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notmrskennedy · 4 years ago

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Eight Seconds

Howdy! I’m honestly freaking out bc this the first Spencer Reid anything I’ve written and bc I try not to out myself as country too much bc well the world right now. (I honestly wish there was more people out there who had a thing for cowgirls/boys as I do.) I hope at least one person enjoys it as much as I liked writing it.

Summary: Spencer Reid meets the cowgirl of his dreams...

Warnings: I think I swear like twice? other than that it’s fluff

Word count: 4.5k

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He doesn’t think that it would be Penelope Garcia to catch him. Sure, she’s a genius and a tech wizard and an overall queen at gathering gossip. But she isn’t around him as much as JJ. Or Emily. Or Morgan.

What gave him away to her and not everyone else?

Because he knows he’s given something away when she texts him. Urgent. Batcave now! He’s hopeful. Optimistic. Maybe Penelope’s got some burning question about Star Trek. Or Doctor Who. Or when the next convention is. Maybe it’s a serial killer.

But he isn’t that lucky. Spencer Reid never is.

He knocks hesitantly, worried for exactly what’s to come. Her gaze snaps up from her tablet. Snaps to him in an incessant kind of ‘I know what you did’ way. It’s a look for scolding children. Not a pleasant, let’s have a tea time chat, gaze.

Spencer settles into the extra chair and waits. There’s a storm brewing behind her eyes and when she finally speaks, she doesn’t disappoint.

“What’s her name?”

And he can’t stop it. Lovesick smile, starry eyes—Penelope doesn’t have to be a profiler to see it before he sobers up. Her mouth opens into a toothy grin. An insufferably contagious grin and he knows he’s caught for sure.

He leans back in the desk chair, stares up at the ceiling and breathily whispers, “Shawn.”

“Oh!” Penelope gasps. He can hear the mental scolding. There’s backtracking with no end in sight. “Well, I didn’t mean to presume and it’s—it’s okay if Shawn is—or you’re—and I just didn’t know—you never said anything—“

“Relax,” he chuckles and grins at her softly for good measure. “Shawn is a girl. Her legal name is Shawna if you’re that curious.”

And he knows Penelope is curious. She’s grinning and waiting and listening. He can tell she wants to prompt. To ask questions. To dig through every tiny detail she can. Is it bad to make her wait? To not want anyone to know about the girlfriend he’s kept hidden for so long?

“Tell me more,” Penelope buzzes, bouncing in her seat, monitors—work—forgotten. “Where did you love story begin?”

He smiles to himself. It’s not a matter of when, but how long.

It took eight seconds. All of eight seconds.

At first, he wasn’t even sure it was eight seconds. He’d been running, running harder than he ever had. Chucks flapping against the hard packed dirt. Horse trailers flying by him as he jumped hitches and slipped through patches of mud.

It was five minutes of burning lungs and dust caked nostrils before those eight seconds. Quick glances between trailers. Got to keep moving, Reid, got to keep up. Because Morgan’s chanting was getting distant, too distant. The last time they’d split up—

Five minutes of a maze he hadn’t learned. Five minutes of being utterly lost, following the sound of Morgan’s thundering boots and desperation. They were all desperate. It was a desperate move to keep running, not to find solace in an empty horse trailer on the killer’s part. The bastard thought he could lose them, shake the FBI agents off his tail.

Reid knew better, but he was getting desperate too. His lungs were burning. It’d only been five minutes.

“FBI! Stop!” Morgan shouted from behind him. Reid skidded through a patch of horse shit into the main thoroughfare. Thank god. No more trailers. A walkway, a solid walkway, a clear line of sight. The man was running. Why do they always run?

Reid picks up his lungs in his desperate hands and pushes on. Grits his teeth, clenches down on every spare inch of fortitude left. Morgan catches up easily but doesn’t surpass. They’re both tired. They’re both panting. They’ve both got weapons drawn, but who could make a shot at 50 yards with a moving target?

Not Reid. He knew better.

But Morgan tried one more time. Shouted and called and screamed. The man didn’t look back. Prison was on his heels and he was desperate enough to keep running. A coward. There wouldn’t be a standoff. Smart enough to not get cornered, not smart enough to keep from getting caught.

They both pushed harder. This was their eight seconds. They were getting close, they reasoned to themselves, hearts panting to the same rhythm. They could keep it together for these last seconds. He’d get tired—they were getting tired—he had to be tired by now.

He was racing in snakeskin cowboy boots. How could he be keeping that pace in those shoes?

Reid hoped his lungs would give out. Save the heroic work for Morgan. Morgan could get the bad guy. Morgan could get the girl. He could have anything he wanted. Reid just wanted to fall face first into the dirt and let the fresh mud extinguish the flames in his lungs. In his throat. In his mouth.

But then the eight seconds came.

In the first second, he realised his heart didn’t gallop. It didn’t have the imprints of hooves. It wasn’t the two thousand pound animal gaining momentum behind him. His heart was clogging his ears that badly. Thankfully, with his wits about him, he looked back.

In the second second, Reid saw the animal. Mid-step, perfect stride. A plastic figurine of a race horse, nostrils wide at the end of its long face. It took only the second second to see the crazy in the horse’s eyes. How they focused and blinked and bled the insanity. How it was more beast than domesticated pet. Reid was convinced the black stockings on its legs were dripping grease from its gears. He could see the muscle in its shoulders and flanks. Muscle groupings bigger than him. An animal that could crush him. A machine running with a single thought: faster.

He saw the rider in the third second. One he didn’t expect. Maybe it was his own memories of cowboy movies, but cowboys weren’t supposed to be dipped in glitter. Weren’t supposed to be such overtly female. But there she was. Her dark curls billowing behind her. Sun glinting off the gold of her hat. Glinting off the impressive amount of glitter on her eyelids. And the rhinestones on her black button-down. She was stunning. Furrowed in her concentration. Elated in her grin.

The rope came in the fourth. It was twisting in her hand, coil and reins held precariously in her other. It loops over her head, slack enough to swallow her whole. Slack enough to get caught on her. Get caught on the horse. She keeps perfect control and the hand comes around and around until she—

In the fifth second, the rope releases and Reid slows his feet to watch it. The horse has gained on the man, so close that teeth could get involved. The man doesn’t seem to know, or is too desperate to change direction. Because he’s gone straight and the horse has followed and the rope is sliding through her hand like it’s meant to be there forever. It goes and goes and goes. He thinks the loop is bound to catch her foot, a hoof, something. But it doesn’t. It never does.

With six seconds down, the man finds he doesn’t have feet anymore. The loop of the rope tightens around his legs and he’s falling. He doesn’t have feet under him. Barely hands to save his face. Reid hopes the fall is harder than it needs to be. But he’s not focused on the man, he’s focused on the girl. The girl who expertly catches the rope in her hands. Who expertly ties the end around the saddle horn. Who’s horse pulls the rope taut and the man goes down.

At seven seconds, the horse is still backing. It knows. It’s practiced. Reid can see the elation on both rider and animal. Their pride is palpable. He doesn’t know it, but this is the best run they’ve done together. Not the fastest, but the best.

Eight seconds is when the girl turns to them. Grinning, hollering, hands up in the air. Reid watches as they catch up, slowing down to match the horse’s speed. The man tries to flip himself over, dragging on his back towards the federal agents. Reid can feel his heart and he wonders if it’s beating harder from the run or the thrill.

He’ll never admit it but he’s always wanted to be a cowboy. This girl has his other dream in her hands, wearing it as her favourite belt buckle.

Eight seconds later and she’s smiling down at the agents, still hollering some form of yeehaw! Reid grins, dragging his aching limbs forward to help Morgan flip the man onto his stomach and cuff him. The dragging discontinues and the horse knickers his anger that the trial is over.

Reid loosens the rope from the man’s feet, working the fray between his fingers. He moves to hand it to the cowgirl but she’s already snapping it from him and coiling it back up. She latches it back to her saddle, chest heaving with the excitement of it all.

“Bitch!” the man spits as Morgan hauls him to his feet.

The girl just smirks and tips her hat back. Reid can’t help but watch her pretty red lips as she says, “I’ll stick my foot so far up your ass, you’ll taste my good leather if you don’t shut your goddamn mouth.” Vulgarity has never sounded better off of anyone else’s tongue. She’s got the first sermon he’s ever wanted to listen to sitting on her lips and he wonders if this is why people believe in God. If pretty girls have always made men believe in things they shouldn’t.

Her drawl is thick, sticky, and unsweet. She’s got more threats bubbling up in her chest, sitting precariously close to her heart. She comfortable in sliding off her horse, landing softly in the dirt.

He won’t admit it, but he can’t ignore how round her ass is in those tight jeans.

She pats her horse, sliding her rough hands under its harnesses and it’s mane. Reid knows enough about horses to distinguish several muscle groups and bone structures from others. He feels out of his depth. He’s drowning being so close to a dream he can never have. He wonders if he should ask her to stay. Tell her there’s reports. Witness statements. Paperwork. Anything to get her to stay longer, to prolong the closeness to the dream. The closeness to her.

The horse gives a bleated scream as Morgan passes with the handcuffed man, both human males looking equally frightened of the animal. It settles into a role of domestication as the girl lets the horse throw its head into her shoulder begging for pats.

Spencer knows he supposed to follow Morgan, but he can’t move. She’s everything in that moment. And just as he gets the courage to thank her, thank her for stopping the burning, she meets his eyes and drops her jaw.

“Well as I live and breathe!” she shouts. It’s too rough for a squeal, more of a whistle of her words. “Spencer Reid, not even a day’s difference. How in the hell are you?”

Is he breathing? He doesn’t think he’s breathing. She knows him. She knows him. She knows him. And he has no idea who she is. He searches her beautiful face. Running over the ruby lips. Over the pink blushing cheeks. The glittered eyelids and the long eyelashes.

She’s so unfamiliar it hurts.

Morgan stops in his tracks. There’s blood in the water for the first time in ages. The last time these waters were chummed was a bartender who called him exactly once.

And it gets worse. Her face falls. Emily and JJ are rounding the corner. Everything in him sinks to the floor. Every details about himself becomes apparent. He’s gangly and uncoordinated. His hair’s too long and he’s got circles under his eyes darker than the grease stains on her horse. He’s so unperfected and this girl reminds him of the girls in high school he could never have.

He wonders for a moment if she’s from high school. She can’t be though, he thinks as he fights the bile in his throat. She’s younger than me.

“You know boy genius?” Morgan asks, handing the killer off to Emily. He’s strutting. Ever the first impressionist. The girl barely glances at him, still studying Reid with a crestfallen little smile perched on her perfect lips.

“Not really,” she settles on, getting a better grip on the reins she’s holding. Getting a better grip on herself. “We met once. In Vegas. I was 15 and I’ve done my growing up since.”

Reid still hasn’t moved. He’s not sure he can. His feet are putty from the run. Putty from her smile. Just ask for her name, he screams at himself, but he can’t. There’s no guarantees. There’s no ‘of courses’, only ‘what ifs’. The what ifs can consume you and he’s worried he’s going to let them.

Morgan extends his hand in the stretching pause. And she shakes it. All crimson lips and pearly teeth. “I’m Agent Derek Morgan. You obviously know, Dr. Reid.”

Her eyebrows raise for half a second. She’s surprised. And impressed. And Reid’s heart warms for no longer than she answers. “I’m Shawn, Shawn Healy.”

“Shawn? That’s an interesting—“

Everyone pauses at the sound of hoofbeats. Whips around to see another girl, a blonde in even more glitter, ride up on her own horse. Shawn swings back onto her horse and spurs him off, following the other girl. Spencer doesn’t see the flags they’re carrying until it’s too late. Until she’s already apologising for leaving. She’s late.

Spencer wonders if he’ll ever see her again. Black curls bouncing over her shoulders. Stained lips. Sun glinting off every inch of her.

In another eight seconds, she’s gone. Eight seconds to win his heart. Eight seconds to ride off with it.

He gives Penelope some condensed version of the story that she’s hooked on anyway. She’s leaned forward, elbows on knees, perched on every word that leaves his mouth like it’s from God himself. It’s comical, he thinks. Spencer’s never really been invested in anyone else’s drama, not for longer than five minutes.

Penelope’s going to be invested, heels sunk in, holding on for dear life. She’s invested for life.

“So, how’d you get her back?” she asks. Starry eyed. Concerned. This is her white whale and she’ll go down with this ship. “She could’ve been anywhere! How’d you two get together?”

And he knows this part isn’t complicated. And it’ll be enough to tide her over.

The quick answer is that he googled her. Read every newspaper article, column, and paper mentioning her. Shawna Healy had been mentioned more times for winning rodeo competitions than he had papers published. She was accomplished in her culture, in her part of the world. She’d won up to regionals while in college. Even boasted to being the first girl on the UT Dallas Rodeo Team. Currently employed at Montgomery’s Cattle Ranch just outside of DC. The same ranch who was hosting a For-Charity Bull-riding Competition.

Spencer hadn’t known what to do with the information so he sat on it. For a month. Until he couldn’t wait any longer. The competition was that weekend. He had to go.

He just kept repeating to himself, this is for academic purposes. This isn’t stalking. You might not even see her. This is for—

And he stops thinking. There’s no reason to think anything other than: I’m sorely underdressed. He’s sinking to the bottom of the deep end of the pool, lead weights tied to his ankles. Every man, woman, and child here is nothing sort of their earned Country label. There’s boots and buckles and ball caps. There’s dust and dip and drawl.

And he’s in a cardigan. Why was that a good idea? He doesn’t know, but he’s tempted to shrug it off and disappear. To run right back out of gates. To get swallowed by everyone staring at him. Gawking at him. He’s back in high school again and he wants to drink bleach.

He’s almost to the bleachers, past the makeshift bar, just at the corner of the dirt arena. Spencer knows he should just go home, shake it off, and dissolve into wishing the world takes pity on him. He’s too out of his depth. These other people belong. He most definitely does not.

And just as he’s about to turn tail, pussyfoot out of every bit of confidence he’s ever had, when he sees her.

She’s on a different horse. One not quite as beastly as the other. This one’s mellow, waiting on the edge of the arena, while she’s chatting absently with another man on horseback. She looks different. She’s far, but there’s no glitter. No outstanding colours. No glinting under the fluorescents. She’s in a cowboy hat, tipped forward over her loose braids. She’s traded her button down for a flannel, rolled up to the elbows and he finally understands why Penelope said it was such a turn on.

There’s no words as the announcer suddenly comes on and a bull bursts from the chute. It’s one of the most terrifying things he’s ever seen. A tiny man holding onto a two ton absolute beast with one hand—it’s absurd! But he can’t stop watching. Can’t stop being impressed. Waits on bated breath for the man to get bucked off after his nearly eight second run.

He does and Spencer has had falls like that. They aren’t pleasant.

The bull bucks and kicks for another few seconds. Shawn and her friend lazily canter forward, guiding the animal back to the other side of the arena and through a gate. She whistles and the gate closes behind it.

The pair retreat back to their corner and the process starts all over again.

“You look a little lost, honey,” a sweet voice chirps beside him. He startles, head caught up in Shawn and every single perfect What If. This girl reminds him of a movie star he can’t remember the name of. Big blonde curls. Big eyelashes. Big smile. Tiny waist.

She’s amazingly beautiful. Amazing doll like. Amazingly…not his type.

Spencer still nervously smiles and clears his throat. “I kind of am.”

“Cardigan gave it away,” she giggles, turning him towards the edge of the stadium seating, dropping them onto the bottom row seat. “I’m Kaley Montgomery. My brother and my sister are this shift’s pick up riders.” Spencer nods along like he knows what she’s saying. “I tell ‘em I’m here to support them and my daddy—he put this whole thing on you know—but I’m just here to pick up cute cowboys.”

“I’m not a cowboy,” Spencer blurts. Her laugh is slick like the sugar in a Venus fly trap. He tries not to get drawn in, but she’s all encompassing. Bright perfume. Colourful clothes. Soft skin and warm empathy. There’s nothing uninviting about her and he wants to move back.

“No, honey, you aren’t.” Kaley pauses to look him over. Whatever she sees makes her softly grin. “Why are you here anyway?”

There’s no judgement. She’s safe and alluring and exactly the opposite of what makes him nervous at that moment. The confidence surges for a moment and he answers, “I’m actually trying to find this girl I met a while ago.”

“Must be a special lady. What’s her name?”

“Shawn Healy,” Spencer sighs. It’s wistful. It’s longing. It’s half desperate. It’s been a month since he’s seen her. A month since he snuck back to see if he could catch her at the rodeo one more tine.

Kaley snorts. Her lady-like instincts kick back in and she covers it was a giggle. “Honey, you met the right girl. Shawn’s like my sister. Her shift ends in a few rounds, and she’s meeting me here if you just wanna stick around for a second.”

And he does. Kaley keeps him laughing, has him singing the high praises of Rodeo sports by the end. It’s maybe another ten minutes. Ten minutes of calming down, easing into the world. Kaley looks like she has whiplash with all of the questions he’s asking. And she’s a little dazed when he blinks at her sheepishly.

“Told he was smart, didn’t I?” a voice says behind him and Spencer jumps out of his skin. He’s desperate to slip it back on without seeming desperate. Without seeming nervous. But it all melts. Shawn’s in front of him. Shawn’s grinning. Shawn’s even more beautiful without the glitter.

“How did you recognise me?” he blurts. There’s stumbling as he tries to backtrack. Shawn’s eyes are green this close up and she smells like leather and oats and apples. His sentences lose traction as she peels her hat off, and sits down next to him.

There’s nothing soft about her. She’s callused. Rough. Nothing like any other girl he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting. Spencer doesn’t need more than ten seconds to know that Shawn’s never worn glitter more than the one time and never will again. To known that Shawn is simple and complicated and every grey area he’s ever wanted to explore.

Shawn’s eyes are still and focused. She follows Kaley as the girl stands and leaves. Returns the gaze to Spencer with a glint he can’t categorise. There’s a pause. Lead up to another eight seconds of life changing to be done.

“You were sitting by yourself at a sorting event at the South Point,” she breathes, brushing a piece of dirt off the hat in her hands. Setting it beside her on the bleacher. She gives him plenty of time to stare. To appreciate her.

There’s plenty of time, Spencer thinks and he keeps her gaze with a nervous grin.

Shawn brushes a hand over the frazzled bits of her hat hair. “I came and sat next to you because you looked so lonely. You were so afraid.”

His brain fires and spits and roars to life. He can remember the strange girl who came to sit by him, a sea of empty spaces around him. He’d just committed his mom. Was just about to leave for MIT. He’d been swimming in a sea of self-hatred when he’d been greeted by braces and pimples and too much dark hair. She’d explained every second of the calf sort, almost unprompted, and sussed out every single one of his questions.

It had been as close as he ever dared get to being a cowboy. A decade later and she was every introduction to this world he’d ever had.

Shawn’s got two seconds left on the clock and she doesn’t disappoint. Her fingers are delicate as she places a precarious hand on his knee. There’s a soft pressure to his patella. Shawn’s touching him and he can’t help the shock.

“I had one of those day long crushes. You were the smartest man I’d ever met.”

And no words are suddenly good enough. He wants to tell her that he’s fallen in love now. That he can’t help it. That all he wants is to listen to her drawl on for the rest of his life. That she’d made that last week in Vegas bearable. That she’d been everything. Still was.

But there’s no good way to articulate that. And maybe she knows that. Maybe Shawn Healy was a profiler in a different life because she lets go of his knee and switches subjects. Leans back against the seat behind her, stretching out into the spot of sun.

“It’s my lunch break,” she announces, her boots drifting closer to touching his chucks. The eyes don’t matter as the bleachers stare. What matters is Shawn’s tricky smile. “Have lunch with me.”

He nods and doesn’t think he could bear to disagree with her. Shawn disappears for a moment long enough that he’s worried she isn’t coming back, but she plops french fries into his lap not a second later than the worry begins to fester. Shawn’s not one to back out of commitments, he learns, and ends up hearing enough bad stories that Spencer isn’t sure how they’re getting along so well.

Because they’re getting along so well. Too well. Like they’ve never stopped talking since she was 15 and he was 18. Three hours is too early to say I love you, but he’s thinking it as she talks through a basket of french fries. As she sneaks them to some tiny kids in even tinier cowboy boots.

He’s thinking it every time she laughs.

He’s thinking it as she shoves his shoulder and demands to know why he doesn’t own a pair of jeans.

He’s thinking it even as she stands and apologises and stuffs her business card in his shirt pocket. “We’ll get you cowboy’d up one of these days, Dr. Reid. Now, don’t you forget to call—I’m late again.”

She runs off and he can’t stop thinking I love you so much as she waves at him over her shoulder and once again when she’s in the arena, back on a new horse.

Penelope is near tears at the end of Spencer’s story. He relaxes into the new world he’s entering. The one, two years later, where he’s wondering exactly how much he can keep to himself. How much Garcia will suss out and how much he’ll tell her himself.

Penelope folds her arms and suddenly frowns. She’s got a bee in her bonnet and Spencer’s afraid of what it means.

“Shawn,” she murmurs to herself. “Spencer Reid is shacking up with a cowgirl. I can’t—I’ll see it when I believe it.”

This is her attempt to get Spencer to show her pictures, or call Shawn, or even bring her around. But he doesn’t. He just smirks. No matter how much he actually can’t work the phone in his hands, he doesn’t want to. Shawn’s worried enough about meeting the team, she doesn’t need one Penelope Garcia tracking her down and tackling her.

“How ever much I love this chat we’re having, I have to get back to work,” Spencer announces. He stands. Walks off before Penelope can ask more questions.

And despite all of her yelling and protests and shouting for him to just come back here and tell me if she’s your girlfriend, Penelope knows she won’t get anything more. She’s determined anyway, and plans to corner JJ later on.

She finds doesn’t have to ask JJ, cornered or not. Because not four hours later, does Penelope find one Dr. Spencer Reid admiring the diamonds on the wedding ring he’s holding up between him and the coffee pot. He’s quick to shove it in his pocket as Penelope enters the little kitchenette. Quick to stir sugar in his coffee like nothing’s happened. Like Penelope definitely didn’t see the ring he’s waiting to give Shawn.

“When did you get the ring?” she asks, quietly opening the box of tea.

“Promise not to think I’m crazy?”

Penelope nods, turning just enough to see just how love stricken the poor boy is. “I’d even pinky promise, my love.”

He smirks and softens and says almost so quietly she doesn’t hear, “It was about two weeks after our first date. It took about eight seconds to find the right one.”

#pls I'm doing my best #i've also got anxiety to the moon and back #spencer reid #oc #criminal minds #dr spencer reid

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aen-maggs · 4 years ago

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YOUR MESS IS MINE - Chapter 7

There was a pounding at my door that sounded similar to the pounding in my head. I looked at the clock and realized it was noon already. Stumbling from my couch, I made it to the front door. Opening it without even looking through the peephole, I already knew who it was by the force of the knock.

"How the hell did you know where I live?" I asked while I squinted my eyes to the sunlight.

"A little birdie told me." Eddie said pushing passed me and walking into my living room.

"A Moxley Jay." I quipped and shut the door. Running my fingers through my hair, I tried not to feel embarrassed at how I looked. I was going to have to have a talk with our mutual friend. Jon knows both Eddie and I too well.

"Oh ho! Looks like someone demolished a bottle last night." He said pointing to the empty bottle and shot glass on my coffee table.

"Judgey much?" I said and went to the kitchen to make coffee. I was hung over for sure, but I didn't need him rubbing it in.

What are you doing here?" I demanded. He ignored me as he sat down on the barstool in my kitchen. He tilted his head to the bottle.

"Avoiding the nightmares or avoiding me?" He asked. I looked up from my coffee pot.

"Both." I said leaning against the counter. "Why are you here?"

"Why are you avoiding me?" He returned.

"What do you want, Eddie?" I said getting angry.

"Ok, don't answer. How about them dreams?" He was really pushing it.

"Damn will you stay off the nightmares? I have bad dreams. It's isn't abnormal." I said louder than I meant to.

"Nah. You are in self destruct mode. I can see it and as your friend, I am going to do what I can to stop you from fucking up your opportunities. You have to talk to someone. Stop being a cold hard bitch and let me in, just a little." Eddie snapped.

We got quiet, neither of us wanting to say the wrong thing and create a full blown argument. I brain and heart were processing the question as to why Eddie was here in the first place when he broke the silence.

"I'm sorry for being an ass yesterday. That's all I wanted to say." He stood up ready to go.

"Wait." I said. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't want him to go. I wasn't sure why, but I felt like I needed him to stay just for a while longer. I owed him, realizing that, I took a deep breath.

"A year before I met you," I started, "so that would be 8 or 9 years ago?" He said nothing, just stood staring at me. Like if he said anything I would hide behind my walls again.

"I was in a relationship, in fact I was engaged." I saw Eddie's jaw tighten. I figured he wouldn't like this bit of information, but it would only get worse. I continued.

"I was so young then. Stupidly optimistic and very insecure. It wasn't a healthy relationship. We argued a lot. He was often times uncaring and liked humiliating me. I mean, to the point of making me cry in bed because he got off on it." I stopped to catch my breath.

"Don't get me wrong, a little rough stuff is kinky and sexy, but he was too rough. No safe words. Just wanting to push me to make me break. But, you know me - I don't give in." I was avoiding his gaze, but I could see he was still staring at me with those pale blue eyes.

"One night we played a game. I was tied up. He got a stick. Beat my ass literally. Black and blue. I was in pain and crying and there was no way to make him stop. He didn't provide any comfort or after care. I was just a toy, a thing that he had control over. I finally got out of that place, and promised myself I would not be controlled by anyone again. I started wrestling not long after because he always said I wouldn't ever make it. Too weak." I realized I was crying and my tears began to roll down my cheek.

"My nightmares are of me being trapped in that house we shared and I can't get out. I feel every bruise again. Hear every hateful word or goading remark. There are no doors or windows. I'm just trapped. I wake up not knowing if it's real or not." I finished and started getting a coffee mug from the cabinet. Eddie was next to me before I put the cup down, pulling me close to him. I felt his heartbeat and smelled his scent of cologne and smoke and mint.

"Alright." He said softly, and I felt myself lean into him harder. I felt his rosary under his shirt and closed my eyes, feeling safe. I was angry at myself for crying in front of him. It hurt to open this past life up to anyone. Still, if anyone knew pain, it was Eddie.

I pulled away from him. He looked down at me as I wiped tears from my face. "Hey, it's done. We ain't gotta talk about it no more."

"Thank God." I said with nervous laughter.

"If I ever find out who he is, I'm gonna fuck Jim up something special." He said through gritted teeth.

"Ok ok," I said, shoving him playfully in the chest. He laughed and then leaned down and kissed me. His mouth was warm and his kiss was deep and tender. His tongue slid between my lips and I melted into him without resistance. I wanted him so bad in that moment, but he broke the kiss before I could make any move.

Looking down at me, Eddie straightened up and ruffled my hair. "Now, you have a big match. Get your shit together and let's go to work."

#aew fan fiction #aew fanfiction #eddie kingston fan fiction #eddie kingston fanfic #eddie kingston

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dumbpissfiend · 5 years ago

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Lala Omorashi (Monster Musume)

I should have seen this coming...Thought Lala, her head resting on a chair in the living room. Cursed spider...I'll reap her for this myself the first chance I get...As she thought this, she winced and gritted her teeth in pain, letting out a small whimper. It may not have been in the same room, but her body, wherever it was, was in quite the pickle: bursting to pee, and making sure she was well aware of it.

Lala took a deep breath (more for the psychological benefit than actual need of air), and concentrated, trying to maneuver her body to see if she could undo Rachnera's bonds. But the spider-woman was a consummate professional, and there was no getting out of these ties. Plus, struggling was only making her predicament worse, so the dulahan ceased her futile endeavor quickly. Instead, she tried to focus past the urgent pain in her abdomen and think of her options: she couldn't do anything to help herself in her current condition, so, though she was loathe to ask, given her predicament, she would need help from one of her housemates. Rachnera was out, obviously, she was the one who'd done this to her in the first place, the sadistic bitch. Miia had started shedding, and was holed up in her room for the duration. Papi and Suu were apparently out of earshot, perhaps playing in the bath together. Lala wasn't sure they would be much help, anyway. Mero was in her room as well, and would probably come if she heard Lala calling, but with her limited mobility she wasn't the best candidate for a top-to-bottom search of the house, especially with time being of the essence as it was. It seemed it was Centorea's turn for laundry, so she was out on the balcony, unlikely to hear Lala calling, and aside from that, the centaur still intimidated Lala, and she wanted to ask her for help least of all.

Truth be told, she was so embarrassed by her circumstances that she didn't want to ask any of them for help, but she was running out of time and if someone didn't help her find her body soon she wouldn't be able to face any of them under any circumstances. She counted herself lucky, though, that Kimihito was out shopping at the moment. Though his absence was probably part of why Rachnera had done this in the first place, he was the only member of the house she absolutely didn't want-

"I'm home!!!" Kimihito called from the entryway.

The shock caused Lala to momentarily lose control and she felt a jet of warm liquid moisten her panties, which only deepened her panic, and for a moment she thought she would lose control entirely. Nononononononononono she thought as she frantically worked to tighten her muscles and stay dry. She managed to, through sheer force of will, but was whimpering quite loudly with the effort, and only when she heard Kimihito's footsteps approaching did she remember why she had been panicking in the first place, and now her frantic thoughts shifted gears as she squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, held her breath, and thought to herself don'tseemedon'tseemedon'tseemedon'tseemedon'tseeme. There was silence for a moment, and she thought maybe he hadn't heard her after all and had instead gone straight to the kitchen with the groceries, so she opened her eyes.

And found herself looking directly into Kimihito's, who had crouched down in front of her, and nonchalantly asked "Is something wrong, Lala?"

She let out a small shriek and her face screwed up with tension as she once again leaked into her panties. It was harder to stop this time, and she was sure there would be a noticeable wet spot on her skirt where it was bunched into her crotch by Rachnera's bindings.

But the thought of the humiliation of wetting herself in front of Kimihito, (even if he couldn't actually see it happen), strengthened her resolve and she managed to regain her composure enough to reply to him with a simple, quiet, "...why do you ask...?"

"Well, just uh...you're sweating bullets, (however that works), and you won't look at me...you just seem kinda flustered in general..."

"Tch...foolish mortal...as if anything on this mortal coil could possibly vex a harbinger of death such as KYAHHHHH!!!"

"Wh-what?! What's wrong Lala?!?"

"Nonononononono, stop stop stop stop stop, god DAMN you Rachnera!" the Dulahan hissed through gritted teeth, her face flushing from it's characteristic pale blue to a bright crimson. The arachne, apparently unsatisfied with the dire straits she'd already put poor Lala in, had started massaging and prodding her overfilled bladder with her claws. The shock and pain had tensed her up so much that she miraculously avoided leaking anymore, but holding back the flood was harder than ever and her head felt dizzy with the exertion of it. She needed relief so badly tears were forming in her eyes.

"Huh? Rachnera? Oh boy...what'd she do to you this time...?"

Lala opened her mouth to answer, but hesitated. She would rather have avoided Kimihito knowing what state she was in than almost anything. Almost. But at this point, she would suffer the humiliation of telling him if it meant making it to the bathroom in time.

"...w-well, um...right after you left to go shopping, she um...asked if I wanted some tea, and I said yes...and then she set me down here, poured the entire pot down my throat, and then walked my body off somewhere because she 'wanted to try something'...and that was a few hours ago now..."

It had been hard to tell the story through the desperation and embarrassment, and Lala hadn't looked him in the eye once the whole time. But when he said nothing, she cast a sidelong glance at him and caught him looking confused. Finally he said,

"Uhhh, soooo...what's the problem?"

Now that just pissed her off.

"Well how would you feel if someone forced you to drink an entire pot of tea and then tied you up somewhere for hours?!?!" she barked.

Kimihito was shocked. He didn't think he'd ever seen Lala truly lose her temper like that. But now she was looking embarrassed and distracted again, and finally everything clicked together in his brain, and he hesitantly asked,

"Wait, Lala, do you...do you have to pee...?"

She cast her eyes downward, and for a moment the young man was terrified he'd been wrong after all and just made things awkward for both of them. But then she said, almost too quietly for him to hear,

"...of course I do..."

She was practically crying in desperation at this point, and Kimihito was overcome by sympathy.

"Oh, I'm uh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you uh...that that was something you needed to do..."

"Well, I need to drink like the rest of you, don't I?" she asked, still a tad annoyed at him for making her spell it all out so thoroughly, "doesn't it stand to reason that it has to...go somewhere..." she blushed even deeper and averted her gaze again.

"R-right, good point...I'm just never sure..."

Lala whimpered and tensed up once again. She really wasn't going to last much longer, and she was so desperate she couldn't even think about how to get out of this situation anymore. But suddenly she was moving, and when she opened her eyes she saw she was in Kimihito's hands.

"What are you doing?" she asked

"What do you mean? I'm gonna help you find your body so you can use the bathroom."

"Oh I..." she almost started arguing, but quickly realized she had no pride left to fight for now that she had told him, not that she could do much to physically protest, or think straight enough to convince him that she didn't need his help. "...thank you..." she finished quietly. She shut her eyes, and tried to focus on holding the rest of her pee without being distracted by the thought of imminent relief. It wasn't easy, and she silently willed Kimihito to hurry.

First they tried Rachnera's room in the attic, but apparently the spider had thought ahead and realized it would be too obvious. So they descended the ladder and started searching some of the supply closets on the first floor. The house had gotten so big now it was slower going than either of them would have liked, and Lala worried that thinking she might actually get relief in time had been too optimistic. Kimihito had skipped the second floor, figuring the rest of the gang were lounging in their rooms and thus the spaces wouldn't available, but there was hardly anywhere else to check, so he started ascending the stairs. As he did, Lala desperately whispered,

"Please hurry...I can't hold it much longer..."

"D-don't worry! We'll find your body in time, I promise, just hold on!"

Lala could only moan in tentative agreement.

Kimihito knew Miia was in the middle of shedding, so they skipped her door. Papi had left hers ajar, and they could see it was empty. Cerea's was closed, but there was no answer to their knock. He was about to call for her when he heard movement from the balcony. He rushed over to the door and saw Cerea outside, still working on laundry. When she saw him, she called out,

"Oh! Welcome home, Master."

"Hey, Cerea. I didn't realize you were out here, I thought you were in your room."

"Hmm? No, Rachnera asked if she could use my room while I was doing laundry for some kind of 'training'. She said my floor mats would be better than the hardwood in the attic."

But Kimihito was already hurrying back to her door, calling back his thanks. Lala hoped to god they would find her body behind that door. They certainly did, but the reunion was bittersweet, and it was at last clear to Lala exactly why she had had such an inordinately difficult time holding it.

Rachnera had suspended her from the ceiling, in her classic full-body binding, with her wrists and ankles tied together behind her back, and extra threads keeping her thighs spread apart and several knots pressing directly into her clearly overfilled bladder via gravity. Rachnera sat beside her handiwork, gently swinging the Dulahan's body back and forth like a tire swing. The motion was not helping Lala's condition, and several breaths caught in her mouth like sobs as she desperately fought not to soak herself.

"Oh, welcome home, honey." Rachnera said as nonchalantly as if she were reading a book on the porch on a fine summer day, as opposed to actively torturing her roommate's bladder.

"Don't 'welcome home honey' me! What do you think you're doing to poor Lala?!!"

Rachnera simply shrugged.

"Well, you were out, I was bored, and I've been curious to try this sort of thing for a while, so I figured what the hell. Gotta say, it hasn't been too exciting, though." she flicked Lala's bladder bulge as she said this, and the Dulahan squealed in pain.

Rachnera blinked. Then she flicked again.

"Please stop...!" Lala begged through tears.

"Huh. For some reason, I didn't imagine the head would be the most entertaining part of this little experiment. Now I wish I hadn't left her downstairs."

"Well if you hadn't tied her up like that! You might've actually...I-I mean she would've...I..."

"Go on, honey. Would've what?"

Kimihito's train of thought had run away, and images of Lala's body, unfettered by Rachnera's silk, writhing in desperate agony flashed across his brain. He saw her headless body pounding on the bathroom door with one hand with the other buried firmly between her thighs, as she frantically bounced up and down, crossed her legs as tightly as possible, and danced in place in a desperate bid to keep from soaking her knee-high stockings in urine. He involuntarily shuddered at the unexpected excitement these images sparked, but hearing Lala's desperate moans snapped him back to reality.

"N-nothing, I, I was, I, forget it! Just help me get her down, for chrissakes!"

He set Lala's head down on a shelf near the door, picked up one of Cerea's replica swords, and approached the body hanging from the ceiling.

"Here, hold her steady while I cut."

"Whatever you say, Honey." said Rachnera as she gripped Lala's calfs near the knee and braced her crotch against one of her many legs, eliciting a gasp from her head across the room.

"Oh...it's a little wet here...better hurry, Honey."

Kimihito didn't need to be told twice. He was no expert, but by now he'd had enough experience getting himself and the others out of Rachnera's bindings to have a pretty good idea where to cut. He first got the wrapping off of her body so the threads weren't cutting into her bladder, and her head sighed gratefully at this small measure of relief. Once her body was mostly free, he started sawing at the numerous braided cords around her wrists and ankles. Rachnera caught what he was doing and said,

"Oh, Honey, be careful cutting-"

*snap* The silk securing Lala's ankles came undone all at once and her body swung forward by the wrists. Kimihito reflexively reached out to catch her, accidentally slamming his forearm directly into Lala's bladder at full speed. Her head quickly cried from its perch, and that was it. Pee gushed from between her legs in a relentless torrent, soaking her underwear, skirt, boots, Kimihito's shoes, and the floor mats. It poured from her without cease for a solid minute before finally tapering down to a trickle, and eventually just the residual dripping from the soaked fabric was the only sound in the room.

"-that one..." Rachnera finished lamely.

Kimihito glared at her before cutting the ties from Lala's wrists and working on removing the last of the threads still wrapped around her. When he was finished, he turned to ask Lala how she was, and the question stopped in his throat when he saw tears streaming down her face from her closed eyes. Her body slumped to its knees in her puddle and jerked in silent sobs.

Finally Kimihito approached her head and wiped her tears away.

"Hey, Lala...it's okay. I mean, it's not like it was your fault," Rachnera looked down at that, "you've got nothing to be embarrassed about. And there's no way I'd tell anyone, so you don't have to worry about that. And neither will Rachnera. Right?" he asked, shooting the spider-woman a very pointed look.

"No, of course not. Lala, I'm...I...I'm sorry...I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to take this this far...Not that that counts for much now, I suppose, but...I am sorry."

"It'll be okay, I promise. We'll get a bath going for you, I can take care of laundry, that'll be it. Only the three of us will know, and it's not like we'd ever hold it against you. Okay?"

At last the Dulahan's tears slowed down, and she opened her eyes and looked at her host. He was giving her a worried smile that didn't completely wash away the embarrassment of what had just happened, but made it seem like less of a big deal. She sniffed and tried to nod, which led to her falling straight off the shelf. Kimihito managed to catch her, reflexively pulling her to his chest, where she could hear his heart pounding. She barely had time to wonder why it was beating so hard before Rachnera said,

“Oh, shit.”

“What now?” Kimihito asked.

“Well I just realized...unless we can replace these floor mats like right now, we will have to explain to Cerea what happened…”

The dread of facing Centorea with this humiliation hit Lala like a cold wave. Her face flushed and she felt like crying again. But then a very different sensation hit her and she realized the cold tingling wasn’t dread and she was blushing for another reason entirely. She involuntarily gasped in pleasure, startling Kimihito and Rachnera. Suddenly, the trio realized there was movement coming from where Lala’s body knelt on the floor. Well, where it had been kneeling. It was now lying on her back squirming with a bluish green mass writhing between her legs.

“Suu! Wh-what’re you doing?! Wait, when did you get here??”

In the hustle and bustle of things, all three had apparently missed her coming entering the room. She resolved herself into humanoid form to answer Kimihito, leaving Lala’s body heaving on the floor with her head breathing heavily in Kimihito’s arms to match.

“Lala looked so sad that her clothes were wet, and I was thirsty, so I got all the moisture out.”

The other three looked at the body, mouths agape. It was a little hard to tell because of the sheen Suu left behind, but Lala’s skirt did look decidedly less drenched. The same could be said of the floor mats, and Suu’s presence would be much easier to explain to Cerea. Still, Kimihito, Rachnera, and Lala’s minds reeled at the implications and they stared at Suu, unable to think of anything to say for a moment.

Suu was the one to break the silence, asking with some trepidation,

“Was that bad?”

“N-no! Uhhhhhh...no, as long as you’re fine with it, it’s actually very helpful, thanks Suu. You sure you feel okay?”

“Mhmm!” replied the slime cheerfully. She loved being helpful.

Kimihito took Lala’s hand and helped her body to its feet before reuniting it with her head.

“Sorry again about all this Lala.” he said.

“No, it...it’s fine.” she said, though glancing away bashfully.

He smiled at her and said, “Here, if you wanna go take that bath to wash, uh, Suu off of you, just leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll get them washed like I promised before dinner.”

“...thank you.” she whispered. She’d rather not having been in this situation in the first place, but it was a comfort having someone like Kimihito to rely on to get through it.

Even though she had technically been dried by Suu, she would feel better after a bath, so she did as Kimihito suggested, left her clothes outside the bathroom door, and prepared for a good wash. As soon as her toe touched the water, she was so shocked she retracted her foot quickly and almost dropped her own head on the floor. Apparently the tea wasn’t quite done working through her system and she crossed to the toilet in small, quick steps.

Kimihito bent to pick Lala’s clothes off the floor and paused when he thought he heard the water running. Weird...Papi was bathing not that long ago, it should still be pretty warm… But then he realized it wasn’t the same sound as the tub faucet, and his confusion only grew before the sound tapered off and was punctuated by a deeply satisfied sigh. His heart skipped a beat and his face grew hot when he realized what he’d just been listening to, and he walked away quickly to the laundry, trying and failing not to dwell on it too much.

#omorashi #fanfic #monmusu #lala #oc

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pickalilywrites · 6 years ago

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Hiiii! When you get the time can you pls write a levi/petra one-shot in which they end up having a second date (their first one was a failure) ❤️ thank you!

I was watching a kdrama where two celebrities pretend to get married and pursue a relationship for a variety show and i was like “cute”

Let’s Fall in Love!

Rivetra. Dating Show AU.

4547 words.

Buy me a ko-fi!

It is every girl’s dream to date Levi Ackerman, lead singer of the hit rock band No Name. In fact, Petra herself had fantasized him being her boyfriend when she was just a teenager, but she’s completely changed her mind after their initial meeting when he had clasped his hand in hers for a handshake and remarked that her hand was unusually cold.

“Kind of a like a dead person’s,” he said aloud.

At first, she was sure that she had just misheard, but the rest of their interactions only confirmed his rudeness. Petra knows that you should never meet your heroes, but this is ridiculous.

“I liked the part when he was complimenting her,” Eld says with a grin. He reaches out twirl a lock of Petra’s hair around his finger and watches it unwind as it falls away. He mimics the constipated expression of the famous rock singer and says in a low voice, “’Your hair…is very orange.’”

“Oh, what about the time he visibly cringed when he saw her putting cream in her coffee?” Gutner says.

“Or when he said he’d never heard of her music before?” Auruo snickers.

She’d yell at them to get out of her dressing room, but she’s trying to keep her temper in check especially when she eventually has to meet up with Levi again. She’d rather never see him again after the disastrous date from last week, but they’ve already signed the contract and she can’t back out of it now. Goddamn variety shows.

“Are you guys done?” she asks through gritted teeth. She stands up from her dresser and brushes herself off. She looks at herself once more in the mirror and frowns at her reflection thinking that Levi will definitely hate her no matter what she looks like. Not that she cares. She’d wear her ugliest clothes, but she’d get a lot of criticism online if she didn’t look perfect. Sighing, she runs her hands through her hair and looks warily at her bandmates. “Besides, it’s our music that he hasn’t heard of. Aren’t you guys the least bit offended? We’ve idolized No Name our entire lives and he’s not even interested in us even after the success of our last album. He could at least pretend to be a little impressed, don’t you think?”

Gunter shrugs. “Everyone knows he’s pretty reclusive. If it were his bandmate Hanji or their drummer Mike, I’d be miffed, but it’s Levi we’re talking about. He doesn’t seem to be interested in anything.” He pats her on the shoulder when her frown deepens and gives her a smile. “It’s just a silly show for fun. I doubt you’re the worst celebrity couple they’ve put on this show.”

“Not according to some people on Twitter,” Eld says as he scrolls through his phone. He chuckles as he reads a few out loud for them. “’Levi and Petra have absolutely NO CHEMISTRY at all.’ ‘Watching Levi and Petra together makes me want to tear my eyes out. They’re so terrible!’ ‘Petra doesn’t deserve to date Levi.’ Oh.” Eld frowns when he comes across a particular tweet. “This person wants to kill you for dating him. That won’t do. Don’t worry, Pet, I got you.”

“If they want to date Levi so badly, they can,” Petra groans as Eld furiously taps away on his phone. She’s stopped reading any tweets involving her lately. While she does get a bunch of tweets about how lucky she is to be dating the No Name front man or compliments about how nice she looks on the show, she’s been bombarded with more insults than she normally is and she’s thinking about staying off all her social media until this is all over and done with. “Don’t they know this isn’t real anyway? It’s just a TV show.”

“Does it matter? It might as well be real. You know about half the celebrities that get paired up on this show end up dating each other in real life?” Auruo says as he leans against her counter. He inspects his nails and grins at her slyly, watching her from the corner of his eye. “I know high school you would be ecstatic at an opportunity to date Levi Ackerman even if it’s just for a variety show. You were over the moon about him, saying that he was the greatest male vocalist in our time and you’d die if you ever met him in real life. I think you even said you’d marry him at one point.”

Petra side-eyes her friend, thinking that it’s unfortunate that one of her bandmates has to be her childhood friend. He knows far too much about her. She’d get rid of him, but he’s terribly good bass guitar player and it’d be a bitch to replace him. “Are you sure you don’t want to marry him instead?” Petra asks him as he splutters and turns beet red. “You certainly seem to have a lot of good things to say about him even now and isn’t your hair cut in the same style as his?”

“Alright, alright,” Gunter says, holding his hands up to signal them to settle down. “It’s not so bad, right? Our sales are going up at any rate, so just try to do your best with him, Petra. It’ll all be over in a few weeks anyway.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Petra mutters. “You don’t have to date him.”

Just then there’s a knock on the door and someone on the outside, probably a studio hand, calling Petra out. She’d rather just stay in her dressing room than go out there and see Levi again, but she is getting paid for this so she might as well just go.

“I’m coming,” she calls, pasting a fake smile on her face as she heads towards the door.

“Good luck, Petra!” Eld calls as she pushes the door open, the rest of the band also sending her off with their own well wishes.

“Looks like your band is optimistic,” smiles the studio hand. It’s Eren Jaeger, the studio intern who had comforted her after she had filmed the first episode. It turns out that while he’s a big fan of No Name (like most people are), he’s also been a fan of Wings of Freedom ever since its conception and talked to her excitedly about how much he looks forward to her band’s new music after she’s done filming for this show.

“Yeah, well,” Petra says, dropping her mask and giving him a weary smile. It’s nice to have an ally in the studio, she thinks. “It can’t really get much worse than last week, right?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” Eren says with a shrug. He fiddles with the paper on his clipboard with all the tasks on his schedule, folding and unfolding the bottom corner. “I’ve seen interviews he’s done with people he really hates, and he’s nothing like that with you. Besides, you guys might not get along swimmingly, but you definitely have one of the more interesting dynamics this season. I really think the viewers will be rooting for the two of you in a few episodes.”

“Rooting for us to break up and leave the show early,” Petra snorts. She actually contemplated the possibility after the first shooting, but it’d take a chunk out of her earnings. “How much did you guys offer him? It makes sense for me to sign up for something like this. Wings of Freedom might be big now, but it’s still somewhat of a fledgling of a band. I’m sure No Name is well off even without being featured in shows like this.”

Eren scratches the back of his neck and shifts his gaze away from her. “Er, I’m not supposed to know things like that,” he mumbles. “But he must be interested in you somehow if it’s not the money, right? Why else would he sign up for something like this?”

“Because the headshot you used when you were convincing him to pick me was really good?” Petra suggests. When Eren frowns, she ruffles his hair and grins at him. “Don’t worry, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m glad you’re enjoying us though. It’s always good to have a supporter.”

He grins widely back at her and asks her how Wings of Freedom’s second album is coming along as he leads her to the nearby café near the studio that they’re filming at for today’s “date.” It’s the same one that they had gone to in the first episode and unlike a lot of the other celebrity couples that had visited this place, Petra doesn’t have any happy memories here.

“Hey, nice timing!” someone says. When Petra turns, she sees Hanji, the lead guitarist of No Name. They have what looks like a friendly smile on their face, but Petra has no idea why they’d smile at her in that way if they’d seen the last episode. They hold out a hand for Petra to shake and Petra takes it tentatively in hers. “I’m Hanji, but I think you already know that. I’m flattered you find our band such an inspiration! The way that Wings of Freedom is rising up the charts, you’re a real competition to us, you know? It’s good to finally meet you, Petra. Hopefully, I’ll be able to meet all the other members as well!”

“Nice to meet you too?” Petra says. She’d be ecstatic about meeting another member of No Name, but her experience with Levi so far has made her cautious. “What are you doing here?”

“I just want to see how much of a dumpster fire this date’s going to be,” Hanji says casually. When they see Petra reel back in surprise, they laugh and throw an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, don’t worry about it. If it’s terrible, it’s going to be Levi’s fault. That guy’s just difficult to get along with. I should know since I’ve worked with him for years! You couldn’t do anything wrong even if you tried, Petra. You’re adorable. If you want, I could take his place and date you instead.”

Before Petra can say anything, Levi appears from behind Hanji. He reaches up to pinch his band mate’s ear and scowls, “Shut up, Hanji.” To Petra, he says, “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

At least she knows he feels the same way about this.

“Welcome once again to Let’s Fall in Love!, the show where you get to see your favorite celebrities fall in love with each other!” the announcer says, gesturing toward where Levi and Petra sit at the café table. She’s a rather nice woman named Ilse, although Petra’s sure she’d like her better if they hadn’t gotten acquainted on this show. “While it wasn’t love at first sight for them, maybe they’ll find love today at this very same café!”

“It’s good seeing you again,” Petra murmurs. She tries to give him her most genuine smile, but it’s so forced that she’s afraid that he can see right through it.

“Hm,” Levi says in reply, not even bothering to give her a proper response. He looks at her briefly but looks away immediately afterward. It’s probably because he can’t stand the sight of her. If she weren’t on camera, she’d scowl at him.

“Let’s see how well these two know each other now after that first date! They’ll be ordering for each other today by writing it on these napkins, which we’ll give to the barista,” the hostess says with a plastered-on smile. They wave one of the napkins around before placing it in front of Petra. “And we’ll join them while we wait for their drinks to arrive to see the progress they’ve made.”

It’s not a lot of progress, Petra thinks with a grimace. Outwardly, she smiles pleasantly at the hostess and speaks about how great it will be to let others catch up on her relationship with Levi, how much she’s learned about him so far, and how she was looking forward to exploring this relationship with him further. Levi, meanwhile, sits at his end of the table with that perpetual scowl on his face. Looking at it now, it’s difficult for her to understand how she could have ever thought his frown sexy back when she hadn’t known him.

“So, have you and Levi gotten together off-camera after the events of last week?” Ilse asks Petra. Petra’s sure that the woman had intentionally spoken with her first instead of Levi knowing that Petra was far easier to manage than him.

“Unfortunately, no,” Petra says sheepishly. She hopes that she doesn’t look too happy about it. “Both our bands are busy, I’m sure. Wings of Freedom is currently working on our second album, so my bandmates and I are spending as many days in the studio when I’m not busy filming over here.” Even if she did have free time to spend with Levi, she wouldn’t. Not that she’d say that out loud though. It definitely wouldn’t go over well with viewers and Levi already hates her as it is.

“What have you been busy with, Levi?” Ilse asks.

Even though the hostess gives him a polite smile, he only stares back at her with a frosty glare. “Rehearsing for the No Name’s upcoming tour,” he replies, not even bothering to give her his answer in a complete sentence.

“Wow, you two have some much in common. It’s a shame that you don’t spend more time together. I’m sure you’d hit it off even more if you did,” Ilse says, but even Petra can tell that she’s finding Levi difficult to handle from her strained smile. The hostess pulls out a small deck of index cards from her pocket, tapping them against the table as she turns once again to Petra. “Well, we all knew this would happen with two superstars, so let’s play a little game! I’ll ask you a few questions about your partner and you’ll answer. Even if you get it wrong, you’ll still be getting to know each other!”

Petra laughs weakly. It seems that Levi has similar feelings because he’s looking like he’d rather die than stay here and play a get-to-know-you game.

“Sounds fun,” Petra says, sitting up and folding her hands in front of her. She gives Ilse a cheerful smile. “I don’t mind starting.”

“Great!” Ilse says. It might just be Petra’s imagination, but Ilse looks a little relieved. Their hostess clears her throat and glances at the first card before saying, “We all know that you and your band are huge fans of No Name and consider them to be a big inspiration for you, so I expect some of these questions to be a breeze for you, Petra. First question: When is Levi’s birthday?”

“December 25th,” Petra says without hesitation. She notices that both Ilse and Levi are staring at her, probably surprised because she answered so quickly. Is it really that surprising though? She is a fan…or at least she was one. Refusing to be embarrassed, Petra reaches up to pat her hair down for any stray hairs and laughs nervously. “It’s an easy birthday to remember after all.”

“I guess that is true! It’s the same day as Christmas after all,” Ilse laughs. She turns to Levi now, glancing down at the card. “You have a slightly harder question, Levi. Your question is: What year was Petra born?”

His frown deepens, and he looks at Petra and back at Ilse as if one of them will tell him the answer, but none of them budge. He finally takes another long, hard look at Petra before opening his mouth and saying very slowly, “1998?”

It’s more surprising than when Petra answered the question. This is because while Petra took less than a heartbeat to answer and was right, Levi took his time and still was off by half a decade.

“Do you think I’m twenty?” Petra asks. She had been able to resist herself before, but she can’t hold herself back now. She really wants to know if he really thinks she looks twenty or if he’s just really bad at math. She looks at Ilse incredulously. “Do I look like a fetus?”

Even Ilse starts to laugh at her reaction, but Levi looks less amused. He crosses his arms and turns away from her. “You look abnormally young for your age,” he mutters under her breath, but she’s not sure if this is supposed to be a compliment or not.

“I’m very well above the drinking age,” she informs him with a smirk.

He raises an eyebrow and props his elbow on the table, leaning towards her as he asks, “Is that so? How often do you get carded despite that?”

Nearly every goddamn time she has to get drinks, she thinks sorely. When she doesn’t answer, he smiles smugly. She’d feel even more insulted if she weren’t so surprised. She doesn’t think she’s seen him smile at all in front of her until now.

“Alright, alright,” Ilse says, clearing her throat. She nods at the both of them and flips to the next card. “Petra is actually born in 1993, Levi, so at least you got the decade right. Are the two of you ready to move on to the next couple of questions we have for you?”

Petra looks up and meets Levi’s eyes from across the table, but he looks away quickly from her.

“Yeah, whatever,” Levi mumbles. He taps his fingers impatiently on the table. His ears are still red with embarrassment from answering the last question wrong.

For the first time since being on set, Petra thinks that this might just be fun after all.

The rest of the game goes similarly. Whatever question Ilse throws at Petra about Levi, Petra answers flawlessly without much thought. She has impeccable knowledge about all of No Name, Levi included, and she’s aware that she might come off as an obsessed fangirl after this episode comes out, but she doesn’t care at the moment. She’s far too amused by Levi’s inability to answer any of their questions about her at all.

It doesn’t matter what they ask him about her. He gets it wrong every time. With each incorrect answer, he gets more flustered and tongue-tied. He snaps out his answer grumpily whenever Ilse turns to him and scowls whenever she informs him that he’s wrong. He can’t name a single song Petra’s written, where she grew up, or the other bands she listens to aside from No Name. He’s so frazzled that Petra’s sure that if Ilse asked him what her hair color was he’d get it wrong even though she’s sitting right across from him.

“Petra, what’s the first song that Levi wrote for No Name?” Ilse asks her.

“’The Reluctant Heroes,’” Petra says easily. She glances over at Levi who scowls at her once more. She only shrugs and smiles in reply.

“Correct once again! You really weren’t kidding when you said you loved No Name. I’m sure Levi is flattered to be with such a talented artist and dedicated fan,” Ilse says, not at all noticing the glower on Levi’s face. To Levi, she asks, “Final question is for you Levi. What is the name of the song Petra and her band Wings of Freedom covered that helped propel them into mainstream success?”

Petra sits up, smirking at Levi because she’s sure that he’s going to get this answer wrong as well, but he has the oddest look on his face. The hardened gaze of his is gone and his expression has softened. Gone is his frustration and impatience, and he looks at her quietly before answering in a quiet voice, “’Call Your Name.’”

“That’s right! After covering No Name’s best-selling single ‘Call Your Name,’ Wings of Freedom began to catch other people’s attention and helped lead them on the road to success,” Ilse says happily. “While you might not know a lot about Petra now, you’ve certainly learned a lot about her today, Levi, and it’s good to see that you at least know something about her.”

Levi doesn’t reply and instead continues to look at Petra, who finds herself blushing. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s looking at her with such a soft expression or because she’s finally being acknowledged by her childhood idol or some other third reason she doesn’t even want to think about at this moment, but his gaze makes her turn away.

“It was a really…it was a good cover,” she hears Levi says. “Beautiful.”

She can feel her face burst into flames. “Thanks,” she mumbles.”

A waitress finally comes by to hand them their drinks. What good timing. They’ve taken far longer than they should, and Petra suspects that they delayed the orders to allow more time for the game. These stupid shows and their stupid games, she thinks with a sigh.

The black coffee Petra had ordered for Levi sits in front of him and Petra finds her own drink set in front of her. It’s a mocha topped with a generous amount of whipped cream and sprinkled with cinnamon and chocolate swirls. Just looking at it makes her feel like she has a cavity and she looks over at Levi confusedly.

“Well,” Ilse says, clapping her hands together and looking from Petra to Levi again. Petra wonders if the hostess is ever tired of acting so excited for these things. “You have your drinks in front of you. Tell us how you like them! Levi, did Petra make the right choice for you? I wouldn’t be surprised if she did!”

Levi takes an awkward sip in front of the camera, pausing before he answers to taste the coffee. Somehow, he’s shocked, and he gives Petra a suspicious glare as if she shouldn’t know his coffee preferences despite her showing how knowledgeable she is about him and going on a coffee date with her last week where he ordered the exact same thing. “It’s good,” Levi finally says.

“And you, Petra?” Ilse asks eagerly. She gestures at the cup in front of Petra, motioning at her to take a sip.

“Ah,” Petra says with a nervous laugh. It’s not that she doesn’t like sweet things, but she doesn’t like overly sweet coffee. If she wanted something sweet and chocolatey, she would have just ordered a hot chocolate. Still, she doesn’t want to seem rude and hesitantly picks up the cup and holds it to her lips. It’s even sweeter that she had thought it would be, and she begins to choke from the taste of it. “Oh, it’s…it’s very sweet,” Petra coughs.

She’s not sure why, but Levi looks hurt. How strange.

“I don’t usually drink such sweet things,” Petra says apologetically, but she’s not sure if she should say this to Ilse or Levi so she just awkwardly speaks to the space between them. “It’s not bad though…it’s…nice.”

Ilse laughs at her response. “Well, I’m glad you can still enjoy it even though it’s not quite to your liking. Thanks for joining Levi and Petra once again on their romantic journey. Let’s hope that Levi can get to know Petra even more in the upcoming weeks!”

Once the cameras are finished rolling, Ilse sighs and rips off her mic. Smiling at Petra, she says, “Thanks for playing along so well, Petra. And thanks for your participation today too, Levi – ah.”

Levi has already torn off his microphone and stalked out of the café without so much as a goodbye. Petra does notice that he did take his coffee with him though.

She should really stay behind and talk with Ilse for a while, thank her for being such a wonderful host, but she really wants to chase after Levi and ask him something, so she smiles apologetically at Ilse and excuses herself, saying that she’ll catch up with her sometime during the week.

When she catches up with Levi, she sees him being held back by Hanji. Or Hanji’s trying to hold him back. Levi’s managing to walk quite well despite having to drag along another person behind him.

“Why’d you run away? Go back!” Hanji tells him. “Don’t you want to talk to Petra some more?”

“No, I don’t want to talk to her,” Levi says, trying to shake Hanji off.

“Should I go back then?” Petra says amusedly. While Hanji looks at her with an expression of pleasant surprise, Levi looks incredibly horrified. “Sorry. I just wanted to talk to you for a little bit, but I can just see you next week if you’d rather not see me.”

“I can talk to you, Petra!” Hanji says, letting go of Levi. They wrap an arm around her and grin down at her. “Levi’s always a grouch, so don’t mind him. I’m much better company than he is!”

Levi sighs and stomps over to where they are, pulling Hanji off Petra and glaring. “It’s fine. I’ll talk to her. Just…go back to the hotel and talk to Mike or something,” he grumbles at Hanji. When he looks at Petra, she sees that his face is flushed the same way it was when they were at the café together. He’s starting to look a little less mean-looking, Petra thinks. To Petra, he asks, “What did you want to talk about?”

“The cover my band did,” she says. “Did you really listen to it?”

“Yeah. Hanji made me listen to it during rehearsal last week.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and turns away from her. “It was good. It was really good. I was going to sit and listen to your album, but I haven’t got the chance to do that yet.”

“Oh, I’m glad you liked it. I didn’t think you’d be interested in listening to my band,” Petra laughs. She’s starting to think that although he’s difficult to get along with at first, he’s not a bad person. Maybe this won’t be so unbearable after all.

“Why not?” Levi asks, looking at her with a furrowed brow. “Your voice is beautiful.”

“Huh?” she says stupidly. It’s difficult to believe he’s complimented when she had firmly believed he hated her only an hour ago. She’s blushing more than she usually would if any other person had said the same words to her and she covers her cheeks with her hands in an unsubtle attempt to hide her blush. “Ah, that’s…I’m so happy…”

“Hm” is all Levi says. He continues to look at her, his expression curious now, and she remembers why she had swooned over him back in her high school days.

“Er, I have to go now,” Petra says, desperate for an excuse to escape. She doesn’t reconvene with her band until tomorrow, but it’s not like Levi knows that. She doesn’t even know he says goodbye to her because she’s already run away.

She doesn’t think she hates him anymore though. No, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t. She’s not sure how she feels exactly, but she does know that there’s a part of her that looks forward to seeing him next weekend even though this relationship isn’t really real.

#rivetra #petra ral #levi ackerman #dating show au #snk #requests #asks #answered #anon #anonymous #hanji zoe #auruo bossard #eld jinn #Gunter Schultz

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artificialqueens · 6 years ago

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Just the Game We're In- Chapter 9 (Ortega)

a/n: (snoop dogg voice) greetings, loved ones. mind in Mean Queens when there was that one chapter that was The Fuckening? this is that. i’m sorry. and as always i’m very sorry for the wait…but if u know me and u know this fic then ur probably used to it by now. thank u all so much for reading, especially my biggest cheerleaders, especially especially purecamp who proofread this and was subjected to the trauma first hand. HWFG

“Do you know,” Katya smiled, looking up from her monitor and catching the attention of the other girls in the department. “I think today’s going to be a really, really good day!”

Trixie groaned. Willam had to agree that Katya’s predictions generally did the opposite of what they were meant to do and instead worked like a bad curse- however she thought something would pan out, the opposite would generally happen. Willam could do without any bad omens today of all days, as it was particularly busy in DoSAC. However, she did also have every reason to be optimistic as she looked across the office and met eyes with Courtney, the other girl giving her a long-suffering roll of her eyes then laughing and blowing her a kiss.

The last month with Courtney had been better than Willam could ever have imagined. They were frantically busy, of course, with work, but they had always seemed to make time for each other. Courtney was forever enthusiastic about finding new restaurants for them to go and visit after a hectic day, and Willam always kept an eye out for nice little gifts or particularly beautiful bunches of flowers she could surprise Courtney with. True to their word, they hadn’t been particularly PDA at work, but Willam enjoyed the moments that they could show a tiny bit of affection. They would sometimes go and make everyone’s drinks order together, singing in ridiculous voices to whatever was playing on the kitchen radio. During one of Sharon’s meetings when Courtney was looking a little more stressed than usual Willam would reach out and curl her pinkie around Courtney’s own. If one of them was at the photocopier the other would find an excuse to be there too, hugging the other from behind. It had been a month to the day, Willam realised, since that evening at the party conference. Her skin prickled a bit. She’d never really managed to stay together with anyone for that long before- well, apart from uni- and that slightly terrified her. Which was why when it came to any intimacy beyond kissing, like taking Courtney back to her house after dinner, Willam had been going at a snail’s pace, if that snail had been stamped on underfoot and then eaten by a passing bird.

“Wow. You know, I’d never imagined you were the take-it-slow type at all,” Courtney had remarked after their last date, after Willam had cut her off during a particularly heavy kiss and had begun to panic.

“Well, you know,” Willam had blushed uncharacteristically. “When it’s someone you care about, you don’t want to fuck it up.”

She thought Courtney was probably fine with waiting. It was weird- an area of her life that Willam never had any issue with was fucking, and she didn’t really know why she was so nervous about it now. But if she was being honest with herself, she knew exactly the reason- it wasn’t as simple as just fucking, Courtney was the first person she had really, properly cared about since…well, since the last time. And even though she’d told Courtney how she felt about her, and they were together, part of her didn’t want to share this aspect of her with her yet unless it brought everything crashing down around her.

Willam knew it didn’t quite make sense. But it made sense to her, and besides, they would cross that bridge eventually. It was inevitable, and that didn’t scare Willam at all really.

Still, she hadn’t had time to think about the whole thing too much recently. Weeks and weeks at work had been building up to this day, and now it was finally here- tonight Sharon would be officially launching her policy to the press, meaning that it was going to be really happening, real party policy that Willam had helped get through parliament. It was exactly what Willam had come into the world of politics to do, make changes and change lives. She was proud of what they’d all achieved, and Sharon was on cloud 9 too.

Except, as the Secretary of State walked into the department in the comfy trainers she normally wore walking into work, she didn’t look ecstatic. Neither did her blonde-haired advisor slash girlfriend, who followed behind her with a scowl on her face and thunderous footsteps.

“Morning, everyone,” she said through gritted teeth. “Sorry I’m late, traffic was a bitch.”

Willam didn’t miss the way Sharon spat out the word bitch, giving a sideways glance at Alaska which the other girl glared at. Willam noticed that Alaska was carrying Sharon’s briefcases, which was odd- Courtney always carried Sharon’s bags, and sometimes Willam, but never Alaska.

“Oh! Sharon. You should’ve said you were downstairs, I would have got those for you,” Courtney said, a little perplexed herself as she gestured to the briefcases that Alaska had now dumped on the floor.

“No thank you Courtney, Alaska is perfectly capable of carrying a few briefcases. She does work for me after all, just like you,” Sharon grimaced, the cold tone to her words shocking even Willam. Noticing how her arrival had changed the atmosphere, Sharon gave a cough before she carried on. “Right, launch day! Meeting room in five.”

Everyone’s eyes were on Alaska, sensing the tension in the room. Her face was blank but with an undertone of severely pissed-off, her brow furrowed slightly in a scowl Willam could guess she didn’t know she was wearing.

“Aww, is Baby Alaska sad that she had to carry the Minister’s bags?” Adore teased from her desk.

“It’s about bloody time you took the briefcases for a change. I was beginning to think Sharon had favourites,” Jinkx chastised her friend without looking up. Alaska turned to her and rolled her eyes.

“Well, does anyone want a tea? I might as well while I’m here,” Alaska asked, her tone a little resigned. Immediately about four different orders were shouted over to her, so Willam rose from her desk.

“I’ll come with. Court, do you want anything?”

“No thanks, love,” she smiled back, attracting some playful comments from the comms girls. Ignoring them, Willam followed Alaska to the small kitchen, immediately bursting to ask her about the weird atmosphere between her and her girlfriend.

As soon as Alaska reached the kettle, she almost wrenched the lid off it as she filled it with water. Willam watched silently and raised her eyebrows.

“So um…everything okay with you and Sharon?”

Alaska thudded the kettle down and flicked the switch on it heavily. “We’re fine.”

Willam sucked some air in through her teeth. “Are you sure, because I’m detecting some weird vibes between you. And not the weird vibes you keep in your bedside table.”

“Willam, I’m not in the mood for your shit humour,” Alaska immediately snapped back, her shoulders falling straight afterwards as she assumed she’d hurt her friend. Truthfully, Willam couldn’t care less- she had a thick skin and comments that Alaska made out of hurt or anger or whatever the fuck she was feeling weren’t really going to affect her. Out of perhaps guilt, Alaska sighed and gently took some mugs out of the cupboard as her demeanour changed. “We’re okay. Thanks, Willam. We’re just…going through a rough patch.”

Willam wanted to know more, but she reasoned that she didn’t really have much of a place to ask about it. Helping Alaska and reaching for some teabags, she tentatively opened her mouth. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Alaska wordlessly shook her head.

“Well, you know I’m here if you do.”

As Alaska looked over at Willam and gave her a small smile of gratitude, the kettle reached boiling point. Before Alaska could begin pouring the teas her work phone began to ring. She looked at the caller ID, frowned, then looked at Willam in a way Willam couldn’t quite describe. She seemed secretive.

“I have to take this. Two minutes,” she said, stepping out of the kitchen and heading off down the corridor. That struck Willam as odd- work was work, and a phone call was a phone call. She was always happy taking calls in front of Alaska or Courtney because it was for her job, and the girls were always the same with her. She couldn’t work out why it was different for Alaska this time.

Staring at the cups in front of her, Willam sighed.

“I guess this is my job now,” she said to herself quietly, filling them up with water.

A few minutes and a tea delivery to the comms girls later, Willam was entering the meeting room with two steaming hot cups (one for Courtney of course, even though she’d said she hadn’t wanted anything, and one for her). She was busy doing the press round-up for Sharon, but stopped abruptly when the tea was placed in front of her.

“You’re late,” Sharon addressed Willam sternly as she sat down.

“Sorry, I was too busy being the fucking barista at Starbucks. What have I missed?”

Courtney leant forward. “Well, obviously, most of the headlines are about the PM’s approval ratings absolutely pissing down the gutter.”

Willam nodded. In the past week, the polls had received quite the turnaround for Sharon, but the PM’s approval ratings had plummeted and nobody could quite tell why, least of all Bianca who, every time Willam had seen her in the past couple of days, had seemed close to a massive heart attack.

“Any headlines about new communities?” Willam asked hopefully.

“Luckily, yes,” Courtney continued. “Bianca is obviously overjoyed that our policy is a bit of governmental good news. The right wing papers, which is basically all of them, hate it, but at least if they’re writing about it they’re not writing about the PM.”

“Which is fucking great for me,” Sharon rolled her eyes sarcastically from the other end of the table.

“You’re being well received on Twitter, which is basically bigger than News 24 in this day and age, and you’re ahead of Phi Phi by 5% in the polls so you’ve got nothing to be annoyed about actually,” Alaska spoke up, her voice hard and cold and making everyone uncomfortable. Willam narrowed her eyes at her friend, then looked at Sharon who had her eyes boring into her desk and her head down. What the fuck had happened to make things like this?

“But at least the launch is tonight, right?” Willam cut in, before Sharon had a chance to talk back and make anything worse. “What we’ve all been working towards for what seems like years. You pleased?”

Sharon forced a smile, happy to be distracted by work. “I am glad, actually. I’m so happy to be doing something that actually fucking matters, you know?”

With that, the glass door to the meeting room opened and Jinkx appeared.

“Morning, Secretary of State,” Jinkx smiled briefly as she formally addressed the Minister. “I know you are very excited about this policy launch tonight, I mean, really, I know you all do have very stiff hard-ons about this-” Willam curled her lip in distaste. “-but you do have your BBC interview in about an hour so if you could possibly make sure you’re prepped and double-prepped for that, it would make my life roughly a thousand times easier.”

Sharon sighed, waving a hand and brushing Jinkx off as she slipped off the trainers and replaced them with her heels. “It’s fine, Jinkx, I’ve got the gist- make the policy outline rough enough so as not to confuse any panicky gibbering pensioners, make absolutely clear that we’re not going to make any Native Aryan Nazi dream children homeless to appease the I Heart Tommy Robinson bunch and praise the PM in the wake of this approval ratings fuck-up, so I’m…prepped. I’m fucking prepped.”

“Who actually is conducting this interview today? Is it a Gemini interview?” Courtney inquired, fixing Jinkx with a suspicious glare.

“No, Raja’s out in Calais doing correspondent stuff at the moment so she’s incommunicado for now.”

“Oh, so it’s Chi Chi DeVayne,” Willam concluded matter-of-factly. Jinkx gave a sort of foreboding murmur.

“Not exactly, no. It’s um, Brianna Cracker.”

The three advisors gave Jinkx a look of confusion, Sharon giving out a cry as she struggled to shove her foot into the other high heel.

“Who the hell is Brianna Cracker? I’m launching a fucking government policy Jinkx, not a fucking cheese factory!” she shouted with indignation, finally looking up at the other girls with her hair covering most of her face.

“She’s a new girl that the BBC have got in, doing a lot of featurettes and online stuff- and she seems very nice,” Jinkx pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, clearly annoyed that her best (the bare minimum) clearly hadn’t been good enough.

“Sunflowers are ‘very nice’, Jinkx, but talking to one doesn’t get you great media coverage, does it?” Alaska sighed in resignation.

“Probably gets you admitted to an institution,” Courtney rolled her eyes, Willam biting back a laugh over the fact that her dry humour was clearly rubbing off on her.

“Well luckily, she is not a sunflower, she is a journalist, and one that is going to give you a very lovely piece on the BBC website about this very lovely policy that you are launching tonight, so you can suck it up and deal with it,” Jinkx glared at each of the advisors in turn, her eyes finally coming to rest on Sharon. The Minister in question threw her hands up in defeat.

“Okay! Okay, Christ, well we’d better hope a clip gets shown on the lunchtime news or something, or I might just have to get off my tits on ketamine and go running through the Houses of Parliament with “NEW POLICY LAUNCH” smeared on my shirt in lipstick.”

“I assume that Bianca’s been in and left a brief or something? We haven’t seen her yet and the interview’s getting pretty close,” Willam frowned at Jinkx, concerned. The spin doctor normally visited Ministers before they had an interview with any news outlets just to double-check they knew their lines. Jinkx frowned back and shook her head.

“I’ve heard nothing from Bianca all morning.”

“Nothing from Bianca?!” Sharon cried incredulously, the other girls looking at Jinkx in horror. “Christ, perhaps she’s dead.”

“How can you have heard nothing from Bianca? The woman’s basically a walking talking telecommunications tower,” Alaska asked, wide-eyed. Jinkx gave a flippant shrug as if she wasn’t the least bit bothered as long as it gave her less work to do.

“Well, I have to just assume that there’s nothing that Bianca wants to discuss with me. Which is a bit like wandering into a lion enclosure and assuming they’ve just been fed,” Sharon reasoned, her voice tinged with dread.

“Am I free to go now? I am getting a lot of calls, considering there is a policy launch tonight?” Jinkx asked impatiently, lingering at the door.

“Yes, you’re free. Go resume your hectic schedule,” Sharon deadpanned sarcastically.

“Oh, Jinkx,” Courtney stopped her just before she made to leave, Jinkx’s shoulders slumping in disappointment. “How many journalists do we have confirmed for tonight?”

“We’ve got confirmed, four,” Jinkx said calmly. There was a chorus of disbelieving shouts in reply.

“FOUR? We’re launching new communities, for fuck’s sake, not a fucking death camp!” Sharon cried, her face completely outraged.

“Jinkx, get onto everyone, start fucking harassing everyone! Now!” Willam barked at her, staring at the carpet in disbelief as Jinkx hurried away.

“Four journalists? Jesus Christ. This is meant to be my pinnacle! I haven’t climbed up a mountain just to launch myself off the top!” Sharon ranted, holding her head in her hands.

“I’ll go and start ringing round too,” Alaska said decisively, still clearly wanting to make the situation better for her girlfriend despite whatever had happened.

“Yes, if you two could go and start doing that as well, that’d be a huge help. And Willam, can I have you in with me for the interview?”

Willam paused, a little thrown. Sharon usually took Alaska with her for interviews. “You want me with you for the interview?”

“Eh, if you can spare the time!” Sharon snapped at her, clearly annoyed.

“Fine,” Willam blinked back, shrugging.

“God, where’s Bianca when you need her? Four journalists?” Sharon hissed again as she sat at her desk and picked up her phone. “Let’s hope we get some more on board before this Camembert Ritz girl does the interview otherwise I may as well be whispering the policy into the ear of a dead tramp.”

***

Willam sat just out of view of the cameras and out of reach of the microphone. She nervously picked with a small corner of her notebook as she watched Sharon- calm, smiling at the camera, gesturing a little but not too much like they’d practiced (Bianca had once described Sharon in interviews as “a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra”). Sharon was doing well, but Willam was always tense during interviews as she knew how wrong they could go. Brianna Cracker seemed pleasant enough though, and was smiling a little as Sharon answered her questions. So far, it was a good interview, and Willam thought she was perhaps almost able to relax. Sharon had answered the questions about her policy fluently and easily, and now there were just a few more to go before they could finish up.

“This policy has been described as the legislation that’s sewing the party back together, but nobody could miss the tension between you and some of the newer ministers at the party conference. What’s morale like around parliament?”

Willam rolled her eyes. The media were still trying to drag up the party conference drama despite Sharon and Sasha being absolutely fine now, aside from a few small debates within the Commons. Knowing Sharon would handle the question well, Willam turned to look at a bookshelf with a loose screw.

“Obviously the Prime Minister has backed you on this policy, but surely you can’t ignore the most recent public polls- will there be people jumping ship in the coming months?” Brianna continued, Willam frowning at her deeply. Her smile which had once seemed easygoing now looked slightly scheming, and Willam prayed they wouldn’t have another Shangela Wadely situation on their hands- Brianna Cracker didn’t look like the type of person who was going to send flowers to Sharon’s door the next day apologising and thanking her for her LGBT representation.

“Look, everybody has a dip in opinion polls every so often- I had one a couple of months back-” Willam winced- error, she shouldn’t have reminded the media of that, “- but I recovered from it and pushed forward. The Prime Minister was elected for a reason, by the public, and they have complete trust in him and so do I.”

“So you wouldn’t like to see a female leader any time soon?” Brianna questioned, cocking an eyebrow thoughtfully. Sharon paused and turned to Willam, her face set in a grimace of pain. Willam understood why- Sharon was currently a strong face of feminism in the public eye and she didn’t want to undermine that, but she also couldn’t risk undermining the Prime Minister. Willam gave her an encouraging smile, knowing that Sharon would have the words to articulate herself properly.

“I mean at some point, yes, I would absolutely love there to be a female leader, but- but that point isn’t now,” Sharon began, nervously interrupting herself as she hastily explained what she meant. “Of course within society itself we are at the point where there should be female leaders, and eventually there should be a female PM, but I believe that our current Prime Minister is the best man for the job, and we should let him get on with that job!”

Brianna smiled, satisfied with the answer, which in turn made Willam release a breath she’d been holding. Relaxed, she fiddled with the loose screw. “With the upcoming by-election-”

“I’m so sorry,” Sharon suddenly interrupted, prompting Willam to look up at her sharply. Sharon was looking at her with a tentative face. “I said best man for the job. I should say best person.”

Willam blinked, thought a little, then frowned. “You’d have to be really PC to pick up on that.”

“I think I should change it- could we just go again?” Sharon addressed Brianna, who gave a comfortable gesture and asked the previous question again. Willam eyed Sharon as she gave much the same answer as last time.

“…eventually at some point, there should be a female leader, but I believe that our current PM is absolutely the best person for-”

Sharon’s final two words were cut off, however, as the bottom shelf of the bookcase suddenly clattered to the floor, its metal clang cutting through the room and making everyone jolt a little. Willam looked at the previously loose screw which was now lying on the floor.

Shit.

Sharon turned again to Brianna, smiling a slightly forced smile. “You did get that, right? Best person.”

“Oh, we got it. Don’t worry. Thanks so much for the interview Ms Needles, it was a pleasure,” Brianna smiled, reaching out a hand for Sharon to shake which she did. Willam saw her shoulders dropping, tension gone as she was happy the interview had gone well, and Willam supposed she could relax too.

Coming out of the small meeting room that the interview had been set up in, Willam saw Courtney and Alaska perched waiting at their desks, eager for news of how it had gone.

“So? Smiles? Happiness?” Courtney began, a hopeful smile on her face.

“It went well!” Sharon replied, optimistic, then looked at Willam. “Didn’t it?”

Willam gave a shrug. “Seemed to. Back to prepping for tonight then? I still have about 90 leaflets to print. Although I should make that 4, shouldn’t I?”

“Shut up,” Sharon glowered at her, instantly annoyed at being reminded of Jinkx’s incompetence. They were both about to head back to their desks when a thunder of footsteps could be heard from down the corridor, as if someone was running full pelt, and a loud, out-of-breath gasping gradually added to the frantic noise too. Frowning, Willam took two steps forward towards the source of the noise when suddenly Bianca rounded the corner, her nostrils flared, a blaze burning in her eyes, and her face shiny with sweat.

“Morning, Bianca,” Jinkx greeted her lazily from her monitor, Bianca completely ignoring her as she stormed towards the two girls.

“I am going to fuck Three Mobile very rapidly and painfully up the arse with a rusty fucking poker, can you believe their fucking network is down?!” Bianca began, her voice a growl of frustration. “So I have been running around Westminster like a chicken with its fucking cock cut off delivering messages in person when a text could be fucking sufficient! I swear to Christ!”

“Yes, that does sound a bit…shit,” Willam hesitantly agreed with her, Bianca so angry that she was addressing Sharon and Willam as if they were personally responsible for the Three network. “Erm. Did you want to see us?”

Bianca widened her eyes incredulously at her. “No, I didn’t want to see you. I’ve just run all the way from Richmond Terrace to Dosac to stand in your department and helicopter my tits around- no, I didn’t come here to see you at all.”

Willam blinked back at her, well and truly clamped. Having made her point, Bianca looked at Sharon and carried on.

“I wanted to tell you to push back the BBC interview an hour so that I could come and brief you, but, having just seen Miz Baby-New-Potato Head herself Brianna Cracker exiting the building, I’m assuming I’m too fucking late.”

“You would be correct,” Sharon said, her face set in an apologetic frown. Bianca seethed and clenched a fist, then seemed to relax.

“Okay well, how did it go?”

“Good. We did all the policy launch stuff and the basic outline like you’d told me to in the past.”

“Well, that sounds uncomplicated enough,” Bianca gave a whisper of a shrug, Willam hoping that it signalled approval.

“She did ask me about the Prime Minister…” Sharon continued awkwardly.

“And?”

“I said he was the best man for the job.”

Bianca’s brow furrowed. “And?”

“Well I changed it to best person, but a bookshelf fell down and I don’t know if they got it.”

Bianca looked between Willam and Sharon, her face set in a look of disbelief. “A bookshelf fell down? What is this, a fucking Fawlty Towers episode?”

“I just didn’t know if they’d make something of it. Me saying best man, it might make people think I was implying I was the best woman?” Sharon bit her lip, a little worried. Bianca stood up and shook her head.

“Nothing will happen. You couldn’t interpret that as a leadership bid,” Bianca began, shaking her head quickly. “The media are already having a field day with the PM’s approval dropping and the by-election coming up, they won’t bring you into the mix as well.”

“But they might want to use this as ammunition against the PM?” Sharon insisted, her face growing panicked.

“Sharon, I wouldn’t worry,” Bianca frowned, standing up decisively.

“But Bianca-”

Turning around suddenly, Bianca snapped. “Okay, you want to know the real reason they won’t make something of this? You’re not leadership material. You’re too hot-headed and outspoken and you do too much talking and not enough listening.”

Sharon stood for a moment, her mouth open in shock. Remembering where she was and collecting herself slightly, she simply sniffed and shrugged. “Well. I’m not attempting to be leadership material anyway.”

“Right,” Bianca nodded sharply, turning on her heel and making to leave. “I’ll be back to brief you on PMQs at one, and obviously for your launch. Start working on your speech.”

As Bianca made her way down the office and turned the corner out of the department, the only noise that could be heard was the small murmur of the comms team as they answered phones and replied to emails. Courtney was looking at Sharon in shock from her place on the desk, and Willam wasn’t really sure what to say. Bianca was known for being harsh, but she’d never been this harsh with Sharon, at least not in front of Willam. As Willam turned to look at Alaska to gauge her reaction, the familiar iPhone ringtone sounded and Alaska slid off her desk, swiping across her phone and holding it to her ear as she hurried out of the department too.

“Are you okay, Sharon?” Courtney asked as she approached the Minister. “That was quite…a lot.”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. I just…” Sharon trailed off, leaning on the frosted glass wall of her office and looking at the floor in disappointment. “I really thought I could be Prime Minister at some stage.”

“Did you?!” Willam asked, blinking in shock. She never knew that Sharon had ambitions like that at all. Sharon, for her part, looked at her incredulously.

“Yes! Didn’t you?”

Willam was taken aback at her accusing tone. “No, of course, I just never expected you to-”

“Okay, right,” the three girls were interrupted by Jinkx, who was standing up from her position on the other side of the room with an uncomfortable look on her face.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve shat a sea urchin,” Willam questioned.

“The BBC have put it on their website.”

“Put what?” Sharon asked, crossing the office briskly to Jinkx’s computer.

“You saying that the PM is the best man for the job…and they’re saying that you’ve fired the starting pistol for an election?”

Sharon tore her hands through her hair as Willam’s heart sank. “No! I said best person, and the fucking bookcase fucking fell down!”

“This is bad,” Courtney said, frowning and biting her lip.

“What do we do? We can’t contact Bianca thanks to Three cunting Mobile,” Willam frowned, inspecting the video of the interview playing on Jinkx’s screen.

“Fucking BBC and their fucking new journalists, YOU said she was nice!!” Sharon exclaimed, pointing at Jinkx accusingly. “What kind of name is Brianna Cracker anyway, do people not think before naming their children?!”

“Apparently not, Sharon Needles,” Willam deadpanned, receiving a death glare in return.

“Kill it, just kill the whole thing. Just kill the BBC,” Sharon spat, clearly irritated by the whole situation.

“Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? Maybe making a fuss about it will make them think they’ve got something on us, something they can really run with,” Courtney frowned, offering her suggestion tentatively.

“Courtney, I appreciate the advice, but right now I want this shut down. The only thing I want my face associated with today is my policy launch, which is happening tonight by the way because everyone seems to have forgotten!” Sharon cried, turning on her heel and disappearing into her office.

Courtney and Willam looked at each other blankly.

“Poor Sharon,” Courtney sighed, looking at the glass door which had just been slammed behind her. “Tonight will be alright, won’t it?”

“Of course it will, you’ve been behind half the organisation,” Willam reassured her, slipping an arm around her waist and enjoying the fact that she could just be near her and do those kinds of things without her heart feeling as if it was about to give out. “If you were the captain of the Titanic I don’t think it would’ve hit that iceberg.”

“Aw, how romantic. And historically inaccurate,” Courtney smiled, tilting her head to the side and kissing Willam gently. Someone, possibly Violet, made retching noises in the background.

“Do us a favour and actually vomit. Then maybe we could send it to the fucking BBC,” Willam rolled her eyes in the general direction of the comms team, reluctantly pulling away from Courtney. “Right, I’m going to get those leaflets sorted.”

“Hey,” Courtney stopped her just as she’d walked a little way from the comms desks, a small smile on her face as she held Willam’s hand gently. “Happy month anniversary.”

Willam tried to prevent the massive dumb smile from spreading across her face, but it was impossible not to. “Happy month anniversary. Although that term is a wild contradiction, but still. The sentiment that counts, right?”

Courtney laughed softly, squeezing Willam’s hand in her own. “It’s just been…the best time. And you really mean a lot to me. Every day I think about how lucky I am to have you.”

Willam felt her face go red as she looked to the floor. She wasn’t one to get embarrassed easily, but Courtney had that effect on her.

“I always wake up so happy to know that I’m with you, and I love spending time with you, even if it’s just at work,” Courtney continued, her face suddenly becoming a mix of playful and reprimanding. “And I never thought I would be having this conversation at work, but someone hasn’t invited me back to their flat yet.”

That moment was defining, thought Willam. Standing there in the middle of work holding Courtney’s hand and hearing her say all these things served to remove some kind of mental barrier in her head. She made a decision.

“Well, tonight. After the policy launch. Come back to mine, we can get a takeaway and we can…see where we go from there,” Willam smiled, bringing her arms around Courtney again. Courtney’s face lit up.

“Oh Christ, you’re serious? Amazing. God, that’s embarrassing, I feel like a bloody teenager.”

“You’re never embarrassing,” Willam brushed a bit of hair out of her face, then gave Courtney a squeeze and stepped back. “But for now, policy launch shit needs doing.”

“I can think of something else that needs doing.”

Willam feigned shock. “Courtney Act, I should be hiring you out to Babestation for £5 a minute.”

As the two of them laughed, another barrier broke down in Willam’s head. If everything went well tonight, she decided she would do something that she had only ever done once before in her life. It was terrifying, but she wanted to take the risk even if it meant rejection.

She was going to ask Courtney to be her girlfriend.

As she smiled at Courtney returning to her desk and sat down, Alaska re-appeared from around the corner looking furtive.

“The wanderer returns,” Willam said under her breath, causing Alaska to come her way.

“What did I miss?”

“The BBC are gunning for Sharon. Which you would know,” Willam sighed and leant back in her chair, “if you weren’t dashing in and out of the department all the time to answer your phone. Alaska, are you going to tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

Alaska frowned and made to walk away. “It’s just Bianca.”

“Christ Alaska, if it’s an excuse, at least make it a good one. Bianca’s mobile provider is down.”

“Willam, it’s actually none of your business.”

“None of my bus- Alaska, I’m your friend!” Willam cried, trying her best to keep her voice down despite the anger pulsing through her. “I know you don’t need to tell me everything that goes on in your life, but I really don’t want this to be another secret I find out about by accident!”

“Then stop asking me,” Alaska sighed, her face seeming sad and plaintive before she turned and walked back to her desk.

Willam frowned as she clicked onto the leaflets. She had to get to the bottom of this strange behaviour from Alaska. If she was being honest and thinking back, Alaska had been behaving a little strangely since just before the party conference, shielding her phone, being a little bit jumpy. Then came the high school friend, or uni friend, or whatever the fuck it had been at the conference. Since then, her and Sharon hadn’t seemed quite right at all.

Willam thought. What if this friend was the reason something wasn’t right? What if this friend wasn’t a friend at all, but something more? Her heart sank. Surely Alaska would never do anything like that to Sharon. But she didn’t know. Maybe Alaska was so fed up of hiding their relationship from the public eye, and so angry at Sharon for not wanting to go public, that she decided to indulge in a secret of her own?

Looking onto her desk, she realised that Alaska had left her phone behind. As if it was fate, a text pinged up on her screen. Willam leant forward, careful not to pick up the phone, and took a closer look.

From Jeremy, 11.00am: Fantastic, love. Obviously we can’t let anyone know until May but things are going so brilliantly just now. You’re amazing. See you at lunch x

Willam slowly leant back from Alaska’s phone and blinked, staring at nothing in particular.

This was bad.

This was really fucking bad.

Hundreds of questions began to fill Willam’s mind, but the main one was what the FUCK? She thought she’d known Alaska. She thought she was good enough of a friend to her that she could tell what her character was, what her morals were, what she might do and what she absolutely would never do. Something that Willam thought was beyond Alaska was anything to do with cheating, but now she just didn’t know. Or maybe Willam was interpreting things the wrong way, maybe the message had just been innocent? She shook her head. She was loath to read the text again, but she could remember key points: love, we can’t let anyone know, you’re amazing, and the stomach-churning “x” at the end. It would explain why Alaska had been running off to answer phone calls all day, although why he’d been phoning so frequently she didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to tell Sharon.

Or did she? Looking into Sharon’s office, she saw the woman visibly stressed, her fingers massaging her temples with a frown set deeply on her face. She had all this shit going on with the BBC, and her policy launch tonight. Did she really need this brought to her now? Willam bit her lip. If it was her in the same position, she would want to know. But it wasn’t her, it was Sharon, a very stressed and under-pressure Sharon, and Willam didn’t want to make her whole day worse. Besides, the naive part of Willam’s brain urged, she didn’t really have that much evidence, and it probably could be explained away easily.

She looked up as Alaska reappeared at her desk, obviously having realised she’d left her phone. Willam watched her as she picked it up, gave Willam a cursory, worried glance, and then hurried away with her phone close to her chest, her long acrylics tapping on the screen.

Yep. There was definitely a reasonable, innocent explanation to all of this.

***

If Willam had to pinpoint the moment that the day began to go downhill, it was the moment that Sharon stormed out of her office, the open door allowing the noise from outside to stream into the department. It sounded like a small crowd, all shouting and clamouring.

“There is a crowd outside of about ten journalists, and they are ALL here for me, and somehow I don’t think they want to talk about the policy launch tonight,” Sharon seethed, pointing dramatically to the windows.

“Ten?” Courtney repeated, looking to Willam nervously. Willam knew what she was trying to communicate.

“Ten constitutes a lockdown,” she said, Sharon staring at her incredulously. “Sorry Sharon. It’s Bianca’s rules, we go cold turkey on them, no phones, no emails, no exit, and they go away.”

“Fuck. I knew, I actually fucking said, that this would happen,” Courtney sighed despairingly, wrenching her department phone from its cable and slamming it on the desk.

“Can somebody get Bianca round here instantly before I have a fucking stroke,” Sharon breathed, appearing to be on the verge of a breakdown. Courtney was shouting to the comms team about the lockdown, the girls in response all groaning and shaking their heads. Willam smiled despite the situation- since they had got together Courtney seemed to have gained a bit more confidence than usual, and was actually shaping up to be fine leadership material if she ever had designs on that field.

She saw Alaska spring up from her desk on the other side of the room. Sharon followed her gaze.

“Alaska?” she called, but the other girl simply waved her away as, yet again, she ran out of the department to take a phone call.

Sharon was silent from her position beside Willam’s desk. Looking down and seeing that Willam’s eyes were already on her, she coughed. “She’s probably, um. Probably gone to phone Bianca.”

“Probably,” Willam agreed, then looked at Sharon again. She hadn’t been able to get anything out of Alaska, but she could maybe get somewhere with Sharon. Under her breath, she continued. “You two don’t really seem all sunshine and rainbows at the moment, everything okay?”

Sharon gave a heavy sigh, leaning forward on Willam’s desk. “We had a fucking monstrous row this morning. She wants to go public, I said no. She accused me of being ashamed of our relationship, I obviously told her in no uncertain terms how that was a steaming pile of cow shit,” Sharon folded her arms, looking down the corridor that Alaska had disappeared down. “She’s got a fucking cheek, to be honest, considering how weird she’s been acting all week.”

“Oh. Has she?” Willam played dumb. Sharon glared at the corridor.

“She’s been hiding her phone from me, going out for dinners with you allegedly- even though this Snap Chat thingy has a map that tells me where you and Courtney and people are, and you’re at home and she’s at The Ivy.”

Willam’s stomach tightened. Now would be the moment to mention things. But Sharon continued.

“I trust her. I do, I just. Things are hard. With the launch. And I really don’t have the time to think about or imagine worst case scenarios right now,” she exhaled, pushing herself off the desk. “So I’m just not thinking about it until everything is over. That’s not weird, is it? Am I being a total mug?”

Willam couldn’t help but give a snort. “Someone’s been watching too much Love Island.”

“That show is heterosexual trash and I won’t stand for it,” Sharon deadpanned, then looked at Willam in the eyes. “Seriously though, Willam. Am I being thick?”

Willam knew that she had to mention it. She had to say something now, otherwise she never would.

“Right!” Jinkx said from the other end of the office, breaking the hushed conversation in half and forcing both girls to look towards the head of comms. “I’ve got some good news, two pieces actually.”

“Well, we could certainly use some,” Courtney smiled tightly, inviging Jinkx to continue.

“Firstly, I’ve been able to get hold of Bianca through Number 10’s landline. She’s coming round so everyone just…gird your loins. Secondly,” she breathed in and looked at her laptop screen. “The Herald are backing Sharon’s leadership bid, because they admired the stance you took on the war on benefit claimants.”

Sharon’s jaw dropped. “Good news?? This is fucking catastrophically bad news!! No wonder Bianca’s coming over here, she probably wants to sever my head off!!”

“This is what you wanted though, right? I thought you had your sights set on leadership eventually?” Courtney offered, ever the optimist.

“But not now!! Not while the PM’s having a bloody ratings crisis and need support! Jesus scuttering Christ,” Sharon hissed, slamming her hands on Willam’s table and walking across the carpet to nowhere in particular. Willam didn’t miss Alaska re-appearing, sliding into her desk chair as if nothing had happened.

Sharon continued to pace around the office until Bianca arrived some minutes later, the look on her face reminding Willam of school when she was in serious trouble.

“Ah, Dosac,” Bianca began, her face set in a sarcastic smile. “Truly the Harry, Ron and Hermione of government departments. Why, why, fucking WHY is it always you?! The PM is as mad as a dickless dog, and he is particularly fucking furious with you, Sharon.”

“Bianca, please can we skip to the part where you mop up this mess for us, because currently the pavement outside my office is looking very splatty and comfortable and I just want to…fling myself at it with wild abandon,” Sharon sighed, rubbing her forehead.

“Calm down. I’ve got a plan,” Bianca said, her strong voice a welcome presence in the room. She turned around and addressed Jinkx. “Jinkx, I want you to get Sharon’s car outside.”

“My car?!”

“And Sharon, I just want you to pretend,” Bianca continued, “that you have a lunch, or a fake tan appointment, or some other fucking thing to attend to, and on your way out of the building, you address the journalists, and this is what you say.”

“Say?!” Sharon continued, her hand flying to her chest.

“You are not challenging the PM. You are not launching a leadership bid. The Prime Minister is the man to lead us for the foreseeable future. He is the man- of the moment! And then you just get in your car and, I don’t know, drive about a bit or attach a fucking hosepipe to the exhaust or whatever. Is that manageable?”

Sharon blinked, then rubbed her chin. “And you think it’ll make them all go away?”

“It’s worth a fucking try,” Bianca sighed, shaking her head. “But you need to give them something, Sharon, they know I’m in here because I had to fight through them with a fucking samurai sword to get in the bloody building.”

“Right,” Sharon said decisively, turning and running into her office to grab her bag. “Courtney, can I have you with me on this please?”

Courtney shot up from her desk and got herself ready. Alaska watched with detached interest from her own desk.

“Courtney, I need you on the phone with me throughout all of this,” Bianca addressed her, then shouted over to the comms team. “Can someone get the TV out?”

Willam felt a little overwhelmed. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly and she felt caught up in the momentum that Bianca’s idea was gathering.

“The man of the moment, the man of the moment, the man of the moment,” Sharon muttered to herself as she stormed down the department, Courtney running behind her and Bianca shouting encouragement after them both.

Willam, Alaska, Bianca and the comms girls immediately sat in front of the TV, which Adore had dutifully wheeled out, reminding Willam of primary school. Now, though, they weren’t about to settle down to watch a fun, educational programme about times tables- they were about to watch Sharon face the media, and the knot in Willam’s stomach only worsened as, through a BBC live stream, she saw Sharon appear through the revolving glass door. The press immediately hounded her for a statement.

“Miss Needles! Miss Needles. Does the Prime Minister have your backing?”

Sharon had that media-suitable smile on her face as she addressed the crowd. “Yes, the Prime Minister has my full support.”

“Miss Needles, does Alaska Thunder have your backing?”

And then the whole room froze.

Perhaps the TV screen had frozen but no, the journalists were still moving and shouting, but Sharon just stood completely still, her mouth hanging open, her face chalk white. Willam couldn’t look anywhere but the screen.

“I…what, sorry?”

“Alaska Thunder, your advisor? Are you backing her bid to be an MP?”

It was that moment that Willam turned her head to face Alaska, who was standing behind the sofa, fingers grasping the headboard for dear life, her face completely grave.

“I…don’t know anything about that, sorry,” Sharon continued, stuttering her words as she stood, confused, in the light of the cameras.

“Who are you backing, Miss Needles?”

Sharon momentarily let a look of irritation pass her face. “I’m backing the Prime Minister, he is absolutely the right man for the moment.”

Bianca exploded. “For the moment?! Courtney,” she addressed the other advisor on the phone. “get the dosy cow back up here, don’t let her get in the car!”

Willam couldn’t even process the blunder that Sharon had made. Her eyes were still trained on Alaska.

“Alaska,” she said quietly. “Who’s Jeremy?”

In the background on the news, she could hear Sharon repeating her mistake as she walked back into the department.

“Alaska.”

Alaska pushed herself off the headboard of the sofa and took a deep breath. Her voice was small as she began. “He’s my campaign manager. I was going to stand in the by-election for Westminster. Today I was going to find out if I had enough support.”

Willam let what seemed to be all the air out of her lungs at once.

“I, um. I hadn’t told Sharon.”

“Clearly,” Bianca frowned, looking at the TV and then at Alaska, Willam feeling a cold, prickling sense of dread overcoming her knowing that Bianca didn’t even know how bad this was going to be.

Five minutes of frosty silence later where the comms girls slinked awkwardly back to their desks, Sharon emerged and came charging towards the three of them. She targeted Bianca first.

“That was utterly fucking embarrassing, for fuck’s sake Bianca, why am I back up here?!”

“Can I just quote to you your own words? ‘The Prime Minister is the right man- FOR the moment’?” Bianca scowled, gesticulating wildly at Sharon, who had folded her arms in a defensive position.

“That was what you told me to fucking say!”

“OF the moment! I told you to say OF the moment! There is a huge fucking difference, and now it makes you look even more likely to form a fucking cabal!”

Ignoring the other woman’s wrath, Willam’s heart dropped as Sharon turned to face Alaska. She had a deeply hurt expression on her face.

“So! Alaska! Here’s the thing. Apparently you’re going to be an MP!” she began sarcastically, her mouth twisted in a smile that caused Alaska to look to the floor.

“I…didn’t want to tell you-”

“Oh no, no that was pretty fucking clear. So what was it, you were just going to tell me…when? When you were standing up there on the podium on election night? When?”

Willam watched as the whole department fell silent. Her eyes flickered to Bianca’s face. She could tell that she was beginning to see there was something going on.

“I wanted to tell you, I just-”

“Just what?! Just what, Alaska? Because from what I’ve experienced, when something major is happening in your life, you fucking tell your girlfriend about it!”

There was a small shift of movement and noise in the previously silent department. Two people had gasped. Like a horror movie, Willam found it impossible to look away to see who it had been, and she didn’t even want to look at Bianca’s face just now.

“Well you like keeping me a fucking secret so much, Sharon, so why aren’t I allowed one of my own?” Alaska yelled back, the two women openly shouting at each other now.

“What’s this really about, Alaska? Did you get bored of me? Have some fun with a cabinet minister, sleep your way to the top then once you gained enough power and influence you just sneak off into the night?” Sharon continued, her eyes slits as she glared at Alaska. Alaska, for her part, let out a bubble of a sob.

“You know what? Maybe I am bored of you, maybe I am bored of your self-centredness and your absolute dedication to work that involves shutting out other parts of your life, including me! You wouldn’t know this, Sharon, but every time I tried to bring up this MP shit the conversation would magically get sidetracked to you, to your policy launch, to your next interview, to how stressful things were for you, but never me! Never about my work! So why should I fucking bother?!”

“Christ, Alaska, well if you’re so unhappy, why don’t we just call it a day? Since you’re clearly this big, important rising political star! You don’t need me anymore!” Sharon spat, Willam wanting to do something, anything to calm them both down and steer the conversation away from where it was clearly heading.

“You know what, I don’t need you! I don’t fucking need you! I’ve never needed you!” Alaska shouted, tears openly flowing down her face as she sniffed again and again. “But if you let me go Sharon, you have fucking…done it, you have made a fucking mistake, you’re going to lose me for good, I swear to god.”

“What am I losing, Alaska, hm? An average fuck who makes a shit cup of tea who likes to fucking betray me and hang me out to dry at the drop of a hat? Wow, what a loss!” Sharon yelled back, and she had started to cry now, the black mascara tears running down her face. The two girls were in a knife fight, constantly lashing out and cutting and hurting one another whilst simultaneously mutilating themselves, and still Willam couldn’t look away. It was as if she was watching her friends fight through a dream, a nightmare, and perhaps she’d wake up, she had to wake up, this couldn’t be happening now.

“Fuck you,” Alaska spat quietly, her breath coming in shudders as tears rolled down her cheeks, and Sharon was a mirror image, raw emotion displayed on both their faces. “I loved you, Sharon.”

“And I loved you. But that’s politics, isn’t it?” Sharon gave a choked, angry laugh. “I loved you and you did all this behind my back, knowing how much it would undermine me and yet you still went ahead.”

“Well do you know what? Maybe this is for the best. Because now I see how much I really mean to you, compared to this job. I had always wanted to be an MP, and you can’t even support me in this? I thought I knew who you were,” Alaska cried, her voice a hoarse whisper in the silent department. “Now I see you’re just like like the rest of them, a fucking self-centred, vacuous, work-obsessed bitch!”

“Get out of my fucking department,” Sharon’s voice was low as she looked at the floor. “And get out of my life.”

And with that, Alaska gave a shuddering sob, letting her head hang as she walked quickly to her desk, scooped up her bag and coat, and ran out of the department just as Sharon had ordered her to. Nobody spoke, not even Bianca, and everyone watched as Sharon walked very slowly and deliberately to her office, making her way inside, grabbing the handle and slamming the door shut so loudly and forcefully that Willam could feel her blood vibrating.

Sharon’s sobs echoed through the building.

***

The rest of the afternoon and much of the evening leading up to the launch was something that could never normally be said of Dosac- it was quiet. Sharon stayed in her office and the mood around the department was somber, like that of a funeral. Alaska was notable by her absence, her computer still on in front of her desk chair as if she’d just popped out momentarily. Bianca had been in with Sharon and the two had spoken quietly, Willam assuming that Bianca had utilised some of her softer side as Sharon presumably told her everything that had gone on between her and Alaska for the past few months. After their meeting, Bianca had stayed in the department just in case anything further happened with the press. Eventually, Courtney rose from her seat and approached Willam’s desk.

“I thought it’d be nice if we maybe went and got Sharon some nice food and a coffee. She hasn’t eaten yet today and I feel like she could do with something after…everything,” she suggested.

So ten minutes later, Willam found herself waiting for a bento box in Itsu, while Courtney had popped out to Joe and The Juice to get Sharon a green smoothie.

“She’ll hate it,” she’d said by way of a momentary goodbye. “But it’s full of nutrients and she’ll need those. Oh, and get her a bottle of water. She’ll be all dehydrated from crying.”

Willam had done as she was told, and her order had just been called when Courtney arrived back from her smoothie-finding expedition.

“Ready to go? We should probably be getting back, the launch is in less than an hour. Although whether Sharon’s going to actually be able to do the launch, Christ knows,” Courtney bit her lip as Willam picked up the bag of sushi and they both walked out of the shop.

“Sharon’s made of tough stuff. She’ll be fine,” Willam said, although she would have been lying if she wasn’t doubting the words as they came out her mouth.

“I hope so. God, promise me we’ll never end up in an argument like that,” Courtney sighed, slipping a hand into Willam’s and making her feel warm despite the drizzling rain.

She laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to end up backstabbing and undermining me any time soon, Court.”

Courtney was silent for a moment and bit her lip. “Sharon said some shitty things, though.”

“She was angry, and I’m not saying it’s okay, but she won’t have meant it. Alaska, I think, is going to be deeply hurt. I’m worried about how they’re going to recover from this, you know how stubborn they both are.”

“I think they both think it’s completely over,” Courtney sighed, suddenly giving Willam a funny look. Pausing, her voice took on a different tone. “You knew, didn’t you? All this time. About them being together.”

Willam gave a brief and wordless nod. Courtney frowned.

“Why did you never tell me? I know I wasn’t your…with you, at that point,” Courtney corrected herself, making Willam’s heart leap a hurdle. “But I was still your friend. I was friends with the both of you. I know it would have been shit if it had got out, but still. I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Willam said truthfully. She really did regret not telling Courtney. Who knew, things might have been different if she had known. Maybe they would have been closer, and got together sooner. Willam inwardly kicked herself for idealising the situation for her own advantage as they both stepped back into the department.

“It’s okay. Just…tell me shit,” Courtney gave a soft laugh that was only slightly hurt, which made Willam feel even worse. Before she could attempt to apologise again, Courtney changed the subject as they got into the lift. “Do you actually think she’ll do the launch, Willam?”

Willam frowned. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to hope so.”

As the lift reached their floor, the two girls walked across the quiet office and gave a gentle knock on Sharon’s office, where the blinds had been pulled down. A faint call of permission came from inside, and Willam pushed down on the handle and entered the room. It was dark, as the lights had been switched off, and Sharon sat at her desk staring blankly, unnervingly, into space. In front of her sat her phone, a ripped envelope, and a typed piece of paper. Willam was confused, realisation only dawning on her as Courtney began talking.

“We got you something to eat. I know you might not want it, but you’ll need it for your launch tonight,” Courtney set it down on Sharon’s desk with a kind smile.

“Court,” Willam began gently.

“It’s just a bento box and a smoothie, and there’s some water there if you want it. Just try and eat something, Sharon, it might make you feel better?”

“Courtney,” Willam sighed, taking two steps forward to the desk and picking up the piece of paper. “She’s not going to do the launch.”

As she saw Courtney give her a questioning glare in her peripheral vision, Willam read the words on the paper which confirmed what she had already thought was true.

I’l be waiting at the launch tonight!! Hope your excited to die you terorist sympithiser bitch

Passing the paper to Courtney, Willam’s heart sank as she looked at Sharon. Sharon’s unblinking, glassy eyes finally met her own.

“Bianca’s sent a car for me, and a bodyguard. They’re taking me home, and the guard’s going to stay with me in my flat. I’m not doing the launch,” Sharon said quietly, disappointedly, before looking to Courtney and giving a sad smile. “Thanks, though. For the food.”

Willam couldn’t help but be a little surprised. “You’re really not going ahead with it?”

“Willam!” Courtney hissed at her.

“What? I’m just saying. You’re Sharon Needles, the political tour de force. Just last month you gave a speech to a room much bigger than tonight after getting one of these bullshit death threats, we know they’re full of hot air. I’m just wondering what makes tonight so different?”

Sharon gave a mirthless laugh. “I don’t give a fuck about the threats. Let them threaten me, whoever they are. But Alaska,” her voice gave a crack as she said the other girl’s name. ��I can’t do…anything without Alaska.”

Willam stood quietly. She had had no idea that Sharon would have been that affected by what had happened, presuming that she was the sort of person who would maybe have a cry about it and move on. She had had no idea that Sharon’s love for Alaska was so deep. “I’m sorry, Sharon.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m better off, I’m sure. I’ll be fine,” Sharon said coldly, Willam knowing immediately that her tone was meant to mask her real feelings.

“Sharon, I’m sure she wants to make up,” Courtney consoled her.

“I’m not going to hear anything from her today. And probably never will hear anything from her again.”

Just then, there was a soft knock on the door. Bianca’s head appeared from behind the glass, her face grave.

“Your car’s ready,” she said simply, frowning as she looked back into the office. “But there’s a lot of press arriving. Didn’t Jinkx cancel everything?”

“Fuck, I didn’t get her to cancel. I haven’t left this office, Bianca,” Sharon said, rubbing her already very swollen and red eyes. Bianca frowned, obviously ready to shout at her and then deciding that it could probably wait until she wasn’t heartbroken.

“Well, we’ll need to go and cancel it now. But this isn’t going to look good. At all,” Bianca said tersely.

“I’m sorry that me breaking up with my girlfriend is causing an inconvenience to Westminster,” Sharon deadpanned humourlessly, leaning back in her chair. Bianca gave her a steely glare.

“The girlfriend that you should never have got involved with in the first place and that you were very, very fucking lucky never found its way into the press,” Bianca muttered quietly, as Sharon hung her head. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Right, well. That’s that then. I’ll go and tell Jinkx.”

Willam suddenly found her mouth opening before she could stop it. “I’ll launch it.”

The room seemed to buzz with silence. Sharon looked at Willam quizzically. Willam gave a shrug.

“It doesn’t technically need to be launched by Sharon. I know basically what it is, and could just explain it briefly. I know that Sharon would be conspicuous by her absence but it’s better than cancelling the whole thing.”

Sharon shook her head. “You really don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t, but I want to,” Willam said simply.

As soon as she glanced at Courtney and saw her looking at her proudly, she knew she’d made the best decision.

“Right. Okay then,” Bianca shrugged. “Well, we’ve not got long. Let’s get you miced up.”

The time passed very quickly after that, Willam thought, as she was rushed through a series of briefs from Bianca as Courtney spruced up her makeup and Sharon watched silently from her chair. It was crazy how much of a flurry everything was, and Willam wondered how Sharon could do this every day. She couldn’t help but think about Alaska; where she was now, what she might have been doing. She wondered if she was still going to go ahead with being an MP or whether she might ever patch things up with Sharon. Willam supposed that in any normal relationship that had lasted the length of hers and Sharon’s, things could have been repaired, but both the women were hot-headed, hot-tempered, and above all, stubborn. Willam caught Courtney’s eye as the other girl dashed back to her makeup bag to fetch something, and they shared a reassuring smile. Christ, she hoped nothing would ever go wrong between them.

Before long, Willam was standing at the door to a room which contained about twenty journalists, all phones-out and recorder-ready. Jinkx had explained that in the wake of the day’s events, she’d found it suddenly easy to get journalists to attend a Sharon Needles launch, many of them clearly hopeful that a leadership announcement would be forthcoming.

“Right. Okay. Guess I’m going to launch a policy that isn’t mine,” Willam took a shaky breath as she looked at Courtney, who was there for moral support. Courtney looked at her, her eyes soft, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“You’ll be amazing. I know you’re going to do it justice. Sharon would be proud of you. I’m proud of you,” she said, giving her a smile and a kiss on the cheek. Willam’s heart thrummed in her chest as she remembered the promise she’d made to herself, and that if everything went well tonight she would finally be able to call Courtney her girlfriend. It seemed too outrageous to ever be true, but Courtney was beside her, holding her hand and smiling, and so Willam felt that maybe she had every reason to be optimistic.

The journalists looked disappointed as Willam walked across to a small podium beside a slideshow, ready to begin. Courtney stood just outside of the room at the door, and gave Willam a big thumbs-up. With a quick glance to the first slide, which read “New Communities- Sharon is Caring”, and then to the audience, Willam began to speak without having really planned which words would come out.

“Um. Hi everyone. No need to stand, as I said to Sharon Needles earlier today,” she laughed awkwardly, receiving radio silence from the audience. “In all seriousness I should clarify that Sharon Needles has no intention of challenging the Prime Minister and fully supports his visions for the future. Incidentally, erm, Sharon’s not here, she’s come down with something and has had to go home, but we thought that we should still have everyone here to celebrate the launch of this policy that Ms. Needles has managed to create. It is really something special.”

Willam clicked onto the next slide which revealed a pie chart and lots of figures. Panicking slightly, she looked to Courtney, who gave her a blank glance. Willam had never seen this powerpoint before, and with a sinking feeling she realised that Sharon and Alaska must have worked on it together.

“Um. Not really sure what that’s meant to represent, but…it’s definitely something good. Unless it’s a reference to the current opposition. In which case…it’s bad.”

Willam’s blood gave a jolt as the journalists began to laugh. She was always confident, especially in situations like this, and she never gave a fuck what people thought, but now she was self-conscious. She clicked onto the next slide, which showed a run-down street in the baking sun, with a disillusioned-looking black family sitting on the pavement outside a crumbling house. Okay, thought Willam. Easy enough reference, obviously the refugees that we’re meant to be welcoming.

“New Communities will provide stable, safe homes for victims of war or drone strikes in countries such as Syria or Iraq. This is an illustration of how families can live in such countries-”

The journalists were laughing again. Willam stopped abruptly and looked at Courtney, wide-eyed. Courtney motioned frantically to her phone. Willam immediately checked hers from under the podium.

C: TOWER HAMLETS!!!!!!!

C: IN LONDON!!!!!!!!

Willam’s stomach dropped. She needed out of the situation quickly.

“Anyway, all the literature is there on the tables at the back, help yourself to crisps and-”

Another murmur from the journalists made Willam stop, but this time they weren’t concerned with her. They were looking at the door. Willam followed their eyes and to her surprise she saw Sharon standing in the doorframe, her outfit immaculate and crumple-free, her makeup pristine, and a wide smile on her face which didn’t look the least bit fake. A tall, broad man in a suit stood beside her, clearly her newly-appointed bodyguard. As Willam met her eyes, she noticed they were still puffy, but the redness had been taken away by concealer. Sharon raised her eyebrows at her expectantly. Willam turned back to the journalists and stuttered.

“And…here is Sharon Needles, to explain New Communities better than I ever could.”

With that, the audience clapped, and Sharon walked up to the podium quickly and confidently with her bodyguard following her like a shadow, her back straight and her head held high. Willam walked to stand beside Courtney, both their faces the picture of shock. As Sharon started speaking, Willam leaned in to Courtney.

“How the fuck-”

“I don’t know,” Courtney answered immediately, shaking her head. “But let’s hope it goes well. We’ll stay and watch this then go back to yours, right?”

Willam smiled and nodded, her heart immediately thumping quickly again, and was about to say something when Biana appeared in the doorway and took Willam’s arm.

“A word?”

Willam grimaced as she was led out the room. She immediately assumed she was about to be bollocked for the mess she’d made of the launch. But as Bianca led her into a small resource room, her face wasn’t particularly grave, which gave Willam hope.

“That was a very courageous thing to do, Willam. An advisor launching a cabinet minister’s policy.”

“Why is she out there? How is she out there? Bianca-”

“I just gave her a pep talk. Asked her if she really wanted Willam fucking Belli to be the face of her policy for years to come,” Bianca gave a smirk, Willam rolling her eyes.

“Was this an actual pep talk, or a launch-the-fucking-policy-before-I-replace-your-eyes-with-party-poppers pep talk?”

“Hey, I can be quite fucking motivational when I want to be,” Bianca chastised her, picking up a random pen from a shelf and fidgeting with it.

Willam frowned. “Bianca, there was another threat on her life.”

“Oh, come on Willam, do you not think I know that? Did you not see the fucking six foot man mountain Phil Mitchell wannabe I sent her in there with? Besides, she’ll be fine. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about Sharon,” Bianca’s eyes suddenly bore into Willam’s, Willam suddenly wondering if she was about to receive praise or censure. “I’m here to talk about you. You remember the jobs I was talking about at Number 10?”

“Yeah, of course,” she replied, wondering immediately where this was going. Her newly-optimistic brain was immediately hopeful.

“Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I wanted to let you know you’re in the frame. The PM will be starting the selection process in a few weeks. We’ve been talking, and we’re both impressed by your skill set,” Bianca said, her face letting Willam know that nothing she was saying was a joke.

She could hardly believe it. “Jesus, Bianca, that’s amazing. Thank you. Seriously, thank you-”

“Although,” Bianca continued, her eyes narrowing. “You know how word gets round. Is it true you’ve shacked up with the blonde kangaroo herself out there?”

Willam’s blood froze, her heart suddenly hammering in her ears. “How the fuck did you know about that?”

“Well, when the whole of Dosac knows,” Bianca gave a small laugh. “Then obviously it was only a matter of time until I found out.”

Willam gave a sardonic snort. “So Alaska and Sharon kept their relationship a complete secret for about nine months but you instantly know about me and Court within one?!”

“So it is true!” Bianca smiled, happy to have confirmed what she had been suspecting. Willam swallowed.

“Well. We’re not ‘shacked up’ but yes, we’re seeing each other,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray how nervous she felt. Where the fuck was Bianca going here?

“That’s great. Lovely! And I’m happy for you both, I really am. It’s just…” Bianca trailed off, letting her gaze drop to the floor. “You know what it’s like at Number Ten. It gets busy, and stressful, and intense, and if we’re hiring somebody, we need to know, really know, that they’re committed to the job. That there’s not any distractions going on. If you know what I’m saying.”

Willam felt the panic rising in her head. At once, she saw the job, her job, the job she’d wanted in the building she’d wanted for so long, slipping away from her. “No, of course! I mean, of course not. Me and Courtney, it’s not…it’s not a serious thing, you know, it’s one of those things that’ll fizzle out after a while. I’m not…attached. Like that. I wouldn’t. You know, Court’s nice, but…it’s not like that, Bianca, it really isn’t, my job is my job and I’d…I’d do anything for that Number 10 job and I don’t give a fuck how desperate it sounds.”

“Well, I’m not asking you to get down on your knees and beg! Don’t shit yourself,” Bianca laughed. “But as long as I have your assurance that this isn’t a big long-term thing then?”

“Oh no, no. It’s…about as short term as it gets!” Willam gave an awkward laugh. She knew she was lying through her teeth, and she wondered how she’d deal with things when Bianca found out that her and Courtney were in fact serious and that they were about to become the girlfriend kind of serious, but she could cross that bridge when she was sitting at a desk in Downing Street.

“Good,” Bianca smiled briefly, before opening the door and exiting the cupboard. “See you tomorrow, Willam.”

Willam’s heart gave a leap. This was fucking incredible- she was going to ask Courtney to be her girlfriend, and she was in the running for a job at Number Ten. It was like all her lucky days had come at once. Instantly, she walked quickly back to the press conference to tell Courtney, but suddenly realised that it must have finished as she was talking to Bianca. She almost ran back to the department, her heart feeling as if it was about to take off as she ran up to Courtney who was busy pulling her coat on and getting ready to leave.

“Court! Court, I just spoke to Bianca, and she told me that I’m on the shortlist to work at Number Ten! Can you fucking believe it?!”

And then everything seemed to turn into a long, slow, painful violin glissando as Willam realised that Courtney was looking at her through the iciest stare that Willam had seen fixed on her in a long time, and Willam instantly knew what had happened.

The door to the resource room had been ajar.

“Courtney-” she began, instantly trying to make amends, but Courtney immediately jumped in in front of her.

“Well, I’m really glad you’re happy, Willam. The job clearly means a lot to you. I’m going home now,” she said, in a voice that made Willam’s blood run cold. She’d never heard Courtney talk like this, never in all her time of knowing her. But now that tone was being reserved for her, and it made Willam feel physically sick, fuck, why had she told Bianca such a stupid fucking lie?

“Court, please,” Willam tried again, Courtney simply looking at her emotionlessly. Willam found herself hoping to see tears in Courtney’s eyes, a clue that perhaps Courtney did still hold some affection towards her and that everything could be talked out and fixed, but her eyes were cold and hard and Willam felt all the optimism draining away from her body. “Everything I said was a big, massive fucking lie just so that I could get that job, nothing I said was true at all. I don’t know what you heard, but-”

“I heard enough,” Courtney said coldly, her voice seeming to be the only thing that Willam could hear in the room, even though she wasn’t talking particularly loudly. The comms girls continued to talk amongst themselves mere feet away. “Well, I don’t know, Willam, but it all seemed like pretty impassioned lying to me. I’m glad you can lie, I’m glad it comes so naturally to you. You’re clearly very good at it.”

Willam stood frozen to the spot. She couldn’t move. Courtney’s stare continued to freeze her whole body as she paused, then continued talking. “I remembered everything, Willam. The night of Alyssa Edwards’ ball? I remembered every single fucking thing. But you know why I pretended I’d forgotten? Because I thought you and me would have been a bad idea. Even though I’ve had feelings for you since longer than I can remember, by the way. But no, I thought we would have been a bad idea, so I ignored my feelings. I thought you maybe felt the same way, and then it turned out that you did, and I was so happy. But I was right, it wasn’t a good idea. Me and you. So, uh, I’m going home, as I said. And I think it’s best that we don’t continue seeing each other, don’t you? Keep things strictly professional. You’re good at that, Willam. You’re good at your job, I’m glad it makes you happy. So, I’ll, um. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Courtney grabbed her bag from on top of her desk and began to make her way past Willam. Willam, for her part, couldn’t find the words to say anything. What could she say? Anything she did say would have been completely useless, or would only make things worse. Just as she reached Willam, Courtney turned around, and Willam found her stupid heart hoping that maybe she’d take everything back, that she’d sigh and suggest a way they could fix things. Maybe that was the way forward.

“Court, we can fix this,” Willam felt herself saying, the words feeling cheap as soon as she’d said them. Courtney gave a slow, sarcastic smile that was filled with nothing but contempt.

“You know, I can’t believe I allowed myself to fa-” Courtney began, then trailed off as she looked to the floor, a flash of sadness crossing her face before she steadied herself and looked Willam in the eye again. “The only thing you’re going to be fixing anytime soon is the next election. Have a good night, Willam.”

Willam’s eyes stared into the same space Courtney had been as she left, her footsteps slowly retreating. Willam heard her shout a goodbye to the comms girls, a stark contrast of normality to the conversation that had just taken place. Willam blinked. She wasn’t a crier. She never cried. She was just really, really, really fucking upset, like someone had brutally forced a shard of glass through her ribcage. It dawned on her after a while that she must have been standing in that same spot beside Courtney’s desk for minutes. Suddenly, she was struck with a feeling of having no fucking idea of what to do.

So she did what she could do; she walked slowly over to her desk, pulled on her coat as if she was sleepwalking, then began to make her way to the lifts to go home. As she walked past the comms girls, she heard Katya’s voice drift through the department.

“Oh, fuck yes, I forgot I still had maltesers in this bag! I knew today was going to be a good day.”

As she left the department, Willam had an unbelievably powerful urge to turn the lights off behind her, to keep walking and never turn back, or to never stop.

#just the game we're in #ortega #witney #shalaska #au #courtney act #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #jinkx monsoon #bianca del rio #adore delano #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #violet chachki #rpdr fanfiction #submission #jtgwi

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janspep · 6 years ago

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Family History (part 2)

☡☡BLOOD WARNING☡☡

Previously -"There are some things we need to discuss.. Rodney, untie those two, and let's just all act like civilized human beings." He responded, scratching the back of his head. -

After being untied, Andrew stood up from the cold hard floor, still shaken and bloodied. He glanced over to his sister who had just risen from her chair. "You have explaining to do." He stated sharply, tears still trailing down his blood stained face. "You," he turned his head towards his father angrily, "where the hells my Mom?" He questioned through gritted teeth.

"Now, now, don't do anything you'd regret." Lacy threatened, running a hand through her golden silky hair.

"Don't threaten him, Lace," Rodney came up behind her grabbing her hand gently, immediately calming her down. "James can take care of them himself, their his kids." He assured her.

"Lacy, get cleaned up, and go get Rosa, Rod, you stay here with me." James interrupted the two.

Lacy nodded "Of course, sir." She said, walking into what the twins assumed was a bathroom, and coming out within the next minute or so wearing a new set of black jeans and a leather jacket. "I'll return shortly." She stated, giving Rodney a quick wave and heading out the door.

"Rod.. would you mind going and grabbing Vero? We need our best nurse, you guys did a number on these two, I'm surprised they're still awake. And grab them each a change of clothes while your at it." James asked. Rodney simply nodded and waked through a door in the back of the room. "I don't want to have to do this the hard way, but I need your help." James motioned to a table near by "Please, sit, and I'll explain."

Blair did as she was told and took a seat. Andrew however did not. He stood still, arms crossed and feet planted to the floor.

"Drew, just do what your told, please don't make this harder than it has to be. I know this is hard for you but we can make the best out if this, we really can." Blair cried.

James looked down at her "Good girl, you always were so optimistic, I've missed you, kid." Blair said nothing in response, she only kept her head down and willed herself to be strong. If not for herself, for Andrew.

Noticing how hard his sister was trying to help him, he lowered his head "Fine." He gave in, running a blood stained hand through his long copper hair as he sat at the table.

"Thank you." Blair choked. Andrew looked at her, worry evident in his eyes.

"How are you two feeling?" James questioned "Are the injuries too bad?" He approached his kids cautiously.

"He pistol whipped her. He hurt my sister, I don't give a damn what he did to me, but everyone of you sick bastards will pay for what your little lackey did to my sister." Andrew growled, moving over to Blair and holding her gently, but firmly, running a hand through her ginger hair in a desperate attempt to calm her down. He could care less about the blood still trickling down his temple. His only concern was the broken down girl in his arms.

As if on que, Rodney returned with a chestnut skinned girl with a short, messy, brown bob cut and bangs that covered her forehead. While everyone else at the agency wore tight dark clothes and boots, she wore a knee length pastel blue sun dress with tattered navy blue converse. She gave the three a gentle awkward wave as she made her way over to Blair and Andrew.

"Kids, this is Veronica, also known as Vero. She's our best nurse around. She's only here to help." James explained.

"I won't let a single of you gang junkies near my sister!" Andrew hissed.

"Gang? Are you fucking serious? How dare you call us a gang!" Rodney defended.

"We're.. we're actually a spy agency.. we just want to help people, I'm sorry Lacy was rough with you two.. sometimes she gets overzealous." Vero explained timidly.

Andrew loosened his grip on Blair, seeing as she had finally looked up. "Spies? You're spies?? Why was Blair so afraid then?" Andrew breathed.

"I was scared you'd hate me.. I've hurt people, bad people, but they were still people nonetheless." Blair mumbled into his blood soaked sweater.

"Blair. I'd never hate you. You did what you had to," Andrew cried as he helped her up "I'm just glad you're okay." he turned to Rodney, "I'll still kill you and your little blonde bitch if you come anywhere near her though, and... I'm still sceptical about the whole.. spy thing." He barked.

"Cool your jets, red" Rodney rolled his eyes.

"If it makes any difference, I'll be training you to be a nurse! I've heard you don't like hurting people, so you don't have to! Oh! And I brought you two these! You can get yourselves cleaned up and ill tend to your wounds!" She cheered, holding up two bags of clothes.

"What will Blair be trained as?" Andrew asked

"We'll have some top of the line agents train her to be an assassin, so she'll basically be a field agent," James revealed. "Among those agents.. is your mother." He smiled, trying to make the twins as comfortable as possible.

Blair looked down "I don't know if we should get involved with the agency, dad. It might not be a great idea. I mean, Drew isn't used to it, he just now found out, and I haven't been here in ages, some of the agents might not want me back."

"Nonsense, we've all missed you terribly, Blair." Vero said with a heartfelt grin and a sincere tone.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Ver?" Blair looked up at her old friend, remembering the time they spent together as kids.

"I have, I've grown and I've learned." She said, running a hand through her already messy hair.

"Yet your kindness remains the same." Blair stood up, grabbing onto Andrew for support.

"Lets get you cleaned up, hun" Vero ushered Blair to the bathroom to tend to her wounds and clean her up, leaving the boys in what she called the 'interrogation room'.

#violence warning #violence #original #original character #original story #my writing #my words #my work #my wips #my wip #writer on tumblr #writers #writeaway #writeblr #spilled writing #spilled ink

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what-happened-to-agent-georgia · 7 years ago

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Happy. Motherhecking. Angst War ( @rvbficwars). @riathedreamer I screamed when I got your prompt, and it consumed my entire week. So thank you. Her prompt:

“Grif and Simmons find out transplanted organs don’t last forever.”

Pairings: Grif/Simmons, background Kimbalina

Characters: Grif, Simmons, Grey, Kaikaina Grif, Sarge

Warnings: Major Character Death, hospital/medical stuff, angst (so much angst), canon-typical language (pleasssse let me know if you need me to put more warnings, I can do that no problem).

Summary: Well... I mean. Grif and Simmons find out that transplanted organs don’t last forever. Also on Ao3.

Grif stares at Grey, and Grey stares back.

She’s waiting for him to say something, to react, but he’s still having trouble wrapping his brain around why he’s not surprised. But after a few moments, his lack of surprise makes more sense. It’s just the same shit, different day—bad luck follows him wherever he goes, how is today any different?

Drawn for the one-man draft, sole survivor of the massacre on his first outpost, landed with a shotgun-wielding maniac, caught up in a fake war—then caught up in a real one. The latest and greatest involved more Blue Team Drama™, but then, that seems to be the root of most of Grif’s problems these days.

So, when Grey tells him that his transplanted organs have started shutting down, Grif isn’t surprised so much as he feels this is just the rotten cherry on top of the fucked-up cake.

“That explains the recurring food poisoning,” Grif says. “Well, guess it wasn’t food poisoning.”

“Have you been sleeping more?” Grey asks. “Agitated? Anxious?”

“All the time,” Grif snorts. “Uh, but I have noticed I actually sleep more now.”

Grif likes to pretend he spends most of his time sleeping, but the truth of the matter is sleep means nightmares, and nightmares fucking suck, so he gets four hours a night if he’s lucky. Or, he did, until earlier this week, when he slept for twelve hours. And it wasn’t a tired feeling, but more of a heavy feeling.

The thing that brought him to Dr. Grey in the first place, though, was that he woke up this morning and forgot where he was for a good five minutes, forgot who the person lying next to him was.

“I see,” Grey says. “And how long have you been having episodes such as the one you had this morning?”

“Today was the first,” Grif says.

Grey taps something out on her data pad.

“So, what now?” Grif asks, wringing his hands.

Grey sets her data pad on her lap and purses her lips. Her cheery demeanor vanished long ago, replaced by a furrowed brow serious eyes. Grey is amazing at hiding her emotions, having been a doctor for so long, but Grif is no idiot. He grits his teeth and waits for her answer.

“You have time,” she begins, “I’d estimate two to three weeks.”

“Wait—can’t we just, like pull another mad doctor and make me part-cyborg? Like Simmons?” Grif asks.

“I’m afraid not,” Grey replies. She reaches up and takes her glasses off to massage her eyes and the bridge of her nose. “It’s a miracle you both survived the first procedure. Your body won’t be able to withstand another surgery of that caliber.”

“Well we can give it a fucking try, can’t we?” Grif snaps, rising to his feet. He sways a little, light-headed, but goes on, “What’ve I got to lose?”

“Time,” Grey says, voice level. She places her glasses back on her face and crosses her arms. “I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but I also need to be realistic, Captain Grif.

“And the reality is,” she continues, rising to her feet as well, “You will not survive surgery. Wouldn’t you rather spend the rest of the time you have with loved ones?”

Grif opens his mouth to say something then snaps it shut. Swallowing, he flops back down into his chair.

She’s right. He knows she’s right.

Grey lowers herself into her chair once more, starts talking about ways to make him more comfortable—antibiotics, supporting oxygenation, fluid resuscitation, lowering blood sugar—but the list is too long and Grif is much too tired. Why prolong the inevitable?

Before he’s even finished thinking the thought he knows why.

Simmons.

Fuck, Simmons is going to lose his shit.

“Is there a way to do all this stuff without anyone finding out?” Grif asks, interrupting Grey, who gives him a dirty look. It quickly shifts to confusion when she registers what he’s just said.

“I don’t mean to pry, but why don’t you want to tell anyone?” Grey asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t need everyone freaking out, okay?” Grif huffs. He crosses his arms. “It’ll make everything different, why tell anyone?”

Grey doesn’t say anything, and at first Grif thinks she’s going to lecture him. But she just lets out a long sigh.

“If that is your preference, I’ll see what I can do,” she says. “I’ll send you a message soon to set up an appointment.”

“Thanks.” Grif rises to his feet, more slowly this time, but he still feels a little off. He turns to leave the hospital room, eyes aching from the fluorescent lights reflecting off the white walls.

“Grif?” Grey calls as he reaches the door. Grif stops, waiting.

“There will come a point where it will be impossible to hide this,” she says.

Grif just nods and, shoving the door open, walks out to where Simmons is waiting for him.

“How’d it go?” he asks.

“Fine,” Grif dismisses, waving his hand. “Like I thought—food poisoning.”

Grif spends the first day of the last week of his life with Kai. He’s afraid she’ll ask questions at first, but honestly, after being apart for so long, the only thing she wants to know is if Grif still likes cookies and cream ice cream.

The answer, of course, is “duh”.

“I like it here,” she says, shoving a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “It’sh happenin’.”

“It’s what?” Grif raises and eyebrow. He’s already finished with his ice cream and is contemplating seconds.

“Happening,” Kai repeats, swallowing. “I could totally open a club here, no problem.”

Grif is amazed at his little sister, how far she’s come, how much she’s accomplished. How Kai’s managed to stay this optimistic through everything she’s been through—even before Grif was shipped off to war—he’ll never know. Fuck, if she can have a successful business in the middle of a war, she can do anything.

He feels a surge of pride for Kai. He tries not to think about how he won’t ever see her Chorusian Night Club Empire.

“Just one?” he asks. “You could open at least fifty-seven.”

“Well, duh.” Kai rolls her eyes. “But not all at once, that’s shitty strategy. You can’t use a sex swing without a firm bar to hang it from.”

“Yeah,” Grif agrees. “Wait, what?”

After ice cream Grif trails along after Kai as she flutters from shop to shop, most of them barren in the aftermath of Chorus’s civil war, but he can practically see the gears turning in her head. Chorus is lucky to have Kai, she’ll make this a hotspot in no time.

When they’re finished in the shopping district, Kai is toting three bags—one with clothing, one with makeup, and one with boxing gloves.

“Lina said she’d teach me,” Kai says. “In exchange, I’m going to teach her yoga. That girl is tense, I’m so glad she’s got Nessa now.”

“’Nessa’?” Grif asks.

“Kimball,” Kai clarifies. “Oh, yeah, Lina, Nessa, and I are totally on a first name basis after last night.”

Grif doesn’t ask, Kai doesn’t elaborate.

They spend the rest of the day lounging around the apartments Kimball provided for them. It’s like they’re kids again—cartoons blaring, Kai’s painting Grif’s toes, junk food everywhere. Grif almost forgets it won’t be like this forever.

“Hey, Kai?” Grif grabs the remote and mutes the show. Kai, half done with Grif’s left foot, glances up before promptly going back to work.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“I’ve got some shitty news,” he says, and when he says it he’s hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, and it’s like he’s been drafted all over again. This time, however, there’s a zero percent chance of him coming back.

“That’s what you said the first time you left,” she says softly.

“Yeah.” Grif looks away out the window. The sun is setting, and an airship zips past their apartment. “Kai, you remember how Simmons gave me half his organs and became a cyborg that one time?”

“Yeah, that sounds like it was so badass,” Kai says. She laughs, but it’s shaky, too-high pitched.

“It totally was,” Grif agrees. “But, uh, I went to see Grey yesterday, you know, when I thought I had food poisoning?”

Kai nods, still not looking up.

“Kai, I’m dying,” Grif says. “Uh, the transplanted organs are failing.”

Kai nods again, and Grif notices the last two nails on his left foot are messy, and there’s nail polish all over her fingers.

“I’m really sorry—” Grif starts, but Kai leaps to her feet.

“It’s not fucking fair!” she yells. Her face darkens, and she kicks the end table next to Grif’s couch, and suddenly he has this image of eight-year-old Kai when he told her she couldn’t have chocolate for dinner. “I just got you back!”

“Kai—”

Kai lets out a frustrated growl and, rather than kick the table again, grabs it and flips it, sending bottles of nail polish flying. One of them shatters, and thick blue liquid seeps out onto the floor. She grabs a pillow and hurls it at the TV, which shakes and almost tips backward. It manages to stay upright, but Kai, unsatisfied, rushes forward and shoves it. It crashes into the floor, and as the life sputters out of it, Kai deflates as well, sinking to the floor.

Taking care not to step on the glass from the nail polish, Grif moves over to Kai’s side. It’s been a long day, and even this almost has him out of breath. He’s pretty sure the polish on his toes is being ground into the carpet, but he doesn’t give a shit. Kimball can replace it if she feels like it.

Grif puts his arm around Kai’s shoulder, and she leans into him, sobbing.

“This is so fucking unfair,” she whispers.

“Life’s a bitch, and then you die,” Grif says. Kai laughs shortly, smacks him on the shoulder, and hugs him back.

They’re still there two hours later, when Simmons, Sarge, Donut, and Doc traipse back into the apartment.

“What the fuck?” Simmons yelps, reaching up and grabbing at his hair.

“Grif! Is that blue nail polish!? Unbelievable! Unforgivable!”

“Wow, this looks just like my place after our first date!” Donut chimes in, looking over at Doc with a toothy grin. Doc’s face goes red and he excuses himself to the kitchen to put away groceries.

“Dex,” Simmons says, voice hoarse. “What. The hell?”

“Uh, there was totally a big rat, and I freaked out okay, and I tried to kill it, but it was super freaking fast, holy shit it was fast!” Kai babbles. “Then I was so mad my nail polish broke I started crying!”

Grif nods.

“That is one hundred percent what happened,” he says.

Simmons looks like he’s ready to faint, while Sarge has started vigorously cleaning the spilled nail polish, muttering to himself.

Grif meets Kai’s eyes and nods. The corners of her mouth twitch, and she nods back.

Turning his gaze back to Simmons, he lets out a sigh. As he watches Simmons rush over to Sarge (“Sarge, no, you—you’re just rubbing it into the—just let me—”), he wonders why he told Kai and why he can’t bring himself to tell Simmons.

He’ll have to sooner or later.

Kind of hard to hide death.

Grif spends the rest of the week divvying up his time.

He lets Sarge chase him around, waving his shotgun as he shouts expletives cursing blue nail polish. It takes a while for Grif to catch his breath once he ducks inside a fuel station, where Lopez stares at him in a way only Lopez can stare.

“Idiota, solo empeoráras tu condición,” he drones.

“Cállate,” Grif wheezes.

If Lopez could roll his eyes, he would.

Grif lets Doc and Donut have him over for dinner, stomachs more innuendos he thought possible. He’s oddly relieved something other than his dying insides is making him nauseous. What Grif can’t stomach is the food, but he does his best to push it around the plate. Besides, Grey would kill him if she knew he was eating so much sugar.

He visits Grey twice a day, always when Simmons is off doing something else. Simmons and Donut are in charge of organizing the menu and decorations for Kimball and Carolina’s wedding, though Grif can’t imagine working with Donut on a coloring book, let alone an entire fucking wedding. But behind Simmons’s half-hearted complaining, Grif can see he’s enjoying putting his energies towards something other than not getting shot.

“You really should try to get more rest,” Grey tells him for the millionth time.

“Have you met me?” Grif snorts. “I’m always resting.”

Grey rolls her eyes and lets him go.

Caboose invites the Reds to movie night, and despite Sarge’s grunting and grumbling, they spend hours with the Blues, watching shitty action movies, playing cards, and shoving their faces with popcorn. Grif enjoys the company, but he keeps getting frustrated with the movie—the movement makes him nauseous, and even though it’s one he’s seen a thousand times, he’s having trouble following the plot. He loses most of the card games too, but he just shrugs and insinuates foul play from the Blues. Sarge agrees.

Carolina keeps giving him weird looks, like she knows something. But she doesn’t say anything, like she understands his secrecy. Grif wonders at first if Kai told her but dismisses the idea. Kai wouldn’t do that without telling him.

Grif spends the fifth day after his diagnosis with Simmons.

They’ve been spending time together all week, of course, hell, they share a bed. But Grif wants to give the entire day to Simmons.

In the morning they drink coffee while Simmons tells him about his new Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Grif watches Simmons’s eyes light up, hands flailing. The nerd becomes so animated he almost spills his coffee.

“You want to drink the coffee, Rich, not oil your arm with it,” Grif teases.

“Hey—I take offense to that!” Simmons snaps. “Just because—fuck!”

Simmons hisses and jumps up from his chair as coffee sloshes out of his mug and onto his hand. Grif, keeled over with laughter, feels the telltale sting on his own jittering hand as he spills his own coffee.

“God dammit!” Grif shouts, dropping the mug. It shatters as it hits the cement, and more hot coffee splashes up and onto Grif and Simmons’s bare feet. “AH!”

“Dammit, Grif!” Simmons scrambles backwards, tripping over his chair as he moves. Grif, wheezing with laughter, reaches out and barely misses the scruff of Simmons’s shirt as he falls on his ass.

Sinking to his knees, Grif struggles for composure as he inches towards Simmons.

“Are—ha—are you okay, Rich?” he asks.

“Fuck off, Dex,” Simmons says, but a huge grin splits his face and suddenly the both of them are losing their shit.

They sit there for at least five minutes, quieting for a few seconds only to start up again. It would have been shorter, Grif thinks, but when Simmons tries to sit up he puts his arm through the glass of the patio door, and once clear of the shards, they dissolve into laughter once more.

Tiptoeing over the glass as they go back inside the apartment, Grif hopes Kimball doesn’t find this until after they’ve gone back to the Moon.

After Simmons has gone back to the Moon.

“Dex, are you crying?” Simmons frowns and leans in to inspect Grif’s face.

“Yeah, from laughing so fucking hard,” Grif says. “That was the weirdest shit of all time.”

“Hey, you started it,” Simmons says, rolling his eyes.

“Shut up, nerd,” Grif retorts.

“Dumbass.”

“Kiss-ass.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” Simmons turns to face Grif. The two of them are on the rooftop of the apartment, huddled on the couch they dragged up there a few days ago.

“You remember when you were fighting Gene, and I asked you if you ever wondered why we’re here?” Grif asks.

“Of course,” Simmons answers, cheeks going red.

The sun has started to set, making Simmons’s hair look like it’s on fire, and Grif resists the urge to reach over and touch it.

“Dex?” Simmons waves a hand in front of Grif’s face, yanking him away from his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, I guess I was wondering if, you know.” Grif shrugs. “Wondering if you have an actual answer?”

“Like, have I ever wondered that or do I, like know why I’m here?” Simmons asks, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow.

“The second one,” Grif says.

Simmons looks away from Grif and out at the sun as it disappears behind the towering black buildings of New Armonia. Grif wishes he was on Simmons other side, the one without the mechanical eye; he loves it when Simmons gets lost in thought, loves how his eye goes far away and darts back and forth, like he’s studying something. He watches as the corners of Simmons’s mouth twitch down into a pensive frown, wonders what the guy is thinking about. Wonders if Simmons will actually answer the question. Simmons always hates it when Grif bothers him with these questions—which is why Grif does it.

“I think I’m just here,” Simmons says at last.

“What do you mean?” Grif asks.

“Well, um, does there need to be a reason we exist?” Simmons turns towards Grif once more. “I mean, obviously there are reasons why I’m here, specifically, in New Armonia, with you. But as far as me, existing here, in this universe for however long I’m here, I don’t think there is a reason.”

“Well, shit,” Grif says. “I’m usually the one who stumps you.”

“The pupil surpasses the teacher,” Simmons sings.

“Nerd.” Grif shakes his head. Not the answer he was expecting, not from Simmons. Simmons is usually the more optimistic one.

“Do you have an answer?” Simmons asks.

Did he? Grif thinks about growing up, practically an adult at eight years old, getting drafted, meeting Simmons, almost dying a billion freaking times. The sequence of events that brought him here had to have some meaning—right? Or maybe it’s all random, like Simmons said.

“I think fate is a cruel asshole,” Grif says.

“That’s it?” Simmons snorts. “Fate’s dumb, that’s why we’re here?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you just said?”

“Well—I mean—no, I was talking about, you know, getting here was based on the choices and actions of others, but existing in general is random, and—”

“This is making my head hurt, Rich,” Grif interrupts. He’s lying, of course. His head’s been hurting for days now.

Simmons sputters but snaps his mouth shut, swiveling his head to look back at the setting sun with a huff.

“You know I’m here because of you, right?” Grif says.

Simmons sidles over, nestles into Grif’s side and reaches for Grif’s blanket. Grif sighs and hands it over, shivering despite the sweat forming at his hairline and lip.

“Duh,” Simmons says. “I’m here for you too.”

Grif leans down and to kiss Simmons, who returns it, gently but eagerly. When they break apart, Grif wraps his arm around Simmons and they finish watching the sun go down.

“I love you, Rich.”

“Love you too, Dex.”

SIMMONS

They’re still on Chorus, spending time on the planet for Carolina and Kimball’s wedding. The ceremony was yesterday—beautiful, sappy, all the things Simmons loves and Grif rolls his eyes over. Then Carolina fucking carried Kimball outside, where they both hopped in a Warthog and took off for a few days. Grif, Simmons, and the others plan on leaving once they return so they can say a proper farewell.

Simmons would normally enjoy a mini vacation, seeing Jensen and the others, not being roommates with Sarge nor neighbors with the Blues for a few days.

But ever since the visit to Grey’s office, Grif has been acting weird.

Simmons figured that having food poisoning would look a lot different. Like, he thought Grif would be a lot grumpier, complain all the time, and, well, sick.

Sure, he’s had the symptoms—chills, nausea, and all that unpleasant shit, but through it all, Grif has been his normal self. Meaning, he still complains all the time, but not about himself, and he’s asked Simmons to watch Battle Star Galactica every night this week and pretended to be interested in the Dungeons and Dragons campaign Simmons is working on. There are bags under his eyes, but his speech is rapid fire, and he’s awake almost all night, watching videos on his data pad and pestering Simmons with the usual existential questions.

Also.

Does food poisoning usually last a week?

“Is everything okay?” Simmons asks one morning.

“Yah, why?” Grif says through a mouthful of cereal.

“I don’t know,” Simmons says. His face goes hot. Shouldn’t have brought it up, dammit! “You just seem different.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, Simmons,” Grif snorts. Using the back of his hand, he wipes a bit of milk from his chin and continues eating.

Simmons frowns. Grif hasn’t called him by his last name in months, not since the whole Temple fiasco.

“No, seriously,” Simmons says, “You’re being way too nice.”

“Giving you a break after years of torture.” Grif grins.

Simmons rolls his eyes. “Can you cut the shit?”

Grif doesn’t say anything, just stares blankly at Simmons.

“Jesus, fine!” Simmons shoves away from the table and storms out of the room.

Why did Grif have to be so freaking stubborn? Simmons thought they were past that beating around the bush crap, yet here they are, dancing around yet another issue. Of course, knowing what the issue is would make things a little easier.

Simmons is pacing back and forth in their bedroom when he hears the crash.

Any other day, he’d chalk it up to Grif being clumsy—they’re both guilty of upending a few chairs and dropping some plates. Any other time, he’d sigh and drag himself back to the kitchen to see if Grif needed help.

Today is different. Simmons feels fear, cold as ice, slice through him as everything off about Grif this past week flashes through his head. And there’s something about the finality in the sound that came from the kitchen that causes Simmons to sprint back.

The first thing he notices is milk everywhere, which is bizarre all on its own because Simmons has never known Grif to leave the sugary, cereal-flavored milk in the bowl.

Simmons takes in the upturned chair, eyes drifting down to Grif, flat on his back and passed out on the linoleum. His breathing is labored, and just as Simmons is about to call for help, Grif groans and pries one eye open.

“Oops,” he wheezes.

“What happened, are you all right?” Simmons swoops down on Grif, who’s trying—and failing—to push himself into a seated position.

“Uh, tripped,” Grif says. His breathing is levelling out a little, but his eyes are closed again.

“We should call Grey,” Simmons says. He’s not going to call bullshit on Grif’s excuse just yet, because the last thing they need right now is a squabble.

“Nah, no,” Grif protests, opening his eyes. He looks up at Simmons but can’t seem to focus, lock onto Simmons’s face. “’S all good, prom’ss.”

“Uh, yeah no, I’m calling Grey,” Simmons argues. He can actually hear his poor cyborg heart humming at what feels like the speed of light.

“Simm—Rich, I’m good, look—” Using his left arm, Grif pushes himself up a few inches. Simmons watches as Grif’s elbow shakes, struggling to support himself, and bites his lip when Grif sighs and sinks back to the floor.

“Dex?” Simmons hates this, hates seeing Grif like this, hates how small his voice sounds right now.

“Maybe…” Grif sighs. “Call Grey.”

Grey has to repeat herself five times before what she’s saying registers in Simmons’s brain.

“What?” His mechanical heart whirs, complaining as he attempts to control his breathing. “What?”

They’re standing in the middle of the waiting room, waiting for the others to arrive.

“I’m so sorry, Simmons,” Grey says, placing a hand on his arm. Simmons rips away.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Simmons demands. Anger, red and hot and roiling, surges through his blood, into his hands, down to the pit of his stomach.

Why didn’t Grif tell him?

“He wanted everything to stay normal for as long as possible, and I wanted to honor his wishes,” Grey explains. “I’ve done everything I can to address the symptoms, but eventually, his organs will completely shut down.”

“Normal?” Simmons scoffs. “Normal? This is anything but fucking normal, you should have told me! He should have told me, fuck normal!”

Grey opens her mouth to respond, but

Simmons feels his face go hot, and suddenly he’s seeing red. Anger courses through his body, screams into his ears, squeezes his lungs. He can’t see straight, form a coherent thought—he’s not sure how long he’s lost but when his vision clears he’s screaming, and he has one hand clutched around the collar of Sarge’s shirt, the other pulled back into a fist.

“This is your fucking fault!” Simmons is shouting. “Your fault!”

Sarge just stands there, stone-faced, doesn’t even flinch when Simmons sends his fist into the wall next to his head.

“FUCK!” Simmons shoves Sarge backwards into the wall, turns away from him and runs a shaking hand through his hair.

It’s not fair, he knows, he knows it’s not fair. Sarge saved Grif’s life years ago, he’s lucky to have survived this long without the organs rejecting his body. But there’s nothing to be angry at, nothing tangible anyway, so he latched onto the first person he saw. Shit, he may have even freaked out at Caboose if he’d been the one to waltz in.

Maybe he should be angry at the UNSC, for dropping them on Blood Gulch in the first place, where they almost died on countless occasions, where Simmons became part cyborg and Grif became part Simmons.

Simmons lets out a breathy laugh. Part Simmons.

Grif would think that’s super cheesy.

Maybe he should be angry at himself, for wasting so much time. Years, so many years wasted denying what he felt—what they both felt—and now that they’re finally happy, finally free, it’s all been fucking ripped away. Simmons can feel every second hammering at the back of his skull,

There’s a pressure on his shoulder and Simmons freezes, ready to pounce, but then realizes it’s Sarge’s hand. Simmons glances at him over his shoulder, expecting anger, finding understanding.

“S’all right, son,” Sarge says.

“I—I need to go.” Simmons shrugs Sarge’s hand away.

He beelines for the door to Grif’s room, hand freezing over the latch.

“I’m sorry,” he says, not looking at Sarge. Sarge doesn’t say anything, and Simmons enters Grif’s room.

Grif is half asleep when Simmons enters his room. Simmons tries not to flinch when he sees the tubes and wires tethering Grif to life, tries to block out the beeping and hissing of machinery as he shuffles towards the bed.

“’Sup, nerd?” Grif mumbles as Simmons sits down next to him.

“Oh. You know,” Simmons says, giving Grif a shaky smile.

“Yelling,” Grif says.

“Huh?”

“Heard yelling,” Grif elaborates.

“Oh, that.” Simmons sighs. “Uh, kinda yelled at Sarge. But, uh, don’t worry about it!”

“Rebel,” Grif laughs. Then he frowns. “Wait why… were you yelling?”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s stupid,” Simmons insists. Next thing he needs is Grif giving him shit.

“Not his fault,” Grif mutters.

“What?”

“Not his fault,” Grif repeats. “Not his fault, not your fault. Just bad fucking luck.”

Simmons lets out something between a laugh and a growl. Bad luck, fate, bullshit—whatever it is, they’ve been plagued by it for basically their entire lives.

“Like you said,” Grif says. “No reason.”

“Fuck what I said,” Simmons says. “I change my mind, I exist, and you exist, and we exist, so we can be together.”

“Simmons.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Dex?” He called him Simmons again. “We could’ve done something, or, or Sarge could’ve given you cyborg parts or—”

“Rich,” Grif says, raising his voice above the hoarse whisper he’s been using. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Okay?” Simmons laughs. “Nothing is okay, Dex. You’re dying.”

“You’ll be okay,” Grif insists. “You have to.”

“Do I?” Simmons snaps.

“Yeah, idiot, you do,” Grif says. “You better not fucking leave Sarge to his own devices.”

“Sarge will be fine,” Simmons says through gritted teeth.

“Can you make sure Kai gets to visit home?” Grif asks.

“Home?”

“Hawai’i. Honolulu.”

A pain like a knife slices through Simmons, and the realization hits that he won’t get to see Hawai’i with Grif, will have to see it without Grif, will have to see everything without Grif.

“Yeah, I can—” Simmons’s voice cracks. “I can do that.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Whatever it takes.”

Grif chuckles.

“Kiss-ass,” he mutters.

“Dumbass,” Simmons says. He takes Grif’s hand in his and watches as Grif falls asleep, the ghost of a smile on his face.

Four days pass.

Grif doesn’t wake up.

Simmons stays by Grif’s side until he’s led away—Donut? He thinks it is, can’t be sure, all he can discern is the tone. Can’t pick out the words. Can’t turn to check. It isn’t until they stand up to greet the other people entering the room and Simmons sees the shock of straw-colored hair that he knows it’s Donut for sure.

A few people come up to him, mouths moving, and he can hear a dull hum of noises he can’t quite string into words. Everything is covered in a dense fog, and Simmons can’t tell if he’s hot or cold. Eventually, people stop bothering him and whisper among themselves.

Time passes, he isn’t sure how long, and suddenly there’s a new face in front of him.

They’re warm and bright and dressed in yellow.

“Kai.”

Kai nods, leans forward, and throws her arms around Simmons, and every feeling suspended up in the dense cloud around his head comes crashing down. Grief, black and suffocating, settles in his chest. Anger, at the world at Grif at himself at everything and everyone. Relief, that Grif is finally free.

“He’s gone,” he croaks. He feels Kai nod into his shoulder, and he can feel the warmth of her tears as they soak through his shirt.

And they sit there, sharing their grief, clinging to each other as if, without something to tether them there, they’ll drift away.

As the room clears, as Simmons and Kai wait for the worst of the storm to pass, Simmons pulls away.

“Kai?”

“Yeah?” she says, letting out a shaky sigh.

“We’re going to be okay.”

Hawai’i is vibrant.

It’s cerulean and emerald and orange and violet. The buildings of Honolulu creep right up to the edge of the ocean, defiant. At night the city gives off a warm glow, reflecting on the water, clear and never quiet. Mountains surround the city on three sides, covered in vegetation and even some houses, and at the edge of the city Lē’ahi—the Diamond Head volcano—lies dormant.

Kai points out clubs and local shops, talkative as always, and after a while Simmons tunes her out. Instead, he looks up and down the streets, inside storefronts, restaurants. He imagines Grif waiting in line at the video game store, leaning back in the one of the café’s patio chairs, enjoying copious amounts of ice cream, napping on the beach.

Everything about Honolulu, about Hawaii, screams Dexter Grif.

Whenever Grif talked about his home, his face would light up and his speech would quicken. His eyes would go far away, and after a few minutes, his face would darken, and he’d mumble something about needing to go to the bathroom. Simmons didn’t understand—not at first. Leaving home was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Then Kai crash landed on Blood Gulch, and Simmons realized that Grif, unlike him, left something he cared about behind. A family, this beautiful fucking island. After Chorus, Grif would bring up visiting home some time, and when they had to travel to Earth to save it from Temple, Grif complained about not taking a vacation.

Simmons looks down at the box tucked under his left arm.

Well. Grif is finally home.

“Oh, man, we would come here all the time,” Kai sighs. “Dex napped mostly but sometimes we surfed together. Oh, and this is a perfect spot to bring a date. Man, the sand gets in all the cracks though.”

“Yeah,” Simmons says, squinting into the sunset. It’s turned the water a bright orange, and— “Wait, what?”

“C’mon, his favorite spot’s over here!” Kai calls, already bounding across the sand.

Simmons is considerably less graceful as he tries to run after her. How does she stay so balanced? He wonders if it would be easier if he was barefoot, but then remembers he’s just as clumsy on solid ground.

When he finally catches up to Kai she’s doing cartwheels in the sand. Occasionally, her hand slips in the loose sand, but for the most part she stays upright. Simmons stands and watches for a minute or two, waiting for her to notice he’s there.

“Oh!” Kai claps her hands together to get the sand off. “Finally!”

Simmons rolls his eyes.

“How are you so… happy?” he asks. Now more than ever he feels the weight of the box under his arm as he watches Kai’s face fall. He shouldn’t have opened his stupid mouth, he should’ve—

“I’m happy ’cause I’m home, I’m happy ’cause Dex is finally home, and he’s not suffering anymore,” she says, looking away from Simmons. “But I’m sad too, you know. I miss him. I wish he could’ve come for real, and not in a fricking box.”

Simmons realizes that Kai, having spent years alone after her brother was drafted, must have been afraid of exactly this. Grif coming home in a casket—or box.

“I’m sorry, I was just a huge ass hole,” Simmons sighs. “I wish he could be here for real too.”

“I mean, he is here for real,” Kai counters, gesturing at the box Simmons is holding.

“Ah.” Simmons shifts on his feet, looking off over the water. “Right.”

For a moment the two of them stand there, watching the sun sink lower beneath the horizon. Then Kai plops down and pats the sand on her left. Simmons recalls what Kai said about sand getting in all the cracks, but his legs are so sore from traversing through Honolulu all day he decides he’ll deal with it.

Setting the box gingerly on in the sand, Simmons sits down next to Kai.

About an hour passes in silence as they admire the waves swooshing up and down the beach, the lazy way the sky turns from orange to grey to navy blue. A few clouds roll in, covering up the moon, but they have plenty of light from the city. Simmons gazes at Honolulu’s reflection in the water and thinks it almost looks like there’s a second city in the ocean.

Kai leans over and rests her head on Simmons’s shoulder, lets out a sigh, and pushes herself to her knees.

“I guess now’s as good a time as any, huh?”

Simmons’s toes twitch but he realizes the last thing he wants to do is stand up. Walk to the water. Do what they came here to do. He knows he’s being stupid and selfish, but he can’t bring himself to move.

Kai’s eyes meet his and she lowers herself back down to the sand. This time, when she leans her head on his shoulder, she leaves it there.

“We can totally wait,” she says. “Nighttime is really pretty so, like, no rush here.”

Simmons just nods and stares out over the water. Normally he’d cringe at such close contact from anyone—well, most anyone—but Kai’s keeping him grounded. Another wave of anger and guilt washes over him—he should be the one keeping Kai grounded. Dex was her brother, after all.

Kai sniffles. Simmons’s eyes widen, and he looks down to find Kai crying.

“Shit, I’m sorry—I’m dragging this out, we can—we can do it now, okay?” Simmons scrambles to find the right thing to say; he’s never been one for comforting people. He pats her on the shoulder once, twice, and is about to give up when Kai throws her arms around him.

“Oof!” Simmons freezes, breath knocked out of him, arms outstretched. He’s not sure what the fuck to do with his arms at first.

Slowly, gently, he returns Kai’s embrace.

Simmons is about to complain that he’s got something in his eyes, sand maybe, but he just cries instead.

“God, Grif would give us so much shit right now,” Simmons laughs.

Kai giggles and pulls away, wiping her arm across her eyes. “Yeah, but you know he’d secretly be all over this sappy shit.”

Simmons grins. He stands then, brushing the sand off his pants and offers a hand to Kai, who raises her eyebrow and rises to her feet on her own. Simmons shrugs and scoops up the box, and together they make their way to the edge of the water.

The steady rumble and crash of the waves fills Simmons’s ears. The smell of salt and sand permeates the air, but it isn’t unpleasant—better than the dust-filled air on Blood Gulch. Fresh. Simmons can taste salt as well, but that’s probably from all the crying.

Once they reach the ocean, Simmons holds the box out to Kai. Kai takes the lid off and drops it on the ground next to her, just out of reach of the water washing over their feet. They both look down at the ashes, then back at each other.

“Uh, should we—” Simmons jerks his head towards the water.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Kai says with a grin.

Together, hands gripping the box, they sprinkle the ashes in the water. They swirl with the waves, some of them getting pulled back into the ocean, some drifting along the shore. Simmons imagines Grif here, swimming—or napping—and for the first time in weeks, he feels happy.

He’s happy because Grif is finally home.

Grif is finally home and, as Simmons looks out at the ocean one last time, breathing in the salty air, feels like this is where he belongs too.

Kai elbows him in the ribs.

“C’mon, let’s go home,” she says.

Simmons nods.

Home.

#rvb angst war #grimmons #h writes #angst #major character death #canon-typical language #hospital #medical #kaikaina grif #dexter grif #dick simmons #emily grey

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