#I spent christmas with my found family and got wine drunk and it was nice

[gxlden-angels]

It really is just José y Maria (2014) by Everett Patterson and me against the world this Christmas season huh?

[multifandom-girlie]

𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚 ?

Imagine: He asks you what you'd like for Christmas and you take it up a notch since he asked.

Pairings: Human!Elijah x Human!Reader

Warnings: Smut and a sweet family moment.

A/N: Hey guys! I just wanted to apologise in advance because this ended up being a lot longer than anticipated because I got a bit carried away and added the sweetest little family moment at the end anyway no more spoilers but enjoy!!

I had just unlocked the door to Mine and Elijah's apartment, where I had just got some a sexy Christmas outfit for Elijah's Christmas present, since he said I was enough and that he didn't want anything. I thought I'd give him me.

I was just finishing my hair, when I heard the front door open and close, that meant Elijah was home and just in time. He decided to be nice this Christmas and give Klaus and lift home since he got hammered at Rousseau's for Christmas and why not. 

“Beautiful ? I'm back.”

“Okay baby, just wait in the living room. I'll be out in a second.”

“Okay sweetheart.”

I smiled at the terms of endearment, it's a usual thing but I love it so very much. I get Goosebumps and start to blush whenever he says things like 'beautiful' or 'sweetheart'. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled, I know he's going to love it. He always likes it when I dress up just for him.

I opened the bedroom door and stepped out, before walking towards Elijah and standing in front of his chair that he was sat in.

“Happy Christmas, Handsome.”

He gaped for a second and then closed his mouth regained his usual posture and smirked. His hands reached out to grab the diaphanous fabric of the lingerie I was wearing and muttered under his breath.

“Happy Christmas indeed. Wow....I feel terrible I didn't at least get dressed up for you.”

“No, it's okay. Don't worry about it.”

“No it's not. Tell me what you for christmas.”

“Santa ? Is that you ?”

He chuckled and I kept my act up and sat on his knee whilst his arm wrapped around my waist and his other hand rested on my knee.

“It is indeed. What would you like for Christmas this year ?”

“I've been thinking very hard about this Santa because I really don't want anything except one thing. So I would really appreciate it if you have it too me....”

“It better be a good thing to ask for because that was a hell of a build up...”

“I promise it is....”

“Well then, what would you like ?”

“I would like you to fuck me hard. Please.”

I looked at him lustfully and he returned the gesture. Before pulling both my legs and wrapping them around him, making my heels rest on his back. We were inches apart and very desperate to make good on my wish.

“As you wish, my beautiful.”

We grinned at eachother and kissed eachother roughly, passionately....lustfully. I'd never been so turned on as I was then in my life. He was about the rip the lingerie off of me but luckily I stopped him before he could.

“Wait, I spent too much on this for you to rip it straight away. At least let it get 2 wears in.”

“Fine.”

He left it on instead, luckily for us both, there was no bottom half to it. The lingerie was a just a transculent dress really. He pulled the cups of the dress under my breasts so they could breathe however they were immediately suffocated once again, only this time on the sweet mouth of Elijah Mikaelson. His tounge encircled each nipple, one by one and discharged a quiet moan from me.

I clutched at the nape of his neck and began to rub myself against his hard on immediately. He let out a small groan and tightened the grip he had on my nipple with his mouth, which inspired a slight screech from myself. I ripped the belt off of him and I threw it behind him to an empty space by the tree. I continued to rip his clothes off and one of the articles of clothing hit the tree and disturbed us because a bauble had smashed on the floor. We pulled away and started giggling at eachother and we're also incredibly out of breathe. He slipped his boxers off and I immediately blushed.

Everytime I saw how much I affected him, I blushed and I thought it was such an awkward thing to do. I had expressed how I felt about it before to Elijah but he reassured me that he very much adored it but I still feel that tiniest bit awkward. 

I still continued to rest my body on my knees and wrap my lips around his cock, he threw is head back and groaned before he forced himself to pull me off of him and stood up and made me sit down in the chair before kneeling down and lining himself up with my entrance. The action made me bite my lip in anticipation and my lip almost flew out of my mouth as soon as he thrust into me.

My hands gripped the arms of the chair and he consistenly thrusted into me at a slow pace. I stretched around him and his hips slapped against the back of my thighs and he deepened himself further inside of me. It was a tantinisingly slow pace but I knew he was making it last though.

It's not often that we get to just have sex without arranging it. The kids were staying with Rebekah and Marcel for the night and we were going to have a quiet night alone. We often have to plan we have sex though, which makes it less special and it's not even the kids we have to arrange it around...it’s also Klaus. He's incompetent without Elijah with him, I swear he has separation anxiety. I do feel bad for him though since Hayley doesn't like him seeing Hope alone because she's worried he's constantly drunk. He just missed Camille and has just attended the wedding of the love of his life and someone he saw as a brother to him.

Elijah gripped my legs, leaving handprints embroidered in my skins. He pulled out suddenly and flipped me around on the chair. I gripped the back of the chair and my knees sunk into the fabric of the bottom cushion. His large hands stroked my hips tightly before getting down on his own knees and licking and kissing my entrance, earning a few sweet moans to erupt from my throat. Not long after, he sprung back up and stroked my clit with the tip of his cock before suddenly thrusting straight into my entrance which caused a loud moan to echo around us. One of my hands gripped the arm and one gripped the back of the chair, as his pace quickened and he created slapping sounds between our bodies. He kept rocking his hips back and force at a never ending pace. Groans emitting from his body aswell and his hands founding the best grip on my hips. I started to tighten around him and not longer, I came all around him. 

He pulled me to stand up after I came and sat down himself before gently pulling my hand and prompting me to sit on his lap. He positioned himself at my entrance as I was still a bit shaky from my release. I sat down on him slowly whilst letting out a long breathy moan. His hands found my hips again and mine gripped his shoulders. I was too overstimulated to keep moving, so he moved my hips up and down on his lap so he could reach his orgasm. He started throbbing, stimulating me more and more until we both released all over eachother, making a mess. His juices were running down my thighs and dripping down his cock, falling onto his stomach. Mine, combining with his...again running down my thighs and drenching his now flaccid cock.

I carefully removed myself off of him, to grab a warm towel to clean us up with. The sheer material of my dress, tickling my legs as I walked. I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself. I knew I wasn't ugly but damn do I look good after sex. Although it never feels like just sex when it's with Elijah, it feels like pure, physical luck. I always feel like the luckiest women in the world...not forgetting the best looked after cause wow is he godly in physical act of love, for lack of more appropriate words. I walked back in after finishing cleaning myself up and handed him a cloth too, before giving him a kiss and going to run a bath.

“Hey Lijah handsome, I'm gonna run a bath do you wanna get in with me in a sec ?”

“I would love too, beautiful.”

He just finished and stopped in the doorway to our bedroom and turned to him.

��Can you b-"

He cut me off.

“Yes, I will get the wine. Give me a second sweetheart.”

I giggled and walked off. He walked into the bathroom, seeing me already in the bath. Surrounded by candles and and the sweet aroma of the Christmas candle burning, that smelt like cinnamon, hot wine, vanilla, ginger, orange,honey and chocolate. Just a warm, inviting smell to relax too on Christmas day. He got in and poured some white wine he had delivered, along with himself.

“Here we go beautiful.”

I grabbed the glass he handed me and we spent the whole bath talking about nice thing like: the kids, new years eve and complimenting eachother. After about 45 minutes, the water started to go cold so we decided to get out and get into some more comfortable clothes and tidy up a bit. We started to relax by sitting on the sofa and throwing a blanket on top of us whilst watching ‘It’s a wonderful life'...and let me tell you it most certainly is. We were just about to go make some hot cocoa when there was a knock on the door, confusing us both. We glanced at eachother in wonder and when I opened the door, Rebekah and the kids were standing there. I smiled at them as they ran in to say hi to their dad. I turned to Rebekah.

“I’m sorry, I know I promised I'd have them for the night but they wouldn't go to sleep unless Marcel read them a book or your and Elijah were there, but Marcel passed out whilst we were watching a film. I really wanted you and Elijah to have a night to yourselves and I really tried bu-”

I chuckled at her and held my hand up.

“Rebekah, it's fine we don't mind. Honestly, I was missing having the kids here anyway and we were just about to make hot cocoa anyway. Calm yourself down and go to sleep, you look exhausted.”

“Thankyou Y/N, I owe you one !”

“No you don't!”

I closed the door, to see the kids sat with their dad watching home alone. I smiled at the view, this is why I'm lucky to have Elijah.

OUTFIT

MASTERLIST

[bopbopstyles]

1. December 26th, 2016

SERIES RATING: M (sex)

CHAPTER WORD COUNT: 6.4k

MASTERLIST | INSPO TAG | ASK

Y/N promised herself she would never date a musician. It was her one rule–her only rule, actually–when it came to dating. But then, Harry Styles rolled into her life and asked her to break it, just this once. And this is what happened.

A/N: welcome to chapter one of THE ONLY EXCEPTION! i’m so flipping excited i could scream!!!!!! this fic is going to be a long boi so buckle up. also thank you to @meetmeinfleetwood​ for supporting this fic from the start ilysm!!!! xoxo, willa

pls reblog to spread the word about only exception! 🥰

Y/N’s dad had been having these Christmas parties for the past five years or so, each time on the 26th of December, each time packed with music industry people and lots of bottles of tequila and red wine. Her first time had been two years ago, and she had found it surprisingly enjoyable—she had expected it to be boring and to want to leave after the first hour. Instead, it was full of people she had known since she was a kid, musicians and producers and her dad’s old A&R guys who she had grown up hanging out with in recording studios and backstage at her dad’s shows. They had come to family dinners before and after her parents’ divorce, and so when she ran into them at the parties it was easy to catch them up on her life and suddenly it was after midnight and the party was emptying out. 

This year she had volunteered to help set up. Her dad had rented a massive house out in the hills and it came already decorated, but it was on Y/N to make sure there were chairs set up for the music circle, a massive bar laid out and plenty of glasses ready. Her dad’s friend was making the food, eager to use the opportunity to promote the new restaurant he was opening, so when Y/N opened the door it already smelled like garlic and olive oil, her favorite scents on earth. 

“Karl!” She called through the house, shutting the heavy oak door behind her. Her arms were laden with boxes of plastic glasses—her dad was too scared of the guests breaking glass ones—and she wandered into the kitchen. The tall ceilings of the entryway where a massive Christmas tree sat adorned with ornaments gave way to a modern, sleek kitchen. Karl twirled around to greet her, a grin on his face. “Smells delicious in here.”

He set down his spatula and came over, grabbing a box and giving her a kiss on each cheek. “Hello, darling. Are there more in the car?” 

She shook her head, unwinding her scarf from her neck and placing it on the counter. Karl had been her father’s college roommate and somehow they’d stayed close over the years, every one of Y/N’s birthdays spent at one of Karl’s restaurants with all of her favorite dishes made special, a birthday cannoli with a candle in it for her to blow out. “This is all of the glasses. Dad told me to get the bar ready—he’s bringing the booze in a bit.”

“Hope there’s a glass of wine in there for the chef,” Karl said and Y/N chuckled—there always was a bottle of Karl’s favorite expensive wine set aside when he did one of these things and he knew it. It was part of the pay, her father always said. “Want to taste test?”

“Always.” Y/N joined Karl at the stove, eagerly tasting the sauce he was cooking. It was a simple sage butter sauce, but Karl always excelled at the most simple dishes. “Delicious, as usual,” she said. 

Karl jabbered her ear off about the updates on the restaurant—they’d run into problems finding a good sous chef and he was about to do the job himself if he didn’t find someone soon—while Y/N decided where to set up the bar. Finally, she settled on a high table against the glass wall in the wide hallway between the kitchen and the sprawling dining room, which opened up onto the patio. She tugged open the accordion glass doors and breathed in the cool Los Angeles air, thankful for a relatively cold evening, since she always got overheated at parties like this, where people were crammed into every corner. Her dad seemed to know more people every year. Satisfied with the position of the table, she set out the glasses and paper napkins, before asking Karl if he had an extra cooler he’d brought with. She’d forgotten to ask her dad for one before she had left. She filled it with ice and set it next to the table with a scoop, and grabbed the special shot glasses her father had told her to bring, placing them on the table next to a bouquet of flowers. 

Her job done, she wandered through the rest of the house. It was gorgeous—she wondered how her father had found it. If she remembered correctly, he had said something about it being an official venue for music and parties, he’d done a private gig here a few years back and the owners had loved him enough to offer it for this party. It’s not like anyone really had gigs on December 26th anyway. She closed all the doors to the back bedrooms, remembering her father’s request, and set up a coat closet of sorts out of the bedroom closest to the front, before heading to change into her outfit for the evening. 

“Y/N!” She was securing her favorite pair of earrings in her ears when she heard her father’s voice through the halls of the house. “Where ya at, sweetheart?”

“One sec, Dad!” She grabbed the hanger she had kept her top on and shoved it into her massive purse, settling it into the back corner of the room for safety. Her father was waiting for her in the kitchen with Karl, also getting a sample of the sauce she had tried earlier. 

“Hi you,” her father said when she came in. His salt and pepper hair was balding a bit, but his bright smile was what drew people in, olive skin that tanned easily in the California sun. Y/N had selected his suit for the evening, a maroon red and a black tie, something a bit out of the ordinary for him, but Y/N loved it. “Look gorgeous.”

She hugged her father tightly. She had spent Christmas with her mother, as usual, so this was the first time she’d seen her dad during the holidays. “Not too bad yourself, captain.”

“Ha!” Her father pinched her cheek softly, just as he had when she was a child. “I’ve got your present in the car, come grab it with me?”

“Sure.” They had decided to exchange gifts at the party and Y/N had hers tucked in the back pocket of her jeans—dinner on her at Karl’s new restaurant, something she’d discussed with the owner a few weeks ago. Her father’s car sat in the driveway, trunk open where boxes of alcohol laid waiting to be carried inside. “That my gift?”

“You wish,” her dad answered, and Y/N gave him a pouty look that he just shook his head at. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope. Y/N couldn’t help but hope it was cash—she needed a new computer and was running a bit short. She knew her dad would help if she asked, but she hated asking him for money. 

She took the envelope and opened it, a sheet of paper and something thicker hiding between its folds. She opened the letter and found a homemade coupon of sorts, just as she had done for him. 

TWO TICKETS TO ANY SHOW IN LA - NON-REFUNDABLE, FUN REQUIRED!

“Papa,” she said, giving him a beaming smile. “My favorite!” She threw her arms around his neck and he chuckled, hugging her right back. 

“Just give me a few weeks heads up, okay?”

Y/N nodded, and looked back down at the letter, eyes running over her dad’s sweet words of love and pride. It was their thing—homemade cards always, never store bought, despite that neither of them could draw. “Thank you.” 

“Welcome, sweetheart.”

“Now yours!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out his envelope, aptly addressed, Dad, and handed it over. Her father read her card as well, and chuckled at her drawing of them at dinner together. 

He kissed her forehead gently. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said, squeezing his side. “Now let’s get all this booze out of your car before I drive away with it!” Her dad laughed and followed her to the back of the car, them each grabbing a carton of wine. There had to be enough for over a hundred people, Y/N thought to herself. Who would be new this year?

The party was in full swing, her dad’s favorite music playing softly through the speaker system, people littered all over the house with the alcohol flowing. Karl was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, his food a massive hit, and Y/N couldn’t have been happier for him. She’d caught up with her dad’s friends and people who were essentially her godparents, sharing how her job was going (fine) and her relationship prospects (non-existent), sipping tequila and red wine on rotation. 

Y/N leaned against the patio railing overlooking the hills, a glass of tequila on the rocks settled in between her palms. She could hear her father’s voice in the distance calling people to come and start the music, the scrape of chairs and strumming of guitars. It was about time for her to go in, but she lingered, relishing the quiet of the night and the biting air wrapping around her. Since she didn’t play an instrument, despite her father’s attempts, this part of the evening was the part where she just sat back and observed. And also usually got quite drunk since all she had to do was drink and sing along. 

“Y/N, right?” She turned around, eyes focusing on the person standing a few feet away. “I’m Harry.”

Harry Styles. How had he ended up here, and how had she not seen him yet? “Nice to meet you,” she answered, standing up straight and taking a sip of her drink. “Not going in to play?”

He shook his head. “Bit nervous, if I’m honest. Lot of talent in that room.”

She cocked her head to the side as he joined her at the railing. “You’re plenty talented,” she told him. It was true. She was a huge fan of his, had been for a while, following his work in One Direction since its inception, and now in the solo career her dad had mentioned. He was recording with some guys out at The Village a few months ago and called her at the end of the day, saying he ran into Harry Styles in the middle of a session doing some solo stuff. Said it sounded good, which she wasn’t surprised by in the slightest. 

But Harry just chuckled. “Nah, those people are legends,” he said. She knew who he was talking about, too. One of the Dixie Chicks was there, some guys who had written with John Mayer and Kanye West, a dozen other Grammy-nominated musicians, some record label execs who had practically formed the industry as they knew it today, the A&R people who had found them. It was intimidating, definitely, but for Harry she didn’t think it would be. 

“Just people.” She sipped on her drink, studying him. He was in a long black coat, a loose black v-neck silk shirt and red and white plaid pants that tapered at the leg, his cropped curls falling into his face slightly. He also had a tequila on the rocks gripped in his hand, rings adorning every one of his fingers. A skull, a red stone, a silver band, amongst them. “Having fun?”

He smiles at her, thankful for the change of topic. “Loads. Haven’t been at a party like this in a while.”

“What do you mean?”

The breeze passed between them, ruffling his hair a bit. “I don’t know. Just, people who didn’t really give a shit about me, if you know what I mean? Holidays can be a bit much sometimes.”

She nodded as if she understood what it felt like to be a popstar of his fame, which she didn’t, but she could imagine. “Didn’t go home?”

“My mum and sister came here, actually,” he said. “They were craving a respite from the cold English winters.”

“Well, this is definitely a respite,” Y/N said, and Harry chuckled.

Silence stretched between them and Y/N tapped her fingernails against her cup. Maybe it was time to go inside, she thought. “So, Y/N, what do you do?”

His question pulled her out of her head easily. “Brand strategy,” she answered, thankful for a comfortable topic. “I work mostly with fashion and product companies, preferably sustainable ones.”

“You like it?”

“Love it.” She did. She loved her work—she’d gone to school for it and thrown herself into it after school, loving pitching projects for clients and helping them understand their core purpose and how they could grow and evolve  most authentically. “It was that or books, but I decided this was a bit more profitable. Also wasn’t too keen on living in New York.”

Harry nodded, twirling his glass in his hands. She took the opportunity to run her eyes across his face—he was gorgeous in this way that you weren’t sure was real. It was interesting to see how much he’d grown up. At 22, his cheekbones were cut and his jaw defined, his former long locks he had recently cut and Y/N liked these more, she decided. “What are your favorite writers?” He asked, pulling Y/N back into the conversation. 

“That’s like asking which one of your children is your favorite,” she joked, and he chuckled, the sound music to Y/N’s ears. “Dunno, really. I read so much it’s hard to choose, you know? Reading a Louise Erdrich book right now that’s absolutely stellar. The Round House—you should give it a go if you’ve got the time.”

He pulled out his phone and she watched him type in the name to his Notes app, the action making her smile. “Been looking for a new book,” he said. “Just been reading The New Yorker and my mum about took my head off for not reading enough.” They both laughed, the sound filling the night air. 

“Harry!” A man was standing in the doorway to the patio, a guitar in hand. “Come sing, mate.”

Harry glanced back at Y/N. “Coming?”

Y/N nodded and followed him inside, refilling her glass on the way. Harry handed her his, and she did the same, giving them both another glass of tequila to sip on while they listened to the circle of musicians. Someone had decided to do some Christmas tunes she Y/N smiled when she heard her father’s voice—he’d made it a bit country, just like he loved to do with popular songs. He’d grown up on a steady diet of folk music and country, just as Y/N had, and he always joked it was in his blood. Harry took a seat next to his friend who Y/N didn’t recognize—probably some producer her dad had met recently, maybe one of the guys from The Village if that was how they’d connected, and Y/N grabbed the seat her dad had saved for her next to him. 

She joined in immediately, knowing this rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy” by heart, since it was the same one he had made up when Y/N was eight or nine. Karl was in the circle too, a plate of food in his hands and his bottle of red wine on the ground, and he gave her a warm smile. This was her favorite part of the night—feeling a part of something her father loved so dearly. When he gave her a kiss to her temple and introduced her to the group, she couldn’t help but find Harry’s eyes, his irises twinkling back at her under the lights. 

At one o’clock, people finally began filtering out of the party, and Harry decided it was probably time for him to head. Jeff, who had invited him to come with, had already left, exhausted from the holidays with family, but Harry had stayed, hoping to talk to Y/N for a little while longer. He had unfortunately failed to catch her, though, the music running long and after it had wrapped up people had tugged her in for hugs and conversation. Despite knowing who she was through her father, he was still in awe of how intimately she knew all of these people. He overheard snippets of her conversations, asking about children and partners, parents who had cancer and career-defining moments she’d missed out on because of work. Harry was in this world too, but many of the people at this party were a bit older than his usual set—they belonged to the group of his heroes, rather than necessarily people he felt were his peers. He was still getting his solo career together, still only a boyband member in their eyes. He tried not to feel less than, but sometimes it was hard when you were sat next to Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks with utterly nothing to say but awe-inspired ramblings. 

Finally, Y/N was alone, the older couple she was talking to having left for the door, and Harry seized the opportunity. “Y/N,” he said, and her head popped up from her phone to look at him. Her dark brown hair was soft against her skin, and he eagerly wondered what it felt like against his skin, brown eyes that searched his soul. “I loved talking to you earlier.”

She smiled and Harry loved it when she did. Lit up the whole room, just about. “Me too. Glad you came—with Jeff, yeah?”

He nodded. “He introduced me to your dad when we were at The Village.” Y/N nodded as well, obviously having figured out the story. “I—I was wondering, would you want to grab coffee sometime? I’d love to chat more, get to know you.” He restrained the urge to bounce on his heels, nervous in front of her. He felt like a kid asking out his crush, but that’s what this was, a crush. Even if it came to nothing, she was kind, interesting, and fit into the world he revolved in. It wasn’t the most important thing, but he appreciated it all the same. 

“Oh,” she said, tone somber. “Sorry, Harry, but I don’t date musicians. Get home safe, yeah?” She turned away from him, feet carrying her back into the living room, presumably finding her father.

What? She didn’t date musicians? “I’m sorry—what?”

Y/N turned back to look at him. “I just don’t. Bit of a rule.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Don’t feel the need to explain it. Bye, Harry.” Then, she walked away and Harry was left in shock. The abrupt change in tone was like whiplash—she had seemed so interested, involved in their conversation, only to tell him she didn’t date musicians? What the fuck kind of rule was that? 

He huffed and tugged out his phone to tell his driver he was ready, and went outside, leaving behind Y/N and her confusing rule. But this wouldn’t be the last time he saw her, he decided. He wanted to know why she had this rule, this stupid rule that was stopping her from getting to know him. It wasn’t like he even asked her to date him, just to get coffee for Pete’s sake. Harry sat down in the car and pulled out his phone, composing a text to Jeff. 

Could I write with Peter? Seemed like a great guy, really talented. Maybe if she got to Y/N’s dad, he could earn some brownie points. Maybe then she’d bend her rules for him, because despite their short conversation, Harry was intrigued. 

Definitely, Jeff replied. I’ll text him tomorrow.

Harry closed his phone and smiled. Hopefully this worked, because Harry was dying to know more about this rule of hers. 

Y/N’s eyes narrowed when she pulled into her dad’s driveway. There was another car sat in the drive, a black 4-door SUV she’d never seen before, the windows tinted so she couldn’t see in. It reminded her of those cars the FBI drives in crime dramas, which obviously led her to a part of her brain that was not necessarily a hopeful place. She scrambled to grab her bag from work and her keys, launching herself from her car and towards her dad’s door. 

“Dad!” She called into the house, slamming the door shut behind her. “Whose car is in the drive? Didn’t tell me we’d be having company!” Gripping the wall for balance she toed off her shoes and set her bag on the floor next to the door, shrugging off her coat and setting it on a hook. “Dad?”

“He’s in the toilet.”

Her head whipped around and found Harry Styles standing in her hallway, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. As much as she had planned to forget about him after the party, never really expecting to see him again, she hadn’t been able to. And now he was in her house, hair pushed back from his face, a grin painted on his lips. It was irritating how gorgeous he was. “The fuck are you doing here?”

A hand went up to scratch the back of his neck and for a second Y/N regretted being quite so aggressive. “‘M writing with your dad,” he explained. “Guess he didn’t tell you.”

“No,” she answered. She brushed past him into the living room where, as Harry had said, it was obvious they had been writing. Her dad’s treasured old Gibson guitar leaning against his favorite armchair where he’d set it, computers out with GarageBand up for recording demos, papers with scribbles strewn across the coffee table. “Good session?” She decided that there was no way he was here just to pursue her—he was there for professional reasons, after all. Her dad and Harry must’ve hit it off at the party last week. There was also the fact that her dad was a really fucking good songwriter, so of course Harry would want to work with him. Ever since he’d stopped touring, her dad had started doing mainly writing, his songs appearing on records from everyone from up-and-coming artists the label found him to John Legend. 

Harry just nodded. Her eyes drifted to his own guitar, a soft brown wood that had obviously seen some heavy use and travel. She recognized it from her dad’s own guitars that he used to take on the road with him, the nicks and faded wood at the base of the bridge. 

“Y/N!” Her dad’s voice fell through the silence of the room as he re-entered. He was wearing his favorite old UCLA shirt, where she’d just graduated from not too long ago. “Home earlier than usual. Was going to give you a heads up about this one,” he pointed to Harry then, “but I see you’ve already found out.”

Her eyes drifted to Harry, who stood awkwardly next to the couch, unsure if he should sit or stand. “Finished my projects early and didn’t have any meetings, so thought I’d get out early and surprise you.”

“Well,” her father said, giving her a quick hug, “glad you did. I’m getting hungry, how about you?” She nodded, she was always ravenous after work. “Harry, would you want to stay for dinner?”

No, she thought. The last thing she wanted was to sit at a table with a guy she’d rejected and her father and eat an awkward dinner on a Friday night. She just wanted a massive glass of red wine, her delicious romance novel from her bedside table, and maybe lighting a fire in the pit in the backyard. 

Instead, Harry said, “Sure. Don’t want to impose though.”

“Nonsense! Y/N why don’t you go change and Harry and I can tidy up from working. We were about done anyway.” Her dad kissed the top of her head sweetly and she just did as he said, Harry a forgotten thought behind her as she went to her room upstairs. 

It was her childhood bedroom which she had been residing in for a month now. How her landlord could put her out for this long was beyond her, but she hadn’t had the energy to fight it—plus, it was an opportunity to spend some quality time with her workaholic father. So she was spending her evenings in her light blue colored room, sleeping between her soft pink sheets, and picking her work clothes that butted up against remnants from high school she’d left behind as memories. Y/N pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a loose white t-shirt that probably belonged to an ex-fling from college—Daniel maybe? Y/N couldn’t remember. Slipping on a pair of socks to keep her feet warm from the tile floors of the kitchen, she left her room, tugging her door shut so if Harry went exploring he wouldn’t stumble into her room. 

Downstairs, Harry was sat at the kitchen island with a glass of wine and a smile on his face, deep in conversation with her dad about Fleetwood Mac’s chord progressions. A glass of red was waiting for her on the counter and she picked it up, wandering over to where her dad was cooking

“Whatcha making?” She asked, peeking into the pot. 

“Pasta,” he replied. “Now stop being a nosy Nelly and talk to our guest while I try to focus on not burning the pasta.”

“Dad you haven’t even put it in yet.”

Her dad shooed her from the stove and she chuckled, backing away. “Get out of here, ya pest.”

She turned to Harry, realizing her dad was actively trying to get them to hang out. He was so annoying sometimes. “How do you feel about a fire?”

“Positively,” he answered and she led him outside into her backyard. 

It was chilly out, but nothing too bad. She set her glass on the table and went over to the stack of wood her dad kept against the fence, picking up some logs and carrying them over to the fire pit they’d had for years. At first it was so Y/N could roast marshmallows at home, her father trying to do anything to get her to come over to his house more after the divorce, and as time had gone on it had become her favorite place in the whole house. When her dad was out of town and she came over to check up on the house in high school, she’d bring her weed and smoke out here under the stars. 

Harry sidled up next to her and picked up a few logs, following her to the fire pit. “This is cool,” he said, words breaking their silence. 

Y/N dropped the logs into the fire and looked up at him. “Favorite part of the whole house.” A box of matches sat next to the door and she grabbed them, as well as some kindling, and brought it over to the logs, setting the kindling under the logs before lighting them. The fire leaped up, the wood nice and dry from the lack of rain recently. “So, who got in touch with who?”

Harry looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”

She settled into one of the chairs set by the fire, wine tucked between her fingers. “The writing. You or my dad?”

“Oh,” he answered, joining her in the chair next to her. “Me, actually. Through Jeff.”

As expected. “And?”

“He’s really good,” Harry said, to which Y/N chuckled. 

“That he is.”

“What was it like growing up with him as your dad?” He asked, breaking the silence between them.

Y/N shifted in her chair. She’d been asked this question so many times over the years, but it still was hard to answer. “Hard, if I’m being honest,” she told him, truth surprising her. But she had a feeling Harry would get it to a certain extent. He was a hugely popular star, after all. She’d heard rumors that he was a part of a movie coming out this year, something historical. “Like, my parents are divorced, which I assume you know.” He nodded,  probably having figured it out by now. “And with my dad’s tour schedule when I was in school, I didn’t see him all that much, especially in elementary and middle school. He was gone all the time, even missed my birthday a couple times because of tour dates, so I just didn’t really know him that well, I guess. Fuck, sorry, this is a lot,” she breathed out, realizing she was rambling. Harry was just surprisingly easy to talk to, his eyes steady on her, intently listening to her every word. Boys didn’t usually listen to her like this.

“S’fine,” he replied. “When did it change, if you don’t mind me asking? Seem so close now.”

The fire, having grown by now, crackled in front of them. “Late high school, but mainly when I was in college. My mom moved to San Francisco for a job and I went to UCLA, so my dad was closest. Came over to do my laundry sometimes, have a home cooked meal, he’d take me to dinner, that stuff. Came to football games with me, sometimes, which he always tried to be interested in but never succeeded.” Harry chuckled at that and Y/N smiled at the sound. Harry was obnoxiously pretty. Like, impossibly pretty in this way where you couldn’t help but look at him again to make sure that yes, he was a real person. And it was really fucking distracting. “His touring kind of stopped when I went into college too,” she added, trying to refocus on the conversation. “Started writing mainly, putting out music only when it suited him. He’s a lot happier now, I think.”

“That’s good,” he said, taking a sip of wine. “I’m glad you guys were able to have that kind of relationship, even if it was later.”

Y/N blinked at him, his words so kind and honest. “Me too.”

“Always been one of my fears, if I’m being honest,” he said, words soft in the cool night air. Sun was starting to set and it was getting dark around them, the light of the fire putting an orange ember to his face. “About having kids with my career, you know? I want to be a dad, but it’s like…how do I do that while being gone all the time?” His honesty shocked her, but then again Harry Styles seemed to be excelling at that in every regard. “Sorry, that’s a lot to unload on you.”

“No it isn’t,” she reassured him. “Just told you about all my daddy issues, yeah?” He chuckled, and it lightened the mood just enough. “You’ll figure it out.”

Harry nodded, taking another sip of his wine and she did the same. It was her favorite, the one her dad bought multiple of whenever she came to stay. Even though they’d gotten closer over the years, his desire to make his house perfect for her never seemed to fade. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Shoot.”

“The rule—I—why is that?”

Well, fuck. This was the exact conversation she didn’t want to have, the one she was hoping he wouldn’t bring up. “It’s actually related to what you were just saying,” she said slowly. He’d get it after everything she’d explained and the fears he shared, right? “I don’t date musicians because they’re always gone.”

Harry was quiet, absorbing her answer. It was true, they always were gone—she had every right to her rule, she told herself. She didn’t want a repeat of what her parents had experienced, what she’d experienced. Her dad’s job had ruined everything in their family, ripping her parents apart, keeping him away from her for more of the year than he was home. She didn’t want the same thing for her kids. “That’s a pretty broad stroke, isn’t it?” Harry said though, pushing back against her. “Like all musicians. Kinda a generalization ‘bout us.”

“You said it yourself,” she said, leaning forward in her chair and resting her elbows on her thighs. “You’re gone all the time. How do you build a life with someone who isn’t there half the time?”

“Devil’s advocate,” Harry said, setting his wine on the arm of his chair, “but hypothetically you’re dating someone who tours all the time. But they make you a priority, coming home and seeing you, putting your relationship first. That wouldn’t matter? You wouldn’t even take the chance that it could work out okay?”

This time it was Y/N who was quiet. “I mean, musicians only have so much control over their schedules,” she said, remembering the excuses her dad used to tell her. “Plus, it’s not the relationship that’s the problem. It’s the part when you get to marriage and kids.”

“…So it’s better to just avoid the whole thing entirely?”

Y/N nodded, her logic laid out in front of her. She’d never had to do this before—most times, guys just took her at her word and dropped it all together. Harry pushed though, wanting to understand in a way the others didn’t care enough to do. “It’s safer.”

“But then you miss out on the opportunity to fall in love with someone,” Harry says, his words like rocks in her stomach. “And what if that person was a musician?”

Y/N had a feeling they were no longer talking in hypotheticals. “We can fall in love with tons of different people.”

“No soulmates and shit for you, then?” She shook her head. She didn’t believe in all that crap, never had. Relationships were about work, effort, time. The person was important, but the life that person led mattered more to her. How much they’d prioritize the relationship, the kind of life they wanted to build. “That’s kind of depressing,” Harry said. 

The fire crackled and popped. “I don’t think so. It’s…practical.”

“Love isn’t supposed to be practical, Y/N.”

Y/N found herself speechless. She didn’t have an answer for him. She’d never been in love before, that was for sure. Hadn’t found that kind of love that people like Harry write songs about and she’d often found herself wondering when it was going to happen for her. There just hadn’t been any guys that were right for her yet. 

“Y/N! Harry!” She turned and her dad was in the doorway, pasta sauce splattered on his shirt. He’d always been a messy cook. “Dinner’s ready.”

Y/N took one last look at Harry before grabbing her wine and heading inside, Harry following at her heels. 

After dinner, Harry decided this was his last chance at Y/N. He couldn’t exactly use the same excuse twice and after understanding her rule, he was determined to be the exception. He helped Y/N clear the plates while her dad settled in at the TV in the other room, telling them it was his time to watch the nightly news and they could clean up since he had cooked. Harry had missed being in a home like this, the kind where he got told to clean up from dinner and there was calm and normal conversation at the table, Y/N talking about her day at work and Harry sharing about his activities from his mum’s visit. It brought him a kind of peace he didn’t know he needed. 

The plate clattered on the counter as he set it down, Y/N turning, her hands soapy with the water from the dishes. “Gonna break our dishes,” she said with a snort. “Be careful, please.”

“Sorry,” Harry said sheepishly. He’d cleared the table, so he grabbed a dish rag from the peg and joined Y/N at the sink, taking the clean dishes from the rack and drying them, stacking them on the counter since he didn’t know where they belonged in the cabinets. 

They worked in silence, the only sound her dad’s TV from the other room. He could hear Rachel Maddow’s show on NBC, the same one he liked to watch, learning from her commentary on American politics that he was still trying to wrap his brain around. 

“Y/N,” he said when they’d finished the dishes. “I promise I heard everything you said earlier.” She looked at him with curiosity in her eyes, trying to figure out where he was going with this. Harry tried to pick his words delicately, wanting to make sure she knew he did hear her, he was just entranced by her and couldn’t give her up. “But what is the likelihood you would be willing to give it a shot? With me?”

She took the dish towel from his hands and dried her own, considering his words. The waiting was killing him, but he didn’t want to rush her. He knew what her worries were and he was asking her to put them aside. 

“We’ll take it slow,” he told her, stumbling over the words. “Promise. You set the pace, you decide about commitments. I just…” Can’t stop thinking about you.

But then Y/N surprised him by saying, “I know. I feel that way too.” His eyes widened, not believing the words from her mouth. “I’ll give it a shot,” she said slowly. “Better make the date good.”

“You sure?”

“I wouldn’t ask again unless you’d like me to change my mind.”

“Can I get your number then?” She nodded and read it off, Harry typing the numbers into his phone next to her name. Then Harry shut up and just smiled at her, following her like a puppy dog into the other room where her dad sat watching TV. She curled up on the couch, pulling the blanket her dad had so it would cover part of her and his heart softened at how sweet she looked. He loved seeing her like this, at home, comfortable in her space. “I’m going to head out,” he said. “Thank you so much for dinner, Peter.”

Y/N’s dad turned from the TV and gave him a wide smile. “Of course, Harry. You’re welcome anytime—wouldn’t want you to get lonely out here!”

His eyes drifted to Y/N and he knew that with her around, there was never anyway he could be lonely.

TAGLIST

@smokeinherperfume @afire-hes @harryinsweatersandbandanas @marinalima3 @havethetimeofyourstyles @ursogoldenshan @inmygardensuit @marinalima3 @amaridon @harrys-watermelons @dontgiveupthedayjob @cronias13 @apples2019

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NEXT CHAPTER COMING JULY 4TH @ NOON CST

[alwaysfeelingsaintlike]

About Time [G.W] - Part 1

pairing: George Weasley x OC

series description: On an unexpected night out, George meets the love of his life. And then suddenly loses her. What lengths will he go to in order to find her?

word count: 2.7k

taglist: @p0gues4l @amourtentiaa (let me know if you want to be added!)

series masterlist

X

“Fred, why are we doing this? It’s utterly ridiculous.”

“Oh come on now, it’s an experience!”

“I’d hardly consider eating in the dark an experience,” George scoffed. He was flabbergasted when Fred signed them up for this “blind” dating experience. Fred never had trouble meeting women at the bar, but he kept saying he needed a change of pace.

“You never know what tonight might lead to Georgie. Maybe you’ll meet your soulmate,” Fred said as he raised his eyebrows. They walked into the chic restaurant where the lobby was dimly lit. As they checked in, the host explained that all the waiters in the restaurant were blind. All part of the “experience.” One of the waiters requested they grab onto his shoulder and a few moments later they were escorted down the stairs and behind a black curtain into complete darkness. As they walked back, the waiter explained that the idea behind the dining experience is that the total darkness enhances the other senses, creating a truly unique dining experience. As they got to table, he added that the darkness cultivates an environment to truly connect with people.

“I hate this already,” George said.

“Shh…” Fred said, as he kicked George under the table.. It was then George noticed there was movement next to them. Their dates had arrived.

“Hello ladies. I’m Fred and this here’s George.” Fred greeted.

“Oh well hello,” a voice said, “I’m Angelina.”

“Hi, I’m Molly,” said the person sitting next to George. She had a soft and earnest voice with an American accent.

“Nice to meet you, Molly’s my mother’s name actually,” George responded.

“Oh…does it…suit her?” she asked.

“I reckon it does. Although, she’s a bit sturdy so Bernard might have been a better fit.”

She laughed lightly and said, “Okay.” After a momentary pause she asked, “So have you ever been here before?”

“I haven’t.”

“Me neither. To be honest, I’m not completely sold on this concept yet. I genuinely like to be able to see my food and the people I’m eating with.”

“Exactly. Fred had twist my arm to even get me here.”

“Glad that we’re in the same boat. Not that I’m not excited to meet you or anything…” she added. “Oh, something just touched my elbow,” she whispered.

“That wasn’t me,” George quickly said.

“Well that just makes it worse! If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

“It wasn’t me…because I’m touching something else,” Fred stated.

“Yes, and you’ll stop that right away, thank you,” Angelina responded.

A waiter approached and began filling the empty glasses. George found the glass in front of him and took a big swing before realizing that the glasses had been filled with wine and he choked slightly.

“You okay there?” Molly asked him.

“That is not water,” he said. She giggled as she took a more reasonable sip from her wine glass.

“You might be onto something there. Maybe we should just get drunk,” She whispered.

George smiled and said, “Cheers to that.” He held up his glass and within seconds he felt her glass lightly tap his, which was impressive considering the complete darkness.

“So, girls, be honest. Who is more beautiful?” Fred asked. George knew he was joking, but he was partially concerned the girls wouldn’t pick up on his subtleties.

“Oh, I am,” Angelina said.

“She is,” Molly added.

“Excellent!” Fred beamed. George tried not to roll his eyes and luckily Molly interrupted his thoughts.

“So George, what do you do for a living?” she asked.

“My brother and I own a joke shop in Diagon Alley. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.”

“Oh no way! I walk past that shop everyday. And what made you start that?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life. At school we were always coming up with inventions for pranks and we quickly realized that we could make money doing what we loved.”

“That’s amazing. And I’m assuming you went to Hogwarts?”

“You would be correct. Now what’s your story? Ilvermorny and then how’d you get here?”

“Yes, I was a Thunderbird at Ilvermorny and once I finished school I wanted to do something different, explore a little. So I moved to London and worked some odd jobs for a while and now I’m an editor at the Daily Prophet.”

“Ah, if you’re responsible for fact checking Rita Skeeter, I think you should pursue another career path.”

“Very funny,” she said, taking another sip of wine. “My area is much less controversial. I’m a sports editor.”

George’s ears perked up at that. “What’s your team?” he asked.

“Kenmare. I have family in Ireland so I was born and raised a Kestrals fan. And let me guess, you follow the…Chudley Cannons?” she said, throwing out a blind guess.

George chuckled, “Puddlemere United. Although your instincts are good, my younger brother is obsessed with the Cannons.”

“Puddlemere…that’s respectable. They’re having a good year. Been to any matches yet?”

“I’ve been meaning to, but haven’t gotten to it this season. Too busy with the shop.”

“You should go if you get the chance. They are unbelievable to watch. The Chasers are just so in sync, it’s mesmerizing.”

“Did you play at all?” he asked.

“I was a Keeper. I miss being out on the pitch. Just something about the buzz that was in the air and having your whole house out there cheering for you. No better feeling.”

George smiled, thinking about the days he spent playing Quidditch for Gryffindor. She perfectly described what it was like to play and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed the crowd calling his name whenever he took out an opponent with a bludger.

“Fred and I were Beaters. It seems like those were the best years of my life.”

“Oh don’t tell me you peaked in school. Just when I thought I had met someone interesting.”

George thought carefully about his response. “I’m happy with my life, but we’re adults now. There was something about being younger, having your whole life ahead of you and not having to worry about paying bills and making a living. I miss the simpler times.”

“I can understand that. I do miss sneaking fire whiskey into the dorms. It’s not as fun when you can just go and buy it.” He smiled at her statement, remembering his own teenage shenanigans.

“You would’ve had fun with us at Hogwarts.”

“You don’t strike me as a troublemaker, George,” she said.

He chuckled and replied, “That’s because I’m on my best behavior tonight.”

“Well that’s no fun,” Molly flirted.

Suddenly, George felt himself get nervous. He hadn’t been on a proper date in a while and he wasn’t sure how to act or what to say. He felt tense instead of his usual carefree self. He realized that he might actually like this girl.

“So…what kind of music do you like?” she asked.

“I mostly listen to rock. Recently it’s been a lot of the Weird Sisters.”

“Oh I love the Weird Sisters!” she exclaimed. “I see them every time they come to London.”

“They’re great live. They played at one of our balls in school and it was incredible.”

“That sounds amazing,” she beamed. There was movement near them as the waiter placed what George assumed was the main course in front of them.

“Looks great,” he said. Molly laughed a genuine laugh as opposed to a polite chuckle and George felt butterflies at the sound of it. He never thought he could be so attracted to a voice. Something about her seemed special. The four of them ate and sounds of silverware filled the air as they did.

“I’m still not completely sold on this experience, but I will say this meal has been delicious,” she spoke. George was racking his brain for a response that might induce some conversation when Molly added, “The company hasn’t been too bad either.”

Before he could respond, Angelina said, “I’m going to run to the loo. Mol, will you join me?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, putting down her silverware. George was grateful for a few minutes to drum up some conversation topics as their dates vacated the table.

“How’s it going?” Fred asked him.

“Good…she seems great. I’m just rubbish at dates.”

“Well don’t sweat it. I’m going to invite Angelina back to our place after this. Maybe Molly will come too.”

“Is it really going that well over there?”

“I mean I’m not gonna marry the girl, but we’re getting along well enough.”

“Does it bother you that you don’t know what she looks like?” George asked.

“Sure, but I’ve never been one to shy away from risk.” George shook his head. Fred and George were on completely different wavelengths when it came to women. Fred was never concerned with commitment and was always living in the moment. But George was the opposite. He didn’t want to waste time on someone if it wasn’t going to turn into something meaningful.

Molly and Angelina returned to the table just as the dessert course was placed in front of them.

“I need to know…is the washroom pitch black as well?” he asked.

Molly giggled and said, “Now that would’ve solidified my opinion of this restaurant concept.”

They ate in silence for a moment when Molly asked, “So what’s your family like?”

“Big. I have five brothers and a sister.”

“Wow, and where do you fall in that mix?”

“In the middle. Fred and I are twins and then there are three brothers older than us and a younger brother and sister.”

“I’m sure you had fun growing up with such a big family.”

“I don’t think I always appreciated it when I was growing up, but now I love having such a big family.”

“That’s awesome.”

“And what about you?”

“I have two younger sisters. We grew up pretty close so it is tough to be so far from them.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen them?”

“Since the holidays. I always come home for Christmas and usually my family will come out for a visit at some point in the spring or summer.”

“Do you ever think about moving back home?”

She paused for a moment, “No, I don’t think so. It seems like this is where I’m meant to be.”

George had finished off the glass of wine in front of him and he realized the waiter had cleared all the plates and their visionless meal was ending. He took a deep breath, wondering where this night would take them. He just wanted to see her. He wanted to look into her eyes and confirm there was a true connection between them. They all stood up from the table and Molly and George walked out as a pair toward the lobby, with Fred and Angelina in their wake.

It was quiet as George racked his brain for what to say. He couldn’t recall feeling this nervous around someone he barely knew. As they reached the curtain, he stopped her in an attempt to express his feelings. He didn’t want her thinking he was just interested in her based on her looks.

“Molly, I…erm…I just wanted to-“

“Oh George it’s okay, you don’t have to do this. I can tell when someone’s not interested in me. But thank you for making this dinner bearable.”

Before he could protest, Angelina came whizzing by in a huff. “Come on Molly,” she said grabbing Molly’s arm and leading her through the curtain. George just stood there frozen when he noticed Fred by his side.

“Well, read that one wrong,” he said.

“What the hell happened?” George asked.

“I may have whispered some sexually suggestive things to her that she did not take very well. How’d things go with you?”

“I dunno. I thought it was going well, but I may not have made a good impression.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Then go get her!” George followed his advice and slid through the curtain, excited to see Molly for the first time.

But she wasn’t there. George walked through the front door, hoping she might be outside, but the street was empty. He hung his head and kicked himself for the way he let things transpire.

“She’s gone,” George said as Fred walked through the door.

“Ah rotten luck mate. Sorry to hear it. Shall we go for a pint?”

“I think I’ll just head home,” he said. Fred nodded and they walked down the street a bit before apparating back home.

X

George couldn’t sleep that night. He kept thinking that he had missed out on something special. He replayed every minute of that night in his head, thinking about how he should’ve been more engaged in the conversation and flirted with her more. George certainly knew how to flirt and he could not figure out why he froze up with Molly.

Eventually he got up and moved to the kitchen to pour a fire whiskey. He needed something to take the edge off and numb the feeling of regret. He tried to forget about this girl but the more he did, the more he convinced himself that if he just saw her, he would know. And it wasn’t just about physical attraction, although that was certainly a part of it. He just needed to see her. The mystery was driving him crazy.

After his second glass of fire whiskey, he started to think about how he could make his hope a reality. He considered visiting the Daily Prophet and trying to find her there, but that didn’t quite feel right. He could write a letter and suggest that they meet up, but the suspense of waiting on a response would kill him. Then it suddenly hit him.

He ran into the room and started fumbling through a junk drawer, looking for one thing in particular. He started throwing aside Extendable Ears and miscellaneous Skiving Snackboxes before he finally found it. All the rummaging seemed to have woken Fred because a moment later his voice came from the doorway.

“What are you doing?” he looked half asleep, but still concerned.

“I couldn’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Molly. I just need to see her.”

“Well it seems a bit late for that now, eh?”

“No, it’s not,” George said holding up the thin gold chain that held a spinning hourglass on the end.

“Mate, that’s a terrible idea. Time isn’t to be meddled with.”

He put the time turner around his neck. “I can do this. I won’t interact with anyone. I’ll just stand outside and have a smoke while she walks out. No conversation, no nothing.”

Fred let out a deep sigh, knowing this was a losing battle. “Just don’t be stupid. And don’t get caught.” With that, he spun the time turner four times and closed his eyes. He immediately disapparated to the restaurant and hid in the alley way across the street. It was only a few moments until Angelina and Molly would leave the restaurant. George considered his options and thought it was best to stay hidden, he didn’t want to have an awkward run in with his past self.

He waited for what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only a few minutes) when the front door opened. A dark skinned woman with long braids was leading the charge, pulling the arm of another woman. She had fair skin, covered in freckles and deep brown hair that hit just below her shoulders. She was petite, probably around 5’3” and very slender. But the most striking thing about her was her smile. He heard their voices and immediately recognized the American accent that belonged to the freckled woman. Angelina was explaining what had just happened and Molly stood there, reacting with a new facial expression after every sentence. And then she laughed and George felt his heart stop. She was the one. It seemed crazy for him to think that considering he had just met her, but he knew. He watched the two of them walk down the cobblestone street as he tried to commit every detail of Molly to memory. Next came the tricky part, finding her.

[rhosyn-du]

Never make a mess when a total catastrophe will do - Chapter Two

Pairings: Jimon, past Clace, background Clizzy, a bunch of other minor background pairings Rating: Explicit Art: @cor321​ Beta: @all-thestories-aretrue​ Tags:  Alternate Universe - College/University, fake dating, oh my god they were roommates, friends with benefits, idiots to lovers, pining, miscommunication, holidays, drinking games, mistletoe, symbolically significant Oreos, domestic fluff, brief mention of past character death, Jace’s self-worth issues deserve their own tag Summary: What do you do when you find out your sister is not only dating your ex and love-of-your-high-school-life but is also bringing her home for Christmas? Bring your annoying, hot, annoyingly-hot roommate as your fake boyfriend to show them you're totally fine with it, obviously! There's no possible way this could backfire. Link: AO3 , Tumblr Master Post

Chapter Two

They didn’t talk more about it later. Jace barely saw Simon at all over the following couple weeks, in fact. It’s not that he was intentionally avoiding Simon, but they both had final exams to study for, and Simon was wrapped up in guitar ensemble rehearsals for the winter concert on top of that. If Jace had spent a little more of his study time in the library than was strictly necessary and that just happened to prevent any further discussions of dispays of physical affection and practice dates, that was entirely beside the point.

What Jace hadn’t counted on was how unprepared he’d feel pulling up outside the Queen Anne style townhouse he’d called home for most of his childhood. He suddenly wished he’d let Simon talk him into driving together and using the drive as a last minute planning session, even if it meant they’d need to coordinate their trip back to Boston. As much as he’d been avoiding talking about their plan, it really only occurred to Jace on the drive how much he wished they actually had, you know, a plan.

“Wow,” Simon said, hopping out of the hand-painted van he’d parked right behind Jace’s car. “Is that an actual turret?”

“Yup, gotta love those late 19th century architectural fads,” Jace answered as he pulled his suitcase out of the trunk. “The house belonged to Maryse’s grandparents, and I’ve never been able to tell how much she actually likes the style and how much is just childhood nostalgia, but she hasn’t even changed much of the interior except for renovations and repairs.”

“I have a hard time imagining growing up in a place like this,” Simon said as he joined Jace with his own suitcase in hand. “And it’s not like my mom’s house is tiny or anything, but this is just...” He waved a hand vaguely at the house. “A lot.”

He didn’t ask why Jace was sharing a tiny apartment furnished entirely secondhand if his family lived in a house like this, and Jace didn’t offer an explanation.

“You don’t need to be nervous,” Jace said, even though there was plenty to be nervous about. “I promise the house doesn’t bite.”

“Yeah, less worried about the house than the people in it,” Simon told him.

“I thought you were, like, the parent whisperer,” Jace teased. “Isn’t that why you offered to come with me? Because you make a great boyfriend? Trust me, as long as Alec and Izzy think you make me happy, they’ll love you, and you know more about comics than anyone I’ve ever met, so Max will love you regardless.”

“Okay,” Simon said, releasing a heavy breath. “Okay, thanks. You’re right, I just got a little intimidated by the house, but this is all going to be fine.”

“Maryse is probably going to hate you, though,” Jace continued, keeping his face carefully deadpan. “She hates everyone we bring home. It’s like a rite of passage. But you’re great with parents, so I’m sure you’ll at least avoid intentional food poisoning.”

Simon stared at him in horror, and Jace couldn’t keep a hit of a smile from breaking through.

“I hate you,” Simon told him.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jace said, “I’m pretty sure the food poisoning wasn’t actually intentional.”

“Wait, there was actual food poisoning?”

“Come on,” Jace said, heading toward the door. “I want to get inside before we freeze to death.”

“You are such a dick sometimes,” Simon muttered, catching up to him.

Then, he slipped his free hand into Jace’s like it was a totally normal thing to do, and Jace had to catch himself from tripping over the steps.

“Careful,” Simon said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m not going to make a very good impression on your family if you fall and break your neck before we even get inside.”

And there was just nothing to say to that, to how uncomfortable it wasn’t to have Simon’s hand in his like this, to the way it made him want. So Jace simply rolled his eyes and pushed open the front door, letting the scent of home wrap around him like a warm blanket.

“Okay,” Simon said quietly as he surveyed the entryway, complete with antique chandelier. “Feeling a little intimidated again.” And it was so easy for Jace to just give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Hey, you made it,” a warm voice greeted them. “With as bad as traffic has been, we thought you’d be another hour at least.”

“Hey, man,” Jace said, dropping Simon’s hand so he could pull his brother into a hug. “People must be staying home for the holidays this year, because we barely hit any traffic at all.” He glanced around. “Where is everyone?”

“Iz should be here any minute, Max is holed up in his room playing video games with his friends, and Magnus is helping Mom with some last-minute grocery shopping for dinner tomorrow.” Alec held out a hand to Simon. “I’m Alec, since Jace apparently can’t be bothered to make introductions like a civilized person.”

“It’s okay,” Simon said, giving his hand a quick shake, “I gave up on the idea of Jace being civilized the first time I saw him eat pizza that had been sitting out on the counter for three days.”

“That was your pizza,” Jace pointed out.

“Yeah,” Simon said, “which I was going to throw away because I forgot about it for three days.”

“On the subject of uncivilized,” Jace said, turning back to Alec, who was looking just a little too pleased, “you really sent Magnus shopping with Maryse? Buddy, if you decided you don’t want to marry the guy, just break it off with him. You don’t have to throw him to the wolves like that.”

Alec’s tiny smile became a little less tiny and a whole lot softer. “Magnus and Mom have actually been getting along lately. She wanted his opinion on wine pairings, so they went to the store and left me here so I can pull the bread out of the oven when it’s done. It’s very weird, but also nice.”

“That does sound very weird,” Jace told him, “but I’m glad things are working out and Maryse has found some level of chill somewhere.”

“Hopefully that means I won’t get poisoned,” Simon said.

Alec snorted. “If you want to avoid it, you should probably avoid mentioning you know about that. Or any other embarrassing family stories Jace might have shared with you.”

“And don’t eat anything Izzy hands you,” Jace added. “Anything she cooks probably won’t kill you, but the taste will make you wish you were dead.”

“So, I should just fast while I’m here,” Simon said. “Good to know.”

Jace led Simon upstairs to drop off their bags while Alec checked on the bread.

“Just toss your bag anywhere,” Jace said, opening the door to his old room. “We can argue over who gets which side of the dresser later.”

“Sure,” Simon said cheerfully, “as long as we can be civil deciding who gets which side of the bed.” He stopped just inside the doorway. “Wow, okay. The apparently very small bed.”

And this really was something that should have occurred to him, Jace realized. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered that he’d be sharing a bed with Simon. They’d even talked about it, briefly, and agreed it was no big deal. But Jace hadn’t considered exactly how much smaller his childhood bed was than the generous queen he slept in back home. It was technically large enough to fit two grown men, but only technically.

“Don’t worry,” Jace said, falling back on his trademark bravado, “I won’t get mad if you cuddle me in your sleep. I know you can’t help it if your subconscious recognizes that I’m irresistible.”

“I’m more worried about your freakishly sharp elbows,” Simon muttered.

“As long as you don’t snore or steal the covers, you won’t have to worry about my elbows,” Jace told him. He was planning to keep his elbows, and the rest of him, as far away from Simon as possible. Which, given the size of the bed, was maybe three inches.

“Dude, I do not snore,” Simon protested. “You know that; we live together.”

“You absolutely snore after your fourth drink.”

“I wasn’t planning to get drunk with your family,” Simon said, tossing his bag onto the bed.

“You say that now,” Jace said, leaving his own bag next to the door. “But wait until you get the full Lightwood Christmas experience before deciding you want to spend the whole thing sober.”

“If your family drives me to drink, you don’t get to blame me for snoring,” Simon countered. Which was probably fair, but Jace was saved from having to admit that by the sound of voices coming from downstairs.

“That’d be Izzy,” Jace said, “and we’d better get down there before she accuses me of trying to hide you from her.”

“Jace,” called a singsong voice, right on cue, “quit making out with your mystery hottie and get down here so we can actually meet him.”

“You should be careful making demands like that,” Jace called back. “What if I’m not wearing any pants?”

“We’ve all seen it. Get your ass down here “

“I like your sister already,” Simon told him.

“You say that now, but wait until she decides you count as family. She won’t be any better with you.” He took Simon’s hand. Because it helped sell their relationship. Because he could. Simon laced their fingers together, and Jace tried not to feel any way about that at all as he led Simon back down the stairs.

They only made it a couple steps before Simon came to a complete stop, almost causing Jace to trip the rest of the way down the staircase. He heard Simon mutter a soft ‘oh crap’ at the same time a bright, redheaded whirlwind came rushing up the stairs at them.

“Oh my god, Simon?” Clary grabbed Simon into a giant bearhug, effectively tearing his hand out of Jace’s. “You’re Jace’s mystery boyfriend? How did I not know about this? You didn’t even tell me you were dating anyone, you jerk! What happened to best friend gossip privileges?”

Clary pulled back from the hug, and now that Jace could actually see her face, he could see the hint of concern she was trying to hide under her wide smile.

“Clary. Hi,” Simon said, eyes wide. “I was going to tell you, I swear. It’s just, this is kind of new and so...” He trailed off, looking panicked. His eyes caught Jace’s. “But, uh, yeah. This is Jace. My boyfriend. Jace, this is my best friend, Clary Fray.”

“Yeah,” Jace said, looking between the two of them and feeling more than a little out of his depth. He’d planned for things to be weird, but not this weird. “We’ve met.” He flashed Clary a smile. “Fray, huh?”

She nodded. “I couldn’t keep his name. Not after...after everything. Fray is the name Mom used before she married Luke. It’s the name I remember her having when I was little, so.” She shrugged. “I filed the paperwork to have it legally changed the day I turned eighteen.”

“It suits you,” Jace told her, and let himself be pulled into a tight hug that he suspected was as much because she needed one as that she was glad to see him. Clary had never told him much about the biological father she barely knew, but she’d told him enough to know that Clary held him responsible for her mother’s death, even if the courts had cleared him of any wrongdoing.

“Thanks,” Clary whispered, before surreptitiously drying her eyes on his shoulder and pulling back to flash a smile that was less forced than Jace expected. “So, tell me how this happened without me hearing about it.” She bumped Jace with her shoulder. “And if it’s so new, what possessed you to subject Simon to your family holidays?”

“Hey,” Izzy said, walking up behind Clary and wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s waist. Jace had to admit, they looked...well, right together. “That’s my family, too, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Clary said, offering a soft grin over her shoulder. “And the fact that I’m here should tell you exactly how much I love you.”

“Fair,” Izzy said, then looked at Simon. “So, how’d my brother convince you to join this circus?”

“We made a trade,” Simon said, straight-faced. “I put up with his family for Christmas and he puts up with mine for my cousin Rachel’s wedding.” He leaned in and told Izzy in a stage whisper, “Also, I’m weak for his smile, but don’t tell him I said that, because he will abuse it.”

“You say that like I don’t already abuse it,” Jace said, sliding his arm around Simon’s waist in a mirror of Izzy and Clary’s pose. “And to answer your earlier question, us being officially together is new, but we’ve been sort of on the verge of dating for ages. Practically since we started sharing an apartment last year.”

Clary let out a peal of delighted laughter. “Oh, you’re the roommate. It makes sense now.” Before Jace could ask what made sense, she was pulling the both of them into a tight hug. “I’m really happy for both of you.”

“If I’d known you were going to be this excited, I definitely would have mentioned it sooner,” Simon said, pulling back from the hug.

Jace tried to catch his eye, wondering what on earth was going on. He knew both Clary and Simon well enough to know he was missing something, but he had no idea what it was. Simon ignored him, and that just made Jace more suspicious.

“Come on,” Izzy said. “You can have your hug fest later. Right now, I want to help Alec get things set up in the kitchen and maybe surprise Mom by getting dinner started before she gets back.”

Jace and Clary exchanged a panicked look, and Jace frantically searched his mind for excuses to keep Izzy busy. He didn’t actually want a repeat of the food poisoning episode, after all.

“Actually,” Simon said, turning a bright smile on Izzy. “I was kind of hoping you’d be willing to show me your Lego Star Wars collection before we get too wrapped up in family stuff. Jace mentioned you have the deluxe Imperial Star Destroyer set from the early 2000’s, and I’ve never actually seen one in person.”

“Oh,” Izzy said, looking torn. “I’m not sure—”

“We can help Alec in the kitchen,” Clary said quickly. “You two go do your nerd thing. I knew this was inevitable when I finally introduced you two anyway. And this way I get the chance to harass my bestie’s new boyfriend without him in the way trying to keep me from learning the embarrassing details.”

“You know, on second thought—” Simon began, looking slightly panicked.

“Come on,” Izzy interrupted, smiling brightly and grabbing his hand.

Simon flashed Clary a betrayed look, then looked to Jace for support. Jace simply smiled at him.

“Don’t worry, love muffin,” he said mildly. “I’d never intentionally embarrass you.”

“I want you to know that I hate both of you,” Simon said before allowing Izzy to drag him back up the stairs.

“My collection is all still in my old room,” Izzy said. “Clary and I have been looking for an apartment big enough I can actually move the rest of my stuff out of here, but so far we haven’t found anything in our price range.”

Jace turned back to Clary. “Exactly what kind of embarrassing stories were you hoping for? Because I have many.”

Clary shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got more embarrassing Simon stories than you do. I’ve got almost two decades worth. But I was actually hoping to talk to you alone anyway, and this seems like the best chance we’re going to get.”

Jace followed her down the stairs and into the study. “Sounds serious. You planning to give me a shovel talk?”

Clary laughed, shaking her head. “No, I know you, remember? I’m not worried about you hurting Simon. Well,” she amended, “not any more than I am about him hurting you.” She met his eyes with a soft smile. “You might be the only person I know with a heart as big as Simon’s, as much as you try to hide it.”

Jace looked away. It had been two years since the last time he’d seen her, and she could still see right to the heart of him. He didn’t want to know what she’d see if she kept looking. “Clary—”

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” she teased. “But I didn’t actually bring you out here to talk about Simon. I wanted to apologize.”

Jace frowned, looking back at her. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.” He was more than a little grateful not to have Clary grilling him about his entirely fabricated relationship, but he wasn’t sure where this conversation was going.

“No, I do,” she insisted. “I promised to keep in touch when you moved away, and I didn’t.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jace said, even if maybe it had been at first. Those first few months at school had been hard. Jace always thought he was used to being alone, especially after his mother’s suicide, but he found out just how much he’d come to rely on his new family when he didn’t see them every day. They’d kept in touch, of course, but with Izzy immersed in her studies and Alec all wrapped up in his new relationship with Magnus, it wasn’t anything like what it had been when they were all under one roof.

For a while, he and Clary had been in touch nearly every day, sometimes texting multiple times a day. Jace told her about his classes and how much he liked Boston, and Clary told him all about trying to narrow down which art schools she wanted to apply to. It was almost the same sort of easy friendship they’d had before he left, after they agreed they were better off as friends.

But after a couple months, Clary’s messages came less and less often, and eventually stopped altogether. Jace tried not to let it bother him, but he started drinking a bit too much and going to a few too many parties. Which was how he’d met Maia, his attempts at flirting somehow leading to him getting his ass handed to him at beer pong, and soon he found himself with an entire group of new friends. Although Maia insisted for almost a year that she and Jace were merely antagonistic acquaintances.

Clary gave him a look that told him she knew exactly how full of it he was. “It was a shitty thing to do, and I was a shitty friend,” she told him. “Especially because I did it on purpose. Izzy and I started getting close and I started to have feelings for her, and I didn’t know what to say to you about it. I didn’t know how to even talk to you about what was going on in my life without mentioning that she was becoming such a big part of it.”

“You didn’t actually have to hide it from me, you know,” Jace said. “I was surprised when Izzy first told me, but I’m mostly just glad you’re both happy. And seeing you together, I know you both are.”

“Thanks,” Clary said. “I didn’t want to hurt you or make things weird. For a while, I thought I could just ignore what I was feeling, but Iz is just... She’s not someone you can ignore, you know?”

“Oh, I know exactly how hard my sister is to ignore, believe me.” Jace stopped, considered, then admitted something he had never said—would never say—to another person. But this was Clary, and he knew she would never repeat it. And even if she did, he could always play it off as part of the act. “She and Simon have that in common. You know, I actually thought I hated him at first? He’s so enthusiastic about everything, and so sincere, and just.” He shrugged. “Not the kind of person I thought would ever do it for me.”

“But he won you over with his boyish charm?” Clary guessed.

“Mm,” Jace agreed. And the way he loved without reserve. Not just his family and friends, but his music, his favorite films, even the crappy nachos from the 7-11 down the block from their apartment. Simon loved every part of life, and being around him, Jace could almost imagine what that felt like. “Well, that and his abs.”

“Can’t forget those,” Clary laughed.

“Not with how often he eats breakfast shirtless,” Jace agreed. “Come on. If we aren’t in the kitchen by the time Izzy gets back downstairs, you know she’ll try to help Alec herself, and I was kind of hoping for dinner to be edible.”

~~~

Dinner was surprisingly painless. Maryse was more relaxed and happy than Jace had ever seen her, and he couldn’t help wondering how much of that was related to the very unsubtle smiles she kept exchanging with Clary’s stepfather. Even Max, who was deep in throes of preteen scorn, grudgingly admitted that Simon being in a band was “pretty cool” and joined in on some of Simon, Clary, and Izzy’s excited nerd talk that went entirely over Jace’s head.

After dinner, they retired to the living room for eggnog and carols. Jace limited himself to a single cup of Magnus’s infamous eggnog, knowing better than to let himself get drunk when he was putting on a show for his family. Or sharing his tiny bed with Simon.

As usual, Jace let himself get pushed over the piano to play. He felt something in him settle as soon as he rested his fingers on the keys of Maryse’s baby grand, the feel different and so much more familiar than the ancient keyboard he had back in Boston or the well-used uprights in the practice rooms at school.

When Jace had first come to live with the Lightwoods, he’d been afraid to touch the piano. His mother had put him in lessons as soon as he was old enough, but she hated to listen to him play and often chastised him for not being a better player, saying he should be better at it with how talented his father was. Now, he understood that it was just another manifestation of the combined grief and mental illness that led to Celine’s death, but at the time he’d hated how awful he was at playing, no matter how much he enjoyed doing it.

But Maryse knew he played and encouraged him to use her piano. She told him that it had been her father’s, and though she’d taken lessons herself as a child, she’d never really loved it the way he had. She said that the instrument deserved to be loved, and as long as Jace loved playing it, she didn’t care how good he was or wasn’t.

It was the first time he’d really felt like this could be his home.

“Okay,” Jace said after the third version of O Tannenbaum with ridiculous altered lyrics—this one courtesy of Simon rather than Max or Clary, about an ill-fated toad who chose the wrong moment to cross the street, “I think my fingers are done for the night.”

“Oh, come on,” Clary said. “Simon and I have at least a dozen more of these we came up with when we were kids.”

“When we were little, I only knew the lyrics to the Christmas songs they played on the radio, so Fray made up silly lyrics to the other ones and told me they were real,” Simon explained. “And it made her so happy that I went along with it even for the couple I did know.”

“There will be plenty of time for more singing tomorrow,” Maryse said. “But if I know this one,” she continued, smiling at Max, “we’re all going to be dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn for presents.”

“Mom,” Max whined, “I’m not a kid anymore. I know the presents will still be there whenever I get up.”

“I seem to remember someone who looked an awful lot like you waking us up before sunrise last year,” Magnus said with exaggerated confusion. “Perhaps you have a twin I haven’t met?”

Max fixed him with a withering look. “Last year, I was eleven. This year I’m twelve,” he said, as though that explained it.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve grown out of it,” Alec told him. “Because I intend to sleep in. And if you try to get me out of bed early, I’ll remind you of this conversation.”

“Oh, no need for that, darling,” Magnus said cheerfully. “I’ll just barricade the door before we go to sleep so he can’t get to us.”

“Brilliant,” Alec said, giving Magnus a frankly sappy smile. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

“And on that note,” Jace said, “I think I’m going to head to bed before I die of sweetness overdose.”

“Oh, please,” Magnus said, giving him an unimpressed look. “We all saw you and Simon making eyes at each other over those cookies you were frosting earlier.”

“It’s true,” Izzy said before Jace could protest. “You don’t get to tease Alec about being a sap anymore, not now that we’ve all actually seen you with someone you love.”

Jace froze, his mouth half open, then quickly snapped it shut. It made sense that Izzy would assume. He’d brought Simon home for Christmas, after all. That was the story they were selling even if they hadn’t actually discussed it, even if it wasn’t something Jace had said or even implied. And whatever he did feel for Simon, it certainly wasn’t love. It was, at best, a friendly crush. A very intense friendly crush.

Izzy seemed to realize her mistake, glancing between him and Simon with a look of dawning panic.

“No, you’re misunderstanding how this works,” Simon said easily, because of course Izzy’s words hadn’t sent him into a panic the way they had Jace. “Jace gets to tease Alec, and you, and you both get to tease him back.”

“Yep,” Clary agreed. “Those are the rules, because that means I still get to tease Simon.”

“Please,” Izzy said. “Clary and I are too sophisticated to be sappy.”

“I’m pretty sure I heard you call Clary ‘cuddle bug’ earlier,” Alec said.

“And I definitely saw you laugh at that terrible joke she told at dinner,” Jace added.

“She ate one of the cookies you made,” Max accused.

“Yeah, sorry, cutie,” Clary said. “We’re really pretty sappy.”

“Fine,” Izzy huffed. “But I just think you’re all jealous because I’ve got the cutest girlfriend.”

“Yes, Izzy,” Alec said drily. “You’ve uncovered my secret. I’m extremely jealous of your girlfriend.”

“I knew it,” Izzy said smugly, as though Alec had been perfectly sincere.

“Definitely in danger of dying of sweetness overdose,” Jace said.

That set off another round of teasing, this time with Izzy throwing in not so subtle attempts to drag Maryse and Luke into it. Jace wasn’t sure why Izzy was so determined to make the two admit there was something between them. It was obvious there was just from the way they acted around each other. Maryse would tell them when she was ready, just like she had when she and Robert filed for divorce.

It was almost another hour before Jace finally made his way up the stairs toward his room. He was surprised when Simon rose to follow him, but didn’t say anything until they were back in his room.

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay to nerd out with Clary and Iz some more.”

“I get to talk to Clary all the time,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, it’ll be easier to keep up the whole fake boyfriend thing if I don’t let her get me alone. She’d definitely figure out something’s up if I let her start grilling me about our relationship. Also, you don’t get to call me a nerd when you know just as much about Star Wars as I do.”

“It’s impossible to grow up with Izzy and not know way too much about Star Wars,” Jace said, pulling off his shirt and tossing it over a chair. “Are you still sure about doing this? Neither of us counted on Clary, and I’ll understand if you want to back out.”

“Huh?” Simon said, sounding distracted. Jace turned to look at him and thought he detected the faintest flush on Simon’s cheeks when he met his eyes. “I mean, yeah, no, I’m not backing out.” He gave an uncomfortable shrug as he pulled a set of pajamas out of his suitcase. “The last thing I want is to have to explain this whole thing to Clary.”

“Good point,” Jace agreed, turning around to put on his own pajama bottoms. It was tempting to watch Simon change, but it was also a very bad idea. “I don’t want to think about what she’d have to say to both of us if she knew.”

There was a beat of silence before Simon asked, “So, do you, um, have a preferred side of the bed?”

Jace turned to look at him, only a little disappointed to find Simon fully dressed in his pajamas. As usual when someone asked a question he didn’t want to think about, Jace flashed a smirk. “In a bed this small, I usually just take up the whole thing.”

“Well, unless you want me on top of you, you should pick a side,” Simon said, unimpressed. “Because I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

“I’ll take the left,” Jace said quickly, trying and mostly failing to avoid thinking about exactly how much he did want Simon on top of him. “I’m just gonna hit the bathroom real quick.”

Which was how Jace found himself locked in the tiny guest bathroom, lip caught between his teeth as he frantically tugged at his cock. He hadn’t planned on jerking off, but he couldn’t get Simon’s words out of his head, and he sure as hell wasn’t getting into bed with Simon half-hard, which was really the only other option.

He could picture it far too easily. Simon pressing him into that ridiculously tiny bed, hands gentle but firm, mouth just a little bit desperate.

He came to the thought of rutting up against those ridiculous abs.

By the time Jace cleaned himself up and returned to his room, Simon was nestled under the covers on the right side of the bed. Seeing him like that made something in Jace’s chest clench, and he flipped the light off just so he wouldn’t have to look anymore.

“‘Night,” Simon said as Jace slid into bed, taking care to stay entirely on his side.

“Don’t even think about snoring,” Jace answered.

He lay in the dark for a long time, staring into the darkness, listening to the sounds of the city that didn’t quite drown out the soft breathing of the man beside him. He tried not to think about how easy and relaxed the night had been, how perfect it would have been if only half of it weren’t a lie.

[purplesurveys]

1125

survey by nadine07

[..Introductions..]

First Name: Robyn.

Middle Name: I don’t think I’ve shared it on here and I doubt I will.

Last Name: Not providing it either but it starts with a C.

Birthdate: April 21st.

[..First Things First..]

What was the first thing you did after you got up? I rushed to the rooftop so that I could see the sunrise. I also got in the random mood to do a time-lapse of it, but the sun took forrrrrrrr-freaking-ever to come up entirely. I was holding up my phone for like 15 minutes and nothing was happening, so I quit halfway through lol.

What was the name of your first pet? Goldie, because it was a goldfish.

Who was your first big crush? Gabie, I would say.

Where was the first place you drove after you got your license? Chelsea’s 18th birthday dinner was scheduled right after I happened to get my license, and the event took place in a small, quaint little restaurant in Marikina. 

There’s a bit of a funny story here, too – Aaron needed a ride to get there and so I offered to drive him. I picked him up and we were having small talk in the car, and he asked me how long I’ve been driving. I told him that moment was my literal first time driving out and that I just got my license the day before, and he is my first-ever passenger (at that point I’ve never even tried driving solo yet). The horror and immediate distrust on his face was something I will never forget HAHAHA. We got to the place unharmed, but it’s still one of my favorite stories to tell.

Who was your very first friend? It was a kind girl named Kaye back in kindergarten. We were always next to each other in our class lists, so it was inevitable for us to befriend one another. She transferred schools in first grade and I have not seen nor heard from her since.

What was the first thing you ate today? I had another bag of salted egg chips. I’m extremely hooked, lmao.

What was your first job? I work as an associate at a PR agency.

[..Colors..]

Name something red in the room you are in: We have an unopened bottle of wine here on the dining table and there’s still a red ribbon wrapped around it.

Is orange one of your school's team colors? No, neither of my schools had orange as one of its colors.

How many yellow shirts do you own? I can think of 5 tops hanging out in my wardrobe at the moment. Two of them are class shirts from high school; the others were tops I bought when I started getting into mustard yellow.

Name someone you know who drives a green car: I believe Angel, a classmate from high school who also studies in UP, also drives a Mitsubishi Mirage, albeit a lime green one.

Is it a blue sky outside right now? Yes for the most part, but the sun is setting soon so the sky is bound to change into many pretty colors as it usually does at this time of the day.

What is the first thing that pops into your head when I say 'purple'? Barney the dinosaur, and ube.

Are the walls in the room you're in white? Yes, all our walls indoors are white.

Does black make you think of depressing things? Not always, but if used specifically in that context, it definitely helps boosts the mood.

Jewelry: gold or silver? Silverrr, always.

[..Phone Stuff..]

Who is your provider? Nothing you would be familiar with, but I use Globe.

How long have you had your current phone? It’ll be three years this year. It would be nice to upgrade, but I’m also still happy with my current phone so it doesn’t really matter to me.

What did your last text say? The last one that came through that didn’t come from my mobile services provider was from someone in the media. It was his birthday last Friday and I messaged him if he’d like to receive a gift from us, on behalf of one of our clients; he just replied with his confirmation and details.

If you woke up naked next to the last person to call, would it be awkward? Yep and I’d feel like throwing up almost immediately.

Was your last missed call male or female? It was from my mom.

Who is your 10th phone contact? It’s from Jum, who I realize is still listed as Ate Jum on my phone. That’s cute hahaha; I must have gotten her number when we weren’t super close yet. Anyway, she’s been super MIA for like the last two years...basically, ever since she graduated. I believe she has also since moved back to Bicol, so it’s become virtually impossible to see her again. Bums me out and I look forward to the day we somehow end up in the same room once again.

How did you meet them? I met her in my very first journalism major class. I had mixed feelings towards her at first since I found her to be super loud in class, and I initially thought she would only be a one-time classmate and nothing more; but I got to know her more and we even ended up as orgmates, and it turns out she is literally the most hilarious person I know.

Are you related to your 17th phone contact? I have absolutely no clue who it is. I no longer remember what led to it, but Gabie and I swapped the SIM cards in our phones at one point, and for some reason it made me have access to her contacts; the 17th contact on my phone is someone from her list. And since I never hang out in my Contacts app, I’ve never gotten around to deleting those extra numbers I received.

How long have you known your 1st phone contact? Around 6th or 7th grade. I can’t remember the exact grade level she transferred to my school as a new student.

When was the last time you saw them? It’s been at least a year. I remember seeing her on campus very briefly when I was on my way to a certain building for class, while she was walking out of it.

Who is your 4th phone contact? LMAO, again, it’s from her contact list. Said person is one of her older cousins, I believe.

Have you ever kissed that person? No, and that is very weird and uncomfortable to think about.

When was the last time someone drunk dialed/texted/left a voicemail? Andi drunk messaged me a few months ago. November, I think.

[..Friends..]

Who is your #1? No Myspace but I’d say my top best friend is Angela.

How long have you known them? It will be 16 years this year.

Have you ever kissed? Oh my gosh, hell no. It would be like kissing a sister haha. She’s super affectionate and will sometimes kiss my shoulder or cheek, though.

Are you dating this person? No, never did and never desired to.

Do you have nicknames for each other? Not really exclusive to each other, but I call her Anj (and only a few people call her so) and she will occasionally call me Reben or Rolayn, both from past inside jokes.

What is your #2's full name? I am not sharing that, but I refer to them as Andi (you may remember them as Andrew from the past times I’ve mentioned them).

Do they live within 20 minutes of you? If there is zero traffic, I can probably make it to their place within that timeframe, yeah. But realistically, no they don’t.

How did you meet? We initially met in an anti-Marcos protest/rally – I approached they first because they had a wrestling shirt on, heheh – and that’s when I learned we were from the same college. But they rubbed me off the wrong way from our first meeting as they were too extroverted for my liking, and I spent a good chunk of time ignoring him whenever we crossed paths, lmfao. Eventually we were put in the same class at some point, and they even joined my org, and an intensely close friendship started from there.

Could you live with this person? Sure. I think they would never be a boring roommate.

Who is your #3? I’m gonna go with Kate for this one.

Where are they right now? I have no idea. We don’t really catch up with each other’s lives on a regular basis; we have a very chill, low-maintenance friendship.

When is this person's birthday? January 1st.

Has this person ever seen you naked? I don’t think so.

What is your #4's full name? I don’t think I have a 4th-tier best friend haha, but I’m gonna pick Tina.

When did you last see them? Last year, on the last normal day I was able to be on campus. She was set to present one of her projects at a journalism conference that was taking place in campus that day, but I was able to hang out with her for a short time before the event.

Have they ever dated one of your other friends? No. I knew she had a crush on someone from the college, though.

Do you know their favorite movie? I’m not sure about her favorite movie but I do know she loves Adam Sandler. I was never able to figure out if her interest was ironic or genuine but yeah, she enjoys a good number of his works.

[..Randomosity..]

What time is it? 6:20 PM.

Are you supposed to be doing something other than this? I wouldn’t say so. I do have deliverables for work but since it’s the weekend, I’m not thinking about them nor do I have the desire to touch those tasks until Monday.

Do you live on your own or with your parents? I live with my family. Considering my monthly income, it’d be close to impossible to sustain myself in my own place this early in my adult life.

Are you more of a cat or a dog person? Dog, for sure.

Are you allergic to anything? I don’t believe so.

Does your shirt have anything written on it? Yeah, it says “UP Fighting Maroons” styled in a varsity font since that’s the term for our sports team.

Have you ever tie-dyed something? I have, but only back in like Grade 6 when we had to do it for a home ec class. I remember wanting to buy a tie-dye set recently so I could revisit the activity, but I never got around to it.

Who can you always count on to cheer you up? Angela for the most part; but I also don’t want to be too reliant on my friends in this way. Sometimes I simply allow myself to be sad or upset, and sometimes I count on myself to cheer up.

How many places have you been today? I have been nowhere but at home today lol. I’ll be going to BGC tomorrow to have lunch with my godfather and my cousins, though.

Are you a forgiving person? No.

When was the last time you felt let down? Last night when I read the news that the government will be making All Souls’ Day, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve working days this year. I already know I’ll be half-assing my way through those days lmao because whyyyyyyy the fuck would you make people work on family-centric holidays such as those

What is the title of the nearest book to you? There are no books here at the rooftop.

Are you wearing anything that belongs to someone else? Nope.

Can you whistle? Only through my lips. I can’t do the kind of whistle where you put your fingers in your mouth as well.

Do you look more like your mother or your father? My mom.

Are you still in high school? I’m well past that chapter.

Are you the oldest, middle, youngest, or an only child? I’m the eldest.

Has anyone ever told you that you talk in your sleep? No, because I don’t.

How many people have you kissed this year? None.

Is there anyone of the opposite sex you trust fully? Hmm, no one comes to mind.

Are you a night owl or an early bird? More of a night owl.

If you could have an exotic pet, what would it be? No thanks. I’ve never had the desire to have one.

Would you rather go to Brazil for the weekend or Finland for a month? I’d have to go with Finland. I feel like the cultural differences would be a lot more marked, plus the vacation is longer so that is an instant win for me.

[..And Finally..]

Where did you go the last time you drove somewhere? I was driving to the local coffee shop to spend some time with myself, and do a liiiiiiiittle bit of work as well.

Where did you last go out to eat at? Ramen Nagi. I was initially hesitant to show up there and ask for a table for one on a Sunday evening...but it turned out to feel incredibly empowering and freeing. It was definitely awkward at first, but it got a lot easier once I realized literally no one gives a fuck. Or if they did, they didn’t do anything about it and let me mind my own business. That evening was a crucial step in reclaiming my happiness, so I’m glad I made the choice to suck it up and enter the restaurant.

When was the last time you let someone borrow something from you? Last week, when Angela needed our abaca mat as an aesthetic for her grad shoot.

Was your last breakup a bad one? Yes.

What was the last song you listened to? Just checked my Spotify and the current song I have on pause is Descansos by Hayley Williams. 

What was the last movie you watched? Midsommar.

Did your last kiss happen in a public place? Not technically, but it did take place outside of my house so we were outdoors for some neighbors to see.

How did you meet the last person to leave you a comment? It was Andi, and I already explained how we met earlier in this survey.

[irenedonnee]

One shot

For the mood board challenge by @outlanderlush and @iamnottrisha

A/N: So that was fun! Mood board by @holdhertightandsayhername and beta by the amazing @lcbeauchampoftarth ❤️ I hope you’ll enjoy!

On December 7th, Jamie arrived to the small village on the Isle of Skye that was infamous for the tragic bus accident that had killed thirty-five tourists; one of them being his estranged brother, Willie.

Jamie didn’t even remember what had caused the feud between them, seven months prior to the bus crash. It didn’t matter. His big brother was dead and Jamie never had the chance to say goodbye.

During the year after Willie’s death, Jamie tried to find a way to remember his brother. He wrote an article about his law firm, he sent money for the education of Stella, his niece, and he drank. He knew it was not the right thing to do, but only when he was drunk would Jamie stop feeling guilty for his brother’s death.

Nothing worked. So, after kissing Sarah and wishing her a Merry Christmas at the office party, he drove to the train station and bought a ticket to Scotland.

Jamie lived in London, in a small apartment. He had no partner, no pet, no plants; only a bar filled with the finest bottles of whisky and wine. He would not get drunk on cheap alcohol.

He had a very successful career, but he found he had this emptiness inside him. It wouldn’t go away, and got even worse after Willie’s death. His family lived in Scotland and he barely saw them. He wanted nothing to do with them — he was still so bitter and angry. He had never felt loved by them.

His life was a mess.

It took hours for Jamie to reach the quaint village, but he didn’t notice the time passing by. He was lost in his head, thinking about his life, from his birth to Willie’s death. He didn’t consider the last year as living, but mostly surviving.

Jamie was left by the bus on the sidewalk, alone with his leather bag. He took a deep breath of fresh air, looking around. Gradually, Jamie felt a weird sense of serenity fill his soul. Considering the tragic history that was related to the place, the last thing Jamie had expected coming here was peace. He reasoned that he should have come earlier.

Putting his bag on his shoulder, Jamie headed to the local bar that was just on the other side of the road.

A bell rang when he opened the door, and he was surprised to find the place almost empty. There were a few men playing pool and some others drinking beer around tables. Jamie noticed a couple sitting next to each other on the same side of the table. The image of Sarah crossed his mind, but he pushed it away. They had just started seeing each other, and he didn’t want to think about where this relationship was heading just now.

Jamie sat at the bar, putting his bag on the seat next to him.

“Hey.”

He looked up at the barmaid. She was tall, with wild dark hair in a messy bun. He felt her amber eyes looking into his soul, making him feel uncomfortable. Her pink lips were curled up in a small smile.

“Hi,” he said in a breath.

“Tourist?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“Welcome,” she said. She stared at him without saying anything. He didn’t really know what to do, as he grew paralyzed by her beautiful eyes. “What can I get you?”

“Uh…” he swallowed, not able to look away from her face. “A whisky, please.”

She smiled and poured him a glass. “There.” She put a napkin in front of him and handed him the glass. “It’s cold outside.”

“Aye,” he smiled, taking a sip. “You’re a Sassenach.”

“Obviously,” she smiled in return, showing off her teeth.

“What are you doing here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Oh, I don’t tell my secrets that easily.” She waved her eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

Jamie grinned, taking a long sip of whisky, emptying his glass. “Oh, I don’t tell my secrets that easily either,” he responded as he handed her the glass.

She eyed him, the corner of her mouth curled up, before refilling his glass.

“Thank ye.”

There was a cozy atmosphere in the bar that warmed his heart.

“Do you own the place?”

“Yes,” she answered proudly. “I started it almost three years ago now.” She took a glass and wiped it with a towel.

“It’s really nice.”

“Thank you,” she smiled sincerely.

She wasn’t speaking much, only giving short answers and mysterious smiles, but Jamie was mesmerized by this woman. He wasn’t thirsty anymore, but he didn’t want to leave just yet. So, he ordered another drink.

He spent the night at the bar, talking to her or simply looking at her when she was serving other clients. He noticed the crescent moon necklace and the horseshoe tattoo on the inside of her arm. There was something mystical about her, and for a moment, he wondered if she was a witch.

When it was closing time, Jamie rose and put his bag strap on his shoulder. “It was lovely to meet you. I didn’t quite get your name.”

She smiled at him. Her eyes looked tired and her hair was even messier than when he came in the bar. “Claire.”

“Claire,” he repeated with a sly smile. “I’m Jamie.”

After one last look over his shoulder, he left the bar. The cold of the winter night knocked the air out of his lungs. He closed his arms tightly around his chest and made his way to the bed and breakfast that was on the other side of the road.

There was a light on n the lobby, so Jamie made his way inside. An old woman was sitting by the desk reading a book. When he entered, she looked up at him with a smile and greeted him. He eventually booked a room for the next few days..

It was a small room with a bed that groaned loudly when he laid down, but the exhaustion of the day had him falling asleep without even taking his shoes off.

***

Jamie spent the following day wandering through the village. It was a small community, only taking fifteen minutes to walk through it. The bed and breakfast and Claire’s bar were further down towards the end of the street, in a more deserted area. In the light of day, Jamie saw that the bar was facing the sea. He sat on a bench and stared at the raging water for a few hours.

He didn’t know why he had come here, what he had expected to find. It seemed as if there was nothing to do in this village but wait for the day of your death to arrive. It was depressing, and he realized it didn’t help his state of mind much after all. The peacefulness of the place was becoming heavy.

Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman from the bar. Claire. There was something about her that made Jamie want to go back and see her. The bar opened at seven, but he didn’t want to be the first client.

The day was unending, and as the hours went by, he was growing more anxious at the idea of seeing her again.

He stopped by a tiny restaurant to eat fish and chips while reading the local newspaper. He stopped by his room to take a long shower and watch television. Finally, he put on his coat and crossed the road to Claire’s bar.

It was earlier than the previous night, so he was surprised when he opened the door to see it full of people. It was loud with the sound of people talking and laughing, but it still had the same cozy ambiance.

He immediately spotted Claire standing by a table, talking with two fishermen. Her fists were on her waist and she was laughing. Jamie was immediately taken aback by how stunning she was. Her hair was still like an aura around her head.

She saw him and smiled. He had to remind himself to breathe before smiling back and walking to an empty seat by the bar.

“You’re back,” she said, a few minutes later. She stood in front of him behind the bar.

“I am back. I told you it’s a nice place.”

She smiled and handed him a whisky. “How long are you staying here?”

“Just a few days. And since there aren’t that many things to do here,” he raised his glass in front of her.

She chuckled and went to serve another client.

It took a couple of hours before she could speak to him for more than two minutes. Once the clients were gone and just a few remained, she went to him and let out a proud sigh. “What a night.”

“Is the place always full like that at this time?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, it usually is on the weekend. Another one?”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?”

She smirked. “Don’t take it personally,” she filled his glass, “it’s my job, after all.”

Jamie chuckled and watched her pour herself a glass. “I think I deserve it.” She clicked her glass with his and took a long sip. He watched her with the corner of his mouth curled up.

“You know I was thinking about you today?”

She raised her brow, encouraging him to continue.

“I was walking around the village and I wondered why an Englishwoman would move to a village this boring.”

“Oh, I don’t find it boring. Not at all. You see, I have my bar and a small apartment on the second floor. It has a fireplace and a big library. I have a spot right by a big bay window where I can paint. I love it. It’s calm, it’s peaceful. I used to live in London and I had a very small apartment. Even though I was surrounded by thousands of people, I felt more lonely than in this little village with 300 people.”

Jamie studied her face, wondering what kind of life she lived in London before moving here.

“That’s interesting. What did you do in London? Did you own a bar?”

She chuckled. “God, no. I was a surgeon.”

Jamie’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “A surgeon.” It was the last thing he had expected.

She grinned in her glass before taking another sip. “Surprise you?”

“Yes, not that you don’t look like you could be one. It’s just… very different than this and your art studio upstairs.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes that’s what we need. Like you, for instance. What are you doing here? Are you in some spiritual trip? Usually people go to warm places in the middle of winter.”

Jamie smiled sadly. “I guess you can call it that.” He didn’t want to talk about himself, as he was too captivated by Claire; but if he wanted her to trust him, he had to open up a bit.

“My brother died in the bus accident last year.” He saw a shadow cross her beautiful face. “We weren’t on good terms and I never had the chance to say I’m sorry, to say goodbye, to tell him I love him. I guess I’m trying to find a way to do so.”

“I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. “That accident was tragic. I lost a friend of mine too.”

He looked up at her. “You did?”

“Yeah, my friend was also a surgeon from London. He was coming to visit me. You see, I burned the bridges to my old life, but he was my best friend. So he spent Christmas here with me and when he left, well…”

“I’m sorry. God, that’s terrible.”

She nodded. “Life is. We just need to find something to make it less terrible,” she smiled sadly.

That night, they talked until it was closing time. Unlike the day before, they talked about personal things, things they had never told anybody. It seemed so easy to do so; as if they had known each other their entire lives.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” Claire asked shyly, guiding Jamie to the door.

“Yes.”

So the day after, he was there as soon as the bar opened. He wasn’t the first customer, but this time, he didn’t care that he was there early. He had dinner while talking to Claire. As more people started to come in, he had to let her work, but he knew she wished she could be talking to him instead of working. A few hours later, when she was less busy, she came to sit next to him. She lit a cigarette and handed it to him, which he declined.

“I don’t smoke.”

She shrugged and took a long sip.

“I leave tomorrow,” he finally said.

For a split second, he thought he saw sadness in her eyes, but then it was gone.

“Oh,” she said. “I hope you enjoyed your time here and that you found what you were looking for.”

Peace, that was what Jamie was looking for. His brother was dead, there was nothing he could do to change it.

“You think my brother knows I’m sorry?”

Claire looked at him and shrugged. “Do you believe in God?”

“I used to, but now I’m not so sure.”

She thought about it for a long moment, smoking her cigarette. “I think you have to listen to your heart. It will tell you what you need to know. But siblings forgive each other, because that’s what families do. So, yes, I believe he knows.”

Jamie smiled and took her hand. “Thank you.”

She smiled back and bent to kiss him. They both were surprised by the gesture. “Sorry,” she apologized, pulling back, her cheeks turning pink. She got up and went back to work.

Jamie spent the night thinking about that kiss. Claire didn’t come to see him until the bar closed. When she did, the bar was empty, so Jamie closed his arms around her and kissed her.

They made their way to her apartment, not able to keep their hands off one another. They kissed deeply, took their clothes off, and jumped into bed. The way she kissed him, the way she touched him, healed him. And he hoped that it was the same for her.

At that moment, Jamie realized that he had found what he was looking for her. For the first time in years, he felt at peace. No weight on his shoulders, no aching heart. Everything he needed was in his arms.

He fell asleep with his head resting on her chest; and when he woke up the morning after, he left a note on the nightstand. He kissed her goodbye and went to gather his things at the bed and breakfast. As he sat on the bus, looking at the sea by the window, Jamie smiled to himself. He had found a safe haven, he had found peace, and he knew it was a feeling he was never going to let go.

He felt at peace, but he also felt as if he was living in a haze. He had drank a lot during the weekend and he wondered if this was real, or if it was just a dream. Was Claire even real?

He doubted for a moment, but never in his life had a dream made him feel so alive.

When Claire woke up, the sheets were cold. She noticed the paper on the nightstand and a smile lit her face when she read it.

To new traditions.

[nessiesspeakeasy]

Tropemas Day 08: The Perfect Christmas

He jumped when he realized she was there. “Oh! You’re here! I’m sorry, we don’t have to look at this, I know you hate it.” He looked embarrassed and his face reddened in the very specific way that meant he felt guilty.

She frowned. “What is it, darling?”

He shook his head, stepping away. “No, it’s nothing. I know how much you hate Christmas.”

-----

Trope: The search for the perfect (or perfectly imperfect) Christmas tree. Aurelia hates Christmas, but for Timothy, she'll put aside her rivalry with the Holiday to make him happy.

You can read this on my AO3!!!  And if you wanna leave me a ko-fi, feel free!

It was utterly ridiculous and a waste of time. Aurelia hated Christmas and had vowed never to do anything for the wretched holiday again. And she hadn’t, not for six years. Not until she’d found Timothy, her partner of six months, staring at the holiday display of a store.

She came out of the nail salon and saw him with curly red hair, freckles spackling spectacularly over his body, and those bright blue eyes lost in thought. She went to him and stared at the display.

He jumped when he realized she was there. “Oh! You’re here! I’m sorry, we don’t have to look at this, I know you hate it.” He looked embarrassed and his face reddened in the very specific way that meant he felt guilty.

She frowned. “What is it, darling?”

He shook his head, stepping away. “No, it’s nothing. I know how much you hate Christmas.”

Aurelia grabbed his wrist and pulled it back to the display. “Tell me.”

Timothy shrank in on himself and he chanced glances to the display. “It just looked beautiful… That’s all.”

She tipped his chin up, making him look at her. “And that, my dear, sweet, love is complete horseshit. What’s the truth?”

He pulled away from her, which he never did. “It’s fine, Aurelia, really. Let’s go finish your shopping.”

Aurelia stared after him. He’d never been able to resist her before. She glanced up at the display and wondered if she’d put her foot in her mouth once more. Had she been so self-centered that she’d ragged on Christmas while Timothy had secretly loved it?

At the restaurant that night she took his hand gently. “Timothy, dear, have I been a ghastly beast to you about Christmas?”

He sighed. “It’s okay, my love, honestly-”

“No, it is not okay! It seems like that’s all I ever do to you. I drag everything down that you love.”

He sipped his wine. “I don’t know if I love Christmas, actually…”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve never been able to celebrate it… My mother- well, you’ve met her.”

Aurelia nodded. His mother spent all her money on getting drunk off wine and laughing at how pathetic she thought Tim was. She grunted and nodded.

He shrugged. “And then college happened and I could never afford to do anything.”

She blinked. “You’ve never done any Christmas things?”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, though, honest.”

“You keep saying that like it’s actually okay!” She pulled his hand to her lips, kissing it. “My darling! I have been more than a ghastly beast to you! I’ve made you feel like you don’t matter to me and that just simply isn’t true! You are the only person I’ve ever cared this much about and I’m going to fix this!”

“It’s okay, Aurelia, really, I don’t want to make you do something you hate more than anything.”

“Nonsense! We’ll start tomorrow! We’ll decorate the house, the yard, and we’ll listen to Christmas music while we do it! I’ll see what kind of events they have and we’ll go to all of them! We’ll have to get a tree tomorrow, that we can do after breakfast!”

His eyes were wide. “But-”

She put her hand up. “No buts! We are going to do this! And you’re going to pick everything out! I expect you to get whatever you want no matter what!” Timothy sputtered, trying to object, but she knew that she’d won.

When they arrived at home, she brought him to their bedroom and turned the radio on, letting the christmas songs float around them while she kissed over his body. She took her time with him, kissing him tenderly and working down his body. She kissed the soft stomach he was especially humiliated about, and then his hips. His mother was a cruel woman and Aurelia had had to do a lot of damage control when they’d first started dating. And it looked like she needed to do it twice over, once for that bitch and twice for her own selfishness.

“Aurelia, it’s okay, you don’t have to do this…” he tried again, voice thick and shaking. She could tell he was trying not to cry.

She kissed him and let her hands wander. His breath was heavy against her mouth and she smiled. “You deserve to have everything you want, Tim, darling.” She stroked him slowly, letting it build until he squirmed and gasped. His hands gripped her sides, kneading and pulling. She kissed back down his body, biting and sucking his stomach until a nice sized hickey appeared. It would be one that lasted a good long while. “Mmm, perfect!”

He gave a choked laugh.

-----

She woke Timothy up with kisses over his neck and back. “Good morning, my love.”

He snuggled into her embrace. “Morning.”

“It’s time to get up, we have a very busy day ahead of us.”

He groaned and turned to face her, holding her close and nuzzling into her chest. “Do we have to?”

“Absolutely! We’re one week into December and we have a lot to catch up on! Where should we go for breakfast?”

After breakfast, they headed to a tree farm, their boots crunching through the snowy yard. Timothy looked overwhelmed. “I have to pick one?”

“Well, there are some guidelines when picking a tree. It has to be the perfect size for the house. A normal home would have a six to eight foot tree. We, however, need at least a twelve foot tree, so your options have already been narrowed down for you. The typical things that are liked about a tree are how full it is, no holes or gaps and it’s typically preferred that the branches are symmetrical.”

Timothy nodded.

“Now, I’m only telling you this so you have a basis to go off of. I want you to pick whichever one makes you the happiest, even if it’s got a giant hole in it.”

“Okay.”

They spent an hour looking around. Timothy familiarized himself with all the different trees, touching them and smelling them. He moved around them, his eyes trailing over each one. Aurelia had never spent this long in a tree farm. Her family had always hired someone to bring it to their house. She watched Timothy, smiling when his face lit up. He looked at a Noble Fir, feeling it and looking all around it.

“I like this one!” His smile was wide and full of pure joy.

She mirrored his smile. “Alright, then!” She felt a warmth in her that she’d never had with anything Christmas. She stood by the tree as Timothy went to find someone who would cut it down for them. She stared at the green thing that would occupy her home.

It would not be professionally decorated. Her and Timothy would decorate it. The idea of them putting personalized ornaments on a tree together made her smile wider. Maybe celebrating Christmas with Tim wouldn’t be as bad as she thought.

[kate-read-that]

Sidney had taken the chance to read her father's files when the fight started, and her careful attention shifted. To be fair, it wasn't much of a fight, because everyone knew dad would win, but her sister still put some resistance, which was why Sidney loved her so much. Sometimes it looked like she could almost win. Of course, that didn't last long.

_He's a brute and an arrogant idiot. I don't want to spend more time with him than strictly necessary -Carly yelled, with her body squared for battle.

_You've already ashamed me enough by rejecting to be an alchemist and choosing to live like an irresponsible teenager. He's invited you, and his father is one of the most important alchemists in the world; -their father's words, as always, didn't give a chance to answer- you'll be charmant and he'll have a good time, and that's it.

At that point, Carly looked at her mother for help. Sidney knew it was vain hope, but she looked at her as well. Their mom was as pretty as Carly, but she looked more tired than the older sister ever had.

_Why don't we compromise? Carly goes to a date with the boy, but if she doesn't like it she doesn't have to repeat.

At that, both looked at her with a fury that was common. Sidney knew they would scream again so she took her dad's files and left the room. She knew she shouldn't read them, but she was curious about her future job, even if her father punished her later.

The fight finished with Carly running up the stairs crying, followed by a bang and her mother's sigh.

A few days later Sidney saw Carly get dressed with teary eyes while she searched for something to say that would make her sister feel better.

_ It's only a date. You won't have to go out with him again if you dont like it.

Carly huffed. Both of them hated that guy, Keith. He had spent the summer with them it had been a nightmare. The way he walked, like he owned the very floor he stepped on. How he looked at them, like they were innocent children and he was a wise adult, even when he was Carly's age. And that stupid wink that made Sidney want to hit him in the face with the thickest dictionary she could find. The chances of a second date were slim.

_It doesn't matter. If i say I don't want to see him again dad will make life impossible for me until he finds a new young alchemist to pressure me with. I can't wait to go to collegue and get the hell out of here.

_Dad knows? -Sidney loved her sister, but even though she liked studying for alchemist, she sometimes envied the freedom Carly had. She envied a lot of things from Carly, like how beautiful she was, or how delicate, or how the boys always looked at her with dreamy eyes. But she loved her over all of it, because she always stood up to dad when Sidney was terrified of even talking.

_ No need. Mom knows and she promised she wouldnt tell. And i got a good scholarship, so i don't need much money. Just a few more months... -Carly finished buttoning up her dress and twirled, looking like a magazine star. At first, she had wanted to wear jeans and a tshirt, but dad's look had made her reconsider.

_I'll miss you -Sidney's voice sounded offly quiet, so much her sister turned around and hugged her. They didn't hug much at home, but it was nice.

_I'll come visit all the time, and maybe you'll come visit at some point! I have to go, it's almost time and if I'm late dad will try to get me in a second date or something -and with a toll of eyes, she left.

..............

Sidney woke up to the sound of screams in the living room. She looked at the clock and saw it was well oast midnight. Seconds later, her sister came in banging the door and got in the bathroom without even looking at her.

Sidney got up quietly and knocked on the door, asking her sister if she needed something. She got no answer, and after trying again twice she opened the door softly, and gasped.

Carly was sitting in the shower, which was on, totally dressed. Her perfect makeup was messed up and her pretty hair barely retained the elegant bun she had had a few hours ago.

_What happened? -Sidney barely recognised her own voice.

_No...thing. Go to bed...Sidney-she could barely understand her sister with the constant crying, but she turned off the shower and brought her a towel.

_No! I... I have to clean it! -Carly screamed, turning it on again and rubbing herself with a sponge all over.

_You just need to wash your face but that can wait until tomorrow -Sidney started helping her sister get undressed, not sure about what was going on. Dad would be so mad about the dress, it was a Christmas present.

That's when she saw the bruises.

Her sister's tan skin was covered in bruises in some parts, like her hips or her thighs. It looked painful and Sidney had no idea where those came from, but her sister seemed to cry even harder when she saw them.

_You don't understand, Sidney. He... he... -Carly didn't try to talk again after that, too impacted to say anything. Sidney didn't fully understand what was going on but she could tell it was horrible.

It took Sidney half an hour to get her undressed and in bed, and another half an hour to get her calm. Luckily, her parents were already asleep because there were no other sounds in the house.

_He took me to a restaurant. I said i had never drunk alcohol, but he ordered wine anyway and promised me I'd like it. I didnt want him to tell dad I had been rude, so i took some -her voice was even quieter than Sidney's, who laid by her side absolutely quiet and listening.

_Is Dad mad about the alcohol? -she tried to guess, confused. But that wouldn't explaim the bruises... maybe they had an accident in the car?

_No... no he's mad because I said I dont want to see him ever again. And because my make up is ruined and he said there was no way I'd catch a man if i ended dates crying.

Many times Sidney disliked her dad, but there were some times she really, really hated him.

_But why are you crying?

_Oh, Sidney... you dont... you dont understand... he took me to another place later, in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to go outside and walk but he said it was too cold. I was really tired and a little dizzy with the wine so I agreed. And then he... he started kissing me.. and i tried to push him away but he was so strong... -after that Carly cried so much there was no way of getting more information of her.

But it was no needed. Sidney knew what sex was, their mom had talked a lot about sex and consent and consequences with them. Bruises made sense now. Keith had...Sidney felt the bile rise inside her as her sister screamed of shame and pain against the pillow.

Out if nowhere, a wave of rage filled Sidney filling her body. He, that idiot with that stupid wink and that arrogant smile, had hurt her sister, her beautiful, delicate, intelligent and sweet sister. How dared him. How dared him even think about hurting Carly like that. They were alchemists, saviors of the humankind that worked to help the human race and protect them. What he'd done was... but there would be consequences.

_We'll tell Dad. If he knows what happened, he'll make sure Keith gets punished. You're Carly Sage. Your father is one of the most famous alchemists in the world. There's no way dad will let anyone do that to you and walk away -Sidney gritted her teeth just thinking of it. How could he? For once, their father's rage would be good for something.

_I'll never tell dad, or mom for what matters.

_What? Why, for the love of...

_Because he wouldn't believe me, Sid. Dad loves Keith, more than us anyway. He's always wanted a son and Keith is everything he could want. He will never admit it and dad will always believe the perfect boy over us. Besides, imagine what he'd say about me now-her sister sounded... deflated. She looked so tired she almost looked like their mother. She trembled when she said his name, but she didn't look totally alive.

Sidney wanted to scream, because she knew her sister was right. Even if they convinced her dad, which was almost impossible, Carly was no longer a virgin. Dad would lose gus mind and acuse her of ashaming the family name, even if it had been against her will.

_But we have to tell someone! Mom will...

_Mom will tell us to tell Dad, because he fixes everything apparently. She can't help us because she's not an alchemist, Sidney. Look, it doesn't matter, okay? All I want is to sleep and forget today happened.

She closed her eyes and finnally succumbed, the crying had worn her down so much she didn't move in the whole night.

But Sidney didn't sleep, too filled with rage and hurt for her poor sister to do so. Instead, she thought. She searched through her brain over and over from a thousand different angles until she found a way. A way to get justice. Or, as her favourite authors would call it, vengeance. She had a plan.

............

Two weeks later, she stood before Abrahan Mazur in a very luxurious looking club at 11 am. Getting her father's office key, checking the archives and finding what she had read a few months ago took a lot of effort, but going to the library and then scaping to take a bus to the city? Every step Sidney took, part of her expected her father to appear out of nowhere.

The club had seemed closed, but the documents said he would be inside already, even if there was still some sunlight, handling his "businesses". Sidney had wanted to turn around and leave, but whenever she thought of Keith's wink and her sister cries her determination grew stronger.

_Well, I've got to admit I'm surprised. A young alchemist was the last thing I expected when I got up today -Zmey smiled with a ladine expression while he looked at her. His fangs made Sidney tremble and every single piece of information she knew about Moroi appeared in her mind frantically.

They drink blood.

They aren't alive.

They can control your mind.

They want to condemn you.

They aren't human.

But Sidney was smart. She had considered all possibilities, and this was the only way. Human police could do nothing agaisnt alchemists, and alchemists would not lay a finger on Keith. So she had to seek help from someone who didn't fear Alchemists.

_How did you know I...? -she had covered her mark with her sister's make up before coming as precaution.

_Oh, please. I can smell one of you from the other side of the road Ms...

_Sage. Sidney Sage -if he already knew what she was, hiding her name had no sense.

_Perhaps related to the famous alchemist?

_He's... my father -and he would kill me if he saw me now.

_Well, now that's a surprise. What could I possibly do for you, Sidney? I doubt your influential father needs something from me, and if he did he wouldn't send ymhis beloved daughter, I'm sure.

_I've heard you... do favours. In exchange for things -very loquacious, Sidney. Zmey seemed to think the same thing, but didn't express it out loud. Just smiled with those horrid fangs again.

_That's true, but I'm not sure what kind of thing I could do for you.

This is it.

_I want you to punish someone.

The guardians of Zmey Mazur, who had been still like sculptures until that moment, suddenly looked at her, surprised. Even Mazur seemed a little baffled, which made Sidney feel safer for some reason. But Mazur composed himself quickly.

_Punish? I guess you dont mean telling off someone?

_No, not like that. He's done something horrible, and he's got to pay -she could hear her own voice get lower with rage, and could see Mazur getting more and more interested with every word.

_I thought you alchemists had your own justice system -Mazur arched his brow, crossing his hands on the table. Sidney swallowed and tried to keep calm as her feelings tried to jump out.

_My... people can't handle it. The crime can't be proven and even if it could, the person I'm talking about belongs to a very important alchemist family. You must know, you'd anger very dangerous people.

The elegant vampire laughed at that.

_No one's more dangerous than I am, Ms Sage. And I'm not scared of a few god-fearing humans. Is this person's family more important than yours?

-Yes, that's why I need to hire you. I cant pay you right away but as soon as I'm off age I can...

_I have enough money, I got no interest in more, specially if you can give me something else. Depends on how bad his crime was.

_What... do you want then? And what he did is... not important.

_It is important, there are a thousand ways I could punish him. Think about it, you'll only have one chance.

Sidney thought about it. Whenever she'd planned this, she hadn't thought of something specific, she just wanted him to pay, to be sorry, to...

_I want him to suffer. Every day of his life, I want him to see himself in the mirror and feel as horrid as he is. I want him so destroyed he can never harm another person again without thinking about the possible repercussions. And I want him to never feel confident enough to hurt someone again- Silent followed her. She had known she was angry, but the extent of her anger scared her a little. She discovered, with a little worry, that she was sorry she couldn't hurt him herself like she had just said-. His name is Keith Darnell.

Mazur stayed quiet for some minutes before smiling again.

_I know the Darnell family. I think I can do this for you, if you do something for me in exchange.

Sidney expected to pay money, which her family had, not to do something for her. But she couldnt back down now, and even if she could, she wouldn't. Carly deserved it, she was worth it.

_What?

_Oh, not yet. You see, I prefer to keep favours in case I ever need them, and when time comes I'll ask you to do something for me, and you'll accept-Mazurs smile shone again, giving her chills-no matter what it is. Deal?

Mazur outstretched his hand, waiting.

She didnt want to, she couldn't do it. She wasn't brave and she never went against the rules. If her dqther found out... There's no way-

_Deal.

She said it. And as she shook Mazur's hand, she knew exactly what a deal with the Devil felt like.

.........

Sidney waited days. Then weeks. She thought Mazur had been joking, that he wasn't going to risk it for the possibility of getting a favour from her. She had started fearing not having alternative solutions by the time that phone call happened.

They were in the kitchen again, eating dinner quietly. Carly had finally left her bedroom and Zoe was happily playing with her food when the phone rang. Her father, of course, picked it up.

His face suddenly turned white, followed by an angry red Sidney knew well. Part of Sidney's mind sang: he knows what you did, he knows you talked to Mazur... but when his father turned around, he didn't look at Sidney, she looked at all of them.

_Its Keith... he's... he's been attacked by strigoi.

Sidney's mom silenced a scream with her hands and immediately took Zoe as if to protect her. Carly just paled as much as her father, and closed her eyes. Sidney felt like everyone was watching her as she tried to sound surprised.

_What? What's happened? -she really hoped her voice didn't sound as plastic as she heard it.

Her father turned to look at her a few seconds, but hopefully he was too astounded to realise she was trembling.

_I can't... I knew they were cruel but this... it's... he's just a young man, it was totally.... they didn't even drain him of blood...

_Dad, what happened? -Sidney knew insisting was not the best way to seem innocent, but she needed to know, needed ro make sure he had paid. She found herself feeling excited about knowing how had he paid.

_His... eye. They cut... his eye... out. He's lost his eye. The poor boy... Of course, the alchemists will give him a new glass one but...

Sidney's mom screamed again and started crying, covering Zoe's ears. Carly left running and, by the sounds of it, puking in the nearest bathroom. Sidney got up from the table and went upstairs, not even needing to fake shock.

His eye. Abraham Mazur took Keith's eye out. She immediately thought of Keith's damn wink and how handsome everyone said he was. They wouldn't think the same thing again. Sidney shot out a laugh.

She covered her mouth, looking around to check no one had heard her. She felt like a terrible person, at least for a few seconds. But she couldn't help it. She had to lock herself in a bathroom and turn the shower on because she just couldn't stop laughing. Tears streamed down her face as she tried to stop the laugher coming from inside her.

His eye. His eye was gone. He'd never wink again, and whenever he saw himself in a mirror, he'd remember the pain and the fear. Sidney kept laughing until the tears overpowered her, and then she stopped and thought she'd do whatever Mazur asked of her. Anything.

[rosegoldjen]

christmas at the hemmings

word count: 1767

this one shot is based on a fic that I have been writing (but not published, yet) about tour!luke and if this is something that you like, I would be more than willing to start posting chapters of the full fic! enjoy :) 

Christmas was a special time of year for the Hemmings. They went all out, not sparing any expense for the celebration. The extended family traveled to Luke’s family home to celebrate with those that they loved. This year was no different. The tour had just ended and Luke felt he was in a confident enough place in his relationship. He wanted to show her off to the world. 

“I don’t like the pressure of having to meet your family during such a special time of year,” Juls groaned. She and Luke sat curled on the massive couch in Luke’s front room, the Hallmark channel playing quietly in the background. A bottle of wine sat half-drunk on the table in front of them and Juls had the rim of her lipstick-stained wine glass pressed to her cheek. 

They had been dating for almost six months now. The sticky relationship between the two of them had remained a secret for most of the tour; the two of them deciding to keep things quiet until the excitement and business of their tour lives ended. Luke’s fans had only just found out about the relationship two months ago, and Juls still hadn’t gotten used to being recognized as Luke Hemming’s girlfriend. 

“It’s okay. You’ll love my mum and she’ll love you. Christmas is one of her favorite times of the year, and she’s going to be so excited to have one more person to explain her pecan pie recipe too,” Luke was laid out on his side with his legs on top of her lap. She groaned again, leaned forward to set her wine glass down, then flopped over with a defeated huff into his stomach. 

He smiled to himself as he observed the internal war going on inside her beautiful mind. One of the things he liked too much about her was her unexplainable need to make every one like her. It was a quality that he himself did not possess. He didn’t care what others thought of him. Her awareness and his lack thereof balanced both of them and made them a team capable of overcoming anything. 

He smiled deeper and continued to stroke her hair. 

A few days and a fifteen-hour flight later, Luke and Juls were walking in the front door of Luke’s childhood home. It felt strange to Juls, she was used to snow and bundling in scarves and hats to go to Grandmas for dinner. She never imagined wearing sandals and a sundress to Christmas dinner until she started dating a tall, Australian rock star. 

“Mum!!” Luke’s voice called through the house as he set the suitcases on the floor in front of the stairs. His accent had become much more noticeable, even in the short Uber drive from the airport to his house. Juls was not complaining at all. 

Liz Hemmings rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes landed on Luke and immediately filled with so much pride and joy. 

“My baby,” she opened her arms wide and Luke stooped to wrap his arm around her. She patted his back a few times before pulling away. She held him at arm’s length to examine him before commenting on his appearance. 

(Luke was wearing a plain white t-shirt, black jeans, and his converse, a normal outfit for plane journeys.)

“My God, I do think you’ve grown five inches since I last saw you.” Liz’s eyes examined him closely. “And your lip ring is gone!” 

“It’s been gone since May, Mum,” Luke smiled and subconsciously ran his tongue along his lip, feeling the phantom ring that had been part of him for the better part of four years. Juls noticed this tiny movement of his and felt something in her stomach. She personally missed the ring. 

When they had first gotten together in mid-April, she had loved the way the cold metal contrasted with the soft warmth of his lips. But she understood what that ring symbolizes to him, and why he needed to take it out. That doesn’t mean she didn’t miss it though. 

“This is Juls,” Juls zoned back into the conversation in front of her, her eyes moving from Luke’s lips to his hand on her arm, to the outstretched hand of Luke’s mom. 

“Hi,” Juls reaches out and took Liz’s hand in her own, shaking it gently. “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for inviting me to your Christmas.” 

Liz smiled warmly at her. “Of course, honey. Luke has not stopped talking about you since you met and when he proposed bringing you over for Christmas, I couldn’t say no.” 

With her tone and her smile, and Luke’s hand reassuring on the small of her back, Juls felt even more at home than she did in her own apartment. She knew immediately that the dynamic that this family had was something that she wanted to be a part of for a long long time. 

“Luke, why don’t you take Juls upstairs and show her where you’ll be staying. Your cousins and the kids will be here shortly and your brothers are coming just before dinner. I’ve got a pecan pie to finish.” 

Luke grabbed their luggage and started up the stairs. Juls followed. 

Christmas traditions had remained the same in the Hemmings household for as long as Luke could remember. Everyone shared a big meal together on Christmas Eve. After the meal had been eaten and the adults had red cheeks from too much laughter (or maybe it was from too much wine, Luke still couldn’t decide), they migrated to the front room to watch their favorite Christmas movies. 

Juls loved that she had the chance to be a part of these traditions. She didn’t want to admit even to herself how quickly this boy was beginning to become her whole world. She wanted to be a part of his life and if that meant spending the entire Christmas holiday, she loved every second of it. 

Watching Luke with his baby cousins was something that made Juls practically melt. He was a natural with them. He picked them up and made them laugh. She stood at the bay window in the back room and watched as he carried them on his shoulders and galloped across the backyard. They adored him.

“He’s a natural, isn’t he?” Liz startled her just a bit, but Juls didn’t mind. She smiled and continued watching her boyfriend lope across the backyard with two little children attached to his back.

“He is,” Juls smiled when she responded, continuing to watch him.

“He loves you, you know,” Liz said, gently. Juls hummed. She really didn’t know what to say to respond. “He talks about nothing but you. And the way he looks at you, oh honey, I’ve never seen him happier.”

“I’m happy too.” And she realized, she meant it. Juls had never met anyone who had made her feel more safe and more at home than Luke had in just the short amount of time they had been together. 

“And when he was with her, he was just miserable. He never called, he never came and visited, the last two Christmases he didn’t even come home. Somethings changed though, and I know it’s you.” Juls realized that she agreed with Liz.

“Mum!” Luke’s voiced called from the kitchen.

“In here, sweetheart!” 

Luke walked through the opening that led to the kitchen. He had the two small children in tow. Luke’s eyes landed on Juls and immediately his expressions changed from exasperated to soft. He smiled his dimpled smile and gave her a quick wink. Juls felt her cheeks heat just a little as she smiled softly back. 

It was strange for her, showing any type of public display of affection, even something as small as a wink in the privacy of Luke’s childhood home. 

“Aunt Liz, Aunt Liz!!” the kids ran out from behind Luke’s legs to get the attention of their doting aunt. 

“They’ve been complaining about how hungry they are for the last hour,” Luke explained, casting a hopeful look at his mother. Liz just laughed and started ushering the kids towards the kitchen. 

“I’ll take care of them,” she smiled and kissed Luke’s cheek on her way by. “You kids tired your cousin Luke out!”

Luke laughed as he took a few steps closer to Juls. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder, pressing a quick kiss onto her shoulder. Juls reached up and wrapped her hands around his arms and leaned back into his chest.

“Hi,” he said into her hair.

“Hi babe. How’s it goin’?”

“I’m not as young as I used to be, I��ll tell ya that.” She felt his lips move into a light smile against the back of her neck. 

Juls laughed, “You just turned 21 babes, how old do you think you are?”

“Hey. They are half my age, that means twice the energy.”

“Sure, sure that’s exactly what that means.” 

“Mmmm,” Luke mumbled into her shoulder. “I’m so happy you decided to come with me.”

“Of course,” Juls turned in Luke’s arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I wouldn’t miss spending time with you and getting to meet and hang out with your family has been so so much fun.” 

Luke pressed a kiss to her forehead. “They love you. Out of all the girls I’ve brought home, no welcome has compared to the welcome that you received. Plus, they haven’t let anyone sleep in my bed with me.”

“I’m honored,” Juls laughed. They had talked about past relationships. Juls knew that he had been seeing someone else when something first started happening between them, but since the drama had blown over, they were able to laugh about it now. 

 “I am proud that you are the first,” Luke closed the distance between his lips and hers in a quick, but meaningful kiss. 

This Christmas was the best Christmas that either of them had had in a while. Christmas Day turned into Christmas night which was filled with board games, wine, and laughter. Luke spent most of the night watching Juls interact with his family. She naturally blended with the sweetness of his mother but was willing to put up a fight with his father. His brothers loved her sense of humor and the back and forth she kept up with them. And his cousins loved her. The kids wanted to sit next to her at dinner and during the board games for the rest of the night.  

Luke was happy. 

[basicallyimqueer]

party poison

summary: Dan wants to get properly drunk on New Years to celebrate the end of a decade, things don't go exactly to plan because he's kinda dumb

words: 2532

Read On AO3!

It’s been a long time since Dan has been properly drunk. 

Eyes glazed, speech-slurred drunk. Falling over furniture drunk, hanging onto Phil like a lifeline. It reminds him of a younger self, one huddled in the woods with a group of teenagers that he wanted so badly to impress; downing liquids that burned his throat and caused full-body shivers to shake his spine.

That type of drinking is such a juvenile thing now, in his mind, though at the time it seemed so grown-up. The summers that he spent playing spin-the-bottle with his emo friends were a nice break from the taunts and bullying that accompanied him like leeches within the school halls. Those words couldn’t touch him, though, when he sat by a bonfire and his numb tongue got to taste the vodka on each of his friend’s lips. 

There was no judgement in that group, not even when his mouth lingered on the other boys’ for longer than the girls. The lack of judgement may have been due to everyone being absolutely pissed, but it still counted. 

Then there were the university months, before his inevitable dropping out. Being in the law program and not being equipped with better coping mechanisms for it, he let himself go to way too many house parties with people he barely knew. The difference with those gatherings was that he had Phil, who was a voice of reason even if only via text. The most trouble he ever got into then was the occasional party being shut down by the hall staff or having to pay way too much for a cab to get back to his room. He doesn’t have much to regret from those times, besides being grossly hungover on exam mornings. 

Looking back from the present day, he thinks he hasn’t been fully drunk since their TATINOF party. It was the last occasion where he really let himself loose, sending out a nonsensical tweet with shaky fingers and even pulling Phil out onto the dance floor without checking for vlog cameras. The consequences of that night, as small as they were, put him off it for a while. That, paired with their stupidly busy schedule in the following years, made for quite the sober Dan. Phil hasn’t been drunk since then either, but Dan thinks that might have something to do with him being a nice, sensible man in his thirties. He usually respects and even envies the soft kind of reservation Phil holds about these things, but tonight it’s not going to do. 

It’s New Year’s Eve, and he’s going to be entering a whole fucking new decade with the man he loves. If that isn’t cause for celebration, Dan doesn’t know what is. It isn’t totally his fault that he got an early start on the night and now he’s seeing double at only 10 p.m. – the bottle of red wine he had been nursing while watching Youtube had emptied out with no warning. When the last few drops hit his tongue he was mildly confused, and when he stood up to put it away, his feet seemed to belong to another body. 

Phil wasn’t ready to start drinking until later, when tipsy, wine-fueled Dan thought it was a good idea to sneak a shot of their salted caramel flavored vodka. Even with the added sweetness it still made him let out a strangled cough as the nail polish remover aftertaste hit the back of his throat. That’s how Phil found him, standing in the kitchen with his face screwed up in disgust. 

“Getting started already?” Phil asks, grinning as if he’s in on some secret.

Dan tries not to let it show on his face that he just tossed an empty, kind of expensive wine bottle in the trash – however, he’s unsure what his face is showing. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to him. 

“Guess so. Join me?” 

His hands shake a bit as he pours another shot and hands it over, and Phil only looks marginally suspicious as he accepts. He doesn’t take it immediately but leans against the counter and holds the glass delicately between his fingers. 

“You look traumatized, is it that bad?” 

“Yeah, you suck at picking flavors. And alcohol in general.” 

Dan leans forward to poke him in the chest, miscalculating a bit and getting him sharply in the collarbone. He blinks slowly as he rocks back onto his heels, an apologetic look on his face. 

“Ow. I’ll be the judge of that. Your taste buds aren’t right.” 

“Okay, cheese-boy,” Dan snorts. 

He watches as Phil tilts his head back, barely hesitating as he takes the shot. The long expanse of his throat is weirdly appealing, Adam’s apple moving ever so slightly as he swallows it down. Even when he finishes it and his face scrunches up in the same way Dan’s had, he’s still weirdly pretty. His face is clean-shaven from his recent Christmas painting video and his blue eyes are bright, the way they always are after a nice trip to the Isle to see his family. Dan wants to kiss him very badly. 

“Don’t gloat about it, but you’re so correct. My love for sugar has failed me this time.” 

They end up pulling out a couple of Coke bottles to chase away the taste, and Dan makes it to his second shot of the night before he’s caught out. Half of it splashes down onto his Star Wars pajamas and when he disregards that to drink the other half, the glass rim hits his teeth in a way that makes his shoulders hunch up in a harsh cringe. The next thing he registers is a wad of paper towels being dragged across his leg and Phil’s other hand dragging through the hair on the back of his head. 

“Don’t gotta clean me,” he mumbles, letting his head fall onto Phil’s shoulder – he feels like he’s in the middle of the ocean, being rocked by insistent waves. 

“How much have you had?” 

“I’m okay, really. Doing good good great.” 

“That’s not an answer,” Phil laughs. 

Secretly, Dan thinks it’s his fault for not knowing – if he hadn’t spent all day in the office working on that comic thing, they could have shared that wine bottle and it would have been a romantic start to the New Years festivities. Instead, Phil is entirely too sober, and the floor is swaying even though they are grounded firmly on their barstools. 

“Worry about you, you need to catch up. I’ll wait.” 

“I have all night to catch up, it’s hardly half ten. Let’s go to the lounge, yeah?” 

“Or the bedroom,” Dan winks, but Phil only stands up and hoists him up from under his armpits. 

His legs are jelly, but eventually he maneuvers them to the sofa and collapses onto it. Phil disappears again into the kitchen, and he’s comforted by the sounds of him puttering around in there. 

“Take another shot at least! One shot is basically nothing!” He yells, probably a touch too loud. 

There’s the sound of clinking glass and he knows that Phil listened, which is nice. That reassurance doesn’t last forever because then there’s nothing – no Phil returning and little to no noise happening all throughout the flat. Dan sinks down into the sofa cushion and pulls a pillow to his chest; the decision to wait out the nothingness fails him as his eyelids start to weigh themselves down. Sleep has almost taken him by the time his shoulders are being shaken, jostling him back into reality. 

“Drink,” Phil says from somewhere above him. 

Dan reaches out, half-expecting his grabby hands to be met with the small glass from before, but it turns out to be a cold, larger one. He opens his eyes to see the water splashing around inside. 

“Not thirsty.” 

“You have to have water, Dan. I found the wine bottle in the trash. You’re sneaky, and you’re way drunker than I thought. Now take a sip.” 

Phil’s voice isn’t harsh, but there’s no wiggle room to argue with him. If he wasn’t incapable of feeling anything other than weird and sloshy, Dan would probably find it kind of hot. He opens his mouth when Phil guides the glass to his lips and drinks it down, not caring when some of it misses and dribbles down the side of his neck and onto the sofa. They can deal with that later. After what feels like a lifetime, Phil takes the cup away and sits next to him on the sofa. Dan immediately rests most of his weight on him, running his hands over Phil’s chest in little circles. “

I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to have all the wine, wanted to share. You were busy, though.” 

“I told you I’d stop working before eleven. I just have a lot of deadlines looming in the distance.” 

“Please don’t be mad at me.” 

Phil laughs a bit at that, grabbing at Dan’s chin so he can kiss him from a better angle. The stupid salted caramel nightmare flavor is vividly present, lingering on his lips after Phil pulls away. 

“I’m not mad. I just need you to sober up a tiny bit before midnight.” 

“I’m plenty sober, bub.” 

“You sure are.” 

“Why should I be sober by midnight anyways? Don’t need to think to kiss your dumb face.” 

Phil huffs in amusement, then reaches for the bottle on the coffee table and pours another shot. It’s only half full, but Dan can’t tease him for it when he’s stuck trying to figure out when it was brought in here from the kitchen in the first place. Maybe he would like to be a little more aware of his surroundings for the start of a new decade. 

“You’ll feel better in the morning, for one. Secondly, drunk kissing is only good if both of us are unaware of how bad it is. We need to be on the same level so that I don’t have to deal with your sloppy mouth, mister.” 

“Whatever, drunk-Dan is sexy. Now excuse me so I can go piss for three minutes straight. I had a whole bottle of wine.” 

“Very sexy,” Phil quips. 

Despite his obvious slight annoyance, he hops off the sofa and helps Dan stand up by holding onto his arms and stopping the gentle sway that came from being vertical. They hobble off to the bathroom and bicker the whole way – midnight feels lightyears from now.

Midnight comes sooner than either of them could have kept up with. In a non-shocking turn of events, Dan had peer-pressured Phil into getting past buzzed and into flat-out drunk territory. It was a victory for no one, though, because that meant Phil spent about half an hour lying on the lounge floor with his eyes closed, trying desperately not to be sick. Dan couldn’t help him much, in his state, so he just played one of his Spotify playlists on the speakers and hoped that the chill vibes would drown out the whining. 

Phil tried to distract himself from the nausea with a game of I Spy, but from his place on the floor he could only see the white ceiling. Dan guessed it correctly every time, each round sounding more dead inside. 

Some more time passed with reluctant snacking on microwave popcorn and leftover Domino’s straight from the refrigerator that kind of helped them sober up some. Dan was sitting at the dining table with his head resting against the cold surface when he heard a sharp gasp from the lounge. 

“Whaaat?”

“It’s 11:58, Dan!” 

“Ugh,” is all Dan could muster, turning his head to the side so that his cheek would get some of the coolness instead. 

He squints his eyes, watching Phil climb off the floor and stumble way faster than he should be moving into the dining room. His cheeks are flushed, and his stupidly pretty eyes are suddenly all wide and excited. It’s hard not to let that excitement hit him as well, but his head is just so fucking heavy right now and Dan never wants to move. He decides to gather up as much strength as humanly possible though, because Phil is now bouncing on the balls of his feet impatiently, lower lip jutting out. 

“11:59! Come on, we gotta do the thing!” 

“Alright, fuck, I’m up,” Dan grunts, holding onto the back of his chair once he’s at eye level with Phil. 

They huddle closer together and suddenly Dan is hit with just how much this moment means to him. His heart is working overtime, hammering away in his chest with what feels like a weird mixture of nerves and genuine happiness. He smiles at Phil in a way that hurts his cheeks, watching him intensely as Phil stares down the phone screen to check the time. 

“We’re supposed to kiss while it’s changing, not after the moment has passed, you weirdo,” he laughs, bringing his hands up to circle around Phil’s shoulders. 

Phil shoves the phone into his pocket and lets out a nervous giggle. 

“Sorry. I love you,” he says, and then he’s finally kissing Dan in the way he’s been thinking about all day. 

It’s uncoordinated and messy, but it feels so right with cheesy smiles pressed together and roaming hands sliding beneath shirts. If Dan had more brainpower to think about everything they’ve been through and experienced in 2019, he’d probably be having a little bit of a cry right about now. He’d probably do something sappy like kiss Phil through his tears and get choked up while telling him about he proud he is of them. As it is, though, he just squeezes Phil a little bit and buries his head in his shoulder. 

Phil’s arms come down to wrap around his waist and they stay like that for a moment, swaying back and forth. The music is still playing from the lounge and even though it’s some obscure indie artist that Dan doesn’t even like that much, it feels fitting and floaty and far away.

He lifts his head and kisses Phil on the cheek. 

“I love you so much. We’re going to have so many decades together if humanity gets its shit together and stops global warming.” 

Phil laughs and reluctantly pulls his hands away from Dan’s hips. 

“Even if they don’t, we can go to the moon. I’ll be right back.” 

Dan hadn’t missed the way his face had gone a bit pale since the end of the kiss, or the miniscule twinge of fear in his boyfriend’s face that grows more impending by the second. 

“You need to be sick?” 

“Very much.” 

“Right, run to the bathroom. Go!” 

Dan shrieks a laugh when Phil doesn’t budge fast enough and pulls him by the arm to rush to the toilet. They almost trip a thousand times on the short run, but they make it on time. It may not be the ideal, romantic New Years Eve that Dan had envisioned, but they have plenty of years to work on their planning skills. This one is just fine for now.

[the1rei]

Little Moments: Reboot Chapter Six: Family Matters By  Ericobard and shadows59 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Fandom: Ben 10 Series Relationship: Ben Tennyson/Gwen Tennyson Some Additional Tags: Bullying, No proofreading, Family is Drama, Long burn

It became known as 'Bloody Christmas.'  Which was sad as Ben and Gwen had been getting along so well.  Still, it gave Ben the chance to be Gwen's hero.

Read my review below:

It is unrealistic that the parents are so nervous about spending this time together. Ben and Gwen have spent the last three months studying together without much problem, and three months in close quarters before that. Their fathers seem to like spending time together 'watching the game at the pub', so it seems like Lili and Sandra can't spend a few hours together and manage to act like adults. If this was only Gwen and Ben's fear, this wouldn't be such a problem, but the parents recognize the potential conflict and can't take steps to avoid it? This paints them as just overgrown children.

Again here we have Ben's parents doting over Gwen, whereas Ben gets no reciprocal affection from Gwen's. This could be interesting if it fed into a complex on Ben's part, but there's no evidence of that in the story. So it continues only to serve to show that Gwen is the central character of the story.

Ben's parents insisting that Gwen call them by their first names only is very uncomfortable, to the degree that you would expect any normal person to reconsider insisting on it. However, this was and likely still is a fad among some parents. While I preferred it to be just vaguely talked about, I can't fault the way Shadows59 communicates just how uncomfortable it is.

Why are the 'Tradition is' sentences being cut off, there's no indication the women are cutting each other off so why aren't the sentences complete?

I love how fraternal Carl and Frank are in this story.

Why does Gwen beat Ben at the video game that he has been playing all morning and spends far more time in general playing video games?  Shadows59 is making it difficult for me not to call Gwen a Mary-Sue.

Gwen's mom got up to four, nearly to eight, what?  Where in the text is what they are talking about explained?

Shadows59 writes as if Ben picked up his present twice without putting it down. A proofreader is needed.

I'm not sure what is more unlikely. That Gwen would suggest a book on science at all for Ben instead of something he might read like a graphic novel or even just an adventure appropriate for his age range. That someone as meticulous as Gwen wouldn't have checked the book or wrapped it herself. Or that Natalie would think it was a good idea to go against her daughter's explicit advice and wishes to get her nephew 'A Brief History of Time' a book Gwen herself admitted she didn't fully comprehend. All this seems to occur for a bit of melodrama.  

I do like the idea that Ben would be interested in the guitar; he did seem to have some talent with them.

Adding Xylene into this earlier part of Max's life creates an unneeded conflict with the source material. Why put her into this story at all?

Again Gwen asserts that Ben is Max's favorite which makes the normally mature character seem unnecessarily immature and then she goes on to claim its a gendered thing and laments about her grandma being gone, the only reason for this is that she assumes that her grandmother with favor her for a gendered reason. All this even though she has never met Verdona and has no emotional attachment to her whatsoever as she says herself, no one talks about Verdona. Why is Gwen so sexist? It doesn't add an enduring flaw to the character and again just seems to be here for unneeded drama.

I do like that Shadows59 expanded on the book on magic that grandpa gave her. Writing out whole passages from it is probably a little much, but it's a good element to expand on.

The exchange about the King Arthur stories is needlessly complicated. First, Gwen has read them; then she hasn't, then she just skimmed the character names and remembered it, even though the Lady of the Lake has about ten names spelled in a variety of ways. Again this is just padding and fluff that adds nothing of substance to the story.

The fight, known as Bloody Christmas, is the key reason for this chapter being written. It starts out well; the parents are drinking wine, which can be very alcoholic, leading to speaking without entirely thinking. However, the need for it as a catalyst for the fight is undermined Sandra and Lili nearly getting into fights already and their anxiety about spending time together, showing that they are already childish enough to have this fight without any help. From there, a lot of the problems stem from people being childish. Frank has a childish temper-tantrum about Max never being there for them. In the original, the fallout of Max's absence from their lives growing up manifests in a friendly, bt cold distance between them. Shadows59 expertly compared their interactions with the interaction one has when meeting a former classmate. Here, Frank expresses jealousy over the time and attention his daughter gets from her grandfather. I do expect more maturity from this adult man, who has had a child of his own for a decade and a successful, high stress, high demand career, and being sober enough to drive home, Frank is not drunk enough to completely take leave of his facilities. Then Carl defends Max by attacking Frank's parenting. All that was said about maturity and sobriety apply here as well. Also, even within the reboot, there is no indication that there is animosity between Carl and Frank about parenting, they get along well by everything we've been shown. It's highly implied in both versions that Sandra and Lili are making the parenting decisions, and their husbands are going along with them; that's why the parenting fight was one between Sandra and Lili. I expect Frank and Carl to side with their wives, but generally to stay out of the fight because they are softer on the parenting question then their wives, as has been shown even in the reboot. That is why it feels too aggressive for Carl to take shots at Lili for her parenting; it's not his fight.  After the attack on Max, the fight again feels like it fits well, though it should be just Sandra and Lili fighting, right until the end, when Ben's parents attack Lili's motivation for her parenting method, but I'll address that next chapter.

I like the way Lili stands up for Ben's intelligence, it makes sense for her character given her problem is more with Sandra's parenting then Ben himself. It also gives back a little of the praise that Ben's parents have been showing on Gwen up to this point.

I like that in the middle of the fight Ben goes for the Omnitrix illustrating that he knows what's happening is wrong and the people he loves are being hurt, and his young mind only understands one way to stop something wrong and protect the people he cares about is a good piece of characterization for him.

Gwen's emotions causing magic to surge like that don't make sense within the context of how magic worked within the show. This shows how Shadows59 has changed how magic worked from both the original and the show. I will deal with this more in a later chapter.

"Gwen heard their parents scream and felt hers jump off the couch as they all went running around so they could unplug things and flip switches and find stuff to clean up with even as glass rained down on the floor." It is physically impossible for them to react this fast.

I like that Ben's first instinct is to protect Gwen even though this isn't a time that he needs to 'go hero.' However, it makes less sense that he would have this reaction to Lili, who was the least aggressive of the parents, and he just acknowledged that she defended his intelligence. Either of his parents would have been a better choice for this scene.

Shadows59 does a great job of expressing, in just a couple of lines, that Gwen feels responsible for causing the fight, by calling Ben a doofus. It makes sense for a character so young not to understand the difference between starting the fight and being the cause of the fight.

-Ericobard While I found things I liked in this chapter, it didn't add anything as a whole to the story and continues to add more to the problems that plague the reboot. Ben and Gwen's family is not your family; you shouldn't bring personal matters into a review or allow them to color your reading of the text. Sandra and Lili are the ones trying not to snap at each other, and their husbands are working to keep the peace. A characterization that is violated with the only excuse of 'they had a little too much wine.' Ben's parents aren't locked into a parenting style, that is the problem Lili has with them. Lili may think her method is the best, but Sandra has no method, just an ever-changing series of books. Lili isn't a perfect parent, but she is objectively the better parent.

(As always, please go leave Shadows59 a nice positive review he won’t delete.)

[quillsareswords]

Smoke | II: It‘s Never Easy

SUMMARY: After vanishing for five years, you return to the place you once called home, to the people you once called family. We all carry our baggage in different ways, using different techniques to hide it. You just happen to hide it in cigarette smoke.

CHAPTER SUMMARY: A visit to one of the landmarks of your childhood changes things, though for better or worse, you aren’t yet sure.

SERIES WARNINGS: cigarette smoking; underage drinking; gang activity; violence; swearing; blood; self-hate

MASTER LISTS in BIO

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] I want to talk. The park, 2pm tomorrow. -D.W. 12:14AM

ME About what? Didn’t think you wanted to see me. 12:15AM

D. WAYNE Will you be there? 12:17AM

ME I’ll be there. 12:23AM

   You stare down at the conversation, if it could even be called that, as you walk the paved path. He hadn’t given you a specific place, but you've got a hunch you know where to look.

   On your way, you allow yourself to admire the Gotham City Park. It's nice, as far as city parks go. In the five years you’d spent anywhere but New Jersey, you’d seen much greener trees, and you’d seen much grander flowers. While the City park isn’t exactly the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen, it is still chalked full of memories.

   You can remember racing Damian up and down sidewalks, trying to see who could get to the car first and win the grand prize of riding shotgun. You can remember the two of you sitting up in the trees, springing down on whoever had come to pick you up after school. You can remember begging Damian to go with you to get ice cream from the parlor across one of the streets on the outside.

   You can remember when things were getting tough for both of you, though you hardly every spoke about your problems. Those were your teen years. You can remember sneaking out of you apartment and meeting him here, to lay in the grass and stargaze for hours. You can remember coming here to do homework together, instead of going home. You can remember dragging him up and down the paths in the winter, just to look at the Christmas lights.

   The memories have your lips tipping upward at the ends. You shove your hands in your jacket pockets as you come up on it. You wonder if it's even still standing, after so long.

   So long.

   You keep calling it that, but has it really been that long? Five years isn’t that long, in the grand scheme of things. You supposed it was to you, though. Five years is a long time to be away from home. To be away from the people you care about. You couldn’t count the number of times you’d been homesick. The number of times you’d almost come running back.

   You suppose that in the end, you had.

   You look up at the big oak tree, limbs sprawling out from the trunk, creating something of a canvas above you. It isn’t too terribly impressive now, in the late fall, when most of the leaves had already fallen off. It's still a marvel to you, though.

   The endless summer afternoons spent doing homework either up in the branches or down on the roots, the ice cream cones you’d dropped, the knees and elbows you’d scraped falling out of it. Those were things that wouldn’t fall off like the leaves. They were embedded in the wood, the rough bark that you now gently ran your fingers over.

   “Big, isn’t it?”

   You turn around at the sound of his voice. He’s sitting there, in true Damian Wayne fashion, dressed head-to-toe in expensive blacks, looking as if he should be posing for a magazine cover, one ankle crossed over the oppisite knee.

   You step back from it, looking up to the higher branches. “Yeah. I’m a bit surprised it’s still standing, with all that goes on in this city.”

   He nods. “It’s tougher than it looks.”

   You allow a moment of silence. Silence for the memories you may never go back to. Silence to work up the bravery to talk to him.

   You start with a question. “Why did you call me here?” You don’t look at him as you speak.

   “I decided that you deserved a chance to defend yourself,” he states, followed but a heavy sigh. “I may have been a little quick to...“

   You sat down on the other end on the bench. “Assume I had ulterior motives?” you supplied quietly, leather creaking as you crossed your arms. You don’t dare take your eyes off of the tree on the other side of the path.

   “Something like that.”

   You blow out a breathy laugh. Something to try and ease the tension in your chest. “Well, I kind of deserved it.”

   “Kind of?” He's certainly looking at you now. That dry anger from Wednesday night is back. “You left me in a burning building and then vanished for five years.“

   You don’t laugh that time. Your eyes fall to the path in front of you, your jaw tightening. You run your tongue over the backs of your teeth, trying think of how you could possibly reply to that one. You couldn't come up with anything.

   After a long minute, he stops staring. His head rolls back to stare at the sky. His tongue runs over his top lip. Then he's looking at you again. Sharper, this time. Impatient. “Anymore, I don’t even care where you’ve been,” he spits, “I just want to know why you never called.”

   Your first instinct is to spill the truth. It’s a gut reaction to the tightening in your chest. The reminder that he’s dwelled on this for so long, that he’s desperate for any slip of information you’ll give him– It makes your chest ache. Still, you choke you truths down all the same. Just like old times.

   “I can’t tell you everything,” you admit quietly. “Just– Just understand that a lot was going on back then. There’s a lot you don’t know, Damian.”

   “Oh really?” he growls through gritted teeth. Dick was wrong. This was a terrible idea.

   “My parents were murdered–”

   “I know,” he corrects. “Your brother told me in person the morning after you disappeared.”

   He wakes up on the couch, still in the clothes you picked him up in that evening. Someone’s banging on the front door, and his phone slides from his chest and to the floor in his rush to answer it. He prays it’s you on the other side, dripping wet with an apology on your tongue or bone-dry with no remorse—he just wants it to be you.

   The eyes he meets are almost identical. “Is she here?” Nick demands. He’s damp from the jog up the steps from his car, but his face cheeks are wet and his are red on their own. “Did she ever show up?”

   He called you brother last night when you never answered you phone. He’d hoped you’d just gone home to pretend the whole thing never happened, or maybe you’d lost your phone in all the commotion. “No, she never answered. Has something happened?” Damian forgets his manners in lieu of the strain in the older man’s voice. Dread crawls up his spine.

   “I mean, yeah,” Nick laughs humorlessly, raking a hand through wet hair. His eyes become pained and wild, trying to keep himself composed. “My parents are dead, my sister’s missing, I can’t get a hold of– God, of anybody–”

   Damian raises his hand in front of him slowly, as if he could stone the wave of information that was just thrown at him. “Wait, wait, you parents? What happened to your parents?”

   You still can’t seem to look at him. You stare goes blank, your eyes settled on something too far in the past for him to pick out. “No, he didn’t. Not when it happened.” You blink back into the present, teeth clicking when you snap your mouth shut. You shake your head, finally forgetting your anxieties enough to look him straight in the eye. “I really wish I could tell you, Dame. I really do.”

   And it’s true. You want nothing more than to steal a bottle of wine from your Bruce’s collection and camp out in your in some dodgy parking lot like you used to. You want to lock the doors and pretend it’s that easy to get drunk and tell him everything, just like you used to. Like it’s a stressed out teenager venting to her best friend because some days, it really does feel like it’s just the two of you.

   Used to. It used to feel like it was just the two of you.

   Now it’s just you.

   He must see something on your face. His body loses some of the tension, especially that in his shoulders. “Then tell me.”

   You push out a shaky sigh. “You will never know how much I wish it was that easy.” You know from the look on his face that he's preparing to argue. You huff again, a ghost of a laugh, and lean closer than you’d dared get before It might be reflex that has him leaning in to listen. “Do you remember when you told me about Robin?”

   You watch his features twist. That solemn understanding. The weight of knowing.

   You leaned back to your original position. “It’s never that simple, and it’s never that easy.” You watched another leaf fall from the oak. “You know that better than just about anyone.”

   You don’t see the expression that carves through his face like a forest fire. “What do you mean?” His next words are brimming with a kind of concern he can only express with frustration, “You haven’t picked up a mask, have you?”

   You want to laugh at the irony. “No, Dame.” Th nickname slips out before you get the chance to stop it. “Nothing like that.” You pull some twisted type of sad smile for him. “But I still can’t tell you.”

   He draws in a deep breath. He thinks for a moment, and you're abruptly reminded of how much you used to like to watch him think. The little creases in his forehead, the way his nostrils flare when he’s thought of something. “Fine. But at least tell me why you left that night. Tell me what happened.”

   Your breathing was ragged when you finally found Damian in the crowd, your hand immediately curling around his arm. He turned around, and, upon seeing the state you were in, grabbed both of yours to steady you. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered, already guiding you to the outskirts of the mass of moving bodies.

   You stopped him, shaking your head, still panting. You started pulling him in the opposite direction. “We need to leave,” you breathed. “Now.”

   He pulled you a stop, once again grabbing both of your arms to keep you still and standing. “Why? What’s going on?”

   You opened your mouth to give him some kind of excuse, but your eyes snagged on something behind him. Rather, someone behind him. You hastily grabbed his hands and started running again, dragging him through the people with you.

   Then, the first few people started screaming. Glass shattered, fire flared up all around. Your memories are muddied after this point, after you feel Damian’s hand slip from yours, but you’re forced to keep running.

   You shake your head, trying to push away the panic that shot through your veins like ice water that night. You heave a final breath. You push yourself to your feet, hands sinking into your pocket. “I’m sorry, Damian. I wish i could. You deserve that much.”

   As you turn to leave, you feel that blaring familiarity of his fingers curling around your wrist. It’s so dizzyingly strange;it’s been so long, and you’ve grown familiar to the touch of others, but your brain seems to have refused to so much a blur out the memory of his fingers. They sink into all the same divots in all the same places, as if nothing’s changed at all.

   You never pull against him. But you look down to ask what he’s doing, make some odd excuse about needing to go, but the sight stops you cold.

   Sitting there on the park bench in slacks and a sharp-looking coat, is the sixteen year old with anger issues and enough sarcasm to put Satan himself to shame, eyes glazed with an emotion you rarely caught on him: desperation. And he says your name so vulnerably soft. “Please.”

   For this one moment, it feels like time has stopped altogether. Like some world-ending catastrophy has halted the rotation of Earth, stopped the ticking clocks themselves.

   You're seventeen again, alone and confused and scared out of your mind. You're head-over-heels for you best friend, and your family is falling apart in more ways than one.

   He's seventeen again, with a soft heart in a metal box, alone and left without his best friend. He’s confused and angry and scared for her.

   You know, somewhere in the depths of your being, you only have two choices here. If you waste this chance, this one leap of faith he’s given in to to put his heart on full display for you—If you waste it, you’ll never get one like it again.

   But if you tell him, if you sit him down and spill everything to him, there’s a good chance it’ll ruin, not only your entire life, but the lives of all those close to you. Still, there’s that possibility that he bucks up and takes the truth head on, accepts it for what it is. The way seventeen year old Damian would have, for you.

   You tug you wrist out of his grasp. He watches the same hand dive into your jacket pocket, rifle around, and finally reappear with an unused restaurant napkin. Your other reaches into the breast pocket on the inside of your jacket. You use the pen you produce to scribble something down on the corner that rests on the palm of your hand.

   You hold it out to him. “Friday. Four o’clock.” You click the pen, shoved your hands back into your pockets. “Don’t write it down anywhere, don’t tell anyone, don’t put in your phone. Burn that once you know it.”

   Leaving those unsettling orders to hang in the air with your frozen, smoke-like breath, you turned around, and started on your way back down the path.

   You're going to need more than a cigarette after this.

[laboratorioautoral]

Prompt: when Arya brings Jon as her date to some Tully cousin wedding everyone thinks it's because she had no one to invite. No one knows they're defiling some of the rooms of the wedding venue.

Fair warning that this one has M content in it. Enjoy the ride, girl!

“Itwas very nice of you to come with Arya.” Robb said while givingJon’s shoulder a friendly petting. He was Jon’s best friend and akilling business man, but when it came to observe his surroundingsand seeing the obvious Robb wasn’t exactly the brightest. Jon triedto play cool as if that wasn’t a big deal at all, he was sweatinglike a sinner in church inside his suite. “God knows these familygatherings can be a pain and after she broke up with Gendry it wouldimpossible for Arya to escape the inquisitorial brigade.”

Jonlaughed nervously as he held his whiskey and tried to play cool withhis best friend. He was a terrible liar and Robb was an overzealousbrother. Keeping him ignorant about the nature of his currentarrangement with Arya was for the best to all the parts involved.

“Ithappens that I’m a decent guy and Arya shouldn’t have to come toa place such as this on her own. I offered myself so she wouldn’tfeel embarrassed for not finding someone else escort her in time forthe wedding. I can always keep her far from your mother’s aunts andweird Lysa if needed, although I doubt Arya will ever need me torescue her.”

“Idon’t get it why you don’t have a girlfriend since Ygritte.”Robb had clearly drunk more than it would be wise to, but if thathelped him to keep his nose out of Jon’s business, all the best.“You are a true gentleman.” Robb said as he poked his chest,before going back to his table where Jayne was waiting for him with asour face.

Hewondered how many times Edmure would get married and force the wholefamily to pretend they believed that this time would be for real.Roslyn seemed to be a fine lady for sure, but that was no guaranteeof keeping Tully to one bed. That was none of Jon’s businessthough. As long as Jon could enjoy the free drinks he was cool withall the wedding extravaganza. More than just cool really.

Aryawas looking his way nervously. She wasn’t comfortable with Robbmaking questions, but that wasn’t the case. Robb was justcompletely oblivious and believing firmly that he had agreed toescort Arya out of pity and friendship. Well…Pity had nothing to dowith that.

Catdidn’t seem pleased with Jon’s presence at her brother’swedding, but Mrs. Stark remained as polite as ever although the wayshe looked at him was terrifying. Arya had reassured him that it wasjust because her mother had hoped for her to present her fiancee tothe rest of the family. Arya had ruined those plans a couple of weeksbefore the wedding by breaking up with her long term boyfriend forreasons Jon would never speak of out loud.

Hemight have had something to do with the split. He surely hadn’tkissed her out of friendship when Arya started to rant about how itwas absurd the pressure she was suffering for moving his relationshipto the next level. He hadn’t begged her to reconsider just becausehe didn’t agree that Gendry was the best for her. No…They hadn’tfucked the whole night just so Arya could be sure of her lifechoices. Oh no…That had been something both of them had beenfantasizing since Arya kissed him under the mistletoe in one of themany Christmas he had spent at the Starks, or at least he had. Jonwas going to hell anyway, so that was a sin he would never neglect.God, had it been worth it?!

Noone else in her family knew the reason behind her actions. Ned hadbeen upset, but not surprised, while Cat was somewhat embarrassedabout her daughter being so different from Sansa while dealing withthose things.

Whateverhappened between them was surely the result of a long period ofdenial and repressed feelings. He couldn’t tell when it started,only when it became to obvious and to asphyxiating to be omitted.Arya was supposed to be something like a little sister to him, giventhat Jon knew her since she was nine and he became friends with Robbat school. They were close, some times too close to make peoplearound them comfortable, but Jon never even considered looking at herin a different way until she started to date a random guy named EdricDayne.

AfterDayne came the foreign guy and then Gendry. With the last one thingswere getting serious and so was his crush on her. It was more than acrush really. Something between maddening lust and pure passion. Aryawould laugh at him if he said it out loud, but he was almost sure itwas love.

“WhatRobb wanted?” She came to him asked once her brother finally leftJon in peace.

Itwas unusual for Arya to wear dresses and fancy clothes, but that wasa special occasion after all. His eyes roamed all over her body andit was impossible to conceal his hunger for her. Hell! He wanted tovanish from that place, tell everyone to get lost and be alone withher in his hotel room. Burn the damn place, make her scream his nameso loud that the manager would end up calling the police.

“Hewas thanking me for coming as your escort.” Jon said before sippinghis whiskey while playing cool to not rise suspicions. “He thinksI’m a good friend.”

“Ohyou are a very good friend.” She replied with a sly grin playing onher red painted lips. “Very good indeed. Are you enjoying theparty?”

“Honestly?”Jon looked at her with utter boredom. “I hate your mother’s sideof the family. Really. I want all of them to get lost and I’m sureI’ll end up murdering someone if they ask me who my parents areagain.”

“Oldrich people have this weir habit. If you visited your father morefrequently, you would notice that too.” Arya pointed before takingthe glass from his hand and giving it a sip. “What can I do to makeit easier for you to stay here?”

“Youwant me to say the truth or to be polite?” Jon teased beforelooking around and checking if there wasn’t anyone looking. Once hefigured that it was safe to get closer to her, his hand restedagainst the small of her back and teased with the idea of grabbingher ass.

“Nothere.” Arya slap his shoulder lightly. “Later.”

“Ihate this place and everyone here but Robb and Ned. This is beingtorture and I want to take you back to the hotel so I can do all thenasty things I have in mind right now.”

“Careful,Jon. You’ll have to fulfill your promises. I’m not sure you’llbe sober enough to perform.” It was a challenge he was willing toaccept and prove her how capable he was.

“Ok.That’s the deal.” He said lowly close to her ear. “Find us anempty room here. Right now. I can’t wait any more.”

Aryagave a few steps back and grinned at him in a way that could onlymean she had a plan. Not an ordinary plan. More like somethingstraight out of a movie and wasn’t she a star after all? It wasonly fitting to her personality.

“Ithink…I need some wine.” She said while waving her hand at awaitress that was carrying the drinks.

Thegirl came to them and passed Arya a glass of red wine. Arya gave it asip while Jon looked at her a bit incredulous about her blunt lack ofconcern for his needs. He had no idea of what she had in mind. Maybeshe would just tease him to no end, so when they got back to thehotel he would be  all mad and angry, just to make thing rough andwild between them.

“Whatthe hell are you doing?” He questioned. Arya’s smile got wider.

“Drinkingsome wine.” She said sarcastically. “It’s really good. Youshould try it.”

“Idon’t want wine.” He replied without understanding what thatscene was all about.

“Youshould really try it, Jon.” Arya insisted as she came closer withthe glass in hand. He should have sensed the danger of her wickedmind, but he wasn’t the brightest when Arya got all of hisattention like that.

Itall happened very quickly. Arya made a face before faking a tumbleand spilling half of the wine all over his shirt. Jon was stupefiedfor a moment as he looked down his stained shirt. He didn’t knowwhat to do at first. He simply looked back at her without a clue ofwhat was wrong with her. Arya made an apologetic face that was aperformance worthy of an Academy Award.

“I’mso so sorry! Come! Let me find something to clean this mess before itruins your shirt for good.” She said before grabbing his hand anddragging him around like a dog on a leash.

Hefelt a bit stupid, but he played along. Jon let her lead the wayuntil they found the Stark’s table.

Assoon as Cat saw what have happened to his clothes, she looked at Aryaas if she hadn’t even been able to find an escort that could handlea glass of wine without making a mess out of it.

“Whathappened to you?” Ned asked first. It Robb was completely cluelessabout what was going on between Jon and Arya, he surely had inheritedhis slow perception from Ned.

“It’sall my fault. I was holding my glass when I tumbled and let the winespill all over Jon’s shirt.” Arya explained with the mostinnocent voice one could ever hear. “Mom, do you know where I canfind something to clean this mess? Maybe get Jon another shirt?”

Catlooked at them carefully. Jon was sure the woman hadn’t bought asingle word Arya had said, but she had no proof to contest herdaughter.

“Theguest’s room on the second floor is empty. You can ask someone ofthe staff to get Jon one of Edmure’s shirts. It maybe a bit largefor him, but it’s better than this for sure.” Cat replied in aneven and bored tone. “You should be more careful next time, Arya.”

“Oh,I will.” Arya grinned before grabbing his arm again. “Come, Jon.”

Thatwas when everything made sense inside his head. That wicked woman!How he loved it when she got them in a bit of a role play. He waspositively feeling like James Bond sneaking into the enemies lair tohave a good shag before stealing something vital to the mission.

Jontried to not laugh at the whole thing and play along with her story.Arya led him into her uncle’s outrageous house. The place waspretty much a palace, or at least something like a mansion frommovies. He had only seen something like that whenever visiting hisfather during summer or a random holiday.

Whenthey got to the second floor Arya dragged him inside the empty roomand slammed the door behind him. She looked at him with a triumphantgrin on her face as she inclined her head to the right just a bit.

“Ithink you should take of this shirt so we can fix it.” She teasedand before she could speak anything else Jon was already pressing heragainst the closed door and kissing her avidly.

Aryaremoves his blazer and unbuttoned his shirt blindly. Jon’s handsearched for the zipper of her dress and opened it half way to bed.It felt like unwrapping a Christmas present. Under the expensive gownhe found her in a set of smoking hot underwear. Something lacy andtransparent that looked inviting to the touch and gave little toimagination.

Shesat on the king size bad and spread her legs wide open. He needed notfurther clue for what do next. Jon got on his knees between her legas Arya laid her back on the bed. Jon gave her belly and open mouthkiss as his hand slid down from her breast to her slippery wet cunt.

Hisfingers sank inside her before his mouth could reach for her clit andgive it a hard suck. Arya let a little cry of surprise escape hermouth and Jon felt her body relax once his tongue started to work onher in sync with his fingers’ moves.

Herbody arched and her breath got labored. Jon could feel her alllanguid and his fingers played with her. Tight, warm and silken,nearly dripping so she could received him inside of her. Damn theparty downstairs and the need for a hushed encounter just to settlehis needs so he could make it to the rest of the day. Damn her familyand all the role play they had been putting up so no one would findout. He wanted Arya to scream his name loud and clear for everyone tolisten. There would be no moments of silence. He liked her betterwhen she would sing her songs of pleasure.

Aryaheld to the covers of the bed as her legs tightened around his head.He felt her right hand on his scalp, pulling his hair and keeping hishead in place. Not that Jon needed directions at that point. He knewhow she liked it. He had learned to read her body to the point ofknowing all of her favorite spots by heart.

Shelet a loud and strangled sound crawl out of her throat and Jon felther tightening around his fingers. Her taste invaded his mouth all ofa sudden and he licked every single drop of her. That was a goodentrance. Main course promised to be worthy of the gods’ mouths.

Jonlooked up to her, all lazily laid and grinning out of sheersatisfaction. It took her a few seconds to sat back in bed andunbuckle his trousers. For a moment he thought she would return thefavor. Not that he would complain if that was the case, but he wouldrather skip the foreplay and go straight to game. Luckily, Aryaseemed to read his mind at times.

Aryagot back on her feet and took his hand. She pulled him to thebathroom. Like a nymph or a witch, her hips swayed as if she wasdancing all the way back to the forest, dragging her next prey intoher cave.

“Whatis the game now?” He asked once they were inside. “Do you need ashower already?”

“No,stupid.” She said before turning her back at him and reclining overthe marble countertop of the double sink cabinet, just to give him abetter look of her ass. Arya looked at him through the mirror andgave a half smile. “I want to get a better look of us as you fuckme good.”

Ohshe wouldn’t have to say it again!

Jongave her ass a good slap and her left shoulder a bite. Arya’s smilegot wider in the mirror as she leaned her body a bit more to give hima better angle.

Heguided his cock inside her deliciously wet cunt. Arya moved her hipsa bit, making it impossible for him to have any other coherentthought. Jon grabbed a handful of her hair before he started to move.Arya had been right, as usual. The image of them fucking like madreflected on the mirror was a true work of art.

Jonmade it slow at first. He wanted to enjoy the view of her boobsshaking as he thrust inside her and savor the moment properly, butArya seemed to be craving for a different kind of game.

“Faster!”She said angrily. “I’m dying here!” He was more than pleased tooblige.

Therhythm got frantic and Arya was so tight that it made it almostimpossible for him to last long. Fifteen minutes was far from beingsomething Jon would label as satisfactiory and he had promised hersomething memorable.

Hisright hand got between her legs to work on her clit once more andArya’s mouth formed a perfect “O” in sign of approval. Jontried to focus on her. Focus in making her cum first. He increasedthe pressure on her clit and pumped his hips against hers evenfaster.

Arya’sright hand reached for the mirror for support as the left arm stoodfirmly over the countertop. She was close, he could tell. Very closein deed. He kept rubbing her clit vigorously until Arys screamedhoarsely and he felt her tightening in a sequence of spasm round hiscock. Jon gave a good look at her face reflected in the mirror beforecumming deep inside her.

Theycouldn’t speak or even breathe properly for a while. When Jonrecovered his senses he gave a step back and let Arya go back to herfeet.

Sheturned around and looked at him like a goddess pleased with anoffering received. She kissed him hard once more before walking outof the bath room to pick up his stained shirt from the floor. Aryasoaked the damn thing in water and had a little soap spread all overit.

“Youknow I don’t care about this shirt, don’t you?” He asked beforegiving her bare ass another smack.

“Youmight not care but, should my mother ask the staff, they will be ableto tell her that I had been trying to wash the wine out of it and ittook me a while to realize it wouldn’t work.” Arya explained witha know-it-all smile.

“Maybewe should just… You know. Come out as a couple already and be donewith it?” Jon suggested while he grabbed his clothes and gotdressed. “Robb will overcome the trauma, eventually.”

“Andmiss all the fun of sneaking into an empty room with you on myuncle’s next marriage?” Arya teased.

“Wecan keep doing it. We would just skip the part in which we pretend tobe just friends. It’s kind of exhausting and I don’t think we areconvincing anyone, by the way.” Jon replied as a matter of fact.“What do you think?”

“Ithink I should find you a clean shirt.” Arya said airily. “But ifthe point of this chat is asking me to be your girlfriend, I think wecan make it official in a month or two. I just broke up with my ex.Let us give my family some breathing space.”

“Deal.”He said it all too pleased with himself before kissing her.

“Weshould go back to the party.” She said.

“Onlyif you promise me we are getting back to the hotel as soon aspossible.” He answered. “I’m not done with you yet, Miss.”

[aiyh]

AUs are a problem I have

I found all the original posts in this series from my deactivated blog and collected them here.

you work the register at a store I frequent and I get super self-conscious that you’re judging my purchases AU

our kids got paired up to do a school project and I meant to just drop mine off at your house but we ended up talking for three hours AU

battle of the bands AU

made small talk while waiting for different flights and assumed we’d never see each other again AU

our grandparents are in the same nursing home and they hate each other AU

arrested at the same protest AU

classic literature professor vs. modern literature professor AU

I injured myself doing something stupid at a holiday party and you’re the doctor at the emergency clinic AU

volunteered to wait tables at your fancy charity fundraising dinner AU

how do you keep getting my name that wrong on my coffee cup AU

adjacent stands at the farmer’s market AU

risked my job by talking you out of buying a crappy product at the store where I work AU

only two people who bought tickets to see this movie AU

don’t really care if I win that giant stuffed animal but keep playing the carnival game you’re running just to see you AU

our dogs are in love with each other and it’s making things awkward at the dog park AU

who’s this asshole who keeps beating my high score on Pac-Man AU

it’s a total coincidence that I happen to water my plants at the same time you jog past my house AU

our manager is making us push this crappy item that no one needs but you thought my sales pitch was funny so you bought it AU

interviewed you for the newspaper AU

I desperately need you to fix my laptop but please don’t judge me for my browser history AU

chef/ restaurant critic AU

my kid’s hamster died while she was at school and I don’t know how to tell her about death so long story short does your pet store have a hamster that looks just like the one in this photo AU

rival local news stations AU

news anchor/ meteorologist AU

I planned a program at the library where I work and you’re the only person who showed up AU

you are definitely drunk-texting the wrong number but I’m bored so I’m gonna keep this going for a while AU

I hate flying but your snarky announcements are a good distraction and you have a nice voice and I might be calling you Captain Cutie in my head AU

I made a dumb science joke in class and you’re the only one who laughed AU

auditioning for the same part AU

accidentally got drunk at a wine tasting AU

you’re the only other person I’ve ever met who can quote this movie AU

everyone else in our dorm has gone out but I have the flu, and I just heard you coughing pathetically from the next room, wanna share my stash of cough drops and marathon Netflix with me? AU

showed up to a Halloween party in matching costumes AU

will you pretend to be my date to my family’s holiday party so they’ll stop harassing me about being single, there’s food in it for you AU

Christmas lights rivalry AU

I found a bunch of your stuff when I moved into this apartment and I have no idea who you are but I think we might be soulmates AU

I teach in this classroom in the mornings and you teach in the evenings and we communicate entirely through notes left on the board AU

how the hell does your cat keep getting into my house AU

I volunteered for a sex study and you’re the lead researcher and thank god it’s acceptable for me to be turned on in this situation because damn AU

You’re the prosecutor and I’m the defense attorney on the most ridiculous case either of us have ever heard of and I don’t know about you but I’m not sure how much longer I can be serious about this thing AU

Got into an absurdly heated argument in the comments on a mutual friend’s Facebook post AU

Rival street performers AU

You keep bringing your car into my shop with a series of increasingly unlikely problems and my professional opinion is it’d be cheaper for you to just ask me to dinner already AU

Our families are having funeral visitations at the same time and we’re both hanging around outside because we can’t deal AU

I spent a whole subway ride checking you out but didn’t have the nerve to talk to you and thought I’d never see you again but you just showed up on Humans of New York AU

Cheering for opposing teams at a sports bar AU

My kid shoplifted from your store and I marched her back here to apologize to you AU

Why didn’t you tell me this cabin was haunted before I rented it from you AU

Character performers who only see each other at ren faires AU

My band plays at this restaurant every Friday and you always show up and make obscure requests and I know you’re trying to stump me but you’ve severely underestimated how much of a music geek I am AU

I’m the caterer and you’re the florist on a huge expensive wedding and we bond over what an awful person the mother of the bride is AU

We’re chaperoning kids at the same skating rink party and the last couple’s skate was pathetic so what do you say we show these little punks how it’s done AU

We’re both trying to get an apartment in this city at the same time as a million other people and I’m tired of competing for the same ones as you so I think it’s time we joined forces AU

Adjacent shops Christmas decorations war of escalation AU

We work at competing gossip magazines and keep trying to outdo each other’s ridiculous stories AU

Our moms belong to the same garden club and are fiercely competitive about their gardens and keep sending us to pick up supplies for them and would have matching heart attacks if they found out we’re hooking up every trip AU

My kid is in your class and you called me in for a parent-teacher conference and I don’t know what she did but she didn’t learn it from me and wait what do you mean you think she should skip a grade AU

We’re neighbors and I’m telling you this as a friend but if you give out pencils for Halloween again this year I’m going to look the other way when the kids roll your yard AU

I accidentally caught the neighbors’ yard(s) on fire while burning leaves and I didn’t think it could get worse but the volunteer fireman reprimanding me is gorgeous and clearly thinks I’m an idiot AU

I bought this talisman from your occult shop and I know you warned me but I didn’t think this stuff was real but it IS and now I need you to make it go away AU

You just sold a bunch of old books to my secondhand store for cheap and one of them’s worth a fortune and my partner will kill me if he finds out but I think you should have the money AU

I didn’t mean to get you arrested, I thought I was helping AU

I’m planning a heist and I need your very specific skillset to pull it off but when I tracked you down you’d become an alcoholic and spend your days cheating at video poker AU

Your pizza keeps getting delivered to my house by mistake and I need to talk to you about your choice of toppings AU

Prison chaplain/ wrongfully convicted death row inmate AU

You bring my grandmother a basket of homemade candy every Christmas and she keeps dropping hints about how great you are so we should probably go out at least once—you know, just to make grandma happy AU

I was down on my luck and had lost the will to live when I heard you playing the fiddle and long story short I think you saved my life AU

The PTA bake sale is coming up and you’ve outsold me two years in a row so I’m pulling out all the stops AU

I just quit my job and put all my belongings in a U-Haul and started driving, you’re the hitchhiker I picked up on a whim who I’m starting to think is a dangerous fugitive AU

Graffiti artist/ mural painter AU

You’re the only major film critic who hated my movie and I need to talk to you about it because I agree with you AU

[mcdoogly]

Happily Ever After

Howdy, made a late ass Christmas fic, but it’s basically the 12th day of Christmas for whatever.

Have some cutesy goats and fishdad

“So what are you gonna get her?”

The question hung in the air as Undyne rummaged through Asgore’s cupboards for snacks. Her eye lit up as she found a pack of beef jerky, beginning to tear into it with hungry gusto. She turned around and looked at him as he sat on his couch. “I mean, you ARE getting her something, right?”

Asgore sighed, watching his old trainee rip into a fresh chunk of dried meat. “I don’t know.”

The house almost shook as Undyne slammed the pantry shut, all thoughts of food cleared from her head. “WHAT?! Gyftmas is in three days!” The ex-guard shook her head. “You’re telling me you got Queenie nothing?”

“Well…” he murmured, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck, “she told me not to worry about it…”

Undyne pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh my god, you actually believed that? That directly translates to ‘You better get me a gift, Dreemurr!’ How long were you two married?”

Asgore slumped into his chair, groaning at the entire situation. “I know, I know. I just have no idea what to get her.”

“You know her better than anyone else in the whole entire underground! How the hell do you not have a clue?”

“Undyne, she and I have been together for over a millenia. It gets quite difficult to be original after a century or two.” Asgore leaned forward, rubbing his face as he continuously drew blanks. “And especially with that… break she and I had I have even less of a clue what she would want now.”

Undyne looked down sadly at the old goat. “Well, you two have had to have gone on dates lately, right?”

“Of course.” Asgore nodded. “We try to spend at least one day together every week, either at her house or mine. Why?”

“Notice anything different she might’ve gotten into since you two last celebrated Gyftmas as a couple?”

He furrowed his brow. “I don’t recall anything new? Her house looks almost exactly like it did when she and I lived together.”

Undyne scratched her chin. What were things she knew Toriel liked? She enjoyed reading, but who wants to get a book for Christmas? Lingerie crossed her mind, but she doubted that Asgore would appreciate something so raunchy. Snails? Boring. Pie tin? Too utilitarian. Socks? Too scandalous. She shook her head, too many ideas were flooding in at once and not a single one useful.

An idea clicked into place in her mind, spurring Undyne to walk over to Asgore, grabbing his shoulders from behind. “How about you treat her to a nice day out, get her to a spa, give her a nice massage, order some fancy food; the whole nine yards! I bet she would love that!”

“She would indeed,” Asgore looked up, “That’s what I got her last Mother’s Day.”

“Then why not supplement it with a little ‘Happy Ending’.” She winked, nudging him with an elbow.

“Undyne, I understand your excitement and support of her and my relationship, but I wouldn’t concern yourself with my sex life.” He looked down guiltily, his cheeks rosy. “And… that was also a part of her Mother’s Day gift.”

Undyne seemed to deflate after the initial surprise of what Asgore said as her idea once again proved to be a failure. The fish pressed at her temples, trying to think of anything that would be a good gift for the ex-queen. She let out an exasperated sigh and sat down next to her father.

“Man, you’re right. This is harder than I thought.” She supported her chin with a fist, still trying to think of anything to help her old goatdad out.

“It’s fine. Worst case, I’ll just have to sleep on the couch for a few nights.” He chuckled. “I’ve been through much crueler punishment from her.”

“Yeah…” Undyne sighed again, racking her brain. She had Alphys’s gift ready and wrapped the day after last Gyftmas, why couldn’t she come up with something right now for such a simple old lady? “Does she need anything for her classroom?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Her car?”

“Nope.” “Hmm… What about her kitchen?”

“It’s as well stocked as always.”

“You sure she wouldn’t want another…”

“Undyne I don’t like repeating gifts, especially within a year of giving the last one.”

“But this time you could wrap your-”

“Undyne!”

“Fine, fine.” She flopped against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. After a minute or so she finally spoke up again, “Well I’ve got nothin’.”

Asgore sighed, “Now you see how I’ve felt for the past couple of months or so.” He grunted and sat up. “I suppose I could just get her a bottle of wine or something of the like, maybe a few snails. Not the most original gift but hopefully it’ll be thoughtful enough.”

“I doubt she’d get that mad anyway,” Undyne added, “it’s just one day of the year.”

“Yeah,” said Asgore, a bit lost in thought, “let's hope.”

~~~

Gyftmas day was over as the sun dipped beneath the snowy horizon. Asgore and Toriel had snuck away from the rest of the party at the latter’s house to enjoy some quiet time alone. Everyone else was either asleep or too focused on the spectacle of Gyftmas movies that were now fully available for monster kind. The two goats were sitting on Toriel’s bed, her head on his shoulder as they simply enjoyed the time spent together.

“Another Gyftmas done, eh, Gorey?” she giggled, sinking against him further as he wrapped an arm around her.

“Yup,” he responded simply, taking in a deep breath. The house still smelled wonderfully like her cooking, and between that and the gorgeous monster that was hanging on his shoulder, he almost felt at ease about her present. “It is nice getting to spend it with family after delivering all of those present last night.”

“I bet,” she sighed, looking up at him. “And now you get to spend the night with me~”

He chuckled as her grin turned wily, matching it with a smile of his own. “Well, that’s just the best part.”

She shifted on the bed so she could wrap him into a warm hug, the queen closing her eyes as she relaxed into him, her smile turning soft. “Good answer.”

A small hum left his throat as he traced a hand on her back, earning a small contented sigh from his queen. They stayed there for a minute, his hand just idly moving on its own accord between her shoulders until he finally spoke up. “Does that mean I pass the class?”

“I wouldn’t go that far yet, Dreemurr,” she threatened playfully. “We haven't even gone to bed yet.”

“Oh?” he asked. “And what does that have to do with it?”

“That’s your exam!” She smirked with a bit of sly enthusiasm, sitting back up to eye level with him before the two broke into quiet laughter.

They nuzzled and spent a short while being sweet with one another as their laughter quieted down. A giggle here, a playful pinch there. The goats had barely a hitch in their sway as old habits became new ones again. Despite the aforementioned “break”, the two had reformed much of their old saccharine shenanigans since the past few months the two had been together. Asgore smiled as the two settled on the sheets, looking lovingly down at his wife.

“Oh!” he interrupted, catching Toriel’s attention. “Before I forget, I have something for you.”

The queen looked at him curiously as he grabbed his phone. He clumsily pressed a few buttons until a neatly wrapped box materialized out from his phone’s speaker. The sudden appearance caught Asgore off guard, who scrambled and seized it haphazardly before it could fall on the floor, much to Toriel’s amusement. Asgore’s cheeks flushed as she giggled at the show, just happy he didn’t drop her present. While this storage system Alphys installed on his phone was surely useful, Asgore wasn't quite used to it yet.

“It isn’t, uh, much,” he laughed, scratching the back of his neck, “but, you know... merry Gyftmas, Tori.”

“Oh, Gorey,” she exclaimed, her smile widening as she took her gift. “I told you not to worry about getting me a gift this year!”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Asgore chuckled, matching her expression, “but I went against my better judgement and didn’t listen to you this time.”

“Aww,” she cooed, “Well, now I feel like a fool-- I didn’t get you anything. That’s why I told you not to, dummy!”

Asgore laughed. All of the anxiety in his chest vanished as he realized that Undyne’s incessence was in fact not needed. He leaned against Toriel, before saying “Well, that’s a relief. I don’t think I need a better gift than just getting to see you every day.”

“Oh my goodness, you are the biggest sap I have ever met, Dreemurr,” Toriel chuckled, “You sure know how to make a lady blush.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he teased, “Now come on, open your present. We are trying to sleep tonight, yes?”

“I don’t know, are we?” She picked at a corner of the wrapping paper with a claw. “If memory serves me correctly, I remember for some reason Old Saint Nick gets a rather random burst of energy on Christmas night every year. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” She looked up and smirked knowingly at him before tearing the rest of her gifts packaging to streamers, revealing the box underneath.

Asgore’s face flushed as Toriel stared him down. “W-Well, I’d imagine he must get tired from giving out presents all the night before…” He looked down her body and then back up at her eyes. “So I’d assume the best person to ask as to why would be Mrs. Claus. She must know him best.”

“Of course she does,” she giggled as grabbed the top of the box, “It’s her job after all.” Her eyes lit up as the packaging gave way to her gift: a bottle of her favorite wine.

“I didn’t know what else you’d like, so I just went with wine,” he said, some of the previous nervousness seeping back into his belly, “We somehow manage to go through a whole bottle every week when we have our date night, so I know it’ll at least get used.”

“Trying to get me drunk now, hmm, Gorey?” She elbowed him playfully, giggling as he quickly grew flustered. Before he could start stammering out a response, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “It’s a very thoughtful gift, Asgore. Thank you very much.”

“O-Oh! Of course, Tori!” He laughed, his leg shaking slightly from his nerves. “I’m glad you like it!”

“Mhmm, this will come in very handy.” She set down the bottle and cleared the bed of any wrapping paper. Sighing, she leaned against Asgore again, closing her eyes. “I do feel bad for not getting you anything though, Asgore.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Tori. I meant it earlier that just getting to see you is gift enough. Especially these private chats.”

“Oh, so you’re calling these ‘chats’ now, hmm?” She inspected a finger on her paw to pretend to be uninterested, a slight smirk on her muzzle. “I had a different word in mind for whenever you end up in this room.” His cheeks turned rose red as the old queen cackled, her banter making quick work of Asgore’s nerves.

He was at a loss for words, sitting ramrod still as he was not at all sure how to respond. Meanwhile, Toriel was howling in laughter, the queen draping her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him close as she spoke up, “Oh dear, Gorey I’m sorry. You are just so fun to tease.” She nuzzled against his cheek in apology, “Please don’t be mad.”

“Of course not,” he chuckled, warming up to the hug, “I don’t see how you making a joke about how prolific I am would hold any offense.”

“‘Prolific’, hmm? That’s a pretty word~” She cooed as his hand rubbed up and down her back, the queen wiggling against him to get closer. Asgore looked at her happily, the two making eye contact before he placed a hand on her cheek, grinning as he pressed his lips to hers. A content hum came from Toriel’s throat at the gesture as she closed her eyes, falling into the kiss for as long as Asgore held it.

It was simple and quick until the king broke it, Asgore smiling and watching Toriel open her eyes. His gaze turned lidded as he stared into her dark rubies, swearing he could see hearts in them as he slowly got lost in her happy expression.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you smile like that, Tori,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Oh?” she responded, puzzled, “Like what, dear?”

“Like I didn’t hold the kiss long enough.” He smirked as she broke into laughter at his dopey response.

He felt like a champion as she giggled into his ear, the queen hanging off of his shoulder as he soaked in the attention from his wife. Eventually, Toriel spoke up again, “So, what was that question you wanted to ask Mrs. Clause again?”

Asgore grinned at her smirk, his hands heading exactly where he wanted them to go as Toriel giggled in excitement. “Oh I have plenty to ask her.”

~~~

“So how’d the gift exchange with Queenie go?”

Undyne stood next to Asgore in Toriel’s kitchen the morning after, both of them enjoying an early cup of tea while the rest of the guests were stuck asleep for at least another hour or two. The ex-king looked up from his mug at Undyne’s question, smiling at the memory from last night.

“Oh it went great! She loved what I got her, and you’d be hard pressed to find me complaining about mine.” He smiled, closing his eyes as he enjoyed another sip of his famous golden flower tea.

“Oh yeah?” asked Undyne with a toothy grin, “Well what’d you get her?”

“Just a bottle of wine. She and I go through those so fast nowadays, and I know she definitely enjoys at least a glass every night on her own right, so I thought why not?”

Undyne gave Asgore an almost overly forceful pat on the shoulder. “See! I told you it wasn’t as hard as you made it out to be. Women are easy!”

Asgore chuckled as he swallowed another bout from his mug. “I wouldn’t quite say that, but I was definitely thinking too hard about the whole ordeal. I’m just happy everything went well.”

“Managed to avoid the couch once again, huh?” Undyne joked, earning a chortle from the old king. The two shared a laugh as they finished their tea. The freshly risen morning sun was shining bright through the windows as the snowy winter landscape outside starkly contrasted the coziness inside. Asgore was completely content in his “Mr. Dad Guy” sweater that Frisk insisted he wore for the occasion, his mug slowly growing empty while he sat at the kitchen table.

The quiet of the morning was broken again as Undyne spoke up, a question ready on her lips. “Well if that’s what you got her, what’d she get you?”

“O-Oh, well she didn’t really get me anything. See-” Just as he started to explain Toriel walked into the kitchen, her eyes tired yet lidded as she walked towards the cupboard with a stride in her step. There was a content smile on her face as she plucked a mug from the shelf and waltzed over to the teapot as the other three eyes in the room were glued to her. She yawned, swaying to a slow rhythm as she poured herself some tea. The room was deadly quiet, save for the delicate clinks of china as Toriel prepared her cup.

The queen finished pouring herself a spot of tea, and turned around to the other two monsters. She walked to Asgore, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Good morning, dear,” she said sweetly before turning to Undyne. “And hello to you Undyne, I hope you slept well.” She took a sip of her tea and sighed at the taste, her smile easing wider as her eyes closed. Without another word she made out of the kitchen, almost strutting as she neared the exit, looking over her shoulder.

“Asgore, dear, could you come back to bed when you’re done? I think you forgot your present in my room.” With a subtle wiggle of her hips she left, leaving Undyne and Asgore dumbfounded for a minute straight.

Steam rose from their mugs as they sat in silence again, until a massive grin grew on the guard’s lips, which was immediately turned towards Asgore. His blank expression cracked into a nervous smile, the king chuckling as the pattern of Toriel’s wallpaper became suddenly very interesting.

“I suppose,” Asgore scratched the back of his head as he chuckled guiltily, “you could say that my Gyftmas came with a happy ending.”