here I’ll just be in your way—you’ve been on the phone ever since I woke up.”

“With Cat and Luke,” Jo admits with an odd little smile, “I took a day off. More importantly, Luke and I were talking about what happened to you. We think it’d be a good idea to set up an appointment with Dr. Neba.”

“Today?” Clary protests—almost whines, really—before she can think better of it, “But I—”

“No, he’s out of town until Monday,” Jo says in a tone of voice that leaves very little doubt as to her feelings on the matter, “and we wouldn’t book it behind your back, anyway. I just wanted to know if that was alright with you?”

“Oh! Sure,” Clary says with a breath of relief, “no problem. The EMTs said I should get my wrist checked anyway.”

“Thank you. You should also talk to Luke soon. He’s—worried.”

Clary frowns a bit at her mother’s pause, but Jo smiles and, well. It’s hardly the first time she stumbles over English after using Canti with Luke for a while.

(Clary tried to research the language on the web once, but it has to be the most obscure dialect in the world because she never could find anything about it, even after several hours and getting two different librarians involved. Sometimes it almost feels like Luke and Jo made it up between them.)

“Okay,” Clary agrees, mouth stretching over a surprise yawn, “I’ll call him as soon as the poetry meeting is over. Can I go now? I’m already late.”

“Fine, abandon me, you ungrateful child!” Jo mock-whines with a dramatic hand to her chest.

Clary rolls her eyes with a chuckle, checks her purse—keys, water, aspirin and her sketchbook, useless though it’ll be today—and hurries down the steps and through the front door, so focused on getting to Java’s before Ami’s poem she doesn’t even pause for her customary eye roll when her mother yells ‘I love you’ at her from the parlor window.

{ooo}

Running, as it turns out, makes Clary’s wrist throb with pain. It’s not a pleasant sensation, and she ends up walking to Java Jones, the only upside of that being that she gets there mostly sweat free, and she can slip into the cool micro-climate of the coffee-shop with a contented sigh rather than a shiver.

Aminata may be the one who dragged her to the poetry readings, but Clary practically grew up in Java Jones. This is where her mother would take her for treats on the weekend: they’d hole-up in the age-worn couch next to the toilets’ door and Clary would spend entire afternoons alternating between playing with her toys and watching her mother sketch out customers, sometimes adding antlers and wings and scale just to make Clary laugh. Clary’s first subjects, when she started learning to draw, were found here, whether they were customers, the chalk frescoes her mother created for the giant blackboard, or the soft lines of flower-shaped lamps.

Java Jones has a decidedly Art Nouveau feel about it. Curving greens and flowering yellows fill the space above earth-colored wood panel and hardwood floor, and even with minimal furniture it’s impossible not to pretend the place is some sort of liminal space, the entryway to a magical fairy realm.

The difference being, of course, that no one has ever been trapped into the shop after eating their food, but aside from that Clary is pretty confident in the comparison.

She gives Aminata a quick wave when she spots her—nervously biting her nails on the same couch Clary learned to draw on—and walks up to her favorite barista as he serves a couple of coffees. He got a new tattoo—some kind of brown, fur-like thing dripping blood on his biceps from where it pokes out of his shirt sleeve. Clary wrinkles her nose at it when he’s not looking, but she refrains from commenting and just waits for her drink in silence.

At last, she makes her way over to Aminata with a white chocolate frappé freezing her fingers and a reassuring smile on her lips, unsurprised when her friend’s first move is to grab for her elbow and almost spill her drink in the process.

“I thought you wouldn’t make it,” Aminata hisses, the tremor of nerves in her voice almost palpable, “where on earth were you?”

“Had a talk with my mom,” Clary replies as she extracts her arm from Ami’s hands, “she wants me to see our doctor about this.”

Aminata’s face turns contrite when Clary waves her splint in her field of vision, but Clary doesn’t let her fall into guilt and shrugs instead. She’s still nervous, it’s true. Despite her reassuring words to her mother earlier, she couldn’t helps but look over her shoulder on her way here, as if the guy with the blue hair were about to pop out of a side-street and start beating her any moment—but this is Java Jones. She’s known the shop and its regulars all her life, there’s no reason to think anything should happen to her here.

“So,” Clary starts, putting extra cheer in her voice to drive out the awkward silence, “did I miss anything interesting?”

“I think Eric Levinsky’s poem was about you again. You know, ‘fire hair’, ‘concentrated temper’, the usual.”

“Still confusing bad temper and not being a doormat, I see,” Clary mutters, and Aminata snorts.

The guy also fails to grasp the concept of lesbianism, but then he’s hardly the first, won’t be the last, and Aminata isn’t quite as invested in that topic anyway. It’d take too much fun out of the snipping if Clary ended up being the only one with a gripe, here.

Besides, there are plenty of other things to enjoy here. The shop smells like ground coffee and honeysuckle, swaddled in the tang of hot asphalt pervading the afternoon air and slipping inside by some kind of almost-miracle. From the outside, light and shadow play over the crowd, spotting them in warm golds and cooler greens as they mill about the shop with varying degrees of attention for the poets on stage. Even the coming and going of customers toward the toilets isn’t too bothersome tonight. It’s drags at Ami’s nerves, that’s obvious enough, but it’s mostly kept quiet, and the couch is still the best spot for people watching.

Clary sits with her friend in silence and lets the poetry wash over her while Ami’s fingers grip and then slowly relax around her forearm, the lull of words and crowd noises dragging Clary down into the couch and out of her shoes in record time. She’s almost asleep by the time Aminata jostles her elbow on her way to the stage, the host encouraging the crowd to applaud and make some noise for a shy but promising newcomer.

The speech is nice—though the praise would be more meaningful if Clary hadn’t heard it about every beginner poet performing at the readings—and it gives Clary just enough time to readjust her ponytail and straighten up to full attention before Aminata starts reading.

Then a hand lands on her shoulder.

She freezes, back painfully rigid and heart picking up the rhythm as if gearing up for a race, and she has to swallow a whine when she realizes Aminata is too focused on the crowd of listeners to realize what’s going on in the corner. Slowly, without moving her head, Clary glances down at the hand—wide, firm, wrapped in dark, petrole blue leather—and blinks tears out of her eyes. There’s a barista close to her, serving a couple at the next table over, and Clary somehow manages to catch her eye.

The girl—Sarah, her name tag reads—gives Clary a funny look but walks over anyway. The hand on Clary’s shoulder tightens and tugs, and Sarah frowns.

“Everything alright miss?”

“Can you tell this person to leave me alone, please?”

To Clary’s horror, Sarah’s features go from concerned to a confused frown, the shadows on her face turning the white of her skin almost gray when she asks:

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t bother,” a light voice says, a little above Clary’s head, “she can’t—”

“That boy,” Clary insists, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “please tell him to let me go.”

“See me,” the boy finishes while Sarah schools her features into polite disbelief.

“I’m sorry, miss, but I don’t see anyone there.”

Clary wants to tell Sarah her joke is just about everything but funny, but somehow it doesn’t feel like that would make anything better. She breathes in deep instead, and winces in pain when the knot in her throat stings on the way down. Don’t panic, she reminds herself, think.

Maybe she’s just hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all, and she’s probably stressed enough for a migraine to come through. She felt fine a second ago but it’s still possible. Besides, she’s never remembered her hallucinations before—they could involve leather clad men for all she knows. She’s probably just being needlessly paranoid and looking like an idiot for no valid reason but...still.

The hand on her shoulder feels real—heavy and strong in a way she doesn’t think she could fight off. There’s nothing here she can use to protect herself, except maybe her ring, but even with that, she’d have to land a punch. she’s not trained enough to take that risk.

In her throat, her heartbeat speeds up and presses against her windpipe until the edges of her vision grow dark and she all but topples forward with a whine.

Sarah yelps.

“Careful!”

“Woah, Fray!”

“How do you know my name?”

Clary does her best to look angry more than scared as she twists around to stare at the stranger. He’s wearing a face mask, and the hood poking from under a black leather jacket obscures the rest of his face, making it impossible to distinguish in the low light of Java Jones. Clary takes a step aside, toward the exit, and hears someone hissing for her to shut up and sit down.

There’s a ripple of murmurs and whispers behind her, and an odd silence where Aminata’s voice should be, but Clary is too busy trying to go through her parents’ teachings to care.

Back to the exit? Check. Hands into fists, thumb over the finger? Check. Stalling for time until help gets there? On it.

“How do you know my name,” she repeats, raising her voice as she backs another step toward the exit.

“Does it really matter?” The guy asks, “Calm down, people are starting to think you’re nuts.”

“I don’t care!” Clary repeats, more forcefully, “I’ve never seen you before in my life—”

“Wha—oh, yeah, didn’t see my face, but I—”

“How the hell do you know my name?”

There’s an aborted sound, like the stranger was about to get frustrated and then decided it wasn’t worth it—then he jumps over the couch, hands reaching for Clary’s left wrist.

She manages to shove her splint into the face mask through sheer dumb luck, and dodges under his arm while he’s distracted. She barrels through the toilets door before anyone thinks of stopping her, both the guy’s and Sarah’s voice hollering after her.

She shoulders her way past a couple—one of them swear as they hit the ground—and doesn’t realize her mistake until she’s slammed the ladies’ restroom door shut behind her. Crap. Trapped in. Crap, crap, crap.

Clary drags her eyes around the room, breathing loud in her ears as she takes in the closed cubicles, only just waiting to burst open and reveal people yelling ‘surprise’ at her in an instant—but her shoulder still burns with the heat of a foreign hand, her wrist throbs with pain from hitting that guy, and all of it feels so real—and how would she know the difference? How do you even tell hallucinations from reality when they’re about things that could conceivably happen?

She’s got to call Jo. Preferably before she can throw up with fear.

She’s reaching for her back pocket when the door shakes behind her back, the handle digging into her back with bruising force. She yelps in fright, heart in her throat, and bites her lips hard enough to hurt when the guy growls:

“Come on, you can’t hide in there forever, you know that right?”

Clary clamps her good hand against her mouth and screws her eyes shut. Her throat, her eyes, her lungs are burning—her heart’s trying to choke her and her brain keeps supplying every horror story she’s ever heard about black girls in her position. The entire world seems to swim around her, and when the door rattles again—harder this time, like something heavy was thrown against it—Clary stumbles to her knees faster than she even whimpers.

Think, Clary. Think.

Forcing her eyes open, Clary blinks tears out of her eyes and tries to have a coherent look at the room. There’s no other door here, no safe exit—that’s why Lucy Teruko got stuck here for almost fifteen minutes on that horrible date of her until—the window!

Clary crawls to her feet—has to catch herself with her good hand before she falls flat on her face on the tiles—and throws herself into the last cubicle to the sound of a door banging open against the wall.

The window above the seat it barely large enough for someone to go through, and for once Clary thanks genetics for her pocket size, before climbing on the toilet seat. The porcelain is wet, and she ends up with one foot in the water and a painful ankle before she can regain her footing, but she does get the window open and her upper body through it as the first cubicle bangs open.

One after the other, doors slam against the walls of empty stalls. Clary forces herself to stay quiet and calls on long-unused monkey cage skills to hang on the windowsill with her hips, push her lower body forward, and land on her feet with a painful jolt to her ankle. Loud cursing follows her toward the main street.

Summer-hot asphalt burns at her feet as she runs, and people turn to stare as she races down the sidewalk, jumps over a golden retriever like she’s in the middle of a track meeting, and manages to cross in all the wrong places, terror pushing her to speed she’d only ever dreamed of before. Her entire body burns by now—feels like she’s going to collapse and start retching if she even thinks of slowing down—but she keeps going anyway.

She does have to stop, eventually, bending over a bunch of tired-looking hydrangeas about three quarters of the way to her place and emptying her guts over the stems, careful not to put too much weight on her left foot. She braces herself against a concrete wall while the nausea dies down, and makes herself take deep breaths while her brain slowly collects itself and analyses the situation.

She’s barefoot, blisters growing so fast she can almost feel them form. Her left ankle is busted. Her purse—with her money, her phone, her ID—is still at Java Jones, hopefully with Aminata, but it’s not like Clary is about to go back there to confirm.

In short, Clary probably looks like a maniac who doesn’t have the brains to put shoes on, with no way to call anyone in or prove who she is or the truth of what she say. Assuming, of course, that the whole thing isn’t just happening in her head.

She’s so screwed.

If she looked better—if she couldn’t feel rivers of sweat rolling down her back, feel the frazzled state of her ponytail against her back—she’d ask for help. Maybe. She’s heard horrific stories about black people asking for help and getting trouble instead though. Not all of them get out of it alive...and let’s face it, she doesn’t look good.

She just ran three blocks like somebody was out to kill her—which may or may not be the case—without shoes, and she doesn’t need a mirror to tell it shows. Frankly, she’s rather not risk it. Her ankle hurts, yeah, but it’s not broken, and it’s not like there’s much to do about blisters beside taking things easy and resting. Besides, even if the guy is real, Clary probably lost him by now, thank God for Jo and Luke’s insistence on track training.

Slowly, with a careful limp, Clary starts back toward her home, determined to get there, get back in bed, and not move for the rest of the weekend.

It’s hardly surprising that it takes her much longer than usual to get home, but that doesn’t mean she enjoys it. It takes effort to ignore the staring passersby, and some more to keep herself from wincing at the heat under her feet. The sun is getting a little less unbearable at this time of the day, but asphalt is stone. It keeps heat.

It sucks.

The good news is, although no one offers to help Clary, no one becomes a problem either, so by the time she reaches the little square in front of her home, she’s just about ready to weep with relief. The white little twins from two houses down are playing in the fountain, like they always do. The pug from across the square fell asleep in the shade again.

Clary steps up to her own building with the odd sensation of leaving what little was left of her energy behind, the wisterias from the facade wrapping her in its perfumed embrace long before she reaches her front porch, glad all of this happened on one of her mom’s home days.

She limps through the reception room without even a glance for the door that leads into Dorothea’s apartment and climbs up the stairs with her mother’s name half on her lips already.

She stops dead in her track when she notices the smear of blood at the top.

Her mouth stings when her hand slaps against it, but Clary doesn’t care. She swallows a frightened whine and keeps going, stomach heavy when a couple more steps reveal a long, bloodied shard of glass next to the gutted frame of one of Jo’s watercolors, and then Clary is actually high enough on the stair to take a good look around.

To the left, the parlor and the door to the art room both look undisturbed. To the right, on the other hand, the busted glass is far from the only damage. The sad remains of the living room door half-hang from the hinges, the bottom half lying on the floor like a mangled corpse, and stepping up to the landing to peer inside the room does nothing to reassure.

It’s like a hurricane went through it: the dinner table is on the ground, half a leg broken and abandoned next to the hallway door, a broken plate scattered all over the room. When Clary limps around debris and reaches the other side of the table, she finds large gouges in the wood and a bloody tooth on the floorboard. There are bloody hand prints on the threshold to the back hallway, and the largest kitchen knife lies on the ground with blood all over the blade.

No trace of Jo anywhere.

The twins’ laughter filters in through the open window, and Clary wonders how a house can possibly get turned into such a mess without the rest of the world being any wiser about it. Don’t they know something horrible just happened? How does the world even keep working around this? Clary’s legs sure don’t, at least, and she has to sit in the hallway before she ends up in a heap on the ground.

Stop panicking, Clary tells herself—she’s heard those words so many times in Jo’s mouth, in Luke’s voice. If you’re in danger, don’t panic. Think. Get helps, first. Panic later.

Get help first. Think first. Clary isn’t in a state to brave the phone yet—not if she wants to sound even vaguely coherent for the call. So, she thinks.

Clearly, someone broke into the house without being seen—maybe they used the back door. Just as clearly, someone got hurt. Probably Jo. Most likely Jo—oh, god, please let her be alive, let her—stop. Stop. Think. 911 has to come first.

There’s no way Clary can deal with all of this on her own, and there’s no guarantee Luke is even back in the city yet.

Police it is.

Clary stumbles to the kitchen on shaky legs, and stumbles over the undisturbed Fire Box on her way there. Her mother’s laptop is here, too, and Clary saw the silver candle holder on the ground when she crossed the living room, so either the people who came here weren’t after money, or they did a really poor job of it.

The aloe vera was thrown to the ground, along with most of the cutlery drawers, possibly in search of the kitchen knife. Clary has to look away from the fridge and its open door—like Jo forgot it, or maybe was stopped in the middle of something—and focus her sight on the land line to calm the tremors in her hands.

She keys the number in with bile rising up her throat. Forces herself to practice what she’s going to say. Breathes in deep to steady her voice. Screws her eyes shut when the movement of Jo’s screen-saver catches her attention.

She wants to go to bed—pretend none of it is happening and that Jo’s going to come in through the door any time, now, and take things in hands like she always does.

The hopeless fantasy shatters when Clary raises the phone to her ear, and nothing happens.

No sound.

No voice announcing the line is currently busy.

No dull beeping.

Nothing.

Clary sobs. Wipes tears out of her eyes. Does it again, and gives up when her lungs turn her breathing into full blown sobs. They cut the phone lines. The Wi-Fi router is intact, Clary’s seen it, but still. They cut the phone lines. Why would anyone cut the phone if they didn’t expect to find someone in? And why would anyone organize a robbery when there’s someone to witness them? Picking empty houses is just less work, isn’t it?

So, whoever came must have known Jo was here.

Maybe they even came specifically for her.

What if they’re here because of Clary, though? What if the rapist she saw in Pandemonium was some kind of—of gang member or mob boss or something? And he didn’t like Clary’s intervention and decided to take it out on her and managed to discover where she lived?

What if he sent the guy at Java Jones too, what if Clary was meant to be with her mom right now and the only reason she isn’t is because she went out and got stupidly lucky? What if all of this was only meant for Clary and Jo took the fall because she wasn’t there?

She shouldn’t have gone out. Should have listened to her mom and stayed in—she could have negotiated then. Begged for whoever came to spare Jo. After all, if this is all because of Pandemonium, she’s the only responsible one. She’s the only one who should pay for it, right?

She wasn’t there, though, and now Jo is gone God knows where in God knows what state and going through God knows what all because Clary couldn’t use her brain and stay out of somebody’s business and now she’s stuck wondering what’s happening and Luke won’t be here for hours yet and there’s no phone and no police and Clary’s panicking, she nows it, she knows, but knowing it doesn’t help and she ends up sitting in the dirt in the middle of the kitchen while sobs tear out of her louder than she even thought possible.

It takes her a long time to calm down—for her body to exhaust the tears and her breathing to slow down—but eventually, she does. She’s not even sure how. It’s not like anything’s changed. It’s just—it kind of feels like the attack putters out on its own, like a car running out of fuel.

It leaves Clary aching, her body back to throbbing in pain in ways she wouldn’t even have thought of as possible.

It also, thankfully, leaves her a little more coherent, like her mind got aired out.

It’s not much—it’s not a solution in itself, at any rate—but it does leave Clary coherent enough to remember Dorothea and her hermit ways. The woman so seldom leaves her apartment Clary used to be convinced she was a witch, so chances are she’s in...which means Clary can use her phone! All she has to do is get downstairs and ask politely—maybe negotiate a little but that’s negligible. Then she’ll call the police and Luke, and let him take over.

He’ll be far better than she is at this sort of thing, anyway. Clary has never seen either of her parents lose their head in a crisis, and wherever they learned this—it might be an innate sense of calmness but Clary finds the theory a little hard to swallow—Clary is presently very, very glad for it.

So, get downstairs. Get Dorothea. Get Luke. It all sounds so simple, compared to the rest, that it makes Clary’s head swim and she trips over her own feet on the way to the back hallway. Not a problem in itself, except when it’s followed by a heavy scrapping sound.

Clary freezes. She’s alone in the apartment. At least, she’s pretty sure she is. Jo would have signaled her presence if she was there, wouldn’t she? Unless she was—no, Clary isn’t even going to think about that one. And anyway, scrapping isn’t creaking. Creaking could have meant the neighborhood stray cat getting in through Clary’s open window again.

Scrapping means someone dragged heavy stuff on the floorboard.

Logically speaking—assuming Clary’s logic is somewhat functional at the moment—it’s probably not someone out to get her. Probably. A kidnapper would be more discreet, right? They wouldn’t be stupid enough to make a mistake even an unprepared teen can spot.

Right?

It’s probably not Jo either. Clary wasn’t exactly trying to keep her noise levels down when she came in earlier, so if Jo were here, she’d have signaled her presence. Probably. And if she were too weak to call out, she’d be too weak to produce that kind of sound as well. Not Jo, then.

But in that case, who? An attacker? A kidnapper? Or worse, someone to finish the job and finish Clary off?

With her heart in her throat, Clary takes another, far more careful step toward the hallway, and steps around the creaking boards near the back staircase to reach for the kitchen knife and its bloody blade. Hopefully, having her fingerprints on it won’t get her in trouble later, but she’ll get to that problem if and when it poses itself. For now, not dying has to be a priority.

She tries to step around the glass again, but her legs are still numb from her panic attack, and clumsy with fright. She hisses when the sole of her left foot lands on a particularly nasty shard, and has to land on her heel with a heavy thud to avoid falling flat on her face—or worse, her knife.

In her bedroom, Clary hears something scrape again, and a sudden jolt on the circular handle makes her jump something like a foot in the air. Thankfully, she doesn’t freeze this time—slips past her bedroom to the closet door and flattens her back against it while she ignores the pain in her right wrist to try and open it without a sound.

Her door’s handle stops moving.

For a heartbeat, Clary thinks this might mean safety.

Then the door bursts outward and slams into her.

Clary barely has time to realize she’s in pain—sharp, stabbing pain in her left side where the handle hit, hot pulsing where sticky warmth floods down her nose—before she collapses to the floor, pure luck the only thing preventing her from impaling herself on her improvised weapon. When she manages to remind her eyes of which way is up—her head must have taken a bigger hit than she thought—Clary finds shoes first.

A battered pair of once-varnished shoes leads up to the sad remnants of faded black suit pants, and Clary has to struggle in order to keep following the line upward. She finds a shirt dirty enough that it barely retains the memory of white, the whole thing filled with really, really thick arms. Clary’s blood freezes in her veins long before she manages to find her aggressor’s...head.

There’s no face there—only a mess of purple-and-red scars like earthworms, features obliterated by thick, painful-looking tissues that barely part wide enough to reveal destroyed eyes. In he mouth—what was once a mouth—blackened shards mark the spots where teeth used to be.

A thick, bruise-purple hand reaches for Clary’s ponytail—flails for a second against its unexpected volume—and drags her off the ground by the hair, a scream flying out of Clary before she can fully process the gesture.

That seems to be the wrong reaction, thought, because the other hand appears in Clary’s field of vision, aiming for her throat in a way that makes Clary kick, squirm, scream as hard as she can until she remembers the knife in her hand and swings it around until it catches at the suit’s arm.

Clary falls to the ground with a thud and scrambles away from the—the—whoever or whatever the hell it is, half-crawling and half running toward the living room and front hallway until her right shoulder refuses to move and yanks her entire body back with it. She hits the other’s chest with a pained huff, tries to use the knife again, but this time all it gets her is enough of a slap in the face that the world starts spinning—and then a hand on her throat.

There’s a vague, stiffening feeling of déjà-vu when a gloved fist collides with the mangled vestiges of a cheek, but Clary doesn’t have time to process it before she’s dropped on the ground, next to a pair of thick leather boots.

“Get outta here!”

Clary’s feet get the message before she does, and she’s already jumped over the living room table by the time she recognizes the voice. Turning around reveals the same silhouette—wide shoulder, stocky built, clothing alternating between black and deep dark blues—except this time the hood is down, short cropped frizzy hair and a black-skinned face poking from behind the face mask as the guy tries to fight Clary’s attacker off.

He doesn’t seem to have much luck there. Clary smothers a panicked shout when the creature slams the boy to the ground—from there it’s like the world turns into a collection of details.

The kitchen knife in Clary’s good hand—shiny and bloody and bigger than it should be. A gasp, filling the room even through the louder grunts. Something like fear in amber eyes, surrounded by a familiar shade of brown. Clary’s hand raising.

Dull shock all through her arm.

The creature, clutching its knee, wailing like a wraith.

The boy—the man—coughing as he struggles to his feet. Turns to Clary. Panics—only for a moment, a short second, but Clary sees it—and shoves her away from him, into the front hallway.

“Get out of here! I’ll be right there!”

Clary spins on her heel so fast her twisted ankle doesn’t even have time to protest, shoots through the living room door, slips on the broken glass there, and rolls into the staircase.

It’s like the world skips a beat. One second Clary is running away from a fight to the death, the next she’s sprawled on her back in the reception room, unable to focus on anything but pain and holy hell there’s no air, no air, need air—

It occurs to her, after a while, that the fish-out-of-water sounds popping in her ears come from her. It doesn’t help. If anything, it makes things worse—drives home how bad her situation is and sends her into overdrive—makes her legs and back and stomach and head pulse harder under the flesh, burning with the heat of sudden pain even as she tries to turn around.

There’s a series of loud thuds upstairs. Hurried steps.

“Don’t move!”

Clary stops her effort, but even going limp hurts—there’s something warm on her upper thigh and a harsh, stabbing burn somewhere up her left arm, but she doesn’t dare looking around to assess the damage. Overhead, the stairs tremble with the weight of her savior’s steps, although he doesn’t make a sound, even when he jumps over the last few steps and lands into a crouch next to Clary, eyes roaming over her while his hands rummage into his jacket.

“Is it bad?” Clary asks, even though she knows the answer to that one already.

It’s still less scary to ask ‘is it bad’ than ‘am I going to die’ because she doesn’t want to—she doesn’t, really—but wet warm spot on her thigh is growing and the boy—man—whichever he is—sounds panicked where he throws foreign words into a phone. Clary’s head grows lighter, even a the rest of her seems to triple weight in an instant, black spots dancing in front of her and growing more numerous with every blink—of course it’s bad.

Really bad, if the way her would-be savior looks at her is any indication.

She’s already crying by the time he takes her hand, ready to tell her a bunch of reassuring things that may or may not be true—but when he finally grasps her injured hand, his features go from worried to shocked.

“Where did you get that?”

“What?”

Clary’s trying to follow his second answer, she really is—even through the darkening edges of her vision the urgency on his face is obvious, but there’s not enough blood left in her head for that to work. He must realize it as well—his face hardens,and he reaches for something on his side with something that may or may not be an apology.

He brings his hand to Clary’s thigh, and the world bursts into pain.

She thinks she screams. At some point, the man all but sits on her to stop her from moving away from him.

Pain, pain, pain.

Nothing.

Sharp, stinging pain on her cheek, and then words in her ears—urgent, and raw, and way louder than anything she’s ready to bear.

“Thank the Angels,” her savior says, “I thought I’d killed you!”

Clary tries to speak, but it doesn’t come out quite right—at the very least, she can’t make out more than a garbled sound, like her mouth fell asleep and refuses to wake up. Her general state of mind must be obvious enough, though, because a gloved hand comes to rest on her cheek, and golden eyes shift from relief to reassurance:

“It’s okay, Fray. You’re my sister. I’m gonna help you. I’ll take you back home.”

Clary is already home, mutilated though it is, and she tries to convey the message through the pained whine that escapes her. The guy shushes her, too dry to be soothing, and then he picks her up like she weighs nothing, bridal style.

In some distant corner of her mind, the more sarcastic part of Clary wonders when her life turned into an action movie.

“It’s okay,” the man says, “it’ll be a while before we get there but I glamoured us. You just go to sleep, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Well. At least Clary got herself a nice kidnapper.

Eventually, she does fall asleep.

[thefloatingstone]

I know you're super into ponies, and I saw you reblogging something about how much the pony collectors community hates it when d/d/l/g or l/i/t/t/l/e/s/p/a/c/e blogs reblog yours stuff (added slashes so your blog won't show up under search for those tags). Why do they hate it so much? I'm not a part of any of these communities, and I'd like to understand. Thank you!

Hey there! :D That’s ok, I’m happy to try my best to explain!

The reason is actually pretty simple. Obviously I can only speak for myself but I imagine it’s the same for the other collectors as well (But if there is some different reasons I’m sure they’d be happy to add or correct me)

Basically, I collect the 80s My Little Ponies (although I won’t say no to the other generations and own ponies from all 4) I collect them because they were my favourite toys ever when I was small, and I loved the cartoon as a child. I liked it because it really was my first exposure to a high-fantasy setting. And it was done with really cute characters, in nice colours who were nice, sweet and kind to each other, but could still stop bad guys and work through bad situations and were very proactive characters.

As an adult, I can see the flaws in the show now, but I still think it’s highly immaginative with its ideas, and I still love the colours and that the characters don’t have to be snarky or aggressive to be heroic. As for the toys, I’ve always kept my childhood ones. I like them the best because again, I am a big fan of 80s and early 90s colour schemes, which I felt were better harmonised than the 2000s. And I also really liked that they resembled real ponies and weren’t AS stylized as how thy became later.

It’s also fun to be a collector. Because you’re constantly on a treasure hunt! Toys that were a big deal in pop-culture when they came out, and really represent what it meant growing up during that time period. And people don’t fully understand the value of “old toys”. So you’re always hunting at flea markets and thrift stores and some of the strangest places! Looking for collector’s items that the owner doesn’t have any attachment to and only sees as ‘an old toy’. In a way it’s like collecting bone china tea cups while they were still being made in England (before the 60s) or Medallions and medals. They are all a kind of time-capsule to a very specific era, and with ponies, they happen to have faces and be characters. So it’s fun to think of each pony as a little personality you’re finiding somewhere, taking home, cleaning up, and displaying.

These blogs that regblog these things however, have absolutely no interest in the individual items they are reblogging. Because to them, it only represents a sexual kink. Specifically the submissive pastel cutsey ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’ kink. And look, a kink is nothing to be ashamed of as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Honest. But the problem comes from the fact that we share photos, screenshots and gifs of these things because we’re honestly interested in the product. Whereas when they then take that post and reblog it, it’s for no reason other than to be part of a bigger kink to get themselves off on. The toys and collectors’ items because a sex toy, basically. Even if just in terms of visuals. It robs the post of its original intention and turns it into smut.

Smut is fine. But in this case it feels like someone has taken something that makes you happy and that you wanted to share with your fellow toy collectors and made it all about getting sexual satisfaction off of it based on what it represents to them; the idea of a girl being in the submissive position of ‘Daddy’s little girl’

It doesn’t become about ponies, or collecting, or showing off the value of a specific item, or about the episode or the character. Honestly the gif could be about anything in the kink blog’s eyes, as long as it fits into the kink they’re into. t robs the post of meaning, and turns it into something dirty.

I’ve recently had some porn blogs reblog some of my artwork by their bots and add things to it like ‘Hey I just got home, wanna chat?’ and ‘Hey I’m gonna be undressing for the camera, here’s a link!” and it has 0 to do with the picture. it’s just a way to promote their porn. And it feels icky you know? You feel taken advantage of. And they’re using your silly drawings to do it, not because they’re drawings, but because they happen to be getting a certain number of notes and reblogs. Your posts are being used and marked with something you’re uncomfortable with without your consent.

It’s the same thing :\ It also bugs a lot of my collector friends because they do their best to plaster their pages with “please don’t interact” banners, headers, tags, and sometimes within the images themselves, and the kink blogs completely ignore it. “consent” is a bit of a hot-button word because of its connotations, but that’s really what it is, isn’t it? “Please don’t reblog this as something to masturbate to.” “I’m gonna do it anyway and pretend you didn’t say ‘no’“

It’s just… it takes a hobby and turns it into something dirty. And then whether we like it or not, it makes us seem like we’re doing it for kinky, smutty purposes, all based on the nature of the toy (in this case, ponies). It builds an association.

If we were collecting wall-mounted plates none of us would be having this problem.

Anyway, sorry for the long reply. And I apologise if I got anything wrong. But this is my stance and experience with the matter. And why I personally really don’t like it. I imagine it’s very similar for a lot of collectors.

We collect the toys because it happens to be something we enjoy doing as an activity, from finding, to restoration to displaying on a shelf and looking at and being impressed by each others’ collections.

We share items among each other and trade, and help restore, and share tips on preservation and fixing problems. Some of my collector friends have kids who like playing with the toys themselves. We form friendships based on mutual interests, and its fun to hear each others’ collection adventures and childhood ties with the toyline.

and then someone reblogs it to their kink-specific blog with “dude I could totally masturbate to this.” Even after we have asked nicely “please don’t”

Also I’m sorry if this annoys anyone. I know kinks and stuff are a difficult topic on the internet as a whole, let alone tumblr. And I stand by the opinion that having a kink is fine if it doesn’t hurt anyone. But there is a level of selfish disregard here, and that is the main problem. It’s not all about the nature of sex, but more the active and decided action to ignore the OP’s feelings and requests and just do whatever you want. Until you start feeling like nothing but a ‘gold mine’ for kink blogs. And then you don’t even want to do it any more in the end.

Please help me guys! I’m talking about difficult subjects and I might be wording it wrong! I don’t want to insult anyone by accident ^^; I’m just trying to explain!