#and i was like oh! i collected a bunch of rocks at lunch and put them in my pockets : )

[the--highlanders]

i hope the doctor has learnt transdimensional engineering by then or jamie's going to be dragging round a ton weight with all that in his sporran :p

the doctor keeps handing jamie little trinkets and rocks and stuff on one adventure. and by the end jamie is Struggling because it's got so many rocks in it, and when he eventually notices he's confused because he forgot pockets usually have a finite space and also. rocks are heavy...

of course he then makes jamie a special sporran that could hold a whole beach full of pebbles <3

LMAO I mean the doctor does seem to go around randomly handing out dimensionally transcendental stuff/upgrading things pretty casually, at least in their later incarnations. maybe making jamie's sporran bigger on the inside was their first go at something like that

and yes the doctor is Absolutely always handing jamie about 50 rocks. both to give to jamie but also just because he wanted to go beachcombing and wound up shoving everything into jamie's hands. jamie acts frustrated but he loves it really and does keep a select few on him + keeps the rest in his room

[martialartslover7]

Tenten's Untold Backstory

After another long day of training, Might Guy has decided to treat his own pupils for dinner at the steakhouse. As a final protein boost, post-workout, always hits the spot for them. And as always, Rock Lee is the most enthusiastic about it, with Neji just wordlessly eating the beef, being always too exhausted to be dealing with his teammate's and his sensei's innate inability to ever put the brakes on with their enthusiasm overload.

But surprisingly, it came to the Hyuga's notice: Tenten wasn't looking as cheerful as she usually did. She wasn't even touching her own plate. She just looked... depressed. But Neji wasn't the only, gradually, even Rock Lee and Guy stopped their verbal assault on all senses, just to put all their focus on their weapon master, sharing the same genuinely concerned look as the Hyuga. With the latter asking in a gentle tone of voice:

"Tenten... Are you alright? You're unusually quiet today. Did something happen?"

When she looked up, she tried to act as if all was well, forcing herself to smile, in a vain attempt to not burden her team with her "nonsensical" burdens. Defensively holding up her hands throughout.

"Oh! Uh, it's nothing, really, I just... I just don't have that big an appetite today, is all. Can't help it, when I have already eaten my lunch, y'know. I don't need as much food as you guys. Hehe..."

But Rock Lee, who is usually the one to play along, saw right through her, and normally, he is not one to dwell too hard on something, as training and protein are his daily bread and butter. But beyond all else, he was still a loyal-to-a-tee teammate, and seeing her putting on this mask of "it's fine, don't worry about me", only served to add fuel to the fire. He asked in a very caring voice:

"...Come on, Tenten. We can tell something is bothering you. I have seen it all, while we were training with your weapons, today. You looked quite frustrated, and not even in a way that I would laugh at it. Tell us, what's the matter?"

Knowing she was caught, the weapon master lets out one sorrowful sigh, heavy of heart, she lets them know, what exactly was weighing heavy on her soul. And she began, with a question.

"...Have you guys ever wondered why I am so drawn to weapons? And why am I so obsessed with them? I know, it's cheesy to start it now, but... I need to fill you in."

Without saying a word, wanting to be respectful, her male teammates nodded, wanting to listen to her. And it starts with Tenten smiling in a nostalgic way, as she began looking back on her childhood. And we see images of a small Tenten, running around with toy swords, toy guns, toy bow & arrow, etc.

"Ever since I could think, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with toy weapons growing up. While all the other girls were busy playing with dolls, or collecting flowers, I was not one such girl. This stuff just bored me to death. ...I guess that's why Ino and Sakura refer to me as "the queen of tomboys", considering I am always sticking out like a sore thumb, every time I meet up with them, and Hinata. …Let alone the fact that I am nowhere near as boy-crazed as these three. And on every playground, you would see me, running around, wielding my toy sword, as if I was the queen of the playground, and everyone else is my servant."

Her teammates could only smile at that endearing imagery. A tiny Tenten, acting like a shogun, commanding an army with a toy katana.

But that is when Tenten's tone mildly darkened, as, the very moment she entered the academy, things went south, fairly quickly. She still recalled her first few days in classes, and how she was approached by a bunch of bullies, who called her a "freak", for casually wielding ninja tools, while everyone else struggled with them. The insults from the other fellow kunoichis hit the hardest. They would go as far as evading her completely, calling her "a degenerate", a "potential threat to their lives", and just straight up finding her weird. God forbid, a female shinobi obsessing over weapons, and being relatively efficient at using them, too, where would that lead to? 

"But then, once I got to the academy... If I were to describe it, it would be the equivalent to a straight nosedive from a plane crash before impact. All of a sudden, the people I grew up with, whom I had thought to be my friends, turned on me, and began calling me "weird", "mentally unwell", or worst of all, "potentially dangerous"... All because of my hobby with collecting weapons and studying them. And previously, they were all fine with it... I don't understand... Even now, I am confused out of my mind, at that sudden heel turn. And all the fellow kunoichi, they were the most nasty towards me. They would go as far as stealing my toy weapons, putting me on the spot in front of the whole class, making fun of me, all because of my "not-so-feminine" hobby. I mean, come on. A kunoichi proudly wielding weapons, what comes next? A male shinobi using an umbrella in battle?"

The venom and sarcasm at that last part really caught the three men off-guard, but their gazes softened, once they realized: Tenten quickly shifted from angry, to deeply upset. As she slumps onto the table, leaning her head onto her crossed arms, looking all kinds of deflated and frustrated.

"And it's all because of them, I have become so defensive of my hobby, turned specialty in combat. I am taking huge pride in it, because... ever seen a kunoichi with such a simple-minded, boneheaded approach to battle? ...It still won't protect me from the occasional reminder that I used to be made fun of for it, but, you know... you know..."

Her hazel eyes began growing mildly watery, as the more recent reminder, involved her humiliating loss against Tenten. Even though she knew that the circumstances at the time were the same that caused Temari to be this nasty and hostile towards Leaf ninja in general, it still didn't help. Those wounds still feel fresh to her. They didn't close up. And she still felt the side effects of that loss, to this day. Which explains her more recent grievances and doubts involving her fighting style. She began asking way too many questions about whether her specialty bore any weight any longer, or not.

"And well, losing to Temari really didn't help. It admittedly only served to scratch my ego even further. I gave it my all against her, and she just brushed me aside like I wasn't even worth her time, both literally and figuratively. All my weapons and tools proved useless against her, and she defeated me in a way that left a permanent scar in my mind. Sorry, if I end up sounding so miserable, but... that's how I feel, I can't help it."

She looked at Guy, knowing he might be having the urge to tell her that, "nothing is impossible", "hard work will always beat out natural talent", but right now, even he knew, this wasn't going to help her. As Tenten's issues run way deeper than just "needing to work harder". And yet, she longed for his encouragement, as she felt her own voice cracking, as she spoke:

"Sensei... I know what you might say next, "I am giving up way too early", but don't forget... I am not like you guys. My chakra nature and size is only SLIGHTLY above Lee's, and to be an efficient ninja, I will need way more than just consistent repetition and hard work to make it happen... I am sorry for sounding so gloomy, but... What can I do...? I am literally... at a loss, right now..."

As she spoke in such a self-punishing and deprecating manner, a sob escaped her lips, as the tears began flowing out of her eyes, feeling so overwhelmed and helpless right now.

Guy knew, that these issues must have been eating away at his young student for quite a while and seeing her expressing her insecurities in such a profound, deep-rooted way, his fatherly instincts kick in, as he goes over to Tenten's, kneeling down, embracing the young kunoichi, knowing she really needs this kind of emotional support right about now. He tells her gently, while caressing the back of her head:

"Don't worry, Tenten. Even with this, you shouldn't give up on yourself like that. We will figure something out, like we always have. Remember, in life, you only truly lose, if you give up. If you stop trying, then you'll be at a loss. But you're way stronger than that. Don't let anyone take this away from you, the fact that you made it this far with your love for weapons, should be more than enough for you to realize: There will always be a silver lining, waiting to be discovered."

Rock Lee cuts in, firmly agreeing with their sensei, but this time, it was his conviction speaking too. He knows it as well as her, when he lost to Gaara, and he was told he wouldn't be able to ever participate as a shinobi, ever again, he was also ready to throw in the towel. Luckily, this didn't happen, thanks to Lady Tsunade, and his bravery in facing the surgery, despite the outcome of it having been uncertain.

"Guy-sensei is right, Tenten. And I am saying this as someone, who would have nearly given up the path of shinobi, due to my injuries against Gaara of the Sand. If I can leave this seemingly hopeless situation, then so can you. I mean... I cannot exactly speak for myself, when it comes to weapons, but... maybe if you were to create your OWN tools, then there might a chance--"

But once Tenten processed over what Lee had just dropped for a phrase, her head abruptly looks up from Guy's shoulder, as she asked her teammate with wide eyes:

"Wait-wait-wait, what did you just say, Lee?!"

"Uh... my injuries? Never giving up?"

"No-no-no, after that! You said something like, "If I were to create my own tools, it would be a way to start over"..."

Rock Lee began smiling in a cheerful way, as he felt a little proud of himself for that small brainstorming of his.

"Oh yes... ...did I strike gold?"

Neji playfully added, with his arms folded:

"...Seems like you did. Look at her go."

And before anyone could guess what came next, Tenten was off, speeding home, but not before smiling at her teammates in such an adorable way, it would make anyone's heart flutter on sight.

"Thank you, everyone...! I now know what I must do... I'll create my own workshop! See you around!"

All three of them waved, as Guy began chuckling to himself, being quite proud of the two.

"Well, it seems that we may have ignited a spark within her. ...Are you two prepared to become her personal guinea pigs, along with me?"

Rock Lee nodded, and Neji commented by saying with his trademark smirk, all the while speaking in a gentle manner, knowing that this means the world to their teammate:

"Well, anything to make her happy. I will be right there."

"Me too, Guy-sensei!"

"That's my team. We succeeded again! Hahaha!"

He does his trademark toothy grin, before doing his thumbs-up, a shine appearing on his teeth.

Author's note: There you have it, folks. I gotta say, it took me a while, but I finally cracked the code on how to make Tenten based, in a sustainable way. Just make her an inventor, a builder of weapons, tools, even VEHICLES. Imagine her building aircrafts, using Shino's beetles as the basis for it, to chase after someone like Deidara. Just an idea. Or her building a visor that replicates the Byakugan's and Sharingan's property of reading chakra flow within a person's body. Also, you can call this the prologue to her rematch with Temari that I posted a week or so ago.

[thestarsarecool]

Paul McCartney: Run Devil Run

Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 1999

THE LURE had been the chance of a lengthy one-on-one with Paul McCartney discussing all his solo albums. "You could turn it into a book," said his publicist, graciously.

All I had to agree to was to begin with his latest recording, Run Devil Run, which wasn't a problem, as it was a really very decent collection of rock and roll covers, with a few new songs, recorded in a week, a year after the death of Paul's beloved wife Linda. After we'd talked about that, said the publicist, I could go on and talk about the rest, "once Paul is relaxed".

I smell a rat when I arrive, shake hands with Paul – who's looking fit and youthful, with only his suspiciously chestnut-coloured hair looking like it had received any cosmetic help – and pull out the CD sleeves of his complete works as an aide memoire for us both.

"I'm not signing that lot," he snaps.

"Erm, I didn't want you to, it's for the interview," I say.

"Oh, right."

It was odd being in the room with a Beatle after a lifelong relationship with his music, and Paul's demeanour showed that he gets that a lot, in fact he must get nothing else when he meets someone for the first time: an uneasy mix of nerves, warmth, respect and the kind of uncomfortable intimacy that comes with a meeting where one person knows everything about the other and the other knows nothing. Because he is used to this situation, Paul looks slightly bored by it. He knows it's easier, in the long run, to be friendly and cooperative with the press, and he wheels out a few well-worn techniques to put me at my ease. He is gracious and easy-going during our conversation, but there is always something steely in his countenance, you feel he could take offence easily. You can't forget he's Paul McCartney and neither can he.

Needless to say, after chatting about the new album, Paul seems surprised when I start to ask about his debut, the "bowl of cherries" album. I begin to suspect he hasn't been briefed about the supposed purpose of this interview. Some kind of signal is given, because as we get onto Ram, Paul looking increasingly restless, an assistant appears and announces there's someone in reception Paul has to see urgently. McCartney makes his excuses and leaves. The grinning publicist apologises and insists that we will reschedule for the rest of the chat, but I know it'll never happen. Strangely, I feel slightly relieved.

The interview that follows is just the material concerning Run Devil Run which, I realise later, is surprisingly rich in information about how the Beatles worked and how Paul recalls that period.

The cry of 'C'mon lads, we're going back to basics!' seems to be a bit of a refrain in your career. You like to do it every now and then.

Yeah.

What brought it on this time?

Linda was very keen. I'd said for years, "I'd love to make a rock'n'roll record." I'd talked of other things – an old standards, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter album – but this one was more than a whim. I thought, I've got to do it before the 20th century ends, so it was the next thing I was gonna do. Then Lin died, she was really keen that I do it, so that was enough motivation: I'd better get this done. No pissing around.

So how did you approach it?

I remembered early Beatle recording techniques. Because we weren't a famous act we were given a schedule of exactly how to make a record: You come in at 10 am, you set up your amp and your guitar or drums, you have a ciggie, cup of tea, get in tune, then by 10.30 you've got to be ready to go. You just had to be ready or the grown-ups would get annoyed.

We worked from 10.30 to 1.30, and we were expected to do two songs. We took an hour's lunch exactly, then [worked from] 2.30 to 5.30. Then you went home, went out to the pictures or the pub or something. So the next day, when you came in, you'd had a life. If you'd seen a great film it kind of informed you.

So I thought I'd do exactly that, book Abbey Road for one week only, get a bunch of guys together and go and do this thing exactly as we used to.

No rehearsals?

This really surprised me. I realised that on the Monday at 10.30 George Martin would say, "Okay chaps, what are we going to do?" and the only two people in the room who knew were me and John. George and Ringo didn't even know. And I thought, Shit, that's wild! None of this "demos up front, the producer's been working on it, he's got ideas." He didn't know what we were going to do. We could just throw anything at George Martin and we did: "It goes like this: Gir-ir-irl (intake of breath), wanna get a breathy thing going there." Engineer would start to work out how to get the breathy thing, put some compression on or something... bang, bang. Everyone thinking on their feet . Then we were off and running, the match would start.

So, no homework allowed. The other thing we outlawed during the week was thinking. If someone went, "I wonder if I did this..." We'd say, "You're thinking!" It became the joke of the week. "This is rock'n'roll, you're not allowed to think, just do."

So how did you select the songs?

I just kind of dredged my memory and came up with a very arbitrary list, coz I've got millions of rock'n'roll songs that I love. I got most of them on tape and did what I used to do. Got a bit of paper and a pencil and [transcribed the lyrics]. That was a great buzz because I literally hadn't done that particular exercise since I was a kid, felt like I was 15 again sitting there copping the lyrics to Chuck Berry songs, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino.

So I got this bunch of lyrics, there's actually still one deliberate mistake on the record – find it – there's one line I never could find out, I wrote it down phonetically, "yer be livin' in spe...", turned out to be something quite different "If you do it again" and I thought I'd fill that in before the session but I forgot to do it. It was all like that, kind of spontaneous and instant. I got nostalgic for that way of working. [The Beatles] really did some good stuff like that, Revolver and Rubber Soul, all those early ones...

That way of working went right up to Revolver did it?

Way past Revolver, Rubber Soul. (I raise an eyebrow. Pause.) That's past Revolver isn't it?

Er no. Revolver's the one before Pepper.

Was it? Okay. (Pause) I was in the Beatles was I?

Yeah. Bass, I think.

(Chuckles) Basically I was. Yeah. So I thought, I'll sing and play bass at the same time, if there's anyone in the world who's had practice at that it's me. It's a bit like that (patting his head and rubbing his stomach) you've learnt how to do that, so do that. Don't get too precious. I had a bit of a funny moment on the Sunday night [before the session] because I hadn't sung for a year since Linda died, I didn't actually know if I could. I'd been writing stuff, but it had been little introspective stuff (he mimes singing softly). I was nervous [but once we started] I realised it was gonna work and I was singing good. The other thing, because I hadn't done any of these songs before either, I had no idea what the bass parts were. Then I thought, if it was good enough for George and Ringo not to know how the songs went, it's good enough for you. A little dangerous, this is good, getting dangerous. So I went in on the Monday morning with this big manila envelope full of all me words, scrappily on the back of envelopes, and flicked through them – 'Searchin'' by the Coasters, nah, didn't fancy that, 'Hippy Hippy Shake', nearly... 'Fabulous', Charlie Gracie? Yeah!"

I don't know that one.

It actually didn't end up on the album, but I remember it from the fairground. It reminded me of the Waltzer and us trying to pick up birds – which we could never do – me and me mate in our drape jackets with the flap pockets and the fleck, which was 'It.'! Whenever I got a buzz off a number I'd pull it out and say to all the guys – Dave Gilmour, Mick Green on guitars, Pete Wingfield piano and Ian Paice on drums – "Anyone know 'Fabulous'? No?" So I'd get me acoustic guitar, in five or ten minutes these guys had picked it up, get on me bass, okay, 1,2,3,4, do a take, go up and listen to it, quickly organise it, do another two takes, say, and Chris (Thomas) the producer would go "That sounds good." Great, next song. And we just did that all week. Most of the songs they didn't know. They'd know 'All Shook Up' or 'Ready Teddy' – which didn't make the album – or 'Rip It Up', but 'No Other Baby', 'Shake A Hand' and 'Coquette', nobody knew.

How did you get to know them, then?

Those songs were like where The Beatles would show up in the early days at the Aintree Institute, say, and there'd be three or four bands on the bill. We'd be due on third and the band who was second would go on and do our entire act! 'Blue Suede Shoes', 'Long Tall Sally', 'What'd I Say', there's the act gone. There was this terrible moment, "Fuckin' hell, what do we do?" "Well we'd better play them better." But [to avoid that] we started to look for B-sides – things like Bo Diddley's 'The Old Grandpappy' and 'If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody', which was off a James Ray record that George had – we started to find these lesser-known songs that the other bands wouldn't have. And that's the reason John and I started writing, a surefire way [other bands] couldn't access our songs. For a while we didn't really write anything much good – at The Cavern I used to do something called 'The Pinwheel Twist', which was dreadful but worked for the time, some terrible lyrics about fireworks, probably, but it's lost in the mists of time.

'No Other Baby' is fantastic.

That's probably the most obscure. I knew the song but we couldn't find out who did it, Alan here (at mpl) did a bit of research and it turned out it was by the Vipers Skiffle Group. I was talking to George Martin about this album and said "We did some really remote things, one called 'No Other Baby' by The Vipers." Then I said, "Wait a minute George, you produced them didn't you?" I sang it to him and he goes "Oh yes, I remember that now." So talk about full circle.

I didn't even have the record of that but it just embedded itself in my memory. I used to do it in soundchecks on tour. That came out nice. One of the guys said that if these songs were film stars 'No Other Baby' would be Dennis Hopper. It has a chilly, Blue Velvet feel about it which I like.

You sound very angry in places.

That's just me singing. I don't know if I was angry or not, can't remember. When you've got to stand up and play bass live and sing too, there's no time to think of anything else, apart from, How does the bass part go? It was just the spirit of the week. As I said, we outlawed thinking.

A lot of great rock'n'roll records are great "records" rather being great songs. It's often down to the atmosphere of the recordings, isn't it?

Yeah. One or two of the songs when I looked at them I thought, Bloody hell this isn't much of a song, but I love it from the Waltzer or whatever so it doesn't matter. What I tried to communicate is my love of them, this joy at doing these numbers, and anyone who loves rock'n'roll loves doing these songs.

Fair enough on something like 'No Other Baby' that's not so well known, but it must be really hard trying to make 'All Shook Up' your own. It'd be like someone trying to do 'Day In the Life'.

Yeah, those were the challenges. What I decided was not to do 'All Shook Up' like Elvis, then it would be a pale imitation. I decided to bring it up more towards my Little Richard range, scream it more, give it a meanness, put a new interpretation on the words.

'Lonesome Town' too. I'd always liked Ricky Nelson's version, but on the way to the studio I suddenly thought, I can't do it the way Ricky did it, because I'll like his version better – I loved that, that was my teenage years – it'll just be an impression of him, so again, I thought if I take it higher I could put a more intense feel behind the words, a bit more bluesy. So I did it in C an octave above Ricky, which was fine until the middle when it became too Mickey Mouse so I said to Dave Gilmour, "Hey Dave, you do the melody and I'll go above you and do a harmony" very much like what John and I would have done, and that allowed me stay in that persona.

Did you try to make it authentic sonically, use vintage gear?

No, we decided to make it like a modern record. If your ears have become attuned to modern radio, an old rock song can sound a bit woolly and fluffy. We didn't put any old-fashioned echo on anything except 'Blue Jean Bop', Gene Vincent, that I had to do with echo because that was my memory. Again, I learnt something making this: These guys wrote for echo. (singing with tight staccato) "Be bop a lu-la she ma ba-by." That kicks the echo into a rhythm. When we had the two guitars in, it was too jangly and it didn't swing, so I was talking to Ian and singing it to him with the echo on, just me on bass and him on drums. Wait a minute, this is the way to do it, this sounds enough.

Tell me something about the three new songs.

I had one already called 'What It Is' that was sort of bluesy that I thought might be good to try. It was actually one I'd written for Linda so there was a sentimental attachment to that. I thought I'd throw it at them and try a version. Chris Thomas thought it was a good idea to try some new ones but thought it would be tricky to make them fit. While we were making the album, as we were playing 'Run Devil Run' back one of the guys said, "Who's record was this, man?" so that was a good sign, proof that it fitted.

What made you write that one?

I was in Atlanta recently with one of my kids and we went down to the funky area of town and found this shop that sold various kind of potions to stop evil, "Put this in your bath and it'll chase the devil out" seemed a bit voodoo to me, sprinkling powder for your floors...

Shake and vac the devil away...

Yeah! It actually said that on there, "Stop troublesome neighbours, evil relatives, get rid of bad people from your life, put some of this in your bath and then carry a piece of white cloth anointed in this oil and repeat the Lord's Prayer." All a bit superstitious, and one of these products was called Run Devil Run and I thought that was good rock'n'roll title. The album cover is the shop where I found the stuff.

You said you discussed this album with Linda. Why was she into the idea?

She was surprised when we met that I liked to sit at home and play loud guitar. I'd have the AC30 in the living room and crank it up with me Epiphone and just (makes rockin' noise) and she'd say "Oh, I love that. You should do that." She wanted me to play guitar solos like Neil Young does now, living the dream, doesn't give a shit and he's rocking. Linda knew I could do that and was always encouraging me to. And when she died I thought Right, can't put it off, gotta do it.

And the nice thing now is, people are expecting a certain kind of record from me after Linda's died, I've heard it from a few sources, "I wonder what he'll do now, it'll be very introspective, sad songs for Linda," and it's quite nice to go against the current. Though I've not done that on purpose, it's like when 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish' was banned and I happened to do 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' as the next record and people said, "Oh that's two fingers up to the people who banned that, they can't ban this one." and that wasn't true. I didn't do it for that reason but it was perceived like that.

Somebody said about Run Devil Run that it's as if Linda's on it – there are a couple of tracks that sound like she's there. I don't know what that's about.

It does sound like there's a female voice at some points.

There isn't.

On 'Run Devil Run's' chorus...

Yeah, that's what she would have done. She's found her way on. She's a clever girl. I got a post card from her 14 days after she died, from Arizona. Funny postcard, very cute. She was always thinking ahead. I got a birthday present last year from her in June and she died in April. She was that kind of girl, "I know, I'll get that made for his birthday." The kids gave it to me all rather (pulls apprehensive face) "I'm not sure you'll want this, but this is from mum." Do I want it? Not half.

People are going to read stuff into 'Try Not To Cry' aren't they?

Yeah, I hadn't realised that that was 'appropriate'. You don't always realise the meaning of things as you write them, you're just throwing stuff out and sometimes it's only when it lands that you're able to get objective. There are some little references in there inevitably. But I'm writing some other stuff currently and that probably is more to do with it, to do with her.

What were you searching for in the old songs as you went through the manila envelope?

Just heart, passion, something that actually made me go warm when I thought about it. 'She Said Yeah', I remember how I turned Mick Jagger on to that in the '60s. I'd always been meaning to do it and I never got around to it. I was up in the music room one day and Mick came round and I was playing some records to him and I remember Larry Williams' 'She Said Yeah' – and dancing around to it – and 'Aint Too Proud To Beg', The Tempations, he loved 'em. He actually [covered] both of them.

There was this one particular bar in Hamburg that had a jukebox and [The Beatles] used to go there and play pool with Derry and the Seniors, that was their hang-out. This jukebox had two great tunes on it, 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' by The Platters and 'Shake A Hand' by Little Richard and any time I was there I'd get a beer, play a bit of pool and listen to those two records. I could never find 'Shake A Hand' though, I never got the record. It's a gospel song, in America they know it by somebody else.

'Honey Hush' was a great memory for me. John and Stuart had an art student flat in Gambia Terrace, a big old-fashioned terrace with high-ceilinged rooms and the view out of the window was the Liverpool Cathedral. The first time George and I stayed out all night was there when I was about 15. And there was nothing there, we were used to beds and there was a mattress and John and Stuart were sleeping there and we were having to kip in chairs, undoing these Benzedrine inhalers because we'd read somewhere that if you undid them and chewed them they had an upper in them and we ended up talking all night. It was very frugal. It remembers better than it was, actually, no sleep, eyes burning, all that. But I remember in the morning John leaning out of this mattress, reaching over, yawning, you know, in his vest and underpants, and just putting this little Dansette on that was beside the bed and it was 'Honey Hush': "Come into this house, stop all of that yakety yak."

So it wasn't always the song or how good the singer was, it was how good my memory of it was, whether it was a really glowing hot ember of a memory.

Was it therapeutic for you to go back to this stuff?

Yeah, it was actually. Brilliant. I really felt great at the end of the week.

© Jim Irvin, 1999

[oh-my-may]

Sakusa, Tsukishima and Kenma when their s/o gets a wound

requested: sakusa, tsukki, and kenma with a s/o who gets a wound? maybe they went to do an activity and get their knees scraped bad and the boys find out? how would they take care of their s/o?

Sakusa was such a good pick for this oh my that’s probably why his is a bit longer please forgive me I am weak for him ok

Sakusa Kiyoomi:

There were not a lot of things you could do as dates, since Sakusa declined most of your suggestions saying that it would be too unhygienic or too much work making sure everything would be clean.

But when you came up with the idea of going wandering on a mountain trail, where only mostly elderly people where, he was all for it. Of course he also didn’t liek staying insiode all the time, and a place where anybody went while being in nature sounded like music to his ears.

However you regretted your decision soon after you guys started your trip. You were breathing heavily and your legs already felt like spaghetti and you werent even halfway up the hill. Sakusa however, with his amazing sports stamina was walking ahead and barely notived that you fell way behind, until he wanted to talk to you and you didn’t respond to his words. He turned around wondering where you were. Did you maybe get lost? But then he saw you hanging over, your hands placed on your knees and you looked up to him smiling, but you couldn’t hide the exhaustion.

Your boyfriend couldn’t help but chuckle seeing you like that. He walks to you and stops in front of you, tilting his head while he observes your heaving figure. “You know, we can just return if you want to. But the air up here is really good and I guess it’s even better at the top.” You just shake your head, insisting on continuing this trip because it hasn’t been often that you saw Kiyoomi this careless. You were determined to make this an enjoyable trip for the both of you, but especially him. He deserved a pause from his hectic life.

So he grabs your hand and walks slowly beside you for a while, both of you enjoying the nature around you and the fresh air sweeping through your lungs. When you’re finally at the top you have a nice picnic while enjoing the view over the land, watching leaves dance in the wind and tumbling around you, taking in all the scents of exotic flowers and birds chirping somewhere in the tree tops.

You feel a lot better when you get back down. Walking down on a mountain is a lot less exhausting than walking up, after all. Your steps fly more easily. Too easily. You’re more careless with your steps and before you can stop it you stumble over a big rock in your way, landing on your knees before Sakusa can grab your wrist. However he’s quick to help you up again and you flinch and hiss when you shift your weight on your left leg again. Your knee is totally scraped, a small rill of blood running down your leg. Some small stones still stick to your skin and Sakusa is quick to pull out a small package from his backpack, because this man never goes anywhere unprepared.

He helps you sit down on a tree trunk next to the path you were walking and he looks at you with slight amusement but also worry in his eyes. He sighs before leaning down and placing a kiss on the top of your head and then kneels down in front of you, taking care of the wound. “What am I gonna do with you? You’re so clumsy...” he mumbles and you have to smile, though your knee still burns badly. Sakusa takes care of it perfectly, even kissing the bandage on top of your knee after he’s done. However, he doesn’t let you walk down again, he carries you down all the way on his back and you’re not complaining.

You just cling onto him and cuddle into his back, burying your face in his neck and stroking his hair occassionally, thanking him for taking care of you so well. He smiles to himself when he feels you pressing to him, feeling your breath so close on his skin.

After the trip he still checks up on your knee everyday, even when it’s not a wound that serious. He still claims that it shouldn’t get infected and that he’s the only one besides a doctor that can take proper care of it. Always kisses your knee after every check up! A true cariing cutie, I am way too soft for this man

Tsukishima Kei:

It was hard to get Tsukishima thrilled of the idea of going somewhere special to hang out. He was more of the stay inside kinda person, preferring just cuddling up to you in private.

You accepted his choices (even though you still got him to go to certain places sometimes) and that’s how you transformed everyday situations into little dates. Like lunch in school or staying in your garden instead of in the house, sometimes you’d even join his practice and watch him there. Even though he would never admit it, he enjoyed it when you do that. It always makes his insides all giddy and warm because you care for him so much!

You also always walk home together, talking about anything on your way or just quietly listening to music while enjoying each other’s company, silently holding or hands or sometimes he’ll just sling an arm around your shoulders and pull you close to him, walking like that for a while.

Today however you were “balancing” on a wall next to the sidewalk while talking to Kei and rambling about your day. It was fun to you focusing on taking the right steps, even though the platform you were walking on was not that small. You still had to be careful about where you placed your feet, because there were roots and other plants growing over and through the stone. “Ugh anyway, and then our teacher just made us write a test, and it was fine I guess but still sucked.” you ended your little rant.

“Y/N, are you really sure you should walk up there? Don’t you think it would be safer down here? You’re gonna get hurt if you don’t look out.” Tsukki just says while looking up to you with a vague face. You almost laughed seeing him like that. Was he actually worrying about you? Contrary to you always worrying about him at games, this was a nice change.

“Don’t be silly Kei, I’ve been balancing on things since I was a child, literally nothing will happen-” And that’s when you literally cursed yourself, because just moment later you stumble over a root and fall down, though you manage to cushion your fall with your hands which got the most damage.

Your boyfriend is right next to you in no time, helping you up and scanning your body for any injuries, but luckily only your hands got injured and your elbow felt weird, making your whole arm feel like some sort of pudding. Tsukki is just shaking his head while taking in the scrapes and cuts on your hands. You flinch when he softly touches your strained skin and he looks at you with disapproval. His eyes literally tell you “I told you so.” but fortunately he has enough tactfulness to not say it out loud. He accompanies you to your house, constantly shaking his head when you whimper and pout because your hands hurt.

He reluctantly helps you clean your hands, because he claims he’s not good with that kind of stuff and he only helps you bandage the wound because you don’t want to move your hands too much. Quiet sounds of disapproval still leave his lips as he does, though. Something like that could never happen to him, he says. Still, the look in his eyes is loving. He appreciates your playful side a lot. Without it, his life would be pretty plain. Without YOU it would be.

He loves you, but please prepare for a bunch of teasing after the incident. He will never let you climb on something or balance somewhere every again for a long time because honestly? He cares about you a little too much and he can’t bear to see you hurt in any way.

Kenma Kozume:

Kenma always seemed to be busy with some things. In the morning it was school, in the afternoon volleyball practice and in the evening and at night he was usually gaming.

You tried you best to insert yourself into his routine. Walk to school with him, spend the breaks at school with him, game with him, watch him at practice. You were fine with it, really, because you noticed how over the time he got more cooperative and sometimes skipped volleyball practice to hang out with you, or he was starting to game a bit less in order to go to the cinema with you etc.

But you still treasured the time the most when you could hang with him normally, like at practice. You could actually spend hours watching him do something else other than hanging over his console.

And the other members loved you, too. They appreciated you being at practice, it was like having another manager. You also took care of them and told them everything you observed, you brought snacks and cheered for them in any game. Sometimes you’d even join in during training camps and get along with other teams, as well.

You normally used your time during practice to do homework or work on other things, but today you helped out as the “ballboy/girl” basically and ran around the gym catching the flying volleyballs and collecting them for the boys. You’d throw them back to them or helped them to serve the ball, but you were always just moving around the whole time. You didn’t mind, though. It was actually very fun, the boys were constantly joking around. But Kenma didn’t look all that amused whenever a ball just closely missed you or when you almost fell in an attempt to catch a ball.

You watched as him and Yaku were talking to Lev and teaching him how to do a proper serve. The first year was listening eagerly, moving his hands and arms around enthusiastically and you found yourself grinning when Kenma moved his hands over his face in frustration.

Then it finally came to Lev putting all the tips into something and he was standing at the end of the field, ready to serve. You watched him fail a few times until he hit the ball with a loud bang and slammed it over the net, right to where you were standing. No one had enough time to react properly and before you could even think about diodging the ball landed straight on your chest and you fell backwards, hitting your head on the floor hard. For a moment you couldn’t see or hear anything, just darkness and dancing light in front of your eyes and a defeaning beeping in your ears.

Someone helped you to sit up and you slowly began to see contours of people around you, and their voices were still incomprehendable to you. You felt hands on your back and then on your face and you looked into your boyfriends face who had widened eyes and looked very pale.

Then he turned around and basically chased Lev through hell for doing this, giving him the lecture of his life even though you weren’t hurt that badly. there was a small wound at the back of your head and just a little bit of blood came out.

Kenma was by your side the whole time, flinching a lot more than you when you got a bandage around your head. You got some medication from the doctor and while you were tripping a little bit he still stayed at your side, giving you his console so you can play and distract yourself from ther pain

Literally really won’t leave your side, will stay at your house until you can go to school again and he just spends the days next to you in your bed, pouting when he sees the wound and carefully stroking your hair. He’s a big cuddler during this time and literally won’t led you near the gym anytime soon. He always gives Lev death stares when he gets near you, like a hissing cat.

A protective boy, 11/10 would love and cherish

[all-my-love-for-harry]

Show off.

summary: artemis likes to show his daddy off and harry takes every opportunity to make his son proud.

word count:

based on these requests:

"for the single parent series, could there be one where harry and the reader go to artemis’ school for like parent teacher interviews or like harry goes for a school father’s day kinda thing? thanks!"

and

"wait so what about artemis like showing his daddy off🥺 cause that bb just knows how awesome his dad is and he wants everyone to know it"

and

"For my shy little boy can you write something were parents go to schools to talk about their jobs and Artemis chooses Harry and introduces him as his that and harry gets all mushy and happy to talk about his job and tells funny/cute stories about Artemis and Y/n while they were on the road with him. Please."

and

"hi I love my shy little boy series! could you write something about Artemis calling or telling his friends at school that Harry’s his dad or like Harry attends Artemis school event??"

a/n: hi! sorry for taking so long, i haven't been inspired lately but here we are again! hope you enjoy!

you can find more of my shy little boy here

*:･ﾟ✧ ✧ﾟ･: *:･ﾟ✧ ✧ﾟ･:

November, 2019.

Starting on a new school has never been easy, especially if school year has already started and you’re the last one to join. Making the decision of putting Artemis in another school wasn’t an easy one, but surely the most practical one. After moving in with Harry, Artemis’ school ended up too far from home, so his parents made the decision to choose another one that was closer to their house.

It was hard at first, the poor boy would cry trying to convince his mummy to let him stay, sometimes faking having the flu or a headache. Y/N would sigh and try to explain to him how he had to put on a little effort, she understood it was hard for him to leave his teacher, his friends, a routine he was already used to. However, closing off and refusing to talk to his classmates didn’t make things better.

Slowly but surely, Artemis started to accept the changes. He started talking to a few kids, opening up to the idea of making new friends. He’d talk about what he liked, disliked and, of course, he’d talk about his mummy and daddy.

“My daddy says we treat people with kindness!”

“My mummy packs me breakfast every day.”

Those were some of the things he’d usually say to his classmates. However he held back a little when it came to talk about Harry, having his mummy explain to him before how not everybody had the best intentions when it came to them, so sometimes it was better to not say too much. But Artemis couldn’t help it, he loved his daddy too much.

One day, he was at school sitting beside one of his friends, a little girl named Allison. The teacher had giving them permission to use the last minutes of the class to do whatever they wanted, and Artemis was coloring a book next to his friend.

"What's your daddy's name?" The girl asked.

"Harry," He smiled. "Harry Styles."

Much to his surprise, the blonde girl let out a high-pitched laugh while shocking her head. “No, he isn’t.” She stated. “Harry Styles’ a rock star. That’s what my mummy says.”

Artemis furrowed. At this point, he was well aware what his daddy’s job was, but to him Harry’s always been a normal person. The man who dated his mummy and now was his dad too. “He is!” Allison just shook her head again, making her pigtails move as well. It frustrated the boy how she seemed to not believe him, when he was obviously telling the truth.

So he crossed his arms across his chest, pouting. The teacher has noticed the little disagreement the kids had, and she secretly took the girl’s side. It had been a little over a month since Artemis had arrived to the school and she was yet to meet the boy’s dad, as Y/N was always the one who picked him up. Soon enough, the parents of the children started to show up, and the classroom became emptier.

There were a few kids left besides Artemis that were still waiting to be collected when Harry showed up. He was excited to meet his son’s teacher since he wasn’t able to before, he’s been pretty busy since the album release was approaching therefore his time was being consumed by meetings and last minute trips to the studio. He walked down the hallway with a big smile on his face, looking down at all the small humans with their parents. He must admit, if there was one thing he didn’t like about Artemis’ new school, it would be the uniforms. The tiny, navy blue polo his son had to wear under the long sleeve shirt with the logo of the school embroidered on his shirt was a little too formal on his opinion, but it was part of the rules.

Harry’s smile grew at the sight of his son waiting for him. “Daddy!” Artemis was the one who spotted him first, getting up from his chair and running towards him. “You came!”

“Of course I came.” Harry said, his hands ran through the mop of curls Artemis had. “Go for your bag, I’ll say hello to your teacher.”

Artemis did what his daddy told him, and when he passed next to Allison, he made an ‘I told you so’ expression. “Told you I wasn’t a bloody liar!” The little girl opened her mouth in offense, but to be fair she didn’t believe him when he told her.

“Hi, I’m Artemis’ dad.” Harry offered the teacher a smile as they shook hands. It was still surreal to him introducing himself as a father, and it never failed to put a smile on his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, things have been a little hectic at work and I’ve been out of town.”

“Uh, It-it’s okay. It’s nice to meet you Mr. Styles.” The woman in front of him was nervous and he was sure she wasn’t aware who Artemis’ father was. “I don’t know if you’ve received the email yet, but we’re having a small gathering with the parents on Wednesday so they could come talk about their jobs to the kids and stuff.”

He nodded. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll talk to my girlfriend about it but you’ll see either of us here.” He gave her one last smile before he took Artemis’ hand in his. “Let’s go, baby. Say bye to your teacher.”

“Bye!” The little boy waved to her before turning his attention back to his daddy. They walked outside of the school at to his car, Harry listening closely to what Artemis was telling him. “Allison didn’t believe you were my daddy!”

“She didn’t?” He asked as he lifted Artemis to put him on his car seat. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“She said her mummy told her you were a rock star or something.” He shrugged. “But you can be both right? A rock star and my daddy?”

“Of course I can be both!” He exclaimed, kissing the top of his head.

//

Harry carried Artemis’ backpack inside while the small boy ran towards the living room, in look for his mummy. “She’s in her office, mate.”

“Is she working?” Harry hummed in confirmation.

While Y/N was working in her office, Harry helped Artemis clean up before they started lunch together. When the food was ready, she finally came out of the room and went to find her boys. “Hello, darlings.” She said.

“Mummy!” Artemis ran towards his mum and gave her a hug.

The family of three ate happily, conversation never dying down because of the small bubble of joy that couldn’t stop talking with his parents. He’d talk until he became too tired he had to be put down to his afternoon nap. Harry was putting everything in the dishwasher when Y/N came back down, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind.

“I met Artemis’ teacher today.” She hummed in response. “She uh, did she tell you about the parent thingy?”

“What?”

“You know, where parents go talk to the kids about their jobs.”

“Oh, I didn’t think they’d do that.”

“Have you gone to one?”

“Yeah, last year at Artemis’ old school. It was fun.”

“It’s on Wednesday.”

“I think it will be good if you go.” Harry turned around to see her, thinking she wasn’t serious. “What? You don’t think so?”

“No, no. It’s not that. I just thought you’d want to go.”

“I’m sure Artemis would want you there, your job is more interesting.” She joked, making hum frown.

“That’s not true.”

“You’re right. But i still think you should go."

//

Taking a deep breath, Harry entered the classroom. He has has a little wardrobe crisis trying to decide what should he wear to the event. He didn't want to be too formal, quickly deciding that a suit wouldn't be the his first choice. But he didn't want to be too casual either, his job might not require a tux and a tie but showing up in sweatpants and a hoodie wasn't a choice either. So he settled for a pair brown slacks that he paired with a white button up shirt and some gucci loafers.

He wanted to make his son proud so he has also prepared for any questions the kids might have. He didn't consider his job to be more important than the others, but the children would probably be interested when a man with an unconventional job walks in.

There were already a few parents standing in one side of the classroom when he arrived, and a man was in the middle of explaining what he did for a living while standing in the middle of the room. Harry immediately spotted Artemis sitting on a chair, however he was looking around the room trying to find his daddy.

When his hazel eyes met Harry's green ones, the little boy smiled widely, glad he was finally there. Harry made him a sign, silently telling him to pay attention to the other parents until it was Harry's turn.

It had been fifteen minutes since he arrived and he was finally next in line. Currently, a middle aged woman was explaining how she was an accountant and trying to make numbers sound interesting to a bunch of five year olds. Nonetheless, Harry clapped when the woman finished talking and that encouraged the kids to clap too.

The teacher made him a sign and Harry stepped in the middle of the room. "Hello, my name's Harry."

"That's my dad!" He heard Artemis exclaim from his seat.

"That's right." He chuckled. "I'm uh, i'm a musician, which means i make music for a living." He started saying. "We all like music, right?" The children cheered. "I love music, and the reason why i do what i do is to try and make people feel something through my music." Harry was actually trying to make it interesting, so he decided to add a twist. "My job also makes me travel the world constantly."

"Have you been to Japan?" One boy asked.

"I have, yes. I like to learn from the countries I visit, and Japan is one of our favorites. Right, pal?" He looked at Artemis for confirmation. "Last time I was there, I took my family to this beautiful place to eat. Unfortunately, they didn't have forks and we had to eat everything with chopsticks. My... girlfriend didn't know how to use them, and in one wrong move she sent flying a piece of sushi to the table next to us, can you believe it?!" The kids laughed.

"What else do you do?"

"I tour the world, and bring my music anywhere I can. Have you ever been to a concert?" Some kids nodded and some others shook their heads. "Well, concerts are a lot of fun, you'll see when you get older. One time i forgot my passport at home, and couldn't get on my flight. I had a concert to give!"

"And what did you do?"

"Artemis here delivered it, right son?" The curly haired boy nodded shyly at his dad.

"Where do you get your inspiration from?" One little girl asked, raising her hand before speaking.

He smiled, not expecting that question from a child. "From life, honestly. As you get older you try and find a way of expressing yourself and art is very important. You see, there's a lot of ways we can comunicate without having an actual conversation. It can be through a painting, or a poem, perhaps even dancing. I chose to do it on a song. What i write about? Things that makes me happy. And what makes me happy? Well, that's easy. My family."

☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁

taglist!

@myfavfanficsever @odetostep @la-cey @cock-a-doodely-doo @awkwardbullfrog @mellamolayla @moorgannn @bagtan-serendipity @awesomebooklover17 @finelineribs @sunnybusiness @beanholland @sweetenerstyle @cronias13 @vhsharry @maisley @seasidecrowbar @stylesfics-xx @autumnpauley20 @fineline-hs1 @stephaniemalvie @immajustreadwritereblog @jadert15 @iguessweallcrazyithinktho @abundanceofsoph @harrysthicccthighs @megaprincesscakes

[talesofarcadia78]

Sorceress of Arcadia || Gnome Your Enemy

Summary: Y/n Lake is Jim Lake's older sister. She discovers  that she is sorceress and her brother is the Trollhunter. She and the Trollhunters go on adventures together, they save trolls and humans. Along the way, a friend becomes more than just a friend and discovers their secrets.

Warning: None 

Word count: 5,784

Tags: @lunariasilver

Previous >> Wherefore Art Thou, Trollhunter? • Next >> Waka Chaka! 

“For centuries, the troll and human worlds stood seperate and at peace, divided by bridges that acted as doorways between our two realms. But the Gumm-Gumms wanted to devour all of mankind. They were led by Gunmar ‘the Black’. The rest of trollkind fought against him, culminating in the great Battle of Killahead Bridge, the portal to Gunmar’s Darklands. After many moons, good triumphed over evil, and our great Trollhunter, Deya ‘the Deliverer’, lock Gunmar away, exiling him to the Darklands, and sealed the Killahead Bridge with the sacred amulet. After, we tore it apart, stone by stone. We left the old world in search for peace. We stowed away on a ship called the Mayflower, just a handful of us and some gnomes we’d brought along for companionship and nourishment. Finally, we arrived in a strange and exotic realm,” Blinky explained. 

“New Jersey,”Aaarrrgghh commented.

“We kept walking. Eventually, we came across a new Heartstone, and we realised we had found a new home… under Arcadia,” Blinky finished as you heard Jim snoring.

Blinky groaned and walked over to Jim. He slammed the book in front of his face.

Jim startled up, "¡Lo siento, Señor Draal! ¡No me mates!"

You had done Spanish in middle school, so you knew what he had just said.

"I'm sorry Mr. Draal! Please don't kill me!"

You giggled at his outburst. Jim glared at you quickly before he turned his attention to Blinky.

"The training of troll history might seem like a minor duty, Master Jim, but--" Bliny started to explain but was cut off by Jim.

"Sorry, I pulled an all-nighter studying for my Spanish Comprehension exam and my brain is muy gooey. I don't know. I guess I thought if I'm facing Draal in a week, my training would be a little more… active" Jim yawned, standing up.

"Yeah, like, when is he going to learn Troll-kwondo? Or Rock-itsu?" Toby inquired.

"Well, Jim has to learn why he fights, so it's kinda important to learn this," you explained.

"Miss y/n is correct. Before one fights, Toby D., one must understand why one fights. For these precious early steps will decide whether a young Trollhunter will become a Deya ‘the Deliverer’…" Blinky explained.

"Or Unkar ‘the Unfortunate’," Aaarrrgghh added.

"Well, tomorrow, my Spanish exam is with Señor Uhl ‘the Unforgiving’. My main concern is for my immediate future," Jim informed Blinky.

"A-ha! But, to learn what will happen in the future, one must only look to the past," Blinky explained.

"Ugh!"

"I recommend A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore by the venerable Bedehilde. Volume one of 47," Blinky recommended.

"Wow, that's a big book," you commented as Blinky gave Jim the book.

Due to the book being so big, Jim struggled to hold it. He eventually got a good hold of the book. Jim placed his Spanish textbook on top of the other book.

"Okay, but if I don't pass the exam, I'm grounded and I can't be the Trollhunter. Sorry, Blinky, but the amulet chose me, and now I have two lives to keep up," Jim explained.

Then, Bagdwella came running in stopping in front of you, panting.

"Are you okay Bagdwella?" you asked, putting your hand on her shoulder.

She shook your hand off, not wanting your comfort.

"Oh, no. Is it the Heartstone?" Blinky panicked.

"No! No!" Bagdwella denied.

"Stalkling?" Aaarrrgghh asked.

"Is Gunmar out?" you also asked.

Jim gave you a look that said 'Who's Gunmar?". You just rolled your eyes in response. He really should've been paying attention to Blinky's lecture.

"Is Bular in Trollmarket?" Jim guessed.

"No! Gnome! Rogue gnome!" Bagdwella yelled, her voice echoing throughout the Forge.

The six of you walked to Bagdwella's shop to investigate what the matter was.

"Get your toasters here!" a random troll exclaimed.

"First, I couldn't find my monocle, then my collection of bed coils. Now something disappears every minute!" Bagdwella explained.

Suddenly, a gnome whizzes past, stealing an item and making Bagdwella fall over.

"Ah, yes. Gnome," Blinky said, lending his hand to Bagdwella, but she slaps his hand away and gets up herself.

"Oh, dirty little pests. Up to last week, the glue traps were working fine," Bagdwella said, showing you all a skeleton of a gnome.

Just before you could say something, the gnome snatches the skeleton, making everyone gasp.

"Fix it, Trollhunter!" she begged.

"Uh yeah, I'm really sorry about that. See you need a gnome-catcher, and I'm well, the Trollhunter, so--" Jim explained, but got cut off by Blinky.

"Oh no, Master Jim. The Trollhunter cannot refuse the call. And what better a call for you to train with than a pint-sized quarry?" he explained, coming up behind Jim.

"Blinky's right, Jim. This'll be a start to your Trollhunting. Plus, I think the task will be easy for you," you agreed.

You heard rapid footsteps around you, then a guitar play. You all try to look for where the sound was coming from. When you did, the gnome revealed itself. The gnome started to play his guitar once again and started to sing.

"He's trying to distract us! Hold tight to your valuables," Blinky warned.

"Well, I don't need to hold onto anything, I got nothing valuable," you chuckled.

"Yeah, right," Jim scoffed.

"Seriously, I don't have anything valuable. Unless if you consider my a hundred year old phone 'valuable'," you retorted.

"Okay, maybe you don't have anything valuable," Jim agreed.

Then the two of you see Toby going up to the gnome.

"Why? He can't be that bad," Toby chucked, clapping.

Before you knew it, the gnome had taken Toby's belt.

"Oh, no! My belt!" Toby cried. Then he sighed, "At least he didn't take my Nougat Nummy."

"Uh, Tobes, I don't think you should--" you warned Toby, as he took out his favourite chocolate out of his pocket, only to be taken by the gnome.

Toby gasped, "We need to catch that gnome."

All of you tried to catch the gnome, but he was way to fast for you. One time, Jim had caught him, but somehow, it escaped from his grasp. Jim then realised that his amulet got thieved.

"Oh no!" Blinky cried.

Jim and you chased after the gnome until it went behind a wardrobe. Aaarrrgghh pushes the wardrobe aside to reveal a small hole, which the gnome was probably hiding in.

"Hole," Aaarrrgghh stated.

"Yes, it appears the plot quite literally deepens," Blinky said, looking into the hole.

Jim slides his hands through the hole opening, hoping that his amulet would come back to him.

"Come back, come back. Shouldn't the amulet be coming back to me right now?" Jim questioned.

"Dolefully, that rule only applies if you've rejected it. When thieved, it's another story. If you had read A Brief Recapitulation you would have known that," Blinky explained.

"Technically, Jim didn't even have time to read the book, since you know, we're right now doing some Trollhunting business," you pointed out.

Jim gave you a quick smile, before Bagdwella spoke up.

"Some Trollhunter you are. Jim ‘the Baby Handed’.”

You glared at Bagdwella, as she snatched a bag of food from Toby.

I'd like to see how good you are at being the Trollhunter.

You turned your gaze over to Jim and Blinky.

"Master Jim, press on. This is not the moniker you want," Blinky said.

"What else can I do? I can't fit in that hole," Jim shrugged.

"Hmm, currently," Blinky thought.

"Bad idea," Aaarrrgghh warned.

"What's a bad idea?" you asked, but no one answered the question.

"No Trollhunter has ever lost his amulet. We'll need time to procure the Furgolator," Blinky argued.

"Uh, the Furgolator?" Jim doubted.

"Uh, don't you worry about anything, Master Jim. tend to your studies. We'll watch over the hole. Tomorrow, you'll return refreshed to deal with this, uh... little problem," Blinky said, and the three of us headed to the surface.

Toby and Jim headed to Arcadia Oaks High, while you headed the opposite direction to Arcadia Oaks Academy.

Once you had gotten your books, Izzy and Rachael both ran up to you.

"Y/n! Guess what just happened!" Rachael exclaimed.

"Uhh, you won the state lottery?" you replied.

"Nope, way better," Rachael denied.

"What can be better then winning the state lottery?" you asked, getting a bit curious.

"I got into the state math comp!" Racheal squealed.

"Wow! That's great, Rachael. So, when are you going?" you asked.

"Tomorrow, that's why I was texting you the other day, I wanted to hang out with my two besties before I headed off to the competition," Rachael replied.

"Oh, sorry about that, I was... busy," you said.

"Well, are you free after school?" Izzy asked.

You thought about it, you didn't need to go to Trollmarket or have any other plans.

"Yeah, I'm free," you nodded.

"Great! We'll meet at Sam's at 4, then we'll go from there," Rachael said.

You nodded. Suddenly the bell rang, making you jump a little.

"See you guys at lunch," you called, as you ran to your first class.

As you took a seat, you noticed that everyone was focused on the board. You glanced at the board to see everyone's name with a bunch of classes next to them. You searched for your name and saw your classes. You had chemistry, biology, calculus, literature, geography and history as your subjects for the next semester. Then, you noticed a certain name that you had not been expecting to have the same classes as you, well except biology. Tyler. You heard someone sit down beside you.

"Hey, y/n," it spoke.

You turned to see none other than, Tyler.

"Hi, Tyler," you smiled.

"I guess we have almost the same classes. What a coincidence, right?" Tyler chuckled.

"Ha, yeah," you commented.

"Hey, wanna sit next to each other in classes, you know since you'll be the only person I know," Tyler requested.

You hesitated. You didn't know Tyler that well, and seeing his anger the other day in the cafeteria, you weren't so sure.

Then you were saved by the bell.

"I'll see you in class Tyler, and I'll think about it," you said, rushing out of class.

You headed towards the lower office, since you needed your new timetable. As you were walking to the lower office you bumped into a certain emo-boy.

"Sorry," the two of you apologised.

You looked up at the person, to see Douxie.

"Oh, hey, Douxie!" you smiled.

"Hey, y/n! Going to get your new timetable?" Douxie asked.

"Yep," you responded.

The two of you got your new timetable. The two of you looked at each other's timetable, wondering if you had any classes with each other.

"Hey, we have mostly the same class, except instead of geography, I have economics," Douxie pointed out.

"Cool!" you said.

"Wanna head to class together?" he asked

You nodded and the two of you headed to class.

When you entered the classroom, you noticed two seats at the back of classroom weren't occupied so you nudged Douxie. Once you had gotten his attention, you pointed to the seat and headed there.

Once the two of you had taken a seat, you saw Tyler walking in. You groaned.

"You okay, love?" Douxie asked.

"Tyler wants me to it next to him in every class. It's a coincidence that he has all the same classes as me," you explained.

"Ahh. Understood. You can sit with me in every class then, well, except for geography of course. You'll have to deal with him then, but other than that, you can always sit with me," Douxie offered.

"Thank you," you grinned.

Soon after, Tyler started looking around the room. When his eyes fell on you, you were in a deep conversation with Douxie.

"Wait, so your actual name is Hisirdoux?" you asked.

"Yeah, I have no idea why, but it's my name!" Douxie nodded.

"It sounds very 12th century," you commented.

"I know right!" Douxie exclaimed.

From the corner of your eyes, you could see Tyler fuming at Douxie.

Huh? Why does he look mad at Douxie?

You thought he was going to come up to Douxie and start arguing with him, but instead he took a seat at the front of the class, right in front of the teacher's desk.

After a few minutes, your class started.

You had a hard time figuring out what the teacher was saying, since she had a very quite voice, luckily, she was only a substitute. The actual teacher was just away on leave because he was sick.  

After an hour, the bell rang to indicate next class, which was calculus, great. You sucked at calculus and science. You and Douxie headed together to calculus, avoiding Tyler.

The next two lessons kinda sucked, they all just introduced your new teacher's and what you're going to be learning for the next semester. Luckily for history, you had an assignment not an exam.

Soon, the bell rang for lunch.

While, you and Douxie were walking to the cafeteria, you were suddenly surrounded by all of Douxie's friends. Well, band mates.

"Hey, Douxie! How'd all your new classes go so far?" Henry asked.

"They went good. I found a friend that's doing the same classes as me," Douxie replied, gesturing towards you.

"Hey," you shyly waved.

"Wait, you're the girl that Douxie brought back stage at our last concert, right? Y/n, was it?" Jason recognised.

"Yep, that's me," you confirmed.

"Well, we're going over to the band room to practice, wanna come?" Jason asked both of you.

"Sure, why not. I'll just grab some food," Douxie replied. "Y/n, I'll grab you some food as well, you head over to the band room with the other's."

"Oh, no. I don't want to disturb you guys with your practice, I'll find my other friends," you denied.

"You're not going to disturb us, in fact, you can give us some feedback!" Jack said.

"But, I promised my friends that I'll sit with them today," you mentioned.

"What about, you and Douxie find your friends, and bring them to the band room? We really need someone else's point of view of our music," Jason suggested.

You thought about it for a moment.

Izzy wanted to meet the Ash Dispersal Pattern for a while now, and Rachael, well, she can make some new friends, since she doesn't really hang out with anyone else other than you and Izzy.

"Okay," you agreed.

"Great!" Jason exclaimed, walking away with the rest of the band.

You and Douxie saw your two best friends in the line to get food.

"Yo y/n! Where were you?" Izzy asked as she saw you going up to them.

"Just talking with Douxie's band. Want to go meet them? They're in the band room. They said that you guys can come," you offered.

"Oh, you had me at 'Douxie's band'," Izzy grinned.

"Just let us grab some food first, "Douxie said, walking into line, pulling you along.

After grabbing some food, you all walked over to the band room, getting welcomed by a lot of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Douxie asked, grabbing a seat for you and your friends before grabbing one for himself.

"Nothing, it's an inside joke. You won't understand," Henry said.

"Okay..." Douxie nodded, getting a bit suspicious, sitting down. "Anyways, meet Rachael and Izzy."

Rachael shyly waved, while on the other hand, Izzy waved very energetically. You instantly saw Jason blush when Rachael waved at him while she also blushed.

Who knew, Rachael had charm. She's usually not the type to get involved with the boys and crushes that much.

"Looks like we have a fan," Jack pointed out, looking at Izzy energetically waving at them.

"I'm your biggest fan! I go to every single one of your concerts!" Izzy beamed. "Well, I couldn't make it to your concert last week. But other than that, I've been to every single one!"

You, Rachael and the entire band laughed at her enthusiasm.

After getting introduced to one another and getting autograph from every single ban member, they started to practice.

"Wow, Jason is good," Rachael commented.

"Of course you'd say that. You have a crush on him," you teased.

"I do not!" she retorted.

"Sure," you and Izzy smirked.

After about 10 minutes, you heard the door open. You glanced towards the door to see Tyler.

"Hey guys!" Tyler waved.

"Hey, Tyler! Wanna practice?" Jack said.

"Jack, I don't see any of our guitarists away right now. There's no point," Douxie claimed.

"Well, Douxie, I see you're getting a bit tired of playing. Tyler can fill you in while you rest," Jack said.

"I'm not tired," Douxie stated.

"Uh, Doux, not to be rude, but you're kinda missing some chords and not keeping up with the beat," Henry commented.

"What?! I'm not missing any chords! You guys are just going faster than you're meant to!" Douxie exclaimed.

"And you're getting a bit short tempered," Henry added under his breath, but you all heard it.

"I am not getting short tempered!" Douxie fumed.

"Yeah, dude, take a pill and chill. Y/n, can you take Douxie for some fresh air?"Jason requested, snatching the guitar off of Douxie and handing it to Tyler.

"Sure," you nodded, lightly pushing Douxie out the room.

As you closed the door, Douxie started walking down the hallway. You ran up to him and made him slow down.

"Douxie, are you okay?" you asked.

"I'm fine. Those guys over there are just going faster," Douxie grumbled.

"They're not, Doux. You just need to take a break," you advised.

"I don't need to take a break, they need to take a break," Douxie scoffed.

"Doux, this is not you. This is not the person I have met and befriended with," you said.

"Well, this is me! Get used to it!" Douxie yelled, stopping in his tracks.

Your eyes widened at the tone of his voice, making you step back away from him.

Douxie's eyes widened at what he just said to you.

"I-I'm sorry y/n, I didn't mean that at all. I've just been so stressed out lately. I just exploded," he apologised.

You smiled at him, putting your hand on his shoulder, "It's okay. Everyone has those days. You know you can talk to me about it you know?"

"Thank you, y/n. It means a lot," Douxie smiled.

"We should probably head back," you reminded.

"Yeah," he agreed.

The two of you headed back into the band room, getting greeted to everyone just chilling.

"Hey, y/n, Douxie," everyone said.

You noticed that Tyler had left.

"Is Douxie...?" Jack questioned.

You nodded and took a seat next to Izzy.

"What happened to band practice?" Douxie asked.

"Stopped a few minutes ago. We were discussing on hanging out this afternoon," Izzy informed. "Y/n's already coming, what about you Hisirdoux?"

"I'm free. And how do you know my actual name?" he inquired.

"Your mates here told us," Izzy explained.

"We're meeting at Sam's at 4," Henry told Douxie.

Soon after, the bell rang for class.

After three hours, you headed to your bike and peddled home.

You finished up some chores and waved goodbye to your brother and headed off to Sam's.

Once you met with the others, you all headed over to Lucia to watch Danger House 2: More House, More Danger. You were going to sit with Izzy and Rachael but there were seat numbers, so you didn't have much of a choice. You ended up sitting at the end of the row next to Douxie. The two of you shared popcorn while watching the movie. At times, you didn't want to see a scene, so you hid your face in Douxie's shoulder. While you weren't looking, the others snuck some photos of you two, especially when you hid you face in his shoulder.

After the movie, all of you headed across town to The Bluff to watch the sunset. Everyone hated the bike ride up the steep hill, but surprisingly, you didn't. It was kinda easy for you.

Must be the advantage of running from danger.

In the end, the ride up the hill was worth it, since you all got to see a beautiful sunset afterwards. As everyone was enjoying the sunset, taking pictures and goofing around, you saw Douxie leaning against a rock, staring at his phone. You strolled over to him and leaned against the rock with him.

"You know, you can't enjoy the sunset without, y'know, looking at it," you told him.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I know. I'm just looking at something," he mumbled, not taking his eyes of his phone.

You peeked over his shoulder to see what exactly he was looking at.

He was looking at his email, more specifically, emails about bills. The numbers weren't huge, but if you're Douxie that worked 2 jobs and hardly got tipped, that would be a lot.

"You worried about the bills?" you whispered, making sure no one heard.

He nodded. "I don't know how I'm going to pay all this. Thankfully, I requested the companies to give me more time to pay them. I got a few extra months, but I don't think that'll be enough."

You nodded, trying to think a way you could help your blue-tipped friend.

"Do you have any extra rooms in your apartment?" you asked.

"No, but I do have a lot of space in the bedroom. I’ve got two double beds that have been lying around," he explained.

"What if you get a roomie? Like they would give you rent every week, while you provide them shelter, food, etc.," you suggested.

"That's a great idea!" he beamed. "Thanks! I'll start to work on your plan tomorrow!"

"I'll come to help," you offered.

"Oh no. I don't want you putting time aside for me," he denied.

"I'm not, I have a lot of free time. And even if I did, it would be worth it. Helping a friend is always worth my time," you said.

"Okay. I'll text you my address and tell you what time you can come over. Probably on the weekend, but I'll just text you," he explained.

You nodded.

"Now, let's enjoy the view."

After the sun had set, you all rode over to Stuart's Taco Truck. Jason, Jack, and Rachael all went to get the burritos, while Douxie, Izzy and you chatted, waiting for your friends.

"So, y/n, have you been thinking about what you'll be doing after graduation?" Izzy asked.

"Uh, I don’t know. Maybe go to college, like every person does?" you guessed.

"Wow, I'm just gonna get a job and do that, it's just easier," Izzy said.

"Yeah. You never wanted to go to college," you agreed.

"What are you going to do, Douxie?" Izzy asked, turning her focus onto him.

"Well, I'll probably pursue my dreams of being a guitarist while having a job," Douxie replied.

"That's cool," Izzy commented.

Soon after, your burritos arrived and all of you dug in.

Once you had finished your burrito, you checked your watch to see it was starting to get late.

"Okay guys, I'm going to head back, it's getting late. I'll see you all tomorrow," you declared.

"Wait, y/n, I'll come with!" Douxie added.

You waited for Douxie to throw his rubbish in the trash and peddled your way home with him.

Before the two of you went your separate ways, Douxie thanked you for your suggestion.

"Thanks for your suggestion before, y/n."

"It's no problem."

"Well, I'll see you soon, love," he grinned, giving you a flirtatious wink along with a two-finger salute.

You blushed and returned the two-finger salute, riding your separate ways.

Once you got home, you saw Jim was finishing up washing the dishes.

"Hey, Jimbo!" you sang.

"Hey, y/n!" Jim called. "How was your hang out?"

"Good, but I'm beat. I'm heading to bed. ‘Night," you yawned and trudged to your room.

"‘Night," Jim called.

The next day after school, you, Jim and Toby headed down to Trollmarket. You were glad to take a break from everyone. Today was just not your day. Everyone from the hangout had uploaded to social media of the photos of you hiding your face in Douxie's shoulder and the both of you sharing popcorn. The post made you attract the crowd at lunch. People bombarded you with questions related to Douxie. Most of them consisted of 'Are you two together?', 'Are you a couple?' and 'How long has it been?' Luckily, Douxie came in time and saved you from the crowd, again.

You approached Blinky, Aaarrrgghh and something covered with a piece of cloth.

"Remember when I told you all Trollhunters must start small?" Blinky asks, revealing the Furgolator.

"Full disclosure, I'm a little worried how I let you talk me into this," Jim doubted.

"A 'little worried'? I'm full on concerned!" you gulped.

Blinky turns on the Furgolator, making the doors open up.

"Still bad idea," Aaarrrgghh warned.

Jim steps inside and the doors start to close, "Wait a minute. So, how does me going into this thing help me get a gnome out of a hole?"

"If a gnome won't come out, the Trollhunter must go in," Blinky informed.

"Wait, what?" Jim questioned.

"I think Blinky plans to make you small enough to fit inside that hole," you hypothesised.

"Yeah, right," Jim scoffed.

"Exactly! We often use the Furgolator to compress minerals. And now for the anthracite!" Blinky agreed.

"See?" you teased.

Jim rolled his eyes playfully, but you saw the fear in his eyes.

"But you've done this a few times on flesh and bone, right? Right?" Jim yelped.

Blinky placed the rock inside a compartment, "Not exactly." Then the machine started up, "But I'm not concerned."

"Well, that's because you are not the one trapped in this thing," Jim complained.

"Nothing to worry about, Master Jim. We work best under pressure," Blinky shouts.

"I can't see anything!" Jim coughs. "Why is there so much smoke?"

The machine started to make weird sounds. You and Toby ran to the Furgolator, trying to get it open.

"Come on, you guys gotta get him out of there!" Toby cried.

Blinky rushed over to help us, "Don't just stand there, Aaarrrgghh!"

Aaarrrgghh comes over and pulls the doors open.

"Looks like it didn't work. Hope you have a plan B," Jim began, but then realised he had shrunk.

"On the contrary," Blinky said.

"You sure we need a plan B? I think plan A worked fine," you chuckled.

"He's like an action figure!" Toby gushed.

"The Furgolator functioned perfectly!" Blinky laughed.

He picked up tiny Jim, holding him in his palm. Jim looks at his tiny figure. You quickly took out your phone and took a photo of your little brother. Jim groaned, not liking you taking photos of himself.

You all made your way to the hole that the gnome had escaped into. Blinky placed Jim just outside of the hole.

"Real subtle. ‘We've got to start small. Deal with the little problem.’ This is a huge problem! I can't be shrunk! I have exams to take! I have sinks to reach!" Jim raged.

"You have a gnome to catch. Now, onward, Master Jim, and fetch your destiny!' Blinky reminded.

Toby grabs a pencil and hands it Jim to use as a sword, "Your sword, my liege."

Jim pokes the pencil on Toby's palm, earning a yelp from him. He attempts to walk into the hole, but he falls down, earning a giggle from you. But he eventually got into the hole.

"Oh, and one last thing to know when dealing with a gnome, Master Jim, and this is of dire importance: Do not touch its hat!" Blinky forewarned.

"Of course. It's right there in A Brief Recapitulation," Jim taunted.

"You remember!"

"Of course not! Nothing in this world makes sense!" Jim yelled.

You backed away from the hole to see Vendel walk pass.

"Miss y/n, you should go and continue your training with Vendel. We will handle things here," Blinky advised.

"Are you sure?" you asked.

"Completely."

You nodded and jogged over to Vendel.

"Hello, Master Vendel. Do you have time to teach me how to make objects move?" you inquired.

"Hello, Miss Lake. I am not known to any troll as 'Master', but it sounds good coming from you. And yes, I can instruct you how to make objects move," Vendel said.

The two of you walked over to the Heartstone and began your lesson.

Soon after, you could move objects easily, with just a quick gesture of your hand or finger.

"Thank you, Master Vendel!" you beamed.

"Your welcome. Next time you come, with some spare time, I will teach you something new," Vendel replied.

You nodded and jogged back over to the hole to see Toby backing away from the hole.

"Why hasn't he come out?" Toby asked, his voice full of worry.

"What happened?" you asked.

Aaarrrgghh explained to you what happened to your brother.

You all waited for Jim to come out safe and sound. You then saw the gnome walking out with Jim following behind him, wearing the gnome's hat.

'You summoned the armour and caught the gnome! Well played, Master Jim!" Blinky beamed.

You all clapped at his heroism.

"Thank you, thank you. I don't want to forget the little people," Jim smiled.

"Expedient and-" Blinky started.

"And good humoured," you finished.

"Oh my hero!" Bagdwella praised.

Toby captures the gnome into a bag and sets aside.

"And what about this shrinking stuff? When does it wear off?" Jim asked.

"Don't worry. Sleep it off. By morning, you'll be as good as new. And how you have earned it! Jim "the Gnome Slayer!" Blinky reassured.

"He was so young. There was so much music left in him," Toby commented, playing the little guitar.

You ignored him.

"All that is left is for you to take care of it," Blinky instructed.

"Wait, what? Take care of it?" Jim puzzled.

"Rule number two," Aaarrrgghh reminded.

"‘Always finish the fight’," Blinky quoted.

"And by finish... " you began.

"Deaden. End. Le coup de grâce," Blinky finished.

Aaarrrgghh moved his thumb across his throat, indicating to kill the poor gnome.

You and Jim shared worried glances. Neither of you were killers, but you had to follow the rules. But, it was up to Jim, since he was the Trollhunter.

You headed home, while Jim stayed at Toby's house.

As you opened the door, you saw your mom unpacking food.

"Hey, Mom. What are you doing?" you asked.

"Just unpacking the food I got. As you already know, I'm not a good cook, so I thought some takeaway would be good," she explained.

Soon, the two of you sat down and dug into your food.

"Y/n, where's Jim?" your mom asked.

"He's staying at Toby's place," you answered.

"Well, since he's not here, want to have some girl time?" she asked.

"I'd love to," you replied.

Once you two had finished dinner, the two of you sat down and binged watch watched Mistrial & Error together.

After a dozen or so episodes, the two of you started to play truth or dare.

"Okay, y/n… Truth or dare?" Mom asked.

"Truth," you answered.

"Hmm... so, that friend of yours, Douxie. Is he just a friend or...?" Mom questioned.

"Douxie?! He's... uh... um..." you stammered.

"And my question is answered," Mom cheered.

"What?! He's not. Uhh..." you cried.

From that, you and your Mom started to talk about your love life, more specifically, Douxie.

"I saw on one of your friends posts that you were hiding behind him during your little movie night," she said.

"It was a scary movie! Some scenes were just absolutely terrifying, so of course I’d hide behind him. That's normal," you defended.

"You could've just shut your eyes," she suggested.

"Um... well... uh..." you stuttered.

"I guess my suspicions are true," she smirked.

"Mom!" you cried.

"Okay, okay. We'll have this conversation another day. I'm tired, so I'm heading to bed, kiddo," she said, getting up from the couch.

"Me too. I need to go to school," you agreed, following suit.

Next morning, you woke up to the sound of clattering downstairs. You got up and got dressed into a t-shirt, pair of jeans and sneakers and rushed downstairs to see what the commotion was about. You found the source of the commotion, your mom.

"What are you doing?" you asked.

"Nothing for you to worry about, kiddo," she said.

You shrugged and realised that there was nothing for you to eat for breakfast.

"Sorry, y/n. No breakfast. Maybe grab something in town," she suggested.

"Will do. I'll head out, love you!" you called and rushed out your door, hastily grabbing your bag on your way out.

You made your way to Toby's house, checking on Jim. You knocked on the Domzalski's door. It opened to reveal Toby.

"Hey, Tobes!" you grinned.

"Hey, y/n! Checking in on Jim?" he guessed.

You nodded and you followed him to his room. On the way, Toby's Nana forced you to eat a blueberry muffin.

As soon as you entered his room, you noticed Jim's absence. But then you realised he was in a doll house.

Toby opened the doll house to reveal a startled Jim.

"What's wrong, Tiny Jim? Did you not sleep well in Nana's dollhouse?" Toby asked.

"Why am I still small, guys?" Jim whined.

"Maybe the stuff works different on trolls than it does on humans?" you theorised.

"Oh, my gosh. The gnome! You did it? I told you I was supposed to-- Oh no! School!" Jim panicked.

"We have to call you in sick. Tell them you ate too much chocolate. That always works," Toby ordered, shoving his phone into Jim's little face.

"No, Señor Uhl can sniff out a lie a mile away," Jim refused. He thought for a second when his eyes lit up. "That's it! Toby, I need you to do me a huge favour. Well, maybe a small one. But huge."

You gave him confused look.

"Look, I have a plan, just trust me on this," Jim explained. "Plus, you should be heading to school right now."

"Fine, but I want you to be normal size by the end of the day. I can't take you home like this," you said, gesturing to his size.

"Okay. Now, go!" Jim said.

You rode off to school, hoping your brother would return to his normal size.

[kaderp]

ALRIGHT FUCKERS THIS IS GONNA BE A HELLA LONG MEGAPOST AS I WAS GIVEN THE OK

BASICALLY this is gonna be a collection of bullshit me and @blackfliesinbluesugar have come up with and drawn

It starts with Goldie still living in Ireland at 17-19 and Scrooge from ages 18-20 staying in Scotland. And long story short they're dumbasses as teens. Cliche forbidden romance type stuff. Goldie's dad has shot people in the foot for trying to mess around with Goldie or just even talk to her for too long. So the only logical explanation they have is make Scrooge hide in the barn when he visits.

Basically Scrooge chills in the barn for a while cause Goldie's the only one that ever really goes in there because she's in charge of all the chores there. Which is where the context of this post is from

After the first time they fooled around Goldie was like 'oh crap what if I got pregnant D:' and told her mom she's going through a phase of flowey/big dresses when in reality she's trying to hide a potential baby bump. Now her mom doesn't care because she's too caught up in the fact that Goldie is finally 'acting like a lady.'

So eventually because they never put together that 'hey, if we keeping doing this we're gonna end up with a baby', Goldie does end up pregnant. And because her dad is a dick and a 'I catch you with my daughter then you die' type of shotgun dad, Goldie is freaking tf out.

About a month after she finds out she's pregnant, the O'Gilt's (well mostly just Goldie and her mom lol) get invited to a fancy dinner and Scrooge is really wanting to see Goldie again. So what better way to see her than to travel to Ireland, steal a uniform, and sneak into said dinner party as a busboy. Problem is he can't risk Goldie's dad seeing him again so he tries to slick back his whiskers

But while Scrooge is running around, he eventually spots Goldie across the room. Now he's never seen her in anything fancy, usually just the flannel and green work skirt. And he just about dies 😭

By now she has a bit of a baby bump she's had to hide so she normally goes for high waisted dresses that immediately flow out.

Anyways, as Scrooge is putting on the uniform he realizes he has absolutely no idea how to actually be a busboy. He doesn't know the first thing about dining and stuff so he's just like AAAAAAA

As they both see each other, Scrooge gives a dorky grin and Goldie smiles before realizing he snuck in. Right when Scrooge goes to see her he gets dumped with a bunch of dishes he has to set. Goldie sees him struggling to figure out how to set a table and he just gives her a nervous grin while she's like 'oh you beautiful dumbass -_-'

She's turning red cause she's trying so hard not to burst out in laughter as Scrooge slips and a bunch of silverware falls on him

He's getting yelled at by the director but he's just giving Goldie a goofy grin from across the room.

Her parents: remember to be calm and not make a scene no matter wh-

Goldie watching Scrooge trip on the tablecloth: BWAHAHA

But as the dinner progresses, Goldie remembers Scrooge doesn't even know she's pregnant. So she keeps trying to tell him but they both constantly get pulled away to do other things.

Towards the end of dinner Scrooge gets a free moment and realizes then that 'holy shit I actually like really love her!' So he darts to wherever she is and is struggling to get it out cause he doesn't know how much time he has left. He eventually spits it out and tells Goldie he loves her and is immediately called away. Scrooge takes her hands and quickly kisses her cheek before running to wherever the director is calling him from.

Goldie is shocked and stays still for a moment but by the time the shock wears off she realizes Scrooge is already long gone and they don't see each other again. And now Goldie's like 'crap crap crap, he said he loves me and I didn't even tell him I'm pregnant.'

They aren't able to communicate for a while cause Goldie's so focused on trying to keep her family pleased while still hiding her baby bump, and Scrooge keeps getting sidetracked and forgetting to write. (You can't tell me that isn't something he'd do because he kept getting distracted in the life and times when coming back home). He has her address, and he has started a letter, and even his family knows about her. 3ish months pass of no communications until one night Goldie starts contractions.

She darts to the barn after the first contraction and realizes she has to do this alone. A letter takes a day to get to Scrooge and going to Scotland herself would take closer to 7 hours. At that point it would be safer to not move.

It's like 3am by the time she lays and the egg ends up being pretty small. The entire time Goldie was just getting sicker and sicker. She ends up too weak to even hide the egg and has a high fever. She seriously thinks she's not gonna make it for the first night she can barely stay conscious.

The next morning she has just enough strength to lazily hide the egg in the hay and sluggishly make her way back to the main house. Her parents are already up and she explains she started feeling iffy while doing chores and collapses.

Because her parents aren't completely heartless and she still is their daughter, her parents' main focus shifts to trying to nurse her back to health. They assume she fell with a bad flu and don't know she had spent all night laying an egg.

During this time she writes to Scrooge telling him to get over here asap, it's an emergency.

Goldie's parents take over her chores in the barn and the moment they said that Goldie went into panic mode again. During a lunch break she climbs through her window and runs to the barn to hide the egg better. She does, and she successfully makes it back to her room but collapses again and sleeps until the next day.

Scrooge arrives 3 days after she lays and now she's really panicking. She's still weak and sick, and her parents are coming closer and closer to finding the egg. Scrooge when he sees her is genuinely freaking out. Not only for the future and that he now has an egg, but because Goldie did it by herself in a dirty barn. She's still a little loopy even though it's been a few days and Scrooge just feels heart broken that he wasn't there to help. He starts going on a tangent about how she could have died but Goldie just kisses him to get him to stop blabbering.

Scrooge helps her clean up a bit cause even with her parents looking after her, she's still a mess. But as he's washing her and the egg up, they hear fighting from the main house. Her parents realized she wasn't in her bed. She starts crying and tells Scrooge he needs to run home asap because if her dad finds out he'll most definitely kill him and/or the baby.

(This was the first doodle for the au before deciding on an exact age/place/look so don't mind the sloppiness)

Scrooge escapes right as her dad comes in. She pulls the excuse of she thought she felt well enough to do chores.

Scrooge rn is running like a madman back to Scotland. He went from chilling with his family to being a father who's child needs to be kept secret within a day.

By the time Scrooge gets back home it's the middle of the night and is ngl feeling pretty overwhelmed. He tells Downy that he messed up and she's just like ??? So Scrooge holds up the egg and Downy just purses her lips like 'ah'

The next morning Scrooge explains to his family what happened and doesn't leave out any detail. Fergus and Downy obviously have mixed feelings. Scrooge is barely 19 yet he already has a kid??? But in the end they realize they can't change what's happened and focus on helping Scrooge protect this child.

Once the baby hatched, all mixed feelings from Downy erased and she just went into 'this is my grandbaby and no one will touch her' mood.

Scrooge and Goldie kept in contact from the moment Goldie gave away the egg. Because of the little incident of Goldie 'trying to do chores while sick,' she was put under close monitoring for the next few months and couldn't visit each other. After constant writing back and forth, they find a date to meet up half way between Scotland and Ireland so Goldie can meet her baby. They try to decide on baby names through the letter but they can't agree on anything. Goldie finds out that Scrooge moved out of his small Glasgow home and into McDuck Castle. He gives her the new location on the map as well.

The first time Scrooge tries to sneak out with the baby Fergus is just standing right outside with his brow arched and Scrooge starts freaking out.

Before Scrooge can apologize for trying to sneak out, Fergus just asks if Scrooge would like him to go with.

Scrooge is a little shocked but can't talk with the frog in his throat and just nods. Along the way Scrooge explains how he and Goldie have been trying to find the right time to sneak out for weeks because it was so hard for Goldie to get free time. She was sent to go across country to get supplies and uses that opportunity to go meet up with Scrooge and the baby again.

Fergus just nods and continues.

When they do see Goldie, she almost breaks down at the sight that the baby survived and is being raised in a good house hold and can't stop holding her. The baby is about 3 months old by now. They finally agreed on a name and she ended up being named Maryanne. (Yes Jelly and I chose that because it means Star of the Sea)

She has to give the baby back to Scrooge cause stupid teenage and still getting over pregnancy hormones are getting the better of her and she starts full on sobbing as she sits on the ground. Scrooge freezes cause he's like aaaaaa what do I dooooo while still holding the baby.

But Fergus crouches down to her and asks if she wants a hug. All Goldie can say is 'uh huh' and he just wraps himself around her. She hugs back and Fergus rocks back and forth until Goldie's calmed down.

'I'm sorry I pulled your son into the mess. I-I was just so scared that my papa w-would kill one of us that I didn't know what else to do.'

Fergus pulls her away so he can actually look at her. And part of him feels that tinge of fear and sadness that the two teens had experienced. He grabs onto her shoulders which causes Goldie to look up at him.

'While I dinnae agree what you two did was right. Ah'm proud of you. Because what you did, finding the will to give up a child for their own safety, took a lotta strength there, lass.' And before she can react, Fergus pulls her in again and let's it sink in.

Scrooge is still holding the baby but now he's sitting down and bouncing the cooing baby on his knee while watching the scene unfold.

Over the course of the next few months, Goldie visits as much as possible and she grows closer to the family and Scrooge every time. On the times she can't visit, Fergus accompanies Scrooge in order to protect them from Goldie's dad. She's had a few close calls with her dad, but nothing too serious

After those events, Goldie practically moves in with the McDucks and they work on raising Maryanne. However like in the Rosa series, they're still experiencing tax trouble and Scrooge says he's gonna have to go to South Africa. The baby is about 2 by now and Scrooge is almost 21, while Goldie is about 19 and a half.

(This next section was an accident but basically it started as jotting down ideas but turned into a fic after I said it would take 20 seconds to write but turned into 2 hours fjdbfndn)

Scrooge is torn between whether or not to go until Goldie says she'll go with him. And because she's stubborn, no one objects. So the three travel across the world together. Maryanne practically grows up on the sea and all of those adventures where Goldie is present in the DT17 Rewriting History book happen.

On adventures they trade off tying the baby to their backs until she's old enough to not need to anymore. Although for the more dangerous ones, one of them stays behind.

But because they weren't married and had a kid in their teens, they were generally looked down upon. It got to the point where they just started saying they were married in order to avoid conflict with others. And after a while they actually forgot they weren't in fact married

'Huh, I forgot we're not actually married.' 'WAIT WE'RE NOT???'

Or

'We're married' 'Oh ok, can i see your marriage records?' '... oh right'

But some old lady or old guy either way starts criticizing Goldie for being a young mother and they just deck the shit outta them and run. Or Goldie fighting someone with baby tied to her back.

Maryanne grows up to be an ocean cartographer and leads sailing expeditions and that's all we have for her. Also she has super blue eyes lol

That's basically almost all of the things we have for this au lol

[fangirlingtodeath513]

eyes on the prize | a destiel fanfic explicit, PWP, no archive warnings apply, 1.8k words

It all started with a simple, innocent text. Okay, maybe not innocent. Castiel had woken up to a cold, empty bed. He’d been used to having Dean around during quarantine, but now that the world was finally back in order, at least for the most part, Castiel’s constant now was a frigid, too-large bed.

Today, though... today he’d woken up rock-hard, a whisper of Dean’s name on his lips as he was finally dragged from the glorious, pleasure-filled dream into the real world. He rolls over to grab for Dean and that’s when the reality hits him: Dean’s at work and Castiel’s alone. So, rather than taking care of his hard-on himself, he rolls over and feels around the nightstand for his cell phone.

In his opinion, the photo he sends is rather tasteful. He leaves his briefs on and grips his shaft through them, just enough that the outline of his obviously hard cock is visible but no skin is showing. It’s a lot more tasteful than other pictures he’s sent to Dean, at least. 

He doesn’t hear back from Dean, which is odd. He texts again at lunch to wish him a wonderful rest of his day, but his text goes unanswered yet again. It throws him off his rhythm, so he doesn’t even manage to finish the painting he’d been working on for a client. He doesn’t have to ship it for another week, thankfully, so he eventually just gives up and wanders into the kitchen. He ends up making dinner—Dean’s favorite, just in case he’d inadvertently angered or embarrassed Dean with his photo—and becomes so engrossed that he doesn’t even hear the apartment door open. 

Dean’s keys clattering onto the table near the door is what draws his attention. He turns to find his husband hastily removing his jacket and just dropping it on the floor. Castiel opens his mouth to tell him to hang it up but then watches the frantic energy that Dean has as he toes his shoes off and makes for the kitchen, eyes locked on him with a mix of hunger and something else that Castiel can’t put his finger on.

He’s barely able to put down the spatula he’d been using before Dean’s crowding him against the counter and kissing him within an inch of his life. It leaves him breathless, dizzy, and delightedly confused when Dean finally pulls away, though he just moves to kiss his way down Castiel’s neck. He tilts his head without a second thought, threading his fingers through Dean’s hair.

“Well hello to you, too,” Castiel murmurs, a ghost of a laugh in his tone. 

Dean scoffs against his neck, leaning back just enough to shoot Castiel a look of incredulity. “Hello? You expect me to say hello when I’ve spent the entire day hiding behind my desk, rock fucking hard because I knew you were at home getting yourself off and all I could do was stare at my computer screen and think about it?” 

Castiel grins, albeit a little sheepishly, and brushes his fingers through the hair at the back of Dean’s head. “I’d apologize, but I’m not very sorry. I missed you this morning. I figured you’d enjoy a small—“ Dean scoffs at the notion that Castiel is in any way small, to Castiel’s simultaneous joy and embarrassment “—reminder of our lazy days in bed. I apologize if it ruined your day.”

Dean grunts, shuffling away from Castiel. For a moment, Castiel worries his apology has been too effective and ruined the mood, but then Dean shuts off the stove burners and moves the half-cooked food off the heat. 

“Dean, I—“ He doesn’t get to finish his protests. Dean’s lips are back on his and after just a moment, Dean bends and grabs Castiel behind the knees, hauling him into Dean’s arms. Dean tends to be the more submissive one in the bedroom, so the unusual show of strength rips a throaty groan from Castiel. It seems to only spur Dean on as he turns and heads for their bedroom, his lips never once leaving Castiel’s skin.

He’s deposited rather unceremoniously onto their bed, though he can’t really complain. Dean’s disheveled, his obvious erection straining in his dress pants as he stands above Castiel, seemingly drinking in the sight of him. Castiel leans back on his forearms, smirking up at his husband.

“Enjoying the view?”

Dean hums noncommittally, which simply won’t do. Castiel keeps his eyes locked on Dean’s face, slipping his hand down to grip his own erection through his sweatpants. Dean’s sweatpants, his brain helpfully supplies, but the action seems to have the effect Castiel was hoping for. Dean’s knees waver and he licks his lips, eyes flickering up to Castiel’s face. There’s a hint of defiance twinkling in his eyes, though the question behind them is still rather obvious.

“Go ahead,” Castiel encourages, a smirk curling his lips. “Show me what you’ve been thinking about all day, my love.” 

Dean shivers at the endearment as he sinks to his knees, which are thankfully protected at least a little by the plush carpet of their bedroom—something they’d argued about for months before Castiel had eventually won. He’s sure Dean’s knees thank him every time they settle into that softness rather than an unforgiving hardwood floor. 

Dean’s fingers are cold when they curl around Castiel’s hips, frozen by the bitter winter temperatures of the northeast. Perhaps he’s just feverish with arousal. Maybe it’s a combination of both. He doesn’t really care. All he can focus on is Dean’s fingers as he tugs Castiel’s sweatpants and briefs off, leaving them bunched around his thighs as he presses his tongue to the ridge on the underside of Castiel’s cock, making him gasp and curl his fingers into the sheets. Dean seems to take pleasure in the response, his cold, broad hands trailing up and down Castiel’s thighs as he licks and teases and sucks his cock, his cartoonishly plump lips easily swallowing Castiel to the root. He could come just like this—has several times, in fact—but that’s not what’s on the agenda for tonight. Dean’s been looking forward to this since Castiel texted him earlier and Castiel won’t deprive his husband of his fantasies. God knows they’ve acted out enough of both of their fantasies. 

“Earth to Castiel,” Dean murmurs against the skin of his hip, pressing a gentle kiss there. Castiel blinks down at him, brushing his fingers through Dean’s hair gently.

“I’m here,” he assures, a soft smile on his lips. He brushes a thumb over the collection of freckles beneath Dean’s left eye, letting out a pleased hum when Dean leans into the touch. “Why don’t you come up here, hm? You deserve a reward for my teasing today,” Castiel murmurs, dipping his thumb into Dean’s mouth. Dean instantly closes his lips around it, teasing the pad with his tongue. “Fuck, Dean.” It’s a whisper more than anything, but Dean’s eyes roll up to look at him and he can see just how pleased his husband is with the response. Smirking, Castiel hauls him up onto the bed and swaps positions, discarding his sweats and briefs as he straddles Dean’s waist. The slide of their erections against each other makes them both gasp, Dean’s hands scrambling for Castiel’s waist. 

“God, dreamed about this all day. About what would’ve happened if I’d been home.”

Castiel smirks as he rolls his hips lazily, fingers tracing Dean’s nipples through the fabric of his dress shirt. “Yeah? And what did you imagine would have happened?”

Dean arches into the touch, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he sucks in a breath. “That you’d roll over and just take me. I’d still be loose from last night so you could work me open before I even opened my eyes.” Dean shivers as Castiel’s blunt nails scrape over his erection through his dress pants, whimpering quietly.

“Keep going,” Castiel encourages, rewarding Dean’s cooperation by unbuttoning his dress shirt and helping his husband out of it. Castiel closes his lips around Dean’s left nipple as Dean begins to speak again.

“O-or maybe you’d leave me like that. Not prepped all the way. Then I’d wake up to your cock in me, the burn of you stretching me open...” He trails off as Castiel bites down on his nipple, grabbing onto his shoulder tightly. “Oh, Cas, fuck.”

Castiel smirks, laving his tongue over his nipple gently. “That’s the plan.”

He can’t quite see Dean roll his eyes, but he knows his husband well enough to know that he most certainly does. Dean has his fair share of stupid puns most days, so Castiel has no problem reciprocating. 

“Perhaps we can fulfill that fantasy in the morning,” Castiel murmurs, his fingers slipping down to brush over Dean’s hole. He nearly comes when he finds Dean already prepped, his body ready and waiting to swallow Castiel’s cock. “God, Dean, you prepped yourself at work?”

He looks up to find Dean smirking at him as he winds his legs around Castiel’s waist. “I told you, Cas. Been lookin’ forward to this all day.”

Castiel shivers at the image of Dean prepping himself in his office, knowing he could be walked in on at any point, and leans over to grab the lube in their nightstand. He doesn’t waste any time divesting them both of the rest of their clothes, slicking his cock, and sinking into Dean. They both gasp at the feeling. Dean clutches at Castiel’s shoulders and Castiel can’t find the drive within himself to take this slow. Dean’s been waiting for this and honestly? He kind of has, too.

Dean’s legs tighten around his waist as Castiel puts more force behind his thrusts. Their kisses turn more into them just sharing breaths and moans and gasps than actually kissing. He can’t complain about that, though. It only makes it feel all the more intimate.

He can tell the moment Dean’s about to come. His hands slip down to Castiel’s biceps, gripping tightly as he buries his face in the crook of Castiel’s neck. Dean always gets quiet and clingy when he’s close and Castiel fucking loves it. Dean comes with his arms wrapped around Castiel’s shoulders, clinging to his husband as if his life depends on it. Castiel isn’t very far behind, capturing Dean’s lips in a warm kiss that makes his heart skip a beat as he comes, cradling his husband in his arms.

He gives himself a moment to catch his breath before carefully shuffling them onto the bed, holding Dean tightly and kissing his forehead. “All day, huh?”

Dean snorts. “Been thinkin’ about that, have you? Yes, all day. That picture was… mmm.”

Castiel grins and leans over to kiss his husband quickly. “I”m glad you liked it.”

“Hm,” Dean answers, resting his head on Castiel’s shoulder. “I think I’d like those burgers I saw on the way in even more.”

Castiel laughs, though he happily obliges with a fond shake of his head. They don’t bother to dress, just throw on their matching robes and head for the kitchen. Their burgers may get a little burnt while Dean satiates his appetite for Castiel once again, but neither of them mind.

[recurring-polynya]

hello ms. polynya! if you are still taking drabble requests and are in the mood for it, I would love to see more of the mall AU (yes, THAT mall AU lmao). bonus points for more omnidirectional horny teenage pining, because that first mall AU drabble nearly made me cry laughing and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. p.s. re: that fanfic author meme—my favorite story of yours is hold on, hold on! closely followed by call me back when the war is over :)

(cont’d)

mall au anon again, realizing I forgot to send like half of what I wanted to request because I got too excited (durr hurr): would love the ensemble cast/lieutenant goon squad because I really enjoy how you riff off of these characters, and/or renji and izuru being dumb friends and also wrangling their Big Crushes. no pressure to fill this though, thanks for being wonderful and generous 💖

I saved this one ‘til last so I would have something to look forward to. I love the Mall Goths AU, it is my greatest pleasure in life to write a bunch of undead shonen badasses as dorky teens trying to ask their crushes to prom.

Thank you to @alopexplasma, who came up with the name of Renji's car. I compulsively write Renji driving a Camaro in every AU I can conceivably shoehorn it into, and somehow, the incredibly obvious name never occurred to me. I am a moron.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

(if you haven’t read the original, read Ch 7 first, either site will do)

💘     💌     💘

Renji folded his hands on his knees and leaned forward, regarding Izuru very, very seriously. “Look, as you know, I don’t have any money, or... connections, or… well, anything, really, but you know that if you got cancer or were in a car wreck or something, any organs that I have two of, like kidneys or lungs? One of them would be yours, man. Bone marrow? I have so much bone marrow, and you can have as much of it as you want.”

“You know,” Momo pointed out, setting two paper cups down on the table, “if you marry Rukia someday, you will be absolutely rolling in it. I brought you coffee.”

“I assume she would want a pre-nup,” Renji replied very philosophically. “Which I respect.”

Izuru rolled his eyes and picked up his coffee. Just before taking a sip, he remembered. “Is this just the sludge that collects at the bottom of the airpot again?”

“Could be,” Momo tried to sound innocent.

“Oh, boy, my favorite!” Renji announced. “It’s so good, you just have to put, like, six creamers in. You want some creamers, Izuru?”

“I’ll pass,” Izuru said, pushing the coffee away. “Why can’t we do this in the game store, again?”

“Because Rukia hangs out at the game store!”

Instead, they were in the Barnes and Noble, where Momo worked in the cafe. Nothing personal to Momo, but Izuru hated the Barnes and Noble. It felt so bland and corporate, and smelled like new carpet, and he always felt like he should buy something if he was going to hang out there (not that he ever did). Besides, the couch was comfier at the game store.

“Just do this for him,” Momo implored, while Renji dug through the creamers, trying to find six that matched.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do it,” Izuru explained. “It’s that I think it’s a bad idea. You have been friends with Rukia since, what, fifth grade?”

“Third grade.”

“Third grade. Right. You sit next to her in class. You eat lunch with her. You talk to her all the time. Just say, ‘hey, Rukia, I really like you, will you go to prom with me?’ There’s no way she can look into your dumb puppy eyes and say no. Tell him, Momo.”

“Izuru’s certainly right about the puppy eyes.”

Renji sighed. “You don’t know Rukia like I do. Her family doesn’t do affection at all, and talking about feelings really scares her. If I ask her point blank like that, she’ll get defensive, and she won’t speak to me for a month, and she won’t go to prom at all, and then I’ll have to third-wheel Ikkaku and Yumichika.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Izuru pointed out. “You could…” he waved a hand vaguely. “You could take Momo.”

Momo shook her head. “Nanao and the Kotetsu sisters and I agreed to go together as gal pals,” she explained. “You could be a gal pal with us, I suppose, but only if you’re willing to coordinate outfits. You do look good in aqua.”

“Thanks,” Renji replied glumly. “Hey, I thought Rangiku was in your group, too?”

“Oh, she got a date.”

Izuru sniffed, pretending to be disinterested. If Shuuhei had finally gotten up the courage to ask Rangiku, then good for him.

“That upperclassman with the silver hair, Gin, asked her. He seems a little creepy to me, but she really likes him, and he’s friends with Aizen-sempai, so he must be a decent guy.”

Kira’s hands tightened on his knees. “She’s not going with Shuuhei?”

Renji gave him a look.

“Shuuhei says prom is lame and he’s not going,” Momo shrugged.

“I see,” Izuru frowned. “I mean, he’s not wrong.”

“He is wrong!” Renji protested. “Prom rocks. You wear fancy outfits and buy flowers for the person you like and there’s some insane theme, like Arabian Nights or Haunted Halloween Castle. You slow dance to ‘Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’ by Aerosmith, and when it’s over you go get pancakes. What part of that isn’t awesome?”

“This year’s theme is ‘Lifetimes Past,’” Momo dryly informed him.

“Exactly. In any case, I have dreamed of taking Rukia to prom for years, are you going to help me write her a love letter or not?”

Izuru groaned. “I don’t know why Rukia gets such crummy grades, because she’s actually very smart. She is definitely going to be able to tell that you didn’t write this.”

“I know that! You think I don’t know how smart she is? Look, I just want you to write it all nice in Kira-speak, and then I’ll translate it into dumbass. Just help me get my thoughts together. You know I don’t word good, but I really think that writing it out and giving her a chance to process it on her own is the best way to go about this.”

Momo turned sad eyes on Izuru, not that his resolve wasn’t already crumbling. Abarai was a goon and a bonehead, but his devotion to his long-time best friend was tooth-rottingly sweet. Izuru would feel like a villain in a Christmas special if he said no.

“Fine. Fine. But I want you to help me get the Festiva running again and I get to approve whatever it is you’re planning on wearing to prom. It better have sleeves, for one thing.”

“Deal!” Renji replied, his face splitting into a huge grin.

Izuru turned to a clean page in his writing notebook and licked the tip of his pen. “Dear Rukia,” he narrated.

“No! Don’t put her name!”

“Don’t put her name?”

“No names. I have seen a lot of teen movies, and notes like these always end up in the wrong hands. Rukia would die if something like that happened. Or if her brother found it, he would straight up murder me and then I wouldn’t get to go to prom.”

Izuru blinked at him. “Fine. No names.” He tapped his pen against the page. “ ‘We have been friends for a long time, and I feel that the time has come for me to make a clean breast of it. You are the most important person in my life. I am utterly besotten--”

“Er, hey, um, Izuru.” The tips of Renji’s ears were very pink. “Not to say that this isn’t, um, true, but I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Do you want to go to prom? JUST AS FRIENDS’ Maybe that part could be all in caps? or underlined? We could put in some little boxes that she could just check off ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and hand it back to me?”

Izuru raised one eyebrow. “But you don’t want to go ‘just as friends.’”

“Well, that’s true, yes, but this is Rukia we’re talking about, so you kinda have to ease her into things.”

Izuru regarded Renji with lidded eyes. “You can’t even ask her to prom as friends? You’re such a coward.”

“I’m not a coward,” Renji returned, but his voice was very small.

“You’re sixteen and I do not like to throw the word ‘love’ around, but it’s very obvious that you love Rukia, and I refuse to help you ask her to the prom as friends. You don’t have to admit everything, but you have to admit something. It’s go big or go home.”

“Okay,” Renji grumbled.

“I think he’s right,” Momo said, patting Renji’s hand. “She must wonder how you feel about her from time to time. If you insist on framing it ‘as friends’, she may actually view that as a rejection of the possibility of anything romantic ever happening between the two of you.”

Renji wrinkled his nose, but didn’t say anything.

“Ahem,” Izuru cleared his throat. “Let’s put in some compliments. What are some things you like about Rukia?”

“Things he liked about Rukia” was one of Renji’s very favorite subjects, and he perked up right away. “She’s cool,” he announced. “She’s cool as hell. Write that down.”

“I think you’re cool as hell,” Izuru wrote down reluctantly. This is not your love letter, he reminded himself. No one is even going to know you had anything to do with this.

“Your hair smells really good and you’re the most creative person I know,” Renji dictated. “You have incredibly sexy biceps.”

“Renji.”

“What? She does!”

“Fine, fine. That’s probably enough compliments, we need to keep this to one page. Um, what do you regard as your primary ‘ship symbolism?”

“My what now?”

“You know. When you think about Rukia and yourself, what metaphor springs to mind? Sun and moon? Sea and sky? King and lionheart?”

Renji looked utterly perplexed.

“Momo, help me out. How do you see you and Aizen-sempai?” “Doctor and Companion,” Momo answered immediately.

Izuru made a face. “Right.”

Renji’s face was screwed up in hard thought. Izuru could practically smell circuitry frying. “Rukia is like… a star?” he finally hazarded.

“A star is good!” Momo encouraged.

“And you are…?” Izuru prompted. “The moon? The sky? A different star?”

“A Camaro?” Renji guessed. “I’m loud and I have a powerful engine.”

“How are you even in AP Literature?” Izuru groaned.

“Well, what’s your dominant simile or whatever with Shuuhei?” Renji demanded.

“Poet and warrior,” Izuru snapped back testily.

“Which one of you is the warrior?” Momo asked, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, you both work on the school newspaper.”

“Shuuhei takes tae kwon do!” Izuru insisted.

“Well, why don’t you just write in whatever you’re gonna say for the poet-warrior thing, since you’ve obviously already put a lotta thought into it,” Renji suggested. “I’ll polish up my star/sportscar metaphor and drop it in when I copy it over.”

Izuru did not like leaving the keystone of a love confession in the hands of a man who thought manual transmissions were romantic, but he had to go on shift down at the food court in half an hour. He had to keep this moving. “Fine,” he bit off. “‘You are my muse. Your strength of body and spirit inspire poetry in me. My soul sings when I am with you. If only I had your bravery, this admission would be much easier. Instead, I am sending you this shy missive to ask, from the depths of my tender heart: Will you go to the prom with me?’ Done.”

“Oh, that was so romantic,” Momo sighed. “Izuru, you should write a romance novel.”

“Never,” Izuru replied.

Renji was making a Renji face.

“You hate it.”

“It was just… pretty flowery.”

“Rewrite it however you want. ‘My soul revs at 5000 rpm for you, right before I drop my rusty bumper in your brother’s driveway again.’”

“Don’t trash talk Zabimaro!”

“I would never trash talk Zabimaro, I was trash talking the metaphorical Camaro that is your love for Rukia.” Izuru ripped the page out of his notebook and handed it over. “Here you go. I gotta go to work. Beef n’ Cheddars don’t assemble themselves.”

Renji studied the page for a moment. “Thanks, Izuru. You won’t regret this.”

“I already regret it. Good luck. I still think you should just talk to her.”

“Well, I think you should ask Shuuhei!” Renji barked out suddenly. “I know you want to! You can go to Denny’s with us afterward!”

Izuru flashed him a pitying look. “Thank you for your concern, but I happen to share the opinion that prom is lame and I have no plans to attend.”

💘     💌     💘

When Izuru walked into the gaming store the next day, Ikkaku and Iba were sitting at the front table, assembling decks of Magic cards.

“The girls took over the back,” Ikkaku grumbled bitterly as he contemplated a Thicket Basilisk.

“Is Renji here?” Izuru asked. “He said he was coming today.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Iba grunted. “Your friend Hinamori is, though.”

Izuru had been trying to maintain his usual heavy veneer of Not Caring About Abarai’s Wretched Love Life, but secretly, he was dying to know how the note had gone over. Renji had said he was going to give it to Rukia after school, and then ghost off to soccer practice so she had time to think it over. Izuru thought this was the dumbest idea he had ever heard, apart from every other plan Renji had ever had.

There certainly was a lot of giggling coming from the back of the store. Rangiku was holding court on the couch, Momo and Rukia on either side of her. On the coffee table, half a dozen magazines featuring girls in sparkly dresses were scattered among the usual copies of Dragon and Wizard.

“I can’t decide if I want to go for a one-shoulder gown, or something completely strapless,” Rangiku was sighing. “Rukia, you have good shoulders, what are you thinking?”

Rukia mumbled something about lacking the necessary structural support for a sleeveless gown.

“You’d be surprised! It just needs to fit tightly enough!”

“You should come shopping with us on Saturday, Rukia!” Momo offered brightly. “You really don’t know what’s going to look good until you try it on.”

“Oh…” Rukia stammered. “My brother said he would buy me a dress. He said it’s important that I reflect well on the family.”

“Fortunately, your brother has killer taste,” Rangiku shrugged. “I would let him buy me all the dresses he wanted to.” She smiled her bright, friendly smile. “You could still come shopping, though, get some ideas of what you like! We could take some pictures to show him. I’m sure he takes input.”

Izuru had met Rukia’s brother. The man most certainly did not take input.

“Plus, it’ll just be fun to have you along!” Momo encouraged. “You have a great sense of style, I’d love to have your opinions!”

The portents looked auspicious, but Izuru needed positive confirmation. “Are you planning to go to the prom, Rukia?” he asked, flinging himself down in the ancient, creaky recliner. “I would have thought you were too cool for that.”

Two pink spots appeared on Rukia’s cheeks. “Yeah, I’m going, I guess.”

“You are not going to believe this, Izuru!” Rangiku gasped breathlessly. “But our Renji asked her to go with him!”

“Surely not!” Izuru scoffed, a pleasant feeling of satisfaction filling his chest.

“It’s just as friends!” Rukia protested. “And of course I don’t care about prom, but it means a lot to him, so…” she made a frustrated shrug.

Just.

As.

Friends.

Izuru shot a glare of horrified disbelief at Momo, who shrugged helplessly.

As if on cue, Renji’s mop of bright red hair poked around the edge of the Warhammer display. The couch backed to the front of the store, so Izuru could see him, but the girls couldn’t. Renji pointed emphatically at Rukia, and then stuck out his tongue victoriously, making a “hang loose” sign with his hand.

“I need to talk to you!” Izuru announced loudly, jumping up, grabbing Renji by front of his shirt, and hauling him into the aisle with all the ceramic dragon figurines. “You moron!” he hissed.

“I just did what you said!” Renji defended, holding up his hands.

“No, you didn’t! Did you even give her the note?”

“I did not. I thought about it, and I decided you were right. I talked to her with my actual voice. I told her I really wanted to go to prom with her, and she made a real cute face and then she said yes. Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

Izuru squeezed his eyes shut. “But you’re going as friends.”

“Yeah, well, we are friends, and I’m okay with that. You know, it was the right move, anyway. The reason I was late is because her brother cornered me after work and lectured me for half an hour.”

“Byakuya went into the Foot Locker?” Izuru frowned, trying to picture it.

“Of course not. He would never go into a Foot Locker. He waited outside.”

Izuru admittedly hadn’t taken Rukia’s intense, overprotective brother into account, back when they were writing the note, even though he remembered Renji bringing it up. “Well, I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Yeah, me too. I offered to wax his car, just immediately. That knocked him off his game a little.” Renji made a thoughtful face. “He, uh… was appreciative, actually. I guess Rukia’s been wanting to go to prom and pretending she doesn’t, and he thought I picked up on it and asked her because I’m a good friend.”

Izuru stared at Renji blankly. “What?”

Renji shook his head. “I can’t explain it. Kuchiki brains are weird. Anyway, he said I don’t have to wax his car, but he wants me to come over to dinner so he can pre-screen my table manners and I have to meet their scary grandfather.” Renji scratched his head. “I wonder if the old man has a car I could wax.”

Izuru let out a big sigh. “Well, I’m glad it worked out. Sort of. Even if you wasted a very good love letter that I worked very hard on.”

“You spent ten minutes on it, tops, and it did not go to waste.”

Izuru frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you feel like… like it helps to talk that stuff out? To put your feelings into words and write them down and look at them? I mean, I know it helped me, I was just thinking that maybe…”

“Give it up, Abarai,” Izuru mumbled. Whenever anything remotely good happened to Renji, he got really optimistic that all his friends could repeat his successes. When Izuru was in the right mood, it struck him as sort of sweet, but right now, it was just irritating.

Renji stuffed his hands in his pockets and huffed. “Look. Talking to Rukia was… it was easier than I thought. T’be honest, I pretty much expected her to turn me down cold.” He gave a wistful little smile. “We’ll just see how it goes, y’know? Might even be able to work up the nerve to ask her for a slow dance.”

Izuru shook his head. “You’re hopeless, Abarai.”

“Yeah, well, takes one to know one.”

“We are not the same,” Izuru informed him pointedly. “I am a dreamer who pines for that which is out of his reach. You’re just a dumbass who can’t grab at the thing an inch in front of him.”

Renji gave one of his big, open shrugs. “Say what you want about me, but I have grabbed. It’s hard to judge distance when you’re too close to it. I’m just saying that I don’t think your dreamy moon poet is as far off as you think.”

“Why do you always listen to me exactly enough to misunderstand everything I say?” Izuru griped.

“I am a dumbass, you had me there.” He stood up straighter. “But Rukia is not a dumbass and I would like to go say hello to her before she thinks we’re making out back here in the sparkly dragon grotto like Ikkaku and Yumichika.”

“I heard that!” Ikkaku’s voice echoed through the store.

“Matsumoto is trying to convince her to get a strapless dress,” Izuru explained.

“Really? I’m in favor of that,” Renji grinned, his eyebrows raising. “She’s got the shoulders for it.”

“Go,” Izuru sighed, slapping his friend on the back.

As Izuru turned to follow Renji to the back sitting area, he saw Shuuhei hovering in the store’s main aisle. He was wearing a Tool t-shirt over a ratty grey henley with the elbows blown out. His hair looked like he put a bunch of gel in it and then immediately gone to a gymnastics class. There was a ‘69’ sharpied on his cheek. As usually, Izuru couldn’t believe how cool the guy was.

“Uh, hey, Izuru,” Shuuhei said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

“Hey,” Izuru replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “Wondered if you were in today.”

Usually, Shuuhei would reply with some joke about his loud co-worker, Mashiro, but instead, his fingers curled and uncurled around a piece of paper he was holding.

Hmm, Izuru thought absently. Shuuhei must use the same kind of notebook that I do.

Shuuhei’s eyes darted to the side, and then back to Izuru. “Hey, um, someone slipped a note in my locker today, but they didn’t sign it. I don’t, uh, want to be forward or anything, but I think… this might be your handwriting?”

The floor dropped away from Izuru’s feet. He was had been transported to the Elemental Plane of Mortification. His corporeal body had ceased to exist.

Suddenly, behind Shuuhei’s back, Renji and Momo appeared in the doorway to the back room, flashing huge grins and four enthusiastic thumbs up.

Izuru was going to kill them.

[moonamite]

Blinding Shadows: Chapter 18

“Ok, so what do you want?” Marx asked impatiently as he entered Goose’s tent. “Nothing, but I wanted to show you some more of my enchanted things.” Goose responded, digging under the pillows. He moved them all to one side of the tent, revealing all the stuff that was hidden underneath. “Sorry, there wasn’t a lot of room in my bag, and these tents aren’t exactly spacious...” Goose apologized. “Not that i’m complaining. It’s better than nothing, and I understand that it was kind of rushed, with all of us showing up here so suddenly.” He continued. He suddenly stopped, as if realizing that he was rambling, and took the first item from the pile, a piece of blank paper. Goose handed it to Marx so he could inspect it. He flipped it over multiple times, but nothing about it seemed unusual or sinister. “What does this do? It looks normal to me.” Marx said, handing it back. Goose laid it flat on the ground. “Well, originally I used it with the intention of it answering all my math questions so I wouldn’t fail the subject. But then I went over my wording of the spell and realized that I never specifically instructed it to answer only math-related questions, I just told it in a rush to answer any questions it’s asked.” Goose answered. He looked at the paper. “What’s two plus nine?” He asked it. In a blink, letters began to appear across it. ‘Eleven’, it read. Goose smiled faintly, then looked at Marx. “Now you ask it something.” He suggested. Marx couldn’t think of anything right away, but eventually he asked “What’s Goose’s favorite thing to eat?” He asked. The letters that spread magically across the paper read ‘Cooked seabird’. “It’s true.” Goose confirmed.  “Is there anything it can’t answer?” Marx asked. “Yes. It can’t answer questions about the future.” Goose said. “If it can’t answer a question, it just doesn’t do anything.” Marx nodded, then looked at the rest of the pile. “Ok, what about the other stuff?” He asked. Goose tucked away the paper and took out a light pink seashell, which was even less ominous looking than the paper. “Really? First a piece of paper, now a shell? Both of those could be destroyed in a second!” Marx said. Goose shrugged. “That’s one of the reasons I switched over to rocks.” He said. “That, and because I had a huge collection of them at my disposal.” He muttered. “Anyways, this shell is enchanted to let me, or whoever is using it, enter the dreams of a sleeping person.” Now THAT sounded cool. But also really freaking weird. “Why’d you make it? Who’s dreams were you spying on?” Marx asked. Goose looked away bashfully. “Well... Back home, after our grandmother died, Comet would have a lot of nightmares... I made this so that I could go into her dreams and get rid of the nightmares for her.” He explained sheepishly. Anyone would have to admit, that was pretty cute. After an awkward beat of silence, Goose put away the shell and pulled out a knife. Ooooh, now THAT could be useful! “What’s that do? Stab your enemies?” Marx asked eagerly. “What? No!” Goose cried, flaring his wings. “Nothing like that!” Marx tipped his head. “Well, what are you using it for, if NOT stabbing?!” He asked. Goose resettled himself. “Well, I use it to bring me whatever I ask for... And specifically, only me. So in case anyone tries to use it for something bad, it won’t work.” He explained. “Me, I only use it to grab things like snacks or pencils when I feel lazy.” Oh. So it turned out, Goose really was just that boring. Marx stretched. “So uh, hey, since I was busy handling your menace of a sister, I didn’t catch anything you said at lunch.” Marx said casually. “Yeah, I know.” Goose sighed. “Do you want me to go over it again? I mean, you- You’re probably busy. You probably want to get back to your friend as soon as possible.” He mumbled. Well, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanna do. Get out, get Kirby, kill Victory, and save the day! He looked back at Goose, who was looking at him intently, probably hearing everything he was thinking. I should go, but... ARGHHHH. “Ffffffine.” He groaned. “Wait, really?” Goose said, surprised. Marx nodded, then Goose began to speak. “Well, since you’re in a rush, i’ll just tell you the important bits- No, it’s not like being a wizard in a book, the magic isn’t limited to funny words or anything- Except by my own creativity. And also it can’t bring back dead people. Secondly, unlike my mind reading, I wasn’t born with my magic, my grandma gave it to me just before she died. And... That’s all the important stuff, I guess. The rest was either off-topic rambling or chit-chat.” He finished. Marx nodded. He’d probably forget all this by tomorrow. “Yeah, I got all  that! Anyways, I gotta go now-” Marx pushed open the tent flaps, only to see it had gotten dark out. “Oh...” Goose said behind him. “It’s fine!” Marx said dismissively. “I can fly perfectly fine in the dark!” He declared. “Are you sure? You can stay with me for the night if you’d like.” Goose offered. Marx flinched hard. Did he hear him right? “Uh, what?” Marx said. Marx couldn’t see Goose’s face, but he KNEW he was looking SO SMUG right now. “I said, you can stay with us tonight, if you want to.” He repeated. Marx had no idea how to respond to that. He had his own hammock he could sleep in! And it wasn’t like it was pitch black out, either. But for some reason, he was still conflicted, and feeling a bunch of things he couldn’t understand. “Hey, there’s no reason to overthink this! It’s fine if you don’t want to-” Goose’s worried voice was interrupted by Marx. “I’m not overthinking anything! Because I’ve decided i’m going to stay here!” He said. NOT because of you. AND KEEP THAT PURPLE THING AWAY FROM ME. “Ok, that I can do.” Goose chuckled. He went back inside as Goose readjusted the pillows. “Ee!” Comet chirped as she saw Marx. She began to waddle over to him. “Meego!” She demanded. “What? I don’t have any ‘meegoes’ with me!” Marx cried. Before Comet could reach him, Goose grabbed her and placed her next to him, on the side of him that was facing away from Marx. “Come on, you. Leave Marx alone.” Goose said, resulting in a whimper from Comet. “You coming over here?” Goose asked as he laid down. “No thanks, I prefer personal space.” Marx answered, sleeping separately from Goose and his sister.  The pillows on the floor were much softer than his hammock, so it wasn’t hard to fall asleep.

[haltandcatchfiretothemax]

FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2021 #5: In which Donna’s wish is Cameron’s command

[CN: food, eating mentions, and descriptions of food displays]

.

.

.

After Donna asked her if she might consider putting up Valentine’s Day decorations for February of 2021, Cameron went directly into research mode. She didn’t plan to admit it to Donna, but Cameron felt like a holiday decor project was exactly what she needed. From the comfort of the living room couch, Cameron began her hunt for useful information on her laptop.

She became frustrated much more quickly than she thought she would. Eyebrows scrunching behind the frames of her reading glasses, Cameron griped, “Okay so the first problem here, is that the origin of Valentine’s Day isn’t anywhere near as compelling as the origin of Halloween, or ghost stories. I mean, a Christian martyr? Really?” Wrinkling her nose skeptically, she scrolled further down the webpage she was on, and said, “Not only am I not moved by his story or his proselytizing, but none of this has anything to do with love or couples or even fertility or family!” Clicking back to the search engine page, she said, “The second problem is that doing research used to be satisfying, but now it sucks. And it’s all because of the internet. We ruined everything with the internet and search, Donna.”

Donna, sitting several feet away on their recliner, looked up from her crossword puzzle. “So, no decorations then?” 

Cameron sighed. “I didn’t say that. I just think that I’m gonna have to take a different approach. The literal origins of the holiday are not the angle for this particular project.” Quietly, she switched over to researching the origins of the commercial version of the holiday. “Maybe,” she said to herself, “a more aesthetic-based approach?” She looked up at Donna, and said, “Do you mind if I turn on the tv and stream something? I was thinking about putting on the more recent Picnic at Hanging Rock.”

“Oh, that’s perfect! That literally starts on Valentine’s Day!” Donna enthused. “We should sit down and rewatch it sometime in the next couple weeks!” Then, calming herself down, she added, “But sure, go ahead. Whatever your research requires,” Donna smiled at her. 

Cameron picked up the remote, turned on the television, searched for the show, found it, and started the first episode. She went back to looking at her computer, and searched for basic decor ideas. After a few minutes, she said, “The third problem is that traditional Valentine’s decorations are just, like, red. Like really, extremely red.”

“What’s wrong with red?” Donna pouted.

“Nothing, but I just don’t feel like it really goes with the whole ‘I throw stones and I live in glass houses because I’m a modern woman who has it all!’ thing you have going on in here?”

“Hey, it’s your house, too!” Donna chuckled. “You have a point, though.”

Defiantly, Cameron said, “That’s okay. I will figure something out. My wife asked me to decorate for Valentine’s Day, and I don’t plan to let her down.”

Cameron spent the next morning sorting through their collection of fall and winter holiday decorations, and pulled out items to be repurposed, and wound up looking through their other supplies for inspiration. In the afternoon, she was back on the computer, searching this time for items to buy. Sitting at the kitchen island, Cameron sighed heavily. “I wish…” she started. She sighed again, and said, “I really wish that we could just go to a craft store and wander through it for hours.”

Donna, who has sitting across from her, and scrolling through one of her social media feeds, looked up, and snorted, “What, so you could complain about how everything looks ugly and cheap under the fluorescent lights, only to then buy a ton of it, take it home, and then somehow make it look beautiful and amazing?”

“Yes,” Cameron replied. “Exactly.” It took over an hour, and much agonizing, but eventually, she made her selections, entered her billing information, and closed her browser. She managed to stay offline for the rest of the day.

Early the next morning, Cameron asked Donna, “A great big outdoor garden store, that should be like…relatively safe to go to, right? As long as we wear our masks and gloves? And we go early?” Donna didn’t have to be asked twice. They got dressed, and arrived at their favorite garden store a few minutes after it opened. Cameron hurriedly bought a large quantity of potted violets and a bunch of metal flower pots before hustling Donna back to the safety of their car. 

Over the next few days Cameron began to work on crafting, baking, and candymaking, as deliveries of her ordered craft supplies started to trickle in. (She compulsively wiped every new item down with disinfectant out of an abundance of anxiety and caution.) By the next weekend, she had everything she thought she needed. On the first Saturday of the month, a week before Valentine’s Day, she gathered everything that she’d amassed so far in the dining room. 

She set the last of several boxes down on the table, and Donna, who was drinking a second cup of coffee, looked up just in time to see Cameron tying her bandana around her head like a headband. The bandana, which had accompanied Cameron all the way from Tokyo, was white, and it had the red circle of the Japanese flag, or the Hinomaru, on it. On both sides of the red circle there was lettering, Japanese kanji. The first time Donna saw Cameron put the bandana on, just before they deep cleaned Donna’s house together for the first time, she had asked Cameron what the kanji said. Gravely, through gritted teeth, Cameron had replied, “Kamikaze.” Donna had laughed, and then realized that she was being serious. 

Putting down her mug, Donna exclaimed, “Daniel-san!” 

Cameron took a deep breath, and said, “I’m trying to center myself and focus, Donna. Please.”

“I’m flattered by all the work you’ve already put into honoring my request,” Donna said. “But I think I’m gonna go upstairs so you can decorate in peace. I’d like to be surprised when I see the final result!” She stood up, taking her mug and phone with her, and headed toward the den, stopping to kiss Cameron on the cheek on her way. 

When Donna returned to the kitchen several hours later to make lunch, the dining room table was covered in silk flowers, jars, doilies, and print outs and paper lace and all sorts of colorful paraphernalia. “How’s it going?” she called out.

“Slowly,” Cameron answered, “but it’s going. And it’s not like I’ve got anywhere to be, so!”

She took a quick break to eat a sandwich with Donna, and then went back to the dining room, and Donna went up to the bedroom, where she checked in with Joanie and Haley and their families, sent text messages to Tonya, Risa, and Katie Herman, and then started reading about current tech and social media platform news. She was clicking out of an article on Section 230 reform when Cameron knocked on the door frame. 

Looking up from their bed, Donna asked, “Is it done? Can I see?” She jumped up from the bed and ran toward the door.

“I need you to adjust your expectations,” Cameron said, walking her down their hallway. Cameron stopped by the door to the den and switched on the light. Donna peered in, not seeing any difference at first, and then she noticed the faux ivy that Cameron had carefully attached to their bookcases. She stepped into the room, and then noticed the doilies on every surface, and the mason jars of high-quality pink and white silk peonies, which were surrounded by cards from a Victorian-themed tarot deck, which Cameron had stuck down to the doilies under them, to make them look as if they’d casually been left on the table. There were two sets of gloves by one jar, an aged-looking leather diary by another one, and a small framed print of a hand-drawn portrait of two Gibson girls by another. 

“It’s subtle, or subtle-ish,” Donna smiled back at Cameron, “but it’s really nice. It’s very Picnic at Hanging Rock, but with maybe a better adjusted headmistress, right? I love it.” 

They went down the hall and down the four steps to the ‘first’ floor, and then into the kitchen, where Donna’s eye was drawn to the centerpiece Cameron had arranged on the island. She’d repotted the violets into three of the metal pots, and had made and cut out a silhouette of two young women in full-length Victorian dresses, hand in hand, attached them to skewers, and stuck them into the flower pots. It looked almost as if the girls were walking through a field of purple-blue flowers.

Donna went to smell the flowers, only to be distracted by the display on the dining room table. Eyes wide, she instead walked toward the table. She turned to look back at Cameron and said, “Did you make all of this?”

“No, some if it I definitely ordered off the internet,” Cameron admitted. She’d set up an elegant silver multi-tiered pastry stand and loaded it with paper cups full of homemade white and milk chocolate truffles and squares of peppermint bark that had red and pink swirled into them, squares of milk, dark, and peanut butter fudge, bite sized anatomical hearts molded from red-tinged milk chocolate, and red cinnamon candies, cherry sours, and raspberry flavored hard candies. Next to the pastry stand was Donna’s trusty cake server, which was piled with red velvet crinkle cookies. Both were set up on top of large doilies, underneath their accompanying glass covers, and both were surrounded with red silk flower petals and an eye-catching design of heart and diamond and playing cards, all of which Cameron had somehow sewn down so that it would lay flat, but somehow still look slightly rumpled. 

“Remember a few years ago when we did Penny Dreadful Halloween for the trick-or-treaters? During our Vanessa Ives phase? A lot of that stuff came in handy for this,” Cameron helpfully explained.

“Did I miss anything?” Donna looked around. She turned toward the living room, couch, and then noticed a large heart-shaped box placed in the center of the coffee table, with Donna’s pair of good candlesticks and brand new red candles set up on both sides of it, yet another doily underneath it all The box was anchored by a large, white, ceramic anatomical heart, and surrounded by shells, smaller porcelain rabbits and birds, and dried flower petals. 

“It’s not much, but, it was fun to try?” Cameron shrugged.

“Oh, shush!” Donna threw her arms around Cameron’s neck, kissed her, and said, “It’s beautiful, and I love it. Thank you for trying to make things feel festive even though almost everything in the world totally sucks.” She kissed her again, and said, “Wanna go celebrate by making out?”

“Yes,” Cameron said, “but, I haven’t eaten in hours, can we have dinner first?” 

“Yes, absolutely! Whatever my doting wife wants!” Donna agreed. 

[onewfantaesy]

Yes! Give me all of the old goodies! I want the good, the bad, and the cringe.

u asked for it!!! it’s terrible and horrible but if literally anyone wants me to go more into it i’d be so down to just starting writing shit for it. i’m straight up just gonna copy and paste it from the message i sent like literally 4 years ago also it’s long as hell so it’s almost all going under a readmore there were no line breaks i had to go put in every line break omfg

okay so this is both a bandfic sort of idea but it's also a high school sort of idea so just bear with me pls 

 so like,,,u know how taemin and kai went to the same arts high school??? what if,,,,and this is a big fun fanficy what if 

 but what if okay so taemin and kai are in one class yes because same school year if i remember correctly, then sehun and krystal are in the year below them i'm like pretty sure so they're also both in the same class just for fics sake lmao 

and like,,,they're all just doing their school thing, and taemin and jongin sit sort of next to each other in their class, and by that i mean taemin sits in like the 3rd row by the window and jongin sits in the seat directly behind him so taemin's always turned around during breaks talking with him and playing like rock paper scissors and all that bullshit 

 and okay so lets just saaaaaay there was like an new reality-ish show, like that one show where taemin went to high school again with all those other idols and it was at an arts school, but like this show is for older idols to do other jobs and lmao this is why i don't wanna put it on tumblr or anything because it's so fanficy it's gross but it's so fun to imagine in my head and i wanna just headcanon it with someone who also likes the idea 

 but like so jaejoong ends up being taemin and kai's teacher for like a week or 2 for this show, and then fuck idk Rain is the teacher for sehun and krystal's class and when taemin finds out he's SO JEALOUS 

 "WHAT THE FUCK NO I LOVE HIM MAKE HIM SWITCH TO OUR CLASS" 

"and get stuck with jaejoong, fat fucking chance lee taemin go dance to rising sun or some bullshit why don't you" 

 and also just because why not add more fanficy shit with something that's already so ridiculously fanficy and let's say taemin used to be fairly close with jaejoong before the whole ~lawsuit~ thing happened, and he used to maybe see him and the other dbsk members like once a week because he was close with them and they helped him with dancing, singing, etc whatever cute bonding shit

 and then one day taemin went to go see them and jyj were just gone and taemin was so confused and changmin was upset and yunho was upset but just like "they left the band taemin they're gonna leave the company" and taemin's this lil freshly debuted kid and he just "but they didn't say goodbye?????" 

 and taemin's been so upset with jaejoong since that day because like he feels very hurt about them just leaving and not saying goodbye to him 

 so when jaejoong shows up as his teacher that morning, everyone in their class thought it was just a normal day, and there were cameras in the classroom but they also just assumed that it was something taemin or jongin related because idols in their class and all that so taemin's just turned around playing rock paper scissors with kai, and then the door opens and it's another camera and then a man walking in but it's right after the bell and no one's really looking so they just assume it's their teacher so everyone just "goodmorning teacher" in monotone voices because they have to, and jongin pushes taemin forward so he's facing forward and everyone just 

 "what's going on" 

"taemin what is this!" 

"jongin!! is this a new reality show??" 

 and taekai are just what the fuck because jaejoong is standing at the front of their class and that's definitely not their teacher where the hell is Mrs. Kim 

 and jaejoong explains that it's a new reality show, and he'll be their teacher for the next week or so, and everyone is kind of excited except for taemin and jongin who are like well SHIT because once their company gets a load of this, they're gonna be in a load of shit 

 and jongin just leans forward and whispers in taemin's ear "this is a load of barnacles" like that guy from spongebob, and taemin absolutely SNORTS so of course everyone and the cameras and jaejoong turn to him, and jongin immediately falls back into his seat and taemin tries to put on a straight face and jaejoong just 

 "taemin, jongin, is there something you'd like to share with the class?" 

 "no, nothing," taemin says, sending a very annoyed smile at jaejoong. 

 and then when jaejoong isn't looking (but a camera is still pointed at them), jongin leans back forward and just "we're good noodles" and taemin fucking SNORTS SO LOUDLY and slaps jongin away from him and jaejoong just 

"taemin. stay after class, won't you?" 

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH”

 everyone immediately just is like lmao u know how high school students are when someone gets in trouble lmao and taemin just huffs, and when jaejoong turns back around, taemin turns quickly to hit jongin on the shoulder and turn back around before jaejoong can see it 

 and like, taemin and jongin quickly become so annoyed with all the cameras, and like they're honestly just trying to do their work at one point and taemin is slumped over his desk trying to do the work with the person who sits next to him, and he just turns to the cameraman and just 

 "can u get that thing out of my face pls i'm not a cast member on this show"

 "but you're in the class!!!" 

 "i'm not the only one in this class!!" 

taemin is so exasperated like man i'm trying to learn i didn't sign up for this shit and then during a break someone like

 "oh u know those things we sign at the beginning of the year that say we can be on media and shit for the school?? this must file under that, we must be one of the classes where everyone's guardians signed yes" 

 and then at lunch, taemin and jongin go see if sehun and krystal have this same problem and they just walk up to the classroom because it's lunch time and usually the teachers all leave right away and taemin just pushes the door open so dramatically like

 "sehunnie!! you'll never believe who our teacher is this week holy shit!!" 

 and he just runs smack into Rain and just

 "oh my god" 

looks up at him with these wide ass eyes and he's having such a fanboy moment he loves rain so much omg and jongin has to like hold onto him to hold him up because rain just 

"oh, shinee. big fan" 

and walks away and taemin practically fucking FAINTS

 "BIG FAN!! HE SAID HE'S A BIG FAN!! OF ME!!!!" 

 "he said shinee u dipshit"

 "I AM SHINEE!!! I'M GONNA SHIT MYSELF!!" 

 "who's your teacher though don't leave us hanging" 

 and the other three come over and taemin immediately sobers up and just "ugh that fuckhead jaejoong i can't fucking believe this you know who's gonna get in toruble for it?? US. un-fucking-believable" 

 "you know, you never had a mouth like that when i knew you. also, if i recall correctly, i asked you to stay after class" 

 and taemin turns and sees jaejoong and a camera and he just "shit" because dammit he hopes he didn't get caught cursing on camera and now he's gotta have some fake heart-to-heart with jaejoong and he's none too pleased and jaejoong pulls him aside but there's still a cameraman following them and taemin is so uncomfortable and just

 "please i'm serious get that thing out of my face" 

 "taemin it's just for a couple minutes." 

 "what do you want?"

 taemin is just so upset and like he's so on edge because at school he can be somewhat normal but no now he's got an idol teacher and cameras following him around and dammit he just wants to go eat his lunch 

 "i wanted to talk to you about what happened when i left"

 "no, sorry, i'm not doing this" 

taemin just cuts him off and walks away, but jaejoong follows him and just 

 "why not"

 "because!! that's a personal thing, and if you're only gonna talk about it because you're being filmed, then you really don't care at all and i don't wanna hear it. now can i go eat my lunch please, i'm hungry" 

 and jaejoong just sighs and looks at taemin, and taemin's just this sad kid right now looking at him with these big eyes and he looks so upset and jaejoong just 

"okay. go. but no more disturbing the class, got it?" 

 "that wasn't even my fault" taemin grumbles "jongin was the one saying shit not me" 

 "don't let it happen again" jaejoong warns him, but taemin just walks off and goes to look for his lil friends. 

 also!!! kwonho is his friend from school right?? that's the guy taemin sits next to in class lmao i just remembered that, and kwonho is part of their lil group and!!! probably also moonkyu!!! moonkyu can sit next to jongin lmao so that's like the general gist of it i'm sorry this is so long lmao but i've had this idea in my head for probably a year now and it flows a lot better in my head than in writing but yeah i just!!! really wanna talk about it

and also another part of this au deals with a manager and is like mm three or so days into jaejoong being their teacher and maybe fuck idk kang hodong is a lil first year class teacher who taekai barely realize is there until they hear him crashing down the hall on day 2 and everyone in the classrooms goes up against the windows to look outside and see what's going on only to find kang hodong leading a bunch of firsties down the hallway as some form of prank or lesson or no one really knows what's happening, but everyone wishes hodong was their teacher after that 

 and anyways a manager comes one day to pick taemin up for a schedule and taemin completely forgot about it so he's absorbed in the lesson that jaejoong is teaching, and so the manager has to go straight up to the classroom to collect taemin because he forgot to go down to the office to get picked up and the manager just knocks once and opens the door and just

"taemin, come on" because this happens rather often but then he sees who's teaching 

 and taemin "shit" and gathers up his things really quickly and just tries to get out of there without some sort of weird fight thing happening and just "sorry hyung sorry sorry i'm coming!!"

 "what is going on" 

 "what?" 

 "why is HE in your classroom?? and cameras???" 

 "we're on a show hyung can we go please i'm gonna be late" 

 taemin's just got his backpack slung over his shoulder and he's so anxious to just leave because oh no this is the angry manager and he's getting that angry look and oh no "get in the hall"

 and he just grips taemin's arm and shoves him outside and FUCK it kind of hurts and fuck everyone saw and the cameras saw and just fuck 

 "jongin, get out"

 "what, i don't have a schedule today!" jongin is seriously like annoyed like no today is a day off until like 6 pm fuck that "jongin, NOW" and jongin is so freaked out and he just "sorry okay i'm coming" 

and he gets his things and he's hurrying outside and he just "how long has this been goig on??" 

 "what??" 

 "how long have you two been on a show without telling anyone!!" he's getting so angry and taekai are so freaked out holy shit they didn't think it was that big of a deal

 "hey, do you have permission to take jongin out of class?" jaejoong is like worried like is this even legal 

 "you stay out of this" the manager Does Not like jaejoong. not one bit. and the manager like gets so angry and he's yelling at taekai in the hall and another teacher hears it and peaks out to see what's going on and he like grills them for not telling anyone that they were on a show and that jaejoong was their teacher and blahblah 

and he asks if sehun and krystal have been ont he show too and they both just "yeah" and he makes them go get them and so they hurry down the hall to their classroom and knock on the door and they're so nervous when rain looks at them like 

"excuse me what the fuck you're interrupting my lesson" 

 and taemin just "um, we have to, um, a manager is here and, we sort of, have to have sehun and krystal come with us right now, now, like right now"

 and he's so obviously extremely nervous and the other two immediately know which manager it is just by how nervous taemin is and they start packing their shit up and they all hear the manager yelling for them to hurry up, and rain just "you two stay in here. everyone stay in here, you two come with me, you're going back to class" 

 and taemin just pipes up as rain puts his arm around the two of them to guide them back to class and he just 

 "i actually have a schedule right now i'm actually supposed to be leaving" 

 "then kai will go back to class and you can call another manager"

 "um actually, rain, sir, i go by jongin when i'm at school"

 "then jongin will go back to class, and taemin can call another manager to come pick him up" 

 "yes sir, rain, sir, okay, yes" 

 and by now jaejoong and the manager are outside of the classroom arguing, and a cameraman is out recording the whole thing and then rain joins in like

"hey can we just let this one go back to class and let the other go to his schedule why do we have to fight and get the children involved"

 and then the bell rings but it never fucking stops and after a moment of confusion, taemin and jongin just look at each other like 

"holy shit holy SHIT is this real holy shit HOLY SHIT"

 and all the classroom doors close and lock and the blinds on the windows get shut and jaejoong, rain, the manager, and the cameraman have no idea what's going on but taemin and kai run up to their classroom and start banging on the door and just 

 "HEY LET US IN LET US IN OMG OPEN THE DOOR" 

 but their classroom president just "sorry we can't open the door for anyone until the lockdown bell rings again or until the principal says over the intercom that lockdown is over" 

 "hey kids what's going on??" rain is so confused and the camera is going between the boys and the adults

 and taemin just "WAS THERE A LOCKDOWN DRILL TODAY" 

"what??"

 "YOU'RE THE TEACHERS OMG WAS THERE SUPPOSED TO BE A LOCKDOWN DRILL TODAY YES OR NO"

 "i don't know???"

 "OH MY GOD YOU PEOPLE ARE USELESS"

 taekai are just freaking out holy shit because if they're on lockdown that's like serious they never go on lockdown unless it's a drill and they go back to banging on the door begging for their classmates to let them back in but their classroom president keeps saying no despite the fact that many other people are saying they should let them in 

 and taemin just "JAEHYUN YOU PANSY SON OF A BITCH OPEN THE DOOR" 

 "WHY DON'T YOU GO HIDE IN THE BATHROOM, IDOL" 

taemin just "THIS IS WHY I VOTED FOR [insert girl's name here] INSTEAD OF YOU" 

 and the girl just "wait taemin you really voted for me???" 

 "yeah you're WAY BETTER THAN THIS PANSY PIECE OF SHIT" 

 "WHY DON'T YOU TELL THAT TO THE BATHROOM YOU'RE GONNA GO HIDE IN"

“WHO DIED AND MADE YOU KING?”

"IM IN CHARGE WHEN THE TEACHER IS ABSENT"

 "YPU ONLY WON FROM LIKE 3 VOTES NO ONE LIKES YPU" 

 and taemin and kai just scream a little bit out of frustration before kicking the door one last time but when they realize that the supposed adults in charge aren't doing anything they just 

 "fuck this we're hiding in the bathroom until this is over have fun ARGUING IN THE HALLWAY"

 and they run down the hall to go hide in the bathroom and lock the door and then over the intercom the principal just 

 "there is a man trying to take our student idols without authorization. the proper law enforcement officers have been notified, but do not let any of your student idols go with a man who says he is here to pick them up. this is not a drill. teachers, lock your doors, and keep your students away from the windows." blahblahblah 

 and taemin and kai are int he bathroom just laughing out of both frustration and a little bit out of disbelief that the school is actually calling the cops on their manager and then someone in shinee calls taemin, probably key, and taemin ends up facetiming with them and the other four see that taemin and kai are int he bathroom at school and just 

 "what the hell taemin you're so late for this recording where are you???" 

 "so long story short, manager hyung got the whole school put on lockdown and me and jongin had to hide in the bathroom because our stupid pansy fuck of a class president wouldn't open the door for us to go back inside of our class"

 "what the hell are you talking about" 

 so taemin and jongin explain the whole reality show thing with jaejoong being their teacher for a week and jinki probably just 

"you're saying jaejoong was your teacher all week and you didn't tell anyone" 

"basically yeah and then the manager u fucks sent to pick me up BLEW UP AT US and it was not pretty can you please tell the NOT ASSHOLE MANAGER that i'm going to be late because THE ASSHOLE MANAGER is probably in the process of being arrested ~~thank you~~ COME GET ME. I'M LITERALLY LOCKED IN A BATHROOM. THIS IS NOT FUN."

 and idk other people they were supposed to be on the show with that are just lingering about are giggling at the misfortunes of the young idols and lmao idk the asshole manager probably gets fired literally all our lil high school idols babies get in trouble for not telling anyone they were being filmed at school for a tv show and taemin makes up with jaejoong yay happy ending i just wanna talk about this so bad 

Tbh I mostly just enjoy the image of taemin and Kai being followed by a cameraman as they run through the halls in their school uniforms to the bathroom because their asshole class president won't let them in because of a technicality and just shouting "This is BULLSHIT" and scrambling to lock the door to the second floor boys bathroom

Also just taekai and their two other friends goofing off before class and forgetting a camera is there and they're talking about a new movie or something and taemin just

 "IT! WAS! SO! KICK! ASS" and alternating between fists to punch the air in front of him and they all like re-enact scenes they liked or whatever 

 And they're just being dumb boys u know and then the teacher and jaejoong come in and they all immediately scramble to sit down in their seats and just It's a really funny contrast to what they act like as Exo/shinee u know

And then Kai just "wait when did you go see that movie??" 

 "I went with kwonho on Sunday" 

 "WHY WASNT I INVITED??" 

 And moonkyu just "OR ME??" 

 "I'm sorry but you knew going into this 4-person relationship that I would have to split my time up between the three of you" 

 "Taemin fuck off" 

 Taemin is just unphased and continues "and that sometimes one might get more attention than the other" 

 "You are the worst" 

 "Thank you I'm taking that as a compliment" 

 And just uwu the four of them being smart asses together

And taemin just shakes his head and closes his eyes and shrugs like "I am a busy busy man" 

 And Kai just scoffs like "hey busy man, did you finish the math homework?" 

And he waves around the paper that has half of his homework done 

 And taemin just Pauses 

 "I am a busy busy man who forgot there was math homework" 

 And he leaps forward and takes a piece of paper of moonkyu and a pencil and just "lemme see lemme see lemme see!!" 

Because they have math first and fuck he totally forgot and there's only 5 minutes before class starts 

 And moonkyu lets them copy his homework and then the class president comes over and just "Excuse me IDOLS are you CHEATING?" 

 And taemin just makes a face at him and goes back to it, but before anyone can really say anything about, another classmate comes over and just "Oh shove off asshole, you copied my history homework at lunch yesterday" 

 And everyone just snorts, and he goes shuffling off to his desk 

Everyone hates the class president because right after he won he became a dick about it and everyone regretted voting for him 

 And the girl who ran against him just "I told you to vote for me" 

 And taemin turns to his friends and just "I told you to vote for her" 

 "Taemin shut up"

 "Never trust a man who only wears glasses in class!!!" 

 Kwonho just Shoves taemin closer to the window

[idk-maybe-i-did-it]

Scars: Year four, Chapter three

Remus Lupin x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, bruising, implied abuse, blood, (trashy writing.)

Remus’s P.o.V.

I opened my eyes to see a mixture of Y/n's hair and sunlight. Y/n looked up from her spot on me and squinted. " g'morning Remus." She punctuated the sentence with a wide, tired yawn. I yawned before sitting up and facing her. " g'morning beautiful." She looked at me with a lopsided smirk and I suddenly realized what I had said, turned my head away so she couldn't see my flushed face.

After my face returned to normal I rubbed the back of my neck and looked over at her. She nodded before stretching her arms above her head and yawning. Oh Merlin. The shirt I had leant her moved up a bit and exposed part of her stomach and the sleeve fell off her shoulder henceforth exposing her bra strap. I quietly exhaled and moved my head to the side looking away from my best friend.

After a minute or two of silence I looked up and saw Y/n holding her hand out to me, apparently she was getting dressed while I stared at the wall. Her h/c hair was now normal looking and she was no longer wearing my shirt. I took her outstretched hand and pulled myself up. Once I got up I stretched my arms out before giving her a soft morning smile. She put her hand on my shoulder and unexpectedly pulled me into a hug which I almost immediately returned.

" thank you." Were the words she said, and I immediately understood why.

" you're welcome." She held the embrace for a few more moments before dropping it and looking at my face. While bursting into giggles she walked over to my trunk and pulled a shirt out before looking at me and bursting into giggles even more. Through the fit of giggles she managed to throw me the shirt and say, " Pu- put your shir- shirt on Re- Remus."

My face flushed with embarrassment before I grabbed the shirt and pulled it over my head. After making her stand in the corner while I changed we made our way downstairs. Surprisingly she never questioned the scars on my chest but only gave me a knowing look. Once we reached floor level Y/n dragged me over to the kitchen for something to eat. We walked into James mum and our half made lunch.

" Hello dears. James told me you might take a while to get down here. It's almost lunch time so just take some toast or something to eat for a light breakfast and the boys are out back playing a game." We nodded, thanked her and I grabbed us something to eat. Y/n munched on her second piece of toast while we were attempting to find our way outside.

" So, Y/n, I never got around to asking you about your summer, did I? How was it, before you came here, I mean?" I looked over at her and she turned rigid before looking down to the ground. She took another piece of toast and continued walking down the hall in silence. Did I upset her? I didn't want the conversation to turn awkward or anything and I didn't want to push her into answering either so, " Y/n if you don't want to tell me, I mean, I'll understand so don't worry about it. I mean it was your summer so it's also your choice-"

Y/n shook her head and looked back up at me, (although she didn't really have to look up at me. Her head came up to my shoulder.)

" No, Remus don't worry I was just thinking about how to word my explanation. Honestly it wasn't very fun or exciting really, all I did was clean, cook, walk, help mother with ministry crap, renovate the house, go to a bunch of mothers 'office party's', buy groceries and tutor some kids. Boring really. What about you? How was your summer Remus? I hope your transformations didn't affect you too much." Wait what.

No, what was that.

I stopped walking and got slightly angered and worried. Mostly angered though. I looked over at Y/n and glared at her before roughly snatching her wrist and yanking her into a nearby room, locking the door and slamming her against it roughly. My right hand still clamped tightly around her wrist, my left arm against the door above her head. Her eyes went fearfully wide. My voice came out with a rough, harsh and low demeanor.

" How much do you know?" Im sure her wrist has a fresh bruise now. I stared intently at her and watched as all her mental walls came crumbling down. I had no clue where this burst of rage came from all I know is it's there and fueling my rampage. I bent my elbow and moved down closer to her face, our foreheads practically touching, and scowled at her.

" How much, do you know, y/n?" I watched in horror as a single tear rolled down from her eye. Her voice quivered,

"that you're a werewolf and your my friend who wouldn't hurt any of us. That you're kind and nice and happy and caring.

"I'm starting to think I was wrong though." My grip loosed on her greatly and I moved my arm. Another tear rolled down her cheek as she paused and took a great quivering breath. " Your acting just like my dad, and I'm sorry for that."

I stared in shock as Y/n abruptly turned and ran out of the room. I was acting just like her dad...? What was that supposed to mean? And she seemed to be okay with the fact that I was a werewolf.

Goddammit I just screwed up big time.

Swiftly I slipped out of the room and ran down the hallway and turned the corner quietly. I was about to give up looking for her when I heard a choked sob coming from the bathroom. " ohmygod. why would I say that, God, why would I say that. I shouldn't've said that, he overreacted and it's all my fault. Oh my god." Another choked sob escaped her lips and I decided against my better judgment and knocked at the door.

" Y/n, it's Remus. Can we, can we talk? I promise I won't get mad and overreact again." Silence is what answered me before I heard another choked sob. I turned the doorknob and gently pushed the door open. The sight in front of me was shocking, to put lightly. Y/n was on the floor, knees to her chest, head in her legs and hands wrapped around her head, sobbing while a blood-soaked rag was wrapped tightly around her right wrist.

The one I had gripped. I walked further into the bathroom and shut the door quietly before moving over and crouching down in front of her. " It's not your fault Y/n. It's mine for overreacting. It's shocking really once you learn that your best friend knows you're a monster that you could rip her neck apart." She chocked out another sob and I mentally punched myself for saying that.

" Y/n, It's also my fault for, well, overreacting and hurting you. I don't know why I got mad I just, did. I never intended on hurting you or making you feel pressured or anything like that and I'm really sorry. I know it was wrong and I hurt you and I scared you and probably made you hate me forever but, I regret ever doing it and you can ignore and hate me for the rest of our lives If you want to

" I want someone to hit me with Crucio to punish myself for making you feel uncomfortable and scared and pressured and everything. I'm sorry for making you feel like, like I was your dad and I apologize greatly for that. I don't know how your dad treats you exactly but, judging from the fact that I roughhoused you and you compared me to him, I know it wasn't a good thing."

" you don't wanna be hit by Crucio Remus." I took a moment to gulp and look at the quivering girl in front of me. Gently I placed my hand on her's which was bloodied in a rag before pulling her arms off her head softly and swapping from a crouch to a neal. I continued to neal in front of her and gently pull her face up as I talked.

" I'm sorry for everything I did, from the hallway to the room, and I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me Y/n. You could scream from the rooftops that I'm a werewolf and throw a bajillion curses at me for all I care, I just want to make sure you're okay." I cupped her face and gently pulled her to look at me.

" are you?"

She choked back another sob before I pulled her to me and embraced her figure, leaning back on my foot. I rocked back and forth on my heel while whispering soothing words into her ear. She pulled away and looked at the floor after calming down. I went back to crouching and looked at her.

" I never meant to hurt you Y/n. I never wanted people to figure out about my lycanthropy because I was scared you would stop hanging around me and go out of my life. I didn't want to lose you. I care about you too much. So when you mentioned the transformations I panicked and overreacted. I truly am sorry Y/n. You can tell the boys if you want. I don't care anymore, I just need to make sure you're okay."

I placed my hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me. She nodded her head and smiled slightly. I gingerly took her wrist in my hand and started unwrapping the blood-soaked rag. Once I got it I wrapped I saw there was a large jagged gash running across her wrist. I asked her about this earlier. I must've re-opened it when I grabbed her wrist. I took the rag and stood up before running it under the sinks water, washing most of the blood off it.

Then, I took it back over to Y/n and started wiping the blood off her wrist. Shit.

The dried blood had covered up most of a fresh bruise. A very horrid bruise. That must've been the bruise that came along with my grip on her wrist. She already has enough bruises to begin with and I just gave her more to add to the collection. I'm horrible. Utterly horrible.

I went up to the cabinet and collected things to help the wound before cleaning and wrapping it. I was in the middle of sterilizing the cut when I asked her a question. " Y/n, about your dad... how does he treat you exactly?" There was a certain timidness to the question, almost as if I didn't want to hear the answer. Her breath hitched. " Let's just say he's, not the best person you would meet." She hesitated, greatly.

I looked up at her and she kept her head low and didn't meet my gaze. " Y/n, I was basically harassing you and you compared me to him. I don't think you should gloss over it."  She looked up at me and met my gaze. She hesitated before continuing,

"I said you were acting like my dad because, well, you were. And it scared me, I didn't want you to turn into him... I wouldn't be able to cope with it... I didn't want it to happen... and I know you're not like the werewolf that you're forced to turn into every month. "

She turned her head and her face was concealed by her curtain of hair. I was frozen in place. There wasn't an easy way to take this information, not in the slightest. Suddenly the door was pushed open and the boys came in. James's face was in shock and Sirius's was of anger, Peter looked rigid. " what exactly did we just overhear?"

——————————————

James's P.o.V.

Peter, Sirius and I were simply finishing up our mini quidditch practice and decided to go back in. I turned a corner and saw Remus talking through the bathroom door to someone. Then, he walked in and shut the door. I motioned for the boys to follow me. " What do you think he's doing James?" " No clue Sirius. Let's listen in." So we did just that.

And this is how we found ourselves standing in the bathroom doorway, our figures all expressed different moods.

" So, Remus hurt Y/n when he overreacted at the fact that you know he's a werewolf then, he came here to apologize and make things better. Let's go to my room. I need to get this figured out."

I looked around as Remus and Y/n stayed where they were at, horrorstruck. I went over and whacked Remus on the head a few times and he slowly started standing up, Sirius had to pull Y/n up off the floor before helping her stand.

The walk up to my bedroom was long and awkward and silent but once we reached it the two figures burst into speech at the same time.

Sirius looked over at them and held up his hands. " GUyS GUYS HEY SHUT IT!" I honestly don't think that it was the best option to yell at them. Remus already looked at the bursting point.

" guys, I'm- I'm a werewolf and I turn into a monster every month. I'm a stupid horrible beast and I entirely understand, if, if you don't want to be friends anymore okay? Because I-I don't want you to get hurt and I could hurt you because I'm a-' I cut off his rambling.

" You're being dramatic. You fold your socks, Remus. Forgive me if I'm not trembling at the sight of you." He stopped and looked at me, " So you're not-you're not afraid of me?"

Sirius jumped in, " You do fold your socks."

" Wait a minute- You don't... but... but, I mean... werewolves, they're not exactly... popular... and for all you know, I could be dangerous!" Y/n cut him off this time as she finished our sentences.

" Remus, Lupin, what part of 'you fold your socks' isn't getting through?" His face almost burst into happiness immediately.

He turned to us three and threw his arms around our necks. Sirius and I in one arm and Y/n in between all of us like the middle of a triangle. Once he let go he wiped a few tears away while Y/n tried to catch her breath again, " I love you guys. So, so much. What would I do without you?" Peter decided to stop side cropping and join the conversation, " You'd probably have to go to Y/n for bi-weekly therapy sessions or something mate. But lucky for you we're never gonna leave!"

Sirius and I shared a look before turning back to Remus and walking him up to the wall. " but if you hurt Y/n one more time you won't live to see the next day."

____________________________

I swear if any a y'all tell me this is 'OvErExAgErRaTiNg and GlOrIfYiNg' the point I'm blocking you because that is how someone with a troubled past would react and if you can't see that then I don't know you or who you are anymore

Drop a vote, drink some water, eat some food and remember You Are Loved!

^ - ^

[let-me-write-shit]

Like We Used To: 28

A/N: The dramaaaaaaa!!

 *WARNING* discussions of abortion.

[Click Here For Previous Chapters]

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CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:

The flight back home was painfully long and Elizabeth had no one sitting in her row to talk to. By the time she had landed back in England it was 9 AM on Monday, and she decided to spend the whole day by herself, relaxing. She knew that she should have gotten back to work and gotten as much done as possible so that she didn’t have to worry about completing everything before her and her friends flew to New York on Friday, but all the traveling was starting to catch up to her. Instead, she spent the day eating, watching movies, and napping.

The time difference between her and her boyfriend was easier to manage now that Harry was in New York. He seemed to have a good amount of free time right now, just having occasional meetings with his performance crew since his band wouldn’t be flying in until Wednesday, so they facetimed and texted a lot.

Tuesday she had planned to hang out with Kate, Mitch, and Sarah, so they four of them met up for a hike and some lunch. Harry had another meeting that morning, so they just texted each other their daily ‘Good morning, I love you’ texts and did their thing, Elizabeth putting her phone on silent to enjoy her time with her friends.

During their hike, the group continued discussing their plans for after Harry’s show in NYC, wanting to wander around the city, and discussed the headlines that were released from the Fashion Show after Harry and Elizabeth made their relationship public. The response seemed to be, for the most part, in favor of her relationship with Harry. And thankfully it hadn’t affected her work. 

After a couple hours of walking, they eventually decided they were hungry and decided to grab some lunch inside to get away from the crisp autumn air. They settled into a booth, collecting their menus and discussing their orders with each other while Elizabeth glanced outside. Most of the golden leaves had dropped from the trees, swirling low on the ground from the breeze. Families had walked hand-in-hand with their children who were bundled in warmer jackets and boots. Pumpkins and chrysanthemums line the walkway into the old stone building they sat in, and the smell of warm tea and hot cocoa mixed in the air as people drank them to warm up. She grinned, dreamily. This was her favorite time of year.

Their drink orders were brought out and Elizabeth lightly blew onto the surface of her English tea before taking a little sip when Mitch pulled out his phone and furrowed his eyebrows. 

“Lizzy?” Mitch questioned, looking up at her, “have you checked your phone recently?”

“No, why?” she asked, confused, pulling her purse up and digging through it.

“I just got a text from Harry asking if I was still with you and to tell you to call him ASAP.”

Her friends looked worriedly at her as she pulled her phone out, realizing she had dozens of missed calls from Harry, Jeffrey, and Lisa, and a few unread texts. Without hesitation, she dialed Harry’s phone numbers, looking at her friends in wonder. Almost immediately Harry picked up.

“Lizzy? What’s going on?” He asked.

She hesitated, hearing the worry in his voice, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“You didn’t see any of my texts?” He asked, “It’s all over the internet.”

“No, I didn’t see your texts. What’s all over the internet?” she hushed, not wanting anyone in the restaurant to overhear her.

Her friends watched, puzzled by the seriousness of her tone. What could possibly have happened in the past four hours to make Harry and his team go into a frenzy?

He spoke, his tone sounding more upset than it had a second ago, “Kyle went to the press. He released a bunch of pictures of the two of you and made a statement. He said that you two were engaged. He said you were pregnant with his child. He didn’t go into specifics, but he made it seem like you had gotten an abortion and that’s why your relationship ended. Is this true?”

Elizabeth’s stomach dropped, heart rate speeding up. She could feel the color in her face flush and her friend’s noticed because they all sat up taller, leaning into her to make sure she was okay. Elizabeth nodded towards Kate to let her out of the booth and she slid out, ignoring the intense expressions of her friends as she quickly crept outside so no one could hear.

“Lizzy? Hello?” Harry echoed.

Elizabeth stuttered, “I-Harry...I didn’t….”

“So it is true?” Harry cut her off, disgust dripping with each syllable. 

“No, it’s….well. Yes, it’s partially true, but I…”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Harry spat, “After our argument the other week. All that talk about ‘3 years of history with him but 12 with you. It’s no big deal. It’s over’. You were engaged to be married, Lizzy! You were pregnant with his child! How could you not tell me that?”

“Because I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, Harry. It isn’t that simple! I wasn’t-”

“And I had to find out through news outlets? Do you even know how shitty that makes me feel?”

“Babe, please just listen. I-”

“No, you know what. I need a minute,” Harry’s voice sounded numb, “I’ll call you later.”

Elizabeth sighed, stomach churning when the call ended. She gripped her phone tightly, letting her phone fall to her side, tears forming on her waterline as she looked up to the sky trying to refrain from crying. A soft hand touched her back and Kate rounded her friend, her eyes wide with concern.

“Are you okay?” she hushed.

Elizabeth stood, looking her best friend in the face before she faltered, collapsing into her arms, tears pouring out. Kate wrapped her arms around Elizabeth, squeezing her tightly and letting her cry for a moment, gently stroking her back. Her sobs were shallow, trying to catch her breath. As she regained composure, Kate wordlessly asked what happened.

“Kyle went to the press. He told them everything.”

“Even-” Kate muttered, eyes widening in shock.

Elizabeth nodded, wiping her tears and runny nose, “Everything,” she repeated. “And apparently he’s trying to tell people I got an abortion.”

“No,” Kate breathed in disbelief. She kicked a rock on the ground, “What an absolute fucking prick! What did Harry have to say about it? He knows the truth, right?”

“I’ve never talked to him about it, Kate. I wasn’t ready. And now he’s pissed. He doesn’t even know the full story, but he’s furious that I didn’t tell him first. I mean, I understand, but I don’t know what this means for us now.”

“But he didn’t break up with you, did he?”

“No. Not yet at least.”

Kate nodded, giving her friends one more tight squeeze, “It’ll be ok. Just give him time to think. I’m sure by tomorrow he’ll have calmed down and be ready to talk. Mitch and Sarah will be flying out to New York tomorrow, maybe they’ll be able to get him to see things clearly. And on Friday we’ll be flying out and everything will be back to normal.”

Elizabeth nodded, taking a deep breath and shaking off her pain. This past year has been the most tumultuous of her entire life, so of course something like this would happen just as it starts going well for her.

“Come on, then. Should we explain to Mitch and Sarah what’s going on?” Kate motioned back towards the building. 

She could see their new friends glancing out at them through the window, looking utterly confused. Elizabeth agreed, holding hands with her best friend and trekking back into the restaurant. Their food had arrived while they were outside and she noticed that Mitch and Sarah didn’t touch their food yet, waiting for the other two to return. They slid back onto the booth bench and explained in full detail what was going on, watching their expressions range from bewildered, to shocked, sad, and furious. Mitch’s fist clenched tightly against the table, listening as Elizabeth finished, looking out at the window.

“Oh, Lizzy,” Sarah consoled, reaching a hand across the table to take hold of hers. “I’m so sorry.”

Mitch shook his head turning back to face her, “Don’t worry. I’m sure Harry will be ready to talk by the end of the day before you even go to bed. And Sarah and I land at 2 PM New York time, heading straight to rehearsals from the airport. We got your back.”

Having the support of her friends meant the world, especially right now, and she was sure that they were right. Harry just needed a few hours to digest everything before he was ready to talk to her. She didn’t blame him, it was a lot of info to take in and the stress of traveling and work on top of it didn’t help much. But as the day grew longer and the sun began to set, she felt herself starting to panic. She tried her best to take her mind off of it, frantically completing work and sorting through all of her emails. 

In attempts to reach out to Harry, she sent her boyfriend a couple quick texts, but didn’t want to bombard him with too many and annoy him even more. He never responded. By 2 AM, she realized that he probably wasn’t going to call her, and that she would wait until tomorrow late afternoon to reach out when she knew he’d be up.

However, when she woke up the following morning she was immediately drawn to the attention of several missed texts from Mitch and Sarah. Her messages were riddled with things like ‘I’m sure it’s not what it looks like’ and ‘We’ll talk to him, don’t worry.’ Instantly panicking, she went online to google Harry’s name. The first thing that popped up was a TMZ article that read ‘Harry Styles on a Romantic Night Out with Ex? We’re confused too’. She clicked on the link and pictures popped up showing Harry smiling and walking side by side with Camille, and another one with his hand on her back, leading her into his hotel. 

Elizabeth felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. How could he do this to her? Her one request was that he didn’t hang out with his ex without her there, and now he’s bringing her to his hotel? He cheated on her? After he knew, at least partially, what she had gone through with Kyle? Harry knew how hard it was for her to trust people again. He knew that’s the reason it took so long to start dating him in the first place. He pushed their relationship when she was perfectly fine just hooking up with him. He told her he loved her, for fucks sake! He didn’t even know the full story, but he got pissed off anyway and decided to take it out on her by cheating?

No. She deserved better than that.

KEEP READING

[poeticwritingblog]

A Daylight Under Dark

    As the light fell, it was if the autumn and summer had leaked their orange tints.

    The forest floor was ambient. A florescent current rose from the last day of autumn, a stream of blue graced the floor. Steam emitted as breath from the whisp from lungs hidden as ravines.

   Like an orange flame, the leaves fell in sequence over the grazing earth, every leaf was grass. It was of a lady’s finesse, there she aged with beauty. Outside, it lurked within the depths, without sight or sound. Perhaps it heard the other’s calls, lost laments, a glass bubble, sparkling with it’s supernatural twinkle. It, the other was self-contained, deep within itself were the trees of flickering lights within iron skulls, mechanical retinas of frosted irises, it’s fluid of air brushing the breeze of the hairlines of steel strands. As it slowly grew with concrete waves, growing with time, It would take, collecting, from whom was born as a surrogate saving itself the strangers who assimilate, footprints of streets, and all waking knowledge of here she lies, the city.

   Hundreds of years they were in solitude.

   Until they were aware of their presence.

   They, separate intelligences, the urban breath caught in the autumn of the wild.

   Eyes, but not to be seen, ears not to be heard, no living body, but a living presence.

    It was of both entities. And both providing of different natures, they were of time, aged of knowledge youth incarnate: were they not mothers?

   Upon first glance, their motherly nature wouldn’t bear a resemblance. But they were of a mother’s ways, to bear a life, bare of wisdom, a way their child will grow to realize.

   Past and future moved to the method of a mother. The warm past of a child must move to the grace of a grandmother. The fallen leaves moved by as dying waves as they graced the mineral of soil, memories washed over as the breath of the wild took them without a predestined path. The ground absorbed serpentine, confetti, perhaps lost toys and other things children forgot.

   They were carried over the ancient nutrients through to be caught in hairlike roots of ancient trees. Then things lost and forgotten, and forgotten things as napkins, eggshells, papers, burnt embers of forest campfires, made to be left behind by the foreigners from the city, those footsteps to vanish upon moss over-grown rocks of isolation, people from the steel and glass complexes, the many, many cries from the shrieking mechanical beasts that tread, there long after.

   The future, rose gradually, hinted urban airs into the autumn forest breeze. The stark black strings of hair, the mother would rise gradually, giving the air of urban into the autumn forest breeze. It would wait in the darkness of transparency, of time upon new light where she dwelled.

   It perceived the living floor.

   A young boy was there.

    He was sun-darkened, he preferred to stay out of the shade. Each day, he would walk into the woods, as to grow within it’s bounds, to talk to trees as to understand them. But he never left. There, an elderly woman who sat next with him while having a picnic lunch. Sometimes, they’d hold hands while strolling through the woods, at times, they’d listen to the robins with whom they’d sing and the wind would sing along.

   The luminescence rested on the trees. It was the end of autumn and leaves fell as memories of before passed. October. A part of summer felt there, but was shutting down as winter from the city filled the forest.

   Any day, she may leave and never return.

   Today she must leave for the town.

   They would sit upon the grass feeling the remains of the summer-autumn warmth. The birds would play their piece softly and the boy stirred fitful grunts, whilst eyes closed. The elder lady did not tilt her head from where it was positioned. She stared at the remains of the sun, drinking the aging dandelion wine, her mouth enclosed to a slight humble smile, she opened her eyes.

     “Is there something bothering you?” she asked.

     “I had a nightmare,” said the young boy.

     “Nightmares during the daytime?”

     “You know what I’m talking about Grandma, a bad dream, haven’t you had one of those in the afternoon?”

     “Not anymore, my child. I’ve dreamed all the dreams to colour the fragments of dusk with the remnants of dawn.”

     He sat there, fingers and palms interlocking. “Grandma, I had a really bad dream”

     “What about?”

     “I don’t know anymore” he said as if it just lingered out of his mind. A shame of the very moment he were to speak the words, he lost them, he had already forgotten. Now, he shut his eyes again, he longed to remember.

     “Was it about me?” she asked, stretching to regain her composure.

     “No” he said.

     “Why, yes, it had to have been.” she said whilst gently smiling to the boy. “I was off to another land, distant from here, that what troubles you.”

     “No.”

     “No need to be afraid.” she said. “There I was leaving this place, and you were looking for me, and somehow, lost in smoke you were, found me and all of a sudden, I have a heart-attack or something.”

     He gave a noticeable doubt. “That’s crazy talk, Grandma.”

     “Let’s see now,” said she. “Why would I do such a thing? I knew there was something off-putting with those biscuits.”

     “That’s not funny, Grandma,” said he. “I can’t bare to think about carrying you and the basket all the way home.”

     She quietly laughed. “Did it bother you that much?”

     He nodded. “Daydreams are the worst, they make me feel sad, dreams should only be for the night.”

     “I’m sorry you feel that way” She took his little hand. “Anything I can get you, to help cheer your mood?”

     “No.”

     “We have some cookies? Cheese and cracker perhaps? Some wine?”

     “You’re very kind, but no. I’ll be all right. It’s just that, well, the last few days haven’t been right. This is different than how it used to be in the early summer. Something’s happened.”

     “Is this between you and your mother?”

     “Oh, no, Grandma of course not,” he said with slight haste. “But don’t you feel places change people? I don’t know, I feel things like parks change people, the carnivals, and all that. Even today, like you said, the biscuits taste funny.”

     “I was kidding, why do you feel this way, how do you mean?”

     “They taste old. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about you Grandma. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve lost my appetite, and I wish today never happened.”

     “You sure are a funny one. You know what? Enjoy today for what it is, when tomorrow comes, you’ll wish it were yesterday.”

     “I’ll try,” he said. “If only today didn’t feel so funny and change everything. I don’t know. But now, out of all the other days I just had a feeling to go back home.”

     “Because of your dream? Me, then booking it and then my heart-attack because I’m old and done with this place?”

     “I don’t mean it like that!” he said “Now, I have to think about a bunch of things, I don’t know if I can remember! I think I’ll have, what’s the name? What you’re drinking, I’ll have some of that stuff.”

     She laughed brighter than she has in the weeks that past her. “Don’t tell your poor mother you said that, it’s a shame you can’t remember your dream.”

     “Don’t worry.” He hugged her tightly. “I’ll protect you no matter what!”

     “Don’t worry about me okay? Just worry about yourself for the time being,” she whispered gently. “The autumn leaves dances to the whisps of the wind, but never against the current to die where whom was born.”

     “I don’t know what you’re talking about; But it sounds smart, it’s funny, how funny it is to hear how you think Grandma.”

     “How silly.” She breathed of light laughter. “How silly the flow of time really is.”

      The rested quietly, the sun and the twilight sky sparkled last light.

     “You know,” said Grandmother thoughtfully, “I understand the reason of your concern. This place, it seems to be shifting. As if it were moving from one place and today the movement to the other is somewhat within our senses.”

     “I’m glad you feel it, too.”

   She turned her head slightly as if she noticed all the details, rest ridden, smiling softly, shutting her eyes, catching the fallen sunlight. “We, mother the night. We, mother the night.”

   Murmuring “We.”

      The sea of night washed on dawn’s shore throughout the time, softly. The afternoon sunset came on. The sun struck with a graze upon the skies with fading flashes.

   Throughout the land, not a sight or scent of parks of metallic shine, long gone metal-glass domes that would appear in time, grey-to black where the growth dwells. The smells of fried meat and burnt onion soon to be seared filled the wind on concept metal. The concrete mixer whispered to the moss slated-boulders and stirred like an image, a vision soon to be realized, reflected in reverse back and forth, shining the silent shards.

   The crows flew over echoing discreetly. They darted through like dark arrows to split the sun. Underneath, the child and the grandmother did not move. Only their eyelids under a split sun’s shadow flickered with awareness, only their ears were alert. Now and again, the shade would bend the trees to faint silhouettes sliding along the grass, they’d move to catch the warm winds.

   Sly prickles of frozen white embers appeared on their brows to be burned away from the sun. She lifted her head, observant, listening to the dual winds. The robins sighed. She put her head down for a minute.

   The boy noticed a slight change in scenery. He opened one eye and he rested on one elbow, on his backside looking around, at the stream, the islands, the leaves, at the trees.

     “What’s wrong?” asked Grandmother

     “Nothing,” he said, lying down again.

     “There has to be something troubling you” she said

     “I thought I heard something.”

     “Is it the birds?”

     “No, not the birds, something else.”

     “Birds that don’t belong here.”

     He didn’t answer. Grandmother felt as the limbs of the forest, roots tense and relax, tense and relax.

     “I hear it” she said. “There it is again.”

     In the distant of the quiet, they both listened.

     “I don’t hear anything, Grandma.”

     “Be patient” said she, quietly. “It’ll reoccur.”

     Winter’s waves broke unto the night, freezing shards dawning the evening to turn quietly cold, ice coloured from moonlit mirrors, glass bulbs whose shine auras whisper.

     “I see mother.”

     “That’s nonsense. Mother isn’t here.”

     “Time is speaking to us, do you hear?”

     So, for the moment they listened.

     “I’m sorry Grandma, I don’t hear anything,” said the boy sensing a subtle chill. He went to a sudden stance, quickly he stood. There was no colour in the sky, the wind was suspended, the stones froze, the trees were hollow.

   The silence was in mirrors, it was staring to be the wind blowing over his ears, to preen along the light, leading the light somewhere beyond the fibres of his arms and legs. Grandmother took a step that would lead down the hill from their resting place.

     “Grandma, don’t!” said the boy

     She looked around the forest, oddly, as if it were gone away. She looked to the glass capsule of iron trees, afar, she was still listening.

     The crows suddenly, a boldness of air, sounding with the full hint of human, sang softly, through echoes. They mothered the melody and rhythm and words:

     “It is the evening of the day-”

     Grandmother to the tune, she turned to the sky’s aria of leaves to see the robins perched on branches, where the tuned traced.

   Meanwhile, the little boy made a wry face, raising his open palm violently. “Quiet down.”

     “The robins are singing, my dear boy!”

     The boy turned again. There the robins were, he waved to them, trying to smile.

   It was two o’clock.

   The sun left golden streaks upon the grasses. The ancient grandmother of time spoke the seeds of the    fruit of a withering flower, blew quiet husks in the cold. The robins held atop the hallowed branches and crows suspended in the sky.

   The moon, dark and distant struck through the sun’s orange fermentation that poured along the leaves of grass; caught between two islands of idle contrast of the whiteness that drifted to one place as it fell from the black. The shimmer of ice, the frosted irons of the brain under-ore, the leafed trails, the tide of dusted moonbeams saw themselves in rivers, spreading complexion.

   Grandmother still lay in the grass, the little boy beside her.

   Music, the one who wanders rose as with the mist of lost waters. It was whispers of the deep underground of midnights of memories and passed years, of salt and flavours of mists, of acceptance and the familiar dusks of the strange.

   The music sounded not unlike the ripples of water passing through sediment, snow falling, The depths of lines, drawing of the soft sound of roots growing from time. It was the sing of a voice time lost in caverns of fallen mountains. The hissing and sighing of frozen tides in deserted caves of engrained soils and missing treasures. The turn of limbs of elemental thistles of brushes brushing the sounds to be humours for buried skulls underneath sprouted earths. The warm phosphorescence and the cold, sun falling into night and a motherless moon, beams passed through generations, alter, shift, of sight.

    Only a few more hours. Grandmother might leave at any time. If only the boy would decide to leave as well, just as well to gone of refined elements, elemental interiors of home.

   The end of the daybreaking wind stirred silently, aware of his faded face and his stature, of the feeble child sinking by roots that grew shale molded of soil. Aware of him caught, held, as they sank ten and a thousand leagues down, on a sluice that wandered with a will of unthought wits, smoke unsparked turning as frantic, vapourized seeds, invisible smoke,

    to the depths of daylight underdark.

   The city lay in deep shadow, the sun’s fires of flat rays dying without conception of the city’s breath, and the frosted warmth of her fabric of living matter missing fires, the dusts of jewels dissipated, the ice of salted smoke feeding on faint breath, the sound was there, but only of airform lungs without breathing wings.

   Waves that thought of time moved the soft and changing dusks within dawns into the shallows were tepid as the rivers feeding on the earths and the two o’clock sun on a translation turning in phase or time.

   She mustn’t leave as to go away for the call of distance. If she leaves now, she’ll never return.

   Now. The warm island mind drifted, drifted. Now. Calls across the woodlands of windless noise in the early afternoon. Come down to the city. Now, whispered the music. Now.

   The little boy covered his ears.

   “Smiling faces I can see, but not for me” mimiced the crows sweetly.

   “I sit and watch as tears go by-”

     “Dear boy!” Grandmother reached over and embraced the boy. “Why must you scream?”

     “I must quiet them,” said the boy, hiding his woe, looking into the woods.

     It was three o’clock. The sky was all sun. Calm, Grandma stood up.

     “Should we leave?” she asked.

     “Can we go to the stream first?” he asked.

     “I feel tired walking there and back.”

     “Please.” he pouted. “Now.”

     “Did you want to see the minnows?”

     “Yes, I want to see if they’re around.”

     “The minnows? God, you must be dying!” She took the boy along to the stream.

     He helped Grandma walk there. Then he noticed she was more feeble. He stood there listening to the wind’s words.

   He heard nothing. He looked at the water past the glints of shattered sunshine, underneath he saw currents to carry minnows. The stream quieted.

   There was only a faint, far and fine pattern, where the rivers carried the minnows to their delta. He saw himself with them, only difference being he was in the current of wind to follow a path in infinite repetition.

   He squinted, sun from water, water pierced his optical memory again and again at the memory he looked from. He bounced back.

     “Look, there’s a big fish; he’s swimming up the stream!” He pointed, ecstatic, to it. “He’s already stopped, he’s looking at us!”

     Grandmother looked at the salmon and saw that it was quietly resting. She saw the minnows let the waves carry them to a new bank while the aging salmon’s life was brought to a quiet close.

     “There, she let the water take her. Her younglings didn’t choose how she was to go, but they must accept, to move on without her, move with the current, or to rest with the sediment.”

     He ate his cookies in silence. “A shame,” he said, without hearing what she said, “A big fish like that, turning belly-up. What a waste.”

     “Here” she said, unscrewing a thermos, “you must be thirsty. Finish the lemonade.”

     “Thanks.” He drank. He looked into the cold water with haste. He had to keep her here somehow. Without knowing why, he slapped his hands together and said, “Well, I’ll go in the water now.” He looked anxiously at the city and the moon.

     “That’s silly child, come,” she said, just remembering it: what he was trying to do.

     “Just one more thing,” he said just remembering it: he had to keep her here. “Can we go back and get some more biscuits? I’m all out.”

     “Is there anymore in the basket?”

     “Yes, last time I checked.”

     “I know you tell me your mother is always at work and you don’t see her that often,” she said. “But, okay.” She took his hand, loping steadily.

     The boy rushed off to their picnic place, every once in a while waiting for her to catch up. She knew she had to let him go and this was her last day before something was to claim her.

   She looked, smiling at the forest’s edge. She kept following the boy, out to what was waiting for her, that she didn’t know, she saw a warm presence.

     You can’t have her, the boy thought. Whoever or whatever you are, she’s here, and you can’t have her. I don’t know what’s going on; I don’t know anything, really.

   All I know is we’re gonna be here tomorrow at dawn. And tonight doesn’t change anything. So you can go back and wither where ever you were born, city, night, winter, future, or whatever is wrong today.

   Do what you will, you’re no match for us, he thought. He picked up a stone and threw it what seemed to be nowhere, until he saw his mother.

     “Mom!” he cried. “You.”

     Grandmother was standing beside him.

     “Oh?” He jumped right back.

     “Hey, you alright? You were standing there muttering.”

     “Was I?” He was surprised at himself. “Where’s the biscuits? I need some biscuits.”

     The thing that stood there vanished. The boy looked out at the city from time to time, eyes squinted,  nodding at the town as if to say, “Look! You see? Ah-ha!” He looked at the stone that mysteriously appeared in his hand.

    The words were engraved:

     Time Speaks To Us. The End Of Daylight Is Here.

Winter and Night, They Watch Above.

      The silence was in shadow.

   What extra-influence could reconstruct the shape of such words out of such precise craft?

   What was speaking to him?

 “It’s getting cold.” She gave him a hand.

They were half way leaving the forest.

     “Where are we going! Why leave so soon?”

     She turned as if he wasn’t her child anymore.

     “Something’s troubling you, what’s wrong?”

     “Why we just had a picnic and ate a whole lot-

   you can’t walk that far, you’ll get cramps!”

     She sighed. “Old wives’ tales.”

     “Just the same, you have to think about how  things just happen and you can’t help it, do you understand? It’s better to learn to accept certain truths sooner when you’re younger.”

     “Ah,” he said dismissing it.

     “I guess we could stay a little longer.” She turned, and he followed, looking at the night.

     Three o’clock. Four.

   The change came at four thirteen.

   Lying on the grass, the boy saw it coming and relaxed.

   The clouds had been forming since three.        

   Now, with a sudden rush, the fog came off from the trees at the edge. The wind, warm, humming the tune of the crows or robins had turned cold.

   A new wind blew up out of nothing. Darker clouds moved in.

     “It’s going to snow,” she said.

     “What a warm welcome,” he observed, sitting with arms folded. “Maybe our last day, and now, this snow, winter must be pleased because it’s clouding up.”

     “The weatherman,” she confided, “said there’d be a blizzard all night and go over our heads tomorrow. It would be a good idea to leave tonight.”

     “We’ll stay, just in case it clears. I want to get one more day of swimming in, anyway,” he said.

   “I haven’t been in the water yet today.”

     “We’ve spent the day, having so much fun strolling on this walkabout, time passes.”

     “Yeah,” he said, looking at the city which he started to see.

     The fog flailed across clouding the city, hiding it: the city was gone again.

     “There,” he said. “The snowflakes are disappearing.” His eyes were animated and young again. He was almost triumphant. “Come again, sun.”

     “Child, please, your mother is worried. We must return.”

     “Good old sun!” he said. “Let’s put these blankets away. We’d better run!”

     She tried to get his attention. But he was preoccupied.

     “Your mother will be here soon. You have to realize I won’t be here for much longer.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I can’t take care of you anymore.”

     “No.” His face paled. “We have to go home, or we’ll catch a cold.”

     “The only home now is out there, your mother will take care of you.” She turned away from the city.

The wind rose, picking up the falling snow.

     Marching ahead, the boy headed for the house. He was singing softly to himself, the tune he heard the wind sing.

     “Hold on!” she said.

     He halted. He did not turn. He only listened to a voice far away.

     “There’s someone, fallen through the frozen stream!” she cried. “He’s sinking!”

     He couldn’t move. The wind halted him.

     “Wait there!” she shouted. “There’s someone out there! He isn’t moving! A little boy, I think!”

   “What boy?” he asked. “His parents will get him!”

     “They’re not here! Left without him!” She ran down to the stream, into the wind of winter.

     “Come back! Please come back!” he screamed. “There’s no boy there! Please, oh no, don’t!”

     “Don’t worry, someone will return for you!” she called. “The boy can’t move, standing, sinking in broken ice, drowning, being swallowed, you see?” she called. “My Grandchild is out there!”

     The smoke came in, the snow pattered down, a white flashing light raised in the dark sky.

   He ran, the boy after his grandmother,

   then the scattering snow from the blizzard rushed against him,

   crying, tears rushing from his eyes.

     “Don’t!” He put out his hands.

     She was lost into a dark fog.

     The boy waited under the dying sun.

     At six o’clock the sun was shrouded behind black clouds. The snow fell softly on concrete, white fading to grey.

   The forest vanished, the city appeared.

   It was there, the night, the future, the moon’s illuminated white shining on steel pillars. Among the night lamp streets, looking deep under, A man of his teenaged years saw a boy sink under water. Familiar. The snow globe bubbled and broke. The city was built, destined to replace the woods, like a pebble thrown into water, the reality rang with his thoughts, a part of life quickly lost as found.

   Youth. Familiar. Like memories, they’re lost. Nothing to them after they go. The future forgets the  past, like night forgets day, like the city forgets the forest; The man in the moonlight saw the boy with a face familiar to him sink into the streets, just lie there, doing nothing. There was nothing he could do. Strange. Disappointing, a vision of the past that clear, after all the years of waiting. What to do with him now? The boy from the woodlands peers into something he can’t see, the man looks back in memory it seems, his eyes stare, his skin pales. Silly boy, wake up! You have to wake up! The boy disappeared, grandmother, the forest with it. The memory? A life once lived? The mind of motherly roots vanished.

   He was then released. His mother, concerned called to him. He ran to his mother who was waiting there in the snowy night.

   The snow continued to fall, caressing the glass dome. Distantly, under leaden skies, from twilight dusks, a little boy screamed.

   A splinter of time appeared and vanished.

   Ah-the ancient winter stirred sluggishly in the air-isn’t time like a mother? The past ages and carries him to  the future? A daylight dome underneath the night?

   At seven o’clock the snow fell thick in the city. It was night and very cold and all the houses along the street had to turn on the heat.

[gaymalereadersheaven]

Prince Tom Holland X Male Reader

Chapter 6

Summary: your parents made a political arrangement for your younger sister to get married to a prince from a neighbouring country, but what happens when you start to fall for his older brother?

Previous Chapter : in masterlist

I awoke to sound of birds singing their morning song as light slowly poured into room around me, I lied there for a good ten minutes before there was a knock at the door. “Good morning Prince (Y/N),” said the man on the other side, it was Gorge, my hand servant. “Good morning Gorge,” I replied. “I’m here to escort you to breakfast, my lord,” he said with a warm tone. “Just give me a minute to get ready,” I got up and walked to the wardrobe. “Of course, my lord,”replied Gorge. I picked out a muted burgundy outfit and put it on as quickly as I could. I opened the door to reveal Gorge, patiently waiting for me, he smiled and stared for the dining room. On the way me made small talk, nothing much to note.

I sat down in my usual place at the table next to Thomas.i tried to talk to Sylvia, but I couldn’t get a word in because the parents were hogging both Sylvia and Prince Sam, talking about wedding details, Sylvia looked extremely bored, I felt bad for her, she hasn’t really gotten to do much since we arrived, could you blame her. Prince Sam didn’t seem to be too interested in the conversation, either. So, I mostly talked with Thomas, Prince Harry, and Prince Paddy.

After breakfast was the usual routine, the parents whisked Sylvia and Prince Sam off to discuss the wedding. Prince Paddy and Prince Harry went off to do their own things, leaving me and Thomas alone again. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?” I asked Thomas. He looked at me with an apologetic look. “Unfortunately, my prior engagements preclude me from offer my beneficence around the castle today,” he said flashing me an apologetic smile. “Oh, alright then,” I said, a little dejected. “Bye, I’ll see you tonight, ok?” He said walking off. “See you tonight,” repeated back to him, he smiled and continued to on his way.

‘Well, this is grand,’ I thought to myself when I heard someone clear their throat behind me, I turned around to see Gorge. “Prince (Y/N),” he started, “would you like me to escort you back to your quarters?” He questioned. “Is there anything to do around here?” I asked him, “what activities do you have in the courtyard?” “Do you have an archery range, I’m not particularly great and I would love to sharpen my skills.” I stated, not leaving any time for him to answer my previous questions. “Yes actually, would you like me to take you there?” He asked. “Yes, please!” I said, a little too excitedly.

We arrived at the archery range, I didn’t get much of a chance to see the courtyard yet, it was beautiful, there were plenty of things to do, but I was mostly concerned with practicing my archery skills. I practically ran to the bows and arrows, and equipped them almost immediately. Gorge just sat on a bench and watched me. I Procter for a while, sometimes missing the target completely, sometimes hitting the outer rings. “You don’t want to join me?” I asked Gorge. “Are you asking me?” He asked sounding a little shocked. “Who else would I be asking, silly?” I chuckled a little. “Oh, I just didn’t expect you ask,” he confessed, “and I’m not even sure if I’m even allowed to participate in activities such as archery that aren’t in the servents’ recreational confines.” He went on. “Well, I’m giving you permission to join me,” I replied. “I would hate to get reprimanded, or worse get demoted, I have a pretty high rank in the servents tiers.” He babbled on. “I’ll make certain that you won’t get punished, and if they insist on making you a lower rank, I’ll explain that it’s entirely my fault, and that if anyone should be punished, it should be me,” I informed him. “Thanks you so much, Prince (Y/N)!” He shouted. “Please, call me (Y/N),” I told him. “I’m required to call you by your rightful titles, if I don’t it could result in a demotion an-,”. “ just call me (Y/N) when no ones around,” I cut him off. “Of course, my lor- (Y/N),” he corrected himself, I chuckled lightly. “Are you sure you want me to join you, I’m not very good,” he said. “Neither am I, haven’t you been watching me practice this whole time?” I asked, with a giggle. We practiced for a pretty good chunk of time, before we got tired and decided to head back inside the castle walls. I noticed slight improvement in my skills, and even some with Gorge’s progress.

I really wanted to do some reading, so Gorge and I made our way to the castle library. “You made some pretty significant progress,” I said to Gorge on the walk to the library. “Me? Hardly, but you made a bunch of important,” he replied. “Yeah, not much though,” I said. We made it to the library, I had been in here once, it was on the tour that Queen Nicola gave us when we first arrived. It was was about just as big as mine back home, but had a bunch of books that we don’t have back home, I’ve read every single book in our library, so I was really excited to get my hands on some new material. I didn’t know where to even begin to select some books to start reading. I collected some about different typed of animals and discoveries, I also found some nonfiction stories, and a few fictional stories. I had 7 books total in my pile, consisting of two information and research type books, 3 nonfiction stories, and 2 fictional books. I sat down at a nearby table and started to read my books. Gorge just read a book made of only pictures, I decided not to question it.

A few hours passed and I had read all of the books I had selected, so I started to put them back where I found them, in order of first to last, by the time I got to the fictional section, one particular book caught my eye. The cover was a faded blue colour, with a gold picture of a mermaid on the spine, I slid it out of the bookshelf with one finger grabbing it with the rest of my hand once it was out far enough to. I opened it and it was all about mermaids and sirens. I decided that I would borrow it for a while. Out of curiosity, I picked up the book in the place next to where the one I had in my had was before. The cover had a picture of a merman and a human man sitting in a rock next to each other, I decidedthst I would also take it for some more reading material in my spare time. I noticed that Gorge was still reading only books consisting only of pictures. “Gorge?” I asked, he looked up at me a little startled. “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to started you,” I apologized. “It’s totally fine, Your Highne- (Y/N),” he said. “I hope you don’t, mind me asking, but I couldn’t help but notice that you’re only looking a pictures-”. “I don’t know how to read,” he said quickly. “You can’t read?” I asked shocked. “Yeah, I’ve been a servant my whole life, and they never really taught us how to read or write, because we never really need it.” He explained, I frowned. “I’ll teach you,” I said. “ that’s really not necessary,” he tried to tell me. “No, I insist,” I told him. “I would hate to impose,” he said. “It wouldn’t be an imposition,” I stated. “Thank you so much!” He exclaimed. “You’re welcome,” I chuckled, “we’ll start our first lesson tomorrow, here about this same time we arrived at the library,” I told him. “Ok,” he said happily, I smiled. “I think I’m going to back and drop these books off in my chamber and then go to the kitchen to get something to eat, you can come with me if you would like, or you can do whatever you would like, take the rest of the day off, if you would like,” I told him, he gave me a confused look. “Are you sure?” He asked. “Yes, I insist,” I said. “Thanks you so showing me so much kindness today,” he thanked me. “You’re welcome, it’s my pleasure,” I smiled. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. “See you tomorrow, your hi- (Y/N),” he said, as I started to exit the library, he followed after, but then took a hall leading some where else after a while.

I dropped the two books off at my room, and wondered into the kitchen to get some food. “Your majesty, what are you doing in here, you should be sitting at the table being served, I’ll have whoever was supposed to be asking what you wanted to eat fired, immediately,” said a cook. “NO, no, no, I don’t want anyone to get fired!” I said quickly. “I let my personal hand servant take the rest of the day off,” I informed him. “Why would you do that?!?” He asked rather shocked. “I don’t need him to do anything for me and he works really hard, he deserves a break,” I said. “He shouldn’t be slacking off, I’ll notify the King and Queen, immediately,” he said. “No! I don’t want him fired, It was completely my idea for him to take a break, I practically had to force him,” I said. “Oh,” he said a little shocked and defeated. “What you you like to eat, Prince...?” “(Y/N),” I finish his question for him. “Prince (Y/N),” he said. “I’ll have whatever’s most convenient for you to make,” I said, he was definitely surprised by my response, but obliged anyway. “A big salad it is then,” he announced. “Perfect!” I said. “Thank you so much...,” I said asking for his name, just as he did a moment ago. “Nathaniel,” he answered. “Thank you, Nathan,” I said walking out back to the grand table. I sat and waited alone, for everyone was out doing their own things. A moment later Nathan came out with my salad. “Thanks you Nathan,” I said. “You’re quite welcome, Prince (Y/N),” he said cheerfully. I ate my salad in silence, it was pretty good. A few minutes after I started to eat, Sylvia walks into the dining room with a chestnut haired woman about a 7 years older than me.

“Sylvia!” I said, she turned her attention toward me. “(Y/N)!” She said. “What are you doing, aren’t you supposed to be discussing the wedding or something?” I asked confused. “We finished early, so I can to get some food,” she said. “Oh, what are you going to have for lunch?” I asked. “Oh, I already had lunch, I’m just hungry again,” he stated. “Classic Sylvia,” I chuckled, she giggled. She sat down next to me. “Princess Sylvia, what would you like to eat?” asked the chestnut haired woman. “I’ll just have a salad, thank you Victoria,” Sylvia said and Victoria disappeared into the kitchen. “Salad, huh?” I asked her. “Yeah, I saw yours and decided that it looked good, so I figured why not?” She answered. Victoria entered and brought Sylvia her salad. As we ate we talked mostly about what I’d been up to, because Sylvia was so over talking about the wedding, by now. After we ate Victoria took our empty plates to the kitchen. “Thank you so much, Victoria,” I thanked her. “You’re welcome,” she said as she disappeared into the kitchen again. “We haven’t had much time to spend together ever since we came to this kingdom, we need to hangout, just the two of us,” I said. “I completely agree,” Sylvia said. As Victoria walked back into the room, Sylvia told her she had the rest of the day off.

I lead Sylvia to a private spot on the castle grounds, where we could just talk, because Sylvia told me she had something she needed to tell me, in private.

“What is you wanted to tell me?” I asked her. “Well, it’s really big.” She said. “Just spit it out!” I shouted. “Okay! Okay!” She said. “ I...um...I...” She stuttered. “Come on,” I encouraged her to continue. “I don’t want to get married to Prince Sam.” She said looking down. “What!?” I asked shocked. “He’s a great guy and all, but I’m in love with someone else,” she confessed. “What?!who!?” I whisper shouted. “Joni Randell,” She said. “Who?” I asked confused. “He’s a peasant boy,” she said. “Mom’s gonna have a fit if she finds out,” I say mostly to myself but also to Sylvia. “(Y/N), you have got to help me!” She pleaded. “Well, I have a confession of my own,” I said. “What is it?” She asked. “I think I’m starting to develop feelings for Prince Thomas,” I told her, her eyes widened And I couldn’t tell if it was just shock or if it was in horror. “I guess I could talk to him and see if maybe we could get married so you don’t have to,” I suggested. “You’d do that for me?” She asked. “Sylvia, I’d do anything for you.” I stated, she embraces me in her arms really tightly, “thank you so much!” She shouted. “You’re welcome,” I said. “I don’t know if he’d even want to get married to me, I know he likes guys, and that I’m cute, but we’re not even together and even if we were I don’t know if it would last and I don’t want to rush into things,” I rambled on. “I think he’ll understand,” Sylvia said. “Not to mention that it’s highly illegal for two men to married,” I reminded her. “Shit!” She shouted. “But I’ve been studying this for a while and I think I might’ve found a loophole,” I said. “Tell me!” She cried.

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Hey everyone thank you for being so patient, I’ve been really busy lately, and I just haven’t gotten around to writing, but I made this chapter longer, Thank you all for your support, I love you all💕 -Matthew

Next Chapter : in masterlist