#and yes that friend is from the same continent and the same timezone so really

[exotic-dinostuff]

I did some silly drawings stuff in a VC call whiteboard with my friend at night after everyone went off eheheh

I quite like it to be honest

THE FLESH..... HAS BECOME A SNAKE!

Uzi Birdy and my floating pfp, doll's just looking at her lmao

CLOSE UP

[zankivich]

Neighbors: Shawn x Plus Size Reader Chapter 16

a/n: this felt good to write. It feels like a natural progression. it’s a lot of y/n and a lot of internal reflection. I hope you like that. I hope that it’s worth it in the end. I really tried to do them justice. 

Warnings: some really sad, angst smut. some internal reflection on past traumas. mentions of alcoholism. 

*y/n point of view*

“W--What?” He whispered. “Wait, what?”

“Shawn I--”

“Not right now! I just need a minute okay?!”

You listen to him to shuffle around probably in order to find a place to be alone. This definitely isn’t how you thought about telling the news. In fact you weren’t quite sure you’d ever share it with him at first. But, now he’s here offering you everything you ever wanted...at least up until twenty-four hours ago. And you can’t help but feel like it’s too late.

“Listen, I know I fucked up. I know I fucked up worse than anyone ever could but...we’re us! I can’t even imagine us not finding our way back to each other. There’s so much for us to talk about, and I have so much to make up for...Just let me come home and we can talk and--”

“There is no home anymore.” You interject.

You can hear his heart accelerating. This was usually the point where you reached for his hands to still them. He just happens to be on a different continent at the moment.

“Y/n what are you saying? Of course there is. We’re neighbors. We--We have each other’s keys.”

“I’m moving out of my apartment.” You blurted.

“You’re moving?” He gasped, voice a little shallower, a little more wet. “Honey you--you don’t need to do that. Please, don’t do that.  I know that I hurt you and I’m so unbelievably--”

“It’s not about you. Well, I guess maybe it kind of is, but not like that. Gina offered me a six month sabbatical. She’s gonna let me keep my salary, and I basically just get to travel the world I guess? Do some soul searching? I don’t know I’ve never really gone to many places besides Canada. Till I met you. This is my chance. To get a clean break, to figure out who the hell I want to be.”

You know it sounds like it’s a clean break from him, but it really isn’t. Or maybe it is. There’s far too many details for you to have it all figured out.

“That is...That’s so beautiful. I’m happy for you. It’s uh--it’s what you deserve.” He mumbled. “What does that mean then. For you and me.”

Wasn’t that the million dollar question?

“I think it means that...I’m gonna do my thing, and you’re gonna do yours.”

It sounded so much easier said than done. It sounded as if you hadn’t spent the past month crying over him, like your whole world hadn’t shattered the moment he left you.

“But I--I haven’t been able to breathe since you left.”

There’s a small part of you that finds comfort in his struggle. Not maliciously. But the break up had killed you in a way that no other moment in your life had ever quite accomplished. You felt like a little kid again, when everything that happened was the most important thing to ever happen. Shawn had made you feel like the world could be so much better than you ever thought. He had made you feel happy and special and important and sexy and everything that only you had been able to make yourself feel so long. And when he was gone, all of your training on how to do it yourself was gone. You felt shallow. Lost. Broken. Knowing that it might be possible that he felt the same way made you feel a little less crazy, if only a little.

“I wish that I could allow that to matter right now. I want that to matter but...I don’t think it’s healthy for me to put you first right now. And I don’t think it’s healthy for you to do it either.”

“But you’re...you’re my best friend. I love you so much.” He sniffled.

You closed your eyes as the tears found their way to you again. It’d been weeks and still you couldn’t control it.

“I love you too.” You sighed through the tears. “But maybe we need to learn how to do it on our own for a little while. Maybe that’s what you wanted when you left me and you just didn’t know how to say it.”

He’s silent for a long time. And you don’t know what to say so you stay silent too. It still hurts. There’s still a festering deep inside that you don’t know what to do with. And you don’t want to hate him because he means too much for that. So all you can do is hope and pray that he lets you do this, because it might be the only way to salvage your memories of him.

“Can I ask you something?” Shawn asked, voice soft and withdrawn.

You nodded as if he could see you.

“Yea.”

“Did you take your necklace off?”

It feels left field at first. You peer down at your neck where the swallow still is, and you think maybe you know what he’s getting at.

“No, I didn’t.”

He took a deep breath and let it go, voice a little lighter.

“Okay. Okay, if this is what you need then of course. I’d be a piece of shit to try and stop you. Whenever you’re ready just come find me. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

“Shawn what if--”

He interrupts you this time. “I’ll wait as long as you need, y/n. You’re all I’ve got to wait for.”

It’s final. He’s not willing to discuss it, and a part of you can’t help but want the security of hoping that he’ll still be there no matter what.

“Just don’t...don’t cancel your fucking tour idiot.” You huff. “You love music more than anything.”

“Not quite.” He admitted softly. “Not anymore.”

There’s another weighted silence between the two of them. Another round of having so many things that you want to say to someone, and there just not being enough time.

“I’m gonna go now. Congrats on the show tonight...you looked good.”

You can practically feel him smile. “You watched it?”

“I did. Good night, Shawn.”

“Good night, y/n.”

***

The first place that you fly to is coincidentally Italy. After a little research, it seemed to be a good time of year, less touristy, and you actually had some pretty good flyer miles after all the trips to see Shawn. You rent a small little place on airbnb near the water and it’s literally just you, just you and yourself and no one else. Sure, it wasn’t that different than life before your relationship, but in the aftermath of the break up it felt like a completely foreign concept. You woke up and the day was yours. There were no projects, no phone calls to be made, no marketing meetings or logistics. The most complicated part of your day was whether or not you were going to go down to the beach in a bikini or not. The answer was, abso-fucking-lutely you were.

There’s sunshine and warmth and so much fucking food everywhere. And you’re alone. And that’s okay. It needs to be.

At first it’s all about filling your day with things. You try out five different restaurants, go to three bars, and find a place to get gelato in between. All in one day. You post pictures on instagram with your tits out on full display in a bikini that was sure to make the masses upset, and you just didn’t care. You weren’t doing it for anyone, but yourself. It was your body and your happiness and you were responsible for both. At the end of the day you’d get back to the villa and pass out immediately. But, it meant you weren’t thinking, weren’t reveling, weren’t hurting. Or, so you thought.

You visit Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan. You’re sitting on another beach somewhere with your toes in the sand and your body wet and warm on a towel when your phone starts to vibrate.

Shawn: Can we talk right now? Need to tell you something.

y/n: I suppose so.

“Hi.” He murmured softly.

And there it was. That thing in your tummy, whether it was a tightening of the muscles, or a flipping of your internal organs. It was a feeling that no one but him could ever make you feel with such ease.

“Hi.”

“You’re in Italy.” He noted. “It looks beautiful. I’ve always wanted to vacation there sometime.”

“How’d you know?”

“Oh you uh...your insta. All the pictures of the--the you know, sites and what not.”

You snorted and let your head nestle back into the comfort of your towel.

“Yes the sites. Surely this has nothing to do with the bikini pic I posted this morning.”

“Bikini, aye? No I guess I missed that one. Must be the timezones. I’m sure you look incredible though. Probably even breathtaking if I were to see it. Which, I have not yet.”

It is incredible how easy it is for the two of you. How quickly you can just fall into that comfort. He had really become your best friend more than anything, more than a lover even. When shit happened to you whether it was good or bad, you could never think of anyone else to talk to. Shawn was always your person. And that’s a hard habit to break.

“Okay big guy, why don’t you tell me what it is you need from me.”

“Right. Well I uh I’ve been writing a lot lately. And uhm, it’s been really helping me in terms of getting through the tour and trying to reestablish some of the passion that I felt like I lost.”

“Well that’s great. I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Sure, I guess. Thank you. The uh label wants to do a few releases while I’m on tour. The way music is being released in the digital spotify age now is so incredibly competitive that artists are kind of heading in the direction of having singles between albums.We can thank Ariana for that.”

You smiled softly. “I’m sure there’s a point in here somewhere.”

“Yes. It’s just that...all the songs that I’ve written are completely and totally about you and for you. And I know you’re in Italy and you might be going somewhere else soon, but I didn’t want the first time you here these lyrics to be on the radio somewhere. I wanted it to be because I shared them with you.If you’re willing. If you want to hear them.”

It’s a lot to ask, which definitely explains him wanting to call. In all of your time traveling you had yet to actually sit down and think through some of the hurt that Shawn had left you with. You hadn’t even begun to touch the whole, “is he the one thing”. The fear was that by listening to these songs it might set you back in your healing, in your ability to move on. If that was in fact what you were doing.

“I--I don’t know. Are they sad?” You mumbled.

He chuckled. “Well, If I Can’t Have You was originally a ballad with a super dramatic piano. I think I might have played it that night I called you? It was a lot sadder then. Teddy helped turn into what I’m being told is a ‘summer bop’. I’ve got both versions if you want to hear them”

“Will either of them help me understand you more?”

The real question of course being was it ever going to explain how he could be supposedly in love with her, and then drop her like a bad habit all at once.

He paused. “I’ll answer any question you have, honey. You know that.”

Yea. No thanks.

“‘M not ready.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s okay. I can be okay with that.How about I send you the files in an email and you just...just listen whenever you want. If you want. I’ll send you the release dates too.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Well uh… I guess that’s all I had to say.”

“Goodbye Shawn.”

You tossed your phone into your beach bag and close your eyes stubbornly. You really needed to get him off your mind.

***

Your birthday finds you getting a deep tissue massage that is the most action you’ve gotten since leaving for the damn trip. It’s an insignificant birthday and you had been traveling so much that it doesn’t feel all that special in the grand scheme of things. You reply to the birthday texts. Do a facetime call with Stu so he knows you’re still alive. You get day drunk and walk through old cobble stoned streans looking at beautiful buildings and not having to say a word to anyone, because they wouldn’t even understand you if you tried. It’s lovely. Shawn doesn’t call and it’s fine. You’re fine.

There’s a beautiful restaurant that sits on the edge of a hill right where the sun melts into the earth as it sets. You feel oddly at peace as you eat, your sixth glass of wine from the day twirling in your fingers when your phone goes off.

Shawn: Hey?

y/n: Yea?

Shawn: I just wanted to say happy birthday. I planned on calling but I think you’re like 10 hours ahead of me right now and I’m stuck on vocal rest. I also didn’t really know if you’d want me to.

It soothes a broken part of you that thought that he’d forgotten. After All you’d never actually gotten to spend a birthday with him since you’d met in the fall. A part of you wants to cry a little bit, but you’re not drunk enough to be that honest with yourself.

y/n: No worries. You don’t owe me anything.

Shawn: Yea, well I never needed to owe you anything, I just always wanted to give you everything. I’m sorry we’re not spending this day together. It would’ve meant a lot to me to celebrate you.

y/n: yea. Probably would’ve been fun. We always knew how to party.

Shawn: I got you a present months ago but I can’t send it to your apartment anymore obviously, and I didn’t know what part of the world you would be in. Maybe you’ll let me give it to you someday.

He sends you a picture of this book. It’s got no words on the front, just a pretty smooth cover. It isn’t until he describes it to you that your whole world falls apart. He’d somehow managed to scrape together the recipe for every single thing you’d ever made together, or for him, and had someone make it into an actual book. It was literally a story of your relationship and your love through the thing that mattered to you most. He had left some empty pages in the hope that you would continue it together. And that just stung worse than anything.

The waiter sends you a very worried glance as you begin to sob over your pasta. But really, what else was the alternative? What other result could there have been?

Y/n: well shit Shawn. That’s really fucking sweet. I’m sobbing over my bolognese.

Shawn: I never wanted to make you cry. I’ve only ever wanted to make you happy. I love you. I know it’s not fair right now. But it’s my truth.

Y/n: I know, Shawn. I know.

Shawn: I didn’t mean to mess with you on your birthday. We can talk another time. Just have fun alright? Buy a round on me okay?

Y/n: I’ll do my best. Bye Shawn.

Shawn: Bye.

He venmos you enough to buy a round for a whole damn bar. You try not to think about how much it hurts when you find a place to take a shot. You try not to think about him at all.

***

You’re drunk. You’re in a foriegn city that is so beautiful it hurts and your body is full of alcohol. You kind of want a french fry. There’s man on the dance floor who’s been eyeing you all night and it hasn’t even occurred to you to give him the time of day. Even now, right now, if it weren’t for how good the music was you probably would’ve gone home. But instead you let him buy you a drink. And you let him take you on the dance floor. He’s good with his hips and he’s good at manipulating your body. It’s fun.

You’re wearing a dress that stops mid thigh and he tugs at the fabric as you grind to the beat. You’re not sure where the cut off is, where it goes from being dancing and fun to this level of discomfort. Perhaps it’s when your mind sends you an image of Shawn at New Year’s doing the cabbage patch for you. Perhaps it was the reminder than no one but Shawn had touched your body in months, and that you have been so fucking okay with that fact. For whatever reason you pull away from the guy and stumble home with tears of frustration, bitterness, and a little hurt in your eyes. You’re still not processing. You’re deflecting.

In your bed that night you can’t help but reach for the phone, your fingers doing things that a sober you hopefully would’ve known better about. But in the moment your fingers are tugging at this thong that Shawn had pulled off with his teeth once and when it comes to wanting and longing, he’s the only one that you can find yourself reaching for.

“Y/n? Sweetheart it’s two oclock in the morning.” Shawn groaned across the line. “What’s wrong?”

You peer over at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Wherever he is, you’re in the same time zone oddly enough. Maybe it was fate instead of a stupid ass drunken decision.

“I can’t fuck anyone else.” You mumbled.

“I’m sorry?”

“I can’t...I can’t even think about the prospect of sex without your big fucking head in the picture.”

You giggle a little to yourself fingers probing gently at your entrance. He was silent for a long while, long enough for your drunk mind to startle when he finally speaks.

“Were you...was there someone?” He asks quietly.

You roll your eyes up at the ceiling. “No. Just some guy I danced with for a song or two.I don't even remember what he looked like.”

He takes a deep breath and you wonder aimlessly what the hell you would do if he fucked someone else. How that might make you feel. You’d rather just fuck him instead.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve been drinking. Are you somewhere safe?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

“I’m in my hotel room, honey. It’s the middle of the night.”

Men. So naive.

“I miss you.” You hinted.

“I miss you too, y/n. So much.”

Your thighs clenched in agitation and you huffed up at the ceiling.

“No Shawn. I miss you. Please try to keep up here.”

It takes him a minute.

“Oh...oh. I don’t know about that. You’ve been drinking.”

“Have you ever known me to do something that I don’t want to do?” You asked him. “I’m consenting, Shawn.”

“I--I know I just...I don’t want you to ever regret us. Or anything that we’ve done. I’ve made such a mess of things, y/n. And I really, really want to be able to fix them. I love you.”

You’re not exactly in a talking mood. This isn’t about anything more than the fact that you need to get off and for whatever horrid reason, he’s the only one you can do that with. There’s still something ugly and mean in your heart. And you’ve not yet reached a place where anything positive is going to come out of this.

“Look, this is a virtual booty call. Nothing more, nothing less. Either you can do the one thing that you’ve never hurt me with, or I can go to bed a little frustrated. It’s up to you.”

It’s manipulative. You’re tapping into his incessant need to make you happy, and also into this very wounded part of himself that knew that he’d failed you, knew that he’d done something wrong. None of this is healthy. None of this is okay. But you don’t care. You just want to get off, and yea maybe you wouldn’t mind if it hurt him a little bit too.

“Okay. Okay, what do you want me to do?” He whispered.

“I want you to touch yourself.” You hum fingers dipping into your core where you’re already wet and needy. “Just like I am.”

There’s something about it being something that you’ve never done before that makes it feel not as wrong. Shawn was a little skittish about saving anything to his phone, so sexting and phone sex had never gone on the table. Tonight you’re just tapping into the ability to make each other feel something, to make each other reach heights that no one else can.

“I miss stroking you,” You admit softly.

He sighed. “Really?”

“Yea. You always get hard so quickly for me. I just have to trace my finger over that one vein and your thigh always twitches. Is it twitching now?”

His voice is a little lighter.

“Y--Yea.”

“Do you miss my mouth on you?”

“God, y/n. Of course I do. No one’s ever sucked me off like you before. You take me so good.”

You bite your lip to stifle the moans and it’s only because he’s not there to make you be loud, to tug at your lip with his thumb as he pounds you. But then you remember the reason he’s not there and it’s like starting all over again.

“Want you to touch me.” you mumbled trying to clear your mind. “What would you do?”

Shawn at first glance was the adorable puppy dog type. That surely didn’t translate to the bedroom. He had said some of the filthiest things to you with a single curl hanger over his eye and no one, not even his fans who seemed to know where he was at every waking moment, was around to witness it. Even now, with all of the distance--both physical and emotional--between you, he can still get you going immediately.

“I guess I’d just want to eat you out. I love the way that you taste. And the way you always coat my mouth with your juices. I just...fucking love pleasing you. Nothing gets me harder than when you grind against my face and make yourself cum.”

Your back arches and you groan out into your hotel room.

“God when you bump your nose against my clit, it drives me crazy. And when you suck on my thighs?”

“Fuck. Love marking you up. I miss the way you cry out for me when I make you squirt. Have you squirted since we made love last?”

You bit your lip an upset feeling hitting your stomach that you couldn’t rationalize, couldn’t understand. So you just tried to make it go away.

“No. No one makes me squirt like you.”

“Miss you.” He whined, voice breathy and desperate. “Miss the way you clench around me when I’m inside you.”

Your fingers speed up on your clit, your hips buck a little bit. He’s getting you there already and it’s wild.

“Fuck, Shawn!”

“Are you close?”

“Mhm. Are you?”

“Yea. Fuck baby I wish you were here.”

“Shut up. Not now. Just make me cum.”

Your words both turn to pants as you grunt and cry out for one another. Your orgasm builds in your toes and ripples through your entire body. It’s the first orgasm you’ve had since Amsterdam. For a moment it’s just the two of you trying to catch your breath. You’re drunker than you were an hour ago. There’s no doubt. He makes you fucking crazy.

“Y/n...What was that?” Shawn mumbled.

“I don’t know. I--I don’t know. I gotta go. Good night.”

***

There’s a bad taste in your mouth when you wake up the next day. Part of it is whatever the hell you drank the night before, which was quite frankly a little hazy. But, there’s something else there too. And you’re not even sure what it is at first. You’re naked in bed and the sun shines in through the windows so you dive under the covers to get away from it. And that’s where your phone is. That where it all sort of falls apart.

Shawn: Hey I’m sure you’re still asleep but I can’t really get this off my mind and I just needed to be honest with you.

Shawn: I can’t do that, whatever that was last night, again. Idk why but it just made me feel weird. I kinda feel like maybe you were using me or trying to get back at me? Which I guess I deserve

Shawn: I know I fucked everything up. The thing is is that I love you. I never stopped. And I don’t think I ever could. So just go figure your shit out. However long that takes, and I’ll be here waiting. But we probably shouldn’t talk for a while. I think it could help us both. I love you honey. So much. Have a great rest of your trip.

Your heart drops to your stomach as all the memories come rushing back. And it wasn’t just him being able to make you cum at all. It was his hesitance. It was the intimate sharings of your thoughts and feelings for him when your relationship was in such disarray. You told him things that night that had never come up, and he offered you the same. It wasn’t the right space, and yet you had given him an ultimatium as if him having phone sex with you would help anything.  He seemed to know you better than you knew yourself. Somehow you had hurt the both of you last night and you had nothing to show for it. If Shawn was willing to go without speaking though it meant you had truly, deeply hurt him. You had thought that might help make you feel better, but it had the opposite effect of course.

You don’t know what to say so you don’t say anything. And you can only hope that that doesn’t hurt him even more.

***

You take a ferry to Barcelona. And listen to Ed Sheeran’s Barcelona far too long. You spend a long time looking at the water and applying sunscreen and trying to remember another time in your life where you felt so out of touch. In college you had been entirely school focused, except for all the drunk shenanigans you and Stu would get up to. And then it had been the career and making yourself stable enough to never have to return home. Somewhere along the line after one too many assholes, you had stopped trying to find a relationship entirely. So you did hook ups, you did casual sex, and that was it. And that had been perfectly fine.

The problem with Shawn was that he had created a need in your heart that you weren’t prepared for. His yearning to know you in all of your complexities, to be there for you, to support you. No one had ever offered that before. And it wasn’t that you’d grown used to it necessarily, but dammit you had begun to try. It just so happened that for every wall he knocked down, there were five more already up and at attention. You weren’t perfect by any means. You were honestly probably a little fucked in the head. But you loved him. You had given in at some point. And he let you down. So, why in the entire hell should you allow him the opportunity to do it again?

There seemed to be a part of you that was jumping up and down and screaming, “I told you so!”. It hurt. It hurt so bad. You kept reliving the moment when it connected for you. When you realized that he was leaving you, he was just too much of a coward to say it out loud. You weren’t good enough. Not for Shawn. Maybe not for anyone long term. The thing that you had known all along from the beginning had come true with such startling reality. You had just been beginning to let go. You weren’t sure that you could do that again.

You stay at this beautiful bed and breakfast type place that was nestled right in the heart of the city where all of the museums and the shops were. You visit the La Boqueria, this large market that seemed to serve anything known to human. You spent an entire afternoon at one of the bars drinking and watching the locals. It was revitalizing in a way.You read books and sit in cafes and look at the architecture of everything around you. It’s all sort of beautiful and historical and vastly different than home. It’s perfect there.

It’s at one of the cafes that you meet her. You’re sitting there in a crop top and shorts reading a book when she comes over to you. She’s got a headscarf on that is this brilliant shade of red and gold. Her skin is a rich bronzed color that is elevated by a full face of makeup with a highlight that could cut stone. She’s maybe one of the most beautiful people you’d ever seen in your life. And she walks up to you of all fucking people. Needless to say you’re a little tongue lied.

“You are American no?” She asked.

“Uhhh...no. No actually I’m Canadian. We’re the nicer versions.”

She giggled. You smiled.

You hadn’t stumbled across many people who spoke english. So you welcomed anyone willing to pity you with a conversation.

“Canadian. Ah, okay. Well, Canadian girl, I cannot help but notice how sad you look. What’s wrong with you?”

You raised an eyebrow. “Well damn, is it that obvious?”

“I would say yes. Can I sit?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s already sitting across from you. In canada, you could offer someone a seat and they’d apologize before sitting down. What a culture shock.

“I’m sorry. You are one of the most beautiful humans I’ve ever seen, and I’ve apparently been to the grammys. However, I’m a little confused as to what I can do for you?”

She smiled again. “Why thank you! My friend from the UK sent me a fenty highlighter. They’re not available here yet. Does Riri not know that I need to sparkle? Anyway I’m not sure you can do anything for me. I think it may be what I can do for you. So, what can I do for you?”

“I’m...confused.”

“My grandmother grew up here. I used to spend my summers with her until I moved here entirely to take care of her. My mama, she would always say, sometimes there is a need that cannot be seen, cannot be named, but it can be felt. And when you feel it, you must give into it. It is the only way to fix the issue. I feel your need, Canadian girl. I am here to help.”

“Y/n. My name is y/n.” You snorted softly.

“Y/n, I am Priyanka. Girl you should, as the internet tells me, spill the tea.”

Oh lord.

You peered at her in caution. She didn’t scream crazy fangirl, but that certainly didn’t mean anything. She seemed to be in touch with popular culture enough to know who Shawn was. You could only imagine flying back home only to find out that you had accidentally aired all of your dirty laundry directly to the tabloids. But also, she was kind of nice. And still startlingly gorgeous. And there really couldn’t be a ton of pressure there, because you didn’t know her at all. What was the worst that she could do? Leave the table and judge you only for you to never see her again? You had gone at this trip to find some healing, to hopefully recenter yourself a little bit. How could you manage that without a little effort?

And so you tell her. Not that you were kinda sorta dating Shawn Mendes, but that you were dating a guy in the industry whose job was very demanding, as was yours. It is the first time you’ve ever laid it all out word for word, and it’s kind of exhausting to share. But, it also takes a little weight off your shoulders. She doesn’t look at you like you’re crazy after all, which makes it go down a lot smoother.

“So he loves you? But he breaks up with you...because he loves you so much?” She asked. “That is pretty dumb.”

You threw your hands up in excitement.

“Exactly! That is exactly what I said!”

“But, he has come back to you. He has apologized. He has told you that he loves you and only you, that you are the love of his life. Yet you are in Barcelona. How come?”

You felt your excitement fade away and your face scrunch up slightly.

“Well… I can’t just take him back.”

She tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Because! Because he--he hurt me. If I take him back he could hurt me again.”

“But isn’t that what love is? Taking the chance that you may end up hurt, but doing it anyway? You have to put trust in him, to believe that even though he could hurt you that he won’t.”

“Isn’t that just allowing him the opportunity to hurt me again? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?”

She shrugged. “People always have the ability to hurt us. But if you close yourself off and never open yourself up again, how can you expect anything to change?”

“So you think I should go back to him?” You asked.

“That is not my decision to make. But what if he is this so called love of your life, and you refusing him because of an act of desperation that somewhat had good intentions hurt you? What if you’re throwing something good away?”

You had a feeling Priyanka and Shawn would have gotten along wonderfully. They were both people who viewed the cup as half full while you couldn’t ever seem to get over all the empty space. It was quite exhausting to ever try and prove them wrong either. Optimism. In this economy? Can you imagine?

“I don’t know.” You mumbled to yourself playing with the edges of your book. “I love him. Of course I love him. How could I not? I think I’m just afraid that if I let myself love him the way that he wants, the way that he deserves that...it’s gonna go wrong somewhere. I’ve never ever had it not go wrong.”

“That’s okay. That’s a real emotion. You get hurt enough times, you want to protect yourself. I’m just saying in this particular instance you might not need protecting.” She shrugged. “In fact, you know what? He might fuck up again. Men are dumb, we know this. It might all fall to crap a week from now, a year from now, three years from now. Who’s to say? But I guess the question is, is it worth it to enjoy the good times and to put a little belief in yourself and in your relationship?”

At the end of the conversation, your head hurt a little bit and your heart throbbed dully in your chest. Usually you would’ve crawled into Shawn’s arms and hid your face in his chest, the gentle hum of his heart beat lulling you into serenity. He would play with your hair and he would whisper/sing into your ear. He would tell you that he loved you, or that you were pretty, or whatever other ridiculous things came out of that man’s mouth on a daily basis. It was another one of those times where you were in pain; you were sad, and you couldn’t have the one person who knew how to make it all better. Suddenly you missed him more than ever.  And even in Barcelona, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, you ached for home. For him.

Dammit.

***

Priyanka takes you to buy a journal. Apparently you’re friends now? Or at least she’s taking pity on you. She explained that for someone so angsty who internalized everything you should probably have a place to release or you were sure to explode. She didn’t seem to recognize that that might be mean so you just rolled with the punches. She takes you to the beach and you lay out in the sun together while she forces you to write about yourself. It is about as fun as one might imagine.

“What the fuck am I supposed to write about?” You huffed glaring at the blank page before you.

She snorted and reset her headscarf which was a gorgeous teal color today that blended perfectly into her bathing suit.

“Anything. Just make it personal. Why don’t you pick something you’ve never talked to anyone about and start there. You don’t need to be scared at all because it’s just who gets to read it.”

You were for certain Priyanka had stumbled into your life only to make it more difficult. She seemed to thrive on it actually. But, then again here you were taking life advice from a practical stranger anyway.

You decide to start with the first time you recognized that being fat was a bad thing. It was a visceral memory, one that you didn’t bring up too often, but one that had been instrumental to the woman you had grown to become. It was third grade. You had just turned eight. Your dad had been gone for three months, and your mom had started letting you help her in the kitchen after school. All of your brothers would go outside and play hockey with the kids across the street, or basketbal, or whatever other dumb game with a ball existed. You hated it. You just wanted to sit inside with your mom and make something.

You brought homemade cupcakes for your birthday. And you were so incredibly proud because you had helped make them! These were the product of your labor. But when it came time to eat and celebrate, Jenna Bartman came up to you to get her cupcake and laughed at you. Y/n you should probably give all the cupcakes away. Everyone knows you’ve eaten plenty. And all of the kids still left in the line laughed with her. You peered down at your tummy and it didn’t look like Jenna’s, didn’t look like most of the other girls in the class. You didn’t bake for an entire year after that. It didn’t mean you didn’t eat, you still snuck cookies from the jar up into your room when your brother wasn’t there to see you. But it was the first time that you had ever been told that what you were was bad, that you shouldn’t get to exist in the manner that made you most happy if it made others uncomfortable.

Fast forward to eighteen years old. Your first boyfriend in highschool. If you could even call him that. He didn’t want anyone at school to know that you were together. And he would only come over when your brothers weren’t around, which meant spending a lot of time in the garage. Not very sexy.

You had decided that you were comfortable and willing to have sex for the first time. You were going to go over to his place after school. His parents were gone and everything. The second that you got up to his room though, he closed all of the blinds and shut the lights off. C’mon babe. We don’t need to see all that. Let’s just do it already. The least enthusiastic five minutes of your life. You’d never told anyone that story before. Not stu. Not even Shawn.

And then there was your transformation in college. You excelled in your major, held the top GPA and graduated with departmental honors. You started to believe in your abilities, in this tiny vision that you created for yourself. You started dressing differently, started taking really important steps to love your body, to be kind to yourself. And it had these amazing ramifications, which was that the more you were kinder to yourself the happier that you ended up being. In college you fell in love with yourself and that’s when you started to shine. Your relationships with others became better as a result. The relationships that you had whether intimate or platonic thrived, because you were thriving. It was the happiest you had ever been and it completely altered your life. But, even in your quest to love yourself there were a lot of things you left behind just so you didn’t have to deal with them anymore.

Your hand is cramping when you set the pen off to the side. You’d scribbled pages and pages of words. At some point, Priyanka had gone off to swim leaving you there. When the words had run dry, you threw your journal to the side and joined her. If there was one thing you were grateful for, it was your ability to love yourself in spite of all things. You had grown to thrive on your own, to give yourself everything that no one else had ever bothered to give you. And it wasn’t necessarily about a need to be a relationship, or this idea that love from someone else is better than self-love. Maybe it was just that self-love doesn’t have to be the only love, and that you can love yourself enough to let others love you too. There wasn’t any weakness in that.

***

 You’re in a bar listening to Priyanka try to explain why you should order this supposed magical cocktail that cures the soul when you hear his voice. At first you don’t even recognize that it’s music, so you flick your head around thinking that he’s standing behind you. Instead it’s his new single. Even in Barcelona you can’t escape him. It doesn’t help that the entire bar immediately starts to gravitate to the song. It’s kind of a bop after all. Until you start to listen to the words anyway.

I can't write one song that's not about you

Can't drink without thinkin' about you

Is it too late to tell you that

Everything means nothing if I can't have you?

You always thought the first time Shawn might write a song for you would be this incredibly sappy, and hopefully beautiful, love song. That had been his promise afterall to write whole love songs for you. You never could have imagined that what you would get instead was a piano ballad he sang you completely hammered through a phone one night, but over some uplifting beat. It almost didn’t sound like the same song, granted you hadn’t gone back and listened to the files he sent you like he asked. It was so weird to watch people dance and have fun to a song that was about the destruction of your relationship. Watching people enjoy it just made it hurt more.

“Can we uh...Can we go to a different bar please?” You murmured in Priyanka’s ear.

She stared at you like you were crazy.

“But we just got here! And this song is incredible!”

“No Pri,forreal. Can we leave?”

She takes one look at you and seems to get it. You hope down off your seats and clear the bar as Shawn continues to tell the world what he’d just barely been able to tell you.

Even in the hurt there’s a bit of pride and you find yourself reaching for your phone. Maybe it isn’t pride at all. Maybe it’s desperation. Who knows

Y/n: I know we’re not speaking, but your new song was playing at a bar in Barcelona. Thought you’d wanna know.

You don’t expect him to answer, can’t imagine him answering after the last time you two spoke. Priyanka leads you to another bar by your hand and you swear you’re not peering down at your phone every two seconds

Shawn: Barcelona?! I’m gonna tell Andrew right now. That’s incredible.

y/n: Yes you can imagine my surprise when I heard your voice and turned around and you weren’t there. You were right though. Definitely a summer bop.

You take a couple shots of tequila that burn like jet fuel and watch Priyanka’s much smaller form get hammered very quickly before he responds again.

Shawn: I’m sorry if it surprised you in a negative way. That’s not fair.

Y/n: It did a bit at first but...It was nice to hear a familiar voice.

Shawn: I’ll try to believe that. Are you finding yourself out there?

Y/n: Something like that. Think maybe I’m just coming to terms with who I was all along, just had to do a little digging.

Shawn: Just as long as you’re happy. That’s all that matters to me.

y/n: I am.

***

You have a dream about your dad one night. It’s odd because you hadn’t dreamed of your father since you were in college. You had sort of buried him away. Maybe that’s why he was coming back now, as you unearthed all of these parts of yourself, somehow you had let him out too. It’s not a super deep dream. He’s just there with you in Toronto. He’s in your apartment that you no longer own, and he’s sitting on your couch. And you’re so angry, but in that dream like way where you don’t even understand why. You start to yell at him. Not about leaving you, not about abandoning your whole family, and the hell he inflicted. You’re yelling at him because his feet are on the table. It is the weirdest fucking thing in the world. And then you wake up.

When you wake up the sun is just beginning to peek through the clouds, the rest of the earth this beautiful purplish bruised color. You reach for your journal and head for the water and the sand. Being a Pisces really came in handy when traveling. And the waves seemed to not just pull you in, but to pull you outside of yourself. So, you sit down and you write about your dad for the first time.

When you were a child, you were the last one to give up hope on your dad. Your brothers were old enough to see his illness for what it was, or at least angry enough to not give a shit anymore. You on the other hand had loved him so much that it took such a long time for you to actually see it for what it was. Everytime he fell asleep drunk on the couch you were the one to pull his shoes off from the bar. When everyone else would yell at him for the reason they were broke, you used to sneak him your allowance from mom. You had loved your dad fully and unconditionally. So, when he left, and let for good, it had completely and utterly destroyed you. Everyone else had been right. You were wrong. He didn’t love you, at least not enough to stay or take you with him. It was the hardest thing for you to face and you were only seven goddamn years old.

And to believe that that wouldn’t have an affect on your relationships with other people in your life is so wildly naive. To walk through life having never sat down and genuinely reflected on what that pain had meant for you? How had it done any good? You were terrified of letting people in. Terrified that something was gonna happen one day, that you could give them everything in the world, and it still wouldn’t be enough. People leave. They always leave. Hell, you left. Left Ontario. Left your brothers. Left your mom. Maybe you weren’t too far off from your dad after all. And maybe, maybe that was the fear that you had never addressed before. What if one day you were the one who deserved to be left? What if?

***

*Shawn’s point of view*

It’s his birthday. The not so big, pretty irrelevant 24. But a birthday nonetheless. He’s in New York and it seems like a pretty good place to have a good time. They’ve rented a couple of party buses and planned a list of clubs to go to. He doesn’t have the heart to tell anyone he’d rather go to dinner and call it night, so he’s playing along. In truth he’s been doing so much better as the days go by and the shows are better and the fans scream longer. It’s weird to try and find love in the thing that felt responsible for his pain, to nurse himself with the very thing that had made it all go wrong. But, it was all that he had. If he didn’t have her, this was it. And he needed to remind himself that there was something good here for him. He had to.

He’s in his hotel room with Brian getting ready when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Andrew. He had neglected to join the party for the night, but made promises to do a dinner or something just the two of them. Instead he’s standing at his door holding a box.

“Awwww did you get me a present?” He snorted as Andrew set the box down on the bed.

“Not quite. You’re 24 and a millionaire, what would I get you? But the hotel delivered this to my room and it’s from Madrid, so I think it might actually be for you?”

He only knew one person who could possibly be in Madrid. He feels his spine strengthen and his heart beat ramp up and his stomach flutter. They hadn’t spoken since June. She had no reason to send him anything, not after the last conversation they had. For a while, after her virtual booty call concept, he had thought it might be the end of them. That her refusal to respond was a glaring sign that she was done with him.  That had been the absolute worst for him. But, he was a cup half full kind of guy, and had quickly convinced himself that no contact at all also meant she couldn’t tell him she was moving to Barcelona for good and she’d never see him again.

Andrew and Brian watch him as he sits on the bed. The box is taped pretty badly, and he just see her sitting there in frustration and proceeding to wrap the whole thing in tape for added measure. He missed watching her eyebrows furrow in irritation. He thought it was the cutest damn thing in the world. Surely enough, it’s addressed to Andrew, but the curliness of the letters are a hundred percent y/n’s. She must’ve looked through the travel packet he’d given her back when he thought she was going to visit him all the time.

He used a knife from the room service they got for lunch earlier and ripped impatiently at the box. The smell that hits him is like the ocean, a little salty and warm. But he can also smell lavender, and he swears if Brian and Andrew weren’t there, he would have cried. On top is a card which is really just a piece of card stock with her hand writing on it.

I would’ve baked you a cake, but I didn’t think it would travel well.

I hope this works alright. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate.

Take a shot of tequila for me? Or 5. Don’t worry about your voice, you’ll be fine.

Have a wonderful Birthday, Shawn. Love you.

-y/n

He can’t help but laugh at it. It was so her. To wish him a happy birthday and somehow slip in permission to get hammered. Suddenly he was extremely homesick for her apple pie. And her arms wrapped around him. And her heart.

She got him an anthology on meditation and holistic medicine. It’s in English surprisingly enough, and it’s massive. But he knows he’ll read every word. There’s a new rosary necklace for him that he immediately slips on over his head to nestle alongside their swallow. There’s also just a bunch of polaroids  from all the places that she must have been visiting. He had told her one time in the most intimate moments that they used to share, after they’d made each other climax and would just lie in bed sharing secrets until sleep took them away. He told her this silly dream he had of doing photography. He loved pictures of different buildings and cultures. Her sharing her journey with him felt so deeply personal, especially because he knew what she was out there trying to find. It’s the kindest thing she could have given him.

Shawn: Andrew just delivered your package. It was incredibly sweet. You didn’t need to do that, but I’m so so glad you did. It’s the best thing I could have gotten today.

He tries not to set up any expectations that she’ll respond to him. Afterall she’s already given him so much more than he deserved. It doesn’t stop him from checking his phone every three minutes just in case he had somehow missed the vibration. And it certainly doesn't stop his heart from leaping into his throat when he’s two shots in and she responds.

Y/n: No worries. It cost me triple what I paid for the gift just to send it. I wasn’t sure if they’d actually give it to Andrew or not. Glad it worked out. Are you drunk yet?

Shawn: working on it. Where are you right now?

Y/n: I’m in a town called Cerdanya. It’s very beautiful. It’s like half Spain, half France. I’m in the France part.

Shawn: Sounds beautiful. You haven’t posted on insta in a long time.

y/n: You worried about me?

Shawn: Always.

y/n: well take a night off for me would you? It’s your bday. Go have fun.

Shawn: I’ll try. Am I ever gonna see you again?

y/n: You leos. So dramatic. I think I’m in a really good place actually. Maybe I’ll text you when we’re both back in town.

Shawn: Please do.

y/n: I will. Promise.

***

*One month later*

y/n: I’m flying back to Toronto tomorrow.

Shawn: Really? I’m actually home right now.

y/n: Yea I know. Your whereabouts are kind of google-able.

Shawn: Right. Duh. Do you need someone to pick you up from the airport?

y/n: Bryan and Stu already offered.

He felt like a teenager trying to talk to the pretty girl at school and royally fucking it up. What a fucking idiot.

Shawn: Can I take you out for coffee when you get back?

y/n: are you sure you’re not busy? With the show and everything?

Shawn: Let me take you out for coffee. I could never be too busy for that.

Y/n: Ok. I’ll text you.

He’s sitting at a table, his legs shaking up a storm. He couldn’t sit still for shit, kept looking out the window every two seconds, and had even burnt his tongue on his coffee in a desperate attempt to find something to do. This was it. This was everything he’d been waiting for. Either she was going to break his heart, or she was going to make  him the luckiest guy on earth. There were no other options.

He catches her walking up the street and his heart spasms in his chest. He can tell that she’s gotten nothing but sun these past months because she’s absolutely golden. And she’s wearing all white like she knows that it’ll drive him crazy. Of course it’ll drive him crazy. A fucking pant suit with long flowy jacket and a camisole the color of periwinkle. She looks like a goddamn goddess.

She walks in and he just stands up immediately because he doesn’t know what else to do, hasn’t seen her in so long he feels like he’s gone mad without her. And there really is no thinking when it comes to her. He wraps her up in his arms immediately. He can’t do anything but smile at her and try to re-familiarize himself with her entire being. Shit, it’s like she got more beautiful while she was away.

“Hi.” He breathed, and it felt like the first breath he’d taken since she told him she was leaving.

She smiles and his arms tighten around her. It’s like no time has passed at all, like his love had only grown in her absence.

“Hi.”

“You’ve got freckles.” He chuckled letting his fingers skim hesitantly along her nose.

She scrunches it, like she always used to. He dies a little.

“Yea. They only come out in the sun though.”

“And your hair. It got lighter. It’s so pretty.” He hummed.

She’s running her fingers up and down his back and he just wants to pull her into bed and cuddle for a day or two. Now that she’s in front of him, he can’t even believe that he let her go. Six months. And all of the time after Amsterdam. How the hell did he let her go?

They stare at each other far too long in the middle of this coffee shop, but he figures if he just keeps staring at her than she won’t have time to destroy him.

“So uh coffee?” She giggled peering up at him from underneath her lashes.

He nearly groaned. It was too much already and all she did was laugh at his awkwardness.

“Right. Right! I would’ve ordered for you but I didn’t know how long you might be. Sit, I’ll get it for you. Do you wanna share a croissant?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

He’s more nervous than he was on their first date. It’s almost as if fucking up the order, or not grabbing her a napkin, could somehow change whatever she’d come here to say. He sets her white mocha on the table for her, and puts the croissant in the middle. The moment he sits down, there’s nothing left to do or say. He just has to listen. At least he knows that he owes her that.

“I uh...I guess I don’t know where to start.” She murmured, peering down at her cup.

He nodded. “Maybe you could just start with what you were trying to find when you left? And maybe whether or not you found it.”

She takes a deep breath and her hand moves from the table to the back of her neck to her necklace. And the second he sees the swallow his heart speeds up. Relax. Listen. Breathe.

“Well, I was doing really well at work technically. But Gina could see that I was using my job as a crutch to not have to deal with my pain. And I think that’s why she sent me on the sabbatical. I guess what I didn’t realize at the time was that I’ve always done that. I don’t like to be hurt, obviously. But more than that I don’t like to be weak. So, when you hurt me I was trying to--to pretend that I could be alright with you. And I was trying to learn from my mistakes so that I could make sure you, or no one else could do it again. But I think maybe I over corrected.

“I left because...I needed to figure out, like why my defense mechanism is to cut people off immediately. Like why am I twenty-six years old with one best friend and no one else? Not that I even want a whole bunch of friends, but I’ve never even tried to hang with someone besides Stu or Bryan. Why am I so incapable of letting people in? I spent such a long part of my life learning to be kind to myself, learning to protect my mental and emotional health because of trauma and because of hurt that I never learned how to let others do it too. I never learned what it could look like to let someone love me and not resent them for it. You. You were my first time trying.”

It’s instinctual that when she puts her hand on the table he reaches for it. He needed to show her how much he cared, how much love and respect he had for her. And when she intertwines their fingers and plays with his ring, it feels like an acknowledgement of that.

“I met this woman named Priyanka in Barcelona? I ended up spending like a whole month there just because of her.” She smiled softly. “And she made me keep this journal and she had me write all the things I was always too afraid to tell anybody.”

“Like what?” He asked softly just to keep her talking. “If you want to share. you definitely don’t have to.”

“Like...Like I never dealt with the pain of my dad leaving because I didn’t want to have daddy issues. I didn’t want to let him have power over me. The way that he left, and it took me so fucking long to see that he was wrong, that to me felt like weakness. I had let him give me whatever love he wanted and all it did was hurt me in the end. So, I guess in my mind allowing someone to love you meant that they could hurt you and if you let them do that then you were weak. And I guess that just equated to love being weakness.”

It’s like the most he’s ever heard her talk. She had clearly spent so much time reflecting and unearthing the parts of herself that she’d stored away for so long. Now it was like she was pulling out all of the individual pieces and sharing them with him. When he had begged her to just let him love her, and she had tried with all of her might, never had she ever done this. It’s like he’s seeing her in all her entirety for the first time. And it’s only making him fall even more in love with her.

He’s leaning his face on his hand and he’s just staring at her, listening to her say all of these thoughts in that big ass beautiful head of hers that he’s always wanted to know. It’s the greatest gift she could ever give him, and it makes every moment she was away worth it. If only she got to be a better version of herself, got to feel more confident in who she was. And not for him, not for anyone, but for her own happiness.

“You look so happy.” He smiled at her. “It all sounds incredible, y/n. I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m really proud of myself.” She giggled again.

God she was so fucking cute.

“Hey, that night that I called you drunk--”

“Don’t even mention it. I understood where you were coming from.”

She frowned at him and it’s the first time that she’s not smiling. He literally had to restrain himself from reaching out to touch her lips. What a shit show.

“No. No you deserve an apology. I was drunk, sure, but my willingness and eagerness to inflict pain on you, that was all me Shawn. I knew you wouldn’t want to hurt me by saying no. I mean that’s so not okay. We were always open and honest with each other when it came to being intimate. I--I would never want you to pretend that what I did was okay.” She assured him. “I’m sorry, okay? I mean that.”

He nods and squeezes at her fingers again. “Okay. It was a shitty feeling. Mostly it was shitty that I felt like I deserved it, felt like even if that was all you were willing to give me than I should just take it. But I don’t like--I don't hold it against you. We were in a really shitty space. I forgive you.”

“Okay. Well thank you.”

He nodded softly. “ Have you thought at all about--I mean do you think you could ever forgive me? For what I did? For not handling things right? For messing it all up?”

“It took me such a long time. I was terrified of how in love with you I was. And I just was like waiting for the other shoe to drop for so long. I kept having to fight myself everytime you wanted me to be more open with you, and wanting to give you everything that you asked for because I loved you so much.”

“‘Loved’?” He asked hesitantly.

She sighed. “Shawn, even if I was waiting on the other shoe to drop I...never could have actually thought that you would hurt me the way that you did. That you would fly me all the way out to be with you just so that you could leave me and go on tour. That was so fucking painful for me.”

He nods and leans closer to her across the table, both of their coffees and the croissant long forgotten.

“I know. I know how stupid of me it was. I just, I think I got scared too. It was so easy to fall in love with you. It was so easy to want to spend all of my time with you. And the thought that like...that I could hurt you because of music of all things? That my being away could cause you pain? I just didn’t even know what to do. I love you so much, y/n. I need you to know that I’ve never loved anyone the way that I love you. This was new for me too.”

“Sometimes you made it seem like you had all the answers. It was like you knew exactly what we were supposed to be doing when I was just flailing..” She mumbled. “It made it hurt so much worse.”

“I was just trying not to lose you. Do you have any idea how intimidating it is to be with someone as smart and wonderful and badass as you?  You always seemed like you had the life part figured out. I thought that...that I needed to have the love part down so that I could keep you, so that I could deserve you.” He confessed. “But, honey I was just as lost as you were sometimes.”

“You were?”

“Of course!” He smiled. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I can be kind of dumb sometimes.”

She snorted. “That’s certainly one way to put it.”

She peered down at the table and he kind of figured that this was his chance, this was everything they’d been building up to. So he licked his dry lips and somehow managed to shuffle even closer across the tiny table they were squished at.

“Baby,” He whispered. “I’ve got to know... if there is even a remote possibility that we could try it again? And I promise to never do anything like that again, to communicate better, to be more vulnerable and open.”

She bit her lip and looked at him and he swore that he couldn’t breathe.

“I just wanna know how it’s gonna be different this time Shawn? When I go back to work and you’re still on tour for the rest of the year. How does this change anything?”

“It just means that we have to be better. It means you’ve got to be honest with me when you’re dealing with shit, when you need to get away from work, hell when you need to get away from me. And I have to...I have to learn to not place any of the weight of who I am on you. No more begging for forgiveness before shows. No more begging you to fly out just because I’m sad. It changes because we’re willing to change, and we’re willing to learn and grow together. Can we...Can we do that? I only want to do that with you.”

Her eyes flicked down to the table and then back up to his. She’s beautiful, so so beautiful. He just wants her.

She huffed softly at him.

“Well I love you, you idiot. So, I guess we can try this again.”

“Yea?” He beamed.

“Yea.”

He reaches across the table, trading her hand for the feel of her cheeks. They were still warm as if the sun had left a bit of itself behind. And the light dusting of freckles across her nose drove him insane. He was all in with her whether she knew it or not. She was it for him.

“Can I...Can I kiss you?”  He sighed fingers cupping her jaw.

She licked her bottom lip and set his heart ablaze.

“Yea. You can.”

“Fucking finally.”

If you’d like to buy me a ko-fi

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[purplesurveys]

876

Do you own an oversized sweater? Yeah. It belongs to Gabie, but I think it’s also two sizes larger than her so it’s just a really big sweater in general. Do you like to wear sweaters with leggings? I haven’t gone out with that look since high school. Describe your favorite mug. I only have one mug and I’ve described it so many times on these surveys, so suffice it to say the mug changes colors when the drink inside is hot haha. What is your favorite fall drink? We don’t have fall but because Filipinos wanna be Americans so bad and hop on their trends, a lot of coffee shops here also sell pumpkin spice drinks and other fall-esque flavors during October or November. Have you ever worn your hair in a fishtail braid? Yes, it’s how I wore my hair during my high school graduation. My paternal grandma also styles my hair in it whenever I come to visit my dad’s side in the province.

What is your favorite season? Wet season. I enjoy the rain and class suspensions were always something to look forward to at least while I was still in school. Do you ever imagine that you are living in the Victorian era? Not really, because I think it’s mostly unsanitary lol. I just imagine how life was for other people back then, as I do with other historical periods. What color is your favorite sweater? Grey. Do you live in a small, cozy apartment? Change it to small cozy house and you’ve got it right. Does your house have a fireplace? There is no chance any house in this entire country (and probably continent) will need a fireplace. It’s honestly a very foreign concept to me and I know I’d be excited as fuck if I got to see a real working fireplace hahaha. I only ever see them in movies D: Does your dream house have a fireplace? If I end up migrating somewhere where fireplaces are common, I’d love to have one. Whether I end up using it or not I wouldn’t know, because I’m scared of fire and don’t even know how to start one. What color are your nails painted? They’re never painted. Do you like curly or straight hair better? On me? Wavy’s always been my pick. Curly doesn’t look natural on me and straight hair just makes quite a bad clash with the shape of my face. What color is your favorite scarf? I don’t need scarves here either so I don’t own any. I do have a couple of shawls; they’re the closest cousin to scarves that I have. Does your room reflect your personality? It has stuff I like in it, obviously because it’s my room; but I’d change so much of it if I was only allowed to. I’d give the walls color, move my bed to the wall, change my lights to something more sophisticating-looking, etc. My mom’s always kept a tight leash as to how my room is supposed to look like for the last 12 years, so I’m just waiting till I’m able to afford my own place for me to finally go crazy with my own space. Are you living your dreams? Some aspects of it. I’m not living my entire ideal life, though.

If not, are you pursuing your dreams? Yes.

Do you own a shirt that says "Never give up"? Noooooooo hahaha.

What are you known for? That’s a very bold and broad question haha, I’m not quite sure. I suppose people know me in different ways – as the foodie, the writer, the proofreader, the girl who likes Paramore, my coursemates would tell you that while I’m taking up journalism, I’ve hated it since freshman year, other friends would tell you I have a low tolerance for alcohol...it depends on what side/s they’ve seen of me. I’m never just the one kind of person to everyone.

What do you want to be known for? Overall I just wanna be known as a nice person? Like someone who’s been able to help someone in one way or another, whether it’s simply giving them a ride home or pulling them out of a bad place altogether.

Do you get hyper from sitting still for too long? No, my back just gets sore lol.

What makes you focus? Being in a coffee shop, having a laptop in front of me, and seeing a complete set of highlighters are a few of them.

Do you have any friends in real life, or are all your friends online? Most of my friends are from real life. It used to be the complete opposite when I was in high school when I had my own circle of online friends, but we eventually grew apart after we started having different interests and our favorite wrestlers started retiring one by one, until there was nothing to look forward to anymore. Plus it was difficult to keep up with the timezones – I was the only one from Asia so I was the one who had to do all the adjusting. It’s a lot easier to keep in touch with Filipino online friends and most of them are still on my socials today.

Do you have anyone who respects you in real life? I feel like this is a question for other people to answer.

What's the biggest mistake you've ever made? Letting my depression eat me alive in my first year of college. It’s not a mistake per se, but I still hate that it happened.

Do you live in the moment? Yes. I have my grudges from the past but I don’t let them consume me; and as for the future, I do mull over it but I make it a point not to stress about it.

Do you want to have kids? For sure. I want to address everything my mom did wrong and make sure I get them right, and end up having a great relationship with my kid/s.

Do you known anyone trustworthy in real life? Of course I do lol.

Which cartoon character looks the most like you? Right now, probably Daria.

Who is your favorite fictional character? From my favorite shows: Monica Geller, Amy Santiago, Mr. Peanutbutter, Gus Fring.

Do you like to read novels? As a kid.

What is your favorite thing about November? It starts to get a lot colder.

Is your life characterized by taking risks? I’ve taken some risks but my life’s not all about doing just that. I still like being careful.

Is today a warm and cozy day? No, it’s been a cloudy and humid day. All day the sky had looked like it was going to pour down so much rain but it never happened.

Do you like where you live? It’s okay. It’s quiet, peaceful, and secure and that’s never something to complain about. But at the same time I can’t wait to live in the hectic, noisy city. It’s about time I get a change of scenery.

Are people good to you there? I suppose when it comes down to it, yeah. I’ve never had to talk to them but considering we’re a little community here, there’s a quiet expectation that we’d look out for one another when the need arises.

Would you ever paint an acorn? Idk if we have acorns here, and the activity doesn’t really interest me.

What was the last book you read that you didn't want to put down? AJ Lee’s memoir.

Is Anne of Green Gables one of your favorite books? I’ve never read it.

Do you think red hair is beautiful? Sure.

What would you name your son? Something Spanish/Italian in origin. Think Miguel, Matteo, Lucca, Iñigo, etc.

What would you name your daughter? Olivia.

Do you own a Vera Bradley purse? I don’t think so.

Would you describe your style as eclectic? It’s the furthest from eclectic.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, LIZ! You’ve been accepted for the role of PARIS with an approved FC change to Sean Teale. Admin Jen: All I have to say here is GOD BLESS. That’s it. That’s my note. God, I’ve waited so long for us to have Paris grace our dash, and your take on him was everything I could ever want and more. You captured Priam’s essence perfectly, from the moral ambiguity that surrounds him, to the existentialism that drives his worldviews and motivations. At the same time, you’ve added your own touch to those concepts and made them your own, like with the headcanon of his grandfather’s death. It’s clear that you have such a deep, profound understanding of who he is and all that he could be, and I love it. I absolutely love it. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Liz

Age | 28

Preferred Pronouns | She/her

Activity Level | Thanks to quarantine, I imagine quite consistent.

Timezone | GMT +4.

How did you find the rp?  | Used to play Tib hehe:)

Current/Past RP Accounts |

https://tiberius-capulets.tumblr.com/

https://maksim-kurylenko.tumblr.com/

https://castillo-adrian.tumblr.com/

IN CHARACTER

Character | Paris, Priam Taravella (I’d like to request FC change to Sean Teale and age Priam up to 26, if possible?).

What drew you to this character? |

Perhaps, if not his grandfather’s death, Priam would’ve always been the child his parents wanted: a docile, polite son, with ambition and drive to take over and expand the family business. It’s not that the death of Salvatore Taravella, Sr. affected him in a heart-breaking way, no, Priam hardly spent any time with him and he remembers nothing about the man. But what would become a life-altering occasion in young Taravella’s life, is that unlike most of the children at the age of three, he understood the irreversibility and universality of death right away.

As he grew up, Priam had been defined by the revelation that life was a march to our eventual demise since the moment we were born, a race against the clock. The matters such as career, riches and family business seemed so trivial, so unworthy of his time. He started to believe, you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. That chase of what is the meaningful way of living had led to multiple metamorphoses of Priam Taravella. He developed a tendency to chase one experience after another, but not in a hedonistic way, but more existential. There was a deeply woven thread in the everyday being he wanted to discover and pull it until it led to where he belonged, where he wouldn’t feel the ever-present void.

Maybe if his parents had been around and taught him right from wrong, he wouldn’t need to discover and explore life all on his own, on his own terms.

He’s an enigma, and that’s what drove me to him the most. What makes him dangerous is his unpredictability, his failure to relate to basic human motivations, he’s a puzzle that can’t be solved.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

The Wild Card

One thing Priam had never been good at, is being told what path to follow. Despite the fact that ranks and order are integral in the mob operations, and he understands that, Priam is who he is – a man marching to his own beat. I would love him concoct and execute something of massive proportions - something that could result in utter wrath from Capulet leaders, or a great victory for them (or maybe both).

The North Star

Given how important his moral ambiguousness is to Priam’s character arc, it would be interesting to explore someone entering his life and trying to become his North Star, his moral compass. I’d love to explore his nihilist worldview being challenged and him thurst into the uncharted waters of wanting to do the right thing.

The Devil on his Shoulder

I’d also love to explore at some point Paris being dragged on the opposite side of the moral spectrum. Maybe an event or a person pushes him into cold-blooded murder, torture, or something he normally wouldn’t see himself doing.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes.

IN DEPTH

For someone who thinks so much about death, smoking cigarette after cigarette makes him a walking contradiction. He’s full of them, Priam, of contradictions.

The prodigal prince leaves his 1966 Chevloret Sting Ray in the parking lot of his office building and covers the short distance from there to the Castelvecchio Bridge on foot, enjoying the brisk Spring weather, Verona twilight and a cigarette in his hand. It’s been two years since his tech start-up won a government contract and launched his mutually beneficial relationship with Cosimo. Priam provides Capulets with information, more valuable than any weapon. His company produces technology for Italy’s law enforcement: facial recognition software, thermal imaging and automatic license plate recognition. This makes Cosimo’s soldiers virtually invisible to the law enforcement and any enemy – traceable.

On top of that, despite his nonexistent relationship with his parents, Priam still is a Taravella. A legacy. No wonder the king wants him on his side forever, vowen into the Capulet family life as a future son-in-law.

“If I were a sentimental man, I’d say it’s a beautiful starry night,” the tiger of Verona meets him standing on the bridge with a menacing grin, “But I’m not.”

“I never really liked looking at the night’s sky,” Priam muses. Another contradiction, considering he spends most of nights awake, “stars at merely old photographs. In reality, they’re probably all dead by now.” His last words drift off, distracting by the two of Tiberius’s brutes holding a man on his knees. Priam recognises the man as the CEO of his competitor start-up, the one in consideration for the government contract, just like Priam’s.

“I believe I’ve informed Cosimo there’s no need for taking extra measures. I’m absolutely confident I’ll win the bid this year, too,” Priam turns to Tiberius, demanding an explanation.

“…and Cosimo takes your word for it. But, this sniveling piece of shit is trying to find dirt on you and expose some of your… connections. I say we shoot the bastardo and dump him in the water. What do you say?” The tiger presents a tempting offer.

There is no fate worse than death. Death is final. Does Priam hate the man enough to subject to what he fears the most? But the power of having a life stripped away by a mere nod of his head is intoxicating and Priam finds himself drunk on it. Not just that, the power of having others to pull the trigger for you. If you think about it, the idiot brought this on himself, didn’t he? If only he could’ve accepted the loss like a real man. But he’s not a real man, is he?

So Priam gives the nod that the beast in Tiberius covets so much. The sound of silenced pistol pierces the air sharply, but for only their own ears to hear. It’s almost like a twig snapped, and man wasn’t murdered with a bullet in between his eyes.

A thud and now lifeless body belongs to the Adige river now.

Priam looks down on his pristine white shirt. Bloodstain on his chest is like a map of a violent new continent. Taravella didn’t pull the trigger, but the blood still ended up smearing him. How symbolic, he thinks to himself.

“I’ll see on a Sunday dinner, then,” Tiberius bids goodbye. It has became a tradition – Sunday dinners with the whole Capulet family.

“I’ll see you,” Priam pets him on the shoulder like a friend he pretends to be. As if. Tiberius is no intellectual equal to him, merely a capable weapon. All of them are, save a handful of people he’s met in his life.

Castlevecchio Bridge is his favourite place in Verona. After the Capulet soldiers leave, Priam lingers, overlooks the pulsating city. How many times has he come here? The bridge, the pondering, the agony of breaking through personal limitations had been constant in a life of ever-metamorposing Priam Taravella. Art, literature, business, philosophy, sports, organised crime… all instruments to help Priam past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest wish increases, until it subsumes the cosmos. Finally, the mind breaks the bounding sphere of the cosmos to a realization transcending all experiences of form - all symbolizations, all divinities: a realization of the ineluctable void.

Extras: moodboard

[xyliane]

fluff headcanon #519

for @hunterxhell

killua buys a bakery

now, let me preface this by saying that this by no means killua knows how to bake. the boy likes sweets a lot, and he has a little sister who likes sweets just as much, and he wants the sugar. but he’s 16 or 17 and it trying to be a little more spontaneous and do what he wants. when he and alluka are passing through a cute little town, and alluka is dead set on settling down long enough to work on finishing her high school degree for a little while, they see a FOR SALE sign in the window of a suspiciously-recently-closed bakery. killua stares at it for about ten minutes, wishing there were cakes or cupcakes or anything to eat. 

“what if I buy it, and then make all the cake we want,” he says.

it’s a joke. 

mostly. 

but then alluka bet him he wouldn’t do it and killua really need to stop betting his sister on things because she always wins. but then he’s got a deed to an empty bakery that smells like sugar and bread and it might have been a mob front at one point because the last owners left really fast. 

and he has no idea what to do. he hasn’t baked much of anything ever, and even cooking has been a little too literal of a trial by fire for the last few years. even alluka, whose fault this totally is, is waiting for him to figure out what their first step might be.

so he calls gon. gon laughs (whoa killua that’s huge I thought you only wanted to eat frosting not sell it! --shut UP gon) and puts mito on the phone. mito does her best to not laugh and walks killua through baking cookies. they come out...okay, but nothing like mito’s. killua despairs, but he and alluka eat the entire batch of 124 chocolate chip cookies in a single hour, so it’s not too much despair.

a quick stock of the back room reveals that 1: they have enough for...well, for something at least. lots of flour and sugar and eggs, piled this way; 2: whoever was here last, either thought recipes were for losers or burnt all their books along with something that smells like formaldehyde; and 3: this was absolutely a mob bakery, but it was a bakery as much as a front. killua only finds three bags of poison and half a dozen guns, plus lots of illicit notes buried in couch cushions upstairs and a miserable excuse for a cipher carved into the table. it’s kind of sad, really. kurapika would find this laughable.

the neighbors across the street also try to poison him the next morning while alluka’s buying all the books she can find about baking and high school calculus. it’s kind of nice, really, that they think to try. whatever the last owners had done had really pissed off the locals. 

he and alluka try baking. they try remaking the cookies mito had walked them through, and they mostly succeed at making cupcakes, at least until alluka dumps too much powdered sugar into the industrial mixer while trying to make frosting, and they end up with the entire kitchen coated in a thin white powder. kanmuru doesn’t help either, instead whipping up storms of sugar that turn alluka’s black hair as white as killua’s and the kitchen into even more of a disaster than before. also it turns out it’s really easy to make buttercream that’s too sweet even for a pair of zoldycks, no matter what the fancy cookbooks say.

(he calls gon again. it’s rare that they’re in something close to the same timezone these days, only separated by an ocean rather than most of the known world. gon laughs, but good-naturedly, and promises to ask the bakers on whale island how to make taro tapioca. killua reminds him that there isn’t any taro root here, but it's nice.)

the ladies across the street, tatin and madeleine, turn out to be pretty nice, once they figure out killua really isn’t working for the mob. tatin will occasionally slip something into his morning coffee, but neither she or madeleine try anything with alluka. killua appreciates that, and brings them an attempt at a cake as well as the bags of arsenic he found in the ceiling. 

it’s another few weeks of failed attempts that killua finally caves and calls palm. gon’s always been better at coaxing advice out of her, but maybe the best cook he knows would have some good advice. instead, she chews him out for about an hour and a half until his phone dies. he stopped listening after the first ten minutes and half-dozen threats on his capacity to bake at all, because frankly she’s on the other side of the continent, and if she’s not going to give him helpful advice, then it’s not worth paying attention. so he misses it when she promises to show up at his doorstep, and also misses when alluka sends palm their address. 

killua’s trying to make bread--it’s just yeast, right, and warm water, and punching something, but he keeps screwing up how much of what, and why do you need sugar???--when palm storms through the front door, carrying more duffel bags than anyone should be able to that clatter with all manner of loud metal objects, and declares the whole place a mess.

killua swears at her, and she throws a knife at his head from somewhere. but then she hugs him, cackling when he bristles with electricity, so it wasn’t really meant to kill him.

it’s good to see her again.

palm all but commandeers the kitchen, going through stock and reorganizing the shelves, adding all the various objects she’d brought with her. some killua recognizes, mostly different types of cakepans he’d seen in alluka’s books, but then palm starts talking about the differences between handmixing and stand mixers and industrial mixers and killua has learned how to kill people in more ways than he can count, can name most of the political leaders in the world and all the weaknesses in their security circa five years ago, and he has no idea what palm’s talking about.

she sighs and shows him how to chop things properly with knives or sharp nails. it’s surprisingly useful.

(gon is predictably delighted, and demands killua put palm on the phone. they end up talking about some chicken dish gon’s trying to learn, and killua extracts a promise from one of them to feed him whatever this is at some point.)

it takes palm almost no time to teach alluka how to make a decent genoise, in between cram sessions and signing up for tests. killua has more trouble. it’s not so much that he doesn’t have the attention span, it’s that he keeps cracking the oven to see when anything’s done, or he overthinks, or he and alluka eat all of the cookie batter before it can go into the oven. he does turn out to have an eye--a taste?--for getting buttercream and king’s icing right, balancing different flavors and parts sugar to butter, and even color mixing, when he’s not trying to eat his body weight in pastries. palm loudly smacks away both zoldyck teenagers, who have very little pain tolerance and even less when it comes to melting chocolate.

killua does eventually get the sponge right before they run out of the stores of stuff the mob bakers had left behind. alluka cheers so loud that not only do tatin and madeleine come over, but so does flahn from the bookstore and canele from the restaurant with the checkered tables and the really good spaghetti. 

when killua asks palm if she wants to take over baking for the bakery, so they can actually sell things and not just waste money and time. she laughs--the loud, cackling, evil-sounding thing that means she’s delighted. of course she says yes. but of course she also makes sure that killua will keep helping.

of course he says yes.

(he and palm and alluka send gon and mito a care package full of cookies and brownies that killua made, so they aren’t as well-made or pretty as palm’s. but gon sends back a container full of sweets made of coconut and taro, and killua’s never had anything quite as good either.)

anyways kurapika stops by later with melody and tatin and madeleine bring out machetes and guns so fast that killua has to use kanmuru to keep them from murdering his friends, or from his friends murdering his neighbors. they all have a lovely meal afterwards, and tatin only tries to put a little hemlock in the coffee.

[theseventhmarch]

Reflection as a figure skating fan on 2017

This year has been an amazing year for me. At the end of 2016, Tumblr has introduced to me YOI, which has been a joy on its own. It has also brought me some friends on Tumblr, @boredjodyc and @pigfarts23. I would like to thank the unclear explanation of quad jumps in YOI, which prompted me to look up “quad Salchow” on YouTube - this led me to Miki Ando and Yuzuru Hanyu.

Edited: 1 January 2018 - minor grammatical errors; additional paragraphs in bold.

It took me about 4 or 5 months before I can confidently distinguish different types of jumps (I was stuck on the difference between the Flip jump and the Lutz jump in the last 2 months of that). Thanks to @pigfarts23 and their Rabbit watch-parties, I found myself falling in love with Yuzuru’s skating, and I “met” @boredjodyc , who is my partner-in-crime for all things Yuzuru then. I couldn’t stream his Four Continents short program live, but I managed to stream his free skate! That was my first introduction to Yuzuru’s emergency layouts. (I'M STILL NOT OVER TRIPLE AXEL AS THE LAST JUMP - AND THIS IS ACTUALLY THE PLANNED LAYOUT THIS SEASON.)

Early March, a few days after my birthday, I created a fandom Twitter account.

Jody was in London late-March and I suggested to meet up! We had afternoon tea (in my opinion it was disappointing) - we talked for 4 hours, if I remember correctly! This was my first time meeting an online friend, and I'm so glad I did it!

World Championships came - I pondered if I should go to Helsinki, but the Men’s Free Skate tickets were sold out on the official site (later I learnt I should have asked around on forums/twitter/tumblr) - and I died over Yuzuru’s knee down on his quad Salchow. Two days later, on April 1st, he broke another record, and it was definitely not a joke.

I jumped and screamed when he landed that quad Sal-triple Toe combo that he struggled with the whole season.

Then, World Team Trophy happened, and the men were popping their jumps left and right. LOL at Yuzuru getting that positive (+0.09) GOE for that single Axel. But it is ok, since it was a joke competition anyway.

I met up with Jody again mid-May at a pub, after she was done gallivanting around Europe, before she was headed back home. (I MISS YOU!)

Off-season, there were many ice shows. Perhaps the most important reveal of these ice shows was that Yuzuru would be repeating his Chopin short program, with a quad Loop and a back-loaded combo: quad Toe-triple Toe. After his reveal (I remember it was during my last exam and I found out about it on my way home), Jody and I frantically calculated all the possible jump layout and base values for his free skate (after staring at the jump layout rules for a while), whatever it may be. We had two different situations on our hands - with or without the quad Lutz. I don't know about Jody, I could tell that the quad Lutz was likely, looking at the base values (and the other competitors). I would realise much later (around December) that the (sad) reason for the inclusion of 4Lz was really unfair score inflation with the other competitors…

Twitter freaked out about some things that happened during the shows, including cat ears and Pooh headbands. The Twitter friends that I was beginning to make indulged in memes, and I tried my best to brush up on my knowledge of figure skating.

In August we heard about the return of Seimei for Yuzuru. Fans and observers had been going crazy with attempting to predict his programs, and what I gained from this was that I could distinguish the fans who were able to predict correctly - which meant, in my mind, that these are the fans who have been following Yuzuru’s journey (and interviews) and who could truly understand Yuzuru’s thought process.

He also told journalists that his jump layout was without 4Lz, that there will be one more quad and one less 3A. I think even a newbie fan like me treated that news with distrust - less 3A??? Are you sure the one who said it was Yuzuru Hanyu, the king of Axels???

Seeing Jody attend a figure skating competition in Hong Kong made me feel like doing the same, so very soon, at the end of August, I decided to go to Italy to watch Lombardia Trophy in mid-September. I decided on this particular competition, not because Yuzuru was there, but because it was the only competition that I could attend throughout. So I spent €€€ and 4 days freezing my butt off in a rink.

I did not regret it - I saw Wakaba skate her new free skate to Skyfall. At her opening pose in the practice run-through, it was love at first sight. Other notable skaters for me: Carolina had a queenly presence both on and off-ice, and Shoma had great speed but his free skate costume was too sparkly (but it looked great on photos).

After coming back from Italy, I decided that I wanted to attend another competition as soon as possible - preferably a competition which would allow me to see more high-level skaters compared to the small competition in Italy. So I picked the Grand Prix event in France - even though it had no Yuzuru or Wakaba in it.

A week after Lombardia, it was Autumn Classic International, the ‘B’ competition that will start off Yuzuru’s season. He (or his team) then revealed he was not going to do the 4Lz because of knee pain - which meant that, yes, the quad Lutz was there all along, he just didn’t want to tell us in August. (A few months later, with the reveal of more footage, I saw some people speculating that during the media day at the Cricket Club, the media likely saw the actual layout with a 4Lz and two 3As.) Because of the same knee pain he wasn’t going to do 4Lo either... And in his short program, with a downgraded layout by substituting 4Lo with 4S, he broke another record. Wow. The emotion I felt was just - joy tinged with disbelief.

I made a decision for some time already that I was not going to go to Moscow, because of the extra complication in trying to get the visa as well as the much higher cost of travel. But Rostelecom Cup - where both Yuzuru and Wakaba were competing - was The Competition that both of my absolute favourites were competing at, so I live-streamed as many as possible during school. Yuzuru’s first GP was always terrible compared to the rest of the season (even if it wasn’t Skate *Chanada*), but he scored the highest among previous seasons’ first GP personal scores! MOST IMPORTANTLY, HE LANDED THE QUAD LUTZ - HIS LEGS FOUGHT SO HARD TO SAVE THAT LANDING, AND IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL JUMP NEVERTHELESS.

Jody went to Cup of China and saw some skaters I would have LOVED to see - Wakaba (again, obviously), Mai, and pairs Sui/Han. Wakaba was PERFECT at the Cup of China - not that she wasn’t perfect at Lombardia - she settled into her new programs much more compared to 1.5 months before.

Then came NHK Trophy. Yuzuru injured his right ankle on an awkward fall from a 4Lz attempt. He tried so hard to compete but he wasn’t able to. So, no NHK Trophy for him, no Grand Prix Final for him. As a fan, I feel really sad that we wouldn’t be able to see his wonderful skating during this period, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, this is the Olympics season and injuries are NOT GOOD AT ALL.

With that disheartened mood, I went to GP France (its name keeps changing in recent years, so everyone kind of gave up on giving it a new acronym) in mid-November, only attending the free skates and exhibition (Saturday and Sunday). I met a fellow Wakaba fan (recent Twitter mutual), Verit, there. Unexpected podium placements in the Ladies led to the two of us agonising over Wakaba’s chances of getting into the Grand Prix Final. I loved Misha’s skating, even though he wasn’t the fastest skater, or a quad jumper. Papadakis/Cizeron was sublime too.

Then, Skate America, the last Grand Prix event before the Final, came. Ashley withdrew due to foot injury (it sounded like an injury easy to recover from, compared to ligament/whatever), and Polina was underscored, and Satoko skated her way to the top of the podium. With that, Wakaba’s in the Final. (Later, Evgenia, who is Wakaba’s best friend, withdrew due to an injury that left her in a cast, and Satoko was in the Final as well.)

At the Final, Wakaba performed… poorly, compared to the other Ladies. Her short program was fine, but her free skate faltered - she popped two triple jumps into doubles. And that’s how it is in the Ladies field now - you need to be perfect to be on the podium.

Then came a bit of rest, when there were no important competitions, before the Two Most Important National Championships That Are Almost Always Held During Christmas Weekends.

My Christmas was bad (I don’t really celebrate it but I treat it as an excuse for food and wine and partying and playing). First, Yuzuru did The Thing where he announced one week before that he just started skating and there was still a bit of pain - the knowledgeable fans could tell straight-away that it was a really long, drawn-out announcement that he would be withdrawing from the Japanese Nationals. Fine, so he officially announced his withdrawal the Monday/Tuesday of the week of the Nationals. His fans (including me) got worried about him not having a competition at all before Pyeongchang - even though there is Four Continents, the time (last week of January, basically 2-3 weeks before the actual competition dates at Pyeongchang) and place (Taiwan) of the competition was not ideal, compared to his current location of training (Toronto: far, and a very different timezone).

Wakaba skated in pain at Nationals - it turned out that she got injured shortly before her short program (but I don’t know how much before, whether the pain was there at GPF), and she ended up in 4th place. The JSF decided to send Satoko and Kaori to Pyeongchang instead, and Wakaba might have tweeted incredibly brave words about aiming for Beijing 2022, but she was crying after the exhibition on Monday.

I spent my Christmas crying, if you can’t tell already. Wakaba’s programs for this season ARE SUPERB, and they won’t be seeing the Olympics… (I’m going to cry again typing this.)

The JSF decided to send her to the World Championships in March though, where she would be fighting alongside Satoko to earn Japanese ladies 3 spots again to the next World Championships (which will be in Japan!). They would have to earn a combined placement of 13 or less, and I’m worried about burnout for Satoko and underscoring for Wakaba. I already got tickets to Milan to see the Ladies FS (as well as Men FS, and exhibition), so I’m glad JSF at least decided to send her to a competition I already decided to attend.

For the Russian Nationals, Evgenia withdrew - from what I hear on Twitter, she was so headstrong about competing at Nationals that the Federation had to send 3 men to persuade her to stay and recover and not to go. They are sending her to European Championships, which will be held in Moscow (so, good for her). The Russian team for Pyeongchang will be decided officially after Europeans. She hasn’t lost a competition in two years so her chances are good.

Yuzuru’s next competition will most likely be the team event in Pyeongchang, which will be 9th February for SP or 12th for FS (Korean time, which is a day ahead for the most of us). Hopefully he will be able to calibrate his training based on his performance in the team event, and perform satisfactorily in the actual Moment. I am hoping he will do the FS while Shoma the SP for team event. Wakaba’s next international competition will be in Milan late March, but I don’t know if she will be going to any regional competitions within Japan (likely not). Hopefully she will be able to recover quickly and prove herself to JSF.

For the new year, I am hoping for The Gold for Yuzuru. I celebrate the Lunar New Year (but it isn’t a work/school holiday in this part of the world), and I will be spending it on watching the Men’s individual competition in unholy hours of the day (damn the US for that time schedule even if the competition is in Korea).

Of course, I wish for the most important thing - good health for Yuzuru. If I’m allowed to be greedy, also: that he will choose to compete for at least another season, and land the quad Axel.

[cait-writes-stuff]

Virtual Connections - Tim Drake x Reader

Prompt: ok honey, but think about this: Tim and reader are internet friends, timmy has a crush on reader and his bros tease him a lot about it. they are actually besties but reader lives super far away (another continent maybe?) english isn’t even their first language, but both (reader and timmy) are accepted in the same college, they are obviously happy as hell, and then timmy disapears/dies but reader doesn’t know what happened and is dead worried, someone has to tell them. (requested by anon)

‘I can’t wait to finally meet you’ Those were the last words he ever sent you. You stared at the weeks old words and wondered if he really meant them. For years the two of you couldn’t go more than a few days without speaking and now he decides to suddenly cut off connection? Did you do something wrong? Was it something you said?

A small part of your mind nagged at you what if something bad happened to Tim? You couldn’t even bear to think of the possibility. You had just been accepted into the same college and you were so excited because that mean you could talk and stay up all night with him like you usually do but this time on the same continent, the same timezone, the same location.

‘Tim please respond. I’m really worried.’ You typed hoping that this time you would finally get a response. You sighed after a few minutes of no response and closed the lid to your laptop and continued packing for your journey to America. You really hoped Tim was alright.

When you got to Gotham you tried again to reach out to Tim once you arrived and began unpacking your dorm room, but was again met with no answer. After another few days you were resigned to never hearing from him again and then the impossible happened. You ran into Dick, Tim’s older brother. You didn’t recognize him from the photos that Tim had shown you but he recognized you immediately.

“Hey you’re [Y/N] right?” He asked looking at you with sympathetic look in his eyes.

“Yes?”

“I’m Tim’s brother, Dick, he used to talk about you nonstop.” He introduced himself with a sad smile.

“Oh.” You replied, your disappointment clear in your voice. Used to. “Is he well? He hasn’t talked to me in a while.” You asked. The smile fell from Dick’s lips and he visibly gulped.

“I-I’m sorry [Y/N]. He’s - Tim . . . he’s gone.” He said, his words reverberating in your mind.  

“What?” You asked in disbelief. Your heart began pounding in your ears, drowning out whatever Dick was saying. You saw his mouth moving but all you could hear was you increasing heart rate and labored breathing.

“[Y/N]? [Y/N]? Are you alright?” Dick asked sounding like he was miles away. You shook you head numbly. Dick quickly wrapped his arms around your shoulders and held you in a firm consoling embrace. You sobbed against his shirt, your tears making the fabric damp. You felt like a hole had been torn in two and you were bleeding.

As Dick held you in his arms, comforting you, your mind returned to the last words Tim ever sent you.

‘I can’t wait to finally meet you’

[tetrisfinished]

covid conversations

yasir and i were talking recently about our life during this covid time. for context, the conversation started out with me confessing to yasir that i took a shower while yasir was out and esa cried throughout the whole time...and i continued to shower. 

before anyone judges me; i do know that it’s too early to try the cry it out (CIO) techniques on a 2 month old, however i also know that my kid (or any kid cries for a few select reasons: hunger, wet/poopy diaper/sleepy...and before i started my shower, i had ensured that he wasn’t hungry or wet or poopy. in fact it was his nap time so if he was irritable, it was because he was sleepy. 

in any case, while i was taking a shower, i let him cry and i was alright. but later on that night, i felt like a big shit because my poor innocent child didn’t know any better and just wanted to be held and comforted and i blatantly ignored it. 

also note, i deliberately took the shortest shower that i’ve probably ever taken because i couldn’t really handle it all that well. in any case, at night i broke down and confessed what i’d done to yasir and a bunch of other feelings came blubbering out. 

e.g. i love him, and i’m a bad mother and i miss him while he’s sleeping but also i miss my old life so so so much! and i’m so tired! not even because he’s a generally fussy baby - cause he isn’t! but just the general pauses in nighttime sleep that i have to face because it’s tiring to have your sleep disturbed every 3-5 hours....

IN ANY CASE, i digress. the point is, i was a teary mess while confessing all of this to yasir and of course he tried to comfort me. one of the points that he made was...think about what you’d be doing during this quarantine time if you didn’t have esa...if we didn’t have esa. we would be bored AF. he’s a lot of work, but also he’s constant entertainment...

to which i replied yes i’d be bored but i did have a life before covid time that i miss! and i asked him the same question; “don’t you miss your life before esa?!”

and the reply that yasir gave me broke my heart....momentarily. 

he said: what life? i didn’t have any life [in canada, he means] before esa.

initially, i wanted to restart my crying because what a terrible way to feel! that he has no life, that he was bored in his life here in canada that he missed pakistan and his friends so much that he felt like there was nothing worth keeping him here. 

then, it occurred to me that he’s just being a big fucking drama queen. what does he mean what life?! i’ve tried my honest to god hardest to get him to MAKE a life for himself here! people make their lives by making friends! by socializing! making their own social circle. i’ve tried time and again to get him to be friends with my friends’ husbands, or my cousins, or even get him to stay in touch with the people he meets at his workplace. but yasir is the person who doesn’t put in any effort. 

he claims that at this point in his life it’s too difficult to make friends - and while i agree with this to some extent, i can’t say that if i were uprooting myself from one country (hell continent, hemisphere, TOTAL OPPOSITE TIMEZONE) to another, i would hold on to that particular philosophy. 

aside from his social circle, i’ve always tried to travel with him (near or far) or make sure he finds things to do. but yasir is sometimes honestly the most ungrateful person i feel like i’ve ever known because he refuses to acknowledge these things. 

when he came to canada, his life was sort of handed to him on a silver platter. so much of his family is here, his wife is here....he’s totally able to socialize and make friends. but the man doesn’t want to put in any effort to actually build something worth staying for in canada. 

i mean, that’s not totally true. he has a job here and he works hard at it and i appreciate that, honestly. but i mean. this particular trait of my husband’s drives me insane. 

how ungrateful can you be. sitting in your cushy life in canada claiming you would take any chance you could get to go back to your crusty life in pakistan? well i don’t see anyone stopping him - why doesn’t he go? because everyone and their mothers know that the life here is better in almost every single aspect. 

in any case, normally i would just fight with him and get the rant out of my system....but i guess my initial heartbreak delayed my angry reaction. so i had to let it out here.

this rant is simply to let it out of my head. 

i still care deeply for my husband. he’s my kid’s father and he’s a good man. just sometimes he can be a big baby....but then, so can all of us. 

my rant is done. 

love,

-k