#I’m sick of spending nearly the last decade of my life working without pay

[aspiringhorrorauthor]

I am so fucking done with living down south. Someone get me home

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Bank of England

So the Bank of England has now literally said, “Britons need to accept that they are poorer now”. Now, in very small fairness to them, they have stated that this means that companies should not be jacking up the prices on everything in order to maintain their profit margins. However, it’s also being used to beat the drum of, “Stop asking for wage increases”, and it’s flagged up that a lot of the main companies found that higher prices boosted their sales revenue this year and we’re looking at nearly 20% on food inflation. That’s not even counting the bullshit with the energy companies.

Keep in mind that this statement came from the Bank of England, who is run by a man who makes nearly £500k per year. Said governor, Andrew Bailey, was the first one to say that we have to stop asking for pay rises. The chief economist, Huw Pill, makes nearly £200k per year.

Median salary for people in the UK? £32,300.

So the words, “Easy for them to say” ring rather loudly.

Now, if they were explicitly saying, “Look, companies cannot stunt their staff’s wages to increase their profit margins this way because you will end up with no one being able to buy anything and everyone loses, so suck up the reduced profit margins, for fuck’s sake”, that would be one thing. But of course, that’s not how the economy works anymore. All that matters is that the numbers are higher than last year. There’s nothing backing this money ... except other people’s hard work. And companies are abusing the fact that no one really seems to understand this ... or, if they do, are called socialists or communists or worse if they call it out.

The fact is that people’s labour hasn’t been valued properly in a very long time, because corporations have been devaluing it for decades. We’re more productive than ever, and we have less and less to show for it. We deserve pay rises more than these ultra-wealthy jackasses need a new boat. And people on six-figure salaries have a fucking nerve telling people who are barely surviving (if they are indeed doing that well) that “you have to get used to being poorer now”. Those people this shithead’s talking about? They were already used to being poor. And no one should have to get used to being fucking destitute.

I own my privilege in that my mother took full advantage of every opportunity to get financially ahead in the 80s and 90s and is now reaping the benefits, and is at least understanding enough of current circumstances to help me. I’d be boned if I didn’t have that financial safety net. I mean it - I could not manage. Even with that, there’s a reason I took more hours at work, that reason being I can’t really afford not to. I want and need to manage on my own as much as possible, but it’s difficult because, you know, disabled. The extra five hours a week were a mistake. I am already feeling how much of a mistake that was. But I haven’t really got a choice, so I’m just going to have to spend some of that lovely extra money on painkillers and carry on. Because it’s only going to get worse from here.

So ... yeah. Here’s me, with my fibromyalgia and my dietary restrictions and all of it making life difficult financially. If I had to pay rent, I’d ... I just wouldn’t be able to. If I can barely manage a six-hour workday when I don’t even have to commute, I can’t imagine a standard workday. (I’d say 9-5, but I don’t know if that’s even standard anymore; somehow it feels overly generous for the world today.) Add a commute into the equation on top of that? I remember how it was before I went on long-term sick leave to pursue a diagnosis on all this; how I ended up spending almost half my day near or in tears from the pain. And I think how lucky I am, because without support, I’d still be doing that, and I wouldn’t be living in half as nice a place. And even with that, I’m still pushing myself harder than I should to manage all the stuff that isn’t rent.

And these jackasses with their six-figure salaries are telling people like me - and more to the point, those who are worse off than I am - that they have to get used to being even poorer?

Part of this is being hangry, I admit. Dinner’s in the oven, and tomorrow’s online grocery shopping day, and I am going to arrange my purchases so I have the fixings for quick lunches that I can eat at the “employment” side of my desk. And then I will get in the habit of actually bringing those to my desk first thing so I don’t forget while in The Zone. Anyway, part of this is hangry, but most of it is just ... there’s not even a word for what it feels like to live in this country anymore. There’s anger and there’s sadness and there’s blind panic and creeping terror and this miserable resignation and ... it’s all bad, put it that way.

At least I will feel better after I’ve eaten. I’m just tired of having to feel this fortunate to be eating at all. It’s more than a lot of the people who’ve been told to “just accept that you’re poorer and stop asking for a raise” can do today.

[nat-20s]

PROMPT! the first time the s1 archive gang hangs out outside of work (any variation of the group, doesn’t have to be All of them)

This is only the Archive Assistant sqaud, bc I’m sorry Jon, but no bosses allowed. Also it’s VERY silly and soft bc sometimes u just wanna write nice things u know

(also also fuck I lovecompletely missed that this said “first time” they hang out but uhh. I hope u like it anyway.)

Tim Stoker like to think that, sometimes, not to toot his own horn, but he can be something of a genius. When a cousin’s cousin had offered to let him use their cozy little cabin for a night or two in exchange for help with moving, he had been struck with what could only be humbly described as “inspiration of the most divine nature”. For, as nice as a Friday evening away from it all by himself sounds, it’s so much nicer for a Friday evening away from it all to serve as Archival Assistants Bonding Time™. Or well, more like Tim and Sasha, Who Are Already Best Friends Forever, Figure Out What Martin’s Deal Is, Because For A Guy So Chatty, He Sure Is Mysterious Time™, but that’s not nearly as catchy. Truly, his plan was brilliant, bringing two compatriots and an excessive amount of food and drink to a spot away from the prying eyes of the world and bosses, and feast in the openness and silliness that comes from having a great fucking time.

His plan, and his genius, were tragically derailed. While he knew on their drive up that the air was rapidly getting cooler, Tim couldn’t have even pretended to predict that an hour into their stay would bring a freak blizzard that means they’re snowed in for the next three days, which was 3 times longer than he had accounted on spending with his coworkers/friends. There was more than enough food to last them, and almost enough alcohol, but as Sasha so kindly put it:

“First you make us reenact the first scene of every bad teen slasher movie, now there’s a fucking white out. If we lose power, I’m telling you, there is absolutely going to be a murder.”

“Pfft, no way. The guy who owns this place is one of those weird ass prepper types, there’s a back up generator for the back up generator. And even if we did lose power, we’re all much more the “huddle for warmth under a shared blanket in front of the roaring fire” types than the “get panicked and stab someone in darkness” types, right? Back me up here, Marto.”

Martin, who at three shots in is both hilarious and mean, directs his response to Sasha. “in the event of a black-out I vote we kill Tim. I can take him down and you can finish the job.”

Sasha tips her cup at him, saying, “I like the way you think,” at the same time that Tim yells out, “Hey! Why am I the one dying?!”

Sasha tells him, “Duh. This whole thing was your idea, which makes you the Dr. Black* of this situation. Any good mansion murder mystery dictates the the host dies first. Then, in a moment of entirely unplanned synchronization, her and Martin start chanting, “Host dies first! Host dies first!”

“Okay, you know what? Fuck both of y’all, it’s not my fault that you’re both thoroughbred city slickers that can’t handle being in a cabin with plumbing and running water and electricity. Didn’t either of you go camping as kids?”

Sasha replies “No I’m far too pretty for that,” while Martin bursts out laughing. It takes about 20 seconds for him to settle down. Wiping away a tear, he elaborates, “Sorry, sorry, just. Can not imagine my mother on a camping trip.  I mean, sure, she probably hoped at one point or another that I’d be lost in the woods as a child, or maybe even now, but I think that’s a bit different.”

Tim leans over the kitchen counter, placing his chin in his hands as he says, “Oh shit, Martin lore. Spill the deets.”

Sasha, who’s loyalties tend to sway towards whatever’s most interesting in the moment, piles on with, “You called her your mother, not your mum. That’s means she’s pretty much a right bastard, or a member of the aristocracy, which is just another term for right bastard but you got to grow up as a rich kid. Am I right?”

It’s clear the the two of them have made a grave mistake. All joviality flees Martin’s expression, and he shrinks down both his physical presence and his voice to something that could easily be overlooked if someone wasn’t paying attention. “Oh, um, well, I definitely didn’t grow up as a rich kid. And, it terms of the ‘right bastard’ thing, she’s not- er. That’s to say, she’s- she’s sick and. She’s doing the best she can, given, given everything.”

Martin pointedly looks at his hands while Tim and Sasha panickedly look at each other. They go to either side of him, and when he doesn’t flinch away, they each place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Tim immediately feels the itch to fill the heavy quiet, and he happens to know he has quite the talent for blazing on ahead after these kinds of moments. It’s how he’s survived basically party for the past decade. “Ooookay, I’m gonna go ahead and say that all depressing familial reveals shall be held off until at least the second night of being trapped. While Sasha may have irritatingly few skeletons in her closet in that regard-”

“I have Tory grandparents?”

“We all have Tory grandparents Sash, that’s absolutely nothing. As I was saying, while Sash’s family is boring and semi functional, you and me are gonna do some fuckin’ commiserating on our journey from work friends to friend friends. However, I’m going to have to be 40% drunker, go through a decently strong hangover, and then once again get hair of the dog drunk before I can even start to consider heading down that path. And in that spirit, I think it’s time to start up the drinking games. Truth or dare might end up a bit too heavy for our needs, but Never Have I Ever should suit us just fine. I know I’m gonna regret saying this considering Sasha is 100% going to target my ass, but I think we should establish that whoever puts all ten fingers down first has to chug the rest of the box wine.”

Sasha pipes up with, “Ugh, no, not drinking games, that’s such twenty-something bullshit. I expected better from you.”

“Hey, Martin is a twenty-something, so that still works fine actually-”

“Tim!”

“What?”

Martin’s directing wide, bordering on frantic, eyes at him, and Tim is almost certainly missing something, though he can’t for the life of him figure it out. Sasha’s head is bobbing slightly between the two of them, and shes apparently able to parse what Tim has not. “Oh! Martin, uh, I already know that you’re 2, and it’s cool.”

“Did..did Tim tell you or?”

Tim scoffs out an “I wouldn’t!” even though there’s a distinct possibility that, entirely on accident, he would, and Sasha makes a reassuring coo. “No, no, babe, nothing like that. It’s just that, uh, the Magnus Institute is kind of notorious for not doing any background checks pretty much ever, so when I get a new coworker, I..do it myself.”

Martin’s face blanches, and his eyes somehow get even wider. “Oh god, please don’t tell Jon or Elias, I know I don’t have the credentials, but I really need-”

“Woah, woah, I’m not gonna do that. First of all, archival assistant squad, we ride together we die together in a snowed in god forsaken log cabin, secondly, it’d be hypocritical as fuck if I got up your ass about qualifications. Not a single one of us is qualified for our jobs, not even Jon. Maybe especially not Jon. It’s like, raise your hand if you have a degree in library sciences. No one? Okay, cool, that’s not weird at all for an archive. Actually, maybe bring that up next time he gives you shit. He’ll be all like ‘bluh bluh, you didn’t document this spooky bullshit well enough, it’s not up to the High Standards here at Spooky Bullshit Emporium’ and you can be like ‘whatever buddy, you’re an English major, what do you fuckin’ know?’. It’ll be devastating. He’ll be devastated.”

Martin laughs in the manner of someone who knows that they shouldn’t be, and his shoulders relax into  a lower position. “Why would you want me to devastate him? I thought you guys were friends?”

“We are, which is why we all collectively need to get back at Jon for acting like such a prick. He’s always been a bit temperamental, but I honestly don’t get what his deal is, especially with you. I mean, c’mon, you’re great, being mean to you is like kicking a puppy.”

“Thanks? I think?”

Tim pipes up with, “Oooo, since drinking games are apparently too childish for Sasha, what if instead we play ‘What’s Jon’s Deal Anyway, Featuring, Seriously, Why Target Martin, The Baby of The Archives’-”

“-That feels a bit reductive of who I am and I also I think I’m technically older than Jon?-”

“-Whoever comes up with the best explanation, and by best obviously I mean most entertaining, gets an all expense paid trip from the other two to one of the charity shops I know we all frequent.”

Sasha snorts, “Wow, a whole twenty quid, who could resist such temptation. But also, I’m in, I think I have a winner and I have a violent need to out-cardigan Jon.”

Martin’s relaxation is gone again, which Tim thinks need to be fixed through aggressively passing a glass of wine towards him. He takes it without protest, takes a long drink, and says, “This seems more like 3 am conversation than a 9 pm one.”

Sasha gives an encouraging nudge, prompting another drink, and replies, “Yeah, well, I am not gonna make it to 3 am. I’ve got about an hour until the Alcohol Sleepiness sets in, and I know Tim will be right behind me.”

“Sashaaaaaa, you’re ruining my reputation as a young-at-heart, party-all-night kind of guy.”

“Babe, you’ve complained about your bones aching often enough that you’ve never had that reputation.”

“Surrounded by mean drunks, that’s what I am. I should be pitied.”

Martin shoots a glance towards Sasha, then replies, “You’d be more pitiable if this entire thing wasn’t, you know, entirely your own fault.”

Sasha nods sagely, “It’s true. If you were pitiable then maybe you wouldn’t have to die first.”

“You know what? I am uncomfortable with the energy that’s been created in this room, how about we divert some of that towards complaining about our bosses, as coworkers who are hanging out and having a good time and not bullying me are supposed to do.”

Sasha giggles slightly as she leans down and presses a kiss to Tim’s cheek. “Aw, sorry, Tim. I promise to double cross Martin when if becomes killing time.”

Tim melts a little, even as he’s replying, “Wait, when?” Martin takes another sip and says, “Whatever. I could take you both.”

How the hell are you supposed to resist a set up like that? With an over the top wink and cheesy grin, Tim says, “I bet you could, big guy.”

He’s expecting a slightly flustered reaction, maybe a higher pitched voice and a blush, if he’s lucky. He gets all of those things, but it’s Sasha saying, “Oh my god.” Martin only gives him a raised eyebrow and level stare, and Tim makes a mental note to reevaluate his dedication to only considering Martin in a strictly platonic fashion. Sasha continues talking, cutting through the..tension? with, “Okay, now I am uncomfortable with the energy that’s been created in this room. Tim, tell the studio audience what you think is up with Jon.”

Tim blinks, hard, gives a shake of his head, and says, “Oh, obviously the Jon we know is dead. His ‘promotion’ to Head Archivist was actually Elias killing him off and replacing him with a robot that has the command If: see Martin Then: be dick. Don’t worry Marto, now that Sasha is aware of the issue, she’ll surely be able to reprogram him.”

Sasha hums a bit, then says, “I buy it. I think my explanation’s better, but Elias does seem the “kill a dude and replace him” type. Like if I was gonna suspect any particular person of murder he’s in the top five.”

“Seriously? Elias? Somehow has middle manager vibes even though he’s the head honcho Elias? Mr. ‘I probably wore boat shoes and khaki shorts for the entirety of university’ Bouchard? Voted most likely to put a thin layer of mayo in between two pieces of white bread and claim it’s a sandwich Elias? The area man that’s almost certainly gone on record as saying that golf and networking are his favorite hobbies Elias? He’s far too boring to have committed a murder.”

Tim’s looking at Martin with shock and delight, and he knows Sasha is wearing the exact same expression. “More of this. Please describe more of the things that Elias is.”

“I mean, sure? Uhh, guy that would pay $80 for a dime bag because you told him it’s a premium strain. Person that ironically says things like “kids these days” and “the youths” and you know he’s talking about people well into their 30s. Genuinely believes that if you can afford a cell phone then you shouldn’t be complaining about being  poor, because apparently a one time purchase of around a hundred bucks is the same as trying to pay monthly rent. Tells people to haul themselves up by their bootstraps. Thinks he got to where he was ‘without anybody’s handouts’ even though he’s had a trust fund since he was 15. Writes weekly editorials to the local newspaper complaining about the liberalization of media, and they’re like ‘sir, please stop submitting to us, we’re just trying to talk about Lisa’s gardening club’ because they can’t professionally tell him to fuck off. Thinks salt and pepper are the only spices one could ever possibly need, everything else is simply excessive. Somehow gay and homophobic. Like, yes, he’s taken a male lover, but he’s also seconds away from calling you a slur at any one time. Actually, no, that’s too interesting, and I refuse to believe he’s had a lover. Legally, he cannot have a lover, I’ve decided, so just gay and homophobic, both in theory alone. Has said that Boris Johnson is “a bit much, but really not so bad, and much better than any of the alternatives, really.” All of the cousins in his family banded together and officially got him banned from any sort of major holiday dinners. Basically every shitty boss you’ve ever had, especially if you’ve worked retail, rolled into one.”

Tim lets out a low whistle. “Damn, all right. Get fucked Elias.”

Sasha emphatically agrees, “Get fucked Elias.”

They all clink their glasses together, and then there’s a beat of silence before Martin says, “I’m pretty sure robots can’t get eye bags.”

Tim and Sasha let out a “huh” and “hmm?” respectively, so Martin elaborates. “You posited that Jon had been replaced with a robot. Pretty sure robots aren’t able to look that tired.”

Tim snaps. “Drat, you’ve pointed out the one flaw in my impeccable logic. So what d’you think is up with him? I know you don’t have the Before The Archives comparison, but I think you could provide a fresh perspective.”

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know. Two months ago, I might have had some choice words, but first off, you all genuinely got on, so it didn’t really make sense for him to be awful all the time, and secondly ever since the, um, worm thing, he’s actually been pretty nice? I haven’t heard any snide comments, and whenever I mess something up he’s a lot more, um, gentle about explaining what wrong. He actually complimented my work the other day so. I guess I think Jon’s deal was that he was stressed out and I was very nervous and not very good at my job and he picked up on that?”

“So you think he’s like a horse.”

“Explain.”

“He sensed your fear and he became skittish and irritable in kind.”

“Horses can sense fear?”

“Horses can sense everything.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Right?”

“Guys, we’ve gone on like four different tangents in one conversation. Martin, I’m very glad to hear that Jon’s changed his behavior towards, because it means I don’t have to yell at him on your behalf, you’re getting to see the person that me and Tim both know who is actually pretty cool, and also mostly because it feeds perfectly into my winning theory.”

“What, you’ve got something better than Martin’s ‘accurate but boring’ reasoning or my ‘super cool but now that I think about it for .5 seconds actually kind of a bummer robot’ knowledge?”

Sasha’s incredibly self-assured when she says, “I sure fuckin’ do. Jon’s secretly been in love with Martin the whole time, and he’s been previously overcompensating by acting like he hates him.” which makes Tim choke on air and Martin emphatically reply, “Fuck off, he is not.”

“No, no, hear me out, I have, I have receipts, as the kids say. First point of evidence: Martin’s stupid hot, and there’s no way that Jon is straight, so obviously he’s not gonna be impervious to that.”

“What?”

“Oh come off it Martin, it’s just a fact. Like, me personally? I don’t even do the whole romance thing, but the first time I ever saw you I blacked out slightly and thought ‘Now there’s a man I could raise some ferrets with.’.”

“I, um, I, well. Is that...supposed to be a euphemism for something?”

“What? No, I’ve just always wanted ferrets, and asking someone to raise pets with you is like the height of romance, I’m pretty sure. Back me up here Tim.”

“On the ferret thing or the Martin hot thing?”

“Either? Both.”

“Aight. Yes, asking someone to raise ferrets with you is basically a marriage proposal if that someone is Sasha, and I hate to break it to you Martin, but you’re incredibly good-looking. We’re all incredibly good-looking, to the point where I think the only qualification for the archives staff is being a straight up hottie. OH! We should name the group chat “straight up hottie squad”. Anyway, yep, point for Sasha.”

“Not a point for Sasha, even if I believe you about about my, em, physical attractiveness,-”

“-Don’t have to put belief in a fact, Marto-”

“-that doesn’t mean anything. By that logic, he’s equally as likely to be in love with either of you, and my money would be on Sasha if it was anyone, because you’re clearly his favorite.”

“Ah, but that’s exactly why it isn’t me, but thank you for the transition into my second point which is: Jon is the kind of person that sees anything that might make him vulnerable and starts aggressively defending himself against it, and what’s more vulnerable than a crush? He’s not crushing on Tim, because Tim’s fucking great, but sometimes he’s also the walking, talking embodiment of sensory overload, and while I myself I love that, Jon clearly gets a bit overwhelmed by it at times. He’s not into me, because he knows better than that, and overall I’m pretty non-threatening to his whole thing, so of course he’s going to be the most relaxed around me. You, on the other hand, are single, hot, kind to animals and people alike, and make a great cup of tea. Incredibly crush worthy, thus incredibly threatening, thus Jon acting like That.”

“Hmm, this still seems like something that comes from watching one too many corny rom coms, and that’ s coming from someone who loves corny rom coms.”

“I also love corny rom coms, but that’s completely beside the point. Because, okay, sure, if Jon had just been a weird asshole to you, I wouldn’t be like ‘oh, yeah, that’s a classic case of covering for something’ but you’re right about him being nicer since the worm thing. So nice, in fact, I shall be bringing in Timothy as my star witness that’s going to blow this whole case wide open. Martin, you may not have heard how Jon has started to talk about you, but me and Tim sure have.”

“God, yeah. Like if we thought he wouldn’t shut up about you before-

“-which he wouldn’t-”

“it’s gotten way worse now.”

“I think the whole life threatening worm woman flipped a switch for him and now he’s all fuckin. ‘Oh, Martin should stay in the archives, let me give him the place that I sleep.”

“Oh, Martin, I don’t think he should go out on too many research trips anymore, I’d much prefer for him to be ~nice and close~”

“Oh, Martin, good lord, did you know that his tea is quite good? I’m think it might actually be the best I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, Martin, his work’s rather improved, don’t you think? It’s really quite impressive, especially considering all the stress he’s had to endure.”

“Oh, Martin, I just want him to take me into his big, strong arms and whisk me away from all of this.”

“He did not fucking say that last one.”

Sasha throws her arms up in the air. “He may as well have!”

Nodding sagely, Tim replies, “This whole thing holds water. I vote Sasha gets the shopping trip. Martin?”

Martin stares at his drink as if it has any ability to give him any sort of answers, then lets out a sigh with his entire body. “You know what? It’s probably nicer than whatever the fuck is the truth, so sure, why not? Let’s get Sasha her cardigans.”

Sasha lets out a whoop. “Hell yeah! Can’t wait for spree, assuming all three of us get out of this cabin alive.”

“Okay, nope, clearly Sasha needs another distraction. Got any suggestions, Martin?”

“Uh, wasn’t a karaoke machine part of the sales pitch for this place?”

“Martey babey, yes! I wouldn’t have thought you’d spring for that sort of thing!”

“If this were a public bar or something where I’d have to listen to drunk strangers and they’d have to listen to me, then no, I’d rather have my brain pulled through my nose a la mummification. But with only you guys and fourish drinks in? I’m down to clown.”

“Sash, you with us?”

“Dunno, what songs are there?”

Tim shrugs, and heads to the storage closet that contains all the various entertainment equipment. It takes a bit of searching, and a bit more digging, but he’s able to unearth the ancient portable karaoke machine. He also grabs some of the jigsaws, mostly on the thought that sometimes a bitch just wants to hang out with their friends and do a puzzle. Also because in light of the fact that they’re stuck inside with no sort of access to the outside world for two days longer than planned, there’s pretty much no way that they’re not going to reach a point where they all say fuck it let’s do a puzzle.

Plugging in the machine, it takes a solid several minutes to boot up, which is the perfect length of time to take it upon himself to take one for the team and chug the box wine himself, with Sasha and Martin chanting in the background. When he finishes, they cheer, and then Martin immediately shoves a glass of water for him to down as well, muttering something about how he wants him to be alive in the morning. Tim can tell he’s well inebriated by now, because the simple thoughtful gesture is enough to make him a little bit misty-eyed, and Sasha can attest to alcohol turning him into the world’s biggest sap. In order to avoid prevent himself from becoming the kind of person who says “I love you” in a gradually more sloppy repeat, he starts flipping through the discography of the now running machine. “Alright y’all, it looks like we got 80s songs or...80s songs. Ooo, they have the Grease 2 soundtrack.”

That gets him a well deserved “No!” from both parties, with Sasha adding on, “Not even if it was Grease 1. I’m putting an embargo on musical theater in general.”

“Oh come on, some musicals are better than other. Right, Marto?”

“I’m with Sasha on this one.”

“Boo. But fine, what do you want?”

Martin and Sasha glance at each other, and Tim’s amazed at how well the bonding night-turned-long-weekend has gone so far, considering they seem to have already mastered the art of silent communication. Martin speaks first, with, “They got Dolly Parton?”

The process of scrolling through individual letters to type is achingly slow, but luckily all he needs to get through is “DO” before she shows up. “They do.”

Sasha says, “Do they got 9 to 5, by Dolly Parton?”

Tim’s eyes light up with realization as he says, “They do,” and in a moment of spontaneous understanding, all three of them know that they’re not simply going to sing 9 to 5. No, they’re going to do a  full blown music video for the benefit for nobody but themselves, because why the fuck not.

The next hour is spent in a very silly fashion. They figure out how to use the cabin’s layout to their advantage, assign various parts of the song to each person, and practice their inexpert choreography a few times with the song tinnily blasting from Sasha’s phone. The final result is hardly of professional quality, but it is of making them all giggle quality. It starts off in a relay like manner, each of them in a different area to coordinate with “Tumble of out bed and stumble to the kitchen” (Sasha on the couch), “Pour myself a cup of ambition”, (Tim at the coffemaker), and “Yawn and stretch and try to come to life” (Martin at the fridge), with them finally crowding around the karaoke machine together to scream sing the chorus. Despite their practice, they quickly go off key, and while they might end up with low points for accuracy, they get full marks on enthusiasm.

When the song ends, it takes them a few minutes to settle down into something less giddy. As they do, Sasha, out of breath, says, “Fuck me, I’m sleepy now. What the hell?”

Tim hums in affirmation. “Goddammit, I’m tired too. Let me guess, Martin, you’re young enough that you could go all night?”

“No? I’ve never pulled an all-nighter in my life. Actually, I know that it was supposed to be in case the power went out, but huddling together under a blanket in front of a fire sounds really nice? I mean, um, if you guys were down.”

Sasha leans her head against Martin’s shoulder and takes on the expression of a deeply content cat. “Mmm, I call Martin, he’s warm.”

“Absolutely not, I also want to leech Martin’s warmth. You good with being in the middle?”

Martin’s practically beaming, but his voice manages to almost fake being put upon. “I suppose it’s a sacrifice I could make.”

With Sasha already half asleep, Martin brings her over to the couch, while Tim gets them all set up. He manages to find the kind of big, fluffy blanket that all cabins should contain and wraps it around their shoulders. Luckily for them, the fireplace is gas lit and can be put on a timer. He sets it for 30 minutes, even though all three of them are going to be long passed out before them. Sasha is already softly snoring away, and Martin’s head keeps drifting down and snapping back up. Tim curls up against Martin’s other side, and even though all three of them are going to wake up with aching backs and worse heads, he thinks he really just might be a genius after all.

*Why is Mr. Boddy’s name Dr. Black in the UK. I hate that. Why would you not have the dumb joke of  naming the victim “boddy”. Hey brits explain your crimes.

[fallen029]

Untitled

I’ve sat on this since the summer. Y’all think we should finish it? Or scrap it? 

.

He proposed to her in the most beautiful fashion.

A trip, just the two of them, out to the coast. With sunshine glinting off the water as they overlooked the ocean from the balcony of the little cottage he rented for the week. Over dinner, during their glasses of wine, with a knowing look in his typically dark eyes, but they were just as alight as her own that early evening. And of course, there was a diamond ring to top off the event, with the slayer bowing to her, the only woman, only person he ever would.

It was perfect. Everything Mirajane could have ever wanted. It took place during the middle of their trip though so it was hard, she found, to stay away from her siblings and friends awaiting the good news back home. She chastised Lisanna and Lucy both for keeping it from her, as they both had assisted Laxus in picking out the ring, but they each laughed and it was so perfect.

They’d be married in the Magnolia Cathedral, in front of all their family and friends, and it would be the event of the year, no doubt, not only for their guild, but the higher ones as well, and it would take a lot of planning, a lot of work, but Mirajane couldn’t wait.

But…

There was still something that they needed to do first.

“I want to meet your mother.”

Laxus snorted some, when Mirajane brought this up over breakfast one morning. He was glancing over the paper while sipping at his coffee, mostly trying to plot out what he was planning on doing with his next week entirely free. There were no new S-Class jobs, but the Thunder Legion were still out on their lower level one, and that meant, to him, that he was going to be able to do whatever he wanted for the next few days.

Until, of course, his woman spoke.

“Can’t,” he replied simply. “She’s dead.”

“She is not.”

“Is so.”

“Laxus-”

“What are you on about anyways?” he griped as she came to drop a plate of food in front of him. Piled high with eggs, hash browns, and greasy sausage, the sigh of the plate was enough to get the man to immediately drop his newspaper. Stealing a glance over at where his girlfriend was fixing her own plate, he kept up, “What’s up with you and my mother?”

“You mean my future mother-in-law?”

“Mira-”

“I know she’s not really dead,” she told him bluntly. “That you just tell people that.”

“How do you know? Huh? That you’re not really dragging up some deep childhood trauma for me? And aren’t being really insensitive right now?”

“Because I went to Master.”

“Why did you talk to that old geezer,” he griped, “about my life? Huh? Where do you get off?”

“Uh, I get off at my fiance sending checks to another woman every few months,” she told him bluntly as, returning to the table, she only raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you rather I have called off the engagement when I noticed you writing the letter? Or asked Master who Elise Dreyar is?”

“How are those my only two op- And hey.” He glared this time. “How did you even find the checks, huh? Or letters?”

“Laxus, come on.” She gave him a look of her own. “You know I’m going to snoop through your things. Without a doubt. Don’t play dumb.”

“You’re tricky.”

“And you’re avoiding the question?”

“What’s the question?”

“Why,” she insisted then, “have you been hiding the fact your mother is alive from me?”

And…

It wasn’t an easy thing to talk about.

At all.

People who’d been in the hall for decades probably didn’t even know the full story. Not really. It was just as well assumed that Laxus’ mother, whoever she was, had passed away at some point during his childhood and left him without the demented Ivan and the very busy Makarov to raise him. It was such an easy story to recount, such a common troupe for the numerous kids who’d been raised in the hall, that it needed no questioning.

Would would you even question?

The allusive Makarov? Or the agitated Laxus?

It was a topic that seemed to be buried and done with and very few people wished to dig further.

But Mirajane was hardly just anyone. She was the soon-to-be bride of the guild’s most cantankerous slayer and there was a lot of ceremony, she felt, to be had in being inducted into the Dreyar clan. They had a rich history in the Fairy Tail guild and while she had more than made a mark for herself under her maiden name, the idea of now being forever entwined with the guild’s first family gave her a further cementing into the hall’s lore.

If she was going to become the future Mrs. Dreyar, then she didn’t see how it was outlandish to request access to the former.

The woman had the dragon by his tail anyways and, at her request, gave in with only a tad bit of griping. She wanted to meet his mother? Was she completely sure? Absolutely sure? Because he wasn’t going to write her saying they were coming if Mira was only going to chicken out.

But she was no coward. And though she had some hesitance over the fact she was potentially leading Laxus into an unfavorable situation that he wasn’t prepared for, she also also steadfast in needing this for her own confirmation. One last piece of the puzzle of the Dreyar family before she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was meant to be one of it’s members.

She expected the worse.

Considering Ivan’s known insanity, she imagined the woman was much the same. Perhaps locked away in one of those dreadful asylums. Or, oh, what if she was a terrible recluse? Living out in the woods somewhere, all alone? Maybe a wicked old woman, living in her ivory tower on the edge of the continent, scowling and smiting anyone who got near?

Mira’s many thoughts and fears were proven all for not as, when they boarded the train, it was headed to a small town a few hours away that, from all she knew of it, was just a cozy little beach town. Unremarkable.

She didn’t know why she was so disappointed, but she truly was.

Laxus, equal parts his motion sickness and not really wanting to make the journey, spent the time white-knuckling and trying not to barf. His soon-to-be wife was very concerned with him, as she usually was in such situations, but he was still rather pissed about the whole thing and didn’t pretend for once as if her measures were doing anything to aid him.

She was the one causing him pain this time.

And he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise for her own benefit.

The man had refused to give her any true info on what they were going to be presented with, once they got to his mother’s place. He claimed that, if she wanted to go, she’d have to see it all firsthand. And while Mirajane knew he was doing this as one last fail safe, she found she liked it better that way.

Whoever Elise Dreyar was, it was only right that she got her chance to tell her side of the story, before the man raised by Ivan and Makarov got a chance to interject.  

Laxus wasn’t completely certain on the directions, when they got off at the train station. While Mira remarked on how nice it must be, his mother living in such a bustling city, he only retorted that he’d only been a few times.

“:When I was younger,” he went on as he looked over some directions he’d scrawled on a piece of a paper. “And c’mon. Left up here.”

His mother actually lived on the outskirts of town, in a tiny little yellow house. The grass was a bit overgrown and Laxus grumbled about it, just a bit, as they walked up the porch steps to the door. Knocking his knuckles against the white door, Laxus was still annoyed, it seemed, when a middle-aged woman opened up.

“I give you enough money to get your grass cut,” Laxus complained with a glare, “and you don’t use it? And look at your bushes- Someone needs to trim them. If you’re not going to do it-”

“Laxus,” Mirajane remarked with a frown and a glare up at the man. “What is your-”

“Fuck off.” The woman who opened the door stood there with a glare, her eyes the same auburn shade as the man before her. “The boy who comes around to do it’s sick, huh? Is that what you wanna hear?”

“I wanna hear,” Laxus retorted, “that you didn’t spend it all on booze.”

“Laxus!” Mirajane tapped his arm then, but he only continued to glare at his mother, the woman snorting then and turning to walk off further into the house.

“Come in then, I guess,” the woman griped and there was a bit of a roughness to her voice, raspy-ness, maybe. As Laxus did so, Mirajane hesitated for a moment, finally doing as the slayer had hoped; second guessing herself.

Still, she came forward, walking into the home expecting the worse. But she was greeted to it. Just quaint, maybe a bit dusty and cluttered home that she could imagine just about any single person living in. There was an overflowing ashtray though, a cigarette still smoldering in it, and as she went to retrieve it, Laxus only snorted at their surroundings.

“Clean for my arrival, Mom?” he questioned, but the woman only rolled her eyes, running one hand through her stringy blonde hair while the other plucked the cig right back out of her mouth.

“Gonna introduce me to your woman?” she asked instead, glancing Mirajane over now. In response, the barmaid stood to attention, giving the older woman the best smile she had. It was the one that landed her the slayer, after all (and nearly every other man she wanted), but her fiance’s mother only seemed to look right through it.

“Mom,” Laxus finally grumbled, “this is Mirajane. Mira, this is my mother.”

“Hi!” Mirajane bounced some, standing at the man’s side with her shining blue eyes at their maximum pop. “It’s so nice to-”

“That’s what I am, huh?” the woman cut her off. “Laxus? Your mother?”

“Fuck, you better be,” he complained then. “All the jewels I’ve sent you-”

“That is the second time,” she kept up, “that you’ve brought that up today. I never asked you to keep sending me money, Laxus. I asked you, once, to help me out-”

“How would you pay for your bills?” he retorted with a huff of breath through his nose. “If I didn’t? You don’t work-”

“I have,” she cut him off, “a bad hip.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“I do.” And it was to Mirajane that she looked now. “His father pushed me down a flight of-”

“Don’t bring Ivan,” Laxus growled then, “into this. That nearly thirty years ago.”

“And I’m still hurting from it, so what does that tell you?”

“Um,” Mirajane finally spoke up, reaching a hand over to pat gently now at the arm of her seething slayer. “I think maybe we should all just take a breath. Okay? I’m really glad to meet you. Laxus… Well, he hasn’t really had a chance to tell me much about you, but-”

“That’s because of his grandfather,” the woman offered with ease and Laxus huffed, but didn’t rebuke this.

“Master?” Mirajane questioned with a bit of a frown. “You think that Master doesn’t like you?”

“Master.” And she mocked it, the woman did, as the word left her mouth. “So you’re one of them, are you? A Fairy Tail member?”

“An S-Class one,” Mira kept up. “Yes.”

“You’re speaking to the Demon Mirajane,” Laxus said then, glancing down at his fiancee before back at his mother. “I’m sure you’ve heard of her.”

“Can’t say I have,” his mother remarked, crossing an arm over her chest as she tapped her foot, as if thinking. At Laxus’ snort though, she added, with a hint of sincerity, “I don’t keep up much with wizards these days. Not really my thing.”

“W-Well, I really don’t go out on jobs that often anymore, anyways,” Mirajane assured the woman. “I actually work in the bar.”

“The bar?”

“In the hall. Master gave me a job there, serving the drinks after… After I had an accident, out on a job.” Mira looked off then, still a tangled mess, deep down, over the early days surrounding that transition. Blinking away the thoughts, she said, “It was many years ago though, now.”

“Yeah.” She paused to take a draw then, Elise did, before remarking, “Makarov really has a way of helping out young women. And girls. Doesn’t he?”

“Mom.” Laxus was the one that took steps then, towards her, and when he reached out, it was to rest his palms on her shoulders. “Let’s just take a seat, alright? You can… Mira wants to hear. From you. About whatever you want to tell her. So let’s just do that and then we can go back to normal, okay? How things have always been.”

How things had been.

She nodded at that, turning away from him before gesturing towards the couch and loveseat.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I guess,” she said then. “Don’t got a lot, but-”

“It’s very nice,” Mirajane insisted to her as she went to take a seat on the couch, the slayer having to take a deep breath before following suit. “How long have you lived here?”

“Oh, what’s it been, Laxus?” Elise perched herself in a nearby recliner where, on a side table, another ashtray sat. Stabbing out her smoke in it, she questioned, “Not twenty years, yet, has it? Since your grandfather ran me out of Magnolia?”

And he swallowed it, this time, whatever he was going to say, instead sitting back in his seat and staring straight ahead. Mirajane, after glancing at the man, leaned forwards, eyes on the woman in question.

“I’ve never had a problem with Master,” she told the woman simply. “He’s only ever taken care of me and everyone I know. And the guildhall. What-”

“Makavor’s an old man. Was then too, I guess,” she sighed, thoughtfully, before shaking her head. “But now he’s a weaker one. A remorseful one, maybe. Wouldn’t surprise me. Laxus says the same things about him. Don’t you, Laxus?”

Focused completely in a painting then, across the room, Laxus imagined himself there. In the little row boat encapsulated forever there, on a quiet pond, with a surrounding still forest. How nice it seemed, then, to the typical active man, to just be sitting somewhere quiet, somewhere scenic and implying solitude. It had been a bit, since he craved something so fully.

“Gramps took care of me,” he told her simply. “While you and Ivan couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t.” She made that same kind of snorting noise as her soon, looking away as well as she say, “Your grandfather wouldn’t let me.”

“I don’t understand,” Mirajane said with a frown. “What happened? I mean, I know that Ivan-”

“You don’t know,” the other woman assured her, “Ivan.”

“But I do. I mean, I haven’t met him, but-”

“Ivan is a terrible person,” Elise began and though this was hardly up for debate, Laxus still found himself huffing and shifting uncomfortably. “And his father spent years, literal years, defending him and protecting him from the consequences of his actions.”

Mirajane, who’d never seen the man have anything, but contempt for his only son, frowned some as she sat back. Slowly, she asked, “When were you and Ivan together? And for how long?”

“I met him when I was young. And stupid. And thought that mages were all the rave. They were.” She waved her hand. “Ivan and I were together, off and on, for five or six years before we had Laxus.” She paused then, but her tone was different now and, as it was her tone to shift, she only shook her head. “Things were always hard, because it is hard, for a wizard. On them and their family. But with Ivan… He wasn’t always so bad. But when he was bad… And then Makarov, when I finally, truly, decided to get away from him, he decided that I wasn’t fit-”

“So you’re not going to tell her?” Laxus questioned then, eyes finding his mother once more as, clearly, he wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue. “About how youw ere sleeping around? And you fucking left, Ivan, fine, but you left me too and told Makarov you weren’t coming back.”

“I did,” she told him harshly, “come back. And you have no idea what Ivan-”

[fmbishop]

*  I'VE   GOT   MY   VEINS   ALL   TANGLED   CLOSE . 

                       *      ╰         chicago’s   very   own  𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐣𝐚𝐡 𝐛𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩  has   been   spotted   on   madison   avenue   driving   a   1960   vintage   jeep   bronco   ,   welcome   !   your   resemblance   to   𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒔𝒐𝒏   𝒅𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒏   is   unreal   .   according   to   tmz   ,   you   just   had   your   twenty   -   first      birthday   bash   .   your   chance   of   surviving   new   york   is   uncertain   because   you’re            𝒄𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉   ,   but   being   𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒇𝒂𝒔𝒕   might   help   you   .   i   think   being   a   taurus   explains   that   .      3   things   that   would   paint      a      better   picture   of   you   would   be         𝒑𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒅   𝒔𝒌𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒅   𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒑   𝒕𝒂𝒑𝒆   ,   𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒌   𝒄𝒊𝒓𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒔   𝒃𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉   𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅   𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔   ,   &   𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒔   𝒂𝒏𝒅   𝒑𝒂𝒍𝒎𝒔   𝒓𝒖𝒃𝒃𝒆𝒅   𝒓𝒂𝒘   .            (   i   cut   ties   with   my   best   friend   and   collaborator   because   i   was   secretly   in   love   with   her   ,   but   our   publicist   had   her   date   my   brother   instead   .   )      &   (   cis   male   +   he   /   him   )   +   (   ruby   ,   18+   ,   she   /   her   ,   pst   )


𝒊       .        𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒔       .

𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆   :   elijah   alexander   bishop 𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔   :      eli   ,   e   .   from   his   loved   ones   ,   he   recieves   variations   on   ellie   ,   ugly   ass   mustache   head   ,   tony   hawk   ,   and   zumiez   employee   of   the   month   . 𝒂𝒈𝒆   :      twenny   -   won 𝒛𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒄   :   taurus 𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏   :   professional   skateboarder   and   youngest   x   games   gold   medalist   in   history   ,   brand   ambassador   for   several   skate   fashion   brands   ,   established   youtube   vlogger   ,   and   aspiring   filmmaker   . 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓   𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒚   /   𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒔   :   cis   male   /   he   him   his 𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏   :   heterosexual   ,   heteroromantic 𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕   :   5’11 𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒔   :   the   black   sheep   ,   the   despondent   ,   the   fallen   angel   ,   the   isolato   ,   the   intangible   concept   ,   the   dirtbag   ,   the   doryphore 𝒌𝒆𝒚         𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒔      :      -   churlish   ,   emotionally   reserved   ,   hesitant   ,   resentful   ,   self   -   sabotaging +   steadfast   ,   benevolent   ,   chivalrous   ,   reliable   ,   down   to   earth   𝒉𝒐𝒈𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔   𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆   :      hufflepuff 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈   𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒔   :   that’s   on   me   -   mac   miller   /   obstacle   1   -   interpol   /   just   my   luck   -   marc   e   bassy   &   blackbear   /   EARFQUAKE   -   tyler   the   creator /   superfast   jellyfish   -   gorillaz   /   here   comes   a   feeling   -   louis   the   child   /   horseshoes   and   handgrenades   -   green   day  /   boys   don’t   cry   -   the   cure   /   SUGAR   -   brockhampton  /   slow   dancing   in   the   dark   -   joji   /   come   back   to   earth   -   mac   miller   /   swing   ,   swing   -   the   all   american   rejects  

𝒊𝒊       .    𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚    .

harold   and   lillian   bishop   welcome   the   heirs   to   the   bishop   throne   on   an   early   may   morning   .   ceo   of   the   multi-billion   dollar   bishop   industries   construction   empire   ,   and   partner   of   the   bishop   &   franklin   international   law   firm   respectively   ,   the   boys   enter   into   the   shadow   of   a   last   name   prepared   to   build   onto   its   own   legacy   .   eli   comes   into   the   light   moments   after   his   brother   ,   a   hand   firmly   grasped   onto   the   ankle   of   his   twin   ,   victorious   to   emerge   into   the   world   first   .   parallel   to   the   biblical   brothers   jacob   and   esau   ,   his   nurse   notes   ,   but   his   parents   pay   no   mind   .   on   the   whim   of   a   meaningless   sequence   ,   the   elder   twin   is   delegated   as   the   champion   of   the   bishop   legacy   ,   to   bear   the   weight   of   their   family   empire   and   its   subsequent   legacy   on   his   shoulders   with   pride   .

elijah   ,   on   the   heel   of   his   brother   ,      isaiah   ,   by   a   mere   fraction   of   a   second   ,   bears   the   weight   of   his   second-coming   due   to   such   a   christening   for   the   rest   of   his   upbringing   .

the   black   sheep   is   perhaps   too   delicate   of   a   phrasing   to   explain   the   conflict   stirring   daily   in   the   bishop   household   ,   a   family   of   perfection   —   and   elijah   ,   the   foil   to   them   all   ,   a   failure   by   definition   ,   perhaps   crafted   simply   to   emphasize   the   feats   of   his   twin   brother   .   he’s   smaller   ,   scrawnier   ,   slower   to   pick   up   school   work   and   requiring   relentless   tutoring   and   support   throughout   his   elementary   school   years   .   sensitive   and   introverted   ,   he   spends   the   first   decade   of   his   life   cowering   behind   isaiah   as   a   shield   ,   receiving   constant   critiques   of   not   enough   ,   not   good   enough   ,   not   close   enough   to   —

he   tries   not   to   focus   on   his   shortcomings   ,   as   plentiful   as   his   parents   may   convince   him   that   there   may   be   .   any   expression   other   than   a   stoic   compliance   is   seen   as   contumacious   ,   swiftly   corrected   with   a   ‘   i   wish   you   would   be   more   like   your   brother   .   ’      eli   withers   into   himself   shortly   after   his   12th   birthday   ,   the   onset   of   puberty   and   a   discovery   for   a   natural   athletic   inclination   giving   him   some   semblance   of   musculature   ,   his   jaw   sharpening   and   gaze   taking   a   similar   harshness   .   his   body   becomes   a   fortress   ,   the   only   protection   he   can   implement   as   his   brother   begins   to   split   from   him   ,   taking   on   more   responsibility   as   the   twins   are   brought   increasingly   into   the   spotlight   of   their   family   name   and   fortune   .

each   moment   harboring   a   critique   only   stokes   resentment   behind   each   clenched   jaw   and   tight   lipped   smile   eli   has   to   fake   .   he   knows   its   all   for   show   ,   his   brother   is   the   only   true   heir   written   into   their   legacy   regardless   of   what   path   he   chooses   to   take   .   bearing   the   weight   of   a   whole   family   tree   of   disappointment   ,   eli   takes   on   odd   hobbies   and   begins   to   compose   bits   and   pieces   of   himself   as   the   him   he   wants   to   be   ,   dismantling   the   illusion   composed   by   expectations   to   mirror   his   infallible   brother   .   by   13   ,   his   secretive   hobby   becomes   an   increasingly   viable   career   in   skateboarding   ,   by   17   ,   he’s   hired   his   own   agent   and   moves   out   on   his   own   to   escape   the   increasing   burdens   of   being   the   bishop   legacy   disappointment   .   his   parents   all   but   excommunicate   him   ,   and   he   spends   spans   of   month-long   silences   between   them   with   only   his   brother   to   bridge   such   gaps   .   eli   is   gnarled   and   hidden   away   from   the   glitz   and   glamour   he   had   grown   so   comfortable   with   ,   navigating   his   shattered   self-image   and   desire   to   amount   to   something   entirely   on   his   own —   but   at   the   very   least   ,   he’s   free   .

it’s   a   tabloid’s   dream   ,   the   black   sheep   of   the   bishop   family   ,   reuniting   with   his   herd   for   their   move   to   new   york   .   eli   is   resentful   and   bitter   at   the   idea   of   uprooting   himself   ,   but   it’s   his   brother’s   impassioned   pleas   of   a   reunion   that   soften   eli’s   resolve   and   cause   the   young   skateboarding   sensation   to   follow   the   rest   of   his   distant   family   to   new   york   .   his   brother   assures   him   with   honeyed   promises   of   a   family   reunited   ,   a   change   of   heart   of   their   parents’      callousness   ,   a   desire   to   see   the   bishops   as   one   .     their   father’s   upcoming   retirement   and   a   supposed   reflection   on   the   cruelty   imposed   on   his   brother   are   all   cited   as   reasons   why   eli   should   just   come   with   them   .      and   eli   ,   hardened   and   bitter   to   all   but   the   implorations   of   his   brother   (   and   perhaps   a   gnawing   desire   for   some   sort   of   familial   validation   after   a   lifetime   of   being   dubbed   the   disappointment   ,   )   begrudgingly   follows   through   .

their   parents   do   not   .

it   awakens   a   particular   emotion   within   eli   to   see   his   parents   for   the   first   time   in   nearly   2   years   and   be   received   with   the   same   coldness   he   had   been   seen   off   with   at   their   last   meeting   .   backhanded   compliments   follow   fronthanded   insults   and   it   ends   with   eli   and   his   father   in   a   screaming   match   ,   fingers   jabbed   dangerously   into   chests   and   tempers   on   full   blare   .   the   betrayal   comes   not   from   a   set   of   parents   who   didn’t   want   him   —   eli   knew   it   was   entirely   too   good   to   be   true   to   be   taken   as   the   prodigal   son   .   the   betrayal   ,   he   laments   ,   is   in   the   falsities   told   by   his   brother   ,   the   one   person   who   had   spent   so   long   protecting   him   and   had   now   allowed   him   to   walk   without   guard   into   the   lion’s   den   .   eli   knows   his   brother   had   nothing   but   the   best   of   intentions   and   keeps   him   as   the   sole   bishop   contact   :   this   is   the   last   he   talks   to   his   parents   after   years   of   torment   .

they   stay   in   new   york   together   and   fill   their   time   with   work   and   the   occasional   youtube   video   at   the   behest   of   their   management   ,   random   vlogs   that   surprisingly   take   off   .   the   bishop   twins   become   something   of   an   internet   sensation   —   isaiah   a   charming   and   composed   law   student   ,   eli   a   brooding   and   unkempt   skater   boy   ,   with   a   dynamic   that   viewers   are   quick   to   fall   in   love   with   .   they   turn   out   content   on   a   regular   basis   ,   building   a   fanbase   through   their   vlogs   that   begs   for   collaborations   and   ‘   linking   up   .   ‘   they   go   through   the   motions   of   collabs   until   one   particular   set   of   youtubers   have   a   chemistry   with   the   twins   that   their   fans   eat   up   .   quickly   hired   to   the   same   management   team   ,   the   bishops   create   a   mini   vlog   squad   with   their   friends   ,   a   dynamic   that   finds   eli   more   emotionally   invested   than   he’d   care   to   admit   .   but   forever   the   self   -   saboteur   ,   he   keeps   himself   from   admitting   these   feelings   to   their   collaborator   ,   repressing   them   until   an   email   from   their   publicist   reveals   plans   to   have   her   date   isaiah   for   the   sake   of   views   .

eli   ,   despite   having   kept   his   feelings   from   practically   everyone   in   his   life   ,   takes   the   move   personally   and   cuts   off   all   work   with   their   collaborator   ,   the   ensuing   drama   being   enough   to   keep   his   publicist   happy   despite   whatever   happens   between   her   and   his   brother   .   their   group   goes   back   to   being   a   duo   ,   a   secret   for   eli   to   keep   perhaps   to   his   grave   ,   and   he   pushes   to   forge   on   with   creating   a   name   for   himself   out   of   the   shadow   of   his   family   .

(   um   for   context   slash   anyone   who   knew   version   one   of   eli   we’re   gonna   say   he   got   sick   of   the   celeb   world   and   went   backpacking   through   southern   asia   w   no   phone   n   no   outside   contacts   ,   just   recently   returned   to   ny   after   the   past   2   months   of   isolation   !   )

𝒊𝒊𝒊       .       𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

i’m   so   excited   to   bring   eli   back   .   …      i   love   wealthy   sm   lemme   give   y’all   a   few   bullets   for   the   rundown   of   the   uglie   mean   sk8r   boi   that   u   should   all   say   ‘   see   u   l8r   boi   ‘

as   the   bio   implies   ,   he   had   a   really   tough   upbringing   in   the   shadow   of   his   perfect   brother   .   a   lot   of   his   parents’   cruelty   resulted   in   the   personality   he   has   now   .

eli   is   most   known   for   his   resentment   of   wealth   and   fame   .   in   the   celeb   world   ,   he’s   always   known   as   the   one   who’s   just   a   normal   guy   .   super   down   to   earth   and   constantly   critiquing   ppl   who   let   the   fame   get   to   their   head

in   a   way   ,   he   gets   this   weird   sense   of   superiority   that’s   super   hypocritical   ?   like   he   thinks   he’s   better   than   the   rich   ppl   bc   he   doesn’t   act   boujie   ..   .   .   .   but   ?   he’s   rich   too   ?   just   bc   ur   chinos   r   ripped   doesnt   make   u   better   than   anyone   else   u   dumb   bitch

super   ,   and   i   cannot   emphasize   this   enough   ,   SUPER   emotionally   constipated   .   he   acts   like   he’s   above   it   all   to   serve   as   his   defense   mechanism   bc   on   the   real   he’s   terrified   of   being   rejected   by   people   the   way   his   own   parents   rejected   him   .   his   solution   ?   if   u   act   like   u   don’t   give   a   shit   ,   nobody   can   hurt   u   .

if   he’s   not   angry   ranting   ,   he’s   honestly   p   stoic   .   nobody   knows   what   he’s   thinkin   or   feelin   which   is   how   he   likes   it   .   it   gets   real   annoying   when   he   keeps   playing   the   cool   disconnected   guy   n   ur   like   ‘   what   do   u   want   for   lunch   ‘   n   he’s   like   ‘   i   dont   give   a   fuck   ‘   n   ur   like   ‘   we   know   dumbass   edgelord   we   still   gotta   EAT   tho   ‘

on   that   ranting   note   ,   he’s   usually   pretty   reserved   and   calm   during   things   like   interviews   or   talking   to   fans   .   when   he’s   in   touchier   situations   ,   his   defense   mechanism   is   to   switch   to   his   hairpin   trigger   hostility   .

ig   he   feels   like   he   has   something   to   prove   by   being   the   tough   guy   so   he   just   ?   gets   mad   super   easily   instead   of   processing   his   feelings   like   a   normal   person   ?   he   detaches   himself   from   his   emotions   bc   he   has   a   really   fucked   sense   of   self   -   worth   and   has   an   eternal   belief   he’s   not   worthy   of   happiness   so   he’ll   sabotage   himself   to   no   end

shockingly   sensitive   and   will   hold   onto   his   pain   as   if   to   fuel   him   .   he   takes   disloyalty   personally   and   will   often   hold   onto   abandonment   or   slights   that   happened   years   ago   because   they   genuinely   affected   him   ,   even   if   he   didn’t   show   so   at   the   time   .

in   terms   of   the   celeb   life   :   he’s   p   low   key   .   isn’t   much   of   a   partier   bc   he   has   social   anxiety   sdfsd   but   he’s   comfy   sipping   a   beer   on   the   patio   as   long   as   everyone   else   stays   inside   lmao   .   he’s   cool   w   hookups   but   isn’t   actively   sleeping   around   ?   like   he   could   prob   live   like   a   fuckboy   but   rlly   surprises   u   when   he   doesn’t   do   the   fuckboy   thing   ..   …   .   it’s   the   sensitive   boy   in   him   or   somethin   idk..   .   ..   mayb   he   just   can’t   care   enough   ..   ..      it’s   the   apathy   …   .

when   he’s   not   seeing   red   ,   he’s   rational   man   meant   to   BUST   everyone’s   stupidity   .   usually   the   only   mfer   w   common   sense   in   the   squad   to   plan   ahead   n   shit   but   if   someone   pushes   his   homies   ?   eli   comes   out   SWINGING   n   then   avoids   all   the   tabloids   about   him   sloppy   fighting   in   the   club   like   he’s   mariah   carey   n   can’t   read   or   somethin

cannot   flirt   for   the   life   of   him   ,   says   dumb   shit   like   ‘   u   smell   nice   ‘   and   hopes   his   muscles   do   all   the   talking   lmao   fuckin   BEEFCAKE

on   the   real   ,   when   he’s   calm   n   collected   he   can   be   surprisingly   sweet   and   this   is   when   the   down   to   earth   comes   in   .   doesn’t   get   attached   to   many   but   to   the   few   he   does   ,   he   defends   to   the   end   and   is   the   type   to   sacrifice   whatever   it   is   to   protect   them   .   this   mans   LOVES   his   friends   and   ppl   are   surprised   to   see   how   kind   he   can   b   bc   he’s   usually   masking   his   kindness   with   his   brutishness   lmao   .      

he’s   also   ?   surprisingly   funny   ?   we’ll   see   abt   that   tho   bc   most   of   his   shit   is   deadpan

most   of   the   time   :   just   fuckin   .   mean   as   hell   sdfsdf

anarchist   mfer   !   he   said   FUCK   the   system   ,   it’s   a   big   skate   energy   and   he   tries   to   be   as   creative   and   undefined   as   possible   .   follows   random   whims   as   he   learns   to   be   less   self   conscious   bc   now   he’s   his   own   brand   and   doesn’t   have   to   always   think   about   ‘   whats   best   for   the   family   ’   and   all   that   bs   !   he’s   rlly   passionate   abt   skate   culture   and   originality   and   is   a   really   big   outspoken   feminist  /  social   activist    bc   what’s   more   punk   than   dismantling   the   patriarchy  and  other  oppressive  power   structures  ?

on   that   note   .   lowkey   .   a   simp   KWHRJWE   he   acts   hard   and   won’t   let   any   man   come   after   him   but   he’s   afraid   2   be   mean   to   girls   n   lets   most   of   his   female   friends   bully   him   while   he   does   the   office   stare   in2   the   camera   .

i   always   stick   random   blurbs   downhere   but   the   mans   is   vegan   ,   cares   more   about   his   car   than   anything   ,   spends   most   of   his   time   in   his   ratty   skate   clothes   that   barely   get   washed   bc   they   ‘   hold   the   energy   better   ’   (   nastie   )   ,   if   it   aint   sk8   shoes   its   socks   w   sandals   n   he   doesn’t   get   whats   wrong   w   that   ,   he’s   a   hufflepuff   n   a   ISTJ-T   myers   briggs  (  The  Logistician  )   ,   n   tbh   he   really   just   appreciates   the   little   things   in   life   ?   thats   eli   my   lil   meat   head   .

[let-it-raines]

Catch Me If You Can (29/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: You all remain the best! If you celebrate any holidays this week, all the best to you! This will probably be the only chapter this week because I’ll be traveling, so I hope you enjoy!

Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke​ for her awesome work as my beta! ❤️

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @stunningswan​ @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury​ @superchocovian​ @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog​ @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings​ 

-/-

“Isn’t that your second hot dog of the day?”

Emma stops in the middle of her bite of what is frankly one of the most delicious hot dogs she’s ever eaten – apologies to all of the vendors at Yankee Stadium because Fenway Park might have them all beat today – to look over at Robin and roll her eyes. At least it wasn’t Will who said it. He hates hot dogs, and while that’s probably good for the health of his heart, she is fully enjoying the fact that she’s devouring this thing even if it does mean that she’ll end up on the Jumbotron at some point.

That sick joke is never going to end. Being shown eating ballpark food is going to be her legacy. Maybe one day she’ll write a book about it.

It’ll be a horrible book, and the synopsis will probably read something about her being the woman who was asked out live on television by a baseball player and said no so that people will recognize her. .

But with very good food mentioned.

A segment on TV where she tries out all of the stadium food would probably be better.

“And what of it?” she mumbles to Robin, covering her mouth with her hand as she chews. “I’m hungry because I didn’t eat breakfast, and this game is going on forever. I want to go back to the hotel and sleep, and you guys are keeping me from it.”

“I’ll try to play faster for you, lass.”

“That’s all I ask. Throw your strikes in quicker succession. Allow a few less hits.”

Silence settles back between the two of them as they watch Will hit his third foul in a row. She should probably be writing that down or doing something with it, but honestly, Emma’s only really hiding out in the dugout because there’s shade and close access to air-conditioning. She already did all of her pre-game coverage and can pretty much chill to the end despite the fact that this the final Red Sox series of the season. A part of her wishes that she was up in a booth commentating, but she knows that she’s not going to get to do that too often. She’s mostly going to be the on-field girl for the rest of this season.

There’s always next year, though. David said it went over really well, especially considering what happened with Killian during the game, and all Emma can do is take a deep breath and let things play out. She can’t control any of it.

Easier said than done.

“Did he really not tell you?” Robin asks. She nearly chokes on her food. Maybe she shouldn’t be eating this. “Killian, I mean.”

Emma quickly glances around and sees that no one is paying attention, nearly everyone leaning up over the railing to watch the game, but it doesn’t keep her from leaning back into the bench and making herself smaller so that she’s as far away from everyone as possible.

“He really didn’t tell me,” she whispers, her fingers fumbling with the chain around her neck. “About any of it.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Robin is shaking the conversation off, but she’s curious. “What? You have to tell me now.”

He sighs, and Emma kind of gets the feeling that Robin sees Killian more like a younger brother than a friend sometimes. He and Liam should really make a club or something. They’d probably stress themselves out too much. She knows that she does, and she’s only been worrying about Killian’s overall well-being for five months. They’ve been worrying about it for decades.

“It really is nothing. I just – I’ve been around Killian for a long time. I was there when he cut his dad off, when he and Milah broke up, when all of the women happened after her. And I have so many vivid memories of taking Roland over to Killian’s apartment after the accident just so we could cheer him up, you know? Killian was there for me after my wife passed, and I always wanted to be there for him. So, I guess, it’s simply a bit difficult for me to understand how he couldn’t tell any of us this.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

In all of her own hurt, Emma never actually seriously thought about Robin or Will or Ariel and how this was affecting all of them. She knew that it was, but she was so caught up in her own mind that thinking about this giant support system that Killian has wasn’t really her biggest priority.

Her biggest priority was that bag of salt and vinegar chips.

“I think he was scared.” Emma shrugs her shoulders, trying to play off the little bit of lingering hurt that she still has. “I think that it doesn’t matter how much he trusts all of us because his fear was taking over him. He’s always so worried about being a disappointment, and he probably couldn’t bear to disappoint you again.”

A loud cheer erupts around the stadium, and Emma looks at the monitor inside the dugout to see Will’s ball being caught in the outfield just as he runs over first base. Damn. Five more feet, and he could have scored.

“How is he?”

“Hmm?”

“Killian,” Robin continues. “How is he? Actually?”

“I think,” Emma sighs, stretching out her legs, “that he’d feel a lot better if he got a call from you instead of the two of us talking about him when there’s baseball to be played.”

“Oi,” Will mutters as he walks down the steps to the dugout, everyone slapping his shoulders and his ass, “I hate Boston.”

“You’re from here, Scarlet.”

“Yeah, well, playing here makes me feel like the damn Joker.”

“To be fair,” Emma sighs as she gets up from the bench so that she can stand to watch the game, “the Joker is one of the best characters, and you do have that creepy smile going on.”

“And for that, I’m telling Belle to not serve you dessert at our wedding.”

“You can’t take dessert privileges away from me.”

“I’m the groom.”

“Yeah, but I’m friends with the bride, and that’s all that matters.”

“Scarlet,” Al yells over at them, “stop trying to get Ms. Swan to give you a better exclusive and figure out how to hit a better ball.”

“Geesh,” Will moans, dropping his helmet to the ground and wiping off the sweat from his buzzed hair, “I guess his date didn’t go well yesterday.”

Emma’s head quickly snaps around, and she steps down from her position next to Eric to walk back over to Will and Robin before whispering, “Al had a date last night?”

Will’s brow arches. “You didn’t know?”

“How the hell would I know that Al had a date?”

“Because it was with a teacher from your sister-in-law’s school. His nephew apparently goes there, and they met at some event. Jasmine something.”

A lightbulb goes off in Emma’s head, a slight memory of meeting a Jasmine at David’s birthday party back in March. What a small world. She’s going to have to text Mary Margaret after this because there is no way Mary Margaret didn’t know about that.

“Huh,” Emma breathes out, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at Al as he paces back and forth looking down at his phone. “Well, maybe it did go well, and he’s just in a bad mood because you guys are getting your asses beat.”

“Go back to your reporting,” Will mutters under his breath. Robin barks out a laugh at that, and even though it’s really weird not having Killian here, a little bit of the world rights itself then having the two of them teasing her like they seem to like to do.

Even if they do lose 1- 6.

It doesn’t matter. They’re 92-50 for the season with only a handful of games left. They’ll probably officially qualify for the play-offs next week even if everyone has known for a while now. Everything from here on out is basically a bonus.

A really damn good bonus.

-/-

They end up winning the next three games in the Red Sox series in what turns out to be some pretty boring games that have Emma struggling to come up with any more interesting questions to ask everyone. It’s easy to talk to the guys that she’s close to because of Killian, but sometimes it’s a struggle to talk to the others without feeling like she’s simply being repetitive. But August and Phillip smile and charm their way through their interviews, as they always do, and the three minutes that she spends talking to Arthur after he hits a grand slam are pretty much three of the most torturous minutes of her life.

There have been no more incidents with him, at least that she knows of, but a shiver still runs down her spine when she thinks of the words he said about her back in London.

Things like that change the way a person feels in their workspace, and even though she’s done a pretty damn good job at pushing the niggling fears down, sometimes they do come back to haunt her and make her worry about what other kind of disaster is lurking around the corner and waiting for her to get comfortable before it attacks.

But , despite missing having Killian to travel with even if the hotel beds are surprisingly very comfortable with just her in it, Emma would definitely count Boston as a success.

After all, their hot dogs were really good.

-/-

David: MM and I are going to Mom’s this weekend, and I know that you have the weekend off. Why don’t you come with us and ask Killian to join?

Emma’s phone dinged with that text five hours ago, before the game against the Tigers even started, and while it initially made her heart beat a little quicker than usual, she forgot about it as she got engrossed in work and trying to help Jeff with the camera issues they were having. It was pretty much a disaster, one that took about five years off of her life, and she ended up having to work next to one of the network’s cameras that films the game for the few times they went to her.

Jeff simply muttered a few curses under his breath and then said he was glad for the day off.

But the game is over now, the Tigers winning by one run in the bottom of the ninth, and even though the game didn’t really matter, it still stings a bit. Now she’s staring at this text, and even though she and Killian have talked about going to Portland so he can meet Ruth, it was supposed to be when the season was over. It wasn’t supposed to be this soon.

She wants to go, and she wants to take Killian. But the nerves over the whole thing are definitely still there. She’s no longer mad at Killian or worried about making future-type plans (okay, well, overly worried), but having him meet Ruth in three days is a bit overwhelming.

What if she doesn’t like him?

That’s a ridiculous thought. Emma knows that it is. But the demons in her mind stay active even if their presence is a little less obvious than it used to be.

Life is weird. Seriously.

And she should really bite the bullet and text David back that she’ll talk to Killian about it.

Everything will be just fine, and a weekend away full of home cooked meals and a place with a backyard sounds really damn nice even if her bed at home will have to wait for her return a little longer.

Emma: I’ll call Killian and ask him if he’s free this weekend.

David: You’ve been away for a week, and those are the days you’re coming home. He’ll be free.

Emma: How could you possibly know that?

David: Because I am a man who knows what it’s like to be away from the woman I love for a few days.

Emma: Ew, gross. Don’t go there.

David: How do you know I was going somewhere gross?

Emma: I had a feeling.

Emma closes out her messages and swipes over on her phone so that she can call Killian, pressing the option to FaceTime him since she’s apparently sappily in love and sentimental and wants to see that handsome face of his.

It’s a very handsome face. Seriously. She’s very happy with her life choices right now.

Killian answers the call, and when he comes into view, she can see that handsome face as well as the faces of approximately thirty stuffed animals surrounding him in what can only be described as a weird pop music video.

“Hello, my love,” Killian greets with an absolutely gigantic smile that has the lines around his eyes crinkling. Her heart is definitely doing that thing where it stutters whenever he calls her by that particular endearment.

“Hey.” Emma smiles into the phone and ignores how lopsided her bun looks in her little picture in the corner. “Who are all of your friends?”

“Ah, well, they all have names, but I’m remiss to say that I can’t actually remember them all right now. But I’ve been sequestered into Addy and Lucy’s playroom.”

“And where are they?”

“Elsa just came and got them for dinner. I meant to go join them, but then you called.”

“That seems like a pretty flimsy excuse. I think you just wanted to hang out with all of the stuffed animals.”

“You’ve bested me there, Swan.” He smiles again, and instead of her heart doing that stuttering thing, it aches a little bit. That’s ridiculous. She shouldn’t actually miss him like that. It’s only been a few days even if it feels so much longer since they barely got anytime to be back together before she was hopping on a plane to Boston. “What are you up to tonight?”

Emma shrugs her shoulders. “You’re looking at it. I think I might do a face mask because my skin feels gross. I also might paint my nails. Real exciting stuff over here.”

“I might help with Addy’s spelling homework, so it’s even more exciting over here.”

She laughs and shakes her head a bit before getting up from the bed and taking her phone with her to the bathroom. She might as well wash her face while she’s thinking about it instead of inevitably forgetting whenever it’s time to go to bed. Emma props her phone up against the vanity so that Killian has a particularly nice view of the underside of her chin and starts her routine by wiping of the makeup from today. Most of it has already sweated itself off, but the remaining is all of the product that likes to be stubborn about coming off. Killian tells her about his day, which pretty much consisted of physical therapy and picking the girls up from school before taking them to Liam and Elsa’s townhome and being smothered in stuffed animals.

As awful as it is for Killian to have to sit on the sidelines, he looks so damn happy just to be able to spend more time with his family. She knows that he sees them a lot, much more than most people do, but he’s always got some place to go or somewhere to be during this time of the year that the visits usually aren’t long. And Emma swears that he gets a few months of his life back every time Killian gets to spend time with Addy or Lucy.

It’s like magic.

That’s kind of how she feels when she gets to spend time with her family too.

Emma opens up the jar of her face mask and dips her finger insider before spreading the green clay over her chin.

“I didn’t know my girlfriend was secretly Shrek.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “I am not dignifying that with a response.”

“You look positively charming, love. I think the green is a very good color on you. Brings out your eyes.”

Emma scoffs and ignores the waggle of Killian’s eyebrows while she rubs the mask in the space between her own brows. “So, if you stop being an asshole for a second, I have something I wanted to ask you.”

“Is it how I stay devilishly handsome all the time?”

“No, I was saving that for our next conversation.”

“Ah, ah, gotcha,” he sighs, shifting against the stuffed animals until he’s sitting up and the hair that had been pushed behind him is falling in front of his face. “Go on then, Swan.”

Emma brings her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it with a pop. “How do you feel about going to Portland this weekend with David, Mary Margaret, and Leo?”

“Are you not coming?”

“I was implied in that list.”

“Well, I don’t know, love. If it was just Dave, Mary Margaret, and Leo, I would of course go to spend some time with Ruth. Now that I know that you’re going to be there – ”

“Shut up. You’re lucky that you’re hundreds of miles away. I can’t slap you from all the way over here.”

“Kinky.”

Killian barks out a laugh at his own joke, his head thrown back with the joy of it all, and all Emma can do is shake her head at him. He’s in rare form tonight with his jokes and teasing and that ever-present smile on his face.

Well, no. He’s not in rare form. This is how he always is, but it’s been awhile since she’s seen him be carefree enough to actually feel this good.

It’s a beautiful sight.

“I will make it worth your while if you come.”

The downright dirty smirk that graces Killian’s face after she utters those words makes a shiver run down her spine and regret settle in her stomach for all of the things she just set him up for.

“Worth my while, then?” Killian prods, raising that brow a little further. “What does that entail, exactly? Are you going to come home early and immediately fall into bed to me? Or do you have a nice set of lingerie in that suitcase of yours that we’re about to put into good use despite the fact that you have a green face right now?” Killian gasps, something overdramatic and self-indulgent, and Emma can barely keep herself from laughing even if the tone of his voice is something close to sinful. “Are you going to seduce me in your childhood bedroom, Swan? Is that it? Is that what will make it worth my while?”

“I mean, I was kind of thinking we’d book a flight so we don’t have to spend seven hours cramped in a car together with the Nolans. They play very intense road trip games. Singing is involved.”

His face only falls a little bit. “Damn, okay. Yeah, I’m all for flying there, but I could also drive us. It wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“I’m pretty sure elevating your shoulder for that long is not what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“You make a good point.”

“I tend to.” There’s a knock at Emma’s hotel room door, and she tenses for a second before taking a step to the side and pressing up on her toes to look out the keyhole to find Ariel standing there in a pair of white pajamas with little red bows on them. Emma opens the door, forgetting about her face and Killian for a second. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

“A few of us are going to eat pizza in mine and Eric’s room, and I was trying to invite you but I couldn’t get you to answer your phone.”

“Oh,” Emma sighs, looking back into the bathroom to the direction of her phone. “Sorry about that. I was talking to Killian, and I – ”

Ariel’s shoulders perkperk s up, and she steps inside the room without asking, which Emma has learned is pretty par for the course when it comes to Ariel. Emma closes the door behind her and walks into the bathroom to grab her phone, where Killian is still waiting in the screen, and she hands the phone over to Ariel because she knows that’s what she wanted anyways.

Plus, her face mask is starting to crack, and she’s got to get this gunk off of her. The water drowns out the sound of the conversation happening in the bedroom, but as soon as she turns it off, she can hear Killian talking.

“No, A,” Killian sighs, “I am not overexerting myself. Yes, I have talked to Rob this week. No, I didn’t watch last night’s game. You know you can just text me, right? You didn’t have to steal Emma’s phone.”

“I didn’t steal her phone. She handed it to me.”

“You basically stole it.”

“I did not.”

Emma laughs under her breath before walking into the bedroom. Those two are ridiculous. Their friendship makes no sense, but Emma knows they wouldn’t survive without each other.

Seriously.

“Babe, Ariel did not steal my phone. You’re just complaining because I gave you away to her without warning.”

“I am not,” he scoffs, and when she can finally see his face again, the tips of his ears are noticeably red. “Where’d your green face go?”

“Washed it off.” Emma settles down on the bed next to Ariel who scoots over for her. “So, what is this I hear about you talking to Robin? Did you guys finally hash out all of your emotional issues about your penchant for keeping secrets?”

“I still can’t believe he did that,” Ariel tells her, an exasperated look on her face.

“I would say welcome to the club, but you’re already an established member.”

“I feel like I could be co-chair or vice president or something.”

“You might be able to be president.”

“No, you or someone from his family gets that role, I think.”

“Really, because – ”

“The two of you are never allowed to go anywhere without me ever again,” Killian interrupts, and they both turn from each other back down to the phone screen.

“It’s funny you say that because I have planned a vacation with all of the women in your life, and all we’re going to do is plot ways to make you miserable.”

“You are not funny, A.”

“I think you’re hysterical,” Emma combats, winking at Killian. “But seriously. You talked to Robin? Did you tell him the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ spiel?”

“Yes, love, I used the cliché breakup line to explain to Robin that it had nothing to do with my trust in him and everything to do with me being a cowardly asshole.”

“And he accepted it?”

“Yep,” he murmurs. “He accepted it, and we’re all sunshine and roses now. Seriously. We probably talked for an hour or two this morning.”

“Good,” Emma breathes out, a smile on her face. She’s so relieved that they talked. She’s kind of been far too worried about it since she and Robin talked about it in the dugout a few days ago. “I’m going to text you later, okay? I’m going to go stuff my face with pizza with everybody.”

“Yeah, Swan, that sounds nice. Have fun. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Bye, Ariel,” Killian says, waving his hand. “Please don’t plot my death while you guys eat pizza.”

“I make no promises.”

The phone disconnects, and Emma places it on the bed next to her before scooting away from Ariel to give her some space since their bodies were pretty much aligned during that conversation.

“He’s happy today.”

“Hmm?” Emma asks, not really hearing Ariel’s words, her mind still replaying all of the craziness of her conversation with Killian.

“Killian,” Ariel says, smiling at Emma. “He’s happy. Like, he’s got that fresh glow of a man in love. It’s just nice to see is all. I like that you make him happy.”

“Oh no,” Emma protests with a shake of her head. She gets up from the bed, too flustered to stay still, and reaches down into her suitcase for her moisturizer simply to have something to do with her hands. “I don’t – that’s not on me. That’s on Killian and how he’s got a lot of really good people around him. I know I wasn’t around for the last lay-off, but I know it was rough. I think he’s in a better headspace now, even if it did have a rough start.”

Emma dips her finger into the container and swipes the cream across her forehead while she tries to regulate her breathing. She knows where this conversation is going. Ariel is very much like Mary Margaret in all of her love and hope for good in the world, and she likes to talk about these things like big emotional moments aren’t a difficult thing to talk about.

“You’re one of those people he’s got around him, though,” Ariel continues, and Emma keeps rubbing her hands in circles across her face. “Killian is one of my best friends in the world. I know him almost as well as I know my own husband, and I know that he’s so much happier now because of you. That’s a good thing.”

“I know. I’m just – ”

“Scared?” Ariel gets up from the bed and walks over to Emma so that Emma can see her face and see the hopeful smile that resides there. “Does it make you feel better that I’m still scared?”

“No,” Emma laughs, something that settles her stomach a bit. “How would that make me feel better? That sounds like a nightmare. You’ve been married for half a decade.”

“Love is always scary. You never know what’s going to happen when you wake up in the morning. Like, ever. I don’t know if Eric and I are going to have a day where it’s like we’re on our honeymoon again or a day where the sound of him chewing is going to get on my nerves. But I love him, and I love getting to have him be by my side every day. He’s not the sole reason I’m happy, but he’s a big part of it. I think it’s the same with you and Killian. That’s a good thing.”

“Have you ordered a really nasty pizza? Is that why you’re trying to butter me up?”

Ariel laughs and walks toward Emma but seems to step back from giving her a hug. “No, I’m trying to butter you up because I hear you can do all kinds of braids, and I’ve never quite been able to figure out the Dutch braid.”

“Luckily for you, I am an expert in that.”

“Good. Now, come on. We’ve got to go before the boys eat all of the pizza.”

“Who all is in there?”

“Just Will, Robin, and Eric.”

“Well, shit,” Emma laughs as she grabs her phone and her hotel key. “You’re right. They are going to eat it all before we get there.”

Emma follows Ariel out into the hall and follows her down the hallway to the stairwell so they can walk up the two flights of stairs to everyone else’s floor. Before they even enter the room, Emma can hear the three of them laughing. Sure enough, once the door is open, they’re each spread out across the room – Will on the couch, Eric on the bed, and Robin sitting in the desk chair – and pizza boxes litter the room along with beer bottles. Emma has been around professional athletes for most of her adult life, and she’s never seen a group of them so consistently break their nutrition plan like this team.

Not that it bothers her. Though, tomorrow she is eating a hell of a lot of fruit and vegetables to make up for it.

She says that a lot. It usually works.

“Emma,” Will yells as she walks into the room. He holds up his half-eaten slice as a greeting. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I was almost afraid I was going to forget what you looked like.”

“Am I still as beautiful as you remember?”

“Eh, you’re looking a little rough right now.”

“Asshole,” Emma laughs, walking toward the desk and opening a box to grab a piece of pizza. “What about you, Robin?”

He points to himself. “Are you asking if I’m still as beautiful as you remember since I saw you last? Because I personally think I’ve become more attractive.”

Emma snorts, actually snorts, and she doesn’t bother trying to cover it up before plopping herself down on the bed next to Ariel and Eric, squishing herself down on the mattress. It’s not the best pizza in the world, not even close, but the company is top notch and not something Emma would like to ever trade for anything.

In the past, she’s never gained friends from a relationship. Neal had all kinds of people in his life, but they were always temporary. She’d meet them once, ask about them two weeks later, and then Neal would claim to not know who she was talking about. He was always onto the next thing and the next group of people who could help him get what he wanted. Walsh had friends, a group of people he’d met through some kind of club for antique furniture, but they were all obnoxious and unfriendly. She didn’t want to be friends with them, and they certainly didn’t want to be friends with her.

And maybe it has helped Emma now that she already knew most of the people in Killian’s life because of her work, but they’re all so welcoming and supportive that she couldn’t imagine them not getting along.

Usually it helps that Killian is around, but this past week, it’s been kind of nice to get to talk to all of them simply because they want to talk to her. For someone who isn’t used to that, Emma thinks that it could become a familiar feeling.

She wants it to.

Emma pulls out her phone later that night and takes a video of everyone talking and laughing. Will is telling some insane story about a caterer who they interviewed for the wedding who wanted to serve all raw food, including meat, and it’s caused an uproar in the conversation. She sends the video to Killian, making sure that the last frame is her smiling at him.

Emma: Wish you were here.

Killian texts her back five minutes later. It’s a picture of him in Addy’s bed, his legs hanging over the end, with both Addy and Lucy draped over him asleep.

Killian: Same here. I don’t think I’ll be moving for the rest of the night. They’re not quite as good of a bedfellow as you.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

so a smuggler walks into an orphan’s bar... - ONE-SHOT

When eight-year-old Rey's parents drink themselves to death, they leave her with nothing but a broken heart. Well, that and the only decent bar on the planet.

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, Han Solo gets a bad feeling about dropping his son off for Jedi training and decides to take Ben under his wing instead.

Ten years later, a smuggler walks into an orphan's bar...

So um, I might’ve gone a little overboard for my last canon-divergence fic of the year/decade/pre-TRoS era. Here’s twelve thousand words of smuggler!Ben and bar owner!Rey slowly but surely working toward their happily ever after.

Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter or Ko-fi?

The first time Ben Solo stumbles upon Jakku, he is a man on the run.

With his mother furious about his first solo smuggling run and his father too scared to defend his life choices, he’s left with no choice but to stay away until the whole mess dies down. It’s a tried and true tactic for dealing with Leia Organa, passed down from one Solo man to another, and Ben knows in a week or two some galactic emergency or another will successfully divert his mother’s attention from his not-so-legal activities.

Until then, he just needs to lay low – maybe spend a few days visiting his uncle until he gets sick of Luke lamenting the lost opportunity to pass on all he knows to his own flesh and blood, then pop by Takodana to pay old Maz a visit until she traumatizes him with her musings on Chewie’s… attributes, and finally cap it all off with a nice few days in Canto Bight to scout out some new opportunities before returning home just in time for his mother’s birthday.

First things first, though: he needs fuel, and urgently. It’s not an ideal situation to be in when one happens to be in the middle of kriffing nowhere, drifting dangerously close to the Unknown Regions, but the Appenza’s navigation system offers him a ray of hope just before Ben starts cursing his luck: a tiny, desolate system with only one planet to its name, the infamous Jakku.

There are two things Ben knows about Jakku: one, that this is where the dying Empire made its last stand; and two, that that was the only thing of any importance that ever happened on and to the planet.

Well, make that three things: three, it’s about to refuel his ship and save his ass.

With no other viable options, he charts a course for the desert planet and soon finds himself landing near Niima Outpost, his best bet to refuel according to the HoloNet. His ship draws a few looks, new as it is, but Ben would take this scrutiny over all the trouble and danger he’d gotten himself into while flying the Falcon any day, every day.

It doesn’t take long to find the right people and strike the right deal; just ten minutes after making planetfall, Ben finds himself with a refueling ship and an hour to kill. There doesn’t seem to be much going on in this tiny ramshackle outpost, but a familiar flag catches his eye before he resigns himself to spending the next hour in his ship.

“It can’t be,” Ben mutters even as he chuckles under his breath and shakes his head in disbelief at the image of Maz Kanata so far from home. The flag bears an exact replica of the statue that welcomes all wayward travelers to her castle in Takodana, along with the name Maz’s Castle in stylized Basic. Why she would choose to set up a location here of all places is a mystery, but then again no one’s ever claimed to understand any of Maz’s choices.

He follows the flag to one of the very few solid-looking structures in the outpost, and a sign hanging above the double doors assures him that this is, indeed, a location of the popular galaxy-wide chain. Inside, the bar is smaller than most of the locations he’s been to, but the set-up is comfortingly familiar. He spots less than a handful of locals, easily identifiable by their worn-out and climate-appropriate clothing, along with a dozen or so traders and smugglers and passers-by scattered around the place. But none of them manage to capture – and hold – his attention the way the girl behind the bar does.

“Welcome to Maz’s!” she calls out with a grin, waving at him with the rag she’d been using to polish the bar. Hers is the first friendly face he’s seen since his arrival, and Ben can’t help but gravitate toward her, planting himself in the seat closest to where she stands. “Not often we get new faces around here,” the girl tells him as she sets down her rag, and something about the way she speaks doesn’t quite sit right with him until he realizes–

“Your accent,” Ben hears himself blurt out to his horror, and immediately shuts his mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry, I– I was just surprised to hear a Core World accent so far from home, that’s all.”

She laughs, and the sound is even more of a revelation than placing her accent, a little giggle all light and airy and brighter than the scorching Jakku sun. “It’s a long story,” she says as her laugh fades into a smile, and leaves it at that. “So, what can I get you?”

He’d reconsider his order if this were any other bar so far from the Core, but Ben can’t imagine any establishment of Maz’s without some top-shelf stuff, even one so far out in the Western Reaches. “Corellian whiskey please, if you’ve got it.”

The girl raises an eyebrow at him, but turns around to pluck a bottle off the shelf anyway. “Fancy,” she quips as she pours him a glass and Ben roots around his pockets. “You really are from the Core, aren’t you?”

“Chandrila,” he tells her as he slides a few credits across the bar, and accepts his drink with a murmured thanks as he takes a sip. “I’m Ben, by the way.”

“Rey,” she offers in return, and Ben can’t quite hide the way he smiles at how perfect her name is for her. It only grows wider when she says his name in that proper accent and cheery voice of hers. “So, Ben – like I said, it’s not often we get new faces around here. What brings you to Jakku?”

“Huh,” Ben says to buy himself some time, weighing exactly how much to reveal. Rey’s given him no reason to distrust her, but he’s spent far too long bearing the names Organa and Solo to just throw caution to the wind whenever he sees a pretty face. Never mind that her smile makes him want to do exactly that, that her laugh puts him at ease in a way nothing else can. “Really? Place like this, I figured just about everyone passes through.”

She scoffs, though her smile remains. “No one passes through Jakku, not unless you’re on a one-way trip to the Unknown Regions.”

Ben tilts his head. “Can’t imagine why,” he deadpans, looking at her with a completely straight face. “Seems like a charming place, if you ask me.”

Rey bursts into laughter – a proper, full laugh this time – and he takes in every single detail even as he joins her. She laughs with abandon, lips parted and head thrown back and eyes bright, and he can’t imagine a more beautiful sight. Her eyes are not quite brown and not quite green, a kaleidoscope of gold and olive shimmering in the sunlight pouring in from the windows on either end of the bar.

And in the Force… he closes his eyes for a brief moment, and feels nothing but warmth in the Force, set ablaze by her presence. She’s not quite Force-sensitive, not as far as he can tell, but her energy is so vibrant he’d easily believe otherwise.

That, above all else, convinces Ben to finally let his guard down. He’s no Jedi, but he knows the Force, has known it since the day he was born and will walk with it until the day he dies – and the Force has never led him astray.

“I’m on the run from my mother,” Ben says, and relishes the way Rey instantly rests her elbows on the bar and leans in closer, giving him her full attention. “She’s… let’s just say she doesn’t fully approve of my life choices.”

“So you are a smuggler,” Rey grins, sounding pleased with herself.

Ben, ever the victim of terrible timing, nearly chokes on his drink. “What– wait– how did you…?”

She reaches out as if to take his hand, only to stop herself at the last second and rest her hand next to his instead, almost but not quite touching. “Calm down,” she murmurs gently, though the proximity of their hands has the opposite effect. “You won’t get into any trouble for that here. It’s just– news spreads fast, here in Niima. News about a brand new ship and a well-dressed man who refuses to give out his name? That spreads even faster. But, like I said,” Rey shrugs, “there’s no trouble here, not unless you’re looking for it. We’ve got smugglers coming and going all the time – you leave us in peace, and so will we.”

His instincts, honed from nearly a decade with his father and Chewie, are at war with the Force. No smuggler is ever really safe anywhere, especially not a Solo, but… but if Rey says so…

“I thought you said you don’t get many new faces passing by,” Ben reminds her, relaxing despite himself as he downs the rest of his whiskey.

“Jakku’s not a particularly exciting place, not even for smugglers,” she tells him as she slowly inches her hand away. “We just get regulars, and even those are dwindling in numbers now that most everything from the big battle has been picked cleaned.”

It’s almost jarring, hearing her refer to the Battle of Jakku so casually; flying past the hollowed-out carcasses of downed Star Destroyers and AT-ATs on his way to the outpost had been equally surreal, after a childhood filled with history classes on the Empire’s doomed final stand.

“So you see why a new face around these parts has us all curious,” Rey continues, resting her chin in one hand as she looks at him. “Why Jakku, anyway? Core World smuggler like you, you could probably go anywhere else in the galaxy to wait out your mother’s wrath.”

Ben winces at the reminder, even though Rey had meant it teasingly. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But there are surprisingly few places you can hide from your mother when she’s a senator like mine is. And anyway,” he hurriedly adds, hoping to gloss past that little bit of information, “I’m not actually here to stay. Just needed to refuel so that I can make the jump to my next destination.”

The smile on Rey’s face is gone now, as she shifts away from him just the slightest bit. It’s the senator thing, it has to be. Realistically, Ben knows not everyone is a huge fan of the New Republic, not even those who’d suffered the most under the Empire’s rule. Here on Jakku, one of the struggling planets the new government has been accused of forgetting and turning its back on… well, he really should’ve thought twice before mentioning his mother’s affiliation with the government.

In his haste to change the topic, Ben completely forgets his earlier blunder and takes it even further. “What about you? How’d a young lady from the Core end up bartending here in Jakku, anyway?”

He’s got to be the luckiest bastard in the galaxy, because thankfully Rey doesn’t react to his rude prying by throwing his drink in his face the way he’d been expecting. “I’m no lady,” she says instead, with a little laugh, “and I’m not just the bartender, for the record. You’re looking at the sole proprietor of the finest – all right, only – bar in the whole Jakku system.”

It’s adorable, the little note of pride that enters her voice and the way she straightens up a bit, the way she gestures at their surroundings with a little flourish. “Probably the youngest one too,” Ben adds, playing along. “You can’t be… what, more than twenty?”

Rey gives him a knowing look, but subtlety has never been a Solo trait anyway.

“Less than, actually,” she tells him anyway. “I’ll be nineteen soon.”

Ten years. She’s a whole ten years younger than him, and Ben can’t really bear to focus on that right now. “Wow, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.” And then, after a moment’s consideration of that life and all the possibilities it holds and the vast nothingness that surrounds her in this desert, he adds, “Are you… are you planning to stay here? It’s just– like you said, things are dying down around this part of the galaxy, and if people stop visiting then… well…” he trails off with a shrug, coming to the belated realization that he’s being rude and invasive yet again.

It’s like something inside of him is clamoring for every single bit about her, of her, that he can get his hands on, for the opportunity to get to know her even though he’s set to leave in… less than an hour.

The reminder feels like ice running through his veins.

Rey seems oblivious to his internal panicking. “This is all I’ve ever known,” she says, as if that’s all there is to it.

“But–” A desperate idea occurs to him then. “But is it all you want? Because if you want more– if you want to leave…” Ben takes a deep breath, tries to play it cool. “I mean,” he says with a shrug, “I do happen to have a brand new ship waiting for me just outside.”

She smiles at him, but Ben’s heart drops because he’s seen that smile, he knows that smile, his mother might not have been around for much of his childhood but she’d been around just long enough to drill that smile and what it means when a woman flashes it at him into his head.

It’s a polite smile, it’s a thanks but no thanks smile, it’s a no means no, Ben, even if she can’t find the voice to say so to someone with your size and your name and your power smile.

“And you probably shouldn’t keep it waiting much longer,” Rey says softly, and after a moment’s hesitation she does reach for him this time, rests her small palm on top of his hand and gives it an almost apologetic pat. As far as consolation prizes go… well, he’ll take it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he turns his hand around to lace their fingers together, keeping his grip loose enough for Rey to pull her hand away at any time.

She gives him a little squeeze instead. “It was nice meeting you, Ben. Stay safe, yeah?”

“You’re acting as if we’ll never see each other again,” he says with a forced little laugh, trying to keep his voice light and teasing even as his heart grows heavy at the thought.

Rey shrugs, and takes her hand away, wraps it around herself instead. “You were never here to stay,” she reminds him, sounding almost… almost disappointed by the thought. “And no one comes back to Jakku. Can’t blame them, really,” Rey adds, throwing in a hollow laugh of her own.

And he knows she gave him the smile, knows and understands and respects what it means, but… but surely all of this – the hand-holding and the dim eyes and the hollow laugh – means something too.

The Force tells him it does, reminds him once again how warm and vibrant and familiar she feels to him. And because it’s never led him astray, because he desperately wants to believe in it, because Rey should be a stranger but stars, that couldn’t be further from the truth–

“Well, I guess I’ll be the first,” Ben says as he reluctantly gets up, and knows in that moment that nothing will keep him from fulfilling this promise. “I’ll see you soon, Rey.”

“See you soon, Ben,” she echoes weakly, with the mere ghost of a smile. She’s clearly not convinced, but there’s something in her eyes as she watches him walk away, something that he recognizes in himself.

Hope, Ben thinks as he walks back out into the desert, and prays it’ll be enough for the both of them until they meet again.  

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The second time Ben Solo lands on Jakku, he is a man on a mission.

News spreads fast, he remembers Rey telling him two weeks ago, remembers every single word and look and smile she shared with him. Still, he hurries over to the bar anyway, hoping to beat Jakku’s gossips to the punch and surprise her.

Judging by the look on her face when she glances up from the bar and sees him in her doorway, by the audible gasp that escapes her parted lips and the barely visible sheen of emotion in her eyes and the slight tremor in her hands as she sets down a glass, he’s somehow pulled it off.

“You came back,” Rey whispers as he comes to a stop just two feet away, separated by the bar between them.

“I came back,” Ben says with a nod as he slides into the seat he already thinks of as his, and rests his hands palms-up on the bar in a silent offering. Rey takes them in her own with a shaky smile, her touch warm and comforting and familiar even though it shouldn’t be.

In the past two weeks, he’s realized there are a lot of things about him and her and them that shouldn’t be – but over his dead body is he going to question any of them. Instead, he holds her hands until she pulls away, and watches her reach for the bottle of Corellian whiskey without prompting.

The bar is slightly busier today, with patrons calling Rey away from him more often than not. “They brought in a good haul this morning,” Rey tells him as she assembles another round for a band of scavengers in the far corner, “so it’s time to celebrate.”

“Good for them,” Ben says, though he wonders what exactly is left to qualify as a good haul in picked-apart wreckages older than him.

Rey smiles as she begins to load the drinks onto a tray. “And good for me,” she points out. “Between their endless celebrations and my favorite customer coming back for the good stuff, business is booming.”

It’s a good thing she heads off to deliver the drinks then, because Ben’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have believed him if he’d tried to dismiss the pink in his cheeks as sunburn.

Eventually, the scavengers grudgingly agree with Rey when she cuts them off after four rounds and suggests they keep their precious credits for more responsible uses. The place is left half empty after they leave, and a relieved Rey chooses to slump into the seat next to his rather than return to her spot behind the bar.

“Hello, stranger,” she grins as she moves her chair closer to his, playfully bumping his shoulder before she spins around in her chair so that she can keep an eye on the remaining patrons.

Ben takes a moment to adjust to the fact that she’s right next to him, closer than she’s ever been, and then turns around as well. This way, facing the door and the windows on either side of it, he can see the blinding Jakku sky slowly fade into a beautiful swirl of pinks and oranges as the sun begins its gradual descent.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rey asks after a moment, and he turns to find her observing him with a little smile on her lips. “I know it isn’t much, this desert wasteland of ours, but even in a place like this… there’s beauty to be found, if you care to look.”

I wasn’t even looking when I found you, Ben thinks to himself, and nearly says so out loud.

Instead, he shrugs and smiles and says, “I guess it’s not so bad, after all.”

Rey laughs out loud, attracting curious looks from the handful of others surrounding them. “Oh no, it’s a hellhole, trust me. The view’s nice and all, but everything else?” She pauses for a moment, seems to weigh her words before she speaks again. “I wonder sometimes, what my life would’ve been like if I didn’t have the bar. I’ve seen how it is out there, how everyone else struggles day in and day out only to get the bare minimum, just enough to carry them through the next day of scavenging. I… I honestly don’t know if I could’ve made it through that,” she admits quietly.

Ben reaches for her hand without thought. “Rey… I probably don’t know enough about you for this to mean anything, but… I think you’re stronger than you know. I think there’s nothing out there you can’t do, if you put your mind to it.”

He doesn’t explain himself, can’t quite put into words how vivid and brilliant she is in the Force, but he doesn’t need to. Rey curls her hand around his, and her lips curve into a soft smile.

“And I think you’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met,” she says, only to ruin the moment by adding, “Oh, except maybe Maz. Probably wouldn’t be alive without her, so I can’t forget good old Maz.”

Rey lets go of his hand and spins around, gestures for him to do the same before she points out a little statue of Maz sitting on the highest shelf of the bar. “Have you ever met her? They say all smugglers have, at some point or another.”

Ben can’t help but laugh. “Maz? I’ve known her my whole life,” he tells a stunned Rey. “No, really – she’s an old friend of my dad’s. And funny story, she’s actually why I decided to come check out this place the first time I was here. I saw the flag and I just had to drop by.”

“Small galaxy, I suppose,” Rey shrugs, her eyes dancing with mirth. “I’ll have to tell her about this the next time she drops by; you know she loves these little coincidences.”

“Coincidence, or fate?” Ben says before his brain can catch up to his heart, and instantly regrets it. He could play it off as a joke, could even spin it into something Maz would say, but… but it’s not a joke, not to him. Sure, Ben believes in coincidences – even with the Force flowing around and through every living being, sometimes things just… happen, and that’s that. But for him to have ended up in this system of all the stars in the galaxy, to have chosen Niima Outpost of all the settlements, to have caught a glimpse of Maz’s flag and then made the uncharacteristic decision to leave his ship unguarded in a strange place just to check it out…

He knows, with a certainty that his father would laugh at and his uncle would approve of, that nothing about him and Rey is coincidental. But maybe their second meeting isn’t the right time to tell her that, and so Ben settles for a change of topic instead. “How do you know Maz, anyway? I mean, apart from the obvious, of course.” He waves his hand around, gesturing vaguely at the establishment they’re in. “How’d you come to run and own the place?”

Somehow, Rey had seemed less unsettled by his suggestion of them being brought together by fate than she is by his seemingly innocuous question. He’s about to backtrack and tell her she doesn’t need to tell him anything she doesn’t want to when Rey lets out a little sigh and then squares her shoulders as if bracing herself for battle, fixing her eyes on the window beyond his shoulder as she begins to speak.

“When I was four, my parents heard that Maz was hiring, looking for people interested in exciting business opportunities. I guess there’s no business opportunity more exciting than running a bar for a couple of alcoholics,” she says casually, too casually, and throws in a bitter little laugh. “They got their shit together just long enough to pass the interview, and then uprooted our family from Coruscant and moved all the way here. And then… well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that equation would work out, does it? Alcoholics surrounded by a free flow of alcohol every single minute of their lives.”

For some reason, it doesn’t quite surprise him that Rey’s an orphan. Maybe it’s just based on his perception of Jakku in general, and its reputation in the galaxy as the place where the lost and the lonely go when there is nowhere and no one left for them to call home. But her next words… her next words shake him to his core.

“I was eight, when it finally happened. And I… I didn’t even cry, Ben,” she whispers, her eyes finally meeting his with a glassy, faraway look. “I found my parents dead in a puddle of their own sick, and I didn’t even cry. I just… I knew it’d been coming, I suppose, so I just did what I had to do. I figured Maz would come eventually, if she realized something was wrong, so I boarded up the place and waited. And sure enough, she arrived a week later to find my parents barely hidden away in the shallow graves I’d dug out back and me surviving off bar snacks and water.”

Ben can’t help the way he flinches then, at the thought of little Rey trying her best to dig graves for her parents in the shifting sands of Jakku. He wants to hold her close and promise her nothing bad will ever happen to her again, he wants to rip apart the fabric of time and space to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her in the first place, he wants so badly to be able to do something, anything–

But Rey doesn’t seem to be in search of comfort. “I thought of leaving – I mean, I was just a child, I couldn’t fathom going on like this completely on my own, especially here of all places – but Maz stayed around long enough to set things up for me, arranged for people to come help and train and take care of me until I could take care of myself. And I’ve been running this place ever since,” she concludes with a shrug. “So um, to answer your question without the tragic backstory,” Rey adds with a touch of self-consciousness, dropping her gaze down to the bar top as she bites into her lower lip, “I inherited the place, plain and simple.”

That finally spurs him into action, the sight of her retreating from him. Ben reaches out for her hand, and waits until she turns to look at him to say, “You really are stronger than you know, Rey. Strongest person I’ve ever met, and I think my mother would kill me for saying that,” he adds in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It works, because Rey laughs and fully turns her body to him as she rests her elbow on the bar and uses her free hand to prop her head up. “You know, that’s only the second time you’ve mentioned your mother and I’m already terrified of her. Which senator are we talking about, here?”

And it’s stupid, it’s so, so stupid what he’s about to do, but how could he possibly lie to Rey after all she’s shared with him, after all she’s trusted him with? Ben takes a deep breath, and makes a choice.

“Have you heard about the senator from Chandrila?”

Rey lets go of his hand and nearly falls out of her chair as the arm holding her up fails her.  “Shut up. Your mother is Leia Organa?”

In light of the obvious awe in her voice and her eyes, Ben is forced to reconsider his assessment of her political opinions from the last time he’d broached the subject. But if her reaction that day hadn’t been about the senate, then what…?

Before he can ponder it much further though, Rey’s punching his arm. “You’re Leia Organa and Han Solo’s son! You’re Luke Skywalker’s nephew!” she whisper-hisses, careful not to broadcast his identity to the rest of the bar. “Ben, you– you’re unbelievable! You let me think you were just some random guy!”

“I am just some random guy,” he insists, rubbing at his arm. Unsurprisingly for someone who’s had to fend for herself in the desert, Rey packs quite a punch. “My family are who they are, but that doesn’t mean or say anything about me. I’m not some war hero or Jedi knight or royalty–”

Rey, however, seems to think otherwise. “Oh my kriff, you’re a prince,” she gasps, though he appreciates the fact that she looks more irritated than starry-eyed by the realization.

“Only in name,” Ben tells her – and then, a thought occurs to him. A thought that is, as much as it pains him to say it, probably exactly the kind of thing his father would’ve come up with. “Though I do have a palace I can whisk you away to, if you want.”

To his eternal mortification, Rey does not laugh. She smiles, but just barely as she quietly notes, “That’s the second time you’ve offered to take me away.”

Ben gulps, and can only hope it was not audible. “No pressure,” he quickly assures her, not quite sure what to make of her reaction and the little smile that’s still playing on her lips. “Just, um… just letting you know that the offer still stands, if you ever change your mind.”

She’s quiet for the longest time, but the wait is worth it when Rey says, “Someday. Someday I’ll leave this place and go explore the galaxy, see for myself what oceans and forests and mountains look like.”

His heart aches for her, for the obvious longing in her voice and all the things she’s been deprived of and everything she deserves but isn’t ready for. “When you do…” Ben says softly, carefully. “I’ll be right by your side – if you want me to, that is, I’m not saying you’ll be stuck with me or that a ride off the planet comes with terms and conditions or–”

It’s worth the humiliation, the slight laugh Rey gives him as she reaches out and slowly, hesitantly curves her hand around his cheek. If he leans into her touch with a sigh… well, that’s between the two of them, and Rey has the good grace not to comment on it. “I’d like that,” she says instead, with a smile it physically hurts him not to kiss. “I’d like that very much.”

“Okay,” he whispers, his lips perhaps a touch too close to her hand, and they lapse into a warm, comfortable silence as the sun dips beneath the horizon. When it’s finally time for him to leave, to get back to his ship while he still has one, Rey stares at him with a look of intense concentration on her face until she suddenly throws herself into his arms and burrows into his chest.

“I’ll see you soon, Ben,” she murmurs against his racing heart, which skips a beat when he senses the hidden question in her tone.

“See you soon, Rey,” he promises, and leaves with the knowledge that this time, she believes him.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The third time Ben Solo visits Jakku, he is a man following his heart.

It’s barely been two weeks this time, but he can’t help himself. None of the jobs his father contacts him about seem worth his time, none of the sights he normally marvels at measure up to Rey, none of his family’s many properties across the galaxy feel like home anymore.

Jakku calls to him like a beacon, with Rey at the very heart of it all.

When he finally has her in his arms again, a part of Ben wishes he didn’t have to leave. It’s wishful thinking though, and he shoves the thought aside to focus on the present, on Rey and the way her eyes light up when she sees him again and the way her touches have grown bolder and more comfortable. The longer he stays, the harder it is to even consider leaving – and then, nature makes the decision for him.

Rey’s laughing as he regales her with the tale of a childhood dance lesson gone wrong, her setting aside clean glasses for the night and him stacking chairs up onto the tables, when they first hear it. Ben’s heard the wind wail before, but this is a shriek, a painful sound accompanied by the harsh grating of sand relentlessly battering the walls and windows of the bar.

“Oh no,” Rey says as she looks out the window into the darkened desert. “Ben, I think you’re stuck here for the night.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he teases even as he comes to stand next to her, their concerned faces reflected in the window. “Is the bar going to be okay?”

“It’s survived far worse,” she tells him with a shrug. “Your ship should be fine too; the storm doesn’t look too bad, just bad enough to keep everyone indoors.”

Ben casts a look around the empty bar. “I’ll be fine,” he assures Rey. “A blanket would be nice if you could spare one, but I’ve slept in worse.”

When he turns back to her, she’s looking at him with a barely suppressed smile. “Did you really think I was going to make you sleep here? On the floor?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure the bar’s not wide enough for me–”

“Ben,” Rey laughs with a shake of her head, and then reaches for his hand. “Come on, there’s plenty of room downstairs.”

He supposes it makes sense, building underground rather than upward in a place so susceptible to volatile winds, but Ben’s still a little too puzzled by the developments of the last five minutes to really pay attention or react as Rey leads him behind the bar and turns off the lights in the main area before she guides him down a staircase ordinarily kept out of view by the shelves.

“I turned my old room into a storeroom,” Rey tells him as the basement comes into view, a closed door ahead and another to their left. “And the cot was built for a child, so it’s not like you’d fit anyway.” He doesn’t quite realize what she’s getting at until she reaches for the door in front of them, and opens it to reveal a decently-sized room that has to be hers, clothes stacked in semi-neat piles on a threadbare couch and hardy little desert plants lining the walls and…

And one bed, just about big enough for two.

Rey shuts the door behind them. “’Fresher’s through there,” she says, letting go of his hand to point out a door next to her couch. “I’ve got an actual shower, so hopefully my humble abode will live up to your smuggler standards at least, if not your princely ones,” she adds teasingly.

Ben gives her a slight laugh as he curiously heads toward the ‘fresher and opens the door to find that she was serious about the shower. “How?” he asks in bewilderment as he twists a creaky knob that prompts water, actual water, to flow out of the showerhead. It’s nothing to brag about, not even by smuggler standards, but he imagines this has to be the height of luxury for a desert dweller.

“Not bad, is it?” Rey asks, coming to lean against the ‘fresher door with a smile. “What a lot of people don’t know is that this bar stands on the exact spot of Niima the Hutt’s original temple, and she spared no expense when she had that constructed. This is probably the only structure on all of Jakku with running water, courtesy of a pipe that runs deep into the planet, all the way down to whatever source of water’s left from before the Calamity.”

“I’m guessing Maz knew that when she decided to set up shop here?” Ben asks as they make their way out of the cramped ‘fresher and back into the daunting sight of her bedroom and its single bed. It’s not that he doesn’t welcome the opportunity to lie next to her, of course he does, but he doesn’t want Rey to feel like she has to invite him into her space.

But then again, he’d made it clear that he was perfectly content to stay upstairs and she’d been the one to bring him down here…

Rey turns her back to him and starts digging through her piles of clothing and sheets and towels. “Probably,” she says, carefully retrieving a small bundle of clothing from the precarious stacks. “I wish I had something for you to change into, but…”

Right. Clothes to change into, so that they can get to sleep. Together. In the same bed. “I, um,” Ben clears his throat. “I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Good,” Rey nods, suddenly bashful. “Do you mind if I shower first?”

“Go ahead,” he says, and waits until the ‘fresher door closes behind Rey before he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes several deep breaths.

“She wouldn’t have volunteered if she wasn’t comfortable with this,” Ben reminds himself, and a cursory sweep of the Force reveals that Rey is comfortable, her presence warm and soothing and electrified by the slightest bit of excitement.

Sufficiently comforted, he makes it through the rest of the evening with little trouble. In fact, it’s all a little… domestic, Ben decides as he comes out of the ‘fresher to find the lights off and Rey already in bed, arranging two pillows next to each other and folding back the blanket on what he assumes is his side of the bed in invitation. She blinks at the sight of him stripped down to his boxers and undershirt, but invites him into bed with a pat on his pillow anyway. He switches off the light in the ‘fresher, plunging them into complete darkness, and waits until his eyesight has adjusted before crossing the room.

“It gets cold at night,” Rey explains as he holds up the blanket in a silent question, and promptly shuffles into his arms when he finally lies down next to her. “You’re much better than a blanket,” is all she offers up as explanation, along with a contented little sigh.

He takes that as permission to properly wrap his arms around her, and closes his eyes when Rey happily swings an arm around his waist in return. She’s so small and warm and soft in his arms, so comfortable and at home this way that he can’t help but relax into their shared embrace as well. Sleep is already beckoning when Rey suddenly whispers into the night.

“Ben?”

“Hmm?” he hums, lips brushing her forehead.

“The first time we met… why did you offer to take me off this planet, even back when we were complete strangers?” Rey asks, and suddenly every single part of him is wide awake and tense with nerves. He won’t, can’t lie to her, but there’s very little he can say to a woman he’s only met three times while holding her in his arms in her bed without scaring her off.

But first– “You’ve never felt like a stranger to me, not even that first day,” he admits, figuring that’s safe enough for now. “There’s just… there’s something about you, Rey.”

He can feel her smile against his chest. “I feel it too,” she murmurs, and presses a kiss to his neck.

And that’s when Ben begins to stammer. “I’m not… it’s just… I’m not saying you can’t look after yourself, I know you can, but… I was just worried, I guess. Is it safe for you here? And okay, I guess it is since you’ve been on your own since you were eight–” He cuts himself off with a wince then, wondering how his attempt to evade the true depth of his feelings for her had ended up with him reminding her of her painful loss.

For the first time in his life, Ben finds himself empathizing with the way his father always, always finds a way to make things worse when he tries to talk himself out of some mess with Ben’s mom.

Thankfully, Rey doesn’t pull away from him, doesn’t even tense up in his arms. “I wasn’t alone, not really,” she mumbles, lips warm against his skin. “I had Maz’s people, remember? They stayed with me for a bit, and then they’d come check up on me every once in a while. Besides, I wasn’t in any real danger. None of the locals would have hurt me, not back then.”

Ben shifts to get a proper look at Rey, careful not to jostle her in the process. “Why’s that?”

She lifts her head from his chest to return his gaze. “This is your third time here. Have you ever seen any kids around?”

He considers the question for a moment, runs through his brief time here on Jakku… and realizes that he has never seen anyone younger than Rey. “I… I never noticed.”

“Children are precious here,” she says. “Jakku is no place to raise a child, so barely anyone tries to. The kids we do have, we all take care of. So in a way, everyone you see here kind of played a part in raising me.”

It’s an odd concept, but one he’s certainly familiar with on a certain level. “They do say it takes a village,” Ben finally says.

“Especially when you don’t have parents,” Rey adds quietly, and it’s perhaps the first and only time he’s heard her actually sound forlorn by the fact.

His first instinct is to comfort her, and he rolls with it before he can overthink the execution. “Sometimes even when you do,” Ben says, and waits for Rey’s reaction to determine what comes next.

She turns on her stomach and props herself up with one hand, staring expectantly at him in the dark. Ben sighs and rolls onto his back, closing his eyes as he slowly gathers his thoughts and weaves them into words. “Turns out, growing up with a princess and a smuggler for parents isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.”

He can’t believe he’s telling her his pitiful sob story about his parents when she grew up with none, but Rey reaches out and runs a hand through his hair and… and for the very first time, Ben feels like this story he’s kept close to his chest all his life might actually be worth sharing, and sharing with her.

“I’m not… I’m not saying they’re bad people. They’re amazing people, who’ve done amazing things, but… doing amazing things takes up a lot of time – time that normal people might have spent on comforting their kid after a nightmare or explaining the Force to him when he started lashing out or sticking around for a bit after dropping a bombshell revelation about his grandfather instead of running off to the senate to protect your reputation–”

Rey’s hand is still carding through his hair, soothing and grounding him before he can get lost in his own memories.

“They… they tried their best,” Ben says, more for his own benefit than Rey’s. “Eventually, my mother decided to send me to my uncle for training. She’s strong with the Force, always has been, but she’s spent her whole life trying to suppress it. So when my abilities started growing out of control, she thought maybe I needed Luke more than I needed her.”

She’d thought wrong, but Ben tries not to focus on that, on what could have been. “My dad… he agreed, at first. He still thinks all this Force stuff is mumbo-jumbo, but he just wanted the best for me. So I packed my things, said goodbye to my mom, and got on his ship. I don’t know if it was something in my eyes, or my voice, or maybe just paternal intuition kicking in eighteen years too late, but my dad, he just… he kept looking at me, and then just as we were about to arrive he turned the ship around. And then he said…” He turns to Rey, finds her hand in the darkness and allows himself a smile at the memory. “I’ll never forget it. He said Force mumbo-jumbo or not, you’re still my son. And I’m still your father, dammit, and it’s about time I start acting that way.”

Rey squeezes his hand, and smiles back at him as the hand in his hair slides down to cup his cheek. “And that’s how you became a smuggler instead of a Jedi?”

“And that’s how I became a smuggler instead of a Jedi,” Ben echoes with a nod, curling his free arm around her to pull her closer.

“Are you… are you happy?” she asks, still looking up at him. “With how life turned out?”

He shrugs. “If you’re asking if I’d rather be a smuggler or a Jedi, the answer is definitely, one hundred percent smuggler. I admire my uncle and all, but the life he lives, the life he’s chosen… it’s not for me,” Ben says, a realization he’s long since made his peace with. “Besides, growing up I always wanted to be a pilot just like my dad, and I guess this is about as close as it gets.”

Rey hums in acknowledgement, burrows closer to him to rest her head on his chest. “How about you?” he asks, resting their joined hands on her hip. “Are you happy with how your life turned out?”

She’s quiet for so long Ben begins to think that maybe she’s fallen asleep, or maybe she doesn’t want to answer the question. Just as he’s about to give up and close his eyes though, Rey speaks.

“I mean… most days, I’m okay with it,” she says, and he looks down to find her eyes open but fixed someplace else. “These days, I’m especially okay with it, now that… now that I’m not alone anymore.”

Ben holds her tighter, presses a kiss to her forehead. Rey sighs and looks up at him, gives him a smile. “I’ve got a better life than most people here, so at least there’s that. And… and really, this is all I’ve ever known, Ben. If I leave… when I leave… I won’t even know where to start.”

He pulls them both into a sitting position, looks her in the eyes when he promises, “I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way.”

Rey shuffles closer and reaches up, wraps her arms around his neck and slides her fingers into his hair. She looks at him, just… looks at him, for a short eternity. And then–

“I know,” Rey whispers, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him like she can’t stop herself, like her life depends on it, like the floodgates have finally been opened and there will be no closing them ever again.

The storm rages for three days, but by the end of it Ben is sure they’ve barely gotten three hours of sleep combined. When they finally step out into the sun on the third day, they sport matching swollen lips and dark circles as Rey walks him to his ship, unashamedly strolling hand-in-hand with him in full view of the entire outpost.

When the Appenza finally comes into view, Ben can’t resist the urge to ask. Deep in his heart he already knows her answer, but everything else has changed, everything, so why not this?

“Sure you still don’t want to come with me?”

It comes as no surprise when Rey shakes her head with a small smile. “Not yet,” she whispers, but at least this time she softens the blow with a goodbye kiss.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth, twentieth, thirtieth time Ben Solo comes back to Jakku, he is a man in love.

He starts taking jobs almost exclusively in the Western Reaches, so that he can visit more frequently and stay longer. After a while, her regulars don’t even blink at the sight of him behind the bar with her anymore, the two of them huddled close in near-constant conversation, almost always holding hands or brushing shoulders or trading playful kisses.

Rey’s bed becomes as familiar to him as his own, a little sanctuary where all their worries disappear. They share secrets under the cover of darkness, paint futures in the golden light of dawn, grasp at each other with all the desperation and want and joy of young lovers every spare moment in between.

Over bar snacks one afternoon, they laugh and bond over the fact that Maz had been the one to give both of them The Talk. In Rey’s case she’d simply had no one else to do it, and one day Maz just sat her down and told her everything there was to know before offering her a contraceptive implant. In Ben’s case, his mother had tasked his father with the responsibility, and his father had predictably pushed it to Chewie, and Chewie had promptly recruited the help of Maz.

Two months after their first kiss, a case of Jogan fruit on his ship opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Ben, and a whole new world period for Rey. He brings her fruit and flowers and all sorts of things she’s never had the chance to see or touch or taste, and tells her each time that her happiness is all the payment he needs. Well, a few kisses wouldn’t hurt either.

One morning, when Ben awakes with the sudden and terrifying realization that he’s overdue for a check-in with his mother as part of her very strict terms for allowing him to continue smuggling, Rey hands him an ancient, patched-together datapad and tells him the story of how she’d hacked into Unkar Plutt’s network one day just for fun, and continues to make use of the highly-encrypted channel for her own purposes.

Another day, when a sandstorm much like the one that had brought them together rolls in, Rey plops herself on top of him to keep him in bed, and asks him to tell her about everything that’s out there, every single world he’s ever visited. He tells her about the lakes of Naboo, the forests of Takodana, the beaches of Chandrila, even the lost mountains of Alderaan, and she promises him that someday, someday he’ll have the chance to show her all of it.

Eventually, her cajoling and pleading finally pay off and Ben acquiesces to a little after-hours display of his skills, using the Force to move bottles around on her shelf and even call some over to the bar, Rey asks him if he ever regrets it, not being a Jedi. And Ben… Ben tells her everything: about how brightly he’d burned even before he’d come into this world, about the tendrils of darkness that had started reaching for him then and hadn’t stopped until years later, about how ultimately love had been just what he’d needed to banish the voices once and for all, the love of his family and for his family. But love, he tells her, is not for the Jedi, not even in this new age – and what he holds in his heart, what he feels for her… he wouldn’t give it up for all the secrets of the Force, for all the power in the galaxy.

A few months later, nearly a standard year since they first met, he arrives to find Rey laughing her head off before she shoos a band of older women away. The people of Jakku, she tells him later, have a tendency to exaggerate; how else does one keep oneself entertained in the desert, after all? The latest story to take Niima Outpost by storm is the sordid tale of one Rey of Jakku and her revolving door of handsome, rich lovers, all of whom keep her business alive with their drink preferences and court her with priceless artifacts sourced from all over the galaxy and fall to their knees begging for her hand. It’s almost impressive, how much they got right aside from the lovers, plural bit.

“You are all there has ever been for me,” Rey assures him when he pretends to be put out by the thought, “and all there will ever be.”

And so life goes on around them while they settle into a new normal, parting every so often only to always, always come back together, finding love and acceptance and belonging with each other for the very first time in their lives.

Everything is perfect… until it almost isn’t.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The last time Ben Solo arrives on Jakku, he is a man trembling in concern and anger and fear.

He’s four days early for his next scheduled visit, but somehow still too late. By the time he makes planetfall, a full day has passed since the message first interrupted his monthly check-in call with Luke. His uncle had been blathering on as usual, something about an awakening in the Force, when the feed of Luke probably bragging about a new student had been briefly interrupted by a single word: HELP.

And somehow Ben had known, even before he’d traced the anonymous message back to Jakku and Plutt’s network, exactly who it had come from.

He’d made preparations to rush to Rey’s side immediately, but an unexpected run-in with the Kanjiklub had delayed him by entire hours until he’d finally given in to the swell of fear and anger inside him and knocked them all out with a pulse of dark energy.

That’s probably going to get him an earful from Luke but frankly, Ben doesn’t really give a single flying kriff right now. Right now, he’s trying not to let his fear cripple him as he lands in an eerily empty Niima Outpost. The streets are deserted and so is the marketplace, even though by now it should be filled with scavengers cleaning up their finds of the day and getting in line to present them to the revolting Crolute. Even more worrying is the absence of said Crolute and his thugs, and the sight of Plutt’s beloved concession stand torn apart and thoroughly emptied of his precious rations.

A rising wave of panic threatens to swallow him whole, until Ben forces himself to close his eyes and reach out.

What he finds nearly knocks him to the ground.

If Rey had been brilliant before, now she is blinding. Even with fear and anxiety and anger clouding her energy, her presence in the Force burns brighter than a star, blotting out everything and everyone else. And with this transformation comes an undeniable truth, one Ben cannot believe it’s taken him this long to realize.

“Rey,” he murmurs, and breaks into a run.

Ben, she whispers back, in some secret corner of his mind that less than a handful of people have ever been able to find, let alone reach.

Ben Ben Ben, she chants – cries – pleads in the space between them until he comes upon the bar, doors and windows completely boarded up. But Rey’s already moving, already prying blocks of wood and sheets of metal off the door with a raw strength that cannot possibly be just her own, until finally there’s nothing standing in between them, until finally she’s in his arms again.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks, hands roaming up and down to check for injury even as Rey clutches him tight and sobs into his chest. “Rey, sweetheart, I’m so sorry it took me so long, are you hurt, what happened, I’m here now, I’m here,” he babbles in relief, his and hers and theirs, inseparable in the Force.

She’s quiet in his arms except for the wet sound of sobs and harsh, ragged inhales, and he holds her until her tears run dry and her breathing returns to normal. “Help me,” Rey croaks, her first words in Force knows how long, and pulls away from him to begin the arduous process of boarding the door up again. It’s a flimsy layer of protection, one that won’t actually do anything, but if this is what she needs to feel safe then this is what he’ll do for her. Together they replace all the layers of wood and metal, and then create an additional barricade using every single chair and table in the bar.

When it’s done, Rey wordlessly takes his hand and leads him downstairs, and she doesn’t bother turning the lights on before she pulls him into bed and curls up in his arms, her exaggerated breaths the only sound in the darkness that curls around them.

In, out, in, out, in, out – and with every repetition, the beacon that is her energy in the Force pulses like a gentle heartbeat, dimming and then flaring back to life in the most extraordinary, beautiful light show Ben has ever seen. He’s content to just stay that way, to hold her and mimic her breathing and marvel at her presence, until Rey finally speaks.

“I killed him,” she whispers, her voice painfully raspy; it’s only then that he wonders when she last drank, when she last ate. “I killed all of them,” Rey adds, her voice thick with regret and pain and fear as hot tears drip down his chest.

“Shh,” Ben whispers soothingly, pulls her closer and starts to rock her the way he vaguely remembers his mother doing once, a long time ago. “Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you, you’re safe now, I’m here, Rey, I’m here–”

“He– he–” It’s painful, the way she gasps for breath with each word, the way guilt threatens to snuff out her light. He can only hold her close and pray she’s as attuned to him in the Force as he is to her, pray she can feel all the comfort and love and protection he has to offer. Maybe, just maybe, it works, because soon enough Rey calms down enough to fill him in without sounding on the brink of a panic attack.

“It was Plutt,” she whispers, a loose fist curling into the front of his shirt for comfort. “He’d heard about all the gossip the others were spreading, all the lies about my new smuggler regulars and all the business I was getting and the expensive gifts I was hiding in my place. That kriffing blobfish got it into his head that he deserved a cut of my profits, so he rounded up his goons and stormed the place two days ago.”

She’s shaken by the memory, just as Ben is shaken by the timestamp. Two days ago, two whole days ago and she’s been alone ever since, while he was in Naboo with his mother and rolling his eyes at his uncle and wasting time with the karking Kanjiklub.

Rey pauses, burrows impossibly closer to him. “When the fight broke out… it was me against twelve of them. Even with my blaster, I could only take down so many of them before they outnumbered me. They… they knocked it out of my hands, and then Plutt reached out, for my neck, and…”

Just hearing about it makes his blood boil, makes his heart bleed. But Rey is here, he reminds himself, here and safe and alive in his arms, and she needs him to focus on the present, not the past.

“And then… he was choking on thin air. They all were.” Her voice sounds so small, so scared.

“The Force,” Ben finally murmurs, willing her to feel the way his presence curls around hers, the way his soul instinctively reaches out for hers.

Judging by her quiet acceptance, Rey had come to the realization on her own at some point in the last two days. “I never knew, never even thought…” she whispers, sounding half-awed and half-terrified. “But Ben, I… I killed them all. I’m… Maker, Ben, I’m a monster.”

“No.” His response is immediate and forceful as he pulls away and wills Rey to look at him. “No, never. Listen to me, Rey, listen–” he all but begs when she begins to shake her head in denial. “You were scared, and in danger, and the Force chose to come to you in that exact moment, sweetheart, chose to save you no matter the cost. That wasn’t you, no, it wasn’t–”

“I could feel them,” she chokes out, eyes clouding over with tears once more. “Ben, I could feel them slipping away and I didn’t– I didn’t stop, didn’t know how, didn’t want to–”

He leans down and presses their foreheads together, wills her to breathe with him until she stops shaking. "Listen to me,” Ben says sharply, leaving no room for argument. “You were in danger, you had no other choice, and you did nothing wrong. Those men deserved it, and you know that, Rey.”

She’s quiet for so long, and even with their newfound closeness he can’t tell what she’s feeling, refuses to barge into her mind to see what she’s thinking. He can only hold her until finally, she continues her story.

“I buried them,” Rey tells him, her voice eerily flat and detached and steady. “I buried them out back, right next to my parents, in even shallower graves. I locked up the bar and hid down here, but it wasn’t enough. That night I heard the ripper-raptors tear their bodies apart for meat and I thought… I thought to myself finally. Finally they were of some use to this kriffing desert.”

And for a moment, for the most fleeting of seconds, Ben can see how the blinding warmth of her light could easily turn into something else, something that sends a chill down his spine.

But he of all people knows better than to let those possibilities cloud his perception. “When was the last time you ate something?” Ben asks quietly, brushing those thoughts aside before Rey can sense them and focusing only on her warmth, her light.

“I’m fine,” she claims unconvincingly.

“Rey, please, let me–”

She curls her arms around him tighter, trapping him like a vise. “I’m fine. I just…” She softens, voice and grip both, and relaxes into him with a sigh. “I’m just so tired, Ben, I haven’t slept in days.”

He thinks of the boarded-up windows, of the barricade, of the tendrils of fear that continue to stain her Force signature.

“Hold me?” Rey asks, with a voice like the scared child she never got to be.

Ben kisses her forehead. “All night,” he promises, and stands guard over her while she drifts in and out of uneasy sleep and dark nightmares and the prison of her own mind. They spend the rest of the night in silence, save for a few soothing whispers on his part when he slowly draws her out of her nightmares, Rey feigning sleep even when she’s clearly awake and Ben letting her as he draws soothing circles into her back.

Eventually, the chrono mounted above the ‘fresher door displays a dimly-lit 0500, the only source of light in the room. The sun has risen in Jakku, and with it so has Rey, finally giving up her act to roll onto her back and stare at the ceiling instead.

“The second time Maz visited after… after my parents,” she says slowly, quietly, her voice scratchy in that intimate, first-thing-in-the-morning way he’s come to cherish, “I begged her to take me back to Takodana with her. I was so lonely, and sad, and scared, and I just… I wanted to not be all of those things, any of those things, anymore.”

It doesn’t matter how many times Rey talks about her childhood – his heart breaks for her every single time.

“And she said… she said she’d like nothing more in the entire universe, but it wasn’t my time to leave yet,” Rey tells him with a little scoff. “Worst thing to tell a child who’s desperate to get off a planet, but you know how Maz is. She wouldn’t change her mind, no matter how much I cried and begged. All she told me was that I’d know when it was time… and I’ve been waiting ever since.”

And finally, finally all of the pieces fall into place. “So that’s why every time I asked…”

Rey rolls onto her side to look at him. “It wasn’t time. I thought it was at first, I hoped it was. I mean, stars,” she breathes, the faintest hint of a laugh in her voice, and relief crashes into him like a tidal wave. “A handsome smuggler shows up out of the blue and offers to show me the galaxy? That’s the stuff holodramas are made of. But even then, even with you… it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like it was time yet.”

The words are out of his mouth before he’s even consciously aware of forming them, a desperate man’s attempt to hold onto the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel that has been this endless night. “Handsome, huh?”

Ben regrets them instantly, chides himself for making light of her confession and teasing her when she’s clearly not ready for it yet, when this isn’t the time for jokes–

But then, in the darkness his eyes adjusted to hours ago, he sees Rey roll her eyes at him and feels her little hand shove at his shoulder in retaliation. He smiles in relief, and slowly, ever so slowly, so does Rey, a soft little curve of her lips that shines brighter than the desert sunlight breaking through the horizon.

They stare at each other like that, two smiling people appreciating a rare moment of calm, until Ben gathers his thoughts and his nerve. “You said it wasn’t time then,” he says carefully. “What about now?”

Rey’s smile fades, but she slips one hand into his as she slowly considers her words. “Now something… now there’s this thing inside of me–”

“The Force,” Ben reminds her and him both, still marveling at the truth, still berating himself for not realizing it that very first day. No one, no one, burns that brightly in the Force without having the kind of connection to it that he has, that she has.

“Yeah, that,” Rey murmurs, sounding worlds away as she considers her new reality. “I feel… I feel like it’s telling me to leave, to get the hell away from Jakku and never look back.” She pauses, squeezes his hand before she looks up at him with a dozen questions in her eyes. “Can the Force do that?”

“The Force works in mysterious ways,” he tells her, echoing the same bantha fodder he’s been told his whole life and finally knows to be true. How else would he explain ending up on Jakku of all the planets in the galaxy, finding Rey of all the Force-sensitives in existence? He’s always suspected that the Force must have played some part in leading him to Rey all those months ago, but now there’s no denying it.

She laughs, and it’s not quite the sound he’s come to love but it’s close enough, Ben supposes, given the circumstances. “Maz used to say that all the time. Maker, I’d get so irritated at her.”

“Everyone says it,” Ben shrugs. “Trust me, it never gets any less irritating. But… but it’s true,” he reluctantly admits.

Rey hums in acknowledgement, and busies herself by smoothing out his crumpled shirt for a while until she’s ready to speak again. “Ben… Ben, what do I do?” she whispers, and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so helpless, doesn’t want her to ever feel this way again.

And for that to happen… there’s really only one way, isn’t there? For the very first time in his life, Ben regrets not taking his heritage seriously, not knowing enough to help Rey now. There’s only one person out there who can help her… and he’s probably already waiting, Ben realizes, finally connecting the dots between Rey’s incident and the awakening Luke had spoken of.

Slowly, reluctantly, he resigns himself to the idea. “Luke… Luke felt it, your awakening,” he tells Rey, the words heavy on his tongue and his heart. “He can help you. I can… I can take you to him.”

Her reaction is instantaneous, Rey tensing in his arms and then pulling herself away to stare down at him. “No,” she says firmly. “No, I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

He can’t deny the relief that brings him, can’t deny that he wants nothing more than to go along with her wishes. But Rey deserves a proper teacher, deserves someone who’ll know what to do with her brilliance rather than just blindly worship it the way he has since the day they met. “Sweetheart, just because it wasn’t for me–”

“No,” Rey insists, and kisses him all hard and desperate and bruising before he can go on. “After everything you’ve told me,” she pants harshly against his lips, “do you really think I could ever live that life? To give up everything, to give up you–” Her voice cracks, and a strangled sob follows.

Ben quickly pulls her back in, his heart overflowing with love and awe for this woman. “Okay,” he murmurs between soft kisses, “okay, we won’t go to Luke.”

That leaves him with approximately zero other ideas, but Rey seems to have one. “Take me with you,” she says suddenly, lips barely parted from his.

“What?” Ben asks a little too sharply as he rears back in shock, in surprise, in hope.

“Take me with you,” Rey repeats with a shrug. “You could teach me, right?”

He wants, more than anything in the galaxy, for that to be true. But… “Rey, I barely have any training myself, I wouldn’t even know where to start–”

She silences his doubts by reaching out to curve her hands around his face, her thumbs gently caressing his cheeks. “Ben. I don’t need training. I don’t want to be a Jedi, I just want to be in control. You know that much, right?”

And… he does. Ben might not know much, not as much as he would’ve had his father decided to drop him off at Luke’s that fateful day, but he does know enough to stay in control, to stay away from the darkness, to let love and light and life balance everything out.

Most of the time, anyway.

“Ben, take me with you,” Rey says for the third time, and whatever objections he’d had before disappear into thin air. “Unless…” she adds before he can say yes, pulling her hands away from him, “unless the offer is off the table?”

“No, never,” he rushes to assure her, reaching out to wrap his arms around her waist and keep her close. “I want you with me, Rey, always. But are you sure about this? About leaving, for good, with me?”

Rey has a whole collection of smiles for him, but one of his favorites might be the one she flashes him when she thinks he’s acting like the stupidest creature in all the galaxy. “Ben, my heart breaks every single time I have to watch you leave without me. Do you really think I’m going to put myself through that again now that I can finally get off this godforsaken rock?”

This is happening. This is really, finally, actually happening. “I’ll never leave you again,” he swears, and pulls her closer to scatter kisses everywhere his lips can reach as Rey laughs and squirms away from him. “Never again, Rey. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She reaches for his head and holds him still, pulls him in for a long, lingering kiss. “I love you too. So get me the hell off this planet and show me the galaxy, Ben Solo.”

And so he does.

It takes them a while to actually get out of bed and pack up Rey’s things and make all the necessary arrangements, but later that day, as the sun sets upon Jakku, a smuggler and an orphan walk out of a bar hand-in-hand… and they never come back.

. . .

Some years later, Luke Skywalker receives an invitation to the grand opening of a new Force academy, one that exists in between – or maybe outside of – the Jedi and Sith ways.

The invitation is signed by none other than Ben and Rey Solo, retired smugglers and galactic adventurers looking to finally settle down and build a home.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

Hello, friends! First things first: if you made it through all 12000+ words of this, I wish I could give you an actual cookie or some other prize because that's amazing, thank you for sticking around! This ended up being twice the projected word count and took double the amount of time allotted to write, but it's the first time in a long time that I got completely sucked into a story and wrote for hours on end in some sort of feverish need to delve deeper and get to know these characters better, so I hope that translated into the final product.

Next up, I'll be working on a much fluffier (and hopefully shorter!) one-shot to lighten things up before we head into TRoS. I'll see you soon! Until then: thanks as always for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and please don't hesitate to like/reblog/leave a comment!

[willtravis]

There Is No Sickness On Europa - Chapter Two

           Apparently, apartments on Europa were smaller than on Earth. Havi said her’s was too big for one person, but to Liam it felt absolutely cramped. It was just four rooms: two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a central room that did a triple shift as a kitchen, dining room, and living room. The whole thing was only a few square meters large.

           “Your room is on the left, there,” said Havi, indicating. “I’m going to whip up some dinner. Make yourself at home.”

           Liam tentatively opened the door to his new bedroom. The walls were cream colored, with splotches of gray where the paint had worn out. One wall had a flimsy sliding door inset in it, and Liam figured that was the closet. Tucked away in one corner was a bed that was probably a foot too short for Liam to comfortably sleep in. Hanging on the wall opposite the bed was a TV that was currently pretending to be a window showing a beach on Earth.

           Liam emptied his pockets and sat on the bed to take stock of what he had. A cheap communicator from Earth that wasn’t getting a signal, a pen, and enough funds for two or three days of food. He needed a job.

           He was thumbing through different views for his fake window when Havi opened the door.

           “Dinner’s ready.”

      ��    In the central room, set out on a table that folded down from one of the walls, were two bowls of something approximating stew. The contents were only slightly darker than the walls in Liam’s bedroom, and they bubbled almost as if they were alive.

           Havi apparently noticed Liam staring. “White Laash. It’s a Europan delicacy.”

           Liam answered without taking his eyes off his bowl. “I’ll take your word for it.”

           When he did finally sit down and take a first hesitant spoonful, the food was remarkable. Each bite seemed to grow until it filled his mouth. It was creamy, but almost solid. He needed more. He kept shoveling in laash as fast as he could, not even noticing the taste. When he was done, Liam felt more full than he had in months. He looked up and saw that Havi was only halfway done.

           She spoke first. “Good, isn’t it? What to know what’s in it?”

           “Yeah. Actually, no. Don’t ruin the magic for me.” They sat in silence for another minute or two. Finally, Liam spoke.

           “So, do you know anyplace that’s hiring?”

           Havi thought for a minute. “Well, there’s always the docks. I hear that pays well. Tough work, though. The maintenance crew is pretty much always hiring, too. City’s so big there’s stuff breaking all the time. Plus at least that sends you all over the station. Bit more variety like that.”

           Liam smiled. “Maintenance crew it is.”

           The foreman’s office wasn’t very big, but Liam still found it intimidating. The walls were dark, constrictive, and undecorated. The wall on Liam’s left had a window that overlooked the center of the city, examining it. The city responded by casting gold and white light back at the window, so the office itself shimmered. Crumpled in the back corner was a type of environment suit that Liam didn’t recognize. In the center of the room were two chairs, a simple desk, and a large man with skin nearly as dark as the walls.

           Liam cleared his throat. “Sir? I’m Liam Robinson, the new applicant.”

           The man behind the desk evaluated the newcomer for a moment. Liam glanced down to read the man’s nametag. Elijah Grey. When Liam looked back up, he locked eyes with Grey right as the currents outside scattered light over the foreman’s face. His eyes seemed to glow. When the foreman finally replied, his speech was short and clipped. “Right, the Earther.” He spat the word as if it were a curse “Sit down. I read your application. You wanted a maintenance job?”

           “Yes, sir.”

           “And have you had any experience working maintenance before?”

           “Well, I was an electrical engineer on Earth,” Liam replied.

           Grey chuckled. “Right. On Earth. Anything else? Anything offworld?”

           Liam hesitated. “Uh, no sir. This is my first time offworld.”

           “Have you got much experience working with water?”

           “I used to be on the swim team.”

          Grey wasn’t amused. “Only Earth can have something so decadent as competitive swimming. I’m guessing you’ve never worked with anything mechanical before.”

            “No, sir. I haven’t.”

            The foreman glared at Liam. “Yeah, I figured. So. The Earther who deigns to grace me with his presence has no idea what maintenance does in this city, yet he still has audacity to ask me for a job. Why did you bother coming here?”

          Liam was shocked. “To be frank, sir, I have no where else to go. I’m living on the courtesy of a friend right now. I don’t know much of anything about Europa right now but that doesn’t matter. I want to learn. This is my home now and I want to help keep it running.”

            Grey leaned back in his chair and studied Liam again. After and agonizingly long moment he spoke. “You’re lucky we’re short-handed, Earther. We’ll trial you for a week or two. Prove your worth and you can hang on.”

          “Thank you, sir.”

          “Yeah, yeah, whatever. What do you know about the actual structure of this city?”

          “Not much.”

          “Of course. Well, it’s like this…”

          The work was hard, but it was rewarding. Liam began to develop an understanding of his chosen home. The city itself was like a hand grasping down into the darkness. It had a central area called the Hub at the top, hugging the ice. Huge metal fingers grew off it down into the void, connected at the Hub and with walkways along the sides. As the population grew, so too did the Hub until it was time for another finger to be added to the hand.

          Each building was constructed like a spaceship. They were double hulled, with just enough space between the hulls for workers like Liam to fix any of the countless issues that life on Europa caused. Liam’s days were spent crammed between the hulls fixing leaks and electrical issues. Because cleaning the air between the hulls was expense, workers had to wear environment suits in order to repair any issues. The heat was oppressive and reminded Liam of his days spent on the shuttle headed for Europa, even as those days gradually drifted further into the past.

          At the bottom of every building was a collection of industrial pumps, constantly trying to remove water let in by any of the hundreds of leaks in the city. Water pressure became Liam’s enemy. The cities of Europa were reaching out into the darkness, but the darkness was always pushing back.

          Liam overestimated the value of his electrical engineering experience. Europa was so far from Earth that shipments of new electronics were irregular and most of what Liam was working on was older than him. To make do, the builders on Europa would cobble together whatever they could out of the scraps sent from Earth. They had developed new protocols and systems to the point Liam felt that the machines he was working with spoke an entirely new language. He hadn’t quite worked out how to speak that language when his “trial period” ended, but luckily, he hadn’t made any huge mistakes either. Grey hadn’t told Liam that he was being kept on, but he didn’t fire Liam either.

          His work sent him all over the city. Once the water that fed hydroponics was contaminated and repairing that taught Liam several things. Most were about the operations of the station, but far more important were the origins of White Laash. The farmer working that day dutifully pointed out the vat that grew the genetically modified fungus that was the dish’s main ingredient. Apparently, colonization required a calorie dense, easy to grow food and nothing was cutting it. The colonists, being almost exclusively biologists, decided to create their own out of necessity. As Europa grew and became more sustainable, the Europan palate never grew out of Laash, and kept it as an edible reminder of their origins. Liam had spent every waking moment since trying to forget about the vats of fungus trying to be food.

          Liam learned that if leaks were one constant on Europa, disease was another. Havi wasn’t wrong when she said that most people who went to Europa did so looking for a cure. What shocked Liam is that most of the time, they found one. Liam didn’t care if it was something in the water or just talented doctors; Europa proved to be the center of miraculous medicine. He heard rumblings of some kind of plague outbreak on Luna. Apparently, carriers didn’t exhibit symptoms until long after the disease had taken hold and were spreading it unknowingly. When the symptoms did appear, they were ghastly. Ashen grey skin, bloodshot eyes, and clammy skin. It reminded Liam of that ghoulish figure on his flight to Europa. The city’s magistrate, Steven Norris, insisted that no one on Europa had the plague. Still, Liam couldn’t shake the thought of that man’s red eyes peering out from the dark corner. He’d seen more people like that over the last few months. Hopefully, Europan doctors knew how to fight it.

          Liam, however, focused more on his daily life than he did on fears of plague and pandemic. He made friends at work and bars he visited, but most days he just spent with Havi. Over time, they grew closer. They bonded over nights spent watching old Europan film. Havi said he had a lot of “cultural learning” to do. He just liked spending time with her. Even as she did begin to charge him rent, Liam viewed her more as a friend than a landlord. And, eventually, more than that. Once, he spent a whole a night in his room trying to build up the courage to ask her out. Liam could repair pumps and track down water contaminations across the entire station, but he couldn’t work out how to casually ask someone on a date. He never did. Havi asked first.

          Liam stumbled inside the apartment, dragging his bag with his suit and equipment behind him. Havi peered up from the table where she was working on her tablet and smiled at him.

          “Hey, Liam. How was your day?” She asked.

          “Oh, you know. Always a new crisis. Last night the air filters in a school crapped out and guess who had to fix it,” Liam said.

          “Well how about I take you to the handball court to unwind?”

          “Handball?” Liam asked.

          “Oh, yeah. Great fun in low-g. Besides I like to do something active on a first date.”

          Liam’s eyes widened. “I see. I suppose I should get changed, then.”

          Havi grinned. “Yeah, Earther. You should.”

          They went on more dates over the next few months, and they kept up playing handball after one of them had a rough day. Liam felt he was getting better at controlling his body in one eighth of the gravity he was used to. More importantly, he felt he was getting better at being with Havi. She had an abrasive personality that probably would have driven most people away, but Liam felt it kept him on his toes. Felt that it drove him to become more Europan.

          “I think you’re getting better, Earther,” Havi said as they left the handball court one night. “At least you didn’t jump into the ceiling this time.”

          Liam smirked. “Hey, I can’t help it if my legs are eight times as strong as yours.”

          “Oh really? I think it’s less than that now. They’re getting used to Europa. I bet a full g would make them ache.”

          “I think you might be right,” Liam responded.

          They kept walking down the busy promenade, looking at the shops and stalls. Watching everyday people do normal things like buy food, clothes, and medicine. Neon lights of every color danced and filled the room. Liam was always awestruck by the promenade. Havi never noticed. They passed a group of three extremely tall, extremely thin Europans. Liam noted the wavy tattoos that ran from their faces all the way down their bodies. It reminded him of the dark ocean surrounding them.

          Suddenly a voice shouted from behind them. The speech was harsh and clipped. “Hey sister! Why you hanging out with an Earther like that, huh? He ain’t your kind.” Liam turned. The three men were standing there with their arms crossed, grimacing down at Liam. The one in the middle had bloodshot eyes and seemed to be shivering. Liam opened his mouth, but Havi spoke first.

          “Why don’t you mind your own business, longbone. You don’t want to make a scene in front of station security, would you?”

          The one in the middle smiled. Liam could see he was missing a few teeth. When he spoke, his voice was almost a whisper. “Maybe I do, sister. Maybe I hate seeing Earthers polluting our station.”

          Liam took a step forward. “Get lost man. No one’s bothering you.”

          The Europan sneered. “Yeah, well no one’s talking to you, Earther. Least of all me. I wonder what your little Earther body would look like in the infirmary.”

          Havi laughed. “Is that a threat? Really? We all know you and your little friends aren’t going to do anything, so just run back to your rat den, scumbag.”

          “Alright that’s it!” The thug yelled, and leapt in a long arc at Liam. Liam had never fought in low gravity before and didn’t know what to do. Instinctually, he stuck his fist out to strike his attacker in the stomach. Liam misjudged the man’s physiology however, and struck him right below his ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs. The Europan started coughing, and slowly collapsed to the floor. He rolled onto his back and soon he was coughing blood, speckling his face. The other two Europans ran, leaving their friend behind. Liam ran to the man on the ground. Havi called out for a doctor.

          As Liam was gearing up for work the next morning, the foreman came to talk to him. Grey seemed different. More gentle.

          “Hey, Liam. I heard you got into a, uh, scuffle yesterday.”

          Liam hesitated. That was the first time Grey had called him by name. “Not really. The kid was so messed up on drugs he could barely handle a punch. He’s in the infirmary now.”

          Grey whistled. “Some stoner harassed you, so you put him in the hospital? That’s cold.”

          “What? No, it’s not like that. He came at me first, and I barely touched him. It’s all on video,” Liam said defensively.

          Grey laughed. “I’m kidding, man. Security already called and told me what happened. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

          “Yeah. I’m fine. It’s not the first time someone tried to beat up the Earther.”

          “I can imagine that. Well, if you’re good to work, the hydraulics in landing pad D need servicing, so that’s your first job today.”

          “Alright, boss. Thanks.”

          When Liam got to the service entrance to the landing pad, the light above the door was red. A ship was coming in to land, and the chamber was in hard vacuum. Liam would have to wait.

          After what felt like hours, the light finally changed to green, and Liam went inside. He looked down from the catwalk and saw the ship, massive in its own right, but still dwarfed by the cavernous dock. The Lucky Wayfinder, registered out of Luna. Liam noticed that the staff that normally greets new arrivals was absent, and signs pointing to the lifts had been placed down instead. Europa must really have been shorthanded. Liam shrugged and turned to do his job. He was nearly done by the time the ship’s ramp started to lower, the sound of straining hydraulics filling the bay. Liam turned right as the ramp clanged against the floor and saw the latest batch of visitors. What he saw filled him with horror.

          Every single passenger was drenched in sweat, had bloodshot eyes, and their skin was as grey as the bulkhead.

[wesratcliffe]

part 1 || self-para

wesley shot up from his chair, startling salem where she’d been leisurely munching on her dog treats, and raced over to the television on the opposite wall. he came face to face with the source of his nightmares, the source of his misery, the source of everything wrong in his life–

tw; mentions of murder, death, anxiety/panic attack, mentions of alcohol abuse

his phone was ringing again. 

wesley didn’t have to answer it to know it was his mother, trying to reach out for whatever reason that he couldn’t quite fathom. she kept calling from an unknown number, probably so that he couldn’t block her. he simply let her leave another voice mail that he’d delete without listening to. 

he stepped into the coffee shop with his dog at his side. the employees always looked forward to seeing him, if only because he always stopped by at the end of his morning walk with salem. she was a favorite among town. 

“good morning,” said the barista with a friendly smile. “and how’s our favorite customer?” 

“she’s good,” wesley answered, knowing they were not referring to him. salem stared up at the barista with pleading eyes, begging for the treat they always gave to her. “she’s energetic this morning, but i’ll try to keep her from hopping over the counter again.” 

the worker waved off his comment as they placed the cup of water and dog treat on the ground in front of salem. “you know none of us mind when she visits. i’ll get started on your usual.”

wesley stepped off to the side after paying, resting in a chair after the long walk and play time in the park. he vaguely registered the news station on in the background. 

“we’re excited to learn that such a large corporation will be spreading to the united states! mr. ratcliffe–”

wesley’s head snapped up. 

“do you have any comments on the status of your now international business?”

no. no, no, no, no. wesley was frozen in his seat with a white-knuckled grip on the arm rests. 

“i’m incredibly excited for such a big step forward in expanding my empire–”

NO.

wesley shot up from his chair, startling salem where she’d been leisurely munching on her dog treats, and raced over to the television on the opposite wall. he came face to face with the source of his nightmares, the source of his misery, the source of everything wrong in his life–

“i’ve been working on a move to the united states for some time! nearly a decade, in fact. but every time there was something that prevented us from truly moving forward.” his father practically oozed smarmy businessman arrogance. he looked older than wesley remembered. he had more wrinkles around his eyes, his jowls had sunken lower and his hair line had further receded. “but now, with our business so booming in the uk, we’re confident we’ll be able to bring the same success to the states.”

the scene cut back to the reporter at the desk. “according to our estimates, ratcliffe industries could very well offer upwards of two thousand new jobs in the richmond, virginia metropolitan area. the real estate tycoon jonathan ratcliffe continued to express his optimistic view on the new business venture, and has informed us that ratcliffe industries will be opening its doors for interviews at the end of the month–”

he felt sick to his stomach. no, that didn’t describe the feeling correctly. it was as if his insides were twisting together in terror, turning inside out in some futile attempt to escape. john ratcliffe was coming here, to the united states, in less than a month. the icy chill of fear — real, gripping fear that he hadn’t felt so intensely in so long — clamped down on his heart. he remembered at one point visiting london, trying and failing to confront his father over and over again. 

he’d been too scared, so he’d run away. as usual. 

he felt the urge to run again. go to another state, portland maybe. far, far away from the east coast. or perhaps another country, somewhere he was certain his father would never go. 

wesley felt a tug on his hand and it jolted him out of his terror-induced trance. he hadn’t realized how intensely he was breathing. he was practically hyperventilating. his gaze fell to the source of the tug, a concerned looking salem who gazed up at him with soft brown eyes. eyes full of infinite, unwavering trust and love, the kind of love that only an animal can offer. 

he couldn’t run. not now, not again. not after all of the progress he’d made. 

he was reminded of michele, of his friends, of the life he’d built for himself, however imperfect it still was. 

wesley hid his face in his hands and released a shaky breath. his breathing had calmed, though the terror still remained. 

“one black coffee, no cream, two sugars–” said the barista, placing the to-go cup in front of him. wesley couldn’t help the jolt that startled through him. 

“thank you,” he mumbled, taking the cup to go. his feet felt heavy, his body felt as if it was made of some impossibly heavy material, and he wondered how to move forward from this. 

the sounds of his office were just a haze in the back of his mind. copy machines droned on, phones rang, keys tapping, mice clicking, the coffee machine clacked as it forced out some horrendous caffeinated concoction.

all wesley could think about was the things he’d seen his father do. he’d been transported back, back to the scared sixteen-year-old boy hiding in a closet as he watched his father murder someone in cold blood. he could hear the man’s desperate pleas. the pleas of a man who had a family, that he’d pay john back, that he would be good for the money, sobs of please, please don’t, i have a daughter– 

and then the gun shot. 

it was a sharp sound, sharper than wesley would have imagined. he wondered how it was that people got away with shooting one unnoticed. to him it seemed like the loudest sound in the world. 

wesley sat terrified in that closet as john had his assistant clean up the blood. the stench had been overwhelming. it nearly made him vomit up his lunch from that day. 

“wesley–” 

welsey’s breathing quickened, heart hammering in his chest so loudly he was certain it was giving him away. 

“wesley.”

wesley jolted, harshly jerking his shoulder out of his boss’ grip. the sounds of the office returned to his ears, and the smell of blood was replaced by the smell of the cheap lemon-scented cleaner the custodian used. 

“are you okay? are you sick? you look like a ghost.”

wesley noticed he was breathing heavily again. he hard to force himself to speak, had to try and take some steadying breaths to even be able to force out a response. he wondered if this was what panic attacks felt like. 

“i’m just, not feeling great,” he croaked out. his voice sounded overly used, like he’d been screaming.

his boss recoiled with a grimace. “well then go the hell home. you know what this office was like when the flu went around, our entire accounting department was out the whole week. get out, go home if that shit is contagious.”

wesley nodded numbly. he had to go. somewhere else. anywhere else. 

the guilt settled in with the fear when he got home and sat down on his couch. salem was excited to see him as usual, and he’d gone through the motions of petting her as he stared blankly at the wall in front of him. 

he remembered the last time he spoke to his father. it was when he’d first enrolled in wdu. the school had understandably reached out to a guardian, wondering if this beat-up looking runaway had anyone who was looking for him. 

the phone call had been a screaming match. their first conversation in nearly three years, actually. john demanded that he come home, demanded to know what the hell had caused this–

the line had gone eerily silent when wesley revealed to his father than he saw him kill that man. it wasn’t a guilty silence, but a terrifying one. wesley could feel the fury radiating through the phone. 

“if you tell anyone, i’ll bring you down with me. i’ll ruin you.”

and then the deal. the deal that wesley cowardly offered up as something, anything, to get him away from his father. 

you don’t contact me, and i don’t tell. you leave me alone, and i’ll keep my mouth shut. 

that was when the self-hatred started. sometimes his therapist had tried to press him to ask when these self-esteem issues had first started. she’d said they often first arose during adolescence, often as a cause of natural insecurity and hormones that most teens went through. but wesley wasn’t an insecure teenager. he’d been blissfully unaware, living in the false reality his father had carefully crafted with fear tactics and threats. his therapist had dropped the subject for a while, though it was clear there was something he wasn’t telling her. 

and wasn’t that just the goddamn understatement of the century. 

john had threatened him, told him that if he ever said anything to anyone, he’d spend whatever money necessary to destroy wesley’s life. wesley believed him. and so, to protect his own skin, he’d kept the secret. 

for seven years now he’d been sitting on this, and for four years he’s hated himself for it. he recalled his first few months at wdu. he was the grouchiest then. no friends, hence the ever-present loneliness, and an overwhelming cloud of misery followed him everywhere. he remembered how he used to rely on alcohol and meaningless sex to feel something. to feel some sense of companionship. 

it was at one of those parties that he’d met will, and then later emmett. they didn’t go away after they were all sober, nor in the years to follow. 

it was during a sober day that he’d met michele. she’d scolded him on something, his attitude, if he recalled. he’d snarked back at her, and so the cycle had begun. he remembered how infuriating she was, how frustratingly stubborn. those qualities certainly hadn’t disappeared, except now his tune on them had changed. he remembered when their fighting turned to banter, turned to flirting. when their hatred for each other turned to mutual respect, to friendship, to infatuation, to love. 

he remembered feeling like his life was coming together for once, like maybe he could move on from this guilt and self-hatred. maybe he and his father could co-exist on opposite sides of the world in peace, never bothering of or thinking of the other. 

and then his mother, the same woman who’d left him a voicemail only hours before. 

wesley pulled out his phone and instead of hitting the delete button, he hit play. 

“wesley, i pray that you’re listening to these...” he found it off that he recognized her voice, even though he only really remembered their single conversation as an adult. “i know that you don’t want to see me, and i don’t blame you. i ran, and left you behind. but i can’t do that again. i can’t leave you behind without warning you. your father is coming. the news was announce officially announced yesterday. the rumors have been circling for some months, and you know i hoped that it was just another rumor. god i wish it was a rumor. ...i don’t know how you’ve gotten him to leave you alone for so long. you must have some secret on him...” the line went silent, and wesley thought was the end. 

“be safe, son. keep an eye out for him. don’t let him near you, please. ...i love you, let me know if you get–”

wesley quickly pressed the delete button. 

wesley’s walk to therapy was one he’d gotten used to. he went after work once a week now. he’d tried to do lunch breaks, but found that having a deeply emotional hour made it harder to drag himself back into work. 

“so, tell me what’s on your mind.” 

dr. lauren vaughn hadn’t started a session that way since he’d first started therapy. normally now they just chatted. there were some sessions that were more intense, some where deeply buried issues resurfaced, others were revelations were made. but they’d found an equilibrium that worked for them. 

“what makes you think something is on my mind?” he asked. he still often answered the too personal questions with questions of his own. it was an avoidance tactic both he and lauren were aware of. 

“you have been seeing me at least once a week, sometimes two or three, for nearly a year now–”

had it really been almost a year? he supposed so, it was almost summer. 

“i think i know when something is on your mind.”

wesley fiddled his fingers and stared down at the abstractly patterned carpet. it was a mix of beiges, browns and greens. earthy tones that he supposed were supposed to feel neutral and relaxing. 

“...do you want to talk about it?”

lauren had learned quickly that there were some things that he refused to discuss. she’d tried to poke and prod at first, only for wesley to leave sessions early and in a huff. she’d found progress was more steadily made when wesley was allowed to reveal things at his own terms. some people wanted to talk, but wesley was not one of those people. 

“...say you’re keeping a secret...”

wesley searched for words. how did he even begin? how much did he reveal? the thought of revealing all of it made his stomach twist in fear, and the thought of not saying anything at all made it writhe in guilt. 

he just couldn’t win. 

“say you’ve been keeping a secret for...a long, long time. a secret that you shouldn’t have been keeping, because keeping it...hurts people. but...revealing it hurts yourself. and– and you want to tell everyone, because it’s the right thing to do. but what happens when the right thing to do brings bad consequences for you? and...and the people close to you?”

lauren sighed, wondering what wesley could possibly be talking about. “well... keeping this secret seems to be hurting you too, doesn’t it?”

wesley paused. she...wasn’t wrong. 

“and maybe, doing the right thing would help in the long run, even if it’s hard in the beginning. maybe it would help others, and it would help you.”

[brajeshupadhyay]

Gambling on College Football Almost Fixed My Dysfunctional Family

My first mistake was feeling sorry for him.

The first season my brother and I bet on college football against each other, I beat him so badly I often bragged I could have lost every single game we gambled on for the rest of the decade and still finished in the money.

Each week, we would agree to disagree on five games across the N.C.A.A. schedule. Each win was worth a dollar. Whoever won the most games of the five we selected cashed an additional five bucks. Best out of five, winner takes all for a maximum potential profit of $10 for the weekend.

He couldn’t have owed me more than $100 — we weren’t kids anymore, making outrageous wagers on games of blackjack at the kitchen table neither of us could have paid off in three lifetimes — but I still didn’t have the heart to make him pay up.

The next year, after torching him a second season in a row, I gave him a book as a joke — “Handicapping College Football for Beginners,” which he told me he relegated to the washroom magazine basket.

I didn’t realize it then, but he was setting me up.

Later he admitted to reading it every chance he got. Studying. Formulas, strategies, all of it. By season three, he cleaned my clock. Our father soon inserted himself into the competition, which, over the past almost 20 years, came to represent our relationship: We went from being a dysfunctional trio of man-children who didn’t have the language to express our feelings to discovering that our mutual love of competition and one-upmanship gave us the language we needed to reconnect.

And then came the coronavirus.

As of June, in response to concerns over the coronavirus, the N.C.A.A. Division I Football Oversight Committee announced their approval of a plan that would allow teams to transition from voluntary workouts to mandatory meetings and preseason camps — just like any other year. But by the end of July, five Division I conferences had canceled their seasons outright. Others, in a last-ditch effort to play something in 2020, are leaning toward playing “conference only” or “plus one” schedules to minimize travel and mitigate risk. The closer we got to August, the more it seemed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been clear in his position from the outset, may have been right after all: “Football may not happen this year.”

My little brother and I remain hopeful that won’t be the case. Five years apart, we were never especially close. Growing up, I’d put him through the wringer.

When I was 8, and he was 3, I nearly took his eye out with a dead tree branch. He still has a scar above his brow. In high school, my friends and I would wrestle him to the ground, strip him down to his Fruit of the Looms, force him onto the front lawn, and make him run around the block in his skivvies before we let him back in the house. He still delights in telling that story to showcase what kind of brother I was, but there are plenty of other examples. I’ve made Baby Bro steal beer from a convenience store ice cooler, thrown him in the trunk of a friend’s car and done doughnuts in a snowy church parking lot, and run him over with a golf cart.

As adults, even when we both became dads, we weren’t doing much better, and I felt guilty. College football seemed like a good way to connect. But I had no idea what I was in for. It was payback time, and every win he tallied was sweet revenge.

“Hey. Who’s winning this week?” he would call any Saturday he was ahead, pretending not to know.

“Really,” I’d say. “You know good and well who’s winning.”

As much as I hated losing, I did my best to be happy for him.

The kid was due.

When he won in Season Four, evening the series at 2-2, I wasn’t bothered (much), and I wasn’t all that surprised either. After all, we’d both been raised in the same ultracompetitive, winner-takes-all environment.

Our dad never let us win at anything when we were kids. Not golf, not Go Fish. I tell myself now, he only wanted his boys to succeed — his desire to win was that great — but to say that my dad was an enthusiastic spectator was putting it mildly.

Looking back, I imagine in my dad’s mind he was only teaching us to be tough, to never quit or back down — it was the 1970s and ’80s when a spanking was considered a valuable life lesson. So, it made sense after watching our competition from the sidelines for a couple of years the old man wanted in.

“You donkeys worried I’ll beat you too badly?” my dad goaded my brother one summer afternoon as he casually flipped through the pages of his Street & Smith’s “College Football Annual.”

I knew this was going to be a problem.

The man loved sports almost as much as he loved being right, which was a lot. Not only did we have to mastermind a way to manage a three-person, round robin format, but also keep our heads as my father continued what he’d done our entire childhood: reveling in every moment he won.

After every victory he took great pains to remind us, it would be a long time before we beat him at anything.

We were all supposed to be grown-ups, but most of the time we acted like 6-year-olds upset over a game of Chutes and Ladders that didn’t go our way.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated July 27, 2020

Should I refinance my mortgage?

It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.

What is school going to look like in September?

It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.

Is the coronavirus airborne?

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.

What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

We showed we cared by needling each other unmercifully anytime one of us wound up on the wrong end of the point spread.

Like the year my dad gave my brother and me second and third place medals to make sure we didn’t forget who had come out on top that season.

Or when visiting my parents once, my father introduced me to friends of his and my mother’s as “the one who finished in last place” the year before.

I still don’t know half of what I should about my brother, or agree with all the things he believes in. But I’m learning. That ratio skews much higher when it comes to my dad. I’ve realized my brother, dad and I aren’t all that different. We all want to be heard, each of us wants to be seen, and above all, each of us wants to win. After almost 20 years of this, our bonds are stronger than ever.

As disappointing as the prospect may be, whether college football happens this year or not, at least now I have a reason to call.

The bonds we’ve worked so hard to build — even if they’ve come from trash talking each other over our latest win-loss records — are in danger of being lost. If Covid takes that away from us, we’ll just have to find something else to fight, I mean, connect over.

Mike Evans is a writer and television producer living in Los Angeles. He is currently at work on a memoir.

The post Gambling on College Football Almost Fixed My Dysfunctional Family appeared first on Shri Times News.

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[jacewilliams1]

If only… The friends I’ve lost in airplane accidents

I’ve struggled with writing about this tragedy for a long time. I wanted so much to give other pilots a glance at this image, hoping a few might take a moment before a flight to see if there were any gotchas they missed amid their haste and distractions. But I recoiled against the prospect of telling a very personal, painful, and graphic story about a good pilot buddy. Finally I decided to just start writing rather than let this opportunity die along with him, though I must protect his anonymity. I’m certainly not a writer, nor have I ever written anything for public consumption. I may never again. This is straight from the heart.

Hundreds and hundreds of people. Family, friends, business associates, and employees. Every seat in the large church sanctuary filled. Others standing along the walls. The foyer and hallways so crowded that more stand around outside, roasting in the sun, straining to hear the memorial service being broadcast on speakers. All the parking lots filled, with illegally parked cars choking the roadway for hundreds of yards in both directions. No dry eyes. So many lives so profoundly impacted. So many futures changed forever. If only…

My friend and his passenger died in an airplane crash.

“This has become a far too frequent occurrence for me.”

I’ve seen turnouts like this before, when young men die suddenly and violently while living life to the fullest. These gentlemen were well known and respected in their community and businesses, and served others for most of their time on this earth. They were humorous, articulate, and responsible. They loved and provided well for their families, friends, and employees. In our busy age it’s a great tribute that so many have made the effort to pay their respects and offer comfort and condolences to the suffering families as they start dealing with their own grief.

This has become a far too frequent occurrence for me, and I’m getting a little tired of it. I’ve lost sixteen friends and numerous acquaintances in aircraft mishaps. So far. Of my friends, four died in military training and combat, and all the rest in general aviation. Nearly all were highly skilled, with decades of experience in all sorts of aircraft and conditions. And I miss these good men and women every single day.

Oddly enough, I don’t personally know anyone who survived a GA crash where others died. This might be due to the nature of flying in a part of the country with very challenging terrain and weather. But records show that terrible, life-altering injuries are frequent. A common trait among pilots is a highly developed sense of responsibility for protecting our passengers. I can’t begin to imagine the lifelong load of guilt a pilot must have to carry after killing or maiming people who trusted their lives to them.

So how do qualified, well-trained pilots lose their lives? My friends perished due to various causes: continued VFR into IMC, midair collision, severe turbulence in mountains, flight control malfunction, low altitude stall/spin, descending below approach minimums in IMC, flying up blind canyons, attempting a go-around from a one-way strip, and catastrophic engine failure. There was no hotdogging, buzzing, or overt recklessness involved. These all should’ve just been normal flights.

Come to think of it, I’ve only known one person who died in a traffic accident, and he was on a motorcycle. Anyone who tells you that flying is safer than driving is probably talking about airline flying. Either that or they’re misinformed. And in this instance at least, the old flying adage holds true: “… if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day.”

Please don’t get the wrong impression. I love aviation. I’ve been completely passionate about it since I was a toddler. In fact, the first thing I want to do after coming home from work (if you can call it “work” — I fly for a living) is go flying in little airplanes. Hey, I’m sick! I need help!

But these losses have changed me. I find myself double checking so many mundane things, and kicking myself if I discover anything I’ve missed. Much of the time that I used to take to enjoy the view is now crowded out by going over the “what ifs.” I experienced an engine failure a few years ago, and now I hear my inner monologue saying things like, “There’s a good place to deadstick it in! There’s another! And another!” But I know that I can’t possibly account for everything that could bring me down.

Accident reports rarely convey just how awful an airplane crash really is.

This nagging understanding makes me refuse to take the chances that I might have in the past, like taking more than one grandchild up in my airplane at a time, or trusting that the destination weather will improve by arrival time. It also makes me less willing to fly hard IFR when I’m not at work. That’s too much like work, anyway, and I bought my airplane for blue skies and beautiful days. Most of all it makes me realize that I’m not invincible. But if this risk aversion makes me a safer pilot, then it’s all worth it.

We’ve all read the accident reports, full of terms like “high degree of energy dissipation upon impact” and “rapid descent into terrain.” But this kind of cold, clinical language disguises the real aftermath: the disrupted, often destroyed lives of loved ones, the hardship and loss experienced by those left behind, and the horrors they can never forget. These reports seldom let us see through that veil, but we MUST look beyond and understand the massive consequences our actions or omissions might bring.

We’ve all seen or heard of bad examples of airmanship, ranging from ignorance to foolishness to false bravado. But in dealing with all my personal aviation tragedies, I’ve found some things common to most: complacency, overconfidence, inadequate planning, lack of qualification or competence, and lack of preparation. But the biggest contributor to my buddy’s fatal crash: very poor judgment.

This is a difficult thing for me to say about my pal, especially since I had been something of a mentor to him. But I have to put it right out there in the hope that it might save a life someday. Besides, who among us hasn’t displayed poor judgment at one time or another, especially when acting as a pilot?

Get-home-itis was the biggest link to the faulty judgment in this tragedy. It is a powerful force, so powerful that both men aboard were willing to risk single-engine flying over unlit mountainous terrain. In the middle of the night. Without a discernible horizon or an instrument rating. In smoke, clouds, and turbulence. With the moon adding all sorts of visual illusions. And with embedded thunderstorms along their route.

This combination of factors produced very unsurprising results: classic spatial disorientation followed by the inevitable graveyard spiral and final dive, terminating with high-speed vertical descent into terrain under full power. There was no in-flight breakup. The impact was so powerful that body parts were scattered up into surrounding trees, according to the sheriff’s report. This ghastly image haunts me still, and I wasn’t even one of the poor souls who had to clean up the mess. Human remains were so fragmented that no one could determine what belonged to whom. Even the credit cards in their wallets were shattered. And undoubtedly those who responded to this disaster will never be able to unsee what was laid out before them.

What haunts me even more is imagining what those last moments in the cockpit were like. I can hear the shrieking of the air rushing over the airframe at well over 200 knots, feel the disorienting g-loading, and sense the overwhelming terror that they must have experienced in the eternity of the last few seconds of their lives as they plunged into the blackness. I can only imagine how the thought of this must sicken their loved ones. The only upside? It didn’t hurt for long.

Even celebrities aren’t immune to VFR-into-IMC accidents, as Kobe Bryant tragically learned.

Disasters like this are far too common in general aviation. Some 40% of GA accidents are caused by spatial disorientation, yet it is not commonly understood. Remember JFK Jr? Ever hear of “The Day the Music Died?” What about Patsy Cline? Kobe Bryant?

As a matter of fact, my friend did call other pilot friends that night to get their advice, which he quickly disregarded. They begged him to spend the night and come home at first light. Now they will be forever plagued by thinking that they could have done more to convince him. But obviously he had his mind made up, and was only looking for affirmation. After all, both victims had nonrefundable reservations for their families’ vacation together starting the following day. If only…

Calling a “knock-it-off” would have cost them this vacation. Well, so did pressing on.

If only my buddy could have been given even a tiny glimpse into the future, he could have avoided the horrible results of his decision.

The real tragedy is that he did have the opportunity for that glimpse.

This outcome was foreseeable. His actions under these conditions had predictable results. But here’s the worst thing: He had just come through these conditions on the same route as his ill-fated return flight, and he KNEW what was ahead!

Much of airmanship is managing risk. Of course, awful things just happen sometimes (i.e., catastrophic structural failures), but this disaster was caused by easily avoidable and well-known risk factors.

I plead with any of you who face the host of decisions that comprise every flight to take one moment and play the pessimist. I know we all hate to think about this, but how high will the cost be if not everything goes your way? Look at how all your people would be affected if something life changing, or life ending, were to happen on your flight. Think about how overall risk jumps when a few bad little things happen at about the same time. Have an escape plan for when things do go wrong. Can you divert? Is there landable terrain below you if you have to put it down? Are you properly equipped to survive the aftermath of a remote landing? Can you see well enough to land there? Can you flip a “U-ey” in time to get out of a bad situation? Where are the rocks? What about going tomorrow (or next week) instead? Always leave yourself an out.

Better yet, leave yourself lots of outs. Here are some examples: before you push up the power, take an extra minute to consider the worst case. Double check weather and NOTAMS. Consider your gross weight and performance. Ask for advice. Know where your possible divert fields are. Think about the true priorities. Learn about spatial disorientation and how insidious it is. Beware of overconfidence and complacency. Assess and manage your risk. Take your solemn responsibility for your passengers seriously. Realize that even if you’re solo, you are risking the lives of your loved ones. Don’t get in a rush. And never let yourself start thinking that you’re bulletproof.

There’s already plenty of risk in this life. Aviation brings more, whether we like to admit it or not. Manage it well and you can enjoy a lifetime of fun sharing this great gift of flight!

The post If only… The friends I’ve lost in airplane accidents appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/05/if-only-the-friends-ive-lost-in-airplane-accidents/

[stephenmccull]

How COVID Colors The Salon Experience

LOVELAND, Colo. — Blush Beauty Bar hair salon had been closed 48 days, a consequence of stay-at-home orders to stem the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But last Tuesday, the shop in this city of nearly 80,000, about 50 miles north of Denver, was finally reopening after the orders had been partially lifted on May 1.

It was booked solid its first day — and for each day the rest of the month. After seven weeks of isolation, it seems people desperately want to get their hair cut.

Still, as Colorado attempts a soft reopening, the three-person staff has had to adjust to a new way of doing business. Even before the salon opened its doors Tuesday, staffers had to rearrange its interior, eliminating the seating in the waiting area, and shifting the front counter to the side, allowing one customer at a time to wait 6 feet away in a spot marked with a blue taped X.

In the final minute before the salon reopened, stylist Diamond Herrera, 22, and receptionist Desi Orr, 19, tested out new no-touch forehead thermometers as owner Mindy Bodley, 40, reminded them of the new procedures.

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As child care facilities, tattoo parlors and business offices reopen here, they must navigate new government guidelines designed to balance a restart of the economy against the possibility of reigniting the pandemic, all without scaring away customers. Indeed, a late April survey by Healthier Colorado and The Colorado Health Foundation found that 64% of Coloradans support a policy of staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, even if that means businesses will remain closed.

At 10 a.m., Orr stepped outside to meet their first customer, Amy Eldridge, 45, who had called from her car to announce her arrival. Orr used the new thermometer to confirm Eldridge didn’t have a fever, and then checked whether she had brought a face mask. Customers can also purchase a cloth one for $10 when they arrive.

“Have you been sick in the last 14 days?” Orr asked her. “Have you been around anyone who has been sick in the last 14 days? Do you have any flu-like symptoms?”

Replying no to all three, Eldridge was allowed inside. But the first glitch emerged when Orr realized the door had locked behind her. It was part of the new protocol: No walk-in customers are allowed, so the door stays locked.

Once inside, Eldridge was asked to wash her hands before sitting down in the black leather salon chair, placing her purse and keys into a plastic box beside her.

“So how are things?” Bodley asked her as she prepared to cut Eldridge’s hair.

“They’re good!” Eldridge replied.

Blush Beauty Bar hair salon in Loveland, Colorado, has been swamped with clients coming in for haircuts, trims and color, now that the state is gradually reopening after its COVID-19 shutdown. Amy Eldridge was first among them.(Markian Hawryluk/KHN)

And at least for the moment, it all felt familiar. She had made the appointment seven months earlier and now her strawberry-blonde hair had reached down to the middle of her back. Eldridge couldn’t have known last fall that the salon would close down for seven weeks due to a never-before-seen virus that would shut down the nation’s economy and keep most people sheltered at home and desperate for a haircut.

“I’ve worked from home for 15 years, so for me this hasn’t been a big change. And I only get my hair cut twice a year,” Eldridge said. “But at the same time, I get so excited about my appointments.”

Eldridge has known Bodley for more than a decade, which removed any fears of coming to the salon.

“I have total trust in Mindy, and not just for my hair,” she said, as Bodley went to mix some hair dye for her. “I know she always has her customers’ safety in mind. She wouldn’t do anything to compromise her customers or her business.”

Soon after, Macall McFall, 26, arrived to get her long brown hair colored before her graduation from an occupational therapy program next week.

“We’re having a virtual graduation,” McFall said, with a note of disappointment.

The Blush experience, where a visit can cost $150 or more, is still the same pampering extravagance it has always been, with a few minor tweaks. Both the customers and the stylists must wear masks the entire time, and Bodley and Herrera work in hot-pink rubber gloves they previously used only for messy jobs like dyeing.

They no longer offer beverages to customers and won’t sit next to them to chat as they wait for the dye to set. The salon is no longer taking glamour photos of clients sporting their new looks amid special lighting and backdrops. And they can fit in fewer appointments per day given the new safety steps.

It all was an adjustment for both stylist and customer.

“I feel like I can’t see,” Bodley said at one point as the mask rode up while working on Eldridge’s hair. “It’s sort of important to my job.”

The COVID pandemic colored all aspects of the experience including the friendly banter at the salon. Instead of complimenting a customer’s blouse or shoes, Herrera admired McFall’s blue-patterned face mask. “It’s so cute!”

The women shared their quarantine stories and updated one another on Netflix shows they had binge-watched at home: from “Waco” to “Dance Moms” and, of course, “Tiger King.” There was a broad consensus that Carole Baskin had killed her previous husband.

Blush has been open for four years at its 4th Street location, just off the city’s main drag. Bodley has a loyal customer base as evidenced by the “Best Salon in Loveland” certificates, awarded by readers of the local newspaper, hanging on the wall. Still, once the virus appeared in the U.S. and made its way to Colorado, business had started to slow.

“Our numbers have been down this year,” Bodley said. “You never know what people will be scared of, but the beauty industry, hair, is usually a recession-proof business.”

At first, she didn’t know what to make of the slowdown, even as many of her friends were starting to stockpile toilet paper, hand sanitizer and flour and preparing for a lockdown.

“I prepared for Y2K,” Bodley recalled thinking. “I am not preparing for this.”

But by March, customers were canceling appointments. Phone alerts would buzz in the middle of haircuts, informing customers their child’s school was closing or some other routine aspect of their family’s life was shutting down.

Then on March 18, Bodley learned the state was shutting down nonessential businesses. She finished with the client she had in her salon at the time, squeezed in her best friend for one last appointment, and then closed up shop. She locked the door and took the salon’s last three rolls of toilet paper home with her.

Bodley’s husband orders beer for a liquor store, which was deemed an essential industry in Colorado, so he continued to work. The dog supply store Bodley owns next to the salon was able to shift to online sales. And she did receive a $2,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. But she still has rent and bills to pay.

“I am relieved to be back working,” she admitted. “This month will be a push. We have to cover May and June.”

Besides the restaurants and coffee shops that shifted to takeout services to stay open during the closure, most of the other retail businesses remained closed even though the state was slowly reopening.

“It’s a ghost town,” Bodley said. “I live on this street and I’ve never had so much parking.”

Still, the first day back was all smiles, even if they were hidden behind face masks; a hint that life could return to some semblance of pre-pandemic patterns, even if so much of the future remains clouded.

“I’m ready for Marshalls to open,” Bodley said. “I miss the people, but I didn’t really miss working. I thought, ‘How are we surviving?’ It’s because nothing is open for me to spend money on!”

Eldridge agreed.

“Our checkbook has seen some serious healing,” she said.

As she trimmed inches off Eldridge’s hair, Bodley admitted that “cutting hair in gloves is not cool. We already know I can’t see.”

Herrera had similar challenges as she dried McFall’s hair.

“I’m hoping it’s dry,” she said. “I can’t feel.”

But those hurdles were a small price to pay.

“I’m just happy to be here,” McFall said as she checked the new hue of her long hair in the mirror. “I love it! It looks so good!”

She moved to the counter to pay her bill, stretching her arm as far she could to hand Herrera her credit card to try to maintain the proper distance.

When McFall left, Herrera sprayed disinfectant on the chair, the counter and the plastic bin that had held her personal items. She wiped down the hand mirror her client had held. In other times, it would seem odd, almost insulting, to take such measures.

But the pandemic has altered nearly every part of normal life, even something as routine as a haircut, and nobody knows for how long.

“This could be our new normal,” Herrera said.

How COVID Colors The Salon Experience published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

How COVID Colors The Salon Experience

LOVELAND, Colo. — Blush Beauty Bar hair salon had been closed 48 days, a consequence of stay-at-home orders to stem the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But last Tuesday, the shop in this city of nearly 80,000, about 50 miles north of Denver, was finally reopening after the orders had been partially lifted on May 1.

It was booked solid its first day — and for each day the rest of the month. After seven weeks of isolation, it seems people desperately want to get their hair cut.

Still, as Colorado attempts a soft reopening, the three-person staff has had to adjust to a new way of doing business. Even before the salon opened its doors Tuesday, staffers had to rearrange its interior, eliminating the seating in the waiting area, and shifting the front counter to the side, allowing one customer at a time to wait 6 feet away in a spot marked with a blue taped X.

In the final minute before the salon reopened, stylist Diamond Herrera, 22, and receptionist Desi Orr, 19, tested out new no-touch forehead thermometers as owner Mindy Bodley, 40, reminded them of the new procedures.

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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As child care facilities, tattoo parlors and business offices reopen here, they must navigate new government guidelines designed to balance a restart of the economy against the possibility of reigniting the pandemic, all without scaring away customers. Indeed, a late April survey by Healthier Colorado and The Colorado Health Foundation found that 64% of Coloradans support a policy of staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, even if that means businesses will remain closed.

At 10 a.m., Orr stepped outside to meet their first customer, Amy Eldridge, 45, who had called from her car to announce her arrival. Orr used the new thermometer to confirm Eldridge didn’t have a fever, and then checked whether she had brought a face mask. Customers can also purchase a cloth one for $10 when they arrive.

“Have you been sick in the last 14 days?” Orr asked her. “Have you been around anyone who has been sick in the last 14 days? Do you have any flu-like symptoms?”

Replying no to all three, Eldridge was allowed inside. But the first glitch emerged when Orr realized the door had locked behind her. It was part of the new protocol: No walk-in customers are allowed, so the door stays locked.

Once inside, Eldridge was asked to wash her hands before sitting down in the black leather salon chair, placing her purse and keys into a plastic box beside her.

“So how are things?” Bodley asked her as she prepared to cut Eldridge’s hair.

“They’re good!” Eldridge replied.

Blush Beauty Bar hair salon in Loveland, Colorado, has been swamped with clients coming in for haircuts, trims and color, now that the state is gradually reopening after its COVID-19 shutdown. Amy Eldridge was first among them.(Markian Hawryluk/KHN)

And at least for the moment, it all felt familiar. She had made the appointment seven months earlier and now her strawberry-blonde hair had reached down to the middle of her back. Eldridge couldn’t have known last fall that the salon would close down for seven weeks due to a never-before-seen virus that would shut down the nation’s economy and keep most people sheltered at home and desperate for a haircut.

“I’ve worked from home for 15 years, so for me this hasn’t been a big change. And I only get my hair cut twice a year,” Eldridge said. “But at the same time, I get so excited about my appointments.”

Eldridge has known Bodley for more than a decade, which removed any fears of coming to the salon.

“I have total trust in Mindy, and not just for my hair,” she said, as Bodley went to mix some hair dye for her. “I know she always has her customers’ safety in mind. She wouldn’t do anything to compromise her customers or her business.”

Soon after, Macall McFall, 26, arrived to get her long brown hair colored before her graduation from an occupational therapy program next week.

“We’re having a virtual graduation,” McFall said, with a note of disappointment.

The Blush experience, where a visit can cost $150 or more, is still the same pampering extravagance it has always been, with a few minor tweaks. Both the customers and the stylists must wear masks the entire time, and Bodley and Herrera work in hot-pink rubber gloves they previously used only for messy jobs like dyeing.

They no longer offer beverages to customers and won’t sit next to them to chat as they wait for the dye to set. The salon is no longer taking glamour photos of clients sporting their new looks amid special lighting and backdrops. And they can fit in fewer appointments per day given the new safety steps.

It all was an adjustment for both stylist and customer.

“I feel like I can’t see,” Bodley said at one point as the mask rode up while working on Eldridge’s hair. “It’s sort of important to my job.”

The COVID pandemic colored all aspects of the experience including the friendly banter at the salon. Instead of complimenting a customer’s blouse or shoes, Herrera admired McFall’s blue-patterned face mask. “It’s so cute!”

The women shared their quarantine stories and updated one another on Netflix shows they had binge-watched at home: from “Waco” to “Dance Moms” and, of course, “Tiger King.” There was a broad consensus that Carole Baskin had killed her previous husband.

Blush has been open for four years at its 4th Street location, just off the city’s main drag. Bodley has a loyal customer base as evidenced by the “Best Salon in Loveland” certificates, awarded by readers of the local newspaper, hanging on the wall. Still, once the virus appeared in the U.S. and made its way to Colorado, business had started to slow.

“Our numbers have been down this year,” Bodley said. “You never know what people will be scared of, but the beauty industry, hair, is usually a recession-proof business.”

At first, she didn’t know what to make of the slowdown, even as many of her friends were starting to stockpile toilet paper, hand sanitizer and flour and preparing for a lockdown.

“I prepared for Y2K,” Bodley recalled thinking. “I am not preparing for this.”

But by March, customers were canceling appointments. Phone alerts would buzz in the middle of haircuts, informing customers their child’s school was closing or some other routine aspect of their family’s life was shutting down.

Then on March 18, Bodley learned the state was shutting down nonessential businesses. She finished with the client she had in her salon at the time, squeezed in her best friend for one last appointment, and then closed up shop. She locked the door and took the salon’s last three rolls of toilet paper home with her.

Bodley’s husband orders beer for a liquor store, which was deemed an essential industry in Colorado, so he continued to work. The dog supply store Bodley owns next to the salon was able to shift to online sales. And she did receive a $2,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. But she still has rent and bills to pay.

“I am relieved to be back working,” she admitted. “This month will be a push. We have to cover May and June.”

Besides the restaurants and coffee shops that shifted to takeout services to stay open during the closure, most of the other retail businesses remained closed even though the state was slowly reopening.

“It’s a ghost town,” Bodley said. “I live on this street and I’ve never had so much parking.”

Still, the first day back was all smiles, even if they were hidden behind face masks; a hint that life could return to some semblance of pre-pandemic patterns, even if so much of the future remains clouded.

“I’m ready for Marshalls to open,” Bodley said. “I miss the people, but I didn’t really miss working. I thought, ‘How are we surviving?’ It’s because nothing is open for me to spend money on!”

Eldridge agreed.

“Our checkbook has seen some serious healing,” she said.

As she trimmed inches off Eldridge’s hair, Bodley admitted that “cutting hair in gloves is not cool. We already know I can’t see.”

Herrera had similar challenges as she dried McFall’s hair.

“I’m hoping it’s dry,” she said. “I can’t feel.”

But those hurdles were a small price to pay.

“I’m just happy to be here,” McFall said as she checked the new hue of her long hair in the mirror. “I love it! It looks so good!”

She moved to the counter to pay her bill, stretching her arm as far she could to hand Herrera her credit card to try to maintain the proper distance.

When McFall left, Herrera sprayed disinfectant on the chair, the counter and the plastic bin that had held her personal items. She wiped down the hand mirror her client had held. In other times, it would seem odd, almost insulting, to take such measures.

But the pandemic has altered nearly every part of normal life, even something as routine as a haircut, and nobody knows for how long.

“This could be our new normal,” Herrera said.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/how-covid-colors-the-salon-experience/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

How COVID Colors The Salon Experience

LOVELAND, Colo. — Blush Beauty Bar hair salon had been closed 48 days, a consequence of stay-at-home orders to stem the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But last Tuesday, the shop in this city of nearly 80,000, about 50 miles north of Denver, was finally reopening after the orders had been partially lifted on May 1.

It was booked solid its first day — and for each day the rest of the month. After seven weeks of isolation, it seems people desperately want to get their hair cut.

Still, as Colorado attempts a soft reopening, the three-person staff has had to adjust to a new way of doing business. Even before the salon opened its doors Tuesday, staffers had to rearrange its interior, eliminating the seating in the waiting area, and shifting the front counter to the side, allowing one customer at a time to wait 6 feet away in a spot marked with a blue taped X.

In the final minute before the salon reopened, stylist Diamond Herrera, 22, and receptionist Desi Orr, 19, tested out new no-touch forehead thermometers as owner Mindy Bodley, 40, reminded them of the new procedures.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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As child care facilities, tattoo parlors and business offices reopen here, they must navigate new government guidelines designed to balance a restart of the economy against the possibility of reigniting the pandemic, all without scaring away customers. Indeed, a late April survey by Healthier Colorado and The Colorado Health Foundation found that 64% of Coloradans support a policy of staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, even if that means businesses will remain closed.

At 10 a.m., Orr stepped outside to meet their first customer, Amy Eldridge, 45, who had called from her car to announce her arrival. Orr used the new thermometer to confirm Eldridge didn’t have a fever, and then checked whether she had brought a face mask. Customers can also purchase a cloth one for $10 when they arrive.

“Have you been sick in the last 14 days?” Orr asked her. “Have you been around anyone who has been sick in the last 14 days? Do you have any flu-like symptoms?”

Replying no to all three, Eldridge was allowed inside. But the first glitch emerged when Orr realized the door had locked behind her. It was part of the new protocol: No walk-in customers are allowed, so the door stays locked.

Once inside, Eldridge was asked to wash her hands before sitting down in the black leather salon chair, placing her purse and keys into a plastic box beside her.

“So how are things?” Bodley asked her as she prepared to cut Eldridge’s hair.

“They’re good!” Eldridge replied.

Blush Beauty Bar hair salon in Loveland, Colorado, has been swamped with clients coming in for haircuts, trims and color, now that the state is gradually reopening after its COVID-19 shutdown. Amy Eldridge was first among them.(Markian Hawryluk/KHN)

And at least for the moment, it all felt familiar. She had made the appointment seven months earlier and now her strawberry-blonde hair had reached down to the middle of her back. Eldridge couldn’t have known last fall that the salon would close down for seven weeks due to a never-before-seen virus that would shut down the nation’s economy and keep most people sheltered at home and desperate for a haircut.

“I’ve worked from home for 15 years, so for me this hasn’t been a big change. And I only get my hair cut twice a year,” Eldridge said. “But at the same time, I get so excited about my appointments.”

Eldridge has known Bodley for more than a decade, which removed any fears of coming to the salon.

“I have total trust in Mindy, and not just for my hair,” she said, as Bodley went to mix some hair dye for her. “I know she always has her customers’ safety in mind. She wouldn’t do anything to compromise her customers or her business.”

Soon after, Macall McFall, 26, arrived to get her long brown hair colored before her graduation from an occupational therapy program next week.

“We’re having a virtual graduation,” McFall said, with a note of disappointment.

The Blush experience, where a visit can cost $150 or more, is still the same pampering extravagance it has always been, with a few minor tweaks. Both the customers and the stylists must wear masks the entire time, and Bodley and Herrera work in hot-pink rubber gloves they previously used only for messy jobs like dyeing.

They no longer offer beverages to customers and won’t sit next to them to chat as they wait for the dye to set. The salon is no longer taking glamour photos of clients sporting their new looks amid special lighting and backdrops. And they can fit in fewer appointments per day given the new safety steps.

It all was an adjustment for both stylist and customer.

“I feel like I can’t see,” Bodley said at one point as the mask rode up while working on Eldridge’s hair. “It’s sort of important to my job.”

The COVID pandemic colored all aspects of the experience including the friendly banter at the salon. Instead of complimenting a customer’s blouse or shoes, Herrera admired McFall’s blue-patterned face mask. “It’s so cute!”

The women shared their quarantine stories and updated one another on Netflix shows they had binge-watched at home: from “Waco” to “Dance Moms” and, of course, “Tiger King.” There was a broad consensus that Carole Baskin had killed her previous husband.

Blush has been open for four years at its 4th Street location, just off the city’s main drag. Bodley has a loyal customer base as evidenced by the “Best Salon in Loveland” certificates, awarded by readers of the local newspaper, hanging on the wall. Still, once the virus appeared in the U.S. and made its way to Colorado, business had started to slow.

“Our numbers have been down this year,” Bodley said. “You never know what people will be scared of, but the beauty industry, hair, is usually a recession-proof business.”

At first, she didn’t know what to make of the slowdown, even as many of her friends were starting to stockpile toilet paper, hand sanitizer and flour and preparing for a lockdown.

“I prepared for Y2K,” Bodley recalled thinking. “I am not preparing for this.”

But by March, customers were canceling appointments. Phone alerts would buzz in the middle of haircuts, informing customers their child’s school was closing or some other routine aspect of their family’s life was shutting down.

Then on March 18, Bodley learned the state was shutting down nonessential businesses. She finished with the client she had in her salon at the time, squeezed in her best friend for one last appointment, and then closed up shop. She locked the door and took the salon’s last three rolls of toilet paper home with her.

Bodley’s husband orders beer for a liquor store, which was deemed an essential industry in Colorado, so he continued to work. The dog supply store Bodley owns next to the salon was able to shift to online sales. And she did receive a $2,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. But she still has rent and bills to pay.

“I am relieved to be back working,” she admitted. “This month will be a push. We have to cover May and June.”

Besides the restaurants and coffee shops that shifted to takeout services to stay open during the closure, most of the other retail businesses remained closed even though the state was slowly reopening.

“It’s a ghost town,” Bodley said. “I live on this street and I’ve never had so much parking.”

Still, the first day back was all smiles, even if they were hidden behind face masks; a hint that life could return to some semblance of pre-pandemic patterns, even if so much of the future remains clouded.

“I’m ready for Marshalls to open,” Bodley said. “I miss the people, but I didn’t really miss working. I thought, ‘How are we surviving?’ It’s because nothing is open for me to spend money on!”

Eldridge agreed.

“Our checkbook has seen some serious healing,” she said.

As she trimmed inches off Eldridge’s hair, Bodley admitted that “cutting hair in gloves is not cool. We already know I can’t see.”

Herrera had similar challenges as she dried McFall’s hair.

“I’m hoping it’s dry,” she said. “I can’t feel.”

But those hurdles were a small price to pay.

“I’m just happy to be here,” McFall said as she checked the new hue of her long hair in the mirror. “I love it! It looks so good!”

She moved to the counter to pay her bill, stretching her arm as far she could to hand Herrera her credit card to try to maintain the proper distance.

When McFall left, Herrera sprayed disinfectant on the chair, the counter and the plastic bin that had held her personal items. She wiped down the hand mirror her client had held. In other times, it would seem odd, almost insulting, to take such measures.

But the pandemic has altered nearly every part of normal life, even something as routine as a haircut, and nobody knows for how long.

“This could be our new normal,” Herrera said.

How COVID Colors The Salon Experience published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[serenavonromvesen]

September 21st, 2019.

I really don’t know where else to vent but on tumblr. I have always used tumblr as an outlet for venting and I’m reaching a point where I really just need to write out how I’m feeling, without cramping my hand writing with pen and paper.

I feel really lonely as far as friends go. I have an AMAZING group of friends, but so many of them live far away. I have my tribe and I feel I will always have that, but its never the same as having lady friends, I literally have like three or four ladyfriends that I can actually hang out with in person, and only one of them is someone I didnt meet through my boyfriend first. its not that I have anything I want to share behind him, its that I always feel like on some level they’re always more his friend than mine- and at that, I didn’t choose most of them to be in my life, they were given to me. don’t get me wrong, I’m SO grateful for anyone I do have currently in my life. I just don’t have any friends who truly understand me, and especially not that are into the things that I am. I would love so much to be able to be friends with another tattoo model in my area, and ACTUALLY genuinely have a real friendship. I emphasize ‘genuinely’ because this industry is FULL of backstabbing bitches that would throw you in front of a bus to get one more step ahead of you. I just want a girl I can hang out with all the time SO bad. and the one person here who is awesome, works like ALLLLL the time. it sucks pretty bad when you only have one true friend and they end up getting way too busy for you. she’s supposed to move away anyways she said, so I guess I better get used to it now anyways. I’m just so sad of having no girls to actually hang out with. Skyping with my best friend is great, but it just isnt the same- and a lot of time I do get put aside compared to actually going to hang out with people anyways. which i dont have here.

now, I’m SUPER introverted, nervous, shy, socially awkward AND anxious, and sometimes I have a hard time making normal conversation. in fact, I am always secretly bothered by the fact that I’m PRETTY SURE i have some form of Autism, but I would never actually say that I am being diagnosed, but I am terrified to find out. I once emailed a place to ask some questions and set an appointment, but I never heard back.. that was i think last year. Anyways, I don’t want a ton of friends or anything. I dont want to hang out every day- it’s exhausting. but I still want the option to be able to call someone up in those rare days where I do feel like going outside or seeing people, to actually have fun. I used to have that in New Jersey, my group of girls that I hang with an we all really support each other. I miss them so bad. I am SO homesick for like, the last two years now. I try not to think about it if I can help it, but I miss my friends, I miss my mom.. I hate that I’m missing my baby cousins grow up, I hate that I’ve FINALLY made a connection with some of my cousins and now I’ll rarely ever see them, I hate that I can’t do body suspensions more often, I hate that I don’t get to see my brother Sean when he visits... but most of all I do HATE New Jersey and could never live there. I just wish so bad it hadn’t been like 4-5 years since I’ve seen my friends and family. it hurts. I’m so homesick for just the strong friendships I have.

I just...know its possible. I know its possible to have the small group of friends I want. I just wish girls weren’t so...mean and competitive. I just feel so lonely. I feel like I don’t have anyone to hang out with thats a female. why is everyone so far away? I’m home alone all day every day. you’d think a puppy wouldve made me feel less alone, but really I’m a thousand times more stressed than ever. I wanted to move for a fresh start, to breathe, so enjoy peace...and as soon as I got here everyones over all the time and it just reminds me how I dont have friends of my own, and how my friends dont come to visit me, and how I never get a second to myself. I finally got the chance and heres this puppy. i love him with my life but I AM SO STRESSED!!! I’m with him 10-14 hours a day by myself and then half of the time I’m still the one dealing with him at the crack of dawn, too. I never get time alone unless he sleeps and then I have to walk on eggshells to not wake him up- AND I DIDN’T EVEN FUCKING WANT THIS!!! when I was forced to give up my other pupper, Hades, I said I never wanted a puppy again because IT IS TOO MUCH FOR ME. it puts me on edge and greatly disrupts my bipolar. i literally CANT handle it. I said I would get a dog no younger than 2 years old. I wanted a border coli so bad, maybe even a doberman because I still miss my old dog Max SO MUCH! I like bigger dogs and never really was a big fan of little dogs. I like a dog I can give a whole ass hug to, and feel protected by when I walk alone down a street with him. but no, Michael had to choose, he wanted a puppy, he wanted a small-type pure bred dog which means it’ll be twice as expensive twice as often with vet visits. but he wanted it. he insisted. and now, here we are, just like scooping the litter boxes for all 4 cats, its pretty much almost entirely left on me to do. for so so long I told myself “well he works and I dont really work, I’m home all day and hes not here much to have the time for it.” but you know what I realized? That when I worked full time at Starbucks, or when I worked two jobs at both the Smoke Shoppe AND Spencers, that I still put in the same amount of work as all of this- I was still expected to do all of this. at that, I am SO SICK AND TIRED of him asking me EVERY FUCKING DAY “will you mop today? will you do the laundry? will you do that dogs medicine? will you change the cat boxes?” periodically throughout every morning. like oh, I didn’t realize that I was a fucking 4 year old that needs direction on needing to do basic fucking cleaning tasks!!!!! the only reason I dont get to half that stuff most of the time is that I’m annoyed as fuck at being told what to do / treated that way, and that by the time he leaves for work theres been a whole fucking list of shit lined up that I now feel EXPECTED to do before hes home from work. it literally aggravates me SO MUCH just typing about it because im so fucking pissed off that he does this EVERYMOTHERFUCKINGDAY. it makes me feel angry and completely overwhelmed and then I just spend my entire day dreading it then rushing to do it right before he gets home from work. I just fucking hate it. like I’m fucking 25 years old, I know what the fuck to do to keep the fucking house clean, thanks.

at that, between the no friends, the fucking belittlement of being given a verbal list of chores every day, and the stress from puppy I absolutely did NOT ask for, I am feeling so depressed. I wanted a new house so I could ENJOY it, but instead any moment in my backyard is spent trying to get the puppy to stop eating random crap the people before us left- like glass, I cant enjoy how the inside looks because theres puppy training pads all over the floor which the floor is always dirty because of being in and out of the house with the puppy, or just even a moment of peace at all. like literally this defeated the whole entire purpose of wanting to move. its still a gazillion times better than the trailer, I still totally love this house, but because of my stress and loneliness level, I feel nearly just as depressed as before.

what doesnt help is lately Michael has been SO negative abut things. it’s like when I finally am enjoying myself, he comes through like a wrecking ball being negative, depressing, unsupportive, argumentative, and just plain giving off vibes that make me feel so down. He still makes me feel super happy like 98% of the time, but it is such a downer when hes being super negative about EVERYTHING. or when he gets my hopes up about things and then goes back on his word. he LOVES to tell me yes to shut me up then saying no when it becomes real, a mega part of why I haven’t gotten to visit my family in 4 years. and then he makes me feel SO bad about it. he has no problem bragging to everyone about a vacation, but when its just us suddenly its “I have to do this on my own” and “it’s expensive” like really? thanks for bragging about it for two months, waiting until we have it a month away to tell me its 100% on me to plan it, then complain about everything I tried to plan, WHILE making me feel like a complete and utter loser that I’m a failure at everything I try to do so now I don’t make any money. I literally fucking hate myself again. that’s where I’m at. I’m starting to find my body, my hair, my face- all of it repulsive. I hate how I look. I hate my hair and how my dreads are all lose, but I have to ask him for money to be able to fix my hair. he always tells me just ask and it isnt a problem but then when I do want to do things he makes me wait ages and puts it off or flat out complains- or if it all goes smoothly he throws it in my face the first fight we have. I just feel like such a fucking loser, that’s getting uglier by the day. and when I finally worked up the courage to go to the gym, its like pulling teeth to get him to go- I’ve been asking for a year and we STILL haven’t gone. I want to be a breakdancer SO BAD and I’ll never get to do that if I can’t go to the gym to work out. he tells me to just go but he doesnt understand that being a woman alone in public these days you’re at extreme risk of being raped and 10/10 multiple dudes will trying saying gross things and hitting on you/catcalling. I wish so so so so so bad I could go out for a day and have not a soul talk to me or look at me. what a dream that would be. I just cant go alone. its literally dangerous. scary.

I just feel so STUCK. I want to make money so I can contribute to the house and pay for what I need MYSELF. I never ever liked being someone who fully depends on someone like that. hell, a decade ago I refused to let anyone even get me a simple drink from a convenience store. it still feels uncomfortable to have to be like this. I want to be able to take care of myself. to know that if it was just me that I wouldnt just...be out on the streets. now I’m getting married and its a great relief that thats a less legitimate fear, but I still want to be able to take care of myself so that I could help my babe. he works SO hard for us and spends SO much money taking care of us, I just want to be able to pay my part of that and make HIS life easier, so that we BOTH can do more things that we like instead of just paying bills till the next check. I feel so useless and worthless. but everything I try to do I just fail at, or I’m too depressed and just lose the passion for it. or the will to do nearly anything. I really thought moving was going to change everything for me but... I feel nearly just as depressed. the environment change has definitely helped but, it didn’t suddenly cure my depression like I hoped for..

I just feel so alone, in like, literally everything I try to do. I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere. when I do think I fit in, it just turns out to be a delayed rejection. I swear I get screwed over and stabbed in the back more often than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. I’m easily forgotten and definitely easy to fuck over. I just wish people werent so hateful and selfish... all I want is to have female friends I can actually hang out with, have some help with my puppy, to talk to my fiance without him thinking I’m having an argument, to workout so I can dance, and to do something I love that makes me happy that I can make money with. I feel like I failed as a model too. I make all these plans and then.. I can never accomplish them. I often think, is it worth it really? to compete with all these girls when I dont care about competition? to be screwed over because I’m an opponent to everyone I wish I was friends with? to try and build working-relationships with photographers who seem to forget about me before I even get my pictures back? to not be paid for modeling when I spent tons of money on clothes for shoots? to not have my name out there after a year and a half? to not even be able to find a photographer that wants to shoot for publication? or be told I’m not inked enough to shoot again (the day after I got tattooed?)? I just feel like a failure. I spent over a thousand dollars on clothes for shoots, plus all traveling expenses, to have only ever profited $50 one time and then never get my edited photos back. I just feel like I’m not worth anything, that I can’t contribute or make money without making myself excessively unhappy working jobs I hate- only to be belittled there too.

I don’t even care about social media anymore. I don’t care to check instagram or post on it. why? so I can spend two hours doing makeup so I could post a selfie to write another caption telling everyone that “one day” I’ll do more? what’s the point? If only I had someone I could invite over to talk to about it :( I just feel so...unexcited by everything. like Stan in the episode about shit. I’m bored, I feel gross, I feel lonely, I’m overwhelmingly stressed, I’m growing to hate myself again, and I feel like I don’t have the positive influence I need to get better. I WANT to get better, I just need help and I don’t have anyone I feel I could reach out to that could actually help me. I just really need a friend...

[let-it-raines]

Rising from the Ashes (14/?)

Summary: When her husband died, Emma wasn’t sure that she could ever move on. He left her with a broken heart and a baby who was only three-months old. It’s enough to take most people down, to make them not want to keep going, but Emma Swan isn’t most people. She’s stronger than she has any right to be. And after years of heartache, she’s found ways to move on…one of those being in Neal’s best friend, Killian Jones. 

As she’s always known, however, things are more complicated than they ever seem to be. 

Rating: Mature

A/N: Two chapters in one week? What? I’m trying to get back to spacing this and BOTB out, so this one gets another posting even though I’m not entirely sure if my writing speed for chapters will keep up. I’m nervous about this chapter. Seriously. I’ve read through it a lot. So I hope that you guys like it 💕

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

Tag list: @jamif @artistic-writer @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @resident-of-storybrooke @captainsjedi @captswanis4vr @teamhook @ekr032-blog-blog @mayquita @bmbbcs4evr @wellhellotragic @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @onceuponaprincessworld @shady-swan-jones @snowbellewells @snow-into-ash @andiirivera @mariakov81 @thejollyroger-writer @shireness-says @kristi555 @facesiousbutton82 @superchocovian @jonirobinson64 

There’s absolutely no reason for him to be running today. He doesn’t have the time. He should be in his office reviewing his presentation for tomorrow. He and Robin have spent weeks preparing “what if” scenarios for soldiers to have to run through in the new basic training regimes, and it’s been such a challenge having to form things for teaching instead of actual warfare. He’s been retired from the Navy for half a decade this year, and yet he still spends nearly every day of his life reliving scenes and memories of his time in the military. It’s a bit of the crux of being a career military man. When you get out, what are you qualified to do?

Not everyone has this problem. A lot of people go to school through the services and learn trades. He didn’t go to school, but he did learn a trade in logistics and planning to make sure that the ships didn’t go down in the middle of the night by some kind of Titanic shaped iceberg or an attack. It’s still what he does now, even as a civilian. He’d like to quit one day, to do something calmer, do something that doesn’t bring back so many memories of loss or bring forth so much stress, but this job pays well and supports his family. He can stay at least until Ada goes to college.

In seventeen years.

He’s going to be fifty-five in seventeen years. That’s odd for him to think about, but it’s exactly what he thinks of as his legs burn, the muscles and joints aching a bit more than they used to when he was younger. It’s usually not too bad, the running helping more than hurting, but some days it’s not as easy to hold his daughter above his head to make her giggle or to make love to Emma.

Just last week he’d gotten a cramp right in the middle of their activities, and Emma had laughed so hard that he had started laughing too.

Mostly he was laughing through the pain.

That cramp may still be going on in his right thigh.

It’s always an adventure.

And maybe one day it’ll be an adventure where he can take Emma sailing without any thoughts of war and the pros and cons of Norway randomly invading Afghanistan on a particular day or time.

So maybe that’s why he runs. He’s got a lot that he thinks about, personally and professionally, and the release of endorphins fuels him in a way. It stresses his joints, but it destresses his mind. Besides, he will admit that while he doesn’t think he’s a particularly vain man, he does appreciate the way Emma tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth when he lifts her from the ground or the way that she runs her fingers over the muscles of his stomach. Plus, he wants to be healthy for his kids.

That’s why he keeps running for the next thirty minutes, his legs pounding against the pavement and sweat beading at his forehead and down his back, the early February chill keeping him cool to a point where he knows he’ll start sweating more when he gets inside. It always happens, so it takes him a little while longer to cool down and to take a shower at the gym that’s around the block from his office.

“Jones,” a familiar voice calls to him when he’s just finished buttoning up his shirt, and he turns to look at Neal, his hair sopping wet like he’s just showered as well, “aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I could say the same to you,” he laughs as he pushes his hair back, hoping that it’ll dry correctly since he doesn’t have any of his gel with me. “Lunch break?”

“Yeah, I don’t usually make it here, but it’s been kind of a slow day. Figured I’d eat while I work.”

“That’s how it goes,” he sighs. He bends down to lace his shoes, pulling up his socks the slightest bit before he turns to look back at Neal. “Hey, so Emma is dropping Henry off at my office, and I’m taking him to his therapy appointment. Do you want a ride?”

Neal’s really got to get a car, but now that he might be moving, he’s decided to put off the purchase until he knows for sure where he’s living. It’s likely a good thing. This way he can save up money and put as much down as possible without having to worry about making far too many payments with interest rates the way they are. And if he’s in DC, he may not even need a vehicle. It’s all complicated and still a bit messy, but he and Emma have made plans to sit down and talk to Neal sometime this week, possibly tonight, so that they can actually get through some of this. It’s odd basically regulating a grown man, one who is older than both of them, but they’re trying to figure out how to be a family. Sometimes that takes awkward conversations.

He’s not exactly looking forward to this particular conversation because he’s struggling with the thought that Henry might have to spend some time away from them. Emma is worrying herself sick about it, and she doesn’t even know what’s going to happen. Neither of them do. Hell, Neal likely doesn’t. If he’s honest with himself, Neal likely hasn’t put much thought into either. Killian’s not sure if it’s because Neal hasn’t realized that technically he has a right to having Henry live with him or if he doesn’t care.

Scratch that. Of course Neal cares. He loves Henry, but sometimes he thinks that Neal is more concerned about impressing Henry than being his father. Maybe he still doesn’t know how, maybe he doesn’t think he belongs as a part of their family. He can understand that. He felt that way for a long time, and it must still be difficult for Neal. It might not ever not be difficult, but all he and Emma want is for Neal to feel at home.

And be a father to Henry, to not worry about trying to be more fun or the one who gives better presents. He’s getting there. He really is, and maybe if he and Emma did a better job, Neal would feel more at home.

They’re trying. For as hard as it is on them, he also knows that it’s hard on Neal. So they’re all trying.

“His appointment is at five, yeah?”

“On the dot.”

Neal flashes him a grin while he rubs his hand over his scruff. “Yeah, I’d really appreciate that. Are you going to take me home afterwards or are you going to force me to walk?”

“I thought I’d make you walk. You’ve been letting yourself go, and I didn’t want to say anything.”

He barks out a laugh, the sound echoing throughout the locker room, and it makes Killian smile too, the corners of his lips tugging up.

“I could still take you in a fight, Jones.”

“Please,” he scoffs, tightening his laces one more time before standing up straight, “that never happened. I beat your ass in training every time.”

“Not on – ”

“October fifth.” “See, you remember?”

“Because you never let me forget about it,” Killian laughs, reaching down to pick up his bag. “It was all I heard for months. It’s been thirteen years, and you still don’t let me forget.”

Neal shrugs, his face still crinkled in happiness. “It was a damn good day. You even bought me a beer afterward.”

“Well, I figured since it was a one-time thing, it was the least I could do.” He takes a step over and claps Neal on the shoulder, smiling down at him. “I’ll see you at a quarter before five, and since I’m not evil, I’ll even let you ride home with Henry and me.”

“Such a saint.”

“I try.”

It’s a quick walk back to his office, and after saying hello to his secretary Anna, he settles down in his office and gets back to working on his proposal while eating the leftover pasta salad from dinner last night. He gets about two hours to himself to plow through things before Robin comes in, closing the door behind him and plopping down on the couch, the leather creaking beneath his weight.

“Are you almost finished with the coding for it? Because we need to send that down to Arthur for him to double check, especially since you’re leaving early.”

“I’ve got one section left,” he sighs, typing out one more scenario before rolling back in his chair and looking at Robin. “Did you come in here to procrastinate?”

“Most definitely.”

“So you’re whining about me leaving early because I have to take my kid somewhere, and yet you’re in here not doing your work?”

Robin shrugs and leans back further on the couch. “I already finished my section, mate. I literally can’t do anything else without you.”

“Aww, Rob, I always knew you loved me, but I never knew how much.”

“You’re an asshole,” he laughs, flicking a piece of paper in his direction.

“And yet you love me anyways.” He curls one side of his lips up into a smirk and winks at him, making sure to exaggerate it. “I really will be finished soon, and I’ll likely work through it tonight once everyone is asleep. Emma and I have a lot to do this evening, though.”

“I get it. I’ve got to go get Roland from his mom tonight, but we always get it done, yeah?”

“Aye,” he confirms. “Now get your ass off my sofa so I can finish this up in time.”

Robin mock salutes before walking away, leaving his office door open. It could be an accident, but Killian knows that Robin did it just to annoy him.

The wanker.

The rest of his day goes by as it normally does. He gets all of his program formatted and sends it off in time so that Arthur can run through the technicalities of it before sending it back to Robin. It’s a long, drawn out process, and when there’s a knock at his opened door, Emma and the kids standing there, he’s more relieved that he’s been in awhile to get to see all of them in the office.

“Hello loves,” he smiles as he gets up out of his chair, reaching down to hug Henry first before embracing Emma and briefly kissing her. “I can’t believe Anna let you in here with I specifically told her not to.”

“It’s because I’m super fast,” Henry explains, not at all amused by his joke.

“That you are. Did you have a good day at school, bud?”

“Yeah, but I need your help with fractions later. Mary Margaret made them weird.”

“Did she now?”

“Yeah, she said something about a pizza, but I didn’t get it.”

“It’s okay,” he promises, smiling at Henry to try to get him to perk up a little. “We’ll figure it out later. Do you want to get out your legos from my desk while I talk to Mum?”

Henry nods his head before dropping his backpack on the couch and hurrying over to get the box of toys Killian keeps in his bottom drawer for the times when Henry is here. Or even when Roland or someone else’s kid is stuck waiting while their parents work.

“I always hated fractions,” Emma sighs as she sways back and forth with a sleeping Ada. “And percentages. I still get those wrong sometimes.”

“We can’t all be geniuses like me.”

“Tone it down, Einstein,” she laughs, her lashes landing against her cheek. “But from what I can tell, Henry had a good day, Ada too, so I hope both of their appointments go well. I’ll call you after Ada and I get finished at the doctor.”

“I’m sure they’ll both be fine. Henry and I are going to pick up Neal and take him to his appointment too, okay?”

“When did that happen?”

“I ran into him at the gym and offered.”

Emma clicks her tongue and sighs a bit, her hands constantly running over Ada’s back. “That’ll be good. If you guys want to go out to get something to eat afterwards, that might be good too. Or maybe a snack since Henry has homework and we were going to talk to Neal tonight. Of course we could always talk to him tomorrow.”

He presses his lips together and reaches forward to caress her forearm, moving his fingers in a way similar to what Emma is doing to Ada. They’re both trying to comfort, even if it’s for different reasons. “We’ll talk to him, and it’s going to be fine. He’s not…we haven’t had many issues with him since we told him about us, and he’s grown a lot since then, yeah? He’s not going to try to take Henry away from you, from us.”

“I know that,” she whispers, looking over his shoulder to see Henry. “I really do. I’m nervous. I can’t help it.”

“I know, love. I know.” He leans forward and presses his lips to her temple. “Go take Ada to the doctor and maybe stop to get something you like to eat too.”

“That’s cute that you assume I wasn’t doing that already. Bye kid,” she tells Henry, waving at him. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Mom,” he murmurs, not even looking up from his legos.

You can’t get between the boy and his legos.

He finishes up a few last things, checks to see how many emails he has that he needs to respond to before tomorrow, and then shuts his computer down before taking Henry out to the parking garage so that they can get Neal and drive downtown to their therapists’ offices. Henry gets stuck on talking about how Avery told him a restaurant by the pier serves Mickey Mouse waffles, and of course, that gets him to talk about Disney World and how Grace and Violet went with their families over Christmas break. He and Emma have talked about it before, but it’s expensive and they have an infant they’d have to cart around as well.

Maybe some other time.

Why take your kid to Disney World when you can take them to see a hell of a lot of history in Washington DC instead? At least, that’s what they’re telling Henry about their trip next month.

But Neal easily joins in on the conversation about Mickey shaped waffles and the pros and cons of Woody versus Buzz lightyear. Luckily for Neal, Henry likes a lot of the classic movies, so he hasn’t been subjected to watching every new movie to know what his son is talking about. He still has to watch a lot of them, but he’s got the basic knowledge of Toy Story and The Lion King down.

The Lego Movie was all new to him. That’s a favorite in the house.

(He may never be able to watch it without his ears hurting ever again with that damn song.)

After shuffling through traffic, he pulls into the parking lot of the office building and puts the car in park so that he can take Henry up to Dr. Hopper’s office, the two of them dropping Neal off on the second floor.

“So Momma goes to talk to someone, I go to talk to someone, and my dad talks to someone?” Henry asks in the elevator. “Why don’t you talk to someone?”

Kids. They ask the exact things you don’t want to be asked about.

“I used to,” he says after thinking about it for a minute, trying to answer as delicately as he can. “And I might again. Sometimes we need someone besides our mums and dads or our friends to talk to, and that’s why we talk to Dr. Hopper, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s nice. He talks about you and Mom a lot.”

“We’re very interesting people.”

“Sometimes you guys are boring.”

He chuckles and pulls Henry into his side right when the elevator doors open to their floor, the two of them stepping out and walking to the receptionist’s desk to tell them they’re here for Henry. Dr. Hopper almost immediately walks out, which has never happened to him at any doctor’s appointment in his entire life, and Henry happily walks back in his office with him. He knows that Emma waits in the office when she takes him, but he needs to go fill up the car with gas. So he gets back in the elevator and walks out into the lobby while responding to one of his emails from work.

When he looks up, though, he stops in his tracks, instinct taking over as he folds back into a corner of the lobby while he watches Neal get into a car outside.

What?

What the hell?

Why is Neal getting into a car? Who is he getting into a car with? Is this some kind of therapy thing? They drive and talk? That’s new but maybe it’s a thing.

Bloody hell. It’s definitely not a thing.

Neal is skipping out on his therapy appointment and getting into a random car, and he has no idea why, the blood in his veins heating as confusion and worry courses through him.

He’s already swiping out of his email to call Neal and ask him if he’s okay, if something is wrong that he had to leave, but something stops him from doing anything. Some kind of inner instinct that he honed from years in the Navy and years as a father understanding when a child is lying to him stops him from reaching out and asking Neal where he’s going right now.

He doesn’t…he doesn’t understand, and with the way his mind works, he can’t focus on anything but running through all of the scenarios that might be happening, even the crazy ones. He seems to only be able to focus on the crazy theories which don’t even seem coherent in his mind as he twists them around and tries to make sense of his muddled thoughts.

Something catches in his throat, and he tries to swallow the gulp that’s there while his heart pounds against his ribcage, something constricting in a way that causes his breath to be a bit shortened. Or a lot. He might not be breathing right now. He’s still alive, so he’s definitely breathing. But he can feel heat spreading across his cheeks and goose bumps rising on his arms.

Fuck.

This isn’t right. Whatever is happening isn’t right. Somehow, without any rhyme or reason, he just knows, and if he’s honest with himself as he has this psychological breakdown in the lobby of an office building, there are things that haven’t been right since the very beginning of Neal’s homecoming. He’s noticed them. Of course he has. But his kids, his relationship with Emma, and making sure that Neal has had an easy transition back into society have been his focus so that he hasn’t put too much thought into everything else. He screwed things up so badly with Emma, to the point where she might not have wanted to be with him ever again, and all he’s wanted was to get back on track with her, to make sure that she knows that he loves her more than his own life. All he’s wanted was to make sure that Ada is still growing as much as she should and that Henry is okay after going through such a transition both at home and at school.

All he’s wanted is for everyone to be okay, Neal included.

This, how he’s feeling, how he’s thinking, is not okay.

But maybe it is. Maybe he’s overreacting. Maybe he’s imagining things.

He’s not imagining things. He can’t be. He’s not crazy. His mind is fully functional. He knows what’s in front of his eyes, and he just watched Neal get into a random car when he’s supposed to be at therapy.

Shit. He should have gotten the license plate.

Why would he get the license plate? What would he do with that? To look up to see if the Uber driver Neal is using is registered on the site? Is it an Uber driver? Maybe it’s a friend. Maybe Neal didn’t feel like talking about things with his therapist today so he called a friend? Why would he do that? Why would he hide that from them?

Then again, why wouldn’t he hide that from them? Emma would make him go, would be upset if she knew that he wasn’t going, so maybe that’s it. He needed a break from talking. Killian understands that. There were days when he used to hate going to therapy as well.

But…

He’s got no bloody clue what’s happening.

It’s likely nothing, and this is just his paranoia and anxiety stepping up when he’s been living in a pretty stressful situation for a long while. Maybe it’s a bit of confusion, but maybe it’s just another thing about Neal that doesn’t add up when he truly thinks about it. Maybe it’s something. Maybe it can explain why Neal’s handling his PTSD better than anyone he’s ever seen. Maybe it can explain why none of Neal’s scars were fresh, why all of them had years to heal. Maybe it can explain why Neal is so hell bent on being an American hero and spending his time in DC. In working in the government even when the government failed him so spectacularly. Maybe it can explain why Neal seems to always be gone, to never be home on time. Maybe it can explain Neal knowing things he shouldn’t know. It’s only been a few things, a few random, unimportant things, but Neal knows things that he shouldn’t since he has been in captivity for eight years.

Or maybe it can’t explain anything. Neal was captured by Al-Qaeda almost a decade ago, and that’s where he’s been. He’s been through a tragedy, and he gets to be home and back with his family, even if it’s a little different than the way he thought it would be. Neal was captured, and he is a hero. That’s what’s happened.

But what if it’s not?

That’s preposterous. That’s the most insane thought he’s ever had, and Neal getting in a car to skip out on therapy doesn’t mean anything.

All of his thoughts are starting to sound like people who believe in conspiracy theories, and he is not that kind of man. He is too logical for all of this. He’s simply stressed and a little short staffed after a hectic day at work and the impending conversation about his son’s living situation. All he needs is to take a few deep breaths and calm himself down so that his mind stops working in overdrive.

His phone starts ringing in his hand and he sees Emma’s scrunched up smiling face from where he’d just kissed her cheek before she snapped the picture. She put it in his phone as her contact name, and it makes him smile nearly every time.

She makes him smile.

“Hello, love,” he greets, clenching his jaw and attempting to calm himself down from the race that his mind is currently running. He hates when he gets like this. It’s helpful at work but not now.

“Hey, babe. So guess who is the father of a perfectly healthy nine-month-old baby girl?”

“I sure as hell hope it’s me.”

“I mean, obviously I was just calling you to tell you about a random baby.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Exactly,” Emma laughs, her voice so light that it nearly breaks him apart thinking about everything that’s just happened. It has to be nothing. It’s just a weird coincidence, a misunderstanding. All of these odd little things happening over the past few months with Neal have been misunderstandings. They can’t be more. They can’t for Emma’s sake, for Henry’s. Emma doesn’t need to go through anything else. She needs to be happy. He’s overreacting in the biggest of ways. He’s got to cut back on coffee. “But seriously, Ada is growing just fine. She’s nineteen pounds and twenty seven inches. Dr. Kay said the only thing was that we need to try some more different textured foods, so I’m going to run by Whole Foods and get some of the things on this list we got.”

“That’s wonderful, love. I’m glad she’s healthy.”

He’s more than glad. He’s so relieved. He knows of all the things that can go wrong in young children, and it’s the biggest comfort knowing that his child is okay. She once had a high fever, just a few weeks after she was born, and that was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of his life.

“You and me both. Sometimes I get so worried about her. Like, it’s so easy to mess things up, and I don’t want to do that.”

“Swan,” he sighs, smiling the slightest bit because he can’t help himself when it comes to her, “you are the best mum on the planet. There’s no competition.”

-/-

-/-

“I’m dying,” Emma groans, adjusting herself in bed again, kicking around the pillows at her feet.

“I’m sure that’s not true, love.”

Emma’s eyes basically turn into black slits, and he immediately inches away from her, putting space between them so that she doesn’t punch him. He likely deserves it.

“I have heartburn that is killing me. Actually killing me. I forgot about this.”

“Do you need something?” he asks softly, reaching over to her and rubbing his fingers into her arm while she still twists and turns on the bed.

“I think I’m going to just lay here and suffer in my misery, but if you want to get the remote for me, that’d be wonderful.”

“Now that I can do.”

He puts his book down on his bedside table before moving the covers off of his legs and rising from the bed to take the few steps toward the television and the remote that’s resting on its stand. He picks it up and tosses it over toward the bed so that it bounces on the mattress toward Emma. She quickly picks it up and turns the television on, flipping through channels.

“I’m going to go get some tea, Swan. Do you want anything?”

“Water. And some more Tums.”

“As you wish.”

It’s still early, the sun having barely risen, so he’s surprised when he finds Henry in the kitchen standing on his step stool as he looks through the cabinets. Usually he sleeps in on Saturdays, and they always hear the floor creak when he walks past their bedroom.

“What are you looking for?”

“Food,” Henry shrugs, not at all shocked by Killian’s presence. “Where did all of our good stuff go?”

“There’s plenty of good stuff in there,” he scoffs, stepping over to look in the cabinet with Henry. “Do you want some oatmeal? Cheerios? What about some scrambled eggs? I don’t think Mum is feeling up to one of our big Saturday breakfasts.”

“I thought babies are supposed to make people more hungry. That’s what Avery says.”

“Isn’t Avery an only child?”

“Yeah, but he’s smart.”

“Of course he is,” he laughs, grabbing Henry by the waist and plopping him down on the kitchen island so that he’s away from all of the appliances. “I can fix you something to eat, and we’ll go upstairs and eat it in my room, yeah?”

“I thought I couldn’t eat in my room.”

“But you can in my room when I say so, and I think your mummy needs some extra snuggles with you this morning.”

“Why? She’s already got the baby.”

Oh shit. He’s been expecting this, but he wasn’t really expecting it until after the baby was here and a lot of their time was spent focusing on her. He most definitely wasn’t expecting it now when Emma’s five months along and Henry has known he was getting a sibling for two months.

This is going to be one of those moments where he terribly screws things up, isn’t it?

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to spend time with you,” he says softly, making sure to be extra careful with his words while he closes the kitchen cabinets.

“But all she talks about with other people is the baby.”

“Mum is excited, lad,” he sighs, leaning back against the counter and studying Henry’s face, wishing his lips weren’t curled down. “I thought you were too. You’re going to be a big brother just like Liam is to me and David is to your mum.”

“I am excited,” he mumbles underneath his breath while messing with his t-shirt, the picture of someone who is not excited, “but what if you and Momma love my sister more than you love me?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes, stepping forward and wrapping Henry up in a hug even as Henry squirms away from him a bit before finally wrapping his arms around his back, “that’s just not true. We love you so much, Henry, and that’s never going to change, okay? Yes, you’re going to have to share your time with us with your sister, but I promise that we will love you just as much.”

“Are you still going to come to my soccer games?” he sniffles, burying his head in Killian’s shoulder.

“Every Saturday afternoon. I will be there for as much as I can. And when your sister is big enough, she’s going to be there to cheer you on every Saturday as well.”

“Is she gonna be able to yell like Momma does?”

“Oh most definitely,” he laughs, leaning back so that he can look in Henry’s eyes, his little brows no longer furrowed and his lips beginning to curve up. “She’s going to be a big yeller. She’s going to be a lot smaller than you, but we’re still going to do a lot of fun things. I always wanted a little sister, and you’re so lucky to get one.”

“You wanted a little sister?”

“Of course I did,” he answers, pulling the eggs out of the refrigerator so he can make some scrambled eggs. “When you have a younger sibling, you get to teach them all kinds of things.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you can teach her to play soccer and to draw those cool pictures of yours. She’ll need a lot of help at first, like learning to walk and talk, and you can help her with that. You can also tell her stories like I do to you.”

“I think she’ll like Captain Underpants.”

He snickers under his breath as he cracks an egg open on the pan. “I think she might.”

“Will she like TV?”

“Who doesn’t like TV?”

“Grandma sometimes.” “Well your grandma is just a silly goose,” he laughs, moving his spatula around a bit while adding some pepper. “But yeah, bud, she’s going to like all of those things, and you can help your mum and I take care of her so that her favorite person in the world is her big brother Henry.”

He and Henry keep talking about all of the things that Henry can do with his sister once she’s born, even if a few of them are a little far-fetched. But it’s a nice way to keep Henry excited, to make him be happy again when he’s apparently been a little down about it. He’ll have to talk to Emma about this later, to let her know what’s going on, and maybe they’ll be able to figure out a better way to talk to him about everything than his on the fly conversation with Henry. He also needs to tell her that today is definitely not the day to tell Henry about Neal. They’ve been working on that ever since they found out Emma was pregnant, and it was finally going to happen this afternoon. They had this whole plan, something researched and practiced and thought through, but if Henry’s struggling with a little jealousy, now is not the time for him to find out that Killian isn’t actually his father.

It’s never going to be easy, especially for Emma and Henry, but they have to do it. Henry deserves to know about Neal. Neal’s memory deserves to be honored through his son. It’s a difficult balance for him to not step on toes, to make sure that he does what’s right for Henry. He’s not his biological father. He never will be. But that’s their life, and biology doesn’t mean a damn thing to him when he loves this kid as much as anything.

But Henry should also get to know about his biology and all of the sacrifices and love that Neal made and gave for Henry and for their country in general.

He should know that his dad is a hero.

Just not today.

“Alright,” he sighs, handing Henry a bowl of mixed berries while he holds the eggs and his tea, “let’s go sit with Mum and make her feel better.”

Henry nods his head before running up the stairs, nearly dropping his bowl, but he catches himself and busts through their bedroom door, leaving the door wide open as Killian follows in behind him.

“Hey, kid,” Emma greets, sitting up a little bit and flipping the channel to something else, “what are you doing up?”

“Daddy and I made breakfast, but it’s not for you.”

“Really now? Why not?”

“You’re not hungry.” He climbs up onto the mattress and crawls over to Emma, sitting himself right in her side was she wraps her arm around his shoulder. It’s one of his favorite sights in the world, and it gets so much better by the curve of Emma’s stomach under her tank top. “So this is all for me and Daddy.”

“What did we just say about sharing?” He laughs, settling down on the bed as well.

“Oh yeah.” Henry looks from him to looking at Emma who’s got a soft smile on her face as one hand rests on her belly and the other hand messes with Henry’s hair. “My sister and I are going to be best friends like Daddy and Liam, and I’m going to teach her how to play soccer.”

“You are? Do you think she’ll be able to kick goals like you?”

“Maybe not as good as me.”

“She’ll need lots of practice,” Emma laughs. “Soon she’s going to be able to kick my belly, so I think she’s already trying to catch up to you.” “I have to go practice,” Henry gasps, moving to get out of the bed only for Emma to yank him back down and pull him further into his side.

“Not quite yet, kid. I want you to cuddle with me because I love you so much.” “I love you too,” Henry says as he squirms, finally settling into Emma’s side and resting his head against her shoulder. He’s just about to pick up his tea and try to find them something else to watch when Henry looks at him with this big cheesy grin on his face as he loudly whispers, “she does want to cuddle with me.” “I told you so,” he promises as he reaches over to grab Henry’s hand.

-/-

-/-

“I think you might be a bit biased,” she gushes, the sound of Ada faintly filtering through in the background.

“Well, I am rather in love with you.”

“You sentimental sap,” Emma laughs. “I love you too. Let me know when you guys are on the way home, okay?”

“I will.”

When the call ends, he takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down more. He needs to get a grip, to ground himself. Emma grounds him, her voice, her face. She steadies him when he’s the furthest thing from steady.

She’s…everything.

He’s overreacting. He has to be. Neal is allowed to live his own life. They’re encouraging him to live his own life, and that’s the thought process he maintains as he sits down in the lobby, completely forgetting about the fact that he needs to go get gas or respond to the rest of his emails. Instead of doing anything productive he sits in silence and watches as people move in and out of the building, the gentle closing of the glass doors followed by the click of heels on the tile, the sound only dying out when they get into the elevator.

That sound is what he focuses on, counting the steps it takes for different people to walk the same distance, and when he looks down at his phone and sees that it’s nearly six, he stands from his chair and makes his way back to the elevator bay, loading onto the cart with a woman and her children who are going to the same floor that he is. Henry is already waiting for him when he gets there, and the smile on his face calms him the slightest bit. He’s happy. That’s good. That means the session went well.

“Hey,” he waves, placing his hand on Henry’s back and guiding him out of the office. “Did you have a nice time? Anything you want to talk about with me?”

“Nope. I already told Dr. Hopper about how we can’t go to Disney World.”

“When your sister is older, kid,” he starts. “When your sister is older.”

Neal is waiting for them in the lobby when they get to the lobby again, his foot tapping against the floor, and even though he’s told himself to drop it, to drop all of the wild thoughts that are running through his mind, he can’t. Neal’s come back just in time for him to not know that he left.

Damn it.

If he had stayed in the lobby he could have seen him coming back.

What would he have said? Where the hell did you go? Why aren’t you in therapy? Is everything okay? Are you hiding something? What’s happening?

(He’s lost his mind and needs to get a grip.)

He could say all of those things. He could. he knows the words, knows how to speak, but none of them fall off of his tongue. He doesn’t want to be accusatory when there’s most likely nothing going on, and he’s going to continue operating that way until he knows for sure. There’s a tentative tightrope that they’re all walking on, and he’s not going to be the one to push them off of it because he’s lost his mind.

So he doesn’t say anything when they get in the car or when they stop and let Henry get a smoothie. He doesn’t say anything when they get home and help Henry do his homework, the two of them trying to explain fractions to him. He doesn’t say anything when they eat dinner, and he doesn’t say anything afterwards when they’re all watching TV while he does eventually finish up working on his emails. And he doesn’t say anything when Henry and Ada are put down to bed.

And he especially doesn’t say anything when he, Emma, and Neal sit down to talk about whether or not Neal is going to take the job in DC.

He is. He wants to do it. He’s determined to do it, to make a difference in the world now that he knows what it’s like to have a second chance at life. And when Emma very tentatively asks him what he wants to do about Henry, Neal tells them that while it’s not ideal, he’ll be happy to come home for every holiday that he can and every weekend that he can and that they don’t have to send Henry to DC by himself. He tells them that he doesn’t want Henry’s life to be disrupted any more than it’s already been. He tells them every single thing that a loving father who both wants to do good for his kid and good for himself would say.

And Killian is positive that he means it. Emma is even more so. She’s so good at reading others, her little superpower developed over years of careful use, and he’s got to trust that she’s able to use it with Neal. He knows that sometimes she can be wrong, but he’d bet that she’s right nearly every time.

He’d trust her over everything.

So while he’s calmed a bit over possibly losing Henry, over Henry being hurt at never seeing his dad (something he’s still worried about if he’s honest with himself), he can’t turn his mind off. He can’t make the thoughts stop, the theories cease from forming, the worries festering. And when they’re in bed and Emma starts trailing her lips up the cords of his neck, instead of melting against her touch, he pulls back, turning his body away from her.

“What’s wrong?” she asks quietly, her voice barely a whisper above the hum of the ceiling fan.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” he lies, twisting a bit so that he can see her face, see the worry in her eyes.

“Are you mad at me?”

How can he ever be mad at Emma when he’s mad at himself for thinking that Neal, this man they all love, isn’t telling the full truth? How could he ever be mad at Emma when he’s so mad at himself for nearly every thought he’s had today? How could he…how could he think something so absurd that would hurt everyone he knew if he ever said the words out loud?

How can he be thinking any of this?

“No,” he promises, reaching over to her and resting his thumb in the indent of her chin, making sure that she can see the seriousness in his gaze, “how could I ever be mad at you?”