#WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED MY MUM USED MY IPAD FOR A WHILE LAST YEAR AND SHE CHANGED THE PASSCODE

[baeshijima]

wdym i have completely forgotten my ipad passcode despite it literally only having a possibility of 6 combinations 🧍‍♀️ and all 6 did not work 🧍‍♀️

[all-my-love-for-harry]

You should write about Harry or Artemis talking to the baby in her belly.

+ a little bit of quarantining with artemis and we find out the gender!!

you can find more of my shy little boy here

//

it wasn't like Harry hated technology or something. Although he didn't like to use it a lot, he had to admit it comes in handy sometimes, especially in times like these where entertaining a six-year-old was becoming a hard task lately, and Y/n and Harry were feeling like they were running out of ideas to keep him happy.

Now, he would never admit it, but he actually didn't feel like the worst parent ever when he handed Artemis an iPad or his phone whenever he started to get cranky. It was a quick, easy solution rather than playing a six hours long monopoly game where his son would be in a bad mood because he was losing. The more time they spent at home, the more Artemis would feel like he was losing his mind. He missed the park, school, his grandmas. He hated his change of routine and in all honesty, so did Y/n and Harry.

Back in December of last year, Anne had given little Artemis a Nintendo Switch for his birthday. Now, the boy loved the gift and, according to him, the best he got out of all the other gifts people gave him for his birthday. But despite how much he loved it, Artemis' screen time was very little since he already had eye problems at six-years-old, his parents wouldn't risk making it worse.

But ever since the pandemic started, they had allowed him a little more time playing with electronics since there wasn't a lot he could do. Lately, he's been obsessed with Animal Crossing and he could play for hours. Plus, the game has forced him to practice his reading with the instructions and stuff the game had and that was the only way he'd accept doing the task.

Harry made the decision of buying one for himself to play with his son and he had to admit, that game was sucking the life out of him.

"You have to complete the commissions to get the gifts." Harry said, sitting on the couch next to Artemis while watching him play. He was currently at uncle Michal's island just because.

"Harry, did you call Gemma? The doctor's appointment is tomorrow."

"I'll text her in a moment."

As the eighteenth week of the pregnancy rolled in, Y/n started to grow anxious to know whether they were expecting a girl or a boy, not because she had a preference or anything, she was just excited to start choosing potential names for their baby. She hopes this appointment would be the one and their little one would finally be in the right position since the last time they went, the genitals of the baby weren't visible.

So for tomorrow's appointment, they needed to know if Gemma could babysit Artemis for a couple of hours while they were out. They had mentioned to her in one of their facetime calls, but Y/n's doctor had to change the date and so they had to confirm Harry's sister.

"Will I go to Auntie Gemma's tomorrow?" Artemis looked up at his mum.

"Yeah, only for a little bit while we're out."

"We're going to the doctor, remember?" Artemis nodded at Harry. "We'll know the gender of your sibling."

"Can it be a girl?" Artemis repeated the same question he's been asking ever since he found out about the pregnancy. Harry chuckled, running a hand through his blonde curls.

"I've told you that's not how it works, buddy. We can't pick whether if it's a girl or a boy."

"Yes, we can." Artemis rolled his eyes as he hopped off the couch, walking towards his mum. He placed his small hands on Y/n's tummy making her smile. "Please, please be a girl. Girls are better, plus you'll look like mummy."

The two adults in the room looked at each other with wide smiles on their faces.

"I'm sure you've convinced them, mate."

//

Y/n held Harry's hand nervously as they walked inside of the building. They were wearing hoodies and their masks covered most of their faces but they still wouldn't risk getting recognized. They've been doing so well keeping it a secret it almost feels surreal. Although they knew they couldn't hide it forever, both of them made the decision of going through the pregnancy as privately as possible, and the pandemic helped a little bit with that since they could stay at home and while Y/n still had to give online classes via zoom or whatever, she wasn't really showing at that time so no one noticed.

For safety reasons, the clinic only offered a few appointments per day and each of them had a certain amount of time in between so they just had to wait a few minutes before a nurse called them in. Harry let his girlfriend enter first and took a seat on one of the chairs after she did. Y/n was still playing with Harry's hand that she kept on her lap, the feeling of excitement becoming too big to hide.

"We'll love them regardless." Harry remained her.

"We'll love them regardless." She repeated, giving his hand one last squeeze before the doctor walked in. The middle-aged woman was wearing a mask, but Y/n could bet she was smiling behind it.

"Hello. We got the results of the tests we did on you last week, sorry we took so long but things are kind of chaotic in here." She said, sitting down on the chair behind her desk. "It appears that everything is fine so far. We checked your blood but also your sensitivities to food so I've made an advice plan for you." She handed them a folder. "You're well on the vitamins, so nothing to worry there. Now, your vitamin D is a little low so we'll get you a supplement." Y/n glazed at Harry quickly, noticing how he was containing a giggle. "Unfortunately, in the food department, chicken eggs are very high so I recommend you stay away from those for a year." The doctor pointed at the space that said 'food'. "As you can see, the line is red which means the level is pretty high."

She kept explaining some other things before she guided the couple to where they were going to do the ultrasound. Y/n laid down on the bed with Harry's help and winced a little when the cold gel hit her exposed skin. Soon enough, an image of their baby appeared on the screen along with a heartbeat, making them gasp.

"Looks like we're in the right position. Do we want to know what are we having?" The doctor looked back at them.

"Please." Y/n choked a sob, squeezing Harry's hand a little tighter.

"Congratulations, you're having a baby girl."

Who would have thought Artemis' persuasion tactics would actually work?

☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁

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[navalcriminalimagines]

Family crisis

“Diane, Emily! Hi,” you greeted your boyfriend’s ex wife and her daughter as they entered your house without knocking. You took that terrible habit from Jethro and you really should change it.

“Hi Y/N. Is Leroy here?” Diane asked.

“No, he’s at work. Why? Aren’t you at practice, Em?”

Emily had a stern look on her face, it made you feel uncomfortable. Diane sat next to you on the couch, inviting her daughter to do the same. “Tell her, Em,” she said.

You looked at the 16 years old girl, waiting for her to talk about whatever she came here to talk about. “Mum, do it please,” she just said.

“Fornells girls! What is going on?”

“I’m not For—“ Diane started to say. But you looked at her with such a dark stare, she stopped her sentence. “It’s about Eliza. She has a boyfriend,”

“I know, I found out a few weeks ago,” you said, remembering when you heard your 16 years old daughter talking over the phone, with that actual boyfriend. Diane took a breath before talking again.

“It’s their maths teacher,” Your face changed from worry to pure horror. What kind of news is that? Your eyes went from Diane to Emily, from Emily to Diane for a long moment before you realized what was happening. That’s not possible. Your teenage daughter can’t be dating a teacher twice her age.

“Tell me it’s a joke,” you managed to say.

“Em told me last night. She’s worried for Eliza, and as a mother, I had to let you know,” Diane told you, as she rubbed small circles in your back. You had your head on your hands. How was it possible?

“You should worry about who’s going to teach you math now,” you told Emily, “Jethro is going to—“ you stopped. Eliza’s father is going to lose his mind.

You asked your daughter’s best friend to go upstairs while you talked to Diane. You needed to know how to handle this, you needed advices. Mostly about Jethro. “He has to know too, but you’ll have to handcuff him first,” Diane said. She always knows what to say.

Before they left, you asked more details to Emily. When they did left, you prepared yourself to face your first big family crisis.

You took your laptop to make some research on that teacher. Using FBI’s database is always helpful for that, but there was nothing particular on him. He seems like a normal guy. You met him a few times at the school and he, indeed, always spoke very fond of Eliza. But you never found that suspicious.

You didn’t say anything to your daughter when she got home. She did her thing and you waited for your boyfriend to come back too. After his shower, you called him to join you in the basement. You had two glasses of scotch prepared. “Don’t you want Izzy to sleep first?” He flirted with a smirk. He kissed you softly but you reluctantly pushed him back. “Is everything okay?”

You tried to bring the news easily on Jethro, but when you said the word “boyfriend” and “math teacher” in the same sentence, he lost it. “Eliza!!!” You heard him shout as he ran upstairs. “Eliza Y/N Gibbs!” He yelled again. You drunk your glass in one swallow and you followed him to your daughter’s bedroom.

Jethro closed Eliza’s laptop so angrily he almost broke it. You knew he was mostly angry at that bastard. “What the heck, dad?” Eliza said.

“You’re dating your math teacher?!” Jethro was so loud, the entire neighborhood probably knew it now. “A guy twice your age? Seriously, Eliza?”

Your daughter stood on her knees, on her bed and looked at you instead of her father, “Did Emily tell on me?! Is that her? That little bit—“

“Hey!” Jethro yelled before she could say the word. “Watch your month young lady,”

“My personal life is none of—“ Eliza tried to say again. Jethro was pacing in the bedroom like a lion in cage.

“Stop it, Eliza,” you spoke up. “You’re 16, it is our business! So let’s make things clear, you’re not going to see him again and tomorrow morning, we’ll go see your principle,”

“No mum! You can’t do that, we’re in love,” when she said those words, you saw your boyfriend’s eyes turning the darkest you never saw before.

“I’m gonna arrest him,” Jethro muttered before trying to leave the bedroom. Eliza jumped out of her bed, yelling “NO” to her dad and you grabbed his arm to prevent him from going further.

“On what count, J?” You told him, “I know you want to kick his ass and so do I, but we have to be adults,”

“Adults, huh? What kind of adults are mad at their daughter for doing the same thing they do?”

You and Jethro turned around to look at your daughter, “What the hell are you talking about?” You asked her.

“There’s not much age difference between me and Jamie than there’s between you two,” she stated, arms crossed over her chest.

“I wasn’t underage when your father and I met, Eliza. What he does is child abuse,”

“Child ab—I’m not a child anymore,”

“You think so?” You let go off Jethro’s hand and walked back into the bedroom. Eliza was right on your heels when you grabbed her phone, laptop and iPad. “From now on, it’s either me or your father who drop you at school and pick you up. No more sleep over, no more free time after school. Am I clear?”

“If you think I won’t find a way to see him, you’re wrong,”

“We’ll see,”

You left the bedroom and realized that Jethro had left. You ran downstairs and grabbed your car keys, “Lock the door behind me and you better be there when we get back,” you said to your daughter.

Once in his car, Jethro called McGee, and asked him an address. It took a minute for the agent to find it and Jethro hang up without saying thank you. McGee will always be surprised by his boss’ requests. You had the teacher’s info on your laptop, you quickly checked the address and drove there.

Of course, Jethro’s car was there. You heard furniture being destroyed inside the house, so did the neighbors, “I’m calling the police,” you heard a woman yelling from next door.

“I am the police!” You yelled back.

The teacher was the floor, scared for his life, his hands in surrender. Jethro was destroying the furniture instead of destroying the guy. You actually were surprised he wasn’t bleeding already. “Jethro, stop,” you said, “This isn’t helping,”

“It’s helping me!” He shouted. “Because if I put my hands on him, I won’t be able to stop,” he added, hitting on a wall.

“I will,” you said and threw yourself on the floor to the teacher. You started to throw punches at him. You could hear him pleading you to stop, excusing himself for what he’s done but you didn’t stop. You kept beating the crap out of him until Jethro grabbed you by the waist. “I’m not done, Jethro—“ you tried to fight your boyfriend as he was carrying you outside.

“Listen, Y/N. Sirens—We have to go,”

“If needed, I’m the one that beat him. Not you,” Jethro told you before you two left with each car. As you were driving home, Jethro in his car right behind you, he called.

“You know I’m proud you are mother of my child?” He said.

[esmealux]

I'll bite. 13 and 35 look like they might be fun together. 😈

Thank you so much for this fun prompt, Shelly ❤ The opportunities seemed endless, but in the end I went with this. I hope you like it.

Once again, I screwed up at brevity, so this is 1.9K (:

13. Someone does something stupid + 35. 'You wanna bet?' 'Care to wager?'

Never make a bet with the Devil.

A deal, if you must. But do not bet against him.

Not because he’ll take your soul or anything; he won’t even necessarily take your money.

But because he can’t handle it. He can’t. He’ll stop at nothing to win, and when he doesn’t—when he can’t shoot down a bottle of vodka with a slingshot from 400 feet away, or blow a soap bubble with his nose, or fly to Sweden and back in under thirty minutes (the latter he did do, but a drug test showed he’d taken EPO)—he’ll walk around in a pathetic cloud of self-pity, sulking and pouting to an unbearable degree for days on end.

So if you care about the Devil, don’t bet with him. It’s for his own good.

It really is.

And yet-

Chloe picks up the dirty plates from the coffee table as gunshots fire around her. It makes her a little uneasy, how real it sounds through their newly installed surround sound system. One so expensive she doesn’t even want to know.

Their just as overpriced (and unnecessarily big) TV is bathing Lucifer in white-blue light as he stares at the screen intently. He did want to watch the movie with her, but she’s not much of a Weaponizer fan, and she’d like to clean up before she snuggles up next to him on the couch and inevitably falls asleep. As she’s gathered all the dishes in her arms, however, she can’t help but pause and glance at the film for just a second.

‘Yeah, like that could actually happen,’ she snorts, watching the car jump across a considerable gap in a bridge, flip mid-air, and land on all four wheels on the other side. ‘I mean, no one’s ever done that.’

As soon as the words leave her mouth Chloe knows she’s made a mistake.

Lucifer pauses the movie—because God forbid he misses five seconds of a film he’s watched thirty times—before he looks up at her with a lifted eyebrow and a devilish grin.

‘Is that a challenge, Detective?’

Chloe glares at him, her jaw clenching. ‘It’s not possible,’ she states firmly, which is even worse, because now he can only reply with-

‘Care to wager?’

Chloe wants to kick herself.

‘There’s no way in Hell you’re doing that,’ she tells him, nodding towards the paused screen before she heads for the kitchen to start the dishwasher.

‘Why? Because my worried girlfriend won’t let me?’ he calls after her. ‘I’m invulnerable, remember?’

Chloe refills her wine glass, generously, and returns to the living room.

‘No,’ she objects, careful not to spill Pinot Noir on the couch as she settles against Lucifer’s warm, silk-clad side. ‘I just know you’ll never forgive yourself when your beloved Corvette rams into a cliff.’

Lucifer gasps and scoffs. ‘As if I’d ever risk such a sweet beauty like that!’ He plucks the glass out of her hand and takes a sip. ‘And even if I did, she would not, because I would succeed, first try.’

‘First try? Really?’

Chloe grabs the remote and replays the last fifteen seconds. Looking at it a second time, it’s even more ridiculous. The background is so obviously a green screen it’s not even funny, the flip is clearly made using some sort of outdated CGI, and they haven’t even bothered making it look like there’s a real person in the car. Also—Chloe doesn’t remember much from school, but she’s pretty sure the entire stunt defies physics as the car leaps, practically flies over the 150 feet gap, all the while rotating 360 degrees sideways.

‘Maybe third,’ Lucifer admits.

Chloe shakes her head and sighs.

‘I can do it, Detective.’ He looks at her like it’s a threat. ‘And I will.’

Oh, he will definitely try. The determination in his eyes leave no doubt about that. But he can’t possibly copy that stunt with an actual car and an actual gap. There’s just no way. And she shouldn’t spur him on. She really shouldn’t. But the idiot’s gotta learn at some point, and if she’s gonna have to deal with his childish disappointment (and she will), she might as well get something out of it.

‘Fine,’ she shrugs. ‘What are we betting?’

He grins at her, brown eyes twinkling with excitement.

‘If—nay, when I win,’ he answers promptly, and Chloe rolls her eyes, ‘I’ll finally get that thing I’ve always wanted.’

Chloe stares at him, comepletely clueless. If his tone and stupid smirk are anything to go by, it’s not a pet shark he’s talking about.

‘One... re-enactment for another,’ he clarifies slowly, his dark gaze gliding over her body before his eyes flicker to the glass doors leading to their terrace—and their outdoor hot tub.

Chloe fights the urge to roll her eyes again.

‘Okay,’ she agrees, internally reminding herself it doesn’t really matter. She gives him a cocky smile. ‘And when I win?’

Lucifer chuckles as if he finds her adorably naïve. Asshat. Still, he says, ‘You’ll get anything you desire.’

Chloe thinks. There’s not much she desires he wouldn’t give her anyway. She could have him do paperwork for a month, but he’d just mess it up, and she’d have to listen to his complaints about ‘torturous boredom’ and ‘purgatory’. She could also go for something funnier, like have him wear t-shirt and sweats to work for a week. But that would just be cruel, wouldn’t it?

‘I don’t know,’ she tells him, but the words are barely out of her mouth before Trixie’s enthusiastic voice sounds behind them.

‘I might have an idea!’

Lucifer sighs and gives Chloe an unimpressed look before he shifts slightly in his seat to look at her daughter.

‘Alright, but only because your mum lacks creativity like a sober Faulkner.’

Trixie walks around the couch and comes to stand in front of them, a mischievous smile on her face.

‘Please don’t tell me it’s a unicorn on the cheek,’ Lucifer huffs, taking another gulp of Chloe’s wine.

‘It’s not,’ she assures him and holds out her iPad for him to see. It’s a doodle of a small, fluffy goat with pink fur. ‘I was thinking something more… permanent.’ With the hand that’s not holding her tablet, Trixie pats a spot on the left side of her upper chest.

Lucifer slowly removes the wine glass from his lips, and the sheer horror on his face makes Chloe snort with laughter.

He stares at the small, inarguably adorable drawing like it’s a personal insult, glances down at his chest with dread, and looks back to Trixie.

‘You little Devil,’ Lucifer grumbles, but there’s no trace of hostility in his voice. If anything, he sounds a little impressed. He grabs Trixie’s iPad from her outstretched hand and studies the pink kawaii buck for a second, as if he’s seriously considering saying yes to the deal.

Eventually, he sighs. ‘I’m in.’

‘Lucifer-’ Chloe immediately begins to protest. He’s not gonna win this bet, and she knows how downright intolerable he’ll be when he’ll have to get a cute, chubby animal—one that, to him, represents mockery and misconception—tattooed onto his skin. She's tired already, just thinking about all the whining she'd have to deal with.

But it’s too late. Her boyfriend and daughter shake hands, and the deal is settled.

Chloe palms her face.

‘Wait, what do you get if you actually manage to… whatever it is this time?’ Trixie asks, her small hand still clasped in Lucifer’s.

Chloe looks up at him, heat creeping up her cheeks. Their eyes meet shortly before he looks back to her daughter, visibly conflicted.

‘Eh…’

It’s not so much a word as it is a breathy, high-pitched sound, partly stuck in his throat. But it’s answer enough for Trixie.

‘Forget I asked,’ she quickly says, her face scrunched up in disgust. ‘I’ll be in my room.’

She takes her iPad back and leaves them alone on the couch.

‘So, I guess it’s tit or tat, then,’ Lucifer remarks with a chuckle, glancing down at Chloe’s chest.

She snorts and smiles, despite herself.

‘But, I mean-’ He grabs the remote and plays the scene a third time.

He must not see the same utterly absurd and almost comically impossible stunt she (still) sees, because he leans down and whispers in her ear, ‘Better start rehearsing your lines, Detective.’

Chloe shakes her head at him and snuggles closer to his body.

*

‘You’re lucky I like your mother,’ Lucifer mumbles as the needle pinches ink into his chest.

He’d driven off in a ‘cheap’ Porsche this morning and returned eight hours later, looking like he’d literally been fed to the wolves and with no Porsche.

‘Hey honey,’ she’d greeted him, hiding her smirk behind her cup of tea. ‘How’d it go?’

He’d answered with a grunt, blamed the Germans for making their cars too ‘praktisch’ and the Italians for not making theirs fast enough (he’d controlled for variables) and finally concluded it was all his dad’s fault because He ‘created that pesky gravity’.

Then he’d handed her an ornate, black business card and looked at her as if he’d picked his own casket.

Chloe had bit her cheek and hugged him before driving all three of them to the high-end tattoo parlour he’d requested.

‘You okay there?’ she asks him, letting him grip her hand tighter. The fact that he isn’t feeling any actual pain—‘any physical pain, Detective!’—makes his wincing all the more pathetic. Still, she feels a little bad for him.

‘No.’ He bends his neck to peer down at his chest, and pouts. ‘I’m not.’

Trixie grins beside him. ‘I think it looks cool!’

‘Of course, you do. You’re a twelve-year-old girl.’

The smile on Trix’ face turns into a smirk. ‘A twelve-year-old who girl you lost a bet to.’

Sighing deeply, Lucifer turns his head to scowl at her like she’s his annoying little sister and not the stepdaughter he’d go to the ends of the universe for.

‘It’ll be gone in a few months,’ Chloe reminds him, earning her a funny look from the tattoo artist.

The muscle in Lucifer’s jaw ticks. ‘It’s not even finished yet and I already hate it more than I ever did my bloody wings! How am I supposed to endure this… horned cotton candy for months?’

Chloe takes a deep breath. She brought this on herself. She knew she shouldn’t have made that bet with him. She knew he’d be an insufferable drama queen.

She also knows, after hours of hearing him moan, that he’s not gonna shut up about ‘deceitful special effects’ and ‘useless laws of physics’, much less the ‘vile, little creature marring his muscled chest’. Not unless she does something.

So Chloe does something.

For the second time in her life, she gets naked in—and out of a hot tub.

‘No moaning, then,’ she tells him, giving him a stern look.

Lucifer looks her up and down in awe and hunger, dark eyes lingering on the tiny red bikini he knows she’ll take off in a matter of seconds. ‘Now, there’s a promise I can’t keep.’

‘About the wager,’ she clarifies, but he’s not listening.

With a sigh, Chloe sinks into the hot, bubbling water, loosens her bikini top, and gets into character.

She is never, ever betting with the Devil again.

[alchemist-shizun]

Nothing changes

Word Count: 1,456

Character(s): Roman

Pairing(s): None

Warning(s): Self-deprecation, toxic parenting, negative thinking, toxic relationship implied

Summary: So. Roman couldn't take all those subtle insults anymore. And what could he do about it? Apart from waiting it out until he could live by himself, absolutely nothing.

A/N: Hope you don't mind a vent fic

✾

Middle school.

Roman had been one of the lucky kids.

Not necessarily liked by every single one of his classmates, but not much disliked by them at all. Bullying hadn't bothered him in any of his school years, in fact he wasn't even sure it happened that frequently in their institute.

He had his fair share of friends, his grades were all pretty high, apart from the occasional maths test impossible to comprehend, he had an older sister that minded her own business and parents that assured him a decent lifestyle.

He didn't have much to worry about, only the normal teenage dilemmas.

« What's that? »

« Huh? »

« You have something on your face. »

Only the normal teenage dilemmas.

Roman had been up for less than an hour, talking wasn't exactly his best skill at that moment, but otherwise, he would have angered his father if he stayed silent, which was the last thing he needed as he was the one to take him to school.

« It's a mole. » no matter how many times he told him, his dad never remembered he had a mole on top of the bridge of his nose. He always said he had a dirty spot.

« No, not that one. » the man pointed his finger on his forehead.

Roman reached and found an uneven spot on his skin. Oh god no, not now. Why did puberty have to hate teens like that?

Well, what did he have to do about it?

His father returned to his newspaper reading on his phone and didn't give out any input: Roman guessed he had to fix it by doing nothing and wait for it to disappear.

Only that, it didn't disappear. It spread into many others along his face and he slowly developed the urge to press them all, to which, eventually, he gave in.

Of course, his dad's derision wasn't late to the party either.

Every single bit of interaction they had ultimately focused on some part of Roman's body he didn't like, anything that wasn't exactly perfect was his ideal easy target. And it wasn't like Roman could disagree, what he said were simple facts that subtly left him feeling offended.

That little speck of time they spent together in the morning before and during their car ride to the school, lunch, dinner, the only times they were around each other were enough of a reason for some criticizing to take place.

He felt his pride sink down with every word, but he hung on his sister's words. « It's normal, he was like that with me, too. »

That meant he was going to stop, right?

He told himself way too many times that his arguments with his father were simple routine during his age for him to believe it anymore.

High-school.

« So, how did it go? » Roman's mother was sleeping on the couch, while his dad sat next to her, brand new iPad in his hands.

Why, you actually care?

« It went well, our art teacher is hilarious. » he eyed him while eating some pasta his mum had cooked as he was coming home. His father got up to get ready for work again.

« Yeah? »

« Mhm. He- » Roman smiled as he was talking. Bad decision, he shouldn't have done that.

The man narrowed his eyes at him. « Wait. » he got closer and basically inspected his face, demanding him to keep his mouth open as if he were at the dentist.

Even with no audience to see that scene, that was one of the most embarrassing things he asked him to do. Suddenly, he was reminded of that one time he had started to sniff his hair like some kind of dog, trying to prove the point that he smelled bad instead of simply saying "hey, take a shower". 

« Can't you see your teeth are a bit crooked? »

« I've had braces for five years. »

« I know, but I still don't think they're, you know, perfect. » he marked the last word with emphasis as if he didn't actually mean that word.

« Whatever. » Roman added in a low tone, defeated by yet another imperfection he couldn't fix. It wasn't like that wasn't the first time he told him that.

« What? » his dad's eyes grew hard.

Fix it, you idiot.

Panic rose in his chest, his heartbeat increased and he felt his mind racing. All for an insignificant answer.

« Ah. Nothing important. »

His father eyed the clock and fled the scene as he noticed he was getting late. Shortly thereafter, his mother would have followed.

It went like that for literal years.

His hair, his face, his teeth, his body, his fingers. He talked and his father never listened, he only focused on something to pick on him. Something he could use to graze his self-esteem away bit by bit.

Until nothing about him really appealed him anymore. Until Roman started avoiding mirrors by instinct, until he tried to cover everything with makeup but eventually failed cause he never had enough time.

Until he stopped saying "thank you" to compliments and instead started disagreeing. "I don't believe you", "That's not true", "You're talking about yourself".

He forgot how to accept people's love, which led to him having a twisted version of it in his mind. When his first boyfriend arrived, he thought being more mocked than appreciated was the normality for everybody. He thought having "I hate you" being told to him instead of "I love you" was fine. That the only time his boyfriend ever meant he sincerely loved him had to be in very rare and extreme circumstances and he didn't even remember when that had happened last. 

And when he stopped talking to him for days as punishment since he got annoyed at Roman for simply existing, Roman believed he deserved it and coexisted with the anxiety and anguish while waiting for him to come back.

It took him almost two years to recover from that, at least partially. 

Two years to be able to love again and know better.

But his father didn't stop. Sure, he might have slowed down, but never ceased to point out the first thing that came in his mind. 

Roman developed anxiety at the sole thought of them being in the same room, of his dad stomping his feet while going up the stairs, of when he opened a door with that usual loud noise. His almost constant yelling. Him creeping up behind him to read his messages, him sitting next to or in front of Roman during meals. His father just being there with his forever angered presence.

« Why does your face look like that? »

God please why, I'm just eating, leave me alone, just go to work I beg you.

Roman shrugged. 

« Have you looked in a mirror? » as a matter of fact, no. « You're full of red spots, you're going to end up with a ruined face. But if that's what you want. »

The only thing I want as of now is ripping my entire face off, thank you very much.

He felt numb, but at the same time a fiery rage rumbled in his stomach. He just had to ... repress it. Like any other time.

In the meantime, his dad had started making a fuss out of it, calling his very tired wife to take a look at his son and "tell him what they had to do to fix that". 

With a knowing look of "yes, I know this is normal, we all went through this when we were young apart form him, apparently", she said nothing and waited for him to stop rambling. 

« Well, whatever. Bye. » and, as fast as he came, he was gone, storming down the stairs to get to his car.

And Roman? 

Well, Roman sat there, ripping apart a slice of bread the way he would have wanted to rip apart either his existence or his own father. That was a choice he would have left to fate. 

He didn't exactly register anything his mother told him, ignoring the same old recording he always went through when it came to his face's imperfections.

He went upstairs and didn't really bother to open the windows or think about the huge amount of studying the had to do.

He laid on his bed in the darkness that his eye adjusted to too quickly. Then, he pulled out his earbuds and drowned himself in music.

The urges he felt and the anger at the pit of his stomach slowly disappeared as he distracted himself with the melodies.

Nothing else really mattered. 

[crazed-rambling]

Unconfirmed Conversations of the Werewolves of Lancaster

“Has everyone got their spare change of clothes in the cars?”

A chorus of grumbled agreements and head nods followed

“I know I know we all know but it’s my job to ask. Remember Jack?”

“-I was 15! It was 20 years ago man”

Gethin continued as though the indignant yell had not happened, this in itself was as much a part of the routine as anything else. “We don’t want another repeat of – Are those jeans Colin? What happened to your shorts?”

“They’re in the wash” A sigh.

“Well take them off and put them in the van”

“I’m not taking them off its like 3 degrees out”

“Enjoy the chafing.” That image is enough to have the older members of the group wincing, they’ve all made that mistake at least once. The 70s were a rough time between the denim and the leather.

It seems to be enough to convince Colin as he grimaces and sending one last look to the heavens praying for another option shucks off his jeans and begins his walk of shame through the trees towards the church car park. The chuckles die down quickly as people are soon distracted by their own preparations.

Only his companions continue to look back through the trees, waiting for their friend to reappear.

“Could he be any slower, my dissertation is due next week”

“And I want to be at the Netball social Nathan but unless you’ve listed your fursona as a co-author I don’t think you’re getting much done tonight” quipped the girl next to him, as she pulled her box braids out of her face using a scrunchie.

“Blocked”

“Piss off you meme loving fuck”

“Amanda! Noah and Adam are right there.” Shit. A glance to her right confirms that the alpha was right, there were in fact two six-year olds looking at her in a mix of horror and fascination. “Sorry James”

“Don’t worry about it they already heard me watching Game of Thrones, there’s no way around our hearing”

“Still let’s try and control our language while we’re here, no need to make James’ life any harder” ensuring he made clear eye contact with the main offenders before the reappearance of Colin clad only in striped boxers put an end to any attempts Gethin could make at being serious.

“Dad! Adam took the ipad!”

“You said I could have a go next”

Sure enough the moment they realised that the attention was no longer on them the twins began to fight. At this age they were more wolf than child, especially around full moons, they would fight over anything and everything, they’d mellow out soon…

“My turn wasn’t over”

“Was”

… hopefully.

He glanced to the balding man beside the two hellraisers, who mouthed “sorry” across the clearing, resignation in his eyes. Clearly this was not a new fight.

“What is the ipad doing here? Go put it in the car, before it gets broken” Two identical faces began to open their mouths in protest… “Now.” …and closed

He watched the two backs retreat for just long enough to ensure that they were doing as he said before turning to the teenage girl at his side, with thinly veiled frustration “Why did you let them bring the ipad?”

“I didn’t know they had it,”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t know I had to”

The longer they spoke the more defensive Lydia seemed to become, it felt like that’s all James did with his daughter these days was argue.

“I asked you to look after them Lydia!”

The last straw, and her round face began to contort; nose and mouth pushing forwards, remaining baby fat retreating, fangs bared as she snarled “And I’m not mum!”

Even as she said it her eyes widened as if she, as well as everyone who couldn’t help but eavesdrop, was taken aback by her outburst. At the reminder of what they’d lost both seemed to visibly deflate, her face transforming back into a mask of regret, she never meant to hurt her father.

“I’m sorry honey. I’m just. It’s.” They rarely seemed to speak of April these days, too scared of hurting the other, so when the time came, he could never seem to find the words. It would be easier not to say anything, to let things return to the status quo on their own; his daughter already seemed to regret yelling. It would be easier. But his daughter was in pain, her lips pressed flat and eyes staring resolutely ahead in the way she only did when she was trying to hold back tears.

“I’m sorry. I just miss your mum on transformation nights. It feels like she was able to do anything.”

“She was pretty awesome” a small smile, “I’ll keep an eye on Adam and Noah tonight.” An olive branch; not quite forgiveness but an understanding. This didn’t mean there wasn’t a long overdue conversation to be had when they got home. James felt a comforting presence at his shoulder as she watched her retreating back. It had been months but he still couldn’t shake her, sometimes it seemed all that she left behind was Lydia’s hair, and the twin’s eyes.

“She’s a good kid”

“I know, God knows she gets it from her mum”

“And you.” He wanted to say more, but it would have to wait as his attention was drawn to the moonlight shining from behind the clouds. It was almost time. As much as James needed his friend, everyone here needed an alpha and this was the night when Gethin couldn’t afford to play favourites.

  “Everyone back? Yes. Good.” Few words were required after a transformation, no one was really listening. The only thing that mattered to anyone at this point was food and sleep, in that order. So after a perfunctory check that everyone was no worse for wear, beyond a couple of pairs of torn shorts, Gethin dismissed them and everyone began walking in the direction of the cars.

The church car park was always just a little too small, so people crowded around the cars as they changed into slightly less torn clothes, murmuring goodbyes and promises to see each other soon as they attempted to stay out of the way of cars as they manoeuvred out

Normally ride sharing would not be a great difficulty, but Gethin couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow drawn the short straw with his group. Didn’t students own cars these days?

“Did we have to be a bible study group, if I have to bail out on a social for ‘Bible Study’ one more time just kill me ‘cause god knows my social life will already be dead”

“Do you have any other ideas for why a group of random people meet up once a month in the woods behind the church? Because I’m all ears.”

“Satanic cult? Family Reunion?”

“-Is it really a reunion if its once a month?”

“Amanda you’re black, I’m Chinese, and Colin is so white the moonlight would burn him if we weren’t so goddamn hairy. No one will believe we’re related.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s racist”

“No one cares Colin”

“Enough. We are a bible study group; we’ve been a bible study group for years and it has worked fine. Plus, it would be a little awkward if an actual bible study group decided to use the church hall while we’re out there, wouldn’t it? I don’t remember you complaining when you first came Amanda,”

“I was 13 and thought that this would be more Twilight and less leg hair”

“Get in, I’ll drop you guys off. Then if anything else happens I’m not alpha for the next 12 hours” He loved his pack, they just made it very hard sometimes.

“I’m not sure that’s how it works” One flat glance over his shoulder was all that was needed to communicate how little Gethin cared for the students bickering.

  There were few words spoken until the three were left on the pavement besides M&S watching the van tear off into the distance. Once they were sure they were out of hearing range

“I don’t know how Arjun puts up with him.”

“He’s working the graveyard shift at St James, Gethin will be out by the time he gets back. But he leaves breakfast out and no one wants to make their own eggs after an eight hour shift.”

“That’s true love that is” says Colin putting on a performance of being deeply moved by their alpha’s attempts at romance, before the rest of his brain caught up with the connotations of what she’d just said “Wait how do you know all this? Gethin tells me nothing!”

“Me and Arjun have a doctors group chat”

“You’re not a doctor yet Amanda”

“But I am suffering so….” she shrugged as though the others were meant to understand how these two concepts related.

“We’re all suffering!”

“Piss off Colin freshers don’t know shit about suffering”

“I’ve got coursework too you know”

“Awww….are you handies hurting from too much colourwing”

“Geology not geography!”

Nathan stared longingly in the direction they last saw the van; it was too soon after a transformation for this. If he didn’t intervene soon these two would be at each other’s throats, and knowing them they wouldn’t stop until the police broke them up or they finally dealt with their sexual tension; right here, outside M&S. But either way a trip police station would be inevitable.

“I’m starved, when does ‘spoons open?” Food possibly the only thing which could distract a pissed off werewolf, transformations were one hell of a work out. Sure enough Colin was fishing his phone out of his pockets. Mission Distraction: Success.

“Shit we got another two hours. Kings might be open?”

“Hell no last time I had one of their kebabs I spent the next day puking my guts up”

“Are you sure that wasn’t the tequila shots?”

“Piss off Colin” Mission Distraction: Success Failure.

“I should have gone with James and them lot I bet you they have food at home”

“Is that you volunteering to sit between two six year olds who haven’t slept in 24 hours, because Edith will be thrilled.” ….Maybe it was better to be their third wheel, the twins were a handful even at the best of times, but exhausted and hungry children are always worse.

“She loves the twins. She says they remind her of when her grandkids were their age” Better to bail out before someone takes him seriously, even Edith, sweet, sweet Edith would take any sign of weakness as an opportunity to switch rides.

“No one loves the twins on transformation night Nathan.”

“Soooo…. Maccies?”

An agreement seemingly reached the three turn and begin walking, just another group of students in search of junk food after a long night.

[jloves-pp]

Little Book of Magic -Chapter 1

Chapter 1

13TH July 2015

Sally was awoken by her phone alarm next to her bed. Groaning, she grabbed her phone and saw it said 9:42, turning off the song which was set to wake her, it was one of her favorites. She lay back on the bed, looking up at ceiling that had been painted to look like a starry-sky. Her bedroom was tiny in size and was filled with her toys, books, collectibles and her fan art collections.

The 12 year old was the second eldest of her siblings, she was pretty and creative. She had a special love for making things using crafts like knitting and sewing. She spent lots of time writing but her favorite thing of all was drawing, most of the pictures she created were of her favorite characters and she had come to love them.

Sally ran her fingers through her long blonde hair and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, as Sally stared up she noticed something was out of place, it was her hand made Jack Frost doll on the floor.

"How did you end up on the floor Jack?" she said as she picked up the rag doll up. Sally couldn't help but smile at the blue button eyed doll, she placed him back on shelf and put his wooden staff back under his arm. "There your back where you belong", she pulled open her curtains and looked out onto the street and headed downstairs toward to the kitchen where her siblings were.

The first person she saw was her sister Maria, she was 16 and oldest, she had long brown hair, brown eyes and she wore glasses. Maria and Sally liked the same things like writing, reading fanficton, watching their favorite movies and playing Just Dance together.

Next there was Charlie, he was 11 and like Maria he had brown eyes and brown hair but his was curly, he enjoy his games, building with Lego, bike riding and most things that typical boys enjoy.

Last was Oliver, he was two year old had blonde hair similar to Sally's and big blue eyes. He was a sweet and adventuress little boy who loves superheroes and dinosaurs.

"Sally" Oliver called as his sister walk in.

"Morning Ollie" Sally replied, smiling at her baby brother, she ruffled his hair and kissed him on the head.

"So, are there any new comments on the new chapter?" She asked Maria who was on her iPad, she was looking on the sister's fanfic blog.

"Only 3 but they just the normal ones like love it, can't wait for more and like it", Maria said showing them to Sally as she made a drink and sat in her chair.

"Mmm, I wish they'd say more than that, I really like it when they give more of a critique! You know it helps me feel to see things freshly and to look at it from their point of view" Sally said taking a drink.

"Which one is it, the time travel one or that 'Beetlejuice' one" Charlie asked munching on his cereal, making his sisters' look up.

"Niether" Maria answered then showing Charlie her iPad " It is the one of Lizzie meets the Big Four and saves the world. You know, the story that we've been talking about it for months!"

"Oh yeah", Ollie said wanting to be part of the conversation.

"And that's why your my favourite brother", Maria whispered in her brothers ear. Sally heard an E-mail arrive for Maria, she touched the button and her blue eyes concentrated on the screen, she quickly showed it to Maria who responded to what she read with a gasp.

"Oh my kitty-cats! They posted a new chapter" Maria said

"I KNOW! They haven't updated for months" Sally added and both girls let out fan girl squeals.

Charlie rolled his eyes at both, Sally and Maria were fangirls, they enjoyed what most fangirls enjoyed such as talking about Fanfiction and ship (the relationships of characters) and reading fanficton.

Charlie couldn't never understand his sisters being fangirls, anytime news popped up about their favourite films they went nuts. Sometime he found it funny, but most of the time he couldn't stand it but that was what most siblings are like he guessed.

The fandom the girls were part of was "the Big Four", it focussed on the main characters from 4 animated films, How to train your dragon, Tangled, Brave and Rise of the Guardians.

"You know it's not really a real fandom" Charlie said before taking a bite of his toast.

"That what make is unique because it's not like other fandoms" Sally answered.

"But it's not like Marvel or Star Wars or even Harry Potter, you know" Charlie said back as Oliver took a bite out of his pancake (which is he's favourite food) as he watched his older siblings bicker until their mum walked in.

"Good Morning lovely people", she said which made all four jump and turn.

"Morning mum" three of them said in a chorus, while their baby Brother said

"Mamma"

She gave a smile before kissing Ollie on his check "I'm surprised your bickering doesn't wake the dead",she said in good humour.

"Yeah" Sally laughed weakly, rubbing her necklace as she, Maria and Charlie looked embarrassed about their silly little argument.

"I'm sorry but, I just don't get it" Charlie carried on "especially the "shipping" thing".

"At least we're making sense" Maria commented "I agree that some shipping really doesn't work".

"Anyway dose anyone know what's happening today" Mum asked looking at her kids.

"Ur...going to town?" Sally finally said.

"Swimming?" Charlie said enthusiastically.

"Food shopping?" Maria asked.

"Disneyland?" Ollie added which make everyone chuckle.

"No, you know I've be talking about the craft show in Wales" Mum said. The kids did remember their mum had talked about her plans for weeks, "well it's tomorrow, so we have to go to Nanna's today, you do remember that Nanny Lilly is coming with me, and all four of will be at her house for the day? You'll be fine there together, I can trust you to be good and look after each other?"

Knowing that arguing about it won't do anything the change their mums plans,

"OK" all three said, even though their faces showed anything but excitement.

Soon after lots of encouragement by their mum they were all washed and dressed and had packed their bags. Along with clothes they packed, they took books, games, movies and toys to keep them occupied at Nan's. Sally grabbed her drawing book and pencils before she headed downstairs, her mum and her brothers and sister were already in the car, Sally found her key when she notices an old family picture.

There was one person missing from that photo and that was her dad. He was a wonderful dad, kind and loving to his wife and family. He had served in the British Army but he passed away before Oliver was born. Sally, Maria and Charlie all missed him but their mum missed him the most.

"Sally" she heard her mum call, the young girl took one more look at the photo of her dad before went toward the door.

Soon they were on the road, driving from home in Liverpool to Wales. Sally was seated in the passenger seat, listening to music on her phone watched the world go by through the window. It was a long drive so they occupied themselves. She glanced over to the back seat and saw Charlie was playing his Ds, Maria reading her 'How to train your dragon' book and Oilver already fast asleep and he looked very angelic. Sally turned to her mum who was concentrating on the road before she looked back at her view from the window.

Sally stared at the clouds, she watched them slowly drifting across the sky changing shapes as they moved. She began to imagine Hiccup and Toothless flying among them, Sally would often daydream of stories or characters when she wasn't doing much.

She always thought life in the stories was more exciting and interesting than real life, the heroes and heroines lived in beautiful and magical places where they could go exploring and meet wonderful creature and interesting people. Rather than real life where most places were too far away and cost losts of money to get to. Sally wished she lived like her heroes were there was something exciting happening every day.

After a couple of stops for toilet and drink breaks, they made it to the small seaside town they all recognise. Driving through the town and up a hill where their Nan's house stood, it looked like an old big Victorian dolls house and their mum's side of the family had lived in it for centuries.

They could see Nana Lilly standing on the front porch, waving as mum parked the car. The children all jumped out and ran to hug her.

"How was the drive down?" Nan asked them.

"Long as usual" Charlie said as their mum join them.

"And we went down the Winding Way this time which make me feel sick". Sally added.

"I just wish you lived closer so we didn't have to drive here and we could see you more", said Maria.

"You all know I couldn't leave my home", Nanny Lilly told them before she reached down to pick Oliver up.

"Anyway let's get the bags into the house and make some coffee", Mum said, they soon unpacked the car and were headed inside with all their things but Sally followed last, she found herself being drawn to the woods that surrounded Nan's house, she felt like something was wrong. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary but the woods had always made her feel uneasy.

"Sally" she turned to see her mum standing by the door "Did you forget something?"

Dismissing the thoughts she called back,

"No, coming" and ran to her mum. A little holiday with her family nice and normal with not much happening, at least that was she thought.

[lucyjadesilverson]

Talk

Note: All characters are speaking Korean but you guys will read it as English. Sometimes Y\N and Namjoon will speak in english.

"Oh come on, you can't be serious, mum wouldn't say that." You chuckled down the phone to your sister. It was now 7am, Sunday in Seoul and 11pm, Saturday in England. You were speaking to her before she went to bed and before you started learning your new choreography for the 34th golden disk awards.

"She did, it was hilarious. You should of seen Nan's face" she laughed back.

Your choreographer, Yoongi and Namjoon came through the door of the dance studio catching your attention.

"Right, babe I gotta go. Talk tomorrow?" You said to your sister, watching how Namjoon looked at you when you said 'babe' but you called a lot of family members that, your sister, your sister in law, your mum, your aunties, even your brother when you were being sly and bitter with each other.

"Okay hun. Love you" She said with a yawn at the end.

"I love you too." You said smiling before you ended the phone call. You looked up noticing the stare Namjoon had on you was now an angry one making your eyebrows crash together. You shrugged it off, walking over to your members.

"How's your sister?" Dani asked making the Korean speaking part of your brain ignite.

"Yeah she's good, just tired from work and the kids." You replied sympatheticly.

"I can't believe she's the mum of two, she's only four years older than you." Taylor said while stretching her legs.

"Technically one of them is her step daughter but we don't use the word 'step' in our family." You replied starting to stretch too.

"What do you mean?" Taylor inquired.

"Well to us it doesn't matter wether you are married into the family or born into it. Family is family. I mean my favourite Auntie is actually my step Auntie." You said moving to do the splits. Noticing that the boys were listening to your conversation and that Hoseok had now joined them.

"Jinjja yo?" Ashley chirped in making you nod.

"Wait I though you said you didn't have favourites?" Dani asked with a smirk.

"I don't, well, it only because she's more like a big sister than an Auntie. My sister and Brother both agree too." I said making them nod.

"Okay girls, let's start." The choreographer said smiling and standing in front of us.All four of us bowed at her before she started teaching us the new moves.

Throughout the session, Yoongi switched from looking at his phone and talking to the boys. Hosoek was watching the choreo intensely and pointing out things to us if we got it wrong. And namjoon kept his stare on you. You found it weird but continuously shrugged it off.

You and Namjoon were extremely close, you even had dirty inside jokes, usually in English, because you and him were the only ones who could understand English fluently. It was usual for him to observe you and tell you, not ask, but tell you whether you were hungry, tired, bored, annoyed, even horny. He knew all your emotions.

He could read you like a book and you could do the same to him but you didn't tell him if he was hungry, you would just buy him food or drag him to the napping area and make him sleep. He loved that about you.

You preferred to just do rather than talk about it first, and it was exactly the same with your work too. If you had a new idea about a dance or new lyrics you would practice or write down the words rather than telling someone first.

Practice was half way done now, everyone had learnt the dance now you all had to practice and strengthen your weak points. You walked over to the boys making grabby hand at Namjoons glass of water he held in his hand. All the boys chuckled at your childlike action before Namjoon handed you the full glass.

"Thank you Oppa." You smiled but squinted slightly watching him tense up at the nickname.

All three boys stared at you, making you realise what you had said. Oppa. You never used that word. Yes, it was to show respect for guys older than you but you made it clear to all the boys at big hit that you would not be calling them Oppa even though you respected them greatly. They all agreed, well except a few, but after a while they got used to the different nicknames you had for them.

You started and to squirm under their gaze, seeing slight smirks form on each of their faces.

"Oh fuck me." You said annoyed as you spilled the drink while squirming. Namjoon chuckled and said.

"Okay" making both of you laugh. The others looked at you confused making you laugh harder.

"None of that kind of talk Mr.Kim." You said in your British accent that he absolutely adored.

He was obsessed with it for sure, always trying to get you to say stuff in your native accent. You had picked up a slight American one when speaking English in Korea because the people who spoke English, that you hung out with, had American accents but you could easily switch between the two.

"I'm not sure what you are talking about Miss.Y/L/N." He said trying to imitate you but failing on the pronunciation which you found adorable considering you loved the way his native tongue change the sound of certain words.

You giggled taking a sip of water and handing the drink back to him before going back to practice. You saw the boys whispering to each other in the mirrors on the walls. Your eyes narrowed wondering what they were saying, but your attention was caught elsewhere when Ashley asked for your help with a dance move.

You helped her and then Dani when she asked. You were finished with Dani and turned to see Taylor standing in front of you with a smirk. You look at her suspiciously.

"Wanna dance?" She asked holding her hand out to you and bowing slightly making you grin cheekily and take her hand.

"Why yes I would." You replied laughing as they girls behind you started.

"Yeah yeah shut up, just cause you two are the dancers of the group." Ashley said still trying to figure the dance move you taught her ten minutes ago. You and Taylor giggled going over to either side of them and pushing them together so you stood in a line facing the mirrors. You stood on the right end, Ashley next to you, Dani next to her and Taylor at the other end.

Taylor held your hand behind and in front on them blocking them in while the song Shake Santa Shake came on through the speaker making the girls look at both of you and start laughing. It was the first song you all recorded and learnt a group dance to, you all loved the Christmas performance. It was a fan favourite when you performed it at a KBS Christmas special concert.

All of you girls smiled before performing the song from your first mini album. After you were done the boys clapped making you turn around and notice that all seven members of BTS were now in the studio. All four of you bowed to them as they clapped.

"Yah, that was so good." Jungkook said smiling as he leant against the wall.

"I remember when you first performed that." Taehyung's deep voice sounded in the room making the rest of the boys nod in agreement.

"Okay girls we are done for the day. Rest up and we can practice again tomorrow." The choreographer said.

"ne seonsaengnim!" You and your members said cheerfully while bowing to her. She left the room.

"We are going to the chill room, you all coming?" Jin asked while standing next to Jimin.

Everyone nodded and all left the dance studio.

¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥

It had been a few hours since dance practice and you were typing out some important work on your iPad, when you couldn't figure something out and decided to google it, but it wasn't giving you the answer you wanted. Your lack of sleep today led you to be a little snappy.

"You know what fine, fine. Be a dick then. Be a dick!" You ranted at your iPad before taking of your headphones and looking up to find your members and the boys staring at you.

"What it's being a dick!" You said defensively pointing at your iPad making Namjoon chuckle.

"You're speaking in English love." He said as his eyes scanned over the words of his book.

Love. That stupid nickname he picked up on his last visit to London. Now he's the dick, for making me feel all tingly.

"I know I am!" You snapped at him making him look at you and raise an eyebrow. His eyes squinted for a moment before he closed the book he was reading and got up off the opposite couch, to stand in front of you.

"You're tired. Go to sleep. Now." He commanded but in a soft tone.

"I'm not tired." You grumbled quietly like a small child. He sighed running a hand through his hair before grabbing under your legs and and placing a hand on your back. In one swift motion you were throw over shoulder as he carried you out the room. You saw your members and the boys laughing as the door closed.

"Namjoon put me down!" You yelled slapping his back gently not wanting to hurt him.

"No." He simply answered making you frown.

"Whyyyyyy?" You whined catching the attention of the boy trainees that were in the lunch hall eating. He ignored your question.

"Fine then tell me why we are in the lunch hall...where all the boys are." You said while you smiled nervously at entire lunch hall that was staring your way.

Some staring in awe at the two Idols that ha just walked in and others staring and laughing at the fact that the famous Kim Namjoon had you, a fellow Idol over his shoulder. You were used to boys considering that your group were the only girls in bighit other than the staff.

"You are hungry and so am I." He stated calmly picking up some food for both of you.

"Am not." You whined again flicking his back. He chuckled ignoring your whining as he walked out of the hall. He went to the lift and continuously ignored the looks and whispers of the trainees and staff that you passed on the way.

He walked up to the sleeping area. Which was basically a room with four single beds and a bunch of giant bean bag seats. He placed you down on one of the bean bags and then sat comfortably beside you. He began to unwrap the samgak kimbap.

You look around the room until his fingers under your chin turned you to face him, as you did the familiar taste of samgak kimbap, filled your mouth. He was feeding you. You huffed and took it from him eating it making him smirk to himself.

After you'd finished eating you lay your head back against the soft material and closed your eyes. Damn you really were tired. You felt your head being lifted and gently placed back down on something warm but harder than the bean bag. Your eyes opened to see it was Namjoon's shoulder.

"Sleep." He told you making you huff and close your eyes once more.

"Meanie." You whispered under your breath.

"Yah. If I was a meanie do you think I would have brought you food and let you sleep on my shoulder? Meanies don't do that." He said his voice slightly raising making you open your eyes and stare at him.

"Why are you freaking out so much?" You asked confused but he ignored your question and continued his rant.

"If I'm such a meanie why don't you get your boyfriend to do this for you!" He shouted making you frown.

"Boyfriend? What makes you think I have a boyfriend?" You asked completely confused.

"Don't play dumb Y/N. You were speaking with him this morning. You call him babe and said that you loved him." He growled making you roll your eyes.

"That was my sister dummy! I call all the girls of my family Babe. That's just how we talk to one another!" You yelled back trying to get through to him.

His lips made an 'O' shape and he sighed half in relief and disappointment at his behaviour.

"Why would it matter if I had a boyfriend anyways." You mumbled under your breath crossing your arms. In a instant his lips were on yours in a passionate kiss that made your head spin. Your lips moved in sink with one another. A small moan came from you as he gripped your hair tightly and you felt him smirk into the kiss.

"That's why it matters." He whispered after pulling away.

Vocabulary.

{Jinjja yo : Really?}

{ne seonsaengnim! : yes, teacher}

{samgak kimbap : basically sushi but shaped like a triangle}

[rfsak2]

Cactus, Part III

Here we go! This one was fun to write.

Cactus, Part III Summary: This is it. Harry/Jamie Warnings: There’s some past family unpleasantness, but hopefully it shouldn’t put anyone off. It’s not specific.

This might be Harry’s favorite thing.

Her head was in his lap, his fingers idly winding a platinum spiral around one knuckle. She looked relaxed and peaceful, humming softly along with the most recent mix of Sweet Creature. The song came to an end and-

The Jurassic Park theme suddenly rent the peaceful, almost contemplative moment. She briefly looked panicked and mouthed sorry.

He shrugged. “Answer it. Go on.”

She dug the phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and smiled, answering it and hitting speaker. “Hello, Gorgeous George.”

Harry frowned. Who the fuck is Gorgeous George?

“Hey Mama. You still in Jamaica?”

“Si, Señor.”

Harry smiled down at her and mouthed, Who’s that?

My brother.

He tried not to audibly sigh in relief. The tattoo artist?

She shook her head. A different brother.

“Dom Hooper, from that rehab charity you like, wants to know if you’d be available for a charity gig in LA in November.”

She pulled up the calendar in her iPad. “What day?”

“The 16th. You guys would be like one of five acts with a short, five or six song set.”

“Let me check. We’ll be recording in LA by then so it shouldn’t be t-” She laughed. “The boss is nodding. Should be fine.”

“Alright. I’ll check with your boys.”

“I’m her boy too.” Harry leaned closer to the phone. “I want t’come.”

Her brother chuckled. “It think that can be arranged. Harry, yeah?”

“Tha’s me. George?”

“Jorge. Only my sister calls me George. She keepin’ ya outta trouble?”

Harry laughed. “Yeh don’t know yer sister, mate.”

“That’s fair.”

She huffed. “For the record, I call you Gorgeous George. Not just George. That’s so pedestrian.”

“Well then... I’m so sorry, princess. My mistake.”

“Damn fuckin’ straight.” Her brother chuckled. “Goodbye, brother dearest.”

“Adios, chica. Talk to ya later.”

“Te amo.”

“Te amo.”

Harry smiled. “He seems nice.”

“He’s a pain in the ass really.”

**

She was glorious. Absolutely glorious.

Mitch elbowed him, snorting under his breath.

She was smiling and waving at them. Harry grinned and waved back, catching the kiss she was blowing them as she ducked under her guitar strap.

Harry honestly didn’t know how he was going to survive this. Her playing his music was enough, but her playing her own music wearing that dress and those boots. Shit, if she didn’t seem to know exactly what he liked.

Jesus.

She tested her pedals and then managed a graceful kneel to check a connection. She stood carefully, one hand holding the stiff, grey lace of her skirt down. Absentmindedly, her fingers ghosted over the angel tattooed in brilliant color on her thigh as she turned to her drummer.

He really needed to get control of himself or this was only going to get harder.

The drummer, an exceptionally cool, black man, made a face. “Dolores.”

“Yes, mi hermano querido.” She grinned against her mic. “Can I help you?”

“That dress is short, little sister.”

“Little, my ass.” She flicked him off. “I’m older than you.” The crowd laughed and she turned over her shoulder as if she had just remembered they were there. “Oh hey.”

Dante made a face. “So? You’re also about a foot too short to be popping off at the mouth like that. Short… kinda like your dress.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Me vale madre, hermanito.”

“You don’t kiss our mother with that mouth, d’ya?” Wait were they really related?

“Simmer down, ya two.” The lead singer, stepped up to his mic and smiled, roguish and more than a little hipster. “Hey y’all! I’m Matt Reeve, behind me on the electric guitar is Jamie Schwartz, on bass we have Tommy Lazert, and last but not least Dante Schwartz on the drums. We’re Spike and Devil.”

They were more Southern than Harry had been honestly been expecting, but excellent and fun to watch. They toed a fine line between the wailing psychedelic ‘60s guitar riffs that Jamie preferred and obviously excelled in and the softer blue-grassy strumming and plucking that Matt showcased.

She somehow managed to be dignified and dare he say it, lady-like, while shredding a guitar like Slash in a dress short enough that if she turned the wrong way the entire club would know what color her knickers were. Harry had done his fair share of performing and he really didn’t know how she had managed it.

She was glorious.

Thirty minutes later, they left the stage and Harry and Mitch skirted the edges of the room to meet her at the door to the green room without attracting too much attention.

Said door swung open, Jamie popping out first followed by her brother. She lit up their little corner of the club as she threw her arms open for them.

“Hey boys!”

Mitch hugged her briefly but Harry wrapped himself around her and popped her off her suede-booted feet. “Ye’re a little monster! Yeh did so good! Fookin’ incredible!”

She giggled. “Thanks! You had fun?”

Mitch nodded but Harry refused to let her go for another half-minute or so. When he let her down, she turned to her brother. “This is my brother, Dante.” She smiled. “Dante, this is Mitch and Harry.”

Mitch shook his hand, followed by Harry, who chose to keep his free hand in the small of her back.

“Nice t’meet yeh.”

Dante grinned. “Likewise, bro. Dolores has told me a lot about you guys.”

She frowned at him. “You’re a shithead.”

Harry nodded. “I was meaning to ask you about that.”

She scoffed. “Dante is angry with me for running off one of his ‘girlfriends’ quien era una perra de todos modos.”

He laughed and shook her head. “No. Ella no fue.”

“Sí que estaba. Ella te estaba engañando.”

“You still have no proof.”

“The fuck I don’t.”

Harry made a face and looked at Mitch looked impressed and vaguely afraid. Mitch tried for a chuckle. 

Harry grinned. “So how many brothers do you have, love? Everytime you mention a brother, it’s a different one.”

She grinned, blushing. “Yeah our family is a bit complicated. I have five brothers. Jorge, who you talked to, is the oldest followed by Freddy, the tattoo artist. They are our parents’ only biological kids. The two middle kids, Leo and Ryan, Dante and I, we were all adopted.”

Dante smiled and pulled his sister into a one-armed hug. “We’re the babies.”

Harry smiled. “Shall we go get drinks?”

“Yeah. Let’s.”

They made their way to a reserved table and got comfortable, Jamie fitting nicely in between Harry and Dante.

“So Dolores…”

She elbowed her brother and huffed, turning to Harry. “Yes, Harold?”

He grinned. “Why don’t you use your name, love? Dolores is pretty.”

She shook her head. “No it isn’t! It means ‘sorrow’.”

Dante shrugged. “Seems appropriate. You’ve been nothing but trouble since you were three years old.”

“Asshole.” She turned to face Harry fully. “I don’t like ‘Dolores’.”

Harry nodded. “I gather that. Why?”

She smiled. “My birth mother named me that right before she fucked off to wherever she went. My mom hated it but by the time we got adopted, it was too late to really change it.”

His heart clenched and he laid his arm over the couch behind her, gathering her closer to his side. His other hand came up to rub a thumb over her angel. “Sorry, monster. That sucks.” When she shrugged, he smiled down at her. “Where did Jamie come from?”

“My original last name was James. My mom thought Jamie would be a cute nickname.”

“It is.” He set his chin on her shoulder. “Yeh said ‘we got adopted’. Did yeh and Dante get adopted at the same time?”

Nodding, she smiled and elbowed her brother again. “We were in the same state home… I’m barely a month older than him and our respective shit went down around the same time, so we got placed in the system about the same time. My dad is a social worker and Dante was in his workload, but whenever he went to see Dante, Dante would scream until Dad promised that he’d find me a family too. My dad kinda fell in love with us and though they hadn’t intended to adopt anymore kids, I guess he couldn’t help himself. He introduced Mom to us and the rest is history.”

Harry smiled and Dante made gagging noises behind her.

“He pretends but he loves me.”

Harry’s thumb was still rubbing against her thigh. “Is the angel fer yer mum?”

She nodded, looking down at his hand. “Her name is Angelica. Seemed appropriate.” She looked up and caught his eye. They both froze, the tension suddenly thick. “She cried when I showed it her.”

“First tattoo?”

She chuckled, eyes still locked on his. “Yeah. She doesn’t seem to mind them nowadays.”

He looked down at her lips. “Yeah.”

Harry caught Dante’s smile over his sister’s head and like that the spell was broken. Blushing, she turned to ask Mitch something.

Eventually she wandered off to talk to someone and Dante slid over to him. He sipped his beer and grinned. “Look I’m not gonna give you any ‘touch her you die’ bullshit. She’s well-protected without getting my nose all up in it and I don’t think you’re a bad dude. I don’t think you’ll ever want to hurt her. Not on purpose.

“But man, I’m warnin’ ya. She’s… She’s naive sometimes. She’s an angel. She always sees the good in people and despite the shit that she’s seen, she’s an optimist like I’ve never seen before. Maybe I’m biased because she’s my sister and my best friend but I don’t think you gonna be able to walk away from her all that easily. You should keep that in mind before you start anything you may not want to finish.”

**

Harry set his notebook down by her thigh and sat next to her on the couch. “I’ve got somethin’... new.”

She smiled. “Cool! Let’s hear it.”

He blushed and rubbed his hands on his jeans.

She frowned and grabbed his hand. “What’s wrong? You’re not normally this nervous to share what you’ve written.”

He laughed and lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a quick kiss to her knuckle. “I spent all night on it. It’s probably shit.”

“Doubt it.” She smiled and pat his leg with her free hand. “Do you want me to keep time?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that would be helpful. It’s uh… 4/4.”

She counted it out and he took another deep breath and began, feeling a bit like he was digging himself a hole.

“Open up your eyes, shut your mouth and see That I'm still the only one who's been in love with me I'll guess I'll be getting you stuck in between my teeth And there's nothing I can do about it.”

He snuck a peek at her and she seemed to enjoying the song, smiling slightly, her eyes closed like she was imagining it.

“Broke a finger knocking on your bedroom door I got splinters in my knuckles crawling across the floor Couldn't take you home to mother in a skirt that short But I think that's what I like about it.”

He licked his lips and smiled, glancing at her again, now she was looking at him, her tilted in confusion. He swallowed dryly. “The chorus is:”

“She's an angel Only angel She's an angel My only angel”

“There’d be some fun… uh vocalization. Not sure what yet. The next verse goes:”

“I must admit I thought I'd like to make you mine As I went about my business through the warning signs End up meeting in the hallway every single time And there's nothing we can do about it. Told it to her brother and she told it to me That she's gonna be angel, just you wait and see When it turns out she's a devil in between the sheets And there's nothing she can do about it.”

He nodded. “And that it. Of course, there’d be a guitar solo and um…” He sighed. “What do you think?”

She swallowed. “First, I want to say that I like the song. I can see how this one would be fun to perform. I look forward to hearing the finished product.”

He held his breath. “And second?”

She took a deep breath. “Is it…” She paused and eyed him. “This is going to sound stupid. Is it about me? I mean-” She stuttered. “I mean with the angel references and you’re so nervous and.. the sk-”

He leaned forward and kissed her, words failing him the way they normally did.

This….this was what he wanted. She must have just put on chapstick, her lips felt smooth and tasted vaguely sweet. His hand, the one that hadn’t been clutching hers for dear life, slid back in her hair, those curls tangling around his fingers like they didn’t want him to leave.

She gasped, hand coming up to grasp his shirt. He tried to keep it chaste, really but when he nipped lightly at her lip, intending to pull away, to use his words like a grown-ass man, she let out a stuttering moan and he was lost yet again.

He pressed forward and the hand in her hair, sliding across her back to her opposite hip. She came willingly closer and he groaned into her mouth.

She’s naive.

He pulled away and kissed her forehead. He took a second to collect himself but she beat him to it.

“I…” She sounded a little breathless and he had to beat back savage pride, the likes of which he’d never experienced before. “I don’t want to make you crawl... well I might be... in certain circumstances...” She blushed and Harry chuckled as she waved that thought off. “The point is: I’m no angel… but I don’t think I’m a devil either… I just don’t want somethin’ to happen if that’s what you think of me. I don’t want somethin’ to happen if you feel like you’re doing something despite ‘warning signs.’ I don’t-”

Harry laid his finger against her lips.

“Yeh are an angel.” He smiled softly and nodded. “Yeh are, love. Ye’re sweet and kind. And yeah ye’re a little kinky and if that doesn’t make yeh absolutely the most interestin’ woman on earth...” She shook her head, laughing softly. “Also I don’t think ye’re… evil or some man-eater or summat, I swear. That’s not what the ‘warning signs’ were about. Just tha’ whatever this is… It’s not gonna be easy.” He swallowed. “The paps and the media alone drive normal, sane women mad.”

She chuckled, they still weren’t looking at each other as if they were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to say these words if they were. “This is technically inappropriate office behavior.”

He scoffed. “I’m sure ye’ve seen more inappropriate things in this line of work. This is hardly on t’map, love.”

“So what is this?”

“I don’t know… But whatever it is, I want it as long as you want it too.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay, then.”

Part II Up Next: Part IV

[thunderoad]

it’s with the strange vertiginous aftertaste of change lingering in his mouth that Louis answers the phone. (nouis friendship, 3k) 

Louis’s car slips through traffic like a fish through water. The black asphalt reminds him of the kind of icy black tinge snow runoff gets, and he frowns, wondering where he would’ve seen that before. Norway? Sweden?

Has he even been to Sweden? Louis’s not sure. He doesn’t spend much time worrying about it, either. Used to, there was always Niall to remember everything, or even Liam or Zayn. Someone who was right there with him, who would pick up on the details while he was too busy picturing massive goldfish wriggling effortlessly under the frigid surface of icy black water.

They all had their own ways of trying to hold onto things. Niall was the memory man, Zayn drew stuff, Liam texted or phoned in all the best bits to his parents, to his string of girlfriends, to anyone who’d listen. Like storing memories in human receptacles. Louis used to write about it, but these days, he doesn’t make such a concerted effort.

He hasn’t got the time, and anyhow, he’s learning that you never really forget the things you want to remember. You never forget the stuff you might like to forget, either, but that just seems like part of the package. He props his elbow up on the door and thinks longingly about the cigarette tucked behind his ear.

He doesn’t want to light up in such a small space with a non-smoker – one of the side effects of being a dad, apparently – and he’ll get to the next press event soon enough. There’s always a green room to sneak off to for a smoke, Louis knows. He reckons he’s probably had a cig or a nap in a solid 25% of all the green rooms in the world, not counting the music festival green rooms that only exist for a few days every year.

Louis taps his fingers against his knee. He’s reaching for the cig above his ear, his mouth open to ask his driver if he minds, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Louis has to shift around in his seat to dig his phone out of the pocket of his tight jeans, and by the time he’s got it out, it’s stopped vibrating. Louis’s expecting a string of texts from Olly or one of the lads about a match, or a bird, or anything, really.

It’s not. His phone vibrates with another call from Niall. The screen lights up with a picture of him from sometime last year, his hair still unnaturally blond, his face caught in one of those crinkly-eyed smiles.

He looks so young, and Louis catches himself smiling like an absolute idiot at the sight of one of his oldest friends. Then he remembers that Niall looks so young because it really has been ages since that picture, and it’s with the strange vertiginous aftertaste of change lingering in his mouth that Louis answers the phone.

“Lo?”

“Oi oi!” Niall laughs. Louis relaxes immediately. “I didn’t catch you smoking, did I? You know those things will ruin your voice, mate.”

Louis rolls his eyes at Niall’s gentle scolding. The soft spot Louis’s always nurtured for him seems to have grown over the hiatus, or something, Louis doesn’t know. Either way, it leaves him vulnerable to getting choked up at the strangest moments, like now. He thinks about saying, “Not much of a voice to ruin,” and then he knows that Niall’s just said that because he doesn’t think so, and Louis pauses. “No, you didn’t,” Louis finally says. “I’m in a car.”

“Windows up,” Niall guesses.

Louis laughs although it’s summer and a breeze might feel good, and there’s nobody to fight with over the air con with just him and his assistant in the back. She’s so engrossed in her iPad and two phones and laptop that he might as well not be there at all.

“Don’t be creepy,” Louis just says, and Niall laughs again. His laughter – and he’s always laughing, sometimes even when the tension in the room is so thick you couldn’t cut it with a chainsaw – his laughter soothes the frayed edges of Louis’s nerves like warm honey. “Have you got another song for me to hear?” Louis asks.

Niall’s been sending him teasing little snippets like the proper arsehole he is (and Louis knows it’s Niall’s own gentle teasing for the way Louis did “Back to You,” so he’s forced to be a little proud of him, the cheeky bastard), and Louis’s quietly thrilled at the prospect of hearing more. He hums, and then he heaves a breath and he says, “Nah. I rang to rag on you, actually.”

A knot of tension starts building right between Louis’s shoulder blades. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says.

Predictably, Niall asks, “Are you surprised, to be honest?”

“No,” Louis admits crabbily, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I just mean, Dan of all people…” Niall starts. “And what you said – how you said about – ”

“I didn’t lie.” There’s a dangerous thread of righteous indignation in Louis’s voice. He can hear it, and he knows from past arguments that following the instinct to Win At All Costs has only ever lost him more than its gained, but he can’t stop himself. He never could. It’s just that he’s right, damn it. “I don’t lie.”

Niall sighs. It derails Louis for a moment, because he’s expecting an equal push back. He’s expecting the spiels he’s heard from management and that lot for years about managing his image and respecting the fan base. Louis could give them the speech right back, word for word, at this point. But Niall sighs, and Louis realizes Niall agrees. “I ain’t saying you got to lie, Louis.”

“Then what?” Louis lights the cigarette from behind his ear and sucks in a quick, acrid breath.

Niall stays quiet for a moment. Fuck, Louis wishes he could see his face. Finally, he forces a brittle laugh. “Harry’s not gonna like what you said, is all, mate.”

“So?” The question, short as it is, hangs like a challenge.

Patient, precious, lovely Niall says, “Don’t be a dick, Lou,” and hangs up on him.

Louis pulls the phone away from his ear, the cig dangling from his lip. Smoke wafts from the end of the cherry and stings his eyes, and Louis jabs at his screen with the pad of his finger a moment too late. Fuck, he hates being hung up on.

If anybody’s going to hang up on someone else, it better be Louis. He can’t believe it was just Niall who did it. “Little shit,” Louis breathes. He drops his phone into his lap and sinks back against his seat, taking drags off a cigarette he doesn’t really want to smoke anymore. They really will fuck up a voice. Shit.

…

Ofelia, the woman who keeps Niall’s house, opens the door. “Louis!” she exclaims, and promptly pulls him into a warm hug.

“Hi, you gorgeous woman,” Louis says. He lets her hold him out at arm’s length. She runs as critical eye – really, a mother’s eye; Louis remembers enough to know that – over him and clucks her tongue.

“Too skinny,” she says, like always.

“Too beautiful,” Louis says in response. She laughs and pinches his arm and blushes all the same. “Is Niall here?”

“No,” she shakes her head. Still, she takes a step back and ushers him into Niall’s house. “But you’re welcome to come in and wait. He should be back soon.”

“Thank you,” Louis tells her sincerely. Ofelia offers to whip him up one of her trademark omelets, or a grilled cheese, and Louis has half a mind to raid Niall’s fridge and pass out in his bed amidst a bunch of crumbs he knows Niall will meticulously vacuum away after Louis’s gone. “I’m just gonna take a kip on the couch, I think.”

Ofelia takes his hand and gives it a friendly squeeze. “Good boy,” she says, so Louis lies down and shuts his eyes. He falls asleep with Niall’s usual fresh citrus sanitizer and laundry detergent smell in his nose, and when he wakes up, Niall’s stood over him with a plate in his hand.

Louis stretches like a cat and shuts his eyes for a second just for the pleasure of opening them to Niall’s ruddy face again. “Is that for me? What a love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall mutters, the tips of his ears pink. He sets the plate down on the coffee table and shoves at Louis’s legs until Louis sits up to make room for him, and then he pulls Louis into a hug. He smells like himself, and sunscreen and sweat, and Louis fills his lungs up with it. “You look good, man.”

“All this beauty rest I’ve been getting,” Louis jokes. He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you ran the promo circuit for months, mate. I’ve been at it for a few weeks now and it’s like to do my head in.”

Niall leans back while Louis leans forward, inspecting the sandwich Niall’s brought him. It’s turkey and cheese, and Louis lets out a satisfied hum. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince Ofelia to come live with me,” he speculates.

Ofelia shouts from somewhere in the house, “No, thank you, Louis!” And Louis and Niall both crack up. Louis tears into his sandwich and Niall lets out a sigh and sinks into the sofa, his shoulder rubbing Louis’s. Niall likes to be within arm’s reach if it’s been a while, closer if he can manage it, so Louis throws his ankle over Niall’s on the coffee table.

“Wanker,” Niall murmurs, and Louis huffs. “I didn’t know you were coming back to LA so soon. Did you bring Freddie with you?”

“Nah, he’s at his mum’s.”

“Well, never mind then,” Niall pretends to pull away. “If you’ve not got the baby, I’ve got better things to do. These sandwich-making skills aren’t –”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says fondly. He locks his arm around Niall’s and Niall gives up faking. “Get me some crisps to go with this.”

“Get them yourself.”

“Ofelia,” Louis starts, and Niall rolls his eyes and hauls himself off the couch and returns with a packet of salt and vinegar chips, just like Louis wanted. Louis smiles. “You love me,” he tells Niall.

Niall drops down heavily beside him and turns on the golf. “You’re a shit, Tommo,” he says, but he’s smiling.

They both know Louis’s there to finish their last conversation, but it takes them half a day to get around to it. Niall wants Louis to see the new trees he’s had planted, and Louis has a Netflix comedy special he wants Niall to watch, and then they have to break for burgers. They’re sat in Niall’s spare bedroom, which is stuffed wall to wall with guitars and effects pedals and a drum kit and half a dozen Moleskines. It’s not really a spare bedroom; it’s the start of a home recording studio. But Niall’s not come round to that yet, is all.

“I fucking love In n Out,” Louis sighs. He likes his burgers with extra animal sauce and a chocolate shake to go with his fries. Niall knocked back two antacids before they even sent for food delivery.

Niall puts the last of his shake aside and pulls an acoustic guitar into his lap. “Your eating habits, mate,” he shakes his head.

Louis rolls onto his back and looks up at the clean white ceiling. Outside, the sun is beginning to set over the Hollywood Hills. The light that seeps in through the wooden window blinds is a soft shade of blue, and the rug is soft beneath Louis’s back. “I didn’t lie,” he says. He’s hardly thinking when he speaks.

Niall keeps on plucking guitar strings. He’s playing some desultory, unfamiliar melody, and Louis makes a mental note to ask him what new song that is later. “No,” he says. “You were totally honest.”

Bristling, Louis says, “We can’t all say nothing, or not talk about shit,” he says. “It’s like my lyrics, mate – I just want to be, like, real.” Real, and successful on his own. No, not on his own - as himself. Unspoken, his private fear: that he’s the only one who ever needed the band. 

“You and me,” Niall starts, and it’s that phrase – you and me – that draws Louis up short. You and me, he hears, like it’s a call to arms. Whether it’s the streets of Donny or the footie pitch or a recording studio, Louis’s ready to go. All in, every time. He can’t help it. Niall lifts a shoulder. “We both know you couldn’t be anythin’ else,” Niall says. He lifts his eyes and quite suddenly, Louis feels utterly transparent. It scares him to the bone.

Louis licks his lips and feels a wave of genuine, actual fear wash over him; he poured his heart into that album and soon it’ll be out for absolutely anyone to hear and now he hasn’t even got his mum to fight in his corner and holy shit, what if people don’t even fucking like it? Louis teeters on the precipice of panic. 

Suddenly, Louis laughs. “Hell with it,” he says. Niall cocks his head. “Hell with Harry,” Louis adds. His heart feels less like it’s slowly being crushed in an all-consuming vice of grief and fear. A little wildly, Louis goes on, “Fuckin’ winner, he is, isn’t he?” Louis shakes his head. He closes his eyes, but he can still feel Niall’s translucent eyes on the side of his face. It feels good, and it’s scary; it’s always felt good, but it wasn’t always scary. Louis just knows Niall better now. Niall knows Louis better, too. “A bunch of losers and misfits and underdogs, weren’t we?” 

Niall’s started smiling. “And Harry,” he adds, eyes bright. 

“And Harry,” Louis agrees.

...

The “Back to You” music video brings Louis back to good ‘ol Donny with a whole crew of cameramen, makeup artists, sound engineers, hair stylists, the whole lot. It feels a bit like throwing a wedding in his own home, not that he’s had the chance to do that yet, and the circus of making the video eases some of the suffocating grief he feels when he thinks about his mum. 

Maybe it’s because he’s a dad now, or because it’s been so long since he’s last come home, or because the rest of Louis’s life has finally caught up to the sleepy village he was dying to get out of, but he’s never felt further from the familiar chips-and-gravy comfort of Donny. When he thinks about himself, he still thinks of a bloke off the park footie pitch, grass stains on his knees and a hastily discarded uniform shirt wrinkling in the bottom of his bag. He thinks of a bloke who’d call his mum every single day, who never missed one of his sister’s recitals, who fell in love at the drop of a hat and stayed there. 

He is, and he isn’t. He’s not that bloke off the street, Louis realizes. He got luckier than that. Turns out, you can go home again, you just won’t want to stay. 

Louis tucks Bebe under his arm and sings along to his own song under the camera’s penetrating gaze. He thinks about writing lyrics that are real and honest and Niall putting out the most heartbroken record he’s maybe ever heard and Harry wandering from one thing to the next. He thinks about Liam and the life he always wanted. Mostly he thinks about how nobody ever changes, they just get older. 

The director calls, “Cut!” and one of the lighting blokes scurries round to adjust one of the big reflecting screens. “We’ll lose the light soon,” Bebe comments idly, meaning they’ll have to finish this bit tomorrow and then shoot some more footage for the video.  

“Eh, reckon it’ll be alright,” Louis says firmly. “We’ll sort it.” He sounds like a dad to his own ears. Like a proper adult. 

It sounds good. 

[ficbynic]

T A K E   C A R E  -  Chapter 1 - Copenhagen

"I'm actually pretty scared." 

"You'll be absolutely fine, Em. I'm certain you will be. You're gonna have a great time. And if not," Jonas assured, "You're only an hour flight away. You pack your bags and you go. No one's holding you back." He wrapped his arm around her another time, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. He was towering over her, as usual. "There's no need to be scared."

"I know, it's just that I'm nervous."

Story page | Author | Talk to me | Read on Tumblr only.

1- Copenhagen LATE SEPTEMBER 2017 "I'm actually pretty scared." "You'll be absolutely fine, Em. I'm certain you will be. You're gonna have a great time. And if not," Jonas assured, "You're only an hour flight away. You pack your bags and you go. No one's holding you back." He wrapped his arm around her another time, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. He was towering over her, as usual. "There's no need to be scared." "I know, it's just that I'm nervous." "Of course you're nervous. That's completely normal. You've never done this before and you're going way out of your comfort zone. Of course you're gonna be nervous." Emilie Larsen blinked away a nervous tear and coughed to get rid of the lump in her throat that had been there for a while now. She couldn't possibly love her brother more in that moment if she wanted to, though. He always knew what to say. And she knew he was right. She did not want to be scared. She did not want to cry. There was no reason to. She was going on this adventure because she wanted to and she had been organising the trip for weeks. Of course, she'd never done this before, it was a big step and everything had gone fairly quickly after having come up with the idea not even two months ago. But she was well prepared and there was no reason to not be optimistic about this new experience. That having said, she still tried to avoid eye contact with her older sister Gitte, who she knew was already getting teary. She had been rather quiet all morning, acting a bit strange, which had only added to Emilie's knotted stomach. What a contrast to Jonas' behaviour. He was the youngest of the three Larsen siblings, but it often seemed like it was the other way around, him being the oldest and wisest. "Your brother's right, Em, everything will be fine. We're all so proud of you for doing this. I think it's great you're going, you know that," her Mum spoke up. Emilie knew she was being strong, like she always was, putting on a brave face, like she always did, even though saying goodbye was bittersweet. Agnes was proud of her daughter for going, but was also really going to miss having her around, especially since Emilie was the only one still living at home with her. Nevertheless, she had a smile on her face and had been nothing but comforting and reassuring all morning. It had been a tough car ride to the airport. It was only supposed to take a little over an hour but traffic added another thirty minutes. Not to mention the fact that all of a sudden, Emilie had been desperate to use the ladies' room. It was like nothing she ever experienced before, literally having to run from the parking lot to the nearest sanitary facility, which happened to be a patrol station's, after Jonas took the first exit off the motorway. Emilie knew it was all caused by her nerves. A part of her just couldn't believe she was actually going through with all of this and didn't feel like this was really happening. She'd never done anything like this before. She'd never gone out of her comfort zone like this. She'd had the dreams of doing something adventurous, travelling around the globe or maybe moving abroad for a longer period of time, but they were left unfulfilled. Emilie had always been in school or university and never took a gap year or time off her studies. That meant that she had been able to obtain her Master's degree at just twenty-three years old. But it also meant that at times, she'd felt like life was living her, instead of the other way around. She had always been 'colouring within the lines', as it were, following the guidelines and paths others had set up for her. Until now. Now, she was stepping away from all she knew and trying something completely new. Something she came up with herself. Something she arranged herself. Something she wanted herself. It was gonna be an adventure she didn't know the outcome of. She didn't know what she would feel like in a day, a week, or even a month.    And in a way, that was the beauty of it all. It was the most nerve-wracking part, of course, but also what she was looking forward to most.   In a way, Emilie Larsen was already excited to get back to Denmark. Not because she wasn't excited about leaving, but because she was just so incredibly curious about what this adventure would hold. By the time she returned home, what would she have experienced? What would she have seen, done, learned? What would the host family have been like? And the kids? Would she have met other new people? Was it going to feel like she was a new person when she would get back to Copenhagen? A lot of unanswered questions clouded Emilie's mind. Questions she would get all answers to in the near future. That didn't mean saying goodbye wasn't going to be tough. Emilie was extremely close to her siblings and Mum. The entire week had been bittersweet, with family and friends coming over to say bye. Never before had Emilie been away for such a long time. She knew it was the best thing she could be doing, though. "Alright. So I guess I'm gonna be going, I don't want to stress about being late. It's probably busy at security." The last thing that Emilie wanted was to miss the fucking flight. "Alright, honey. I love you. We keep in touch, text us on the Whatsapp group chat, alright?" her mum replied, wrapping her arms around her. "You can always call us, text us... You're going to be fine." "Have fun, sis," Jonas then beamed, hugging her next, "Enjoy! And remember I can always come and pay you a visit. I'll probably have the time and money after my exams." Emilie thought about the contract she'd signed and 'No overnight guests' being one of the first rules on the agreement. For her brother they would surely make an exception, though. Gitte was next. "Don't cry," Emilie told her, despite the fact her own voice was cracking as she consoled her sister. "Safe trip, Em," Gitte responded, her voice unaffected, but a tear streaming down her cheek. "I'll be back soon enough," Emilie offered, not entirely sure if she was convinced of her own words, "Annoying you lot and paying you unexpected visits. Say hi to Viktor for me, by the way." "Will do." Her sister smiled through her tears. "Alright." "Alright, here I go." "Safe flight, Em." "Take care of yourself, Emilie," Agnes made sure to tell her daughter. "I will." "I know you will." Her mum smiled. Before things would get too hard to get through, Emilie gave the three of them a final hug and walked off, her small suitcase making ticking sounds on the tiled floor behind her. Her other hand was wrapped around the strap of her handbag dangling off her shoulder. The third item of luggage, a large suitcase that held most of her belongings, she'd already checked in. Emilie turned around one last time to wave a goodbye to the three people she loved most in life. Her mum was smiling, an arm wrapped around Gitte. Jonas was stood waving his arms in the air giving her two thumbs-up, his smile big, as always. She grabbed her carry-on suitcase again and made her way down the corridor, automatic doors opening and closing after she entered. This was it. No turning back now. ~~ There was probably nothing as anxiety provoking and stressful than going through security at a busy airport, Emilie thought as she ascended the escalator to an upper level of the airport. She could already hear the volume of the sounds of fellow flight passengers increasing, indicating that she was about to enter a crowded area. When she turned a corner, she found it was already time to get in the queue for the hectic safety measures check, the beeping of the equipment and shouting of the security staff already audible. "Remove any laptops, tablets and phones from your bags, please!" "Please remove your belt, Ma'am." "Next, please!" "If you could please take off your shoes, Sir." Rapidly moving on to eventually become the first in line, Emilie already removed hers before she was even asked to. The buckle belt of her black boots would probably elicit a reaction coming from the scanning machine, as well. She tried to be as cooperative as possible, wanting this to be over quickly. "Hello, good afternoon, please move along here, Miss," one of the members of security staff then sounded, suddenly speaking Danish again instead of English like she had before, probably because there was no doubt Emilie was a true Nordic looking girl. Emilie moved along and started placing her items on the moving baggage belt in front of her, using the trays that were piled up on the side to store her belongings. "Any liquids in there, Miss?" "No," Emilie answered, putting her handbag in a tray, her shoes and jacket in another, before lifting her little suitcase on there as well after removing her laptop and iPad. She then waited for the guy at the other side of security detector gate to give her a sign. Despite not hearing any beeping coming from the detector, a female security staff member suddenly appeared the second Emilie had walked through the gate, and started searching her extensively, going as far as poking her thumbs an inch down Emilie's jeans, front and back. Lovely. A moody "Alright" apparently meant that she was good to go. Emilie quickly made her way down the baggage belt, queuing up after other travellers again, already eyeing the multiple trays carrying her belongings. She quickly stepped into her boots, grabbed her coat and handbag, before finally dragging her little suitcase from the conveyor belt, along with her electronic devices. She tried to find a quiet place to reorganise her iPad and laptop, ending up sitting down on the floor near the wall, opening her hand luggage bag in full display, momentarily not caring about the other travellers being able to gawk at her possessions varying from a couple of items of clothing, to a can of traditional Danish delicacies, to a children's Frozen colouring book. A man walked past her and gave her a sympathetic smile. Wonderful. She knew she probably looked like a total stress-case high on adrenaline and anxiety, but she didn't need it to be confirmed by a random stranger who unlike herself happened to be used to all of this, probably going on foreign business trips every other day. It wasn't that Emilie wasn't well travelled. In a way, she was. She even travelled by herself multiple times, going on city trips to visit friends who stayed abroad for uni. Perhaps the fact that this time she wouldn't be returning home after just a few days was the reason of her nerves. She wasn't experienced when it came down to long trips. Especially not when the trips would involve a still somewhat unclear destination, unclear activities and occupations, and a generally unclear experience. Emilie was able to calm down a bit when her suitcase was properly packed again and she made her way to the gate. Of course, she actually turned out to be quite early, so she hung around at the tax free shops and got herself a green tea at some hipster coffee bar, hoping it would calm the nerves some more. Checking her phone, she received some last minute "safe trip" messages. After replying to them, she also texted her Mum, Gitte, and Jonas via the Whatsapp group chat. After making her way to the correct gate and sitting down near a screen hanging from the ceiling displaying all relevant flight information, time went by fairly quickly. Emilie tried to focus on the other people around her to get her mind off of what was ahead of her. If anything, she loved people watching and tried to imagine where everyone was going or what was going on in everyone's lives. It helped her to stop thinking about hers for a while. At one time, a guy Emilie's age sat down next to her, taking the empty seat. He was travelling with a couple of friends and by the sounds of it, he was on her flight, about to return home. Their baggage and stories let Emilie know the guys probably went backpacking around Scandinavia. She spent a few minutes listening to them talking. They seemed very nice. Especially the boy sat next to her looked quite cute. He had the habit of brushing his hand through his blond locks. His eyes were bright and blue. Emilie was very close to developing a temporary crush on him, until she peeked over, noticed the phone in his hand, and saw him texting heart emojis to a lucky recipient. With a minor delay, all passengers were called to enter the plane after another passport check and boarding pass scan. The flight turned out to be quite busy. Queuing up in the aisle between the airplane seats before storing her carry-on suitcase in the overhead bin, Emilie noticed that the backpacking boys ended up sitting in the row in front of her. She was happy to have a window seat, allowing her to take one final look at the familiar Copenhagen surroundings. As the plane finally started increasing its speed, it finally hit her. This was real. This was happening. She was going to work and live in London and she wasn't going to return home for three whole months. | Next chapter > | | Story page | Author | Talk to me |

[phancystuff]

Trying to Remember How it Feels (To Have a Heartbeat) 5/7

Pairing: Dan/ Phil (Phan) Summary: Dan moves into a new apartment in London and, though it’s a step up from his old apartment, his landlord gives him strange warnings while he’s touring the place– something about the last renters leaving because of ghost sightings. But, Dan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He quickly changes his tune when he meets Phil Lester, the ghost haunting his apartment. Well, if haunting means quickly becoming the best friend he’s ever had. (Title from Harry Styles’ song Two Ghosts) Notes: Part 5 of my Spooky Week Special, already?? This fic is almost 100% already written and I plan on updating it every day until Halloween. Please note that, although this fic has the warning of major character death, it is not in any way graphic. Tags/ Warnings: ghost au, Halloween, major character death (obv. it’s a ghost au lol), depictions of panic attacks, angst, fluff, HAPPY ENDING, mentions of suicide (it happens in a movie they watch)

Read it on AO3 Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

“I died for a stupid reason. I lost out on all my chances in life because my landlord wrote off on an inspection that hadn’t been completed.” Dan closed his eyes, suddenly questioning whether or not he wanted to hear Phil’s cause of death. He had waited so long to find out, the question itching underneath his skin, ever since that night that Phil had exploded at Dan for asking. But now, Dan didn’t want Phil to say another word.

“Phil, please, you don’t have to-- I don’t want you to-- Phil…” Dan didn’t even know what he was trying to say, but Phil didn’t even glance at Dan.

“It started out with regular flu symptoms. I didn’t think anything of it for a couple days. But it didn’t get better. In fact, my flu started to get downright scary.” Phil looked beyond the lounge, eyes far away like he was imagining himself seven years ago. “I was often confused.” Phil let out a hollow laugh that grated again Dan’s skin. It sounded nothing like Phil’s laughs. It sounded nothing like his loud, long giggles when Dan did something funny. It sounded nothing like his low, intimate chuckles when they cuddled in bed. It sounded nothing like his hissing snickers when he was trying to stop himself from laughing. Phil had a hundred different laughs, but this was one that Dan never wanted to hear again.

“One day I found myself out on the balcony, sitting on the railing and looking down at the city.” Dan sucked in a harsh breath and held it, praying that Phil wasn’t about to say what Dan feared the most. “I had no idea how I got there. I’d lay in bed and my muscles would seize up and my vision would go back.” Dan breathed out shakily. “I called my mom and she urged me to see the doctor. I figured it could wait a day and so I scheduled the appointment and I--”

The monotone voice that Phil spoke with cracked. Dan watched as the mask on Phil’s face shattered and his face contorted with raw emotion. Phil choked back a sob and Dan pushed his palms into his closed eyes, feeling the back of his throat tighten and a few tears wet his palms. “I-I went to sleep.”

The flat was as silent as a tomb. Dan could hear the soft hum of the TV, indicating that it was still on. He could hear their neighbors having a distant, muted conversation. Dan wondered briefly what they were talking about. What to have for dinner, maybe. Definitely not how the other had died. Dan spoke the words that he intuitively knew were true, despite wanting to clap his hand over his mouth, over Phil’s mouth, and never return to this conversation again. “You never woke up?”

“I never woke up.” Phil agreed. There was a beat. “Carbon monoxide poisoning. The furnace was broken.” Dan was filled with anger, wanting to find the person responsible for Phil’s death. Dan wanted to find him and kill him.

Phil’s reaction to the movie suddenly made sense. Dan had brought him back to that place. He brought him back his death. Dan cried now, freely. He got down on his knees next to Phil and gathered him in his arms. “No one found my body for a week.”

“Oh, god, Phil.” Dan rocked the ghost, not caring that the Phil’s cheek was pressed painfully to the bare crook of his neck. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore. Phil had been so alone in his death; he didn’t have to be alone ever again. Dan would make sure of it.

 “Ph-Phil, I’m so s-sorry. So sorry.” Sorry for the movie, sorry for the way Phil had died, sorry for how unfairly life had treated them both. Sorry that they hadn’t found each other, their soulmates, until death had claimed one of them. They both cried.

Dan wished that Phil had never told Dan how he died, because now Dan was plagued by the image of Phil, alone, watching his own body deteriorate for a week, waiting on someone to find him and relieve just a bit of his suffering.

***

It took three days of crying in each other’s arms for Dan and Phil to be able to pick themselves up again. Phil was distraught by the memories of his death, but Dan was downright inconsolable. He struggled to balance the conflicting images of Phil that wrestled inside his mind. Images of amazingphil smiling hugely into a camera, images of his Phil clutching his hand as they decorated for Halloween and danced to silly music, images of a decaying Phil lying motionless under a familiar green and blue duvet. Dan now understood the images of Phil in bed that Dan often saw when Phil was initially possessing Dan’s body. Dan had been unknowingly watching Phil decaying in his own memories. These images haunted Dan. They kept him awake at night.

Dan tried to shake it off, like Phil had successfully done. It worked from the perspective of someone looking outside in, but Dan knew that those images were burned in his retinas forever.

“Let’s go out today, Phil.” Dan said, standing in the shower, scrubbing himself under the scalding water. It was too hot, making his skin pink and sensitive. He rubbed himself too hard, almost as if he was trying to rid himself of his own skin.

Phil sat on the toilet directly outside of the shower. He was reading a Stephen King novel on his iPad, but had wanted to keep Dan company. “Sure, ok. Where do you want to go?”

Dan hummed, rinsing soap out of his hair. “I want us to have a day of it. Go to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Go to the movies, maybe. Visit a bookstore. I don’t know.” Dan spat out the watery bubbles that dripped into his mouth while talking. He just wanted to be distracted and he didn’t want to go out without Phil. He didn’t want to do anything without Phil, preferring to continue to put off his friends and make excuses to his mum.

Phil read another page before answering distractedly. “Sounds fun. It’s perfect that you woke up so uncharacteristically early.” Dan opened the shower curtain and flicked soap at Phil who screeched and held the iPad far away from his body, squawking about soap killing Apple products. Dan almost felt normal for the first time in a week.

Dan finished his shower, shutting the water off and climbing into the chilly air of the bathroom. Phil looked up from his iPad, eyeing Dan up and down. “Nice bod, mate.” Dan would have blushed deeper if he hadn’t taken such a hot shower, wrapping a towel around his waist instead.

“Shut up, creep. You probably use your ghostly powers for pervy stuff, mate .” Dan grabbed another towel and rubbed his hair dry.

Phil cupped his chin in the palms of his hands and looked at Dan with his head cocked. “Believe it or not, I tried very hard not to use my ghostly powers for pervy stuff. It seemed nonconsensual and yucky.” He tapped a finger on his cheek and watched a drop of water slide down Dan’s chest and into the edge of his towel. “But, you can consent.”

Dan whipped the towel in his hands at Phil, admonishing the ghost boy. Phil just laughed and followed Dan into his bedroom where Dan dressed for their day out. Dan tried to run his fingers through his hair to tame the bush that seemed to grow out of his scalp, but quickly gave up and just laid on the bed. He looked up at Phil and sensually whispered, “enter me.”

A surprised laugh exploded out of Phil’s lips and it was his turn to admonish the living boy with a “Daniel!” Dan giggled back. Phil gingerly placed himself on top of Dan and quickly let go of his physical manifestation. He sunk into Dan’s body and allowed himself to enjoy the honeyed life that washed over his consciousness. Phil watched the images of Dan’s life flash through his head like he was watching a pleasing TV show. Everything was tinged golden.

Meanwhile, the images that Dan was subjected to were a lot more meaningful, ever since having the conversation with Phil about his death. He understood what he was looking at when he watched Phil lie motionless on his bed. Usually Dan was able to protect himself with mental armor; he found that, this time around, he couldn’t keep himself from feeling every one of Phil’s past emotions. Boredom, emptiness, loss, nostalgia, anger, bitterness, deep sadness. They came in such close succession and never-ending waves, that they all melded into one black cloud of gloom.

When Dan’s vision cleared at the familiar ceiling of his flat stared back at him, the black cloud was still lodged in his heart and he couldn’t even get the motivation to speak or register what Phil was using his eyes to look at.

“Dan? Helloooo, Dan?” Phil’s curious, slightly worried voice finally reached Dan’s ears.

Hmm? Sorry, what?

“Did you hear what I said?”

Uh, no. Sorry. 

“Are you ok? You sound a little shaken up.” Phil looked in the mirror in Dan’s bedroom and Dan’s concerned brown eyes stared back at him. It was a bit unnerving.

Yeah, I’m ok. Distracted, that’s all. What’s for breakfast? Dan tried to sound normal, but was nervous that he just sounded fake. If Phil noticed Dan’s strangeness, he didn’t comment on it.

Phil raised his eyebrow, “uh, pancakes, duh. Do you even know me, Daniel?”

Dan huffed out a laugh. You and your pancakes. You’re an addict!

“Hey, I could be going to do some cocaine. I do have full control over your body, right now.”

Yeah, but all these pancakes are going to make me pudgy.

Phil poked at his tummy, his finger sinking into Dan’s soft belly. “Good! You would look so cute. More pancakes, it is!”

Dan laughed past the dark feelings that continued to attack him, hoping it didn’t sound as hollow as it felt. Phil left the bedroom, grabbing a warm jacket. As he pulled it on, its downy material caressed his arms and Phil closed his eyes and hummed at the sensation. Phil was constantly amazed by how everything felt. He had taken it for granted when he was alive, so he noticed and categorized every single sensation when he borrowed Dan’s body. Phil could appreciate all feelings, but he especially loved soft things: chairs, cotton shirts, kittens, autumn breezes, Dan’s skin, Dan’s hair. Dan was his favorite soft thing.

Phil also picked up Dan’s keys, wallet, and the little bluetooth earphone that they had bought. Phil wore it in his ear when he was possessing Dan, so that they could have conversations. That way, Phil didn’t look too crazy, talking to himself on the street. Or at least as crazy as he could look.

Phil had pretty much been on a mission to find the best pancakes in London, ever since gaining the ability to possess Dan. He had discovered an American-style diner that served the fluffiest pancakes he’d ever had. He hailed a cab and directed the cabbie to the diner, fitting his bluetooth earphone into his ear so that he could talk to Dan.

“Hi, I’m on my way to the diner.”

I can see that, thanks for the update. Phil could hear the smile in his voice and Phil laughed.

“Don’t be cheeky.” There was a pause. “I wish we could eat together. I wish I could take you on a proper date.”

Oh yeah? Where would we go?

Phil rubbed his hands along the cab’s interior, feeling the slippery plastic and trying to memorize the feeling. He breathed in the car’s musty smell and decided he didn’t have to memorize that one, although he could still appreciate it. He would appreciate the smell of vomit, for chrissakes. Anyone would, if they suddenly could smell after seven senseless years. “I don’t know London very well, since I only lived here a couple weeks, before… you know.”

Yeah. Dan’s voice sounded quiet, sad, and distant. Phil hated it and almost wished he had never told Dan how he’d died.

“But!” Phil said brightly, trying to take Dan’s mind off of it, “I know Manchester pretty well. I think I would take you to the Wheel of Manchester and we would kiss at the very top of it and I would cuddle you close because it’s cold up there.” Dan didn’t have the heart to tell Phil that the Wheel had been closed for a couple years now.

“Then, we’d go to the Sky Bar. It’s really high up and you can see the whole city stretched out below you. I would pay for your meal and we would have fancy drinks while watching the sunset. There would probably be more kissing.” Phil took a moment to picture it. Dan’s silhouette against the blazing backdrop. Phil holding both Dan’s hands in the middle of the table, rubbing his thumb over Dan’s knuckles. The pinks, purples, and oranges bathing Dan’s soft face in color. Phil would lean over the table and softly touch his lips to Dan’s. They would be pillowy and warm and so would Phil’s. There would be no stab of cold. Both of them would feel alive and warm and happy.

Dan had asked Phil to kiss him multiple times and, every time, he had refused. He wasn’t going to hurt Dan like that and there was no way he was going to cover either of their faces to take part in an unnatural kiss that would just leave them both unsatisfied.

It sounds perfect, Phil. I would be wooed.

Phil looked out the window wistfully and watched the chaos of London. He imagined that Dan was next to him in the car, instead of inside his head. “Yeah, I’m pretty charming.” The cabbie snorted, hiding it with a cough, and Phil remembered himself. “Well, um, I’m going to go now. I’m almost to the diner.”

Almost to those thicc pancakes.

Phil whispered, “lemme see that pancussy” and Dan was laughing loudly in his head. Phil just hoped that the cabbie didn’t hear him.

At the diner, at Dan’s insistence, Phil ordered their tallest stack of chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream on top. The waiter brought him a cup of coffee while he waited and Phil took a sip, reveling in the deep taste that blanketed his tongue. Bitter, sweet, rich. “Coffee, Dan.”

Coffee, Phil? Dan asked. Phil could hear the fondness in his voice.

“Coffee.” Phil set the cup down and inhaled. There were so many wonderful smells swirling around him. The warm, cozy smell of greasy food. Coffees and other hot drinks. The smell of people: shoes, soap, and sweat. When Phil’s pancakes came, he tucked into them. He couldn’t help but shovel in mouthfuls of fluffy cake, taking stock of every note that swirled and danced over his tastebuds. Phil mumbled to Dan, describing the tastes, despite the fact that Dan definitely knew what pancakes tasted like. Phil always found himself likening tastes to memories he had from his life. These pancakes tasted like the time that Phil and his first girlfriend had kissed. Sickly sweet, soft, fluffy. Dan, as always, listened and laughed fondly at Phil.

“Excuse me?” Phil was suddenly aware of a presence at his elbow. He turned and saw a teenaged girl with dark skin and equally dark eyes.

“Oh! Hello!” Phil smiled warmly. He had no idea why this girl was talking to him, but he appreciated the ability to talk to people again. Since he had mostly talked to Dan, cashiers, cabbies, and servers, he was always excited to strike up conversation with a stranger.

It’s a fan, probably, Dan informed him.

“Ohhh,” Phil replied and then shut his mouth tight, realizing that the sudden outburst didn’t make a whole lot of sense to the young girl standing in front of him.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice. Anxiously, she fluffed her hair. “Um, are you Daniel Howell? From YouTube?”

Phil hopped up from his seat and extended his hand toward the girl. “Yep! That’s me.” They shook hands and Phil’s eyebrows furrowed. She probably wanted a hug, not a weird handshake. It was too late to change, now. “It’s good to meet you!”

She smiled nervously, “it’s really good to meet you too. I’ve loved your recent videos. Um, can I have a selfie?” Phil agreed and took the picture with the fan, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and smiling brightly. He hoped that he was looking the part of Dan. The man in question had become quiet in his head, which Phil appreciated. If Dan had coached him, he probably would have just gotten more nervous. The girl swiped at her phone and smiled at the screen. “It’s a nice photo. Thank you! I’ll, uh, leave you to your breakfast.”

Phil smiled again, hoping he didn’t look manic. “You’re welcome. It was good to meet you!” Phil sat, letting out a relieved sigh. He muttered softly to Dan, “that was kinda weird.”

Nah, you played the part of socially awkward Dan pretty well. At least you spoke with my voice and not yours. Phil nodded and finished his breakfast and paid the bill. He purposely spoke to people around London with Dan’s voice, in case someone recognized him. It would be hard to explain why Dan suddenly had a deeper, more Northern voice.

The more Phil thought about the occurrence with the fan, the more uncomfortable he felt. They were kind of lying to her, weren’t they? She wasn’t really meeting Daniel Howell, just his body. It was kind of creepy, actually. She had unknowingly had a conversation with a ghost. And the photo. Phil didn’t want even want to think about what the photo looked like. Probably like someone was wearing a Dan mask. Later, when Phil was walking the short distance to a nearby bookstore, he voiced his concerns to Dan.

“Isn’t it kind of creepy?” The person walking past him looked at Phil alarmed. Phil tapped against the bluetooth earphone, trying to indicate a phone call to the person walking down the sidewalk.

I don’t think so. I mean, I was still in here. You said everything I would have said. She doesn’t need to know that it wasn’t exactly me she was talking to. You worried too much about this stuff. You and your morals.

Phil shrugged, then realized that Dan couldn’t see the movement. “I guess. It just made me feel kinda dirty.”

It would only be dirty if you, like, masturbated while you were in my body.

Phil choked. “That’s, that’s got nothing to do with our current conversation. What the hell!”

***

The day progressed and Phil eventually forgot about his interaction with Dan’s fan. Instead, he focused on his first full day exploring London. They went to Starbucks after the bookstore (It’s a bit corporate, isn’t it? “I need to try a seasonal drink! Pumpkin spiced latte, here I come!”). Phil sat by the window and people-watched, while sipping a latte that reminded him of carving pumpkins with his family. They checked out a couple of comic book stores with hilariously nerdy names (Orc’s Nest, that’s incredible.) and made fun of the silly mangas and obscure graphic novel genres (“Dan, Dan, Dan this is the ‘paranormal romance’ genre. It’s literally us.” Oh my god, someone understands.).

Dan directed Phil into overpriced clothing shops and made Phil try on clothes, which Phil complained about, but actually enjoyed. It was fun to feel the fabrics and put on actual clothes. It wasn’t like changing his appearance or wearing Dan’s clothes when he was a ghost. Those clothes didn’t feel like anything. They were simply a means to an end. In Dan’s body, Phil noticed the differences between cotton, silk, denim, and polyester on his skin. He noticed the weight of the clothing and how it brushed against his skin when he walked around. Plus, it was an excuse to touch Dan’s body and unabashedly appraise how the clothes hung on him. Phil tried on sweaters, button-ups, ripped jeans, shorts, suits, sweatpants, a lot of leather items. Dan and Phil joked back and forth as they always did, making inappropriate comments and giving each other compliments. It was the most fun either of them had clothes shopping.  

However, Dan couldn’t quite shake the uneasiness that followed him throughout the whole day. He still hadn’t been able to get rid of the emotions that bombarded him when Phil had possessed him that morning. While they were shopping, Dan felt really weak, despite the fact that he didn’t have a physical body. It was harder to talk to Phil; he had to work hard to send his thoughts over to Phil’s conscious mind. It was like there was a barrier to push through. Dan also swore that the edges of his vision were blurry. He kept telling himself that he was imagining things, though. He had sort of dealt with these symptoms in the past; they were probably worse because Phil had been possessing him for so long. Dan just ignored them and enjoyed the day with Phil.

As a joke, Phil bought Dan a pastel pink jumper that made his face look adorably soft. (Phil, if you haven’t noticed, I kind of don’t wear pink. “What? I hadn’t noticed! This is embarrassing.” Oh, shut up. I’m never wearing it.)

Phil was having the time of his life. He ducked into every shop and cafe, often just to look. He smiled and struck up conversation with every friendly person along the way. He pet all the dogs that walked by him and stopped to stare at tall buildings, weird sculptures, and different cloud formations in the sky. Dan watched, content to be quiet and enjoy Phil’s childlike wonder.

Dan didn’t start feeling really weird until halfway through the movie that he convinced Phil to go see. It wasn’t that hard to convince Phil, really. The only thing that had made him hesitate was the fact that the Blade Runner sequel was almost three hours long (“I dunno, Dan, a movie like that requires some mental preparation.” Come on, I’ll bet you miss the cinema.)

But, at the halfway point of the movie, it was Dan who was wishing that the film wasn’t so damn long. Dan watched in mild panic as his vision blurred and darkened, like someone was covering his eyes in a black, translucent film. Do you see that? Dan asked, distressed and hoping that it was just a movie effect.

“Hmm? See what?” Phil whispered, distracted. A fellow moviegoer shushed Phil immediately. “Sorry,” Phil apologized sheepishly to the disgruntled woman sitting next to them. “I can’t really talk right now, Dan.”

Dan’s vision cleared and the screen was bright again. If Dan could blink, he would do it several times to clear his head. Ok, ignore me. It was nothing.

But, it wasn’t “nothing.” And it came back. And it seemed to get worse throughout the movie. With it, came an aching that was much like a headache… but that was impossible, since Dan didn’t have a head at the moment. And then, terrifyingly enough, the black film over his vision stopped going away. Instead, it began to get more opaque. It was almost as if Dan was going unconscious in slow motion. Each time Dan went to alert Phil, Dan brushed it off and decided not to alarm the ghost. After the movie, Dan would just ask Phil to head home so that he could have his body back. Dan wasn’t about to ruin what Phil was constantly describing as “the best day of his life.”

But, Dan didn’t get the chance to make his request. Phil left the movie and talked to Dan animatedly about the plot, gesticulating his hands. And Dan couldn’t reply. He couldn’t force a single word through the invisible barrier that seemed to get thicker and thicker. Before Dan knew it, he was looking out and seeing nothing but vague shapes in a black mire.

“Wow, I hadn’t realized how much I missed going to the cinema. It’s such an experience-- and the cinema has gotten so much better since 2010. How is that even possible? The sound is so immersive and the quality! God, the quality.”

Phil. Phil something’s wrong. Dan tried to communicate, but found himself wholly unable to make Phil hear. The ghost continued to talk, energized about the movie. Phil? Phil! PHIL! Dan’s vision went completely black and then his hearing started to go. It was like he was plunged underneath water. Phil’s voice was wobbly and muffled. Dan could vaguely make out his own name in Phil’s mouth. Dan was fully panicking now. Without vision or hearing, what would tether him to reality?

And just like that, Dan’s world was empty. He could see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing. And then, he was having a hard time forming thoughts. Eventually, all that was left was an emotion, or rather several thousand emotions. All belonging to Phil and filling Dan with the rawest feeling of dread that he distantly hoped he would never feel again.

***

Dan was gone. Phil looked wildly around the park that he had stumbled in, as if he would find Dan hiding among the bushes. One minute, Phil had been pleasantly rambling about Blade Runner. Dan hadn’t been responding to Phil’s observations… but Phil had just thought that Dan was more contented to just listen to Phil rant.

But then, Phil had grown anxious when Dan didn’t answer Phil’s outright questions. At first, Phil was worried that Dan was angry with him. The anxiety morphed into outright panic when Dan didn’t even answer when Phil started to call his name in an increasingly desperate voice. Phil knew that it was something much worse than Dan simply being angry with him.

Now, Phil was yelling Dan’s name frantically. Dan was gone. Phil had forced Dan out of his own body, without even noticing it was happening. Phil scrubbed his hands through his hair. Dan’s hair. Fuck, Phil should have never used Dan like this. He thought of the fan that he had met and taken a picture with. He thought about Dan being so lethargic after Phil had possessed him the other day. Phil felt sick. He swallowed back bile that was rising up his throat. He should have never done this.

Phil breathed in slowly, realizing that yelling Dan’s name was doing nothing to help the situation. He had to think fast. He needed to dosomething. Phil needed to remove himself from Dan’s body and quick. He didn’t want to waste a single second wondering what would happen if he didn’t.

Phil ripped himself from Dan’s body. At first, it felt like all the other times that he had removed himself after possession. There was the overwhelming sense of numbness washing over him, that almost felt comforting this time around. But then, Phil was burning. He didn’t know how, because he didn’t have a physical body, but he was burning. There was fire licking around his non-corporeal form; there had to be. He screamed in agony.

Phil couldn’t leave the flat unless he was possessing Dan. That had been one of the first things that he had discovered upon waking up as a ghost. He had attempted to leave the flat the morning he woke up and separated from his physical body. There hadn’t been any pain when he tried to leave, he just couldn’t. It was like there was an invisible rope tethering Phil to the flat. When he tried to leave, he could sense the tether stretching and refusing to break. But, there was no pain.

But this, this was pain. It was physical, mental, emotional fire. If Phil had skin, there would be nothing left of it. There wasn’t room in his head for a single thought other than agony. Phil’s vision was a blinding, searing white.

It felt like an eternity of pain, but it must have only been a millisecond and then it was all over and Phil was back at the flat.

He only had a few moments where Phil enjoyed the relief that replaced the pain. He felt a deep exhaustion that he had never known. It was worse than when he was alive and tried to go to the gym and was worked so hard by the personal trainer that he had vomited. It was worse than that one time that his family had gone on holiday to ski and Phil’s every muscle ached from being on the mountain all day. It was worse than that time in uni when he stayed away for 30 hours, trying to finish an essay. It was worse than after the first time he had accidentally possessed Dan and could only muster out the message that he didn’t have enough energy to manifest himself.

Dan. Phil remembered Dan. How could he have forgotten about Dan? Dan’s body was back in some fucking park. Phil didn’t even know if there was an ounce of Dan left in that body. Phil couldn’t get back to him, could he? Dan was going to fucking die there and it would be all Phil’s fault.

Phil had no energy left, but he had to try… something. Anything to save Dan. Phil pushed past the feeling of utter exhaustion and emptiness that filled him. He concentrated on what he wanted. He wanted to find Dan and help him. He pictured Dan in his mind’s eye. Dan lying on the dead autumn grass, passed out. People gathering around Dan, worried. Someone feeling Dan’s pulse and calling 999. Phil thought about Dan in general. Dan reading in bed. Dan gripping an xBox controller in his hands. Dan speaking into a camera in his “video” voice. Dan hugging Phil. Dan looking at Phil fondly, love filling his eyes. Dan giving Phil the world. Selfless, beautiful, loving Dan. A spike of raw power coursed through Phil and his vision exploded in a sheet of overwhelming white for the second time that day.

Phil pictured his tether, even though he knew it was something that didn’t exist in this physical reality. Still, he imagined a rope. It was black and embedded deep in Phil’s ghostly skin. Phil imagined pulling at it. He could feel the pull; it wasn’t just in his head. Phil concentrated every ounce of energy pulsing inside him, on this single desire.

Eventually, he stopped thinking about the rope or Dan laying in the park. His thoughts just became a litany of “Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. Please, don’t take Dan from me. Don’t let Dan die because of me. Don’t let Dan miss out on his life because he tried to share it with me. Dan, Dan, please. Please.”

There was a shift. Phil could feel it in the air. He felt a tug, a realignment. A break. Something clicking into place.

Phil blinked and looked around. White cleared slowly from his vision. He was in his familiar ghostly body, despite the fact that he hadn’t purposefully manifested himself. He recognized trees and grass and, he looked down on the ground, Dan! Phil didn’t spare a single second wondering what the fuck had just happened. He dove down and pressed his fingers to Dan’s pulsepoint. Phil was frozen in place, trying to sense Dan’s heartbeat. And, then, yes, he could feel the echo of a weak thump in his ghostly body. Dan was lukewarm, rather than his usual scorching. Phil had stolen the life out of Dan’s body. His face was a sickly grey and his eyes were shut gently.

“Fuck, Dan. Can you hear me?” Phil gripped either side of Dan’s face. He lifted one of Dan’s eyelids. His eyes were rolled back into his head and Phil gasped. Dan’s chest was slowly rising and falling. He had no idea if Dan was even in there, but his physical body was still alive. That was enough for now.

Phil didn’t waste time. He barely even registered that the park was deathly quiet and there wasn’t a single soul around them. He tried to ignore the fact that, by touching Dan, he was just making him colder. Sucking out what little life Dan still clung to. But Phil had to get Dan back to the flat. He slipped his arms underneath Dan’s neck and the back of his knees. Phil closed his eyes and concentrated on the flat. He pictured Dan’s bedroom. White walls, fairy lights, black and white duvet. Where they first met. Where they first touched. Where they first confessed their love for each other. Phil could transport himself, of course, but he had no idea about if it would work while holding Dan. All Phil could do was hope and concentrate, focusing his remaining and quickly draining energy on what he needed to do in order to save Dan.

Phil didn’t know if he believed in a higher power. Or magic. Or the supernatural. He didn’t know what governed his life or his afterlife. But whatever it was, he prayed to it now: please, please, please, please.

Part six

[thejoshuatree]

it’s with the strange vertiginous aftertaste of change lingering in his mouth that Louis answers the phone. (~3k)

Louis’s car slips through traffic like a fish through water. The black asphalt reminds him of the kind of icy black tinge snow runoff gets, and he frowns, wondering where he would’ve seen that before. Norway? Sweden?

Has he even been to Sweden? Louis’s not sure. He doesn’t spend much time worrying about it, either. Used to, there was always Niall to remember everything, or even Liam or Zayn. Someone who was right there with him, who would pick up on the details while he was too busy picturing massive goldfish wriggling effortlessly under the frigid surface of icy black water.

They all had their own ways of trying to hold onto things. Niall was the memory man, Zayn drew stuff, Liam texted or phoned in all the best bits to his parents, to his string of girlfriends, to anyone who’d listen. Like storing memories in human receptacles. Louis used to write about it, but these days, he doesn’t make such a concerted effort.

He hasn’t got the time, and anyhow, he’s learning that you never really forget the things you want to remember. You never forget the stuff you might like to forget, either, but that just seems like part of the package. He props his elbow up on the door and thinks longingly about the cigarette tucked behind his ear.

He doesn’t want to light up in such a small space with a non-smoker – one of the side effects of being a dad, apparently – and he’ll get to the next press event soon enough. There’s always a green room to sneak off to for a smoke, Louis knows. He reckons he’s probably had a cig or a nap in a solid 25% of all the green rooms in the world, not counting the music festival green rooms that only exist for a few days every year.

Louis taps his fingers against his knee. He’s reaching for the cig above his ear, his mouth open to ask his driver if he minds, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Louis has to shift around in his seat to dig his phone out of the pocket of his tight jeans, and by the time he’s got it out, it’s stopped vibrating. Louis’s expecting a string of texts from Olly or one of the lads about a match, or a bird, or anything, really.

It’s not. His phone vibrates with another call from Niall. The screen lights up with a picture of him from sometime last year, his hair still unnaturally blond, his face caught in one of those crinkly-eyed smiles.

He looks so young, and Louis catches himself smiling like an absolute idiot at the sight of one of his oldest friends. Then he remembers that Niall looks so young because it really has been ages since that picture, and it’s with the strange vertiginous aftertaste of change lingering in his mouth that Louis answers the phone.

“Lo?”

“Oi oi!” Niall laughs. Louis relaxes immediately. “I didn’t catch you smoking, did I? You know those things will ruin your voice, mate.”

Louis rolls his eyes at Niall’s gentle scolding. The soft spot Louis’s always nurtured for him seems to have grown over the hiatus, or something, Louis doesn’t know. Either way, it leaves him vulnerable to getting choked up at the strangest moments, like now. He thinks about saying, “Not much of a voice to ruin,” and then he knows that Niall’s just said that because he doesn’t think so, and Louis pauses. “No, you didn’t,” Louis finally says. “I’m in a car.”

“Windows up,” Niall guesses.

Louis laughs although it’s summer and a breeze might feel good, and there’s nobody to fight with over the air con with just him and his assistant in the back. She’s so engrossed in her iPad and two phones and laptop that he might as well not be there at all.

“Don’t be creepy,” Louis just says, and Niall laughs again. His laughter – and he’s always laughing, sometimes even when the tension in the room is so thick you couldn’t cut it with a chainsaw – his laughter soothes the frayed edges of Louis’s nerves like warm honey. “Have you got another song for me to hear?” Louis asks.

Niall’s been sending him teasing little snippets like the proper arsehole he is (and Louis knows it’s Niall’s own gentle teasing for the way Louis did “Back to You,” so he’s forced to be a little proud of him, the cheeky bastard), and Louis’s quietly thrilled at the prospect of hearing more. He hums, and then he heaves a breath and he says, “Nah. I rang to rag on you, actually.”

A knot of tension starts building right between Louis’s shoulder blades. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says.

Predictably, Niall asks, “Are you surprised, to be honest?”

“No,” Louis admits crabbily, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I just mean, Dan of all people…” Niall starts. “And what you said – how you said about – ”

“I didn’t lie.” There’s a dangerous thread of righteous indignation in Louis’s voice. He can hear it, and he knows from past arguments that following the instinct to Win At All Costs has only ever lost him more than its gained, but he can’t stop himself. He never could. It’s just that he’s right, damn it. “I don’t lie.”

Niall sighs. It derails Louis for a moment, because he’s expecting an equal push back. He’s expecting the spiels he’s heard from management and that lot for years about managing his image and respecting the fan base. Louis could give them the speech right back, word for word, at this point. But Niall sighs, and Louis realizes Niall agrees. “I ain’t saying you got to lie, Louis.”

“Then what?” Louis lights the cigarette from behind his ear and sucks in a quick, acrid breath.

Niall stays quiet for a moment. Fuck, Louis wishes he could see his face. Finally, he forces a brittle laugh. “Harry’s not gonna like what you said, is all, mate.”

“So?” The question, short as it is, hangs like a challenge.

Patient, precious, lovely Niall says, “Don’t be a dick, Lou,” and hangs up on him.

Louis pulls the phone away from his ear, the cig dangling from his lip. Smoke wafts from the end of the cherry and stings his eyes, and Louis jabs at his screen with the pad of his finger a moment too late. Fuck, he hates being hung up on.

If anybody’s going to hang up on someone else, it better be Louis. He can’t believe it was just Niall who did it. “Little shit,” Louis breathes. He drops his phone into his lap and sinks back against his seat, taking drags off a cigarette he doesn’t really want to smoke anymore. They really will fuck up a voice. Shit.

…

Ofelia, the woman who keeps Niall’s house, opens the door. “Louis!” she exclaims, and promptly pulls him into a warm hug.

“Hi, you gorgeous woman,” Louis says. He lets her hold him out at arm’s length. She runs as critical eye – really, a mother’s eye; Louis remembers enough to know that – over him and clucks her tongue.

“Too skinny,” she says, like always.

“Too beautiful,” Louis says in response. She laughs and pinches his arm and blushes all the same. “Is Niall here?”

“No,” she shakes her head. Still, she takes a step back and ushers him into Niall’s house. “But you’re welcome to come in and wait. He should be back soon.”

“Thank you,” Louis tells her sincerely. Ofelia offers to whip him up one of her trademark omelets, or a grilled cheese, and Louis has half a mind to raid Niall’s fridge and pass out in his bed amidst a bunch of crumbs he knows Niall will meticulously vacuum away after Louis’s gone. “I’m just gonna take a kip on the couch, I think.”

Ofelia takes his hand and gives it a friendly squeeze. “Good boy,” she says, so Louis lies down and shuts his eyes. He falls asleep with Niall’s usual fresh citrus sanitizer and laundry detergent smell in his nose, and when he wakes up, Niall’s stood over him with a plate in his hand.

Louis stretches like a cat and shuts his eyes for a second just for the pleasure of opening them to Niall’s ruddy face again. “Is that for me? What a love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall mutters, the tips of his ears pink. He sets the plate down on the coffee table and shoves at Louis’s legs until Louis sits up to make room for him, and then he pulls Louis into a hug. He smells like himself, and sunscreen and sweat, and Louis fills his lungs up with it. “You look good, man.”

“All this beauty rest I’ve been getting,” Louis jokes. He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you ran the promo circuit for months, mate. I’ve been at it for a few weeks now and it’s like to do my head in.”

Niall leans back while Louis leans forward, inspecting the sandwich Niall’s brought him. It’s turkey and cheese, and Louis lets out a satisfied hum. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince Ofelia to come live with me,” he speculates.

Ofelia shouts from somewhere in the house, “No, thank you, Louis!” And Louis and Niall both crack up. Louis tears into his sandwich and Niall lets out a sigh and sinks into the sofa, his shoulder rubbing Louis’s. Niall likes to be within arm’s reach if it’s been a while, closer if he can manage it, so Louis throws his ankle over Niall’s on the coffee table.

“Wanker,” Niall murmurs, and Louis huffs. “I didn’t know you were coming back to LA so soon. Did you bring Freddie with you?”

“Nah, he’s at his mum’s.”

“Well, never mind then,” Niall pretends to pull away. “If you’ve not got the baby, I’ve got better things to do. These sandwich-making skills aren’t –”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says fondly. He locks his arm around Niall’s and Niall gives up faking. “Get me some crisps to go with this.”

“Get them yourself.”

“Ofelia,” Louis starts, and Niall rolls his eyes and hauls himself off the couch and returns with a packet of salt and vinegar chips, just like Louis wanted. Louis smiles. “You love me,” he tells Niall.

Niall drops down heavily beside him and turns on the golf. “You’re a shit, Tommo,” he says, but he’s smiling.

They both know Louis’s there to finish their last conversation, but it takes them half a day to get around to it. Niall wants Louis to see the new trees he’s had planted, and Louis has a Netflix comedy special he wants Niall to watch, and then they have to break for burgers. They’re sat in Niall’s spare bedroom, which is stuffed wall to wall with guitars and effects pedals and a drum kit and half a dozen Moleskines. It’s not really a spare bedroom; it’s the start of a home recording studio. But Niall’s not come round to that yet, is all.

“I fucking love In n Out,” Louis sighs. He likes his burgers with extra animal sauce and a chocolate shake to go with his fries. Niall knocked back two antacids before they even sent for food delivery.

Niall puts the last of his shake aside and pulls an acoustic guitar into his lap. “Your eating habits, mate,” he shakes his head.

Louis rolls onto his back and looks up at the clean white ceiling. Outside, the sun is beginning to set over the Hollywood Hills. The light that seeps in through the wooden window blinds is a soft shade of blue, and the rug is soft beneath Louis’s back. “I didn’t lie,” he says. He’s hardly thinking when he speaks.

Niall keeps on plucking guitar strings. He’s playing some desultory, unfamiliar melody, and Louis makes a mental note to ask him what new song that is later. “No,” he says. “You were totally honest.”

Bristling, Louis says, “We can’t all say nothing, or not talk about shit,” he says. “It’s like my lyrics, mate – I just want to be, like, real.” Real, and successful on his own. Unspoken, his private fear: that he’s the only one who ever needed the band.

“You and me,” Niall starts, and it’s that phrase – you and me – that draws Louis up short. You and me, he hears, like it’s a call to arms. Whether it’s the streets of Donny or the footie pitch or a recording studio, Louis’s ready to go. All in, every time. He can’t help it. Niall lifts a shoulder. “We both know you couldn’t be anythin’ else,” Niall says. He lifts his eyes and quite suddenly, Louis feels utterly transparent. It scares him to the bone.

Louis licks his lips and feels a wave of genuine, actual fear wash over him; he poured his heart into that album and soon it’ll be out for absolutely anyone to hear and now he hasn’t even got his mum to fight in his corner and holy shit, what if people don’t even fucking like it? Louis teeters on the precipice of panic.

Suddenly, Louis laughs. “Hell with it,” he says. Niall cocks his head. “Hell with Harry,” Louis adds. His heart feels less like it’s slowly being crushed in an all-consuming vice of grief and fear. A little wildly, Louis goes on, “Fuckin’ winner, he is, isn’t he?” Louis shakes his head. He closes his eyes, but he can still feel Niall’s translucent eyes on the side of his face. It feels good, and it’s scary; it’s always felt good, but it wasn’t always scary. Louis just knows Niall better now. “A bunch of losers and misfits and underdogs, weren’t we?”

Niall’s started smiling. “And Harry,” he adds, eyes bright.

“And Harry,” Louis agrees.

...

The “Back to You” music video brings Louis back to good ‘ol Donny with a whole crew of cameramen, makeup artists, sound engineers, hair stylists, the whole lot. It feels a bit like throwing a wedding in his own home, not that he’s had the chance to do that yet, and the circus of making the video eases some of the suffocating grief he feels when he thinks about his mum.

Maybe it’s because he’s a dad now, or because it’s been so long since he’s last come home, or because the rest of Louis’s life has finally caught up to the sleepy village he was dying to get out of, but he’s never felt further from the familiar chips-and-gravy comfort of Donny. When he thinks about himself, he still thinks of a bloke off the park footie pitch, grass stains on his knees and a hastily discarded uniform shirt wrinkling in the bottom of his bag. He thinks of a bloke who’d call his mum every single day, who never missed one of his sister’s recitals, who fell in love at the drop of a hat and stayed there.

He is, and he isn’t. He’s not that bloke off the street, Louis realizes. He got luckier than that. Turns out, you can go home again, you just won’t want to stay.

Louis tucks Bebe under his arm and sings along to his own song under the camera’s penetrating gaze. He thinks about writing lyrics that are real and honest and Niall putting out the most heartbroken record he’s maybe ever heard and Harry wandering from one thing to the next. He thinks about Liam and the life he always wanted. Mostly he thinks about how nobody ever changes, they just get older.

The director calls, “Cut!” and one of the lighting blokes scurries round to adjust one of the big reflecting screens. “We’ll lose the light soon,” Bebe comments idly, meaning they’ll have to finish this bit tomorrow and then shoot some more footage for the video.  

“Eh, reckon it’ll be alright,” Louis says firmly. “We’ll sort it.” He sounds like a dad to his own ears. Like a proper adult.

It sounds good.

[deadmumdiary]

The death of my dead mum lol

This story starts on Monday the 15th of October 2012 at 3.36pm

I was walking to the bus stop home from school like I usually did, dad called me and said that he was gonna come to pick me up so we could drive into the hospital to see mum. This wasn’t unusual because she had been in and out of hospital for the past 5 years, and this particular moment of my life, heading into Wellington Hospital was fucking annoying, I would have much rather gone home to skype my mates and talk about NCEA level 1. I remember complaining to my friend Celine that I didn’t want to go in, Dad said to me I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to but Celine convinced me It was the nice daughterly thing to do, also I know that these late avo trips into Welly hospital meant sushi or noodle canteen for dinner so I decided I would go. Got there and had a chat with mum, dad gave her a foot massage while i played with the photo app on the iPad, then I drew a picture of our 2 cats and 3 chickens on the whiteboard in mums room. She was always beautiful, everyone always said to me how she didn’t look sick. Seeing her in hospital was so normal for me now, so even though she was in compression socks and a gown I still thought she looked like a queen.

“When will you be out of here mum?”

“Probably in a couple of days, we have to do a check on my wrist vein thing for the blood dialysis machine”

Shit like this was absolutely normal too, I mean I used to pride myself on shaking up her blood test blood capsule things.

“See ya later, I love you mum”

I’m writing this now and it’s really odd thinking about it. It’s almost been 5 years but I haven’t tried remembering the story this much in depth, like ever I think.

That night I think, I can’t remember the time and I can’t remember what I was doing but Dad rushed into my room and said that he had to head into the hospital because something was wrong with mum, he said I shouldn’t worry, and that my Aunty Carmel was coming over, but I was really fucking worried because why would he have to go in late at night if something wasn’t wrong? I wish I was old enough to drink wine back then. Aunty came over and I remember cuddling her and crying on the couch. Dad didn’t come home that night but I remember that I ended up falling asleep on the couch and then Dad woke me up in the morning and said that we have to go into the hospital because over the night mum had gotten worse and she had started having seizures, something about her heart had messed up and wasn’t sending oxygen to her brain or something? I remember being really fucking confused by this because she had multiple myeloma cancer, and then also kidney failure, but why the fuck was her heart shitting out? I got to the hospital and there were so many people in the room, I pushed in and held mums hand. She was having seizures so she was opening and closing her mouth and eyes and moving her head around, they had to keep giving her medication to calm her body down, they said she couldn't hear or see me, but she kept reaching out her hand and looking at me right in the eye, I was certain she could. I was 15 so every 20 minutes someone would take me out of the room to sit in the waiting area when her seizures were getting too crazy, I remember thinking that I wasn’t a kid and I didn’t wanna leave and that I could handle it, but no one let me do what I wanted to, which was totally not their fault, I don’t think anyone knew what the “right” thing to do was, so I don’t blame them.

I didn’t cry at the hospital, I hadn’t cried since the night before when Dad said he had to head in. Dad had his guitar at the hospital, ⅔ of mums sisters, My Nana, My mums friend and her husband, my dad and me were all in the room. I think we sung Don’t Worry by Bob Marley but I can’t really remember now. I actually don’t remember what happened next, I don’t think the machine made a loud beep noise for ages or anything, I don’t think there was pain, I just remember her being dead. I remember looking at her face go from skin colour to a purple grey, I remember Dad shutting her eyes with his fingers like they do in movies, and I remember being so amazed at how cold and hard her body turned straight away. She died in my arms, I was holding her hand, and then there was just nothing. I remember being confused and concerned about how life could disappear from someone so quickly. We left quite soon after she died, if I could have changed something about that day (apart from her just not dying) I think I would have liked to stay and just be there with her for a bit. I remember holding my dads hand like I was 5, I was confused and it’s like I forgot how to be a functioning human for a bit, I had to be led around by dad to get anywhere because I couldn’t control my legs on my own, I couldn’t talk either, It was like everything in the whole world was really foreign. I remember feeling like i couldn’t remember how to do anything anymore. It was 10.40, i remember this because that’s when morning tea would be if I was at school. I called my friend Natalie to tell her and the rest of my friends that mum had died, they thought I was taking the piss because I wasn’t crying, I didn’t sound sad either I guess, I think I was numb. I remember her starting to cry on the phone, I remember being confused about that, I dont know why I was confused because thats a pretty normal reaction.  

Me and dad walked into the elevator and my mums last sister came out and asked how everything was going, she got stuck in traffic on the way to the hospital, I think she could tell what happened because she just started to scream, I remember feeling worse for her than I did for myself, I think dad was pretty upset because he just pointed to the room and got in the elevator. While we were driving home we had our usual playlist on but Yesterday by the Beatles played and me and Dad were both like ahhhh.

I can’t remember what happened for the rest of the day, like at all. We must have got home at maybe 1pm. I remember having my first full blown panic attack that night when I was in bed. It would have been 2am or 3am, nearly 17 hours after mum had actually died, It was the first time I had cried. I remember dad sitting on the bed with me crying, and i was screaming at the top of my lungs and kicking my legs and flailing my arms about, I couldn’t control anything that was happening to me, I can’t remember calming down, I think I must have exhausted my body and fallen asleep.

I can’t remember anything from the next day until about 5pm because we had a BBQ at my house, I remember me and all of my friends and cousins sitting up on the road, I remember chain smoking rollies with my cousins who didn’t know I smoked at that point, but they didn’t mind giving my ciggies. I remember talking about IUD’s and ingrown toe nails, and i remember that my friend Ben was wearing Nike shoes. It’s quite funny the things you remember in these situations.

I cant remember Thursday, The funeral was on Friday, I didn’t cry, I wrote something stupid on her coffin, I thought I was being a cool adult at the time, I wish I wrote something silly and honest. Dad didn’t want me to go to the place where the coffin gets cremated, I think he thought It would be too much for me, but I remember leaving the funeral as soon as it had finished so I could go to my friend Nick’s house to smoke cigarettes. I remember that my cousin bought me a box of smirnoff Ice at the after party of the funeral. I remember being kind of drunk, my whole family was there, It was a cool party.

I can’t really remember any of the days after that, I can’t really believe how much of this whole situation I can’t really remember, lots of it is really blank to me which i find quite interesting really, I think my brain is doing that on purpose. Weird lol. But yeah shit happens and that is my story.