#I’m tired of ads merging with actual posts

[redlionknc]

Tumblr will really do ANYTHING but fix the app

[thehotgrandparent]

Ok so… remember that one ask me anything post from @another-night27 where a doppelganger flirted with Berry like their life depended on it?

Well it actually gave me an idea to write a fic about that! i have already started writing it (but it’s just the start just to flesh out the plot/story)

I haven’t really decided on wether to do a short fic of the three versions in the post (the good/bad/average endings aka the ok/eaten/somehow succesfull? Ending)

or do the bad ending first and make that a one-shot, and then for the second part is merge the other two and make it kind of like a doppleganger Doorman/random lucky doppelganger fic series. (Or just skip the bad ending and just do the ship fic ) (this is also the more likely plot/fic i’ll be doing)

Another-night27 seemed ok with me making a fic about their idea/post (in the comment section of that post!)

I also commented that i might do it in the same universe as ur fic but obviously with my own headcanons,backgrounds and story/plot for the neighbors etc.

but now i’m actually not sure about making it in the same universe. I might do it on my own universe (same concept though, dopple doorman but different person)

AGAIN!! I haven’t actually decided anything!!(idek if i should post the fic in ao3 or tumblr or both…) This is really just a long explanation for me to ask permission if i can make the fic were its the same universe (doppel doorman(Berry) as yours if i were to decide that!! (And maybe some of ur headcanons too…)

-

I also wanted to ask on your thoughts about this and what you think i should add/do with the fic!

(OMG THIS IS SO LONG 😭 SORRY FOR ATTACKING YOU WITH A BUNCH OF WORDS)

I saw that! I (hopefully) think that Another-Night27 is fine with it, but I think they don’t mind? Doesn’t hurt to ask again to double check, lol

Honestly, do whatever you want with it. It is your fic, so you can do it in the same or different universe. Seeing as I myself made the series because I was bored, tired, and really wanted to see a doppel!doorman AU, I just wrote it, so it would be a good read either way!

I’d recommend doing whatever you want to write first, and you can make a short series of the fic. One for each ending

You can, of course, change whatever you want, such as adding your own headcanons, backstories, etc etc. Since I also recommend doing a series with each ending, I also recommend you focus on one before working on the others since burnout does happen, plus it’s easier to keep track of things

Again, you can make it your own universe if you want! I don’t really mind honestly. It could be a canon diverse universe from my own series, but it’s completely up to you if you want to do it

If you do decide to post it, I recommend (again) to do both, since some people don’t use AO3 and vise versa. For me (personally) I post it on AO3 and link it on tumblr, mostly because I prefer doing it like that, so again, up to you on it

But I give full permission if you were to do it in the same universe/use some of my headcanons too 🫡

Hell, you can use my fics to help you get a baseline for the characters, lmao

[shanastoryteller]

I posted 1,765 times in 2021

886 posts created (50%)

879 posts reblogged (50%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.0 posts.

I added 1,982 tags in 2021

#asks - 465 posts

#anon - 359 posts

#untamed - 218 posts

#progress report - 205 posts

#prompt answers - 204 posts

#prompts are closed - 201 posts

#this is your grandma talking - 137 posts

#harry potter - 80 posts

#woh - 66 posts

#video - 47 posts

Longest Tag: 132 characters

#but perhaps we should not equate mass murderes taking on personas because they want to be known as especially good at mass murdering

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Are real people as kind as you characters? I mean, it's not just yours, other fictional people are like that too, but what do YOU say? Are you guys actually like that on the inside?

today i got a coffee on my lunch break and a man had his daughter on his hip and two coffees in his hands and he held the door open for me anyway

i went to go pick up a skirt that was being held for me and the employee said to me “uhg, i’m so tired, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet” and i said “your hair is so beautiful” because it was long and red and shiny and had blown out curls and she perked up and said “thanks! it’s to distract from the fact that i didn’t put on makeup this morning” 

i was driving home and i realized i was in the wrong lane and i needed to move over and a car slowed down so i could merge in front of them

that was just today

whether or not you think people are kind is a sort of confirmation bias, i think

if you go through life expecting people to be terrible, that’s what you’ll remember, that’s what you’ll focus on

but if you go through life looking for kindness, that’s what you’ll find

overtip your waiters. let the car go in ahead of you. smile at the homeless person and give them your spare change. compliment people. 

you yourself are likely never more than one rushed morning away from a bad mood, one missed paycheck away from suffering, one accident away from ruin

you are probably not a politician or a ceo or a god. you cannot remake the world in your own image

but you can make other people’s lives easier and softer in small, effortless ways that cost you nothing. you can be the silver lining not just for your friends and family but for hundreds of thousands of strangers you haven’t even met yet. life is nothing but one opportunity after another to both show and be shown kindness

life can be cruel. people can be terrible. 

but the simplest way to increase the number of kind people in the world is to be one

28159 notes • Posted 2021-04-07 07:15:35 GMT

#4

sometimes people are absolutely WILD about comments, acting like the idea that they shouldn’t be a jerk is a violation of their first amendment rights 

last week i read a fic i HATED. it was well written and highly recommended and i wish i had never read it. hours of my life i will never get back. 

i disagreed with: it’s interpretation on canon, it’s take on mental health, the social contract between loved ones, recovery, trauma, boundaries, and ... more tbh

i could NOT stop thinking about how much i disagreed with it. me and this fic have philosophical differences so large i could give a ted talk and i was still super irritated about it days later. 

so you know what i did?

i called up my friends and was like “you guys have no context but i’m going to bitch about this fic you haven’t read in this fandom you haven’t consumed for the next thirty minutes” and they were like “okay sure it’s a tuesday night, we’re in a pandemic, i have nothing better to do”

what did i not do? 

leave a comment on this person’s fic because i’m a human person

37561 notes • Posted 2021-01-29 04:18:29 GMT

#3

wish there was a non rude way to be like "I understand your criticism, I don't even necessarily disagree with it, but I am doing these things on purpose, because I like them and I want to, and therefore your opinion has no value, because you might think me painting a room entirely pink is tacky, but I did it on purpose"

37654 notes • Posted 2021-10-11 04:34:48 GMT

#2

in the sixth months after graduating from college, with my very expensive degree from a good college, i ate nothing but bread. i worked at a bakery / cafe / restaurant and got half off one meal per shift but it was still too expensive even then. but at the end of every night we would throw out all the bread loaves that hadn’t sold, which was most of them, every night. we would fill up ten boxes to give away to a shelter and then we could take anything we could carry, and i couldn’t afford a half off deconstructed sandwich, but i could fill the cabinets of my apartment with bread. everyone who worked there was just like me, subsisting on discarded, overpriced bread. 

(when the managers’ backs were turned i was taught to leave the trashbags of bread behind the dumpster rather than inside it, because it was locked after everyone left to prevent people from stealing from it. we would say we were going out to stack chairs and instead stack prepackaged salads prepared that morning in the narrow space between wall and dumpster, but that’s not what this is about.)

we were working valentine’s day, a little bit miserable about it, because customers are somehow worse on a holiday about love, and even if we were single we didn’t want to be here, and most of us had people we’d rather be spending the day with, and the snappish, hardass manager was working that day, and everyone could not wait for the day to be over. 

we had a boxes of those bakery tissue sheets around and i was twisting it in my hands and i thought about how the first night my uncle spent with my aunt he had to get up early for work but didn’t want to wake her and the whole thing hadn’t been planned, exactly, so he (a roofer by trade and a golden glove boxer by sport) went into the kitchen and took some paper towels and twisted them between his big, scarred hands until it formed a sweeter shape and when my aunt work up it was to a paper towel rose on her pillow. 

so i used a couple sheets of bakery tissue to make a rose and walked up to my coworker who stared at me with a rictus smile and i gave it to her, trying not overthink if it was a weird thing to do. her smile slipped and she asked “you made this?” holding it carefully, like it wasn’t something her two year old son could have made with his pudgy hands, and i shrugged and got more milk from the back. 

then another coworker held the steamer too long when frothing milk, not on accident but because he was irritated, so i rolled another rose and tucked it in his apron pocket as i walked by. then it was just one more of us up front and it was nothing, thirty seconds of twisting paper to take the stack of cookies out of her hands and hand her a tissue paper rose, her lined face lifting into a grin as she proudly tucked it into the chest pocket of her shirt and i may as well have been standing in front of the ovens for how hot my face felt. 

it was such a silly thing to do, i felt ridiculous, giving away hastily constructed tissue paper roses on valentine’s day, clumsy artful garbage. then one of the servers walked by and noticed and so i made her one too, and then other servers came by, leaning over the glass, and complimenting the flowers with big eyes, and i laughed and made more, still not sure if it was sincere, but even if it wasn’t, i figured making them one and handing it over was better than saying no. 

then i went to the back again and the dishwasher yelled out “where’s mine? what about us?” and he was too sweet to ever be anything less than sincere, so someone kept an eye on the door to the manager’s office as i stood in the sweltering kitchen and rolled clumsy tissue paper roses, enough for everyone 

and by the time the day ended, everyone had one, everyone wore one, tucked in their shirt or their apron or stuck in their hair or taped to the top of their pen. everyone was a little less miserable, smiling like we were all on in on the joke, although i don’t think any of us knew the punchline 

this story doesn’t have a punchline either. i just sometimes think of how much better some crumpled tissue paper made things and think that it can be that easy, sometimes, if we’re sincere and don’t overthink it too much

62785 notes • Posted 2021-01-26 09:36:34 GMT

#1

I worked at a McDonald's as a cashier in high school and it was during a time when they changed their POS system (point of sale, not piece of shit) so everything was now in a slightly different, less logical place, but I was working 20ish hours a week so I picked it up really quickly

Anyway I was out with my friend in the next town over and we went to a McDonald's because she really wanted an ice tea and we go through the drive through. The man greets us out of the little speaker and asks for our order and she says "Hi! Could I get a large sweet ice tea please?"

Silence.

Longer silence.

And I knew in my heart what was happening.

So I leaned over and said, "It's on page two of drinks, under juice, then the third one down."

Another much shorter silence.

Then:

"What the - how the hell did... Uh. I mean. Thank you?"

And it's been literally ten years but I'm still riding the high from that.

98765 notes • Posted 2021-03-17 07:48:44 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[sunkaashi]

— OVERTIME

↬ Pairing. College!Atsumu x Manager!Reader

↬ Genre. Fluff. A hint of enemies to lovers if you look really closely.

↬ Warnings. Mentions of alcohol. I guess nothing else? Let me know if you think I'm wrong!

↬ Summary.  Atsumu Miya is hopelessly in love with you, but how could he ever catch your attention if all you do is ignore him? Well, maybe his plan starts to work out when he finds out that whenever he stays longer for practice, you have to stay too.

↬ Word count. 1.7k

↬ tris' note: I wrote this in the spur of the moment, but I had so much fun! feedbacks are extremely appreciated! if you wanna be added to my general taglist, fill out this form.

anyways, did you know that only hot people reblog the works they like? NO? well, now you do ;) jk, but reblogs help me tons and I'm very grateful for them <3

Sweat dripped down the back of ATSUMU's neck as he jogged around the college tracks for the nth time that afternoon.

"Just one more lap." He kept telling himself over and over again as if repeating it would make it any less of a lie.

But who could blame him when this was the only moment of the day that he could spend with you? When he just knew that, by the end of that turn, you'd be there to receive him, water bottle and towel in hand? If anything, that just drove him more and more motivated to get to the finish line.

Those seconds in which your hands slightly brushed off against each other's; the way you laughed whenever he tripped over himself, too tired to carry on; the sarcastic sneer on your face every time you scolded him for wasting your time, but still wouldn't leave. To Atsumu, that was his reward, better than any shining trophy.

"Oi! Miya!" Your voice woke him up from his trance as the blonde boy finally shot up a glance at you. He rested with his hands on his knees, chest going up and down in strong and unsteady motions, legs still trembling a bit from the training. "We've been here for almost two hours! Everybody has left already, and I want to go home for God's sake!"

Atsumu snickered at the way your voice got higher with each word, deflecting from his gaze while you said you wanted to leave. He also didn't miss how you knitted your eyebrows together just before going off at him, carefully scanning his shaky body.

"Ya could've left, ya know? I never asked ya to stay!" He replied, smirking a little while making sure to stare right into your pupils.

If eyes are the windows to the soul, that must be the reason yours were so beautiful to him. As he tried to get an answer through them, he also delighted himself in such a vision. That's why he was quick to notice their slight tremble at his remark.

"And leave you to die?!" Your voice, once again, cut him off of his daydreams. "You've been running for more than an hour after a pretty rough practice, if you go into cardiac arrest who's gonna call an ambulance?! I'm the team manager, I don't want any deaths on my back!"

In his defense, he was only there because of you, but — obviously — he wouldn't tell you that. He decided to just laugh it off.

"Well, that's something you don't see every day!" He teased.

"What?!"

"Yer’ worried ‘bout me!" Atsumu said, trying to suppress the smile forming in the corner of his mouth.

Even though his tone was playful, he knew something was off when his words were left hanging in the air, no snarky comments added to the back-and-forth banter you were both so used to.

Seeing your widened eyes, he started to question if he was right or, worse, if he had crossed a line.

You gulped down as if this would prevent you from spilling something you shouldn't say. Atsumu was dying to know what it was.

This had become a little routine of yours. Staying for a couple more hours after practice as you helped him out for a while. At first, he knew you're just doing your job, after all, you were there to assist the boys, it didn't matter who they were. Still, he couldn't shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, something had changed as the months went by.

He remembered it perfectly. It wasn't that long before that you used to curse him for making you lose such precious time of your day. He knew you had your reasons! Staying overtime underneath the unforgiving sun, having to catch up on your studies while sitting beside the filthy running tracks, surrounded by sweaty and dirty athletes.

Even so, it wasn't pleasant for him either. Jogging for endless hours, the summer heat consuming him as if hell were just around the corner.

Usually, he would run only half of those miles. But how could he stop? How could he stop knowing that the minute he did, you'd have to go home, and he would only see you the next day? No, he needed more time to win you over. He needed those small talks in between his breaks. He needed every single one of the few glances you exchanged every time he ran past you. He needed to hear you giggling at his jokes at least once more.

What once felt like dragging insufferable after hours, began to seem like less and less time over the weeks. Those little details were what made it all worth it. They were his private entrance to heaven.

And he believed that you might've been starting to feel the same way too.

He'd caught the way your lips curled up into a shy smile the last time he'd offered to walk you home. He also had noticed how your irises shined a bit brighter whenever he bought you food, worried because he knew you'd be there with him for those extra periods. He'd seen the way you laughed at his childhood stories just a tad too hard, always asking for another one.

Atsumu had always been aware of how he comes off to people: the arrogant self-centered jock. He never really cared about any of those things, but he did care about how you perceived him. The man just hoped that soon enough, you'd learn he was more than what others wanted him to be. Not a pretentious athlete, albeit a normal guy as any other, just with an ambitious goal set to his mind. And whenever you shared one of those intimate moments, he thought that, perhaps, you were one of the few people that actually saw him for who he was.

Still, that didn't make it any easier to admit the feelings he'd developed for you.

"Oi! Are ya alright?" Atsumu said, trying to catch your attention, a delicate expression laying on his countenance. "I'm sorry if I overstepped in any way, ‘kay? It was a joke, I promise." You didn't answer him just yet.

"Hey!" He proceeded, lifting your chin up so you'd look at him. "Now I'm the one getting worried 'bout ya! Snap out of it and get back to hating on me before ya realize I might have a heart!" Atsumu mocked himself, but shied away from your glare while doing so.

At least he'd made you chuckle.

“I always knew you had one, Miya." You said, rolling your eyes at the man. “I just didn’t know it worked!”

“Oya! That was mean!”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” You asked, arching your brows.

“Well, maybe, but it wouldn’t hurt if ya were a little nicer to me once in a while!”

“Yeah? How so?” The words slipped past your lips without missing a beat, and Atsumu couldn’t help but wonder if the flirtatious undertone was something he had only imagined. He decided to take the bait.

“For starters...” Atsumu began, slowly making his way closer to where you were standing. “Ya could buy me a beer after we’re done here.” Was he crazy or did he really see your shoulders relaxing at his words?

“Oh, is that easy?” You responded in the same toying manner.

“Hold up!” He said, raising his hands to the air. “That’s just the first step!”

“And then what?”

“And then…” Atsumu continued, moving further towards your figure. “Then ya could let me hear that beautiful laugh of yers a few more times.” He completed, stealing a giggle out of you. “Just like that.”

“Great, so I’m halfway through it.” Your tone may have been monotonous, but your eyes told him otherwise. “Anything else or can we get this over with?”

“Maybe, while yer’ laughing, ya could finally realize that I’m not as bad as ya think I am.” He pondered, moving a loose strand of hair out of your features, clearing the view to your gaze.

“Now you wanna tell me what to think?” You scoffed, crossing your arms.

“Is just a suggestion! Take it as ya wish!” He winked at you.

“And what if I told you that I already did?”

“Ya did?” This time, he sounded soft, breaking out of the teasy character for a second.

“You’re not bad, Miya... Far from that.” 

“Well, that’s a shock.”

“You don’t look surprised.” You stated, pointing out the crescent grin on his face.

“Too much wishful thinking made me ready for this moment.”

“And what exactly is this moment… Atsumu?” The way you said his name, in a hushed voice, almost like a secret meant to be shared by only the both of you, gave him the green light he needed to go on.

“It’s when I finally kiss ya.” 

Atsumu was quick to grab your waist, pulling you closer to his chest, and finally closing the gap between you two. His gawk rapidly traveled from your mouth to your eyes, longing for a confirmation. It didn’t take a second after your subtle nod for him to merge your lips together, your body melting at his touch. His grasp was gentle, but firm, like you were something he treasured, something that he never wanted to let go of. And by the way you gripped onto his neck, the boy could tell he wasn’t alone in this.

Atsumu moved his palms all the way up your back, briefly running his fingers through your hair, but resting them upon finding your face. His tender touch cupped your cheeks in between his hands, pushing away just when he inevitably ran out of breath. 

"Do I still have to buy you that beer or is this nice enough for you?" You said, unable to repress a smile.

“Hm, I’m not sure… Why don’t you kiss me again and we'll see?"

© sunkaashi — 2021.  all rights reserved. do not repost, plagiarise it, translate it nor reproduce this post as your own.

[milkbaer]

love to hate you | Part 1

“The prince of Prussia asks the princess of Bavaria for a dance; both absolutely hate it.”

💐 | masterlist | next

• Pairing: Prince Friedrich x Reader (Princess of Bavaria) • Word count: 2.8k • Warnings: none, except for spelling and grammar mistakes, and historical inaccuracy ✨ we alter history to make it fit the narrative ✨ • A/N: @netflixton on made me write it! Well, somehow. But I really have to thank both her and @onlymexsarah because they did not only bring me much joy with their stories but also lots of inspiration. Thank you so much! Really 🥺💖 I hope reading it brings you as much joy as I had writing it. Oh, and I had planned to post another Friedrich story first, but this one was faster. Ah and btw, I’m not Bavarian, sorry my dear Bavarian friends if I fuck up :’) • Small dictionary: Griaß di – informal, like Hello! or Greetings! Pfiad de – informal, goodbye Eure Hoheit – Your Highness Kruzifix – usually a plastic of Jesus hanging at the cross, but it’s also used as a way of cursing. Here it’s a curse.

Berlin, Prussia, 1812

To celebrate the birthday of her son Friedrich, Princess Frederica hosted a big soirée, a ball like usual. Her son might not be heir to the throne, well he was in line somewhere, but he needed a celebration worth a member of the royal family. If he was the son of the king this ball would be bigger and even more marvellous. For her son Frederica would do anything. So, she has had the ballroom decorated with his favourite flowers, colours and had adorned at least every window with candles. She had gotten the best Prussian musicians for him, and even the loveliest voices of Hanover.

Only the best for her son’s birthday.

With his constant travels to the British Isles Frederica often didn’t see him for at least a month. And she knew that he’d soon sail away again, maybe this time it would be Scotland or Ireland. She didn’t know exactly. But she knew that she wanted to see her son happy. When Friedrich was happy, Frederica was happy too. But she feared that if he’d marry an English lady, she’d see him even less.

Maybe she’d have to settle for England too …

 Friedrich loved his mother and not only because she was the only parent left to him. He loved her dearly. It sounded cheesy but she was the best mother he could’ve ever wished for. He was thankful for the party; he knew how much work his mother has put in it. But this evening was delaying his departure for England by two days.

He loved his mother, really, he did. But instead of dancing with debutantes, daughters of family friends, and cousins, he wished to feel the rocky movement of a ship under his feet. Instead Friedrich had to be careful so that no feet would land on or under his.

After he had danced with three of his cousins, he was in desperate need of a break. Especially after having danced with his cousin Charlotte, who was a very passionate and fiery dancer. Instead of leading her, it felt like she was the one who swept him across the ballroom.

But as a prince, and birthday boy, it wasn’t easy to reach the plate filled with lemonade. Everyone needed to talk to him, and Friedrich was too polite to reject them. So, when he gulped down a glass of lemonade it felt like heaven trickling down his throat. He reached for another one, the glasses were far too tiny, when they announced the arrival of another “important” guest.

“Prince Karl of Bavaria and Princess Marie of Bavaria!” they announced when the couple entered the ballroom. Friedrich groaned, not because of them, but because of what, or better who, had to follow.

“And their daughter, Princess Y/N of Bavaria!”

The devil’s spawn.

Grunting in frustration Friedrich grabbed his glass and sprinted off, vanishing in the crowd. He needed to flee, before one of them saw him and decided to talk to him. Talking to the prince would be okay, but he wasn’t too keen on it either.

He needed to get away them – no, from you, as far and soon as possible.

Of course, his mother had invited them. They were her friends. But couldn’t they have left their daughter at home, far, far away in Bavaria?

Hiding amongst other men silently nipping at his drink, Friedrich hoped that he was invisible. He had avoided the middle of the room and the most obvious corners and pretended talking to other gentlemen. In his mind he was unable to be found.

“Griaß di Friedrich! We haven’t seen each other in ages.” Horrified Friedrich spit out his lemonade. Immediately apologizing to the gentleman, who’s coat he just had stained with the sugary drink.

How the hell did you find him?!

He could hear you laughing, maliciously laughing at him.

Your high, gleeful laughter made his skin prickle with anger, and yes, embarrassment. Only by the sound of your voice he could perfectly imagine how you must look like right now. And when he turned around, gritting teeth, he was absolutely right. You wore the same sly grin and superior face as usual.

Of course, he could tell by your sound how you looked like.

You always looked like this.

Looked at him like that when you met.

Usually Friedrich wasn’t petty when people didn’t follow the etiquette. He preferred not to be addressed as your Highness or Eure Hoheit actually. But he hated that you never addressed him correctly. Since he could remember you called him by his Christian name, always.

He hated how you said his name Friedrich, lightly pronounced with your Bavarian accent and hint of mockery. Especially the way how you rolled the first R made him furious. And it appeared to him, that you knew that and only did that to bother him.

“Eure Hoheit, good to see you,” Friedrich lied through gritted teeth. He never understood why he couldn’t bring himself to call you by your baptized name. According to court, he also bowed to you, but only lightly. He would never fully bow down or worse, kneel for you.

“Hm, the pleasure is all mine,” you replied, but your voice said the opposite. You weren’t pleased to be here, he knew that. But he wouldn’t be pleased to be in Bavaria to face you either.

Oh, and you never curtsied for him. You curtsied for his mother and everyone else but not for him.

“The ball looks lovely,” you said and didn’t sound malicious at all. To his surprise you sounded like you meant it. But he wouldn’t trust you, he wouldn’t do that mistake again. Deep inside he knew that this wasn’t all you had to say. You always had something to add.

Always.

Wary he nodded. “Indeed.”

“It’s good to see that one of you has taste,” you said, examining the decorations with a smile. Frederica made an amazing choice with adorning the windows with candles and adding flowers to the room that matched its colours. You really liked it. Friedrich knew that he was meant by your words. To you he had no taste at all.

His frustration slowly grew to anger. Silently raging with gritted teeth, a strong grip on his glass and a forced smile on his face, he asked you. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

Why couldn’t he believe you?

“Just formal greetings. And now my deed is done. So, pfiad de Friedrich!” You bid him goodbye in a singsong with wiggling fingers..

Before Friedrich could say anything in return, you walked off to god knows where. Gulping down his drink, again, in anger he watched you waddle off, until you merged with the crowd. Friedrich sighed in relief; he hadn’t even realized that he was holding his breath. Frustrated he rubbed his free hand slowly down his face.

Why was interacting with you always so exhausting?

 Friedrich wished to enjoy his birthday; he did. Not only for him but also for his mother, Frederica put so much effort in this evening and she was bursting with joy. But with Y/N of Bavaria attending he couldn’t relax. Even now, standing beside his mother, it was impossible for him to loosen up. Somewhere in the back of his mind was you, cackling like the witch you were, constantly reminding him that he did not want to encounter you again.

“I know you wanted to depart for England today,” Frederica suddenly said. “I’m sorry.”

Her apology took him by surprise. She doesn’t need to, sure he had had different plans, but he was enjoying his feast in the presence of his mother.

“For what?”

She smiled sadly at him, looking up at her taller son. “For keeping you here when you could be in England instead.”

Frederica warmed his heart, she always did. He clasped his mother’s hands in his. “Mother, I love it. England will still be there in two days or a week. It can wait but my mother cannot, you’re more important to me.”

Giggling she slapped his arm in a friendly, loving manner. “Oh, you. – I see you’re becoming a real charmer.”

Friedrich laughed at that. He didn’t know if he was that charming.

Princess Frederica looked proudly at her son, a warm smile tugged at her face. His father hadn’t been the best and their marriage a disaster, but she was proud of what Friedrich has become. He was so different than him. She just hoped that Friedrich didn’t end up like them and found love, and happiness in marriage.

 The party was going on for hours, and the prince slowly grew tired. His unwanted meeting with Y/N and the fiery dances with his cousin Charlotte, after the second dance she accused him of being a bad dancer, tired him out. Tonight, Friedrich had talked a lot, danced a lot, bowed and kissed hands a lot. He was tired and hoped to retire soon. Maybe if he talked to his mother …

But to his resentment she had a different plan in mind.

“Do me a favour,” Frederica said and pushed his arm towards the crowd. “And please ask Y/N to dance, will you? – She didn’t get to dance a lot, I can’t let the poor thing leave like that.”

Her son snorted, rolling his eyes. You were everything but definitely not poor.

The last person he wished to see was you, but he was too tired to protest so he marched unenthusiastically to the crowd. It took him some time to find you, to be fair, Friedrich didn’t do his best to find you. His subconscious led him the wrong ways, so he wouldn’t have to dance with you.

But there you were, standing beside your mother and looking almost as tired as he felt. He had no idea if you had arrived this day or yesterday at Prussia, and he didn’t care, but it sure must have been tiring. Sluggishly he approached you and greeted both you and your mother with a friendly fake smile. By the look of your eyes he could see that you were surprised to see him, and as uninterested as he was.

He took your hand, no, he had to grab it and hold it firmly for pretending to kiss it. The day his lips would touch your hands, or any other part of your body, would be the end of the world. Some sort of apocalyptic scenario. As soon as he had taken your hands in his, he had felt a small tug from your arm. You had wanted to pull your hand away, and still wanted to do so. But to your dismay, his grip was too tight.

Annoyed you pressed your lips together, which delighted Friedrich. Most of the time he despised you, but he loved it when he managed to irritate you. Oh, he’d surely frame this picture in his mind and put it to his gallery of ‘Y/N vexed faces’.

“I’d be more than honoured if you’d dance with me,” he lied, and you knew.

“No.” was all you said. And for a second, he taught that it was done, and he could retire to his mother. But your mother, Marie of Bavaria had other plans.

“She’d loved to, more than anything else.” She shot you, her daughter, a chiding look and shoved you right into his arms. Which mother would let the opportunity slide for her daughter to dance with a prince, even if she was a princess herself?

 Both young adults groaned but didn’t object. Friedrich rolled his eyes in annoyance when he dragged you to the dance floor. And yes, he really had to drag you. You put much effort in not entering the dance floor.

To both of your dismay the following dance was a waltz.

Grunting he put himself into the right position, squeezing your hands in his and tugging it with him. His grip was a bit too strong for your liking, but you showed no signs of it. You didn’t even wince. You’d would rather chop of your hand than give him the satisfaction of having power. So, you returned his action, and gave his hand a tight squeeze.

“We don’t have to dance,” you said a bit glum.

Friedrich shared the same excitement, but he had – more or less – made a promise to his mother. It was more of a silent promise.

“Yes, we do,” he grunted. “I gave my word to my mother.”

So, this was all Princess Frederica’s fault? You huffed in annoyance. You liked that woman but maybe not so much anymore. But how could you fool? You’d never despise his mother, for that Frederica was way too nice, unlike her son.

“I forgot that you’re a good son,” you mocked him with a perfectly surprised voice. As if he’d usually disappoint his mother. He’d never.

Following the music and other dancers twirled Friedrich you around, savouring that one second of freedom. But far too soon where you back in his arms and the fight for the strongest grip continued. Friedrich knew that he was squeezing hard, even a bit too hard. But your face showed no signs, not even a flinch. You seemed unbothered by it. And he hated it.

So, he changed his grip, squeezed your hand a tad different and harder. You gasped, not able to contain yourself any longer.

Damn Prussian.

“Pardon me, your Highness. I fear my grip was too strong.” Friedrich apologized smoothly with a charming grin. You gritted your teeth; you knew that it wasn’t an accident. He smiled, enjoying his small moment of triumph.

“You did this on purpose,” you snarled. All your dance partner did was feigning his innocence.

“I would never.”

Friedrich twirled you around again. Your mother might have partnered you together but none of you bothered to pretend enjoying this. You only did it because of them.

You two followed the flow of music, the sound and rhythm, which didn’t reflect your emotions. The tune was elegant and yet cheerful, switching from strong and louds chords to gentle and hush. Waltzing to the song would’ve been lotsof fun if you were only dancing with the right man.

Friedrich flinched slightly, pressing his lips together, when you suddenly trod on his toes. Usually his boots would protect him of the stomps of a light, delicate lady. But you tod on his feet with force, with all your power.

“My mother said you were a good dancer,” he said, ignoring his slightly throbbing toes.

Your foot accidentally hit his leg.

He tried not to flinch.

“I never thought of her as a liar, but maybe she did exaggerate your dancing skills.”

Your foot flew against his other shin.

“Oh, I am,” you assured him with an innocent smile, which he knew wasn’t innocent at all. “I think it might be my partner. A dancer is only as good as the one who leads. – Ow!”

“Kruzifix!” you cursed under your breath.

Now it was Friedrich turn to tod on your foot. Thanks to his boots and physiques, and your shoes, he needn’t much to coax out a reaction from you. He sighed theatrical. “I think you might be right.”

And looked at you with a certain grin, you wished to wipe from his face, stepping on your other toes. You glared at him. If eyes could kill, he would’ve been stabbed a dozen times by now.

“It is me who is the bad dancer. But as you said.” Following the tune, he pulled you towards him, making you gasp in surprise, your chests almost touching. You knew that this move was coming but his movements were so abrupt it surprised you. “It is the leader who has the other in their hands.”

According to the rhythm you had to break of, bring some air between you, only to come together again. This time it was you who stepped on the other’s foot again. Your dance was more of a fight and continued until the end. There was a lot of treading, kicking, and squeezing involved but neither of you thought of surrender. Surely several parts of your body would be bruised blue tomorrow.

 When the music grew silent, prince and princess were glad that the dance was over. Except for a formal farewell they said nothing to each other. Worn out did Prince Friedrich returned to his mother and Princess Y/N shuffled grimly to hers. The prince was more than relieved that this farce was over.

In two days, he’d be off to England and Y/N would be stuck far, far away in Bavaria. You and your spite would be far away from him. Friedrich probably had to encounter you next year, at his birthday, again but he’d make sure to never dance with you ever again.

[judyhopps934-mt-zd]

Thoughts on Gang of Secrets

Warning: Spoilers and intense emotions. Have fun!

Chat Noit sensed that something is wrong with Ladybug. Love how he can sense that based on what she doesn't say.

She almost didn't pound it and was distracted to do so. Oh boy.

BOIIII WHY DID YOU TAKE HER TO THE MOVIES???? THIS IS NOT THE TIME!!! AND LADYBUG KNOWS THIS AS SHOWN BY HER FACIAL EXPRESSION!!! I am SCREAMING because he took her to a movie ABOUT ROMANCE!!!

The civilians do not mind that superheroes are going to the movies. That is until...

Ladybug goes into this rant about romcoms and I agree with every word she says. There is no such thing as a happy ever after and things do not go perfectly. Go off Ladybug!!! There's a reason why I hate rom coms.

The civilians being shocked/annoyed from her rant just adds to it. I am guessing because this is literally freaking Paris and considering the couples there. Has the same vibes as Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls when he approached a couple to say marriage is terrible in the second episode.

Hurts that the rant was the reflection of Marinette's dilemma.

Chat finds out that it was about heartbreak. He finally picks up about social cues! Good work Chat! Too bad that you learned that after your breakup with Kagami.

Ah, the swimming pool. A great place to go to forget your heartbreak go for a swim.

Realized that akumas cannot attack people if they are submerged under water, which is why she goes to the pool and a theory roaming online that she goes to the pool to cry makes a lot of sense.

I know this is a kids show and that logic gets thrown out the window, but does no one in Paris find it fishy that Ladybug in her swim suit enters the Dupain-Cheng household???? I feel like no one cares.

Ladybug might say that the board of pictures with Adrien and Luka and some of her friends might not bother her, but it seems to bother her somewhat as it is a reminder of the relationships that she can't have as long as she's Ladybug. It hurts badly though.

Unpopular opinion: The Kwamis can be good at providing comfort and probably make them laugh, but they are not the best therapists. Do not blame them though.

Marinette only detransforms for Tikki's wellbeing. She is at that point where the only reason she does something is because someone else is suffering, not for herself. It hurts seeing her suffer like this.

Tikki is fine despite being in the earrings for a long time. She is more concerned about Marinette though.

Meanwhile, the girls have their suspicions about Marinette as they did not know about her breakup with Luka until he told Juleka, which started a chain that I cannot remember, but do remember that it ended with Alya.

They call Marinette, but she does not answer because what will she tell them? The not answering part is a mood, but the reason hurts.

Alix being like "why not get orange juice with her and talk about her feelings" and everyone else staring at her as if she was the one with a crazy idea. I can't! Especially when she was like "*sigh* fine"

Also, Luka is not taking the breakup well either if Juleka's photo is anything to go by.

The bracelet idea is cute. I did something similar to that Junior year.

The scene from the ad that made us mad: Marinette transforming angrily after saying how her life as Marinette is complicated and prefers to be Ladybug all the time. It hurts to see this scene actually be in the 3rd episode as the guardianship and the breakup had consumed her so quickly.

Baby girl, we love you and we know as the audience how hard your life is now. This is why we are very concerned about you challenging ShadowMoth. Concerning.

But she breathes and goes back inside. Glad that you blew off some steam, but is everyone in Paris not aware that this just happened?!?!? Hello!?!?!?! Like Plagg said: People are blind. And a good thing too.

Just as this was happening, the girls come barging in. Good that they are great friends for being concerned, but have they ever heard of knocking?

Rose finds the dollhouse. Its a nice dollhouse, but isn't that too obvious that it will attract other people's attention? Not judging though, its a nice dollhouse and shows the expansion of Marinette's craft.

Originally, I thought they were coming after Marinette because of what happened in the episode "Ladybug", but glad to know her other friends cared about her too!

Alya comes up to find Marinette in the balcony just as she detransformed. That was WAYY too close.

Obviously, this made Marinette angry. Like who wouldn't be? They did barge into her room without asking and she was already stressed out as it is. And they were also snooping through her stuff.

In the heat of anger, Marinette said that she didn't want their friendship, which shocked everyone. So they left. But they weren't mad, they were just upset.

At least no friends means reduced amount to lying??? Yeah, but we need friends in life, so it is a lose-lose case.

Sabine asks of they are okay and no one says anything. I wonder if she will ask Marinette later on.

They go to the park and as they recall their pain, ShadowMoth akumatizes them in a link because of their emotional connection to the bracelet. They didn't even have to hold hands in a circle!

Finally, a safeguard for the Miracle Box that isn't obvious and is protected by a passcode. The record sonogram (or whatever is called) that Master Fu had!

Bruh, they couldn't come up with something different for the Gang of Secrets other than their former akumatized selves???

And then the girls (now the Gang of Secrets) barge into Marinette's room (again) to get her to spill her secrets.

Trixx using their power of illusion to lead the Gang of Secrets somewhere else. And Marinette was hidden.

Lady WiFi wondering how Marinette jumped 3 stories without superpowers was just that wholesome moment like girl you don't even know.

Every kwami using their powers without a holder has their own adverse affect. For Trixx, it was making the Eifel Tower dance (or at least I think it's dancing)

Plagg is like "this isn't a me thing, this is an everyone thing, but more importantly a Trixx thing." Adrien is like "M'Lady needs me!"

Ladybug and Marinette merge into one (figuratively speaking) when she tells Chat why the Gang of Secrets was there in the first place. Poor girl, we need to give her a hug.

Ladybug confronts Lady WiFi and tries to tell her that she is trusted and about Rena Rouge. Then...

SHE BREAKS OUT OF HER SIDE OF THE AKUMATIZATION!!!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ALYA HAS BECOME THE FIRST PERSON TO BE AKUMATIZED AND BREAK OUT OF IT! AND SHE HURT SHADOWMOTH WHILE DOING SO! I'M HAPPY FOR MY GIRL.

Ladybug trusts Alya and gives her the Fox Miraculous again. Not complaining, but what about ShadowMoth knowing her secret identity??? Miracle Queen anyone??? You know, a chunk of the reason WHY MARINETTE IS SUFFERING IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!?

Also, teleportation of the Miraculous from the Miracle Box to Ladybug's yoyo! (Well more like a direct connection!) Cool and smart!

Rena Rouge, THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING US MARICHAT STANS AND OUT #justice for Marichat CAMPAIGN STARTED BY SOME OF MY FOLLOWERS ASKING FOR MORE MARICHAT EVEN IF IT WAS FOR 3 SECONDS!!!! (Yes I notice your comments peoples, I am generally a tired and busy person to respond, but I eventually acknowledge everything)

Can we take a moment and point out how amazing it was that Chat was fighting three (four???) akumas ON HIS OWN WHILE ON THE CAT PHONE!!! ICONIC!

IT WAS ALL SO CLOSE! SHADOWMOTH ALMOST HAD THE MIRACULOUS IF IT WEREN'T FOR PERFECT TIMING!

The moment with Alya in the alley! Friendship goals.

Marinette comes to terms that the breakup upsetted her so much and finds that love is complicated and chose friendship at the very least. Their reunion was what they all needed after what happened.

Alya stays behind to say that she knows that there is more, but will not press further. Can we get an applause for character growth?

Marinette asks her to stay longer as she wanted to tell her something.

It really was hard for her to keep lying to everyone and how she had to break up with Luka for this reason while also fearing that it would be the same with Adrien (she does not know, so she has a right to fear, also Chat Blanc!) She really needs a hug and such.

The whole concern about things changing between them is relatable to be but on a different context. It hit hard for me.

My fellow peoples: the moment that we were (sort of) waiting for ages is here:

JE SUIS LADYBUG! MARI TOLD ALYA THAT SHE'S LADYBUG!!!!

And Alya GIVES HER A HUG AS IN SHE UNDERSTOOD WHAT THIS MEANT AND THE REALIZATION OF WHAT MARINETTE WENT THROUGH!

As sad as I am that it was not Chat that she said this to first, I am glad that it was Alya. As her best friend literally hours prior to becoming Ladybug, having stuck by her side unconditionally, and having the willpower to break out of her akumatization, Alya is a perfect choice. Now I look forward to see how Alya helps Marinette deal with this burden.

Overall, this is a top tier episode, aka the best episode in the entire series in my opinion! I love how we explore Marinette's feelings regarding everything that is going on in her life and the ramifications of her being a guardian. It hurts and at the same time, it is beautifully executed! It shows the evolution of the writing and of the characters!

My arm hurt from the vaccine yesterday and these posts are usually long, so that's why it's released today rather than yesterday. Anyways, I recommend watching this episode!

[queenjoy20]

Things in Miraculous I called happening way before they happened but like... I have no proof, just trust me bro!

This is a self-indulgent post going over all the miraculous ideas and concepts I theorized were going to happen before they did. Most of these came from head canons or storylines that I never wrote down, so I’m not implying I’m some genius for figuring things out, this is more like a collection of head canons that ended up coming true. :)

Order of the Guardians/Marinette becoming the next guardian

Okay so this is honestly a pretty old theory from S1, but I thought I should still include it. It was established that the miraculous have been used since the time of the Pharos and that Master Fu was only 200 years old, so it wasn’t difficult for 10 year old me to do the math and discover that there had to have been people before Fu wielding and protecting the miracle box. I also thought it would be cool if Marinette became a future guardian. (I didn’t really look into the story reasons I just thought it would be cool). At the time there had only been one season and I didn’t know that all the guardians had been functionally dead, I thought they were still active in a different part of the world and Fu had just separated. My original theory also included that Marinette (and Adrien) would have to actually travel to the Guardian temple and go through a bunch of training to become official guardians, but that didn’t happen in the show. (Still would be cool though.) I also thought that the guardians had their own unique powers they could wield outside of the miraculouses (which is sort of true). This was a pretty common head canon and I think we all saw this coming the more the show went on.

Marinette mixing up Adrien and Cat Noir post reveal

Ok, so this ones a lot more specific. It’s been pretty common in the fandom to theorize how Marinette and Adrien would react during the reveal or a one sided reveal. Because Adrien has always gone the extra step to create the very distinct persona of Cat Noir, it was pretty commonly believed that Marinette would have a much harder time coping with the reveal. I think it was after the episode Cat Blanc when I really started to consider how Marinette would react during a one-sided reveal. So this was kind of my head canon for how I thought it was going to go:

Marinette discovers that Adrien is Cat Noir somehow. She is shocked because the two boys seemed so different in her head. She was also panicking because of all the implications this would have for their safety and whether or not she should tell Master Fu (set before the guardianship transfer). She would stay up all night fretting about this and suddenly her Mom is calling her to come down and eat breakfast. Breakfast? How long has she been up? She looks in the mirror and sees bags under her eyes and realizes how tired she is. But she can’t she needs to go to school. She gets ready, visible bags still under her eyes and heads to school. She arrives at class before Adrien and throughout the class she stares holes into the back of his head. Trying to put together the two in her head. Due to her sleep deprivation she starts hallucinating Cat Noir in Adrien’s place. Every ad, every time he talks to her, every time he helps her up, she sees Cat Noir in his place. She needs to keep blinking and catching her self to remember which Adrien she is talking to. 

*Akuma battle begins*

Ladybug and Cat Noir are in battle and Marinette keeps seeing Adrien instead of Cat Noir. She keeps messing up and Cat Noir helps her steady herself and she is finally able to see them as the same person. 

*Akuma battle ends*

The episode ends with Adrien talking to Marinette about how she has been avoiding him. One last time she sees Cat Noir in his place but the boys merge again and she is able to see them both in each other. She apologizes about avoiding him and taking her problems with her other friend (Cat Noir) out on him and how she wants to be a better friend to him. The episode would end with Marinette keeping Adrien’s identity to herself and not telling anyone.

I wanted to bring this head canon up because I distinctly remember using the visual of Marinette seeing one boy in the others place as a way to show her inner struggle. And imagine how gobsmacked I was to see that exact visual be used in Ephemeral. It was so cool. Depending on how the series go I can still imagine that Marinette would still need a bit of an adjustment moment getting used to it, whilst Adrien is just head over heels excepting it.

Time travel episode where they visit past moments in the series

Ok, so honestly I imagined this sort of episode happening way farther down the line. Like second hawkmoth era, post-reveal, post time-jump, the characters are a bit older and more experienced. I imagined this episode being near the end of the shows lifetime as an homage to previous episodes. The villain would be some type of time travelling villain and our heroes would have to travel through their past fights and have to constantly hide from their past selves as not to change the course of time. Would also include cringing at their past selves obliviousness. I guess this episode is coming at us a lot sooner then I imagined but I’m not complaining.

[setsuntamew]

So, Persona 5 Royal, huh?

Full disclosure: I had gotten about halfway through November on Wednesday and finished it out Saturday night, which took uhhh about 65-70 hours? Some of that was sitting there waiting for the PS4 controller to recharge or listening to music in the Thieves Den while eating, but I still feel like I need to own up to how extremely bad I am at making good decisions with my life XD

MOVING ON, THOUGH, HOLY SHIT. P5 was a very good game, but Royal’s additions & changes made it incredible. I like the ending way more; I think it’s more emotionally fulfilling and meaningful, especially with everyone’s more defined future plans. Definitely felt like everyone had more growth in the end!! Which is something I’d always thought P5 was lacking.

Snip snip for spoilers and the fact that this post ended up being too damn long, oops! the last third is basically Akechi feels and analyzing his ending, so......yeah XD

Part of why I plowed through SO much of Royal in so little time is....Akechi XD Like okay, this is my stupid fandom blog, I can be excited about him all I want!!! I got to Sae’s Palace and just....I couldn’t put it down. @dragonofeternal​ and I ordered an embarrassing amount of takeout instead of cooking because we just had to see how everything with Maruki and the third semester was gonna go down. I’d already been dying along the way because Akechi’s confidant dates are so good, I just. Fuck!!!

Also, look, for the entirity of Shido’s boss fight and the depths of Mementos/Yaldabaoth/etc, we’d look at each other every few minutes and just be like AKECHI SHOULD BE HERE WITH US, HE DESERVES TO GET HIS VENGEANCE ON HIS SHITTY DAD AND FORCED DESTINY!!!!!

December 24th had to be the longest god damn day in Akira’s life because like. Final exam grades are posted in the morning! He goes to school and then dives into hell, crawls his way back out, briefly dies by fading from human cognition, fights an actual fucking god, and then....ends up dissociating in Shibuya until Sae shows up and is like “oh hey thanks for everything you did, please sign up for being arrested now.” And while he’s still reeling from that, Akechi walks up to take his place, like some kind of bullshit knight in shining armor schtick, and leaves no room for conversation.

AND THEN WE HAVE TO GO ON A DATE

I romanced Hifumi this time around, because I wanted Akria to bang a girl who is just so incredibly out of his league, but....it’s not necessarily that I forgot I was dating someone, more that it had been *so many hours of plot* that I was emotionally exhausted. Like, Hifumi texted me and I was just like. Right. RIGHT. It’s still Christmas Eve, somehow. I was at *school* this morning. The whole world merged with Mementos briefly in the middle of this, Akechi is somehow alive, and I guess I’m going on a date now????

I do appreciate how many “god I’m just dissociating my way through this” conversation options there were for the date, tbh. I feel bad though, I really like Hifumi, but I feel like Akira is not giving a date his full emotional attention at that specific time. It feels a bit like emotional whiplash, more so than I remember it being in P5? Maybe it’s because I played it 4 years ago and there wasn’t the added emotional weight of Akechi’s reappearance, but it was just like....a lot, in Royal.

AND THEN THE NEW YEAR HAPPENED. I’d been spoiled on large parts of the third semester, mostly because Royal’s been out for a year already and I’m too curious for my own good. I’d also somehow lied to myself, saying I didn’t have time to play another Persona game right now, and yet here I am, 171 hours of game play within exactly a month, kicking myself for not knowing how deep in Persona hell I would get XD

Which is to say, as soon as the new year started, it felt I was drowning in anxiety. I knew something was wrong, I knew they were in a false reality, but knowing that sure as fuck didn’t make it easier to go through. If anything, it was somehow worse, knowing that it was all gonna come crumbling down, but I didn’t yet know the exact details, only the broad strokes of it. Just. Every time someone talked about something that was wrong, my heart would clench.

God, I’m so fucking tired, I pulled an all-nighter on Friday so I could get through Royal before having to work on Sunday, and I am feeling it right now. Life tips: don’t do what I do XD

Every moment with Akechi felt like borrowed time, at least for me, because I knew what was coming. I spent so much time in Mementos with him; I ended up putting just him and Akira in my party and plowing through everything, including trouncing the Reaper over and over just for the hell of it. I got his ultimate weapons, I spent so many nights in the jazz club with him that he ran out of dialogue options, and I still took him back for more. I accidentally failed to EVER trigger Sumire’s Showtime because every fight was just Akira and Akechi against the world, because fuck it, I’m playing this for fun!! If I want to play with them in stupid costumes and no one else in the party, I’m gonna. Royal did such an incredible job giving Akechi more depth and development: it was all I could hope for, and it made it that much fucking worse to know what was in store for him.

Somehow, I thought it would be harder for me to make the decision to refuse Maruki’s deal, since fuck, fuck what I wouldn’t give for Akechi to be alive???? But I barely hesitated, only really stopping because I had to emotionally brace myself for it, because a reality where he can’t carve out his own fate would be a disrespect to everything their relationship is built on.

I have a whole shit ton of feelings about post-beating Maruki but they’re basically all Akechi related meta so somehow they ended up at the end of this post, I’m sorry XD

I understand that they had to keep the going to jail bit because 1) Akechi didn’t turn himself in, Akira did and 2) it leads to the final events of the game, but let me just say....the emotional roller coaster of fighting Maruki, almost failing multiple times, waking up in jail, the Phantom Thieves & friends getting Akira out of jail, celebrating that, and then getting thrown into Valentines Day was a LOT for my heart to take. Once again, didn’t forget I had a girlfriend, just got too invested in the plot to really be thinking about her. It’s less than two weeks after the fight with Maruki and somehow, everything is supposed to be okay????

The scene with everyone talking about their future plans is such good character growth, though. Everyone feels like they’ve truly grown and are making decisions that, even though they might be painful or hard at times, are ultimately very important to them. It’s a really good contrast to the “almost everyone goes to Shujin and they all stay in Tokyo forever without doing anything for themselves” Maruki’s perfect reality bad end.

Standing in the Underground Mall on White Day, being told I had to get flowers but finally being able to have control of Akira again was....so bittersweet. The fact that the location of the date is the aquarium is a low fucking blow, and I almost threw the controller across the room I was so upset. Like. THE AQUARIUM IS UNLOCKED BECAUSE AKECHI HAS TICKETS HOW FUCKING DARE SOJIRO SUGGEST IT LIKE MY HEART ISN’T STILL ACHING????? God, speaking of that: The fucking god damn Featherman video game tore my heart out because I ended up playing it WHILE WORKING ON SHIDO’S PALACE and I cried a ton about Gray Pigeon because of course they had to dig the emotional knife in even deeper!! Just fuck me up, it’s fine, I’m just dying!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ended up scrolling through his texts to find the group chats that still had Akechi in them, and fuck, it was a LOT. Like. Maybe it’s because I’m too invested in the two of them, but it was probably the worst emotional whiplash of the whole game. Like, how am I supposed to go play happy with anyone while staring at texts from a reality built of lies? It wasn’t real but the proof lives on in his phone and his heart, and I’m still fucked up over it.

HOWEVER. FUCKING. I SPENT LIKE HALF AN HOUR BEING EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED ABOUT ALL THIS AND THEN DISCOVERED THE BASTARD STILL HAD ALL HIS EQUIPMENT, INCLUDING THE ULTIMATE MALE ARMOR!!! He returned his shit after Sae’s Palace even though he thought Akira was dead, but this time it didn’t get fucking returned to my inventory, so he must have fucking run off with all his shit!!!!!!! Why the hell did none of it get returned if he was never alive in the true reality? Like I know it'll be returned for a new game+ but I like to nitpick game mechanics for story reasons, because one of the things I love most about video games is the experience of them as another layer to the story. The texts from the third semester shouldn’t exist anymore, since they never really existed, but there they are. Akechi insisted that he has a gap in his memory after Shido’s Palace up until seeing Akira on Christmas Eve, but who can say that wasn’t related to Maruki tampering with reality or some other Persona-related reason?

I mean. I got the full and complete True Ending; I saw him in the train station. If that’s not Akechi, then who the fuck is it? Atlus made sure to put the work in to make him a part of not just the main story but also, especially, the third semester, and for what....to have his final time on screen be as the butt of the joke, squished underneath everyone in the Mona-copter? As much as it hurts, his end in Shido’s Palace matters; it fits his character and he gets to go out fighting- carving his own path, really. In Royal, barring the tiny glimpse of someone who’s probably him in the train station, the last we see of him is when he watches Joker let go of the rope to finish off Maruki. I know we got the heart to heart where Akira agrees to reject Maruki’s deal and Akechi insists that he’d rather be dead than live in a false reality, but.....no one even says goodbye to him. It’s tragic, it’s painfully lonely, but it doesn’t feel right for such a major character.

Also, as undignified as it is, for the first time ever, Akechi looks like he actually belongs in the Phantom Thieves in that final moment. He’s never been the butt of their jokes before; they always kept him at arms’ reach and he took himself too seriously to be included, but for that brief moment, it really felt like he was part of their group. He stopped lying about himself for their last month together, and so even if they don’t all like him, they can make that decision based on the truth, instead of layers of lies. His death is all the more tragic for this; a life cut short just when he’s finally finding a place he belongs. But his death was already painful; why make it so, so much worse?

Final thing: I’m gonna be spending a ton of time in the Thieves Den trying to find Akechi’s opinions on everything, but also....hey. HEY. What do those six stars that Jose (probably?) painted on the wall mean? Is it just a reference to Persona 6???? LIKE????? I HAVE QUESTIONS. SO, SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

Anyway, I’ve gotta go cry into my Starbucks and desperately try to focus on actually doing my job at work, but I loved Royal deeply and cannot wait to drown in it ;w;

[littlemisssquiggles]

I was wondering do u think penny will be the new p in team jnpr and oscar will make his own 4 man team starting with emerald an maybe get 2 new other character to join him like maybe the summer maiden

Hello again Dreamer. Actually…no. Nothing against Penny but in my humble squiggly opinion, there is no need for her to replace Oscar AT ALL on JNPR 2.0 since as of V8, it’s safe to say that the show has cemented that Oscar is a core member of the new revived JNPR squad whom I’ve officially warmed up to being dubbed Team ALPN or rather ALPNE since Emerald is as much a part of group with them as Oscar is.

So I don’t believe Penny will replace Oscar. As a matter of fact, I don’t understand why there is suddenly so much fear of Penny replacing Oscar. I’ve actually had one or two anon-ninjas come to me voicing the same qualms. While I understand the showrunners have been shoving Penny in our faces for the majority of the season (to an almost annoyingly obnoxious degree) and despite certain fans implying that Penny and Oscar share similarities----that’s not to say one could easily replace the other.

On the contrary, if I had to eliminate one between Oscar and Penny, I’d honestly get rid of Penny. Not because I’m a Pinehead but mainly since, unlike Oscar, I feel like Penny’s arc is complete. Penny became a real girl in the end, matching her fairy-tale counterpart.

The way how I see it there is no more development that Penny needs to get following V8. Her story is done. If Penny survives till V9, I’m mostly anticipating that she returns to being the supporting character she used to be before. While she is most present in the story assisting our main hero group from the side-lines, she never again takes up more screen time and development than she needs to since, like I said, her arc is done.

Oscar’s story, on the other hand, is still ongoing since he still has all of the personal stuff regarding his fears of the Merge with Ozpin to conqueor while simultaneously being the key to the Vault of the Relic of Choice since that’s the only relic that Salem was unable to uncover.

Beyond that, I don’t see much more to be done for Penny nor the need for Oscar to form a new huntsmen team with Emerald on it since that’s what ALPNE is for.

 And now for a squiggly rant…about Penny:

Pardon me for this one fam. As we draw closer to the RWBY V8 Finale, I’m suddenly feeling compelled to get a lot of repressed opinions off my chest that I’ve been harbouring whole season. Since you brought up Penny replacing Oscar, it’s forcing me now to admit something I’ve been feeling about this character since the start of the season. I’m going to be even more frank, fam:

Admittedly, I’m actually quite tired of Penny being in the story and I’m sadly not looking forward to possibly seeing her return for V9 since…I kind of don’t like her character as much as I used to anymore prior to V8 since I didn’t appreciate how the showrunners kept shoving her in the limelight so much for this season.

While I understand that Penny was the Winter Maiden and much like Cinder Fall, is an example of a maiden who got the chance to be developed rather than just being in the PLOT for the sake of dying like all the predecessor maidens. While all that’s fine, fun and dandy, I REALLY DID NOT LIKE how Penny’s story and development for this season took precedent over lead characters like Ruby Rose who, as I said in my recent post, took a backseat while supposed supporting characters like Penny got to steal the show out from underneath her…again.

This is sad of an opinion for me to admit now because before, I actually really liked Penny. Because Penny is adorable. She’s the precious little baby Pen-Pen and her first reaction to realizing that she’s now human; offering warm hugs to Team RWBY genuinely warmed my heart because of how wholesome it was.

But dagnabbit, I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t also say that I honestly feel exasperated now by Penny’s overall presence in the story because of how the showrunners chose to use her for this season as well as her friendship with Ruby.

While I do like how her story ended, I disliked how Penny was used for V8 since, to me, it felt like she was made to force Ruby to remain outside of the Salem subplot on Monstra which she should have been a part of from the start given the build up from previous seasons.

Even now as we are nearing that final episode, it STILL bugs me how Ruby’s MAIN role for this season was to push Penny’s arc while her own development and potential arc got snubbed and chucked through the door. There was an entire subplot on Monstra with Salem  that Ruby SHOULD have been a pinnacle part of but she couldn’t since the showrunners felt it best to keep her out of that and at worse, use Penny to make it happen.

Instead of Penny adding to Ruby’s growth as a character, I felt she more took away from it and it is for this reason why, if Penny returns for V9, I hope she doesn’t have a big role again. Even if she remains a part of the main hero group in Vacuo, I don’t wish to see her be utilized like this again. To be a sponge that takes away from other characters’ development and focus.

As I’ll say again, Penny’s arc is complete so I hope she goes back to being a supporting character. But that’s dependant on whether or not she makes it to Vacuo safely or dies to Cinder. The verdict is still out on that. In the meantime, pardon my thoughts, fam. I don’t mean to sound like I’m hating on Penny. I just didn’t like some of the ways she was used for this season. But as always, this is only my opinion.

~ LittleMissSquiggles (2021)

[caprina-mints]

Hey. Can I have a headcannon where (Eyeless jack, Laughing Jack, Jane, Liu, Masky) seeing their s/o Masturbating. Lol not sorry

Anonymous Asked : Hey, I have a headcannon with (eyeless jack, masky, Nina, liu, Toby) seeing there s/o hitting there meat?. Ya know like master-bastion. Sorry if this seem pretty fuck up.

____________

So I got two Asks for the same topic and Decided to Just Merge Everything Up in One post! :D I Hope you'll Enjoy It!

Catching Their s/o Masturbating :

Eyeless Jack :

❧ This had been going on for awhile

❧ And by 'that' it means you have been feeling aroused abnormally for some reason.

❧ You're starting to think Jack's Demon Thingy is rubbing off on you.

❧ He wasn't home one time and you just couldn't take it anymore.

❧ You ended up on your bed squirming and moaning his name.

❧ With two of your fingers inside you pumping in and out in a steady pace.

❧ You underestimated Jack's Demon abilities because he could hear your moans miles away from the mansion.

❧ When he heard his name escape your sweet plump lips he immediately finished the Job and came home as fast as he could.

❧ His ears picked up on every dirty noise you made and it made him hold back a growl.

❧ He didn't barge in immediately though.

❧ He peeked through the door and saw your figure on the bed and the expression on your face made it obvious of how needy you were for him.

❧ The moment you moaned out his name again he didn't hesitate to barge in and lock the doors once he was inside.

❧ You were embarrassed and surprised your face was flushed red.

❧ Your actions came to a halt your fingers still inside you.

❧ this demon boi is really fast when it comes to you though.

❧ You just took your eyes away from him for 2 seconds and he was gone.

❧ He was already right behind you purring grabbing your hand and he guided your fingers , continuing to pump in and out of your slick covered hole with his guidance.

❧ " Tsk. Teasing me in the middle of a Job, Naughty princess. I think I spoiled you too much but all you had to do was ask~ and I'll gladly spread your legs open and shove my cock in and out of you"

❧ You threw your head back mewling when he added his own long and slender finger inside you.

❧ " Don't worry princess I'll fuck you so good you'll never be needy for a week~ "

Laughing Jack :

❋ This fucking clown had been toying with you since the very beginning.

❋ He invited everyone to his carnival for the day

❋ And he had been teasing you since the very beginning, From gentle caresses to harsh and rough gropes . And don't even get me started on how he starts dirty talking you while everyone else was standing there so unaware.

❋ The worst part? He had given you a candy to 'suck' on and that candy was laced with some sort of aphrodisiac and you were foolish enough to eat that candy.

❋ You knew this clown had something up his sleeves when he started laughing like a maniac when you arrived

❋ You were blinded with desire and want for him and just imagining how good he could eat you out made you wet.

❋ You were desperate but you still stood your ground because of that little something called pride. Yeah you had it in you but right now you definitely need something in you.

❋ You were slightly dizzy because if suppressing it for too long and your body felt so hot. Your face was red and you were unconsciously rubbing your thighs together..

❋ That clown was enjoying the show.

❋ Fuck him...

❋ But most especially you wanted him to fuck you right now.

❋ ' Beg ' he whispered and you were having none of it. Being the stubborn person you are.

❋ So you immediately found your way to the bathroom where you immediately took off your pants and started doing the deed.

❋ Moaning and panting you began to fasten your pace while adding another digit at the same time imagining L.J's tongue swirl inside your squelching pussy.

❋ Unbeknownst to you that a monochrome clown had followed you inside and was watching you from the shadows.

❋ " Well you seem to be enjoying yourself Baby Sweets~ if you only begged for me to give it to you you wouldn't have suffered "

❋ Ah yes the annoying clown who led you to this mess in the first place.

❋ apparently the drug was strong and your mind began to feel fuzzy.

❋ " A-ah~ Please~ I want you"

❋ With those simple words your hand was pushed back and L.J had already spread your legs wide open his long tongue dragging itself along your wet clit which earned him a desperate and shaky moan from you.

❋ " Sit tight Baby Sweets, I haven't eaten yet and you're my main course~"

Liu :

❦ Oh well this Half Sweet Half Asshole Boy of yours was always out on missions and For the past Week he was barely home.

❦ Which Left You Needy and desperate for him.

❦ You Tried Reaching Out to Him, Grabbing his attention in every way you could.

❦ But he's either and idiot or just innocently oblivious.

❦ The last attempt was made and Of Course Liu was unaware bit you knew full well that Sully was aware.

❦ so You gave up and let him have his way.

❦ One night however you couldn't sleep and needed something to Tire you out.

❦ That was when you remembered a gift your annoying cousin gifted you as a joke.

A dildo.

❦ So why not use it?

❦ That's exactly what you Did.

❦ Arching your back as you muffled your moans with the piece of clothing you gagged yourself with as the silicon material pumped in and out of your slick covered pussy at the same time imagining it was Liu.

❦ You didn't know you needed it this much.

❦ Your other hand groping and touching your breast as you bucked your hips on the silicon material deep inside you.

❦ You never notice your Oblivious Pudding had arrived long ago watching your every move.

❦ You didn't notice him so he took it offensively thinking you ignore him.

❦ So he took the initiative this Time.

❦ You didn't get to react when the dildo was yanked away from you and a future bigger than yours hovered over you with fierce eyes and an aroused expression.

❦ " You have me and you're using a Toy to Satisfy you? "

❦ He growled out and you knew it was a combination of Liu and Sully because of the mix of two voices.

❦ The nerve he had when he said that. You had been asking him to for awhile. Wow he's an idiot.

❦ You didn't answer him and he didn't take that lightly.

❦ he pushed his still clothed and hardened cock onto your dripping pussy making you Gasp and look down.

❦ " I'll make sure you're never using another Toy when I'm done with you... You'll only crave my Dick "

Jane :

❆ You and Jane had a small misunderstanding but it led to an argument which caused you two to ignore each other's existence for the past few days.

❆ You unfortunately made the mistake to Side with Jeff on what's more delicious Ketchup or Mustard.

❆ She didn't appreciate that because she was expecting you to take her side and she never thought you'd actually side with her most hated enemy.

❆ She was extremely Offended and pushed out on you to which you responded calmly with every word she threw even though it was a bit harsh.

❆ You felt lonely and empty without her. You did everything with her and now you miss her so much it actually led you to being sexually frustrated.

❆ You were in your room Playing with yourself your imagination going wild.

❆ You didn't think Jane would actually Barge in on you while muttering an apology but seeing you like that.

❆ well it was a big turn on for her.

❆ She was a bit surprised to because she never took you as someone who would masturbate.

❆ You were speechless and horny at the same time you were so conflicted with your emotions you didn't notice Jane climbing on your lap smirking down on you.

❆ " If I knew this would be a sight I'd be welcomed with I would have came here earlier~ "

Nina :

▶ You and Nina have been dating for a year and well.. You never did have sex because you didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable.

▶ You were also high key jealous of how much she likes smile child... Mostly known as Jeff.

▶ You never brought up sex with her because you were a bit shy to ask.

▶ But as you observed Nina was oblivious and she sometimes does stuff to make you horny without even trying.

▶ She'd Bend down right in front of you or when you're in the same room together she'd walk out half naked or with nothing at all.

▶ Honestly you try to purify yourself with these unholy thoughts as much as you could but day by day it gets worst and your desire for her growing stronger.

▶ You couldn't handle it anymore so it had you seated on your bed Using Your Hands to Satisfy You moaning her name having one if her shirts beside you.

▶ You were close but Nina being Nina came in at the most unfortunate Time.

▶ You couldn't force anything out of your mouth and she was staring at you for awhile before locking the door and stripping each piece of clothing on her one by one.

▶ once she was on top of you she was completely bare and her smirk was growing wider.

▶ " Finally a Good Reason To Fuck You ~"

Toby :

♗ well let's just say you have a high sexual drive .

♗ Of course You and him had sex more than one time and you'd be lying if you said you didn't savor every inch of this boy.

♗ You love how you can Have him acting like a shy kitten at first but He could immediately dominate your ass the minute he'd snap and growl.

♗ But Your high sexual drive is something you'd keep to yourself for one reason. You didn't want to have him thinking negatively about you and it might scare him.

♗ so When you're feeling yo for it your usually licked in your room watching Porn while fingering yourself endlessly.

♗ That's exactly what you're doing Now. Your fingers inside your pussy feeling the warmth of your walls while moaning his name out loud.

♗ You didn't even hold back your moans anymore and you knew he'd be back after a few hours.

♗ You Never expected to see him walk out of your closest his fingers wrapped around his shaft jerking himself off whole watching your figure freeze in place.

♗ " I-I was t-thinking of s-urprising you but it looks like I-I was t-he one w-who g-got s-s-urprised...B-Babe W-watching you t-ouch y-ourself b-ecause of me turns m-me on but I'd rather have you r-ride my dick until you start s-screaming"

♗ He picked you up from your position on your chair and he sat there himself with you straddling him your folds coming in contact with His hardened Tip smeared with Precum mixed with your slick.

♗ You're definitely Getting a Lot of Fucks starting now.

Masky :

✵ Your Boyfriend was a natural born asshole and the two of you often make bets. But this time you Lost Big time.

✵ You were unfortunate enough to get a dare from Masky that can have your toes curling.

✵ 5 Hours of Having a Vibrator inside you was bad... Having two vibrators on both your holes was terrible.

✵ You Could barely make a straight face and Masky was holding the switch.

✵ He would purposely turn it to maximum if you were talking to someone and you couldn't even make one single sentence without groaning, stuttering or whimpering.

✵ You couldn't walk straight or even Think straight.

✵ When you two are seated tiger he'd turn it to Maximum and Have his dirty hands squeezing your thighs with that dumb arrogant smirk on his face.

✵ He kept it on Maximum for the past hour and you couldn't count how many times you came and how sensitive you are you could feel how wet you are through your thick pants and you had to run back to your room.

✵ You pulled out both of the Vibrators but somehow you wanted more. Your hand trailing down and two of your fingers rubbing your clit before inserting two digits inside you which slid inside easily because of how wet you were .

✵ You couldn't stop and you needed That Asshole of yours... Also known as Masky.

✵ Speaking of the Devil he strode inside your room like he owned the place and from the looks of it he had been watching you from the start.

✵ " F-uck you Masky "

✵ He chuckled taking off his mask as well as his jacket " I think the correct term for that is Fuck Me Masky "

✵ He grabbed you by your throat before devouring your lips with his ripping off your top and placing both of your legs on each side of his shoulders.

✵ " I bet I can make you cum twice in a row Baby now Be good and stop cursing at me because that will undoubtedly piss me off and urge me to ram my cock so deep inside you, you'll see stars and your legs will start shaking"

[kavkasia]

hey jade I know you said you're busy but 👉👈 could you tell us more about your georgia of? i love the vibes I get from him and I'm not very well versed in the history of the caucasus so I'd love to hear more about him 👀

You know the way to my heart... ❤️

I’m going to ramble, so if you want me to expand on anything don’t be afraid to send an ask about it! I’m just trying to compact my notes and not write one giant paper LOL.

NAME

Human Name: Giorgi (Ilias Dze / Ilyich) Davitashvili

Giorgi — His first name actually started as a joke (Georgia... Giorgi... very clever) but it also works well. The patron saint of Georgia is Saint George: a military saint which has been popular in Georgia for centuries (parts of Georgia post-Christianization are believed to have combined the cult of Saint George with the cult of the pre-Christian moon god Armazi). Giorgi is also the most common male name in Georgia and the name of many Georgian kings.

Ilias Dze / Ilyich — He doesn’t actually use his patronymic anymore, but during the USSR he did have one because Obligatory Russification Time™. It’s after Prince Ilia Chavchavadze, a major contributor to the revival of the Georgian national movement in the late nineteenth century and widely considered to be the “Father of the Nation”.

Davitashvili — A Georgian surname roughly meaning “David’s child”. It’s a reference to the Bagratoni King David IV of Georgia (also known as David the Builder) who is famous for keeping the Seljuk Turks out of Georgia at the Battle of Didgori. It was under his reign that Georgia began to experience its Golden Age and much of the Caucasus region fell into Georgian hands.

AGE

He is around 2500 years old (physically he is in his mid-late 40s).

He considers himself to be an ancient nation like Armenia and Iran. Not that he’s wrong! It’s just not often acknowledged by others who aren’t familiar with him.

PERSONALITY

[steals bits of this from my RP blog because I got tired from linking wikis in an upcoming section oops]

MBTI: ESFP

• hospitable • sociable • stubborn • prideful • short-tempered • charismatic • confident • passionate • brave • spontaneous • lazy • sincere • boisterous •

Ok, listen. He is a bit of an asshole I’m not going to lie LMAO.

He is the type of guy that argues a point even when he knows jack shit about it (he knows more than a professional!!).

He has an opinion on everything.

He is super prideful to the point where he genuinely believes his culture is superior and his language/food/people/etc. are the best.

He has a bit of a temper (the kind that just jumps out with some build up) and he is sensitive to feeling slighted.

He is a flirt but it is not cool at all. He is an attractive guy (I have a reason lol) but he uses the worst pick up lines.

At the same time:

He is very devoted and loves genuine relationships. If you gain his favour he will do almost anything for you (there is also the reverse of this though).

He is so hospitable he is famous for it.

He treats his guests with the utmost respect.

He can be very chivalrous towards women (but it can come from a sexist place oops).

He is very friendly once you break through his initial serious shell.

He loves jokes and anecdotal humour.

Miscellaneous:

He loves rugby, wrestling, football, singing, dancing, wine, this movie, and eating absurd amounts of (hopefully Pasanauri) khinkali.

He hates rules, not having enough money for cigarettes, if you put on a seat belt when he’s driving, criticism, refusal, and being called “Gruzia.”

He also plays the panduri.

TIMELINE

Before I start, I have to say Giorgi is not a collective personification of Georgia. Giorgi is actually the personification of the Kartlians! He just has the title of Georgia and so represents the nation on the international level (and also the domestic level depending on the situation).

Start (~5th century BC)

I pinpoint his “birth” to be around when several Anatolian tribes settled in Eastern Georgia and merged with the local tribes. He had a couple caretakers who were like siblings or sibling-parents.

Kingdom of Iberia (Kingdom of Kartli) (302 BC–580 AD)

In this period he gets baptized, starts loving God and Jesus (becoming the second nation in the world to adopt Christianity) and says no to paganism (but lowkey-highkey pagan practices were kept up for a long time).

Also, Iberia is the Greco-Roman name that is used for the area. When you see Iberia, know that it’s Kartli.

Principality of Iberia (588–888)

He is just trying to live his life but the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Iran are ruining everything by fighting over the area. He also continues to love God and Jesus.

Kingdom of the Iberians (888–1008)

Lots of politics. Honestly, I hate it here.

Kingdom of Georgia (1008–1490)

The Battle of Didgori happens during this period and it was the best moment of his life. He has several amazing rulers including King Tamar. Lots of wars against the Byzantine Empire, various Turkic states and more. Eventually, the kingdom breaks up.

Kingdom of Kartli (1478–1762)

Here he gets fucked over by Safavid Iran multiple times and also works as a weird slave soldier too so life is great.

Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (1762–1801)

He has a short marriage to Kakheti that ends after he gets completely fucked over by Russia and then forcibly annexed into the Russian Empire.

Georgia Governorate (apart of the Russian Empire) (1801–1917)

There were actually several governorates in this period but for the sake of simplicity I’m going to list it as that one.

I have a small write up about the time here.

Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (1918)

The Caucasus splits off from Russia. Giorgi represents Georgia and the TDFR (Armenia and Azerbaijan are also there as co-representatives of the TDFR). The Entente will later say they need to stick together but they forget one crucial detail:

Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921)

Georgia splits off from the TDFR. Time to create a republic with a socialist government! Amazing! Too bad he’s the wrong kind of socialist according to the Bolsheviks and gets brutally stomped by the Red Army in 1921! 

All his neighbours want to fight in this period as well. The Entente also won’t commit to helping Georgia until it’s too late because they were suspicious of him after he had been forced to ask the German Empire for protection in 1918.

Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1991)

Listen, the USSR was terrible, but at least Georgia was actually one of the nicer Soviet republics because he won the geographic lottery. He even got stereotyped as being the rich republic.

We just aren’t allowed to talk about Russification or the purges or the discrimination or the fact they would only print Georgia’s most iconic piece of literature in Russian.

(Oh, it’s also my headcanon that until 1936 he shared the title of USSR with the other republics.)

Georgia (1991–present)

1990s sucked. 2000s sucked. 2010s sucked. 2020 sucks.

Summary:

NOTABLE RELATIONS

Ukraine

Best friend. Best girl. His Suliko. He loves her.

(I also have way too many dumb AUs for them 😭)

Lithuania

Other best friend. They call each other by their proper names because fuck Russian names. Also, this video is them (Giorgi is the wrestler).

Kakheti

They were married at one point in time. He is closest to her out of all the other Kartvelian regions (it’s the Eastern Georgian solidarity).

Armenia

He is like a brother but they only really acknowledge that when they’re in a good mood or when one wants something from the other. It’s a love-hate relationship that has gone on for centuries.

Russia

Azerbaijan

They are... okay. They go from tolerating to disliking each other pretty quickly. He hates when he hangs out with her and Turkey and they only speak Turkish to each other so he ends up being a third wheel that didn’t want to be here in the first place but his economic situation means he has to show up.

Iran

They had major issues but things are fine now, I guess.

Okay, Giorgi actually still has some issues, but Iran just wants to come over for a vacation sometimes.

EU and NATO

BUT YEAH UM... that’s Giorgi. This is all mostly surface level stuff so again, if you want me to expand on anything just ask. Thank you for the ask and ily. ❤️

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 1

It's five in the afternoon just outside of Corpus Christi and I and my poor old Elantra with the broken AC are stuck in a traffic jam because some dickhead decided he wanted to cut across five lanes of traffic and got mangled by a semi truck. And then the jam’s compounded by all of the damn lookie-looes slowing down to a crawl as they squirm through the two lanes still open, the metaphorical arteries of the gigantic beast that is the United States highway system, trying to get a good look at something gory on the way home.

I'm slowly melting into my seat, barely able to keep my eyes open. I keep glancing over at the water bottle I'd set snugly into the passenger seat, my cupholders being full with spare change and old receipts and little mini bottles of hand sanitizer, but just the way the sun's reflecting off of it makes me sick thinking about how warm the water would be by now.

I'm a few cars back from the wreck now. A police officer, looking sweaty and tired, steps out into the road, stopping traffic to let a couple of paramedics cross. A loud radio ad is playing in the car next to me and I look over. The guy in it looks about as done with this as I feel. I smile to myself, go back to watching the wreck.

The paramedics have stopped now and are talking to the policeman in the middle of the road. He looks annoyed, gestures at the cars ahead of him. One of the paramedics shakes his head and points back towards one of the cars.

The radio ad ends and the throbbing beat of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" comes on and I find myself singing along under my breath without even thinking about it.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray

South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio...

Another paramedic joins the group in the middle of the highway and then they hustle over to the wreck. The police officer gestures and we move fractionally forwards, then stop again. The asshole in the giant pickup truck ahead of me has decided to stop and watch them peel the door off the crushed sedan like the scab off a fresh cut. I can see something pink and fleshy and hurt-looking inside, where the driver's seat ought to have been, and I look away quickly.

We didn't start the fire

It was always burning since the world's been turning...

I end up meeting the eyes of the guy in the car next to me. He's bobbing his head along to Billy Joel and gives me a somewhat sheepish, embarrassed look. He's balding, looks about forty. A tired, haggard, sweaty face. I roll my eyes and smile at him and he smiles back. Someone behind me honks and I twist backwards and give him the finger, really slam it at him against the dirty rear window. We're rolling forwards so slowly that it's absurd to even honk, just people blowing off steam. I suppose on some level it's equally absurd to give him the finger for it, but whatever.

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

ARPANET, Free Tibet, what's in Mystery Flesh Pit?

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia

Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go...

Wait. What?

Now that we're past the wreck the highway widens out. More lanes open and the guy next to me merges over to the left. Billy Joel's voice disappears into engine noises and honks and the sound of the wind whipping past my open windows, but I still keep thinking about the lyrics I had just mouthed along to.

What the hell is a Mystery Flesh Pit?

I glance over at the phone sitting in its holster on the dash but something about the way the car I’d just past had crunched in on itself like a discarded candy wrapper makes me think better of it. I shift a lane or two to the right, get in line for my exit, and then I'm off the freeway. I make every light on the way to my apartment, all four of them, and it's just enough time that I forget about the line in the song. I jump into the shower and let the cold water run over me for fifteen minutes, which turns into thirty, which turns into forty-five, which turns into an hour.

When I get out I'm shivering but the warm Texas air blowing through my open window wraps me up like a warm hug, and I shrug into a flannel shirt, leave it unbuttoned. I put my cigarette out, leave it crumpled in the ashtray, stifle my coughs. I’m still not used to smoking this much. I eye the half-empty pack laying on the table but I let it alone.

The letter I received yesterday is on the kitchen table where I'd dropped it. The envelope is still on the floor somewhere. I think about going back and reading it again, or going and finding the envelope and throwing it away, but I don't want to. There wouldn’t be a point.

My phone buzzes; I see the name of the contact and let it ring. I don’t want to talk to him.

Outside, down in the courtyard, an old man is taking his dog for a walk. There is a vast darkened array of clouds closing in from the east and it already smells like rain, the wind is carrying it. I might take a walk too, later tonight.

I go back to the dresser and take my shirt off, slip a bra on, and then put the shirt back on. I almost light another cigarette, then I stop myself.

What the hell is Mystery Flesh Pit?

I had almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Billy Joel got stuck in my head and while I'd been puttering I'd hummed along until I got to that verse.

I shake my head and go get my laptop, type it into google half-expecting to find a porn site. A few travelogue type posts, a Wikipedia page...I click on that one and get hit with a redirect. Permian Basin Superorganism Containment Area? ("Mystery Flesh Pit" redirects here. For the defunct U.S. National Park, see...)

I read the page, and then I stop. The growing sense of unease I felt while I devoured the Wikipedia article is now almost too much for me to handle.

This can't possibly be real. This has to be a prank or something, some kind of internet joke gone out of control. I click on the link to the National Park and see pictures, too many and too high quality to be faked. It's like something out of a Michael Crichton novel but it's real. It has to be.

The Permian Basin Superorganism (Immanis Collosseus), I read, is a subterranean organism unique to modern biology, being the sole occupant of the Phylum Immanemqa. The organism was discovered by a pilot well drilling crew in 1973; later efforts were made to expose more of the organism through drilling and surface mining explosives. The Permian Basin Superorganism is notable for its immense size, being the largest living animal on the planet, its equally immense age, and for the degree and sophistication of human exploitation concerning the animal, culminating in the opening of a National Park largely within the creature’s body, allowing visitors to descend within the Permian Basin Superorganism and…

I read about gullets and bones and digestion, about an ancient animal of some kind living baked into the stone and earth outside of Gumption, Texas. I read about the sheer enormity of it, I read about how a mining company turned it into a tourist attraction, splitting its throat wide open with metal retaining walls and letting people ride an elevator a thousand feet down into its insides. I read about ballast, some kind of secretion exuded by the creature that acts as a kind of panacea, healing afflictions untouchable by conventional medicine. They made great baths out of the glands that produced it, let people bathe in its diluted aphrodisiac waters. I read, finally, about the 2007 disaster that closed the park, when a pump failed to activate and drowned the thing, making it wake up – god, wake up? – and swallow almost seven hundred people, making it spew caustic vomit so high into the air that there are still pockets of it being found here and there nearly a hundred miles away, burning into the ground and poisoning water tables. And the way they managed to get it to go back to sleep is classified by the US Government. Did they nuke it? Christ, Gumption is only...okay, well, it's about five hundred miles away, so I guess I'm a little less concerned, but, god, this happened in the same state as me and this is only the first time I'm hearing about it. July Fourth, 2007...

I realize after a moment, with a strange little knot in my stomach, that actually, I did hear about it. I wasn't in the state in 2007. It was four years ago, I'd just gotten out of school and I was still in Oklahoma, but I remember my parents telling me about an earthquake at midnight that they'd felt, that woke them up, knocked a couple of things over. I had never known...

I feel a little like I've just woken up and gone to the bathroom and looked outside and all of a sudden the sky is a bright green, and everybody I ask about it just looks at me really strangely and says that it's always been green.

I google my way all over the internet, looking at photos people have taken decades ago on their family trips, hosted on filesharing sites or on ancient GeoCities-era pages. I see smiling families, people in hiking gear, people swimming inside biological hot springs, people digging pitons into great sheer walls of flesh, not minding the blood that gushes out. I see a shaky video someone's taken of their television, of CNN back on the Fourth of July, 2007, I see a vast bloody pit, carved into the great flat nothing of central Texas.

I feel like my head is spinning. I get up, get away from the computer, grab another cigarette and smoke it slowly, standing on the balcony, looking out over the sprawling cityscape in the general direction of Gumption, Texas, or at least where I think it should be. If north is that way, then…

Alright. It's real. There's enough evidence, photographs, videos, spread across so many different web sites that it would be impossible to fake. I look up an old rating list of National Parks, making sure that it's from around 2004 or so, and find Mystery Flesh Pit near the bottom. The tiny two-sentence blurb describes it as "strange," "horrifying," and "easily skippable," so I guess that could also explain why I had never heard of it.

And, of course, the ballast. Some kind of miracle liquid. I read on Wikipedia that they’d tried to synthesize it after July 4th, after the supplies had been cut off, but no matter how molecularly perfect they could make the compound it was so much drossy bathwater, without the power to cure even a hangnail. It has to come straight from the source for it to be any good - who knows why.

There is a slow, anxious curl unwinding in my stomach, and for a moment, I fear the results it may lead me to.

I look at the map I'd opened in another tab again; Gumption, Texas; a tiny little county named after a tiny little town, or so I've heard. Now that I’m thinking about it, I vaguely remember passing through Gumption once, very briefly, during a family road trip back when I was six, but I don't remember much more than that. The only reason I even recognize the name of the town is because at the time I thought it was a funny name and I kept saying it to myself after I'd asked my mom what the word on the sign meant when we drove into town. Welcome to Gumption. Did it have more, perhaps? “Home of the Mystery Flesh Pit?” I don't remember visiting the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, that's for sure. I think that would have stuck with little six-year-old me.

I eye the scale on the map, use my fingers to estimate the distance from Corpus Christi to Gumption.

It'd be a solid day of driving, seven or eight hours on the road, not counting breaks for food, sleep, restroom. I grimace at the computer screen, then zoom the map out. Lubbock, though...I could take a plane to Lubbock. That'd be, what, like two hours? Maybe? And then rent a car, drive down to Gumption...

I swallow, then laugh at myself. Why bother? I think. Why bother driving down to look at some fences and security guards? It's closed off, the Wikipedia page said, nobody in or out, just some scientists and a sedative plant. The fun stopped when it woke up, back in ‘07.

Flights are cheap. Ninety-nine dollars, ninety-five dollars. I start to type in the address to check my bank balance, then stop, fold the computer closed. I want a cigarette.

On my way out to the window my foot brushes against the envelope I'd left discarded on the floor and again I think of picking it up and putting it away, and again I leave it there. It doesn't really matter.

It'd be a horrible waste of money, probably. And I doubt I'd find anything really meaningful. Even if, you know, I use the excuse of going and looking around so I could write a story on it or something, I don't know if Jim, my editor, would really care that much. From what it seems, Mystery Flesh Pit is ancient history.

I take another look at the sheet of paper sitting on the table, curled over on itself like a dead spider. Fuck it, I think, then repeat myself out loud. I stub out the cigarette and go retrieve my cell phone, look up the phone number for American Airlines out of Corpus Christi airport. Fifteen minutes on hold later I am the proud owner of one business class ticket to Lubbock, Texas, leaving in four hours out of gate nine. I hang up the call and say "fuck it" aloud again because it makes me feel a little better, and then I go pack.

The plane ride is okay. Security was a bear and a half but it always is. I realized from the pleasant-unnerving swooping sensation in my stomach when we took off that it had been long enough since the last time I'd been on a plane that I had forgotten what it feels like. I was lucky to grab a window seat next to a little kid and his father; they didn't bother me as much as I'd expected. Once he turned to me to show me something on the handheld video game he was playing but his father quickly intercepted him and apologized to me; I was a little put out, honestly, I would have wanted to look at it. I'd forgotten to stick a book in my carry-on so I had been stuck staring out the window, and about a half hour in the plane had angled in such a way that the setting sun was glaring me right in the face and daring me to enjoy the scenery, so I did the most sensible thing I could and closed the shutter and tried to fall asleep. I think I managed to do so about fifteen minutes before we landed, which lead to me letting out a rather embarrassing yelp when the landing jolted me awake. The kid and his dad looked at me and I blushed, mentally kicking myself for blushing, but I smiled at them and shrugged and said that I'd fallen asleep and we had a laugh about it.

Lubbock is alright, I guess, if you don’t look at it too closely or stay too long. I rent a car at the airport and drive into town, and consider driving to Gumption that night, but I decide after some deliberation that it'll be better to do a little reconnaissance here first, if I really am going to make a story out of this. Am I? I've been treating that as my excuse so far and yeah, I brought my voice recorder and my camcorder and my DSLR and plenty of memory cards and extra batteries...but I guess I hadn't really taken it seriously.

The city's very alive at night, more so, it seems to me, than Corpus Christi, but I also don't get out very much back home, so maybe my perception is skewed. Everywhere I look there are clubs and shows and bars and things, and then, as I pass into the seedier areas, huddled groups of people spotted here and there. I imagine they’re eying me as I drive past and I tamp down the little curl of fear rising in my stomach.

I find a Motel 6 and then I try to find a Waffle House, but seemingly there aren’t any in Lubbock. I settle for someplace called The Pancake House, and then in a couple of hours I feel better, and then a couple of hours after that I finally manage to fall asleep.

I wake up having slept like the dead. I think about going someplace for breakfast but think better of it after I sit up too quickly and my stomach gives an uneasy lurch in protest. I get dressed leisurely – it is my weekend, after all. For a moment I even manage to fantasize that I'll be able to catch a flight home in time to make it to work on Monday but then I laugh at myself, which I seem to be doing quite a lot of lately.

Barely a hundred miles away, Mystery Flesh Pit is waiting for me. I don't know what I'll find there – personally, I feel rather certain it'll be a hell of a let-down – but it feels nice to have a purpose for once, to feel as though my life is being put to some kind of use other than to see how many cigarettes I can smoke in a single day and still retain some dignity.

It's nice to not have to think.

I take a breath and throw some clothes on and get started on the hard part.

 * * *

 The guy mopping the floor at the bus stop:

"Excuse me, sir? Do you know anything about the Mystery Flesh Pit Disaster of 2007?"

"The what?"

 Businessman on the street, approached while tying his shoes:

"Excuse me, sir? I'm doing some research on the Mystery Flesh Pit disast –"

"I'm sorry, lady, I don't have any money."

 Lady at the counter of the pharmacy:

"Excuse me, ma'am? I'm trying to find out some information on the Mystery Flesh Pit, do you have a moment to talk about it?"

"Sure, honey, but I'm afraid I don't know that much about it. That was back in, what, 2003? 2004?"

"2007, actually. Did you ever happen to visit while the park was still operating?"

 "It was a park? I just remember something about some sort of tunnel collapse."

"Right. Thanks for your time."

 Guy at the 7-11, asked while filling up the tank on my car next to him:

"Hey, dude, you know anything about the Mystery Flesh Pit?"

"Went there once when I was a kid. Pretty cool. Why?"

"I'm a reporter, doing a story on it. You remember the disaster that closed it down?"

"It's closed now? That's lame. What happened?"

"Thing woke up and ate everybody."

"For real?"

"Yeah. I've been asking around, like nobody's heard about it. Kind of surprising."

He taps his finger to his chin. "You know," he says thoughtfully, "it has been like five years since then."

"Four years."

"Even so. People don't have any kind of attention span any more."

His pump clicks off and so does our conversation.

 Yeah, alright, maybe it isn't a very representative group, but it seems like nobody cares. Is that reasonable? Well...seven hundred plus people died, most in pretty gruesome ways, according to Wikipedia. Then there were the, god, the thousand or ten-thousand-plus people affected by the vomit and ejecta scattered hundreds of miles away. I’m not sure. You'd expect that apathy from the rest of the nation, maybe, I don't know why somebody in Arkansas or Kentucky or Illinois or wherever would give a fuck if they didn't personally know somebody who was affected, but here? Just a hundred miles from the place or so?

Maybe they did a really good job of cleaning up the cities, maybe it's only the little towns and places where the legacy of it has really clung on. I know there has to be a story, somebody who was there, somebody who saw it. That jerky camcorder video of CNN is a start, but something real, something visceral, in the words of a survivor...

That was the one thing I didn’t find much of. No memoirs, no autobiographies, just a few mentions here and there but nothing like a back-to-front story of what that night was like. That is what I’m really after.

I put my cigarette out in one of those trashcan-cum-ashtrays that dot the corners of every city I've ever been to, Lubbock no exception. I get in the rental car and again forget that it has crank windows instead of buttons. "To the library, and step on it," I giggle to myself as I pull out into traffic. I feel a little lightheaded and I remember that I never bothered to eat anything.

Perusal of the newspaper archives at the Mahon Public Library downtown confirmed what I'd already assumed – that there was no big government coverup, there was no conspiracy of that sort. The disaster at the Mystery Flesh Pit was capital-letter Very Big News for about a month, back in 2007, at least in the area. The stories towards the end of the month cast a little light on why it didn't last, though – it wasn't ongoing, it was just sort of a one-and-done thing. Yeah, finding the caustic vomit everywhere kicked up another stink a week or so later but the Powers That Be seemed to get that under control fairly quickly, at least in more populated areas. After that there were grumblings about disclosure and fault and blame and all that, and quite a few articles about Anodyne Mining or whoever going bankrupt but by the end of the month, aside from a few overly sentimental memorial pieces dedicated to delicately sidestepping the exact causes of death of the people they were memorializing, the news had moved on.

A librarian pokes around the corner with a cart and smiles at me; I smile back at her. She's young, pretty, long skirt, dark eyes. I scoot forward so she can pass behind me. I read on for a while, the faint swish of her skirt and the slim sliding sound of books going back into shelves registering dimly and pleasantly in the back of my mind. I put the paper down and stretch a little, and then I notice she's glancing over at me. I smile at her again.

"Doing some research?" she asks, and I nod.

"Yes," I say. "I'm a reporter for a paper in Corpus Christi and I'm doing a story on the Mystery Flesh Pit. Have you heard of it?"

As soon as the words pass my lips there's something dark and guarded lurking in her eyes that makes me perk my ears up. She waits a couple of seconds before she answers, clearly thinking of what to say, of how much to tell me. I mention, after a moment, that I'm surprised that so few people here in Lubbock seem to really remember it or care about it, and she nods, leans up against her cart.

"It was a big deal for a while," she says, gesturing to the stack of papers next to me, "but after that I guess it just wasn't exciting any more. The only people who really remember it are out in all the small towns where it really affected them. Here, in Lubbock, they just had vans working overtime to clean everything up and then it was easy to forget about. Every now and then I hear about them finding another pile of that vomit somewhere just...festering away out there in the desert."

"Were you there?"

"No," she says, "but my brother was."

"I'm sorry," I tell her. I want to reach out and touch her or something but I don't know if she'd appreciate it, so instead I keep my sympathy subdued. "Is he - ?"

"No, no," she says quickly, "he's alright. He was a park ranger there, he just…happened to be working that night. He, ah...it really fucked him up for a while," she says finally, giving me a grimace. "We haven't talked in a long time."

"I'm sorry," I say again. "That must have been hard, for both of you."

"Yeah," she says, cutting her glance downwards. "He always said some strange things about the disaster, real Alex Jones type stuff. But he just couldn't, you know, move on at all. We got in a big fight about it and, well, that was that."

I wonder what to say for a moment before I cross my legs, set the newspapers aside. "You must have gone there, then, while it was still operating."

"Yes, plenty of times."

"What was it like?"

She laughs softly. "God, that's such a...like, where do I even begin, you know? Have you been to many other National Parks?"

"A few," I tell her. "Not as many as I'd have liked. Crater Lake, Devil's Tower, Badlands, Petrified Forest..."

She laughs. "Real Midwest girl, aren't you?"

"Hey, Crater Lake is in Oregon, that's not the Midwest."

"I wasn't knocking it. Um. Well, it wasn't like any other park you've ever been to, I can guarantee that. It was like, you drive up to it and you park and you walk up these stairs to get to the main observatory building, and you get in there and you look down and there's just...skin. In a hole in the ground. It was extremely disconcerting. From that distance it didn't look real, it looked like it was plasticine or something, like it was a model. And there was something...I don't know, kind of lewd about it?"

"Lewd?"

"Yeah. The way they were spreading it open with these giant metal, like, flanges or whatever, and how it was all raw and pink around the opening...Freud would have had a field day with it. Made you feel like you were watching a gynecological exam."

"I still kind of can't believe they found this thing and thought opening a theme park was the best thing to do with it."

"It was the 70s, I guess." she shrugs. "Place is old, you know. Anyway, once you actually got down into it, it was...it was an experience. You rode this giant elevator down and they had a massive visitor center something like 1200 feet down inside the thing's throat, and you could look out the windows and see all this flesh outside. It was honestly like something out of a movie, it was so surreal. I went there a bunch of times with my brother cause he got an employee discount and I could get in for five dollars and I saw at least ten people have panic attacks and hyperventilate."

I think about my next question for a moment. "Would you say overall that it was, you know, a negative thing? Like, the park on the whole."

"No, absolutely not."

"Why's that?"

She licks her lips. "I think that it's really easy to forget how small we are. We've done all these great things, we've built civilizations, we've put people on the moon, we're exploring the bottom of the ocean, I think humanity in general likes to think that we have everything figured out." She shrugs. "The Mystery Flesh Pit is a really good reminder that we know basically nothing. I mean, they were studying it but they knew practically nothing about it, not how big it was, not whether there were more creatures like it elsewhere in the world, not where it came from, not even if it was awake or if it could move or what the thing looked like as a whole. I think what they ended up doing with it was stupid as hell, but as far as the experience of actually going down inside of it and walking around on a trail and, I don't know, watching macrobacteria roll past outside the fence or seeing something really weird moving around down there and seeing the park ranger guiding you not know what it is either, that's an experience I genuinely wish everybody got to have. It'll change your life."

"How did it change yours?"

She laughs. "Besides, you know, everything with the disaster and my brother and all that shit? Just going down there really made me realize who I was."

"How, exactly?"

She shakes her head. "Like I said, I figured out just how small I was and how – I don't know, how insignificant we really are. These days whenever I get worried or bothered or I stress out over something I think about standing there in the elevator looking up through the glass ceiling and watching the light get smaller and dimmer, like I was falling into a bottomless pit, and I find peace."

"Seems like an odd way to find peace."

"Different strokes, right? Anyway. I really ought to put these books away. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

I think about it for a moment, then shrug. "I'm planning on heading down to Gumption tomorrow, aside from the pit itself is there anything else I ought to check out?"

She lets out a low whistle. "I think you're going to be very disappointed. They don't let anybody go to the Pit any more, it's all sealed off, has been for years. And Gumption, well...that town has seen better days. I'll give you a tip, though, even though maybe I shouldn't. Look for my brother there, I know he still lives in town. I can't give you his number or his address, unfortunately, because I don't have them any more, but I know for a fact that he works at the only gas station in town, a 7/11, so ask around there and you'll be able to find him. His name's Peter; I'd tell you to tell him I sent you but I kind of get the feeling that might not get you very far."

I thank her for the tip and set the newspapers aside. If I head out tonight I might be able to get some good shots of the fence around Mystery Flesh Pit. I think of it, of the sunset, then discard the thought. Forget it. I'll need a whole day to really dig into it, I think. And more's the better. I have plenty of batteries, I have plenty of storage. Easy girl, there's no rush. Assuming they let me just walk up and start filming, but if I really hype myself up I can half-believe I could talk my way into at least getting some shots of the fence, at the very least.

"Oh, and one last thing."

I blink, look back up at her. She has a faint smile on her face, probably from watching me zone out, that fades quickly. "Don't stay in Gumption too long."

 * * *

 The drive down to Gumption is dusty and hot and boring. I get about halfway before I realize I'm not driving my poor old Hyundai, I'm driving a rental car, and that it has a functional air conditioner, and then I feel very silly, for though the wind certainly felt nice on the whole I would have much rather just rolled the windows up and sat in the cool air. I see a grand total of four other cars, all coming from Gumption, on the two-hour drive. It's mostly a straight shot but my phone tells me to take a county road that turns into just a dirt track towards the end that, after a little meandering, plops me out onto a back street of Gumption, Texas.

The research I'd done suggests that at one point Gumption had been a bustling little town, fuelled by the Pit’s tourist draw, and initially its size would indicate that it still is. But as I drove slowly through the empty streets, the general air of disrepair and decay became more and more apparent. I see a couple abandoned houses, and not the foreclosed sort with realtor's signs out front, but straight-up shattered-glass, boarded-windows, holes-in-the-roofs abandoned. The ones that weren't just looked sad, like no one was taking care of them properly. The cars parked on the street are all at least five or six years old, as best as I can tell. I see only two people out and about while I'm driving around at 15 miles an hour, getting some video footage, cruising down the middle of the road, eyes flicking between the empty street ahead and the screen on my camera. One, a youngish-looking black guy, keeps his head down and doesn't look at me, and the other, an old man in a wifebeater mowing his lawn, stares at me all the way down the street, until I turn the corner and pull onto the main road.

There's the 7/11. I'm tempted to head to it right away but I refrain, look for a diner or something, but the ones around look about as welcoming as the rest of the place. There's a McDonald's but it's so small it doesn't even have a drive-through, which is something I'd never seen before. There's a drug store and a liquor store and one of those tiny little storefront churches, something something Starry Wisdom. I think about going to McDonald's but instead I pull a u-turn and head back to the gas station. The clerk, a haggard-looking woman, doesn't look up from her magazine when I walk in. I wander to the back and grab a Coke out of the fridge unit. The credit-card reader is broken so I have to dig around in my wallet and find some bills. The entire exchange continues without any speech at all until I work up my nerve and lick my lips and ask her if there's a hotel around here somewhere.

She looks at me for a few moments and then jerks her head towards the road. Her voice sounds like a frog croaking. "There's a motel down the road a ways. When you pull out take a left and turn at Third street."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"By the way."

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me when Peter works?"

I had to think for a moment to remember his name. I have it written down in a notebook but it's out in the car. Her eyes flash a little more lively. "Who's asking?"

I think of what to say for a moment before I shrug. "A friend."

For a moment I think she's going to tell me to fuck off, but something in my face must have convinced her. "He's off today. Come in tomorrow at eight or nine at night, he'll be here. He works graveyard most days."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

I walk out the door and the heat hits me like a thrown punch. I blow a breath out and lean up against the rough cinderblock edge of the gas station building and drink my Coke.

It's four in the afternoon and it'll take me maybe half an hour to drive down to the Mystery Flesh Pit. It'll be cooler, too, in the evening, and if this town is any indication I doubt there'll be much of a line. I wonder where the people who work there live; maybe they have a dormitory there or something. Clearly they don't live here. Maybe there's some little patch of suburbs somewhere, behind those hills over there, perhaps, where all the people are, but it's four in the afternoon and I've seen a grand total of three other cars driving around, so maybe not.

The guy at the motel gives me a nicer greeting than the lady at the 7-11 did, although not by much; at least I get a few dirty molars of a smile out of him as he hands me the key to my room. I had to wake him up from his nap at the front desk in order to get the room to begin with, and though I tried to do so as gently as I could he still started and almost fell out of his chair.

"Here for the Pit?" he asks as I'm about to leave, and I turn back, glance at him.

"Yeah," I say after a moment. "Just going to see what's there now."

"You're heading over now?"

"Yes."

"Huh," he grunts after a moment. "Most of you folks don't do that 'till dark."

I frown. "Us folks?"

"You know, you..." his eyes roam over my face and his mouth drops open very slightly. "Oh," he says heavily. "Never mind."

"What?"

"Nothing, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me –"

"Wait, hang on –"

"You have a good day now, ma'am."

He disappears into the back room and I stand there, glaring at the door as it swings shut, key still looped around my finger. I have half a mind to vault the desk and head back there and demand to know what the hell he was talking about, but I take a deep breath and let it out. What could he have meant? Maybe he thinks I work over at the Flesh Pit or something, although that wouldn't explain why they only head over after dark...that doesn't make sense. Tourists, maybe? But that doesn't make sense either.

I chew on my lip for a little while and then shake my head, push the door open and let the heat swallow me up again. There's no sense brooding on it; the only thing to do is to move forward.

 * * *

 The drive down to Mystery Flesh Pit is, if it were possible, even hotter and more boring than the drive down to Gumption. The heat is pounding on the window and begging me to let it in so I turn up the AC, trying to drown it out, but it's no use. No matter where I put my arm the sun is pouring down on me, and if I leave it still for more than a moment I get that unpleasant prickling sensation that tells me I'm starting to burn already. I've already got a pretty terrible driver's tan from the ride down but this is just overkill.

No cars pass me on the long road that my phone assures me is the way to the Permian Basin Superorganism Containment Corporation. It's only wide enough for one so if someone did come by someone's going off the road. Hopefully not me, as this rental Toyota is not built for that sort of thing. It's already been complaining at me creakily and jostling me around. I'll have to get it a car wash or something when I get back to Lubbock, whenever that ends up being. I didn't read over the rental contract very closely but I'm pretty sure if I bring it back this dusty there's some kind of fee.

You can see the outline of the plant, growing larger up ahead. It looks unassuming, exactly like any other indecipherable cluster of industrial buildings you'd see along the side of the highway, all greyish-white, tubes and pipes and tanks and corrugation, warning signs and fences and barbed wire, power lines and scaffolding and light poles, all clustering out of the ground like mushrooms after a cold rain. The guard in the gatehouse is watching me as I pull up, but I turn off the road, turning the car around so I'll be ready to go whenever I need to, well away from the road so anyone trying to get in or out can get by without any trouble.

The sign on the fence broadly proclaims that this is the site of the Permian Basin Recovery and Superorganism Containment Corporation, and says that the administration building is to the right, along with the barracks, infirmary, commissary, and so on.

I get out, shut the car door, take my camcorder with me. I keep it on but held low, taking a shot of my feet. I wander up to the gatehouse and the guard steps out, hand on the butt of his pistol, resting loose but confident. He has an MP helmet on and I wonder whether the National Guard is in charge of security or something, and then I wonder if I'm about to get got for trespassing. Surely there'd be more of a commotion if I was, right?

The guard has a sharp face but disconcertingly watery eyes. "Hi," I tell him.

"This area's off-limits to civilians, ma'am," he tells me.

"I'm not trying to get in," I assure him. "I'm a journalist, I just want to take some photos. Is that okay?"

He relaxes a little, points up and down the fence. "Right now," he says, "you're on public land. You go over that fence, you're trespassing on Federal land. Understand?"

"Yessir," I grunt, reflexively. Some old habits never die.

"You can take photos of whatever you like except for people inside the fence, understand? Before you leave I will check your camera."

"Yessir."

"Any questions?"

"Can I take a photo of you?"

"Am I inside the fence?"

"No."

"Then yes, you can."

I bring my DSLR up, snap a picture of him. He gives me a cheesy grin. I look at the display and then back up at him. "You blinked."

"Better take another."

I do so. "You know," I say to him, "this is a much more civil interaction than I expected it to be."

He pauses, halfway back to the guardhouse, to shrug at me. "You're just lucky that the government doesn't also own the land around the park. On most military bases it's like that, you know, they own a hundred-foot radius out from the fence, but here it's different."

"Cause it used to be a National Park?"

"I believe so."

"Do I have to stay in your sight or anything?"

He shakes his head. "No, there are cameras. Just make sure you don't touch the fence, it's electric."

I look at the sign on the fence again; I'd sort of skimmed over it before but a few more things catch my eye this time, especially the bright red one proclaiming that it's charged to 10,000 volts. I whistle. "Y'all really don't want people getting in, huh?"

"It's dangerous."

"So I've heard. Want to do an interview?"

"Can't do that, ma'am. What paper are you with?"

"Corpus Christi Star-Tribune."

He raises his eyebrows. "You're a long way from home. What brings you down to Gumption County?"

I briefly explain what got me interested in the Mystery Flesh Pit and he nods. "Lot of people seem to have forgotten about this place. It's for the best, I'd say."

"Care to elaborate?"

"No, ma'am," he says, but not unkindly. "I can't talk to reporters."

"Come on," I wheedle. "Who'd know?"

"We're on camera," he repeats.

"Fair enough," I shrug.

He gets back in the guardhouse and I run a hand through my hair and turn my attention to the fence. I take a shot of the gates, of the fence, of the signs on the fence, of the great bulging buildings visible through the fence. I get a nice one of the fence extending along into the horizon, a great metal wall bisecting the flat, hot plain of West Texas earth, extending into infinity, it seems, a shimmer of heat distortion bubbling off of it down in the distance. I get another good one of the sun dipping downwards behind the plant, swallowed by it, casting shadows across my face, long spidery ones that scrape the ground. Then, once I'm at about fifty-percent capacity on my memory card, I put the camera away and sit there on the trunk of the car, kicking my heels idly against the gravelly ground, taking it all in. I read the sign again and I call out to the guard. After a moment he comes out of the gatehouse again.

"What is it?" he asks.

"What's that sign mean?" I ask him, pointing to it. He turns, looks at it.

"I don't think it's very ambiguous," he tells me, and I roll my eyes.

"No, I'm serious. What the hell does it mean? 'Over 500 people die each year attempting to commune with the Organism?' What does that - ?"

"Ma'am, I really can't talk about it."

I look at him carefully but he seems serious, and the sign, well...it's a sign on an electric fence on federal property, so surely it's serious as well. I turn my camera back on and snap a photo of it, then I realize that there's a bit of background noise, coming slowly closer. It's the rumbling of an engine.

There, down the road, is an unmarked white Econoline van. It flashes its brights at me and I step out of the road, let it pass by, while the guard at the gate straightens his uniform. It pulls up to the gate and the guard leans in. He and the driver have a brief conversation before the guard steps back and reaches into the booth to open the gate. The gate opens but the driver of the van sticks his head out, looks back at me. He has a jowly, bristly face, about two five-o'clock shadows away from a beard, and a large bald spot.

"And you, what are you doing here?" he calls, and I get up, a little surprised to be addressed so abruptly. The guard comes out in a hurry, shaking his head.

"Sir," he starts, but the guy in the van isn't having any of it.

"Shut up for a second," he says. "Lady, what're you doing out here?"

"I'm –"

"Sir, you really shouldn't –"

"Look, lady," he says, gesturing me closer. "Things don't have to go this way. There've been a lot of advances with medical technology that can really help you out with those urges. There's –"

"Urges?" I ask. I get a prickly feeling all up and down my spine, like I'm hearing something I ought not to.

"Sir," the guard says, urgently now, "she's a reporter."

The man's mouth snaps shut so quickly he might as well have been a cartoon character. He flushes an angry red and glares at the guard as though he wants to say something but he just ducks his head back through the window of the car and drives through the gate, which closes after him. I shake my head.

"I suppose," I say after a moment, "that you aren't going to tell me what he meant?"

"Not a chance."

"Well," I say, getting up and stretching, "it's been fun."

"You have a good night now."

"Am I going to get a visit from the Men in Black at my hotel room later?"

"I wouldn't worry about that."

"Riiiight." I waggle my eyebrows at him. "That's exactly what they'd want me to think."

He laughs. "Good luck," he tells me.

"I get the feeling I'll need it."

"You’ll be fine," he says after a moment, but I do not feel reassured.

 * * *

 I drive back to Gumption with the setting sun blazing in my rearview mirror. It slips out of view entirely and coats the sky in dusky purples that quickly fade to black, and then it's the figurative middle of the night. One-handed I manage to wriggle a cigarette out of the pack on the seat next to me and transfer it to my mouth and then feel around for my lighter, and then I groan and pull over. The guy at the rental desk at the airport had seen the pack of cigarettes in my hand while I was filling out the paperwork and told me very strictly that I had better not smoke in the car and I, of course, had managed to forget completely. It's a good thing I remembered before I lit up.

The night is cold but not unbearably so. I spend a long time there, leaning against the trunk of my car, cigarette in my hand but forgotten momentarily, staring up at the sky. There's so little light pollution out here that I can see what feels like all of the stars, practically, great scattered dustings of them sweeping across the whole of the night sky like someone had tossed them there. There's the Big Dipper, there's Orion, there's the Little Dipper... I think that bright one is Mars, maybe, it looks a little reddish. And that cluster there must be the Pleiades.

I take a breath and blow it out and realize exactly how tired I am. It's somewhere lurking in the back of my skull, right behind my eyes, coiled around my neck. If I closed my eyes I'd probably be able to fall asleep out here, right on the hood of the car.

I crack my neck and wince. The moon's bright and full tonight, at least, so I can still see the barren terrain all around me.

I consider the cigarette for a moment before I throw it to the ground and crush it out. I don't normally litter, really, I swear, but the exhaustion creeping over me is making me not care.

There's a long drainage ditch along the side of the road here, terminating in one of those white-concrete tunnels disappearing into the dirt, its mouth wide enough to swallow me whole if I felt like going down there. I stifle a yawn, kick a rock down into the ditch, and traipse around the side of the car, get in and start it up. From where I parked it, the headlights angle downward enough to reveal a sliced-pie cut of the inside of the tunnel and there, inside it, I see for only the briefest second a pale, wide-eyed face staring at me, along with a dark-jacketed body and a hand, curled there on the floor of the tunnel like a spider before, in a flash, the man retreats into the darkness deeper in the tunnel and is gone.

I can feel my heart beating out of my chest and I realize my mouth has dropped open. Real animal fear has seized me and my rational mind cannot jerk back the reins. I put the car into gear, fumbling first and sticking it in neutral, and then push the pedal all the way to the floor and roar off into the dark.

I was very lucky that there was no one trying to get to Mystery Flesh Pit that night, for I probably would have flipped the car trying to go around them. The closer I get to Gumption, the slower I drive, until finally I manage to get myself to stop the car just outside of town. I pull over again and get out, curling my lip at my shaking hands, and light up another cigarette.

It was just a homeless guy, hiding in a drainage ditch. I probably spooked the fuck out of him, pulling up right there on top of him and hanging out. He must be wondering what the fuck I was doing out there. Probably scared him more than he scared me.

Why did I wig out so bad anyway? I like to think I've got a pretty good nerve. Well, stress is a good excuse, I guess. Or perhaps it's because he was simply hiding down there, unknown, unnoticed, the whole time I was sitting there on the hood of the car, completely oblivious. He could have rushed out and attacked me, if he'd had the guts to, and I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

I take another drag at the cigarette and glare up at the stars again. Ursa Major, Orion, Pleiades. Sometimes, when it's quiet like this, I allow myself to think about what the coming year, or possibly years, if I'm lucky, will be like.

Whatever.

I crush the cigarette out and drive back into town, head back to my motel room. I feel better once I've showered and put on some shorts. I get into bed and pull the covers up, and even though they're the scratchy, weird-feeling covers used in seemingly every cheap motel in America, regardless of location, I drift off to sleep easily enough.

Continue with Part 2

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Did Republicans Riot After Obama Was Elected

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-republicans-riot-after-obama-was-elected/

Did Republicans Riot After Obama Was Elected

Undocumented Kids Are Saved By Obamas Executive Order Daca Which Would Put A Halt To Deportation For Those Whod Entered The Country Before Age 16 And Yet In A Bid To Get The Gop To Come Over To His Side On Immigration Reform The President Has Also Deported A Record 15 Million People In His First Term

A Family Caught in Immigration Limbo

When Belsy Garcia saw her mother’s number appear on her iPhone on the afternoon of June 15, she felt what she calls the “uncomfortable fluttering” sensation in her chest. She knew that daytime calls signaled an emergency. The worst one had come the previous year, when her sister told her ICE agents had placed their father in federal custody.

Garcia was attending Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, when her father was marched out of her childhood home. As an undocumented immigrant — like both of her parents, who are from Guatemala — she couldn’t qualify for loans. She financed her ­education through scholarships and a stipend she earned as a residential assistant. Now she wondered if her mother was calling to say her father had been deported, which might force her to leave school to become the family’s breadwinner.

But this call was different. “Go turn on the television,” Garcia’s mother said. “You’re going to be able to work, get a driver’s license.”

Onscreen, President Obama was announcing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Undocumented immigrants who had arrived in the United States as children could apply for Social Security numbers and work permits. Garcia qualified: Her parents had brought her to this country when she was 7 years old. DACA transformed her into a premed student who could actually become a doctor. “It was like this weight was lifted,” she says. “All of that hard work was going to pay off.”

In The Next Hundred Days Our Bipartisan Outreach Will Be So Successful That Even John Boehner Will Consider Becoming A Democrat After All We Have A Lot In Common He Is A Person Of Color Although Not A Color That Appears In The Natural World Whats Up John Barack Obama White House Correspondents Dinner

And Then There Were Three

The first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court did so in 1880. It would take another 101 years for a woman to sit on that bench rather than stand before it. Even then, progress was fitful. Over the 12 years that Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg served together, their identities evidently merged; lawyers regularly addressed Ginsburg as “Justice O’Connor.” When O’Connor retired in 2006, she left the faux Justice O’Connor feeling lonely. Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned of something far more alarming: What the public saw on entering the court were “eight men of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side.” They might well represent the most eminent legal minds in America. But there was something antiquated, practically mutton-choppy, about that portrait.

How many female justices would be sufficient? Nine, says Justice Ginsburg, noting that no one ever raised an eyebrow at the idea of nine men.

Seal Team Six Kills Osama Bin Ladenraiding His Secret Compound In Abbottabad Pakistan While Obama And His Top Advisers Watch A Live Feed Of The Mission From The White House Situation Room The Picture Of The Assembled Becomes The Last Supper Of The Obama Era

Poop Feminism

For me, it’s one moment. All the bridesmaids have come to the fancy bridal shop to see Maya Rudolph try on wedding dresses. This should be a familiar scene: The bride emerges from the changing room and … This is the dress! The friends clap. The mother cries. Everyone is a princess. Go ahead and twirl!

But when the bride emerges in Bridesmaids, almost all of her friends have started to feel sick. Sweat coats their skin. Red splotches creep over their faces. They try to “ooh” and “aah,” but it’s already too late. It starts with a gag from Melissa McCarthy, followed by another gag. Then a gag that comes simultaneously with a tiny wet fart. It’s the smallness of the fart that’s important here. It’s the kind of fart that slips out — a fart that could be excused away, a brief, incongruous accident. Women don’t fart in wedding movies, and women certainly don’t fart at the exact moment that the bride comes out in her dress. This can’t be happening. ­Melissa McCarthy blames the fart on the tightness of her dress. We breathe a sigh of relief.

Then sweet Ellie Kemper gags, and the sound effect is surprisingly nasty. Ellie’s face is gray. Melissa’s face is red. They look bad. They are embarrassed. How far is this going to go?

The camera cuts. We are above now. We look down from a safe perch as the release we have been anticipating and dreading begins. It is horribly, earth-­shatteringly gross. A woman has just pooped in a sink. The revolution has begun.

The Government Acquires A 61 Percent Stake In Gm And Loans The Company $50 Billion The Auto Bailout Will Eventually Be Heralded As A Great Success Adding More Than 250000 Manufacturing Jobs To The Economy

The Auto Industry Gets Rerouted

“The president was very clear with us that he only wanted to do stuff that would fundamentally change the way they did business. And that’s what we did. There were enormous changes. For example, General Motors had something like 300 different job classifications that the union had. If you were assigned to put the windshield wipers on, you couldn’t put tires on. And we wiped all that stuff out. We basically gave back management the freedom to manage, to hire, to fire. People stopped getting paid even when they were on layoff. We reduced the number of car plants so that there wasn’t so much overcapacity. So now, when you have 16 million cars sold , they’re making a fortune.”

Black Lives Matter Activists Are Arrested In Baton Rouge Louisianaprotesting The Murder Of Alton Sterling; More Than 100 People Are Detained In St Paul Minnesota Protesting The Murder Of Philando Castile

What Is the Point of a Quantified Self?

Melissa Dahl: The Fitbit was introduced at a tech conference eight years ago. It’s kind of incredible to realize that, before then, this idea of the “quantified self” didn’t really exist in the mainstream.

Jesse Singal: I feel like it’s the intersection of all these different trends: Everyone plays video games these days. You got smartphones everywhere. And people are realizing that solutions to the big problems that lead to sleeplessness and anxiety and bad eating — unemployment and income inequality and yada yada yada — aren’t gonna get solved anytime soon.

MD: That’s interesting, because all of this self-tracking is also, according to some physicians, giving people more anxiety! A Fitbit-induced stress vortex.

Cari Romm: It feels like productive stress, though. I’m talking as a recovered Fitbit obsessive, but it does make you look at Fitbit-less people like, “You mean you don’t care how many steps you took today?”

MD: Oh, God. I don’t care. Should I care? Sleep is the one thing I obsessed over for a while. Which does not really help one get to sleep.

JS: Do you think an actually good and not obsession-­inducing sleep app could help, though?

MD: There’s some aspect to the tracking idea that really does work. I mean, it’s just a higher-tech version of a food journal or sleep journal, right? Ben Franklin 300 years ago was tracking his 13 “personal virtues” in his diary.

JS: Would Ben Franklin have been an insufferable tech-bro?

Officer Darren Wilson Fatally Shoots Michael Brownin The St Louis Suburb Of Ferguson Sparking A National Protest Movement And Setting Off Unrest That Will Remain Unresolved Two Years Later

On the Triumph of Black Culture in the Age of Police Shootings

In the two years since Mike Brown was fatally shot by the police in Ferguson, and the video footage of his dead body in the street went viral, we have seen the emergence of a perverse dichotomy on our screens and in our public discourse: irrefutable evidence of grotesquely persistent racism, and irrefutable evidence of increasing black cultural and political power. This paradox is not entirely new, of course — America was built on a narrative of white supremacy, and black Americans have simultaneously continued to make vast and essential contributions to the country’s prominence—but it has become especially pronounced. And it’s not just because of the internet and social media, or the leftward shift of the culture, or black America’s being sick and tired of being sick and tired. In fact, it is all of these things, not least two terms with a black president. In the same way that black skin signals danger to the police , his black skin, to black people, signaled black cultural preservation. African-Americans didn’t see a black man as the most powerful leader in the free world; we saw the most powerful leader in the free world as black. This is what comedian Larry Wilmore was expressing at the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Dinner when he said, “Yo, Barry, you did it, my nigga.” It was a moment of unadulterated black pride.

Militants Attack American Compounds In Benghazi Libya Killing Us Ambassador Chris Stevens And Three Other Americans There Will Eventually Be Eight Congressional Probes Into The Incident

“I Know I Let Everybody Down”

“Before the debate, David Plouffe and I went in to talk to him and give him a pep talk and he said, ‘Let’s just get this over with and get out of here,’ which is not what you want to hear from your candidate right before the debate. We knew within ten minutes that it was going to be a ­debacle. We had armed him with a joke — it was his 20th anniversary, and he addressed Michelle — and it turns out Romney was expecting just such a line and had a really great comeback. And Romney was excellent — just free and easy and clearly well prepared and showed personality that people hadn’t seen before. Obama looked like he was at a press conference.

We had a meeting at the White House and he said, ‘I know I let everybody down and that’s on me, and I’m not going to let that happen again,’ and that was his attitude. We always had debate camps before, where we’d re-create in hotel ballrooms what the set would look like, and all of the conditions of the real debate. When we went down to Williamsburg, Virginia, for the next debate camp, he seemed really eager to engage in the prep. We had a decent first night. That was on Saturday. On Sunday night, Kerry, playing Romney, got a little more aggressive and Obama a little less so; it looked very much like what we had seen in Denver. It was like he’d taken a step back.

Scott Brown Is Elected Massachusetts Senatorturning Ted Kennedys Seat Republican For The First Time Since 1952 And Suddenly Throwing The Prospect Of Passing Obamacare Into Jeopardy

Plan B

“I’m talking to Rahm and Jim Messina and saying, ‘Okay, explain to me how this happened.’ It was at that point that I learned that our candidate, Martha Coakley, had asked rhetorically, ‘What should I do, stand in front of Fenway and shake hands with voters?’ And we figured that wasn’t a good bellwether of how things might go.

This might have been a day or two before the election, but the point is: There is no doubt that we did not stay on top of that the way we needed to. This underscored a failing in my first year, which was the sort of perverse faith in good policy leading to good politics. I’ll cut myself some slack — we had a lot to do, and every day we were thinking, Are the banks going to collapse? Is the auto industry going to collapse? Will layoffs accelerate? We just didn’t pay a lot of attention to politics that first year, and the loss in Massachusetts reminded me of what any good president or elected official needs to understand: You’ve got to pay attention to public opinion, and you have to be able to communicate your ideas. But it happened, and the question then was, ‘What’s next?’

Sheryl Sandbergs Lean In Hits Bookstores Making The Feminist Case That Women Should Be More Aggressive And Ambitious In Their Careers And Making Feminists Themselves Very Angry

The “Mommy Wars” Finally Flame Out

After decades of chilly backlash, we find ourselves, these past eight years, in an age of feminist resurgence, with feminist websites and publications and filmmakers and T-shirts and pop singers and male celebrities and best-selling authors and women’s soccer teams. Of course, as in every feminist golden age, there has also been dissent: furious clashes over the direction and quality of the discourse, especially as the movement has become increasingly trendy, shiny, and celebrity-backed.

Perhaps the most public feminist conflagration of the Obama years came at the nexus of policy and celebrity, of politics and pop power. It was the furor over Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who gave a viral 2010 TED Talk about women in the workplace who “leave before they leave” — who alter their professional strategy to accommodate a future they assume will be compromised by parenthood — which led to the publication of her 2013 feminist business manifesto, Lean In.

It’s a lesson of the Obama era: One approach to redressing inequality does not have to blot out the others. Sometimes, attacking from all angles is the most effective strategy.

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis Laces Up Her Pink Running Shoes And Spends Ten Long Hours Attempting To Filibuster A Billthat Wouldve Imposed Statewide Abortion Restrictions

“The Concept of Dignity Really Matters”

“I was given an enormous degree of latitude. I did communicate with the White House counsel on occasion about high-profile cases, but it was much more in the nature of just giving them a heads-up, to calm any nervous feelings they might have. There’s only one exception to that, and it was on marriage equality, in the Hollingsworth v. Perry case in 2013. We were contemplating coming in and arguing that it was unconstitutional for California to refuse to recognize the legal validity of same-sex marriages. But we didn’t have to do it . And because it was a discretionary judgment, and it was such a consequential step, that was the one matter where I really sought out the president’s personal guidance. I wanted to make sure the president had a chance to thoroughly consider what we should do before we did it. It was really one of the high points of my tenure. It was a wide-ranging conversation about doctrinal analysis, about where society was now, about social change and whether it should go through the courts or through the majoritarian process, about the pace of social change, about the significance of the right at stake. He was incredibly impressive.

A Golf Summit Between John Boehner And Barack Obama Stirs Hopethat Perhaps The Two Parties Will Come To A Budget Agreement And Forestall A True Crisis Secret And Semi

A Grand Bargain That Wasn’t, Remembered Three Ways

“The president of the United States and the Speaker of the House, the two most powerful elected officials in Washington, decided in a conversation that they both had to try to make something happen. Maybe it would be the way it worked in a West Wing episode in a world that doesn’t work like a West Wing episode. That’s how it started — two individuals saying we’re going to try. I think they both shared a belief in the art of the possible, and they both did not think compromise was a dirty word.

When our cover was blown — a Wall Street Journal editorial came out saying that Boehner and Obama were working on this and attacking the whole premise — that was devastating. It resulted in Cantor being a part of the talks. Cantor and Boehner came in, and I think it was a weekend private session with the president in the Oval Office, and they were talking about the numbers. At one point Cantor said, ‘Listen, it’s not just the numbers. There’s concern that this will help you politically. Paul Ryan said if we do this deal, it will guarantee your reelection. If we agree with Barack Obama on spending and taxes, that takes away one of our big weapons.’ There were so many obstacles, some of them substantive — how much revenue, and what about the entitlements? — but there was also this overlay of ‘This is going to help Obama.’

Illustrations by Lauren Tamaki

The Obama Administration Unveils Its Plan For Regulating Wall Streetwhich Is Then Introduced In Congress By Senator Chris Dodd And Representative Barney Frank

MJ=JC?

Lane Brown: Michael Jackson’s death was a big deal for lots of obvious reasons, including the surprising way it happened and the fact that he was arguably the most famous person on the planet.

Nate Jones: He was an A-lister with an indisputable body of work; he was 50 years old, his hits were the right age — old enough that every generation knew them, but not too old that they weren’t relevant anymore.

LB: But it was also the first huge celebrity death to happen in the age of social media, or at least the age of Twitter.

NJ: MJ’s death came alongside the protests in Iran, which was when Twitter went mainstream.

LB: It also meant that so much of the instant reaction was to make it all about us.

Frank Guan: In a lot of ways, the culture prefers the death of artists to their continuing to live. Once an artist gets launched into the stratosphere, there’s no way to come down, and that permanence becomes monotonous. They run out of timely or groundbreaking material and the audience starts tuning out. At some point, their fame eclipses their art, and then the only way to get the general audience to appreciate them anew is for them to die.

LB: People seem to like the grieving process so much that even lesser celebrities get the same treatment.

Congresswoman Gabby Giffords Returns To The House Floor For The First Time Since Being Shot In A Massacre In January Casting A Vote In Favor Of The Debt

A Rare Moment of Unity

“I was doing intensive rehabilitation in Houston at the time but was following the debate closely, and I was pretty disappointed at what was happening in Washington. I’d seen the debate grow so bitter and divisive and so full of partisan rancor. And I was worried our country was hurtling toward a disastrous, self-inflicted economic crisis. That morning, when it became clear the vote was going to be close, my husband, Mark, and I knew we needed to get to Washington quickly. I went straight from my rehabilitation appointment to the airport, and Mark was at our house in Houston packing our bags so he could meet us at the plane.

That night, I remember seeing the Capitol for the first time since I was injured and feeling so grateful to be at work. I will never forget the reception I received on the floor of the House from my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats. And then, like I had so many times before, I voted.

I worked so hard to get my speech back, and honestly, talking to people who share my determination helped me find my words again. I’ve been to Alaska, Maine, and everywhere in between. Best of all, I got back on my bike. Riding my bike once seemed like such a huge challenge. It seemed impossible.”

Miley Cyrus Twerks At The Mtv Vmassetting Off A Controversy About Cultural Appropriation That Soon Ensnares Seemingly Every White Pop Star On The Planet

• Karlie Kloss wears a Native American headdress and fringed bra at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.

• Justin Timberlake is accused of appropriating black music when he tells a black critic “We are the same” after praising Jesse Williams’s BET Humanitarian Award speech about race and police brutality.

• DJ Khaled gets lost on Jet Ski, snaps the whole time.

• Two UW-Madison students snap their meet-cute as the entire student body cheers them on.

• Playboy Playmate Dani Mathers films and mocks an anonymous woman in the gym shower.

• A Massachusetts teen records the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl. The video is later seen by a friend of the victim.

Prior To Going To War In Iraq Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Optimistically Predicted The Iraq War Might Last Six Days Six Weeks I Doubt Six Months

What’s more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.

They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted eight long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites that took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. What’s more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.

The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.

In 2012 Republicans Predicted That Failure To Approve The Keystone Pipeline Would Send The Price Of Gasoline Sky High And Kill Large Numbers Of Jobs

Despite the fact that the Keystone Pipeline was not approved, the price of gasoline continued to drop below $1.80 per gallon, millions of new jobs were created and unemployment dropped from 8% to 4.9% by early 2016. The most optimistic predictions say that the Keystone Pipeline would only create a few dozen long-term jobs and would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline.

Eric Cantors Stunning Primary Loss Suggests No Politician Is Safe From The Rage Of The Tea Party Not Even The Tea Partys Canniest Political Leader

From Party’s Future to Also-Ran in a Single Day

On the day his political career died, Eric Cantor was busy tending to what he still believed was its bright future. While his GOP-primary opponent, David Brat, visited polling places in and around Richmond, Virginia, Cantor spent his morning 90 miles away at a Capitol Hill Starbucks. He was there to host a fund-raiser for three of his congressional colleagues — something he did every month, just another part of the long game he was playing, which, he believed, would eventually culminate in his becoming Speaker of the House.

The preceding five years had brought Cantor tantalizingly closer to that goal. In the immediate aftermath of Obama’s election, he’d rallied waffling House Republicans to stand in lockstep opposition to the new president’s agenda. In 2010, he’d helped elect 87 new Republican members, giving the GOP a House majority and making Cantor the House majority leader. He became the champion of these freshmen members, stoking their radicalism during the debt-ceiling fight and working to undermine Obama and John Boehner’s attempt to strike a “grand bargain.” His alliance with the ascendant tea party was strategic — it gave him leverage not only over Obama but over other Republicans who might also have had aspirations of becoming Speaker. It never occurred to him that the wave he was trying to ride might crash on him instead.

In 1993 When Bill Clinton Raised Taxes On The Wealthiest 15% Republicans Predicted A Recession Increased Unemployment And A Growing Budget Deficit

They weren’t just wrong: The exact opposite of everything they predicted happened. The country experienced the seven best years of economic growth in history.

Twenty-two million new jobs were added.

Unemployment dropped below 4%.

The poverty rate dropped for seven straight years.

The budget deficit was eliminated.

There was a growing budget surplus that economists projected could pay off our national debt in 20 years.

Republicans Predicted That We Would Find Iraqs Weapons Of Mass Destruction Even Though Un Weapons Inspectors Said That Those Weapons Didn’t Exist

The Bush administration continued to insist that WMDs would be found, even when the CIA said some of the evidence was questionable. As we all know, the WMDs predicted by the Bush administration did not exist, and Saddam Hussein had not resumed his nuclear weapons program as they claimed. Ultimately, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney had to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Republicans Predicted That President Obamas Tax Increase For The Top 1% In 2013 Would Kill Jobs Increase The Deficit And Cause Another Recession

You guessed it; just the opposite happened. In the four years following January 1, 2013, when that tax increase went into effect, through January 2017, unemployment dropped from 7.9% to 4.8%, an average of more than 200,000 new jobs were created per month, Wall Street set new record highs, and the budget deficit was cut in half.

Over 5.7 million new jobs were created in the first two years after that tax increase. That’s more jobs created in two years than were created during the combined 12 years of both Bush presidencies.

In 2001 When George W Bush Cut Taxes For The Wealthy Republicans Predicted Record Job Growth Increased Budget Surplus And Nationwide Prosperity

Once again, the exact opposite occurred. After the Bush tax cuts were enacted:

The budget surplus immediately disappeared.

The budget deficit eventually grew to $1.4 trillion by the time Bush left office.

Less than 3 million net jobs were added during Bush’s eight years.

The poverty rate began climbing again.

We experienced two recessions along with the greatest collapse of our financial system since the Great Depression.

In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.

Apple Announces That It Has Sold 100 Million Iphoneswithin A Few Months It Will Overtake Exxonmobil As The Most Valuable Company In The World

Earthlings Gain a New Appendage

What if we had the singularity and nobody noticed? In 2007, Barack Obama had been on the trail for weeks, using a BlackBerry like all the cool campaigners, when the new thing went on sale and throngs lined up for it. The new thing had a silly name: iPhone. The iPhone was a phone the way the Trojan horse was a horse.

Now it’s the gizmo without which a person feels incomplete. It’s a light in the darkness, a camera, geolocator, hidden mic, complete ­Shakespeare, stopwatch, sleep aid, heart monitor, podcaster, aircraft spotter, traffic tracker, all-around reality augmenter, and increasingly a pal. At the Rio Olympics you could see people, having flown thousands of miles to be in the arena with the athletes, watching the action through their smartphones. As though they needed the mediating lens to make it real.

This device, this gadget — a billion have been made and we scarcely know what to call it. For his 2010 novel of the near future, , Gary Shteyngart made up a word, “äppärät.” “My äppärät buzzing with contacts, data, pictures, projections, maps, incomes, sound, fury.” Future then, present now. His äppäräti were worn around the neck on pendants. Ours are in our pockets when they aren’t in our hands, but they also sprout earbuds, morph into wristwatches and eyeglasses. Contact lenses have been rumored; implants are only a matter of time.

Let’s face it, we’ve grown a new organ.

Republicans Said Waterboarding And Other Forms Of Enhanced Interrogation Are Not Torture And Are Necessary In Fighting Islamic Extremism

In reality, waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation that inflict pain, suffering, or fear of death are outlawed by US law, the US Constitution, and international treaties. Japanese soldiers after World War II were prosecuted by the United States for war crimes because of their use of waterboarding on American POWs.

Professional interrogators have known for decades that torture is the most ineffective and unreliable method of getting accurate information. People being tortured say anything to get the torture to end but will not likely tell the truth.

An FBI interrogator named Ali Soufan was able to get al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to reveal crucial information without the use of torture. When CIA interrogators started using waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, Zubaydah stopped cooperating and gave his interrogators false information.

Far from being necessary in the fight against terrorism, torture is completely unreliable and counter-productive in obtaining useful information.

In 2008 Republicans Said That If We Elect A Democratic President We Would Be Hit By Al Qaeda Again Perhaps Worse Than The Attack On 9/11

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated that electing a Democrat as president would all but guarantee that there would be another major attack on America by Al Qaeda. Cheney and other Republicans were, thankfully, completely wrong. During Obama’s presidency, we had zero deaths on U.S. soil from Al Qaeda attacks and we succeeded in killing Bin Laden along with dozens of other high ranking Al Qaeda leaders.

Game Of Thrones Arrives On Televisionwith An Assemblage Of Dragons Torture Nudity Incest And Despair A Show The Whole Family Can Enjoy

Explaining Kale

ADAM PLATT: Many things in Foodlandia, these days, have a political element to them, and if you want to emblazon a flag to be carried into battle, you could do worse than a bristly, semi-digestible bunch of locally grown kale.

ALAN SYTSMA: To eat kale is to announce you’re a person who cares about the matters of the day.

AP: The idea of kale is much more powerful than kale itself. In short order it went from being discovered, to appreciated, to being something that was parodied. Frankly, I’m all for the parody.

AS: The same thing happened to pork. Remember bacon peanut brittle? Bacon-fat cocktails? There’s bacon dental floss.

AP: Ahhh, bacon versus kale. The two great, competing forces of our time.

AS: Do you think one gave way to the other?

AP: What we’re really talking about is artisanal bacon, and the more sophisticated-sounding pork belly, made from pigs that were lovingly reared at upstate farms and fed diets of pristine little acorns. Bacon is the great symbol in the comfort-food, farm-fresh-dining movement, a kind of merry, unbridled pulchritude. Kale is the righteous yin to pork’s fatty, non-vegan yang.

AS: But pork has an advantage: People like the way it tastes.

AP: That’s a huge advantage, one that will hopefully see it through to victory.

[snowdice]

Road Trips and Missing Persons (Part 8)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Patton & Virgil, Virgil & Deceit, Logan & Patton, Emile & Remy, Roman & Remus & Janus

Characters: Patton, Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Roman, Logan, Emile, Remy

Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”

Notes: Secret Agents AU, knives, carjacking, kidnapping, murder mentioned, guns mentioned, pepper spray, blood mentioned, drugs mentioned (more to be added)

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 My Master Post

“What the fuck do you mean Virgil is missing?” Remy asked.

“That’s the second thing Logan said to me!” Emile said. “When he heard you died, he sent an agent over to check on Virgil, but there’d been signs of a break in and Virgil was gone. They don’t think he actually got kidnapped though because the car of whoever broke in was still there.”

“Well, then where the hell is my kid?!!” Remy yelled.

Emile flinched at his suddenly loud voice. “Leaping lizards Remy, I don’t know. I thought you did since you’re not actually dead.”

“Well I don’t!”

“Yeah, I’m getting that, calm down for a second.”

“Okay, right now is not a good time to tell me to calm down,” Remy said. “My kid is missing.”

“I know Remy,” Emile said in his professionally soothing voice, “but we have to think in order to do something about that.” Oh, he was thinking. He was thinking really hard right about now. He was thinking about how the person who sent someone to kidnap his son was the woman who’d just tried to have him fucking executed. God, Remy hadn’t even wanted her around his fucking kid when she’d just been a bitch and not an enemy agent out for his blood.

“We should call Logan back,” Emile suggested. “He might have more information.”

“No,” Remy said. “It’s still too risky.”

“Remy.”

“I said no, Emile,” Remy snapped. “What if she has him and intercepts the phone call. She doesn’t have any reason to hurt him right now,” other than the fact that he had quite the mouth on him and would probably piss her off by being a little shit especially if she wouldn’t tell him where Remy was, “but if she knows I’m alive she might.”

“Would she really…?”

“The woman just tried to shoot me with poisoned bullets. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Poison bull-? It’s not important,” Emile said. “If we’re not going to get information from Logan then how are we supposed to even start with finding Virgil?”

“Easy,” Remy said. “The tracker I put on him.”

“I’m sorry you put what on Virgil?” Emile asked.

“A tracker,” Remy said. “It’s in that bracelet he always wears. I don’t really want to go back to the house, but I think I left one of the devices to find him in here in case of emergencies.” He started digging through Emile’s glove box.

“Jiminy Crickets, you can’t just put a tracker on your teenage son Remy!”

“Why not?” Remy asked, still digging through the papers. Did Emile ever get rid of old insurance cards and also how many drive-through napkins did he need to keep?

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” Emile sputtered.

Remy waved him off. “Oh, please. I’m a secret agent, a (usually) off duty one, but still a secret agent. Sometimes I need to know where my kid’s at. Like now. Besides, I told him what it was when I gave it to him, and it lights up when activated. He can just chuck it out a window if he doesn’t want me knowing where he is.”

“Oh, well that’s okay then,” Emile said.

Remy hummed as his hand closed around the phone sized device hidden at the back of the glove box. “Ah, here it is.”

“When exactly did you put that in here.”

“Like two years ago,” Remy said. “Clean your car every once in a while.”

“Remington, I have seen your garage.”

“Maybe, but I never claim to be responsible.”

The thing was out of charge, so he plugged it into the car, and it booted up pretty quickly. Emile leaned over to look at the map that popped up. Remy pushed a couple of buttons to activate the tracker.

A red dot appeared on the map and Remy blinked at it. “Where the fuck?” he asked. He pushed another button and the device beeped, finding Remy’s current location on the map and putting a green dot there. The map had to zoom out quite a bit to fit both dots on the screen. A number appeared at the top of the map. “Shit.”

“Please tell me that’s feet,” Emile groaned.

“How the hell did he manage to get 50 miles away? I’ve been ‘dead’ for less than an hour and a half!”

“Did one of Barbara’s people get to him?”

“I’m not… he’s moving in the wrong direction if that’s the case,” Remy said. “Her house is in town and the secret base I know of is north of here. He’s going south east on the interstate.” He squinted at the map.

“Well then where is he going and how is he going there?” Emile asked.

“I’m not sure, but you need to start driving.” Emile hesitated for a moment. “Now.”

He nodded and put the car in reverse before pulling out of the parking lot and turning toward the interstate.

“Hey, Emile,” Remy said pleasantly after about 2 minutes. “Remember how mother said to not speed unless it was absolutely necessary?” Emile glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s absolutely necessary today.”

Emile gave him a slightly disapproving frown, but the car did speed up.

“So, what about poisoned bullets?” Emile asked.

“I’ve had a long day,” Remy said.

“Nope, no, you’re not getting away with that,” Emile said.

“We’re busy,” Remy tried.

“Assuming he continues to move in the same direction, we have over an hour car ride in front of us. So, talk.”

“You and talking,” Remy mumbled. “Why couldn’t you just be a secretive, suppressed secret agent like everyone else in our family.”

Emile shot him a glare.

“Emmmmmmmyyyyyyy,” Remy whined.

“Remington.”

“Okay… so it may have, sort of been, my idea.”

“Remy.”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Please, tell me this is not why you wanted me to watch Virgil tonight,” Emile said.

Oh, yeah… Remy winced.

“Remy, you have to at least tell me if you’re getting me and Virgil involved in this sort of thing. Or better yet, not do that. What was I supposed to do if someone had come to the door to kidnap Virgil? Which they did, by the way!”

Remy shifted in his seat. “To be fair, the plan didn’t exactly go how I expected it to. You were just a precaution in case it took too long. I didn’t expect to ‘die.’ Or at least if she was going to try to kill me I though she’d hesitate more than 0 seconds.”

Emile spared him a glare as he merged onto the interstate.

“Okay, fine, so maybe I should have,” Remy admitted, “but she was up to no good! And I know I’m supposed to still be on desk duty, but I’d heard through the grapevine about her plans and, I mean, I was in the neighborhood. How was I supposed to know she’d see right through my lie about asking for money to buy Virgil a car?”

“Maybe because you’ve never asked the woman for anything, ever, especially in relation to Virgil and Virgil hasn’t even taken drivers ed because he’s still too scared to try to drive after the golf cart incident.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever babe,” Remy brushed him off. “Anyway, we were talking, and I think she maybe got a little pissy that I wasn’t drinking the wine she gave me. It was probably poisoned now that I’m thinkin’ about it. Anyway, she must have finally gotten tired of me and pushed a button. Suddenly a bunch of guards were storming the room and, man, they were definitely the shoot first, ask question types ‘cause they immediately started shooting at me. Luckily I was wearing the light weight bullet proof vest Logan’d gotten me and I dove under her desk and, let me tell you, for how organized she is about her criminal empire and how clean the rest of the house is, she doesn’t clean much under her desk. I think it’s probably ‘cause she doesn’t let any of the maids in there to clean. Honestly, that might be where Janus gets the whole leaving snack wrappers and tissues all over the house. Because gee her desk. And-”

“Remy.”

“Right, so, there I was under her absolutely filthy desk and I look up and she’s standing there staring at me and she just takes out a gun and bang shoots at my head. Luckily it missed, but it ricocheted off her desk and ended up in my calf.”

“You were shot in the calf!”

“It’s not a big deal, I’m fine,” Remy said. “Anyway, those were the poisoned bullets.”

“You got shot with a poisoned bullet?!”

“Yeah, so, luckily it was a poison I got doused with once in Italy in my 20s and if you manage to survive it once, you’re good forever or whatevs, but like, I knew she thought it would kill me so I played dead. So, then after that, she called in Gilbert, you know Gilbert, the butler with the little trapezoid shaped beard? Yeah, so Gilbert comes in and she’s like, “get rid of his body” and he’s like “cool beans” or something to that extent. Anyway, he drags me out’a there, but the thing is Gilbert’s cool or maybe not cool because he’d totally bury my body without flinching, but he’s cool enough not to kill me himself or even run and tattle. So, I go, ‘yeah, not dead,’ and he’s like ‘Kay, but don’t tell her I knew that,’ and I’m like ‘jolly good, mate.’ Then I run off to her office (the secret one, not the one her and the armed guards are in) and steal the flashdrive. I go to get in my car, but she already ordered it to get blown up! I mean, rude, bitch! At least give my body time to cool. So, I end up hiding in the back of the catering company van that had come to get the kitchen ready for the gala she’s throwing later tonight which, I mean really, you’re serving shrimp and salmon, what type of monster are you? You do seafood and steak, not seafood and seafood. Ugh. Why did I ever have sex with her again? Anyway, I ride in the van to town and then bolt out of there before they can see me. Then, I get on a bus because I have a bus token in my wallet, but the bus driver is a bit chatty and this is a covert mission so I tell him my name is Gilbert, since Gilbert the butler was on my mind and that I am visiting my new granddaughter in the states but I’m actually from Quebec and I spoke French to prove it. I was going to get off near the one clothes shop on third, but then we drove by your office and I saw your car so I got off at the corner and picked your lock to get in your car and waited for you to come out because I thought that’d be quicker.”

“You’re doing the thing,” Emile said.

“What thing?” Remy asked flippantly.

“The thing where you use misdirection and slang to attempt to distract people from serious issues.”

Remy slunk down in his seat. “Ah, that thing.” Damn him and his stupid fancy psychology degrees.

“Is your leg okay?”

“Smarts like a bitch, but it was just a graze. I already bandaged it up and disinfected it.”

“Good,” Emile said. “Would you prefer if I yelled at you in chronological or alphabetical order.”

“I’d like to see you try out alphabetical.”

“Well,” Emile started. “First of all…”

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 9

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Rumor Has It {10}

Chris Evans x Famous Reader Uriah “Riah” Tyler-Evans

Warning: Plot, Cursing, Angst, Slight embellishment of actual real-world media

Word Count: 2.2K

Summary: You and Chris have been married for four years after a whirlwind romance. You are both happy and trying to navigate marriage in the public eye while balancing your successful careers. In the entertainment industry, not everything is as it seems, the flash of a camera lens impairs vision. As scandal and flashing lights put a strain on your once fairytale marriage is it possible your Hollywood marriage can stand the test of the rumor mill?

**Inspired by a video seen of Chris and his co-star Ana De Armas on their press tour for Knives Out at TIFF where she kept touching his chest and face standing about five inches apart.

**NOTE: A WORK OF FICTION. NOT CREATED TO GARNER HATE OF ANY SORT.

**Loosley Edited/Proofread**

**Interactive**

Thank you guys for reading!!!! If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG. 😊 ❤❤

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What’s not to like about photoshoots? Nothing really. You get to wear designer clothes, get your make up done and get pretty pictures taken. Sounds great. Unless you’ve been doing it for almost ten hours. That was your predicament. You’d been shooting pictures for your album cover for the better part of a day and there was no end in sight. You’d tried to keep your energy up, tried to remain in the zone but it was harder than it looked. You were quickly descending into the land of grumpy. All you wanted was your bed a bottle of wine and one of Chris’ shirts.

 “All right Uriah, that’s it. A few more shots and I think we’ll be good,” Boris shouted from behind the camera as he continued to snap away. Using that as some solace you held tightly to your resolve and pressed on.

 Twenty minutes turned to forty and forty turned to two hours. After three and a half hours Boris finally called wrap. You were exhausted. You sat down with the crew and went through the three hundred plus images hoping to mark your favorites and eliminate those that just didn’t go well. The final decision was going to be left up to you and the record company, but you knew how to make your voice be the final one. You, after all, were the talent. You’d gotten far enough in your career that you held plenty of weight.

 You didn’t get to crawl into bed with one of Chris’ shirts and a bottle of wine until near three in the morning. Taking comfort in his scent and the alcohol your unwind was easy. Once the bottle was finished you found yourself nodding off until Chris called. Once you saw his face, you lit up.

“You look tired.” Scoffing you nodded.

 “I’m exhausted. Yet another photoshoot for the album. Hopefully, we finally have the album cover art.”

 “Okay, that’s great. Are you happy with them?”

 “They’re fine. I’m happier to be done with it. How are you?”

 “Good, finally getting in.” You watched him set his phone down and peel his shirt off in the frame. Sighing you sunk deeper into the covers and watched the show. It was like he didn’t realize what he was doing. After he’d discarded his shirt his pants followed until he was only in his underwear. You laid there and admired your husband. You’d never get tired of this view.

 “It is a shame to be so damn fine.” As if realizing what he’d done he snorted and laughed then took up his phone and carried you with him to another room.

 “Me? Have you looked in the mirror lately Mrs. Evans?” You smiled then sighed.

 “Is that my shirt?”

 “I miss you,” you defended. His groan was long. You heard the rustling of sheets and once the motion of the camera stopped there he was laying in the bed with a sweet smirk on his face.

“I miss you too, dragonfly.” You changed your position in the bed not caring that now his shirt had risen up to your hip exposing your bare thigh to him. You watched as his eyes raked over your skin then back to your eyes.

 “I’ve been thinking, after the premier and the hoopla we should take a vacation. You, me, no phones, or work, just us,” Chris proposed. It sounded blissful.

 “My god that sounds so good. I think we’ve earned it.”

 “I think so too, sweetheart.” The two of you laid there not saying a word just staring at each other. Your connection felt stronger than ever. Therapy had done what it was supposed to. You guys were better than ever. In fact, you were so much better you’d completed your last session with Dr. Danquah feeling incredibly optimistic and pleased with how successfully you’d been.

 It didn’t take long for the two of you to fall asleep with each other still on the call with one thought to fall asleep to. Life was good.

  -Two Days Later-

“Sounds like a plan,” Zora responded once you’d finished going over your plan for the next three months.

 You and Chris had made such great progress in therapy that you felt more hopeful about the probability of your marriage surviving and not just surviving but thriving and becoming better than it ever had been. You’d both learned so much and every day the two of you were diligently working to put what you learned into play. He made a conscious effort to make you feel listened to and not just heard. You made an effort to give him the benefit of the doubt more times than not. Now after successful completion of near nine weeks of therapy, you both felt closer to each other. The love you felt for him had grown when you didn’t think it was possible to love him more.

 The rest of your team left your office and it left you, Zora and Kizzy. Zora perched on your desk and watched you sign off on the rest of the contracts that needed to be couriered out. The next three months were setting up to be busy. You’d taken all the time you could and so had Chris. He was now in Los Angeles for meetings and interviews. It was his time to actually be present for the press centered on Knives out especially with it opening in a week.

 “How’s Chris doing in LA? This is the first time in weeks you two have been apart.” You nodded at Zora’s inquiry.

 She was right. You’d gotten so comfortable having him so close. You’d created a routine that you fell in love with, a routine that you now missed. It had been a week since he’d been gone, and you felt his absence to your core.

 “He’s doing good. He says he’s trying to acclimate back into press touring and being away but it’s hard.”

 “Uugh, you two are so stinking cute I can’t deal,” Kizzy groaned out. you couldn’t help but smile.

 “I’m glad you guys are doing better and found a way back to each other,” Zora added.

 You stood and handed her the folder. Once she took them and she nodded and got to work on her laptop scanning them for your records. The next step was sending a copy to your lawyers before sending them back.

 Your phone rang loudly in your home office. When you looked at the screen you saw your mother’s name pop up.

 “Hi, mama.”

 “Uriah, who the hell is this white woman?”

 “Uh—what white woman, mama?” Kizzy and Zora both looked amused, they knew your mother’s antics and the way she spoke. They often got a good laugh from it.

 “This woman I’m seeing on The Wendy Williams show.”

 Your confusion took over. You sighed then groaned. “Mama, I don’t have time to walk you through the who is who of the celebrity world. Try googling her.”

 “Uriah Letecia Tyler-Evans. You better know who this woman is. From the things I’m hearing from Wendy, you should have her as top priority on your to-do list. By to do list I mean beat down list.”

 Kizzy was the one to snort loudly. You gave her a look that had her clamping her hand over her mouth in an effort to stop any others from escaping.

 “Mama, what are you talking about?”

 “Turn on The Wendy Williams show now!” Zora approached with the remote and turned the tv on then proceeded to find the right channel. Once Wendy’s face filled the screen the volume increased. You were just in time to hear the audible gasp and “ooh” from the audience.

 “Okay mama Wendy is on. What is so important?”

 “Wait for it and listen,” your mother instructed.

 “So, I don’t know what kind of marriage they have but if this were my marriage, and I know what you’re going to say my marriage fell apart from the same thing—an easy, trifling’ homewrecking whore.” Again, the audience gasped and “oohed”.

 “Yeah I know, if you live in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones but look y’all. In no world is this okay.” A video played of Ana wearing the sweater Chris wore in character in Knives Out. It was evident she had on nothing else but the sweater. She danced around while giving her best sexy eyes to the camera. You didn’t hear a thing else, not from Wendy or the audience, or even the music that was playing on the video. The video stopped and flipped to a picture of her posing in the sweater. You zeroed in on the caption.

 “That was weird, anyway what I wanted to say is go see knives out. Also, thanks Chris for the sweater. I think it looks better on me this way, but you can feel free to come and take it and prove me wrong.”

 As if you were a bull in the pen you saw red.

 “This bitch!” Yours, Kizzy’s and Zora’s voice all merged into one as the three of you said the same thing, at the same time the same exact way. You looked at them and the looks on their faces made you wonder if you looked the same way. Pissed.

 “First of all, this is all levels of inappropriate. I may be jaded and reading into things too much but ol’ girl didn’t have to put his sweater on with nothing else on. She posted this for a reason besides promo for their movie. Second, this is a thirst trap if I’ve ever seen one, now it’s not as extreme as others but a low-level thirst trap is still a thirst trap. This is a thirst trap of testing the waters. This is definitely flirtatious. Also, the caption, girl.” Wendy’s face said it all.

 “Girl you know you not slick. This is disrespectful on all levels to this man’s real wife Uriah Evans. Again, I don’t know what kind of marriage they have but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen some suspect behavior from this woman toward Chris Evans. I get it he’s hot, he is a fine piece of white chocolate. The draw of a married man is appealing it’s like a competition but girl no. This man has a whole wife. Back off.”

 The audience clapped and cheered.

 “Do you see now Uriah. Now, who is this woman? You better tell me this isn’t the same trollop that tested your marriage a few months ago.”

 “Mama I’ll call you back.” You hung up and prepared to dial Chris but before pressing the green call button you paused and thought about what you were about to do and what you were about to say. Every instinct in your body was saying blow up and rain hellfire on him, but thanks to the last months of work in therapy, part of you hesitated.

 “Fuck!” You hit the desk and took several deep breaths. “This bitch really is grinding my last fucking nerve!”

 “For good fucking reason. What the hell is that? Did Chris really send that to her?”

 You had no idea. He very well could have. Again, you stopped and thought about things. He wouldn’t dare, not after everything you’d been through these last months, not after everything you came so close to losing. Still, there she was wearing the sweater. You looked back to the paused tv and examined the freeze frame of the picture. She looked so damn pleased with herself. Before you could fester anymore anger your phone rang again. This time it was Chris.

 “Give me a minute, guys.” Kizzy and Zora walked out giving you a little privacy before you answered your phone.

 “Hey, baby. I miss you,” Chris said with a smile on his face. You took another deep breath and tried to push away any ill will.

 “I miss you too.”

 “Are you okay?” He was walking around making you dizzy. When he finally stopped he sat down in perfect lighting.

 “Yeah, I’m good. How are you? What’re you doing?”

 “I just finished up wardrobe here in San Diego, getting ready to do yet another interview.” He leaned back and sighed.

 “Okay, cool.” You couldn’t find anything else to say. You didn’t want to blow up at him or even ask him because you didn’t want to give him the impression you didn’t trust him. You understood now, you trusted him you just didn’t trust her.

 “Are you all set to come out? I can’t wait to see you.”

 “Uh, yeah, I’ll be on a flight day after tomorrow. I’m just finishing up some loose ends.” His smile was bright, and a glimmer caught your eye.

 Squinting your eyes, you locked in on it then looked back to the tv at her background. Your eyes went back and forth for several moments before you felt the pit of your stomach fall. The backgrounds were one hundred percent identical. Her picture and video were taken from his room. 

~~~~~~~~~

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[cakesunflower]

Stuck in the Middle [C.H. & L.H. AU] Part 1

**DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a poly!Cake fic!! Just wanted to clarify that in case of any confusion.

Summary: Calum Hood and Sloane Thorne are engaged to be married--though, not because they were in love. More so that it was a part of the merger their families’ companies were going through, as a way of strengthening the bond and building a foundation for the partnership Calum and Sloane would have as co-CEOs. So when the opportunity arises for them to get away from the pressures of their families and relax for on the beach in Florida with their friends, they’re quick to go. Except Calum falls for their neighbor, River Young, while Sloane discovers pent up feelings she never knew she had for her long time friend, Luke Hemmings. Trying to figure out how to navigate through unexpectedly budding relationships while also getting rid of the strain on their friendship seems to be how Calum and Sloane have to spend their little vacation. Whatever it takes to not be so stuck anymore.

IMPORTANT A/N: So I originally uploaded the entire 41,800+ words of this fic in this very post, but it wasn’t opening for some people and it was crashing the app because of its length. So I kept the first half of this one shot in this post, and the second half is uploaded in another one that I will link at the start of this part and the bottom too. I hope you enjoy this monster of a fic. But Luke and Calum are my brand (hence my URL) and I wanted to do this fic justice. I hope you enjoy. Happy reading!!

This is Sloane’s face claim.

This is River’s face claim.

Read Part 2 Here!

The roar of waves crashing against the shore was silenced by the glass separating Calum from the ocean, the white sand in between a smooth carpet creating a pathway. He watched the water recede before rushing back once again, glittering in a purplish-orange hue under the setting sun, but Calum could still feel his skin warming at the mere sight of the sun above them, slowly descending, before begging to be submerged in the coolness of the water. The waves colliding with the shore was muted, replaced by the sound of his friends roaming the beach house, finding rooms to settle in, and making plans as they unpacked. His own luggage was near the bed, waiting to be unloaded, and Calum swept his gaze over the ocean in the distance one last time before turning around with a sigh.

His actions were slow, leisurely opening up his suitcases and pulling out his things to put away. The nap he’d taken on the near three hour flight from New York to Florida had only seemed to tire him out more, but Calum knew his exhaustion came not from lack of sleep, but because of how busy and overwhelming life had suddenly become. The knowledge of a hectic schedule soon becoming a new normal for him sank heavily in Calum’s bones, and while he thought he was ready for the responsibilities that came with soon becoming the CEO of his parents’ multi-million dollar company, Calum knew he wasn’t ready for the additional arrangement that came with it.

As he put away a few shirts on hangers into the closet, a knock sounded on the white door of the bedroom, and he stepped out of the closet, glancing to his right to see Sloane lingering by the doorway. The first thing he noticed—the first thing anyone noticed, really, upon looking at Sloane—where her bright blue eyes, which stood out against her olive skin tone and dark hair. She looked at him, almost hesitant, with an apologetic smile tilting at her lips. “Hey, sorry, uh, just wanted to let you know we’re heading to the beach in, like, an hour. Right after sunset.”

For a moment, all Calum could do was take in the nervous energy radiating from Sloane, and he felt a prickle of guilt shoot through him. They were friends, had been for years despite college keeping them in different states, and to see her appear so small in front of him when she was one of the most confident people when she wanted to be felt wrong. There were occasions Calum had seen Sloane shrink into herself; because of him had never been one he wanted to see.

So he nodded, hoping his tone didn’t come off as edgy as it had lately. “Okay, thanks.” His dark eyes then dropped lower, taking in the way she was wringing her fingers, noticing the rings she wore and the lack of one. He couldn’t help the slight upwards tilt of his lips. “You’re not wearing the ring.”

It was an honest observation, one he found truthfully amusing as Sloane’s own gaze dropped to her hand. Fortunately, she picked up on his subtle humorous tone. “Yeah, no, uh—” Sloane cut off with a gentle chuckle, blue eyes meeting brown. “Our parents aren’t here so, you know, I’m not gonna put it on.” Her throat worked as she asked cautiously, “You’re good with that, right?” She knew he was, but her need for double checking spoke for her consideration of others as well as her precision in other matters Calum knew would come in handy.

His small smile widened with half of a laugh, eyebrows raising in amusement as he went back to the bed to grab more clothes. He told her in all honesty, “I’ve got nothin’ against it, Sloane.”

If she didn’t want to wear the diamond ring his parents picked out to signify their engagement—their arranged engagement—while they were on their vacation, away from the prying eyes of both of their parents, investors, the works, then that was fine with Calum. He didn’t blame her for it. Kind of encouraged it, actually. As he picked up some folded sweats and brought them over to the dresser, Calum added lowly as an afterthought, “We’re free until we’re not.”

It was a reminder, not that Sloane needed one, he knew, of their agreement before they’d come to Florida: that there would be no mention of the engagement, of the impending wedding, impending merging of their companies. It was a topic that neither of them were too keen on discussing, and if they could spend their time in Florida ignoring a situation they knew would be right there, waiting for them, when they got back to New York, then that’s how they’d deal with it.

He heard Sloane let out a slow breath through her nose. “Fair enough,” was all she said before giving the door frame a departing tap and walking down the hall, leaving Calum alone with his thoughts and items still needing to be put away.

*****

The crackle of the fire was a soothing comfort over the waves dancing just a little ways away. Of course, the sounds of nature were drowned out by the music playing through Ashton’s speakers, though the smooth tones of Dan and Shay weren’t ones Sloane could argue against. So she sat on her blanket spread upon the sand, her now empty can of black cherry flavored White Claw discarded beside her as she contently ate the s’more she’d just made. The air was a mixture of smoke, salt, and marshmallows and it was a combination Sloane found herself surprisingly fond of, covering her mouth as she laughed, given the food she was chewing, at Michael’s expense when his marshmallow caught on fire, which only prompted him to yell in despair.

“Mind if I join you?”

Sloane had to crane her neck to look up at the man completely towering over her, feeling a smile tug at her lips at the sight of Luke. “Only if you make me another s’more.” She hadn’t meant for her words to sound flirtatious, feeling a warmth in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the fire, yet Luke didn’t seem to mind.

Instead, he let out a soft chuckle as he said, “Deal,” before settling himself down. Sloane watched as he adjusted his long legs, crossing them as he sat next to her on her blanket with a satisfied sigh as they sat shoulder to shoulder. Well, her eyeline was at his shoulder. The blonde of his curls were glowing against the orange fire, blue eyes half a shade darker than her own glimmering against the flames as he reached for the items sitting between Sloane’s blanket and Michael and Crystal’s. “How d’you like your marshmallow?”

“Golden.” Kind of like your hair.

Luke nodded as he stuck the treat at the end of the stick. He shot her a boyish smirk. “That’s the only way to like ’em,” he hummed approvingly, shuffling just a bit forward to allow the marshmallow to roast over the fire. As Sloane reached up to push some hair behind her ear, Luke’s gaze went to her hand and he smirked lightly. “Trouble in paradise already?”

Sloane dropped her hand with a breathy groan, knowing he was talking about the lack of the diamond ring on her finger as he chuckled quietly. “There can’t be trouble if there’s no paradise,” she reminded him, resting her hands on her knees before adding pointedly, “Which I’m fine with, by the way.”

Luke gave a shake of his head, glancing at the marshmallow to make sure he didn’t burn it. When his blue eyes met Sloane’s once more, he added in a dismayed tone, “Can’t believe your parents are forcing you guys to get married. Like—” He frowned, shaking his head once more. “That shit’s nothing to be taken lightly. It’s not some business deal.”

She felt something sink in her chest, her smile small and dejected as she reminded him with a subtle raise of her eyebrows, “Except it is.” Her gaze wandered towards the fire, the heat pleasant against her skin. Vaguely, she heard Ashton challenge Michael to the chubby bunny challenge while Crystal protested because it would only be wasting marshmallows. “They think merging our families would be beneficial to merging the companies. That way everything stays within the circle. It. . .” She sighed. “It makes sense, at the end of the day.”

It was a responsibility that hadn’t been Sloane’s to begin with, but now she had no choice in the matter. With Jacob gone, the family business was hers to take over, and while Sloane knew the ins and outs of the company as well as her brother did—perhaps more, though her parents would never believe it—and was accepting of taking over, she didn’t appreciate being subjected to her personal life being tied with her professional. Marriage should only be between two people who genuinely, wholeheartedly loved each other. Not for business negotiations. Not to play with other people’s lives.

And yet, this was Sloane’s life. And Calum’s.

“You’re more than a business deal, Sloane.”

Her head turned to look at Luke once more, breath hitching in her throat at the earnesty gleaming with the flames in his eyes. The sincerity in his quiet tone was loud in his gaze, enough to send Sloane’s heart unexpectedly into her throat as he looked at her. It was almost too much, the tender way he stared, spoke, and Sloane broke their gaze and looked at the marshmallow, unsure of where her voice had gone as she found herself whispering, “Marshmallow’s done.”

Luke blinked before pulling himself out of whatever reverie they’d lost themselves in for that brief moment, retracting the stick as Sloane tried to keep herself busy by breaking off a piece of Hershey’s chocolate and grabbing two crackers. The two of them worked together in silence, save for every other sound around them, as Luke placed the marshmallow on top of the cracker and chocolate before Sloane sandwiched it with another cracker, allowing Luke to pull the stick away.

“Thanks,” Sloane murmured before adjusting her fingers on the treat and taking a bite. It was warm and sweet, the cracker crunching, and Sloane hummed approvingly. “’S really good,” she chuckled after swallowing, hand covering her mouth just in case any crumbs fell out. That’d be unattractive. Not that she was trying to be attractive in front of Luke. Ridding herself of ridiculous thoughts, she offered the s’more and asked Luke with a teasing grin, “Wanna try your masterpiece?”

He scoffed at her playfulness with a roll of his eyes. “Sweetheart, I know it’s perfection,” Luke joked, though that didn’t stop him from leaning down and taking a bite of the s’more as Sloane held it between her fingers.

Except Luke’s equivalent of a bite was him just taking almost the entire thing in his mouth, and Sloane let out a sound of protest, a mix of an exclaim and laugh, as she pushed him away with her free hand on her shoulder. “You just ate the whole thing!”

Luke laughed as he ate the s’more, leaning away from Sloane’s half-hearted shoves, arms an X over his chest as ended up on his back as she shoved him. She couldn’t help her giggles, not when his loud and infectious laugh drowned out the crackle of fire, roar of waves, the music, and the chatter of their friends. Luke’s laugh was one she found herself preferring over all else. “I’ll make you another one!” he promised, dimples in full view through his grin, sharp features shadowed by the flames as he sat up once more.

Sloane found herself grinning as Luke pulled out another marshmallow, raising her eyebrow as she asked jokingly, “Are you my personal s’more maker for the night?”

Luke shot her a wink, cute and boyish, and she told herself the heat in her cheeks was from the fire, not from him. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

*****

There was a calmness in Calum’s chest as he walked along the shore, the cold water at his feet sending pleasant shivers up his spine. The serenity was present even when he glanced over where his friends sat around the fire in the distance, catching sight of Sloane and Luke sitting side by side, his blonde friend’s laughter ringing through the night and reaching him even over the crashing of foaming waves. Lifting the cigarette, Calum took a drag of it as he looked away from where his friends were. He kind of hated that he picked up on the nasty habit again, but circumstances weighing heavily on him called for a cigarette break every now and then.

Unfortunately, he’d been in the middle of taking a drag when the sudden, unexpected sound of a bark startled him, prompting the smoke to get caught in his throat and Calum’s eyes squeezed shut as the gasp turned into a minor coughing fit. He lifted his arm, coughing into the crook of his elbow, only vaguely hearing a female voice apologize, “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry! Shh, Freddie, it’s okay.”

His throat slightly stung but soon the coughing subsided, and Calum opened his eyes and lowered his arm to catch sight of a German shepherd in front of him, tail wagging and tongue out as he panted excitably. A cute, if not intimidating, dog that Calum still found himself getting excited at the sight of—dogs had that kind of effect on him—as his gaze lifted to look at the girl jogging towards them.

Calum told himself his throat was dry because of the cigarette and not because of this girl; one with blonde hair tied back into a messy ponytail and an apologetic smile upturning her lips. She wore shorts and a tank, a hoodie loosely handing over her shoulders as she came to a stop in front of Calum. His lips were parted, he could tell by the way he was breathing as the cold air tickled the inside of his throat, and he could hear his mind tell him to get it together and stop gaping like an idiot. But the girl in front of him was smiling kind of breathlessly and he, too, was feeling the breath escape him.

“Uh, no, it’s okay,” Calum found himself saying, trying not to cringe at stumbling over his own words as he gave a shake of his head. His lips tilted upwards as he expelled a short breath, wondering about the color of her eyes seeing as it was a bit too dark to tell, before dropping his gaze to the dog. “He’s a cute one.”

As if on cue, the dog—Freddie—barked, taking the few steps towards Calum to sniff at him. Though he couldn’t start at his feet, given the water pooling around his ankles. Calum chuckled as the girl let out an airy laugh, the sound sweet, as she said, “I think that’s Freddie returning the sentiment.”

Calum’s smile melted into a smirk, his eyes meeting hers, noting the light shade of them. With a quirk of his eyebrow and a lift of his chin, Calum questioned boldly, “Does his mom agree?”

She let out a short laugh, impressed or amused by his forwardness, he wasn’t too sure, as she dug her hands in the pockets of her unzipped hoodie. The ocean breeze tickled at Calum’s skin and he watched as loose locks of her blonde hair swayed against her temples. She eyed him for a moment, biting the corner of her grinning lips, Calum’s stomach uncharacteristically flipping as she mused, “She does.” She then pulled her right hand out, her bracelets clinking together as she held it out to him and introduced, “I’m River.”

His hand grasped hers, the touch rivaling the fire crackling in the distance, and Calum wondered if she felt the heat of it too as her gaze briefly dropping to their joined hands as he shook hers before meeting his gaze again. “Calum,” he supplied, remembering to speak before this woman managed to steal his entire thought process. They were slow to release hands, or maybe it was all in Calum’s head as their eyes remained locked, and he found himself telling her, “I’m, uh, staying at that house with my friends for a while,” while gesturing to the beach house Michael’s fiance’s family owned.

River’s gaze flickered past him towards the house, looking at him as she asked in breezy curiosity, “How long’s a while?”

He wondered if he was imagining the alluring tone in which she spoke in, dangerous wonder in her own voice as she gazed up at him with a subtle tilt of her head. He wondered if he was an idiot, utterly ridiculous, for feeling his heart thud in his chest and something else flip around in the pit of his stomach. Wondered if it was okay that none of it felt wrong. Exciting, confusing, unexpected, desirable—but not wrong.

His tongue poked out for a quick swipe of his lower lip, fighting the smirk when he caught River’s eyes trail the movement. She met his gaze again, unapologetic. Finally, Calum answered her, “A month. Maybe more.”

River pursed her lips before smirking, eyebrows cocking upwards. “Sounds promising.”

The cigarette was forgotten between his fingers, the sounds of the waves and his friends drowned out in the presence of the woman in front of him. Calum could feel his heart in his chest. “I’d hope so.”

*****

“Bro, you’re burning the pancakes! Get out!”

Sloane’s eyebrows raised at the sound of Ashton’s yelling, reaching the bottom of the stairs and turning into the kitchen as the smell of burnt pancakes hit her nose. She blinked as she let out a breath with a quiet, “phew”, arriving just in time to see Ashton push away a laughing Luke from the stove. He looked to be enjoying himself despite possibly ruining breakfast for everyone. Through his laughter, Luke exclaimed, “I’m just tryna help!”

Ashton shot him a bemused look, a spatula in hand as he pointed it at Luke while Sloane quietly approached, the amused smile growing on her face as she stopped by the counter separating the kitchen and living room where Crystal sat, watching the whole thing go down. “You’re fucking it up, man—you can’t cook,” Ashton scoffed, turning back to the stove.

Luke huffed, lips pouting as he leaned against the stainless steel fridge, arms crossed, biceps in full view thanks to the tank top he wore. It was in that moment that his eyes landed on Sloane, straightening up his posture as she felt the amused smile tug at her lips. Luke’s own lips parted as he sounded, “Hey, Sloane, uh—good morning.”

Her smile, without her permission really, turned fond as she leaned against the counter where Crystal sat, happily eating her cereal. “Morning, Luke,” Sloane greeted, flashing a smile to Ashton who offered a quick wave over his shoulder. Looking back at Luke, she asked knowingly with a soft chuckle, “How’s breakfast going?”

Before Luke could answer, Ashton scoffed, “He’s banished from the kitchen. Please, take him away.”

The offense was expressed across Luke’s face with an indignant frown as he protested, “Hey!” while both Crystal and Sloane laughed. “Actually, I was gonna go on a quick supply run,” she said, eyes finding Luke’s once more, raising her eyebrows almost hopefully as she asked, “You wanna come with?”

Ashton pouted as he transferred a pancake from the pan to a plate. “What about breakfast?”

Sloane’s lips parted to speak, but Luke beat her to the punch. “Sloane doesn’t eat breakfast.” Her blue eyes met with his, and she could see the hint of pinkness that tinged his cheeks as an almost embarrassed smile quirked at his lips. Sloane didn’t miss the looks exchanged between Ashton and Crystal, though she chose to ignore them in lieu of her own skin warming as Luke pushed himself off the fridge with a clear of his throat. “I’ll just, uh, get my shoes.”

He left the kitchen quickly, but not before walking around Sloane and offering her a cute, boyish smile that she couldn’t help but return before her eyes met Crystal’s. The amused expression the blonde wore wasn’t missed by Sloane, who let out a breath and asked, a bit defensively, “What?”

“Nothing,” Crystal hummed, sounding deceivingly innocent as she stirred her cereal with her spoon. Her smile was teasing and Sloane rolled her lips into her mouth as Crystal observed, “Totally adorable.”

Ashton snickered and Sloane let out a slow breath, shooting Crystal a look. Despite the drumming in her chest and the desire to visibly chew her lips, Sloane kept up the indifferent front before reminding her, “It’s not a thing.”

Crystal puckered her lips with a shrug as she flickered her gaze up to look at Sloane. “It could be.”

Sloane bit the inside of her cheek, her own gaze falling to her hand. Crystal was only putting dangerous ideas in her head that would end in nothing but heartbreak if Sloane decided to stray from what the plan was. Feelings were. . . Not an option. She’d be lying, though, if she said there wasn’t a disappointed, sinking feeling in the pit of her chest at the knowledge of her kind of. . . Never getting to be with someone she wants to be with. A decision about her life made for her without any consideration for what she—what Calum—wanted. They were expected to move forward with this, to change their lives for the benefit of companies their parents had built, which were to become their own soon.

It was her and Calum. It had to be. Neither of them had much of a choice and to allow herself to even think otherwise would be stupid.

Sloane sighed, scratching the back of her head as she looked between Crystal and Ashton, who was eyeing her curiously. With a quick, small smile, Sloane decided, “It’s a bad idea.”

Luke’s voice sounded from behind her, innocent and oblivious as he asked, “What’s a bad idea?”

Ashton and Crystal’s gazes darted past Sloane just as she turned around to look at the towering blonde. He still wore his tank top and athletic shorts, only this time his wallet and phone was in his hand and black Nikes on his feet. Her heart jumped into her throat as he looked at her questioningly, eyebrows raised, and she swallowed before covering with a nervous smile of her own, “You being in the kitchen.” Luke’s expression fell into a childish pout, and Sloane’s nerves eased slightly as she said to Ashton and Crystal, “If you guys have anything you want us to pick up, just text us in the groupchat. Tell the others, too.” She looked at Luke again, who was pouting, and giggled as she turned him around and began pushing him towards the front door. “Come on, let’s go.”

He stubbornly let her push him, exiting the house as Sloane pulled out Calum’s car keys. He’d kindly allowed her to take his Range Rover for the quick supply run, which was good since his car was the last one at the end of the driveway, blocking the rest of the vehicles in. It was a quick drive to the nearest ShopRite after Luke put the address into the GPS, and as soon as they grabbed a cart they began their quest for supplies—most of which were coming in through the groupchat, seeing as everyone was suddenly awake back at the house.

As Sloane put a box of Crystal’s favorite vegan cookies in the already filling cart, she looked at Luke, who was leaning forward against the handle, and asked him, “How’s it feel being almost twenty-three?” Jokingly, she added, “Does your back hurt yet, old man?”

Luke rolled his blue eyes. “Ha-ha, so funny,” he humorlessly scoffed, lips quirking upwards when Sloane giggled as they made their way down the aisle. He lifted a hand to rub at his mouth, scratching his growing facial hair as he pointed out, “Ashton’s the one turning twenty-five. Quarter of a century.”

Sloane shot him a look over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. “Hey, I’ll be twenty-five next year.” She turned around fully to face Luke, walking backwards as she challenged the blonde, “Are you calling me old, Luke?”

He stopped, as did Sloane, as his mouth dropped open almost comically. He looked adorably nervous at Sloane’s challenging, playful stare, throat working, before he said, “I’m not qualified to answer that question.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, lips quirking as she sounded, “Mhmm,” before turning to continue on, hearing the rattle of the cart wheels as Luke followed after her.

“Come on, Sloane,” Luke called after her with a laugh. “You’ll always be the prettiest girl I know.”

His words had her stopping short, breath rushing out of her lungs quickly enough to make her choke on absolutely nothing. Her sudden pause had Luke accidentally bumping the front of the shopping cart right into her lower back, nothing painful save for causing Sloane to stumble forward, and he cursed before apologizing quickly. Except it didn’t really register in Sloane’s head, her thoughts more focused on the fact that Luke considered her to be the prettiest girl he knew.

Her heart had considerably picked up its pace; a compliment from Luke wasn’t anything new, except this time it certainly felt like it. This time his words gave an unexpected jolt of her heart, skin warming as she pressed her lips together and absently stared ahead at the meat section of the grocery store. Luke so easily uttered the compliment, not even thinking twice about it, the sincerity behind them effortlessly stealing Sloane’s breath as she tried to regain it. The buzz of the store was lost on her, fighting to bring herself back to reality instead of losing herself in the reverie of Luke’s words. Tried not to let the smile grow on her lips because she didn’t know how Luke was capable of making her smile without even truly trying.

“Sloane? Fuck, I’m sorry for hitting you—are you okay?”

The poor guy was behind her, fretting over accidentally hitting her with the cart when it was her fault for coming to such an abrupt stop. She blinked a couple of times before turning around, Luke now standing straight with a concerned expression on his face as he eyed her carefully. “Yeah, no, I’m good,” she assured him after finding her voice. She wondered if he could notice the pink on her cheeks, wondered if he even knew what he’d said that had her stopping in the first place. Or if it was just a casual, obvious thought in his head that when he voiced it, he didn’t think of it as a big deal. Maybe Sloane was overreacting. She bit her tongue. She needed to get it together.

Luke was about to say something, his broad shoulders relaxing somewhat, when Sloane’s phone began ringing. She sighed at the sight of her mother’s name, offering Luke a small apologetic smile as they began walking once again while she answered, “Hey, Mom.”

“Are you settled in?” Came her mother’s response as a way of greeting.

Sloane suppressed the sigh threatening to escape as she and Luke made their way to the next aisle over. Leave it to her mother to forgo pleasant greetings when it came to talking to her daughter. Nothing new there. “Yeah, we are,” Sloane answered, tapping Luke’s shoulder when she caught sight of the shelves filled with cake mix. To him, she offered a smile, momentarily forgetting about what he’d said just minutes before, telling him, “Hey, Luke, pick your favorite flavor. I’m gonna bake you a cake for your birthday.”

Luke followed her gaze before letting out a laugh, the sound widening Sloane’s smile as dimples appeared on his cheeks before blue eyes took in the several flavors on the shelves. On the phone, Sloane’s mother asked, “You’re with Luke? Where’s Calum?”

“Yeah,” Sloane answered, somewhat absently, as she looked at the boxes as well, trying to spot Ashton’s favorite kind of cake. His birthday was first, and she planned on baking him one as well. It was a fun hobby of Sloane’s, baking, which relaxed her when everything else was getting to be too much. Baking some treats for two of her friends’ birthdays would be nothing short of enjoyable. “Uh, Calum’s at the house.”

Luke’s blue eyes met Sloane’s at the mention of Calum, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he broke the gaze as he put a box of triple chocolate fudge cake mix into the cart. “Don’t you think you should be spending time with Calum, Sloane?” came her mother’s question, her disapproving tone not missed by the twenty-four year old. Sloane clenched her jaw as she stopped the box of lemon cake mix and put it in the cart. “You two grew distant while at school so it’d be better if you started spending time together now before the wedding. We’ll be setting a date soon.”

The wave of nausea hit Sloane upon hearing her mother’s statement, free hand gripping the cold metal of the cart as her fingers closed around it tightly. Her expression fell as the force of reality nearly swept her off her feet, neck tensing as she desperately tried to keep the rampant, overwhelmed emotions from showing on her face. But she’d failed, it seemed, as Luke looked at her in quiet concern and curiosity, eyebrows drawing together over widened blue eyes, taking a step towards her. His body towered over hers, and his tall frame provided a kind of comfort Sloane hadn’t expected but realized she needed in this moment.

Luke’s hand rested on the spot where her shoulder met her neck, his touch comforting and warm against her exposed skin thanks to the tank top she wore, and without even meaning to, Sloane felt herself relax somewhat under it. She focused her attention on her mother once again, despite really not wanting to, really just wanting to go about this shopping trip in peace without being thrown in for a crisis. “Okay, yeah, I hear you,” she said, hoping to sound convincing for the sake of ending this conversation.

Her mother clicked her tongue, the sound itself harsh through the crackle of the phone. “Take this seriously, Sloane. The company will be in your hands; start acting like it. This wouldn’t be a problem if your brother—”

“Right, okay, Mom, I get it,” Sloane instantly cut her off in a rush, hating that she felt the familiar subtle sting in her eyes, feeling the primal urge of throwing her phone across the aisle. The last thing she needed was her mom bringing up her late brother and how he would’ve been a far better fit to run the company. But that just wasn’t in their cards, and Sloane could live her life without being constantly told she wouldn’t match up to what Jacob could’ve been capable of had he not died. She’d been grieving her brother a long time; she didn’t need to feel guilt over his death, too. “I, uh, I gotta go. Talk to you later.” She hung up before her mother could get a word in.

She pocketed her phone with a slow exhale, head bowed and eyes shut and completely hating herself for feeling so vulnerable and powerless. Over her life, her emotions—everything. For practically falling apart in the middle of some ShopRite. Soon-to-be heads of multi-million dollar companies didn’t have breakdowns in grocery stores. Sloane knew she was better than this, stronger than this, and took a deep breath as she reminded herself of the fact.

“Sweetheart, you okay?” Sloane opened her eyes, looking down at her painted toes peeking out from her sandals, inhaling softly at the gentle term of endearment that slipped from Luke’s lips. Sloane pressed her lips together in order to keep them from quivering, silent for a few moments to get it together, and Luke let out a soft breath before his arm wrapped around her to pull her in for a hug. Her cheek pressed against his chest, his right arm around her shoulders and left around her back as he held her to him, and Sloane felt herself melt into him and the cologne he wore. Totally beachy.

Sloane closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in Luke’s embrace, the way his arms felt around him and the warmth he provided. She felt herself relax, heart rate calming after the unfortunate conversation with her mother. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she whispered, feeling utterly ridiculous for being so pathetic. “Just tired.”

Luke took a breath, which Sloane felt against his chest, before letting it out in an airy chuckle. “Come on, Sloane. We just got to Florida; can’t get tired already.”

He prompted a soft laugh from Sloane, shaking her head at his attempt at lightening the mood, which seemed to work as she reluctantly pulled away from him, wanting nothing more than to stay with his arms around her. But they were in the middle of a grocery store, had some shopping to get done, and the longer she stayed with Luke hugging her, the more she’d get used to it. And, like she told Crystal and Ashton, that would be a bad idea.

Especially since a wedding date was about to be set.

Sloane pulled away from Luke, hands on his sides to reluctantly create some distance between them as she looked up at the tall blonde. The smile was still present on his face, just a little softer, an ever present glimmer in his blue eyes Sloan had forgotten how fond she was of while she’d been away at school. Her fingers itched with the urge to run through his blonde curls, wanting nothing more than to feel the softness of the strands under her touch.

Instead, Sloane took a step away from Luke, rolling her lips into her mouth yet still smiling because she didn’t want to be rid of the light, teasing mood that Luke had so easily set after pulling her out of the rigidness her mother had put her in. With a tilt of her head, Sloane wittily challenged, “We’re gonna have a good time, then?”

He responded with a comical wiggle of his eyebrows, enough to elicit laughter from Sloane as she pressed her hand against his chest and pushed him away. They stood, laughing in the middle of the cake aisle, as he confirmed, “An unforgettable time.”

The promising glint in his bright blue eyes left no room for doubt. As if there was ever any uncertainty; not when Luke looked at her the way he did. Not when Sloane found herself doing the same to him.

*****

The thin sheen of sweat that coated Calum’s skin felt welcomed as he approached the beach house, lightly kicking up sand as he kept the same pace of his jogging since he had started. It was a bright morning, unsurprising given that it was the middle of summer in Florida, the sun above threatening to burn him had he not had the good sense to put on some sunscreen before leaving the house. The ocean was nearly as blinding as the sun as the rays glittered against the water, leaving Calum perpetually squinting as he jogged along the shore, though not close enough to the water to get his shoes wet.

Still, Calum enjoyed the softness of the sand beneath his feet and the music playing in his ears not too loud to drown out the sounds of the ocean as it made for a combination he quickly grew fond of. Jogging along the shoreline of Daytona Beach was vastly different than doing so through Central Park; while the latter had become routine,Calum would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the heat of the Florida son on his skin and the salt in the air replacing the unmistakable, world-known scent of New York he’d grown used to since his family had moved there when he was a child. While the rush of the city felt like home, the calmness of the beach rid Calum of the worries his bustling life back home came with, feeling completely at ease despite it only being their second day in Florida

He slowed down his pace when he approached the back of the house, about to head up the steps that led to the back deck when the sounds of a dog’s barking cut through the sound of Nine Inch Nails playing in his AirPods. Calum stopped before even going up the first step, pausing his music as he caught sight of a familiar German shepherd at the bottom of the steps of the house next door before he ran towards Calum.

“Oh hey, buddy,” Calum chuckled as Freddie reached him, the dog excitedly sniffing at Calum and looking up at him with dark eyes and what seemed to be a grinning mouth. As Calum rubbed at Freddie’s head, scratching behind his ears, he chuckled lowly, “Guess you remember me, huh?”

“I dunno what’s happening—but I feel like I should be worried about you trying to steal my dog.” Light footsteps against wooden panels could be heard, and Calum glanced up to see River staring down at him from where she stood on the back deck of the house next door. Her arms were folded atop the railing and as Calum absently kept petting Freddie, he could feel himself getting pulled in by the sight of River.

He’d only seen her in the dark of last night, but now she stood with blonde hair in pretty and messy waves and a smile on her pink lips as she peered down at him. Dimples. She had dimples. The sun was blinding, but it provided for a pink in her cheeks and a glow against her skin he wanted to admire for as long as she’d let him. And in watching her, he didn’t miss the way her own gaze seemed to size him up from her viewpoint, trailing up and down his arm. He knew she was taking in the sight of the tattoos wrapping around his left arm, an excited twist in the pit of his stomach knowing she was drinking him in the same way he was admiring her.

Remembering that she’d spoken to him, Calum quickly gathered his wits about him and offered a smirk, squinting up at her with one eye as he responded, “He’s the one that seems to find me.” He straightened as Freddie panted, and Calum held up his hands in defense as his smirk widened and he said, “Think he’s tryna tell you somethin’, doll.”

River’s close mouthed smile transformed into a proper grin, laughing at his words as Calum felt a tug in his chest at the sound. Before she could respond, though, another woman’s voice popped up, “Who’re you talking to, Rivvy?”

It sounded like an older woman, Calum’s thoughts confirmed when River glanced over her shoulder to whoever was behind her, obviously hidden from Calum’s view, as she said casually, “Just our new neighbor, Grams.”

“New neighbor?” Calum heard her grandmother repeat, feeling a small smile tug at the corner of his lips at the excited tone he detected. “Tell him to come up!”

River scoffed in amusement before looking back down at Calum, their eyes meeting, and from the distance Calum could confirm his observation from last night: definitely light colored eyes he wanted a closer look at. His eyebrows raised when River nodded her head over. “You heard the woman. Come on up.”

She unfolded her arms and gripped the wooden railing, standing up straight and watching Calum watch her. River raised questioning eyebrows when he stayed put for a moment, too lost in the way her hair danced in the ocean breeze and the glint of the fine golden necklace she wore around her neck. But he pulled himself out of his reverie when Freddie started making his way up River’s porch steps, and Calum was quick to follow, his footsteps a lot heavier against the wood as opposed to the clatter of Freddie’s paws.

Calum pocketed his AirPods as he made his way up, feeling his lips quirk at the sight of River sitting down on a chair, Freddie by her feet, a small table with two cups of tea and cookies, and River’s grandmother sitting in the chair next to her. The older woman grinned, warm and maternal, at the sight of Calum. “Ah, new neighbor, hello! I’m Maggie.”

Her short silver hair danced gently in the wind as she looked up Calum with green eyes, and he found himself returning her smile easily as he shook her hand and introduced, “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Calum.”

“Oh, no ma’am,” she shook off, leaning back in her seat. “Call me Maggie—or Mags.” She then gestured to the spare chair opposite of her and River, and Calum settled down as River crossed one leg over the other. He did his best to keep his gaze on Maggie and not the smoothness of River’s legs. “So, Calum, when did you move next door?”

Calum linked his hands together, arms resting on his thighs as he let out a quiet laugh. “Actually, I’m on vacation with some friends of mine. We just got here yesterday from New York.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows in understanding. “Oh,” she nodded slowly, moving to reach for her cup of tea with a subtly trembling hand. Calum watched as River beat her to it, taking the mug and bringing it to her grandmother, who smiled at her gratefully. Looking back at Calum, Maggie asked, “How long are you here for?”

“A while,” River answered for him, Calum’s gaze darting to her, biting the inside of his cheek at the sight of her knowing smirk and hint of a dimple. When he looked at her, in that moment, he noted the green of her eyes, darker than Maggie’s, glinting against the sunlight. He felt his own lips mirror her smirk at her referral of their first meeting the night before. Was a while long enough? Long enough for what?

Calum looked back at Maggie, oblivious to whatever had just transpired between him and her granddaughter, and he offered her a charming smile before saying, “Ah, probably a little over a month.

Maggie nodded after taking a sip of her tea. Then her eyebrows raised as she glanced at River, a smile curling at her lips. “Oh, honey, now there’s some kids your age around. You should get to know them—show them around while they’re here!”

Calum watched the way River shot her grandmother a look; not an annoyed one, just mildly exasperated, like she wasn’t a fan of Maggie offering her up like that but also that it was something she was used to. She looked calm where she sat, an amused smile on her lips as she told Maggie, “Grams, I’m sure Calum and his friends already have their own pla—”

“No, no, she’s right.” The words fell past Calum’s mouth before he even realized, unaware that he’d spoken until two sets of green eyes were staring at him, excited and the other surprised. He looked at River, who seemed to be fighting a smile from growing on her lips, and Calum cleared his throat before backtracking in hopes of not sounding too desperate. “We, uh, we could always look for new things to do; we’ll be here for a while so, like, if you’ve got any ideas, I’m all ears.”

River smiled with a slow nod, tucking stray longs of her blonde hair behind her ear. The movement drew Calum’s attention to the black ink against her skin, trying to make out the tattoo she had before it disappeared from his view too quickly. Her grandmother chuckled. “Look at that—you’re making friends!”

River’s blue eyes met Calum’s brown at the mention of friends. It was hilariously an understatement of what either of them wanted to be. To Maggie, River scoffed, “I have friends, Grams.”

Maggie waved her off. “Other than your coworkers.”

As much as Calum wanted to stay and chat with the two of them, which was actually a lot, he needed to head back to the house to take a shower. So after kind goodbyes to Maggie and rub at the top of a compliant Freddie’s head, Calum got up and began making his way down the steps, River right behind him. He’d gotten to the sandy ground when River spoke up. “Calum.” He looked back up at her as she stood on the middle step of the staircase, squinting towards the ocean before looking down at him once more. “There’s actually this, uh, gig tonight. A local band playing at this underground bar downtown. You and your friends interested in that sort of thing?”

He fought the urge to instantly say yes. “Are they good?”

River chuckled gently. “If you’re down to hear a wanna-be version of Joy Division, yeah,” she mused with a shrug before laughing at Calum’s amused smirk. “Yeah, they’re good.”

Nodding and trying to ignore the thrill of the fact he’d get to see her later on, Calum asked, “What time?”

River grinned, turning her body to head back up, though gaze still locked on Calum’s as she told him, in a delightedly cute voice, “I’ll knock on your door at six-thirty.”

He adored her grin and dimples when he told her, “I look forward to it.”

Later on that evening, after the groceries Sloane and Luke had brought back long since packed away and everyone using their first day in Florida as an excuse to laze around, the energy in the house turned busy and buzzing as they got ready for the gig River had invited them all to after having dinner. There had been an excited buzz with his friends at having something to do for the night, as if they couldn’t have just gone into town on their own, but Calum supposed it was more fun with a local guiding them. He knew he definitely was looking forward to enjoying his night with River.

A knock sounded on his door, and Calum looked up from where he’d been crouched over, sitting at the end of the bed, tying the laces to his Docs. “What’s up?”

“I have a question,” Michael mused, strolling into the room, dressed up in his usual black and white outfit, cap covering his blonde hair, key necklace hanging low as Calum sat up with a questioning quirk of his eyebrows. “Is River the same girl you were talking to last night? During the bonfire?”

Calum blinked up at his oldest friend. “Yeah,” he answered slowly, warily. “Why?”

Michael took a breath, looking down at him as his hands fell to his sides. “Because you’d only met her once and you were talking about her like someone would if they weren’t engaged to someone else.” Calum bit the inside corner of his lips, knowing exactly where this was going. “And now we’re going out with her?” Michael shook his head. “Sounds dangerous, man.”

“Mike,” Calum spoke up, voice only slightly strained as he stood to his feet. Pointedly, he said, “Sloane and I agreed we wouldn’t talk about that stuff while we were here. We’re just trying to enjoy ourselves before—”

“Not talking about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, Cal,” Michael cut in matter-of-factly, gaze turning concerned, like he was genuinely worried his friends were fooling themselves. “What, you’re gonna screw around with some other girl with Sloane ten feet away? Come on, man, you’re not that kind of guy.”

As much as Calum appreciated the good place Michael was coming from, he found it completely unnecessary. He didn’t think any of his friends would understand the predicament he was in—only Sloane could. The two of them were put in this situation by listening to those around them; for now, Calum wanted to only listen to himself.

“Sloane and I aren’t together, Michael,” Calum said, his tone factual and purposeful. “We’re engaged, on paper, but there’s not—there’s no relationship there. Only friendship, and even that’s getting fucked because of this shit situation. When we’re married, that’s—” He broke off briefly, looking away from Michael with a shake of his head, not for the first time wondering how he could’ve let himself get mixed up in all of this. “It’ll be different then. For now, we both agreed to just enjoy ourselves before heading back to New York.”

Michael breathed in deeply as he considered Calum’s words, exhaling heavily with a shake of his head as he muttered, “Sounds fucking complicated.”

Calum scoffed, a wry smile tilting at his lips. “I know,” he mused, shooting his friend a look. “That’s why they say ignorance is bliss.”

The doorbell rang just then, and Calum failed to ignore the lurch in his chest as he clapped Michael’s back and headed out of his bedroom. He walked past Ashton’s, who was playing some Coldplay behind the half closed door, and as Calum jogged down the stairs he gave a shout to everyone in the house, “River’s here!”

He ran his hand over his hair as he approached the door, a nervous habit where he’d be able to tangle his fingers through his curls, though now he was left with only feeling the soft edges of his hair growing from when he shaved it a few months back. Calum quickly licked his lips, the doorknob cold under his touch, no time to overthink or question himself as Michael stood next to him, and he opened the door to reveal River standing on the blue wood of their porch.

Calum so desperately wanted to stand in the doorway and admire the sight of her; she looked like the picture perfect model of someone from a beach town. Wavy dark blonde hair, sunkissed skin, with a smile that Calum didn’t mind being blinded by. The subtle smell of salt wafted into the house when he opened the door, and before Calum could get lost in the sight of River—again—he opened the door wider and said, “Hey, come on in.”

She kept smiling as she entered the house, smiled as Calum introduced her to Michael and then everyone else as they one by one came down the stairs. He watched, suddenly feeling a bit uneasy, as Sloane greeted River with a smile, friendly and genuine in all her right. Selfishly, Calum’s gaze dropped to Sloane’s hand, relieved to see the lack of ring, pressing his tongue to the back of his bottom teeth at his own absurdity.

It was complicated, like Michael said. And Calum had no idea what the hell he was doing.

Once the introductions were done, it was time to head out, and since there were seven of them, two Ubers were called. River offered to call one of them, phone already in hand, but was promptly shut down by everyone as Calum and Luke took it upon themselves to call them. The two cars arrived quickly enough, and Calum sat in the back with River and Ashton took the front—they were too tall to fit in the back comfortably—before they were on their way.

“I could’ve called one of the cars, y’know,” River said as she buckled in her seatbelt.

Calum let out a small chuckle at her insistence. “River, seriously, it’s fine.”

“Yeah; you’re the one that gave us plans for the night; least we could do was pay for the ride there,” Ashton piped up from the front, words nothing short of honest. He turned around then, shooting her a friendly grin as he added, “But you can call one for the ride back.”

Calum watched as River giggled, the sound devastatingly sweet as they drove down the roads, the street lights rhythmically shining into the car every now and then and splashing against the pretty girl sitting beside him as she said to answer, “Deal.”

The confined space of the car had Calum far more intune with his senses, and out of nowhere, all he could smell was a delicious floral, no, fruity, scent. Something like passionfruit as it tickled his nose and Calum was a second away from a deep inhale when he realized it was probably River’s shampoo or lotion or something, and that he’d be some weirdo sitting next to her in a car, sniffing her like a dog. So he bit his tongue, fingers curling into his palms as Ashton asked River about herself, allowing Calum to know some more about her. Just surface things; of her living with her grandmother since she was a kid, spending years watching college kids every year come around for spring break, spending any free time she had looking for things to do. A lot of alone time, River told them she had, which allowed her to enjoy her own company and take advantage of when the opportunity to hang out with others arrived.

Like tonight, she’d joked, and when Calum’s brown eyes met her green, he knew she was glad Maggie had pushed her the way she had.

They’d reached their destination fairly soon, both cars pulling up at the same time, and River led them inside after they all flashed their I.D’s to the men outside. Music could be heard from below them, mixed with the chatter of people conversing loudly in hopes to be heard over it, and Calum fell into step alongside River as they walked down the stoned steps, going closer and closer to the noise.

“I wanted to ask—what’s your tattoo mean?” Calum found himself inquiring. His eyes had once again caught sight of the ink on the inside of River’s wrist. And as someone who had quite a few tattoos of his own, each with their personal story, he was always intrigued by the ink others wore proudly on their bodies.

River glanced down at her wrist. Colored lights began splashing across them, purples and blues doing more to darken their surroundings than lighten them up, and River’s lips quirked up at the sight of her tattoo. Calum got a better look at it; they seemed like two stick figures, joined together by a shared arm, except the joints and heads were made up of flowers, with the occasional leaf growing from what would be the limbs. But the figures were uneven, not entirely lining up.

“It’s the constellation for my zodiac sign,” River informed him with an airy chuckle. Calum could feel the bass of the music rumble through his chest. “I’m a Gemini, which has the symbol of the twins.” With a roll of her eyes, she continued, “There’s this stigma of Geminis being, like, two faced and fake or whatever, but I don’t think that’s me.” Shooting him a smile as they reached the bottom of the steps, his friends all right behind them, River finished, “I like to think I’m more of a what you is what you get type of person. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

There was something about the way she spoke that threatened to send Calum stumbling on his own feet. Her voice, from what Calum gathered to this point, was a sweet mixture of airy and confidence. Like she spoke as lightly as a gentle breeze yet had the independence of standing solid against anything that decided to challenge her. A free spirit in even her voice and manner of speaking, and it only served to draw Calum more and more into her. Dangerously slow.

The music had grown loud as they reached the bottom, arriving to the space where up ahead, Calum could see the band performing, everyone else in between enjoying the guitar centered music. Still, no matter how impressive they sounded, Calum found his attention to still be on River, who was looking ahead with an excited grin, and told her, “That’s pretty sick.”

He hoped she knew he was talking about her tattoo and not the band, gaze meeting hers as the purple lights flashed against her green eyes. River smiled. “Thanks—hope that means I get the backstory to all of yours.”

Calum grinned while biting his lower lip, not missing the way River tracked the action, as he told her easily, “Any day.”

Her grin widened, the shadows of her dimples gentle in her cheeks against the light, and River glanced over at the rest of Calum’s friends and said over the music, “Bar’s this way!”

They followed her through the buzzing, dancing crowd, Calum’s gaze darting over the heads of everyone around him to look over to the stage. The band sounded pretty good, cohesive and coordinated and talented, and if the music was good then Calum felt as though this night would be, too. They walked towards the bar, a very thin haze of smoke in the air, which he realized was from actual smoke machines and not anything people were using given the stench of cigarettes and weed wasn’t detectable. Bodies bumped against him as he made his way through, eyes on River as she led them to the bar, which they pushed their way onto and quickly caught the attention of one of the bartenders.

As they waited for their drinks, Calum leaned back with his elbows resting on the bar, gaze taking in his surroundings. He didn’t realize there was a second floor, a balcony like section surrounding them above as people danced and watched the band from up there. The walls were made up of rigid stone, lights set up in the middle of the ceiling to shine on the stage and flash on the crowd, in sync with the beats the band was playing. People in the crowd danced and sang along, hands holding cups or bottles in the air as they lost themselves for the night.

“So what do you think?” Calum glanced to his left to see River watching him take in everything, eyebrows raising as she handed him his drink he wasn’t aware was ready.

Calum nodded, lips quirking downwards, impressed, as he looked around once more before meeting River’s gaze once more. “It’s pretty cool,” he told her truthfully, shooting her a smile. “Thanks for bringing us here.”

River met his smile with a smirk of her own, holding up her glass as she corrected, “Thank my grams.”

He laughed at that, nodding in appraisal as he clinked his glass with hers before taking a sip of his vodka tonic. He owed Maggie.

Once they all had their drinks in hand, they began making their way into the crowd, grip on their glasses tight as they got to the middle of the boisterous audience, the heat of the mass amount of people already sticking to Calum’s skin as he looked towards the band. He didn’t know the songs or the words but his head still bopped to the music as he nursed his drink.

They finished playing one song and right before going into the next, the frontman surprised Calum by announcing that the next song would be their cover of a song by one of Calum’s favorite bands. “They cover The Maine?” he asked in surprise, gaze flickering to River.

She nodded with a hum, looking over at him as the blue light flashed across her face. It darkened her eyes and made them glitter at the same time, and for a moment he forgot where he was as she smiled at him. “Yeah—you like them?”

Calum let out a breath. “Fucking love them,” he told her just as the band began playing the familiar tune of Black Butterflies and Deja Vu. He felt himself loosen up even more, unable to keep himself from singing the lyrics.

By the time the chorus hit, they were screaming the lyrics with the entire crowd, feeling the ground beneath them vibrate and hearts pound with the drums, and Calum felt himself leaning into River just as she did him, jumping along to the music yet the distance between them was practically nonexistent. His left arm eventually found its way around River’s shoulders, the two of them moving together to the music, not even thinking twice as her own free arm went around his waist to keep him close. Effortless, unthinking, just.

Calum didn’t know what to make of this, what he was doing. During too many songs did he catch himself unable to tear his gaze away not from the stage, but from River. His own movements had slowed down, body only jolting ever so slightly if someone else bumped into him, mostly when River’s own dancing in the form of excited jumps with her hand gripping his arm had him pulled towards her each time. Calum should be watching the band on stage, but he could hear them fine enough, and so his eyes seemed to gravitate towards River and stay on her to take in the glow of her skin against the colored lights, the subtle glitter of her makeup, the shadows of her dimples as she sang along through her grin.

She looked beautiful; drowning in the music, a thrilled happiness glinting against her eyes that effortlessly took Calum’s breath away. He wasn’t one to get blindsided often, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but somehow he was okay with River completely taking him by surprise. Not that he knew how she did it, but he wasn’t going to fight against it.

Calum blinked out of his reverie when River’s green eyes met his brown, and she leaned towards him to tell him over the music, “I’m gonna get another drink.”

Not wanting her to go by herself, he replied, “I’ll come with you,” before looking to his other side at Ashton, gesturing to him that he was gonna go to the bar, to which Ashton nodded in acknowledgement.

River and Calum pushed their way through the bustling crowd, lips curling a bit distastefully as warm bodies rubbed against him, expression suddenly melting when River reached her free hand behind her to grab onto Calum’s. His gaze darted to their joined hands, how hers seemed to fit a bit too well in his, before dragging his eyes back up, only to see River glancing at him over her shoulder. She flashed him a smile, cute and easy going, before turning to continue her way through the crowd until they were finally out.

Their hands were still together as they approached the bar, and Calum hoped she wouldn’t let go because he certainly wasn’t ready to, desperately fighting the urge to shift his hand so his fingers could interlace with hers. But maybe that was too intimate. He didn’t know.

River flagged down one of the bartenders with her empty glass, asking for another margarita as her and Calum leaned against the bar, facing one another in the minimal space they had as many others gathered around the bar as well. After giving her order, River’s gaze flitted just a little past Calum, towards the stage over his shoulder as her head bopped to the music, and he knew he should turn to follow her gaze but he stayed put. No amount of force or willpower allowed him to turn around, to drag his eyes away from the green of hers, or the pink of her lips, or the soft waves of her blonde hair. She seemed to be constantly smiling, from the few times Calum had seen her, a sight he was getting too used to, too quickly.

He couldn’t bring himself to care.

River’s eyes flickered to his, smile still present as she raised her eyebrows and inquired, “What?”

Calum didn’t look away, not at all ashamed at his open admirance of her, feeling a thrilling twist in his stomach when he felt her thumb absently rub at the back of his hand. Her smile prompted one on Calum’s lips too, taking a tiny step towards her, his body towering over hers, as he nonchalantly responded, “Nothin’.” River’s expression went from questioning to unconvinced, and Calum let out a low chuckle before telling her, “I owe Maggie for convincing you to go out with us.”

A laugh escaped River, looking away from the intensity of Calum’s gaze as she said, “Grams didn’t have to do much convincing.” Her eyes met his, the smile she wore faltering into a more secretive, yet equally alluring, one. “Going out with you was a no brainer.”

His heart quickened, no longer in time with the drums, gaze ever so briefly dropping to her lips as the distance between them grew smaller and smaller by the second. Over alcohol probably spilled somewhere and the sweat of bodies lingering in the air, Calum could still smell the passionfruit on River, could focus on only that as her body drew closer and closer. He was realizing, as both of their gazes only seemed to focus on the other’s lips, the extent of the effect River seemed to have on him, could feel it in the way his mouth burned with the desire of capturing hers, hand tingling where she held it in her own. It was like every force of nature was pulling him towards River, was relieved to know it was just as mutual when she finally closed the gap by pushing herself on her toes to press her lips against Calum’s.

He pushed closer to her, free hand coming up to cup her cheek as she easily parted her soft lips for him, deepening the kiss as his tongue slowly came to meet hers, his vodka mixing with her tequila. Not that either of them cared a bit. Everything around them was moving quickly and loudly, losing themselves in the fast paced energy of this underground concert they’d found themselves in. But none of it registered in Calum’s head anymore; the entirety of his focus went into the way his heart threatened to jump out of his chest and right into the palm of River’s hand until she fisted the front of his Nine Inch Nails tee to keep him close. Colors flashed behind Calum’s closed lids as he kissed her, but he knew it had nothing to do with the lights flickering around him. Nor did the bustling crowd have anything to do with the heat firing up his skin. It was all River and the power she so effortlessly seemed to have over him, giving into her as he finally did shift his hand so his fingers could lace with hers.

They had to pull away for a breather, but their faces remained close, Calum’s eyes opening just enough to look down at her pink lips, kissed and soft and needing more. With a breathless smirk, he asked, “Was it worth it?”

He prompted a gentle giggle from River, tilting her head up just to brush her lips against his as she answered, “Kiss me again and I’ll let you know.”

God, he didn’t want this night to end.

*****

When River walked over to where the group of them were sitting with a pleasant hi y’all, an uncomfortable twisting sensation bothered the pit of Sloane’s stomach as she watched Calum greet her with a hug. She pushed it aside long enough to say her own hi’s with a smile, but Sloane couldn’t help but chewing on the inside of her lower lip River sat down at the end of Calum’s beach chair, thanking Crystal as she handed her a drink.

The smile Calum wore in River’s presence was telling enough, and the uncomfortable feeling turned into a bad one, the added heat of the sun prompting Sloane to shift uneasily where she sat on her own chair. Silently, Sloane looked down at her paper plate with her half eaten slice of pizza and some chicken wings. She desperately wanted to push aside whatever was eating her up, wanting to enjoy the beach day because it was Ashton’s birthday, the music was playing and the food was as hot as the sun above them. He didn’t want to do anything big, opting to spend the day enjoying the beach and the ocean with his friends after receiving his presents ordering a whole lot of food from one of the best pizza and wings places in town. Living in the heart of the city did not allow for any beach days, so they were determined to take full advantage of the never ending blue ocean in front of them; except Sloane kept tapping her foot against the ground and she needed to talk to Calum.

While Sloane had grown used to being silenced, she also knew she deserved to be heard—something she would quickly have to adjust to when they got back home. And her worry for Calum kept her from just sitting and letting things happen, so she put down her plate on her chair and stood up, taking the few steps towards Calum’s chair and saying, “Hey, Cal.” She shot River an apologetic smile for interrupting before looking at Calum, who was staring up at her from behind his sunglasses. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

She noted the way his eyebrows drew together, wondered if he was deciding against it until he ultimately let out a quiet breath and stood up, telling River he’d be right back before following Sloane away from the group. They walked a bit of a distance until Calum stopped and asked, almost boredly, “What’s up?”

Sloane turned to face him, sighing as her sheer lilac colored cover up swayed in the breeze. Looking up at Calum, her sunglasses resting atop her head as she squinted at him, she asked, “What are you doing?” When his frown deepened, Sloane pursed her lips. “With River. Are you guys, like, together?”

She noted the clench of his jaw, his arms crossing over his bare chest as the sun unfairly made his skin glow. There was a rigidness in his shoulders and Sloane knew he was getting irritated, but she didn’t quite care in the moment. “Why does it matter?”

Her eyebrows shot up incredulously, wondering briefly if she misheard him over the distant sound of waves crashing on the shore. “Why does i—” Sloane cut herself off with a scoff, shaking her head up at Calum as her lips quirked in a disbelieving smile. “Because if this is more than just a—a summer fling, then you’re gonna end up hurting River.” She leaned back a bit, her expression softening a little as she added, “And yourself.”

Calum’s lips puckered petulantly, tongue pushing against his lower lip as he considered Sloane’s words. She hoped he understood where she was coming from, that she was only worried about not only him but this girl that, Sloane knew, had no idea of the circumstances the guy she was getting involved with was in. If whatever Calum was pursuing with River ended up being more than just a brief fling, something to hold him over while they were in Florida, then they were going to end up in a lot of pain. The arrangement Sloane and Calum were in had already put a bit of a strain on their friendship; she didn’t want him to completely resent her for being unable to be with someone he may actually want to have. This wasn’t jealousy, not by a long shot; this was genuine concern for any potential heartbreak Calum was, intentionally or not, setting himself and River up for.

Calum looked to his left, towards the glimmering ocean and blinding sun, and Sloane watched as he pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek before he lowly said, “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t discuss. . . The arrangement while we were here.”

Sloane felt a disappointed tug in her chest. Was he even willing to listen to her? To acknowledge she came from a place of genuine concern? “We did,” she confirmed calmly, throat working. “But that was before I saw how much you seem to like River. And how much I can tell she likes you. This whole thing is complicated and, trust me, I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with it, but—”

“You’re right, it is complicated,” Calum cut her off, finally looking down at her once again, and Sloane fought the urge to shrink into herself under his stare. Despite being unable to see his dark eyes, she could hear the edge in his tone, feel the tension radiating off of him. “But while you try to figure things out for yourself, let me deal with them the way I want to.” Sloane blinked to break their gaze, looking away from him as she pressed her lips together, finding some semblance of dignity to not be insulted by the way he spoke to her. And it was like Calum heard how harsh he was being because he paused before letting out a breath. His tone was calmer, losing its edge, as he added, “I appreciate your concern, Sloane. But you do you and let me handle things my own way, okay? Just. . . Take advantage of being able to make your own decisions for now.” With a wry scoff, he added, “I know I am.”

She rolled her lips into her mouth, nodding as she took in Calum’s words and looked back up at him again. He didn’t seem as tense as before, and it relaxed her muscles somewhat as he offered her a small smile before nodding his head over to the group, silently telling her they should get back. Sloane sighed quietly, the sound drowned out as they approached their friends, grabbing her plate and settling on her chair once again.

The weight of a pair of eyes on her wasn’t missed, and Sloane looked up to see Luke sitting across from her in his own chair, plate in hand with arms resting on his knees as his blue eyes met her own. He furrowed his eyebrows subtle and gave a gentle lift of his chin, silently asking if she was alright. Sloane felt the corner of her lips tug upwards at his obvious concern, a silent nod telling him she was fine. Or she would be.

“Mm, Sloane, you made this cake?” She looked away to see River looking at her, a slice of the lemon cake she’d made on her plate and a plastic fork in her hand. River had pretty green eyes, Sloane couldn’t help but admire, a gorgeous image of beached beauty. When Sloane responded with a confirming nod and smile, River’s own widened as she praised, “It’s so good. I’ve never liked lemon cake until now.”

Sloane let out a laugh at her compliment, thanking her sincerely before continuing with her pizza. She took a breath, picking up the slice and absently inspecting it. River was a sweetheart, Sloane could tell. She hoped she didn’t get hurt.

A little over an hour later, Sloane stood at the shore, feeling the cold water gather up to her shins every time the waves crashed over, tempting her to go in deeper. But she remained put, hearing the speaker Ashton brought play an unfamiliar song, her cover up fluttering in the breeze. Arms crossed over her chest and sunglasses forgotten on her chair, Sloane watched the others enjoy the water. She could hear their laughter, mixed with that of other beach goers a little ways away, and Sloane chewed on her lower lip as she watched Michael and Crystal play a game of chicken against Calum and River. All smiles, all giggles, completely carefree. Calum was in a state of contentment Sloane hadn’t seen in a while, and as relieved as she was to see him like this, she knew it was because of River, and it worried her.

“Aren’t you gonna go in?” Sloane jumped at the sound of Luke’s voice, a gasp ripping through her throat as Luke chuckled sheepishly, holding up his hands in defense. “Sorry, sweetheart, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Jeez,” Sloane laughed breathlessly, shooting Luke a look. “Warn a girl next time.” He merely grinned, dimples and all, and Sloane forced herself to tear her gaze away from him. Or else she’d get lost in admiring his wet hair and glistening body that she felt like God took a bit more time carefully sculpting. Answering his question, she said, “Uh, I don’t know, actually. I hate feeling seaweed on my feet—it freaks me out.”

It was a dumb fear, Sloane knew, as Luke hummed thoughtfully. Her cheeks warmed then when he nonchalantly suggested, “I can just carry you in. No nasty seaweed touching you then, just me.” When her gaze met his, Sloane saw the way Luke’s brain seemed to catch up to what he’d said, and watched as a pink flush donned his cheeks as he began stumbling over his words. His eyes widened as he began backtracking, “Not like—I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just meant, y’know, I’d, like, carry you in and—”

She’d struggled to keep the smile from growing on her face as Luke tripped over his words, feeling her heart jump at how endearingly adorable he was capable of being. Seeing Luke so flustered wasn’t something Sloane was entirely used to, and the fact that it was kind of because of her had her skin growing hot. Her cheeks hurt from her grin, deciding to ease Luke’s fluster as she put a hand on his bicep and gently laughed, “I know what you meant, Luke.”

He pressed his lips together instantly, looking both grateful and embarrassed, cheeks still tinged an adorable pink. Luke raised a hand pushing his fingers through his wet hair as it slicked back, looking down at his feet for a moment. He then looked at Sloane once more and said, “I just, uh, don’t want you hanging out here by yourself. You. . . You looked upset before.”

The softness in his tone had Sloane smiling a soft, small grin, his consideration not lost on her. She squinted against the sun, looking up at him as her own loose strands of hair tickled her jaw and neck. “I wasn’t upset. Just. . . Worried.”

Luke’s eyebrows drew together a bit. “Worried about what?”

Sloane rolled her lips into her mouth, taking a breath as her gaze wandered back towards the ocean. River had successfully pushed Crystal off Michael’s shoulders, laughing victoriously with Calum, whose hands were rubbing at her thighs before she bent down, her hands cupping his cheeks to lean his head back so she could quickly kiss him. Not a new sight for any of them, given that Calum and River hadn’t been particularly secretive about the action since the night of the concert.

And it was weird for all of them, but not fully so. Because no one had told River about Calum and Sloane, leaving it up to him to do so, and no one could really say anything against Calum being with River because he wasn’t with Sloane. So they let him do what he wanted, assuming he had things under control, and Sloane could only hope he did. They weren’t together, but they were still friends, and she didn’t want to see him hurt, or River. It wasn’t weird seeing him with River, nor was Sloane at all jealous. Being jealous would mean she felt something for Calum in more than a platonic fashion, and that had never been the case. Frankly, she didn’t think that would ever be the case. She was just concerned.

She figured Luke followed her gaze because he slowly asked, “Are you worried or jealous?”

His question had a startled laugh choking out of Sloane, eyes widening as she exclaimed a genuinely bewildered, “What?” When she gave a shake of her head and looked at Luke, she saw how serious he was in his inquiry, and it only prompted more incredulous laughter to bubble past Sloane. Poor Luke was watching her, probably truly confused as to what she thought was so funny, unaware that his serious question was humorous in its own right. “Oh, God, no,” Sloane answered in between dying laughter, looking at a still confused Luke. “I’m not—if I was jealous, that would mean I had, like, feelings for Calum, which I don’t.” Sloane calmed down, exhaling softly as Luke’s shoulders sank a bit. “I’m just worried if he knows what he’s getting himself into. But jealous?” She scoffed, shooting Luke a reassuring look. “Far from it.”

Luke rolled his lips into his mouth, looking out at the water as his eyebrows drew together under the sun. “But. . . He’s your fiancé.”

Sloane pursed her lips at the reminder, one that she didn’t need, before exhaling forcefully. “Not while we’re in Florida.” She looked at Luke once more, who’d raised his eyebrows in consideration of her words. He glanced up as a pelican flew overhead, meeting Sloane’s gaze once again when she added, “I’m a free woman until we get back.”

His body turned to face hers, easily towering over her, and Sloane couldn’t ignore the way she liked it. Luke’s broad frame and impossible height made Sloane feel so small; except Luke himself never did. The way he looked at her, listened to her, talked to her. . . Everything about the way he existed around her made Sloane feel visible. And not just now, but for years; Luke always had a way of making Sloane feel as if she was someone worth listening to, worth getting to know, and there had been times where she’d tell herself that’s just the way Luke was. Kind, sweet, personable. Now, thought. . . Sloane couldn’t help but think, with her, it may just be something more than she’d previously caught on to.

“Alright then,” Luke smiled, his dimples coming out. “Will you get in the water with me?”

Sloane giggled softly before nodding, taking a few steps away from the shore to take off her cover up. She had on her bathing suit, but took off her denim cut offs and dropped them with the cover up on the ground, running her hands through her long dark hair as she watched Luke watch her. Heat jolted through her veins at the sight of his gaze, feeling him earnestly appreciate her, a sensation Sloane didn’t think she’d enjoy until she was.

Luke licked his lips, blinking himself back into reality as he turned around. “Okay, come on.” She watched as he crouched down with his back towards her, wiggling his fingers at her. “One seaweed free ocean entrance.”

She rolled her eyes at his humor, totally endearing, as she approached him with a quickening heart rate. Swiftly, Sloane got onto his back, biting her lower lip as his hands grasped the back of her knees, her front pressed against his bare back, arms wrapping around his neck and trying so hard not to focus on the sensation of his skin against hers as he began making his way to the water. She struggled to keep the smile off her face as he began going deeper, the water at his hips, her chin resting on her arm on his shoulder and head right next to his as she felt the cold water on her skin, the salt in the air even more prominent.

Luke’s long legs allowed for him to go further into the water on his feet than Sloane would’ve been able to, their friends playing around nearby, and she heard herself giggle as the gentle waves splashed against them. “Hm, okay, I don’t think your feet are gonna touch the ground here, shorty,” Luke said before both of them reluctantly let go of each other.

As Sloane floated—her feet did not, in fact, touch the ground here—she splashed Luke. He made a protesting sound through a laugh, turning away from her halfway in between of turning to face her, and Sloane argued, “I’m 5’5”—that’s average. You’re the one that’s ninety-five percent legs!”

Luke scoffed, splashing her right back as he asked, “What’s the other five percent?”

Sloane paused, bobbing in the water before smirking. “Hair.”

Her shriek was silence when Luke grabbed her before dunking her under, laughing before he was pulled under too as Sloane pushed and swam away from him. They resurfaced, gasping laughter and the taste of salt on their lips, and the blue of Luke’s eyes was far superior than that of the ocean, Sloane had decided. His smile could rival the sun, too.

Soon enough, Ashton called them over for a game of water volleyball with the beach ball he’d snagged from the gift shop, and Michael called himself out to be the referee so there was an even number of players. Crystal, Calum and River versus Ashton, Sloane and Luke. As the game proceeded, Sloane found herself worrying less and less about Calum and River and focusing more on how Luke would swim over to her every time they scored a point, one arm wrapping around her collarbone to pull her back into his chest while his free hand high fived Ashton. She’d focus on the vibration of his chest when he yelled out a cheer or laughed triumphantly, the sound so easily widening Sloane’s grin without her even noticing. His skin easily warmed her within the coolness of the water, feeling herself childishly pout every time he pulled away from her to continue the game.

It was hours later—hours of spending it under the sun, in the water, having a sand castle competition which Michael surprisingly won, and eating more food—that they decided to call it a day, which Sloane was fine with. The sun was beginning to set and spending a good amount of time in the water had Sloane yearning for her bed after she washed the salt and sand off in the shower.

She figured she wouldn’t be hungry after eating so much during lunch, collapsing on the mattress with damp hair and in her pajamas. Except her stomach started growling right when she got comfortable, and Sloane buried her face in the pillow, hoping if she ignored it for long enough, her hunger would go away. But that wasn’t the case, and so she was reluctantly hauling herself off the bed and making her way down the dark hallway and stairs. She was surprised, however, when she noted the kitchen light was on and someone else seemed to have the same idea as her.

“You’re having a late night snack and didn’t invite me?” Sloane grinned when Luke glanced up from his bowl of Cheerios to watch her enter the kitchen, straightening where he’d been leaning against the counter. The overhead kitchen light was the only one on, while the hallway leading to the back deck, the foyer, and living room were all darkened. Sloane clicked her tongue. “I’m hurt.”

Luke chuckled, putting the spoon in the bowl as he said, “Every man for himself and his own hunger.” Raising an eyebrow, he added, “You looked ready to collapse before.”

Sloane scoffed, reveling in the cool tiles against her bare feet as she walked to where the bowls were, pulling one out for herself. She gathered what she needed, included the box of Coco Puffs, and said, “I was, but I guess my stomach had other plans.”

He scooped some more cereal up. “Same here,” he said before shoving the spoonful in his mouth.

As she poured milk over her cereal, Sloane smirked and shot him a glance. “Yeah, but you’re deadass always hungry.”

Luke didn’t look affronted as she put the milk back in the fridge, shoulders hunched as he brought the bowl up so the milk didn’t drip from his spoon as he continued to eat. “I’m a growing boy.”

She stood diagonal of him at the counter, her smirk widening in the quiet of the night as she said, “You’re almost twenty-three. You’re a man, not a boy.”

Sticking his tongue out, quite effortlessly contradicting Sloane’s statement, much to her amusement, Luke began backing away, carrying his bowl close to his chest with both hands. “Well, this man is gonna watch Scooby-Doo while he eats, in case you’d like to join.”

Her smile widened at his jokingly haughty tone, picking up her bowl and following him into the living room where he settled on the couch and turned on the TV. Sloane took a seat right next to him, crossing her legs and eating her cereal as Luke went on Netflix and found the cartoon. They sat in the dark together, the only light emitting from the bluish glow of the television, the volume appropriately low as to not disturb their friends asleep upstairs.

The two of them were quiet, the sound of the show only disturbed by the crunch of the cereal they ate and the occasional clink of their spoons against the bowls. Sloane could feel herself growing tired, especially after she finished her cereal and put her empty bowl on the coffee table in front of them. She leaned back on the couch, sinking a bit as her gaze remained fixated on the TV. There was nothing stopping her, really, from returning to her room and falling asleep now that she’d quelled her hunger. But the thought of leaving Luke was enough to make her stay, to sit in his company rather than go to sleep. He was a warm and comforting presence, his low chuckles at the cartoon bringing a sleepy smile to Sloane’s lips, whatever woodsy and fresh body wash he’d used tickling her nose as she smelled it every time she took a breath.

The last thing she remembered was watching Scooby and the gang running from a specter before her heavy lids fell and her head lolled to the side until it fell against, what she assumed sleepily, was Luke’s arm.

She woke, unsure of how long later, eyes sleepily blinking open when she felt her cheek come in contact with something soft. Slowly, she came to, eyebrows furrowing tiredly when she realized she was being carried in someone’s arms. A familiar scent embraced her and Sloane couldn’t even control the sleepy smile upturning her lips as she mumbled, “Luke?”

“Hi, sweetheart,” his low voice whispered, and judging by his movements, Sloane determined that he was going up the stairs, until they reached the top. “You fell asleep downstairs.”

Sloane hummed in acknowledgment as Luke took them to her room. She was vaguely aware of her fingers fiddling with the soft material of Luke’s shirt as she was held close to him. “Did they find the bad guy?”

She felt the rumble of Luke’s chest as he chuckled quietly, using his foot to push open her bedroom door as he appeased, “You know they did.”

They entered her room and Sloane kept her eyes closed, reveling in Luke’s movements and the grip he had on her, humming when she felt him lower her until she lay on the mattress. Sleepily, her eyebrows furrowed, not entirely liking the feel of her mattress when she’d gotten to feel Luke’s arms. Sloane huffed, rolling onto her side as she blinked her eyes open to look up at Luke, who was about to bring up her blanket to cover her. She slid her hand towards the edge of the bed where he stood, blue eyes meeting blue as she asked, “Will you stay, Lu?”

She took in the way he looked down at her, both surprised by her request and, from what she guessed, endeared. Through the dark of her room, the only light seeping through the curtains was the glow of the moon, Luke’s blue eyes appeared like a beacon, one Sloane felt herself drawing towards and not wanting to be rid of. Even in her sleepy haze, the forwardness of her request wasn’t lost on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She needed the closeness—his closeness—and Sloane had a feeling Luke wasn’t going to argue against her.

He didn’t. Instead, Luke’s lips quirked upwards and he nodded, whispering, “Lemme close the door.”

Sloane nodded as Luke disappeared towards the door, and she shifted backwards to the other side so there was room for Luke, licking her lips as she paid attention to the drum of her heart. They were only sharing a bed, she sleepily reminded herself. That’s all.

The soft click of the door shutting was followed by Luke reappearing by the bed, his smile gentle as he climbed under the comforter, the mattress sinking under his weight as Sloane watched him lay down next to her. He rested on his side, facing her, blonde curls brushing across his forehead, and a contentment settled in Sloane’s bones at the sudden warmth his presence brought. The smile reappeared on her lips, small and tired and gentle, and without much thought, Sloane shuffled closer to Luke.

He turned to his back, allowing for her to settle into his side and rest her cheek against his chest while his right arm loosely hooked around her shoulders to keep her close. Sloane closed her eyes at the feel of being in his arms once again, slowly sliding her right leg between both of his as her hand rested on his chest as well. Faintly, under her touch, Sloane could feel the gentle, steady drum of Luke’s heart, utterly at peace in where he lay. It brought a kind of comfort Sloane hadn’t expected, to feel Luke in his entirety laying next to her, so real and present. It brought a smile to her face and allowed for sleep to return easily.

The brush of his lips against her forehead heated her skin pleasantly, the subtle scratch of his facial hair eliciting a desire to lean herself closer to him. “Goodnight, Sloane,” he quietly murmured. And it was.

*****

Around eleven at night was when Calum and all of his friends returned to the house after a late dinner. He could hear most of them unwinding in the living room downstairs, the open doors and spacious halls allowing for sound to travel easily—not to mention they were probably the loudest group ever. Not that Calum minded.

He took off his leather jacket, tossing it on the bed as he gazed out the window. The ocean at night was mesmerizing, the glitter of the moonlight against the water superior than the sun, in Calum’s opinion. He wasn’t quite sure how long he stood staring, but when he was about to turn away, his gaze wandered to the house next door; specifically, the back deck of River’s house. With a furrow in his eyebrows, Calum stepped closer to the window, gaze downwards, the deck light allowing him to see that River was sitting on top of the railing of the deck, facing the ocean.

Her face wasn’t visible to him, obviously, and for a moment Calum bit his lower lip, debating his next move. He wondered if she wanted to be alone, if he would be intruding on alone time she may want to have. But he found himself moving before giving himself a chance to truly think about it, walking out of the room and down the stairs. The sounds of his friends and the TV playing were loud and present, but no one noticed him reach the bottom of the steps and turn around to walk down the hall, their voices growing faint as he stepped outside into the surprisingly cool night and shut the glass door behind him.

He squinted ever so slightly against the breeze, instantly tasting the salt as he took the few steps towards the steps, the weight of his Docs providing for some heavy thuds against the wood despite him attempting to be light on his feet. His eyes trailed over to the house next door, catching sight of the girl peacefully sitting on the railing, as he approached the railing. He gripped it, trying to make out River’s expression; all he could see from where he stood was a calmness on her features that he found himself not wanting to disturb even though he wanted to talk to her, just be in her presence, really. It was relaxing. But he’d lived life without presence. He could do it again.

So, rolling his lips into his mouth, Calum silently pushed himself off the railing and turned to head back inside, stopping in his tracks when River’s lilting voice called, “You’re not even gonna say hi?”

Calum stopped, turning his head to see River looking at him. He took a breath, the cold air tickling his throat as he buried his hands in the pockets of pants and faced her house. Lifting his chin, he found his voice as he responded, “Didn’t wanna disturb you.”

“You’re not,” River replied, stretching her hand out towards him, fingers wiggling as she called out, “Come sit.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice, turning towards the steps and making his way down and crossing over to the steps of her back deck. He happened to glance up as he made his way over, River’s legs dangling above him as she stared straight ahead, and he soon enough reached the top, hand sliding along the top of the railing as he walked over to the spot where she sat. Calum came to a stop to River’s right, leaning on the bannister with his arms folded on top of it, but instead of following her gaze to the view up ahead, he took in the one right next to him.

“You alright?” He wasn’t quite sure what prompted him to ask that, but it was just something in her face. A mute sadness he felt she was trying to hide behind a mask of contentment.

River’s throat worked, not meeting his gaze yet. “No,” she answered truthfully, head bowing as her gaze dropped to her lap. She glanced at Calum, who was watching her patiently, and River smiled wryly before letting out a sigh. “I called my mom today just to, you know, talk to her. Hadn’t heard from her in a while. But she was, uh,” she paused with a frown, like she was fighting the emotions threatening to spill, licking her lips. “She was too busy with her new boyfriend. We barely talked for a minute before she hung up.”

Calum frowned, feeling a sense of annoyance towards River’s mom and her lack of communication with a daughter who obviously wanted it. “Where is she?”

River scoffed, lifting her head. Her blonde hair danced in the wind. “Hell if I know. Her boyfriend’s a roadie; like, lives out of an RV. So she’s always driving around the country with him.” River’s shoulders sank with another heavy sigh, wringing her fingers in her lap. “And my dad—he hasn’t spoken to me since the divorce. So it’s been me and Grams.” Her back straightened, shooting Calum a reassuring look as she proceeded, “Which I’m fine with, by the way. I love Grams. I just didn’t think my parents would, y’know, forget about me while trying to forget about each other.”

His heart sank to the pit of his stomach at River’s words, hating to see her so upset over something he didn’t know how to make better. He didn’t know her parents, didn’t know what happened between them, but taking out their issues in the form of neglecting their daughter was horrible and instantly tightened Calum’s jaw.

He straightened, stepping closer to River so he was halfway behind her, looking up at her as her gaze slowly met his. “It’s their loss,” Calum told her firmly, confidently. He hoped she saw the sincerity in his eyes, heard it in his voice when he said, “They’re missin’ out on getting to know one hell of a woman.”

River rolled her lips into her mouth, taking in a breath at Calum’s words, gaze briefly dropping to his lips as she asked in a whisper, “You think so?”

Calum reached up, finger gently pushing back a lock of blonde hair from her cheek, his mouth curling into an honest, charming smile as he replied, “Know so.”

She let out a breath with a smile, gaze softening, leaning down and capturing Calum’s lips with hers. He felt the tip of her nail at the bottom of his chin, tilting his head towards her as his arms wrapped around her waist, an absent fear of her falling on the ride side of the railing—or falling in general. River tasted like coconut chapstick as he reveled in the softness of her lips, using his grip on her hips to carefully turn her around the bannister without breaking the kiss, stepping into the space between her legs as her tongue caressed his.

He groaned against her, the sound a low rumble against the distant roar of waves, as his hands slid up from her hips and under the loose material of her top, his skin against hers as he fingers danced up her sides, drawing a quiet moan from River. He wanted to hear more of it, more of her.

“Upstairs.” Apparently River had the same idea as he did, the single word rushing out breathlessly against his lips. “My room’s upstairs.”

Calum grasped one of her hands in his, reluctantly pulling away from her to allow her to step down with the help of his hold, and Calum felt his breath catch in his throat at the sight of River and the ocean breeze pushing her blonde hair forward. Her lips were kissed, his greedy doing, and Calum bit his lower lip as River smiled prettily before pulling him towards the house. He paused only to shut the glass door behind them before River led him towards the dark house and up the stairs, shushing and giggling at him when a step creaked under his foot, which only caused Calum to cover his mouth to stifle the laugh threatening to escape.

They reached her bedroom, and Calum let out a breath at the yellow fairy lights strung up on the wall behind the bed, providing the room with a pretty glow. It was one of his favorite things about her room, along with the sill of the window looking out to the beach that had small plants lined up on it.

River grabbed Calum’s other hand to pull him in, meeting his grinning lips with her own as she kissed him fervently, and he walked her backwards towards the bed until her knees hit the back of it, forcing her to sit down on the edge. Calum took the opportunity to sink down to his knees, dark eyes never leaving River’s green as he undid the button and zipper of her shorts, sliding them, along with her panties, down her smooth legs until she kicked them off willingly.

The smirk she threw his way had Calum’s breath catching in his throat, especially when she lifted her right leg and rested it on his shoulder, the heel of her foot gently nudging into his back as she teased, “I’ve been dying to know if you’re more than just a great kisser.”

That was quite the invitation.

Calum kissed the inside of her thighs, trailing up to her core, just barely getting there, before switching to the other one. He ran his fingers along the side of her leg resting on his shoulder, other hand on her left knee to keep her open as he trailed hot kisses to where she needed him most. “You think ’bout my mouth a lot, doll?” he goaded, his voice dropping to a rasp.

“More than I should,” River answered above him, earning a smirk from Calum as he heard the way her breathing was shallow. “I’m too curious.”

His breath fanned over her entrance. “Lemme fix that,” was all the warning Calum gave before licking a stripe over her folds. He felt River’s body react with a small gasp, urging him on to appease whatever curiosity River may have had.

He licked at her folds, right arm laying across her hips just so his thumb could tease her clit, reveling in the dig of her heel on his upper back and her hand at the back of his head, desperately wanting to keep him close. Not that Calum would rather be anywhere else.

River allowed herself to fall backwards on the mattress as Calum’s tongue continued to work her over, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth to keep any noises from escaping because her grandmother was asleep. Calum smirked against her, tongue and even a little bit of teeth teasing her as his thumb played with her clit, reveling in the taste of her and feeling his dick twitch when she ground her hips, begging for more. He loved her silent begging, the tilt of her head as he drew her towards the edge, feeling like a bastard when he could feel how close she was and decided to pull away at the last second.

He heard her groan against her hand before looking up at him as he climbed over her, a wicked smirk on his face as he took in her pout and said, “I think that’s enough proof for your curiosity, hm?”

She pushed herself up on her knees, scooting back on top of the bed and allowing him to admire the glow of her body under the lights. He needed that tank top of hers off. As well as the boxers that were constricting him a bit too much. River narrowed her eyes at him, her breathing slightly labored, cheeks flushed adorably as she quipped, “If I say yes, will you take off your damn pants?”

Her wish was his command.

*****

“This is amazing,” Sloane murmured, her voice carrying every bit of awe, as she picked up a pair of homemade earrings and observed them. They were beaded, blue and silver, and she held them up to her ears as she looked at Luke and asked, “What do you think?”

He’d been consumed by the fried chicken he’d bought from a snack booth, but as soon as Sloane asked him a question his eyes were on her. Her heart thudded, as it normally came to do in the case of Luke, at his complete attention, blue eyes taking in the earrings before he nodded with a grin. “You should get them.” Sloane smiled as he offered the paper plate towards her. “And you gotta try this chicken. It’s so fucking good.”

She chuckled as Luke picked up the piece of chicken he’d been eating, holding it out to her and Sloane stepped towards him and fought the grin as she bit into the chicken he was feeding her. It wasn’t hot enough to burn her teeth, soft enough to easily rip off the chicken and its skin as Luke pulled it away for her to chew. She hummed in approval at the taste as she pulled out her wallet, trying not to laugh as she swallowed when Luke widened his eyes and nodded as if to say I know, right?

Sloane thanked the woman after paying for and receiving the jewelry in a small paper bag before her and Luke continued on. They were at some grand flea and farmer’s market in town, their friends somewhere around there as well, and it was one of the coolest places Sloane had been to. She didn’t often get to go to flea markets or the like back home, her parents much preferring she buy her items at more appropriate places, but they weren’t here to control her life, much to her relief. She was free to take in the smells of fresh fruit and cooked meats, free to admire the trinkets and jewelry people put their hard work into making, to see the plants, bongs, paintings, toys, and everything else people were selling in continuous stalls and booths.

“Wait, this is amazing,” Luke laughed, drawing Sloane’s attention to where he stood in front of a stall. Her gaze went to what he was holding, an amused laugh eliciting from her as she took in the small gnome statue he held in his hands; the gnome held a sign that read Go Away in one hand while the other had its middle finger stuck up. “I’d totally get this and put it on my yard.” He shrugged. “If I had a yard, I mean.”

Rubbing at his arm, Sloane mused, “You’re too nice to have such a mean gnome.”

Luke frowned, lips puckering into a pout as his blue eyes met Sloane’s. Defiantly, he argued, “I can be a mean guy.” Sloane wasn’t convinced.

They walked around the market for hours, a constant buzz in the indoor mart as eventually they met up with their friends. Eventually, they decided to go home, with Sloane purchasing a jar of strawberry jam as well as a cliche Daytona Beach, Fl. shirt just for kicks. She somehow managed to convince Luke to buy a cowboy hat for shits and giggles—“It’s your brand!”—and grinned childishly when he complied. She had a feeling it didn’t take much convincing on her part, but the reasoning for that was too conceited to say out loud.

The day felt long despite it being a vacation, and so Sloane helped herself to the wine when it came to be dinner time at the house. After eating, she found herself wandering down the hallway towards the back of the house her second—nope, third—glass of wine in hand as she approached the glass doors leading towards the deck. It was slightly ajar and she saw the familiar head of blonde curls as Luke sat on one of the what were actually lawn chairs. Quietly, she opened the door and slid it shut behind her, stepping out onto the deck and walking over to where he sat. The smell of salt was an interesting scent mixing with the bittersweet wine, and Sloane walked around the chair until she stood at Luke’s side.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked just as he looked up at her.

Luke smiled, legs splayed out in front of him and hand holding a bottle of Heineken. His curls danced ever so lightly in the breeze. “Not at all,” he returned, sitting up and moving his feet so he was kind of straddling the chair, gesturing to the space now created on the rest of the chair as he added, “Join me.”

There was another chair Sloane could’ve easily occupied, but she took Luke’s offer and sat down on his, sideways, as she glanced towards the ocean. She watched the waves crash in the distance through the wood pillared bannister lining the deck, peaceful in its own summery way as she let out a long sigh. “I really like it here,” Sloane hummed, the gentle breeze feeling kind of chilly against her wine flushed skin. She wasn’t drunk by any means; just a little loose in the way she held herself, a pleasant buzz in her veins. “Everything seems so. . . Uncomplicated.”

Which was a funny observation, considering how messy things still felt to Sloane, how she felt a constant little ball of anxiety dig deeper and deeper into the pit of her stomach and all she could do was try to ignore it. But sometimes she’d look towards the ocean and feel tranquility wash over her like waves. She’d watch her friends and the smile easily came. She’d feel Luke’s eyes on her and heart fluttered like it never had before.

She felt Luke shift, looking back at him to see him sit up a bit more, leaning forward as he held the bottle between his thighs. His broad shoulders were hunched, like he was trying to make himself look small, blue eyes on hers as he told her softly, “I’m sorry you’ve got all that. . . Stuff to deal with.”

“Bullshit,” Sloane surprised, prompting Luke to quirk an eyebrow as she smiled wryly. “It’s bullshit.” She took a sip of the wine as Luke watched, her gaze dropping to her glass, watching the drink ripple inside before letting out a breath. Without much thought, she added gently, “You make it less shitty.”

Luke tilted his head, throat working, looking for and probably finding the sincerity in Sloane’s gaze. She hoped he knew she meant it, despite the alcohol in her system. Even before they arrived to Florida, her and Luke had reconnected back home, and he had been there when she and Calum were both losing their minds over their arrangement. Sure, both of them had agreed to it for the benefit of the businesses, but that didn’t mean that, personally, it settled well with them. Luke attempted to calm her down by bringing over her favorite treats from her favorite bakery, and it had done the trick for a little while—as well as remind Sloane of what a thoughtful, loving guy he was.

Now, her heart ached for him, and she wanted it to stop. Bad idea.

“Yeah?” Luke hummed, the corner of his lips quirking ever so slightly but the smile could still be heard in his voice. Her own lips curled up as the glow of the moonlight lightened his eyes, wondering if she should fight the urge to be pulled in like the moon pulled the tides. Sloane was reminded of the other night, where she’d asked him to stay because even in the dark he’d been glowing, and she didn’t want to put out the light he’d brought. She was reminded of how she’d woken up the next morning with him still next to her, legs still tangled, and how she’d never felt so comfortable and content before. So right. Luke shrugged, then. “It’s the least I could do. Especially for you.”

At that, Sloane smiled curiously, raising an eyebrow with a tilt of her head as she repeated, “Especially for me?” She shifted just a bit to face him more, the ocean now at her back. “Do elaborate.”

“Uh—” Luke cut off with a sheepish laugh, head dropping and hiding the sight of his smile and dimples. She could make out the embarrassed flush in his cheeks, feeling her questioning smile widen and heart flutter as she waited for his confession, and when Luke noticed her anticipating expression, he let out another nervous laugh as he leaned back against the chair. “Come on, Sloane, you’re gonna make me say it?”

Her eyebrows shot up as she laughed as well, defending, “I don’t even know what you’re gonna say!”

Luke shook his head, smiling yet biting his lower lip as his free hand ran through his curls, pushing them back. “What, you thought I was kidding when I said you’re the prettiest girl I know?” he said, his words effectively stopping Sloane’s heart. “I’ve thought that since the day I met you, Sloane. And, just, liked you a little more and more every day since.”

Her breath caught in her throat, a tightness in her chest at his confession as she stared at him in disbelief. He was serious, a hundred percent, as he twisted his lips to the side. Now he was the one anticipating a reaction from her, and Sloane had no idea what to do. The confirmation that Luke liked her—that he still had feelings for her—was like someone dropped an explosive in her heart, butterflies erupting from it. She could feel herself blinking, like she was trying to bring herself back to reality—except that this was reality and Sloane had no idea how to face it.

The happiness was there; she could feel it vibrate in her bones. A longing for the man in front of her tightened Sloane’s throat, and if she wasn’t so desperate for something to ground her she’d have lost her grip on her glass long ago.

This wasn’t how a future business woman, future CEO, was supposed to act. She couldn’t lose control over herself every time someone surprised her like this. Except, God, this wasn’t some kind of deal or contract or investment. This was her friend—her good, close, amazing friend—telling her something that she hadn’t been aware she’d wanted to hear. And now that she was, she had no idea what to do. Where to go from here. She was at a complete loss, and she could feel what little control she thought she had on her life beginning to slip away.

The roar of the waves seemed intimidating now. A low growl in the night. Unable to say anything else, Sloane stupidly stammered, “You—you like me?”

She saw the concern seep into his blue eyes, hated that she was the cause of it. “If I’m being honest: like is an understatement but you already seem freaked out enough as it is. . .” Luke trailed off with a nervous laugh, only this time, she could hear the bit of anxiety carried within it.

Oh. Oh, crap.

“I don’t—” Sloane cut herself off, breathless in disbelief, giving a tiny shake of her head as her near distressed gaze met Luke’s concerned one. “Where do we go from here?” she whispered, as if she was afraid to voice it at all.

She felt a chill run down her spine as something softened in Luke’s eyes, a few curls fluttering across his forehead as he returned in an equally quiet voice, “That’s up to you, sweetheart.”

They’d already been sitting so closely together, it had been easy for Sloane to begin leaning in, slowly and carefully, her heart in her throat as Luke, realizing what she was doing, gradually started to move towards her, too. Sloane heard nothing but the drum of her heart, drowning out the ocean in the distance, her gaze dropping to Luke’s lips as the distance between them grew smaller and smaller.

The heat of his body was warm, inviting, drawing her in as it usually did and Sloane wanted to close the gap between them. Except her stomach was in knots; not the good, excited kind. But a scared, unsure twist that had her wondering if she wanted to do this. If she was willing to risk things by crossing this line when she knew nothing could come of it. That as much as she wanted to melt into Luke, they both would only experience pain.

Their noses slanted together, foreheads against one anothers and Sloane’s eyes fluttered shut. They were so close, mere inches away, feeling the warmth of his breath fan over her mouth and the softness of his curls tickle her skin. She wanted to kiss him. So badly. And it was when their lips brushed together that Sloane felt a bout of electricity shock through her veins did she realize what was about to happen, and her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach as she squeezed her eyes tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hearing the crack in it derived from the ache in her chest as she stopped pushing herself to kiss him. They froze, still so close, and Sloane let out a shuddering breath she felt wrack through her whole body. She hated that she felt the tears sting her closed eyes under furrowed eyebrows, her conflicting emotions getting the best of her, unable to look at Luke. Oh, God, she was gonna hurt him. The knowledge of that suddenly made her nauseous. “I—We can’t do this.”

Her eyes remained closed as Luke’s quiet, desperate voice pleaded, “Sloane—”

“We can’t.”

She couldn’t look at him. Sloane kept her eyes clenched shut as she suddenly pulled away from Luke and stood up, only opening them when she’d taken the few steps behind Luke’s chair, opening her eyes when she knew he was behind him. Her breathing was heavy, heart thundering in her tight chest as she hastily slid open the door and heard Luke call out to her, every bit as bewildered and heartbroken as she feared he would be.

But she didn’t stop. Sloane kept going, her steps quick as she went down the hall and swung a right to go up the stairs, ignoring the chatter of her oblivious friends as she ran up and went into her room. She locked the door, unsure if Luke had followed her, praying that he hadn’t. She couldn’t face him—hell, she hadn’t even been able to look at him.

Her trembling hand rested her still half full wine glass on the dresser, and Sloane let out a slow, shaky breath as she felt the first tear escape her eye. She fell to the edge of the bed, elbows on her thighs and bowing her head to press the heels of her palms against her eyes, uncaring of the makeup she was likely smudging. Breaths escaped her brokenly, raggedly. She hurt Luke. Oh, she knew she did. And her chest ached more at that fact than anything else.

So much for uncomplicated.

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Read Part 2 Here!

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tags: @irwinkitten @sweetcherrymike @meetashthere @valentinelrh @softforcal @astroashtonio @hereforlukescruff @novacanecalum @captain-what-is-going-on @angelbbycal @singt0mecalum @hopelessxcynic @lfwallscouldtalk @bodhi-black @findingliam-o @softlrh @calntynes @calumsmermaid @erikamarie41 @quintodosuniversos @longlastingdaydream @babylon-corgis @lukehemmingsunflower @spideyseavey @imfuckin10plybud @pastelpapermoons @conquerwhatliesahead92 @rotten-kandy @cxddlyash @metangi @neigcthood @ohhmuke @old-zeppelin-shirt @5sos-and-hessa @dammitbands @sexgodashton @trustmeimawhalebiologist​ @vxlentinecal​ @pettybassists​ @vaporshawn​ @lu-my-golden-boi​ @buggy-blogs​ @visualm3nte​ @isabella-mae13​ @dontjinx-it​ @lifeakaharry​ @neonweeknds​ @antisocialbandmate​ @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave​ @calpalbby​ @grreatgooglymoogly​ @sunnysidesblog​ @cocktail-calum​ @miahelizaaabeth​ @madelynerin​ @dramallamawithsparkles​ @theagenderwhocriedwolf​ @kaytiebug14​ @hoodskillerqueen​ @bitchinbabylon​ @empathycth​ @xhaileyreneex​ @inlovehoodx​ @calistheloml @aestheticrelated​ @bloodlinecal​ @sublimehood​ @madbomb​ @raabiac​ @britnicole11​ @outofmylimitcal​ @fluffsshawn​ @bloodmoonashton​ @vxidhood​ @tea4sykes