#and installing for almost 9 hours. yeah I get that the process will be long. but ffs

[roses-and-tears]

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[jmeddows2]

Purple Thunder (Roger Taylor Series) - Part 9

(present/old) Roger Taylor series Notes: Here it is, the longest chapter of PP yet. I don’t want to give to much away, but there is going to be some relief for exactly two people after this one (yeah I’m talking about you reader and Roger lol). Roger is not making a big apperance, but he’ll always be there after this one! be prepared for a fluffy throwback and some cheesy musical contribution by Reader. I’m sorry, but this Taylor Swift song just fits perfectly and I’m obsessed with the album ‘Lover’. Songs from that album will definitely keep making appearances here and there. Anyway.. bare with me, english is not my first language, sorry for mistakes. The song lyrics used in this chapter are from the song “Death By A Thousand Cuts” - Taylor Swift. I recommend you listening to it once it pops up in the story. Feel free to drop me an ask, a message, send in your reaction, further requests etc. But most of all: THANK YOU FOR READING!!! :))) Words: 3.1k Warnings: cursing, cheating

Never would you have thought that a penthouse that light and happy, yet domestic could feel as sad and lonely as it did now.  This trip was supposed to lift all the weight from your shoulders, instead of pushing you down with even more sorrow.  After a few missed attempts to reach Roger through calling, the chandelier lights in the living room started flickering. Almost like a sign  Great. Where the hell was he? You started getting worried. Was he alright or did something happen? Was he on his way back home,or did he stay in a different room in the hotel? The thought that something bad could have happened,basically ate you alive, so you decided to text him. To: Roger 'Where have you gone?‘ 'I need to talk to you‘  How could he just leave like that? Without hearing you out first.?As the time went by you started making up different scenarios in  your head, thinking  this all was a all a joke to him, a distraction from his crumbling marriage. 'I’m worried. Please come back' you texted again. 

The only answer was a money transfer of 10.000£ to your bank account with the remark 'for travels if you decide to come back to London ‘ Seemed like it was goodbye now. But you didn‘t do anything wrong. And instead of spending the whole night thinking about what you could have done wrong this time,  you did what you could best, at least as it seemed.  Fuck shit up, so  'Doha Nightclub' on Long Island seemed just like the right place to get rid of the empty feeling deep inside and the especially big and empty penthouse.  The nightclub seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but it was certainly easy to get there, given the fact that the penthouse of the Ritz provided you a very own Rolls Royce with a personal driver in tow, who would take you anywhere you wanted.  As you entered the dark place that lit up with purple strobe lights, the place was already packed. Girls that wore as little as they could, men with buttoned down shirts all over the dancefloor. It felt posh, nearly too posh for your liking. But now you were there. Would be a waste of gas to ask the driver to go to another place. This would do perfectly fine. Trying not to draw any attention to yourself , you chose a little table to sit at in the back where it was  dark, but the seat still visible enough for waitresses to notice once  your glass was empty. You were quite amused by the fact that it was a girl’s birthday party. They welcomed her into the club with two signs saying 'Happy Birthday‘. Right next to them was another blonde girl with curves in all the right places holding up a neon yellow sign saying '99% sure that vodka is my soulmate'. It made you chuckle, even with given circumstances. "What‘s your poison, honey?" A girl about your age asked you, holding a tray of shots in her hand.  "Anything right now. Any shot would do" you sighed. "Wait a minute“ the girl said taking a closer look at you. "Aren‘t you that singer that got engaged?"  "Do you see a ring on my finger?“ you held out your hands for her to inspect.  "Ouch“  "How much for the whole tray?“ "Girls are free tonight, honey“ she placed the tray on the table and took a seat on the empty chair. "I‘m Andrea, by the way“ she shook your hand.  5 shots in and you started conversing about god knows what.  "....and then I was too broke to stay in LA.. so, I had to come back. Guess there‘s too many pretty girls out there wanting to become an actress." she nearly cried telling stories about failing auditions trying to make in Los Angeles, how her boyfriend left her a week after she had flown out, trying to achieve a dream of hers. It made your heart sting. The cheating part. You were here trying go sulk like a victim, when you‘d been the one doing wrong all along. You didn‘t drop any names, just the context of the story. And she was understanding, even gave you her number in case you came back there again or just needed a friend to ramble on. She moved on to grab another tray and made her rounds. The night was restless. Almost like you expected the moments that were about to happen. You could feel it, boiling deep inside. It felt like a big bomb, that was about to go off and destroy everything. Everything that already had been in ruins. And as if someone heard your call from far away it reached its last strike.  A message from Roger. And your heart dropped.  'I don’t think this is a good idea anymore. I’m sorry.' You tried calling him again. This time he picked up.  "...Rog? Are you there?” you  breathed into the phone, unable to make out his voice in the club.. Impossible.so you went outside where it was quiet enough.  "Where are you? I miss you" you slurred into the phone, the alcohol speaking out of you.  "(Y/N) are you drunk?” he said and for a moment you thought he might be worried about.  "Come back to me Roger. Please” you begged him.  "I.. I can’t I’m sorry.. I don’t think this will work”  What you didn’t know was, that it took him hours to practice his little speech. To push all the feelings away that had kept building up inside him for over half a year now. First from keeping up with your work, until the last 3 months he actually got to spend with you in person. With his head in his hand, memories kept flashing back in his mind. The movie nights you had, cuddled up on the couch with a fuzzy warm blanket thrown over the two of you. If the movie was too boring, he would just start conversing about how bad it was or keep tickling and cuddling you to distract you from watching it. Or you’d just fall asleep. 3 months felt more like 3 years. And it was everything you ever craved.  The nights you spent at his house in Surrey kept replaying. When it was a mild night and not too cold, spending nearly all night long looking at the big statue of Freddie, which was in full display because of the big spotlight Roger had installed.  You’d usually sit on a thick and huge blanket on the grass or on chairs, feeling each other’s warmth, no talking, just being in the moment.  "Fred would have adored you“ Roger spoke up, which made you look up at him.  "Not as much as I adore him" you smiled at him, pressing a light kiss to his lips.  "What would he think about us now?" You asked, putting your head back on his chest and arms tightly around him.  "He‘d be happy for us” Roger whispered in your hair.  "Because I‘m happy. You make me happy." He kissed your temple. "Losing my best friend was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with." You squeezed him tighter to comfort him and it really did put him at more ease. His shoulders weren’t as tense when you started drawing patterns on his back.  "I couldn‘t even imagine how you must have felt. But I think losing you would come pretty close to that" you whispered back at him.  And now that was just about to happen. Your worst nightmare.  "I got to go now..." his voice was small and quiet. Almost quiet enough to hear your heart break. "I‘m sorry..." You felt dizzy, like your feet couldn‘t keep you up anymore. Just then you felt a pair of strong arms wrap around your waist.  "Hey baby. What are doing out here all alone.“ the stranger pulled you close to him, letting his hands roam all over your body. You felt disgusted.  "Stop..“ you tried to push him away. "Stop touching me“ you screamed louder.  "Y/N?“ A familiar voice. Dan.  "Dan?"  "Is that your fucking boyfriend baby?“ the disgusting stranger whispered in your ear before Dan pushed him away. Dan, your guitarist was your savior of the hour. You had last seen him storm out of the studio in London. You wrapped your arms around him, still trying to process everything that had happened in the last 30 minutes.  "Oh god, how much did you drink? You smell like a brewery“ he grimaced taking in the unpleasant scent.  "Hey, Y/N" he shook you lightly trying to get a few words out of you.  "Where are you staying? I‘ll take you there“  "The Ritz“  "Yeah sure“ he laughed. "You and the Ritz." He didn‘t believe you. Because the Ritz wasn‘t exactly what you would go for when touring with your band. Even though you could afford rooms there. Not the penthouse, but smaller ones.  "I‘m telling the truth Dan“  "Alright, alright“ he still didn’t quite believe it.  “I‘ll take you back to mine. You‘ll need loads of water and a hangover therapy tomorrow. This one‘s going to be massive“ You groaned as he picked you up and carried you to the cab. Then from the cab to his apartment. You didn‘t even know where you were, only that Dan was going to take care of you. He was always the dad of the group. Him and Joe, your bass player never stayed out late, never partied that much. Much to your advantage now. The next morning, you felt surprisingly not that bad. Which was like a miracle. Dan made sure you drank much water before going to sleep and as you got up from his couch to search for the kitchen, the table was already decorated with a large breakfast to help rise your low blood sugar levels. "Good morning Miss Vodka“ Dan looked up from his newspaper, a cup of coffee in his hand a grin plastered on his lips. Clearly because of your miserable state. "Haha“ trying your best to sound as sarcastic as possible.  "Good morning and thank you for bringing me here“ sincerely thanking him.  "Not a problem, you said something about staying at the Ritz" you downed one of the three ginger shots he prepared for you and put the glass down with a grimace. Damn those are disgusting.  "Yeah because I am“ Dan only looked at you, waiting for you to continue the story.  "Is Josh there? Oh, fuck right. I didn‘t congratulate you on the engagement. Fuck“ he blushed. You only shook your head lightly for him to stop, he knew you long enough to know you weren‘t mad at him about it.  "Do you have a pen and paper?" you asked tapping your fingers next the freshly toasted bread in front of you.  "Ah yeah sure“ he got up to grab it.  And came back with "Post its? Really?“ "Sorry it‘s the only thing I got. I just moved in here“ he threw his arms up in defeat.  You started scribbling. It felt like the words made their own way onto the paper.  "Are you like.. writing a song now?“ Dan looked over your shoulder as you placed yet another post it on top of the other 4 that were already full of ink. You only held a finger up, clearly a sign for him to shut up. A polite sign for him to shut up.  The lyrics where done in 15 minutes,with you throwing the pen on the table almost like a Mic drop.  "Done“ "You‘re crazy“ he stared at you with fascination from across the table.  "Can I see it?“  "Only of you agree to make a riff for it“  "Yeah... sure“ He agreed in a heartbeat.  And he grabbed the post its, reading out loud:  'Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts Flashbacks waking me up, I get drunk, but it‘s not enough. 'Cause the morning comes and you‘re not my baby.  I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier still flickering here 'Cause I can't pretend it's okay when it's not It's death by a thousand cuts I dress to kill my time I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it'll be alright They say, "I don't know" And what once was ours Is no one's now I see you everywhere, the only thing we share Is this small town You said it was a great love One for the ages But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages? My heart, my hips, my body, my love Tryna find a part of me that you didn't touch Gave up on me like I was a bad drug Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club Our songs, our films, united, we stand Our country, guess it was a lawless land Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand Paper cut stings from my paper-thin plans My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust Tryna find a part of me you didn't take up Gave you so much, but it wasn't enough But I'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts" By the time he finished reading it, you were sobbing. Having someone else read your material always made you feel vulnerable. But this time, the circumstances made the intensity almost unbearable.  "Do you want to talk about? You know we can discuss everything. We always did" he tried to help. "I.. I just want you to come back Dan. Please don‘t leave us hanging. I need you. There‘s no one else to talk to. We will talk this out with Sid. Please I want my best friend back.“  "Ok, let‘s do it“  While Dan kept fiddling around the guitar with 10 post its spread out in front of him, you decided to make a call, you feared since the minute Josh got down on one knee. Rufus.  "Yeah?“ A serious tone. No 'hello‘. No 'how are you‘.  "Hi Rufus“  "So... guess I’m not going to call you stepmom anytime soon?“ You were speechless.  "Was that all?“ He sounded rude, but he didn’t know any better in this moment.  "No“ you found your voice again.  "He didn‘t let me explain. I never said yes. I‘m not engaged, Rufus!!!!" "You‘re not??? He thought... you are and everyone said you... are you really not?" "No!! That‘s what I‘ve been trying to tell everybody! I‘m not engaged!!“ "Oh god. That man... I swear..“ he continued mumbling things that were inaudible "What do I do now?“  "umm he‘ll be at our concert... the day after tomorrow.. shepherd‘s bush..“  "I‘ll come there“ you enthusiastically announced.  "Good... maybeeeee you could get your ass up on stage for a special performance?“ he put on a silly voice, he always did this to make you laugh on tour. "Just like old times?" you could almost see the silly pout he would make, trying to give you puppy eyes.  "Ok, just like old times." You never doubted the abilities of anyone in your band and the riff that Dan created was proof enough. With the help of synthesizers, a piano part for the middle of the song was created, undoubtedly having a similar sound to the intro of 'Seven Seas of Rhye'. Intentionally of course. Bless technology you were able to send the sound samples to your other band members back in England. By midnight the track was finished. Ready to be released. And you did. At midnight the day you would meet Roger again. On your way back to England you transferred the 10.000 pounds Roger sent you, right back to him. And the headlines you‘d been avoiding started to make your phone explode.  The Sun: 'Y/N spotted drunk and alone in NYC after engagement‘ The Guardian: 'Did she say no to Josh? Here‘s why'  Daily Mail: 'New Purple Thunder song indicates Y/N had an affair all along‘ Daily Mirror: 'Y/N leaving Josh for married man?‘ You clicked through all of them. Inspected them. But thankfully no suspicion about who the song could actually be about. The day approached and it was an hour before showtime for The Darkness, but there was still no sign of Roger. You began imagining things, seeing him in the crowd as you peaked through the side stage curtains. But he wasn‘t there.  "He‘ll turn up“ Rufus stood behind you, his hand your shoulder. "My dad never lied to me. He sure won‘t start that bullshit now.“ That was Rufus, always trying to make a smile escape your lips.  The concert was almost over, when you joined them on stage for the last song and their most popular one. 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love‘. You owned the second verse and chorus and the crowd went crazy after recognizing you as special guest. It wasn‘t until  Rufus‘ drum solo that you recognized Roger looking at you in awe from the side of the stage.  Roger knew the picture in front of him just too well. Freddie always used to hype him up the way you did with Rufus. His heart swelled and he felt,it would jump out right  then and there. You bounced to the beat, head banging to the beat of the drums just like Rufus did, His messy blond hair sticking to his head. Rufus smiled at your reaction and hit the drums even harder.  Sadly, the song came to an end, but the adrenaline rush was there. Your heart was beating loudly, but seeing Roger smile proudly, clapping his hands... Boy.. you felt like having a  heart attack. He looked more handsome than ever. You bowed down with the whole band, but before you could make your way to Roger, Rufus gave you an encouraging pat on your shoulder. And as you got closer to where Roger was standing, his appearance became even more beautiful. His hair was messy, just the way you liked it. A bit ruffled. His black button-down shirt, with the top two buttons opened and blue eyes shining like the eyes of a little boy on Christmas morning. He still somehow had that boyish look and you adored it.  "Hi Rog-" He embraced you in a tight hug, the one‘d been craving since you returned to the empty penthouse.  "I‘m sorry. I didn‘t mean to make you feel that way. I should have listened. It‘s all my fault. I‘ve put everything upon you, when I shouldn‘t have. I thought you were playing me. But then again, I should have known that you would never do that. You would never do that...“ he buried his in your neck. "If I fucked it up and you never want to see me again, then I understand. But I wouldn‘t ever forgive myself for that.“  "I love you Roger“ he brought his head to your level again and there it was.  "I love you Y/N“ and your lips met. "Well that‘s new“ a surprised Justin (singer of The Darkness) caught your eye.  "Guys I’m happy for you “ he smiled was gone quickly after. "Let‘s get out of here“ Roger said quietly in a low voice, grabbed your hand and you snuck out through the back door, to his Kensington flat.  You knew you needed to talk about this whole situation again, but that could wait until tomorrow. Old scene, but a new picture. It was you and him on his massive crème couch, a movie on that was not worth watching. So youdozed off first, feeling Roger‘s arms wrapped around you, inhaling his scent. He kept playing with your hair, until he followed close behind. taglist: @oldfashionedlovergirlsblog @nicola2388

[mysticsparklewings]

Fire Flower

Note: I originally made this painting and typed most of the description towards the end of March. I meant to upload this sooner, but things happened it obviously got pushed way back. Oh gee, would you look at that. It has somehow been 8-9 months since I last made a full acrylic painting... But! I have a video for this one to make up for it! Link: youtu.be/8IgVvgTiZjM I promise I've been trying (and failing) to come up with ideas to do more with this medium. Acrylic paint just isn't my thing. I swear I said this somewhere before, but I have no idea where; It's just hard for me to commit to an acrylic painting when I know I can get the look I want usually much faster and much more easily with other supplies. Acrylic painting just takes so much more time, set up, and patience. This very painting I know I probably could've had done in half the time using primarily watercolor instead, for example. So why is this an acrylic painting instead of something quicker and easier? Because my dear Sparklers, I made this painting and filmed it as a bit of a blending demo for a friend. They tried their hand at an acrylic painting with a sky going from red to yellow...except they lost most of the yellow in the process, and even they weren't really sure how it happened. So since I'm in sort of an art teaching/mentoring position to them, I decided I'd pull out my paints and take a shot at a similar look. Now, to be fair, my end result is very different from their's intentionally. They painted a boat on the water during sunset, I wanted something different and more me, so after some browsing around on Pinterest, I settled on this flower silhouette. I made my own job harder because the reference image had a blue and orange background with lots of black, almost like a vignette, so once I got past the stage of putting the base background colors down, I had a lot more work cut out for myself in trying to replicate that. Speaking of which, you can see most of my process in the video, but a recap just in case: I started by picking out my paint colors, and to be fair I could've gotten away with less or slightly different colors, but I got extravagant and picked a total of nine colors from my Liquitex Basics set (also known as currently the only decent acrylic paints I have):

• Mars Black • Ivory Black • Titanium White • Cadmium Red Deep Hue • Cadmium Red Light Hue • Portrait Pink • Naples Yellow Hue • Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue • Primary Yellow Why the two blacks? Mars Black is a "denser" black so to speak, it's more opaque (less transparent/see-through). The Ivory Black is less opaque, and it's a bit warmer in color than the Mars black. I used the Mars black in areas where I wanted a total and complete black and the Ivory black where I wanted some of the colors from the background to leak through a bit. It's subtle, more of a "feeling" to the eye than something you can clearly see. Also, I used the Portrait Pink, which like the name implies is a very pink flesh tone, and the Naples Yellow Hue (think a shade similar to Yellow Ochre...or fancy Mustard if "yellow ochre" doesn't help you visualize) primarily for blending and not so much for the colors themselves. And the Cadmium Red Light Hue is much more of a reddish-orange in person than it is red, which is why I picked it. It's also pretty transparent (yellows and oranges often are in acrylic paints, especially more student grade ones like the Liquitex Basics) so it also got lost in the mix fairly easily and I had to build it up a lot. In the video, you can definitely see as I start that I do indeed do a lot of back and forth with the paints, blending and layering to my heart's content to try and get the right color balance while also getting a smooth transition. And this goes on for quite a while; the background was definitely the part that took the longest. Initially, I did sketch in a couple of lines as markers for roughly where I needed certain parts of the gradient to begin and end, and with the paints, I went in and got down the base of red and yellows so I could then start working on marrying the two together. And I have to admit, even I let my yellows get a bit lost/pushed down more so than I would've liked. It's a difficult balance to strike; red is already a strong color that easily overpowers yellow. It's even easier when the yellow and your transition colors are more transparent while the red is more opaque. And even more so when your painting has a vignette feel to it. But once I finally had something I was comfortable with and blocked in most of the black (which was a pain in the butt to blend out, by the way, as I'm sure is obvious by how much I go back and forth with it in the video, misusing a fluffy watercolor brush as a mop brush to blend), I then took my outline for the silhouette that I'd already prepared on another piece of paper and used a Faber Castell Gelato (first a gray, then later I'd use a black) on the back to be able to transfer it on the canvas by tracing it with a mechanical pencil with the point pushed in. Personally, I really do think the Gelatos are the best method I've tried for making faux-transfer paper. They're soft so they transfer the color without much fuss without making a powder smudge-y mess (like charcoal, chalk, or pastels might), and they're also water-soluble so they play nicely with the wetness of the acrylic paints, especially if you've thinned them with a bit of water. Then I got the lovely challenge of trying to paint and blend out a nice bright setting sun on top of the blackish mess I'd made.  (It actually wasn't that bad; the Titanium White is pretty opaque so once it mixed with the yellow and I got a couple of layers on it really didn't have any problem covering the darkness that it had to.) After that, I transferred again some of my lines I'd covered up and then got to work on the black silhouette parts. I did have to alter the look slightly because I wasn't quite as careful with lining up the placement of my "transfer paper" that second time and also because the brush had different ideas about how much black should be in some places than I did, but it wasn't too much of a hassle. And then, of course, the real challenge of blending the black up to meet the silhouettes without completely covering up my sun or messing up my other blending. Although, this also wasn't as tricky as I had thought it would be. Ironically, I think by the time I got this far I was finally starting to get a handle on the acrylics after having been away from them for so long.   Believe it or not, this tiny 4"x6"  painting took well over two hours to complete. I had at least two hours of footage that I trimmed down and sped up like four times, and that doesn't include the dry time in between two background layers, the background and the sun, and then the sun and the silhouette. I'd say it was probably closer to 3 and 1/2 hours total, although technically longer because I kept getting interrupted by things and I had to figure out how to set up the camera and everything before I actually started painting. Once I was done with the painting, I also had to actually edit the thing together, which took many more hours than I bothered to document or care to admit. (P.S. Whoever decided all free video editors that don't come pre-installed on a computer either must have stupidly low export limits and/or super obnoxious watermarks, I hate you.) Yeah, there's a reason it's been almost a year since I last posted an actual video of me making art... It just takes so long to edit everything together and I also have to make an extra effort to get stuff set up before and after for filming...Like, maybe it would be different if I had the space and resources to have an area where I could just leave everything and have a camera set up that doesn't move, but right now when my space is limited and my phone is my camera it's just so much easier to...well, to not. At any rate, here's one. One acrylic painting, and one video. A two-for-one special! Sort of! And I think both turned out pretty okay in the end, at least for someone that 1. Doesn't acrylic paint and 2. Doesn't make videos regularly. I call that a win, wouldn't you? Although, I have a few canvases stockpiled. I really should work on trying to squeeze more acrylic paintings into my art regimen somewhere to use those up, if nothing else... ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[istheresomebodywhocanimagine]

Tomorrow Never Came PT. 13

The final installment of the Tomorrow Never Came time travel series with your favorite soft boy, Roger Taylor. Thank you so much for reading all the way through, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Finishing the last few paragraphs was quite emotional, but it was time to say goodbye to this series. So read on and hopefully enjoy! :))

Read PT. 1 here | Read PT. 2 here | Read PT. 3 here | Read PT. 4 here | Read PT. 5 here | Read PT. 6 here | Read PT. 7 here | Read PT. 8 here | Read PT. 9 here | Read PT. 10 here | Read PT. 10.5 here | Read PT. 11 here | Read PT. 12 here

“Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four-“

“One, one, one, one,” Roger counted over you, speaking excessively loud, and you laughed as you shoved him away, losing count of the train cars in the process. “What?! I’m just counting!”

“You’re insufferable,” you giggled, leaning into his side as his arm automatically went around you, his legs kicking out and swinging back and forth as they dangled over the edge of the bridge that passed over the tracks below. He was warm, a welcome respite from the chilly fall air around the two of you, and he felt a shiver run through your body as you rested your head on his shoulder.

“Cold?” he observed, smiling softly when he saw you nod minutely, and the action made him draw the blanket tighter around the two of you, swaddling you both into the heavy quilted material. “Hey, in the future, do you lot still have trains?”

“Yes, Roger,” you snickered, closing your eyes as you felt the last of the train rumble by underneath you.

“What about…. Clogs? Please say no.”

“Not even shitting you, they become rubber. But they lose the height for the most part, thank god for that. Don’t tell Brian.” Roger laughed at that, resting his head on yours as the twilight sky dwindled around the two of you, making it hard for him to see much farther past the tracks below.

“I won’t tell him,” Roger replied softly, turning to press a kiss to the top of your head that was so soft and sincere that you opened your eyes, looking up to him with a bashful smile. His big, blue eyes met yours, and an abundance of affection overflowed from the irises, his pupils dilated noticeably as he smiled back at you, leaning down to capture your lips in a chaste, sweet kiss.

There was no affection in those baby blues, not now. As the door next to you opened, you whipped your head around to find Freddie and Roger stepping out, their conversation faltering when Roger’s eyes met yours. No affection at all. Curiosity, maybe a spark of it, but as far as Roger was concerned, you were just another pretty resident in the building, and so both men headed down the hallway as Roger started to complain about roommates again.

“If we don’t get another roommate by next month, Freddie, we’re toast.” The stack of flyers and a stapler were in his hand again, Freddie nodding in agreement and brushing his bangs out of his face.

“Think we could make Bri drop out and movie in with us?” Freddie questioned, Roger sighing in response and shaking his head.

“How could he graduate in ’74 if he didn’t keep going?” And then they were gone, leaving you with the crushing realization that a year’s worth of adoration, love, and respect was gone. You were nothing more than an insignificant speck in the life of Roger Taylor, and he could care less about the woman he’d just spotted carrying a pink dress in the hallway of his apartment building.

“Oh, God,” you croaked out, staring down the empty hallway in absolute distress. You were heartbroken, a few tears leaking out of your eyes as the world came crashing down before you. It was all reversed. Everything was the same again. Everything was right, except for you and Roger. So much of you still longed for him, for his voice, his eyes, his touch, his love. You longed for what it was like before, when you could crawl into bed with him at night and listen to him talk about his day, play with his hair until he fell asleep. Gone were the days where he’d saunter into the café, checking you out and deliberately sitting in your section so that he could playfully harass you while you worked.

Always in good fun – everything about Roger was fun. His intelligent jokes, his smile, his drunken antics, his date ideas, the way he danced around you while you made both of them breakfast. The way he’d try to elbow his way in and help sometimes, or distract you by feeding you blueberries. But he’d always compliment you on the food, no matter what, and said you were the second best personal chef he’d ever had. When prompted for the first, he always said his mom would be number one out of obligation, even though you were loads better. ‘But don’t tell her that!’ he’d begged, suddenly looking a bit afraid, and he’d whined when you teased him about it for hours afterwards.

You’d miss nothing more than those moments. He was so playful, so exciting to be around, and yet, you knew you’d miss the more intimate, serious moments just as much. When he’d rub your back, listening to you vent about a rude customer, and never interrupt as you got heated about the way they’d sent back their dish three times before they were finally happy. Talking about your frustrations, about world issues, about personal issues until the wee hours of the morning with him and Freddie, falling asleep on his lap when you got too sleepy. And he’d tuck you in when he and Freddie shuffled back to their rooms, Freddie always bringing out an extra pillow.

Damn, you’d miss Freddie just as much. Your other roommate and closest confidant besides Roger. He was so loving, so flamboyant, and so clever. God, if he only knew what an impact he’d make on the world in the near future, he’d keel over. His mind was unexplainable, an enigma that would shake the music industry and the entire world in the next couple decades. And that’s what was the most harrowing and simultaneously inspiring about his situation – he would only take two decades to make an impression on the known universe, doing work that took some people a lifetime to accomplish. Your smart, witty, adoring roommate Freddie Bulsara deserved everything, and you wish you could tell him that.

But that was impossible now. Strangers once again, you had no idea how to approach the two best friends you’d ever had. All of those memories were false now, distant and fabricated now that the timeline you’d just experienced was genuinely toast. But you couldn’t just leave it at this, cut it off all of a sudden without at least one more look, one more conversation.

And you supposed that’s what possessed you to remain far past your welcome again, leading you to be sitting here on the barstool of some pub down the road that you remembered Roger frequenting a lot in the early days of your stay. You’d changed into the Biba dress, having stuffed your regular clothes back into the closet you’d emerged from, and you were sipping on some lager that you bought with the money for the stupid Guinness your mom had given you. Thankfully, the bartender didn’t check the date of the notes before pouring the drink – you didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if they had.

Freddie was just walking in when you got the beer halfway down, and he was beaming at someone he’d recognized, pulling them into a warm, firm hug that only lasted a second or two. And then came Roger a few seconds later, followed by Brian and Mary. They were all in good spirits despite the roommate situation, and you wondered if they’d got the flyers up when you realized that Mary was eyeing you curiously, then whispering something to Rog and patting his back before seeming to excuse herself. Rog glanced your way, and for a brief second, recognition flickered on his face. Your heart stopped, and though it was impossible, a small part of your mind wanted to believe that somehow, everything hadn’t been erased. But then he was looking away again, off to greet the guy that Freddie had just hugged. You didn’t get a chance to see if it was someone familiar, though, because Mary was making a beeline for you, for whatever reason.

A million thoughts whirred through your brain all at once, but you tried to remain calm as the bright-eyed blonde came up to the bar next to you, ordering a beer before turning to face you with a curious, almost somewhat envious look.

“I love your dress,” she commented, and you looked down at the velvety pink fabric in befuddled surprise. Smoothing out the skirt slowly, you lifted your head again and shot her a convincing smile, trying to keep your breathing calm.

“Thank you, yours is gorgeous as well!” It wasn’t a lie. She was in a pink dress as well, a chiffon cocktail dress with bell sleeves that slimmed her up even more, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t wish you had that dress on instead right now. The crushed velvet, although pretty, wrinkled very fast.

“Do you work at Biba?” she asked, seemingly offhanded as she grabbed her beer, taking a sip of it and smiling. The smile faltered on your face as you stared at her in confusion, and she took it as an opportunity to continue. “It’s just that I didn’t think that design was hitting shelves for months! It was supposed to be a fall/winter exclusive, how’d you manage to snag it so early?”

“I don’t work there,” you laughed nervously, reaching up to tug at the bottom of your hair as you looked off nowhere in particular and tried to fabricate a lie. But the best you could come up with was weak at best. “I just know people, if that makes any sense.”

“You must know some pretty important people then,” Mary remarked, smiling encouragingly after you giggled nervously. “I’m Mary. I actually do work at Biba, if you want to put in a good word for me with the boss. Mary Austin.”

“Mary Austin.” You repeated her name softly, moving your mug of beer so it was in both hands, clasped tightly as you turned to face her on the barstool more. “I’ll have to remember that, yeah. I’m Y/N.”

Mary nodded as you introduced yourself, but her attention was directed elsewhere as she heard her name called out by Freddie, who was waving at her from across the bar. When he saw you, though, he raised an eyebrow quizzically before his brain put two and two together. Once he recognized you as the girl from the hallway earlier, his mouth formed into an o-shape for a second before he grabbed Roger’s arm and said something you couldn’t even begin to pick up from just reading his lips. Roger licked his own lips as you watched, focusing on Freddie speaking intently before looking back at you and nodding. Then, the both of them were headed towards you, Mary making a quiet noise of acknowledgement.

“Sorry, that’s my boyfriend and his roommate. They don’t have inside voices, be warned.” Giggling softly, a wondrous smile lingered on your lips as you fixated on Roger helplessly, unable to take your eyes off of him and his unbelievably confident strut over to the two of you.

“Was there a pink dress code thing tonight I was unaware of? You never tell me anything, Mary,” Freddie pouted playfully as he gave her a kiss on the cheek, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. When Mary only laughed, he smiled down at her for a moment and rolled his eyes teasingly before looking up to you. You were still watching Roger as he joined the fray, resting his weight on one foot and giving you a pleasant smile. “I don’t believe we even slowed down to get your name earlier, you were in our flat complex, weren’t you?”

After a pregnant pause, you finally registered that he was talking to you and you inhaled sharply, nodding before tearing your eyes away from Roger and shooting a nervous smile at Freddie. “Yeah, I live there. I was… trying to find the utility closet. Sorry if I scared you both.”

“Oh, no worries, love, we were just leaving.” Roger’s voice made you jump, and your heart began to race as you met his gaze, his lively blue eyes holding a hint of amusement at your flustered state. “Not sure you’d be able to get anything in that one next to our flat anyways, the light never works.”

A small ‘oh’ left your lips, and you chewed on the inside of your cheek before Mary took the liberty of introducing you all. Or, rather, attempting. It made your heart hurt, the fact that all of those memories with these two men were absolutely nothing more than that anymore – a memory. “Y/N, this is Freddie, my boyfriend.” A quick pat to Freddie’s chest made you nod, holding back a pained expression at the rambunctious spirit that you could no longer call your best friend standing opposite of you. “And this is Roger, but we call him Rog most of the time.”

“Rog,” you whispered, your eyes searching his face for a moment, just lost in the fact that he was so unfamiliar with you now, and yet he still had that same undying smirk.

“This is Y/N, boys. I was talking to her about her dress, apparently she knows some pretty high up people at Biba because this beauty doesn’t come out till August!” she exclaimed, squeezing Freddie’s side. He hummed in appreciation, Mary continuing on after sipping her beer a bit. “So, she’s going to put in a good word for me with the higher-ups and hopefully I can get off the floor.”

“Why would you want off the floor?” Roger asked curiously, eyeing Mary with a guarded look, but she seemed to see right through him as she moved her beer to the other hand, rolling her eyes and running a hand through the back of Freddie’s hair.

“You can still go ogle at the girls on the floor, Rog, I don’t need to be down there for you to find an excuse to do that.” Now it was Roger’s turn to roll his eyes, and he dismissively waved at Mary before looking back to you shaking his head.

“She’s joking.”

“She’s not joking,” Freddie immediately added, Roger whining a bit and giving his roommate a ‘What the fuck?’ look before crossing his arms and again turning back to face you.

“Whatever. Mary’s right, it is a beautiful dress. Very sweet-looking… flirty, like a little Cupid’s bow and arrow type thing.” Ouch. Your small smile faltered a bit as the mention of Cupid, and memories of Valentine’s Day edged their way into your mind. Taking a deep breath, you forced them out and pushed the smile back on your face, even if it was a bit fake.

“Thank you. You’ve got good taste, clearly.” Mary’s knowing gaze shifted from you to Roger, then back to Freddie, and Freddie only laughed before deciding to let go of his girlfriend and grab a drink from the bar, leaving the conversation to just you and not-your-boyfriend-anymore. “I wonder, do you go to Biba often to browse the selection?”

Mary snorted at that, barely audible due to her back being turned to the both of you, but Roger only looked mildly annoyed with her as he rubbed the side of his neck, pushing some of his golden brown locks back over his shoulder. “Not as often as Mary thinks I do, that’s for sure. But you can’t blame a man, can you?”

“For what?” you questioned, your grip still tight on your beer as you turned to face him fully on your barstool, crossing your leg. It was eerie, sitting here and chatting with Roger as though he was a stranger. You wanted to go back to the flat with him, smoke out of his window, listen to a few records, and help each other make dinner like old times. But now, if you were leaving this bar with him to go back to that flat at the end of the night, it wouldn’t be for those intentions. This time, you were nothing more than eye candy to Roger, and it killed you inside. To know that you weren’t that person to Roger anymore, no matter how much he was that person to you? Devastating.

“For….” Roger paused for a moment, seeming to be looking for the right words as he smiled a bit to himself and cast his gaze to the right momentarily. “For appreciating the female existence in all its shapes and forms, regardless of aesthetic standards and relative beauty.” An exaggerated gagging noise from Mary, and the other two made their way back across the bar, leaving the two of you alone.

“Wow,” you drawled out as you watched Freddie go, feigning surprise that he’d just pulled together such a beautiful sentence. After a moment, you let your gaze wander back to Roger, and you smiled slightly. “Smart and cute, what a catch.”

Roger looked rather pleased with himself after your comment, that self-assured smirk that had made you fall in love before playing at the corners of his lips. His hands slid into his pockets as he shifted his weight to the other foot, giving you a quick once-over. It set butterflies off in your stomach, ones that refused to be ignored as a light blush settled on your cheeks. You attempted to hide the blush by lifting your beer to down the rest, but he’d already seen.

“I’d like to think so. You’re pretty fit yourself, how come I haven’t seen you around the building more?” When you sat the empty glass on the bar, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket as he approached the open stool next to you, tossing a few notes on the bar and calling for two more drinks before climbing onto the stool and raising an eyebrow at you. “What were you having? It’s on me.”

“Uh, lager, thank you,” you replied quietly, turning to face the bar again and leaning forward on your elbows as the bartender fulfilled the request. Roger gripped the edge of the bar tightly with one hand, propping his head up on the other hand as he watched you curiously. You realized he was still waiting for an answer as the bartender served both of you the respective drinks he’d ordered, and you cleared your throat before taking a sip. “I just moved in. I’m new around here, so…”

“Well, as resident intellectual and Kensington specialist, I’d love to show you around the city a bit, if you’d like, that is?” he offered, also taking a sip of his drink as he let the offer sit on the table. The brief thought that you could stay a bit longer and have one last fling with Roger suddenly occurred to you. After all, what would one last time hurt?

Everything. It would ruin everything. As strong as you thought you could be, you know that one time would lead to another, and then leaving him after getting attached again would probably be worse than the first time.

Looking around at the bar patrons for a moment before settling on Roger, you sighed inwardly. This was your home, your everything, but it was never meant to be. As much as you desperately wanted to stay here and spend the rest of your life with Roger, you knew that Weston was right. But Roger was patient as you once again ran through your inner turmoil (shocker). He ran the calloused pad of his middle finger along the side of his glass and collected some beer that had spilled over before swiping it over his tongue just briefly, his blue eyes catching yours. You couldn’t decide between staring at his tongue that just barely poked through his teeth or the Tiffany blue irises framed by pretty blonde lashes.

Damn it, he was too tempting. “Sounds exciting. What about right now?”

“Right now?” he questioned, raising a light eyebrow in surprise. When you responded by chugging down the rest of your beer and jumping off your stool, an amused look came onto his face as he slid off the barstool as well, finishing his drink. “I guess we are going right now. Let me go back over and tell Freddie I’ll be home later. Wait here, yeah?”

“Alright,” you agreed, smiling up at him and hugging your waist as he began to head over to the table, glancing back at you once or twice in wonder before he got there. And you intended on waiting, really, but something distracted you.

Well, someone. Propped up against the doorframe next to the entrance was Weston, and your blood ran cold. You were sure that every trace of happiness in your expression as well as your body disappeared, and instead a defiant look took its place. But as much as it was defiant, there was also a defeat evident, a hardened way that your jaw set, and Weston could tell you were pissed as you glanced at Roger one more time before reluctantly making your way towards Weston, lips pressed into a thin line.

No words were exchanged as you passed him, bursting out onto the street angrily and storming back towards the building. But Weston just followed, an ‘I told you so’ lingering on the tip of his tongue as he was just a couple steps behind you, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I mean, I’d say it, but you already know what I’m going to say based on the fact that I didn’t trust you enough to leave you alone here again.”

“Save it, Weston,” you hissed as you held up a hand over your shoulder, signaling for him to stop talking while you were still in such a livid state. “I can’t tell whether I want to punch you or cry right now. Or both.”

“Hey, kid, I know how you feel. Trust me. I’d let you punch me, but that would just be stupid.” You rolled your eyes at that, a few tears threatening to spill over as you refused to turn and look at him, instead rounding the last corner before you’d be headed straight down to the cursed old flat building. “You just wanted to try it one more time, yeah? With him?”

“Why does it even matter to you?” you muttered, angrily wiping away the tears, but you slowed down a bit, letting him catch up to you and match your pace. “Yes. I wanted to see him one more time. Quitting cold turkey kind of sucks. Like, a lot.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Weston chuckled, crossing the street with you and looking around at London for a moment before sighing and tapping his fingers against his thighs. “Listen, I tried countless ‘one more times’ with Abigail. It will never get better. You’re only making yourself more miserable.”

“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t seem surprised by your answer, and said nothing as you reached the door to the stairs, his hand immediately going out to pull them open and let you in. Following you in and up the stairs, nothing was left to be said until you’d both reached the door, the sign staring at you like a death warrant as you slowed to a stop, brushing away a few more tears. “Thanks for coming to get me. I know that you just didn’t want to see me get hurt, but I had to see him again. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly before reaching out and opening the door, holding it for you. “You did what any normal human would do. We all want what we can’t have.”

“Yeah.” You stared at the darkened closet, a bundle of your clothes laying just inside the doorframe. Snatching them up and clutching them to your chest, you closed your eyes and shook your head. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

And then you marched forward into the pitch black abyss of the utility closet, Weston’s eyes following you the whole way.

-

Lake Geneva was beautiful, if a bit cold. It wasn’t overcast in Montreux, but a looming dark cloud in the distance threatened to soak everyone headed into Casino Barrière, including you.

It was Freddie’s 73rd Birthday Party. As pricey as the tickets were, you’d managed to save up enough to snatch one before they were gone, with promises of one singular complimentary drink and a t-shirt, plus a cover band playing The Miracle album front to back. And you knew Roger would be there. Sure, it wouldn’t be the Roger you knew, but it was worth trying to catch a glimpse of the one who got away at some point that night.

Since last year, you’d visited Weston quite a bit. As much as you knew he thought you were still a kid, weak and willing to succumb to every temptation, you actually grew to enjoy his company a lot. And he enjoyed yours, even going so far as cleaning up his guest room whenever he knew you were coming. It was an odd relationship, sure, but he felt like a father to you, and he decided you weren’t as spineless as he’d originally thought.

Dan wasn’t trying anymore. A long, tear-filled intervention with you and Weston put a stop to the attempts, and now the portal was patched up and made to look like a part of the wall, the door never to be opened again. Now, it was your apartment.

Sure, it was painful looking at that church every day, but since you’d checked your mom into assisted living facilities, the cheap rent and familiar location served as a new home to you. The café you’d worked at had closed down, but you frequented the coffee shop that had sprung up in its place. And although you weren’t alone by any means, there were times that the loneliness was overwhelming.

Now was not one of those times. In the true spirit of keeping Freddie’s legacy alive, the crowd was lively, animated, and all decked out in silly hats. Freddie had apparently held a silly hat party for his 40th back in 1986, and this had been chosen for the theme this year as the casino came alive with Queen fans, family, and friends alike. People were so nice, chatting with anyone they’d see, and you’d met quite a few lovely people by the time the night was dwindling to a close. People were slowly filtering out after the cover band had played the last song and had been replaced by the regular live band, and you decided to just get one more drink and stay a bit longer at the casino. Even though you hadn’t seen Roger, you still felt like a night hadn’t been wasted as you climbed onto the barstool that was at one corner, waiting patiently for the bartender to help you while you scrolled on your phone.

Deep into Twitter, you almost didn’t notice the glass of white sparkling wine placed in front of you, but you looked up at the bartender as he cleared his throat, nodding over to the far side of the bar. “Gentleman down there already paid for it. Cheers.” With that, the bartender was gone, and you shifted your gaze over to find a white-haired, bearded older man with robin’s-egg eyes, staring you down very curiously.

It took you a moment to register who it was, but you had to choke on the surprised noise in your throat as Roger climbed off his stool carefully, sidling over and taking the stool on the other side of the corner, a respectful distance away. “Didn’t mean to alarm you, love. What’s your name?”

His voice was still so soft, if a bit more raspy than you remembered, and you felt a bit dizzy as you let your fingers wrap around the stem of the wine glass, swirling it a bit. “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect anyone to buy me a drink,” you managed to respond, a bit too quiet, but then you cleared your throat in an attempt to not sound so overwhelmed. “Y/N. Thank you for the drink. You didn’t have to-“

“I wanted to, don’t worry,” he laughed, cutting you off before you could sell yourself short. “You were alone and looked like you could use one. I’m Roger, by the way.” His eyes shifted to the hat you’d placed on the bar next to you, and another chuckle left his lips, the laugh so inviting and familiar that you had to take a sip of wine to distract yourself. Music started playing over the speaker that seemed to be in the kitchen that was just past the bar, and you couldn’t help but smile as All Along The Watchtower’s familiar wailing guitar started in.

“Hendrix,” you both mused at the same time, an embarrassed blush painting your cheeks a soft red as Roger laughed, looking towards the kitchen and giving you a chance to take him in. He was far more wrinkled than the last time you’d seen him, obviously, but that didn’t take away from the playful gleam in his eyes, the smirk that constantly played at his lips. He looked good in a beard, you decided, but there was still a part of your heart that longed for the wavy, dirty blonde shoulder-length locks of the 70’s. Scruffy looked good on Roger, but he’d cleaned up since then, and he looked unbelievably spotless and quite young for his age. Then, he began to speak, drawing you out of your trance as he turned his head to look at you again.

“I always loved Hendrix. Thought that he did this piece loads better than-“

“Bob Dylan. Of course.” You nodded in agreement, sipping at the wine again and smiling at the memory of laying in Roger’s room long before you were ever an item, listening to him go on and on about how much better Hendrix’s interpretation was.

“You know your stuff!” he remarked in amusement, hitting his fist down against the bar lightly in emphasis. “Who taught you?”

“My boyfriend,” you answered honestly, face screwing up for a moment before you shook your head. “Well, my ex. He loved Hendrix, Zeppelin, Van Morrison. He even liked Bob Dylan…. Just liked Hendrix a bit more.”

“Well, he’s got great taste in music, then.” Roger was all smiles, and it hurt your heart to see him so blissfully ignorant of the fact that you were talking about him. It was him who loved Hendrix, who idolized Led Zeppelin, who thought that Bob Dylan was good, but Hendrix was just on another level, so much better.

“Yeah,” you replied softly, scanning over his face for a moment before averting your eyes to the live band on the opposite end of the ballroom, playing some slow, brass-heavy tune that clashed with the sound of Hendrix. “He had the best taste in music. Had a good ear for it.”

The live band switched into another song, a slower one, and Roger noticed your eyes lingering on them as he followed your line of vision. After seeming to ponder it for a moment, he turned back to you and nodded towards the dance floor, raising an eyebrow. “Do you like to dance?”

A furious blush returned to your cheeks as you finished off the wine, sitting the glass farther away from you and flicking your tongue out over your lower lip to clean the remaining wine off. “I’m afraid I’m no good at that. Ex never taught me how to dance, he wasn’t like that. Too much happening up here.” You tapped on your head, knowing that it was only hurting you more to talk about Roger with Roger, but it wasn’t like he’d ever know. His unwavering gaze stayed on you, though, and you pursed your lips before laughing a bit. “I do like to dance, though. Don’t get that opportunity often.”

“Well, we’ll just have to get you out there, then.” With that, Roger got off his stool and held out his arm. “No use in wasting an opportunity.”

The offer remained on the table as you glanced from his arm up to his eyes, chewing on the inside of your cheek as conflict raged on inside your head. Would it hurt to do this? Probably. Would you be sad once it was over? Definitely. But the realization that doing this only put you in danger was putting your mind at ease. Even when you said yes to this dance, you wouldn’t be risking anybody’s health but your own by doing so. Roger would be safe, and that was okay with you.

Leaving your things on the bar, you slid off your stool and linked your arm into his, beaming up at him. “Lead the way.”

Grinning just as wide, Roger looked forward again and led the two of you onto the dance floor. Once there, his hand took ahold of your gently as his other hand came to rest on your waist, and the two of you began slowly swaying to the music as you let your free hand come to rest on his arm. This was something that was somewhat unfamiliar, the soft, dancing side of Roger having come out very rarely in the year you’d spent with him. But it was nice, and you couldn’t have wiped the smile off your lips if you’d tried.

“To be honest with you,” Roger started, his voice just audible over the strong melodies and harmonies of the live band, “I bought you a drink because you reminded me of a time when I was younger.”

A mild panic fluttered in your heart as you tried to think of the safest way to navigate the subject. You didn’t particularly want to expose time travel to him, well, ever, so this was a tricky subject to tiptoe around. “Did you buy a lot of girls drinks when you were younger?”

“If I had the money!” he laughed, rolling his eyes at himself before shaking his head. “Even if I didn’t have the money, I usually did anyways. Bought drinks all the time for beautiful ladies at the bar, like yourself. You actually look like someone I probably bought a drink for back in my college days, but that’s-“

“Impossible,” you finished for him, confirming what he assumed to be true as you tried to subdue the shake in your hands from nerves.

“Sure you didn’t have a grandma in the area?” he asked playfully, and you laughed out a negative as you avoided his gaze, instead dropping your own to the boutonniere he had stuffed partially in his front pocket. The swaying motion of your bodies, in sync, was almost sleep-inducing, but it would have been a bit out of pocket for you to fall asleep in his arms like that. That wasn’t your privilege anymore. “Figured. It’s all a blur, so maybe I’m just imagining things. Wishful thinking... Happens a lot when you get older.”

“Maybe so,” you agreed softly, a small smile gracing your lips for a moment as you looked back up to him. His eyes were just as beautiful as the first day you’d looked into them, and you got lost for a moment before continuing. “Thank you for asking me to dance. It’s nice – not a lot of guys my age like dancing.”

“When I was your age, I really didn’t either, so I don’t blame them,” Roger chuckled, twirling you carefully before speaking again once he’d rested his hand on your waist respectfully. “But I grew to appreciate it when I got older. Decided that it was sweet. A lot changes between now and then. Plus, my wife enjoys it, so I’ve got to keep the missus happy, right?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” you practically whispered, the live band slowing to a stop. Taking a deep breath, you forced a smile onto your lips as you gave him a hug, ignoring the unfamiliar cologne that now lingered on his collar. “Thank you again. Have a good one, yeah?.”

“You too,” he murmured, reciprocating a friendly hug before letting go of you and nodding amiably. A sweet smile rested on his lips, and you had to take one last glance before you turned away, heading back towards the bar slowly. It seemed like time had stopped momentarily as you grabbed your hat, heading for the back exit of the casino/resort that led to the lakeside, and you didn’t feel like you’d stepped out of slow-motion until you reached the edge of the lake, leaning over the railing.

It was dark now, the impending storm directly overhead and obscuring any moonlight, so the only lights around were reflecting off of the lake’s surface. The water lapping up against the rocks below looked pitch black, and you stared down at it, entranced by the beauty of the rhythmic waves. You were so focused on the water that you hardly noticed the light rain that began to fall, a welcome, gentle force that contrasted with the angry black clouds that the tiny raindrops fell out of. And as you felt yourself getting soaked to the bone, you couldn’t help but smile, letting a few teardrops of your own mix with the water gathering on your skin.

Maybe he wasn’t yours, and maybe it didn’t work out, but he was alright, and that was alright with you. Things weren’t as bad as they could be, and that was okay. Everything was okay, you decided. 

Life would go on.

-

PT. 1 PT. 2 PT. 3 PT. 4 PT. 5 PT. 6 PT. 7 PT. 8 PT. 9 PT. 10 PT. 10.5 PT. 11 PT. 12

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[bits-bobs-and-barnes]

Fall From Grace; Chapter 9 {Bucky Barnes x Reader}

Warnings: intense sexual lust, and nudity

Tags: @collette04 @nickyl316h @hiddles-rose @steve-rogcrs @letsthedogpackandthecats @butteryoptimisticpeanut @jilldsumner @stat89posts

{Author’s Note: This one’s a little longer, so strap in! As always, like and reblog to help the blog, and drop me comments or an ask to give me some feedback! I hope you enjoy the latest installment of Fall From Grace!}

Read the previous chapter here! A heavy sheen of sweat had broken out across your forehead, and you struggled to keep your guard up, feeling the weight in your limbs.

Romero came to a stop, looking perfectly at ease. “Do you want me to take it easy?” He asked, lowly, his eyes drifting to the commander, who was currently correcting Rivera’s stance and chiding him for dropping his guard again.

You shook your head, pulling back your shoulders and straightening up your form. “I think the new pills are messing with my head,” you surmised, stepping forward and throwing a half-hearted jab. “I’ve been sweating since last night- and I can’t focus on anything but-” you groaned as he snagged your ankle and pulled you to the ground, pressing his knee into your chest and holding you in place.

He gave a toothy smile. “I couldn’t resist,” he confessed, “keep your feet a little closer together, or your guard is wide-open.” He stood and extended a hand.

You could feel the eyes of the commander, and ignored him, taking his offered hand and righting yourself back on your feet. “Noted,” you breathed, feeling that familiar shortness of breath that resulted when you were thrown on your back. “I keep feeling these tingles, all over my skin,” you explained, stepping forward in an attempt to throw him, but found him undaunted. “And I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest.” You drew forward again, swinging, but instead, opening yourself to another of his attacks.

He grabbed your shoulder and spun you, tightening an arm around your waist, and the other loosely around your neck. “I have that effect on people,” he teased in your ear, holding you for a second longer than necessary.

You felt a bolt of warmth burst from your chest, and trail down towards your thighs. Your lips curved into an unsteady smile. God, you’d been in this facility too long- and Romero was looking far too appealing in the plain black gear.

He released you, his eyes seeming to glisten with unspoken mischief. He retook his stance, though it seemed to be just a formality to you, given the back and forth of the conversation. “I wish we weren’t confined to our rooms,” he mused, beginning a soft stride to your left, and letting your eyes follow the movement as he circled the mat.

You lifted a brow, making sure to keep him at arm’s length, and always just in front of you, never to the side. “Oh yeah? And where would you go?” You tried to shake off the momentary warmth of your cheeks, reminding yourself that you had an audience, and that even if you were alone, everything you did was on tape. You glanced up at the camera perched in the corner almost reflexively, you’d grown far too used to the surveillance- since Marie’s death, they seldom gave you a moment of privacy.

He took the moment of weakness to lunge, hooking his leg around yours and pulling you off-balance, placing one hand to the small of your back, and the other to your sternum, forcing your body to straighten in his grasp as he applied pressure to your spine. “You wouldn’t invite me to visit yours?” He replied, and you could practically feel the timbre of his voice as it curled over your ear, producing an imperceptible shiver. His thumb peeked just over the neckline of your shirt, touching the skin, and lingering for just a second before he retracted his touch, allowing you to walk away.

You felt your breathing stall for just a second. “Cocky,” you chided, finding it hard to focus on the fight now. There was something bigger at stake now, and you couldn’t find the heart to care if your form was sloppy.

The rest of the fight continued in a similar manner. He’d throw you, and offer some half-veiled flirtation that turned to weak-criticism when the commander walked by. He always gave a brief smile after, as though he was apologizing for the front. It felt forbidden, dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as your almost-encounter with the commander. You didn’t think Romero would choke you… unless you asked him to.

Finally, you felt your sore muscles give out, and you stayed on the mat, panting, and staring up at him with a mixture of adoration and contempt. “You win,” you admitted, closing your eyes to grant you a moment of respite. “I surrender.” You could hear his laughter, and smiled reflexively. There was something joyful about being around him, a sort of lingering haze that made it easier to breathe. When Romero was around, you didn’t feel so melancholy. “Is he looking?” You asked, voice soft enough to avoid detection if the commander was indeed nearby.

“Not right now,” he answered, and you could hear the soft thump of his footfalls as he crossed the mat, followed by the feeling of his hand on your forehead, checking your temperature, and almost reflexively pulling back. “Do you want to get up?”

“Not particularly,” you stole a peek at him, “do you want to knock me on my ass again?” You teased, lifting your arm to shield your eyes from the harsh fluorescent light.  

He kneeled on the mat, and hooked an arm beneath your left knee, lifting the limb and pressing your knee back towards your shoulder. His other hand drifted to take a grip of your shoulder, fingers skimming the warm flesh on his path, before he pressed your shoulder into the mat too.

You were, in essence, pinned, but you made no great effort to escape the cool confidence of his hands.

“If you asked me to,” his words were soft and melodic, “I would do this again.” and then his touch was removed, and he was standing back on the mat, guard raised without a word.

You could hardly find the willpower to stand, aching in every part of your body, and returning to your cell, taking the fistful of pills they presented with little complaint, and curling up with your pillow, beginning to relax and fall into a slumber.

And then, the heat started. An uncomfortable warmth, building just between your thighs, and prompting a constant shifting beneath your uncomfortably itchy sheets. You kicked them off, and shifted again, trying to bury your face in your pillow and retire, but finding that now, the discomfort resided in the once comfortable polyester of your clothing. You needed to take it off, or you were sure you would die. You were in a full sweat as you practically tore off the night-clothes, feeling the surge of energy return with a vengeance. Your heart was beating out of your chest, and you allowed a wanton cry to seep from between your lips. Your mind was blank, only a sea of emotions and sensations dictated your thoughts.

You ran a hand over your hip and shivered at the goosebumps the gesture produced. You were insatiable, and though your touch felt good, you couldn’t help but imagine what larger more competent hands could accomplish. You could feel Romero, whispering softly in your ear, easing you forward as he confidently guided your movements. His hands were warm, grabbing, teasing, and unyielding. You reached to grab the pillow, intending to find an anchor, but somehow, finding it between your legs. You rocked on the uncomfortable cotton pillow case, and allowed more of the shameful cries to leave your mouth, sounding like an adult-film star midway through a shoot. Suddenly, one of his hands pulled away, and you whined with disappointment, but it soon returned, metal digits drifting across your rear. You hardly noticed when the commander took over, but he quickly made himself known in your dreamlike fantasies, taking a fistful of your hair and pulling tightly.

“You’re mine, Y/L/N. Not his.”

The morning didn’t come easily.

You were twitching and spent, nude on top of an uncovered mattress, pillow taking the brunt of your nighttime activities. You could hardly respond when the doctor inquired of your condition, and did not react beyond a tick or two when he examined you. You could hear his voice, but lacked the energy to do much else beside superficially listen in to his comments.

“She’s in serious condition, sir, she’s not in any shape for training, she can’t even stand.” There was a pause. “Perhaps, but if this is a serious reaction?” Another pause. “If you insist, sir.”

You felt a hand touch your forehead, shortly followed by a rag to wipe away the sweat. “This reaction is entirely normal, Y/N, and the delusions and hallucinations are side-effects of your medication. They should be receding in the next few hours, this is merely your body’s natural immune response to the chemicals.” It was a male voice, one you had never heard before. “We are giving you a sedative to ease the process, but this will still be incredibly physically taxing. We are going to restrain you, to prevent you from doing harm to yourself or the other physicians.” He called to someone else in the room, and laid a hand on your forehead, feeling your temperature, and sighing softly with disappointment. “I imagine my analysis does not satiate you, my dear, so I’ve brought in your commander to speak to you more personally while I prepare your medication.”

You could hear the soft tread of footsteps, and felt the bed dip beside you, but you did not have the strength to pry open even a single eyelid.

“How you managed to moan through soundproof walls astonishes me,” his voice was a thick and heavy whisper, as though he too was fighting the effects of sleep, “I had to watch and rewatch your fight with Romero, trying to find the exact moment your mutation took hold.” One vibranium digit drew a sharp line over the outside of your thigh. “I didn’t find it,” he admitted, pausing for a second as a brief conversation lifted behind him. “But I did find the exact moment his did.”

You couldn’t see his face, but you imagined it was stern, serious, but crushed beneath a mask of neutrality.

“Be careful with that one,” his finger again raised over bare flesh as though he was unaware of the torture the motion pulled you through. “He’s just as dangerous as any of you.”

[aquaminwrites]

Skin Deep: 03

Pairing: Yoongi x Tattoo Artist!Reader (M/F) Genre: Friends to lovers, slow burn. Eventual smut. Rating: 18+  Warnings: None Word Count: 5.5K

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read the first two instalments of this story! Feedback is always appreciated, I would love to hear what you think so far!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 (links removed due to tumblr issue)

Yoongi can’t sit still. He’s seated at a table by the window of the coffee shop, one a few blocks away from your studio. He’s fidgeting with whatever he can get his hands on—the sugar and sweetener packets in the tiny bowl beside the stir sticks, the hem of his black turtle neck that somehow managed to trap stray pieces of white lint, and his phone, which he can’t stop picking up and putting back down.

He tugs at his leather jacket for the hundredth time, wondering if keeping it on would be better, or if taking it off would make him look a little more casual. Yoongi is just about to take it off when he spots you entering the cafe, wearing an oversized maroon sweater that hangs off one shoulder, hair down, and a pair of jeans that look like they’ve been painted onto your legs.

He gulps. And decides to keep the jacket on.

You peer around the cafe before spotting him. You send him a small wave before pointing at the menu above the counter, signalling that you’re going to quickly order your drink before joining him. He nods in return and focuses back on his own cup, already half drained. His leg bounces under the table at an irregular beat that he can’t control.

After a few minutes, you make your way over and sit across from him at the table. He notices the way you approach with a slight edge of caution, as if you don’t really know what to say to him.

You settle on, “Hi.”

Yoongi notices the slight bounce of your knee under the table as well.

“Hi,” he replies quietly, offering up the tiniest of smiles. You return it, looking down at your mug as the steam rises past the ceramic. It’s quiet for a beat before Yoongi can’t take it anymore. “Look,” he begins. “I’m really sorry for how I acted the other day. It wasn’t fair.”

You nod, your thumb caressing the rim of the cup. You’re not looking at him, not yet, as you gather your thoughts.

“Do you know why it wasn’t fair?” You ask softly. Yoongi doesn’t respond, just waits for you to continue. You finally lift your head, gaze bearing into his. “You not only disrespected me as a person, but you disrespected me as an artist. I don’t give a shit about what people say about my appearance. I got over that a long time ago. But my art is important to me, and what I do is important to me. And you had no right to belittle me in that way.”

“I know, I understand,” Yoongi responds earnestly. “I just…” He swallows. “You make me nervous.”

You fold your arms over your chest, tilting your head to the side. “I make you nervous?” You repeat, a little stunned. “Why?”

Yoongi scratches at the back of his head, then tugs lightly on the top of his ear. It’s a habit he developed as a child whenever he was being reprimanded that he never seemed to be able to shake.

“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” he admits. “And not just because you’re a tattoo artist or because you have tattoos. You just…I don’t know. You seem so sure of yourself, and so confident all the time. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when I get nervous, I tend to put my foot in my mouth a lot.”

The corner of your lips twitch up into a smile. “I hadn’t.”

“Ha,” he deadpans, and you each take sips of your coffee. “But honestly. I’m just…a little more old-fashioned when it comes to stuff like this, you know?”

“I know, and I get it,” you tell him, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture exposes a little more of the peony on your neck, and Yoongi’s eyes trace over it briefly before settling back on your face. “I’m not asking you to change your mind. I’m just asking that you be ten percent less judgmental when it comes to the actual human beings underneath the ink.”

“I’m going to try,” he promises. “I can be kind of dense about this shit sometimes, so it won’t happen overnight. But I’m going to try, I really will.”

You shoot him a thankful smile. “You know, you say you’re scared of people with tattoos, that they’re thugs and criminals. But if I’m being honest, I’m more afraid of people in suits and slicked back hair, the ones that control big companies and entire countries. They’re the ones who do damage on a national—and international—scale.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow with a grin. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re an anarchist or something?”

“Not an anarchist,” you hum. “Just critical of the people who claim to be in charge.”

Yoongi huffs out a laugh, a tiny croaky noise that’s barely audible, though his shoulders shake slightly. You send him a strange look, tilting your head to the side in a silent question. Amusement glints in your eyes, and he says, “I’m just realizing now that I don’t really know anything about you.”

Your smile widens, revealing rows of perfect, white teeth. “Would you like to?”

He quirks a brow. “What do you mean?”

You pull out your phone, tapping away until you show him an article on the screen. It reads Deep Questions to Ask A New Friend.

You lower your voice and grin. “Do you want to play a game?”

Yoongi can’t help but roll his eyes. “Alright, big nerd. Noted.”

“Hey!” You reach over and lightly smack his arm. “Come on, Mr. Music Producer. Indulge me. You might be surprised, because I want to get to know you, too.”

Yoongi lets out a snort, but tries to cover it up with a cough. It doesn’t go unnoticed by you, who raises an eyebrow at him, almost like a challenge. “Why don’t we just play Truth or Dare, then?” He’s joking, but the glint in your eyes tells him that you’re about two seconds away from taking him up on that offer. So instead, he dials back and says, “Deep questions, then. Okay. Ask away.”

“Alright,” you clap, a smile spreading across your face and lighting up your eyes. “I’ll ask, then you answer. And then I’ll give my answer after.”

Yoongi nods. “Rules seem pretty simple.”

You clear your throat and read out the first question. “What is your idea of a perfect day?”

Yoongi opens his mouth to respond, then debates if he should tell you the truth, or something that makes him seem edgy or exciting. His internal debate lasts maybe ten whole seconds—he’s already wearing his leather jacket, so maybe that would take care of the ‘edginess’ factor he was worried about earlier—before he settles on the truth. He figures that you’d appreciate it more.

“Honestly,” he sheepishly scratches at the back of his head, tugging on his ear gently. “One where I could stay inside and work on music. Without distractions. And maybe a nap or two thrown in there for good measure.”

“Ah, classic workaholic,” you affirm. “I’m like that too, don’t worry. I definitely prefer staying in than going out. Bars and stuff are okay, but clubs are—”

“Way too loud,” Yoongi agrees. “Too many people.”

“How are you supposed to hear anyone talk!” You exclaim, tossing your hands in the air for dramatic effect. “I mean, good for the people that want to dance and get wild, but I have too many lower back problems and I’m too awkward for clubbing. Plus, I can’t dance.”

“So…” Yoongi takes a sip from his coffee, sounding bemused and also just the tiniest bit hopeful. “Next time we hang out, you want to go clubbing, is that what you’re saying?”

You shoot him a playful glare. “Ha, ha,” you tease. “Very funny. Who knew that Mr. Serious could joke? And let’s just get through the rest of these questions first, before you get ahead of yourself and assume we’re going to hang out again.”

Yoongi straightens in his seat, prepared for the next one. Your tone is light and joking, maybe even a hint of flirtatiousness intermixed, but he still doesn’t want to screw anything up. He’s also pretty sure he’s imagining the flirtatious part, too.

You read the next question aloud. “When was the last time you cried?”

He has to pause to think. Yoongi isn’t good at emotions, processing them or reading them on other people. He also doesn’t cry very often—chalk it up to toxic masculinity or just his general aloofness when it comes to that part of his brain. But the emotion he feels more strongly when he’s upset is anger, not sadness.

“It’s been a while,” he admits. “Maybe…two or three months ago?”

You gape at him. “That long?”

He shrugs, eyes scanning over your face nervously. “I mean, yeah. Why, when did you cry last?”

Your face falls as you carefully fold your hands in your lap and look anywhere but him. In a quiet voice, you admit, “Last week. After I got home from the bar.”

Yoongi feels his heart shattering into a thousand pieces, each shard sinking to the pit of his stomach and haemorrhaging along the way. “Y/N, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, it’s okay,” you brush past it. “We talked about it already, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to get back into all that again, that wasn’t my intention. I’m not good at emotional stuff, if I’m being honest. I was in therapy for a while, and my therapist told me that I need to express my emotions more. But that…” You shake your head, forcing a smile back on your face. “It doesn’t matter. Next question…”

The two of you go back and forth for the better part of two hours as you go through the list. Some of them are morbid, asking about life after death and the idea of reincarnation, and some are a little more lighthearted, like your weirdest habit and fondest childhood memory.

Yoongi finds himself sinking into the conversation, losing track of time as he leans forward on his elbows. He is completely engrossed in you, hanging off every word you say. He’s never met someone who seems so sure of themselves, so willing to be open and honest without much apprehension. And yet, he senses trepidation still, masked so carefully under the façade of self-assurance that he probably wouldn’t have been able to spot it if the two of you hadn’t been delving into such difficult topics.

“Here’s an interesting question,” You say, scrolling down on your phone. Yoongi raises an eyebrow as he sips his now lukewarm coffee, but you continue. “How did you fall in love for the first time?”

He nearly chokes, sputtering as he attempts to bring the air back into his lungs. “W-what kind of question is that?”

You pretend to act noncommittal, but he can tell that you are rapt with attention. “Just a question.”

“I…”

Yoongi isn’t sure how to answer, if he’s being honest. He was never good with his emotions growing up, and a lot of that translated into a stunted ability to have romantic relationships. He’s been with his fair share of girls, but none of them ever stuck around. They were mostly good for a night, enough to scratch an itch. Maybe one or two of them made him think that a steady relationship was possible, but there hasn’t been anyone he’s wanted to try it out with before.

“I’ve never been in love,” he confesses.

Your face softens into something somewhat sad. “Really? Never?”

“No,” Yoongi shakes his head. “I mean, it sounds nice. And maybe one day I will be. But…no. Never felt that way about anyone before.”

You let out a derisive laugh. For a second, Yoongi thinks you’re laughing at him, but when he glances up he sees that you’re staring absentmindedly out the window. “Probably better off that way,” you admit quietly. “Easier than dealing with heartbreak.”

Yoongi suddenly feels really awkward, unsure of what to do. So he just sits in silence with you for a beat longer, as your eyes grow more and more distant. He sees the hurt etched in your features, and he longs to take it away. To soothe it with a balm, to make sure you never get that look in your eyes again. It’s a foreign feeling that he tries to suppress. He hates how you shrink into your seat, how your shoulders round inward at the memories of the past.

Still, he has to ask. “I take it you’ve been in love, then?”

“Yeah,” you respond, barely above a whisper. He notices the rasp in your voice, how it seems thick like you’re holding back tears. “Once.” You see that he’s eyeing you with caution, looking at you how everyone else does when they find out. You try to divert it by adding, “It’s not all bad, though, you know? Love is beautiful. I’m glad I got to experience it at least once.”

You sigh, tugging at the ends of your hair.

“Sorry for being a bummer. I didn’t mean to put a damper on things. And before you ask, I’m fine, I promise. I meant it, love is beautiful. I hope you get to experience it one day, Yoongi.”

He hesitates, but decides to be bold and ask anyway. “How will I know if I’m in love?”

You suddenly look nostalgic, playing with your fingers a little. “Trust me. You’ll just know. One day it’ll hit you and you won’t be able to imagine who you were before you met them. It’s like falling asleep—slowly, and then all at once.”

Yoongi nods, settling back into the quiet that has made itself comfortable between the two of you. He notices that you’re glancing back at him every few seconds, like you have something to say on the tip of your tongue but don’t know exactly how to phrase it.

“Can I ask you something?”

Yoongi is surprised. “Haven’t you been asking me things all afternoon?”

You swat at him genially and then quietly ask, “Why were you so mean to me at the bar that night?”

When Yoongi doesn’t answer immediately, you keep going.

“We’ve been talking for a while now, and I actually think you’re really nice. A little guarded, but you’re not a bad person. So why did you come at me like what the other week when were at the bar?”

“I…” He begins, but everything he comes up with in his head sounds like a shitty excuse. He filters through the reasoning in his mind, sorting through the muck of that night to try and reach some sort of conclusion that won’t have you throwing your coffee in his face and walking away. “I can be an asshole when I drink,” Yoongi confesses. “And…I don’t know. We’d already gotten off on the wrong foot, and I was in a shitty mood that day to begin with, and then Hoseok—”

He screws his mouth shut before he can say something incriminating.

You look at Yoongi skeptically. “Hoseok? What does this have to do with him?”

“Nothing.” Except he and Jungkook are both suspicious that I might possible have the teensy, tiniest crush on you. Which is still unproven.

“Really?” You repeat, arms crossed over your chest. “Nothing?”

“Hobi can just be a lot,” Yoongi lies. “He was just doing a lot that day, and I was in a bad mood. And the drinking didn’t help. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to be such an ass, I swear. I have a bad habit of fucking things up. And…” His voice gets quieter, as he gets more shy. “I don’t want to fuck things up with you.”

You smile at him gratefully. “At least you’re able to apologize, yeah? I think that’s a good thing. And for the record, I’m sorry too.”

Yoongi can’t help the way his eyebrows fly up into his fringe. Of all the things you could have said, an apology was not what he was expecting. “You’re sorry? What for?”

“I didn’t mean to belittle you like that in front of your friends,” You explain. “I goaded you. And then I kind of…made my point, did a mic drop, threw down double what the bill would be and left.” Sighing, you add, “Jungkook was supposed to have paid that bill. The runt still owes me drinks.”

“If it’s any consolation, he thinks you’re his queen now. That move might have gained you at least one worshipper if you ever decide to start a cult or something.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Sweet kid. But honestly, it was a power move, and I shouldn’t have done it. I should have actually tried to have a conversation with you instead of making you feel like an idiot, especially in front of your friends. It was wrong of me, and I’m sorry.”

Yoongi is stunned. He sits there, gaping like a fish out of water for the umpteenth time today, before he closes it and holds out his hand for you to shake.

“Let’s start over, huh? I’m Min Yoongi, music producer, lamb skewer aficionado, professional napper, and whiskey enthusiast.”

You bite your lip to hold back your grin before taking his hand in yours. The skin of his palm is warm, but not clammy, and his large grip envelopes your hand as you shake it firmly.

“I’m Y/N, tattoo artist, plant mom, bad dancer, and working my way up to becoming a professional napper.”

Yoongi beams at you, his gummy smile making an appearance that you can’t help but find endearing. “We already have so much in common.”

You still haven’t let go of his hand. “Yeah, we do.”

You swear for a second you can feel his thumb gently running across the ridges of your knuckles, but before you can really process it, he’s withdrawing and shifting in his seat as if he’s about to stand.

“Hey,” he asks, nodding his head to the door. “Do you wanna get out of here?

You rise to your feet, gathering your purse. “Where do you have in mind?”

__

After a little wandering, the two of you find yourselves closer to the downtown core. Pedestrians and cars bustles around you as the start of rush hour begins to descend upon the city, and you can’t help but feel thankful that as the cold ebbs away, days grow longer and the sun decides to grace you with its presence for a few hours more.

“We’re here,” Yoongi declares, pointing to a bright fluorescent sign that reads HopeWorld Dance Studio. “Hoseok usually teaches classes in the early afternoon, but he does his own thing after work once the students clear out,” he rambles. “And he’s working on something pretty fun right now for an upcoming showcase. I texted him earlier to see if we could drop by. You seemed interested when Hobi mentioned that he was a dancer, so I just figured—”

You turn to look up at Yoongi, beaming from ear to ear. “Thank you.”

The two of you enter the studio, greeted by the receptionist. He’s seated behind the front desk, tapping away at the computer when he hears the bell on the door chime as it opens. His hair, dyed a light strawberry blond, is pushed back away from his forehead, and he glances up as you walk in. His full lips spread into a wide smile, his eyes turning into crescent moons. It’s so infectious, you can’t help but smile back.

“Yoongi-hyung!” He cheers, rising to his feet and rounding the counter to give Yoongi a hug. He’s shorter than him, just barely, but you can see by the way he moves that underneath his loose t-shirt is a solid, toned dancer’s body. “Hobi-hyung said you would come by! And you must be Y/N,” he greets, turning to you to envelope you in a hug.

Must be a dancer thing, you muse to yourself.

“I’m Jimin,” he introduces, his voice melodic and light. You instantly feel a sort of unabashed affection for the boy, almost akin to how you feel when introduced to a new puppy. “I work the desk while Hobi teaches the classes, but then after hours we mostly mess around and practice.”

“That sounds fun,” you grin. “We’re not interrupting, are we? I don’t want to bother Hoseok if he’s in the middle of teaching a class.”

“He just wrapped up, actually,” Jimin notes, glancing at his watch. “Last class ended about fifteen minutes ago. My guess is that he’s sorting out his music and stretching. Jungkookie is back there too, he was helping with the junior hip hop class today. I just finished closing, follow me!”

The lobby of the studio itself reminds you almost of the way your shop is set up. The front desk has different pamphlets for different types of dance classes ranging from hip hop, jazz, contemporary, and street dance. There is a wall behind the desk that has a splashy mural painted on it with an airplane hovering over a melting cartoon landscape. Bursts of bright colours swim across your vision as you admire the tiny details—the peace signs, tiny plants, a ladder than leads to nowhere. It’s quirky and bright, and is a perfect reflection of Hoseok’s personality.

To the left of the front is a small retail area with silk-screened t-shirts with the HopeWorld logo across the front in varying colours, as well as some enamel pins and HopeWorld baseball hats.

Beyond the wall is a hallway that leads to change rooms—there are three separate ones from what you can see, one for men, one for women, and an all-genders one that makes you smile. There’s a frosted glass door that leads to the actual studio space that seems decently soundproofed, and is confirmed when Jimin pulls open the door and loud EDM assaults your ears.

The room itself is quite large, one wall being entirely composed of mirrors. The caramel-coloured hardwood floor is a little scuffed and has tape marks in certain areas, no doubt to mark off the dancers’ positions for larger choreographed numbers. The walls are white, and a water cooler is placed in the corner, where a yawning Jungkook is fetching himself a drink.

Hoseok sees the three of you in the mirror’s reflection as he stretches his quads, his smile rivalling the sun.

“Y/N! Yoongi-hyung!” He greets enthusiastically, rising to his full height. “Welcome to HopeWorld!”

“Hoseok, your studio is amazing,” you marvel, rushing over to give him a hug. “It’s really gorgeous. Remind me to buy a shirt before I go.”

Hoseok tuts and squeezes you tight. Yoongi tries his best not to scowl, and also reminds himself that he was the one who brought you here. “First off, call me Hobi. Second, you can just grab a shirt, you don’t have to pay. I don’t charge friends and family for merchandise.”

“Hoseok—”

“Hobi,” he corrects.

“Hobi,” you relent with a smile and a shake of your head. “I can’t, that’s not right. I’ll pay, I really don’t mind.”

“Oh,” Jungkook saunters over, wearing a thin white t-shirt, baggy sweats and Timberland boots. His hair is disheveled and pushed away from his forehead, and you think to yourself that if he was maybe five years older, you would consider it less weird to find him so objectively handsome. “You mean like how you didn’t make me pay for my tattoo?”

You open your mouth to protest when Jungkook wraps his arms around you in a bear hug and lifts you clear off the floor. You yelp in surprise and crane your neck over to Yoongi, silently pleading for help. He just shrugs, looking amused, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket.

“Okay, okay, we get it, you’re strong,” you wheeze, tapping on his arm weakly. “Let me down before I puke all over you.”

Jungkook sets you down and you straighten out your sweater that had ridden up slightly when the maknae picked you up. Yoongi tries his hardest not to let his eyes linger on the lines of the tattoo on your back that dip just below the waist of your jeans.

“Did you come to watch us dance?” Jungkook asks excitedly as Hoseok scrolls through the music on his phone. “We have a showcase coming up this summer at the performing arts centre uptown with some other dance companies in the city. You should definitely come!”

“I would love to,” you beam as Jimin plops on the ground to stretch out his legs.

“Y/N-noona, do you dance?” Jimin asks innocently, his eyelashes batting as you peer at him suspiciously.

You take a subconscious step closer to Yoongi, caution lacing your tone. “You don’t have to call me noona. And no…why do you ask?”

Jimin shrugs, his infectious smile looking more mischievous than ever. “Would you ever want to learn? I teach here too, part-time, if you ever want a private lesson.”

“Jimin,” Yoongi warns, shooting the younger man a glare that he blatantly ignores.

“Okay, okay,” Hoseok pipes up, having settled on a song. “Let’s just go for a little while longer today. I’m pretty beat. Let’s just run through the choreo a few more times, okay? Yoongi-hyung, Y/N, you can have a seat if you want, we have folding chairs over there by the water cooler.”

Yoongi politely tells you to wait there as he goes to get chairs for the two of you, while Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook enter their starting formation. The music swells, some melodic hip-hop song you’ve never heard before. They get into their starting poses as you and Yoongi take a seat. He may or may not have positioned the chairs so that they are flush to each other, your knee nearly grazing his as you both sit down.

And then they start to dance.

You’d heard from Junghyun that Jungkook was a great dancer—the elder Jeon had humble-bragged enough about his younger sibling when he’d gotten into a prestigious dance program in high school, but seeing him and the others in their element is something truly awe-inspiring.

Hoseok moves like water, fluid as he dances in perfect step with his two friends. He winks at you in the mirror as he hits an eight-count that involves some heavy hip thrusting, and you might have swooned if you were any weaker of a woman. The three of them switch positions every so often so that each of them can have a moment in the spotlight, and you can’t help but notice how perfectly in sync they are with one another. Jimin’s movements are smooth and have almost an emotional weight to them, and you can’t help but wonder if he studied contemporary dance.

“They’re good, huh?” Yoongi’s voice drifts into your ear as he leans in to whisper to you.

You turn to face him, and he’s closer than you expect. But you don’t pull away. “They’re incredible,” you breathe, unable to stop yourself from beaming ear to ear. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

Yoongi nudges your shoulder with a grin in reply and the two of you go back to watching your friends finesse their way through their routine. Once the music stops, you bounce up onto your feet to give them a standing ovation.

“That was so amazing!” You can’t help but gush as the three boys bow to you. “Watching you guys makes me really wish I could dance.”

“Those private lessons are still up for grabs,” Jimin winks as he runs a hand through his sweaty hair. You know that he’s trying to flirt with you, but you catch the same vibe from him as you do with Hoseok—flirting comes as easy to him as the intake of oxygen, and you’re completely unbothered.

Shaking your head with a laugh, you respond, “Sorry, love. I’ve got two left feet and a man waiting for me at home.”

Those words nearly make Yoongi’s heart stop. Jungkook catches the shift in his demeanour, and before Yoongi can do something stupid like put his foot in his mouth again or storm off in a huff, he quickly states, “Noona, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t,” you clarify immediately. “Sorry, that was misleading. I’m cat-sitting for my neighbour right now. Her little fluff ball, Merlin, is staying with me for a few days.”

Yoongi’s tense shoulders immediately relax, and it seems as if everyone in the room notices except for you.

“Besides,” you add, crossing your arms with a sigh. “I don’t date anyway.”

The tension in Yoongi’s shoulders returns with a vengeance, and he swears he can taste bile at the back of his throat. You launch into an explanation about why that is, something about focusing on your career and not having time to invest in another person, but he barely registers your words. It’s like he’s underwater and your voice is muffled above the surface. He’s drowning, but he doesn’t understand why.

Jungkook and Hoseok share a knowing look.

The five of you linger in the dance studio a while longer, conversation flowing easily as Jimin and Jungkook take teasing jabs at each other. Hoseok shows you some more of his dance moves, specifically his street dancing, as Jungkook attempts to twerk. Jimin somehow finds himself sprawled out with his head on your lap as you sit on the ground. You absentmindedly stroke his hair as if he’s a cat, attempting to braid the longer pieces of his bangs to no avail. Yoongi tries his best not to scowl.

“Oh shit, is that the time?” You suddenly notice how late it is as you look up at the clock on the wall. Jimin whines as you gently nudge him away. “I have to go back and feed Merlin before he pees on my shoes.” Everyone stands up as you gather your things. Turning to the dancers, you give a small bow and say, “Thank you for showing me your dance routine, it was amazing!”

You then turn to Yoongi, who still looks a little out of it. He notices that you’re staring at him, and he blinks hard a few times, eyes focused on you.

“Thank you for today,” you say quietly, and you step forward to wrap your arms around his neck in a loose hug. You figure Yoongi isn’t one for physical affection, so you keep the hug brief before scurrying over to the others to bid them farewell in a similar manner. You say your goodbyes, and then you’re out the door.

The four boys stand in the middle of the practice studio, Yoongi’s eyes trained on the now closed door. The other three blatantly gawk at him until Jimin pipes up.

“Yoongi-hyung’s got it bad.”

“No I don’t,” he says in a rush, ruffling his bangs so that they cover more of his eyes. “Y/N and I are just friends. And barely, at that. We just went for coffee today, that’s it.”

“I don’t know,” Jimin replies pensively. “You did seem pretty upset when she was playing with my hair.”

Yoongi growls. “That’s because you were basically eye-fucking her, Jimin. It was uncomfortable for everyone.”

“You really think everyone is out here eye-fucking your non-girlfriend, huh,” Hoseok jokes. “It’s okay to admit that you like her, hyung. She’s nice, she’s pretty, and she seems to like you back. I don’t see the issue.”

“There’s no issue, because I don’t like her,” Yoongi insists, choosing to ignore the last part of Hoseok’s statement. There’s a pregnant pause that settles between them, and then meekly, he adds, “Besides, even if I was—and I’m not—she just said she doesn’t date. So…there. It’s out of the question.”

“No offence, hyung,” Jungkook declares, flopping onto the ground and spreading his limbs out in a starfish formation, “but both of you are fucking dumb.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jeon,” Yoongi glowers. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jungkook bats his long eyelashes up at his friend, placing his hands under his head as a makeshift pillow. “Don’t I?” He muses, letting out another yawn. “Maybe it’s you who doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

Yoongi doesn’t reply. He’s too busy trying to ignore Jungkook’s words, as well as the way his heart rate picks up slightly at the very mention of your name.

[bluegrassbubblessoapandsund-blog]

I’m a LOUSY Blogger!

But Let’s Get To Improving That!

Well, obviously, I forgot for a while that I even had a Blog!  Shame on Me!  That being said, let’s start by Re-Introducing who I am, what I do and what we’re all doing here in the first place!

I am Melisa.  I’m 51 years of age and I have been married to my high school sweetie since 1988 and his name is David.  We’ve been together for 33 years in 2020.  David and I share three beautiful grown daughters, Brittany, Kymberly and Krystina.  We have six grandchildren:  Jessica is 11, Rebecca is 10, Katherine is 7, Joshua is 7, Annalyna is almost 3 and our newest is Zanora, born October 18th of this year.  We also have four “Fur-Babies”.  A Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix named Peanut (She’s almost 9 years old), a Papillon named Popcorn (She’s almost 5 I think!), her full blooded sister Caramel (If Popcorn is 5, Caramel is 4!) and our most recent addition is Bella (she’s about 5 too, I think)  Bella was my Mom’s baby.  My Mom passed away a few months after she got Bella.  At the time of my Mom’s passing, we didn’t want to give Bella away, and Krystina adopted her and loves her to death.  However, with the recent new addition of Zanora to the household and Annalyna being a normal 2 year old, Bella inevitably “nipped” at Annalyna.  So, we took Bella….for now.  Who knows, she might go back to Krystina’s house, only time will tell.

What do I do?  Well, I’m actually a trained Medical Assistant and Phlebotomist.  I worked for a handful of doctor’s in my native state of California after graduating from school.  One of my favorites was working at an Urgent Care facility where I got to see all kinds of illness and injury.  But the job I enjoyed the most, was working for the Chief FAA Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County.  I was in charge of the lab, ran all kinds of tests, took X-Rays as well as a myriad of other things.  I loved the patient interaction and helping people get and maintain the ability to fly, through their Federally Mandated Physicals.  However, David works in the Aircraft Industry, which at times, can have a high turn over rate, so you go where the jobs are (The main reason we’ve lived in 6 states throughout our marriage!) and we ended up moving to the state of Arizona from our home state of California.  After graduating school and working in my field in those offices, I eventually found work with the local school district my daughter attended as a substitute Health Office Technician.  After a couple more moves, and a couple health issues on my part, as well as the death of my Dad from throat cancer, we moved back to California to be closer to my Mom and Sister, Annette. Because of my love of cooking, during this time in California, I also attended Culinary Arts School.  However, my husband David was working in the aircraft industry and after 9/11 happened, unfortunately the jobs in that industry dried up and he had to find “side hustles” to make ends meet as he looked for other employment within the industry.  Then one day, one of the job applications he put in, panned out!  The Federal Aviation Administration called and offered a job, and he took it, which facilitated our move to the state of Kentucky where we had lived before when David was serving in the U.S. Army during Operation Desert Shield/Storm.  We had always said we loved Kentucky and had talked about retiring there, so THAT worked out well!

After moving to Kentucky, our two youngest daughters finished high school and our oldest daughter’s then husband, had joined the military and she came to live with us while he was doing some training.  She brought with her our Granddaughter Jessi and her pregnant tummy!  As my birthday approached, so did her due date, and on my Birthday (November 19), I took her to the doctor and they announced she was going to have a baby that day!  So, Rebecca (Nicknamed Reba!) was my Birthday Present that year!

During Brittany’s stay I ultimately had my first back surgery where I had a titanium cage installed and a fusion done.  At this point, I was no longer physically able to stand for 8 to 10 hours a day meeting the physical demands of the job I enjoyed.  So, I threw myself into my hobbies of counted cross-stitch, crocheting, reading, cooking and scrapbooking.

After living in the suburbs of Louisville for a couple years, we bought a house 30 miles away in the little town of Shelbyville.  By this time, Kymberly had moved back to California after graduating high school, and Krystina had just graduated.  Brittany had moved back with her then husband, out of state again. (😥)

Krystina moved out eventually and it was just David and I our dogs Rotunda (another Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix who was 12 years old), and our puppy, Peanut.  Kids and grandkids grew, families grew and, as most “empty nesters” David and I began to enjoy our time together as “just us”.  

Then, at a family get together (I actually don’t remember the date.  One of those “health issues” I experienced was a mini stroke when I was 30 years old caused by birth control pills and my morbid obesity at the time, they concluded.  Thus, the stroke obliterated my able to remember things as well as it use to!) I noticed that Reba was having, what I thought at the time was, dry skin issues.  I began to take notice and pay attention to the things with other family members and their skin.  ( I guess that was Medical Assistant in me!)  I was trying to figure out what was causing the problem for her because she complained that the patches itched and sometimes hurt.  Around the same time, David had to have major surgery.  He was diagnosed with an Acoustic Neuroma.  It had attached itself to the working parts of his ear, his facial nerves and his brain stem.  Ultimately, they removed all but a very tiny piece of the Neuroma as well as all of the workings of his ear, so he became completely deaf in that ear, and had a second surgery to install a Cochlear Implant.  As he was healing from that, he neglected to shave and I noticed that he, too, was getting these dry, flaky, itchy patches where his mustache would grow.  And the research began in earnest!

Because I am a redhead (As is Kym, Reba, Annalyna and we haven’t figured out if Zanora is or not!), I have struggled with sensitive skin issues since I was a kid.  I never got a “tan”, I got “pink”, “lobster red” or obtained more freckles.  As I got/get older, I develop(ed) more and more sensitivities to things like laundry detergent and shampoos/conditioners.  So, using my own experiences the first thing I looked at was laundry detergents.  From there I looked at the shampoo/conditioner, and from there it lead me to the “soap” we used in the shower/tub.

The information I was gathering was quite interesting and little shocking, to say the least.  Since I was a kid, I remember seeing commercials on TV about how actual “soap” was bad for the skin, that using XYZ Brand of this or that was more “moisturizing” and better for your skin.  These commercials through my youth, told me that using “soap” was drying, contributed to wrinkles as you age, leaves a “film” on your skin, makes your tub/shower have excessive “soap scum”, etc., but as I was researching, what I found astonished me.  Especially since the TV told me how bad actual SOAP was!  

My first thought after going down this rabbit hole of research was, “Wow, maybe I need to change the stuff we’re washing with”.  Why?  Well, I learned that what I was using at the time, a liquid body wash distributed by a company who’s named after a small white bird (😉) could not legally be called “soap” even though that’s what we all call it.  The process used to make this body wash literally removes the glycerin (something called a “surfactant” that does actually help to moisturize to an extent, but is defined as a compound that lowers the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants.), only to add it back in, and the additional additives they actually added to make it “better” for your skin, as was their “claim”, were actually not necessary and were detergents as well.

“DETERGENTS?!”, I thought to myself….”like, I’m actually washing my body with laundry detergent?”  Um… yeah-you are (🤨)!  So, I grabbed my bottle of body wash and started to actually read what I was putting on the biggest organ my body has.  The organ that absorbs everything from environmental pollutants, to what you put on it, to what you ingest.  (Medical training kicking in here again.)

The ingredient list was LONG, containing words I couldn’t even pronounce. (Can you?) Then I thought to look at the “soap” and “body wash” that Reba was using, and read the same ingredients; detergents, etc.  The only difference was they added extra stuff to balance the pH to the eyes (making it “tear free”), rather than the body. What does the pH actually do?  Let’s look at that…

pH stands for potential hydrogen with the “p” meaning potential and the “H” standing for hydrogen. The pH scale is a scale that is used to rank the relative basicity or acidity of substances to other substances, based on the amount of hydrogen ion activity in a substance. (sciencetrends.com)

Now, I could go into and define and describe all the ingredients I’m talking about, but that would be a science lesson in and of itself.  Suffice to say, I didn’t like what I read and learned and thought there had to be something better that would help the dry, itchy skin my loved ones were experiencing.  So, I looked into actual “soap”.  As I was reading about soap I came upon the different FDA laws regarding the making of “soap” both in solid and liquid forms that we were all using.  The FDA has a law that states that the items used to actually wash your body, that you buy at places like the grocery store, or big box stores, cannot legally be called a “soap”.  Because of the additives and processes used to create what we were using, the law states that they have to be called something else.  So, corporate America gave these items names like “Facial Cleansing Bar”, “Moisturizing Body Wash”, etc.  Wait!  What?  You’re telling me that almost 99% of the stuff at the store I buy my family to wash with on a daily basis couldn’t legally be called soap because they’re “detergents” and corporate America is conning the populous at large?  That would be a hard yes.  Well, then…  (Go look at the wrapper or container your current stuff comes in the from the store and see what it’s called… I’ll wait.)

What did washing with detergents do to the skin?  It makes it dry, flaky, itchy and it can exacerbate skin issues that may be underlying such as eczema, psoriasis, allergic dermatitis, the weather, etc.  Well darn!  How do you fix THAT issue?  Back to actual “soap”…

I started to google “soap” and all the sudden a new world opened up to me.  I found all kinds of places that were selling the ingredients to make your own soap at home, videos that showed you from start to finish.  The different ways to make it.  The different ingredients and their benefits… the lists went on and on.  I actually got quite overwhelmed.  So, I just started making notes, and doing more research and watching more videos.  I learned that you can’t make actual SOAP without Sodium Hydroxide (Lye).  Even the “Body Washes” and “Beauty Bars” have Sodium Hydroxide in them.  (Or it’s sibling Potassium Hydroxide, which is used to make a liquid “soap” or “wash”.)  HOWEVER…..

While watching and reading about making SOAP, there were CONSTANT warnings about Lye Safety and how dangerous it is to work with Lye.  The kinds of safety equipment that would be necessary to work with it, and honestly, I got intimidated and scared.  But then I saw something called “Melt and Pour”.  This is a Glycerin based soap that is already “made”, having gone through the processes necessary to make it SOAP.  All you had to do, was melt it in a microwave, color it, add any fragrance or essential oils to it, and pour it in a mold.  You simply let that cool and harden and BOOM, a handmade bar of soap that you’ve made at home.

It was a fun learning experience for sure.  To this day, I still make some of the Melt and Pour soaps and add them to my other soaps and I let the grandkids work with it to make their own for gifts for family members.  But I really wanted to be able to use those fantastic oils and butters that really benefit the skin!  So, I took my Culinary Arts training, and bit the bullet.  Because you’re following a recipe and a technique, it was quite similar to actual cooking!  I watched a thousand more videos, including the ones about Lye Safety, over and over and over again, just to be sure I KNEW what I was doing and felt comfortable enough to work with it.  In the Culinary world we have something called “Mise en Place”, which basically means “everything in it’s place”.  You should get everything out that you plan to use, weigh, measure, the tools, etc.  Everything should be ready before you start.  So, I did that.  Then, I set to work making my first bars of soap made with Sodium Hydroxide, in a design called a “Tiger Stripe”.  I honestly can’t tell you what the scent was, or the colors that I used.  But I remember it was fun!  I was so very proud, looking at that wet soap in the mold…  Now for the Saponification Process.

What is the Saponification Process?   Saponification is a process by which triglycerides (fats) are reacted with sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye) to produce glycerol (emollient) and a fatty acid salt, called “soap.” The triglycerides are most often animal fats or vegetable oils. When sodium hydroxide is used, a hard soap is produced. (thoughtco.com)  This process renders the Sodium Hydroxide (or Potassium Hydroxide) completely inert.  It’s done it’s job of turning the oils, butters and water into a bar of soap.  So, the Sodium/Potassium Hydroxide will in no way negatively affect your skin at all, whereas when soap hundreds of years ago was made, it was hard on the skin.  In fact, my Grandma’s generation still viewed “lye soap” as something quite harsh.  Basically because the lye that was used was made from wood ashes, wasn’t as pure and the science that we use today (computer programs that help to determine the proper amount of Lye, water, oils and butters that will make the best bar of soap, with proper hardness, moisturizing properties, cleansing abilities, bubbles and no harsh or adverse effects from the lye.) hadn’t been invented yet.  They also didn’t have any of the additives that we use today like colloidal oatmeal, milk powders, etc.

So, 24 hours after I made that first loaf of soap, I cut it.  It was the best bar of soap I’d ever seen!    I cut it with a knife I bought specifically for soap.  I cut it unevenly, and I didn’t care.  Then I had to figure out where to let it “cure”.  Curing is where you set the newly made soap aside for 4 to 6 weeks and allow all the excess water left in the soap, after the saponification process, to evaporate, leaving the bar as hard and as long lasting as possible.  I found the perfect place, in my foyer.  Then I immediately wanted to make more…and more…  Pretty soon, my foyer was filled with newly made, curing soap!  Anyone that came to the front door, or entered the house, always asked what smelled so good!

I tested the soap 5 weeks later, as did David, in the shower.  It was bubbly and it was a different feeling on my skin than what I was use to, in a good way.  I felt… cleaner?  Was that the word I’d use?  Yes, it was!  I felt like there was just clean skin there, not something else.  I don’t quite know how to explain it, other than I didn’t feel like I had a thin film of “slime” on my skin that the aforementioned body wash I had been using, left on me that was meant to make my mind think this was a “conditioning, moisturization” of my skin.  It was “slime” to me, now that I had used my brand new bar of soap!  Well, now I was hooked!  David’s skin, after about a week, showed improvement as well!  Holy Heck, what did I just find!?

For the next solid year, I played with different recipes, different oils and butters, different molds, different colors, different additives….  I found a recipe I seriously loved.  I shared the bars with family and friends and finally was told so many times..”This stuff is great!  You should sell it because I’d buy it”.  So, I did.  And Bluegrass Bubbles was born…  We got a business license and became official, then started our website, bluegrassbubbles.com  

In the next installment of the blog, I’ll continue some of the story!  Please remember to share and invite your friends to the blog!  Feel free to ask questions and interact!  

If you’ve not already, please follow us on all our social media and visit our website and sign up for our newsletter!  I share behind the scenes pictures, videos and every now then, a Giveaway where you can win Free Products, including the Candles and other things I make!

[missymwac]

Call of Jury Duty

“Am I in the right place?”

That was the question I asked a very stressed out security person as I reported for jury duty early this morning. Yes, the dreaded “Day of Duty” had arrived and I was not looking forward to it. I was trying my best to remain upbeat and positive about the whole thing, citing my “civic duty” and all, even trying to harness my inner Stanley Hudson from The Office:

But truthfully, I wasn’t feeling it. As I made my way downtown, I was unsure of everything, especially where to park. Turns out, they have many signs for jurors to follow-and they all lead to a parking garage. I don’t like parking garages. I have nothing against them-they serve a purpose. It’s just, well, I suck at parking. The only thing worse than a parking garage to me is parallel parking. If someone said, “Listen, woman, you either parallel park this Jeep Wrangler or live in exile, wandering the woods in a pair of leggings with little cameras printed on them and eating kale for every meal,” then I would have no other choice than to wave goodbye to the regular world and shove my bloated farty stomach into a pair of customized leggings made in China.

Now, this is my first jury summons, so I had no idea what to expect. I knew that I had to be there at 8:30. I knew that unless I had planned ahead and received special permission (which I hadn’t) I was not allowed to bring in my phone. I knew that the attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant would ask us questions, but that was about it. What I didn’t know was, where, exactly, I was to report. See, in our town there are three courthouses and they are all clustered together on a corner. And yes, I did have a map, but following directions on a map falls right under “Parking Garage” on the List of Things I Don’t Do Well.

I was running a bit behind schedule (see parking garage above) so when I was informed that no, I was not in the right place, I started to frazzle. The summons said 8:30. What if I was late and got into trouble?I had left in plenty of time, and yet, here I was running down the sidewalk. It was like the dream I have that I am back in high school and can’t remember my locker combination and I’m standing there trying every combination I know and my books are falling on the ground and OMG, I FORGOT TO DO MY HOMEWORK.

I ran across the street and up the steps to the OTHER courthouse, waited in line, walked through a metal detector, and then waited some more while security had to “take a look at my keys,” which I thought odd, as other than my plastic Jesus flashlight, there is nothing powerful on that lanyard. I suspect they wanted to get a good look at flashlight Jesus but didn’t want to ask.

Security complete, I made my way back to the jury room and checked in with a very very nice woman who asked my name.

“Do you need to see my summons?” “No.” “Do you need my photo ID?” “No, sweetheart, you’re fine.”

Had I known that they weren’t going to verify my identity, I could have put an ad on Craigslist: “Jury Duty Proxy. Must be female or identify as female. Must be willing to be bored out of your mind for 4 hours. Script will be provided. $15 an hour.”

Soda, coffee, and water was available while we waited, but thanks to my walnut-sized bladder, I passed on all three. I noticed the clock on the wall as I went to take my seat—8:30am exactly. Booyah. Take THAT, parking garage! And then I continued to glance up at the clock: 8:45. 9:00. 9:20. 9:45… I felt brain cells start to die off with each tick of the second hand.

Finally, a bailiff and judge’s assistant came to get us. I’m not sure if “judge’s assistant” is the correct term, but it’s what I remember he was. And if you happen be an assistant to a judge, I mean no disrespect; I don’t know legal terms. But whatever your name is, really, waiting almost an hour and a half? We need to do something about that.

They issued us all Juror numbers and made us stand in several rows. My number was 33, which pleased me, as my favorite number is 3. Yes, it’s a stupid thing to be happy about, but when you wait 1.5 thirsty hours in a large room with nothing but a 2014 Real Simple magazine to keep you company, you find joy where you can.

Numbers in hand, our band of possible jurors tromped out to the elevators and up to the 7th floor, where we were put into yet another order to make entering the courtroom easier. I commented to the woman next to me that in the time it took to arrange us, we could have already been in there. She agreed AND had a British accent, so she also made me happy. I was grasping at Happiness Straws, people!

Into the courtroom we go where the attorneys and their clients were waiting. We all sat down and counsel made introductions. I tried to figure out who, exactly, were the defendant and plaintiff, cause there seemed to be an awful lot of people on one side of the room. Turns out, the plaintiff had an attorney, another attorney, another woman who isn’t an attorney but serves some purpose, the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s brother. The plaintiff’s side really needed a bigger table.

The judge enters and we all rise. It’s the first time I’ve been in a courtroom and the first time I’ve ever risen for a judge. I mean, I’ve watched Judge Judy, but I don’t rise for her. Sorry, Judy. The judge was nothing but kind, thanking us all for giving of our time to be there and be a part of this very important judicial process. He asked if anyone had a reason that they felt made them unable to serve on a jury and oh, did the hands go up. He addressed each possible juror, row by row.

Now, I’ll be honest-I was going to raise my hand. I went in there knowing that I was going to raise my hand. I have pre-paid sessions on my books and being selected for a trial is going to be a pain and possibly cost me money, as I will have to reschedule those appointments and hope that everyone is okay with the rescheduling and if not, I will have to refund hundreds of dollars. I had my speech all prepared as to why I could not serve on a 2-3 day trial and then…I heard the reasons others were giving:

“My dad has Alzheimer’s and we are in the process of moving him into a long term care facility. It’s just me and my brother taking care of him and we take turns, because we both have to work.”

“I am budgeted down the dollar and can’t afford the $7.50 an hour stipend the court issues. I need my work hours or I won’t be able to pay my rent.”

“I take care of my dad and my grandmother. Both are in a wheelchair and my dad just had a pacemaker installed, so he can’t do any sort of heavy lifting. As for my grandma, I cook for her and help bathe her and take both she and my dad to their doctor appointments.”

Yeah, THESE are true hardships. And having heard them, I kept my mouth shut.

The process continued with counsel asking open questions to all of us. If we had something we felt relevant to the question, then we were to raise our hand. And many did…including me.

See, the case going to trial was a civil case involving a very elderly lady (plaintiff) and a young woman in her 20’s (defendant) I don’t know the details, but it involved a car accident in 2015 wherein the plaintiff was claiming negligence on the part of the defendant. The plaintiff claimed the results of the auto accident left her with lingering back and neck issues.

The attorney for the plaintiff went first. He was an older man who was very hard of hearing, which resulted in him speaking quietly. So quietly, in fact, that the woman sitting in front of me raised her hand and suggested he use the microphone.

The questions included things like:

“Has anyone been injured in a car accident?” “Do any of you have family members working in the medical field.” “Do any of you have any knowledge or relationship with either counsel, the defendant or the plaintiff?” “Do any of you have issues with believing the assessment of a physician?” “Do any of you believe an individual should not be reasonably compensated for injuries.”

And there it was. The question that caused my hand to shoot up.

I stood, introduced myself as we were instructed to do, and said that I have a question. I really wanted to say, “Let me answer your question with a question,” as I’ve always wanted to use that line in a serious conversation, but felt that a courtroom setting might be pushing it.

Me: “I obviously don’t know the details of this case, but this is all over an auto accident, correct?”

Attorney: “Yes.”

Me: “And this case is a LAWSUIT over the auto accident, correct?”

Attorney: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, then I think I do have issue with the term “reasonably compensated.”

Attorney: “What do you mean by that?”

Me: “Well, my daughter was recently in accident, just a little over a year go. She was sitting at a red light and a truck ran the red. It hit a car in the intersection which pushed another car into my daughter’s vehicle, pushing it up onto the sidewalk, totaling the car. 12 inches more and she would have been carried away in an ambulance. She was injured, both her back and her neck, but never once did she consider suing the guy who ran the red. She was thankful she was alive. The driver of the truck was simply in a hurry and made a bad call. No one died. Life was going to go on. But again, a lawsuit never entered her mind. Or ours.”

Attorney: “Okay, then, but let me ask you-don’t you think that if an individual is injured in an automobile accident that they are entitled to reasonable compensation for those injuries.”

Me: “Define “reasonable compensation.”

Attorney: <silence>

Me: Because what’s reasonable to some people certainly isn’t reasonable to others. And furthermore, isn’t that the reason we HAVE auto insurance? I mean, by law, we have to carry it. And doesn’t most auto insurance pay out medical when these things happen? And let’s face it, life stuff DOES happen. To all of us.

Attorney: “So you don’t think reasonable compensation due to negligence is required.”

Me: “I never said that. I said that I don’t know the details of the case, so I could be wrong, but if insurance covered the medical needs following the accident, then a lawsuit seems rather a waste of the court’s time. A lawsuit, at least to me, is a pretty big deal. I mean, let’s face it, we’re a litigious happy society, are we not? And there are big issues that demand that course of action. Giant, life shattering events. But this? Again, I don’t know the details, but from what you’ve shared with us thus far, I just don’t see it.”

I sat down and glanced at the counsel tables. The plaintiff was shooting daggers at me with her eyes and the attorney for the defense was looking down at his notes, but I swear I saw a hint of a smile.

But then, it started to snowball. Another hand shot up.

“Yeah, I can’t remember her name over there, but I agree with her. I served as foreman on a case where someone had already been compensated but sued anyway. I just think we sue over everything now.”

Another hand.

And another hand, all echoing that sentiment.

Jiminy Christmas. Would this help or hinder my chances of getting picked? I had no idea.

In the end, I didn’t get picked for the trial, and that’s okay. I was actually kind of invested in it at that point and would have liked to have been picked, but I was glad to at least have spoken my thoughts to the room as instructed and if they gave someone a different perspective, then good.

After the jury announcement was made, I said a little sadly under my breath, “Oh, I didn’t get picked.” The guy in front of me turned around and said, “Hah! Did you think you would after that? It was great, by the way. You practically made the case for the defense right there.”

I have nothing further. Juror #33 rests, your honor.

xoxo

[fandammit]

Loss like the sharp edges of a knife (9/9)

Ao3 || Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8 ||

[A/N: This is a massive 8100 word update. I’ll write a longer post later, but I just want to say thank you to everyone who has read, liked, reblogged and sent me messages. A special shoutout to @anextrapart, who should basically get co-writing credit for the amount of ideas, feedback and overall badassness she provided. Thank you, Kastle fam. You all are amazing! Edited to add: Now with the Ao3 link!]

It’s been almost a week and he’s only managed to get just a little more than halfway through the book.

This is partially because the story is pretty fucking dense to begin with, and each page is now filled nearly to the edges with some combination of his cramped letters and Karen’s looping script.

He also has a tendency to stop reading the moment he starts getting sleepy, which on some nights is embarrassingly early. He tells himself that it’s because he doesn’t want to accidentally gloss over or skip completely anything that Karen has written down, and yeah, it’s that, too. But there’s also the haunting memory of falling asleep midway through chapter 25 and dreaming himself into a conversation with Karen, her legs tucked up underneath her on his couch, Gracie sleeping in the space between them. He can still remember the way she’d tilted her head at him and asked a question he couldn’t answer in his dream, a question he now can’t remember in his waking hours. He’d reached out to brush her hair back from her face, an attempt to distract her that only succeeded in distracting him, an attempt he doesn't think he would've made in real life.  

He’d woken up just as Karen had turned her face into his hand; had been breathless and wanting, a hopeless, desperate ache in the center of his chest.

So now he makes sure to set the book down now the moment he feels heaviness start to creep across his eyelids. He always picks it up again and reads it as he drinks his first cups of coffee, finds comfort in starting his day with Karen’s words on the page, her voice ringing in his mind and through the emptiness of his apartment.

But he also comes to realize that the other part of his slow progress is that he just has so much less free time now than in those first few months when he initially wrote himself into the book. Between training with Paul at the boxing gym and training with Gracie at the shelter, group with Curtis, afternoons at David’s and random invites to dinner and requests for handy work from various members of the Abaya family that he always gets paid way too much for (meaning being paid at all, despite the myriad of ways he tries to protest it), he finds himself with an increasing scarcity of time to just sit and immerse himself in the story of Ishmael and Captain Ahab.

He comes home late one night from some shitty bar around the corner of the gym -- a post-fight outing to celebrate winning his first official boxing match that had included some guys from the gym and David and Curtis, who had come to watch, and looks over at Moby Dick lying on his kitchen table, unread for the entire day. He sits down and taps his fingers idly across the front cover, realizes with a start that he’s somehow managed it --

Has managed, against all odds and at a pace slow enough to mostly escape his notice, to build a life for himself, to learn how to live life without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Has managed to fill in the silence with the sounds of something other than the quiet rustling of turned pages, something other than the sounds of his own labored breathing after a nightmare.

It fills him with a conflicting sensation of pride and frustration. Pride that he’s managed to build an after that he can look at with some small measure of satisfaction, frustration that it’s left him with only snatches of time here and there to indulge in this phantom, ongoing conversation with Karen.

So he starts to carry the book everywhere with him, slowly makes his way through it page by page as he's sitting at Vigilantes, or waiting for Emeline to finish her homework so he can check it, or at the dog park mid-day while Gracie sniffs around the fence posts. It gives him a small bit of peace -- knowing that even disconnected from him, she’s still managed to become interlaced into the pattern of his life, is still present in all the ordinary little moments of living.

There are times as he’s reading that he can picture her looking at his margin notes and then shaking her head at him. He pictures her looking up from the book and staring at him across the miles of asphalt and glass, imagines her looking straight through him with those wide blue eyes, their irises filled with a compassion and a sadness that he both wants to fall into and run from.

He thinks of this when he comes across one of her notes in the back half of the book -- a circle drawn around a question of his and a note next to it that reads:

Frank, stop. Of course not.

He imagines her reaching out to him as she says it. Imagines her leaning forward in her seat and brushing her fingertips across the back of his hand in an effort to make him believe her, him brushing his thumb against the soft skin on the underside of her wrist to let her know that he wants to.

Other times, he can almost hear her scoffing at what he’s written, can see her rolling her eyes at him in a way she never has in all their interactions together.

There’s a jaggedly written note at bottom of one of the chapters, one of his observations circled multiple times with an arrow to Karen’s reply, which is just:

Don’t be an asshole, Frank.

It makes him laugh out loud when he gets to it. Reminds him that he’s always been more than just the Punisher to her -- that he’s also just a man, just Frank to her. That he is someone she would cross red lines and red tape for to find the truth, someone she trusts enough not to be afraid of, no matter how much blood is dripping from his skin.

Some part of him sees that note to him -- the brazenness, the openness -- and remembers the steely-eyed honesty that Karen has always had when talking to him, the utter lack of fear when she pushes against his actions or his words. Can think nothing but of course -- of course they’d make him want to see her again, of course he likes that time and distance has not lessened the honesty between them.

Another part of him thinks that he must really be truly fucked if what he wants is to hear her call him an asshole in person. 

“So, any movement on Moby Dick?” David asks the following Monday.

He’s been at David’s for close to an hour now, and has managed to accomplish nothing but to install four more of the frame joists. David has been essentially useless for most of it, though that’s no more or less normal than all the other times he’s come over.  

Frank sets down his hammer, picks up his beer and takes a long drink before answering.

“Some.” He glances over at David, who’s staring at him with an intensity he thinks is a little much given the question and the moment. “She gave me back the book, left me notes in it. Been re-reading the whole thing. Still got a few more chapters to go.”

David nods, then eases back and rests his elbows on a tall stack of lumber.

“Good, good, that’s good, Frank.” He clears his throat. “So I, uh, got an interesting message from Madani for you.”

He furrows his brows and tilts his head at David, who gives him a crooked smile.

“You’re still talking to Madani?”

David nods.

“Yeah, well, I work for her. Officially. Well, more technically than officially.” He shakes his head and bites his lower lip, then huffs out a laugh. “Or actually, not officially at all, you know, but technically.”  

Frank nods slowly, narrowing his eyes at David.

“Huh. How long’s that been going on?”

“Few months. Well, no. More than a few -- basically a month or so after, you know. Everything with Billy.”

“Weird that you didn’t bring it up before now.”

David sighs.

“Yeah, I know.I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything, Frank. I was trying to, to, you know -- .“

Frank tilts his head and raises an eyebrow, stretches his hand out in front of him with his palm facing up.

“You were -- ?”

David clears his throat, throws his hands up in front of him with his palms in front of him.

“I was trying to keep it all separate from you. Protect you, I guess.” He looks away from Frank and clears his throat, looks back up at him. “When you showed up again, I thought about mentioning it. But I didn’t want you to get back into that headspace, into -- into that place. Not when it seemed like you were working so hard to dig yourself out of it.”

Frank looks away from David, down at his hands, over at the unfinished deck. Looks back over at David and nods. Hopes that David knows him well enough to see the ‘thank you’ that’s implied.

“So, what’s this message from Madani?”

“It’s -- .“ David laughs, though it’s a mix of bewilderment and nervousness rather than straight amusement. “So, here’s something that I just found at the other day -- Karen and Madani...they’re friends.” He catches the look on Frank’s face and grins. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Madani asked her for help with something she’s working on for Homeland and I guess, you know, they really hit it off because now...now they apparently go out for dinner and drinks a few times a week.”

He blinks rapidly a few times. It’s not the last thing he would’ve thought to hear from David, but it’s pretty damn close. He has to take a few moments to process it. Once he does, he looks over at David, then tips his head forward and lets out a long, loud laugh.

“Jesus Christ, David. Karen and Madani -- friends.” He shakes his head, a grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Goddamn, I wouldn’t want to be on those two’s shitlist.”

David smiles, then tips his head in Frank’s direction.

“Well, right now, that's you. At least for Madani.” He clears his throat. “She told me to tell you to stop being an asshole”

Frank purses his lips and frowns, gives a slow, small nod to David as he does.

“She, uh, a little more specific about what exactly? I’m kinda an asshole about a lot of things.”

“Kinda, Frank?” David laughs at the scowl that Frank gives him. “Well, you’re not really going out and, you know, punishing anyone lately, so what do you think?”

When Frank doesn’t say anything, David huffs out a laugh.

“About Karen, Frank. Obviously.”

He licks his lips, squints over at David. He mostly doesn’t want to ask his next question because he feels a little bit like some awkward middle school kid, passing notes and information through a long line of friends rather than risk talking to someone face to face.

He asks it anyway, because he’s too curious not to.

“She say anything else except not to be an asshole? Is there something in particular I’m supposed to stop being an asshole about?”  

David shakes his head.

“No, but we can assume, right?” David clears his throat. “I mean, you are kind of being an asshole by not seeing her.” He glances over at Frank. “She write anything of note in Moby Dick for you?”

He shrugs, has to bite his lip to keep from grinning.

“Well, she, uh, she also called me an asshole.”

It must be a pretty poor attempt to hide his smile because David takes one look at him and laughs.

“Of course you’d find that appealing.” He shakes his head, chuckling to himself. “So I’m guessing I was right and she doesn’t give a shit that you have a strange affinity for Ahab?”

He pulls in his bottom lip between his teeth and lifts a shoulder.

“Haven’t finished the book yet.”

“Well, I’m sure when you finish it, I’ll still be right.” He steps away from the pile of lumber he’s resting on, stretches down to grab his beer. “And when you’re done, you’re gonna stop being an asshole, right?”

“That’s -- you know -- that’s a pretty big ask, David.”

David laughs.

“Well, you’re gonna stop being an asshole about Karen, at least?” He tips his head down to catch Frank’s eye. “That is the plan, right Frank?”

“Yeah, David.” He says, looking away then back at him. “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

David smirks.

“Good, because I don’t won’t have to protect you from Madani. I mean, I will -- I just, you know, don’t want to have to.”

Frank huffs a laugh.

“You will not have to protect me from Madani.”

David nods, satisfied, then steers the conversation away from Karen and Madani, onto more mundane things like the fact that he still can’t install a deck joist despite being shown how to on three different occasions. Sometimes Frank thinks he’d have better luck and faster progress working with Leo.

They do actually manage to finish installing the rest of the frame, and the work does a pretty good job of keeping his mind off of Karen for the rest of the afternoon.

He winds up thinking about her on the drive from David’s to the gym. Thinks about that picture of her outside the krav maga studio. Wonders if it was Madani that took that photo, wonders just how much shit the two of them are managing to stir up together.

He smiles at that thought, even as he ignores the low of hum of worry that it drags up within him, too. Madani is certainly no amateur and Karen is nobody’s fool, and he really did mean what he said to David -- he doesn’t envy whatever piece of shit winds up on the opposite end of whatever crusade those two decide to go on.

He wakes up the next morning nearly an hour before his 5:30 a.m. alarm goes off, his dream  fading to the edges of his mind. All he can recall are snippets of it -- a flash of blond hair in the sunlight, blue eyes hovering above his, the feel of soft skin beneath his fingertips. The images flicker in and out of his consciousness, like he’s looking at the dream through the slats of a fence. It’s so brief, so fleeting, but it’s still enough to set off a low buzz of want in his veins, to press against the inside of his ribcage and leave him just a little breathless.

He sighs heavily. It's a better way to wake up than from a nightmare -- heart pounding, mind racing -- but it still manages to throw him off balance all the same.

He runs his hands through his hair, one, two, three times, each one rougher than the last, then sits up and turns on the light. He looks over at Moby Dick on his nightstand. He'd tried to put it down the moment he felt his eyelids start to droop, but apparently it still wasn't soon enough.

He grabs the book from his nightstand and starts reading, tries to force the dream back from where it’s creeping into the center of his chest, tries to lose himself in the salty spray of the sea, in the mad ferocity of Ahab.

But of course it doesn’t quite succeed in helping him forget the dream either, because Karen is all over these last chapters, her looping cursive becoming more compact to accommodate the flood of words.

Towards the end of the book, she’s circled a passage he’d underlined and written a reply to his notes that spans the next three pages, that ends with:

Ahab had it wrong. There’s nothing preordained about the paths we choose to take -- there are just the things that happen to us, and the choices make in the aftermath. Sometimes none of the choices are very good, but we have to make them anyway. Sometimes we choose wrong. Either way, we have to go on living with what we’ve chosen to do. We have to make a life out of those choices. We have to at least try.

He has the sensation, one that has increased in frequency the further into the book they’ve gone, that what she’s writing is just as much about herself as it is to him.

He thinks back to what Curtis said that night at the bar -- that Karen leaves things to let him know she’s thinking of him, while he leaves things that tell her about himself. Thinks of how the exchange of this book has flipped that pattern, has been given back and forth in a way that takes on the other’s intention.

He’d offered it to her as a way to tell her about himself, true -- but it had also been a way to tell her that he was thinking of her. That he hasn’t stopped thinking of her since that night at the bridge when she’d asked where it all ended, when she'd ask him to think of his after. Then, the answer had only been never or in death, his after only defined by suffering.

Now...now, the answer is different for both those questions. That’s what leaving her Moby Dick was meant to do -- to draw a line from who he was that night at the bridge to who he is in the silence when the gunfire ends. To make her understand that drawing that line is only possible because of how often he thinks of her.

And what she’s given him in return is a way to see into her -- to look past the steeliness of her spine, the softness of her touch -- and understand how both can exist. This book is no longer just about him, it’s about Karen, too -- about how she sees the world, how she sees him, how she sees herself. She writes herself into her words, raw and real and intimate, puzzle pieces of who she is that he hoards, tries to fit together in some semblance of an image of her.

It can only ever be incomplete, but it’s still more than he’s ever known given the lack of opportunity, the lack of quiet, the lack of stillness; it’s still more than she’s ever offered to him before.

He thinks that would still the want in his veins, but it only ever serves to magnify it.

The last Tuesday night group participant is barely two steps out the door when Curtis turns towards him and crossing his arms in front of him, and there’s something about the way he does it that makes Frank feel like he’s about to be reprimanded for something.

He’s pretty sure he already knows what it is.

“So, I got an interesting visitor after Monday night group.” Curtis says, an aggravated look in his eyes. “Karen came to see me.”

He freezes with a chair in his hands raised mid-air. Slowly brings it back down in front of him, grips the back of it so hard his knuckles go white.

“Yeah?” He asks, and he’s proud of the way that his voice stays steady.

Curtis purses his lips, taps his fingers on his bicep in a way that seems vaguely threatening.

“Yeah,” the word cut short, clipped at the end.  

He’s tempted to ask how she’s doing, how she looked, if she was as happy as he’s been imagining since he got that photo of her. Realizes that each question is more ridiculous than the last to ask of someone that’s only met Karen for the first time.

He swallows thickly, rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet before he looks over at Curtis.

“How’d she know to find you here?”

“That picture you took, Frank. That’s why you stood where you stood, isn’t it? To let her know you were coming here, let her know you’ve been healing.” He nods his head. “She’s a journalist, right -- figured out when and where and who I was.” He points at Frank. “And you know what -- you are just damn lucky that I didn’t tell her to just show up on Tuesday night.” He shakes his head. “Part of me still wishes that I did.”

Frank looks down at his hands.

“Thanks for that, Curt.”

Curtis scoffs.

“You know what, Frank, you need to explain this to me before I really do get up from this chair and kick your ass.” He leans forward in the chair, rests his palm flat on his knee. “Because I thought you said you wouldn’t be a wallowing asshole. I thought you had committed to not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I thought Karen was -- is -- your friend.”

His head snaps up at that.

“C’mon, Curtis, Karen’s...” He trails off, not sure how to end that sentence.  

“Well, is she?” Curtis asks.

“What?”

“Is she a friend?”

He shrugs, though it’s a stiff movement. He knows he should just say yes, because it’s not untrue, because it’s the easiest way to explain what Karen is to him. But it also feels wrong, because friend seems like such an easy word to hold the complicated swirl of emotion he feels when he thinks about Karen. It’s both too much and too little to describe what she is to him -- a person who has been ally and advocate and antagonist all rolled into one, whose name has been both an invocation and affliction, whose memory sets off a warning light behind his eyes and a low, steady burn of longing across his veins.

“She’s...important to me. You know that, Curt.”

Curtis looks askance at him.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I know much of anything, Frank.” He folds his arms in front of him. “Because I know you finished that book again almost two weeks ago. But you know what she told me? That she hasn’t heard from you since she gave it back to you -- not a photo, not a note, not another pot of flowers. Nothing.” He shakes his head. “And she didn’t tell me this, but she obviously came here trying to look for answers. She was here trying to figure out if you were ok, if something had happened to you. And the only thing I can think of that happened is that you decided to be ten kinds of asshole after all and just leave her hanging.”

“It’s not -- that’s not. I didn’t want to do that. I don’t.”

“Well, it’s what you’re doing, whether you want to or not.” He scoffs, then takes a long, slow inhale before he starts talking again. “What was in that book, Frank? The way she was talking about you, asking about you -- seems like all she wants to do is see you.” He leans back, crosses his arms again in front of him. “So why don’t you want to see her?”  

He shakes his head, barks out a laugh that’s more bitter than anything.

“I do want to see her. I -- goddammit, it’s, it’s so...it’s so.” He exhales sharply and shakes his head. “It’s so fucking stupid how much I want to see her. I think about it all the time, you know? Imagining what she’s gonna look like, what she’s gonna say.” He huffs out a laugh and looks away from Curtis, runs his hand over his chin. “I mean, she’d probably call me an asshole one or five times, right? And shit, that’d be the least of what I deserve.” He glances over at Curtis, looks away, looks at his hands, at the way he’s twisted them around one another. “Believe me -- I think about seeing her all the time, Curt.”

“So why don’t you?”  

He looks down, sinks further down into the chair. He twines his fingers together in front of his face, rests his chin atop his thumbs. He doesn’t say anything, just falls into the silence between them, lets it drag on and on.

Curtis closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly before opening his eyes again and sitting straight up in his chair.

“Is it Maria?”

Franks sucks in a breath at the sound of her name. He raises his eyes slowly over the edges of his fingertips until he meets Curtis’ gaze. Lifts his shoulders but still doesn’t say anything. It’s a question he’s been avoiding -- one that’s easy to, now, because there are so few people left alive who knew him as anything but Frank Castle: survivor, widower, Punisher.

“You’ve been making so much progress these last few months -- I didn’t want to bring her up unless I needed to,” Curtis says, his voice soft, almost cautious. “But now -- I think I do, don’t I?”

He drags his teeth over his lip, looks back down at his fingers, flicks his eyes back up to Curtis and nods once -- a small incline of his head that barely registers as a movement.

“I don’t dream about Maria the way I used to.” He says it quietly, his voice low in the back of his throat. As if he’s mostly saying it to himself. “If I close my eyes right now, I can still see her. Still see her smile, still remember the way she smelled, the way she felt.” He takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly before he glances back up at Curtis. “But I don’t see her in my dreams any more. Not the way I used to.”

He chews on his bottom lip.

“I -- you know, I...I dream about Karen, sometimes. A -- a lot,” he stammers out, unable to look in Curtis’ direction. “Just -- just normal shit, mostly. Getting coffee, talking to her, arguing about Moby Dick.” He tips his head down and up again, darts glance between Curtis and the floor. “I try not to, you know-- I can’t even stay up late reading Moby Dick because all it does it give me dreams about her, about seeing her again. But I -- I can’t help it.”  

Curtis reaches a hand out to him, fingers splayed, palm up.

“You need to be ok with feeling the good stuff, too, Frank. It can’t always just be about anger and sadness and regret. You’ve worked so hard to not have anger as your driving force forward. I don’t want to see you just turn around and replace it with guilt. You have to let yourself feel what you feel.”

Frank tilts his head, squints a bit at Curtis.  

“You know, I said the same thing to Sarah once.”

It feels like a lifetime ago, now. In a way, he supposes it was.

“Yeah? You mean it?”

Frank shrugs.

“Yeah, for her.”

“But not for you.”

“Nah. Not for me.”

Curtis sighs, dips his head down, rubs his hand against his forehead.

“Why, Frank? Because it’s so different for you? Because you're the Punisher?”  

He shrugs his shoulders, purses his lips and looks away from Curtis, drops his gaze down to his hands.

“Can’t really be the Punisher any more, Curt,” he says, a reply that answers the question without really answering it. That answers it as well as he can. He skims his eyes across the floor, the chairs in the room, then back over at Curtis. “There's no one left for me to punish.”

Curtis breathes in sharply.

“Except you,” He says quietly, his eyes wide with understanding. Frank looks down and bites down hard on his lip, then flicks his eyes up to meet Curtis’ for a quick moment before looking back down at his hands. “That’s what this is, isn’t it, Frank? Punishment?” Curtis tilt his head towards him, angles his face so that Frank is forced to meet his eyes. “That’s why you won’t see Karen -- even though you want to.” He softens his voice. “There’s no one left for you to punish, so now you have to punish yourself.”

He forces his gaze away, flicks his eyes back and forth between him and random spots in the room instead. It feels like Curtis is reaching in through his stare and taking out every hidden thought and feeling he’s kept stored away -- secrets he’s kept even from himself at times -- and bringing them out from the darkness, shining them up against the brightness of day and of truth and of time.

It feels painful and liberating at the same time, makes him want to draw closer and close himself off.

“You don’t have to spend the rest of your life avenging your family, Frank,” Curtis says, his voice soft, his tone gentle. Like he’s trying to ease Frank into the words, like he’s throwing them out as a careful lifeline.

Frank glances back down at his hands, chews on the corner of his lip.

“Without it...it feels like forgetting them. Like I’m trying to.” He looks up at Curtis. “I don’t want that.”

Curtis shakes his head.

“There are ways to remember them that having nothing nothing to do with suffering Frank -- other people’s or yours.” He pauses, leans forward in his chair. “I think it’s right to want to remember them, Frank, and you should. But it’s worth it to try and do more than remember them. It’s worth it to try and honor them, too.”  

Frank drops his hands into the space between his outstretched legs, folds them one on top of the another, and taps a finger against the back of his hand.

“And how do you think I should do that?”

Curtis licks his lips, takes a deep breath in.

“I think you already know, Frank. What do you think Maria would want for you?” 

Frank gives him a long, unblinking stare. It’d be the wrong question to ask if it were anyone else but Curtis. Because how could anyone else possibly know? But Curtis is the last living person in his life who knew Maria -- ate her meals, heard her stories, probably listened to her complain about Frank at some point. He is the last living person in his life that Maria loved, too, and who loved Maria.

And he is the last living person in Frank’s life who would know when the answer is the truth, rather than just a reflection of his own hopes and wishes.

“I think she’d want me to be happy,” he finally says, surprised at how easy it is to reveal, only vaguely surprised at how right it feels.

Curtis nods slowly.

“She would, Frank. She loved you, and she was good to you and she wanted good for you. She’d want you to be happy, especially now.” He waits for Frank to meet his gaze. “She’d want you to at least try.”

“And you think...you think this -- doing this, seeing Karen -- that’s the best way to remember them? To honor them?”

He draws his brows together at the center of his forehead, narrows his eyes at Curtis, who simply nods at him.

“I do. I think sharing their memory with people you care about is how you remember them. And I think living a life that makes you happy, that has all the things they’d want you to have, all the things they gave to you -- that’s how you honor them.”

He clenches one hand in a fist, folds his other hand on top of it, holds them against his chin. He closes his eyes as he turns over Curtis’ words in his mind, thinks about memory and forgetting, looks closely at the separating line between avenging and honoring. Wonders where deserving and earning fit into it all.

“It’s worth a shot, right Frank?” He opens his eyes and looks over at Curtis. His are elbows resting on his knees and he his hands out in front of him, palms facing up. “You said it yourself -- you aren’t the Punisher any more. So maybe try figuring out something different this time. Shoot for happiness instead.”

Frank breathes in deeply and looks down at the floor, lets the breath out slowly before he looks back up at Curtis. Nods, once -- a short, small tug of his head that’s almost imperceptible.

It feels momentous anyway.

He licks his lips and nods again, the movement bigger, more obvious this time. He’s almost there, could almost go on without asking -- but he knows that this last, worrying question will keep digging at the back of his mind until he does.

“I do wonder, you know -- sometimes.” He clears his throat, flicks his gaze over to Curtis and away again.“I think maybe -- maybe this, all this -- maybe it’s more than I deserve.”

Curtis gives him a gentle smile, a half-shrug.

“Maybe, Frank.” He tips his head to the side. “But what about what Karen deserves?”

He lets the question hang in the air between them for a long moment.

Frank grabs it from the air, finds that he has a dozen different answers to that question -- all of them beginning with more.

Curtis studies his expression.

“I may not know everything, Frank, but I do know this: Karen knows what you’ve done, she knows who are you, knows who you aren’t -- and she isn’t running away. She wants to stay.” He pauses, then leans forward in his chair. “She wants to see you, in spite of and because of everything she knows about you. Whatever else you might think about her deserving more or better or whatever self-sacrificing shit you got running through your head right now  -- the simple truth is that she wants to see you. Don’t you think she at least deserves that?”

And what can he say to that, except the only real answer there is --

“Yeah, she does.”

He spends the entire car ride home replaying his conversation with Curtis in his mind. Sits down at his kitchen table with Moby Dick laying across from him, stares at it and imagines that Karen is there in its place instead.

He flips through the book, the story that is now a composite of Ahab’s and Karen’s and his own. Stops when he gets to the section he’s looking for, rereads one of Karen’s final notes -- a trailing sentence written below one of the last scenes of the book:

We can be more than the stories told about us, Frank.

He closes the book again, leans back in his chair and looks towards the ceiling. Thinks about the stories that have been told about him, the stories that he’s told Karen, the precious few stories they’ve shared with one another.

He thinks of everything that Karen already knows about his past -- the broad strokes laid out in stark facts and figures in computer databases and official government files, the smaller details laid down by his own meandering stories to her. He thinks of everything he doesn’t know about Karen -- her past, apparently easily uncovered by a quick internet search; her present, steeped in loneliness, in the fight against it that he desperately hopes she’s winning.

It’s true that they’ve never really had the time, the space, the moment to indulge in anything even approaching normal. And it’s true that even despite this, there’s a connection between them, an intimacy -- one that has only ever been communicated in wordlessness: in the press of her forehead against his, the brush of her breath across his eyelashes, the feel of her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

But what’s also true is this: he has never asked for her own story, has never thought to delve into the specifics, has never paused to consider just why she offers up the entirety of herself in pursuit of the truth while offering so little of her own story to those around her. He wonders if it’s because she’s used to not telling it, or if she’s used to never being asked.  

He wants to be the type of person who asks. No, not the type of of person -- He wants to be the one who asks. Who keeps asking. Who never stops letting her know that she matters, that she deserves to be known.

He wants to be the one who knows more than the stories that are told about her.

He flips to the very last page and rereads her ending note for what feels like the thousandth time. Traces over the words with his fingertip, feels them slide up his shaking hands and push out the trembling terror in his heart. Lets them blossom into hope instead.

When can I see you?

He wakes up even earlier than usual the next morning, gets to Vigilantes just as they’re opening for the day.

He orders a large Punisher to go. Shuffles back and forth on his feet, half hoping that he won’t run into her, half hoping that he will. He nearly sprints back to his car the moment he gets his order, checks and re-checks his rearview mirror to make sure there’s no telltale sign of blond hair flashing behind him.  

The drink is half empty by the time he gets home, and he thinks that it definitely earns its title as strongest coffee in the world given how fidgety he feels. Though maybe it’s nerves and anxiety and excitement rather than the high volume of caffeine coursing through his veins.

It’s something approaching agony -- the prospect of the hour and a half wait until 7:00 am, a time he tells himself is appropriate to contact any normal person without them wanting to tell you to fuck off immediately. He goes on a forty minute run, takes a nearly twenty minute shower. Spends the next half hour after that pacing restlessly in his apartment, alternating between pretending he has the presence of mind to sit down and read a book and pretending he has the focus required to make a sandwich for himself.

He winds up reading the same two sentences over and over again, making a sandwich that has three slices of cheese, no meat and mayonnaise that he’s almost sure has been expired since he got Gracie.

A quick glance at his phone tells him that it’s five to seven, and really, there’s not a lot of difference between 6:55 am and 7:00 am, all things considered. But he’s so wired from nerves and caffeine and eight months of longing that he thinks even the slightest deviation from his plan would feel like an a bad omen.  

So he forces himself to sit down at his kitchen table, fingers tapping across the cover of Moby Dick, grounding himself in the movement, in the tangible reminder that Karen wants to see him.

When the alarm finally, finally does go off, he freezes -- as if he hasn’t been waiting for this moment since the minute he woke up, as if he hasn’t been thinking about it since he came home last night.

(As if he hasn’t been dreaming of it for months now.)

He sits down at his kitchen table and takes Karen’s business card out from his pocket, a last parting gift from Curtis the night before.

It has the same number on it that he’s had stored on his phone for these last eight months --  the same number he’d told himself might no longer be hers on those nights he was tempted to call it, the same number his thumb has hovered over time and again but never touched.

He takes a deep breath and sets the card down, picks up his phone in one hand and the Vigilantes coffee cup in the other. He clicks on the camera and positions his phone in front of him, takes photo after photo after photo -- shifting the angle of the camera, rearranging the placement of his features. What he wants is to convey a sense of apology and hopefulness and excitement in his expression all at once; at the very least he wants to not look angry or bored, which is the expression his face inadvertently tends to take on when he isn’t smiling.

He clicks on Karen’s name in his phone and even that -- even just the act of tapping on her name -- gives him a thrill that’s as exhilarating as it is embarrassing.

He opens a new text message and inserts the photo that he just spent far too long taking --

Him looking directly at the camera, expression some approximation of hopeful and honest -- he thinks (hopes) -- the coffee cup covering half his face as though he’s drinking from it. The large, blocky lettering of Vigilantes is clearly visible and, just beneath it, written in his own crooked handwriting --

This Friday, 7am?

He hits send before he can talk himself out of not doing so. Feels a strange sense of awe at the ease of sending it to her -- at the knowledge that he could’ve done this months ago, that he might have never done it at all.

He puts his phone on the kitchen table, face down. Tells himself that Karen probably won’t respond any time soon -- that she has a job to get ready for, a day to begin. That the last thing she is expecting is some early morning text from someone who’s spent the last eight months as an object outside her window sill. That the last thing he deserves is for her to send him a quick reply -- not when he’s given her nothing but silence these last two weeks, nothing but irregular snippets of his life in the last eight months or so, nothing but a memory wrapped in sadness and gunpowder even before that.

He breathes in deeply and shakes his head, reaches for his coffee cup and takes a long drink of the long-cooled coffee.

Nearly drops the entire thing in his lap when his phone buzzes.

Of course, he does actually accidentally drop it -- but he at least has the presence of mind and the built-in reflexes to move aside in time and let it splatter all over the floor.

Gracie gets up from her bed in the corner and lets out a whining yawn, stretches out before padding over to him and resting her head on his knee. He reaches down to pet her, realizes that there’s a tremor in his hands as he does it.

He turns the phone over and clicks on Karen’s text message. Laughs out loud with relief and euphoria and something that kinda feels like it’s approaching delirium.

She’s sent him a picture in return, something that manages to both calm his nerves and set off a buzzing just beneath his skin. Her blue eyes are wide and sparkling, bright against her pale eyelashes and pale skin. He can’t be sure -- half her face is blocked by a plain cardboard box -- but he thinks she might be smiling. Her hair is down, the waves more pronounced and slightly darker than he ever remembers seeing it. He looks closer at the picture and realizes that it’s damp, that her skin has that fresh dewiness to it that he associates from just emerging from the shower.

He takes a sharp breath in, chews on the corner of his lip to distract himself from the sudden spike of yearning in the center of his chest, from the quiet sort of intimacy that the photo implies.

He moves his eyes onto the rest of the photo, to where the bottom half of her face is covered by a cardboard box. When he sees the block lettering that reads Bark Box that’s stamped across it, he laughs, even if he’s more than a little disgruntled that it blocks him from tracing the contours of her chin, her lips, her jawline.

Written beneath the words Bark Box is Karen’s own swirling script, bold and bigger than he’s used to seeing --

Bring Gracie!

And beneath that, written in slightly smaller text --

(Don’t worry -- there’s something in here for you too, Frank.)

He chuckles to himself. Spends the next few minutes studying the photo, overwhelmed by the the words she’s written to him, at the existence of this photo at all. It’s a reminder that Karen is no stranger, despite the strangeness of their connection one another. That she sees him, no matter how much he tries to stay hidden.

He looks at the copy of Moby Dick laying on the kitchen table, the photo in his phone, the bag of Death Wish Coffee sitting on his countertop. Glances over to the shelf, where the picture of Karen in his beanie is propped up against his copy of In Cold Blood -- no longer kept separate and hidden, because the only one he’d been hiding it from was himself. Because he recognized that he no longer needed to.

He knows that if he were to walk into his room, the blue beanie she gave to him would be on top of his dresser, that the plaid shirt she gifted would be hanging in his closet, that Gracie’s matching bandana would be draped over the side of his bed frame.

Everywhere he looks, he’s reminded of her, of what they’ve built between them in these last few months -- a framework constructed on photographs and flannel, on sprawling notes written across the pages of classic literature.

He laughs out loud, a sound that’s half joy, half bewilderment, finds himself wholly consumed by the sensation that he’s both a dumb and lucky piece of shit. Because he realizes that he won’t have to make room for Karen in the life he’s built for himself -- she’s already there.

He re-reads his favorite parts of Moby Dick that night before bed.

Or rather, he re-reads all his favorite things that Karen has written about Moby Dick. All of it seems more real, more present, more raw now that seeing her again is a fast-approaching reality rather than an ever-fading dream.

He tries to catalog everything he wants to ask -- about all things she’s written in the book, all the things she’s done in the last eight months, all the things he doesn’t know about her.

He reads and re-reads and re-reads her last note to him, can almost hear her asking --

When can I see you?

He imagines her saying it softly, her breath brushing up against his ear, her voice nothing more than a whisper. He drifts into that place between dreams and waking with that thought repeating in his mind, finds himself falling into a scene that’s more memory and dream --

It’s him and Curtis from the other night, wrapping up their conversation, saying goodbye. Everything playing out like it did in real life, except in this dream world they’re standing in his dimly lit living room rather than the harsh fluorescent lighting of the church basement.

“I’m gonna see her,” he says, the warmth and excitement and awe battling against a rising tide of anxiety. “I’m gonna see her,” he repeats, louder this time, as if he can will it into being that very moment by the force of emotion in his words. He huffs a laugh, then licks his lip and tilts his head. “But what happens after that?”

Curtis narrows his eyes at him momentarily, then chuckles softly.

“I don’t know, Frank. That’s living, right? Figuring it all out.”

Frank scoffs.

“You know, I gotta admit -- I thought you’d have a better answer than that.

Curtis smiles.

“That’s life, Frank. Time to figure out how to live that part of it again.”

He nods slowly at that and smiles, lifts a hand in goodbye and turns around.

“Hey, Frank?” A voice says behind him, and here is where he knows he must have sunken fully into a dream.

Because the words are quieter this time around, the voice higher, the tone shot through with affection.

He turns around, a hushed oh escaping from his mouth as he faces Karen, her eyes bright in the dimness of his living room, her smile radiant and warm. She’s lit with a soft glow of some cheap lamp behind her, beautiful in a way that he thinks has nothing to do with the fact that he’s dreaming.

He knows what she’s going to say next, knows the words because they’re the same ones Curtis spoke to him the other night.

But where Curtis was teasing and glib, Karen is tender and honest and always more than he thinks he deserves.

She steps in closer to him and cups his face in her hands, brushes her thumb across his cheekbone and smiles.

“Welcome back to the land of living.”

[seriouslyhooked]

Some Call It Magic (A CS AU) Part 14/?

When Killian Jones moves to Storybrooke he instantly senses something strange about this little town in Maine but he’s willing to overlook all the bizarre signs for one reason: the single Mum living next door to him. There’s only one problem. Killian is nearly positive she’s a witch, a brewing potions and casting spells witch. But when true love is involved, does a little thing like magical powers really matter? Story rated M.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9,Part 10,Part 11, Part 12, Part 13. Also On FF Here.

A/N: Another week has come and gone which means it’s time for a new chapter of ‘Some Call It Magic.’ This installment brings us to a Storybrooke Thanksgiving and will include all of the big players I have introduced in this AU so far. As such there is lots of cuteness in store for all of us, and some good set up for all the fluff still to come in the chapters ahead. Let me know what you all think and thanks as always for reading!

Staring down the overflowing mass of ingredients on top of Killian’s kitchen counter this Thanksgiving morning, Emma knew that she had only so much time to make a meal that would at once be spectacular and feed all of the people that were coming to share in the holiday this year.

Usually they were a pretty large group between all of Emma’s friends, their significant others, and any other neighbors who might just decide to ‘pop by’ last minute, but this year with the addition of Killian and Liam Emma had increased ambitions to make it a special spread. She was crafting all kinds of ideas about where to take this in her head, and though she’d been considering this day for a while now her final decisions would still come down to the wire as to what dishes would make the cut and grace their Thanksgiving table this season.

“Wow, Mom. Even for you this is a lot of food.”

Henry’s words were uttered from where he stood across the kitchen and Emma laughed aloud when she heard them. Her son wasn’t wrong by any means, and there was way too much food for all of them even with the added two mouths to feed (especially considering that Ruby and Mary Margaret were bringing multiple dishes as well), but that had never stopped Emma before. After all, half the fun of Thanksgiving dinner was figuring out how to use leftovers in a creative and satisfying way for the week thereafter.

“I have to admit, Swan, the lad has a point. Can all of this even possibly be prepared by dinnertime?” Killian asked as he came to stand beside her.

“Definitely,” Emma stated with total confidence as she leaned into Killian’s touch when his arms wrapped around her.

“If you say so,” Henry responded, shrugging his shoulders and then coming around and clapping his hands together like he was ready to get to work. “So where do we start?”

Emma pulled Henry close and kissed the top of his head happily at his eagerness to play a part in this with her. Cooking this elaborate meal together was one of their longest standing traditions and it was one that Emma cherished over almost any other. Thanksgiving had once been a stark reminder of all she didn’t have when she was a child, but when Henry was born it changed Emma’s outlook completely. Suddenly she had family, and though it was incredibly difficult raising a baby and then a little boy all on her own Emma was grateful for her son each and every day, just as she was grateful for the many people who had come into her life and taught her that she wasn’t alone and that there were good things to cherish and be thankful for each and every day.

From that point on the morning unfolded as was to be expected with Emma, Henry, and Killian all playing some kind of roll in getting things ready. It left Emma with a feeling of elation to see how easy the three of them were together and how welcoming Henry was to the change that Killian’s presence could bring. This could have been an awkward moment, and part of the reason Emma had put off dating as long as she did was because she didn’t want to sacrifice her one on one time with Henry. But today proved those old hesitations were misguided or at the very least that Killian was the exception to that now dated rule Emma once held dear. This year actually felt much more filled with possibility and that had everything to do with Killian’s presence and with Henry’s wanting him there just as much as Emma did.

A few hours into the preparations, another addition joined the ranks of their party. Liam showed up in the kitchen later in the morning and when he did he was slightly dissociated from how late he’d slept in after years of being a naturally early riser. But once he was awake with a cup of coffee in hand and some breakfast in his system he was a great help and another positive presence in the fray of the holiday. Liam had jokes just as Killian did that kept them all laughing, and he engaged with Henry in a way that made Emma’s heart so happy to see. They were already bonding almost to the same extent that Henry and Killian had, and since the surest way to win over Emma’s approval was to gain the approval of her son, the already warm feelings she had for Liam only solidified into a genuine gladness that he was here and a part of this day meant for family.

“I have no wish to jinx the current success, love…” Killian said at one point from his spot beside her while Emma was putting in one of the last dishes for the meal. “But dare I say we’re doing rather well with all of this?”

Emma laughed at that apt summary of their current situation, stepping into Killian’s arms despite the smatterings of flour and other ingredients he’d picked up through this process. Then she kissed that optimistic smile of his right there in front of Liam and Henry. Killian was just so darn endearing with his constantly having hope and a positive attitude, and between the accent that always did something to her and the oftentimes elevated way in which Killian spoke that was just the tiniest bit nerdy she was hooked. For her, Killian was the total package and she wanted him to know that even if she couldn’t put all those feelings into words right now.

“I think we’re in the clear. Remember, I’ve done this a time or two before.”

“And she’s not kidding. You know we have almost this exact same dinner in May too?” Henry asked and Killian and Liam both looked surprised at that announcement. Emma meanwhile bit back her smirk, letting her kid explain why they’d have a second Thanksgiving spread at the end of spring. “Yeah! After the first year Mom cooked for everyone, Mary Margaret decided that once wasn’t enough and she decreed that there should be two Thanksgivings six months apart.”

“She decreed it?” Liam asked skeptically. “What is she a queen or something?”

“In another life maybe,” Emma joked, knowing her friend could get a little bossy at times but that it always came from a place of loyalty, love, and wanting to do the right thing. “But it’s not like she had to strong arm any of us. I mean who doesn’t want another day filled with mashed potatoes and pie?”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” Liam said. “Can’t say I’ve had any Thanksgiving dinners in my life, and certainly none of them, if ever there was one, looked like this.”

Emma could tell that Killian’s brother meant his words as a compliment and she grinned, feeling the same pride that always came when she impressed people with her cooking grow inside her. But if Liam was impressed, that was nothing compared to Killian’s views. He looked at Emma like she was the most awe inspiring thing he’d ever seen and this was a look Emma was growing more accustomed to by the day. Still it always sparked something in her that she absolutely needed to hold on to and that she never wished to let go.

“Trust me, Liam, all it’s going to take is one excellent Thanksgiving and this might just become your favorite holiday ever,” Henry said in a matter of fact tone and this prompted a laugh from everyone that was only interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.

Emma looked at the clock then and saw there was still an hour before her friends were set to arrive. It’s being a holiday there shouldn’t be anyone else showing up that Emma could think of. There was no mail, no deliveries, no neighbors who didn’t already have a place to go for a family-style meal, so Emma was confused. Who would be coming here now?

“Come on, Swan. Why don’t you help me with answering whoever might be here?”

Emma looked over to Killian curiously and she wondered what he was up to. There was definitely a look about him like he wasn’t surprised at a guest this hour but Emma didn’t deny him his strange request even with the air of mystery surrounding it. Instead she took Killian’s hand and headed for the door, leaving Henry and Liam to finish their last task of putting the prepared pies in the fridge. On the way she tried to concoct a list of scenarios that may await them on the other side of the door, but when they got a look at who was actually there on the front steps, Emma was honestly surprised.

“Elsa, hey…” Emma trailed off, shocked to see her least intrusive friend here but still happy that Elsa was coming today. “You’re early.”

“I know. Killian called. He said you guys needed help with some decorating,” Elsa explained as she held up a cardboard box filled to the brim with different leaves and autumnally themed objects.

“We do?” Emma asked, not understanding at all, but then Killian was there, placing a hand on the small of Emma’s back and filling in with his intentions.

“Aye. I was at Elsa’s the other day to drop of those baked goods she needed and I noticed her office was outfitted perfectly for the season. I thought it might be good to have her bring some of that here so the place is worthy of the meal you’re making us.”

Emma appreciated the praise and she smiled at the thought that Killian was including her friends in things, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something Killian wasn’t telling her. Then he shot Emma a look that silently insisted she trust him as he took the box from Elsa’s arms and he led them back inside to the dining room where they’d need the bulk of any table adornments. Emma meanwhile was growing more and more and curious by the second, but she bit back any open queries and went along with Killian’s plan whatever it might be.

“It smells amazing in here, Emma. Like home and happiness,” Elsa said as she smiled and closed her eyes soaking it all in. At the exaggerated (but still heartfelt) reaction Emma laughed, bringing her friend in for a side hug as they both took a look at the current state of the dining room.

“That’s the goal. But trust me we are so much better off with me on cooking and you on presentation. You remember that first year I had all of you over?”

Elsa muffled a giggle and nodded, no doubt recalling how Emma had tried to create a truly amazing Thanksgiving meal for Henry’s sake that swiftly unraveled into a less than pristinely orchestrated holiday. It turned out that using all natural adornments wasn’t always the best idea (hello accidentally bringing a chipmunk into her house that was hiding in a pumpkin), and that paint needed a lot more time to dry than she’d originally thought…

“Oh I remember alright, and this year I can safely promise the festivities won’t end with Ruby and Anna on opposite sides of a painted gourd fight.”

Emma groaned at the reminder of that part. Here she had been thinking tiny painted squash would be festive and fun, but then her new friends had taken a tiny accidental paint stain on Anna’s cream colored dress and turned it to a full out attack outside. Emma’s lawn had had colored splotches on it for weeks even with the rain, but it had been fun even if at first Emma was mortified.

“I’m sure Killian will appreciate that,” Emma said and she looked to gauge his reaction only to find her man had slipped out of the room. What the heck? What was he up to?

Not two seconds later Emma had her answer when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway and a whispered conversation between the brothers. Emma couldn’t make it out fully, but she sensed that Liam was confused as to why he was being wrangled from where he’d been talking with Henry and that Killian was just trying to get Liam moving through whatever means necessary. Then the next thing Emma knew, the Jones brothers were at the doorway and Killian’s potential plan was more fully revealed.

Instantly a change came over Killian’s brother, and in the moment that his eyes landed on Elsa Emma saw so much emotion roll through Liam’s features. The usually unflappable man looked thrown for a major loop and it was amazing to witness. He stopped dead in his tracks, but Emma felt like she was experiencing every bit of intrigue and excitement and subsequent awkward nervousness that Liam displayed over the course of a few seconds. He was totally enraptured by Emma’s friend, and Elsa meanwhile was oblivious as she stood there removing different elements from her box she wanted to decorate with. It took Emma clearing her throat loudly for Elsa to look up and then Emma grinned when she saw Elsa appeared just as affected as Liam (but in a more understated and better concealed way).

“Do you want to make the introductions, love, or should I?” Killian asked as he slipped back over to wrap his arms around her. Emma turned at him and smirked, so ready to poke fun at his newfound matchmaking skills, but she knew that could wait. For now she needed to put these two clearly interested people out of their misery.

“Elsa, this is Killian’s brother Liam. Liam this is one of my best friends Elsa.”

“Hi,” Elsa offered quietly as she waved her hand in greeting, and to a stranger it would appear that Elsa was just being her usual polite, if somewhat shy, self. But Emma felt the impact of that one word greeting and she couldn’t have been happier. Her friend was totally smitten after less than a minute, and that was a very good sign indeed. Oh crap! Maybe Emma had some of that matchmaker instinct buried in her too.

Liam on the other hand… well he was already gone over Elsa and where Killian had also made no attempt to hide his interest in Emma when they first met, at least he’d been able to form words. Liam just moved towards Elsa and took the hand she’d raised to wave holding it in his. It wasn’t a handshake per se, just an affectionate hold, but where Emma expected some sort of verbal greeting, Liam remained silent with his eyes never straying from Elsa.

“Now might be a good time to fall back on that military training brother. They did teach you proper introductions in the service didn’t they?” Killian joked and Emma shoved his chest playfully to keep him from giving Liam too hard a time, but Liam looked their way for only a split second before he shook his head and collected his thoughts.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elsa,” Liam said with a renewed sense of smoothness and Emma noticed the slight shudder that went through Elsa when Liam said her name. Her friend was positively weak in the knees and Emma could relate. Killian had a way of bringing out the exact same response in Emma more than was fair, but if she could give Elsa any advice it would be to give in and run with that feeling instead of fleeing from that overpowering surge of emotion as Emma once tried to do.

“Uh, yeah,” Elsa said, still clearly dazed from Liam’s touch that lingered even all these moments later. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Liam’s responding smile to that practically glowed, and where Emma had seen the man in good spirits before, especially when he was enjoying himself with Killian and Henry, she had never seen him this happy. All the shadows that followed him (that, to be fair, Liam did a pretty good job of hiding given everything he had probably witnessed overseas) seemed to be gone now. It was also the closest Emma had ever seen Liam come to looking like Killian, and she leaned back into Killian’s embrace knowing that he only ever had that look for her because he loved her so much.

“How did you know?” Emma asked Killian a few minutes later when Killian had made their excuses to the new couple that they needed to get back to the kitchen and had asked Liam to help Elsa with her work.

“That my brother would take one look at your friend and fall instantly?” he asked and Emma nodded. “I didn’t. But they’re both good people with kind hearts and I knew that what they both wanted more than anything was a chance at something like what you and I have found.”

“And do you think they’ll find it together?” Emma asked, looking through the doorway as she heard the sound of Elsa’s lighthearted laugh flitter through.

“I think, given first impressions, they might one day come close. But what we have, Emma, could never be recreated. There’s simply no comparison because it’s more than anything else ever could be.”

Emma couldn’t resist pulling Killian in for another kiss when he said that because it was the perfect answer, and yet somehow also true. He wasn’t feeding her a line; this was really how Killian saw them, and Emma felt that too. What they had was different from the norm. There was no equivalent possible and no story quite like theirs. So while Emma believed there was room for real magic between Elsa and Liam if given the chance, she couldn’t believe any love could be as right or as perfect in her estimations as the one she’d found with the guy next door.

“It’s kind of too bad though…” Emma said when they’d come back up for air and she came down from the dazzling haze that Killian’s kisses always brought. His brow furrowed at that and his questioning was obvious. “I mean they only have an hour before the mother hens arrive, and there’s no way they get through this afternoon without a whole bunch of attention.”

“Aye, love,” Killian agreed. “But if you’ll remember, you and I had mere minutes our first time together, and precious little of that was spent alone.”

Emma flushed a bit at that and she remembered that moment when they’d met. It felt like it lasted forever in some ways because her world had been changed by one single meeting, but it was also over way too quickly. She’d missed Killian already after leaving for Stay a Spell with Henry, and it hadn’t made any rational sense because they only just met. But Emma had also been so wary and terrified of love that she didn’t know if an hour would have been right for them. No. Thinking about it now, she knew things had to go exactly as they had for them to get to here, a place so worth being Emma wouldn’t trade it, even for an easier path to love.

The next hour went by quickly, with Emma and Killian trying to give Elsa and Liam their space (and convincing Henry over and over again to do the same) while indulging in a little light eavesdropping every now and then. They weren’t perfect after all, and as guardians of this new potential attraction between two people they deeply cared about, Emma and Killian reasoned it was in everyone’s best interest to make sure things went smoothly as long as they could. But eventually reality did come knocking and when it did, the whole gaggle of friends was on the other side of the door all at once.

“Wow,” Emma acknowledged as she and Killian greeted them all. “When did you guys start traveling in a pack?”

“It’s just good timing,” Anna explained as she waved her hand in the direction of all the others. “But I don’t know about Elsa. She wasn’t at home when we went to grab her. Maybe she’s at the office?”

“Not quite,” Emma said before explaining that Elsa had come over to do some decorating. This took everyone by surprise and then, in what Emma had to consider an amateur move, Killian mentioned that Liam was helping her and had been for a while.

Emma saw a look on every friend’s face at the mention of Elsa with an eligible man that was all too familiar and spoke to real trouble. It told Emma there would be no mercy in the coming dinner, and that the meal would be filled with over the top hovering and thinly veiled inquisition. Emma, however, didn’t want that to happen, so she pulled Killian outside with her and shut the door, intent on giving her friends some instruction before they came upon the potential new couple.

“Okay, listen up, because I am only going to say this once. There might perhaps be some chemistry between Elsa and a certain foreign sailor – but we will never know how much there could be if you all get crazy and smother the spark right from the get go.”

“Crazy?” Mary Margaret asked as a hand came over her chest like she was almost offended. It was a ruse though because Emma could read her like a book and Mary Margaret had a hundred questions and little tests of love being written up in her head right now as they spoke. From the expression on David’s face as he stood beside her, he could see it too, but he only smiled at his wife with a look of pure love and adoration. “We’ve never been crazy, Emma. Just… interested.”

“Right… well today let’s all do the ‘too cool for school’ thing and pretend we don’t care, all right?” Emma’s friends looked unlikely to commit until Belle spoke up.

“You got it, Ems. Everyone will be on their best behavior. If they aren’t I’ve got the perfect spell to mimic temporary laryngitis, and Liam will be none the wiser.”

“You wouldn’t!” Ruby exclaimed, putting to words what all of them were thinking at Belle’s casual threat, and Belle only shrugged which prompted Ruby to hug her tightly in what had to be considered a strange reaction. “Aww, Belle! I’m so proud of you. God, Elsa found a man, Belle found a kick ass new attitude… there really is so much to be grateful for!”

And even though it was slightly ridiculous, and even though Emma knew there was likely a long night ahead of her protecting Elsa to make good on her promise she’d made back at the Harvest Festival, she knew Ruby was right. Because there was so much in their world to be grateful for, and Emma for one had every intention of celebrating that good fortune and good luck as long as she possibly could.

…………

In all the years that Killian had lived in the states, he’d partaken in a Thanksgiving dinner or two. There was typically someone when he’d been at University or working in New York who would invite him to tag along, or at a bare minimum there were restaurants serving only traditional fare for all those lonely souls spending the day by themselves. But he had never known a one like the one he had today. Honestly, Killian hadn’t had a proper holiday with that feeling of love and connection since he was a child, and to think that all his annual traditions might be like this from here on out soothed something in him.

This evening had been nothing but pleasant and engaging, and hours had been spent with friends and family in the merriest way. No one had any sense of sadness or gloom tonight. The world seemed softer and safer than even the already idyllic way of Storybrooke living and there had even been new sparks lit and new bonds formed in a way Killian never would have dared hope even a few days ago.

He had to smile thinking about it, and he stole a look from where he sat on the couch curled up with Emma over to Liam and Elsa who were sitting in chairs side by side across the way.  Since the very first instant of their meeting, Killian knew that the hunch he had about them being a good fit (that was largely prompted by Henry’s mention of a potential romance between his brother and Emma’s friend) was right. There was something there, something that hadn’t taken any time at all to ignite, and as the evening pressed on the initial interest had only grown stronger. There was no denying that Liam and Elsa were at the start of something, and as happy as Killian was to see it he knew Emma was just as glad for the unexpected twist of events.

“They’ve managed to stay awful cozy all things considered,” Emma whispered from her spot beside him and Killian grinned, gazing down at the woman he loved more than anything and seeing she was the picture of coziness herself right now all tucked up next to him.

“I think that has everything to do with your vigilance, Swan. Don’t think I haven’t born witness to your continued intervention tonight.”

“Do you think they noticed?” Emma asked, looking back at the two might-be lovers and Killian followed suit.

“I think they’re both completely wrapped up in each other already and there simply isn’t room for the outside noise the rest of us can bring.”

Emma laughed at that sweetly, the sound of it enveloping Killian like a warm blanket and lingering in his consciousness for a moment longer than it should. But there wasn’t a chance to take things much further with Emma right now. He was honestly lucky enough to have her in his arms like this given everyone’s presence in the room, and it would just have to do until everyone finally headed home for the evening.

“You know I was thinking all through dinner, that as far as holidays go, this was a pretty good showing,” Belle observed happily. “I struggle to think of a better one actually. I think the only one I enjoyed more was the first holiday after Emma and Henry came to town.”

Killian felt Emma’s hum of approval at Belle’s mention of that first Thanksgiving spent together, and he was unsurprised when all of the other friends readily agreed. It was obvious that Emma and her son had brightened everyone’s lives when they arrived, and as much as Killian saw them both as precious gifts, he knew the others felt the same. There was no risk of Emma or Henry being underappreciated in this group of people, and that fact was enough to assure Killian that every one of Emma’s friends was worth keeping always.

“Maybe it’s just me,” Graham said from his spot with Ruby across the room. “But I happen to think New Year’s Eve two years ago was the best.”

“Well of course you would think that,” Ruby said with a knowing smile at her lips that still spoke to her true enjoyment. “That’s when you married me. It is by definition the best day the world has ever seen.”

This conversation spiraled to a point where everyone began giving their opinions on their favorite holiday memories, and those moved onto tales of childhood specifically. Even Liam and Killian joined in on that, regaling the group with accounts of their most bizarre Christmas ever.

In the story it was the two of them and their Mum and the essence of it all was that their mother had completely forgotten one year that it was Christmas. She woke up and went about the day totally normally for a full hour, and only when Killian, who was all of six years old at the time, had said something did she spring into action. To make up for it she’d been completely over the top the rest of the day and into the evening, and Killian could still remember how much they’d laughed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves even if he was just a lad.

“What about you, Mom?” Henry asked. “Do you have any good stories?”

Emma considered the question and a first she answered that today was her favorite memory because they were all finally together (which Killian loved to hear more than he could ever put into words). But it wasn’t a satisfactory answer for Henry, and because he probably didn’t realize it would be hurtful to his mother to dwell on memories from the past, Henry pushed further than anyone else in the room would have.

“I know today’s the best one, but what about when you were a kid?”

Emma grew pale at the question and Killian could feel her go a little tense in her stance. It was clear she wasn’t thrilled at being asked about a time in her life she would rather move past, but Killian also knew that Emma wouldn’t run from this. If Henry wanted an answer she would do her best to give it to him and all Killian wanted to do was help in some way.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be from a holiday per se. Sometimes the best moments of the season aren’t on the big days themselves. It’s the little things that make the difference.”

There was still a moment of hesitation on Emma’s part when Killian’s heart broke, and he knew there was a good chance she would say no to this too. Emma’s life had been hard – far too hard in his opinion – and she should never have had to experience any of that fear or abandonment that she did. But when she finally smiled and nodded, sitting up a little straighter but without the same anxious set in her stature, Killian felt soothed from the harsh feelings sparked by thoughts of her troubled childhood.

“Actually there was. When I was eleven I was in a smaller group home right outside the city, and a couple of days before Christmas they took us on a trip and they wouldn’t tell us where we were going until we’d already arrived. It was a horse farm, one of those ones for the huge Clydesdale stallions, and having never actually been that close to a horse I was pretty excited and also totally petrified.”

“Were they giant? They always look giant on TV!” Henry exclaimed, clearly interested and Emma nodded, relaxing more into the memory as she continued to expand on it.

“They were. Or maybe I was just small. Either way they were beautiful and also surprisingly gentle. They definitely weren’t as menacing as they first appeared.”

“That sounds really nice actually,” Elsa acknowledged with a dreamy look in her eye that immediately caught the attention of Liam. Before that, Killian had questioned if Liam was even paying much attention, wrapped up as he was in Emma’s friend, but now there was no doubt he was on the alert.

“We went to a place like that one time,” Anna said eagerly as she looked back at Kristoff for confirmation. “Only there were like a million reindeer and no horses.”

“Of course there were,” Ruby said with a shake of her head as she shot a smirk towards Anna’s husband. “What is it with you guys and reindeer? I don’t know anyone with as many reindeer stories as you two.” Everyone laughed at that before Emma continued on.

“Well this place didn’t have reindeer I’m sorry to say, but the people who ran the farm were great. They had games and all sorts of stuff for us to do. There were cookies and a fire for marshmallows and it was just a really good day when I didn’t have that many of them back then.”

“But…” Henry implored, sensing that there was something that his mother wasn’t saying, and that perhaps it was something that had been missing from her rare positive experience.

“But there was one down side,” Emma admitted, her eyes taking on a thoughtful quality and looking a bit remiss when she said it. “It was a really warm December that year, and because there was no snow, we missed out on the biggest draw of the place: the horse drawn sleighs that they had that could take you all along the property.”

Killian could just picture in his mind a childhood version of Emma and her conflicted state on that happy day. On the one hand, she’d have already been feeling the weight of the jadedness she’d gained from a life without any real stability, but on the other hand she’d probably chosen to make the best of it. He wished he could go back and change things for Emma on that day and every day when she was but a child. If only he could turn back time and grant her a happier life… but for all of it’s heartache, the path of Emma’s early years had brought her to Henry and then to Storybrooke and then to Killian. There was no going back, but as Killian sat there, running his hands through the long wavy strands of her golden hair, he thought to himself that he could remedy all of her past pain in their present and their future, until those days of old were nothing but a hazy, faded chapter of the life she’d once led.

“Oh that would have been lovely,” Belle agreed, her own expression taking on some wistfulness at the thought. “I wish we could have something like that in Storybrooke. Couldn’t you just imagine? It’s practically ripped from the pages of some fairytale.”

“Maybe someday we will,” Emma said quietly and in that moment, where he heard that there was still some longing in her voice and some wish for that kind of experience, Killian knew he would bring such a chance to Emma. He didn’t know how, and he wasn’t exactly sure when, but it would be soon and he’d make it as magical for his Swan as he possibly could.

From there, the conversation stayed in strictly pleasant waters. There were no more prying questions about anyone’s pasts, just musings on their shared memories or their plans for things coming the rest of this winter season. It turned out that in three weeks time, just before Christmas itself, that the town had another seasonal festivity: a dance for the holidays that Emma and her friends were all involved in planning yet again and that had a special twist. For it turned out that in Storybrooke it was the women who always asked the men to be their date for the dance, and at the mention of that, Emma turned her eyes back up to him and pleaded for his attendance in a way that made his heart squeeze tightly in his chest.

“You’ll come with me, won’t you?” she asked, even though Killian could see certainty etched into her expression in every way. “Or are you one of those guys who need a big to do when a girl asks for your hand?”

The teasing words landed with a fierce impact on Killian’s heart, and though he knew Emma’s phrasing still revolved around the dance, he couldn’t help drawing connections to his own personal wishes to ask for her hand in something much larger. Marriage was just as much on his mind now as it had been in the weeks before, and he was, even now, formulating a plan to ask Emma for forever sooner rather than later. He hated to think that the year would end and he wouldn’t have told her everything he felt and all that he wished for in a future with her, but in this moment at least, his desire to lay it all out there had to remain subdued. He would get there, but the proper place wasn’t now despite how he might wish it to be so.

“Of course I’ll be there, love. And the only thing I need is to know you want me there. That’s grand gesture enough, I promise you.”

Emma seemed to love that response if the kiss she pressed to his lips was any indication, and though there was a murmuring of response from everyone around them (all of whom were still overly interested in all things Emma and Killian), there was one noticeably absent voice. Henry was not amongst the viewing party lobbing out gentle teasing or feedback, and when Emma and Killian broke apart, Killian saw why. Sometime in the last twenty minutes or so, Henry had fallen asleep on the floor curled up by the fire and he was definitely tired if he’d slept through everyone’s reactions.

“Oh Henry,” Mary Margaret said with a fond inflection. “Poor little guy must be exhausted.”

“Can you blame him?” Emma asked. “He’s been going going going all day and then he tried to keep up with Ruby at the dinner table. Any normal human who had that much turkey would have no choice but to sleep.”

“That’s all right. He’ll get there someday. He just needs a little more training,” Ruby assured them all as Emma shook her head and chuckled at her friend’s antics. She then moved to stand, and Killian could sense that she was debating departing for home to get her boy to bed, but he held her in place, kissing her temple before offering another alternative.

“I know Henry needs his rest, love, but I also believe that if he finds out the party ended early on his account he’ll be beside himself. Why don’t I get him settled in the spare room I’ve got down here? Who knows, perhaps he’ll rally and rise to challenge Ruby once again.”

Everyone laughed at the idea as Emma smiled and nodded. A wave of relief washed over Killian that their time together wasn’t over yet tonight, but when Emma offered to assist Killian in getting Henry to bed, he waved her off, insisting he could do this himself. Emma should enjoy the party, especially after she’d spent so much of the day preparing and cooking and hosting. Finally she was relaxed and totally at ease, and Killian wanted to make sure she stayed that way for as long as he could. It was no trouble for him to scoop up a sleeping Henry in his arms, and then he moved across the first floor to the quiet part of the house where the happy hum of the party could still be heard but wouldn’t be so obvious.

With ease and care, Killian managed to get Henry to the guest room in his house that just so happened to boast the most sailing regalia of all of them. It was a happy coincidence, and one Killian was sure Henry would be grateful for if he should wake up before the party’s end, but Killian didn’t linger on those thoughts as he tucked Henry in and made sure he was all right. He put a light on so as to keep Henry from any kind of fear when he woke up, and even Luna had made her way here when she saw Killian bringing Henry away from the others. The tiny cat jumped up right onto the pillow beside Henry, curling beside him in an at once affectionate and protective stance that Killian loved to see. Henry should be protected, after all, for he was a remarkable boy who had wiggled his way into Killian’s heart almost from the get go.

“Goodnight, Henry. Sleep well,” Killian said when Henry was all tucked in and he ran his fingers across Henry’s forehead, pushing some of his hair from his forehead before turning to go. But before he’d made it out of the room, Henry’s sleepy voice warbled out to him.

“Killian?”

“Aye, lad?” he asked as he watched Henry try to blink away the drowsiness of having just been asleep.

“Are you going to ask my Mom to marry you?”

Well that definitely was not what Killian was expecting. There were actually about a million other things he would have been more prepared to have Henry ask him, but this… well it was unexpected even as it hit home to some of the thoughts Killian had only just been having. But now that it was out there between them, Killian found himself unable to lie or keep the secret from Henry.

“It’s my sincerest wish that someday I have the chance to do just that. But I would only ask your mother for forever it would be all right with you, Henry.”

Henry smiled at that with a warmth and enjoyment that said he was fully content with everything life had to offer even as he fought off another yawn. He looked so determined to stay awake, but Killian could tell it was a losing battle. Soon enough he would be drifting off to sleep again, but Killian was just so glad to have Henry’s approval that he could hardly register anything other than Henry’s sleepy grin as he nodded.

“It would be way better than ‘all right.’ But can you do me one favor?” Henry asked and Killian immediately said that he would, eager to grant Henry anything since he was giving Killian so much with his acceptance. “Can you maybe ask her soon? I’m getting kind of tired of all the waiting.”

Killian chuckled at that since by most estimations there had been no waiting. This relationship between he and Emma had been on a speedy trajectory since first coming out the gate, but he supposed that for a ten year old, time would seem to drag a little more than the average person. Besides, this was hardly a sacrifice for Killian since he too wanted to take that next step as soon as could be.

“Well I’m sorry to have kept you in suspense, lad, but yes, I’ll do my very best to get a move on.”

“Awesome,” Henry said as he closed his eyes and snuggled down in the bed more, but he left Killian with one last astounding comment just for good measure. “It’ll be just like my dreams. Mom can find her true love and I can finally have a Dad.”

Killian didn’t know how to respond to those words, words that meant so much more than he could ever express, but fatigue won out with Henry again, and no sooner had the young lad whispered the confession than Emma’s son was sleeping soundly. This left Killian a bit shell shocked but also more than pleased. He had never dreamed that Henry would ever see him that way, but if Emma’s son was open to Killian stepping up as a father figure, then Killian was all in. Now he could only hope that Henry had truly meant it and that he’d remember those incredible words come morning.

Walking back down the hallway from the room where Henry slept, Killian tried to pull himself together. There were just so many things going through his mind and he was wading through a whole host of possibilities about when and how to ask Emma for her hand. The thought of instant gratification was tempting, and he could picture walking back into the living room with everyone there and bending down on one knee here and now. But it wouldn’t be all that Emma deserved if he did that way. No. For their story and for this next step, Killian wanted something undeniably personal and romantic. He wanted a memory that none of them would ever forget, and he also wanted a way to include Henry somehow now that he was sure of his approval.

“Killian?” A voice asked from down the hall and Killian looked up to see Emma had wandered over here. “Is everything okay?”

She didn’t know the half of it, and while Killian could try and articulate how things were far and away better than ‘okay’ right now, he didn’t even attempt it. Instead he closed the distance between them, pulling Emma back into his arms and kissing her there in the hallway where they had some privacy but not nearly enough for what he wanted. To show Emma the true depths of his love he would need time, and a more secure divide between the party going on and their intimate moment here, but in this kiss Killian infused everything they could have in this moment, until they broke apart and were both gripping onto each other and hoping for more.

“Everything is perfect, Emma, and I have you to thank for that.”

“Me?” Emma asked, a little surprised, but clearly dying to hear more as she searched his gaze with her expressive green eyes.

“Aye, love, you. All of this happiness – all of this goodness in my life now – I owe it all to you.”

“You make me just as happy,” Emma admitted, stealing another kiss in a playful manner that had him beaming down at her.

“Nothing could ever be more rewarding than hearing that you feel that way, love. But what you’ve done for me is almost indescribable. You woke me up. You healed something in my very soul I didn’t even realize was broken. And most importantly you brought me love, love I will never turn away from as long as I live.”

“That sounds pretty permanent,” Emma whispered as her hand came to cover his heart and she looked back up at him, her eyes filled with the mistiness of so much unspoken emotion.

“That’s because it is, Emma,” he replied, bringing his hand to cover hers so she could feel the frantic beating of his heart more fully. “I told you once that there was nothing that could ever change my love for you and I meant it. I’m not going anywhere, and today… well today only further proved something I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” she asked, prompting a grin from Killian as he took in the breathiness of her voice or the thinly veiled desperation of her tone.

“It proved that at long last I’ve found my place in the world. I’ve found home here with you and Henry, and it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever known.”

Words weren’t needed in the face of that declaration and Killian knew from the way Emma kissed him again and the way she held him close that she saw things the same way. But eventually words did come, beautiful words about how he would always have a place here with her and Henry and how Emma would always love Killian back. They were magical, remarkable, and amazing in every way, and because of them Killian was even more resolved to wait just a little longer to propose to his Swan. For a woman who was constantly gifting him with miraculous moments deserved perfection in return, and Killian would do anything to find a way to get them to that perfection and get them there soon.

Post-Note: So I know that last time I said that I was planning to get all of this story written before the end of summer… well let’s just say life has definitely gotten in the way of that and I very simply do not have the time. However, my new goal is to get us to the proposal (which is in the next chapter) and at least get that published before my life gets crazy hectic. I’m not sure when the subsequent chapters will get written – maybe right away maybe it’ll take a longer while than I am used to – but I do know I am NOT done with this story yet and there will be a fair bit more before it’s all over. Anyway I thank you all in advance for the understanding and I hope you enjoyed this installment for all it’s fluffiness! Thanks for reading and hope you have a great rest of your day!

[timalexanderdollery]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Qs1Mvy

[gracieyvonnehunter]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Qs1Mvy

[shanedakotamuir]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Qs1Mvy

[knoxursoxoffpenwriter69]

Gaming on Windows is just better.

Reasons windows is better I'll, save you guys the trouble there aren't any actually yeah. I agree. Are you guys kidding me? The vast majority of the world runs Windows on the desktop and believe it or not. There are some pretty darn good reasons for it, so guys we compiled the top 10 of them from our community to share with you in this video thanks LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. They relieve the burden of trying to remember all your passwords for every website. Let LastPass fill in your passwords, for you learn more at the end of the video or at the link below [, Music ]. First up and this one's a shocker gaming, our community spoke, and we agree. Gaming on Windows is just better. 

Not only are there tons of current games for the Windows PC platform like literally thousands of them, but accessing them and keeping them up to date is much simpler than it used to be thanks to online marketplaces like Steam, origin, you play, and yes, even the epic Game store and Windows gaming has far more going for it than just the current library. Recent progress towards integration with Microsoft's Xbox ecosystem has brought cross-platform play to some titles and even cross-platform purchases, and on the subject of compatibility. Well, there's the back catalog of games, which numbers in the tens of thousands with a shocking number of old games still being playable on modern hardware. I fired up 1602 80, a game from almost 1602 80 on my Windows, 10 PC with a Titan RT X on it with minimal tinkering required. 

That'S crazy! So we're actually working on a collab with good old games. Right now to show this off make sure your sub, so you don't miss it on the subject of tinkering Windows games, particularly the older ones, allow for a ton of it with large communities that have built everything from their own servers from multiplayer to mods that alter Visuals or gameplay elements and even mods that change the genre of the original title fun fact for you, young kids out there dota used to be a custom map in Warcraft 3. Finally, there's the advantage that comes naturally with being the incumbent gaming platform support wan na try out the hottest new peripherals like brand new graphics cards, VR headsets, haptic feedback, vests odds are excellent, that the Windows software is going to be much more polished than what's available. For other platforms, that is, if anything exists, for them at all, RTX real-time ray tracing on Mac. 

Please is actually a common one for users of every platform and it's that it just works or because I don't feel like something new like Apple Microsoft has made it OS that, for the most part, works as intended. Out-Of-The-Box, no real extra effort is needed. Thanks to Auto magical third-party driver installs through Windows Update when you get into the weeds with obscure devices, hardware compatibility on the platform does have its issues, but for the average user it is much better than it used to be, and so is the general intuitiveness of Using it I mean I still remember when they introduced the documents and pictures folder. Comm 4 is the toolbox. The registry editor, if used responsibly, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optimizing. The windows experience task manager got some big upgrades with Windows 8 and now makes it so simple to monitor CPU RAM network and even GPU usage. 

So anyone can do it, but if you want to go even further, this rabbit hole. 2 has pretty much no bottom resource monitor, gives you a much more granular. Look the information from cast manager, making it easy to identify processes that are sending large amounts of network data out or causing your disk to churn and slow down the rest of your system. Task scheduler is a crazy, powerful utility that lets. You have Windows, automate tasks for you. It can open and close programs for you when you log in and out it can send emails when tasks complete and you can even post to Twitter and Facebook using the window. Scheduler and power toys are back, so these are actually Microsoft provided tools that enthusiasts can use to add or enhance features.

 I was a huge fan of sync TOI back in the day and this new window management one for Windows, 10 looks sick. 5. Is the support base want to learn how to do some of the stuff? You'Ve talked about well, with 78 % of the worldwide desktop OS market share. If it exists, someone has probably done it so, like you want to become the new macro king. Well, there are tutorials on how to do that, need to troubleshoot a weird error between the official support from Microsoft, for both current and legacy windows and the thousands of enthusiasts on forums around the world. The odds of finding someone to help. You are pretty good. One. Great resource is actually our forum linked below, where our community is ready, willing and able to help feel free to check that out after the video 6 is productivity. Even Apple had to acknowledge. 

Windows is strength when it comes to buckling down and just getting some work done, whether you're trading stocks, writing reports, tracking financials, making super cool, PowerPoint, slides or making YouTube videos like us windows probably supports the software and the hardware that you need to get it done. Microsoft'S Office suite is incredibly powerful and works best on Windows if you want to do 3d or CAD work. Most of the industry-standard software is on Windows and, let's not forget the plethora of one-off and highly specialized programs needed for scientific study, engineering and many other industries. Now I wasn't sure where to put this little bit so we're gon na chuck it in productivity, shortcut keys, so many shortcut keys, classic control-alt-delete for when things go wrong windows and one two three and four to launch the corresponding app on your taskbar go ahead and 

Try it it's really cool and if you like bad one, you can grab the other new power toy that lets. You hold the Windows key to see all the shortcut keys for your active programs. Oh productivity bliss awaits my friends. Seven is OS unity with some notable exceptions. Windows hasn't changed too drastically over the years. So if you went straight from Windows, XP to Windows, 10 you'd probably find your way around it sooner rather than later, and if you're a technician. This can be really nice because it's not uncommon to find yourself working on a different version from one hour to the next. It'S a totally different experience compared to Linux, which has I don't know, I stopped counting after 30, let's just say a lot of different distros or versions that are designed for a multitude of different tasks or specialized use cases. 

There are mainstream optimized distros out there, but if you don't consult the internet beforehand as a newcomer, it can get really confusing and thing is even if you do consult the internet. People might not agree on which flavor of the month is vastly women do bunt to stop being cool. Eight was a bit of a surprise to me, but it came up a lot. So maybe I just take the taskbar and file explorer for granted. The modern taskbar is a great tool for maintaining a clean and organized desktop, giving you quick access to frequently used programs and offering up a quick preview of all of your active windows as for File Explorer. Well, it's got its issues. The search is pretty slow. The up, folder navigation is done. Sometimes, documents should go to sequel and slash users, slash your username, not this PC etc. 

But it's got wide support for thumbnail, previews lots of useful information readily available, and it requires no keyboard shortcut to cut paste. Sometimes you don't have to be great just better than your competitor. 9 is reliability with good Hardware. The days of daily blue screens are long. Gone crashes do still exist, but for years now I've experienced long periods of smooth and stable performance. Microsoft does have some work cut out for them to make their automatic updates mover in the regarde, but they at least seem to be aware of the problem. At this point, bringing us to ten finally sort of related to gaming to compatibility, got an old program from the Windows XP days. Well, there's a decent chance that, with some trial and error, you will be able to get it to run even in the latest. Builds of Windows 10. 

There are just so many specific use programs that have been written over the last couple of decades and losing access to them because of an OS update could be devastating for some people. Compatibility mode actually works more often than you'd think and when it doesn't, some quick googling will often bring up a solution, and the cool thing is that goes. Both ways got a computer that mom bought 10 years ago, but still wants to use. Well, there's a solid chance that Windows and most programs that run on it will still work on that, even if not very well. Our Skull trail system from 2008 was actually a great example of this no driver issues and, aside from a couple of games that refused to launch because of missing CPU instructions, our issues were related to performance rather than to compatibility, so guys go check out that video. 

If you haven't already now one of the tools we love using on Windows comes, of course, from our sponsor for this portion of today's video LastPass LastPass relieves the troubles of remembering your passwords and reduces the anxiety about getting locked out of your accounts and then waiting For reset password emails, you won't need to write down, remember or reset passwords anymore with LastPass LastPass allows you to keep track of an unlimited number of passwords and not just passwords. Even just things like you know, Wi-Fi codes or just things you want to remember and store somewhere safe, and it doesn't only work for desktop it even works on mobile sites and apps for both iOS and Android. When you open an app or a site, LastPass will fill in your username and password making logging in easy, so click the link below to find out more about LastPass. So, thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed this video see you 

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Easy Pass CCIE R&S LAB

When you pass CCIE WRITTEN EXAM, you have to start preparing for CCIE R&S LAB. Although the process is very tired, this day will definitely make you hard to forget.

Before the test:

TS, LAB must be done through. When there is a clear concept of the origin and transmission of structure and routing, that is almost the same. You can make an appointment for the examination room. This state is not only stable but more worried that the examiner added the mistake.

Get up at 6 in the morning, check out at 6:15, drink porridge at 6:30, and eat rice noodles. This is very important and your brain needs the energy of these carbohydrate conversions in the next few hours.

At 7:15, I went to the Yingjun lobby and went up to the 31st floor. I waited until 7:50. I went to the office to check the documents and took us to the elevator to the 29th floor examination room. The scene let us empty all the pockets, including money.

Then tell us that the desktop paper has a corresponding name and login number, find your location and log in to the system exam.

The first part begins TS

1. vlan-access-map does not forward traffic normally. action forward.

2. Adjust the ospf metric of the SW101 interface.

3. Adjust the single and dual address ranges captured in the route-map of R12 R13 and declare e0/0.

4, adjust the R21 to RR out The LP value of the route-map is greater than R20. (The demand test room has changed slightly, not 10.4.41.41, but the interface between SW400 and R40)

5. Adjust the ospf network type p-t-m. (This requirement does not require 10.5 OE2 on R60)

6, SW300\301 fills the dhcp snooping trust interface.

7, the question is MPLS big problem. The MPLS core area checks igp, and R1 announces the loopback. Completing the MPLS configuration. Adjust the e0/3 ospf of R10 Cost.

8, SW111 announced vlan100, R15 established ebgp ipv6 neighbors. R15 does a two-way redistribution by default.

9, Tunnel key 10000, DMVPN up, user7 telnet server2 phenomenon.

10, R24 R25 is relatively med, the operator will choose R25 to enter 65002, ip nat outside static on R25.

      NAS telnet server2 phenomenon.

Part II begin diag

Diag is consistent with the materials provided

1, view the capture after selecting 114

On option 82

Sw1-sw3 link

2, choose to sort

Tcp connect from 10.1.1.1

Download TCL script via HTTP

TCP connecting from remote10.1.1.2

Install ransomware via backdoor

e kill

Tclsh http//10.1.1.2

Part III begin CFG

Section1 defaults all ports are admin Down, pay attention to the port connected to the device to be opened.

Section 2 2.1 has been pre-configured. It is only necessary to check whether the port between devices is down or not.

       R55 R56 is to be redistributed in both directions and filters out external routes when redistributing eigrp into bgp.

       2.6 inject detailed routing people can not help but sigh. Oh Yeah! PASSHOT solution is really strong! ! !

Section3 All the mpls ips of the mpls area and the 65006 area of the merge are all pre-configured. The label protocol is specified to force the source interface of the mpls. Pay attention to the PE connection CE interface, do not configure the command, look at the topology and then knock. (I wasted 5 minutes for this. R5 R6 is E0/2 connected to CE, not our Eou E0/1) In terms of Rt, I read the five-line demand for ten minutes which means that 65002 65005 65007 does not need to visit each other. 65006 65007 needs to receive the default route of the DC. According to the title.

Section4 has clear requirements and perfect solution

Section5 has clear requirements and perfect solution

In general, as long as I understand what I started to mention, there is basically no difficulty.

At last

Really, my heart is looking forward to meeting lab3, knocking on lab3 pass RS but when I open TS2, I know that it is gone.

Last

The pages of the examination room are usually different from each other. You don't have to do it with a hurry. Just click and look at it. It is not too late.

But don't point to the END SECTION on the top right side, otherwise it will be a white paper.

Thanks to the guidance of PASSHOT teacher. Thank you for meeting you in life.

[boozedancing]

Below is a sneak peek of all that will be going down during Philly Beer Week 2019 courtesy of our friends at Philly Loves Beer…

_________________________________________________

PHILLY BEER WEEK RETURNS WITH 10 SUDSY DAYS OF EXCLUSIVE BEERS, TASTINGS, FESTIVALS, CRAFT CRAWLS, DINNERS, TOURS AND COLLABORATIONS

Philly Loves Beer announces the return of Philly Beer Week XII between May 31 and June 9, 2019 at hundreds of venues around the region. Raise a pint and celebrate Philadelphia as “America’s Best Beer-Drinking City™” with ten days of non-stop festivals, dinners, tours, pub crawls, brewer nights, educational workshops and charity events. Look for a record breaking 2,000 beer-soaked activities presented by hundreds of breweries, bottle shops, restaurants, bars, craft-centric businesses and neighborhood organizations. There will be a little something for everyone, as events are designed for the beer novice to the beer aficionado. Pair exclusive and rare ales with craft cuisine in some of the city’s best dining rooms. Philly Beer Week kicks off on Friday, May 31st with the all-day Hammer of Glory Relay that ends at Opening Tap at 2300 Arena. This annual kick-off party moves to an exciting new venue with a 65+ breweries and cideries all under one roof. Opening Tap will also offer the first pour of the 9th Annual European Collaboration Beer, Duveldelphia. This exclusive 6.8% hoppy blonde was brewed in Belgium at the famed 148 year-old family-owned brewery, Duvel Moortgat, with local PA brewery winners, La Cabra Brewing. On top of Duveldelphia, look for this year’s special edition of Brotherly Suds X, a collaboration beer from local breweries Tröegs, Victory, Yards, Sly Fox, Stoudts, Iron Hill and Flying Fish. For a full roster of events, plus Opening Tap tickets, visit www.phillylovesbeer.org.

“It has been very gratifying to be apart of the process that is Philly Beer Week,” said Philly Loves Beer Executive Director, Christina Dowd. “Watching this celebration of 10-days evolve and maintain its same energy since the beginning has been amazing. The bars, restaurants, breweries, etc. all put forth so much thought and devotion to creating unique events and showcasing delicious beers – regional, national and international. We are proud that these 10-days truly showcase what makes Philadelphia “America’s Best Beer-Drinking City”™ all year long.”

Philly Beer Week is now entering its 12th year, celebrating more than 1,000 events among hundreds  of participants, and tens of thousands of kegs kicked. For 2019, look for a line-up that brings beer-focused events to every corner of the region – from cozy neighborhood pubs, to Philadelphia’s restaurant row, to the region’s most well-known museums, to the city’s largest beer gardens, to the banks of the Schuylkill River. Philly Beer Week kicks off with a whirlwind day starting with an exciting journey around the city and ending with the biggest event of the entire celebration. From Opening Tap to the minute the final kegs kick, get ready for a beer-soaked ride you won’t soon forget…

OPENING TAP KICK-OFF PARTY – WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT!

For Philly Beer Week XII, Opening Tap will head over to a brand-new, bigger and better location at the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia on Friday, May 31, 2019, from 6:30pm to 10:30pm. The new space will allow exciting changes and room for a record number of participants.

“We’re not kidding about that bigger boat!,” said Dowd. “This year we’ve moved Opening Tap across town to the 2300 Arena in South Philly and have had an overwhelming response from breweries and cideries who want to fill the cups of eager drinkers.  From freight, to Mummers, to Extreme Wrestling, the building at 2300 Arena has seen it all. If these walls could talk, we know they’d enjoy sharing a beer with our ever-growing beer community that will be joining us on May 31. Also, did someone say Live Band Karaoke?! Ummm yeah – that should be quite a treat!”

Opening Tap is Philly Beer Week’s signature kick-off party that brings the entire craft beer community together for a ritualistic “first tapping” of the festival – followed by a raucous party with endless samples. A highly-anticipated night, Opening Tap features rare and limited pours from more than 65 breweries and cideries, plus live entertainment.

Get out your boogie shoes! For entertainment, Philly Loves Beer  welcomes back VJ Fava le Chic, of Oxbow Brewing and formerly of Nodding Head and Dock Street Brewing.  Although it’s hard to follow his incredible act, this year’s attendees get a piece of the spotlight as guests have a chance to participate in live band karaoke with Pat Finnerty & the Full Band.

Opening Tap VIP tickets are $66 (includes a specialty souvenir glass, and an additional hour of access, beginning at 6:30pm featuring rare pours) and General Admission tickets are $46 (includes souvenir glass and complimentary samples from more than 65 local and national breweries and cideries). Tickets are on sale now:

https://www.2300arena.com/event/opening-tap-2019-may-31/

Below is an early list of breweries and cideries, with more to be announced:

Duveldelphia

Brotherly Suds X

Allagash Brewing Company

Attic Brewing Company

Big Hill Ciderworks

Bolero Snort Brewery

Brewery ARS

BrewDog Brewery

Cape May Brewing Company

Conshohocken Brewing Company

Crime and Punishment Brewery

Deer Creek Malthouse

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Duvel Moortgat

Evil Genius Beer Company

Fat Heads Brewery

Firestone Walker Brewing Company

Fishtown Brewpub

Flying Fish Brewing Company

Free Will Brewing Company

Heavy Seas Beer

Hokkaido Brewing

Imprint Beer Company

Iron Hill Brewery

La Cabra Brewing

Levante Brewing Company

Lion Brewing

Locust Lane Craft Brewery

Love City Brewing Company

Mainstay Brewing

Manayunk Brewing

Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company

Ommegang

Oxbow Brewing Company

Philadelphia Brewing Company

Platform Beer Co.

Ploughman Cider

Riverhorse Brewing Company

Roy Pitz Barrel House Second District Brewing Company

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Sly Fox Beer Company

Stoudts Brewing Company

The Larimer Beer Company

Triple Bottom Brewing Company

Troegs Independent Brewing

Urban Village Brewing Company

Victory Brewing Company

Wissahickon Brewing Company

Workhorse Brewing Company

Yards Brewing Company

Zeds Brewery

THE HAMMER OF GLORY AND HOG RELAY

The Hammer of Glory is the custom, hand-forged keg hammer that is the official mascot of Philly Beer Week. The HOG travels throughout the region – and across the United States – as an ambassador for Philadelphia’s beer scene. On the first day of Philly Beer Week, the HOG visits 25+ bars, breweries and restaurants on its way to Opening Tap. The public is invited to ride along and celebrate!

Hop on the bus behind The Hammer of Glory and watch as it is passed Olympic torch-style from venue to venue. Past conveyances have included a festive mix of the weirdly absurd (ziplining from atop Standard Tap, for example, or escorting the HOG to Yards Brewing in a DeLorean) and insanely practical (ascending 51 floors to take in the majestic views from SkyGarten, then leading a cavalcade of motorcycles at TIME).

The Alemonger and the Hammer of Glory during PBW 2011

The Hammer of Glory Relay will begin at Hop Angel Brauhaus (7980 Oxford Ave) starting at 9:00am. Ticket holders can get on and off the bus during any stop on the route. The full schedule, including ticket options, will be announced soon.

The HOG Relay will conclude with the HOG’s arrival at Opening Tap for the ceremonial first tap of Philly Beer Week XII firkin of Brotherly Suds.

DUVELDELPHIA INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

In the spirit of Philadelphia and the collaborating nature our breweries take part in, Opening Tap will be the first opportunity to taste the 9th Annual European Collaboration Beer, Duveldelphia.  This 6.8% hoppy blonde was brewed in Belgium by raffle winners from La Cabra Brewing based out of Berwyn, PA alongside the 148 year-old family-owned brewery, Duvel Moortgat. This collaboration blends Duvel’s mastery of fermentation and La Cabra’s American-style hopping! Idaho 7 and Citra hops provide a fruity bouquet balanced with a dry body.

“I can’t believe we made a beer with Duvel,” said Dowd. “I fondly remember my first Belgian beer because it was a Duvel and it’s the beer that got me exploring more beers and styles from across the pond. I love the Philly Beer Week tradition of an International collaboration, and the timing was impeccable as Duvel had just installed a small pilot brewing system and were eager to test things out. We are thrilled to partner with such a large, renowned brewery.”

When asked why this collaboration beer and process is such a big deal for 2019, Dowd explained, “To put things into perspective, European breweries tend to make one beer and make it really well, and are only recently expanding into creating different styles. For instance, Duvel Moortgat is a very, very large brewery that has been making the Duvel beer recipes exactly the same for almost 150 years. So, working on new and smaller batches was becoming somewhat of a challenge for brewers who are used to working with a much larger system.  But, lucky for Duvel Moortgat, the folks at La Cabra are quite used to the size of the pilot system as it as a similar output to their own brewery in Berwyn. So, in areas where Duvel was like ‘can we even do that?!’, La Cabra brewer Dan Popernack was like ‘heck yeah, trust me!’”

Dowd added, “Philly Beer Week’s tradition of a European collaboration beer is not only a delicious product of two fantastic breweries, it really is a collaboration of cultures as we share different views, styles of brewing, histories of brewing, experiences of brewing – but bringing everything full circle and uniting us through that golden glass of refreshing beer.  In the end, crossing these boundaries and creating new communities within our community is one of the most satisfying pieces to evolve from the project.”

Duveldelphia makes its debut at Opening Tap. After Opening Tap, you can catch this beer on draft in and around the city!  Drink your way into history and don’t sleep on this beer – once it’s gone, it’s gone! Locations will include Memphis Taproom, Jose Pistola’s, Teresa’s Next Door, Bru Craft & Wurst House, Interstate Drafthouse, Pistolas Del Sur, Hop Angel, Uptown Beer Garden. This list is continuing to grow and we will have a running list on phillylovesbeer.org, as well as, social media.

BROTHERLY SUDS LOCAL COLLABORATION

Philly Beer Week XII will feature a special firkin of Brotherly Suds, a collaboration beer created from local breweries Tröegs, Victory, Yards, Sly Fox, Stoudts, Iron Hill and Flying Fish. Brewers this year gathered at Yard’s Brewery on April 16th and created this year’s edition – which is a hoppy citrus saison. Look for Brotherly Suds at Opening Tap, and then at locations around the city. Stay tuned for all locations!

Carol Stoudt, another original founder, groundbreaking woman brewer and owner of Stoudts Brewing also spoke about why it is important for the community to continue evolving. “We started out as six brewers, but we are committed to being inclusive. Sharing time together and supporting everyone has always been a keystone of the craft beer community,” she said.

ART ON BEER SIGNATURE EVENT

Philly Loves Beer presents several signature, not-to-be-missed events each and every year. One of the most popular each year is below – act fast as it always sells out!

* Art on Beer – Be honest, have you bought a beer just because the label caught your eye? Explore with us on Tuesday, June 4 at 7PM at Warehouse on Watts (923 N Watts St, Philadelphia) as we dive into why the artists and the breweries make the decisions they do.  From an entire redesign to an addition of a new flavor series or one-off, the third installment of the Art on Beer panel discussion will be moderated by JP Flexner, most notably known for his design work for Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company of Croydon, PA. This year’s installment features: the illustrations of Brewery ARS of South Philadelphia; the combined styles of free hand and graphic design from Free Will Brewing of Perkasie, PA; our Canadian friends, Collective Arts Brewing, who fuse the craft of brewing with the inspired talents of emerging artists and musicians; and Stillwater Artisanal from Baltimore, MD whose goal is synthesizing art and beer. Advance tickets are $15 and are available at https://www.universe.com/events/art-on-beer-tickets-philadelphia-FGPVKR

TOP PICKS AND GREATEST HITS

Philly Beer Week celebrates long-established and much-anticipated favorites. Here are some annual favorite events that you should be on the watch for:

Pints n’ Pin-ups (Varga Bar) – June 1st

The Doug Abides: Can Release, Dude & Dog Block Party! (Evil Genius) – June 1st (Major Street Festival)

East Passyunk Craft Beer Day (East Passyunk Ave BID) – June 2nd (Major Street Festival)

Roy-Pitz Barrel House Sour Sunday – 2nd Anniversary Party – June 2nd

12th Annual Extreme HomeBrew Challenge (Jose Pistola’s) – June 3rd

PIKL: Industry Karaoke League Finals! – June 5th

Beer and Boats on the Schuylkill River (Bartram’s Garden) – June 6th

The Ben Franklin Mob Hash House Harriers (Love City Brewing Co.)  – June 6th

Fishtown FestivALE (various bars in Northern Liberties) – June 8th (Major Street Festival)

Wayne Music Festival (Teresa’s Next Door) – June 8th (Major Street Festival)

Get Milked- A Queer Pride Festival and Dance Party (Milkboy Chestnut St) – June 9th (Major Street Festival)

Darth Vaderess and Don Russell.

Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing. Photo courtesy of Stephen Lyford.

Tom Kehoe of Yards Brewing Company. Photo courtesy of Stephen Lyford.

ABOUT PHILLY BEER WEEK

Philly Beer Week made its debut back in 2007. What started as a casual conversation between friends in the comfortable back bar at Monk’s Café grew into Philly Beer Week, a 10-day celebration of beer culture in Philadelphia.

Tom Peters was quickly earning a national reputation as the “Godfather of Belgian Beer” for introducing interesting beers and new brewers to a novice U.S. audience; and Nichols (affectionately known as the “Great Gatekeeper of Philadelphia Beer”) was already establishing the city as a craft beer destination by hosting beer dinners and tasting events with famed British beer writer Michael Jackson. Twelve years later, their pioneering efforts have accounted for thousands of beer-savvy consumers flocking to Philadelphia every June to seek out rare collaborations and one-of-a-kind events.

Philadelphia has a long and celebrated history of being the home for many historic firsts for our country – including the first beer week in the country. Philadelphia’s event is known as the “Founding Father” of beer weeks, as it has been replicated in over 100 cities around the world.

Today, Philly Beer Week continues to be the largest beer celebrations in the United States. The ten-day festival continues to pay tribute to the region’s abundant and fast growing craft beer industry, while activities continue to create and foster the beer-literate consumer.

Check out “Philly Loves Beer All Friggin Year” By Board President, Casey Parker, for a fun, in-depth look of that magical moment at Monk’s Cafe.

ABOUT PHILLY LOVES BEER

Formerly Philly Beer Week, PLB was established in 2017 and is a non-profit 501 (c)(6) organization overseen by a community of like-minded beer professionals whose aim is to “grow the pie” and promote the entire Philadelphia region’s top-notch beer-drinking culture. Through a membership network, PLB works to promote and educate consumers about beer 365 days a year, celebrating Philly’s proud brewing culture by highlighting local brewers and progressive national trends.

ABOUT LEADERSHIP TEAM

For 2019, Philly Loves Beer and Philly Beer Week are led by Executive Director Christina Dowd, PLB Board President Casey Parker, and Co-Founder and Counsel Tom Peters. The annual festival has grown from a local gathering to a national powerhouse run by Philly Loves Beer (PLB), a group of dedicated beer insiders, tavern owners, world-class brewers, wholesalers and distributors, and top hospitality professionals. PLB’s capable Board of Directors includes: Casey Parker (The Pistolas Group), Alex Bokulich (BRU Craft & Wurst, Uptown Beer Garden, Blume, Tinsel, U-Bahn and Tradesman), Aaron Peskin (Ferrara Law Group, P.C), and Trevor Hayward (Evil Genius Beer Company).

A Sneak Preview of #PhillyBeerWeek 2019 courtesy of our friends at @phillylovesbeer. #CraftBeer Below is a sneak peek of all that will be going down during Philly Beer Week 2019 courtesy of our friends at…