#and there would always be soda and a bouncy house

[fluttering-lillies]

Afterparty Chapter 3: Rainbow

Words: 2,606

Pairing: SunDash

Rating: T

Warnings: Talk of excessive drinking, mentions of sex

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The rest of breakfast was stilted, quiet, awkward. Pinkie tried her best, but even her bouncy energy and genuine smile weren't enough to restore the groggy but peaceful mood that had filled the dining room when they were all gathered together.

Sunset’s departure had just made things… weird, and Rainbow Dash was already getting tired of her friends shooting her concerned glances. They were trying to be stealthy about it, but they weren’t doing a very good job. She'd started to feel nauseous and unbalanced when Sunset left, and their misplaced concern was just making it worse. At least her head wasn’t pounding anymore.

“Rainbow I-“ Dash cut Twilight’s worried words off with a nonchalant wave.

“It’s cool, girls. I’m good. I just have some sheets to wash and a bed to make. Plus I’m all full up. It was delicious Pinks, thanks.” She grinned at Pinkie, who beamed back and winked.

Rainbow picked up her plate, but she didn’t get far before Twilight tried again. “Are you sure? Because I had this whole plan on how we could do things super efficiently and-“

Pinkie interrupted this time. “That sounds like a great idea Twilight!”

“Yes, but my plan include-“

“It’ll still work fine, silly! Rainbow does need to clean up the upstairs. I told her to!” She leaned in then and as she was walking out of the dining room, Rainbow just caught the whispered words “time to herself” before she rounded the corner and stared up the stairs. She wasn’t particularly surprised Pinkie had seen through her. They almost certainly all had, save for Twilight. That was good though. She knew it meant they wouldn’t follow her.

Rainbow tried not to stomp as she climbed the stairs, but there were dark anchors of emotion tangled around her, so each step was still as heavy as she could manage with just socks. Her friends were used to her clomping around in heavy combat boots at this point though, so they didn’t complain.

Her attitude was all frustration, with some small sprinkles of confusion and anger mixed in. Sunset didn’t have to want her or anything like that. Rainbow was far from desperate, but couldn’t they have at least talked?

She groaned at the thought as she walked into the master bedroom. It would have been a weird conver-

The scent of Sunset Shimmer was so distinct and powerful that she physically flinched as she stepped closer to the tangled, messy bed. She hadn’t taken it in, or simply noticed. No, the smell had hit her like a wall of force. Memories of the night before came rushing up now that she was in less pain. They were hazy and warm like steam, just as oppressive and muggy too. Sunset close to her, grinding into her, kissing her. Rainbow sunk into remembering, into the warmth, until it became… heat.

Her cheeks burned in sympathy.

She shook it off. She had something to take care of. Since Sunset had so kindly left her all the work.

Rainbow grabbed the blankets and was hit with Sunset's scent again. It rocketed an older memory to the forefront of her mind this time. One that wasn’t muted by celebration and liquor.

Sunset's home. Just outside, on her cracked overgrown driveway. Rainbow leaned against the house, drinking a soda, watching Sunset, who sat on the concrete. She twisted bolts and screws, pulling at cords or nozzles or some other thing Rainbow didn't recognize. She had never really gone in on cars. There were just cooler things to get into. Watching Sunset work was fun though. There was a relaxing rhythm to it, like a heavy bass drum, and now she knew why Sunset always smelled a little bit like engine grease.

She smelled it now. Just a hint, but still definitely there and definitely Sunset.

"Focus, RD." She grumbled the words to herself and quickly gathered the large pile of blankets and sheets into her arms. She couldn't see much past the bedding but stomped out of the room and down the stairs nonetheless. Only when she caught a brief glance of pink hair at the bottom did she stop.

"Oh Dashie! So okay, laundry's this way." A pink hand grasped her arm and pulled her to the left, then spun her around. "Right! Now just go all the way down to the last room. Door's already open."

Rainbow nodded, or tried to against the bundle of blankets. "Thanks Pinks."

She heard a satisfied 'your welcome' sort of sound as she moved again, placing her feet carefully until she met resistance. Rainbow tilted herself to the side until she could see the solid metal washer in front of her, then promptly dropped blankets, sheets, and pillowcases onto the ground. They were dirty anyway, what did she care?

With full sight now, she started on her task, reaching down to grab blankets and stuffing the washer full. There would be at least two loads, but that was fine, she had way more to help out with around the house anyway. Right now she just wanted to get away from the tangled, misty memories that kept bubbling up from obscure parts of her mind. None of them were unpleasant, but really that was the problem. Instead of helping Pinkie, she kept glimpsing into those shards of her recollection and making her present more twisted and confused. Last night was past, and held no answers, but she kept catching on the bedding in her arms anyway.

She balled it all up, threw it inside, and shushed it all with one heavy slam of the washer door. Then she took a breath and checked to make sure she actually knew what she was doing. Pinkie’s unit was similar to the one in her home though, so she set to work on the detergent and fabric softener, humming “Awesome as I Wanna Be” as she went. It was her song; from the lyrics to each instrument’s notes, and it was so ingrained into her head that she found herself coming back to it often. That was fine. It always made her feel better, made her feel more... awesome.

"You wish you could be twenty percent cooler." She half mumbled, half sang the words as she hit the start button on the washer and spun around.

"Woah!" She had already started her momentum out the door, but Fluttershy was there, blocking the exit. She stopped herself in time to not run headlong into her, but Shy still winced, bracing for impact. "You totally snuck up on me. Jeez Shy."

"Sorry." Fluttershy murmured. The response seemed automatic. Given how many times this had happened before, maybe it was.

Fluttershy had a weird thing about not interrupting, and often would hover in the background silently until being noticed. Rainbow usually wasn’t caught off guard by Fluttershy just appearing suddenly in her peripheral, but a bad mood always wound her tight with anxious energy, always made her more… jumpy. She would have to go for a run after this, get her mind off of anything that wasn’t the wind rushing through her hair.

With a deep sigh Rainbow asked, "What's up, Flutters? Need help with something?" She thought it was a good guess, but Fluttershy shook her head.

"I thought... you could use my help actually."

She rolled her eyes. “Oh boy. Here we go.” She had expected this sooner honestly, but still wasn’t pleased to see it come. She didn’t need anyone to throw her a pity party. She was only irritated that Sunset had left the work to her, but Fluttershy would expect mushy emotions like sadness or hurt, and Rainbow just didn’t have that in her.

“I know this isn’t really your forte, but it can help in the long run. Not just you, but Sunset too.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to her?” Rainbow knew that sounded bitchy, and she almost took it back, but Fluttershy just smiled like she’d said something endearing.

“Because I haven’t known her since I was five. Because we didn’t grow up together. Because I know you Dash, and can help you more.” Then she shrugged, like all that should have been obvious.

Maybe it should have been. Rainbow slumped against the washing machine, and crossed her arms. She wasn’t going to talk about her feelings or anything like that, but it was only Fluttershy, not the rest of the girls. So maybe she could ask the one question that had been simmering in the back of her mind since she woke up this morning.

She glanced at Fluttershy, who only smiled and gave her a little encouraging nod.

Rainbow sighed. “What do I do now?”

“What do you mean?”

She unfolded herself and groaned, gesturing to emphasize words and exclamations. “I mean! Like! What do I say to her? Or do I just not say anything? Do I just let it go? Forget about this and never bring it up again or what? Should I… should I ask her out?”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

Dash folded up again and grumbled, “You know that isn’t really helpful. That’s why I’m asking you.”

Fluttershy sighed and stepped toward Dash, putting a hand on her tense shoulders when she reached her. “Dashie… look. I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t decide for you. You know that. I can only help you talk it through. Can we try again? What do you want to do? And really think it through this time, okay?”

Rainbow groaned but Fluttershy’s comforting voice and touch convinced her to at least not shut down the question right away. What did she want, really? Sunset was gorgeous, and had a cool, bad girl sense of style with her spiked leather jacket and the sleek motorcycle she rode around in. She played a mean guitar, she could paint, and do sports, and was even smart like Twilight. Rainbow knew what she liked, what she found hot in a girl: talent, confidence, a penchant for a little bit of recklessness. Sunset had it all. She’d honestly suspected these feelings before last night, but their tryst had crystallized them into something clear and tangible. Rainbow wasn’t going to be coy about them now.

It wasn’t that simple though. “I mean… I… want to kiss her again?”

Fluttershy smiled.

“But…” Rainbow let out a loose breath as she watched the smile drop. She could see the frown on Sunset’s face too. Rainbow could imagine it perfectly.

I’m sorry Dash, but last night was a fluke. I don’t feel the same way.

Then she saw Sunset’s sad eyes, paired with a sympathetic smile.

You’re really nice Dash, but I had my eye on someone else.

Then she saw Sunset looking away, trying not to meet her eyes, blush on her face.

Oh stars. Look, Dash. I don’t…. want that at all. Ugh this is so awkward. Maybe we should just not talk for a couple days? So things can go back to normal.

Every new imagining was worse. She didn’t see any reason Sunset would reject her. She was awesome, amazing, just as cool as Sunset, but there was always a chance… and no matter how slim, Rainbow didn’t want this to be a wall between them. If it wasn’t already. She wanted more, but didn’t want to abandon their current friendship to get it. She was… she groaned… scared of what might happen.

“I want… answers I guess? Why did she run away? Was she scared? Upset? Sad? Angry? Does she hate me now?” The thought struck into her chest, into her stomach, painful and heavy. “She doesn’t, does she?” Her voice sounded small and she hated that it did.

“Oh Dashie. I can’t imagine that’s the case.”

“Then why did she leave?”

Fluttershy wrapped her up then. Rainbow didn’t break down, didn’t start crying, but she did hug her best friend back, gripping tightly. “Have you considered that she’s asking the same questions you are?”

“What do you mean? I‘m still here.”

Fluttershy shook her head. Rainbow didn’t see it, but she could feel it against her shoulder. “Not what I meant. I mean… what if she thought you were scared? Or angry? Or sad? Or ashamed? Or all of that together. She probably got… scared of what you might say, how things might turn out. Just like you are, right?”

“I guess.” She said it miserably, because as much as she disliked being afraid, she hated admitting it even more. Especially to Fluttershy. “But I stayed, even if I was freaking out. She should have too. And talked to me. At least then this would be over with and I wouldn’t feel like shit.” She gripped at her shirt, right over her stomach, where she could feel the fear roiling.

Fluttershy pulled back from the hug, keeping her hands on Rainbow’s shoulders. She was smiling. It was a smile that Twilight usually gave her. The smile that said she’d misunderstood something. Rainbow scowled back.

“Sorry.” Fluttershy chuckled. “It’s just. Remember freshman year? When Gilda came over from Cloudsdale and introduced herself to us. She was planning on transferring and you spent like every day after school with her for a full two weeks.”

Rainbow’s frown just got deeper. “I remember her being a total ass and treating Pinks all awful, yeah. I remember nearly chasing her all the way back to Cloudsdale too.”

“Right, but you didn’t see it at first. And afterwards you were totally convinced Pinkie was super mad at you even when she kept saying she wasn’t. You’d only met about six months before, at the start of high school so it made sense you weren’t really that confident in your friendship with her yet.”

Rainbow lifted a brow. “As much as I appreciate the blast from the past. I really don’t see how it matters now. I’m not mad at Sunset and she didn’t even stay long enough to ask me if I was.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “Sunset’s only been ‘doing’ friendship for a little over a year. You didn’t leave because you’ve gone through stuff like this before. Gilda and Pinkie fighting, that competitive iron woman challenge with AJ, even Sunset splitting us up. Sunset doesn’t really have a lot of friendship experience, and well…” Fluttershy looked around, then leaned in and whispered. “Don’t tell her or anyone else I said this, but I think her knee jerk response a lot of the time is to run away.”

Given how she’d ended up in their world, Rainbow couldn’t exactly argue that. “So… what? Fight or flight and she chose flight?”

“I could be wrong I guess, but honestly I think if she hadn’t needed to eat, she would have left earlier. She masks it well, but I could tell she was… tense.”

They sat there, not speaking for a little bit. The sound of the washing machine kept going in its regular ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Rainbow pulled away from Fluttershy’s grip and reclined back against the machine. Then she leaned back further, bending her back until her shoulder blades rested upon cool metal. She groaned. “So what the fuck now? Do I go chasing after her all dramatic like?”

Fluttershy snickered, shook her head, and pulled her phone from her pocket. “Or… you could just call her?”

Rainbow sighed, patting at her pockets. She frowned, double checked, then made a sound that was part hopeless moan, part irate growl. No phone anywhere on her person. Of course she’d lost it during the party

“I’ll call it…” Fluttershy said, and started dialing.

[xtruss]

The Japanese, French, British, and Americans have sent runners to train in Iten. “Everybody runs here,” an athlete said.Illustration by Cristiana Couciero; Source photographs from Getty

Why Were Two Female Running Champions Killed in Kenya 🇰🇪?

Iten, a small town in the Great Rift Valley, Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Republic of Kenya became the long-distance-running capital of the world. Then, within a span of six months, two élite athletes were found dead.

— By Alexis Okeowo | April 10, 2023

When Agnes Tirop was eleven, she was already as fast as athletes twice her age. “She loved running, and she shined,” her brother Martin told me. Tirop, who was born in 1995, was small-boned and delicate-featured, with cropped hair. Even as a child, she was self-possessed, with a singular focus on improving her speed. She grew up in the Kenyan village of Nandi, in the Great Rift Valley, a four-thousand-mile-long volcanic trench of steep escarpments, green hills, and soda lakes that is visible from space. She came from a big family. Her father, Vincent, had been a long-distance runner in his youth—as had her grandfather—but Vincent found it difficult to earn a living from the sport. Instead, each day he bought milk from local farmers and took it by bicycle to sell at the market in the city of Eldoret, twenty-nine miles away. The family waited, sometimes until midnight, for him to bring home food for them to eat. Despite having little money, Vincent saved five litres of milk every week for his children, so that they would have the nutrition they needed in order to train. “We were dirt poor,” Martin said. “We started running because of poverty.”

Several of the children showed an early aptitude for the sport, but it was clear that Tirop was special. She began training in primary school, running barefoot on the roads in her village. Joan Chelimo, who trained with Tirop, said that she always wanted to put on bouncy Kalenjin music before practice. “She was very young, and she was beating senior athletes,” Chelimo said. At fifteen, Tirop won the five-thousand-metre race at a national junior competition. Later that year, she flew to South Africa for an international junior race, and came in second. When she returned home, her family threw her a party, serving meat and rice and playing music for hours. “It was her first time out of the country, and we felt very happy and proud,” Vincent said. Tirop soon started giving some of her winnings to her family, so that they could build a house. “She paid for my school fees—and I’m older than her!” Martin said.

The Great Rift Valley in Kenya—and particularly a small town called Iten, two hours from Nandi—has become, by some measures, the running capital of the world. Iten, like many villages in the area, sits in the mountains, almost eight thousand feet above sea level, but you can descend four thousand feet into the valley by car within half an hour. Athletes there can “live high and train low,” spending their non-training days at altitude so that their lungs become more efficient but running at a lower elevation, where the air is more oxygen-rich. Kenya has won more élite marathons than any other country in the past twenty years, and many of its winners have come from the Great Rift Valley. After Ibrahim Hussein, who was from Iten, became the first African to win the New York City Marathon, in 1987, the town’s reputation was cemented. A sign above the main road welcomes visitors to the “home of champions.” Kenya’s best athletes now train in the area, including the world’s most decorated living marathoner, Eliud Kipchoge. The Japanese, French, British, and Americans have sent runners to train there. “Iten is the nerve center,” Vincent Onywera, who teaches exercise and sports science at Kenya College of Accountancy University, in Nairobi, told me.

When Tirop was in secondary school, she met a man named Ibrahim Rotich, who was about fifteen years older. Rotich was a big, charming man, and he offered to manage and coach Tirop. Tirop already had a coach, and Rotich seemed, to Tirop’s family, to have little formal experience, but Tirop accepted his offer. Tirop’s sisters later observed Rotich driving her around, acting like her coach. Rotich stated recently that he “invested heavily” in preparing Tirop to “be the champion she was by supporting her athletics career and being by her side during training as her assistant and footing her medical bills.” Daisy Jepkemei, Tirop’s childhood best friend, told me that she was impressed by Rotich’s dedication: “He was encouraging.” In 2014, Tirop won the African Cross Country Championship, in Uganda. The next year, she won the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, in China—the youngest winner of that race in thirty years. “I had no fear,” she said, at the time. “I was just trying to run my own race.”

Tirop soon dropped out of school. Her parents protested, suspecting that Rotich was to blame. Tirop loved studying languages, especially Kiswahili. “She was almost finished with secondary school,” Martin told me. The family complained to local authorities that she had left school without their permission, but Rotich and Tirop fled town, eventually moving to Iten. Nahashon Kibon, Tirop’s first coach, warned her about becoming romantically involved with Rotich; this upset Tirop, and she and Kibon went their separate ways. “She was not happy with me,” he said. She began running at a training camp in Iten. In 2016, she and Rotich married in secret, according to court documents. Rotich discouraged her from talking to her parents. Martha Akello, another runner, who lived next door to the couple in Iten, was disturbed by Rotich’s controlling behavior. She told me that the couple shared a phone. “We were neighbors, but he did not permit her to mingle with the other ladies,” she said. “He had to accompany her to training. It’s like she was living in prison.”

In mid-2017, Tirop told Akello that she was pregnant. She seemed happy, and asked Akello for advice on how to balance motherhood with her running career. That fall, Akello learned that she was also pregnant. She was eager to share the news with Tirop, but when they met, Akello recalled, Tirop told her, “Unfortunately, I’m not pregnant anymore.” According to Akello, Tirop said that she had wanted to keep the baby, but that Rotich, who depended on her earnings for his income, had forced her to get an abortion. (Tirop’s other friends and family said that they had no knowledge of her pregnancy.) She told Akello that she regretted agreeing to the procedure and wished that Akello had been around when it happened. (A lawyer representing Rotich did not respond to repeated requests for comment; he hung up on me when I reached him by phone, and then blocked me.)

Tirop’s friends and family began to worry that she was falling into a pattern that was disturbingly common among female runners in Iten. “The husbands expect them to bring home money,” Njeri Migwi, the executive director of Usikimye, an advocacy group that focusses on gender-based violence, told me. “The minute they want certain levels of independence, the men abuse them.��� Around 2018, Tirop reconnected with her family. She had Martin work as her pacemaker. Rotich was always around. “I didn’t have any power to separate them,” Martin said.

One morning last October, I went to visit Brother Colm O’Connell, a missionary and a track coach from Ireland who has lived for five decades in a cottage at a Catholic school in Iten. O’Connell, who is portly, with white sideburns, first came to Kenya in 1976, to teach geography, but ended up coaching track at the school full time. Eventually, he started training athletes hoping to run professionally, and he has become one of the most celebrated coaches in the region. O’Connell occasionally trains foreign athletes, but he focusses primarily on local runners. He had coached David Rudisha, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and two-time world champion. It had rained the night before I visited, and the air was cool and wet. A small group of runners were gathering near O’Connell’s home, stretching and jogging in place. “Have you guys got water, or are you O.K.?” O’Connell shouted. No one wanted water. He told me, “I don’t want them complaining down in the valley.”

Every morning in Iten, in the early hours, I saw people running: Kenyans and foreigners, men and women, with children not far behind. Some wore sneakers; others ran in sandals. “Everybody runs here,” Viola Cheptoo, an Olympic distance runner, told me. One of the people training with O’Connell was from the United Kingdom. “He decided to jump in the deep end,” O’Connell said. Another was a Kenyan American who ran for the University of Alabama. One of O’Connell’s female runners also served in the military and had just been called back to her barracks. Several of the athletes had represented Kenya in major international competitions. The runners headed down the road, and O’Connell and I followed in his pickup truck. We drove past a market in a grassy field, then dipped into the valley, which is a mile deep and filled with golden fields of ripening maize.

Running is Kenya’s most well-known pastime. Some of this national affinity might have biological roots. People in the Kalenjin ethnic group, and particularly those in the Nandi subgroup, who live in the Great Rift Valley, have developed—likely as a result of centuries at high elevation—deeper-than-average lung capacities, bigger and more numerous red blood cells (which transport oxygen to muscles), and lower body masses. Onywera told me that he has found similar traits in Ethiopian communities that also live in the Rift Valley. Many Kenyans consume a milk-rich diet, which is helpful in childhood development. “They also have psychological readiness—the mental belief that they are the best,” Onywera said. The Kalenjin have a long tradition of competing in running, wrestling, and tug-of-war. In the nineteen-twenties, British missionaries encouraged Kalenjin men to join colonial running competitions as a way of distracting them from cattle raiding, political unrest, and potential rebellion. “They wanted to get them to focus on athletics,” Lorna Kimaiyo, a former runner who is now writing a dissertation on the history of Kenyan female runners, told me. The King’s African Rifles, a brutal colonial regiment that put down the Mau Mau rebellion, recruited Kalenjin men to compete in its athletic competitions.

Kenya won its first Olympic medal in track in 1964, the year after it gained independence from Britain. At that time, there was no official running league in Kenya; the telecommunications agency, the post office, the rail and port authorities, and the national airline operated leagues for their employees. Early talents came out of the military. (The Kenya Defense Forces still allows soldiers to take leave in order to race.) In the seventies, American universities began recruiting Kenyan runners, expanding access to formal training. Kenya won four Olympic gold medals in Seoul in 1988; three of the medallists were attending college in the United States. Shoe companies and talent agencies began offering sponsorships and contracts, making the sport more lucrative. Running was soon seen as the best way out of poverty in Kenya.

Young Kenyans who showed promise started coming to Iten to find coaches who would train them. “You have nothing else to do except run,” Joan Jepkorir, an athlete from Iten, told me. Rudisha, who holds the world record in the eight-hundred-metre, moved to Iten in high school. He told me, “Even the girls were better than me.” Training centers and guesthouses—many started by former champions—sprang up. “All of us were farmers, and all of a sudden we have people coming in with really huge amounts of money, winning races, getting millions,” Jepkorir said. In a reversal of colonial dynamics, about half the British national team now trains at the High-Altitude Training Center, a vast complex started by a Kalenjin Olympian. Programs are competitive. O’Connell told me, “Out of almost fifty in our youth group, only about ten are really going to make it to the top and make a living out of the sport.” Some choose to run for other countries instead. Some might take up other endurance sports, like cycling; in 1998, Kenya sent a skier, who first trained as a runner, to the Winter Olympics.

At first, only men ran competitively. But in 1984 the first Olympic women’s marathon was held in Los Angeles. “Kenyan women started to dominate in the nineties, when they were being recruited by American universities,” Kimaiyo said. Tegla Loroupe, a woman from the Great Rift Valley, won the New York marathon in 1994. But, when Kenyan women began to bring home significant prize money, they got a mixed reception. “They were not being celebrated in the Kalenjin community because of our patriarchal culture,” Kimaiyo said. Some men resented their wives’ independence. As O’Connell put it, “The lady is the breadwinner, the lady is the one who is known.” Still, young women began coming to Iten in the hope of finding success. “Most of the athletes in Kenya, they finish their education possibly at the primary or high-school level, and they have nothing, so they say, ‘I want to run,’ ” Jepkorir told me. “You pack your bags. You come to Iten. Your parents maybe give you just a hundred dollars to start your life. But you come to realize it’s not enough. . . . You say, ‘Shit, I’m broke. What do I do?’ That is when the predators come.”

In September, 2021, Tirop and a group of Kenyan runners travelled to the thousand-year-old German village of Herzogenaurach, in the Bavarian countryside. Herzogenaurach was the home town of the Dassler brothers, who, after a feud, founded the rival sneaker companies Adidas and Puma. Tirop was there to compete in the Adizero: Road to Records, organized by Adidas. By this time, she was one of the most successful runners in Kenya. In August, Tirop had competed in the five-thousand-metre race, at the Olympics in Tokyo, and taken fourth place. In Herzogenaurach, she competed in the ten-thousand-metre and finished in an astonishing thirty minutes and one second. She had broken the world record. At the end, Tirop—covered in sweat and wrapped in a huge Kenyan flag—said, “I’m so happy.”

Before the trip, Tirop had asked Martin to meet her and their sister Eve on the road between Eldoret and Iten. Tirop told her siblings that she wanted to leave Rotich. She said that he had been spending her money at bars while she was away, and that she was tired of it. He had become convinced that Tirop was having an affair, perhaps with a childhood friend who was now an Olympian. (The friend denied that this was so, but said that Rotich had grown paranoid about his relationship with Tirop, and was harassing him.) Soon Rotich arrived in a rage, with two police officers. Rotich claimed that Tirop had stolen the car, and the family went to the police station to settle the matter. The officers realized who Tirop was, Martin said, and let her go. But, before they left, he recalled, a female officer warned her to be “very careful,” because Rotich seemed dangerous.

Tirop went to stay with her parents. She told her siblings that Rotich had hit her. She told Martin that he had threatened to burn the house down if she left him. She had told others about Rotich’s behavior, too. In 2021, she told Milcah Chemos, an athletes’ representative from Athletics Kenya, which oversees the sport in the country, that Rotich had abused her. Chemos told me that she spoke to Tirop and Rotich. “She talked about the abuse, but at first she told me, ‘Let me finish my competition first,’ ” Chemos said. “I told him not to do anything and wait for her to finish her competition. Then we would talk.” Chemos seemed focussed on reconciling the couple, and on making sure that Tirop’s training was not interrupted. Chemos insisted that she “didn’t know the story fully,” and that Tirop hadn’t seemed ready to leave Rotich at the time. But Cheptoo, the Olympic distance runner, told me, “Every single time victims go to Athletics Kenya, they tell them to go sort out your own things in private, don’t put your business out there.” (A co-opted member of Athletics Kenya’s executive committee said that he wasn’t aware of Tirop’s story, but contested the idea that the organization turns a blind eye to such reports. He said that Athletics Kenya is now investigating issues of abuse involving its athletes. When The New Yorker reached out to further clarify the organization’s position, it did not respond.)

Before her trip to Herzogenaurach, Tirop went back to Iten to resume her training. She moved into a guesthouse at the training camp. “The first thing was to secure her,” Joseph Cheromei, who managed the camp, told me. “There was a competition coming up.” Cheromei said that he often saw his female runners being exploited by their partners. “I see it every day now,” he said. “The athletes win a race, the man needs to own the earnings, the woman refuses, and the problem arises. It affects the ladies’ performance.” He tried to help keep the peace: “I go and reconcile them.” In October, after the race in Germany, Rotich came to the camp, and Tirop agreed to go back home with him. Eve went with them, and spent the night in their spare room.

The next day, Rotich told Eve that he and Tirop were going to Nairobi for a competition. Eve had no choice but to leave. Later that day, though, she couldn’t reach Tirop. Rotich picked up the phone and told Eve that she was not around. The next morning, Tirop was found stabbed and beaten to death in her home. Rotich had fled, leaving a note, reportedly confessing to the crime and saying that the relationship had been “full of fights.” Police have said that they found a knife and a club at the scene. Rotich later admitted in an affidavit to killing Tirop, but pleaded not guilty to her murder, claiming that he was provoked into killing her because he believed she was having an affair with her childhood friend: “My late wife received a call which she put on speakerphone and had a very demeaning conversation about me with her lover which took me to the edge.” (The childhood friend denied that this call took place, saying that he stopped speaking with Tirop because of Rotich’s harassment.) After the killing, Rotich claimed that he “temporarily lost my mind and I kept driving aimlessly until I got [to] Mombasa.” He was arrested the day after Tirop’s body was found. According to Tirop’s family and their lawyer, Rotich was listed as the owner of several of the couple’s properties. (The lawyer would not make the deeds public because they have not yet been introduced in court.) Tirop’s funeral was held on October 23rd, and was attended by more than a thousand people, including prominent athletes and Kenyan politicians. It would have been her twenty-sixth birthday.

Last fall, I visited the home that Tirop had shared with Rotich, a gray brick house with mauve trim and lime-green doors. A shed outside held her exercise equipment. “Her shoes are still here,” Martin, who now lives there, told me. I went to her training camp. Cheromei was welcoming a group of Italian athletes; he has learned several European languages in order to work with the flood of international runners. Afterward, he took me on a tour, with Tirop’s friend and fellow-runner Mary Keitany. Tirop’s room at the camp was quiet, with a single bed under mosquito netting. “In America, when you have a boyfriend he can kill you or no?” she asked. I told her that there were laws that try to prevent this, but that domestic violence was still one of the leading causes of women being killed in the United States. “Like here in Kenya?” Keitany asked, surprised.

Tirop’s abuse seemed to be an open secret. But Tirop’s friends said that, by the time she competed in the Olympics, they had started to see a difference in her. She was wearing acrylic nails and red lipstick and plaiting her hair. She seemed to be gathering the confidence to finally leave Rotich. Ten days before her body was found, Tirop placed second at a race in Switzerland. Afterward, she had tea with some of the other athletes in Geneva. She asked Jepkorir why it was so much easier to divorce in Europe, and Jepkorir said that it was because women had more independence. “Then she said, ‘I wish divorcing was easier in Kenya,’ ” Jepkorir told me. “I should have said something then.”

When I arrived in Iten, I met up with several of Tirop’s friends, most of whom were current runners. The women greeted one another happily, and asked after Chelimo’s sister, who was pregnant. “When are we going to have your baby shower?” Chelimo teased Jepkorir. Keitany was travelling to New York the following week to be honored for winning the New York marathon four times. The talk turned to Tirop. “She had a good spirit,” Keitany said. After Tirop’s death, her friends had started a WhatsApp group to express their pain, and to discuss what they could do to prevent further violence. Eventually, they formed an organization called Tirop’s Angels, which aims to raise awareness about gender-based violence in Iten, and to offer resources for fighting it. “We want to see a change in this country, especially in our own communities,” Cheptoo told me.

One in three women in Kenya has experienced gender-based violence, according to a survey released this year by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Teen pregnancy and early marriage are common, and when women marry they traditionally have little power in the household; women own less than two per cent of the country’s property in their names alone, the Kenya Land Alliance notes. Domestic violence is seen as a minor offense. “We still have cases of police stations turning away victims,” Sarah Ochwada, a lawyer who handles domestic-violence cases involving athletes, told me in an e-mail. “Because communities view domestic disputes as family issues they try to convince victims to withdraw criminal complaints.”

Many female runners come to Iten in search of an opportunity, and men, often with few real qualifications, offer to coach them. “The trend is that these young girls get into ‘relationships’ with older athletes or trainers who offer them protection against other predators,” Ochwada said. “But over time, it’s those same protectors who begin to abuse them.” When female athletes begin to make money, their male partners control their winnings. Jepkorir, who works for a company that manages athletes, told me that husbands often have control of female runners’ bank accounts. “This is normal to them,” she said. Cheptoo has seen her teammates crying over the issue at races. “They say, ‘My husband is yelling at me for not winning the race, he’s threatening he’ll beat me up when I get home.’ ” When women push back, partners lash out. “I don’t think there’s any woman who goes and asks for her money, and then nothing happens,” Cheptoo said.

Tirop’s Angels holds events at training camps, schools, and churches to raise awareness about domestic violence. The group has helped women leave abusive relationships and find housing. It has connected them with counsellors, provided them with food and clothing, and given them running shoes so that they can continue training. I went with members of Tirop’s Angels to visit a girl they were working with who had fled her home after being abused by her father. They were raising money to pay for her food, medicine, and school fees. She told me, “I’m O.K. now. I’m back in school.”

In October, 2021, the night before Tirop’s death, a twenty-seven-year-old runner named Edith Muthoni, who lived east of Nairobi, was killed; her throat was slit with a machete. In 2014, Lucy Kabuu, another runner, was sued by her ex-husband for control of half of her properties. In the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation, Kabuu has argued that although some of the properties are in his name, she bought them all with her winnings; she has also accused him of stealing from her bank accounts and assaulting her. (Kabuu’s ex-husband has denied the allegations, according to the Daily Nation, and argued that he contributed to the acquisition and development of several pieces of land. The case is ongoing.) This past February, the Olympic gold medallist Vivian Cheruiyot told another Kenyan paper, the Standard, that her husband, Moses Kiplagat, had taken control of her properties, including gas stations and farmland, and that, when she objected, he abused her physically and psychologically. (Kiplagat has denied the allegations, the Standard reported, and claimed that Cheruiyot was facing undisclosed social challenges.)

Many of Tirop’s friends also knew another runner, Damaris Mutua, who had a high forehead and a bright smile, and grew up in a town south of Nairobi. “She loved to talk, and she loved gospel music,” her sister Francisca told me. Mutua began running in primary school, and in 2010 she won a bronze medal for Kenya in the thousand-metre race at the Youth Olympics in Singapore. In 2022, Mutua moved to Iten to train. Later that year, she won second place in the Arab Cross Country Championships in Bahrain, and third place at the Luanda half marathon in Angola. When she returned from Luanda, she was in high spirits. Francisca recalled her saying, “I’ll be bringing back gold next time.”

When Mutua moved to Iten, she stayed with Akello, Tirop’s friend, whom she had met at races in Morocco and France. The women hiked, watched movies, and shared clothes like sisters. “We used to plan,” Akello said. “We had good goals—‘One day we need to run in New York, we need to run in Frankfurt, run in London.’ ” Mutua had a husband named Felix Mwendwa Ngila, and they had a son, who was seven. Ngila worked as a security guard in Qatar, and Mutua rarely saw him. But, after a few months of living with Akello, Mutua told her that she was moving out because her husband was coming to visit. “I said, ‘No problem,’ ” Akello told me. “But she lied to me.”

In fact, Mutua wanted to move in with an Ethiopian runner named Eskinder Hailemaryam Folie, with whom she was having an affair. Folie was tall, with a narrow face and short curls. Jepkorir, who knew him as a fellow-runner, told me that he seemed like a “nice guy.” Mutua and Folie had first met in 2021, at a bar, watching the Boston Marathon. Saleh Kiprotich, Folie’s close friend, frequently visited him and Mutua at their home, where Folie cooked Ethiopian food. When Mutua travelled, Folie sometimes took care of her son.

But over time, according to Kiprotich, Folie became worried that Mutua was going to cheat on him. He would monitor her movements and ask Kiprotich to run errands for her so that she wouldn’t have to leave the house. “He was so insecure and jealous,” Kiprotich said. Folie eventually forbade Kiprotich and other male friends to visit the house when he wasn’t there. In April, 2022, Mutua saw her husband during a layover in Qatar, which angered Folie. He told Kiprotich that he had spent money on Mutua for her gear, her training, and her son, but, now that she was winning races, she seemed less interested in him. “Men identify a lady who can run, then do everything for her, expecting that, when the lady becomes a star, he will be the one controlling the money,” Kiprotich told me.

Later in April, Mutua’s body was found on the bed in Folie’s home. She had been strangled. According to the police, Folie confessed to a friend that he had killed her, then went into hiding, likely in Ethiopia. He is wanted for arrest. A week after the killing, Kiprotich said, he and Folie spoke on the phone, and Folie blamed the killing on Mutua’s alleged lover. “I told him, ‘You’re lying,’ ” Kiprotich said. “Then he started saying that the lady had so many boyfriends that she was dating him and dating other guys at the same time. He told me, ‘I’ve spent a lot of money on this girl.’ ” (Folie did not respond to repeated messages from me, and from Kiprotich on my behalf, asking for comment.) Ngila, Mutua’s husband, was devastated. “The act was so inhuman,” he said. Akello was still reeling from Tirop’s death when she learned of Mutua’s. “I should have never let her leave my place,” she said. It was the second murder of an élite female runner in Iten within six months.

Recently, I met with Christine Muyanga and Purity Kalekye Mutui, two of Mutua’s friends, at a runners’ lodge in Iten. “The problem is that, if you compare the athletic careers of women and men, the women have more of a chance to succeed,” Muyanga said. Women tended to take time off to get married or raise children, reducing the number of them who are competitive at any given time. For men who were struggling to distinguish themselves, athletic romantic partners could be a lifeline. “They want that money, and, at the end of the day, even your husband can kill you for it,” Muyanga said. Mutua’s death came just a few months after Tirop’s Angels was formed. Cheptoo told me, “We’d been trying so hard to protect our sisters out there and call for the murders to stop, and it felt like the message was just falling on deaf ears.” At the lodge, Muyanga and Mutui showed me photographs of their children, and said that they did not want them to become runners. “I tell the small athletes, ‘If you have violence in your marriage, you have to sit down and share with your friends,’ ” Mutui told me. “If you stay silent, it can kill you.”

The Saturday before I left Iten, Tirop’s Angels held an event for women in the area at a local primary school. It was sunny but chilly, and the lawn was full of girls and women. Tirop’s Angels put on loud Kalenjin music, and the audience, wrapped in kikoy blankets, got up and danced. The members of Tirop’s Angels passed out brochures explaining the warning signs of domestic violence. A female doctor urged mothers to tell someone if their children were being abused. A few runners spoke about the violence they had experienced in their homes. Then Cheptoo took the microphone. “I think everybody knows what happened to Agnes,” she said. “Most of us know that Agnes was killed by her husband. In our community, domestic fights are common. . . . Isn’t it important for us to be talking with our daughters?”

Kenyan authorities are still searching for Folie. Francisca, Mutua’s sister, told me, “We just want justice to be served.” Rotich is in custody, and recently requested a plea bargain to reduce the charge to manslaughter because, he said, he killed Tirop as a result of an “extreme provocation that left me no other option.” The prosecution has declined his request, and his next hearing is expected this month. Tirop’s family say that they have recovered some of the properties. “We need him to face judgment,” Martin told me.

But the justice system is not often friendly to victims of gender-based violence. I spoke to Andolo Munga, who works on criminal investigations for Iten and the surrounding area. He said that the Tirop and Mutua families had his sympathies, but he contested my use of the term “domestic violence” to describe the cases. He suggested that the motive in Mutua’s killing had been a “domestic misunderstanding.” He asked me if I was married, and how old I was. “You must be having either a man friend or boyfriend?” Munga said. “Do you want to say it is all a bed of roses?” He continued, “In both cases, nobody had reported that she is being mishandled by the boyfriend or the husband. . . . Why had they not even reported it to Athletics Kenya?” I said that Tirop had talked to someone at Athletics Kenya about her abuse, but that, in general, women were often afraid to report violence, for fear that they would not be taken seriously. Munga told me that women had no reason to fear the police. Many, he said, simply preferred not to press charges, or to use “alternative dispute resolution,” a constitutionally enshrined system that allows conflicts to be mediated by local elders rather than by the courts. (A.D.R. is also seen by critics as focussed primarily on reconciling couples, even when partners remain violent.) “We get official reports, you start investigating, then they come and withdraw and say they’re going for A.D.R.,” Munga said.

Njeri Migwi, the advocacy-group director, told me that, as long as gender-based violence was seen as normal, laws criminalizing it meant nothing. “At health centers, where are the posters?” she asked. “Where is the messaging around gender-based violence? Where do we tell people it’s not O.K., and what it is, and how it can look for different people? It needs to be out there at the community level, in schools, in our curriculums.” Tirop’s Angels has been pushing the government to establish safe houses for victims, and response teams that are separate from police departments. They want prosecutors and police officers to receive more training in dealing with women’s claims, and for Athletics Kenya to create more resources for athletes who report abuse. Until then, the burden falls on girls to avoid dangerous situations. The group is urging young female runners to be wary of romantic entanglements with coaches or trainers, and to maintain control of their money once they get married. “You have to pay yourself,” Mary Keitany said. “You have to know your rights.” Migwi told me that she was hopeful about change coming from grassroots work. “Women talk,” she said. “We’re taking charge of our own stories.”

After the Tirop’s Angels event, several women approached Cheptoo for her phone number. “It’s been really good to know that people, especially women, finally trust us,” she said. She watched the crowd talking on the lawn, drinking tea and eating bread. “When we started Tirop’s Angels, it was out of anger, and I needed answers as to why this happened,” she said. “I’m still angry, and I don’t have any answers.” ♦

[grey-tones]

I had such a nice and wholesome dream about coming out to my grandpa who I never get to see anymore

[twiixr4kidz]

if it's ok could you please make some envy and lisa headcanons? mostly like dating headcanons?? ty <3 love your posts

OMG YES, NO PROBLEM!! i love lisa and envy >:)) also, tysm!!

lisa and envy dating hcs!!

lisa:

such an actual dork

she gets jealous super easily

she's the kind of girl who will wear specific outfits JUST FOR YOUR EYES

she's really springy and jumpy and fun

super energetic and social, she's always dragging you to these new places you've never been before

she also knows like, everybody on the planet

her hair is super soft and she loves when you run your fingers through it

she tastes like a peach soda on a hot summer evening in the fading daylight

she's also the kind of girl who would write you love letters with little stickers and doodles and stuff

doodles your name in hearts at every chance she gets

in her favorite pink pen, mind you

she's always been super high energy party girl, so you can bet a lot of your dates are gonna be high energy

parties, amusement parks, literally anywhere where things are loud and bouncy and FUN

literally loves dragging you to the beach

she always smells really good, and her skin is like. scary soft. that girl feels like literal SILK.

envy:

she's a whole new person when you're together

normally, envy's pretty cold, closed-off, and a little bit snotty? but if you're dating her, that means you were able to break her out of her shell

she's quiet, content, and smiley

so, so smiley

fame has tainted her view of the world, and you're renewing it through your unconditional love

shows her love not through words or touch, but through actions

she's usually the person who gets waited on hand and foot

envy does (and gets) what she wants

but for you? you're a whole different story

she takes care of you because she wants to

she's used to being complimented and praised by the public, but when it's you, she becomes very easily flustered

she's passionate about cooking, but her career overshadows it, so she absolutely loves cooking for you

if you leave your clothes at her house, she's going to make sure they're clean and soft and cozy just for you

she also doesn't mind helping you do things; in fact, she volunteers

she has a tendency to tell you to shut up when's she flustered

she bullies you affectionately (teasing you over small things, calling you names, etc.) but she is NEVER mean

if she makes a comment that genuinely hurts your feelings, she apologizes (but you do usually have to prompt her because a lot of the time, she doesn't really realize it)

she never intentionally means to hurt you like, EVER

[tellmealovestory]

That Summer (1/?)

Summary: You’ve spent every summer since you were a child in the idyllic beach town you call home three months out of the year. This summer should be no different except for the addition of Bucky Barnes. Sparks fly upon first meeting, but it’s only a summer fling, right? Modern AU.

Notes: Also posted on my ao3. The beautiful divider I used is from @whimsicalrogers​

Warnings: Surprisingly no swear words and a very brief mention of sexy times. 

Mosquitos battled with the scratchy blanket beneath your body in a fight over who could do more damage to your sensitive skin. So far it was a tie. Music drifted out of your car speakers, a bouncy pop song, something meant for being blared at top decibels in a darkened club, sweaty bodies moving together, colorful drinks filled to the brim of expensive glasses. Not something for laying in a field an hour outside of the city stargazing.

It was a warm night, a promise of what was to come as summer began its lazy descent. Summer. Just the word always conjured long days, lazy nights, uniforms of shorts and tank tops, bare feet. Frozen slushees from the local convenience store staining lips and teeth and tongues blues and reds and purples, bags of potato chips and handfuls of candy bars. Windows rolled down, music turned all the way up, singing off key to lyrics that seemed as if they were written for you and only you as you drove aimlessly through the city before venturing onto the back roads that would take you far from the bright lights and the familiarity of your life to somewhere else.

The crinkle of a candy wrapper being balled up, the obnoxious slurp of a straw searching for the last remnants of a cherry slushee mixed with vodka had your teeth grinding in annoyance at your sometimes friend sprawled out next to you on the blanket.

“This is your last night here and this is how you choose to spend it?”

You didn’t have to take your eyes off of the stars shining and twinkling above you, winking like they held secrets, like they knew what the future, more specifically what this summer would hold for you to know she was rolling her eyes at you.

And while you tried to tell yourself you didn’t care her tone still stung.

“You didn’t have to come,” you pointed out, leaving out the part about how she only came because her sometimes boyfriend ditched her again. “And it’s not like I’m not coming back. It’s only for the summer, remember?”

“Whatever. Have fun with your summer friends,” she sneered, tone icy, piercing straight through the warmth in your chest.

It was harder this time to hide the physical way her words stung. Flinching you inched away from her on the blanket. You weren’t a mean person, but you still thought about getting in your car and abandoning her here.

Ignoring her huffed sighs, the slurp of the straw, the way she boldly reached across you grabbing your plastic cup still half full with the blue raspberry slushee you kept your gaze focused on the sky above you.

A bright streak danced across the sky, so quick if you had blinked one second sooner, if you had turned your head away from the sky you would have missed it. Your heart sped up at the sight, awe and doubt mixing in your mind. Blindly grabbing for your friends arm you excitedly pointed at the sky, blabbering about the shooting star.

Obsessed since you had learned about them in school books had been consumed, online articles inhaled, paintings painted, stories written, but you had never expected to see one.

In the blink of an eye it was gone and you were left wondering if you had seen its beauty at all.

Closing your eyes you inhaled damp grass, the alcohol infused breath of your sometimes friend, the sugary sweet slushees, the salty potato chips that swirled around you and made a wish on the brightly burning shooting star that had streaked across the sky for that one glorious brief moment.

I wish to fall in love this summer.

“You’re not mad are you?”

Your eyes were glued to the scenery that shot past your windows. The large mansions that sat dotted on the beach before giving way to gift shops and tourists traps. The ocean that glittered and shined when the bright sun hit it. The sand that had you itching to beg Wanda to pull the car over so you could run through the burning heat before dipping your feet into the still cold ocean water. Tires hummed on the road, salty ocean air inhaled, wind rustling against your hair and ruffling your shirt.

After stepping off the plane, smile on your face, sweat soaking through your shirt at the heat that hit you as soon as you had stepped out of the air conditioned terminal you had run straight into your best friends arms squealing like preteen girls at a boy band concert.

The conversation had flowed easily with her pointing out the new shops, restaurants, the gossip you had missed out on when you had left at the end of last summer. It wasn’t until the conversation had drifted to the evenings plans that it began to stall.

Your first night back had always been a girls night with take out food, homemade desserts you had brought with you, bottles of soda when you were younger that turned into shared bottles of wine, trashy television shows as you caught up with each other’s lives in person instead of over texts and skype.

This year however plans had changed.

“I’m not mad.” It was hard to be mad when you would be spending the next three months in paradise, but you were disappointed.

You had always looked forward to the first night together to unwind, to catch up, but now you were going to be spending it with their friends feeling like the awkward out of towner struggling to keep up with their inside jokes, their familiar banter.

Tearing your gaze away from the scenery you turned your attention to Wanda offering her a small smile. It was only one night.

“It’ll be fun!” Wanda chirped.

Showered, fresh faced, damp haired, bags piled high on your bed in Wanda’s spare room a quick girls night had commenced with Natasha. Gossiping over chips and dip the three of you had made plans for the summer before piling into the car heading to the party.

Christmas lights were strung throughout the house and on the back porch leading the place to have a whimsical feel. When they had told you a party you had been expecting wall to wall people, red solo cups, couples making out, drunk people stumbling and laughing.

What greeted you instead were motorcycles parked in the driveway, along the tree lined streets. Loud music spilled from the peach two story house. A few people stood outside, bottles of beer held between fingers, thumbs furiously scrolling through phones, leather jackets adorning shoulders despite the oppressive heat.

Everybody seemed to know who Natasha and Wanda were. It was impossible to take two steps without someone coming up to say hey. Introductions were made, but the more people you met the more the names and faces blurred together.

Ending up in the kitchen leaning against the counter, a bottle of warm beer pressed into your hand your eyes swept over the small crowd that clustered around the keg. More leather jackets placed on shoulders, animated conversations swirling around you, cigarette tips burning bright orange, smoke exhaled leading the kitchen to be filled with a hazy fog that made your head ache with fatigue.

Weight shifting from foot to foot, beer bottle sweating with condensation in your hand, strangers nodding in your direction in lieu of hellos. You were used to standing on the sidelines, watching everything and everybody with a keen eye, but it didn’t make it any less lonely.

Pushing through the scattered bodies of the kitchen you slid open the patio door inhaling the pine trees that surrounded the back yard, the salty ocean air that could be faintly smelled in the distance. The night air was muggy, the sky dark, the stars twinkling and as you stumbled to the railing you closed your eyes willing the fresh air and the stars to ease your loneliness.

“Careful there.”

Your body froze at the husky voice that dared to break your peaceful solitude. Shoulders tensed you exhaled, slowly opening your eyes to see a tall man, dark hair pulled into a man bun, cigarette dangling from kissable lips. He was beautiful standing there in the glow of the Christmas lights that were strung along the railing.

Convinced he was talking to someone else you turned your head, gaze inspecting the patio, the yard, but it was just you and the dark haired stranger.

A long drag off the cigarette, a quirk of an eyebrow and he was speaking again, voice low and gravelly. “You good?”

“Uh yup, yeah, great, thanks,” you rambled, loosening your hold on the railing. Worried that he’d think you were drunk you whirled around to face him, watching the way his beefy body leaned against the porch railing a few feet away from you. Caring what people thought about you, trying too hard to make everyone happy around you were were faults you had yet to overcome. It didn’t matter that you didn’t know him you still found yourself, to your horror, blurting out, “I’m not drunk!”

Exhaling a stream of smoke he stubbed out his cigarette. “Never thought you were.” His lips tilted upwards, a ghost of a smile on his face, a wisp of hair falling from his bun and framing his face.

“Right,” you said slowly. Shifting your weight from foot to foot you cleared your throat determined to start over on a better note. “I just... my friends left me alone for a couple minutes and I guess I sort of panicked and needed some fresh air and I didn’t know you were out here and... you’re laughing.”

It was rich, the kind of laugh a person could fall in love with. Throaty and hoarse like he had used his voice up on talking all day though you suspected it had more to do with the cigarettes. So far he appeared to be a man of few words.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

The only thing better than his laugh was the way he stepped closer, the floorboards of the porch creaking beneath his clunky black boots as he closed the gap of space between your bodies.

Up close he was even more striking. Sculpted jaw, cheeks painted the lightest shade of pink that reminded you of spring roses, eyes so bright they rivaled the color of the ocean. Tight black tee shirt that you hinted at the built body beneath it, black leather jacket that matched the other ones inside of the house. Blue jeans that you somehow knew hid a perfect ass.

It was impossible to take your eyes off of him, but the feeling appeared mutual as his eyes lingered on your hair, your makeup free face, the thin strapped summer dress you had thrown on with a pair of sandals.

Had it been any other man standing before you, stare lingering you would have felt self-conscious, would have crossed your arms over your chest and cleared your throat before politely making an excuse and scurrying away.

It was reckless and dangerous. You didn’t know him, but instead of being put off by his staring you felt strangely... okay with it. You didn’t know him, had never seen him during any of your previous summer visits, but there was something familiar about him tugging at your heartstrings as if you already knew him, as if you guys had known each other your whole lives. It was a feeling you had never experienced before. You didn’t even know his name, but you couldn’t help feeling that this man was somehow going to be important to you.

Maybe it was jet lag, too much cigarette smoke, thrown off your usual first day rituals, but being in his presence made you feel alive, made you feel like you could truly be yourself. You didn’t have to be the perky, can fix anything, people pleaser that made you a such a good fit working at your moms wedding planner company. And you didn’t have to be the awkward fly on the wall third or fifth wheel when out with your friends. You felt like you could be yourself, whoever that was and it was freeing.

Inhaling the muggy night air you met his gaze. It was electric, inviting and you found yourself wanting to plop down on a lawn chair and spill to him all your secrets.

“Can we start over? I’m Y/N.”

“Bucky.”

Cheers erupted from inside the kitchen, but neither of you turned to look. In a matter of minutes the party was forgotten and you were fine with that.

“You new in town?”

“It’s that obvious?”

There it was, that smirk again, gentle lift of his shoulder in a shrug, another piece of hair escaping his man bun. In a way you supposed it was obvious. It seemed as if everyone at the party were wearing leather jackets with the words Howling Commandos stitched on the back and everyone had known who Natasha and Wanda were.

“Small town,” he said. “I know most of the people here, but you I don’t know.”

“Not true. I introduced myself before,” you quipped, feeling a sense of pride when he let out another throaty laugh. “Are you the welcoming committee in town? Cause if you are I gotta say you’re not doing too good of a job hiding out here.”

His laughter filled the porch and in that instant you knew you’d do anything to hear it again and again. It was so warm like feeling the sun on your bare skin the first time after the end of a long winter.

“Maybe I was monitoring the situation out here. Gotta make sure no one comes barreling out and runs into the railing. Don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.” His eyes drank you in slowly, a smile cracking through his smirk waiting to see your reaction.

Biting back a laugh you shook your head at the banter feeling both out of your element, but somehow so at ease. “I’d say you need a little more work.”

“You do, huh? I dunno I thought my methods worked. Got you to stop didn’t it?”

“Total fluke.”

“You sure about that, Y/N?”

The way he said your name had your heart beating straight out of your chest. He said it slowly, letting it roll across his tongue, confidently as if he was used to chatting up girls, making them feel special for a night or two. His hand moved to the railing, his pinky finger nudging yours. It was a light touch, barely a touch at that, but the electric sparks it was emitting had you itching to grab him by the collar of his leather jacket and kiss him.

Consumed by the way his barely there touch had you feeling you didn’t notice at first the way he had stepped closer, close enough that you could smell the smoke from his earlier cigarette, the beer that he must have been drinking mixed with something woodsier. Your favorite scent had always been coconut, but now... now it was whatever was wafting off of him.

“So you know why I was out here, but why are you out here?” You asked softly, not wanting to speak too loudly and break the spell. Your gaze flickered from his eyes to his lips and back. His gaze followed suit.

“Told you why I was out here,” he murmured, voice just as low, fingers ghosting over your hand, circling your wrist.

Your eyes darted down to watch the way his long fingers danced over your bracelet. Resisting the urge to close your eyes at the relaxing touches you flinched when the patio door slid open, loud music spilling out, louder voices shouting in the distance, a drunken couple stumbling out the doors, lips attached, hands roaming.

“That’s why I’m out here,” he grumbled.

His words could have been referring to anything, but when his head turned to stare disdainfully at the couple tearing each other’s clothes off oblivious to their surroundings you murmured an ah understanding.

“Should we...?” You asked, words trailing off when the woman let out an embarrassingly loud moan that rivaled that of a pornstars.

“C’mon.” His large fingers circled your wrist giving it a gentle tug.

You didn’t know him, but that didn’t stop you from following his lead as he led you down the patio steps and around the house to the front yard. The grass was cool when it rubbed against your ankles, laughter and bottles mixing and clinking together could be heard drifting from the open windows. The moon was only a crescent, but it somehow seemed to shine brighter out here than it did back home.

The front of the house was empty, but the line of motorcycles still lingered. Leading you to the front porch steps he sat down, gesturing for you to do the same.

“I’m disappointed, Bucky.” Turning your head to the side you caught a flicker of that beautiful smile that laced his lips and your only hope was that with your next set of words you could coax out another hearty laugh.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“As head of the welcoming committee in town you really should have welcomed them instead of running away.”

Bursting into laughter at the groan he let loose you nudged his shoulder trying hard to settle the way your heart sped up at the contact.

“Stick around long enough and you’ll be seeing more of them than you ever wanted to.”

“I feel like there’s a story behind that.”

“Maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

“Maybe I’d like that.”

A motorcycle roared to life before racing off down the street. A group of guys carrying cases of beers stepped around you and Bucky entering the house, their raucous and drunken laughter filling your ears. The moon subtly shifted its position in the sky. But through it all, the distractions that flitted around you urging your attention elsewhere your focus never left each other’s eyes as if you were magnets drawn to each other and in a way you supposed that was true.

“Bucky!”

The voice was impatient as if they had been trying to grab his attention for awhile now. The spell you had fallen under was broken. A muttered curse word under his breath, a thin line of his lips, his head tilting to the side glaring at the man who had interrupted him, another piece of hair slipping from his bun.

For a minute no words were spoken and you felt caught in the middle, torn between ushering him towards the man calling his name and staying out of it.

“When you get done making googly eyes at your girl over there we could use your help in here, man.”

Staring down at your lap you tried to hide your smile at the way he had referred to you as his girl. You barely knew Bucky, certainly didn’t know his friend, but that didn’t stop the pattering of your heart or stretched smile.

“Sounds serious,” you commented, eyes lifting up to his.

“Probably a fight,” he muttered. Running a hand through his hair he heaved a sigh. The reluctance to leave was written across his face and you were pleased that the feeling was mutual.

“You should go. You know make sure nobody’s barreled through the railing out back,” you teased. The last thing you wanted was for him to leave, but it was the right thing to do. Even so that didn’t stop the stinging in your chest or the worries that this would be it, the first and the last time you saw him.

Standing up he exhaled a slow stream of breath. “Yeah,” he murmured lowly, more to himself than to you as if he had to talk himself into leaving.

Still, he didn’t make a move to leave. It was only when that impatient voice yelled for him again did Bucky yell back that he was coming.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?”

It wasn’t what you had been hoping for. You had hoped he’d ask for you number, maybe ask if he could see you again. Swallowing your disappointment you painted a smile on your face.

“It’s a small town, right?” You called out to him.

His smile was bright, lighting up the front porch steps. His laugh was rich, sending your heart racing. And when you turned around to get a final look at him your heart almost burst out of your chest when you saw him watching you too before he disappeared into the house.

“Wow,” Natasha smirked, arm looped through Wanda’s they strolled down the front steps coming to a stop where Bucky had been only moments before. “For someone who wasn’t excited about the party looks like you were enjoying yourself quite a bit.”

Keeping quiet for a second you struggled to gather your thoughts as Wanda looped her arm through yours and you began an unsteady walk back to the car. Choosing your words carefully you said, “It was... better than I expected it was going to be.”

Most of your experience with parties involved attending wedding receptions and those weren’t for enjoyment, those were part of your job working quickly to settle feuding family members, making sure to hand out coffee to the people toeing the line of tipsiness and embarrassingly drunk. In high school you had only ever gone to a couple parties too worried about your classmates would think of you to ever truly let loose.

“You should have given him your phone number,” Wanda said. Unlocking the car and unlocking your arms you slid into the backseat your head resting against the headrest, your fingers pushing the button that lowered the window.

“All done.” Natasha’s smirk was wide as she stared at you in the rear view mirror before starting the car.

“Natasha!” You yelped. “You can’t just give guys my number and don’t you think if he wanted it he would have asked?”

The radio blared to life as the car started, a semi familiar song blasting from the speakers, tires thrummed on the road, the mugginess of the night rushing in through the open windows.

Wanda reached forward to turn the volume down, but Natasha swatted her hand away. Their laughter mixed with the pumping bass flowed to the back seat where you smiled softly at them though they couldn’t see you.

“He was going to. I’m sure of it,” Wanda said. Twisting in her seat to face you her expression was open, tone confident and despite your own doubts about his intentions or lack there of you believed her.

Closing your eyes you let the music wash over you, your mind replaying the nights events over and over again.

Tags;

@nacho-bucky​

@redhairedfeistynerd​

[princess-mei]

Mei 美美 Qin – Character Sheet

it’s like everything you say is a sweet revelation / all i wanna do is get into your head / yeah we could stay alone, you and me and this temptation / sipping on your lips, hanging on by a thread, baby

late night watching television / but how’d we get in this position / it’s way too soon, i know this isn’t love (no) / but i need to tell you something

i really really really really really really like you / and i want you, do you want me, do you want me too?

Archetype — The Explorer Birthday — July 9th, 2002 Zodiac Sign — Year of the Horse, Rising Leo, Sun in Cancer, Moon in Cancer MBTI — ENFP Enneagram — 2, the Helper Temperament — Sanguine Hogwarts House — Gryffindor Moral Alignment — Chaotic Good Primary Vice — Lust Primary Virtue — Charity Element — Water/Fire (she’s a Water Horse, so she definitely identifies with that but in Western tradition she is Fire.)

Overview:

Mother — Tanya Qin Father — Peng Qin Mother’s Occupation — Editor-in-Chief of the San Francisco Chronicle Father’s Occupation — financial diviner Family Finances — wealthy Birth Order — middle Brothers —  none Sisters — Ting-Ting (Gemma Chan, May 13, 1993), Su (January 22, 2003) Other Close Family — close to their mother’s side, father’s side lives in China, but they’ve taken trips to see them once or twice. do not have any cousins/aunts/uncles, but close to their grandparents. Best Friend — Daisy Zanetti, they grew up together. Met in school and were thick as thieves right away. Daisy is a half-fairy, so they both understood the whole “half” background thing. Other Friends — Lots and lots of friends~ Enemies — There was probably like one Mean Girl that Mei was always antagonizing and who was always antagonizing her. Pets — None. Home Life During Childhood — Relatively happy. Has nice, loving parents. Did a lot of Family Activities, since that was important. Mother was busy a lot with work, but her father was around a lot and Ting-Ting was always around (until she went to school.) Town or City Name(s) — San Francisco, CA What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — Posters everywhere! Very personalized and customized. Lots of reds and golds. Probably had like one of those net things around her bed. Always very messy, because Mei starts a project and then just jumps to the next. Lots of natural light too probably. Any Sports or Clubs — Dance and Gymnastics. Mei has kept up with both of these throughout the year. Does both ballet and hip hop. Her favorite gymnastics is rhythmics. Favorite Toy or Game — She wouldn’t consider it a toy or game, of course, but loves doing tarot and tea readings. Also enjoys a good board game, is very competitive though. Schooling — Public school. Favorite Subject — Physical Education ?? Maybe literature. Art classes… Popular or Loner — Decently popular. She wasn’t one of the people that everyone knew but she had a wide circle of friends. Important Experiences or Events — Discovering she had divination skills. Deciding her specialization. Moving to Swynlake! Nationality — American Culture — Chinese-American Religion and beliefs — Spiritual, borrowing from a spread of Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese folklore, and Confucianism.

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim — Cheng Xiao Complexion — Fair-skinned Hair Colour — Naturally a dark brown, but she dyes it a lot! Eye Colour — Dark brown. Height — 5’6 Build — Athletic, but slim. Tattoos — None. Piercings — Ears. Common Hairstyle — Likes to braid it or put it in two buns. Does a lot of half-up/half-down hairstyles. Clothing Style — Chic and trendy, lots of colors and patterns. Mannerisms — Very bouncy, doesn’t sit still much. Twirls her hair around her finger a lot. Usual Expression —

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Pretty healthy! I’m sure this is due to Ting-Ting constantly balancing her Yin-Yang Physical Ailments — None. Neurological Conditions — None. Allergies — None! Grooming Habits — Rather good. Takes a lot of care with her appearance. Always makes sure to moisturize and exfoliate and change out of sweaty clothes. Sleeping Habits — Average. Eating Habits — Eats a lot because Su is constantly making things, but can forget meals if she is distracted or concentrating. Exercise Habits —  Exercises a lot! Does all sorts of things like pilates and swimming and jogging. Emotional Stability — I give her a 7/10, she loses points for being a stubborn, unreasonable teenager and for her temper, but otherwise is pretty even-keeled. Body Temperature — Average. Sociability — Very social! Loves surrounding herself with people. Addictions — Love? Drug Use — None, we will see. Alcohol Use — Has gone to parties where she’s drank before, but not often.

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — Interrupting people, bouncing from topic to topic, meddling in things that she shouldn’t, talking back, being a general nuisance. Good Habits — Very kind, very caring. Wants to take care of all her people. Strong moral compass. Best Characteristic — Her certainty. Worst Characteristic — Her stubbornness. Worst Memory — Being told she would have to move to Swynlake. Best Memory — When her father told her that he was proud of her for completing her studies for being a sorcerer and accepting an apprenticeship. Proud of — Her magic, her family history, her looks, her sporting ability. Embarrassed by — Not much, probably the fact she isn’t very good at school. Driving Style — Probably was just learning how to drive. A speed demon, but surprisingly a good driver. Strong Points — Her moral center and her big heart. Temperament — Can be explosive, but general soft and sweet. Attitude — Generally positive. Weakness — Not knowing what she wants. Fears — Not knowing what she’s going to do with her life. Phobias — Anything unlucky, though I wouldn’t call it a phobia, more of a cautious regard. Secrets — None really? She doesn’t keep much from people. She’s very “This Is Who I am. Fight Me.” Regrets — Having to leave Swynlake. Feels Vulnerable When — People are angry or upset with her, she’s not following her heart. Pet Peeves — Being told she’s wrong, lol. Conflicts — Duty to Family v Duty to Heart Motivation — Following her heart. Short Term Goals and Hopes — Make friends and something out of her life in Swynlake. Long Term Goals and Hopes — Figure out what she wants to do with her life. Sexuality — As-is she is straight, but this can change. Day or Night Person — Day Introvert or Extrovert — Extrovert. Optimist or Pessimist — Optimist except she can be really sour when things don’t go her way.

Likes and Styles:

Music — Oh, gosh–where to start? Mei loves love songs, of course. Big fan of Elton John, Elvis Presley, Celine Dion, etc etc. She also loves modern stuff, of course. Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ed Sheeran…if she’s really feeling it some Florence and the Machine. Loves KPop too. I’ll let Lauryl tell me who she stans. (Is that the phrase I feel like there is a phrase.) Anyway, anything that is love related, she’ll give it a listen. Books — Doesn’t actually like reading that much, tbh. Doesn’t hold her interest. Magazines — Do people read magazines anymore? Does Buzzfeed count as a magazine? Probably giggles over Cosmopolitan. Foods — Sweets! Chocolate is her favorite, but she likes licorice a lot too. Is one of those weird people that likes black licorice. Also, loves a good rice pudding. That’s probably her favorite dessert. She also loves chicken, any kind of chicken–she doesn’t care what you put it in or what you put on it. Isn’t much of a picky eater. Actually really enjoys being adventurous with her food. Drinks — Green tea, green tea, green tea! Mei loves tea, especially iced. She also surprisingly likes salt soda water–she goes back and forth on sweet and savory. Sometimes, she just really wants salt soda water because it is just crisp and refreshing and wakes her back-up and reorients her yin-yang when she needs it. Animals — Elephants! Mei loves elephants. She’s that girl that has like elephant shirts and an elephant backpack and an elephant stuffed animal probably. They have such a high emotional capacity and Mei really respects them for this. They are also just so cute with their floppy ears and their soft, sweet eyes! Loves birds too as most of them are symbols of good luck and good tidings–besides owls, which are harbingers of death. Sports — Gymnastics and dance. Social Issues — Magick Rights is the biggest one. Also feminism. Also all the “main” issues. Favorite Saying — “Better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness” - Chinese Proverb Color — Golds, yellows, reds, blues are her favourites. She loves gold because it is a Classy color. Most of her jewelry is gold. She loves yellow because it is bright and happy! Red is lucky in Chinese culture and it always reminds her of times like New Year’s! Also, it is the color of passion and love. Blues she likes because they are calming and gentle.  These are her lucky colors. She also loves pink, even though it is technically a color that she should avoid. Really hates white, because she doesn’t like what a blank slate it is. Also, hates brown because it is an icky boring color. As you can see, she has a lot of Opinions on colors. Clothing —Chic and trendy, lots of colors and patterns. Jewelry — Loves it! Wears mostly gold. Probably has a few staple pieces but then exchanges things depending on her mood. Websites — Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter etc etc TV Shows — CW shows and K/Cdramas Movies — All the great love classics: Gone with the Wind, the Titanic, When Harry Met Sally, Roman Holiday, all of Audrey Hepburn probably, the Notebook, Singing in the Rain…I could go on and on. She loves movies that tug at the heart strings and are full of that wild, amazing, passionate kind of love. They always make her swoon and if she is choosing a movie for movie night, you know it’s gonna be a romantic tearjerker. Though, she also likes romcoms. Doesn’t like action movies or horror movies or anything too intense, they freak her out Greatest Want — To figure out what to do with her life. Greatest Need — To grow up and learn things aren’t all about her, lmao.

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — A three bedroom apartment with Ting-Ting and Su. Household furnishings — Rather plain at the moment, but will probably grow cozy as they settle in. Favorite Possession — Her pseudogrimoire where she writes down all the signs and stuff that she sees and puzzles out the meaning to. Most Cherished Possession — Her wand, which is a fan that was her mother’s, her mother gave it to her and her father and Ting-Ting help her imbibe it with magic. Neighborhood — Tortuga Place Married Before — No Significant Other Before — Non-serious boyfriends and Serious crushes Children — She iS a child Relationship with Family — Very close with her dad, even though he’s always yelling at her and being disappointed in her. They have a lot in common and she loves him. Her and her mother also get along more or less, she’s less stringent than her dad. Ting-Ting and her probably have the most contentious relationship, but even that hasn’t been that bad really. Mostly Mei being a nosy, annoying little sister. It will get more intense now that Ting-Ting is the authority figure and Mei is pissed about their situation. Su and Mei get along more or less well, they annoy each other, as sisters are wont to do, but Mei would def consider Su one of her best friends. Car — None. Career — Student Dream Career — She doesn’t know !! Dream Life — Married, with children, though she doesn’t know what she wants out of a career. Love Life — Nonexistant, which pisses her off. Talents or Skills — Excellent gymnast and very good with her magic. Intelligence Level — Decently intelligent, has street smarts, tbh. Very sharp in conversation. Finances — Wealthy

[eurynome827]

There’s No Place Like Home

For Cake’s 1940s Challenge!

Prompt: “There’s no place like home.” – The Wizard of Oz  // Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: just a smidge of ending angst that accompanies the air of inevitability. A/N: The release date and holiday traditions mentioned are a product of a quick Google search. Nothing like waiting until the last minute! Thank you for hosting this challenge and allowing me to be a part of it @cake-writes!

1939

The Wizard of Oz premiered in theatres August 25, 1939. It took you from that date to October 31 to cobble together a Lion costume for your darling little brother. It wasn't a chore, really. You adored him, so you didn't mind the late hours at the dress shop you worked at or the extra money spent on material that you just couldn't scrap from the leftovers after a day of sewing. Making a dream come true was hard work, with a wonderful reward. You had even managed to salvage enough material to make a dress just like Dorothy's so you could accompany your brother trick or treating. You held his hand tightly as you walked through your Brooklyn neighborhood, walking from house to house collecting coins and fruit, holding everything in the basket you carried as part of your costume. Waving at the adults on their stoops and chatting with the teens and kids wandering the streets in their costumes, you were enjoying the festive occasion when you heard your name from across the street. Stopping on the sidewalk and peering across, you smiled and waved when you spotted them. "Bucky! Steve!" You waved a second time as they dodged the traffic and crossed to meet you. Neither of them were costumed, and you clicked your tongue in disapproval, even though you were probably the oldest person on the block wearing one. "Where's your holiday spirit?" You teased, holding your brother's hand even though he hid behind you, staying in cowardly character. "Aw, that's just for kids," Steve murmured, hands shoved deep into his pockets and eyes wandering the street. "Then I'm the biggest kid here," you giggled, trying to pull your brother out from behind you and sighing when he clutched harder at the back of your dress. Your eyes drifted up to meet Bucky's, catching him at the tail end of a long appraisal. You pretended not to notice. "Lookin' real sweet, doll," Bucky drawled, and Steve snorted before he could stop himself, earning a nudge on the shoulder from his best friend while you rolled your eyes. "I suppose I should say thank you, Bucky," you replied magnanimously, surging forward when your brother rushed towards the next house after spotting an open door. "Do you want to walk with us for a bit?" Bucky and Steve followed behind a few steps as you continued on with your brother, the three of you making easy conversation. You hadn't seen them for more than a simple 'hello' and 'goodbye' in the street since high school, and you'd missed their company. At the corner where you needed to part ways, Bucky pulled you aside as much as he could with your brother hanging on to ask you on a date...again. Your answer was always no - not because you didn't enjoy his company, and not because he had a different girl every time you saw him, and certainly not because he wasn't handsome because oh my he was. You just didn't date, though. With your father gone and your mother sick, your salary at the dress shop was the only money coming in to the house and you needed to be home for your brother. You softly explained this again, apologetically, and said you could always see him at the soda shoppe on Saturdays when you took your brother and he hid his disappointed expression quickly. "I'll see you around, Dorothy." You rolled your eyes again but still gave him a little curtsy before he walked away. 1941 Walking home from the dress shop, your shoes felt like they were sinking into the sidewalk with each step. The air was heavy with uncertainty, and despite the bouncy songs on the radio and the boys in their uniforms on the street rushing around with chaotic energy, you already felt anxious. The sound of your name stopped you, like so many times before. You turned and your heart flew into your throat at the sight of him. Sergeant Barnes - handsome in his freshly pressed uniform, hat at a typically jaunty angle, blue eyes sparkling. "Bucky," you breathed out, voice soft and you let him take your hand. "When ...?" "Tomorrow," he matched your tone. "I'm going out with Steve tonight, but shipping out in the morning. Any chance..." He left the question hanging in the air, knowing what the answer would be, and you couldn't bear to do anything other than shake your head. You stepped closer, though, linking your fingers with his, and not giving any care to any eyes on the block you stood on tiptoe to press your lips to his, lingering softly. His eyes were full of surprise when you stepped back, and you smiled up at him. "Be careful, and remember Buck - there's no place like home." He smiled back, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that familiar way, and squeezed your hand once before turning to head down the block. You watched until he was out of sight, leaving you forever in the Brooklyn dusk of a what could have been.

[luvs2smile]

Celestial Heart: prt 86

Thursday was movie night, an impromptu plan suggested by Leann as she just got the movie “Night Stalker” and really wanted to watch it with me. Now, under normal circumstances, such a quick and thoughtless idea would’ve made me excited, however, seeing that my life was never under normal circumstances anymore...well I was quite anxious. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say no especially after seeing how excited my sister was about it. We decided it would be at my apartment around 8 to give me a chance to put Edith to bed.

The clock read about 7:42 when the first knock came at the door. “Come in,” I called just as I was checking on Edith in her bouncy seat. The first person to arrive was Ethan carrying a box of sodas.

“Heyo,” he sang as he sat it on the counter. “Hey,” I greeted meekly as he sauntered over to greet a very sleepy Edith. He tickled her cheek and whispered “Cute,” before turning back to me. Ethan’s face scrunched up as he looked at me. “What,” I asked. “Your face, you look troubled somehow,” he answered easily.

Inside, I flinched. He was a bit too perceptive as always. I let out a sigh and bit the inside of my cheek. “it’s nothing,” I lied and quickly shuffled to the other side of the room to check on the popcorn maker. I decided not to burden him with my anxious thoughts, after all, he did look excited about this evening. “Lair, Lair” he sang behind me. “I’m not lying, it’s really nothing,” I huffed. I turned around and found Ethan standing across the room with his arms folded. “Seriously Tori, what’s the matter? Are you nervous about your sister coming over?” “How are you so good at figuring me out” I pouted. “Fine, I’m kinda worried about it; I mean only you and Mr. Hillman have ever been to my apartment so I just…” “Tori, calm down, it’s just your sister; having her over can’t be any weirder than having me can it?” He cut in, to which I pouted a bit, “…I guess not.” “Right. So, it’ll be fine, besides if you feel really uncomfortable, we’ll just cut the night short, ok?” I took another deep breath and nodded,” Ok.”

Another knock at the door came around 7:55, I had put Edith to just in time for Leann to arrive. We’ll, Leann...plus one.

When Ethan and I opened the door, we were greeted by my sister and one of the last people expected to see in my home, Owen Keenan. For a quick second, he looked just as surprised as I did, but his expression turned to somewhat of a glare towards Ethan. What was that about? “Owen, what are you doing here?” I blurted, cutting in. Owen instantly lost his composure at the sound of my voice and he turned towards me with a stutter, “oh um I-” “Hey, Tori, Mom said I couldn’t come out this late unless I brought him along” my sister easily answered shaking her head at him. “Uh, yeah, your mother forced me to come with her, b-but don’t worry I was planning to leave anyway,” Owen quickly spoke up. As I began to comprehend their words, I felt an uneasy feeling wash over me.  On one hand Owen wasn’t exactly a person I wanted over my house given the circumstances of like everything. I mean I was anxious enough with just Leann. On the other hand, I knew why Mom didn’t want her over here this late by herself (after all it’s a miracle that she allowed Leann to come over in the first place) and the last thing I wanted was Mom finding out they disobeyed her and them getting in trouble over it.  I glanced over to Ethan, before biting my lip and saying “Well, while this is really a surprise, I wasn’t prepared for…I don’t want you to disobey Mom either… so I guess Owen can stay.”

Soon enough, we gathered ourselves enough to finally start the movie. Per Leann’s request, Ethan took a spot on the floor beside her. Owen awkwardly asked for a seat on the couch next to me and we settled in.  

Ignoring Owen’s presence was hard to do but it turned out to be unnecessary. As the movie got underway, he constantly made jokes about it, making me forget the fact that it was indeed a horror film. (As someone who hates horror movies, it’s well-appreciated). However, the fun was cut short as the sound of Edith crying came from my room. I felt the blood drain from my face and I quickly jumped from the couch.

I hurried into the room trying to calm her down before anyone got suspicious. As I approached her crib, I realized she wasn’t in her normal state the way she typically was when she slept. I scooped her up and held her to my chest. “Edie, what’s the matter?” I whispered. Her crying slowed down and eventually became soft coos. I sighed and a small smile formed on my lips as I tried to gently lay her back into her crib.  However, as soon as she was out of my arms, she started to cry all over again. I pouted. There was suddenly a knock at my bedroom door and the sound of Leann’s voice behind it, “Hey, Tor, are you coming back, we paused the movie for you.” I quickly called back to my sister, “Yeah, I’m just trying to get Edith back to sleep” I scooped Edith up once again and once again she got quiet. I clicked my tongue at the sight and whispered, “Ah, I see you just want me to hold you huh?” In response, Edith cooed. “You should bring her in here, I wanna see her,” Leann called again. Her request made my anxiety shoot up all over again. Every scenario seemed to rush into my head all at once. My sister’s voice pulled me back out of my trance, “Please, before she goes back to sleep” she begged. A sound I really could never say no to, so against my better judgment I agreed, “…Fine.”

“What was wrong with her?” Ethan immediately whispered as I plopped back into my spot and he pulled himself on the couch, the spot where Owen was previously. “She just wanted to be held is all,” I whispered back. “She just wanted attention huh?” he mused.  “See, Owen I told you she was cute” Leann poked him just as I zoned back into their conversation.

”I never said she wasn’t,” he swatted at her, “Of course she’s cute, and lucky too, she got almost none of Jamison’s physical features,” At that moment, my ears perked at his words and my mind began to race all at once. Up until now, between my stages of hating and loving Edith, the thought of my daughter’s parental lineage had been pushed to the back of my mind. For me, my only concern was taking care of her being responsible for her. That alone was enough to fill my mind but now, at the beckon of Owen’s comment, it was like the scary thoughts of what really happened to me piled in along with everything else. “she looks like Tori, so she’s cute” he continued, pulling me out of my trance. Owen and I made eye contact. While his face filled with a pinkish color, I felt my throat go dry and my chest fill up, “I-I think we should get back to the movie now” he quickly said. “Yeah…I think we should too.”

[changesxnight]

The gang as Gen Z?

- when I saw Gen Z, I mean the millennial-gen z hybrid that was born from 1997-2003 - the best generation- aka my generation (and most of ours) so prepare for this to be long

- Darry was born in ‘98- that makes Sodapop and Steve 2001 babies and Ponyboy a 2004 kid HAHA WHAT A BABY- so Johnny was born in 2002 whereas Dallas and Two-Bit were born in 2000- you better believe that when Dallas learns Pone was born in 2004, he makes fun of him for it constantly. like “Pone’s 14. Makes sense. WAIT HE WAS BORN IN 2004? WHAT IS HE, SIX??”

- the economic crisis in 2008 wasn’t kind to the Curtises. A lot of their clothes were second hand, or in Pone’s case, hand-me-downs- They got most of their toys from yard sales too- Because of this, they really connect with 90s kids cause they got old 90s toys

- The gang grew up with the best shows - The boys didn’t like Victorious but loved iCarly?? okay - Darry loved Boy Meets World You can fight me on this. He watches reruns every day after school- Dallas, Steve and Two loved cartoons. Especially Total Drama, Chowder, Ben 10, Johnny Bravo, Codename: Kids Next Door, Flapjack, Johnny Test and Camp Lazlo- Two-Bit, Dallas and Steve are Ed, Edd n Eddy- Darry won’t admit it, but he LOVED the Powerpuff Girls. Two-Bit, on the other hand, will admit it. He even had a crush on Blossom

- Since Brenda, Two-Bit’s sister, is significantly younger than him, he saves all their VHS tapes of his favorite movies- he also only lets her watch reruns of his favorite shows

- y’know how we made Pone’s red bouncy balls a meme? well he had a blast as a 2000s kid- got them at every yard sale - bouncy balls are all over the house. when he’s like seventeen, they’re still haunting him

- Ponyboy watched General Hospital with Johnny after school when no one was around - He won’t ever admit this and the only proof they ever did is in Ponyboy’s journal (diary)

- y’know Malcolm in the Middle? that’s the Curtis Brothers - someone Ponyboy is Malcolm AND Dewey at once- NO- Johnny is Dewey

can you tell I watched a lot of tv as a kid?

- Dallas used to steal candy - his favorite were the push pops that came with the sour juice. y’know what I’m talking about?? - Steve would call him a baby if he ever caught Dal with a Baby Bottle Pop

- y’know those off brand composition notebooks we got in elementary and middle school?- Ponyboy has always loved to write and he used to fill those things up - on average, he went through two composition notebooks a year- and his teachers knew he was a good writer. even in first grade, he paid attention to his descriptions

- Dally’s father didn’t care what he watched, so Dallas grew up on Adult Swim and Fox cartoons- shit like King of the Hill, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers and the Simpsons- he also loved Tim and Eric sketches

- when the Curtis boys couldn’t sleep, they’d watch late night shows with their parents until they fell asleep - so Dare, Pone and Sodes have faint, distant memories of shows like Home Improvement, that one George Lopez show, Friends, Full House, Boy Meets World,

- there were a LOT of weird food things that companies made in the 2000s and lemme tell you, Sodapop has tried them all- he fuckin’ loves sprayable cheese- and totally made s’mores in the toaster oven

- Dallas got his sass from Judge Judy sorry I don’t make the rules

- the gang loves watching game shows and playing along with the contestants - Dallas screams at the tv when people give stupid answers

- the Curtis boys loved Full House- Darry had a crush on older D.J., Pony had a crush on Stephanie and Sodapop wants a daughter like Michelle - Mr. and Mrs. Curtis liked that their boys watched wholesome shows. They were totally oblivious to what they watched when over at Dal or Steve’s houses

- Johnny loved webkinz but couldn’t afford them- well, his parents never got them for him- the Curtises would though and he still has them in his closet

- you best believe they all have depression now- and they’re really stressed cause of school- and broke cause everything is so expensive but minimum wage hasn’t budged in so long- they’re just like us, guys!

- Two-Bit destroyed his furby because it creeped him out

- Ponyboy, whenever driving in the car, would imagine someone beside the car that could only travel by walking on fences, jumping from cracks of sunlight between tree shadows or just plan followed them along beside the car- (Apparently this is a sign of an active imagination??) - Sodapop still does this- Ponyboy just day dreams about his current story

- Two-Bit refuses to acknowledge the new Disney and Nickelodeon - old school Disney and Nick or none at all- he’s just really disappointed in his three favorite channels

- Ponyboy and Soda’s room was once littered with Hot Wheels cars - you can still find them under their bed or in the closet corners

- when Dallas was a freshman and sophomore, he had an iPhone where he illegally downloaded about 1000 songs - most of them are 2000s emo music (he was in high school from 2014-2018) - he wishes he was old enough to be a true emo in that era- but he keeps his music taste a secret and pretends he listens to modern rock- but he totally listens to 80s-00s rock, punk and all the classics

- they all love memes- Dally, Steve and Two like offensive memes where as Soda and Two like surreal memes - Darry uses iFunny to find his memes, Ponyboy and Johnny use Instagram and Steve, Two, Dal and Soda use Reddit like the rest of us - the four of them make reddit videos and I’m notonna lie, they’re fucking hilarious (even though all they do is earrape and curse)

I could go on forever but here’s the gang was Gen Z and honestly?? I love it. Let’s change the book. It didn’t come out in ‘67, J.T. came out in ‘17.

[darkmccns]

( i haven’t even done his theme yet but i was just so excited to write joon’s intro that i had to do this before anything else !! )

hello ! i’m beeba, 19, in pst !! it’s lovely to be back, and i’ve brought with me a new, debatable-if-improved version of my baby boy yoojoon. things have gotten a bit darker and twistier with him this go-around but i can assure you that somewhere deep.....deep........deepdeepdeep down he’s still a soft boy. HENNYWAYS ! under the cut you will find a bio, headcanons, and wanted connections !! 

give this a like if you’re interested in plotting uwu. i’ll hit you up in the dm’s, or you can add me on discord @ namjoon’s “brrrrrrt” in cypher 4#2323

☾*✧･ﾟ:*「 kim seokjin. cismale. he/him. 」did you know that there’s a wizard in haneul known as moon yoojoon? they have been living here for the past  eleven years and is a strategist for the hyeon mu. they are currently twenty seven and was a student at crocus institute of higher magic in the house nightshade. i heard that they are known to be unyielding, but worry not ! i heard they are also very selfless too. remember to stay out of trouble, the ju jak are lurking around every corner !

( tw for familial death, alcoholism, abuse, violence, murder, and gang activity )

BIO: 

yoojoon was the youngest of four boys born ( accidentally ) to moon hojoon and moon jisoo, in the small town of punggi. 

his mother was a tarot card reader/fortune teller who worked out of their home and his father a retired duellist for the hyeon mu. they lived off of his mother’s meager income and his father’s military pension that the hyeon mu provided since he was honourably discharged after a combat incident that left him traumatized.

his birth was considered a hindrance to his father more than anything else. another mouth to feed with the little they had. 

hojoon was a very heavy drinker, using it as a coping mechanism to deal w/ his trauma. he often took his anger out on his sons and wife --- rarely laying a hand on them, but often yelling so loudly the house would shake.

yoojoon had a very close relationship with his mother and his eldest brother saejoon who was twelve years his senior. his two middle brothers mostly brushed him off out of fear of their father.

he didn’t begin showing signs of magic until he was five, and his mother was worried for the first few years that he was a squib, due to all his brothers showing signs of magic in infancy. 

the first thing yoojoon ever did magic-wise was make a bush of azaleas in their back garden bloom out of season. his entire family celebrated his feat that night, even his father.

as he grew older and began to attend school, he decided he wanted to be a duellist like his father was. he did well in all his classes in the hopes that when the time came he could move to seoul and attend crocus to receive proper training

was a very happy, bouncy little kid with a love for flowers. could most often be found out in the garden with his mother as she tended to the seasonal blooms. 

had a knack for potion making from an early age. his mother always told him that he should pursue a career in potion making but he adamantly refused because he wanted a manly job. 

when yoojoon was ten, saejoon left punggi for seoul, with plans of joining a vigilante resistance group disassociated from the hyeon mu. they considered themselves freedom fighters who sought to bring an end to the ongoing war between the magi and the ju jak through methods such as peaceful protests and attempts at reconciliation. 

their father was more than displeased. he told his eldest son that if he did leave he would never be welcomed back, but he left anyways with the promise of writing to yoojoon as often as he could about his “ adventures in the big city. ”

tensions in their household only rose after his brother left. his father drank more, his mother threw herself into her work. his two remaining brothers left for school, leaving him alone to handle his parents. 

saejoon never ended up writing him, and yoojoon began to resent him for leaving.

at fourteen, yoojoon received new that his brother had died at the hands of the ju jak --- “ another tragic casualty of war ” as the letter stated.

the two years in between his brother’s death and him starting at crocus are kind of a blur for him. lots of heated arguments with his father over the nature of saejoon’s death that would turn into physical altercations, nights spent sobbing silently in saejoon’s empty bedroom. he was a whole ass mess, with good reason, and acted accordingly.

when he was sixteen he finally moved to seoul, having come to terms as best he could with saejoon’s death. he realized he couldn’t put his life on hold to continue mourning, and that that was not what his brother would have wanted for him.

he was put in nightshade upon arriving at crocus, and despite words of encouragement from his professors to go into potion making he stayed firmly on track towards becoming a duelist. he was now more determined than ever --- hellbent on avenging his brother’s death and taking the ju jak down one by one.

a year into his education he was approached by a group of boys who were apart of the same vigilante group his brother had been in, called the faceless ones. wanting to follow in his footsteps and aide the war effort, yoojoon joined.

attending school falls second to attending group meetings in a grungy warehouse downtown. it seems innocent enough at first --- passing a bottle of soju around a fire, sharing stories of the ones lost to the ju jak. but as time goes on and tensions between magi and humans grow further, things become more serious.

the boys don masks with magi emblazoned on the front to cover their faces as they wreak havoc in the human-populated areas of the city. they lights cars on fire, vandalize businesses, and some go as far as attacking innocent people --- ju jak or not. it takes some impressive mental gymnastics on yoojoon’s part to justify the actions of his peers, but he manages when he’s got enough liquor in his system. 

his knack for potions makes him the ideal candidate for making simple weaponry --- pipe bombs, pouches full of noxious herbs, tinctures that when applied to the skin melt it clean off the bone. but working behind the scenes wasn’t what he joined to do. he joined to kill ju jak.

and so he does. indirectly at first --- more of a mastermind than an executioner --- but growing more bold as time goes on. the first time he takes a life with his own hands he’s just turned seventeen, and he hates the rush it gives him.

he attends school during the day and uses the skills he learns to kill by night. he is methodical, unlike the others, careful. he plans his attacks for days before carrying them out, and enacts his plans with professional ease. he becomes well known to ju jak and hyeon mu alike --- and both groups want him caught.

however, one poorly executed plan leads to him falling into the hands of the hyeon mu, and they give him a choice. he’s either to join them as a duelist --- because his talents, though being used poorly, cannot simply be thrown away --- or rot in prison for murder.

it’s an easy choice, and when he’s just shy of eighteen he’s officially a member of the hyeon mu.

as far as rookie duelists go, he’s considered one of the most talented. his prior experience ( though they don’t like to admit it ) gives him a leg up on the others his age, and he finds himself climbing through the ranks quickly. 

he figures if he can’t change the way the magi deal with ju jak as part of a rebel organization, he may as well work on it from the inside. 

he’s an accomplished duelist with a very high number of confirmed kills and arrests.

by twenty three he’s no longer a duelist --- they prefer to use his talents in careful planning over his manpower. he’s appointed to the committee of strategists that work closely with the leaders of the hyeon mu to gather information on the ju jak and plan out attacks accordingly. 

he’s frickin amazing at it. it’s truly what he was always meant to do, and he makes triple what he did as a duelist without needing to be in the field.

now, at twenty seven, he’s now the head strategist with a small committee working underneath him.

he rly out here tryna revolutionize the way the magi and the hyeon mu deal with the ju jak, because he feels as though he has more relevant field experience than many of the higher ups who have simply been observing this war rather than taking part in it.

truly believes that they could be doing more, but for whatever reason are not. in his eyes the hyeon mu is not functioning at it’s full capabilities, and their efforts are sitting stagnant as the ju jak grow in number. 

the most anti-government government employee you will ever meet. often accuses the president of sitting on their ass with their security detail to protect them while the common people are terrorized.

however, as much as he calls out and openly bashes the hyeon mu’s methods, they can’t afford to lose him because he rly has made a ton of progress and at this point with the amount he knows he’s irreplaceable, and too much of a liability to let go of.

so now he sits in his cushy office on the top floor of a gorgeous building, overlooking the city and planning various ways to absolutely pulverize the ju jak at whatever cost.

HEADCANONS & RANDOM FACTS:

still very close with his mom !! she often comes and stays in the city with him, and he spoils the hell out of her :’)))

he has a familiar: a fat, orange cat named calcifer whom he adores endlessly.

is a hobby potion maker. it relaxes him.

loves a good vodka soda w/ lime.

while he isn’t very social, he loves to attend high society parties because it gives him an excuse to wear one of his many fancy suits.

quite a snarky asshole, will give you shit regardless of your position or status.

enjoys eating sticky rice.

public speaking is like.....a weird talent of his ? he absolutely loathes it, but he’s read in newspapers that he inspires the common folk with his passion so he just kinda rolls with it.

is rly just out here trying to make life better for the average magi. he doesn’t do what he does because he’s endlessly loyal to the hyeon mu --- he does it for the people.

basically lives in his office because he’s Always Working. he has like, a kettle and a hotplate and a mini fridge, blankets, a bed for calcifer ( who he often brings to work with him ) and all sorts of random crap that he’s accumulated to make the space as homey as he can.

keeps fresh bouquets of azalea’s in both his office and his apartment because they remind him of home and of his mom uwu

very messy, misplaces things within seconds of picking them up i swear to god. has defs lost important paperwork and spent hours scrambling to find it, just to see he placed it on top of a cupboard by accident when he got up for a snack.

has ptsd from his time in the faceless ones as well as his time as a duelist in the field. he frequently has nightmares because of this.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

literally anything bc im a thirsty thot

other ex-members of the faceless ones: 

the relationship between members was a very familial one, and it’s very likely that other members were apprehended and given the same ultimatum as joonie. whether they’re now in prison or decided to join the hyeon mu, it’s very likely joonie tried to stay in contact.

current members of the faceless ones:

this connection would be a bit more messy. they would probably consider joonie a traitor or a sell-out and feel very betrayed by his actions.

his assistant:

idk why he’d have one.....but i want him to !!! we would obvs flesh out the actual aspects of it but i just think it’d be cute lol. playin mini-office-basketball ? gorging on donuts ? arguing over the filing system ? yes please !!!

committee members:

other strategists who work with joonie !! they could be chummy coworkers, rivals, u name it !!

other members of the hyeon mu:

MORE COWORKERS !!!!!!!!! someone pls gimme an angst plot where joonie slept w/ someone from a diff department and now they make awkward eye contact when they pass one another in the halls thank u

AND ON THAT NOTE !! ex-hookups:

he would have been much to involved in his work to ever have an actual relationship, but he defs enjoys a good fling every now and then and probs got down and dirty with a lot of people

current hookups:

he still gettin down and dirty with a lot of people...........lmao

friends:

even this tragic annoying man gotta have friends ig. someone to play billiards with and force him to go out once in a while.

enemies? rivals? anything angsty?

IDC WHAT IT IS !!!! JUST GIVE IT TO ME !!!!

anyways that concludes this mess of an intro. it’s 6:17am so please excuse any errors or inconsistencies, i’ll fix them once i’ve rested lmao. can’t wait to write with you all !!! if u read all of that bless your heart. peace n love xoxo, can’t wait to see u  in my dms.

[i-write-shakespeare-not-disney]

When You Smiled- A Hidge/Punk one shot

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14193522

Click the OP if the READ MORE link doesn’t show. This is just a repost since some people said ao3 doesn’t work for them. 

A cute little Hidge fluff falling in love story :) This is basically the story of how my grandparents first met and a little tweak on how they fell in love because I wrote this on their anniversary.

Or- A one shot in which Hunk falls in love at first sight, but Pidge can't stand the stupid baker guy butting in everywhere. And then they fall for each other. Also Matt and Lance are face palming half the time. Sam Holt is the ultimate Punk/Hidge shipper.

There was an air of excitement about everyone today. It was the first birthday Sam Holt was having back with his family after being gone for so long, and the backyard was filled with family and friends all excited to welcome him back. That was another fun thing; everyone had spent the night at the house in preparation for the party because everyone had flown in or driven up to the Holt residence.

That’s how much Sam Holt mattered to everyone. The fact made Pidge’s heart swell with pride.

She was still getting ready, putting curlers in her hair and still dressed in a shirt three sizes too big with stains from breakfast and ratty old pajama pants. She wanted to wait to put on her new dress so as to minimize the risk of the little ones running into her with soda or something. And her mom was going to help with her makeup.

“The cakes are here!” Matt called up. “Pidge, hurry up, the stereo won’t work and I have to set up the cakes.”

“I’m coming!” she called. She clambered down the steps, not feeling too self-conscious because half her family was also in the middle of getting ready as they ran around making some last minute additions and setting up food and running after children.

“Pidge, sweetheart, come here I need your input,” her mother grabbing her mid-step and turning her. “The peridot earrings or the amethyst ones?”

“Which dress are you wearing?”

“The blue one with fake diamonds along the waist.”

Pidge smiled and turned both earrings away. “Wear the sapphire ones Gramma got you on your wedding day.” Her mother nodded and kissed her cheek before running off.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lawn, Hunk was balancing a three tier cake among the many awed children wanting to steal a taste.

“Lance!” he called.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” his friend snapped, setting up the table with Matt. “Alright kiddos, scram or you get no cake. And trust me, these are slices of heaven.” The kids giggled and ran off. “Matt, is the whole table for the cakes or are there more desserts?”

“There’s a few others, but the cake can take up the table, it’s cool. Lance, seriously thanks for this, I owe you big time.”

“Nah,” he answered, patting Hunk’s shoulder as he helped him put the cake on the table. “I was just lucky enough to know this great guy.”

“I should be thanking you,” Hunk said, carefully setting up a few smaller cakes around the tower. “The bakery I run with my uncle doesn’t get big orders like this, usually. We usually do bread and smaller cakes for kids.”

“Oh the sweet bread,” Lance said dreamily. “Anyway, it’s Dr. Holt’s big day. He deserves the best, and Hunk is the best.”

Matt laughed and excused himself to go set up a bouncy castle for the kids who were starting to eye the cakes a little too greedily. Lance left to get him and Hunk a few sodas to beat the heat and Hunk busied himself with looking around.

It was incredible to see this many people gathered for one person. Hunk had heard of Dr. Holt, of all the incredible things he’d done in research and the federal mission he’d been on that was so top secret not even his wife really knew what had happened or where he’d been. They were all just happy he was back.

As he looked around, his eyes fell on a girl with a head full of rollers dressed in a stained oversized shirt that made her look even smaller than she was. But there was something in her smile, in her eyes which even from this distance, Hunk could see gleamed in the sun, that told him she was older than she looked. Her arms were hooked between two other girls who were in different stages of getting ready, and they said something to make her laugh, causing her to tilt her head back and making her eyes squint adorably.

“Here you go, buddy. Hunk? Hunk!”

Hunk blinked and blindly grabbed the soda. “Lance, do you know who that is?” he asked, trying to gesture discreetly to the pretty girl that seemed so at ease even with a million rollers in her hair and barefoot in the grass.

“Pidge? That’s Matt’s sister. Dr. Holt’s daughter.” He paused and eyed Hunk with a smirk. “Why?”

Hunk shook his head and let his eyes drift back to her. “She’s magnificent.”

Her eyes flickered over to the table when one of the girls gestured, and her eyes lit up with excitement at the sight of the cakes, but Hunk was turning away, trying to catch his breath. His entire body felt tense and nervous, and his heart was pounding even though she hadn’t even looked at him, she looked at the cakes, but she was so beautiful, Hunk had no idea what to do if she did look at him.

“Oh my God, Hunk,” Lance laughed, trying to hide his smirk in his soda. “She’s pretty chill. Just go say hi.”

“Yeah, then what? I can barely hold a conversation on a regular day, how am I supposed to do that with her?”

“She’s a person.”

“She’s the prettiest person I’ve ever seen,” he corrected.

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “You realize she’s in one her dad’s old shirts and that her hair looks like those wine moms on old TV sitcoms, right?”

Hunk rolled his eyes and peeked back at her where she was fixing one of the younger kids’ suit with a kind smile. “Yeah. But look at her smile.”

“Ho-ooh-kay, buddy,” Lance said, shaking his head and laughing.

Once Matt had set up the bouncy house, the kids flocked to it and seemed to give everyone else a head start on the rest of the preparations and getting ready. Pidge went over to the stereo to see what was wrong with it which she should have done a while ago if her cousins hadn’t pulled her away to ask about school and give her the latest update on their cousin Emma who was off in Europe.

She went back into the house to get the manual for the stereo in hopes of figuring out what exactly was wrong with it. The sound was all garbled and the volume wasn’t working, but Pidge hoped it was something she could fix, and not because they needed a new one. They rarely used that stereo, so she didn’t see why it’d be so messed up.

“Pidge, honey, you have to get ready soon,” her mother said when she saw Pidge digging through the drawers.

“I know, Mom. I’m just gonna reboot the stereo and start getting ready.”

“Did you see the cakes? Aren’t they beautiful?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah I saw them getting set up. They’re really nice, Dad’s gonna love them.”

“Could you thank Lance for finding us a bakery so last-minute?” Pidge huffed and rolled her eyes, looking over at her mom as she poked at Pidge’s hair nonchalantly. “Such a sweet boy he is.”

“Yeah, and he’s like an annoying older brother, Mom,” she reminded. “It’s not happening.”

She laughed and tightened one of the rollers that had come loose. “You never know, Pidge. You can fall in love at the most unlikely times. You know how I met your father?��

“Modulating arguments,” she said with a smile. “I loved when Dad told me that story before bed.”

Her mother smiled and bopped her nose with a gentle finger. “I never thought for a second that the same guy who’d been driving me nuts would be the same one I’d be marrying and having a family with. Keep an open mind.”

“Alright, Mom,” she resigned, smiling. Her mother had always liked Lance for her, but Pidge never saw him as anything more than Matt’s friend and a possible second older brother. She liked playing video games with the guy, and he was usually there after their classes at the Garrison Tech Institute every day, so she saw him plenty. There was just never anything more, despite her mom’s insistence.

She found her pamphlet and waved it around victoriously. “I’ll be back. Wear the silver shoes!” she said as she ducked back out.

She went to the stereo and started checking each cord to be sure everything was plugged in correctly. She was aware of a shadow and looked over to see Lance. “What are you doing, Elizabeth James?”

“Elizabeth James?” she questioned.

“Yeah, that lady from the Parent Trap. When she was drunk and had rollers in her hair?” Pidge rolled her eyes and flipped him off. “Ouch, Pidge.” He laughed and leaned over, looking at the pamphlet in her hands. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out why this won’t work. If you tell me to turn it off and back on, I will punch you.”

Lance laughed and heaved a sigh. “Well, my buddy is pretty good with wires and stuff. He’s the top engineer at the Garrison.” Pidge raised an eyebrow and Lance waved over the guy who’d brought the cakes.

“Your baker friend is an engineer?” she asked, unamused as the guy walked over, looking at Lance warily.

“Yep! Hunk, buddy, Pidge here needs help fixing the stereo. Easy work for you, right?”

“I don’t need help,” Pidge muttered, clenching her jaw.

The baker, Hunk, looked at her nervously and smiled. “Hi. Um, I can fix it for you if you want-”

“I can do it myself,” she said, not wanting a couple of guys trying to mansplain equipment to her just because they were Garrison students. She’d be there too next year. She was a Holt for crying out loud.

“Pidge, be nice,” Lance said, an amused smile on his face. “He’s just trying to help.”

“Right,” she muttered. Hunk pointed at the pamphlet and she handed it over.

He looked at the stereo and seemed to zone out for a second, fiddling with something Pidge couldn’t see because he hunched over his work. She looked at Lance with a raised eyebrow, but he just shrugged and looked back at Hunk. “There you go,” he said, suddenly standing back. “Try it now.”

Pidge pressed play as an old Elvis Presley song came on, crystal clear and loud enough to scare one of her aunts who was walking by.

“Nice job, Hunk!” Lance praised.

“Yeah, thanks,” Pidge said, looking at the baker. “I have to go get ready.” She turned away, feeling oddly miffed about the fact that Lance and his friend had just pranced in and taken over. She was perfectly capable of figuring things out herself, and she didn’t want some guy with a pretentious attitude under a kind smile trying to coddle her.

She went back to her room and let her hair down from her rollers, combing through until her hair fell in gentle light brown waves just under her shoulders and she slipped into her dress, a light green with a white ribbon around her waist which fit snugly and fell to her knees in little ruffles that spread when she twirled. She put on her favorite flats with yellow flowers and pinned one side of her hair up with a hairpin her father had given her at her last birthday she was able to spend with him. It was a nice emerald color and was shaped like a small lily flower.

Suddenly, she heard a lot of excited yells downstairs, and her heart jumped. Her father was back. She raced downstairs and smiled when she saw her mother in the arms of her father. They were hugging so tightly, Pidge wondered if they’d ever let go, but she didn’t mind.

When they did pull apart her father kissed her mother, making her laugh through happy tears as his moustache tickled her.

“Dad!” Matt ran in from the backyard and hugged him tightly. Pidge was surprised with the way Matt seemed to be just a smidge taller than him now.

“Where’s my girl?” her dad asked, looking around until his eyes landed on Pidge. His eyes crinkled and she ran toward him, tackling him into a hug she never wanted to let go. “Oh look at you!” he cried, holding her tightly. “You’re wearing the pin.”

“You’re back,” she whispered, taking in the familiar scent of his Old Spice cologne. It had been a long time since Pidge smelled that in the house. “Happy birthday, Dad,” she sniffed, kissing his cheek before pulling away.

As Sam Holt greeted the rest of the family that had gathered for him, Pidge let her mom whisk her away to help her with a touch of mascara, a swipe of gloss, and the lightest tint of blush. The two of them went to the backyard where everyone was gathered and waiting to take pictures of the reunited family before eating.

Once the pictures were taken, more music flooded the yard and everyone lined up to serve themselves. Pidge noticed Hunk was still there, talking with Matt and Lance. She was a little annoyed since he hadn’t exactly been invited, he’d just brought the cakes, but she knew better than to be rude and say something about it. Besides, it looked like he was friends with her brother and Lance.

She sat down to eat, catching her father up on her school days and telling him about how she was planning on applying to the Garrison the next year. He talked to her about the things he could tell her about his time away, like the different foods he ate and the little shops he’d visit without giving away a location.

Somewhere in the middle of talking, Matt walked over and introduced his baker friend. “Hey Dad, this is Hunk. He made all of the cakes and stuff. He’s friends with Lance and he goes to the Garrison too.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir, I’ve heard so much about your work,” Hunk said, looking flustered as he shook his hand.

Pidge rolled her eyes and poked at the piece of bread left on her plate while her father indulged in meeting his new fan.

Then she heard, “I was actually wondering if I could steal Pidge away for a dance?” She blinked and looked over at Hunk. “Pidge, would you… like to dance?”

She looked at her parents who were smiling encouragingly, but something kept her rooted to her seat. “Um, I’m with my parents right now,” she said awkwardly.

He looked like he was going to leave her alone, but then her mom said, “Oh, honey, it’s okay! One dance won’t hurt, we have all day to catch up. Besides, I think I want a dance too. Sam?” Her father chuckled and stood up with her, whisking her away to dance.

Matt raised an eyebrow and slunk away, leaving Pidge with a very uneasy looking baker. “Alright then,” she muttered, standing up. He smiled at her and she let him take her hand as they walked to the open space left for dancing. He placed his other hands just under her ribs, which Pidge was grateful for. The last thing she needed was this guy trying to let his hand slip.

“You look… amazing, by the way,” he said as he began to lead Pidge through a dance to a happy tune.

“Thanks,” she answered. She would’ve complimented him back if he wasn’t still wearing the uniform from the bakery he worked at. He obviously hadn’t planned on staying.

“I mean it,” he said. “Even before the dress and the makeup.”

Pidge felt her cheeks heat up and she looked down at her feet. “Um. Thank you. That’s really sweet.” It had completely slipped her mind that he’d seen her in hair rollers and a ratty shirt. “So… you made all the cakes yourself?”

“Yeah. Um, I run the bakery with my uncle. I learned from my mom and I sort fell in love with baking.”

“Well, they’re really nice. And I’ll bet they taste even better.” She gave him a tense smile and he blushed.

“Thanks. I hope they’re not disappointing.” There was an awkward little silence before Hunk added, “Matt says you’re applying to the Garrison.”

“Yep. I’m waiting on the letter back. If it goes well, I’ll be there next year.”

“Good. They need more girls. The disparity is ridiculous.” She smiled at that. “It’s a great school. I sometimes freak out about the work, but it’s actually pretty manageable. I just procrastinate a lot.”

She snorted and nodded. “Story of my life. Sometimes I procrastinate because something seems so easy, but sometimes it’s because it’s so complicated. Either way, I’m losing sleep.” Hunk smiled and nodded in understanding. The song ended and the two of them stood awkwardly staring at each other. Then Pidge pulled away and gave him a smile. “Thanks for the dance. Enjoy the party.”

He watched as she walked back to her seat where her parents were also going back to, laughing and holding hands. She smiled at them, and Hunk felt like he couldn’t breathe. Suddenly a pair of hands pulled him away.

“So how’d it go?” Lance asked with a smile.

“She has freckles,” he breathed. “Really cute freckles and she smiled at me. Her laugh is so cute, I just wanna make her laugh all the time-”

“Is he going on about my sister?” Matt asked, tossing back a soda. “Did you ask her out?”

“No! I don’t know how to do that, how do I do that, what if she says no?”

“Then you move on, bud,” Lance said with a shrug.

“Or,” Matt said, giving Lance a glare, “You could do all the cute mushy stuff girls like to convince her to go on a date with you. You’re not asking her to marry you, it’s not that huge a deal. It’s just a date.”

“She makes me nervous.”

“Hunk, a can of Bush’s baked beans make you nervous,” Lance pointed out. Hunk glared at him and tipped his soda back enough for it to dribble down the sides onto his suit. “Hunk! Aw man.”

Matt laughed and shook his head. “Trust me, my sister is just a normal girl. Don’t overthink it. I gotta go, I promised my aunt Cassie I’d dance with her.” He patted Hunk’s shoulder and walked away to an elderly aunt who lit up when he offered his hand.

Hunk sat down and ignored Lance mumbling about his suit.

The things he felt when he looked at Pidge felt like something out of a romance novel. He’d had crushes before, and he’s seen girls that are so pretty, they made him trip and nearly fall on his face. But something about Pidge was different. More intense.

He’d seen her without the pretty dress and she still took his breath away. Her voice was so… nice, it just made him wish he could be interesting enough to keep her talking to him. And when she smiled, Hunk literally held his breath because all he could do was focus on her. On the way her eyes lit up, the way her freckles disappeared under the flustered laughter, the way she half-covered her mouth as her head titled back. He wished he could be more like Lance, funny enough to keep her laughing so he could hear it, see it every time. The way she looked at him…. It was so calculated. Hunk could get lost in those amber eyes. It was unreal how pretty they were.

Hunk has had crushes before, but he’s never experienced the intense inability to breathe or think around someone before. He’d never felt time stop just because someone looked at him or wished it would stay frozen before his time was up. When she smiled, Hunk could actually see more with her. He could see late nights under covers, whispering and laughing, movie nights where she’d fall asleep on him, study dates where they stopped studying and ended up sharing funny pictures with each other, he could see arguments that got fixed with a soft apology and hugs.

He had such an intense urge to just kiss her when she looked at him, and that scared him because it took every ounce of self restraint not to do something that stupid. It felt right, it felt like… like they were made for each other. And maybe she didn’t feel that way, but Hunk couldn’t bring himself to let this go when he felt so sure and so unsure at the same time. He had never felt this before.

But he didn’t want to let it slip through his fingers.

He stood by his cakes, helping serve when the family lined up and smiled as they complimented the design. His eye flickered over to Pidge who seemed more than happy to stay where she was, talking to her father.

Hunk was well aware that he was probably the farthest thing from her mind. She was beautiful, and she was smart. She had better things to do than worry about a baker who’d fallen for her at first glance. Especially one that looked like him.

People didn’t think guys felt self-conscious usually, but Hunk knew better. He knew the way even someone as flirtatious as Lance could panic behind closed doors about bad skin, the wrong outfit, a bad hair day. And he didn’t usually fret over it himself. He knew he was a big guy, but he was nice enough that people hadn’t bullied him much for it through high school. Besides, most of his weight was muscle that he’d gotten from going to the gym and the amount of protein he ate. What could he say, he loved red meat. He was a healthy guy, and he knew that.

But times like this, he did wish he was thinner, less awkward, just overall attractive enough to have a girl blushing when he looked at her.

He watched as Pidge danced with cousins, danced with her father, watched as she took off her flats and twirled around completely at ease and happy with having her father back. Looking at her like that, Hunk found his own worries taking a backseat. He really liked seeing her so happy.

As the night came to an end, he saw Pidge helping her mother with cleaning up as family members said their goodbyes and slowly dwindled away. Sam Holt was sitting in a hammock, looking up at the stars with a calm smile.

Hunk saw Pidge toting a trash bag and walked over to her. “Do you need any help?” he asked softly.

She jumped and looked over at him. “You’re still here,” she noted, a hint of confusion. Hunk bit his lip. “Um… yeah, this one’s pretty full. I need to go get another.”

“I can take that,” he said, taking the bag from her hands, gulping when the tips of her fingers brushed against his. ��I’ll be right back.” He walked away and threw the trash in the trash bin before going back to where Pidge was fanning out a new bag. He walked with her, helping her collect stray soda cans and napkins. Matt was deflating the bouncy house. Lance was wiping down the table the cake had been at.

“Hey, the cake was really good. You’re a good baker,” she said, bundling up the torn plastic table cloth they’d taped to the tables. She stuffed it into the bag. “Thanks for helping us out.”

“Yeah, of course, it wasn’t a problem at all. Um… I’m really glad your dad’s back.”

She smiled and chuckled softly. “Thanks. I’m gonna go take a shower and go to bed, it’s been a busy day. Thanks again, Hunk.”

She took the trash bag and threw it away before walking into the house. Hunk stood there a little dumbfounded because she’d said his name for the first time and hearing it from her made him feel all jittery and short of breath.

“Baker boy,” he heard someone call. He turned and saw Dr. Holt sitting in his hammock, waving him over. “Hunk, right?” he asked as Hunk walked over. He nodded and Dr. Holt patted the space beside him. “Your cake was wonderful. Very tasty in case you couldn’t tell by how quickly everyone ate it.” Hunk laughed and thanked him. “Will you be coming around more often? I’d love to meet more of Matt’s friends.”

“I could. I’m closer to Lance, but Matt and I have a class together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Dr. Holt nodded pensively. “I’m usually taking earlier classes so I can get to the bakery before rush hour.”

“And what time is that?”

“Around four.”

“Oh. Pidge gets out of school around three. Her mother told me she always walks, but that always made me uneasy.” Hunk furrowed his eyebrows, not sure what to respond to that. “Would it be a lot to ask you to walk her home for us, Hunk? Matt’s in class at the time, and I’d feel so much better knowing she’s not walking alone.”

“Um, sure. I could do that. It’s on the way.” It actually wasn’t, but this man was a legend and honestly, it gave Hunk a reason to spend a little time with Pidge.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “It’s really nice to be home. Did you enjoy the party?”

“Oh, yes, it was very nice,” Hunk answered.

Dr. Holt smiled. Before he could say something else, Lance walked over to them and nudged Hunk. “Bud, I gotta get home. My mom’s real strict about me getting home before one in the morning.”

“Oh, okay, yeah, we should go.”

“Bye, Dr. Holt! It’s good to see you back home,” Lance said, giving him a hug before rushing off to the truck. Hunk gave him an awkward one armed hug before going to the truck and driving Lance home.

That Monday, Hunk found himself waiting outside the high school Matt told him Pidge went to. Hunk had gone to a different one, a smaller one, and it was pretty cool seeing the variety and the amount of people leaving this one. He saw Pidge walking out onto the sidewalk, her hair in a low ponytail as she hefted her backpack.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Do you want some help with that?” Pidge faltered and turned back, confused at first, then suspicious. “Hi.”

“Are you… following me?” she asked, taking a step back.

“Oh, no! God, no. Your dad asked me to walk you home after school before I left the party the other night.” She frowned and looked at Hunk uneasily. “Honest. He said he was worried about you walking alone.”

“I’ve been doing this for years,” she mumbled. He shrugged and she rolled her eyes. “Alright, well… let’s go, I guess.”

Hunk hurried to her side and walked, placing a decent amount of space between them to help her ease up. He pulled out a bag of chips he’d gotten before leaving the Garrison and offered her some. She smiled and took a few, munching on them as she walked.

“So how was school?” he asked.

“It was fine. I had a test in my physics C class and it was a piece of cake.”

He raised an eyebrow and hummed. “Physics C… that’s senior year?” She nodded. “I’m a college sophomore.”

“Yeah, I figured since you’re friends with Matt and Lance. It’s a little weird that you haven’t been over before.”

“Yeah, well, I’m more of Lance’s friend than Matt’s. Lance just told me about Matt needing a cake, and I figured I could help.” She nodded. “How long have you known Lance?”

“Since middle school,” she said. “He’s been friends with my brother for forever. My mom keeps saying we’ll end up together, and it’s driving me nuts. I can’t be within two feet of the guy without her starting on wedding plans.”

Hunk grimaced and focused on his chips. “Do you not like Lance?”

“Oh, no, I love him. He’s like my brother. But my mom insists on it becoming more, and that’s just not happening.” Hunk nodded and chewed carefully. “She just keeps pushing this idea on me that I’ll fall in love like she did. With the last person I’d expect. Which, I guess would be Lance, but….” She trailed off and shrugged.

“Your mom didn’t think she’d end up with Dr. Holt? But they’re so….”

“Perfect together?” she finished with a smile that had Hunk short-circuiting. “That’s the big love story,” she said. “My mom hated my dad when they met. My mom swears that’s….” She gulped and looked at the sidewalk. “She swears it’s gonna happen to me too.”

Hunk hummed, trying not to feel too uneasy. “Then I guess keep an eye out for people you hate on sight.”

She laughed, maybe a little nervously, but a laugh nonetheless. It was quiet for a while, the only sound being the scrape of their shoes against the pavement. “How were classes for you?” she asked.

“Pretty good. I had to modulate this frequency today, and my professor was being really whiny about it.”

“Well, did you double modulate?” she asked.

He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Really? You too? What is the point of-”

“It’s just how it is, man! You gotta double modulate, who single modulates?”

“Uh, me,” he said. “It’s efficient and-”

“Efficient until everything fucks up and you gotta do everything all over again.” She smirked and Hunk scoffed.

“Oh come on. It’s a waste of a keystroke.”

“What, you can’t spare like a fraction of a second to make the keystroke?” she teased. Hunk felt his face get warm. “Ah-ha! I’m right.”

“No,” he insisted. “I’m just saying, it’s not necessary even if it isn’t that much time. I can get all the work done by single modulating, why double modulate?”

“Ask my dad, he’ll tell you. Always start by double-modulating,” she said. Then her face turned red and she cleared her throat. “But you know, if you got the answers you needed I guess it doesn’t matter.” Hunk frowned and looked at her, but she seemed to be thinking over a math problem in her head or something. He offered her more chips and she accepted.

As they reached her house, Hunk found himself biting his lip nervously and clearing his throat too much. “Uh, Pidge?” She looked up at him with wide eyes and Hunk felt his words catch in his throat.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and waited patiently. “Yeah?” she prodded.

He cleared his throat again and chuckled nervously. “Make sure to ask your dad about the modulating thing,” he said. She chuckled and nodded, turning away to go into her home. “Um, wait.” She turned back and tilted her head. “Did you… want me to walk with you tomorrow?”

She bit her lip and thought it over. It was nice having someone to talk to on the walk. But she also didn’t want to be babied and walked every single day like a kid. She shrugged and shifted her backpack. “It’s up to you. I don’t mind. Thanks for today.”

“Oh, o-okay,” he said. She smiled and waved as she went into her house.

She felt weird. Nervous. She hated the guy during the party. He’d seemed so pretentious and he’d annoyed her by intervening, consistently offering help like he thought she couldn’t do things for herself. Except in retrospect, that’s probably not how he meant it. He seemed quiet, shy even. He genuinely wanted to help, and that was all. And that stupid modulating thing. She couldn’t keep her parents’ voices out of her head.

Whatever. Whatever, it didn’t matter. He was just a nice guy, a baker, and one of Matt’s friends. Sure, he seemed interested, but Pidge had to focus on school. She had to keep her GPA up if she wanted to get into the Garrison the next year.

She ignored her parents’ asking about her walk, mumbling that it was fine and she had homework, but she knew by the gleam in their eyes. They were plotting. And frankly Pidge didn’t like it.

Still, the next day when she got out of school, she couldn’t help but let her eyes wander, wondering if Hunk would still be there to walk with her. She saw him leaning against the fence fixing the bandana he wore around his head. She walked up to him and tilted her head.

“Is this your cool guy stance?”

He gasped and jumped away from the fence, making her laugh. “Whoa! Hello. Hi.”

“Hey,” she greeted.

“Oh! Uh, I got you these.” He rustled through his messenger back and gave her a bag of the chips they’d been sharing the day before. “You seemed to like them.”

She smiled and took them. “Thanks.” She opened them and smirked when he pulled out another bag for himself. “So how was your Tuesday?”

“It started way too early and it’ll be ending way too late.”

“Busy day?”

“Yep. But it’s okay. I get my break by walking with you.” She blushed and looked at the sidewalk as she chewed. “Uh, so no tests today?”

“Nope. No shitty single modulating today?”

“Oh my God,” he said with a laugh. He had a nice laugh. Deep and full, and his whole face seemed to light up. “Leave my modulating alone,” he said with a shake of his head. “Wanna hear a funny story?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. So Lance has a crush on this girl named Jenni. I forget her last name. But anyway, he also kind of has a crush on this other student, he just refuses to admit it.”

“Typical,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Right?” She giggled. “Anyway, so Lance finally got a chance to talk to Jenni, and he was being his usual smooth self, you know doing the leaning over thing he does.”

“Oh no,” Pidge said, already laughing into her chips.

Hunk held up a hand, indicating it wasn’t the worst part. “So I’m standing there, listening because as a wingman, I gotta back him up if he fucks up.” Pidge nodded. “And he’s dropping all these one liners, making her laugh, but I’m not sure if she was laughing at him or with him.” Pidge snorted. “But then he goes in for the full effect. Like he’s practiced this countless times, how to ask her out and stuff. But then the other student walks by, and I guess it threw Lance off because then he looks at Jenni and goes, ‘So, Keith do you wannna maybe go out sometime?’”

Pidge gasped and covered her mouth. “No!” Hunk nodded. “Oh my God. He called her a guy’s name? Wait…. He’s crushing on a guy?”

“He swears he’s not, but he totally is. So Jenni got all mad and left, but Lance was just standing there with his mouth covered mumbling about Keith ruining his life, and the guy is literally just two tables over eating a granola bar and reading a book.”

“Oh my God, that’s…. That’s so painful to hear, I shouldn’t be laughing, but oh my God,” she said between fits of laughter. She covered her mouth, trying desperately to control her laughter.

“Why are you doing that?” he asked, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“I don’t like my laugh,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s loud and if I laugh too long, I snort.”

“Really?” Hunk asked with a smile. “I need to hear that.”

“No, you really don’t,” she said.

“No worries. I got loads of funny stories. I’ll hear it eventually.”

She rolled her eyes and felt her smile falter when she saw her house come into view. “Thanks for walking me home again,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She bit her lip and nodded. She went inside then peeked out the curtain as Hunk walked back the way they came. She frowned and watched as he walked away from view. Was he going out of his way just to walk her?

“Pidge, how was the walk home?” her mother asked. She jumped and shut the curtain, catching her breath. “Pidge, you okay?”

“Yep! Got homework! Gotta go!” She dashed up the stairs and went to her room.

The next day had started out perfectly sunny. Pidge hadn’t thought to check the weather until she heard the rumble of thunderclouds on her way to her last class. By the time school was let out, it was pouring heavily and Pidge only had a sweater for protection. She bit her lip and headed out, figuring she’d be getting wet either way.

“Pidge!” She looked up and saw Hunk rushing over to her with a huge umbrella. “What are you doing without an umbrella?” he asked.

“I didn’t check the weather,” she said, half-shouting over the rain. He shook his head and took her backpack for her, ushering her under the safety of the umbrella. “Why are you…? What are you doing here?”

“Walking you home?” he answered uncertainly.

“But… don’t you head back down that way?” she asked as they walked.

He turned red and shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

“So why are you walking me home in this weather when you have to go the opposite way?”

He looked at her, confused and seemingly a little frustrated. “I’m not letting you walk in the rain by yourself,” he said. “Besides, I like walking with you. I don’t mind walking a little more.” She stared at him dumbly for a few seconds before hugging herself and fixating on the wet sidewalk.

They walked, not talking as much with the rain and the cold, but Pidge didn’t mind. Hunk was warm and with him walking carefully behind her, the cold wasn’t that bad. He walked her to the door, and gave her a smile before leaving the way he’d come.

The next day, it stayed sunny. When Pidge saw Hunk, she smiled as he held up a bag of chips for her. “You’re really dedicated, I’ll give you that,” she said when she saw him.

“Thanks, I think?” he answered. “I also made you this.”

He pulled out a little green paper and pushed it together so it popped out as a little origami lily. Pidge stared at it as he presented it to her. It was folded carefully with two types of paper, and it had little details drawn out in pen. “Thank you,” she whispered, reaching out for it. She had to refrain from trying to sniff it because it was her first instinct, but she also knew it was a paper, not a real flower. “This is… really sweet.”

Hunk smiled and walked beside her as she twirled the lily gingerly between her fingers. “So, when do you get your response from the Garrison?”

Pidge bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Hopefully by next week. I’m really nervous.” She couldn’t stop thinking that Hunk must have been thinking about her while he made this flower. She wondered what made him think of her. If he ignored a lecture in favor of creating this and imagining giving it to her. And it gave her butterflies.

“I’m sure you’ll get in. You’re a Holt after all.” She smiled at that and tried to keep the blush in her cheeks under control.

He walked her for the rest of the week, and the next week after that. On Friday the second week, Pidge checked the mail and saw a response from the Garrison. She froze and stared at it dumbly, feeling like the response would make or break her.

“I can’t open this in front of them,” she choked out. “If I didn’t get in…. But what if I did? Oh God, I don’t know what to do.”

Hunk sat her down on the steps of her house and sat beside her. “Open it now then. I won’t look.” He covered his eyes like a kid playing hide and seek, and it made Pidge smile. It relieved a small ounce of the nervousness she felt was swallowing her up.

She bit her lip and tore the side of the envelope away to pull out the letter. Her heart was hammering in her chest, making her feel like she was going to puke. Her hands shook as she read the letter, trying desperately to steady her breaths.

Hunk heard a sob, and he peeked from in between his fingers to see Pidge with a hand at her mouth, staring at the letter. She touched his arm and he gasped softly as he turned to look at her.

“I got in,” she cried, her honey eyes bright with tears and a smile spreading on her lips. “I got in!”

She tackled him into a hug which he wasn’t expecting. He reacted automatically, hugging her tightly around the waist as she threw her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. His heart beat as quickly as a hummingbird’s wings.

But he realized he wasn’t breathing when Pidge pulled away to stare at him in shock, obviously not having expected to tackle him into a hug either. Her eyes were blown wide, her face so close he could count every little freckle on her face.

He turned his face away and chuckled nervously, and she scrambled back, muttering apologies. “No, it’s okay,” he assured. “I’m so happy for you, Pidge, I knew you could do it.” She smiled and hugged him again, more calmly. “Go tell them! You have to tell them!”

“Oh, right! Right! Thank you for walking me. And… thank you,” she laughed and hugged the letter close. “Thanks for believing in me.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said with a smile. She chuckled and wiped her eyes, giving him one more teary eyed smile before going into her home. He could hear her shouting even as he walked away.

Before he knew it, it was summer and Hunk didn’t have to walk Pidge home anymore. But he still visited on weekends with freshly baked sweet bread from the bakery for the Holt siblings. And he started getting invited to video game nights which mostly consisted of Pidge and Lance yelling at each other while competing.

Until one night, Hunk was leaving after a particularly long match of Super Smash Bros only to be stopped by Lance as they went downstairs.

“Dude. Are you seriously going to keep this up?” he asked.

“What?”

Lance sighed and gestured upstairs where he could hear the Holt siblings bickering over what team had won. “I mean, you guys have gotten super close and you haven’t asked her out. What gives?”

“I just…. Don’t want to mess up our friendship. I like hanging out with her. I don’t want to make it weird if she doesn’t want more than that.”

Lance groaned and hit his palm to his face. “Hunk! Of course she likes you! She has a corkboard full of those little origami flowers you’re always making. And she lights up when you get here. Trust me, I’ve known Pidge for years, she doesn’t do that with everyone.” Hunk bit his lip and grumbled as he walked out, Lance trailing behind him with a quick goodbye to the Holt parents. “Dude, what’s going on?”

“It’s just…. Ever since I saw her for the first time, I’ve been... practically in love with her. I love spending time with her and making her laugh and everything, but… I don’t know what to do if she says no and then decides it’s too awkward to stay friends.”

Lance sighed and squeezed his shoulders. “Hunk, trust me. It’s better to try and mess up a bit than to spend your life wondering what could’ve happened. Unless you want her to slip and end up with some douchebag that nobody likes, you need to make your move. She likes you. I know it.” Hunk bit his lip. “Just consider it, okay?”

And he did. It was practically the only thing he thought about for the rest of the week.

Finally, he went to find Pidge, this time holding a small bouquet of real flowers. He knocked and froze up when Matt opened the door. He looked at the flowers then back at Hunk, looking surprised.

“Oh, Hunk for me?” he said. Hunk rolled his eyes and Matt laughed. “Pidge! Someone’s at the door for you.” He walked away and heard Pidge bounding over to the door.

“Ye- Oh Hunk! Oh- oh my God. Hunk.” She stared at the flowers and looked up at him, curious and surprised.

“Hi, Pidge. Um…. Listen, I… I really like you. And I have since I first saw you.” She turned red and covered her mouth. “I know that we’re really great friends, but I’d… like a chance to take you out on a date. And maybe see if… you’d like to be more than friends. If that’s something you want to do.” He gulped and took a deep breath as stared at him.

The silence was freaking him out and he was struggling to breathe. But then reached out for the flowers with a beautiful smile looked at him. “I’d like that,” she whispered.

“Really?” he asked with a relieved sigh. She nodded, smiling up at him with the happiest look in her eyes. “Can I pick you up at seven tomorrow?” She nodded, sniffing her flowers happily. “Great! Awesome!” He chuckled nervously. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Okay,” she said, blushing all over again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Okay, cool.” He stepped back and kept smiling at her until she closed the door. He laughed to himself and raised his arms in victory. She said yes!

The next day, Hunk went over to pick Pidge up at ten till seven and knocked on the door. Mrs. Holt answered the door and smiled at him, inviting him in to sit on the couch. Dr. Holt was sitting with a mug of coffee and happy little smile when he saw him.

“Pidge will be right down.”

He could hear Pidge and Matt arguing over something upstairs and then a little bit later, Matt was downstairs. He smiled at Hunk and called up for his sister to come down.

“I’m coming!” she said. “Are you sure these shoes- oh! Hunk! Hi! Nobody told me you were here,” she said, looking at her family.

“I thought you heard the door!” her mother said indignantly.

“Have her back by ten, Hunk,” Dr. Holt said, with a snarky smile as he drank his coffee.

“Y-yes sir,” he answered.

“Keep your hands to yourself, and if she comes home crying, I’m kicking your ass,” Matt said with a wide smile. “Other than that, it’s great to see you, buddy!”

“Matt!” Pidge groaned. “Um. We should go.”

She ushered him out of the door, ignoring Matt’s teasing and the way her mother was about to insist on pictures. He laughed and stopped at the corner of the street where they were far enough away from the house. “You look beautiful,” he said softly, as the setting sunlight danced in her hair. She was wearing the same pin from the day he’d met her.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m really excited to spend time with you,” she said with a smile. “Where are we going?”

“How do you feel about ice cream?” She smiled and Hunk took her hand and walked with her to a nearby ice cream shop. Aside from the obvious fact that this was their first date, this felt pretty normal.

Being with Pidge was still a rush. It still made his heart soar when she laughed, and he still did his best to make her laugh so hard she snorted. She hit his shoulder each time she did, but Hunk considered it a personal victory to make her laugh so much. They got a few looks from people who came in for ice cream, but they seemed to be curious rather than annoyed. It didn’t matter though because everything else melted away except for Pidge and her sundae and Hunk and his chocolate shake.

Pidge had a cute little habit of resting her cheek on her fist and biting her lip as she smiled. And she smiled a lot. It made Hunk feel nice to know that she was so happy spending time with him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked as they walked around a park once they’d both finished their snacks. Hunk nodded. “I didn’t like you when I first met you. Everyone was going on about how you were so sweet and the cakes and this and that, but… you annoyed me.”

“What? Why!”

She laughed and squeezed his forearm which she’d looped her arm with. “I don’t know. You came off as a bit of a know-it-all to me and… it bugged me. Then you just kept showing up.”

“So when did that change?” he asked gently.

She smiled and leaned against him as they walked. “I think it was the day you walked me home in the rain for the first time. I’d realized the day before that you were going out of your way just to walk me. I think part of me thought you wouldn’t bother that day since it was raining. And I got really happy when I saw you were still there.”

Hunk mentally slapped himself. She’d liked him back since then, and he only just now got the guts to ask her on a date? “I have a secret too,” he said. She hummed and looked over at him. He sat her down at a bench under a lamplight and took her hand as he sat beside her. “I liked you from the second I first saw you. And I remember it exactly. It was around three-thirty in the afternoon and you were wearing an old, oversized Looney Toons shirt and faded plaid pajama bottoms. Your hair was up in bright pink curlers and you didn’t have any makeup on.”

Pidge groaned and hid her face in her hands. “That’s your first memory of me? God, that’s so embarrassing. How could you have possibly liked me then?” she asked.

Hunk smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger on her cheek. “I saw you smile. And your eyes were all excited, looking around. Then you laughed and… I was done for. You were the one I wanted to be with from that very moment.” She blushed and ducked her head shyly. “You know, I wasn’t supposed to stay. I was just supposed to drop the cakes off then leave. But I saw you and… I wanted to stay so I could see you smile again and again.”

“Hunk,” she said with a beautiful blushing smile.

Hunk looked at her and smiled.

“It’s almost ten, I should get you home.” She sighed and stood up with him, their hands tangling together as they walked back to her house. Hunk made up stories with the stars, making her laugh and smile as he told the story of a baker and girl made of lilies falling for each other. When they reached her house, Hunk walked her up to the door and looked at their hands.

Hers was so small in his, and yet they fit together perfectly.

“Pidge?”

“Yes?”

He looked at her and bit his lip. “Would you… like to be my girlfriend?”

She smiled and pretended to ponder it. “I dunno. Would you like to be my boyfriend?”

He laughed and squeezed her hand. “I really would.”

She smiled up at him and nodded. “I’d like it too. So… yes.”

Hunk smiled and tilted her chin up just the slightest with his forefinger. He leaned down slowly, pressing his lips to hers ever so gently. Her lips were soft like flower petals. He pulled back and saw the way her cheeks were dusted red, the way she smiled serenely at him.

He bit back the words I’m in love with you, knowing it was far too early to say them. But he thought them. Because he felt they were true, and he’d never believed in love at first sight until he saw Pidge. His feelings had never faltered, and he could feel in his bones that this was the girl he was meant to be with. He knew with every fiber of his being that one day he’d be asking Pidge to marry him, that one day he’d watch her walk down the aisle, that there would be more kisses to come and plenty of dates and many more walks. There would be plenty of opportunities to tell her he loved her.

In the meantime he would show her with every paper flower, with every smile, with every gentle kiss.

“Goodnight, Pidge.”

“Goodnight, Hunk,” she whispered, coming up on her toes to kiss his cheek lightly.

She opened the door and shut it gently, seeing Hunk’s smile so fresh in her mind. Her parents were watching TV, and they looked at her curiously, but she could only smile wider and bid them goodnight as she went up to her room. She looked at her corkboard, covered in colorful origami flowers.

It really was funny the way things played out. The way she’d disliked Hunk so much at first, the modulating arguments, everything her parents told her would happen before she found the love of her life. And Pidge was very much a person who like data, and cold hard facts and numbers. Something as flimsy an emotion as love? It was terrifying.

But when she was with Hunk, it wasn’t so scary. And she very much believed Hunk would be the person she fell completely in love with. And it was exciting.

[pixiealtaira]

Dragged Kicking and Screaming  ( 16/ 22)

Title: Dragged Kicking and Screaming  

Or How Burt Hummel Mashed the Hummels and Hudsons Into One Functioning Family.

Characters(s): Kurt, Burt, Carole, Finn, with short appearances by the New Directions guys and various ops who mostly take up space. Rating: PG13 Summary: Somehow the Hummel household and the Hudson household had to come together…

Chapter Nine Chapter Ten

Chapter eleven Chapter twelve  Chapter thirteen  Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

16.

“Mom said this coming year, now that you guys got married, that we’d buy fireworks and I could light off our own….good ones, too.  You know those that have multiple rounds to them and go way high and are loud and everyone in the neighborhood could see.” Finn said.

“No.” Burt said.

“But we can afford them.” Finn said.

“No.” Burt said. “I don’t know if you are aware of this, Finn, but they are illegal within city limits and 9 times out of 10 are banned outside city limits due to the dryness and heat and fire risk.”

“So?” Finn said.

Burt looked at Carole, who shrugged.

“So, we do not to do illegal things in this household. That is one of the reasons we are having a nice long chat about you driving anything soon and your apparent drinking problems.  Now…do you and your mom have any traditions that you do for the Fourth of July?”

Finn shrugged. Burt turned to Carole.

“We’ve been going to Bobby’s but Finn hasn’t been happy with that since he was banned from playing with fireworks there after he set his cousin’s hair on fire a few years ago.  None of the kids are allowed near the fireworks anymore, that was a rough year, but really Bobby over reacted.  Finn didn’t mean to set Mandy’s hair on fire and Molly did not mean to hit Rex with the sparkler and I am certain Jamie didn’t mean to light his mom’s flower bed on fire either. Granted I do think Gabe and Matty did mean to start something on fire but I don’t think they thought the shed would burn like it did and light all the extra fireworks Bobby had stored away for their Christmas Day fireworks. Luckily Daddy was friends with the fire chief and the mayor and so they didn’t end up having to pay for the fire department response. ”

Burt just stared.

“What?” Carole said.  Burt was getting annoyed with the whole ‘don’t you dare think I’ve done something wrong’ face he’d been watching her pull all morning.

“Ok. I think that perhaps we should stay here in Lima and enjoy the festivities here.  We can watch the fireworks display and go see the car show and enjoy whatever is playing on the stage.” Burt said.

“Isn’t that hosted by like…rivals?” Carole asked.

Burt rolled his eyes. “It is a community thing and I like supporting the community, Carole.”

“Well, I still think we should just have a big party here and do our own fireworks. Finn wants to set them off so badly.”

“No.”

“I promised him fireworks, Burt.” Carole said.

“No. Not at my house.  Not driving anywhere in cars that I cover insurance wise. Not attached to my name.”

“Burt…”

“No. Kurt make a page for back to school and labor day and Halloween.”

“What should I put down on the 4th? Kurt asked.

“Nothing right now.”

“Well, what do you do for the 4th?” Carole said.

“Until this last summer, we had a float in Findley’s parade and then booths at the town celebrations of various places around us. Kurt and I would man one, Jake and his wife another, Wade and someone would take one, and Robbie and several friends would do one. Hank is always in Alaska for the fourth of July. Then we would come back into town and go to the car show…sometimes we would bring something we were restoring to it.  Then we would come here and barbecue something for dinner and then go watch the fireworks.  However, this past summer we didn’t get any of it organized and Jake and Robbie couldn’t do anything anyway, so we just didn’t. Kurt and I went to dinner at Wade’s and watched the fireworks.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound too bad.  I’m sure you made a great deal of money at your booths and that is always good.” Carole said.  “Maybe we should do that next year too.  You and I could do the booth instead.”

“It would be fun, but I didn’t think it would be something you like,” Burt said.

“Why not?  What did you sell? I mean, I will not sell cotton candy or baked goods I have to make, but icy treats would be fine I guess…at least if it was just one day. And I don’t like manning a grill but if I had to I guess I could do hotdogs or something.”

“We didn’t sell things, Carole. We ran a children’s games booth.  We did a duck pond and a fishing booth, usually.”

“You at least made money off it, right?” Carole asked.

Burt looked to Kurt, who shrugged and made a so-so motion with his hands.

“Look, we buy about a thousand bucks worth of little toys…bouncy balls, bracelets, crayon sets, stickers, hats, stuffed animals, hackie sacks, yoyos, hair ribbons…little things and spend about 600 bucks on candies to be used a prizes and thrown at the parade.  We split them between the different booths and games and then we run the booths until it’s time to head out and back here for the car show or we run out.  We charge 25 cents to play both games.  Sometimes we add a soda toss.  We have fun and sometimes we get new customers.”

“Why would you do that?” Carole asked.

“It gives to the communities and we have fun.  It gives more options for families at the different July 4th gatherings. Finally, it is great business.”

“People let Kurt around little kids?” Finn asked.

“And that is the type of comment that Finn will have to pay into the sass jar for making, as well as pure sass.” Burt said.  “And that also might get him grounded.”

“Mom!”

“By my calculations we end up with about six to ten new loyal customers after each Fourth of July Celebration we sent people to.” Kurt said. “We usually do not make money on that day, though.”

Carole shook her head. “I take it back. I don’t think we should do that next 4th of July.  I just don’t understand why you do these things, Burt.”

“What things?”

“Those stupid boxes at the shop, this July 4th thing, that whole charity shopping thing you want us to do…it’s just ridiculous.” Carole said. “I just don’t see the point.”

“To help out those in the community that are less fortunate than we are?” Kurt said.

“But we don’t have the money to do that!” Carole snapped.

Kurt glared at Carole and Burt decided to let Kurt speak.

“Carole, when was the last time you went hungry because you did not have food and had no money to get it?” Kurt asked.

“Umm…” Carole stammered.

“Finn, can you remember a time when you were so poor you did not have food? Not when your mom worked long hours to provide you with it, but where even with that you had none?” Kurt asked.

Finn shook his head.

“Carole, were you ever at any point in time without a job and unable to provide for Finn and yourself?”

“Well, when we first moved here after Finn’s dad died and I hadn’t started my job yet…”

“So, your job moved you here?  You had a job?”

“Yeessss.”

“And at no time were you out of it?” Kurt asked.

“I changed jobs since then.” Carole said.

“But were you without a job or did you have the next one lined up?”

“I had it lined up.” Carole said quietly.

“How many did years did Finn qualify for free or reduced lunch?” Kurt asked.

“None.  I always made too much and it is just Finn and I.” Carole said.

“How many birthdays did Finn not get anything because you could not afford it?”

“None.”

“Christmases?” Kurt asked.

“None.”

“How many times did he start back to school without new clothing?  Or any supplies?”

“Never. Ok! But it was never a lot, it wasn’t what we deserved.  We aren’t rich!” Carole snapped.

“Then you have plenty of money to give some to others every once in a while…I never said you were rich.” Kurt said.  “Sure, you might not have the best of everything but you never went without, so you have enough to spare every once in a while. We aren’t talking about going out and giving to people every single day of the year. We aren’t talking about always covering everything ourselves. We allow others in the community who would like to help out to do so…even if all they can give is a few coins or a few cans of food or a coat their kid outgrew. It allows us to help in our community, to be a part of it.  By the way, we also put together 15 to 20 backpacks worth of school supplies and donate them in August and do Angel Tree gifts as well before Christmas. Dad will call about those on Friday and we’ll go shopping this Saturday.  So…nothing written under July Fourth yet, and we are to Back-To-School.”

“That is not a holiday.” Finn said.

“No, but it might involve traditions.  What do you do to mark the end of summer and start of the school year?” Burt asked.

“Huh?”

“Do you have an end of summer party? Do you do back to school shopping?” Burt asked.

Kurt sighed.  “For example, Finn, my dad buys me one whole new outfit, minus the shoes, which he finds acceptable to be seen in Yearbook photos.  It isn’t part of my clothing money.   That is all the ‘Back to school’ clothes I get because I have such a nice clothing budget. Well…except those purchases he mention earlier, like underwear and socks. We also go and get all the stuff I need school supply wise…doubled.  That way we get it on sale for the next semester as well.  Dad usually takes me someplace the week before school starts…his choice, so that generally means camping or fishing or such. And we go to the state fair and the county fair. Oh…and we do the backpacks.”

“Oh…umm…mom puts a pile of clothes on my bed and I’ve held end of summer parties since I was like 11 or 12.  The first was before Junior High.  It’s just a party party…music, food, whatever…you know. The last few years mom went out so we could have lot of real fun, you know.” Finn said.

“Yeah, again, not happening,” Burt said.

“I usually take him shopping once and we try on stuff…or I get his size from his uniform orders.” Carole explained. “Finn doesn’t like shopping that much.”

“I do…for fun stuff, but clothes are boring.” Finn said. “On the day she makes me try stuff on she also gets me a new game or movie or something like that. This fall I got a new phone, too.”

“So…If you have a party it will be supervised and reasonable,” Burt said. “However it is an option under those conditions. We will buy one school outfit and supplies…no bribes. I think if we are smart Finn won’t need a pile of new clothes set out for him anyway, because we’ll have done that shopping every month so it won’t be a necessity.”

“Yes he will,” Carole answered. “He can’t wear his summer clothes to school. He’ll need new clothing.”

“Kurt always has new school clothes.” Finn said.

“Kurt spends his 100 for August on school clothing and has a job which allows him to buy what he needs.  Kurt also shops for clothing year round and saves stuff.” Kurt answered. “He also doesn’t just buy summer clothes with his summer money.”

“Don’t do that, it is disturbing.” Carole said.

“I generally buy his jacket and gym type shoes right before school.” Burt said. “And I listed other things bought at school time.  I just don’t see why anyone needs to spend hundreds of bucks on clothing at one time when they could spread it out.”

“He has to spend all that money earlier on summer clothes.” Carole said.

“Carole, you are making it sound like Finn has more clothing than Kurt. If he is spending upwards of two hundred bucks on t-shirts and shorts alone, he needs to shop elsewhere.”

“Well, to be fair he probably does own more summer clothing than I do.” Kurt said. “I only buy a few pairs of shorts and a few t-shirts for summer and one nice outfit in case it is needed.  I work so much that I am mostly in uniform.”

“How much does he work, Burt?” Carole asked. “How much goes to paying Kurt?”

Kurt sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Carole, Kurt is an employee, just like the rest.  He gets regular hours which depend on the season and he gets a regular paycheck.  The only thing that is a bit different from his paycheck versus say… Robbie’s…is that his benefits are a bit different because he is a minor and falls under my healthcare stuff. He gets paid different for his hours towards certifications than his non-certification hours as well.”

“He should just work for free.” Carole said.

“The Union does not think so.”

“Well, Finn had better get twice Kurt’s pay when he starts working there. After all he is bigger and so can do more.”

“Finn gets less than half Kurt’s pay until he is certified and joins the union.” Burt said.

“You can’t do that!”

“Carole, I know we went over this when I hired Finn and Puck so they could pay for the replacement of those tires they slashed.  Workers who are not certified are limited in what they can legally do.  IF Finn wants to apprentice and learn all he needs to know for certification…the pay changes while he is doing so.  It changes again when he is certified. Until then…he gets what he gets and gets to do what he can legally do.  Pay is skill level and certification and union based.  Of course, Finn stopped coming by as soon as he’d worked the hours needed to pay those tires off…even though he was offered time to work still.”

“Working was cutting into his free time and the time he could spend with his friends.” Carole replied. “He shouldn’t have to work so much as a kid.”

“He was working two hours a week.” Burt said.

“He had to cancel a date!”

“At 10am?” Burt said.

“No, in the evening, but he had to go hang with the guys instead of go out on his date because he missed going off with the guys earlier.”

“Seriously?” Burt asked. “That is ridiculous.”

[nofeartina]

I think a while ago you wrote something about a Notting Hill au, but that you were not going to write it? I just finished reading a book about a woman who owns a bookstore in Vienna and god!!! I can't stop thinking about that. Even would be the best bookstore owner he would have all this obscure sections and a great children's books collections and would be great at recommending stuff. That's it tbh. I just wanted to share that with someone. I love your fics!

Dear sweet anon. Thank you for sharing this with me (even though I’m amazed that you remembered..? xD). Because honestly?? I love this movie so much and it makes me cry-laugh every time I see it and it would just be the most perfect AU for Evak and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

BECAUSE IMAGINE THIS!

Even as The Travel Book Co. owner (although I do agree he would be awesome in a normal bookshop setting) who’s barely scraping by. He lives with his roommate Magnus who’s a total slob and doesn’t have an inkling of social skills.

And then one day, one fateful day, a beautiful man enters his shop in the most unassuming clothes and with a snapback so far down his face it’s almost impossible to see it. But there’s something about his build that makes Even look at him again from behind the counter, makes him ask, “Can I help you?”

It’s not until the man looks up at him that he realizes just why he seems familiar. It’s Isak Valtersen. The Isak Valtersen. One of the most famous actors on the planet right now. And he’s looking just as gorgeous and divine as he does on screen. And he’s standing in his bookshop.

(sorry – read more because this got long. As it does when I start going off… ;))

“No thanks, I’m just looking around,” Isak Valtersen says and Even can’t figure out what to do with himself now.

And so we know how the story goes, there’s another customer that comes in – yadda, yadda, yadda, BUT THEN!!!!

Even decides to close up early because what even was this day? The door is old and the lock sticks, but Even knows it by now, does this twist and jerk combo that works 9 out of 10 times but it tends to get the key sticking a bit, so he pulls at it violently until it sort of just suddenly lets go, making him spin around straight into a solid wall of a body.

“Oof!” Even grunts.

“Oh Jesus.” Comes the response.

Even steps back ungracefully, feels how his entire front is soaking through with cold orange juice, slowly starting to drip down his pants, and he looks up to find Isak Valtersen standing in front of him, former white t-shirt now orange with juice as well, so wet that it’s dripping.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Even says, patting his pockets to see if he has any paper he can help Isak clean up with.

“That’s alright, I’ll just…” Isak replies but he looks down at himself and glances at the mess that is Even’s shirt and before he can say anything else Even just blurts it out.

“I have a t-shirt you can borrow if you want. I live just across the street.” And he sincerely hopes it doesn’t come off as creepy as he suspects it does because it’s a genuine offer.

Isak seems to see it on him because he asks, “How close is just across the street?”

Even turns and points to a bright blue building that’s quite literally across the street.

“You can get cleaned up so we can get you back out onto the streets in no time. In a totally no prostitute kind of way,” Even says, cursing his own uncoolness on the inside.

Isak squints at him, before he quickly scans their surroundings, probably seeing how the streets are getting busy with people now, and he glances at the house before he looks at Even and nods.

Even lets out a relieved sigh, letting out air he didn’t even realize he was keeping in.

“Okay, brilliant.”

When he unlocks the door and opens it he’s met with the horrifying sight of his hallway a complete mess of jackets and shoes, and he swallows nervously as he starts apologizing.

“Uhm. It’s not quite as clean as it normally is, we, that is my roommate and I, were a bit busy this morning,” which is a blatant lie, this is the normal state of the apartment, it might even be a little bit tidier than usual. But he’s never telling Isak Valtersen that.

As they enter Even surreptitiously kicks some shoes out of the way and quickly hangs up a couple of jackets.

“It’s fine,” Isak mutters behind him and Even is torn between looking back at Isak to just look at him. A movie star. In his home. But on the other hand, he’s afraid what kind of face Isak is surely making at the state of this place.  

The door closes behind Isak and Even finally turns to look at Isak who’s now staring a framed photo of Even with the rest of his family.

“Right. I’ll just get you something to change into.” Even almost runs to his room, frantically rummaging through his clothes for something clean, but luck would have it that there’s almost nothing clean left. He should’ve done the laundry days ago, and he himself has been wearing the same shirt for three days now, but he does manage to find a clean pair of sweatpants and then he takes the liberty to pop into Magnus’ room for a second to find a clean t-shirt there. He’s not happy with the lone clean t-shirt that’s left in Magnus’ closet, but it’ll have to do.

Isak is standing in their living room by the time he comes out of Magnus’ room and he hands him the clothes.

“Here, the bathroom is just down the hall, to your right.”

Isak smiles a small smile and Even almost melts at the sight. Isak’s taken off his cap and his hair is so bouncy and curly and his eyes are so green that Even almost can’t stand it.

“Thank you,” Isak says and disappears into the bathroom.

Even uses the time he’s out there wisely, rushes through picking up clothes and throwing them into his room, which he then closes the door to, and his eyes widen in horror when he reaches the kitchen.

Fuck. It’s such a mess. He throws some really dirty plates in a cupboard and scoops a handful of dirty mugs into the sink and then he hears the door to the bathroom open.

Isak appears in the door to the kitchen, wearing Even’s old washed-out sweatpants and a t-shirt with lots of hearts saying You’re the most beautiful woman in the world which would be lovely if not for the Fancy a fuck Even knows is on the back. Once more he curses the universe for his uncoolness. Why couldn’t this happen on a day where they had just done the laundry and had one of those spontaneous Why is everything so disgusting in here? We should clean it up-days that they have once in a while (or once a year if he’s being honest).

He postpones his inevitable break-down by opening the fridge and as he looks through it he asks, “Would you like something to drink? Some beer or soda? Or orange juice?” he pops his head out of the fridge to add, “no better not that one.”

And Isak smiles at him, a real smile, a bit bigger this time and oh. Even wants him to smile all the time now.

“Are you hungry instead?” he asks and pulls out the only thing eatable from the fridge. He looks at it as he’s talking. “We have some… apricots, soaked in honey?” he glances at Isak who just shakes his head and Even couldn’t keep all the words inside of him even if he tried it seems. He rambles on, “No, I wouldn’t recommend it either. I don’t even know why we have these because really, they stop tasting like apricots and just taste like honey. And if you wanted honey, you would just eat honey, you know? Instead of apricots. But anyway. If you want them, they’re your’s.”

And he’s almost out of breath from saying all that, but it keeps the smile on Isak’s face and even though he just answers no again, it makes Even want to keep talking.

“Do you always answer no to every question?”

It makes Isak’s smile widen even more, and he pauses a bit before he answers, “No.”

Even laughs. He can’t help it, this is just too surreal. “Alright then.”

And then there’s the awkward shuffle of getting them back into the hallway and them trying to say goodbye to each other. Imagine all that tension with them crammed into the small hallway, the way Isak keeps looking at Even’s lips until he finally leans in and plants a small, almost innocent kiss on them, and Even almost can’t breathe from it.

He touches his lips in wonder, can’t help but ask, “What was that for?”

Isak shrugs, one hand still on the door handle, but before he can answer the door opens violently, making Isak stumble a bit from the force of it, and Magnus rushes through them, a flurry of blond hair and colorful clothes, and he takes off his jacket and toes off his shoes while he walks down the hall, talking without even paying them any attention.

“I just have to piss real quick,” Magnus says in a much too loud voice for the small hallway, “and then I’m going to tell you a story that will make your balls shrivel up to the size of raisins.” 

The bathroom door slams behind him and Even just have time to think that he at least closed the door this time before he turns to Isak in horror.

Isak has a wide-eyed half-smiling look on his face, like he’s not sure what just happened and yes. Even can relate.

“My roommate, Magnus,” he says pointing over his shoulder in Magnus’ general direction, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him hole. He’s still reeling from the kiss and how the world is all backward today.

“I have to go,” Isak says, but he sounds almost sorry and Even just wants him to stay.

“Right. It’s been surreal, but nice,” Even says, closing his eyes to how stupid that sounded but he can hear Isak snort at it.

“Surreal but nice?” he asks in a teasing tone and Even just wants to kiss him all over again.

“Yes. Sorry about that. I don’t always… mouth, brain, you know.” And he has to take a deep breath to not die of mortification.

“Don’t worry about it,” Isak says with that damn delicious smile still playing on his lips. “I thought the honey-soaked apricot thing was the real low point.”

It punches a surprised laugh out of Even. “Right, yes. That.”

Isak reaches for the door handle again. “Goodbye Even,” he says and then he starts to open the door and Even knows that he’ll probably never see him again.

But there are just no words in him to keep Isak there anymore it seems, so he returns the goodbye and watches as he walks out the door, watches him walk down the street, out of his life.

It’s not until Magnus comes out of the bathroom, pants still open saying, “Wait. Was that Isak Valtersen?” that he closes the door behind him and turns to face Magnus with an eye-roll.

------

WOWSIE!!!! This got so long, though?

Look what you made me do anon!!!

Why do I always do this??? I keep telling myself that if I wrote this AU it would be a small one-shot of maybe 8k words. Honestly, I don’t even know who I’m trying to kid anymore. Because it would get so long, and even though I really want to write it, there are so much other stuff that I want to write too. (and I know that there’s another Notting Hill AU coming out soon and I still don’t want to step on anybody’s toes)

No, but seriously, thank you for letting me play in this verse a bit anon (and for paying attention!). It’s been so much fun and I really, really loved it! I hope you enjoyed it too… :D :D

[rebelmeg]

Let's Get Personal

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?  Recently, it's been "Secret Love Song" by Little Mix, "Poison" by Rita Ora, "What Ifs" by Kane Brown and Lauren Alaina, "U and Ur Hand" by P!nk, "Perfect Matchup" by Kenny and London Holland, and The Greatest Showman soundtrack 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?  Robert Downey Jr. 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.  “When was the last night or day you took time off?” 4: What do you think about most?  Writing.  A new idea, a current idea, something I need to jot down, something I need to fix, the one I want to read. 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?  I'm fine, unless you want the time. 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?  Underwear. 7: What’s your strangest talent?  Personalizing or adding to things that probably do not need to be personalized.  (The beige Calvin Klein purse was BORING so I defiled something expensive to make it more “me”.) 8: Finish the sentence.  Girls… are strong; Boys… are allowed to be soft. 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?  Not that I know of. 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?  I'm not an air guitar person, I have a THING about looking stupid and I’m certain that I can’t pull off looking cool doing air guitar. 11: Do you have any strange phobias?  Nah, just the regular ones. 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?  Don't think so? 13: What’s your religion?  LDS 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?  Walking to my car. 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?  Behind, definitely. 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?  I do hate this question.  I'll go with Queen, it's the first one that popped into my head. 17: What was the last lie you told?  I don't recall. 18: Do you believe in karma?  Eh, sorta 19: What does your URL mean?  I am and have always been a little bit of a rebel. 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?  Weakness, personal motivation and time management.  Strength, creativity. 21: Who is your celebrity crush?  RDJ and Sebastian Stan 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?  Yep. 23: How do you vent your anger?  Stewing about it, venting to other people. 24: Do you have a collection of anything?  Soooo many collections... I collect shot glasses as my travel souvenir. 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?  Phone. 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?  For the most part. 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?  Permanent markers on cardboard boxes give me the heebie-jeebie shivers, the sound of a soda pop tab opening a can makes me swoon with happiness. 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?  I'm not sure.  Maybe what if I'd married someone else (not a desire at all, but something I've wondered about from time to time), my life would be entirely different from what it is now. 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?  No and yes, but not in the traditional sense. 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.  The chair next to me on the right, the child that is being clingy on the left. 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?  My house and my perfume. 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?  A casino. 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?  I've never been to the East Coast, so I can't really say. 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?  Oh geez, I don't know. 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?  To do your best, be kind, and be happy. 36: Define Art.  Life made viewable. 37: Do you believe in luck?  Not really. 38: What’s the weather like right now?  Rainstorm is heading this way. 39: What time is it?  9:31 am 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?  Yep and yep.  Not a big crash, though, minor one.  Fixed the alignment! 41: What was the last book you read?  Currently reading "Blood Fury" by JR Ward 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?  Don't mind it as long as it's not too strong. 43: Do you have any nicknames?  A fair slew.  Meg, Megs, Rebel, Mom, Mama, and then standard endearments. 44: What was the last film you saw?  Geostorm, I think. 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?  Not sure if this counts as an injury, but I ended up in the hospital with a miscarriage that required surgery.  If that doesn't count, I broke my foot falling out of a tree. 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?  Yep!  I found one on the grass once during recess as a kid when it was raining, it was close to getting crushed by the other kids playing ball. I held it cupped in my hands so I could show my teacher, its wings dried while I held it, and it flew away while we all watched. 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?  Fandom ones, heck yeah. 48: What’s your sexual orientation?  Straight. 49: Ever had a rumor spread about you?  Probably. 50: Do you believe in magic?  Everyday magic, yes. 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?  Yeah. 52: What is your astrological sign?  Libra 53: Do you save money or spend it?  I spend like it's burning a hole in my pocket. 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?  Lunch last week. 55: Love or lust?  Love 56: In a relationship?  Yes 57: How many relationships have you had?  Just one serious one. 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?  Not quite. 59: Where were you yesterday?  Home. 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?  My elbow is resting on a pair of my daughter's pink underwear. 61: Are you wearing socks right now?  Yep, I love socks. 62: What’s your favorite animal?  Bears, penguins, peacocks, owls, dogs. 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?  Being kind and friendly. 64: Where is your best friend?  Teaching school. 65: Give me your top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr.  Oh geez, I can't narrow it down to just five! 66: What is your heritage? Mostly British, good mix of other UK and European ancestors, I’m a 2nd generation American. 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?  Watching Gilmore Girls and folding laundry. 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?  Don't think he has one. 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?  Of course. 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?  I hope so. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?  Save the dog quickly. 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die?  Yes, everyone. b) What do you do with your remaining days? Be as happy as possible and spend as much time with the people I love as possible.  c) Would you be afraid?  Heck yes. 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.  A huge part of love IS trust, so love. 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?  Goody Goody by Julie Lavery, it's an upbeat, bouncy song.  (Which is funny, because the lyrics tell a sad story) 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?  Nope, I use it as a passcode for stuff sometimes. 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?  Humor, taking care of each other. 77: How can I win your heart?  Interact with me. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?  Yep. 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?  To start writing again. 80: What size shoes do you wear?  7 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?  *shrugs* Something nice. 82: What is your favorite word?  Popcorn.  I love the sound and the visual appearance of the way the letters are arranged. 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.  Love, courage, strength. 84: What is a saying you say a lot?  "Best thing ever!" 85: What’s the last song you listened to?  "Hey Soul Sister" by Train 86: Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors?  Purple! 87: What is your current desktop picture?  Shamrocks 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?  I don't know enough to be able to make that decision.  Also, too many corrupt world leaders to narrow it down, I think. 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?  I can think of many. 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?  "I am too tired for this nonsense, either sit down and chill or go downstairs and wait until morning." 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?  Time manipulation without accelerated aging.  I just want to be able to nap whenever I want and have time to catch up on my Netflix list... 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?  The first time my hubby and I held hands when we were dating.  It was perfect and absolutely adorable. 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?  Ugh, I'm not sure, there are two that immediately spring to mind that were pretty awful. 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?  I have no idea. 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?  Europe.  Anywhere in Europe, but particularly the UK. 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?  I don't think so? 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?  I'm sure I did when I was a kid, but not that I can remember. 98: Ever been on a plane?  Finally went on one for the first time a couple years ago! 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?  Be kind.

[2paperairplanesswift]

Once upon a time a 17 year old English girl fell in love with a talented but relatively unknown country singer by the name of Taylor Swift. PLOT TWIST: 11 years later she is one of the most successful artists in history and I just spent my Friday night hanging out with her at her house. Wanna know how this happened? I'm going to tell you my story. Get yourself comfy (maybe some cocoa or a nice sweater) and listen up.  I don't claim to be the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the world, but like every Swiftie I would always like to think I am. I have loved Taylor for longer than I can remember and one of my biggest dreams in life has always been to meet her.  On 3rd October 2017 I woke up around 5am as I do every morning, and I turned off my alarm and turned my internet on. I had a few notifications, Facebook messenger, twitter, tumblr....but then there was a DM? I never get twitter DM's, I'm not remotely interesting enough for anyone to want to speak to me, so who was this messaging me? Half asleep and with my eyes still adjusting to the light I opened the DM screen and saw the words 'Taylor Nation'. My whole body froze...that's not what is says is it? I rubbed my eyes and looked again...it was. I clicked on the message and read it quickly. I didn't really take it in, something about a Confidential Event. I dropped my phone onto my chest and looked at the ceiling trying to take in what I had just read. Was I having another Taylor dream ? Somehow I knew I wasn't - the last Taylor dream I had we were eating banana splits in an old railway carriage turned into a diner...i don't even like bananas. Somehow this seemed more plausible.  I closed twitter and decided to ignore it for a second and look at my other notifications. There was a facebook message from my Swiftie friend Bethy telling me to have a good day and reminding me to keep my DMs on....wait, she had one to? I replied back saying 'I have, you too?' and for a solid hour we were messaging eachother in code without either of us admitting what we had received in text...but we both knew.  I sent my details over to Taylor Nation and tried to get ready for work...putting my jeans on back to front, loading the laundry into the machine without adding the washing liquid, walking around my house doing things which usually came naturally but for some reason took extra effort and concentration...something I was lacking.  It was another 10 hours before my DM was replied to saying they would contact me soon. Soon? How soon is soon? Bethy and I continued talking to eachother imagining what it could be. Would we be in a live stream? A music video? Are we being invited to a show? An interview? In the back of our minds we wanted it to be a secret session but it wouldn't be would it? People like us with a handful of followers whose idea of a great Friday night is to play Yahtzee while listening to Taylor Swift on repeat wouldn't get invited, would we?  Luckily soon was only 3 hours and I got a call from a New York number. I was at my parents house so I ran up the stairs to take the call. Some other Swiftie friends in a group chat were messaging me about stuff and I was trying to pick up but notifications were sending my phone into meltdown. Eventually I managed to pick up...then hang up on Taylor Nation. Yes, I hung up on Taylor Swift's management group!!! (Sorry Ali).  I tried to call back but it went to voice mail, so I sent them a DM and went for a wee. Ali called me again while I was on the toilet so I was nervously trying to finish peeing and then ran out to the top of the stairs to take the call. The signal in my parents house was awful and I kept shouting 'huh' and 'hello?' down the phone but Ali was so lovely. She told me I had been picked to be invited to a special event because I was a super fan and I could bring a +1. I knew Bethy was already going and I made a pact with Megan if ever we had an opportunity to meet Taylor we would take eachother. I hastily gave her Megan's details and then passed Alex's on to Bethy for her call before screaming at Alex to keep 13th October clear (for the record he is so difficult). On top of this I was also on holiday that day and so going to this event also meant cutting my holiday short...but this was Taylor Swift!  I found out on Sunday 8th October that we had to meet at a hotel and would be shuttled to the location via bus. Unfortunately my bladder condition flared up on 10th October and I nervously contacted Taylor Nation for details of restroom facilities, scared I wouldn't be able to go. I cried as I waited for an email back but Taylor Nation were so lovely....you could tell they worked for Taylor. I went to the local Dr on holiday and got antibiotics and instructions for bedrest for the 2 days before the event.  My bladder was still bad by early morning day of the event but luckily started clearing up as I travelled from Devon to London.  The day of the event we all met up at Waterloo Station in London before travelling to the hotel where we needed to meet Taylor Nation. I was so nervous that everything was going wrong and had been in so much pain and in denial I was going to be well enough to go that I couldn't believe it was happening.  On the way from the tube to the hotel we saw a funeral directors with 4 gravestones in the window - were they for us when Taylor killed us with her music? A bus went past...the number 13? So typically Taylor!  We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Taylor Nation were in the lobby (we didn't know it was them). The receptionist asked if we were going to the knitting convention? I was confused...was this a cover story? All I kept thinking was 'I knit sweaters yo'....'no, we are going to meet some friends' we told them.  We went upstairs to our room to get ready and when came down we didn't know where to go. There seemed to be some type of line forming around the building and the sheer quantity of red lipstick and floaty dresses told me we were in the right place.  We checked in with Taylor Nation and as I gave Elise my ID she said she liked my passport cover. It's a picture of Taylor with 'grab your passport and my hand' written on it. She confirmed with me that she was the one I had been emailing and I thanked her for her help. I then signed a NDA and got my really cool wristband which has 'United Kingdom' in reputation font on it. And then we headed downstairs to wait for the bus.  I was on bus number 3/4 with Megan- Alex and Bethy had already gone on bus 2. I sat right behind the driver and he had his Satnav programmed with 3 different routes. He took the first route to somewhere random, loaded the second route and followed it, then loaded the third. It was clear he was trying to throw us off. As we entered part of the neighbourhood I felt very out of place. The cars had personalised plates, the houses were getting bigger, the hustle and bustle of London life seemed to getting further in the distance.  Suddenly the bus stopped in front of a beautiful house...this was it...this was Taylor's house? We were escorted off the bus and down to the side door which lead to a basement. The carpets were bouncy and the soundproof walls were so soft. We waited patiently for a few minutes and then suddenly the door opened and I caught a glimpse of a canvas of the New York skyline....this IS Taylor's house.  We were taken up the stairs to a central entrance hall with a staircase leading up to the top of the house and a corridor towards a large group of people with music playing - her Spotify playlist. The party was in the kitchen. Megan and I walked in to the kitchen, everything was so perfect. Ice buckets full of cans of soda and water, the best chicken bites I have ever tasted, cheese, vegetables and dip, reputation m&ms and cookies with REP on. There was so much I couldn't even see it all. We spotted our friend Bethy over in the corner by the French doors and headed over to speak to her. As we got there so did Scott Swift....the total legend and biggest fangirl ever. I told him I had briefly seen him in Nashville for 1989 and be told me the Mick Jagger story...the same one Taylor tells in interviews. Word for word and he beamed with pride as he told us stories about Taylor. There I was on a Friday night in Taylor Swift's house talking to her dad about 2 megastars as if we were all old friends. And he was really interested in us, not just polite conversation but so enthralled that we loved his daughter as much as he did. True to Scott Swift fashion he gave us some guitar picks as me made his way onto the next group.  I asked Alex where the toilet was and he took me out to the corridor...which hid a restroom behind huge grey panels. It was the nicest smelling toilet I have ever been in...and I have been in a lot! As I sat there peeing in Taylor's toilet and looking at the Jo Malone candle burning by the sink I wondered...how did I get here? Shortly after I left the toilet we were ushered across the entrance hall to a huge rectangular room. Opposite the door were large windows covered over by drapes and a single armchair - Taylor's seat. The floor was adorned with cushion after cushion and Megan and I ran to the closest cushion to Taylor. Megan sat right in front of her and I squeezed in behind. This was a SECRET SESSION!!!! A few minutes later I looked behind as the door opened and in walked a real angel to a round of screams and claps- red lips, natural 'I've just washed it' curly hair, snake boots and a huge smile. She sat down in front of us on the seat and said 'Hi I'm Taylor'. Just like at tour, only this time not to 70,000...to just 100.  And then the mystery was revealed. Taylor Nation hadn't just randomly picked us off of various social media sites - we had been hand selected by Taylor herself who had stalked us for over a year and sent TN our profiles to invite us. It hit me...Taylor picked me?!?! The woman I have been 'stalking' for 11 years had been stalking me too? Out of all the fans in Europe I was one she wanted to meet. I don't think that will ever fully sink in.  Taylor played us her album, telling us little stories about each song - the inspiration, the recording processes, the reactions from friends and family. It was so much to take in but watching Taylor mouth along to the words, act out different expressions and sitting-dance to all of the songs was hilarious - I wasn't in the presence of a celebrity, I was sitting with my best friend appreciating the biggest achievement she will ever have - true happiness. Taylor Swift is truly happy, about life, about her music, about her fans and it is nothing short of magical.  As each song played I really wondered how Taylor could top it, but she did...over and over again. Time went so quickly and it felt like the world's biggest and best slumber party, except we didn't get to sleep over.  At one point it was so hot that Scott Swift had to open all the doors to let the air in. As Taylor played his favourite song from the album she called for him to come and listen and he made a joke that he was actually handing out guitar picks to the neighbours.  After Taylor finished playing the album I looked around. Everyone was so Wonderstruck by what they had heard and I looked at Taylor and she looked so content. I don't know whether she was worried by what our reactions would be but all we had for this album was love...and I hope Taylor knows that.  After the listening session we were handed copies of the reputation magazines while we were waiting for photos. Megan and I were some of the first to go in. I was so focused on getting to the event that I hadn't even thought about what to say. Taylor ran over to Megan and hugged her and started talking about her bright pink hair. She loved it and it had been distracting her all evening. Then Taylor hugged me and I hugged her back like I had never hugged anyone before. She was so tall like a giraffe but with the grace of a swan...and I was me. I whispered 'thank you for inviting me' and she smiled. I didn't want to let go. As so many people were waiting they sort of rushed us with a picture. Taylor grabbed hold of us with her arms around our shoulders and smiled so sincerely at the camera. I wanted to talk to Taylor as I didn't get a chance but we were ushered off. As Megan walked out front if me I went to turn and talk to Taylor when Megan suddenly shouted 'we went to Nashville'. Taylor screamed back excitedly 'I know' with the biggest smile on her face. So...I didn't get to talk to Taylor but she knew we went to Nashville. She really did stalk me. When we left the room we were greeted by Mama Swift. I told her about my mum being terminally ill with Cancer and how she had gotten test results that day but she wanted me to be with Taylor instead. She gave me an extra hug and told me to hug my mum for her. I told my mum later and she started crying. Someone she has never met wished her well...it isn't just Taylor, it is her whole family.  We were taken back to the basement to collect Merch bags with a T-shirt, hat, sticker, pop socket and exclusive secret sessions keyring. It was so lovely of Taylor to give us something more to remember the day.  I got the bus back to the hotel and sat talking to Ali the whole way about the album and Nashville....I may have also invited her to CMA fest next year. By the time I got back to the hotel and collected my belongings (which had been taken from us earlier) I was shattered but I couldn't sleep. I posted on twitter and suddenly my phone couldn't stop vibrating...thousands of retweets and likes. I sat there trying to figure out what happened but I'm still not even sure I believe it myself. It took me 2 whole days to cry...not because I didn't care but because this wasn't the norm. I had stood outside countless radio stations and events before and not met Taylor...I had cried. I had come away from concerts and not been picked for Loft or Club Red etc and cried...but this was different. Not only had I met Taylor, she had picked me. I couldn't cry...I just felt a sense of fulfillment, of achievement, of love. By the time I did cry if wasn't because of what happened; it was because I missed her.  But this is not the end of my story with Taylor...I feel like this is the start of a new chapter. I came away with a whole mind of memories and countless new friends - affectionately known as FANtom Squad. Friday 13 October was the best night of my life; I will never be able to thank Taylor enough and I'll probably never have a chance to say what I wanted to say. But after years of hiding it & toning down this side of my life to please people I can honestly I am not ashamed of who I am because who I am is exactly how @taylorswift likes me. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #121

“it’s the rich man’s war, but it’s the poor that fight.”

Does your refrigerator have an ice maker or do you use ice cube trays?  Trays. Have you ever been searched by the cops?  No. Do you draw your name in the sand at the beach? I never have just because... why? Are any of your great-grandparents still alive? No. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?  I'd rather sleep with Sara any night. Did your parents try to push you into a certain degree or career path?  No.  I was blessed with parents who seriously did encourage me to do what I wanted. What’s your favorite film genre? Horror. Would you ever dye your hair silver? It's on my to-do list. What color is your refrigerator?  Black. What was the last thing you sent in the mail?  My closure letter to Jason. What cuisine is your favorite restaurant?  Italian. Have you ever visited hot springs?  No, but I'd love to. Who was the last person/thing to lick you?  My dog. If you had the chance to live anywhere in Europe, where would it be?  Germany. Do you have a favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?  No, I never watched it. Do you like candy canes?  Yeah. Do you prefer pads, tampons or something else? Tampons.  Pads feel like bloody diapers. Have you ever visited someone in prison? No. Is there anything you absolutely refuse to eat? Sashimi. Are you the type of person to take naps, even if you’ve slept plenty? If I'm sad, stressed, or unbelievably bored, I sometimes will. Have you ever had casual sex? No, never would. Do you think it’s attractive for a man to wear eyeliner? I'm a sucker for that shit. Are you the kind of person who does not like talking about their past?  Nah, I'm open about the dark parts now. Have you ever taken a ride in a convertible?  Yeah, my brother had one. What size bed do you sleep on?  Queen. What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school?  The same I do now, though I went through a more screamo phase. When was the last time you made out with somebody?  Years ago. What month of the year was your mother born?  August. Would you rather travel to Japan or Scotland?  SCOTLAND. Does your house have a porch/balcony?  We have a small front porch and a really big back one. Do you share a middle name with any of your siblings?  Nicole that I know of, idk about Katie. Have there ever been any bushfires/wildfires in your area?  No, but we've been a few hours away from some that were so large the smoke traveled here. Do you think age matters in friendship? Nope.  One of my closest friends is in his early 30s. Do you enjoy clubs? If so, which club do you enjoy going to the most? I've never been to one and I'm really not interested in going.  I can just imagine it being too loud and crowded. Do you take good care of your skin? Apparently not considering it's dry as fuck. Do you play any PC games? What is your favorite?  Not currently.  I loved WoW, but I'm not paying for the subscription when I could spend money on better things. What have you done to your room to make it cozy? Fill it with personal things. What is your favorite seasonal candy? (only available at certain times):  Hm... candy canes. Are there any television shows you own in entirety on DVD or VHS?  "Meerkat Manor." How far away from your house is the nearest gas station? Like two minutes. Have you ever been to SeaWo​rld?​​  As a kid, yes.  I never would as an adult because I don't support it.  You can't keep whales in a damn pool. How long did your last relationship last?  If you're talking about the last one that ended, like four months. Last person you watched a movie with?  Sara. Have you ever touched a cow?  Maybe? Do you call the ice cream topping “jimmies” or “sprinkles”?  Sprinkles. Do you like the idea of promise rings in relationships?  No real opinion.  If you're not ready for engagement but know you will be one day, sure, give one if you mean it. Do you plan on dressing up for Halloween this year?  Hopefully. Have you ever been on a subway?  No. What do you usually buy for snacks when you go to the cinema? Popcorn and a soda. Look to your left and name five things you can see. Water bottle, medicine basket, Illidan poster, crashed ship lamp, and my Silent Hill 3 poster. Do you like having your lip softly bitten when you’re kissing? Yes. Have you ever been on a boat?  Yep. Do you have or want any piercings? I have five, but I want my right nostril and collarbones pierced, plus loads more in my ears. Have you ever set foot in a tanning bed?  Nope, never will.  Skin cancer doesn't sound fun, nor does having to keep exposing myself to one to maintain a tan. Do you trust a lot of people? No. Do you have both a loud side and a quiet side? Yes. If you had to save one thing from your burning house, what would it be? Assuming Mom and Nicole are already out, my dog. What would you want your last words to be if you could choose them?  I don't know, haven't thought of it.  Guessing my family's there, in that case I'd want them to be "I love you so much." Can you sleep with the light on?  Only if I'm seriously tired. Would you ever have a bird as a pet?  Realistically, nah.  I wouldn't be able to handle to likely noise. Do you know someone who’s been cremated? Not to my knowledge. Do you like canopy beds? YESSSSS. What is your favorite animated movie? Probably "The Lion King." Have you ever been 'violated'?  I felt violated when Girt tried to make out with me when I in no way wanted it.  He for a second tried following me as I pulled away, and that's when I really felt violated. Have you ever put gum on the bottom of your desk/chair?  No, disgusting.  There's trashcans for a reason. Would you rather open a used clothing store or an antique store?  An antique store would be cool. Magenta, aqua, or coral?  Coral. Would you rather be a wedding photographer or a nature photographer?  Honestly, nature, but for income's sake, I'm aiming to be a wedding photographer.  I'd love both, though. Have you ever had an ulcer?  No. Have you ever felt like you were going to throw up while you were at school?  In kindergarten, I was running for the trashcan and threw up on the floor.  Whoops. What is your favorite type of donut? Cake and glazed. Have you ever walked through a labyrinth? No. Do you like avocado?  EW. What is your favorite kind of bear?  Pandas. If you have any piercings or tattoos, do you remember the name of the person who did them?  June Bugg did one of my tattoos.  I don't remember the others. Do you do that typical girl thing out in public where you have to have someone come into the bathroom with you? No, I'll go alone. What does your dad look like?  Super tan, black hair that's mostly gray by now, connected beard and mustache, brown eyes, tall. Do you like chicken soup? Not really. Do you like deviled eggs? NO EW. Do you keep your fingers on the home keys when you type?  Yes. What would you name your future son?  Probably Severin. When was the last time you used a regular telephone?  Been yeeeaaars.Do you like the moon or sun more?  The moon. Do you think dimples are ugly? Personally think they're real cute. Has your boyfriend/girlfriend ever stayed up with you all night? Not my current girlfriend, but an ex. Are you a paranoid person? Yup. Have you ever been in an inflatable bouncy house?  Yeah. Have you ever seen a nun in public?  No. Who was the last person to kiss you on the cheek?  Sara. Have you ever played in a waterfall?  No. What job would you NEVER take, even as a last resort?  Prostitution, for one. Who was the last person you sat beside at a restaurant?  Sara. Have you used Limewire before? Ha ha yeah. Is the taste of alcohol appealing to you?  Noooo.  If I ever drink, it has to be fruity and cover the taste well. What’d you last look up on YouTube?  A KittyKatGaming video because I knew Mark was in it lmao. Would you ever get a tattoo sleeve?  FUCK YES I WOULD.  I'm already planning on dedicating my entire right arm to things that relate to my recovery, so I could kinda design it into a sleeve. Do you have appreciation for graffiti?  It can be gorgeous and super creative.  Personally don't mind graffiti if it's not vandalizing a public-public place and isn't offensive. If you could learn a superpower in exchange for your memory would you do it? Definitely not. Do you know any TV shows’ theme songs by heart? Which ones? "That '70s Show" and "Supernatural." Have you ever gotten stitches? Twice. What’s your favorite music video at the moment?  "Cool Patrol" by NSP will always be the answer to this. Your take on one-night stands? Are they okay?  It's a no from me. Have you ever had sex outside? No. Have you ever needed to call the police? No. How do you feel about kettle cooked chips?  Ew. What strange food combinations do you thoroughly enjoy? My dad loves waffles with peanut butter and syrup, so I tried it when I was young.  It's AMAZING. Would you considered yourself to be well-exposed to life or sheltered?  Too exposed. If you’re in a relationship, how long have you been dating?  Six months. Have you ever played the game Halo?  No. Have you ever had to learn lines for a play/skit/movie?  Not that I remember. Can any of your friends sing very well?  Sara has a gorgeous voice. Have you ever been attacked by an animal?  No. Who did you dance with last?  Colleen. Can you speak in different accents?  British. Has anyone ever aimed a gun at you?  No. Have you ever been through a natural disaster?  Hurricanes. Have you ever been in a parade?  No. Have you ever had a dream where you could understand a foreign language?  No. Have you ever owned a beanbag chair?  Maybe? Are you a fan of retro things?  YES. Have you ever used pastels? Yes. Who was the last person you flipped off? Probably Colleen or Chelsea playfully. Would you consider yourself to be loyal? Very. Who was the last person you shared a bed with? Sara. Do you know anyone who has been abused?  Yes. What is your brother’s name?  Robert/Bobby. Did you ever go to daycare as a kid?  VERY briefly.  One of the adults hit me simply for going into the wrong room. Have you ever experienced a medical emergency?  Yes, when I passed out and got a concussion plus a deep wound in my chin.  And when I overdosed. Do you know anyone who has been to prison?  I don't think so. Do you have one of those removable hand-held shower heads?  Yes. How many burners does your stove have?  Four. When you go to a restaurant, do you prefer to sit at a booth or a table?  Booth. What’s something you think everyone should do/experience at least once in their life?  A different country.  Working towards that. What is the last compliment you received?  That my singing was pretty. /v\ Do you shower facing the water or away from it?  Away. Do you wash your body or hair first?  Hair. Do you put your name on your food coverings?  No. What is the most daring thing you’ve ever done?  Fly alone. Have you ever given to any charities?  Yes. What have you created that you are most proud of?  Some, imo, interesting OCs that I love like chilren. Who was your favorite Disney princess as a child?  Ariel. When did you do your first illegal activity?  When I was in middle school, downloading music. When did you lose your virginity?  I don't remember the age because at the time I didn't consider my virginity lost.  I'd guess 17-18. Do you like your boyfriend/girlfriend’s parents?  I LOVE THEM. Are you taller than your mom?  She's less than an inch taller than me. Where did you get your last bruise/cut from?  Bruise from working out on the floor, cut, idk. Is anyone over-protective over you?  Not really.  Mom's pretty protective, but not overly, I'd say. Have you ever had to call the cops on someone? No. Are your parents divorced?  Yes. Who do you think is the most attractive actor?  Johnny Depp. Are you good at wrapping presents?  NOOOOOO. Who were the last two boys to text you?  Dad and Girt. Are there certain things that can’t be joked about with you?  Yep. Have you ever read the Hunger Games series?  I read the first book. Are your lips soft?  Everyone who's kissed me has told me so, yet I think they're dry as fuck?? Your thoughts of long distance relationship?  Being in one, they're definitely hard, but SO damn worth it for when you actually see the person.  I think it's true that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Do you drink regular or diet sodas?  Regular, diet gives me a headache.