#You think Simon at least kept the keyboard after that time?

[fandomhopperposts]

Random rant: I Rewatched Adventure Time and through this time and there were some things about Ice King that I never caught on before. For example, surprisingly somewhat takes care of himself and also, his non-magic related talents such as knitting/crocheting(?). Also since season one he's been playing the drums and seemed to have improved overtime in later seasons, knows how to play the keyboard to offer to teach someone to play (although that someone was being held hostage against her will) and knows how to play what I could only assume to be some kind of portable synthesizer(?) decently. That's at least like, three instruments?

When I was rewatching the series, my brain caught on and I was like "Damn, this dude could play three instruments? For real? I can't even play one instrument, let alone three. How is this ice loon more talented than me? That's not far" or something like that. The only thing I'm good at is making soup.

I'm really tired, can ya tell? Lol

[tiddygame]

hello im sorry i wrote more for @myriadblvck ’s streamer au ghoap

I time travelled and around 4,000 words magically appeared in a document titled: "you didn't juju on the fucking beat soap" I think I was possessed by something. anyways here’s that:

tw: is it a panic attack? is it just typical ghost angst? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just be careful it's mostly fluffy (ghost is mean to himself cause he almost kissed soap on the forehead)

also i just realized after i wrote this whole thing, this is based on my general knowledge of dog tags… as an american. writing about the british military. so if you know your shit about the british military, uhh sorry in advance. my bad. from a very brief search i think a lot of it’s the same or at least same enough but this might hurt for people that know a thing or two. whoops!

fun fact: did you know for a brief stint (iirc, >40 years from around 1960s to 2010ish) the american military was printing soldiers’ ss numbers on their tags? yeah can’t imagine why they switched back to serial numbers.

Ghost had been pacing outside of his office for three minutes before he actually entered. When he did, he didn’t say a word. Just sat down in one of the chairs, fidgeting. It wasn't that uncommon of an occurrence, he was normally either gathering his thoughts before talking to Price about something more personal or hiding from what/whoever he didn't feel like dealing with.

When it came to mission debriefs, he was clear and concise. However, personal matters were a different story, and based on the way he anxiously opened and closed his hand, he'd guess this was a personal matter.

Price didn’t ask. He knew that whatever it was Simon needed to say would come out eventually. For now, he continued filling out paperwork and trying to figure out what it was that had Ghost so worked up.

Honestly, there wasn't much guesswork involved. Chances were, it was probably yet another leave request. He knew from Gaz (who was such an awful gossip he sometimes wondered how the man made it through interrogation training) that Simon had been visiting some social media person he had taken a liking to.

(Look, yes, Price knew about Twitch and live streaming and everything. He’s not actually that old. However, as long as he kept up the front of the old man who complained about the keyboard on his phone being too small, he didn’t have to deal with social media. Sure, it caused all of them to joke that he was geriatric and on his last legs, but he was able to convince Roach that he doesn’t know what TikTok is, meaning he wasn’t in charge of reviewing all the bullshit he and Gaz posted. A fair trade if you ask him.)

He also knew that Gaz was convinced the two were in love to the point that he and Roach had a bet going to see when they would get together. Price thought it was rather stupid, but he had to admire their ability to keep it under wraps; if the lieutenant found out they’d been placing monetary bets on his love life, he had a feeling he would need to find replacements for the 141.

Regardless, Price hoped that one day Simon would tell him about the friend but, until then, he was happy to fill out any paperwork that would get the poor man off base. God knows that idiot needs a vacation.

Simon was bouncing his leg, messing with his fingers, and staring off into space.

Three of his nervous habits at once? He must be even more worked up about this than Price thought. But, he was a patient man. It was about seven minutes of companionable silence before Simon spoke.

“I need replacement dog tags. I seem to have lost mine.”

Price looked up. He could see the chain around his neck and the outline of them still under his shirt.

"You do?" Price shuffled his documents around, eventually finding a blank piece of paper he could write on.

"Yes sir."

“And do you know what happened to them?”

“I believe they were knocked off during the fight from the last mission. I didn’t notice until later that night when we were back at base.”

Price paused and looked up from where he had been writing.

The last mission had been an odd one. Ghost normally stuck further away, their eagle-eyed lieutenant typically stayed at long to mid-range, watching for hostiles and making sure whoever else was in the field wouldn’t get caught off guard by someone they hadn’t seen.

During the last mission, he decided to engage at close range, a far cry from his usual approach of sniping hostiles from the shadows.

At one point, their lieutenant had been tackled and almost strangled. The fight had pretty much ended, his attacker was the only one left there. Ghost, being The Ghost, dispatched him with ease, but it stuck out to Price. Ghost may prefer to stay further back, but that didn’t mean that his hand-to-hand combat skills were lacking by any means.

He remembered thinking at the time that it was a clumsy mistake, that Ghost would have had to be intentionally trying to fuck up to get knocked down. He assumed the man had just been caught off guard, but he knew that theory wouldn’t hold up to any scrutiny. Ghost isn’t one to get caught off guard.

What was stranger yet still was Ghost specifically pointing it out in his mission report, calling even more attention to it.

Price set his pen down and leaned back in his chair.

“You planned this?”

“I plead the fifth,” said the British man.

Price just continued to stare, curious to see if this was actually going where he thought it was going.

“Is this off the record?” Simon eventually asked.

“Of course,” almost everything the 141 did was of dubious legality. Not reporting a conversation about possible wasted assets was far from the worst thing that had been swept under the rug.

“Then yes.”

“Why?”

Simon didn’t answer. Price waited, giving the man time to gather his thoughts, but based on the way his mouth opened and closed before he slumped in his chair, it seemed he didn’t know what to say at all.

Price had an inkling he might know what this was about.

“You know, Gaz likes to keep me informed,” Ghost looked up at him, somewhat panicked yet resigned, like he already knew what Price was going to say.

“He tells me you have a certain someone you’ve been visiting?”

“Yes.”

“Is this person a friend or…?” Ghost once again paused, calculating the potential consequences of his available responses.

He didn’t answer.

“Hmm,” Price paused, wondering how far to push before he continued, “You want to give this person your old dog tags?”

“Yes.”

Of course he would pre-plan “losing” his dog tags. Price mentally chuckled, leave it to Simon to be such a sap that he wanted to give someone his dog tags yet still make sure to follow protocol so he never actually risked going without them.

He had to hand it to him, it wasn’t a bad plan.

Price had a smile now, knowing his grumpy hard-ass lieutenant had a sweetheart he wanted to be sappy with.

“Romantic or platonic?” Price tried again.

“… I don’t know,” he’d never seen Simon look quite so… forlorn.

Hmm… That would explain his hesitancy.

He was pushing how much Simon was willing to divulge.

“And does this person know the significance of you giving them your dog tags?”

Well, curiosity killed the cat…

“No, they don’t.”

…But satisfaction brought it back. How interesting, the plot thickens.

“Do you plan on telling them?”

There was a long pause, after which it dawned on Price, “You want to give them your dog tags because they don’t know.”

It wasn’t a question, he already knew. Simon somehow slumped further, attempting to hide his face as if he weren’t wearing a balaclava.

His grumpy hard-ass lieutenant. Absolutely smitten with someone yet too shy to say anything, deciding on a quiet confession, one they likely wouldn’t pick up on.

Price chuckled, jotting down the necessary information he would need when he got his hands on the right paperwork, polishing up some of the details of Ghost’s story to make it more believable, before reading off what he had written to Ghost to make sure he got everything right. Ghost nodded once, and that was that.

“Replacement tags will probably be here in two to three weeks.”

“I would like to request leave for two to three weeks from now.”

Price handed him the form, having already grabbed it. He noticed how the man seemed to calm at just the thought of getting to visit his mystery person.

Oh, he thought to himself.

I am definitely joining Roach and Gaz’s bet.

<><><><>

They were lying on the daybed in his streaming room, or, well…

No, that’s not quite right.

Simon was lying on the daybed.

Johnny was lying on top of Simon.

His computer was still softly playing quiet (non-DMCA) music from where his stream had just ended. Instead of turning it off, he had decided to unplug his headset and leave it on, the music just loud enough to be heard.

Simon was sleepily scrolling through his phone, trying to pretend like he hadn’t almost dropped several times while dozing off, desperately trying to stay awake. Johnny had watched his struggle and decided to lay down right on top of Simon, not even trying to pretend like he was trying to fit on the remaining space on the daybed. Why would he when Simon was right there?

It was meant to be a joke, having thrown himself on top of him to annoy the man into sleeping on an actual bed (he claimed he wasn’t tired but the comically loose grip on his phone and the waking world said otherwise.) However, unfortunately for said sleepy man, Simon was very, very comfortable.

His head was resting on Simon’s chest, arms under his back like he actually was just a pillow, one hand reaching higher to feel where Simon’s hair had begun to grow out slightly.

I wonder if he would let me help him cut it…

Simon had said he was like a clingy cat, his free hand running through his hair in the same manner one would pet a cat to prove his point. The joke's on him though, he likes it.

Simon had tried to stop but Johnny didn’t let him, threatening to tickle him if he did.

(“I’m not ticklish, I just don’t want you throwing a tantrum.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say,” he was definitely ticklish, and one of these days he was going to prove it.)

At some point, Simon had given up on keeping a grip on his phone, letting it drop to the side. They would probably have to go digging through the cushions to get it out of whatever crevice it had fallen to. As of right now, the idea of ever leaving his spot was comical at best.

The sun had begun to set, orange and pink tinted light filtering through the sheer curtains, making everything look more like a dream. Or maybe it was just the proximity to the man below him that was making him feel so serene.

Johnny took a second to inhale and exhale slowly, appreciating the moment. He hoped that this memory, this beautiful tranquility with Simon, would be something he cherished for a long time to come.

He knew that they had things to do. Soon, Simon would be catching a flight at some ungodly hour, headed back to save the world yet again. But for now, he was happy to nap away in their own little bubble. He never was a religious man but here in the arms of Simon Riley, he was tempted to think heaven was real, and that it was right in front of him.

“I almost forgot,” Simon mumbled, not sounding any more awake than he looked, reaching up for the collar of his shirt. Thankfully, the hand that was running his hair remained. He didn’t like proving the cocky bastard right, but he probably would have thrown a tantrum had he tried to remove it.

“They had some fuck up along the line or something and accidentally printed me an extra set of dog tags. I was just gonna toss ‘em but thought you might want—”

Johnny was now wide awake, sitting up and yanking the chain out of his hands.

“Don’t you fucking dare throw them away, of course I want them!” Simon’s face reddened, a frequent treat for Johnny now that he had gotten more comfortable going without the mask. Simon might have been good at keeping a poker face, but without his mask, he was a blushing mess.

He wondered if the blush was from his obvious jubilation at the gift or if it was because he was now straddling the man. Such pesky details, however, (even ones that would keep future Johnny awake at night) were far less important than examining the necklace in his hands.

It was obvious this was the older set, the metal worn and dented in some spots though the writing was still clearly visible.

“Calm down, I’m not going to take it from you,” the gruff tone was severely undermined by the aforementioned blush. It was hard to sound tough while half asleep on a daybed and being used as another man’s pillow.

Johnny stared at them for a little bit longer, feeling every dent and wondering the story behind how they got there, before putting them on.

He smiled at the man under him, “How do I look?”

He was going to joke, asking if he looked like a rough and tough soldier ready for war, but something in Simon’s eyes made him stop short.

He was looking with… with… Reverence was far too intense of a word for the softness of the moment but it was the only word that came to mind.

Simon reached up with his hand, grabbing the tags, his knuckles grazing his chest.

Well, that’s just fucking unfair.

Simon was supposed to be the blushy one. Not him, goddammit!

Though, he thinks when they make eye contact, they end up tied for who is blushing the most. They stare for a while, maybe it should have felt awkward but it was too adoring for either to feel any form of uncomfortability.

Neither moved.

It was Johnny that broke first, smiling at him, yet again tracing all of the scars he could see. It was his new favorite hobby, especially when Simon would blush making the scars on his face all the more visible.

He took one more second to sleepily appreciate the man before him, then went back to using him as a pillow. His hands went back to where they were before, one under Simon’s back and one playing with his hair. His head, however, did not fall back to his chest, instead resting in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

Simon’s hand returned to running through his hair, his other now coming up to rest on his back, rubbing up and down a few times before the sleepiness from earlier fully returned with his hand stopping somewhere around the small of his back.

Johnny leaned up slightly and gave a chaste kiss to the part of his neck that he could reach, then settled back to where he was. The hand in his hair paused.

“Thank you, Simon.”

A second of delay, and then the hand continued.

“You’re welcome, Johnny.”

Simon shuffled slightly, getting comfy before—

A kiss, on his forehead.

He couldn’t stop the blush and smile if he wanted to. He snuggled closer before drifting off to sleep.

When he woke, he was in his bed, practically tucked in. His window had been opened slightly, blackout curtains that had been drawn closed now swaying slightly with the breeze. When he focused, he realized he could smell petrichor and hear heavy rainfall outside with the occasional grumble of thunder.

There was a note on his nightstand. As he expected, it was Simon’s handwriting, apologizing for not waking him up before he left. It said that he had made breakfast for him (pancakes, with enough for when his sister would inevitably try to steal them), that he made sure to lock the front door, and left the window cracked.

He giggled sleepily at the last line. Regardless of the context, it always made Simon anxious to have the curtains open, much less to leave a window open. But, he also must've known how much Johnny loved the rain and set his worries aside, just this once, so he could wake up to the rain.

He set the note down and flopped back onto his pillows, his hand felt something cold and he remembered.

The dog tags.

John MacTavish is no stranger to crushes and heartbreaks.

He's had high school sweethearts, been in and out of love, he knows his way around the world of dating. Which is why he most certainly does not squeal and kick his legs while holding the tags like some kid with their first crush.

He did it like a grown man, thank you very much.

He grabbed his phone and sent Simon the worst pun he could think of; it was tradition at this point to send him some god-awful joke before his flight.

Simon has probably already forgotten about the whole exchange. He probably woke up and assumed he threw them away when he noticed he wasn't wearing them. It was probably stupid, an insignificant gesture with no meaning. But to Johnny, it felt like everything.

He sighed dreamily at the ceiling and felt the cool metal once more. Thunder roared outside. He thought about how he had felt in the man's arms. Thought about how much he wanted that again.

God.

His phone dinged and he immediately reached over to grab it.

I'm fucked, aren't I?

<><><><>

Elsewhere, Ghost was in an airport terminal, having far too much time to think.

Over the weekend, it was almost impressive how many times Ghost had talked himself into and back out of giving Soap his dog tags. He really hoped he hadn't made a mistake.

Simon felt the spot that Johnny had kissed and wondered if he remembered it. Wondered if he had meant it.

Simon thought about how Johnny had looked cradled in his arms when he carried him to his room, the way he had reached out for him when he laid him in bed. The way he had grabbed his wrist and clung to it, grumbling when Simon tried to pull it back.

If asked, he'd say that he had woken up late and that's why he was so far behind schedule. He'd keep the part where he sat there, kneeled in front of Johnny's bed, waiting for him to fall back into a deep enough sleep to pull his arm away all to himself. After all, it would have been rude to wake him up, no?

He had made sure to plug up his phone and, upon seeing the forecasted weather, hesitated before opening the window. It was only barely cracked, just enough for the sounds of the outside world to shamble in, but not so wide as to worry about water damage. He stared at it, convincing himself not to worry and that Johnny would like waking up to the fresh air.

He turned back to make sure the man was still asleep, still comfy, but stopped for a moment. He approached the bed and hesitated before running his fingers through his stupid haircut, almost wishing the man would grab his arm and give him an excuse to stay.

He didn't. Simon did, however, lean in to give him one last kiss on the forehead as some stupidly sappy goodbye, before his brain turned back on and he ripped himself away.

What the fuck is wrong with you? What? He grabs your arm in your sleep so you feel entitled to be able to kiss him?

Simon backed away, staring at the hand that had just been in his hair. He felt dirty.

For fuck’s sake, relax. It's not that big of a deal, you did it earlier; the man fell asleep in your arms, a forehead kiss isn't too much of a stretch.

He went to the kitchen and scrubbed his hands for a while, only stopping when he thought about how much water he was wasting. He still felt dirty.

Not a stretch? You don't get to decide that. How would you feel if someone tried to kiss you while you were unconscious? If they said that they felt they should be allowed to do so because you fell asleep?

He had started making pancakes. Something quick, easy, and reheatable for when Soap woke up. Like making him breakfast would make up for trying to kiss him in his sleep.

Why can't you just be normal?

Eventually, and after a run-in with Soap’s hell-spawn of a twin, he had to leave. The time on his phone showed that he should probably already be halfway to the airport by now but he has always been a selfish man.

He had snagged some paper and left Soap a quick note, hoping the apology would make him feel better about worse sins than not waking him up. It didn't.

He stared at the man for a second, admiring him, before he reminded himself that he was a fucking creep and left.

The storm left the flight delayed by 1.5 hours. Ghost had sat waiting, wireless headphones on and connected, but not playing anything. He had far too much time to think.

Simon thought about how Johnny had looked, his dog tags around his neck, silhouetted by the fading light, the sun behind his head as if even the stars knew they could never compare to him.

He stood and started pacing. Amongst the screaming children, feuding families, and people who think they're entitled to listen to their music without headphones, one middle-aged man having an existential crisis didn't stick out.

He thought about how he had never understood weighted blankets so well until Johnny had thrown himself on top of him. It should've hurt. He should've been annoyed. Instead, Simon selfishly hoped he would never get up.

It took him a while to put his finger on what he had been feeling exactly. Finally, he realized.

There, in that moment, he had never been so happy to be alive. It was a startling emotion to discern amongst the swath of negativity he normally felt. It startled him so much, he had snapped out of his reverie and stopped short in his pacing. When he checked the time, he saw he had one missed text from Johnny.

Soap (art streamer): i was trying to think of an airplane joke but none of them landed

Simon chuckled and sat down; he almost forgot about their dumb little tradition.

Ghost: Disliked.

Soap (art streamer): everyone is so mean 2 me 💔

Ghost: It is not my fault your pun was so Boeing.

Soap (art streamer): well i thought i could wing it

Ghost: Did you look up what giving do-

Ghost: About the tags, you

Ghost: I think you make me want to live

Ghost sighed and fell back further into his seat, coming to a conclusion that his subconscious had long ago discovered.

I'm in love, aren't I?

Soap (art streamer): speechless huh? finally, the Wright reaction to my comedic genius

Ghost: Absolutely awful, Mactavish.

Soap (art streamer): :D

Took you long enough, dumbass.

<><><><>

Soap’s twin spent a good bit of time staring at her brother's new accessory.

“Is something wrong?” he challenged, hoping she wasn't in a bothersome mood.

She failed miserably at hiding her shit-eating grin but didn't care.

“Nope!” she replied.

She had run into Ghost early that morning before he left.

"Detergent."

She was pretty sure he never even learned her name, just jumped straight into calling her detergent.

"Ghoul," she greeted, glaring at the man.

Being required by law to not trust him, she checked on her brother as he was still gathering his things and noticed the necklace.

“You gave him your dog tags,” she accused, like she was framing him for murder.

“Yes, I did,” he replied casually, as per usual robbing her of the fight she so desperately wanted to pick.

“Did you tell him what it means?”

“...What does it mean?”

Damn, he was good. If she wasn't convinced that he was the devil incarnate, she might have fallen for his feigned ignorance.

“100 bucks and you buy my silence.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“200 then.”

“It doesn't even mean anything.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose you might be right… JOHN!” their neighbors were probably going to complain.

“What the fuck are you doing?” ooh he was getting panicked now.

“If it doesn't matter then you won't mind me telling him to look it up,” she started walking to his room, “JOHNSON!”

“Fucking Christ, woman! Just— Fucking— Here.”

He pulled out his wallet and started counting bills. Damn, that was easier than she thought.

“What did you say? 100?”

“Nope! That was before inflation. Now it’s 300.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You said 200!”

“So you admit you tried to scam me?”

“Just take the 100 and g-”

She didn't even get to yell, he reached for more before she could finish taking a deep breath in.

“Just shut the fuck up! Here! Three fucking hundred!”

She was tempted to raise her price further, but she was no gambler, she was a strategist. She knew a defeated man when she saw one. If she played this right, she could extort money out of him for a long time to come.

Something, something, vampires not fully killing their victims and all that.

She took the money, counted it, and then held out her hand to shake.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Wraith!”

He didn't shake her hand.

“Christ, both of you are awful.”

He packed his stuff and left, broke, broken, and defeated.

She ate as many pancakes as she could, rich and victorious.

She thought about how much power, how much blackmail she had in this moment.

“I’m fantastic actually,” she walked to her room.

I am going to be so fucking rich by the time they get their shit together.

[brokethedrawer]

Ran into this while browsing through some older sites--an article/interview from 2004, mostly about Everybody Loves a Happy Ending. I especially love what Charlton says about "Size of Sorrow."

In case the Wayback Machine link ever stops working, here's a copy:

INTERNAL CONFLICTS ARE PRACTICALLY a requisite for every pop duo, the in-fighting associated with Simon & Garfunkel, Oasis and The Everly Brothers almost as well-known as the songs they produced.

Up until recently, Tears for Fears had sustained an impressive impasse of their own, with one half of the pair, Curt Smith, abandoning the synth group for more than a decade. What was thought to be a permanent vacation, however, is snapped on April 6 with the release of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending (Arista), the first CD by the original British duo since 1989’s Top 10 album The Seeds of Love.

The full track list: "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending," "Closest Thing to Heaven" (first single), "Call Me Mellow," "Size of Sorrow," "Who Killed Tangerine?," "Quiet Ones," "Who You Are," "The Devil," "Secret World," "Killing with Kindness," "Ladybird" and "Last Days on Earth."

Smith and partner Roland Orzabal grew up as childhood friends in Bath, England, devoting many years to the cultivation of Tears for Fears (and Graduate, prior to that) before breaking though with The Hurting in 1983.

The band ruled the airwaves in ’85, tallying two singles that topped the charts for a combined five weeks: "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and "Shout." But despite the mega-success of Songs from the Big Chair that year (five-times platinum) and the strong reception garnered by its follow-up, The Seeds of Love, four years later, the union eventually proved ill-fated. Smith exited in 1992.

Orzabal upheld the Tears for Fears moniker despite Smith’s absence throughout the ’90s, but the amount of material he created was minimal: Elemental in 1993 and Raoul and the Kings of Spain two years later. In the meantime, Smith periodically issued obscure solo discs, including 2000’s Aeroplane.

"About two-and-a-half years ago, they started talking again," newly recruited guitarist Charlton Pettus, who also played on Aeroplane, tells ICE. "I think they had both arrived at similar places musically, and whatever personal stuff there was, it was long ago enough that no one cared anymore. Their dynamic partnership is one that they didn’t fully appreciate until they didn’t have it. When they got back into it, they just kept going."

Once the reunion became official, the band devoted winter 2002-’03 to writing and laying down demos. The bulk of the recording took place in Los Angeles starting in February, and lasted through the summer.

"We took about four trips between Roland’s house in England and [L.A.] before we really started recording," says Pettus, who co-produced the album with the band. "So it was a gradual, get-back-into-the-water thing at first."

Whereas Orzabal traditionally performs guitar and keyboards and Smith the bass, the members occasionally swapped duties during this recording. Pettus filled all three roles when needed, and Orzabal even stepped behind the drum kit for "Closest Thing to Heaven." The album is also infused with B3 organ, Wurlitzer, acoustic piano, Mellotron, clarinet and other instruments.

While Pettus claims the recording was slow-moving, "Ladybird," the first song the duo attempted, "went fairly quickly and naturally," he says. "There was no conscious effort to sound like Tears for Fears… they just do."

Despite the long gap of time between recordings, the group only looked to the past for one Everybody selection, "Size of Sorrow"; the rest were all written specifically for the new album.

The Orzabal-penned "Size of Sorrow," at least seven years old, was casually recalled during the recording sessions, eventually winding up on the album. "It was from the period right after they broke up, so hearing Curt sing it was kind of an epiphany," Pettus states. "When we were going through songs midway through the process, there was a song of Roland’s that he’d never recorded a version of which he liked. Me and Curt thought it was a beautiful song… we messed around with it for awhile and loved it."

Pettus says that the majority of initial tracks were preserved for the final versions of the songs.

"More than half the tracks on there are first-take quickies," he says. "A lot of the guitar solos are first-take noodles that we got attached to. It’s a demo/record hybrid — nothing was erased."

He points to the title track specifically: "The middle part of that song is Roland singing and playing acoustic guitar together on one mike. He did just one take as a reference, so we could lay out the song structure. We thought there was something magical about the take, so that was it."

The studio residency resulted in roughly 12 leftover tracks, some of which will surface as B-sides and others that will not be finished. Pettus hints at one track in particular, "Out of Control," as being an especially beloved remainder.

Once the recordings were finished, the pair inked a deal with Arista — the first time they had ever been involved with the label. "[Arista president] L.A. Reid has always been a big fan," VP of Marketing Adam Lowenberg tells ICE. "Everyone at Arista is so excited about this… there’s nothing else like it on our roster."

–Kurt Orzeck © 2004 Howard Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

[preciouslandmermaid]

"as the tides turn" (c.m.)

CHAPTER FIVE: "And The Tide Rolls Out" (5/5)

check the first chapter/post for more details :) this episode features a farewell to our lovely tech analyst <3

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

“I’ve got a potential for you,” Garcia said to the team, “Benjamin Miller. When he was twenty-two, his little sister tragically drowned while his family was at the beach, and Ben dropped out of college mid-semester. His employment has been all over the place, but it’s mostly on home repairs and does a lot of contract work. This guy’s taxes were all over the place. His family was...yikes.” She grimaced. “After Simone’s death, his father was arrested multiple times for DUI, and at least one report of domestic disturbance. Police suspected abuse, but Mrs. Miller never filed against him.”

“What was Benjamin studying?” Hotch asked.

“Marine biology.”

“Fits the profile,” Rossi said, “did anything happen recently in his personal or professional life?”

“Squeaky clean criminal record. No partners or spouses. His parents are still married, though his father resides at a rehab facility.”

“Unless it’s timing,” said Hotch, “Garcia, how old would his sister would be if she survived?”

Garcia’s fingers flew in rapid succession across her keyboard. “Twenty-two. Oh. Oh. Her birthday lines up to when Mary-Anne was abducted.”

“There’s our trigger.”

Spencer chimed in, “He’s using these girls as surrogates for his sister. He’s punishing them and killing them before they reach their full potential because he feels he was robbed of his own.”

“He let Katrina go,” Prentiss said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop.”

“We need to bring him in before he goes underground.”

"Or runs," Morgan added. 

“Sending addresses to you now,” said Garcia.

The police vehicles peeled from the parking lot with their sirens blaring – units were sent to Benjamin’s apartment, his mother’s house, and the beach where his sister, Simone, had lost her life. Roadblocks were arranged. The coast guard was notified. Finally, this case would come to a close before this city suffered any more senseless deaths.

Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi stormed the apartment with their service weapons drawn and found Benjamin shoving clothing into a duffle bag and preparing to bolt. He grabbed the duffle bag and clutched it to his chest, shouting, “I have a gun!”

“Ben, it’s over,” said Rossi.

“We know about your sister,” Hotch said.

“Oh yeah?” he taunted, “do you know how she ruined everything?! She took my life away, my future! She destroyed our family!”

“What happened was an accident, a tragedy...” Rossi said, “let’s talk about this, Ben. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Ben reached into his duffle bag, pulling an object free, but before he could brandish whatever it was – a phone, a gun, another weapon– Rossi and Hotch fired at the same time. One bullet hit the suspect’s shoulder, sending him backward into the wall, and the second bullet hit the wall, drywall and chipped paint plumed into the air like a rough exhale.

“I can’t believe you’re really leaving us, baby girl,” Morgan said as he entered Penelope’s office. All her color, her personality, all organized and boxed away. The center of her genius seemed strangely barren and desolate and sterile without her panda mug, glowing pink lava lamp, and all her adorable shaped tchotchkes. He didn’t think anyone would be able to fill the Penelope-shaped space that she’d leave behind. Though he understood and respected her decision, that didn’t make it hurt any less. Goodbyes were hard. They were always hard.

“You’re gonna make me cry.” Penelope stepped into Derek’s waiting open embrace.

“Me? No, never.” Derek kissed the top of her head. “C’mon, everyone’s waiting.”

“What?! Derek Morgan! I told you that I didn’t want a whole thing,” she protested as Derek kept one arm around her and guided her toward the bullpen. “Seriously. I’ll cry.��

Her heels clicked against the tile. “Besides, it’s not like you’re getting rid of me. I’ll be a phone call away. If you think for one second that our friendship is ending just because I’m moving then you’ve got another thing coming, mister.”

Derek laughed warmly. “Oh, I do not doubt that you could track any of us down if you needed to.”

“Damn right.”

Penelope stopped short as she entered the decorated bullpen. Her friends had strung up bright balloons of every color, and glittery streamers, and covered their cubicle walls in little nick-knacks reminiscent of her desk – her old desk. She spotted little frogs, and anime figures, and those small, bouncy rubber balls that you get for a quarter. Penelope’s heart swelled. Penelope’s heart broke.

“Aw, you guys!” She opened her arms. “Come here, come here.”

“Easy there, hot stuff, you’re gonna break Wonder Boy in half,” Derek teased when she squeezed Reid a little too tight. She blinked back her tears, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry, before almost immediately giving up on her unspoken promise. These people loved her and she loved them.

She rubbed her thumb along Emilia’s cheek and tried to wipe the bright lipstick her kiss had left behind.

“It’s fine,” Emilia said, laughing and gently pushing Penelope’s hand away. Emilia stepped back into the group and her arm brushed against Reid’s. Now, Penelope wasn’t a behavioral profiler, but she wasn’t blind or oblivious either and she noticed the faint flush of color that graced Emilia’s cheeks and the quick, amused tilt of Reid’s mouth before he smothered it.

She wanted to squeal and drag Emilia into one of the offices for the details. She was leaving right when something was going on! Oh, she was definitely texting the group chat about this later. But, in this moment, she focused on her friend’s well wishes and the brief walks down nostalgia lane and saved all the hot gossip for later when she was cozy, in bed, and emotionally and mentally preparing for her big move. If nothing else, the gossip would make a good distraction.

“What was that guy’s name? Brandon?” JJ asked, recalling the man who tried to pretend to be an FBI agent at the bar.

“Brad,” Emily said, then smiled. “I’m surprised he didn’t say his name was classified too.”

Penelope said, “Oooh, that’s right, Brad. Too bad he wasn’t cute.”

Hotch cleared his throat. “I’d like to say a few words.” A hush fell over the team as Aaron Hotchner stood, in his pressed suit and tie, holding a neon green Solo cup and smiling thinly.

“Garcia, it’s not an understatement to say that your work is the backbone of our team and I feel sympathetic towards whoever picks up the mantle after you. God willing, they’ve got an ounce of your strong, optimistic personality, and they might just make it,” he said. “We’re going to miss you. And I hope you know that you’ll always have a home at Quantico, no matter what.”

Penelope wiped away her tears with the knuckle of her index finger.

“Get in here, get in here,” she said, opening her arms again, “everyone!”

They squished together, laughing and chuckling, a tangle of arms and awkward shoulders, some of their smiles softened by bright, teary eyes. She kissed Emilia’s other cheek, leaving a second pink smudge, and realized that her big heart was split between seven wonderful people. She didn’t brush away her tears this time. They were proof of her love and her grief and the budding, tentative joy that lived in the new chapter of her life.

“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.” ― Khalil Gibran

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

A/N: And that's everything folks! I hope you had fun reading it :) I had fun writing it heehe

*cue the ending theme of Criminal Minds while the credits roll*

[squeeneyart]

Breathe in the Salt - Chapter 16

AO3

Beta read as always is @thesnadger!

A week sure flies by.

Martin gets some of his thoughts sorted.

Nothing happened.

The sky was unchanged in every way but for the time that had passed. They had bid Evan a good night (“Oh, right, it’s evening now? Should probably give you some idea about time when we talk.”), and Martin stood at the front entrance to stare through the small window. It was grey and downright gloomy out there. Nothing new.

“D’you think Simon and that woman just wanted to mess with me?” Martin said. “Like, say some spooky stuff to make sure I stay quiet about the whole thing?”

“It’s possible,” Jon said, exhaustion clear in his voice. “But there’s still a sky, which is good news, I suppose.”

“And not everything is sky,” Sasha added helpfully. “That seems more Simon’s speed than getting rid of it.”

Tim stretched his arms above his head. “Either way, keep an eye out for a warning text before we all become professional skydivers.”

“At least I’ll have a job lined up?” He wanted to muster up some more concern but after a day of waiting the suspense had run out. If something was going to happen, there was nothing he could do. “Well, goodnight. And don’t stay here too late! You all won’t make it another day without getting proper sleep.”

His eye landed on Jon, who huffed a little. “Yes, yes, we’ll all get a proper rest. Unlike the others I don’t do coffee. Though, let me walk you out. I’d like to get another look at the sky.”

It wasn’t the smoothest transition to accompanying Martin outside, but lack of sleep didn’t make for good excuses. Martin nodded and walked out with Jon in tow.

Once outside, Jon folded his hands together and seemed to consider something. “I think I’m a bit of a broken record at this point, but I wanted to apologize for earlier. I had become concerned about the lack of response from Elias and wanted to get it all back to him before too long.”

Martin looked at him carefully. “So… you think it’ll be enough?”

“Yes. It might even be overkill, but now that I’ve promised multiple people to help fix things, it’s better to be safe than sorry.” Jon let his hands fall to his sides. “The apology still stands, though.”

“Well, with you staying longer I’m sure I’ll find a way to even out the apologies between us. There are always papers to scatter.” Martin smiled sheepishly and adjusted the bag hanging from his shoulder. “But it would be nice if you didn’t have something to apologize for in the first place.”

“Yes, I recognize that.” Jon rubbed his arm. “I’m trying. I hope that much is clear.”

Martin sighed, the final piece of irritation drifting away. “Yeah, I know. I do accept it, the apology. But maybe try to go without needing to? For like a day?”

Straightening, Jon nodded. “I can do that. Or try, at least.”

“That’s all I ask.” All of that out of the way, Martin relaxed. “I guess I’ll be going. Big day tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, it will be.”Jon stood there as if about to say something else, stopping himself several times. Finally, in earnest, he said, “I’ll… I’ll do as much as I can, to help.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

As Martin walked away, he glanced back and saw that Jon had remained on the front steps, turning his gaze upward with a frown. If this had been a trick, Martin thought, it had done its job quite nicely. He almost regretted bringing it up to the others. They all shouldn’t have had to worry about nothing.

No, that wouldn’t have worked. One of them would’ve picked up on it. Sasha probably, though with that kind of intuition she also should’ve known better than to keep Naomi’s warning a secret from him.

But she apologized, and had only wanted to help. And she had been right about the results. There was no arguing that. It didn’t make it less upsetting, but putting it behind him wouldn’t be difficult. They were all going to be around each other, after all. Martin wanted to enjoy that.

He passed the place where he’d fallen. There was no sign of the event of course, no crack in the street or mark of a skull hitting concrete. No one had been there to witness it, either.

The sky was getting darker still, the street filling more and more with chill and emptiness. Ahead was the wooded cliffside that split his home away from the rest of town, and Martin dearly wished he had someone to walk home with.

--

The TV was on when he returned home. He slid off his jacket and damp boots by the door and stayed there in his wool socks. There was a numbness to his knees, a soreness to his throat that he couldn’t swallow away. It was getting colder outside, and the sea air always got worse as the year crept closer to winter.

Tea would fix it, once Mum was off to bed.

A sore throat meant talking less, which is what she preferred anyway. He nodded to her once in her chair, then went into dinner preparations. Something warm, something hearty, and something simple. He grabbed the container of beef stew and a cylinder of dinner roll dough from the fridge. Simple and, even better, fast.

Before long there were steaming bowls of meat and vegetables on the table with rolls for dipping. He thanked his past self for thinking ahead as he and his mother ate in silence.

She said nothing, did nothing but her usual routine. There was no going outside with the intense chill that had settled onto the beach. Instead, she went straight to bed without a word spoken.

A tingling in his throat kept him from uttering a single goodnight. He turned out her lamp and closed her door, returning to the kitchen to wash the dishes and make himself some tea with honey. While waiting for the water to boil, he checked his phone and saw a text from earlier.

Tim: got home alright?

Martin: sorry. yeah i made it fine

He hoped his response hadn’t come too late to be worrisome, but Tim responded rather quickly.

Tim: gotcha. no tumbles?

Martin: no nothing

Tim: good. ill let the others know

Tim: so i guess tomorrow is gonna be interesting. its a bit weird to get a project really started on a friday but i was thinking we could all get food afterwards tomorrow, maybe get some drinks

Tim: usually jon skips out on that sort of thing but on trips its easier to get him since he hates making food choices in new places

Tim: you in?

Martin’s thumbs twitched over the phone keyboard. When was the last time he bothered sitting in a restaurant instead of getting takeout? Or went to a bar?

He would have to get his mother settled in with dinner and everything. Her usual bedtime was early, but they were late workers so maybe it would be fine? Would it be fine? Would he be fine?

Shit, he needed to respond.

Martin: sure that would be nice. what time?

Tim: probably later evening, since we’ll be settling work stuff. thinkin 8 or 9 if that works

Martin: yeah that’s perfect actually

Tim: great, see you bright and early! 👍

Martin: have a good night!

Slumping against the counter, Martin looked over the short conversation a few times (perhaps more than a few) and then pocketed his phone.

This was fine. It was getting some food with some people. He would be fine.

The kettle whistled and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Tea, he was making tea for himself. So he did, adding honey and milk to his liking. It was too sweet for his mother or anyone else he knew, but this was for him.

He took the steaming mug in both hands and looked out the window. The sky was still there, as were the beach and crashing waves though he could barely see them. His house still stood around him with the lights on and heat running.

Savings were something he’d finally managed to have in the recent months after years of low-wage customer service positions. He and his mother could survive without income for a little while. Getting through the whole of winter would be a stretch, but his spending habits were fairly restrained and his mother’s medication would still be covered. In the meantime there were other avenues for making money, so this job wasn’t the end-all-be-all.

God, it had been nice though. Martin would hold onto the pay for as long as he could during the whole saving-Evan process, but after that he would have a lot to figure out.

Draining the rest of his mug, he rinsed it out and set it into the sink. The tea had done its job in soothing his throat. The extra warmth in his hands was a blessing as well. He wondered if Jon would be keeping warm at all, though he suspected the truth would be disappointing.

No matter. If the others were working there a while longer Jon would have to adjust to the weather eventually, or else deal with Martin pushing hot mugs of tea into his hands until he learned. Maybe he’d toss in a scarf to complete the set.

With one last glance out the kitchen window, he walked out into the hall and up the stairs, turning off each light as he went. Once in his room, Martin slipped into his pyjamas and reached into the drawer of his bedside table. His poetry notebook had gone ignored for several days, and that needed rectifying.

Where would he even start? The last page he’d written seemed like it was from years before, not a week. Now he had a whole swirl of worries about the future he hadn’t had to deal with since he was in school. Worries and fears and-

And a silly, one-sided thing that while completely hopeless was a nice thing to feel all the same. So just like school, except he had people to meet on a Friday night.

Looking out his window a final time, Martin sat in his bed, bent over his notebook, and began to write. It was clunky at first, the words getting stuck somewhere in his pen or his throat. Part of his mind kept drifting to his mobile on the bedside table, wondering if Tim was still available to talk a bit more about the day ahead. Tiny things to fill a text log, like food options or how Martin would meet up with them. For a moment he even considered asking Tim for Jon and Sasha’s numbers, in case of emergencies.

Better to have that conversation in person, he thought, pulling his attention back to the page. Soon after he was writing short couplets at a quick pace, scraps of rhyme and feeling, until he checked his phone and found an hour had passed. Sleep, he thought. He needed sleep.

It was almost disappointing to have the writing go by so quickly, but there was no helping it. The poetry notebook was placed neatly into its drawer, his glasses were set onto the table, and Martin, wrapped in a thick blanket, stared out into the night until his eyes were too heavy to hold open.

--

It wasn’t his alarm that woke him the next morning but his ringtone. When he checked the screen, he found notifications for several missed calls from Tim and hurried to answer.

“Tim? What’s-”

--

One by one, files and folders were packed into car trunks.

He’d wasted no time in getting there, booking it all the way across town, but when he arrived Martin could say nothing at all. Standing near the stairs, he could only watch as the three researchers marched out of the lighthouse with their work things.

Sasha kept the most calm of the three, nodding at Martin as she walked past him. Her fingers tapped furiously on the side of a box, nails making dents in the cardboard.

Something between misery and confusion pulled at Tim’s mouth. More than once Martin worried he would keel over with nausea, but he stayed upright as if out of spite. He met Martin’s eyes a couple of times with a friendly smile, but it never stuck for long.

Jon was stone faced, though his jaw kept clenching and unclenching. He had only looked at Martin once, keeping that neutral expression to the best of his ability but unable to mask his frustration. Whatever he wanted to say, it wouldn’t be said there.

Behind Martin, Peter Lukas stood with his hand gripping the railing, equal measures tired and irritated and making no attempt to hide how much he didn’t want to be there. No, none of them would be saying anything except their goodbyes.

“Thanks for having us,” Tim said, shaking Martin’s hand. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to have a quiet workplace again.”

“Right. Have a safe trip.” It was the easiest thing for Martin to say, his mind not yet caught up.

Tim backed away to join the others who simply waved or nodded their goodbyes. Something in Martin’s chest twisted

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve seen now that it’s a poor environment for multiple employees. The acoustics make it unbearable.” Peter smiled something empty. “Tell Elias I will be unavailable for communication for the next few weeks, at the least.”

Jon opened the door to his rental car and said, voice dripping with acid, “I’m sure we’ll speak with him very soon.”

“Perfect. Well, you’d best be going. Wouldn’t want to keep your workplace understaffed any longer.” With that, Peter glanced at Martin and jerked his chin to the front entrance before walking inside.

As Peter disappeared from sight, Sasha’s calm face twisted into furious determination. She nodded at Martin again, then stepped into the driver’s side of the rental and closed the door behind her. Tim sighed, holding up his phone and mouthing “later” before entering the passenger’s side.

Jon gave Martin a familiar look before slipping into his own car. Both vehicles left the lot, vanishing into the fog.

--

“What did I tell you? Academics,” Peter said, picking some lint off his sleeve. “Now, before I go, there are just a few things.”

It took all of Martin’s will not to drag his feet on the way to his desk. The folded table was gone, but dirty footprints littered his newly-mopped floor from where it had been. He focused on the different shoe sizes and shapes in the mud and slush.

"They certainly made a mess of the place, didn't they? You'll have to redo this floor, of course. The upstairs can wait until next week. Just keep to the usual schedule there."

His desk was still littered with papers he’d pushed aside before his nap the day before.

"You've fallen behind on paperwork as well. Understandable with all the blustering from those three, I really can’t imagine. Ah, well, it's nothing a few extra hours on the weekend won't take care of."

Martin dropped in the chair he’d sat in for months, overlooked by that crest and its ridiculous seal, eyes dead and glassy.

"Oh, and I’ve made some changes to your workload. It's all written down here.” Peter placed a piece of paper on the desk. “Pretty straightforward. I don't imagine that any of it will be a problem for you."

With a dull nod, Martin dragged the page toward himself without looking at it. An updated part of his work contract. More things for him to accomplish that weekend most likely, as if it was all a punishment.

Peter breathed in sharply through his nose and clapped his hands together, looking much more refreshed. “I did miss the sound of this place. I have other business, of course, so I’ll leave you to it, hm?”

Not waiting for a response, Peter strode away and out of the building with a decisive click of the door. Martin was left to himself in that wide, empty space, spending five, ten, fifteen minutes just staring at nothing.

Stupid. If their boss had meant for them to stay longer, they wouldn’t have gone through more extensive measures the day before. They should’ve known better than to make plans that were never going to happen.

Or he had just been so clearly desperate for help that they played it cool until it was time to get out.

No, that wasn’t fair (though he wasn’t ruling it out entirely). Tim’s invitation the night before would’ve just been cruel if that were the case, and Tim didn’t seem like the type to pull something so mean. And none of them seemed happy about Elias’ decision, especially with all of the work they’d put in. Sasha certainly wasn’t close to dropping anything.

And Jon had made a promise, even if he had a hard time keeping them.

Eventually, Martin looked down at the page in front of him.

--

Up and around he ran, panic and dizziness squeezing at his skull and threatening to pull him backward off his feet.

Stumbling into the upmost level of the lighthouse, Martin whispered through haggard breaths, “No, no, no, no-”

He hurried across the room, placing a hand on the dial and giving it a twist. “Evan? Evan, can you hear me?”

He waited for familiar voices with no success. Again, “Evan? It’s me, Martin. Peter left already, so just say something.”

A perfectly ordinary silence washed over him. He sank to the floor, his hand still brushing against the dial as if it made a difference. From his other hand fell a brand new set of panel instructions. An extra note was left at the bottom, something about the importance of proper lighthouse management to landbound ships.

Through the windows morning continued to break over the ocean, familiar cliffs just visible through the fog down below.

[demivampirew]

Keep Calm and Go to London chapter 29

Previous Chapters in the masterlist

Triggers: Panic attack; anxiety; crying.

Tag list:  Here’s the incredible people who   showed me support (thank  you    so  much for that) and people who  asked  me to tag them too  ☺️   (I   think  I will write a few chapters  of  this story, if you want me to tag     you, tell me ☺️   ) @cavillanche @mary-ann84 @henry-owns-these-tatas @yespolkadotkitty @dancingwendigo   constip8merm8       penwieldingdreamer iloveyouyen  littlefreya  wondersofdreaming      alyxkbrl solariumss  sweetybuzz25 @thethirstyarchive @agniavateira   @honeyloverogers @hell1129-blog   @lunedelorient​  @michelle-1185​  @madbaddic7ed​     @summersong69​ @kaatelyyynn​

The sweet melody force Henry to wake up. The combination of an angelic voice and piano wasn't something he wanted to miss. As he approached the living room, he saw you playing the keyboards while singing some beautiful lyrics. He leaned against the wall to listen to the delightful tune without distracting you.

You're all I need my one belief the winds of time will carry me to live without dubiety don't let this ever end

We've flow afar beyond the sea to find each other finally we've waited long and patiently to build a bridge between dualities.

Shivers ran through his body, the combination of your voice, the soft instrumental and the lovely lyrics gave him chills. You were writing the final lyrics of your new song when you finally noticed him.

- Sorry, babe, did I wake you up? - you apologized. - Yep, but it doesn't matter. That's the greatest way of waking up.-he replied, grinning. His lips felt dry as he gave you a tender good morning kiss. - I have to give you a lip balm.- you said playfully and he laughed.

As you made kissing sounds and called his name, Kal appeared from the kitchen, where he was bitting  a bone- and went straight to Henry. As you did for his birthday, you put a little surprise for Henry in the doggy's collar. He kneeled on the floor and then took the tiny gift bag and inside of it, there was a silver locket that contained two photos: one was Kal and the other was a picture of you. The gift also included a little card: "Happy Father's day, daddy! Love, Kal." A huge smile appeared on his face.

- I love it, Kal, thank you!- he exclaimed while petting his furry son. Then, he lifted his head and looked at you with those gorgeous blue eyes of his, "Thanks, baby" he added. - It was Kal's idea. He's even so egocentric that he put himself as well.- you joked referring to the fact that your picture was there with the Akita. Seeing and heard him laugh was among you're favourite things on the entire world. If he was happy, you could feel the sunshine hit you no matter the time of the day, the season or the weather. As Taylor's song says " I see sparks fly whenever you smile".

Later that day, you called your dad to congratulate him on his day. Henry had his own zoom family reunion for Father's Day. It wasn't a lie that you couldn't be there because you were going to phone your old man, but there was also the anxiety of intruding in something private. It didn't matter how in love you were with each other, you felt that 4 months of dating wasn't enough time together to be part of those special moments, especially after his birthday. Due to the pandemic and the fact that his family lived far away from him, you haven't had the chance to meet them yet, at least personally, so you felt that they might felt curious and ask questions and it'd seem that you were stealing their thunder. Today was all about his dad and his brothers. Despite avoiding the Cavill online hang out, you made sure to salute them on father's day. You sent a direct message to Charlie, the only member of your boyfriend's family you had the chance to talk several times when he and Henry video-called and you had a good relationship with. You included him and the rest of them in your Father's Day post on Instagram as well as pleading Henry to deliver your best wishes. Your day couldn't be better, you felt. While you scrolled through Instagram, giving likes to your friend's post delivering sweet thankful words to their dads, partners, etc a notification let you know that Henry posted as well. After going to his account, a bright smile appeared on your face as you saw the photo he posted. It was a photo from his childhood; in it, he was standing next to his brothers and his father. He was leaning against his younger sibling with the rest standing behind them with the Cavill Senior besides his sons. Only one of the children wasn't smiling and had a "bad boy" face, it was Simon. So, except for the young man, all had happy gestures, specially Henry who looked cheerful. The picture seemed to be from a wedding or a similar event giving the fact that they all were wearing suits. Underneath said portrait, your British man dedicated a few words to his family: "In this here photo only one of the Cavill men was a father. Now.... a few years later, only one isn't! Happy Father's Day to you, my incredible father, and to you my awesome brothers! Legends to a man.Also, for those that don't know, this is how we dress in England all the time.#FathersDay" All the joy you were feeling before vanished instantly. Now anxiety had fully taken over your emotions and air couldn't get inside your body. You ran into the kitchen and grabbed a bag to breathe in. You went into the house's main bathroom to hide from Henry so he wouldn't find out that you were having a panic attack. The rolled down your eyes and you felt as if needles were being sticked to your heart. "In this here photo only one of the Cavill men was a father. Now.... a few years later, only one isn't! " "..., only one isn't! " the words kept repeating inside your mind and you could even hear his voice. When Henry told you that whatever was your decision about having kids, he wanted to remain by your side, it made you extremely happy to know that you'll never lose him, but in the same time, you felt even more anxiety than before. One thing was to know that you could lose him in the future for not wanting the same thing, but there was the upside that he'd someday make his dream come true; another thing was for you to take away the possibility of being a dad because he loved you enough to give up his longtime desire of having kids. What if someday he regretted his desition? Would he blamed you for not doing the right thing and set him free? Will breaking up with him be the right decision? There was always a chance that if you felt that couldn't have kids in the near future, that it could happen in a distant future. You could always adopt or freeze your eggs so you could find a surrogate in your body wasn't in conditions to carry a child.

-Baby, you want to watch a movie?- Henry asked you as he knocked on the bathroom's door. You had been there for almost an hour, burning your poor brain with all those existential questions. You took a deep breath as you wiped your tears. - Yeah, babe. I'll be there in a minute.- you replied making an extra effort for him not to noticed that you'd been crying. - Ok, I'll make popcorn in the meantime.- he said and left. You stood up and faced the mirror. After washing your face, you made sure there were no trails of your tears. After sitting on the couch, you tried hard to focus on choosing a movie. You ended selecting a horror movie called "The Ritual". A big bowl of popcorn rested on your boyfriend's lap as you watched the movie. As much as you tried to pay attention to the movie, you barely understood what was going on since your brain would repeat his words and the questions you made to yourself before. You took deep breaths to avoid having another panic attack and break into tears. As the movie was reaching its climax, your man paused the movie. It took you a moment to notice it and to see that he was starring at you. - Are you ok, princess? - he questioned worried. You faced him, smiling and nodding; of course you couldn't speak because otherwise the lump in your throat would give you away. He inspected your face.- Are you sure? You can tell me if something's wrong, do you know that, right?- he pointed out and you nodded again, hoping he'll quit the interrogation and play the movie.

Unfortunately, he did not give up. He knew something was going on and would not continue playing the movie until he knew what was wrong with you. - You're lying.- he reproached you.- You haven't even touched the popcorn and you love it; you haven't stopped moving your thighs from side to side, quickly and that's something you do when you're extremely anxious; you also play with your nails, that's another nervous tic you have and not to mention that you haven't made one single comment during this entire time, I've been waiting for your clever comments and jokes, but no a single sound came out from your mouth. You have been breathing deeply and shallowing saliva which is something you do when you try not to cry.

Damn it! He knew you way too well. What was the point of pretending anymore? He already caught your bullshit. Your burst into tears and after he left the bowl on the tea table, you rested your head on his lap as he caressed your hair and your face, letting you cry as much as you need it. After a while, when you felt eased, you sat again and looked at him, who was expecting an explanation of what was going on. You took as much air as you could and finally spoke:

- I saw your Instagram post. - you pointed out. - Ok.- he said, unsure of how that could have made you upset. - You said that you were the only one who wasn't a father and I know that you truly want that, and people saying in your comments how someday you're going to be a great dad and me thinking what if I can't give you that? You assured me that you wanted to be with me anyway, but I feel that'd be extremely selfish of me to take that opportunity away from you, even if my desition is not only for my best interest or yours, but also for that baby, if there's ever one, I don't want a child to be born in a world in which his mother only had him to make his dad happy. Besides that, I fear that if I don't give you children, someday you'd regret staying with me and may even hate me for not doing that or for not let you go to find someone that can give you that.- you explained while a few tears rolled down your cheeks. Henry removed them with his thumbs and then grabbed your face, forcing you to look him in the eyes. - I might enjoy to play video-games, to read fantasy books among other "childish" things, but be sure I'm a man. I'm mature enough to make my desitions and know the reasons behind them. Am I sure that I want to be with you even if you don't want kids? Absolutely. I already feel happy and complete by your side, and if someday we have kids I'd no longer be on cloud nine, but cloud infinite; especially by knowing that I'd have them with a woman who loved me enough to change her mind and with a person smart enough to know that the kid's feelings and necessities are more important than both ours. Could I be sad if I never become a father? Possibly. Would I regret my desition? No, because I know why I made that decision. Would I blame you for not giving me kids, if that happens? Hell no; I wouldn't be forced to stay, if I stay it'd be because I wanted so, and the only one to blame if I make a bad desition is me and, as I said before, I know why I want to stay with you no matter what, so I'm not even going to blame myself.- he took a short paused and continued- Look, I'd always wanted to play Alexander, the Great, did that happened? No, but I'm ok with that. I desired to play Bond for a long time and that seems like another dream that will not come true, but I'm ok with that too. At least I had the chance to play Sups and Geralt. I know might be a silly comparison, but maybe that way you understand what I'm trying to say. In that scenario, you are Superman and Geralt. You're the amazing thing that happened to me even and my life would be awesome even if I don't get Bond or Alexander.- he chuckled unsure if he was being clear. You smiled, feeling a lot better and then kissed him. His lips tasted so good. The sweetness of the popcorn left trails on them. You sat right next to him, grabbing his arm and putting your head on his shoulder. He kissed your head and was about to play the rest of the movie when you stopped him and questioned if it'd be ok with him if you play the movie from the beginning to really watch it this time. He smirked and agreed, saying that i'd be ok to see it again because there were some parts he didn't pay much attention either. Your jokes and sassy comments about some silly plot points and characters actions were all he needed to know that you felt much better.

Disclaimer: As much as I’d love to write a song, I haven’t done that, so the song reader writes actually exists and belongs to the band Epica (Twin Flames is the name of the song if you want to listen to it - is beautiful  ♥)

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Being Simon

Chapter 2: The Present

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff/Angst

Word Count: 9856

Chapter 2/2 (All chapters)

Summary: Simon is back in his own time, but all he can think about is the man from his past.

Read on AO3

AN: Time for some pining!

———————————————

I wake up on Sunday feeling just as shitty as I did Friday night. No amount of comfort food, hitting my punching bag, or mindless TV have helped. And sleeping it off has done jack shit, because all I could dream was Ty’s soft looking black hair and pretty eyes.

I barely know who he is. I don’t even know his bloody last name. Yet I desperately want to see him again. How that’s going to happen is...well, that’s something I haven’t figured out yet. Every time I’ve opened a door, I’ve hoped I would walk into Dr. Margaret’s office. She can time travel and teleport, surely she’ll know something about one guy I talked to. Right? Right...

I throw off my blankets, sitting up and staring out at the London skyline, lit up in violet and gold by the rising sun. I wonder if he’s out there, looking at the same horizon I am. I wonder if he’s working at his mother’s law firm, or if he’s reading forever like he truly wants. I hope it’s the latter. I want him to be happy. Fuck, I can’t stop thinking about him. The urge to see him again is burning in my chest and gut and everywhere. I’ve never felt like this before; so intensely focused on one person. If only I had looked at his bloody number!

“God,” I groan, “I want waffles. At least I can have that.” I get up and stomp to my door. The second I walk through, I stumble onto a cold stone floor, bright lights flooding my vision.

“Nice pants,” Dr. Margaret says. I pull the hem of my shirt over my Monty Python boxers.

“Seriously, why do you always get me at literally the worst times?”

“Not my fault you never have a good time.”

“Oh, fuck off.” I sit heavily on her couch with my arms crossed. “So what happened? You usually do the post-regret session earlier than this.”

“Time is an illusion. Stop stalling. What did you learn?”

I sigh, sinking further into the cushions. “Well, I learned that Agatha and I didn’t just fall apart, I let it fall apart. I put myself and my own stuff before her time and time again. And I’ve done the same with everyone else after Agatha because I refused to see my part in our relationship ending, so I never tried to fix it. I need to actually be present in and put the work into my relationships. That’s the lesson, right?”

Dr. Margaret scoffs and laces her fingers together, elbows on her desk. “What the hell am I here for?”

I shrug with a little smirk. My ego feels way too inflated right now. “Dunno. You got something else to add?”

“Hm.” She leans forward and pins me with her intense eyes. She’s really good at that. “You’re too scared of being alone to end things when they’re not going well. Why you get dumped every time. See that?”

And pop goes my pride. My face heats up, most likely turning an impressive shade of scarlet. I sink into my seat. “Okay, yeah, you’ve got a point there...”

“Simon.” She moves even closer with a kind smile. “Don’t feel bad. Not a bad person. Were alone most of your childhood, don’t want to be alone again. But can’t keep making choices from fear. Have to make them for the right reasons.”

“What are the right reasons, then?”

“Happiness, growth, all that good shite on greeting cards.”

I let out a small laugh. “Okay, I’ll go pick some up at the corner store.”

“Get some ice cream too. Deserve it after such a long regret.” She leans back in her chair, strong arms crossed behind her head. “Maybe give Agatha a call on the way there. Might know something about a raven haired bloke.”

My pulse goes into double time. I lean forward with eyes wide. “Wait, you mean-”

“Have fun.” 

Dr. Margaret nods, and the world spins into a blur of colour around me. Then I'm stumbling through my bedroom door like I haven’t been anywhere at all. Fuck, I hate when she does that. I have to stay against the wall for a few seconds, just until I don’t feel like I’ve been on a bloody tea cup ride for a million years. Part of that might be caused by Dr. Margaret said. My heart is still beating like mad. It’s bruising my fucking rib cage, I swear. Holy shit. Holy shit.

I scramble to grab my phone, half charged on my bedside table. Fourth in my contacts is one Agatha Wellbelove. It’s relieving to see for so many reasons. The phone rings three times, each one making my anxiety ratchet up, until it finally cuts off.

“Hello?” Agatha answers.

“Aggie!” I say a bit too loudly.

“Simon? What are you doing? It’s four in the morning here.”

My stomach sinks. Right. Major events don’t usually change after a regret. “Oh my god, you’re in California. I completely forgot about the time difference, I’m so sorry. I’ll go-”

“It’s alright, I’m already awake now. What’s up?”

“Um...this is going to sound random, but do you remember Ty? Your friend from third year uni?”

“Wow,” she chuckles, “that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

Fuck, that’s not a good sign. “Have you, uh, seen him since uni?”

“A little, but not in awhile. We only had a couple more classes together before exams started. We had drinks a few times after, then I went to California right after graduation and he went to Oxford. Both of us were too busy to keep in touch, I guess.”

“Oh. Okay...” I lay down on my bed, Part of me just wants to curl up under my blankets forever. Another part wants to stuff my face with pastries. (Maybe both.) (Both is good.)

“What’s up with asking about Ty?”

“I dunno. I was just thinking about that time we talked. It just, uh, popped into my head” Because I literally just lived it a couple days ago while in time travel therapy, but I can’t say that. I learned a long time ago that no matter how rationally I explain it, no one will believe me.

“Right, you talked to him after our breakup.”

“Yeah. He helped me a lot. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t still be friends without him. He was nice. In his own weird way.

She laughs quietly. “Yup, sounds like Ty. He acted all haughty but he was such a sweetheart. Wish I had kept more in touch with him more.”

“Me too.” I hug myself, and it helps a little. “Me too.”

“Oh, I think I might still be Facebook friends with him.”

Almost all my despair washes away in an instance and I bolt upright. “Really?!”

“Lemme check.” She makes little contemplative noises through the phone. “Okay, yeah, there he is, Ty Black.”

“Black? That’s his last name?”

“No, he told me he had a crush on Sirius Black and wanted to pretend they were married.”

“Oh...okay.” I start to deflate again. I feel like a leaking balloon. “Does it say anything?”

“Looks like he hasn’t used it in awhile. His last post was a couple of years ago. Says he made partner at a law firm.”

“Does it say which one?”

“No, just that it’s in London. Not surprised, he always wanted to be in the big city.”

I’m grinning ear to ear. He’s in London, my city. He’s here with me. I can find him. “Cool, cool, good to know. Um, anything else you can tell me, Ags? Like his full name?”

“No idea, Si. I actually didn’t know much about him. We spent most of our time gossiping about our classmates or getting shit faced. If I asked him something about his family or past, he’d always change the subject. So I just don’t know.”

I’m not sure how to feel about that. Ty told me things about his family, about his past. But was that because he trusted me instinctively, or because I was just some random bloke who probably wouldn’t remember? Was I convenient? Well, he gave me his number, so he must’ve seen...something in me. Not sure what though. I've never seen much in myself.

“Okay,” I sigh, “makes sense, yeah. Thanks, Agatha.”

“Welcome, and good luck. From what I remember, he was really cute.”

My face turns a bright shade of scarlet. Luckily Agatha can’t tell over the phone. (I think.) “Um, I’m not sure-”

“Please, give me more credit, Simon. I’ve known you for most of your life, I can absolutely tell when you're smitten. Not sure why you’re thinking about him over ten years later, but I support you. I hope it goes well.”

I smile, and I kind of hope she can hear that. “Thanks, Ags.”

“Welcome. Now I’m going to go back to bed. Love you.”

It’s impossible to describe the utter joy and relief I feel at those words. I’ve got Agatha back in my life. Hell, as far as she knows, we never lost touch to begin with. I’m so, so happy.

“Love you too, Ags. Night.”

“Night,” she yawns. The phone clicks off, but I keep grinning. Well, even if I can’t find Ty, this is absolutely a victory. But I’m going to damn well try.

My stomach growls louder than a lion. Waffles first, though. Definitely waffles.

———————————————

“You don’t remember anything about him?” I ask through my mouthful of sweet, delicious fried batter and syrup.

“No, Simon,” Penny sighs. “I don’t remember the guy you mentioned, like, once in the few weeks before our third year exams.”

I grumble. Stupid past me, not saying more. It’s not his fault though. Past versions of me only remember bits and pieces of a regret, just enough so they don’t seem like total weirdos who blacked out and can’t remember a big chunk of time. So it's more like stupid time travel shenanigans.

“Damn, okay. I’ll just keep looking.”

“Are you really going to scour all of London looking for one bloke you met over ten years ago?”

“When you say it like that it sounds stupid.”

“Yeah, it really does.”

“Bye, Penny, got more work to do.”

“Simon-”

I hang up before Penny can talk me out of this. She absolutely will, and I don’t want that right now. I want to find him, no matter how impossible it seems.

First stop is the alumni website, obviously. We went to the same uni, he has to be somewhere in the system. My fingers fly like lightning across the keyboard. No one in the political science or English departments that looks close to him, just a lot of uptight white dudes or hippie looking magazine writers who probably smoke too much weed. None of them have his gorgeous skin or dreamy grey eyes. (God, I want to see those eyes again.)

Next, I try the Oxford law school site. It’s even more impossible to navigate than most uni websites. There aren’t even any pictures of their alumni, just a list of stupidly posh names. Lewison, Pemberly, Grimm, Fairchild, Abbot, Harrington, none of which have a first name resembling Ty. That’s another issue. His name could be a nickname for so many other names. Tyler, Tyson, Tyrell, Tyrone are all possible. (Hope it’s not Tyrone, bloody hell.) Or maybe his name is just Ty, for some reason.

That’s why London 411 is absolutely no help. Apparently there are literally thousands of Ty's living in my city. I narrow it down to people my age, plus or minus a few years and there are still hundreds of Ty’s and Ty adjacents. I groan and rake my fingers through my hair, nails digging into my scalp. Why the fuck didn’t I get his last name? I want to scream at myself but all that would achieve is getting noise complaints from my neighbours.

Eventually, I resort to just straight up Googling. I try everything I can think of. “ty university of manchester,” “ty university of manchester english,” “ty university of manchester politics,” “ty university of manchester english politics,” “ty oxford law,” “ty london lawyer,” “ty london,” “ty sexy hot university of manchester student ashwerhuertjwerh.”

I faceplant my keyboard for longer than I would like to admit. “This is hopeless,” I groan into my table. I lift my head up to the ceiling. “What’s the point of this, Dr. Margaret? Is this some sort of test? Are you trying to give me a bloody ulcer?! Cause the last one is absolutely happening!”

Of course, there’s no answer. I’m not even sure where Dr. Margaret’s office exists relative to myself, or to our reality period. Trying to figure that out makes my brain hurt. I look at the clock, and it’s already seven. Christ, have I really been at this for that long? I should be grading homework like a good teacher. I need to stop. I’m a thirty three year old person, dammit, not a love struck teenager. (Okay maybe I’m both.) I slam my laptop shut and go on a hunt for food.

I heat up some frozen macaroni and take out my munchkins’ worksheets. Okay, these are easy. Math tests are universally understandable and simple most of the time, unlike stupid time travel therapy tests. I shovel bad pasta in my mouth as I fly through grading. 

“Good job, Matt,” I mumble through my shitty food. “Got the formula right.”

This is easy. I can do this. And I’m not thinking about Ty. Not at all. Maybe if I keep telling myself that, it will come true.

———————————————

“Nice job there, Roy,” I say. “You summarized the text wonderfully.”

“Thank you, Mr. Snow.” He beams at me with his gap toothed grin.

“You’re very welcome, bud.” I turn to Sufia, who seems to be stuck on the second question. I get down on her level, making my knees ache in the process. It’s worth it. “Need any help, Sufi?”

She holds up her worksheet to me a little too close. “What’s this word mean?”

I gently push the paper back so I can actually read it. (My vision isn't bad enough for that yet.) “‘Ascend,’ it means going up. For example you can ‘ascend the stairs.’”

Her eyebrows knit together. “Why doesn’t it just say go up then?”

“Well, that involves a longer discussion about poeticism that we’re going to have next week, alright?”

“Okay.” She goes back to the worksheet, sticking her tongue out in concentration. I chuckle under my breath. The strange and hilarious things kids do, gets to me every time.

I wander around the room, helping any kid who needs it and giving suggestions when asked. Teaching is less about telling and more about guiding children. It makes me wish a certain someone would guide me instead of leaving me to suffer for the last week.

I’ve still got nothing on Ty, no matter where and how I search. Everyday my hope gets whittled down bit by bit. I’m this close to giving up. There’s only so many hits one person can take, really.

“Yes, that’s a good point, Maeve, I like where you’re going with that,” I say. “How do you think that fits with our earlier readings?”

Maeve scratches her head with the top of her head with her pencil eraser. “Um...I don’t know...”

I crouch down near her. “Well, is there a way for you to remember? Do you have the books on you?”

“No, but I have something better!” She reaches into her absolutely massive backpack (I’m surprised she doesn’t tip over wearing that thing) and pulls out three notebooks. They’re all labeled with divider tabs. It’s insanely organized for a nine year old. “I keep a lot of notes.”

“Wow, I can see that. You like doing that?”

“Yeah! I keep all my notebooks, I like to read them.”

“Smart plan. Wish I kept-”

My mouth snaps shut. The gears are turning in my head. Creaking and slow, but still turning. I’m flung back to a vague memory of being 24, moving into my current flat from my old uni one, and Penny sorting through my random crap. She stood over a mess of all my uni papers next to my desk. Literal years of collected worksheets and notes that I never got around to throwing away.

“Why the hell do you have all these?” Penny asked.

“I wasn’t sure what I’d need for later classes,” I’d said, “then it all just piled up...”

She shook her head at me. “Well, you can’t keep all of it. Pick some stuff you want to keep and we’ll donate or throw out the rest.”

I nodded, then sat cross legged in front of the anxious student hoard. I tossed all the random papers profs handed out but I never read, along with most of my notebooks. But I remember one moment, a single instance that might change everything, when I decided to keep the notebooks that looked nice. Like the green one with vines on it I used in third year. I always kept it in my book bag. I liked the pocket just inside the front cover.

Holy shit.

“Mr. Snow?”  I’m snapped out of my weird memory trance back to my reality as a teacher who needs to, y’know, teach. I smile down at Maeve.

“Sorry, mate, spaced out a bit there. Anything else you need help with?”

Maeve points to a new question. “What does this mean?”

I explain the question to her as calmly as I can, not showing how I’m simultaneously panicking and ecstatic inside. Like a fireworks display in every lobe of my brain. Holy fucking shit.

———————————————

The second all the munchkins are out the door, so am I. Luckily I’ve been distracting myself from the Ty search by furiously doing all my lesson planning. I’m set for the next week. But all I’m really thinking about is where I put my bloody notebooks.

I slam my door shut, only vaguely wondering what my neighbours would think. My office (really a repurposed storage room) is a huge mess of textbooks and lesson ideas, like a tornado tore through a Michael’s and a college book store. I make it even worse by throwing object around, searching for one stupid thing. I have to have it, I need to have it. It’s my last chance, honestly. Please, universe, let this go right.

Under my Teaching Theory 5th Edition textbook is a pile of old notebooks, including a green one with vines on the cover. I scramble to open it. My heart skips a beat when I feel a piece of paper. Slowly, I pull it out, and gasp under my breath.

023-345-9876 Give me a call sometime, Snow - Ty

I’ve never typed a number so quickly in my life, though I have to keep hitting backspace because my fingers are shaking so much. And I’m even more nervous as I bring the phone to my ear. Fuck, this is so stupid, but I’m not turning back now. The phone rings three times before it finally gets picked up.

“Basilton Pitch,” a smooth, strong, most likely male voice replies. Well, that sort of sounds like him, but wrong name. My stomach sinks a little.

“H-Hi,” I squeak. I clear my throat so I don’t sound like I’m going through fucking puberty again. “Um...”

“Hello? May I help you?”

“Uh, possibly.” I rub the back of my sweaty neck. “I don’t know if you can help me, but I’m looking for someone who gave me this number a long time ago. Do you know a man named Ty?”

There’s a long, extremely awkward pause on the other side. My face gets more and more red each passing millisecond. I’ve really fucked up, haven’t I? I should just hang up-

“No one has called me that in ages,” he says. “Who are you?”

I gasp very audibly. Holy mother of all fuck. It’s him. I’ve found him! “It’s me!” I shout far too loudly. “I-It’s Simon. We met once in uni, after your friend Agatha broke up with me. I’m not sure if you remember-”

“You’re...you’re Simon Snow.”

“Yeah! That’s me! And you’re Ty, the really nice posh gay bloke who was getting his degree in politics and English then went to law school, right?” I’m grinning, I can’t stop grinning.

“Holy shit, it really is you.”

“Yeah, and you’re you!”

He chuckles, and his voice sounds even brighter than it did all those years ago. “Yes, I am. Though I’ll admit, I’m a bit...confused. Not that I’m ungrateful, but I gave you my number over ten years ago, and you’re only calling me now?”

“Um, yeah...” I scratch my blushing face, quickly concocting up a reasonable story that lacks time travel. “I got caught up in exams, then I, uh...kind of lost the notebook where I put your number. I was so pissed at myself for awhile but what could I do, y’know? Then I was, um, going through my old uni stuff today and take a wild guess at what I found.”

“A notebook with an ancient piece of scrap paper.”

“Still pretty smart, huh?”

“Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, but I’ll take the compliment.”

My cheeks are starting to ache from smiling. I don’t mind at all. “Happy to give it, and that you haven’t changed your number in over a decade.”

“Thank God for being loyal to a mobile carrier.”

I’m about to say something else, anything to keep talking to him. But then there’s commotion on the other end of the line, and Ty (Basilton?) moves away from the speaker.

“What?” he says. “Yes, I can take a look at your notes, Vadoma, give me a moment.” His voice becomes louder again. “I’m very sorry, I wish I could keep talking, but I have end of the week work to do.”

My shoulders slump. “Oh, okay.”

“From your area code, I’m guessing you’re in London too, so how about we have coffee tomorrow and catch up? Around noon good?”

“Yes!” My voice squeaks again, fuck. Calm down, Simon. “Yeah, that sounds great. Any suggestions?”

“I know a nice little place in Camden if that’s alright.”

“Yeah! I actually live in Camden.” 

“What a lovely coincidence. I’ll text you the address?”

“That would be amazing.”

“Great, I’ll see you then, Simon.”

“See you.”

The phone clicks off, but it stays by my ear for another long moment. My brain is still playing catch up.

I found him. I actually found him. My stomach is filled to the brim with a thousand butterflies. I’ve never been this excited about...anything, really. How is it that one guy can make me feel like this? I have no clue, but I don’t care. I’m just looking forward to tomorrow so much.

———————————————

My leg won’t stop bouncing. No matter how deeply I breathe or push down, it just keeps jerking around like a hyperactive toddler. I’m somewhere between excited and completely, utterly terrified. What if he doesn’t show up? Worse, what if he does show up and he doesn’t like me anymore? It’s been over ten years, I definitely don’t look like I did when I was 21 anymore. He could be horribly disappointed with 33 year old me, with my dark circles and crow’s feet and only marginally better fashion sense. I would be.

Fuck, he’s going to laugh in my face isn’t he? My leg bounces even more. I stuff the last of my scone in my mouth then wash it down with strong coffee. Unfortunately that does nothing for my anxiety. I’m stewing in so much worry and fear that I don’t notice a shadow over my table until it decides to speak.

“Hello,” the same smooth, strong voice from the phone and from ten years ago says. I look up, and my heart skips more than one beat.

He’s just as beautiful as he was back then, but in a very different way. Same reddish-gold skin, same deep sea grey eyes, same raven black hair. But instead of looking like some preppy statue, he looks, well, human. He’s dressed in a tucked in white button down with a soft floral pattern. His collar is open, the sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and it’s even wrinkled in some places, but none of that seems to bother him. More astounding, he’s wearing distressed black denim that hugs his legs in all the right places, a thumb casually hooked in one pocket. Never would I have imagined the uptight bloke I met in jeans. His hair reaches all the way to his shoulders now, falling in a lazy wave that softens the sharp lines of his face. His kind smile absolutely helps too. 

This isn’t the same Ty from twelve years ago. This guy is a lot more grown up, and looks so much happier.

“Hello?” he says again. “You there, Snow?”

I shake off the second Ty induced pan-panic of my lifetime. “Uh, yeah. H-Hi, Ty. Oh, wait, you go by Basilton now, right? Or do you like something else?”

He chuckles as he takes his seat across from me. It’s a simple movement yet surprisingly graceful. “Just Baz is fine. It’s less of a mouthful than Basilton.”

“Okay. Hi, Baz.”

“Hello again, Simon. How have you been?”

“Good, good. How about you?”

“Alright. Honestly, I’m still in shock that I’m seeing you again.”

I chuckle and rub my neck nervously. “Yeah, me too. But, uh, you look good. Twelve years later and you’re still stupidly attractive.” My face immediately heats up. “Sorry, that’s weird-”

“I don’t mind. Not at all.” He leans back, arm casually slung over the back of his chair. “You’re still cute as ever, though I am glad your fashion sense has improved.

I must look so ridiculous right now, a thirty three year old man blushing like a smitten schoolboy. How can I help it when he talks like that? “T-Thanks. Your clothes have definitely changed too. What happened to the tweed jacket?”

Baz groans and hangs his head over the back of his chair. I like the way his hair falls. It’s pretty as hell. “Please don’t remind me. God, I don’t even know what I was trying to do back then.”

“Be some posh and professional prat while also being gay as hell?”

His head moves back up and he snaps his long finger and points at me. (I still want to know if he plays piano or not.) “Yes, that sounds right. Conformity and rebellion all at once. I had such insane cognitive dissonance back then, god.” He leans his cheek into his palm, pretty eyes fixed on me. “So what do you do now? Still attacking random men then stealing their cigarettes?”

I chuckle to try to hide my utter embarrassment. “No, but if I remember correctly, you offered me the cigarette.”

“Touche. You still haven’t answered though. What’s your life like?”

I shrug and sigh. “It’s pretty normal. I live in a tiny flat and I alternate between box food and take out, but I’ve got a pretty great job. I teach little kids.”

“So you did end up going into teaching like you wanted?”

“Eventually, yeah. I got sidetracked for...well, until a year ago. But I’ve finally been getting my life together lately. I do my laundry once a week now instead of once a month.”

He laughs, head bending back over the back. It’s so free and open, I’m amazed. “Yes, truly a sign of adulthood, I agree.” Baz sighs and runs his hand through his hair. I like how the black strands fall over his fingers. “I understand being derailed all too well. You should’ve seen me six months ago, I was a train wreck.”

“Really?” It’s hard to imagine Baz as a train wreck. He was so pristine in uni, and even now he still looks absolutely perfect.

“Oh absolutely. I’m humble enough nowadays to admit that you were right, Snow.”

“About what?” I don’t mind being right, but I’m not really used to it.

“About me.” He leans forward, arms crossed and elbows on the table, offering more but still a bit closed off. “All those years ago, you asked why I couldn’t just do what makes me happy. And I said that what I wanted didn’t matter. I had many reasons back then, but in the end they were all bollocks. I learned that the hard way. So, you were right.”

Is it strange that I’m both happy and sad that I was right? It’s absolutely a bittersweet taste on my tongue, like figuring out a lesson about myself from a therapy session. “Well, uh, thanks, I guess. But that sucks. Was the hard way, y’know...really hard? I hope it wasn’t.”

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair again. Honestly, he looks like some romantic hero when he does that. And I didn’t think he could get more attractive. “Well, it wasn’t fun, I can certainly say that. I did what I was supposed to do. Went to Oxford, became a lawyer at the family firm, fought all the cases the way I was supposed to. I kept waiting to not feel like shit every single day, but that never came. Nothing ever got better, and bit by bit small things piled up, completely crushing me. Then, well...” He winces, like someone has kicked them in the shins. “I did something pretty ridiculous.”

My head fills with a flurry of probably insane ideas. I only now realise that I’m leaning a lot closer, entranced and nervous for what Baz has to say. “How ridiculous are we talking?”

“Well,” he bites the corner of his lips (it looks way sexier than it should), “one morning over six months ago, I was looking over my case for the day. Checking notes and arguments, drinking too much coffee alone, smoothing out my suit, the usual. And for some reason, in that moment, a realization hit me; This was going to be the rest of my life. Reading cases, arguing for clients I hated, feeling completely numb all the time. I had been doing all this bollocks for almost ten years, and realistically I would be doing for decades to come. The thought sent me into a terrifying meltdown thanks to years of untreated mental health issues. I didn’t know what to do so I sort of ran away.”

“Ran away?” I chuckle. “In your thirties, I think they usually just call that a vacation.”

“It would have been, if I had told anyone I was leaving and hadn’t stopped answering my phone for weeks.”

My eyes go very, very wide. “Wait, what?!”

“Yeah...” It’s hard to tell in this lighting, but I think Baz’s cheeks turn red. Embarrassment looks cute on him. “After pacing around my flat for hours, I decided to simply leave. Packed a small bag, grabbed my car keys, and just started driving north with no destination in mind. Of course my colleagues started blowing up my mobile, then later my family and friends joined them. I couldn’t bear to answer because I didn’t even fully understand what was going on. I just needed to get far, far away from everything I knew and hated.”

“Where did you go then?”

“To a lot of places,” he sighs. “Mostly bad bars though. I basically drank and danced my way up the British Isle. I think. Honestly, I barely remember that time. It was an alcohol laden haze with brief moments of sober lucidity when I drove. And when I was lucid, I got depressed about my life again so I would drink more that night and pass out.”

“And you did that for how long?” My heart is beating a bit too fast. I know he’s fine, yeah, but still, the worry is eating away at me.

“Only a month,” he says, like that’s in any way a relief. “At the end of September, I stayed at a shitty inn in Scotland. I remember walking down the hall, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital with my aunt by my side. She equal parts screamed at me and was relieved I was okay. Turned out I had fallen down the stairs while severely hungover like a bad Monty Python skit.”

He laughs, but there’s sadness behind it. Just like his smile over ten years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

“Obviously I was fine.” He waves dismissively. “I spent two weeks recovering in the hospital. Which gave me a lot of time to think about myself and my future. By the end, I had decided to take an actual leave of absence from my work to focus on my mental health. And I did. Started therapy, stopped drinking, bought some clothes that weren’t bloody lawyer suits.” I can’t help but giggle. Baz’s smile has no sadness behind it this time.

“So I guess you’re not a lawyer anymore?”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I quit a week after I got back to London, then started applying for book editor jobs.”

I grin wide. I can’t stop grinning. “Reading books forever.”

There’s a lovely glint in his eye. Like someone ripped Polaris from the heavens and put it in the deep sea grey of his eyes. (God the poetry unit is getting to me.) It’s a kind of playful happiness that I really, really like.

“You remember,” he says amused.

“Of course!” He smiles wider, eyebrows raising up. Now it’s my turn to blush like a teenager. I sheepishly rub the back of my neck, thinking of a reason that doesn’t include time travel. Or obsessing over our one conversation for a week. “Well, I-I’ve remembered some stuff. You just kind of, uh, y’know, stuck in my head.”

“Hence why you still called me ten years later.”

“Yeah.” I tilt my head down a bit, uselessly trying to hide how ridiculous I look. “I mean, I’m not really sure why. You were just...really different from anyone I’ve met. You were so, pretty and posh and smart, and at first I found it annoying. But the more we talked I realised you were nice, in your own strange way. And without your help I would have lost Agatha in my life forever. I dunno. You made an impression. You’ve come up in my head from time to time.”

Technically that’s not a lie. By time to time I just mean all the time for days. Though I have a vague feeling, a whisper of a half memory, that past me may have thought about Baz too. Some things always stick post-time travel no matter how much past me is supposed to forget. Usually it’s only the super important, impactful things. Looking at Baz’s incandescent smile, framed by wavy black hair, I think he might count.

“Honestly,” he says, his voice low in a very private way that I like, “you’ve come up in my head too. Especially during my crisis. I thought about how right you were back then, how I should have listened to you and maybe wouldn’t have wasted so much of my life if I had. But I was too stubborn and blind back then to” 

“Hey, stop that.” I somehow lean even closer. I’m this close to actually getting out of my chair. “Don’t beat yourself up so much. Remember that you had good reasons back then, and yeah it really sucked to go through all that, but you learned stuff right?”

“I suppose...”

“Then it wasn’t a waste.” Baz’s eyes narrow. A softer version of a glare, but he's still not totally happy. “Yeah, I know that’s easy to say, but I do kinda get it. Working in jobs I hated, never dating, never really doing anything for years, that all felt like a total waste. Sometimes it feels like my life is only just starting now at bloody 33. But I think struggling also gave me the drive to work harder now, live better. So did being a lawyer give you anything good?”

Baz looks really cute when he’s thinking. I like the way everything in his face pinches up, from the furrowed manicured brow to the slight pout of his bottom lip. (Don’t think about kissing that pout, do not think about it.) (Fuck I’m thinking about it.) Slowly, his expression softens.

“I learned,” he starts, “that I can’t force myself to love something. I thought if I was a lawyer long enough, I would at least learn to tolerate doing it, but I still hated every moment. I can’t keep living for other people’s expectations. At least that’s how my therapist puts it. Maybe I’ll fully listen to her one day.”

I let out a laughing snort and immediately cover my mouth in embarrassment. I hate when I do that. But Baz grins at me. The amused, affectionate glint in his eyes makes me want to blush even harder. My stomach feels like it’s full of rocks and butterflies all at once. It’s so overwhelming and wonderful.

“Took me a while to listen to my therapist too,” I say. “Actually fixing yourself is hard.”

“Tell me about it,” Baz groans, hanging his head for a moment, hair like a wavy curtain around his face. “It took ages for me to realise that I didn’t know everything that was wrong with me. Instead I had to actually listen to someone else’s assessment of me and not interject my own thoughts every time. Do you know how frustrating that is for a know it all like me?!”

“I can only imagine,” I giggle. My thoughts immediately go to Penny and the first time she got drunk. My ears rang for hours from all her yelling about not actually being drunk. She and Baz might get along. (Maybe a little too well. God, could I deal with two of them together?) (Hopefully, because I want Baz to stick around for awhile.)

“I live in absolute agony.” He puts the back of his hand against his forehead like a dramatic Victorian maiden. I’m about to call him that when my stomach decides to rumble louder than a bloody earthquake. The corner of Baz’s mouth quirks up. “You hungry there, Snow? I can get us something.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m always hungry. But I can buy it, don’t worry.”

“Nonsense. I was the one who asked you out and picked the place, I’ll happily pay.”

“Out like a date?” The words spill out before I have a chance to stop them. 

I’m pretty sure even the tips of my ears have turned bright pink at this point. Shit, why did I say that? Calm down, Simon. This is (technically) the first time we’ve seen each other in twelve years. No need to make this something it may not be. I expect Baz to be shocked, or confused, or annoyed at worst. But once again today, Baz surprises me. All he does is smile, looking at me with such kindness, far more open than I remember he was back at uni.

“Would you like this to be a date?” There's no pretense or implication in his words, he’s legitimately asking me. I don’t feel pressured, but luckily I already know.

“Yes, yeah, I-I would. I’d like that a lot.” I reach my hand forward across the table and just barely brush our fingers together. The tips of his are rough. Maybe he plays guitar or something, not piano. Doesn’t matter. I like the way he feels anyway.

Baz grins pointy ear to pointy ear. He flips his hand over, long callused fingers pressing into the much softer skin of my inner wrist. He can probably feel the way my pulse jumps. Luckily, I can feel the way his own is hammering. “Me too, Simon.”

We spend a bit too long just staring at each other before my stomach grumbles again. Baz chuckles and flags down the very nice waiter. I get another cherry scone and hot chocolate (yes I am 12 on the inside), and Baz gets something called a pumpkin mocha breve.

“What on Earth is that?” I ask when Baz gets his drink. It’s pale orange with a mountain of whipped cream on top.

“Try it.” He offers the cup to me and I take a sip. My tongue is immediately assaulted with more sugar that I’ve ever tasted at once. I blink rapidly from the shock.

“It tastes like a candy bar.”

“What can I say, I have a sweet tooth.” He licks the whipped cream off the top like a toddler with ice cream. A dollop gets on the tip of his nose.

“You’ve uh, got something right...” I flick the cream off with my thumb, “there.”

He laughs quietly. “Thank you. Allow me to return the favour.” Baz brushes some scone crumbs from my cheek. My skin feels like it’s on fire.

“T-Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.”

We eat and drink and talk in between. Baz tells me about his work at the publishing house. It’s a small place that does mainly e-books and a few print ones, focusing on indie LGBT+ writers. He’s currently working on a book he describes as “gay polyamorous steampunk pirates,” which honestly gets me way too excited. I plan on pestering him for more details in the future. He looks animated the whole time, so passionate about what he’s doing. It makes him more beautiful.

He asks about my teaching. I tell him about my students, how incredible they are no matter how much they drive me crazy. I describe my lesson plans and all the new things I’m trying. Structured word inquiry, collaborative maths work, mixing subjects together to get kids engaged with stuff they don’t like. Luckily my principal is in favour of more out there ways of teaching too. Baz pays attention, asks questions and listens raptly. I can’t tell if he’s faking it. Most people do. I can’t blame them, it’s not very interesting. But as I go on and on, Baz never tries to change the subject or stares off into space. It’s not like he’s an angel for paying attention to me. It’s just nice that he’s making the effort. He’s really, really nice.

We eventually move off the topic of work. I tell him about my fencing class, something I haven’t done since I went to Watford. Baz calls me a bronze haired knight. I’m not too proud admit that made me blush. In turn, Baz tells me about getting back into playing the violin since he quit being a lawyer. (So that’s what the calluses are from).

“Cold I hear you play sometime?” I ask.

“My skills are still rusty,” he says over his near empty mug.

“Is that a no then?”

He sighs, but it’s with a small smile. “More like a ‘listen at your own risk.’”

“I can live with that.”

“Alright, another time then.”

I grin. Another time, I really like the sound of that.

Eventually, we somehow get onto the harder topics. I tell him about being in group homes, not having friends until Penny and Agatha, still feeling out of place and worthless sometimes. Baz talks about growing up without his mother, trying to live for her instead of himself until recently. Turns out we’ve both had a lot of hardship. We understand each other. We sort of match, I guess.

“I did like being with my younger siblings,” Baz sighs. “No matter how much I pretended I didn’t. Part of me felt like I was betraying my mother if I loved her husband’s children with another woman. But they were still my siblings and good kids, though I’m glad they’re all mostly tolerable ages now.”

I chuckle, leaning my cheek on my fist. “Mm, understandable. I always wanted siblings. Other kids to play with, y’know?”

“Group home kids didn’t play with you?”

“Nah, I was the weirdo who preferred punches over talking. No one liked being around me.”

Baz reaches out and brushes against my forearm. How can someone make me feel like I’m going to melt with just a touch? “If it’s any consolation, I certainly like being around you.”

I grin and touch his arm in turn. “I’ll certainly take that.”

We get away from all the dark shit, turning back to happier things. Baz describes the techniques and difficulties of the violin with dramatic gusto. I relay some of my worst customer service work experiences. I’ve never been good at talking, never liked it much. But I like it with Baz. He feels easy to talk to. I barely feel scared or awkward. We talk so much that we don’t even notice the sun setting on the horizon.

“Holy shit what time is it?” I say.

Baz looks down at his fancy leather watch. (A leftover from his prep days.) “Much later than I think either of us realised.”

I laugh and run a nervous hand through my hair. “Damn, sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize, Snow, unless you regret being here?”

“What?!” I gasp. “Of course not!”

He grins cheekily. I grumble and glare at him. Teasing bastard. Baz grabs my hand, lacing our fingers together. Any bad will immediately vanishes. “You said you lived in Camden. How close are we?”

“Uh, not that far. I walked here.”

“Wonderful. How about I pay then walk you home like a gentleman?”

I hope my face doesn’t look as hot as it feels. I squeeze his hand. “I’d like that a lot.”

He squeezes back. “Good.”

Baz does just as he says, and soon enough we’re strolling down the streets under the dimming London sky. We chat some more, but also occasionally just walk in comfortable silence. I don’t mind either, because Baz doesn’t let go of my hand the whole time. I’ve never felt so excited just from someone holding my hand. I don’t know why. I don’t care, really. I just want to bask in it forever.

Unfortunately though, we do reach my building. Never have I hated my own home more. I consider not telling Baz so we can keep walking, but then I remember all the homework I was supposed to grade yesterday while I was too excited about Baz to focus. I’ll need a good night’s sleep to survive. Life is too cruel sometimes.

“This is me,” I say.

“Nice place,” Baz replies.

“You don’t need to lie.”

“I’m not, I promise.” His head tilts to the side, a smirk on his lips. “Maybe I could see if your flat matches up sometime.”

I swear to god, my face is going to melt off from how much I’m blushing today. Baz laughs at my obviously flabbergasted expression. I playfully smack his shoulder. “Haha, very funny. Buy me dinner first, arsehole.”

He tugs me a bit closer by our joined hands. My nose is almost touching his. The smell of his post coffee peppermint gum hits me so hard I’m afraid I’ll stumble from the wonderful shock. “Are you free next Friday?”

I gulp, then nod slowly. I can’t look away from his mouth, fuck “Y-Yeah.”

“Good for you.” He takes a large step back, snapping me out of my daze. He’s got a cheeky little half smile on his lips. “I’m not, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy the free time.”

I gape at the absolute bastard. I shove his shoulder a bit harder this time. “Arsehole!”

Baz throws his head back laughing. It’s the most beautiful sound in the noisy London night. He takes my other hand and runs his thumb over the back of it. “Unfortunately, I am actually tied up for the next week, but I’m free the week after. Any ideas, Snow?”

I grin at him. “How about a scenic walk in Hyde Park?”

One of his eyebrows goes up in playful confusion. “Not dinner?”

“We’ll get to dinner eventually. I expect to be romanced a bit more first, Basilton.”

He smirks again and pulls me closer again “That doesn’t sound bad at all. Hyde Park will be lovely this time of year.”

“Agreed.”

Even though by all rational logic we should let go, our hands stay linked. Neither of us make a move to get away. I can smell the peppermint again, every time his hot breath brushes against my face. It’s somewhat shaky. But I imagine mine is about the same. I’m not sure. I’m too focused on his sharp cheekbones and blown pupils and pouty mouth. Mostly his mouth. Before I know it, we’re nose to nose. I’m getting whiffs of something other than his gum. Cedar, maybe, and bergamot. It’s perfect for Baz. He moves his face slightly, and our mouths almost touch. A spark still runs through my veins.

“Simon,” he sighs, and the sound of his voice hits me in so many places. Baz’s head moves again, brushing our noses together. I watch his eyes flutter like a pair of butterflies until they fully close. Mine follow suit. I’m overwhelmed by the smell of cedar and bergamot as I press my mouth to Baz’s.

He’s colder than I thought they would be, colder than anyone I’ve kissed before. Yet I like it so much more. Baz’s tepid mouth sends a calming wave through my constantly overheated body. He’s soft too, like how I imagine a cloud could feel if I was ever able to touch one. Our lips slot together so easily. His hands clutch mine tighter, nails even digging into my skin. Not good enough. Not close enough. I let go of Baz, but only so I can slide my arms up to hold his shoulders, pressing our bodies together. Baz immediately winds his arms around my waist, getting us even closer. He’s all lovely lean muscle pressed against me. And I fit into his arm so well. My lips fall open and Baz quickly follows. His tongue slowly over my back teeth, making stars explode behind my eyes and in my brain. I kiss him more fervently. Baz groans into my mouth. 

Part of me can’t believe that we’re doing this. Two thirty three year old men, snogging like stupid teenagers on the steps of my apartment building. Sounds so embarrassing. The other part of me really doesn’t care. I’ve never felt like this just from a kiss. Like I’ve left my body and entered another dimension where all there is happiness and pleasure and Baz. Is this how all kisses are supposed to feel? Or is it because of Baz? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just weave my fingers through his silky smooth black hair and keep kissing this wonderful, wonderful man.

Baz pulls away, and I nearly whine. Luckily I still have a bit of dignity. (Just a bit.) He doesn’t let go of me, thank god. He keeps his lovely hands on my waist, eyes still half closed, bright red lips pulled into a grin.

“Do you always kiss on the first date, Snow?” he whispers playfully.

“No, you’re the first.” I twirl a bit of his wavy hair around my index finger. “Feel special?”

“Extremely.”

I lean forward and kiss him again for a moment. Just a quick, hard press against him. Baz leans forward slightly when I pull away. My heart flutters happily in my chest. “As much as I’d like to keep doing this, it’s late, and I’ve got grading to do.”

He makes an over dramatic groan, leaning against my hands. “How dare you be a responsible teacher who is truly committed to educating the next generation?”

God, he’s making me want to kiss him again. He does it so easily. “I know, terribly inconvenient. We’ll figure something out, yeah?”

“Yes, give me a call. And don’t wait twelve years this time.”

I sigh while Baz smirks at me. I’m about to retort when he leans down and kisses me. My head is spinning like a tumble dryer. I don’t want this day to ever end. Unfortunately, reality is a thing that exists. And because of it, Baz has to pull back, leaving me wanting more.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” he says, “alright?”

“Alright. Have a good night, Baz.”

“You too, Simon.”

He pecks my forehead, and I nearly melt into the pavement. We then slowly disentangle ourselves. My fingers trail on Baz’s as he lets go. He waves one more time. I smile back. And I keep smiling as I watch him walk down my street, only going for my keys when I lose sight of him as he turns the corner. I literally skip up my steps to my door. I’m so dazed with happiness that I barely notice that I walk into Dr. Margaret’s office instead of my dingy lobby.

“Snogging in public?” she says. “How very adolescent.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “That’s what you say after abandoning me for a week?”

She snorts, leaning back in her chair. “Didn’t abandon you. Just let you figure things out on your own. Point of therapy, remember?”

“Well, yeah, I know that. A little heads up would be nice though.”

“Not my style.”

It’s my turn to snort. I plant myself on her couch. “I know, you’re more of the ‘toss in the deep end and yell swim’ kind of therapist.”

“Mhm. And look how it turned out. Found your Baz.”

My eyes narrow even more. “How do you know his name?” Dr. Margaret just keeps smiling at me like a cat who’s caught a canary. The realisation slaps me in the face. My jaw drops open. “You knew exactly who and where he was the entire time, didn’t you?” No change, still smiling. “How?!”

“Though about him. Saw his whole life in my mind’s eye.”

My jaw falls further. Holy shit, how powerful is she? “Really?!”

“No.” She pulls a plastic card out of her pocket, holding it between her index and middle finger like a throwing star or something. “Swiped his uni ID and Googled him here. Much faster than powers.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing. Godlike abilities have nothing on a good search engine, it seems. “Of course you did.”

She shakes her head sarcastically. “Can’t believe you. Send you back in time, and you wonder how I know about one bloke?”

“Uh, yeah. Knowing everything is a bit different from time travel.” I lean forward with elbows on my knees. “Why didn’t you tell me about him then? Why make me suffer for a week?”

“Suffering now?”

“Well, no, now that I’ve found him-”

“And what made you want to find him?”

I rub the back of my neck, trying to coax the words out from my brain. “Uh, I dunno. I know we met only once, but he just stuck in my head. He was interesting, smart, funny and nice in his own way. And I wanted to talk to him again, learn more about him. It was overwhelming, really. How much I wanted to be around Baz again. I-I’ve never felt something like that so strongly before.”

“Exactly.” Dr. Margaret picks up a pen just to point it at me. “Felt strongly for the first time ever. Made you determined even to find him when it was hard. And never felt this strongly because you always settled for okay. Felt okay with Agatha, with Todd, with everyone. Need better than okay. Need to want someone more so you can build more. Make a relationship that’ll actually go somewhere.”

My eyebrows furrow. “I thought I needed to focus on the present more.”

“You do. In the present, desire Baz right?”

I think about Baz’s pretty eyes and his pretty laugh and the way he made my head do somersaults when he kissed me. My flushed face splits into a grin. “Yeah, I really do.”

“Good.” She leans back again with her hands linked behind her head. “Build from there. Put the effort in like you did searching for him. Will want to put the effort in, because you actually want him, not just because he’s nice and you should like him.”

The puzzle pieces start to slide into place finally. It was all one big, weird life lesson, of course, like everything Dr. Margaret gets me to do. Looking back, I cared about Agatha, and I did love her as a friend. But I never desired her. I never desired Todd or any of my other exes either. They just seemed like the kind of people you should date. They weren’t even bad, they just weren’t for me, weren’t who I wanted.

But dear lord, do I want Baz.

“You couldn’t just tell me I was dating people I wasn’t actually attracted to?” I ask. “That I was actually supposed to feel more but I was settling for nice people I didn’t really like instead?”

Dr. Margaret shakes her head. “Not how therapy works. Supposed to guide you to find the answers, not tell you outright. Where’s the fun in that?”

I cross my arms and smirk at her. “Since when is therapy fun?”

She glares at me hard. “Brat. Lucky that I like you.”

“Aw. I’m touched.” My voice is sarcastic, but my bright smile is genuine. I’m glad she likes me. I’m glad she’s here to help me finally live my life. I hate to think where I’d be without her help. From her returning grin, I think she knows that.

“Go do your grading. Be a responsible teacher. See you next time.”

“See you later, Dr. Margaret.”

She waves her hand, gold rings flashing in the light, and the world spins like a cyclone. I yelp as I fall flat on my arse on my apartment floor. Well, at least she didn’t put me back in the lobby so I had to climb all those stairs. Small blessings, take 'em where I can get ‘em. And Dr. Margaret herself is already a huge one.

After getting out of my day clothes and into trackies, I set about to my teacher's work. It’s not the most fun part of the job but it’s certainly the most important. I’m lost in a haze of spelling tests and math activities when I feel my phone buzz. There’s one text on the screen, and it makes me smile instantly.

Baz Hey, made it home safe. I had a lovely time today and can’t wait to see you again. Call me tomorrow at lunch?

Is it possible to die from such pure happiness and excitement? I hope not, because I’ve still got so much more of my life I want to live. And I want to see if Baz will be a big part of it.

Simon  me too. call you at noon <3

———————————————

AN: Mushy ending, as usual for me haha. I really hope you all liked that! Even if you don't know the original show, I hope it was good. I really liked the idea of Simon in time travel therapy, it would be good for him. Tbh I thought about making Ebb his therapist because she was such a mentor for him, but I wanted to try out Margaret and she ended up being a lot of fun. I may write more in this universe. There are other Being Erica plotlines that could be fun. And exploring Baz and Simon's relationship in this AU further could be great. We'll see. I'm taking writing day by day due to my health. Anywho, thanks for reading!

[roundtableknight]

Morning after ‘The Outsiders’

In which Reagan never interrupted that precious scene of Cath and Levi after they finished ‘The Outsiders’  before Levi had to screw everything up in the next chapter. This may be horrible, and I suck at Levi’s personality, because I’m not a bubbly person, and also some parts (like Wren talking in her sleep) I made up because not that much info is given to us, but enjoy!

Also this is starting from a scene in ‘Fangirl’, and all characters are of course from the lovely Rainbow Rowell!

                                                   ~

Cath had been in quite a few precarious positions waking up into during her short duration of life she had been allowed so far. You don’t get normal mornings living with a twin sister who tends to be so outgoing, she transfers that energy into her sleep.

    By talking in her sleep.

Or having a father, one who you so love but desperately wish would go to sleep rather than stay up during the night and question if one could put a fireman’s pole through you and your twins room in order for a quicker way to the bathroom. 

    All in the name of efficiency.

This was how it had been for too many years to count, since Cath’s mother walked out on them when they were merely eight, because she quote, ‘Needed to figure things out’ and didn’t know how to be a mother. Cath thought that was a load of rubbish. What mother has twins, surrounds them with love, (not as much as their father) and then just decides that she’s had enough when their in third grade, when they needed a motherly figure then more than ever to lean on.  

    Cath was still angry at her sister Wren for speaking to their mother again, but that isn’t why she woke up.

If you asked Cath, she would probably recall the last things before she went to bed that night in her shared dorm with Reagan would go along the lines of something like this;

    Brushing her teeth earlier that night, so not to disturb herself while writing.

    Eating a Blueberry bliss energy bar because she was hungry gosh darn it.

    Getting a decent amount of Baz and Simon fanfic written since they were getting to the good part (all the parts were good to Cath, but some were just a notch or two higher than others).

    Falling asleep writing said Baz and Simon fanfic because everyone knows a laptop keyboard is as comfortable as a pillow (well maybe a wooden one, or one with all those weird feathers in it that people slept on during the 1900s.)

    This routine to Cath was becoming as normal as waking up to Wren talking about her latest boyfriend that she getting ready to dump (Alex, or Alfred?) in her sleep. Not that anyone could take her sister’s place. Reagan was barely in the room to count as a roommate, and when she was asleep she was practically a rock, making no noise until she woke up, and then the dam broke (not a literal dam, though with how hard she opened their door, Cath wouldn’t be surprised to hear about one breaking down from the shockwaves).

    So the fact that she not only heard someone in their room, but that said person was currently encompassing her in their arm, she was a little more than surprised, and also to be completely honest, freaked out. 

    It’s okay, calm down, just...recite the facts of last night, then if they lead to something disastrous I have permission to freak out.

     Cath thought this was a good plan, since she usually freaked out in her head, and no one seemed to notice, well, except Wren, but she wasn’t here at the moment, and they weren’t on speaking terms since she didn’t come back for Thanksgiving, but instead staying the day with Wren’s backstabbing mom. Their mom in reality, but Cath didn’t like to think of her like that, she didn’t deserve the title of it. 

    She lost that when she never came back. 

Inhaling a scent different from her own, one of cigars and a hint of coffee, brought her back to reality, and resumed the pounding in her chest and tingling in her limbs from being caught up in someone else’s body parts during the night. 

    Oh god, thought Cath, trying to remember the night before. She had a hint of Gingerbread Mocha in the back of her mouth, and a Blueberry Bliss Energy Bar flavour on the tip of her tongue. 

    That can’t be right, I haven’t had one of those since before Thanksgiving, Levi ate them all. 

    Levi.

    Oh god.

Cath immediately remembers the late night session of ‘The Outsiders’ that Cath read to Levi as a thank you for… well, everything he’s done. And also because Reagan was out again partying, and forgot she promised Levi the study session so he wouldn’t fail his Lit. Class exam on the book. Cath thought maybe Levi was dyslexia, but didn’t they get diagnosed before the age of College? Cath didn’t know, and she did care, but two things popped into her mind before that strand of thought could harbor any more room in her mind. 

    Levi is in my bed.

    I’m sleeping with Reagan’s maybe boyfriend.

    Reagan could come home at any time,

    Shit.

Okay, make that three thoughts. 

    The last two were obvious encouragement to what she was supposed to do, which was to get out of the bed, her bed, and wake up Levi. Or maybe she could just leave him here and go get a coffee at Starbucks and come back feigning that nothing happened, because nothing did happen. 

     But there were two things wrong with that statement. 

One, Levi made the best Mochas and nothing would compete, so it would be an utter waste of money to spend. And two, something did happen. 

    We kissed.

Cath remembers it now. It’s funny how the human brain works. When we want don’t want to remember something incredibly painful or not possible, it tends to block out said memory, but one thing about memories were that they connected to other memories, and unless she wanted to forget the whole last night, she was stuck with the memory. 

But to be completely honest, Cath quite liked the memory.

Cath remembered the way Levi had hooked her to his side as she read ‘The Outsiders’ to him, and how her drowsy and impaired mind (she blamed it on the mocha) attached all her thoughts not to the book, which wasn’t half bad, but to the feel of Levi’s flannel against her skin, or the passing look of seeing his lips before she quickly looked up to see if he was still awake, which he was. 

    Watching her with his startling blue eyes. 

Now in the morning, Cath had to be reasonable with herself. Which she did sometimes, once or twice. 

    A day.

Look, he probably thought I was Reagan. Or remember that the first time he saw Wren he said with complete factuality that she was the hotter twin, and that was just by a passing glance. I’m just a quick kiss. Okay, yeah, quick. Kiss.

    But Cath realized she didn’t want to be a quick anything. She deserved way more than that. She wrote dozens of Baz and Simon scenes of their love, wasn’t it time for her to get something like that? A love that isn’t fictional and based on a wizard and (presumably) a  vampire. 

    Cath like the idea of sharing these stories with Levi. He seemed to enjoy them (at least tolerate them) and he always had his opinions and questions on them, which Cath actually liked to answer. It wasn’t everyday you met someone who hasn’t read Simon Snow (because watching the movies don’t count).

    But she also had to admit one fatal flaw in her plan, she hasn’t even asked Levi if he liked her the way she did, and also Reagan.

    Shit.

Cath heard the intake of breath, well, deeper breath, and felt Levi move. Now was the time. Was he going to slowly take his arm that he had encompassing her back and leave without so much as a glance, or was something else going to happen, something more magical. 

    Cath didn’t know what was going to be scarier. 

But what Cath didn’t think of was Levi kissing her on the top of her head, and pulling her closer to him.

    Oh Shit, Oh Shit, Oh Shit

She was completely and utterly screwed. 

    Though at that moment she didn’t know exactly why. There was no menace to the name Reagan, or thought of impending doom if she missed her morning classes. No.

    All she could think of was the way he kissed her on the head, with that small but cute mouth of his, the one hours earlier she was questioning if he could easily eat an apple with. The one that caused her whole body to go flush and red just by that little move. 

    She felt more than saw (because her head was still by/on his chest persay, and couldn’t see him) him smile. The muscles coordinating it gave him away like a whale breaching the water for all to see, it was very obvious. 

    Cath looked up, and got a bruise on her forehead. 

    Holding her head, she reopened her eyes and saw Levi, looking a little less beaten and smiling quite a bit more than her, more than anyone really, at her as she felt around her skull for adjustments to her temple area. 

    “Ouch” Cath said, and mentally scolded herself.

‘The first thing I have to say after we slept together, well...not like that.’

    “Sorry, I didn’t know you were awake.” Levi said, putting his one hand on the bruising temple as Cath brought her hand back down. 

    “It’s fine, just if I was sleeping, why were you tilted downward, since I did not hit your chin. The area I hit was definitely smoother.”

    “Ah, so are you a chin expert as well as a Simon Snow lover?” Levi asked with a smile on his face, a continuing smile. 

    “Of course, one must be knowledgeable in all types of things.” Cath waved her arms vaguely around to show all the types of things. 

    Also, Cath wanted to point out that they were still laying together.

    On her bed. 

    Oh Shit?

“So are their any other area of the body that you and that brain have been studying?” Levi shifted, but still kept one arm under her around the waist while the other was free, watching her contemplate the question. 

    She had, and the answer didn’t need verbal response. She turned red. Again. 

“I’m going to deny all wrongdoing to the court.” Cath mumbled and she shielded her face from Levi, instead putting it against her pillow, but he had already seen her face, and had started to giggle, giggle and not chuckle. 

    Cath felt him stretch again and reach for his phone. 

“Oh.”

“What?” Cath said, a little more nervous than she was before. Not knowing what Levi had seen on his phone. Had Reagan walked in on them and saw the precarious position they were in, and had left fuming and given a threat to Levi that whatever they had was over, done with?

    Cath also realized that she picked a good major to go into, since it seemed she was always so dramatic.

    “I’m an hour late to work, I better go before the customers start to get angry that no one knows their order.” Levi untangled their limbs (which caused Cath to finally be able to feel hers again) and rose from the bed. Grabbing the empty Starbucks cups, he maneuvered between her and Reagan’s bed (Cath had a conspiracy that their room was just a walk in closet converted over to a dorm room, but that’s for a different discussion) and brought them over to the trash by the door to be thrown out. 

    Cath really didn’t know what to do in a position like this. Did she start to say goodbye to him? Tell him that she had a nice time reading (and the things that came with it)? She didn’t know, but what she did know was that he was opening the door to leave, and they barely had a civil conversation, and that was only about various studying of body parts. 

    Wait, reading!

“Levi, you forgot your book!” Cath said as she starts to fumble around the bedsheets, and finally produces the same copy (albeit a little dented) of ‘The Outsiders’ that she read him the night before. 

    “You might need this to study from for the exam.” Cath got up, saw her shirt was riding up a little too high, and fixed it. She continued her trek to Levi when he held up a hand for her to stop. 

    “I don’t need it.” He said, smiling at her again like she just said something funny.

 Did I say something funny? Did I look funny fixing my shirt?

     “Well, I might be a good reader, but even I can’t remember everything in this book, and we just read it last night.” Cath was really grasping for straws here, or needles, but straws hurt less. She started to recite what she had done ever since she woke up, and didn’t find any (too) mortifying as why Levi stopped her going to him.  

    Why doesn’t he want his book?

Would it bring back painful memories of last night, of them together. Him (maybe?) cheating on Reagan with her, but they just kissed. And tangled limbs. Did he not like her, and given her that kiss in the head as a friendly gesture, but then why did he watch her sleep?

    Sometimes boys are so confusing. 

“I don’t need it.” Levi says, sounding like he’s been saying this for awhile but Cath hadn’t heard him at all.

    “Why not?” She questioned, she wanted to get to the bottom of this before heading off to her classes, so her head wouldn’t be stuck in the clouds (well any more stuck than usual).

    “Because I’m going to work and I don’t think my coworkers will want me to be reciting ‘Stay Golden, Ponyboy’ to them.” He looked at her however like that would be a fun endeavour, and told herself to warn Levi’s coworkers about him and classic novels. 

    “So what do you want me to do with it.”

    “Keep it”

    “Really, why?” She figured this was the question to get the answer they had both been swimming around for the last two pages, oops, last two minutes. 

    “Because then I have a reason to come see you again, not that I need a reason.” 

Cath starts to speak out of habit from this conversation, then realizes what he means, and starts to go red for the third time that morning. Cath think she broke her record. 

    “Oh, Okay.” Cath looked down at her socks that she left on from the night before (with ‘Carry On, Simon’ on the tops of them. A gift from Wren for her birthday one year).

    She realized Levi had said something. Again. And that she had missed it. Again. 

“What did you say?” She asked as he was about to shut the door, about to end the conversation, one of her favorites to date. 

    “I said six o’clock I’ll be done at work.” Levi said, moving his blond hair back from where it fell in front of his face to look at her. A face full of cute eyes and lips. Oh boy. 

“Great” Cath replied.

“Oh, and also expect the best Gingerbread Mocha to date.” He said, and shut the door, but not before seeing his smile, and heard him walking down the hallway. 

“Even better.” Cath replied to no one in particular, but maybe to the Baz cutout that was currently peeking out from her closet area. 

    ~

And that’s all she wrote folks!

 -Also are Simon Snow Socks available? Because I need so badly!! I also figured out that writing scenes in a characters mind is my favorite, because the two talking isn’t my cup of tea!

[supersmashimagines-blog]

Snake interacting with Simon and Richter? Konami bros have gotta stick together

(Thank you for the submission!)

When the Belmonts first arrived, Snake didn’t thinkto go out of his way to befriend them. Sure, he gave them an initial welcomegreeting and offered to help if they needed anything, but aside from that theman really hadn’t gone out of his way to befriend them. Aside from Snake justnot being an outgoing person in general, he figured he’d just have a hard timeconnecting with people labeled as ‘vampire hunters’ and whose entire stage wasfilled with the same kinds supernatural monsters that Snake spent most of hislife believing weren’t real.

So it came as a bit of a shock when Richterapproached him one day, holding a small box and explaining that him and Simonhad decided to get cellphones, and that they wanted Snake to teach them to usethe new technology.

Of course, it wasn’t all that strange; a vastmajority of fighters kept phones, even if the invention didn’t exist in theirhome worlds. Snake was just surprised the Belmonts had come to him for help; it’snot like he was the most technically savvy person in the house. Though with allthe weapons he used in his moveset, he figured it might have been an easy misconception tohave.

“How does it work?” Richter asked as the three ofthem sat around a coffee table. He looked between Snake and the new phone inhis hand expectantly. To his right, Simon held his own phone and was knocking onthe screen, presumably because he’d seen the other fighters tapping on their own phones and was trying to mimic the action.

“Well, first you have to turn it on.” Snake said,pointing to a button on the side of Richter’s phone. “Push down on that andhold it for a few seconds.”

Richter did as he was told, and after a momentthe screen of his new phone lit up and displayed a loading screen. “Oh,incredible!” He exclaimed, utterly fascinated with the little machine. Snakefound himself pretty amused at the sight, though he didn’t show it.

Simon, on the other hand, still appeared just asbaffled. He looked over at Simon’s phone, watching it glow. “How did you dothat?” He grumbled, before examining his own phone. “I’m pushing the button.Nothing is lighting up?”

Snake furrowed his brow as he looked at Simon’s phone.Or more accurately, the man’s hand. “You’re pushing the volume button. You haveto use the power button, it’s this one.” The soldier said, directing Simon’sfinger to the right placement. After a few seconds, Simon’s phone lit up aswell.

“Ah, I see!” Simon declared proudly, satisfiedthat the first mystery of his new phone had been solved.

“I think mine’s on now, so what do I do?” Richterasked, moving Snake’s attention from Simon.

Snake examined the screen on Richter’s phone,trying to figure out the best place to begin. “Let’s start with texting.” Hedecided. The soldier pointed to an icon on the phone’s screen. Richter pressedit and waited, but Snake shook his head at the action. “Don’t keep your fingeron it, just tap it like this.” To demonstrate, the soldier opened the app onRichter’s phone for him.

“Got it. Now how do I ‘text’ at someone?” Richterasked. Experimentally, he tapped on the pencil button on the screen to see whatwould happen.

Snake was actually pretty impressed that Richterwas catching on relatively quickly. “You’ve gotta have their phone number.Here, I’ll give you mine.” The soldier explained, typing in the numbers onRichter’s phone. “You put the number in the top spot right here, then you hitthis section and type your message.” To demonstrate, he hit the screen again,summoning the phone’s keyboard. “And once you’re done writing, you hit thatlittle arrow to send the message.”

“I’ll give it a try, then!” Richter smiled,tapping away at the letters on the keyboard. It took him a little longer thanaverage to find the right letters, but Snake at least had to give Richtercredit for how much enthusiasm the man was putting into his typing.

On the other hand, Simon was cursing to himselfunder his breath. Snake had assumed the other man had been watching Richter andfollowing along, but apparently the elder Belmont was having a bit moretrouble.

The soldier looked over to see Simon’s phone nowhad a huge crack in the center, and the screen had gone completely dark.

“Shit.” Snake grumbled. He couldn’t believe he’dturned his attention away from Simon for at most two minutes, and the man hadmanaged to break his phone. Snake sighed and shook his head; he had a sudden sinkingfeeling that this was how he was going to spend the rest of his day.

[olly-hl-blog]

SILHOUETTE

Part 1:

“You might not know me, but I do.

I know everything about you, anything that concerns you, and this is why I am helping you. I am not someone who usually does this, but somehow I feel that I need to do it.

I have spent most of my life behind the shadows, not stepping out to see the light. Nevertheless, when I did, I have seen you for who you are, and that cleared the air.

So, clearly you have no idea what’s going on behind your back, evil things, evil people are surrounding you and they are not just tending to deceive you but to harm you as well.

The world was never a safe place for people like us, so it is necessary to break the laws in order to save ourselves from this dying, defective society. Know that this can cost me everything, but I can NEVER stand by watching an innocent man, such as yourself, thrown to the enemy’s claws, bearing the agony of oppression and feeling the very end of your life nearby.

Bellow, you will find attached evidence of treason, conspiracy, felony and many other dreadful crimes that are related to attorney Matthew Buckman, things that will clear your name and put Buckman behind bars, for life. You might thank me later, for I am always around but never near.

Furthermore, the file that contains descriptive discussion of him on the phone with his assistant is a weapon that perfectly describes his nasty plan of blaming it all on you. Use it wisely to break him and to uncover his pathetic plot.

And last but not least, the girl you are about to marry is part of this. She is the one who plotted the phone in your apartment. Be careful of her!

You might think that you have lost everything now, but I can assure you, you are the one winning later. Be strong my friend, for you are going to face a harder path now.

Regards,

SILHOUETTE,”

 Lisa took a deep breath, unsure about her decision she scrolls up and down the screen of her computer, looking carefully at what she wrote down. It was a hard decision for her, but finally, cursor on “SEND” icon, she clicked.

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Two Weeks Earlier,

Maryland, United States,

Wednesday, 10:30 am,

The major thing you can hear inside the IT department workplace in the National Security Agency, is keyboard tapping sound with little chatting. Lisa, a 27 year old IT engineer was sitting back at her work space eating Chinese food looking at something on the screen of her desktop PC.

“Hey what are you doing?” asked Mike, a colleague of hers, sitting on his chair after being away for moments.

“Eating,” responded Lisa.

“Have you finished the task that Perry gave us?” asked Mike.

Lisa nodded.

“Cool, no wonder Perry likes you.”

Lisa shrugged, as if to say there is no doubt.

Mike approached her a little bit and said, “So, what do you think about what Ellen did? Cool, hein?”

“What did Ellen do?” questioned Lisa looking directly at Mike.

“She hacked into Steve’s computer and got out all the dirt he was hiding. Secret meetings with girls, private messages, porno,” said Mike snapping his fingers. “All sent to his wife.”

“Right,” said Lisa with an uncomfortable look at her face. “But, why would she do that?”

“Well, rumors say that he tried to abuse her the other day. You know, questioning the value of her work, calling her by names. So she found a way to revenge and did that.”

Lisa kept nodding for a while and then said, “Well he deserves it then.”

“People were blaming her though, saying that she didn’t have to go this far. He’s getting divorced I think,”

“Wow, was it that bad?”

“Big stuff,”

“Well people are often driven by morals and authenticity, so maybe she did what she thought was right,”

“What and you’re not?” asked Mike with a sarcastic smile on his lips.

Lisa smiled, looking down at her finished food box and said “Who knows,”

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Same Day, 02:00 pm,

The story that Mike has told Lisa remained into her head for quite long. She was curious and kept thinking about Ellen and Steve and how can someone destroy other peoples’ lives in a blink of an eye.

So after the lunch break, she went and talked with Ellen about it. It was interestingly scary at first, learning about how easy it was to hack into other people’s affairs, disturbing their privacy, damaging their security.

As the talk went on, it became overwhelming to hear. Stories about a bad use of authority that enabled the government to spy on innocent peoples’ lives and affairs was something Lisa couldn’t digest, but made sense. After all, things like that needed to be done. Someone out there had to do it.

Lisa was looking at her computer’s screen, still taken by the stories she heard. Her heart started to beat fast as this crazy idea crossed her mind. Taking a deep breath, she put her fingers on the keyboard.

As she entered the XKeyscore system, she wanted to try it. She wanted to see what it is like to be there watching people doing their stuff, not having any idea about what she was doing.

She put her hand on her mouth like she was trying to hold her cry, scratching the back of her neck itching due to nervousness and then typed the first name that came into her mind in the search interface.

SIMON WALSH, her High School sweetheart.

Fixing the network system and going through that muddly process of hacking, she was in. She managed to activate the optic nerve using the IP address she got from another hacking operation.

She gasped. Her eyes widened and a shiver went through her spine as she was staring, after all this time, to his skinny face with that goofy expression he had always worn. It was hard to breath for the first few moments. Her hard ached as her mind started to play the memories she had with him like a video playing.

She shut down the screen with an angry grab. She was mad, and sad, and many other emotions at the same time.  Slowly opening the screen back, she heard him shouting through her earphones: “I’m coming Ed.” He was texting someone, she could know from the way he was moving his eyes and fingers. Girlfriend? She hoped not.

She kept looking at his face for some time, her mind telling her to quit doing so, but her heart was asking for few more minutes. She slowly stretched her fingers reaching to his face, touching it. A warm smile curved his perfect lips, as if he felt her warm fingers against his skin and whispered, “I love you too.”

Lisa was startled pulling her fingers away from the screen, this time shutting it so hard, Mike who was sitting next to her turned in surprise and asked her.“What’s the matter?”

She shook her head hard, biting her lower lip and gasping for some air. He was not talking to her obviously, but hearing those words again from his mouth felt bizarre.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, Lisa was unable to sleep. She couldn’t get over it, couldn’t keep up with her feelings that were flowing like sea with a strong tide, overwhelming her with this amount of sorrow, reminding her of the bitter past of hers.

She decided she makes a little research about him. Over 10 years have passed and she was kind of interested to know what was going on in his life.

He became a fireman, received a Medal for Bravery for rescuing an old handicapped woman from a grave fire, engaged to a beautiful girl, adopted a small cute dog, living in a nice apartment with a very good salary. Quite interesting! And judging from his pictures on social media, he sounded happy, very happy. He lived together with his fiance.

She was jealous for a moment. She began searching his fiance soon to be wife, and she was interesting as well. Jane Sladen was smart, she was beautiful, still at law school but got an internship at a very important and famous attorney’s office, Matthew Buckman.

“Oh god what am I doing,” said Lisa with an annoyed voice shutting down the screen of her laptop.

She stopped researching as she got tired of her perfectionism and went to sleep. Doing researches about them didn’t make her feel any better, it only worsened her more.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Days have passed and the only thing Lisa was doing is spying on Simon secretly. She went through his phone, Laptop, even his iPod, she misses him and it was reflecting her works’ productivity.  

One day she was on mic and camera activation of his laptop, but the house was empty. Simon was at work so she kept watching Daisy, the small cute dog, playing with some sort of fabric that was on the floor. Everything was normal.

She heard the door open suddenly, it was Jane. It was weird as she wasn’t supposed to be back until after lunch. Oh yes, she was familiar with their schedules. Behind her was a man, not Simon, but a tall man with strong thick beard and smooth hair. It was Matthew Buckman.

Lisa was surprised, why would Jane bring her boss to her apartment at this hour? She was surprised to find out they were close to the point that she invites him to her place.

But suddenly, she was shocked, eyes wide open, as Matthew grasped Jane’s arm firmly pulling her towards him and kissing her passionately. Jane was cheating on Simon? Lisa questioned herself.

Things started to get really intimate between the two, and Lisa decided to record the whole thing in case she needed the footage one day, not for a dirty reason, but for the sake of evidences.

The two pulled out of each other for an instance. Mathew, looking into Jane’s eyes caressing her hair and body, whispered into her ear saying: “I need you to do me a favor honey, would you?” Jane gasping hard answered in a weak voice, “Anything.” And a wicked smile curled into Mathew’s mouth.

As Lisa was listening to the favor that Matthew was asking Jane to do, it had her drop the cup of cafe she was holding in her hand, her body started to feel numb not believing what she was hearing.

“Mother f...,” she mumbled. “What the...”

Matthew was a wicked man, an evil spirit who will make this life harder for a lot of people, and she had to take some measures to stop this from happening, before it’s too late.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lisa dedicated her time into finding evidences, verification, any kind of document that had to do with corruption, fraud, judicial misconduct, anything. She was working as a crazy workaholic, hacking into his phone and computer looking for some tips to help her in her campaign against immorality.

A fade voice from the TV was making its way through her ear. “Police have come across new evidence related to the Anne Kyle’s murder case and they are currently working on resolving these evidences.... A phone was found at the suspect’s apartment....  This case is known for its brutality and it’s still under investigation for two months now.... Police is detaining the new suspect under investigation and ...” Lisa turned off the TV with a stiff, tense look full of hatred and loathe.

By the time she had collected every piece of document that she was sure it could destroy not only Matthew’s career but destroy his entire life and put him behind bars, she was relieved and satisfied.

“That’s what you get from messing with the wrong people Buckman,” She said with an angry tone and a trembling voice.

She only had to send the file now, and that was the hardest part of it all. She is going to hurt the one person she cares about, and she will make him suffer but it needed to be done.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[injusticeff]

Chapter Eleven

Simone

My leg was shaking uncontrollably as I just stared helplessly at the hospital floor.

The suspense of having to wait to find out his condition was agonizingly painful. Nae had been trying to calm me down for the past hour and a half but my heart was still beating so fast that you could barely tell it was beating at all.

I asked the nurses about it a few times but they told me I'd have to wait for a doctor to be updated but they were just taking too fucking long. It's too late for me to be stressing like this, I haven't slept all night and I was covered in blood. Well my clothes anyway, I washed the rest off of my skin once we got to the hospital. People were looking at me like I had just killed someone but honestly, right now, I don't even care.

I could faintly feel Nae rubbing my back in circular motions to try and comfort me. She dropped everything she was doing just so she could come here and be with me. I don't think I could be more grateful, I'm not sure if I could be here waiting alone and still have my sanity. I have the man I love's blood all over me and I feel so useless like I can't even do anything to help him right now. Sane was the last word that you could compare me to.

My eyes were red and swollen from having cried so much and my nose was that shiny tint of pink you get when your nose has been blown into a tissue too much. Saying all this to say, I looked a hot ass mess. But the only thing I could really think about was Saint and the entire time I've been here, I've just been hoping and praying that he was okay and he would pull through this because of how strong he was and be cracking jokes whenever he woke up.

Imagining it all caused a slight giggle to escape my lips. I could just picture him waking up to my face and saying some corny shit like, "Is this heaven?" because that was honestly the way he is. Trying to lighten the mood even when it seemed like nothing would be able to get you out of the funk you were in. But somehow, he did it.

And I just don't want none of that to go away. We're happy and I know, for me, he'll toughen up and make it through this. I just know it. He would never leave me and Junior here.

"Are you ok?" Nae asked to finally break the silence.

But all she earned back from me was the sucking of my teeth and the shaking of my head. That was a stupid ass question and I think she knew it, she just didn't know what to say. I can't be mad at her for that but I'm definitely not answering it.

Suddenly, a person in a white lab type coat was standing in front of me causing me to immediately stand to my feet with hope in my eyes. "Are you the girlfriend of Christian Mendéz?"

"Y-Yes, is he ok?"

He gave me a knowing look causing any ounce of hope I had left to instantly vanish from my body. "One of the bullets unfortunately got itself lodged three and a half millimeters into his heart. By the time we were able to successfully remove the bullet, there had just been too much internal bleeding. We did everything we could. I'm deeply sorry for your loss."

"No..." I said this as more of a shock than a response before feeling myself unwillingly drop down to my knees, letting out a loud sob soon afterwards. "NO!"

Nae immediately rushed to my side to hold me and for some reason I wanted to push her off but in all honesty, her shoulder was so comfortable that my head didn't feel like moving. I was rocking back and forth and just kept repeating the words "no" and "please." I'm not sure exactly who I was talking to but I just couldn't stop. They slipped out as fluidly as my tears did.

This all had to be some sort of sick prank, right? I mean Saint couldn't really be gone, that doctor was probably lying to me because of Dom. There's just no way Saint could have given up like that, he's strong.

Standing up, I headed over to the reception desk with Nae attempting to pull me back but I quickly snatched out of her grip. "Hi, I need to see Christian Mendéz. Could you tell me what room he's in please?"

Instead of typing away on her keyboard to find out where he was, she gave me the same look the doctor did. Fuck this, I'll look for him myself then.

"Ma'am, I—"

I didn't even stay there to listen to whatever excuse she had to give me. She was probably in on the sick joke too, all of them were. I began to go room to room, desperately searching for my man in high hopes that they were all lying to me and being paid off. "SAINT!!" I called out with every other door I went to. "SAINT, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

It didn't take long for one of the security guards to come and grab ahold of me. "Miss, you can't be screaming like that in here." I forcefully snatched away from him too and continued my search.

"SAINT!!!"

Feeling strong arms wrap around my body and lift me up, I instantly started kicking, trying to maneuver my way out of his grasp. "Get off of me! I have to find him before something happens to him!" But instead, I was being dragged out of there for causing a 'disruption.'

"Stop. Stop, I'll take her home." I heard Nae's voice through all of the chaos and honestly, I barely remembered that she was still here.

The security guard stopped in his tracks to look down at her but that didn't stop me from attempting to get out of his hold. I had to. "Is she going to cause any more trouble if I let her go?"

"No." Nae quickly responded back while shaking her head, giving me pleading eyes. So I stopped squirming.

Once he let me go, he escorted us out of the hospital building and as soon as he was out of sight, I turned to Nae. "We have to find a way to get back in there and go get him. I don't know how but we have to."

Her eyes were glossy like she was about to cry just looking at me then her arms came out and both her hands rested on both my shoulders. "Simone, I'm so sorry." I shook my head and tried to move away, not wanting to hear anymore of the bullshit leaving everyone's mouth. But she grabbed me by my face and turned it back so that I was looking straight into her eyes. "He's gone now baby girl, I'm sorry but the hospital wouldn't lie to you unless they want a major lawsuit on their hands. He's gone." She reiterated to me causing me to close my eyes, trying not to cry again but it was no use.

"No, he can't be."

***Flashback***

He led me into his closet causing me to instantly furrow my eyes. "This is what you wanted to show me? Baby, I've seen it a million times already." I giggled out.

I know damn well Saint wasn't trying to show me his clothes like I haven't seen him in every bit of them and... might have probably definitely stripped him out of a few of them too.

He moved several of his jackets to the side causing me to widen my eyes at what I was seeing. He then got hold of a neatly cut square of plaster from the wall and removed it, revealing a shoebox just sitting there in that hidden hole.

"Damn... you must really love those shoes." But the box was of a shoe I've never even seen him wear before. Can't love a shoe that much if you never wear them, right? Now I was curious.

I looked over his shoulder as he sat the box down and opened it up. My eyes were now nearly popping out of their sockets as they focused in on the stacks of cash sitting right there in that shoebox. Has that been here the whole time and I didn't even know?

He turned around to face me with the box full of money in his hands. "I've been saving this for a while now. And if anything ever happens to me, I want to make sure you and Junior stay safe. Nobody else knows 'bout this and I wanna keep it that way, aight?"

I quickly nodded in response, not knowing anything else I could say at a moment like this. There was a whole box full of cash behind the wall in the closet that I haven't known about for months.

"This was originally just in case I needed it for something but now, this is strictly for y'all. I don't touch this money except when I'm putting more in there. There's a couple ten thousand in here but honestly I lost count after $15k."

I stumbled back, honestly a little dazed. Fifteen thousand. I've never even seen that much money in one place before, much less hidden in the closet I get dressed in every single day. "I don't want you to touch it either 'cause you know I got you but if something ever does happen—"

"Don't worry because nothing is gonna happen to you." I quickly cut him off so he could stop sitting here and jinxing himself. My comment earned a smile from him causing my own grin to start forming on my face as I leaned up and pressed my lips against his. "Thank you." I whispered against them, kissing him a few more times because I honestly didn't want to stop.

I was falling in love with this man. And hard.

***Flashback ends***

Me and Nae were in the car and when I saw her take the turn down my street, I instantly shook my head. "No, I can't—" I sighed heavily, trying to get my words together. "I can't sleep in that house. Could I maybe stay with you tonight?"

She nodded in response and turned the car around. I honestly wasn't sure how Saint's house was looking right about now since we left in such a hurry but I just couldn't be there. And I definitely wouldn't be able to get any sleep there.

It felt like too short of a drive on the way to her house but I spent it watching all of the trees and road signs go by. They were at least a distraction for a little bit. Once we got there, we both hopped out and she guided me to the front door, occasionally rubbing my back since my head was down while we walked.

"Do you have some pajamas I could borrow?" I asked once I finally realized I didn't have none over here and I definitely wasn't about to stay in these clothes all night. Luckily, I had some jeans and a couple of t-shirts over here to get dressed in tomorrow but I always slept with Saint so I never really needed anything to sleep in.

She gave my body a once over. "Well, you're definitely thicker than I am but I'm sure I could find something that fits you. I wear baggy clothes all the time." I only nodded in response. "You can take a shower in my bathroom, you know where the washcloths and towels are. You can leave your clothes on the floor, I'll put them in the wash."

I didn't do much talking but the feeling of the water from the shower head hitting my skin felt almost euphoric. I wanted to stay in here forever. Forever had to be cut short though because I stayed in there so long that the water got freezing cold and even then, I didn't come out right away.

Once I finally did have to come back to reality and get out, I got dressed and laid in Nae's bed. I'm guessing she took a shower in the other bathroom because she came back only to throw her clothes in the hamper and pick up mine to put them in the wash.

When she was done doing that, she came back in the room and grabbed one of the pillows on her bed before turning to me with a sullen expression on her face. "I figured you might want some privacy so—"

"No! Please don't leave me in here by myself. I'm not gonna be able to sleep." I quickly called out once I noticed her starting to walk out of the room.

She gave me a small reassuring smile before coming back to the bed and laying on the opposite side of me. "Come here." Holding her arm out towards me, I took the invitation and laid my head down on her chest as she began to rub circles on my back to help me fall asleep but all it did was remind me of when we were at the hospital and tears couldn't help but to fall from my eyes once there wasn't anything happening to distract me anymore.

He was really gone.

Antonio

She giggled lightly causing a smile to form on my face as I shook my head. “Nah, for real though Bree. I fuck with the way you look when your hair’s in a ponytail. You can see every little beautiful curve on your face.” I hesitated for a moment before pointing. “Like how your cheeks pop when you smile or laugh.”

“Whatever, you must tell that to all the girls huh?”

I shook my head in response. “You’re too special for me to be treating you like some other female.” My attention averted to her finger and I gestured a slight nod towards it. "I see that ring on your finger though. Congratulations ma."

I guess me saying that caused her to straighten out her face as she stared at me, as if making sure what was said was genuine but I've never been anything but genuine with her so there's not even a need to search.

"...Thank you." She gazed down at her finger with a small wistful smile. "Yea, my boyfriend just proposed to me not too long ago." After revealing that small piece of information, she slightly hesitated for a quick second before sighing causing me to furrow my eyebrows at her in question. "Why are you so nice to me? I mean the first day we met, you took the time out from your work and staff just to cheer me up."

I shrugged. "What's your point?"

"My point is why? I didn't even know you existed until you sat across from me in my booth."

Chuckling lowly, I shook my head and carefully thought out my next words before I spoke. It's true that I don't take the time to cheer every single customer up the way I did her but there was just something that drew me to her that I couldn't really explain to her nor myself. "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret," I leaned in closer to her causing her to involuntarily do the same in response, "I just wanted to see if I could make you smile. When you first came into my restaurant, I could tell something was wrong just by your vibe even though you were trying to hide it. I couldn't help myself, I wanted to put a personality to that beautiful face."

A blush slowly began to show itself on her face after everything was said causing her to cover her face to try and hide it but it was too late for that, a nigga already saw it and I would be lying if I told you that it didn't make me smile too.

Honestly, I had been waiting for the day to come where she questioned why I decided to approach her the way I did. The only simple answer I could really come up with was that she had this sort of gravitational pull about her.

And whenever we speak, I know she can see and feel the heat and desire between the both of us.

I know she doesn't want to admit it since she has a boyfriend and I'm perfectly fine with that. I've never said or did anything to disrespect what they got going on but I'm also not going to lie and say that I don't feel something when I talk to her. And I know she feels the same way just by the way she goes out of her way to come to the restaurant and talk to me just about every other week.

I even found out that the first time we met, she balled up the paper with my number on it and tossed it on the ground. She was pretty embarrassed about it when she told me but I had to let her know that she needs to learn how to trust herself. It's not like I was overstepping my boundaries or anything, I just want to be her friend.

Even if she's one of the sexiest hispanic woman I've ever seen. Everything about her is mad adorable but fortunately for me, I know how to keep it in my pants.

"You really think that about me?" She finally responded to what I had said with a blush causing me to break away from my thoughts with an amused chuckle.

As if anything I've ever said to her was a lie. "Of course I do. You dead ass one of the most interesting females I've met since I moved down here... and it's been some years."

She giggled lightly and shook her head before looking me straight in the eyes. "I know how to tell when someone's lying, you know."

"By all means then. Work your magic and let me know if I'm lying or not."

She stared at me with an unreadable gaze, a smile slowly forming on her face once she realized that I was one hundred percent about what I said. Shit, if I felt any different, I probably wouldn't be this persistent with her.

"So?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as she continued to grin at me.

Playfully rolling her eyes once she realized I wasn't backing down, she nodded as she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. "Alright alright, you may not be lying to me this time but that doesn't mean you won't in the future."

"So you're saying there's gonna be a future with both of us in it together then?"

I earned another blush from her as she covered her face with her hands and laughed at my response. Licking over my lips, I sat there and waited for an answer expectedly causing her to remove her hands from her face and raise both of her eyebrows with a shrug. "Maybe there is, who knows? Only time will tell."

"Well you know if it was up to me, there would be. So really our future is in your hands right about now."

"Well," She lowered her voice as she leaned in a bit closer to me, "I guess we'll just have to see then, huh?"

I didn't really have any response but a nod as we both stared at each other from across the booth, although we weren't really that far from each other considering we were both leaning towards each other a bit. My eyes couldn't help but to roam her facial features as I noticed hers doing the same.

Her skin looked soft and blemish free, her hair fell perfectly draped around the shape of her face, and the way she wrinkled her nose a bit when she smiled was really doing something to me right about now.

Don't get me wrong, I want to respect what she has going on with ole dude since she's already told me so much about it but I just couldn't help myself from looking down at her lips with pure lust in my eyes. I wanted to see how they felt.

I unwillingly found myself leaning in, noticing her doing the same once I realized that our lips were nearly centimeters apart from connecting with each other. Her eyes fluttered closed as our lips came closer and closer together before she quickly reluctantly pulled back from me causing me to clear my throat and sit back as well.

"Oh. I, um, I can't do this." She stuttered out, frantically grabbing her things and standing up from the booth rapidly. I grabbed her by her wrist to stop her from going but she only looked back at me and pulled away. "I'm sorry but I-I have to go."

Hurrying out of the restaurant, she took one last glance back at me before leaving. As soon as she was out of sight, I sighed heavily and ran my hands over my face.

I really fucked up.

I didn't want things to just end the way it did so I decided to pull out my phone and shoot her a quick text, not really expecting her to respond but I still sent it anyway.

To: Bree 👸🏽

sorry if you felt like I was pressuring you or sumn, I hope it don't fuck up our friendship 💯

Tucking my phone into my pocket, I decided to stop slacking off and get back to work. My workers have definitely took notice to me suddenly disappearing from the back all of the time now. Me and Bree might just have to find a new meeting spot... if we ever even get to meet up again.

Just thinking that way caused another sigh to escape my lips before I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out and was instantly surprised that she actually texted back. To be completely honest, a nigga thought he was never going to hear from her again after this went down. Even though we didn't do anything, I know we both wanted to and I think that's what scares her.

From: Bree 👸🏽

No. It's not your fault. I'm just... really confused rn. I'll ttyl.

Confused about what? It's obvious she wanted to kiss me so I know she wasn't confused about that.

Fuck.

In the heat of the moment, I didn't even remember that she's somebody's fiancé. That probably just made things a whole lot worse for her. I don't have anything tying me down but it's different on her end.

"Hey boss, we got a customer out here that wants a refund." One of my workers abruptly interrupted my thoughts as soon as I got to the back causing me to sigh since I just came from out there.

Walking back up to the front, I approached the customer from behind the check out counter and I could already tell she was about to be on some bullshit. She had a stank look on her face that caused her wrinkles to stand out more and she was going back and forth with the cashier. Lord, please give me the strength.

"No, I don't care about your stupid policy. I want my money back now! You know what, where's your manager?"

I quickly stepped up from watching the situation with a forced smile on my face. I wasn't in the mood for this bullshit right now. "That would be me."

"Yes, I want a refund on my meal. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be and I don't like it." She showed me the plate and my face instantly straightened out as I glared at the plate with narrowed eyes then up at her with that same icy stare.

This bitch.

There wasn't even anything left on the plate except some fucking onions, peppers, and other condiments from what I'm guessing was either a chicken, steak, or shrimp fajita dish. She's trying to finesse me and I'm not going for it.

"Ma'am," I said calmly but really I was seething, "First off, ain't shit on that dish. Second, our policy clearly states that in order to be refunded, you must have at least majority of your food untouched. I'm sorry but I can't give you a refund on this, you ate everything but the toppings."

She scoffed annoyingly. "No, I didn't. My husband picked through and ate all the chicken and shrimp. I didn't eat anything—"

I cut her off with a nonchalant shrug. "Well then I guess you better call your husband up here and make him pay for the food since he ate it."

"No no no, he already paid for his food and he's not about to pay for something I didn't even eat."

"Ma'am. You're not getting a refund. Thank you and have a nice day." I said in response before turning and walking away, earning shocked glances from her and a few of my workers. When I tell y'all I'm not in the fucking mood, I mean it.

I know I definitely just fucked up big time with Bree, the last thing I need is some annoying ass customer trying to get over on me and my workers. It just wasn't the time.

To: Bree 👸🏽

look, the way we left off got me feeling some type of way. could you call me whenever you're free?

After I sent that text, I decided to just clock out and leave work early because it was clear I couldn't handle customers with my head in a bad space. And until I know me and her are okay, my attitude not going to be right at all.

Damn, I need a drink.

Nae

My shirt has been damp all day since Simone’s been on and off with her crying. I could tell she’s trying not to think about it too much but losing someone you love is hard for anyone.

It’s been a couple of days now since Saint’s death and his family was holding a funeral service. Simone didn’t want to go there alone so she asked me to come and even though I didn’t know him and his family very well, I wasn’t going to just leave her hanging at a time like this.

So what did I do? I got my ass up early as hell on the weekend, got dressed in all black and took her back to her place for a few minutes so she could grab something to wear for the event and also a few extra outfits since she didn't feel like being back in the house any time soon and I don't blame her at all.

Her boyfriend died in that house.

Of course it's technically a crime scene now but they have no leads as of now. Simone told them about her baby daddy but they couldn't find any actual evidence linking him to the crime so he's probably pretty happy with himself right about now while she can't stop crying her eyes out.

Her eyes are always swollen and glossy nowadays, I really hate seeing her like this. I wish there was something I could do to help but right now, I think letting her stay with me is the best thing that I can do for her because I know she wouldn't have anywhere else to go if I didn't.

Once she got her outfits, she didn't even stay long enough to get dressed for the funeral, she just changed in the car on the way there since her hair was already done in a low ponytail; courtesy of moí. I tried my best not to sneak any peaks out of respect but damn, does she have a nice ass body.

The car ride was silent just like most things with her have been for the past couple of days. Pulling up to the church where his family was holding the service in, she stared at the building for a few seconds before taking a deep breath, letting out a shaky exhale soon after.

"I don't know if I can do this." She finally broke the silence, her voice cracking as soon as she spoke.

I furrowed my eyebrows. I knew she might get cold feet but I really figured she'd want to be here for this. "What? Why not—"

"They're holding an open casket." She interrupted, shaking her head as a couple of stray tears fell from her eyes. "I can't see him laying there. I just want him to wake up and tell me he loves me and that he'll never leave me already." She pauses for a few seconds as her head hung low and her voice shrunk into a quiet squeak. "He said he'd never leave."

Turning off the car, I hopped out and made my way around to the passenger side where she sat before opening the car door and taking her face in both of my hands, forcing her to look me in the eye. "Just think about saying your goodbyes. You never got to but now's your chance."

"Yea, but he can't hear me so what does it matter? He's dead and he's not coming back no matter what I say or do or how much I pray for this to all be some kind of twisted nightmare."

Honestly, I had no idea what to even reply back to that because I've never had to grieve over someone I was extremely close with. Yea, I've had friends that passed but not anyone who I spent literally every waking day with. I can't even imagine the type of pain she's feeling right now so I feel like I can't even comfort her like I want to. Nothing I say can make this situation better in any way.

She let out a low sigh and got out of the car, closing the door behind her and wiping her previously crying eyes. "I have to do this for him. I have to be there every step of the way because I love... because I loved him."

Nodding in response, I gave her a quick reassuring hug and walked with her towards the entrance of the building that was just sprinkled with crosses all over. I'm not really the type to go to church so I'm not even sure how comfortable I felt right about now but I wasn't really worried about my feelings anyway.

Once we got inside, we had to sign our names in this little book then go find a seat but we didn't really have to search long because Saint's family had saved Simone a seat up front next to them. They must have known how much she meant to him and how much he meant to her.

The first thing we did was approach the casket to pay our respects and Simone seemed fine in the line going up to the stage but once she finally got in front of him and saw him laying there lifeless, she immediately broke down. I went to comfort her but stopped in my tracks when I noticed that a muscular arm had already thrown itself over her shoulder in a hug causing me to look up at the culprit. His skin was the same color as Saint's, he had a low cut beard with a few greys poking through, and tears were unwillingly falling from his eyes also even though I could tell he was trying to be strong and hold them back.

Simone hugged the man back, whispering a muffled apology into his chest. "I'm so sorry pops." That's when it clicked in my head that he was Saint's dad and was more likely in just as much pain, if not more, as Simone so I just let them have their moment as the line continued to move. His dad soon pulled away from the embrace, wiping his tears with the back of his hand and taking one last look at his son up close, leaving the both of us with a sad sniffle.

Before we left the stage, Simone kissed the tips of her fingers and then placed them on his cheek as she cried out a soft ‘I love you’ before making her way to her seat with me following closely behind her and taking the seat next to her. I felt so awkward because I didn't really know what to do or where to be or what to say. I was just a presence here for whenever she needed comforting.

Some more of his family members began to stop by us to hug Simone then quickly found their seats since service was about to begin soon. I just sat quietly throughout the entire couple of hours we were there, occasionally rubbing circles on Simone's back whenever she began to cry at something that was said about Saint.

***

We got back to my house and as soon as I got in my room, I immediately plopped down on the bed. I'm not going to lie and say I'm not tired because I'm not really used to waking up this early so my sleep schedule is all fucked up.

But for some reason, I couldn't seem to sleep so I reached over into my nightstand and pulled out one of my pre-rolled blunts. I keep a few for when I'm too lazy or too high to roll a blunt and today was one of those days.

I pulled out my lighter from the same spot, sparking up the blunt soon afterwards before letting out a slow exhale of smoke. The light grey smoke quickly blended in with the rest of the air surrounding my room as I took another long pull from it.

Simone was silently laying next to me and from the corner of my eye, I noticed her eyes averting from me to the blunt rapidly causing me to turn to her with my eyes furrowed. "What? Never seen someone smoke before or something?" I joked with her but of course, I didn't get any type of giggle in response. She didn't even crack a smile which caused my own to fade as I turned my attention back so I could take another puff, feeling the intoxicating high soon take over my body as my eyes lowered a bit. Damn, I love weed.

"Can I get a hit?" She finally spoke for the first time in a couple of hours causing my head to immediately snap towards her, my expression wild as I looked at her like she was crazy.

Did she think I was mental or something? "Girl, you buggin'. Have you forgot that you're pregnant or...?" I really don't think she's thinking things through right now, she's just grieving too much.

"I just... I just need something to take my mind off of things." She responded by fidgeting with her fingers, purposely avoiding eye contact with me as she spoke. It was good that she did though because the look on my face would probably have her feeling even more like shit.

"At the risk of your baby?"

She instantly smacked her lips and looked back up at me. "Look, I don't need your judgement right now, all I'm asking for is a hit."

Shaking my head, I shrugged and shoved the blunt towards her. "Whatever."

Once she grabbed it from me, I stood up from the bed and went to change my clothes. It wasn't really necessary but I felt like I just needed to get up and do something because that whole situation slick just pissed me off.

All I'm doing is trying to protect her and the new life she's bringing into the world but she's going off on me? I got up so I could calm down because I know it's not really her fault, she's just in a bad place right now. She's never snapped at me like that but I had to put myself in her shoes even though I don't agree with her smoking while she's pregnant.

She's an adult and can make her own decisions; even if I wanted to, I can't stop her. And I'd rather her smoke my weed than get something from one of these laced ass crackheads hanging around trying to get everyone else hooked on their shit. Like nigga, not everyone wants a sprinkle of cocaine in their weed. You got that.

I came back out into my room in a t-shirt and black basketball shorts before dropping back down onto the bed, holding my hand out so I could get my blunt back since she's had enough time to get a few hits.

"Alright, you asked for a hit. Now hand it over pothead." I laughed out, attempting to lighten the mood a bit since this day has been pretty dark; even for me.

She let out a few light coughs as she took one last hit and handed it over to me. I was about to put it to my lips when my gaze averted downward and I caught sight of how much was left, instantly making a face. This girl really smoked half the blunt in like two minutes. "Damn, chiefin' ass."

That finally earned a laugh from her causing me to do the same as I shook my head. And I couldn't help but to think, "Damn, it's been a minute since I've seen your smile." She then turned to me with an unreadable look on her face and that's when I realized that I was thinking out loud. I widened my eyes for a quick second. "Shit, I didn't mean—"

"It's ok, I know I haven't been the most fun to hang around these past few days." Her head hung low as she spoke making me grip her chin in my hand and bring her back up to face me, tears just barely forming in the brims of her eyes.

"That's not your fault. I'm not expecting you to be all happy and giddy right now, I just missed seeing you smile. That's all."

She flashed me a small forced grin and looked back down to avoid my eyes as silence swept over our conversation. I really didn't know what else to do at this point, we were both high and she was hurting so... I quickly pressed my lips against hers only to be shoved away not even a second later.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" She stood up from the bed and stared down at me with angry eyes as she wiped her mouth free of any leftover saliva. Well damn. "That was too fucking soon Nae. I just—"

She didn't even bother finishing her sentence before she stormed into my bathroom and slammed the door shut, immediately locking it afterwards. Once she was out of sight, I buried my head in my hands and let out a heavy exaggerated sigh.

What the fuck did I just do?

[teddy-bear-surprise]

Chapter 4: Filling in The Blanks

|| Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 Part 1 || Chapter 7 Part 2 || Chapter 8 || Almost The End || Chapter 9 ||

WARNING: Mentions of violence, blood, police, alcohol, stalking, car crash (not the main character), and bondage (non-sexual).

Author’s Note: This is an alternate universe situation set around the time of seasons 13 and 14 but I kept Hotch and Prentiss because they're some of my favorite characters. This fic does not follow cannon occurrences so please keep this in mind.

Ophelia sat on her couch moping over Cat's disappearance. It had been two days since Cat left. She wouldn't pick up her phone, which Ophelia did not know was broken, and Ophelia thought she was ignoring her. In reality, however, Cat was trying to reach Ophelia by payphone but could not remember her number. Barely ten minutes had passed since ten in the morning, and Ophelia was already nursing her third beer of the day. Her motivation to do anything, to be anything, had completely disappeared.

She lazily clicked through the channels before settling on the news. Now, Ophelia was not one to regularly check the news, but this station had a particularly handsome reporter that she loved to watch. In her mind, he was the only viable man left in Los Angeles. Her aptitude for stalking and predating did not end with her victims and was a driving force in all aspects of her life. According to her standards, he checked out: a clean digital history, a clean social presence, good financials, no unhappy exes, and most importantly he was single.

Today, however, Ophelia was less than pleased with what he had to say. "The FBI has landed here, in Los Angeles, this morning to investigate the mysterious murders of five young and famous men. They are working in conjunction with the LAPD and are searching for answers. More on this after the break–"

She rolled her eyes and crossed him off of her mental list of "viable LA men" which now held a whopping zero names. Her hand reached for the remote and clicked off onto another channel, hoping for something a bit more light-hearted.

On The Jet Earlier That Day

The BAU's luxurious, white jet had taken off only moments earlier and was flying quickly from Quantico to Los Angeles. Hotch looked at his team, all eagerly waiting for his instruction, before addressing them, "We're dealing with a very experienced killer here and they might even have a partner based on the amount of physical strength that it would take to restrain men of this size. The M.O. has been consistent since the very first case and there were no trials and no errors, meaning that we found no similar attacks in the Los Angeles area that occurred before these. They started attacking right off the bat and we need to find out why. Garcia will fill you in on the details."

The screen above Hotch's head was now occupied by a perky blonde, "Garcia here! Ready to rock and roll? Yeah? No? Okay, tough crowd. So, first up we have Rick Garza, twenty-eight years old and living in Glendale. He's not the most famous actor, but he is definitely on Hollywood's radar... should I say 'was'? Not important... Last year Mr. Garza started working in sideline films like Danika's Delight–a great movie by the way–and worked his way up to major ones like Begum's Trial which was supposed to finish filming next month. He doesn't have many enemies in the industry, a pretty well-liked guy, for the most part. He did have some disputes with the financial department on set, but that happens all the time so I don't think it was a contributing factor. Uhhhh... his wife, Maci Garza, said she was out shopping with friends but when she came home and went to her room to put her new, shiny things away, she found Rick like this–"

A photo of Rick flashed onto everyone's screens. He was hogtied with his legs and hands tied together behind his back, an apple occupying his mouth, and big bloody letters covering his back that read 'suck on this, you bastard'. Rick's body was laid on its stomach, so his hands and feet were in the air, and based on the images, he had been positioned to face the door, almost like he was waiting for someone to walk in.

"Yeesh, if I were to die like that, I don't think I would want to have been born at all," Rossi tried to lighten the mood with his snarky comment and his jokester reputation never disappointed.

Garcia rolled her eyes at Rossi and continued, "Agreed, not the best way to go out. Moving on to vic number two, we have Simon Boyd, thirty-two, and also living in Glendale. He was a very, very popular chef, you all might know his restaurant, 'Boyd & Boyd'. It opened up ten years ago and has gotten an impressive three Micheline stars. According to co-workers, he's a 'nice guy with the worst anger-issues in all of LA', that is a direct quote, by the way. Kind of contradictory, kind of confusing, didn't help me that much."

"So, I did a little deep-dive into his online presence, he seems pretty clean, but looking into his wife's life is where it gets weird. Back in the day, Daniela had a massive online presence, like massive. There was not a day where she did not post about her friends or life updates. But about three years ago she was living in a pretty bad part of town and then she met Simon. After that, she stopped working, stopped going out, stopped posting, all that jazz. She essentially disappeared from the face of the earth and only went out when there were events for Simon's restaurant. Kind of sketchy if you ask me. Also, they got married like two months after meeting and he immediately put all of her assets in his name. Basically, he owned her."

Garcia took a moment to find the rest of her notes, "Daniela was actually on their house property when Simon was killed. She was in their backyard, swimming, and when she went back inside he was dead. So as Hotch said, very experienced killers. Simon also left almost nothing to Daniela so take that as you will. As for the M.O., it looks pretty standard, the same as with Garza."

Garcia pressed a few buttons and some photos of Boyd's crime scene appeared on their tablets. This time, it was Emily who spoke up, "Garcia, you said that Daniela didn't get a lot from Simon in his will, so who got everything?"

"I am so glad you asked, Emily!" Garcia bore a wide smile, "All of Simon's assets went to an Eric Matteo Bowes, but the problem is, there is no Eric Matteo Bowes. He doesn't exist. And the only one that does, lives in Puerto Rico and has never been in the same state as Simon. So basically he left his entire life to a mystery man."

"Why would he do that? Is it possible that it's some kind of pseudonym? Maybe it means something else?" Replied Emily with a confused expression.

"Already there, my love. I called Boyd's lawyer and he said that while he could not give specific details, he did confirm that Bowes does not exist. Yet another mystery to solve, we just have to see if this is related to Boyd's death or not."

They went on like this for the next hour, bouncing around ideas and debating if certain occurrences had any significance in the cases. Once all of the cases had been discussed, Reid raised his hand to speak, still resembling the quiet kid that Ophelia knew, "Guys, I think the unsub is female. Look at the amount of rage," he pointed to the photos of the men's' slit throats, "this is a very up-close kill and it indicates that there may be a personal motive too. That's something we see a lot in female serial killers, it tends to stem from trauma that they feel they cannot let go of. And it's definitely a duo, two of the victims were athletes, indicating that at least two unsubs would be needed to restrain them, especially to get them on top of the bed after. But not more than two, bigger killing teams are more prone to mistakes and disorganization, I'm not seeing any of that here. My guess, is that these two bonded over their hatred of men, as indicated by the message written on the victims' backs, and somewhere along the line they decided to put their message out there through violence. Garcia, we need to start looking into females living in the greater LA area who have filed reports for domestic abuse against males within the past five years, cross-reference that with females whose mothers were either missing, dead, or not involved."

"Give me one second, pretty boy." Garcia's painted nails clacked loudly on her keyboard and they all watched as she typed at an alarming speed with her pen still in her hand.

"Anndddd done! We have seventeen lovely ladies here, one of them passed away a week ago and three have recently moved to other California cities. So we're down to thirteen now. Up first we have Miss Daniella Olson, twenty-three, and worked as a sales clerk for Knight's Knives up until two months ago... hmmm. Possible unsub? Oh wait, she stopped working at Knight's because she sustained debilitating injuries from a car crash. That's unfortunate. Up next is Kiya Driscoll, thirty years old and living in eastern LA. Geographically she doesn't look like a match, but let me see what comes up when I dig a little deeper."

After less than a minute, Garcia had managed to take a deep look into Kiya's life and left no stone unturned. "She's squeaky clean, moving on. Belle Jones, twenty-five and also in the hospital. Hmmm... change of plans, my lovelies, I will get back to you when I have a list of possible unsubs."

They discussed the case while Garcia looked into each of the girls' backgrounds.

Hotch's deep voice suddenly boomed through the jet, "These unsubs are experienced, they have likely experimented in other states, which would explain how their kills were so clean right off the bat. The only problem is that when I looked into it, there were no similar cases except for one case in Las Vegas from nineteen-ninety-nine. There was only one suspect, Darla Sutton, but there was never enough evidence to convict her. Our current case also profiled that we would be dealing with a team of young killers, Darla is already in her late sixties. We could be dealing with copycats or even an apprentice of some kind. Garcia, can you change the search to include anyone who has ever been affiliated with Darla Sutton?"

"Yes, Sir, already ahead of you!" Chirped Garcia. "Allow me to introduce you to Miss Ophelia Sutton, Darla's daughter. Thirty-seven years old and she has not worked in four years, but lemme tell you, this girl is rich. Like, buy a house on the moon rich. She graduated from MIT when she was seventeen and went straight into huge engineering companies like Z-Tech and Cormac & Robles, she was able to reach the top by the time she was twenty-one and she's made enough money to sustain several families for at least fifty yea–"

Spencer's eyes widened in shock and he completely zoned out as Garcia droned on. How was it possible that the girl he knew so well as a child was now their prime suspect? She had been his best friend, stuck with him through thick and thin, yet here he was staring at a photo of her and not recognizing her in the slightest. He could see the evil in her eyes, but it had not been there when they were friends. Back then, he saw everything good in the world swimming in her smile, that was all gone now. He blamed himself for this, he did not fight hard enough for Ophelia's friendship, if he had, they might not be in this position.

Of course, it was not Ophelia's fault that Garcia had now found her, but rather Cat's. Cat had gotten a bit lazy while designing their M.O. and copied Darla's almost to the tee because she thought it made the most sense. This was, however, a detail that Cat never disclosed to Ophelia. It was the reason why she had insisted so adamantly that Ophelia had to leave, why she had been so worried that Spencer would catch them both. If anything happened to Ophelia, it would all be because of her mistake. While Cat did modify a few things, it clearly was not enough to keep the BAU from noticing the connection. Maybe prison really had damaged Cat's once perfect abilities, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

Spencer drew his eyes away from the screen and tried to hide his feelings of disappointment, but JJ always seemed to notice. She whispered into Spencer's ear, "Hey, Spence, what's wrong?"

He jumped, frightened by the nickname she used. She was the only one besides Ophelia that ever called him Spence, "Oh, it's nothing JJ, I just got worried for a moment, I thought I had forgotten to call the institution where my mom is staying to ask if I could visit her after the case. Nothing serious."

"Whatever you say, Spence, I'm always here to talk." JJ looked at Spencer worriedly and tried to take his explanation at face value, but she could tell that he was still hiding something, especially since he never forgets anything.

They wrapped up their briefing and Spencer remained quiet, worried about what to do. He was not close with Ophelia anymore, they had not spoken in over two decades, but a part of him wondered if he should excuse himself from the case. Eventually, he decided to stay on the case and not say anything to Hotch because it was just an old friendship. Ophelia did not have an eidetic memory like him and probably would not even remember him. Spencer found solace in this thought, essentially ignoring that he would have to arrest his only childhood friend.

When they landed in Los Angeles, Spencer thought of how ironic his situation was. He hoped that Ophelia's name coming up was just a false alarm, that they had pinned the case on the wrong unsub. But so far, all of the signs were pointing to her and they would definitely need her to cooperate to find her partner.

On their way to LAPD's headquarters, Spencer fidgeted with his hands, still debating telling Hotch about his relationship with Ophelia. He figured that it could go one of two ways: Hotch would kick him off of the case and berate him for not speaking up sooner, or he would be used as bait to extract an emotional response from Ophelia, that is if she remembered him at all. When they got to the station though, Spencer was immediately cut off by the Chief who insisted that he needed to give them a thirty-minute guided tour of the station.

He walked at an excruciatingly slow pace, slowed even further by his co-workers stopping them every few steps to ask about the case. They were shown the kitchen, the bathrooms, his office, the garage, and literally every room except for the one where they were supposed to set up. By the time that the tour was over, there was not even enough time for Reid to have a quick talk with Hotch. They were now twenty minutes behind schedule and had to grab everything from the cars and rush to set up their space. Prentiss and Reid worked together to set up the computers, connecting them to Garcia, while Rossi worked on printing and pinning physical copies of the crime scene reports and photos. Hotch and JJ were running between the cars and the conference room trying to get everyone's belongings inside as quickly as possible since it was beginning to rain and they would be unable to get their stuff out later without wetting it.

As soon as everyone was settled in, they jumped straight into working on their game plan, plotting how they would approach Ophelia. They figured that their best bet was to send one team to search the apartment, and another to search the house. Rossi, JJ, and Reid were being sent to the house, whereas Hotch and Prentiss were going to check the apartment. It was a solid plan and only took a few calls to execute. They had just arrived in LA and they were already on the verge of a breakthrough. It all seemed to be moving so quickly, too easily, and Spencer felt that they were being drawn into a trap of some kind. But since they were employing the help of a S.W.A.T. team, he figured that there was not much to worry about and carried along with the plan. In two hours Ophelia Sutton would no longer be a free woman, and she was not going to go down easily.

[weterali]

Tagged by @quietborderline 

This is still a thing!

Might not look like it but I appreciate it. I need to talk to people at least on the internet

Answer 30 questions and tag 10 more, it seems

Holy shit that’s too many @kristinadellinger @onnyinka @akishito @le-petit-croissant @kitikara @fooolie

Feel free to ignore, I almost didn’t notice either. I was frustrated because I couldn’t remember the word sweatpants but I had fun

Nicknames: Alice Nasweter, Ali, weterali Gender/pronouns: female Star sign: Sagittarius Height: 160 cm Time: almost 23:00, 23:00, almost midnight, midnight, sometime after that Birthday: 4th December

Favorite bands: The Beatles, INXS, Mumford and Sons, Dire Straits. Can I count Simon & Garfunkel as well?

Favorite solo artist: Blues Saraceno

Song stuck in your head: Czech cover of All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor (make it stop please)

Last movie you watched? oh. Ragnarok? No – Tombstone. Go watch it!

Last show? Such hard questions. Supernatural, I think.

Why did you create your blog? I have no idea, I just do things sometimes. I wanted to have my collection of things I liked, probably. I failed. It’s not a collection. It’s a mess.

What do you post?

Video games (Dragon Age, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed, Mafia, Thief – recently joined the Mass Effect fandom because I NEED MORE it seems)

TV shows (Sherlock – still betrayed but slightly hopeful, Supernatural – annoyed af, Life on Mars – hell yes, The Musketeers – betrayed and annoyed, Constantine and Hannibal – please continue, The Man from UNCLE (1964) – old but better.)

Some movies as well (mostly Thor, Avengers, some Pirates of the Carribean) and lots of stuff about mental health, many of other TV shows or movies, some deep/amusing/interesting posts or facts, and of course, cats and dogs and ducks and-

Last thing you googled? Fahrenheit

Other blogs: no but I should have one that makes sense (I do have a website though)

AO3: AliNasweter

Do you get asks? Never (once from tumlbrbot. that’s just sad if you ask me)

How did you get the idea for your URL? I… watched few videos of Boys Before Flowers. One guy had a terrible Korean accent and kept saying English Yo yo bro! and I hated it so much. I always panic when I have to think of a name so I guess that’s it. I have lots of accounts named “Drama Queen” too. 

Followers: lots of pornbots and some beautiful people who get me (98 blogs)

I follow: 230

Average hours of sleep: none, two, four or sixteen. unhealthy but I cope.

Lucky number: every time I picked one it betrayed me, seriously

Instruments: keyboard, long time ago. I’ll never forgive myself for stopping. still trying to play. failing.

What are you wearing: a shirt and sweatpants. with pandas and donuts

Dream job: Pilot, writer, dubbing 

Dream trip: Peru 

Favorite food: pasta (with almost anything, simple as that), pomelo and orange

Significant other? Nope

Last book I read: Husitská epopej (history, CZ), Assassin’s Creed Unity (bullshit)

Top 3 fictional universes: I can’t think of many which are not completely terrifying if I think about living in it. Harry Potter, maybe. And… I really can’t think of any other now, maybe I’ll get to it later

[disrepairhouse]

::Return - Chapter 6

The world was covered in darkness.  Nothing, as far as the eye could see.

The air was thick, heavy.  The ground gave way with every step, requiring more and more energy to get through.  Her voice disappeared into the void with every call and nothing ever responded. Darkness covered every square inch, so consuming that she couldn’t make out her own body.  As she muddled her way through the thick atmosphere, little blips of deep red flashed in the distance.  She didn’t know what they were, but they gave her a heading. Something to move towards.

The ground sank more, the air grew hotter, and it became harder to breathe, but the blips were still there.  As she drew closer, they took shape.  Vague at first, they slowly formed into small, flashing boxes.  They looked strange, like they both had form yet didn’t.  Their colors made no sense and emitted a light that only illuminated themselves. But it was better than the darkness, and so she pushed forward.

The boxes grew in number, but never size.  She couldn’t tell if they were close or far away and they stretched for miles.  Finally, a noise, the first one she’d heard.  A voice.  Garbled and incomprehensible, but deep and echoing.  She didn’t recognize it but it meant she wasn’t alone.  She trudged forward.

The boxes flashed and warped, grew and shrank, were everywhere and nowhere.  They were ahead of her and then behind her.  The voice remained silent again and she no longer knew which direction to travel. The darkness was as all-consuming as ever and she questioned if she had made any real progress at all.

Just as soon as she was about to give up, the boxes surrounded her, then blipped out of existence again.  The voice spoke up.  This time it was clearer, though there were no words.  Only a laugh.  As her head swam and she questioned her sanity, a figure appeared, huge and looming, directly in front of her.  Misshapen and metallic with a bright red and yellow eye glowing in the center, staring directly at her-

 Itara darted up out of bed with a gasp, looking around the dimly glowing room frantically, clutching the sheets with crystallized claws as the purple and green of her eyes swam back and forth.  It took several minutes of heavy panting and reassurance before she slowly calmed and let out a long, slow breath.  Her head dropped, along with her ears, as the crystals around her fingers and the tips of her spines retreated again.  “A dream…,” she sighed to herself and glanced around the room.  There was no concept of day and night and thus she had no idea how long she’d slept, or even when she fell asleep in the first place now that she was thinking about it. She was in bed, back home, but she had no recollection of leaving the other base.

She recalled sitting and catching up with her friends for a long while.  Once the explanation about her and the robots finally ended (her friends having no shortage of questions about it, as she expected) the conversations turned to the others and how they’d managed over the years.  Itara and Simon explained that they’d been holed up in the base the entire time, never leaving until they contacted Sonic, but the other two had much different experiences.  Itara had kept a silent eye on Sceira over the years, but only Sceira.

They discussed the festival and what they remembered of it, but it was a topic dropped quickly, Simon and Sceira both visibly uncomfortable with the memory, though Itara assured them she’d forgiven them long ago. Afterwards, the conversation moved to how everyone got to the current base, during which Sceira explained that her dad was actually a Freedom Fighter years ago, a fact he’d kept hidden from even her for some time.  But when everything started, he brought her and her mother to a Freedom Fighter base where he finally let on about his past.  Itara figured he had to be something of that ilk when he caught on to Metal Sonic so quickly.

Sceira and her family had mostly been in the same place the entire time, but they’d lost her mother during one of the few times they’d been run out by a collapse.  They’d been at the current base the longest.  Tobi, on the other hand, had mostly been surviving by bouncing around the area alone.  He’d been separated from his parents during the festival and never managed to find them again, even after returning home.  It wasn’t until Sceira’s father happened upon him during an outing that he was brought to the current base.

After a while of talking with her friends, though, Itara went to check in on Metal and RK, to make sure they weren’t causing problems and get an update on Shadow and Zero.  She moved up to RK’s shoulders to get a better view of the room and… oh. That must have been when she fell asleep.  She looked up from the blankets again to look around and listen, but the house was quiet. Far quieter than she was used to. No clattering or clanking of dishes, no snoring, none of Simon’s yammering, or even passive-aggressive fights between Lynda and Kelly.  Was she possibly still dreaming?  With a quick pinch to her arm and a wince, she determined that she was, in fact, awake. But with that confirmed, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and dropped to the floor to search for the others. The silence, like her dream, was uncomfortable but at least she could see her surroundings and her own arms.

But what was the meaning of the dream this time?  That wasn’t Mephiles or Iblis or even Solaris. It certainly wasn’t Gaia or Chaos. What were those cubes?  She didn’t recognize anything in the dream at all. Maybe it was just a dream for once. Normally such vivid dreams were heavily connected to her father, whenever she could remember such detail after waking up it was meant as a warning.  But perhaps it was just stress from the coming event and state of the world. Even she could get stress dreams, after all.

She shook her head and looked around the empty living room where she and Ned had been sleeping for the past eight years – she’d offered her room to Lynda and Simon – the empty kitchen, the empty spare bedroom Mira and Kelly had taken up.  No one was around.  Why? She headed to the basement door and called out for RK and Metal but the lack of response put her further on edge.  She was almost afraid to go down but took a deep breath and descended.  Her concern was quickly dissuaded as she saw all three robots hooked up to the charging cells and in standby.  They were still there, they were just charging.  How long ago did they come home, though?

Well, they would reactivate when they were ready.  The house was empty for the first time in years, maybe she should take advantage of the quiet.  She looked up towards the stairs, then back at the desk – at the black notebook beside the keyboard and the red gem sitting on top of it.  She really could use someone to talk to right now. With a sigh, she walked over and picked the gem and journal up, returning to the stairs and continuing to the kitchen.  No one was around to stop her from getting into the food, at least.

She set the book on the dining table and tucked the gem into her pocket again, “I don’t know if you can even hear anything right now or not, Kipper, but things have been a little crazy again lately and I miss having you to talk to.”  She climbed up on the counter to get into the cupboards, knowing there were some snacks packed away into the back, “I had a really strange dream that I have no idea what it means for once.  There was nothing familiar about it so I don’t know if I should take it as a warning or disregard it as a stress dream.  Not that I’d even know what to take the warning about in the first place, I suppose.  I’m about to spend a lengthy amount of time with Shadow of all people here soon, so I guess it makes sense I’m stressed out.  Sonic is one thing, he’s annoying but he’s mostly harmless, aside from bad memories.  Shadow, though…”  She trailed off, frowning, “Shadow remembers Mephiles now.  He remembers me.  If I’m not careful, he’d be all too easy to set off.”

There was a packet of old cookies at the back of the cupboard.  But as she turned around to munch on them, sitting at the counter surrounded by the hot glow of a world on fire, she couldn’t help but remember the original timeline.  When RK and Kipper showed up after Shadow nearly killed her, when she so foolishly protected Mephiles.  It was the first time she met Iblis.  Technically the first time she met Shadow.  She was supposed to die that day.  If it hadn’t been for RK and Kipper, if Mephiles got his way, she would have died in the original timeline and Mephiles would have had her shard of his power back.  She wouldn’t have a second chance at existence, never would have seen the world as it was supposed to be, never got to experience everything she has since the reset.

She glanced down at the stale, crumbling cookies in the package. Kipper brought her a little bag of stale cookies then.  While she was recovering from the attack.  She couldn’t help but smile a little and pat the pocket with the gem, “You’re a troublemaker, but I liked having you around for as long as I did, Kipper.”  With that out there, she returned to her cookies to debate the dream again, explaining it in as much detail as she could to the silent ghost, hoping to spark some sort of realization if she verbalized it.  She didn’t get far, though, as she was out of cookie crumbs long before she made any sense of the dream images.

----- 

The pages of her journal were still blank.  Itara flipped through the book, particularly the last half, one more time before closing it and putting it in the small backpack. Whatever happened today, she would be flying as blind as everyone else again.  Luckily, she’d gotten used to that by now.  In a way, it was almost comforting.  With the backpack filled and zipped up, she pulled it on and walked out of the bedroom to the living room where the three robots were waiting, some more impatiently than others.

Metal Sonic was bouncing from foot to foot, Zero had his arms crossed by the door, and RK was waiting just outside the bedroom, ready and waiting to check over her.  “You sure you have everything you need?” he questioned as he knelt down to let her climb up to his back.

“Yep.”  She patted the pocket with Kipper’s gem to make sure it was still there and got comfortable against the tall, fluffy, pirate robot.  “You all got enough of a charge?”  Short nods around the room and they were all out the door, headed back to the base where everyone else was waiting.  As eager as Metal was to finally get back into action, she and RK were more wary of the situation.  Zero was as unreadable as ever.  They were only going to be investigating the area, though, they wouldn’t be making any active decisions until they knew what exactly the anomaly was.  The only thing to be wary about was the possibility of Dark Gaia appearing… and Shadow’s mood.

Itara gave a quiet sigh of resignation as the other base appeared on the horizon.  She didn’t want to be near Shadow, especially not mostly alone, but there wasn’t much choice. They would all be connected over a comm unit at least, so if anything did go wrong she could alert RK or Metal, but it didn’t put her at much ease.  Metal was fast, but Shadow wouldn’t give much warning if she pushed him the wrong way, either.  Plus, there would still be some monsters in the area.  That was the purpose of the others running point around the perimeter, but there was no telling what may happen.  The fact that every time she tried to check further in the day, her portals sidelined her back to the present wasn’t helping, either.  She’d been able to check shorter and shorter times in the future for the past few days, but now she couldn’t even get five minutes.  They would need to take extra precautions.

They met up with Mira and Kelly outside the base, having to deal with a brief panic from the hedgehog parents about their sudden disappearance last night, before moving inside.  Apparently RK and Metal didn’t inform anyone that they were leaving when they did and it caused Mira no shortage of fury.  Luckily, Itara managed to talk him down again so they could get back to what was important.  The group continued down the halls in silence until they once again entered the office to the usual faces.  Tails and Knuckles were going over a list of precautions while Sonic was attempting to hold Amy off.  Espio leaned against a box on the nearby wall with his eyes closed while Vex seemed to be pumping himself up for the coming mission.  Rouge was doing maintenance on Omega towards the back of the room… but Shadow was nowhere to be seen.  Itara scanned the room a couple more times, thinking maybe he was just hiding, but after not seeing him, she turned her attention to Tails and Knuckles, who noticed their appearance first.

“Where’s Shadow?”  The rest of the room’s eyes fell on them.

Tails sighed in exasperation and explained, “He already took off.  He said he would meet us there and refused to wait.”  Itara rolled her eyes but to say she was surprised in any way, shape, or form would be an outright lie.  “We shouldn’t take long catching up, though.”

Itara nodded and the group as a whole collected around the console in the middle of the room.  They discussed and debated groupings and who would cover what area. Metal and Zero were the most difficult to get on the same page, both insisting they could work just fine alone, but while RK eventually convinced Metal to just pair up with him, Zero remained persistent.  Luckily, Itara was already used to dealing with him and Metal and the other group was used to Shadow, so they were able to work around the collective stubbornness and get a plan figured out.

Itara and Tails would head for the center to meet up with Shadow while RK and Metal would cover the southern perimeter, near Gaia’s crater. Sonic and Knuckles would cover the north, to keep as much distance between them and the robots as possible. Espio and Vex would cover the west, while Rouge and Omega handled the east.  Amy elected to stay behind to keep at least one fighter at the base in case anything came their way while everyone was out.  Monsters still roamed free across the area and while the base was as secure as it could be, there was still the occasional attack.  Mira also opted to remain in the console room with Amy should they need any technical support from the base.  Kelly tried to convince the others to let her join, but Mira ultimately convinced her she was needed at the base more.  In case there was anything Amy couldn’t handle alone, Kelly would be sufficient backup.

The final addition gave Sonic a minor hint of relief that only Tails seemed to pick up on and thus said nothing about it.  Despite his constant insistence otherwise, he knew full well Sonic’s feelings towards Amy and the idea that she would be defending the base alone worried him, though he still wouldn’t admit it out loud.  With the situation handled, everyone went through final preparations and headed out of the base.  Amy and Kelly followed them to the door, Amy commanding that everyone double-check that their comm units were synced up before letting them outside the gate. RK, Metal, and Zero opened a second connection to sync to the groups instead of allowing them on their main connection line.

“Be safe, okay?  If anything gets dangerous, come back, alright?” Amy practically pleaded as they geared up to leave.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Sonic grinned, exchanging glances with Knuckles before taking off.  Amy watched the trail of dust behind him while Knuckles huffed at being left behind.  He nodded to the group then took off after the blue speedster.  Espio, Vex, Rouge, and Omega weren’t far behind and Zero was gone before anyone had a chance to even ask where he’d be.  Kelly gave Itara a final pat on the head before following Amy back inside, leaving RK, Metal, Itara, and Tails remaining at the gate.

“We’ll follow you to the center before continuing south,” RK stated in a no-argument tone and crouched down to let Itara onto his back again. Tails watched them warily but nodded and motioned for them to lead the way.  He’d talked with Sonic the night before about the robots, mostly boiling down to Sonic being absolutely sure they were still up to something and warning Tails to keep an eye on them.  He would do so, but something about at least Metal Knuckles’ mannerisms said he had less to worry about than he initially thought.  Metal Sonic on the other hand…

They took off, following the directions Itara gave them the night before mostly in silence.  Metal kept darting ahead and slowing down to let them catch up again but RK kept at pace with Tails, despite knowing he could keep up with Metal easily enough.  Metal tossed a menacing grin Tails’ way every so often, but otherwise said nothing, but RK kept his focus ahead of him and on the little girl on his back.

After some time, Tails could no longer resist and questioned, “Did you alter Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles’ loyalty chips to serve you instead?”

RK only glanced at him but Itara sighed rather dramatically, “Why does everyone keep asking me that?!  No!  I didn’t alter their loyalty chips!  Metal’s couldn’t even be altered if I’d wanted to, it was too advanced.”

“Was?  Then… why…?”

“I just repaired them, that’s all,” she explained, “well, I repaired RK.  I dug him out of a destroyed base years ago and his systems were so badly damaged he could only run in emergency mode for a long time.  His loyalty chip was equally damaged so we just cut it off completely. Metal was trickier but after the first fight with Solaris he was in an even worse state so we were able to disable his chip.  They’ve both been running on rogue AI since.”  She heard a scoff and looked ahead of them to see Metal Sonic running just ahead of them again, “Don’t give me that look.”  She looked at Tails again and pointed to Metal’s clearly mismatched robotic arm and explained, “That’s why one arm is all robotics with no covering, he didn’t have an arm for a while.  That one was made by someone else.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s just tell the fox everything, shall we?” Metal growled.

“What’s he gonna do if he knows, anyway?” Itara questioned, “You’re working fine now, it’s not like either of you are in a vulnerable state anymore.”

“So then… why are they working for you?” Tails repeated after a moment of concern, watching the scowl spread across Metal’s face.

“We work for no one,” Metal hissed, glaring at the two-tailed fox, “A time traveler is just useful to have around, that’s all.”

“We’ve gotten attached,” RK corrected, getting the blunt force of Metal’s fury in the process, which only got a smirk from the robotic echidna.

“Speak for yourself, Momma Bear.”

“Don’t lie, Metal, you care about her just as much as I do. Otherwise you would have abandoned her in Spagonia.”

Metal went silent, glaring at all three of them before his gaze fixed outwards, struggling for a response.  Eventually, he scoffed and raced ahead again, leaving RK to silently laugh at him.  Itara had gone equally silent during the conversation and half hid behind RK’s quills. Tails, however, watched the interaction with a heavy dose of confusion.  The last any of them had seen of the robotic counterparts, they’d tried to kill all three of them.  To see them arguing so amusedly over a little hedgehog girl was hard to grasp.  But it did at least put him slightly more at ease about being alone with the robots.  He had a feeling they weren’t up to anything beyond what they actually said. It was strange, but comforting.

The rest of the run was silent and they found Shadow easily enough where they expected to.  Metal was nearby, tapping his foot impatiently, when RK ran up and let Itara down from his back.  Tails flew in close behind and landed closer to Shadow to explain what he’d missed at the meeting and double check that he knew what needed to be done.  Once Itara was firmly on her feet again, RK knelt down to look over her and ensure she could get ahold of him or Metal should she need them.  Shadow and Tails watched silently from afar as the red robot obsessed a bit over the little girl, who assured him multiple times that she would be fine.

“RK.  It’s fine. Really.  If anything happens, Shadow can take care of it and if there’s anything he can’t handle for some reason, Metal can be here in seconds. Not to mention everyone else running around the area.  This is what we’ve been waiting for, I’m sure of it.”

“C’mon, Momma Bear, she’ll be fine,” Metal urged as he walked over, impatient as ever, “Let’s go secure that perimeter.  And fight something.”

RK frowned and stood up, looking warily between Itara and Shadow before sighing, “Fine… fine.  Just, be careful.”

“I will be.”

RK hesitated a moment before kneeling again and wrapped his arms around the little hedgehog, catching her off-guard.  She stammered a moment before going silent and hugging him back.  He stood up again, nodded to Metal, and they were off.  Itara watched after them until they were out of sight, a bit red in the face, then turned back to Shadow and Tails.  Her face only burned further when she saw the looks of disbelief and stuttered and stammered her way over, “Sh-shut up… Let’s get busy!”  The other two exchanged glances before following after.

The energy in the area was so strangely chaotic that it was hard even for Itara and Shadow to make heads or tails of where it came from. As they headed inward, combing the inner forest in as much of a back-and-forth pattern as they could manage, the forest seemed to constantly shift around them.  It wasn’t dense by any means, especially being entirely burnt down, the trees were thin and branches were sparse, yet they never seemed to find the other side.  Once they got far enough, check-ins from the other groups stopped coming and Tails’ virtual map became nothing but static.  They had no choice but to follow Itara and Shadow’s gauge about where the energy was strongest.

A monster or two would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, the further they went.  While it was no problem for Shadow, it hardly seemed aware of itself, let alone them, it only served to put the three further on edge about the possibility of being jumped. Tails could mostly handle himself and Shadow was plenty powerful, even without the Chaos Emeralds, but Itara was mostly defenseless.  She had powers, but she was no fighter, and lighting the area on fire would be more hindering than helpful.  Eventually, Itara stopped the group to look around.

“Tails, get the reader out,” she commanded, to which he quickly obliged.  Much like the backpack Itara brought, Tails had his own bag stuffed full with the equipment they would likely need.  Since they didn’t know for sure what they would be facing, they couldn’t be sure what exactly they would need, so he’d packed for a number of possibilities. While he did that, she turned to Shadow and questioned, “Does this area feel different to you?”

Shadow turned to her with the usual sharp gaze but looked out again and nodded, “Could this be it?”

“If it isn’t, it’s got to be close.”

But as soon as Tails had the thick, square mechanical reader out, the entire area seemed to bend.  The hard ground softened, the trees warped sideways, and the air grew heavy and sickening. The wind rank of charcoal and a light pulse radiated through the air, subtle at first but grew stronger and more frequent.  They struggled to stay standing as the ground beneath them rumbled and swayed and a stabbing pain shot through both Itara and Shadow’s heads, sending Itara to her knees but got little more than a wince from Shadow.  Itara reached up with both hands to try and stabilize her head while Shadow trudged over to Tails and his devices to start the reader as the fox was all but incapacitated by the swimming atmosphere.

The device clicked to life and the ground shook, sending all three of them and a number of trees toppling, a screech of pain echoed around, followed by a radical beeping from the reader.  With a heavy thud, a monstrous amalgamation of molten Biter and oozing Nightmare dropped behind them, its echoing scream of pain and confusion and rage piercing their flattened ears.  Itara yelped in horror as she struggled to escape the creature’s claws as it lashed out at the nearest moving object.

The beast clipped her leg but she managed to scramble away from it, Tails was near to passing out, though, and Shadow was struggling to stay upright.  The monster raved and bucked around wildly, its two sides battling for control of its one, melded body, sending it barreling forward.  Itara ducked as it rolled directly over her towards Shadow, its four differently sized feet stumbling over themselves as Shadow dove out of the way at the last second.  The monster crashed head-first into a tree just beyond them but hardly reacted and only bucked and brayed around in circles until it caught sight of them again with its three malformed eyes.  Shadow squared up to face it but Itara could do nothing but try to crawl out of its sight while pressing wildly at the comm unit to call anyone for help.

The creature rushed Shadow again, getting a shoe to the face for the effort, which sent it crashing off to the side.  But much the same as the tree, it hardly registered the hit. Itara screeched into the comm unit, getting no response, unsure if anyone was even getting their calls while Shadow scowled at the monster that jumped back to its feet and rushed him again. However, before it could reach him, a flash of bright, neon blue lit through the creature, sending it crashing back to the ground in halves before him.  Shadow turned his scowl to the much taller robot, but had no time to argue about the kill as the world crumbled again and another pulse of energy brought him to his knee.

Itara reached for her head but another quake rumbled through the earth.  The ground cracked and crumbled and seemed to tilt sideways as a much louder boom tore through the air around them, followed by a sudden, shining light that seemed to materialize right in front of them before surging up.  Itara and Zero followed the trail of light, their eyes narrowing as two figures appeared within, their focus far above them.

Sonic?

X?

But with another pulse, the figures disappeared and their attention was drawn back to the earth as the boom became a furious roar.  A thick purple fog rolled in and long, ethereal purple tendrils snaked out around them.  Itara couldn’t focus on anything Shadow was saying as she struggled to not roll down the newly created incline.  She crawled over to a tree to prop herself up against it to try and see what was going on, but once she stopped panicking, she easily recognized the tendrils surrounding them.  The towering, glowing purple body of Dark Gaia rose far up above them and the several, furious green eyes almost seemed to hone in directly on the small group.

Yet the worst was yet to come.  The entire area heated up to the point that more dead trees burst into flame.  The fires spread quickly, but it wasn’t the light of the fire that burnt through Gaia’s fog or which finally dragged Gaia’s attention off the group below.  Every ounce of color and certainty drained from Itara’s entire being as the light from before changed and shifted to become the golden light of Solaris.

[gigsoupmusic]

The Flowers of Hell, Japanese Television, Sterling Roswell (28 Feb 2020)

Being the infidel atheists that we are, we normally only ever set foot in a church when someone gets married or dies, and lately it's been much more of the latter. So, it is largely thanks to musical events that we get our occasional ecclesiastical hit that doesn't involve being surrounded by family, whether dead or alive. Bit-Phalanx put on an amazing electronic festival last year in a church in Covent Garden, which you can read all about here. We were not expecting another chance to enjoy music inside a London church so soon. But, enjoy we did. Last Friday night we were congregated in the small but perfectly-formed St Pancras Old Church just north of the famous station named after it, looking forward to a triple bill of the Spacemen 3's ex-drummer Sterling 'Rosco' Roswell, current BBC6 darlings Japanese Television, and 'Lou Reed approved trans-Atlantic symphonic psych group' The Flowers of Hell.

Rosco's main percussionist had had to cancel last minute – let's just say it's a 'sign of the times' and leave it there – so Max Peak stood in on bongos, and started tapping away at them as Rosco kicked into his beautiful opening song, "Like Wild Horses".

"Heartbeat" was followed by his slightly off-the-wall "Nobody Loves the Hulk", and then into one the more recent tracks that we fell in love with when we first heard it a few years ago, "Atom Brain Monster", the lyrics of which Sterling has recently updated to refer to Boris Johnson instead of Tony Blair. We recorded the performance and would like to share it with you here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQSBpeXNUAo However, things sadly were not going well for our Rosco tonight as his string broke right in the middle of his next track, "Venus Honey Dew". It would have taken him at least twenty minutes to source and fix a new string and, whilst most of us there would have gladly waited to hear his classic "Give Peace Another Chance", which he was scheduled to sing next, it would not have been fair on the following act.

As we therefore do not have much more to add about Rosco's gig, we'd love you to read an article we wrote for GIGsoup about 'Being Sterling Roswell', following an interview with him in his studio last October. Next up were a very tight band from London called Japanese Television. We've been seeing their name a lot in the gig listings over the past year but this was our first chance to see them live. They are so different to everything else out there at the moment, so it is no wonder that they caught the eye of Marc Riley on BBC6. The tracks they recorded last July at the Marc Riley session have made it onto their new double-EP reissue, now available in all good record shops and which we were able to buy that night, the night before its official release!

But what makes Japanese Television so special? Well, for a start, there's no singer. And we like that, because it's different. Not having vocals means that the audience can really concentrate on the music, which is very surfy and very psychedelic. Not as surfy as, say, the Beach Boys, or as psych as say The Roaring 420s, but somewhere in-between, and without a singer. I think the best thing we can do here is to share here a bit of video we filmed. Here are two of their songs on one video – "Crocodile Dentist" (which, incidentally, was originally recorded for their EP in one take on an 8-track) and "Tick Tock". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsGNCu4IR6I Before this they played most of their back catalogue, kicking off with "Lizard Moon", and then their brand new track "Moon Glider", which is so new it's not even on the new release! We loved how psychedelic "Mood Glider" was, and how it slowed down towards the end.

"Surfing Saucers" came next, which has a really good organ sound to it which just sounded perfect given the church setting. Which brings me onto the instruments. Tim Jones plays his pale-blue surf guitar in a very unique way, hoisted right up underneath his beard, which must not be comfortable! He plays in a slightly different tempo, it seems, to the rest of the band, which is a truly marvellous effect. Ian Thorn is on keyboards, but also uses a taishōgoto, which is a form of Japanese harp which first came out in 1912, and looks almost like something you would type on (in fact, these instruments are also collectively known as 'typewriter zithers'). The sound is, as you would expect, very Japanese. Just something else that marks out this band as being pretty unique.

Alex Lawton on bass and Al Brown on drums make up the remainder of the foursome. They were buried by the dark shadows at the back of the stage, but kept time immaculately. We chatted both to Alex and to Ian after the gig, such lovely chaps. We recommended they give Young Georgian Lolitaz a listen, and if they ever play a gig in the former USSR republic of Georgia they should get together, as we think they would merge and make some really nice spacey music! After a short break, it was time for the main event. But first, a bit of background knowledge about The Flowers of Hell. They were formed in 2005 and were mentored by Sterling Roswell's erstwhile bandmate from Spacemen 3, Pete 'Sonic Boom' Kember.

Their second album was Come Hell or High Water, and the album cover features in the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition which opens tomorrow 4th March at Tate Britain. This is going to be the largest exhibition of the late-Victorian artist's drawings for over 50 years, and The Flowers of Hell's album will feature among the exhibits, as an example of how influential Beardsley was, whose life was so sadly cut short by tuberculosis at the tender age of twenty-five. Other artists' albums featured at the exhibition include The Beatles, Procol Harum and Humble Pie, so The Flowers of Hell are in very good company indeed.

Toronto-born band-leader Greg Jarvis suffers from, or in his case is blessed by, a unique neurological condition called timbre-to-shape synæsthesia, which basically means that he sees all sounds as layers of three-dimensional shapes. He went on to found the Canadian Synesthesia Association in 2013. Whereas many albums from artists on the psych scene are influenced by visions from LSD and other psychedelics, Come Hell or High Water is actually based and arranged on Jarvis's synæsthesthetic visions, which is what makes his sound so very unique. There were thirty musicians performing on that album, recorded over a mammoth forty sessions in four different countries. Knowing how much Jarvis likes to surround himself with a crowd, we were not altogether surprised that we counted eight musicians on Friday's small stage – nine, if you include the contribution of Anna-Nicole Ziesche (on the left in the photo below), Hamburg-born visual artist and former alumnus of Central Saint Martins, who got up on stage to read out a German poem from 1955 that her mother had taught her, over a trumpet solo.

Jarvis was everywhere on stage. Sometimes playing keyboards, sometimes harmonica and, towards the end, at the front of stage on his trusted guitar. One of the three trumpeters who featured on the original Come Hell or High Water album was our taishōgoto-player from Japanese Television, and therefore was also on stage for The Flowers of Hell, as was a sax player, a violinist, a female singer who had a hauntingly angelic voice, and various other performers, most of whom were lost in the darkness at the back of the stage.

Back in the 90s, before The Flowers of Hell, Jarvis was living, among other places, in Prague, playing in various underground rock bands. They played their version of "Muchomůrky bílé", a protest song by Milan Hlasva, who was the original bassist and songwriter for PPU (Plastic People of the Universe), who were forbidden from performing this (or indeed any other song!) by the then Communist government, which was one of the many catalysts that spurred PPU fan Václav Havel in 1976 to create Charter 77 which took on the government and eventually lead to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The rest, as they say, is history. To be honest, it's not our favourite song of The Flowers of Hell, and certainly the least psych, but we filmed it because it means so much to Greg Jarvis. Here is our footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6CznGOsrR0 Far more atmospheric was the next song, "Pipe Dreams", which was truly quite beautiful, it made the hairs on our arms stand on end. The violin intro, the pipes, the singing, the slow introduction of the percussion, it all works so well together. We'll let you make up your own minds: https://youtu.be/bZF_5WmXxuo "The Joy of Sleeping" came next, which was a fantastic duel between the female singer's haunting voice, and Thorn's trumpet sounds, with violins and keyboards and guitar and percussion adding to the quite breathtaking sound. Here's the footage. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsTvjcrWrME After a couple of other tracks, Jarvis took to the front of the stage, turned around, and literally conducted the band to play his very experimental piece which is largely made up of rehearsed improvisations. Originally, this piece lasts over 46 minutes long (it is a classic example of 'absolute' music, in other words, music that is not about anything in particular, and is a term first invented by Richard Wagner to describe this abstract, non-representational form). Jarvis's synæsthesia is largely helping him direct the band to perform the sound that he is seeing, in a really interesting symbiosis. We did not get the full 46-minute treatment (or else there's no way we'd have made the tube home), but we certainly got a good crack at it.

The song finally ended on a real crescendo, with Jarvis whirling his arms around like crazy. Imagine Pete Townshend meets Simon Rattle and you're halfway there.

Lou Reed was a big fan of The Flowers of Hell, so it is no surprise that the band always like to fit in at least one Velvet Underground or Lou Reed classic into their set. Their cover of "Heroin" had a great build-up with the drums and the violin, with Jarvis on vocals and playing guitar. As with "O", it had a really exciting and cacophonous dénouement. There was something nicely cyclical about the way the evening ended. Sterling Roswell, whose set had earlier been so cruelly curtailed by a broken guitar string, was encouraged onto the stage for the closing encore. He sat on drums and joined The Flowers of Hell on Spacemen 3's iconic hit from 1988, "Take Me to the Other Side". This was a real treat for us, and was the perfect end to the evening. We filmed it and we're delighted to be able to share it with you here, though unfortunately the drums were right at the back of the stage so you can't see Rosco, but you can certainly hear his trademark drumming style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbn0J9J-Os And that was the end of another epic night of great entertainment. Armed with a copy of Japanese Television's EPs, and with a bounce in our step, we bade our fairwell to the lovely church and the lovely musicians who had entertained us for the prior three and a half hours. We are also looking forward to The Flowers of Hell's new greatest hits compilation album called 15 Years of Soft Labour, which is coming out this summer. It is going to include a 10-minute extended version of "White Out", featuring the sadly recently deceased Ivan Král, who was Jarvis's mentor and 'rock'n'roll uncle' for the past two decades. We at GIGsoup would like to also pay our respects to Král, who played with and wrote music for so many musical greats, from Iggy Pop to David Bowie and Patti Smith, among many many more, and who lost his fight to cancer last month. Čest jeho památce. Read the full article

[kj-nixon]

happy v day

On any other day, it would be nearly impossible to wake KJ up before 10am. You would have to fire a gun next to her. It was actually a major concern of her family’s, but she had always been more of a night owl than an early bird.

But today was Valentine’s Day. And this year she was going to do something fantastic for Hunter.

Last night, she had stolen his Apple Watch after he had fallen asleep and set the alarm to vibrate on her wrist at 7. She hated the thing because she felt the radiation from it would lead to arthritis. Bailey had tried to explain that that wasn’t how arthritis worked, but KJ was still skeptical. Regardless, it was the only way she could think of setting an alarm without also waking up Hunter.

God damn, 7am. Any later and Hunter would probably wake up on his own and ruin the surprise. Why did he have to be such an adult?

KJ grinned at that. That’s why she loved him.

As gracefully as she could manage, which wasn’t all that graceful if you knew KJ, she slipped out of their queen sized bed and tip toed to the kitchen. Their apartment was more of an open loft. A giant, brick square with only the bedroom and tiny bath distorting the shape by jutting out to the side. Looking at the floor plan, she had never quite been able to figure out how it interlinked with the other apartments, but really, did it matter? It suited them perfectly. The kitchen was as much a part of the living room as it was the dining room.

Open concept, open vibes.

They had it decorated as some combination of industrial modern and cozy, and the kitchen was pretty much the same. The tricky part was that KJ so rarely actually opened their cabinets that it took her a few attempts to find the pans she needed. Eventually, though, she got the bacon onto the gas stove and started on making breakfast in bed.

Hunter was, hands down, the best thing to happen to her. She knew she said it a lot, but it was just facts. Without him, she would probably be chasing yet another degree that she wouldn’t complete. He rescued her. Of course, he’d never admit it, but KJ and her siblings knew that she was kind of worthless without him.

And she was worthless, no doubt about it. Worthless against conventional standards. She couldn’t keep a job, her temper kept her from really being too great a people person, and without help her living space would be a dump. But she thrived in a space where you could let her be expressive, and Hunter provided her that. He encouraged her to be as creative and goofy and obnoxious as she wanted. And, somehow, they had figured out how to monetize it online. The cookie crumbled perfectly in that way.

She wanted to get lost in all the different ways she loved him, but it was almost impossible to actually start a list. Because as soon as she thought of one detail, it was almost immediately replaced and forgotten with another. He was just.... her world. She was obsessed with him. And she was pretty sure he was equally obsessed with her.

She assumed. She hoped.

KJ wasn’t actually a secure person. Some would even dare to call her insecure. And she felt justified in her anxiousness. Comparing herself to others was one of her most developed skills, and she never could measure up. So, if by some chance a girl who was just as pretty as she was, but twice as responsible came along, was there really any doubting that Hunter would take an interest? He was actually the perfect, functioning adult. One day he’d realize he was tired of babysitting a grown child. She just hoped it was on his death bed. Because KJ quite actually couldn’t live without him.

They’d be together forever if she had any say. And if you know any Faline, they have a lot to say.

And so what if they weren’t legally linked? KJ loved being with him no matter what. Did she sometimes dream about having the big wedding? Sure. Did she ever wonder if he even thought about asking her to get married? Yeah. Was she kind of concerned that he hadn’t asked yet because he didn’t want to permanently link himself to her in such a way that it would be difficult to leave her when he was ready? Who the fuck asked you?!

KJ’s brain snapped back to the kitchen when she smelled the smoke. While zoning out, she had splashed bacon grease onto the range and started a fire. Fucking ADHD.

What were you supposed to use on a grease fire again? All she could remember was not water, but she needed to put it out before the alarms went off and woke Hunter up.

Um.

Ummmm.

Flour!

Kj had no idea where they kept flour, or if they even had it, but the pancake mix sitting on the counter was the next best thing. Without giving herself a moment to second guess it, she dumped the box of powder onto the stove.

Well... on the stove, in the pan, and on the floor, technically.

She stared at it, willing it to not be all over the place. But, alas, there it was.

Kayla Jane, you’re an idiot.

But at least the apartment wasn’t up in flames.

Sighing, she dropped the empty box on the counter and skated to the corner deigned the living room in her socks. Her sleep tank and shorts were covered in mix now, but when was she ever put together? KJ picked up her phone and quickly ordered Postmates from their favorite diner, like the proper millennial she was. Should’ve done it in the first place, but she wanted to be romantic.

The second phase of the morning was cute enough anyway. It didn’t take her long to get her computer hooked up to their TV and get started on touching up the final bits of editing for her next video. KJ had become pretty savvy with anything techy since her career on YouTube took off. Not that she understood a single thing about engineering or how any of the machines actually functioned, but she could put it all together and operate it pretty easily if you gave her twenty minutes and a 5 Hour Energy to figure it out.

The doorbell rang and she ran to grab their food, knowing full well that he’d definitely get up for that. If he hadn’t smelled the smoke already.

Sure enough, Hunter stepped out of their room just as she finished unpacking their breakfast. KJ would never get over how insanely tall and good looking he was. Like, it wasn’t even fair.

But she sure did appreciate having the injustice in her bed.

He smiled at her and chuckled, probably laughing at how messy she was.

“Don’t go to the kitchen,” she warned, pointing a finger at him threateningly.

“It kind of smells like I should,” he replied.

“You absolutely should not. You should come kiss me and get your present instead.”

“That does sound much more pleasant.”

He graciously leaned down so she could stand on her toes and give him a peck on the mouth. She guided him to sit in front of the television and placed his food in front of him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, baby.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, sunshine.”

Patience wasn’t really a Faline trait either, so she only gave him enough time to take two bites of food before she climbed into his lap and face the TV. “Okay, I made something.”

“You did? For me?”

“For you.”

“I’m touched.”

“You will be.”

“So will you.” He winked.

She licked his cheek. Then she pressed the enter key on her keyboard.

The video went live on her channel. A shaky close up of Hunter’s forehead came on screen. You could hear KJ’s laughter over the speakers as the camera zoomed out and you were able to see the picnic set up from one of their earliest dates. Minute by minute, the video played through a compilation of vlogs from the last four years of their relationship. Some were of their travel adventures, others were at home where Hunter was obviously unaware that she wasn’t filming. Two consisted of KJ being home alone, lamenting her state of abandonment while Hunter was on a business trip. Every clip, every piece, was carefully chosen to show how perfect they were.

KJ had been on social media for the last three years, but she had never made her relationship public to her audience. Anything regarding Hunter was posted to her private accounts that only friends and family could see. Even her family was often used as clickbait. But Hunter had been reserved as a secret, or marketed as just a friend. And she had never quite been able to explain why.

Part of it had been that she was afraid of karma. If she put them out their publicly, then maybe they’d break up and she’d have to announce to the world that she was alone and her person had left her. Or maybe it was because she was selfish and didn’t want him to get any attention outside of her (and Simon.)

But, around Christmas, she had decided that she wanted the entire planet to know how mad she was for her. She wanted her audience, people she loved and was inspired by, to see how lucky she was.

And she would cut any bitch who tried to bat a single eyelash at him.

The video was only about five minutes long, nowhere near the length of her usual challenges and vlog segments, but there was four years of love pieced throughout it. And she prayed to the universe that he got the bigger picture.

That she loved him more than anything on the entire planet.

It ended and she stretched her head back to see his expression, a proud smile on her face. For a moment, he just continued staring at the screen.

She knew it would take a moment to buffer in his brain. They had discussed forever ago that they’d never go public and he was okay with that. Hunter had never cared one way or the other, but KJ had insisted.

Now...

He looked down at her and she saw his blue eyes glisten. It made her smile wider. He was such an emotional tall man.

Climbing around to wrap her arms and legs around him, she sat up to look him directly in the face. “You’re my person. I’ve staked my claim across the globe now. So if any skanks try to make a move on you while you’re wherever your stupid job sends you, you now have live proof to show them that I will hunt them down and burn their eyebrows off.”

“Oh, it’ll have them and their eyebrows shaking in their kitten heels.” He grinned.

She kissed him. Hard.

“I love you, Green Giant.”

“I love you too, Thumbilina.”

KJ tucked her head into the crook of his neck and gave a happy sigh.

“So... What did you burn?”

“Oh my god, SHUT UP!”