#and when I did I forgot about it so I find to try and find it again

[gamerexdrex]

"Hey! Let me go you oversized lizard!" Screamed the farmer, struggling against your grip.

Honestly, if it wasn't to prove to the stuck ups at the council, you would have never bothered even looking twice at this human, much less putting up with her screeching; but alas, sacrifices must be made for your tesis.

But it's damn hard when the human has been biting at your fingers. You are not sure why she thought it was a good idea, it has only been bothering you and might hurt her teeth.

When you finally, FINALLY, make it to the old castle, your are about ready to sleep a hundred years; but it isn't the time! You need! To teach! The human!

You land on the patio of the castle, with plenty of space for practice, and gently put the raving human down.

"Listen human-"

WACK

The human somehow found a large stick in the five seconds you've been in this place and immediatly hit your eye.

You should have just horded gold like your mom

"Listen-"

WACK

"human-"

WACK

"do you-"

WACK

"want-"

WACK

"to learn-"

WACK

"magic"

She stops in her tracks, and looks at you confused. "Soooo you are not going to eat me"

Your eye twichs "If I wanted a meal, I would have eaten the king's whole army of horses"

"Oh"

There is a bit of awkard silence

"So when do we begin?" She beams

You smile

"When I finish taking a nap, give 5 minutes and we'll start."

.....

You scribble the runes yet again, and once again, nothing happens.

The dragon seems even more disappointed than before somehow.

"It should work now, I don't know how this is possible"

You stare and can't help but feel frustrated with yourself. it's supposed to work, you two have been trying up until sundown.

It's probably your fault nothing happens.

You can hear the dragon's voice above you "let's take a break, shall we? Maybe when our heads are clear, we'll find a solution"

You wonder if the dragon is either very positive or very stubborn

After a fire and a couple of sheep the dragon got from...somewhere for dinner, you stare at the stars. You don't think you've seen this constelations before

"I'm sorry"

You turn to the dragon, surprised.

"I brought you here against your will, told you I would teach you magic, and we have yet to get a reaction from the runes" He lowers his head "So I apologise little human"

After a moment of shock, you smile sadly "It's alright, I guess I just wasn't cut out for this"

"Don't say that human; acording to my research, every human has the capacity to channel magic; and we did everything right"

You bite your cheek "If you say so" you look over the runes "what does it say anyways?"

You don't notice the dragon freezing in place but you do notice when he speaks up

"What"

Confused, you turn to him "well, yes? I don't know what we are writing so..."

He stares some more "Isn't this common knowledge? There are books written by you humans! That's how I know you could do magic!"

Is your turn to stare

"Quick question, how are those books?"

"There are just a little over a hundred yea-" the dragons stops and, after processing the imformation a bit, slams his head on the ground.

"I forgot to account human ages, of course I did"

You sit besides the dispairimg dragon "Soooo I assume meaning and understaning are important for magic"

"Mhm" He answers, head still on the ground "We've been writing the true names of spirits and powerful beings. You summon or imbude the strenght of those entities by writing them on this language. But it only works if the entity is understood to be powerful."

You ponder for a bit, and run to grab your big stick

"Can you tell me your name?"

The dragon looks up "huh?"

"Or at leats how it would be written in that weird old language, I have an idea"

The dragon looks at you a bit more, shrugs, and begins writing on the ground with it's claw

You carve the runes on the stick, now with the understanding that this is the name of your teacher.

Once finished, you looked at the letters and something odd happens. They begin to shine.

You aim at the sky, and a blast of purple light comes out of the tip of it, so strong that it send you flying. You are caught by the dragon. The hairs of your neck are standing up.

There is silence

"Y-you did it"

"I did it"

"YOU DID IT"

"I DID IT"

You both begin to laugh, of delight, of satisfaction, of relief, of excitement.

You did it

The other dragons laughed when you shared your thesis that humans should be capable of learning magic. Infuriated, you fly off to capture a human and teach it the ways of magic.

[bloatedandalone04]

Drunk Boyfriend - Blurb

WC: 1.3k | Warnings: fluff, swearing, alcohol consumption, drunk rafe, mentions of smut.

Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡ | THANK YOU FOR 5.6K FOLLWERS

When Topper called you from Rafe’s phone, you made a complete ass of yourself when you answered it by saying, “Hey, sexy. How’s the party? Ready to come have some actual fun with me yet?”

To which Topper respectfully declined before he informed you that your boyfriend may or may not have had a little too much to drink, and that it may or may not be best for you to come get him. 

You were still up, thankfully, since the whole reason you weren’t with Rafe like you usually always are was because you had multiple college applications you were working on. 

After both you and Topper forgot about your…choice of words you said to him when you picked up the call, you pushed yourself off your bed and threw on a cardigan to cover up your tank top and sleep shorts. You assumed you’d just be waiting in the car and Topper would come bring your drunk boyfriend out to you, but as you waited and glanced around the cup-littered and crowded yard, you grew a bit impatient once it hit the five minute mark. 

Inside was way worse than outside, and you had no idea where to even start to find Rafe or Topper. After somewhat clearing the living and dining rooms, you were about to check upstairs when you heard a multitude of laughing and cheering coming from the kitchen, so you went to check in there instead. 

And that’s where you found both Rafe and Topper. Rafe was literally standing on the counter, his head nearly grazing the ceiling as he downed one cup after the other, and Topper was standing below him, his hands placed firmly on Rafe’s knees to ensure he didn’t fall. At least Topper looked somewhat…less drunk. 

You’d only made it a couple steps into the kitchen when Rafe’s eyes met yours, and his face lit up like a kid on Christmas. “Y/n!” he greeted, not taking Topper’s outstretched hand and instead just jumping down from the counter before quickly making his way over to you. When he reached you, he pulled you into a tight hug, burying his face against the side of your neck as he unevenly swayed with you to the music that was playing throughout the house. “You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight, baby. I would’ve waited for you.”

His grip on you was so tight and strong, but you were kinda glad, because he was also putting a lot of his weight on you, and you surely would’ve fallen by now if he wasn’t holding you up. You looked over at Topper, who gave you a guilty glance before he quickly turned away and busied himself with something else. 

“I doubt that,” you mumbled, unsure if Rafe even heard you as you turned with him and guided him towards the exit of the crowded kitchen. “How much did you drink, babe? Can you walk?”

“Um, I don’t know…A lot? Fuck, I can’t even remember,” he slurred, draping his arm around your shoulder as he leaned heavily against you, his other hand reaching up to adjust his crooked, backwards hat. “Walk? Yeah, I can walk. I’m walking right now.” 

He said that, but his legs looked very wobbly as he struggled to keep up with you. But before you could get him out of this packed house and into your car, he stopped and grabbed your shoulders, nearly knocking you off your feet. 

“Y/n, baby, you gotta get me out of here,” he groaned desperately, dipping his head down to rest his forehead against yours. “This place is lame as fuck without you.” he added, his fingers digging into the skin of your hips possessively as his lips ghosted over yours, and you had to ignore how good his hands felt. 

Before he could slide your tank top up even more, you took his hands in yours and pulled him along with you. “I’m trying to,” you muttered, guiding him successfully out the front door and down the steps. When he stumbled on the last one and fell into you, you couldn’t stop the laugh from tumbling out of your mouth as you held onto him. “Fuck, Rafe…are you okay?” 

He didn’t even seem fazed as he nodded his head. “I’m fine, baby. Just…I just need you. Fucking missed you,” he rasped, grabbing hold of your hips as he pulled your body right up against his. His eyes lingered on your lips for a few seconds before he squeezed you even tighter, “Wanna take you home.”

You shook your head, tightening your hold on him as you hooked his arm around your shoulders again. “Sorry, baby, but I’m the one who’s taking you home. You can’t even walk straight right now,” you mumbled, pulling him along with you to your car. “Do you have your house key? And your phone?”

Rafe nods, mumbling something you couldn’t understand as he reaches into his pockets. You unlocked the passenger side door as he found his phone and keys, “Got ‘em right here, baby,” he announced, holding both items in front of your face. When you took them from him, Rafe leaned in and nuzzled his nose against your neck as he slid onto the seat. “You’re so good to me…always taking care of me.”

You were pulled forward when his hands wrapped around the backs of your thighs and tugged you towards him, making you brace your hands against his shoulders. 

“I love you so fucking much,” he mumbled, his fingers teasing the end of your sleep shorts, “And you look so fucking hot. Makes me wanna bend you over the hood right now.”

You had to laugh, because his eyes were literally closing as he said that, and he willingly went when you pushed him back so he was sitting properly on the seat. “Let’s get you home, in bed, and sober before we talk about bending me over, yeah?” you suggested, buckling his seatbelt. 

Rafe smiles drunkenly at you, leaning into your touch when you leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead, and before you could pull away again, he guided your mouth to his in a surprisingly sweet kiss. “I love you,” he mumbled again, his nose bumping against yours. 

“I love you too,” you said back, kissing him one last time before you closed the door and got in on the driver’s side. Once you were behind the wheel, Rafe reached over and took your hand in his, lacing your fingers together as you started the car. “Don’t fall asleep, okay? I can’t carry you, so if you don’t want to spend the night in my car, stay awake for a little longer.”

Rafe nodded, but his head was already rolling to the side. 

And even though your house wasn’t very far, Rafe was completely passed out when you got there. “Rafe,” you mumbled, giving his hand a squeeze, but he didn’t even flinch. “Seriously?” you groaned, leaning back in your seat as you turned off the car. 

You weren’t lying when you said you couldn’t carry him and that he’d be spending the night in your car, but you also couldn’t leave him. So you took off your seatbelt and reached over to push his seat back so he was more comfortable before moving to do the same to yours, but before you could, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you onto his body. 

You thought maybe he had woken up, but when you looked at him, his face was completely relaxed and his body was still. “You’re something else, you know that?” you mumbled as you shifted into a more comfortable position on top of him. 

And that was how you fell asleep that night; laying on top of your wasted boyfriend who, even in his sleep state, couldn’t keep his hands off you.

[pboogerswbb]

SO IT GOES - chapter 1

Paige Bueckers x oc Warnings: language, drinking Wordcount: 5.4K A/C: another pregame treat!! need my girls to deliver tonight!! anyways, here is chapter one, this one is about to start a little slower and i'm sorry about that but i promise it'll pick up and get more interesting, i got big plans for this one y'all!! anyway please leave feedback/thoughts/reviews whatever for me, i love them :)

-

Before London

The Dallas roads are busy, stretching out for miles out into the horizon as I stare out the window. My lungs craved fresh air, itching to open it. But I knew the air outside would bring no such relief, the humidity of this time of year already bringing me one step closer to packing my bags and making my way back to Connecticut. Everyone told me to turn the AC on, but I was much too stubborn and stuck in my ways. My dad would have come over himself and turn it off if he knew I was considering turning it on in April - much too early for his liking.

I had been here for a week now, seven long days. Each one making me more homesick. I missed my girls. I missed my team. I missed the normal weather and the East Coast. It was so bad I was on the phone with my dad every night, complaining. I knew as much as he loved me, he was getting sick of it.

“Paige, let’s figure this out,” Britt’s voice comes through the speaker phone, five garment bags sent by her laid out on the bed, ready to be opened.

“What do you even wear to this sorta thing?” I ask, speaking into the phone. My hands are opening one bag after another.

“Baby I dunno, you just gotta pick something. What kinda vibe do you wanna give off?” Brittany asks sweetly as I place my phone on the bed in front of me, pulling my shirt off over my head.

“I can’t think, it’s too hot,” I complain, rubbing my face. “I hate it here, wanna come back.”

“Paige, you gotta push through this. Try and look at it differently, at least you like your teammates!” 

I whine and lie down, my back hitting the soft cotton of the sheets. “Do you think they’d let me take my sixth year?”

“Oh my gosh girl you gotta pull yourself together,” Brittany laughs, which in turn makes me laugh too. I knew I was being dramatic, my team was great, the coaching staff seemed amazing. But it was my first time living alone, I didn’t know what to do with myself and all this energy I had. I felt like I was two days away from jumping off the walls.

Lou and Arike had both taken me under their wing, and the few joint practices we’d had with the team the past week seemed promising. Not good, but like there might be potential for something with hard work. I was well taken care of and grateful for it, but the thing is at Uconn I was spoiled. I got to live with my best friends. To spend every moment with them, get on their nerves and not worry because in the end they were my sisters.

“Where are you going?” Britt asks.

“Some sorta steakhouse,” I answer, rubbing my eyes.

“Boujee or like… Texas?”

I snort, grabbing the phone from beside me.

“It’s a nice place I heard. But Rike been here for so long she mighta forgot what nice is,” I joke sitting back up.

“Then go with the blue bag.”

Unzipping it, I find a pair of black shorts, and an oversized dark green crewneck sweatshirt. 

“Ion know about this Britt it’s a lil… boring,” I mumble looking over the outfit. When did I last wear dark green anyway.

“That’s why you dress it up girl! Wear a collared shirt under it, put on some chains, some nice shoes, trust it’ll fit the vibe, you don’t wanna be doing too much. Have I ever let you down?”

I sigh. I could see the vision the moment she started talking. “No you have not,” I reply. “I gotta start getting ready. Thanks again.”

“Anytime Paige,” she answers and we hang up. I know silence can’t echo, but it’s so overwhelming it almost feels like that’s exactly what it’s doing. Storrs was always loud, lively. Now I had it so bad I was even missing KK’s neverending rambling. 

Quickly putting on a playlist to get rid of the aching pressure on my chest, I begin to get ready, rapping along to a Drake song loudly - but who cares I live alone now. I sleek back my hair, pinning it into a bun - the one hairstyle I knew how to do. I put on some diamond studs, and take my time picking accessories, choosing just the right silver rings to match the chain on my neck, a cross hanging from it. Of course, Brittany had been right. The outfit was great, not too much for a nice restaurant but still totally me.

“Shit,” I mumble to myself when I check the time, realising Lou must be waiting on me downstairs. Grabbing a white cross-body bag I run out the door, quickly making my way down where, just like I thought, the brunette was waiting, tapping on the steering wheel impatiently.

“Sorry I’m late,” I yelp climbing into the passenger seat. Since I barely knew Dallas, Lou had decided it was best if she drove both of us.

Shaking her head, the girl driving merges onto the road swiftly. “Not gonna be making a good impression if we bring our rookie to the party late,” Lou complains.

I scoff, leaning back against the seat and tapping on the back of my phone, feeling butterflies grow in my abdomen. I knew I made good first impressions, that people seemed to like me. I wasn’t called the ultimate rizzler for nothing. But it was still daunting, I was about to meet all the people who worked behind the team, behind me just so we could do what we do. 

The past week had been so strange.The change in dynamic was drastic. I had become so used to being the older one, the one to call the shots, to have so much wisdom to give. Almost naively so. All of a sudden I was back to being the baby - the one who didn’t know anything, who had to depend on others. I thought I was prepared. But the transition was hard to navigate. I didn’t quite know how to act, if I was honest.

“Yo chill, I’m not even that late,” I chuckle lightheartedly, looking out the car window, my eyes trying to find something worth changing my mind about Dallas for.

“Ten minutes is too much, we gotta pick up Rike too,” Lou complains, hands on the wheel. It was only April but the humidity made it feel like summer. “Were you late talking to that girl?”

“What girl?” I ask.

“That girl from last night!” Lou laughs, elbowing me.

I shrug, like I had no clue what she was talking about. A complete lie. I hadn’t been thinking straight ever since I saw her.

“Ohh you mean that girl downstairs!” I say sarcastically. The brunette next to me sees right through it though.

“Never heard your voice get so quiet and shaky I swear,” Lou says, a blush setting on the apples of my cheeks thinking back to last evening. “You were fully stuttering.”

“No way bro!” I groan, biting my lower lip so as to not laugh. Though I knew better. I was definitely stuttering.

I hadn’t seen much of the girl, just her face poking through the door into the hallway. But something about her took my breath away, I couldn’t look anywhere else. It was Lou finally elbowing me that made me realise I had been staring at the dark haired girl. She was so beautiful it physically pained me to look away, but with a struggle, I had done so. 

But then she spoke. And if I wasn’t trembling before, the lilt of her voice had me weak in the knees immediately. It was deep, yet simultaneously sweet. Nevermind the accent that hadn’t left my head all night. Lou made fun of me relentlessly all night because apparently, my voice was shaking when I talked to her. I think she was full of shit.

“You were, I don’t blame you,” the brunette murmurs. “She was hot.”

I kiss my teeth, looking out the window. “Don’t matter, she could be Zendaya and I still wouldn’t get into all that.”

Lou looks bewildered, eyes flickering between me and the road.

I grin at her, shaking my head. “Nah I’m staying celibate. Scout’s honor. Got me that Natty last season.”

It was true. For the first time last season I had not been involved with any girl - and it worked out pretty well in the end. It got me the ring. Adapting to a new team, new city, new life was already hard enough without fucking around. Girls had a way of making everything complicated.

“You? Celibate?” Lou asks, her tone skeptical. I suppose she remembers a different Paige from when we were both Huskies. I had changed a lot though, grown up.

“Trust,” I nod as we park in front of a nice apartment building, Arike making her way out and into the car.

“Yo,” she greets us, and I nod into the rearview mirror, meeting her gaze.

“Sup my rookie!” Arike grins and squeezes my shoulder. “You ready for tonight?”

“Aren’t we just gonna eat and go home?” I ask but Lou and Rike are quick to shake their heads.

“Nah these things don’t end till late, we know how to party here you know what I’m sayin?” The girl in the back grins.

“Don’t blame you, nothing else to do here,” I complain half-jokingly. 

“Yooo not too much. You’ll grow to like it,” Arike laughs, grabbing her phone. “Just don’t drink everything people offer you today, got it?”

“Yeah, everyone’s gonna be trying to get you drunk,” Lou chuckles. “My rookie year they had me almost blacked out.”

“Almost? You were blacked out. We had to carry you to bed.”

I laugh and sigh, rubbing my jaw, my nerves stirring within my abdomen. “Great.”

-

The restaurant is buzzing with people, an entire second floor reserved just for the Dallas Wings employees. Arike, Lou and I show up fashionably late, but to my pleasant surprise everyone’s too busy huddling around the bar, lining up for drinks. I smooth over my green sweatshirt, already feeling the heat get to me. How the hell was I supposed to dress for weather like this? It wasn’t even summer yet.

I walk over to Satou, who’s grinning widely at me.

“Look at you, our baby rookie. Let’s get you a drink!” She smiles convincingly. I glance at Arike and Lou behind me, snickering amongst themselves already. So it begins.

“Feels wrong to drink at a team event like this,” I tell the taller girl, guiding me towards the bar. I was more used to sneaking drinks into hotel rooms, doing our best to hide them from the coaching staff. Guess this is what growing up feels like.

“Nah, don’t worry. Everyone’s chill here,” Satou laughs and orders us two beers before I have the opportunity to interrupt and ask for a Shirley. Reluctantly I grab the beer, cheering with the girl next to me.

“To the saviour of the Wings!!” She jokes and I roll my eyes, shaking my head.

“Sorry, but could you check if they are Manzanilla olives?”

The accent. I immediately turn my back on Satou, my body working before my mind can as my eyes scan the room. And then I see her. The girl from the apartment underneath mine.

She’s standing at the other end of the bar, holding a black clutch in her hand as she talks with the bartender. Her dark hair is down, in perfect waves, not one strand out of order. The dress she’s wearing isn’t red, but more maroon, shade matching the red of her lipstick to the hilt. The one-shoulder dress leaves her left one completely bare, and the golden jewelry sitting against her light brown skin makes her sparkle in the moody lighting. No words would do justice, I know that much. My knees nearly buckle at the sight of her. This strange girl whose name I didn’t even know, yet kept haunting my existence here in Dallas.

“Oh they’re not? Then nevermind the martini, could I just get a glass of Chardonnay please?”

If I had been nervous before, then it was nothing compared to the way my stomach was stirring now. Which is insane considering I didn’t even know this girl’s name. Hell, I better just avoid her tonight. I’m not on my a game. I should just keep my distance.

“Paige! That’s the girl!” Lou is half whispering, half screaming over the crowd, incredibly obviously pointing at the dark haired girl. To my relief she doesn’t notice, too busy swirling the wine in her glass around and sniffing it. 

“Shut up,” I mouth to Lou as she walks up to me, Arike on her tail.

“What girl?” Arike whispers, already eyeing every woman over my shoulder.

I give Lou a look, widening my eyes and telling her to keep her mouth shut. But of course, it fails. I had no power here.

“We ran into this hot girl in Paige’s building yesterday and Paigey here got all shy and nervous.”

Arike bursts out laughing, and I’m pretty sure my face was going completely pink at this point. So I sip half of my beer quickly, letting the girls get over their laughing fit.

“You done?” I ask in annoyed, eyeing the girls.

Gasping for air, Arike nods and grins at me. “Well go get her.”

“She can’t, she’s celibate,” Lou answers. The shorter girl standing next to her scoffs, clearly finding amusement in that.

“Yeah, good luck with that. You’re the new hooper in town, gon’ be drowning in pussy. I was,” she says, sipping her beer. “The rookie year is crazy.”

“Oh trust, she was drowning in it at Uconn too-”

“Okay okay, chill guys,” I interrupt the conversation, Satou standing next to us quietly and chuckling to herself. 

“So which one is it?” Arike asks. Glancing over my shoulder I see the girl from downstairs talking to some guy around the same age as her. Just as I’m about to point her out, Satou and Arike are waving that exact guy over.

“Yo Trey!! My guy!!”

All of a sudden he’s walking over with her. I feel my face going red, my breathing growing ragged, my eyes quickly flicking to the floor. She was like the sun, as much as I wanted to I couldn’t look directly at her - it might blind me.

“What’s up, my favourite girls!” The guy - Trey, apparently - says brightly and dabs all of them up. 

“Ahh and the prodigy!” He grins, turning to me. I lick my lower lip and smile back, offering my hand. “I’m the guy with the camera, you’ll see me around. Trey.”

I dab him up, ignoring the tingling on the left side of my body where the dark haired girl is standing, evidently feeling as awkward as I was. Except she was better at hiding it, looking around the room with an air of confidence.

“Well I’m the one with the basketball, you’ll know where to find me. I’m Paige,” I flash him my most charming smile. Everyone laughs at my joke, except the girl beside me. I quickly decide that perhaps getting drunk wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

“Oh this is Zari, she’s new from England, Linda finally hired someone to work on the social media shit,” Trey explains, pointing to the girl between me and him. I blink stupidly when I look at her. Somehow she was more beautiful up close which made my throat feel tighter. I quickly sip my beer again, looking to the ceiling. Fuck, pull yourself together. I wasn’t this superficial - feeling like this just because someone was hot. Who knows, she might be the worst person you’ve ever met.

“That would be me, hi!” She says when I realise I was barely listening to Trey before, completely not making note of her name. She shakes everyone’s hand, smiling kindly. Fuck, are my hands sweaty? Better wipe them on my shorts first. I gotta make eye contact - I’m sure a couple seconds will be enough. It might be all I can bear.

The girl turns to me, her right hand extended. I glance at it, gripping it gently. Her hand shake is surprisingly firm, but I barely notice, feeling as if my skin is on fire. The moment our eyes meet I look away, knowing that everyone and their mothers could tell I was blushing right now.

“I forgot your name,” is all that comes out of my mouth, so clumsily I wanna hide behind the bar and never come out when I realise how rude it sounded.

To my shock she’s not taken aback at all by my bluntness, instead holding herself with an almost regal air. I wasn’t sure if I was intimated or turned on - either way I was overcome with a desperate need to make her like me. Surely I was off to a horrible start.

Our eyes meet again. Hers are dark green, deep and rich like the pine trees back home. I can feel myself wanting to sink in deeper, to bask in their familiarity. To feel the sting of cold air and smell the snow falling from the sky and to bask in the scent of pine all over me. Before I know it I notice her glossed lips move, but my ears barely pick anything up. An I? And I think there was an A at the end? You gotta be kidding me.

“I- Ivanna?” I stutter. She chuckles softly, as the others around us snicker amongst themselves. Bitches. 

“No, darling, let’s try again,” she smiles, her tone so sweet it’s bordering on condescending. I fucking swoon at it. “Izara.”

I nod, not sure if the heat on my face is from how hot and humid it was inside the restaurant, or from the public humiliation in front of this gorgeous girl. I chuckle mostly to myself, rubbing my jaw and looking around to break eye contact finally. Far too distracting.

“Izara,” I repeat, noticing Satou, Arike, Lou and some of the others laughing at my clumsy behaviour. I was just begging Izara didn’t make note of why I was acting a fool. 

“Zari is better,” the brunette says, a slight teasing tone to her voice. I breathe heavily out my nose, trying to get the blush to settle from my cheeks.

“Zari, got it.”

“Took you long enough,” Arike teases, making everyone laugh, except Zari who just smiles at me.

“Guys, not all of us are used to the Texas heat. It messes with your head,” she says with enough authority in her voice to make everyone around us stop laughing and give me sympathetic looks.

“Uhh yeah, it’s hot,” I answer bluntly, my voice shaking a little as I rub my neck. On top of the mess I was, I could feel myself sweating. I have to get home as fast as possible. Or not home. But back to the apartment I was staying in for now, until the moment I could go back home to the East Coast.

“Shit, I’m Paige by the way,” I say, realising I never introduced myself to Zari. She scoffs, waving me off.

“Paige, it’s my job to know who you are,” she points out. It’s funny, and I want to laugh. But nothing comes out of my mouth, I’m simply unable to, her proximity leaving me completely discombobulated. So I just sip my beer.

“Right.”

-

Paige Bueckers hates me. The moment she met me I could tell. Maybe she was offended by the fact I didn’t recognise her last night. Figures, a star like her would have a huge ego. Still, I had one job tonight. To make her like me. And I had done the exact opposite. I could tell by the way she avoided my gaze, the way she barely wanted to shake my hand, abruptly pulling it away from my grip. She barely talked to me, wrapped up in a conversation with everyone besides me. I couldn’t afford to disappoint my boss, if I did it would be bye bye Dallas and hello London. 

I’m sitting between Trey and another colleague, Ava, both caught up in a lively conversation as I cut a piece of my steak, wrapping my lips around the fork and chewing on it. Glancing up from my plate, I see Paige throwing her head back as she laughs with her teammates, her entire demeanor so much more lively now that I wasn’t close to her. A slight irritation was growing in me, watching the carefree way she’s joking around with the people around her part of the long table. Who was she to make up her mind on whether she liked me so fast. I was the kind of person you grew to love. I’m sure she would as well.

“Okay everybody!” Curt Miller stands up clinking his glass with the cutlery. Suddenly everyone goes quiet, including the blonde. For a second our eyes meet, sending a strange jolt around my body. Blinking, I shift my gaze to the man, clearly ready to give a speech.

“Alright alright,” he laughs, “I just wanna thank everyone for coming here tonight. I was never good at these so let me keep it short. This is gonna be a big, exciting year and I’m so grateful to the Wings for giving me this opportunity. I know I’m a new face to some of you, but I’m in great company,” he grins and points to Paige. “And Linda here mentioned something about a new media employee too!”

Like on cue Linda stands up a few chairs to the right of me, nodding. “Yes Curt, we’ve got some young blood to help this year all the way from England. Izara here, should help us grow our social media reach.”

I smile, trying to focus on appearing together and poised, some people glancing towards me. 

“Awesome news!” Curt grins as Linda sits back down. “With two young talents I’m sure we’re gonna have a hell of a year,” he says, glancing at both me and Paige. I see Arike rub Paige’s shoulder, clearly excited and happy about how the lottery turned out for the Wings this year.

“Now since I’m boring everyone out of their minds why don’t you two say a few words.”

Pause. I feel a panic rise from somewhere deep in my abdomen. Don’t get me wrong, I had no issue with public speaking, no issue with performing. What I did have an issue with was improvising. I was the girl who planned, who made lists, who used to finish her essays the day before a deadline. With a plan I was golden, but to expect me to say anything, planless, was causing jitters. I was just hoping it didn’t show on my face.

Mine and Paige’s eyes meet, and I immediately know that I wasn’t as composed as I wanted to be. That she knew I was panicking. Bet this is just gonna make her hate me more.

Instead, to my surprise, she clears her throat and begins speaking with an easy confidence.

“Uh well, way to throw us under the bus Curt,” she jokes, immediately making everyone chuckle, including me. “Guess I know what kinda season this is about to be.” Another round of laughs around the table giving her time to scratch the back of her neck as she thinks. With a slight smirk on her face she continues.

“This is a big moment for me. I grew up with the sport, already knew I had a chance to go pro when I was eight. I’ve been waiting for a while to get to the league and to finally be here… It’s surreal. I feel really blessed, really grateful,” she says looking at her plate and then letting out a sly, quiet laugh. “Crazy that I’m drinking with the coaching staff right there, I’m so used to having to hide it.”

I chuckle with the rest of the group. There’s something about her, a smoothness, a charm that makes it impossible not to like her. Even improvising like this she seems completely in control, like she knows she’s got everyone wrapped around her finger. It’s impressive. I can’t look away.

“Geno didn’t let you drink?” Curt asks lightheartedly, making Paige’s blue eyes widen.

“He would’ve put belt to ass, lemme just say that.”

More laughter. Paige looks around meeting my gaze.

“Zari, I know you got that cold right? So maybe I should just speak for you so you have a voice tomorrow?”

Huh? I furrow my brows looking at her confused, but her eyes won’t budge, boring into mine. And then I realise. She’s trying to let me off the hook.

“Yes please,” I smile back, looking down to my lap. Something about the way she did that all for me, picked up on my nerves, found a way to get me out of it, was making my insides flip. You wouldn’t do that for someone you hate I suppose.

“I gotchu,” Paige grins, looking back to everyone around the table. “I think we’re both just really grateful for the opportunity and really excited for the season. Anyway, thanks guys.” 

Everyone claps and I do too, my heart warming at the way Paige Bueckers had just saved me. 

“Wait, you're sick?” Trey whispers. 

“Uh, a little.”

-

“Hope you feel better Zari!” Ava says as I wave bye, walking towards the exit.

“Thanks guys, I’m sure I will,” I say, knowing I felt just fine. Great even, after a few glasses of wine. As I step out into the evening, I hold my fur coat in my hands, too hot to put it on. To my surprise I see Paige standing right outside the restaurant, scrolling on her phone. Interrupted by the tapping of my heels, she lifts her gaze, the intensity of her blue eyes surprising.

“Hey,” she smiles, avoiding looking at my face again. She was really giving me mixed signals.

“Hi there,” I say, walking closer. “Thanks for rescuing me earlier.”

She looks at the parking lot, a sly smirk spreading across her face.

“Nah, you’re good,” the blonde grins, diamond studs in her ears sparkling. “Not a fan of speeches?”

I shrug, taking that as an invite for conversation. “No I can certainly be… If you give me approximately two weeks to prepare. Minimum.”

Paige chuckles, nodding to herself. “You’re that kinda girl huh?”

“Desperately so.”

She shifts on her feet, looking for something to say.

“That’s a good trait to have, I try to plan too but usually doesn’t last for longer than a week or two,” she explains. I nod knowingly.

“My brother’s a bit like that,” I sigh. I was already missing him.

Paige turns to me, looking for my gaze.

“You got a brother?”

I nod, “Yeah, he’s younger. Your age.”

She’s taken aback. “Hollup how old are you?”

“Turned 25 last month.”

“Damn,” she says before thinking. I scoff, my eyes widening, though finding amusement in her reaction

”Are you calling me old?” I ask with a serious tone, her face immediately going bright red. 

”No, no no, not at all. You look… great.  Amazing, and like. That’s not even old, I'm just trippin’. I just assumed you were my age but like a year is nothin-” she rambles, tripping over her words.

”Paige I’m taking the piss,” I laugh. She stops, looking at me confused.

”You’re what?”

Oh right, Americans. ”I’m joking around.”

She laughs. ”Taking the piss?”

I laugh too, the air immediately easing between us.

”I’mma start using that,” Paige chuckles, glancing at me. 

”You’re welcome,” I grin.

She scoffs. ”I didn’t say thank you.”

”You should,” I demand, more seriously, meeting her blue eyes. She immediately folds, blinking her long lashes.

”Thank you.”

I suddenly feel hot, warmth rising to my cheeks. I quickly look back to the ground, the intensity of her gaze too much right now.

”Hey, uh… I think we live in the same building,” she murmurs, watching the sky. Shit, she had recognised me, of course.

”Yeah… I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you. I really should have,” I quickly explain, feeling a little abashed but trying not to let it show.

”No, I just meant, I ordered an Uber. You need a ride?”

Oh. So she wasn’t mad. She was offering me a ride.

”I’d love one. Are you sure?”

”Totally,” Paige answers, smiling at me softly. She fans her own face, trying to find any relief for the heat. 

”Shit it’s hot,” the blonde groans. ”Do you mind if I take this off? I got a shirt underneath.”

”Oh, no go ahead darling,” I tell her.

With a sigh, Paige’s hands grip the back of her green sweatshirt, pulling it over her head. As she does my eyes can’t help it, flickering over her lower abdomen where both shirts have hiked up, showing a sliver of pale skin and black boxers peeking out of her shorts. Something about it makes my throat go dry. I’m not exactly sure what. The feeling almost unfamiliar to me. 

”That’s so much better,” Paige groans with relief, fixing the white oversized button up, chains resting against her chest. I feel my ears growing hot, quickly averting her gaze.

-

She’s not horrible, on top of being gorgeous she’s fucking great - funny, sweet, charismatic. Would be so much easier if Zari was an asshole like I had hoped earlier. I could feel butterflies in my stomach every time she looked at me. That familiar warmth that I knew too well.

We walk to the Uber together, and I make sure I open the door for her - I didn’t know her that well, but I could tell she was classy. On a whole different level than me. 

I climb in after her, unbuttoning more of my shirt for some airflow. For a second I think I catch her staring, but I knew it was unlikely. She was definitely giving me straight girl vibes. Of course my stupid ass was ogling after a straight girl - nothing new to me. My eyes immediately land on her thighs, her legs crossed and pressing together as she sits next to me. Okay, get a grip Paige.

”So… How you liking Dallas?” I ask, unable to take the silence in the car. 

”I haven’t seen much of it, just moved the other day,” she answers, her voice low but smooth, I could’ve listened to her talk all night. ”It’s very humid.”

”Damn that jetlag gotta be hitting hard huh?” I ask, looking at her.

”I look tired?” She asks, offended. An immediate panic takes over, my hands gripping the sweater in my hands. Shit.

”No you look fucking great. I would’ve never th-”

”Paige. I’m joking.”

Oh. I let out a sigh of relief, chuckling awkwardly. I look out the window, shaking my head at myself. I really needed to chill.

”Taking the piss?”

She lets out a loud, bright laugh, grabbing my forearm. The gold rings on her digits sparkle as her long, manicured nails dig into the white shirt. Immediate goosebumps rising underneath on my skin tell me I’m completely fucked.

“Exactly!” She gleams, her smile wide. “You did so good.”

That. I need to hear her say that again. I clear my throat to interrupt the bad thoughts, feeling Zari’s hand move off me, skin tingling as the weight of her touch lifts.

We pull up to our apartment building, both of us climbing out.

“I can transfer you some money for the ride,” Zari suggests as I let her into the building, eyes falling on her ass just for a second. Okay, no. Look away.

“No, Ion need you to,” I tell her sternly as we begin to climb up the flights of steps, her heels tapping against the tile of the floor. The sound echoes off the walls until we stop by her front door, silence draping over us, making me painfully aware of the way my heart was pounding in my chest.

“Well,” Zari smiles, turning to me, her green eyes even more prominent with the dark makeup surrounding them. Only then I notice how catlike they are, sharp and alert. Challenging almost.

I wanna say something smart, something witty. Something to make her laugh, or blush. I’m rummaging through my brain for anything coherent at least.

“I’ll see you at work,” she says, opening her door. I was running out of time.

“You’ll know where to find me,” I stupidly let out. Zari turns to look at me one more time and nods.

“Don’t stomp too loud please.”

With that she gets in, leaving me there with nothing to do but blink at the closed door and notice the flutters around my stomach. Rubbing my jaw, I slowly climb up one more flight of stairs, mind spinning around the girl. Completely, utterly out of my league. It only made me want her more.

-

taglist: @wbbgetsmewetter @thaatdigitaldiary @sierrale8ne @lupinqs @lovegalor333 @d3arapril @avvwritesstufff @rosemariiaa @bueckers22 @taylynbueckers44 @unadulteratedcyclepaper @rizzlerbuckets @bueckersfive @wosolipa @bridgetloveswomen @paiges-1vur @slut4uconnwbb @xxloveralways14 @bueckersbitch

[bonbonly]

BONBON!!! need collegeau! carlos punishing artstudent!reader for going almost no contact with him when she was on her trip with mrs sainz. left him in the dark, wondering if she was with another man.. he needs to leaves so many marks so that no man goes near her for a while.. 🙏

LITERALLY AS SOON AS I FINISHED WRITING "INTO THE WOODS" I WAS LIKE I NEED TO GET TO EM'S ASK (and im combining 🍒 anon's ask in this as well!)

bon's thoughts (18+)

college!au carlos is at his study room, typing up an assignment that he has for his entrepreneurship class. his fingers drum against the keyboard before he adds another paragraph to his proposal. he leans back in his chair, reading over the word doc and then stiffening when he hears your laughter downstairs.

you had just come back from an art exhibition with his mother. you spent the past two weeks ignoring his texts, never picking up his calls. every time he did call, it was always when you were talking with an art director about trying to get your paintings to another gallery across the globe. by the time you'd get back to your hotel room, you're passed out and dozing off, completely oblivious to the thousand calls carlos was spamming you with.

mrs. sainz is making pasta for everyone tonight, and she smiles at you, "my dear, would you mind going upstairs and getting carlos? i heard he hasn't eaten anything since lunch, no snacks or juice! my poor boy must be starving!"

you laugh, slipping off the stool and nodding your head, "will do, mrs. sainz!" and you skip out of the kitchen, heading up the stairs. you approach his room, and pause in front of his door. you peer into the small crack and see him working diligently, his glasses on. he never really wore glasses that often, only if he was locked in and trying to get his work done. but ugh, he looked really good wearing it. you clear your throat, knocking on the door, "carlos! your mom's calling you for dinner!"

"come in!" carlos barks, cracking his knuckles. you enter, closing the door behind you,

"hey!" you smile, but your face falls when you see that he's glaring at you. he gestures for you to walk over to him and you sigh, reaching him behind his desk and running a hand through his hair, "hey, what's up? is your college work too much?" but before you can get a response, he shuts his laptop, placing it to the side and tosses all the papers and pencils onto the ground before picking you up and slamming you onto the table. you gasp out loud as he's tearing your clothes off, spreading your legs wide. he lets a trail of his saliva flow onto your pussy, his fingers sliding the spit along your folds which causes you to choke back a moan as you gaze at him with wide eyes. he chuckles, darkly,

"very cute of you, hermosa," he snickers, licking your clit, "i think my dinner's right here." and he wraps his entire mouth around your cunt, slurping the sweet juice you have to offer him. you're shaking as he continues, and folds you into a mating press as he rubs his nose against your clit, inhaling your scent, "fuck, i've spent two weeks without your calls and texts, imagine how much i missed you, princesa"

and you gulp, realizing that he didn't forget the fact that you forgot to call him back. he's holding onto your wrists to make sure you can't hold onto his hair as his tongue delves deeper, his head shaking against your cunt which has you crying out loud about how good his tongue is. truth is you missed him too, but you wouldn't say that because you knew his ego would get bigger. when you cum around his tongue, he lets his tongue drag up to your tits, sucking and biting anywhere that he can find. he's marking your neck, your forehead, your collarbones, even your arms, all while his cock is pistoning inside of you without stopping.

"are you going to cum? hm, is that what's going to happen?" he mocks your pleas as you're frantically nodding your head, telling him how close you were. he laughs, shaking his head, "i thought you were fucking some other man, i thought you had forgotten all about me... me, the man that even got you those art exhibitions! fuck, i think the only way you'll ever understand is if i get you pregnant. my cum flowing out of you every night. my mama will be so happy to be the grandmother to our child."

"carlos!" you scream, clenching around his cock as his nibbles your ear. your legs are stretched so wide you know you're going to be limping back downstairs. a knock on the door makes you snap your head to the side, and carlos is grinning as he's pounding into you faster.

"carlos, what's taking you so long?" mrs. sainz asks from the other side, and carlos groans quietly to himself at the feeling of your pussy swallowing him, taking him deeper,

"just a bit... fuck, busy with work mama! we'll be out soon, don't worry! give me 10 more minutes!" he yells, and mrs. sainz sighs,

"take your time! your work comes first, mi hijo!" her footsteps grow quieter as she heads back downstairs, and carlos grabs your jaw, forcing you to look back at him,

"you heard what she said, mi zorra, you better hope mi mama doesn't see my cum all over you," and you whimper out loud, biting your lip at the thought of being drenched from head to toe in his cum. he giggles, shaking his head, "you'd like that, wouldn't you? and who am I to deny my princesa?"

[fizz-pop-thwip]

I struggle thinking about non consensual human experimentation as a whole, but what happened to Bucky really it does just make me sick.

To start, think of how his stomach dropped when he fell from the train, the fucking fear knowing you're dead. You have 2 seconds and then your dead, this is it.

Then you wake up to 1) being alive, horrifically unaware of the 70 years of hell ahead of you and 2) your arm being not only surgically removed but replaced with a metal arm, a foreign body, a parasite. You fight because what else are you ment to do? But you fall unconscious again.

You wake up to days and days of torment and torture and slowly loose hope that it will ever end, that you'll ever be saved. He didn't know that Steve was dead, how long did he yearn for Steve to find him? How mad did he get? Did he punch the wall, did he scream? Did they have to sedate him because of just how psychotic that made him? How fucking manic he would go?

How long till he lost all feeling, all emotion and hope?

When they started putting him in the chair, did he scream and cry? Did he beg for anything else? Any thing, anything, fucking anything. Did he beg for death? Did he feel himself slowly lose all of his memory, did he sob when he first couldn't picture Steve's face, or when he could remember the most important person in the world, but not a name or a background or a face, not a crumb.

The first time he's put in cryo freeze, does he remember his reflection? Seconds before he fell unconscious, never knowing how long it would be before he woke up again. Did he wake up, begging to just be put back in, the closest fate to death he could ever achieve? The closest thing to mercy? Does he catch himself falling asleep at night and wake up in tears, not even sure if it's been 20 minutes of 20 years.

Did his crys for help fall on the shiney leather shoes of scientists who showed no emotion, did he question if he was even human to begin with? Surely a human would be treated with even a fraction of care. No one treated like this was born from a mother, no one treated like this was ever looked at with maternal love.

He stopped feeling like a person, he didn't even remember he was a person. When things seeped though it just hurt, they hurt him, it made it worse. So he stopped it, he wouldn't let himself. It was impossible to live. He had no coping mechanisms, no outlet, he would show any signs of struggle and be hurt for showing humanity. He had to be what they wanted.

Even after he was broken in, no crying anymore. No begging for mercy. Did he spend his nights awake, just TRYING to remember what he forgot, FEELING the missing spots in his mind? Did he hold that metal arm close because he can't even remember how he got it anymore, all he knows is it makes his shoulders ache.

He was completely and utterly trapped, the more he suppressed, even the minor shards he remembered, the more mania he would experience.

Even once he's free, how do you come back from that, even if it was just a mental thing, the physical, real DAMAGE to his brain was enough to make him never heal again. Bucky is a walking fucking miracle and maybe THE survivor.

He is going to have memory problems, severly. He is going to have intense PTSD flashbacks, total hallucination level, breakdowns. Seriously, this level of trauma is NEVER leaving him, not fully. Phantom pains, endless nightmares, coping mechanisms that don't make sense but comfort him none the less.

He's going to have periods of times where he can't even stand being touched, not Steve, not anyone. Weeks where he can't shower or move out of a space his brain has deemed safe for fear of being hurt. Scratches at the seam between his flesh and the metal of arm, wanting it off, wanting it away from him. Again does it necessarily make sense logically? NO!! but does he feel it 100%? Yes!!

He gets better, his bad periods get less intense, more far in between but they never fully go away. As fuckimg depressing as it is, hydra made a permanent mark on his psyche. It's FUCKED.

Gods strongest soldier is Bucky Barnes.

[calitears]

𐙚 be my angel

“they say it's me, that makes you do things you might not have done”

megumi x reader • birthday fic

word count: 1,141

Unboxing the small cake from the cardboard box that had held it, you carefully slid it out, turning it by the edges of plate. You smiled at the final result of the order you had placed last week, dark chocolate cake with the least sweet option of frosting the bakery offered, the baker really out did themselves. The next step was to unbox the candles, the white 2’s with a dark blue outline, and carefully placing them on the cake, making sure the words ‘happy birthday megumi’ spelt in navy blue jelly didn’t get messed up.

Today was your boyfriend’s 22nd birthday, and coincidentally just so happened to be your first year anniversary. It was hard to believe an entire year had already passed by since the night you accidentally confessed to him at the ‘surprise’ birthday party Yuji had thrown for him.

That night Megumi had already known about his best friend’s scheme, and it honestly crossed his mind to avoid it. But at the end of the day, it was you who convinced him to attend. It was always you to drag him along anywhere and everywhere.

When you first met him, could compare Megumi to the personification of melancholy. You know your love hasn’t had an easy life, which you assumed is why you almost always saw him thinking off into space, refreshing his mind of happy memories, yet what seemed to be a sad longing. That was just the way he was. You would learn he didn’t find joy or interest in much materialistic things, instead he’d seek comfort and reassurance in actions and words. And slowly, you introduced him to the idea of touch as a love language.

Experiencing something new and so nice in the present, maybe helped him move forward from the past.

People often considered you the most affectionate in the relationship, you’d hear teasing comments come from his friends, Yuji or Nobara, about how it was always you to initiate anything between you guys. It was always you who forced him to be included. The thought that maybe you loved him more than he did you had crossed your mind before.

But you knew that wasn’t true. Because Megumi Fushiguro wasn’t the type to love empty. He would do acts of service, he would repay people he felt he owed, even when he didn’t. In his mind, if someone was injured or hurt due to something he could’ve prevented, even when he had no responsibility too, he owed them.

Yet one thing he’d never do, is give his heart as a form of payment. And so you thanked whatever religion out there for the ability to be able to love a man that loved you harder. Because there was no one else he would spend hours into the night talking to, there was no one else he’d surrender his body too, no one else that he would put aside his own opinions for and buy whatever material thing you wanted, no one else he’d turn his casual acts of service into romantic gestures for, and no one else he whispered ‘i love you’ to while drifting off to sleep.

And yet knowing this you always feared he’d leave you, not for another woman, but for the dark reality that existed outside of your relationship. The thoughts that plagued his mind if you let him sink that far deep into his own head. But you swore exactly one year ago, when he had for the first time in his life spilled his heart out to someone, to you, when you both had wandered away from the party, that you wouldn’t ever let him drown. You wouldn’t let him be lonely, and so that’s why you try so hard to include him, to fit him in.

You placed the gifts you had gotten your boyfriend next to the cake on the table. A wrapped vinyl he had been eyeing every time you wandered past the record shop, a bag of books you knew had been on his reading list for ages that he himself probably forgot about, and a pendant you had carefully chosen out for him, the main reason being the stone matched his eyes almost perfectly.

Just as you stepped back you heard the front door of your apartment open, signalling your boyfriend’s arrival. After choosing to celebrate your anniversary earlier in the day, you planned him to come over at the end to celebrate his birthday. Making whatever excuse to have a buffer of time between to be able to pick up his cake, and bring out his gifts.

Megumi was surprised at the sight of the set up, his heart skipping a beat at just the idea of you taking a moment to appreciate him. He was almost startled when you moved next to him and held onto his arm.

“happy birthday ‘gumi….”

Megumi looked at you, his eyes meeting yours and his lips twitching into the small smile you had grown to recognize.

“…thank you.”

You smiled back at him, tugging his arm and pulling him over to the table, sitting him down in the chair in front of the cake. Megumi letting out a short amused huff watched as you picked the lighter off the table, and quickly lit the ‘22’ candles placed on top of it.

“…make a wish!”

The smile was still spread across his lips, before he blew gently, mainly to amuse you. You ruffled his hair in response, before wrapping your arms around his shoulders and placing your chin on the top of his head.

“what’d you wish for?”

“can’t say.”

You huffed playfully, placing a small kiss on the top of his head, “Why?”

Megumi wasn’t superstitious, in fact he didn’t really have any sort of beliefs like that at all, but even then he would admit that he wouldn’t risk anything to have his wish not come true. Because he couldn’t handle if you loving him forever didn’t become a reality.

“‘cause then it won’t come true…”

You laughed, before reaching out to the cake and scooping frosting on your finger only to smudge it on his face. He huffed and pouted, only to immediately return the favor, turning around and smudging frosting acrossing you cheek.

Both letting out a quiet laugh as you pulled out the chair next to him and sat down, scooping up frosting on your finger again, but this time smudging it on his lips, only to lean in and clean them through a kiss.

The taste of Megumi and the slight sweetness of the frosting was intoxicating, and when he pulled back first, gently cupping your face, the glint in his eyes made you understand he was more than happy.

“happy birthday angel,” you whispered, wiping the leftover frosting off the tip of his nose.

[junedenim]

2012

beneath the boardwalk, part 10 (series masterlist)

why'd you only call me when you're high?

warnings: a whole lot of angst, temptation, nostalgia, and nothing

word count: 10.4k

Squished between two couch cushions watching Real Housewives, I got a call from Alex. "Did I wake you?" He questioned. It was late or early depending on who you asked. I had been woken up from a cold I was suffering from. He had never gone to bed.

"No, no, I'm just sitting around, suffocating," I complained. His voice was rough, but not thick with phlegm like mine. He chuckled in a rhythmic format, beat after beat. He sounded like he was sinking into himself, his flesh turning to goo. I heard his lips smack together as if he was chewing on a piece of hay. I coughed, the harshness reaching him miles and miles away. "You alright?"

"Yeah." I think he was chewing gum. "Just got home."

I hummed with understanding. "Did you have a nice night?"

He made a noise of indifference. "How long you been sick?"

"Two days now and it's not getting any better." I sniffled and stuffed a tissue up my nostril, thankful that I lived alone. "Think I caught it at a New Year's Party. I'm worried I have mono."

"Why? You've been kissing a bunch of people?" His words hung in the middle of us. Both of us moving on from one another had been unspoken. We were still on a break for all intents and purposes, even if he was with Arielle. Another thing we never talked about. 

I gave the best laugh I could do without coughing. "It's supposed to be good luck. I also ate 12 grapes and banged bread against the wall."

"Did you really?" He amusingly asked.

"No, well, not the bread part." I sighed. "Now, I'm just sitting on the couch watching shitty reruns. I can't fall back asleep."

"Neither can I," he said.

I hesitated and curled up under my blanket. "Is that why you called me at 4 in the morning?" I said it with a laugh to ease any tensions that may arise.

"It's only 1 here."

"Right. I forgot about the time difference." It didn't seem right for him to be so far away permanently. None of this seemed like the correct order of things. It was a misalignment but there could be no corrective measure.

"Yeah, I kind of did too." There was a pause like he was thinking things over. Like he might have had something to say but now he couldn't find it. "I'll let you go then." In more ways than one.

*

Alex was a cloud. He was away on tour, far away and out of reach. We talked less but not intentionally. We both just got really busy and we didn't need each other for that constant contact anymore. I was plummeting toward the wildest time of my life and he was up to his usual unable-to-contact schedule. Somewhere in Australia first then opening for The Black Keys. Plus, he had Arielle.

The new girlfriend thing didn't bug me much, at least, not in the form of jealousy. It was a strange thing. I hadn't fully adjusted to the idea but it was much easier when he was nowhere near my life. If it had happened when we were younger, I think I would've punished myself for it, but I had grown into a far lighter figure who understood not everyone was trying to make a mark against me. Alex was living his own life, which for the past few years had been dedicated to one person. It was "seeing what else was out there."

I was alone for the most part. I saw Jackson nearly every day, whether for work or leisure, but I was getting used to being alone for long grasps of time. I spent time writing in my notebook like the old days. A therapy session that I locked away in a drawer. I rotted in my room for days. I watched all of The Sopranos, practiced the splits, and thought about getting a cat. It was winter and a very boring time.

But around the end of January, I did my first interview. It was small and nothing huge, but it was talking about my work in-depth for the first time with a stranger. I pretended I was talking to Alex.

Alex and I didn't stop talking completely. I called him on his birthday, briefly, and we had a long chat toward the end of January where we caught up with one another. Neither of us had much to tell. He had been touring. I had been crawling around New York doing next to nothing, besides book matters and talking about my "marketability."

Alex laughed at this. "Yeah, they tend to do that. Try to whittle you down to one trait."

"It's making me feel insecure." I laughed at it but it felt small inside me, burning its way out.

Alex hummed in agreement. "Well, at least you're not a pimple-ridden kid doing it."

It wasn't something he talked about much. He hated people giving him attention, yet he was in a career that commanded eyes to be focused on him. It was one of our many skimmed-over conversations. In some ways, it made me feel like I didn't know Alex. We both hid parts of ourselves from one another and knew that the other did this. That burning curiosity we used to have probably went out once we started to live with one another. You know someone for long enough that it begins to feel like you know every inch of them. I slept with him night after night but I wondered if I ever knew what was ticking on in his head before he fell asleep. What was he thinking when he sat outside with a closed notebook? Why did he turn away?

I didn't even know why I turned away. I wrote repeatedly in my notebook, questioning why I couldn't make it work with Alex. I resisted jumping into a relationship because of that. If I couldn't make it work with Alex then it probably wouldn't work with anyone, especially during that portion of my life. I didn't know what it meant to be alone, like really alone.

I deflected a lot. I even deflected earlier in this book. I was devastated by the loss of Alex and I don't think it hit me until much later because I always had an anvil weighing on the back of my head telling me it wasn't over. Arielle complicated those ideals and I think for a while I was on my back unable to regain upright status. I was flailing.

That's why I paused. When 2012 hit, I was forced into a corner. I felt distant from who I was but still so far away from who I was becoming. I felt like I was the roots of the tree that had been cut down. I was left to be a stump.

One night, over a joint, I told Jackson I didn't feel British. Jackson, a Californian boy through and through, did not understand this. He laughed from the high while the smoke just made me more disoriented. He told me that I was "perfectly British." To me, that sounded like some marketing strategy. That's what the book would be marketed as—a British girl coming to America; her cold skin meeting the California sun. It made me hate the book. Or I hated myself, the lines were blurring.

I thought I had grown away from forms of jealousy. I have just previously insisted to you that I experienced no feelings of envy toward Arielle...but I did. It was ignored and then it couldn't be. The "R U Mine?" music video featured Arielle and a "new" Alex. I'm not a fan of the insinuation Alex suddenly changed after we broke up, besides his hair and fresh Sheffield tattoo, I would come to know Alex was exactly the same. Alex never quite changes. He's always been suave. It's hard to take a 20-year-old as seriously as a 25-year-old, especially when he is still pimple-ridden.

I found my jealousy toward Arielle in regard to "R U Mine?" was the same as when Alex showed me "Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts" because, honestly, since then Alex's only explicit romantic muse (the word makes me want to barf, but that's what I was) was me. It's the weird thing of being with a writer, especially with personal subjects. It's beautiful when it's for you but then you realize that it was never really for you. It was about you. Alex didn't write a song to make me feel loved. He wrote a song because he liked writing songs.

Unknowingly, I always felt that. It's why I didn't swoon every time I heard "Mardy Bum." I loved it as a song but it didn't feel like a love letter. I felt Alex's love in far different ways. As the years went on, I would find love letters in songs, but at the center, I found his love in crevices: a note from college, a smoke outside a pub, a cooked meal, folded laundry—god, I sound old.

But his love wasn't restricted to those songs. Just as my love isn't restricted to this tome. This is a love letter in pieces for Alex but it's also for my youth. I found around this time, I began to reflect on those early years. Nearly 10 years out from 2003, I became a preservationist. I jotted down my memory of my first conversation with Alex. I tucked it away in my drawer, no use for it yet.

*

Alex called me on my birthday. He wasn't too far away, somewhere between Portland and Boston on a bus. It was late with only an hour left to my birthday, which I had spent drinking with friends. It was a rather simple birthday. It could've been just another night, minus the cake (red velvet with frosted flowers on top of it) that Fennel and Kaka purchased for me.

Alex texted me in the morning. Something akin to Hey. Happy birthday. Al.

It was formal and if it didn't make me laugh so much I think I'd be hurt by it. But Alex always texted like that as if he was penning a letter. The letter was awfully short but it was sent at 4 AM, which made me believe he either had no sleep or had just woken up.

I was expecting more and I got more. When I was drunk.

"Hi," I said, shoving the phone to my ear as a subway train came roaring by.

He chuckled, hearing the noise. "Hi." He waited for it to pass fully before continuing, "Happy birthday."

"Thank you."

"Did you spend it good?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty drunk."

"Alright, then, I won't keep you long."

"No," I insisted. "Stay on the phone with me." I was pleading. I didn't want to let go of him. "At least, until I'm home." I wasn't far away but I lied and acted like I was further away, keeping him on the line with me, even as we lost connection at various times.

"Sorry I didn't get you anything," he said halfway through the subway ride.

"I didn't get you anything,” I reminded him.

"Yeah. Feels weird."

We hummed in silence because we both knew how abnormal this was. We weren't friends. Alex and I were never friends. Nothing ever went away or could ever go away. We were struggling to redefine what we were. We could never disentangle from one another. It pulled us back toward one another, even when we shouldn't have.

"I was going to get you that, uh, milkshake maker so you wouldn't have to pay extra at Morgenstern's for one." I didn't know a person could get so emotional over a milkshake maker that they would feel like crying on the F train. I might be the only person ever.

It was such a stupid gift. I would probably get two uses out of the machine before it broke and it wouldn't be as good as Morgenstern's makes theirs and it would go to waste. Still, I can imagine if he did get it for me. How after I unwrapped it we would go to Morgenstern's and get a pint of ice cream and Alex would make me a milkshake. One just for me. If I was feeling generous enough, we'd share the straw.

None of this would have happened, even if we were together. He'd still be in between Portland and Boston and I'd still be riding the F, wishing he was with me. It was comforting that maybe I had done the right thing, even if it felt so hard.

"Well, you can get it for me for Christmas."

He laughed and said, "Okay."

*

Black leather loafers with black wool flannel trousers. A white poplin shirt, two buttons loose at the top and at the bottom. I had a black corduroy jacket that Jackson held for me. I felt like I was dressing up in my mother's clothes. I was doing book press. It was an unfitting experience but I held the hardcover book in my hand. It felt unnatural but I liked my authour's photo.

By that point, I was so far removed from the contents of the book. I started to second-guess it even coming out. It felt like my diary, even if it was evasive at times and cut out the personal from that time (Alex is not mentioned once, not even as the person I moved to LA for). Still, it was exposing, but it was real now and it was sitting in my hand.

Alex came to town a week later, opening for The Black Keys. I didn't see the show—things were getting too busy by that point. I asked Alex if we could meet for a quick lunch and he accepted.

We met at Westville, a cute restaurant, but by no means romantic. I felt a need for that to be clear. I worried about Arielle worrying that I was trying to "steal" Alex or whatever that meant. I don't think she ever did. After all, she had the guy and I was resigned with no longer having the guy. It wasn't the bitch fight it has been imagined to be.

I waited for Alex outside the restaurant, smoking a cigarette to achieve my all-time high of cigarettes per day (this was not a good year for my lungs). I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I wanted to look cool but relaxed. I wore the previously mentioned black loafers to make it look like I didn't roll out of bed and throw some jeans on.

Alex wore the same thing: jeans, T-shirt, loafers...and a leather jacket. It was a hotter March day when spring was beginning to peek through and relieve the bitterness of winter. He was across the street stuck at a streetlight and I waved to him and he waved back. Then, we just stared at each other, waiting for the light to turn green.

He crossed, said hi, and hugged me. Every move was made with slight awkwardness. We hadn't been alone together since he moved out. "Have you been waiting long?" He asked.

I shook my head. "Got here early, just for a smoke. Do you want to go in now?"

"Yeah. Yeah." He bobbed his head.

I put my cigarette out and he followed me into the restaurant. "Your hair is back to normal." My natural brown. It was better for me to not play pretend when promoting a book about my own life.

"Yours isn't," I commented. It came off snarkier than I wanted it to.

He shrugged and smiled to ease the thick fat of awkwardness. "Yeah, well, you know." He didn't say it but this was the new normal for him, which was fine, but it was different from what I knew. When I dreamed about him or pictured him, it was still with a curling mop top or, you know, just the mop if I was dreaming of '09.

"Tattoo too," I added.

"Yeah."

"You're a changed man."

"Yeah."

Our heads ducked down and we stared at the menus in silence. It was a challenge of who would speak first—seriously speak, not those little comments over what looks good.

After we ordered, I said, "Sorry I'm not able to go tonight."

He waved me off. "You've already been to too many shows. Don't worry."

"Well, I like going. It feels weird not to go."

"Yeah." Somewhere in that word, I knew what he meant. It had been years since Alex had the ability to spot people in the crowd, but he told me once that there was a comfort in knowing I was somewhere in there, that even if he messed up, there would always be someone there at the end of it all. I wonder if he was still getting used to someone else being at the end of it all.

He sipped his water to cut off the look on his face. I decided to cut to the fat of it. "I, uh, have something to give you."

"Why do I feel like it's something bad?" He cracked a laugh, lifting the air in the room.

I picked up my bag. "I hope not."

I dug through my things slowly. It was held in my hands but I still had to catch my breath before I lifted it out. I saw a squint on his face as he tried to imagine what it was. I passed it across the table and his hands took it. That is when it all started to feel real; seeing his eyes land on it, his hands run down its spine with him smiling. "It's a first edition," I joked.

He raised an eyebrow, flipping it open. "Is it signed?" I laughed. I'm not sure what made me happier: him holding my book or joking around with him again. He opened the other end of the book. "Good author photo."

"I'm quite happy with it." Somewhere in that bittersweetness, I did feel content. It was never how I imagined him holding my first book. Parts of me were swallowed with sorrow that I would never experience this in the way I wanted—a desperate romantic lovemaking all-consuming kind of way—but there were small parts in me that were happy that we could still have this. I don't know if we kept dragging things out this would have been as joyous. That this would have felt like closure.

Alex looked up, meeting my eyes. A small smile played on his lips. The kind that can't be faked in any way. It was real and from the hurt. It was that pride he always had in me. The pride that kept me going for far longer than I'd ever imagined. I wrote the book, but he made the book. I never would've written anything close to it without him. I'd probably be stuck fucking Robert in London if it wasn't for him. It was my reassurance to him that he didn't have to make up for the sudden move to LA as he constantly tried to do. He wasn't in the book, but he was the book. It's why I dedicated it to him. It's why on the last page of his edition of the book I wrote: Don't make fun of me, Al. Thank you for this. I hope you know why. Love, Jane C.

I questioned the "love" part. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable but it would have been far more awkward to write something like "sincerely." I wasn't one for lying, especially about my love for Alex. It was something layered. It didn't rest in that romantic love. He wasn't just my boyfriend and he wasn't just my best friend. It's hard for a writer to find the word. It's nudged somewhere in this book. In all these little words.

"I wanted you to be the first to have it," I said. "Well, one of the first. Wanted to see the look on your face."

He looked back down at the book. Mild disbelief spread across his face as he looked back and forth between the book and me. "Thanks." He wasn't sure what else to say. He rolled everything around and looked as if he was choking on the bone of a chicken.

"It's been a little weird these past few months," I said while picking at my fingernails, an assured sign to Alex that I was referring to us. "I don't want it to feel weird. So, don't cry or anything," I joked.

He chuckled, dislodging the lump. He flipped the book over one more time before placing it on the table. "I'll try not to. I knew you could do it." He stared right at me, emphasizing every little syllable. The awkwardness faded from him and he leaned onto the table. His smile was small but bright. I could find a million different meanings in it, each meaning just as much.

"I know you did. You always did," I told him. "I had this dream last night. It was weird and blurry but we were driving around Sheffield or some weird ghost thing was driving us. It's hard to describe. I don't know. I think it was a sign or something. I'm not sure of what but just those early days of us talking. That's when I really started to write. I suppose my mind was thinking about this lunch and conjured up some old memories."

He smiled at me the whole time, eyes never leaving me, even when I glanced away. "Well, I had a dream that I was one of the animals left off of Noah's Ark, so, you tell me what that means."

I told him it had something to do with his fear of being left behind and he rolled his eyes and said I was trying to be Freud. Lunch came and we ate and laughed and agreed to split the check. He told me he would read the whole book tonight if he could. We hugged goodbye and he whispered in my ear, "I'll send you a proper review."

A few days later, Alex emailed me. It was long. Very long and detailed like he had taken a note on every page. He pulled the sentences he liked the most out, which turned out to be about half the book. I would later write back and ask what that meant for the other half of the book. He said they were left off Noah's Ark too. Continuing his initial email, Alex wrote at the bottom:

You did it. I hope you feel that too. Thank you, Al.

*

I had a book tour. A minimal one since there wasn't the highest of expectations and I didn't want to go to Omaha, Nebraska. So, there was Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles. I hated the whole thing. I always wanted to go to these places but I wasn't really going to these places. We lingered in Chicago at the end of July, but it was the equivalent of touring with Alex, except this time I was Alex.

I've never enjoyed talking about my work either but it was nice that people thought it was nice. But that part still felt awkward to me too. Like, people actually read this??? It eased up as it went along. It was a short tour anyway. I wasn't going to Tokyo or anything.

I thought about myself a lot. It was a little lonely but I had adapted to that. Jackson was my only company on the road and it was easy for us to get sick of one another. We had both grown bored with one another, both slightly exhausted from these months so closely intertwined. I thought about Al, often. I thought about myself, often.

Could it be possible that I did everything right? No. I never thought that but I didn't think I did everything wrong. I had cracks in the surface of me and guts that spilled out. I said everything with my pen but nothing with my lips. I hid myself under the disguise of a freshly lonesome girl who knew the only means to move on was to forget. But I didn't forget anything, only myself, just for a little. Pieces of me dropped on the side of the highway. We drove for days and I found no meaning in it, only wondering did he feel like this all the time? How did he bear this loss of self?

I asked myself questions and never got any answers. I felt everything but there was never any meaning in it. There were closed-off vessels, no means to transport blood or oxygen, yet, I was still moving. I suppose that was the only thing left to cling to. I still had the memory of it and those never made me sad. I experienced it. How fortunate was I to be cracked open and exposed to this impenetrable love? I still felt it. We were both on the end of the same wire. It was bent and twisted, knots made to keep strong but disrupt transmission. No love lost. Just changed. I know good comes from change. I didn't feel the goodness but I could taste it coming. So much else was happening. I would hate myself forever for wasting those precious few days of enjoyment in place of a relationship that didn't need nourishment anymore. It was about me. I wanted it to be about me for so long and it finally was. Don't waste it.

The mini-tour ended in LA at the start of August. Summer had whipped me in the face so hard I forgot the season even existed, until I was stuck in the sweaty, SoCal heat, dying for a drop of water. The first night—the day before the Q&A and book signing—Jackson and I got dinner and drinks with Opal.

It was nice to let loose after feeling so pinned up for most of the summer. The liquor soothed my sunburnt skin and I decided the tour as a whole wasn't too bad—I was about 3 drinks in at this point. Then, after another drink, I texted Alex telling him I was in town. The last we chatted was a week or so before when the band opened for the London Olympics. I watched it later on YouTube and told him he did a bang-up job. He told me he nearly shat himself.

Alex had returned to LA since. The city had become his permanent home since the tour had ended. He bought a house out here and everyone in the band, for the most part, had relocated too. So, in my drunken state, I told him I was there and we should hang before I went back to New York.

When I woke up, it was an embarrassing text of I'm in LA, AL. Even in my drunken state, I wrote with proper grammar. Alex wrote back, Come on over. This was in the early hours of the day so he must have been up by some similar means too.

The following night, I panicked. I wondered if this is what single people felt like all the time. Prior to this, I had never faced intimidation when hanging out with Alex, except maybe when I was 17 and that type of thing could be labelled as teenage anxiety. But, no, this was a thing that would plague me the rest of my dating life and I wasn't even going on a date with him. Alex is the only "ex" I had stayed in contact with up to that point. Most of my friends didn't do this type of thing either, at least not Opal who lived by the mentality that once people were gone they were gone forever.

Half my anxiety came from the limited wardrobe out of my suitcase but considering it was just dinner and a dinner that would be had with the other bandmates and the girlfriends, there should've been no pressure. I wouldn't have told you this at the time, I barely want to write it down now, but the nerves I felt weren’t because of Alex, they were because of Arielle. Part of me wanted to be conceived as a non-threat. I was over those days. The other part of me—the stronger part—wanted her to be jealous of me and question why Alex and I ever broke up. I wasn't fully-formed yet. 

The two sides fought and then I just settled on jeans and a tank top because it was boiling outside and I was having drinks at Al's place, not the Windsors. Luckily, I showed up after Jamie and Katie so I thought of using Katie as a shield. I didn't accept Katie and Arielle to be talking though. The word traitor crossed through my brain and then I thought I must be regressing to my college days when Rosie and Will would feel each other up in front of me. Arielle was nice and I was probably an anxious bitch.

So, I hugged both of them as Alex came into the living room. He was staggering, dressed casually beside his uniform slicked hair. "Hey there," he greeted. He was calm, not an awkward bone in his body. He knew he had the upper hand. We were on his home turf with his hot girlfriend and I was a single mess who had been on plane after plane and stunk of cigarettes.

The room was hot with sweat dripping off every surface it seemed. The air conditioner was running but the flaming air came rushing in with the swing of the front door as Matt and Breana entered. The room became distracted by them, both looking darling. I hugged each of them, distracting myself in their grasp.

Arielle had lit candles for the dining table. It was the only thing formal about the informal event. The house itself was rather bare. Alex never carried much, I was always the one with the shit. 

Alex tapped my arm. "You want a drink?"

"What do you have?" I asked.

He waved his arm and I followed him to the kitchen, isolating ourselves. "Beer, wine, tequila, vodka, all the fixings. I can make you something if you'd like. Margarita?"

"Anything non-alcoholic?" Alcohol would ease my nerves but it would lead to my loud mouth and I couldn't afford that tonight.

He looked bewildered. "Who are you?" He joked.

We kept our distance. I pushed my hair behind my shoulder. "Got real drunk with Opal and Jackson last night. Figured I'd keep it clean. At least for now."

"Right then. Iced tea?"

He knew me well. I laughed at his smile and agreed to this. I moved closer to the refrigerator to just feel the cold air on my skin. He poured the glass, leaving the door open for me. I chugged the coldness like it was the elixir of life. It felt like my lungs re-inflated when the liquid dispersed and his eyes looked at mine again, so clearly over that fogged-up glass. Wet brown eyes into my baby blues and it felt like he might reach out and snatch them out of my eyes and keep them for himself. He always liked them. He has a thing for blue eyes.

We talked around the dining table, eating a mix of something Arielle had cooked and pizza. I had the pizza. Everyone talked loosely about things I had no knowledge of. Jokes about LA and all these people I had no concept of. I suppose if they had come to New York it would have been similar, except they all shared this with one another.

The sweet Breana turned the attention onto me, which partially made me shrink and revel in the joy of being included. "Oh, Jane, I loved the book!" Everyone chanted in similar sentiments all at once.

I laughed and took a bite of my pizza crust. "You didn't all read it," I laughed.

"I read parts of it," Jamie said. They were all sweet but I'm unsure how often any of them even had the chance to pick up a book, let alone their best friend's ex-girlfriend. Because that's what I was now. That was my title.

Alex looked at me. I could hear my mother's words ringing through his lips so I smiled and said, "Thank you."

"Disappointed I wasn't in it more," Matt said. "You know if it wasn't for me the book would've never been made." The long story of it has made that true but I can't give Matt credit for everything, it might go to his head too much.

"How's that?" Arielle asked. Everything shifted after that. We could all tell that she had been the wrong one to ask that question. Whether she was clueless and curious or was trying to make a dig at Alex, I wasn't sure, but I felt like an imposition being there. I didn't feel like an out-of-town friend. I felt like an ex-girlfriend.

Nobody spoke so I spoke. "Matt introduced me and Alex." I sipped my drink to wash down any other awkwardness.

Everyone seemed awkward other than Arielle. She quickly nodded and said, "Oh, yeah, Al told me that." I wondered why everyone else was so stiff when Arielle didn't seem to have much of a problem with it. Why should she when she looked like that?

I felt frumpy and had to pee badly from all the iced tea I had drank but I was too scared to go to the bathroom and see her things mixed with Alex's things. I could leave there with ambiguity and the belief that Alex didn't move on so quickly and I was stuck being alone.

"That was our first gig," Matt said. He seemed to relax, always the person to slice through any amount of tension. "Almost 10 years ago now."

"What was it like?" Arielle asked.

"Awful," Alex said. His eyes pointed toward me. "Right?"

"I don't know. I never reviewed it, remember?" He laughed and it felt inappropriate to display this inside language in front of everyone. "It feels weird that I'm the only one here who watched it." Even if that had been the case for many years, it had been a while since we all gathered around in a circle and talked about those days.

"I wasn't even there," Nick remarked. The room buckled with chuckles.

I laid my forehead against the palm of my hand resting against the table. "God," I said, "I spent that whole show with Will’s hand on my ass and Joanie screaming in my ear."

"Oh, god, Joanie," Matt muttered.

"Oh, god, Will," Jamie cracked.

"She got married last month," I told them. She had invited me but I was in the middle of the tour. We talked about once a year and everything was always nice. The only time I would've had the chance of running into her was when Alex and I visited Sheffield and that obviously wasn't happening anymore.

"Bless that man's heart," Matt quipped.

I shook my head. "No, she seems to have settled down in the last few years. I guess we all did. Seems so long ago."

"It was," Alex said. "We're getting old, Janie." His silence punctured the air. My lungs felt like they were deflating. He poured himself another glass.

Things grew looser and looser. They rattled off stories of LA, I rattled off stories from the road. Arielle excused herself to bed, citing an early morning. Her bed was upstairs.

Each couple left one by one until Alex and I awkwardly remained. I figured then I should leave. He walked me to the door with a freshly poured glass in his hand. "Hope I didn't keep you up too late," I said because I wasn't sure what else to say. It reminded me of what my parents said to each other after a fight. It was the one thing they clung to in order to keep their marriage somehow working.

He shook his head and sipped. "No, no. It's fine. You're always good company."

I shrugged. The whole thing kind of felt awkward, at least with him. I could laugh with Matt and throw my arm around Katie, even hug Arielle good night, but whenever my eyes landed on Alex, I tensed up so tightly I knew I'd be sore the next day. "If you're ever in New York or whatever."

He nodded and smiled. He would be visiting his old apartment. I wondered how that would make him feel. Was it the same when I walked into his house and noticed different shoes by the door than mine? Would the emptiness of his presence leave him uneasy? "I'd like that," Alex said.

"Thanks for having me." We reached the door and the end of the night but we stayed awkwardly staring at each other.

"Course. Text me when you're back at the hotel and safe and all that." He was drunk, rambling with an incapability of holding his tongue.

I smiled. "I will."

I didn't know whether to hug him or not. He leaned forward and kissed me. It wasn't affectionate. It was a peck. The kind my mother used to give me when left for school in the morning. Of course, she was my mother and I was 7 and Alex was drunk and I was, well, awkward. 

I said, "Night," and turned away. We never talked about it because there was nothing to talk about. It very well could have been a kiss on the cheek just like I gave Katie and Breana before they left. Of course, that was Katie and Breana and this was Alex—no longer mine.

*

Rain pattered against the window. Jackson and I returned to New York a week prior and we were now sitting in my apartment, drinking, and about to call Opal to join us. I felt dizzy and Jackson looked sleepy. It had been a long month.

"So," he said, "what's next?"

I finished off my glass. "What do you mean?" The year felt empty as the cold was beginning to creep into my summer warmth. 2012 was a bumpy year where so much yet so little happened. I was growing sick of my apartment because no matter how rid it was of Alex, he still had a whole life with me here. When I returned to it after the book tour, I was ready to move on.

Jackson placed his arm on the back of the couch. The tips of his fingers softly poked at my shoulder. "Now it's time to think about the next book."

I tossed my head back with a groan. "Gimme a break."

He chuckled and placed his empty glass on the end table. "No rush. For now."

I sat up straight, finishing off my glass, and growing more and more serious every day. "Thanks for doing this for me, Jackson."

He nodded. "My pleasure."

"I feel kind of empty," I confessed.

His brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

I didn't feel like explaining it. I was growing tired of doing that with people. My stomach ached and I pushed Alex out of my mind. I felt that I had sacrificed our relationship for this success, even if it wasn't true. I thought I would have been over it by that time of year. It had been over a year. But it still felt so unnatural for him to feel so far removed from my life. Every word we spoke felt tinged with sadness and I didn't want it to feel that way. I wanted to move on.

I kissed Jackson. He kissed back. We never called Opal.

*

Jackson and I started dating in a casual way. We were exclusive to one another and treated each other as a boyfriend and girlfriend would but I suppose my association with dating was always a far deeper connection. I wasn't alone in this. Jackson had long-term girlfriends prior to me. He was older than me, not by some outrageous amount. He was born in 1979, seven years older, but I was 26 and 33 didn't feel so far off.

Opal loved it. She felt like the ultimate matchmaker and wanted to be both the maid of honor and the best man. My New York crew loved him. Fennel and Kaka found him to be rich in conversation. He liked going out more than Alex but then again most people liked going out more than Alex. Except more and more it seemed Alex enjoyed the going out part. (I was taken but I was still a snooping ex-girlfriend).

I didn't tell Alex. It felt awkward to call him up and tell him I got a new boyfriend. I decided to tell him when I saw him again, which didn't come up. He was in Los Angeles. I was in New York. We didn't talk very often either. I think I called him once in October because I couldn't remember the name of a restaurant we went to (he didn't remember either). 

Other than that, there wasn't much reason to talk. We had completely separate lives. But I was aware of what he was up to. I wasn't cyber-stalking him much anymore (only on nights when I was wildly intoxicated). I talked to Katie occasionally and texted Breana from time to time. Things about Alex would slip through the cracks and get to me but the majority of it was just that they were recording their new album.

We had both moved on. Or we were both pretending we did. At least I was pretending, in some form. I thought about him all the time. I didn't feel like a day went by when I didn't think about him. It wasn't in some romantic longing way. I had shared a life with him from such a young age and to be forced apart from it felt unnatural. There were so many jokes and stories that went untold because no one would get it but him.

When I went back home for the holidays, I confided this to my mother. I don't know why, maybe because of what she had told me so many years ago in Florida. I don't know if my mother ever actually liked Alex so I figured if she said awful things about him it would make me feel better. Of course, she didn't.

"It goes away," she said. "One day, you wake up and you're numb to it. You just get numb to it in the end, Jane. All those people you hated and loved turn to nothing. Even the ones you still want to love. You'll be thankful for it when the day comes that you don't feel anything anymore."

I frowned and my mother left me on the couch to fetch another bottle of wine. In retrospect, my mother was suffering from mental illness, but I was oblivious to that because I had grown oblivious to most of my mother's behavior. I just didn't want to engage with it anymore. Maybe part of me was numb toward her.

I didn't want to feel nothing. I couldn't imagine not feeling anything for Alex, even if we remained friends for the rest of our lives. I had tethered so much sentimentality toward him, he might as well have been a knick-knack on my shelf. Letting go of him would be letting go of an entire part of myself. I was content if that part only came out once a year when I saw him but I couldn't let go of it forever.

*

Joanie was having a baby. She likely got pregnant on her honeymoon. Someone my age having a child felt unnatural. I pictured Joanie being a teen mum, not a 26-year-old pregnant woman. She invited me to the baby shower taking place right after Christmas. It was ideal timing since all her closest friends would be in town or, like me, the country.

I debated going but decided that since I missed the wedding the least I could do was go to the baby shower. So, I drove the Beetle up to Wakefield. I figured it would be a mini-reunion. The only one I had seen as of late was Claire, who lived in Bristol now, and I hadn't seen since last winter.

We drove up together and listened to Radio 2 on full blast the whole way. I don't think I had ever felt more like a teenager even when I was a teenager. Claire continued her streak of always being a comfort for me. While other friends might be wedding and birthing, Claire had just ended her two-year-long relationship and gagged in her mouth at the thought of being a mother one day. 

It made me miss England so desperately. I forgot how much I ached to drive, which I hadn't done in years. The closest I had gotten to a car was the one taxi ride home drunk at 4 AM. And to drive on the left side of the road! I hadn't heard someone speak in a British accent since the dinner at Alex's. It eased my ears and made me wonder why I ever left, which just led to me thinking about Alex again.

Claire said, "I hate Alex, which sucks 'cause I like Alex." In a way, it summed up how conflicted I felt. Hate is a strong word but I was resentful for how everything went down. Then again, I probably didn't have much of a right.

Joanie's house was straight out of a picture book. I didn't know houses like that even existed in Wakefield. It wasn't fancy but at the sight of it, you'd call it a home. She had a little garden in the front that she said her husband grew herbs in that she used for cooking. It made Claire and I roll our eyes but we both desperately wanted that kind of companionship. If I ever would learn how to cook or grow plants, maybe that could be my life. I refused to do either, but it was a nice thought.

I bought Joanie—or Joanie's baby—these cozy fleece booties because that's what New York Magazine said to get. I never bought anything for a baby before (I got away with it two years ago during Harper's unmentioned pregnancy of my first nephew, Benjamin, by having my mother buy a gift for me) so I had no clue what to get. I bought Joanie this nice set of body washes that were her favourite when we were 17 with the hope that they either still were or she would feel nostalgic over them.

Claire and I ate a slice of cake and watched Joanie open her presents. Halfway through we turned to each other and decided we were going to go out drinking after. I love Joanie but oohing and awing over baby gifts with a bunch of women I barely knew got old quickly, especially incredibly sober and in the middle of the winter blues. The cake was good though.

The shower ended around 4 and while I was down to get hammered that early, Claire wanted to go out to lunch first. We ended up meeting up with AB at a pub. I hadn't seen AB since 2006 and I nearly cried at the sight of him all grown up. Claire and AB had broken up long ago but stayed in touch as good friends and if they could do it—two incredibly mature people—maybe Alex and I could too. 

AB's girlfriend of two years (and future wife), Shay, joined us as well. It almost made me barf how gorgeous they were together and I was shocked Claire wasn't fuming more over how beautiful Shay was. I was almost fuming over how beautiful Shay was!

AB sipped on a beer, which I don't think I had ever witnessed. He shared it was Shay and I swallowed down my drink at the painful thought that Alex and I once did things like that. I was such a sad sack. I thought about calling Jackson. Thank god I didn't.

We left the pub, hugging AB and Shay goodbye next to the Beetle. Claire and I were going to go back to the hotel to change out of our baby shower clothes and "hit the town.”

We waved goodbye to the couple and that's when I saw Alex with his mum. I turned my back to him and grabbed Claire's arm. "I think I'm gonna vomit."

She looked at me completely puzzled. "What? Why?"

I was so freaked out by the sight of him. I think the unexpected nature of it threw me off-balanced. I had never been that unnerved by the sight of him. My head felt like my brain was about to burst out of my ears. "Get in the car," I harshly muttered to her.

She was still unaware but she raced around the side of the car to get into the passenger seat. We bolted out of there before he crossed the street.

*

It was midnight when I called him. I was definitely drunk, but not wasted, standing outside a club smoking while Claire chatted up with some guy inside. I was freezing and felt so childish for doing it, even in the moment, but I wanted to see him. It shouldn't feel right that I was here and he wasn't.

"Hello." His voice was clear so he hadn't been sleeping. I wonder if he was in bed (with Arielle).

I swallowed whatever dignity I had left and let the rest loose. "Hey. I'm in Wakefield for Joanie's baby shower 'cause apparently we're old enough to have children now and now I'm out with Claire at a club. We drove up together from Bath, well, Bristol for her, Bath for me, but you know that. Jesus. I saw you earlier today and raced into my car because I was so scared by the sight of you, which made me realize I'm not as mature as I thought I was. And it was just after we went to lunch with AB and Shay and Claire and AB still get along like they didn't have this romantic relationship and I know that we get along too but I raced to my car and nearly shit myself. Now, I'm outside a club smoking in the middle of winter because I apparently regress back to teenage tendencies when I'm in Yorkshire or maybe just England in general. Anyway, I'm drunk and I'm thinking this was stupid and it probably is but I know you're probably laughing at me right now but I'm freezing my ass off and I can't figure out how to get back inside the club and Claire isn't answering her phone, which means she's probably shagging someone or something and I wouldn't want to interrupt that, you know, and I probably should just get a cab back to the hotel but I called you for some reason. Well, not for some reason because I'm drunk. Okay, now you talk."

I was out of breath and sure I had just lost my mind. I need another shot of tequila. I felt I was growing too sober to face the repercussions of this. I took a drag of my cigarette and listened to his breathing on the other end of the line.

I could hear his smile. I still had a knack for that kind of thing. "I saw you too, you know."

I slapped my forehead and thought about slamming my head into the brick wall until it broke my skull and my brain gushed out. "Did it look like we were being held at gunpoint?"

He chuckled lowly. "A little. But I must've looked like someone pointed a gun at me. I'd recognize that car anywhere, Janie."

I didn't know what to say. My car was such a sensitive topic for both of us. It was the cornerstone (ha) of our relationship, especially for the car to be returned to its rightful county. I thought I'd feel weird driving it but everything felt right like it was a complete homecoming. Like nature had found its way and every piece fell perfectly into the puzzle.

"I thought I would be grown up by now," I confessed.

He suppressed a laugh. "I like you this way. Makes me feel less alone."

"How so?"

He waited, not wanting to fully let the truth go but it was me he was talking to. There wasn't much point in lying. "I've called you in various states of intoxication too."

"Not after running to your car," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I'm sure I'll do it one of these days." It was a silence but a vibration rang across the line to one another. Call it a vibe or a wavelength or just a feeling, but I could feel him like he was standing right next to me. "Where are you?"

It was so embarrassing I laughed. "Che & Coco." It was Barnsley College's resident bar and nightclub. The average age of the crowd was barely 20 and I felt like such a loser trying to claim that nostalgia is what made me want to club there.

"Geez, you really are down bad." His laughter rang through the phone and I nearly hung up due to how beet red my face was. He laughed and laughed. I could picture him with his hands on his knees, walking home from Will's house, unable to breathe he was laughing so hard. Then, I couldn't breathe. "You want me to pick you up?"

I'd like that a lot but I couldn't take it. That was a bridge too far. "No, no. I'll just call a taxi or something. Maybe even walk. My hotel isn't that far."

"You're gonna walk in Barnsley at midnight? Hope you don't get hit with a beer bottle," he joked. That had happened to Will back in the day. I'm convinced it made him even dumber if that's possible.

"I've walked later than this in New York," I reasoned.

"Janie," he stopped me, "I'd like to see you if you won't run away from me."

I sighed. "I'll see you in 20. I'll be waiting on Peel." Because maybe I would like to see him too.

He pulled up in his mum's car. It wasn't her car from way back in the day but it made him feel sophomoric to me. His hair wasn't gelled up, instead falling around in tendrils of combed-back magic. He had a hoodie on and a smile on his face. He honked the horn of the car and I dashed across the street to his car.

The car was warm, at least warmer than outside where I had been suffering. I tugged my coat closer and put my seatbelt on. "Hi."

Alex smiled over at me. "Hi." He pulled back onto the road and I couldn't remember the last time he had driven me. "How've you been?"

I shrugged in his peripheral vision. "Fine. Christmas was fine. My dad bought me Slouching Toward Bethlehem."

Alex laughed. "About 10 years too late."

"Yeah, but at least he's trying. I can't remember the last time he bought me a gift." My mother handled all the presents, something she was rather good at, even if it always felt like she didn't know me.

We stopped at a red light. "I didn't get anything for you," he said while looking over at me.

"Well, I didn't get you anything either." First time in eight years. It didn't even cross my mind. "This is enough of a present anyway."

He nodded in agreement. "Good." I believed him. The nod of his head told me that this meant as much to me as it did to me. Drunk actions are sober thoughts and sometimes I just wanted to hear his voice.

We kept driving. I had yet to tell him any directions. He was headed the right way but I wouldn't have had the willpower to tell him anyway. I liked driving around with him. I liked just this. The vibration of the road beneath us and the scent of him washing over me. The slowness of Yorkshire and the heat of him beside me. It made everything feel right.

"Arielle come with you?"

He rubbed his eye. He looked tired. "Nah. She went to her parents’." I nodded and he waited, looking over at me. I stared at him blankly. He looked back at the road and kept the car moving. "What about, uh, Jackson?"

My head snapped toward him. "He's at his parents’." I picked at my nails. I didn't want to talk about this. Why did it feel like I was cheating on him? It felt like Alex had died and I was some widower trying to move on but his ghost was coming back to shame me.

"Katie mentioned something," he muttered.

"Yeah," I explained, "just a few months."

He nodded slowly. "He's a nice guy." I laughed out loud. He laughed too, for some reason. "What?"

I shook my head. "We don't have to talk about my boyfriend."

"Okay. We don't have to talk about Arielle." It was probably some form of cheating, emotionally. We gazed at one another and never acted on anything, but the aftertaste of it didn't feel right. But in the moment, everything had fallen perfectly into place.

We went nowhere and neither of us said a single thing about it. The drive from the club to my hotel was ten minutes. We drove around for an hour.

"Joanie's house is beautiful. It's like my dream house. It isn't big but it's not a cottage or anything. But it's quaint. She's got plants and I never thought Joanie could take care of a living thing and now she's gonna have a baby," I told him. I fiddled with the radio, even though we weren't gonna listen to it.

"Are you sure they aren't fake?" He joked. I chuckled and hit his shoulder. "Eh! Watch it. I'm driving here, missy."

I held my hands up as a defense. I eased them back down with a giggle and tugged on my seatbelt strap. "You know, I thought I'd have a baby by now."

He snorted. "No, you did not."

"At one point I did. I mean, back before you. Like when I was still playing with dolls." 

He laughed again and everything made sense. "Good thing you don't. You can't even keep a plant alive."

"They're not self-sufficient enough."

"And you think a baby will be easier?"

"Not anymore but at six I did! It was right around when Stacey was born. I took good care of her."

Alex felt warm with a smile. "You did." He was an only child but at times I felt he might consider her a sister too. She considered him a brother. He had been around since she was 11. She was only a little over a year away from graduating university. 

"Granted I didn't have to breastfeed her."

It was still dark outside but it felt like the sun was rising in that car. "You wouldn't be happy living Joanie's life."

"How do you know?" I questioned. "Maybe if I was settled I'd feel better."

Alex's jaw gaped. He breathed a laugh and I looked over at him curiously. "Jane, you'd be losing your mind. The whole time I knew you here, you were begging to get out of here."

"Maybe I had it all wrong."

He shook his head, never looking over at me, just driving. "You're a completely different person because you got out of here. You're gonna get all that stuff one day. The kid, the garden, whatever the fuck you want, but you'd never have what you have no if you stayed put. You always knew what you wanted. Your gut is always right. I've learned that."

I sighed and accepted he was right. "Grass is always greener, I guess."

"Yeah," he agreed. "But I think you have the greenest grass. You're the one who's a bestseller."

I rolled my eyes and leaned on the center console. "She's the one with the husband and baby."

He scoffed, "So is half the world. You have a tough time being proud of your accomplishments."

I gasped. "Look who's talking. My god!"

Alex chuckled and it felt like food for my soul. Fertilizer to my soil to keep growing. "Fair enough. But be cocky every once and a while, Janie. You deserve it."

I took what he said to heart but ignored him. I wanted to talk about something else. I wanted to put my feet in his lap and ride to Charlton Brook. Instead, I leaned back and looked at him. "We used to talk about the future so much and now it's come and gone."

"You're not dead yet." But we were. I think that's what I really meant. All those things I had planned with him and I had to be content with letting them go. Watching those promises slip through my fingers. I had no right to feel that way but it's all I felt.

I wanted to tell him I loved him with the windows rolled down and the cold air rushing in because he used to let me do that. I believe that right had been revoked. "I missed it here." The truth was hidden in those words, in between the lines, deep in those letters, stuffed in between them.

He hummed, glancing over. "Me too. Everything feels a little simpler."

I heard the radio speaking, ringing some familiar tune that I couldn't think of the name. Maybe if it had been a little simpler and Alex and I stayed there forever, in the car ride between Wakefield and High Green, we'd have a house, a garden, a ring, a little thing on the way. 

But I would've missed out on a lot more. I would have missed out on a lot of Alex. How he was with his hair long in the middle of Joshua Tree, looking over at me instead of the night sky. How he made up our bed in our London studio apartment into a couch because we didn't have enough space for one. How he felt sitting next to me on the C train at 2 AM. How he felt in the dead of winter in Yorkshire, somehow ending up at my hotel with a hoodie I used to wear and a smile he still wears just for me.

I'll never know otherwise. And that's fine.

*

a/n: this was a struggle but i think it landed right in the end. much, much more to come.

[spametc123]

The phrase “maybe the curtains were just blue” is genuinely so harmful to media literacy as a whole. Yes, things can just be the way they are, but almost everything exists with context. Do you exist or do you exist because of everything that has happened in the world? Your parents met, you didn’t die that one time when you were eight, you’re the person you are because of that awful haircut you had in seventh grade. You exist because of all of that.

So, nothing pisses me off more than when someone uses an incomplete quote. “A jack of all trades is a master of none” without the second half: “but oftentimes better than a master of one” (everyone say thank you Shakespeare) has an entirely different meaning. The first half by itself is utilized to shame people into ignoring things they love or are interested in; meanwhile the full quote praises people interested in a variety of things. Ignoring context literally erodes the meaning behind anything. Machiavelli said “it’s better to be feared than to be loved.” Wrong. Loud incorrect buzzer. Kind of. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, “it’s not wrong, exactly, it’s just incomplete.” (Or something like that anyways.) Yes, Machiavelli did write that. Congrats! But you forgot a kinda, semi, VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT component of that quote. “It is better to be feared than to be loved if one cannot have both.” It should be common sense right? I wish. Ask anyone about their opinion on the incomplete quote and see how many of them think they’re revolutionary when they say “oh I’d rather have both!” If the full quote doesn’t seem to make a difference in your mind, great! But there’s still more context that you need to know to actually understand it (let alone teach it (Mr. History teacher that is NOT a philosophy teacher and should not try to be one)). The quote is from The Prince, a writing in which Machiavelli talks about what makes a good leader. In his opinion, The Prince should know when to utilize love and fear to his advantage. Be loved by your people and feared by your enemies. Seem more trusting than you are so you can see who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He says that one should prefer to be feared than to be loved in time sensitive situations, not sustainably. That when things need immediate change being feared makes a stronger and more effective leader (which is unequivocally correct and I’m tried of hearing otherwise). So again, without context: a random quote that no one agrees with or really understands at all, whatsoever vs. with context: the assertion that in times of need it is better to be respected and feared than it is to be loved. Or, a personal favorite “dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.” I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. Oh wow! So cool, he thinks therefore he is - being capable of thought means I exist, how neat! Not wrong, sure, but lacking context. What makes the philosophy so powerful is the fact that it’s a paradox. You doubt your existence, therefore you are capable of thought, therefore you exist. Because you doubt your existence, you prove that you exist. But if you are then confident you exist, do you no longer exist anymore? And now you doubt it again. Without context, it’s just words on a page, nothing notable or interesting. Without looking for the context it’s yet another thing people will complain about having to learn because “why does it even matter?”

It’s the same with characters. Armand is batshit fucking insane, yes, but he only is that way because of who he is. The tv show fails his character when they age him up, because even with some of his backstory, he is the way he is mainly because he’s eternally trapped in the body of a 17 year old. ____ is too trusting! Maybe in different circumstances, yes, but that character is the way they are because of the life experiences they’ve had. ____ is the right amount of trusting for the life they’ve lived.w

It’s the same for people too!!! Please find it within you to have basic human empathy! Someone is the way they are because of their life experiences. You can’t have something happen to you, good or bad, and not be affected by it. Someone can only change if their experiences change. No, it’s not your responsibility to change someone’s behavior or to tolerate it, but it is your responsibility to try to understand why someone is the way they are.

Empathy and media literacy are so clearly intertwined it’s would be comical if it wasn’t depressing. Read between the lines, try to understand things that you don’t get immediately. The curtains aren’t just blue. It doesn’t matter if it’s to represent sadness or just because it’s the author’s favorite color or even because the author was so indecisive they made someone else pick it, there’s still a reason. Anti-intellectualism is the curse that keeps on dooming us all.

[ripdragonbeans]

Winter Activities // modern!Aegon x Reader

Summary: You and Aegon try to come up with ideas to do that are Winter themed but then something else comes to your mind instead.

Warnings: little head injury, smut

“Aegon, you asshole!” You screamed. 

A snowball hit you square in the face and Aegon was by himself with laughter. The snow was high enough that it covered your ankles. Walking and running in the snow proved to be a challenge in itself. Awkwardly moving in the snow, you did your best to get away from Aegon, only to face plant in the snow.

Aegon resumed his laughter. “You okay?” He asked when he caught his breath.

Instead of saying anything you held a thumbs up. You were still face first in the snow and mumbled something about being comfortable in the freezing weather.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Aegon said as he made his way to you.

Finally, you rolled over so you were on your back, still refusing to get up. As you sank into the snow you said, “Excuse you, I’m perfectly fine laying in the freezing snow after being hit in the face with a snowball, thank you very much.”

“If I join you will that make everything better?”

You pouted as you nodded your head. Aegon fell back unceremoniously onto the snowy ground and stared up at the sky.

“This better?” He asked.

You rolled over to envelop him in a hug on the ground. “Better.”

It was a sweet moment, the two of you holding each other in the snow. That is until Aegon snuck his hand around you with the excuse of wanting to hold you closer. He gathered a fist full of snow in his hand and smacked the back of your head before getting up and running away. 

“Aegon, you asshole!” You called after him. You struggled to get up, slipping on the snow and not finding very good footing. Once you gained your balance you sprinted after your chaotic boyfriend.

“Not my fault you're not good at snowball fights, bunny,” Aegon said as he made you two hot chocolate.

You were nursing a bump on your head. It appeared a bit after you came inside. You figured it was from the snowball fight and immediately accused Aegon. 

“That doesn't mean I should get a fucking concussion,” you countered.

“It's not a concussion, it's just a little bump.” Aegon plopped himself next to you on the couch. “Now, drink your hot chocolate before I drink it up.”

“Heathen.”

“Yes, but I'm your heathen.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead.

Taking a sip of your hot drink, you relaxed a bit. You weren't mad at Aegon, you were just giving him a hard time because you knew he'd push back. It was your thing. You'd push each other's buttons and then make up. It was part of the fun of your relationship.

“What should we do next?” You asked as you put down your mug.

Aegon shrugged. “I don't know? There's a cookie set in the cabinet that we haven't used yet.”

That got you excited. Your eyes lit up as you smiled. “I forgot about those! Yes, let's decorate cookies!” You rushed to get up and almost knocked your hot chocolate over but Aegon was there to save it.

“Careful, bunny,” he laughed. He pulled you into his lap by your waist once he moved the mug out of the way. “You're very adorable when you get excited, you know that?” He nuzzled into your neck.

You giggled. “Maybe.” Pressing a soft kiss against his forehead you slowly started moving your hips.

Aegon groaned. “What happened to the cookies?”

“Well, since you put me on your lap I thought of a different idea.” 

You could feel him getting hard through his pants. Aegon’s hands went from your waist to your ass. After giving you a quick squeeze, he captured your lips in a heated kiss.

It wasn't a soft kiss, it was a kiss full of passion and impatience. You began to grind against him even more as you ran a hand up under his shirt. You needed the skin to skin feeling. 

Aegon pulled at your lip gently. “Do you want something?” He teased.

“I want your clothes off,” you murmured against him.

“And I want yours off, too.” Aegon slipped his hand underneath your shirt and cupped your breasts.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

“What?” Aegon ran a thumb over your nipple. He reached around and unclasped your bra and let it fall. “Oops.”

Pulling Aegon back into a searing kiss, you tore his shirt over his head and soon did the same to yours. You pressed your bodies against each other, basking in the warmth.

Aegon slipped his hands beneath the waistband of your pants and tugged them down. Smiling, you got off his lap and finished the job. Clad in only your panties, you turned around to give him a whole view of yourself. Aegon quickly followed and discarded his pants and underwear, leaving him completely bare. You couldn't help but stare at his hard member.

“See something you like?” He taunted.

You gently pushed him back into the couch and kneeled before him. “You know what I like.”

Aegon gripped your chin in his hands. “Then take it.”

So you did.

Spitting in your hand, you gripped Aegon's cock and began to work it up and down. His eyes never left you but you could tell he was getting worked up. Leaning forward, you darted your tongue out to lick just the tip. Aegon couldn't help the groan that came out of his mouth or the pump of his hips into the air.

Smiling deviously, you slowly took as much of him in your mouth as you could. You still had to use a hand to work all of him. You looked up and gave him a wink before bobbing your head up and down. With each thrust you'd take more and more of him until he was hitting the back of your throat. Aegon’s hands went to your hair and he held you down. You bobbed your head just a little more and then hummed around his cock.

“Fuck!” Aegon released your head but soon began meeting you with his thrusts.

You were sure he was going to finish in your mouth but he pulled you off of him and into another searing kiss.

“When I come, it's going to be in that tight pussy, bunny, not in your mouth,” he said against you. “But first.”

Aegon kissed his way down your body, making sure to stop at your tits and to suck on a nipple before switching to the other one. He knew you loved nipple play and it never failed to make you wet. You could feel yourself getting more and more wet the longer he played with you. While his mouth would work on, his hand would go to the other to pinch and play.

You tried sitting in his lap again but Aegon pushed you out to the couch and spread your legs. You were bare for him. 

“Fuck, you're wet,” he said as he stared at you. 

Tentatively, he prodded one finger at your folds. You mewled and lifted your hips up for more. You thought he would push you down but he did just the opposite. He pulled you closer to him and descended on your pussy. 

His mouth was magic. He ate you out like a man starved. You couldn't help your moans of pleasure as he devoured you. When he focused on your clit he stuck two fingers in, making you scream in surprise and pleasure. He made sure his pumping matched his licks and it had you seeing stars. He latched into your clit and hummed, sending vibrations all throughout your body.

“Fuck, fuck fuck!” You called out as you began nearing your peak.

“That's right, bunny,” Aegon praised you. “Come for me.”

Those words sent you into straight bliss. Pleasure darkened your vision until you could focus on nothing but the feeling Aegon was causing you.

Slowly, Aegon came to a stop and pulled his fingers out of your entrance but carefully placed them in your mouth. 

“Suck.” He ordered.

Looking at him with big eyes, you did as he commanded and tasted yourself on his fingers.

“What a good girl,” he cooed as he removed his fingers and replaced them with his own lips. 

Again, you tasted yourself on him and you loved it.

“We're going to do something special, bunny. Trust me and get on all fours.”

You nodded your head and did as he said, still in bliss from your orgasm. Aegon slapped your ass as soon as it was in the air but quickly soothed it with a kiss. He spread your cheeks open and groaned. 

“Gods, you're gorgeous like this,” he said before he licked your puckered hole.

You whimpered as his tongue ran over it.

“I won't use this hole. At least not yet, bunny,” he told you. “What I will use, though, is this wet pussy.”

Aegon took the base of his cock to guide it over your folds. You shivered at the feeling. He was teasing you. He would circle your entrance and almost enter you but would let his cock slide up and over.

It wasn't until you complained and shook your ass that he grabbed his cock and thrust into you.

It wasn't sweet, it wasn't gentle, it was hard and fast; just how you like it.

Being fucked from behind had him going deeper than ever before and you loved it. Aegon was hitting all these spots you never knew existed and you were obsessed. 

His hand came around your chest to play with your tits, which wound you up even more. Pleasure built within you as you met each thrust.

“Aegon, please,” you whined.

“Please, what, bunny?”

“Please let me come.”

Aegon thrust harder and harder, making you scream out. Your legs were going weak, the pleasure was becoming too much. Aegon grabbed your hair and pulled you up so your back was flush against him.

“Come for me.”

With a cry of pleasure you let yourself go. Aegon continued to fuck you through your orgasm, chasing his own. He pushed you back down on all fours as he grabbed your hips and rutted into you.

“Fuck, bunny, I'm gonna -”

Aegon spilled his seed inside you, filling you up. Even as he finished up, he slowly kept thrusting into you, making you mewl.

After a while, he finally stilled and collapsed on top of you. Breathing hard, you moved your hand so you could run it through his hair, even at an awkward angle.

“Gods, that was -”

“- Holy fuck, bunny.”

You laughed. “Yeah.”

“Ugh, I don't want to move.”

“As much as I love having you on top of me, you're beginning to crush my lungs.”

Aegon groaned as he rolled over next to you. He pulled you in and held you tight. “Okay, time to sleep, bunny,” he yawned.

“You're not… you're not going to clean me up? Or move us to the bedroom?”

“Fuck, we're still on the couch.”

“And we have chocolate that's probably cold.”

“FUCK!”

And with that, Aegon jumped off of you to grab the hot chocolate mugs and rush them to the microwave, naked and all.

[rocknrollsalad]

rating: gen cw: bad dates tags: hallmark movie au, hockey player eddie, sad sack steve, christmas tree farms, eddie's weird charm works too well word count: 997

written for @steddieholidaydrabbles prompt "hot chocolate"

Eddie had been helping his uncle out with the last-minute rush, the people who forgot to buy a Christmas and were now looking at the saddest saplings in the lot. No amount of creative salesmanship was going to make these trees worthy but people didn’t care. Not this close to the deadline. And Eddie had been happy to pawn them off, it meant he didn't have to haul them out later.

It’d been a good day, one Wayne offered to wrap up because he knew where his nephew wanted to be. Eddie didn’t wait for the offer to finish before he was booking it down to the rink they’d added to their Christmas wonderland fifteen years ago. He laced up his skates and joined the handful of others out enjoying the night.

Somewhere in his third warm-up lap, Eddie caught a guy sitting in the stands by himself and watching the figure skater who was taking up center ice. He was gorgeous, bundled up in a way that was equal parts fashion and warmth. Beside him sat two cups of something warm and a thing of popcorn. He was probably on a date with that figure skater. That's the way that worked, right? Still, Eddie took a second for the view.

When Wayne hit the lights on the tree lot, the guy was still there. Elbows on his knees, watching the entrance a little more than the ice. Still two untouched drinks and a full bag of popcorn. Eddie didn’t see the figure skater but maybe she’d gone off to change.

The other dates had slowly left the ice until it was Eddie and three teenagers. Officially marking Eddie’s favorite time of night. He skated off to the booth and switched the softly playing Christmas music into blaring loud metal music.

He came back out to find it hadn't scared their spectator off, he was drinking one of the cups now and watching as the teenagers tried to push one of their friends over. Eddie stood on the ice and stared at the guy, trying to figure out what was going on. Before he creeped the stranger out, Eddie went and joined in with the kids.

After Eddie had toppled all of the kids, managed to stay upright himself, and the album finished, it was time to call it a night. The saddest new fixture was still in the stands, defeated and out of popcorn. And, honestly, Eddie had been good enough. He was done.

Skating off the ice, he chased the teenagers out and locked up. A quick swap to shoes, a trip through the concessions stand, and back to the bleachers where he now trusted this man would be, Eddie took action.

Passing over a cup of old but still warm cocoa, Eddie tried to carefully walk the line between caring and making jokes, “Wanna talk about it, champ?”

“Oh thank god,” The guy breathed, accepting the cup. “It’s not super obvious?”

“Well, I did think maybe you woke up this morning with ice powers and you were trying to test them out because this is where I’d go do to that but I never saw the ice change and you’re not even wearing any blue so that doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice but I could still be wrong.”

Eddie took a drink as the other just blinked.

“Wanna help me walk the grounds?”

“Huh?”

“I have to check everything out before I leave, ya know? Make sure people aren’t hiding or lost.”

“Does that happen?” the guy asked as he stood up.

“Not really but my uncle said one time, before I was born, some guy tried to break in and steal some trees.”

“What wou-”

“Your trash, man. C’mon. I know you had a bad night but I’ll have to come back and clean that shit up. You’re closing up shop with me, get it together.”

The guy grumbled but took a few steps back to grab the now empty cups and popcorn bag. He crumpled them up and stuffed them into the pocket of a jacket that fit him so well it had to be tailored. Eddie thought the guy was nice on the eyes sitting down but up close? Seeing the whole picture, he was out of his league.

“Alright, you’re hired,” Eddie teased, showing he was pleased even as the guy acted like it was punishment. He took a few steps down the stairs, trusting he was followed. “So she stood you up?”

Eddie could hear the way it tensed the guy up. “Yeah,” he finally said. “And you want to know the fucked up part?”

“That’s my favorite part!” Eddie laughed.

“It would have been our third date.”

Oh god. That was fucked. Eddie turned around and looked at the man, wishing for anything more to say than “I’m sorry.”

“I knew it wasn’t going to work out but I didn’t know it was going to crash and burn,” he said.

Eddie led them into the concessions stand so he could make sure everything was shut off. “I think I’m supposed to say some stuff about it being her loss but no way you don’t know that so can I offer you a bag of nacho cheese to slap? Always makes me feel better.”

“I’m Steve, by the way,” the guy said, pulling himself up on the counter, leaning against the now-closed gate. His eyes were brighter and Eddie swore he could see a smile.

“Eddie. Munson.”

“Ah, so this is all yours then?”

“Nah, I’m the heir to the throne. The only so they can’t let anything happen to me.”

“Must be nice.”

“Yeah, I know you hear about what a burden the Christmas tree farm game is all the time, the media won’t stop saying how dangerous it is but I don’t live in fear. I can’t let them win.”

Steve smiled, lopsided and bright. "Wanna get out of here?"

Eddie nodded. He really did.

[evecolourshock]

Beck grins to himself, finally sneaky enough to get his revenge. Dozens of cycles, hundreds of millicycles of preparation. His target chats on, engrossed in carefully curated information tailored to his interests - Beck's proud to say he figured those out too.

He waits, patient, expression schooled into fascinated interest - hiding the anticipation with another, true feeling. Just a little longer-

Now!

Beck bops Tron gently in the back of the head with an empty tube, darting out of retaliation range before crowing with delight. Of course, Tron's bemused and affronted look drops quickly into amusement, the Monitor launching himself at Beck with a playful growl, but for just a few short moments Beck tastes sweet, sweet victory.

It's far fron the first time this has happened, but normally Tron's the one who strikes first. Training, he'd justified it as. Developing increased reaction speeds and situational awareness, teaching how to read body language and anticipate two, ten, a hundred steps ahead.

Beck's pretty sure it was just an excuse to play, without Tron admitting he likes to roughhouse and wrestle like a beta. The training it provides is a bonus.

Beck's distraction costs him, Tron's hands finding the sensitive patches near his ribs and tickling him until he wheezes with laughter. He recovers by getting Tron into a short-lived headlock, and then knocking the Monitor onto one of the couches so Beck can try to squash him into it. He fails, but while being turfed off manages to not only unlatch one of Tron's boots but slip it all the way off.

Knowing when discretion is the better part of valor by now, Beck runs off with the boot. He doesn't return it until he has to leave, spending the remaining time perched on top of one of the cabinets and giggling with Tron swearing retaliation at him from the floor.

...Beck realises two things approximately half a picocycle before his fist impacts Zed's shoulder that he probably shouldn't have listened to his instincts. Their discussion about Lightrunners and the various sub-models thereof had devolved into something of an argument over which was better, both of them fully engrossed in it, but then Zed had raised his hand and moved towards him (probably to clap him on the shoulder, Beck realises) and-

Yeah. Beck had taken it as an invitation to roughhouse, forgetting Mechanics don't typically do that and especially not on the clock. At least Beck had been able to redirect from Zed's face.

"Hey!" Zed yelps, and Beck makes sure to look appropriately frantic.

"Sorry!" He fusses over Zed's arm, despite knowing he didn't hit hard enough to do more than sting. "Sorry Zed. Are- did I hurt you? I'm so sorry- Mara can you grab the medkit, I hit Zed-"

"Beck- I'm fine!" Zed insists (Beck knows he is, but it's nice confirmation). "What was that?" He demands, and Beck puts together an appropriate half-truth.

"I... kinda made a new friend." Beck rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "We, uh. If we disagree we settle it... physically. Wrestling an' stuff." He pulls big soulful eyes on Zed. "Forgot I can't do that here. Sorry Zed."

"What's their name?" Able calls from the doorway of his office, peering at Beck suspiciously. Beck winces - if anyone knows Tron, it'll be Able. Tron had said as much, even if he hasn't actually said anything. It's the fondness every time Beck mentions Able that cinches it.

"Quark." Beck supplies dutifully. "His name is Quark. He's really cool. Kinda... Security-adjacent? He helps Zuse out sometimes, with the unrulier patrons." Technically true - Tron has helped Zuse out with unruly patrons before. He just... happened to be still Head of Security at the time.

Able doesn't look convinced. Zed, at least, does.

"What's he like?" Zed asks, curious, and Beck grins.

"Well, he's been mistaken for Tron a few times." Beck laughs at Zed's scoff. "I know, right? Sure, they look similar from the back, but Tron's like. A giant. And Quark's not much taller than me. He's fun, a real nice guy. A little goofy, a lot sassy - similar sense of humour to mine. Sometimes quick to violence, but..." Beck shrugs. "Security-adjacent. He's only like that if he's scared. Grumpy if he's exhausted. Passionate, enthusiastic, supportive, caring. So, so kind. Just... generally nice to be around, you know?"

"And enjoys roughhousing." Zed adds drily. "Like you."

"Yeah." Beck enthuses, warm and fond and happy. "It's great to just... wrestle. And not have to worry about breaking someone or something."

Able relaxes then. Beck's still not convinced Able's convinced, but it's better than being interrogated. Maybe he can convince others it's a Security-adjacent thing, make it out like it's not just Tron and himself with a weird grasp of social interactions.

He can only hope.

Headcanon that Tron sometimes initiates a fight with Beck in the middle of a conversation, to train him to react fast. Beck hates it at first but grudgingly admits it kind of helps.

Then he starts doing it to Tron to get revenge, and to see if he can catch him off guard. It becomes a quirk between them, either a goofball move or a way to blow off steam.

At one point Beck is back at the garage chatting with Zed or something, and punches him out of nowhere on a kind of learned social instinct, forgetting that normal people don’t start fistfights when talking about cars.

Able sees this and is immediately like ‘goddammit Tron’s recruited him. Nobody else acts like this.’

[13eyond13]

Please tell me about art and media you know of that accurately captures the weirdness of dream logic and atmosphere and emotions... books and movies and video games and art and comics and YouTube stuff, whatever you want... you know, where it only makes sense on an intuitive level and falls apart when you try to explain it...

[blazingblorbos]

I was busy within the hour this released. but I'm here now and. ... oh boy just bear with me

I'm gonna just... copy/paste my initial thoughts as I watched this, here, for the next couple lines:

Final Results:

Now listen to me, I need to scream into the void all my newfound realizations and woes but it's 1:30 in the morning and I need to wake up early the next day. So understand that I'm making this as short as gayly possible (it may not be short at all).

Aside from all the lesbian saxophone that my eyes just witnessed, which is a scream that will never make contact with any airwaves - digital or otherwise - ... The last two minutes of that trailer were entirely unexpected.

Now don't get me fucking wrong I wasn't NOT paying attention to the section of the teaser during the livestream that showed us a glimpse of Black Swan's fear and surprise drowning in that fiery background. but. ... bro— FUCKING COME ONNNN MAN!!

HOW FAST THE SCENE FLIPPED, HOW QUICKLY- WHATEVER THAT THING (IT DEFINITELY WASN'T THE ACHERON WE KNOW) WAS TOOK THE LEAD and LITERALLY tossed Black Swan around like a helpless bird. a PREDATOR chasing their PREY

AND THE PREY IS BLACK FUCKING SWAN???? THE FUCKING MEMOKEEPER FROM THE GARDEN OF RECOLLECTION?? THE MYSTERIOUS AND ELEGANT SOOTHSAYER???

To see Black Swan of ALL characters in this game so far be filled with such visceral fear and trepidation, to be tossed around at the MERCY of something that could have so EASILY killed her just like. t h a t. is beyond insane.

I expected it to be more of a "What terrible horrors have you commited?" 'Wow! Horrors that even Black Swan thinks is terrible, Acheron is capable of s-' no she literally almost killed her. She's not a human by the way. Black Swan is not a human being anymore she is like. coNdEnseD mEmORy AND SHE LITERALLY ALMOST DIED. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

also, we love Allegra Clark in this house this woman is hilarious

[typheus]

Day 6 Past!

(no new art. my arm hurts. yall get grimm sketches instead)

So when grimm was born she was stolen n sold. Cause her parents pissed off agate at some point :/

Where she was sold to is a research facility that worked on cures for various diseases.

Yknow the episode of doctor who with the cat nurses? This one :

It's like that.

When she was 5 agate decided to rob the place she was at n took all the patients so they'd have to buy em back. She didn't know who grimm was. But she did decide to keep her so that's where grimms been since :3c

She n felicity got married when she was 12 cause ppl kept asking agate if they could n she got really annoyed so made grimm pick someone on the ship :/

When she was 16 is when ferris unwillingly joined the ship, she blinded him in one eye in the process but they quickly became friends after :)

Then at 20 she died. Then got kidnapped by cosmo n lauren. Then agate got her back n made cosmo n lauren also unwillingly join the ship! As one does :)

Now she is 23 (20(3)) and she is the worst girl in the universe!

She also is still sick and gets sick pretty often cause the whole labrat thing. And since cosmo n lauren are doctors that specifically work on sirens it's why agate decided they weren't leaving. Grimm makes their lives hell tho cause she is Terrified of hospitals/doctors/needles ect ect

Uhh let's see. She has 6 siblings 1 is human the others are all agates kids. The 5 that are agates all hate agate n want her dead. The 1 human is another kid agate stole at some point, he's currently on earth! He is 35 (not really important for bitten off but is for Sloan n Beatrices story)

[enigma-absolute]

this just in: Chrumblr RP proven once again for the second time, to be a reason for healing from Unexpected RP Traumas with nothing but kindness

[bdoubleowo]

thought we were past the point of tagging cc's in weird posts without making sure op was cool with it smh