#How To Avoid Bitterness After Divorce

[cagcd]

While I'm still nerding out about X, the chain Johnny's wearing has a ring in the middle and you bet your butt that's his wedding ring ...

[lieslab]

Skipped through the five waves of grief

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Chan X gn reader

Summary: After being caught in the middle of your parents' messy marriage, Chan finds you after they announce their divorce.

Genre: Comfort/hurt

Word Count: 2.4K

Domestic abuse and depression resources

Trigger warning: Domestic abuse, mentions of anger and yelling, depression, and emotional defeat

A/N: I'm on a roll with requests. This request is also from a while ago and requestee, I made the ending silly and fluffy. Sometimes Chan gives me cuteness aggression, so in order to ease the hurt about this topic, it ends playfully. This topic is a lot emotionally speaking, so I hope this eases a bit of your burden <3

_ _ _

Parents were supposed to love each other. They were supposed to be the light of each other's lives. Tender touches and sensual kisses. Healthy communication and cemented boundaries for one another. Marriage was supposed to be a joyous celebration. It was supposed to be something that would last forever, but the rings on your parents’ ring fingers began to rust. 

You didn’t know when it first happened. So many days had been spent arguing and bickering. Kisses were withheld from one another and words were thrown. The walls used to be nurtured with sweet murmurs and ‘I love you’s.’ They turned into rot. 

Golden rings rusted and turned their skin green and blue. They cut off blood circulation to their hearts and morphed them into something indescribable. The same reasons that they fell in love, it was the same reason why that love crumbled apart years later. 

The compliments from your mom turned into your father’s annoyance. Your father’s independence swallowed him whole and pig-headedness led him to push your mother away. Simple conversations began to get louder as anger burst out of each of their lungs. 

And you? You were innocent in this entire thing. Your existence was proof that they loved each other, but that was a long time ago. Every year that you grew older, it was another year that their connected flame began to shrink. Smaller and smaller until it snuffed out all together. 

It was easier to use you. The two of them managed to avoid one another like crazy, but you became the scapegoat. A ping pong ball that was forced to hit the board between both of them. Over and over and over and over again. 

“Mom said-” 

“Dad wants you to-” 

“Mom wants to know if you-” 

“Dad wanted me to ask you-” 

It always led to you feeling awful. You were no longer their kid, but rather a pigeon that was forced to carry their notes back and forth. Your back ached from the emotional toil and your brain suffered from their attitudes, but they didn’t see that. 

When a wave of anger was shoved towards you because you were the messenger, you forced yourself to take it. Day in and day out, you were just a cog in their toxic wheel of romance. The romance died, but their bitterness towards each other didn’t. So you bowed and you leaped. You took each cue with hesitation and a held breath. As time went on, your house turned into a battlefield with yourself as the victim. 

Too focused on fighting one another, neither parent understood the holes that they were drilling into your heart. They didn’t understand the ache in your bones and the curdled marrow. Even after you moved out, you still felt the effects of their disintegrating marriage. 

Text messages blew up your phone from both parties. Fingers pointed and both of them blamed the other for things falling apart. Despite you not being home, they still asked you to check in with the other for one reason or the next. 

No matter how miserable it made you, you complied. You didn’t want something to happen and cause the two of them to do something indescribable. Their violence came out in curses and shrieks. Flinging arms, bulging veins, and red faces. If that anger built and snapped, you weren’t sure if it’d ever truly get physical, but that thought worried you. 

You moved out months ago. When Chan suggested that the two of you grab a place, you agreed in a heartbeat. It provided some comfort away from your parents and for once, you felt like you could finally breathe. Neither of their hands were wrapped around your lungs and squeezing to leave you breathless. 

So the two of you went apartment shopping. You picked out furniture and paint colors. Fortunately for the two of you, the landlord was a sweeter older lady. She didn’t mind what you did with the place, as long as you had her permission before you began a project, she was pretty relaxed about most things that other landlords hated. 

You slathered your shared room with a brighter version of your favorite color. At least, by using that shade, it’d keep you rather upbeat. It was better than the last room that you had. Plus, the room was bigger, so you had more space to play with and freely added more and more objects. 

You and Chan had been living at the place for nearly a year. You had your job and he had his. The two of you grew accustomed to one another’s schedules. You went grocery shopping together every week and took turns divvying up the chores. Besides the shitshow from your parents, life was treating you fairly well. 

When you came home from work, you kicked off your dirty shoes, left them by the door, and headed into the kitchen. You were on duty to make dinner and you already knew what you were making. For the past two days, you had been planning to make this special dish tonight. 

Two days ago, your parents got into a huge fight. You didn’t know what happened until your mother informed you the next day. The verbal altercation was so loud that someone alerted the cops. When the cops broke it up, it was so bad that both of your parents had to be separated and calmed down. 

Your heart ached at the news. You felt awful because you didn’t know and couldn’t stop it. Guilt weighed upon your heart heavily. Maybe if you could have been there, you could have stopped it from happening. 

You carried the guilt and burden from things that you didn’t have to. It was one of those things that you couldn’t help. You grew up with your parents being dependent on you during their heated moments and when you weren’t there to stop it from escalating, it made you feel like shit deep down. 

You knew that it wasn’t really your fault. You weren’t responsible for their reactions, but it still felt like you were. If one of them would have alerted you, you would have dropped everything and rushed over. Anything to get them away from potentially hurting each other. 

Picking out the best knife, you took your time cutting the vegetables. You washed them and one-by-one, you placed them on the chopping board and began to dice and slice. Mince the garlic, ignore the sharp scent on your hands, and continue on to the next step. 

Chan would be home from work soon and the past few days, the two of you had been consuming frozen prepackaged food and ramen. Time had been relatively short for both of you and it was something quick and easy. Chan had been discussing wanting a homemade meal and you were thrilled to provide one for him. 

You continued to follow through the steps, but you stopped when your phone vibrated. Worried that Chan had to stay over at the studio, you washed your hands and pulled out your phone. You were expecting Chan, but when you pulled up the message, it was from your mother instead. 

“Your father and I are getting a divorce.” 

You read the words over and over and over again, trying to make sure you read them right. In the past, when anyone mentioned your parents divorcing, they each scoffed at the idea, stating that it took too much effort. 

For months, you had been praying for this moment, but now that you were here, you felt defeated. Your heart weighed heavily in your chest. Instead of responding right away, you left your mother on read, and you tossed the phone onto the nearby counter. 

Days and days of emotional torment finally broke the camel’s back. Your hands shook and tears collected in your eyes. Your legs wobbled and you desperately reached out to grab the kitchen counter. There wasn’t time to catch your weight before your legs slipped from beneath you. 

You hit the ground with a gasp. For so long, you felt so burdened by the scenario. Throwing knives struck your heart and they had been embedded there for so long. This information was like jerking them out all at once. 

How many times had you been involved in fights along with them? When a parent got too mad and the pendulum of anger swung towards you. You had kept it inside for so long. You were still just their kid, but your parents weren’t there to comfort the unsealed hurt that leaked out. 

Twenty minutes later, Chan sang the latest chorus of the new song that he’d been working on. He sang beneath his breath and bobbed his head. With a clicking tongue and humming of the last few notes, he spun the silver key ring around his finger. 

The two of you always kept the door locked no matter what. Even when the other was home, you still used your keys to get in. It was easier that way and you were anxious about strangers. Chan thought it was a bit silly, but he went along with it to make you feel better. 

He headed inside and kicked off his shoes. He pulled off his bag’s side strap and placed it on the couch. His laptop, hoodie, and an empty bottle sat inside. His tongue clicked again and he bobbed his head while walking into the kitchen. 

He spotted the half sliced carrot and the minced garlic. A few plastic bottles full of spices sat off to the side. Pork belly had been pulled from the fridge and a pan sat on the stove, but you were missing. 

His head tilted and he spun around to go find you. Knowing you, you were probably in the bathroom or you got distracted and went back to the bedroom. The floor creaked beneath his feet and he walked past the open bathroom door. 

The bedroom door was also open and when he stuck his head in, you were gone. Your unspoken name sat on the tip of his tongue, but it never rolled off. His head jerked backwards, wondering if he missed you somewhere, but with another look around the apartment, he couldn’t find you. 

“Where’d you go?” He mumbled beneath his breath. He headed back to the kitchen with a hand rubbing the side of his neck. It wasn’t like you to come up missing randomly. 

He walked further into the kitchen, up to the spices to see if you left a note. It was only then that he saw the hunched up figure off to the side. He frowned and headed towards you. “Whattcha doin’ down there?” 

His thick Australian accent usually made you laugh, but it never came. Sometimes he exaggerated his accent to make you laugh and this was one of those times. However, your usual smile didn’t appear. You were curled against the corner of wooden cabinets with your knees to your chest. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He frowned and crouched down beside you. “Did you hurt yourself while cutting the vegetables?” 

Your eyes were red and so were the tops of your cheeks. Your head weakly shook and the worry in his heart grew. “Then what happened? Why are you down here?” 

“My parents are getting a divorce.” 

He blinked and let the words sink in. He didn’t really know anything about your parents. A breath was sucked in through clenched teeth. “I’m really sorry about that.” 

Your head shook. “Don’t be. I’ve been wanting them to get divorced for a while, but I just-” You leaned down and let your chin rest on the top of your knees. “I don’t know. I’m relieved and I feel miserable about it all at once. A lot of the time, they used me to communicate with one another. I’m happy, but I’m empty and I also feel hurt.” 

“I fought a lot with my dad and I don’t know how to put it all together. There’s a hundred feelings all at once. I’m so happy it happened, but I just…” 

“Wish it happened earlier, so you didn’t have to be involved so much?” 

You finally nodded and swallowed. “Yeah, I guess that’s it. My mom texted me a while ago and I needed a moment to let it sink in.” 

“So you picked the dirty kitchen floor?” He teased you slightly.

“I just cleaned this floor last night.” 

“And it’s such a shame that I might have spilled milk on it late last night.” 

Your head went back up. “You didn’t clean it up? What’s wrong with you?” 

He laughed and pulled away. “I’m just kidding! Of course, I cleaned it up. It would have smelled nasty if it sat and curdled.” He stood up and stretched his hands out towards you. 

“I think this calls for a celebration of sorts. It looks like you were in the middle of making something, so I’m going to help you. Let’s do something to take your mind off it.” 

You reached up and he tugged you up with ease. The moment you were back on your feet, he yanked you towards him. You squeaked  as he wrapped you in a tight hug. 

His forehead found the side of your neck. You tried to squirm away, but he held you tighter. Warm lips softly pressed against your skin. You cried his name and tried to lean back again, but he didn’t let go. 

“Stop trying to escape my love.” His breath was warm on your skin. He planted another soft kiss against your pulse point. “Just let me love my baby.” 

Your head leaned back with a loud whine. “You’re giving me your cooties and it tickles. How am I supposed to tolerate it? I can’t help that I’m ticklish!” 

He giggled and kissed the side of your neck once more before he gave up. His arms remained around your waist and he let his head nuzzle against you. “You know, one day I might marry you.” 

“Oh brother.” 

“What do you mean?” He pulled his head back in mock offense. “We’re going to have the best marriage of all time. Maybe we might even end up with kids.” 

“Too fast and too soon bucko.” 

“Bucko?” 

“Bucko.” 

His parted lips began to turn into a smirk. When you saw the glint in his eyes, you quickly jerked backwards. “Now wait a-” 

“Come ‘er.” 

You spun around and took off. He chased after you with his hands out. His fingers wiggled, a silent threat to tickle you. You shrieked and rushed out of the kitchen. He giggled as he hurried after you. 

Your parents’ marriage might have ended in divorce and heartbreak, but with Chan, you were certain your marriage would be eternal. 

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lina-linny @straykidsstanforeverandever @seungnishi @stellasays45

Masterlist

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Ko-fi

[coco-loco-nut]

loml part 2

pairing: charles leclerc x reader

summary: it’s time for you to finally have some happiness, even if you’ve sworn off drivers

part one masterlist ttpd masterlist

——————

A year after the break up, you are still living in George’s Monaco apartment. You keep to yourself, sticking to a simple routine and avoiding Formula One when you can. You could’ve gotten your own apartment with the divorce settlement and your job salary, but George insisted that you take care of the apartment for him.

George and Carmen were with you every step of the way, helping you pick up the pieces and bringing you back to as close to normal as you can.

“I’m done with drivers, I will never date one ever again,” you tell George one afternoon. George was almost offended but you added on the second half.

You go out for a run like you do every morning before work, and on your way home you stop in a bakery you’ve been eyeing. After placing your coffee and pasty order, you accidentally bump into someone.

“I am so sorry, I- Charles. Hi,” you look at the equally stunned man.

“Hi, how are you doing,” Charles says gently, sounding concerned. That isn’t what you expected out of your ex’s friend.

“Better, how’s, um, how is he?” you ask a little bitterly, internally cringing at the clear discomfort on Charles’s face. His name is called alongside yours, so he picks it up and sets it on a table, silently inviting you to join him, and you do.

“I don’t know. After the whole Kelly thing, I argued with him and we haven’t really talked since,” Charles admits, you look stunned.

“I’m sorry that happened,” you can’t really hide your bitter expression as the thought of Kelly runs through your mind. Not even a month after you separated, Max was off playing happy family with his new girlfriend. Your divorce wasn’t even legalized yet.

“I’m not. He lost someone incredible just because he wasn’t willing to put in the work for a good and healthy relationship,” Charles looks you in the eyes. You finish your pastry and process his words and his underlying meaning.

“Charles, everything is still so fresh, I don’t know,” you look out at the streets. You couldn’t deny he was attractive, but you didn’t want to reinvolve yourself with Formula One.

“One date, we can take it as slow as you want to. I know it must be hard, but you deserve to be happy,” Charles reaches out and touches your hand gently.

“I have to get to work. You should have my number, Charles,” you softly smile, leaving the cafe. Charles lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Naturally, he asked George for permission first. He knew George was acting as your overprotective brother, and George knew you better than anyone at the moment. Despite you swearing off drivers, George felt that Charles might be what you need.

The first date goes well, and so does the second, and the third. Charles prioritized privacy, and you were grateful. He shows up to your door for the fourth with a bouquet of your favorite flowers, ones that Max always forgot to get. He always gave you chrysanthemums, fitting that he would choose a funeral flower seeing as how he killed the relationship.

“Cheri, are you okay?” Charles asks, seeing you tear up a little.

“Max never did this, and when he did they were always the wrong flowers,” you shake you head slightly, fending off the anger and sadness.

“Well, if he wanted to treat your right, he would. I want to treat you right,” Charles presses a kiss to your head. You invite him in while you find a vase to put the flowers in.

“I want that,” you tell him, his hands find yours.

“Be my girlfriend?” Charles asks, you nod happily.

“There is this restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try, down the street. Maybe I can take my boyfriend there,” you smile, heart racing.

“Lead the way, mon cœur,” Charles tells you. You lock the apartment behind you and take his hand as you lead him down the street to a restaurant that opened a couple months ago. The two of you are so caught up in each other, you don’t notice the table across the restaurant.

Max watches you walk into the restaurant, hand in hand with Charles - the guy who used to be one of his closest friends. You look stunning, and happier than you were the last few months before the separation. Of course Max saw you for divorce meetings, but this is different.

“Max is here,” you quietly tell Charles.

“Don’t worry about him, he won’t cause a scene,” Charles reassures you, knowing his old friend. You are grateful for the man sitting across from you.

“What did I do to deserve you?” you ask, causing Charles’s hear to soar. can’t believe he is finally happy.

Charles is by your side during the rough days, especially the day that should’ve been your wedding anniversary with Max. You couldn’t help but to be upset, and healing takes time. Charles didn’t push you to do anything, he just kept you company and followed your lead.

When you were together for six months, you felt comfortable enough to reintroduce yourself to Charles’s friends and family. It helps that the two of you adopted a dog.

“These are my sons, Ollie and Oscar,” Charles tells you as you stand in the kitchen, watching over the dinner you had been working on. He would’ve invited Liam, but that would be awkward for everyone.

“It’s lovely to meet you, I’m Y/n. I suspect you know Leo from social media. Would either of you like wine, or anything from the fridge? Please, help yourself,” you stop yourself from fussing. Charles recognizes it as your hormones kicking in, making you fuss over them.

“Thank you, need any help?” Ollie asks as Oscar plays with Leo.

“Thank you, but you are a guest. I couldn’t let you. Now, I think Charles has a really expensive bottle that will pair well with this meal, let me grab it and pour a couple glasses,” you wink.

“Only the best for you and the kids, Cheri,” Charles yells from the dining room where he is setting the table. Ollie takes the glass you poured for him, he wouldn’t mind you being his grid mom.

“Charles, come help me bring food in while the boys sit down,” you tell him, giving Oscar and Ollie a little glare when the move to help you.

“Of course, mon cœur,” Charles smiles, carrying the heavier plates in while you grab the wine bottle and the two empty glasses for you and Charles.

The two boys try to make sure they don’t come off as interrogating you, but you don’t mind. They are avoiding the elephant in the room, and both you and Charles know it.

“You can ask, I don’t mind,” you say gently, knowing it’s eating Oscar alive. He’s like you and George if you two had an idgaf attitude.

“Is it true that you and Max, um,” Oscar pauses looking for the words.

“Yeah, he’s my ex-husband. He did me a favor though, without him I wouldn’t be with Charlie,” you look adoringly at your boyfriend.

“Ask George and Carmen, they will give you the best version of the story,” Charles laughs and so do you.

“This is really good, I might need you to cook after races for me,” Ollie changes to topic, groaning a little at how full he is.

“She’s our mom, of course it’s good,” Oscar replies, you can’t fight the grin on your face.

“Of course I will. I can send some frozen meals for you to heat up along to the with Charles,” you tell them.

“Or you could come to the races and keep me company,” Ollie says, looking at you hopefully. You are one hundred percent adopting him. Charles looks at you a little panicked, you never really talked about being in the paddock as his girlfriend. Of course, he has publicly talked about how he has a girlfriend who he adores, but no one knows it’s you, except for a few people.

Max never told anyone about your relationship, despite him seeing your date and reporters asking him about you. It would be an asshole thing to do after he moved on so quick, and you deserved better than what he had done to you already.

“I’d love to, but don’t regret it when you are being mothered,” you point your fork at them.

“Wait, why only Ferrari,” Oscar pouts.

“I can visit you too, I’ll even bring cookies,” you tell Oscar. He pumps his fist in celebration.

Charles is happy to hear you are okay going to races again. You have to be a little stealthy about it at the start. You go the first couple times as George’s guest, and slowly increase how long you are with Charles each time.

Things change when you miss your period. You and Charles have always been very careful, but there have been a couple time that you forgot a condom.

“What does it say, mon cœur?” Charles sits beside you in bed, rubbing soft circles on your shoulder. You take a shakey breath and turn the stick over, ready to be shown another negative.

“Positive, I’m pregnant. I thought I couldn’t have kids,” you feel Charles brush tears from your cheeks.

“We will be the best parents, I’m so happy,”he reassures you, and you can see how happy he is. From then on you go as Charles’s partner, Ollie is happy to have you with him in the garage, and even accompanies you to visit Oscar. Ollie claimed it was to protect you and the baby against Max, but that doesn’t work when Max is talking to Lando at the same time you visit Oscar.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Max asks a little hesitatily.

“I’m really well, how are you?” you ask, pushing down the bitter parts of you. You truly are very happy now.

“I’m okay. Do you think we could talk at some point this weekend? I think it’s been long enough and you deserve closure for yourself,” Max scratches the back of his head.

“Message me on Instagram. We can find a time,” you agree, needing to get a couple things off your chest. That time is the next morning in an open room in Red Bull hospitality.

“You wanted to talk,” you say as you sit down across from Max. Charles was apprehensive when you told him of your plan, but he trusted you and was supportive of your choice.

“I wanted to apologize for how I treated you at the end, it was unfair to you,” Max tells you, clearly pushing through his pride. “So, I’m sorry. I can’t say it’s easy seeing you happy with someone who isn’t me. Are you happy?” Max asks, needing to know.

“Of course I am. It was really hard to move on. Charlie makes me extremely happy, and he’s given me the greatest gift I could ask for,” you smile, subconsciously putting a hand on your stomach. Max feels his stomach swirl with jealousy. Charles is living the life he should be living, Charles is doing everything he should be doing for you, but he fucked it all up.

“I, uh, wow. Congratulations, I know how much you wanted a kid. I’m happy for you, schatje,” Max says, pushing down his jealousy. It’s his fault he lost you, now he has to live with the consequences and be mature about it. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten with Kelly so soon he would be with you, but it’s too late now.

Max did try. He constantly asked George where you were, or to convince you to talk to him. George was protective though, he saw how hurt you were and knew you needed to heal on your own time. So he did what any overprotective best friend would do, talk reasonably and show Max why he needed to stay away.

“Thanks, Maxie, that means a lot,” Maxie, a dagger through Max’s heart. “I can’t be friends with you right now, but maybe someday. I like this version of you, maybe Kelly was the right one for you after all,” you can see the pain in Max’s somber eyes, the same one you see from the end of your relationship, and the same one that haunts you.

“I really am sorry,” Max’s voice cracks. “You’re the love and loss of my life,” tears well in his eyes as he looks at you.

“You’re the loss of mine as well,” you stand up and move towards him, pulling him into a hug. “You are going to be okay, Max. We weren’t right for each other, but now you can move on,” you say softly. In your heart you can feel the closure you’ve needed. Max felt it too, and when the day came, he would be ready to be a good friend.

Until that day, he is publicly supportive of your family with Charles. Max repairs his relationship with Charles first, then he slowly repairs it with you. When Julianna Herveline Leclerc graced the world, he was one of the first people to send a gift and well wishes. And when you and Charles finally make it to the alter, Max is standing beside Charles, happy to support the two of you.

[miamidorin]

𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

pairing ── kim minji x female reader

summary ── minji doesn't believe in soulmates, more than believing in fate until her red string around her pinky finger tugs her in to meet her soulmate.

contains ── angst, non idol au, high school au, emotional, crying, painful, painfully relatable minji, heartbroken reader, soulmates au, red strings/thread

taglist ── @flyingcigarettes

[masterlist]

── ── ꒰ 𓍼 ꒱ ── ──

the classroom was as it always was— a place where pens scratched on paper, muted conversations filled the air, and the sunlight filtered in through the clear windows. but for minji, it was a prison.

a prison, one whose walls were painted with the vibrant red of the string tied around her pinky finger. she stared at it blankly, her lips set in a thin line, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts she couldn't escape.

it had been a month since the string appeared. a month of sleepless nights of staring at the glowing thread and wondering who was on the other side. a month of bitterness gnawing at her heart.

her parents had once been soulmates, their fingers tied by the same ethereal string that mocked her now. and where had that gotten them?

divorced. broken. bitter.

soulmates weren't forever. love wasn't eternal. the idea of fate was nothing but a cruel joke.

minji clenched her jaw and flicked the string with her finger as if trying to snap it. obviously, it didn't snap. it simply quivered, swaying back into place like it was taunting her.

she wanted to hate whoever was on the other side of the string. they were a stranger, a faceless figure tied to her by some cosmic force she had no control over— and yet, she couldn't bring herself to hate them— not truly.

but she could resent them, and she did.

"minji, are you even listening?" a familiar voice cut through her jumbled thoughts.

she blinked, her head snapping up to meet her friend's annoyed gaze. "what?" she muttered annoyingly.

hanni sighed, "i was asking if you're coming to the cafe after school."

minji shook her head, exhaustion finally catching up to her. "i've got stuff to do." the excuse was as empty as she felt. right now, she doesn't want to deal with anyone in this sort of state. she doesn't feel like it.

"right..." hanni rolled her eyes but didn't press further.

minji was grateful for that— the last thing she wanted was to explain why she'd been zoning out more than usual lately.

as hanni turned away, minji's eyes wandered around until they suddenly landed on you.

you were seated a few rows ahead, your head bent over your notebook, your hair fell into your face, and you absentmindedly pushed it back behind your eyes, revealing a look of quiet concentration.

minji's gaze drifted lower— to your hand, where your pinky finger rested against the table. then, her breath caught in her throat when she saw it: the red string.

your red string, swaying softly against the table.

you must have felt her stare because you looked up. for a moment, your eyes met hers— it was like the world around her faded away, leaving only the soft warmth of your gaze.

as she stares at you more, you look... kind. nervous, but kind. and when your eyes flickered down to the strings connecting the two of you, minji's stomach twisted.

she tore her gaze away, her heart pounding in her chest and her cheeks warming in red. she hated this feeling— the way you made her feel vulnerable and exposed. the way her thoughts seemed to circle back to you no matter how hard she tried to focus on anything else.

she hated it.

she hated you.

— no. that wasn't true.

she hated herself for not being able to hate you.

─────

the day dragged on, and each seconds felt like an eternity.

minji avoided looking at you, but it was impossible to ignore the way her mind kept replaying that brief moment when your eyes had met. when the final bell rang, she practically bolted out of her seat, eager to escape the suffocating weight of her own thoughts.

"minji," your voice abruptly stopped her in her tracks.

she looked down to the floor, then she turned slowly, her expression carefully neutral. you were standing a few feet away, clutching the strap of your bag and looking at her with a mixture of determination and hesitation.

"can we talk?" you asked her, your voice soft but steady. "behind... the school?"

"i..." she wanted to refuse you, to walk away and pretend this wasn't happening. but the words caught in her throat, and before she knew it, she was nodding.

minji's heart sank. she didn't need to ask what this was about. she knew. how could she not? the string tied you both together like a cruel joke, and now, the punchline was here.

─────

the back of the school was quiet, save for the rustling of leaves in the breeze. the sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows and painting the shy in hues of orange and pink.

minji leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, her heart thumping rapidly as she watched you fidget nervously a few feet away.

you were quiet for a moment, clouded gaze fixed on the ground.

then you took a deep breath and looked up at her. minji felt herself flinching slightly. "i... i have been thinking about this for a while, minji." you began, your voice trembling slightly.

"about the red string."

minji's stomach churned. she stayed silent, her expression unreadable, one that she had to keep to hide the pain.

"i won't lie," you continued, your hands clutching the hem of your uniform shirt.

"i'm scared." her breath hitched, "the idea of having a soulmate... it's terrifying. what if it doesn't work out? what if it just... hurts in the end?" your breath trembles so much, and minji's chest tightened. she knew that fear all too well.

"but," you said, your voice slightly gaining strength. "i think it's worth trying, minji." you looked into her eyes, her heart pounding relentlessly.

"if this string means we're meant to be together, then i want to embrace it. i want to embrace you."

her breath hitched further, to the point she couldn't breathe. the sincerity in your voice, the hope in your eyes— it was all too much. her walls, the ones she had carefully built over years of bitterness and pain, began to crack.

because of you, one of her circle of friends and one she fears of having her fate intertwined with.

"no," she said abruptly, her voice was sharper than she intended.

...

you blinked, taken aback. "...what?"

minji pushed off the wall, her hands balled tightly into fists at her sides. "i don't want this," she said, her tone cold and distant. "i don't want you, y/n."

the words tasted bitter and painful on her tongue, but she forced herself to say them. she needed to— for her own sake. for yours.

"i don't believe in soulmates," she continued, her voice trembling with suppressed emotions. "i don't believe in forever. this..." her teary eyes glaring at her red string connecting to yours.

"...this red string is nothing but... a damned burden."

the silence that followed was deafening yet ear-piercing at the same time. she expected you to yell, to argue, to slap her, to cry out like a baby, to hate her. but you didn't.

instead, you smiled— a small, broken smile that made her chest ache so terribly, suffocating her with the sudden guilt.

"i... see," you whispered brokenly, tears brimming in your eyes, and lips barely holding onto your smile. "i'm sorry for burdening you with this, minji."

you turned to leave, but minji's knees buckled as a searing pain shot through her chest like an arrow. her eyes widened as she gasped, clutching at her heart as if it were being torn apart ruthlessly.

the red string quivered violently, and she realized with horror that the pain wasn't hers— but rather, it was yours.

through the haze of agony, through the blurry sight due to her tears, she saw you pause. you knew what happened to her, your shoulders shaking, but you didn't look back.

"...i won't bother you anymore," you said, your voice barely audible.

"but i won't give up on you just yet, minji."

and then you were gone.

minji remained on her knees long after the pain faded, her chest heaving as tears streamed down her face, pained gaze lingering on your previous spot where you once stood with such sincerity and pain.

she clutched at her heart, the excruciating ache refusing to subside, a raw large wound that she couldn't ignore with such indifference. the red string around her pinky trembled but didn't snap. didn't break.

it stayed intact, fragile yet unyielding— a cruel reminder of what she had just done.

"i won't regret this," she muttered shakily, her voice barely above a whisper. "i won't..." but the words rang hollow, and her tears betrayed her.

"i'm sorry," she whispered into the empty air, then louder and brokenly, "i'm sorry—! fuck..." the apology fell from her quivering lips again and again, like a mantra she couldn't stop.

her hands clenched into fists, drawing blood, trembling with the heavy weight of emotions she didn't want to feel.

when she finally forced herself to stand, her legs wobbled beneath her, and the journey home felt endless like a loop.

─────

once inside the quiet of her room, minji immediately collapsed onto her bed. the darkness wrapped around her like a suffocating, but it did nothing to quiet the storm of gnawing emotions raging in her chest.

she squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep, but the tears kept coming, unbidden and relentless. her eyes ache so much, just like her heart constantly breaking into pieces like a fragile glass.

pain gnawed at her chest, an ache so deep it felt as though her very soul was unraveling. she hated it. she hated the way she couldn't stop crying. the way her thoughts refused to stop replaying the look in your eyes. the sound of your trembling voice. the way you had walked away without looking back—

she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.vshe hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.she hated it.

and yet... she didn't fight it. she let the tears fall, let the pain consume her— because she deserved it. all because of her fear of being left behind once loved so unconditionally.

hours passed, and minji found herself sitting up in bed, her exhausted gaze drawn to the faint glow of the red string in the darkness, as if it was slowly dying but trying to stay awake.

it quivered so softly, a fragile thing that seemed so easy to break yet remained unbroken.

"you..." she said breathlessly, "you really won't give up on me, will you?" she murmured so quietly, her voice hoarse and painful from crying her heart out.

the thought lingered, unwelcome yet persistent. and for the first time, minji felt a small flicker of something she didn't expect. it wasn't dread or bitterness. no... it was much softer, quieter— a tiny spark buried beneath the weight of her fear and regret.

maybe... just maybe, tomorrow wouldn't be so bad.

her tears slowed as she lay back down, staring at the ceiling. the red string still glowed faintly, a constant reminder that you were still there, connected to her.

and despite everything— a small, reluctant part of her was looking forward to seeing you again.

and maybe to find that yearning love she has been seeking so desperately.

── ── ꒰ end ꒱ ── ──

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris’s “Youth Group”

NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Youth Group is Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris's new and delightful graphic novel from Firstsecond. It's a charming tale of 1990s ennui, cringe Sunday School – and demon hunting.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250789235/youthgroup

Kay is a bitter, cynical teenager who's doing her best to help her mother cope with an ugly divorce that has seen her dad check out on his former family. Mom is going back to church, and she talks Kay into coming along with her to attend the church youth group.

This is set in the 1990s, and the word "cringe" hasn't yet entered our lexicon as an adjective, but boy is the youth group cringe. The pastor is a guitar-strumming bearded dad who demonstrates how down he is with the kids by singing top 40 songs rewritten with evangelical lyrics (think Weird Al meets the 700 Club). Kay gamely struggles through a session and even makes a friend or two, and agrees to keep attending in deference to her mother's pleas.

But this is no ordinary youth group. Kay's ultra-boring suburban hometown is actually infested with demons who routinely possess the townspeople, and that baseline of demonic activity has suddenly gone critical, with a new wave of possessions. Suddenly, the possessed are everywhere – even Kay's shitty dad ends up with a demon inside of him.

That's when Kay discovers that the youth group and its corny pastor are also demon hunters par excellence. Their rec-rooms sport secret cubbies filled with holy weapons, and the words of exorcism come as readily to them as any embarrassing rewritten devotional pop song. Kay's discovery of this secret world convinces her that youth group isn't so bad after all, and soon she is initiated into its mysteries, including the existence of rival demon-hunting kids from the local synagogue, Catholic church, and Wiccan coven.

As the nature of the new demonic incursion becomes clearer, it falls on Kay and her pals to overcome these sectarian divisions over the protests of their guitar-strumming, magic-wielding leader. That takes on a special urgency when Kay learns why the demons are interested in her, personally, and a handful of other kids in town who all share a secret trait.

I confess that as someone who lived through the 1990s as a young man, there is something disorienting about experiencing the decade of my young adulthood through the kind of retro lens I associate with the 1950s or 1960s. But while the experience is disorienting, it's not unpleasant. McCurdy's artwork and Morris's snappy dialog conjure up that bygone decade in a way that is simultaneously affectionate and critical, exposing the hollowness of its performative ennui and the brave face that performance represented even as the world was being swept up in corporate gigantism.

McCurdy and Morris are really onto something here, implicitly asking us why the 1990s gave us Buffy and Sabrina (and The Coven, etc etc) – what was it about that decade in which Reaganomics and globalism consolidated the gains of the 1980s, where the climate emergency took on its undeniable urgency, where media monopolies mastered the art of commodifying counterculture faster than it could mutate into new forms?

Morris's writing really shines here. If you enjoyed Bubble, his earlier outing based on the post-apocalyptic comedy podcast of the same name, you will love this one:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/21/podcasting-as-a-visual-medium/#huntr

Morris is also half of Jordan, Jesse Go!, the long-running podcast where he and Jesse Thorn do a weekly ha-ha-only-serious goofball schtick that never fails to smuggle in really clever and insightful ideas amidst the poop jokes.

https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/jordan-jesse-go/

John Hodgman calls nostalgia a "toxic impulse." Church Group deftly avoids nostalgia's trap, managing to be a period piece without falling prey to the Happy Days pathology of ignoring the many flaws and problems of its era. And of course, it's a hoot and a blast.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/16/blight/#the-dream-of-the-nineties

[periprose]

Fly Away

Michael Berzatto x Reader

You're a family friend of the Berzattos and you're invited to have fun at their annual Christmas dinner. You think you still harbor feelings for Carmy, but as the evening progresses, you feel something for his brother.

Genre: friends to lovers, former crush on carm, really everything w carm is mostly platonic, unrequited stuff, insecurities, age gaps (reader and carm are 25, Michael is 38), takes place in 2017, takes place in S2E6, lots of angst, anxiety, some fluff, no use of y/n (you have a nickname: Birdie)

Word count: 11k

There’s a bauble and trinket everywhere you look. Festive, Christmas spirit seems to ebb from the very walls of the Berzatto household– and you would be remiss not to compliment it vocally in some way.

Donna is clearly waiting, teetering on a response from you as you take everything in from the front door. And you know how she reacts if you don’t say things in that perfect, supportive tone that she so desperately thrives off of.

“Wow, Mrs. Berzatto!” You clasp your hands, trying not to seem too cloying or ironic. “I love what you’ve done with the house. Such an eye for details.”

“Oh, stop.” She giggles, and lightly taps your shoulder as she takes your coat and hangs it up in the closet. 

“No, really. I wish my house was so… Christmassy this time of year.” You shrug, knowing that your dad isn’t the festive type after divorcing your mother.

“Aw. Well, we have love to spread here.” It’s a strange unseen sympathy coming from Donna, and she pulls you inside, and you take off your shoes, shuffling around in your socks and your comfy, hopefully chic, green loose turtleneck sweater. “Except you might have to wait a bit, because some of these fuckers are late.”

There’s that bitter tone you remember from Donna. You don’t really care for that– you tend to have an avoidant personality especially with how your own mother acts sometimes– and she yells out for Carmy and Mikey to greet you.

“Boys! Birdie’s here!” She calls from the stairs, and you suddenly feel self conscious.

Ever since your dad, a former co-worker and friend of Cicero’s, starting taking you as a teenager to these Berzatto hangouts, you have always had a eye for Carmen. It was hard not to be, seeing this bashful, slightly angry, awkward boy, around the same age as you, with dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. You felt like sometimes, he really, really listened to you, and that was all you needed.

You wish you could be there for him too. 

It’s something you’ve never acted on, never bothered to actually approach him about– he always seemed so absorbed by his own thing.

You relished in the fact that he never had a girlfriend. You felt secure in that, because he just seemed safe. And it’s not like he would’ve been mean about rejecting you if he knew– you were always close to the Berzatto siblings. You were Bear and Birdie, ready to head out on a walk together, while the adults gossiped and drank.

Of course, you haven’t seen him in about… two years now. Around after he left to his apartment, and did his chef-education-training (you’re a bit vague on the details, honestly), and ever since then, as far as you know he’s slowly been doing what he loves. He does text you from time to time, but you’d be overstating those texts’ importance if you pretended it really quantified a relationship.

Mikey clambers down the stairs, wearing what looks to be pajamas, or very chill homebody clothes, and he raises his arm in a big, Italian gesture.

“Oh! Is that little Bird I see?” He exclaims, and pulls you into an eager hug. Maybe a little too eager– you think it’s almost as if you’re comforting him as you hug him back, his face coming down onto your shoulder, as he encapsulates you– and he pulls away, grinning.

He actually looks really good. You don’t know when you started thinking that Mikey was good looking, but it’s true– he has a certain, rough around the edges appeal that you find yourself drawn to.

“Merry Christmas. You’ve been keeping away from us.” Mikey points as you, intended as a stern remark, but you snort.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas. I’ve been busy with work and law school, Michael. I’m not a kid anymore.” You resist the urge to comment on his beard, and then do it anyways. “Are you sure I’ve been keeping away? You’re the one with a hermit-ass beard.”

“Oh… they grow up and just start taking shots at you, don’t they, Ma?” Mikey places his hand over his heart, as if he’s wounded, and Donna shakes her head in agreement, before heading back to the kitchen, already seeming annoyed about something. “Beards are fashionable in 2017, Bird. Maybe come back to our current time– no reason for you to start dressing like a grandma already.”

You scoff at that, pointing at your sweater. “It’s semi-formal, c’mon! It looks nice. Respect the gathering’s rules.”

“It’s my house, babe.” Mikey leans in with maybe a little too much comfort, his eyes shining with some warmth, mirth even, and you don’t exactly pull away– the guy is like thirteen years older than you, and even if he does kid around, play up an older brother thing, you’ve started feeling like he’s restraining something more as of late, maybe some primal level of attraction that he knows better than to mess around with. You know that the feeling is kind of mutual– but you really don’t know how to quantify it. “I’m man of the house, and I say you should wear something that maybe, uh, shows off the pretty twenty-five year old that you are.”

The last part of this sentence has you swallowing a little, and you feel your face turning warm, and Mikey himself looks embarrassed that he’s said it, that he’s given a bit of evidence to your theories– he seems to brush something off, inside himself. 

You have never thought you were all that. You’ve always been pretty sure you should be glad that you’ve gotten by without having to worry about your looks. The idea of wearing a nice, somewhat revealing dress to the Berzattos’ house has you cringing, because you know it would just be… bad. 

“I’m not–” Mikey scowls at himself and you can visibly see himself fighting something, looking a little anxious, and you tentatively grasp his forearm.

“I know what you mean. I’m not offended.” You smile slightly, making the effort to calm him down a little, because you would never want Michael to beat himself up over you (he really seems to do that as of late and you know you’re not worth the trouble), and he nods and inhales. “You look good, too.”

“Right. Right on, Birdie. You can do what you want, anyways. Not up to me.” He seems to really dial back some of what he said, and before you can respond, Carmy walks downstairs.

“Hi. Hey, Birdie. Merry Christmas.” He says, kind of quietly, and you find yourself somewhat happy to hear him say your nickname again. Carmy looks especially nice– deep blue has always been his colour, it brightens up his eyes– and he has slightly longer hair than you remember. 

He leans in for a brief but firm hug, and glances at your eyes once, before looking towards the floor again.

Mikey nods and proceeds to exit to the kitchen, and you’re left with Carmy grappling with what to say.

“How have you–”

“How’s law sch–”

Carmy coughs awkwardly, and you find your face turning warm as he looks towards you.

“Sorry, Bear.” You let him speak, hoping not to scare him away. “How’s everything? You okay?”

“Yeah. Uh… well, I’ve been training at Copenhagen?” He furrows his brows, runs his hand through his hair. “Just learning as much as I can.”

“Oh. Uh-huh.” Your curiosity is piqued– you didn’t know he was in Denmark, much to your disappointment– but you want to pry more of an answer out of him. He doesn’t seem interested in talking about it more than that. 

“Sorry. Sorry. Stupid answer, there’s just not much to say.” Carmy shrugs, and then realizes suddenly that you’ve been standing at the foyer of the house for quite some time now, which isn’t very polite or inviting of him. “Wait, hold on. Let’s go sit inside and talk.”

Carmy makes some offhand comment about how you need to speak up sometimes and stop being so nice and accommodating to idiots like him, and you snicker, knowing that this is the Carmy you remember– snarky, ready to fight people on sometimes, even if he is a little weird and bashful. Although he’s short– he makes up for it with his resilience.

Carmy leads you through golden-lit hallways, a certain pepperminty, pine tree scent seeming to overlay the entire house, and there’s bushels and wreathes and mistletoe everywhere, and somehow even more baubles, ornaments, trinkets, knickknacks, all gold and red and warm tones that do make you feel a little fuzzy.

Carmy sits you down in the living room, on the sofa, and you’re next to him, and you place a foot under your knee, trying to feel casual. Not freaking out about him sitting right next to you. Weirdly enough… you don’t think you feel anything anxiety inducing. 

Perhaps you’re just getting more reassured of yourself with age. 

“So? How is Copenhagen, otherwise? I know Denmark is really interesting, but you’re probably busy with chef stuff, huh?” You prod just a little further. Just out of your own personal curiosity to see how far Carmy will go for you, and he nods. “Any friends?”

“Ah…” Carmy winces a little. “Can’t say if he’s a friend yet, but there is this guy that’s out of this world with pastries. I don’t know if I can meet his standard on that.”

“Oh, please.” You roll your eyes. “Bear, you make my dad cookies all the time. Or, well, you used to. You can’t be that bad at it, considering that he always eats all of them.”

“Oh, really? Fuck, man.” Carmy looks at you in disbelief, settling more into his corner of the couch, closer to the tree, but looking more openly at you. You feel yourself cower a little under his watchful gaze. “I didn’t know your dad enjoyed them that much… I would’ve made more. Did you ever try them?”

“Hm?” You were getting lost in the details around Carmy– the dark blue shirt, the little bits of stubble around his jaw, the tattoos peeping out from under his long sleeves– and you nod. “Ah, I tried a batch around the last time you gave him some. I think it was… macadamia, matcha, white chocolate? Really good.”

Carmy is unreadable, his eyes flickering from the ground to your eyes– you think maybe you’ve embarrassed him a little– but he thanks you. “Where is your dad, anyways?”

“Ah. He’s got the flu, and he was kind enough to not want to infect you guys.” You admit. “Even though he was trying his best to walk over here from our house.”

Carmy remembers that you live in the neighbourhood over. You two used to hang out a lot during elementary and high school. He kind of missed you– something he’d never say out loud, but Carmy knows friends are few with him, and you were always a good friend to him growing up. You were always a comforting presence for him– you never asked him for too much, and he could tell you were being careful to do so. No pressure.

You just became really busy with law school, and he became really busy with chef stuff, and now you’re both… you both just lost touch. He feels bad about it– bad like he always does, with former friends and acquaintances from high school that he’s accidentally ghosted and lost– but at least you don’t seem to be annoyed about it. 

He thinks it’s probably because in this case, you pulled away just as much as he had to.

“How’s law school, anyways?” Carmy counts the years in his head. “You’ve either just finished or you’re in your final year?”

“I’m in my final year.” You stretch out your arms, looking eager. “It’s a lot of work– I’m only here because I’m lucky enough to have a bit of a break in the winter months, and I’m ahead on my courses. But, uh… I don’t know. It’s fun.”

“Fun? Wow.” Carmy grins a little. 

“What?”

“I don’t know, Birdie. Fun is more… fucking, I don’t know, fireworks or something? Drugs, maybe, yeah.” Carmy watches as you laugh, and laugh, at what he’s said, and again he’s never really sure what’s so funny about what he’s said, but he likes to hear you laugh.

“Clearly you don’t know either.” You snort, and lightly punch his arm. “When did we become workaholics?”

“Probably when we became, uh, adults and entered the workforce.” Carmy states, and you wrinkle your brows.

“We’re not really in the workforce yet, but–”

“What, really? C’mon. You’re a fucking receptionist or some shit, right?”

“Business administration specialist.”

“Yeah, there you go. That’s work, especially with all the school you have to do.” Carmy shrugs. “But what do you really want to be, then?”

“Oh, we getting into dreams, then?” You cock an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t think you cared that much, Bear.”

Carmy, for some reason he can’t detect, turns a little red. “No, of course I do. We’re still friends, right?”

“Acquaintances.”

“For real?” Carmy looks back at you, affronted, but you have a little smile and he knows you’re teasing. “Oh fuck you. Stop it.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You shake your head, giggling a little, glad to have so easily fallen back into a comfortable, friendly banter. “Of course we’re friends, it’s just that… I always thought very highly of you, Carmen, and I can’t always be sure that feeling was returned. You know? I assumed that you’d be out doing sophisticated cooking in big, upscale restaurants, and the rest of us would just be reading about it. Forgive me for feeling a little behind it all.”

��No, no, no. You got it all wrong, Birdie.” Carmy half-laughs at how you put him on such a pedestal. “You were always the one doing real work, as Mom would call it. You’re the one who’s actually smart and good at arguing, debating– that’s a real skill coming from me, because I just yell fuck at everyone and hope it works. I always thought you were the impressive one out of all of us.”

You snicker, but you’re actually quite pleased with that, and you feel your heart warm at his praise. “Ah, that’s so sweet. Thank you. If it makes you feel better, I’ve been surviving off of ramen and convenience store food for the last month. I can hardly make the time to cook efficiently.”

“...” Carmy shakes his head. “That doesn’t make me feel better. You’re gonna eat good food today then, I hope.”

Almost as if on cue, Donna calls for Carmy to come help her with something– and you’re left sitting as he tells you that he’s going to hear about your dream job when he gets back.

/

Fifteen minutes later– Carmy is still MIA, and you’re starting to get a little hungry. 

You know it’s rude, but luckily Michael comes by and asks if you want a snack.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” You ask, and Michael snickers.

“You’re the same girl that can eat a whole number four combo at the Beef. I’m pretty sure you were hungry before you got here.” Michael jokes, and you blush in embarrassment.

“Oh my god, stop it.” You shake your head. “Anyways, yeah. A snack would be nice.”

Michael gives you a wink that strangely has you a little twitterpated, before you shake that off. He comes back a few minutes later, chewing on something himself– and he hands you a bowl full of Italian sausage stirfry.

“Thanks, Michael.” You smile up at him, and he nods, trying not to smile too much back at your gratitude, but he likes how you take a bite and look super relieved, happy with the food. He’s always loved giving food to people– taking care of them. Especially you, for some reason.

Michael heads back to the kitchen, and Natalie comes by and takes his place.

“Birdie!” She hugs you tightly, and you hug her back, equally happy. “Oh my gosh, if I knew you were down here I would’ve come by ages ago!”

“Aw.” You beam at her. “That’s okay, Nat. I’m happy to see you too.”

She’s off ranting about how Pete, her husband, is late, and how she can barely manage everything going on, and you’re sympathetic. You know Nat gets more of a harsh treatment from Donna, and you tell her that you’re there if she needs a person on her side.

“Oh, Birdie. I couldn’t do that to you. Even if you are amazing at talking, Miss Lawyer-to-be.” She lets you continue to sit down in your corner of the living room, as she heads off to check on her mom– maybe pour out some alcohol.

 Carmy comes back in, slightly powdered with flour on his forehead– and he sits back down, sighing, as he drinks a glass of water.

There’s the slightest air of awkward tension still– even if you and Carmy have fallen back into your old ways, he still keeps a slight distance, one that he’s grown into, and you feel that you have to break the silence. You don’t know if he’s just tired or if there’s some level of irritation of having to deal with all the holiday bullshit, but you take a guess it has to do with Donna.

“That bad?” You grimace, and Carmy matches your expression.

“That bad.” He shakes his head. “She always gets a little woo-woo around these fucking events. Like, I never wanted her to do all of this– but she insists and insists and doesn’t know how to let go of the, uh…”

“Hubris.” 

“Yes. Hubris.” Carmy sighs, glad you still have the perfect word for everything. “Whatever. Anyways, haven’t forgotten. Hit me with your dream.”

“Okay, it’s going to sound a little weird, but, um… I’m really interested in becoming a labour relations lawyer?” You feel almost too much glee at the fact that Carmy remembered, and you see Carmy bite his lip, a little confused, so you continue, hoping you don’t sound like too much of a fucking nerd. “Meaning to help employees get out of their shitty situations with wages, working hours, benefits and fight for their rights. Union stuff. I don’t know, just feels like everyone is struggling with this nowadays… might as well push forward and try to help them out.”

“Wow, now that you’ve said that, it makes a lot of sense.” Carmy blinks. “I mean, uh, it’s not just that you’re good at arguing– you always go for the justice part of things. Remember when Michael and Sugar were arguing about cleaning the basement?”

You do remember that. You suggested dividing up either equally or by who owned what, and they eventually came to an agreement based on that. Michael wanted to dip because he was older, and Sugar thought it was demeaning to ask a girl to clean.

“Or when Lee said that women can’t think analytically, or what was it… mathematically?” Carmy laughs as he watches your face turn angry again.

“Yeah. I especially remember that. I told him to think about Ada Lovelace and to shut up.” You wince. “Maybe not the most mature thing I’ve ever said. I don’t think that’s such a great thing… sometimes I don’t know when to let go of arguments.”

“It’s alright, it was funny.” Carmy plays with his fingers. “That being said, I think you’ll be good if you choose to be that. A labour relations lawyer. You’re smart, and god fucking knows we all need the help. You should check out how many chefs get fucked over because they work at places for the prestige of doing so.”

“Damn.” You make a mental note of that, feeling embarrassed over how much praise Carmy has freely given you. “Is that going to be you?”

“Doesn’t matter if it is. Sometimes you gotta do what you can.” Carmy doesn’t really give you a clear answer, and you feel bad for him. Bad that he’s still stuck in that mindset.

/

You can hear people hooting and jeering near the stairs, as you walk around the house, exploring a little. Tiff was grateful that you visited her for a brief moment– she told you being pregnant was not all it was cracked up to be– and now you’re just on the upper floor, near the stair railing, on your phone.

You’re not really one to eavesdrop, but you hear– you believe it’s Mikey and Richie– they’re chanting “Claire! Claire Bear!”

Your stomach drops, as you hear them hoot about how hot she is, whoever this Claire girl is– how stacked she is, apparently, the banging body she has, the glasses no longer ruining her appearance– and although you know it’s gross men talk, there’s a small, sad part of you that wants to be perceived as attractive, too. 

Still, even as you find yourself frowning and turning away in disgust, you can’t stop yourself from listening.

You remember her. Claire, one of the neighbours down the street. Went to the same high school as you and Carmy. She was really something, someone of note if you remember the popular kid cliques correctly, but she had largely gone unnoticed by you, and it wasn’t for any reason in particular. You can’t be close with every person in high school.

But still– you feel jealous. Just a teeny bit. What was so different about her?

Sure, she was a nice girl. But weren’t you? You arguably had more history with the Berzattos, and yet… it’s as if you’ve simply blended into the wallpaper, their assortment of home decor and furniture. You’ve always been here, and so you don’t stand out.

You might never stand out.

You can hear Carmy trying his best to argue against them, asking them what they did, telling them to fuck off with their teasing– but he sounds sheepish, embarrassed, righteously mortified in the telltale way one would be when they have a crush, and you feel sick. 

They’re heaping compliments on her. You know what they mean when they talk about her like this– she’s the clear, obvious choice, probably closer to the family, more interesting, more affectionate, a genius. You don’t really know Claire that well, but apparently, she’s perfect. And you know you, in your silly frumpy sweater, in your attempts to dress up– you are not. You feel humiliated that you even believed Mikey when he said you were pretty– he was clearly complimenting you just to be nice. 

You weren’t even an idea in their minds, not for Carmy, anyways. You don’t even think Carmy is capable of seeing you like that now, and it’s with a crushing blow that you realize you were holding out hope. Mistaking familiarity for affection.

It’s a rookie mistake. One that you thought you were self aware enough not to make, because you’ve always known Carmen Berzatto was just out of reach for you.

You wait for them to leave, and come down the stairs, running into Carmy as he groans in annoyance.

/

Carmy says he needs to wipe some of the flour out of his hair, and you let him go upstairs, not really wanting to look at him, doing everything you can to make your way back to the living room unnoticed. In the meanwhile, Michael comes back and flops into Carmy’s seat on the sofa, next to where you sit, sullen.

“Hey, Birdie.” Michael starts, and you can’t read his tone, and you’re a little annoyed with his fake-nice attention. “Why not sit with me, the Faks, Michelle and Stevie? They’re really good people, I promise.”

“How do you know I’m avoiding people?” You snap back, maybe a little too aggrieved.

“It’s written all over your face, little Birdie.” He touches his knee to yours, and you bite your lip, swallowing your confusion, and Mikey enjoys the fact that you’ve chosen to wear a deep, brick-red Christmas lip colour. It’s hot– he doesn’t get how you don’t seem to be aware that you’re attractive.

He wants to kiss you. Maybe mess up that fancy lipstick and that sweet, annoyingly justice oriented, always-right character of yours. But he keeps it to himself.

“Don’t be antisocial. You of all people shouldn’t be alone during the holidays.”

“I’m not trying to be antisocial. I promise.” You shrug, trying to keep your emotions, that sinking feeling in your gut at bay– the last thing you want is for Michael to see you upset. “I was keeping Bear company, but I can come sit with you guys.” 

“That’s my girl.” Michael pulls you up by the arm, and you can feel your face warming at his choice of words– you like being in Michael’s good graces, even if you feel less than great right now.

Michelle, cousin of the Berzattos, has always been sweet to you. She’s impressive in her own right, and as you sit down in front of her and Stevie– she gushes about New York.

“Ah, that’s not to say Chicago isn’t impressive. Right, Birdie?” She smiles at you, not unkindly, and you feel happy to be included. 

“Right.” You shrug, knowing that the law firm you work at isn’t all that crazy. You can’t shake the feeling that you’re nothing special, not after what transpired just a few minutes ago, and you voice it. “It’s just okay.”

“No, c’mon. You work at one of the top fucking law firms in the city– you’re gonna make it.” Michael admonishes you. “Out of us Chicagoans, I mean, Michelle, before you take offense.”

“Yeah, Mish.” Richie echoes, popping up out of nowhere.

“None taken.” Michelle fixes her eyes between you and Michael– perhaps reading on something that you’re not even really sure how to understand, let alone explain– and she laughs. “Anyways, what was I saying? Right.”

She launches into a story about hating a woman who didn’t understand the Berzatto name. It’s quite funny– you find yourself laughing every now and then, the dull ache in your heart less noticeable, especially with how good Michelle is at telling stories, and somewhere along the story, Michael’s hand has stayed intertwined with yours, without you really noticing. You only notice when he lets go, and again– a pitfall in your stomach, wondering if Michael just feels familiar around you because there’s nothing to be attracted to and thus respectful of– and it’s such a stupid thought, but you still just know you want to feel wanted. You want to get a hold on yourself– remind yourself you’re not owed attraction and there’s nothing wrong with Mikey or Carmy seeing you as just a friend.

You realize with a start that you’re feeling confused about Michael, too. Was it just a weird quirk of his, calling every single girl pretty just for laughs? Could you even trust what he said? Why does Michael’s opinion of you feel way more pertinent and important than Carmy’s does?

You find yourself mulling over these thoughts, not sure of what’s going on around you, and you hear Michael tell the Fak bros, Ned and Ted, to shut up about California, which they do.

Donna starts screaming in the background, which causes you to turn abruptly. “Oh, fuck me!”

Michael turns and looks at you with some caution– he’s used to his mother’s outbursts, but he never ever wants you to face them. You don’t deserve that, you’ve probably never done anything to deserve it. Not like him.

Stevie gets up, much to the surprise of everyone around him. “Looks like Auntie D needs help, huh?”

“No, no, no.” Everyone tries to stop him, including you.

“What?”

Michelle pushes him back down, but he gets back up, resilient. 

Lee decides to comment in. “Let him, why not?”

“I’m sure she could use a few extra hands. I’m going.” He goes, and you stand up to follow, not willing to let an innocent person get dragged into Donna’s insanity.

“Wait, Birdie. Where are you going?” Michael holds your hand again, and you turn red at his action– a little angry, a little glum that he seems to care for you, and you can’t even be grateful for it. “Don’t throw yourself to the wolves. It’s not fucking worth it.”

“Not throwing myself– just want to make sure Stevie is protected.” You move forward, your face stony, and Michael lets go of you, sighing as he wraps his blanket around himself, wondering when you got all pissed off, but glad that you��re not so upset that you wouldn’t act all lawyer-y for Stevie.

Lee is glancing at him, while Michelle looks pleased as punch.

“What? What the fuck are these expressions?” Michael looks around questioningly, and Richie gives him a side glance.

“When’d you get all sweet on her, bro?” Richie gags a little. “Not that she’s not your type, but, uh–”

“I’m just being friendly.” Michael dismisses him, leaning back in his seat. “It’s the holidays, she shouldn’t be lonely.”

“Bullshit you are.” Richie sniggers, and Michael lightly shoves him.

“Yeah, I call bullshit too.” Michelle grins. “I can see it– you’re blushing.”

Michael groans, hating to be so obviously vulnerable in front of everyone. 

“Well I, for one, think it’s a huge, fucking catastrophic mistake.” Lee starts, and Michael feels himself blanch under the judgement of this guy. “You’re going to ruin that young woman’s potential if you go around messing with her.”

“Lee, she’s not that young–” Neil starts. “I think she can decide that herself?”

“Whatever. This one knows he isn’t right for her– always wants what he can’t have.” Lee mutters, and Michael feels that white-hot rage– the anger he feels bubbling inside of him as of late. 

He does his best to swallow it down, but a part of him knows that it’s true. As much as Michael enjoys your random visits over the past two years, he knows– you’re too good for someone like him. Too young, too selfless, too honest and good and pretty, and he feels an overwhelming wave of shame that he came so close. It’s like he just… doesn’t know how to be a good, responsible person, and it kills him on the inside that he could be so shameful, be so abhorrent and take advantage of you like that, and even if there is a tiny part of him screaming that it’s not so black and white– that you could be just as interested, of your own volition, in him as he is in you– he feels guilt. 

Michael is ashamed of who he is. Over, and over, there’s that feeling again– kill yourself– that he doesn’t know how to suppress, and he ignores it as he starts up a new story.

/

Natalie is tearing up as Stevie hugs her.

You came towards them in the midst of Donna yelling for Stevie to get the fuck out of the kitchen, and Sugar shushing him and shoving him away, and you now place a hand on her shoulder– clearly Stevie has it handled, somewhat.

When he lets go, she sniffles and you smile encouragingly, albeit a little sadly, and Natalie wipes away a tear. 

“It’s okay. It’s fine, it’s nothing. You don’t need to talk to her.” She starts, and you shake your head.

“I’m not going to. I can see that would make things worse.” You squeeze her shoulders, and Stevie nods.

“Yeah, Natalie. But we’re here. We’ll always be here if you want to talk.” He tries, and you smile at her– but something about Nat’s slightly upset, off putting expression, and Donna’s grumbling in the background– you feel your heart seizing a little at the tense emotions, so similar to your own, and you excuse yourself.

You walk until you reach the pantry, hot tears already working their way down your face. Every single negative emotion have come to a head, and you’re in terrible danger of having to explain things if you don’t get it together in under ten minutes or so.

You sit on the high table in the pantry, trying not to cry anymore than you already have, your head between your knees– but something about today has all your nerves on edge, and you know it’s because you put in some effort to come here, to see your dear friends, to look appealing enough, to be someone worth talking to, and now you feel as if they never really cared about you at all. 

You know these are lousy, immature feelings. You know you can be above them if you really, truly tried, but you let yourself sink into them further, because something about this environment is terrible and you just can’t let it go.

Even worse, no one has really done anything wrong. If this was a court case, you wouldn’t even have any evidence to make a claim. You’re simply confused, perhaps looking at things from the wrong angles– but the fact that you can’t look at this rationally makes you feel worse. As if you’re not as smart as you believed.

You don’t know how long you’ve been in here, when you hear someone shuffle into the pantry, next to you– it’s Michael.

He’s quick on his feet– you try to move away, let him grab whatever household ingredient he needed– but his full attention is on you as his eyes narrow, scanning your tear stained face and your hunched over body.

“Birdie?”

You can’t quite look at him, and you desperately try to wipe your tears, burying your face more between your knees. 

“Hey, no. Birdie.” He shakes his head, grabs your arms. He thinks it’s a little strange he’s had to cheer up two different people in the pantry, but he chalks it up to how his house always is. “What happened? Was it Ma?”

“No.” You sight and swallow down the sobs in your throat.

“Then what was it?” Michael’s eyes turn steely. “Fucking ‘Uncle’ Lee? Asshole. Told me I can’t finish any fucking businesses.”

“But… you run the Beef, don’t you?” You say, amid sniffles, entirely honest about it, and Michael’s eyes soften. “That has to count for something.”

“Yeah, little Bird.” He’s glad to have you here– he doesn’t care if it’s fucked up, not when you’re the only person on his side at this moment. “But why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

“I–” You shake your head, and feel your head hang heavy as you slouch over the table, and Michael leans over you, pressing your head to his chest, and you feel yourself crying silently into his shirt, as he shushes you and combs back your hair, his other arm caressing your back.

Michael’s not the best person– not the most comforting to be around– but he knows, by being an older brother, by being someone people want to be around, he knows how to make it count when he does give in to comfort. 

He just wishes he didn’t feel so goddamned depressed himself, so he would know the right things to say. He doesn’t want to be so useless all the time.

“Mikey?” You voice is timid. Small. 

He feels both elated that you would trust him with this, and devastated that he’ll never be good enough to deserve your trust. 

“Yeah, Birdie?”

“It’s so juvenile, but I…" You shake your head and decide to commit to it. "I wish I was pretty."

“Is that it?” Michael’s arm wraps around your shoulder as he squishes onto the seat of the table, next to you. “You think you’re ugly, huh?”

“I don’t think I’m–” You inhale deeply, and wipe away your tears again. “It’s not about being ugly. It’s more like an objective reality that I have to accept. I’m just not… I’m not anything special to look at.”

“Wow, kid.” Michael tuts and shakes his head. “Ever heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? That stupid fucking mantra, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s true.” Michael almost starts laughing, but you look so solemn and serious, he resists the urge. “You’re not ugly. You might not think you’re all that, but you don’t see what I see.”

Michael tenses, and you watch as he falters over how to explain.

Michael thinks you're so damn annoying with that ardent, sweet expression– even if your tears are staining your face, you still look so grateful to hear him say those words– and it just crushes him. It crushes him to know that you look for his approval so much, when he knows you're worth so much more than that.

He doesn't want to let you down. You and Carmen– he will never be enough for the two of you. 

"I don't– I'm fucking stupid, Birdie, don't listen to me." He swallows, but you're hanging onto his words and your face falls again. 

"But I can listen to you get all poetic about Claire, right?" You mutter, angry, and you get up to leave– but Michael grabs your forearm, and he's quite a bit stronger than you are. 

“Hey. That’s different.” Michael tries, but you shake your head, and you’re left sitting on the table again. “I was only teasing Bear. It has nothing to do with you.”

“I know.” You turn even more glum, and Michael is left feeling terrible, wondering what was so wrong with what he said. 

You’re silent for a moment– you know that you like Carmy, but something about telling Michael about it feels weird, like you’re pre-emptively rejecting him rather than Carmy by confessing feelings that are slowly disappearing– and you just don’t want to.

But you know you need to. You need to accept that Carmy would never see you that way.

“I just… for a really long time, I thought that I…” You fall to silence, again, and Michael is staring at you, hanging onto every word, watching your side profile shake as you try to gather your thoughts. “I really liked him, you know? I don’t even know why– maybe he was just the clearly available, safe option, and now that’s not even true and I feel like I’m mourning something that was never even real. How stupid and childish can I get?”

“Wait, Birdie–”

“And I just… I know I’m not like Claire. I don’t know what I got myself into. I don’t even really like him anymore– it’s just that the situation makes it so damn apparent that I am just average.” You huff out your words with an air of finality that even has Michael flinching a little, and he runs his hands through his hair, unbelieving of what you’ve said. “You can’t even say I’m not, Mikey, because I know how you talked about her and it was just so different to how anyone here has ever thought about me.”

“Birdie, shut the fuck up.” Michael breathes out really heavily, pinching his brows, thinking that he regrets everything he said and he wishes he could take it back. “I didn’t really– I was trying to tease Carmy, you know? It didn’t mean the shit you think it does. Hell, I would be way more serious if I was talking about you.”

He takes a beat of silence– should he read your reaction to that, or keep going? And he decides to keep going.

“You can’t just act like you can read everyone’s minds because you’re a lawyer, Birdie.” Michael says it with a slightly lighter tone, and his hand traces the small of your back as you lean against your knees, staring up at him. “Didn’t you learn about intent or whatever the fuck it was? In school?”

“Yeah, I guess.” You admit despite yourself, and Michael smiles but continues seriously.

“I don’t think that about Claire, okay? If anything, I’m fucking embarrassed you heard me talk all of that shit– that was just meant to be, uh, guy talk. I swear.” Michael swallows, feeling guilty that he still had to be so low about it. “I don’t– I care so much about him, I just went too far in working him up. I think it would be a good thing for him, right?”

Hurt flashes across your face– you still don’t think you like Carmy anymore, you just don’t know how to feel about someone else being portrayed as a “good thing.” But you inhale– you know part of getting over it is having to accept this, and you let yourself think and then nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, I could see that.” You agree, and it doesn’t hurt as much since Michael is looking at you sympathetically. “I just… I want to be a good thing, too. Not for Carmy, just…”

“For someone?” Michael answers as you trail off. 

“Yeah.”

“Listen, Birdie. I’m gonna tell you something you gotta hear.” Michael has that determined look where you know he’s going to say something smart– he has his fleeting moments of wisdom even if he doesn’t believe in himself– and he goes for it. “I can’t believe no one has ever told you just to, I don’t know, fucking love yourself a little? Like, c’mon, you should be able to like yourself! You’re an incredible person and you deserve– you have the right to be insanely fucking confident and it’s so fucking annoying that you don’t see it.”

In the heat of his argument, Michael’s come too close again, and he can feel your breath on somewhere near his jaw or neck, and he has to remind himself to pull away again.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, and Michael combs back a strand of your hair.

“Don’t be sorry. Just listen to what I’m saying.” Michael inhales, thinks over why he can’t do this himself– Tina always tells him to be a little easier on himself, but he just struggles– and he thinks that you look terribly cute so it’s just a lot easier to root for you. “Don’t do it for some idiot guy who will never really appreciate you, little Birdie.”

You can feel the conclusion of that sentence, even if Michael doesn’t quite say it: do it for yourself. Be there for yourself. Listen to the good part of yourself, rather than him.

“Oh. I guess that’s…” You swallow, taking it in, knowing the value of his words. “It’s true.”

“See? You know it.” Michael leans in a little too close again, his face a mere breadth away from your own.

“I think you’d actually make a fantastic lawyer.” You slyly comment amid wiping your face, and Michael blinks and then laughs.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d get to see me and hear my advice all the time.” Michael mumbles a little over his words but to his surprise, you nod. 

“Yeah, then I’d get to see some idiot who really does appreciate me.” You murmur even more quietly, and Michael, feeling stupid, has a wistful smile on his face that he maybe has not felt in a decade. It’s so sweet– he thinks his heart is bursting with something. 

Maybe love. Maybe that jovial, Christmas spirit that seems to emanate as the food smells closer to ready, maybe what Carmen gave him as a kind gift, most likely the closeness he feels with you– not just being close in familiarity, more like– he can make out the little spots and freckles adorning your face, every single eyelash your still watery eyes have, the faint lines in your still-red lips, and it occurs to him that he’s too close. Somewhere during this talk, his hand has stayed around your back, and you have been tentatively tracing his right hand’s knuckles with your own thumb. 

Michael knows how it looks. If anyone was to walk in right now (and he’s sure Michelle or Richie have already put it together that the two of you have been gone for a while) they would assume you two are a couple.

He has a sudden air of regret– it’s not because he wants to reject you, he just… he struggles a lot with feeling wanted. He struggles with the standards that people seem to put on him. Michael has always known he’s not a good guy– he doesn’t know how to be the person that everyone seems to think he is. Carmen, Natalie, Richie, you– you all seem to think the best of him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He nearly had a breakdown watching Carmen look up to him so lovingly.

Before he can pull away– with another responsible refusal, telling you that he’s too old and washed up, and that you deserve the whole world and he is not enough to offer that to you– you gently but firmly grab his face, tracing his cheek, and he thinks it could be wrong– what if you’re just feeling all confused and willy-nilly about feelings because you’re displacing what you felt about Carmen, what if you don’t actually like him and you’re assuming that you do because of his clear attraction to you, what if you’re just feeling the moment and the sweet guidance he’s given you?

Tons of questions seem to flow from his mind, things that he wants to ask you, but Michael thinks fuck it, because you’re leaning in first and pulling him in and it’s something he would’ve never expected in a million years, that you could be just as attracted to him.

He kisses you maybe a little too hard– maybe it should’ve been softer, more gentle since you’ve opened up to him so much, but you kiss him just as eagerly back, and he doesn’t fucking care to be gentle anymore. He’s leaning over you and Michael knows he’s quite a bit taller, so he has to pull you upwards to really reach your lips, and the table the two of you are sitting on is quite small– it shakes a little and there’s not much room for Michael to really feel you.

Until you climb into his lap, because of course you do, and now you’re just tangling your fingers in his hair, and he thinks he can feel whatever migraine that the day’s events have spurred on him slipping away, and his hands wrap around the smallest part of your waist as he pulls you in, pressing his chest against yours. 

You feel like Michael’s beard tickles a little– but you don’t mind that. You weren’t sure until you did it that you’ve wanted to kiss him for a while. You feel like maybe you’ve actually been more attracted to him than you ever were with Carmy, maybe even just going for Carmy due to his aforementioned security. 

Michael groans, and he slips his tongue into your mouth, and you sharply inhale as his tongue roams around your own, and he knows he likes hearing you gasp when his hands come up under your sweater, just to feel your bare skin, and you pull away.

Michael comes in too close again, placing a soft yet firm kiss on the corner of your mouth, and you laugh at him, and it’s one of the best sounds he could hear. No longer are you all gloomy and sullen in the corner of the room– but there’s still an air of heat around you two, and he knows he should let you go before things go too far. 

“Consider that a Christmas present.” You murmur softly, tapping his face, genuinely smiling despite the smeared lipstick, and you clamber off his lap, and peek out the pantry. “I think you’re good to go eat dinner– let me just…”

You wipe the red lipstick from his mouth using the corner of your sweater sleeve, so not to leave evidence, and it’s an intimate moment that has Michael staring at your hand, to your eyes, and there’s something in his eyes– maybe sorrow, maybe appreciation, but most of all, tenderness, and he takes a silly, soft moment to just kiss your hand. You beam at him.

“How long have you wanted to do that?” You tease him, because you know that Michael has always had that look, and he stiffens for a moment.

“Ah… maybe around when you came back from graduating college.” Michael admits, feeling weirdly high and low all at the same time, but he questions you too. “What about you? Don’t tell me you just decided to kiss me right now. That would fucking… that would be too much.”

His heart falls for a split second– thinking about how again you could’ve just been having a little fling– why would you ever like him? He struggles to think how you could, even after having kissed you.

“No, no. I swear it’s not like that.” You turn a little red and play with your hands. “Um. You’re not like a rebound, Mikey, I just… I think I liked you ever since I started coming around more, maybe around last year? I probably just didn’t notice because I thought I was into Carmy. You know? Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Michael tries not to let the relief show through his face too much. “I thought maybe I was… reading too much into it. Putting pressure on you.”

“No, you’re good.” You shake off his concerns. “I don’t think that at all. I really do like you… might’ve just been obsessed with the idea of a childhood friend turning into a lover.”

Michael grins. “Well, who’s to say that didn’t fucking happen, Birdie? Are we not childhood friends?”

“Eh… kind of. You’re a bit old.” You give him a so-so motion, and Michael jokingly pushes you a little. “I’m kidding! This is more like– your friend’s hot older brother gives you a chance and it’s crazy and exciting and you just want to know more.”

You were half kidding, but you’re so honest about it, and Michael loves it, but there’s still that undercurrent of agony– he wants to just openly like you, too, but he doesn’t want to be such a fucking failure about it.

“I’m gonna just head to the dining table, I think.” You check your watch. “Gotta go think about this a little more– is that okay? Not in a bad way, I’m just overwhelmed with everything that’s happened today…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s okay, Birdie.” Michael presses a kiss into your hairline. He knows it is a lot for anyone to handle– getting over a crush you thought you had, realizing that you like someone else– he gets it. “Take all the time you need.”

“Okay.” You smile eagerly at him and then walk outside through the hallway, wiping your mouth so it looks less kiss-stained, and peek around so no one is looking at you. 

Michael feels a million emotions hit him at once, and he knows he has to cool himself down before explaining to everyone where you’ve gone, what’s happened– or he’s certain to implicate himself, and he can’t have that. 

/ 

It all goes to shit not even twenty minutes later.

You’re sitting pretty between Richie and Tiff, who seem to be a little bit… awkward, maybe arguing mentally about something you don’t completely understand. No one has really commented on your disappearance, but you’re sure it’s obvious based on how Michelle and Stevie are whispering and smiling at you.

Michael gets a massive, depressive episode right after you’ve left him. He can’t exactly pinpoint why– he feels like a creep even if he isn’t one. Hell, he only actually met you when you were nineteen– he was in a different state when you started visiting the Berzattos. But even if Michael ignores his potential, old-man creepiness… he also feels like you’re headed for so much more than he ever was, and he knows he’s holding you back if he does this. 

For once in his life, he just wanted to be happy. He just wanted to be wanted without the stigma of not being good enough. 

You, Carmy, and Nat. He knows you guys are on your way. Michael feels a pit in his stomach as he imagines why you guys all have to look up to him so much– he just happened to be in the right place, at the right time.

He can’t ignore the feeling that he is just a major fucking loser.

That’s why Michael goes and gets high. He knows he’s making a mistake, and he doesn’t want to do something so disappointing– but he figures he’s already a disappointment anyways. He’s grateful you’re not here outside to see how pathetic he really is– how much he craves a hit just to feel a little less shitty. And yes, it calms him down as he feels the high of the painkillers exacerbate positive memories, like with you, Carmy, Natalie– but it still makes his anger, his depressive tendencies strong, too. 

When he sits down at the dining table– he’s not that intoxicated, but he knows it’s a little apparent on his face, based on the mild alarm on your own. You’re sitting just far enough from him for there to be plausible deniability, but still– you are worried about him.

“You good?” You mouth, and he waves away your question with an air of fake nonchalance. 

You don’t look convinced. You can see the red in Michael’s eyes, the general tension in his shoulders, the unnerving sense of resentment in his expression. You wonder what could have happened in the last ten minutes that you’ve been sitting at the table, why Michael decided to go and get intoxicated just minutes after kissing you.

Were you too much for him? Maybe.

You know Michael gets high. In fact, last Easter, you’re pretty sure he spent the entire time high on something– but you only vaguely know about his anger flare ups. About his negative emotions, the supposed depressive periods he goes through. You’ve seen him argue a bit with Richie, you know he’s gotten a bit harsh with Carmy, but you know he’s a bit more troubled than that. The whole family seems a bit troubled. Natalie has told you that much, and you have your experience with that– your mother and father’s fights are ones that still make you quiver to think about. But with Michael?

You don’t know how much you believed it, until now, because Michael always seemed kind of… like he always had the right thing to say. You almost feel like he’s in the right to get upset, because he’s had a hard time, with his family, some of his luck surrounding his career– especially with how Lee continually riles him up.

The table is formal and nice for a bit. Michael and Tiff converse about something, Carmy asks if you’re okay and you mostly are. Michelle asks Mikey to say grace, and he sounds resentful, again, of Lee cutting him off so often. 

Cicero, being the responsible uncle that he is, tries to push off grace to Stevie, who promptly rejects it, and Michelle decides to ease the tension by asking what the hell the seven fishes are all about. Lee, of course, gleefully answers, about the dutch potatoes and the bible.

Michael glares at him and throws a fork. A real, honest-to-god, heavy piece of silverware. It clatters on the carpeted floor– you feel yourself flinch, and you watch Natalie and Pete’s expressions crumble into the realization that Michael is not okay, and everyone seems to look towards him in fear.

“You see what you did, right? You already did that. You already bitched about the dutch oven.” Michael retorts at him, not completely coherent, and you can feel the lights glazing over– the Christmas tree, the wreaths and baubles, everything seems to lose focus in comparison to the red-hot anger that Michael is bubbling over with.

Cicero and Carmy try to call him off, but Michael isn’t listening, and you can tell– he’s in a place to be upset. It’s like a slowly proceeding car crash– as much as you don’t want him to do it, you understand why he’s going to. You feel like there is a bit of a double standard in place here– Cicero seems to want him to respect his elders, and Michael is being kind of childish, but you can’t say you don’t understand why.

Michael asks for Fak’s fork, in direct opposition to Lee’s attempts to play the father in this house. Despite Fak’s insistent refusals, Michael successfully takes it. Everyone speaks with the intent to stop him, and he’s too focused on Lee to stop.

You know you hate Lee too. But such a severe reaction, coming from Michael? It has you wincing a little. You want to pull him away– tell him to be the nice older brother you’ve always known him to be– but you know it takes time. You know it’s probably going to get worse. You try to catch his eye– and he can't quite look at you.

You have faith in him. You know Michael can do better than this– you just hope he can see it, too. 

Michael throws the second fork, and you feel regret in trusting him, again, because he’s making things bad but it’s almost as if he can’t help it. You catch Natalie’s eyes– she’s clearly disappointed, too.

Michael feels a sick sense of pleasure, as he often does when it comes to acting out his worst desires. But he feels a flash of anger with himself– is that what he did with you? Is he really this guy? He thinks that he is, he is a bad dude and he can commit to that role if that’s what’s needed.  

“Cousin, you’re scaring the normals.” Richie tries, looking at Tiff and you, but you’re still yearning to catch his glance– and Michael can only respond that it’s nothing, everything is fine, and you’re suddenly reminded of when your parents used to fight and how you used to have to be the middle man and convince them that things were alright.

Michael looks towards you this time– but you’re not looking at him. You have your hands neatly clasped in your lap, your eyes are focused on the set of candles in the middle of the table, and you look horribly upset, with your neck all tense as you wait for things to blow over, and he can tell– he’s fucking up big time. Stevie, Carmy, everyone is looking pained, and Michael can only think that he doesn’t give a shit. He wants to make Lee feel just as terrible as he does.

"You see– I can throw forks because this is our father’s house." Michael scoffs back, and there's real agony in his tone. “My father’s house.”

Michelle inhales. “We have lift-off.”

“Okay, you got everyone's attention, so go ahead, tell us a story we've all heard a million times already.” Lee spits out, barely holding back his own contempt for Michael, and Michael starts laughing as if everything’s alright. “Tell a story about how you're living with your mom and you're borrowing money off of her and any other sucker who'll listen to your bullshit.”

Everyone looks towards the table, feeling terribly awkward about Lee’s accusations– it’s not that it’s necessarily untrue, but there’s a hefty amount of his own assumptions, his own bias thrown in there, and you want to speak up.

“Lee, shut the fuck up.” Cicero looks absolutely pissed off at him, and you’re grateful someone has taken some of the heat off of Michael. It’s Lee’s fault, too.

“I’m sorry. I told you not to be a sucker, Jimmy.” Lee comments, and Cicero exhales, exasperated.

“Lee. That’s not really fair– you’re being too hard on him.” You utter through gritted teeth, and Lee’s eyes narrow on you. It's the first time you've spoken, and Michael glances at you– his eyes are bright and he genuinely looks sorry. Sorry he had to go this far.

“Oh, am I? Really, Birdie? I would suggest I’m not being hard enough.” Lee raises his hands, invites you to speak more, and you know that it’s not really your place to do so, especially because Lee and Michael seem to have a lot of history.

But you have your almost-lawyer tendencies, and of course you’re not exactly unbiased either, because you want to see the best in Michael– you want to like him. 

"Please, Lee… Michael's working on himself. You don't need to lie to him." You stare at him, and Lee’s face seems to turn darker with that. “I’m sure we all have our issues… it feels like a lot.”

"Is that what he's told you, Birdie?" Lee sneers at you, and you suddenly feel small. "He's a sick, fucking twisted man, and you would trust him, wouldn't you?"

He doesn’t go further than that– but it’s enough that you feel humiliated for being read so thoroughly. It’s obvious what he’s implying– you’re a silly little girl who doesn’t know any better. 

“It's fine. It's fine. Because this guy's nothing and he's nobody.” Lee points at Michael again, and his expression sours so much. You watch as Michael seems to zero in on what Lee’s rambling on about. 

Natalie shakes her head in little no-no motions.

“Hey… Petey… I just need to, uh… I need to borrow this for one second.” Michael’s got that nonchalant expression again, but there’s pain in his eyes, and there’s a clamour of everyone again telling Michael to stop, calling his name, trying to distract him.

"Michael. Michael. Please don’t do this. Hey. Hey. Hey!" Natalie calls at him, and you know she's just begging for him to leave it alone. “I love you. Okay?” 

You watch as Michael, holding the fork, just holding it, clear malicious intent in his eyes, tension building in the air and you feel a little sick, but his eyes are watering and he clearly doesn’t want to do what he thinks he has to.

“I love you too, Sug.” Michael says honestly.

Stevie giggles, Cicero de-escalates things further, and you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, if not for the fact that Michael is still holding the fork. Still standing up, taunting him, acting like a big old child as Carmy rebukes him– and it’s really just two grown men beginning to get all macho and toxic about who’s tougher, who’s really the man of the house, and they start screeching at each other and you watch as Michael’s eyes glaze over with something, with Lee’s final insult that “he’s nothing.”

You watch as Michael takes his seat. He seems ambivalent, hard to read– he’s not meeting anyone’s eyes and you feel terrible about it.

Donna comes in and takes her seat– she seems rather drunk, too, and the last thing you need is more evidence that substance abuse is a bad thing– and Stevie starts the most wonderful prayer that still isn’t enough to dissuade Michael. You catch his gaze– he’s mulling over something, his eyes are watery, and you want to go over there and talk him down, even if that idea is unwise.

Donna cries over the prayer, and Natalie commits the most cardinal sin that she could at this moment: she asks if she’s okay.

You flinch with recognition as Donna starts screaming at her, about how she is okay and could a person who isn’t okay make such a gorgeous meal, and she exits the room in visible anger, and Natalie begins to hyperventilate, while Michelle tries to calm everyone down.

Donna throws a plate down on the floor, and exits the room continuing to scream– and there’s a beat of tense silence, full of angst and what-nows, and Lee decides to take initiative breaking that silence with a silly joke– almost in a paternal role, again, a hot topic between him and Mikey– and you watch Michael’s eyes start narrowing as he leans against his hand.

Michael throws the third fork.

It’s like every single nerve you felt, every bit of tension that was already in place, comes to a head as Michael starts going batshit, trying his best to attack Lee, while the Fak brothers and Richie are between them, and you can barely think straight as everyone starts screaming at each other. 

Tiff almost gets dragged into the chaos, and you're left shielding and comforting her from the fight. Pete and Richie hold Michael off and you're thankful– the last thing you want is to go up in there and get caught in the crossfire yourself. It’s genuinely a blur– you have no idea how bad things are getting until Cicero starts telling them to get the fuck out.

Suddenly, the wall of the living room bursts inwards, the Christmas tree getting dragged in the crossfire, and you realize with shock that someone’s driven a car inside.

Not just any car– that’s Donna in there, driving, and you think for a moment she’s dead. You can’t believe what’s happening– you can feel your heart hammering through your chest.

Michael runs towards the car, tries to open the front door, yelling and asking her what she did, asking her to open the door. She stirs a little.

Everyone else is standing there, in shock, not focusing properly on what to do, and you pull yourself away from the crowd of people, as they stare on in horror. You don’t want to be a part of this, but you are, and you know what a responsible adult would do. 

You go outside, into the December night’s cold air, and call 911. Specify for the firefighters and ambulances, because Cicero has a big thing against narcs and cops and you’re not getting into that right now.

Even though you’re freezing, and that’s what you should be focusing on? You’re in an incredible amount of despair because of what’s taken place. You hang up the call and feel exhausted by everything that’s happened, and you wonder if Michael really knows better. If he can be more than this. It’s not something you’re judging him for– but you feel terrible about his circumstances and you want him to get out of there.

Worse, you can’t help but feel a little upset with him. Because you know that Michael didn’t have to stoop that low– he chose to, and that’s what bothers you the most. He let his emotional responses dictate how he was going to act, and you know it’s hard to not be so provoked in this environment, but still: you are concerned and upset with him, and you know you need to take a step back. As much as it hurts you to stay away, you feel like it’s going to hurt even more if you intentionally stay around.

You wait for the ambulance and fire trucks to show up– you take a minute to direct them through the house, and then you trust that someone else has got it from there. Carmy, Natalie, Michelle, Stevie– they’ve got each other, they’re whispering about something, and you know where you’re not needed.

You grab your coat and leave, leave as silently as you can without interrupting everything that’s going on. It’s an strange walk home– ten minutes of you thinking about everything.

You hope next Christmas will be better.

/

Michael comes down from his high hard. Someone’s wrapped a blanket around him, and he’s sitting on the front porch’s staircase, wondering what the hell is going on. Donna’s apparently been taken to the hospital– and there’s a makeshift tarp where the wall has been crashed in. Everyone has gone home.

Where did you go? He has a moment of panic. Are you okay? Did he fuck it up that badly? That you would leave without saying goodbye? Michael can picture the disappointment on your face, and he wishes– he really wishes he was someone else.

He’s stressing really hard, his eyes are beginning to tear up. God, he knew he wasn’t really worthy of your attention– you’re young still, you have the whole world ahead of you– and he wonders if he can apologize. He wonders what he could possibly say to make it right. After such an insane situation, he can’t even blame you for taking off.

Natalie tells him, kind sister that she is, that you were the one to call emergency services. Of course you were– you have a strong head on your shoulders and Michael feels strongly that his family is in debt to you. And then you headed home, but Natalie doesn’t know why.

He does have your number. But he’s not going to call you, not right now– he’s not going to make a bigger mistake and fuck things up further. 

Michael sighs, and leans back. He doesn’t deserve to be happy.

[sheerfreesia007]

His Little Star

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader

Word count: 4,871

Content warnings: Angst, infidelity

Summary: It’s been a year and a half since the divorce and Chan is still trying to salvage any business deals for his company. But when you step in to reassure an unsure investor at an event it sets Chan’s life on an unknown track.

Part One: You're Losing Me

The soft lilting melody of the live band seems to almost lull Chan into a peaceful haze as he stands in front of another business owner who just keeps droning on about how he started his own business from the ground up. Chan just barely curbs the urge to roll his eyes at the man’s words as he takes a sip of his drink, his lip curls slightly at the bitter taste of the alcohol on his tongue and he sighs softly to himself. He’d rather be at home right now putting his pretty little girl to bed but he had to try and gather any investors for his sinking business.

Ever since the divorce Chan’s life had been turned upside down, and for good reason. He knew he wasn’t a good person for what he did to you, he actually couldn’t believe that he had worked with your dad to make you fall in love with him and then keep you blinded while he kept his girlfriend by his side throughout your whole relationship. That wasn’t like him or it hadn’t been before he became desperate, but since being served with divorce papers almost a year and a half ago he’d been reflecting on his actions and the guilt he now held whenever his mind turned to you was nearly all consuming. And it had only grown with the birth of his daughter.

The birth of his daughter was a turning point for Chan, he had been too wrapped up in the feeling and emotion of suddenly losing everything that he had thanks to you and your family. But now after having her in his life and being able to raise her he could see how wrong he had been to do that. His daughter opened his eyes and made him see things the way they were supposed to be, now that he was responsible for such a tiny innocent little being his whole outlook on life changed.

Right after his daughter’s birth he had tried to approach you at any event that you both were at but you rightfully avoided and kept your distance. It had stung at first but Chan understood the reason behind it, he had hurt you deeply and for him to try and approach you again after being divorced for a while he understood your need for space away from him. So he had bided his time and kept his distance like you wanted while still trying to find a way to apologize for his actions, he didn’t think it would be received well but he felt like he had to try and apologize almost atone for his betrayal to you.

As his eyes roam around the room he wonders idly if you’re here tonight, he knows that you’ve stepped away from your family after the divorce when you found out that your father had had a hand in fabricating your relationship with him and the deal that resulted from your marriage. Chan had been surprised to read about you completely cutting all ties with your family as you started your own event planning business, he was actually slightly envious of you being able to branch out without the help of your family. But then again, you had always been a hard worker and someone very reliable in everything that you did. You always went above and beyond in your work and it showed at every event that you planned.

Tonight as his eyes dart around picking up on little details he realizes that this is another party that had your little touches all over it. He’s not surprised really, every event you planned was always well done and they always managed to soothe and calm his anxiety over having to almost beg investors to take an interest in his company. It was a talent that he had always seen in you when you were together, you always had this calming effect on people no matter where you were.

“So Mr. Bahng, can you tell me more about your business? I remember your business putting out a product about a year ago that was a real hit.” said a curious tone that pulled Chan’s attention away from the room. He stared at the older, taller man in front of him in shocked silence, he was surprised that someone was actually talking to him for once and not at him. And for that man to be Mr. Oh a very successful business man it made it all the more nerve wracking as Chan began to explain the product that Mr. Oh was asking about.

“Yes, the product was a music production software that was more user friendly for music producers. It was geared towards being more mobile and not having to constantly work in a recording studio.” Chan began to explain and watched surprised as the man nodded his head along with his words.

“And since then has your company tried to expand on that software?” asked Mr. Oh and Chan felt hope begin to bubble up inside of him.

“We’ve had expansions in the works but because of a business deal that ended with my company, it stalled the production line of those expansions.” Chan explained delicately hoping to not have to speak about his deal with Mr. Candela. Thankfully the man nodded his head at his words before his face took on a curious look for a moment.

“Has there been no other investors since then?” he asked softly and Chan sadly shook his head.

“That’s because Candela all but ruined his company after his divorce from his daughter. There have been rumors surrounded Mr. Bahng’s company and his relationship with his manager and Candela’s daughter. You would do well to stay far away from his company.” said the obnoxious man from earlier in a loud tone of voice that made Chan flinch before glaring at him hatefully. Silence fell over the small group and Chan felt defeated as he watched Mr. Oh frown at the other man.

“You would do well to keep your opinion to yourself Mr. Soon.” came a frosty stern tone that had Chan’s eyes widening as his head whipped to the left and saw you standing there with Choi Jongho standing slightly behind you. The two of you made a very intimidating and imposing image as you glared at Mr. Soon while Jongho looked at the man as if he was a mere bug on the bottom of his shoe.

“M-Miss Candela-” stuttered Mr. Soon in a rush and your glare turned even icier as you stared at him with rage behind your eyes.

“Since you know so much about me Mr. Soon, you should know better than to use that last name.” you said stoically and Chan watched as the man bowed his head quickly.

“Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right. My mistake.” he gushed out quickly and Chan watched as your eyes flicked from him to Mr. Oh dismissively.

“Mr. Oh, if you’re thinking about investing in Mr. Bahng’s company I think it would be a smart investment.” you said suddenly in a firm business-like tone that had Chan staring at you wide eyes. You were helping him secure an investor? But why? “If you’re worried about any backlash from myself you won’t find any. As for my family? I doubt they’ve thought of Mr. Bahng in any way since the ending of the business deal. But if they ever do cause problems you have my full support and I will have a word with my Father if it comes to that.” you say confidently and Chan feels his breath escape from his lungs in a soft hiss. You were willing to help him that much after everything he had done to you? It didn’t make any sense to him but he was more than grateful for your assistance.

“Thank you, my dear. I appreciate the reassurance. Mr. Bahng shall we go have a discussion somewhere quieter?” Asked Mr. Oh and Chan looked up at them in silent shock before quickly nodding his head at him and gesturing for him to lead. He looked over at you and you stared at him with indifference on your face before you nodded your head at him and then turned to Jongho who quickly led you away from the group without a glance back at them. Chan watched you walk away with Jongho as confusion filled him but at the thought of gaining an investor he quickly turned and followed Mr. Oh out of the room.

*-*-*-*

As Chan quietly slipped through the front door of his apartment he couldn’t help but grin softly. The night had definitely taken an odd turn after you had spoken up in his favor at the event but it had absolutely been a good odd since he had secured Mr. Oh as an investor in his company. Hope had started to fill after a long time of not having it and Chan felt as if he could let out a small breath of relief with this first step of making things better for him and his little family.

Slipping his shoes off he stowed away his wallet and keys before walking through the apartment towards the first door in the hallway. There he silently opened the door and tiptoed inside to the small crib. He beamed down at the little girl sleeping soundly in the crib and leant down against the railing letting his head rest on top of his folded arms as his eyes took her in. Her cute little mobile lazily turned in a circle as it played a soft lullaby while she slept below it. Chan felt his heart swell with pride as he gazed at her silently, she was his pride and joy. One half of his heart and he sighed softly as he watched her, she was just so tiny and sweet even in sleep he couldn’t help but fall in love with her all over again.

He gently grazed a finger along her cheek needing to feel her soft skin against his just once before he went to bed himself. She shifted in her sleep as his finger slipped away from her chubby little cheek and he held his breath hoping that she wouldn’t wake up. He knew she was having another sleep regression phase since it was so close to her first birthday, he had followed up with the doctor about it after she had started having issues staying asleep at night.

When she settled back down and let out a soft long sigh he hummed softly to the tune of the lullaby playing, thankful that she hadn’t woken up. Leaning there for another quiet moment his eyes traced along her sleeping form taking her in one more time before he stood from the crib. He then turned from the crib and tiptoed back out of the room before heading to the next door in the hallway. 

Stepping into the bedroom a smile slipped onto his face when he spotted the other half of his heart lounging in bed idly scrolling through the channels on the television. When she heard him gently close the door her head turned to him and a smile formed on her face before she began to crawl across the bed towards him with a happy sparkle in her eyes. Chan eagerly met her at the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her flush to his body.

“Oh, what’s this? Was it a good night?” she asked with soft surprise lilting her tone as she looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

“It was a good night. I got one investor tonight and there’s already interest from others.” he said softly and watched happily as she squealed with delight before wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. Chan beamed at her reaction as he hugged her tightly to him. “It’s all looking up baby. I can’t believe it to be honest and there was a moment where I thought it wasn’t going to happen all because Mr. Soon had to open up his mouth about the Candela family.” he said excitedly as he began to explain the evening to her.

“What happened?” she asked shocked as she pulled away from him slightly to stare up at him.

“Mr. Oh was talking to me about the product we put out last year and Mr. Soon began to mention that it would be a bad idea to invest with me all because of the divorce and the ending of the business deal. And I thought Mr. Oh would be swayed by what Mr. Soon was saying but then my ex-wife showed up and shot down Mr. Soon’s claims that it would be troublesome for Mr. Oh to invest in my company.” Chan explained in an awed tone, he was still so surprised that you had stepped in and shot down Mr. Soon about it all. And the fact that you had done it so effectively and swiftly still gave Chan chills.

“She was there?” she asked softly and Chan nodded his head at her question.

“Yeah, she was there with Choi Jongho. I’m pretty sure she was the event planner for the event also. But she completely shut down Mr. Soon and reassured Mr. Oh about investing with my company and I was able to make a deal with him.” Chan said as he continued to nod his head.

“Did she say anything else to you?” she asked curiously and Chan rose an eyebrow as he detected a weird lilt to her tone.

“No, I wanted to thank her for her help with reassuring Mr. Oh but she just nodded her head and walked away with Jongho. And then I didn’t see her again before leaving after my talk with Mr. Oh.” Chan said with a shake of his head. He watched as she nodded her head slowly before her smile reappeared after it had dimmed when he mentioned his ex-wife. “Are you okay?” he asked softly as his eyes danced around her face curiously.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I just don’t like that she was there and that she interacted with you.” she said with a twist of her lips and Chan frowned softly at her words.

“Baby, you have nothing to worry about. It was just a weird interaction, a good one for us but a weird one all the same.” he reassured her and she nodded her head slowly.

“Yeah, you’re right.” she said softly before smiling brightly up at him. “Wanna celebrate securing a business deal?” she asked in sultry tone suddenly and Chan smirked down at her.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked lustfully before pushing her onto her back on the bed and following after her.

*-*-*-*

The next party he goes to Chan is feeling much more enthusiastic and hopeful as he enters the large ballroom. Once again it’s beautifully decorated and there’s a live band in the corner as waiters flit around the crowd with trays ladened with glasses of champagne. There’s tall tables dotted around the edges of the room with faux ice covered floral centerpieces to match the winter weather outside. Chan stands at one of the tables with a group of young business investors as he begins to talk about his business with Mr. Oh by his side. As he’s explaining the product that he’s already produced and his plans to expand upon he spots you talking with a mixed group of people as Jongho stands at your side almost protectively.

He watches quietly as you laugh at something one of your group says and he’s reminded of how sweet the sound of your laughter was when you truly found something funny. It’s a stark contrast to how you were right after the divorce, back then you had grown withdrawn from almost everyone after you had dropped the bombshell of knowing about his betrayal to you. You had become almost a recluse during the divorce proceedings and while they were quick he had seen on your face and in your posture how much everything had affected you. His betrayal, your father’s betrayal, the affair, and the business deal that had come from your marriage; it had all nearly destroyed you. So to see you now happily laughing at an event that you had planned made something in Chan swell with quiet pride.

He was proud to see you rise above the mess that he had made of your life. While what he had done to you was probably all that you could see whenever you thought back on your relationship with him, it was different for him. He had been able to see the side of you that not many others got the privilege to see, he saw the raw emotions that you hid away all because of who your family was. He saw the need and desire to do your best in everything that you took on. He saw the love and care you gave to all your friends and close ones.

And after the divorce when you had withdrawn so much that that side of you had seemed like a ghost it was nice to see you blossoming once more and returning to the person he knew you were. Suddenly your eyes darted up to his from where you stood and Chan felt his breath stutter in his chest, your eyes while sparkling with leftover laughter from your group’s talk never dimmed when they connected with his they did turn indifferent. And while that still stung a bit he knew it was what he deserved, you owed him nothing. He gave you a small smile before dipping his head slightly and watched surprised as you dipped your head in response as well before turning toward Jongho who still stood proudly at your side.

The soft smile the younger man gave you was full of sweet soft affection and Chan watched as you soaked it all in. He smiled softly as he watched the two of you quietly interact together and he couldn’t help but be glad that you had found someone to trust through everything you had been put through. It was a testament to your resilience and he was glad to see you rise up.

*-*-*-*

It had been a month now since Mr. Oh invested in Chan’s company and as the holiday season was drawing closer and closer as time passed Chan was elated to find that more and more investors were showing interest in his company. He had now been able to secure five more investors and with the new year coming up quickly he was so excited that his business was picking up and he didn’t have to worry constantly anymore about money and his company. He was finally able to relax and enjoy himself as a business owner.

That was why Chan found himself carrying his little girl in his arms while the other half of his heart proudly hung onto his arm as she walked in at his side to the Christmas party to end all parties this year. The room was very spacious and while there were so many people in attendance it didn’t seem as if the room was crowded or packed, which was a good thing for Chan’s nerves as he worried that the event would be too much for his little girl. But as the three of them moved to a pretty snowy backdrop for professional pictures he watched as his little girl lit up with happiness at all the sparkling lights hung around the room and the large ball ornaments. 

After seeing how happy and calm his little girl was while in the middle of an elite Christmas party he felt himself calm and started to enjoy his time here. The three of them posed for a few pictures together before Chan asked the photographer to let them pose for pictures with each parent with their little girl. He wanted to pick the nicest picture and get it framed or even painted by a professional to hang in their home as well as smaller photos of them to frame.

Once the pictures were done Chan guided his little family around the room to introduce them to Mr. Oh and the other investors that he had become close with as well as anyone else who stopped to say hello to them. The evening was quickly becoming a big hit as more and more people stopped to say hello to Chan and his little family as everyone seemed to focus on the bubbly little girl in his arms. She was honestly the star of the event and he was proud to show her off. 

As he talks with another group of fawning women about his little girl he suddenly spots you and Jongho talking to another group not far from where he stood. He can feel his girlfriend tense at his side and he frowns softly before darting his eyes to her quickly. He knows that she still blames you for all the hardships that they’ve had to go through since the divorce and while he doesn’t agree with her reasoning he has come to accept that he can’t change her mind on this and has vowed to try and keep the two of you separated. He knows that it’ll just be something volatile if the two of you came face to face, he knew his girlfriend would make a scene and he didn’t know how you would react now that you’ve come out of the ordeal on the other side.

He’s talking to the group about the ups and downs of having a baby and all the funny little stories that he’s collected since having his little girl when suddenly she bursts out into happy screeches causing everyone to turn to see what she’s so excited about. Chan feels dread instantly wash over him as his little girl leans to the side reaching out her little hands to you. You and Jongho had been talking with the group next to Chan’s and his daughter had spotted your large sparkling engagement ring as the older woman in front of you held up your hand delicately examining the ring.

As you turned your head to gaze at the little girl reaching over to you Chan watched as a beautiful smile slipped onto your face while your eyes sparkled with delight before you wiggled your fingers at her causing her to screech with delight. Everyone around Chan cooed and awed at the interaction, Chan felt a pit form in his stomach as he felt his girlfriend grip his bicep tightly in her hand as she seethed silently next to him.

“She’s beautiful and such a happy baby. Congratulations.” you say pleasantly and Chan knows that you’re trying to be kind while everyone watches on in silence. He nods his head at your words as a warm smile slips onto his face as his eyes dart down to his daughter, he opens his mouth to thank you but his girlfriend beats him to it.

“Not like you could ever produce such a beautiful baby. Especially since you’ve gotten up there in years.” comes the snarky comment and Chan stiffens in shock. “Such a pity that a young wealthy successful man has tied himself to your dried up expired self.” comes the nasty hateful words from his girlfriend and Chan’s eyes widen in disbelief. He quickly shakes his head in dismay before turning to his girlfriend with hard unforgiving eyes.

“That’s enough!” he hisses at her angrily feeling all eyes have turned to him and his girlfriend with looks of disgust. “Apologize, right now.” he snaps at her and she whips her head to glare up at him with rage filled eyes.

“Absolutely not! She’s the reason why your business went under! She’s the reason why we suffered for all those months!” his girlfriend snapped angrily and Chan gritted his teeth before turning back to you and Jongho with a pleading look on his face.

“I am so sorry for her words. Please-” he begins to apologize to you as you stare at him with wide teary eyes.

“You always were too soft Channie!” sneered his girlfriend and Chan turned back to her in shock at how hateful she sounds to him. “Always trying to be the peacekeeper. Always trying to make amends. You spineless fool!” she hisses at him hatefully and Chan stares at her with wide eyes. “I had thought eventually you’d step up and be the man I thought you could be but I’ve been mistaken.” she snipped and Chan felt her words hit him in the gut.

“Is that what you think!?” he hissed back at her feeling his emotions start to swirl within him like a hurricane.

“It’s what I know.” she said darkly. “Even after all these years you can’t step up and be the man that I need you to be. Which is why I’ve been cheating on you for the past six months.” she told him proudly and Chan felt his stomach drop at her confession. “He’s more of a man than you will ever be!” she snips out angrily and Chan feels rage rush through him as he glares darkly at the sudden stranger in front of him. No longer is the love of his life, no longer is the one woman he thought he would have at his side forever. She’s reduced herself to a mere stranger, a ghost of her former self. He idly wonders if this is how you felt when you found out about his affair and he understands why you had pulled away from him after learning about it. He feels dead inside.

“Then go be with him. I’ll have my lawyer draft up a parental agreement.” he says darkly and watches with bitter satisfaction as his now ex-girlfriend’s eyes widen in surprise before narrowing hatefully as her lips curl up in distaste.

“Don’t bother, I’ll sign my parental rights away.” she snaps and then whirls around on her heel before stalking out of the event. Chan sighs softly and feels his shoulders drop with sadness and defeat, when he looks up to his surprise the group has dispersed and only you and Jongho are left standing awkwardly to the side watching him quietly. His daughter begins to sniffle softly and Chan looks down at her sadly as he comes to realize that his life while slowly on the up had just taken another blow.

“Oh don’t cry little one. Your Dad will make sure everything is perfectly alright for you. He loves you very much and he’ll move mountains for you.” comes your sweet soft voice as you shake a green colored sleigh bell near his daughter’s face to try and distract her. Chan watches as his little girl suddenly brightens up at the twinkling bell and eagerly reaches out for it. You look over at him silently asking if it was alright to give to her and he nods his head quietly. He smiles softly as his daughter happily shakes and rings the sleigh bell loudly while laughing happily.

“Thank you.” he says softly to you and you nod your head at him before taking a step back towards Jongho. Chan watches silently as Jongho effortlessly wraps an arm around your waist and quietly gives you the support that you need after interacting with Chan and his daughter. He sighs softly knowing that this will probably be the last interaction you ever have with him and while it didn’t go the way he wanted it to he knows what he has to do. “I’m sorry for everything that I put you through. I hope in the new year that what I did won’t bring you too much pain anymore.” he apologizes to you while keeping his gaze locked on yours and watches a soft crooked smile slip onto your face.

“I forgave you a long time ago Chan. Consider it water under the bridge. Just focus on your daughter now, make sure she’s well taken care of. You’ve seen how it shouldn’t be done so make sure you do it right. Otherwise I’ll come knocking on your door to remind you.” you tell him stoically and Chan smiles softly before nodding his head.

“I will don’t worry.” he responds and you nod your head at him before walking away with Jongho.

*-*-*-*

Later on that evening as the event is winding down Chan finds a large plush armchair to sit in while cradling his now sleeping daughter as he looks around at the beautifully decorated Christmas trees. The twinkling lights bounced off the polished floor of the event space and Chan quietly watched as the lights reflected off his daughter’s sleeping face. The quietness around him didn’t feel suffocating as his eyes darted over her face, he knew that things were going to be very different now but for once he didn’t feel stressed or worried about his future. He knew that if he truly did his best by the little angel in his arms he would be alright.

SKZ Taglist: @intartaruginha, @kayleefriedchicken, @babigriin, @simpforleeknaur, @inlovewithstraykids

[maddascanbe-blog]

Part 2 of the life-swap series! Oddly enough when I asked those close to me, none of them anticipated that I'd swap Chloe and Luka. Honestly it made more sense to me? Both have sisters, have at least one obscenely rich parent, and have crushed on the two leads?

Now onto the plot-

After finding out about the twins Jagged decided to battle for custody. He managed to get full custody of Luka, but not Juleka, and out of spit decided to cut the twins off from each other, causing Anarka to move to the the US. But despite having a young son now, this didn't stop Jagged from touring, often leaving Luka behind in Paris to be looked after by whoever was available. Even when he was in Paris he often avoided Luka, instead leaving Penny to watch him.

Luka grew up bitter at his fathers lack of care for him, and took it out on everyone around him. Mostly the staff of both Le Grande Pari, where he lives, as well as whatever caregiver his father/Penny had hired. When he went to school, he immediately began taking his anger out on everyone there too. Once Adrien's mom passed he took a special hatred to the blonde, in some ways seeing himself in Adrien. Both now children of single fathers, but Gabriel is in his sons life (whether that's good or bad doesn't matter to Luka).

And Luka, being an empath knows exactly how to get under ones skin. Because even if you don't show your emotions outwardly, he still can tell when he's struck gold. The only person he doesn't hate is Marinette, his childhood friend and the only person unaware of his attitude.

And yes, we are going for Cannon Chloe swap here, so no redemption for Luka. Sad. I'll draw Akuma-Viperion later.

Onto Chloe, once Andre found out about Audrey's infidelity he gave her two options. The first, he expose her and her career be permanently marred. Or she give him full custody of both Chloe and Zoe and the could divorce peacefully. Chloe hasn't seen her mom since she was 3 and quite frankly had no interest in her. Zoe only being a half sister to Chloe is a carefully guarded secret, one that Zoe thinks even Chloe doesn't know.

Chloe, not wanting to emulate her mother grew up with a very different mindset. Instead being taught that being both too aggressive and a pushover will lead to a mess. So she instead learns to govern her hive with a firm but steady hand. The staff of Le Grand Paris greatly respect her, and she is often the one sent to head off a Luka temper tantrum, as the only person unimpressed by both him and his father. She's more of an Clara Nightingale fan anyways.

She fast tracked her way through school, and decided to take Highschool online as to give herself more time to work both at the hotel and at her event planning company. As Queen Bee, she is fierce but kind. The favorite of the secondary heroes, since she is not only efficient at stopping the akuma, but will stick around to comfort and reassure both the victim and the civilians who were caught in the attack.

Due to her calm voice and good advice, Ladybug and Chat Noir have turned to her many times for comfort on both the chaos hero life and civilian troubles. She's always willing to listen when they need her. As such Hawkmoth sees her as the most beneficial to target. Only he seems scarred to akumatize her for some reason...

[pruneunfair]

Manhwas except the villainess is the protagonist.

Groundhog Duchess, FL: Rhyse Sinclair. Tone: psychological horror (Not your typical reincarnation story)

Rhyse has achieved everything she could've ever wanted, she found a loving family, she has supporting friends, the woman who schemed for her downfall is dead, and now she's married to her husband Cliff as the new Duchess Rudwick! Until she woke up in her bed, the dates set back to where she started, living in her abusive family home where she laments that it was just a dream.. and then her dream comes true! Finally, she's achieved the happiness her dream foretold. Right after her wedding night she wakes back up, in her childhood home with her abusive family. It keeps happening over and over, no one believes Rhyse when she tries to speak out. There's something pulling the strings, something keeping her from speaking on her accord. She begins to avoid the Rudwicks, hoping that it would end this teasing nightmare but no matter where she goes, she always ends right back into Cliff and Killians arms, back to being tormented by Edith, back to a life that will always be taken away from her right when she's at her highest and with each passing time, she starts to lose more of herself and becoming more and more spiteful and bitter. Will Rhyse finally be able to put an end to this cycle and achieve a happy ending that lasts forever with her unexpected ally?

the flowers from another world, protagonists: Robelia and Aisha Tone: Comedy (Divorcing my tyrant husband)

Aisha had it all. She was the pampered consort of the tyrannical Alexandros and on her way to becoming the next empress, a major improvement from her boring life in Korea. She never wanted to leave, that is until mysteriously all the love and attention she would bask in has disappeared.

The once quiet and obedient empress Robelia was all of a sudden Alexandros love again! One by one Aisha starts to lose everything, all her allies turned on her and none of her endeavors had a chance to succeed not to mention Robelia has been nothing but insufferable the entire time. When Aisha finally confronts Robelia on her sudden change in behavior the two argue further until Alexandros shows up. Much to Aishas dismay, he only assists Robelia but somethings odd.. Robelia doesn't seem to be enjoying ANY of the attention..? Huh, odd. Who wouldn't want to be adored by a man who would do ANYTHING for you? Well it turns out Robelia is also from the same world as Aisha and she's been acting the way she has so she can divorced and live away from the nobles. The women come to an understanding in their commin goal and as frenimies they go on misadventure after misadventure to restore Aishas plot powers so Robelia can easily get divorced and leave. But the more time Aisha spends with Robelia, the more she sees from her point or view and she starts to wonder if Alexandros is even worth it?.

Two birds on a wire, FL: Claudine Van Brandt, tone: drama+tragedy (cry or better yet beg)

As far as Claudine could remember she was reminded that everyone has a destiny to fulfill in the aristocracy and hers was to marry and bear heirs. All Claudine really wanted in life was a carefree one where she got to live in luxury and enjoy the finest of all so to please her family and live her ideal life at the same time, she chooses a long time acquaintance, the Duke of Berg, Matthias Herhardt. Despite her fiancé's strange behavior Claudine was fine with how things were until she starts to notice Matthias take an interest in someone else.. the niece of one his employees and a girl she knew back then: Layla Llewellyn. Suddenly everything begins to feel as if it's falling apart. Claudine guaranteed luxurious life is now at stake and she's willing to do what it takes to achieve it! But what about Layla? No, why should she care? She's the one who's wreaking Claudines home, if she'll become collateral damage then she deserves it for flirting with someone else's man.. until she learns of what kind of psychological damage Matthias is inflicting on Layla, Claudine terrified now: if she marries that man then who knows what he'll put her through, screw her luxurious life and her families desires she needs to escape now!.. but not before she breaks Matthias and Layla up and free the poor girl she wrongfully accused, that is if Claudine isn't already too late.

the human saintess, FL: Diana tone: romance+ self growth (For my derelict favorite)

Diana is a saintess of common origins, with no one reconginizing her due to her lack of status a miracle in the form of two handsome men grant her the chance to finally use her healing powers for the good of the common folk, all seems well until one of her friends Cael reveals that he killed their enemies for her in the name of love. It seemed sensible at the time that she rejected him harshly and told him to leave. With only one man left she chooses Helios as her husband and becomes the crown princess. Now that she's a noble, Diana must learn how to act as one even if it means restricting some of her power to the poor. All Diana wants is to be accepted, to finally receive some payment after all that hardwork she'll even ignore news on Cael if she has to, he must be doing better anyway now right?. Well, not exactly. By ignoring any news about him Diana never realized that Cael had attempted suicide more than once, but what could she do? By the time she finds out she also learns that Caelus is married so it should all be fine.. until Caelus's new wife Hestia keeps harassing her for her faults, she just won't leave! But Diana can't say anything, she's the saintess! She HAS to be good.. but to who? The nobles or the commoners? Why can't it just easy for once!?

Slowly but surely, Diana will learn that even if she's a saintess, she's still a person and as a person, she makes mistakes, some big and some small. If she wants to get any better she has to make things right. Starting with the people she neglected below.

into the dark forever, FL: Marianne Edenverre, tone: self destruction.

All her childhood Marianne had been nothing but bad fortune. Her mother treated her terribly and even living as the 5th princess did little to differentiate from her previous homelife. All her new half siblings refuse to treat her as human for her status as an illegitimate child except for the 4th princess Alisa, the bright bundle of joy that made her feel welcome.However, a single person cannot make up for the mistreatment, especially if that person is the star of the family. Why can't Marianne have that? Who does Alisa even think she is!? Is she taunting her? Marianne won't stand for that disrespect, she suffered enough hasn't she? When is she gonna get her paid her dues? If God won't pay her then she'll just have to steal it herself so Marianne summons a demon to give her the help she needs. All of a sudden, everyone loves her! She's the star of the show and now Alisa is the scapegoat, finally, now the 4th princess will know what it feels like to be ostracized but when that doesn't work, Marianne decides to just arrange her death instead. There, no more Alisa, she's finally the most adored girl in Edenverre... wait, Alisa has been reincarnated into the princess of a enemy empire? Well Marianne can't let that stand idly by, she needs to get rid of Aisha de Elmire now, no matter what it may cost.

Project Leila, FL: Yvonne Eckart, tone: coming of age tragedy.

After getting lost during a festival, Yvonne loses her not just her brothers and father but her sense of self, she had been possessed by the goddess Leila and its been relentless in its pursuit to possess her. Yvonne waited and waited for her father to come and find her, she wouldn't let Leila break her spirit but when she finds her father taking another girl in as her replacement, Yvonnes heart drops and she almost loses all hope and Leila almost succeeds.. but Yvonne is able to snap out of it at the nick of time, it was a close call but the pain of abandonment never did go away. During the remaining years, Yvonne never bothered to go back home anymore, they seemed to like that purple haired girl anyway and surprisingly Leila wasn't so bad to talk to as it was the perfect being to vent to. Day by day Leila keeps trying to trick Yvonne into letting it possess her but she always stands her ground and declares that she'll never affiliate herself with the likes of the goddess. But when Yvonne is found and arrives on Penelopes coming of age ceremony, it becomes tempting. All Yvonne saw was the girl who stole her life but the real monsters may have been more close to home then she thought. Just how toxic did her family become and will she be able to resist Leilas temptation?

The concubines woes, FL: Diane Poitier, tone: female rage+self reflection (I will abdicate my title as empress)

Diane Poitier had been a patient girl. After losing everything at a young age she had been determined to never let that happen again when she becomes the Emperors concubine. He has no wife, she's is the owner of the Ivory palace, and she resembles his deceased mother, the cards should have all fell in place, but they never do. The Emperor instead marries the crown princess Adelaide of Kotrov. Just like that Diane feels everything crashing down around her so she makes an enemy out of Adelaide, belittling her and trying to drive a wedge between the new married couple so she can return to the escapism of knowing she's the Emperors one and only. Yet with all the grievances she causes, Adelaide never sees Diane as an enemy, if anything the empress is the kindest to her then anyone else has ever been, one side of Diane wants to keep pushing until Adelaide snaps but the other is weeping so much it can't come up with the words. Why is she even doing this? What will this get her? Will the Emperor even marry her at all when he gets divorced? Why is she being this way to the one woman who has shown her kindess?These are the nagging questions the keep Diane up at night.

Divorcing your husband, FL: Sumin Jeong, tone: comedy (Marry my husband)

Sumin will never admit it but she's been a snake in the grass for most of her life, she can't stand seeing her friend Jiwon happier than her so what better way to ruin her life then to sleep with her husband while Jiwon is terminally ill? Well.. Karma inevitably catches up to Sumin and she is killed by the very same man she slept with after he accidently murdered Jiwon to eliminate any witnesses. Instead of waking up in heaven or hell, Sumin is back 10 years ago! Does she even deserve this? Of course she does! How could someone so deserving like her not? It turns out though that she lost a little something along the way.. her charisma! It's been stolen the moment Jiwon died and when Minhwan killed her. Without her cutesy baby act no man will just crumble when she says "Oppa!" Sumin actually has to work for what she wants now, and the only 2 men who are still willing to adore her are her killer and older co worker who has a thing for her childish talk, jeez were her co workers always this terrible? Whatever, she'll play into Minhwans hand for the time being.. after all, she could use a little life insurance from him.

Golden cage, FL: Rashta Ishka, tone:tragedy+female rage (remarried empress)

The tragic tales of a girl sold into slavery and the men who take advantage of her. Most strived for beauty but Rashta hated it, her beauty was a curse and it drew in all predators who wanted to take a bite out of her. The first man who fell for her was one of her masters who currently raises their child, the second is the Emperor of the empire who loves her like a hunter loves their trophies they caught and the third is the most charming yet manipulative of them all. During the duration of one year, Rashta navigates the life of a concubine and later empress. The ladies in waiting hate her for displacing their empress, the men desire her for her innocent beauty, her former master blackmails her, and her idol: the empress won't even turn an eye to her direction, her only hope is to keep going with her role of the prey Sovieshu caught. Keep acting cute, keep speaking in 3rd person, she doesn't even have to learn much etiquette if it means Sovieshu will find it charming. Slowly, she is picked apart by everyone in her life and the only people who could've helped her have been pushed away. There's no saving Rashta, she's already trusted too many of the wrong people and made too many mistakes but maybe when her children grow up and learn their mothers story they'll be the voice to put an end to slavery and grant the next generation the future she always wanted.

Aim for the throne, FL: Isabella de Mare, tone: suspenseful drama (Sister I am the queen in this life)

Isabella may be her families favorite but that alone isn't enough. She knows her worth as a woman only means so much and as much as she loved her mother, she refused to end up like her as a de-facto wife of a mere cardinal. No, if she only mattered for her beauty than Isabella was going to use it to it's fullest: she wants to become queen of San Carlo, but when her half sister Ariande comes to live with the family, the new competitor meant buisness and had already earned their fathers favor much to Isabellas annoyance. What was supposed to be a subtle warning is quickly figured out and it turns out Ariande isn't as dumb as Isabella thought. Throughout the years that follow, both sisters clash and plot to rise up the ranks. Isabella becomes a renowned beauty engaged to prince Alfonso and Ariande becomes reserved but most devoted to her religious studies, earning her privileges with the clergy. This has been Isabellas most formidable foe yet and she's willing to go to lengths of murder to secure her destiny as queen of San Carlo. Little does she know.. the golden rule cares little about beauty.

Black widow, FL: Krista, tone: thriller drama (remarried empress)

Out of all the ways it could have happened why this?, Krista was already deposed of her position of queen as expected when her husband died but with her positive reputation with the people and her brother in law remaining single, Krista was confident she'd stay as the beloved queen of the west. Oh, Heinrey brought in the former empress of the east to be his wife? Well she can't be shocked, the kingdom does need heirs after all, Heinreys starting to establish his fiancé as queen already? It's fine.. maybe he'll let her stay with them instead of sending to her to compshire to mourn for the rest of her life besides, she'll always have her loyal ladies in waiting. Wait no.. most of them are already defecting from Krista to the new queen.

Krista is losing everything and her foolish family isn't helping her case, all she has left is the peoples support for her but even that is fleeting!? What? Of course.. his majesty has stated he'd fill the mouths of those disrespectful to the new queen with rocks and sew it shut, it must've scared everyone into submission. Everything is on line now, Krista's father is continuously pushing buttons he shouldn't be pushing and when Krista's brother attempts to kill Navier, all fingers point to her as his accomplice. If Krista wants to clear her name she's gonna have to play the hard way and put on an act like she's loyal to Heinreys new wife and hope that the Heinrey doesn't execute her to protect Navier.

[onemorecupofcoffee]

"The Need For Topical Music", written by Phil Ochs

Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music. 

It is somewhat ironic that in this age of forced conformity and fear of controversy the folksinger may be assuming the same role. The newspapers have unfortunately told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the cold war truth so help them, advertisers. If a reporter breaks the "code of the West” that used to be confined to Hoot Gibson movies, he’ll find himself out on the street with a story to tell and all the rivers of mass communication damned up. 

The folksingers of today must face up to a great challenge in their music. Folk music is an idiom that deals with realities and not just realities of the past as some would assert. More than ever there is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. 

I have run into some singers who say, “Sure, I agree with most topical songs, but they're just too strong to do in public. Besides, I don't want to label myself or alienate some of my audience into thinking I'm unpatriotic.”

Yet this same person will get on the stage and dedicate a song to Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger as if in tribute to an ideal they are afraid to reach for. Those who would compromise or avoid the truth inherent in folk music are misleading themselves and their audiences. In a world so full of lies and corruption, can we allow our own national music to go the way of Madison Avenue?

There are definite grounds for criticism of topical music, however. Much of the music has been too bitter and too negative for many audiences to appreciate, but lately there has been a strong improvement in both quantity and quality, and the commercial success of songs like “If I Had a Hammer” have made many of the profit seekers forget their prejudices.

One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies. A case in point is Pete Seeger's classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” which brought a message of peace to millions, including many of the younger generation who do not consider themselves involved in politics.

Folk music often arises out of vital movements and struggles. When the union movement was a growing, stirring and honest force in America, it produced a wealth of material to add to the nation's musical heritage. Today, there regrettably seem to be only two causes that will arouse an appreciable amount of people from their apathetic acceptance of the world; the Negro struggle for civil rights and the peace movement. To hear a thousand people singing "We Shall Overcome" without the benefit of Hollywood's bouncing ball is to hear a power and beauty in music that has no limits in its effect.

It never ceases to amaze me how the American people allow the hit parade to hit them over the head with a parade of song after meaningless song about love. If the powers that be absolutely insist that love should control the market, at least they should be more realistic and give divorce songs an equal chance.

Topical music is often a method of keeping alive a name or event that is worth remembering. For example many people have been vividly reminded of the depression days through Woody Guthrie’s dust bowl ballads. Sometimes the songs will differ in interpretation from the textbooks as with “Pretty Boy Floyd”.

Every newspaper headline is a potential song, and it is the role of an effective songwriter to pick out the material that has the interest, significance and sometimes humor adaptable to music.

A good writer must be able to picture the structure of a song and as hundreds of minute ideas race through his head, he must reject the superfluous and trite phrases for the cogent powerful terms. Then after the first draft is completed, the writer must be his severest critic, constantly searching for a better way to express every line in his song.

I think there is a coming revolution (pardon my French) in folk music as it becomes more and more popular in the U. S., and as the search for new songs becomes more intense. The news today is the natural resource that folk music must exploit in order to have the most vigorous folk process possible.

(Broadside #22, March 1963)

[mmhcs]

Child of Divorce

Warnings: Angst with a (bitter)sweet ending. Mentions of divorce and anxiety.

Hey, are you okay?

Can we talk?

I'm sorry.

You stared at the string of text messages, trying to decide what to do next. One moment, your fingers were moving, crafting out an explanation that could rival a Shakespearean monologue, and the next you were deleting it.

How did you two even end up in this position? You hated fights. You hated arguing. Every time you were placed in a confrontational situation your heart grew heavy and sluggish and your armpits stung with the premonition of sweat. It was why you stopped going to Speech and Debate halfway through sophomore year.

Well, that and because you found it to be too logical and time-consuming. But still: how did you end up in a fight with Miles?

You didn't get angry often but when you did you went all out. It was like a balloon finally popping after poking it with a needle for the thousandth time; you exploded in a frenzy of rash words, raw emotion, most notably anger.

Again, you hated being angry. Just the word took you back to the nights in which you would hear your parents arguing over Lord knows what. It was like the more you tried to block them out, the louder their argument got. And just when you thought it was over, they would start up again, louder and angrier than before.

The quietness after the divorce was unnerving to say the least. As stressful as it was living in a household where a WWE match was just one dirty dish away, it didn't compare to living in the opposite environment.

Nowadays, the house was quiet. You and your mother barely saw each other. Sometimes you startle awake at the presence of footsteps, only to remember that you, in fact, did not live alone.

"Love isn't the fairytale the movies show you," is what your mother said within the first week of the divorce. That was almost two years ago, but it sticks to the forefront of your mind for a variety of reasons.

Number one being that it's the last time you really heard your mother's voice. Nowadays, you only heard her muffled sighs as she headed in and out the house, and the occasional yell for a grocery list.

Secondly, because what if she's right?

They say mother knows best, after all.

And it wasn't just your parents' marriage that had been tumultuous.

Nobody in your family seemed happy in their relationships. You had aunts and uncles that pulled up to family functions arguing. They would try their best to avoid each other during events, standing on opposite ends of the room as if they didn't share a damn house together. The only reprieve were the few aunties and uncles in between who had sworn allegiance to the "single life", which essentially meant dating apps, flirty text messages, and a never-ending rotation of lovers. But even then, you could see the unhappiness on their faces. Feel the loneliness in their spirit.

That's why you hated fighting and arguing. Before Miles, you used to avoid romance and commitment like the plague, too. But something about him made you crumble in that resolve...

At first, you thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad. You ignored the jeers and jokes from your relatives, pushed your mother's grim words to the back of your head.

And now look what happened.

You liked Miles (more than you'd care to admit), yes, but you should've known.

Of course you would get into a relationship with a guy who constantly flakes. A guy who, despite his intentions, still leaves you to wonder where the hell he is. A guy whose text messages become sloppy and incoherent halfway through your conversations until they just stop coming altogether.

Unluckiness in love; it was a generational curse.

You sighed deeply, your fingers moving across the keyboard for umpteenth time.

Miles--

You stopped typing as you heard your bedroom door open with so much force that it slammed against the wall.

"Miles?"

Your heart stammered at the sight of him.

Despite the force, he stood at threshold of your bedroom silently, his chest heaving with anxiety. He fucked up once. He wasn't going to do it again and take a step further without your permission.

"I'm sorry," was all he said after a beat of silence. You two stared at each other, your eyes searching within his and vice versa.

When you looked into his eyes, you found fear. Sorrow. Determination. Warmth. Love.

You could only imagine what he saw in yours.

Lack of sleep. Fear. Confusion. Disbelief. Distress.

"Miles--"

"I'm sorry." He quickly apologized again for cutting you off and then continued, "Wait, no. Sorry. Hey. Hi. How are you?"

You had told Miles a little about your family's history with relationships. He knew of your parents' divorce and the anxiety that their marriage had planted within you.

You couldn't help but chuckle at his insistence on greeting.

"It's been...yeah,"

It killed Miles to see you like this. It was like something was pressing down on his heart. He was Spiderman and yet he'd made you feel like this. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be the other way around. He was supposed to make you happy. Make you smile.

"Baby, I am so sorry. I didn't listen to you when I should have and instead I was--"

In the time that he'd been speaking, you'd rose from you bed and started walking over to him. He'd watched you the entire time but was caught off guard when you wrapped your arms around him and rested your head in his chest.

"I missed you." you said.

"I missed you, too," Miles returned your hug, wrapping his arms around you. "And I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry, too," you sighed into his chest. "But can we talk about it later? I just...I'm just a little anxious right now."

Miles started to rub circles on your back. "Yeah, of course." he said, pressing his lips to the top of your head. "Anything you want."

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hi RTA, in your opinion, after everything Meghan has done, why hasn’t anyone (HLMTQ whilst alive and now Charles) forced a divorce between Harry and Meghan? -- RTA can I share my opinion on this is it's okay with your?

Why would the monarchs deliberately add unwelcome headaches in their lives by separating salt + pepper coz one will come back and do everything he can to destroy The Firm from within as he's too bitter about the consequences of his own doings while the other one do the same from outside The Firm. It's better for 2 horrible people to stay together and live a wretched life than separating and making the lives of others miserable 🙂

Ask from August 7th

I think it's more that the BRF understands Harry won't leave Meghan. He's too wrapped up in her - whether it's genuine love or psychological co-dependency or narcissistic manipulation or sunk cost fallacy or just a refusal to admit wrong - that forcing a divorce would be far more damaging.

But in addition, The Queen saw what happened when she forced the Charles/Diana divorce - i.e., how messy it got and how everyone got dragged into it - and she probably wanted to avoid the same kind of strife and mess. Which is how we got into this mess in the first place; The Queen saw how unhappy Margaret and the public was by her refusal to consent to the Peter Townsend affair and wanted to avoid that for Harry so she consented to Meghan.

So when people say that The Queen didn't learn anything from history, that's not true. She did learn, she just applied them incorrectly.

[sweetadonisbutbetter]

Can I ask for an hsc in which Adam is betrayed by his third wife for the third time (reader)

How would Adam react if he found out about this? Would he give a damn and go to whores or despair?

Thanks you

OH MY GOD ☹️☹️☹️☹️my face when i was writing adam fluff and I saw this notif pop up in my ask box. i think this one might be shorter than anything I write and I apologize for that.

Third time is NOT the charm | Adam x Fem!Wife! Reader

relationship: romantic warnings: mentions of cheating, aruging and just kinda angsty

OHHH HE IS SO HEARTBROKEN

He already had some slight trust issues with you cheating in the past, never fully able to trust you again, so he followed you. Sue him, he wanted to make sure you weren’t seeing someone.

Then he saw you enter an apartment you had never been to before, only to come out way later in the day to you looking so disheveled. He may not be a genius, but he knows for sure that you slept with someone else. 

he gave you chance after chance, and yet you went behind his back once again

it is at this point, that he truly thinks that all of his failed relationships are his fault, that all of his inadequacies outweigh his better qualities, and that he is truly unloveable. 

I would think he would fall into despair. since he forgave you two previous times, I think he was really in love with you. When he loves, he loves hard, making this all the more painful for him. 

He spends a good while mourning the relationship, the love, and just everything. 

Outwardly, he becomes more bitter, more of a dick than ever before. Everyone in heaven already avoids him like the plague, especially since his reputation wasn't the best due to his…whole personality. Now everyone avoids him in fear of him snapping at them. 

But inwardly? He is so insecure and just looking for someone to hold him. A part of him wants to crawl into your arms and curl up like a wounded animal. Hoping that you would tend to it with such care, love, and grace that you once gave him.

Cries and gets drunk to Lute, telling her everything (Lute may or may not be planning your murder)

Begins to overthink your relationship.

Did you ever love him? Did you ever care for him? Were you like this in your life or just to him? Why even stay with him? What did he do to deserve this? Sure he was a shitty person, but he wasn’t a half-bad husband. He had never cheated on any of his wives. 

When he finds the courage to confront you, he is trying so hard to keep it together. He does well, up until you go into detail about why you did it.

Why? You just felt like it.

If it was with three different guys, it would hurt him, yes, but it would hurt him far less than if you told him it was with the same guy. It would uproot his entire being if he found out you slept with Lucifer (once or three times it doesn't matter)

If you did get with Lucifer, this breaks him fundamentally. He lost his first wife (unknown that Eve also slept with him) to that fucking devil and he got nothing for it each time. Just the feeling of betrayal and another wall around his already guarded heart.

He gets so angry at your nonchalance that he bursts for you to get out and that you both are getting a divorce. 

If you don’t care about it, it would hurt him more. In his mind, it shows that you never loved him, truly for him. 

If you care about the divorce, it makes him more angry. Where was this remorse when you cheated on him the first time? What about the second time? Why is it now coming up that he is ending things for good?

Overall not a win-win situation. 

Post-divorce, he vows to himself to not get with anyone. Now he is more of a dick, more nasty, vulgar, and everything under the sun. The pain of your cheating already hurt him in so many more ways that he is emotionally stunted romantically. 

If you tried to get back with him, to start over, he would laugh in your face and spit at you.

I WAS LITERALLY MID WAY THROUGH WRITING THE PREGANT READER FIC WHEN THIS ENTERED MY ASK BOG anon when i catch you when i catch you anon /lh also hope this is what u wanted anon :D

anywayss hope yall enjoyeedd hehe

[cicerfics]

Headcanons: How knowledgeable are the MI6 staff about the workplace gossip mill?

OK, just ONE more headcanons post before Fest is done!

This one is about our favorite characters and their ability (or lack thereof) to stay abreast of the hot goss circulating at HQ.

Moneypenny: THE gossip queen of MI6. Knows all, sees all, but does not TELL all. She always has the 411 on what's going on with MI6 personnel, but she's very discreet. She plays her cards close to her vest, and generally turns a blind eye to matters that do not concern her, M, important political matters, or internal security. Still, whether she discloses her knowledge or not, she absolutely knows which canteen worker spent the night with which member of Accounting while his wife was out of town. 👀

Bond: Very good at keeping his finger on the pulse and his ear to the ground. Generally very knowledgeable about the MI6 gossip mill. However, he is hamstrung by the fact that he spends so much of his time abroad. He has several key employees (well-placed in various departments) that he checks in with whenever he returns to HQ. He applies to Moneypenny as well and tries to weasel information out of her. Nine times out of ten, his sources help him stay up to date!

(After his retirement from the double-oh sector, Bond and Moneypenny develop a hand-in-glove relationship. Bond scouts around and collects gossip from satellite government offices and various London hotels. Meanwhile, Moneypenny collects intel from committee meetings and whispers in the halls outside M's office. Then she and Bond have lunch meetings to swap intel. Bond is a great asset to Moneypenny's gossip empire!)

Q: Perennially oblivious to gossip. Knows literally Nothing about who is shagging whom, or who has a workplace beef with whom. He is VERY busy and important and occupied with everything from complex mathematical equations to budget proposals! He simply has NO TIME to dawdle in the breakroom and no desire to go to after-dinner drinks with the minions! He wants to go home to his cats and SLEEP!

Anyway, this leads to awkward situations where Q attends the office holiday party and naively asks a fellow department head if her husband is in attendance...not realizing that this particular employee had a quiet (though very bitter and contentious) divorce four months prior. Oops! R and Moneypenny take to briefing Q on a regular basis to help him avoid these embarrassing lapses.

R: Extremely knowledgeable about all goings-on in Q-branch. She is, however, utterly indifferent to anything outside her own kingdom. Could not care less whether that man in Accounting is cheating on his wife. However, she knows all there is to know about what the R&D interns and ballistics techs get up to in their free time.

Tanner: He oversees literally all Internal Security business and receives regular updates from multiple people (Moneypenny included). So he is very much up to date. Not interested in gossip for gossip's sake, though. He just wants to be sure nobody is doing anything that will jeopardize national security or leave MI6 open to a sexual harassment lawsuit. When it comes to personal matters between consenting individuals...well. Tanner is very expert at turning a blind eye.

He saw Bond and Q flirting while fondling a gun that Q was passing over to Bond? No, he didn't. He happened to be looking at the wall clock, and he saw NOTHING. Thank you for your understanding!

Mallory: I feel like Mallory is always on the cutting-edge of political gossip. He knows EVERYTHING about the movers-and-shakers in the government. Absolutely everything. He is always 100% caught up on that mess. He is significantly less knowledgeable about what his employees get up to, though. Most of his time is spent liaising with foreign intelligence agencies, pushing through requests for additional funding, or fending off the interference of MI5. For better or for worse, he relies heavily on Moneypenny and Tanner to keep him caught up on internal matters.

[arsonmurderandjaywalking]

notes for the Jack and Janet get divorced instead of going to Haiti au that I have been ruminating on

We get to avoid the Obeah Man arc (misogynistic and extremely racist. I’m glad to be rid of it)

Ultimately I see Janet getting custody, but I feel like there’s also the question of if she would want to be a single mom, and how she would feel about being one. She’s already doing most of the parenting between the two of them, but there was still some divide of work. She was a working mom in the 90s when she didn’t explicitly need to be. Her career is probably important to her. Suddenly not having the fallback that Jack provided would be pretty daunting

Another question irt custody is how hard Jack would fight it. He’s a typical conservative dad. He thinks that child-rearing is mostly a woman’s job, but also I can see him having issues at the thought of a single-mother household. Additionally, he hasn’t really had any revelations about his parenting yet, so he would be even more insulted than canon Jack about anyone implying that he wouldn’t be able to properly care for Tim, and he’d probably fight it on principle

I have no idea what would happen with the company, actually. I am not a business person. They’d probably still have to work together though, since they’re both described as heads of the company, and I imagine they’d both be reluctant to leave

Google is telling me that divorce proceedings tend to take 3-6 months when there aren’t any significant issues, which is certainly not the case for these two, and potentially upwards of 14 months when there is a lot of arguing. Which. Is so long. That’s such a time sink I don’t want to do that. But they have so much to argue through. And they’re probably both bitter so they’d be trying to undermine each other. But this is very much affecting Tim so maybe they’d want to wrap it up as quickly as possible. But also you know Tim would be hiding that from them as much as he can. Why must I be so concerned with verisimilitude in this specific aspect

FINE it lasts a year but no longer. I don’t care. They can sort out their shit in a year or not at all we have a canon timeline to stick to, however nebulous it may be

Tim is not doing good. Assuming this all starts at the same time the Drakes went to Haiti in canon, Tim hasn't really developed that closeness he has with the others yet. He and Dick only really get close during Knightfall/Prodigal, his relationship with Alfred only really develops after he starts going out as Robin (source: his second? maybe? Robin mini. The one where the Joker breaks out of Arkham while Bruce is out of the country. Where he says he doesn’t know Alfred that well) and he hasn't even met Barbara yet. He doesn’t even have his civilian friends because he's still attending boarding school right now and he’d be home on winter break. The only person he could go to for emotional support with this is Bruce

Tim wouldn't tell Bruce that that's what he's doing, I doubt he'd even tell him about the divorce without prompting, but he does definitely start spending as many hours as he can get away with in the cave. For no reason in particular

I’m beginning to run out of ideas. On further thought, I think Jack and Janet would want Tim to have a say in deciding who he stays with, or they’d at least want his opinion on it even if he doesn’t have the final say in it. 

He could think himself in circles forever trying to find a good answer, or at least one he can make himself say, but none of that would change the fact that what he really wants is to stay with them both. He wants this to not be happening. He wants them to not be getting a divorce. He wants to actually live with them, not just spend 9 months a year in a boarding school and only see them on weekends and holidays

[transparentair]

chance, basically just by nature of having zero context beyond "drug addict ptsd beserker: symbol of the Great Khans Current State of Affairs" is the oc of anyone who ever tries to extrapolate on him, but anyways my own hyper complicated exceedingly long and incomplete headcanon of his family sitch

cw for divorce and drugs and parental death and the fact that this is just shit i completely made up founded on literally nothing <3

also this was not written in an organised headcanon cluster. it's all train of thought.

mother and father were mercs employed by darion in the age of the new khans. his mother was known to be fairly headstrong and his father was known to be particularly good at cutting a deal.

mother and father were super in love with each other for a time, but after the chosen one wiped out the new khans, his father was permanently physically disabled (got shot in the spine and became paralysed in his lower body) and both of them developed PTSD and it really shook up their relationship

they had chance, not to fix their relationship, but because he was a #happyaccident that also happened to make them feel a bit hopeful for the future. But It Cannot Be Overstated How Much Parenthood Did Not Fix Them

they still went through a very slowburn divorce arc and mutually split after falling in love with other people when chance was approaching his preteens. chance tried to avoid them when the atmosphere was bad, so neither parents were particularly strong presences in his life once he passed toddler age and could be trusted to leave their line of sight without Dying Immediately

his mother did the bulk of the parenting on account of her being able-bodied, though chance's dad did his absolute best to contribute where he could. anything that could be done within the confines of their yurt was his domain (making sure chance got to bed and went to sleep, playing with toys, etc.)

since every single adult in the camp was painfully aware of chance's parents' situation, it was a vague "it takes a village" affair where everyone kept watch on chance but couldn't overstep in the situation. when his parents split, everyone felt bad for chance, but was also relieved and felt more comfortable stepping in directly to fill in the gaps (especially after chance outright rejected his stepmother's care at every turn)

father stayed with the great khans, but his mother left the great khans for the understandable reason of Not Wanting To Constantly Feel Endangered and also the very sad but unfortunately common reason of Not Wanting to Deal With Taking Care of a Disabled Spouse For The Rest of Her Life (While Also Being a Mother While Also Having Major PTSD and a Drug Abuse Problem) but also the reasonable reason of This Man Has Another Lover Who Can Do It So Why Should I Stay

chance was always hyperaware of the strained atmosphere and also confused by the situation, so it wasn't shocking when his mother left, but still deeply upsetting, and even worse when his father's new lover (in chance's view) swoops into their yurt literally before his mother's footprints have faded from the loose dirt on the floor.

chose to stay with his father anyway because he wanted his mother to change her mind and also felt like the great khans were home. and didn't want to leave the very shaky concept of home he had for something he knew nothing about all alone with (presumably, unaware of his mother's lover) only his mother

became emotionally estranged from his father since he blamed him for his mother's leaving. didn't have the perspective or knowledge to realise that both of his parents fell out of love with each other and fell in love with people, so the situation was actually better (for the parents but definitely hard on the kid). never really warmed up to his step mother and only really interacted with her after his father died. they never became particularly close, but he stopped being angry and bitter towards her by the time he was an older teen.

his father died when he was right on the cusp of becoming an adult and everyone was like "you really don't need to worry about initiation you should actually take a lot of time to process and grieve because that's really hard to lose both parents. PLEASE." but he kind of (seemed to) not gaf at all and nobody could FORCE him to not do his initiation.

the necklaces are almost like a family symbol. his mother gave him the circular necklace he wears before leaving and the little bone charm necklace was his from the start. his father had a necklace that his step mother tried to pass on to him, but he REALLY didn't want it.

chance DID inherit a really unfortunate genetic disposition to drug addiction from his mother, but it didn't go full throttle until it was his time to ride in the severe PTSD rodeo

chance was born with his father's darker brown hair but it turned blonde. he takes after his mother slightly more than his father appearance-wise, but he did get his father's incredibly funny resting bitch face syndrome and severe eyebrows. and his blue eyes (though his father's were greyer) but that's not as important. slash j

his quietness (even before he became fully nonverbal) was mostly just from his family situation growing up, but he was noted later on by attentive adults like oscar to have a surprisingly defensive disposition that was fairly similar to his father's when he was younger