#all the girls in flannel do the small town scandal

[miel-core]

ok so i'm finally off to go rit dye my flannels brown / black ... after putting it on the back burner for months ! 🖤

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 13: Don’t Look Back In Anger]

The year is now 2000. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, sexual content, medical stuff, discussions of suicide, chilling with the parentinis.

Word count: 6.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @ladylannisterxo @doingfondue @tclegane @quartzs-posts @liathelioness @aemcndtargaryen @thelittleswanao3 @burningcoffeetimetravel @hinata7346 @poohxlove @borikenlove​ @myspotofcraziness @travelingmypassion @graykageyama @skythighs​ @lauraneedstochill​ @darlingimafangirl​ @charenlie​ @thewew​ @eddies-bat-tattoos​ @minttea07​ @joliettes​ @trifoliumviridi​ @bornbetter​ @flowerpotmage​ @thewitch-lives​ @bearwithegg​ @tempt-ress​ @padfooteyes​ @teenagecriminalmastermind​ @chelsey01​ @anditsmywholeheart​ @heliosscribbles​ @elsolario​ @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @tillyt04​ @cicaspair418​ @fan-goddess​

Only 2 chapters left! 💜

“You need to go to the hospital,” Aemond says.

You’re sitting on the threadbare floral couch in Aegon’s apartment, melting snow dripping from your hair like rain out of a bleak sky. You’re still wearing Aegon’s parka, but you’re freezing; you feel like you’ll never be warm again. Sunfyre, whimpering and pacing restlessly, periodically nudges your arm with his nose. “No.”

Aemond studies you. “Why?”

“I don’t want anyone else touching me.”

Aegon looks up from where he’s kneeling on the floor in only his green flannel pajama pants, skin and scars and ink. When he lifts the towel he’s had pressed to the outside of your thigh, there is a six-inch gash in the flesh: silent inferno, scarlet lightning. His palms are stained with your blood. “I’ll kill him,” he says, low and fierce.

Aemond sighs. “No, you won’t.”

“I will.”

You tell Aegon: “No, really, you won’t. You’re not going to prison for Trent.”

“Well something has to happen to him!”

“The hospital is really not negotiable,” Aemond says. “You need stitches.” And he shudders, just enough that you notice.

“We could call the cops,” Aegon starts. “We could—”

“You get to leave,” you say, and neither of them understand. For the first time, your eyes snag on the pattern of the couch rather than just skate over it: ivy, red roses, calla lilies white like bones. You take a trembling breath and begin again. “In a week, or a month, or whenever, you both get to leave this city, and it won’t matter what anyone here knows about you. But everything I have is in Juneau. And it’s too small for secrets. If I tell anyone about what happened, they’re going to end up hearing Trent’s side of the story too. The cops wouldn’t see this as a warning sign or part of a pattern of violent behavior. They’d see it as a domestic disturbance, at least in part caused by me. I’ll spend the rest of my life as the girl who got caught fucking around on the local football hero with some degenerate drifter. The same drifter who Trent saved from drowning in the channel a month ago.”

“He did what?” Aemond asks, confounded.

“It’s a long story.”

“Okay, okay, Appletini,” Aegon soothes. “Just tell me what you want. Tell me what you want and we’ll do it.”

“You should wash the blood off your hands.”

“Why? It’s just you.”

After a moment, you smile down at him. He smiles back. And suddenly you’re warm again, warm everywhere like there are embers tumbling through your veins instead of just biconcave cells and menacing lineage. Aemond’s gaze darts between you and Aegon, a little intrigued, a little scandalized, like it’s not something meant for him to witness. Sunfyre’s tail wags hopefully.

“So,” Aemond says. “Your preference for confidentiality notwithstanding, you do actually still need stitches.”

“I’ll do them,” you reply.

“You’ll…what…?”

“I’ll do the stitches myself. I have all the equipment at the vet clinic.”

“Okay,” Aegon agrees immediately.

Aemond stares at you, his lone eye narrow and incredulous. Then he turns to Aegon. “You think this is a good idea?”

“If she wants to do it herself, she can do it herself. She did a great job stitching up Sunfyre’s face. You can barely see where the bear clawed him.”

Aemond raises an eyebrow. “Why did I believe you might serve as the voice of reason? Why was I that delusional? Yeah, alright, let’s go do some impromptu surgery. That can only end well.”

You examine the wound on your thigh. It’s a relatively clean cut, but deep; it will leave a mark that you’ll carry for the rest of your life. It’s about the same size as Aemond’s scar, you think disjointedly, your skull clouded with shock and searing pain. The bleeding has slowed, but beads like rubies brim at the edges of the severed quilt of flesh. “I need to wrap it with something so it doesn’t bleed all over my Jeep.”

As you and Aegon improvise a solution—a fresh towel secured around your thigh with duct tape, the white fabric soon splattered with red—Aemond goes to the window, his arms crossed over his chest, his face grave and distant. Sirens build outside in the frigid darkness.

Aegon whirls to his brother. “Did—?”

“No. I didn’t call them.”

The police cars zoom by the apartment building in a screeching procession, heading north towards the lakes. Flashing lights paint Aemond’s ivory skin in shades of fire and sky. Lines etch across his forehead, perplexed, wary.

“What’s that about?”

“It happens a lot around here,” Aegon says. He tests the duct tape, making sure the towel won’t get jostled when you move. “It means they’ve found another body.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Lidocaine, povidone-iodine, scissors, forceps, tweezers, surgical thread, bright lights and no shadows. The bruises on Aegon’s face from where Aemond slammed him against that Dodge Ram last night are vivid blooms: violets, irises, blue-dyed roses, things that don’t grow here. He stands beside the metal exam table as you work, running his hands through his wild, white-blond, blood-flecked hair. You’re both wearing the clothes that you left on the floor of your Jeep; you’re both back in that moment, or at least halfway in it, soundless electricity in the florescent-lit air, longing drenched with maroon pain, rage, feverish anxiety. You cut the right leg off your blue flannel pajama pants so you could suture your thigh without being practically naked again. Aemond duct taped a black trash bag over the missing window of your Jeep to keep the worst of the wind and snow out. You’ll have to explain that to your parents eventually. You’ll have to explain quite a lot to them.

Aemond roams between the exam room and the lobby like a leopard behind iron bars, not really wanting to be in either. He is unnerved by your suturing, unnerved in a way that is obvious and deeper than words; yet he is irritated by the news coming from the television in the lobby. He’s turned it on to see if they’re reporting on the Ice Fisher’s latest victim yet. Instead, they’re covering the weather. The blizzard that’s expected to hit Juneau tomorrow has picked up speed, arriving by noon instead of the previously estimated late-evening. It will drop several feet of fresh snow, enough to shut down the city for two or three days. This is a great inconvenience for Aemond. This will delay his clandestine plans.

Aegon is watching you stitch with awe in his eyes. He’s nearly sober and must be desperate to remedy that, but he’s hiding it well. “You are so fucking badass.”

“I am so fucking stupid. I forgot all about the bear mace. It was right there in the front of the Jeep with my purse, I should have told you to grab it, I just…I wasn’t being especially logical at the moment. It completely slipped my mind.”

“I think that’s a very understandable oversight.” He skims his calloused thumb across your cheekbone, light and fleeting just like the rest of him. One of these moments will be the last time he’ll ever touch me. “How are you feeling?”

“Everything hurts. Not just the leg. My back, my ribs, all over.”

“Appletini,” he says, deadly serious. “What are we going to do if Trent shows up again?”

“He won’t come here.” You’re sure of that. “He won’t make a scene in front of my parents. He has a temper, obviously, and when it first hits it blinds him. We’ve seen that over and over again. But he’s not as stupid as he seems. He won’t want to ruin his reputation. Juneau is his whole world.” Just like it’s mine, you think unwillingly, horribly. “Maybe he’ll go home and unwind with a few Heinekens and realize the best thing he can do is move on. Maybe he’ll just consider us even and never speak to me again.”

“That’s optimistic,” Aegon says flatly.

“It’s a catch-22, right? He can’t tell anyone I was with you without it coming out that he attacked me and vandalized my Jeep. I can’t tell anyone he’s a violet psycho without admitting what I was doing when he found us.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You think that. I think that. But other opinions may differ.”

“You don’t belong in Juneau,” Aegon says suddenly, forcefully. “This place can be beautiful but it’s so fucking small. The people are small, their minds are small, any future here would be a waste of everything you’re made of. You feel that, right? I know you do. You don’t have to stay here.”

Aemond peeks into the exam room, observes that you’re still suturing, winces and vanishes into the lobby again. The news anchors are talking about snowfall, an estimated thirty to thirty-six inches.

“We should spend the blizzard at my parents’ house,” you tell Aegon.

“What, all three of us?” He remembers Aemond. “All four of us?”

“Definitely. We’ll have room to spread out in, we can shovel a section of the yard clear for Sunfyre, we won’t have to worry about Trent showing up for an encore. And…you know. I won’t have to be away from you.”

He grins. “You can’t get rid of me, Appletini. Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet,” you agree, low and wistful. You finish suturing and bandage your thigh with gauze. Then you slide off the exam table, peel away your latex gloves, scrub your hands in the sink, and step out of your disfigured pajama pants. “Reach into that drawer. I keep an extra pair of jeans in there in case some animal gets its fluids all over me.”

Aegon passes you the jeans and pauses for a long time before he speaks. “Do you think Trent’s the Ice Fisher? It has to be him, right? After what happened tonight?” But his bruised face is full of doubt; his oceanic eyes are searching.

“I don’t think it’s him. I can’t really explain why, but I don’t.”

Aemond appears again, hesitating in the doorway. “Hey, idiot,” Aegon says. “We’re all going to wait out the blizzard at her parents’ house.”

“Why would we do that?”

“So I don’t have to spend three days alone with your oppressively stressful self, obviously.”

Aemond should jab back, but he doesn’t. He covers the damaged side of his face with one long agile hand and squeezes his remaining eye shut, flinching, uncharacteristically vulnerable.

“Nerve pain?” you ask.

“No,” Aemond snaps defensively.

“Here…” You paw though the cabinet and find a small white tube. “I have topical lidocaine, not just the injectable kind. It might help…”

“No,” he says again, stepping away from you.

“Aemond, let me—”

“No!”

“I’d leave him alone,” Aegon cautions you. You don’t listen. You follow Aemond as he retreats into the lobby and backs himself against a wall.

“Don’t touch me,” he lashes out, still holding his face in his hand, repulsed that you’re seeing him this way, repulsed by his own weakness.

“Fine. Then you do it.” Too swiftly for him to resist, you grab his wrist, squirt a plentiful amount of the lidocaine gel into his palm, and press his hand back to his ruined cheek, eyelids, forehead. He gapes at you, stunned. “Rub it in, then wait a few minutes. It should start helping.”

Aemond begins massaging the gel into the area around his scar. “Thank you,” he says huskily, averting his gaze from you.

“I don’t know what you have to be so shy about. You’ve basically seen me naked.”

Remarkably, Aemond smiles. He has dimples, you realize. He isn’t just marble or stone; he isn’t just formidable. He’s a little beautiful too. “I have things at home for it, but I forgot to pack them before I flew out of Miami.”

“Yeah, I bet you were in a real hurry to get here.” To find Aegon before he left for the next city. To bring back the long-lost prodigal son.

On the television, the news has pivoted to the Juneau Police Department’s latest discovery.

“Reports are coming in now that officers have found the eighth victim of the serial killer known locally as the Ice Fisher. The remains were recovered from Dredge Lake late this evening. While we are waiting for the victim’s identity to be publicly confirmed once the family has been notified, Chief of Police Eugene Baker has shared that the victim is a female in her mid-thirties. He has also reiterated the vital importance of Juneau residents not leaving their homes alone—no matter how briefly—until the killer is apprehended. The impending blizzard is expected to temporarily postpone the investigation…”

“Mid-thirties,” you consider. “Not Heather or Joyce or Kimmie. The Ursa Minor coincidence lives on.”

“The what?” Aegon says.

“No one from the bar ever gets murdered.”

Aemond watches the blue-white glow of the television, the edges of his face smoothing as the lidocaine gel dulls the erratic electrical signals of his severed nerves: fire, blades, tremors like tiny cataclysmic earthquakes. “Hm.”

The wheels in his skull turn, and then faster, and then faster.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s 11:00 p.m., and your parents are still awake. They’re working on a 1,000-piece puzzle at the dining room table and sipping Earl Grey tea when you walk in. The puzzle box is propped up so they can reference it as they click the jagged fragments together. The picture shows the skyline of London.

“Hey, ladybug!” your dad calls. “Want to help us? I can’t seem to finish this fucking clock.”

Your mom laughs, slapping his broad shoulder playfully. “It’s called Big Ben, you caveman.”

“You don’t complain about my caveman ways when you need wood chopped for the firepit—”

“I have an unorthodox request,” you say. They both turn their full attention to you.

“What is it?” your mom asks.

“I would like Aegon to stay with us until the blizzard is over. And Sunfyre. And Aegon’s brother.”

“Aegon has a brother?” your dad says.

“Yes, and he’s…um…” What’s the word for it? Is there a word for it? “Kind of…different. But he’s very well-mannered and won’t cause any problems. He’s nothing like Aegon. He’s essentially the complete opposite.”

“What’s his name?”

“Aemond.”

“So Greek,” your dad marvels.

Your mom blinks at you, clutching her cup of tea with both hands. Steam curls up around her face like smoke, like fog. “And you and Aegon are…getting along again?”

“Yes.”

She looks to your dad. “As…friends…?” he says.

“No. Not as friends.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, that’d be just fine.” Your dad is trying to act nonchalant, but they’re both worried; they don’t understand, or maybe they understand too well, and that’s worse. You can hear Jesse’s ghost in the next room, in the attic, in the walls. He’s like that type of silence that starts to feel loud.

“I really, really appreciate it. They’ll be here soon.” Aemond drove himself and Aegon back to the apartment in your Jeep to pack up some essentials and get Sunfyre. “I’ll find the extra sheets and pillows. Aemond can sleep on the couch. And…there’s one more thing.”

“There’s a third brother and his name is Aristotle Onassis.”

No, Daeron. “If Trent shows up, don’t let him in.”

Now they’re really rattled. “What happened, ladybug?” your dad asks softly.

“I tried to end things with Trent. He didn’t take it well. He found out I was with Aegon and he smashed the back window of my Jeep with a rock. There was a whole…situation. I don’t want to talk about the specifics. I don’t need a hug or anything. I just need you both to know that he’s not welcome anywhere near me or Aegon.”

“Oh my god,” your mom gasps, her palm pressed to her heart. “Trent did that? Really?”

“Did he hurt you?” your dad asks; and his voice sounds nothing like the man who raised you. He sounds red and serrated and vengeful. He sounds like when he spoke to you about Jesse.

“No,” you lie, apparently convincingly enough. “But I’m afraid of him. I don’t think he’d try anything in front of you guys, but just in case…”

“Understood,” your dad says with a nod. “No need to elaborate. Trent is hereby banished from the premises.” He makes a cross with his hand like a priest performing an exorcism.

Your mom shivers as she drinks her tea, peering down at the half-finished puzzle. “Horrible. Just horrible. And he always seemed so nice…”

People aren’t always what they seem, Mom, you think bitterly, treasonously. Jesse seemed like he was getting better.

By the time you’re finished putting out food and water for Sunfyre and readying the couch for Aemond—your dad insists on helping you, though you try to refuse—there is a knock at the front door. The Targaryen brothers enter along with a frigid gust of Arctic air that blows the door wide open. Sunfyre, shaking snow from his fur, immediately makes himself at home by jumping up onto the couch and rolling all over it, kicking pillows to the floor.

“Great,” Aemond says tonelessly.

Your parents don’t even register the bruises on Aegon’s face, the dried blood on his hands and in his hair…not with Aemond in the room. They gawk at him: lofty height, long white hair, scar, sapphire, green Louis Vuitton suitcase, black Christian Dior sweatsuit. Eventually, your mom pulls her jaw shut and rises from the dining room table. “Hello!” she manages in an overcompensatingly enthusiastic warble.

To everyone’s surprise, Aemond goes to her and folds both of her hands into his own. “I wanted to personally thank you for welcoming me and my brother into your home. We will not forget your generosity, and it will be greatly rewarded. You will forever have the resources of Targaryen Enterprises at your disposal.”

“Have you ever tried not acting deranged?” Aegon asks him. “For maybe five minutes?”

“It’s our pleasure,” your mom stammers, transfixed by Aemond.

Your dad flashes a smile and gives Aemond a fatherly pat on the back. “Hell, if you’re ladybug’s friend, you’re our friend too. Do you have any pets, Aemond?”

“Yes, a Norwegian Forest cat. Her name is Vhagar.” He pulls a photograph out of his wallet to show them. The cat is freaking enormous.

“Goddamn, I’ve never seen one of those!” your dad exclaims. “How much does she eat? Do you let her outside? Does she hunt? What’s the life expectancy…?”

As they chat, Aegon rummages through the kitchen cabinets until he finds a bottle of red wine. You offer to get him a glass. “No point,” he says, winking. He drinks straight from the bottle, taking frequent little nips like taps of Morse code, sanding the edges off the present, the future, the past. When your parents retire to bed—no doubt to do some stealthy gossiping about their temporary houseguests—Aegon stumbles upstairs to shower, leaving you and Aemond alone. He sits down at the dining room table and moves puzzle pieces around with one index finger, linking them together faster than you would have thought possible.

“I forgot to tell you about him drinking wine,” you say.

“Well, wine is a given.” The rippling blue water of the River Thames is taking shape. “Make no mistake, it’s still suicide, what he’s doing now. It’s just slower. It’s the scenic route, sure, but it ends in the same place. You think he’ll make it to thirty?”

“No,” you answer quietly.

“He’ll overdose, or he’ll drive off the road, or he’ll fall into the ocean, or he’ll pass out somewhere and get claimed by the elements. He’ll be bones wrapped in roots and soil and we’ll never find him, we’ll never even have a body to bury. I’m not trying to hurt him. That couldn’t be further from what I want. Do you see that now? Do you understand?”

“You can’t fix him, Aemond. He has to want to fix himself.”

Aemond shakes his head. “He’ll never do it on his own.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” you say, heat like cinders in your throat. “I want the same thing you do. I’ve tried to get him to go to rehab, I’ve offered to help, I’ve given ultimatums, I’ve left him, I’ve come back, I don’t know what else there is to do. I’m watching him kill himself right in front of me, just like you are. It’s excruciating, loving someone like that. It’s hell.”

Aemond looks at you, a cold, razor-sharp warning. “I know.”

And he does love him, you realize. In a harsh way, in a tangled way, in a way that is burdened with years of betrayal and disappointment. But he loves Aegon too. If only that was enough. “He said that you were trying to protect him on the night of the accident. That your parents were always screaming at him.”

“They did a lot more than that. They hit him. My father harder, my mother more frequently. My grandfather broke his arm when he was ten.”

You can see Aegon as a sullen boy in a hospital bed, as an untamed streetlight-glowing teenager with the night wind in his hair, as a body floating in cold water. “And you think it’s a good idea for him to go back to that kind of environment?”

“Things are different now,” Aemond says, in a tone that offers no further explanation. “Is there a place where I can get some work done tomorrow?”

“Sure. The study is down the hallway, the second door on the right. There’s a desk and a phone in there and everything. Knock yourself out.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will come to that,” Aemond says, a sly smile on his half-ravaged face. And then he goes to the couch—not shooing Sunfyre away but merely shoving him aside to make sufficient space—and turns on the television so he won’t miss any of the news coverage, sliding his BlackBerry out of his pocket and clicking away on it.

When Aegon wanders into your bedroom—black Foo Fighters T-shirt, fresh green flannel pajama pants, dewy and flushed, aggressively rubbing his hair with a towel—you’re waiting for him. He holds up his hands to show you, grinning and proud. “No more blood. Happy now, vet lady?”

“Very.”

“It’s a problem, you know. I never seem to want to wash you off me.” His racoonish eyes flick to the mirror. It’s still decorated with the photographs he remembers, but there’s something missing: the magazine cutout of the Pacific Coast Highway, of California. “What happened to the convertible guy?”

“He got demoted.”

“Since when?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But still, he knows: since New Year’s Eve, since everything started going wrong. Aegon glimpses his reflection in the silver glass and quickly turns away.

“Your face isn’t that bad. The bruises should start fading soon.”

He smirks. “You’re always looking in the mirror because you’re still trying to figure out who you are. I don’t like looking because I already know.” His eyes catch on the cardboard box full of Jesse’s journals, jutting out from under the bed like the monster of a child’s imagination. “Old birthday and Christmas cards? High school yearbooks? Hot Wheels? Legos?”

“No. Journals.”

His eyebrows shoot up, intrigued. “Yours?”

“Jesse’s.”

“Oh,” he says tentatively, treading lightly, not wanting to offend. “You’ve read them?”

“Bits and pieces. I think it would take years to finish them all.” And then you add: “If you’re ever curious and want to take a look, I don’t mind.” Maybe it would be good for you. Maybe it would show you what you have to look forward to if you don’t change. “Now come here.”

Aegon crawls onto the bed; the mattress shifts beneath his knuckles and knees. He takes your face in his hands and kisses you gently, unhurriedly, like you’re made of glass that’s already beginning to splinter. You hurt everywhere, yes, but one ache is worse than all the others. It is an emptiness rather than the pressure of trapped blood or the mending of skin and sinew. It is the cavernous void of a missing piece in the shape of him.

You reach out, graze the backs of your fingers over his bruised cheekbone, tuck his damp lock of hair behind his ear. “I guess we got interrupted earlier.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Aegon murmurs. He smells like wine and soap, your soap. The heat of his skin is rising and infectious, a swelling wave, a fever. He’s holding himself back. He always seems to be holding himself back with you.

“I won’t be yours forever. But I am right now.” You press your lips to his jaw, your fingerprints to the kaleidoscope of bruises on his face. “Take me, all of me, I want you to have it.”

Aegon drags off your jeans agonizingly slowly, mindful of the bandage. He lifts away your oversized T-shirt, your doubts, your pain, your fear of the future. You strip him bare like winter pillages the earth. He is careful not to put any weight on your right thigh. He is tender and whispering, and when his hand slips beneath your blue silk panties you are stunned by how starved you are for him, how desperate, smothering moans against his throat, Aegon swearing that he won’t fuck you until you’ve come first; and then you do, so hard you see pinpoint stars like an unnamed constellation, like the glimmer of the Northern Lights. And then he is inside you, covering you like ivy, growing over you and through you and into dark needful corners that you hadn’t even known were there. He is freeing like an open sky, like the infinite line of the ocean. He is a memory you’ll never be able to mine from your bones.

When you wake in the morning to see white powdery snow falling heavily beyond your bedroom window, Aegon is sitting cross-legged on the floor and flipping through an olive green journal. The pages, riddled with spikes and loops of untidy ink, rustle against his calloused fingers.

“He’s funny,” Aegon says. “I don’t know why I didn’t expect that. I should have.”

“Why would you expect it?” Why would you expect anything but ruin, but tragedy?

He smiles. “Because you’re funny too.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Your parents are in full entertaining guests mode; the kitchen rings out with clangs and thumps as they try out new recipes, cookies and muffins and reindeer chili with green chilies and cheddar cheese. You and Aegon are playing Mouse Trap on the coffee table in the living room, one of practically endless board games your parents kept from your childhood. Intermittently, as commercials appear on the television, Aegon jots down notes on the back of a Taco Bell receipt he found under the couch. Sunfyre alternates between collecting pats from you and Aegon and licking up fallen scraps in the kitchen. He trots around the house buoyantly, tail wagging, eyes bright and twinkling; it’s not often that all of his favorite humans are in the same place. An Oasis album rotates on your dad’s record player. Don’t Look Back In Anger reverberates through the house like a heartbeat.

Aemond is working in the study. You can sometimes hear the low melody of his voice, or the beeping of his BlackBerry, or the jangling of the phone. Each time it goes off, he picks up on the first ring. About once per hour he appears in the living room to switch the tv channel from the X-Files or Buffy to the local news before retreating back into the study. The Ice Fisher’s eighth victim has been officially identified: Nikola Kozlowski, an adjunct professor of Marine Biology at the University of Alaska. She was snatched, strangled, sunk into water too cold for you to imagine. Aemond stares at the television, artificial light dancing on his face.

“Hey, you want to play Don’t Break The Ice?” Aegon says, swigging red wine straight from the bottle.

“That’s in poor taste,” Aemond mutters as he leaves.

Aegon shouts after him: “It was a joke!” He sighs, flips the channel back to the X-Files, observes the commercial with peculiar interest. “You like Chia Pets?” he asks you.

“I don’t know, I’ve never had one.”

“Interesting.” He makes a scribble on the receipt, takes another gulp of wine.

Just before lunch, you and Aegon venture out into the blizzard together to clear a space for Sunfyre to run around in, tilling fluffy mounds of snow until you can no longer feel your cheeks or your noses, catching snowflakes on your tongues, dashing back inside for steaming cups of Earl Grey tea and bowls of reindeer chili.

“Aemond?” your mom calls, knocking timidly on the study door. “Dear, would you like some chili? It’s homemade! It’s a brand new recipe! We have bacon bits!”

Perhaps reluctantly—although he tries to disguise it—Aemond emerges for a lunch break. At the dining room table, he sits next to you instead of Aegon. Your mom attempts to compulsively feed him cornbread muffins; your dad asks him about Targaryen Enterprises. Aemond answers quite a few of the questions, gracefully evades others. He is someone who has a genetic gift for holding cards close to the vest. After a while, Aegon takes his half-empty wine bottle and staggers off. He’s wearing his black crewneck sweatshirt, cuffed jeans, combat boots, and his white-blond hair in a man bun. Aemond palpably disapproves of this.

“That’s a fascinating setup you’ve got there,” your dad tells Aemond, pointing at his sapphire. “I hope I won’t offend you by mentioning it, but I couldn’t let you leave without ever saying how brilliant I think it is. It’s the sort of thing a tech magnate would come up with. Innovative. Futuristic, even. In a humble Alaskan’s terms, it’s really goddamn cool.”

“No offense taken.” No, and in fact, you think Aemond is trying not to let on how pleased he is, how…touched. “I was given something disfiguring and pathetic and made it an asset. Now people look at me with astonishment instead of pity. Tech and finance companies name their products after sapphires, after me. Teenagers dress up as me for Halloween.”

“I bet the women like it too,” your dad notes with a grin.

“Well…” Aemond stirs his chili, avoidant. “I’m a little too busy for women.”

Your dad mumbles, rubbing his forehead: “A sexy genius billionaire…too busy for women…now I’ve heard it all.”

And Aemond smiles, even blushes, dunking a cornbread muffin into his chili. It’s the strangest thing: you don’t suspect that he had any desire at all to eat lunch with your parents, but now he doesn’t seem to want to leave. When Aemond at last returns to the study, Aegon plods down the stairs and throws himself onto the couch, flipping lazily through the television channels. Within two minutes, Aemond bolts into the living room.

“Where’s my Visa?”

“Oh, whoops.” Aegon takes it out of the pocket of his jeans and tosses it to his brother. The credit card sails across the room like a paper airplane. Aemond grabs it off the floor.

“What the hell were you doing with it?”

“Buying thank you gifts to show the Appletinis how appreciative we are for their hospitality.”

“Thank you gifts…?”

“Yeah. A George Foreman Grill, a Rainbow Art set, some Ginsu Knives, a lifetime supply of Zoobooks, a BeDazzler—”

“A what?”

“A BeDazzler,” Aegon repeats impatiently. “It bedazzles things. A Kidz Bop cassette tape, a Betty Crocker Bake n’ Fill, a Chia Pet…five Chia Pets, actually…oh, and a Psychic Reading with Miss Cleo for me. She said I recently received an alarming and unwelcome visitor. Sounds like she really has talent.”

“You’re useless,” Aemond says, glowering at him.

Aegon guzzles his wine. “How’s Mom?”

“Oh, you’re suddenly interested?”

Aegon shrugs, gesturing vaguely with his wine bottle. He’s very drunk. “It’s polite to ask.”

“She’s terrible,” Aemond says. “She misses you, she worries about you, she blames herself for everything. It never gets better. It only gets worse. Every year it gets worse. She wants to make things right. She wants a second chance. We all do. Mom, me, Helaena, Daeron—”

“Dad?” Aegon flings mockingly, like he knows it won’t be true.

Aemond watches his brother for a long time before he answers. “He’s dying.”

The shock hits Aegon’s face, slow but marrow-deep, spreading beneath the surface like dark tendrils of blood poisoning. “He’s…?”

“That’s not public information yet. People will panic…stock prices, you know…but the company is in good hands. The company will still be here in a year. But Dad won’t.”

Aegon shakes his head, not understanding. “What happened?”

“Cancer. Pancreatic, inoperable.”

“Jesus Christ,” Aegon whispers, swigging his wine.

“He wants to see you before it’s too late. He wants to apologize.”

Again, Aegon shakes his head. He stares out the window at the falling snow, at the cold grey sky. “I have nothing to say to him.”

“Aegon, please—”

“He never liked me, and if he thinks he does now it’s only because of the omnipotent, looming threat of the Great Beyond. Me showing up in Miami won’t fix anything. Not for him, and not for anybody else.”

“It will,” Aemond insists.

“Because you’re so happy to see me, right?” Aegon says; and he grins, a horrible, dazed, triumphant, venomous grin. “You’re so proud of the person I’ve become, the person I’ve always been. You’re beaming with it. You’re fucking ecstatic.”

“Stop.”

“Admit it, Aemond. You should have been born first. You should have been the heir. It always should have been you, and now it is. Can’t you just enjoy it? Can’t you just go back to your little conference calls and your conventions and your equity negotiations and leave me alone?”

Aemond’s hand juts out, seizes Aegon by the collar of his sweatshirt, wrenches him to his feet. Sunfyre growls, showing long canine teeth. “Why, so you can destroy yourself in peace?” Aemond seethes. “No, not a chance. You’re not going to be the weight we’re all forced to carry on our backs. You don’t get to become the Targaryen family ghost. You don’t get to haunt us. You’ve already done enough. Do you hear me? You’ve done enough.” He shoves Aegon back onto the couch, storms into the study, slams the door behind him.

Your parents peek skittishly from of the kitchen. “Everything okay out there?” your dad says.

“Yeah,” Aegon slings back. He drains the last of his wine, takes your hand, presses his still-healing lips to your knuckles. His face is a wasteland, miles away, years away. Sunfyre, whimpering, rests his head in his lap.

“Aegon,” you begin, laying your palm against his cheek. I would do anything to help you, to fix you. What can I do? What can any of us do?

“I’m not going back.” He gazes out the window, cold grey void filling up his eyes. “I’m never going back.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The days are seasons: silent colorless mornings, snow-glare afternoons, violet dusk peppered with star-fire, nights as black as volcanic glass. Rumbling, monstrous plows pass by on the street outside. Trucks and SUVs begin revving back to life, exhaust fumes melting icicles that hang like fangs. The long hours that Aemond spends in the study yield no revelations that you can see. He is courteous to your parents, jarringly so. Before he leaves, he places an envelope on their dining room table. You open it while he and Aegon are loading their luggage into your Jeep.

“Don’t bang my suitcase around,” you can hear Aemond commanding, muffled through the house’s frosted windows. “Hey, what did I say—?!”

Inside the envelope is a handwritten note and a check for ten thousand dollars. The note reads:

Thank you so very much for your remarkable warmth and hospitality. You have a beautiful home, and an even more beautiful family. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you ever require anything. In Targaryen Enterprises, you have a friend for life.

Yours most sincerely, Aemond

P.S. I apologize about my delinquent brother. I am indescribably mortified by his conduct.

P.P.S. Your daughter is far too good for him.

Once back in his apartment, Aegon sets a pot on the stove. He gets two mugs out of the cabinet—the large blue mug for you, the green mug with tiny gold stars for him—and dusts a kiss across your cheekbone, one of his swift weightless kisses, the kind that feels routine and limitless, like he’ll be doing it for the rest of his life. Sunfyre frolics around you both, panting happily, accepting ear scratches and high-pitched praises.

Aemond goes immediately to the television. He turns it on, flips through the channels, finds the local news. There is a flurry of words you can’t get a grip on right away: breaking news, the Juneau Police Department, the Ice Fisher, suspect in custody.

What appears in the little black box doesn’t make any sense. There are random, disconnected fragments—flashing blue and red lights reflecting off fresh snow, Trent’s apartment, officers in uniform, florescent yellow crime scene tape, Trent being led to a police car in handcuffs—and then they all come together in a boom like thunder. And then all the pieces fall into place.

“I made a call reporting Trent for suspicious behavior,” Aemond explains calmly. “I got a judge to issue a search warrant. They went into his apartment with dogs and UV lights and found hiking boots with blood on them. A lot of blood. Human blood.”

Trent?

“And not just boots. There are trekking poles too, and snowshoes, and chisels, and fishing lines, things that match evidence left in the areas where the bodies were discovered. All with blood on them.”

TRENT?

“They’re waiting for lab results to confirm that the blood matches one or more of the victims’ DNA, but I’m confident they’ll find what they’re looking for. He’s their killer, the worst one Juneau has ever seen. He’s not a mystery, and he’s not a legend. He’s just a man.”

You and Aegon are staring at the television, horrified, hypnotized; you can’t look away. Your heart is racing. You’ve forgotten how to breathe. Your pulse is a deafening roar in your ears, a storm over the ocean, crashing waves and winds that capsize ships. Trent’s face isn’t colored with rage, audacity, remorse. When he flips his long hair out of his eyes, he looks bewildered. He wears the blank, fumbling confusion of a child.

It can’t be Trent, can it? Can it?

“No more excuses. No more delays.” Aemond turns to his brother. His pale eye is savage and determined. His sapphire glints like a blade. “It’s time to go home.”

[filthy-reckless-rp]

♛ Spotted on the Upper East Side…

Name: Gunnar Avery Pronouns: He/Him Age: 21 years old Hometown: Leesburg, GA Occupation: Junior at Columbia University, Waiter at ‘Olive Garden’ Social Status: Wannabe Faceclaim: Jake Manley 

Who Is Gunnar?

“I still say yes sir, ma'am and y'all, so don’t you be hatin’ on the way I talk, hoss.”

Gunnar Avery, are you still here? Mark me down as impressed. I was sure the second you had your silly heart broken by one of our more callous residents, you would have turned tail and run home. This place isn’t for everyone but here you are, still standing. Still smiling. When you first arrived in New York, you were bright eyed and so excited you could barely contain it. Having only glimpsed the lives of my scandalous elite on Insta and armed with a few key details from our darling Sophia Vandervort, you may as well have been meeting your heroes. Which, well, you really should never do. Despite diving into everything heart first, you’re still standing. Let’s see how long your permanent residence on the bright side really lasts, Gunnar. XOXO ---Gossip Girl

A Little Extra

Gunnar Avery grew up in a small town roughly a million miles away from the big city he dreamed of moving to one day. Gunnar has never had a bad word to say about anyone or anywhere but staying there for the rest of his life? He couldn’t do it. You can love your family and you can love your hometown but Gunnar needed to get out. He wanted to see everything and anything. He wanted the bright lights, new people and if he was lucky, to even meet some of the people he saw on Sophia Vandervort’s Instagram stories (and Sophia too, of course). Or be on one! Gunnar romanticizes most things and falls in love with every pretty smile or sweet nothing that comes his way. He knows that not everyone is going to be genuine but why not offer the benefit of the doubt? When it came to applying to colleges, Gunnar was over the moon and stars to be accepted into Columbia University on a scholarship.

He packed up his three flannel shirts, pulled on the same boots he’d been wearing most of his life and kissed his mama goodbye. Gunnar had always been a people person so making new friends at college wasn’t a problem. A little naive, Gunnar might have gotten his feelings hurt a few times when he first arrived. He knew that he didn’t exactly fit in with the ‘scandalous elite’ (as Gossip Girl would say!) but he wasn’t about to pass up the chance to be invited to the party. Sophia was a lifesaver for him since she was the only person he already knew in the city. They’d been pen-pals for a couple of years before meeting. In a way, it almost felt like Gunnar knew the people Sophia wrote about. Soph couldn’t be with him all the time though. Gunnar quickly learned how to stand on his own two feet and to never trust pretty boys named William Huntzberger. He’s pretty much got the hang of things now. Uh, yeah. Pretty much.

What Does Gossip Girl Have On Them?

Is it just the absolute worst that Gunnar read Gossip Girl? He couldn’t help it, okay? Of course he doesn’t agree at all with the mean things GG has said especially about his friends but... You know how sometimes you just can’t look away? Yup. He was in support of the Takedown but Gossip Girl is his guilty pleasure.

Connections

Sophia Vandervort - Sophia and Gunnar started out as pen-pals, sharing with each other their thoughts, feelings and a little gossip. They were so excited to meet when Gunnar came to New York for college. They’re just sunshine besties!

Sapphire Vandervort - one of Sophia’s sisters and, y’know, wow. Gunnar could never get too much of a sentence out around Sapphire at first and she was definitely a bad influence.

William Huntzberger - speaking of bad influences... Gunnar met William at a club and could have died on the spot when he invited him over to the VIP section. One thing led to another and, well, they spent the night together. Gunnar was kinda giddy about it but in the morning? William was gone with an unkind note and he’s barely acknowledged his existence since.

Logan Hunter - Logan is one of the coolest people Gunnar has ever met. They’re just so nice and totally gorgeous and well, who isn’t a little in love? They even had a little thing and are still good friends!

Xander McAllister and Tessa Cooper - the two grumpiest people Gunnar has ever met and loved.

[sunny-jac-blog]

This Is Where You Wanna Be (Carlwheeler)

it is almost 5 a.m. and i have not slept and instead i wrote this but it was WORTH IT!!! THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE!!! ft. Anne, Lettie, and Charity bein besties in a modern boarding school, Anne having Relationship Issues, and phillip and phineas loving their gals!!! this was requested from a great person on the TGS amino! hope yall like it!!

Word Count: 2.3k

_______________________________________________

Anne groaned as she stomped into the dorm room, barely casting a look at Lettie and Charity as she fell face first onto the hard, uncomfortable bed. The two other girls stopped their conversation, which was probably about how that Phineas Barnum from the boy's school across town had “eyes like a God” or something dumb like that. Anne didn't bother listening.

There were a few beats of silence, until Lettie slowly sat up from her lying position on Charity's bed. She crossed her arms and smirked, giggling softly as she stared at Anne. “Let me guess: It was that Carlyle boy, wasn't it?” She nudged Charity, who cooed.

Anne only groaned into her purple pillow. Of /course/ it was that Carlyle boy.

Since the two schools had had some dumb co-ed event held at one of the large local theaters, there had been a lot more intermingling with the boys and girls. The event was to push the students to broaden their horizons, some sort of college fair, where students could meet others and talk about their interests.

Anne was lucky enough to run into a cute guy named Phillip Carlyle, who reached for the same brochure that she did. What kind of cliche high school chick flick was she living? Especially since Phillip had been sneaking out to see her, despite her obvious attempts to get him to stop before he got in trouble. He never listened. And this time, he asked her out on a date.

She ran away.

As Anne sat up and hugged her pillow close to her chest, she let out a deep, dramatic sigh. She pulled her hair into a lopsided messy bun, looking at Lettie and Charity. “Why do boys have to be so complicated?” She asked with a frown.

She knew she could trust Lettie and Charity with her secrets. Charity, bless her, was an angel. She had a heart of gold and helped everyone she could, despite growing up in a rather snobbish family. She was trustworthy with relationship problems, as she had been dating her man candy, Phineas, since they were both thirteen years old. Now, at age nineteen, she was more than happy to help her roommate out of some boy trouble.

“Woah, woah- before you dump all of this on us, we need /backstory/, sweetie. What was he wearing? Was he nervous? What did he say?” Charity asked, straightening out her plaid skirt as she moved to sit on her knees. The school didn't have a very strict dress code, yet Charity always looked like she had walked out of any stereotypical movie.

“Uh-- Um, jeans, a maroon shirt, and… converse? Yeah. White converse. He was really fidgety and stuff, and he… He, uh… asked me to go see a movie with him. This weekend. Saturday.” Anne placed her hands on her lap, a soft blush rising to her cheeks.

Charity and Lettie both looked at each other, and let out the same high pitched squeal. “Aww, little miss forever lonely is going on a /date/! With a soccer player? He plays soccer, right? He looks like the kind of guy to play soccer,” Lettie chimed in, smiling wide. Lettie was much less proper than Charity. Though she was sometimes quiet and reserved, around her girls she took over the position of ringleader. She was a total badass in Anne's mind. She took no shit from anyone, and luckily lived in the room right across the hall from Charity and Anne.

“Hey, calm down! I-... I didn't say yes,” Anne admitted, rubbing her arm.

“You what?!” Charity yelled loudly, her eyes wide. “Anne, I-- How could you /not/ say yes?! He likes you so much and he's so sweet and Phineas says he's really kind for a rich kid, and--”

“I didn't say no, either…” Anne mumbled, rubbing her forehead. “He caught me by surprise and I- I ran away. I said, “Oh, what?” And I ran away.”

Lettie groaned, shaking her head. “My God, Anne, you screwed yourself over,” She huffed. “I mean, come on, even /I/ would say yes to that.”

“Are you saying Phillip looks like a girl?” Anne raised a brow.

“I mean, he does look kind of pretty sometimes,” Charity murmured, raising a brow and crossing his arms.

Anne only shook her head, gulping. “Okay- Yeah, okay. What should I do, then? He probably isn't here anymore, and he definitely won't come back after this…”

Charity thought for a moment, before grinning. “He's Phin's roommate! I can just have Phin tell him to come see you again!”

“Or, y'know, you could always sneak out yourself and go find your precious little Juliet,” Lettie shrugged. “Your call, Romeo.”

Anne bit her lip. Both options were tempting, she had to admit, but… She liked Lettie's plan more.

“Okay. Yeah. You two are going to help me sneak out, right after you help me with this freakin’ chemistry paper,” She muttered, grabbing her book bag off of the ground.

_______________________________________

The plan went into action the next night. Anne had worked extremely hard in all of her classes that day to ensure she wouldn't have any homework, and even had time to squeeze in a quick shower after her dance class, so she would be able to put all of her attention onto breaking out and finding Phillip.

After her afternoon classes were finished, she met with Charity and Lettie behind the school building. As she walked up, she couldn't help but see how badly Charity stuck out in their little group. Charity was wearing a blue summer dress with quarter sleeves and a pair of white ballet flats with blue polkadots. She glanced at Lettie, who was wearing something more… Lettie-ish. She was in a pair of blue skinny jeans, with a white t-shirt underneath. Her curly hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head, making sure her entire leather jacket was shown off to the world. To top it off, she completed the look with a pair of red converse.

When the two saw Anne, rather than have a look of giddy happiness, they shared an equal look of disgust. “Anne, sweetie, don't take this the wrong way, but are you really meeting up with your dream guy in… that?” Charity asked softly, glancing at Anne's purple, paint-stained t-shirt and black leggings, not to mention her no-makeup/bedhead.

“For once, I agree with Char. You look like a hobo, babe. Don't you have something sexier to put on?” Lettie raised a brow, but before Anne could say anything, Charity slapped her arm.

“Lettie! She is meeting up with a classy young man, not a hormone-driven twelve year old. She needs to look sophisticated!”

“Guys--”

“Charity, no, she should look hot and badass to impress him--”

“Uh, guys?”

“Oh, my God, not everyone is going to look like a badass butch when they meet the love of their life!”

“Come on, Anne could definitely pull off the badass butch look--”

“Guys!” Anne yelled, crossing her arms. “Can you quit it for a minute and actually /help/ me get ready, instead of arguing over what /my/ decision should be?” Charity and Lettie both sighed, but nodded. The three of them walked to their dorm, laughing away after the whole ordeal.

_______________________________________

It took the girls an hour and a half to finally get Anne ready. They started with hair and makeup. Lettie curled Anne's hair to perfection, leaving it looking both styled and natural, while Charity focused on giving Anne a natural, sweet makeup look. As most of the clothes she owned were sweatpants, hoodies, and t-shirts, Anne ended up borrowing clothes from the other two girls. She wore a pair of Charity's black skinny jeans with one of her white tank tops, and stole an oversized purple flannel from Lettie, who also gave her a few bracelets and a pair of earrings. She insisted on wearing her own black and white Adidas, and soon, she was ready to go out. She took her wallet, her ID, and her student pass, hugging each of the girls before walking out and down the hall.

Sneaking out was much easier than she anticipated, despite being caught. She simply told the principal that she was visiting her brother who had come to town. Which, it wasn't a complete lie- he /was/ in the city, but she had no intentions on seeing him this time.

_______________________________________

“Do you really think she's going to be able to do it?” Charity asked Lettie as they sat on the beds in the small dorm room.

Lettie shrugged, and smiled. “Come on, Char. Annie is a smart girl, she'll be fine.” She assured her, crossing her arms.

“I'm just a little worried, that's all… I've heard some people call Carlyle a bit of a scandal,” She said softly, frowning.

“Charity, do you really believe that?” Lettie raised a brow. “I mean, come on. They called me a bit of a scandal too,” She grinned.

“Speaking of scandal… How are you and that girl from your trig class?” Charity smirked, and Lettie instantly went red, smiling wide. It was nice to see Lettie so happy, and Charity knew that the new girl would take good care of her best friend.

_______________________________________

Anne reached the entrance of the boy's school after a thirty minute walk. She glanced around and quickly climbed the large gate, running toward the nearest building. Charity had said that Phineas and Phillip shared room 203 on the second floor, and from where she was sitting, Anne could see straight through the windows. She gulped as she saw the familiar face.

Phillip was sitting at a desk in their room, writing away. He was right in front of the window, and Anne could feel her heart flutter in her chest, though she would never admit it. She quickly ran to the side of the building, glancing around. She had taken gymnastics her entire life. She did arial yoga for fun. She and her brother would climb things all the time.

She wasn't surprised when she found herself scaling the building, stopping right next to Phillip's window. Really, it was too easy.

When she gently knocked on the glass, she heard a loud scream, and what appeared to be a loud crash. Her eyes went wide and she ducked her head, but slowly looked up when she heard the window open, a shocked phillip greeting her as he rubbed a red spot on his forehead. “Hiya, Carlyle… Mind if I come in?” She asked with a nervous grin.

Once inside, she was grateful that Phineas was nowhere to be seen. She looked around, tilting his head. One side of the room was extremely messy and untidy, while the other was neat, clean, and proper. She could tell from all of the literary quotes hanging on the walls that that side was Phillip's. She hesitated before climbing onto his bed, crossing her legs. “I, uh… I just came to apologize for yesterday,” She said as she glanced over at him.

For once, he was the one that looked bad during one of their meetings, but she still thought he looked gorgeous. He was shirtless and was wearing gray sweatpants, and looked like he hadn't slept at all. She noticed a few scars littering his chest and shoulders, but didn't mention it.

Phillip shook his head and ran his hand through his messy hair, gulping. “No, no- It's completely fine. Really. Don't worry about it.” He said with a rigid smile, crossing his arms as he leaned against the desk.

Anne bit her lip. She hesitated and glanced down, before rubbing her arm. “...I also snuck out of my school to come all the way here to tell you yes. I would love to go see a movie with you.”

At those words, Phillip's eyes widened. He gulped and smiled nervously, but after a moment he let out a soft chuckle, smiling wide as he tilted his head. “Really? You want to?” He asked softly.

“Of course I would. Just tell me when and where to meet ya, and I'll be there.” She smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet hanging off.

“Actually, let me pick you up. I have somewhere special in mind,” Phillip murmured, taking a few steps closer.

_______________________________________

Once again, Anne enlisted the help of Charity and Lettie to help her get ready for the date. She decided on something a little different, and Lettie did her hair and makeup this time, deciding to borrow a dress from Charity. The girls gushed over her, gave her a stereotypical first date parent speech, and sent her on her way. That night, Anne felt happier than she had in a long time.

That night, she and Phillip danced under the stars after the movie ended, her lavendar dress twirling around her as Phillip spun her around. Their night ended in a kiss, one of many more to come, but once she got back to the dorm, looking dopey and extremely happy, the night of gushing about Phillip had only begun.

Maybe coming to boarding school wasn't such a bad idea after all. After all, she had two amazingly great friends who helped her through all of her oblivious teen girl struggles, a new boy that was there for her whenever she needed him, and a great plan for her future. Anne finally felt like she belonged somewhere, both in a group hug with her two best friends, and in her loving boyfriend's arms.

[smallgirlbigpersonality]

Take it Easy | Chapter 1

Source: supremeleaderkylorens

1/15 (Chapter Two) 

Pairing: Clyde Logan x Reader

Word Count: 2,000+

Disclaimer: All copyrighted characters are property of Bleeker Street, Fingerprint Releasing, & Steven Soderbergh.

Warning: Rated PG-13 (Eventual NC-17)  

“Well… I don’t know Clyde, have you ever thought about just droppin’ it?” Mellie suggested as she rolled another curler into the Purple Lady’s hair. She’d been more than happy to give her brother a ride to town today but man~ she hadn’t been prepared for the 20-minute car ride to morph into a three hour lecture. The Logan’s had rotten luck and it wasn’t exactly a secret. Her older brother just seemed to need a reason to explain their ever shrinking family tree family tree. 

“You know poor old Maggie Logan, bless her soul, won the lottery and then the next day she just drop~” 

“Now Beatrice, you know I love ya but he don’t need any encouragement,” Mellie scolded, casting her brother a weary glance. 

The batty old hens at the salon loved nothing more than gossip. They caught wind of every good, bad, lucky, scandalous, and downright unfortunate event that ever happened in their small Podunk county. Clyde hung on their every word too; no doubt taking notes so he could bring his findings to Jimmy their older brother when he finally wandered into town. 

In fact, by the time Clyde left for his shift that night, he had managed to add three more unlucky Logan’s to his list. He manned the bar straight faced and more determined than ever. If he kept his game face on, tonight might be the night he convinced Jimmy that whatever this “thing” was… It was real! 

Although, when Jimmy Logan did finally make an appearance he wasn’t exactly in a talking mood. He marched up to the bar looking madder than a wet hen. His brother could practically see the steam rolling off his shoulders. Clyde knew Jim well enough to know he needed a drink or two before words of any kind could be exchanged.

He made his way across the bar to where the taps were and poured a homegrown West Virginian Porter. That and their old friend Jose Cuervo should’ve been enough to get the evening headed in a better direction. He poured two shots and pushed one towards his brother. The other Clyde picked up the other, idly sloshing it around while he waited to see Jimmy’s next move. 

“I don’t wanna talk until both of these are gone,” Jimmy muttered before grabbing his shot and downing the honey colored liquid. The younger Logan hadn’t even finished his shot before his brother was done with the beer.

“Well, what happened?” Clyde asked, brushing some of the long black hair away from his face. 

“I got fired today.” Oh.

“It might’ve had something to do with this darned curse. I was at the salon with Mellie this mornin’ and we hear about old Aunt Maggie. Beatrice said she won the lott~” 

“Don’t you start with that Logan curse stuff again,” Jimmy snapped, cutting him off. “It’s all folktales anyway!” 

Clyde frowned. To him this was very real and very simple. 

“Then how do you explain you gettin’ fired? Blowing out your knee before the championship game? Or me losing my hand on the way to the dang airport?” 

Jimmy grunted, dragging his hands over his face. “Look, I don’t want to deal with this tonight. Bobbie Jo is moving Sadie out of state too.” 

“I like to think we ain’t that bad of people and for good people we sure do see a lot of bad karma,” he argued. 

“Oh, so it’s karma now? Alright fine, you win! When I get back from my satellite office we’re going to talk about this!” Jim muttered, hobbling off towards the bathroom. 

Cylde seized the opportunity to checkout the bar. He craned his neck to take a quick look around the place. Same old dusy pool tables, empty booths against the back wall, neon beer signs on the right, and a jukebox resting next to the karaoke system on the far wall. Everything was in its place. 

As for the clientele… It was a slow Friday night. He had a few locals hanging around the pool tables; they just ordered a fresh round of beers so he didn’t have to worry about them. You and your friend; however, managed to sneak in during his debate with Jimmy. Lord knows you two had to be some of the prettiest thing this side of the Mason-Dixon line so he wasn’t sure how you’d snuck by. Your friend with the long blonde hair and baby blue eyes seemed like the city type. Those were usually just passing by on their way to Charlotte. You almost looked at home though… 

You had long (y/c/h) hair with a bit of a curl to it and some of the prettiest eyes Clyde’d ever seen. The dark purple flannel, black tank top and jeans weren’t that out of the norm- what gave you away as an out-of-towner were the boots. Nobody that lived in these parts would wear shoes quite that nice; even if they had money. He imagined you were a nice girl with a sweet laugh, and just enough sass to keep things interesting. Reading people was one of the few skills he prided himself in. That and being able to guess what kind of drinks people liked. More often than not, he wasn’t that far off the money. 

When your friend leaned in to whisper something in your ear, he confirmed his suspicions about your laugh. Gosh, you had the cutest smile too. It wasn’t until you’d hopped off your bar stool and started making your way towards him that Clyde realized he’d been staring. 

Oh boy, did that blush rise in his cheeks. 

“I would’ve remembered if you’d ever been to the bar before. Are you and your friend just passing through?” he asked, trying to maintain some dignity. That little smirk you gave him though, sure wasn’t helping with his blush. 

“Oh, my friend’s in town with her… Well I guess you would call him boyfriend,” you wondered out loud, “Anyway, he owns one of the race teams and they’re prepping for the big race. I’m just along for the ride.” 

“What team does he ow~” for the second time tonight the bartend found himself getting cut off. His attention snapped to a new group of gentlemen who’d stumbled in the front door. Tonight’s new guest count jumped from two to five. These men gave him a bad feeling though; that uneasiness crept up through his bones like no other. These men weren’t good people… 

“Oi! Hey (y/nickname), did you order us a round yet? Where’s Alyssa? God, I miss that tight little ass of hers,” Clyde’s eyes widened at the comment; so not a gentleman. 

“Not yet. I was just about to though,” you murmured, turning back to face the bartender. “...Look, I’m sorry in advance…” 

He rolled his shoulders and tried to brace himself for the massive ego that was about to hit him head on. 

“You’re a bit slow for being the smart friend aren’t ya (y/n)? Anyways ol’ bloke just open a tab on this card. Anything these ladies want can go on this,” the man offered as he slid a black piece of plastic across the counter. 

“Right, well what will you have then?” Clyde asked, resting his prosthetic limb against the counter. 

“I’ll have three stoli martinis dry, all with two olives… Oh, oh this is going to be good. Are you sure you can manage all that?” Looks like the bar’s latest guest finally noticed his missing appendage. 

“I think I can manage. What can I get for the ladies?” he asked briefly turning his attention back to you.

“If you’ve got ginger beer, two jacks and gingers would be amazing. Then two of your strongest shots would be greatly appreciated, please!” When Clyde nodded you gave him a silent thanks and watched as he got to work on your drinks first. Although, it didn’t matter much. Alyssa found herself occupied with her boyfriend’s two cronies. 

“Hey! Do you mind if I film a post?” the obnoxious man asked as he whipped out his phone, “It’s not often that ya get to see a one armed bartender.” 

Living in such a small town Clyde was used to people poking fun at his arm. More than half the time though, it was done out of ignorance as opposed to ill intention. Very few people had the guts to mess with Jimmy Logan’s brother. Even if he wasn’t a Logan… He was a war hero of sorts. Between the Logan thing and the veteran thing most people backed off leaving him to his quiet self. For those who didn’t, he did his best to educate them on transradial amputations… 

Blocking them out came with years of therapy and he still wasn’t that good at it. He couldn’t blame people for not being comfortable around him because he still didn’t feel at home in his own skin. 

Clyde started to liken your friend’s date to a shorter, fatter, talentless version of Graham Norton. He kept going on about something called Instagram and how he could make the man famous. Out of all the things Clyde Logan was an idiot sure wasn’t one of them. He knew the man was trying to get a laugh… Now the bartender was trying to figure out if it was worth causing a ruckus over. 

Almost as if he was on cue, Jimmy stepped in to defend him though. His brother didn’t have the chance to open his mouth before words and fists started flying. Jim had been itching for an excuse to get in a fight tonight and this man just served himself up on a silver platter. 

Clyde hear two distinct noises; one sounded like a body hitting the floor and the other sounded like one hitting the bar. He didn’t need to turn around to tell you his brother had been the one to bite the dust. Jim wasn’t the type of man that thought things through. He’d dive head first into a one on three fight and hope for the best. As his brother, it was always up to Clyde to help even out the odds. Turning on his heels he darted to the opposite corner of the bar.

In his experience, fighting smarter always ended up better than going for the most direct offense. Which was exactly inspired the bartender’s next move. Making sure his prosthetic was safe, he grabbed a rag, a bottle of vodka, and headed towards the parking lot. 

“Hey Earl, you got a light?” Clyde asked calm as ever. Earl was a townie about 10 years his senior and a quiet man much like the middle Logan. He’d worked with Jimmy up in Charlotte, but beyond that there wasn’t much to know about the man. 

“Yeah, here ya go.” 

The young bartender then picked up a brick and threw it towards the widow of an expensive looking SUV. The car was plastered with an ugly red wrap. It looked like it was for some off brand energy drink… Just the kind of car the ass currently beating the pulp out of his brother might drive. He then shoved the rag into the vodka bottle and lit his little Molotov cocktail. Within seconds the car had burst into flames. Clyde leaned back against the porch railing, taking a second to admire his handiwork. 

What he missed though, was you watching from the window. Alyssa was appalled but you couldn’t wipe the smile off your face. Anybody who even attempted to put Max in his place was someone you wanted to know. That man had an ego the size of a planet. 

“Handsome and ballsy,” you smiled after taking a sip of your drink. You couldn't help but wonder if your little trip was about to get about a thousand times more interesting.

[bigbooksandhottea-blog]

Story of my Life

               Let’s take it from the top. When I was born, several things happened in quick succession, I screamed, I peed all over my mother, and I was pronounced female. That moment would dictate how I lived the rest of my life, which is ironic since I haven’t done much screaming since (I daresay I’ve forgotten how to perform that particular vocal act), and I never wet the bed after I got out of diapers, you could say I’ve rebelled against my female designation as well, with more than my fair share of body dysphoria, but mainly I was just never sure of the purpose of the small F on my birth certificate and all the legal documents that followed.

               I seemed to be the only member of my family who felt this way. I was born into a very traditional Catholic household and learned these gender roles from a young age. At that time, my main model for femininity was my mother. I did not want to be like my mother. She was very servile to my dad and siblings while also being high strung and anxious. These two things were likely connected, and neither of them seemed appealing to me. I decided very early on that I did not want to be a mother, assuming that I would end up like my own mother, but even worse, that I would have a child who was similarly unappreciative.

               This was frowned upon in the Catholic church, where the prime directive for a woman was to have babies. In the bible, that was almost all they wanted, from Sarah to the two women defending their motherhood to King Solomon. Even my namesake, Rebekah, is most famous for her deception of her husband in favor of her favorite son. Indeed, it could be said that Catholics are so against abortion because the faith is so entwined in the idea of reproduction, that is how I got indoctrinated after all.

               Religion in general should not be discounted as one of the great shapers of our society. While Catholicism cannot necessarily be construed as a dominant religion, it is a branch (although it would be more historically accurate to say the trunk) of Christianity, which has dominated much of the Western world for centuries. This has not been without its consequences.

               I cannot speak for the rest of Christianity, but I know from years of experience that Catholicism is steeped in ritual and tradition. This has led to a cultural appreciation for these things, which isn’t always bad, but can be harmful in the case of gender roles. Having said that, my mother tried desperately to get away from the housewife mentality of her time, getting a degree as an electrical engineer and having my dad be the one to stay home with me when I was too young to go to school. I was impressed when I heard this story, until my mom told me that she had hated every minute of engineering school.

               This introduced me to the concept of feminism for the sake of feminism. A similar phenomenon is present in Boulder that I like to call progressivism for the sake of progressivism. Boulder prides itself so much on being a progressive town that it shows open hostility to those who are not “open-minded,” which has created something called the “Boulder bubble.” For those inside, it can feel like a utopia of free thinking, but for those outside, it feels like an exclusive club that only the fit, white elite are privy to. As part of progressivism, feminism is also included in this, particularly what Roxanne Gay describes as capital-F feminism.

               Capital-F feminism was extremely prevalent in the second wave feminism that my mom participated in. Although it did spurn her to getting a well-paying job and a comfortable life, she did not end up doing what she wanted until much later. Despite not wanting to be like my mother, I am still her daughter and I too briefly pursued an engineering degree. Unfortunately, I have very little motivation to do things I do not enjoy, so that pursuit ended in a spectacular crashing of my GPA. I will take the time to reiterate that this was due to my disinterestedness in the subject, not necessarily because it was “too hard for me” as my ex from the time would tell me.

               That ex, and indeed all my exes would teach me even more about a woman’s place in society. I’ve been lucky enough to have the experience of dating all kinds of people from both sides of the gender spectrum, as well as having time to be single. Some people will tell you that dating different genders is no different, I will not. Like most people who were assigned female at birth, I dated men (well really boys at the time) first. I got to see what it felt like to be taken care of.

               I’m not sure when I first realized that I was into girls too. I got to experience a more even level of give and take than with guys. Simply put, it was no longer obvious who would pay for dinner. Regardless of the model relationships I would have as a result, coming out was a pretty painful process, facilitated by the fact that I had no idea how to talk about how I was feeling. At the time, I was vaguely aware of the term “bisexual,” although it took many more years for me to realize the extent of my sexuality, mainly due to my lack of knowledge about the non-binary nature of gender. Here’s the quick and dirty of the sexuality you may not be aware of, courtesy of my really tiny handwriting:

(if you can’t read this, I apologize, you’re really missing out, but this is tumblr, if you ask it nicely, it will tell you all about pansexuality)

               This ignorance was mostly fostered by the fairly strict gender expression displayed to me at a school that considered a male-identified individual in a skirt and pigtails top-notch comedy (and also thought it was okay to have indigenous people portrayed as a mascot, but that’s a whole other can of worms). Despite my growing up in a fairly small, conservative town, it’s pretty typical for people everywhere to accept the gender they were assigned at birth.

               This tendency traces back to society’s views of the sexes and how they should behave, resulting in the training of gender into children. Judith Butler explores this subject in greater detail in her book Gender Trouble, a main takeaway of which is that gender should be viewed entirely as a social construct. However, this construct has absorbed many other aspects of our culture, down to colors and other inanimate objects. While working in the paint department I’ve repeatedly heard fathers tell their sons they could not paint their rooms purple or pink, but at the same time, I’ve never heard anyone tell their daughter they could not paint their room blue.

                 Telling boys they can’t do things because it’s a “girl thing” or something that “boys don’t do” is alarmingly common in our society. The same thing is hardly ever said to girls attempting traditionally masculine activities. In recent years especially, there has been significantly more effort invested in encouraging young women to pursue whatever strikes their fancy. This has resulted in an attitude that women can have masculine pursuits, but men cannot have feminine pursuits without incurring deep shame. While the distinction between masculine and feminine is as arbitrary a distinction as that between male and female, this tendency is still telling of the inevitable hierarchy that arises between distinct things.

               I have been extremely privileged in that I am fairly masculine. While biology and inconsistency have made it impossible for me to actually pass as male, I have been able to engage in any activity I choose, from basketball to dance. I know I would’ve had more advantages had I been assigned male at birth, but at the same time, I would be unable to pursue dance or dye my hair, especially to the extent I would’ve wanted in the home I grew up in. This general attitude shows that society has accepted masculinity (or things associated with men) even when women do it, and find femininity merely excusable in women and downright unacceptable in men.

               It is for this reason that lesbians are sexualized and gay men are stigmatized. I can speak from personal experience that straight men were a lot more comfortable with me when they thought I was a lesbian (without bothering to ask if I was, naturally), than when they found out my sexuality extended to their gender. I think part of this disarmament was due to my fairly masculine appearance. When I was a kid I was often called a tomboy, and although I still wore dresses and lots of floral, I also rocked baggy jeans and flannel, which earned me the title of “butch” when I came out. While more attention was paid to the masculine clothes I wore, wearing more traditionally feminine clothes was still an option.

               This realization hit me hardest when I meant to go to Denver Pride this last summer. I ended up not going, mostly because I had just gotten off a long flight, but also because I wanted to go dressed in full drag and hadn’t realized how unassuming (and hot) it would be until I actually started looking for things to wear. Not only did I usually wear clothing that could be considered masculine, but I realize seeing someone who presents as feminine dress as male isn’t really scandalous and didn’t feel (at least to me) worthy of Pride. On the other hand, a person who presents as masculine dressed as female gets all kinds of reactions, mostly negative outside of Pride, and is considered abnormal.

               To me, this means that it is okay to want to be a man (hell, Freud did a whole bit on it), but not okay to want to be a woman. By spurning things typically associated with women, society is still spurning women. I’ve focused mostly on appearance, since gender presentation has been a large part of my experience, but this issue goes beyond fashion or color or physical characteristics. Since our culture has gendered personality traits, things like aggression, confidence, repression of emotions, authoritativeness, and opinionated views are all considered positive. I have known plenty of women who are capable of any (or all) of these, and often with an intensity to rival their male counterparts. These women have been rewarded accordingly, but people who possess traits that were unfortunate enough not to be designated as masculine are considered “weak.”

               These weak, feminine traits include passivity, caution, emotionality, obedience, and indecisiveness, none of which have any significant disadvantages in moderation, much like the masculine-identified traits, but they are considered lesser by our society. In fact, the way we react with others is judged so closely and affects so much that I used to think the world was make for extroverts and me and my fellow introverts would have to become writers or dancers or other professions that don’t involve talking. But it has become increasingly clear to me that it is not merely an outgoing or friendly personality that is valued, it is the perceived strength of these masculine traits over the feminine that still holds more value in our society.

               At the same time, I do not think that things traditionally labeled feminine should be held above the traditionally masculine. As with all things, I think balance and equality is key, but true equality cannot be obtained until we liberate things associated with women, not just women themselves. Ideally this would occur through a release of the concept of the gender binary, as the need to label the world often leads to hierarchies that hurt everybody.

[megaphonemonday]

why do the yankees always win? - ch. 4

chapter summary: Mike and Ginny keep getting to know each other

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | read it on ao3

Somehow, by some act of providence or luck or the fact that one of the Kardashians is in town, Ginny and Mike manage to make it into the Omni without running into any of the fine members of the press corps.

Which is great. Because if she’d noticed a paparazzi, she would have had to untangle herself from Mike, and Ginny has no intention of that happening in the near future. His hand rests low on her back and she’s wedged firmly against his side. Every part of her that touches him buzzes with electric awareness. Awareness and anticipation.

Ginny knows exactly what she’s doing when she leads Mike over to the bank of elevators off the lobby. She knows what she’s doing when she remains pressed against her side all the way up to her floor. She knows what she’s doing when they make the short walk to her door. She even knows what she’s doing when she stops just inside her room with her back to the wall and smiles up at him.

(She knows that Blip’s right—she needs to get some—and Mike Lawson is the most tantalizing prospect she’s met in a while. A long while.

More than that, though, Ginny knows that she likes Mike. Likes that he’s too smooth for his own good and even that she knows next to nothing about him. How he’d managed to deflect so many of her questions so gracefully, she didn’t know, but that doesn’t matter because she’s not going to stop asking.)

Her smile is mirrored on Mike’s face as he steps into her space and sandwiches her between the wall and his broad chest.

And being pressed up against that chest? Ginny knows Mike’s professed disdain of exercise is bullshit. There’s no way the man doesn’t work out, not when he’s so solid and firm against her.

But then, Mike’s kissing her again and it doesn’t really matter what Ginny does or doesn’t know.

Aside from the fact that she wants him, of course.  

As her hand slides against his neck and his find her waist, that want flares dangerously close to need. She’s never felt like this before, never burned to have someone near her.

It’s just Mike.

So, when he pulls away, just a fraction of an inch, she tries to follow. But she catches sight of him and sees that need echoed in his eyes.  

Taking him by the hand, she leads him to her bed and stops thinking about things quite so much.

Later, when the sky is still dark but they haven’t fallen asleep, Ginny traces abstract patterns across Mike’s bare chest. His arm lays snug around her waist and every time she’s so much as twitched away, that arm has tightened its grip. Yet she’s the one who was teased for being a cuddler.

“Why do I have to be so goddamn irresistible?” he’d chuckled hoarsely when Ginny slid back into bed covered only in Mike’s sinfully soft flannel and fitted herself at his side. She rolled her eyes but didn’t dispute it. Having spent the last few hours under, over, and wrapped up in Mike Lawson, Ginny could admit that the man had a point.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Ginny murmurs into the dark.

There’s a rustle, like he’s shifting to peer at the top of her head. His chest expands, taking her hand with it, and falls in one long exhale. Ginny tilts her head back and even through the shadows, looks straight into his eyes.

“What do you want to know?” he finally asks, a little gruffer than Ginny was expecting.

“Anything,” comes out of her mouth faster than she’d like, but it’s the truth. She wants to know anything about this man who’d made her come apart again and again and still promised more. Anything that he’ll give her.

His hand splays wide on her hip and the pressure begins to kindle flames low in Ginny’s stomach again. She ignores it and rolls a bit so she can prop her chin on Mike’s chest and stare him down until he gives her an answer. His hand slides to the small of her back as she moves, and the kindling smolders anyway.

Mike chuckles a bit at her imperious gaze and gives in. “I had a dog named Jedi.”

“As a kid?”

“No,” he laughs again. “Always wanted one as a kid, though. So once I was on my own, I got one and named him what I’d always wanted to.”

Ginny hums and smiles. “I always wanted a dog, too.”

“Yeah?” he prompts when she falls quiet, fingers tapping rhythmically on her back.

“Yeah. But by the time I was old enough to take care of one, I was playing ball year round, on three different teams. My pop said I didn’t have to time to look after a dog, not when I had to practice so much.”

“That why you never learned to drive? Too much time practicing?”

Ginny’s jaw works for a moment and Mike’s hand smooths up her spine.

“Partly,” she admits. Maybe if it weren’t after midnight and the only light in the room wasn’t filtered through gauzy curtains, Ginny wouldn’t be saying this. Maybe she wouldn’t say it if she weren’t wrapped up in his arms and his shirt. But there are things that are easier to say in the dark. “My dad drove me everywhere all through high school. His way of making sure I was going to practice. It would’ve been hard for him to give up that control.”

Ginny’s not sure what she wants him to say to that. She doesn’t want to hear criticism of her father, even if she knows he maybe deserves it. She doesn’t want to hear the pity that always surfaces when people realize they’ve gotten too close to dead dad territory.

Maybe Mike understands because he says, “Well, you’re learning, now.”

“And if all my lessons end like this, I might just keep on learning,” she grins, hitching a leg over his and rolling her hips. Enough talking. It’s not so late and Ginny doesn’t have anywhere to be until the afternoon.

If Mike’s growl is any hint, Ginny’s pretty sure he has no objections.

Over the course of the summer, Mike continues to give her driving lessons. Starting out once week or two, and quickly becoming more frequent, they fall into an easy rhythm dictated by Ginny’s travel schedule and Mike’s shifts at the dealership. She’ll probably never race stock cars or anything, but she’ll do well enough to pass the DMV’s exam. With enough practice and tutoring.

The lessons don’t all end the way that first one did, but plenty of them do. Just as many end with her on his couch, balancing take out containers on her knees, watching reruns of Parks and Rec, and reveling in the utter normalcy of it all.

For once, Ginny feels like a regular girl her age, even if most girls her age probably aren’t befriending their local, smooth-talking luxury car salesman.

Mike had initially been reluctant to let her come over to his place, saying the Omni was much nicer and offered room service to boot. Ginny’d had the momentary fear that he was married with kids and trying to keep her or them a secret. He didn’t have a ring tan the way so many cheating men did, but that didn’t mean a lot.

Thankfully, he set her straight pretty quickly.

“It’s just a shitty apartment, Baker,” he’d explained sheepishly as he let her in the first time. He dropped his keys in a dish by the door and scrubbed at the back of his neck as he eyed his apartment critically. “Don’t you hang out with millionaires on a regular basis? This cannot be that exciting.”

Ginny took in the loft silently. A definite bachelor pad, all concrete and glass minimalism. Certainly not what Ginny would call a shitty apartment, not when she thinks about the places she lived in back in Texas. More importantly, no place to hide a wife or kids. Self-consciousness she could deal with. Infidelity’s a different story.

Nodding, she turned back to Mike, who was watching her intently.

“Just because I play with a bunch of guys who make more in a season than I’ve ever seen in my life, doesn’t mean that’s what I’m used to or even want.”

His mouth quirked up and his gaze turned a little heated. It didn’t not turn her insides to jelly. “And what do you want, rookie?”

In spite of the fact that Ginny’d never said a word about Mike’s pet name for her, she knew that he realized what it did to her. Made her knees weak and mouth water in a way that would be a problem if the name inspired the same reaction out of anyone else’s mouth. It didn’t. It was just Mike.

That was getting to be a theme in her life.

“Right now,” she said, rather than risk coming on too strong, “I want you to show me the stash of video games I know you’re hiding. It’s been way too long since I played with anyone over the age of seven.”

In spite of Mike’s disappointing collection of video games, Ginny finds herself spending most of her free time with him.

Much as she loves Blip and Evelyn and the boys, they’re a family. And Ginny might be the fun aunt, but there’s only so much time that she can spend with them before feeling like a fifth wheel. Will’s back in North Carolina and Cara can’t keep walking out on jobs all the time. And most of the Padres are still a little leery of her. Nothing like they’d been at the beginning, but not quite welcoming, either. Mike’s a good alternative.

The fact that he feels less and less like a backup plan is something Ginny carefully doesn’t think about. The fact that she wants to spend all her time with him, even when they’re not having sex, is even more off limits.

Because they’re not dating.

Not only does Ginny not have time for dating or an actual boyfriend, Mike has not once asked her on anything that could be considered a real date. And Mike is old enough that Ginny figures he buys into the whole, old school dating scene. Flowers and dinner and movies at real movie theaters. Not just Ken Burns marathons on his couch because he’d been scandalized that she’d never seen the baseball documentary.

He’s her friend. Who’s teaching her how to drive and sleeps with her on a regular basis.

He’s not a booty call or a fuck buddy since most of the time when they end up in bed, it’s because they’ve spent the day together and the casual touches and intimacy builds up until it just makes sense to get naked together. Like it’s just some inevitability.

Ginny really doesn’t want to question it. She likes what she has with Mike too much to risk losing it all. It’s nice to have someone to lean on. Someone that she doesn’t pay (outside of the commission he must have earned on Amelia’s car) and who mostly doesn’t seem to care about baseball. Someone who’s got his own life but makes time for her because he likes her too, not because he wants something from her.

He understands her schedule and doesn’t ask her for anything that she’s not more than willing to give. Even with all the pressure of her rookie season and the deal with Nike, this not-quite relationship is her only source of relief. Her one time to unwind and preempt any freak outs like the one at her signing party.

If forced to name it, she’d call them friends with benefits. Emphasis on the friends. But the benefits...

They are excellent.

But having a friend who’s just hers? Who’s as eager for a real connection as she is? It’s almost better.

Mike tells her about how he moved around a lot as a kid, his mom following dead end job prospects and his dad making only the briefest of appearances. She tells him about sneaking out of the house to get her ears pierced. He starts picking up video games that Ginny never got a chance to try as a kid and she’ll bring over movies she remembers the girls in her classes talking about. It’s easy and light and fun and everything that her rookie season isn’t.

Is it any wonder that she starts spending almost all her free time with him?

Amelia hates it. Well, she worries, which is basically the same thing for her.

“I’m just looking out for you, G,” she always says before trying to talk Ginny out of her new friendship. Currently, she’s opposed to Ginny’s latest driving lesson.

Mike’s finally agreed to set her loose on actual streets, convinced that she won’t prove too big a menace to public safety. It’s been weeks since that first driving lesson and Ginny hasn’t once accidentally put the car in reverse. Probably a good thing to learn that lesson early.

“I know, Amelia,” Ginny replies, working up a reassuring smile for her agent. “But I want to learn and Mike wants to teach me. Besides, nothing’s been leaked to the press so far, so I think we’re probably safe on that front.”

Amelia just frowns. Ginny wants to roll her eyes, but checks the urge. She can tell her agent that Mike wouldn’t do that until she’s blue in the face and it won’t matter. Amelia trusts the concrete. Luckily, the concrete proves that Mike hasn’t sold her out.

So, Amelia really doesn’t have much room to protest.

Which is why Ginny gets to drive off with Mike for another lesson and not worry about Amelia’s reservations.

She’s easing the big SUV down a quiet street, soft, indistinct chatter from the radio filling the car, when Mike snorts. Because she doesn’t think she’s done anything to earn that kind of reaction, Ginny chances a glance at him and he’s shaking his head.

“What?” she demands, returning her attention to the road.

From the corner of her eye, she sees him wave vaguely at the radio. “They’re talking about how fast Duarte’s gonna get called up. Apparently, he’s tearing up AAA.”

Ginny’s heard. The clubhouse has been abuzz with speculation about the Cuban sensation since Oscar signed him over the All Star Break. She hadn’t realized that Mike was paying attention, though. And given the disdain in his voice, Mike’s definitely been paying attention.

“Tell me what you really think,” she teases as she hunches over the steering wheel to peer out into the intersection before making her turn. Ginny doesn’t need to look at Mike to know that he’s grinning at her over-cautious driving. The first time she smacked her forehead against the windshield, he’d burst into gales of laughter and Ginny pouted for the rest of her lesson. Of course, Mike made up for the indignity afterwards as Ginny sprawled on the deep, plushy couch in his apartment. The memory of his reckless grin before it disappeared in the juncture of her thighs still makes Ginny feel warm all over. She can hardly sit on that couch without needing to rub her thighs together.

“What’s it matter what I think?” he asks, flicking the radio off.

“I wanna know,” she responds, easy as that.

Mike swallows and considers. Ginny keeps her eyes on the road. Mike hasn’t really had anything to say about baseball, though she knows he keeps somewhat up to date. He always knows when she’s had a bad game, at least. She’s interested to find out what unplumbed depths he’s been hiding. “Kid knows how to play. Seems like a dick though.”

She nods, though a wry smile twists up in her mouth. “Pretty spot on, from what I’ve heard, old man.”

“Don’t let him hog the spotlight,” he warns. “He’s talented, but you’re the real deal.”

Ginny pulls up to a stop sign and turns to face Mike. He stares stubbornly forward, so Ginny makes sure to sing song, “I’m the real deal, huh?” as well as delighted grin.

Underneath his scruff, Mike flushes a dull red and Ginny thrills. It’s not often that she gets under his skin. That definitely seems to be more of his specialty. He gives her a sidelong look and rolls his eyes at the glee he must find. He turns in his seat to face her head on, takes a deep breath, and says, “Yeah, rookie. I’ve never met someone like you. Someone who’s taken on what you have to and still comes out on top. You blow me away.”

She stares. Stares and stares as her heart thumps noisily in her chest. Mike shifts uncertainly and Ginny tears her gaze away. She fumbles the car into park, whirls back on Mike, and exclaims, “How do you expect me to drive after that?”

His uncertainty morphs into smug delight. “What’re you saying, Gin? Is it gonna be too hard to keep your hands off me? That all it takes to get in your pants, a few nice words?”

She thumps him in the shoulder and rolls her eyes but doesn’t dispute it. At least, that’s all it takes for Mike to get in her pants.

Mike takes the hint and gets out of the car so he can drive them back home.

Watching him navigate the side streets, profile gilded by the setting sun, Ginny thinks that she could get used to this.