#and also the blue horse was such as pretty blue and was like paint scraped off a little | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cheri-translates · 3 years ago

Text

[CN] Gavin’s MQ: Moon Beyond the Curtain (Ch 3)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a Mind’s Quest, 帘外月胧明, which has not been released in EN! 🍒

🌕 Ch 2: here

[ Chapter Three ]

I return to my tent with an ice-cold fury. However, my anger dissipates abruptly when I see the sea buckthorn blossoms on the table.

Back in Hongwen Academy, Gavin and I often shared lofty ambitions, thinking about lands beyond the capital.

Although sea buckthorn blossoms were only a coarse smatter of red on paintings from Mobei, I’ve looked forward to seeing them for a very long time.

[ FLASHBACK BEGINS ]

Three years ago.

Clutching a book of paintings, I’m filled with curiosity as I show Gavin the sea buckthorn blossoms on the page.

MC: I heard that Mobei is bitterly cold, and grass can’t grow there. I wonder why these flowers can survive.

Gavin: They emerge from barren soil, grow in harsh winter, and probably rely completely on their natural tenacity.

Gavin sits on the porch of Hongwen Academy, lowering his eyes as he looks at the book of paintings in my hands.

Gavin: If you want to see them, I’ll find some sprouts when I head to the Mobei Army and bring them back for you.

I lift my head. Gavin’s words send my emotions soaring off to the flourishing lands beyond the capital.

MC: Aside from sea buckthorn blossoms, I’d also like to drink Mobei’s lychee wine and see the view of its mountains and rivers! When you go there, don’t forget to bring wine and paintings back for me.

My figure is reflected in his certain eyes.

Gavin: I won’t forget.

[ FLASHBACK ENDS ]

The images in my mind are so fresh that it feels as though it happened just yesterday. The sea buckthorn blossoms sway in the evening breeze, as though brushing the years that couldn’t be persuaded to stay.

I reach out to touch the petals sentimentally. Despite how soft they are, they grow tenaciously in this barren land.

Perhaps I should talk to Gavin. However, a gloominess lingers on my heart, and my gaze returns to the sea buckthorn blossoms.

MC: Since I’m in Mobei, I might as well check them out.

On my journey to Mobei, I had passed by a dune with huge clusters of sea buckthorn blossoms, and it seemed pretty close to the military barracks.

I’ll use this chance to make sense of my emotions.

With this thought in mind, I get up and head out of the tent, then lead a horse out of the stable. Before I can reach the entrance, someone grabs my hand.

His finger pads are rough, and the thick calluses that emerged from wielding swords in countless battles can be felt through my clothes. Even without turning my head, I know who he is.

MC: Your Highness, is something wrong?

The person behind me doesn’t say anything, and simply takes the reins in my hands.

Gavin: Horses from Mobei have a fierce temper. You’ve already scraped your hands over the past few days. If you continue gripping the reins, it’d leave scars.

I open my mouth, wanting to say something. However, I’m suddenly lifted up, and my vision whirls. By the time I come to my senses, I discover that I’ve been carried up the back of the horse.

MC: Your Highness, this won’t do!

I quickly stop him, afraid that someone would see this intimate gesture. However, Gavin holds me tightly. I can feel his rapid heartbeat across his armour.

He remains silent, and simply tightens his grip on the horse as we rush out of the military barracks. Amid the rustling wind, I hear his response.

Gavin: Don’t you want to see the sea buckthorn blossoms? I’ll take you there.

Gavin: This is Red Moon Hill.

Gavin dismounts from the horse, then offers his hand to me. After hesitating for a moment, I support myself on his hand and leap off the horse.

Under the boundless blue dome of heaven, the icy moon illuminates fiery red petals, which are thousands of times more stunning than the paintingsI saw in the past.

The surroundings are completely quiet, and not even the digging sounds of commonly seen gerbils can be heard. Gavin sits on a sand dune, then uses his eyes to beckon me to sit as well.

MC: This isn’t appropriate...

Gavin: I’m the chief commander of the Yanzhou Army. Since you’re in Yanzhou, you have to listen to me.

He interrupts, casting a glance at me.

Not expecting Gavin to frighten me with a military order, I remain hesitant in my spot. In the end, I move over tentatively, maintaining half an inch of distance between us.

MC: This place is... really quiet.

Gavin: It’s quiet because the flames of war from two years ago burnt everything down.

I lift my head in shock, looking at Gavin. Pale moonlight envelops his face, reminiscent of ash from the flames of hell.

MC: This was... the battleground of the Battle at Yumen?

Gavin: It isn’t as obvious now. Back then, this area was still occupied by the Rong Tribe. After a bloody battle with the Yanzhou Army that lasted three days, the crooked blades of the Rong Tribe were never allowed an inch into Yumen. Fifty thousand soldiers were born in Dayu. After they died, they ought to be buried in the land of Dayu as well.

The evening breeze brushes my face. I stare at the clusters of flowers which are icy yet ardent. They are reminiscent of brilliant and blooming flames, soaked in blood and yet illuminating the entire land.

I’ve read through every single military report, and am aware of every detail concerning the Battle at Yumen, and every person who died.

Through Gavin’s voice, the names on the military reports are given flesh and bone, giving me a completely different perspective than when I had simply read about them.

At this moment, I seem to gain a semblance of why Gavin brought me here in person. I look at him, his thick armour, and his lonely gaze.

I’ve read dossiers from the Imperial Censor Archives concerning the Yanzhou Army, and am aware that there’s a deep-seated grudge beneath this armour.

It turns out that aside from leaving him with old injuries that can’t be healed, the battle had also left a fire burning in the depths of his heart for two years.

An icy wind whimpers, reminiscent of a lament, and also reminiscent of a tune sung by soldiers who yearn for home. While listening with rapt attention, I sing it softly.

MC: “The spring takes its time, and the flowers and trees are lush. The orioles chirp, and women gather wormwood. Prisoners are seized for interrogations, but they return happily. The north is majestic, and the people are safe.”

[Trivia] This is a poem about the hardships of war.

Hearing the tune, Gavin freezes momentarily. Tender starlight seems to fall into the depths of his eyes. He looks at me, his voice as soft as a gentle breeze.

Gavin: “The country is in shambles, and there’s no time to be an idle guest. Do you not think I yearn for home? I’m afraid there’s an urgent military order.” We learnt about this poem detailing one’s longing for home in Hongwen Academy.

Suppressing the ache in my chest, I gaze at the clusters of sea buckthorn blossoms.

MC: Your Highness, the burial mounds of the fifty thousand are in Yumen. They’ve already returned home, and there is no need for you to remain troubled. You’ve personally experienced the Battle at Yumen, but what happened along the frontline isn’t everything that happened during the battle. Would Your Highness wish to listen to what I heard?

A light flashes in Gavin’s eyes. He looks at me with extreme seriousness, as though wanting to learn everything about the past three years from my eyes.

MC: Although I was still in Hongwen Academy, I’d read the military reports thanks to a schoolmate from the Ministry of War. Back then, the entire army was annihilated, and only Your Highness remained alive. The reason why Your Highness didn’t die during the siege was because the peace party sought for reinforcements. You were in a coma for days...

Talking about this evokes lingering fear within me. Back then, an arrow from the Commander of the enemy army shot Gavin in the heart. When he returned to Yanzhou, he was in a precarious state.

After steadying my quivering voice, I continue.

MC: ...the reason why the Emperor is pressurising the army is because he intends to expend the Rong Tribe through Yumen, then deploy troops from the southwest to strike while the enemy is unprepared. He isn’t completely indifferent about your life. He simply has a long-term perspective. I’m deeply aware that in the eyes of the imperial household, every life in the Yanzhou Army can be exchanged for land at the border. However, lives shouldn’t be inserted into plans this easily. There are many people who admire your strength of character, and strive towards the Yanzhou Army. The effort put in by the imperial household will be futile if you aren’t safe.

After hearing this, Gavin’s gaze seems to be akin to the gentlest wind in Mobei, lingering on my face.

Gavin: I know about these things. I can understand that you’re trying to advise me against it, but this battle is a necessity. There’s only one thing that I can promise you.

At some point, an ashen fog appears. His tone is as determined as a boulder, and his words pelt into the air.

Gavin: Even if I’m left with one breath, I’ll return alive. When that time comes, there’s an answer I’d like to hear from you.

My heart stirs slightly while I gaze at the persistent light in his eyes.

Gavin: Back at Hongwen Academy, you were clearly striving towards freedom, and you wanted to explore the mountains and rivers instead of being stuck in a cage. Why did you end up becoming a court official?

His words stir up great billows in my heart. I recall how I had once told Gavin that I’d someday see all the rivers and mountains with my own eyes.

If it weren’t for the Yumen War and that imperial edict, perhaps I might have been able to meet him freely today.

Vast deserts, long rivers, armies and iron-clad horses - as long as I’m able to stay by his side, I can go anywhere.

All of a sudden, I feel like telling him everything without a care in the world. However, we’re no longer the same versions of ourselves at the Hongwen Academy back then.

I simply bite my lip, not allowing any signs of weakness to seep out. Noting my hesitation, Gavin changes the topic.

Gavin: Three years ago, the Rong Tribe killed the senior general at the garrison post and succeeded in its invasion. There weren’t any generals available in the imperial court, and I volunteered to lead the troops and rushed to the border. Do you still remember how you gave me a farewell dinner on my last night in Hongwen Academy?

MC: ...I remember.

I admit softly. Gavin suddenly draws closer to me. Taken aback, I instinctively shirk backwards. However, he grabs my wrist.

Our eyes meet. He reaches out to tuck windswept strands of hair behind my ear, and his extremely soft voice lands on my ears.

Gavin: That night, I made a vow to myself. I’ll tell you what it is when I return. But I wish to hear your answer, and you have to let me know what it is.

He removes the wineskin at his waist and gives it to me. While initially planning to brush him off, the scorching blaze in his eyes compels me to accept the wineskin. I nod solemnly.

MC: I promise.

Grey clouds shroud the moonlight. The vanguard has already gathered at the front of the barracks, looking at Gavin resolutely.

Gavin downs a pre-battle cup of wine, then tosses it onto the ground roughly. The cup shatters into countless fragments, accompanying his voice.

Gavin: It’s been three years since the bloody battle began, and the number of dead and injured in the Yanzhou Army are innumerable. The ocean of blood is filled with deep vengeance, and it will end today.

I’m standing on the lookout tower, watching as Gavin lifts his head to glance at me, his gaze as bright as day.

With a metallic clang, he brandishes the sword at his waist, pointing it towards the faraway darkness.

Gavin: Our triumphant return will mark the day Dayu never engages in warfare again.

Soldiers: Kill!!

Under the concealment of night, those cloaked in dark amour set out to a distant place. I grip the fence tightly, sending them off with my eyes till they vanish into the night.

🌕 Ch 4: here

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc gavin

62 notes · View notes

cloviaglade · 4 years ago

Text

THE CRIMSON FLOWER ROUTE CORPORATE UNION AU

Yeah it came to me in a dream shared it with a friend and she said I should inflict it on the world so here we go

Warning: It's super long but I broke it up into chunks

(note not all members of the house fall into the categories listed also I'm not the best with corporate terms and positions. Also this was made for fun and isn't that serious)

The houses

The Black eagles generally were in accounting or sales. They dealt with a lot of the customers firsthand and were considered expendable

Blue lions where mostly in HR or IT

Golden deer mostly worked in maintenance and public relations.

Staff and church members are members of the board. Flayn has her position on the board despite her age because nepotism

The Seiros Co:

It's a large company that provide a large array of services and products that promote physical and emotional well-being. The company started out with good intentions but soon became a corporate monster

The company provides a host of benefits to its employees including on site housing, on site restraunts, on site pools gyms ect. They even have the best insurance on the planet. They even have horse therapy.

However they have to pay premiums on the health insurance, their rent is docted from their pay, they have to pay for on-site facilities, and those living on site are heavily encouraged to work overtime.

a lot of this is justified by cover every single health expense and days of for minor colds. Many employees seek mental health care more often than they seek physical care.

The on site living conditions vary heavily. Most are just a small white room with a single bed and a dresser. No visitors after certain hours and forget about outside visitors. However rumors are spreading that the board members have spacious luxury apartments.

The pay without all the benefits is not a wage you could live off of. But with the rent for these rooms doct from your pay you couldn't reasonably save up for different arrangements.

The strike begins:

Edelguard was finally fed up watching her team struggling. She hears constantly about how her workers are not making enough. How they have to scrape because they needed new clothes or shoes. Or worse how Petra wasn't able to support her sick grandfather

She hired a lawyer Hubert to look into information about their contracts and compare everything to labor laws. She needed to know how much of this was legal and if there was anything to be done about it.

Huberts lawfirm dealt with several lawsuits in the past. They are considered ruthless in court however media painted them out to be money hungry and demented

As expected, it was legal (mostly due to lack of regulation for these types of benefits) but really unfair, So Hubert suggested a strike. His firm would handle all the legal matters as they prepared a lawsuit and to unionize.

Edelguard was careful to organize it in private. Nothing was emailed. Nothing to tract them. Flyers were handwritten and posted in the dorms inviting members to secret meeting on slow hours.

Roles

What everyone did on the day of the strike/position they were in the office.

Black eagles

Edalguard: head of sales- she got everyone in her department and many others in different departments to simply stop working for the day when she commanded everyone to stop working via megaphone. She suck in hubert and went to a private meeting room to set up a list of demands.

Hubert: head of Vestra lawfirm- he snuck past security with the help of Edelguard. He brought a laptop and a phone with Hotspot so he could video call the rest of his attorneys from inside the conference room. Once the strike was in full swing he toured the place with Edelguard gathering evidence.

Ferdinand: senior sale manager has the highest customer satisfaction - when the strike was well underway he sent a mass email to everyone in every department including the CEO and founder herself in a very professional tone about how there is a strike. Lornez replied immediately and they when to the breakroom to enjoy tea while on the clock.

Lindhart: IT software specialist - first thing he did was turn off all the bans on websites. Everyone could go on whatever website they wanted to. He left the download blocker up and other safety precautions in place. Others could looks at memes and scroll through social media ect. He then returns to his dorm and takes a paid nap.

Caspar: manager in accounting slow but very accurate and a real team player - he hated the no pets policy with a burning passion so he let all the stray and feral cats that hang around the building in through one of the side doors. They stayed mostly on the ground floor and a few made a mess under the desks. He played with the strays with a few of his co-workers.

Bernadette: customer service rep. - she hated the calls filled with angry people. She clocked out, disconnected he phone, ran into her dorm and screamed into her pillow until calm. Once she calmed down enough she did some embroidery.

Dorothea: sales representative- has the highest upsale rate - she gets into her car and just leaves. She is still clocked in. Nobody knows where she went. Some say she met with a lover, others say she went on a binge. Nobody really knows.

Petra: bilingual sales rep. - she signed her phone off and immediately called up her family overseas. She proceeded to catch up and talk with her family for hours. She rarely got to speak with them due to the difference in timezones.

Blue lions

Dimitri: head of IT - he doesn't actually know much about IT and has little intrest in it. He got the job because his dad recommended him. With the outside website ban lifted and the lost of control of his department he frantically tried to get everything under control

Dedue: cyber security and protocol educator - although the bans are lifted he is still concerned about a cyber attack. He is frantically try to restore the ban but it seems like lindhart deleted the code.

Felix: hardware specialists - he was the one who should've been promoted into Dimitri's position and is a bit smug about how everything is falling apart in front of his boss. He bypasses the download blocker and plays minecraft on the company computer. Dimitri is too busy to notice that felix isn't helping.

Sylvain: HR rep. - he knew from the start that working conditions were shit. He was tired of trying to raise moral by doing everything but paying the employees more, giving them time off, and reasonable working hours. He went to the break room where Ferdinand and Lornez were having tea and ate a bunch of the snacks the company was reselling at super high prices then faxed a picture of his ass and balls to rhea herself as a letter of resignation.

Ashe: new hire in IT - was called down to the first floor to replace a keyboard a cat peed on. Found caspar was the reason the cats were let in. Caspar then persuaded him to play with the cats instead of shooing them out. 3 hours later he completely forgot about the strike and clocked out per usual. He completely forgot about the strike

Mercedes: head of HR - she meets with the board and discussed what to do about the strikers. They can't force them to go home since everyone striking lives on site and has every right to be there. No significant damages is being done to property. The only loss is from those not working (and a keyboard covered in cat piss and $35 worth of snacks) Mercedes is forced to find a way to get them to stop but in a way that doesn't really change anything. She leaves the meeting when it is over clocks out and returns to her modest house she calls out sick for the next couple of months.

Annette: HR rep - she tries to stop the chaos on the floor and to convince everyone to return to work. She is ignored. She wanted to ask for a megaphone to help gain attention but edelguard took the one from HR and the person with the key to one in the event closet is striking as well. She runs around in a paint trying to answer emails and settle everyone down.

Ingrid: IT helpline rep - helping Dimitri reset the ban on outside websites is above her pay grade. She at least know some of the terminology and the basics. She manages to set up a very basic blocker but it didn't block whole domains just the homepage of every website she could think of that's wasn't appropriate for work. Logging into the site allowed you to bypass the block. Ingrid feels like she will be fired for not being able to do more

Golden deer:

Claude: event planner - noticing that there was no work happening he finally decided it was time to actually do his job. He dipped into those sweet event funds and ordered as many pizza's as he could from every pizza join that could deliver. He busted out the sport balls and got employees to clear some room for flag football on the 3rd floor. He got Hilda to organize games of hide and go seek in floors 4 and 5. All games and activities were not officially approved but followed all guidelines.

Hilda: claudes assistant - organized games on the 4th and 5th floors. The cubicle although uniform made excellent hiding spaces and the food plaza just got rid of the old tables and chairs awaiting delivery of new ones so there was a ton of space to run around. Hidia had to jump between floors pretty often which was a workout all on its own but it was worth it to see everyone smile at work for once.

Lornez: head of advertising - he was tired of writing jingles and stupid commercials for the company. He wasn't aware of the strike until he got the email from Ferdinand. He offered to treat him to some tea he brought from home. They had a lovely talk and watched Sylvain stress eat. He tried to talk Sylvain out of resigning but failed.

Raphael: pizza delivery guy - he thought it was a joke at first since they never delivered pizza to the Serios Co but was persuaded by Claude. He got stopped at the front by the front desk clerk who was ordered not to allow any deliveries. Soon more pizza guys showed up and some of them where not as nice as Raphael. He eventually got in and successfully delivered his pizza.

Ignatz: accountant - he wanted no part of this and tried to work despite being on the 3rd floor. He doesn't have any PTO and is frantically trying to get his absence approved because he cannot work under these conditions. He got walled in with desks and chairs and hand to crawl his way out to try to find someone in HR to help him but found their office empty. Worst day of work ever.

Lysithia: Intern- hopes to join the advertising department - She needs this job for school credits so finding out that her boss told her to take the day off because of strike she immediately thought of her record. Lorenz assured her that she would get credit as long as he had any say in it. She played a round of hide and go seek before studying in Lornez's office

Marianne: customer service rep.- she heard the rumors and on the day of the strike she freaked out and when to have a panic attack in her car. She was on lunch technically but she took a 3 hour lunch. She came back in clocked out and decided to try that horse therapy.

Leonnie: pizza delivery guy (not nice) - she knows the customer didn't care that the order took so long to complete and was very understanding that the 30mins or less delivery time but seriously! 50 PIZZAS!! She had to stretch and press dough at top speed for like 45 mins then she burnt her hand while boxing some of the pizza's and she had to deliver all of it to this company just outside of town and now the person at the front door is insisting that the pizza was ordered by mistake oh no! Not today! You will take the pizza and you will pay for it and tip 25%.

Church

Rhea: CEO and founder - she honestly believes her practices are helping the community. She doesn't realize that she doesn't give her employees much choice. She thinks her employees are ungrateful.

Seteth: president - also believes the company is doing the best they can. He knows the dorms are small and brand but they house 78.364% of their employees and they all see a doctor at least 3 times a month. He hates that he has difficulty finding a balance between competitive prices, compensating workers, and turning a profit.

Flayn: secretary - she saw the fun going on in the 5th floor while on her lunch and thought it was organized by staff and didn't connect it as part of the strike.

Catherine: front desk - tried to turn away all the delivery drivers but more kept coming. She kept getting calls from upper management about the social media platforms and tried frantically to get in to make a statement but had little luck. She gave up when Leonnie demanded payment and let all the delivery people in.

Shamir: social media manager- she originally attended the meetings as a mole but soon learned that her fellow employees hardships. She drafted huge posts on every platform exposing the truth, changed all the passwords then took a vacation during the strike.

Hanneman: chief operational officer - he is calling and emailing the IT department about the bans every moment he can. He organized the meeting as soon as the strikers got rowdy.

Manuela: chief financial officer - although she is worried about the finances she has also been pressing about where to cut the budget first. Horse therapy is ridiculous! They own the whole ranch and are responsible for the upkeep of every horse. And all the horses are carefully hand selected and trained too. It's too much nobody uses the horse therapy because nobody has the time off to go to horse therapy!

Alois: Chairman - his title is mostly empty. He joined the strikers in a game of flag football scored a touchdown. Then went back to work as usual. Didn't check his emails about the strike since he only checks them in the morning when he first comes into work.

Gilbert: treasurer - he puts business first. Doesn't know his daughter works for the same company. Was friends with Dimitri's father. He is stressing about how the company will recover financially. He is the reason for the pay cuts so they can fund most of the benefits.

Cyrill: gopher - he gets paid minimum wage and lives on site. He considers himself lucky that he can drive the company car to go pick up office supplies from the store. He was homeless before he got a job at Seiros and feels like he is important.

Results

Since several members of the board were caught participating in strike activities the hubert and his firm counted them at strikers and used this in court.

The dorms were not considered responsible accommodations saying that prisoners in jail cells at least have their own toilet.

The news when crazy with the posts on social media. The account never replied to any dms or comments. When called they said a rogue employee posted them falsely because she was being fired.

Rhea was forced to pay a lawsuit that gave all dormitory workers an allowance of $1000 for rent for life. Even if they choose to leave the company.

Dimitri was fired for not actually having any training. Felix was promoted to the head of IT and everyone respects him.

Rhea looses her company. And most of her assets. She kept the therapy horse ranch and manages that for a living.

With the entire company now belonging to her since everyone above her resigned she made a ton of changes making the company more normal. She pays a fair livable wage to every employee. She repurposed the dorms into offices or solitary break rooms.

Huberts firm gets rebranded as a honest firm that wants to help the little guys. He later goes on to help other corporations unionize.

21 notes · View notes

katehuntington · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Ride With Me (part nineteen) Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader Word count: ±7500 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family. Summary part nineteen: The Flagstaff Horse Fair is about to kick off, but not without a hitch. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: ‘Fortunate Son’ - Creedence Clearwater Revival, ‘Backwoods Company’ - The Wild Feathers. Follow ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Prepare for cuteness and a bit of angst! Thank you @kittenofdoomage, @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish, @manawhaat and @winchest09 for helping me. I especially want to thank Kay, who has beta’d Ride from the very beginning, but needs to take a break from Tumblr to focus on school. I will miss her dearly, but I’m super thankful that Mana is willing to take over. Also a special thanks to @jules-1999, who has offered me her knowledge about rodeo events like these.

Ride With Me Masterlist

With a black bumper-pull trailer in the rearview mirror, Dean’s beloved ‘67 El Camino rolls up Interstate 17. The windows are down, allowing the wind to wash in, like waves crashing onto the beach on a hot summer day, the cool air welcome and refreshing.

The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan left around three o’clock, the column of three pickups and trailers now heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona. Bobby and Jo lead the company in his powerful Ford with an impressive gooseneck in tow, which currently accommodates five horses. Benny follows in his four by four, with three horses on board another large trailer, facilitated with a small living quarters. Dean is the last wagon of the train, Meadow and one of his calmer geldings in the back, and Y/N beside him in the passenger seat.

The cowgirl is soaking up the scenery, the hills that flow next to the highway, the mountains in the distance, the blue sky above them. The tall saguaros that dominate the landscape at home are swapped for ponderosa pines, dusty desert for green grasslands. The forest is already beginning to change color, autumn painting deciduous trees in shades of yellow and orange. It’s remarkable how different her current surroundings are from the Phoenix area, only two and a half hours south.

With Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival playing on the old cassette deck of the classic car, Dean drums against the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song. He absently hums along, mouthing a few words every now and then. When he glances aside, a small smile forms on his lips. The woman, who managed to calm him after the disturbing news Bobby delivered, is breathtaking without even trying. Loose strands of hair have escaped her ponytail and dance in the playful wind, her maya blue blouse fluttering against her Arizona sun-kissed skin. She looks at the world through her shaded Ray Bans, lost in thought and wonder.

He returns his gaze to the road as he reaches for her, laying his hand on her knee to get her attention, softly rubbing his thumb over the denim. Awoken from her daydream, she glances over, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she lays her hand over his, warmed by the touch.

“Nervous?” he wonders, dropping her hand just long enough to turn down the stereo before he laces their fingers together once again. “A little bit,” she confesses. “Don’t be. You’re gonna do fine,” he reassures. “Besides, your class ain’t till tomorrow.” “I’m not nervous about riding.” The wrangler moves his focus from the asphalt to his girlfriend. “What about then?” She’s quiet for a second. Shy, just like she was the first time they met. “Just… This is your scene. People know you, and I don’t know anyone.” He smirks, lightly. “Concerned about former flings?” The cowgirl shrugs, half admitting her insecurity. “Yankee, you have nothing to worry about. Hey…” He squeezes her hand, glancing over again. “I’m with you, okay?”

A smile breaks through the surface as Y/N glances at the handsome wrangler she gets to call hers, his green eyes making a silent promise. For a guy who claims not to be good with words, he’s doing a pretty great job. She takes a breath when he concentrates on the road again. “So, how are you going to introduce me?” she wonders. “As my girlfriend,” he returns, matter-of-factly, cool confidence sitting on the edge of his mouth. He honestly can’t wait to introduce her as his.

Y/N is unable to hide her contentment, the corners of her mouth creeping up further as she gets lost in the sight of him. There it is again; that tingly feeling, his confirmation breaking down the doubt bit by bit. “What about Bobby?” Y/N checks. “He still doesn’t know.” “Believe me, Bobby will be too busy strikin’ deals and sellin’ horses. He’s not gonna notice us,” Dean states, not concerned about his uncle. “It’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna have a blast, trust me.”

After shooting her that grin she’s loved from day one, he glances past the trucks and trailers in front of them. They drive by a large sign made from stone and wood, that says ‘1882 - Flagstaff, Arizona’, the city up ahead and Humphreys Peak in the backdrop. The caravan turns onto I-40 going west, before taking the exit a couple of miles later.

When they come over the hill, the competition grounds come into view. Flags reach skyward and wave proudly in the Western breeze, the stars and stripes alternating with the state flag of Arizona, the American Reining Horse Association, and many others. There’s the main arena, several training areas, stables, and amusement rides, complete with hundreds of trucks, trailers, and RV campers filling the fairgrounds. Observing the scene, it becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just a local show.

Dean was right, this is the perfect practice run for her and Meadow, but the sight of the large event has her stomach in knots. Right, those lovely performance nerves that never fail to torment her. She hopes she can survive tomorrow and still be able to eat without throwing up, because it wouldn’t be the first time that the highly strung feeling she experiences right before a ride has her physically sick.

The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan enters the show grounds, Bobby following the directions of the parking officer. After a short drive, they park the trailers next to each other on a large field, adding to the rows and rows of pickups, trailers, and even semi trucks with pop out living units. “I’ll check in with the stable manager,” Jo announces when they get out of the cars, heading over to the stable office to check which boxes are assigned to them.

Y/N picks her hat off the seat and pushes it on her head, leaving her shades on the dash now that she doesn’t need them anymore. She opens the hatch of the black trailer behind Dean’s Chevy, peeking inside. Meadow greets her with a slightly nervous neigh, eager to get out now that they’ve stopped moving. Lovingly, her rider pets her nose, trying to calm her a little, but the spirited mare begins to scrape her hoof on the rubber coated floor, nonetheless. “She okay?” Dean asks. “Yeah, she just wants to get off the trailer. I’m going to unload her, let her graze a little,” she says, attaching the leadrope to her halter. “Could you get the lid?”

The wrangler nods and walks around to the back, opening the latches as Y/N unties her horse. The cowgirl pushes the divider away and gently leads Meadow down the ramp. The beautiful bay Quarter Horse takes in her surroundings with large eyes, alert and ready for action, belting out another loud neigh to announce her arrival. She circles around her owner, who can’t help but laugh at her cocky attitude; she could have sworn her granddad bought her a mare, and not a stallion, even though Meadow behaves like one at times. Eventually she drops her head and cuts a few bites of grass, before pulling up her head again while chewing, staring at another animal in the distance.

“She really is a character, ain’t she?” Dean laughs, watching the pair. “Sure is,” her owner chuckles, rubbing the mare’s withers. “She knows it’s showtime. She can feel it.” Y/N crouches down to remove Meadow’s travel leg protection while Dean holds the feisty horse, glancing in the direction of the stable office, from which Jo returns. “Tent B. Box sixty-four to seventy-three,” the ranch owner’s daughter informs. “Let’s unload.”

Within thirty minutes the ten stables are ready, the heavy trunks installed, the tack rooms decorated and the horses unloaded. Y/N does her bit, rolling the wheel barrow from the truck to the stables with hay bails and wood shaving bedding, but it’s clear the Gold Canyon crew has taken this many horses to a competition before. Benny, Jo, Dean, and Bobby operate like a well-oiled machine, although the head of the ranch is moving a little bit slower these days.

Y/N tapes a form to the stable with Meadow’s name and an emergency phone number when Dean comes back from the water point, a full bucket in each hand. He and Benny have been going back and forth a couple of times now, supplying the ten horses. When the head wrangler walks by carrying the water, she’s distracted from the task at hand. Watching his shoulders work under his plaid shirt, she can’t help but get a little lost in the view. His biceps flex against the fabric, back strong and firm while he transports the heavy buckets with steady steps. God, he is good on the eyes.

“Are you gonna continue to drool over my cousin or are you gonna come with me to the show office to pay our fees?” Y/N’s eyes shift to Jo, who’s leaning against the stable door with her arms crossed in front of her chest and an amused smirk on her lips. Without a doubt, the blush that fires up her face is hard to miss. “Let me get my bag,” she says, straightening her back and turning to the head wrangler. “Dean, is the car still un--”

Before she can finish her sentence, her boyfriend has dug up the keys to the El Camino from his pocket and tosses them to her. Y/N catches them skillfully. “Awww, so you can read each other’s mind now, too?” Jo comments, earning a glare from Dean, causing her to shrug. “What? It’s dead cute!” “I’m not cute!” Dean counters, his face contorting as if she just called him something foul. “No, you’re a tough, manly man. We get it, Cowboy.” She passes him, patting his shoulder. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.” “You keep tellin’ yourself… somethin’,” he stammers, struggling to stand up to the reputation Jo is undermining.

She walks on, laughing, not even granting him another look. Bothered with his own unimpressive reply, the wrangler watches his cousin catch up with her father. God, sometimes he wishes he could shut her up without having to deal with her sassy attitude. Annoyed, he turns back to Y/N, who can’t hide her amusement as she steps closer. He eyes her, which only causes her to chuckle. “I’m not cute,” he underlines.

The cowgirl smirks and pushes him into the tack room, out of sight and safe from Bobby’s judgement. She takes his hat from his head and leans in, connecting her lips with his. The kiss is short and sweet, but it’s long enough to make Dean’s head spin. When she parts from him, he opens his eyes again, taking her in as she places his Stetson back over his tousled hair. “You’re adorable,” she says. Dean half pouts while furrowing his brow, still trying to establish that he is neither cute or adorable, but breaks character when his girlfriend smiles widely before she spins around. Fine, maybe he is turning a bit soft, but it’s all her doing.

Jo joins Y/N with her father’s wallet in hand, the two friends almost skipping to the exit of the stable, joking and laughing as they go. Dean watches the pair and shakes his head, not missing Benny’s wide grin coming his direction. The lovebirds might have stayed out of the ranch owner’s line of sight, however, Benny had a clear view of the endearing interaction. He’s leaning against a tack trunk, arms crossed in front of his broad chest, blue eyes sparkling with mischief and playful judgement that’s impossible to miss. “Get it over with,” the head wrangler mutters. “Got anything to add to that?” “Nah, I reckon the gals made their point,” the Southerner chuckles.

“So, you two are still doin’ good, huh?” Jo glances at Y/N from the corner of her eye while pushing her father’s wallet into her back pocket. She leans against Dean’s car, careful not to scratch it, knowing that all hell is going to break loose if she does. “Surprised?” her friend counters, picking up her bag from the front seat, before closing the door. “Just checkin’ if the woman-oholic isn’t suffering from tremors, hallucinations, insomnia,” the cowgirl states. Y/N grins at that, pushing the strap of her bag on her shoulder, ready for her friend to lead the way to the show office.

“He’s not, don’t worry,” she claims, very much aware that Jo is just toying with her. “He’s been really wonderful, actually. I honestly didn’t expect him to be so attentive and sweet.” “No one did. Hell, I don’t think even Dean knew he had it in ’im. Guess you bring out the best in my notorious cousin.” She hooks her arm around Y/N’s neck, pulling her in for a side hug.

On their way over to the show office, Jo is greeted by multiple familiar faces, asking her how she's doing and the ranch owner’s daughter returning the question in a quick exchange. It becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just Dean’s scene, but Jo’s as well.

She soaks up her surroundings, glancing left and right as they walk up a two story building, a little further up the slightly hilly property. Stalls are lined up along the boulevard, selling all sorts of things, from horse gear to fashion and interior design. It’s not incredibly busy yet, the people waiting in the short lines for the food stands mostly riders, trainers, and horse owners. The organisation is probably expecting a bigger crowd on the weekend.

A ferrier is hammering a loose shoe under a horse’s hoof, the large animal waiting patiently until the job is done, while a promoter tries to sell a new tractor to an interested party. Cheers roar from one of the arenas, excitement heard in the voice of the commentator, who echoes over the terrain through the speakers. The smell of cotton candy when they pass a concessions truck reaches the cowgirl’s nose as she watches children having fun riding a Shetland pony from the local riding school.

Content, Y/N smiles, because apart from the temperature, the atmosphere on this show isn’t different from the events she’s been to when she was still living in Freeport. The nerves she felt in the car earlier seep away with the familiarity, excitement taking its place. Before she came to Gold Canyon Ranch, she was buried under pressure and books, working on her thesis around the clock. The last competition she rode was the State Championships. God, she missed this circus. This life. This is where she belongs, not behind some desk, no matter how good the salary.

“Jo Singer, it’s good to see you again, my dear,” the woman behind the counter in the show office says, recognizing the blonde cowgirl instantly. “How are you and your family doing?” Reading glasses balance on the tip of the nose of the kind secretary, who smiles at both the girls. Her ash blonde hair is short, and worn in a fashion you would expect for a lady in her sixties. “Good to see you too, Mildred,” Jo returns, pulling Bobby’s wallet from her pocket. “We’re okay. How are the boys?”

Y/N glances at her friend from the corner of her eye as the two acquaintances make small talk. She noticed the hint of doubt in her claim that everything was fine with the Singer family, followed by the quick counter question to avert the attention back to the woman on the other side of the desk. Aware that the information Dean shared with her is confidential, she didn’t discuss it with Jo, even though she wanted to. While she didn’t want to get the head wrangler in trouble, she was also unaware of how up to date the youngest Singer actually is. Now that she heard the slight hesitation, however, she’s getting the idea Jo knows more about the ranch’s financial struggles than her bubbly and carefree personality leads on.

“How many horses are you competing, hon?” Mildred asks, pushing her glasses up her nose as she searches for Jo’s name on the competitors’ list. “Two. I’d like to pay for Dean as well, and one entry for my friend here. She’s riding one of ours.” “Winchester, right?” the secretary checks, crossing off names. Jo nods, picking at her father’s credit card. “Yeah.” Mildred flips the page until she finds the one on which the riders filed under the letter ‘W’ are listed. “Four horses for Dean? Your cousin has a busy weekend ahead of him,” she chuckles, warmly, and looks up at the young woman that accompanied Jo. “What’s your name, sweety?” “It’s Y/N L/N,” the intern answers. “I’m competing two horses, one of my own. I’d like to pay for Meadowsweet separately.” “Not a problem.” Mildred focuses on the blonde cowgirl again. “So that's an entry fee for seven horses, plus the stable fee for nine. Y’all brought two horses for auction, am I right? I remember because I had your father on the phone just this morning.” “Yeah, we do. Do we have to pay to enter the auction too?” Jo wonders, nervousness lacing her tone. “Yes, the auction entry is 200 dollars for each. After the sale the amount will be settled, together with the commission,” the elder woman informs. “Entry fee is three bucks per horse, stable fee is fifty each, so that will be 877 dollars in total.”

Jo takes a breath and offers Mildred the card. The normally confident cowgirl seems on edge all of a sudden as she watches the secretary swipe it. Several seconds tick by while they wait for the machine to accept payment, and apparently it’s getting on Jo’s nerves. Y/N’s friend fiddles with her father’s wallet, tension coming off her in waves. Then the machine bleeps, a long high tone cutting through the heavy silence.

Mildred looks up at the blonde rancher, sympathetically. It’s in her eyes and Jo’s heart drops to her gut before she even speaks. “I’m sorry. It’s declined.” “W - what? No, that - that can’t be,” Jo stammers. “Can you try again?” The kind lady swipes the credit card a second time, even though they know it’s not going to make a difference. The same message appears on the small screen, followed by the monotone beep. The sound is interrupted by the door opening and closing, two other competitors now entering the show office, getting in line to pay as well. Jo curses under her breath.

“Any other way you can pay, darling?” the secretary asks, kindly. “Uh - I have…” She leafs through the banknotes with trembling fingers, counting the money, her face turning red. “I have 300 dollars. I’ll check if there’s more in the truck--” “I got it.” Y/N steps closer to the counter, pulling her wallet from her purse. “What? No, c’mon,” Jo objects. But her friend isn’t taking no for an answer. “It’s not a problem. I’ll sort it out with your dad later,” she assures, handing over her own card. She returns her attention to Mildred again. “Could you add my fees as well?” “I sure can. That will be 930 dollars,” the elder woman states, changing the number on the terminal before swiping the credit card.

This time it beeps three times, confirming payment without a hitch. “Alright, all good to go. Good luck on your runs, ladies,” Mildred says, cheery, trying to clear the awkwardness with her warm smile. “Thank you,” Y/N returns genuinely as Jo gives the woman behind the desk a nod.

The girls exit the show office, Jo pulling her hat over her eyes a little deeper to mask her flustered face. The redness slowly starts to leave her cheeks again after a minute, as they walk down the boulevard in silence. Y/N isn’t sure if she should say something, and so decides to give her friend some space. Her mind is going over the incident, however. A maxed out credit card; that can’t be good. The writing on the wall is applied with a paintbrush, the black letter getting bolder the more she learns about the suffocating situation. Her mind hasn’t stopped reeling since her talk with Dean in the cafeteria earlier this morning. There has to be ways to tip the scale.

Jo eventually speaks up, voice clipped with embarrassment. “I’m sorry ‘bout that. My dad will pay you back.” “I know,” Y/N responds, not doubting it for a second. “It’s no big deal, seriously. No reason to apologize.” “Still... Thanks,” the blonde cowgirl utters, embarrassed nonetheless. It’s now Y/N’s turn to wrap her arm around her friend’s shoulder, hoping the gesture will ease Jo a bit. “That’s what friends are for, right?” she comforts her. “Come on. Let’s head back. What’s your starting time?” Jo glances at her watch. “Eight thirty. Thirty minutes after the opening. So that gives me an hour and a half.” “Better ready your horse then,” Y/N smiles. “You’ve got barrels to race.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome on this Friday night to the eighteenth annual Flagstaff Horse Fair!”

With Y/N’s hand in his, Dean walks up the bleachers, as if he’s afraid to lose her in the crowd. Plenty of people have settled down in their seats already, only a few spots left now that the opening ceremony is about to begin. She’s glad he’s keeping a hold on her, though, because once again she feels slightly overwhelmed by the number of strangers who all seem to be very much aware who her boyfriend is.

Several times Dean was held up on their way over to the main arena, by acquaintances, former and current clients, old friends and forgotten faces. She could tell he was doing everything he could to ease her nerves, his hand on the small of her back, engaging her into the conversation by introducing her. Yet she felt relieved when the ring came into view, hoping to find a time to take a breather from keeping up appearances and pretending she’s comfortable amongst new company.

“Dean!” Y/N almost flinches at the female voice calling out for the cowboy. For a brief second Y/N shuts her eyes and takes a breath; guess she needs to keep her mask on a bit longer. She turns to face two women, who greet the wrangler, the one with dark, boy cut hair the first to embrace him. “It’s so good to see you again,” she says, warmly. “Hey, Jody.” Dean returns the embrace, genuinely pleased to see her too, before he directs his attention to the happily smiling blonde. “Donna, it’s been a while. How are you doing these days?” “Hiya, handsome. I’m doing just fine, thanks.” The woman with a strong Minnesota accent pulls him into a tight hug as well, pressing her dimpled cheek against his. She backs away, her delighted eyes bouncing from him to the girl behind the cowboy. “Are ya gonna introduce us to this lovely lady?”

Dean adjusts his hat and reaches for Y/N, his hand slipping behind her back when he nods at the brunette. “That’s Jody Mills - she takes horses off our hands regularly and finds us buyers - and her business partner Donna Hanscum. Good friends of mine, good friends of the Ranch.” He then gently pulls her a little closer, the pads of his fingers lingering on her hip. “Jody, Donna, this is my girlfriend Y/N,” Dean responds, unable to hide his proud smile.

Both women share the exact same reaction, their jaws dropping to the floor. If Y/N wasn’t so nervous, she would have found it comical. “Shut the front door!” Donna exclaims. “Are you tellin’ me that Dean Winchester is off the market?” Dean nods, his grin not faltering. “I’m spoken for.” Delighted, Jody laughs. “Well, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.” “Took you long enough,” Donna jokes, teasingly pushing his shoulder, before she winks at the cowgirl next to him. “You must be one heck of a gal if you managed to tie this one down. C’mere!”

Before Y/N can escape, the woman with the vibrant personality pulls her in and gives her a warm hug as well. She can’t help but to chuckle, because both Donna and Jody seem like sincerely kind people. The warm welcome eases her, helping her to feel more comfortable amongst these new friends. “Why don’t you sit with us?” Jody suggests, after Donna lets go. “Because I wanna hear all about this miracle woman.”

They take a seat and Y/N soon engages in conversation with Dean’s friends. Contently, he watches his girl, listening to her enthusiastic voice as she tells them about their meet cute. Dean chuckles at the memory himself; never in a million years could he have guessed he would be where he’s standing now, together with the then so timid and slightly prissy intern. She opened up like a wildflower in spring, blossoming into the carefree spirit that years of studying and discipline hid away.

Damn, he fell hard for her, didn’t he? She isn’t the only one who developed; because Jody wasn’t wrong. He too never expected to be able to commit, to be faithful to one woman, yet he can’t even imagine being with anyone else but her now. She taught him to look further than tomorrow. He has to admit, he has been thinking about the future more in the past week than he has in all the prior years combined. His thoughts are interrupted by the commentator, who’s voice echoes through the speakers, mentioning the sponsors of the event.

“We thank you for comin’ out here this weekend. Folks, right now I would like to ask Alex Jones to enter our arena floor with the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America.”

Dean glances at Jody, who proudly watches her adopted daughter trot into the ring on a palomino. She’s dressed in a red shirt, blue and white fringe on her sleeves and chaps playfully dancing in the breeze. The end of the flagpole rests on her stirrup, the American colors fluttering in their wake. The crowd rises to their feet as the flag is carried in, respectfully doffing their hats.

“As we gather in the spirit of the Old West, let us be reminded of the part that the horses we cherish have played. They offered our forefathers safe travel, partnership, and the freedom to roam this great land. The same unbreakable bond between man and horse still remains today, as we ride for our country. We ask you to remain standing for the playing of the national anthem.”

Y/N holds her hat by the brim and squares her shoulders, following Dean’s example when he places his right hand over his heart. A calm falls over the bleachers, every single soul watching the flag with the same steady reverence that only blue-collars truly can. The riders in the warm up area are standing side by side, facing the Stars and Stripes, and even the younger inexperienced horses seem to pay their respect.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?”

The hairs on her arms rise up as Y/N softly sings along. She knows every word, taught in school of course, but it’s more than that. She believes them. And since she was a little girl, she has dreamed about the Star-Spangled Banner. She imagined it would play while she was standing on the highest step of the podium at the major events: Congress, the Derby, and who knows, maybe one day at the World Equestrian Games. It’s a long shot, maybe, but a goal nonetheless, one she will continue to chase until the day comes that she fulfills that dream.

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

The cowgirl and her horse began circling as the end of the anthem neared, speed increasing. Alex is galloping along the boarding of the arena, the Stars and Stripes flaunting proudly, standing tall. After the last note, the crowd cheers and claps, rallying the rider on as she takes the flag out of the arena at high speed.

“Give it up for Alex Jones!” the commentator encourages. “Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, get comfortable, take a load off your feet, take a seat, and get ready. We’re gonna kick off the competition with Barrel Racing for three year old horses. Let’s ride!”

“Jo is sixth, right?” Y/N checks as they sit down. Dean nods, leaning his elbows on his knees, watching his cousin in the warm up pen. “Yeah, after the drag.” “Smooth footing. Could work in her advantage,” Y/N notes, linking her arm with his. “I was wondering; why don’t you teach Jo?” The wrangler snorts. “Because she would claw my eyes out.” His girlfriend laughs now, leaning into him and sweetly resting her cheek against his shoulder. “Hey, we’ve tried, but we just fight like cats and dogs. It ain’t a good fit,” he chuckles.

The first horse and rider combination shoots from the holding box and the audience’s motivating cheers rise from the stands into the Arizona air. Being a good sport, Dean claps too. “Ever raced barrel, sweetcheeks?” Donna wonders, leaning forward to make eye contact with Y/N. “Once or twice when I was a kid,” she admits. “You?” “Oh, you betcha!” the cheery blonde states.

The rules to the game are quite simple. Three barrels are set up in a cloverleaf in the arena and the horse and rider pair need to cleanly negotiate the pattern. The cowgirl who’s the fastest without knocking over any barrels wins. It’s a thrilling sport to watch, perfect for a horse’s speed and agility when the rider knows how to bring it out in them.

The second rider kicks off, setting a better time that pushes her up the board. The third follows, knocking over the second barrel, landing the poor girl a five second time penalty.

Y/N keeps an eye on Jo, who gets instructions from Bobby. The ranch owner’s daughter is riding a mare called Sundance, who she started up about eight months ago, being the first person to ever ride her. The young horse had her first practise run a couple of weeks ago, but today is her show debut. The atmosphere of a big competition like this can be quite daunting for an inexperienced horse, but Jo prepared her well.

The fourth goes wide around the first barrel and swerves to the third, wasting valuable time. Number five has a clean run and betters the leading result; 17.13 seconds is the time to beat. A tractor enters the arena and the crew removes the barrels, white spray paint indicating where they need to be put back once the sand around it is dragged. When the footing is smooth again, the barrels are placed back.

“Next up is Joanna Beth Singer with Sundance. Now, this young lady knows how to ride, with multiple wins under her belt, so let’s see what she will do with this youngster today.”

Y/N moves to the edge of her seat, her heartbeat picking up. She might not be the one competing, but sometimes being the person on the sidelines is more nerve-wracking than actually being the one in the saddle. Bobby walks with his daughter to the entrance of the arena, the young mare next to him already bouncing with excitement. Rousing music only adds to the exhilarating atmosphere surrounding them, the spectators waiting for the thrilling ride that is about to start. The second Jo’s father lets go of the rein, Sundance bolts away, locking on the first barrel like she has been doing this all her life.

“And she’s off! Look at that speed, people!”

“C’mon, Jo!” Y/N encourages, joined by Dean, who has gotten on his feet in anticipation. The crowd cheers when the fast horse turns sharply. Focused, Jo pushes her heels into the bay’s flanks, hands towards the mare’s ears, guiding the youngster through the pattern to the second barrel. They are making good time. “Smoke them, Jo! You got this!” Dean shouts, voice lost to the crowd that seems to favor Jo and Sundance.

The clock ticks; eight seconds, nine, ten. Sand clatters against the metal as the eager horse cuts the third obstacle, so tight that you could barely fit a piece of paper between her boot and the barrel. It starts to tip, and Y/N grabs Dean’s arm when the drum almost tumbles over, but Jo pushes it back with her reins in hand so that it stays upright and the audience erupts.

“Yeah! Bring it home!” Y/N squeals, excitedly. At full gallop the two shoot back to the gate, Jo flat on the Sundance’s neck, the energetic horse accelerating until they pass the finish line. The clock stops at 16.35.

“Folks, if that ain’t horsemanship, I don’t know what is. What a ride and what a horse! Jo Singer and Sundance are in the lead!”

Dean grins proudly and whistles on his fingers, glancing down at his girlfriend, who is still applauding excitedly. “Dean, is that mare for sale?” Jody checks, the trader clearly interested now that she has witnessed the talent. He chuckles. “Depends on your offer.” “Fair enough. I’ll go have a talk with Bobby then,” she returns, aware that for a horse like that, she needs to raise the stakes. “We’ll walk with ya,” Dean states, glancing aside when Jody’s friend doesn’t follow. “Donna, you comin’?” “I’ll meetcha guys later. I’m gonna watch some more runs with Alex.” She nods at Jody’s surrogate daughter, who just sat down in one of the first rows.

They say goodbye and the wrangler places his hand on Y/N’s lower back as they walk to the stairs and get down from the bleachers. She can tell he’s trying to play it cool, but she senses his relief. Jo delivered and just secured more than just a place on the podium with that solid ride. The buyers are going to be lining up for Sundance, which means they can keep the price high. It’s a win Gold Canyon Ranch so desperately needs. The cowgirl bumps her shoulder against his, drawing his attention. The smiles they exchange say enough, she knows what’s on his mind, and he knows she understands. “I’m gonna see if I can catch Jo. It was really nice to meet you, Jody,” she announces, shaking Jody’s hand before turning to Dean. “See you in a bit?” He nods and meets her in a sweet, short kiss, before she runs off to the stables. His gaze stays fixed on her, lovingly, until he loses track of her in the crowd. Only then does Dean notice Jody’s knowing smirk. “What?” “You got it bad,” she comments, an earnest laugh falling from her lips. He tilts his head, nodding; there’s no denying it. He’s known Jody for a while, and even though they only see eachother every now and then, he considers her a dear friend.

“She’s amazing, really. It’s all still kinda new, though,” he admits, comfortable enough to let some of that softness show. “Oh, which reminds me... Bobby doesn’t know yet. So could you not mention it?” The raised eyebrow and judgemental look she sends him says enough. Jody stares him down as if she’s about to use her mom-voice, causing Dean to slightly cower. “She’s the intern and it’s kind of a touchy subject. I wanna time it well so that he doesn’t bite my head off,” the cowboy excuses. The woman who is tough when she needs to be, turns soft now, rolling her eyes slightly. “Fine, I won’t tell him. Don’t wait too long, though. It’s Bobby, he wasn’t born yesterday. He’s going to find out sooner than later,” she reminds him. “I’ll tell him soon,” he promises. “This is a big first for you, ain’t it?” The female ranch owner smiles at him warmly, apparently amused with the somewhat uneasy behavior of the cowboy. “It is,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it’s good. Never thought I’d say it, but I could get used to this.” “I’m glad you’ve met someone, Dean. You deserve a slice of that apple pie life.”

Dean smiles at his boots, knowing she means more with those words than would seem so at the surface. From a young age, even before Dean moved in with the Singer family, she has kept a watchful eye on him and his little brother whenever they were at the same shows and rodeos. Even though she’s only a few years older than him, she was always taking care of others, protecting those who needed it, and apparently she sensed the Winchester boys could use some support. To be honest, she wasn’t wrong. She has seen a few things, picked up on the tell signs. That knowledge adds to the weight of her kind message.

“And if you ever are in the need of advice only a woman can offer,” she continues, “may it be suitable birthday gifts for the lady, or choosing an engagement ring, you know who to call.”

Dean’s eyes widen, glancing aside at the fierce woman, walking beside him. He thought about what is to come, but he didn’t think that far ahead. Especially with her internship ending March next year, he’s slightly careful to presume she is going to want to stay with him. Yes, he will fight for her, but he can’t predict the future. Who knows what will happen when she’s due to leave. “Whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” he laughs. “We only just started dating, y’know?” “Yeah, I know, but she’s a keeper, I can tell,” Jody counters, sure of herself. “Give it some time, I’ll remind you of this conversation at your wedding.”

The cowboy chuckles, but doesn’t contradict her. Jody Mills is a smart woman, one who usually is right. She can read people, and despite the small age difference between the two of them, his caring friend often mothers him with her wisdom. He can’t believe the thought crosses his mind, but it flashes through his conscience nonetheless. I hope she’s right.

He doesn’t want to dwell on it too long, though, because the glimpse of what he secretly hopes one day will come true, takes him by surprise. Somewhat daunted, the wrangler redirects the focus. “I’ve haven’t spoken to Gabe in a bit. How’s he doin’ these days?”

There’s a hint of guilt in his voice, even though he tries to suppress it. Gabriel had worked at Gold Canyon since 2005, until Bobby had to let him go last year. The head wrangler felt horrible, especially since he taught Gabe the ropes when it came down to training horses, and getting fired was the last thing his friend ever expected. Just like with Ash, he would have done anything to prevent the lay off, but their boss didn’t have much of a choice. Thankfully, Gabe got a job as a horse trainer at Jody’s ranch. They kept in touch, but over time the calls came and went less frequent. Lately, it’s been quiet, though, and the woman next to him looks up at him stunned, a mixture of remorse and empathy in her eyes.

“You haven’t heard?” she asks, appalled. Dean shakes his head. “Heard what?” “Oh, honey, I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she starts, averting her gaze to the ground, as if she’s trying to find solace in the dirt underneath her feet. “He had an accident earlier this week. He’s in hospital.” The wrangler snaps his eyes at her in shock, a frown puckered between his brows. “W-what?” “Yeah, he--” she pauses, shaking her head as if she still can’t believe it, “- he was working with a stallion, quite a special case. He turned aggressive and Gabe got trampled. He suffered multiple fractures in the vertebrae.” The head wrangler stops dead in his tracks, causing his company to turn to face him. In shock he stares at Jody before his gaze drifts off, the unpleasant surprise still evident, though. Not sure what to say, he moves his hand to his face, tracing his stubble as he tries to digest the news. “Fuck…” he stammers. “Is he - he’s gonna be ok, right?”

“The doctors haven’t given us much yet. From what I’ve heard, the first tests showed very little reflexes, but there was still a lot of bruising and swelling. They hope to be able to get better imaging soon, but right now it’s not looking good. He most likely damaged his spinal cord; he can’t move his legs,” Jody explains, observing the disoriented man before her with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know he is a friend of yours. Honestly, I expected you would’ve gotten a call from his brothers.”

The cowboy still stares at nothing in particular, unable to grasp what he just learned. “We - uh, we didn’t talk as much as we used to. Kinda fell out of touch after he left Gold Canyon.” Jody nods at that, the endearing smile that was there when they were talking about his newfound relationship now gone. The corners of her mouth are drawn down, the worry and guilt aging her in a matter of moments. “It’s really tragic. Honestly, I feel awful. It happened on my land, the horse was my client’s.” “Hey, this is not your fault, you hear?” Dean replies, gently gripping her upper arm. “These accidents can happen. We forget sometimes, but we still work with thousand pound animals who have minds of their own. It’s dangerous, and he knew that.”

Jody swallows down the guilt and turns to slowly stroll to the warm up area, not walking away from it entirely, but giving herself something to do. Dean adjusts to her pace, shoulder to shoulder with the rancher. “I found him in the pen. He was screaming in pain,” she tells. “Of course I happened to be the only other person on the premises. Donna was delivering a horse to a new owner.”

Shaking his head, Dean glances aside. Damn it, he wishes she didn’t have to go through that. Waiting on an ambulance must have been horrible. Dean knows Jody treats her staff like family, their bond much like the dynamic between the Singer family and their personnel. Dean cares about those he works with deeply, he would never forgive himself if an accident like that would happen to a member of the crew. “He’s gonna bounce back. Gabe’s a tough one,” he soothes, hoping to offer at least a little comfort. “Yeah, I hope so.” She sighs as they reach Bobby, who is having a conversation with two older men on the sideline, without a doubt doing business. “I’m gonna talk to your uncle. See if we can come to an agreement on that horse.” “Better get in there fast, before he sells her to someone else,” Dean advises, after which he turns around. “See you at the party tonight?” “Depends on how much money I spend at the auction, but I’m certain Donna will drag me there anyway,” she says, doing her best to pull together a playful grin.

Dean watches Jody step up, politely interrupting the negotiation, not even a bit intimidated by the possible buyers who have already named a price. She’s tough, something that he has always admired. The woman stands her ground in a man’s world of horse traders, runs her own ranch and built her own network. An extraordinary person, who always has his back. He carries nothing but respect for her.

As he makes his way to the stables, tipping his head to the people he knows on his way over, his thoughts go to Gabriel. Jody is not the only one who feels guilty about his current condition. He just told her she shouldn’t blame herself, so why is it that he wishes he would never have let his good friend go? Maybe if Gabe had stayed, he wouldn’t have broken his back. Maybe if he had taught him better, he would’ve still been able to walk.

He shakes his head, trying to dismiss the notion. But like a mosquito the mental picture keeps patronising him, buzzing into his ear, draining him and stealing the wrangler’s peace. When he nears the stable tent B, he picks up pace, however. Because he knows that the one person who will calm his mind and make him feel better with just her smile is right around the corner.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part twenty here

168 notes · View notes

tiliamericana · 4 years ago

Text

Muay Thai: 1.06

Read Ahead | Read From Start | Home Site

Linden leaned back on the rail of the platform that was Nairi’s front stoop. “So, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that as a non-drinker who’s both new in town and doesn’t get out much you probably haven’t been down to a place called Mustang’s?”

“That would be a pretty good guess,” said Nairi, stepping out to join her and locking up.

Linden nodded swinging round to head down the stairs. “I’ve walked past it like a thousand times, easy to walk to,” she said confidently.

Then why had she taken Nairi up on the offer of meeting here? “Okay,” she said, following her down the stairs. “Looks good?”

“Yeah,” said Linden, pausing to wait for Nairi to fall into step with her before starting to walk. “By which I mean it looks like a total hole in the wall.”

Nairi laughed quietly and Linden shot her a wide grin in return. “You like a little bit of a dump, huh?”

Linden bumped her shoulder, still grinning, and her nodding made her hair toss about a little. “Cheap spirits, beer that doesn’t need decoding, and everyone minds their own damn business. Except when they don’t, and then it’s way more interesting as well.”

“More interesting than a fancy bar or club?” said Nairi, feeling weirdly self-conscious of the fact that she wore the same clothes all the time and never did anything with her hair. The fixedness of the smile on her face felt kind of weird too, but Linden seemed to like it.

“Oh, I love clubs,” said Linden, laughing. “Not a fan of fancy bars, though I do like interesting bars, and the occasional nice one. You definitely don’t strike me as a ‘clubs’ girl, though.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” said Nairi, tilting her head a little to meet Linden’s eyes better. “I don’t strike you as a ‘nice bar’ girl either?”

Linden’s smile widened. “I only go to one nice bar and it’s where all my friends hang out. I don’t want to scare you off; they’re about as loud as I am. Or maybe I just don’t want to share you yet.”

Nairi tried to imagine a bar full of Lindens and fell short. “I was just going to say that you might not be wrong about that, too,” she said instead.

“Really?” said Linden, arching an eyebrow at her. “You’re civil, you scrub up nicely, and you have money. The perfect gentlelady, I’d say you’re definitely a ‘nice bar’ kinda girl.”

If that was the case, then Nairi had come a very long way. Linden had a tendency towards the… startlingly optimistic, however. “Well, I’ve always been more for the holes in the wall. Historically, in any case. I don’t know if I scrub up good enough for nice bars just yet.”

Linden laughed quietly again, nodding. “Oh, I get that. I didn’t really go to nice bars til I uh, developed a little more. Took a little while for the hormones to kick in there, wasn’t always comfy.”

Nairi tried not to think too hard about how to respond, and aimed for the casualness Linden seemed to appreciate more. “What, too scrawny to punch a guy in the head?”

Linden’s laugh was kind of gratified this time. “Hah, yeah, exactly. Got over myself and ended up in some nice bars though.”

She winked as she said it, and Nairi’s mouth twitched. “Well, maybe you’ll rub off on me, then.”

The bar ended up being about a half-hour walk, which, depending on how much Linden had to drink, probably wasn’t long enough to make Nairi regret not taking the car. That and the street parking options looked limited, and her car was both bright white and expensive looking enough that it’d be noticeably out of place, so it’d probably weigh out even if Linden blacked out.

No one looked up when they walked in and Linden nodded approvingly as she looked around. “Hell yes,” she said, shrugging her jacket off. “Bar seat or corner?”

“Corner,” said Nairi immediately.

“Cool,” said Linden, tugging her wallet out of her back pocket and handing the jacket to Nairi. “Do you want like a coke or something?”

“Sure,” said Nairi with a shrug, and as Linden headed to the bar, she made a beeline for the table in the back, dropping their jackets on the second chair before taking the seat against the wall. She met the eye of a guy briefly as she glanced around the room, but it was the cursory pass of someone checking her out, and it shifted from her as her eyes moved before swapping to Linden as she crossed the room with their drinks.

Linden didn’t appear to notice the attention, sitting down across from Nairi with a wide smile as she passed the bottle of coke across the table. She leaned back with her pint of beer, feet nudging up against Nairi’s. Nairi shuffled her feet back obligingly, unscrewing the bottle with a muttered thanks.

There was a quiet moment while Linden sipped on her beer, eyes steady on Nairi’s face. Was she supposed to say something else? Start the conversation? She took a sip of coke to avoid it, trying to remember the last time she’d just, gone to a bar with someone. It felt like years—she’d usually done it after a job, used it to wind down before she fucked off and got high.

She swallowed her coke, suddenly feeling more in the mood for conversation.

“So, how’s the painting?” she asked, feeling stupid for saying it even as the words left her mouth.

Linden’s eyes brightened and she leaned in, face animated. “Really well, actually. I had a bad batch of linseed oil last week—totally fucked up a project I’ve been working on, but then I got ticked off and painted something that looks kind of, like, really great? I’ve been checking in on it and I’ll be able to go in with the fine details tomorrow, I’m feeling really positive about this one.”

“That’s great,” said Nairi blankly, nodding. “What’s it of?”

Linden laughed, took a long sip of her beer, and set it down, scooting her chair forward. “Okay, so there’s this guy—”

Linden liked talking about art. By the time she was done explaining the rough career history of some guy who was apparently an anarchist who painted (and might also have been a professor?), she’d also managed to take a fifteen-minute detour to summarise the debate of synthetic versus natural fibre brushes and if it really mattered, and finished her drink, and Nairi still had no idea what she was painting. Her eyes were bright, cheeks pinked, and she laughed again as she picked up her empty glass, grinning ruefully across at Nairi.

She swung her legs out, standing up again. “I’m grabbing another drink, are you still going or d’you want another?”

“Still going,” said Nairi, holding up her coke bottle and swirling the last mouthful around the bottom for her with a small smile. “I’ll grab the next round?”

“Sure thing,” said Linden, her eyes crinkling, and she bit her lip before pushing away from the table and heading back over to the bar.

The two guys at the next table had finished their drinks as well, one of them peeling off to the bathrooms on the other side of the room, and the other coming up behind Linden as she walked towards the bar. Linden didn’t seem concerned, but Nairi kept her eye on him, just in case.

She finished her coke and screwed the lid back on, scanning the main room with a little more attention. Aside from the two guys sitting near them (one in the bathroom, other chatting up Linden at the bar) there was also a small group at the corner by the beer taps watching the TV (four of them, two sitting together, and one frowning at the horses racing on screen), and a table of college kids in the middle of the room (one who’s skin looked faintly blue under the light). The other half of the bar was darker, a little more cramped, and she turned her attention back to Linden at the bar.

The bathroom door swung open across the room as the guy next to Linden clasped a hand on her shoulder. Linden’s smile looked a little sharp, or maybe there was a set to her jaw, but she was halfway across the room, and Nairi couldn’t tell for sure. The seat to her left scraped against the floor as it was pulled out and the second guy sat down.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at her with bright teeth in a way that might have been charming if Nairi A) couldn’t smell the whiskey and urine on him; or B) found men charming, ever. His hands were braced on the back of Linden’s chair, leaning in towards Nairi a little with an interested expression. “You and your friend out on your own tonight?”

Nairi’s hands automatically came together in front of her chest, clasping the top of her coke bottle. “Yeah,” she said casually, her eyes flicking over his face, down to his chest and back up again, the movement of his muscles imperceptible thanks to the dim lighting and the hang of his shirt. “Just grabbing a drink.”

His smile widened, nodding at her. “Can we buy you girls your next round?”

There was a loud “Hey!” from the bar and they both looked up. Linden was scowling at the guy’s friend, who was standing firmly in her personal space, and one of the glasses had been knocked over, beer dripping from the surface of the bar onto the floor.

Nairi made to stand up and the guy next to her put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he started to say and Nairi knocked his hand away automatically, hand returning to her sternum.

“Don’t touch me,” she said sharply, tensing.

Glass broke across the room. His head spun to see his friend rearing back and clutching his face, Linden with a broken pint in hand and a deep scowl and he started up out of his seat, tone sharpening. “Hey what the fu—”

Nairi reacted without too much thought going into it. She lashed out with the base of her left hand, striking him in the sternum and using the movement to push herself upright and out of her seat. He cringed from the blow as her right hand came up and she smashed the base of the plastic bottle into the bridge of his nose. The plastic collapsed into itself with the force, making a crackling noise that Nairi knew from experience drowned out literally everything else when it was happening on your skull.

He yelped again, jerking back and stumbling, and Nairi hit him with the bottle overhand again to get him out of the way, before swivelling to focus back on the bar, all her senses screaming to alert. Despite the relatively small crowd the room was practically a hive of activity as people yelled and got up, converging and sprinting out or around. A small part of Nairi’s brain checked that she was still breathing evenly, and she started across the bar towards Linden, who was being held in an armlock. “Hey!” she yelled, “Let her go!”

One of the TV watchers from the corner tried to intercept her, throwing a haymaker towards her head. She swung her arm up to block it, shifting her weight to face him as she brought her hands back to guard. “You don’t have to—” she started.

“Bitch!” he snapped, coming in low with another, uncoordinated punch. Nairi swung her arm to block it again, but this time twisted as she went, grabbing his forearm and yanking hard. He stumbled forward, off balance, and Nairi pinned his arm to her chest, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him forward again to slam her knee into his chest.

She dropped him as he wheezed, breathless, and something flashed in her peripheral vision. She grabbed the chair as she turned on an instinct older than any kind of training, and she brought it up and around, lashing out with the movement of her body. It hit one of the TV watcher’s friends in the shoulder solidly and he jerked back, arm coming up to shield his head. She followed through with a thigh kick as she dropped the chair, and he got out of her way.

A fist bounced off the side of her arm as she advanced and she jabbed out into the punch-thrower’s nose, stepping past them and making a beeline for Linden’s red hair as best she could.

To her credit, Linden had pretty much been holding her own. The guy she’d glassed wasn’t near her anymore, though she was missing her jacket, and her shoulder had been sliced open, blood trickling down her arm as she faced one of the college kids head on. She didn’t bother with anything dramatic, kicking him solidly in the groin with a loud exclamation of “Mother-fucker!” that dropped unexpectedly in register on the back half before rounding on Nairi with her fist raised high behind her head.

The college kid dropped with a squeak, and Linden grinned once she realised Nairi was in front of her, dropping her fist.

“You punch like shit!” said Nairi loudly, and Linden cackled.

A guy grabbed onto Linden’s back, bouncing her head into the wood of the bar as her arms flailed, foot sliding on the floor beneath her.

Nairi lunged at him, grabbing the back of his shirt and slamming her knee up into his kidney as she yanked him off her.

One of Linden’s flailing arms collided with a bottle of tequila on the other side of the bar, abandoned by the bartender’s retreat to whatever backroom this place had, where, if he had any sense, he was probably on the phone to the cops already. Her fingers scrabbled and tightened around the neck of the bottle as Nairi push-kicked the guy in the ribs, forcing him back another pace.

Linden smashed the bottle against the bar and tried to go for him with the jagged glass of the neck as she lurched upright. Nairi yanked her back by the shirt collar and snatched it out of her hand, tossing it behind the bar and stepping between the two of them with her guard up, ignoring Linden’s annoyed shout.

The guy snarled and pulled up his fists in a too-low imitation of a boxer’s stance, throwing a jab at her head. Nairi blocked it and stepped forward, bringing her shin up between his legs. He dropped at the knees and she jabbed him in the nose as he went down.

When she turned around, the bar top was on fire and Linden was biting into an arm wrapped around her face. Nairi started forward, but Linden slammed her booted heel down on top of the guy’s foot as she sank her teeth in again, nails scraping at the guys face behind her head. He released her with a startled yelp, jerking back and disappearing into the kerfuffle behind them.

Nairi took a second to look between the bar and Linden as she caught her breath, before turning to check the exits. The door was right out; too many people crowded into and around it. There was only one guy between them and the window, however, and he’d noticed them.

He started towards them and Nairi brought a fist up to her temple, bringing the crook of her opposite elbow up against her forehead and tucking her head down. She lunged forward to meet him before he could get too close, piking him in the sternum before pulling out and stepping back.

His feet went out from under him, eyes rolling back with a soft, breathy noise as he hit the floor ass first, his head jerking back and smacking into the linoleum.

Linden gave an impressed yell, grinning again even as Nairi grabbed her hand and pulled hard. She didn’t have to tow her more than a few paces, Linden recognising the need for them to leave and moving with her.

She balked when she realised they weren’t heading for the door, though. “Uh!” she yelled, tugging on Nairi’s sleeve.

Nairi grimaced, glancing between Linden and the table that was leaning into the cracked glass of the window. There was a loud yell behind them and the ‘whoosh’ of fire picking up force. No more time for thinking, only leaving.

She grabbed the front of Linden’s shirt in both hands and pivoted, swinging Linden down and around her centre of gravity and altering the trajectory of the throw very slightly to put Linden through the window in front of them instead of straight into the ground.

If Linden made a noise it was covered by the hail of broken glass. Nairi didn’t wait to see her hit the ground before darting through after her, helping her up and brushing the glass off her back. Linden was wheezing and rubbing at her elbow, but she was grinning widely even with the few extra cuts. “We should probably get out of here, huh?”

The sound of sirens was cutting through the air outside, and they were getting closer. “Try not to run,” said Nairi, hooking her elbow through Linden’s for a change, and they made for the nearest street corner.

Linden made a faint noise in the back of her throat as the rounded the next street, flashing lights illuminating the side of her head when she looked back. “Man, this must be less of a dive than I thought,” she said, voice not even shaky as she strolled, barely anything to show that she’d just taken several hits and been thrown through a window. “Cops sure showed up quick.”

Nairi snorted, inspecting Linden’s face from the corner of her eye. Difficult to tell with the shadows and the coloured lights flashing, but she didn’t seem to be showing any immediate injury. She’d probably end up with a nice bruise from where she’d been bounced face first into the bar, though. “Yeah, they hit the gas when the fire department’s called out too.”

Linden grinned widely, propping her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “So, I shouldn’t have set the bar on fire?”

Nairi couldn’t help it; she grinned back. “No, you kind of just have to be ready to leave as soon as you do.”

“Linden?” said a voice from just ahead of them, and they both looked up.

Nicholas was on the footpath, carrying a bag from a gyro place they’d walked past on the way in and staring over their shoulders. The smell of freshly cooked meat drifted on the air towards them, and Linden’s grin only widened as she stepped forwards. “Oh, hey Nick!” she said brightly. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”

Nicholas watched the emergency vehicles streaking past with a frown. “…Isn’t that in the direction of the bar?”

“Bar’s on fire,” said Linden with a careless shrug, collecting the bag from Nicholas and reaching in. “Beer tasted like piss; you’re not missing much.”

“What?” Nicholas’s attention snapped back down to them, glaring suspiciously between Nairi and Linden. “What happened?”

“I told you, the beer tasted like piss,” said Linden, handing Nairi a gyro marked ‘falafel’. “Bartender throws a mean punch, though.”

“That was the bartender?” said Nairi, startled. “I thought he bailed.”

Linden grinned wolfishly at her over the bag. “Yeah, I don’t think he liked it when I glassed that other dickhe—”

“LINDEN!”

Nairi and Linden looked up at him expectantly. Nicholas was faintly purple in the face, flustered in the shoulders, and angry in the tone, staring the two of them down. Nairi shifted uncomfortably on her heels, but Linden seemed… aggressively unphased.

“You can’t start doing this again!” cried Nicholas. “Linden—Nairi—for crying out—one wrong hit and you could’ve gotten killed! Or arrested! We’ve—”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen,” said Nairi without thinking, frowning at him.

Nicholas stared at her for a moment, nonplussed. “You can’t account for that kind of thing, Nairi,” he said after a moment, sounding pained. “It’s not about ‘letting’, either one of you could have gotten seriously—”

“And I got her out before anything like that could happen,” said Nairi coolly, her eyes narrowing, and she turned to face Linden. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

She turned and walked away before she could say anything unwise, anger bubbling in her throat. Linden called out something after her, but she couldn’t make it out, words whisked away on the night breeze.

#series honey tree #book muay thai #serial fiction #lgbt fiction #106

3 notes · View notes

wincore · 6 years ago

Text

troublemaker | liu yangyang

pairing: yangyang x reader

words: 6.9k

prompt: anonymous sent: hello! Could I request with an au with either bad boy yangyang or jaemin thank you so much !!!

genre: ‘bad boy’!au, fluff

warnings: mild language and mentions of a bunch of juvenile things, possible character inaccuracies

a/n: as these aus go, he’s not really a bad person he just.......does a lot of.....questionable things.......and he’s............pretty annoying.........

and this got weirdly long, but enjoy!

Your first mistake was to assume Liu Yangyang is just shy.

When he walked into the classroom, with a smile you perceived as nervous but still as wide and sweet as can be, you thought he’d be pleasant to deal with. Looking past the dark clothing and a peek of a tattoo on his neck (you never really believed in judging books by the cover), you thought he was funny even, the way he spoke and the way he stood. You might have even thought he was cute. He didn’t talk much the first day, barely any polite conversation either, and that was what led you to believe that Yangyang is just shy, or introverted. But you were quite wrong, you figured out eventually.

New kids don’t make a reputation as fast as Liu Yangyang did. He found friends in the troublemakers at the back of the class, sooner or later unravelling what you would label as an obnoxious personality; and now he walks boldly through the halls, says whatever comes to his mind, and overall, he’s as tame as a wild horse. His smile, which you might have thought was cute at some point of time, now looks more of a devilish grin to you, only making an appearance when he’s making a joke at your expense, talking back to people he shouldn’t be talking back to, and all the other things that make him unpleasant. He lets his tattoos show in full view, and while you find the vines curling up his neck fascinating, you’d rather be dead than caught staring.

Despite Yangyang’s obvious connections with the devil, everybody adores him. Every time he walks through the hallways, you can almost hear your fellow classmates sigh out ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s. It’s embarrassing to you, the way he’s allowed to have his way when he obviously doesn’t deserve it. He’s the very epitome of bad influence, and wherever he goes, trouble follows. It’s not uncommon for him and his gang to get into fights, as you’ve noticed them running through the alleyways at the dead of night from dangerous looking thugs, their laughter disrupting the quiet neighbourhood. (It’s confirmed when he shows up to class with bandages wrapped around his bleeding knuckles and bruises blooming along his jaw.) Vandalizing isn’t off their to-do list either and the one time you caught Yangyang spray-painting a yellow rose on the school wall, he pulled you into a quiet corner, putting a finger over his lips before you could say anything. He left with a wink, not a word of explanation escaping his lips.

You especially hate the way Yangyang treats you. You don’t know what you’ve ever done to him, in the year and a half you’ve known him, but he’s taken it upon himself to be the bane of your existence. Every time you see the sadistic little shit, you resist the urge to turn around and skip the class altogether. And you would have, if it weren’t for your fear of failing the class.

“Hey!” you’re greeted with widest grin from someone who shouldn’t be sitting in your place.

“That’s my place,” you state bluntly.

Yangyang clicks his tongue, but he doesn’t move, leaning further onto the chair, resting his chin upon his arms on the headrest.

“I know that,” he says, tilting his head.

“Get off,” you say, absolutely unprepared to deal with this right in the morning. You can already feel a headache creeping onto you, as if the one in front of you isn’t enough already.

But he doesn’t move, no, and he has the audacity to smile and command you to “say please!”

You groan, and by this time the rest of your class have already turned their heads to focus on the two of you—a daily source of entertainment they probably won’t lose very soon.

“Yangyang,” you begin, “please get off.”

Yangyang frowns. Perhaps he was expecting you to flare up as usual, keep up the squabble. Whatever he thought, it doesn’t matter now when you’re too tired to deal with everything, especially him. He gets up reluctantly, and mumbles something your ears aren’t tuned enough to catch, and when you look at him, he’s not really looking your way. Whatever, you tell yourself. At least it’s a more peaceful morning than usual.

But it’s also strange to not have his voice, a tad too cheery, dangerously close to getting you riled up. He likes interrupting when you speak, full of useless opinions, doesn’t let you leave class without at least one stupid comment on how you look, making you feel a little sick in the stomach sometimes at how awkward he makes you look, and the purpose of his existence seems to be heaven’s way of testing you. When you asked him once, by the corridor long after classes had ended just what exactly his problem is, he seemed at a loss for words (highly unusual) and pretended to think, dramatically placing his fingers under his chin.

“Because I think you’re neat,” he said with a cheeky grin before turning and leaving with a wave.

You never really understood what he meant, and you’re still trying to figure it out. Maybe he needs someone to pick on, and even if he doesn’t do anything dangerously harmful to you, there are times when he just gets on your nerves. He doesn’t have to blow up your test tube in the chemistry lab, or throw shredded paper bits at you in the corridors, but he does anyway. He doesn’t have to tell you, you look like a seal when you arrive late and disgruntled to class, but he does. He doesn’t have to yell ‘catch!’ with barely a second for you to react before hitting you in the face with a basketball, he doesn’t have to suppress his laughter at you for getting tears in your eyes after getting hurt, but he does. You might have even forgiven him for all these things if he were your friend, but he’s not and that’s the whole point.

Despite everything, Yangyang still holds his childlike innocence. A trouble child, is how you’d describe him—only doing these things, these socially unacceptable things, for attention, for fun, or just to act out, and not to be mean in particular. Even in his appearance, his teasing, his movement, there’s something outrageously innocent. Maybe it’s his bright smile, the genuine one, that reminds of you of sunflowers, not cigarettes or motorbikes, or the tint of his cheeks in winter proving him wrong when he’s adamant on not getting a sweater because he doesn’t need it. Maybe it’s how he looks like a boy laying on the grass in the nearby park all alone with his eyes closed, letting the afternoon sunlight play with his hair and lashes. (You totally weren’t staring, and you totally didn’t run away when he noticed you.)

You didn’t mean for your daydreams to progress into thoughts about a guy hellbent on ruining your days, but when you snap back to reality, class is already over. You catch yourself sighing at yet another wastage of class time when you promised yourself you’ll focus on the subject more. You get up sluggishly, but you’re met with Yangyang staring intently at you. You’re sure nothing of worth is going to escape his mouth—he talks too much sometimes, and you need to get to the next class.

“Wait,” Yangyang scrambles after you, while the rest of his group snickers.

“I’m going to be late,” you tell him and excuse yourself, barely sparing him a glance. It’s not unusual for you to ignore him, but you know he’s going to be extra annoying the next day.

You think it’s just your luck to trip down the stairs, and scrape your knees right after all the classes are over. Thankfully, there was no one around and while your knees burn like crazy, you get home just fine. The blue skies harbouring dainty afternoon clouds and the cool breeze are a little too upbeat, and you feel yourself anticipating summer break with a sigh of relief.

Your afternoon nap has you revaluating your life choices, and you greet the reds and purples of the sky with a feeling of regret. Your to-do list for yet another day has been thrown into jeopardy. You probably won’t be able to sleep tonight until it’s too late and your sleep schedule is going to be off for the entire week, not to mention the dark circles you’ll end up with. As you feel yourself getting worked up, an uncomfortable feeling rising in the pit of your stomach, you end up wasting some more time much to your aggravation.

Most of the days, you don’t even know where your time goes. It’s like you’re not you, you’re not the same person during the day or the night or any hour you have in your grasp. It feels like watching a timelapse video of a person who’s not you, and being forced to accept that it is, in fact, you and you’re not very happy with that, to say the least.

By the time you begrudgingly take out your notebooks to prepare for your upcoming tests, a task far too daunting for a poor soul like you, it’s already the dark hours of night. You grimace at the topics you don’t understand, and consider procrastinating some more—maybe you should check the newer memes your friends sent you, or fall into the never-ending spiral of videos, or finally start the books that you purchased left unread on your shelf. But no, your fear of failure won’t allow you to, and neither will the sense of responsibility you might even have come to pride yourself on.

Neither of your two qualities, however, prepared you for a sudden turn of events. When the neighbourhood should be asleep, you hear rapid knocks on your windows and you whip your head around to face it. The curtains are drawn, and fear creeps in—what if it’s a murderer? A thief? A grotesque monster to bring back your childhood fears?

You take hesitant steps towards the window when the knocking gets violently loud. You’re afraid that whatever is out there might shatter your glass, calling for your neighbours’ attention. Before you can regret it, you draw the curtains to find a frantic Yangyang, whose eyes widen at your appearance. He turns his head around once to check something and looks back at you, gesturing wildly for you to open the latch. You gulp and do as he says, and he immediately climbs in. His footsteps are a little heavy and he closes the windows again, before reaching for the light switches and plunging your room to darkness. He glances outside the window once again, possibly noticing something as he pushes you against the wall beside the window, his hand over your mouth to ensure you don’t spill the obvious questions, or a scream. You stay like that for a few minutes, a few agonizing minutes that you spend glaring at him.

Yangyang peeks through the window once again and sighs in relief, falling to the floor with his head in his hands. You gape at him, a little dazed from this sudden appearance while he rests on the floor of your bedroom.

“Uh,” you start wisely.

Yangyang whips his head towards you, finally remembering your presence and the fact that this is your bedroom.

“Uh,” he responds, springing back up and moving his arms to accompany his explanation. “Sorry about this. Really sorry. I didn’t even know this was your house! I—”

“Yangyang,” you rub your temples. “Get to the point.”

“Well. We…kind of got into trouble, and I’m pretty sure those thugs had knives and I didn’t want to die today, so.”

“What?” your eyes widen. You move to the window, and reach for the curtains but Yangyang grips you by the arm.

“What are you doing?!” he whisper-yells. “Do you want to die?”

You realize the situation and gently tug your hand back.

“Oh,” you say, “well what about- what about the rest of your friends?”

“It was just me and Renjun,” Yangyang explains, “and he’s pretty good at hiding so I’m not too concerned.”

“Okay,” you nod, absolutely not comprehending the odd circumstances.

“Really?” he asks with a sudden half-smile, “Aren’t you even a little bit worried about me?”

Yangyang takes a seat in your chair, arms sprawling over the armrest. You furrow your brows at the return of Yangyang from school, and wonder how he’s the least bit concerned that he could have been seriously wounded, or even died today.

“Are you serious?” you say before rolling your eyes and turning on the lights.

Yangyang laughs, a sweet tone contrasting his black sweatshirt and ripped jeans, as he leans further back onto your cushioned chair.

“Get off my chair,” you scowl.

“Oh, come on. We’re not at school.”

Yangyang crosses his legs and throws his head back to further his exaggerated comfort, and it does nothing to help your deepening frown.

“Alright, get out of my room,” you tell him as calmly as possible.

He sits back up straight with wide eyes. “What? You want me to go out there- out there and risk my life?”

You put your head against your palms and sigh. You can’t actually kick him out—he’s right, it could be very dangerous and it just doesn’t settle right with your conscience to do such a thing.

“Now, you don’t have to be dramatic,” Yangyang says, a playful note in his voice.

You sit on your bed facing him and unable to do anything else, you just glare. Yangyang smiles at you, like you’re holding his favourite candy or something of the sort, before he glances down and his lips are suddenly pulled into a frown.

“Did you scrape your knees?” he asks, furrowing his brows.

You look down, a little surprised, and nod at him with an awkward ‘yeah’.

“And you didn’t even clean it?” he chides.

You don’t think Yangyang is in any position to be scolding you, but you can’t come up with a response either. To your surprise, he rushes to the washroom despite your protests and brings in a wet handkerchief to gently dab at your knees. You hiss softly at the initial contact and he stops to look at you before getting to clean it again.

“You do not want an infection, trust me,” he says, “I ended up with a fever.”

You giggle at his foul expression, and he seems to light up, a smile quirking the corners of his lips.

When he’s done, he stands back up and feels his pockets before taking out a bunch of Spiderman band-aids. He notices you staring at him a little too intently and tilts his head.

“What?” he asks, “I get scratched up a lot.”

“No,” you say, “Spiderman.”

“Well…I’m not judging you on the ridiculous amount of soft toys you have but go off I guess.”

You let out an amused laugh and he stares at you momentarily before his face breaks into a bright grin. He remembers the band-aids with an ‘ah’ and gingerly places them on your wounds.

You’re a little caught off guard at his sudden display of kindness and you end up staring at him, following the movement of his lips as he proceeds to talk about how he’d got into the mess in the first place. He keeps oscillating between different topics, frequently getting distracted to describe the one cat he seems to be enamoured with or how he’s still mad at Renjun for being able to run faster, and you can’t comprehend how normal your relation with him suddenly seems.

“You’re being nice,” you note out loud, and realize a bit too late, your ears and cheeks turning pink.

Yangyang tilts his head, a little confused but responds nonetheless, “Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do. Besides, I owe you.”

He shrugs and you smile back, letting yourself accept everything for once. He shoots off about some vague topic once more, and you wonder how you ever thought this boy was shy, too quiet even. You don’t know why he’s suddenly so friendly with you either, why he’s talking to you so much, without any hint of teasing or malice—maybe he just needs someone to tell all these things to, and you’re the only one around. But Yangyang has a way of making you feel somewhat important, even if you think you’re not. You can hardly pay attention to his words when you’re so engrossed in taking in his details—the honey hair brushing his eyelids, the curious curl of the tattooed vine at the base of his neck poking from behind his jacket and the very noticeable bruise on his jaw, the way he keeps jerking his head to the side when he needs to rethink and how he does have a cute nose, like what the girls in your class say. For a moment you try to stop thinking about it, noticing all these things—after all, he’s the sort of person you don’t think can ever bring good news. But at the same time, he’s a different person when he’s talking like this, a rather positive, happy one when he has no prying eyes or hushed whispers surrounding him. It makes you rethink a bit.

Yangyang leaves by dawn, having eaten away the better of your time. But he leaves you feeling a little different, that perhaps you had misjudged him, despite believing that you’re not someone to do so. It makes you a little uneasy but relieved all the same. That perhaps the universe isn’t all that cruel even if it did just horribly destroy your sleep schedule.

“You know, just because I let you in once doesn’t mean you can come in any time uninvited.”

You look at the boy sitting at the ledge of your window, with no obvious intentions of leaving. Yangyang pouts but he isn’t able to contain a smile, and he swings his leg over the ledge to enter properly and stand in front of you.

“I have something to show you,” he says, his words merging with each other.

“Now? At midnight?”

You’re a little unsure as to where this is going, but Yangyang has been popping in at random for the past few weeks in spite of your various displays of annoyance. Sometimes, it’s to ask you for help in physics (“Why do you need my help?” “I don’t know why you expect me to be good at physics.” “I wouldn’t if you didn’t yell the answers from the back of the class.” “…whatever.”), sometimes it’s to display his generosity by treating you to ice cream (he likes making fun of your taste for some reason, saying it’s childish) and sometimes, he just talks—in sudden bursts of words, but he talks.

“Yes!” his vocal inflection makes him sound desperate, and you know you’ll have to give in.

Yangyang grins at your defeated ‘alright’ and climbs out the window, telling you to get ready as quick as you can.

“Why do we have to go out the window?” you complain.

“Are your parents okay with you going out at midnight with a boy with tattoos?” he remarks.

You shut up and follow, carefully feeling your footing and balancing yourself before landing on the pavement with a soft thud, Yangyang gripping your waist to steady you. The contact makes you blush involuntarily, and you look anywhere but at him to avoid any comments.

Yangyang seems to be in a rush as he runs ahead of you, jogging in one place to show his impatience. He looks like a child, not the least bit intimidating like tries to be, especially towards the freshmen with his glare and all. You wonder if this the real Yangyang, the one he only lets his closest friends see.

“I hope you’re not dragging me into doing something illegal,” you call out.

Yangyang shakes his head, knitting his brows together, “Of course not!”

He doesn’t let time slip away though as he grabs your arm and starts running at an inhumane pace, with you struggling to keep up.

“The place closes at one, we have to hurry!” he notifies.

And you won’t admit but you think you enjoyed it. How long has it been since you’ve felt the wind in your lungs? Or been reckless like this? How long has it been since you’ve felt the prickle of the cold night, or race time itself? You don’t know, but you end up smiling after stopping to regain your breath.

You look at the vivid blue exterior of what seems to be a coffee shop, but the dried flowers lining the door make you reconsider.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Yangyang smiles at you.

“Why did you want to bring me here?” As much as a part of you wants to think of Yangyang as a friend, his reputation and past experiences precede him.

“I thought you’d like it,” Yangyang frowns.

After a pause, you softly say, “I do.”

He immediately seems to brighten, and opens the door a little too loudly, the ‘BANG!’ making you cringe. There are barely any customers, but it does draw the attention of the man behind the counter.

“Two drip coffees!” Yangyang says, upbeat despite the disdainful expression on the man’s face.

He pulls you into a seat, and starts talking again, this time about his old dog and the times before he became rather juvenile—painting on cars and private property, getting into fights with people three times his size or just straight up pissing off the police only to run from them. You don’t know what he does them for, what he likes to act out for and it’s hard to believe the boy in front of you, talking brightly can be the same person your school adores and fears at the same time.

“You know,” Yangyang says, his voice suddenly growing soft, “Thanks for listening.”

“Huh?” you look at him inquisitively.

“People don’t like me talking,” he says, glancing down at his fingers with a nervous laugh. “And I’m sorry. If I was ever too mean to you.”

You think out of all the things he says, he doesn’t actually say anything. It’s just incidents and events, never really feelings or what he thinks. You feel a little guilty too for resenting him so much if all he wanted was a companion, a chance to show what’s beneath the painted exterior.

Coffee tastes delicious at around one in the morning, but it also means you won’t catch a wink of sleep tonight.

“Do we have to walk?” you complain, out in the barely lit streets of the city.

“What’s wrong with walking?” he says, turning towards you and walking backwards.

“It’s making me tired. Don’t you have a motorbike or something?”

“Are you stereotyping me?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow and pointing at the racecar tattoo on his wrist.

Your shoulders shake with laughter as he breaks into another grin.

“Let’s go to Walt’s,” he suggests after a few minutes of aimless walking.

“I don’t drink,” you say, grimacing at the idea of bars and drunk people and throw up, and whatever else you knew from movies.

“Me neither,” he shrugs, “I just wanna dance.”

“Really? Of all the crimes you commit, you decide to leave out underage drinking?” you ask, amused.

“I don’t like the taste,” he defends, “Are you stereotyping me again?”

You suppress a smile and follow him to the bar, which you really feel you should regret. But you don’t, and when you’re greeted with the purple and blue neon lights at the entrance, you’re admittedly curious as to what it’s like inside. It’s not surprising that Yangyang knows where the secret entrance is, or that he knows a few of the bartenders, who he seems to have charmed already.

But the noise through the speakers is really blown out of proportion as you try to make out the gibberish people talk around you. You hold onto Yangyang’s jacket, for fear of getting lost in the dense crowd and you wonder how people make time at this hour and come all the way to drink and dance. The flashing blue lights illuminate Yangyang’s face occasionally as he pulls you through narrow gaps to a relatively quiet corner, with less people cramped in.

“There’s also a ballpit in the basement but I almost broke my arm there,” he says. “And I never really asked if you like dancing before bringing you here. Do you like dancing?”

You take a moment to decipher his quick words and shake your head, saying you’ve never really tried.

“Never tried dancing?” he repeats incredulously, “Everybody has tried dancing.”

“I don’t think dancing in my room counts.”

“That’s exactly what counts,” he says before grabbing your hand and rushing to the dance floor.

“Like this!” he yells over the music when he notices your stiffness. He proceeds to do the silliest dance move you’ve ever seen, raising an arm upwards and the other at a right angle, legs going anywhere they want. You end up laughing too hard, clutching your stomach as he tries another pose.

It’s not about looking cool here, it’s about enjoying wholeheartedly despite being swallowed inside a crowd. It’s about looking at yourself and being able to laugh off your insecurities, and you think maybe this is why Yangyang does the things he does—to laugh, to make memories to laugh about. It possibly runs deeper than that, but it’s all you can think of at the moment, grinning and laughing like friends do.

Yangyang drops you home, in your room, safely, when you become too sleepy to continue, even offering you a piggyback ride.

You can only mumble a ‘thanks’ as he makes his way to your window, turning at your voice.

“Thanks,” he tells you too before leaving with a wave.

It’s a little odd to not have quarrels with Yangyang at school (although there’s still the occasional ones where he starts it on purpose) and your classmates are a little in awe at the casual conversation you manage to have with him, even smiling at each other.

“Are you sure you’re not hiding anything?” your friend narrows her eyes at you. “Maybe about the thing between you and Mr Troublemaker?”

“There’s no thing,” you glare at her. “Is it that unbelievable that we can speak normally?”

“Obviously,” she responds, “why else would everyone be ogling you?”

You groan and place your face in your hands. This is not the reputation you’re aiming for, but a rather obscure, perhaps ugly part of you isn’t upset, it’s glad even. You suppress the feeling and scowl at nothing in particular, hoping the rest of the day passes quickly enough.

It’s terribly unusual to be greeted by Jaemin at the school gates, eyes twinkling like he knows something you don’t. You’ve no idea of what he’s like except he’s Yangyang’s friend and a flirt, and you’re bound to get your heart broken if you ever find yourself catching feelings. You quirk an eyebrow when he calls your name and smiles sweetly.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hi…” you drawl out. “Do you have anything to say?”

Jaemin pouts. “Can’t I just start a conversation?”

“You can, uh,” you say, a little unsure.

“You know you’re going to be in trouble if you get too involved, yeah?” he says, focusing on his fingers and stretching them, getting to his point rather quickly.

“Sorry?” you ask, a little taken aback.

“I’m guessing Yangyang hasn’t said anything yet?”

“Said what?” you ask, genuinely curious.

Jaemin shakes his head, a shadow of a frown threatening to take over his pleasant expression.

“Just warning,” he says, “You shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“What’s up?” a voice interrupts, and Yangyang appears by your side, his dark red t-shirt glowing under the sunlight. You’re weirdly relieved to see his face, not sure why.

Jaemin doesn’t delight him with a response, and instead laughs and pats him on the back. It’s a little strange to see Mr Troublemaker and Mr Heartbreaker (as your school has regrettably nicknamed them) in one place, although they’re part of the same group of friends. As far as you remember, they’d got off at the wrong foot in the beginning, but eventually warmed up, getting closer than ever.

“Enjoy your date,” Jaemin teases, and waves.

Before you can protest that you weren’t exactly notified about a date with anyone, Yangyang puts an arm around your shoulder, obviously displeased and mutters a ‘whatever’ guiding you far from the school entrance.

“Uh, Yangyang?” you ask, stumbling over your steps.

He stops for a few brief seconds and asks, “did he say something weird?”

“I don’t think so?” you say, unsure and trying to replay the rushed conversation you had with Jaemin.

Yangyang shakes his head, a little antsy, and starts walking, expecting you to follow.

“Where are we going?” you ask, before the word ‘date’ flashes across your mind and you blush a brilliant red, trying to make the thought dissipate as quickly as possible.

“I don’t really know,” Yangyang says, pausing to think, “Do you have anything else to do?”

“Even if I did, would you let me go?” you cross your arms.

Yangyang grins and gets back to walking without a sound, you trailing behind him.

“The arcade?” you crane your neck to read the dull red letters above the entrance.

“It might not look like it but it’s actually one of the best,” he says, signalling you with a thumbs-up.

You should’ve known it was a bad idea when Yangyang decides that hitting your head with the little basketball is more fun than hitting the target.

You clutch the back of your head, glaring at him while he laughs at your expression. You were already disappointed with neither of you being able to get the plushie at the claw machine, having wasted enough money on the retries. And Yangyang thinks it’s funny how you look like an ancient Chinese warrior when you’re focused. He’s incredibly good at the racing game, and you knew you’d lose in the few starting seconds. But you did score incredibly well at the shooting game, perhaps your best achievement of the day. The basketball game, however, Yangyang seems to take as a joke, more focused on throwing you off course than his own score.

Yangyang freezes mid-laughter when he glances behind you. You turn your head to find a burly man, painted head to toe in ink, and just looking very dangerous in general, especially with the glare he keeps.

“Oh crap,” Yangyang breathes, “No, no, no.”

“What?” you ask.

“Wait for me outside a bit,” he instructs.

“Why?"

He scratches the back of his head. “Just…like that? I’ll be out in a minute, please.”

You comply in a daze, simply because he’s said the word ‘please’. For someone who talks a lot, he doesn’t exchange polite words very often, he didn’t even explicitly thank you for letting him into your room that night, instead opting to show you gratefulness through treating you at random (when you say random, you mean random).

You kick a non-existent stone, leaning on the wall beside the entrance. It’s been quite a few minutes and you’re getting worried if Yangyang actually had something to do with scary mountain of a man. You wouldn’t put it past him, the fights and all, but really, is this the time?

As you chew the inside of your mouth, a sudden dash of red appears in front of you, grabbing you by the hand and sprinting off. Yangyang looks back at you for a fraction of a second, and you see him almost smiling. The gruff voices behind you accelerate the rapid beating of your heart and you run faster, not entirely focused on your steps. The pavement proves difficult to run on, but it’s the burning in your lungs that causes you to stop in an obscure alleyway. The daylight seeps in through the crack between the two massive grey buildings, and you breathe heavily behind the steps to the fire exit of one of the buildings. Yangyang peeks through the corner and runs back to you, steps as nimble as a cat’s.

“You’re not gonna like this,” he bends to face you doubled over, still trying to breathe. You don’t comment on the busted lip, or the scratches across his jaw as he explains that you’re going to have to climb the building right now and also hurry before you get into serious trouble.

The stairs end one storey below the roof and Yangyang jumps to get a hold on the edge, and you’re sure the roughness of the concrete is going to leave scratches on his palm. Once he’s up, he spares a quick glance to the side, and grits his teeth before bending to grab your arms and pulls you up with much difficulty. You trip a little when your foot hits the edge of the rooftop, making the both of you lose balance and you land beside him on your knees, while he does so in a sitting position. You make eye contact, and Yangyang can’t help the smile stretching across his face, although he flinches a little. Before either of you can erupt into laughter, he presses his hand against your mouth, effectively stifling any noise and manages to keep himself from laughing. You lie flat on the roof, his nose a few inches from yours as you wait for the shuffling and shouting noises from below to dissipate.

You breathe out a sigh of relief in sync with Yangyang, glad you’re finally rid of your pursuers.

“Are you going to explain to me what just happened?” you ask, sitting up.

Yangyang sits up beside you, bending a little, making his hair fall over his eyes. He manages a half-grin while your concern shifts to his bleeding lower lip, and you involuntarily reach for your handkerchief.

“You don’t have to,” he says, shying away from your hand. “I didn’t mean to…uh…bring you into this.”

He looks at his fingers, and you notice the red scratch lines on his palm.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “It was fun.”

“Right?” he whips head towards you. “No one believes me when I tell them I like doing these just for fun!”

You giggle before gently dabbing at his lip, greeted with a sour expression.

“What was up with those guys?” you ask, focused on applying the correct amount of pressure to swipe.

“I…we…uh, kind of used to play here without paying. And he’s related to the owner, so…”

Your expression turns into a displeased one, and he sheepishly smiles, promising you he paid this time and will pay at wherever you want to go. Your cheeks start getting hot at how casually he talks about taking you places, like they’re actual dates. You tell you should head home and apply some antiseptic to his lip, before it gets worse.

“It’s alright,” he says when you’re done cleaning the wound, “I’m used to it. I don’t really wanna leave right now.”

He gestures towards the sky, which has started to merge reds and blues at a purple middle. It eventually fades to orange and dimming yellow, and you can see the sun start to dip towards the buildings in the horizon.

“I like it here,” he says, dipping his head towards the side.

You glance at the warmth spreading across the sky for only a few moments, before you’re distracted by the boy beside you. The sunlight brings out the pools of honey in his eyes, and you suddenly can’t deny the secretly growing affections for the boy, or whatever it is that you feel. The mole on his left cheek calls for attention as the lighting makes his skin glow, although the scratches disturb its softness. The curious vines peek from behind his shirt again, and it looks like a sort of companion of Yangyang’s, enjoying the sunset with him.

“Did it hurt?” you ask, distractedly.

“Huh?” he turns to you, raising an eyebrow. “I actually get punched pretty often so no- wait- gosh, that was embarrassing to say. I just mean—”

“No, I mean the tattoo,” you clarify.

He forms an ‘o’ with his mouth. “Not really. I mean, kind of? Less than what I thought it would, to be honest. People always ask me this, but I can’t really answer it, you know?”

You nod, trying your best to understand.

“I got this one with my friends,” he brings down the collar to display the full tattoo, which covers most of his collarbone and shoulders in pretty curls and windings of grapevines.

“And this one, I got first,” he says, pulling his sleeve up to show the racecar tattoo once again. “Mum was so mad, but she accepted it eventually.”

“Oh?” you smile.

“Yeah, she’s always been a little, I don’t know, strict? She believes that life should be lived through rules and following them, just caging yourself in blind beliefs—I mean what’s the point of that?”

Yangyang sounds irked, so you just hum along.

“Living blindly, delusionally—it’s better to be reckless,” he scrunches his eyebrows, looking you in the eye as if he expects some response as his words flow out bitterly.

“Is that why you do that? To feel?” you ask, genuinely curious.

Yangyang chuckles and lies down on the floor of the roof, resting his head on his folded arms while his hair parts to show his forehead. He looks very relaxed, more so than at school or anywhere else, really.

“I’m sure,” he starts, “that on the last day of my life, when I think of all that’s happened, I’ll have a lot of things to think about.”

“Didn’t know you thought that far ahead,” you interject.

“It makes me feel at ease,” he half-grins at you.

That’s when it strikes you. Life has never been about staying alive to Yangyang, while you have trouble distinguishing between the blurred lines of today and tomorrow. He’s not that difficult a person—just an extremist at worst, and simply a boy overall. He makes himself out to be tough to handle, lets himself be reckless, and of course, reckless attracts trouble. He wants something whole from a broken universe, and maybe you did guess right—he wants a friend, someone to listen to him. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s horribly optimistic, in fact you’re drawn to it in a way you can’t explain. He’s starting to make sense and you can’t contain the bubbling excitement in your chest at the development.

“Yangyang,” you call, softly.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you like telling me these? These things about you.”

“Feeling special?” he jokes.

You slap his shoulder gently, saying, “Come on, tell me.”

“You look like someone who listens,” Yangyang says, eyes following yours. “And I thought I was obvious…”

His voice trails off and he looks down at your lips, before tilting his head at an angle and leaning just right so your noses don’t bump into each other. You can only shut your eyes in panic, the beating in your heart getting louder when his breath falls on you, the smell like peppermint. The moment your lips touch, a soft feeling momentarily settling in, he winces back and both of you are suddenly aware of his injury. You blink once before bursting into an amused laughter, and you can see the corners of lips into a familiar feline smile.

“You are so stupid,” you remark.

“There’s just no pleasing you, is there?”

“Tell me why you think getting your lip busted would please me.”

“…That wasn’t part of the plan.”

He scoots closer to you till your shoulders touch, and you hardly pay attention to the setting sun and the calls of the homeward birds. He tilts his head too, to gently let it touch yours and you feel him smiling.

“In my defence, you’re terribly dense.”

“Me? Dense? How?” You turn your head and cross your arms.

“I took you on like three dates and you didn’t get the hint!”

“What date?!”

“I took you to my favourite coffee shop!” he says, shoulders hunching up. “And the bar, and the dog park, and the arcade!”

“You never said they were dates,” you grumble.

“See? Dense.”

You hit his shoulder again, but he laughs, not even flinching now.

“Fine,” he says, “Will you go on a date with me tomorrow? At the amusement park. 11am sharp.”

“As long as you fix that busted lip,” you chide.

“Why? You wanna make out?”

Your cheeks flare scarlet and you can almost see his ego swell with the smugness that shows up all across his face. Even so, you’re satisfied how you really did find your way to the core of him, and more so to be pleasantly surprised. Night falls, and the stars come out to play, but Yangyang makes sure to keep his focus on you.

“I knew it,” your friend remarks as she eyes your fingers intertwined with Yangyang’s.

“Don’t start again,” you groan, taking your place while Yangyang smiles smugly.

“Hope you know how to play with fire, darling,” Jaemin calls from the back only to be greeted with a smack across his shoulder by Yangyang.

Fire, wind, whatever Yangyang is—you don’t mind. Because every day is different from the other, and memories remain even after the day ends, especially if the memories were this troublesome to make, and fun to experience.

3K notes · View notes

let-it-show · 5 years ago

Text

A Little Stumble

So, because I couldn’t help myself, I jumped on the next idea!

@priscilarte1 suggested the idea of Elsa coping with low blood pressure, managing to be clumsy enough to often her herself and Anna worries and cares for her. So I ran with this and it’s not as lighthearted as I originally planned, but! Please enjoy~

"Ow. Ow ow ow!"

At the cries of pain, Anna's face popped into view in the doorway, eyes wide in alarm. She stumbled backwards for a second with her brush caught in her hair and finally managed to rush to Elsa's side.

Elsa was on the floor at the top of the stairs with a spilled cup of water in front of her. She was annoyed at herself for the mess, but most of her focus was on the pain pulsing through her ankle after she fell up the stairs. She hadn't felt super well and knew she was thirsty, but the dizziness caught her off guard.

Anna's hands were on her face and then one on her arm as she checked on her. "Elsa! What happened?"

"Tripped," Elsa said simply with a sigh, pulling one knee forward to better brace herself on. She had chosen to wear one of her very long white dresses that day, decorated with snowflakes and the earth symbol in gentle greys and blues. Elsa was, typically, pretty good at navigating one of her ridiculous long dresses but she could feel it tangled in her feet.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked, scanning her face and then looking around her where she surely noticed the one foot sticking out behind Elsa.

"I think so. My ankle is a little sore and I landed a little hard on my hands." They ached slightly, but not much. She reached for the hand on her face and squeezed it. "It's alright, I hurried up the stairs too fast. Help me up?"

Anna didn't look so sure. "Your foot looks like it hurts."

"Just a little," Elsa lied, as it only began to throb more. Oh she had really twisted it!

With doubt still painted on her pretty face, Anna complied anyway to help Elsa up. She rose slowly and held Elsa's hand and arm to support her. It was a good thing too because as she rose and then tried to put weight on it, Elsa cried out and stumbled.

Anna still supported her though, standing there in her green nightgown and half brushed hair with worry swirling all around her. Elsa could feel it, and it was sort of alarming. It was just her foot. She shrugged it off for the moment. "Okay...it really hurts," she groaned. She was mad at herself, she knew better!

So did Anna, who had frowned when she noticed the various scrapes and bruises all over Elsa's body upon arriving from the forest. Ever since Anna had seen the way Elsa became clutzy and out of it after overextending herself, Elsa had to distract her out of lectures and make her smile through her fear. It wasn't a new thing, and something she had always talked to the castle doctor about, but for Anna it hadn't really been apparent until Elsa became queen. When the stress and tiredness hit, it had been rough.

Living in the forest compacted it. In Arendelle she had been a lot less likely to run into trees, fall off a horse into the ocean, and wander into a giant's nostril. Luckily the third had been an isolated event, not that the giant ever let her forget it. On top of the additional obstacles, there were times Elsa really pushed herself up there, in ways she hadn't in the castle. It wasn't often but it was draining...

Anna had one arm around her waist and her grip was tight. "You were dizzy, weren't you..." It wasn't a question. Anna knew her habits.

"A little, but..." Oh, Elsa felt guilty there and then. That's when she couldn't dismiss the energy coming off of Anna anymore. Her sister worried about her more than her own life. She put her arm around Anna both to calm her and help with the support.

Anna said nothing as they got to the bedroom. She escorted Elsa carefully to the bed and then sat her down on the edge. Elsa kept her foot raised and eyes on Anna, who immediately set about fluffing the pillows. "Hang on...hang oooon..." The anxiety coming off of her was growing.

"Anna, Anna I'm alright, its just my foot! I just tripped, it's nothing." Anna was acting like she'd just found Elsa in the middle of drowning.

"It's not nothing," Anna fretted and once she deemed the pillows good enough, she gestured for Elsa to get on the bed and sit back. Elsa did so with a little groan, lifting her leg and quickly settling it on the bed. There was an angry bruise forming.

Anna certainly noticed.

"You wanted water?"

"Anna..."

"You need to drink water. You know how much trouble you have when you can't concentrate."

Elsa opened her mouth to argue, but quickly shut it. Anna was right. Plus Elsa had been pretty thirsty, so what was the point of arguing? It wouldn't help with Anna's stress levels. "Okay," she said simply.

And with that Anna darted out of the room. Elsa watched and leaned her head back, simply studying the ceiling. She was so very upset with herself...it seemed like a pattern the way she always managed to make Anna worry over her. She felt so guilty. She had to tell herself it was sort of Anna's choice to worry and she couldn't control that - that line of thinking had helped her years ago when her mind otherwise would have told her she was less of a burden locked in her room.

No, it was definitely better for both of them, even if sometimes they worried and scared each other. Anna's love outweighed it all and Elsa wouldn't risk losing it by closing herself away again.

Still, she was silently making herself calm down a few minutes later when Anna rushed in the room with a small cushion and wrap under one arm and a new glass of water in her hand. She handed the water to Elsa first. "Drink," she said softly. Then she crawled onto the end of the bed, settling with her knees curled. She lifted Elsa's calf so she could place the injured foot in her lap.

It hurt a little.

Anna's touches were very careful and light as she examined her foot, a frown on her face. "I don't like this bruise," she said softly.

"Sorry..." Elsa didn't know how else to respond.

Anna shook her head. "Don't be sorry, you're hurt and I...I just want you to be more careful. You have bruises on your legs and don't think I didn't see that big scrape on your back. You heal up a little quicker but not instantly."

"I know. I've been trying, I really have. If I start to fall Gale usually catches me. I don't leave Ahtohallan if I feel out of it, or the village." Elsa knew that wasn't perfect, but it was a start and she was desperate to calm Anna. "I'm okay Anna, really, twisting my ankle is not a normal day for me." It really wasn't.

Anna didn't say anything and instead reached for the wrap. She moved Elsa's foot gently as she applied it, careful movements helping her wrap without much pain for Elsa. When it was on well, Anna traced the fabric with her fingers. "I worry about you all the time. You don't have to tell me you know that." She took a deep breath, sighed, and then lifted her head with a small smile. "And...you don't need me to be so negative, either. I know. But I've seen you collide with an entire family before when you were like this-"

Elsa nearly spat out the water she was trying to drink. "Oh, no! No don't remind me." That had been a very weird and awkward day. She'd made a lot of ice boats to try and compensate for the act.

"That was funny after I stopped panicing," Anna replied and she giggled a little. "There was also the time you got carried away saying you were going to make us an ice rink for the night but ended up freezing your feet to the ground."

"Oh yea, that was hilarious until Olaf poured hot water on my bare feet," Elsa mumbled and rolled her eyes.

Anna cradled her foot for another moment. "He was trying to help, even if he isn't always good at it." She gently moved Elsa's foot and traded the cushion for her lap. "This is from the couch, it's good and firm. I want you to keep your foot up and ice it!" she said, trying to sound bossy but it was way too cute.

"Yes, yes." Elsa waved her hand and immediately her foot was held in ice, structured so that she wouldn't accidentally move her foot more and hurt it during the night.

"Lucky that cold doesn't bother you," Anna commented as she watched. She looked at Elsa's face after. "Are you going to sleep in that dress? You'll get tangled! I'll untangle you but still..."

It had faded immensely, but there was still distress in the air and Elsa didn't want it there. She didn't care if she slept in the dress but with another, slower wave of her hand, the long dress was gone and she remained in a very simple white and sparkly little gown that stopped at her knees. "Feel better?"

Anna nodded in approval and slid off the bed, rushing over to the trunk she stored extra bedding in. She rustled around for a few seconds before emerging with a good sized, thick blanket. "Just need this. I know you won't get cold but the ice..."

"Oh." Elsa blinked, setting down her finally emptied glass. Yea, that block of ice was going to bother Anna probably. "Sorry. Are you sure you want me to stay on the bed?" She'd move, but she also realized quickly it was a silly offer to make.

Immediately Anna had narrowed her eyes and rushed the bed with her blanket in her arms. She scrambled on next to Elsa. "No, you're staying right here! Don't move an inch, I won't miss one of my nights with you." She considered where to lay and smartly settled on Elsa's left, the foot that wasn't injured.

"Anna." Elsa laughed as her sister arranged the blanket over herself and partially over Elsa.

"Are you comfortable? Here, let me arrange the pillows so you can lay back now," Anna said, taking a couple that had been propping Elsa up. She put them behind herself instead and scooched in close. As she settled herself in for another nice cuddle, she kissed her sister's cheek.

Elsa smiled at her, noticing the way Anna's cheeks reddened. Elsa was usually the one who gave small kisses, something that Anna loved but was certainly shy about. "Love you too, Anna," she told her and enjoyed the extended blushing.

"You always know what I want to say," Anna said softly. "Or how I feel."

"And? You feel that too," she said, indicating their meshed energies. "I know you do."

"I do, I do. I never want to stop feeling it," Anna said as she rolled on her side and gazed up at Elsa.

"Neither do I," Elsa replied and stroked Anna's cheek. Anna's face was almost shining up at her. "Thank you for taking care of me."

"It's my favorite thing to do! Not that-not that I want you sick or hurt. I still want you to look after yourself, you know." Anna slid her arm around her in her typical way.

"Yes, yes. I know. I'll do better." Elsa didn't say she promised since she knew how she could be...but she was sure going to try.

Anna squeezed her and nodded. "Good. If you don't, you're going to spend a lot of time healing while listening to Olaf's trivia. How's that sound to you?"

At that, Elsa could only groan.

#Frozen 2 #fanfic #anna #elsa #COMFORT N STUFF

32 notes · View notes

heystuckstuck · 5 years ago

Text

humanstuck au headcanons

aradia is half italian, half black, with olive toned, light brown skin and dark brown eyes. she has long, curly brown hair that she does not brush or comb. she’s tall, about 5’10, and thin, with minimal curves, though she is not stick-thin. she often plays d&d with tavros, vriska and terezi. her closest friends are feferi and tavros, with whom she likes to larp and play videogames. she has an outstanding interest in archaeology and collects dead insect wings. she also dabbles in self-taught taxidermy. she’s odd, but fairly friendly, so she’s well-liked at school and amongst her friends. she lives with both of her parents and is an only child. her cousin damara lived with them through highschool, but the two of them didn’t get along very well. she has a sheepdog named frogger, who she takes on her adventures to potentially haunted places.

tavros is mexican and has hesitant speech with a fairly heavy accent. he’s got tanned skin and dark brown hair styled into a fohawk and brown eyes. he’s got freckles scattered across his face and nose. he’s fairly small, standing at only about 5’6, and his chest is thin with a tiny amount of pudge collecting at his tummy. he also has fairly muscular arms, from after his accident, when he was wheelchair-bound. he, vriska, terezi,and aradia were in a car accident their freshman year, killing his mother and causing his legs to be amputated from the knee down. he has robotic prosthetics gifted to him by the members of his school’s robotics club. he is very interested in disney, particularly peter pan, pokemon, and likes to watch anime. his best friends are aradia and nepeta. he also has a service/emotional support dog, a pomeranian named tinkerbell. he’s also vegetarian.

sollux is half korean, half swedish and has both heterochromia and a lisp. he doesn’t show much of the swedish side at all, with his olive toned skin and black hair, which he keeps fairly shaggy. he doesn’t like to cut it. his twin sister is nepeta, but he doesn’t spend a ton of time with her. his closest friends are karkat and feferi, who he sort of both hates and loves simultaneously. he has bipolar disorder and forgets his medication fairly frequently, despite leaving post-it’s all over the house to help him remember. he likes to play video games and code things and he’s pretty good at it, which is a fact he doesn’t let people forget. he’s tall, 6’0, and very skinny because his diet consists of coffee and cheetos for the most part. he has debilitating migraines and a tendency to have somewhat prophetic dreams, so anytime he has a nightmare, he feels paranoid beyond all belief.

karkat is half indian, half greek, which evens out his skin tone so he’s in between light and dark skinned. his eyes are hazel and he has thick, heavy eyebrows. he actually has a very pleasant looking face, appearing very approachable until he opens his mouth. he has a very grating sense of humor, which tends to hurt people’s feelings, but he doesn’t really mean any of the harsh things he says. he enjoys watching romcoms and helps his girlfriends paint their nails and braid their hair and does so with only a traditional karkat grumble of it being too much effort, not that it’s emasculating. his closest friends are dave and sollux, which he would never admit because he is too busy pretending that he hates their guts. he considers himself the leader of their friend group and so does everyone else, relying on him for begrudging advice and tough love, despite really being a softie underneath it all. he’s fairly tall as well, 6’0, but pretty thick and slightly muscular. he doesn’t work out a ton, just enough to keep himself toned. he is the only other person to join nepeta and equius in their daily gym routine.

nepeta is sollux’s twin sister, so she is also half swedish and half korean. they are fraternal twins and she picked up all of the swedish genes. all of them. so many swedish genes. she’s fairly small in stature, barely scraping 5’4 and has short, honey blonde hair and blue-green eyes and thin lips. she also had a cleft palate when she was younger and has a scar on her upper lip from getting it fixed. she’s very muscular and tough, and extremely strong despite her small size. she has a full six pack. her closest friends are equius and tavros. for the most part, she spends her time with equius working out and arguing and utilizes her time spent with tavros to practice her other hobbies, like larping and d&d. she has a pet cat that she named pounce de leon and she takes her for walks, which she enjoys.

kanaya is armenian and originally from england, and so has an accent. she has short ink-black hair and hazel eyes bordering on the green side. she is very elegant and wears a full face of makeup everyday, with dark lipstick ranging in tone from ruby to emerald to black sometimes. she likes to practice her makeup skills on her friends, including the boys, which, excluding eridan, will not let her. she is a lesbian and is out and fairly proud of her identity. her mother is a fashion designer and kanaya is following fast in her footsteps. she enjoys spending her time gardening and reading erotic vampire romance novels, which she shares with karkat. her closest friends are karkat and vriska, both of whom she fusses over and drives them absolutely crazy. she has a penchant for knitting and gives her friends homemade scarves for christmas every year. it’s a tradition. she’s fairly bottom heavy with curvy hips and a small chest, which brings her great embarrassment. she also has very long legs and is quite tall, standing at about 6’1.

terezi is korean and adopted by her mother’s friend. this friend happens to be the mother of the person she has dubbed her scourge sister, vriska. terezi is slight and made of all angles and bones and stands at 5’7. she wishes she was taller, because she’d be a more threatening presence that way. she has braces, always with bands colored teal and red. she has black hair and dark brown eyes and is so thin because she exists on a diet of sugary snacks and that alone. she’s the captain of the school’s debate team because she refuses to admit defeat. she has an albino ferret called chief deputy pyralspite, which serves as the mascot of the debate team. her best friends are karkat and sollux, who she consistently harasses and refuses to leave alone. her hobbies include mock trials, eating fruit snacks, and searching abandoned buildings with aradia, in the hopes of catching a spook. she thinks it would be fun.

vriska is 6’2 and thin. not quite as thin as terezi but she’s still very angular. she has long blonde hair that she dyes blue at the ends with kool-aid and dresses in baggy flannels and t-shirts that do nothing for her. she’s of swedish descent and looks it, with her extremely pale skin and hair. she’s adopted sisters with terezi and latula and the younger sister of aranea. things get more complicated when you throw in her step brothers, eridan and cronus. her mother married their dad when she was in 7th grade and she’s been spitefully teasing eridan ever since. she’s lanky and awkwardly built and doesn’t have much charm about her but makes up for it by meddling with her friends. she lost and eye and her arm in the car accident she was in freshman year and sometimes she thinks her left arm still itches. it doesn’t cause it no longer exists. her closes at friends are tavros and kanaya, who she likes to mess with. she likes spiders and creepy crawlies and often can be found begrudgingly helping aradia find them.

equius is tall and exceptionally broad at 6’4. he has long hair that he wears down all the time despite his tendency to sweat and really likes horses. he really likes them. he works out daily with or without nepeta, and defends her daily. he’s odd and people find him vaguely off-putting more often than not. he has a weird obsession with gamzee that nepeta insists is a crush. his best friends are nepeta and gamzee, despite his inability to either take it easy or smoke weed. he finds most of his friends to be bothersome but he likes them anyway. he’s native american and has black hair and eyes that are bordering on black as well.

gamzee is a stoner. he’s exceptionally tall, 6’7, and very very thin, despite constantly eating. he’s dark skinned with vitiligo and tends to have a slow reaction time. he’s weird but he’s so nice that everyone likes him except his friends, who sort of hate and love him at the same time. his attempts to learn to ride the unicycle have all ended in failure but he is determined. his best friends are tavros, who raps with him, and karkat, who pretends to be unable to stand him. he has wild messy hair and giant hands. he’s a juggalo and listens to icp and loves them, despite being nonviolent.

eridan is from australia and has a watered down aussie accent that he tries to make as english sounding as possible. he’s on the swim team with feferi and has thick muscles and a broad chest. he’s 6’3 and actually very handsome, with an angular face and a sharp nose. he wears huge glasses and dyes a chunk of the front of his hair blonde, which offsets his attractiveness. his hair is medium brown and his eyes are a bright shade of hazel. he’s half indian, half white and so his skin is deep medium brown and covered with soft freckles that he is embarrassed about. he loves history class and is also on the debate team and is the only person who can even come close to arguing terezi down. he enjoys watching war documentaries and actually appreciates historical musicals (exhibit a: fiddler on the roof). he enjoys all of his friends, despite pretending not to, and he will participate in all of their hobbies with them. he often comes across as pretentious but has been dialed back a lot by the teasing of his friends. his closest friends are feferi and karkat.

feferi is hawaiian. that’s all. just kidding. she has long curly hair and bright brown eyes. she’s in show choir and on the swim team and the class president and nobody knows how she manages to balance all of them. she’s thick and muscular, about 5’10 and bubbly very consistently. she is one of the few who is rarely annoyed by her friends. she enjoys swimming, exploring and actually quite enjoys playing games with her friends. her closest friends are eridan and sollux who don’t get along very often and constantly bicker despite caring for each other a lot

john has pale skin and black hair and the bluest eyes ever. he’s got a lopsided smile that he wears almost all the time, with those goofy too-big teeth. jade is his older half-sister, with whom he shares a father. he enjoys terrible movies and pulling pranks on all of his friends. no one is safe. he’s known for always joking and never really being serious, unless it’s about whatever movie he’s most recently watched. he’s never seen a movie he didn’t like, with the exception of every movie that karkat likes, mostly to irk him. his closest friends are dave and karkat and he spends most of his time with them. he’s the proud owner of a small golden cocker spaniel named casey. he’s 5’11 and fairly trim due to his fast metabolism.

jade is john’s older half-sister. they share the same father, who is white, but her mother is a pacific islander. she was raised by her mother until the age of ten, when she passed away. she then moved in with her dad and half-brother, john. jade has long, dark hair and deep hazel eyes. she’s tall and fit from years of adventuring. she often goes barefoot and has very calloused feet and hands. she enjoys gardening and has a strong love for animals. her closest friends are tavros and feferi. she’s tal, 6’0, taller than john, which bothers him, of course. she was gifted a white german shepherd named bequerel for her thirteenth birthday.

dave is tall, 6’2, lanky and pale with little muscle mass to be found. he’s not albino and has light blonde hair and reddish brown eyes. he spends most of his free time mixing songs that he shows to no one. he explores haunted places with aradia and they share a mutual fondness for dead things. more than anything else, he enjoys giving his friends a hard time. he enjoys swords and takes up boxing his freshman year, which he’s surprisingly good at. he joined the debate team with terezi purely for shits and giggles but ended up enjoying it far more than he expected. he’s the proud owner of a pug dubbed “the mayor of can town” and a white german shepherd named maplehoof, who is beq’s littermate.

rose is shorter than her twin brother, standing at only 5’2. she makes up for her lack of height in sarcastic and analytical spirit however, and patronizes all of her friends to the point that they don’t even know if she likes them or not. she does. she has short blonde hair and a pinched face with thin lips and large eyes. she’s a proud lesbian and is very open about her sexuality. she enjoys reading and actually gardens with jade and kanaya a lot of the time. she’s an enthusiastic knitter, her specialty being sweaters, which she makes for her friends and siblings. she has a sturdy tuxedo cat called jaspers and she likes him but also doesn’t at the same time.

66 notes · View notes

hollandroos · 6 years ago

Text

The Price We Pay | Chapter 1

Summary: A one night stand was all it took for your entire life to change. You're shoved into unknown territory, agreeing to fake date the prince long enough for his parents and the media to get off of his back only there are a few issues... one of them being that you really can’t stand each other.

Series Masterlist | Wattpad

Words: 4.2k

Warnings: Mentions of a one night stand & semi-sexual content

A/N: The prologue is really important to the plot so uhh maybe go read that first!!! I’m so excited for this, please remember to send asks and comments because they keep me motivated!

The sheets beside you were anything but empty, in fact, an entire body lay there– just as naked as you were.

His brown curls were tousled over his forehead brown eyes stuck in a daze. He looked amazing post sex and you were sure you looked a wreck but still– you both wore matching smiles, giggles spilling from your lips whether it was from the alcohol that still lingered in your system or the fact that you felt as if you were floating on cloud nine. But it was a very sweaty cloud nine at that.

“That was…” You trail off, staring at the ceiling of your bedroom.

“Amazing?” He replies for you with a thick British accent. His voice was raspier then you remembered, and you only just noticed the lipstick marks that trailed down his neck. Tom felt free, he felt euphoric and he wasn’t sure he wanted things to change.

Laughs erupt from your lips that were now bare, lipstick smudged on either side but you didn't realise until much later when you popped away to the bathroom. A warm shower was exactly what you craved.

“Spectacular.”

Spectacular was surely the right word and it was only confirmed when you rolled over, groaning at the slight ache that settled.

Tom felt no sense of remorse for sneaking out of the castle as of yet, not when it had as good of an outcome as this. Besides, he doubted that anyone realised he was gone– and if they did, what were they going to do about it? But he did have to admit that his mind was slightly plagued, because while he laid with the girl from the bar– he had to wonder about someone else. About another girl that was playing in his head like a hive of bees who he’d only forgotten about for a set period of time. And if this… if laying with you had really been the best thing to do.

He finds himself rolling over, chest pressed against the sheets and plants his lips on yours, one arm curled behind your spine and your alcohol scented lips mixing with his own. “You were fantastic.”

The sheets were definitely not as expensive as his own and the shoebox bedroom wasn’t even one-quarter of what his was but he didn’t care one bit, showing no ounce of remorse or distaste.

If you only knew what you’d just gotten yourself into.

“You’re an absolute dick, you know that?”

The blinds were torn open with a forceful grip, an angry Harrison marched around the room tugging them open one by one, already dressed and alert despite it only being six in the morning. Tom only groaned, rolling into his pillow to cover himself from the blinding light and Tessa growled, though Tom willed her to be quiet considering she wasn’t supposed to be sleeping on the bed in the first place.

“You’ve told me plenty of times before, but what did I do this time?” He mutters, words slightly muffled thanks to the pillow.

“This.”

A paper gets chucked onto the Californian king sized bed, pieces falling out and mixing with the sheets and the duvet that was a plush white mixed with gold, and Tom struggles to comprehend what he was supposed to be looking at, still attempting to wake himself up. He didn’t even attempt to hide the few scratch marks that laced his back, too tired to care. Because that’s all he seemed to do lately– care.

“What is this?” He runs a hand over his face, glaring at the cover page. “What do you– oh.”

Then Tom finds it. He finds the reason for his best friends glares and the harsh tone he carried and he swore he felt his stomach drop dramatically. It made his eyes widen in absolute shock and memories from that night to flood back. He thought that he’d moved on from it, carrying out his duties as the prince but the media never let him rest.

“Yeah, now explain.” Harrison demands, snatching the paper out of the royals hand. Harrison was the only person that would treat Tom that way– everyone else was too afraid of the prince. Not including his parents, of course. “Please tell me that isn’t you, for fuck sake.”

“That’s me, that’s definitely me.”

Harrison groans loudly, once more having to watch his best mate fuck things up for himself– but something this stupid? It almost made him laugh and only two years ago the blond would have laughed. Because then they were practically kids, finding humour in things that back then they didn’t realise had an impact on their image.

“You know how bad this looks, Tom, your parents will be furious when they see this.” He points out the obvious, ripping the sheets off of Tom who was still trying to process the situation. “I woke you up before your dad can read the paper so you can fix this somehow. Do you even know this girls name?”

“Of course I know her fucking name! I’m not that bad.” He tries to defend himself– key word tries. “God, what am I meant to do?” Tom pulls the sheets back, shivering as the cold air hits him. “How did the paps even find me there?”

Harrison sighs, gazing over the papers once more. He hadn’t even noticed that Tom had snuck out that night like he so often did… he didn’t think anybody did.

“They do keep bugging you about getting a girlfriend...” He mutters.

“I don’t want one.” Tom hisses, quick to reply. He smacks his hand against the duvet like a child. But his glare was that of a full grown adult.

“I’m not saying that! I’m just trying to say that your parents will be very unhappy when they see this and hear that you were out drinking– no scratch that, sleeping with a damn stranger!” Harrison sighs, seeing the rather confused and overwhelmed look on his friends face.

Tom glares at his friend, finally feeling the winter breeze hit. He willed himself to get up and fix this but he also wanted to crawl back under those covers and hope it’d all go away on its own.

“What? so I’m not allowed to have at least a little fun?” He complains. “We were safe and she didn’t even recognise me. Can you relax now?”

Seeing the look on Toms' face, Harrison releases his crushing grip on the papers.

“I’m sorry for bringing up the girlfriend part, I know what happened with April and I just… I’m scared for you, for what these photos will do to your image. It’s not like you’re just innocently kissing, Tom.”

Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, Tom gets out of the bed and his feet land on the floorboards with a gentle thud just enough to make Tessa look up from her spot on the bed, tilting her head to the side as her owner makes his way over to his closet, searching through masses of clothing.

“I know. Look, it was just a one-time thing, but surely my parents won’t listen to that.” He sighs, pulling a shirt over his tousled curls. “Her name is Y/N. She lives in the town.”

Harrison cocks his head, leaning against the bed and watches with a confused gaze as Tom digs through his many drawers. Ultimately landing on the one with his sports gear in it. “So she’s a towns girl?”

Tom throws items of clothing onto the floor, some scattering across the bed and landing on the bedside table. For a prince, he truly wasn’t that clean. But he was kind-hearted– even if sometimes he came across as an ass, arrogant and cocky.

He shrugs, finding the things he was looking for. “Yeah, I think she mentioned that she works at one of those little restaurant things but we were pretty drunk.”

Harrison was confused but his anger had somehow vanished and with very little faith that the boy in front of him could fix this, he raises a single brow. At that moment Harrison Osterfield looked neater then the royal and he would gladly flaunt it– even with the current situation chewing away at them by the moment.

But it was Harrison's duty to keep Tom out of these messes– to keep him grounded and he felt like he failed. It was the anger of the King he’d be facing later that he feared.

“Do you know what you have to do?” He questions.

“I think I know what to do but I don’t know if it will dig me further into my grave or get me out of this mess, at least with my family.” Tom looks at himself in the mirror, seeing that the last thing he looked like was a prince in his unwashed horse riding gear. There were mud stains on the front from where he’d simply fallen off and patches on the knees of the pants. He looked more like a beggar than a prince. “Do you think you could cover for me for an hour or so?”

Work, eat, sleep, repeat.

That was your routine. Sometimes, if you had a little extra time on your hands and got out of work early then you were able to go out and have a little fun, or even run a warm bath at your shared apartment and soak in a pool of bubbles and pretty smelling salts. Those were the best days, where you were just able to let go whether that meant dancing everything out and getting drunk off of your face or treating yourself to a spa night.

The spa night included bath bombs and a glass of wine and maybe a hair mask or painting your nails a fresh colour, scraping off the chipped paint from the weeks before. But the other nights were more hectic, filled with booming music and bodies on bodies.

Your last night out had been two days ago with Tom, the curly-haired boy from the bar. Though you remember him better for the lips that trailed down your abdomen and right to the hem of your underwear, from the hands that gripped your hips and left gentle, blue and purple marks there and the way his demeanour quickly changed from gentle, slightly flirty to confident and dominating.

You did, however, briefly remember the glint of mischief in his eyes as he bid you goodbye.

Okay, calm down.

What was even better? You hadn’t got his number, nor his address and all you knew was that he went to the same, grungy and rather run down bar as you and lived somewhere near the edge of the town. The only pieces of him that you had left were the marks down your neck, fingerprints on your hips and the fact that you woke up with his jacket sitting on your bedroom floor, a tube of chapstick on the inside and a necklace– a simple chain with a key dangling from the bottom. Not a proper key, simply a decoration.

The memories were still perfectly inked into your brain and you may or may not have only zoned out at work once or twice the next day, brain still fuzzy from the alcohol you consumed when you arrived back at your place and the feeling of being on cloud nine. It only made your expectations higher.

You slept with him.

But that was two days ago, and this was now.

You race around the house, a cup of now cold coffee resting in the centre of the coffee table, mug stained with your lipstick. Shoes pad against the carpet, leaving ugly prints that as a child, your mother would have scolded you for. But now as a grown up you were more focused on the clock that ticked away on the corner wall, every second indicating one more until you were late for your job that you were barely hanging onto by a thread. You were opening today– the biggest job of all right next to closing up.

If you pushed the thought of the shoes to the back of your mind, then you also tended to ignore the blisters swelling on the heels of your feet and the splotches of blood that stained your pantihose by midday. Because as much as you wished you could simply run around in leggings all day, you weren’t allowed.

Being a mostly mature adult with a lot of time on your hands, (because work was boring) you could write an essay about the things that you liked and didn’t like, an entire scripture on your interests because you were simply very adamant. And grumpy bosses was at the very bottom of that list. The thought of him scolding you again, coffee-stained teeth and warm saliva spilling past his lips and landing directly on your cheek was enough to make you grimace.

He was a gross old man, recently celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday and had recently lost his very last standing patch of hair and now relied on glasses to get him through day to day life. You wondered if he slept from the bags under his eyes or if they were just natural by now or if his wife was just overwhelming– and if he had always had nose hair that long or if it was a development within the last few years.

You were so distracted that you nearly tripped on the rug and you would’ve ended up flying forward– papers and work gear spilling onto the floor. That perfectly explained your level of focus right now. But life was boring, a cycle of the same events over and over and it wasn’t that you were just waiting for something interesting to happen, but you were just waiting for something interesting to happen.

The house was messy, things scattered around but what could one expect when you put two young girls together? Absolute chaos. You nearly miss the sound of footsteps that weren’t your own, hurried yet cautious as they step down the hall.

You grip the keys in one hand, stuffing your phone in your pocket with the other, your bag was slung over one arm and you were sure that you looked a wreck but what had changed? You mentally checked things off, not wanting to forget your keys again or sanity for that matter.

Taking a sip from your second coffee– yes second, this one was in a flask, you open the front door, nearly walking into a stranger. At least you thought he was a stranger with his hood pulled up and over his features, dirty clothes and a slight hunch.

That was until he looked up.

“What the fu–”

He puts a finger out, using the hood to hide most of his face. But you’d never forget those dirty brown curls. “Shh, I need you to let me in.” He instructs, voice shaking as the words slipped a little faster then they should have.

Your mouth opens and closes like a fish, the coffee burning the palm of your hand as you hold it. “You’re at my house at six o’clock in the morning.” You were beyond confused to see Tom, especially this early and so soon.

Tom glanced around, watching one of your neighbour's eyes. Her name was Mallery and she nearly had a heart attack seeing the royal, being as big of a fan of them as she was. Only you didn’t realise that was the cause of her widening eyes and other star stricken features. Glancing back, Tom wanted to smirk seeing the purple and blue marks ‘hidden’ by a thin scarf but was in too much of a hurry to. He only had around forty-five minutes until his father woke up and saw the paper and while that was inevitable, a good story that’d please the man wasn’t.

“Something bad has happened and by your reaction to me being here I assume you don’t know and that makes me feel worse about this entire thing.”

You were still in slight shock, what felt like a hive of honey bees buzzing around your brain as he waited for a reply. You get yourself together, deciding questions were better to come later.

“I really have to get to work, Tom, I can’t be late again or I’ll get fired and I can’t lose my job. Can we talk about this later?” You practically beg, tapping a foot against the floor. He shakes his head wearily, knowing that if you left that house you’d be noticed as the girl from the pictures in moments. It was clear as day, your face was in it. “Fuck… okay, come in.”

He steps into the familiar apartment only this time he wasn’t as drunk and was able to point out just how small the room really was. He recognised the woollen blanket that was slung over the couch and the multiple cups that were scattered around the room, and the ugly grey that the walls were painted as well as the pastel blue backdrop in the kitchen.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen and now that it’s out there, there’s really nothing we can do and I don’t know how to tell you this…” He trails on, fumbling with his fingers.

You tilt your head, glancing down at your wristwatch as the minute's tick by.

“What are you even talking about?”

“I didn’t tell you who I am the night we… you know.” Tom grimaces, running a hand through his curls as he throws the hood off. “I’m not a mechanic, I don’t even really know what they do. I’m the son of Anne and Derek, the King and Queen–”

You want to laugh at his statement, and maybe you did because it was absolutely wild, so bizarre that you shook your head, not believing it for a second. But he stood there straight-faced in your living room while you stood in disbelief.

“I’m not falling for that shit, if you came here to try and fool me then you should just leave before I lose my job and my patience.” You shake your head, frustration beginning to course through your veins.

“I’m not trying to trick you!” He says, a little louder then he originally meant to. “I’m being dead serious right now because what I’m about to show you is even worse.”

You saw the sincerity on his face, even if you didn’t know him at all yet and slump your shoulders. Toms gaze wasn’t faltering at all and you were still confused. Not that the situation was weird enough, but you couldn’t exactly imagine the boy in front of you in a crown and fancy clothes. Not when he looked like he’d just fallen off of a horse and rolled into a puddle of mud.

“What are you talking about?” You question, placing your coffee onto the entryway table.

“These.”

He hands you a folded up piece of paper and you take it, unfolding what you now realised was today's version of the newspaper and gape at it.

To say you were humiliated was easily an understatement. The photos on the cover were clearly of you and him from your night at the bar– that one night that ended up at your place. There were photos from every angle, from close up and further back. It was an absolute invasion of privacy, that much was for sure and you felt sick to your stomach.

There were pictures of Toms lips on yours as you locked in a heated kiss, his hands beneath your shirt and running up your thigh. Blood ran to your already flustered cheeks at the photo of you hiked up on the wall right outside the bar. Of course the two of you had been impatient and of course, Tom couldn’t have taken more care. Suddenly, you hated the previously charming boy.

“This is insane– they can’t do this, can they? Oh my god, my parents are going to kill me– I’ll lose my job and my life. This is humiliating.” You gasp, not knowing exactly what to say so you ramble, a hundred and one questions and statements running through your mind as you stare at all of the photos on the print. You felt embarrassed, blood running straight to your cheeks.

The title was even worse reading ‘Prince Holland out for some fun with a mystery girl.’ You swore you felt bile in the back of your throat. It was a wicked, wild and cruel dream, it simply had to be.

“They can do this and they’ll continue to do it.”

You swallowed thickly, growing angry and concerned and anxious all at the same time because god knows how many people would see these photos and god knows how many people would judge you for it. In a world where people were judgmental and parents were strict, where saving yourself for marriage was a strong belief held by many you could count yourself as good as screwed.

“Why didn’t you tell me about how you were and the consequences before we slept together?” You growl, passing the paper back to him. Staring at the photos made you feel nauseous and suddenly turned a great experience that you had previously basked in, into a scary one. Suddenly you were even afraid to step outside, seriously debating calling off on work.

“I didn’t want you to think any differently of me and can you blame me? I just wanted to be normal for once and I had no idea they followed me, nor how they found me.” Tom replies with wild hand movements. Maybe you should have been working together instead of tearing each other apart but with such frustrated and panicked minds, you were practically running on adrenaline.

You sigh and kick at the ground with your clothed feet, trying to snap yourself out of this in case it was a wild dream, which it sadly was not. “What do we do now?” You ask quietly, staring at the ground.

“I have an idea but you’re going to hate it, just hear me out, okay?” Tom waits for you to nod and you do so hesitantly. “We fake date.” He watches your mouth open nearly immediately and puts a finger up to silence you. “Just long enough to get the people to back off and to make my rep look… the slightest bit better.”

“What’s in it for me? It sounds like this is just a way for you to make yourself look better.” You cross your arms across your chest, glaring at the man. You couldn’t believe the insane offer– it sounded like something he’d come up with while drunk.

He sighs and grips the roots of his hair, looking at the clock to see he had to leave as soon as possible to get back to the castle on time. Harrison could only keep him covered for so long.

“You won’t have to work as long as we’re together, you’ll get to see the castle and–”

“I have no interest in seeing the castle.” Maybe you were being a little harsher then need be.

Tom stops and grits his teeth before continuing. “You won’t have to work, you’ll get to see parts of the country you haven’t seen… maybe even parts of the world. Think hairstylists and makeup artists, designer clothes. Plus, what would your family think of you dating a royal?” Tom stops, taking a deep breath as you stand and tap your foot, playing with the ends of your shirt. “We screwed up and now we have to deal with the consequences.” He says. Tom was just as angry as you, biting the inside of his lip to prevent himself from losing his temper at the girl he’d only know for a little over a day. He’d barely count a one night stand as ‘getting to know someone’.

“No way, I don’t want this.” Your arms flew over your head, anger and frustration coursing through your veins but you were hiding it over layers of what still had to be confusion or the fact that you were overwhelmed. This wasn’t real, none of it was, it had to be a dream. “This is all fucking crazy.”

“I’d watch that mouth of yours, princesses don’t swear.” Tom tutts. He was just as frustrated as you. He found himself circling your apartment, the small stains that decorated the carpet and ornaments that sat above the fireplace were nothing you’d see at the castle. Blankets were strewn across the couch covered in wrinkles and empty coffee mugs lined the bench. The apartment was nothing more then a shoebox and the boy didn’t remember it being this messy the last time he’d shown up. “C’mon, just for a while then things will go back to normal. Your family won’t be able to hate you and I can sort everything else out, I’m Tom Holland.”

“I’m not a princess.” You cross your arms over your chest like a child throwing a tantrum, the sweater hugging close to your chest. It was a simple grey one from target. You bet princesses didn’t buy their clothes from target. “And this doesn’t mean that I have to like you, does it? Because quite frankly I’m not as nice when I’m sober.”

It was easily the beginning of something big– something totally out of your comfort levels and maybe you were ready for something new, and maybe you just wanted to stay right where you were but the offer was intriguing.

“Look, you just have to pretend that we get along until this all blows over.” Tom shakes his head, brown curls brushing against his forehead. “We fucked up– I fucked up, but this was a two-sided thing. This is the price we pay.”

Leave comments or asks, reblog if you wish!! let’s talk about this chapter

two

Everything tags: @cosmetologynerd @holland-ish @smexylemony @thewiseandfree @zendayacolemen @dej-okay @hollandsletters @ive-got-some-lies-to-tell @liz-gayllen @marvelismylifffe @lovelyh0lland @tomhollandandmarvelsworld @woah-jess @southsidefandoms @justannothermonday @its-claire-louise @sophiatomlinson23 @mockingjaygirl1221 @joyfullyjenny @damnhisfaceisliketheskyatnight @bride-of-loki-odinson @in-the-corner-coffee-please @futuremrsb-r-main @spideyyypeter @saturn-aka-six @c0prolalia @buckykinz @ashtonsbandannas @dennasaur @amyyleblanc1999 @fnosidam @randomfangirl1701@maybeandperhaps @acciorinn @marvel-language @micki-smiles @justmesadgirl @converseskyline @niall2017 @gavemylifetotomholland @tomuchmarvel @leslieandjensen @painted-soulss @practicallylivesonline @mischiefmanaged49 @its-the-unknownspidey @holyrose96 @for-my-mind @mlxbm @erindillon11 @captainbuckyy @shawnandhisroses @converseskyline @smitten0-0kitten @parkeroos @whileinparis @unicornio-vomita-mierdas @draqcnheartstrinq @rainyboo-posts @mikalaka @petxrpxrker @tony-starks-ego @thedaydreamingwriter @peter-quackson @kateelyse96 @lesbian-jesus-jr @wheresmyquill @elyshugh @hollanderheart @tomshufflepuff @marvelismylifffe @tomsh0lland @obsessed-fandoms @girl-in-the-chair @trashqueenbitch @dramatic-and-young @honey-honey-5644 @parkerluvs @chingonaconcha @captainbuckyy @jes-sica1 @tomsfireheart @Rainbow-marvel @spideysimpossiblegirl @spideys-gurl @thomasstanley-holland @mlxbm @ixchel-9275 @parkerssweb @peter-parkersbb @tom-hollands-eyelash @starlightfound @vldlvj @paradoxparker @lustfulcry @mlxbm @musiclover1263 @justatheatredork @peterparkerscamera @fandomnerdsarecool @thequeensardine @cutesy-angst @httplayer @mischiefmanaged49 @loca-lola @softboyparkerr @desir-ae @dangerousluv1 @t-hotland @laucontrerasv @peter-parkersbb @whatdafricklefrackle @thatblondebelgiangirl @fairydustparker @they-call-me-le @jamiemac26

The price we pay: @ambiibambi24 @thiccholland01 @writingisamood @mountainsforwords @joyfullyje @sithskywalkers @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @ohmyquackson @nerfariousporpoises @httplayer @myhopeisinfinite @omfgitscindyy @hollandfieldblurbs @incandescentflor @mlxbm @thescarsweleave @justmesadgirl @dramatic-and-young @marvelousxtsh @rishlo

#Tom holland #Tom Holland au #Tom Holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagines #Tom Holland series #Tom Holland imagine #tom holland fanfic #tom holland blurb #royal!tom #fake dating #Tom Holland reader insert #tom holland angst #Tom Holland smut #tom holland fluff #the price we pay fic

741 notes · View notes

iimuchakk · 7 years ago

Text

Thalassophile (Young!Sinbad x reader) Sinbad No Bouken

Summary : Moving to Tison village was never a noble girls dream, neither was meeting a young boy with both a passion for adventure and a talent at drawing people in. You thought the beginning of your life had ended long ago, but truth be told it starts here, and it starts now.

Warnings : Disturbing themes of parental and child relationships with one another

“So come all you pretty maids, whoever that you be, who love a jolly sailor bold, that ploughs the raging sea.”

Chapter : One

Volume 1 Chapter 4 : Precious lessons

Covered in the finest of silk’s and the most glittering of golds, you sat proudly in your seat. Hands laced together and propped up in a lady like manner on your lap. Your chin held itself high in the air proudly, and opposite you, your mother sat in a similar position, except her stature held power and authority, two things you were just beginning to grasp at your young age of 14. Your mother, Mrs Bedivere, was a well-known lady throughout Parthevia. People associated her with discipline, elegance and grace, as well as her ability to strike fear into the hearts of mere men just by glancing at them with her bright blue eyes. Currently, her gaze was off towards the direction of the window. Watching curiously as the view slowly changed from bright colors and rich statures into plain flat lands and dull living shacks. Despite being a wealthy women, the difference did not phase her. In fact, she seemed more pleased than not, and happily turned her attention down towards her pink dress.

Currently, your father was out fighting in the war. He was just as well known as your mother - if not more so - and was a respected officer who gave his loyalty over to the crown. He had never once been defeated, and you were keen on it staying that way. From your seat, your eyes shifted towards your mother, and you slowly opened your mouth to speak. “Mother.” You began gently, keeping your tone soft. In the past you had a habit of raising your voice and she was quick to scold you. Before replying to you, your mothers hands smoothed down a few kinks in her gown, careful not to scrape her nicely fuchsia painted nails. She took her time, then looked at you.

“Yes my sweet. What is it.” To anyone who dosent know her. In that moment she comes across as nothing more then polite and kind, as any mother would be when addressing their own flesh and blood. However to you, as somebody who has spent their entire life around her, and has seen every possible facade she owns, you know she is not happy from being brought out of her thoughts. Her eyes give it away, it is always her eyes. Holding back the urge to shift uncomfortable, you smile kindly.

“This village were moving to. What is it like? Will father soon be joining us?” Casually you moved a finger to your hair and began to twirl a strand of it vivaciously between your soft finger tips, that had obviously never seen a days of hard work.

“Tison village?” Your mother murmured quietly to herself, taking a short moment to ponder on what she should say. After a second or so, she glanced back out towards the window. The blurry colors of the quickly passing scenery not escaping her hawk like vision. “It’s not nearly as beautiful as what were use to back at home. Poor people at every turn, fishermen, most likely thieves and ruffians…However, I have been assured we will be given every luxury possible that comes with taking on this task the military has given your father once he returns. I’ve been told by the palace that our house is to be a suitable distance away from the others, and it will be the most well kept there. In addition, we will be given steady income, and wont have to associate ourselves to much with the people. As for your father -” Her gaze finally settles onto you, and for a moment, you swear she is hostile. “He will be joining us shortly. Now if you don’t mind. I would like to enjoy the rest of the carriage ride in silence.”

You note that is her lady like way of telling you to shut up, and so you comply. Soon, silence engulfs the two of you.

The carriage you both ride in is extravagant. The interior looks as though a chunk of the Parthevian castle has been taken, and the exterior not much different. You think back to the task at hand your mother mentioned your father having. When he returns from the war, he is meant to be taking control over Tison village for the emperor. A few years back when you were just a young girl, a Reim spy by the name of Darius had been sheltered by an expatriot, and ever since, the village has been less compliant to the needs of the Parthevian war. The kingdom hopes your father can restore the faith they once had in the military. As do you. The war is not something the rest of Parthevia takes lightly. In order to win, everybody is needed to help out in some way shape or form. Weather that means sending off their fathers and sons, or giving away their boats and money. That, is the Parthevian way.

Upon arrival, you watched from the shelter of your ride as people from the village crowded together to watch the commotion. Two horses rode beside the carriage, with two guards heavily armored controlling the reigns. Those two men were supposed to be yours and your mothers personal guards. Without your father with you, the two of you wouldn’t be able to fend for yourselves after all. You smiled widely when catching the boisterous grin of Knight Strous. Ever since you were a young girl, Sir Strous had been your only real friend. He was four years older than you, and while you were busy learning how to read and write, he was busying himself with the task of swords skills. Unlike his mentor Sir Gregor the third, who was also accompanying you. Strous was a lot kinder, and a lot more clumsy. He did make up for it with his charm though. You’d never seen somebody so easily talk an old women into stop hitting them with her bag. Holding back a laugh, you scanned over the people of Tison village.

The people dressed dully. Most of them wearing dark mucky brown clothing, or fabrics you could tell were of poor quality. You frowned. Unimpressed with the conditions. You expected something more. But what of you did not know. At the front of the crowd young girls and boys stood. Whispering excitedly about the new sights and carelessly pointing and tugging on their parents clothes. It was an odd exchange, you and your parents hardly ever acted towards each other like that.

“He looks strangely familiar.” Your mother quietly whispered to herself. Looking to her, you followed her stare dead ahead, to meet the face of a young boy around your age. He was handsome, that was a given. He had long purple hair tied into a ponytail, and his facial features were well defined. His clothing was simple, but suited him well. For a brief moment, his golden orbs moved ever so slightly to meet your own. As if by reflex your cheeks grew hot, and your eyes nervously shifted to any where other then his own. A higher class should not be caught staring at someone of lower status, and from your mothers disapproving hum, you knew the act did not go unnoticed.

Your posture faltered, and you sunk back into your seat to escape the gaze’s of the villagers and perhaps spare yourself from doing anything else your mother could criticize you for. Your mother didn’t seem to care about your bodies sudden lack of nobility. Nobody could see you from your position now. The public could not judge what they could not see. After that moment, you couldn’t get that boy out of your head, and you most certainly couldn’t get the fact your mother recognized him out of there either. The carriage continued on for a couple more minuets, until it finally stopped outside your new home.

Stepping out of the carriage, you curiously staggered over to the sight. Then, you paused.

“This could be nicer.” You concluded. Strous laughed, joining you.

“It’s nicer then the other houses. Believe me.” He told you, picking up your luggage. “I’m not even living in this. Count yourself lucky my lady.” Using his free hand to take off his helmet, Strous shook his head allowing his blond curly hair to run free. “Me and Sir Gregor will be living in a nice little shack behind your house. The thought of being cooped up with that grumpy old man really makes my day.”

“I’m glad to know you like Sir Gregor as much as the next person.” Playfully Strous nudged you. It caused him to stumble more then you since he had a bag of your heavy luggage in his other arm. If he was anyone else you’d have them arrested, but this was Strous. He’d do anything to protect you. With one final chuckle, Strous ventured towards your house. It was large and built completely of wood like many of the other buildings in Tison village. This one however, was decorated with flowers and expensive looking ornaments. Still, it hardly even rivaled your old home.

Sighing, you looked back towards where you had just came from before beginning to walk towards your house.

Suddenly a hand clasped gently around your wrist. Turning you directly back into golden orbs you didn’t think you would see again for a while. A tiny squeak surpassed your lips and you watched as the boy from earlier got down onto one knee, placing a gentle kiss to the back of your. Your face flushed yet again, and he winked. “My lady. It’s a pleasure knowing someone as beautiful as yourself will be staying here. My name is Sinbad, Sinbad the sailor. What’s yours?”

Whack.

A dumbfounded expression replaced his flirtatious grin, leaving him looking like a lost puppy. You on the other hand, were both outraged and deeply confused. No boy had ever made such a brash movement like that towards you before. This boy - Sinbad - had a large red hand print on his cheek, his lower lip stuck out in a futile attempt to make you feel bad for him. You narrowed your eyes at him, watching as he stood to his feet, towering over you by two inches or so. You both stood a whiles length from your house, in the entrance of the small wooded area where the carriage had stopped. In an instant, he snapped back to his earlier self. “You have an arm on you.”

“How dare you -” He stepped forward abruptly. And so you took a step back. The heel of your shoes catching on some sort of rocky surface, causing you to fall backwards. It was most certainly ungraceful, your arms flailing recklessly above you for some sort of balance. In the end, you got your wish. But it came in the form of a slim arm wrapping around your waist, pressing you close to their body.

“Could have been quite a fall. You’re lucky.” In a space of a minuet, you have been told twice about how lucky you are, but it is quite the opposite of how you feel. By now you sure your face is a bright red, and Sinbad smirks arrogantly. “I have saved you my lady. The least I can get in return is a name?” You glanced away, and slowly heaved yourself from his chest, standing up straight and lifting your head high. It seemed to amuse him.

“If your going to keep pestering me then I’ll have you know you can address me either as Miss Bedivere or Lady Bedivere, Sinbad the sailor.” You spat his name out coated in venom. Causing him to pout. “Now. I must be taking my leave as should you. Otherwise I will most certainly be getting my personal guard over here to escort you out of my families land. Good day to you.”

“Wait!” Nostrils flaring, you were ready to give this boy a good piece of your mind. You wouldn’t have cared about talking to him, but his greeting was rude and his manner even worse. He needed to learn his place and you wouldn’t mind fetching Strous to teach him it. “Now listen here-”

“Will I see you again?”

“Pardon?” Sinbad smiled gently, resting one hand on the hilt of his sword. It didn’t seem to be an act of aggression. But more like a habit of his he’d picked up along his way. Taken a back, your lips pursed as you tried thinking of a way to answer him back. “W-well.” You stuttered, not pleased with yourself in the slightest. “I-I live here now so it’s not as though we wont be seeing each other.” Your reply seemed to please him and he turned his back towards you. Then sauntered away. This Sinbad, he certainly left an impression.

The inside of the house was much more pleasant then the outside’s appearance made it seem. It had a cosy feel to it, and even though it was very different from what you were use to. The change was nice. You were sat in one of the kitchen’s wooden chairs. A plush pillow placed behind your back. Your hand was clasped softly around a quill as you used the roses in the flower pot that was situated in the middle of the table as inspiration to draw. You had always been a good drawer. Your old nanny had said you had an eye for things others could not see. In fact, when you were little you believed her. You always found yourself zoning out and a moment later you’d look down to see something spectacular sketched out to perfection on your paper. This was one of them moments. Like chimes ringing in your ears, white noise had completely left and was replaced with the calm waves of the ocean near by, and the chirping of woodland birds. On the page, an image of a rose covered meadow had been drawn, and in the midst stood a figure shadowed in the rays of the sun.

“Darling.” Pulling you out of your daze, you looked up to your mother who had turned from stirring the stew to study your form. She simply glanced to the picture you had drawn before pursing her lips. “Whats on your mind? Your worrying me. Has something happened?” Lies. Your mind betrayed your heart, which clenched in pain knowing you were right. She didn’t care, she didn’t worry. She just wanted to know, she just wanted control. In your throat, a lump formed. It formed from fear. You smiled crookedly at her, and shook your head.

“Nothings wrong mother. Please don’t worry.” You willed. “Nothing has happened at all. It’s just such a change I’m still adjusting to life here.” You regretted hiding the truth from her immediately after, as a hateful smirk arose on her face. A “Tuting” noise escaped her lips, and she walked over to stand behind you, her hips swaying, much like a lions as they stalked their prey. Leaning down into your ear, she used her nails to grasp the lobe. Making sure you couldn’t tug away, even though she full well knew you wouldn’t. It would leave indents in the skin. She knew that too.

“I want you to stay away from him. Far, far away.”

279 notes · View notes

jessaadventures-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Week Two: Lovin’ Life in Lobitos

A Lobitos boat out on the water. Spot the blue water tower in the background - a great place to watch sunsets!

This week was another good one! There were some fun adventures, I made some decent progress on my project, met more of the locals, and saw much more of Lobitos. Apart from a bit of an upset stomach, everything has only been getting better!

The EcoHouse

One of our homemade pizzas from our midnight pizza party, with a vegan portion :)

There have been some more shifts in the EcoTeam this week; Andres arrived on Saturday to replace Alejo leaving last week. Andres is the third of the four directors I’ve met, and he’s a fun addition to the house! He’s known as the most chill and spontaneous director, and it definitely shows. He loves to tell us stories of his life (he was born in Canada and moved to Lima when he was ten, where he met the other three directors in school, and then went to Toronto for university and ended up on the Wall Street of Canada for a few years before he moved to Lobitos to start EcoSwell) and throws in some Peruvian history too. He is also mostly vegan, so now I’ve got a friend in the food department!

Diego, the other director that was here, left Thursday to vacation with his girlfriend and speak at a big UK conference in Rio de Janeiro. He’ll be back in a few weeks with his girlfriend, who is the volunteer coordinator for EcoSwell, and I’m excited to meet her!

Michael, the only director I haven’t met, arrives Sunday to replace Diego while he’s gone. Michael’s spent most of his time in the UK and doesn’t come to Lobitos as much as the other three, so he’s known as the “city kid”. It’ll be interesting to see how he fits in at the house, and I’m excited to see the dynamic between Andres and Michael as directors.

There’s also a big volunteer change-over this weekend; we’re losing half of the crew and gaining two newbies! Kyler flew out on Saturday (after two months in the EcoHouse), Dion just left today (he’s been here three weeks), and Javi leaves tomorrow, Monday, after just two weeks. There’s a new volunteer arriving today and another arriving Monday, so we’ll have one empty bed in the house for a little while (Isa and I get a room to ourselves and I can move to the bottom bunk now that Javi will be gone)!

I’m excited to show the new guys around, but I’ll miss having people here who know more of the secrets of Lobitos than I do.

As for the general happenings in the house, we’ve had a few more fun meals (some yummy veggie pasta and garlic bread Monday night, taco Tuesday again, a midnight pizza-making and bonfire party initiated by Andres, and Andres found some soy milk for me so now I can have cereal!), watched the first season of Silicon Valley together, experienced two blackouts (one in the morning, one at night), and played Secret Hitler (a board game that I played a lot while studying abroad in Australia, which happens to be the go-to group game here as well). I’ve also gotten back into reading Lord of the Rings, which I started almost a year ago in Australia, and now I’m almost done with the trilogy!

The only downside of the week was the upset stomach that I’ve had for the past four days (pretty much everyone gets it during their second week of volunteering, so nothing out of the ordinary), but it’s feeling a lot better now!

Work

Javi and I “painting” silicone onto the distiller!

This week I actually got to start working on the solar distiller, and we got a lot done with it! The distiller had already been designed and the frame had been built by previous volunteers, so I mostly have the job of putting it all together, making sure the system works, and putting it to use in the community! Part of this is painting the basin (where the water goes) with black food-grade silicone caulk, so the wood is waterproof, the water isn’t contaminated with chemicals, and the leftover salt can be used for cooking. The previous volunteer that worked on the distiller had painted the silicone on and then realized, just before the whole basin was covered, that the silicone wasn’t food-grade. So he spent the rest of his time scraping it back off again (that had to suck). He didn’t quite finish before he left, though, so Javi and I spent the first two and a half days of the work week scraping the rest of the silicone off the distiller so we could repaint it with the food-grade silicone we now have. On Thursday, we painted the distiller with white primer, and Friday we were able to almost finish painting the silicone on the basin (I learned that silicone caulk is a really hard thing to “paint” and it doesn’t like to be smooth and it stinks). So, we’re already a couple steps closer to a complete solar distiller! With Javi leaving, however, I’m losing my project partner, though one of the new volunteers will likely be helping me out when they arrive.

Outside of my main project, I posted on Facebook and SteemIt a couple times about EcoSwell’s progress/events and we had our weekly planting day on Wednesday starting at 6:30am. The guys spent the four hours of planting day trimming branches, grasses, and other plants around the house, and Isa and I checked all of the drip irrigation holes to make sure they were working, added some more drip lines, and planted a bunch of seeds ready to germinate in the nursery.

Adventures

Sunset at La Punta - spot Gino surfing the crazy wave!

We did some fun things this week outside of the house and work! On Friday we went to check out a new restaurant in town called 420 Cafe, which has great pastas and pizzas (I had yummy pesto gnocchi), a chill surfer dude atmosphere, some fancy cocktails (and wine!), and fast wifi! On Saturday I hung out on the beach and read for a while (and got covered in sand, thanks to the wind), and that evening we all went up to the water tower, the highest point in town, to watch the sun set over Lobitos. It was a fun little walk with a great view and we saw some roaming horses and wild foxes on the way down.

Sunday was the main adventure day of the week; all the newer volunteers (Dion, Ale, Javi, and me) went on the Lobitos Ocean Adventure run by Tulio, a local fisherman friend. We met him at the end of the pier at 7am, where we all jumped onto his fishing boat in between the big rolling waves coming in, and settled in for a classic Peruvian fishing experience. Tulio, his two sons, and his brother Jorge were with us on the boat and they told us about the generations of fishermen that have fished in this area, and passed down their knowledge and techniques through their families that still fish here today.

Tulio (right) and his brother Jorge teaching us to fish!

We took a forty minute boat ride through the oil platforms out to a reef, and then we dropped anchor and learned how to fish like a Peruvian. Each of us was given a thick plastic fishing line (no rod) that split three ways at the end; two had hooks on them, and one had a metal weight. The fishermen baited the hooks, and we would toss the line over the edge of the boat, letting it sink until the weight reached the bottom. Then we would hold the line in our hands and wait to feel a pull or wiggle or other sign that we had hooked a fish (it was really hard to tell), and then we pulled the line up to see what we got! Ale was the first to catch something, which ended up being a sea serpent that Tulio stunned before he tossed it back in the water. He caught a couple more small fish, but none big enough to keep. Javi and Dion both got seasick pretty fast, so the boys did most of the fishing for them, but they only caught one fish big enough to keep. I ended up getting lucky and catching four keepers!

My first fish!

Once we were done fishing, we pulled up the anchor and started heading home while Tulio prepared super-fresh ceviche for us with the fish that we caught. We had a snack of ceviche (complete with the onions and lemon) and plantain chips for the ride home, which mostly Ale and I ate (vegan or not, I couldn’t pass up ceviche that fresh), because Dion and Javi were still feeling sick. We made it back to land and thanked Tulio and his family for the experience, and they gave us the fish we didn’t eat to bring back to the house for lunch the next day. It was a fun morning!

Yum, ceviche doesn't get any fresher than this!

That night we watched the sunset from La Punta, where there are a bunch of big rock formations that form a point (and great surf waves!) and watched Gino, one of the local surfers, surf one of the most dangerous waves in Lobitos, El Hueco. It was crazy to watch.

Other than that, I saw and held a stick bug that we saw while painting the distiller, there were two blackouts (one on Wednesday night and one Sunday morning), and we went back to Tranqui’s for dinner on Sunday and Thursday, where Henry, a local guy (and also an insanely good surfer) who works for Waves for Development (the other non-profit in town) and one of his volunteers met us to eat.

Sunset over Lobitos from the water tower

There’s this week’s update! Sorry for the late post; I was really busy with work this week and forgot to start writing this post early enough on Friday, and I was gone most of the day yesterday (I’ll include that adventure in next week’s post!). I’m still having a ton of fun and learning a lot! Feel free to ask any questions :) Love and miss you all!

#EcoSwell #summer2018 #Peru #Lobitos

3 notes · View notes

sceawere · 7 years ago

Text

convalescence pt 1. | john shelby

i promised a fic where john doesn’t die, but instead goes somewhere to lie low while everyone thinks he’s dead so here it is (or at least part 1)

“What the fuck is that?” you stepped back from the door, your shock registering in your voice.

“A dying man, are you going to let me in?”

It took you a while to process what exactly was happening as Tommy and a rabble of other men barged passed you into the house. Not this again. Your eyes followed the trail of muck and blood from the paving stones, to your hallway tiles, to their retreating backs as they hauled something in. A lump, covered in a tarp.

You sighed, looked up to the photo of your brother on the hallway wall, and slammed the door with your foot.

“What the hell did you get me into?” you whispered up to the picture, and turned to shout down the hallway “It better not be a dead man, Tommy Shelby. We’ve just had that paving re-laid after you took up the last corpse”

“Lord almighty, that’s John” you noted as they unwrapped him.

“Yes, it is my brother. And as you can see, he’s not in the best way, so- “Tommy motioned to him, stepping back as you pushed him to the side. His breaths were ragged, sweat pouring from his brow, and he didn’t look much better than the pale man currently laid out on your table.

“Someone get him something strong before he faints, and we’ve got two of them to deal with”

One of the faceless men around you moved towards the bottles on the cabinet and set to work as you moved John’s split shirt out of the way.

“He needs a real doctor” you pled, looking over his marred chest.

“You’re the best I know”

“Tommy, that’s bullshit. What you mean is ‘I fucked up and you were the closest idiot who owed me a favour’, let’s all be honest with each other”

He was taking another swig straight from the bottle, one of his guys holding an empty glass next to him.

“You fixed us up a thousand times. Even when a hundred of them should have killed us, so just…do your job” he spat back, losing his ability to even try and butter you up halfway through.

You kept eyes together for a moment, and he relented just a little. Not enough to drop his mask. Just enough that you could see it in his eyes, and he knew that you had.

“Right, so you can’t go to a real doctor, is what you’re saying?” you motioned towards him.

He sighed, took another swig, and slammed the bottle down to the table beside you.

“Thank you” you took it and poured it into a dish. You motioned with your head “third cupboard over, blue tin”

One of the men looked to Tommy, then behind him to the cupboard, then back to you.

“Go on, there’s a good boy”

He nodded, and moved all in a fluster, emptying half the cupboards contents onto the rug in his haste. He finally brought your kit over to you and you set to work.

“I’m going to need some help – Tommy”

“Yeah”

He moved off, out of the room, and down the hall. You knew he knew who to call. You’d both been here before.

You almost didn’t notice him return, so deep in your work, until you felt him right behind you.

“It’s a good job I’m not the jumpy type or Johnny boy here would be less a part of his liver”

There was an intake of breath on the other side of the table and you sighed.

“Tommy, can you- “you turned your head just slightly.

“James, go and…keep watch…please?” he commanded, nodding to the queasy man.

“I told him to five minutes ago, but he wouldn’t bloody leave without orders. You’ve got the puppies well trained, I’ll give you that”

“I need this kept quiet” Tommy whispered.

“I assumed- fuck” you grabbed his hand and moved it to apply pressure where you needed. He kept staring you down until you snapped and looked to him.

“I understand, Mr Shelby”

“Good” he held his eyes on your face for a few seconds, before looking down at his brother “because everyone else already thinks he’s dead”

“Alright, he seems pretty stable. He’ll stay on the table in the study tonight, and then we can hopefully move him upstairs sometime tomorrow. The nurses are staying in the guesthouse, so if they’re needed…”

You wiped off your damp hands and threw the towel into the fire. Tommy sat where you’d ordered him off to when he started bothering you, smoking at your kitchen table, staring into nothing. Your shoes clacked against the cold tiles as you made your way over to him. You planted your hands on the surface, leaning as you tried to grab his attention.

“Can I ask?”

“I’ve put men around the grounds, no-one but essentials will be coming in or out until he’s gone” he replied, ignoring your question.

“Yes, I know the drill. But I would like to know exactly how many shades of shit I’m in, thank you” you persevered but he just took another drag, straight faced.

“Tommy, I deserve better. Don’t be a prick” you deadpanned, and he rolled his eyes to you, letting the smoke escape him slowly. He pulled the ghost of a smile, dropping it as quickly as it came.

“I appreciate the help” he replied, taking another drag.

“Thomas…what the fuck did you get into this time?”

He rose from the table, paced around it in a circle. You rolled your eyes, waited. You’d been through this maybe three or four times now. Tommy turning up with some broken bird to fix, turning your estate into a compound for a month.

“If you hadn’t saved my brother’s life in France, I’d have fed you to my pigs by now. You know that, right? I want to make sure you know” you huffed.

“How is he?”

“He’s painting in Canada. Can we get back to business, please?”

He dropped back into a chair, stubbing out his cigarette.

“The Changrettas-”

“Oh, Tommy, you’re a fucking idiot!” you reached and pulled the ashtray from under him, stomping over to empty it out the window. You yanked the pane shut, letting the tray ring out as it fell to the tiles, and braced yourself against the counter as you tried to calm down.

“You’re feuding with the old man again, seriously?”

“He’s dead”

You felt the rage flow through you like a wave, squaring your shoulders as you turned around slowly.

“You…did…what?”

Tommy had the grace to look apprehensive, rolling his tongue as he waited. He cleared his throat, and adjusted his coat.

“He ordered a killing, a killing that fell on my wife. So, I- “

You reached to your side, grabbed the nearest thing, and threw it.

“Ow! Fuck!” Tommy reached up and covered his face. The wooden spoon fell to the floor, clattering against the tiles at his feet.

“I hope it blinds you!”

He removed his hands, looking up at you incredulously. There was a red whip mark on his cheekbone, eye watering.

“Is it Luca? If it’s Luca- “you reached for a spatula, pulling so fast it tipped over the whole container, making utensils spill out all over the place “I’m taking that other eye off you”

He rose as you aimed, raising his arms in time with yours.

“Listen- “

He tried to take it off you, but ended up having to defend himself as you beat it against his arm, his side, his ear. Wherever you could get access.

“You. Brought.” A hit punctuated each word “Luca. Fucking. Changretta. Back. Here. And. I. Have. Your. Brothers. Blood. In. My. Carpet. You. Dumb. Idiot. Fucking. Selfish. Bastard”

“Oi!”

The two of you stepped back, both breathing heavy, as a new voice interrupted you. Tommy wiped his arm down as you rolled your shoulder.

“Yes?” you asked in a casual tone that seemed to unsettle him even more than if you’d screamed.

The man truly looked nervous, and very confused, as he moved his eyes between you and Tommy. He hovered in the doorway, messing with his hat in hands.

“What?” both you and Tommy called out.

“Uh, John’s mumbling. I don’t know if he’s really awake or if it’s just- “you dropped the spatula to the floor, barging passed him “I thought I should just check with you!” he called after.

You paused halfway down the corridor, turning back to point at Tommy. The man between you flattened himself against the wall and tried to look invisible, scared to be caught in the crossfire.

“You shouldn’t be left in charge of a fruit stand!”

You turned and stormed off, still breathing heavy.

“Should have fed him to the pigs” you mumbled, fixing your hair.

You managed to trick yourself into mostly forgetting the situation as the days went by. John was sedated and so you could get on with your day-to-day, keeping the family farm going. At least once you’d provided proof that all your hands had been working for you for at least a decade, and assured Tommy that no, 73-year-old Mr Jenkins was not going to use his sheep shearing tools to try and assassinate anyone.

“I kept you on the strong stuff as long as I could but it’s going to start causing more trouble than it’s fixing” you explained, helping John take another sip of water “You’re just going to have to be a big, brave boy from now on”

“I feel like someone tried to pull my lungs out” he coughed, grimacing as he settled back against the pillow.

“That would be me” you checked his pulse again, focusing on the seconds ticking by “they managed to scrape just about everything and you had some swelling around your ribs”

“I feel like I’ve been kicked by twelve horses”

“That would also be me, I had to- “

“John” Tommy’s voice broke through.

“Oh, goodie. Your brothers come to visit” you dropped John’s wrist, ignoring the pained little smirk that appeared on his face.

“Where’s Esme? She’s got to be bouncing out the fucking rafters” John laughed, until his ribs made him think better of it. He nodded up to Tommy’s bruised face “she do that to you?”

“No” you stood from the edge of the bed, winding up your tools and dropping them back into the pot on the counter side “That would be me again”

You shot Tommy a gloating smirk, patting his shoulder as you made your way to shut the door behind him. You settled back against it, one foot perched against the woodwork, as you crossed your arms across your chest.

“Go on, Thomas. Explain to your brother what’s happening”

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fic #peaky blinders spoilers #john shelby #|writing

102 notes · View notes

stimtoybox · 7 years ago

Photo

Zuru Tangle Sparkle - K-Mart, $4 AUD.

Previous installments of my Zuru Tangle Sparkle review quest: one, two.

I have finally found the purple scaled Tangle! I’ve been checking the boxes in two different K-Mart stores every time I go for the last couple of months, and I keep finding either the ones I already owned or none at all. I’ve noticed that the shelf-display boxes that contain the Metallics and the Sparkles only contain one of each Sparkle (the Zuru-branded Textured Metallics) and multiples of the regular Metallics, making it quite difficult to hunt these down--I can only recommend persistence, luck and a need to do this in person (as K-Mart sends randomly when purchased online) which makes things difficult for disabled folks.

I was disappointed with the ribbed yellow-gold version, and honestly, it hasn’t gotten any better. I never use it; it just sits at the bottom of the plastic slinky that holds my desk Tangles. It’s so difficult to coil and so prone to falling apart (despite my coating the connector pegs) that I just don’t enjoy touching it.

The purple scaled Tangle, thankfully, is perfection to me. The scale links have quite a gentle, low-intensity texture, nothing like the heavy massaging effect of the blue bobbled Tangle. It’s a little more interesting than a Tangle Jr without being distracting or overwhelming, and I really love the lizard-scale feel of the links under my fingertips. The fact that the scale pattern is small also means the Tangle has an even metallic coating. It will still scratch if banged about or scraped, but it has far fewer places of colour unevenness than my other Textured Metallics/Sparkles, and this one has no paint scratches at all.

This Tangle moves smoothly and, because the scaling doesn’t add much bulk to the pieces, it coils and holds a tight coil like any regular Tangle Jr. If you like making your Tangles do the The Thing, this is one of the better full-textured Tangles to get. It has full Tangle functionality and full texture, making it a dream to use. The fact it’s dark purple (see the theme of this blog) and pretty is just an added benefit.

I really like the blue bobbled Zuru Tangle Sparkle for when you want or need lots of texture, and it has a place in my kit that no other Tangle can fulfill, but for when you need texture that’s not quite so overwhelming, the scaled purple Zuru Tangle Sparkle is perfect. Out of all four of the above Tangles, this is my favourite. It makes my hands happy. I really don’t want to put it down!

Image description under read more cut:

[image description: two photos, taken on a red watermelon slice background, of a metallic purple scale-pattern Zuru Tangle Sparkle.

First photo shows the Tangle in its clear blister packaging attached to a red backcard with the Zuru Tangle logo, the words “Twist, Shape, Fidget”, “Sparkle” and “Collect and Connect” written in coloured letters around the packaged Tangle and a stock image of the same purple scale-textured Tangle Jr.

Second photo shows four metallic Tangle Jrs arranged in a row, positioned in a twined shape with a loop on each end, looking rather like a horse’s bit. From top to bottom: a purple-pink Tangle Creations Tangle Jr Textured Metallic with twisted/spiral pieces, like a length of playdough twisted in hand; a blue Tangle Jr Sparkle with a pattern of raised dots decorating each link; a yellow/gold Zuru Tangle Jr Sparkle with a ribbed link pattern, looking like the segments on a millipede; and a dark purple Tangle Jr Sparkle with a raised scale pattern.]

#stim toy #stim toys #KMart #Australia #photo #text #link #flash #glare #Tangle #Tangle Jr #Tangle Jr Textured Metallic #Zuru Tangle Sparkle #Zuru #review #stimtoybox #mod K.A.#long post #very long post

20 notes · View notes

what-even-is-thiss · 7 years ago

Text

Fic, Of Dragons and Mistakes

Got a suggestion from @huffletough about knight Roman and Dragon Virgil. I’m writing about that now. I couldn’t decide between half dragon and shape-shifting dragon so it kind of turned into both? Also the plot of this is kind of sort of loosely inspired on the short novella Here, the World Entire by Anwen Kya Hayward which is an awesome read and you can buy it right here and its pretty cheaply priced I’d recommend it especially if you’re a mythology lover like me. I only loosely borrowed from it though so there’s not to many spoilers here. I just kind of used a couple of ideas.

Tip Jar

Warnings: Blood mention. Death. 3,213 words.

Abstract: A dragon meets a knight. A prince is lost.

Roman rode as far as he could on his horse. He made himself fall totally and completely into reality for once in his life, feeling the movements of the horse, the burningly hot summer wind on his face, the way his own body tensed up at the movement.

But a horse can only run so far before it has to stop, and so in the cool evening air it did.’

As his horse grazed, Roman felt the cold sickness of reality creep in. He knelt on his blanket on the grass and fought back tears. Tears that would hurt far too much if they came. He switched positions and hugged his knees in a way that was very much not royal.

Not royal. Not anymore. Banished for a simple mistake. The wrong person killed. A dispute. Blame had to be assigned. Why not blame the second oldest? The mistake? Never mind more than one party was to blame. Banish the younger prince. That’ll be fine. Blame him for everything.

It was his mistake anyways. Maybe they had a point.

Nothing but a mistake. There had to be some way back. Some way. Some way. He felt a fire burning in his stomach. No. Push it back. Push it down. Mistake. A mistake. That’s what his entire existence boiled down to, didn’t it? Were there any good mistakes?

Him. He could be a good mistake. He had always known that. He could prove it to them. But what could he do? He was so tired. He fingered the anklet above his right foot. Studied the dried red and purple sitting on the edge of the spikes the vile piece of jewelry always pushed into his skin. He ran his fingers along them and along the clasp and hinge on either end of the ring.

He was alone out here. Was it right to take it off? No. Especially not now with the idea he’s had. That would just be in bad taste.

He had expected it to smell horrid. Humans that went near a dragon’s den usually reported things smelling so bad they wanted to gag. It wasn’t that dragons were particularly nasty, they just emitted a smell. It didn’t smell like garbage or feces or dead things. It was specifically a dragon smell.

Depressingly, Roman wasn’t surprised that the smell didn’t irritate him. If anything, it was good. Sickeningly familiar.

Suddenly there was a yell. No, not a yell. A thought. A thought racing through his head.

“What are you doing here, you half blooded thing? I’m trying to sleep.”

Roman swallowed. He could hear. Just as he had feared. He kept his voice calm.

“I do not fear you, dragon!” He said.

Virgil grew smaller. He felt his scales slip away and he put on his jacket. The half thing out there was lying. It knew he knew it was lying.

“Okay, what if I talk? Is that better? If I get on your level? Will you leave if I do that?”

“A shape shifter. Hm.” Came the voice from outside. “Why do I even try?”

There was a sound of a sword being put down. Virgil started walking closer.

“What, do you expect me to kill you now?” Virgil said, taking a few heavy steps forward. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Do you wish you could?” the overly proper voice from outside said.

“Why don’t you just come in if you’re here to face me?”

“Why don’t you just come out here, you fake peasant?”

Virgil sighed. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, uh what do I call you?”

“A human? Prince Roman?”

“A prince? As if I’d believe that. You claimed to be a human. Should I believe that too? I can smell you.“

Roman wasn’t disturbed by the phrase “I can smell you”. He was mostly disturbed by the fact that he found that to be a completely natural sentence. He smelled the dragon too. It smelled different when it changed into a human form. The change was subtle. I human would never pick up on it.

He felt the heat coming off of the rocks. He had never met a dragon but he had done plenty of reading on them. He had to. The dragon had obviously been here a very long time if it was this hot.

“Why have you been sitting in your cave for that long?” He asked after a minute of silence.

“You seem to like poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Why don’t you come in? Or better yet, leave.”

“I don’t trust you, if you wish me to be honest. I don’t trust dragons.”

He heard a scoff from inside. “That’s rich. Do you not trust yourself? Why haven’t you come in yet?”

“Why don’t you come out?” The prince asked again.

There was a long pause. A pause a few minutes long. then Roman heard scraping. The smell around the cave changed slightly. He had turned back into a dragon. Roman hadn’t even seen him as a human yet.

A voice sounded in his head.

“You creep me out.”

Roman sighed. “So dragons find me disturbing as well. Perhaps I won’t feel as guilty with what I plan to do.”

“Imagine seeing a newt with patches of human skin and human teeth. That’s what you look like to me. Well, when you’re not wearing that cursed object. Even as it is you annoy me just by being there.”

“I do not like you. Do you think I enjoy looking like that? There’s a reason I put up with joint pain and more diseases. And how dare you compare me to a newt. Is that what you compare yourself to? For shame.”

The voice sounded in his head again. “In the grand scheme of things I might as well be a newt. I make about as much of a dent on the world.”

“Do you mind turning back into a human? I feel left out. You talking directly into my head and all.”

“Only if you come inside.”

Roman decided to take a chance. He had come this far.

The dragon wasn’t as big as he anticipated, but it was still three times bigger than any horse. He watched it with its silver horns and black and silver scales sink down into a cloud of black smoke and reemerge a man in surprisingly rich dark clothes and dark circles painted under his eyes. Some of his stranger friends had done that when he was in boarding school. They had done that instead of beauty marks to rebel against the teachers but had always stopped after a time.

Virgil hadn’t had any interaction in years. He forgot how very weird humans moved. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to it anymore. This one wasn’t deterred by the heat of the cave or his attitude. He knew this young half breed was planning to kill him. He could feel it. But he was also the first person to strike up a conversation with him in years. The dragon couldn’t afford to be picky.

“So why do you want to kill me? Trying to prove something?” He asked, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

Roman was about to spit out a sassy retort, but found he didn’t have the energy. Instead, he just sighed and sat down on the hot floor of the cave.

“Yes.” He sighed. “I still don’t trust you though.”

Virgil sat down cross-legged in the way he did whenever he wanted to feel small.

“And why is that, your highness? Dragon parent bite you the wrong way? Hatred of shape shifters because of it?”

“That scoundrel never stayed around long enough to discover that I was born. Besides, that’s not the reason.”

“Human propaganda?”

“What do you mean, propaganda? Torching entire villages a fun activity to you?”

“Is burning people fun to you?” The dragon asked.

“Well, no. It is not. But I am human.”

The disguised dragon smirked and flashed a cat’s eye. “You keep saying that, but what’s that around your ankle there? Is it really worth it? You seem to know I would never torch anyone.”

Roman ran out. Virgil changed back and brooded over a pile of stolen shirts he used as a bed. The prince would be back.

After a few hours of deliberating Roman gave into his intrusive thoughts the dragon had put there and began moving the anklet. It stung as he undid the clasp and carefully pulled each spike out of the holes that had formed in his ankle area over a lifetime of using this and things like it.

Rough red scales appeared in patches on his skin. His entire left arm was almost covered. He also knew from many tortured long hours of staring in the mirror that his left eye was still a natural shade of brown while his right one was blue and shaped like a cat’s eye. It had two sets of lids too.He could feel them closing. He was also scaled up slightly now and his regal attire was just a little too tight.

He was disgusting. A mistake. He looked good as a full human. He knew that. There was nothing not to like. Taking off that thing was always a mistake, but never one that felt wrong. He thought about the dragon sitting in the cave in the hill up there in that hot cave. The thought was strangely inviting.

Not for the first time, the dragon began wondering if he had said something irreversibly idiotic. Telling a person they creeped him out. Who does that? Its not like he can control how creepy he looks.

Speaking of creepy...

“I’ve decided I don’t care what you think!”

The dragon moved his head onto his front paws and looked at the little thing in front of him. God, that was creepy. Like seeing a snake with human teeth and eyes.

He cocked his head to the side and spoke into the other’s mind. “So you get banished just for that? This seems pointless.”

“What do you mean, pointless?”

“I mean, whoever you’re trying to prove a point to, they’re not going to accept you. Ever.”

Roman held his sword up, which was a much easier with the anklet gone. “You are wrong! Why must you be so negative and fill my mind with thoughts like this?”

“Maybe that’s my way of saying ‘screw off’ and I want you to leave?”

Smoke poured out of the young prince’s nostrils. He didn’t even try to stop it. “I will be accepted back with open arms one way or the other. My brother killed someone for me. Once I bring your head, my father will see my worth too.”

“You’re like a cat with fish fins where there should be hands. It is so weird.”

The prince twitched. “I will not stand around and be insulted like this!”

He ran and brought the sword down but all he hit was smoke. The dragon, looking like a handsome youth again, fell against the wall and then slid down it slowly until he was sitting. Roman stopped fighting back.

“I may sit around all day and avoid my problems but I am not eager to die yet, thanks.”

“Do dragons have names?”

Well, that was a random question.

“My name is Virgil.”

He looked over at the corner of the room where the young knight was whittling something with his dagger. He watched, trying not to look interested. Dragons tended to not be very artistically creative. Half dragons, on the other hand, always seemed to retain that weird human curiosity thing. They tended to be reckless and die young, either by accident or were killed. The fact that this one had survived until his early twenties was almost a miracle.

The prince continued to not react to the new knowledge that dragons have names. He sang opera and drinking songs and religious songs, not caring how loud he was. Sometimes he slipped into silence. Sometimes that silence was broken with questions.

“Is it painful to cry?”

“Why do you wanna know?”

“I simply have curiosity about these things. Also, it is quite painful for me and I try not to do it. Although my mother always said not crying was damaging to my health.”

Virgil pulled the jacket closer around himself. There was something comforting about being small. Something good about having another person in the room. Weird though, considering the young man was slowly deliberating whether or not to try and kill him and yet kept asking questions from the far end of the cave.

For a minute or so the only sound was the two people breathing and Roman’s dagger scraping away at the piece of wood. Virgil hugged his knees, the equivalent of curling up on himself when in his true form. After a spell he broke the silence.

“There was a legend among humans for a while, that if a dragon cried they put out their inner fire and died.”

The scraping stopped.

“And is this a true legend?” the prince asked, a slight worry underneath his mask of confidence.

“Nah. Just hurts like hell. I always thought maybe that’s what it feels like to be burned.”

“So have I.”

The scraping began again. After a while there was a slip.

“Ah! By Odin’s... OW!”

There was a fwoom and the smell of burning hydrogen. Virgil was startled and looked up to see Prince torching the piece of wood he was working on with his breath and then throw the charred bit of wood angrily against the opposite wall.

“Wh- why did you do that?!” Virgil yelled, a roar appearing in his voice.

Roman eyed the dragon dangerously. “I was frustrated. Wouldn’t you understand that?”

Virgil stood up but didn’t move from where he was. “No! You don’t just... make things and then destroy them! That’s not how it’s done!”

Realization slowly inched its way across the almost human face. “You don’t... you do not have much experience with humans, do you?”

“What? Do you expect me to?”

“Well, right now you look more human than I do. I suppose I...”

The thought trailed off. He went outside to get another piece of wood. He returned. The scraping continued.

After a time the dragon returned to its normal state and went outside. Roman suspected it was out hunting. Er, that he was out hunting. He didn’t seem to eat quite enough.

Roman reflected quietly on what had led him here. Another thing he didn’t normally do, but the past week had been a crazed one. Starting off with learning he could breathe fire at the exact wrong moment. Watching his older brother kill a guest that looked at the younger knight like he was a demon.

Being banished. One mistake. No, a lifetime of mistakes. A lifetime of mistakes that had been kicked off by a one night stand. In other words, a mistake.

Could nothing he did be right? He had been perfect. Strong and good at sports, despite how weak the cursed piece of jewelry made him. He always pushed through, always studied hard, always got enough sleep. Still it was never enough.

Rebellion. Nights of running out into the woods to tear trees out by the roots. Kissing servant boys out behind the kitchens and leaving them cold. Running away for hours, and still looking perfect. Still getting everything done. But they were still mistakes.

“Brooding?”

Roman looked up groggily. Virgil looked like a man again and was wiping some blood off his mouth with his hand.

“Because it seems like you are.” the dark creature added.

Roman straightened up. “I still haven’t decided whether or not to kill you. Or if it would be worth it.”

Virgil smirked and licked the last of the meat juices off his lips. “You act like you could kill me. Like even if you could bring yourself to do it, you could beat me.”

“I am certain I could, but there is a dilemma here.”

“Right. Well if you ever decide to fight me I promise I’ll just hurt you real bad. You’re an annoying little thing, but I don’t really feel like getting myself cursed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to nap.”

“Is that all you ever do? Sleep? Why do you not go and face the world? Are full dragons not more sociable than this?”

“Why should I be taking advice from a royal brat that’s thinking about killing me? How is my decision to give in to my anxiety any of your business?”

“Because watching people just do nothing? It... Augh! You should be out there doing things.”

Virgil folded his arms defiantly. “You say its that simple. You seem to be doing a lot of nothing since you got here. And what do you know about me?”

The knight’s face was difficult to read. Partially because of the two different eyes. Out here he didn’t seem to be following human mannerisms perfectly. Dragons tended to bare their teeth when experiencing a negative emotion. With humans, from what he remembered, they did it for the opposite reason. Smiling, it was called. The half-breed’s face seemed to keep moving. It was hard to read him. Virgil was still weirded out by the sight of a human like thing with dragon teeth. He attempted to hide how creeped out he was.

The face settled into a snarl.

“I have never done nothing. How long have you been doing it?”

Virgil stared blankly for a minute.

“A hundred years?”

Even a dragon could tell he looked taken aback.

“A hundred years? But how old are you?”

“Two hundred? I’m still young. I still have time to get my act together. How old are you? Twenty?”

“Twenty four, actually. How long do persons like me usually live?”

“Do you really wanna know?”

A regally annoyed stare. “Why do you suppose I asked, you scaly inkwell?”

“That burns deep. I admire that. But yeah, people like you usually don’t live past eighteen. Reckless. Hunted. Nobody actually knows what your natural lifespan is.”

A moment of silence. Then another.

“You understand that it is slightly depressing I’m not surprised by that information at all.” The prince said, a laugh in his voice.

Roman laughed some more. The voice cut him off.

“Why is that funny?”

“Because misery is funny, Virgil. It is hilarious and I have had a good share of it. That must make my life a truly entertaining tale.”

“There is human there in your attitude. More than I thought. So tell me, am I going to die now?”

Roman drew his sword.

“No, I don’t think so. Please find some friends. For your own sake.”

Dragons are fast, but apparently not fast enough. And tears hurt like hell, even when you didn’t know them well.

Half-dragons are always impulsive. They are rarely happy, and they always die young. It was a miracle this one was as confident as he was and lived as long as he did.

The smell of him lingered. In the cave. In the cemetery. In his room. Perhaps he had the best life he could. Despite all the mistakes. Despite the messy ending.

#sanders sides #roman wrote a thing #roman sanders #prince sanders #anxiety sanders #virgil sanders #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #the emo #the other roman #tw:suicide #trigger warning suicide

250 notes · View notes

michelemoore · 5 years ago

Photo

Takhuk

April 29, 2020

Michele Moore Veldhoen

“Tis good to laugh. Yer gotta laugh and laugh out loud,” said the leprechaun. “You can cry if you want to but laughin’s better.” Jacqueline Edgington, Happy Jack

With so much stress and sorrow in our world these days, we need to turn to Happy Jack and to Mel Brooks who said, "Humour is just another defense against the universe." Right now, we definitely need humour. Lots and lots of humour. I hope you get a laugh or two here today. Take care.

A RUST BUCKET, A GAS GUZZLER, AND A LAND YACHT

Being that most Albertans enjoy a special relationship with their cars and trucks, and being that so many of them are sitting idle in our garages these days, I offer you a sentimental and fond reflection of three cars I once owned and that are rumbling, overheating, and plowing through the unoccupied regions of my mind.

MY FIRST CAR

1963 Chevy Impala. Price: $100.00

It was whitish (I’m sure it was the original paint job, thus, it was whitish). The interior was red leather, with a fair bit of deterioration (tears in the seats big enough to conceal a machete). This vintage look was nicely complemented with the flaking red rust trim around the wheel wells and along the door edges. The source of the rust was the bottom of the trunk which had a hole so massive I couldn’t keep a spare tire in there because it would have fallen out. Oh, and the exhaust preferred to disperse itself through the car interior rather than the exhaust pipe, which come to think of it, was missing. Therefore, the windows had to remain open at all times. In winter, this made for some frostbitten trips down Elbow Drive from my home in Southwood to my high school on 17th Avenue southwest.

I bought that rust bucket from my brother for $100 bucks cash. Money I saved from my cashier job at K-Mart. When my brother offered to sell me the Impala, I wasn’t old enough yet to get a license, but I bought it anyway. I had my priorities. Owning and driving my own car was numero uno. That car, any car, would do. It was about freedom of movement, man, and being in control of my own destiny.

The Impala sat on the driveway of my house for several months, waiting for me to turn sixteen. (I already knew how to drive. I learned when I was twelve and competed against my brother and cousins in a demolition derby. There were three cars in that event. We smashed them all up pretty good and walked away without a bruise and everything we needed to know about driving.)

It would be impossible for me to overstate the pride and satisfaction I felt driving that dilapidated, afflicted, contraption. I could compare it to the obvious delight a young dog exhibits when it has fetched its’ first stick. I could compare it to a young child who has just served his mother his first Easy Bake cake, or has just received his first Student of the Month award, or has just scored his first goal, his lungs bursting with so much pride and love he is afraid to exhale or he might cry. Or that feeling, for which there are no words, a new parent gets holding her first newborn child. It was like that.

My peacock feathers were on display every day I drove that car into my school’s parking lot. I was completely oblivious to the much finer, rust free, sporty type cars driven by other students at Western Canada High. (Which, for the record, was where the Mount Royal kids went to school, so you can imagine the cars.)

I will admit though, my pride was dampened (literally, with sweat) by the relief I felt every time I completed that trip to school accident free. And when I say relief, I mean relief from the kind of heart pounding that feels like your teenage son is pounding his drum set under your rib cage.

You see, aside from the rust, and the missing exhaust pipe, the Impala had another issue. This one was with the steering. The problem was that the steering wheel had more play in it than a car load of toddlers. Handling the Impala felt like floating. On big ocean waves. In a dime store rubber raft. Keeping her safely between the lane lines while negotiating the many curves and bends of Elbow Drive was like trying to walk a straight line on the midway at the Calgary Stampede. It can be done, but it takes a great deal of concentration and constant course adjustments. After every trip, I felt dazed and amazed that I got that boat to school or home without incident. I have no idea how many close calls I had, but honking car horns occasionally echo in my memory bank.

As big a thrill as it was, driving that old rust bucket, when my father offered to sell me his car, I was ready for an upgrade. He may also have pointed out that my Impala had used up most of its life and would likely crater in the spring potholes.

MY SECOND CAR

1974 Oldsmobile Toronado. Price: $2,700.00

Teal blue with a white leather interior. She had all the bells and whistles and was in mint condition; after all, two staple items on my dad’s grocery list were Armour All and Turtle Wax. The price was steep, but dad let me pay off the purchase in monthly payments, interest free. Seems to me the payments were $120.00/month. Which was a good thing because, soon after taking ownership of that gas guzzling brute, all its’ bells and whistles stopped ringing and whistling. Repairs to power steering, electric windows, and transmissions are expensive. (Is the transmission a bell or a whistle?) For the next couple of years I gave away most of my typist’s salary in post-dated cheques to the local mechanic, who kept me on the road.

Despite the Toronado barreling through all my entertainment and future education funds, I loved that car as much as I had loved the Impala. Whenever I was first in line at a red traffic light and there was another teenage driver in the lane beside me, on the green light I would put the pedal to the metal which often triggered a similar response in the other driver, who invariably behind the wheel of a hoppy little car that would leap ahead. The lead was short lived. I would keep my foot on the floor, and a few seconds later would wave at the driver as my 454 horsepower engine and I rumbled on by. Oh, how I reveled in the superiority of that elegant behemoth.

That magnificent machine, with her front wheel drive, could’ve plowed through a field of hay bales without slowing down or suffering a scratch. Once, in fact, while parked in front of my house on an icy winter street, a City of Calgary Transit bus came around the corner and slid into the back end of her. The grill of the bus was mangled, but the bus driver and I could not find a scratch, dent, or scrape on my bumper. After that, I wasn’t afraid to use the back end of that beast to push out of my way any car that had boxed me into a parking spot.

Even when she malfunctioned, she did so in a spectacular fashion. Once, when driving west toward home on Anderson Road, white smoke began streaming out from under the hood. (Having watched too many Smoky and the Bandit type movies, I didn’t think steam, I thought SMOKE). I stepped on it, making for the nearest gas station. (Why I didn’t just stop on the side of the road right there and then remains a mystery.) Speeding up, of course, made the SMOKE/steam billow in huge cloud formations above the massive hood which meant that, when I roared into the gas station, the attendants watched a terrified teen/ woman in a pencil skirt and heels come flying out of the cloud screaming, “it’s gonna explode! It’s gonna explode!”

After she had cooled off and had her radiator refilled and later repaired, I kept driving, and repairing, her for several more years. She just had too much charisma to give up on.

Unfortunately, the day came when I had to come down from my high horse-powered white leather perch and take up a different, upholstered one behind the wheel of another monstrous hunk of steel that had none of the sex appeal of the Toronado, but did have four doors. An important feature when you have a couple of toddlers in car seats.

MY THIRD CAR

Early ‘80’s Chrysler Imperial – price: Giving up my Toronado

I was not, at all, happy about giving up my Toronado, but my husband was not happy about the repairs, so I acquiesced. The regret I felt when he brought home the Chrysler was worse than the regret I felt the second time I cut my own hair. (I had beginner’s luck the first time.) (For the record, this was not a coronavirus haircut, it was a different era entirely.)

That land yacht was plain blue and boring, but it became my home away from home and a place of joy and abundance. On any given day you could always find a blanket, some stuffies and snacks between my two little boys in the backseat, who sang, laughed, wrestled, and slept in the back of that cavernous heap of iron. Nothing could touch them back there behind me. Not even me, which they knew perfectly well when they were deliberately annoying one another.

Although that dreadfully dull car was a reliable steel fort within which my children were safely transported, I did not lose any sleep when she was retired because I had begun to notice that no one else on the road still drove cars the size of yachts. In fact, most people in the countryside where I lived drove trucks. And so, I got a Jeep and entered the modern era.

I could go on about the two Jeeps I drove over the next twenty or so years but each one went to one of my kids and they have better stories than me about their days in those bouncy go anywhere rides. I know on at least one occasion one of those jeeps went floating down the Kicking Horse River……

I bet you have a story or two about your old cars. Please share!

Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time. Erma Bombeck

www.thetreeswallow.com

0 notes