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muffindaddystyles · 3 years ago

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YOU DO MR. CHEWY

A/N: Here's my little participation to @oh-honey-styles FIC SLAM 2. Just a floofy blurb of Harry and bubba, dadrry in particular, reblog as much as you can —- loads of love!!

Summary: Where bubs losts her first ever pet and Harry's there for the heartbreak.

Tip-tap, tip-tap, tip-tap the water runs inside the bathroom, teetering of crickets hidden somewhere in the flower beds hues with the buzz of air conditioner. It prickles goosebumps on their skin every other second and the cool sheet rustles from their commotion.

Harry has his calf sneaked out from under the sheets because his lovie’s warmth drowns him in the wee of night, he’s all snuggled up into her, nose tucked between her soft tits and their palms inclined.

There’s peace. Nope. Scratch that. There’s serenity his lovie likes to describe it that way –-- her profound vocabulary full of beautiful words.

But, married couples aren’t that lucky are they?

Ominous thuds prattles in the result of hasty feetsies hitting the hardcore floor in rush accompanied by panicked shrieks. Everything creaks stirring him in his sleepy state.

It’s like Harry’s senses heightened incredibly from past one year –- it’s god gifted, truly.

He feels like he got another pair of eyes behind his head too, four hands and many many feet.

A tantrum nearing? He’s on alert and saving themselves from the assault.

A painful fall? ‐--- well what his big hands are for?

Rice puree everywhere.....sighs he's very good at moping and cleansing.

This time though he chooses to ignore whatever his toddler is up to, snores lightly into his wife’s neck and hugs himself into his darling.

He just can’t --- he really really can’t.

Not after their sexy time. When he fucked her face first into mattress till she was crying and begging mess for him.

They’re just heaps of wool piled on top of eachother from their last night rough activities.

He groans tiredly counting under his breath, the moment his baby barges in and raids their sleepy states as he hears her scream a loud, “Pupssss!!!” from outside and far.

Bab picked it from her mommy. Since, Y/N calls Harry puppy all the time. His little bun all could babble was, “pups.” thinking his name's that.

Harry wasn’t dissapointed at all when she blinked up at him with big innocent dove eyes, thick lashes resting on her peachy cheeks, mouth guppy and she drived into fits of squeals when Harry picked her up in air -- blowing raspberries at her tummy.

“Yeah, bubba, pups...say it one mor’ time —--” Next thing Y/N found him melted into a puddle of floss.

Harry was over the moon!

No! He galloped from one star to another and never landed back on planet earth, he was that happy -– if you ask so.

He jerks up. Then flumps backs. Jerks up again as the door banged against the wall revealing his dishelved bab, her plum cheeks soaky with tears, eyes swollen, button blushed nose runny, lips trembly, her goldenish hickory curls bouncing atop of her head like springs dancing in different directions. The tabs of her nappy loose on her hips and her gait wobbly,

Indicating, she just woke up to find out the disaster.

he’s thankful to heavens above that he had enough muscles last night to cover his bum with clads.

Harry let a gag emit waking Y/N up and she knuckles the sleepiness away, gasping at the sight of her hamster pet in her grasp.

“Oh me sweet bunny, c'mere.” Harry mumbles for his bub. Sitting up. His tummy rolling, his shoulders slumpy and his curls akin to her daughter dropping infront of his puffy eyes.

Bub climbs up the huge bed pressing her smol feet into mattress for the right footing and with the help of her mother and Harry tries not to squeak when she put her ---- unconscious hamster on the sheet as if it’s the most fragile thing in the world.

Precious little thing.

Though, her world is small. It starts from her colourful cubby and ends at her, “pups.” “mama.” And her pet hamster “Mr. Chewy.”

Harry slides his palm under her bum – scoops her up and cradles her into his lap, rubbing his hand in soothing circles at her back to calm his frenzied baby down and to stop her from crying and turning herself into a blueberry.

“What happened little bun? Hmm? Don’t like when ye' cry, button.” He tries not to wince, lips twitching into grimace and expressions freaking out as the rotten leg of Mr. Chewy touches his chest.

Harry’s a menace. He very well knows what happened --- he just rubbed salt on his bub's very first wound.

She cries without a breather, raising her injured hamster in air like Simba from Lion King.

“He..-‐ chew—..” Hiccups, “Pups c-..he —-" Sniffles, “Mr chew-y..---y.” Harry’s heartbreaks when she sobs sadly and he pushes her sweaty curls back, kissing her temple humming to let her know he’s listening.

“...he a—- ate, h-his arm.” She’s full on sobbing now.

She’s learning body parts and maybe a tad progressing?

Harry wastes first few seconds pondering in confusion is it arms? Or legs? If not arm then why not leg? Leg why not arm .... fuck it. Let it be limbs of minikin hamster.

He glances back at his wife crying in a silent plead for his wife to guide him for a comeback, but she clutches the sheet over her eyes grossed out and hides away, “don’t look at me like that!” so Harry grumps -- turns his attention down towards his soft hearted bun.

He stammers to tell her truth in less painful way to upset his baby more, “Bunny ... erm' —- I think so...,” He wheezes, “–- what I think that is ..... umm mr. chewy is very sleepy?” He's very unsure how to tell her that her loving pet found his own leg very yummy and dragged himself to his own death.

How he's gonna tell her that she has a funeral soon to attend.

He squawks when she shoves Mr. Chewy to his chin shaking her head vigorously and wails, “No! Pups do!!” Harry doubles back in confusion frowns asking her in his sweetest voice.

“Do what, buns?”

Her answer leaves him flabbergasted and her mommy laughing at the top of lungs, so hard, she tumbles down the bed.

“Do Mr. Chewy!” If anything else didn’t make Harry gag loudly and dramatically this sure did as he glares Y/N who's cooking up the dirty scenario in her head.

He sighs wetly, rocking her on his thigh and takes Mr. Chewy in his hands with his internal organs knocking into eachother and screaming, “Can’t do much baby ... he’s not anymore with us, came last night to me and said he doesn’t like with us anymore.” He shrugs staring funnily at the hamster whose leg is dangling from Harry’s palm and his lil tongue poking out like in cartoons.

“Noooo, you do mr. chewy, pups.” She sniffles dolefully.

He wipes her fat tears away as she looks up at him with an angry pout whispering, “Stop him.” Don’t worry I’m her personal translator. All she’s trying to say that,

She’s minutes away from holding a grudge with her daddy as to why he didn’t stop Mr. Chewy from leaving last night.

“Bub. Mr. Chewy would be sad watching you cry ... how bout we make him a bed in our garden so he could sleep peacefully from now on?” Y/N tries to reason .. glancing up at her husband who's really about to pass out.

After so much consolation from both of her parents and sweet talk of her pups, bubby agrees grappling at Harry’s shoulders.

He whisper yells at his wife who’s giggling and giggling, doing nothing but giggling her ass off, “You’re such a little shit!” She seems unfazed though and pinches the dimple at his back making him more grumpy.

The dramatics are real intense as Harry lays Mr. Chewy into the dig with his bunny standing beside him with her squaby hand put on his squatted knee, gazing with teary eyes and wobbly bottom lip.

He even wrote a devoted Mr. Chewy on a small brick with a sharpie she fetched him from her play books and plants it at Mr. Chewy's grave.

Y/N smiles with warm chest watching them from the window.

“Bye-bye Mr. Chewy ......” Harry holds back from cooing awfully in love with her when she whimpers waving and bidding good-bye to her pet.

He sits her on his hip and walks them inside as she cries softly into his neck. Bunches onto sofa comfortably and squeezes her closer to his heart, bringing her strawberry smelling head under his chin and murmurs sweetly to her while Y/N makes them scrambled eggs and French-toasts they ever like so much.

Like daddy, like daughter.

“Shhhh. Bubba. Mr. Chewy's in hamster heaven now and very happy.” He pecks her hairline --- trails it down her cushiony skin and keeps her cocooned in his arms, “G'na fill ye tummy with mummy’s french toast ‘n take a nap after that, yeh sweet tooth?” He strokes the apple of her cheeks tenderly as she knuckles at her eyes exhausted from crying so much.

“Heyy, now sleepy button ... c'mon don’t want ya napping all empty belly and hungry.” He pokes her milky dimples deeper than his's when her head lolls against his chest and her bubbly face squished, with drool making a map on his shirt.

He doesn’t budge even a little to not to wake his bubby when Y/N comes back holding the plates and he pecks her lips, thanks her and takes it from her.

“Can't ‘ave her another pet, my bunny gets too emotionally attached to anyone and anythin' --- not good for her.” He pouts gazing down at her softly and sadly.

Y/N gives a squeeze to his shoulder and teases him to lighten up the mood. She moans with belly ache cackles, “dooo Mr. Chewy Harry!” When he tries to push himself away from her she giggles grabbing him from neck and kisses his lips grinning against them.

“You’re never going to let that, go, are you?” He muses astonishingly and bites on her lower lip making her gasp and quip.

“Nope.” He just sighs comically, slip shutting his eyes with a benevolent grin at his lovie's silliness and his chest puffs larger in size.

He'd have gone nuts until now without her and he's very glad that she's the back of his hand, an invisible support and his strength.

MASTERLIST

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let-me-write-shit · 4 years ago

Note

can you write a little something about Harry and reader finding out the gender of their baby after a long time of trying?

Ok, first of all, I’m SOOO sorry for taking so long to write this while I finished up my story. When I got this request, I got super emotional because this happened with me and my husband. So the story I wrote is our actual story. I hope you like it.

Word Count: 2,950

Requests are OPEN! If you have a request for a blurb, oneshot, imagine, whatever, Send me a message HERE!!!

And don’t forget to let me know what you think! Enjoy.

CLICK HERE TO READ OTHER COMPLETED STORIES

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Little Miracle

It had been two years. Two long and frustrating years. When Harry and Y/N first started talking about trying to get pregnant, it was exciting. They had been married for about three years at that point and Harry had finally started to slow down in his career a bit to focus a little more attention on his wife with the prospect of starting a family. But things hadn’t gone to plan. They didn’t expect to get pregnant on the first try. Maybe not even the second. But by month three, they started to get discouraged. Maybe their timing was off. Y/N’s period was irregular, after all, and their ideal of ‘letting it happen when it happens’ was starting to become easier said than done. So, Y/N started taking ovulation tests.

She took a text every single day for a week, and all of the tests came back negative. Not a big deal, there’s only three days of ovulation in a month. She continued to take them. The third week, nothing. Maybe her ovulation days were spread out further apart since her period was so irregular? By week five, Y/N began to worry, but she hadn’t lost hope, yet. She visited her OB/GYN who encouraged her to keep trying, try to stress less, and eat healthier. So she did. She started exercising, changing her diet, taking more vitamins, even starting couples yoga with Harry, doing everything within her power to live a better lifestyle. Nothing worked.

With every negative ovulation and pregnancy test they got, Y/N spirits dwindled. Harry began picking up more work, doing anything he could to distract himself from the ranges of emotions that were running through him. Of course, he wanted to have a baby with Y/N. She was the love of his life and to be able to bring a piece of both of them in this world would be the biggest blessing he could have imagined. But seeing the pain and heartache in Y/N’s eyes each day after another negative test felt like a stab in his chest.

He tried to do little things to take her mind off of it. Spontaneous dates, trips to the spa, exotic getaways, concerts, you name it. But when they got home at the end of the day, passing by the empty room they had always talked about one day making into a nursery, he saw the flicker of hope in her eyes die. It was even harder whenever tabloids speculated her pregnancy or friends and family asked when they would have a baby. They always played it off, simply saying ‘it’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen’, but the rage he felt whenever someone brought it up was something awful. It took everything in him not to lunge at the person joking about it. If only they knew, maybe they wouldn’t be so insensitive.

After a year and a half of trying, they decided to bite the bullet and meet with a fertility specialist to see what was going on. Harry had just finished a tour and they thought now was the perfect time to get serious again. Dozens of tests were done between bloodwork, urine screenings, semen samples, and finally an ultrasound. That’s when they were given the news. Y/N had a pretty severe case of PCOS. It was the cause of her irregular periods and the reason why it had been so difficult for her to conceive naturally.

The doctor had sat them down in a room to discuss what this meant. According to him, the chances of Y/N ever conceiving naturally, without medical intervention, were slim to none. And even though there were several medical and procedural routes they could go, the chances of a baby sticking, though not impossible, did not look to be in their favor. The look on Y/N’s face was enough to kill.

After the doctor laid out all of their options, he gave them some space to digest, and as soon as he left the room, Y/N collapsed into Harry’s arms. They had given up hope. What was the point in trying? Why go through all the pain and discomfort of medications and procedures for the high probability that it’d end in miscarriage? When they got home, they began discussing their options. There was always surrogacy and adoption. But the more they talked about it, the more frustrated Y/N got. She tossed all of her unused ovulation and pregnancy tests in a drawer under her bathroom sink and slammed it shut.

“Maybe we can get a second opinion about your PCOS,” Harry suggested, following her into their bedroom.

Y/N shook her head, shrugging her shoulders, and curling up on her bed, tired from all of the crying, “Maybe the universe is telling us we shouldn’t be parents. Maybe it’s just not time yet.”

Harry pouted, curling up with her, “Love, we’re going to have a baby. It may not have your eyes or my dimples, but we’ll have a family someday.”

Months had passed and Y/N continued to take her ovulation tests out of the habit of taking them every day for nearly two years, and every day they would still come up negative. It was Father’s Day, and after a long day celebrating with Y/N’s dad, the couple came home and got ready for bed. Y/N opened a drawer to her bathroom sink to get some floss and to take her daily ovulation test, setting it on the vanity counter before finishing her business, and as she washed her hands, she noticed the faintest extra line imaginable.

Laughing, she threw it in the trash, almost certain that it was either a false positive or a trick of the light. Still, with over four hundred negative ovulation tests under her belt, it was a bit strange. She didn’t mention anything to Harry, afraid he would think she was crazy. The number of times she had convinced herself she was pregnant because of a ‘feeling’ was starting to become ridiculous. But, what’s the harm in trying? Harry looked especially hot today with his hair extra floppy and the perfect amount of stubble on his chin. All it took was her dropping her dressing gown to get him in the mood.

But when the next day rolled around and her ovulation test was negative, she figured the previous night was just a dud. Typical. She had completely forgotten about it, her mind distracted by the fact that Harry had to leave for a few weeks to work on a new album, meeting with producers and mixers, songwriters, and masters in LA. Y/N stayed in their London home, spending time with his family and meeting up with friends.

The day Harry was supposed to return, she decided to get all dolled up for him. It had been a while since she had gone all out, and she wanted to surprise him. First thing’s first, she needed a shower. She stripped out of her clothes, tossing them in the hamper, and decided to use the bathroom real quick before she got in. The sink drawer was slightly ajar and she saw the outline of the unused pregnancy tests she never got the chance to take. She frowned, pulling it out of the drawer, all of the lost hopes and dreams fluttering away with this one pregnancy test. She should get rid of them. She sat on the toilet in thought for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. What’s one more test, for old time sake?

She held the test under her stream for a few seconds and shook it dry before tossing it to the ground, barely out of sight, knowing that the test would be negative like it always was. Besides, she had no symptoms of being pregnant. She felt fine. So, she finished her business and washed her hands. But just as she was about to get in the shower, she happened to look down and saw it. It was faint. Very faint. But it was there. Two blue lines.

Fully naked and one foot wet, she rushed over and grabbed it off the floor, pulling it to her face and holding it up to the light to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. But no matter how she turned it, she couldn’t unsee the two lines.

“Nope. It’s just a false positive,” she told herself before tossing it on the counter and getting in the shower.

But she could barely focus. Her mind kept wandering back to the test. Was it possible? She remembered the ovulation test she had taken on Father’s Day. Maybe she had ovulated. Maybe she was pregnant. No. Not possible. But….maybe?

It was a good thing she drank so much water that morning because when she got out of the shower, she had to pee again. This time, she made sure to get a cup to pee in, wanting to try multiple tests, just in case. She dipped three into the cup and set them on the counter, leaving to get dressed before returning. She took a deep breath, trying not to get her hopes up, before looking down. And her heart began to race. All three, barely visible, had two lines. Were they too faint? Did that mean she wasn’t pregnant?

So, to be sure, she took out the big guns. An electric pregnancy test. She needed to see the words. It wouldn’t be clear until she got a definitive answer. Pregnant or Not Pregnant. So she dipped it in and saw the little hourglass blink, and watched as the bar got closer and closer to completion. It took a moment to register, but when she saw it, an audible gasp escaped her as she clapped her hands over her mouth and stepped back.

Pregnant

“Oh my god!” she cried, tears rolling down her face in streams.

She picked it up, put it down, and picked it back up again to make sure she was reading it right. Pregnant.

Y/N had always imagined telling Harry in a cute, fun way. Putting a bun in the oven, or with a game of Pictionary. Maybe even a little onesie. But all of that went out the window. He was going to be home any minute and there was no way she could keep this to herself long enough to figure out how to tell them. It was something they had been waiting on for two years. She wouldn’t wait another second.

She gathered all of the tests she had taken, capped them so nothing could be exposed to the pee, and took them down to the dining room table, scattering them around and staring at them. Her leg shook, anxious for her husband’s arrival, and she bit her fingernails, still in shock that this was even happening. The beeping of the motion sensor went off, signaling that the front door had been opened and Harry’s voice rang through the house.

“Y/N?! I’m home! Where are you?!”

She tried to shout, but she couldn’t find her voice. The butterflies flapped around in her stomach like crazy and she felt like she could vomit from the nerves. It only took seconds for him to find her, though. He wore sweats and his hair looked almost greasy from his long flight home, a smile had stretched across his face at the sight of her. But it quickly turned into confusion when he neared.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking at the objects scattering the table as he got closer.

He picked one up to examine and upon seeing what it was, his eyes widened, gasping, “What? No way?” he put the test that he had been holding down and quickly grabbed another one, and another, and another, repeating, “Is that a line? Y/N, is that a line?” before finally grabbing hold of the electric test that read ‘Pregnant’. He gripped it tight, finally looking up at his wife, tears rimming his eyes, “You’re pregnant? We’re going to be parents?”

Y/N grinned, her eyes beginning to water, and nodded, “We’re going to be parents.”

Harry lost it, unable to control his emotions anymore. Two years of pent up sadness had blown out of him and he bawled, collapsing into Y/N’s arms and squeezing her tightly, blubbering, “I’m going to be a dad.”

They waited a while before telling anyone, terrified of their fertility doctor’s prediction that their baby would most likely not stick. But after three months of regular appointment and growth checkups, all of which looked great, they felt comfortable enough to tell their immediate family and very close friends, all of whom were beyond thrilled for the couple.

It was easy to hide her pregnancy for a while. She had no symptoms, she hardly showed, and it was at a time where Y/N and Harry hardly left their house anyway, so most people hadn’t suspected anything. They had managed to get halfway through the pregnancy without any leaks, and finally, at their twenty-week checkup, they would be finding out whether they were having a boy or girl.

They were especially nervous because, although they had been tossing names in the air for months now and had a boy’s name picked out almost right away, they hadn’t been able to agree on a girl name quite yet, and Y/N was almost certain they were having a girl, though Harry had been adamant that it was a boy.

“I don’t care, either way. I just want to know what kind of laugh they’ll have,” Harry said as the ultrasound technician moved the wand around his wife’s belly, taking measurements of all of the baby’s extremities and organs. “Like, will it have that cute high-pitched baby laugh? Or will it have one of those laughs that sounds like demonic possession, you know? I just want to be prepared for what I might hear in the middle of the night.”

Y/N laughed, rolling her eyes, “I hope they have a demonic laugh. Imagine how much more fun Halloween would be? And everyone would be too creeped out by their laughing to want to stay too long. Imagine all of the awkward or boring situations we could get out of because of it.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised, “Well, when you put it like that…”

The nurse giggled at their conversation and turned to face them, “Okay, are we ready to find out the gender?”

“Yes,” they grinned, squeezing each other’s hands tighter.

“Alright, let’s see if baby’s cooperating,” sang the technician, sliding the wand down further and pressing it harder into her skin. They saw their baby’s legs moving around wildly as she tried to get a better look in between their legs, digging the wand in harder. And that’s when they saw it. They shared a look with each other, mouths agape, as the nurse smiled, “It’s a boy.”

Y/N laughed, turning to face her husband, expecting him to start gloating. But she saw the reflection of light hit the water that started to collect at his lash line and a single tear rolled down his cheek, his chin quivering and sniffling as he quickly wiped it away.

“We’re having a boy,” he choked, catching his breath and pressing his lips to her forehead, his hand squeezing hers even harder now. The nurse grinned at his display of emotion as Harry whispered into her ear, “Paxton Robin Styles.”

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Taglist: @odetostep

#Harry Styles #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #dad harry styles #dad #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fiction #harry x reader

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wayward-dreamer · 4 years ago

Text

Life’s Lessons - Part 3

Title: Life’s Lessons - A Lesson in Faking It

Pairing: Mechanic!Dean x Female!Teacher!Reader (eventual)

Other Pairings: Dean x Lisa

Word Count: 5,342 (song lyrics in italics).

Part Summary: Monday morning is off to a bad start as Y/N’s car refuses to start, but she receives some help from Dean. As an IOU when he refuses to let her pay full price for the car service, Y/N invites him dinner. Realizing what it could imply, she backtracks and invites Lisa, too.

Warnings: Swearing, some angst, Lisa being aloof, social insecurities, alcohol consumption to deal with nerves.

Music: Out on the Tiles by Led Zeppelin (Dean and Y/N car scene), Back in Black by AC/DC (playing in the garage during Dean and Y/N garage scene).

Life’s Lessons Spotify Playlist

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read so far, it’s been so great to hear your thoughts! Any thoughts, theories and feedback you have is always welcome, so don’t be shy to comment! It’s greatly appreciated! Happy reading and enjoy! :)

Dividers by the wonderful @firefly-graphics! Check her out for all your AU needs!!!

Life’s Lessons Masterlist

Monday arrived too quickly for Y/N to be happy about it.

She had managed to get some revisions done on her lesson plans, so she was prepared for her classes in terms of content. She just hoped for the strength to deal with the kids this week. She really hoped this week would be better than her first.

She woke up as soon as her alarm went off and started getting ready. After her shower, she dried her hair and got dressed into a purple A-line dress, with a collared neckline. She wore her black, pointed toe shoes, that had a short heel, the most sensible heels for school. After applying a little bit of make-up, she fixed her hair and pinned it into a bun. Seeing that she had some time before she left, she made herself a quick breakfast, of yoghurt and fruit and a piece of toast with peanut butter.

Breakfast was a lot different at the Winchester/Braeden household.

Dean was at the stove, working on scrambling eggs. Ben placed plates on the kitchen counter, the bacon already crispy and done, on the counter already. As Dean turned to put the eggs on the counter, he lifted his arms up, as Lisa ducked underneath to get past him. She took out one ceramic mug and a travel mug, filling them both with coffee.

“I’ve got soccer try-outs after school, so I won’t be done until 5” Ben said, pouring himself some orange juice.

“I’ve got a meeting today and it might run late, so can you get him?” Lisa asked, putting Dean’s travel mug in front of him.

Dean took out some eggs on Ben’s plate. “Yeah, I’ll come get ya.”

“Thanks” she mumbled, fixing her own plate of breakfast.

Dean ignored her lacklustre response, as he practically shovelled food into his mouth. He was going to be late if they didn’t leave now.

“And then drop me off at my science partner’s house. We’re working on a project together” Ben explained.

“Sure” Dean nodded, as he ate.

“They’re going to bring you back home, right?” Lisa asked.

Ben nodded but continued eating.

Dean looked between them, practically inhaling breakfast. “Alright” he mumbled around the last bite of food in his mouth. “You ready?”

“Yeah” Ben replied, gulping his juice down.

Dean put his plate in the sink, followed by Ben’s as he grabbed his coffee. “Bye.” He leaned over and kissed Lisa’s head, a habit that he hadn’t dropped even if it didn’t mean what it used to, before walking to the door.

“Bye mom!” Ben called out.

“Have a great day!” she called back before Dean closed the door.

“Fucking start, you piece of shit!” Y/N yelled, as she turned the key to her car in the ignition. All she got back was a grinding sound, and nothing else. It would stutter and die down but pick up again every time she turned the key.

“Damn it!” she slammed her hands on the wheel as she sat back, shaking her head.

This is what she got for driving all the way to Kansas in this piece of crap car, which might as well have been held together by duct tape and dental floss. She got out of the car with her phone, trying to look up a number for a mechanic.

Dean walked over to the Impala and was about to get in when he heard an awful sound coming from across the street. He looked up to see Y/N’s car still in her driveway, which was the source of the noise. He watched as she got out, a frustrated look on her face.

“Hey” he called out.

Y/N looked up, smiling tentatively. That’s not really the mechanic she wanted. Well she did, but she shouldn’t.

“Get in the car” he said to Ben, as he walked across the street to her.

“That doesn’t sound good” he told her as he reached her.

She shook her head, as she frowned. “Yeah, I’m going to be epically late by the time someone shows up.”

“Okay, there’s no freaking way you’re calling someone else, I’ll give you a ride to school and tow this to the shop later” he explained.

“What?” she asked, shocked that he offered without hesitation. “No, Dean, it’s really okay-”

“No, no, you’re not talking me out of this. I’m taking Ben to school; it just makes sense” he gave her a pointed look, letting her know he wasn’t backing down.

“Dean, I really can’t. With Ben… it’ll be really awkward, I’m his teacher” she protested.

“Look, I’ll drop you guys off around back, no one’s gonna see you. Okay?” he insisted.

She was going to be late if she didn’t take the offer.

“Okay” she sighed, defeated but relieved. “Thanks.”

Dean smirked. “No problem, sweetheart. Come on.”

They walked over to the Impala and Y/N admired it as they got closer. She had obviously seen it a few times from across the street, but she was excited to take a ride in it. She loved the look of classic cars because of her dad, and she felt a heaviness in her heart as she thought about him, so far away back home.

“She’s beautiful” she said, as she ran her hand over the smooth finish. The sleek black shone in the sun, showing her that Dean loved his car immensely.

“Yeah, she is” he agreed, grinning.

Ben smiled at her nervously as she got into the car. Y/N just smiled, feeling slightly awkward that she was in a car with one of her students, and his surrogate dad. She just had to avoid conversation about school and hopefully everything would be okay.

They were on the main road to school pretty quickly, the silence in the car too much for Dean to bear. He leaned forward and switched on the music player, his Zeppelin tape coming to life through the speakers. Y/N smiled and bopped her head along to Out on The Tiles. Dean looked at her from the corner of his eye and smirked at her reaction to his music. Lisa didn’t really like listening to his music.

“I’m gonna go back and get your car later” he said, lowering the music slightly. “I’ll take a look at it.”

“I really can’t thank you enough, Dean” she smiled.

“Hey, it’s my job” he shrugged, as he looked out at the road. “Swing by the shop after work and we can sort everything else out.”

“Sounds good” she nodded.

Another silence fell between them, the music the only thing they heard but the lyrics to the song caused an air of awkwardness to fill the car.

All I need from you is all your love All you got to give to me is all your love All I need from you is all your love All you got to give to me is all your love Oh yeah, oh yeah Oh yeah, oh yeah

“So…” Dean trailed off, trying to find something to say. “You uh… you into Zeppelin?”

“Yeah!” she exclaimed. “Grew up on this and pretty much all classic rock, thanks to my dad. I got all his records and his record player when I moved out here. Said he wanted me to take a piece of home with me.”

Dean let out a whistle as he glanced at her. “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah” she sighed, looking out the window. “I started listening to this stuff because of my dad, too” he told her. “Hell, I got a lot from him, the car too.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Your dad gave up a mint condition Impala?”

Dean raised his eyebrows as he looked at her. “You know this is an Impala?”

“Yeah” she shrugged like it was no big deal. “I went to a car show once with dad. I saw one there and knew it was the same once I saw yours.”

Dean, however, thought it was a very big deal. Damn it, just one more thing to like about her he shook his head, getting rid of other things he was thinking of.

“Well… it’s still in the family, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice” he laughed.

“Still… he must really love you to just give it you” she said, turning to him.

Dean looked at her and saw the small smile on her face. As he thought about it, he knew that she was right. He and his dad had their issues sometimes, but there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. He smiled back at her and then looked at the road. He knew he had to get this conversation back to the safe zone before they arrived at school.

“So, you’re into cars?” he asked, casually.

She laughed, shaking her head. “Only for the look of them. I have no idea about them otherwise.”

Dean shook his head, with a smile on his face. She had a great laugh and he suddenly felt the need to hear it as much as he could.

“Ben’s into cars and this music too. Right, Ben?” he asked the kid sitting in the backseat.

“Yeah” Ben mumbled.

“Lisa not so much though” Dean mentioned, but he realized that he only did that so that it didn’t seem like he had forgotten her about for a second. It scared him how drawn he was to Y/N.

A few moments later, Dean pulled up at the back of the school. They could see the main drop-off area from there, as kids yelled goodbyes to their parents and hurried in.

Dean looked up at the rear-view mirror, seeing Ben gather his things. “See you at 5, kid.”

“Yeah. Bye Dean” he mumbled, as he opened the door and shut it, the hinges squeaking.

Dean watched Ben walk towards the entrance, then turned to Y/N.

“Thanks for the ride, Dean” she said, gathering her bags. She handed her car keys to him, for later.

“No problem” he smirked, as he leaned back, one arm outstretched, his wrist leaning on the steering wheel.

Y/N tried not to sigh noticeably, as she was flustered at the sight of him. Did he know what he was doing to her? He had to know, right?

“I should go” she laughed, trying to hide her nervousness.

“Wait” he said, as he pulled out his phone. “Put your number in and I’ll text you when I’ve picked up your car.”

“Sure” she said, quietly.

She was a little nervous about him having her number. Would Lisa think something of it? It was just two people exchanging numbers, that’s all. Plus, it was about her car anyway. She quickly typed in her digits and name and handed his phone back to him.

Great. I’ll see you later” he smirked, trying not to sound excited at seeing her again.

“Yeah, see you there” she replied, as she quickly got out of the car and walked towards the entrance.

Dean watched Y/N walk away, appreciating the way her hips swayed as she walked. He told himself it was harmless to look. It’s not like he was going to do anything about it. He quickly pulled away from the curb, the engine roaring as he drove to the garage.

Later that day, just after lunch, Dean left the garage with Benny in charge until he got back. He drove back to his street and stopped in front of Y/N’s driveway with the tow truck. He got out of the truck and walked over to her car, popping the hood open. Given the sound he could hear that morning when she attempted to turn the car on, it was clearly the starter and the flywheel that weren’t cooperating with each other. He opened the driver’s side door and put the key in the ignition. When he turned it, he heard the same sound, which confirmed what he thought. The grinding noise also seemed to die down every quickly, which meant the battery was weak, too. Hopefully there was enough in there to get the car into neutral for a tow.

He spent a few minutes trying to get it to start without harming the flywheel, which already looked to have some broken teeth. He got out of the car and walked over to the tow truck, driving it up the driveway. He slid the panels under the back wheels, and then got out to put Y/N’s car in neutral. Once everything was secure, he got into the tow truck and drove back to the garage.

As he drove, his mind wondered to Y/N. The conversation he had with her that morning was so easy, and they had just met last week. It wasn’t that easy with Lisa. Having been with Lisa for 3 years now, shouldn’t they have their easy moments, too? The first year had been great. The second was a little rocky, with its fair share of arguments and apologies. Soon after, as he quickly started to realize the kind of woman Lisa was, he knew the charade was over. She was a great mom to Ben; it was everything else that was a problem. The last year had been filled with distant behavior and more arguing, a lot arguing. To the point of yelling and not being able to hear what the other person wanted. He also doubted whether she told him the truth about something that was bothering him, but he didn’t dwell on that.

If they weren’t fighting, it was mostly quiet as they’d ignore each other or pretend to be the happy couple when people came over. They had tried to fix things, but it had pretty much been useless for about nine months straight now. Maybe things would be different with Y/N…

Dean shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. Just because things were rocky with Lisa didn’t mean he could check out on her and Ben. He still cared about them and didn’t want to do anything to hurt them.

He arrived at the garage and decided to get his mind off things by seeing what to do about the car. Work was always a good distraction from what was going on at home, and it would have to be a distraction from thinking about Y/N.

Y/N sat in the staff room, munching on her salad. It was a slow day, surprisingly, and so she found herself just scrolling through social media and news articles. She was on top of her work for school, so it was nice to take it easy for one lunch. Her phone chimed loudly, showing her she had a message. As she opened it, she smiled down at the screen.

Hey, it’s Dean. Just got back to the garage with your car. Pretty positive I know what’s wrong, but I’ll tell ya when you get here.

She instantly replied back.

Thanks so much for doing this. I really owe you!

His reply came quickly.

You really don’t, sweetheart! That’s what friends do :)

So… we’re friends now? I thought we were just neighbors. She typed back, with a laugh emoji.

You knew I had an Impala. Trust me, we’re friends ;)

She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. She bit her lip trying to keep it at bay, but she just couldn’t.

She and Dean were friends now. Maybe that would help in keeping her crush on him from becoming complicated.

“Thanks for doing this” Y/N said, as she sat in the passenger seat of her friend’s car.

Cas smiled, waving her off. “You’re welcome. I should really see the guys anyway. I haven’t in a while now.”

“I didn’t realize you were friends with Dean” she said, trying to act casual. She was dying inside knowing that they were friends. It was like she couldn’t escape him. Not that she wanted to, even if she should.

“Yeah, since high school” he nodded, as he glanced at her. “We drifted a little when I went to college in California and he stayed here, but we reconnected once I got back. I’m friends with most of the guys who work there.”

“That’s great” she said and looked out the window. Hearing how close he was with his people made her miss her people.

“So, how long have you and Meg been together?” she asked, changing the subject from Dean.

Cas smiled as he thought about his girlfriend. “4 years. I never thought she’d go for me, so I know I’m lucky to have her.”

She smiled sadly, longing to have something that would last more than a year and a half.

“I was telling her about you, and she wants to meet you as soon as possible” Cas laughed.

Y/N joined in and nodded. “I do too.”

Cas pulled up to the garage and Y/N could feel her nerves flutter around like butterflies in her stomach, as she stared up at the sign Winchester’s Auto Repair. Dean had that effect on her, and it was scary to think how quickly she had started to like him. The reception area was closed, so they went in through the side door, after Cas shook the front door and found it locked. She walked into the garage, with Cas behind her, instantly hearing buzzing noises in the corners of the garage. She looked around and tried to spot Dean, but was met with a muscular man, short hair and a beard, wearing a white Henley, smiling at her as he walked over.

“You must be Dean’s neighbor” he said, his Southern accent, mostly likely Louisiana, thick and raspy. His blue eyes shined as bright as his smile. “I’m Benny.”

“Y/N” she smiled in return.

“Hey brother” he said to Cas, nodding at his friend with a smile.

He looked at Y/N, the smile never leaving his face. “I’d shake ya hand, but as ya can see” Benny laughed, showing her his greasy hands. “Dean’s just on a call, he’ll be out soon.”

“Okay, great” she said, but just as she did, she saw Dean coming out of the office.

“Hey!” he beamed, as he walked over. “I see you’ve met Benny.” He patted his Cajun friend on the back as he stopped by him.

“Hey man” he said to Cas, as he hugged him. He smiled at Y/N, and she felt as if her heart skipped a beat.

“Your car’s out back. You wanna come with me and we can talk?” he asked her.

“Sure” she replied. She turned to Benny and smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Good to meet ya, cher” he winked at her, causing her face to heat up.

Dean rolled his eyes as he led the way, walking past his friends. “Ignore him” he told Y/N, causing Benny to snicker when Dean was out of ear shot.

Y/N followed behind Dean, as they walked past all the cars inside the shop. They went out to the back, which was a small outdoor workstation, with a few more cars out there. She spotted hers as they walked over.

“Okay, so…” he started as he popped the hood on her car. “The starter wasn’t catching on the flywheel because it had broken teeth, that’s what the grinding noise was. And the noise was sort of dying as well, so the battery’s weak.”

Y/N looked at him blankly, her eyes wide as she tried to understand what he just said. Dean found it extremely cute.

“All I understood was the battery part” she shrugged; her eyebrows furrowed.

He let out a small chuckle. “It’s okay, I forgot that you don’t understand car speak.”

“Guilty” she confessed.

“Don’t worry about it” he reassured her. “Basically, you’re looking at two new parts, which I’m gonna have to put an order in for and uh… it’s gonna cost ya some.”

She sighed heavily, hanging her head. “Great.”

“Hey, it’s all good. I’m gonna do it for half” he told her, with a smile.

Her head snapped up in shock. “No, Dean, I’m not asking you to do that.”

“You don’t have to; I’m doing it anyway. The only thing is, it’s gonna take a week for the parts to get here, so you have to do something about getting places. There’s a good car rental over on-” he explained but she cut him off.

“That I can deal with it, but Dean… I can’t-” she stopped when he gave her a playful glare.

“It’s not up for discussion, Y/N” he stated as closed the hood. He crossed his arms as he leaned against the car. He looked at her and she just couldn’t take it anymore. Damn him and his glorious face for being such a nice guy.

“Dean” she sighed, shaking her head.

“Y/N” he said, smirking.

A silence fell between them as they looked at each other. He wasn’t going to budge on this, so she had to admit defeat.

“Thank you” she said, smiling.

“No problem” he said, still smirking.

Y/N had noticed he said that every time she thanked him so far. It almost like their thing, now. Shit. They had a thing already.

She smiled and leaned into him, wrapping her arms under his as she hugged him. Dean was a little startled but quickly wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He smiled as the smell of her shampoo filled his nose, just as the scent of his deodorant mixed with a hint of motor oil smell filled hers. They both realized that the hug had lasted longer than they expected it to, and quickly pulled away from each other.

“Alright” she moved a few steps away from him, pushing her hair back, awkwardly. “I better head home.”

Dean scratched the back of his head, trying not to think about that hug. “Yeah, I gotta finish up and pick up Ben” he moved off the car and walked her back out. It was quieter in the garage now, and Y/N could hear Back in Black playing from the little speakers in the corners of the garage.

She looked around the room, trying to decide whether she should ask him what she wanted to, before looking back at him.

“Hey, if you’re not doing anything tonight… you want to come over for an early dinner? It’s a school night, I know but I can at least pay you back in food” she asked.

Dean looked at her but didn’t say anything. Y/N realized how that must’ve sounded and immediately back tracked.

“Oh, I mean you and Lisa. Both of you. Not just you, both of you” she rambled.

Dean laughed and patted her arm. “It’s okay, Y/N. Uh, yeah. I mean, I’ll run it by her, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Is that allowed though?”

She knew what he was asking and nodded. “As long as we don’t talk about Ben or any of my other students, it’s fine. I mean, this is a small town. Who else are we supposed to socialize with?”

“Well, he’s going to be over at a friend’s anyway, working on a project. So, coming over to yours will be better than being at home. It uh… gets quiet when he’s not around” he told her, but quickly realized how much he revealed.

Y/N realized what he meant but didn’t say anything. “So, I’ll see you both tonight.”

“Sure thing” he nodded.

Y/N smiled and walked away. Cas insisted on taking her home, but she told him she’d be fine to walk. It wasn’t that far. Dean watched as she said goodbye to both his friends and took her things out of Cas’s car, walking down the road. She had an effect on him, and it was beginning to scare him. He was in a relationship and had made a commitment. He couldn’t just back out because he wasn’t happy. He had to try harder and make more of an effort, and he had tried when they started going through problems, but that hadn’t been enough for Lisa.

Maybe he had to try again.

“I really don’t like this” Lisa lamented, as she fixed her top in front of the mirror.

Dean rolled his eyes, annoyed at her attitude. Ever since he told her that Y/N had invited them for dinner, she had been voicing how unsure she was of going over there.

“Lis, if you’re having a tough time with this then why’d you say yes in the first place?” he asked, as he shrugged on a fresh plaid shirt.

“Because…” she didn’t really have an answer. “I don’t know, I just agreed because she’s new here and she needs people to talk to, clearly.”

“She’s not desperate, Lisa” Dean turned to glare at her. “You’re talking about her like she doesn’t know how to make friends. Plus, she literally just got here.”

“I didn’t mean it like that” she corrected herself.

“Well, that’s sure as hell what it sounded like” he clipped back. “Not everyone has to be out every damn weekend to prove they have a social life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, frowning.

“Nothing” he mumbled. “Let’s just go.”

Dean turned and walked out of the bedroom, picking up his jacket along the way. He waited for Lisa to pick up her bag, before he walked out of the house, with her locking the door behind them.

Y/N leaned against the kitchen counter, a glass of wine in front of her. She never drank on a school night, but she really needed at least a glass before her company for the evening arrived. She was nervous to have Dean and Lisa over to her house, mostly because of Dean. She was really crushing on him and she had to hope that she could stop herself from looking over at him in a way that would make it obvious how she felt. At least with Lisa there she could control herself. Fake it till you make it, Y/N she thought to herself as she took a big gulp of wine.

When she got home, she had made chicken alfredo for dinner, something that she knew how to whip up quickly.

Y/N jumped out of her skin and her thoughts, as the doorbell sounded. She smoothed her hands down her jeans and fixed her plaid shirt as walked to the door, opening it. She smiled as she saw Dean, trying not to linger on him as he smiled back at her.

“Hey guys, come on in” she said as she looked at Lisa.

She stood aside and let them in, closing the door.

“Wow, looks a lot different without all the boxes” Dean joked, as he walked into the living room.

“Wait…” Lisa stopped next to him, a look of confusion on her face. “You’ve been over before?”

Y/N sensed that Dean didn’t tell her about that and stepped in. Dean didn’t need to be interrogated for something small. “Oh, he just helped me on the first day here, with some of the furniture.”

Lisa nodded. Luckily, she let it go, but still walked past Dean with a glare.

“So, can I get you guys anything? I’ve got beer, wine, iced tea…” Y/N listed but Lisa shook her head.

“I’m fine, thanks” she said, simply.

“Dean… beer?” she asked, with a small smile.

“Sure, thanks, Y/N” he replied, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Well, dinner’s actually ready so we can sit down. I’ll bring your beer over” she said, walking into the kitchen.

Dean and Lisa sat down at the table, next to each other. Y/N took a beer out of the fridge and brought it over to the table, setting it next to Dean’s plate. She sat down across from him and lifted the lid off the dish on the table.

Dean whistled, a dreamy look in his eyes. “That smells amazing, Y/N.”

“Thanks” she laughed. “Let’s hope it tastes good.”

They all served themselves and dug in, and surprisingly, Lisa was the first complement her.

“This is really great, Y/N” she said, after a mouthful.

“Thanks, Lisa” Y/N smiled.

“This is amazing” Dean hummed, around a mouthful. Lisa glared at him, but Y/N found it endearing. He noticed Lisa looking at him and swallowed quickly.

“So…” Y/N started. “Dean told me how you guys met. I think it’s amazing that you reconnected, and now here you are” she smiled, as she looked at Lisa.

Lisa looked at her, her lips pursed as she took in what Y/N just said. “Yeah, it’s pretty great, but um… you know it’s private so…”

Y/N nodded, staring down at her food. “Of course. Sorry.”

“It’s fine” Lisa played it off with a small smile.

As Lisa ate, Dean looked up at Y/N with an apologetic look. He mouthed ‘sorry’ to her and she smiled, shaking her head to tell him it was okay.

“So, Lisa. What do you do?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I’m an accountant” Lisa told her. “Not the most interesting of jobs, but hey, at least the money’s good.” She added in, with a small laugh.

The conversation remained simple and somewhat bleak. Mostly questions about work and brief questions about family, that didn’t require a lot of explanation. It was a civil evening; however, which Y/N was really grateful for. When they were finished, Y/N picked up the dish and started clearing up.

“Hey, Y/N. where’s your bathroom?” Lisa asked, as she got up from the table.

“It’s just down the hall on the left” Y/N instructed.

“Thanks” Lisa muttered as she left the room.

When she was out of ear shot, Dean stood up and helped Y/N clear the plates. “I’m sorry, Y/N. She just-”

“Dean, it’s really okay. Please, don’t apologize” Y/N reassured him as she walked into the kitchen.

She carried the plates over to the sink and didn’t realize that Dean was right behind her, ready to pass the glasses over. She turned around and smacked into his chest. She laughed as he held her steady, joining in.

“Sorry” she continued to laugh.

“It’s okay” he laughed as well, as his hands rubbed along her arms.

Y/N looked up at Dean and realized he was looking at her. Their eyes met; their bodies close to each other. Dean looked down at her lips, beautiful and inviting. She looked up at his, perfect and pouty, begging to be kissed. It would’ve been easy to lean down and press his lips against hers, but they couldn’t. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. They heard the bathroom door open down the hall and jumped apart. Dean went back to the table and pushed the chairs in, making it look like nothing had just happened.

Lisa walked back into the room, oblivious to what had happened just moments before. She smiled as Dean stood next to her. She put her arm around him and smiled up at him. Y/N looked away, her heart sinking at the scene in front of her.

“Dinner was really amazing, Y/N. Thank you” Lisa told her. “We should really get going, though. I’m sure Ben’s on his way home, too.”

“Of course,” Y/N walked over to them. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for having us” Dean said, trying not to look directly at her.

Y/N walked them over to the door. “Goodnight.”

They both called out ‘goodnight’ as they walked down the steps of the porch. Dean knew he couldn’t look back at Y/N, so he kept walking, resisting the urge to turn around.

Y/N shut the door and leaned her forehead against the wood.

“Fuck” she whispered, as she closed her eyes and shook her head.

That was too close. She can’t believe she almost did that with Dean. That couldn’t happen again.

She began to realize that maybe her little crush on him was developing, and that was a scary thought that she didn’t want to entertain. She couldn’t.

So, she wouldn’t. It would be easy enough. She just had to avoid him.

That was easier said than done.

-x-

Tags: @flamencodiva @deanwanddamons @winchest09 @katehuntington @akshi8278 @hobby27 @michellethetvaddict @spngirl05 @kyjey @halesandy @440mxs-wife @stoneyggirl @deanswaywardgirl @wonder-cole @that-one-gay-girl @redbarn1995 @marianita195 @babypink224221 @deans-baby-momma @parinarain @thoughts-and-funnies @mandalou29 @castiels-a-winchester @perpetualabsurdity

#Life's Lessons #Dean x Female!Reader #Dean x Female!Reader Series #Dean x Female!Reader Fanfiction #Female!Reader Insert #Mechanic!Dean #Teacher!Reader #Dean x Reader Fanfiction #Dean Winchester Series #Dean Winchester Fanfiction #Dean Winchester Fanfic #Supernatural Fanfiction

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sharpieshepish · 3 years ago

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Rules: Tag nine people you want to get to know better. I was (honored to be) tagged by @spaetschlaefer, I’m so sorry it took me so long to do this

Favorite color(s): all the shades of green!

Currently reading: On Waiting by Harold Schweizer. That and 3 tabs of angst fan fictions

Last song: Coils of Light by Rachell (anyone here plays Dragon’s dogma??)

Last series: MDZS donghua hehehe

Last movie: Shang-Chi, I think?

Sweet, savory, or spicy: hmmm a combination of all of them??? My fav food is pork floss milk buns dipped in hot sauce, so I can’t decide.

Currently working on: my thesis, MDZS What Would Happen If? Zine, a big birthday piece for best boi Wei Ying :)

Tagging: (totally optional if you want to and haven’t already been tagged! ~ also i’m being flaky and chose not to tag 9 people) @wang--xian, @yougetsomekisses, @louzhan, @zelkam, @evuwus

#tag game #personal

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kelyon · 3 years ago

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Golden Rings 23: A Hat

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

Jefferson tries to get help

Read on AO3

Inside a cramped little cottage in a cramped little town in the mountains of a flat planet that flies through space on the back of four elephants on top of a turtle, he is having dinner with his family.

Technically, they are Leo’s family, but technicalities have never troubled him. These people have welcomed him into their lives. This smoke-filled, boisterous cottage is more home to him than the solemn rock quarry where Jefferson spent the first few miserable decades of his life.

The meal is mostly over, but everyone lingers over pudding and conversation and beer. A few of his sisters-in-law have gathered up the dishes and are headed back to the kitchen for the washing up.

His daughter sits on his lap. She is almost too big for the gesture and maybe that’s why she wants it so much. It’s certainly why he lets her do it. How much longer will he have with his little girl? Even if they have escaped from the Queen’s curse, they cannot escape time. There will only be a few more years before Grace is more a woman than a baby. She’ll be as pretty as her mother, and just as smart, winding her way through the hearts of everyone who meets her.

But for now, his girl sits on his lap and listens to her family. Beside him, Leo squeezes his arm.

She leans into him. “No matter where we go, it’s never better than being home.”

He smiles at her, his wife, his life. Her face is ruddy from drink and smoke. Her blonde hair curls in the heat, teasing wisps escape from her bun. Her plump curves fill out her dress like bursting sausage. She has a shine of bacon grease around her mouth and a touch of beer foam on the tip of her nose. In all the lands in all the worlds, he has never seen anyone more beautiful.

Somewhere down the table, a baby cries. One of his many sisters-in-law is trying to soothe one of Grace’s many cousins, without much success. The infant has been fussing all night, and now the poor thing’s wails have drowned out the riotous conversation.

“‘Ere now!” Leona’s mother calls down from the head of the table. “Are you going to help that poor babby or do I ‘ave to?”

His sister-in-law--a washed out, nervous looking woman whose name no one can remember--looks gratefully up at Nanny Ogg. “Can you?”

Nanny Ogg snorts. This grande dame--which she translates as “big woman”--is the matriarch of the Ogg clan and the second-most powerful witch in the Ramptops Mountains, though she doesn’t try as hard. She’s had five husbands (and married three of them), fifteen children, and more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than anyone in Lancre can count.

The baby is passed from hand to hand down the table, squalling all the way. When it finally gets to the head of the table, it is placed into the very solid arms of a round old woman dressed in black. She has a pipe, a pint, and a black pointy hat. (There’s nothing magic about a pointy hat, except that it says that the person underneath it is a witch.) She also has lively dark eyes--like Leo’s, like Grace’s--and the widest grin most people have ever seen.

The current occupant of the old woman’s lap is a mangy ball of fur and claws named Greebo. Though known to pick fights with bears (and not lose), he’s nothing but an old softy to Nanny Ogg. Still, the cat is smart enough to know that he is always second place to any child. As soon as the baby is in the witch’s arms, he scampers out of the way.

Jefferson’s life would have been hell if Nanny Ogg hadn’t given him her approval to marry Leo. They would have married anyway--Leo wouldn’t have let anything stop them--but coming home like this would have been… difficult. There are a dozen tiny ways an Ogg can tell you they don’t like you--and a hundred large and painful ones. But Nanny Ogg’s welcoming nature--and Jefferson’s endless potential to bring her presents from far-off lands--had ensured that they were welcome any time.

Within a minute of entering Nanny Ogg’s embrace, the screaming baby quiets. Within another minute, it sleeps peacefully, despite the raucous conversation around the table.

Perched on his knees, Grace looks curious. “Was that magic, Gran?”

“Coo-ee, no, my duck!” Nanny Ogg chuckles. “The day I needs magic to calm a babe is the day you lot can put me in the ground!”

“But you did it so fast!” Grace persists.

“Coz I been doing it so long,” Nanny Ogg explains. “Ever since your Uncle Jason was a wee thing! There’s a knack to it, but it ain’t magic.”

Grace ponders this for a moment. Children are allowed to speak freely around Nanny Ogg’s table--provided they keep the conversation interesting. “Papa knows a man who does magic.”

Jefferson thinks about explaining, but clearly this is a private conversation.

Nanny Ogg nods sagely. “I imagine your dad knows all kinds of people, the work he does.”

“He was a funny little man,” Grace says. “He has a funny voice and he’s all green.”

“Takes all sorts, luv. We can’t help the way we’re made.”

“He gave me a yellow dress, to match Mama’s pink one. He pulled it out of the air! We were there for--why were we there, Papa?”

“A wedding,” Jefferson answers. “The Dark One and Belle wanted us to be there for their wedding.”

“It was a lovely day,” Leo smiles at him while stroking their daughter’s hair. “Do you remember dancing in that big ballroom, Grace? Remember how he made the instruments play themselves?”

Nanny Ogg snorts. “Sounds like a show-off, if you ask me.”

“Oh he is,” Jefferson agrees. “I don’t know if you’d like him, and Mistress Weatherwax would hate him.”

“Well, there’s not many I don’t like, and there’s not many Esme Weatherwax don’t hate, at least at first.”

They laugh at that, as they laugh at everything. The conversation moves on to other topics. Later the lot of them move away from the table and into the parlor. Around a fire and more beer, Nanny Ogg brings out her banjo, but the evening still manages to end happily.

He puts Grace to bed in a room with her cousins, a group of girls near her age. He kisses her and makes sure she has her stuffed rabbit. Then he goes up to the bedroom where Leo is waiting.

His wife is a dream, all satiny pink. All soft and warm and round. Like a sunset cloud with grasping arms. Like candy floss with a libido. She is everything. All the happiness he has now is because of her. This family, this life, their daughter. Everything in his past led to her, everything in the present comes from her, everything in the future will be theirs together.

They make love, full of food and clumsy with drink. Their lips are loose and sloppy. They giggle and try to stay quiet in this crowded house. Their hands know their bodies. They know how to pleasure each other. They know. They feel. They love. They delight in each other and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

When Jefferson wakes up, everything is gone.

****

For the ten thousand, three hundred ninetieth time, Jefferson woke up alone. In a giant, empty bed, inside a giant, empty house. He woke up, like he always did, with a gnawing ache in his chest and a burning desire for nothing more than to go back to sleep. Back to his dream. His best dreams were always about them. Leo. Grace. Home.

Sitting up in bed, Jefferson covered his face with his hands and let a dry sob rack through him. Tears would come later. First sob of the morning was always dry.

“Morning” was not the right word. It was a gray spring afternoon, more or less identical to every other gray afternoon he’d woken up in since he was brought over to this world. Over the years--over so many years--he had gotten in the habit of starting his day when most people in Storybrooke began to end theirs. The only reason he woke up at all was to get a chance to see his daughter walk home from school.

The telescope was in the office, what he tended to think of as the hat room. This side of the massive house faced Main Street. He could see quite a lot--the diner, the Sheriff’s Station, a few important houses. And he had learned quite a lot, just by looking at all these people living their lives.

Nothing changed in Storybrooke. Children didn’t get older. The old and sick never died. People worked the same jobs no matter how much they hated them. There was a girl he saw walking to and from the diner who had been nine months pregnant for twenty-eight years. Everyone was miserable, alone and unloved in one way or another, but they all carried on with what they thought were their lives.

Until the day a yellow bug drove into town.

Looking through the telescope, Jefferson trained his eyes on a lime green winter coat. The coat was bouncing over the shoulders of a young girl as she hopped, skipped and jumped her way around the sidewalk. His throat tightened, as it did every time he saw her. In the lens of the telescope, she looked close enough to reach out and touch.

Grace was walking with another girl--Jefferson didn’t know her name. She was poor, from Old Town. Her father was gone and her mother worked long hours for low pay. Girls like that didn’t get their accomplishments written up about in the newspaper the way Grace did every time she won the Science Fair. Until a few months ago, Grace had never spoken to this girl. Both of them had walked the same path from the school to the abandoned library, twenty feet apart, every day for twenty-eight years, without ever interacting with each other.

Until the day Sheriff Swan started a youth outreach campaign, and made a point to talk about how much safer kids were if they used the buddy system when they didn’t have an adult around.

Then Grace had looked up from her routine, and she had seen the other girl looking back. Both of them needed someone to walk with. Both of them were looking for a friend. Both of them found one. It was a little thing, but it was a change.

He watched them walk from the library to the house in New Town where Tim and Mia Lewis lived. The people Grace thought were her parents. Every once in a while, they ran an ad in the Storybrooke Daily Mirror--all three of them with big smiles, the adults offering their services in insurance and real estate.

The lights were off inside the house, so he couldn’t see into the kitchen. He couldn’t see what healthy snacks Mia had made for the girls today. He couldn’t see what game they played to unwind for a bit before Mia made sure they both started their homework. A few hours later, the other girl’s mother would stop by after her shift at Granny’s. He never knew if she thanked Mia for watching her daughter. Maybe it was just understood. Maybe Mia said she was just doing what Sheriff Swan advised, watching out for children who might otherwise get into trouble, being alone and unsupervised.

Once Grace was out of his sight, Jefferson moved the telescope to look around town. Not too many changes today. Archie Hopper was walking his dalmatian. Marco the handyman was making another trip to the hardware store. The stranger on the motorcycle idled outside Marine Automotive; he seemed to be watching Marco. Mrs. Gold was strutting away from the pawn shop with her head held high.

He watched her, this woman who used to be Belle. It looked like she was going towards City Hall. Curious. Was she applying for a permit? Was there some licence she needed to renew? His fingers itched to pick up the phone and call the Dark One about what he had seen. He was the only other human being in town, the only person who knew the truth about anything. It was just the Dark One, Jefferson, and Queen Regina.

But he couldn’t bother him too much. They couldn’t raise any more suspicion than they already had with their one secret meeting in the woods. The Dark One was still trying to maintain his cover as “Mr. Gold.” Besides, what difference could it make that Belle was running an errand to City Hall?

With a sigh, Jefferson moved away from the telescope. He’d been awake for more than an hour, it was time to put on pants.

In no time at all, he had showered, dressed, and chugged down a protein shake. Most days, it was hard for him to summon up the will to cook or eat. He kept his body going with prepackaged meal replacements. They tasted like crap, but at least he didn’t have to think about them. He left cooking for people who thought they had something to live for.

He made his way to the front doors. The house had a wide driveway that ran under a large overhang. Whenever visitors came, they could disembark from the vehicles and go into the house without the hazards of rain or snow.

If he ever had visitors.

At the moment, and for the past twenty-eight years, all he had was the most recent copy of the Storybrooke Daily Mirror. It wasn’t a bastion of hard-hitting journalism, but for a long time it had been the only way he could know anything about the town he spent so much time looking at. The newspaper had given him names to put to the faces--Mayor Mills, Mr. Gold, Sheriff Humbert, and later Sheriff Swan. It had been a lifeline, and he still clung to it. For nearly three decades, the dates on the front page had been the only changes he had seen anywhere in this town.

Today’s date was April 2nd, 2012. The headline was about the continued search for a missing person. Kathryn Nolan, a paralegal working at the firm of Duke & Duke, had been missing for more than a month. There had been sightings of a woman matching her description in various parts of Storybrooke, but by the time the police arrived, all traces of her had gone. Sheriff Swan encouraged anyone with any information regarding Mrs. Nolan’s whereabouts to call the station.

On the next page, there was an editorial decrying the lack of effort put forth by Kathryn’s husband, David Nolan, to aid in the search. Sydney Glass stopped just short of outright accusing Mr. Nolan of gross negligence or foul play. He only noted the amount of time Mr. Nolan spent with the schoolteacher, Miss Blanchard. The article concluded with speculation that perhaps Mrs. Nolan was not missing at all, but had run away from a terminally unhappy home.

After finishing the paper, he put it away in the office closet and went back to the telescope. The lights were on in the house where Grace lived. The other girl had been picked up. Tim Lewis was home from work. The three of them were making dinner together. Mia was stirring a pot of chili and Tim was taking a bag of corn out of the freezer.

“She doesn’t like corn, guys,” Jefferson muttered to himself. “She won’t eat the chili if you put corn in it. You’ve been taking care of her for twenty-eight years and you’ve never figured that out.”

He shook his head and looked away. Sometimes it was maddening to watch the town like this, to see these people make the same mistakes, over and over. Emma Swan had made some changes, but there were still so many ways to be unhappy.

He watched dinner in the Lewis household. He watched Grace carefully pick out all the corn from her bowl of chili and set it into her paper napkin. He watched Mia shake her head at his daughter. He watched Tim lecture her about wasting food. He watched Grace scowl as she picked up the napkin and dumped the offending corn kernels back into the chili. She ate, but she looked like she was going to vomit.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered. He had to get to her, somehow. He had to let her know that he was her father. He had to get her back to Leo.

After dinner, the family watched TV. Grace sat on a couch between Tim and Mia, and flickering light bathed over all of them. They weren’t bad people, her fake-parents. They did love her, and they did the best they could to raise her to be healthy and successful in this world. Whoever Tim and Mia had been before, they were victims of the curse too. They had never meant to steal another couple’s daughter.

He had to put this right. He had to end this curse. Jefferson didn’t have much power, but he would do anything to put his family back together.

He moved the telescope away from Grace. After a brief search, he found the big pink house in Old Town where the Dark One lived. The lights were on, but no one was visible through the windows. If he called on the phone, the Dark One would tell him to be patient. The Savior would break the curse in due time.

But Jefferson had already waited too long.

Scanning through town, he set his sights on the Sheriff’s station. Storybrooke was peaceful enough that most of the cops could hang up their guns in time for dinner. They were all long gone by now. Even Sheriff Swan was packing up and getting ready to go home for the night.

Perfect.

Picking up the sleek, silver cordless phone, Jefferson punched in the numbers he had seen in the newspaper. Through the telescope, he could see Emma Swan hear the phone ringing. She slumped and grimaced in the way of everyone being clawed back into a job they thought was done for the day. Then she straightened up, and picked up the receiver on her desk.

“Sheriff’s station, this is Emma.”

Jefferson cleared his throat. “Yeah, is this the number to call if somebody saw Kathryn Nolan?”

Perking up, Emma fumbled on her desk for a pen and paper. “It sure is. Who am I talking to?”

That question was too complicated to get into. “Yeah, I don’t know for sure if it was Kathryn Nolan, but it looked like a woman in her mid-thirties, caucasian, looked kinda haggard. I, uh, I tried to talk to her, but she just kept walking through the woods.”

“Which woods are those? Where was this?”

“Oh, yeah, it was the north woods. You ever been up on Angus Drive?”

“Can’t say that I have. Still kind of new to the area.”

“Yeah, well that’s where she was. About ten minutes ago I saw her, she was walking towards town. Like I said, I tried to get her attention, but she didn’t listen. I didn’t wanna try to chase after her. Might scare her, you know. Make things worse.”

“Right, right,” Emma said. “So, north woods, Angus Drive, ten minutes ago. And what was your name?”

Jefferson hung up the phone. Then he got his coat and a scarf. It was time to go for a walk.

****

There were several cars in the massive garage of the house where Jefferson had been a prisoner. For the first twenty-eight years, he hadn’t been able to open the garage door to get them on the road. Even after Emma had rolled in, the cars were still useless. None of them had gasoline.

So Jefferson walked. He had walked along the highway and through the woods and over the town line as far as he could before something terrible happened. He walked into town sometimes, trying to find a way out. When he’d noticed “Mr. Gold” acting strangely, he had walked to the pawn shop.

At this point, he knew the town better than anyone else. Who knows the shape of a cage better than the captive inside? He knew the borders and boundaries, especially the area around the house. He knew where the road made a wicked hairpin turn, where someone who was still kind of new to the area wouldn’t know what was coming and could be caught off guard.

The yellow Volkswagen had better brakes than he thought--Emma stopped short of actually hitting him when he emerged from the woods onto the road in front of her. He’d been willing to take the hit, half-curious to see if the curse would let any injury last longer than a week or so.

Emma’s quick driving stopped him from actually getting hurt, but the collision was close enough that he could fall to the ground in a convincing show. She stopped the car and got out when she saw him.

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

On the gravel shoulder of the highway, Jefferson groaned and clutched his leg.

“Sir? Sir, can you talk? I’m Emma Swan, do I need to call for EMTs?”

“No,” Jefferson gritted his teeth, swallowed the imaginary pain. “No, I live around here. I’ll be fine. Can you just get me back to my house?”

For just a moment, she hesitated. “Uh, sure. Yeah, let’s get you inside, at least.”

She helped him up and into the passenger seat of the bug. Then she began to drive.

“So where do you live, Mr…?”

“Angus Drive.” He answered only the question she had said out loud. “It’s up ahead.”

“Funny.” Now that the moment of panic had passed, Emma seemed less willing to accept half-answers. “I just got a call about that address. A man said he saw a missing person out this way. Maybe you saw her when you were out. A blonde woman in her mid-thirties?”

He shook his head. “That sounds like your description, Sheriff.”

“First, I’m not in my mid-thirties. Second, how did you know I’m the Sheriff?”

“I read the paper. And who else would be getting a call about a missing person? And, you’ve got your badge on your hip.”

She frowned. “Guess that all checks out. Yeah, I’m Sheriff Swan. What’s your name?”

Again, Jefferson didn’t answer. “This is the house on the right.”

“A house?” Emma said as she parked under the awning. “This looks more like a hotel! Do you have a big family or something?”

Jefferson opened the door, but made sure to wait for her to help him out of the car. “No,” he said. “It’s just me.”

“The sign on the mailbox says Dogdson.”

“Sure does.”

Leaning on Emma, Jefferson pretended to hobble up the stairs to get into the front door. The curse had never given him a key to this house, so he always left it unlocked. Someday, when the curse was broken, he would find a way to lock the door behind him and walk away a free man. He would take Grace and walk all the way to the Discworld if he had to.

“Where should I put you?” Emma asked once they were in the foyer.

“Closest living room is over there.”

She set him up on one of the white leather couches with his “bad” leg propped up on the arm. “Want me to take a look at it?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. Listen, I’m kind of an amateur cartographer. Upstairs, I’ve got maps for all of these woods. They could be useful to you, since you don’t know the area well.”

Hands on her hips, Emma Swan looked down at him. She looked shrewd, suspicious. Kind of like Leo, only skinny. “I never told you I don’t know the area.”

Jefferson grinned. What was the old saying about honesty? Better to tell the truth because then you don’t have to keep track of your lies? “I guess you didn’t.”

“The only person I told that to lately was a man on the phone who also didn’t tell me his name.” Emma sat down on the coffee table in front of the couch so they were on the same level. “Did you actually see Kathryn Nolan around here?”

He didn’t stop grinning. “No.”

“And your leg isn’t hurt at all.”

It wasn’t a question, but he still answered. “No.”

“Can you give me a single good reason why I shouldn’t arrest you on the very serious charge of Wasting the Sheriff’s Time?”

Jefferson sat up. “I do need your help,” he said. “But I thought if I told you what was going on, you would think I was crazy.”

Emma didn’t blink at that. “People who might be crazy need just as much help as people who might be sane. Let’s start from the beginning: Tell me your name.”

“Jefferson,” he answered immediately.

“Jefferson,” she repeated. “Is that a first name or a last name?”

“First.”

“And the last name?”

He didn’t really have one. Few people in the old world did. “Ogg,” he answered.

It was the name he went by on worlds where last names were common. Leo’s name. He was part of a proud tradition of men becoming Mr. Ogg when they married an Ogg woman.

Emma looked him in the eyes, long and hard. “Jefferson Ogg,” she said slowly. “That’s… such a weird name, I don’t think you made it up.”

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “And what do you need help with, Jefferson Ogg?”

“I…” Gods, how could he even start? He would just have to show her. “It’s upstairs.”

She gave him another look, not speaking. Then she pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and pressed some buttons.

“Texting on the job?”

“I left my walkie-talkie in the car.” She put her phone away. “Just letting my roommate know where I am and to call the dispatch office if she doesn’t hear from me in 10 minutes.”

That was almost funny, that she thought he was dangerous. As if the most dangerous person in Storybrooke wasn’t signing Sheriff Swan’s paychecks.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

****

It was the first time anyone other than him had set foot in the office. He wondered what Emma made of the room. All Jefferson ever cared about was the telescope and the walk-in closet where he stored the newspapers. Neither of those things drew Emma’s focus.

“That’s a lot of top hats,” she said as she stood in front of the lit-up shelf. There were rows of them, all made of an endless supply of black felt. “You part of a show choir or something?”

“No.” He shut the door behind them, locked it. “The hats… are actually what I need your help with.” He pulled out some of the felt, some sewing needles and a pair of scissors. He tossed them all onto the table in front of her. “I need you to make one.”

Now the expression on Emma’s face was what ‘suspicious’ wanted to be when it grew up. “You think I’m a hatter?”

He stood behind her, nudging her into a chair in front of the raw materials. “I think you can do extraordinary things, Emma. I think you can do exactly what I need you to. I think you can save me.”

Her expression morphed from disbelief to exhaustion. “No, not you too. Have you been talking to Henry? What is it with this town and people thinking I can save them?”

“Because you can!” He put his hands on either side of the chair and pushed her to the table. Then he leaned over her to keep her from getting up. “You are a special person, Emma. You made the changes start, you can make everything good again.”

“Bring back the happy endings, is that what you want from me?”

She was angry. She meant the remark to be flippant. But she was so right it brought tears to his eyes.

“Yes,” Jefferson whispered. “Yes, that’s all I want. The Dark One says it’s your destiny, that you have already brought--”

“Wait, who?”

“The Dark One,” he said. “Rumpelstiltskin, he--”

“Will you listen to yourself?” Emma pushed herself up away from the table and stood up to confront him. “Do you think you’ve had a conversation with Rumpelstiltskin? What, do you think Regina is the Evil Queen too?”

“Yes!” he shouted. He picked the felt up off the table and shook the fabric in her face. “You have all the pieces, Emma! Why can’t you put them together?”

“Because this is the real world!” she shouted back.

“Every world is real!”

She made for the door. The lock kept her busy for just enough time that Jefferson was able to catch up with her. Gently, he pulled her away from the door and stood in front of it. Just being taller than her was enough to make him look like a threat.

“You don’t understand,” he tried to keep his voice from breaking. “There are so many worlds out there. I’ve been to most of them. The Dark One gave me a hat that I can use to travel from world to world. I could use it to get out of here, but I don’t have it anymore!”

Emma reached for her phone. He grabbed her wrist and pulled the device out of her hand.

“It needs magic,” he explained, as calmly as he could. “I’ve made a hundred hats, but they’re just hats, no good to anyone. I need magic. You have magic. You brought magic to Storybrooke the day you came here.”

She frowned at the phone in his hand and stepped back. “There was nothing different about the day I came here.”

“You’re right.” Keeping her in his sights, he stepped away from the office door and toward the closet. “It was the day after you arrived, the day after you broke the sign. October 24th, 2011. That was the day the clock on the library started to tick.”

Emma just gaped at him. “How could you remember that?”

“It was the most important day in the history of this town. The first real day to happen in twenty-eight years.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Can I show you?” he asked. “I’ll even give you your phone back, so you can tell Mary Margaret you’re okay. But I just need you to promise that you’ll hear me out.”

She glared and held out her hand. “You are damn lucky you don’t have a gun right now.”

He watched her press the buttons, then put her phone back in her pocket.

“You bought yourself another ten minutes because I don’t feel like filling out the paperwork necessary to arrest you.”

Jefferson went to the closet. “It’s in here,” he said. “All the evidence I have is in here.”

She put her hands on her hips, squared her shoulders. “Go get it then.”

Right, Sheriff Swan wasn’t going to be the first one to go through an unknown door in the house of an obvious lunatic. Jefferson opened it, and showed her the newspapers. Twenty-eight stacks and counting. Each stack was made of twelve bundles, reaching to the ceiling. Three hundred and forty one bundles. The whole of the curse, contained in this room.

“I saved them all,” he said. “Twenty-eight years’ worth.”

“So you’ve been saving newspapers since you were, what, five?”

“Since the day I came to this town,” he answered. “Since the day anyone came to this town.” Kneeling on the ground, he moved the smallest pile and pulled out the smallest bundle. “Do you want to know what day that was, Emma?”

She didn’t answer, but he took the paper out from the bottom of the bundle and held it up in front of her.

“Go on,” he growled. “Read it.”

“Uh, it says that Mayor Mills announced a new committee to--”

“Read the date!” he snapped.

Jaw clenched, Emma yanked the paper out of his hands and looked at the top. She didn’t read it out loud, but he saw her eyebrows furrow.

“That’s… my birthday,” she whispered. “Like, that was the day I was born.”

“October 23rd, 1983,” he said. “That was the day the curse started. The day you were born was the day the Evil Queen cursed us all to live in a world without magic.”

“That’s--”

“There was no time.” He didn’t let her speak. “Nothing changed, nothing happened. We were frozen. Most of them didn’t notice, but I did. I remembered, I…” He couldn’t go on. “I thought I was crazy. I thought nothing I knew was real. I thought I had lost everything. But you… You’re the Savior. You can bring it back.”

Emma shook her head and looked down at the newspaper again. “Even if all this is true, why am I the one who has to--wait a minute!” She pointed at the paper, at a picture of the mayor. “This is a crock of shit! That’s Regina! Regina wasn’t mayor on the day I was born!” She flipped through the other pages. “Yeah, look at this. Sydney looks the same in this picture as he does today. Look at the school news, I’ve seen these kids!”

“I told you, time was frozen.”

“Or you put a fake date on an old paper just to mess with me!” She kept looking at the newspaper, seeing but not understanding. “Yeah, this ad here, this is Tim Lewis. He gave me a discount on my car insurance. His daughter, Paige? She looks exactly like she does in this ad. Pretty sure she’s eleven, not thirty-nine.”

Jefferson ripped the paper out of Emma’s hands. “She is not his daughter!” He snarled. “Will you listen to me? That girl’s name is Grace. She is eleven. She has been eleven for twenty-eight years!”

“I--” Emma put her hands up and let out a slow breath. “I don’t think either one of us is going to convince the other.”

“I don’t care if you believe me, I just need you to make a gods-damned hat!”

To Jefferson’s shock, Emma seemed ready to do what he asked, maybe in the name of de-escalating the situation. She went back to the table, slowly sat down, and picked up the felt. “You need this so you can go back to Fairytale Land?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t care about that world anymore. I need to go back to the Discworld.”

Emma squinted as she tried to thread a needle. “Discworld? I’ve heard of those books. They’re supposed to be funny, right?”

Jefferson didn’t smile. “It’s a real place.”

Looking up, Emma opened her mouth, and then closed it. “Sure.” She began to half-heartedly jam the needle between two pieces of felt.

He collapsed into a chair by the telescope. Gods, was she really doing this? Jefferson only knew enough about magic to know that he was better off not playing with it. But if the Dark One was right, then Emma Swan wouldn’t be able to stop herself from using magic. She would do it naturally, maybe accidentally. It wouldn’t matter if the hat looked awful. All it had to do was work.

“My wife is from there,” he offered as a way to make conversation.

Emma didn’t look up from the stitches. “From Discworld? Does that make her a witch or something?”

He shook his head. “Her mother is. I guess she could be too, if she wanted. Most of the time witchcraft is just knowing something other people don’t know.”

“Like how to make a hat?” Emma looked at him through a tube of felt. “It’s been a long time since my last Home Ec class. This is not going to be pretty.”

“It just needs to work,” he muttered. “Just… get it to work.”

Sighing, Emma pulled out her phone again.

“Has she even answered you?” he asked. “Maybe she’s off somewhere screwing David Nolan.”

A glare. “I’m doing you a favor by working on this hat. So maybe you could do me a favor and not say rude things about my friends.”

“I got you here by talking about Kathryn Nolan. Do you actually care about her?”

Emma kept her eyes on her work. “She’s a person. I care about people. She could be lost in the woods, disoriented and hungry. Of course I want to find her.”

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

“I have to hope so.” She cut one of the threads. “We haven’t found a body, or even body parts. If some monster was out there cutting out hearts and putting them in jewelry boxes, at least then there’d be some evidence.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Do you care about Kathryn Nolan? Or do you think she’s just a fairytale character?”

“I care about her because she’s a fairytale character,” Jefferson said. “Her name was Princess Abigail. She was the daughter of King Midas. She gave me a lot of gold just for trying to find a way to reverse the effects of her father’s… gift.”

Emma nodded, clearly humoring him. “I’d heard that King Midas had a daughter. I didn’t know her name was Abigail. Doesn’t sound Greek, but what do I know?” She was sewing the brim on the hat, after that it would be finished.

Jefferson stood up. His feet moved on a schedule that was bigger than Emma Swan. He looked through the telescope. It was nine-thirty. Bedtime.

“Do you want to see her?” he whispered to Emma.

“Kathryn?”

“My daughter.”

They were putting her to bed, Tim and Mia both. She was almost too big for the gesture, but maybe that was why she wanted it so much. Jefferson felt Emma’s presence beside him, and he stepped away from the telescope.

“They never remember to give her the stuffed rabbit,” he said. “That’s the only one that keeps her from having nightmares.”

“Oh, that’s Paige,” Emma said. She looked up from the window. “You… have a telescope pointed at the bedroom of an eleven year old girl.”

“She’s my daughter,” Jefferson repeated. “I’ve lost her mother. Grace doesn’t know who I am. I need to keep an eye on her.”

Emma stayed between Jefferson and the telescope. “Is it because Paige is adopted? Are you her birth father or something?”

He didn’t know whether to scream or cry, so he laughed. Emma kept talking.

“It’s no shame if that’s the case. Believe me, I know how mixed-up it can be to have a kid that’s yours but isn’t yours.”

“Shut up,” Jefferson said through gritted teeth. “Grace is mine. Mine and my wife’s.”

“You said you lost your wife…”

“Yes! And I’ll only find her again once I have a hat that works!” He almost grabbed her by the shoulders, but she was too fast. She made it back to the table and kept it as a barrier between them.

“Enough!” Emma said. She picked up the hat and tossed it over to him. “This is the last of my goodwill, understand? I’m going to leave now. You’re gonna let me out of this room and out of this house. I’m gonna call Tim and tell him to buy his daughter some blackout curtains. If I ever catch wind of you snooping around little girls again, I will personally make sure you rot in jail.”

Jefferson looked down at the crumpled felt in his hands. It was only a hat by the most generous definition. But maybe it would be enough.

When he looked up, Emma was gone. From outside, he heard the rumble of a car engine starting up. As she drove away, the sound grew fainter. He still held the hat in his hands.

It didn’t feel magical. His old hat had a certain… quality. There was an aura about it, not quite tangible. But there was a feeling he got when he looked at his hat. A feeling of… possibility. Like there was so much more to it than what met the eye. There was none of that in the hat Emma had made.

Maybe magic was different here. Maybe there was a way. Some way. He had to try. He would never know if he didn’t try.

He closed his eyes and took a breath. “Please.” With all his heart, he prayed to any power that was listening.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the hat to the ground, as he had done a thousand different times in a hundred different worlds. The hat spun and he waited for it to keep spinning, waited for it to grow larger and disappear into a whirlpool of purple smoke. He waited for the hole in the whirlpool, the portal that could take him anywhere.

But the hat barely made a full rotation before it stopped spinning. It sat on the ground, unmoving, unmagical.

Jefferson stared at it, until his vision blurred with tears. Then he began to laugh.

Of course it didn’t work! Why would anything work in this world? Of course there was no escape! Of course he was going to die in this world! Or worse--he would live forever in a world without time and he’d never see Leona again.

He sobbed. His legs gave out and sent him careening to the floor. He lay face down on the patterned carpet, stared at Emma Swan’s misshapen hat, and wept like a child.

****

Later--an hour? A year? Did it make a difference?--when couldn’t cry anymore, Jefferson pulled himself off the floor. He made it all the way to the chair before he collapsed again and hung his head in his hands.

It hadn’t worked. The Savior hadn’t worked. The side of goodness hadn’t worked. Well, Jefferson was never one to get too hung up about paltry matters like good and evil.

Slowly wheeling the office chair over to the desk, Jefferson fumbled for the silver telephone. He pushed in numbers he knew by heart, numbers he had wanted to call a dozen times in the past month, but never had. Not until now.

He tried to breathe, as the phone rang. But then he stopped when he heard it pick up. A woman’s voice. Belle’s voice.

“Mr. Gold’s residence. Who is calling?”

Jefferson didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe. Mrs. Gold knew that he had slept with her husband. He couldn’t ask her to put him on the phone. He couldn’t even let her know who he was.

He hung up.

With another deep breath, he pulled a book with yellow pages out from a shelf above the desk. He flipped through the thin paper, until he found the name and number he was looking for.

He dialed slowly, taking a breath between each number. He couldn’t sound like he was upset. He couldn’t show any weakness in front of her.

This was a bad idea. This was the worst idea he could have ever come up with. The last time he’d worked with this woman he had watched her murder a helpless servant once she was no longer useful. How could he know that she wouldn’t do the same to him?

Maybe by the time he wasn’t useful, he would already be in the Discworld.

He needed magic. He needed to get out. He needed power. So he called the most powerful person in town.

Regina picked up on the third ring. “Who exactly do you think you are to be calling my home at this time of night?”

“Your Majesty,” he said calmly. “This is Jefferson the realm-jumper. I’d like to offer my services.”

#golden rings #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #jefferson #hat trick

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yeojaa · 4 years ago

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in the night, ii.

read part one! dedicated to my beloved wofe @periminkle because she loves assassin!kook and so do i. i honestly dunno how many parts to this non-couple couple i’ll do but ... i cannot resist them. oops.

pairing. jjk x reader. rating. ... general? tags. soft romance in the form of: pining, cuddling, playing chess like losers, using a hotel room for the lamest reasons. maybe a very lil bit of angst if you squint at the right times. it’s just them being... them? ig. wc. 1.8k. beta reader. @hobi-gif 💛

“You know, when you asked me to meet you here, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

He can’t help but laugh, the sound teetering off his tongue into the tepid lake of espresso sitting in his cup. You’re glaring down at the board, hand poised at your side. You’re so focused - more so than when you’re stitching him up.

He wonders, idly, whether that should worry him. It won’t.

“You’re not having fun?” He hums, the slyest smile passing over the rim of ceramic, a certain twinkle in his stare. It’s possible he’s overtired - he hasn’t slept in what feels like ages - but there’s something awfully amusing about the sight of you, brow knit and mouth pursed into a grimace he seldom sees. “Got something else in mind, Doc?”

You don’t humour him with a response, advancing your king to C7.

“You sure about that one?”

“Yes.” It snaps past your lips like cinnamon bubble gum.

Seeing you so riled up - not quite irritated but overly competitive - makes Jungkook snort, setting his cup down with a soft, drawn out sigh.

“Come here.” It isn’t readily clear where he means but he leaves it up to you, watching you keenly.

You’re having none of it. “Make your move.”

“Come here,” he repeats, just that bit harder. The edge doesn’t reach anywhere but his words; his eyes are still a little tired, half-lidded and dreamy. They pair nicely with the full of his cheek, how it ticks rounder and reveals a singular dimple. Your weakness - or so he’d like to think.

It’s with a surprising amount of dramatics that you remove yourself from the opposite seat, folding yourself into his lap with only a handful of movements. He welcomes your weight, curling an exhausted arm around the shape of your waist.

With your back to the arm rest, you settle with your head against his shoulder, nose cold against the column of his throat. He can even feel the steel of your glasses, gold-rimmed and delicate.

“Bored?” The tone of his voice is lilting, teasing, dressed up with laughter. It disappears into your crown of velvet, loosely braided and knotted behind your ear in your signature no-fuss fashion.

“No.” But it isn’t very believable because you certainly sound unenthused.

He tries again, with fingers that flex into the soft, bare flesh of your thigh; his other hand guides your chin, drawing your attention fully from the abandoned chess set. “Want to order room service?”

It’s the least he can do, he figures. Something to ease whatever mocking resentment seeps out of your skin - much like his had only hours earlier.

Note to himself: pick up some new clothes.

“I want every dessert on the menu,” you finally relent, with a terribly serious set of your jaw and intensity in your eyes.

He snorts, again, squeezing the yielding softness of your hip in his broad palms. “I’ll call down and order. You go take a shower or something.” It’s not as dismissive as he means; the blouse you’d worn over is stained red, the colour bleeding garishly over cream silk. It even marks your skin now, caught beneath your nails and over your wrists.

“What - it’s not a good look on me?”

Your feigned affront is addictive, coaxing in a way he’s utterly defenceless against. Still, Jungkook rolls his eyes - an exaggerated reveal of bright white sclera - and levels you with a look that might serve him better than the gun that rests on the coffee table. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Doc.”

“But you do stupid things all the time.” You’re not wrong and if there’s anyone worthy of calling him out in this same way, it’s you. Doesn’t mean he takes it any more kindly, glowering at you so heavily he thinks you might be enjoying it.

“Name one time,” he retorts, fully on the defensive. Even though he knows you’re right. Even though he could list off just five things since last night.

Getting ambushed in his own home

Cracking some not-so-poor guy’s skull on the corner of his Nakashima dining table

Asking for you to make a home (or rather, hotel) call

Asking for you at all

Asking you to stay

He hopes you won’t catch onto the last three.

“That time I told you to not overextend yourself after you cracked three ribs and you came back the next day complaining because you’d piledrived a guy through some scaffolding but, and I quote, ‘it wasn’t a big deal’?” Okay, you have him there. “Or the time I told you to take the pills in the left drawer and you took the ones from the right and ended up passed out on my floor for twelve hours?” Another solid and mildly embarrassing example. “Or—”

“Okay, okay.” A single hand held aloft in the universal sign of stop; the other remains comfortable around your waist, digits tracing figure eights over the porcelain skin beneath your top. “I get it.”

You’re undeterred, pushing forward with abandon. “Or inviting me to a hotel to not only stitch you back together but also play silly children’s games?”

“Hey - chess is fun!” And so were Gin Rummy and Speed, the other two activities he’d foisted upon you post-sewing session.

“You’re an idiot,” you state, with a surprising amount of affection. He doesn’t mind when it comes like this, dipped in honey and rolled in fairy floss. It satisfies his sugar craving, filling the spaces between his molars with cavities.

“You still came,” he challenges.

“Just adding it to the dozens of favours you already owe me.”

He grins, roguish and far too handsome for his own good. Even tired, with lurking shadows beneath his eyes, he’s unbelievably bright - like it’s radiating out of him. It’s quite funny when he’s speckled in gore, blood tainting tanned skin and reminding you that he’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

“How will I ever pay you back?”

You’re close - far too close, even sat in his lap. Jungkook can see every freckle on your face, every lash that frames the prettiest stare he’s ever seen. He has to remind himself he’s waiting for an answer; it’s hard when all he wants to do is kiss you.

He thinks you must want it too, by how the silence stretches on, catching the pair of you like a Chinese finger trap.

“Doc?” Barely a word, made in a whisper.

Can you feel how his heart beats, trips and fails to right itself when you’re so close he can smell the coffee on your breath? Is it your medical training that gives him away? Or maybe just the fact that you’re attuned to everything about him because he’s, well, him?

Your big stupid idiot, for all intents and purposes.

He wants to ask. He wants to kiss you. He wants a hundred mundane things (like playing cards and eating sweet treats) only with you.

You tear it all away with a pat to his head and a wicked smile. “With all the dessert in the world.”

He scowls then, the expression wolfish and touched with agitation. It presents in the narrowing of his stare, his sharply set jaw. “Sounds like pretty lame payback to me.” Can you hear the edge of petulance, how it colours syllables the faintest shade of goblin green?

“Got something else in mind, Jeon?”

Having his words thrown back at him only makes him laugh. It reverberates out of his bare chest, filling the quiet of the luxury suite; it bounces around just as you do, leaping to your feet with a grace he can’t mimic. He’s mesmerised, as he always is, gaze trained on you - your loosened bun, the curves of your back, how you look in the jeans that look nearly painted on they fit you so well.

“Grab a bath, Doc,” he returns - less of a suggestion and more of a demand.

“Better have those desserts once I’m out.” A threat rather than a joke, though you’re far too unassuming with your old lady glasses and wide, expressive stare. For your sake, Jungkook crosses a heart across his chest and nods solemnly, earning him a devastating grin that works far better than your intimidation.

“Have I ever let you down?”

You’re already gone, a trail of your clothes left like breadcrumbs. He still hears you. “I mean - you did bring a knife fight to my door.”

“We don’t talk about that!” He calls back before the sound of running water takes over, distorting your laughter. Neroli and cedar wood comes - your signature scent. He can’t help the way he inhales deeply, satisfied, as he plucks the room phone from its holder. It’s an addiction, a second nature action that he can’t help, whether you’re curled in his arms or tending to his broken, bleeding body.

It’s dangerous, he knows.

His old mentor would tell him don’t get involved, Jeon. That living a life like this came with sacrifices. Things he’d never really cared for - at first. But now?

He daydreamt about them more often than he should, in all the quiet moments in between. They painted the prettiest pictures in his mind, wishful thinking in the form of everyday occurrences: coffee in the morning, you in his (unstained) clothes, drives in the countryside, a bed shared at night.

All because of you and your healing hands. He’d never thought you’d be so good at your job, stitching him up inside and out.

It’d be better if he left, packed his ruined clothing and stopped appearing on your doorstep. It’d keep you safe - and him, too. Relationships meant weakness and in his line of work, weakness was something to be exploited, like an open wound with a thumb pressed into it.

Instead, he waits until the cart of desserts appears - lemon tarts and basque cheesecake and a dozen other things that scream diabetes! - and wheels it right into the bathroom, closer to you, because he always wants to be closer to you.

“These don’t look like apples, Doc,” he hums, settling himself on the back edge of the tub, careful not to dislodge the towel that’s folded beneath your neck. The wet of your hair seeps into the material of his pants, sticking cloth to sinew and brawn.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away but a tray of desserts will keep me here forever.”

“You planning on living here?” Quipped with an offering - a cocoa masterpiece of four layers, held gingerly between his thumb and forefinger.

“Might as well milk it,” you tease, accepting the bite with love in your eyes and a tongue that sweeps, just barely, over his suddenly electrified skin. He knows what you’re doing just as well as you do; it’s next to impossible not to lean into the desire, slide the digit home and press down into muscle until you’re drooling around it.

“Might as well,” he echoes, those same fluttering pink hearts reflected in his stare.

tag list. @neverthefirstchoice @youwannabelostandnotbefound

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mysteriesmuse · 4 years ago

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Douxie Casperan: One shot

A/N: This is purely self indulgent, I thought the idea of Doux helping the reader out with the hair style of the 12th century would be super great! (In the time period it's basically anything you want goes, but they do have lots of adornments such as the ribbons meantioned!) Enjoy! :)

“Right well,” Douxie pressed his hands together, “It seems we should all go about our set tasks remaining inconspicuous, so we need to get some 12th century garbs."

. . . .

Claire looked towards Y/N, the whites of her eyes showing until at last their fingers grasped at air, ripped asunder under the scrutinizing eyes of these medieval women.

Y/N emerged from the rooms first, “These dresses are so long,” she growls hastily grabbing a fistful of the light cotton fabric stumbling at the utter disorientation. A drastic change of wardrobe.

Her head snaps up at the sound of more foot steps to be greeted with purple trailing up to an elaborate bodice and great puffy sleeves. Claire’s face is now upturned at the corners in a smile, “You look good. I like the sleeves.” Y/N nods her chin towards Claire to which she calls.

"I know!” Claire holds her arms out and does a spin. “Very nice!”

Claire hums with a nod looking over Y/N instead of purple it’s a saturated blue, but the bodice piece is still embroidered with the same fuchsia floss as Claire’s. Noticing this examination Y/N gives a playful curtesy. “Hmm.”

“Wait a minute,” she exclaims, “no fair you don’t have the sleeves!”

“Oh yeah,” with a shrug she chuckles, “they decided that my shoulders were too big for that.”

“Pft, you’d look great in these sleeves.” She replies waving a hand. “I suppose it’s handmaiden duty now. Good luck,” Claire flashes Y/N a nervous grin before exiting the door.

-----

Can’t believe I’m the help.” Y/N mutters pulling out the list of duties the fellow castle staff has given her.

Due to King Arthur’s new ban to the forest and the tension between the magical creatures and humans the staff has dwindled. And, unfortunately, it’s suspected that those running errands have been eaten by the Gumm-Gumms.

“Laundry, Mending, the Baker,” the list ends there, but as the staff assured there’d be plenty to do as a new set of hands as the day continued on.

Y/N continues walking, crossing the giant bridge stretching across the towers. The wind up there easily moves the ever so long dress and the previously unknotted tresses of hair.

Relishing in the warmth of the sun, basket in hand she closes her eyes to enjoy the felling of being up so high.

“I-hey! Ow.”

“Fuzz buckets, sorry love. Are you alright?”

Y/N turns, only to blink up at Douxie. No, it’s indeed the one with blue hair. However, the back is pulled into a man bun up top.

“Oh wow, I suppose that’s in?” Y/N asks tentatively eyes flashing up to the top of Douxies head before meeting his eyes.

“Uh,” he hesitates before answering, “Sure. But I can tell you that your hair situation is a mess.”

Y/N reaches up to grab a hold of some strands of hair, “No it isn’t!”

A defensive holler. Douxie sighs, “That isn’t-oh, for Merlins Sake.”

He grabs at the spare ribbon tied around your wrists, “That’s not what they’re for love.”

“It’s not?” An raised brow quickly kisses the other as it’s followed by an inquisitive puppy dog tilt of the head.

Douxie fidgets. He was not expecting that kind of unsolicited action out of you. Shifting his weight he responses.

“Care if I help you out with that then?” Arm extended back towards the direction he came from with a soft smile. Y/N nods, and trails him back to his room.

“Hold still, this is gonna take a few minutes,” Douxie hums taking out a comb and getting to work on prepping Y/N’s hair.

She sits upon the table quietly, hands placed behind her for support and ankles crossed off each other as she swings them slightly back and forth.

Y/N watches, Douxie’s eyes following the work he was doing with his hands. She can’t see what he’s doing but she can tell that there’s some type of braiding going on.

Douxie works quietly. He’s not shocked at how soft it is, it’s about as rich and luxurious as you’ve always claimed it to be.

He’s skilled at this. Knows exactly what he’s supposed to be doing even after centuries, after all he was born in this one.

“There, viola!” He exclaims, fingers working nimbly, “And a pretty bow to finish it off, for the lady.” Coming around Douxie steppes back with his arms crossed to inspect his work.

Y/N grinned running her hands along the texture, the silky ribbon intertwined and encasing pieces of hair in some manner. “Thank you,” she replies instinctively reaching to grab at a small lock of hair from the base of her neck, preceding to twirl and tug it.

“Anytime, now I have some time travel duties to attend to dear.” Douxie grins with a lopsided smirk.

“So do I, and I’m going to need to ask for your clothes,” she gestures towards the laundry basket on the other edge of the room.

“Why, If you wanted them, you just had to ask.” Douxie replies chuckling, making a few quick paces over to the corner and grabbing the basket before offering it over.

Jumping off the table and walking over to meet Douxie face to face Y/N extends her arms bumping Douxie in the abdomen with a basket of her own, “Thanks. Maybe I will next time.”

Hastily snatching the basket out of Douxies hands she turns right before exiting the door, “Oh and Douxie,” she croons before clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “chin up.”

Douxie blinks his hazel eyes before closing his mouth and making the same tch, “Cheeky.”

-----

After several hours the work of the laundry, mending bin, and assisting the baker with grabbing the right ingredients was finally done for. As an errand servant in the castle Y/N quickly learned how tiring and just how much bustling about from place to place in the castle it was.

With a sharp turn down the hallway Y/N briskly walked to go grab the fabric napkins and she began meticulously, and begrudgingly folding them to be set at the Kings table for dinner.

“Oh blast it,” she growled between her teeth as she placed another folded napkin on the tray. “I can’t seem to get this darn thing to stay.”

After working all day the hair Douxie had so generously put up for her was starting to come undone. Without a mirror and without knowing the actual look all Y/N could do was put it up again by feverishly retying the ribbons end which held the whole thing up.

Perhaps that baby in the village had really tugged the lot of the knot out, Y/N pondered, struggling once again.

A grunt could be heard down the hallway and Y/N and the other castle maids and helpers quickly turned to the grand banquet doors where the sound was heard.

Only to be followed by some more clanking of metal and several loud. Booms.

The staff winced, before seeing a young Hisirdoux round the corner with eyes blown open. Y/N smiled a soft smile at seeing the punk rock boy she knew so shy and young.

He scuttled in and nervously fiddled with his fingers and with the culprit of the loud noise found, and the noises outside subsiding the kitchen staff returned to their duties.

Y/N shook her head slightly, using the palm of her hand to sniffle a snort.

Young Hisirdoux cut his hazel eyes over to her for a second. Y/N simply shrugged and gestures to her work of folded napkins before returning to it.

A few minutes later, with the kitchen mostly cleared out in light of adding finishing touches to dishes in the kitchen. Y/N went about bending over and placing one particular piece of silverware in the place setting around the entire grand hall table.

“Oh, for Pete’s Sake,” she exclaimed at the sensation. Finding the frayed edge of the ribbon dangling over her collarbone once again.

“Oh, hello there.” Hisir-Douxie replied waving his arm energetically.

With a snort Y/N waved back. Douxie was quite goofy back in the day, although, Y/N thought he was still endearingly goofy to this day too.

"You’re one of the people that other-Hisirdou- I mean me, er I brought back in time.” The tone in his voice changing dramatically throughout the entire sentence.

Y/N nodded, “That I am, but you have to kept it a secret.” She replied, making a ‘sh’ sign with her finger.

“Ha, right.” Hisirdouxie giggles while walking over. “Well, I can help with that! I’m training to be Merlins Apprentice after all.” He states matter-of-factly and thrusts a thumb into his chest.

Walking still ever so closer to Y/N, Hisirdoux stares down at the dangling offensive piece of ribbon that’s been bugging Y/N for most the of the morning.

“I could gladly fix that up for you!” He cheers with a wide grin clapping his hands together in delight.

“Really?” Y/N asks turning to face him. He furiously nods his head, hair bouncing around his face. “I’d actually really appreciate that, please.”

With a hurried jump Hisirdouxie rounds the side and hesistates before touching, “May I?” He asks voice breaking just a little.

“Go ahead.” Is the simple answer he gets before he goes in and fixes off the work of his future self coming to a pause at redoing the knot.

“And to finish it off, a pretty bow, for the pretty lady.”

#TOA #Hisirdoux Casperan #Douxie #Douxie x reader

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river-bottom-nightmare · 4 years ago

Text

[New draft]

I’m finally getting hitched Tying The Knot Official Words

Wedding Vows

by roy harper, putting the laughter in manslaughter since 1983

A couple years ago, you asked me why I loved you, and I said “I-I don’t know.” Except you weren’t really happy with that answer, I could tell, so I tried to put it into nicer words. I mean, I’ve loved a lot of people in my life, or at least I thought I did. Look how that turned out. And, you know, I kind of write them off when they leave me, or when I leave them, because obviously that means it couldn’t have been love in the first place. But then I know that’s a big fat fucking lie because I still remember all of them, still remember exactly how it felt to tumble head over heels. So maybe they reason they stayed with me forever, despite one of us leaving, has to do with them and not me? And I was about halfway through this awful explanation when Dick gave us a call, told us that dealer we were tracking had just put his dirty little hands in Bludhaven, so we went to go deal with that.

Both of us were glad that conversation was over, and I’m pretty sure you forgot all about it. But I didn’t. I never forgot about it, and I realized I never really answered your question. So, here goes.

I mean, I thought I was so smart when you met me. Sure, I was at my absolute lowest. But I was 25 and reckless, and the heroin had me feeling like a real person for the first time, you know? A human being, with the kind of secrets a grown-up kept, telling the kind of lies grown-ups told. And I thought I loved the way grown-ups loved. Always on the move, always leaving. Because it was either leave or get left. And I thought that was love. And I thought that was a brilliant idea. I was all dark and tough and had this tragic backstory, and I thought I was fucking irresistible, but only for a night. I thought I was fucking irresistible for a night, and after that I wasn’t worth shit.

Now, I’m looking back at 25 year old me and the only thought going through my head was, what an asshole. Just, everything about me was supremely dickish. But most of all, it was the way I treated relationships. Do you remember that time you, me, and Kori went to that carnival? And Kori won that strength competition and we got free cotton candy? And I just gorged myself on candy floss, man. I was worse that Wally used to be, back in the day. And then we went on all those carnival rides and I thought to myself, I’d be fine. I run around jumping off rooftops with grappling arrows, and I used to practice marital arts with Dick Grayson. Motion sickness doesn’t happen to me. And then like half an hour later I was puking my guts out and you stood there and laughed at me? That. That’s how I treated love. I gobbled up everything I could get, and it was way more than I could handle, and then I’d throw it all up and run away.

I’m not 25 anymore, but it feels like I’m still running. Except I can’t get away with what I used to do, ‘cause Kori can hear my fucking heartbeat and you check my arms for track marks all the time and Dick bribed his way into being my second emergency contact after you. So I hide away in my room and sort of melt onto my sofa. But not the good melting, like the way I melt into your mouth like you snipped all my strings. The gross kind of melting where I’m curled up onto the couch and I just wanna hack all my hair off with a knife and it feels like my brain is leaking all over the sofa and I know you killed most of my old dealers but I wanna bring them back to life because just one more hit, I just need one more hit, and I wanna drink myself into a rage but you locked away all the alcohol with a bat-lock that even I can’t break. Figures. It’s funny. You’ll shoot yourself in the neck before you go to Bruce for anything, but if it’s for me, you’ll swallow your pride in a second and get whatever the hell you need.

I guess I’m just scared. I’m scared that I’m imaginary. I’m scared I’ll always end up reinventing myself every day to spare other people the trouble of having to do that for me. That what I want everyone to see always takes precedent to who I really am. I’m scared that I’ve finally lost it, that I’m crazy, that I’ve finally gone mad. But I’m even more scared that I’m perfectly sane. Because if I’m sane, then what excuse do I have? What excuse do I have for treating people the way I do, like they’re problems that I have to solve or explain or else I’ll just fall behind everyone else.

And that’s where you come in. Fuck, Jay. That’s, that’s when you came in.

I tried to word vomit that last part to you one night when you thought I was drunk and I thought you were drunk but neither of us had had a drop, and we hid behind the curtain of alcohol to have a heart to heart. And you told me people don’t have to be solved or explained. We’re all just ghost stories, and maybe we should just try to stay that way. Because we spend our days doing wonderful things, horrible things, and sometimes there’s no reason behind it. Or, wait, fuck, no. There is a reason. But that reason’s too simple and too straightforward to really be satisfying, you know? And then we keep forgetting the lesson that we learned and re-mystifying these problems that we already solved because deep down we don’t actually want to figure out why we love each other but hurt each other and-

Fuck. Sorry, Jaybird. This was supposed to be a simple answer to a simple question.

I think. Um. No, I don’t think. I know. I know I love you because I have to.

There’s no “why” about it. Any more than there’s a reason why Kori loves the dew drops that gather in the morning grass, or why that old hag in the apartment next to us can’t keep a plant alive for the life of her. I mean, I guess there is a reason. There’s always a reason, there’s always a “why.” I don’t really understand it, though. And you know how much that bothers me, you gotta know how much I hate that. Maybe if I dug around in myself for a bit, really thought some stuff through, talked to some people I thought I was done talking to, I’d figure it out. I’d figure out where all this love comes from. What it’s for.

But then the question would be answered. Why do I love you? Boom, I’d have an explanation. The ghost story would be over. And there’s really no point in telling a ghost story that has an ending, all nice and neat and wrapped up in a little package.

Right now, I think I’m finally at a place where I can just let it be. It’s just you and me. Me sleeping ‘till noon, then waking up to see you in my kitchen, looking like a fucking greek god reincarnated, a smile on your face that I don’t think anyone else but me gets to see, flipping an omelette with the same ease and grace that you flip knives. Me in fiddling with a couple spare parts, adding on to my arrows, and you either sliding up behind me, wrapping your arms around my waist and whispering in my ear how good I look in this old tank top or you throwing a greasy rag at my face and laughing at how it messed up the bun I had my hair put up in and telling me to wash up, dinner’s in 10. The two of us crowding around a set of blueprints, scheming and figuring out how to best hurt this one greedy asshole and send him down the highway to hell. And you honestly know all my secrets, all the dark thoughts I had when I was doped up and hating the world and everyone in it. And I’m the only one who knows what really happened in that funky green goo you call a Lazarus Pit, I’m the only one who knows what you went through under the League. The fact that we don’t have any secrets gives me this feeling in my chest, it’s warm and golden and sorta like how you feel with Dick Grayson smiles at you, except this time I think I caused it.

I just hope to god I’m right when I say “I love you.”

‘Cause I do. Jason. I love you. I just, fuck. I like being around you. And for the first time in a long while, I don’t think I’m going anywhere.

Fuck. That was stupid. This barely even made sense anyway.

[Are you sure you want to delete this document?]

[Document deleted]

[New draft]

Wedding Vows.

From Roy Harper. To Jason Todd.

I was trying something new with this and I have no idea whether it worked or not but oh well here it is.

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