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graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa · 1 year ago

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On names

Emily, Rhoswen Juzou, Toph, Hollis, and now Fable Elliot Hyde. I have never had a name that wholly and truly felt right for all time. It has made the sort of intimate moments where you would expect your name to be an expression of love into awkward, turn-offy, halting messes. Since I got this name, I have felt somewhat trapped in it. My previous names have generally been untethered. I got Rhoswen Juzou from a combination of some hours searching through baby name websites looking for the perfect meaning to replace my deadname - which felt like a coil of ropes that was tying me to my parents and the (mild, but present) religious and homophobia-related trauma of my grade school years - and a fascination with a certain white-haired, traumatized, gender-fluid (I headcanon) ghoul investigator. After a two day binge of Avatar: the Last Airbender (in which i barely ate or slept), i renamed myself Toph, because, though a girl, she was tough and outspoken and had that careful combination of naivety and stony exterior that I wanted for myself (I, too, am glad I got past that), combined with her disability, which made her unique. As someone who vaguely identified as non-binary and used a combination of they/them and he/they pronouns at the time, I struggled with the fact that she was a girl, though my friends helped me to avoid that particular sector of dysphoria quite well.

When I listened to The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, I experienced something quite new to me: an explicitly non-binary character. Hollis was tough, implied to be amab, and the leader of a biker gang, but they still showed massive amounts of compassion for their members. They were the healthiest vision I had had for myself up to then, in mid-2020 when I was quite a shut-in and a screen hog who only came out of my room for food. I had the role model I wanted, but before I ever committed to the name, I lost my access to the internet and all of my friends because of complex personal and familial issues that culminated in big trouble for incoming 9th grader me. Left with no electronics besides a bedside alarm as the semester began (my first semester being at a fully online k-12 charter school), and not being allowed to spend much time by myself, I lost much of the identity I had been working so carefully to craft. I was lifeless and bare, always in fight or flight mode. As my attempts at reaching my friends on some of the loneliest nights came crashing down each in succession, I gave up hope of having a life outside of school for the time being. As my relationship with my parents got less tense, I felt more confident about being myself in my online classes over adobe connect. I clung to hope that my pure but inevitably queer insinuations in class chat boxes and my steadily increasing ventures into topics that my parents and I did not agree on in class discussions and assignments would not trip any alarms with the wifi router. I was building myself up from bare without the resources I previously had had laid out before me. And all throughout this, a small part of me was named Hollis. Hundreds of paper sudoku puzzles, secret journaling that never, ever broke streak for nearly 3 years, a stick-and-poke tattoo that I had given myself before my stuff was taken, and that name were what I held fast onto for the year where I did not have a phone. It all felt very dramatic to me as a 14- and 15-year-old, but even now as a freshman in college it affects me profoundly to think and write about.

In 2022, I got my driver’s license shortly after receiving a new phone for my birthday (so they could keep tabs on me and/or make sure I was safe, depending on if you're an optimist or a pessimist I suppose). At first I only ever went to martial arts class, then to the museum where my mother worked, then to hang out with one of my friends who also volunteered at the museum (by hanging out I mean sensual experimentation, which my parents had their suspicions about but I did my best to lie as little as I could without getting in trouble or crafting a huge network of lies like the one I had had before the incident). Then, I got close to another guy at this museum. It is hard to say what specifically compelled me to do things with him. Perhaps it was just a want of experimentation further than what the other guy was comfortable with or wanted, maybe it was hormones. It is also possible that I genuinely thought he was a good person that I could communicate and have a purely sexual and platonic relationship with. That is a long story in itself that I can’t remember a great deal of due to emotional distress from both the relationship and school work overloading me, and witnessing a shooting late that year. To put it succinctly, we experimented physically, dated for a bit near the end, then stopped talking completely.

When we started getting involved was around the same time that I stopped putting labels on love because, to me, they are incredibly limiting. I decided that I must in some way be aromantic because of how friendly and romantic love often blended together for me and the fact that I felt comfortable with kissing some of my friends on the lips, among other things I became all right with as time went on. This was tough for a cishet guy with deep internalized homophobia who wanted a romantic relationship with me at first to understand. He wanted labels and tradition and something that was easy to explain to his parents, and I wanted no part in any of that, but I allowed it to continue likely for reasons aforementioned and because I thought I could make it work, I thought I could fix him (a trait I have worked on and continue to do so!). I have trouble remembering what was whose fault. I think we both tried, at times, and I think neither of us did at other times. Whatever we were doing, we did not have the emotional maturity, clarity of thought, or compatibility for it to work out. One thing I know was on him was his apparent inability to perceive me how I wanted to be seen in terms of my gender identity. To have a deeply sensual and sexual connection with someone and then to be told that “I still have to think of you as female/a woman in order to be sexually attracted to you” (in some other terms I am sure, but that is how I can describe it) is deeply upsetting for someone who was already struggling to strike a balance between putting myself into words and not. I slowly succumbed to labels and fell into traps of his and my own manipulation as our relationship fell apart in early-mid 2023.

I went to college that summer. An hour away from home, which felt way too close. Growing up in the south, the only place I ever wanted to be was out. It was not my dream vision of college, but I have found some of the most important people that I have ever met here. And I met a guy who was instrumental in my rediscovery of myself. He is now my husband. Not legally yet, not married by a minister (his religion is very private to him, and I am agnostic), but, in his words, “God knows it.” And in my words, “spiritually to me honey we're like already married.” I am incredibly lucky to have found him, but that’s not the point here.

When I got to college, these people did not ask me what my gender was. To know my pronouns was enough because it was all they needed to know. They knew it and I knew it. And because of this, I was so much more willing to have long conversations - both with myself and with others - about my gender identity and my sexuality. This was not just a sudden willingness to say “I am non-binary.” This was the ability to have an hours-long conversation where I use as many words to describe how I feel as I could possibly think of. For my gender, I would use “trans,” “masc,” “non-binary,” “gender non-conforming,” “gender queer.” For my sexual, romantic, and friendly attraction, I could describe it as “bi,” “pan,” “omni,” “poly,” “demi,” etc, but I generally would just describe myself as queer. It has a certain vagueness, a strange combination of heft and lightheartedness, and a punk rock feeling of reclamation that makes me feel very at home, but it is still just a word to me. Both of these lists are completely in-comprehensive and yet even the full lists of the words I would use in these conversations are woefully inept when compared to the simple feeling of being this… this THING.

If you would, I’ll ask you to do something for me. Think of those conversations, the millions of blogposts about what it is like to be bisexual, the transmasc experience, think of the dysphoria and the lines of questioning that we nearly all do at some point in our lives once we realize that the questions are there to be asked. Think of the realizations. Think of gender. Think of sexuality. Think of how these are two incomprehensibly small parts of who we are and what we do, even if they seem to take up a lot of our time and thought. Think of what you ate for breakfast. Please, eat breakfast.

Now imagine putting all of this together into one being. Imagine putting everything on a bagel… and then calling it Fable.

That’s me.

At some point in my former relationship, I decided finally that Hollis was too similar to my mother’s name, and it bothered me. My partner, though he almost never actually used my chosen name because of how often he interacted with my mother (I didn't want any slip ups), sat with me for hours listening to me read names and meanings off of a baby name website. We decided on a last name together too because neither of us liked our last names. Hence, I kind of felt like this name had to stick because I was getting so close to the age at which I could legally change it and because I had had my first experience of deciding what my legal name would be as part of a couple.

Quick sidebar - I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five around this time, and the concept of Tralfamadorian books absolutely pulled me in. If you are not aware, here are some slight spoilers (that in my opinion are really just fuel to make you want to read the book more): The main character is kidnapped at one point by aliens called Tralfamadorians, which are beings separate from time. They experience literally all of time at all times. They are a wild and beautiful concept in and of themselves, but what I love more are their books. Collections of images, poems, and prose that have nothing to do with one another. On the trip back to Tralfamadore from Earth, which iirc takes 500 (?) years, the main character gets very bored and reads the one human book that they have over and over again before asking if they have any books of their own. One of the aliens explains that even if he could read their language, he would not understand the books. They see and experience every part of these books all at once. Even when they are not reading them, which they always are. Because some version of them at some time (which is always taking place at exactly the same time, all the time) is always doing everything they have ever done and will ever do. I hope you see why I love them so much now.

I want my body to be a Tralfamadorian book of tattoos, scars, and random marks I collect over my lifetime (like stretch marks and cellulite, which I am deeply in love with). I have that wonderful stick-and-poke heart directly over my heart, I have butterflies whose meaning warrants written words of this length just by themselves, and I want a shit ton more. I want a dragon on my right side, climbing up me, mostly because I think it would look sick as fuck. I want bees on my torso, because I love the Earth. I want Be Kind in gothic font on my clavicle. I want an airplane flying around my left thigh and leaving a smoke trail because I love flying (I have my pilot’s certificate). I want a frog dressed up as a barista on my left arm, and my husband wants one dressed up as a mechanic (or whatever career path I end up on by the time we move off together) on his right arm, so they can kiss when we lean up next to each other. I want a hundred more little things, all wrapped in flowering vines. On the areas where a chest compression binder and a nice pair of boxers sit on me, I want it all in color with a stark line of contrast. None of this would be much of a story by itself, but it shows off the work in progress of a fully formed being who contains multitudes when you put it together. And it still isn't even the full story of me! Shit is as hard to put into pictures as it is to put into words, especially for someone who can't draw (like me).

In essence, there is no one word for me. I feel the same about the people that I am close to. Saying their names and people saying my name feels like just a description, an almost arbitrary value assigned to them either by the world or themselves. An approximation. As someone who dabbles in linguistics I find it so deeply fascinating how hard we try to contain such multitudes into a very small collection of letters and how short we inevitably fall most times.

I recently wanted to explain this feeling of detachment from my name to my husband. In fact, I had to. It was important to me that he understood this because hearing my name in deeply intimate moments can be off putting, and I wanted him to know why I react a certain way to that so that we could take away the cause and attack the root of the problem together. I explained that terms of endearment are fine, wonderful even. I know that when he calls me honey, love, devil, cutie, or other similar things, there is never an attempt to grasp at and contain in one word something that cannot be explained in one million words. Even hearing him call me “my fable, my story” is cheesy and joyful rather than disconcerting because it reflects a part of him (the adorable part) rather than who I am and what I am. I feel that a name can be objectifying and reductive if used in a way that tries to capture and define the entirety of someone. I have realized this especially with having a noun for a name, a fun little state of being that I like to call “entirely my fault, and yet wonderful in its own ways.” I have come to enjoy the concept that one of my friends rocks with of having people call them “whatever, as long as you don’t call me late to dinner.” Because what the fuck IS in a name? Multitudes. But what is in a person? An infinite number of multitudes. Fuck yeah.

To speak on love again, I feel that there are as many words for love as there are names of people that you love. And of course, I have already discussed how many names we could put to a single part of a person, much less the person themselves. I have also become more comfortable with the concept of labeling romantic love as such after realizing that I can choose when or if I want to do so. I have free will! Insane. My relationship with my husband helped with this as we went from being friends who were physically involved but neither of us ready for a relationship to being boyfriends over the course of a few months. The moment he asked me out, I put that concept of romantic love back into the air. Whatever way I feel about other people, I know for a fact that I want to be with him, so I decided (pretty recently actually) that that could be my way of defining when my love for someone was romantic: if I want to be with them. in a romantic relationship. seems obvious when I think about it now but it wasn't at all a few months ago.

I have heard people talk about detachment from their names before, but this has always been phrased as a temporary condition which will end as soon as they find the “perfect” name. For me, I know that that perfection does not exist. I know that if I truly had a name that put all of me into one word, this would never be a word that we as humans could speak. We could try and contort our tongues, but we simply couldn’t make the sound. To hear it would melt our brains. To read it would make us go blind.

But I know that I taste it. When I kiss my husband, I can feel what I am, what he is, the separate thing of what we are together. None of it makes sense to say in any mortal language, but I think that that is what makes it beautiful. The fact that it is infallible and untouchable. My husband will never be able to describe exactly who I am because the words do not exist. I think he might know, though, through the countless times he’s seen me in tears over the feeling of his skin and the warmth of being together. Maybe he just knows the person that I am when we are together, it is possible that that’s different from the person I am when we are apart, whether that is intentional or not. If I am different when apart from him, I surely don’t know, and I know that there are multitudes to him that I could not even imagine, the byproduct of him just being a more private person than I am though he would readily answer any question any questions about himself I could pose to him (the problem being that in the infinite abyss of questions, I'd rather just witness the parts of himself that he has offered up. I also can't even fathom the questions I would ask, which obviously presents a problem if I wanted to ask them). The point is that we know enough of each other to know that we are incredibly happy together and to know that we could never find a true name, at least for me, even with all the letters in every alphabet that exists.

Please accept my humble offering unto a conversation that, as far as I know, does not exist beyond the bits of it I have had with my husband and two dear friends. I hope you find the same wonderful sense of being lost in it as I did, and I hope you find joy in knowing yourself however you do.

#on love #on names

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lucy90712 · 4 years ago

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Sapnap- face cam

Wc- 1987

Warnings- none (I think) I've been up for almost 30 hours mainly because I was doing college homework all of last night and because my boyfriend Sapnap was streaming and being very loud which kept me up in the first place which was why I did my homework anyway. I love Sapnap to death but sometime he can be a little annoying but I put up with it.

Sapnap only got into bed at 4am and he's still asleep now at 11pm meanwhile since then I've finished a big essay, cleaned the apartment, done another essay and then made breakfast for myself which I'm eating now. I wish I could be this productive when I've had sleep but somehow it never works like that.

Eventually Sapnap came downstairs sauntering because he was still sleepy, some of us wish. He walked right over giving me a hug from behind as I washed some dishes and gave me a kiss on my cheek.

"Morning babe you alright?" He asked

"Yeah I'm good a little tired but I'll live" I replied

"Just to let you know I'll be streaming later" he said

He always tells me when he's streaming because his fans don't know about us and he doesn't want to accidentally reveal anything to protect me which is cute but it gets hard when he streams for hours on end and I need help with something. Sapnap is good about to it though if I really need help I either text him or message him on discord and he'll help but he sometimes doesn't read his messages.

I gave him some of what I made for breakfast and he sat down to eat it while I talked at him about college work that he pretends to care about. He's very supportive of all my college work and he'll let me get on with things if I have to but he will also talk about things with me if I want to. Thats one of the best things about Sapnap is his ability to adapt to how I'm feeling at any given moment and I like to think I'm at least ok at doing the same for him.

After breakfast Sapnap cleaned the rest of the dishes and let me take a shower which was nice and relaxing and woke me up a little bit as the cold water at the start hit my back, usually I would not be under the water as it warmed up but today I felt like I needed a shock to my system to get it going for another day. I had more homework and a lecture to do today so there was no chance for a nap until the evening when it's kind of pointless anyway.

After my shower I got dressed into some sweatpants and a t-shirt because it was comfy for sitting down all day in. Sapnap had got my laptop ready for me and had got me a glass for water which was sweet of him. My lecture was in about 2 minutes so I logged onto the class ready for it to start, when it did I put my headphones on so that Sapnap didn't have to listen to my teacher going on about whatever we were doing today, he always says he doesn't care but even I don't want to listen to it sometimes so there is no way he does.

As I tapped away making notes Sapnap put his hand on my knee rubbing his thumb in circles comfortingly. He does this all the time whether its sat on the sofa like right now or while we're driving somewhere but its safe to say that I love it, it lets me know he's there in a weird way it's like he's acknowledging my presence. At one point he got up and went to the kitchen and when he came back he had my favourite snack which he put between us so that we could share. What a lovely boyfriend he's being today, I'm starting to wonder what he thinks he's done that's he's trying to make up for.

My lecture finally finished after what seemed like and age so I went to get straight on with my last essay that needed submitting by the end of the month but Sapnap shut my laptop before I could get the document open, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the sofa and towards the door.

"Come on were going out for a walk" he said

"Why, I have an essay to work on" I whined

"You'll never leave the house if I don't drag you out so come on" he said handing me my shoes

I put them on and grabbed a jacket because according to the weather it was meant to be a little bit chilly out today, Sapnap grabbed the house keys and pushed me out the door onto the street. We don't often go out on walks because neither of us like leaving the house that much if we were to go out it would most likely be in the car to just go for a drive.

The two of us walked down the street holding hands and swinging them back and forth as we took steps forwards. Sapnap clearly had a good idea of where he wanted to go because he was making turns all over the place. Eventually we ended up at the target not that far from our place and we went in looking at everything like you do in target and we topped up on some snacks for a movie night soon.

We left with our snacks and Sapnap dragged me to the nearest park so we could sit outside and get a bit more fresh air. The nearest park is actually the one that we went to on one of our first dates so we have good memories there, on one of the benches by the duck pond is where we had our first kiss and many more after that.

I always love going back to that park with Sapnap because each time we reminisce on the past and talk about the future which seems to change each time we come here. We walked to the exact bench that we had our first kiss on and sat down looking at the scenery. It had changed quite a bit since the first time we were here, there used to be a little play park for kids in the distance but now thats gone and is replaced with a small flower garden instead.

The first time we came here and we talked about the future all we wanted was to still be together after we left for college which of course happened, then the next time we wanted to move in together which we did and now. I'm not really sure what the future holds for us but I'm sure it will be interesting.

"Wow its been so long since we came here we have changed so much and achieved everything that we wanted to" he said

"I know its so weird to think that our last goal was to move in together and now we have been living together for 5 months where do you think we will end up in the future?" I asked

"On man I have no idea but I would love to still be living together and maybe in a bigger place and maybe even be engaged" he said

This shocked me I never expected him to say that but I guess that is the next logical step for us to take in our relationship.

"I like the sound of that" I said

We went back home and Sapnap went to stream while I worked on my essay he didn't tell me how long he was going to stream for but it will probably be about 3 hours. So I sat down and got on with writing the last 15 pages of my essay which would probably take me the entire time he was streaming maybe longer.

My essay took me almost exactly 4 hours to do but when I tried to submit it it wouldn't upload which happens from time to time. I looked at the upload speed of the WiFi since Sapnap taught me how to do it and it was fine but I assumed that it was being used for something else. This problem has happened before when Sapnap is uploading a video so I assumed that was the issue.

It got up and walked to Sapnap’s streaming room waiting outside for a moment to double check that he wasn't still streaming, I waited a couple minutes and heard nothing so I knocked and went in.

As soon as I went in I saw that Sapnap was still streaming and his face cam was on which meant that I was now on his stream in front of however many people. I've never made such a stupid mistake especially one that outs my entire relationship, I just stood in shock not being able to move and get out of the shot. Sapnap had the exact same reaction his face was filled with shock and fear at the same time.

Nothing prepares you for the moment that you expose yourself live in front of probably 100,000 people or more who will record anything that happens. Nothing prepares you for the chaos that will ensue when you do the before mentioned thing and definitely nothing prepares you for the guilt you feel doing so.

"Um hi y/n" He said trying to make things less awkward

"Hey" I replied shyly

He motioned for me to come over because there was no point trying to hide this anymore since no one will believe anything we say now. I stood next to Sapnap luckily being short enough that I still fit in frame but he had obviously given up caring at this point because he pulled me down into his lap to sit while we talked to his chat. Again he did the thing where he rubs his thumb in a circle on my leg and this time it really was for comfort.

"Well chat this is y/n and shes my... girlfriend" he said

"Hi everyone" I said shyly

"Now chat I'm going to need you to be nice to her or I'll be angry because she is very precious to me" he said

His chat were going insane telling others to clip this and people getting way to excited about all of this and some were asking questions. The whole chat was going so incredibly fast that it was hard to read all the messages.

We answered some of the basic questions like how long we have been together and other things, people also asked if George and Dream knew which of course they did and they have made jokes about Sapnap having a girlfriend but no one ever took it too seriously. At one point dream joined the call and started mocking us for being stupid and exposing ourselves and he told some stories that he knew we wouldn't mind him saying which the chat enjoyed.

I started yawning more and more as I stayed on the stream because I wasn't keeping my mind busy my tiredness was taking over. I leant back into Sapnap to rest my head on his shoulder, he out his hand on my head running it through my hair which is very relaxing.

"Are you tired?" He asked

"No I'm fine I can stay awake" I said

"I don't want to hear it I know you've been awake for over 24 hours so you are going to sleep" he almost demanded

He put his arms around my waist and pulled me into a comfortable position where I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost right away forgetting that Sapnap was still streaming but it doesn't matter.

#sapnap #sapnap x reader #dsmp #mcyt #dreamteam #dream team

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littlemisslipbalm · 5 years ago

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Little Border Town

Summary: It begins with a man and a woman, as it always seems to. One lives in France and the other lives in Italy, technically, but they’re also neighbors. Various issues arise between these two and they can’t ever seem to see eye to eye on anything. Will they ever move past their petty fighting or is the little town they live in doomed to only gossip about what Harry and Y/N are fighting about today?

AKA: Harry and Y/N are neighbors that fight all the time, the whole town wants to know when they’ll just fuck.

Featuring italrry as well as mustachrry! and running italrry... I hope y’all like! this is just part one, so much more is in store so pls let me know what you think :) lots of love - first fic that’s not named from a quote said in the story I’m shook!! the growth, the range...she has it apparently! side note: i had to change the gif from italrry/mustachrry bc something is whack with the formatting and either the keep reading or the title keeps disappearing so i tried some stuff to resolve it *sobbing*

Word Count: 8.5k | Warnings: swearing, mentions of relatives death, bickering, otherwise tame for now?

Pt. 2

There’s a little town that straddles the border between Italy and France. It’s just a little ways from Nice on the French side and Ventimiglia on the Italian side. The population is rather small and the tourists who come are usually either returners or are very very lost. One street you’re in France and the next you’re in Italy. It can be confusing to newcomers, but the locals love it -- for the most part. These streets are easily delineating as French or Italian by the little country flags that hang above all the shops or in the windows.

It’s a coastal town with cobblestone everywhere and bright painted buildings. The water is a soft blue and the wind barely ever brings any waves greater than a foot high. There’s a shop for everything and it seems to be frozen in the past from the outside, thankfully if you step into the tiny bed and breakfast there is wifi. The sun almost always shines down on this sweet piece of paradise, the winter does however bring gusting winds and thunderstorms. Those storms rattle the little town and afterwards you’ll find the residents picking up the pieces that have fallen off the shops.

Now, this little border town, with its streets separated by French and Italian customs, well almost all of them, it seems imperative to mention. There, in the exact middle of the little town, is one street that is split down the middle, half in France and half in Italy. The locals from the French and the Italian sides love that street the most because it has this certain dynamic spark of change that brings them together, makes them unique. Except for two locals that seemingly hate this street. These two locals aren’t actually true locals either. They both moved there a couple years ago.

Harry, from the Italian side, owns the shoemaker and repair shop. He hailed from England and moved to the little town when his great uncle, Joe, had sent him a letter pleading for him to take over his shop so that he could retire. Harry, ever the traveler, hopped on the next flight out to Italy and then traversed by train and bus until he reached his Joe’s home. Like most of the shops, there was a living space above the shop area. Harry lived there with Joe until he passed away a few years back leaving Harry to tend the store alone. He didn’t mind too much, being left there alone. He had always loved Italy and to get to live in the countryside in a little cobblestone town and own a shop was a dream come true. After living there for two years, he had bought a sailboat that he would take out when the shop was closed. He also had bought himself a motorcycle that he would ride to the next greatest city if he was ever in dire need of more of a nightlife as a 26 year old. He loved it, his own slice of paradise… except for his thorn in his side.

Y/N, from the French side, owns the bookstore, which carries lots of vintage books and records. She had moved there after college. In school, she had studied French and taken a year abroad in Paris and had traveled down to Nice for a month. While in Nice she had made a few friends and one of them had come from the little border town. They had insisted they all go there for a weekend. When Y/N stepped foot onto the street she now lived on a few years before, she fell in love. Seeing the little Italian and French flags in the windows and potted plants with a view of the sea had been so endearing to her.

She was drawn to the bookshop and had chatted up the old French woman who ran it. The woman had reminded Y/N of someone but she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. It was strange for her because she often found these connections with older people, she felt like she had known this woman her whole life. Y/N went back into the store the next two days she was there to talk to the woman again, Marie, she had learned. Before she left the little town she left her number with Marie and kept in some contact with her. After about a year though, their communication fell off. Y/N was sad but understood that life can be busy for people and that she obviously wasn’t the most important woman in the little border town bookkeeper’s life. Or so she thought. In the middle of the summer after she graduated college, Y/N was backpacking through Iceland and got a call from who she assumed was Marie. She was ecstatic and answered the call immediately. Sadly, it wasn’t Marie, instead a friend who had been given her will to execute. In her will she had left Y/N the bookshop. Her reasoning was similar to why Y/N had liked Marie so much, she said that Y/N had reminded her of her sister who had died unexpectedly in her teenage years. Being so far from home at the time and completely consumed with love and loss, Y/N had agreed to take over the shop without any hesitation.

She got home and informed her parents of her choice and moved to the little border town as soon as she could. She lived in the little area above the shop that Marie had also gifted to her and she tended the shop downstairs. The living area hadn’t really been cleaned out and Y/N had found an old collection of vinyls in the corner of the bedroom. As much as she wanted to keep them to herself, she thought it would be a good addition to the shop and had made a section for records in memory of Marie. She loved France and the coast, she bought a little car and would drive to Nice every so often or to the more sandy beaches along the French coast. It was quiet and different from the life she had maybe expected, but taking over a bookshop because a kind stranger had gifted it to you as one of their dying wishes wasn’t something Y/N could ever turn down. Her soul was too sweet. At least it was for most people, not for her neighbor though.

Her neighbor was the shoemaker, Harry. Their shops lived against one another even though he was on the Italian side and she was on the French. They were located exactly at the split between France and Italy. With less than a foot between the buildings, they saw a lot of each other. On their first interaction, Y/N had seen too much of her neighbor, meaning she had seen all of him. Their shops were similar to track homes, meaning they were built completely the same only mirrored. This meant that the windows of their bedrooms matched up exactly, she wondered who had thought that was a good idea after her first night. When Y/N had first moved in it was August, she left her window open and without the shade down to let as much fresh cool air in as possible. With her jet lag, she had found herself wide awake at about three am. Pacing around her room in the pink silk tank dress she had decided to sleep in, her eyes froze on her window - or rather, who she saw through her window. The light from her room and the moon were strong enough to illuminate the tanned and tattooed skin of the naked man in the room next to her. He held a bowl in his large hands that he seemed to be spooning cereal into his mouth from.

His half-lidded eyes flickered to the light coming from the place next door. The bookshop had been closed all summer and no one had been living in the upper area for a little longer than that so he had gotten into the habit of leaving his window open. He was half drunk after stumbling his way home from the tiny bar down the street. He had decided a naked cereal run would be a good idea to tide over his cravings. But upon seeing the girl wearing lingerie a mere two feet away from him, separated by the screens on their open windows, he realized that wasn’t actually true. His eyes widened only slightly as he saw her, his drunkenness allowing him to keep his blushing to a minimum. His drunken confidence kept him from covering himself as he lifted a single brow and made a salute with his spoon hand before going back to his bed.

She stayed at the window for a moment after the naked man disappeared and then quickly ran back to her bed. She shut off her light and tried not to think about everything she had seen. She tried to not think about his toned arms that flexed as he moved around his food, or the tattoos that lined every part of his body (the tiger and ferns seared into her mind specifically), or his tousled chestnut hair, or his searing green eyes, or the full mustache that held a little milk from his cereal. She tried, she really did. But how was she supposed to face her neighbor ever again after that. Maybe he wasn’t her neighbor, she reasoned, maybe he was an acquaintance her neighbor had just spent the night with. That wouldn’t be better! Her hands grabbed her other pillow and shoved it over her face trying to force herself to go to bed.

The next day, she had been working out front of the bookshop, beginning to repaint the windowsills of the shop with some navy paint she had found in the back to give it an updated look. It was early and she hadn’t expected to see anyone at all. Her jet lag still ailed her and caused her to be up bright and early. This was her second run in with the shoemaker, this time though, both to her dismay and joy, he was fully clothed. He wasn’t watching where he was going and almost toppled the both of them over as he left his store front, locked the door behind him, and then set off down the street. His large body, covered in short black running shorts and a mesh grey tank top, bumped into her almost immediately. He was still fiddling with his music on his phone as he began his run. She jumped back and dropped the paintbrush from her hand. She yelped as his body collided with hers and he stopped in his tracks. His eyes scanned her and took in the light wash cuffed jeans and moss ribbed tank top she was wearing. They widened when he recognized her face, the expression of shock similar to that of last night when she had seen him in his bedroom. He smirked and took out one of his earbuds. She grabbed her paintbrush from the ground as he extended his hand to her.

“I’m Harry,” his hand is greeted with hers. He speaks to her in English and she decides it’s probably best to follow along with whatever someone else began with. She worried that she’d run into a lot of Italians who didn’t know French or English and she’d have some trouble. His eyes flicker to the bits of blue already littered on her hands and in her hair.

“Y/N.” She nods, avoiding eye contact with the man she had already seen too much of. At least he’s not your neighbor’s lover, he’s just your neighbor. She also notices how he doesn’t apologize for running into her.

“You were spying on me last night,” his hand returns to his side and his smile quirks up again as he watches her face flush. His nicely groomed mustache twitches, trying to contain his laughter.

“I was not!” She finally looks up at the taller man and takes in his tanned face that is even more attractive in the morning light and up so close. The hat he wears is funny, a blue trucker’s hat that read “If you ain’t a fisherman, you ain’t shit!”, and she would laugh if she couldn’t already tell he was going to be extremely annoying.

His smirk continues and he barks out a laugh. He removes his sunglasses to really look at her now. “It’s alright, I work hard for this,” he gestures to his body, “glad someone appreciates it. Just means I’ll need to be installing a shade now, I guess.”

“You don’t have a shade and you walk around your room naked?” She ignores his first bit of conversation. She can’t think about his body or how it had looked last night. She sets down her paintbrush and folds her arms across her chest, trying to figure the man in front of her out.

“No… but it’s not all my fault. You had your shade open too! Who’s willingly up at that time of night anyway? I was just fixing myself a snack after the pub.” He raises his brows triumphantly at her, feeling confident that he has gotten the upperhand in the conversation.

She narrows her eyes at him as she finally registers that his accent isn’t Italian or French. He’s British and she wonders what he’s done to get himself in this little border town. He also seems to own the shop beside her since he locked the door behind him. He was peculiar, but she couldn’t dwell on what she thought about him since he had just accused her of being a peeping tom.

“Someone is up at that hour because she just moved and has terrible jet lag and can’t sleep. The place has been completely closed up for months and I needed to get as much cool air in as possible before the hot day. That’s why I was up and that’s why my shade wasn’t down.” She stands up straighter and rolls her eyes at him, muttering something in French to herself about annoying men. She smiles to herself when Harry doesn’t seem to understand. He obviously can tell she said something, but he doesn’t know exactly what. He could understand a good bit of French and he could speak some, but if someone spoke quickly and quietly, like she had just done, he wouldn’t be able to make it out. He figured it was something rude, though, with the way she sounds and begins to turn from him.

“Are you here to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Well, welcome to the best place in the world. It was so nice, two countries couldn’t decide who got to keep it and decided to split it.”

His arm sweeps out around him, gesturing to the street around him. She smiles up at him before following his arms movement. His arm had more tattoos than she had realized from her eyeful last night. She noticed the intricacies of all the black ink and again she had a million questions that she had to keep to herself. He was arrogant, conceited, impatient and a little bit odd and she knew all of this after barely one conversation. At least they could agree on one thing, they loved this town.

He looked back at her after scanning the street and saw her smiling in wonderment at everything around her. This brought a fleeting genuine smile to his face, knowing she was happy to be there. He had known Marie and was sad to see her go less than a year after his great uncle. He had always thought that Marie and Joe were both secretly pining over each other. Constantly stopping into each other’s shops and waving from their windows at each other, but Joe had always shaken his head at Harry when he mentioned it.

His smile faded when her eyes came back to his fac face face. Her smile disappeared as well. “Right, so, see you around…?” He said, already forgetting her name. She scoffs when she realizes what happened and then repeats her name. He nods curtly before replacing his sunglasses and single airpod and starts running again. She calls after him, “Thanks for the apology!” and then mutters to herself, “le con” knowing she shouldn’t shout that down the street where other people speak French. He doesn’t hear any part of it, his music up high enough to drown out the sounds of the world.

Y/N settled into the bookshop fairly easily, but she never failed to mention how unhelpful Harry had been:

“Yes, well, it’s been going pretty good...except for this one man. Well, I’d hardly call him a man - a boy. My neighbor, actually, he owns the shoe shop...no, nevermind that, he practically made it his mission to make my move the hardest thing in the world...Harry -- yes, that’s his name, Mama… well I don’t know, It’s just Harry. - it doesn’t matter! He’s been in my way at every turn… yes, both physically and metaphorically...I’m not kidding! And I’m not being dramatic… Well, It was nice talking to you. Love you, talk soon.”

That was her first telephone conversation with her mother since arriving in the little town. Maybe ten days after she arrived. Naturally, she had it in the downstairs area of her home, the bookstore. And naturally, Harry had wandered in, to discuss one of their shared planters, and overheard her entire side of the conversation and gathered the rest from his own imagination. When she had laid eyes on him after setting down her phone, she rolled her eyes at the smirking Chesire cat look on his face.

“You would be the kind of man to eavesdrop, hm?” She restacked a group of books that were already in order.

“Thought I was a boy?” his smirk remained on his face. He strided closer to the counter she stood behind.

“Like I said...What can I help you with?” Her voice drips with venom as she finally turns her eyes to look at Harry. His smirk still remains on his face now that she is making eye contact with him. He’s clad in a t-shirt that has some baseball team on it with burgundy corduroy flared jeans. She notices the strain of the shirt over his chest and biceps and avoids the scoff of how vain he must be to keep himself in that good of shape for tending a shoe store in the South of France, or rather Northern Italy…

“Right, Thought I’d pop in and tell you that one of our planters is shared. So you’ll have to talk to me before replanting anything. I noticed you coming in with tulips the other day.”

“The ones on the front of the street?” He nods as her head turns to glance out the front window. “Why the hell do we share a planter?”

“Because, my late great Uncle Joe and Marie fancied each other.” Her eyes went wide at his words, trying to think of Marie having a crush on someone. “They were never together, never admitted the fancying, but they always did the planters together. They each had one of their own and then bought the third together, said it made sense to make the shops look nice...I know it was just so they had more to tend to - together.”

She hums, taking in everything that he said and how his eyes shine slightly just at the mention of his uncle. His voice had perked at the story he had just spun for her and she smiles thinking about the idea of love and loving someone so much that you’re content with simply planting flowers together. It seemed really old-fashioned to her, but it also brought even more charm to the town she now called home. Romance was still alive here, or so she hoped.

“Okay, I’ll make sure to let you know when I’ve decided what flowers I want to put in there.” She turns around, assuming the end of the conversation and getting back to work. She doesn’t really find a reason to entertain Harry anymore than necessary. Like she told her mother, he was constantly in her way or being naked in his room, something she had chosen to leave out of her conversation with her mom.

“You’ve misunderstood me. Maybe my English is getting rusty, I rarely speak it since everyone else knows Italian.” She flips around at his rude comment, eyes alight with fire once again. “If you want to replant anything, which I don’t understand why you would, the flowers I put are wonderful, we’ll have to discuss it. It’s not you just telling me you’ll be doing it. We own it equally and I won’t let you bulldoze my hard work.”

“On a planter?!”

She sticks on a sickly sweet smile as she tries to refrain from laughing. “I guess the countryside really can make some people enjoy the simpler things in life…” With that she walks to the back of the shop, leaving the stunned Harry to see himself out of it. When the little bell rings, her stifled laughter can be heard among the books.

It doesn’t matter what it is, Harry and Y/N are able to make a fuss about anything and the whole street, if not the whole town, had quickly figured that out. No one had a problem with Y/N, they welcomed her with open arms. Marie had told the entire French side and a good amount of the Italian side how wonderful and tenacious she was. How Y/N reminded Marie of her sister and upon meeting her, many agreed. But the first time Harry and Y/N had a public row, at the bakery in the center of town, on the French side, everyone was quick to realize that there was bound to be trouble between the two. It was a stark contrast to the loving comments and endearing looks the previous owners had always engaged in when they were still alive. This fight was maybe a few days after the planter business and Y/N had tried in the following days to get him to change the planters to no avail so she was in an especially pissed off mood towards Harry.

“Could you be taking any longer?” Y/N rolled her eyes as she stood behind her tall neighbor, her foot impatiently tapping a beat against the stone floor.

Harry stood hunched in front of the display case, scanning for exactly what he wanted and desperately trying to remember what he had come here for. He was a bit more dressed up that day, his mother had been coming to visit him for the first time in a while and he wanted to look nice and have a special treat for her when she arrived. His trousers were a deep navy that matched the navy of the stripes on his sweater vest, the blue pinstripes of the button down underneath was a slightly lighter shade, but blue nonetheless. He had rolled up his sleeves past his elbows, showing off his various tattoos and sinewy arms. As his eyes scanned over the case again, he ran through his mental list and bit at his lip, knowing he was forgetting something. He barely even heard her drawl out her insult, the tapping of her foot eventually getting his attention due to its faltering.

She straightened upright from her hip jutted position when he didn’t even bite at her unkind words. Her foot stopping its melody. As she was about to give another go, Harry turned around and she gave him her full look of displeasure.

“Country life requires a bit of patience. I doubt you’ve ever had to wait your turn in your life, but you’ll have to get used to it here.”

Her eyes roll instinctively. She noticed that they seemed to do it just at the mention of his name or the sound of his voice. She had always thought herself a lover of the British accent, citing Downton Abbey and various famous musicians - Freddie Mercury, George Harrison, Elton John, etc. - as members of that little island who were formative to her identity, loving them for their talents as well as their accent. Yet with Harry’s deep meandering British voice, she found herself wishing to be anywhere but in its presence. She found that he took so long to ever get out an actual full thought and when he did it was barely coherent. He also never failed to let his sarcasm or smugness drip into his tone, causing her to audibly be aware of the smirk on his face even if she couldn’t see it. The image flashing across her mind no matter what.

“You’ll have to let me know when you’ll be here again…” His eyebrows quirk at her odd response and it’s her turn to smirk up at him. She’s already satisfied with her quip even though she’s only gotten half of it out. His mouth opens to question her, but she finishes her thought. “That is, so I can plan around you. If I have to alot a whole day to the boulangerie just waiting for you… I’ll never get settled.”

Harry scoffs and a fleeting expression of actual offense flashes across his features before turning around to finish his order. The others in line and the worker are all equally wide eyed and she hears some hushed whispering behind her, but it’s in Italian so she can’t make it out. The worker eyes Y/N as she rings up the rest of Harry’s chosen items. The worker smiles softly at Harry, feeling for the man she had known long enough to know that he wasn’t as rude as he was being with Y/N. She was also taken aback at Y/N’s response, but hadn’t seen her be rude otherwise so she had to assume it simply had something to do with the man.

When Harry is all set, he turns to leave and pass Y/N again. His eyes narrow and his words once again are turned nasty. “I wouldn’t mind if you never got settled,” he said before muttering something in Italian under his breath and leaving the store. She assumed it to be nasty as she eyed the couple behind her giggling, before walking to talk with the worker.

She shook her head trying to rid herself of her cold exterior that she kept having to conjure up for Harry. Now smiling, she asks for her items in French, happy to be speaking the language that brought her so much joy rather than English which seemed to be reserved only for Harry now. She hadn’t gone to the Italian side very much yet and the people she had met over there so far had spoken French to her once she had introduced herself.

As the worker finished with Y/N’s order, she asked in a hushed tone, in French, “How do you know Mr. Styles?”

“Harry?” Y/N guessed, not actually knowing Harry’s last name until now. The girl behind the counter smiles quickly before nodding. “Mon voison” she sighs and contains the accompanying eye roll when she sees the girl blush at the idea of being neighbors with Harry. “He’s a brat,” she continues and the girl laughs lightly before saying, “I think he’s rather sweet… not bad to look at either.” She looks out the window of the shop wistfully, like Harry’s still there and Y/N whips her head around, afraid he knew that she was talking about him. Thankfully, he was gone and Y/N laughs to herself when she feels the anxiety that had gripped her for a moment dissipates. Shaking her head at the girl, she grabs her items and change from her before making a break for the door.

It was soon after that incident that Harry and Y/N’s squabbles became notorious throughout the little town. Drama wasn’t common there and any sort of excitement was the talk of the town. It made sense that this was snapped up by the gossipers from the French and Italian sides alike.

Anne, Harry’s mother, was stopped the next day, when she was out for coffee and Harry was still at the shop, and was asked why her son was so angry at the new bookshop owner. She thought it made sense for her to drop into the bookshop next to her son’s shop after hearing that. Walking into the shop, she was greeted with the smell of lavender and the sweet melody of a love song. She immediately smiled at the charm of the bookstore, feeling like there was a bit more life in it then there had been the last time she had come in. Harry had told her that Marie had passed, but not that someone new had taken over and she was eager to meet them, especially now that she had been told about the town gossip.

A messy haired, but bright eyed Y/N came trotting out of the bookshelves at the sound of the door opening. A smile beamed on her face when she saw the mature brunette woman standing just inside the doorway. “Bonjour! Bienvenue!” She greets as she smooths some of her unkempt hair. Y/N had been digging around the back shelves of the store searching for a specific book one of her other customers had asked about yesterday. And much to her dismay, she wasn’t being very successful. When the woman only says “Bonjour” and makes no inclination that she plans to speak more French, Y/N believes it’s safe to assume she’s a tourist and switches to English. “Can I help you?”

Anne laughs happily to hear English and walks over to the counter that Y/N had walked behind. “Yes, Hi! My son lives here and I’ve just come to visit him. He didn’t tell me someone had taken over Marie’s shop.” Y/N perks at the name of Marie and she smiles sincerely at the woman now. Not quite a tourist, yet not quite a local, she noted for herself.

“Yeah, I’m Y/N. I was a friend of Marie’s, so to say, and she left me the place.” Pausing, Y/N turns over the vinyl that had just finished side A, and then returns to her place at the counter. “I’m still really new, but it’s a small town. I don’t know of many other people who weren’t born here who live here, though, who’s your son?” She rests her elbows on the counter and leans on them while staring at the kind woman. She had noticed the British accent, but hadn’t connected the dots yet. It wasn’t uncommon for people to have a British accent when they spoke English so it didn’t necessarily mean she was from England. But maybe Y/N should have noticed the light eyes and brown hair, maybe that should have been an indicator as well. Or the way she had said ‘my son’ and nodded in the way of the shoe shop. But no matter what, it came as a shock when the woman with the coffee in hand said what she said next.

“My son is your neighbor! He runs the shoe repair shop. His great uncle, my ex-husband’s uncle, left it to him a couple years ago.” Y/N’s eyes widen so much so that she has to blink a few times to assure herself they haven’t popped out of her head.

“Harry...is your son?” She speaks slowly and Anne smiles at the girl. She nods and Y/N nods back, taking the news in. He has a mother...she guessed she should have expected that. It had been unlikely that her theory of him being sent straight from hell to make her life just like it was accurate.

“Here you are mum! What are you doin’ in here?” Harry rushes through the door when he sees his mother inside from the window. Y/N rolls her eyes on cue, but still notices the soft adoring look on his face while he gazes at his mother. She supposes she can concede that he isn’t the spawn of satan now. His look hardens when he turns to Y/N, who has straightened up to her full height upon his arrival.

“I was just meeting the new bookshop owner, Y/N!” She looks between Harry and Y/N. “What’s this about you being angry with her?” She asks more to Harry, but Y/N hears easily. Harry’s eyes flash at Y/N and her eyes widen once again, but shrugs to Harry, having no idea where his mother had gotten that idea.

“What did you say-”

“I didn’t say anything! I’d just realized she was your mother right before you walked in!”

“It’s true. Someone said something about it to me at the coffee shop. Of course, I didn’t even know the book shop even had a new owner, so I decided to come by.”

“It’s nothing, mum,” Harry insists.

“Harry and I...we just don’t exactly see eye to eye. But, I’m sure we’ll warm up to each other eventually,” she easily lies through her teeth, knowing she really couldn’t see herself ever being friends with this prick. “Feel free to look around the shop, it’s not exactly to my liking yet, but then again, I am just getting settled. Otherwise, you two should enjoy your time together. I’m sure it’s not often you can make the time to journey all the way out here.” She smiles sweetly at Anne, choosing to ignore Harry completely.

“Thank you, Y/N. Harry can be an acquired taste for some, but just below that exterior of his, he’s a giant softy.” Harry groans at his words, Y/N’s smile only grew.

“Au revoir! Good Day!” She calls when they leave the shop rather swiftly. It seemed to her that Harry was desperate to get his mother out of the shop as soon as possible, while Anne was happy to browse and look at what had been changed in the shop.

Their early unhappy encounters were now months ago. But encounters of a similar caliber happened at least once a week. It’s hard to avoid a neighbor who you seem to find anything they do to be an annoyance, even their existence. They saw each other around town and at their shops and in their bedrooms. Even though they didn’t particularly like each other, hated was actually the correct word, the drawing of the shades was a near impossible task with the heat that plagued the little town between August and Mid-October.

They had fought over who could leave their shade open and who couldn’t because Harry believed only one of them had to close it to maintain privacy but then he wouldn’t settle on an agreement on taking turns closing shades. Y/N argued that they could both leave them open if he would agree to stop walking around his room naked all the time, but he refused that as well, at first. He conceded after a week of having his shade drawn that he would wear boxers. Therefore, practically every night, Y/N and Harry would see each other before bed since they actually seemed to have the same sleep habits. Sometimes she would have to yell at him to close his window if he came home with a guest and he would yell at her to turn off her light if she was reading or watching television in bed too late.

Thankfully, it was approaching the end of October and the weather would begin to change. There wouldn’t be a reason to have the window or shade open and they at least wouldn’t have to see each other right before bed.

This morning, Y/N is up early, she found it amazing to wake up early here, something she had never done before this little border town. It was teaching her new things about herself and changing her, but she liked it. In deep forest green flared pants and a long sleeved rainbow striped shirt, Y/N is watering the planters in front of her shop as well as the little ones attached below the windows. It was always a little cool in the mornings, but she had checked her weather app and seen that it was actually going to be the first cold day of the season. The first cold day since she had arrived actually. As much as she liked the sun, she also loved fall and winter, so she was excited to experience them for the first time in the little border town.

She smiles to herself as she moves around gracefully. In her back pocket, her music plays softly, Paul Simon sings lovingly to her. She hums along and moves to deal with the planter at the edge of the sidewalk. But she’s foiled by a man she seems to think about far too much for how much she says she dislikes him. Harry jogs back a half step upon realizing he has run into her yet again. One would assume that one of them would either change their routine or know to step out of the way or really just be a little bit more aware of their surroundings with how many times this has happened since Y/N’s arrival. Of course, their stubborn personalities actually require them to be unrelenting in this area of their lives as well. Much like the shade debate, the who was in the way of who debate is still majorly undecided.

“Oi!” He looks down at his shirt and it has a substantial wet spot on it. She had spilled some of the watering can’s contents.

“Excuse you!” She says simultaneously, not realizing she’d gotten water on him.

“I’m not the one who just threw water on someone.”

“Neither am I. You ran into me, it’s not my fault you never look where you’re going.”

“You’re just always in my way. This has been my route for ages, I’m not going to change it just because you moved in next door.” His hands fly around in annoyance and anger.

“You’re unbelievable!”

“Well! I can’t stand you!

“Clearly!” “Cleary.” They’re both huffing out insults that don’t seem to really be going anywhere. Harry has straightened his posture for once and she actually finds his true height slightly intimidating. They both breath for a moment, finding no other words to fill the tranquil morning silence that they had just disturbed.

“Are we ever going to have a conversation where we’re not at each other’s throats?” She sighs, feeling upset that the nice Fall day was suddenly ruined for the rest of time just because of this.The bickering with Harry was tedious and she couldn’t keep going like this. Being in a completely new place and running a small business was hard enough as it is. Something snapped in her just then, hoping to squash a part of her life that is causing her stress and exhaustion.

Harry’s expression falters, his eyes losing that glint of angered passion for a moment, he wasn’t expecting that response. It wasn’t necessarily mean, it was more like she was resigned. Simply done with the conversation. He felt his anger and annoyance slip away rather quickly at her question. She sees his mustache twitch, which she realized happened when he was either amused or confused. She didn’t think what she said was funny so she presumed he wasn’t sure what to make of what she had just said. Her head tilts to the side and waits for his response. Her watering can falls to her side now, making herself a little more comfortable and leaving only a small amount of air between her and Harry.

“Tired out already? Thought you were more of a competitor than that.” He mirrors her by tilting his head as well.

“I didn’t realize we were in any sort of competition.” She stepped forward and straightened her posture a little, feeling challenged by the tone he had taken. She may have a kind and soft exterior for most, but she was nothing if not fierce in her core. She was an Aries afterall. She wondered what Harry might be, she wasn’t super into astrology, but she was sure that he wasn’t an Aries. Aries were fiery and passionate and were very unwilling to admit defeat, so he had just hit the exact right note to keep her from squashing their now long-standing quarrel.

“We’re not. I just thought I had met my match, guess I was wrong.”

He looks off in the distance to be nonchalant, like he wasn’t trying to bait her even if that’s exactly what he was going for. Sure, he found her annoying, for whatever reason. But he had realized when she had posed the question, that he hadn’t had this much excitement in a while. Nothing and no one really challenged him in the little border town, his work was easy enough, money wasn’t tight, friends were easily made, and partners for the night were easy to find. He didn’t dislike any of those facts, truly, he counted himself lucky and was overjoyed that he lived there. But the verbal sparring he engaged in with Y/N fulfilled a need he hadn’t realized was going unsatisfied. He would never admit it, but she was often a highlight of his day. Getting into a little quarrel with her brought a smile to his face when he recalled it later. The bird she had started to flip him before bed made him genuinely laugh. He liked it, so when she seemed to want it to end, he did what he knew would make her change her mind. Tease her.

“I see...bonne journée, cul.” She decided to bid him farewell, knowing he didn’t plan on apologizing any time soon. She turned her body from him and Harry understood enough French that she had ended the conversation with a “good day”. He also knew that she had called him an “ass” as well. His brows raised for a moment at the insult before giving a flicked salute in her direction and jogging off for his morning run.

For some reason, after a moment of knowing Harry had gone she glanced up in his direction and watched his retreating figure. And for some reason she found herself looking back down at the flowers and smiling to herself. Somewhere inside her she was glad Harry hadn’t given into her veiled request to stop fighting. It was a strange sensation because as tiring it was to bicker with him, she feared if they stopped then they would stop talking at all and her heart panged at the thought. She didn’t know why and she didn’t care to know why either.

The bell of the book shop chimes and Y/N pops up from behind the counter. She had been crouched out of sight trying to organize the books of notes on customers Marie had left that Y/N had only just found. She hadn’t realized the cabinet existed in the counter so when she accidentally slid it open she was a little taken aback. Still, she was quickly distracted by the new customer. Her cream collared shirt was unbuttoned to where her collarbone and decalotage were on display, some gold medallions hanging around her neck today. Her worn light wash blue jeans were barely visible behind the counter due to her height. In her hair was a classic red bandana, pulling back her hair out of her face save for the strands that worked themselves free on their own accord.

Her smile was wide, happy to see the first customer of the day as she pinched at her shirt to make sure it was in place. Her posture slumped immediately when she realized that her first customer wasn’t a likely customer at all, instead who else but Harry. A mischievous glint in his eyes as he strolled in and right up to the counter. He leaned his large body down to rest his head in his hands and look up at her. He crossed one ankle over his other, getting comfortable as he stared wickedly up at her.

She wet her lips and took a step back. It was her first look at him today, apparently missing him on his morning run. Maybe she should have thought something of that after their encounter yesterday, but she didn’t. Like most days, his trousers were high waisted, Gucci likely - how he afforded them, she had no clue - and his usual shirt had now been accompanied with a striped red, black, and yellow open cardigan. His hair looked wet like he had just taken a shower, most of it was pushed up but a few strands fell over his large forehead. His mustache looked freshly trimmed and the rest of his facial hair had yet to leave any shadow after his obvious shave.

“Harry.” She says definitively, regarding him with even contempt.

“Ice Queen.” He levels, eyes narrowing.

She scoffs immediately. “At least give me something original...or accurate maybe. I may not like you, but ice queen? Hardly.”

He genuinely chuckles at her quick response and nods, agreeing easily with her for once. “You’re right. It was weak, I’ll admit. Feel like you need a nickname though, thought something really rude might upset you.” He smirks cheekily. His agreement doesn’t make her feel like she’s won at all, unsurprisingly.

She rolls her eyes at his comment. “Care to let me know why you’re gracing me with your presence today, Mr. Styles?” Moving around the counter, she begins to walk to the back of the shop, assuming Harry would follow her if he needed to. He apparently did and walked after her after realizing she wasn’t coming back.

He gives a half-laugh, “Yeah, I came in for a new record. I saw you decided to restock them...thought I’d pop in. It’s easier to get them here than order online...Curtain-hater.” He adds the name as an afterthought.

She glances at him from the bookcase she’s standing at, her eyes shifting to meet his. A smile fades into her features as she can’t contain the giggle at his new attempt at a nickname. She then wrinkles her nose, “That isn’t good either, but proficient try, I guess.” She gives him points for actually relating the name to her in some way, but it still doesn’t incite any anger in her which she knows is what he is going for. She probably should question herself why she’s helping Harry to nickname her something rude, but alas, she doesn’t. He nods solemnly, knowing she’s right again. He needs to find a nickname for her and he doesn’t know why, but he’s glad she seems alright with him giving her one, so long as it is fitting.

Her body shifts from the bookcase over to the boxes she had gotten to hold the vinyls. She had a small collection since the place was small overall, but Marie’s old collection had sold successfully so she had restocked afterwards, this time choosing some of her personal favorites.

“I’m not sure of your taste...I know you bought Marie’s Ella Fitzgerald album last time.” She sifts through the records, trying to find something she thought he might want. Like she said, she didn’t know what he liked, but she prided herself on knowing music and as an owner helping a customer, she wanted to please Harry. She knew he liked Ella from his previous purchase and she knew he liked Marvin Gaye in the evenings when he had guests - how very cliche she would add. “I mostly got in 70’s/80’s rock...Elton, Queen -”

“Got any Paul Simon?” Harry cuts her off and she looks at him surprised. Her fingers stopped when she looked up at him, their tips placed on the peaks of the albums covers. “Thought I heard it here the other day?”

Her face perks up at the mention, she loved Paul Simon. “That was on my phone, but I do actually. Well, it’s Simon & Garkunkel. I can order something from just Paul Simon whenever I have to order again if you want?” Their gazes are holding each other’s, her fingers still rubbing over the pointed edges of the two albums she had between her hands. Harry’s watching her and leaning against the table the boxes sit on.

He nods after a moment. “That’d be great.”

“You’ll have to tell me which records of his you already have so I can order something new for you.” She grabs the Simon & Garfunkel album and flips it to Harry so he can look it over.

He regards the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme cover reading over the fine print with all the tracks listed on the bottom right. “Thanks,” he mutters out after another moment of silence. It was rarely this quiet between these two, so it was different. “I’ll take it, Shrimp.”

“Oh my god!” She gasps before bursting into a fit of laughter. He had actually made her laugh and his eyes widen at the sound, almost confused that she hadn’t scoffed. Her laughter was far louder now then the half-hearted chuckle she had given earlier, which really was probably just another scoff. This laugh was loud and unbridled, but melodic and fun. In the back of Harry’s mind, he noted that he liked it. The first bullet point on a list that was likely to grow. “That works, just the perfect amount of rude. I love and hate it at the same time.” She finishes before walking back to the front. Harry saunters after her, pleased with himself.

“I’d like to say I wasn’t looking for your approval, but I guess I sorta was,” he ponders out loud as she takes the record back from him to type in the correct spelling into her relatively new computerized system. She twists her mouth to the side of her face to refrain from smiling anymore and then hums. Her eyes flit back up to Harry’s triumphant smile and for once she doesn’t want to slap it off of him.

“People-pleaser…” She prods him easily. His smile falters only slightly, not out of unhappiness, but of borderline jealousy.

“How do you come up with that so easily? It just rolls off the tongue,” He asks seriously, confused by the woman before him. This time she laughs as she hands him back the record and a copy of his receipt.

“I’m well read, that usually helps, but maybe it’s just my intrinsic wit that gives me an edge,” she raises her brows slightly, before beginning to walk off now that their exchange is done. She’s surprised she doesn’t want to rip her hair out after that encounter, but she figures she should simply count her blessings. “Au revoir, trouser-boy!”

He rolls his eyes as he turns on his heel and exits the shop, amused rather than annoyed with the bookkeeper.

enjoy! lmk what you thought :) part 2

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fic #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #once the slow burn ends #harry styles angst #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #enemies to lovers!harry #enemies to lovers #slow burn #the france italy one is a fever dream au #little border town #not proofread at all

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snek-panini · 2 years ago

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Printing another book and I have never had a project fight me as hard as this one has today. There's been just one roadblock after another here. I'm putting it under a cut because it got long and I just want to rant, lol.

Yesterday, go to print. Printer runs out of ink about 1/3 of the way through the job. I don't have any at home and have to go buy it.

Today, get in small accident in parking lot after buying ink. Everyone's ok, the cars just have small cosmetic dents in them now.

Replace ink. Delete pages that have already been printed from the document so I don't get duplicates. Printer prints three more signatures. I find out later that some of the pages here are blurry.

Printer has a mysterious error. Pauses, restarts job from the beginning. Cancel print job. I never found the source of this error.

Discover blurry pages. Fight with HP app till it lets me realign the printer. Delete more text in the original document. Print the remaining signatures.

Try to format blurry pages for reprinting without reprinting entire book. Word's book fold has no option to do this.

Paste offending pages into their own document. Can now print only these pages but the page numbers are wrong. Cannot fix this with any of Word's page number functions, including screenshots of the correct numbers pasted into the document. Nothing works.

Reformat to PDF because it has a was to print only select pages.

PDF does not support custom paper sizes, which this book uses.

Delete PDF in fit of rage. Exit original document without saving so the text I removed earlier isn't lost. Quit for a while. Contemplate all life choices that have led to this place.

Come back later to try one last thing.

Wifi (it's a wireless printer) is not working on only my computer. Other devices have no issues. Restart required.

Massive computer update that takes 20-30 minutes.

Get back into document, delete more text and blank out earlier pages so even if it prints those before I can cancel them I won't waste much ink.

Delete wrong pages, leading to Word reformatting the signature page counts on its own, because it feels left out and wants to help.

Cancel job, add more blanks to the end so it can't do that again. Printer sucks in two pages instead of one, prints on them sandwiched together, so while it did technically print on both sides, it has also in reality printed on only one side.

Cancel job. Yell at sky. Open print tray and shuffle all the pages to make sure they are not stuck together.

Finally print the godforsaken pages.

I do not think I will touch this text block again for a couple of days. I usually don't have much waste paper on projects, but I have enough from this one to have made a whole other book from it. This is the most I have ever fought with any craft project, software, or printer. Including that time in college when my home printer just went on strike for three or four days when I had a paper due. This was worse.

#long post #bookbinding #snek makes books #or she tries anyway #the books are not cooperating today though

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j3tsabyss · 4 years ago

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Hollywood Undead iceberg 2 full explanations

Ok I had this in the drafts for awhile and now here is iceberg number 2 explained. Once again feel free to correct me on anything and remember this is a long post

Level 1-Undead: probably their most well known song

Psalms EP: 2018 EP

Myspace: HU got their start on myspace

Dead in Ditches: one of the best known unreleased HU songs

Hats: they all wear hats a lot

Sarcasm: they all also use sarcasm. A lot. Extremely

Funny Claus: FunnyMan being Santa Claus in Christmas in Hollywood. Also there’s this video of Funny Claus

Label issues: HU has had a lot of issues with their labels from past to even present

Level 2-Johnny’s captain hats: basically Johnny’s signature during Swan Songs. He usually wore a white captain hat but there’s possibly more variants (such as the black captain’s hat)

Charlie and Funny’s matching Hawaiian shirts: both Charlie and Funny had matching Hawaiian shirts during 2015/DOTD

Bastard Threads: another clothing line ran by FunnyMan. You might’ve seen their hat with the word “bastard” on it. Once again the clothing line went defunct without explanation

Undead Origins: a comic book released in the Five era that has a rather... odd artstyle. It was on the HU merch store but it’s no longer there for some reason

Danny’s long hair: Danny had long hair at one point. As you can tell he hasn’t grown out his hair since

J-Dog’s foot fetish: a joke but J-Dog references being “turned on” by feet in this interview. He’s likely joking but…

Tony Lovato: Johnny’s friend from the band Mest. Whose band also has their songs featured VERY PROMINENTLY in Highway to Havasu

Johnny and Charlie kissing: there’s at least 2-3 photos of Johnny and Charlie kissing. Absolutely NONE of them have context except for one which was supposedly taken at Charlie’s birthday party. Imagine seeing those pics when you know nothing about HU

Mysterious background vocals: there’s a lot of videos of HU background vocals and there’s times where the background vocals are not one of the HU guys. Of course I can’t think of any specifics right now

Johnny’s shoddy wifi during the first virtual meet and greets: Johnny’s wifi got crappy due to the bomb in Nashville that was a few days before the virtual meet and greets. This resulted in Johnny not being present for some meet and greets because of his wifi. In my case I was lucky to have him in my virtual meet and greet tho his square was rather blurry at times. And then again he was CLEANING

Level 3-pre-AT FunnyMan skipping an interview to read comic books in the back room: self explanatory but I can’t remember the interview this was sorry. I’ll update this with a link to the interview if someone gives me it

Funny deleting all old Instagram posts in 2018: Funny deleted all of his past instagram in New Years 2018 for some reason. There’s still no explanation to why that happened

Funny’s old instagram profile pic: for a time Funny’s original Instagram profile pic was a pic of himself with a meme-like font that said “FUN D.M.C!” Or something like that. You can see that in old screenshots

Viral Tiger: Charlie’s gay white tiger plush that he wanted to go viral. Despite the fact Viral Tiger was last seen in a dump truck he still had a impact on the HU fanbase godspeed Viral Tiger

Freej3t shirt: some shirt of Swan Songs mask Johnny with a text saying that. I honestly don’t know why this shirt was made but both J3T and Funny have worn it. It could be connected to that time Johnny got arrested in 2009 but I’m not 100% sure

HU making typos all the time: credit to Dove for this one. EVERY HU guy has made a lot of typos. I think it’s the most common with Johnny because of his big fingers. Or finfers rather

Charlie’s mullet: Charlie had a mullet in 2014/2015 then he later cut it. Rip Charlie’s mullet

Johnny’s obsession with Spencer Charnas: joke entry where it references two random comments Johnny made on Spencer’s posts

Freak Nasty: Johnny was featured on this song back in 2016 and at least to me it’s somewhat hilarious

“Wrap a rope” lyric: lyric from Dead Bite that gets misinterpreted as “wrap a wrap” in its own lyric video

Hollywood Undead Swan Songs era documentary: Hollywood Undead - The Undead Story was a documentary about the HU guys during the Swan Songs era

HU4Life (tumblr): a fan tumblr that had literally every kind of photo of all HU guys. They were pretty popular but at one point they ended up being involved in discourse where they put their url over photos that clearly weren’t theirs. There’s even a post where someone messaged them about that and they pretty much said they didn’t give a shit about that. And then I don’t remember what happened next but they’re deactivated now so

Level 4-Daisy the chicken: for some reason Kurlzz had a pet chicken named Daisy. I remember seeing snaps of Daisy and there’s some pics of her with him but other than that I don’t think we’ve ever seen this chicken again

That random high pitched “kIcK iT” in House Party: I’m surprised nobody asked me about this one. Basically during the Another Way Out intermission there’s this random “kICK IT” that you can hear and it’s just, it’s just not Danny who says that (he later says “kick it” himself). So basically there’s just a really random “kick it” that came from like outta nowhere. I posted a video of that but uhhh it got copyright claimed on here so .-.

Danny’s actual birth year: Danny’s birth year has been given as either 1982 or 1985. While google says 1982, 1985 is the birth year given on the site famousbirthdays(.)com and it’s also a common year that’s seen on Danny Rose Supply merch. I think his birth year likely is 1982 but who fricking knows

Funny and Danny can draw: Danny has posted some of his own drawings before and he apparently drew some of the art in Notes from the Underground booklet. There’s a IG story from awhile ago where Funny was drawing on a ipad and he actually did good and there is a drawing he did himself that he posted on instagram before. Also he done the art for Charlie’s song lil Tim McGraw (not out yet)

Charlie’s snapchat: Charlie had a snapchat and he’s even verified as a celebrity snap or something but he pretty much never ever used it

“Whoeuce?”: kinda a joke but there was a screenshot of someone asking the HU facebook about Deuce and the response was that

All HU guys except for maybe Danny have criminal records: most of the HU guys basically have committed a crime at least once. Johnny said before he’s considered a felon. In the case of Danny he never has committed a crime I don’t think but in my opinion he probably has once. Just once

Hollywood Land Magazine (HLM): the HLM in J-Dog’s username stands for that. But the thing is I have no idea what exactly is this magazine. They have a instagram but it’s been inactive for like years and they used to have a website but it’s also defunct. So basically Idk what’s with J-Dog keeping HLM in his username (just like how Johnny has co in his username despite 3tearsco being defunct now)

Dark Places was written about their record label: tbh this is a vague one because I actually got this from tvtropes. At least what tvtropes says is allegedly Dark Places was written about their record label but that kinda makes me wonder where did they get that. Tho tbh it would make a lot of sense if it really was about their record label considering Johnny’s and Charlie’s verses

3 Pill Morning’s Never Look Back originally featured Charlie Scene: there was a time a band called 3 Pill Morning originally was gonna feature Charlie on their song Never Look Back. Of course later the band announced that Charlie isn’t going to be on that song but he’s credited a songwriting credit. I think once again HU’s label probably prevented Charlie from this. Also I guess this would’ve been Charlie’s first feature if he was able to sing on it

Carly and Brittini: both exes of Johnny. Thing is there’s no confirmation about their surnames and there’s no pics of how they looked either. In fact Brittini is only known due to the fact he tattooed her name on his chest (well he covered it up eventually). Meanwhile in the case of Carly she ended up standing out because Johnny in this video already reacts to a fan that just happens to be named Carly and he mentions she broke up with him. So make some of that if you will

Level 5-Vanessa gave away her wedding dress after she got married: I can’t remember where I heard this from originally but basically after Vanessa got married she sold her wedding dress back. I don’t really recall if there was a reason why she did it but it’s actually bought by a fan now

Johnny was on TMZ: honestly I’m surprised literally no one asked me about this because I could go on about this. Anyway in March 2019 Johnny was once on TMZ about the myspace deleting tracks thing and gave his thoughts on it and all that. But the slightly peculiar thing about him being on TMZ was he got called “THE FRONTMAN” of Hollywood Undead. And then at least to me since then I felt like there was a sudden increase of news outlets referring to Johnny as “the frontman” which was something I never once seen before UNTIL TMZ said that. Also the only other time TMZ ever reported on Hollywood Undead was that jumping incident so yea there you go sorry that I rambled so much

Who runs the official Hollywood Undead accounts?-self explanatory. I’ve seen fans wonder about who runs the HU accounts. Most think either J-Dog or FunnyMan but it’s never been confirmed. It’s definitely not Johnny because he said himself before that it’s definitely not him running the official HU account

Johnny knows about Love Sick Radio: self explanatory. Johnny knows about one of the DOTD rejects and as a lost media person I was enthusiastic to know that Johnny remembered the DOTD rejects

#hollywood undead #iceberg #long post #ok to reblog

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downtonabbeyrevisited · 4 years ago

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Season Two Episode Two

Following a typically chaotic opener, Episode Two of Season Two strikes a far more sombre tone. The arrival of Henry Lang as Robert’s valet brings the first of this episode’s three plot points that address the impact of WW1 on the mental health of its soldiers. There is nothing funny to say about either shell-shock or suicidal ideation both of which are vast, complex issues that, for my money, Downton Abbey isn’t the vehicle explore in (because they require more time and depth than the pace of the plot in Season Two affords) and it certainly isn’t my place to make light of them in this rather irreverent corner of the internet. So I’m going to have a go at treading a fine line here. Forgive me if I stumble.

Lang is clearly in the grips of something awful and yet in an attempt to avoid the indignity of having maids in the dining room, he is bumped up to footman duty. He struggles throughout, culminating in him depositing his cargo on Edith’s dress. Mrs O’Brein has firmly taken Lang under her wing, recognising that he is struggling and offers him assurance and comfort that she has never gifted to Thomas.

Across the Village, Lieutenant Edward Courtenay is in the hospital having been blinded by gas. The use of gas (both chlorine and mustard) had a devastating impact on soldiers in WW1 but was also the root of the development of Zyklon B. Frtiz Haber, a German Jewish chemist, enabled chlorine gas to be used a weapon in WW1 and his research was later developed into the Zyklon process which was used by the Nazis to murder millions, including his own family. This is only one of a dizzying number of appalling ironies to be found in the World Wars but as I said last episode, I’m not a military historian so I’m going to leave it there. Edward had plans to return to the country after his graduation from Oxford to pursue the simple life (although one gets the feeling that his idea of the pursuit of a simple life will still be one that is very well upholstered). Thomas has taken it upon himself to read Edward’s letters to him and together with Sybil is helping him to adjust to living life with a different set of parameters. But growing pressure on the hospital’s limited capacity means that he is to be transferred elsewhere. All three voice their dissent at varying volumes to Major Clarkson who falls back on the very real backlog of wounded men. After Edward has died, Major Clarkson, Isobel and Sybil talk about a renewed need for the Abbey to become a convalescent home, an idea that has been bubbling under the surface for a while now. Meanwhile, Thomas has been left on his own to process both Edward’s death and the implications of witnessing a lack of support given by his own physician to those with depression.

The usually reliably jovial Mrs Patmore also has a more somber episode with her pursuit for the truth about the death of her nephew Archie. Robert finds that he has been shot for cowardice. Not only does this mean that her family is in mourning but they will now have to navigate the stigma and undue shame that came with having a relative die in this way. So entrenched in British life was the derision levelled at those who were shot for cowardice or desertion that it was only in 2006 that pardons were offered by Britain for 309 of those that were executed by firing squad during WW1. I know I said I’d leave it there with the military history, but that felt like an important bit of context.

We are now in 1917 and Matthew is still in the same trench that he was in 1916 (a detail I hadn’t actually noticed until I got the screen cap for this) so it looks like his strategy of downing tools mid-fight and continuously popping back to Blighty for important plot developments isn’t really paying dividends. Perhaps the addition of William to the ranks will help him? William certainly seems to think so and if the speed at which he moves through the various stages of his ‘relationship’ with Daisy is any indication of his tactical prowess, the British Front will not only be well within Germany’s borders but will be breathing down Russia’s neck in a fortnight. In any other episode, this would certainly get the award for oddest relationship dynamic but Sir Richard Carlisle exists.

Sir Richard makes his debut at Downton, having been introduced in name only in the previous episode. He and Mary met at Cliveden which is a regular haunt of mine, giving me hope that one day I too will from a strategic alliance with a newspaper magnate. He may know how to talk his way around a boardroom but he is lacking in the sartorial department. Whilst Sir Richard manages to avoid catching fire in his tweed, Lavinia is not free from the heat as he threatens her with his connection to her uncle. He may not know much about navigating the niceties of Downton, but at least he has cottoned on to the fact that any major disagreement should occur under a specific tree. Whilst Mary’s signature move is weeping into her gloves, Sir Richard’s is grabbing women by the forearm. A female friend of mine told me that one of her favourite things about the pandemic and the compulsion to keep 2m away from anyone (and not just emotionally) is that she has not been ’steered’ by a male hand on her lower back since 2019. It turns out that she can enter and exit rooms just fine on her own and I get the impression that Lavinia could get the gist of Sir Richard’s rage without the vice like grip of a man probably about twice her age.

Twinned with the ’tree of emotional conflict’, the ‘platform of romantic uncertainty’ provides the backdrop for Sir Richard’s proposal of marriage to Mary which is a declaration that really feels like it should come with a series of well-formatted charts. Mary’s heart, however, is still very much with Cousin Matthew. After being counselled by Carson in a type of conversation I cannot imagine her ever having with her father, she is on the verge of coming clean with Matthew. But in the second round of Lavinia vs. Mary, Lavinia declares that she ‘could not go on living’ without Matthew and Mary winds her neck in.

Also having a romantic entanglement this episode is Edith. Drake, previously of dropsy fame, has lost his farm hands and Edith turns up to offer her help in a wildly unsuitable trouser and heeled boot combo. But she soon gets down to it by pulling up a tree stump and flirting in a barn whilst a rather lovely border collie looks on (I’m currently trying to talk myself out of getting a border collie and this incident has done nothing to help things). After showing Drake that she can drink from a bottle like literally every single other human on the planet, the two share a kiss and some highly awkward dialogue that only slightly resembles ‘Carry on Downton’.

Whilst Edith is more than happy to crack on in a barn, Mr Molesley is much more backwards about coming forwards. Apparently having predicted the creation of ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’, he figures that a book is the perfect kindling for romance when you exist in a glossy depiction of the past. Sadly neither Elizabeth nor her German garden can lure Anna from Bates who is fast shaping up to be schrodinger’s boyfriend. Anna proceeds to make some odd analogy where she compares Mr Bates to her moon-based child, revealing a rather unhealthy amount of codependency in that particular relationship.

Romantic declaration of the moment

Again, it feels like anyone but Sybil and Branson should get this but I am an agent of chaos and here we are. Branson defends Sybil’s will to work and has ample opportunity to see her shine in her chosen field. The admission that she will not be returning to her old life is a little chink of light that Branson basks in.

Expressive eyebrow of the week

I nominate Carson’s entire face when he realises that he has taken on too much and goes an impressive shade of red. As Carson frets about spoons, sauce, and something I can’t quite fathom, he starts to resemble a man who is re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Carson’s battle to get a cork out of a bottle and knocking into chairs is a warm up to his rather dramatic collapse which is accompanied by a pretty disturbing groan. Sybil springs to action and he is soon efficiently ensconced in his own quarters.

Wait, what?

“I got a lot done on the train” Clearly Richard was on a train that was unencumbered with the wifi issues that plague the Pendolino.

“It takes a good deal more than that to shock me.” Mary’s shock-o-meter is a pretty odd instrument. It is unresponsive to corpses of diplomats but goes into absolute meltdown at the notion that she might have to live in a cottage.

“Let's hope my reputation will survive it.” I’ve not checked (and I categorically never will) but I would put money on the fact that someone has created a rarepair out of this.

“How can Matthew have chosen that little blonde piece?” Is Lavinia blonde? Women’s hair is not really my forte but I would have thought she was more akin to Tim Minchin than 1998 Justin Timberlake.

“I believe in this war. I believe in what we are fighting for.” William seems to have a better grip on what all of this is about than I ever did in high school history. The ‘A’ that eluded me is heading his way.

“I thought he might've died for love of you.” How I love snipey Thomas. It’s good to have him back. To borrow a quote from Bottas (another man who is currently living a life in which his destiny is his own demise) ‘traditions’.

“Fold it in, don’t slap it” The more season two goes on, the more I think that Moira is just an amalgamation of some choice elements of Julian’s kingdom.

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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years ago

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Missing Interlude - Fu

Be aware that this interlude will contain medical issues and a trip to the hospital.

Wang Fu had known something was wrong.

Since revealing himself as the Guardian and starting her training in all things regarding the Miraculous, Fu and Marinette had developed something of a schedule. Initially, she would come to his shop frequently to assist him during the time he had been decrypting the Grimoire. From there, the visits had continued as he had also spent more time explaining the Miraculous, their powers, and their history. Over time, he found himself coming to rely on Marinette more. He had felt bad for it at the time as he had known it was an added burden for her, but Marinette had taken it in stride and he was proud of her.

But then the day came when she was supposed to come by again, and she never arrived. He was concerned, but at the time had simply assumed that something had come up. She was still young. She had friends. School. Her family’s bakery. Her growing commissions. Other obligations.

But then one day became two. Became three. Became a week. And he couldn’t fight the unsettling feeling that something was wrong. A feeling only proven correct when he passed by her family’s bakery and found its doors closed and the interior filled with officers instead of customers. Further investigation revealed she had gone missing, and he immediately feared...well...a number of things.

What if Hawk Moth had gotten her? What if Marinette had been kidnapped as a civilian and the earrings stolen by an unknown? What if she had been in an accident of some sort? What if...what if…?

He had been terrified. Not just that something had happened to his apprentice or that her knowledge of the Miraculous could have been discovered, though those were certainly among his concerns.

No. His true fear had been the loss of the girl he had come to care for. If things had been different between himself and Marianne, he’d...hoped that he would have one day had a granddaughter like Marinette. He trusted her more than he had thought. And perhaps cared for her more than he should have.

He was considering breaking his own code and making use of one of the other Miraculous to attempt to find her. The motives may have been selfish, but the need was great. There was no telling what could happen to Marinette or the Ladybug Miraculous the longer it took to find them.

“Ladybug! Hey! Hey, Ladybug!”

But he had never gotten the chance.

He had been confused at first. Though he was admittedly more focused on the relief he felt at the sight of her. He simply stared in wonder as he witnessed the scene between Ladybug and two of her civilian friends. Alya and Nino, he believed. The identities behind Rena Rouge and Carapace, he absently remembered. But he was still more taken with the sight of the missing girl before him.

She was there. Safe. And it was clearly the Ladybug he knew. The Miraculous took different forms for each wielder, so it couldn’t be someone else pretending to be her. And even with both the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous active and capable of creating akumas and sentimonsters in her image, Fu prided himself on being able to pick out the true Ladybug earrings.

This was Marinette. But something...something was wrong.

It was in her mannerisms. Her tone. Her stance. Similar...but still different from her normal self. He didn’t quite understand it, but there was something that bothered him about her. So against his initial desire, he refrained from approaching her. Instead, he simply watched.

He continued to keep an eye on her after that. And the more he saw, the more he grew concerned. What was she doing? Why was she transformed? Why had she not returned home? Had Hawk Moth found her? Had someone discovered her identity? Had she been compromised? And if something had happened, why had she not come to him?

But the more he saw...the more concerned he became.

She was wandering the city with no real destination or purpose. She wasn’t avoiding her bakery either, as she had passed near enough to it plenty of times, but she didn’t stop there. She...wasn’t stopping anywhere specific. If she even stopped at all.

She seemed to be searching, though for what he couldn’t say.

Wayzz couldn’t either when he tried to consult him. Much like his user, he knew something was wrong. Though on a deeper level, he sensed that there was something unusual with the current state of the Ladybug Miraculous. It wasn’t an akuma or a sentimonster as far as he could tell, but he insisted that something was different.

They agreed to keep watch. As days passed, he had caught her at points dozing in unusual places. On a roof. In a tree. Never for long. And she never returned to the same place twice. Instead, she just kept moving. To no goal. To no end.

It was...aimless.

He had dared to approach her once. He had wanted to question her. To demand answers. To find out what had happened.

What...just what was she doing?

But in that moment when they had met, it struck him. Just what had been so off about her. It was in the way she gazed down at him.

It was like she didn’t know him at all.

He had proceeded cautiously. Hinting at where she should be without questioning. Not demanding answers, but trying to get a feel for her current state.

But her responses...there was such detachment there. Like she didn’t know what he was talking about. Like the concept of a “home” or “loved ones” was foreign to her.

“Do you not have a life to return to? A family waiting for you?”

“Of course not.”

Her answer had been unsettlingly callous. But...sincere.

It wasn’t true. He knew that.

...but she believed it.

And he felt a coldness in the depth of his heart as she turned and walked away.

After that incident, he had immediately returned to his shop and consulted every means at his disposal. The Grimoire. The kwamis. His own limited knowledge from his memories at the temple.

He continued to watch over Ladybug, and have Wayzz follow her when he could not. But it was only after the fight against the return of Lady Wifi that he had been presented with a clue. And looking back over footage of the previous akuma fight before then that seemed to cement it.

This must have started during the last akuma fight. He did not know if or when Ladybug had been hit, but the timeline matched up that she hadn’t returned to being Marinette since then. He saw the images and video of the Cure taking effect, gathering around and healing everyone who had been affected.

...everyone except Ladybug herself.

The Cure would only work if Ladybug let if. But if she had directed it away from herself, the Loveliness wouldn’t heal her. And if Ladybug had been hit by the akuma, then she may not know she needed to be healed. Except…

Hadn’t the akuma’s power been to erase people?

It would explain Ladybug’s strange state. Her confusion when he attempted to prod her about returning home. Her lack of awareness and purposeless wandering around the city. As well as why her civilian self as “Marinette” wasn’t returning.

She didn’t know she could.

No. Worse. There was no “Marinette” to return to.

If it was a matter of memory erasure like the incident with Oblivio, it shouldn’t have mattered. At most, Marinette would have detransformed and then be wandering the streets with amnesia. Still terrifying, of course, as she would be vulnerable and anything could have happened to her in that state. But at least she could be found.

...but she was still Ladybug. From her presentation and response, it certainly appeared that she hadn’t stopped being Ladybug since that battle. It shouldn’t be possible. Tikki should have given up the transformation by now. The only reason the kwami wouldn’t...the only reason he could think of that she would force the transformation to remain past the time limit would be if detransforming would result in the loss of the user’s life.

From what he had seen of reports, the akuma erased people. Not just their memories, but their entire existence. But if Ladybug had gotten hit, she should have disappeared, shouldn’t she? Her ‘self’ should be gone completely.

“But Master,” Wayzz argued. “What if Tikki had sacrificed Ladybug’s ‘self’ as Marinette in order to preserve her as Ladybug to allow them to finish the battle?”

Fu’s eyes widened.

That was a possibility. It would give them the chance to defeat the akuma and set things right. If Ladybug purified the akuma and cast the Cure, it would restore her original self as Marinette as well. A major loss, certainly. But a temporary one.

...but it hadn’t accounted for the chance that Ladybug would not be healed by her own Cure. Or that she wouldn’t think she needed to be.

That was it, he realized.

Without any knowledge of her ‘self’ as Marinette, Ladybug didn’t know she was incomplete. She likely had no memory of anything from her time as Marinette due to this, which would also explain why she hadn’t tried coming to him for aid. She may not have even known she needed help, much less who to go to for it.

“Then the solution is simple.” He told his kwami. “We need to find Ladybug and inform her to cast the Cure on herself.”

Wayzz smiled brightly. “That’s brilliant, Master! Then Marinette will be returned in no time!”

It was simple.

...it should have been simple.

But as he approached Ladybug with her true name on his lips, he felt an invisible noose settle around his throat.

“Ladybug.”

She stopped and turned to him. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Given her expression, he half wondered if she was capable of it. Or any other emotion.

“Hello again, sir. Is everything all right?” She asked, giving him a cursory glance for any injury or any issue of note.

“I am fine, Miss Ladybug.” He replied. While he wanted nothing more than to just tell her the truth, her lack of recognition meant she didn’t know he was the Guardian and thus likely wouldn’t take him seriously.

He had to proceed cautiously.

“But I did wonder about yourself. These past battles have been hard, but I did notice you did not seem to use the Miraculous Cure on yourself. Are you well?”

She frowned, seeming to be confused by his statement. “It wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t injured.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “It can appear that way. But some wounds are not so easily seen though they can be the most dangerous.”

“I see…” Clearly she didn’t. Her frown only deepened. “I am fine though.”

“But you don’t know where to go. You don’t know where you should be.” He countered. “Ladybug only appears in times of need. Outside of akuma attacks or other problems, her appearance in this city is limited. But you have been quite active for a while now. What have you been doing outside of these times?”

She had looked ready to argue with him, but hesitated at his question, looking unsure. “I...sleep. I think.”

“Is there not someone else beneath the mask?” He asked. “The Miraculous are simply items. Tools for the user. Behind every Miraculous user is a human. Even Hawk Moth was someone before he became a villain.”

He stared up at her, questioningly.

“Who were you?”

She faltered. “I...wasn’t anyone before I was Ladybug.” She shook her head as if shaking off the confusion from his remarks. “Perhaps the Ladybug Miraculous works differently.”

“Then how did you know what to do when Stoneheart appeared? How do you know this city and its people? How do you have no knowledge of other instances of the Ladybug Miraculous being active before the present age?”

He just needed her to consider...to be willing to listen.

“How do you know these things?” She demanded. She grew agitated, but she was at least paying attention to his words. Now she knew that he had knowledge of things that no normal citizen should. This would make him someone of note. Someone whom she could, if not trust, then at least listen to.

It would work.

He knew it would work.

Because...

“Because I know you, Ladybug.”

He smiled warmly.

“I know you, M—”

He felt it then. What he had thought was his imagination earlier made itself known as magic tightened around his throat, cutting off his air and forcing him into a coughing fit.

“Sir?! Is something wrong?”

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

Something formed around his throat. Harder than steel and lighter than air. It couldn’t be seen, only felt. And he recognized in horror the magic that coalesced around him, cutting off his words and forbidding so much as a sound.

No.

Just one word.

Much like the kwamis, the Order of the Guardians had rules and laws that bound them. For the kwamis, it bound them to their respective Miraculous and the commands of their owners. For the Guardians, it bound them to the Miracle Box and to ensuring its safety above all. For both, it bound them to their secrets.

After all, the Order were not jailers for the kwamis and Miraculous. They were Guardians. Meant to protect the Miracle Box and the amazing beings hidden within. How could there be trust if they were not held by the same rules?

Fu himself had taken the oath when he first joined the Guardians. Regardless of his feelings at the time, he had agreed to the duty despite knowing what it would mean. At the time, he thought it meant loneliness away from his family to bear a heavy responsibility he never wanted. To give up most of his life to a cause he was drafted into. He regretted it even then.

...never did he regret taking that oath more than now.

“You—”

“Sir?”

“Y-you are—”

“Sir? Are you all right?”

He had to say it. He desperately tried to force the word out. But so much as a breath of the first syllable was caught in his throat, choking him.

For the kwamis, this ancient magic transformed words themselves from sound into a physical form. It looked humorous, certainly, but they described the process as unpleasant. Kwamis were magical creatures who were—if not used to the magic in question, at least accustomed to magic. They were capable of handling the magical backlash. Built for it, even.

Humans weren’t.

He had never attempted to reveal a Miraculous user before. In the century since the loss of the Order, he had never needed to choose other users for this to ever be an issue. Even Marianne, as much as he had loved her, had never donned one of the sacred relics. Perhaps it was part out of his lingering fear from his past mistake that led him to be the last Guardian. But perhaps in its own way, it was out of selfishness and a hope that if a time came when he would pass on Guardianship, that Marianne would be a memory that would remain.

Perhaps if he had experienced it before, he would have realized sooner what would happen here. He could have done this differently. Introduced himself immediately and presented Wayzz as proof. Then tell her she needed to cast the Cure on herself. Find a way to explain it that didn’t involve directly infringing on the oath and resulting in this circumstance.

“Sir?!”

He had acted rashly. Too rashly.

And now, it was all he could do—all he could focus on. To simply say it. Shout it. Gasp it out. Make her hear it.

Just that. One. Word.

He clutched at his throat, trying to breathe past the coalescing combination of magic and sound. He barely heard Ladybug speaking to him. So intent on fighting the magic and telling her the key.

But...he was only human.

And in the end, magic won.

He found himself kneeling on the ground, gasping for air. His vision going dark, he only made out blurred images around him. Lights. Figures. Colors. Blue and red. Black and white. Red and black.

And the red. The red was leaving.

He tried to speak. Tried to stop her. But there was too much chaos. Voices were talking to him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. Didn’t really comprehend what they were doing. Only that they were moving him as he suddenly found himself on a flat surface and brought him into a smaller cubical area. The wide door was closed behind them as they entered. The figures continued to ask questions.

But it didn’t matter. Nothing did.

His eyes closed.

He was such a fool.

#missing #ml fic #master fu #ladybug #wayzz #ml angst

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yelenasdog · 4 years ago

Text

my girlfriend is a witch (spencer reid x witchy! fem reader)

INSPIRED BY THE SONG “My Girlfriend Is a Witch” BY October Country

genre: fluff w like maybe two seconds of angst

summary: he could feel she was hiding something, but she didn’t mean for him to find out like this.

words: 2.6k

warnings: i cannot think of any for the life of me other than crying. also, disclaimer at the end of fic.

a/n: pls listen to “my girlfriend is a witch” by october country and “john barleycorn (must die)” by traffic, while u read. i’ve been meaning to get this fic out for ages, so i hope this is good! enjoy lovies!

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

It was hot, humid, and sticky under the Malibu sun.

Rubber soles from both boots and sandals alike, most likely the cheap ones you can buy at any tourist-targeted shops surrounding the vacationer heavy area, stuck to the asphalt streets, leaving a sticky tar in its wake.

SSA Y/n Y/l/n was not a fan, to put it lightly.

Her arm hung limp against her forehead as she leaned back against the black leather seats of the car she resided in, the material burning her bare arms. Literally.

And even if she were to be exaggerating, she still strongly felt that welts would be left where she had placed her limb for far too long.

She long ago had abandoned her blazer in the backseat of her vehicle due to the excruciating heat, the cotton material feeling heavy on her arms, so she turned up the AC with one hand, while slicking back the baby hairs that had managed to fall onto her forehead with the other. It was graced with beads of sickly sweat, not unlike the rest of her body.

Some repetitive song played on the stereo that she couldn’t quite figure out how to operate in the outdated FBI issued vehicle she was using, adding to her annoyance of what seemed to be to no end.

The unfortunate ride was the result of her normal vehicle being in the shop, and rather than pay for a rental, she took whatever was left in the garage, however horrible it may be.

After sitting in hours of tiresome traffic, enduring the aforementioned reptititive song, and the entire John Barleycorn Must Die album later, (hey, it was in the glovebox, and it beat whatever had been on the radio) she finally had arrived at her destination.

She stepped out of the car, huffing at the sight in front of her. She took her black RayBans off, sliding them into her pocket of her slacks before slamming the silver door. Y/n then winced at the cracking sound that rang out. She walked forward, not wanting to look at the damage she had caused.

“That’s coming out of my paycheck.” She muttered, chewing on her chapped bottom lip, feeling the sting shoot through her nerves.

The door to the PD office she had been approaching swung open by a very frustrated officer. He breezed past her and she leaned back, placing a hand onto the warm concrete of the establishment behind her. She barely was missed by him in all his rage.

Y/l/n squinted her eyes, the rays of light clouding her vision. She began to regret taking her glasses off earlier, but disregarded the thought and continued into brick building.

The first person that she saw when she entered was the local sheriff. He was medium build, bald, and there was a bright grin that covered his face, far too bright for the current atmosphere, in her humble opinion.

“Ah, Agent, It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She reached forward offering a self-manicured hand, still slightly sweaty from the car ride.

“Pleasure’s all mine. So,” she began, walking over to where the rest of the team was examining what seemed to be a yellowed piece of parchment.

“What are we looking at?” She questioned, doing her best to get a look at whatever it was at the center of attention.

Almost like clockwork, or perhaps like a dog who was able to sense their favorite person arriving home, Spencer appeared from the back of the precinct, coffees in hand.

He passed the one is his right hand to his girlfriend, leaning forward for a kiss on the cheek that Y/n had almost ignored. She rolled her eyes at the needy man, muttering “thank you, Spencer” In a sarcastic tone, placing a quick peck on his cheek. He pouted, and she rolled her eyes once more.

As she walked forward and took a sip of the hot drink, the rest of the BAU parted, allowing her to observe the sheet. After looking at it for a few moments, she spoke up, her words overlapping with Hotch’s.

“We have no idea what it is, Penelope did a search and couldn’t find anything of use, it doesn’t translate to anything-“

“These are runes and glyphs. Horribly written, not by someone who’s an expert in the craft. The corner of the page looks like there’s-“ she paused, leaning forward. Her eyes slimmed, scanning over the page, the necklace around her neck dangled, catching Spencer’s eye.

“Yeah, this looks like a sigil. If you give me some time I could try to work out what it was for.”

She looked up, meeting the confused glancing of everyone, including her boyfriend. Prentiss was the next to speak, albeit very cautiously.

“Alright, well, do you have any ideas about what the other symbols mean?”

“Off of the top of my head?” She turned towards the paper once more, “To reiterate, this person mixed multiple different kinds of glyphs, so it might be difficult to collectively translate them, but so far I’m getting life, death-“

“Very original of them.” Morgan joked, resulting in a smile and the signature eye roll of Y/n.

“Power, fear, balance. That’s the first line.”

“Reid, are you writing that down?” Aaron questioned. Spencer nodded, not even looking up from his clipboard where he was writing the info. “Y/n, continue.”

She bobbed her head once, bringing her attention back to the 2nd line. She was silent for a bit, at one point grabbing around for a sticky note and pen. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she was carefully handed one by a reluctant Spence.

Everyone watched in amazement, amusement, and a little bit of confusion, as she wrote on the paper, scribbling what looked like nonsense next to some dates. After what seemed like hours (but was really just minutes) she pulled away, looking towards her significant other.

“When were all the victims killed?”

“September 29th, November 6th, November 9th, and that’s it.”

“And how did each of the victims thus far die?”

Hotch cut in, his arms crossed and his glance careful. “How are you certain there will be more killings?”

She ignored him, turning to Reid.

“Reid, how did they die?”

“First victim, stab wound, 2nd victim drowned, 3rd victim-“

“Burned alive?”

As this was the first time she had been made aware of the case (she had been attending to other business back in Quantico and had to fly commercial with no wifi, meaning no access to Penny to catch her up), her knowledge bewildered them greatly.

Seeing their concern spread on their faces, she picked up the photocopy, bringing it to where they were huddled. She stood in the center, pinky pointing and following along with what she was speaking of.

“This symbol here,” she pointed, making sure she held everyone’s attention”, is a rune for “New Moon”. She then went on to describe how each of the days correspond with the Moon phases, as well as the matching rune and glyphs left on the page.

“I still don’t understand how that explains more killings?” Spencer spoke, his usual high IQ seemingly not working, a problem he had whenever he was around his beloved.

She walked over to him and smiled, shaking her head. She then explained the rest of the runes in detail, how they each had a meaning that applied to the way they were killed, and how there was still one more moon phase left and one more element as well.

The pair was separated once more as Spencer nodded in understanding, his mouth left agape. She admired him for a brief moment, the way his eyes were like large stones of sparkling tiger eye, his lips the color of a rose.

Interrupting her, Hotch pulled her into a meeting room where Morgan was already waiting. Spencer stared, following her movements.

“Spence? Let’s go work on the geographical profile?” Emily asked, already on her way. He nodded, slanting his eyes briefly through the blinds of the glass. He blinked a few times, feeling like grains of sand had sunk to his waterline. He shook his head like a wet dog, ridding blooming thoughts from his mind, then continuing on from where he stood, doing his best to turn his focus elsewhere completely.

Meanwhile, Hotch was questioning her, Y/n’s knowledge about how the runes and glyphs themselves were written coming in handy for what that meant about the unsub, as well as building a profile. She was surprisingly educated on the subject, which the unit chief had decided to ignore all together, staying focused on the case.

By the end of the work day, the profile was ready to be delivered, she had figured out the presumably intended use of the sigil, and the geographic profile was nearly finished.

Satisfied with the day's work, she happily bid her goodbyes and exited the horribly boring meeting room, finding Spencer waiting by the door, coffee still in hand. He looked around the area, his eyes wandering over the portraits that hung on the walls of former officers.

“Spence, you ready?” She quipped, taking the coffee out of his hand and taking a sip. Spencer huffed, taking it back from her and throwing it away, no longer craving the warm beverage once it had touched her lips.

Spencer nodded, wrapping a hand around her waist and starting the long walk to the SUV from the building. They were quiet for most of the miniature journey, listening to the chirps of the cicadas, and the hot summer wind blowing in the branches of the palm trees. Y/n hummed quietly, finding herself in a peaceful state as she walked along with Spencer.

Spencer, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. His mind was running, trying to process the day’s happenings.

As maybe it was the obsidian that hung around her neck on a sterling silver chain, or perhaps the selenite she kept on her desk and the amethyst she made Penny keep in her batcave, claiming they were “just very pretty!”

It could have been the way she was seemingly always busy on full moons, or even the peculiar deck of “playing cards” that she keeps in her 2nd drawer of her desk, pushed far to the left.

Not to mention the jars of seemingly normal water that he wasn’t allowed to drink from or empty, and the odd combinations of what seemed to be shapes and letters that she had stitched on the inside of Spencer’s satchel (it took quite the convincing, but to her it was seemingly important, so he allowed it reluctantly).

Possibly most convincing of all was the events of the day, her enlightenment on the subjects at hand leaving an uneasiness in the genius’ stomach.

Spencer wasn’t sure how he couldn’t have figured it out sooner.

His girlfriend was a witch.

The realization made him stop suddenly in his tracks, causing her to briefly trip over her own feet. She gave him a conflicted look, concern also present within the glance.

“Spencer? What’s wrong, are you alright?”

He opened his mouth and then shut it again, whatever he had to say not completely ready to be put out in the world. He simply made a line with his lips before continuing on, leaving her where she stood. She cocked her head, confused noises leaving her throat.

She jogged to catch up with the man, his long legs making him walk awfully fast. Usually, Spencer would slow down so she could walk beside him in harmony, occasionally holding hands. But as of now, she was struggling to stay in pace with him, and she was beginning to feel fairly annoyed.

“Spencer Walter Reid! What is going on!?”

He looked behind his shoulder, only slowing his pace rather than coming to a complete stop. She managed to fall back into step with him, her gaze never leaving his form.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She bit her tongue, then ran it over her front teeth unaware of what he was referring to. “Tell you what, Reid?”

He shook his head, once more allowing his lips to turn into a straight line, slightly puffing up at his cupid's bow. “You know, about being a witch, or whatever.” He was much quieter when saying the second part of the sentence, his voice quite low.

The statement had shocked Y/n to some degree, but she kept walking, still trying to stay in step with the doctor. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about this, if she should lie and tell him he was being silly, if she should come clean about her “hobbies”. She simply didn’t know.

She decided to just not speak until much later.

It was after the car ride with the rest of the team (which was quite awkward, considering they could tell something was off between the two lovers), and after they both had eaten and showered before getting ready for bed. Y/n was sitting on one twin sized bed, while Spencer was sitting on the other, reading something from his laptop, which was very unlike him.

Y/n on the other hand couldn’t keep her mind off of the question he had asked earlier. I mean, she had an answer, that much was true. But if she wanted to give it to him, she could not bear to decide. She was staring at the cheesy hotel art on the beige wall, heat still radiating in from the open window that was cracked in the first place to combat the lack of AC.

Her gaze never faltered from the painting of the vase of flowers, the colors seemingly muted. She began to speak, slowly, cautiously.

“I didn’t tell you, because I honestly didn’t think you would care. I mean, maybe you would, but I thought that your whole science thing would make you think I was nuts…” She shook her head, looking to the ceiling. She could feel her boyfriend burning holes into the side of her head, staring.

“Although there’s plenty of science to back it up, and even if there wasn’t, science accepts or rejects ideas based on the evidence; it doesn’t-”

“-Prove or disprove them.”

She looked over and met Spencer’s sad hazel eyes, suddenly feeling very, very guilty.

His voice was quiet as a mouse, he was unable to keep eye contact for long, feeling the need to turn away.

“Metaphysics is an interesting form of philosophy that i’ve done a fair amount of research on, and the CIA has done extensive research on astral projection among other things widely considered to be nonsense phenomena, discarded by most otherwise.”

Her heart sunk and sang all at once, an inexplicable emotion rising like the tide, all the way up to her eyes, a tear slipping out and rolling down her cheek.

“If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. I would have listened, Y/n. I still will, if you care to tell me about it.”

She looked up from the beige comforters of the motel room bed, feeling an almost magnetic pull tugging her towards Spencer. So she stood and he opened his arms, allowing her to find comfort in his embrace.

“I’m sorry Spence.”

“It’s alright, I just want you to know how much you mean to me, Y/n/n. I will respect and handle anything and everything you throw my way, okay? Nothing could change how much I love you.”

She nodded, a muffled “okay” leaving her lips. He chuckled, pulling her closer. They stayed in that position for some time, savouring each other’s warmth. After she collected herself, feeling rejuvenated, she pulled away, a bright grin creeping its way onto her features.

“So,” she smirked, Spencer raised an unruly brow.

“Where do you wanna start?”

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

kinda hate it ngl. but i hope someone out there enjoyed it. for sure not my best writing and it’s a bit confusing but whatever.

DISCLAIMER: my mother and i both regularly participate in metaphysical practices, such as tarot, oracle, the usage of incense and crystals, sigils, spirit guide communication, etc. as well as several practices drawn from hinduism but regularly (and wrongly) culturally appropriated by the west, (chakras, manifestation) while also identifying with and following the methodist faith. i understand and appreciate the origins of it within hinduism, and this is in no way meant to offend anyone whatsoever and is simply for entertainment purposes. no closed practices should be participated in unless invited or born into said practice, and none have been, nor will be. (:

(also ty to roo for educating me on hinduism and how it’s been morphed and appropriated by the west, mwah ur the best)

love u, xx hj

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