#and it only took me *checks calendar* nine months!

[warrior-of-waistbands]

hey all! Remember this knitting project I teased all the way back in December??

well I finally got around to finishing it!

hand-knit using three different shades of red yarn for color variety + sewed on piqua-dots in black yarn. Then I sewed a ribbon around the top so I could have something to tie it with (the bonus is that it can double as a smaller size shawl. Or maybe a capelet?)

I restarted this thing like five times because it was my first time trying this kind of pattern and there are still some parts I'm not completely satisfied with but overall I'm mostly glad I got it done!

extra low-quality shots of what this thing looks like when I wear it (I basically had to film myself to get the first shot that's why it looks like that lol)

and here's the pattern I used to make this (it's free to download!) (note: I personally altered the pattern slightly to get a more even texture)

[lgbtawarenessproject]

Part 1: USA

Hello everyone! Happy pride month!

Last month I stated that coming June I would post about historical queer events around the world. This is part 1 of North America. Later today I will post parts 2 & 3, Belize and Greenland. The pride month calendar can be seen in our pinned post!

That being said, I'm excited to show you what I've been working on. (Also thanks Mom for helping me edit this)

-Soul

Stonewall Inn was one of many bars in Greenwich Village, New York City. It, just like many others, was owned by the Genovese crime family, the local mafia. The family thought it would be profitable to cater towards the gay citizens, shunned by most every other bar and person. Police had been bribed to ignore it, and on the occasions that they did raid the bar, ‘dirty’ cops would send a tip.

June 28th 1969, Stonewall Inn had just experienced a routine raid a couple days before. Officers burst in carrying a warrant, and arrested thirteen people. In order to check if they were truly ‘cross-dressing’, female officers would take them into the bathroom and have them strip

Usually when this happened everyone would let it go, they’d be mad, but they wouldn’t do anything. This time, however, an officer had hit a butch lesbian(widely assumed to be Stormé DeLarverie), in the head with a baton while getting her into the car. She yelled for the onlookers to act, and they did. Bottles, stones, pennies, and other things were thrown at the police. Among the first to throw them were two trans lesbians of color, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha Johnshon. The officers boarded themselves in the Inn, but the crowd had begun setting it on fire. Not long later, the firemen and riot control came and took control of the situation.

This event may be the one we are most familiar with, but it’s not the only thing that happened. Here are some links to other events that happened shortly before and after.

Before Stonewall

After Stonewall

Sources 1 2 3

Back in 1987, the AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) epidemic had just been labeled an epidemic. There were very few treatments, and only one FDA approved one. This treatment, called AZT (zidovudine) , was only manufactured by one company. Burroughs Wellcome, a pharmaceutical company, had made the drug nigh inaccessible. The price was so high, that very few people could afford it. 

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), was created in response to this. Larry Kramer was among the ones to originate this movement. The activist groups scheduled a march on Wall Street in 1987, scheduled to disrupt traffic during the morning rush hour. Activists laid in the street and held signs, chanting phrases like “We are angry, we want action”, and “Release those drugs.” Seventeen activists were arrested, but shortly afterwards the FDA announced it would lower the required time for drugs to be approved from nine years, to seven. 

Sources 1 2

In June of 2015, gay marriage was legalized by the supreme court in the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, forcing fourteen states to legalize same-sex marriage.

The case started in 2013, when James Obergefell and his husband John Arthur James, filed a lawsuit in Ohio when they realized that their marriage would not be recognized on Arthur's death certificate.  During the lawsuit, Arthur, who had a terminal illness, passed.

Plaintiffs told Obergefell that state officials were not going to approve his name being on Arthur’s death certificate, but filed the complaint anyway. The judge the case went to, Judge Timothy Black, granted Obergefell a temporary order that would allow Arthur to be marked as wed. 

The plaintiffs and Judge Black were not happy with this however, and the plaintiffs amended their complaint, adding two more plaintiffs. They asked that Ohio declare that their refusal to honor out of state marriages on death certificates, was unconstitutional and asked that they would fix it. Judge Black also declared it unconstitutional and banned the state from enforcing it upon the plaintiffs.

The department of health director Wymyslo appealed this, but was unable to see the case through. As was his successor Lance Himes. Himes’ successor Hodges was the one to finally see the case in court, where it was appealed. 

Obergefell filed a petition for a Writ of Certiorari with the supreme court, in 2014. In January of 2015, the Supreme Court granted it, allowing the case to be heard. The Supreme Court, decided after much deliberation, to recognize same-sex marriage as a right under the fourteenth amendment.

Sources 1 2

Additional things that I wanted to share about, but cannot do justice for.

Intersex Awareness 1 2 3 4 5

Two-Spirit 1 2 3

Please support our project by taking this survey if you haven't already done so!

-> Part 2

[aliterarydumpsterfire]

The Crash, or The House That YouTube Built

It’s quiet this morning. It’s been quiet for weeks. Or maybe it’s been months? The calendar on the wall has been used more in the last seven months than probably any calendar we’ve owned. It hangs next to the fridge with a little post-it note that hovered over the twenty first that read in all caps “Dr. Theisen, 8AM!” From my spot at the kitchen table I squinted to find the date. The smell of coffee wafted through but it hadn’t quite kicked in for me. Today’s the tenth. It’s been exactly nine months. I’ve never been a good judge of the passage of time, especially without all of my automatic synced calendar alerts from before The Crash.

At first it was a crisis. Not to me, but to my wife Vanessa. I’ve always had a healthy aversion to the internet but to her the panic from the sudden loss of the invisible network that wove us all together was palpable. In the hours following The Crash it seemed easy for her to distract herself with shopping and admiring herself in the mirror but after the twentieth hour her efforts were something more…. Desperate. She asked me to take her phone so she wouldn’t obsessively check it, then took a melatonin and lain in bed, staring at the ceiling. She dreamt about hitting 3 million followers on Instagram. When she woke to the still-same status of The Crash she was crushed.

I remember how she put on that fake high voice she uses when she’s not okay. “Oh! Well, I’ll just… go for a run I guess”. She hadn’t actually ‘gone for a run’ since senior year for P.E. exams, though her feed would tell a different story. So many photos of her in running gear. So many hours meticulously feigning a runner’s sweat with glycerin and posing in athleisure for the camera. Her announcement to go on a run was cautious, and almost nervous. I didn’t laugh at her. I simply nodded and tried to keep my eyebrows from betraying my surprise. Be cool. Don’t make it a thing. “Okay, babe. Don’t forget your water bottle.” For a moment she perked up. She was cheered by the reminder of the branded posh water bottle, an item she’d received only the week before as a PR package. I went back to my book as I heard her fill the bottle in the kitchen and left out the front door. She came back in a better mood to proudly show off the most genuine selfies I’d ever seen from her, but her overall antsiness continued. Those small pick-me-ups as reminders of her importance grew fewer and more distant as The Crash became a greater reality.

Vanessa Moore is the beautiful woman I have called my wife these past seven years. I don’t remember quite how or when she became fully attached to her fame or phone, but it happened slowly. First she Marie Kondo’d all her favorite souvenir national park t-shirts, then the spare room became a filming room, then she went blonde, and then one day I found myself picking her up an outpatient clinic for a procedure she swore would make her happy. It all seemed so linear to me now, how I lost my wife to the internet personality she’d rather be. The word they use for someone with that great of a following is ‘influencer’ but I cringe to think of my Nessa like that. She used to be so different. I didn’t used to be an Instagram Husband. I couldn’t have been more relieved that The Crash happened, to be honest it probably saved my marriage. My wife wouldn’t share my opinion. I held that secret thought as bitterly as my coffee tasted in my cooling mug.

The first six months were rocky for us. I couldn’t conceal my annoyance at being constantly asked to take photos for an audience that was lost in the ether. More importantly, Nessa discovered something that rocked her world– her sudden loss of connection to the sycophants she called fans and community left her lonely and depressed. Somewhere along the way her self confidence had been replaced by relying on validation from faceless interactions. I bet that even that some of those interactions came from bots, but she missed them all the same. It’s been hard. She still has dreams about hitting 3 mil. Her therapist says she has PTSD and FOMO, the second of which I cannot help but doubt is a technical term. As baffling as it was, we’re still coming to terms with what that means. For Vanessa that means she has to find meaningful things to do, and learn new skills. She’s enrolled in school for a real degree…. .. this is where I have to stop myself. Reframe. She has a real degree– Online Influence Marketing. She’s just getting one that is more relevant to the post-Crash economy now. I can hear Dr Theisen’s voice in my head correcting me. “Mr. Moore, despite benefiting for your wife’s influence you don’t really respect her, do you?” That question still felt like a punch to the gut, followed by deep and immediate shame. I benefited from the free vacations, home that YouTube bought, the brand spokesperson discounts, the random PR boxes that arrived on our doorstep. I couldn’t deny that my wife had worked hard to paint a picture on her social media of a… ‘bossbabe’. That word still makes me shudder. It all seemed so vapid and empty to me. If The Crash hadn’t happened, would I still be here? I constantly asked myself that question, steeped in guilt.

Nessa’s voice in the hall broke me out of my shudder. “Babe?” “Yeah, hon?” I raised my head to look her direction. Morning rays from my nook window played on her face. Her eyes were heavily lidded, her blonde hair and dark roots a mess, but still a welcome sight after all these months. She wore a long tee with GLACIER emblazoned across the front in faded letters. I could’ve sworn that used to be my shirt, though I hadn’t seen it in years. Her voice came again, this time softer. “I had a dream.” Dr. Theisen said that was common after devastating loss. Recurring dreams that haunted the broken. I stretched out my hand to her and she took my hand, folding herself into my arms to perch on my lap and curl into me. Her heart beat felt unsteady through my shirt. “The three million again?” That’s the only dream she ever had. Her head shook slightly against my shoulder. Her voice was so quiet I strained to hear her before the silence of the kitchen swallowed it up. “You left me.” The guilt came back to me again with a roaring vengeance. “Oh, Nessa. No, honey. I’m right here”. I held her tight. The pain in my gut was visceral, twisting and searing up a rebuke at me. The smell of coffee drifted through the kitchen but was completely forgotten. The wetness from her cheeks smeared against my shoulder and that twisting deep in my chest amplified. “No, no, no. Sssshh. You’re ok,” I whispered to her. Now I could hardly get the words out. You bastard. You coward. You would have. I croaked out another reassurance and I felt a tear fall from my face too, my breath caught on the lump in my throat. She dreamt of you. I lifted her chin to look her in the eyes. With a thumb I wiped away her tears. I nearly lost you. “Vanessa Moore, I have not left you. Shhhh baby, I’m right here.” I hugged her tight again. You’re still in there. I’m still here. I nearly lost you, but I’m still here. The Crash ruined so many lives but it saved mine. I couldn’t ever tell her. I couldn’t ever tell her that The Crash may have left her nothing… but it had given me back everything.

[marshmallow-phd]

Nine Little Letters

Genre: College AU, Fake Dating AU, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AU

Inspired By: This graphic made by @rcse-tvler​

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: Just when you thought life was done shoving you down, it got much, much worse. After finding out that your latest crush was already in a relationship, you did what you always did when emotions ran high: you wrote a letter. Signed and sealed, you put it away with the eight other letters you’d written to past one-sided loves, never to be seen again. That is, until a mix up accidentally sends those letters out to their respective recipients and you find yourself in the middle of one confusing web of love. With fake relationships, insecurities, and revelations swirling around, things are bound to get a little messy.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11

This was the worst kind of humiliation. Standing there on the sidewalk staring open-mouthed at the one person you were excited to see today, you were crumbling into a million pieces. And no one even noticed. That was what made this humiliation so bad; there was no one to witness it. You were breaking and no one cared.

You should have known better, really. This morning was going too well. You had woken up on time, had a delicious, filling breakfast, and had managed to put an outfit together worthy of any Pinterest board. Your confidence was through the roof and you were going to do the one thing in your life you swore you would never do.

You were going to confess to your crush.

Signing up for math tutoring was the last thing you wanted to do. Who in the world wanted to spend their valuable free time learning more about equations and algorithms? But you needed to pass this class. It was the second time you’d taken college algebra and the thought of taking it a third time made you want to crawl under your bed. So, you buckled down and took the walk of shame into the math lab. (Yes, that was an exaggeration. Everyone knows there is no shame in getting help. Didn’t mean you had to like it.) When you got the call from your assigned tutor, you ignored it. You didn’t like talking on the phone to anyone let alone a number you didn’t recognize. No voicemail was left. Then a text came through.

Hi, (y/n)! This Kim Junmyeon! I’ve been assigned as your math tutor. When you get a chance, let me know when you’re free so we can create a schedule that works for you. Have a great day!

You waited an appropriate amount of time before replying. So, an hour and half later, you texted him your schedule and made a plan to meet up in the library the following Thursday. You marked that day on your calendar with exactly zero enthusiasm. In your head, this Kim Junmyeon was the cliché nerd from movies: dorky glasses, snort-like laugh, and clothes that looked better on a grandfather. Oh, boy were you so happy to be wrong.

Sitting down at one of the tables by the large, ceiling high windows, Junmyeon was nothing like you’d imagined. He had a sophisticated aura about him. He dressed nicely, a thin long-sleeved shirt over a patterned button down, the collar laid nicely over the top of the shirt, and was blessed with sharp, handsome features. You knew you were in trouble. But you didn’t care. You sat down at that table eagerly, ready to… learn.

For the past month and a half, you’d met Junmyeon twice a week to go over the lessons and work on the assignments. By some miracle, your grade was actually going up in the class. Somehow you were able to better comprehend the material and secretly fawn over your tutor simultaneously. At this point, you were sort of feigning how much you weren’t understanding to keep the tutoring sessions going. The nice thing about algebra, once you understood the basics, everything else built on top of it.

But today – today you had decided that you were going to step over the line from tutor and student into the realm of perhaps something more.

You liked Junmyeon. You liked his math puns and the way he scrunched his face when he thought hard about something. His lips would pucker whenever he lifted the sheet of paper to check over your work. Each time you met up with him your heart acted like it was in the middle of a NASCAR race and it was determined to win. You had it bad. This wasn’t the first time you’d had a crush like this, but you had set your mind on making this one different. This time, you wouldn’t hold it inside. You were going to be the brave one, the bold one. The fact that birds were tweeting as you rode your bike onto campus should have been a sign that things would only be downhill from there. Unfortunately, like the optimistic idiot, you took it as a positive instead.

After locking your bike up, you headed straight for the courtyard near the pond. Junmyeon had told you that he often spent his mornings there to finish up homework or to read a book (the fact that he read so much was another factor in your liking of him). In your head, he was all alone, flipping through a novel as he leaned against the trunk of a tree, looking like a prince taking a rest in the shade on a warm summer’s day. The water would be glistening in the background as a lovely, lighthearted melody played softly through the air. He would see you approach and smile that wide, brilliant smile. Your heart would skip as you sat down in the grass next to him and poured out your feelings. The daydream turned into a nightmare the second he came into view.

Junmyeon was not alone nor was he sitting under a tree with a book. He was on one of the benches, splayed out on the wooden beams with his head resting in the lap of a very pretty, more his league type of girl. She laughed as Junmyeon told a story. A delicate hand ran through his soft brown hair. Your heart fell to the ground, forming a crater at your feet.

Shoulders slumped and day ruined, you turned and headed for the student union. If today was going to suck like this, then you were going to sprinkle it with an overly sugary coffee drink. Preferably with extra chocolate drizzle. It helped - a little bit.

Your morning classes went by in a blur. You were certain you took notes, but none of the information sank in. Later you would have to transcribe your quick scribbles to a word document to help you study. You would learn the information then. By lunch, you were starting to peel yourself off the sidewalk of humiliation. Especially when the one person you could always rely on joined you for lunch.

“How did it go?”

You remained silent, continuously munching on the sandwich in your hands as your best friend sat down across from you at the small, two-person table near the middle of the cafeteria.

Baekhyun laughed his signature, SpongeBob-like laugh. “That bad, huh? I told you not to do it.”

“Technically, I didn’t do it,” you corrected. “He already has a girlfriend.”

“Ouch.”

You nodded. How could you not see this before? Did he mention having a girlfriend and you just blocked it out? Junmyeon and you talked casually between math problems, about your friends and fun things you liked to do on the weekends. He’d failed to mention one very important detail.

“Well,” Baekhyun reached over and plucked a potato chip off your plate and plopped it in his mouth, “at least you found out before you said something. I told you he wasn’t worth it.”

“Just because he has a girlfriend doesn’t mean he isn’t worth crushing on.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “You’re so much help.”

Ignoring your quip, Baekhyun snatched another chip. You smacked his hand, but all that managed to do was break off a few pieces, the crumbs falling to the table. Smiling proudly, Baekhyun popped the half-chip into his mouth. “So, are you just going to go home and write a letter?”

“Are you just going to go home and write a letter?” you mocked with a scrunched face.

Byun Baekhyun had been your best friend since the two of you had met in the first grade. He’d stolen your popsicle that your mother had packed as a special treat for your first full day of school. When he saw you start to cry, he broke off the piece he’d been sucking on and handed the rest back to you. There was a bit of a disagreement on the level of nice-ness that act achieved since it was your popsicle to begin with, but somehow it caused the two of you to be inseparable ever since. Being your best friend meant that he was privy to the more private parts of your life.

Like the letters.

Starting as young as ten years old, you’d developed a bit of a tradition when it came to your crushes. Emotions were hard to process, but you found them easier to work through if you thought about them and translated them into words. Those words would fly across the paper, transferring the feelings that made you both laugh and cry into the graphite that formed them. Not to mention, the act made you feel like the heroine in a rom-com. Certainly it was something that Meg Ryan or Rachel McAdams would do once they realized how they felt about the male lead.

The first letter you ever wrote was during your final year of ballet class. Dancing had been a part of your life since you were three, but a new passion had been discovered so you’d decided to quit after this last cluster of classes. A terrible decision, really. Because right after your mind was already made up, a new boy had joined the class.

Kim Jongin.

He had just moved into town after his father was promoted to a new position and had to transfer to headquarters. You’d never seen him at the park or the grocery store before. He was completely new. And beautiful.

He was blessed golden skin that glistened, shining brighter the longer he danced. And, oh, the way he danced. It was well beyond what anyone else could do. His movements were fluid, water-like, as if the very beat of the music were pulling and manipulating his limbs to convey what the notes had to say. Each move was a word and when he formed them together, they could make you smile or cry. And when he smiled… oh, his smile was like starlight. The kind of brightness that stayed in the sky even as the city lights flickered on. To this day, you’d never found one that could rival it. He was a dream that every composer coveted. So, what was your young heart to do?

Well, the movies told you to confess. But there was no way you could find the courage to do so, especially since you only saw him in class and you couldn’t confess in front of everyone. The only other option was to write it out; to write it out like Jane Austen pouring her heart out for Tom Lefroy.

 Dear Jongin,

I’m not sure how to start this. Do I compliment you on your dancing? It’s nothing like I’ve seen before. Prima Donnas in the Russian Ballet would be jealous of you! But you probably hear that all the time. And about how handsome you are, even under all that hair. I can’t help but watch when you pull it back for class so you can see yourself in the mirror. Why can’t I look like that? I somehow ended up looking like a frizzy wet cat that just climbed out of the tub.

I guess what I’m trying to avoid saying is that… I like you. A lot. I like your laugh and your wide smile. I like how much you love music and how you interpret the melody with your moves. No one can freestyle like you! My heart does a dance of its own whenever I see you. I hope you don’t have anyone that you like, just so I can stand a chance. Would you ever think of me like that? If not, it’s okay. I just needed to tell you. Someday, you’ll be on stage dancing to an audience of thousands and I’ll be right there in the front row, cheering you on! Until then, I hope you always find happiness in what you love.

Love,

(y/n).

 That sentence about watching him on stage made you cringe in hindsight. Cute for a ten-year-old, but a bit stalkerish. Luckily, though, you never gave it to him. You chickened out every time up until the last class. The idea of him opening it and reading right there in front of you was mortifying. So, then, you decided to mail it. The teacher gave you his address after you told her you wanted to invite him to your birthday party (it should be a little worrisome that a teacher was willing to pass on private information like that… perhaps it was because you were a kid). Three times you went to the mailbox to send the letter out and three times you ran back inside to hide it under your mattress.

That was the beginning of your weird little tradition. Though you never sent the letter to Jongin, you felt better having somewhat confessed your feelings and worked through them without the humiliation of actually… doing it. So, the next time you had a crush so overwhelming that you needed to get the feelings out, you wrote a letter. You even went all the way each time to address the envelope, giving the confession a sense of finality. There was no fear in them ever going out. Baekhyun was the only other one in the world who knew of their existence. At the current moment, eight were hidden in a drawer in your vanity. The way your fingers were itching, a ninth one was on the way.

“I might,” you finally replied.

Baekhyun leaned forward eagerly. “Can I read it when you’re done?”

“No!”

He snapped his fingers as he sat back in his chair. “Darn.”

“Why am I even friends with you?”

“Because I’m charming.”

There was no question in his voice. He one-hundred percent believed it. And… to be honest, he did have his moments. But that was all in the past. “Like a plank of wood.”

Shaking his head, Baekhyun rapped his hands on the table before standing up. “Alright, I’m going to class. Have fun with your pencil and imagination.” For emphasis on his stupid remark, he stole one last chip before walking off.

You finished off your sandwich in a bit of a rage. By the time you were finished, your mouth muscles were aching as if you’d spent several hours at the gym and it was jaw day.

You only had one class left for the afternoon. But it was algebra. How were you supposed to concentrate on functions when your sad attempt at getting into a relationship with your tutor failed so epically? Somehow you managed, though, and you packed up at the end of class with a new sort of determination. As you hopped on your bike and rode home, you thought over what you were going to write. You were so lost in your head that you hadn’t notice the car pulling out of your neighbor’s driveway, nearly hitting you before the driver hit their brakes.

“Shoot!”

You back peddled to break. Your heart thumped in your chest. No life memories flashed before your eyes, but you were sure you almost died. Slowly, you moved forward to get out of the way of the car. 

“I’m sorry!” you yelled over your shoulder.

The driver leaned out the window.

Oh, great.

It was your neighbor. Or, at least, your neighbor’s son. Do Kyungsoo. He stared at you with an expression that could be blank but could also be a glare. It was hard to tell with him. Shaking his head, he pulled back inside the car and drove away.

Fighting off embarrassment for the second time this day - albeit this situation was much lower on the scale and it happened a bit more often than you’d like to admit - you put your bike up in the backyard and headed up to your room. Your mother, a literary history professor, and your father, a doctor at the local hospital, were both at work and wouldn’t be home until well after dinner. You were used to it. Besides, you were an adult and you liked being able to decide to have pizza for dinner and not worry about what other people wanted for toppings. Once you put your order in, you sat down at your vanity and got to work.

 Dear Junmyeon,

Has anyone told you how your hair looks in the sunlight? The dark brown hues seem so warm and inviting, like an ebony chair that was warmed by the unfiltered rays. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to run my finger through it. Would the strands be as soft as they look? Would you wear the same smile on your face that you do during our sessions? But I guess I might not be meant to feel them. Today, I intended to tell you how I felt. I woke up with a determination, a goal to say how much I like you to your face. I was so nervous riding my bike to the university, but it was the good kind of nervous; the kind that makes you keep going. It seemed, however, that I was too late. Or maybe I simply never had a chance at all. I’d missed any signs that said you were already someone else’s.

I hope she knows how lucky she is. I hope she makes you laugh and listens to you when you’re having a bad day. Your laugh is like a symphony. Does she tell you how light and lovely it is? Or how infectious it is? When you laugh, I can’t help but laugh along. It’ll be sad not to hear it anymore. Or have our talks filled with random subject changes. But I think I’ll miss your smile most of all. The way it crinkles your eyes yet still lets them shine. The way it spreads across your face and the way your cheeks grow. It is truly a sight to behold. I hope wherever you go, you are always smiling. You always let your light shine even on the cloudiest of days. That’s what’s so special about you and what made me fall for you. Even when I was frustrated or couldn’t understand, you were patient, taking my mind off of the negative and turning me so I could face the positive. That’s a rare kind of person. You are a rare kind of person. Please always be happy, Kim Junmyeon.

Love,

(y/n)

 With a sigh you sat back in your chair. The letter had done its job. Though you were still sad about the way things turned out, you no longer felt defeated. The words you needed to say were now out there without being “out there”. Okay, so he had a girlfriend. Big deal. It wasn’t the end of the world. There were more potential love interests out there that you could find. He was only one and obviously wasn’t the one.

Beginning to smile again, you folded the letter and put it in an envelope. You didn’t have Junmyeon’s address, so you wrote out the address for the math lab. Opening the top drawer of the vanity, you placed the latest addition to your collection under the first envelope. The doorbell rang right as you closed it up again. Oh, thank goodness. Food.

Practically skipping down the steps, you hurried to the front door.

“Hi-” You stopped as soon as you’d opened it. The person waiting on the other side was not the pizza delivery guy - it was Baekhyun. The boxes holding the pizza and cheese sticks you’d order for no one but yourself were in his hands. Over his shoulder, you barely caught sight of the delivery man driving away. “Really?”

“What? I was bored. And hungry.” He flipped open the lid to show you the hot, melted cheese of the appetizer. “Cheese stick?”

Rolling your eyes, you stepped aside so he could come inside.

Baekhyun had been to your home plenty of times in the past so it was easy for him to make himself at home. He didn’t wait for you before pulling plates out of the cabinet and pouring a drink. He even went as far as getting you glass as well. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

The two of you ate at the kitchen table as your mother had a “no meals in the living room” policy. Small snacks like nuts and popcorn were okay, as long as you didn’t spill any on the couches.

“So… how did the writing go?” Baekhyun asked cheekily between bites.

You shrugged. “Fine. I’m deciding that I’m getting over it.”

Now it was Baekhyun’s turn to roll his eyes. “You always get over them fast.”

“What’s the point of dwelling on the things you can’t change?”

That was always your answer. Yes, the hurt was immediate and painful, but Baekhyun was right, you tended to push it aside rather quickly. That was the whole point of your letters, anyway. Get the feelings out of the way so you could move on. What was the point of clinging on to something like that? You would only end up worse if you stayed in that spot. So, you pushed yourself to move on. And eight times out of nine, it had worked. There was only that one nagging letter that failed to do its job. That particular set of feelings refused to go away even as you looked to other crushes, as you found other boys to like. It was the one you would always wonder about, the one that was completely off limits. The dull ache still crept up every once in a while. If moving on was what you had to do, you would do it. Because you would prefer if you never had to go through something like that ever again.

[mindofharry]

Garden Song

chapter 1 - motion sickness

It’s been two years since the divorce between Julie and Grayson. A lot has changed. Grayson wants Julie more than ever. Will she take him back?

TW: some of the stuff mentioned in this series might trigger some people. please don’t read if you get triggered easily!

“You need to leave before the boys wake up” Julie mumbled and Grayson nipped at her neck. It wasn’t meant to happen, not in this way. They got carried away — Julie was upset because of Ethan and Grayson just wanted to comfort her. So three episodes of Brooklyn nine-nine and a whole bottle of wine later, they ended up in Julies bed naked and somewhat embarrassed. It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, the night Ethan broke up with Julie, she went straight to Grayson. She didn’t even think which was why she was so frustrated.

Grayson put Julie through hell and back. With his cheating, drinking and just being a total dickhead. She’s been trying to distance herself in the nicest way possible. As you can tell, it’s not going very well.

“Hmm, i know you don’t want me to” Grayson hummed kissing down her neck.

“I don’t want you to leave, but sebastian knows what sex is. No lying anymore” Julie said with a smirk, Grayson groaned and rolled onto the ‘his’ side of the bed. It was weird for him to even say that, but he stays over here more than he does his own home. It’s safe to say, it’s his side of the bed. He wished Julie would let him stay in bed with her, instead of worrying about the boys. Julie is constantly worrying about Alexander and Sebastian, even more than she probably should.

She just doesn’t want them to get hurt again. And instead of talking with the boys and her therapist — she’s keeping it all inside and projecting it on other people. Luckily she’s made some good friends, so they know all the shit Grayson put her through. Julie met Sarah a couple months ago at a parent teacher meeting. Alexander bit her son — he’s going through a biting phase. Of course Sarah thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and now they’re both best friends. The same with Alexander and Sarah’s daughter Maria. Alexander gets all blushy around her which is the cutest thing.

Sarah would all kill Julie if she found out she was sleeping with the enemy (the enemy being grayson). Julie had too much whine, and sarah was talking about her divorce, and all it just sort of slipped out. It felt good to have another person to talk to.

“i’ll go make breakfast then?” he asked and Julie nodded getting up and pulling her silk dressing gown over her naked body. Grayson was sat up in the bed, watching her every move. “you’re undeniably sexy, you know that?” Grayson said pulling his boxers on.

Julie grinned and leaned against the bathroom door. “you’ve told me once or twice”.

Grayson sighed to himself in content as Julie hopped in the shower. He got up, only his boxers, all of his muscles and tattoos on show. He went downstairs and went straight to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast. He had major deja vu. All the fights, the sex, the cheating — this kitchen had seen it all. Grayson is surprised that Julie didn’t just up and leave, he really wouldn’t of opposed at all. She deserved a happy ending, and Grayson really thought that was with Ethan.

Everyone thought that Ethan and Julie were meant to be after Grayson. That they would get married and do better.

But it was just so much worse.

No Ethan didn’t cheat or abuse her emotionally. But he promised. He promised Julie so many things, a happy life was one of them and that just didn’t happen. The first job that was thrown his way, he took it and left without so much of explanation. He just came home from the current job he had, ate the dinner Julie and the boys made him and then told Julie that night that he was leaving because he just couldn’t handle the pressure of being a dad and having a full time job he didn’t love. Of course, Julie was upset — she went straight to the person who fucking cheated on her, that’s how messed up she was after what Ethan did. And the fact that it wasn’t just for a job, it was because he wasn’t able to look after children.

Ethan promised marriage, more kids, a new home. And he gave shit, just like his brother. The Dolan twins were a drug, and Julie apparently just couldn’t get enough.

“Daddy?” a voice called out by the kitchen door. Grayson turned around with a big green to his youngest boy, Alexander. He had gotten so big after the last two years, his curls more prominent and god was he a tall five year old. Don’t get Grayson started on Sebastian — he’s like the tallest 10 year old Grayson’s ever seen. Julie always said they take after their daddy in that department.

“Hi, baby. You wanna help daddy make some pancakes for mama and Seb?” Grayson asked flipping a pancake over. Alexander nodded quickly with a smile and ran over to his dad, his favourite pink blanket now on the floor. He put his hands up, and Grayson lifted him up resting him on his hip. Julie raised such good boys, always wanting a cuddle, kiss or hug. Always listening and never fighting. The most mature boys ever. She a really good job, Grayson wished he was around more during those times.

“What are you doing up so early, little man?” Grayson asked and Alexander shrugged. “Heard you and mama” he said and Grayson pouted.

“Did we wake you?”

Alexander nodded resting his head in Grayson’s chest. “you can sleep some more” Grayson murmured kissing his forehead and continued making breakfast. About ten minutes later, alexander was up again helping grayson set the table for breakfast. “good job, buddy” Grayson grinned messing up Alexander’s hair.

Julie walked down the stairs hand in hand with Sebastian, she could smell the pancakes and coffee already. She missed having someone do this for her and the boys.

“Hey, honey” Grayson said as he saw Julie and Sebastian coming through the kitchen.

honey? that’s new.

Sebastian grinned and hugged his dad before sitting down beside his brother and digging into his pancakes. Julie walked over to grayson who was leaning against the island, drinking his coffee — still shirtless. She smirked and stood beside him.

“why don’t you stay over again tonight?” She asked and grayson smirked placing a hand on her hip. Julie bit her lip and tried to keep her breathing in check. “i’m going to fuck you so hard, Julie Dolan” grayson mumbled kissing her neck before walking off to the boys.

Julie blushed and placed her hand on her forehead. Was she flustered or nauseous? Maybe her period was on the way.

Her period..... shit. Julie opened her phone and looked at her calendar counting the weeks down.

She had missed her period. Fuck, this isn’t happening. Just went things with grayson were getting good. This has to happened — a pregnancy scare. God really was testing her. Everything was just going so well, there was no stress. They boys are happy in school and at home, they laugh and smile and they rarely cry anymore. Grayson is nicer, less stressed and such a good dad. And julie, julie is feeling amazing, like she was doing something good and right with her life. She had friends, she’s on the parents council, her and grayson have a good relationship and the boys are better than ever.

Why does this have to happen? They don’t need a pregnancy scare right now.

If she was pregnant, she knows it grayson’s as she’s only had sex with him for the past two months. Not consistently — but he is the only one shes been with since ethan.

“Mama?” Alexander called out making julie put down her phone and put on her biggest smile.

“Coming” Julie said taking the coffee Grayson made her over to the dining table where her boys are. Grayson was confused and gave her a look, but julie just smiled shaking her head.

“Eat it up, pumpkin” Julie said pushing Sebastians curls away from his eyes. Grayson smiled looking at his little family. Maybe this time, he’d get them back. No olivia, no drinking, no ethan and no surprises.

Nothing is going to get in the way of him and julie getting back together.

Sebastian and Alexander decided to spend the day with their friends down the road. They have their cousins up for the weekend so they’re having a bit of a party. Julie and Grayson want them to be out and making friends, so of course they let them go. Sebastian was a little clingy, but Alexander is a little heartbreaker. But once Sebastian saw the bouncy castle, he was ok for you and grayson to leave.

Meaning you and grayson had the house to yourselves for a couple hours.

“We’ve got the house to ourself” Julie said as she walked upstairs. Grayson followed after her like a lost puppy.

“Why don’t we take advantage of that?”

Julie took off her dress, dropping it to the ground before leaning on the bed only her matching underwear set, red, just how grayson liked it. Grayson raised an eyebrow and walked over to Julie standing in between her legs. He bent down and placed his lips on hers, Julie whimpered at his touch.

“I bet you’re already soaked” Grayson whispered dropping his hand to her panties, pulling them down. He hummed to himself as he saw her pussy glistening.

“I was right” He smirked as he watched Julie squirm. “touch me” she begged and grayson laughed to himself.

“You don’t tell me what to do” Grayson stated moving away from julie. “Now strip down and move up the bed” He said and Julie nodded quickly undoing her bra and kicking off her underwear that was already by her ankles. She felt herself down her thighs, god she needed him so much. Grayson took off his shirt and jeans, leaving him only in his black boxers, he crawled up Julies body on all fours, when he reached her stomach he placed a kiss at her belly button, then licked all the way up to her breasts.

Julie felt so vulnerable, somehow Grayson could feel that. So he pecked her lips and whispered “you’re beautiful” Julie smiled and pecked his lips. Grayson kissed down her stomach and finally, he was paying attention to Julies sex. “Well, hello” He mumbled, his breath hitting off of her core making julie moan. He parted her legs even more and buried his head in between them, kissing your thighs and stomach.

“you’re so fucking wet for me, baby” Grayson moaned as he slowly ran a finger up her slit. Julie moaned and bucked her hips at his touch. Grayson smirked at julie as began to rub the smallest, softest circles on her clit.

“Please....” Julie moaned and grayson looked up with a grin.

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me”

Grayson pressed himself further into julies body, julie felt his boner through his tight boxers. “i need you gray” Julie whimpered and that was enough for him. He pulled his boxers off, nearly falling off the bed to get the condoms from the bedside tables. Once he was ready, he smirked at julie teasing her nipples a little.

Grayson placed a kiss on her lips, before easing himself into her. Julie grabbed onto his broad shoulders pushing him deeper into her. “Fuck, Jules” Grayson moaned his head falling back. Julie took this as her opportunity to turn them around so she was on top.

“Always knew you were a secret dom” Grayson teased, making julie giggle. She eased graysons cock back into her, letting out a loud moan as she began to move up and down on his cock. “fuck, faster julie” Grayson moaned, his fingers digging into her hips. “so good” Julie moaned and Grayson nodded pulling her over so he was on top again. One leg was on his shoulder, the other laying on the bed. Grayson picked up the pace, making Julie scream out loud, becoming dizzy.

“I’m gonna cum” She moaned and grayson nodded pounding into her.

“Come on, baby, cum with me”

After both coming down from their climaxes, they both laughed and grayson was in Julies arms. “This is nice” Julie said running her fingers through his messy hair. Grayson nodded a kissed her chest.

“I miss us” Grayson admitted and Julie fit a sharp pain in her stomach, nerves? Butterflies?

No, she was going to throw up. She pushed grayson off of her and ran to the bathroom, spilling her breakfast into the toilet. No, No, this isn’t happening. She is not pregnant, she’s not letting this ruin her relationship.

Grayson picked up his shirt a brought it in with him. Julie was still puking her guts out, so he just put her hair up in a hair band (the best he could) and rubbed her back. She groaned into the toilet, sitting down fully. Grayson put the shower on and helped her in it.

“You ok?” He asked washing her hair. Julie nodded smiling “think it was your pancake mix” she teased and grayson rolled his eyes washing the shampoo out of her hair. He knew her full routine — she has a lot of hair and she likes to look after it. Grayson made sure her learnt it so he could wash her hair for her when she was sick or tired.

He knew it would come in hand one day.

“I think i ate something off, last night. Haven’t done the food shop yet” She explained, not completely lying. Grayson nodded and continued to wash her hair. “I have to head home tonight to get some work done, but i can help you with the food shop tomorrow?” he asked and julie smiled at the offer.

“That would be nice, gray”

They stayed in the shower for a little while longer, just enjoying each other’s company. Grayson had to leave, but he kissed her goodbye and promised he be here early tomorrow morning and not to move a muscle, he didn’t need her puking again. Julie had a glow about her, she smiled and wore her dresses again. Her hair was looked after and her skin looked amazing. And it was such stupid silly things, but it meant the world to her. Even last year, a year after the divorce, she still didn’t feel herself.

Julie felt amazing.

After getting dressed again, she picked up her phone and called sarah.

“Hey, i need you to pick me up something”

“yeah, for sure. What do you need?” Sarah asked and Julie closed her eyes leaning against the door.

“A pregnancy test”

Sarah didn’t say anything for a few second before, nodding to herself. “I’ll be there in 10. you’ll be ok, whatever the news” Sarah reassured before hanging up. Julie dropped her phone on the bed, sighing to herself. She found herself looking in the mirror, imagining how she would look with a little bump now after changing so much.

Stay positive - pun no intended.

Sarah arrived 10 minutes later as she promised pulling out a chocolate bar and a pregnancy test. Julie smiled pulling her friend into a hug. “Thank you for doing this” Julie said and sarah nodded squeezing her friend. “Of course, Jules, i’d do anything for you” She whispered and pulled away.

“Now go take the test. And i’m here, whether it’s negative or not”

Julie walked into the bathroom and took the test, setting 3 minutes timer on her phone. She remembers doing this with alexander and sebastian, she was 19 and 21 if she remembers correctly. And she had no friends, barely had a husband. She was so alone. This time, she has mountains of people and it really doesn’t make her feel any better. Julie was a only teenager when she felt pregnant with sebastian, she planned to go to college and get her dream job. Get a big, huge home and then get married. Julie took that pregnancy test in a gas station, by herself. And she cried all night after finding out, set on getting an abortion. But grayson convinced her to keep the baby — they would be a happy family, together.

Well, now she’s a mom to two kids, divorced, sleeping with her ex husband and had sex with his brother multiple times. Life really couldn’t get any better for Julie Dolan.

3 minutes ended and she was too scared to look at the test. “Sarah, can you please just read it” Julie cried and sarah quickly came into the bathroom and looked down at the test.

“You’re pregnant, Julie”

[angelsndragons]

Clay Timeline

Or our best guess at it, really. I am trying to reference Matt primarily because it is his world and because Taliesin has admitted to being fuzzy on some details, owing to Caduceus’ own navel-gazing/not paying attention to said details. There is also the chance that Matt swapped things around in the background in the six irl months between Dust and Clay and Family Shatters. 

Update as of 130/131: No one can keep track of the Clays and it is hysterical. You know you have a problem when the Lorekeeper has to ask for a family tree. 

~545 - Molaesmyr falls to whatever corruption or experiments its elves were running. This corruption is eerily similar to that of the corruption found in Aeor, a floating city once known for having god-killer weapons. Ref. EGtW and the timing of Ludinus Da’leth founding the Cerberus Assembly in A Game of Names.

~735 - The Corruption of Molaesmyr begins assaulting the Blooming Grove. Ref Caduceus and the Clays saying the corruption within the Savalirwood began overtaking the temple about a century before the start of the game.

~715-755 - Caduceus Clay is born. Taliesin has said he is anywhere between 80-120, however the lower numbers have come up more frequently. What is also interesting is that the reference age for Caduceus settled into early 20s/23, down from mid 20s/23-26.

826 - The Gorgon comes to the Menagerie and petrifies the inhabitants. Ref Family Shatters, Eremus Stone confirms he was frozen ten years ago.

826-827 - Constance and Corrin leave the Grove together. Ref. Family Shatters, Constance confirms that they left around 827. Also reference Calm before the Storm.

828 - The last of the Clays leaves the Grove. Ref Family Shatters, Caduceus says that Clarabelle left eight or seven years previously. Also Ref Within the Nest, Caduceus says that one of his sisters was the last to leave, heading East.

      - Okay, so Taliesin talks like they left one by one once they had their visions but we know that is not strictly true because of Constance and Corrin. Either way, this timeline lines up with Taliesin’s ‘once every six months the next one would leave’ comments; you can accommodate more individual trips by adjusting the time of year they left. For example, put Constance and Corrin later in 826 for leaving pairs or put them earlier for the rest of the family leaving individually. Remember that the Exandrian calendar only has 11 months.

        ---Update from Episode 130, Calm before the Storm. Caduceus says that after Corrin and Constance left, Calliope left by herself, followed by Colton (who may have left with Cornelius), Cornelius, and finally Clarabelle.

We also know that the Family Shatters Clay pairs probably did not travel together exclusively throughout their journeys.

- Constance and Corrin arrive separately at the Kiln. They also leave separately, lacking the residuum they need. This was ‘a few years ago,’ according to the Dusts. Ref Jeramiss Dust in Clay and Dust.

     - On a maybe relevant note, Corrin is the Clay who comments on Uthodurnian food, stating she likes it a lot better than the Empire’s food in Family Shatters.

- Constance and Corrin arrive at the Menagerie together and are petrified. They came hoping the Stones might have some residuum to use at the Kiln. Ref Family Shatters, Constance confirms they came together and that the trip took ‘quite a few months.’

- At some point, Colton also arrives alone at the Kiln. He leaves like his mother and aunt do, confused and lacking materials. Ref Clay and Dust. Note that we do not know if Colton got there before or after his mother and aunt, he is simply brought up later in the conversation, as though it was easier for Jeramiss to remember Constance and Corrin than him.

- Colton is found with Clarabelle inside the Menagerie Cave, protecting her from something.

- Clarabelle is the most visibly confused of the Clays re Caduceus’ apparent age. She also is not panicked or defensive like Colton is when he awakes. I would guess her lack of darkvision meant that she did not see the statues or the gorgon when she entered the Cave, even if she brought a light source.

- Calliope has a single residuum seed on her when she is restored, indicating she too went to the Kiln at some point and had residuum on her when she did so. Ref Calliope Clay, Family Shatters, she straight-up tells Beau she got it at the Kiln.

- Notably, she is found with Cornelius, who has residuum glass on him but no seed. He states that he got confused when Caduceus shows him his residuum seeds. 

- Also notably, Cornelius had spotted Constance and Corrin before he was petrified, indicating that he and Calliope arrived after them.

835,  Fessuran 22 - Mollymauk Tealeaf dies.

835,  Fessuran 23 - Caduceus Clay has visions of eyes in the trees, sky, spring, and stones in the Blooming Grove. He then sees nine butterflies.

835, Fessuran 24 - Caduceus Clay joins the Mighty Nein.

836, Thunsheer 25 - Cornelius, Calliope, and Constance Clay reunite with Caduceus. Corrin, Clarabelle, and Colton are found but are unable to be restored due to a lack of spell slots.

836, Thunsheer 26 - The Clays reunite as Clarabelle, Colton, and Corrin are all successfully restored. They begin their trek back to the Grove. 

     Update as of 131: Reani totally dished the deets on the Nein while she escorted the Clays home. Reference Clarabelle asking about the Xhorhaus’ tree when no one mentioned it around her in 96 or 130.

836, Brussendar 19: The latest date the Clays make it home; Jester checks in with Calliope on this date and confirms that they have planted the seeds. They probably have been back for a while at this point, as Colton and Corrin are on a supply run on Brussendar 31 during Calm Before the Storm.

Speculation on the timeline below - 

Updated as of 131: Matt and Taliesin apparently mixed up which sister is the crafty one, aka which one made the armor. Clarabelle is the sensitive artist while Calliope is the warrior but according to 130 and 131, Calliope made Caduceus and her own armor (which honestly was my thought the whole time, the two of them being a matched/equal and opposite set, but the idea of Clarabelle making her siblings’ matching armor is too dang cute). Obviously Calliope can be a warrior and make her own stuff, in fact, it is probably smart on her end considering she wants to go out on her own.

The fact that Calliope has a seed but no residuum and her father has residuum but no seed and seemed confused by Caduceus’ indicates to me that Calliope and Cornelius met up at the Menagerie not too long before they were petrified. Calliope did not have the time to explain to her father how she got the seed or perhaps that she even had it in the first place. I lean towards lack of time because she, like Colton, seems really gung-ho about being the hero of the family/Grove. It seems weird to me that she wants that validation but would withhold the seed from her dad.

Given that Calliope does have a seed but was not mentioned at all during the stay at the Kiln, I wonder if she came in behind Caduceus and made it to the Kiln after the group reforged the sword and left. I thought that Caduceus mentioned he wanted to leave a record of his time there but I cannot find it at the moment. Maybe someone else will or maybe that was all in my imagination. If she actually did come in behind Caduceus, that means that she was aging for the vast majority of her time away from the Grove, as was her father if they met up at the Menagerie. CritRole Stats tells me that the Nein were at the sanctum on 18 and 25 Misuthar, while the Clays are reunited on 25 Thunsheer, two months later. It would be a tight schedule for Calliope to make across the entire freaking continent in that two months but considering that Matt has said that Molaesmyr is only a few days to a week from the Sanctum and the fact that she is a badass, it might be possible.

I think we can reasonably say that Clarabelle found the Menagerie first and that she probably came alone. Colton found her statue when he came and tried to protect it before he succumbed. Or Clarabelle and Colton met up at some point and she wandered off for a hot second before being petrified.

Out of universe, I think Matt just flubbed with which sibling made it to the Kiln and flubbed the girls’ introductions; I think he meant to have Clarabelle and Cornelius together outside and Colton and Calliope inside, esp given the potentially poetic imagery of Calliope and Colton being that close to saving their home before they are taken out of the game. But if mistakes were made, they have yet to be clarified so until then, we just have to deal with what canon gave us.

[amyscascadingtabs]

rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky

It’s the perfect little getaway, exactly what they needed. It would be even better if she could only stop thinking.

“So, tell me.” Jake holds her hand over the table, forcing her back to reality. “Five top moments for us 2019, go. Countdown-stylez.”

Three different New Year's Eves, as celebrated by Jake and Amy (and Mac).

read on ao3 💕

december 31st, 2019.

The hotel guests checking in before Jake and Amy are a family. A little girl with blonde hair, maybe four or five years old, is carrying her own pink backpack and making up dance steps around her father’s feet as he goes through the information with the receptionist, and an even younger boy is hiding behind his mother’s legs as he watches the people in the lobby with wide eyes. Looking up, Amy realizes that the mother’s open coat is revealing a baby bump, too. She’d put her at six, maybe seven months pregnant. Three kids. Amy feels a pang of jealousy.

Even with the observation skills of an experienced detective, it shocks her how good she’s become at picking out families and pregnant women in any crowd. It’s an interesting talent, but measured against the pain it causes her, Amy wouldn’t call it a very useful one. She notices Jake looking at the kids as well, a daydreaming look on his face, and somehow, that makes her pain worse.

The idea behind going away to a hotel upstate for New Year’s was so they could get away from the stress for a moment; go somewhere else, rest and relax, forget about the pregnancy master calendar they’ve stared themselves blind at for a few days. Amy didn’t realize how impossible it would be to get away from all the other reminders.

She draws a breath of relief when the family in front of them gets the keys to their room, the little girl running first towards the elevator and her brother laughing as he chases after.

“Cute kids,” Jake whispers, watching them longingly.

“Yeah.” Amy tries not to think about the negative pregnancy test she threw away in the bathroom trashcan before they left. “Really cute.”

//

“I’m excited you said we could drink tonight.” Jake toasts his White Russian with her glass of Sauvignon. “It’s been a while.”

“I know, “ Amy feels the guilt wash over her. “Well, it’s not New Year’s Eve every day. I think we’ve earned it.” And I already took a negative test, she thinks.

“We sure have.” He gives her a closer look, pressing his lips together like he always does when he’s worried about her. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Just tired,” she says. It’s not technically a lie. “I didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“Lucky we have a huge hotel bed to help with that tonight, then. Seriously, this place rocks.”

Amy’s prepared to agree on that part – she did her research the moment it stood clear they would both get New Year’s Eve off. After getting their room, they’ve spent the evening getting massages in the hotel spa, dining at the surprisingly nice restaurant, and now they’re admiring the view from the bar on the top floor, waiting for the fireworks. It’s the perfect little getaway, exactly what they needed. It would be even better if she could only stop thinking.

“So, tell me.” Jake holds her hand over the table, forcing her back to reality. “Five top moments for us 2019, go. Countdown-stylez.”

“Number five!” She rolls the r and holds on the i, earning herself an amused look from the older couple next to them. “Okay, I’m going to go with… that date you took me on for my birthday. I can’t believe you got into the puzzle bar this time!”

“I might have convinced the guard to let me in because it was your birthday, but still a good one. Number fooo-uur… the Cinco de Mayo-heist. God, that was fun, even if the tasing hurt like a bitch.”

“Agreed. Number three – when Holt finally invited us to that dinner party and I almost didn’t lose my cool once.”

“You keep telling yourself that, babe. Number two… the Jake way. Seriously, I still think we should try that again. It was awesome.”

“It was, but also way inappropriate,” she reminds him, but he just shrugs. “Number one, then.”

“I know which one is mine, but you go first.”

Amy swallows, then sighs. “Mine is after the manhunt. When we decided to start trying. That’s still my favorite moment.”

“Mine, too.” Jake looks her in the eyes, and she knows the bittersweet feeling is shared. “It’s going to happen, Ames. I know it. Maybe this month’s the one.”

Amy doesn’t have the strength to correct him, tell him she’s already taken an early test and that she’s lacking any confidence there’s going to be a second line when she tests again in a couple of days. Luckily, she doesn’t have to, because right then, the fireworks that have been going off a few at a time in the distance begin to multiply as the countdown starts.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…

Amy leans forward so she can be kissing him already when the new year begins.

Three, two, one… happy new year!

The crowd around them erupts into cheers as the sky glows with colorful explosions when burning bits of metal lighting up the darkness outside. Jake kisses her deeper, seeming to forget that there are people around with a bit of alcohol in his system and his hands cupping her face. For a moment, Amy lets herself just be happy.

~

december 31st, 2020.

The instant Amy closes her eyes for the more-than-well-deserved nap Jake told her to take while he made dinner, Mac begins to cry from his crib again.

“McClane, please,” Amy pleads, as if reasoning with her two-month-old would solve his discontent. “You can't seriously be hungry again, that’s insane.”

She tries with the pacifier first, checking his diaper, even standing up and walking around with him for a bit to eliminate anything else, but Mac is still clenching his fists and only looking even more furious with her, so Amy gives in. She sits down with him again, unhooks one side of the bra and lets him find his grip, exhaling when the peaceful suckles begin and the desperate crying finally ceases. She swears it looks like her son is side-eyeing her for taking too long, but to her defense, she fed him for a good forty-five minutes only a little over an hour ago and it's exhausting being used like a human pacifier. Growth spurt, Camila Santiago said when Amy called her in tears yesterday, and the problem-shooting section in the 0-3 months baby-binder had agreed. Amy would argue that sounds way too innocent for something which is turning her otherwise happy and smiley baby into a constantly hungry and crying mini-monster who won't close his eyes for more than twenty minutes at a time.

There's a soft knock on the door after a few minutes, and Jake peeks in. He’s wearing his fancy kitchen apron, which Charles gave him for Christmas with the comment that there’s nothing sexier than a dad who can cook. It hasn’t magically improved his cooking skills, but Amy’s willing to admit that it does look good on him.

“You guys doing okay?”

“He is, for now. I’m going crazy. How’s our dinner going?”

“Well, I haven’t burnt it yet, but there’s still time,” he grimaces, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “Do you need anything, babe?”

“Sleep, but that’s not going to happen.” Amy rubs her eyes. “It’s fine. He’s got to fall asleep at some point, though, this is nuts.”

“Don’t challenge him, he’s breaking records,” Jake says, leaning forward to tickle Mac’s feet. Mac reacts by kicking at the boob he’s not currently feeding from, making Amy curse. “Oops, sorry. Anyway, I’m sure he will fall asleep at some point, and we can have a nice, calm New Year’s dinner. I mean, he has to be exhausted, right?”

“God, I hope so. I’m starving.” She can see Mac’s eyelids getting heavy, but every time she thinks they’re about to fall closed, it’s like he twitches and stares at her, wide awake. “He’s lucky he’s cute.”

Jake grins. “Lucky indeed.”

Mac starts pulling away at that moment, a little bit of milk still dribbling from his cheeks. Amy reaches for one of the muslin blankets that’s never more than a few feet away in their home nowadays, lifting him so he’s upright against her shoulder and patting him on the back. She expects a burp, but instead, she gets an unpleasant surprise when he spits up, managing to get sour baby puke down her back and in her already greasy hair. She groans, giving Jake an exhausted look when she sees him stifling a chuckle.

“Hey, I’ll take him. You go take a shower and I’ll put him in the BabyBjörn. Maybe that will do it.”

“That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said,” Amy mumbles, and she’s not entirely kidding.

She makes the shower as long as she possibly can. Most days, she has to shower with Mac in the baby bouncer on the bathroom floor, so even the chance to be alone in the bathroom for more than five minutes feels like a luxury. She lets the shampoo really lather and the conditioner take its time to sink in, trying to massage the knots in her neck and shoulders under the hot water. She can hear Mac still fussing from the kitchen, and it makes her feel guilty even though he’s barely left her arms today.

“He’s fine,” she whispers to herself like a mantra. “He’s fine. Jake can handle it. He’s perfectly fine. Everything’s okay. You deserve this.”

She still skips the make-up and nicer clothes she had been planning to put on, throwing on a pair of maternity leggings and one of Jake’s old hoodies instead.

The dinner looks fantastic, some sort of chicken baked in the oven with rice and a lemon sauce, and Amy’s actually impressed. She imagines it would have been even nicer if she could have eaten it warm and together with Jake, but they only make it through toasting in orange soda and the first two bites before Mac wakes up from his ten-minute-nap, wailing as if he truly believed he’d just been abandoned. They end up having to take turns eating and walking laps around the living room with him, because he starts crying again if they stop moving for a second or as much as make an attempt to put him down. Amy is suddenly relieved they said no to her brother Tony’s New Year’s party-invite.

She can barely believe it when after what feels like the fiftieth or so feed of the day, Mac falls asleep. Curled up like a little frog on her chest and letting out the cutest of baby snores, he finally seems to relax, and Amy doesn’t even dare to breathe too sharply for the first ten minutes. Eventually, though, once it seems like he’s not going to wake up from the slightest movement or a raised voice anymore, Jake tucks them both in under a blanket and gets the Ben and Jerry’s from the freezer and orange soda from the fridge. Then he gets another blanket for himself, and they snuggle up together in the corner of the sofa in front of the tv. From live footage at Times Square, Amy can see crowds of people waiting for the ball to drop.

“Wishing you were there?” Jake winks, but she just laughs.

“Are you kidding? Cold, crowded, and you can never even get a good view. This is better in every way.” She strokes her thumb over Mac’s dark hair. “I have this one and you. That’s all I need. And ice cream,” she adds, digging out a piece of cookie dough from the tub.

“You’re right, it’s pretty damn close to perfection. Top five moments of 2020?”

Amy shakes her head, pointing to Mac. “No point. They’re all about him, anyway, and they’re all too good to compare.”

“True that.” Jake shakes his head. “Hey, isn’t it crazy that although he’s been kind of a nightmare today, I’ve already forgiven him?”

“No, it makes perfect sense, because I’ve almost wanted to give him away several times and now I can’t even remember why.”

“Having a baby makes us kind of crazy, huh?”

“Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t change it for the world, though.”

“Me neither. Not even if I was offered a role in the next Die Hard-movie and Taylor Swift did the soundtrack.”

“That’s pretty big,” Amy laughs, leaning in for a quick kiss. “Would Taylor Swift do the soundtrack for Die Hard, though? Realistically speaking?”

“It’s a daydream, Ames!”

She has no time for a comeback, though, because right then, the countdown starts on the tv and Jake raises the volume a few bars so they can hear.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…

p;

“New Year’s kiss,” Amy says, holding Mac up slightly so they can both reach him.

Three, two, one… happy new year!

They both smother his cheeks with kisses at the same time as the fireworks explode over the sky in the distance outside their windows and the crowd begins to cheer on tv. Mac doesn’t even flinch, completely oblivious to the celebrations going on outside. Amy sighs.

“How can he magically sleep through all of this, but wake up the second I put him down in his crib at night?”

Jake shrugs. “Babies, man.”

~

december 31st, 2021.

Amy has only started to take off Mac’s winter overall before he starts trying to flee, kicking wildly with his boots and pointing towards the kitchen where he’s already spotted Rosa. Jake notices her struggle and is quick to help her, and the instant the toddler is free, he hurries off towards his best friend.

“Wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo!”

“Mac! Hey, happy new year, man!” Before Amy can even take off her own jacket, Mac is already in Rosa’s arms and babbling excitedly as he plays with her gold necklace. Amy wonders how much of what Mac’s saying actually makes sense to Rosa, but she’s nodding and smiling and seems to have abandoned whoever she was previously talking to in favor of the one-year-old.

“Jake. Amy.” Kevin appears to take their coats, shaking their hands. “Welcome. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres are in the living room, and I see your small child has made himself at home.”

“He found Rosa, yep.” Jake grins. “And he has a name.”

“Ah, yes… McClane.” Kevin nods. “Very well. I have to go check on… the kitchen. Enjoy your evening.”

  “He’s never going to like me,” Jake whispers to Amy the moment he’s left.

“Well, I think we both might have lost a few points with the name choice, babe.”

“He’s one to talk names, he’s got a dog named after a cheese!”

“I know, but we can’t tell him that. Come on, Jake, I have to find something to chew on before I get sick.”

“You can always blame it on the alcohol, if you do.”

“Jake.”

“Just kidding,” he grins. “You go check on Mac and Rosa and I’ll locate the snacks.”

 It turns out Rosa is more than willing to guard Mac for the evening, currently showing him the model train she's found in the library. Mac is watching with focus as Rosa helps him turn on the button that makes the train drive around the tracks, laughing as it lets out a choo-choo sound.

“Your son is much cooler than the rest of these lame partygoers,” she shrugs when Amy asks her if she's sure it's fine. “He says what he's thinking, unlike the rest of all these dum-dums.”

“Dum-dums,” Mac repeats, proud. Rosa nods.

“Exactly. I’ll call you if something happens.”

 And so, in an unexpected turn of events, Amy finds herself able to sit down for most of the evening without having to chase a wild toddler around to keep him from whatever dangers he could somehow manage to get himself into in Holt’s and Kevin’s house. She supposes it looks quite antisocial of her, and maybe it is, but she’s six weeks pregnant and the early symptoms of nausea and fatigue seem to be coming on both stronger and faster the second time around, so Amy doesn’t really care. She’s got lemon sparkling water for a non-alcoholic drink, a paper plate of carrot sticks, salted crisps and almonds, and she’s not going to talk to anyone unless they sit down next to her. It’s practically heaven. Jake checks on her from time to time, assuring her multiple times that they can just leave early if she wants to, but however tired she feels, Amy doesn’t want to insult Holt that badly. They’re staying until midnight as per proper New Year’s party etiquette, and then — and not a second later — they can go home so she can crash in bed.

 Rosa finds her again when Mac begins to get sleepy, rubbing his eyes and yawning but still shaking his head when Amy asks if he's feeling a little tired. He crawls over to her arms anyway, laying his head on her shoulder and hugging his arms around her chest.

“Thanks for looking after him,” she tells Rosa, but she just shrugs.

“No worries. I don't get to hang out with him enough. Your kid is dope.”

“Douh,” Mac whispers, mimicking her, and Rosa laughs.

“Repeats every word you tell him, too,” Amy says. “Yeah, he’s pretty awesome. Come over to our apartment at five-thirty in the morning on any weekend and you can hang out with him all you want. I won't stop you.”

Rosa scrunches her nose. “I’ll consider it.”

“He’s in a great mood then, I can assure you that.”

“I'll take your word for it. Also, Jake was tipsy talking baby names with some etymology professor when I saw him last, and he seemed very intense about it for a guy who's not currently thinking of naming any new babies. Or?” She raises an eyebrow.

“No, he just get thats intense when somebody implies McClane is a weird name,” Amy says, and makes a note to herself to remind Jake about their agreement not to tell anyone else at least until the twelve-week mark. “Which, to be fair, I warned him that people would think. But here we are anyway.”

“It is a weird name. Couldn’t imagine him being called anything else, though, even if I still don’t understand why you agreed to it.”

“There was a really good PowerPoint involved.”

Rosa looks at her questioningly, but Amy shakes her head, knowing there’s no point in explaining the unexplainable.

“Hmm. You guys are weird. You make pretty great kids, though.”

“Yeah.” Mac has fallen asleep by now, drooling a little bit on Amy’s shoulder. She kisses the top of his head and thinks of the abstract idea of her second kid, the thump-thump of an already present heartbeat they got so lucky as to hear on an early ultrasound yesterday. “The best.”

 As midnight draws closer, most of the guests take on jackets, scarves and shoes to venture out into the garden to watch fireworks. Not wanting to be left out, Amy and Jake manage to get a half-sleeping Mac, who wakes up suddenly interested when he hears about the promise of fireworks, into his overall and join them. It’s a surprisingly good view from the garden, the cold winter air waking them up, and Jake points out the vibrant displays in the sky to a drowsy Mac, who blinks at them dazedly. It’s so cute it makes Amy tear up. Being both a mom and newly pregnant does that to her; she’s given up trying to fight it.

  It’s hard to believe that two years ago, she was toasting in champagne in a hotel bar and wondering if they would ever make a baby together, and now she’s standing in a garden watching Jake with their one-year-old son and knowing that next New Year’s, if all goes well, they’ll be parents of two.

“What are you thinking of?” Jake must see her tears, because he looks worried, but Amy just smiles.

“Just how quickly things can change. How happy I am. And how much I love you.”

“Love you, too. Top three-hundred-and-sixty-five moments of this year,” Jake says, hugging her close so they’re standing in a little family bubble. “Every single day I get to wake up with and then come home to my family.”

  Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…

  They both lean in so they can smother their son with kisses, and he laughs as he figures out what’s about to happen.

 Three, two, one… happy new year!

  The sky explodes with color, Jake and Amy attack their son with kisses, and as the new year begins, Amy thinks she might just be the luckiest person in the entire world.

~

[rogue-sunday]

𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 | 𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐥𝐮𝐳

“darlin’, it was good, never looking down.

and right there where we stood was holy ground.”

holy hell this got to be so long?? it’s also angsty?? there’s also no winter/christmas theme, which i apologize for, but i’m still excited to share this with you, @wexhappyxfew​ <3 LOL SURPRISE IT’S ME I’M YOUR SECRET SANTA!! i’ve been away all day, and now i can finally post this!! i enjoyed writing this immensely - i hope you like it, my friend :^) george luz x reader summary: war has only taken from you. but in the wake of meeting george luz, a man that only makes your life harder, the emotional walls you’ve built for the sake of survival come falling to the ground. (soulmate-y vibes tbh) word count: 4.7k

You count the war through harvests and calves. It’s ironic, you find, that in a war that steals and kills, you’re relying on the growth of life to tell you the time. But a calendar’s face, a once balancing and dependable measurement, only serves as a reminder of an endless war’s one-sided game – one that has lasted 48 months too long.

1939 brought war to England’s shores, but it was 1940 that brought it to London’s doorstep. The Women’s Land Army already allocated you to Aldbourne before the first bomb of the blitzkrieg could land. Instead of fields of battered and charred bodies, fate had you stood among rows of chiefly wheat and herds of milk cows. You and Death both reap with the same tool – His for life, yours for the crop. It’s another irony that has you counting your months in segments of nines and sixes – nines for the dairy cows expecting their young, and sixes for the kernels to grow into something sowable.

The promise of life, the mere possibility of it, is as grounding as the soil beneath your tattered boots. Earth is Death’s playground, but its land is precious. In the length of the war, you’ve found anything that holds the capacity of life is a sacred gift in itself. It’s what has you relishing in the swell of a heifer’s belly, or the cool touch of freshly turned soil, ready to hold and nourish a seed till harvest. If war has taught you anything, it’s that life is a delicate thing. There’s only so much wear and tear it can take before Death begins to make His appearance.

That is why, when the Americans first came, you clung to the image of their fresh faces and olive fatigues. Their features, youthful like April grass, had enough life to cast a light on the drab shadows war had cast over the village.

It took a week for the effect to wear.

Americans, you found, were brash and loud and too green for their own good. They spoke of nothing but killing and victory, a hope long since lost through the passage of time and loss. You can only assume that’s what the Paratroopers thought you wanted – heroes in military green leaping from planes for the sake of conquest. In actuality, you just want war’s end.

And so, by the time calving is underway and the thought of top-dressing the wheat (a March chore, you bitterly remember) is among the Land Girls, you’re ready for the Paratroopers to leave.

“You shoulda seen ‘im,” Issie tells you, ginger hair threaded through your fingers as you fix one of her milk braids. Her heavy Northern accent is lilted from an old piece of bread – your fifteen minute lunch break is used for many things, but eating is hardly ever one. You’ve been in Aldbourne the longest of the seven girls allocated to John Wright’s dairy and wheat farm, a feat that’s earned you dependent-laced respect. While the other girls savor meals on empty stomachs, you’re tasked with mothering them, checking for holes in fleece socks, hauling extra hours of workload on your shoulders so they can have a date with a boy, and everything in between. 

“Looked like a mad goose, that one. I ran into Mr. Davies on his bike, chatting up a very cute American officer–” The answering simpers and giggles from the circle of girls has Issie flailing, all the while your eyes roll so far back you’re surprised they don’t get stuck, “–and there this oaf comes, yelling and running up the road in one of the most horrendous jackets I’ve ever seen!”

The girls begin to laugh, but you merely tug on Issie’s braid to grab her attention. She rolls her head back to face you like a well-loved ragdoll. 

“Is there a point to this story?” you ask, fighting to keep a smile off of your face. “Other than to show off the fact you landed a date with an American?”

Issie gives another dramatic flail, and with a single hold on one of her braids, it’s all you can do to keep her from falling forward. She hardly notices. 

“Christ, you had to go and ruin the ending, didn’t you?” she says, nothing short of a shout, but her speaking voice is always three octaves above acceptable. Her eyes twinkle with glee. “You heard it here, ladies. I’ve gotta date with an American lad!”

Squeals erupt throughout the barn, where the lot of you are perched among the haybales towards the back. You can only imagine how similar you must look to a flock of chittering birds in a tree. 

“Is it with the cute American officer?” you hear someone ask, amidst the chaos of laughter and chatter. It sounds like Mary. 

Issie gives an apathetic hum, one that balances between enjoying the attention and attempting to pass it off as unbothered. “Sadly, no. He’ll be for another day,” she chirps, and you give another fleeting, ultimately ignored, tug of her hair as you finish up the brai

It’s Francis’ turn to retort, “I heard the Americans won’t be here much longer. Better get your rendezvous in while you can, Isolda–”

The exaggerated gasp that comes from the girl could rival the actors in the Globe Theatre. “Francis! How could you remind me, so? You know how sad I’ll be when the men leave. “

“Yes,” you murmur, in turn grabbing the attention of all the girls in the barn. Looking wide-eyed and expectant, you’re reminded of freshly weaned calves awaiting a treat for good behavior. “But we don’t have to see another poor paratrooper hanging around the barn at midnight, now do we?”

Issie gives a good-natured laugh. “It’s not my fault he fell madly in love with me! I’m just charming.”

Francis’ smile is gently teasing. “I’m sure there’s another word for that.”

The group once again collectively giggles, and you’re now stuck fixing Mary’s braids, all the while your cut of sandwich lays untouched two hay bales over. 

Issie looks like she’s about to retort, but the slamming open of the barn doors catches the attention of everyone inside. In a bundle of corduroy and flush, young Hester runs into the barn with a burning red face and wild eyes. 

“Hester,” you say, after seconds lapse with only her gasping breath sounding in the barn. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?” 

She shakes her head, which deters the flourishing worry in your chest by mere hairsbreadth, but it takes another few seconds for her to breathe enough air into her lungs for a proper response. Her finger flails behind her as she waves it furiously. 

“The cows!” she says at last. Everyone in the barn is at attention behind you, standing like crewmen waiting for their captain to give orders. If you weren’t so worried for Hester and whatever she had to say, you knew embarrassment would be staining your cheeks. 

“What about the cows–?”

“They’re not there!”

That wasn’t what you’d been expecting. 

“Are you… sure? Did the herd move?” you ask tentatively, still confused. The girls behind you shuffle on their feet, and you know they’re itching to see for themselves. 

“No! The fence on the east side, it’s down!” Hester shouts, and you know it’s not directed at you, but in panic. The feeling quickly sweeps over you, too. 

You bundle your alarm and rein it into something useful, and to not shout, you allow yourself a single moment of anger. Your jaw clenches so tightly you feel it may crack, but in the same moment, the panic leaves your body disguised as a short exhale. 

Finally, you turn to the other girls, watching you expectantly, and with adrenaline electrifying your nerves, you launch into directions. 

“Issie, go get Shep and the others,” you say, waving a flippant hand in the direction of the main house. Immediately, Issie sprints out the door to gather the herding dogs. 

“Francis, go tell Mr. Wright the fence is down.” Francis is quickly out the door as well.

You give another short exhale. “Hester and I will go to the fence, everyone else needs to start looking for the cows. They were last on the east side–” Hester gives a nod of confirmation “–so please start around there. I hope they haven’t gone far.” 

In a sail of motion, you’re racing down the English countryside with Hester, well-grazed grass and grey clouds ballooned with rain blurring into a watercolor your eyes can’t decipher. Yet you don’t depend on sight to take you to the fallen fence – it’s a trek that’s second-nature. 

You reach the fence quickly, and it takes a moment to register the sight of it. Hester is already beside the upright post you assumed would be on the ground, and she’s touching the ends of barbed wire that isn’t on the ground, but twisted and standing on end. 

The feeling in your throat and chest is undecipherable. Your feet carry you to the barbed wire, and you feel the end of one of the lines. 

It’s a clean severance. The cows didn’t escape from a downed post. 

“Someone cut the fence,” you say, eyes transfixed. Images of price tags and red begin to pool behind your eyes. 

“Who would…” Hester trails, gaze cast beyond the enclosure and into the green countryside before you. No cows in sight. Her question hangs unanswered between the two of you, but you know what it is. Who would do this? Who would risk half of a farm’s livelihood? 

You cast your eyes down. Money is its tightest this time of the season – when calving won’t be finished until the middle of May, and you can’t even picture the thought of harvesting until then. The farm balances on last year’s income before it can gain anymore. A bundle of barbed wire would only be met with empty pockets. 

Something catches your eye. You glance around at the grass surrounding you, and in a lapse of time you’re sprinting backwards to take in the sight of the fence again. 

Still cut, you notice humorlessly, but it’s the grass that has you holding your breath. 

The ground around you isn’t trampled in hooved concaves. They’re footprints. Massive bootprints have stampeded the earth, bruising the grass and plowing any mindful actions in their wake. You’re left speechless, and Hester quickly notices. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks you, her own expression furrowing at the state of yours. But it only takes a glance at the ground for her to come to the same conclusion you’re grappling with.

“Americans,” she mutters bitterly, kicking the pulped ground with a well-worn boot, one quite like your own. “Why the hell were they ‘round here in the first place?”

Anger has turned your tongue poisonous. Instead of answering, your mind is working double time. Issie mentioned Mr. Davies and the American officer, but you’re well-aware of the older gentleman’s bike route – the nearest he ever comes to the farm is three miles out. Why would a group of American soldiers ever come around the east side of the estate?

But you can’t answer her question without cursing. You refuse to meet Hester with any sort of hostility. 

Instead, your feet carry you to the place you have no problem doing so.

✰ ✰ ✰

It’d been funny at the time, but as he scrambles with Bill and Toye to round up wandering cows in the training yard, George is feeling the first seeds of penitence grow. The prank cost him a lot more than it’d been worth – in the same hour the platoon had arrived back from training, the cows already escaped, and Strayer and Sobel placed both their anger out on Easy. Strayer’s anger he understands, but Sobel…

Jackass. 

“You really had to do Major Horton, huh?” Bill hisses quietly – at least as quiet as his South Philadelphian tone allows – as he uselessly waves his arms around a cow’s hindquarters in a vain attempt to move it. He’s met with a side swept kick, and the cloven hoof misses his abdomen by mere inches. George can’t help but laugh as Bill begins to curse.

“Fucking hell!” he shouts, and gives the only response that won’t earn him another kick – he shoots a violent middle finger in the direction of the unbothered cow. Toye begins to cackle. “Stupid cow!”

“Maybe if you treated her right, Bill, you’d get somewhere,” Joe says, easily walking to the heifer and giving her face gentle strokes.

George smirks. “Bet he’s never heard that one before.”

“Fuck off, Luz,” Bill jeers, but the hostility is playful. George is as acquainted with Bill’s tough love as his own shadow. “Keep that up and I’ll tell Sobel it was you.”

“Ah ah ah,” George tuts. “I actually didn’t cut the fence–”

Joe scoffs as he continues to pet the cow. “Yeah, because that’s a distinction Sobel’s bound to take into consideration.”

“I know jack-shit about livestock,” Bill complains offhandedly, and he aims an angry kick to the ground. “There ain’t no cows in South Philly.”

“Mother Toye seems to be doin’ just fine.” George gestures to Joe, still beside the caramel colored heifer. He watches Bill roll his eyes.

“I’m naming her Betty,” Joe says, smiling. “I like her.”

“I bet she cleans up real nice, Joe. Doll her up real good, your mom’s bound to like her, too–”

Joe’s about to reply, but George hears a loud shout.

“Hey you!”

He turns to look at the voice’s possessor, and it’s the sight of you that leaves him bewitched. You’re parting swells of olive khaki like Moses, crowds of men and the bite of March air bending to your volition. It’s a transfixing sight to see, your hair a fluttering battle flag and features beautifully twisted into something fierce.

This isn’t the first time you’ve crossed his path. He’s watched you deliver milk to stores and homes, corduroy pants stained of petrol and mud, and he’s seen you lead a plow horse twice your height like a mothering figure. 

Your graceful presence, he understands, is what has kept your image ingrained in his mind’s eye, but the passionate temper that’s sculpting you into a sentinel before him is what he never wants to forget. 

For a moment, a warmth of hope encourages him that you’re approaching him. He doesn’t realize he’s straightened his posture until you’re striding past him like the other members of the Khaki Sea, and George watches in wonder as you plant yourself directly in front of Strayer and Sobel. 

The glint of their brass and the stripes embellishing their arms doesn’t seem to deter you in the slightest. In fact, you don’t seem to acknowledge their rank at all.

“Who did it?” he hears you seethe. You’re hardly attempting to cap the degree of your anger. 

Sobel has the gall to look baffled. “Ma’am, you’re not allowed–” 

“Who–” you interrupt him, and the vision only broadens George’s wide smile, “–is the idiot who cut our damn fence?”

Murmurs of chuckles rumble throughout the audience of Paratroopers watching the scene unfold. You’ve brought the spotlight upon Sobel now, and it has him squirming.

“There was a, uh, miscommunication–”

“A miscommunication put you three miles off track?”

Strayer seems surprised at your knowledge of that, but it only aids in the bubbling laughter of the platoon. George is still staring at the flush of heat on your cheeks – it’s a warmth adorning the face of a deity.

Sobel’s anger is growing to match your own. “I don’t think you’re in any place to–”

You cut him off for the third time. “No, I don’t think you’re in any place to lead a group of men into battle if you can’t even navigate the English countryside.”

George’s laugh is bellowing, and both Bill and Joe are leaning into each other to keep themselves upright. Tears are beginning to glisten in their eyes. 

Strayer isn’t hiding his amusement well, but it’s his job to shield Sobel’s authority. The Major takes a step between you and Sobel, eyeing Easy’s CO with distaste, but still addressing you with sternness. 

“Ma’am,” he begins. “This was an accident, and I’m sure something can be worked out.” 

Your mouth twists into a humorless smile. “Right,” George hears to pause to read the Major’s name tag, “–Strayer, the only thing I need from you is barbed wire. Then we can take the cows and be on our way.”

You gesture behind you, arm lithely sweeping to the group of Land Girls and work dogs standing meters away, waiting at attention for your command. George hadn’t even noticed their presence.

Your poise and stature could rival any officer in the battalion as you wait for Strayer’s response. He seems to be debating a response, and behind him Sobel is bristling. 

“Unless,” you offer, brow arching, “you just want to pay the farm compensation up front.”

That settles Strayer’s mind. “We’ll get you that barbed wire as soon as possible.”

You nod, and shooting Sobel one last pointed glare, George’s eyes are still trained on you as you make your way back through the Khaki Sea. He watches the stony expression you’d used with the officers turn to sand with each step you take – your cheeks aren’t dusted with angry red anymore, but a gentle pink of embarrassment. Your boldness cocoons back into itself before his very eyes, and he finds he wants nothing more than to see it blossom again.

He doesn’t know how much longer he has left in Aldbourne. The inevitable whisper of war is already creeping through the companies of the 506th, and it’s that moment George decides to twist fate’s arm. 

There’s nothing to lose. 

And so, as you cluck your tongue to the herd dogs and cattle and lead your own infantry of Land Girls back to your farm, George Luz had already made up his mind.

✰ ✰ ✰

After four attempts, the girls finally leave you alone at the fence. 

You refuse to let yourself wallow, but as the afternoon sky blanches to a silver-grey, the feeling of lost time leeches to your subconscious. Time. You’re losing the battle to the calendar more by the day, and war is only jaundicing what little patience you have left. 

It’s what fuelled your anger to the American officers. You had never raised your voice like that to anyone in your life – yet, as you stared into the faces of the men, still clean from war’s sins and not yet profane, an ugly, angry root had sprouted words from your deepest chasms and onto your tongue. 

You regret speaking to mere boy soldiers the way you did. But you can’t rue its source. 

Instead, you focus your mind elsewhere; you bloody your hands with barbed spikes and dirty your fingertips with trampled soil as you reset the fence’s post. The task is grounding, solacing. It’s easy to forget your insignificant place in the war when you’re painted in Earth’s color. 

For a while, it’s all you can concentrate on. Until you hear padding footsteps. 

“Please, I promise it’s alright, I’ve got the fence covered,” you say, striking the post back into place with your foot. You don’t turn around to face the girls behind you.

“Are you gonna kick me if I don’t leave?” a voice says. An American voice. A man’s voice. 

Your eyes whip around to find the source, and in front of you is a paratrooper holding a bundle of barbed wire. His hands – calloused and strong, you can see even from the distance between you – seem as mangled and bloody as your own. 

You’ve seen this paratrooper before. He stood in a group that flirted with Issie as the two of you walked past them in town. He was smiling then, you remember, and his lips are curled into the same blinding one now. 

“Oh,” is all you muster. His presence is making your mind blank.

“Assuming you don’t kick me, I’ve brought you the barbed wire,” he says, eyeing you and taking a daring step forward. He doesn’t seem wary, but something is making him regard you with vigilance. 

“Are you Strayer’s runner?” your voice is a lot sharper than you intended, but the paratrooper doesn’t seem to mind. He’s still smiling. He even laughs. 

“Nope,” he says. “George Luz, radioman for Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th.” He offers a hand, and you wipe your own on your trousers before taking his. Even toughened from wear, his palms are tender as the two of you shake hands. 

“I’m–” 

You’re surprised when he – George – cuts in with a chuckle. “I know who you are. You’re famous in Easy’s eyes now.” 

“What an honor,” you grumble, stepping forward to take the fencing from George’s arms. Why is he still laughing?

“Well, you did a number on our son-of-a bitch CO. Thought bringing you the barbed wire was the least I could do,” George says, following you to the fence post. You don’t even realize he’s helping you unravel the coil until it’s nearly done.

Your cheeks flush, and you bob your head down. “I didn’t mean to do that.” 

“Don’t sweat it, it was–” George seems to catch himself. “He deserved it. You weren’t wrong about what you said.” 

The two of you begin to string the wire back through the wooden posts, and your bodies act as a well-oiled machine. There’s quiet between you; only the dull, metallic clink of the wire and the distant bellows of cows can be heard. 

In this lull of time, a mere bubble in the episode of your life, there’s a gentle peace. For a reason unknown, the American radioman helping you restring a fence has given that to you.

You clear your throat, thoughts clumsy as they stumble what you want to say. 

“So, what’s a radioman doing bringing me the barbed wire?” you decide on, pulling one of the lines taut. George hands you the hammer from your tool bag, and he waits until you’ve nailed the wire before speaking. 

“I offered,” he says simply. You turn to watch his face, stupefied. 

“You offered? Why?” 

That’s when you notice a dark shade of pink blossom up his neck, painting the skin of his cheeks in rosy dapples. A rogue beam of sunlight illuminates his reddening ears, and it turns the tips of his tousled hair the same amber as the wheat you harvest – you have enough sense to focus your attention back to the chore at hand. You don’t like the fluttering feeling in your chest.

“Um,” he gives a laugh, but it’s uncertain. Wary. “I was the one who got our CO to cut the fence.”   

That… is not what you’re expecting. For the second time today, you’re left speechless.   

“I mean, I didn’t cut it, but I… tricked Sobel.”   

You wait for the same anger you felt earlier to blaze in your chest.    

“I mean, I’m still guilty, I’m not trying to say I’m not, but it’s a… guilt by association? I don’t know–” He stops himself at your silence, the same initial vigilance making its appearance again. He’s gauging your reaction.   

You’re left waiting for the anger, but there’s nothing. Its absence almost unnerves you.   

There’s quiet for a moment longer, until you give a soft hum. It’s not unlike the one Issie gives when she’s flirting with a paratrooper.   

Oh God, is that what I’m doing, now?   

“Well, how did you trick him?” you ask at last.   

George gives an unsteady laugh. “What?”   

“You tricked your CO into cutting the fence. You’ve gotta tell me how. It’s the least you can do,” you smile, giving a vain endeavor to push the laugh that’s rising in your throat down. “Being guilty by association and all.”

“Oh,” George’s attempt at a begrudging complaint isn’t convincing at all. If anything, it coaxes out even more of your laughter. “I did an impression of one of our Majors.”

“Alright, well now you have to do the impression.”

He gives a barking laugh. “What?”   

“Guilty by association,” you repeat, and when his eyes roll, you sneak a moment’s stare at his upturned lips. You didn’t know a smile could be angelic. 

“I see a recurring theme here,” he says, but takes a few steps back anyway. He theatrically sweeps his arms and curtseys, then gives a dramatic clear of his throat. You can’t seem to stop giggling.

“Is there a problem, Captain Sobel?” he shouts, his voice deep and lilted with an accent you’ve never heard before. It’s so ridiculous it has you bracing yourself against the fence post. 

In an instant, he changes his tone to that of Sobel’s – one that’s nasally. “Who said that? Who broke silence?!”

George performs a one-man reenactment of the scene before you, and by the time he’s done, you’ve fallen to the ground, trembling with tears of laughter and clutching your hand over your mouth. The happy aches wash over you in waves, and as you force yourself to wipe your eyes dry, you can’t recall the last time you’ve truly laughed. 

The warmth in your chest materializes like a distant memory. You haven’t allowed yourself to feel it since the beginning of the war – there’s a danger in gratifying certain delicacies, and it’s easier to distance oneself from the ease rather than indulging. 

George finishes his performance with a bow and plops himself down beside you. When you look at him then, as another ray of light halos gold around the crown of his head, and the tears in your eyes blur the green scenery around him, you’re reminded of your lessons in the days of school.

You picture Apollo, riding in a golden chariot as he brings warmth and light over the Earth. In that moment, the peaceful lull of time you’re letting yourself cherish, you allow George’s light to reach the grounds of your barred psyche. And yet, there’s something surfacing in your chest that you can’t seem to clamp down.

Your eyes are crying, but they’re not from laughter anymore. The warmth has melted your emotional wall, and it’s all you can do to keep from letting out a vocal sob. Why are you crying? Please stop, please–

“Hey,” George quickly says, and you don’t realize he’s so close to you until his fingers are swiping at your leaking tears. Have you really only known him a day? “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize my impressions were that bad.”

It’s enough to have you laughing again, but you’re hiccuping and cursing yourself for being so pitiful. 

“It was a good impression,” you reply quietly. “I’m sorry. It’s just…” There’s no word in the English language that can convey what you’re feeling. Exhaustion. Fear. Dejection. They all seem trivial in War’s shadow. 

Instead, you wave your hand above you in a meager gesture. “It’s just a lot.” 

"There’s no need to be sorry. I don’t–” He seems to catch himself again. You wish he wouldn’t, but that’s something you can’t let yourself vocalize. 

“I know us Americans haven’t really been in the thick of it, but we know something’s coming. It’s finally starting to hit us, too, I guess.”

It’s a perspective you hadn’t considered at all. You bow your head, biting your tongue, and guilt floods you. Before you can even weigh its judgement, the invitation of his hand on the grass beside you has you weaving your fingers through his own. There’s a deep hope inside of you, an asinine prayer, that lets you believe he can read your sympathy through the planes and prints of your palm. On this holy ground you sit on with George, it feels like anything could become reality.

“War is hell,” you eventually manage. He squeezes your fingers, and with a touch as soft as spring grass hiding beneath the ground, his lips press upon your knuckles. 

“I know,” he says faintly. 

But you don’t know. He can’t know until War’s placed his cold, selfish hand upon his shoulder. 

There’s an innocence in every Paratrooper in Aldbourne that War will strip from their soul. You look at George then, eyes sorrowful but still young. You can see the innocence burrowed in his eyes – the same rich color of the soil beneath you. 

He doesn’t know. But as you rest your head against his shoulder, eyes closed, you know that for now, it’s alright.

It’s how it should be.

[bcbdrums]

A Day in the Life of Bonnie Rockwaller

What, not a Drakgo fic!?  No...no it is not.  This one is all about Bonnie.

A girl only really seen through one lens on the show, perhaps misunderstood... A cheerleader, twelve-years a ballerina, a good student, the youngest in her family, and dating a football star. The "mean girl."

What is her life really like?

Happy (belated) birthday to the amazing @sharperthewriter!

FFn     AO3

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

A Day in the Life of Bonnie Rockwaller

The alarm clock went off too soon for Bonnie Rockwaller on that Thursday morning. With a groan she reached over and slapped the device until the beeping stopped, and then blinked at the bright sunlight creating a glow at the edge of her teal curtains.

She didn't want to get up. But winners didn't sleep in.

She rolled out of bed, untwisting her dark red leopard print pajama bottoms and spaghetti strap top from where they had shifted in her restless sleep. She hadn't slept well, again.

She slipped her feet into her fuzzy slippers that matched the pajama set and grabbed her phone off her nightstand, unplugging it as she hastily flipped it open to check her messages.

There weren't any.

She pushed down the pang that tried to creep into her chest, and instead turned to her wall calendar next to her desk. She paused for a moment to look in the bright mirror above the desk, tousling her hair with one hand and giving a half-grin at the way it fell over her shoulders. She looked incredible even straight out of bed.

The pang tried to enter her heart again, and she frowned and turned to the calendar, confirming the day's events with what she already had in her phone planner. After cheer practice she planned to go to the boutique for the final fitting of her homecoming dress, and that night she had ballet.

After nodding to herself that all was correct, she flipped over to her text messages out of habit. Her thumb hovered over the message at the top that hadn't been replied to from the night before as she considered sending another. But then with a scowl and another pang she closed the phone and tossed it onto her unmade bed.

She stepped over to the barre that her parents had had installed in her room and began her routine of ballet stretches. She forced the distracting thoughts about the lack of message reply away and started going over the new Mad Dogs cheer routine in her head. Ever since she and Kim had become co-captains of the squad, she couldn't help but admit...the routines had gotten better. And harder.

Bonnie sighed.

After finishing the stretches she changed into her black leggings, blue sports bra, socks, and running shoes. With the workout she knew she was going to get after school, she needed to get plenty warmed up ahead of time. Plus, she was worried she might have gained a few pounds in the last month and might not fit into her gown.

After tying her shoes, she grabbed her mp3 player and set it on her workout playlist, which included her favorite upbeat songs by Britina, MC Honey, the Oh Boyz, SmashMouth, and more. She also had some strange rap song that she'd seen once on American Starmaker that had topped the charts, but she could never remember the name of the artist.

She popped her earbuds in and hurried past the bedrooms of her siblings, hurrying out the door of the split-level home into the crisp, cool morning air. She set her stopwatch for seven and a half minutes and began jogging down the sidewalk, the golden light of the sunrise beginning to warm her skin within minutes.

Against her will, her mind fell back to the unanswered text from the night before. It wasn't that Brick hadn't been slow to reply in the past... In fact, his replies were coming slower and slower lately.

Bonnie couldn't ignore the pang in her chest that time, and she took a deep breath and ran faster. There were plenty of logical reasons her boyfriend might not be answering her texts. He was in college, after all. He had homework...which...he had never really done much of in high school, but the fact that he'd made it through one semester of college so far meant he must be doing at least some now.

She told herself again she was worrying over nothing. He had always been confused about things that were important to her, and to girls in general. He would read her text that day and confirm about the dance, and then she would send him a picture of her gown so he could buy the matching corsages.

The alarm on her stopwatch went off, and she turned around and started jogging back in the direction of home at a faster pace than she'd begun. As she felt the adrenaline pump through her from the run, she got an idea. She didn't need to wait for Brick to reply... She could just send the picture of the dress after she tried it on. That would give him the hint. He had probably just forgotten to reply anyway...

Bonnie finished her run with confidence, and when she returned home she hurried past her siblings in the kitchen, grateful for the loud hip-hop music currently playing in her ears so she wouldn't have to hear anything they might say to her. Though it was unlikely they would.

Her older brother by one year, Jonny, was sitting on the kitchen counter with his dirty sock-clad feet on the refrigerator door, playing some hand-held video game. Her even older sisters, Connie and Lonnie, were seated at the kitchen table leaning over a fashion magazine and a laptop computer, shopping online she assumed. They would curb the behavior when their parents came out for the 'family breakfast' they insisted on each day, before each family member would vanish to their various obligations.

Bonnie wasn't upset about family breakfasts really; ever since her dad bought her a car, she barely saw her family, since each member in turn had previously driven her everywhere she needed to go—her siblings with complaints, of course. Now she was wholly independent, so the breakfasts held more meaning to her.

After returning to her room, she glanced at her phone still on the bed. She thought about her plan to text Brick later after she picked up her dress...which would be in about nine hours.

The pang of worry hit her chest again.

She grabbed the phone along with her bathrobe as she went back down the hall to take a shower. She opened the phone and looked at the text she had sent the prior evening before dinner that remained unanswered.

*You're still free next Saturday for the homecoming dance, right?*

Still breathless from the run and with sweat irritating the center of her back, she started the shower and then scrolled through the prior texts between she and Brick over the past couple of weeks, noting the slow times between his responses compared to her quick ones, and his lack of many words. After a moment of tense indecision, she fired off another quick text.

*I'll send you a photo of my gown after school!*

She set the phone down and grimaced as she started to undress. A lack of words wasn't anything new, and she was stunned as she realized she was telling herself not to worry. Why should she worry? She shouldn't even have let that thought in her head.

She frowned and leaned over the counter, staring at her face in the mirror as it started to become fogged with steam.

"I have nothing to worry about," she reassured herself out loud, and after giving herself a crisp nod, she adjusted the water temperature and made haste to shower.

She thought about Brick's class and football schedules, which...she'd had to badger him for back in the fall. They weren't consistent day to day, and he even had night classes a couple of days a week. These offered plenty of reasons why he might not have replied to her text messages. A college boy was busy.

After another swath of reassuring thoughts she felt her confidence returning. And then just as she switched the shower off, she heard the telltale beep of her phone indicating a message received.

She nearly slipped on the tile as she hurried to the phone, only half-drying her hands before flipping it open. The text was from Brick.

*Call me later.*

Bonnie read the words five times as her heart began to race, and then she mentally shook herself and quickly dried the phone off before drying off herself and putting on her bathrobe.

The text was a positive. He wanted to talk to her. Right...? Usually it was she who called him, and he only answered half of the time anyway... Come to think of it, he never said much over the phone. He just hummed responses to what she said to him.

Bonnie frowned into the fogged-up mirror as she began to blow-dry her hair. She didn't need to read any more into the text than was there. He probably wanted to talk about logistics for the dance.

She let the sound of the blow dryer drown out her thoughts, and as soon as her hair was no longer damp at the roots she unplugged the blow dryer and set the appliance on the counter before snatching up her phone again and storming down the hall back to her bedroom.

When she stepped through the door, she hit her ankle hard on something and tripped, plummeting forward with a gasp. Her phone flew out of her hand and was forgotten as she tucked into a somersault and came out of the fall safely and on her feet. She took hardly a second to catch her breath before whirling around and pushing her hair out of her eyes as she scowled. Her full laundry basket on the floor was the culprit, but her eyes narrowed as she realized it was the load she had put in the night before...and it wasn't clean nor dry.

"Lonnie!" she shouted before even leaving her room, turning the short distance down the hall to her older sister's room. "Why aren't my clothes clean? And why did you put dirty clothes back in my room!?"

She had just reached the door when it opened a sliver, and she could just see her sister's blonde hair and smirk.

"Oh sorry B, forgot to tell you I took your clothes out last night to do mine," Lonnie said, her tone rife with sarcasm. "Needed my intimates done before my date later."

"You could have waited your turn! Why didn't you tell me last night?" Bonnie said through gritted teeth, her hands in fists at her sides as she seethed.

"Mmh, guess it slipped my mind. Sorry, B..." she answered as she pushed the door closed, drawing out the 'sorry' in an all too familiar way.

"Rrrgh!" Bonnie snarled, hitting the closed door with a flat palm before turning on her heel to head back to her room.

"Sheesh, Bonnie, take a chill pill."

Bonnie blinked and saw Jonny leaning against the wall, not looking up from his video game.

"Quiet, nerdlinger!"

"Hmph," was Jonny's only reply, said through a smirk with a shrug.

"I have nothing to wear now!"

"Wow, nothing," he replied flatly, clearly disbelieving and disinterested.

Bonnie took a sharp breath in through her nose and was about to retort when Connie poked her head out of her own doorway.

"Nothing that'll help, anyway," she said with a slight giggle and smirk, giving Bonnie a once-over.

"Connie!"

Her eldest sister disappeared into her bedroom, and the sound of another door closing was her alert that her brother had departed too. Bonnie stood alone in the hallway for a moment, seething and feeling irrationally like she might cry before she shoved the emotion away and stalked back to her room.

Winners didn't cry.

She glanced into the laundry basket, noting all of her favorites wrinkled and wet from half a wash cycle, including her planned outfit for that day. She sighed and stepped to the closet, looking at the variety of things she didn't often choose because they were old, out of style, or weren't appropriate for school for one reason or another.

After several minutes pushing through every item and muttering about things being out of season, she grabbed an old favorite crop top she'd forgotten about and probably hadn't worn since freshman year. After scanning the array of bottoms in her closet and not finding a suitable match, she reached into the far corner and grabbed the old, baggy Club Banana overalls she'd used to wear with that top all the time.

When she got dressed she realized two things quickly: first, that sleeveless purple and teal tie dye racer-back crop top was quite snug, rode up higher than it used to, and showed her bra under her arms; second, that the overalls were also just a touch too small. They hugged her hips and her rear in a way she actually found attractive as she spun in front of the mirror, but the straps weren't fitting entirely over her shoulders and even hurt a little.

She frowned slightly as she unbuckled one strap and let it fall over her back, and the bib ever so slightly forward. It relieved enough pressure from the garment that she felt comfortable in the choice, and after looking at the very obvious sides of her bra showing under her arms, she unhooked the undergarment at the back, pulled off the straps, and then took the garment off through one of the arm holes in the style of Raquel Spring from "Pals." She dropped it in the laundry basket with a frown, determining then and there she would have to get back at Lonnie for potentially ruining her wardrobe.

After another quick spin in the mirror and deciding she looked good enough, Bonnie put on her socks and shoes and hurried back to the bathroom to quickly do her hair and makeup. Her parents would be upset, but she wasn't sure if she'd have time for breakfast anymore. The clothing problem had slowed her down, plus she suddenly remembered some math homework she'd left unfinished the night before in favor of working on memorizing the latest ballet routine.

Her focus fell to the unfinished math word problems—why were word problems so hard?—as she fixed her hair with the blow dryer and a round brush into its usual style, and then hurriedly put on her makeup.

After giving a satisfied nod to her appearance, she hurried back to her bedroom again. She closed her homework into her math book and shoved it in her backpack, knowing she'd have a better chance of getting it done and being on time if she did it after she arrived at school, maybe during her first class. It was with that somewhat shaky resolution that she threw her backpack over her shoulder and then grabbed up the laundry basket and headed down the hall.

She ignored the smirks of her siblings as she strode past them and quickly got the load of laundry started. Her mom didn't have to work for a couple of hours yet...

When she returned to the kitchen, she noted her three older siblings expressions had sobered as they sat dutifully around the table eating their usual breakfast meals, and her parents with them. Bonnie took a deep breath.

"Mom, when my laundry finishes can you put it in the dryer? And hang up the other things?"

Her mother looked up from her dish in confusion.

"I thought you did laundry last night?"

"I started to, but somebody decided theirs was more important," Bonnie said, hands on her hips as she glared at her older sister.

Veronica Rockwaller gave a disapproving frown toward the blonde-haired young woman, who merely shrugged.

"She didn't come back to dry it anyway," Lonnie said.

"I fell asleep doing homework!"

Bonnie's father, who until that point had been invisible behind his newspaper, cleared his throat.

"Bonnie..."

Bonnie groaned and rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know I'm supposed to sleep at least seven hours each night. I got them," she assured him. She didn't think it important to add they'd been spent tossing and turning, worrying about Brick. And that the same worry was what kept her from finishing the homework.

She turned to the cupboard and took out a protein bar before spinning around and heading for the front door.

"Bonnie!" her mother sang in a disappointed tone as she walked past. Her father looked up from his paper and coffee again with a raised brow.

"Sorry Mom, sorry Dad, I have just enough time to finish my homework if I leave now," she said by way of excuse.

"But Bon-Bon!"

Bonnie looked from her mother's disappointed face to her father's. Donald 'Donny' Rockwaller lifted his hand in a vague gesture that she could leave, and she grinned and flipped her hair with one hand as she turned to hide her relief.

"Now Ronnie, schoolwork comes first. At least she won't miss dinner," her father said pointedly. "Especially since it'll be the last family dinner before our trip this weekend."

Bonnie froze at the tone in her father's voice and glanced back over her shoulder. He was staring at her over his newspaper.

"Of course not!" she said with a broad, innocent smile. She thought a moment. "...But I do need to pick up my homecoming dress after cheer practice today."

"Oh, I can come with you!" her mother said brightly.

Bonnie's smile faded to a panicked frown and she started waving her hand in a stopping motion. But her attention shifted suddenly as her sisters spoke.

"You mean they found a dress to actually fit that shape?" Connie said.

"Clearly nothing else does," Lonnie said, giving a disgusted look at Bonnie's current attire.

"Ladies," their father admonished, and Bonnie turned to leave in a hurry amid her mother's scolding of her older sisters and her brother's snickering. She wasn't about to let her mother come along to the dress fitting, or anywhere else where they could be seen together by people she knew—not since the ski trip incident.

In the driveway, she dropped her backpack on the passenger seat of her white convertible and sighed as she sank into the tan leather driver's seat. After tuning the radio to her favorite hip-hop station and cranking the volume, she began the drive to school, letting the sound of the wind and the music carry her thoughts away.

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

When Bonnie walked through the halls of the school and saw Kim Possible standing in front of her open locker, she actually perked up. She needed to talk to Kim about the complexity of the final sequence in the new cheer routine before practice. She began quickening her pace, but stopped short when Kim's locker was pushed closed by a confidently grinning Ron Stoppable, dressed uncharacteristically in his football jersey.

Bonnie stopped and took a step nearer the other wall of lockers as if it could hide her while the...the loser of a held-back senior Kim now called 'boyfriend' leaned over the red-head at her locker and set his hand on her waist, kissing her in a very suave move. Bonnie blinked at the scene in shock, feeling a sinking in her stomach and an actual camaraderie with Stoppable's hairless pet which was scrubbing at its eyes from the football star's pocket.

'Football star...'

"Whoa, put out the fire you two!" was the declaration of Kim's other best friend, Monique, who Bonnie could find no fault with except for choosing the other two as companions. The girl was confident, trendy, smart, and someone she could have called 'friend' herself. But apparently Kim had gotten to her first.

Bonnie passed the trio without a word as they began chatting and hurried to what was their joint homeroom. She needed to finish that math homework and would need a seat in the back if she was to avoid Mr. Barkin's watchful gaze. And the last thing she wanted right then was to hear about how great life was the world-famous world-saving cheerleader.

She remembered Brick's text and reached in her pocket for her phone, and then froze.

It wasn't there.

She remembered with a fury that she had dropped it earlier that morning when she tripped on the laundry basket, and she mentally swore further revenge against all of her siblings for the crime. They deserved it for the years of tormenting her anyway.

She dropped her math book heavily on the too-small desk and leaned over the homework paper, one hand on her forehead to hide her face as she stared down at the problems in the book.

She stared at the words and numbers while her classmates gradually filed in and took their seats around her. She barely acknowledged Tara's cheery 'good morning' as she read over the first word problem again and again, unable to focus long enough to finish it, and she tuned out the tardy bell and Mr. Barkin's gruff greeting to the class.

All she could think about was Brick's text. She couldn't remember another time he had asked her to call. In fact, their phone conversations usually ended with him interrupting whatever she was talking about and asking if he could call her back another time...which...he never did.

A telltale buzzing made her reach instinctively for her phone, and she frowned when it wasn't there. She glanced over at Tara in the next desk, who was grinning down at her phone in her lap.

Tara saw her friend's attention and after a moment and a glance at Mr. Barkin who was writing on the chalkboard, she passed the cell phone to Bonnie.

Bonnie smirked as she saw it was an update to Stoppable's blog, and she glanced to where the blond-haired boy sat next to Kim in the front row. He had his phone in his lap, and he seemed to be typing blindly with one thumb while his hairless pink pet typed at the same time. She frowned and shook her head in confusion as she looked back to Tara's phone for the latest gossip.

*A reliable source has reported that Dr. Drakken and Shego have been looking at real estate in Tahiti. Is it a new lair, or a romantic vacation home?*

Bonnie rolled her eyes and passed the phone back to Tara. While that pair of villains were among the most interesting, she was tired of the 'are they or aren't they?' that Stoppable kept spinning to keep interest in the blog.

"Well?" whispered Tara, and Bonnie looked at her while keeping one eye on Mr. Barkin. "What do you think?"

"I don't think it matters where they do it?" Bonnie whispered back.

"They're totally a couple!" Tara said with a small giggle, scrolling through the other posts on the blog.

Bonnie shook her head and looked down at her math book again, feeling like she might be able to focus at last. As she finally began writing figures on the paper to solve the first word problem, she realized she'd wasted most of homeroom and hadn't heard even a word of Mr. Barkin's lecture. She tried to tune into it as she wrote, ignoring the giggles off to her right and the grin of her cheer co-captain a few rows ahead.

It was bad enough she had to watch Kim and Ron making out in the hallway. The last thing she needed was to think about happy villain couples too, when she couldn't hardly remember the last time she'd had Brick's arm around her.

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

"And five, six, seven, eight and aerial...three...down...V...and left, right, left, right and to-the-base!" Kim called out the beats of the cheer routine, watching with arms crossed in front of the bleachers.

Bonnie, up in front and with the mirrored role to Kim's, had the most difficult steps and was trying to complete her moves while also listening to Kim's commands to the rest of the squad for her timing. It was going well, exactly like she'd practiced in her bedroom the night before. They had collaborated on this routine and were sure it could win the next competition, but of course, they all had to start somewhere in learning it.

As she felt sweat beginning to form on her brow she remembered the competition last year, when Brick had sat in the front row cheering her on. She'd gotten a major thrill bragging about him to the girls from other squads, who had all been envious of her gorgeous, all-American boyfriend.

"And liberty...to scorpion... Bonnie!"

Bonnie felt the weight shift from Tara below who was her base, and realized she'd failed to shift into the scorpion pose. Which meant when Hope next to her, standing in for Kim, had nowhere to place her foot for the next move when their feet were supposed to touch. She watched in a mixture of annoyance, fear, and embarrassment as Hope went down despite Crystal's efforts, and she quickly lost balance too, landing in a forward lunge when her feet finally hit the gym floor.

When she righted herself she found every member of the squad staring at her. It wasn't often she found herself in this position, as it was usually her leading the glares toward Kim who was often distracted by her 'missions' and more recently, her steady boyfriend.

The heat came to Bonnie's cheeks and she crossed her arms and turned away with a frown.

"I didn't have the balance for scorpion, it would have been worse if I'd tried," she said by way of excuse.

"Maybe if you'd lose a few pounds," Tanzy said not entirely under her breath, earning a few gasps from the long-time members of the squad.

"Why, you—!"

"O-kay," Kim said with authority. "Bonnie, let's swap. You call the routine and I'll hop in."

Bonnie was torn in that moment between arguing that she wouldn't mess up again and taking the pass and actually watching the routine as she called it. She wanted to watch it again anyway, but she was uncertain in the moment which was the less embarrassing of the two options.

As Kim raised a questioning and slightly impatient brow in her direction, she rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"Fine, get up there."

Bonnie watched as Hope and Jessica swapped places, Jessica being Bonnie's stand-in as Hope was Kim's. Then when everyone was back in place in the starting positions, she began calling the counts and moves.

She was glad she'd made that choice, because she had no choice but to focus and for at least the rest of practice, Brick didn't enter her mind at all. Not even when they had played the music and she and Kim had both operated in their regular positions. She hated to admit it, but they were a good team as co-captains.

It wasn't until later after showering in the locker room and waiting for Tara to finish fixing her hair that Bonnie began to dwell on the situation with Brick again. She was also worried that he might have sent her another message while her phone was at home, somewhere on her bedroom floor. What if he had tried to call, and her lack of response made him think she was ignoring him? What if he'd wanted her to call right after school, or after cheer practice?

"What's wrong, Bonnie?"

Bonnie startled from her thoughts and realized her brow had been twisted in so much worry, that it hurt. She uncrossed her arms and pushed off of the wall in the girl's locker room where she'd been leaning.

"Nothing, you ready to go?" she asked Tara, who was fluffing her golden, wavy hair.

"You bet! I can't wait to see your gown! And guess what, the boutique left me a voicemail during practice. Mine came in today too!"

"Yeah that's great. I need to run home first, that all right?"

"Oh...sure, what for?" Tara asked, hurrying behind Bonnie who had slung her backpack on her back and started out of the locker room.

"For my phone," Bonnie answered somewhat impatiently.

"Ohhh right... Do you think Brick might have messaged you?"

Bonnie felt that pang in her chest again and increased her pace. She had confided to Tara about her missing phone, but hadn't fully admitted her fears that Brick was losing interest in her.

"Maybe. He usually waits for me to reply, unless he's asking for homework help."

Tara continued talking, but Bonnie barely listened until they reached her convertible in the parking lot. They tossed their backpacks in the trunk and then Bonnie sat heavily in the driver's seat with a sigh. The fall earlier during practice, though she had landed fine, had definitely been a shock to her system.

"Bonnie?"

"Hmm?"

"I said, do you think the hot pink will be too much?"

"I've been telling you for years to let go of the green."

"Well it's a kind of a—"

"Never-mind, I'll see it when we get there," Bonnie said as she started the car.

She stared straight ahead, ignoring the concerned and confused look she knew Tara was giving her. She grabbed her sunglasses off the car's sun visor and hid her eyes behind them.

She couldn't focus on the conversation about gowns with the possibility of a missed call from Brick swirling around in her head. Not to mention the sudden increased concern that her gown wouldn't fit after Tanzy's comment at practice.

Back in the locker room she had direly wanted to ask Kim if she had gained weight, knowing the red-head would be honest, but she hadn't. Now she wanted to ask Tara, but she wasn't sure if her friend wouldn't sugar-coat the answer just to please her.

Bonnie flipped the radio station to pop, Tara's favorite, and gave her a half-smile that seemed to assuage any concerns her friend may have had. She turned the music up higher to avoid any possibility of conversation and drove the familiar route back home, unable to deny the anxiety now coursing through her as the promise of getting to her phone was near.

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

Bonnie parked her car near the house after driving perhaps too quickly up her family's long driveway, if Tara's slightly startled expression was any indication. She kept her sunglasses on to hide her slightly guilty expression as she grabbed her backpack from the trunk and hurried up the steps.

"If my sibs aren't around you can help yourself to anything in the fridge," Bonnie called over her shoulder as Tara hurried behind her.

She didn't feel like stopping at Bueno Nacho or anywhere else on the way to the boutique, but it had definitely been too long since lunch.

The house, gratefully, seemed empty when they went inside, and Bonnie nodded toward the fridge before heading down the hall to her room. It was just a quick stop for her phone and a snack before they would head back to try on their gowns.

In her room, Bonnie took her planner and the books for that night's homework out of her backpack and placed them on her desk, knowing she might forget otherwise after ballet later that night. She glanced at her watch as she dropped her backpack and began calculating how much time she would have, and then frowned. There was really only time to try on the dresses, make the final payment if they fit, and then drive Tara home. Then she would barely make it home through rush hour traffic in time for the family dinner, and then she would have to hurry off to ballet.

She wouldn't be able to start her homework until after eight thirty that night. Or call Brick.

A quick search of the room revealed her phone on the floor near the barre, and she flipped it open to find six missed text messages. Two were from Tara that morning, the second of which asking why she wasn't answering texts. Bonnie rolled her eyes.

She cringed at the text from Kim asking why she was late for practice, and it was with dismay she saw that the other three were from Liz, Crystal, and Hope. Brick hadn't sent any other messages, and there were no missed calls.

Bonnie put the phone in the hip pocket of her overalls, frowning at the discomfort it gave her since the older garment was slightly too snug.

'Or maybe you've just put on a few pounds...'

She shook that thought from her head as she fished in her backpack for her wallet. She glanced at the math book at the top of the pile of homework on her desk and frowned at the memory of turning in an incomplete paper earlier that day, and then she looked up at the mirror. Her hair was more limp for the rigor of cheer practice, but there wasn't time to do anything with it.

Bonnie chose a teal purse from the several she had hanging behind her door and shouldered it after putting her phone and wallet inside. She hurried back to the kitchen where she found Tara eating a pudding cup.

"Those are Jonny's," Bonnie commented, knowing her brother would be upset. Not that she cared... She just knew she would probably take the heat for it.

"Oh, sorry," Tara said with a small giggle as she licked the butterscotch from her lips.

Bonnie opened the fridge and after a sad perusal, she grabbed one of her brother's pudding cups too. She plopped down on the bar stool next to Tara and opened the cup, staring blankly at the cabinets opposite as she dug her spoon in.

"...Did Brick call?" Tara asked after a moment of silence.

"No," Bonnie said, then spooning a larger bite into her mouth. While she could no longer ignore the growing concern that Brick was losing interest in her, she still didn't want to talk about it. Because if Brick was in fact losing interest...she didn't want to think forward to what would come after that conversation.

"Ryan left me a message during practice," Tara commented.

Bonnie nodded approvingly as she licked her spoon.

"Status."

"But he was always trying to cop a feel," Tara continued with a frown.

Bonnie smirked. "And you care?"

Tara's frown deepened.

"Right, I get it. You're waiting for 'love'," Bonnie said, drawing out the last word sarcastically.

"So are you," Tara retorted, "unless something's changed?"

"Nothing's changed," Bonnie said, glancing back at the cabinets and letting her vision blur as she took another bite.

"Look, I like making out but Ryan just doesn't understand where the line is," Tara said thoughtfully.

Bonnie silently ate her pudding as she thought about her physical relationship with Brick. He was a good kisser, and she always felt a sense of pride curled up under his arm, whether they were at the movies or at a party after a game. He'd never given her any indications he wanted more, so they'd never talked about it. But what if...that was part of why he was losing interest now? Had he met someone else who gave him more?

Bonnie considered their on-again, off-again relationship over the past three and a half years. It was always she who had broken up with him when they were 'off,' due to his lack of attention or some rude comment he had made. She'd always just assumed he would be there when she had cooled down, and he was. Even the time he'd seemed interested in Kim during sophomore year, she hadn't worried, because she knew he wasn't Kim's type.

'Her loss!'

As she thought about it further, she realized that the last few times they'd broken up...she couldn't remember Brick protesting. Or even seeming that upset. Or...happy when she'd declared they were back together.

The pang in her chest turned to a swirling unease in her stomach, and she glanced to the side to see that Tara had just finished her pudding. She grabbed the small plastic cup and spoon out her hands, earning a surprised squeak, and carried them and her own unfinished pudding around to the sink where she dropped the spoons in and then tossed the pudding cups in the trash.

"Come on," Bonnie said abruptly, shifting her purse to her other shoulder. It had been on the one with the overall strap, and she realized the garment was a bit uncomfortable over her shoulder after all.

"What'd I say?" Tara questioned. "Look, I'm over that Ryan is a celebrity... Jason's never tried to push the boundaries, and that matters more to me."

"Fine, whatever," Bonnie said as she headed back out the door. "Long as he's got the cash."

"We go out," Tara defended her own on-and-off boyfriend.

"To places other than Bueno Nacho?" Bonnie accused as they got back into the car.

"Yes," Tara said emphatically, sounding almost hurt. "And he even told me he'll take me to Chez Couteaux before homecoming."

"How do you know he's not gonna turn out like Ryan did?" Bonnie retorted as she started the car.

"Bonnie!"

"Just saying," Bonnie responded with a shrug and a frown.

She turned the music back on as she backed the car out of the driveway. The conversation had only increased her worries about Brick to the point she didn't even bother denying them anymore. What if that was the reason he was distant from her? What if he had in fact found someone else who was more the kind of girl he wanted?

What...what was the kind of girl Brick wanted? Bonnie felt the uneasy feeling in her stomach intensify as she suddenly worried that she wasn't it...

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

"I've been telling you for years Tara, jewel tones," Bonnie said, watching Tara look uncertainly at the gown she wore that in Bonnie's opinion was a dream come true.

Tara's choice that year was a dark hot pink strapless mermaid gown, satin until the mermaid flare at the bottom where the material was tulle. The bust was covered in tiny rhinestones that faded away down the bodice, which Bonnie thought were a great compliment to her figure.

"Are you sure?"

"Sometimes your favorite colors just aren't ones you can wear," Bonnie said, leaning back on the bench and crossing her legs again. "With your hair, eyes, and complexion... Jewel tones, Tara."

Tara's expression brightened at Bonnie's reassurance, though her brow still showed uncertainty.

"Look, it's perfect. Just take it off and I'll put mine on," Bonnie said, rising from the bench and moving into the adjacent fitting room. She quickly divested herself of her shoes, overalls, and tank top and then carefully removed her gown from its hanger.

As she stepped into the dress and slipped the straps up over her shoulders, she felt a comfortable, familiar confidence settle over her that she'd lacked that day—the confidence of looking good.

She zipped up the black dress and adjusted the raspberry colored chiffon sash at the waist which folded and had a panel that draped down the front nearly to the floor. The dress had two high slits up each side and a deep V-neck, with straps that thinned over the shoulders. She smiled as she mentally pictured the way it would look with her hair and makeup done to perfection, and black heels to match. Ruby earrings would complete the look...

She straightened up in front of the fitting room mirror as a vision entered her mind of Brick standing at her side wearing a black tuxedo, with a cummerbund and bow-tie to match her sash. They would have to be dyed of course, along with roses for the corsages, but there was still plenty of time.

The excitement that had bubbled up in her chest at how great she and Brick would look walking into the homecoming dance together burst suddenly as all of her insecurities about their relationship suddenly came back. She felt in her purse for her phone and after pulling it out flipped it open. There had been no messages or missed calls in the time she and Tara and been out so far.

She turned to face the mirror again, posed and grinned, and then moved her phone around in one hand trying to get the best angle and also capture the entire dress. It took three tries, but she finally got an image she was okay with and sent it in a message to Brick.

*Match everything to the sash.*

As she looked at the image once more before pushing send she felt her confidence returning. She was the hottest girl at Middleton High, and Brick had never looked at anyone else in the almost three years they had been together. She had nothing to worry about.

She sent the text, put her phone back in her purse, and then exited the fitting room. Tara was dressed in her school clothes again and seated on the bench Bonnie had previously occupied, her folded hands atop the knee of her crossed leg which she was swinging as she smiled and waited patiently. When she focused her attention on Bonnie, her mouth fell open in a gasp.

"Oh, Bonnie that's gorgeous!"

"I know. Doesn't it just scream 'me'?" she said with a grin, slowly spinning and then striking a pose.

"It's perfect!"

"Like I said. Me."

Just then, a wolf-whistle startled them and drew both of their attentions to where about ten feet away a vaguely familiar red-headed teen boy stood. Bonnie realized in a moment it was one of their classmates, but she wasn't entirely sure of his name. She couldn't recall ever actually speaking to him.

"Smokin'!" he said, giving her a thumbs up and a grin that revealed less than perfect teeth.

Bonnie recoiled in mild disgust, though she couldn't argue with the compliment.

"Yeah, way too hot for you," Bonnie said in retort. She meant it derisively, but the look Tara gave her made her wonder if it had accidentally come off as flirty.

The guy continued looking her over without any pretense, and Bonnie racked her brain for his name. All she could really recall about him was that his tired, baggy eyes were always staring at a computer screen and that he had never once been in gym class.

"So, got a date for the homecoming dance?" he asked, his look becoming practically lascivious.

The boy's name finally registered in Bonnie's mind.

"Uh, yeah. And if you come with twenty feet of me at the dance Reiger, I'll tell my boyfriend Brick that you asked me out."

Ronald Reiger seemed to snap out of his hormone-motivated stupor, but it didn't last long as a devious smirk returned to his face.

"I didn't think Flagg liked his babes with so much junk in the trunk. But I sure do," Reiger said, wagging his eyebrows knowingly.

Bonnie sputtered incoherently for a moment before a shrill scream left her throat. Every face in the boutique suddenly turned to look at her, and Bonnie's face reddened in both anger and embarrassment as Reiger left the store laughing.

Bonnie's hands were clenched in fists at her sides as she seethed, the conversation already replaying in her mind. So focused was she on the horrible things Reiger had said, that she didn't notice Tara had been speaking to her until she felt her friend's hand on her shoulder.

"He never even goes to the dances. Just ignore him."

Bonnie took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but she still felt the sting of embarrassment as multiple eyes continued to watch her.

"Tara," she began, not liking how pathetic her voice sounded, "have I gained weight?"

"No! If anything you're slimmer," Tara said, her usual happy-go-lucky smile back on her face.

"Really?" Bonnie asked, starting to straighten up from the hunch she'd not realized she'd fallen into.

"Oh yeah. You look great! Especially in the varsity cheer uniform. You rock it!"

Bonnie looked straight into Tara's eyes and saw the sincerity; she wasn't just trying to butter her up.

She pushed her hair back and fought the twisting of emotions in her chest, glancing away when she finally said a quiet, "Thanks."

"Besides, Reiger's been crushing on you since middle school," Tara continued thoughtfully, "but I've never seen him with anyone. He's probably got his own issues."

Bonnie looked up in surprise. "Since middle school!?"

Tara looked confused. "Yeah. I thought you knew."

"Ew! No, that's the first time I've ever acknowledged that loser's existence!"

Tara looked confused again. "Don't you remember he asked you to dance in seventh grade, at the welcome back dance?"

Bonnie blinked at her. "I thought you said he never goes to dances."

"Not since that one. He asked you to dance and you said no."

Bonnie searched her memory, but all she could recall of that first dance in seventh grade was how hot she had looked in her black and white leopard print skirt and hot pink blouse with the matching collar.

"Ugh, let's just pay for the gowns and get out of here before some other loser shows up."

"Hey," Tara said, and Bonnie felt a hand on her shoulder again, "this was fun. We barely hang out anymore. I'm glad we could fit this in."

"Yeah," Bonnie said with a quick smile before hurrying back into her fitting room.

As she changed back into her crop top and overalls she thought about Tara's words. It was true, they hadn't been hanging out as much since Tara had finally given up on that loser Stoppable part-way through junior year. Once she had stopped pining over him she found she enjoyed dating around, which meant less time for friends. And of course, varsity cheer took up more of both of their free time. They hardly saw each other outside of school activities anymore.

Bonnie considered the things in her own life that were keeping her busy. Ballet was four nights a week now that she was in the highest level, and for the past month she had spent all of her free time...worrying about Brick's diminishing communication. They had only been out on a date once in the last three weeks, but she realized she had been purposely keeping her evenings free just in case he wanted to see her. He was only going to the University of Lowerton after all, so it wasn't that far a drive.

But he hadn't mentioned going out once since their last date. He only responded to her messages, and barely at that...

Bonnie scowled as her mood soured again, but she didn't let it impact her carefully hanging the gown back on its hanger. The boost she had gotten from trying it on had already faded, and she was eager to get home so she could hopefully have a chance to call Brick in between dinner and ballet. A glance at her phone showed he hadn't replied to her message with the photo of the dress.

The overall strap on her shoulder was suddenly bothering her, and after a very brief moment she unhooked it and let the bib fall fully down and the strap down her back, a moment later looping both straps through the belt loops on the garment so they wouldn't flop too much. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror she reconsidered the decision for a moment, noting just how much of her midriff was showing due to the high crop top and how low the overalls fell. But she shook her head and shouldered her purse and turned away from her reflection. Because despite herself, she couldn't even distract herself thinking about Tara's compliment because she was no longer able to hide the worry in her eyes.

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

Bonnie shut off the car and then sank low into the leather seat, exhausted as she stared at the reflection of the golden sunset off her dash. She ran her mind back over the day's events, each recollection interrupted by the harsh, stabbing worry about Brick's text.

She felt a small measure of calm as she remembered how Tara had leaned down into the car to hug her when she had dropped her off at her home. Her friend had thanked her for a fun afternoon and promised to see her the next day with her usual bright smile and wave as she left.

Why couldn't Brick be more like Tara? Bonnie never had to worry that Tara wouldn't answer a text, or be less than honest about their friendship. If Tara was upset about something, Bonnie knew it in a moment from the look on her friend's face.

She also realized with sudden guilt, which she quickly shoved down, that she wasn't always quick to make amends when she and Tara got into disagreements. And yet, Tara...was still there.

She forced away the strange swirl of emotions in her chest and turned her thoughts to Brick again. Had she done something to upset him, and that's why he was distant? He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and he had always been extremely easy-going in high school. It was one of the things she liked about him actually... He did whatever she wanted, and she got to show off her man candy wherever she went.

She startled suddenly, her eyes seeking something to focus on as too many realizations hit her all at once. Could Brick be avoiding her because she only treated him like a tool? And...since when did she no longer want that with him, and want to be treated like an actual girlfriend?

Her mind was racing for answers, and when she looked at her reflection in the rear-view mirror she saw the truth in her own eyes. She had wanted more for a long time, but hadn't been giving Brick anything to let him know that.

Another strange mix of emotions hit her as she fought against the revelation she had just had. She didn't need a relationship. She didn't need to give and take, or to care about someone else's needs. Winners didn't need other people, after all.

Even as her head spoke the defiant thoughts, an image of Tara's smile and the memory of her hug before they parted that evening flew across her mind's eye. She sighed and slumped back in the seat again.

Who was she kidding?

She grimaced as she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Brick had said to call her... It was time to put herself out of her misery and stop living in a high school fantasy. If she really did...want more...she would have to give more.

She pressed the speed dial with an ironic grimace and held the phone to her ear. It connected after four rings.

"Hello?" He sounded confused, which made her stomach twist in unease.

"Hey Brick, baby," she greeted with a smile, though it didn't reach her eyes.

"Oh, hey," was the response in his usual smooth tone, but it was lacking the smile behind it.

"Did you get the photo of my gown?" she asked, avoiding any more difficult topic for the moment.

"Yeah, it's smokin'!" he said, and Bonnie felt some of the unease leave as she heard the smile in his voice. She also recalled that Ron Reiger had used that exact term to describe the dress, and her face fell.

"Do you need me to send you the address of the boutique to get your cummerbund and bow-tie dyed?" she continued in a hurry.

"Yeah about that..."

Bonnie felt her throat constrict and immediately tried to calm her breathing. Before she could speak, Brick continued.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore."

Bonnie's chest heaved as her breaths came more quickly.

"What... You...you...are breaking up with me?" Bonnie sputtered. They weren't the words she wanted to say, but they were the ones that came out.

"Yeah... So no hard feelings," Brick said. It sounded final, and Bonnie gripped her phone hard as she leaned forward in a panic.

"Wait! Can...can we talk about this?" she stammered.

"Talk...?" Brick sounded confused by the suggestion.

"Yeah, like...like...why?"

"Oh, well... I feel like since I went to college we've...grown apart?" Brick answered, still sounding confused. "And like...we didn't really know each other that well anyway."

"What do you mean?" Bonnie gasped, her instincts taking over again. "We talked almost every day for three years, we went out all the time, I even hung out at your house with your lame-o family!" Bonnie cringed at the instinctive insult she'd given and hurriedly backpedaled. "I mean..."

"Yeah, and like...that's just it," Brick continued in the voice she knew so well, sounding much more himself. "We did all those things and I don't...really know you."

Bonnie blinked several times, fighting the onset of tears. Her mind was a jumble of searching for excuses and counter-arguments, as well as the distracting interruptions of how she basically been treating Tara exactly the same way she had treated Brick.

"Well...then let's get to know each other," she finally said. She looked in the rear-view mirror at her stricken expression, and then her eyes fell to the reflection of the short crop top she was wearing. "And like...if you come over Saturday, my parents won't be home all weekend."

She had lowered her tone on the last, hoping to sound seductive. Her heart raced for fear with the implication she had just given him. That wasn't what she really wanted, but she was desperate.

"No thanks... It's just not gonna work between us. I'm sorry, but...it's over."

Bonnie clutched the phone tighter, breathing into the receiver as no words came while tears filled her eyes. A moment later the line disconnected, and she let a sob escape her lips as she listened to the dead air at the other end of the line.

She closed the phone and dropped it back in her purse, then wiping the tears from her eyes.

'Winners don't cry, winners don't cry...'

She tried desperately to force the tears away, but as she replayed the conversation with Brick in her mind they kept coming. She turned her gaze upward as she grabbed a tissue from the box in her center console, but she didn't dry her eyes yet.

The resounding finality of Brick's statement, 'it's over,' kept looping in her mind and causing a torment of indecision. There was a part of her that wanted to call him back and fight to keep him. She even wondered if driving to Lowerton for a salacious meeting would change his mind after all.

That idea made her heart pound in anxiety, and she recalled her earlier conversation with Tara. It wasn't what she wanted... But...she still wanted Brick.

She dried her eyes, and on that thought she shouldered her purse, and then carefully took her plastic-wrapped homecoming gown out of the trunk of the car. The sudden realization that she had no date for the dance started the tears anew, but she didn't stop and headed for the house.

'Winners don't quit...'

When she walked inside, the telltale sounds of quiet conversation told her that her family had already started dinner. She wiped her eyes once more with her free hand and held the gown up so that when she passed through the kitchen it would detract attention from her.

"Bonnie..." was the disappointed greeting from her mother when she turned the corner. Bonnie held the gown up higher.

"Sorry, I had to take Tara home. Her gown came in too."

"Ugh, why do you hang out with such fashion rejects..." Lonnie said.

Bonnie didn't even make eye contact. "For your information she got a hot pink dress this time. And even if she does need a little help with fashion, at least she's a real friend."

"Since when do you have real friends?" Connie said with a giggle.

"Girls," their father admonished.

"Bon-Bon, what are you wearing?" her mother asked, noticing her attire despite the gown she was holding up to block their view.

Jonny leaned forward on his elbows with a smirk and raised his eyebrows, and the three sisters glared at him.

"Gross!" they all said in unison.

"Just looking to see if she actually grew a pair or if it's still just socks," Jonny said.

"Like you've ever seen real ones," Lonnie countered.

"Right back at ya, Sis'," Jonny snickered.

"Ugh!"

"Like you've ever seen more than two brain cells," Connie continued the argument.

"Bonnie, surely you had something you could have worn a bra with..." her mother continued over the adult children's argument.

"I had the overall bib up all day," Bonnie said with a slight scoff, and then added in a mutter, "well, half of it."

Her slight embarrassment and annoyance with her family was overriding the hurt of losing Brick, for at least the present moment, and she hurried down the hall to her room to hang up her gown. After she had done so she leaned on her desk with a heavy sigh, staring down at the mountain of homework.

She looked up at herself in the mirror. Her face wasn't as puffy as she feared, and she hurried down the hall to the bathroom to wash off the tear stains. She made the mistake of replaying the conversation with Brick in her head again as she did so, and her tears flowed again. She permitted herself a few whimpering sobs this time, in hopes that doing so would help purge some of the emotional turmoil and let her get on with the evening.

A harsh knock at the door startled her, and she hurriedly splashed more water onto her face and added some soap to clean off her ruined makeup. She'd gone to ballet without it before, though she hadn't in awhile.

"Just a minute!" she called more loudly than was necessary.

"Take a chill pill, Bonnie," came her brother's mocking voice.

Bonnie felt a renewed embarrassment and annoyance about his earlier comments and scowled as she turned off the faucet and dried her face.

"There are other toilets in this house where you can sit and play video games, you know," she retorted.

"Yeah but I'll be bothered in those," he said matter-of-factly.

Bonnie checked her face again and after hanging the towel she opened the door with a sharp jerk.

"Whoa, fan the flame, Bon-Bon!"

"Don't call me that," she bit back as she stalked past him and back down the hall.

She listened to his snickering and the closing of the door as he escaped the family dinner for at least awhile, and she began changing for ballet. As she did so she told herself she wasn't going to think about Brick anymore. She could easily get a hot date for homecoming, and she could start work on that the very next day. All she needed to worry about for the rest of that night was dinner, ballet, and homework, in that order.

She forced her mind to think about the difficult routine she was going to need to rehearse that evening as she put on her pink tights, black leotard, and ballet slippers. After that she stood in front of the mirror, already feeling more composed for how elegant she looked in the attire that spoke of over a decade of hard work. The word 'regal' even crossed her mind as she pulled her hair up into a French twist.

She considered going back to dinner in just her ballet outfit, but considering Jonny's comments she threw on a baggy teal Club Banana logo t-shirt over her leotard. And then after checking that her pointe shoes were in her ballet bag, she dropped her purse inside and zipped the bag up and headed back out to face her family.

"Bonnie, you missed almost all of dinner," was her mother's sad greeting when she re-entered the kitchen.

Bonnie dropped her bag behind her chair and then grabbed a plate to serve herself some food.

"It was a busy day," she said, again more harshly than was warranted. She swallowed guiltily when her father looked at her over the rims of his glasses.

"Connie was just telling us about the seismology research project she's working on in college," her father said as he cleared his throat.

"Yeah," Lonnie interrupted, "and if we keep listening to it we're not going to have time to talk about my date tonight."

Bonnie noticed her bottle-blonde sister's attire for the first time—a too-tight strapless periwinkle mini-dress, with a sparkling crystal necklace and earrings to match. Her makeup was also overdone, which wasn't atypical.

"So who's this one?" Bonnie asked boredly, moving her spoon through the pasta salad as she sat at the table with her family.

As Lonnie described her 'hot date' who worked for a modeling agency, Bonnie's thoughts instantly drifted to her lack of a date for the homecoming dance, and then beyond. She considered her sister who dated anyone who might be able to give her a jump-start into a film or modeling career. Lonnie didn't seem interested in a serious relationship...

Bonnie realized all of a sudden that she herself was. She couldn't do what her sister did. And while she didn't yet know what she wanted to do after high school (another worrying thought that she would bury until she had no choice) she knew she didn't want to date guy after guy... She had never really enjoyed that. Which meant that apparently...she wanted something steady.

"Bonnie?"

She re-focused as she realized she was being spoken to—it was her turn to share about her day.

"Well I got my gown, not that anyone noticed," she began.

"It's lovely, dear," her mother said.

Bonnie tried not to frown at the aged-sounding appellation.

"Thank you, Mom," she said, tossing a glare at her sisters. "We also made a lot of progress on the cheer routine for regionals. It's too fussy, like all of Kim's routines, but I've got to admit...it'll be pretty cool when we've got it down."

"Have you given us that date for our calendars, Bonnie?" her father asked without looking up from his meal.

"Yes. And the ballet. And the homecoming game, and the dance so you don't schedule anything over it."

"Will Brick be taking you to the dance?"

Bonnie felt her entire frame tense, but she forced her face to calm and took a swallow of her food to both give herself a moment to compose herself and to force down the lump rising in her throat.

"No, he's busy," she lied easily. "Besides, I'll be voted homecoming queen so I should go with whoever is voted king."

"You? Queen?" Connie said, and she and Lonnie began to snicker. The sound of Jonny's deeper voice joining theirs was the family's cue that he had returned from his 'bathroom break' and Bonnie glared at all of her siblings in turn as her brother retook his seat.

"Well of course it will be me. Who else could it be?" Bonnie asked, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms indignantly.

"Probably that red-haired babe you can't get along with, what's her name?" Jonny asked.

"Ugh, that fashion don't dating the biggest loser in the school? As if!"

"Check the facts, Bonnie, she's a world-famous hero and she was on the cover of every fashion magazine that mattered two years ago," Connie said.

"Yeah. Don't you remember when we all wore Kim-style?" Lonnie added.

Bonnie scowled and let her frustration out in a growl. "That was before she had a loser boyfriend, though."

"Are people treating her any differently?" her father cut in.

Bonnie blinked as she considered. People had always liked Kim Possible, ever since middle school when they had met. And that had never changed. Kim wasn't part of the 'in-crowd' or any crowd really, but everyone still liked her and she was—Bonnie mentally groaned—friendly to everyone. And nothing at all had changed since she'd started dating her long-time dweeb of a best friend.

"No," Bonnie admitted.

"Probably gonna be her then," Jonny said, between two large bites. "She's a babe."

Bonnie's face felt hot in a mixture of embarrassment and rage as she saw her sisters nodding in agreement, but she said nothing. To argue would only reveal a weakness on her part.

"Whatever. I'm going to ballet," Bonnie said, dropping her spoon and reaching behind her for her bag.

"But Bon-Bon, you just got home," her mother protested.

"Yeah, and the performance is in two weeks! I want the extra warm up time. I'll see you later," she said over her shoulder as she departed.

She tuned out the continued protests and snippy comments from her siblings as she left the house and hurried down the dimly lit sidewalk to her car. The sun had set and the air had begun to cool, but it had a different feel than that of the morning chill. The morning had felt fresh, almost hopeful, and like she could take on the world. This chill was a descending weight, and felt like it would sap every last ounce of her strength.

Bonnie put up the roof of her convertible as suddenly every conversation she'd had that day began playing through her mind. And try as she might, she wasn't able to stop them.

The blaring of the radio on her drive to the theater couldn't stop them, nor could attempting to distract herself thinking about the challenging steps she would need to complete in the rehearsal that night. Instead, she heard a chaotic chorus of voices that seemed bent on the goal of severing every last thread of what made her...Bonnie.

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

The voices continued throughout her warm-up stretches, and through the initial routine that Mlle. Catriona had the dancers perform in the warm-up room. Bonnie uncharacteristically stood in the back, t-shirt on as she moved mechanically through the familiar steps.

"You mean they actually found a dress to fit that shape?"

"Maybe if you'd lose a few pounds."

"I didn't think Flagg liked his babes with so much junk in the trunk."

Bonnie barely heard the accompaniment of the bright piano rhythms, so loud were the day's memories. Was she actually gaining weight? Was that why Brick had really lost interest in her?

"If anything, you're slimmer."

The recollection of Tara's words didn't do much to calm her fear that she might in fact be heavier. She looked at her distant reflection in the mirror from the back row of dancers, and then started to look around at her peers. She was definitely more shapely than the rest, but...she wasn't overweight; she was just the atypical curvy ballerina, in comparison. Still...she was suddenly glad she'd kept her t-shirt on.

Bonnie focused on Tara's encouragement and let that carry her through the rest of the warm-up until the class moved to the main stage to begin rehearsal of scenes for the upcoming performance of Swan Lake. An unusual self-consciousness hit her as she pulled off her t-shirt after tying on her pointe shoes, but she shook it off and held her head high. She had earned the principal role in the ballet and clearly, her weight wasn't an issue to her teacher or the director.

Across the stage, Matteo, who played the principal male role opposite to hers, grinned and waved at her. She smirked and waved back. Matteo was a winner like she was, and they worked well together. She had been very pleased when learning he had been cast in the role of the prince.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore."

Brick's words over the phone suddenly came back to her like the stab of a knife, and her smirk dissolved. She saw the confusion on Matteo's face, but she glanced away and half-listened as Mlle. Catriona gave some last minute direction before they would begin rehearsal of the pas de deux that ended Act III. Thankfully, she had no feeling that she might cry at this recollection. But the crushing weight and pain of loss were still strong, such that she realized suddenly she had placed a lot more value on the relationship with Brick than she had previously thought.

The rehearsal piano began again, and Bonnie began moving through the practiced steps.

"We did all those things and I don't really know you."

The memory of Brick's explanation for the break-up sent another stab of pain through her chest. How could he say he didn't know her? He knew her class schedule, and all of her extracurriculars...

Her thoughts stopped suddenly as she realized that Brick was right. They didn't...really know each other. They knew their schedules, what kinds of movies they liked, and the local school gossip, and that they both understood athletic discipline. But otherwise...

Bonnie swallowed nervously as she considered the boy—young man—who had taken seven years to graduate high school that she had dated on and off for three years. Brick Flagg...was hot. That was it. She didn't really know much about who he was. That suddenly concerned her as she looked around at the other dancers on the stage. Some of them she knew more about than even the girls on the cheer squad. Yes, with the cheerleaders she could gossip. But the ballerinas talked more about real life—their jobs, their plans for after high school, their families... Some were even already in college.

Bonnie moved to the wings of the stage, catching her breath as the coda of the dance approached. Matteo's leaps were majestic, and Bonnie smiled as she watched the fellow athlete who was very attractive—just not in the bulky way that most appealed to her—and who she realized she also knew better than she knew Brick. She didn't even know what Brick was studying... But Matteo was preparing to audition for the New York Ballet. And as a hobby, he did woodworking.

She had no idea what Brick's hobbies were, or if he even had any.

"It's over."

There was a greater finality as she replayed Brick's words in her mind again, and it was with great annoyance she realized the tears were beginning to flow. She almost missed her cue as the piano changed, but she set her jaw and held her head high as she retook the stage.

She found her mark and set up for the fouettes. She had managed twenty-seven the last time and was hoping to make it an even twenty eight this time. She heard the anacrusis of the music and began to spin, executing the practiced technique with skill. But as she spun, blurred images of faces watching her suddenly brought the fears back to her mind.

Was she too heavy? Did the turns look awkward as a result? Did the other ballerinas gossip about her when she wasn't there, the way she gossiped about each cheerleader in turn when they weren't around?

"Since when do you have real friends?"

The memory pushed her out of the intense focus that her spin required, and with a small cry, Bonnie fell out of her eleventh fouette. She quickly moved back to the mark and resumed, not wanting to stop because it would only bring more negative attention. She caught just a glimpse of surprised faces and heard gasps over the piano before she resumed the turns, counting them even though there was no point in her desperate search for distraction.

She may have overheard the other dancers talking about their lives over the years...but she didn't really tell them about her own. They weren't her friends anymore than anyone at school was.

As she finished the last fouette—twenty-one—she posed and smiled confidently despite the tear rolling down her cheek. She didn't look at Matteo as she passed him while he began his solo.

"You? Queen?"

Her siblings were right. Who would vote for her anyway? She talked badly about those she called 'friends' to everyone, and she didn't even acknowledge people like Reiger who had been in her class since middle school. She had started faltering in cheer practice, which never happened. And now she was even failing as the star of the ballet.

It was with this swirl of dark thoughts that she began the final sequence with Matteo, who broke character to give her a concerned look as her tears continued to flow. When finally the piano held the last chord Bonnie smirked as her character required, and posed while breathing through her teeth, trying to calm down.

"Are you okay?" Matteo asked quietly through the small wave of applause their fellow students gave.

Bonnie held her smile and allowed the eye contact, which only had the tears flowing more.

The moment the music stopped and the director began giving commentary, Bonnie interrupted with a hurried, "Excuse me," as she began rushing from the stage. The murmurs that followed made her feel sick, and none more than one of the other girls commenting: "Maybe she's going to call Brick."

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

The rest of the rehearsal had gone better. Bonnie had dried her tears and shoved the emotions away with her mantra of 'winners don't cry' and had channeled all of her focus and energy into making up for the earlier mistake and emotional slip. People acting differently toward her the rest of the night had only driven her further, and while she might not have given the most artistic performance, technically, she was flawless.

She had left the theater with that small measure of control giving her a touch of strength, and she maintained that feeling for the entire drive home. But once she had parked in the darkened driveway and saw fewer lights on in her family's home, she felt the roiling of emotions start to return.

She shouldered her ballet bag and silently moved up the walk to the house, hoping that everyone had retired to their respective hobbies for the evening. And Lonnie of course was on a date and wouldn't be home for hours. All Bonnie wanted to do was take a shower and forget the horrible day.

Thankfully, she moved quietly enough that her brother—playing video games on the big screen now, since her parents had gone to bed early due to their flight the next day—was unaware of her presence. And as she passed by Connie's room, she heard her older sister gossiping on the phone.

When Bonnie closed her own bedroom door she felt a huge relief come over her at the same time a weight fell. She barely had the strength to pull her purse out of her ballet bag, and her phone of that before dropping the former on the floor and flopping on the bed with the latter.

She let herself rest for just a moment, her muscles tired from their exertion throughout the day and night, and then she sat up intending to get ready for a shower. But her gaze fell upon the stack of books and homework on her desk.

"Unghh..." she groaned aloud, flopping down on her bed again and dropping her forearm over her eyes and plunging her vision into darkness. She began mentally calculating how long it would take to shower and then tallying how many assignments she had due the next day.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz from her phone which was still on silent from rehearsal. She flipped it open, her chest constricting at the thought it might be Brick.

It wasn't.

It was just a silly update from Stoppable's blog. Bonnie sneered in annoyance and almost dropped the phone, when she saw a comment alert pop up on the new post. It was Tara.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened up the post to actually read it.

*Drakken and Shego seen dining casually at Croutons. Is it a business meeting or a romantic interlude?*

Bonnie felt a pang as she looked at the photo that Stoppable or someone had snapped of the villain duo... Was Stoppable actually following them for this silly obsession?

She scrolled down to read Tara's comment which was full of emoticons and hearts, enthusiastic about the growing evidence that the pair might be romantically involved. The pang Bonnie felt before grew stronger. Even the villains that Possible fought were going to find their happy ending. While her relationship-which-wasn't had just ended.

With a heavy sigh and a few yawns, Bonnie changed into her pajamas and decided to forego the shower for the evening. It would only make her more tired, and she had a couple of hours of homework at least. And it was already past nine o' clock.

She moved to her desk and sat down, arranging her books in the order in which she wanted to tackle the assignments. Another buzz from her phone caught her attention, and she glanced at it to see that a debate had sprung up on Stoppable's blog about the blue and green-skinned villains. It seemed even Kim was weighing in, in favor of the two being together, which thrilled Tara.

Bonnie considered her friend again, who she'd given so little time to throughout senior year. And who despite that and her general careless and casual treatment of her...was perhaps the only real friend she had.

An emotional tug of war began within Bonnie then, which she finally ceded to as she flipped to her messages and typed a quick text to Tara.

*Thanks for coming with me today. I'm going to be up late finishing homework if you want to join me in snore-ville.*

She sent the text and felt the emotions in her chest start to calm. She looked in the mirror and sighed as she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.

'Winners never quit.'

Her phone began buzzing with the notification of a call. On the screen was Tara's name, and Bonnie smiled.

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

Days Later...

Bonnie stood on the football field and adjusted her black skirt, knowing she looked perfect, but unable to get Kim's and Monique's words out of her head. So strong was the swirl of nerves building in her stomach that she completely missed Tara's wave of encouragement from the sidelines.

"In case you didn't notice, now Kim is the one dating the star of the football team."

"Ron has broken more school records than Brick ever did."

Bonnie's siblings had been right... In the days that had followed her picking up her gown from the store with Tara, all the buzz around school was that Kim was the one slated to win the title. Bonnie tried to tell herself she didn't care, but the buzz had been equally clear: Ron Stoppable was expected to win king.

Bonnie tried to ignore what that would mean for her. Still dateless, humiliated, and no longer the center of attention...anywhere. The senior table in the cafeteria was meaningless, since they were all seniors. And the only people who cared anyway were brainless jocks, as it turned out. She was an equal with Kim on the cheer squad, but since they had taken roles as co-captains it was becoming very clear who was in fact more skilled between them at the sport, and it wasn't Bonnie. She was even slipping in ballet, and still wondered if her curves and weight might be an issue. And of course, ever since Kim had...saved the world...from those Bueno Nacho toys, everyone treated the red-head exactly like who she was: a hero.

While Bonnie herself was ignored and forgotten.

Soon Mr. Barkin would announce Kim and Ron as the Middleton High homecoming king and queen, and they would get even more attention. While for the remainder of Bonnie's senior year she would fade into obscurity. But without all of the things that cheer and ballet and Brick's status had brought to her...was she still a winner? Who...who was she?

"This year we replaced our old-fashioned paper ballots with our own state of the art electronic voting system, which snagged second place for Ron Reiger in the Tri-City science fair."

Bonnie absorbed Mr. Barkin's words and in a flash an idea struck her about how to get her identity back.

Ron Reiger was seated near the sideline with his whatever-device that everyone had used to vote for king and queen. Bonnie ran out of the row of nominees into Reiger's line of sight, who looked at her with the same leer he had back at the boutique. It turned her stomach, but Bonnie ignored it to give him a flirty smile and a 'call me' gesture. Reiger's leer grew, and after giving her a knowing smile he typed something into his device and a new paper printed out.

Bonnie sighed in nervous satisfaction as she hurried back to her place near Kim. She might not be the best cheerleader. She might not even be the best ballerina or best student anymore. She might have lost her boyfriend. She might be...all alone... But she was going to be homecoming queen. And once she was, she could start getting her identity back.

Because Bonnie Rockwaller was a winner, and she always would be.

[cosmiclatte28]

Home (Baekhyun x reader)

DOMESTIC FLUFF (?) 

ENJOY! 

The jingling sounds of key and door carefully pushed open resonated through the half lit apartment. Baekhyun locked his door and carefully switched on the light. His foot steps brought him to the living room, which surprisingly was not neat. He flashed an apologizing smile when he saw the scattered books, papers, and highlighters on top of the coffee table and to the girl who fell asleep uncomfortably on the couch. 

A book was covering half of her face; Baekhyun giggled at the sight. He gently placed his gym bag on the other couch, took the book on her face, marked the page with a highlighter and closed it down. He bent to greet her with a kiss and gave a gentle stroke on her shining brown hair. The girl did not move at all, in which Baekhyun deducted she had been too tired this week. He shuffled into the bedroom, took a soft blanket and returned to the sleeping girl. He draped the blanket over her, and left to shower. That girl is Scarlet, the lucky girl who stole Baekhyun's heart and the one he's engaged to.

One of the room that Baekhyun loves other than the bedroom is the bathroom. His marvelous girlfriend amazingly turned this place's dull bathroom into a masterpiece. Baekhyun thanked his hard work which resulted this marble walls and tiles. He thanked his sweats for purchasing him a pulsing bathtub, but mostly, Baekhyun appreciated how his girl did the lights and ambience for this room. The dim relaxing lights and candles never failed in calming his nerves down. The pack of aroma oils she kept on one of the shelves helped Baekhyun breathe even lighter. 

Today he realized, it's not late yet to have a dip. It's only 10 (that's why he knew his girl had been tired, for she usually waited til' morning). Baekhyun opened the faucet, walked to the box of oils and chose his companion for tonight. He decided to go with vanilla and a blue bath bomb. He tossed the bomb when the water's enough and stripped down. In less than a minute, he was groaning from the pulses which hit his tired body and softly moaned from the comfort the oils and bubbles gave him. He closed his eyes for a moment, did some deep breathing, and reopened his eyes.

He scanned the room, his heart warming when he saw the things in this room came in pair. The tooth brush, the towels, and the vanity sets. His eyes traveled one more time to the rack of body wash collections Scarlet owns. He frowned a little when he realized her collections had changed. 

Baekhyun remembered seeing bottles of colorful and super sweet smelling soaps, but now it's replaced with plain bottles. He squinted his eyes and reached for each bottles. Reading off the titles and scents. He frowned when he read "aromatherapy edition". Though he admit the smells are wonderful, he tried to get her message. The bottles were labeled like Sleep, Stress, and Love. He returned them and glanced at the scented candles which Scarlet likes to light when she showers. The fun bakery or fruity smells was replaced too with another Sleep candle. He felt something’s wrong. Quickly he finished his bath, washed, and tugged on his shorts.

He walked out of the steamy shower, bare chested, then tip toed to the dining table. He made himself a glass of warm milk and sat down while looking at his sleeping girlfriend. Scarlet has always been a shining, restless ball of energy, with lots of positivity, just like him. But he was late to realize that she was going through a lot. 

Baekhyun's comeback activities have not allowed him to go home early, except today since two members started to feel sick, nor did it allow him to send texts and sneak calls. He tried to remember when was the last time he checked on Scarlet, and he felt bad when he figured out how much of an uncaring boyfriend he is. He looked at the engagement ring on his left finger and then to Scarlet, played a bit with it, and guilt flooded his body.

When was the last time Baekhyun asked how's she doing? When did he call first or texted first? When did he come home to ask her how her day went? When Baekhyun did accompany her to finish her mountain of home works? When did he really act like her man?

The answer was long time ago. It's always Scarlet who started the conversation, it's always her waiting for him. Scarlet's the one who forced her tired body to stay awake, just to welcome tired Baekhyun home. Scarlet's the one who always asked and listened attentively to how his day happened. She's the one who prepared his bath and bed. 

Every morning they still see each other. Drinking coffees and eating breads, Scarlet usually asked him how his sleep was while packing a lunch for her, and him. Not to forget how she always yawned from staying awake to finish her tasks and woke up early to fetch Baekhyun his breakfast and lunch. 

He felt like a shit, had he ever sit next to Scarlet all night when she typed words into her laptop, while chugging on cups and cups of coffee? Rarely. Yes he tried and failed miserably, but Scarlet never for once put a grudge on this. Baekhyun saw her charged phone on the island. He reached it and opened the lock, swiped until he found the calendar widget. He scanned through it and learned that this month is her final exam weeks; that explains the books and papers. He carefully noted down each day's exam. Baekhyun made a small plan on his mind. A small support which he hoped can help her pass the exams.

After finishing his milk, he walked to Scarlet, picked her up and put her down on their bed. He returned to the living room to pack on her belongings for tomorrow's class and tidied up the couch. After noting the clock, he turned off the lights and joined Scarlet to dream land. Baekhyun counted the hours of sleep, its 23.30, his schedule tomorrow starts at nine, while Scarlet's class starts at eight. He will wake up earlier tomorrow, make her breakfast, and walk her to campus. Baekhyun smiled at himself, then after another kiss he closed his eyes.

The sun rays woke Baekhyun up around 6. He carefully left his bed, washed, and walked to the kitchen. He turned the coffee machine on, heated the water, then prepared two cups. Baekhyun yawned as he checked on their fridge, surprisingly there are eggs, hams, and cheese. He threw his head to the counter and smiled when he saw bread. He noted he has to grab groceries on his way home, this fridge won't refill itself.

Baekhyun finished cooking the second egg, when a fresh showered Scarlet surprised him with a back hug.

"Morning bae, sorry for sleeping deep last night," Scarlet kissed Baekhyun's exposed neck.

"Morning too babe, no problem... I saw your tiring schedules, it's okay to fell asleep. I like it better, for you to stay healthy." Baekhyun said as he plated the egg on top of the bread, then topped it with cheese and ham then bread. He turned the stove off and returned the kiss Scarlet gave.

"Hmm the coffee's ready." Scarlet inhaled the sweet smell of coffee.

Baekhyun grinned, "Just sit down my lady; I'll prepare this for you." Baekhyun poured milk into one coffee. He knew her well!

Scarlet took a snap and updated her Instagram.

"What? I'm just going to post this so your fans can day dream on you."

Baekhyun said nothing to this, he's thankful though that even though some fans hated her in the beginning, by today they shifted to support them and Baekhyun's thankful Scarlet has been strong so far.

"Let's eat. Enjoy your breakfast." Baekhyun smiled.

"Thanks Baekhyun." She smiled and delicately finished her portion.

"How's your sleep?" Baekhyun asked this time, and he did not miss how Scarlet seemed surprised and happy he asked first. Gosh why did he not do this before? Seeing her surprised and happy made him happy too.

"Amazing! I dreamed that a handsome prince came to kiss my nightmares away, oh Baek it feels real," She gazed into the space.

Baekhyun giggled and brought his hand to ruffle her hair.

"How's yours?" Scarlet asked back.

They caught up with one another, exchanged small talks on how the comeback is going, annoyed conversation on Scarlet's never ending tasks, planned about visiting their parents, and many more.

"Come let's get ready. I can walk you to campus today." Baekhyun stood up and collected the dirty plates. He washed them quickly as Scarlet prepared herself.

They're ready. Baekhyun's wearing black and black with a black cap and black masker, on his left shoulder hung Scarlet's school bag, on his right hand the small hand of Scarlet. They walk while enjoying the sun and other couples.

"Baekhyun, I'm sorry if I sound rude.. But can you please return to the pastel and denim looks please? I'm tired of seeing your dark clothes in the laundry." Scarlet spoke.

He did not need to think and nodded, "Sure! I'll dress brighter after this."

Scarlet smiled, "Thanks! It's depressing for me to see your dirty clothes."

Their steps reached the end, Scarlet smiled brightly in front of the campus gate.

"I can take it from here, thanks jagi, good luck with your practice!" Scarlet rose to give a quick peck on his lips and they parted.

That afternoon, practice ended quickly. Baekhyun rushed to the parking lot after changing into a fresh tee.

"Yak, where are you running to?" Chanyeol asked before Baekhyun was gone behind the doors. It is normal for him to rush home, but Chanyeol always asked the details.

"A date probably?" Kyungsoo teased his friend.

"Any special day?" Sehun chimed in too.

"Nah.. I want to go to the market and prepare dinner."

"Wow, did something happen?" Kai asked

"Nothing bad, I just realize I'm not a caring namja..." He blushed

The rest of them laughed it off and just wished him good luck

Baekhyun was thankful today is a Friday and he can leave before 6! Yet he was sure that Scarlet's last class today will end at 6, which gives him enough time to shop and cook.

He rushed to the supermarket nearby the apartment and bought everything needed for dinner and the empty desolate fridge. He restocked the fruits, chocolates, pop corns. He bought home a bouquet of fresh flowers and a letter too.

Once back home, he arranged everything on the refrigerator and began to cook.

Right as he wait for the rice to cook, he arranged the tables and still got time for a quick fresh shower.

Once he he spit the light-blue mouthwash away, the jingles of key made his heart pound.

"Mwoya?" Scarlet gasped in surprise when she was greeted by the dim lit room only from the dining room. She took off her shoes and left her belongings on the sofa. Scarlet stood frozen in front of the dining room.

There stood Baekhyun, all in his boyfriend dreamy look and a bouquet of fresh flowers. Not to mention how perfect his oversized yellow pastel sweater matched his fluffy caramel hair. His eye bags showed naturally how tired he is, no heavy make ups and eye shadows. Just the plain glowing cheeks Scarlet love, to an extend that she will give everything just so his cheeks can glow.

She did not say anything, he was still frozen too, and Scarlet took the moment to melt Baekhyun in her deep meaningful kiss.

"You don't have to do this Baek," she whispered as her lips lingered close to his.

"I wanted to jagiya, here's your flower." He handed her the bouquet.

Scarlet took a deep whiff of the roses and placed it on the vase.

"Wow you cooked dinner!" She giggled as she saw the pile of dirty pans and pots in the sink.

"Don't worry I'll clean them up, before that shall we eat?" He raised his brow.

"One moment!" Scarlet turned to take a quick shower and change her clothes.

She returned only in Baekhyun's oversized baby blue knitted sweater and a messy bun.

"Jja, let's begin" She took her seat and Baekhyun lit the candles.

"I'll bring you to a proper place tomorrow or next week... sorry tonight I rushed.." He shyly said.

"Oh I love this better Baekhyun, anyways your food tastes better than mine! What secrets are you using?" Scarlet ate happily, savoring each spices and sweetness. Baekhyun felt full seeing her this happy. He got it now how mothers felt when their kids finished her meals. It's rewarding.

"Nothing much, I pour my heart into it." He cheekily replied.

Scarlet rolled her eyes on this, "You know what... I owe you something for this perfect surprise. I love you Baekhyun!"

"Well you could thank me with tonight's activity. How long was it again since we did it? Oh damn I've missed your touch." He smirked.

Scarlet's cheeks burned and she finished her glass of water.

"Will you be good for me tonight?" Baekhyun sipped his wine and put on his playful smirk.

Scarlet winked, "We'll see."

[olliedollie1204]

everything fits (1/8)- the meeting

Single father Patton is utterly devoted to his son Virgil. Recently divorced Logan is utterly devoted to his twin sons Remus and Roman. The pieces come together.

Pairings: Romantic Logicality

Word Count: 3,495

Tags: Single dad Patton and kid Virgil, Divorced Dads Logan and Janus and kids Roman and Remus (their split was mutual and their relationship is good)

listen y’all, i started this AU in January of this year, it is VERY near and dear to my heart, so even though it’s not finished i wanted to make myself happy and post what i have to hopefully motivate me to finish it <333

also a very late shoutout to @kanene-yaaay-o-retorno for reading a few chapters/oneshots for this AU... hm, six months ago? and giving me the best positive feedback i could’ve asked for. she’s a queen and a legend :D

(Read it on AO3!)

“Daddy?”

Patton woke up to two tiny hands pressing into his back. He blinked, fumbling for his glasses on his messy bedside table. As he pulled them on, blinking the sleep out of his eye, he couldn’t help but break into a large smile at the figure standing next to his bed.

Virgil was always small for his age, and the giant purple hoodie he insisted on sleeping in practically swallowed him in its soft, thick fabric. It made him look, in Patton’s professional dad opinion, even more adorable than he already was.

He had obviously just woken up— his dark hair was sticking out in all directions, and there was a small line across his cheek that Patton suspected was dried drool. His oversized hoodie sleeves idly swung by his sides. Patton would give almost anything to wake up to that sight everyday.

“G’morning, stormcloud,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke Virgil’s hair. “How did you sleep?”

“Um, good.” Patton frowned a little at the short response.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?”

The little boy gnawed on his lower lip— a nervous habit that Patton had never been able to get him to break.

“Um, um, um— I’m sorry I woke you up, but—”

“Hey, Virgil, what’s the sorry rule?” Patton interrupted, grabbing Virgil’s hands to pull him closer.

Virgil looked down at their clasped hands, their fingernails painted a matching shiny purple.

“Don’t say sorry unless something bad happened,” he recited. It was a highly oversimplified rule, but a seven year old could only handle so much nuance.

Patton nodded, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Virgil’s head. “That’s right, kiddo. Nothing bad happened, so no need to say sorry, right? And in a minute I’ll get dressed, and we can go make waffles for breakfast—”

“But that’s on Saturdays!” Virgil interrupted.

Patton frowned again. The words ‘it is Saturday’ were on the tip of his tongue, until something clicked in his sleep-addled brain and— oh, fuck.

“Oh, bother,” he said aloud. “It’s Friday, isn’t it?”

Virgil continued to chew on his lip, nodding. “I woke up and I went to the, the kitchen, and the clock— the big hand was on the nine and the little hand, the little hand was almost on the seven, and—”

6:45. Patton cursed internally again. Virgil was meant to be dropped off at school by 7:00, and although Patton was rarely on time, he was supposed to be at his first job by 7:30. So much for that.

“— so I came, I came in here to wake you up,” Virgil finished, looking at his dad with wide eyes.

Patton took this all in, sighing as he ran his fingers through Virgil’s messy hair.

“Well, it’s a good thing you did, kiddo,” he finally said, smiling softly. “Because somebody—”

He poked Virgil’s cheek, giving a little laugh when his son giggled and batted the finger away.

“—Needs to get to school, huh?”

Virgil eyes lit up, bouncing on his heels. “Dr. Picani said, he said, he said we’re gonna play with clay today!”

Patton gasped as he stood up, reluctantly letting go of Virgil’s hands to get to his closet.

“Oh my gosh, that’s gonna be so much fun!” he cheered, pulling out two polo shirts and holding them up for Virgil to see.

“Grey or blue?”

Virgil pondered, brow furrowed in concentration. “Blue,” he finally announced.

Patton grinned. “I was thinking the same thing,” he whispered with a wink. “Now how about you go get dressed— I’ll help you with your hair and teeth in a minute— and I’ll throw some bread in the toaster, and you can eat it on the way, okay, stormcloud?”

Virgil nodded. He started walking towards the door, but stopped, fiddling with his sleeves.

“Um—” he blurted. “Can I, can I have a hug, please?”

Patton melted a little at Virgil’s tiny voice.

“Aw, Virgey,” he cooed, “you never need to ask me that!”

He scooped Virgil up into his arms, pressing a wet kiss onto his cheek to make him giggle.

“Ew!” He squirmed in Patton’s grip, laughing maniacally. “Daddy!”

Patton laughed, setting Virgil down. “Now go get dressed, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

He straightened up and watched as Virgil left the room, his smile dropping almost immediately.

Of course he had to go and forget to set his alarm last night. Ever since Sunday night, when he had picked up a last-minute shift at the bar, Patton’s internal calendar had been thrown off by a day.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing again as he picked up his phone. Today was not off to a great start.

~

“All good?” Patton asked, twisting around to check the seatbelt on Virgil’s booster seat once more. Virgil nodded, his mouth full of bread and jam.

“Okay, let’s hit the road!”

With that, Patton pulled onto the street a tad bit faster than he normally would, a ‘Best of Disney’ CD playing in the background.

Patton sang along, but his attention was not on the music. Rather, it was on his son, who was getting more and more fidgety the closer they got to the school.

At the next stoplight, Patton turned down the music, catching Virgil’s eye in the rearview mirror.

“Vibe check?” he asked. It was a silly joke, some meme Remy had started quoting that Patton had picked up without even really knowing what it meant, but it soon became his and Virgil’s code word for talking about scary stuff like feelings.

Virgil didn’t answer right away, but Patton was patient.

“I don’t… I don’t want people to look at me when I walk in,” Virgil eventually muttered, eyes on his lap. “‘Cause they’ll think it’s weird that I came in late.”

Patton’s heart sank.

“And… and what if I miss something important, and I won’t know how to catch up, and Dr. Picani will get mad at me—”

Virgil’s voice broke a little as the boy started sniffling.

“Oh, kiddo,” Patton murmured, reaching behind him to grab Virgil’s sticky hand. “Virgil, honey, can we take deep breaths?”

He inhaled loudly enough for Virgil to hear him, and after a few seconds the two exhaled together. They did this for a few breaths, in and out, in and out.

When Patton was confident Virgil wouldn’t start crying, he let go of his hand, bringing it safely back to the steering wheel.

“Are those all the bad things that could happen?”

Virgil nodded in dejection.

“What are the good things that could happen?”

Now the child paused. “Um, um, um, I don’t know.”

Patton thought for a moment. “Well… I think Kai will be pretty happy his best friend came to school, even if you’re late, right?”

He looked to Virgil for confirmation, and after a beat the boy nodded.

“And if you miss any classwork, then maybe Dr. Picani will let you go to the library during playtime to finish it.”

Virgil nodded again, a little more enthusiastically. He hated the chaos of playtime; children screaming and running around and roughhousing with each other— the library would be a welcome boon from all of that.

“And…” Patton racked his brain for a third example. “And you won’t have to listen to the morning announcements, ‘cause they already happened!” he finished triumphantly, knowing that the ancient speaker system was especially grating on Virgil’s ears.

“Plus, have you ever thought someone was weird, just because they came in the classroom late?” he continued. Virgil shook his head. “So I don’t think anyone will think you’re weird.”

Virgil hesitated. “I guess.”

Patton winced.

“I’m really sorry you feel nervous, kiddo,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry I put you in this position.”

Virgil looked up at him, eyes wide. “It’s okay,” he replied automatically.

Pattons smiled a little. “Are you saying that not to hurt my feelings?” he asked, kindly but sternly.

Virgil looked torn. “Well… I mean— I guess I mean I’m not mad at you, because everybody makes mistakes, and I love you.”

Patton gave a surprised laugh. “I love you, too,” he responded, once again thankful beyond words that Dr. Picani was teaching his son healthy ways to express complex feelings.

“It’s very kind of you to be considerate of my feelings,” he continued, pulling into the school parking lot. “But I’m your daddy, and it’s my job to take care of you. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, and I’ll be double sure it’ll never happen again.”

He looked at Virgil in the rearview. “Can you forgive me?”

Virgil nodded, eyes wide. “I forgive you.”

Patton sighed, looking at his son with adoration. How he got such a great kid, he’ll never know.

As soon as he turned off the car, he hopped out to help Virgil unbuckle his seatbelt and get his backpack on. The young boy clambered out of the car, but made no move towards the large school building.

Patton knelt down to his eye level.

“Do you wanna walk in by yourself, or do you want me to come with you?”

Virgil fiddled with the string on his hoodie. “Aren’t you late for work?”

Patton paused, checking his watch. “Yeah,” he admitted. He always tried to be honest with Virgil when he could. “But I called my boss and told him what happened, so I won’t be in trouble.”

He wasn’t gonna get paid for the hour of work he was going to miss, but Virgil didn’t need to know all that.

“Plus,” he added in an encouraging tone, “you can show me that drawing you told me about? The one Dr. Picani put on the wall because it was so good?”

Virgil flushed a little at the praise. “He put everybody’s drawings on the wall, Daddy,” he insisted, but there was a small smile on his face now.

“Yeah, but I’ll bet there was only one person who thought to draw a robot shark and a sabertooth tiger being best friends. I mean, that’s so creative!”

Virgil shrugged, smiling down at his shoes. “I guess you can see it, if you wanna.”

Patton laughed and held out his hand. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

Hand in hand, the two made the long walk up to the building. As they got closer, Patton squeezed Virgil’s hand.

“What do we say to the door?” he asked— another little ritual between the two.

Virgil giggled, throwing his arms out in front of him like a wizard casting a spell. “Open sesame!”

Patton laughed as he grabbed the handle.

“Thank you, kiddo,” he said, and pulled.

The door stayed shut.

Patton frowned. He pushed it instead. Nothing.

Virgil lowered his arms. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Nothing,” Patton hurried to say. He pulled again, then pushed again. “I think… I think it’s locked.”

Immediately Virgil’s smile dropped.

“Why is it locked?” he asked, a little bit of anxiety returning to his voice. Patton pulled the door yet again, but it stayed firmly shut.

“I don’t know, kiddo.” He scanned the wall for anything that would unlock the door. There was a keycard scanner on the metal doorframe, but Patton didn’t have a clue how to activate it.

He could sense Virgil was about to get upset again, and he rubbed a hand against his son’s shoulder.

“Okay, let’s take some deep breaths. We’ll get you into class, one way or another.”

“Why would they keep the stupid door locked?” Virgil demanded, and normally Patton would remind him to use nicer language, but to be honest, he was thinking words that were a fair bit harsher than ‘stupid’ at the moment. He didn’t look at his watch again, but he knew that he really didn’t have the time to wait around for someone to walk by the door.

He turned around, about to suggest they try to find another door to get into the building, but found himself face to face with… another pair of glasses?

He gasped, hand flying up to his chest as he stepped back from the figure who was suddenly in his personal space. The other man— tall, sharply dressed, with square framed glasses perched on his nose— looked appropriately guilty at Patton’s reaction.

“Apologies,” he commented in a clipped tone. “I was in a hurry and I did not realize you weren’t entering the door.”

Patton was having a little trouble bringing his focus away from the man’s deep blue eyes, until he felt Virgil squeeze his hand, bringing him back down to Earth.

“No worries!” he responded faux-cheerfully, as the blue-eyed man moved around him to approach the door. “We, uh, we think it’s locked.”

He paused, looking back at Patton as he pulled something out of his pocket. “I have a keycard.”

With one swift motion, he swiped the card, pulled on the door, and moved to the side, holding it open as he looked at Patton expectantly.

“Oh, um, thank you,” Patton stammered, gently pushing Virgil through the door in front of him. “Come on, Virgil.”

The two made their way into the hall, Virgil pulling Patton by the hand through the unfamiliar building.

“The office is over here,” he whispered, just loud enough for Patton to hear. Patton nodded, picking up his pace a little bit but still lagging behind Virgil.

They walked a few feet before a voice chimed in again.

“It’s a safety protocol.”

Patton turned in confusion, finding Blue Eyes walking nearly next to him with long, confident strides. He opened his mouth to ask for clarification before he realized that the man was not looking at him— he was looking at Virgil. Patton turned around just in time to see Virgil give the man a suspicious look.

“What?” Patton winced a little at his bluntness, but Blue Eyes seemed unbothered.

“You asked why they keep the door locked. It’s a safety protocol. It prevents unauthorized people from entering the school building during the day.”

Virgil frowned and curled in on himself. Patton waited two beats before realizing he wasn’t going to reply.

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense!” he jumped in, not wanting to be rude to the man, who turned his gaze onto him.

“Yes,” Blue Eyes replied after a moment, “although I suppose there should be some way for parents and visitors to enter the building without having to wait for someone with a keycard to happen by. I will be certain to address this in our next staff meeting.”

Patton blinked, a little bit unsure if the man was still really talking to him or just thinking aloud.

“Probably a good idea,” he replied anyway.

He suddenly felt himself jerk as Virgil turned a sharp corner, pulling him into a nearly identical hallway. Blue Eyes continued to walk with them, speeding up to keep pace with Patton.

Patton gave a sheepish smile. “We’re running a bit late,” he said by way of explanation.

“As am I,” Blue Eyes replied. “Almost ten years of teaching and this is the first time I’ve been late to work.”

Patton’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh! Well, I hope— I mean, obviously, I don’t want to keep you from your class, if that’s the reason you’re walking with us—”

He fumbled through the sentence, trying to politely let the man off the hook if he was already late for work, but he stopped himself as Blue Eyes shook his head.

“No, no, it’s nothing to do with you. I need to pick up some photocopies for my class from the main office. I would be going this way regardless,” he stated. Patton felt himself blush a little.

“Oh, okay. Good.”

The trio arrived at the office, again with the blue-eyed man holding the door open for Patton and Virgil. As soon as they were inside, Virgil bolted to the back of the office where the late entry sign-in sheet lay. Patton meandered towards him, but stopped when he heard the man clear his throat.

“After some… reflection,” he began with consideration, “I realize that my behavior might have seemed off putting, or perhaps even rude. I apologize.”

Patton blinked in surprise at the sincerity in the man’s voice. “No, are you kidding? You definitely saved our butts back there, getting the door and all. You’re my hero!” he joked, choosing to ignore the potential awkwardness of the statement.

Nevertheless, Blue Eyes smiled. “Well, then, you’re welcome.”

Again Patton expected that to be the end of the conversation, especially considering the man apparently needed to pick up some papers for his class, but Blue Eyes continued to look at him.

“Logan Croft,” he said suddenly, sticking out his hand. Patton was picking up on the man’s— Logan’s— tendency to jump between conversation points.

“Patton Hart,” he responded, shaking his hand. Logan’s grip was firm in his, and Patton became very aware of the jam residue Virgil had left on his palm.

Despite this, Logan made no move to pull away for a few more beats, eventually dropping his hand.

“How old is… Virgil?” Logan asked, eyes darting to the young boy again.

Patton smiled on reflex. “Seven.”

Logan seemed pleased with his answer. “Ah. A good age. Hopefully not too rebellious yet.”

“No, no, he’s a great kid,” Patton assured, laughing lightly. The two watched as Virgil stood on his tiptoes to fill out the sign-in sheet, his pencil gripped tight in his fist as he wrote his name in careful, blocky letters.

“Do you have any children?” Patton asked on a hunch. He smiled to himself as he saw Logan’s eyes light up. Bingo.

“Twin boys, age ten,” he replied in a voice full of pride.

Patton laughed again. “Oh, gosh!” That made a lot of sense, given how Logan was currently watching Virgil with a mix of amusement and nostalgia. “Twin preteen boys, that can’t be a walk in the park.”

“Yes, they can be… more than a handful at times,” Logan admitted. “My husband—”

He faltered for a brief moment.

“... My ex-husband handles their fluctuating emotional states much more delicately than I do,” he finished.

Patton knew not to comment on Logan’s slip up, or the change in his demeanor. Instead, he smiled softly.

“Well, you’ve been nothing but kind to me and Virge here,” he said, shrugging lightly. “So I reckon you’re probably a really great dad.”

Logan met his eyes again, giving him a smile that made Patton feel a little flushed. “Likewise.”

Patton felt a tugging at his hand again, causing him to look down.

“You ready, kiddo?” he asked. Virgil nodded, a tardy pass clutched in his fist.

Patton turned to face Logan again, but he wasn’t there. Confused, he looked around, just in time to see the other man duck into a back office space.

That was… surprisingly disappointing, but Patton couldn’t dwell on it. He turned his attention back to his son.

“Let’s get you to class, stormcloud,” he chirped briskly, moving them both towards the door. He had just started to push it open when he heard a voice behind them.

“Virgil?”

The two turned in sync. There was Logan, watching them from the doorway he disappeared through, a stack of papers in his arms.

“I like your hoodie,” he said.

Patton felt Virgil abruptly squeeze his hand tighter, a slight distraction from the way his own heart seemed to skip a beat. He smiled, opening his mouth to respond on his son’s behalf, and—

“Thank you!” Virgil replied.

Virgil… replied? To a stranger? Without Patton prompting? He felt his eyes bug out of his head, and he tried not to openly gawk at his son, who was— oh my Gosh. Virgil was smiling at Logan, and suddenly he raised the hand not holding onto Patton, and he waved!

Patton whipped his head back to Logan, watching in shock as he waved back at his son. He met Patton’s eyes, and his friendly smile turned into one of understanding. Patton couldn’t help but grin a little too wide as he waved as well, the two of them finally exiting the office as the door swung shut behind them.

“Daddy! He said, he, he said he liked my hoodie!” Virgil was practically jumping up and down. Patton didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

“I heard,” he finally managed, his smile somehow growing even wider as he added, “And you said thank you, just like you’re supposed to when someone compliments you! You did such a good job, kiddo, I’m so proud of you!”

Maybe he was making this into a bigger deal than it was, but Virgil was almost cripplingly shy when it came to strangers, especially grownups; and yet within five minutes with Logan, he had been able to smile and speak and even wave.

Patton changed his mind. This was one of the best mornings in his memory.

“Alright, kiddo,” he said, urging Virgil to pull him down the hall. “Lead the way!”

[marvelfangirllll]

My moose

Sam X period!reader

(P/t/o) = Pads, tampons, other

I was was starting to panic, we had just finished a hunt and I jumped in the shower to clean the blood and dirt that had gotten all over me.  That's when I realize that a certain type of blood was really late...my period.  I got changed and checked my calendar as I try to keep track of it as being a hunter time flys and you don't want something like that to come out of nowhere.  Trust me I would know, the one time I forgot I nearly got killed by a vampire as it was a week earlier then expected.

I then sat on the hotel bed as we were far from lebanon Kansas.  There was only two beds so I went to the one that I shared with Sam.  We do this all the time as when I start out hunting I tried to switch who I slept beside bit most nights I'd climb in with Sam as Dean snores loud and I practically cuddle into Sam.

I got into bed and tried to fall asleep with my boyfriend of a little while when that's when I felt it the first cramp.  I quickly shot up and ran to by bag, I was all out of (p/t/o).  I then quickly ran to the bathroom to make a pad out of toilet paper.

I got out and grabbed my bag with my fake credit card and fake ID and got stopped by Sam "where you going in a rush" Sam says.  "Quick midnight snack" I lied.  "Okay I'll come with for the drive or else your not going at all" he says standing in front of the door with his arms crossed. "Fine whatever" I sass, the first of the hormones kicking in. 

We get in the car and head to the store.  "You don't have to lie to me you know" Sam says keeping his eyes on the road.  "Dean already picked up snacks he even got your favourites...(Y/n) you don't have to tell me what's going on I already know I'm smart and keep an eye on you, just don't leave me in the dark...I can help baby girl" he says and puts his hand on my knee. 

I slowly have tears go down my face.  "I know Sam but I don't want to be a burden on you, plus I live in a bunker of basically all guys" I sob out.  "I know sweetheart but like I said you can come to me, I dated Jessica for a long time so much that I wanted to marry her before yellow eyes, her cramps weren't as bad as yours but trust me I know how to comfort and help you on your period he said and pulled up to the store."

The truth is that whenever my time came my cramps were so bad that I'd fake it as a hunting injury, sickness or my total klutziness which the boys were totally used to.  There was always the complications of having literal angels around though so I'd make up some excuse for them not to heal me.  That the body is supposed to have a high immune system or heal on its own that I'd only let them heal me if it's life or death, plus it's gods fault.  Luckily for me I got the chance just once to slap god across the face for all period sufferers.

I quickly ran in and got what I needed but hit the bathroom quick before heading to the car.  We drove back home and as we were Sammy slipped a chocolate bar in my hand.

The next morning we got back to the bunker and as always I faked something and made myself be stuck in my room till this was over.  Amongst my dieing Sam came in and took his shirt off and climbed in he was alot warmer then my heating pillow.  He then took off my shirt leaving me in my PJs pants as I was braless as bras hurt when you don't have to wear them.  We cuddled and his body heat helped me as well as his hands being all over me.  He rubbed my back and my lower tummy and was even more gentle with my sore boobs.  "You really are my big fluffy warm moose Sammy" I say snuggling with him getting sleepy.  "Anything for you babe, even if that means helping you keep your sore period cramps away for nine months" he said with a wink.

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

📷I took five minutes to vacuum my closet the other day. It was part of my routine cleaning, no big deal. It was just a quick thing to check off on my cleaning list. I removed some boxes of stuff in the bottom, a few pairs of slippers, and vacuumed. I replaced the stuff and went on with my---

No. I didn't.

No, I looked at the bottom of the closet in a state of shock and burst out laughing.

I have spent a large portion of my life trying to get organized. When I was a child, "cleaning my room" really did mean tossing everything I could think of where to put it in a closet so that it looked tidy when Mom poked her head in. I was the child with the cubby under the desk in grade school so stuffed with papers and junk that it was simply impossible to add or find anything.

This level of disorganization bothered and embarrassed me. It really hurt and made me feel like a failure.

As a teenager, my backpack also became a mess of papers, random items, books, and paraphernalia (no, not that kind. In many ways, I was hopelessly square)

As an adult, it wasn't much better. My desk was full of bills to be paid, papers I didn't want to face, things that were vaguely sentimental but not enough to display anywhere. My closet?

That was still the place where I hid stuff I didn't have a place for but wanted the room at least to appear a little tidy.

How long from a stuffed closet to a tidy closet?

It took about thirty years.

I wasted a lot of that time, though. I addressed it in cycles. "Starting now, I'm finally going to get organized!" I'd spend several hours a day over a few weeks cleaning, organizing, and playing possessions Tetris with my home. After a month or so, know what? The house would look great!

Then, inevitably, the house would no longer look great. I'd clean the kitchen well enough to prevent food poisoning, but more than that? Not so much.

Ever done that? C'mon, it's okay. We all have.

Being tidy over time is all about consistent action.

You can, indeed, get the house clean with heroic effort, just as you can work really hard to train for an athletic event.

The problem comes in when you do something intense for a short period. As I mentioned in my last post, heroic effort is unsustainable.

Several of my favorite housekeeping systems (Flylady and Unfuck Your Habitat) talk about starting very small – shining your sink or making your bed. They are so right!

It's not about getting tidied or organized quickly. It's about developing consistent habits. For a lot of people, that's enough.

But for some…

Executive dysfunction can interfere with consistency.

If you have organizational or distraction issues, habits may not be enough. Autism, ADHD, and a host of other neurodivergent issues centered around executive dysfunction make it hard to do things that seem pretty obvious to the neurotypical person. What? You need to wash the dishes after a meal? No kidding. Go do it!

As I was writing this article, I broke for dinner. Guess what is in my sink right now?

I thought about it, got up, scrubbed the pan a little, realized it needed to soak some more, and sat back down here to write. Sure, sure, I'll get to it after I finish this, no biggie. But if my sink was full of dishes other than that pan, if I had laundry on my sofa, a desk drawer full of unaddressed bills, and my phone beeping that I needed to get up and get my car to the garage to get the brakes done, would I be getting back to that pan in any reasonable amount of time?

*Hollow laugh*

People with executive dysfunction issues can find their problems painful.

Maybe some people laugh and think it's cute to be disorganized. It never felt cute to me. It hurt because I had a hard time doing what I wanted to do. I was utterly desperate to get my life under control. Completely and utterly desperate from the time I was nine years old. That's a heavy load.

Jokes about executive dysfunction aren't cute.

I know the whole "squirrel!" joke about distractibility is mean to make people feel better and okay with themselves. I never wanted to be okay with chaos. I wanted the chaos to stop. It hurt. It interfered with accomplishing what I wanted to. It was exhausting. It used up time I wanted to spend on other things. I wanted a clean canvas so that when I jumped from obsession to obsession to obsession, I could feel like I was using that time intelligently rather than as a distraction from things that were bothering me.

Late fees, court cases, and lost jobs aren't cute, either.

There's an ADHD vlogger that I really like named Jessica McCabe. She's brilliant and adorable, and being a little bit of the manic pixie thing is part of her brand. It gets people to listen to broad issues of executive dysfunction. People will accept and listen to that stuff sometimes and find it palatable if someone is small and young and cute. (She's a LOT older than her looks or mannerisms would indicate, by the way).

So, the brilliant part. Quite sure McCabe knows what she's doing with that because sometimes she drops the adorable thing. The pain of being disorganized or having a hard time directing attention is very, very clear. If she weren't so cute, it would be unlikely as many people would listen to the important things she is saying. There's more to her than cute by a long shot. (And don't get me started on the sexism of it).

But that whole "cute" thing about disorganization. It's not so cute when unpaid bills land you in court. That has happened to me. With money in the BANK, that has happened to me! (Or without money. *shrugs* That, too). It's not cute when you have to buy a car at interest rates that are close to what you'd pay on a credit card. Yeah, that's happened, too. That we're in good financial shape now is a miracle.

There is a cultural narrative of *giggle* *giggle* "I'm so distractable!" to try to ameliorate the pain of being disorganized. Know what? It's not funny. It hurts.

Proscriptive solutions won't work.

I use a Bullet Journal just about with the out-of-the-box method that Ryder Carrol posted in that first video he did about it. I tried it, and it clicked.

Know what wouldn't have clicked? Someone making me do it when I was fifteen.

This is where you, if you have problems with executive dysfunction, might wonder if I can provide an answer for you. Know what? I can't.

I can say, "You need a Bullet Journal." I mean, I'll think it. I wouldn't say it. Know why? It won't necessarily work for you.

What I will say is that you need to find methods that work for you.

"Okay, smartybrat," I hear you cry, "if you can't offer a solution, what do I do?"

Create systems that support you

This is going to look different depending on how you think. Does a beepy reminder go bing! and prompt you to do stuff? Do you like to have a menu of tasks that you choose from depending on how easily they grab your attention in the moment?

What primes you to take action?

What plans have you followed through on (c'mon, you do have some if you're alive past 20), and what about them made you feel good?

My husband doesn't use a Bullet Journal. He plans his day using a calendar app. If there's an interrupt to a task, he'll move it to another free time. When you first try this, I strongly encourage you to multiply your estimation of task time by at least four until you get good at estimating how long something will take. If you have executive dysfunction issues you're struggling with, I'd bet at least a nickel that you're not good at estimating how long things take yet.

What stops you from taking action? Can you remove the interrupts?

A simple example would be to take the dirty clothes hamper's lid off if that's enough to discourage you from tossing your clothes in the hamper. Still, I'm not talking about "Tips 'n Tricks" here. I hate tips 'n tricks! They're like taking a Tylenol when you cut off your leg. You need to extrapolate that to life systems to support how you want to live.

Your system is useless until you define "good enough."

I could skip the next two or three times I need to vacuum my closet, and I wouldn't care. If I get to it every year or so, it's absolutely good enough. "Good enough" means I address my paperwork file once a week and clear it out. I don't have to do it every day unless I feel like it. "Good enough" is walking for five minutes on the hour around my living room until I get my 10,000 steps in. I don't have to walk for three miles unless I want to. "Good enough" is spreading up the bed and tossing the shams at the head. I don't have to bounce a quarter off the damn thing unless I get a wild hare to do that sometimes. Don't give yourself an image of perfection you have to attain, or you'll do nothing.

It's okay for "good enough" to change

Remember how it took thirty years to get to vacuuming a closet? There was a time when that chore wasn't on the "good enough" list, and ya know what? That's fine. Have your "good enough" be slightly, but only slightly, ahead of what you're currently doing if you want to make improvements. Incremental improvements over time, and I mean decades, are pretty dramatic when you look back.

Good enough can stay good enough

My exercise parameters have me getting in an average of 10,000 steps a day as measured over a month. That is never going to change. If the Spirit moves me, I'll do more. But I'm not going to keep raising the bar over and over and over. This is it. I'm good. I'm maintaining.

It takes decades to get your life in order. What small thing will you do today?

[joysmercer]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 7: A Timeline

Season 6 Finale: Wednesday, 5/8 to Wednesday, 5/15/2019

E1 (“MANHUNTER”): Thursday, 6/6/2019

E2 (“CAPTAIN KIM”): Friday, 6/7 to Monday, 6/10/2019

E3 (“PIMENTO”): Tuesday, 6/18 to Thursday, 6/20/2019 + Thursday, 6/27/2019

E4 (“THE JIMMY JAB GAMES II”): Friday, 6/21/2019

E5 (“DEBBIE”): Saturday, 6/22 to Sunday, 6/23/2019

E6 (“TRYING”): Monday, 6/24/19 to late January 2020  

E7 (“DING DONG”): Day 1 to Day 3, mid-March 2020

E8 (“THE TAKEBACK”):  Friday, 3/27 to Monday, 3/30/2020

E9 (“DILLMAN”): around 4/10/2020

E11 (“VALLOWEASTER”): Thursday, 10/31/2019 +  Friday, 2/14/2020 + Sunday, 4/12/2020 to Monday, 4/13/2020

E10 (“ADMIRAL PERALTA”): mid-May 2020 + around 6/17/2020 + Friday, 6/26 to Saturday, 6/27/2020

E12 (“RANSOM”): Day 1 to Day 3, mid-August 2020

E13 (“LIGHTS OUT”): Day 1, around 10/20/2020

explanations for the dates are under the cut!

Things to keep in mind:

The B/C-plots, for the most part, are not included in the calculation of the times here, because they rarely have the same number of days as the A-plot. 

I didn’t take weekends into consideration unless otherwise noted. There is a weekend squad, but we know that the regular detectives also sometimes work weekends (enough so that on more than one occasion, Holt has rewarded them with “weekends off”).

Time-stamps within the episode are used as guidelines, but not always as the rule, unless there is a specific number of days given.

7x01-early 7x06 all have to happen in June so that they can start The Amy Way in July. Please refer to 7x06 for the explanation for the dates on these episodes.

Season 6 Finale: 5/8-5/15/2019 

Has to start and end on a Wednesday; two or more weeks must pass until 7x02.

7x01:  6/6/2019

As per Amy's period in Trying, it has to be at the beginning of the month. 

Continuity: Since patrol cops spend “6 months on the same beat,” which Holt is still doing in December, assume that when Debbie says it’s his “first week on the job,” she means his current beat.

Continuity: her period technically is supposed to start somewhere between 6/2 and 6/7. Assume when she says it’s “late,” she means by just a few days. After all, for the July calendar to be accurate, it can’t be late by more than a week.

7x02: 6/7-6/10/2019

Day 1 – cold open // Day 2 – they meet Cpt. Kim // Day 3 – Party // Day 4 – last scene

Kim got an “email from two weeks ago” from Wunch. Cold-open is on 6/7, a Friday (because Rosa has the weekend off and, therefore, wouldn’t be there to meet Wunch on Day 2 of the episode). The timestamp on the last scene—Day 4—says that it's a Monday. 

7x03: 6/18-6/27/2019

Day 1, 6/18 - cold open

Day 2, 6/19 - visit Pimento’s doctor; Pimento spends the night at Charles’s

Day 3, 6/20 - HR seminar + Pimento in hospital

Day 10: “One Week Later” from Day 3.

Per the cold-open, Amy is ovulating during this episode. Also, Jimmy Jabs are on 6/21.

Continuity: The Masked Singer finale/premiere dates don’t make sense. But the contestant they mentioned didn’t even exist in season 1 of TMS, so it’s excusable.

Continuity: The last scene takes place during “Trying.” Roll with it.

7x04: 6/21/2019

14 days since Rosa last took a vacation—7x02—and a Friday because Amy skips a seminar that was probably wasn’t scheduled for a weekend.

Continuity: Rosa and Jocelyn had apparently been dating “a year” at this point. It was probably shorter than that.

Continuity: This episode most likely takes place before Trying: Jake mentions Amy being more, erm, adventurous now that they’re trying to conceive, and that doesn’t really fit in with the overly-scheduled sex UD-ing that was happening from July 2019 and onwards. Plus, the stress/potential injury that such a competition would bring definitely doesn’t fit in with The Amy Way.

7x05: 6/22-6/23/2019

Debbie steals the cocaine at end of 7x04; assume 7x05 is the day after. The final scene is the day after the rest of the episode.

Continuity: They mention Debbie’s journals from “this year,” and specify that they were written on “August 21.” Assume this means August 2018.

7x06: 6/24/19 - late January 2020  

On the calendars in the war room, “Menstruation” lasts about five days and starts around the 4th of every month; “Ovulation” starts around the 15th of every month and lasts about a week. Amy presumably took a pregnancy test at the very end of every month—not only were these scenes always followed by calendar flips, but she would have to take the tests at least two weeks after ovulation but before she got her period.

The calendar invites/The Jake Way happen in June—so Amy still has to be ovulating at the start of the episode—because they start The Amy Way in July. 

The Amy Way fails for the last time in December. The pregnancy test she takes before Hitchcock announces that his girlfriend is pregnant was late December (around 12/30). The next test she would take—the last scene in the episode—would be late January (around 1/30).

Assuming it isn’t a false positive (which is unlikely, considering her doctor would have double-checked this before putting her on fertility medication), the earliest she can get pregnant would be mid-February.

7x07: lasts about a week and ends mid-March 2020.

Has to be after 2/14 but before 4/12, based on Holt’s uniform changes in Valloweaster. 

It’s very likely that Amy’s just a few weeks pregnant here since she wasn’t suspicious at all until her doctor brought it up; if the hormones messed up her cycle a bit and she got pregnant mid to late-February, she was 3-4 weeks pregnant in this episode and wouldn’t have noticed until taking the test.

Continuity: I’m assuming that the “Ebola Doctor” was Craig Spencer. He contracted the virus in 2014, so “six years ago” makes sense.

7x08: 3/27-3/30/2020.

Since it’s Holt’s first day back, this episode is relatively soon after 7x07, but with a week or two in between to account for paperwork and official promotion procedures. 

Day 1: Friday (The bachelor’s party is over the weekend)

Day 2: Saturday (heist)

Judy’s friends were clearly arrested at nighttime, and that + the change of clothing indicates that Jake and the Judy’s had to have come home the next day.

Day 3: Sunday (Jake comes home)

Day 4: Monday (last scene)

Continuity: The screen on the computer that one of Judy’s men hacks into says “Last Login: March 27 2015.″ Since this episode obviously takes place in 2020, just ignore that.

7x09: ~4/10/2020

Earlier than June—Terry’s kids are still in school (Spring Semester). Also probably(?) a Friday, since Terry’s kids have a concert and it’s unlikely they’ll have one in the middle of the week.

The Friday before Easter (7x11) is April 10.

7x10: Mid-May 2020 (cold open), ~6/17/2020, 6/26/2020-6/27/2020

Cold-Open: pregnancy reveal and end of 1st trimester. 

Day 2: Jake tells his father that they’re having a sex-reveal party “Next Friday,” indicating two Fridays after this day. Therefore, this conversation happened around June 17, 2020 (The Wednesday that is approximately 18 weeks from mid-February).

Day 3: Friday, Day of the party (June 26)

Day 4: Amy finds out; day after Day 3 (June 27)

Continuity: The entirety of 7x11 takes place before this one.

7x11: 10/31/19, 2/14/20, and 4/12-4/13/2020

7x12: Day 1-Day 3, Mid-8/2020

Day 1: Cold Open

Day 2: find cheddar

Day 3: B- and C-plots end

Shakespeare in the Park is usually held in Prospect Park over the summer. Halfway between 7x10 and 7x13 is the end of August; I made it mid-August so it’s still technically “Summer.”

Continuity: Amy’s only 6 months pregnant in this episode and her baby shower is the weekend after. However, in season 5, Gina also had her baby shower at around 5/6 months, so this isn’t unusual for these characters. Plus, this is Amy we’re talking about—she probably had a registry ready to go within days of finding out about the pregnancy. 

7x13: Day 1, late-10/2020. 

The elevator expiry is listed as 12/20/2020 and it was inspected “4 months ago.” elevators in New York are inspected every 6 months, which means that the last inspection was 6/20/2020 and it is now (mid to late-)October. 

Later in the month (10/20/2020* or later) matches up with Amy getting pregnant in mid-February: her due-date would be mid-November, and it makes sense for her to start maternity leave about 3 weeks beforehand. 

Continuity: Amy going on leave so early explains why she didn’t have a maternity bag stashed somewhere in the precinct—we all know that she would have had one had she been working right up to her due date. Also, although Amy’s FOMOW would make her want to stay at the precinct right up until she gave birth, if her doctor recommended her to take rest earlier (which is likely, given how stressful/strenuous her job is…), she would have followed those orders properly.

Thank you to @feeisamarshmallow​ for talking through this with me!

* baby Mac could definitely be either a Libra or a Scorpio :)

[wherevermyway]

beside you in time // seungbin // horror // 16+

❄ part of yuki’s favourites! ❄

⚠ POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! ⚠ pairing: seo changbin x kim seungmin rating: mature! 16+ warnings/tags: major character death, mental instability, paranoia, insomnia, suicide, character study.  word count: 2,148 also on AO3

originally posted: 17 february 2021

"Come back to me."

Things always got bad from hours twenty-four to thirty-six. From thirty-six to forty-eight, however, was more akin to running a chainsaw through an industrial-sized tin of diced tomatoes.

There was always one person that kept Changbin grounded, however.

"Come back to me, Changbin."

And that person was Seungmin. Seungmin was always there to guide him back to some semblance of normalcy.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.

“Come back to me.

I just want you to come back to me. Not this shell of you, but the whole you.

The entirety of you. The old you.

Come back, Cha—”

31 October 2005 Monday

—

It was Monday. Monday at midnight. Changbin stared at the bright red of his alarm clock, staring the 00:00 directly in between the empty spaces of the square zeroes.

It was the staring contest he had every night.

Right on schedule, he lifted himself out of bed, sliding his feet against the cold wood of his bedroom floor, careful to not make any noise so that he didn’t disturb his boyfriend. Quietly, he slipped his way around the floor, out of the open doorway and into the kitchen. He flipped the switch on the wall, the halogen lamp flickering four times exactly before its sickeningly bluish rays illuminated the off-white kitchen walls and the grey cabinets.

Changbin took a step forward: the sink on his left-hand side, the stove on his right-hand side. He stared at the white wall in front of him, his expression empty as he stared at twenty-nine red Xs marked through each day prior. His left hand reached out to the drawer, not breaking his gaze from the calendar as he rummaged through until he recognized the way the red permanent marker felt in his hand. He continued to eye Sunday, as if it was prey, and his permanent marker was the hunter.

He licked his lip, biting it as he removed the cap from the marker, taking a few steps forward until he was face-to-face with his archnemesis: the constant reminder that time was limited, that he couldn’t even fucking remember what day it was without the stupid fucking calendar staring at him in the face.

Two diagonal lines from end-to-end of the damned square.

The 30th of October could join the twenty-nine days prior in hell.

Changbin paced around the living room, his footprints brushing over the rug in the middle of the room, leaving worn treads in its fabric. This was his routine as he waited for Seungmin to come home. He wasn’t able to focus on anything for too long before—

Time, time, time.

“Would you fucking shut up? I just told you to leave me alone.”

Before the voices came back.

Changbin knew he sounded unstable as he shouted to himself in the empty living room. He couldn’t stop it, though. The words always left his lips before he could stop himself from saying them.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Things always got bad from hours twenty-four to thirty-six. From thirty-six to forty-eight, however, was more akin to running a chainsaw through an industrial-sized tin of diced tomatoes.

“Just stop, just fucking stop.”

He knew eyes were watching him, he could feel the stares boring into the back of his skull, eyes running all over him. Changbin gripped at the tops of his shoulders, repeating to himself that he wouldn’t turn around — he couldn’t turn around.

“Go away,” he whispered into the crooks of his elbows as he embraced himself, “go away, just go away.”

Why are you here? Fade away, Changbin.

The creaking of the floorboards startled him, unsure if it was his mind lying to himself, creating something that wasn’t there.

Tick—

“Changbin.”

But there was someone there. The energy that came from the words was different, warmer than the way the other voices that circled his mind. The voices floating in his head were never so—

“Come back to me, Changbin.”

There he was, right in front of his face. Seungmin was tangible, unlike the hallucinations in his head. Changbin hadn’t slept in days, yet Seungmin somehow looked far more fatigued than him.

“I’m so sorry, Seungmin, I just—”

“I know,” Seungmin sighed, gently dancing his fingertips against Changbin’s clammy skin. He was gentle as he pulled the shaking man into his arms, and even gentler as they sank to the ground together. “We need to get you back on your medication. Get you back to who you used to be before everything got bad again.”

“No,” Changbin shook his head against the younger man’s chest, “you know what happened the last time they put me on those fucking pills. I can’t lose myself again.”

Seungmin gently stroked the top of Changbin’s head, shushing him and rubbing small circles in between his shoulder blades. “Okay, okay,” he relented, his voice quiet and calm. “We can talk about it more later. Does that sound okay?”

Changbin nodded once, grabbing at Seungmin’s woollen sweater, hiding his face away from the world. “I just don’t want you to leave me because I’m losing it.”

A quiet chuckle came from Seungmin before he pressed a quick kiss to the top of Changbin’s head. “I’m never gonna leave you, baby. I love you. I’ll be here with you until the end of time.”

“You promise?”

“Always.”

14 November 2005 Monday

—

Until the end of time. Always.

Seungmin’s voice was soft as it echoed in Changbin’s head, pulling him from the darkness.

It was Monday. Monday at… nine in the morning?

Time, time, time.

Changbin rubbed his eyes, starting to hyperventilate as he stared at the clock. He turned to the side of his bed, expecting to see Seungmin there, but there was nothing but wrinkled sheets in his place.

“Work,” he muttered to himself. Seungmin had to be at work. It was Monday, which meant that Seungmin was back in the clinic. His breathing calmed down as he mentally prepared himself for another day. He would get through the next few hours until Seungmin got home.

Changbin haphazardly made his way to his feet, his footsteps padding against the cold wooden floor. His footsteps were so loud, echoing against the empty walls of his apartment. He flipped the light switch at the entrance of the kitchen, letting the halogen lamp flicker four times before it steadied itself.

No.

Changbin’s eyes went wide as he stared at the calendar, red Xs missing from the days prior. He stared over the entire month of November before he ripped the calendar off of the wall, rapidly flipping through every page of every month, trying to check for the marks through his days.

Nothing.

From January to November, there were no marks, not a single mark through any of the days he had lived through.

Tick, tock.

Changbin dropped the calendar, letting it collide against the floor as he ran to the landline they kept in the living room. Seungmin would reassure him that, yes, the marks were on each day, that this was just his brain playing tricks on him yet again.

His fingers trembled as he entered seven digits into the phone, the number of Seungmin’s clinic the only thing he could keep memorised after all of these years. Changbin called him at least twice a day whenever Seungmin was at work, often many times more.

The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

“What?”

Changbin shook his head, staring down at the phone as a dial tone filled the air. It was possible he had made a mistake, sure, fumbled with the wrong numbers since his hands were shaking, but—

The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

It had to be a lie.

The number you have dialed is no longer in existence.

The tick you have tocked is—

He threw the phone at the wall, the cheap plastic shattering as it collided against the drywall. Changbin screamed at the top of his lungs, tears falling from his eyes as he tugged desperately at his hair.

Why wasn’t Seungmin’s line working?

He needed Seungmin, but he couldn’t—

“I love you, Seungmin,” his own voice echoed in his ears, the voice trembling and shaking like a small child.

“Seungmin, come back to me.” Changbin blinked once and saw a wrecked car in front of him, blood splattered against broken glass.

He stared at the accident, the car totalled up against a brick wall, another severely damaged car in the distance. The car he was staring at was familiar, the shouting of the voice haunting him as he approached. With his breath hitched in his throat, he stepped closer and closer to the front of the car, each step allowing him to make more and more sense of the wreckage behind the spiderwebbed windshield.

“Come back to me,” the voice pleaded again.

Changbin’s voice. Changbin’s very broken, raw voice.

“Seungmin, please, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see—”

Blood. There was so much blood all over the inside of the car, all over Changbin and all over Seungmin. He stepped backwards, nearly colliding against the asphalt as he recoiled in terror, the memories of that day flooding his head.

Can’t go through this again. Can’t.

Changbin looked down to his hands as he shook in fear, his hands caked in rapidly-drying blood that was turning from crimson to brown. The scent of copper lingered in his nostrils as he shook his head, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Again.

Come back to me, Seungmin.

Let me go, Seung—

Changbin blinked his eyes rapidly until he was back in his apartment, warm arms wrapped around his torso. He stared at the broken plastic littering the floor and simply felt nothing, like the switch to his emotions in his brain had been turned off.

“Come back to me.” Seungmin’s voice was so gentle, so soft in his ear. “It’s time for you to wake up and come back to me, Changbin.”

The switch was ripped off of the wall, there were no emotions to feel anymore.

“Let me go, Seungmin,” he weakly whispered, reaching up to the arms that weren’t there, yet still felt so real.

“Come back to me,” the voice was louder as Changbin lifted himself up off of the floor, haunted by the way that the ghost of Seungmin’s touch lingered on his skin.

He slid his feet against the bare wood floor, unable to register that the smooth texture was cold, only recalling it in memory. Like an empty shell of a human, he drifted into the kitchen, where Seungmin stood in front of the wall, calendar in his hands.

“It’s Monday,” he whispered, pointing at the date. “The thirteenth of November. You wondered why there were no marks, right?”

“Leave me alone, Seungmin,” Changbin’s voice was weak, his voice expressionless as he stared forward.

“It’s time to wake up, Changbin. It’s not 2005.”

Can’t go through this again.

“You know it’s not 2005. You’ve been wading through this year like it didn’t exist.”

Life and death, teetering on the edge of it for a year straight. It was ironic, really, that Changbin only slept on the anniversary of the day that he killed Seungmin.

It was an accident.

“It was an accident. You should have been on your medication again.” Seungmin repeated, as if he could hear Changbin’s thoughts. “But every action has a reaction. You know this. You cost me my fucking life.”

Changbin snatched the calendar from Seungmin’s grasp, ripping each page from the calendar and letting them scatter about the floor. Alone he stood, like some fucked up sculpture in the midst of chaos — the chaos of three hundred and sixty fucking five days staring right back up at him, laughing and taunting and driving him insane.

“Come back to me,” Seungmin took a step forward, grabbing the sides of Changbin’s face and pulling him in to kiss his forehead. “Wake up and come back to me, Cha—”

Changbin reached his right arm out, until his hand wrapped around the handle of his chef’s knife, pulling it from the block.

“Make it all stop,” Seungmin taunted. “Come back to me, be with me forever in time, right where you belong, and it’ll stop.”

A tear rolled down Changbin’s empty face as he stared forward, at the empty wall. Seungmin wasn’t there, but it felt like he was there. “I’m so sorry, Seungmin. I loved you so much, I loved you and I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

A cold hand wrapped around Changbin’s hand, helping him bring the knife to his own throat. “I know you are,” his voice was soft, soothing. “And I still love you. So, make it stop. Your time is running out.”

Time, time, time.

“Tick, tock, Changbin. Make up your mind.”

Sweat started to bead in Changbin’s palm as he whispered endless apologies. Tears streamed down his face, his eyes clamped tightly shut as he quickly undid the flesh of his throat with the knife in his hand.

Come back to me.

There was a thud.

Come back to me, Changbin.

The white wall of the kitchen was stained in splatters.

Come back—

The days of the calendar were finally marked in red.

“Changbin—”

Keys fell to the floor.

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Excerpt#4 from my JonGerry AU WiP

CN/TW: brief discussion of psychiatric medication, amiable/loving insults and banter

Gerry swallowed, putting his phone down on the table and grabbing their mug.

„Okay, what now?“, Jon shifted his elbow on the table, leaning closer. Gerry just sighed, handing over his phone, the messages with Gertrude still open. Jon raised a brow,

„So Michael gossiped“, he shrugged,

„I don’t see why you’re suddenly this tense.“ Gerry cleared their throat, taking his phone back and looking at Jon,

„Yes, well, I know my last art show was months ago, back when we were still feeling this out. Us. But actually, I do want to invite you to my art show“, they slowly smiled.

„Jon, would you like to come with to this art show? It’s primarily my work getting displayed but the rest of the gallery is open for the event as well. And while I know tickets and all sounds like it’s this scary exclusive high class thing, it’s more of a formality“, they made a placating gesture, expression a bit awkward,

„So they know who is associated with the organisation and to keep track of who is actually there to buy something.“ He shrugged, looking at Jon with an expression he thought wasn’t too hopeful. Jon just leaned even closer, pressing a kiss to their cheek,

„I’d love to come with.“ Cupping Jon’s face, Gerry turned their head, kissing him properly.

„Martin is also invited of course, I’ll send you the calendar entry so you can ask him about it when you’re out today.“

It was a Friday, the next day. Jon only worked a half the day, due to his half-year check-in with his psychiatrist. It somehow had happened to fall into the same week as Martin’s endocrinologist appointment. He was home rather soon because of that, allowing himself to sneak up on Gerry. Obviously he didn’t want to intrude on his partner’s workspace, but if they happened to be anywhere else in the loft? Jon wasn’t afraid to admit he was somewhat of a cuddle-kraken.

Where he found Gerry was in the bathroom, but the door was open so Jon poked his head in. Bend over the sink, Gerry was picking at strands of his hair, applying dye. They did spot Jon via the mirror, though.

„You’re home early“, slowly setting the strand aside so it wouldn’t smack him in the face.

„And you’re trying to do a full touch-up of your dye job on your own“, Jon sighed. Before Gerry could answer, Jon chucked off his sweater and went looking for their package of disposable gloves.

„Thank you“, their grin was a bit lopsided. Jon just rolled his eyes,

„Yea, yea, twerp. Just the roots?“ Snapping on the gloves, he took the brush Gerry held out.

„It’s black, doll. Not like it will get blotchy if there’s too much. Just needs to cover everything properly.“ Jon sighed, giving a gentle push so Gerry would tilt their head as he needed to part the hair. Before he actually started anything, though, he handed the brush back and went over to the shower to get the shower stool. Not doing the dye job himself, Gerry didn’t exactly need to stand to look into the mirror. Gerry held the bowl for him, ducking their head this way and that, so Jon could reach every area that was left. They remained in comfortable silence for some time.

„Why do you even still dye your hair yourself?“, Jon finally asked, using the pointed handle of the applicator brush to shift some strands.

„I just got used to it“, Gerry shrugged,

„Also I did step up my game. I started using proper salon-grade hair colour some years back.“ Jon snorted,

„Yea, I got curious and looked up the conditioner you use, once“, he shook his head. As good as they could, Gerry shot him a glare through the mirror. Jon actually blew him a kiss in reiteration, before he grinned.

„My appointment went well, by the way.“ Gerry raised a brow, he hadn’t been about to ask.

„Apparently my newly changed living situation benefits my mental health, as far as my psychiatrist was willing to dip into psychologist territory“, Jon continued, shrugging,

„I mean, obviously my anxiety dropped. Within the range that’s somewhat usual for general anxiety disorder, so there’s that. But unless I notice anything specific, eh. This positive change in my life isn’t a reason to change my medication or dosage. I’m honestly fine with that decision.“ Gerry hummed in understanding. Reaching up his hand that wasn’t holding the colour bowl, they gave Jon’s hand a squeeze,

„Understandable. Changing medication is a pain in the ass.“ Jon nodded empathetically,

„Oh, that does remind me��. He paused while he looked through the sections he had made of Gerry’s hair. Nodding to himself, he grabbed the disposable shower cap from the sink. Twisting Gerry’s hair up to get it all into the cap, he smiled when they helped fixating the loose tangle for a moment.

„Where was I? Oh, yes. So, when I was out with Martin yesterday, he said he had to pick up his hormones. We stopped by here real quick and I took your prescription with to the apothecary. Restock is in the mirror cabinet.“ He pointed over to the part of the long mirror cabinet where they kept their medication,

„I know you keep them in the bedroom but since it didn’t seem urgent, I figured I would just put them there.“ Checking one last time the cap sat properly, Jon finally pulled off his gloves.

As soon as Gerry had disposed of the colour bowl as well as his own gloves, they turned and took Jon’s hands in his.

„Thank you. Was I asleep while you snuck around here?“ He raised a brow, expression teasing. Jon rolled his eyes,

„Either that or holed up downstairs. It’s not like I checked, dipshit.“ Gerry hummed, tilting their head and giving Jon a scrutinising look. Leaning back against the sink to stabilise themself, Gerry pulled Jon in, gently moving him around until he sat across his lap. Hugging him, he pressed a kiss to Jon’s neck.

„I really appreciate you taking care of me, doll.“ Jon huffed, rolling his eyes,

„It’s not like it was lengths to go to or anything. Sure, Martin did give me a look about it.“ He shrugged. At that, Gerry looked up, giving him a quizzical look, Jon waved it away.

„He knows my brand of antidepressants by now, not like it changed. But the packet-size is rather universal anyway, so I honestly didn’t feel the need to explain this to him. It’s your business. It is easy enough to figure out if he actually caught what type of medication it is but I don’t really think so…?“, Jon scratched at his neck. Gerry grinned, before putting on a mock-scandalised expression,

„Are you keeping things from your boyfriend, on my behalf?“ That just earned him an elbow to the stomach, thanks to Jon’s position.

„Oh shut up, twerp.“ The accompanying huff was unmistakably on the fond side of exasperation. They just grinned again,

„Hm, no. But maybe I will let myself get convinced to put my mouth to better use than running it.“

With how involved Gerry had managed to get Jon, a bit of the hair colour paste had smudged onto Jon’s shoulder, discolouring the strap of his undershirt. Besides that, it had been a nice and quiet weekend for the two of them. And also the last one before Gerry got wrapped up in the acute preparations of the art show. The next couple of weeks turned out rather busy. Working with Gertrude’s team to set up in the gallery meant he had to switch their daily routine, as far as it existed, to that of someone working eight-to-five. Lining it up with Jon’s nine-to-five if it hadn’t been for the librarian-slash-archivist’s overtime.

It was getting a bit hectic, though. Meaning, they did reduce their shifts at the bar for the time being. Gerry, first off, had to work actual day-time hours to be involved in the organisation. On top of adhering to Gertrude’s instructions to them as the artist. Which basically summed up to the equivalent of working over-time as well. So his work schedule almost lined up with Jon’s after all. It was nice, to get home around the same time as their partner, or only having just arrived when the front door clicked.

Gertrude was strict but she also knew not to overwork them, meaning she cut Gerry some slack in lieu of being helpful with the event organisation. Not that they got payed for the administrative help or basically doing the same job as Michael for the time being.

But at least she didn’t push any commissions at him until the art show and follow-up around the sales would be done. In those weeks, he actually was off work when he got home. This, of course, also entailed there wasn’t much time Gerry was working when Jon brought Martin with him. Meaning, they were about anywhere in the loft except for the atelier.

“Uhm, what is the dress code for the event?”, Martin spoke up at some point during an evening at the loft. Jon paused,

“Actually I haven’t thought about that. He didn’t exactly mention anything, so I figured something around business casual?”, he didn’t look all that sure. Humming, Jon got up from the couch,

“They should be upstairs so I’ll just go ask.” Martin nodded, suddenly sitting a bit stiffer than he did before, making Jon smile,

“You can come along, you know?”

On the upper floor of the loft, the bedroom door was leant, a thin gap visible. Still, Jon thought it better to check,

“Gerry, are you decent in there?” From the inside came a snort, followed by a chuckled reply,

“Morally? Never! I’m wearing pants, though, if that was the root of your concern.” Rolling his eyes, Jon turned to Martin so someone would see his long-suffering expression.

“Since we pretty much corrupted each other in our youth, of course I meant the pants, dipshit!”, he snarled back,

“Martin’s with me and I don’t want any of us to have a weird situation here.” Some clattering and rustling came from behind the door,

“Come on in, then. No need to keep talking through the door, four-eyes.” With that, Jon pushed the door open and walked in, allowing Martin to enter after him. Gerry sat on their bed, still in their black jeans from when he had been to the gallery. But they had changed the button shirt Gertrude had forced upon him in favour of his pastel hoodie. Sitting cross legged near the foot-end, he was still in the process of tying his hair back.

“So, what’s up?”

“Ah, well…”, Martin’s voice came out even more meek than usual, probably from the nervousness of standing in someone else’s bedroom,

“I was wondering about the event you invited us to. First, thanks again, of course. I’m really excited about seeing your work, properly displayed even. Secondly, while I know the appointed time and everything, I was wondering whether there will be a dress-code.” At that, Gerry blinked, before humming.

“Well… for me, I have to stick to whatever Trudie will force me to wear that night, since I’m posing as her assistant again. But the general event dress-code is somewhere between smart casual and business casual, I think.” They turned and stretched to grab his phone from the bedside table,

“I’ll ask Sasha.”

While they waited on the reply, Jon’s brow creased,

“So you’re forced into… what? Business attire? I really can’t picture that.” Gerry rolled his eyes,

“More like cocktail attire. Not exactly a distinction to business dress but Gertrude is giving us all some leeway, as long as we look official enough. Last time Sasha wore a floaty silk blouse over high-waisted slacks”, they shrugged,

“Along those lines, I guess. I always try matching her in terms of formal dress, it’s at least more coherent than whatever Michael has got going on at any time.”