#I like the history of them having worked together for years rather than months too before a similar falling out happened

[puppetwoman17]

I wonder what the batfam's reactions would be if the joker escapes wherever they sent him to, finds Tim on patrol and was like "Long time no see JJ," and then going on about how he should come home with him back to arkham and he'll help him "recover" and are trying to get to Tim's location as fast as they can while listening in on comms?

This was actually a scenario I thought of the day I found out about JJ. I feel like after what happened, Tim would do the opposite of what Jason would and has done. Instead of going to find the Joker, he would stay as far away from him or even his goons as possible. It would be like the third Robin and the Joker had no history, nothing to tie them together(which probably made Jason angry at some point).

So when he breaks out of Arkham(AGAIN, jesus), Tim, Babs, and Bruce don’t waste a minute before bringing up that Tim has another case he has to work on that is of the “upmost importance”. It’s actually just a 12 year old homicide cold case that he solved a month ago but no one has to know that. Jim knows to sweep that under the rug when RR comes by with the same exact evidence he came with a month ago.

But Lady Luck has never been on Tim’s side. The rest of the bats quickly lose track of the Joker. Babs manages to find him, but by that point, it’s too late.

Joker finds him. And he recognizes him. Underneath the new name, costume, and styled hair, Joker finds his “son”.

As you can imagine, he’s over the moon. But he’s also just as angry.

“Junior! You don’t call, you don’t text, you don’t send out an email. What’s a pop got to do to get their son to notice them?”

“I’m not your son.”

“Not with that hair you’re not. Your skin’s not how I left it at all! And what happened to that beautiful smile of yours? Did the bat ruin that too?”

Tim doesn’t take jabs about his smile well. This is why. And it gets under his skin that even after using so much foundation and concealer, the Joker can still see the remnants of smile lines along his cheeks.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Junior. You know papa doesn’t like being ignored.“

“You’re not my dad.”

“Ha! Who is then? Certainly not the old bat. Anyhow, this isn’t about him. It’s been so long, kiddo. Why don’t we stop by the old warehouse and have a chat. Maybe even pick up Mama while we’re at it.”

“Harley would rather die than go with you, and I’m not following you anywhere. Batman already has your location.”

That brushes the smile off the freak’s face. The expression he has on now is sickly reminiscent of how he was when he, Tim, and Harley played family years ago. It’s not a look he gives to other people. No one else has seen it, so they might think Tim a liar. But he can’t deny the parental disappointment in the man’s eyes.

“I know they don’t know.”

Now that. That really gets to him.

“None of your business.”

“It it, but you’re welcome to deny it. I believe it’s just the old bat, the beat up cop, and Ms. Gordon, correct? Not even the first Robin! Ha! I wonder what the second bird would think. Not to mention the girls! Oh! And we can’t forget about little old Signal.”

Tim doesn’t need him to tell him. He’s gone over the scenario so many times it drives him mad. What each of them would say. What he could do to make them think differently. What he would have to do if they found out. Where he could run to. It never gets easier.

Joker is trying to scare him. That’s the only conclusion he definitively has. And aside from his general psychotic tendencies, he genuinely believes he and Tim are family.

By the time Batman arrives with the GCPD, the Joker is tied and ready for extraction. But the villain’s smile is no less fear-inducing.

“You know I’m right, my boy,” he says as he’s take into the back of a truck.

“They’ll never look at you the same way again.”

It’s only when everything is over that Tim takes the time to look over his gear that he finds his mistake. One that the Joker knew about. One that he exploited.

When he shut off the comms, he didn’t shut them off. In his delirium over his past, instead of closing them off, he muted them. While he couldn’t hear any of their chatter, they definitely heard his. And he didn’t send Babs his acceptance to shut his comms off, something she couldn’t do without express permission.

So when he unmuted the comms, you can only imagine what he heard.

[dresshistorynerd]

Roughly 10 Cool Historical Queer Figures More People Should Know About

Part 1 - From Ancient Era to Early Modern Era

In spirit of Pride Month here's some snippets of queer history I think are interesting.

I've been working on a series of deep dives into interesting historical queer figures, but I haven't had the time to continue my list after the first entry about Julie d'Aubigny. I do want to continue with it, but I came to the realization that I will never have to time to do all the cool and interesting figures in depth, since there's too many, so I decided to do a list with brief descriptions about some of my favorite figures who are not that well known. Some of them are more well-known than others but I think they all deserve more acknowledgement.

I was able to trim down the number of figures to (roughly) 20, which was still too many for one post, so it's two posts now. They are in chronological order, so this part is set mostly before Victorian Era and the second part will be from Victorian Era onward.

This list is centered around western history (but not exclusively) because that's the history I'm most familiar with, though it's definitely not all white, since western history is not all white. I will be avoiding using modern labels, since they are rarely exactly applicable to history, rather I will present whatever we know about these figures' gender, sexuality and relationships. If there's information about what language they used about themselves, I will use that. Often we don't know their own thoughts, so I will need to do some educated guess work, but I will lean towards ambiguity whenever evidence is particularly unclear. If you are the type of person who gets angry with the mere suggestion there's a possibility that a historical gnc person might not have been cis, I encourage you to read my answers to related asks (here and here) first before sending me another identical ask. Try to at least bring some new arguments if you decide to waste my time with your trans erasure.

1. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum (latter half of 2400 BCE)

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants, and possibly the first recorded gay couple in history known by name. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Nyuserre Ini. They both had a wife and children, but they (along with their families) were buried together in a tomb. The tomb decorations show them similarly as other afterlife couples.

2. Marinos the Monk (c. 5th-8th century)

Marinos the Monk was born as Marina somewhere in eastern parts of Byzantine Empire, likely in the Levant. He was from a wealthy Christian family, possibly Coptic. Assigned female at birth his widowed father planned to marry him off and go to a monastery himself, but he convinced his father to take him with him dressed as a boy named Marinos. His father agreed and they were accepted as monks. After his father died many years later, he continued his life as a male presenting monk. Later he was accused of fathering an illegitimate child with a daughter of an innkeeper, which was not possible, but he didn't revoke the accusations, instead he begged for the abbot's forgiveness for "his sins". Marinos was banished from the monastery and became a beggar. For 10 years he raised his alleged illegitimate child as a father, until he was allowed to return to the monastery and do penance. Only after his death the abbot and the monks discovered his genitals and his inability to father children and were distraught for punishing an innocent man for 10 long years. The real father was discovered and along with the innkeeper and his daughter they all came to honor Marinos' grave and ask his forgiveness. He was canonized as a saint for his sacrificial selflessness, modesty and humility and honored across the Mediterranean from Ethiopia to France.

3. Mubārak and Muẓaffar al-Saqlabi (c. 10th - 11th century)

Mubārak and Muẓaffar were co-rulers of Taifa of Valencia in Muslim Spain. Al-Saqlabi means literally "of the Slavs", which in Al-Andalus was a general term for enslaved northern Europeans, as the two had been enslaved as children. They were in the service of another al-Saqlabi, a chief of police, and they worked they way up as civil servants till a local military coup in 1010, which resulted in them becoming the emirs of Taifa of Valencia. English language sources often describe them as "brothers" and "eunuchs", which gives the "historical gal pals" trope a concerning twist, but contemporary Muslim sources wrote fawningly about their passionate love, trust based on equality and mutual devotion. There was a popular genre of homoerotic poetry in the Islamic world at the time and poems in that genre were written about celebrating Mubārak and Muẓaffar's relationship. In 1018 Mubārak was killed in a riding accident and Muẓaffar shortly after in an uprising.

4. Eleno de Céspedes (1545 – died after 1589)

CW: genital inspection

Eleno was born in Andalusia, Spain, to an enslaved black Muslim woman and to a free Castillian peasant. He was assigned female at birth, given name Elena, and branded as a mulatto born to a slave. She was freed as a child and married to a stonemason at 15-16 years old. When pregnant, her husband left her and died a while later. Later Eleno testified that his intersex condition became externally visible, while he gave birth, and he became a man. He left his son to be raised by a friend and traveled around Spain. After he stabbed a pimp and ended up in jail, he started presenting as a man and openly courting women. Eventually he taught himself to be a surgeon with the help of a surgeon friend.

When he married María del Caño, his maleness was questioned and he was subjected to genital inspection multiple times and it was agreed by doctors that he had definitely male genitals, possibly also female genitals. After a year of marriage the couple was accused of sodomy. Eleno was tried by the Spanish Inquisition and subjected to more genital inspections, during which no penis was found. He claimed that his penis had been amputated after an injury. He defended himself in the trial by arguing that his intersex condition was natural and he had become a man after his pregnancy, so his marriage was legal. He was sentenced only for bigamy, since he had not confirmed that his husband was dead and punished as a male bigamist with 200 lashes and 10 years of public service to care for the poor in a public hospital. His fame attracted a lot of people wanting to be healed by him, which which was very embarrasing for the hospital so he was sent away and eventually exonerated from his charges.

7. Chevaliére d'Éon (1728-1810)

Charles d'Éon de Beaumont was born to a poor French noble family. In their 20s they became a government official and at 28 they joined the secret spy network of the king, Secret du Roi. They became a diplomat first in Russia and later in Britain while they used their position to spy for the king. Rumors circulated in London that they were secretly a woman. While in London they had a falling out with the French ambassador, accused him of attempted murder and published secret diplomatic correspondence. They were instead accused of libel and went into hiding. After the death of Louis XV in 1774 and the abolishment of Secret du Roi, d'Éon negotiated with the French government of the end of their exile in exchange for the rest of the secret documents he possessed. D'Éon took the name Charlotte, claimed she was in fact a cis woman - she had pretended to be man since a child so she could get the inheritance - and demanded the government to recognize her as such. When the king agreed and included funds for women's wardrobe, she agreed and returned to France in 1777. After that she helped rebels in the American War of Indepence - was not allowed to ]go and fight too, ghostwrote her not super reliable memoir, offered to lead a division of female soldiers against the Hasburgs in 1792 - was for some reason denied, attended fencing tournaments till 65 years old and settled down for the rest of her years with a widow, Mrs. Cole. After her death a surgeon reported that she had male primary sex characteristics, but fairly feminine secondary sex characteristics, like round breasts, which might suggest she had hormonal difference/was intersex in some way.

8. Public Universal Friend (1752-1819)

Public Universal Friend, or The Friend or PUF, was born as Jemima Wilkinson to Quaker parents in Rhodes Island, USA. Jemima contracted a disease in 1776, gained intense fever and almost died. The Friend claimed that she did die and God sent the Friend to occupy her body. The Friend didn't identify as man or a woman, and when asked about the Friend's gender, the Friend said "I am that I am". The Friend didn't want any gendered pronouns or gendered language to be used about the Friend. The Friend's pronouns, according to the writings of the Friend's followers, were "the Friend", "PUF" and possibly he. First recorded neo-pronouns perhaps? The Friend also dressed in androgynous/masculine manner.

The Friend started a bit cultish religious society disavowed by mainstream Quakers, The Society of Universal Friends, which I can only describe as chaotic good. The Friend first predicted a Day of Judgement would come in 1780 and when 1780 came and went, the Friend decided it was New England's Dark Day in 1780 and they had survived survived the Judgement Day so all was good then. The Friend preached for gender equality, free will, universal salvation (Jesus saved everyone and no one will go to hell) and abolition of slavery. The Friend persuaded any followers to free their slaves, which is probably the most chaotic good thing a potential cult leader can do with their influence over their followers, and several freed black people followed the Friend too. The Friend advocated for celibacy and was unfavorable towards marriage, but didn't think celibacy or rejection of marriage were necessary for everyone else, so it feels more like a personal preference. Many young unmarried women followed the Friend and some of them formed Faithful Sisterhood and took leadership positions among the Society.

The Society of Universal Friends tried to form a town for themselves around mid-1780s, till in 1799 the Friend was accused of blasphemy. The Friend successfully escaped the law two times. First the Friend, a skilled rider (what's a gender neutral version of horse girl?), escaped with a horse, then after an officer and an assistant tried to arrest the Friend at home, women of the house drove the men away. Third time 30 men surrounded the Friend's home at night, but a doctor convinced them that the Friend was in too poor health to move but would agree to appear at court. The Friend was cleared for all charges and even allowed to preach at the court.

9. Mary Jones (early 1800s–1853)

Mary Jones' origin is unknown, but she was an adult in 1836 in New York, USA. She was a free Black person, who preferred to present as a woman. She was sex worker by trade and used a prosthetic vagina. As a side hustle she would steel her customer's wallets, and usually they wouldn't tell anyone because it was 1830s and inter-racial sex and prostitution were illegal and everyone was repressed. Smart. Get your coin, girl. However after one of her more shameless customers discovered his wallet with 99 dollars inside had been replaced with a different man's empty wallet and contacted the police, she was arrested. The police discovered she had male genitals and when they searched her room they found several more stolen wallets. She appeared in court in her female presentation and when asked about her dress, she said that prostitutes she had worked with encouraged her to dress in women's clothing and said she looked better in them. They were right and she had since presented as a woman in her evening profession and among other Black people. She was convicted for grand larceny and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Later she continued to present as a woman and practice sex work, for which she was arrested for two more times.

10. George Sand (1804-1876)

George Sand was pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, a French Romantic writer. Amantine was high-born with a countess as a grandmother. George wrote about themself with alternating masculine and feminine language, using feminine language when talking about his childhood, but masculine language often other times. Their friends also used both masculine and feminine terms about them. Victor Hugo for example said about them: "George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother." George preferred men's clothing in public, which was illegal for those seen as women without a permit, but they didn't ask for permissions. They alternated between masculine and feminine presentations. They were outspoken feminist, critic of the institution of marriage, committed republican and supporter of worker's rights. They were married at age 18, had two children and left their husband in 1831, but legally separated from him in 1835. They had many affairs with men and some with women, at least with actress Marie Dorval. Their most notable relationship was with Frédéric Chopin, but they fell out before Chopin's death.

[featherandferns]

slipping (fic)

jj maybank x fem!barry's sister!reader | the reader is canonically adopted so all my POC lovelies aren't left out!

content warning: drinking; brief mentions of drug abuse and suicide; sexual content (p in v, oral, hand-stuff)

word count: 18k.

blurb: you and JJ have been in a secret relationship for seven months. And it's great. It's perfect. It's just what JJ's always wanted. Except, you don't want to be a secret forever, and JJ can't risk you finding out his history with Barry.

Barry’s house looks like a crack den. To be frank, the word ‘house’ is rather generous. It’s a run-down trailer which looks half-abandoned: surrounded by ditched appliances (like busted washing machines that people had driven out to the farthest stretch of the marsh rather than making the trip to the rubbish tip); overgrown grass and unkept shrubs; a car that no longer runs, pawned off for the valuable parts, now claimed by nature as roots grow within. The only sign that there’s life at this place - outside of the rats and critters and birds - is the tire-tracked make-shift driveway along the grass, so deep that it’s clearly well used.   

JJ parked his bike near the road, hidden in the trees of the marsh. His heavy boots sink into the grass - damp from the rainfall last night - and he shoves his hands in his pockets as he works his way up the drive. He knows he’s being somewhat brazen about the whole thing, heading up to the house in clear view, but he has good reason to. As he gets nearer, rounding to face the netted porch, he feels his smile beginning to show.

“Hey,” he calls.

You look from the motor you’re tinkering with. Smile pretty like the first sunrise of the year.

“Hey,” you say.

JJ steps up the three stairs in two steps. Leans against the frame of the porch.

“You here to pick up for your dad?” you ask. You’re wiping your hands on a rag that’s tucked into your short’s pocket.

“Not quite,” JJ says, watching as you stand. “Your brother home?”

“Who? Barry?” you wonder, playing dumb.

JJ rolls his eyes and smiles wider. “That one, yeah.”

“Nah,” you say casually, sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the back pockets of your shorts. “He’s running an errand.”

“Damn. Guess I came at the perfect time,” JJ plays along.

“Almost like someone tipped you off,” you reply.

You’re standing in front of him now, a little shorter than him. He can’t keep his hands to himself any longer. Hooking one around your waist, JJ leans down to press his lips to yours. The abruptness makes you giggle against his mouth and it keens him on. One of your hands lifts to stroke at his face; your fingers gently tracing over his stubble that’s coming through since the last shave. Pulling back, you smile up at him. That sweet, soft smile that he’s privy to.

“Thought you weren’t gonna get here ‘til later,” you quietly say. He notices that your eyes keep flitting down to his lips, half-distracted.

“Missed my girl.”

“Your girl?” you echo, quirking a brow.

JJ doesn’t reply outside of a shrug. You chuckle, blinking up into his eyes. He feels like he could drown in yours. Bathe in the endlessness of them.

Your arms loop around his neck, tugging him down nearer to your face. JJ lets his hands rest on your hips a moment before swooping down to find home just under your shorts. His fingers tease under the denim, tracing the soft skin of your backside.

“You gonna take care of your girl or what, then?”

“Impatient, huh?” JJ chuckles. He cuts off his own laugh by pressing his mouth to yours once more.

You mould against him as if the two of you were made to be together. Follow the tilt of his head with yours as he deepens the kiss. Lusciously tease your tongue against his, pulling back enough to have him chasing your mouth. If he could – if there weren’t too high a risk with him doing so – he’d take you right here on the porch. Bend you over the abandoned entryway table or have you atop of him on the couch. But inside is better and safer, so he lets you guide him in, fingers dancing through yours as you flash a smile at him over your shoulder.

He can remember a time you used to be embarrassed of the interior of your house. JJ knew rough living – his dad was far from house proud – but Barry’s place was a different level. The stove didn’t work and the door hung forever open, broken on the hinges. Half the cupboards didn’t shut right and roaches were so frequent they may as well pay rent. But he never judged and never commented. Especially now, as you pull the two of you into your bedroom, pushing him against the wall with that contagious laugh of yours that makes him smile.

“Was thinking ‘bout you this morning,” you tell him. Your hands are working at the fly of his shorts.

“What about?”

He’s watching the nimbleness of your fingers as you pull down his zip. Has him grinning, body tingling at the thought and the excitement. Being wrapped up in you is like opium: euphoric and addictive.

“Just how good you fucked me last time,” you casually sigh.

JJ gasps through his brimming grin when you shove a hand into his boxers, rubbing at his semi. The way you look up at him, innocence faked on your expression like butter couldn’t melt in your mouth…it’s a deadly trap.  

“I got a little impatient waiting. Had to take care of myself this morning. All alone,” you go on, coiling a hand around his neck to coax his mouth nearer to yours.

Your hand is still working at him, pulling him out of his boxers now, and JJ stammers a moan against your grinning lips as you squeeze gently around the head.

“Guess I gotta make it up to you then,” he somehow manages.

“Guess you gotta.”

Moving to kiss him again, you move your hand faster. Take a moment to spit on your palm, to help it slide easier. JJ lets his hands roam your clothed body (why are you still dressed?) and settles on palming at your breast under your t-shirt, touch half-restricted by your bralette. As he feels himself edging, he groans against your mouth, breaking the messy kiss.

“’M close,” he sighs, eyes slipping shut.

The way your spare hand caresses his jaw is a stark juxtaposition to what you’re doing to him, under the belt. It reminds JJ that it’s you – familiar, perfect, wonderful you – and that only drives him closer. Has him moaning out, unashamed for you to hear the sounds he makes. Only for you.

“We got time,” is all you say, voice quiet like it’s a secret, and JJ knows that he can let go.

We got time for more.

He comes with a shudder, groaning against your mouth, eyes clamped shut as he pumps himself in your closed fist, chasing the pleasure. You kiss him through his orgasm, trailing them along his cheekbone and eyelids. He chuckles as he comes down, opening his eyes to take in the mess on your shorts.

“Fuck. Sorry,” JJ mumbles.

You shake your head. “They needed a wash anyway.”

The two of you laugh, prompting his eyes to meet yours once more. You’re smiling at him, leaning forward to kiss him again, like a diver coming back for air, over and over. JJ’s impatient now. Tugs your tee-shirt over your head and shucks down your shorts and panties, following them to the floor as he lowers onto his knees. Your skin smells like rose and bergamot from your lotion. The smell screams of you and makes him smile against your skin, leaning his face softly against your thigh as he presses kisses, teething gently at the skin. You sigh out a moan above him, leaning your hands on the wall for support. JJ eases your legs open wider, mumbling playful demands under breath that have you lustfully giggling. Then he’s going at you, eating you out like a man starved for dinner, and the sounds you make are fucking heavenly. Gasping out his name, your moans are cutting into each other like there’s two sides of your brain competing. He’s only motivated more, lifting higher onto his knees, moving a hand around to roughly grasp at your cheek, manhandling you to appease his hunger. Fingers dig deep into the flesh. He could quite gladly die here, JJ thinks, as he goes down on you. Sinfully sweet and salty on his tongue, like a forbidden fruit. The tell-tale squeak in your voice is his signal that you’re close, but JJ doesn’t want you to come yet. Not yet.

He pulls away with a breath. You whine in protest, one hand even trying to shove his face back on you.

“JJ…”

He can’t help but laugh. Teasing and dark. He gets to his feet.

Your hands are shaky as they cup at his face, pulling his lips to yours. JJ pulls you off him, forces you so your chest is against the wall. The hastiness has you panting. All of your snarky quips are gone, lost to his mouth and tongue. Shoving his boxers down and pulling off his shirt, JJ grabs one of your hands in his, holding it against the wall, fingers interlocked. He’s already hard again, guiding himself to your entrance, forcing your legs apart wider once more with a foot against yours. Eases in with a groan, collapsing his head against your shoulder, fixated on your wanton moan.

JJ fucks you good and hard. He knows how you like it and what you want. His finger slips down to your clit, rubbing fervently, and you whine against the peeling wallpaper of your bedroom walls. His other hand never leaves yours. Squeezing at your interlocked fingers lovingly, strikingly different from the painful pace he’s set.

“Feel so fucking good,” he pants against your clammy skin. Your only reply is a whine. “You getting close, baby?”

“Fuck, yes,” you shiver.

It spurs him on. Makes you louder. It’s obscene and filthy and…And it’s over too soon.

You collapse against the wall when you come, voice so loud he’s only half-worried it might carry across the marsh. JJ shifts his hand away from your bruised clit to help hold you up. It’s like your limbs have turned to jelly. You let JJ use you to find his own relief, groaning against your clammy back as he finishes inside you and thank Christ for the pill. Through the euphoric haze, he half registers your fingers teasing softly at his hair, soothing him through it.

Breathing heavy, he lifts his head to find yours glancing over your shoulder, eyes watching him. You’re veering for a kiss and JJ gladly indulges.

“Jesus fuck,” JJ dozily mumbles against your swollen mouth.

“Language,” you reply with a small, breathless laugh.

The two of you can’t help but groan as he slides out. You wiggle your fingers against the wall.

“My hand’s going dead, JayJ,” you mumble, almost apologetic.

He lets go. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you chuckle.

Turning around, back now against the wall, you loop your arms around his bare chest and lean against him, the way a sloth might wrap itself around a tree. JJ sniggers, brushing a hand through your hair. He feels you press a tender kiss to his chest that’s still struggling to catch breath.

“You tired, huh?”

“Mhm,” you hum. “You came at the perfect time. I was like one minute away from throwing that motor out into the marsh.”

JJ quietly grunts as he lifts you up – your legs hooking loosely around his waist – and he walks the two of you back to your bed. The pair of you cuddle up atop of the sheets, letting the few rays of sunlight that leak into the room warm strips of your skin. He finds himself drawing mindless patterns on the skin of your thigh, and you appear to be doing the same on his chest.

“Who you fixing it up for? The motor?”

“You know Mr Lewis?”

“Is that the guy who works at the deli?” JJ checks.

“Mhm. It’s from the delivery van. I told him I’d have it done by Thursday,” you reply, yawning. It’s currently Tuesday.

JJ forgets sometimes that you’re a high school dropout. You’re smart enough to graduate. Easily smarter than him. One time, when he was losing his mind over some algebra homework that his teacher insisted he do (that was, if he wanted to skip out on retaking a year), you had taken the time to explain it to him. The way you laid it out was so simple and easy, like reciting the alphabet or counting to ten. But whenever he asked why you dropped out you would just reel off the usual self-deprecating excuse. That people from your family don’t get high school diplomas - it just wasn’t a thing.

“How’s school?” you ask as if you’d been following his line of thought.

“Boring,” JJ sighs. “Bit more fun now that John B’s back though.”

“Still can’t believe they survived,” you say. Then, shifting to meet his gaze, you add, “not in a bad way, just-”

“No, no, I know what you mean,” he eases. One of his fingers comes to tease at a strand of your hair, smiling down at you. “I mean, I wouldn’t believe it either. Hell, I didn’t, for a while.”

You chuckle at that, nodding, lowering your head back down onto his chest.

This is good. This is good for JJ and good for you. Not only is it good, but it’s fun. A secret is fun. Nobody else knows: not even the Pogues or your brother. These clandestine meetings and rendezvous and unknown dates are the definition of excitement. Nobody knows that JJ spends nearly every night buried in you, and that the unsaved number on his phone is filled with sweet, soft and sometimes sensual texts that came from you. Inside jokes than have accumulated over the seven months of your relationship. Nobody knows that JJ knows Barry’s younger sister as more than just that flippant title. That he knows your favourite television show and your favourite singer, and he knows the way to twist his fingers just right to have you bordering on screaming. He knows what it feels like to have your mouth on him and your teeth biting down onto the skin of his shoulders, but also what it feels like to make you laugh and to see you work. What it feels like to be at the mercy of your stare. He’s lucky enough to be in your light and be acknowledged by someone so strangely pure for all the shit the universe had thrown your way. If JJ got dealt a bad hand, then you got dealt fake cards. But all the darkness and grit hadn’t made you mean or distant. Instead, it made you glow, like tossing logs into an open flame.

“Wish I could meet him.”

“Who?” JJ asks. He’s lost in thought, eyes staring up at your ceiling. There’s a patch of mould in the corner that you’ve tried to conceal with some cheap, fake ivy vines.

“The president.”

“Really?”

You snort. “No, you moron. John B.”

JJ’s attention comes back to the conversation. He swallows, somewhat nervous. He hates when you bring this stuff up.

“I mean, you have met him.”

“Sure, like I’ve spoken to him at a kegger like…Two years ago?”

“He’s really not that interesting of a guy so,” JJ lamely says.

“Not that interesting? JJ, John B was a wanted fugitive who lived in Nassau with Sarah for like a month or something? Come on!” you reply with a laugh.

He closes his eyes at the sound. You sound so light and cheerful. He just knows whatever he replies with is going to crush it, like treading on a freshly blossomed flower. Why did you have to bring this up?

JJ shifts so he can slip out of your hold. You move to sit, legs half crossed, and he can feel your eyes watching him as he leans to your bedside table for the box of cigarettes you keep there.

“It doesn’t have to be soon,” you quietly say to his back.

He retrieves a cig and slots it between his lips, reaching for the lighter. He’d engraved your initials in it the same way he had ‘JJ’ engraved on his own. Please, please drop it.

“Just…Maybe sometime this month?”

“They’re not very interesting people,” JJ manages out, voice muffled by the cigarette as he flicks at the lighter. He hopes it’ll discourage whatever interest you have in meeting his friends. Hopes his voice sounds casual. “We don’t do much, either. Just sit around and surf and stuff.”

“Well, same,” you eventually reply, happiness already dwindling. “So, I guess I have that in common with them.”

JJ leans against the creaky headboard of your bed and takes a puff of the cigarette. He looks down at the lighter as he fiddles with it in one hand. It seems you won’t let the topic go (not that he expected you to, if he’s being honest with himself). You grab at his attention by taking the cigarette from him, having a drag yourself. He watches as you exhale, smoke filling the space before you as you sit, naked and sweet. Holding it out to him, your smile is now gone. Instead, there’s this shadow of anxiety looming over your features.

“We’re together, right?”

JJ takes the cigarette back. “Yeah?”

“Is that a question or an answer?”

“An answer,” JJ clarifies. Then, “Yes, we’re together.”

“And we have been for seven months now, right?”

JJ takes another pull, looking away from you and to the doorway. “I mean, I don’t know the exact length of—”

“We have,” you interrupt, firmly. “Seven months, one week and two days.”

Crap.

“Didn’t know we were keeping score,” JJ nervously chuckles, hoping to lighten the mood somewhat.

But when he looks to you again, you’re not smiling. You’re shaking your head.

“I don’t want to be a secret forever, JJ,” you say. “I understand why you wanted to keep it quiet at first. I mean, I did too. Whilst we figured it all out and what this actually is.”

As you speak, you gesture between the two of you.

“But…I’m tired of sneaking around, JayJ. Of lying to my friends and my brother. Of not being able to talk about you to them. Because…Well, because I want to,” you meekly admit, shrugging. “I want to kiss you when everyone’s watching, as fucking dumb as that sounds, and I wantpeople to know that you’re taken, and that you’re taken by me.”

It takes everything in JJ not to wince at that. He swallows down your words with an inhale of the nicotine. Doesn’t hold your gaze because how can he? He knew his lie would catch up to him eventually. JJ has a bad habit of spinning these fables as if he won’t get tangled in the mess of it. Hell, his bad habit to run his mouth is the reason why JJ can’t let you two come out to anybody, not even the Pogues. If even one person knows about the pair of you, then Barry will find out. It’s inevitable. The Outer Banks is a small place and news travels fast. The moment Barry finds out is the moment you find out what he did. It’ll be the moment he’ll lose you, forever. And that fear – that genuine risk – is far worse than having to sneak around, in JJ’s world.

“Hey.”

Your fingers brush against his, coaxing his hand into yours, intertwining the digits until you’re holding hands. He looks up at that, looks into your eyes. You’re smiling again, soft but solemn, like you’ve read some mellowing news.

“I don’t wanna rush you, okay? I just…I need to know that eventually, we won’t be a secret anymore,” you say quietly.

JJ smiles at you – the best smile he can manage – and nods. Lifts your interlocked hands to his tobacco tasting lips, pressing a kiss against the skin. Rose and bergamot.

“We won’t be,” JJ tells you. Nods, affirming it. Almost willing it into reality. “We won’t be, alright? Just a little more time.”

When you smile, he swears he feels his heartbeat ease. JJ’s thankful that you kiss him, because he can’t keep looking you in the eyes and act like it doesn’t kill a part of him to lie, straight to your face.

~*~*~*~*~*

U lol

JJ can’t help but smile at the meme you’ve sent him. It’s so stupid, hardly even a joke, but somehow it taps into his sense of humour perfectly. JJ sniggers as he replies.

“What you smiling at?” John B wonders.

JJ looks up from his phone. Instinctively turns it off before anyone can catch a glimpse of the screen.

“Just this thing,” JJ shrugs.

Kiara’s plucking the strings of her ukelele, lounging in the hammock that JJ nearly fought her for. He’s taken one of the deckchair loungers instead. Pope’s sat by the tree. He’s flicking through local history books, trying to see if there might be any clues in there about the island room. JJ thinks it’s a lost cause but got shut down the moment he started to say so. John B is still brooding from his break-up with Sarah. At least the boy wants to drink – now that’s something JJ’s glad to get on board with.

“You’ve been texting someone for the past half hour,” John B says.

“You stalking me or something?”

“It’s hard not to notice when you keep giggling like a girl at your phone.”

“Since when do I giggle?” JJ counters.

“Since today,” John B quickly replies. Then, he pulls out his phone and gives an award-winning impersonation. JJ gladly flips him off.

“I think our little playboy is whipped,” Kiara says from the hammock.

“I’m not whipped,” JJ says.

“But you are talking to someone?” she checks.

JJ rolls his eyes. He hates the grilling. Wishes they’d all back off. Despite his lack of an answer, it seems to be more than enough for Kie.

“Who is she?”

“Nobody. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” JJ says.

“Those are two different answers, man,” John B tells him.

“I thought JB was bad at lying but that might’ve been your worst,” Pope indirectly agrees, not looking up from his book.

“Look, the important thing right now is getting John B macking on someone else, alright?” JJ redirects, pointing to his best friend. “The fastest way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else, I’m telling ya.”

“Spoken like a poet,” Kie comments.

“I’m not interested in anyone else, JJ,” John B says. “Sides, even if I wanted to hook up with someone else – which I don’t - who the hell would it be?”

“Bro, I’m telling you, that chick in English is totally into you,” JJ says. “Like she’s practically drooling at her desk whenever she looks at you.”

“Is she now?”

“Yeah, man. I’ve got eyes, don’t I?”

“Debatable,” John B mutters, looking back to his phone.

JJ feels himself relax back in his chair again.

After the conversation the two of you shared the other night, JJ’s feels haunted. The way that you kissed him, all happy and sweet, when he’d just lied to your face…Kie would tell him that karma was waiting at the ready. That is, she would if she knew about it. JJ didn’t like lying to you. If he could, he’d go back in time and he’d leave the house and the money like the rest of the Pogues said he should. He’d do the right thing for once his sorry life.

Sighing, JJ rocks his head backwards and glances absentmindedly to the hammock. He’s a little surprised to see that Kie’s already looking at him. She’s watching him, practically studying him, and has this expression on her face that makes JJ swallow nervously.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs. Looks back down to her ukelele.

JJ watches her a moment longer before finally looking away. It takes a liar to know one.

~*~*~*~*~*

The tide’s come in.

There’s barely any beach left and it’s pushed you back to the sand dunes. JJ cusses as he spots you, sat with your knees near your chest, staring out to the water like something from a poem.

“Hey! I’m here! I’m here!” he hollers, jogging over.

You turn around at the sound of his voice. No smile. “You’re late.”

“I know, I know,” he says, coming to a stop before you. “I’m sorry, alright? This thing, with the Pogues, it just ran over but—”

“And you didn’t think to text me?” you sigh, holding up your phone. “I mean, my legs are bitten to hell now by the skeeters.”

“I’m sorry,” JJ repeats, dropping to sit beside you. You shake your head, looking away, but don’t move your hand from his when he reaches for it. “I should’ve made up an excuse or something to leave early.”

“Or you should’ve just told them the actual reason why you needed to leave,” you mumble, ticked off.

JJ sighs and leans over, pressing a kiss to your exposed shoulder. It prompts you to look to him. Your lips are still pressed in an unimpressed frown. He gazes into your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” JJ tells you once more, sincere and genuine.

You deliberate it over with a small sigh, rubbing your lips together in thought. Eyes scan his face and his features.

“Okay,” you relent. A twitch in your cheeks, teasing for a smile. “You’re off the hook. Don’t do it again, though.”

JJ nods, smiling too. “I won’t. I won’t, alright?”

“Okay,” you smile, properly. He kisses you, making you chuckle through your nose.

“You look cute, by the way. I like this,” he says, thumbing at the fabric of your top.

“Thanks,” you say. “If you weren’t late maybe I’d tell you that I like your shorts.”

“I thought that I was off the hook!” JJ loudly returns, making you laugh.

He grins at that. He likes when you laugh, and even better when he’s the cause of it. It makes your eyes go all crinkly and cute.

“Not all the way,” you playfully reply. “What were you guys caught up with, anyway?”

JJ shrugs and leans back on his elbows. The sunset looks pretty from here, over the horizon. It shines a tapestry of colours on your legs.

“Nothing important.”

Nothing important, asides from trying to figure out what the hell an island room might be.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re lying to me?”

JJ’s head darts round to you with that, but you’re grinning at him, dispelling his worry that you’re onto him. There’s a smudge of oil near your eye from the latest handy-man job you’ve taken on. He licks his thumb and moves to wipe it away, smiling when you cringe.

“Like I would ever lie to you,” he jests as he wipes at your face.

You bat his hand away. “Ah, the thing every girlfriend wants to hear.”

JJ leans in to kiss you, unable to help it as if he’s craving another hit. He’s gently grabbing at your face to draw you closer. He swears he could make-out with you forever and never get bored. Screw food and screw water and screw air. This. This is what livings about. Humming out a moan, JJ eases you onto your back on the sand, hovering atop of you. His lips leave yours to trail delicately down your jawline. He practically purrs when you bring a hand up to play with his hair.

“You know the bonfire’s this Friday?”

“Mhm,” JJ hums against you, half-listening. His senses are flooded by the smell of you: roses and bergamot.

“You busy that night?”

“Don’t know yet,” he says, barely breaking away from the hickey he’s started working on, at the underside of your jaw. One of his hands slips under the pretty top you’re wearing, palming at your breast.

“Well, I think I’m gonna go,” you tell him. Your voice is a little breathless now. “I was wondering if you wanted to come too?”

“As in whether I’m going or…?”

“As in us going together,” you correct.

JJ slowly eases up on his assault on your throat. He closes his eyes, briefly tensing his lips together. Fuck.

“Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna be free that night,” he says, hoping to sound casual.

Your fingers tether in his hair enough to pull him away from your neck. It’s like you force him to meet your gaze.

“Well, if you are free, then do you wanna? I don’t know, I thought it’d be kinda nice? Could meet your friends and stuff, and you could meet mine,” you say, smiling bashfully.

And it’s sweet. It’s so sweet, and thoughtful, and if JJ wasn’t such a fucking idiot, it’d be the perfect way to publicise your relationship. It isn’t that JJ doesn’t want to. He wants to, more than anything. To have your hand in his in front of everyone at school, and to have you dancing with him and drinking with him, and to let everyone know that you’re his as much as he’s yours.

It isn’t that JJ doesn’t want to. It’s that he can’t.

“I, um,” he pulls away, resting back on his haunches. His hand slips out of your top.

You shift up to sit, watch as he looks away, down the beach. There’s nobody else around. The only thing you can hear is the lapping of the waves, the steady crash and break of the tide, and the distant calling of birds.

Clearing his throat, JJ rubs at the back of his neck and fixes his cap.

“I think if I go, it’ll, uh, be with my friends, you know?”

Quiet. Another bird. Another wave.

His heart clenches at the sound of your sigh. It’s heavy with disappointment.

“Yeah. Uh, right. Of course,” you mumble.

“Just cause like, it’s like a tradition that we go together, you know?” JJ tags on, looking to you. “And John B’s proper losing it with this whole Sarah shit-show.”

You’re nodding, lips pursed, staring down at your hands that twiddle together in your lap. You sniff sharply and force your face up to meet his. The smile you flash him is brief and fake. He can see right through it, like you’re made of sea glass.

“No, yeah. It was a dumb idea anyway,” you chuckle dejectedly, shaking your head. JJ frowns.

“No, hey, it wasn’t dumb—”

“—Look, I gotta be heading back soon. Well, now, actually,” you say, moving to stand up.

JJ watches you do for from his spot on the ground. From here, under the light of the setting sun, he can see the sheen to her eyes as if there are tears welling. Fuck.

“Baby, no, you don’t—”

“—No, no, it’s just cause it’s late,” you weakly continue, grabbing for your cardigan. You wrap it round you and glance behind you. “And I told Barry I’d help him with some stuff tonight and…”

By the time JJ’s on his feet, you’re already starting to walk backwards. You flash him another tense, painful smile.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Well, I’ll…I’ll see you soon, right?”

You nod. Give an awkward wave, in a way you never have with him before. “Yeah. Um, have fun at school tomorrow.”

Then you turn your back to him and walk away.

JJ watches after you, frozen in place like he’s stupefied until you’re out of sight, heading around the bend of a tree. He sighs loudly. He’s mad at himself. Frustrated at the bullshit of the whole situation. Why did he have to steal that money, all those months ago? John B tried to warn him off it but at the time, it just seemed so simple. He didn’t know you then. You were just Barry’s sister: a name in an anecdote, usually revolving about how you dropped out of Kildare High. But now…Now you’re you.

Yanking off his cap, JJ tosses it on the ground, grunting. Rakes his fingers roughly through his hair. He looks out to the water and the dusk-painted sky. Once he’s gathered himself enough to walk home, JJ leans down to collect his cap. He brushes some sand off it and watches how easily it slips away, and how much it resonates with the feeling that you’re slipping through his fingers, too.

~*~*~*~*~*

The bonfire is swarming with people. They stand in crowds and droves, chatting and laughing and heckling one another. Empty bottles and cans lay scattered around, making Kiara sneer and roll her eyes. JJ follows his friends out the van, hooking an arm over John B’s neck. It still feels a little surreal to have him close again and to be able to lean on him whenever. Part of him wonders if he’s still in shock, of having his brother back.

As they walk past Kathy, she’s handing over a red solo cup to John B with a smile. JJ smiles back at her, grins as John B takes a sip, and tries to pretend like his heart isn’t going to beat out of his chest with the anxiety that you might be here tonight. He hasn’t spoken to you since the evening on the beach. Doesn’t really know what to say or where to start, and you haven’t reached out to him either. JJ’s not sure a silence has ever stretched so loud.

John B’s still complaining about the break-up with Sarah. JJ tunes back in and forces his mind away from the incident on the beach. Thinking about it only makes him feel sick.

“So she’s like, ‘that’s it’.”

“I know. I know, I know, but dude, her father blew up right in front of her,” JJ reminds him, moving to stand to his side. “Just give her a minute, alright?”

Ironic, spewing dating advice whilst his own secret relationship is falling apart behind the scenes. But, hey, nobody sees you lose when you’re playing solitaire.

JJ’s eyes catch on to a small pile of cans of larger. Hell yes, he could do with a drink. He swipes a couple of beers and passes one to John B.

“In the meantime, shot gun, right now. Like the old times.”

“Hey derelicts!”

He spins around as an empty cup hits him on the back, coming face to face with the girl that had been eyeing up John B in class.

“Hey! There she is! That’s you,” JJ says, gesturing to John B. He whips out his pocketknife, slicing into the can. “I’m outta here.”

 JJ hunches forward a moment when John B jabs him low, making him spill his beer. Turning away, taking a swig, JJ looks around. No sign of you so far. Maybe you didn’t show up. Sighing, he glances down at his phone. No texts, no calls. Nothing. Pocketing it, finishing his beer and already starting on a second that he swipes off a pop-up table, JJ moves to make the most of the night and to get his mind off you.

The drinks continue to flow and the conversations come and go. The warmth from the flames of the fire lap gently at his skin, keeping away any summer night chill. About an hour in or so, he’s leaning against the wall, chatting to Pope and Kiara.

“What I don’t understand is, if Karen’s a computer then how come she still works under water?” JJ says.

“JJ. It’s a show about a living sponge at the bottom of the sea,” Kiara deadpans, raising a brow.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s aiming for realism, dude,” Pope agrees.

JJ shrugs and looks out to the bonfire, absentmindedly scanning the crowds. There’s a nice buzz to him, helping the drinks go down smoothly. “Just always bothered me is all. Like whenever Sandy—”

JJ could recognise you anywhere, even blind. You’re looking at him too. He freezes, beer halfway raised to his mouth.

You look pretty. A pair of shorts – the pair of shorts – and a t-shirt, tucked in. Hair styled all nice, with colourful grips that he can make out, even from over here. There’s a bottle of beer in your hand. At the sight of him, you seem to take a swig. It’s almost like you scoff, but JJ can’t be sure. Then, one of your friends seems to be gathering your attention and you don’t spare another glance to him. Strange, how awful it feels to have you look away from him; to act like you don’t know him from Adam.

“That Barry’s sister?” Kiara asks.

JJ comes back to reality. Looks to his friends to see their eyes on you, too. He takes a swig of his drink, digging in his brain for a new conversation starter to drive the attention away from you. He really doesn’t want to think about all of that right now.

“She the one that dropped out?” Pope checks.

“Yeah. Probably a junkie like her brother,” Kie says.

“She’s not a junkie,” JJ can’t help but defend.

She frowns at him. “How’d you know?”

“Well, cause, like…My dad buys from her brother, right? So, he’s seen her around,” JJ shrugs, cutting himself off with another swig of his drink.

She raises a brow. “And he’s told you that she’s not a junkie? How does that line up?”

“Didn’t you used to have calc with her?” Pope asks Kiara, accidentally saving JJ in the process.

“Yeah. She was actually kinda brainy, too,” Kie replies, glancing back to you.

You’re laughing. JJ’s not sure if he’s imaging the sound or if the noise is carrying.

“I’ve gotta say, didn’t expect someone who looks like Barry to have a sister like that,” Pope mutters.

“Well, she’s adopted, so,” Kie explains simply. It wasn’t a secret, exactly. People just seemed to know that about you. “There used to be three of them: her, Barry and Louis.”

“Louis?”

“The eldest,” Kiara says. “He joined the army too but died in action or something.”

He didn’t die in action. JJ knows that for a fact. He killed himself from the trauma of shooting a man dead-on, leaving a suicide note to explain. He also knows that’s what drove your mom to start abusing pills, becoming hooked on oxy and eventually heroin, until she died with a needle in her arm. He also knows that’s what brought Barry back home, from the army, to take care of you, as a minor, so you didn’t have to go into foster care. Only knows that he did it because it was his mom’s dying wish. He knows that you don’t do drugs, outside of drinking and cigarettes - not even weed. He knows it’s because you’re scared of becoming a junkie like your mom and dying like she did. He knows you didn’t join the army because of what happened to your eldest brother. He knows you prefer to do handy-man jobs instead of following after Barry with the drug-dealing business. That you try to talk Barry out of it almost every day because of all the shit hegets into. Like being involved in fights and helping fugitives and being robbed of twenty-thousand dollars.

JJ finishes his drink in two large gulps.

“I need a refill,” he mutters, crushing the can in his grip.

Pope and Kiara aren’t listening though. He looks up to see they’re now watching something else. He follows their gaze to see a fight breaking out. Squinting through the flicker of the embers, he recognises the flash of blonde hair and the dart of brown. Topper and John B. The trio rush over to help.

It seems the fight with John B and Topper is the warm-up act to the large tiff coming. Before things can get anymore ugly, the Pogues are rushing away from the rowdy crowd, back to the Twinkie. JJ leans against the open window, finishing his beer with a burp.

“Well, that was a little unexpected,” he sardonically quips.

“Was it?” Kie asks from inside the Twinkie.

JJ shrugs, bobbing his head from side to side in deliberation. Then, his eyes catch someone moving in the distance. It’s like you’re a magnetic, always grabbing his attention. Wiping the back of his mouth, gaze still fixed on you as you seemingly mess with your backpack, as if preparing to leave, he deliberates going over. JJ has enough alcohol in him to swallow his pride and do so.

“Hey, I’m gonna be right back,” JJ mumbles, stepping away from the van.

Kiara frowns at him. “What’re you doing?”

“I need to ring it out,” JJ casually lies.

Kie rolls her eyes. The other Pogues are too distracted by discussing the fight to pay too much mind. JJ slips away and follows you out of sight. Then, he quietly calls out your name. You turn around on reflex.

“JJ?”

“Hey, I just…Are you leaving?” he asks, stopping a safe, unnatural distance from you.

Your backpack is slung over your shoulder. You shrug. “Well, you and your friends kind of broke up the party.”

“Topper started that, actually, so,” JJ lamely corrects, gesturing back to the fire.

You roll your eyes. “What do you want, JJ?”

“I wanna talk,” he says, stepping closer. “About what happened at the beach and everything.”

“It’s whatever,” you sigh. You shift your weight from one foot to the other, almost nervously. “It’s in the past now.”

“Is it? Cause we haven’t spoken since and…”

You quirk a brow as JJ trials off. “And?”

“Well,” he sighs, sticks his hands in his pockets. Strange, how after being with you for nearly eight months, it still feels abnormal to be so affectionately open. “Well, I miss you.”

“Wow, what lovely luke-warm sentiment.”

“Look, I’m serious, alright?” JJ says, walking over to you. He grabs for one of your hands and fights to keep it in his hold. You’re obviously reluctant to talk to him but JJ knows you have a weakness for him. That he can sweet talk his way out of anything with you. Part of him feels guilty for it, but the other part is nothing short of relieved. He battles to try and have your gaze meet his. “Where’s your brother tonight?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble.

JJ’s pretty sure you’re lying. He gently cups at your jaw, coaxing you to look up at him. The two of you hold the gaze for a while. There’s a plethora of emotions swimming in your eyes.

Sighing, relenting, you confess, “he’s collecting. Won’t be back until early morning.”

“Like six-ish?”

“More like eight-ish,” you reply.

Leaning down slowly, pressing his forehead against yours, he lets his eyes slip shut. “I’m sorry for being an asshole on the beach, okay?"

Nothing. Then,

"Asshole’s a strong word.”

JJ smiles. If you’re cracking jokes in his favour, then you’re warming back up to him already. The spool isn’t too far unwound to be past the point of repair.

“I have to go deal with John B, but can I come by afterwards? Make it up to you?”

“There’s a lot of making up you have to do,” you tell him.

JJ grins. “Well, we’ve got a lot of time to get it done.”

His smile dwindles only slightly when you pull your face away from his. He opens his eyes into yours. You’re gnawing on your lower lip, deliberating.

“You hurt me, JJ,” you whisper.

He looks down. Nods and purses his lips. Hearing you say something like that to him feels akin to you hurling a well-deserved insult.

“Don’t do it again, alright?”

“Okay,” he nods. At the squeeze of your hand in his, he finds himself looking back up, meeting your gaze. He nods again, firmer. “I won’t.”

“Okay,” you nod back. There’s a hint of a smile peaking through again, like rays of sunshine breaking through clouds on an overcast day.

Kiara hollers JJ’s name from the Twinkie, in the distance. You lean up and press a chaste kiss to his lips. It’s rude how quick it is.

“Come by later.”

JJ nods. Kisses you back, harder, making you chuckle. Then he’s heading back to his friends, sending you one last smile over his shoulder. It feels so secretive as if something taken from Romeo and Juliet; it’s almost exhilarating.

When JJ gets back to the van, Pope is sat behind the wheel, drumming a tune on it. Kiara and John B are talking in the back, the latter holding a cold can against his banging head.

“Where the hell were you, bro?” Kie asks.

“Did you take a dump in the woods?” John B adds.

JJ clambers into the front seat. Pope starts the engine.

“All them cans, man,” he lies, glancing out the window. “We heading back to the chateau?”

“Uh-huh,” Kie affirms. She sounds sceptical, like she’s deep in thought.

JJ doesn’t pay much mind to it. Instead, he nods and hides his smile behind his fist, leaning an arm against the open window frame.

~*~*~*~*~*

Echoing around JJ’s head is the preen of your voice from when you came. Sedated and spent, it almost works well as a lullaby, soothing him as JJ lies on his back on your bed. Your head has found home in the nook beneath his collarbone, tucked under his arm, nestled like a bird on its favourite branch. He leisurely strokes his fingers against the bare skin of your back, drawing patterns, writing incoherent sonnets. You’ve taken to joining his sparse freckles up by an invisible line, traced with your finger. It’s peaceful and perfect, and you’re not mad at him anymore, and JJ feels as though he can breathe right again. He sighs. Stares at the ceiling.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“What the hell am I gonna buy with a penny?”

“Fine. Quarter for your thoughts?”

“Do I get that now or should I request a down-payment.”

“You know what? Forget it,” you huff, amused, nonetheless.

JJ sniggers. Gently presses his fingers into the flesh of your back as an undefined apology.

“What do you wanna know?”

“What you’re thinking about,” you quietly reply.

“I’m thinking about us,” JJ privately returns.

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

And he is. Thinking about the way you were crying out his name, tears in your water line that only turned him on more. The way you whined when he roughly grabbed at your hips, pulling you any which way to appease the both of you. He’s still replaying back the crack in your voice when you came around him. After sleeping with you, JJ’s not sure how he can be expected to think of anything else.

“So, I wanted to ask you something,” you say, pulling away from his hold.

JJ’s peaceful threatens to break, like a truck rattling through a country line road. Please don’t let it be about the Pogues again.

“Yeah?”

The two of you naturally shift so you can look eye to eye, bodies now only connected by JJ’s lose hold around your waist and your entangled feet. It takes all his will power not to stare at your exposed chest. Namely, at the love bite he’s left on your clavicle.

“It’s my birthday next week,” you tell him, voice a little reserved, “and I thought we could celebrate together?”

“Oh yeah? I might have a few ideas on how,” JJ slimily jokes. He suggestively squeezes your hip as a smirk grows on his face. You roll your eyes and flush under his stare.

“Well, yes, that, but also…I was thinking a picnic? On the beach, at our usual spot? Just the two of us.”

JJ’s expression softens. He nods. You grin back in reply.

“Yeah?”

“Sounds good, pretty thing,” he says.

You laugh, raking a finger through your hair. “I don’t think I look all pretty like this but—”

“—I think you look the prettiest like this,” JJ grins in disagreement, leaning up to nudge his nose against yours.

Your laugh bounces off his lips.

JJ’s not lying. Seeing you post-sex is like seeing a Greek goddess in the flesh. Better, even. You sit bare for him, no shame in your figure and any of the so-called imperfections it holds. At the thought, JJ suddenly becomes more aware that he’s naked, too. To be so casual about it requires a trust between two people, surely, and JJ’s never been good at trusting. You, however, are trusting from the get-go. Naïve might be a better word, but that implies that you’re dumb and foolish, which you aren’t. You just have this hopefulness that everybody has a goodness to them, somewhere, deep down. Maybe living with Barry and his crowd drives that trait for you. People do bad things but they’re not bad people was the quote JJ knew you lived by.

JJ kisses you, sliding a hand up your thigh, chasing what the two of you had shared only ten or so minutes ago. You don’t seem to complain. You melt into his touch, kiss him back gladly, hook your arms around his shoulders.

“Wednesday. Next week.”

“Mhm,” JJ hums. He guides you to lay down, clambering atop.

“I’m serious. Seven P.M.”

“Yeah, yeah, seven,” he repeats against the flesh of your neck. He starts kissing down your sweat-sheened body.

Sighing, your fingers loops into the strands of his hair, tugging him to look up at you. JJ can’t hold back the quiet groan it elicits. He loves when you do shit like that. He meets your gaze and this might be the best angle he’s ever had of you, looking up from down below, making out your hooded gaze past your breasts. He feels himself harden at the sight.

“Tell me when and where,” you demand.

JJ manages not to roll his eyes. He presses a kiss to your tummy. “Seven P.M.”

A kiss to your abdomen. “Wednesday.”

A kiss to your pelvic bone, that has you exhaling in bated anticipation. He grins. “At our spot on the beach.”

“Thank you,” you smile.

With that, JJ goes down on you. He’s insatiable.

You’re still soaked from the last time you two fucked. The flavour of your cum mixed with his is fucking pornographic. Pair that with the sounds JJ spurs from you and he’s sure that the two of you have your tickets for hell already in your wallets. No complaints. If this is hell, JJ will gladly burn, all day long.

“Stop wriggling,” he says, lips wet.

“‘m sensitive, you asshole,” you slur.

“That how you should be talking to the guy eating you out right now?”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

You hook a leg over his shoulder, urging him back to your cunt. JJ chuckles darkly before pushing your legs open wider, going in again with newfound hunger, bathing in your cries and cusses. He’s only known religion when he’s lied with you. As he lips suckle at your clit, he teases your weeping entrance with his finger. Pushing in, his silver ring cooly slides against your walls. You whine out, fucked up and pretty, and JJ rocks against the mattress, hard again.

“Fuck, JJ,” you whimper.

He glances up a moment to see you’re rubbing a hand to your forehead. Face contorted in overwhelming pleasure, there’s tears in your waterline again for the second time that night, and its JJ’s doing. It feels fucking fantastic.

“You close, baby?”

“Mhm,” you moan.

He uses his other hand that isn’t finger fucking your pussy to hold your hips down to the mattress. Picking up the pace, JJ works at you, watching your face as you teeter closer and closer to the edge.

“Come on, baby. Show me how fucking pretty you look when you come,” JJ grins.

Your body swallows at his fingers when you finish. Walls contracting again and again, JJ mouths swears against the soft skin of your stomach as he gently eases you through your high. There’s a quiet sob of euphoria.  

“Nobody fucks you as good as I do,” JJ can’t help but boast, slipping his fingers out of you. “Gonna fuck you so good baby.”

He’s shifting you onto your stomach. Your body’s pliant like a rag doll but he knows you can take more. You’d tell him if you couldn’t; if you wanted him to stop. But as you raise your hips up for him, body dripping with cum that has JJ almost falling over the edge himself, he knows you want more. It’s like you were built for him or something. The yin to his libido-oriented yan. When JJ fucks you into the mattress, your face is mushed against the pillow. Wailing and moaning and fucking desperate. JJ finds himself coming all too soon and he does so with a groan of your name.

~*~*~*~*~*

In between school and treasure hunting and sneaking to and from your house, life still happens. Bills still need paying and food still needs eating.

JJ became used to working like a grown man ever since his mother left. His dad was less than reliable so if he wanted a full stomach and a roof over his head (unless he took advantage of John B), JJ had to start earning. Mostly odd jobs and side hustles to prevent the pockets from going empty. Running groceries to figure eight with Pope always helped. The other Pogues decided to tag along for the ride, too. They’re lounging on the boat, waiting for Heyward to finish bagging up all the produce they needed to deliver.

Sound carries easy on open water. It’s the sound of your laughter that catches JJ’s attention. He glances over instinctively. There you are, stood with three people along the jetty. You’re wearing a pair of denim-short overalls with a tee-shirt underneath. Not any tee-shirt: his tee-shirt. It sits a little big on you. Your hair is pulled back and you’re smiling. One hand in a pocket and the other holding a screwdriver. You must be doing an odd job on one of the local’s boats.

“I didn’t know she worked on boats,” Pope says.

JJ looks to him. He hadn’t realised that the others had clocked you too.

“Junkies gotta pay for their stuff somehow,” John B mutters.

“She’s not a junkie, dude,” JJ sighs. “Just cause her brother is don’t mean the whole family is.”

“Why’re you getting so mad about this?” Kiara wonders, glancing to her friend.

JJ shrugs. Shoves his hands in his short’s pockets. “Jus’ don’t think it’s fair talking crap about someone when there’s no need.”

“Not just anyone though, JayJ,” Kie says.

“Yeah. I mean, did you forget the fact that her brother literally robbed us at gunpoint?”

“And that you stole from him?”

“And that he laid you out for it,” John B finishes.

“I don’t need reminding of all that crap, alright? I’m perfectly aware. Damn,” JJ snaps, shooting the trio a glare.

Pope and John B seem to shrug it off. Kiara’s watching JJ again. It’s starting to become irritating, like a pebble that you can’t get out of your trainer.

“Kie what?”

“Nothing.”

“If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it,” JJ tells her.

She shrugs and glances back to you. Then, she shakes her head.

“Doesn’t matter.”

JJ can’t help but use the opportunity steel another look of you himself. You’re nodding at something one of the fisherman’s saying. Taking a glance over your shoulder at the boat, you point at something. It must be about the job they’ve asked for you to do.

“I wouldn’t trust her to work on my boat,” Pope says. “All I’m saying is, that family is bad news.”

“Since when did we judge others from the cut?” JJ mumbles, looking to his trainers as he scuffs them on the boat floor.

“Since their brother attacked us,” Pope returns.

JJ decides keeping quiet is best. It has to be, because if not, he won’t be able to hold his tongue any longer. He’s going to fly off the handle, in your defence, and they’re going to catch on. Worse, it might catch your attention, and you might just come over and casually introduce yourself to his friends, as if they hadn’t been speculating about you behind your back. The whole situation fills JJ with anxiety. The secret isn’t feeling so fun anymore. It’s bordering on dirty work, pummelling him with dread and shame, the same way a dealer might sleep with one eye open.

Heyward is JJ’s saving grace. He appears with reams of carrier bags in a small cart, calling out for the Pogues to start loading up. Later, as they set off towards figure eight, JJ glances your way one final time. You’re watching him. The smile on your face is gone and JJ’s never wanted to see it more.

~*~*~*~*~*

Time always passes quickly with you. It feels to JJ as though you’ve both been sat on your bed playing board games for less than an hour when two have passed. He sits across from you, messing with his lighter, as you deliberate over your concealed letters. He loves the way your brain works. You always have the most creative mind. It’s a shame it’s going to waste, out here, in the trailer.

A small grin comes to your face. You gather up your letters and lean forward to reach the board that sits atop of your duvet. JJ shamelessly glances down your tee shirt as it gapes open by the collar. It used to be his but you’d claimed it a month into dating him. He didn’t much mind. It looked better on you anyway. It was the one you were wearing at the docks, yesterday. Neither of you had mentioned that though.

“Zealous,” you say as you spell it out on the board.

Your fingers tap on each block as you count up your points. The chipped blue nail varnish shines bright in the sunlight streaking through your bedroom window.

“16 points with a double letter score on the ‘s’, making it 17.”

“17 big ones,” JJ mumbles as he writes your score down.

“Read it and weep, baby.”

JJ sighs in thought and leans back on his arms, deliberating over his letters. The room smells like incense, done to counteract the stench of mould, damp and cannabis.

JJ didn’t even know ‘zealous’ was a word. He debates on asking you what it means but decides against it. He sort of wants you to think he knows the word like you do, well enough to pluck it easily from your mind. It’d be funny to see you and Pope go head-to-head in this game, JJ comes to think. It’s a shame that’ll never come to be.

“Okay,” JJ says after homing in on his word. He begins to spell it on the board. “Asshole.”

“JJ, curse words aren’t allowed,” you tell him.

JJ glances up at you, midway through spelling. “Since when?”

“Since always. It’s in the rule book.”

“Who actually reads the rule book?” JJ snorts. He keeps spelling. “Sides. It’s not a curse word, it’s a factual term. The hole of the ass: asshole.”

“Thank you for that definition,” you sarcastically reply.

JJ finishes spelling and he begins to count up his points. He feels his grin begin to morph into a cocky smirk as he totals up.

“10 points anda triple letter score and a double word score, making this…”

He drumrolls on his knees as he takes a moment to do the maths in his head. “44 baby.”

“What?” you bark, leaning over to check.

JJ sniggers to himself as he goes to write his points. The pen is snatched from his hold.

“Hey!”

“You’re cheating!”

“How am I cheating?” JJ laughs.

“Swear words aren’t allowed!” you loudly tell him. You begin to remove his letters from the board.

“Hey!” JJ repeats, lunging over to grab them off you. You refuse to yield, holding them against your chest. “Gimme them!”

“You’re such a child!” you say, beginning to laugh.

JJ glances up to meet your gaze as he replies, “and you’re not? Stealing my letters from the board cause I got a better score?”

“I can’t give up my ‘z’ just for you to get more than double the amount of points with ‘asshole’!”

“Sore loser,” JJ mutters.

He’s still battling you for the plastic letters. In the process, he ends up knocking the board, sending all the other letters out of whack.

“JJ!”

“That was technically you, bro…”

“Let go!” you laugh.

You’ve tumbled onto your back now. JJ’s laughing too, trying to prise your hands open. He grins as he moves a hand under the shirt to tickle at your rib cages. Now you’re in hysterics, crying out, shaking from the humour.

“Stop! Stop! You win, alright! You win!”

Your hand tumbles open and JJ steals the letters back. He lamely tosses them onto the ruined scrabble board with a chuckle, instead leaning down to kiss your giggling mouth. You barely kiss him back through your laughter. JJ doesn’t much care. Hearing you laugh might be the best sound on earth.

“You can’t just kiss me and think you’re off the hook for ruining the game,” you say, opening your eyes into his.

JJ rolls his eyes mirthfully, propping himself above you with one arm. “Well, I didn’t ruin the game—”

“—You messed up the board!”

“Because you wouldn’t give me back my letters!”

You’re vivaciously laughing again, prompting JJ to do so, too. He presses wet kisses to your jawline. Breathes in the scent of you – rose and bergamot – and wishes he could bathe in the smell. Wishes he could bottle it up and carry it around with him, so he never has to be without. He doesn’t say that though. Knows you’ll laugh at him if he does. Instead, he kisses you once more before pulling back to meet your gaze. You’ve mostly calmed your laughter now. Reaching up a hand, you steal his skew-whiff cap and place it on your head with a playful grin.

“How’s it look?”

“You’re almost as handsome as me,” JJ returns, flicking at the lip of it.

You snort. “Impossible.”

JJ can’t help but kiss you again. You sigh into it. Stroke lovingly at his jaw. The moment he pulls away for breath, you’re talking again. He thinks he could listen to your ramblings and never get bored.

“Can you sleep over tonight?”

Plucking out a strand of her to mess with, JJ replies, “what time’s your brother home?”

“Why? You wanna sleep in his bed instead?”

“Har har,” he deadpans. Blows a raspberry against your throat, making you laugh. “Seriously, though. What time?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Maybe one-ish, in the morning?”

JJ nods. He tucks the hair behind your ear. “I don’t think I can.”

You sigh, not particularly irritated, smile still on your face. “He’s not that scary, JJ. I don’t get why you won’t just meet him. When you talk to him, you’ll be fine.”

“I just don’t want him thinking I’m treating his little sister badly. Gotta wine and dine you first,” JJ returns teasingly. He lies through his teeth as if it comes as natural as breathing.

“We’re not Catholics, JayJ,” you snicker. “I don’t think he’d drop dead if he knew there was a guy in my bed.”

“Still,” JJ says. “I don’t want to meet him by bumping into him in the morning.”

You sigh. You run your fingers through his hair in a way that has him weak in the knees. JJ loves how you touch him like he’s something precious; dote on him like a rich parent might to their only child. The way you look at him, it makes JJ feel somewhere between a young God and an innocent man. It’s like he couldn’t do wrong in your eyes. The thought shouldn’t bring as much dread to JJ as it does.

“Could you at least stay over on Wednesday night? Barry’s out of town for a couple of days, then.”

“Sure,” JJ shrugs. “Why Wednesday?”

Your smile momentarily falters. “Wait, for real?”

Oh. Fuck, of course. The picnic. Your birthday. His mind has been so scattered lately, with sneaking around and throwing the Pogues off his scent, and the chaos with the cross and the island room and Sarah and John B…Days seem to merge into one. It’s hard to keep track sometimes.

JJ hopes he plays it off well as he grins. “I’m just messing with you. I know it’s your birthday.”

Your sigh of relief is a little too real. It makes him feel guilty like a man on trial. You gently bat at his chest. “Asshole.”

“Hey! That’s a 44-point word,” JJ winks.

You roll your eyes and smile up at him, and JJ considers staying like this forever.

He doesn’t miss how your smile doesn’t stretch all the way like usual.

~*~*~*~*~*

It’s starting to feel like JJ needs organisers for his mind and thoughts. They’re racing, twenty-four-seven, robbing him of sleep. Daydreams about the cross and what the hell the island room might be. Daydreams about riches if they somehow find it. Daydreams about the future, with you always finding yourself at the forefront. White dress, gold ring, swollen belly…Thoughts about you and fears about people finding out. About the robbery that haunts him and how, because of his own stupid choices, the two of you may never reach that future. How he knows that you’re slipping away from him, slowly but surely, like sand falling through his fingers, grain by grain. How he might not be able to keep his grip. How it might all have been inevitably doomed from the start. I mean, aren’t all the greatest love affairs?

“You’re thinking an awful lot over there, JayJ,” Kiara says.

“Yeah. You’re probably gonna end up hurting yourself,” John B adds.

“Charming, man. Thank you,” JJ sighs.

He tugs off his cap and tosses his head back with another deep exhale. The Pogues are lounging around at the chateau.

“What’s bothering you so much?” Kie wonders.

“You know, just…” JJ gestures lamely. “All this bullshit cross stuff. No offence, Pope.”

“None taken, I don’t think,” he replies.

“I mean, couldn’t Denmark have just written co-ordinates or something. And made a spare key,” JJ mutters. He’s aware of the glare Pope shoots his way. “Jus’ saying.”

“It is a bit cryptic,” Kie backs.

Pope sighs. “Look, it’s somewhere on this island. If we get to it first, then the key doesn’t really matter. All I know is that it’s somewhere on this island.”

“Great. That narrows down our hunt,” JJ says under-breath.

“So broody,” John B teases.

“Yeah. I refuse to believe the cross is bothering you this much,” Kiara says.

“Why’s everyone on my back all of a sudden?” JJ snaps, looking to his friends. “Like, can we all just back off for now, alright? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

John B holds his hands up as if he’s surrendering. “Easy, JayJ.”

“We’ve woken the beast,” Pope mumbles, making the other two laugh.

JJ rolls his eyes. He lays back on the hammock and folds his arms under his head. The weed and the liquor haven’t made him loosen up. His eyes trace the clouds in the sky above, through the canopy of the tree. Somewhere in his daydreams and thoughts, as the rest of the Pogues chatter, he ends up closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

When JJ comes to, it’s with a start. It seems to startle Kie, too, who’s sat on the grass, lazily thrumming her ukulele.

“You good?”

He sits up slowly. Rubbing his face, JJ retrieves his cap. “How long was I out for?”

“Three hours.”

JJ is suddenly awake, any drowsiness gone in a second.

“What?”

Kiara shrugs and keeps plucking out the easily melody she’s invented.

“We tried to wake you up but you just shrugged us off, so we thought it was better if we just let you sleep. Seemed like you needed it.”

JJ only half hears her. His mind is still reeling from the reality that he was asleep for three hours.

“Wait, what time is it?”

He retrieves his phone from his short’s pocket. Pressing the power button, JJ cusses when he realises it’s dead.

“What’s the big deal?” Kie mutters, watching him get to his feet in a hurry.

“What fucking time is it?” he sharply returns. He’s lacing up his boots again.

She mumbles a less than needed comment under breath but pulls out her phone nonetheless, glancing at the screen.

“Almost nine.”

No.

No, no, no.

It must be written on his face, the soul-crushing, body numbing horror overcoming JJ. The kind of dread one gets when they remember on some idle Thursday a piece of paperwork they needed to do the previous day, though only worse. A million times worse. Kiara frowns up at him in concern.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” JJ mumbles darkly.

He yanks his cap off and paces the garden. He can’t call you – his phone’s dead. Would you even answer anyway? Will you still be at the beach? Should he go? No, of course, he should go. He has to go.  

“JJ, it’s clearly not ‘nothing’.”

“It’s none of your goddamn business, Kie, alright?” he snaps.

JJ doesn’t have time to feel guilty for snapping at his friend. He has to see you. He has to make this right. The sand is falling through his fingers now, the gaps between digits nothing more than gaping caverns.

JJ pulls back on his cap and heads straight for his bike. He kicks off the stand and starts the engine in a hurry. Then he’s hurling towards the beach-spot; secluded and quiet and serene - everything JJ feels as though he’s not. He practically dumps his bike in the process of rushing to see you, racing down the familiar track to the dunes. He’s panting, panic deep in his chest, a hand coming up to rub at his heart as if worried it might beat out his body. He looks up and down the beach, searching for any sign of you, and then his eyes fixate on something. He runs over, ducking down to see it’s your cardigan.

“Fuck,” JJ mumbles.

He looks out to the water. It’s sunset. Reflects on the water, shimmers on the sand.

“Fuck.”

JJ tightens his grip on your cardigan like it’s a part of you and heads to the house without thinking. He needs to find you and make this right. The stairs creak under foot as he hurries up them, onto the porch and inside the house. Ditching the cardigan on the kitchen table, he makes a b-line for your bedroom. The door’s shut. Rapping twice on the wood, quick and short, impatient, JJ leans against the doorframe. Calls out your name.

“I know you’re home, okay? Look, can we just talk?”

Knocks again, louder. Tries the handle. Locked. He repeats your name, calling out to you, tone desperate.

“I just wanna talk, alright!? Please! I know I messed up but just hear me out and—”

The door swings open. He’s breathing heavy, trying uselessly to alleviate his anxiety, and looks down to meet your gaze. His stomach constricts like a boa snake. You’re crying. Shoulders hung like you’ve lost a battle and body sagging like you’re exhausted.

“I…”

JJ’s words die on his tongue. An apology seems so minuscule now. It’s like trying to put out a dumpster fire with a glass of water.

“I lost track of time.”

You scoff. Shake your head, breaking his gaze.

“You lost track of time,” you repeat, under breath, voice unfamiliar.

“I did and…I know I messed up, okay? I’m sorry I just…I forgot and--”

“You forgot? You forgot, huh?”

You’re looking up at him now but your eyes are narrowed. The pain has morphed into anger. Lips are downturned into a disapproving frown.

“Did you think that’s how I wanted to spend my birthday, JJ?”

“I know, but I—”

“No,” you interrupt, holding up a hand. The tears are still falling and each one feels like a pinprick to JJ’s chest. “I’m talking now.”

JJ swallows thickly.

“Did you think that I wanted to spend my eighteenth birthday on the beach having a picnic? I mean, did you think I didn’t have better offers? That my friends didn’t want to throw me a party, and that I didn’t want to get drunk and celebrate with the people in my life that care about me? No! I wanted to go for a picnic because I wanted to spend my birthday with you. And you don’t even show up! You don’t call me, you don’t text! You just leave me, sitting there, like a fucking idiot, on my own. And do you know the worst part, JJ?”

He can feel his own lips quivering. Purses them together to fight back the tears. He can feel the tapestry ripping.

You hold his gaze as your lips form a demented smile. A solemn laugh accompanies your confession. “The worst part is, I wasn’t even surprised when you didn’t show up. In fact, I had a feeling that it would happen.”

“Don’t say that,” JJ whispers.

“‘Don’t say that?’ What? Say that you treat me like shit?”

“I don’t treat you like shit,” JJ argues back. Because he doesn’t, does he?

“You don’t—JJ! What can’t you see here?” you snap at him, gesturing around you. “You’ve been losing me for a long time and you’ve just let it fucking happen! It’s like you knew you were on thin ice and you just kept on jumping! I mean, did you want us to fail? Was it easier than just breaking up with me?”

“Why would I want us to fail!?” JJ shouts back.

You turn around and retreat into your bedroom, shaking your head. JJ finds himself following.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t have to answer you, JJ!” you scream at him, spinning around. “I mean, how else am I supposed to interpret this whole situation!?”

“I love you, alright? Isn’t that enough for you?” JJ yells. His tone is angry but his face is crumbling.

You shake your head. Wrap your arms around yourself like a hug. “No! It isn’t! It can’t be, okay? I told you before: I don’t want to be a secret forever, JJ.”

“You’re not a secret—”

“Then tell me why I can’t meet your friends? Why you can’t meet my brother? I know I don’t come from the best home, JJ, and I know my family is a mess and I’m probably gonna end up in an early grave like the rest of them—”

“-Don’t say that—”

“And I know I’m not the kind of thing that people want to show off but…” You catch your breath through your sobs. Steel yourself. “But I’m a good person, JJ. I know I’m a good person, and I deserve good things, and I deserve someone who makes me feel good.”

“I can,” JJ pleads. He clears the space between you. Grabs for your hands. Feels the ground break beneath him when you fight out of his grip. “I can make you feel good.”

“You don’t, though,” you cry. “I don’t feel good, JJ. I feel fucking used.”

No.

No, no…It’s falling apart and JJ can’t lose you. He can’t…This can’t end like this. He feels like he’s a kid again, begging for his mom not to walk out, begging for forgiveness from his dad. It’s screamingly familiar. He can’t lose another thing. He can’t lose you. Wasn’t that what all this was for? The lying and the secrets was all some desperate attempt to keep you. JJ had to keep you.

JJ pants, stood before you, feeling more vulnerable than he ever has before, even more so than when he’s laid bare in front of you. You’re still crying and it’s because of him, and that hurts worse than any punch JJ’s ever had thrown at him.

“Tell me how to fix this,” JJ begs.

You shake your head.

“Tell me how to fix this,” he repeats, demanding it. “I need to fix this!”

You lift your head slowly to meet his gaze. He knows he looks desperate. Sounds it, too. But he doesn’t care. Hell, he is. He needs you in his life. With everything else that has been going on, you’re the one ray of sun, always warming his soul. His smile and his shine. JJ doesn’t know joy without you. Doesn’t know love or pleasure or trust, like he does with you. His daydreams of the future are falling apart in this moment. No dress and no house and no family. Nothing. Just him and a bottle and his wasted heart.

“Let me meet your friends,” you manage out. “I meet your friends, and you meet my brother and meet my friends, and we go on dates together like normal people, and we don’t keep this a secret. And you show up to my birthdays and you’re not late to our dates and you stay overnight and…And I get to have you. All of you. Just…Just do that and we can try and make this work, JJ.”

JJ starts crying. He’s sobbing, stood before you, because he knows that this is over now. It’s over.

You nod. It seems his tears are answer enough.

“You can’t,” you whisper. You say it, as though something has just become clear to you. Shaking your head, taking a step away from him, the distance is already gaping. You cry. “Even when you know you’re going to lose me. Your reputation is still more important to you than I am.”

“That’s not it,” he argues, wiping at his face. “That’s not what it is.”

“I don’t care, JJ,” you confess in a breath. Wipe furiously at your cheeks and stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t have the energy to care, anymore.”

JJ hadn’t experienced heartbreak before. The songs and the films lied about it, though. They play it down. It’s torturous. Slow and cavernous and insurmountably painful. He clutches at his t-shirt, over his chest, as if thinking he could make the pain stop. He wants all of this to stop. And with the next words you utter, he feels as if it does. He feels as if his whole world stops.

“We’re done, JJ.”

 ~*~*~*~*~*

Since the break-up, JJ feels as though he’s sailing through a storm-ridden sea without a compass or guide. No direction and no sign of freedom from the turmoil. He’s drowned his sorrows and anxieties with drugs. Booze for the tears and cannabis for the regret. Numbs the anger with nicotine and waits until he’s exhausted to drop to sleep for fear of dreaming about you, in any capacity. He can’t decide which dreams are worse: the ones where you’re mad at him and crying, or the one’s where you’re happy and laughing over a scrabble board. All of them feel like nightmares.

The group must’ve sensed a difference in him, but if they have, they don’t bother to mention it. JJ’s grateful. It’s not like he could talk about it anyway.

“Wake up, JayJ,” Kiara says. She kicks at his feet.

“Quit it,” JJ mumbles into the pillow.

“Come on. We’re going on a walk.”

“Have fun,” JJ sighs. He’s been awake for about five minutes and can already feel the craving for another beer starting up.

Kiara keeps kicking at his feet. It’s starting to tick him off.

“I mean me and you are going for a walk. Now get up,” Kie tells him.

“I don’t feel like walking, Kie,” JJ says impatiently.

“I don’t care, bro. I’m sick of seeing you wallow in the chateau. We could find the island room at any moment and we don’t need you like this when we do.”

He knows that’s not the truth. JJ knows his friends care about him (as hard as it is to fathom sometimes) and he knows that the way he’s acting must be of concern. Especially because they don’t know why. Who would suspect a break-up for a guy who’s been nothing but single his whole life?

But JJ doesn’t feel like pity. He doesn’t feel like talking or spending time with anyone else but a bottle of corona. His plans to fall back to sleep and ignore Kiara’s demands are thrown out the window, however, when she dunks a pint of cold water on his back. JJ cusses out, shooting up, feeling his head pound at the motion. Still a little drunk.

“What the hell Kiara!”

“Rise and shine,” she smiles in faux sweetness. She ditches the glass on countertop and heads out the front door, onto the porch. “You got five minutes, princess.”

“Fuck off,” JJ mutters under breath.

Clearly, Kie’s not going to lay off anytime soon. If he goes on this walk, even for five minutes, maybe JJ can be left in peace for the rest of the day to drink himself stupid. Besides, it would work as a nice distraction from falling into thoughts of you and checking his phone every five minutes in case you decided to text him. With that motivation, JJ tugs on a muscle tee and ties up the laces on his boots. Kiara holds out a joint in an act of peace when he steps onto the porch. It works in moving her back into his good books.

“Come on, man. Let’s go into the marsh,” Kiara says, standing up.

JJ walks by her side, smoking the blunt, passing it to her now and then. The sounds of the world somewhat mellow out when they pass the threshold into the marsh. Trees and shrubberies and bushes surrounding them. Their feet follow a path made purely from being trodden so many times. JJ kicks at a nettle plant as they pass. He’s taken to trying to distinguish the different birds around them purely from their calls.

“I know, by the way,” Kiara says, breaking their silence.

JJ looks at her. “Huh?”

“I know. About Barry’s sister,” she tells him.

JJ’s stomach drops. He’s surprised he doesn’t lose his footing. Clearing his throat, looking ahead again, he shrugs.

“What are you talking about?”

“It was kinda obvious, JayJ.”

JJ clenches his eyes shut. “Kie…I really don’t wanna talk about this, alright?”

“I had a feeling about it at the bonfire,” she says, ignoring him. “I mean, I knew you were into someone that day at the chateau, but I didn’t know who. And then you were jumping to her defence for like no reason. The real clue was when you went into the woods literally right after she did. Like, seriously, bro? Subtle much?”

“Did you not hear what I said, Kiara? I don’t wanna talk about it,” JJ hisses.

Kiara continues, nonetheless. “Then at the docks, you were defending her again. That wasn’t the giveaway though. The giveaway was the fact that she was wearing your tee-shirt, bro. That just sealed the deal for me.”

“Congratulations, alright? You solved the mystery. Now can you please just let it go,” JJ sharply tells her. He takes another hit of the bud, hoping it’ll help to calm him down.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell us,” Kie says.

“Kiara-”

“I mean, I get wanting to keep it on the downlow maybe, but we’d have been cool with it,” Kiara tells him.

“I don’t wanna—”

“I haven’t told the others yet but—”

“Just shut up, alright!? Shut up!” JJ snaps.

His patience snaps like the fraying rope of a river swing. Plummets him into anger and drenches him in regret.

“What the hell, JJ? I’m saying that we support you, alright?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, Kiara,” JJ shouts. He tugs off his cap and wrings it angrily in his hands. “None of it fucking matters!”

It seems as if he’s yelling at her, but he isn’t. Not actually. He’s mad at himself. Furious at managing to muck up one of the only good things in his life. JJ meets Kie’s gaze dead on.

“She left me, alright? It’s over. So, it doesn’t matter anymore, okay? So just drop it.”

Saying it out loud feels as though JJ’s shoving his nails into an open gash.

He collapses onto a fallen tree trunk, dropping his cap and hanging his head into his hands. When he rakes his fingers through his hair in frustration, it isn’t sweet like when you do it, and it only makes him miss you more.

JJ hears Kiara sigh. She sits down next to him and he watches her in his peripheral a moment.

“Is this why you’ve been acting the way you have?”

JJ doesn’t reply. He only sighs deeply into the clamminess of his palms. It seems to work as an answer in and of itself.

“Shit, JJ.”

“Don’t pity me.”

“Too late.”

He sighs again. Slowly, he lifts his head out his hands, keeping his fingers pressed near his lips as if in silent prayer.

“Can I ask how?”

“How what?”

“How it all ended,” she clarifies.

JJ glances to her. Kiara’s eyes are soft with sympathy. JJ shrugs as if he doesn’t know. As if it’s a mystery why you up and left, when the clues are as a clear as a confession note.

“I fucked it up. That’s how.”

“I feel like that’s not the whole truth, JayJ.”

“But it’s the point, okay? I fucked it up, like I fuck up everything, like I knew I would. It was a fucking pipe dream anyway.”

“I don’t understand,” Kiara mumbles.

Leaning down, she retrieves his cap and dusts it off. It stings just to look at it. It’s the same one you stole from him during one of your usual scrabble-offs. You always beat him. Always.

 “Can you just tell me what happened?”

“Why?” JJ sighs tiredly.

“So I can understand why you didn’t trust us enough to tell us,” she replies. JJ hates the momentary hurt that swipes across her features. “Pogues don’t keep secrets from Pogues.”

JJ shakes his head smally, like a boy in confessional. “It wasn’t because of you guys.”

“Then…Why?”

“It’s because of me,” JJ admits.

“JJ. Self-blame isn’t going to work—”

“No, Kiara. I actually mean it this time, alright? It’s because of me,” JJ doubles-down, holding her gaze. It’s suddenly exhausting to try and keep a lid on his emotions. “She didn’t want to keep it a secret, okay? She wanted to meet you guys, and for me to meet her friends and stuff. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to. She’d get along great with you lot. I mean, she’s as damn smart as Pope and funny as hell. And she’s kind. Like actually kind, but not in a boring way, or in a push-over way. Just in a pure perfect kinda way. When she looks at me…God, this is going to sound corny as hell, but she makes me feel like I’m a good person. Like I can’t do anything wrong in her eyes. Least, she used to.”

A consoling hand is placed on his shoulder. It spurs him on.

“In all honesty, it started out as a secret because I didn’t think it’d last longer than a month. But then I started to fall for her, so hard and so fucking fast, and it scared the shit out of me. And I knew that if I wanted to keep her around, then she couldn’t ever find out about what I did to Barry.”

Kiara frowns as he says that, as if trying to follow. “Wait. Do you mean with the money and stuff?”

JJ nods, pursing his lips.

She shakes her head with a deep sigh. “JJ. That shit was so long ago—”

“It doesn’t matter. I still did it, alright? Barry’s all she’s got in terms of family and I stole from him. And not just a little bit. A lot. So if she ever found out; she’d leave me.”

Kie holds his gaze. “‘She’d leave you’? How do you know that?”

“I just do, okay?”

“No, JayJ, you don’t,” Kie tells him. “I mean, if she’s as good a person as you say she is, then how do you know she wouldn’t look past it? I’m sure she’s not blind to the fact that you do stupid shit, bro. Or that her brother isn’t the nicest of guys. He had a gun to our head, man.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Cause I lost her anyway,” JJ returns, perhaps a little sharply.

Out of guilt, JJ looks away from his friend’s eyes. He rubs at his face, perhaps in an attempt to distract himself from this pitiful conversation. JJ could do with a shower and a shave. Didn’t seem all that important in the last week, though.

“Can I say something?”

“I have a feeling that you’re going to anyway,” JJ mutters.

“Is there a chance that you were using the thing with Barry as an excuse?”

JJ face darkens into a deep frown. Looking to her, he asks, “what?”

“I mean…I don’t think it’s exactly a secret that you aren’t good at accepting love.”

“Gee, thanks, Kie.”

“Just, hear me out,” she says, stopping him before he can go off in a huff. JJ does so reluctantly. “Telling her about Barry means that she sees you for your good and your bad, and keeping it from her, and from us, and from everyone really, means that it doesn’t actually become real.”

“I’m not following,” JJ mumbles.

“Lemme put it another way then,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “Maybe – on some level – by keeping it a secret, you felt like you couldn’t really lose her if things turned out bad.”

JJ frowns again, though this time, it isn’t out of offence. Instead, it teeters on the line of confusion and understanding.

Kiara doesn’t expand more. Just lets him sit with it for a moment. JJ looks down at his feet, skimming at the overgrown plants.

Was that it? Was the thing with Barry – JJ’s big motivation to keep your relationship a secret – mostly an excuse?

He didn’t want Barry to find out because he’d definitely beat JJ’s ass again and hound on him for getting with his sister, and you probably would be crushed to know he stole from your brother, but…But then what? Then things would surely move on. He’d either have you or lose you, but it’d be reality. By keeping things secret, it was as if JJ was only playing half his hand. That maybe the stakes would be somehow smaller if he didn’t have you completely, because then he wouldn’t lose you completely either. Ironic, how wrong that was. How it didn’t matter in the end.

JJ had taken beatings before. He could stomach another from Barry if it meant he got to have you in his life. He knows that now. In fact, having you leave him hurt worse than any right-hook Barry could send his way. Being down in the dirt wouldn’t matter all that much if you were there to pull him out and dust him off. It wouldn’t matter if you were just there.

Looking to Kiara, JJ swallows his pride. “I don’t know how to fix it, Kiara. I…I don’t know if I can.”

She sighs and nods in thought.

“Tell me what the last straw was.”

“The last straw?”

“The thing that made it all end, for good,” Kie says.

JJ purses his lips. The shame comes slow and simmering when he replies. “I stood her up. On her birthday. Her eighteenth birthday.”

“Ouch,” Kie eventually whispers.

JJ nods, looking down at the ground. “Yep. ‘Ouch’.”

“Okay, you know what you gotta do then,” she sighs, hopping to her feet. JJ looks up and takes her in.

“What?”

“You gotta go all out.”

“Excuse me?”

“You gotta swallow your pride and pull a romantic gesture.”

JJ doesn’t have it in him to burst into fits of laughter. Instead, he stares at Kiara as if she’s sprouted an extra head. All he can do is repeat himself.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re righting your wrongs and throwing her a birthday gesture, and you’re going to do some serious sucking up and swoon the shit out of this girl,” Kiara instructs. She holds out his cap for him.

JJ eyes it as if it might be laced with chloroform. “She’s really not the romantic gesture type, man.”

“Every girl is, deep down. Sides. Not like you have anything much to lose now.”

His eyes dart back up to Kie’s. She’s not wrong.

With that numbing thought, JJ grabs his cap back, shoves it on, and jumps onto his feet. “Fine. Fuck it.”

“Atta boy.”

~*~*~*~*~*

It was nice to realise that JJ’s week in purgatory hadn’t impaired his planning capabilities. Once he’d finished confessing to the rest of the Pogues about his nearly year-long secret relationship with Barry’s sister (and taken the brunt of the onslaught of questions, teasing and berating), they were more than willing to help out their friend.

JJ took advantage of your trustworthiness and willingness to help others to lure you out, with Kiara as bait. She’d go to your trailer, sneak to your bedroom window (which JJ identified in his incredible, Louvre-worthy drawing) and lure you out to ‘help with her faulty car motor’. JJ knew Barry was out collecting until later that day, so it was fairly safe to send Kie out there. She was more than willing to do it anyway. In the meantime, John B and Pope helped JJ set up some romantic gesture per Kie’s instruction. He felt like an idiot as he did it. This wasn’t your style or his, but he was throwing the hail Mary now. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I.E. Fuck it.

But now that everything is set up, JJ feels like he might throw-up with nerves. He’s already ran his vape dry and it feels like the nicotine has hardly touched him. Sat on the jetty, illuminated by a myriad of candles which are definitely a huge fire risk, JJ meddles with his lighter anxiously as he waits for Kie to come back with you on the boat. The water laps at the rotting podiums, holding him up. He sighs and listens to the sounds of nightlife, as the clock nears midnight. Whenever he closes his eyes, he sees your tear-soaked face, the moment before you broke up with him. JJ doesn’t close his eyes.

The symphony of nature is broken apart by the hum of a motorboat. He glances to the sound to see Kiara stood behind the wheel. You’re sat in the back, legs crossed; face the look of scepticism. It morphs into daylight-clear betrayal when you spot JJ.

“Wait. What the…”

JJ shakily exhales and gets to his feet. He’s not used to feeling this nervous around you. Kiara slows the motor to a stop at the jetty, but you don’t move.

“You said you needed help with your motor,” you say to Kiara.

She smiles apologetically. “Well, JJ said you were pretty trusting.”

“I don’t want to see you,” you say to JJ now.

JJ nods. Instinctively he shoves his hands in his pockets, letting his nails anxiously dig into the flesh of his palms. “I know. I know you don’t but I can’t let you have a shit birthday, no matter how things go between us.”

It seems with that; you take in the sights of the jetty. The candles placed around the peeling-paint wood. Two pillows to save you both from splinters. Between them sits a scrabble board, already set up. You gnaw at your lower lip. There’s the smallest movement of your head as you try to shake it.

“Just…Just give me this, and then you don’t have to talk to me ever again, if you don’t wanna. Okay?” JJ sighs.

He extends out a hand for you. His heart thrums with anxiety as he waits for your reaction.

Your eyes move up to his. You regard him a moment. Then, with a sigh, you’re getting to your feet and taking his hand, letting him help you onto the jetty. Kiara flashes JJ a small, reassuring smile, and then she’s making off into the night.

“This might be the corniest thing you’ve ever done, by the way,” you mumble.

You remove your hand from his and stand defensively on the edge of the wood, making him a little nervous that you might fall in.

“I know,” JJ chuckles uneasily, glancing down to the set-up. “Don’t bust my balls yet though, alright?”

He sits down on one of the pillows. Nods for you to take the other spot. After a moment’s consideration, you do. You bring your cargo-covered legs near to your chest as if closing yourself off from him. He watches as your eyes dart down to the scrabble board, void of letters, and then down to your selection.

“What is this?”

“One last game.”

“JJ…”

“Just one,” he almost pleads. The two of you look at one another. Sighing, he shrugs. “I can’t let our last conversation end the way it did.”

“I don’t feel like scrabble,” you say.

JJ nods and looks down to pick at his fingernails. This was such a dumb idea. Why the hell did he let Kiara talk him into this? John B and Pope are probably watching from the chateau, placing bets on how long it takes for you to leave him there, sniggering at his uselessness.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t wanna do this, JJ,” you tell him, glancing out to the water.

“Just please let me get this out,” JJ says. “Then I can get John B to drive you home, if you want. Or Kiara can come back with the boat. Whatever you prefer.”

You swallow. “John B knows I’m here?”

“Yeah,” JJ nods. “They all do. They all know.”

“Know what, exactly?”

“That I’m a fucking idiot, for starters,” JJ tells you. “And that I was dumb enough to lose you.”

“The pity parade isn’t going to win you points, JJ,” you say.

JJ shakes his head. “I’m not trying to win anything.”

“So this isn’t a ploy to try and win me back? Shame. You had me going for a second.”

“I’m a fucking idiot.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I am,” he affirms. It makes you chuckle quietly. He can’t tell if the humour is genuine. “This whole time, I was telling myself we had to stay as a secret because of something I did, but I was bullshitting myself. I just…Well, I think a part of me just wanted you to myself, and none of the pressures of everyone else, but I think another part of me didn’t want to risk losing you.”

You frown.

“Yeah, dumb, I know, cause I did anyway,” JJ mutters. Makes your smile halfway return. “But then you thought that it was because of you, for some reason. That it’s because of who you are. That’s not it. That was never it. It’s just…It’s hard to explain…”

“You don’t have to explain it, then,” you say. JJ closes his eyes at the sound of your voice, sweet with understanding. “But you do have to explain this thing you did. The thing that made you want to keep us a secret.”

JJ shakes his head and purses his lips. “You’re gonna hate me.”

“I don’t hate anyone,” you tell him.

Shakily exhaling, JJ looks out to the water. He steadies himself like a first-time surfer, then looks to you. You’re watching him expectantly, waiting.

“I have a past with doing stupid things. I mean, I think you know that but…I can do really stupid things sometimes. I don’t think ten steps ahead and I make bad choices and I can’t be talked down from them. And it makes messes. I’m not proud of it, I need you to know that.”

You nod.

JJ sighs. “Do you remember when I told you about the gold?”

You nod once more.

“Well, we tried to pawn some of it off one time. We got sent out into the middle of nowhere on a fake-out and this guy stops us and robs us all at gunpoint.”

“Wait, what?”  

JJ swallows and nods. “Somehow we got the upper hand and it turns out to be Barry. I recognised him as my dad’s dealer, you know?”

You’re shaking your head. “He wouldn’t…Why would he do that? He wouldn’t do that…”

“I got angry, like a fucking idiot,” JJ sighs, dragging his fingers through his hair as he hangs his head a moment. “So I take the wheel and take us to his house and…And I rob him. Twenty-thousand.”

There’s no reply for a while. Merely the lapping of the water and the faint crackle of the candle’s wicker as it burns.

“You robbed him?”

“Eye for an eye, you know?” JJ mumbles, no conviction to his words.

“Why…Why didn’t you tell me this?” you can’t help but ask.

JJ swallows thickly. He shrugs as he raises his head to look at you.

“I don’t know. I guess because I wasn’t sure if you’d tell Barry, or if you’d leave me, maybe? Or maybe I just…You always do the right thing and you have this way of looking at me like I’m this good person. I didn’t want that to go away.”

Your expression is stoic. He can’t quite read the emotions on your face, as each seems to come and go so quickly as you process JJ’s big confession. It’s like trying to understand a story from a torn-up foreign book.

In the silence of your deliberation, JJ feels himself shrug again. He meddles his fingers together, gazing down at them; his forearms resting atop of his knees, legs brought up to his chest similar to your own.

“I’m not a good person. I do bad things and I make bad choices and I suck at doing the right thing.”

“Stop it, JJ.”

He looks up to you with that. You’re shaking your head.

“There are no good people and bad people, so don’t start falling into some self-destructive spiel thinking it’s going to make me feel better about any of this,” you tell him.

JJ nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I just…Why would Barry…I don’t understand,” you sigh. You clasp your hands over your face.

In that moment, JJ’s nearly certain he’s lost you for good. He half wants to gloat to Kiara that he was right; that you saw the real him and didn’t like it. But it isn’t a nice feeling. JJ hangs his head and prepares himself for the final blow. He’s already planning his request for John B to drive you back home. Debating if he’ll try and kiss you goodbye. Wonders which alcohol to wash it all down with.

“I’m sorry he did that to you, JJ.”

JJ’s head nearly flies off his head with how quickly it darts back up.

“What?”

“He told me he doesn’t do shit like that anymore,” you’re saying. JJ’s taken to watching your mouth, like he’s having trouble following your words in the silence of the night. “I told him I didn’t want him doing shit like that anymore. He lied to me.”

“I don’t understand,” JJ manages out.

You shake your head. “I’m not mad at you, for robbing him. People make bad choices, JJ, but that doesn’t make them bad people. The same way he went after you guys first. The same way I jumped to conclusions about why you wanted to keep this a secret.”

“How is that a bad choice?” JJ frowns. “I didn’t give you any better explanation for why. I was just so fucking scared that I’d lose you if you knew the truth.”

“Because I knew you weren’t the type of dumbass who gives a shit about family and reputation and appearances, but I still let my own fucking insecurities lead me to think that it was because of me. That you didn’t want to be seen with me because of my family, and all of their shitty choices. Including the gunpoint bullshit thing he pulled on you and your friends.”

JJ shakes his head. He instinctively reaches a hand out to you, grabbing at your trainer clad shoes and squeezing.

“I know more than anyone that people are more than their dumbass families.”

You chuckle solemnly at that. Moving your hand, you lay it atop of his and you don’t pull away when he flips his, palm up, and intertwines your fingers. It feels like you’re mending all his gashes from that single touch alone.

“I know you have every reason to say no to me here,” JJ begins. “I mean, I’ve been nothing short of a dumbass and…Well, I’m kinda beating around the bush here, but…”

You quirk a brow. There’s that smile he loves. Teasing and playful and perfect. You’re so fucking perfect.

“But here’s a crazy idea. How about we date, like normal people, and I don’t forget your birthdays, and I’m not late for our dates, and I sleep over at night. And you meet my friends, and I meet yours, and maybe I steer a bit clear of your brother still. Just to be safe.”

“Just so you can keep your balls.”

“Ideally, yeah.”

You both laugh at that. Both somewhat tearful.

You squeeze his hand.

“Well, if your friends know about us, we can just crash at the chateau more, I guess,” you say, voice reserved still, as if he might laugh in your face.

JJ doesn’t though. He smiles wider. Nods. “Now there’s an idea.”

“I think I’d be cool with that, then,” you half-whisper.

JJ smiles at you like you’re the sun and he’s the moon, and he’d spend forever in your orbit if you’d only let him. You might just.

Leaning forward, he kisses you, sweet and tender. You don’t let him pull back; moving to slide a hand around his neck, another slipping along his jaw like a priest’s gentle touch during baptism. This close, he can smell your perfume: rose and bergamot. And this; this is what living is for.

“I love you,” JJ confesses, the moment your lips break apart.

You laugh smally; your cherubic voice easing the cacophony of thoughts that had been plaguing JJ for the past month or so.

“I love you too, you idiot,” you return. Swiping your thumb over his cheek, smiling wider as he leans shamelessly into your touch, you add, “just stop doing stupid things, please.”

“Darling, there’s no way I can promise you that,” JJ returns.

He cuts off your wonderful laughter with a grinning kiss. He doesn’t care if his friends can see. If they’re making fun of him for how much he’s at your mercy. Afterall, JJ is in love with you. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.

[inficetegodwottery]

So. Werewolf 5th Edition.

Werewolf 5th edition sucks. A lot.

Edit- I made some errors in my initial edit of this post that were fuelled entirely by being underinformed and almost insensible with anger, disappointment, and anxiety.

Some very informative responses have been made that I intend to incorporate into a much better and less rambling post with those updates and corrections. I'll probably delete this one soon as I type that one together, so folks only see the updated version.

Sorry for any mistakes I made on this old version, again, I was in an extremely poor place mentally and thoroughly dispirited by the total butchering of what was supposed to be a less shitty and mean-spirited version of a setting I care deeply for despite its foundational flaws and 30+ year history of exactly this thing happening.

I'm still very, very angry. But it's important to be angry and correct. This post was not made by someone informed of all the facts, and I intend to correct that.

Paradox Interactive has made the brave decision to reboot the controversial Werewolf the Apocalypse setting entirely rather than try and fix it, and have somehow done a worse job than the games studio that released an RPG book titled an ethnic slur.

It's taken me almost a month since this came out to be anywhere near mentally prepared enough to even collect my thoughts on it.

Man, it is rare to see an edition of ANYTHING that pisses off old players, new players, players who want to keep the lore the same, players who want to change the lore, conservative players, radical players, and even powergamers.

How do you set out with the intention of making an infamously dated and poorly researched/outreached setting LESS uncomfortable and racist from a modern perspective.... and end up with something EVEN MORE racist and uncomfortable, but also suffocatingly tonedeaf, insincere, and deeply sinister and corporate in its erasure of existing issues rather than addressing them whatsoever.

We made the Get of Fenris irredeemably evil because some of them in the past were nazis and also nazis like Germanic mythology, so the viking werewolves are all nazis now.

Okay, I understand why you did that from a modern political perspective even if its kind of heavy hand-

The Native American werewolf tribes have been removed entirely and replaced with American Murican werewolf tribes. Renaming and rewriting them to be more respectful was just too much work! Now they're more inclusive. :)

The Irish werewolf tribe is now the Nature Werewolves tribe, like every other tribe of Werewolves also is, but also stripped completely of celtic origins.

The Red Talons are openly genocidal ecofascist malthusians and somehow NOT IRREDEEMABLY EVIL like the Get of Fenris are.

Also the feminist all women werewolves are no longer all women or even feminist. AND ALSO SOME OF THEM ARE SOCIAL DARWINISTS AND THATS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOOD THING!?!

Also we entirely dropped the themes about how forcing children to be a part of a war they barely understand while also lying to them about the crimes their ancestors committed that led to the current crisis is fucked up and evil.

Now its actually awesome to be a child soldier born into a repressive apocalyptic death cult with a siege mentality and everything is cool about that actually, you're the Good Guys, and no amount of covered-up historic genocides or internal/external bigotry will ever change that! :)

Also we solved the way people were uncomfortable with the idea that werewolf society is transitioning messily from being horrible ableist assholes that discriminated for centuries against those they view as deformed, disabled, or sexual deviants to new generations that don't care about that stuff, by removing disabled werewolves entirely! Problem solved! No more discomfort or moral conundrums! We are the liberal-est!

There's just something so unbelievably fucked up and suspicious about erasing entire minorities from a fictional universe because they were handled poorly in the first edition, rather than talking to writers and outreach specialists FROM the real world equivalents to those minorities to try and rewrite them.

Don't worry, we removed the group the setting was bigoted against! Problem solved! Just remove the minority!

I've written my own post on why the Metis/Crinos-born should be renamed and probably rewritten, but as a severely disabled individual with multiple hereditary disabilities that severely impact my QoL, outright removing disabled characters in a work of fiction because the prejudice other characters showed them in-universe made people uncomfortable makes me want to tear out someone's throat with my teeth.

Sure, completely remove my ability to play disabled a character fighting back against prejudice and bigotry, rather than rewrite the most uncomfortable aspects of YOUR FUCKING PORTRAYAL OF THOSE CHARACTERS to make it more clear who the sympathetic one is supposed to be.

It's just so unbelievably cowardly and whinging and wretched.

So fuck it, I guess!

Fuck the deeply applicable themes of being born into a well-intentioned but deeply flawed and bigoted society, and trying to create the better world your parents always told you your ancestors fought for, while dealing with the fact that your world is built on mass graves those ancestors helped fill.

Fuck a game that deals with intergenerational trauma and the ethical hellscape that is a highly religious society devoted to the very same ideals it often violates just to win fights against the enemies it created through its own arrogance and prejudice.

Fuck a game that lets you play someone born different, born strange and sickly, bouncing constantly between people who pity you and people who view you as subhuman, before finally finding the people, the family who love and accept and fight alongside you for a world that has never accepted you, but WILL FUCKING KNOW YOUR NAME.

That's not relevant to the real world at all!

There are no kids born in deeply flawed and hypocritical societies, who grew up on stories of the glorious future their society would create, forced then to reconcile the hopeful dreams of a better world with the comprehensive list of horrific things done in the name of that future.

There are no children born confused and alone in their navigation of the maze that is past atrocities, ethnic conflicts, religious prejudice and dogma, or modern propaganda attempting to erase the histories of all of those things.

There are no disabled teens who spent their lives believing they didn't belong in the world, kept going only by the connections they forged with other outsiders and people who fought back against the kind of wretched bigotry that suffocates children to death, who found homes and families they could trust outside the pissant communities they were born into.

Apparently those people don't need a game! They don't need to explore those feelings!

Just throw some more nazis in, so we can pretend we care about social issues or understand the redeeming threads of a deeply flawed gameline, ostensibly so we market it to leftist youngsters, but while we also erase the entire point of a game WHICH IS ALL ABOUT BEING PUNKASS YOUNGSTERS DESPERATELY TRYING TO FIND THE REDEEMING THREADS OF A DEEPLY FLAWED AND PREJUDICED SOCIETY THAT CONSTRAINS THEM, FINDING A WAY TO REBEL AGAINST BOTH THE EVILS OF THE RACIST BASTARDS WHO RAISED THEM AND THE POMPOUS SHITHEADS WHO WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD OUT OF GREED.

No! We want a squeaky clean, sterile white game that AmericanTM parents can be proud of their kids for playing! A marketable game, that advertisers will gladly pay Revenue to put their products in! Play the good guys, everyone! You're the good guys! Be a big werewolf UwU!

Don't worry about historical atrocities or the flaws of the society that raised you! That's Pentex propaganda!

Fighting bad guys means you can't do anything bad yourself! The Emperor told me so! Deus Gaia Vult!

A hollow, performative, offensive jizzstain that should've been scrapped in its crib. I have no idea how this edition got past a quality assurance team.

Hell I have no idea how it got past a legal team, given the number of real peoples' likenesses they used without permission.

Devoid of artistic integrity or merit.

[they-breasted-boobily]

Ways the plot of tua s4 could have been improved while including a lot of the same storyline:

It goes without saying that a 6 episode season was too rushed for even the shitty plot we got given, but I'll mention that these ideas would have worked better for an 8-10 episode season. Or maybe you could use them for fics or comics- I'd love to see them!

1. The careers and new lives of non-powered umbrellas: While Lila, Klaus, and Viktor had decent set-ups, the others seemed out of place. Diego's personality and desire to be a hero would have been better suited to a mall cop or traffic cop, where he feels undervalued and underutilised, rather than just beaten down as a delivery driver for jokes about peeing in a bottle. Luther only mentioned Sloane a couple of times in the entire series- with more than 6 episodes, it could have been possible to give flashbacks of him trying to get back to her, but her not recognising him and not being romantically interested. Not sure what changes could be made to his job or housing though. Allison's setup was mostly fine, but we really should have been given an explanation for why Raymond left- maybe lean into the horror of being taken from your time and timeline raising a daughter you suddenly have? Five would not work for the CIA except as a double-agent, either that or he would be retired as a fishing supplies store owner. Ben is his own whole point later in this post.

2. The marigold sake shots: I feel like this plot point added to Ben just being an asshole and scapegoat for the entire season, which could benefit from major changes. If left relatively unchanged, the fact that Klaus threw it over his shoulder could have led to greater implications if it landed on an unknown person behind them and gave them powers. This person could have been the subject of an episode or two as they were tracked down when it was necessary.

3. Ben's character: While s3 Sparrow Ben was a dick, he was not as edgy, conceited, or self-absorbed as he was in s4. I think it's fine to start his arc with him leaving prison, but making the crime as major as crypto fraud (just because you think it's funny) makes it much more difficult for him to seem likeable and relateable to Jessica or anyone else. If the crime was something more minor, or he was framed/unfairly jailed it could set up a revenge/redemption arc from the get-go. With his relationship with Jessica, it would have benefited from being more of a slow burn, or if the gradual unnatural obsession had more than 6 episodes to build up.

4. The subway romance: While I can almost understand why it was Five and Lila due to their history working together and especially using time travel together, I think if Five needed a romance (which I don't but show writers can't stand having one member of the main cast never being in a relationship), it should have been someone he met while on that 7 year subway adventure (probably an older woman) and settled with in Strawberry Tradwife timeline while Lila keeps looking for a way out for the sake of her children. Lila would find the journal a few months later and using both it and the subway map, get back to Five because she still needs his powers to get entirely out of the subway system. Could you imagine a scene with Lila trying to convince Five to leave the peaceful Strawberry Tradwife life he's always wanted after dealing with the trauma of being stuck in time twice?

5. Klaus's return to addiction: I think Klaus's arc could have definitely benefited from the season being longer. If there was a slower burn towards his addiction returning and his confrontation with Claire and if she stressed more that he didn't need to go down this path again, it could have really been impactful. The ghost sex trafficking thing was gross but if that was the only way to get him buried alive then so be it, because having him in a situation where he would have to directly face his trauma from the mausoleum and become stronger would be so good for the sendoff of his character. Maybe that could have been the point where he learned how to levitate?

6. Reginald and false memories: Why was the fact that he's literally not human and crafted this timeline so he could have as much power as possible (including a militia town) not explored at all? The plot should have revolved a lot more around at least verifying what he was saying about marigold and durango, if not about handing him a final defeat for this final season. Everything around him killing Ben led to huge plot holes (why wouldn't Klaus know the truth from Ben's ghost? Ben easily could have been spared and only Jessica shot. Why was Jessica being in a squid never explained?). While it's interesting to see the Umbrellas all give a brainwashed explanation for Ben's death, it couldn't be something as blatant as that, because Klaus would have to know even if everyone else was brainwashed. The brainwashing is an idea with promise, but it should have been something like Ben and Jessica being consumed by the giant squid together because Ben went against orders.

What other things could have been changed? I personally liked the CIA subplot, especially as it taught Diego to appreciate his family more. I also found Jean and Gene and the Cleanse conspiracy theorists to be fun new mini-villains.

[fushiglow]

Hello glow!!! Thank you for another lovely satosugu work! :)

I absolutely love how real and tangible your writing is - seeing them start with different states of being turned on and building together really paints such a lovely picture of what intimacy is without the expectation of a perfect start-stop :) 3 cheers to realistic sexual dynamics!

Also, I think that your link at the end of your post goes to Violent Delights instead - but maybe that's just an issue on my end!

Thank you so much for this lovely feedback (and the heads up about the link), I can't tell you how much your words cheered me on Friday! They came at a time I really needed to hear them so, if you don't mind, I'm going to use this ask as an opportunity to say a few things about my writing and why I do what I do — no obligation to respond!

Quite honestly, I have been feeling a little anxious about how I'm perceived as a writer recently. When Over the Threshold started gathering some steam in January, I only had five published works on AO3 posted over the course of six months. By the end of August, I'll have 18 published works for Jujutsu Kaisen, 16 of which will be complete. I have never been this productive in a fandom before!

A lot of the reason for that is because I'm finally learning how to work with my AuDHD brain. I love writing, I really do, and I'm constantly excited by the possibilities that reside within my brain. I have more ideas than I have time or hands to write them, but I want to explore as many of those ideas as possible. In the past, I would have forced myself to stick to the thing that I was "supposed" to write, rather than following the burst of inspiration and writing the thing that I "wanted" to write. To no one's surprise, that usually meant I ended up writing nothing at all.

I'm someone who seeks out challenges, and all the fics I've published in 2024 have been experimental in some way. Come Get Your Honey was a challenge in extended metaphor. Balance was a challenge in seamlessly blending two very different universes. Mailman AU was a challenge in format. Violent Delights was a challenge in pushing myself to new and uncomfortable places. Thunder was a challenge in encapsulating an entire world and history within a single motif without ever actually seeing that world and history.

I'm really proud of every single one of those works, as well as the speed I've written them at. I've published 92k words on AO3 already this year and written far more, so I feel like I can no longer justifiably call myself a slow writer. However, all the works mentioned above have artistic merit in the more traditional sense — i.e. they're not smut.

At the time of writing this, three of my five most recent works contain sexual content with varying degrees of explicitness, and it's hard to escape that pervasive (and flawed) idea that smut is "less serious" as a form of writing. Even writing smut in the first place has been a slow process of overcoming some of my own biases. However, sex is part of the spectrum of human experiences, and it's also deeply political. Whenever I explore it in my writing, you can be sure that I always have that at the forefront of my mind. That's why these works, too, have represented something new and challenging and exciting for me.

Discreet Delivery was the first piece containing explicit sexual content that I ever shared publicly and, with how rife top/bottom discourse is in this fandom (most of which is based on heteronormative ideals that I vehemently disagree with), I really wanted to make a statement straight out of the gate. I'm very proud of how I managed to weave a switch/vers narrative into a oneshot, and the feedback on it was wonderful.

Headroom, however, presented a very different kind of challenge. It was extremely difficult to write, because it doesn't follow the beats of a traditional sex scene. There's no satisfaction for Satoru nor for the readers, and that made it tricky to keep it engaging. I was also very nervous about showing a different side of these beloved AU characters and establishing a new dynamic between them while incorporating some of the broader themes from Over the Threshold.

Finally, Tell Me I'm Pretty was pure subversion, writing Suguru in particular in a way I've never seen before to challenge expectations about "roles" in sex. It meant I had no blueprint to work from, but I'm not interested in reproducing the same dynamics I've read a thousand times. However, that also means that I felt very anxious about how people would receive this fic — especially on GeGo Day.

The truth is, everything I write I write for myself first and foremost, but it's hard to keep sight of that when you're blessed with an engaged audience. This is a huge reason why updates to Over the Threshold take time. This fic is deeply important and deeply personal to me, but its growing popularity adds a pressure that I don't want to influence my writing. I feel a constant underlying need to outdo myself with every new fic and chapter I post, but that's unrealistic and unachievable.

Obviously, I want readers to enjoy what I write, but I know the moment I start writing for other people is the moment my writing suffers. That's the main reason why I'm reluctant to put anything behind a paywall, even if I feel frustrated with the way fanfics are casually consumed on the internet. Readers occasionally make demands of me without any respect for my time and effort and creative vision, and sometimes I look at what I've written and think, "Am I really going to give that away for free?". However, asking for anything beyond tips would change the game for me. Enjoying my writing is far more valuable to me, at least at this point in time.

All of this is to say: I really loved writing Tell Me I'm Pretty. I had a blast with it — until it came time to post, at which point I suddenly felt full of self-doubt. For you to appear in my inbox and tell me that you appreciated the realism of the intimacy in this fic? I couldn't have asked for anything more, thank you so much ♥️

TL;DR, I write for myself, but god, it's the best feeling in the world when readers resonate with my writing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I love you all to the moon and back!

[sebastianswallows]

The English Client — Eleven

— PAIRING: Tom Riddle x F!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: The year is 1952. Tom is working for Borgin and Burkes. He is sent to Rome to acquire three ancient books of magic by any means necessary. One in particular proves challenging to reach, and the only path forward is through a pretty, young bookseller. A foreigner like him, she lives alone, obsessed with her work... until Tom comes into her life.

— WARNINGS: none

— WORDCOUNT: 3k

— TAGLIST: @esolean @localravenclaw @slytherins-heir

I

Tom was displeased — not an uncommon occurrence. He was displeased with how familiar he’d come to be with the hotel and its surroundings, the lobby, the little restaurant, and how he knew by heart its every corner and the menu and the waiters. He was not a restless sort of person — on the contrary, he could lie in wait for a long time if needed — but it did disturb him how settled he now was in that muggle hotel.

He’d been picking at his breakfast since 6:30 AM. In fact, he’d been the first guest to arrive. By now it was nearly eight, and he had to be at Casa Ur by nine. His job���

He wasn’t suffering from a lack of appetite, not that he’d ever really had one. Living in an orphanage in London during the war had accustomed him to doing without many comforts. Rather, he dreaded going in. He may have been the last person anyone would suspect of laziness, but privately, he hated it. Hated having to report to someone, especially somebody inferior. Hated having his time wasted on the whims of others. Hated having to find his way through the sea of papers that were Oso’s home, always having to ask, or spend hours finding out where something was placed. Oh, to have a Time Turner and make this horrid morning last forever…

With a sigh, he downed his tea in one gulp, stuffed another fluff of omelette in his mouth, and left.

It wasn’t like he was going to meet Abraxas Malfoy, his old schoolmate, on his way to work. Indeed, they might never meet at all, if that old bastard Oso won’t let him work during the auction. But damn it, why did Abraxas have to be after the same book? It wasn’t like he was the most erudite of his old friends. Personally, Tom thought him a stereotypical dumb blond, getting by in his grades due to his good looks and family wealth. He could only hope Abraxas wouldn’t do anything stupid and blow his cover.

“Look on the bright side,” Tom said to himself. “Brax swore himself in service to Lord Voldemort. He wouldn’t refuse me anything.”

II

The end of the month brought summer’s end, and with it came Tom’s first payment — cut in half, as he’d only been there since the middle of the month. He’d finished analysing the three books and sent his notes off to the Baron, together with his confirmation that he would keep working there. He didn’t need the money, as he’d gotten into the habit of enchanting pebbles to be coins and newspaper pages into banknotes, but a salary was the perfect excuse to approach his target, his key of choice in that muggle institution, with an invitation.

“A date?!” she said, looking happier than he’d expected her to be.

“A date, an evening out among colleagues,” Tom smiled, leaning on her desk. “Whatever you like.”

“Colleagues, is it? So will Ambrogio be invited too?” she chuckled, eyes twinkling with a tease.

“Ugh, don’t.”

She laughed. “Is it that bad?”

“Let’s trade places one day. You’ll see.”

“No, I’d rather go on a date,” she pouted, coming around to lean beside him. “Where?”

“I had several ideas in mind… All of them a little selfish,” he said, slinking closer to her until their shoulders touched. “To start, maybe, the museum?”

“Really?”

It was not, of course, a selfish choice for Tom. He couldn’t care less about muggle history, ancient or otherwise, but he knew her to be the kind of sentimental soul that cared for it.

“And in the evening, I have tickets to a concert. We can have dinner in between. Your choice of restaurant, of course.”

She could barely contain her smile. Tom thought for a moment that she might even hug him, and his body braced for it, but it never came. The loosening of his muscles felt like a disappointment.

“Oh Tom, but you’ve barely earned anything yet, how can you afford —”

“Don’t worry about me.”

She sighed, clearly worrying regardless. It was a little cute, if he was honest. Through her open eyes, he read a thousand feelings, none of them seemingly connected with each other: fear and joy, anticipation, dread, and gladness.

“I want to spend more time with you,” he said in a low voice as he placed his hand over her own on the edge of the desk. “Being stuck down there all day while you’re up here and we can hardly see each other…”

“I know… I miss you too,” she confessed, blushing slightly.

“You do?”

He knew she did, of course. From early on in their acquaintance he’d attempted to seduce her, to get her on his side. He wore his tightest shirts just for her, even when the weather killed him. He walked her home a few times more since being employed there, and sat and waited for her to lure alleycats to pet them, or rushed with her to buy a baguette so she could feed the pigeons, or any number of useless things she thought to do in the evening.

“But… Tom, does this…” she started, chewing on her lip.

“Yes?” he asked, tension filling him as well.

“Does this make us boyfriend and girlfriend?”

His mind blanched, not helped by her looking up at him with those wide eyes, her lips so close, so kissable…

“W-would you like to be?”

He went back down to the basement smiling, his lips still warm after a little kiss. He touched his lips once finally alone, the taste of her already fleeting.

“Pull yourself together, Tom,” he said. “This is not the time to simper for a muggle.”

The rest of the day was compromised, naturally, as all either of them could think about was the coming Saturday when their date was arranged. There was a clandestine air about it too, as nobody else knew that they were going. It was exactly the sort of attitude he wanted to inspire in her about the two of them.

III

The museum Tom took her to was the Palazzo Altemps. In centuries past an aristocratic mansion, now home to a collection of art that spanned from antiquity to the Renaissance. It looked frail and solid all at once, full of colour and yet gloriously dead, the statues staring at them like beautiful corpses, frescoes billowing across the walls.

Tom thought it did well to cover the historical periods that she, too, was interested in, if her taste in books was any measure. He was right, she positively gushed when they came across the bust of someone whose book they had in their collection. But she was mostly fond of those displays that splattered across the eras, ancient Roman statues standing tall and cold against a faded fresco a thousand years younger, looking soft and fragmentary in shades of gold and blue that once used to be crimson and black before the ages changed them.

“Can you imagine living here?” she whispered, her head tilting back in ecstasy. A long, floral corridor stretched out before them, with a garden to the right seeping with a milky light. “So wide and open and beautiful…”

“I couldn’t,” he grumbled. “Think of how much maintenance such a place would require…”

His new girlfriend laughed at him, the chime of it resounding through the halls.

For Tom’s part, he was mostly struck by the conspicuous differences between things. Mainly those within himself. It was a strange experience to look upon the art of muggles as a wizard, and the art of Italy as an Englishman. He was, in this way, twice a foreigner, and yet…He felt like everything there welcomed him.

In spite of his criticism of the place, he knew he could be at home among those gentle smiles, the unseeing eyes, the outstretched arms, and even saw parts of himself in the leisure of a lean white leg or a smooth abdomen, or a gentle curl of hair. The thread-thin reeds in the distant landscape of a fresco, or the vaporous rays of a sunset over the horizon of a city.

Beside him, he heard his companion stop, standing in smiling contemplation of the same thing. Her hand brushed against his, and suddenly it felt right to take it. He did, and in a fluid motion, as if nothing else could possibly follow such a gentle act, her head leaned to rest against his shoulder. He felt her warmth in the crook of his neck, the softness of her hair against his cheek, and Tom couldn’t help but lean a little closer. He rested his cheek on the top of her head.

IV

She took them to a nearby restaurant for lunch. She claimed not to know the area very well, as she hadn’t gone wandering there since her earliest days in Rome, but Tom had come to trust her choices.

“So you’ve seen all there is to see, is that it?” he asked with a lopsided smile. Suddenly, his whole itinerary for the day seemed lacking.

“There is always more to see in Rome,” she said with a dreamy smile, cheek resting in her palm.

She seemed genuinely happy, and that soothed Tom’s ego somewhat.

“How many years have you lived here?”

“Oh my, it’s been at least six by now, I think.”

“And you’ve been working for the Baron the whole time?”

“Only for the last four years. The first two, I drifted from job to job, just at other libraries and shops…”

“Why did you leave?” he asked, taking a sip of wine.

“Some went out of business. It was a more tumultuous period, after the war. Others, I wasn’t really happy at. Some owners were mean, rude, demanding…”

“Unlike the Baron?” Tom asked with a grin.

“He is a bit of all of that,” she admitted. “But the opportunity to work with those books was… impossible to refuse. His collection is unparalleled, at least in Italy.”

Tom smiled and looked down at his plate.

“You agree,” she said — not asked — as she looked at him intently. “You’re still after the Delomelanicon, aren’t you?”

“Is is a fine collection,” Tom shrugged. “But my employer has something truly worthy of envy. The most rare of ancient esoterica. I suppose that’s why he’s so keen on acquiring Torchia. It’s too good to be left with the Baron.”

To his surprise, she laughed, wine trembling in her glass as she held it. It was not a mocking laugh, but something truly amused and girlish.

“Typical,” she trilled, her eyes shining. “The arrogance of old collectors… Well, then I guess you’ll just have to compete with the French gentleman.”

“Who, Malfoy?” Tom smirked. “I don’t think he’s French.”

He wanted to slap himself for saying it, but could not resist bragging that he knew something that she didn’t.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I happen to have gone to school with him.”

And there it was, his flaw, his arrogance: the mad and senseless instinct to impress her. Yes, he too knew important people, he too rubbed elbows with the aristocracy, and had a life before all of this.

But she was far from impressed.

“You couldn’t have,” she scoffed.

“And why not?” asked Tom with a cold squint.

“Why? Because he must be at least fifty years old…”

“… Ah.”

And with that, all of Tom’s plans crumbled. Of course it had to be the elder Septimus Malfoy, not his son… He should have guessed it from the start. Abraxas would never have gone through so much trouble for something educational, and his father never would have trusted him with it.

“So, will you?” she asked, her cheeks full with an impish smile.

“Will I what?”

“Compete with him for the book.”

Tom stuffed his fork in his spaghetti bolognese and frowned. There were various ways to say yes, and various ways to lie. Out of all of them, he chose the riskiest one.

“I will, with your help, if you wish to give it.”

She smirked and looked up from underneath her lashes. “Are you trying to take advantage of our special relationship?”

“Only if you let me,” he winked.

V

The concert was held in a park, where a wooden stage was raised in front of a tall fountain, lights hanging all around with garlands of fake paper flowers. There were seats among the flowerbeds and stands in the back with drinks. Tom bought two glasses of champagne for them, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, their coats up to their ears like barn owls to keep the midnight cold at bay.

It was a jazz concert, a novelty for Tom for whom it meant nothing, but she seemed to enjoy it. The band, a local group all dressed in black, played tunes that ranged from the energetic to the dour, and the air was filled with so much sound that Tom felt it in his chest. It was a completely new experience. He’d never gone out to enjoy music on his own, nor did he enjoy it in private either. Unlike most of his Slytherin classmates, he actually knew how to work a radio, but he’d always found sound in the background to be distracting when he worked.

And as he sat and listened to the band, he found no reason to change his opinion. Music was a waste of time, he thought. After each song, the audience applauded, and with the champagne glass tucked between his legs, he did so too, but privately he felt nothing. Their music was too fast-paced, too rushed, too out of pace with his own feelings.

He used the time to think of Mr. Malfoy. What did he really know about him? He’d been invited to his house for Abraxas’ seventeenth birthday, so they’d met. He remembered sprawling gardens with marble pillars, swans sliding on a lake, and a large, cold house. Tom knew Septimus to be a tall pale figure, distant, resplendent, and utterly dedicated to his family — not that Abraxas ever appreciated it.

The Malfoys were faultlessly hospitable to him, no doubt having heard of his magical skills from their son, and perhaps of his heritage too. But behind their manners and their perfect smiles, Tom detected, without even having to use Legilimency, disgust at his half-blood status, and underneath that, a certain envy.

He could only imagine, then, what reaction Mr. Malfoy would have at seeing him working for muggles in a foreign country. He sighed and bowed his head, his soul swirling with anguish and horror at the mess that was to come. And there was no avoiding it…

At his side, he felt a gentle hand. She nuzzled close to him, turning to look at him, frowning, as if to ask what was wrong. Tom raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on it, and for a moment all his worries were gone.

VI

They were walking side by side down the street that led to her home. After hours spent together, walking, briefly talking, looking at each other or just feeling one another’s presence, it was difficult for Tom to get back into the habit of hiding himself so well. He couldn’t even muster up the tried and true old charms he used with wealthy witches back in England. He was too much of himself that night, and he wasn’t sorry at being, however faintly, seen.

“What are you thinking about?”

He turned to smile at her. “You, of course,” he said.

“No you weren’t.” She was giggling, but through the midnight dark, Tom thought he saw sadness in her eyes.

He sighed. “Alright, I wasn’t.”

“Is it the books?”

He chuckled. She wasn’t far off, in a way. “Am I that transparent?”

“No,” she grinned, wrapping her arm around his. “Quite impenetrable, actually. It was just a lucky guess.”

“Is that so?”

“I used to think about books too, that’s all. Often even outside of work. It was fun, it’s… an infinite subject to get lost in.”

“Used to? What do you think about nowadays, then?”

That caught her off guard. “Erm, you know, everyday sort of things.”

Tom tightened his grip on her arm and made her look at him. With her gaze wide and open on his, he chanced a quick prod into her mind. He met no resistance, in fact, save for a milky smooth veneer, her thoughts were clear as crystal.

He saw himself. And one head shorter and a little less defined was a figure he recognised as her. Tom found it amusing that she saw him more clearly than she saw herself. They were kissing. His arms were around her, his hands gripping her head to hold her still. There was a swaying to their motions that seemed to change direction. It soon became clear to Tom that they were making love. His body covered hers in the middle of a plush darkness, their bodies like pillars of light, they moved together as smoothly as seafoam.

Her eyes went wide when he spent a moment too long looking at her, and she shifted her gaze away to the sidewalk. Her building was already in view. Did she guess that he had read her mind? It wasn’t possible…

Tom chuckled. He reached up and hooked a finger underneath her chin to tilt her face back up to look at him.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he asked, feeling more smug now than he had any right to be. “Hm? Do you want to show me something?”

She exhaled, and even that sounded shaky. “Maybe,” she said in a small voice. “W-would you like to come inside?” She didn’t even finish saying it before she blushed — more at her own phrasing than anything.

“I would.”

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

hiii

do you know about any looong slowburn sterek fics preferably with smut? optional magic stiles👀

hehe thank you❤️

Hi anon. @kevaaronday made this list for you.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words by isthatbloodonhisshirt (25/25 | 434,625 | Explicit | Sterek) “I apologize.” The cop finally looked back up at his face, seeming thrilled. “It’s just—it’s been so long. And we finally have you.” 

That was a bad word. Not found. 

Have. 

Stiles wrenched his hand free and took a step back, but before he could even think up a gameplan, he felt a prick in his neck and jerked away, reaching up to slap one hand against it and twisting in the same moment. 

One of the others had come up behind him while he hadn’t been paying attention, and his vision began to swim even as his eyes caught sight of the half-empty syringe the guy was holding.

Put Down in Words by paintedrecs (31/31 | 203,776 | Mature | Sterek) “Oh,” Stiles said, his voice coming out low and breathy, “fuck me.”

“I don’t think that’s on the syllabus, but we can check to see if there’s a spot open in any of his classes,” Scott said, grinning.

“This isn’t an actual professor, though,” Stiles insisted, unable to resist brushing his thumb over the sharp line of the man’s bearded jaw. He was laughing at something off-camera, the shot taken in three-quarters view, his coat collar casually rumpled and opened to reveal a sliver of a simple grey t-shirt. The whole thing was deliberately calculated to lend him a more accessible feel, and god help him, Stiles was falling for it.

*

When Stiles signed up for Dr. Hale’s intro to history class, he had two goals: knock out the credits his advisor was bugging him to complete before he graduated, and spend a few hours a week daydreaming about his sexy professor’s salt and pepper beard.

Derek, a few months away from turning forty and not sure when his life had started feeling so damn lonely, had never encountered someone like Stiles before. Bright-eyed, sharp-tongued, determined to throw Derek’s carefully cultivated world into disarray…and absolutely the last person Derek should be falling in love with.

Most (Im)Proper Proposal by Welsh_Woman (72/72 | 200,136 | Explicit | Sterek) Stiles Stilinski has not seen his childhood friend for going on ten years when Derek Hale insists on meeting him in a barely reputable inn to make a rather startling proposal…

The Hollow Moon by thepsychicclam (10/10 | 180,079 | Explicit | Sterek) It's the summer after Stiles' first year of college, and he's working a crappy job and dealing with nightmares and anxiety - but he's okay, he swears. He makes it through most days without too much trouble. Then, a certain werewolf comes back into town. Which Stiles doesn't care about, nope, not at all. 

After two and a half years, Derek returns to Beacon Hills with his small Pack. Though he tried to move on, something just kept drawing him back to Beacon Hills, he's just not sure what. Now, he figures he can start building something like a life - but he keeps getting distracted by Stiles Stilinski of all people.

Teenage Love Song by HaleHathNoFury (26/26 | 155,834 | Explicit | Sterek) Stiles is sick and tired of how much he fucks up. His dad is disappointed, his step-mom judges and his step-brother can do no wrong. It's not that he doesn't love them, he just gets so tired of being different. Now he's being moved lock, stock and barrel to Beacon Hills aka the town his mom grew up in so they can go live in his grandma's house and his father can get him back on the straight and narrow. 

It's going to suck.

B.E.A.C.O.N. by Mythological_Compendium (43/43 | 140,691 | Explicit | Sterek) "What better situation could there possibly be? We'll be pretty much stuck together, we can talk, drink and maybe later even…”

A scoff. “What? Have reunion sex?”

He shrugs. “It's been four years.”

Same Old Song and Dance by Halevetica (91/91 | 125,721 | Explicit | Sterek) Raised in the hunter life after his father was killed, Stiles hates werewolves. So when he lands a contract to kill the alpha of the pack that killed his father, he's elated. Until he runs into complications. The alpha is smart and strong and playing a game Stiles can't figure out. When secrets are revealed and new enemies made, Stiles must decide for himself what side he's on and who he can trust.

Bruises and Bitemarks by orphan_account (27/27 | 121,566 | Explicit | Sterek) Biologically, Stiles is weak. When he presented as an omega, he knew that to be the truth but that never stopped him from running his mouth as a defense mechanism. However, it could only save him so many times before he ended up pissing off the wrong person. After he's attacked in the parking lot outside of school, Stiles realizes he can no longer protect himself with just pure wit and sarcasm. When the attack lands him in the hospital, his dad forces him to pick between two options, report the alphas who attacked him or join a kickboxing gym run by omega rights activist and alpha, Derek Hale, a man Stiles has been in love with for many years.

Strip by Fessst (23/23 | 117,194 | Explicit | Sterek) "Singletail whip. Your favorite, isn't it?"

Red. Stiles felt nauseated as he bent over the bench. Red. The tremble only increased when his wrists and ankles were secured with leather straps. Red. He heard the Dom behind him give a sample crack of the whip in the air. Red. This would likely pierce his skin. So fucking Red.

"What's your safeword?"

Red.

"Stiles?"

"The... the stoplights, Sir."

Stiles's first introduction to the world of BDSM was a complete fiasco. You see, he had a crush on this ridiculously hot Dom and might have slightly exaggerated (ahem, lied blatantly) a few things on his questionnaire. Five years later the two meet again under a different set of circumstances.

A rare Alphahole by Fessst (27/27 | 110,538 | Mature | Sterek) Weed sale goes wrong and leaves Stiles with a dilemma of either facing prison or enrolling himself in Beta Rehabilitation Program for the next 6 months.

Anything beats prison, right?

Well...

Once he finds out that his assigned Responsible Alpha is the asshole who landed him in trouble, to begin with, Stiles is not so sure anymore. Especially since he has to fucking marry the guy! 

the trees call your name by spaceprincessem (2/2 | 107,656 | Mature | Sterek) “That was a long time ago,” Derek finally said, his face falling into its usual cool facade.

Stiles felt like he had been punched in the gut. Two worlds, right? Except, it had never really been two worlds at all. If they lived in two worlds, Stiles wouldn’t feel this unexplainable ache that ran deep in his bones. It had always been one world, with water slipping into the cracks, until there was an ocean between them. Stiles was always caught in the riptides, dragged out to sea where he was left to drown, sinking below the surface as Derek grew further and further out of his reach.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, forcing his lips to turn up in the corners, noting the slight crack in his voice, “long time ago."

aka the high school friends to lovers ranch au that no one asked for, but the one that i wrote anyway. This fic is finished, I will just be posting it in two parts!

Far From Any Road by doctorkaitlyn (28/28 | 103,835 | Explicit | Sterek) Stiles Stilinski is a young, chronically sleep-deprived detective who's manipulative and morally dubious at best. He's fairly certain that, in the years since he started working for the California Bureau of Investigation, he's seen most of the horrible things that the world could possibly throw at him.

But that's before a body turns up in an alley in Beacon Hills, brutally tortured, with a symbol burned into its back. It's quickly followed by a second and third, and when Stiles is unable to find any hint as to who the culprits might be, his father decides to bring in some outside help.

His name is Derek Hale, and he too has seen some truly horrible things, only some of them on the job.

Stiles hates him immediately. But Derek may be their only hope for solving the case, so Stiles reluctantly agrees to accept his help. 

As it turns out, neither of them have seen anything close to the depths of human depravity that await them in the woods and down the back roads surrounding Beacon Hills.

All a Pack Needs is a Little Spark by thornconnelly (21/21 | 82,884 | Mature | Sterek) Fork in the road fix-it that basically changes everything starting... an hour before the show actually starts. idk.

Stiles has a premonition that he NEEDS to go into the forest on a random night and saves Laura before Peter can kill her. Stiles doesn't know what he's gotten himself into, but he decides to help out the stray dog he finds in the woods, and then ends up joining a werewolf pack... as their Spark... because apparently he's got magic. 

What ensues is my whole-hearted desire for the Hales to have nice things.

[spotsupstuff]

hi

you've mentioned that sparrows would have reincarnated as a slugcat?

would you mind elaborating on that?

also would they have met caper again after becoming all scuggy?

heehee

hoohoo hee :)c of course i'll elaborate! it is Her ✨ Fish's little best animal friend

wonderfully enough, Sparrows and the Tinkerer were developed completely removed from each other in my head, so Tinkerer still feels like a rather separate character from Sparrows even though they somehow wound up havin a lot of similiarities. exactly how the reincarnation stuff should feel like

the Tinkerer is Sparrows! and no character in-universe will ever find out. it isn't important. nobody but Tinkerer is affected by this, and Tinktink doesn't really have the means to speak about it. but for us behind the screens that know about this it will make Tinktink's interactions with the world just a lil bit more juicy

you've sent this at a good time, too! the day ur question came in i was actually pondering how to somehow make use of this reincarnation fact and not just let it float about as a lil bonus for the people that would know about this lil tiny ultimately unimportant connection

so, the idea: as we (probably) all know, Euros is going to end up developing the Rot. this is distressing for a large amount of reasons, but the main point rn is that Euros is also a secret archive of folklore of the lower circles in the Eo group, plus maybe even a little bit over the range's borders to the east (after all, there's two more groups right next door to him n he's a phone operator chief). Euros is going to die a slow painful death and he won't be able to care for or save his collection of knowledge, which somehow manages to hurt him more than the reality of his impending doom

maybe not so surprising, considering that in his archive are the stories, the history, the spirit of his late lover's home- a place he clung to for as long as he could, the one he spent the most time in with his overseers, the one that held people he constantly wished could be his citizens instead of the vile and fake *things* soiling the streets of Ales

so one day after the Fish has properly reconnected to the Eo group, is caught up on current events and trying his *damnest* to revive Mission Self-preservation even though it is guaranteed to be useless, Euros mentions the nightmare that he's living through

"I'm a dead man walking, carrying precious treasures of people that were never heard crying out. I've held them close and safely within myself for over two thousand years. And now, when I'm fated to rot through and splatter on the ground, I fear all this time will be for nought. That I will kill what I've been protecting for so long."

"Even if nobody ever reads these- learns of them, hears them out from above their graves- I can't bear the thought of losing them."

and well Fish DOES have a lot of beef with Euros, but at this point this bitterness is starting to give away to desperation and horror of the terrible torment waiting for them in the future. he might be stubbornly still trying with the Mission, but he would go against what makes him himself if he didn't acknowledge that they are all damned for good no matter what he tries. so he gives in to the pity and hails Tinkerer to his chamber

he explains to her what he needs her to do and tells Euros about the plan. Tinktink has to travel all of this distance

to get to Euros (basically walk through the whole Europe), but dammit, she helped one Iterator that became her closest friend, she will help another one (a different Gen 2 that she loved and dedicated her whole life to in a different life)

Fish sends her on her way with a hug and a plead to keep herself safe

it takes her over a month to get there even with the help of vehicles like the barely working trains and a remshackle sky-sail that Fish guided her through fixing in their free time together. when she gets on top of Euros' structure, the dejavus start to hit. she visits the Mechanics' home, her feet carrying her to the bedroom as if it was just another end of the workshift. she looks in the cupboards she- opened millions of times- never even touched. she walks outside and then down the path to the entrance into the Iterator she's- taken countless times- never set a foot on

she saw these halls so many times she can pin point where every screw is- she's never been here, she can't understand these giant beings, they are too complex for her animal brain. that specific rhythm of beeps and pumps and water rushing through metal veins has haunted- comforted- her in many of her dreams. the Tinkerer makes it to the chamber almost like on an auto-pilot

when she enters the chamber, the slugcat finds itself disappointed, scared, confused- this isn't what this place is supposed to look like (but how does she know what it is supposed to look like-?), this isn't how she left it (this is the first time she stands here, what are these thoughts). it's supposed to be brighter. warmer. why is the puppet's plating and skin damaged by time, where is it its vibrancy, why are its eyes so tired? there are panels missing from the walls ("it's got to be the results of that Fever i once made a proj- i can fix thi-! what?"), glowing artificial bronze robins fly about or sleeping on his shoulders, tiny Rot cysts pulsate from the cracks in the umbilical arm. where has the firebird in that halo gone off to?

Euros greets her joyfully ("oh what are you trying to play at, you goof. i've known you for so long, i can tell when something's wrong. what's hurting? why are you tired? i'll get you back into shape, doncha worry love.")

"Ah, you made it! Welcome to my chamber, adroit little thing."

"Please. Your journey was a long one. I hold no doubt a very dangerous one, too. I won't march you into the job immediately. Rest up."

Tinkerer thinks he's strange. but her legs are indeed hurting, the bag strapped to her is heavy. she curls up in the corner of the room and tries to get some shut eye. she almost falls asleep when Euros starts mumbling under his breath, shooting nervous glances towards the birds. five fingered hands tremble so badly the joints rattle like a child's toy. he's scary, when his shoulders hunch up like that and those tired eyes turn frantic. but it hurts so much to see him like that for some reason, more so than it is scary. so against the better judgement of a survivor, she softly coos at him

the puppet's head snaps to her, gaze cold. the mumbles increase in volume, allowing her to understand

"...I'll tell you what. I have another mission for you, little messenger. But it has to stay a secret between the two of us. Nobody would approve, especially not the one you belong to now."

something whispers that the puppet closing in is supposed to be a comfort. the larger part of the Tinkerer instead finds itself wishing to run away

"Are you aware of the Memory Crypts that lie beneath all of us City Bearers?"

cautious nod, back pressed against the wall

"Good."

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi! I love your meta and how beautifully you write about GSR, I would like to know what you think about this, do you think Grissom and Sara would have been good parents? Why do you think the show didn’t allowed them to have a geek baby?

hi, anon!

thank you for your kind words!

i have got a big, ol' meta that covers my thoughts on potential gsr parenthood here, if you're interested.

i also have another big, ol' meta that specifically covers my thoughts on how they would have reacted to experiencing an unplanned pregnancy during their "secret dating" phase in s5-s6 here, if you're interested in that one, as well.

the tl;dr version is that while i think grissom and sara would be kickass parents were that particular life choice one they ever decided to make together, i also don't think they would necessarily ever be likely to make that particular life choice together, just given their respective characters and backgrounds.

grissom is—prior to his retirement—highly career-driven, meaning he might not want to put his focus on parenthood rather than work. he likewise has some pretty sizeable hang-ups regarding his own capacity to nurture and be unselfish, his age, his social deficits, etc., all of which might cause him to question his potential fitness as a father.

there's a line from another show i love from a character facing down the prospect of first-time fatherhood that i can absolutely see grissom saying (in so many words): "if, for nine months, you're hearing how this is gonna change your life, and ‘you've never loved anything like this’ and ‘my god, the love!’ and ‘nothing is gonna be important anymore’—it just never felt to me like i was someone who had the capacity for those feelings. plus, you know, i-i like what's important to me. i want it to stay important. i wanna be able to do it well."

meanwhile, sara has her own considerable hang-ups regarding how she was raised, her family and personal history of mental illness, her social deficits, etc. that might cause her to feel similarly unequipped for motherhood. she is also in her twenties and thirties—i.e., prime childbearing years—very career-minded, like grissom, so she might not be inclined to step away (even temporarily) to have a kid.

maybe if grissom and sara were to experience an unplanned pregnancy at some point, they would (under very specific circumstances) consider the possibility of having a child. ditto for maybe a one-in-a-million type scenario where they encountered a kid in the system who needed fostering or adopting.

however, i think nine times out of ten, they'd opt not to have a kid—and especially not if "nature never came to bear" or if one was never put directly into their paths.

that said, since i personally find the idea of them as parents very intriguing—the issue is one that pushes a lot of fun character buttons for both of them, butting up against their hopes and fears and senses of self in some very complicated and interesting ways—i have written a big, ol' geek!baby fic, where they find themselves dealing with an unplanned pregnancy in an au version of s8.

i call it the happy accidentsverse, and if you're interested, you can read that fic series here.

as for the issue of why the show never pursued a "grissom and sara have a kid" storyline in canon, i think there are probably multiple reasons why they didn't.

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

to my mind, probably the biggest reason why we never saw a "grissom and sara have a kid" storyline in canon is that, particularly in the earlier seasons of the show, the showrunners tried not to focus too much on the characters' home lives.

though they would show the occasional "off the clock" scene here or there or every once in a while toss in some kind of love interest- or family-centric story beat, anthony zuiker and co. wanted the majority of the show's focus to be on the job—on the cases the csis investigated, the goings-on at the lab and in the field, the team's interactions with each other as colleagues, the team's interactions with other law enforcement professionals and people they met in connection to their cases, in the politics of the department, etc.

they were much stricter about this policy even than other procedurals of the time.

that's why we saw so little of grissom and sara's romantic relationship actually play out on screen—because tptb never intended to offer us anything more than just a small window into their personal lives outside of their careers.

and while of course grissom and sara having a kid (whether through sara getting pregnant or them deciding to foster and/or adopt) would definitely affect their working lives and could allow for some interesting storylines centered around the lab and in the field—for example, how might sara deal with the physical and emotional requirements of her incredibly demanding job while pregnant?, how might grissom and sara have to change their workaholic habits if they were to try to become foster or adoptive parents?, how might having a kid in the mix affect both grissom and sara's willingness to face the dangers inherent in their profession?, would becoming parents change the way they responded to certain cases?, etc.—that kind of storyline, just by its nature, would also probably require the show to spend more time at home with grissom and sara than the showrunners and writers ever really intended to.

narratively speaking, catherine having a school-aged kid to start out the show is one thing, while grissom and sara having a newborn or a brand new foster kid and becoming first-time parents would be something else entirely.

in catherine's case, her being a mom to an older kid from the get-go is a much more lowkey deal, not only because a kid at that age can mostly exist in an off-screen capacity except for in episodes where her presence is plot-relevant but also because it's an already-established fact.

catherine is a mother—and an experienced mother, at that—from the very first time we meet her; it's part of both her personal and professional identities from day #1. the baseline is there. there are no questions about it. no big blanks to fill in. she's already made the life-changing decisions. she's already entrenched in that role.

the same would not be true if grissom and sara were to have a kid.

because they were "first timers" (and especially because they had seemingly never aspired to parenthood previously), the show would have to answer questions with them—depict grissom and sara making the huge, life-altering decisions; reckoning with big emotions; figuring stuff out; working through their fears and hang-ups; adjusting to a monumental change in their lives; drawing together in new ways; changing and developing as characters and as a couple; establishing new patterns; etc.

the groundwork would need to be laid where the audience could see it being laid in real time, you know?

and laying that groundwork would require showing lots of private conversations between grissom and sara, trips to the ob's office or talks with the social worker, painting the nursery or putting up a swing set, making childcare arrangements, changing their lifestyle, etc.

my sense is that tptb never really wanted to go there.

that much focus on grissom and sara's home life would have been too distracting—too much of a serialized personal storyline that required attention in every episode, regardless of the "case of the day"—for their tastes.

now.

in theory, the "keep the focus on the job, not the home" rule is one tptb could have considered breaking, had they really wanted to.

after all, it was just a production choice, not actually any kind of hard and fast rule, so if they'd decided they wanted to go the "grissom and sara have a kid" route, they could have done so.

there's always the old flannery o'connor maxim: "it's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. you can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much."

however, another reason why i think they never chose to go the geek!baby route, beyond the "it goes against our sense of what our show is actually about" thing, is that, frankly, within the universe of the show itself, the timing for grissom and sara was never right.

grissom and sara don't even get together as a committed couple until s5/s6, so, barring a major deviation from what is now canon, they likely could not have had a child at any point prior to 2005/2006, just to start out with.

then their relationship remains a secret until the end of s7/beginning of s8, meaning that between 2006-2007, they're definitely not looking to have a kid and probably would be pretty averse to having one even were they to experience an unplanned pregnancy, just given the potential fallout where their jobs are concerned.

they would have to "come out" as a couple, and one or both of them might end up getting fired over it.

fast forward, and between s8 and s9, sara experiences a mental health crisis that eventually culminates with her moving away from vegas for the better part of two years from 2008 to 2009 while grissom remains behind—and by the time she's stable and moves back to vegas circa 2009/2010, grissom is then living abroad, and they're only seeing each other once a month via transatlantic commute.

back in the day, when sara first turned up in s10, i know there was some internet scuttlebutt that maybe at some point it would be revealed that in-between the events of episode 09x10 "one to go" (when last we'd seen them) and episode 10x01 "family affair" (when sara returns to vegas to "temp"), grissom and sara had had a "secret honeymoon baby."

however, such a revelation was never made—timeline-wise, it would have been a tight fit anyhow, as, within the universe of the show, episode 09x10 "one to go" takes place in january '09 and episode 10x01 "family affair" takes place in september '09—and neither did grissom and sara ever have a kid at any subsequent point.

with sara living in the states and grissom not, the likelihood that they would ever decide to expand their family steadily diminished as s10, s11, and s12 rolled on, both because they were getting older and because their marriage eventually ended up on the rocks.

cue the whole divorce debacle of s13, a few solid years of misery and loneliness in the interim, and by the time grissom and sara get back together/remarried in 2015, sara is forty-four years old and probably peri- or even full-on menopausal, and she and grissom are living a nomadic seafaring lifestyle, so the likelihood of them either having a biological child or fostering/adopting is incredibly low.

again, there was some speculation among fans—based on previous comments from showrunner anthony zuiker regarding his ideas for grissom and sara's post-"immortality" life at sea—that when the reboot rolled around, we would eventually get a "in the six years since we last saw them, grissom and sara have had a kid" reveal.

no dice, though.

s1 of csi: vegas ran its course with no secret boat babies anywhere.

all of the above being the case, there just weren't even that many points during the show's run when it would have made logistical sense for grissom and sara to have children together.

they were always either in a state of having to keep their relationship a secret for the sake of their careers or else of living apart from each other, and by the time they finally got all their shit together and were living in the same place on a full-time basis, sara was nearing the end of her prime childbearing years and they were living the kind of lifestyle where fostering/adoption would be next to impossible.

narratively-speaking, parenthood just was never in the cards for them.

of course, it's worth stating, the writers could have maybe swung a geek!baby storyline in the later seasons had they wanted to if they had just made the choice to move grissom back to vegas along with sara between s10 and s15. he wouldn't even have had to appear on-screen. sara would have just needed to reference him occasionally in dialogue and be shown to take phone calls from him at times, a "i'm meeting grissom for our first ultrasound appointment" here, a "he's been at home painting the nursery all morning. he put little ladybugs up the walls" there. they could have done a whole pregnancy storyline that way, and it would have given sara something to do during seasons when she is otherwise criminally underutilized. then maybe if they were lucky, they could have gotten billy to come back for a guest spot when it came time for the baby to be born. but, alas, such a storyline would have required them to imply depth, which is something they had no idea how to do.

—which brings us to the last big reason why i think the showrunners never had grissom and sara have children:

because, ultimately, they just never felt it was right for the characters.

as stated above, both grissom and sara have plenty of reasons, both individually and as a couple, based on their backgrounds and predilections and development, why they might never choose to pursue parenthood.

while there are certain very particular scenarios were i can imagine they might set those reasons aside, overcome their hang-ups and fears, and decide to "go for it" re: having kids, i also think it would take a lot of narrative work to get them there—that thread would be something the writers would have had to really develop, requiring more than a few "acts of god" and major plot interventions to make the idea seem feasible.

they could have done it if they really wanted to.

but in the end, i think they didn't feel any compelling need.

grissom and sara have been an unconventional couple from the get-go, and their development has been circuitous and unstraightforward. there have been many setbacks for them along the way and strange turns. they've definitely not done everything "by the book."

for them to have a somewhat "untraditional" happy ending—at least by primetime, network early 00s flagship couple tv standards—makes a good amount of sense.

they're not the "white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog" norman rockwell family, and i think tptb are very okay with that outcome.

they like the image of this middle-aged couple that found immense fulfillment in each other and in their shared work (whether as csis or conservationists) and never felt the need to look outside of those things in order to be happy.

that's not to say they might not have written things differently had some of the production realities of the show been different along the way—like, say jorja fox had never left the show during s8 and grissom and sara had been able to get married in vegas as planned while both still working at the lab or that billy had come back to the show with jorja between s10 and s15; maybe in those cases, they might have eventually decided to go for the geek!baby storyline after all—however, all things as they were, i think they were generally pretty comfortable with how things ended up in regards to grissom and sara remaining childless.

they had explored the notion of "csis as parents" as much as they cared to with catherine, warrick, and russell.

they didn't want to go there with grissom and sara.

and who knows? maybe there were other outside factors that influenced their decision to that end, like actor preferences or the difficulty of including infant actors in a complicated production such as theirs, etc.

suffice it to say, i think the showrunners' decision to keep grissom and sara childless was probably a multifaceted one.

the good news is, regardless of how things turned out in canon, we as fans can always play around with the geek!baby concept as much as we want to and in as many different permutations as we like.

i certainly have a lot of fun in my accidentsverse, imagining grissom and sara facing both the challenges and rewards of parenthood, and i know a lot of other fan authors who have their own takes on that idea, as well.

anyway.

rambling now.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[sarilolla]

Now I'm thinking about Pop Trolls and what happened with them... I love making it clear in my fic that what happened with the Bergens affected them, to various degrees.

Small ramble? I guess? It's not completely cohesive

In Hanahaki, they make peace with the Bergens, but most older Trolls are still anxious around them, and only Bridget and Gristle actually know where the village is and they never go in.

In Different Beat I'm at a bit of limbo, I can see them helping Bridget which would help King Gristle and it dominos into the Bergens being happy, but there won't be a positive relationship between the two species.

In Experiment Pop... well, Bergens are genuinely huge bad guys there, and there's no way the Pop Trolls would ever willingly interact with a Bergen. There's more trauma than just Trollstice, and it affects the newer generations too meaning they can't fully get away from what happened.

I have more aus that I haven't posted but Bergen relations are spotty or bad there too, so... I guess I just think they should have been affected more

So it's all different, which is the joy of aus, but something I don't like is how glossed over the trauma of Trollstice is in the movies and the series. How long were the Pop Trolls captured and eaten? The franchise doesn't give us a definitive answer, but from context clues I would say a decade or two at the bare minimum. The first movie starts with the story where it's shown the city is built around the Troll Tree. They wouldn't get such an established city in so little time, I refuse to believe that. Trollstice was so integral to them, that the adult Bergens in the beginning of the first movie seemed like they had had a Troll their entire lives. I refuse to believe the Bergens showed up between BroZone breaking up and Rosiepuff being eaten

I want to say that realistically, the Pop Trolls were captured for 80-130 years. It may seem like a lot, but it is what makes most sense to me (feel free to debate me on that and provide your own speculated timeline). The timeline just... doesn't work properly? We don't have any set points to look at, except that in the first movie the escape was 20 years ago, and between World Tour and Band Together a month has passed. This makes it so I can fuck around with the timeline as needed, but they could have given me more to work with. So the only timeline I am working with is that at the escape, the Pop Trolls had been stuck with the Bergens for nearly 130 years, the whole Music schism happened almost 200 years ago (and while they were with the Bergens there was a generation or two who didn't even know other Trolls existed), and the Strings were made around 250 years ago? But that also doesn't fully fit with how a society evolves, so might have been even longer between all of this?

Anyway... Back to the Pop Trolls and how the Bergens and Trollstice affected them

I love making jokes in my stories about how desensitized the Pop Trolls are to death and destruction of their home. I love writing other Trolls' reactions to that. It's fun and morbid at the same time. Like the other genres can be as pissy as they want about Pop's attempted takeover so many years ago, but in a cynical way, they got their karma... Other genres had places to be safe, evolve in their own time, no huge threats, but the Pop Trolls lost that, and you can't tell me that wasn't lost for a long time

I firmly believe the Pop Trolls don't have an actual cemetery, but rather a field of flowers planted in remembrance, a Memorial. Flowers planted for the ones lost, but no bodies buried with them. Just a flower representing who they were and what they meant to their loved ones (which brings in my headcanon that flowers and flower language is a big part of Pop Troll culture). It's just in the past 20 years they actually have had bodies to bury, and those are few and far between

...I had a point to this ramble, I think. I think Trollstice and Pop Troll history is my fictional roman empire, it has genuinely gone in and out of my head since the first movie. It just hits hard

[undergroundbillions]

I SEEN YOUR POST,,, AND I CAME!! i have a couple of questions abt some history with merchandise and whatever (unless you guys made a post abt the hallmark raggedies alread) ! :)

1. So do you guys have any history or insight of the Hallmark raggedies? If so id like to hear, im a big fan of the hallmark branch of the raggedies!!!

2. Do you guys have any fun hcs? If so what are they!

My example of one is: i hc Ann making dresses and skirts for her friends!! Or even Henny hating bugs but he collects them for his bug collection lol

3. Why do you guys even care about Rag Dolly in the first place? What made you guys want to find it AND want to revive it? Was it a personal project or better yet a fan project put up together by fans (aka the mods aka aka you guys, i think unless im wrong lol)

You guys are cool and im excited to hear any other updates on the revival of Rag Dolly, yall are so cool and talented,, can't wait to see what you guys do in the future!!! Keep it up guyss!

Ok! Here we go!

We don't know much specifically about Hallmark. At that point, Bobbs-Merrill was in charge of the licensing of Raggedy Ann images and books, while the family was still in charge of the dolls. Hallmark licensing began in 1969 and continued throughout the 70's. They published the cardbooks, which came with tiny dolls (which for licensing purposes don't actually count as dolls, but rather as other toys). And the pop-up-book records, stationary, and lots of random little things. Big company buys lucrative licensing and puts it on everything for a few years, that's the story!

Oh man when I ask for hc questions I mostly mean ones *about* headcanons, I'm bad at open ended questions like that lol. But here's a few I've been thinking about recently: I think Marcella has regular fainting spells when she gets exhausted. This doesn't really transfer to the dream but it happens in real life. Ann and Andy's seams and faces are all wobbly because Poppa's too often drunk to sew straight lines. This isn't a hc because technically it's canon to Gibson's writing but Poppa made Marcella a little toy boat from wood scraps and that's where the inspiration for the boat in her dreams comes from.

What got most of us interested in the musical was the video by CollinLooksBack going over what little was known about the show at that time (2019). At that point, we knew about the movie already. If you want to know more about the little details of the time before RARE specifically was founded, I've written up a timeline on our website! (And I plan on expanding it) Idk what the difference is between a personal project and a fan project in this case? We thought the show was interesting, and liked the music, so we decided to start looking for it! The organizers are all theater people, the majority of us went to school for theater and plan on working in it. We knew we had the background and resources to make an actual revival happen. Specifically the founder, Gwyn, who has certain legal and industry connections that are making things go a lot smoother. But really, we never thought we'd get this far, we weren't thinking this deeply about it. It was 2021, we all needed something to do and people to talk to. None of the organizers knew each other, though a few early members were mutuals from the 1977 movie and other fandoms. It just slowly got more serious and we continue to take it more and more seriously the farther we get. Most importantly, all of the main founders have deep personal connections to the story. We have all suffered illness and loss of loved ones. I mean I literally discovered the show like two months after my mom died I don't think you can get much more fated than that. We like the show, it means something to us, and we think it deserves a second chance in it's actual intended form and not as a huge broadway spectacle. It's literally still popular in Russia, why shouldn't it be popular here?

-𝕸𝖔𝖉 𝕲𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑 𝕯.

[richardsonlouis]

Louis moved a year ago to this quaint, picturesque town after a painful breakup that left him reeling. His boyfriend, whom he loved deeply, was too afraid to come out to his conservative family. The secrecy had been eating away at Louis for months, and it came to a breaking point when he finally issued an ultimatum: either they would come out as a couple and live openly, or their relationship would have to end. The choice his boyfriend made that day cut Louis to the core. It wasn’t just the end of their relationship that hurt him, but the realization that his love wasn't strong enough to inspire the courage needed to embrace their truth together.

Louis had already been battling anxiety and depression, lingering scars from the relentless bullying he endured during his college years simply for being gay. Those experiences had left him with deep emotional wounds, making it hard for him to fully trust others. He was especially close to his twin sister, Lily, who also faced her own struggles as a lesbian. They often joked about how their parents must have done something right, raising two kids who weren’t straight in a world that often didn’t understand or accept them. The bond between Louis and Lily was unbreakable, their shared experiences drawing them closer as they navigated the challenges of their identities.

Despite his kindhearted nature, Louis found himself more distant than he used to be. He had always been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, but after everything he’d been through, he became more guarded, wary of getting hurt again. He tried to be sociable, pushing himself to engage with others, but it took a toll on him. Social interactions, while enjoyable in the moment, often left him drained, needing time alone to recharge his emotional batteries.

One of the few things that brought him genuine joy was sipping on a well-crafted cocktail, the flavors and the ritual of it bringing a small sense of comfort. He had a particular fondness for reading too, often losing himself in the pages of a book where he could escape reality for a while. Whether it was fiction, history, or even poetry, books were his sanctuary, a way to connect with worlds where love, in all its forms, was celebrated rather than hidden

[ … ] ❀ you’re not from around here , are you? i figured because you totally just missed { Louis Richardson} walking by. don’t tell me you don’t know who { He } is/are ? they kind of look like {Dylan O'Brien } and i could be wrong but i think that they might be { 30 } years old right now. they’ve been living in palmview for the last { 1 year }. and i don’t know if anyone has ever told them this before but they kind of remind me of { Bella Swan } from { Twilight saga }. if you stick around the town long enough you might catch them in action working at { A hospital} as a { Doctor}. you see this town isn’t really that big of a place, some folks like to call them the { The Maudlin } of palmview! they took a liking to the name too after a while, go figure. oh crap, they must have heard me yapping. they’re coming this way. i got to warn you though, rumor has it they can pretty { anxious } at times. i wouldn’t take it too seriously though, from the times i’ve spoken to them they seemed pretty { charming } to me. we see each other all the time since they live in that { 2 rooms } apartment beside me over in { MANGO BAY LOFTS APARTMENT #1B ! }. i better leave you to it. it was nice meeting you!  { Naomi. 28. She/her. GMT+1/2. }

[houseofbrat]

I’m shaking my head at “royal” fans who still insist charles should do something about harry and meghan before the coronation. The coronation is what will engrave in everyone’s mind that he actually is now the king. Even though everyone knows he is king, i’m pretty sure global general public is still more familiar with late queen, so they unconsciously still sees him as her son, prince of wales. And to be totally honest, prince of wales doesn’t have the big impact that king does, especially when other prince is known as late queen’s favorite and princess royal is general public’s favorite. It’s better to deal with harry and meghan when global general public sees it as king doing his best to protect his kingdom rather than father dealing with his son. I notice how most people focus more on father son relationship than king prince status when talking about them together. Just like harry and meghan want them to see it as.

The people who are complaining most vehemently are the ones who a) dislike Charles a LOT, b) believe William is the destined savior of the BRF, c) don't know much about decades-old discussions about modernizing/slimming the British monarchy, e.g. The Way Ahead Group, and d) just want the Sussexes punished via letters patent.

A) The root cause of all the vehemence is that Charles has the temerity to live and stop William from being crowned king this May. The vast majority is rooted in the belief that Charles is allowing the Sussexes to walk all over him. Never mind that Charles is the survivor of one of the worst pr wars in modern history.

Never mind that the person who actually could have prevented the Sussex children from having titles at all was Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Somehow, she escapes all scorn.

QEII--who conveniently "remembered" Paul Burrell told her he was keeping some of Diana's things after his trial began--had a major problem with direct confrontation. The woman whose ostrich syndrome caused MPs to register their anger over the situation because the government had wasted money on a public trial. All because she was too reluctant to come forward after weeks of public scandal & spectacle.

Are there MPs complaining in parliament about this title situation? Nope. Will they? Nope. There are actual issues of relevance to the general population that they need to focus on these days. Titles for the Sussex kids for a few months aren't the end of the fucking world, and most people know it.

B) For some reason, William is the person who automatically would solve all problems instantaneously, even though he doesn't do much work. This is because the UK tabs have published numerous articles about William's "anger" over each and every Sussex infringement. Never does it cross people's minds that Charles could be angry too. Conveniently, certain people suck up every single story where Wills is angry at Harry; they never believe the stories from this past winter where William was actually worried about Harry. Somehow, William is only capable of one emotion when it comes to Harry: anger. Never worry. It's always how Harry is victimizing William through the press. It's such a one-sided story that if it was a in a movie, no one would find it plausible because the William in these tabloid stories is a straight-up, cartoonishly one-note dude.

William is the one-note savior in this story who will vanquish the terrible Sussexes. It's so fucking cliché.

C) ALL the people complaining about unissued letters patent and titles seem to have no understanding of the discussions that took place in the 1990s, aka The Way Ahead Group, regarding modernizing the monarchy. If you know about it, then you understand why James & Louise aren't referred to as HRHs or Prince/ss. They were styled as the son and daughter of a peer due to the decisions made in The Way Ahead Group. Decisions that should have been put to letters patent by QEII twenty-plus years ago; however, that would mean that she would have had to not indulge her family. She was never not going to do that. Prime example of her indulgences: Andrew.

D) People just want the Sussexes punished via letters patent. Understandable. However, people are acting as if it's the most important job of the monarch. As if Charles should have made it his first priority the instant he became king. Screw the red boxes, mourning his mother, and visiting the four countries of the United Kingdom. He failed at being king because he wasn't the pettiest bitch ever and didn't sign a prewritten letters patent in between his bouts of mourning and all the other events that were pre-planned over ten days. Isn't that the most insensitive attitude directed at someone genuinely grieving!

Most of the people I've seen complaining most vehemently aren't asking for Beatrice & Eugenie to lose their titles & styles. There are also people who think Louise & James should suddenly style themselves HRH Prince/ss James/Louis of Edinburgh. Never do they realize that all four are going to lose their titles & styles.

When Charles issues his letters patent, it's going to be a big deal. It's a major cultural change for the UK. Due to that, it needs to be announced in a way that allows for people in the UK to absorb that the monarchy is changing. Significantly.

A knee jerk letters patent isn't going to happen just to deny the Sussex kids titles. That's not the purpose of the upcoming letters patent. The purpose is to modernize the monarchy.

The Sussexes know this. That's why Harry's wife whined to Oprah about the change in their infamous interview. No one was promoting the Sussex kids' titles except the Sussexes. The palace is in the process of making their changes behind the scenes. The Sussexes--technically Harry's wife if you think about it--insisted publicly that they wanted their kids to be known with prince/ss titles. The palace was not inclined to list them with those titles until they publicly insisted on it.

The reason for that is that they were attempting to prevent any embarrassment for the kids due to losing a short-term title. That's why the palace "respects their wishes." The palace "respects" the Sussex attempts to be famewhores and not realize the embarrassment they'll encounter after the letters patent announcement is released. They "respect their wishes" just as many people "respect other people's differences."

Still too hard for the Charles haters to understand though.

[pisupsala]

Wish You Were Here [2] | Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw

Summary | Some things you’d rather not face alone.

Pairing | Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x fem!reader / Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x fem!oc (no use of y/n)

Warnings | swearing, explicit smut / 18+ only

Words | 9.4k

Note | Can be read as part of One For The History Books (takes place post-epilogue—chronologically the final part) but also works as a standalone. Read part 1 here.

Library

He shouldn’t be here.

For years, Bradley simply accepted that being shipped around the globe was part of the job and never complained. But now, the one time he really didn’t want to be away from home, he received special orders. The Navy required him, him in particular, to lead specialized training on low-altitude maneuvers. And when you get orders like that, directly from an Admiral, you can’t really say no.

Standing at parade rest, staring straight ahead, Bradley can’t help but notice it’s annoyingly hot in vice-admiral Beau Simpson’s Florida office, despite it being late January and not at all that warm in Pensacola. Bradley is itching to get out of there, but the admiral is taking his sweet time leafing through his file. It’s bordering on the absurd. 

“You know I like to get to know the aviators under my command, lieutenant commander. Understand what makes them tick.” He begins, without looking up from Bradley’s file. “It’s important for team building and trust, even if it’s just a temporary assignment.”  

“Yes, sir.” Bradley replies out of obligation rather than interest.

“I see you finally got hitched?” Admiral Simpson finally looks up from the file, smile on his face. Bradley, however, is in no mood to discuss his private life with Simpson. His home life with you is off limits as far as he’s concerned—especially since that’s where he should be, and not here at the behest of Simpson no less, hundreds of miles away. 

He still likes keeping some aspects of his life private. Bradley proudly wears his wedding band everywhere he can, only slipping it on the chain with his dog tags when he’s out on the tarmac or in the air. But that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about everything that is going on the home front with everyone. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“It’s been a while since I saw you at TOPGUN - how long are you married now?” Simpson continues conversationally.

“Just over a year now, sir.” 

The admiral nods, studying the page with Bradley’s personal information.

“Spouse: Mrs. D. Bradshaw - Williams, Ph.D.” He mutters, before looking up again. “That wouldn’t be the Miss Williams that was at TOPGUN then, is it?”

“Yes, sir.” There’s no reason to hide it, although Bradley has to strongly fight the urge to roll his eyes.

“I remember her fondly, she did great work.” Simpson nods, and Bradley just about stops himself from shifting on his feet uncomfortably. “And I’ve read some of her articles from the senate committee—fascinating stuff—but is it true she hasn’t published anything lately?” 

“That’s possible, sir.” You hadn’t mentioned writing new articles in a while, working on smaller projects instead. 

“Miss Wil - that is, Mrs. Bradshaw hasn’t left her position at the DoD, has she?” 

“No, Dr. Bradshaw still works in the Pentagon archives, sir.” That might be too petty.

“Of course.” Simpson just smiles, probably happy he got more than a two-word answer out of Bradley. “I’ve been thinking about putting my thoughts about leadership and strategy to paper for a while now,” He leans back in his chair, pressing his hands together. “For the next generation of officers, you understand, lieutenant commander?”

What the fuck?

“Anyway, I’d like to ask mrs- Dr. Bradshaw if she would look over some of my drafts.”

“You’d have to ask her directly, sir.” If this conversation was absurd before, it’s straight-up insane now. “But she won’t be available for the coming months.”

“Oh, how so, lieutenant commander?”

“She’s on maternity leave.” 

Simpson narrows his eyes, before turning his gaze back at the file. Bradley already knows what’s coming: there is no mention of children, which means Simpson will put two and two together pretty quickly.

“How far along is Dr. Bradshaw?” Simpson’s tone conveys not casual interest, but purely a request for information —personal chat is over.

“38 weeks.”

“Will that pose a problem for your focus during these two weeks?” 

Bradley’s fingers flex behind his back out of frustration, but he keeps his features neutral. He shared with his commanding officer he was not keen on leaving so close to your due date, but was told Simpson requested him personally, and not going was pretty much not an option. 

Still.

He shouldn’t be here.

“No, sir.”

“Good. You have singular experience in low-altitude maneuvers, which is why you were selected.”

Bradley doesn’t say anything, but Phoenix and Bob, Payback and Fanboy—hell even Hangman—all have similar experience. Minus being shot down over enemy territory, he thinks bitterly. However, he is under strict instruction from his CO not to bring that up to Simpson. Part of him is itching to do it anyway and get sent home for it. 

But that would be veritable career suicide.

“I appreciate it, sir.” 

“Anyway, I suppose congratulations are in order, lieutenant commander.” Simpsons grins up at him. “To the next generation of TOPGUN candidates.” 

Bradley has to actively stop himself from cringing. It’s probably meant well by Simpson, but can’t shake the intrusiveness of it all. He’s here to train recruits for two weeks, and that’s it. He’ll be on the first flight home, back to you, as soon as this assignment is over. In the meantime, he has zero interest in discussing this—if only for the guilt weighing on him for having to leave you and Bug now.

You took it well. Of course you did. You smiled up at him and said you would invite your sister to keep you company, so you wouldn’t be alone. But your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. This was the one thing you admitted actually terrified you. But you put on a brave face for him. And Bradley so desperately wished he didn’t have to leave you now.

“Thank you, sir.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are alone. Again.

Your sister left for a day out in D.C. with her family. Bradley is gone. Hell, if you could leave you, you would probably do so too.

Miserable doesn’t even begin to describe it. Irritable. Anxious. Fucking furious.

Your body barely feels like it’s yours anymore; it’s unwieldy and everything hurts. You don’t fit into any of your clothes, and your feet are so swollen you are relegated to wearing slippers most of the time. 

The worst thing is since you’re on maternity leave, you are bored out of your skull. You thought it would be nice to actually relax, and catch up on your nonwork reading, all the shows on your to-watch list, but you had enough of it after one long weekend. Years of having your brain constantly engaged has worn you out—do you even know how to take it easy?

You have every checklist memorized, a birth plan written up, an overnight bag packed, baby clothes, and diapers by the stack. Baby nail clippers, snot suction thingamajig, stroller, car seat, and an assortment of stuff your sister convinced you were essential. Bradley wisely didn’t comment on the parade of delivery people dropping off packages almost every day, tacitly accepting that this is just who you are. You have everything. You think. 

Even if you wanted to do more research, double, triple check anything, every time you sit down at your laptop, Bug quite literally kicks up a fuss.

Your poor ribs and bladder usually bear the brunt of the assault.

You smile despite yourself as you grab a handful of honey-nut Cheerios. Bug. 

That sunny Monday in May, the night after Bradley made you throw up (which he never stopped bringing up), you promise you will call the doctor first thing. But when Bradley brews coffee for you both that morning, and you throw up from it again, he practically threatens he’ll call you in sick and drag you to the clinic if he has to, despite you insisting you are fine.

You insist it’s a stomach bug. You insist it all the way up to the doctor’s office. 

“Do you think…?” Bradley is leaning against the door frame of the bathroom, watching over you as you brush your teeth.

“Nah.” You practically cut him off, knowing exactly where he’s going with that question. You’re absolutely refusing to even start to entertain alternatives because if you let yourself believe for one second that it might be something else, you will be utterly crushed if it isn’t. You rinse out your mouth. “It’s just a stomach bug.”

You’ll probably get some antibiotics or something, a few days of prescribed rest and you’ll be right as rain. But Bradley is looking at you penesivly, like he’s trying to figure the meaning behind your reaction. Except there’s no meaning. It’s just a stomach bug, and it’s really nothing to get bent out of shape about.

But because even brushing your teeth doesn’t help settle the queasy, churning feeling in your stomach, you decide to call in sick. Bradley leaves you on the couch with a mint tea and a kiss. 

“Let me know when you have the appointment.” He pulls the fleece blanket over you as you lie back. You nod. First you just want to close your eyes for a few minutes. Just to rest. You feel like you haven’t slept in days, even though you got up just an hour ago.

No. Call the doctor first.

Bradley doesn’t get annoyed easily with you, but you know you have the tendency to push his limits with your rather blasé attitude to things you don’t like—like doctor appointments—and cruising along on the insistence it’s fine. You’re fine.

As someone who takes health quite seriously, he has admitted it grates on him because he worries about you, and doesn’t quite understand how you can worry about so many things in your life, sometimes to the point of tears, but when it comes to your health you take it all in stride.

Embarrassingly, you don’t really have an answer for him either. 

Pushing yourself back up, you dial the doctor’s office—they can squeeze you in at 3 in the afternoon that day, which gives you plenty of time to rest. You text Bradley that you have the appointment, knowing it matters to him.

That afternoon you walk out of the doctor's office, thunderstruck and with a stack of papers and pamphlets in your hand. Bradley calls you shortly after. He mentioned he would try to check in with you if he had a moment after your appointment. It shouldn’t still give you butterflies when you think about how Bradley prioritizes you even on busy days, and you feel a little bit guilty again as it’s your fault in the first place he’s worried.

“So, what did the doctor say?” You can hear by the cadence in his voice he is walking somewhere, and he sounds hurried.

You open your mouth, thinking of how to explain it, how to somehow bring this life-changing news gently, in a way that reflects the gravity of it, the strangeness of it, the joy. Or should you wait until he gets home?

“Darlin’? Are you okay?” Bradley’s voice is urgent. 

Shit.

“I’m pregnant.” You blurt out sheepishly. So much for subtlety. 

“Come again?” Bradley has stopped dead in his tracks. He must have misheard you. Yes, he did seriously consider it an option, it made sense in his head, but you seemed so adamant that he never really allowed the thought, the dream, to fully take hold.

“I’m pregnant.” You repeat, more self-assured this time. “They’ve timed it around six weeks.”

“Wha- I mean, fuck -” Bradley is stumbling over his words, but you can hear the smile in his voice. “That’s great! Amazing even. Fucking hell, I’m so happy right now.”

You laugh, although you feel like you’ve barely had time to actually grasp that you’re pregnant now. But Bradley accepts it so readily, making it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, that—yeah, of course. It’s what you both wanted, what you talked about, and you agreed on doing. And now it’s happening.

“Me too.” You smile.

“So really not a stomach bug?” Bradley can’t help but tease you.

You laugh again, despite yourself. He’s never going to let you live this down. “No, very much not.”

“Just Bug then.” He says fondly.

“Just Bug.” You agree, not even questioning that it took Bradley less than 5 minutes to come up with a nickname for your unborn child. You feel giddy, strangely light, as a warm feeling spreads through you. Is this what it feels like to be pregnant? 

If only. You shove another handful of honey-nut Cheerios in your mouth. Nothing and no one quite prepared you for the perpetual discomfort of pregnancy—it comes in many forms, but there’s always a new goddamn thing aching, a new way to feel sick, or just the plethora of tears you’ve been shedding because you feel like you’ve been losing your sanity at times, barely having a hold on your emotions. 

Bug is especially restless today, like he’s picking up on your mood. You want Bug to be born already, but you don’t want to go into labor without Bradley by your side. Of the many things you accept, you’ll have probably to face alone in having a naval aviator for a husband, giving birth is just one thing you desperately don’t want to go through alone. It terrifies you beyond belief, almost irrationally so.

Music usually helps calm Bug down. While you try to stop yourself from building up unnecessary expectations in your head of what your child will be like (god knows you know what it’s like to grow up like that), you do allow yourself that Bug might take after Bradley that way. It would bring him a lot of joy, you know that for sure.

Scrolling through your Spotify, you rub your belly. “What would make you happy today, Bug?” You wince as Bug squirms. “Some Rolling Stones?” Quickly selecting She’s a Rainbow and connecting to the sound system Bradley had painstakingly installed, you gently sway to the music and start walking around. You smile to yourself as you think back about how Bradley had explained all the details and exact science behind the music setup he was getting, and how he measured every angle and talked excitedly about every aspect. You love him, but goddamn, you cannot tell the difference. It all sounds great to you, so you happily nod along and agree, enjoying his absolute passion for the subject more than anything coming from the speakers.

Bug is finally chilling out too. Closing your eyes, hands resting on your stomach, you feel the anger and anxiety finally ebb away. This is not so bad. It’s just you and Bug for now, and you’ll be fine. In a week Bradley will be back, your sister will be back in Colorado, and you can welcome Bug together, just as you planned before he was ordered to Florida. 

You love your sister, you really do, but if she drains the blood from you under normal circumstances, she's insufferable now. Or you have become insufferable. It’s honestly a toss-up at this point, but you’ve been at each other’s throats even more than usual. You feel sorry for her husband, who probably thought he was coming over to Fredericksburg for a nice break, but instead has been trying to run interference between you two.

But they’re out for today.

You get to enjoy some peace.

Of course, it could never last long. The music cuts out harshly as your phone starts ringing. 

Well fuck.

When you see the number, and you recognize it as coming from the Pentagon, you strongly consider just not picking up. But. You are also curious. Who is looking for you? What do they want? Did someone fuck up? Your brain is itching. Maybe it’s something you can kill time with. But you really shouldn't—you’re on maternity leave. 

Against what is your better judgment, you pick up.

“Darcy Bradshaw-Williams speaking.” 

“Good morning, Dr. Bradshaw,” A nervous voice starts at the other end. “I’m calling from Birch’s office.”

Why isn’t he calling you himself? Since when does Birch contact you through an assistant?

“Uh, okay.” You reply, not unkindly. “What is this concerning, as I am currently on maternity leave?”

“It’s uumh - well, there are some papers that you need to sign before the senate committee report can get archived.” The poor girl on the other end sounds terrified. You don’t think you’re particularly intimidating, but you don’t recognize her voice, so you surmise she must be new. 

Patience. You were once the new girl doing the shitty jobs no one else wanted. Like calling the pissy pregnant lady on leave.

“Oh, well, email them to me, and I will sign digitally,” You reply easily. “That’s not a big deal.”

“It, uhm, can’t be signed digitally, it needs to be done by hand.”

“Then… what are you suggesting exactly?” You keep your voice light, but quite frankly, you are gobsmacked. Out of all the bureaucratic bullshit…

“So I’ve been asked to- well, ask you,” Her voice wavers. “If you’re willing to come in to sign those papers.”

Really?

“No.” You can’t keep the annoyance out of your voice. “Look here, miss…?” “Brown.” The reply comes in a half-whisper.

“Look here Miss Brown, I know you are only relaying the message, so please put Birch on the phone, I know he’s there.” Keeping your voice level and professional is becoming harder by the second.

“He can’t come to the phone.” Miss Brown supplies hurriedly.

Coward.

“I’m 39 weeks pregnant, are you actually suggesting I come down all the way to the Pentagon?” You ask much louder than is probably necessary.

“We-, I suppose, we could also fax you the papers?” Miss Brown tries.

“Where the fuck do you think I live? 1992?” The words come out of your mouth faster than you can bite your tongue. Oh no, you didn’t mean to have an outburst like that at the poor assistant. It’s all just so fucking absurd because of course, what does the digital era mean in the DoD? Showing up in person. Jesus Christ.

“I’m sorry Miss Brown,” You apologize, cringing at yourself. “That was not meant for you.” 

“It’s okay.” A small voice on the other end replies.

“By when do you need this?” The wheels of the DoD turn slowly, after all. Maybe you can push it back until Bradley is at least back so he can drive you. Worst case scenario until your sister is back. But right now, you are standing in your living room dressed in Bradley’s old Navy shirt covered in Cheerios crumbs and a pair of old sweatpants. You’re really not wanting to go out today.

“Today,” Miss Brown informs you. “As soon as possible, really.”

“Today!?” You yell, knuckles white as you clutch your phone. “You have got to be kidding me!”

You take a deep breath. You have to keep your cool. Be professional about this.

“Put Birch on the phone.” You grind out, fist balled at your side.

“He - he says he can’t come to the phone…” 

“Then I’ll come to see him in person.” You bite out, acid dripping from your words,, hanging up angrily. They want to play like that? Fine. You’ll play along, you fume as you stomp through the house up to the bedroom. You’ll go to the Pentagon, you’ll sign the stupid papers, and you’ll lob the whole packet at Birch’s head while you’re there.

Shit. Do you even have anything nice to wear to the office? Maybe you should just show up like this—although funny, you’re too self-conscious for that. Also, you still want to have a job to return to eventually. 

Bug is mercifully calm, unlike you, as you dig out a knee-lenght skirt with an elastic waist. Shimmying it on, you’re glad to find out it still sort of fits, the waistband rest comfortably under your stomach. You end up slipping on a pair of nylons with it, not quite convinced you be able to pull up a pair of tights and afraid they might be too tight anyway.  

Now for a top. You won’t try one of your regular button-up shirts, even as a joke. Even the loose-fitting ones won’t close over your stomach anymore.

That leaves Bradley’s closet. 

You rifle through the shirts he neatly hung up on clothes hangers, taking care not to pick one that belongs to one of his uniforms. Settling on a soft dark blue one, you feel a pang of sadness when you slip it on. It smells of him. He’s only been gone for a week and will be back so soon again, but that doesn’t take away that you are alone right now. 

“Daddy will be back soon, Bug,” You whisper softly as you button the shirt up, feeling the baby move. “We just have both hold out a little longer.” 

Fixing your hair and doing minimal makeup, you quickly text your sister you have to run an errand and you’ll be back later, just in case she beats you home. You doubt she will reply to you any time soon though, she’s probably busy taking pictures or videos. For as much as you don’t understand how much your sister shares online, you are happy she’s doing something she enjoys and she’s good at it. Sometimes she even takes a nice picture of you.

You don’t text Bradley. For one, he’s probably busy, and two—you have a nagging feeling in the back of your head—you shouldn’t be doing this. Bradley would be rightly unhappy if you were driving yourself an hour up north, by yourself. But you don’t want to argue right now—you’ll argue with anyone, but you desperately don’t want to lose your temper with Bradley. 

You said you were fine when he told you he had to leave. He was so unhappy, the pain in his eyes was burning a hole in your heart. So of course you said you would be fine. But you aren’t. And right now you are terrified that if you argue with him, that your stupid mouth will say something horrible, something you can’t take back, something like “well, you left again” because he did, and he’ll look at you again with that crushing guilt overshadowing him—and it’ll be because of you because and because you don’t actually deserve him. You hiccup as tears fill your eyes. 

Shit. 

Get it together.

The quicker you leave, the quicker you’ll be home and there won’t be anything to argue about.

Now. Is it a horrible idea to wear ballerinas in the middle of D.C. winter? Yes. But no other shoe will fit you, and your fluffy slippers are arguably an even worse choice. God, you can’t even button up your nice coat anymore either. Better wrap up thick with a good scarf. 

You heave yourself into Bradley’s Bronco—you promised you would only use his car if you really needed to go somewhere—but it’s so goddamn high. 

“I can’t wait until you can climb in yourself, Bug.” You joke. Adjusting the rearview mirror, you catch sight of the baby carrier affixed in the back seat, and your heart jumps. You pestered Bradley so much to put it in already.

“I fly million-dollar fighter jets for a living, darlin’,” He told you smugly. “Don’t you think I’ll be able to figure out a car seat?”

“Do it then.” You smiled back, handing him the manual, knowing he won’t back down from you goading him. 

It took him a good twenty minutes and a lot of colorful swears to figure out how to affix the base properly, so it wouldn’t move. You didn’t say anything, just smiled sweetly and kissed his cheek as he shot you a venomous look when he was finally done. 

Pulling out of the driveway, you turn on a calming playlist, hoping Bug will not decide to tap dance on your bladder while you’re driving.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is all then, boss?” You groan as you sign the last of the papers. They could have really mentioned on the phone you had to initial about 50 pages too. Your hand is cramped, and the chair is uncomfortable and making your lower back hurt—you don’t even have the energy to give Birch a piece of your mind. You just really want to go back home now. 

“Yes, Dr. Bradshaw.” Your boss nods curtly. “And thanks again for coming in on such short notice in your… condition.” He adds carefully, avoiding looking at you.

You wonder if your hardened former marine boss is scared you’re going to go into labor on his watch, because you have never seen him so awkward.

“Yeah, of course.” You reply, trying your best to conjure up a polite smile, but wincing slightly as you get up. “I’ll be taking my leave now.” You joke poorly, waving your hand trying to get the cramp out.

You bid goodbye to your boss and a few of your colleagues, but your prime motivation is to get out of the Pentagon right now and get home. You’re starting to feel weird, not in your stomach, but in your gut. 

You shouldn’t be here.

As fast as you can, which is not very fast all things considered, you try to make your way back to the car. The pain in your back is getting worse, shooting down your sides. You need to sit down comfortably, you tell yourself, and then it will get better. 

Why is the parking lot so far away? You waddle miserably. Your feet are hurting too now, your soles burning at every step in your too-tight shoes. Finally, you reach the car, panting by now. With a grunt, you clamber into the driver’s seat. 

Finally you can relax. Bug is not having a good time anymore, squirming, probably as uncomfortable as you are currently. It’s making your stomach hurt.

“We’re going home.” You mumble, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Just let me catch my breath, Bug.”

After a few minutes of sitting in the comfortable seat, the pain finally starts to subside. Starting the car, you hum to yourself to keep calm. Just get home.

You barely make it out of the city before you realize you need to pee urgently. There’s a mall just off the main street, as you remember, so you’ll just take an early exit there. You are nearly shaking in your seat as you park and snatch your purse out of the car.

You really think you’re about to burst, and it doesn’t help your feeling increasingly anxious.

You shouldn’t be here. 

You need to get home.

Coming out of the bathroom, your back hurts worse than before, and it’s starting to spread to your stomach. Fuck. fuckfuckfuck. You try not to swear out loud and grimace too much as you wash your hands next to an elderly lady.

“Are you alright, sweetie?” The lady asks, her pearl necklace glimmering in the stark artificial light of the bathroom. Her light gray hair has a faint purple sheen that you are not sure you are imagining. From the corner of your eye, you can see your reflection—you look pallid.

“Ye- yeah, all good.” You force a smile on your face. At that moment, pain suddenly shoots through your abdomen with such severity, you nearly double over. It’s not even the worst of your problems, you realize quickly, as you feel a trickle run down your leg.

No.

Absolutely fucking not.

This is not happening.

Breathing rapidly, you grind your teeth helplessly.

“Oh dear,” The lady immediately grabs you by the elbow, helping you upright again. “I think the baby is about ready, sweetie.”

“No.” You utter softly as tears spring in your eyes. “Not yet.”

“Come, let's find you a place to sit and clean up.” She probably didn’t hear you as she starts leading you outside to a bench by the bathroom entrance. “Where’s your husband, sweetie? He should come get you now.”

At the mentions of husbands, you just start pathetically sobbing. “H-he’s not here.” 

“Oh dear.” The kindly lady hands you a tissue to dry your eyes. 

“He’s in the navy, and he’s in fuck-fucking Florida until next week.” Your words are coming out punctuated by sobs. “S- so the baby can’t come yet.” You add, urgently, trying to dry your eyes.

“Who can I call for you?” She asks gently, as she rubs your back. You wince as another wave of pain shoots through you. 

“My sister.” You say weakly, reaching into your pocket to dig out your phone. No matter how much you want to call Bradley right this minute, you also know that there is very little he can do all the way from Pensacola. Beth needs to come to get you. So she better pick up.

Every time the phone rings and Beth is not picking up, your anxiety ramps up further. The bench you’re sitting on is uncomfortable, the wooden slats digging into your sore back and you’re having trouble catching your breath as your shaking fingers nervously pluck at your unbuttoned coat.

“Why isn’t she picking up?” You breathe, bending your head forward. Black spots are appearing in your vision.

“You need to calm down.” A kind voice is telling you. You know. But you can’t control it. There is one thought permeating over everything else. 

Not yet.

The lady’s voice sounds far away, as you clutch your head, trying to desperately not have your vision go completely black on you. But you don’t know how to reason yourself back from the edge at this point, not seeing a solution to your predicament or grounding yourself in logic and pragmatism to deal with the problem at hand.

You need Bradley.

“Sweetie, I’m calling you an ambulance.” The voice sounds like it’s on the other end of a bad connection. But you manage to nod. 

You only sort of remember flashes of everything after that. Another person talking to you, laying down on a stretcher, clutching your bag, more voices, and then a silent room.

Bug is okay. That’s all you really remember, and it’s all you really care to remember right now. 

If you just lay here, and wait, Bradley will come for you. You hope he won’t be mad at you for going to work so close to your due date, and then having a panic attack when your water broke. You’re already mad enough at yourself.

You asked to nurses to try and call him, but they keep telling you no one is picking up. They reached your sister at least. Oh, joy.

Beth of course comes in all guns blazing. You see her husband scurry away with little Emma in his arms after he says hi to you. Smart man. You wish you could hide under the bed.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” Beth seethes. Jesus, why is she so angry? You sit up, sending her a withering look.

“What?” You reply curtly. The nurse implored you to stay calm so your blood pressure wouldn’t rise too much. 

“What? What?” Beth stalks up to the foot end of your bed, pointing her finger at you accusingly. “Darcy, have you gone completely insane? Can you not be left unsupervised for one afternoon? Seriously, who are you, and what have you done to my sensible sister? Does Bradley get custody of your brain cells when he is deployed or something? Jesus Christ.” 

You’re not going to get in a word edgewise right now, so you don’t even try.

“You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack. What the hell am I supposed to think when the hospital is trying to urgently reach me? But what a fucking surprise! It’s a hospital in D.C.! A place my dear darling sister has no business being.” 

Still not saying anything, you avert your eyes. 

“What were you doing in D.C.? And I swear to fuck, Darce, if you say it has anything to do with work, I will not hesitate and burn your book collection.” 

At that, you choke back a sob. You feel so guilty, it’s starting to consume you. If you had stayed home and relaxed like you were supposed to, you probably wouldn’t have gone into labor yet. Beth is right to be angry with you. Bradley will probably be. You promised you’d be careful, you promised you’d take it easy, you promised yourself you would hold out until he would be back. 

“No, but seriously, have you lost all common sense? Do you need a -” Beth finally stops her tirade short as she sees you cry silently, not even bothering to defend yourself. She’s seen you cry plenty of times before, hell, she’s made you cry a lot of those times. But never like this. Never like you’ve given up. You always fight back, you are always doing something. Usually, it’s Beth who tries to stop you from completely overdoing things. But now you’re just sitting there crying.

“Darcy- Darce, what the hell?” She walks around the bed and sits down next to you. “You are freaking me out now.” She tells you seriously, as she grabs your hand. You just shake your head as tears stream down your face. “Have you reached Bradley yet?” She asks, her voice a lot softer.

You shake your head. “He’s still not picking up”

“And?”

“And what?” You sob softly.

“Since when have you ever given up at the first hurdle?” Beth pushes. “Really, you got married, knocked up and now you’re going to sit pretty? I’m disappointed, honestly.”

Something dangerous flashes in your eyes as you turn to look at her, drawing a shuddering breath. Gotcha. She’s going for the jugular now.

“No, really, I mean—you’re just going to wait around for your husband like this? I’m sure he’s appreciating all your efforts to get in touch with him as soon as possible.” Beth sneers at you.

“What the fuck, Beth?!” You suddenly screech, ripping your hand from hers. Fuck staying calm. You need to urgently throttle your younger sister. “You’re supposed to be on my side here! Can you for once in your life not antagonize the ever-loving shit out of me? I’m in pain, I already feel like shit, and I’m alone here! I know—I fucking know—it’s my screw-up.” Your voice is raw from crying. “Why are you so fucking hell-bent on kicking me when I’m down? Can’t you just be here for me, for once—just this fucking once?” 

“Because you are being ridiculous, and no one but me will tell you that!” Beth matches your volume easily. “You don’t sit here just because Bradley’s not picking up his phone. Do what you always do. Do what do best, you dumb bitch. Organize a fucking solution.”

With that, she snatches your phone from the table next to the bed and pushes it into your chest. “I’m going to get a coffee. Let me know if you need help.” Beth cuts at you with an eerie calmness as she gets up and walks out the door without as much as a look back at you.

You sigh heavily, rubbing your stomach. “Let’s figure out a way to let daddy know you’re early, Bug.”

There are many things you didn’t anticipate about going into labor. How long it would take, how painful it would be, to name a few. But mostly, you didn’t anticipate having to argue and beg your way up your husband’s chain of command before you reach someone that could actually reliably relay the message to him, urgently.

For the last ten minutes, you’ve been arguing with Simpson’s assistant, who seems deeply unwilling to either put you through or to confirm he will forward the message to the admiral.

“He’s supervising training maneuvers now.” He tells you in a bored tone. “So it will have to wait.”

You push yourself off the bed, and start pacing. “Lister here -” you stop yourself before you call him a little shit. “Lieutenant.” You add after a suspiciously long pause. “I know he’s supervising the maneuvers. My husband is the one flying them.” 

“Well, I can’t patch you through to the jet, not from a civilian phone.” He replies in the same bored tone.

“I’m not asking for that, am I?” You grind out as a contraction stops you dead in your tracks. Your face twists in pain and anger. “Tell admiral Simpson Dr. Bradshaw needs to speak to him urgently. He knows who I am.” 

You are banking on Simpson actually taking the call based on what Bradley told you. If he actually gives Bradley the message, you will willingly edit any brain fart Simpson puts to paper for publication. You swear under your breath.

Finally you hear the hold tone. You let out a deep breath as much to steel yourself for hopefully the last leg of this telephone journey, as well as to help abate some of the shooting pain. 

“Dr. Bradshaw!” Simpson is entirely too jovial for the current situation. Calm. You need to stay calm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Rooster, Rooster—this is tower, come in.”

“Come in, tower.” 

It’s been an absolutely grueling day of flying. Bradley is tired and in pain and glad to be on the way back. He wants a shower, bed, and you on the phone.

Cyclone better not have him on paperwork or other stupid errands today.

“Rooster, this is Cyclone from tower.”

Fuck. Cyclone only calls in to complain or heap on additional bullshit to his day.

“Copy, Cyclone.” Bradley tries to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“Your wife called, Rooster. She’s in labor.” Cyclone’s message is wholly unemotional like he’s simply updating Bradley on changing weather conditions.

“Copy that.” It’s almost comical that that’s the only thing Bradley can come up with to say, more because it’s second nature, rather than him acutally parsing what was just said to him. But how do you react in a moment like this? 

He needs to call you.

He needs to talk to you. 

If he can’t be there physically, which pains him more than he cares to admit right now as his hands tighten around the steering, he wants to at least to be able to talk to you.

Shit.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He is supposed to be there with you. Bradley knows how scared you are and how much you tried to hide it. 

He is not supposed to be here.

“Rooster, return to base urgently.” Cyclone orders him. Bradley replies affirmative, breaking formation and speeding up. He has no idea what is going on right now. A million things are running through his head, but most of all he wants to turn his jet around and blast north toward Virginia. Rationally, he knows that it’s out of the range a fully fueled F18 can fly, and his tanks are running near empty. 

That feeling of powerlessness is creeping up on him again. You are almost a 1000 miles away, and he has no manner of reaching you, despite sitting in a fighter jet. The clock is running, you are alone, and he can’t do anything.

When Bradley touches down, he’s a good ten minutes ahead of the rest of the squadron, who were ordered to stay on speed and formation. As he taxis into the bay, he notices, to his utter confusion, Cyclone jogging across the tarmac followed by his sour-faced assistant.

Bradley has a sinking feeling in his stomach. This can only mean Cyclone is pissed about something that happened in the training, and Bradley is about to be dragged into a painfully long debrief. It’s just his luck today.

He shouldn’t be here.

“Rooster!” Cyclone is hollering at him and waving his arm frantically the moment the canopy lifts.

Bradley starts climbing out of the cockpit, bracing himself for the inevitable dressing down. The moment his feet reach the ground, he hasn’t even unclipped his helmet yet, Cyclone is yelling at him to hurry up as he is making a beeline towards him. Hurry up? For what?

Is there something wrong with you? Is that why he was ordered to land? Is that why Cyclone is running across the tarmac yelling? Is it something he absolutely could not be told in while in the air?

Bradley stands rooted to the ground as he watches Cyclone approach, who is now gesturing wildly at him to also start running.

“Rooster, move your ass already!” Cyclone yells so loudly, that several engineers look up in surprise.

Almost automatically, Bradley starts running in the same direction as Cyclone and his assistant, his muscles protesting heavily against the sudden motion.

“What the fuck is going on?” He blurts out, adrenaline rushing through his body, every sense in overdrive.

“There’s a transporter leaving for D.C. in -” Cyclone quickly looks at his watch as he tries to catch his breath. “Two minutes.”

The assistant trusts a paper in Bradley’s hands. “Emergency 48-hour leave.” He deadpans.

“Wha- what is going on?!” Bradley exclaims angrily, clutching the paper forcibly as he slows down his run. Emergency leave? A plane to D.C.? However, instead of answering, Cyclone grabs him by the elbow and practically starts dragging him along to the second taxiway. 

“Your wife is in labor. You’re getting emergency leave.” Cyclone grinds out. “And a “thank you sir” would be nice.” 

“Is she okay? Is the baby okay?” Bradley asks hurriedly instead, completely ignoring Cyclone’s comment about showing respect, because his need to know that you are both okay is really the only thing he really cares about right now.

“She sounded fine.” The assistant butts in. 

Cyclone is now practically pushing him up the ramp of the transporter plane. The loader is waving at Bradley with hurried motions to get in. 

Over the sound of the roaring engines, he hears Cyclone yell: “She’s at The Virginia Hospital Centerl!”

Bradley puts up his thumb. “Thank you, sir!” He yells back.

“And kindly remind Dr. Bradshaw she owes me one!” Cyclone adds, grinning, as the ramp is closing.

Owe him one? What? Bradley is even more confused than he was less than a minute ago. Why are you not at the hospital you had picked together in the first place? Isn’t VHC in D.C.? It doesn’t really matter right now. At least he knows you and Bug are okay, and he’s on his way to you.

However.

He doesn’t have his phone, he doesn’t even have his wallet. All he has on him right now is his military ID. How the fuck is he supposed to get to the hospital from the air base?

As he straps in, Bradley can’t help but wonder: did he just get washed up by the Cyclone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You shuffle around your hospital room miserably, while your sister chills in one of the chairs playing with her phone. The nurses have been checking up on you regularly, but your blood pressure is pretty steady now and everything seems to be progressing normally. A particularly strict-looking nurse reprimanded both you and your sister quite harshly for making such a scene in the maternity ward. Honestly, she was right to do so.

The contractions are coming more often and more severely. Your lower back is killing you, but you’ve been told it’s still too early to give you any medication. 

After you managed to get through Simpson, he was quick to promise to inform Bradley about your condition, but then promptly went on to ignore you were in labor and talked your ear of about something he wanted to publish. 

Exasperated and in pain, you promised you would look over his writings at the earliest convenience, spelled out your email address between gritted teeth as a contraction thundered through your lower body. At this point, you would have probably promised your firstborn—well, no, not that, but anything else—so you could at least talk to Bradley.

So now you are desperately waiting for Bradley to call you. It’s been almost two hours since you’ve spoken to Simpson, surely he’s not still flying? When you try to call him, his phone just rings and rings before switching over to voice mail, like it’s been doing all day. Where is Bradley? 

Unhappily, you push yourself to accept he won’t be here with you, but that you won’t even be able to talk to him? That’s cruel.

Waddling back to your bed, you slide in, pulling the cover over yourself. The nurse mentioned she would get you a hospital gown soon, since you had absolutely nothing with you. There are so many things you have to think about, but your brain is not cooperating anymore. All you can think about is how miserable you are—in pain and lonely. Beth keeps telling you to suck it up, but you don’t want to. You get to be sad if you want to.

Of course you are happy that Bug is coming. That’s not the point. But there are so many things running through your head, it’s hard to focus on the positive side of it all. You should ask your brother-in-law to drive down to your house and get your overnight bag. You need to figure out how to get back to the Bronco too, as that’s the only car with a baby seat. Personally, you think your brother-in-law is kind of a shit driver, so you’d rather not resort to him picking the Bronco up. Then there’s paperwork. Forms, informed consent, insurance—if you have to sign one more fucking thing today you will scream.

It’s too much.

Pulling the blanket over your head, you curl up, trying to stave off the pain in your lower body. Bradley’s shirt still smells like him. Sadly you consider if this is the closest he is going to be here today.

“Beth?” You mumble from under the blanket, voice thick with tears. 

“Yeah?” Beth finally looks up from her phone. It’s concerning her how much you seem to be suffering from Bradley not being here—you were always independent, on top of everything, and you sure as hell didn’t mope around this much. You told her you were scared of going into labor alone, and Beth understands that. And she feels sorry for you, but never has she seen you behave like this, and it’s actually kind of freaking her out.

“Can you please ask Erik to get my overnight bag from home?” Your voice is quivering. “Everything is in there, it’s right by the door.”

“Yeah, of course.” Beth gets up and walks up to the bed. She gently lifts the cover to look at you. Your bloodshot eyes look back at her. “Do you need anything else, Darce?” She asks as she squats down, so she’s at eye level with you. You shake your head. 

“We’re in this together, okay? I know I’m not the person you want here.” Beth tells you gently, her fingers brushing a strand of hair from your forehead. “But you can do this, I know you do. And I’m here for you.”

“Thank you.” You whisper. “And you are a close second, don’t worry.” You try to joke through your tears. Beth laughs softly.

“It’s okay, I’d pick your hot husband over you too.” She winks at you. You groan in disgust.

“I’m telling Erik you said that.” 

“Too late, I already texted him to go get your bag.” Beth waves her hand dismissively. “He’s taking Emma with him, hopefully she falls asleep in the car for a while.”

It’s getting dark outside already. You sigh. This morning at home feels like a distant memory already.

Still wrapped in your blanket cocoon, Beth continues stroking your forehead and talking you through breathing exercises. It’s helping you relax finally. You close your eyes and just focus on Beth’s gentle voice. It feels like you're falling in and out microsleep, Beth’s voice becoming so distant at moments you cannot make out the words before a contraction pulls you back to the present. As the pain ebbs away, so does your consciousness. 

It must be the third or fourth cycle of micro sleep you fall into, Beth softly humming now, when you swear you can hear Bradley’s voice. You cannot make out what he is saying, because it sounds like he’s in a different room, but it’s unmistakably him. 

A warmth fills you. You missed his voice, and he sounds so close, like he can come in at any moment. Soon, another contraction will pull you away from his voice. You try to direct your sleepy brain to focus on Bradley to bring him closer. It’s working. His voice is becoming louder—he’s talking to someone. He sounds annoyed. There’s no reason to be annoyed, babe, you think. It’s all good. You’re here. Come here. I need you.

The door clicks open. It’s like the floodgates open. You can hear Bradley’s voice clear as day now—and he’s really annoyed. Seriously, the best your brain can come up with when you miss your husband is him being annoyed? Sad.

“What the shit?” Beth utters in disbelief, as she suddenly gets up, waking you up fully. You finally open your eyes, only to see Beth staring at the door behind you.

You can still hear Bradley talk, although you are now sure you are awake.

Shooting up, arms flailing, the covers slide onto the floor. Beth grabs your arm to steady you.

You’ve lost your mind.

Your brain is 100% broken now.

Did they give you morphine anyway? Are you fucking hallucinating?

Because in the doorway is Bradley, still in full flight gear—g-suit still zipped over his flight suit and helmet in his hand. His hair is messy and flattened at weird angles, like he only just pulled the helmet off. He’s towering over the strict nurse and arguing with her. She’s not giving him an inch.

“She needs rest! You can’t just barge in like that.” She’s admonishing him, pointing her finger in your general direction. “And only one visitor in the room!”

“I know she needs rest—that’s why I’m here.” Bradley bites back. “And I’m not a visitor, I’m her husband, and that’s my child.”

“What the fuck.” You don’t realize you say it so loudly, every falls silent and looks at you.

“I’ll wait in the hall.” Beth says hurriedly as she scurries away to the door, followed by the strict nurse, that throws one final venomous look at Bradley who is completely ignoring her now.

So others clearly can see him too, right?

You start clambering out of the bed as fast as you can, padding over to him barefoot, needing some sort of confirmation Bradley is really, actually here, and you’ve not finally and definitively cracked. 

Your arms snake around his neck as you pull him close to you. He feels so real, he smells like jet fuel and winter air, but his skin is just as warm as you remember. Bradley doesn’t say anything, just wrapping you in his arms and pressing kisses along your jaw. 

“What are you doing here?”

Bradley stops dead in his tracks. Not the question he was expecting. He pulls back, so he can see your face, but you cling to him, your fingers digging into his arms like you’re scared he’s going to turn to smoke in your arms.

“Didn’t Cyclone tell you he gave me 48-hour emergency leave and practically threw me onto a transporter headed to D.C.?” Bradley asks with a slight chuckle. “I had to pull rank on some poor private to drive me here from Anacostia-Bolling airbase—I don’t have my phone, wallet, nothing.”

You’re looking at him completely slack-jawed, blinking rapidly. Finally, the neurons in your brain start firing again.

Fucking Simpson. Figures.

“You know what?” You sigh, before smiling up at him. “Tell me another time. I’m just glad you’re really here. I need you.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bug is born just after midnight. A healthy baby boy with all ten fingers and ten toes.

Bradley doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy to hear a baby cry. And he’s never been so goddamn proud in his life: of you, of the little life you both created, and again of you because you did all the hard work. He’s half-sitting next to you on the bed when you collapse back on the pillows behind you, and he whispers to you how much he loves you, how proud he is, and how well you did.

You open your tired eyes for a moment. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” You breathe.

“Yes, you could have, darlin’.” He counters with a smile as he wipes the fresh sweat off your forehead. 

“And here’s baby boy Bradshaw!” The nurse announces happily, as she gently pulls the top of your gown down and puts the baby against your skin before covering you with the baby blanket you and Bradley bought months ago. 

You feel your heart soar. So small, so warm, and finally here. You tear your eyes away from your little Bug just for a second to see Bradley’s reaction. He looks completely awestruck, tears forming in his eyes. Tears spring in your eyes too as you watch his index finger run over your son’s cheek in a feather-light touch.

“Hey Bug.” He whispers. You never felt like your life was incomplete. But in a certain way, it feels like it’s naturally more complete now than it was before, like more puzzle pieces are sliding into place around you. “I’m so glad to see you.” You add softly.

It’s hours later when you are sitting up in bed, across from your sister, sharing a pile of snacks from the vending machine. Only the bedside lamp is on. You are not only starving, but also wide awake, hyper-aware of every sound and move Bug is making. Bradley is getting some much-needed shut-eye in the recliner with Bug sleeping on his bare chest. 

You honestly didn’t think you could fall in love any more with that man, but the way he is gently cradling your son in his large arms, the way he looks at him like he’s the most special little thing in the whole wide world and how he keeps repeating how you made him and how proud he is of you is honestly messing with your head in the best kind of way. You feel like you’ve fallen in love with him for the first time, over and over again today.

“So, do you think all these nurses coming to check up on you all night are here because of your fancy insurance,” Beth asks, grinning as she pops an M&M in her mouth. “Or they’re just coming to gawk at him?” She jerks her head to the side where Bradley just fell asleep.

Bug is under his blanket, sleeping on Bradley’s bare chest, his fight suit tied around his waist. The blanket that had been draped over them has fallen off one of Bradley’s shoulders, revealing his muscular chest and the subtle movement of his abdomen as he breathes. 

You snort. 

“Well, he’s a good-looking daddy.” You shrug as you take a sip from your Fanta.

“Jesus Christ, Darce - TMI.” Beth guffaws. You shush her, unable to keep yourself from laughing too. There is something strange about having a girl’s night with your sister in a hospital bed when you’ve given birth just hours ago. But here you are, giggling like teenagers.

Bug starts squirming and softly crying, and while you both quiet down, Bradley wakes up right away. He starts shushing and rocking Bug, who’s not having it. 

“He’s probably hungry, babe.” You say, wiping your hands on a tissue before reaching out to him. Carefully Bradley places Bug in your arms.

“How are you two not tired?” He asks, rubbing his eyes. You shrug, you are too full of wonder, too full of love—and actually just way too wired—to go to sleep.

“I have a toddler.” Beth laughs as she gets up from the bed to give you some privacy. “Do you really think I’ve had a full night’s sleep in the last three years?” 

“Now’s not the time to regale us with your horror stories with Emma.” You warn Beth, still laughing lightly as you try Bug to latch onto your breast. Bradley sits down close to you on the bed.

“You want anything else from the vending machine?” Beth asks from the doorway.

“Nah, we’re good.” You reply absentmindedly, still focussed on Bug.

“We’re good, right?” You ask fondly, meeting Bradley’s eyes. You’re not even really asking about the snacks anymore.

“I think we’re great.” He agrees, pressing a kiss against your forehead.

note | oh damn, it's actually really done now :( I have no more stories to tell for these two. I hope you enjoyed this adventure, and that the ending didn't disappoint! (I tell myself it had to age a bit like a wine). If you'd like to read more of my stories, I'm currently working on a WWII AU called Of All The Stars In The Sky.

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[beautifulpersonpeach]

It's hilarious to me BPP that all the people saying HYBE doesn't want Jimin nominated along with Jungkook in Western awards have nothing to say when Billboard reported HYBE submitted all BTS members for consideration and nominations at the Grammys. Thank you very much for this blog. You nice keep going.

***

Oh I find it amusing too. I've been around long enough that it doesn't surprise me the sorts of theories that gain traction with certain types of people. But it's still amusing to watch this happen every couple years, with every new wave of people who join the fandom.

I keep saying, all the theories from solo spaces reflect their insecurities and anxieties rather than anything that's actually happening based on the facts as we have them. Jimin not getting a nomination doesn't mean his work wasn't submitted, but because akgaes live in a miserable, sick terror that everyone is out to get their fave, including his band members and HYBE, they presume Jimin's lack of nominations must be because HYBE intentionally neglected to submit his work to control him, boost their bottom line (literally counterproductive ergo irrational but I digress), or because HYBE hates him. There's no long-dated history or verified pattern of behaviour regarding award submissions to support that theory, but that doesn't stop people already afraid based on scenarios they've relived over and over in their heads, from latching onto it for dear life.

When faced with irrefutable proof that HYBE has submitted Jimin's work for the Grammys, i.e. a confirmed example directly applicable to BTS, and not an extrapolation based on what happened to another artist in another award show years ago as akgaes were asserting for Despacito, it does nothing to dislodge their conspiracy theories. It barely even registers in the web of mismatched accusations, vitriol, and hate they've weaved together in the last 6 months about Jimin, Jungkook, BTS, and HYBE.

Like another Anon said, trying to reason with them is about as effective as trying to talk to a Q-anon believer who thinks there's truth to Pizzagate and it's proof children are being trafficked by the rival political party they hate.

Belief is a very fascinating thing.

People throw around words like "cult" in fandom but the groups of people that consistently show this thinking and behaviours:

a propensity for conspiracy,

doomposting,

strict adhesion to groupthink to the point an akgae can write '"I know all and see all" in a bid to coerce their followers to not frequent my blog since I'm a taekooker who hates Jimin, and their followers will just nod their heads and think that's a very normal thing to say....

caustic hateful language,

people usually located at the fringes of any main fandom space,

....and other sociopathic behaviours, these sorts of people are the least self-aware and yet most eager to throw that word around. Yet another quirk of things you see in fandom that make this space oh so entertaining.

Anyway, good luck to the members. It makes me proud to see them all able to present their art for consideration at the Grammys. All seven members have worked hard and deserve to have their albums given a fair chance, and I hope they all succeed.