#anyways just spent an afternoon giving out prep

[bisexualspace]

It's World AIDS Day so I wanted to run through a couple quick points

HIV is treatable! There's been incredible advancements in the treatment of HIV in the last few decades. Life expectancy for those living with HIV is the same as someone without the virus if they are on treatment.

U=U: If you're on treatment and your viral load is undetectable, you cannot transmit HIV to your partners.

PrEP is widely available. If you belong to a group that has an increased incidence of HIV transmission, you should be able to access Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. Essentially this is a combination of two medications that is highly effective at preventing transmission of HIV. In some countries (such as the UK), you can access PrEP for free, however you can also source PrEP online in over 100 countries.

Knowledge is power. Knowing your status helps ensure you can access treatment early and prevent transmission to others. And remember, anyone who is sexually active can get HIV. Get tested regularly if you can

Anyways lets continue to destigmatise HIV, reduce transmission, and get everyone who needs it on treatment

[hurts2think]

Hello!! I read your Red x Reader one-shot and LOVED IT, she's such a distinct character and you did such a good job writing her <3

Would you be able to do Red x tall!fem reader? I'm 5'11", much taller than a 5'5" Kylie Cantrall LOL, and I think the short and angry x tall and calm dynamic is so fun. Thanks so much!

♥️Red Hearts x Reader♥️

Reader pronouns: She/her

Pairing: Red Hearts x Tall!Fem!Reader

Plot: You're the daughter of Rapunzel and you took interest in the new girl. But all of your friendly advances just anger her... But maybe she'll warm up to you during a friendly game of ball.

Word Count: 2k

Extra: Thank you so much, that's genuinely one of the sweetest compliments I've ever gotten🫶 I combined this with another request. I had a really hard day today so I'm sorry if it's rushed and not as well chatacterized. Please enjoy <3

Extra pt2: I never ever specify race or features in this, but the reader is described with very long hair. Interpret it as you will but I'm sorry to all of my friends with afros :(

Despite being a royal, you never were a 'typical princess'. Your parents always accepted you no matter what you were interested in or how princess-y you acted because they were the same as you.

When your mother, Rapunzel, returned to her kingdom for the first time, she could never fit into the royal ways. And of course your father, Eugene Fitzherbert (Aka the infamous Flynn Rider) was a criminal before meeting your mother. So you never had very royal influences growing up.

Because of this, when you started going to Auradon Prep you tended to be drawn more towards the VKs who weren't confined by the royal standard. You began to really go full force into the idea of parkour, sword fighting, and adventuring in general. It was much more thrilling for you than any etiquette class your kingdom forces you to take.

So running around, jumping off walls, and friendly fighting was how you spent any afternoon with your friends. And recently you've met someone new. She just transferred from Wonderland which immediately intrigued you. Her name was Red and she was the daughter of the Queen of Hearts. Naturally, you had hundreds of questions and filled with excitment but she would always give a snarky reply before walking away from you.

Though she seemed to not like you very much the two of you had many of the same interests, so you'd end up seeing her and running into her multiple times a day. You never gave up on trying to be her friend but she was as stubborn as a mule. And unfortunately for her, so were you.

"Ya know, Red, you're really good at all this parkour stuff. Where'd you learn it? Are you self taught?" You asked her with a smile.

The two of you were in chemistry class and you were really just trying to start up casual conversation, but she didn't seem too amused with it.

"Wonderland was ruled by a tyrant, kinda had no choice but to bounce off walls and slip through the cracks. Otherwise it's 'off with your head'." She replied with the same sassy attitude she always had.

"Oh... Well. It's still cool how good you are at it. Especially considering..." You trailed off, suddenly shutting up because you didn't want to offend her.

Red looked back at you with a skeptical look, "Considering what?"

An awkward giggle escaped your lips, "Well, you're not very... Uhm... Tall?" You finally coughed out, desperately not trying to come off as offensive.

Though it was in vain. Red gave you a dirty look, suddenly standing up straight and crossing her arms, "What does that have to do with anything?"

You lucked out when it came to the height department, unlike your older sister. Your mom was short but your dad was super tall, and you somehow came out looking more like him anyway. So at almost six feet, Red definitely seemed far shorter. "Nothing! Just uh, ya know, I imagine it's not very easy getting up high walls and stuff." You involuntarily giggle.

"And you're freakishly tall. Don't you ever trip over your own feet while doing anything?" She rolled her eyes, her expression never changing.

"Uhm, no..."

"Then no. See? Your assumption was stupid." Red declared, looking away from you as if just looking at your face was making her angry.

You went silent, slowly going back to working on your weird chemistry project before clearing your throat, "It's not a bad thing. People love snarky short girls, it's totally a desired trait now-a-days." You meant for it to be a compliment but really you were just digging a deeper hole for yourself.

"So what? Are you hitting on me or something?"

The bluntness almost made you drop the flask of chemicals in your hand, "Wh—?! No! No... That's not what I meant." Your face heats up a little and your eyes trail away from her, "I just... I didn't mean anything rude about you being short."

Red let out a long breath, "Mention something as unimportant as height one more time and I swear I'll strangle you." She threatened calmly.

This made you pause and stiffle a snicker, "Would you even be able to reach?"

The look Red gave you almost felt like it could've shot you dead on the spot. "Sorry, sorry! I was just kidding... Just joking. I'm done now."

You finally decided to just shut up and work on your project in silence. She really might try and strangle you if you kept talking.

------

It was nearing closer to the end of the day and you really started feeling bad for making Red upset like that. What if it was an insecurity? You didn't mean to hurt her feelings! So you decided to make it up to her. Just invite her to a casual one on one game of basketball, all friendly! No harm done or anything.

"Oh so you invited me to play basketball as another jab at my height? You think I would lose because you're like a giant?"

How did this girl manage to take every single thing you said and did the wrong way? "N, No... Of course not. I just wanted to try and—"

"You know what? I'll show you what I'm capable of. Maybe it'll teach you a thing or two, princess." Red declared, snatching the basketball from your hands.

Great. This was going wrong in every way! She took your invite as an insult and now it's a not-so-friendly match.

But nonetheless, it was official. The two of you played a one on one, and she was unsurprisingly amazing at it. She really was great at everything she did. And after a long time of dribbling, throwing, and blocking, it seemed like Red was finally going for the winning shot.

Just as she jumped, you stumbled after her to try and prevent the shot. The stumble was less than graceful, and while she technically made the shot and won, you still fell over and dragged her down with you.

"Ow—!" You heard the girl beneath you groan in pain after the hard thud against the ground.

After regaining yourself in a moment, you quickly shot up and got off of her, "Oh my gosh! Red, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" You worriedly ask, reaching to try and help her up.

Red slowly sits up, swatting your hand away, "Yeah... I'm fine." She grunted. She tried stepping up to her feet before immediately recoiling back down from the pain in her ankle.

"Oh no no. You're hurt. I hurt you, I'm so sorry. Here, look, I'll make it better! Don't worry!" Without another word you scooped Red into your arms without much of a warning.

"Hey!" She yelled in protest.

You hurried her over to the bench and sat her down in it to which she immediately scooted away from you.

"I'm so sorry, Red. Let me heal it for you."

Red's expression suddenly shifted to one of confusion, "Heal?" She figured that was a weird word to use.

"Yeah..." You pulled the hair tie from your hair and let down your hair that was much longer than it looked when it was tied up. You crouched down but before you could hold your hair to the injury, Red scooted away again.

"Woah woah. What're you doing??" She asked, clearly still very confused.

You were mostly used to everyone knowing the qualities that you received from your mother, of course the girl from Wonderland had no idea about it. But you didn't quite piece that together, "Healing you..." You repeated, now confused by her confusion.

"Right... With your hair?" Her brows furrowed in confusion and judgment.

"Oh!" You then understood why she was confused, "Basically when my grandma was pregnant with my mom she was going to die, so they found a magic flower to heal her but then the magic flower gave my mom healing abilities, I also got those abilities when I was born. So now I have magic hair that glows and heals when I sing." You explained with a goofy grin, almost as if you were bragging.

Though Red didn't seem impressed. Actually, she looked at you like you were insane.

"Just... Trust me."

Finally she let you get closer. Your wrapped your hair around her sprained ankle and began to sing the healing incantation that your mother taught you. Slowly your hair begin to softly glow and Red stared in astonishment.

After you finished you unwrapped your hair and her ankle was fully healed.

"What the—" Red stuck her leg out and moved her ankle around as if to test if it was really okay, "How did you—?"

"Told you. Magic flower." You grinned up at her before standing back up.

"Woah..." She said in disbelief, staring at her magically healed ankle before her eyes darted towards you, "Will I get super strength in my ankle now or something?"

You chuckled and shook your head, "No... I don't think so."

"Man..." She muttered in disappointment.

Your smile slowly faded to a frown. You suddenly felt guilty again for hurting her physically and possibly her feelings, "I'm sorry again... I guess I should get going now..." You force a laugh, tying your hair back up.

Red went pretty silent for a moment before speaking again, "I just don't understand."

"Me either, honestly. The flower thing is kind of confusing. It's suppose to be a drop of the sun or something and—" You started to explain before the red headed girl interrupted you.

"No. That's not what I meant." She rolled her eyes, "I meant, why are you suddenly being so genuinely nice?" She asked with clear suspicion on her face.

Your own expression turned puzzled, "What do you mean suddenly? I've been trying to be your friend since we met."

Has she seriously not caught on this whole time? You always talk to her and try to be nice, how could she not have known? It's all you've been trying to do for the past month or so.

"Really?" She seemed unconvinced, "You? Miss princess trying to be friends with the girl no one likes from Wonderland? I always hear your friends whispering about me. You're just one of those kids who thinks she's being funny by trying to befriend the 'weird kid'." Red said with a little bit of a snarl. She seemed pretty convinced there was no way you were ever genuine before.

Your eyes widened slightly at the bold assumption. Your friends whisper about her? Your friends know you think she's cool... They've never said anything bad about her before... "Red, I was always genuine. You're the exact person I want to be friends with! You're cool, smart, talented, insanely gorgeous." You listed off on your fingers, that last descriptor slipping out on accident, making your face suddenly burn in embarrassment. "Forget that last part..." You mutter.

Red laughs. That was probably the first time you actually heard her genuinely laugh. It wasn't mocking or mean, it was genuine. Man, you could get addicted to a laugh like that.

"Well. I guess I was a little harsh to you... You're pretty cool too, I guess." She smirked, nudging you with her elbow, "And pretty cute."

"Shut up." Your face only heated up more and you buried it in your hands, making Red's smirk grow. "So... We're cool now?" You ask, peaking from behind the hands covering your face.

Red hummed in thought, tapping her chin, "Mayyybe... If you can beat me in another one on one without spraining my ankle, I'll consider it." She winked.

You chuckled. Who could deny that? "It's a deal. Don't get too excited when I win." You teased with a grin.

After all this time, you were finally able to get along with the beautiful VK from Wonderland. Her sassy attitude, bad girl look, and insane skill only made you fall on your face for her. You couldn't help but fluster just at the thought of her... This was a crush you had a feeling would go away so easily.

[mynameismckenziemae]

She's a Fire-Chapter XXIV

Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x OFC/

Reader (no use of y/n)

Make a mess of me

(previous chapter here, next chapter here)

Warnings: smut, 18+ MDNI, butt stuff, etc.

“Will you be my good boy and keep it in through dinner?”

He hides his face with a dramatic groan, but his lips twitch, fighting a smile. “Do I have to?”

“‘Course not baby. I only asked so the prep will be easier when I take your ass later,” you reply, hands sneaking under to squeeze his reddened cheeks, “but we don’t have to do that either if you don’t want to.”

He shudders and turns his head to meet your eyes, “No! No…I want that. Just promise you won’t make me jizz my pants in front of Bob and Sunny?”

“But I thought you liked cumming in front of Bob and Sunny?” You tease, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips before reaching up to untie his arms. “Kidding. I promise though. You’re not gonna cum until I’m inside you later.”

“Jesus, Row,” he groans; his spent cock gives a gallant twitch inside you but you climb off and take him by the hand to the bathroom for a shower before dinner.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“So we leave Friday afternoon and come back Sunday afternoon, right?” Sunny asks across the from you, sipping her drink-a margarita of course.

“Yep, pack swimwear,” you smirk, not giving her anything else.

“That’s it?! That’s all you’re gonna tell me?”

“Oh my God Sunny. You literally asked for the bachelorette party to be a surprise!” You laugh, but you were dying to tell her what you have planned over the Fourth of July, but she wanted a surprise and you weren’t going to ruin it now. It was a combined bachelor/bachelorette party after she kept dropping not-so-subtle hints of that preference for Bob.

“Ughhhh, I know,” she sighs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I can’t wait.”

“It’s only two weeks away, you’ll be alright,” Bob smiles.

“What are you guys doing? Golfing? I hope not, ew. Gambling? Strip club? Ooo! Can we meet them at the strip club?” She asks, nodding excitedly.

“Only you would be excited for strippers, Sunny girl,” Bradley laughs, shaking his head. “Sorry, but I’m not telling either.”

“But you told Bob! And that’s really not fair. I’ve tried everything…and I do mean ev-er-y-thing,” she winks, while Bob flushes, obviously remembering her attempts to crack him, “But he’s like a steel trap!”

“Yeah, he told me.” Bradley replies, shaking his head while a similar flush creeps up his neck too, “And oof, Sun. You fight dirty.”

She lets out that adorable laugh of hers and you smile. God, you were so happy she was back in your life.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“So.. did Row give you your birthday present yet?” Sunny asks, turning to wiggle her brows at Bradley as Bob pulls into the driveway—who graciously offered to be the designated driver again.

“Yeah, you already know about Lola,” Bradley says, so distracted by his thoughts of what’s to come that he misses her double entendre.

“Of course, I know about Lola, I meant did Row do anything special in bed? You know, birthday sex. Like for my birthday, Bobby—“

Bob shushes her, squeezing her knee with a chuckle. “That’s it. No more tequila. Not only do your clothes come off but all our secrets come out too.”

“You’re no fun,” she says rolling her eyes. “They know most of our secrets anyway. We did have sex next to them, remember? Good lord, was that hot. So?” She sighs, looking at Bradley pointedly.

Bradley flushes and rubs the back of his neck. “Uh...”

Sunny interrupts before he can continue. “Oh, she so did! Didn’t you, Row? Did she tie you up? Did she give you a blowie? You know I’ve seen her toy collection. Did she put something in your butt? Did she let you put something in hers? Did you spank her? Did she spank you? Did—“

You and Bradley laugh as Bob covers her mouth, giving her a look. “Quit interrogating him, or I’m gonna spank you.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat? Do you promise?” She mumbles under his hand, arching her brow sassily.

Bob rolls his eyes at her antics with a smile and leans forward to kiss her.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

You wave them off with plans to meet back up at the beach tomorrow with the pups.

Bradley lets Lola outside while you open the app on your phone, turning the plug’s vibration on for the first time since he got off earlier in the afternoon.

His back stiffens as he feels it, his head drops to his shoulder when you grind your hips into his ass. Your hands wrap around him; the right snaking under his shirt to tweak his nipple while your left cups the erection he no longer has to fight to conceal.

You shiver at the unrestrained groan that leaves him as you stroke him through his jeans.

“I love how vocal you are, it makes me so wet. Will you record yourself jerking off before the next deployment?” You murmur against his back.

“Yes, fuck. Anything for you,” he sighs, closing the door after Lola runs past.

You squeal when he turns to pick you up bridal style, carrying you up the stairs with ease.

“How…?” He asks, trailing off as he strips off your clothes, kissing every new bit of skin he exposes.

“I was thinking you could ride me. I want you to cum on my tits and face.” You moan as his lips brush across your collarbone.

A shiver works through him and nods eagerly. He slips off his own clothes and lets you lead him to the bed.

“Bend over,” you whisper, putting light pressure between his shoulder blades.

A humiliated, but aroused flush creeps up his chest at your words, but he does as you request. He whimpers softly when you remove the plug and sighs when you replace it with two well-lubricated fingers, zeroing in on his sensitive prostate.

“I’m—fuck! I’m ready, sososo ready. Please?” He begs after you quickly work him up to 3 fingers while his hips rut against the comforter.

“You’ll take what I give you,” you tease, slapping your other hand on the tender skin of his ass. “Stop humping the bed before you cum.”

His whole body trembles. “Yes ma’am.”

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

He’s ready after a few more minutes; mostly because he’s going to cum if you don’t give him reprieve.

You pause in the doorway on the way back to the bedroom after washing your hands and donning the harness. He’s still bent over the bed where you left him, resting his head on his crossed arms, hard cock steadily dripping precum on the wood floor; he’s so turned on he can’t help but shift his weight from one leg to the other.

Seeing him so needy sends another wave of arousal straight between your legs.

You pull him over you after lying back on the bed. He grunts desperately when his cock grinds against the strap. “…want it, please.”

“Shhhh, it’s okay. Sit up.” You murmur against his lips.

You squirt a generous amount on your hand and coat the dildo, tapping his side when you’re done. “Ready when you are.”

He straddles your hips, hands bracing on the frame above your head and slowly starts to sink down, holding his breath until his hips meet yours.

“So good for me, taking it all,” you praise, smiling at his shuddering inhale.

“Ohhhh Row—hnnhgh,” he rasps when his prostate is brushed on a downstroke and your pussy clenches in response.

“I see why you like this. You look so hot,” you moan, your hand releasing the grip on his hip to turn on the vibration against your clit. your hips jerk up unintentionally, ripping a wrecked groan from his throat. “Shit, Sorry! I…oh God,” you gasp as he starts to move faster.

“It’s ‘kay. Feels so good,” he rasps, voice cracking.

His volume increases the faster he fucks himself on the strap; his moans, whines, and whimpers growing longer and more shameless.

You’re getting close, so your lube-slicked hand grips his cock and begins to stroke him, but his movements stutter to a halt at the overwhelming sensations.

“Try this,” you pant, guiding his hips to grind in a figure 8.

“Yeah, that’s—oh…oh fuck,” he keens, repeating the motion as you start jerking him faster.

You don’t even get a chance to warn him before the coiling tension in your pelvis breaks; your back arches and lips fall open on a silent scream as your orgasm tears through you.

A garbled sob escapes him when your grip tightens and Bradley shudders as he finds his release too. His cock pulses in your hand and stripes of cum paint your chin, breasts, and stomach.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“I…I need a picture of you like that. You look so beautiful coated in my cum,” he pants, blindly handing you his phone after he’d flopped on his side next to you.

You laugh but oblige, reveling when his breath catches as you record yourself running your fingers through his spend and licking them clean. “I’m gonna get a bath going, okay?”

He nods a confirmation and you do just that, cleaning up while the tub fills.

You coax him to the bathroom and get him settled in the tub before pressing a kiss to his lips pulled into a sleepy smile while you pull on your robe. “Be right back, I got one more surprise. Don’t drown, okay?”

“Mmmm, no guarantees” he hums, his mustache twitching.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“Make a wish,” you whisper after singing, and hold out a large piece of chocolate cake with a candle stuck in the middle.

“I’ve already got everything I wished for,” he murmurs, tears filling his eyes as he nods to you and then to Lola who’d made herself at home on one of the towels you set aside, tail thumping lazily when you both look at her.

“Is my singing that bad?” You tease softly, kneeling next to him in the tub and combing your fingers through his hair before wiping the tears that started to escape. “I know what you mean. These are happy tears I hope?”

He nods with a sweet smile. “I think I cried one time between when my mom died and meeting you and that was to Sunny after my near-death experience. I was telling her how I wanted a love like my parents had, someone to come home to and share my life with. Then a few weeks later, I met you and you’re…damn it, I suck at this,” he laughs wetly and you smile, your own tears starting to fall. “You’re just…everything to me, I love you.”

“You don’t suck at this. That was incredibly sweet,” you reply, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I love you too. Happy birthday.”

“I thought of my wish,” he says after a beat and blows out the candle before meeting your eye. “Wanna make it come true?

“‘Course I do,” you murmur, your attention on your fingers still weaving through his hair.

“Get in here then and let’s share that cake.”

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Tagging:

@its-the-pilot

@dizzybee03

@sweetwhispersofchaos

@shanimallina87

@blindedbythelightt

@getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth

@lexixstewart

@phoenix-rising-starbird-one

@mrsrobertfloyd

@charmedkim

@k-k0129

@bellaireland1981

@ingoaliesitrust

@hookslove1592

@amiets2

@nero4te

@eli2447

@atarmychick007

@vixenobrian

[sheepiemc]

Seven Stupid Reasons to Summon a Demon

Reason #6: can't open a pickle jar

Today was the day. 

The day all this effort would finally pay off. You just knew the look on his face when you presented him with what you have done would make all this hard work worth it. 

After all, you began planning for this months ago. 

You were inspired by those street food videos that always ended up in your YouTube recommendations somehow. It was one of your favorite things to watch with your favorite big eater when he would visit; you shared an appreciation for food, not just how it tasted but for the craft as well. You had promised him that every time you summoned him to the human world, you would treat him to a different human world “delicacy” as he would call it, but sometimes watching a video was enough. One such video you watched together was of a cheeseburger place that boasted all their ingredients were made in-store, by hand. That video had both Beelzebub AND you drooling, even the cinematography was surprisingly impressive. The tomatoes were such a beautiful red and the lettuce was such a vibrant green, both still glistening from their fresh wash. The sizzling griddle made your mouth water and the buns looked so soft.

Beel couldn’t stop talking about that video for months and you ended up promising that you would get that burger into his mouth as soon as you possibly could. The only problem was that the restaurant was on the other side of the world from where you lived and, if you were being honest, your teleportation magic still wasn’t that great. So Beel put it out of his mind, secure with the promise that you would get it to him, eventually — while you set to work on trying to figure out how to make it at home yourself. 

You studied the video (and several like it), gathered recipes for everything at a much more reasonable serving size (though you were sure Beel could eat an entire restaurant's worth of food, you didn't have access to a commercial kitchen that could handle production at that scale), and slowly gathered an arsenal of kitchenware that would make things a little easier on you (you always wanted a deep fryer).

You decided early on that you were going to go with a BYOB (“build your own burger”) thing so you could eat only what you liked and he could have a little bit of everything (and all those other burger videos inspired you). This whole week has pretty much been tech week for you, prepping the stuff that would need longer than a day to prepare, like the brioche buns and the bacon (you really made your own bacon!), and buying your produce carefully so that they will be perfectly ripe on the day you need them.

Which is today! 

You've already spent most of the afternoon working on making everything from scratch and now it was time for you to face your white whale… 

The secret burger sauce. 

All throughout the week, you’ve been testing small batches of the recipe but you couldn’t get it just right. It always felt like it was missing something. You didn’t know how difficult this sauce would be or you would have given yourself more time over the months you took to prep. You were down to the wire and getting desperate. For this attempt, you were going to go with straight-up pickle juice instead of relish because you didn’t like something about the texture. To be honest, you weren't a big pickle fan anyway but it's a staple in the burger order — it felt blasphemous to just leave it out. If that didn’t help, well, hopefully only you would know of this burger’s one glaring imperfection. 

You measure out your mayonnaise and ketchup ratio and go to retrieve your brand-new, never-been-opened jar of sliced pickles from the fridge. You'll take what you need for the recipe and probably give the rest to Beel as a snack. 

 You grab the lid and attempt to twist it open, as you would any other jar. When that failed, even with a bit more effort, you try your other tried-and-true methods for opening difficult jars. You grab a kitchen towel for grip, to no avail. You run it under hot water, but that doesn't work either. You even grab a knife and attempt to pry it open but in your frustration, you lose grip and end up cutting your thumb. Perhaps that was the final straw and you contemplate just smashing the jar against the counter. 

No, that is not proper food handling safety protocol. There would be little glass shards everywhere and you would have a huge mess. 

You sigh and wrap a paper towel around your hand for now. 

Of course, everything else was going so smoothly. Something had to go wrong eventually.

You wanted to wait till everything was ready before you called him over but desperate times call for desperate measures. You look up to the night sky from your kitchen window and imagine where Beel’s star would be in the Devildom sky. How this actually counts as a summoning token beats the hell out of you, but if it works, it works. 

You close your eyes and concentrate. You feel a warm presence to your right and open your eyes in time to watch the red glow fade and Beelzebub appears before you. 

“I smell food.” 

“Open this!” You thrust the yet-unopened pickle jar into his chest. He looks down at the jar, confused, and pops the jar open like it's a thing to do. He looks back up at you and tilts his head to the side. An adorable expression crosses his face that would have melted you instantly — if it weren’t for the fact that your spirit was broken by how easy it was for him to twist it open. 

You clutch your head in your hands and sink to the floor.

"Hey!" Beel crouches down to meet you and notices the paper towel wrapped around your cut thumb. He tenderly pulls your hand away from your face to inspect it. When he sees the bright crimson splotch, his eyes widen and he looks at you, concerned. 

“MC…” 

“Ah,” you look away, suddenly embarrassed, “it’s not that big a deal, Beel.” You wave your other hand dismissively and try to pull the other from his grasp, “I can barely feel it, I just bleed a lot.” But, he doesn’t let you pull away, his grip gentle yet firm.

“You should still take care of this,” he stands up and pulls you up with him. He spots a barstool behind him where he can sit you down and do just that. He walks backward and carefully leads you over, still holding your hand — softly, as if applying too much pressure would shatter you into a million pieces. You roll your eyes and smile playfully, obliging him without protest when he lifts you onto the barstool and holds his hands out to you in a stay motion. 

He turns his head, looking around your apartment, “Where do you keep your first aid kit?” 

You gesture with your head, “Under the sink in the bathroom.” 

He nods once and goes to retrieve it. You wait patiently for his return, kicking your dangling feet on the barstool. You were sure the “wound” was already starting to close up but once Beel set his mind to something, there was no stopping him. 

He returns with the kit unceremoniously, as if this is the most mundane thing and not completely unnecessary, practically performing surgery for a paper cut. You give him a look that he pointedly ignores. He puts the kit on the counter and opens it. Once he gets out what he needs, he holds out his hand. You roll your eyes audibly and place your hand in his. 

He peels off the paper towel and finally inspects the actual cut running down the pad of your thumb. You get a good look at it for the first time yourself. There’s still a bit of smudged blood but other than that, it’s hard to tell you even cut yourself. Though, it is longer than you thought. The shock of the initial nick was more surprising than painful. 

“How did you do this?” He asks, intensely focusing on cleaning the now-almost-invisible cut. You jerk at the stinging sensation of the anti-septic and Beel mumbles an apology. 

“I was trying to open the pickle jar…”

When you don’t continue, he prompts, “How do you cut your hand on a pickle jar?” He pulls out a bandage and holds it up to the cut, gauging whether it will fit. Apparently, one normal-sized band-aid isn’t enough and he grabs another smaller one. 

“I tried to pry it open with a knife. Obviously, the knife won.” 

He chuckles softly and shakes his head slightly, using the two band-aids to cover the "laceration" completely. Trying to bandage a thumb is always awkward but you’re at least grateful Beel didn’t feel the need to use gauze. 

“You should be more careful, humans are so fragile.” He holds up your hand, now properly dressed. You think it's way overkill but the satisfied smile on Beel’s face almost makes you glad you cut your hand doing something so silly. 

“You’re not gonna kiss it to make it all better?” You say jokingly, sarcastic even, but as soon as the words leave your mouth you know he’s going to take this request very seriously. 

He contemplates your words and, after a brief silence that feels like an eternity, he leans forward and pulls your hand up to his face. 

Your eyes widen and you can feel your face flush before his lips even make contact with your bandaged thumb. You couldn’t even feel anything because of the damn band-aid but that doesn’t stop your heart from doing flips anyway. The kiss lingers longer than a medical practitioner would probably recommend. His eyes are glued to yours and, despite your embarrassment, you can't look away. 

“There,” he smiles roguishly and keeps your hand near his mouth, “Now it's all better.” 

“Alright, wiseguy!” You snatch your hand away from him and hold it to your chest, which is hammering wildly. 

He chuckles again, that deep rumbling in his chest that makes you feel weak. He steps closer to you and puts both hands on either side of you, effectively trapping you between him and the counter. 

“I was only doing what you said…” He leans forward, his face mere inches from yours. You lean away and turn your head to the side, face now burning. 

You make a noise that is something between a scoff and laugh and fumble over whatever words you had planned on saying next. 

He chuckles again and he’s so close you can almost feel the vibration of it, saying, “Your face is all red. My favorite color on you.” 

“OKAY, ENOUGH DISTRACTION, WE GOT FOOD TO PREPARE!” 

You place your hands on his chest to push him away but he grabs the bandaged hand and says, “You can’t work with this injury, MC.”

You scoff again. “Beel, it's just a cut, I’m fine.”

“Nope, too much strain. I’ll have to take over for you.” He surveys the kitchen and you watch his eyes literally light up when they land on the food you set up already.

“But Beel, you’ll eat everything before we can even assemble the burgers!” 

He looks back at you with child-like glee when his suspicions are proven correct. “Well,” he says, “that’s why you’ll be here to supervise.” 

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. When you open them again, you know that Beel is absolutely not gonna budge on this, no matter how ridiculous it is to you. 

You sigh and push him away from you so you can get off the barstool, “Fiiine, you can help… but I’m gonna be super strict about snacking!!” 

He beams at you and you feel your false annoyance melt away. You guide him back to the kitchen, pull out a spare apron for him and direct him to the sink so he can wash his hands. 

“I needed the pickles for toppings,” you start explaining, “but I also needed some of the juice for the secret sauce.” You pull out the measuring spoons from the drawer they reside in and Beel snatches them out of your hand almost immediately. 

You look at him incredulously. 

”Measuring pickle juice is not a strenuous activity,” you say. 

“What if you get pickle juice on your bandages and then I have to do it all over again,” he leans down to you as he says, “with the kiss and everything.” 

Your cheeks heat up from the memory. 

You cross your arms and groan. “Ugh, FINE.” You nod toward the bowl with mayo and ketchup already in it, “Our batch is doubled so 2 tablespoons of pickle juice.” 

Beel smiles at you and happily gets to measuring. You roll your eyes and fight off your own smile. You move around him and reach up to your spice cabinet. “All we have left is the spices and we’re gonna eyeball those measurements.” 

You say the ingredients as you pull down each one, “Salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, aaaand… garlic powder.” You reach for the garlic powder and you wonder how it even ended up on the top shelf. 

After watching you struggle for a minute, Beel reaches over and puts it on a shelf that is more in your reach. You mutter a quiet thank you under your breath.

You watch him eyeball each measurement, looking back to you for approval every time. Once you get through them all, he looks at you expectantly.

“Ok,” you pull out a tester spoon for each of you, “we have to test the sauce.” You hold out the spoon to him but pull it back when he reaches for it a little too eagerly. “JUST a taste, alright?”

He nods at you vigorously but you just look at him skeptically. You remember #LasagnaSauceGate like it was just yesterday. But then he gives you his sad puppy look and you easily hand over the spoon.

You keep your eye on him as you both dip your spoons in and take a taste simultaneously. The pickle juice is better but it’s still missing something. You look at Beel pleadingly. He looks at you, then looks at the spices. He adds more salt and you both taste again. Better but it could still use something.

“What if…” he whispers under his breath, almost to himself, and he looks into your spice cabinet for something. He picks up a short jar and looks to you, asking, “Where do you keep your sugar?”

 Sugar... Sweetness! That’s what was missing! The recipe you were using didn’t call for that much ketchup and the pickle juice was almost overpowering. You look at the jar in his hand and read “Cayenne”. And heat! Of course! Now you just feel stupid. You were so focused on the recipes, you didn’t think outside the box — or bun, in this case! 

You must have gone on a face journey because Beel asks, mildly concerned, “Are you okay?”

You grab him by the shoulders and shout, “Beel, that’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“You found what was missing! It needed to be sweeter! Ugh, I could kiss you!”

Now it was his turn to turn a bit red.

“You know what might be better than sugar?” You turn away from him and head to the fridge. You pull your prize from the door and reveal it dramatically, “Maple syrup.”

His eyes sparkle, “Oh, that’s a good idea.”

You both spend the next few minutes experimenting and tasting the secret sauce until it becomes something your proud to put your name on. Now, these burgers will be literally flawless. You get the sauce into a squeeze bottle and wrestle it away from Beel before he starts squirting it directly into his mouth. 

“Now,” you say, pointing Beel over to the next station, “all we need is to cut the rest of our toppings and we can set everything out." You mosy on over to the fridge to pull out the lettuce, tomatoes, and your pre-cut onions. 

But before you even open the vegetable crisper, you hear a very distinct *munch* — the kind of munch that sounds like someone’s trying to be secretive… 

You quickly turn your head in time to catch the culprit, stealing one of the slices of homemade bacon. Beel freezes mid-chew. He followed you to the fridge and the intoxicating aroma of the bacon must’ve finally broke him. Honestly, you were impressed he lasted this long. You don’t say that, though, instead opting for a pointed look — first at him, then the bacon still in his hand, then back at him. 

When neither of you moves for a few seconds, he continues chewing and extends the other piece of bacon towards you as a peace offering, his expression the picture of innocence. 

You squint your eyes at him and grab your stuff from the fridge. He patiently holds the bacon out to you as you get up, close the fridge door, and march over to him. You put your hands, still holding the vegetables, on your hips and lean forward, capturing the bacon between your teeth. 

“No more!” You tell him sternly through a mouthful of bacon and he nods once, licking his fingers that once held the morsel of meat. The smoky flavor of the bacon melts in your mouth and you groan under your breath, “Man, that’s good.” 

You hold up the produce bags and proudly announce, “I got butter lettuce!” 

“Wow.” 

“I just thought that they look so pretty. And these little guys,” you hold up the tomatoes, “are called better boys.” You pull the tomatoes out of the bag to show off how beautifully red they are. 

“Isn’t that so cute?” You look admirably at the better boys so you don’t see the soft look on Beel’s face when he looks at you as he says, “Yeah, cute.” 

You also don’t notice him leaning closer and closer until his lips make contact with you cheek. It’s a quick kiss but it short circuits your brain just the same. So much so, you don’t register that Beel was actually leaning over to grab ANOTHER slice of bacon behind you. 

“HEY!” Your cheeks burn again and you hate it, “That’s playing dirty!” You tackle his middle and physically move him away from the plate. He munches mischievously as you say, “Alright, let’s move ourselves completely away from the temptation.” 

You’re not taking your eyes off him anymore. You set out the already cut onions on the topping plate where you put out some pickles and put the tomatoes and lettuce on the counter. 

“I’m assuming you won’t let me handle a knife anymore, huh?” 

He shakes his head solemnly. 

“Yeah, I figured.” 

You make the I’m watching you gesture as you bend down to pull out a clean cutting board from a low cabinet and pull a serrated knife out of a drawer. You present these on the counter next to the bags of produce. 

“Wash them first, please.” 

Beel obliges and places the washed lettuce and tomatoes on the cutting board next to the tomatoes. He looks at them for a moment before he gets an idea. 

“You know…” he starts cautiously, “there’s a way that we can both get what we want.” 

You furrow your eyebrows, “What do u mean?” 

“Use me.” 

You stare at him for a moment… “I beg your pardon??” 

“Use my hands to cut the tomato.” 

Now it’s your turn to tilt your head to the side like a confused puppy. 

“Like this.” He moves you to the counter so you're standing in front of the cutting board and potions himself behind you, so his large frame envelopes yours. He maneuvers his hands underneath yours and grabs the knife in one hand and tomato in the other. 

You are once again trapped between the counter and Beelzebub’s body, but you aren’t complaining. You silently thank somebody that you aren’t facing him so he can’t see the redness slowly creeping onto your face again. 

”See? Now we’re both helping; You're in charge but I’m holding the knife and keeping you safe.” 

“I- I see.” You can’t help but stutter. You were caught off guard but somehow this makes a lot of sense. 

You only lightly grip his hands and let him lead but it’s the thought that really counts. You enjoy the comfortable silence as you cut through all the tomatoes and offer tomato slices up to Beel’s mouth periodically, for good behavior. 

Once the tomatoes are done, you reach Beel’s hand over to the lettuce, saying, “We’re just gonna tear these off by hand,” and he does. You offer him a couple of leaves, asking him how they taste. You receive a positive grunt in response. 

You set up the rest of the ingredients on the counter this way; you put the lettuce and tomato on the plate with the onion and pickles, you get out a can of pineapple slices and set those out too, your onion jam, pickled onion and pickled jalapeño that you almost forgot in the fridge — all with your relatively small hands holding onto Beel’s big ones. 

Once you set up everything, you get to grilling your patties (you don’t forget the cheese, of course!), and even then, the only adjustment made to your position is Beel giving up on pretending to be your hands and just wrapping his arms around your waist. 

Once you think you have enough patties to start, you pry yourself from his grip and turn around to face him. You spread your arms wide in a sweeping gesture and say, “ta-da!” 

Beel laughs. 

“Well,” you continue, “it was supposed to be a surprise. As you can see, I wanted to set up a Build-Your-Own-Burger bar with all handmade ingredients.” You look over to what you set up together and feel a swell of pride flood your chest. “Y'know because that restaurant from the video is so far away? And I… wanted to do something nice for you.” 

You finally look up at him and you could swear you see all the Devildom stars shining in his eyes. Yup, there it is — the face that made it all worth it.

“MC,” he breathes. 

“Ah, it’s no big deal,” you scratch the back of your neck and wave your hand dismissively. “You do sweet things for me all the time, like saving the last slice of hellfire cheesecake because it’s my favorite or like, bandaging my hand just now! I’m just returning the fav-OOF!” 

Your sentence was cut off from the sheer force and power of the avatar of gluttony’s famed (or infamous) hugs. This time, he wrapped his arms completely around your middle and lifted you high off the ground, hugging you securely to his chest. 

“Thank you,” he says with pure joy, “You said it's not a big deal but it is to me.” 

You flail a bit before you grip his biceps tightly, steadying yourself. It's moments like these when you remember just how strong demons really are. He's holding you in his arms like you’re a teddy bear that weighs nothing. You're nearly touching the ceiling and the added height is making you nervous. 

“Ok, Beel, you can put me down now,” you giggle nervously. 

“Oh,” he notices the waver in your voice and gently sets you back on the floor. He does not remove his arms from around you, saying, “Sorry, I got excited.” He looks down at you with that warm smile and you feel yourself mirror it back to him. 

“Now let's eat!” 

You build yourself some burgs with all the trimmings you desire. You're pretty sure two is your limit — if you can even finish that much. You watch as Beel builds several burgers, even one where he attempts to stack every possible topping (that one is sure to end rather messy). You support him through them all, even grilling more patties when he finishes off the first batch. You knew Beel was going to clean you out, leaving no food behind — in fact, you planned on it. You could worry about groceries tomorrow. Right now, you are just happy to share this meal with him. 

He even insisted on washing all the dishes for you, because of your “injury”, of course. As ridiculous as that sounded, you didn’t protest. There were a lot of dishes to clean with how busy you have been all day. Now it was your turn to wrap your arms around his middle. Y’know, to help. 

After the dishes are clean and both your tummies are satisfied, you flop on top of him on your couch and watch more YouTube videos of people making food! For future inspiration, of course. 

After not very long at all, you feel before you hear the tell-tale rumbles of the avatar of gluttony’s black hole stomach. 

You lift your head from his chest and he sheepishly asks, “MC, did you get anything for dessert?” 

You grin at him. 

“Just who exactly do you take me for?” 

Because what goes better with burgers than a milkshake? 

[inkofamethyst]

October 23, 2023

In terms of my cohort, I definitely do feel younger than them. Less experienced. That really manifested, for me, when the ones in my evodevo class were sharing their ideas for the final project. Their ideas just seemed so much more mature (robust, specific, identifying resources relevant to them and finding ways to relate this project pretty closely to their interests) compared to mine. And it's like, I don't know.. I mean I know I'm not supposed to be comparing myself to other people when I can help it. But I don't know how much of their.. intellectual/research maturity(?) comes from having years more than me to devote to research on a basically full-time basis before starting this program. And I don't know how to go about trying to catch up without burning out? I don't even know if that's the right way to think about this, I don't know if it's even a problem at all. I don't know what my advisor thinks and a large enough part of me is too afraid to ask.

I feel like I'm a ways out of my depth.

[a week later]

I don't feel too much different, but my advisor being the prof kind of helps. Like, he has some ideas for people/resources I can look into for data.

Finished my braids. They're a bit boneless ha. My parting technique needs work, the front and back are def unbalanced density-wise (I only used four bundles out of the eight I ordered). But that's okay just in case I'm not feeling the color and want to take them out quickly. I didn't really even try to "tuck" so my roots definitely show through, especially in the bigger sections at the back. I mean, no one would ever think I was a natural ginger anyway and that wasn't the goal. Ultimately, I think the color is cute, and having so much left means I should be able to do another set some day, or maybe I can use this color for accents around the bangs/temples with my typical black. I'll give it a week to decide how I really feel about it. Pretty sure I'm going for minitwists next, though. Maybe twice. Just to give my hair some time to breathe.

Read through my SOP to my current uni last night to prep for tomorrow's talk and boy I sure did sound confident. Like, the words are certainly mine, but the tone is so unlike me. I fear the woman who wrote that (...in an afternoon, no less).

Anyway I got some good feedback from my advisor on my talk today. Implementing it now. It's a lot of little stylistic notes. I'm worried that I'm going to go over time. We'll see. It's not for a grade in the typical sense, but I'd argue that this is just as if not more important than any "grade" I'm getting in my other classes. Coursework is a semester-long endeavor. Several intense weeks. I'm going to be in this department for years. Gotta make a good first impression.

[edit, a few hours later: spent wayyy too long trying to perfect this presentation when the best thing i can do for myself rn is go to bed]

Today I'm thankful that listening to vgm doesn't hurt as much anymore.

(vgm is entrenched into my personal brand at this point so I've got some catching up to do if I want to keep my steak of 6(?) years straight of having a vgm composer as my top artist, and Vincent Diamante deserves it by now tbh. unfortunately listening to the skyrim ambience while watching a 12-hour landscape walk on youtube isn't counting for anything)

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Carpe Diem - Chapter 10

Pairing: Sketchbook (Kaisa/Johanna)

Summary: Carpe diem: one of the five latim mottos of the arcadist, or neoclassical movement. Literally translates to "seize the day"

Picking up where Locus Amoenus left off, this fic follows the lives of Kaisa and Johanna for a couple weeks as their feelings grow and develop. Updated weekly.

Notes: Hey, guys! Sorry for having skipped last week. In my defense, it wasn’t a cliffhanger. Anyway, I hope you guys are still up for this story!  Btw "Pasargada" in the first paragraph is a reference to the poem "Vou-me embora pra Pasárgada" (I'm leaving for Pasárgada, in English). It's just supposed to represent an idealized place, but I like to pop Brazilian lit references bc why not :)

Read it on ao3 or read the first installment on this verse or read the second installment on this verse  

When Johanna drove back home, much later into the evening after having spent a lovely afternoon with Kaisa, saying she was on cloud nine felt like it fell flat in comparison to her feelings. She was in heaven. She was in Pasargada. She was in Ancient Greece, about to deliver an offering to Aphrodite in thanksgiving for blessing her with her beloved. Cloud nine was nothing compared to how she felt. 

So, of course, she had had to share it. Edmund hadn’t been home when she arrived, making her assume he was working on his professor’s project. She could have texted him the news, but this felt like something that was too big to deliver over text. This deserved drumrolls and pomp, and she wanted to make sure she could see his face when she told him. That being the situation, she decided to do the next best thing and pay her best friend a visit, both to gossip and to let him know he would still be hearing a lot about Kaisa, but under very different circumstances now.

Alfred lived in a student accommodation which was also inside the campus, a short walk away from Johanna’s house. The flat was shared between him and two other alumni, a Weather Sciences graduate who was doing a masters in fire sciences and another one that frankly, nobody could figure out what he did. Johanna had been there enough times to show up uninvited, and as the door had been unlocked when she arrived, she allowed herself in.

“Guys?” She announced herself by saying. “It’s Johanna. Is Alfred here?”

“In the kitchen, Jo!” Came his voice through the wall that separated the entrance corridor, which had the doors to each of their bedrooms, from the communal area, which consisted of a living room and an attached kitchen. When she walked in there, the three of them were in the process of making dinner.

In the back of her mind, Johanna thought that there would definitely not be dinner for her that night. Even if she hadn’t eaten her fill for the day from the spread Kaisa had made them, she was far too giddy to be able to eat anything else. It felt like tiny explosions of fireworks inside her belly.

“Good night, you three!” She said, a little breathlessly and accompanied by a happy wave. It was enough to make Alfred stop chopping a tomato and lift his eyebrows at her. He knew her well enough to pick up on the sudden bright mood. “How do you do?”

“Well enough, thanks.” Answered the guy whose major nobody knew, as he was putting something in the oven. He had long, curly brown hair that fell over his face and made it hard to distinguish his features. The other one, who kept his black hair tied back in a neat bun, offered her a smile and a ‘same here’. 

“Would you guys mind if I talked to Al for a minute?”

There was no need to ask, of course. Alfred had already stopped his salad preparations and was wiping his hands to go give her attention, but the other guys were nice and Johanna didn’t want to disturb their meal prep. Both assented, and Johanna let her friend guide her to his room where they could have more privacy.

Alfred’s bedroom was impeccably neat, exactly like she imagined the inside of his mind must be like. There was not a single book out of place, and not a single crease on his duvet. Until she unceremoniously sat on it, that is, and she almost felt bad for it. Her spirits were lifted too high for any guilt to register on her mind. After closing the door behind them, he sat down on his desk’s chair and made her retell, word by word, exactly what had happened.

Even if she’d tried to do it to the best of her ability, her mind was too convoluted with chart topping amounts of adrenaline and oxytocin for a single coherent thought to come to her, so she often had to take back a sentence after she realized she’d forgotten to mention something that came before it, or had to repeat the same point in the story twice to make sure it was accurate enough for him to get a crystal clear image of what had happened.

He was over the moon for her, as expected. Johanna was sure Kaisa would eventually get a ‘hurt Johanna and you’re dead’ speech, but it was much more likely that this would come from her cousin rather than Alfred. His style of support was much more like helping Johanna overanalyse their interactions than making sure Kaisa knew she’d regret it if she messed up. It was something she was grateful for, of course, but unfortunately it meant that he was armed with a lot of realism to cut through Johanna’s haze.

Which meant that he’d noticed the lack of usage of the ‘g’ word in Johanna and Kaisa’s conversations.

“Isn’t it kind of obvious, though?” Johanna asked when he pointed it out. “We both made it clear we like each other a lot. Doesn’t this make us automatically girlfriends?”

The look Alfred gave her told her he knew damn well she was trying to convince herself through wishful thinking.

“From the girl who asked to hold your hand and then didn’t make a single move until you spelled your feelings out for her? No. I think this situation calls for being stark clear, Jo.”

When she arrived back home, still thinking about Alfred’s advice, Edmund had already come back and settled with a book on their couch. His pretend annoyance when Johanna walked up to him and said she needed to talk to him faded as soon as he noticed where the conversation was going. As soon as she mentioned Kaisa with a besotted schoolgirl voice, he sat up and told her to sit down by his side, clearly hanging on her every word.

All things considered, he did a great job of pretending to be nonchalant and only mildly invested in their relationship, offering her nothing but brief well wishes before announcing he was still very tired from the night before and going to bed. Johanna wasn’t fooled for a second. Deny as he might, Ed was a softie at heart, and she rolled her eyes lovingly as he walked away to his room. Maybe ‘pretends to be cold, is actually a dork’ was just her type of person.

Johanna had only just decided that a cup of tea was what she needed for the heaviness of somnolence to begin to fall over her when her phone whistled with a text.

Kaisa 🐈‍⬛🔮

…So apparently Tildy and Frida had placed a bet on when we’d get together.

Doing her best not to allow her kettle to drip water before she placed the lid on it, Johanna barked a laugh. A wave of affection for Kaisa’s family washed over her as she quickly typed a response.

omg that’s so Them 

I bet Tildy won

Kaisa wasn’t typing for long before the answer came.

Tildy won.

Now she’s bragging about ‘believing in me’ or something. I’m never going to tell her the first move wasn’t mine.

Give urself some credit! Johanna typed, you told me you had been wanting to show me her garden that time. pretty good flirt, if you ask me

The typing sign was off for a considerable couple of seconds, which Johanna took as her typical baffled silence.

I was FLIRTING??????

Oh, good God.

She really did have some work ahead of her.

                                                      ………

Even though they very much wanted to, it was impractical for them to meet on Sunday. Johanna had a group project to work on, and Kaisa, as always, was getting desperate about all that she still had to study. It didn’t stop them from texting all throughout the day, however, and they kept sending each other little nothings that had brought them joy (with the exception of the text Kaisa had sent her asking why she was getting bizarre threats from her cousin).

It was on Monday that they did meet. Johanna had just left a lecture, and Kaisa had arrived early for hers so they could eat together in the cafeteria. The sun was at its peak when they met in the humanities garden, and Johanna felt static energy all around her when she saw Kaisa approaching her with a coy smile and rosy cheeks.

“Hey!” Closing the space between them with eager steps, Johanna pulled her into a hug as soon as she was in arms length. She felt Kaisa’s arms sneaking around her middle as well as the smile on her face when she buried it in Johanna’s shoulders, and scented lavender on her hair. “I missed you. You look beautiful.”

Two months ago, Kaisa would have rolled her eyes and pointed out how they had seen each other the day before yesterday. She would have looked the other way if any couple was being as sappy in front of her, and considered herself too busy and focused on more important things to waste her time similarly.

That Kaisa was probably dead in a ditch at that point.

“Why do you say that?” She asked and didn’t move away from Johanna, not even an inch. She’d done her best to reign it in when picking her clothes for college, catching herself wanting to dress up as if she was going on a date. She supposed she was, but she was pretty sure she’d heard those romance movies that Tildy enjoyed so much saying it did no good to overdo your attempts to impress someone. It only made you look desperate.

But then again, she was currently clinging to Johanna like a koala, so she wasn’t sure she was doing too well on the desperation front.

“Because it’s true, and it’s true everyday, and I’m tired of limiting the amount of times I say it to you.” When she stepped back - minimally, their arms were still around each other, but looser now - Johanna was smiling and gazing into her eyes like she wanted to try and drown in them. “I thought you were the prettiest person I’ve ever seen since the first time I laid my eyes on you. I still can’t believe my luck that you let me be near you.”

If Kaisa had been blushing before, the way she felt like she had been for the whole weekend, now her face was burning up. What the fuck. People should <em>not</em> be allowed to talk like that in public. How was she expected to know how to deal with this?

“You sound like a medieval troubadour poet.” She said, trying and failing not to smile. Aware of Johanna’s eyes on her, she looked down at the grass as if it held the secrets that would save her from acting like a ridiculous teenager in love.

“Well, did they get the girl?”

“No, they usually died at the wars of reconquest first.” 

For a moment, Kaisa was afraid she should have thought of something smooth and flirty to answer instead of blunt honesty, her worries were put to rest by Johanna’s twinkling laughter. 

“Sucks for them, but I already consider myself more successful than their lot.” Her eyes were sparking with satisfaction when Kaisa dared to look back. “Shall we go? You must be starving after your long trip all the way here.”

After they untangled themselves from each other’s arms, Kaisa curtsied before her. “You know I would hike through the harshest terrains to get a glimpse of you, my lady.”

Though she scrunched her nose playfully, Johanna’s face gave away her delight as she hooked her arm through the one that Kaisa had offered her.

“Very on brand of you to try and outdo me, Don Quijote.”

“Don Quijote was insane, Anna.”

“And you aren’t?”

Gladly allowing herself to be defeated, Kaisa chuckled and pretended she wasn’t seeing the way Johanna was looking at her with so much open fondness through the corner of her eye. There had to be a limit of happiness you could feel at once without spontaneously combusting, right?

Something told her that she would go a good length of time testing that theory in the future.

                                                        ………

“Listen, I’m not questioning you, I just don’t get it!” 

They had just finished eating the somewhat questionable food that was offered in the nearest cafeteria, and technically it was time for Johanna to go home and study and for Kaisa to head to her lecture, but they loathed the idea to leave each other. Johanna had already suggested that Kaisa went to her house after the lecture so they could be together a little longer and she could drop her off at home, but it still felt like they were glued to their chairs, both unwilling and unable to separate from one another for any amount of time.

“I mean, what’s the philosophy behind it if you don’t eat any other animal, but do fish meat? What have they done? Have they sinned against you?”

“Yes.” Kaisa answered, her hands flat on her lap and her back straight as she kept her face the most serious she possibly could. “Fish do not blink. I don’t trust them. Therefore, they are sinners and deserve death by my fork.”

Johanna buried her face in her hands and laughed, taking Kaisa with her when she could no longer keep up the bit. She herself had considered turning vegan many times, especially since she began living with Edmund, but she knew she didn’t have the resolution to commit to it just yet. Kaisa, though, was nothing if not committed. In fact, Johanna was willing to place a bet on her only eating fish solely so she could make that joke.

“Okay, Kai, you win.” She said after taking one last sip out of her water bottle. “I subscribe to your brand of fishtianity.”

She bowed her head solemnly. “Welcome, new convert.” When she rightened her posture again, there was a teasing lopsided smile on her lips. “We’re going to have to find something else for you to call me now, though. ‘Kai’ is what Frida calls me and now it’s kind of… weird.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. I’m going to be straight with you, ‘sisterly’ is not how I picture our relationship being from now on.”

“Anna, that’s the least straight you could possibly be.”

It was a good thing she had finished her drink, otherwise she would have choked.

As she watched Kaisa look at her with a mischievous sort of satisfaction in her eyes, Johanna briefly wondered if she had been aware of this very issue when she gave her a nickname different from that which her family and friends called her by, but dispelled that thought when she remembered how very much unaware Kaisa had been when making moves on her. In that aspect, the girl really seemed as thick as the books she read.

Which brought her to the matter she’d been mulling over since talking to Alfred.

The conversation had given her the perfect hook to pop the ‘what are we’ question. Even if a loud cafeteria wasn’t the place she would have preferred that to happen, it was a quick and easy chance to end the dilemma that had been troubling her. She was just analyzing whether it would be too sappy to hit Kaisa with ‘can I call you mine, then?’, and whether Kaisa would even understand it as not being a joke, when a voice she didn’t recognize spoke from behind her.

“Kaisa, oh thank goodness, I have been looking for you everywhere!”

Johanna turned her head to see where that had come from, but not before she saw Kaisa’s eyebrows rise up in amusement.

“Well, in the new century we have this thing called ‘cellphones’ that we can use to talk to people. They really are quite magical, though I know elderly people like yourself can have some trouble with them.”

The tall woman squinted at Kaisa, her wild grey hair falling over her face.

“Didn’t know the humanities people were allowed to use them, that’s all.” She answered, sarcasm dripping from her words. “From the way you lot speak, I thought you were still sending pigeons to each other.”

Johanna’s presence was noticed by the newcomer when she snorted. Her eyes immediately softened when she noticed someone else was accompanying Kaisa.

“Oh, hello.” She said, looking like she didn’t exactly know what to do. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

Johanna greeted her back politely, quite confused but willing to try to fit in on that unexpected situation. Across from her in the booth, Kaisa sighed.

“Johanna, this is Victoria. She’s the asshole friend I told you about.”

Victoria’s eyes shined with recognition when Kaisa said her name. She stepped closer, and offered her her hand. Assuming that this was just how she greeted people, Johanna gave her hers for a handshake.

“Ah, so you’re the Johanna I’ve heard so much about!” She said cheerfully despite Kaisa’s clear warning glare. “A true shame your situation, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been burdened with being on the receiving end of this creep’s affection.”

“Victoria.” Kaisa hissed. “If you’re done, could you please just tell me why you’re looking for me?”

The woman blinked, and the spark in her eyes was replaced by a cloud of concern as she was reminded of her message. She bit the inside of her cheek and fiddled with her labcoat’s hem.

“Oh, that.” There was a stiffness to her voice now. “I’m sorry, maybe we should talk about that alone.”

Kaisa frowned. Victoria wasn’t usually one for seriousness. She only carried things like a burden when their weight hid a true importance, and the only time she could remember seeing her look truly austere was when comforting Kaisa after they met, when she had been crying in a hidden nook. Besides, she’d just confessed to Johanna for her, which, mind you, was concerning since Victoria had not opened Kaisa’s messages since the prior week and had no way of knowing they were actually on the same page now. Her saying they needed privacy wasn’t a good bearing.

"It's okay.” Kaisa found herself saying anyway. “I’m sure that whatever it is, it’s okay if Anna hears it.”

Still standing up beside their table, Victoria glanced at Johanna so quickly it was almost imperceptible, not quite sure about that affirmation.

“If you say so.” She reached into her labcoat’s pocket and picked up a small metal device. Kaisa recognized it as being one she’d shown her in her lab once, a small recorder Victoria had built herself so she could easily record experiments without a bigger gadget holding her down or having to bring her phone into the lab. There was also something about resisting ‘extreme weather events’, but she hadn’t been paying that much attention. “But I warn you that it’s upsetting.”

She placed the device in her hands, and sat down in front of her, by Johanna’s side in the booth. Both of them watched Kaisa closely and with concern, as she ignored the drumming of her heart and brought the machine close to her ear, finally pressing play.

[jashasedai]

Introducing Robert Kubica's Racing Driver: Bulka

Bulka

Alternate Universe- Tame Racing Drivers

Fandom- Formula 1, WRC

In an AU where a secret species is used as Racing Drivers, matches will give almost anything to keep their Racing Driver safe.

When Robert Kubica's partner, Bulka, experiences a career-ending crash, what will Robert give to keep his Buttered Roll safe?

Tags: Formula 1, WRC, Robert Kubica, (Inkeri Pedersen, Maciek Barran) AU Tame Racing Drivers, Alternate Universe, Major Crash, Life Threatening Injuries, Real Life Crash and Injury References

Lies, Then Rally, Then Lies

Could there be sleet without rain?  The wind felt like it, Robert thought.

It didn’t stop the Racing Driver.  He powered through the gale, shoulders moving in time with his feet, like he was leading a band of warriors in an action movie.  Obrońca stalked through the pitlane on his right, with Maciek on his right, Robert to Bulka’s left.

Bulka led them trailing in his wake.

He was by far the strongest stallion on this grid, today.  This was just a game.  Most of these Racing Drivers were polytones.  He was a Formula 1 winner.  None of them would meet his eye.

Today they would be racing for second.

Robert watched him.  He wasn’t just the strongest, he had spent the evening after last night’s prep talking with the weaker stallions, making sure they were ready for their race this afternoon, that their bodies and matches were in fine working order.

It was the strongest stallion’s job, he confided in Robert.

Maciek looked over at Robert and grinned.

The co-driver’s match knew the expression of a match in thrall of their Racing Driver.

Bulka settled into the car with Maciek beside him.  Obrońca watched, cross armed from the canopy that made up their team’s base.

[I will see you at the checkpoint, Robert,] Bulka told him.

Maciek tapped the notes on the dash.  “Ready, Robota?”  He always called Robert’s Driver by his official name.

Only Robert was allowed to call him Bulka.

[At the checkpoint, Mój Bułka Z Masłem.]  Robert touched Bulka’s face through the open helmet.

Bulka wasn’t Robert’s child but he used the endearment, anyway.

Mój Bułka Z Masłem.

My buttered roll.

Precious.

He stood back.  The Driver and co-driver rolled out of the lane of tents, and Robert stood angled towards Obrońca so he could see the stallion’s gestures, linked with Bulka’s mind, and the two Racing Drivers connected, making the complicated link that would function as their only means of communication during the drive.  Bulka and Maciek in the car, and Robert and Maciek’s Racing Driver in the tent, a figure 8 of information rendered necessary by the requirement that someone in the car be able to speak.

Just in case something bad happened.

Today, something did.

‘No!’ Came Bulka’s alarm, miles into the race.

Robert got a flash of a wall, and a sensation like falling, and then his mind exploded in pain.

The next thing Robert saw was trees rushing by.  He shook himself into consciousness and realized he had been moved into the back of a car.  He felt Bulka’s mind, running so low he may as well have been asleep.  Getting closer.  They were taking him to his stallion.

There was a woman in track orange and a neon safety vest seated beside him.  When she saw him moving, she leaned in.  “Robert,” She said, in flawed Polish, “Your Racing Driver has been in a crash.  He is still alive and the team is extracting him.  He is in distress, and quite a lot of pain.  When we get there, you will approach the car calmly, and you will be able to reach in through the drivers window and comfort him.  It is important, Robert,” She touched his arm and made sure he was looking at her face when she said it, “It is important you keep him calm and still.  If he struggles, we’ll lose the chance to save him.”

His eyes kept drifting out the window, in the direction he could feel the other half of himself.

She touched his arm again.  “Robert.”

He looked back to her.  She had brown eyes.

“Did you hear me?”

“What?”

“I said, it is going to look bad.  No matter how bad it looks, you need to keep calm.  Keep him strong.  Keep him brave.  Do you understand?”

“Bulka is strong.  He’s a winner.  He is going to be a champion.”  Outside, the trees gave way to a small village.

“What do you need to do?”

That hadn’t been the answer she wanted.  He pulled himself together.  “I will keep Bulka still and calm, so the EMTs can get him out. So he can be a champion.”

It must have been good enough, because the car stopped and she rushed around to open his door.  He was already out and stumbling towards the barrier.

Bulka’s pain was quite sharp in his mind, now, consuming all other physical sensation.  Robert was even struggling to remember how to walk.

Everything ached.

‘Bulka,’ He sent.

There was no answer.

The mind in the car was still.  Present and alive, but still.

Not churning with excitement and anticipation.

Not sharded with fear.

Still.

Like his brain was running, but who he WAS had gone off to hide.

A hand grabbed Robert’s arm, slowing his stumble towards the car.  It didn’t look too bad.  A little caved in at the front where it had impacted the barrier and stopped.

He came to the driver side window where Bulka’s yellow coverall was visible.  He moved to where he could see Bulka’s rolling eyes through the face of the helmet.

He looked so pale.

His eyes focused on Robert when the man knelt beside the rearview mirror and reached in through the gaping window. 

 ‘Hi, Bulka.  I came to get you,’ He thought, as casual as an absence of only a few minutes.

‘Missed the turn,’ Bulka thought.

He sounded uncertain.

‘Wrecked the engine, killed the car.’

‘She is not too bad,’ Robert thought, ‘Your mechanics will fix the engine and straighten the frame, and you will be sliding her around in no time.’

Bulka felt that this was untrue, but in his confusion, he couldn’t be sure why.  He looked down, uncomprehending.

Robert followed his eyes.

Cold terror rushed through him.

There was steel pressing Bulka to his race seat.

The barrier was a few paces longer than Robert had thought.

The edge of it had sheared through the engine.

Through the frame of the car.

Into Bulka’s body.

He looked into Bulka’s eyes and smiled.  ‘I will buy you a new race car.’

The stallion frowned.  ‘I feel sad.  I liked this one.’

Robert nodded.  ‘I know.  The important thing is that you are alright.’

‘My arm is cold.  The fluid that leaked everywhere is making me uncomfortable.’

Fluid?

He wasn’t in a puddle of petrol was he?

Robert stood up.  He walked around the back of the car.

The woman who’d ridden with him called his name, but he raised a hand to ward her off.  There were some men working at the other side of the car.

He looked in the window.

The barrier’s raw edge was visible on this side.

So was the barrage of blood.

He couldn’t even locate Bulka’s arm at first.

He finally recognized the tip of one of Bulka’s yellow gloves, and traced the blood soaked lump back to where it met the barrier.

Bulka squealed.

Hands grabbed Robert’s arms, both of them, this time, and dragged him back, around the back of the car.

One of the EMTs was holding him in a wrestling grip.

All he could hear were Bulka’s screams.

“I said you have to keep calm!” The woman shouted at him.  “He is reacting to YOUR fear!”

The EMT shook Robert.

He took a deep breath.  “It cut his...it cut him…”  He gasped.

‘Please!’ Bulka begged.  ‘Please Robert, be patient.  When I get out I will help you.  Please don’t be afraid.’

His precious one was not strong, now.  He needed Robert to be the strong one.

He choked back his fear and returned to the place beside the rearview mirror.  He forced a smile.  ‘I am sorry I went away.  I am here, I am here with you.’  He reached into the car and touched Bulka’s face.  ‘Here with my buttered roll.’

Bulka’s tension drained away and he relaxed into the touch. ‘Do not be afraid, Robert.  I will take care of you,’ He whispered, as his mind relaxed back into stillness, and they waited.

Corta

‘Robert, where are you going??’ Bulka was confused, but too addled to be frightened.  ‘Your mind is getting fuzzy.’

The anesthesia was making Robert too addled to really understand what was happening either, and the feeling of being wheeled away from Bulka on the stretcher, was like having the world stretched like taffy.  ‘They are taking me to make me like you again,’ He managed to think, and then the tenuous connections between their drugged minds stretched too thin and snapped as the medication put him under.

--

The fog cleared, and he became aware of the noise of someone speaking and lifting his left arm.  His eyes felt dry and he raised his right hand to rub them.

Fire coursed along his nerves and he arched off the hospital bed, screaming through his teeth.

He dry screamed for a moment, caught and instant’s view of Bulka’s fearful face surrounded by white hospital linens, and then he lost consciousness again.

--

The next time, Bulka took the decision out of the doctors’ hands and woke Robert himself, gently opening the door between them and warming up Robert’s mind, like slowly turning on the lights.

‘Bulka y Masalam?’ Robert wondered.

‘I am sorry, I was not trying to wake you up, I wanted to know what kind of drink my arm is having?’  He was filing through Robert’s understanding of ‘doctor stuff,’ paging through Robert’s memories of hospitals and medical TV shows and movies.

He sent Robert the feeling of a firm hug that in no way interfered with his skin.

Their skin.

Robert could see through the door between their minds that the garage that Bulka pictured encapsulating his mind, had a race car in it that was on fire.

The flames licked over the skin of the car that represented Bulka’s body, and the monitors around it were flickering with red alerts.  The metaphorical fire wasn’t spreading, or going anywhere.  Everything in this mind space, Bulka had told Robert, was a 3D metaphor for the way a mind work.  Memories were files, skills were tools, Bulka’s body was a car and the monitors were his senses telling him what his body was sensing.

Robert became aware that since Bulka was looking through Robert’s memories, they must be in Robert’s mind.  He looked around.  It was organized like a garage, too.  There was a car in the center, similar to Bulka’s car, since their driving styles were similar, it was a rallycross car.

There were monitors around it, and they showed what Robert felt in his body.  There were red alerts for him, too, but he only had flames over his right arm and shoulder.

The rest of the garage was less neat than Bulka’s.  There were photographs and mementos on the walls, and one whole side of the garage was set up with homey chairs and a cozy little kitchen, a bed, and a lot of pictures of his family.  There was a map of his city framed over the armchair.

Bulka followed his gaze, and glanced away, guiltily.

Like it was wrong of him to be aware of that part of Robert’s life.

He was sitting on a low toolbox, absorbing Robert’s understanding of their hospitalization, picking out names of tools and procedures, digging deeper to understand what “surgery” was, and then deeper, because he apparently didn’t know anything about what muscles were like, except that his flesh had to be made stronger with repetitive motions and would bleed if the skin were broken.

Robert watched him making notes, replacing ideas like “skin is a bag filled with blood and bones” with a barely more sophisticated “muscles are like springs and pistons made of meat.”

Then he stopped and sat still, then started to make a picture of his own arm as he was used to seeing it, he changed the picture, filling in the images of muscles as literal springs and pistons shaped out of steak.

Then he imagined, with horrible, shocking realism, a sheet of metal barrier bursting out of nowhere, slicing into his body.  Robert jumped, the toolbox had been replaced by a memory of his race seat from his car.  Bulka was pinned as he had been in the accident, but he displayed no pain at the self imposed memory.   He merely examined, with the calm of having survived, the way his body was positioned, and how deeply the metal must have penetrated.  He overlaid his new understanding of muscles onto his right arm, picturing what would happen to meat muscles and bone in his crash.

He looked up at Robert, pale with shock.

He echoed Robert’s own understanding of the extent of the damage.

‘It cut me in half.’

The memory disappeared, and like it had really been pinning Bulka in place, he fell forward.

Robert rushed forward and huddled in front of him.  

Bulka’s face came up, more afraid now than he had been at the wreck.  ‘How am I alive?’

‘You are STRONG,’ Robert thought.  ‘Your muscles are strong and your heart,’ He pictured the large, powerful organ, ‘Is stong, and it would not stop beating.  Your muscles,’ He looked down and pictured them, overlaid on Bulka’s body as Bulka had, but he pictured the severed muscles reaching for each other, connecting and growing tight and pulling Bulka back together.  ‘They want you to heal.  They want you to be whole again.’

He rocked Bulka, sending comfort and reassurance, comfort and reassurance, until Bulka felt safe again.

Bulka turned so his head was against Robert’s chest, and touched Robert’s right arm.  ‘But what has happened to you?’

This took Robert a moment longer.  He didn’t want to upset Bulka again.  He didn’t want to mislead him, either.

He pictured the muscles again, on his own arm, and pictured the skin being very carefully lifted by imaginary hands and scalpels, and the muscles being very carefully, neatly cut from their places and lifted away, until only a little muscle remained, very near his arm bones.  Then he imagined the skin being replaced over them, in such a way as to make scars apparent when he healed and his muscles began to regrow.

For him, there would also be some cosmetic surgery to reproduce scars elsewhere on Bulka’s body, but he didn’t explain that, now.

Bulka touched the skin over Robert’s desecrated arm.  ‘You are a VERY brave man.’

‘It is because I love you.’

They were close and still.

‘I love you, too,’ Bulka thought.

The Roll at the Fence

Renault Stable- 1997

The Renault stable was always quiet.  It was a long way from any human settlements, and aside from the busyness of the car manufactory,  the trees hid any sound.

The foal traced his yellow gloves fingers over the diamond pattern of the big, wire wall, and looked out at the trees.  There was a stretch of brushy plants covering the ground, out in that direction, and the trees grew up about 10 big strides from the wire wall that kept humans that didn't belong to the stable, from getting into the exercise yard.  There were some out there, now.  They weren't wearing proper Renault uniforms, but brown pants and pale green shirts.  They were looking at the  herd of heavy bodied birds that had landed in the stretch of low plants.  Then they looked up and saw Focus.

They waved their hands side to side.

Focus tilted his helmet

He continued to watch them, and after the birds had walked away towards where Focus could hear water splashing on windy days, the two humans walked across the brushy ground and stood outside the fence.

Focus drew his fingers inside the wire, but left them flat on his side.

The taller human made some squelching noises and pointed to the foals playing in the exercise yard behind Focus.  Then pointed in the direction of the street car test track.

Focus turned around to look behind him.  The handlers weren't paying attention.  They were smoking exhaust and chatting in the shade.  "Vrrm." Focus murmured.  He was supposed to get the handlers' attention if anything went wrong.  They didn't look, though, so he turned back to investigate the wild humans.  Maybe he could figure out why they had come.  They must be very hungry, they wanted him and the other foals to race for them, on the track.  He didn't think that would be allowed, since these weren't humans the stable was protecting, and they might be unpredictable, and not know how to behave at a race.  They might get so excited they hurt some of the stable's humans, or maybe they would refuse to leave after the race, or get so jealous they tried to take the foals away with them, to a place with no safe stalls and racetracks, where the foals would be just as hungry and sad as themselves.  He took a piece of potato bread from his inside jacket pocket and poked it through the wire.

[Here, eat this, and then go away.]

Neither of the humans reached for the food.  Their eyes were white all around the brown iris, and the smaller one's mouth was open, like the hinge didn't work.

Focus revved to get them moving.  [Hurry up, now.  We don't have enough food for you.  Go back to the woods.]

He pushed the bread farther out.

It slipped out of his fingers and fell into the dirt.

He gasped.

He dropped to his knees.

The stupid wild humans just stood there.  They didn't even have the sense to pick up FOOD.

He scrabbled his hand under the bottom wires, where they made a sharp little v.  The roll had bounced just a little too far away for his fingers to scissor it, but the wire gave just a little when he pushed at it, so he flattened his hand and pushed harder.  He grunted desperately when the wire started cutting into his hand through the glove, but he reached the roll.

Shadows fell over him.  There were legs standing on either side of him, now.  The handlers had come to the fence.  They were making loud noises, trying to scare the wild humans away.  Focus crouched on his knees, the roll tucked to his belly, trying to stay out of the way so the handlers wouldn't step on him.

The humans outside the fence were making loud noises, too, pointing at Focus and making noises like screaming.

He realized he had made a BIG mistake.

These humans WERE getting dangerous.  They might hurt his handlers, who were being good, trying to protect the foals.  The foals were crowded against the wall near the door, revving and huddling together, afraid the humans were going to capture them and take them away.  Someone was crying.

Then more of Renault's humans appeared around the side of the building.  They were running.  The two wild humans ran, but they were quickly caught.  One of the handlers inside the fence, turned to the foals, putting his arms out, and herding them towards the door.  The other grabbed Focus and picked him up to his feet, holding his arm while looking him over.

[Not hurt?] He gestured.

Focus shook his head.  He had dust on his lips and stuck to the tear lines on his cheeks.

[I am sorry.  I should have frightened them away.  I am sorry!]  He told the man.

The handler's touch made his skin itch, but when he put his arm over Focus' shoulders, Focus didn't try to push him away.  He let himself be guided into the building.

[Hurt?] The handler asked again, pointing at Focus' right hand, still curled tight around his belly.

Focus managed to make his fingers unclench.

The crushed, dirty ball of bread wasn't a roll anymore.

The handler sighed.  He picked it out of Focus' hand and threw it into a trash bin.

Focus started to reach after it, but the handlers stopped him. [You have another.  That is gone.  You have another,] The man reassured.

Focus nodded.  He had wasted food.  He was no better than the wild humans.  He had put the handlers and the rest of the foals in danger, and wasted food.

Those humans didn't deserve food.

He would know better, now, than to ever care about humans outside the fence.  He would know never to trust them.

For the next two weeks, the foals used the stallions' practice yard, and when they returned to their own, the wire fence had been replaced, with a nice, safe concrete wall.

—

Robert stared at Bulka when the stallion finished his story.  [You were GLAD the yard got walled in?!]

Bulka nodded.  [The wall made sure no wild humans could see us.  We could play safely.]

Robert's hurt came through their connection.  He often felt sad and afraid at inappropriate parts of the stories Bulka told about his childhood.  Like he was understanding the fright of the humans yelling through the fence, trying to get to the foals, only now, at the end, when everyone was safe.

Silly Robert.

Bulka snuggled down into the hospital bed.  His body still hurt, but he was feeling better.  He could move himself, now, as long as it was not a big effort, or for long, and he LOVED spending all day with Robert this way, telling stories of their childhoods, and learning about each others' lives and feelings.  This was how being a match and Racing Driver was supposed to be.  They should be able to see each other whenever they wished- all the time, and be able to tell each other anything.  He was glad Robert was one of the safe humans.

For Her Own Good

“A miss Pedersen is here to see you,” The nurse said.  She tucked the blankets more comfortably around his long feet.  She had a kind smile.  Robert stared up at her with an expression of dull horror.  He pushed back into the pillow like he’d seen some eldritch being.

“Południca,” He muttered.

She looked dismayed.  She must have heard of the Polish monster before.

“Should I send her away?” She asked.

She glanced over at Bulka.  The stallion was sleeping, mouth slightly ajar.

“She can only see me,” Robert confirmed, struggling higher in the bed.  “But send her in.”

The nurse nodded.  She pulled the curtain around Bulka’s side of the room, and went out the door.

Inkeri walked in.  She was carrying a big green vase full of yellow daisies.  “I didn’t know what to get you,” She said, pulling a tiny brown stuffed bear, a little heart shaped box of chocolates, and a pack of playing cards out of her purse, “So I got you everything.”

His eyes lingered on the playing cards and she slowly reached out and put them back into her purse.

“Maybe later for these.”

“Inkeri,” He said, slowly.  He made his voice a little deeper than it was usually, trying to get her to take him seriously.

“I got you this, too!” She pulled a white T-shirt out of her purse.  It read “Sometimes when I’m alone, I Google myself.”

He cracked a smile and chuckled.

He wanted her to leave the tshirt when she left.

He didn’t want her to leave.

She had to leave, because right now he could be covered in bandages that covered perfectly healthy skin, but a fiance...he caught himself.

The ring was still in the box at his physio’s house, where she could never find it.

A girlfriend, hanging around, would notice in short order that his wounds weren’t as bad as they needed to pass as.

And a girlfriend with no double-oh status would mean Bulka in a different room.

Robert was only here to help Bulka, really.  His own arm would heal long before Bulka was up and around.

This was Bulka’s injury, Bulka’s recovery.  Inkeri being here would just keep Robert away from where he needed to be.  He’d already had this conversation with his parents and relatives.  Of course, they were blood.  It wasn’t over for good with them.  He would apologize later and explain that he had been in so much pain.

Girlfriends, even ones you wanted to ask to marry you, didn’t wait around for guys who kicked them out of their lives to come crawling back.  Not girls like Inkeri who had a strong draw for men, and a temper that could warm a small city.

He fought back the smile he felt at the thought of her temper.

He was going to feel it one last time.

“Inkeri,” He said, again, making himself cold.  Making himself distant.  “I don’t want you to come back.”

Approving Inkeri

“So now you know,” Frank Williams said, Inkeri’s first day on the job.

She was sitting on the thin legged chair in front of his desk.  He’d been the one to recommend her to the program.  She’d been required to pass, in order to work at Williams.  She understood why there had been such a firm demarcation between this and other things in her life.

“No one races,” She murmured.

Frank scoffed.  “Course they do.”

The Authorization program was 6 weeks of classroom work, and then the certification lasted the rest of your life.

She kept thinking about her father.  He had worked as a mechanic for Williams racing for years.  She had visited the pits thousands of times until Ayrton Senna’s crash had broken her father’s heart and sent him into early retirement.  Frank had said her father had gone to this class, it was part of how he’d argued her into going.  Her father had known all the things she’d been told.

Frank had always known.

But why was Frank so devastated every time something happened if these Racing Drivers who replaced the men were just animals?

A horse dying in a race was a difficult loss for a breeder to get over, but wasn’t the important part that the jockey survived?  The Racing Drivers’ purpose was to save human lives by keeping the men out of the cars, the class had said.

But of course, animal owners got very fond of their pets.  And horses were expensive.  Racing Drivers even more so.  Especially with all the care that had to be taken with them, and the precautions about their existence.  That had not quite gone down with her the way it ought.  If they could save human lives by racing cars, why couldn’t they save human lives by dismantling bombs and piloting fighter jets and tanks in war zones?

Why did they have to be altered to look just like a human?  Wouldn’t it be better if the whole world knew about them and they could be used to replace humans in all dangerous lines of work?  Underwater welding and so forth?

“Don’t buy the story about animals,” Frank said, suddenly.  “They may be different, but they’re as smart as any of us.  They think and feel like you do.”

“My father was so upset when that one of Ayrton’s died that he quit,” Inkeri said.

Expressions of horror, and then thoughtfulness, and then deep, deep regret followed one after the other on Frank’s face.  “That wasn’t….”

He stopped and then pushed a button on his phone.  “Come in here,” He said into the speaker.

The office door opened and Frank’s daughter and successor to the business, Claire, entered.  Inkeri had known her since childhood, and Claire struck her as an iron pressed business woman, who wore her comportment like body armor.

She entered the room with a calm face, and her eye fell on Inkeri’s new Authorized Status level two ID badge.

Her attention turned to her father.  “How can I help you?”

He rolled his head against the back of his wheelchair’s head support.  “Inkeri wants to know about her father’s leaving us.”

Claire’s mouth opened.  “Ah.”

Inkeri looked back and forth between them.  Why did Frank have to bring in Claire to tell her this?  Why couldn't he just explain to her what had happened?

“Your father wasn’t a mechanic,” Claire said.  Then she stopped, read Inkeri’s eyes and started again.  “That is to say- Williams racing did not employ your father as a mechanic.  He was in place to provide extra handling services for the team’s Racing Drivers.  He did some maintenance on the cars when his other duties did not interfere, but primarily, he was employed as a handler.  To watch the Racing Drivers when their matches could not directly be present.”

Inkeri took this piece of information and slotted it into what she remembered of her father’s years working for Williams.  He’d always had some piece of machinery or other in his hands when she had been in to see him, and the drivers when present, had spoken as clearly and understandably as any human, accounting for language barriers and accents.

But she wouldn’t have known what went on when visitors were not there.  Wasn’t that the point?  The Racing Drivers were secret even from wives, unless they’d gone through the same program Inkeri had.

“So he worked with Ayrton’s Racing Driver, and he was upset when it died,” She said.

Frank looked at Claire, who looked like she would rather her father do the job that was in front of her, now.

“Ayrton’s Racing Driver,” Claire began, “Died of an infection, in 1993.  Ayrton took his place and drove for us in the races until his death. In 1994,” Claire said, slowly.  “At Imola.”

Inkeri sat back in her chair.

“But humans don’t drive professionally.”

“Almost never,” Claire agreed.  “But Ayrton was much faster than most humans.  We believe he possessed a unique combination of traits, the calculating speed of a chess grandmaster, the reflexes of a fencer, the physical stamina of an Olympic marathoner, all in a perfect package, which allowed him to compete on an equal level with Racing Drivers.”

“And,” Frank chuckled.  “We found it again.”

“You did?” Inkeri was floored.  The studies she’d seen seemed conclusive evidence that such results should not be possible.  It defied logic that a human should be able to operate under such incredible pressures, at such boggling speeds, if the studies she’d seen were true.

“Yes, the car had to be fitted with a radio, and to save time in removing it, it seemed simpler to find someone who could make use of it,” Frank told her.

“A radio? They all have radios.”

“No, the match makes his own arrangements,” Frank said impatiently.

“He brings his own radio?”

“No, girl, they talk to their Racing Drivers directly.  Matches control the Racing Drivers’ thoughts.  Like a perfect remote control.”

“Well if they can think fast enough to keep up, what prevents them from driving in the first place?”

“Exactly!” Frank crowed.  “So we found a boy who had gone through every step in becoming a match except for actually becoming one, and we put him in our car!  And can you guess what happened?”

“Well obviously he could drive it.”

“He could DRIVE it!”

“Okay,” Inkeri said, “So who was it?”

“Don’t you know?  Can't you guess??”

“Well, no, Uncle Frank, obviously not.”

“It was David.”

DC?

“But he never won a championship or anything.  You said he could keep up.”

Frank deflated a little.  “Don’t you understand what this means?  It means if one human can keep up with Racing Drivers, then others can.  David simply wasn’t fast enough to BEAT any of them.  Not Schumacher’s certainly.  THAT one proved to be a special case.”

“None of the other Racing Drivers could beat him, either,” Claire said, crossing her arms and showing a hint of humanity.  She leaned against Frank’s desk and ignored him when he shooed her.

“In 2002, Mark Webber tested for Arrows and beat the times of the Racing Drivers who tested,”  Claire said.  

“Then Jaguar ruined him by matching him with that stretched out waffler of his,” Frank grumbled.  “When we had him all lined up to become the next great man in racing.”

Claire smirked.  “But that is alright, because our next candidate is matched and is STILL faster than lightning.  You’ll meet him later on.  Since you don’t gesture, it will be easier for you to work with Valtteri when he doesn’t have his stallion with him.  If you get along with him, we might just have the dream duo.  You, our engineering wunderkind, and Valtteri, the fastest man ever clocked in an F1 car.”

Inkeri tried to take all of this in.  There were many more layers to this than she had ever imagined.

One Year Later

She was going to be the phenomenal new mechanic for Williams.  She was working in rally in preparation.  They had been quite the item, before the crash.

Before the decisions that changed his life, and took him out of hers.

There was no way to explain what had happened to him.

Even his parents and siblings had been cut out of his life while the two of them recovered.

Robert held the jar between his forearm and his chest, twisting it open with his left hand.  He sat down on the bench in the team trailer, facing his Racing Driver.

‘Hold out your arm,’

Bulka did.

The wretched sight didn’t bother Robert anymore.  It looked better now than he would have imagined, months before.  He scooped the arnica salve out of the jar with the fingers of his left hand and rubbed it gently over the skin of Bulka’s right forearm.

They had remastered shaving immediately, but this was their own private bonding ritual.

When the salve was worked in, and the skin was soft, Robert passed the jar to Bulka, who pinned it between his forearm and his chest, and scooped some out with his good left hand.

‘Hold out your arm,’ Bulka sent.

Robert did.

Bulka massaged the muscle stimulating salve into Robert’s identical right forearm.

It felt nice on the aching limb.  Bulka’s careful touch felt nice.

Healing.

Robert relaxed into the mutual caring.

Having the muscles stripped away had been agonizing.

But it had been an easy decision.

Racing Drivers who couldn’t pass as their match couldn’t race.

Now Bulka looked just like Robert again.

And they understood each other more deeply than they ever had before, and they worked together to overcome their pain.

Bulka placed the jar of salve back on the shelf.  [Ready to go to work?]  He asked.

He gestured entirely with his left hand, now.  Obrońca had told Robert that mother Racing mares gestured to their babies that way.  Speaking with one hand while they held their baby with the other.

Obrońca jokingly called Bulka, [Mama,] now.

[Ready,]  The half signing had been harder for Robert to learn, but Bulka helped him, and the increased strength of their connection had helped Bulka putting information in Robert’s head.

Things had never been clearer.

They walked into the team’s camp, and Robert felt his heart clench a little when he saw her.  He would act professional.  He and Bulka turned inside the tent and greeted the chief mechanic.  He would have time to greet Inkeri, soon.

Very soon, it turned out.

“You son of a bitch.”

He turned to see her, hands planted on hips, glaring at him.

“You let me believe you were racing, you lying, backstabbing son of a bitch.”

She thrust a hand out at Bulka.  “I cried when you turned me away from the hospital!  I SWORE I would understand, that this had changed you, that things could never be the same between us.  And you weren’t.  Even.  In.  The.  Car.”

She thrust a hand towards his arm, and did a double take.

He was being himself.  Bulka was lightly disguised in sunglasses and a fake moustache.  Obvious to her, who would know Roberts face no matter who was wearing it.

Robert was wearing a t-shirt.

His arm was perfectly visible.

“You were in the car?”  She breathed.

He shook his head.  “We had to match, Inkeri.  I had to have scars...if he did.”

Bulka was watching them, head cocked to one side.

“You were in the hospital?”  She sounded as uncertain as Bulka had, the day in the car.

“We both were.  My recovery went differently, and the arm, and the scars, but nothing else.  The doctors couldn’t fake the rest, not from someone seeing me close up.”

The mechanics had flowed out of the tent when this confrontation had begun, but Bulka was standing there, openly observing.

He took Robert’s hand, sent comforting feelings, and made a calm, winding down rev.

Then he just stood there, holding Robert’s hand, watching Inkeri with an expression of interest, waiting to see what she would do, next.

Mischief crossed into her expression.

“I guess it’s him I was always impressed with, then,” She said, voice heavy with sass.

Robert’s eyes didn’t drop, but he frowned.

Inkeri spoke again, in a whisper, “But Robert, it will always be you that I love.”

[soleurs]

▎  STARLIGHT,  ft. cheongsan, suhyeok, wujin

pairing, gn! reader & first dates: aouad edition. genre, fluff. setting, non-apocalyptic. warning, mention of food and horror movies.

𝐢. lee cheongsan

almost no one knows that he had actually made a whole brainstorm board for your first date. only onjo is aware of it, but that wasn't out of choice—she's your best friend so she must know what you'd like, right? 

(spoiler alert: the best she had was dinner at cheongsan's. not that he rejected it, the idea is actually sitting in the file titled ‘future dates.’)

ANYWAYS after browsing, thinking, and panicking (yes he did it in that particular order) he brought you to the beach where the two of you spent the afternoon strolling down the border where the sea and sand touched each other.

i'm not saying he occasionally stumbled from his feet suddenly sinking in the ground. . . yeah that's exactly what i'm saying. he considers himself grateful that you were there to rescue him, only for the same thing to happen to you—

what's a visit to the beach without playing in the water, right? maybe you looked like two big kids lightly splashing at each other, and maybe some sour passersby gave a side eye at your activity but no one cared.

residing in the picture that you've stored in your most precious memories is you, him, and the sea.

seeing as how he had brought his instax camera, cheongsan didn't forget to take some souvenirs. you know, polaroids that he can hang on his bedroom wall so it'll be the first thing he's asked by anyone who walks in (especially his mother.)

the two of you had agreed to go get dinner at the nearby food stall by 6, but then you saw the sun slowly falling beyond the horizon. it wouldn't hurt to stay a little longer and admire the view, right?

“it's beautiful.”

cheongsan can only nod because his mind has malfunctioned. the words got jammed in the printing so only he knows about what he's thinking in that very moment.

yeah, you really are.

𝐢𝐢. lee suhyeok

let's pretend i haven't written a drabble about your first date with suhyeok because i love him sm i can't leave him out

alright so let's get the obvious out of the way: everyone in his friend circle knows that he's going on a date with you. after you asked him out, he ended up running around the school to find them and give the latest news. 

of course there's some squealing and teasing ‘cause this big babie's been crushing on you for a while and wanted to make a move, but you beat him to it. i mean, just imagine him smiling so widely and almost kicking his feet at the air while he tells them, details included, how it happened.

coughs 

during the date, it's mostly you browsing through the bookstore because he doesn't really have an affinity for reading but whenever you end up going on a tangent about one of the books on display that you've already read, he hangs onto every word so he can give you the appropriate reactions.

also suhyeok really wants to hold your hand but they're so sweaty that he doesn't want you to be grossed out ://

so when you notice him wiping his hands down on his sweater for the fifth time in a row, you hold out your hand. 

“can i.. can i really hold your hand?”

inhales gallons of air 

there's just so much hope that shimmers upon his chocolate hues and you're somehow still able to live while he looks at you like that.

“as long as you let me hold yours.”

i bet my whole soul he likes buying oversized sweaters because he likes that they make his giant figure a little smaller. his rolled sleeves aren't the neatest because he's so eager to do what he's been pining for ever since he picked you up for the date.

the moment that your palm is pressed against his, fingers fit snug between the gaps of his, he finds himself comparing them to two puzzle pieces.

maybe you're not perfect for everyone, but you're perfect for each other.

𝐢𝐢𝐢. jang wujin

it took two whole weeks for wujin to go on a date with you, seeing as how he had asked you out during preparations for the regional archery tournament. but this sweetheart was patient and the time finally came so he should be excited, right?

Y E A H no.

don't get him wrong, he was originally over the moon, then his nerves just had to come in and chomp up all the space. so an hour before the main event, hari stepped in to assure him of three things: a) he looks good, b) be himself 'cause that's who you like, and c) she'll happily use him as a target if he breaks your heart.

in a previous conversation, you told him that you like horror movies so he bought two tickets to the latest flick. you're happy since there's been plenty of positive reviews about this so it must be good. wujin's happy for you and just so wrapped up in seeing you smile that he forgets to mention one teeny detail—

he hates horror movies.

as in, can't have any snacks or else the floor will eat it after a jump scare appears. 

but this is what you were looking forward to so he puts on a brave façade and tries to get through it all.. only to bury his face in your shoulder during the first fifteen (15) minutes because why are they already chucking scary moments at the viewer?? shouldn't they build it up, let him prepare??

when it's clear that he won't move from that position, that's when you figure it out. ofc you feel yourself falling for him a little more, he really forced himself to sit through this screening just so you can enjoy your time with him.

the two of you end up leaving the cinema midway through and poor wujin keeps apologizing for ruining the date. his spirit has deflated like a sad balloon as he fully believes you want to end it there.

but when you suggest going to the nearby arcade where both of you will definitely have fun, maybe he hasn't missed his chances at winning more dates with you.

“just a heads up, i won't go easy on you when it comes to air hockey.”

liar, he “accidentally” let the puck fall through his side many times. anything to see you smile, that's what he says when you ask him about it.

bullseye, he lands right on your heart.

© SOLEURS — 2022.  

[strawberrywritingfiction]

Golf Outing

Tom Holland x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k 

Synopsis: Invited by he and his family, you go golfing with Tom

^^^

       You were sat at the dinner table among the Holland family members. Having met the twins, Harry and Sam through friends, and having had brief interactions with Tom, the eldest- You were invited as more or less a family friend. At least, the boys’ parents were interested in you, and in the exchanges you’d had with the boys through work and mutual connections. Plus, you thought you were a relatively pleasing house guest. Nothing abnormal about it, you thought.

“You play any golf Y/n?” Harry asked you, amidst the dinner conversations.

The rest of the boys’ heads snapped up at the question posed by Harry, most of the bunch being avid golfers and all.

“Well, sort of. But I’m nowhere up to the boys’ level.” You said with a laugh.

“You should join us for a round Y/n, we’re having a go at the nearby course tomorrow,” Tom said with a smile.

“Yeah, just a casual one, for extra practice.” Sam chimed in.

“I really couldn’t. Can’t even remember the last time I held a club - I’d have to practice in advance to get remotely close to being able to play you all.”

“Nonsense,” said Dom, “We’d love to have you join- and you wouldn’t even have to play if you’re not up for it. You can just have a few hits at the range down there, If you’d like.”

Finding it difficult to say no, and feeling Tom’s gaze held on you, you impulsively agreed to join.

This brought you to where you were now- driving mid afternoon on a Sunday, having just been to a sports store trying to pick up an appropriate looking golf outfit that fit the course’s, ‘formal attire requirement.’ Along with purchasing various balls and tees. Thankfully though, you hand a spare set of clubs at home.

Upon arriving, you met the boys in cheerful spirits, clad in their golf attire. Prepped and ready for play. So, you and the Holland clan got out on the green quickly. First hole, and your driver shot was unmistakably crap. You were glad the boys hadn’t winced at the horrible shot. You tried to play off the embarrassment with conversation between hits when being driven in the cart. The boys had 2 carts out. You sat alongside Harry and Sam in one. Tom in the other with their dad.

1st shot on the second hole though, and it was equally as bad as your previous. But luckily, the boys were distracted and missed the poorly executed swing. Finally after arriving at the beginning of the third hole, however, you stepped up to the tee, and hesitated.

“Listen guys, I think I’ll step out on this one- maybe head back, or tag along for the rest, but I think I’m out on playing. Don’t want to hold you guys back,” you said with a light chuckle. You definitely had the highest score of the bunch, and you were aware that the boys were just being polite, waiting for you to hit your past chipping shots and putts, as you were moving at a slower speed than the rest of them. Then again, they could practically be pros.

“You’re not holding us back, this is all good fun, so there’s no worries if you do continue. Otherwise, one of the boys can step out of the game and join you up in the cart, to go back to the front.” Dom said, looking to his sons. The twins made no effort to offer, which was fair, as they were in front with the lowest scores. But, to your surprise, Tom offered.

“I’d be happy to, I’ve been playing a shit game anyway,” Tom said with a laugh, placing his club back in his bag and hoisting it on his shoulder, “Only, I’d be willing to play with you on the rest of the holes for practice, If you’d be up for it. I’d... I’d Like to help improve your game.”

“My game?”

“Yeah, I think with some slight improvements to that swing of yours, you could be looking decent.”

You scoffed, “You sure? I don’t think you’ve noticed, but if you continue on with just me, you’ll be here for another few hours.”

“Time well spent.” Tom said with a smile.

The rest of the boys wished you well as they drove off to continue playing, leaving you and Tom with the remaining cart.

“Right well, you have a go first.”

“Alright,” you said, fishing through your bag for a wood club.

Interrupting as you removed one from it’s bag, Tom said, “Er- hold on, let me check.”

He too dug through your clubs before picking another one- “I reckon this one here’s a good fit,” he said, handing it to you.

“Ok then, I trust you,” You said, stepping up to the tee, “you got any other tips Holland?”

“Maybe. Give me a practice swing and we’ll take it from there,” he said, stepping back from your side.

You did as you were told, and Tom kindly gave you his input.

“Right well- this arm,” he said motioning to his own, “you’ve gotta keep that straight even on impact, no getting flimsy elbows before making contact with the ball there.”

You were trying to correct yourself, copying his directions, but upon your confusion, Tom walked up behind you to help demonstrate. “Okay so this arm,” he started, his hands gripping both of your own from behind, “You’ve gotta keep it like this through your back swing,” he said, drawing your arms back behind your shoulder. You couldn’t help but loose brief focus as he gave his directions soft spoken from behind.

He stepped back to examine your practice swing, “right that looks better, but uh- may I.”

“Go for it,” You said.

“Right, so-“ he placed his hands on either side of your hips “-you wanna kind of turn your body this direction, and move the opposite knee forward as you do.” You did just as you were told.

After the few tips, and Tom was satisfied with your practice technique and form, you took the swing, proving to have a much better result.

“See? That’s so much better! Your swing will be looking like Tiger Woods’ in no time, I bet it,”

You laughed, “All thanks to you Coach.”

Next, Tom stepped up to take his own swing. You watched, and to no surprise his form was practically perfect, landing him a nice spot on the green. You complimented his swing as the two of you hopped in the cart to head over to the next ball.

You drove the cart, and the cart rides throughout the day gave the two of you an opportunity to talk. Also, on each hole Tom continued to give you tips. You admired that he was so patient, and never got frustrated with you, or exasperated if you didn’t happen to pick up his directions quickly. He claimed you significantly improved by the end of the day. Surely enough though, by the time you got out of the course, the rest of the Holland’s had left, and it was practically dark.

The two of you carried your clubs to the car park, utterly exhausted. What was meant to be casual, fun and quick, felt as if it were never-ending.

“You got a ride Tom? You asked.

“Shit, well- no, really. Harry and Sam must have taken my car back to our shared apartment,”

“I’m happy to drop you off- least I can do. You practically gave me lessons for free today, forfeited your game too.”

“Nah, It was good fun, and I’d prefer to have forfeited than to have lost another game to those twats this month,” he chuckled.

The two of you continued to chat, and on the car ride home you both stopped for some takeout at a drive-through, seeing as now it was dark and neither of you had had anything for dinner.

You thanked Tom again once whilst dropping him off, “I’d love to do this again, actually,” he said, fumbling with the strap of his bag of clubs slung over his shoulder.

“I don’t think I’m up to anymore golf for a while,” You said, with an awkward laugh.

“Well, we won’t do golf again then,” he smiled, “maybe just a dinner.”

“Sounds good,” you agreed. Saying good night, you left to head home and upon arriving, you immediately began to receive messages from the rest of the boys.

* Sam H - Already, he won’t shut up about you 😐 9:37 pm.

* Harry H - 10 bucks said he’d be too much of a wuss to ask you out before the end of tonight and I lost 🙄 9:41 pm.

^^^

[yoonpobs]

bad boy good thing x.

pairing: jeon jungkook x oc

genre: angst, smut, fluff, miscommunication (we hate her lol), pining

warnings: smut, jungkook is really an asshole, the angst hurts a lot tbh, unhealthy relationships (?)

words: 8, 711

summary: a series of drabbles where you're confused and jungkook's confusing

a/n:

so here is the mini monster chap !! i know I said this was going to be a drabble series but I clearly got carried away LOL

anyways, no spoilers for this chap but I can say it's one of my favs that I've written and I think we see oc getting the comfort that she deserves (and needs!)

and also !! this is my first time updating a series on tumblr and it feels *exciting* hehe, I hope you enjoy this chapter c:

let me know your thoughts in my asks!! i'd love to hear what you think so far :3

all the love and I hope you're having a great

day/night/evening/afternoon wherever you are ❤️

“Open up!”

The only person that would opt to yell to get your attention than ring on your doorbell like a normal person would be Yena. And it helped that you immediately recognised her voice from the first syllable she uttered. That and you were currently moping in your living room with lactose-free ice cream, courtesy of Jimin that dropped it off a day ago when he heard that you were ‘sick’. Even if you hadn’t seen him face-to-face, you remember him softly hoping you’d get better.

You don’t know why she’s at your door, but you’re already on your feet to get her when you hear her begin to mutter curses directed at you behind the thin wood of your entrance.

“I can hear you!” You call.

“Well bitch then open the damn door!” She snaps.

You roll your eyes, and so far with the number of times you’ve hung out with her, it’s safe to say that the two of you were comfortable. You never knew how fun having a girl best friend was until you met Yena, and sure it’s only been a little under two weeks since you’ve gotten to know her through various messages and FaceTimes, but you feel like she’s your friend soulmate.

And when you expressed that to her over a FaceTime call a few nights back, you remember her gagging all while you flush and attempt to take it back. You know her candidly calling you bitch rather than your name was her saying she felt the same.

You pull the door open as she stands there with her eyes narrowed into slits, eyeing you up and down before she scrunches her nose.

“There’s a thing called a shower that you should look into. You look like a rundown version of long-haired Noah Beck.” She grimaces when she eyes you up and down.

You scowl. “You did not just compare me to him.”

She clicks her tongue before she shoves you aside by shoving a plastic bag of the takeout food into your arms and steps into your apartment.

Yena ignores the glare you shoot at the back of her neck when she looks around your living room, scrunching her nose like she was here to inspect your room than pay you a visit.

“Did someone die in here or was that just your will to live?”

You scoff. “Wow. Drag me.”

She waves you off before plopping onto your couch while you sigh, immediately heading to the kitchen to prep the food she brought over.

“For a moment I thought you were dead.” She confesses casually.

When you return with bowls and plates, with the cutlery to match—you give her a dry look before you’re taking your seat on the floor; attempting to hide your half-eaten tub of ice cream, which Yena immediately spots.

“So your first instinct was to yell at my door in hopes that I wasn’t actually dead?” You ask dryly.

She picks up your ice cream and grimaces at it, silently judging you for the flavour before she gives you a shrug.

“Yeah. I was hoping that your spirit would confer.”

You snort. “And the food?”

“A peace offering.” She tells you like it’s obvious.

You sigh, you loved Yena—you really did. She was all over the place and random, but it was a refreshing difference that you needed in your life from the usual law and order you often opted for.

“Not that I don’t appreciate your concern,” You tell her, pulling out a container to see your favourite lemon chicken as you eye her suspiciously. “But what brings you here? I told you I was sick.”

Yena scoffs. “And sick you are, bitch. What kind of sick person devours ice cream? Sure, you look the part but your diet says otherwise. Don’t think I didn’t see the empty packet of snickers in the trash.”

You scowl.

“I recovered yesterday.” You lie, taking a bite out of the chicken.

Yena rolls her eyes and you know she doesn’t believe you. She leans into your couch while she watches you eat, “Namjoon texted me that you may need some company.” At that, you choke.

Her eyes widen as you hit at your chest to get the food to go down, eyes still wide at her revelation.

“Why would he do that?” You cry.

“Girl, I know you’re not trying to deflect—you’re literally about to choke and die.”

You glare at her. “I’m fine.” You cough for good measure, then you’re levelling another serious gaze at her.

“I’m fine.” You reiterate with an emphasis on your state even though you were anything but. “I don’t know why the hell he thinks I need company.” You mutter under your breath.

At this, Yena’s face softens as she leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees while you avoid her gaze; idly poking at your food.

“I don’t know either, and you don’t need to tell me anything.” She says softly. “That’s all I’m here for. To be your company, whether you need it or not.”

You don’t know how much Namjoon told her over a text message, but you don’t think it’s much. Purely because he didn’t seem like a snitch and he was too respectful to ever let other people into the business that wasn’t his own. Even at the thought, you want to groan because you essentially lured him into thinking it was okay for him to kiss you while you were … you don’t even know what the fuck was happening anymore.

“I—” You say weakly, and all Yena does is offer you a comforting smile.

For some reason, the fact that she’s here right in front of you after you spent the day crying and feeling like your heart has been repeatedly stomped over with the addition of your rumination—it feels nice to have someone with you, even if it’s just their presence.

But the way she doesn’t look at you and expects something out of your conversation makes you feel even more overwhelmed, and that’s probably why the dam breaks.

Yena’s eyes widen as she immediately darts out to wrap her arms around you when you end up in violent sobs. You don’t know why you’re crying but you are, and you’re tired of hiding things, your feelings and your intent just to pretend like things were okay.

“It’s okay.” She strokes your hair and it feels warm, like a mother comforting a crying baby and you realise that this is what friends should feel like.

“N-no it’s n-not!” You cry into her shirt and it’s messy, but she doesn’t seem like she minds. Especially when she supports your pliable frame.

“You wanna talk about it?” She asks softly, giving you a kind smile.

You sniffle, staring forward as you feel your eyes swell with the escalation of your tears.

“I don’t know.” You whisper.

She hums, “It’s okay not to know. You don’t need to know everything.”

“I’m just so tired, Yena.” You tell her in a hushed breath.

“Life is difficult.” She admits. “It’s natural to be tired.”

You’re thankful to hear that she doesn’t comfort you with blind optimism. She’s real and she acknowledges how shitty things may be, and frankly, you didn’t need another wannabe altruist telling you that things will get better. You knew that, everyone did. But when you’re at rock bottom and all you see is darkness, you’re not looking for better. You’re looking for a reason to continue.

“Can I say something?” She asks. The way she looks at you is soft and open, and non-judgemental. You feel safe.

You nod your head, teary eyes staring up at her.

“You’re not responsible for anyone’s feelings except your own.” She looks at you so seriously that you nearly feel your breath escape. “There are things that you can and cannot control—and the latter usually falls under the people around you.”

You suck in a breath, and you wonder how she’s so spot on without ever touching on the true context.

“Namjoon texted me but I didn’t come here because he asked me to. It’s because you deserve to have someone be around you when you’re clearly not okay.”

“I’m—”

“You’re not.” She blinks, and you almost pout at her firm tone. “And that’s okay. I don’t need to know what happened to justify how you feel. You could’ve stubbed your toe and feel like absolute shit and I have absolutely no right to judge you on how or when you feel emotions.”

You wonder where she’s been your entire life and why she was only in your life now.

“But the thing is,” She sighs. “You don’t always have to choose between something or the other. Sometimes you need to choose yourself.”

You stare up at her in awe because Yena was cool in general, her laidback and unbending personality was mainly what drew you to her because you’d argue you were the opposite. Even if Jungkook’s words stung, you could take it at face value and accept that it was true.

You were uptight and you were a bit of a prude, and for the longest time, you always resented that aspect of you. But you realised with Yena, she had traits that were resented in a woman as well. And you realise that you’d never be perceived the way you want unless you perceive yourself in a positive light first.

So when she speaks to you so sternly, yet with a tone of care as she picks apart her words so carefully—you realise what you have to do.

“I think I like Jungkook.”

Yena pauses for a brief second, but you don’t see any judgement in her face. Just confusion, a warranted emotion you don’t blame her for having.

“I figured as much.”

Your eyes widened, “How—?”

It’s almost like a repeat of the first night at the football game when you befriended each other, but she only shoots you a gentle smile.

“Call it a woman’s intuition.”

You blink, fiddling with your fingers before you stare up at her, continuing your drawls.

“And we kissed.”

At this, Yena cocks an eyebrow up, “Was this recent?”

You fiddle with your thumbs before you sigh and push yourself up.

“Thing is …” You mumble, “I’m not like that.”

You don’t answer her question because you can’t think of a proper enough response to tell her that yeah—you did kiss him, amongst other things that you foolishly allowed yourself to indulge in. You knew Yena wasn’t judgemental but you also knew that you couldn’t retrieve your words the moment they left your mouth. It was your own judgement that stopped you from saying the things you really wanted and it sucked, royally. Because you could tell that Yena wasn’t out here to crucify you for being … liberated. She just wanted to be there for you.

Yena scrunches her eyebrows in confusion as she allows your words to settle, pondering a response.

She settles for a huff, “Care to elaborate?”

“I don’t … do things like that.” You say softly. “I’m shy and quiet. I’m not active in the social sphere and I only have three friends that I can reach out to if I wanna hang out. But even then, I don’t … I don’t like partying, or drinking, or loud spaces. I’m awkward and horrible at social interaction let alone being able to navigate my romantic feelings. And … I felt so bad about it.”

Yena’s eyes soften, but you can’t look at her just yet. Not when this is the first time you’ve ever laid yourself vulnerable, emotionally that is, to someone that wasn’t just the confines of your thoughts.

“I always wondered what it’d like to be confident, to be liked on campus and not just be known as the smart girl.” You whisper. “My entire personality was built around my achievements and I didn’t know what else to do. What if … what if I peak here and fail after?” Your eyes are wide in despair, and you feel your lips quiver when you speak.

“You’ll never know.” Yena reminds you gently. “You won’t know who likes you or what people say about you—but you’re going to be hearing your own thoughts 24/7 and that’s what kicks you down or drives you further.”

You sigh, nodding your head.

“It’s just … Jungkook and I were close. We grew up together even if he’s younger than me. But we just got along well and he … he saw me. He used to comfort me whenever I’d tell him how pressuring it got and—I feel so stupid because he probably says that to everyone and I fell for it.” You chuckle with no emotion, staring at the stray thread poking outside of your couch pillow.

“Have you spoken to him about your feelings?” She asks softly.

Immediately, you scoff and the sour emotion peaks through again.

“He’s made it clear what he wants to hear from me.” You mutter.

Yena purses her lips before resting her hands gently on your shoulder.

“You’re not answering my question, ______.” She chides gently.

You nibble on your bottom lip and shake your head. That earns a sigh from her as she wraps her arms around you once again, resting her chin on your shoulder as you allow yourself to feel the comfort of her warmth.

“He kissed me first and we did things together.” Your lips quiver when you recall the memories, “A-And he’s with Jennie. I just …” You flutter your eyes shut, “I don’t want to say that I’m the other girl but I feel a lot like a second option and it sucks.”

Yena doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t need to. She doesn’t need to justify why you felt the way you did, so she holds you tighter.

“Babe.” She gently turns you to look at her with both hands resting on your shoulders. “Did you talk to him? Properly? Do you really know if he’s with her?”

“I think them kissing proves enough to me.” You snap, and you don’t know why you’re being so hostile, especially to Yena.

She purses her lips, “You kissed him and you aren’t together.”

You wince and she shoots you an apologetic look. She sighs before reaching out to squeeze your hand, all while you stare at the ground to level out your emotions.

“I’m not saying that you can’t feel the way you do. But I’m offering objectivity here. Men are … they’re blunt creatures and that’s the biggest difference between men and women.” You furrow your eyebrows as she takes a deep breath before she continues. “And the idea that we’re equal? No, we’re not. I’m not talking about our systemic positions in society but on an emotional level. Men take things surface value and work with it, they don’t stop to think about the layers of feelings that go into interpersonal relationships with friends, family or lovers. Women? We go big or we go home. All we see is the big picture and sometimes the little details get lost in translation. This isn’t me justifying Jungkook playing home with you or Jennie at the same time, but offering you a perspective that may be hard for you to see because you aren’t him.”

It was true, and you hated yourself for being aware but not putting action based on your own thoughts. Yena only reaffirmed the idea that you overthought every single interaction and maybe that was why you were the one that was hurting.

That, or you and Jungkook had horrible communication problems that neither of you was ready to face just yet. But how could you? When the two of you were on two different wavelengths and you were trying to be just enough for him while he was jumping off pedestals to see you.

It didn’t feel nice, and it sucked because he was the same person that comforted you and broke you all at once.

“I’m scared.” You whisper.

She smiles at you gently, patting your head gently as you peer up at her with tears between your lashes.

“And that’s okay.” She reassures you with a soft voice, “The only thing scarier than being scared is not feeling at all.”

Before you go to where your heart tells you to—your mind is the only thing that keeps you rooted in some form of rationale. That’s probably why you’re outside of Namjoon’s dorm. You don’t think you’ve ever paid his place a visit despite him telling you his address on multiple occasions, usually opting to hang out in public yet serene places where you were able to get a breather.

Your feet feel heavy and your fist is raised, but it barely moves. Especially when you’re just eyeing his door like a deer caught in headlights. You’ve rehearsed the apology on your tongue a million times, even if you don’t really know what you’re apologising for. But you feel like you must, particularly because you’ve senselessly let him see all of the feelings that you were trying to suppress in hopes of retaining the same ones he had for you.

You take a deep breath and deliver the first knock, the vibrations making your arm feel weak.

But you’re tired of always surrendering to bigger and more frightening things that you could understand. So you purse your lips and play the waiting game.

It seems like a long twenty minutes that you wait, but in reality, it’s only two when the door swings open. You brace yourself to see Namjoon, apology already sitting on your tongue.

You should’ve dropped a text, you knew that. But you decided against it because you haven’t spoken to Namjoon since what happened a few days ago. Neither of you speaking about the kiss or the way your eyes glistened when you saw Jungkook and Jennie together.

“____?” He asks confusedly.

You give him a meek smile, “Hi. Can I come in?”

He blinks at you, and you notice he still has his glasses that he usually forgoes during the times you’ve hung out—and you feel a little guilty for catching him at a bad time.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Sure.”

Namjoon steps aside and you’re welcomed into the space of his living room. The first thing you notice is the interior, and how … Namjoon it was. It’s both cluttered and neat, the palette of his furniture matching the overall vibe he emanated. His furniture is mostly wood, light sandalwood that makes it feel all the homier.

And you tell him such, “You have a very homey place.”

Namjoon turns his head to look at you right before he plops himself back onto his couch where you see the bits and pieces of paper scrambled across the floor and the couch. Even then, he was able to look so welcoming even though you reckon he has a right to be hostile—for a reason you came here to apologise for.

“Thank you.” He flushes, patting a spot in front of him for you to take your seat.

When you settle, the atmosphere turns strained when you mull over your words so that you wouldn’t stumble over them. You practised, you did—about a hundred times before you came here and you thought you were ready to apologise and put things behind you but it’s proven difficult when all he does is look at you in earnest.

“Not that I—uh—mind,” He mumbles, “But is there a reason why you’re here?”

You blink at him as you ignore the quiver in your heart.

“I’m sorry.” You blurt.

“_____ why are you—”

“You didn’t deserve what happened the other day.” You interject, voice soft but unwavering when you force yourself to look at him as his eyes widen.

“I wasn’t the one that saw something I shouldn’t have.” He reminds you with a frown.

You swallow, “I kissed you. And you …” It wasn’t helping that he was looking at you so gently as he awaits your continuation. “You didn’t need to save me back then, Namjoon.” You end in a whisper.

Namjoon reaches out to grab your shoulder, touch gentle as he searches for your eyes.

“I didn’t save you …” He tells you tenderly.

“It’s not just that!” You exasperate while you throw your hands up in the air. “I-it’s everything … from the way you treat me and the way you look at me. You didn’t need to do any of that and you even—” You trail off, fluttering your eyes shut. “—what did you say to Jungkook right before we left?”

Namjoon’s eyes enlarge as his grip becomes tense against your shoulder. You can almost see the way his mind kicks into gear as he thinks of a response.

“That—I—does it matter?” He huffs.

Your eyes soften, “Namjoon.” You force yourself to look at him even if now he was the one that tries to avoid your gaze. “What did you say?”

Namjoon tightens his lips before he sighs deeply, head dropping forward before he looks at you.

“I told him to be honest.” He says softly.

You furrow your eyebrows, “To be honest …?”

“I know you have feelings for him.”

Your face blanches when Namjoon basically exposes you. It’s one thing for you to be self-aware of your complicated feelings towards the other boy. But when someone else points it out, especially when it’s Namjoon—the boy who’s been nothing but kind and patient with you while you’re too busy being caught up in your emotions—it’s like a slap across your face.

“I-I don’t—”

“You don’t need to lie to save my face, ______.” He chuckles dryly, eyes darting away as he tries to neutralise his expression. You wince at the spite he establishes, but you know deep down that Namjoon isn’t angry at you. No, he was far too understanding to be. Disappointed? Frustrated? Sure, but never angry,

The silence answers for you when you look away this time, eyebrows scrunched as you attempt to navigate the conversation. You came here to apologise, and to be honest.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper.

“Don’t.” He takes a deep breath as you flinch. “Don’t … apologise.” He sighs.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on, Namjoon.” You murmur apologetically.

He shoots you a half-hearted chuckle, “You didn’t do anything. Really.”

“But I did, Namjoon. I kissed you back.” You frown.

“That doesn’t imply anything. I kissed you, and you reciprocated. We all kiss someone and not mean anything by it.”

You flinch, and you’re familiar with that more than anyone else. The reminder only stings because it makes you realise that you were not much different from Jungkook, the same person you’ve claimed to have messed with you and fucked you over.

“I’m—”

“Please don’t apologise anymore.” He says. “I already feel like shit.”

You smile sadly at him, “How do you manage to be so nice even when other’s do you wrong?”

Namjoon sighs, then he grabs both your hands in his. “You didn’t wrong me, _____. It’s not your fault you don’t feel the same way I do.”

“How did you …” You trail off.

“How did I know you had feelings for Jungkook?” He chuckles. “The same way he knew I had feelings for you.”

You purse your lips, eyes dropping to your lap. “It’s not that simple, Namjoon …” You say softly.

Namjoon smiles at you gently, “Is it?” He gently nudges your knee with his so that you’d look at him. “Life is simple. It’s not easy. But it’s simple.”

You scoff even if a small smile teases your lips, “You really are a philosophy major, aren’t you?”

The two of you grin in tandem before he purses his lips, possible mulling over something before he faces you.

“The two of you are close so … why beat around the bush?”

Your eyes flutter shut, shaking your head. “Like I said, it’s really not that simple.”

He rolls his eyes at you, but it’s not to mock or taunt you. Namjoon simply sees a naive, yet an intelligent girl who doesn’t see what’s right in front of her.

“Remember what I said? I’m a simple guy.” He reminds you, lips in a grin. “Try me.”

You snort, but you’re still nervous. You still remember that he has feelings for you, so you’re hesitant. And he immediately recognises the guilt-ridden expression that you mar.

Namjoon shoots you a stern glare, “Don’t overthink it.”

You sigh.

“Jungkook and I …” You start, fiddling with your thumbs. “We grew up together.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes and shoots you another one of his bland stares. “I know the history. I just want to know why?”

You furrow your brows, “Why?”

“Why the two of you insist on being so emotionally constipated.”

You gape at his audacity, and you’re glad the atmosphere isn’t as tense because Namjoon simply snickers at your reaction.

“I am not—!”

He waves you off, “Really?” He adds dryly.

You purse your lips and relent, even if you didn’t want to agree with him—you knew that he was … right. To a certain extent.

“We kissed.” You blurt.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, “That’s not surprising.”

You shoot him a dry look before he raises his hands in defence.

“He was my first kiss.”

At this, Namjoon’s widen.

“When you were in high school?” He pries.

You flush, embarrassed that you had to tell him otherwise.

“Two months ago.” You mutter.

Namjoon splutters, and you can’t help but glare at him when he quite literally chokes on his spit. You know you caught him off guard, but him rubbing salt in the wound that’s relatively fresh makes you scowl.

“Oh.” He clears his throat. Then he repeats, “Oh.”

You scoff, “Yeah. Oh.”

“Then … what happened?” You know he’s treading carefully with you when he asks you his question softly.

You purse your lips, and you recall every single moment you’ve shared with him. From giggles to hushed kisses, to intimate touches and sweat-stained sheets that have you gasping for air. You remember it all, and they meant … they meant the world to you, but just a speck in his memory.

“Things escalated and we … did stuff together.” You wince.

Namjoon nods in understanding, he gestures his hands around, “Like—”

“I’m a virgin.”

Namjoon blinks.

“And for the longest time, I felt embarrassed about it.”

“Oh.”

“I struggled to find my footing between being sexually liberated and being a woman because for the longest time I thought those two were mutually exclusive. For me, at least.” You say softly.

Namjoon only stares at you.

“And I always wanted validation from someone else to tell me that what I was doing was the right thing to do. Or the supposed thing to do. Never what I really wanted to do.”

“Not that I’m uncomfortable but … why are you letting me in on this?” Namjoon asks with a raised brow.

“Because I want to do something for myself for once.” You whisper.

“Okay …?”

“Why do you like me? Even if I’m … boring and not as sexy as other women?”

You sound pathetic, and the first person you find yourself comparing yourself to is Jennie—a beautiful, confident woman who looked so assured in herself.

“You’re not—”

You groan.

“Namjoon.”

“Okay.” He sighs. “If you’re asking me if I care that you’re a virgin, then no. I really don’t. Because frankly, that concept to me is false and problematic. Whether or not you’ve had sex or not isn’t any of my business.”

You duck your head.

“And I like you because you’re interesting. You’re funny and you’re assured in your own way. You don’t need to be a certain standard of pretty or sexy or whatever for me to like you. I like you because of the time we’ve spent together and that I’ve gotten to know you. The real you and not the person I admired from afar but the girl who throws in jokes out of nowhere but fits so well with the situation. The girl who’s willing to spend three extra hours of her time to help with content that wasn’t prescribed to her. I like you because I’d like to think I’ve grown to understand who you are.”

Namjoon says all of those things while staring at you straight in the face and you feel compelled to cry. Because no one has ever been so honest with you and you hate that your heart can’t reciprocate what should be an easy feeling that comes naturally.

“Fuck.”

His eyes widen.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He coos, a hand petting your hair gently as you sniffle.

“It’s not, Namjoon. Everything sucks because everything is so complicated. Why can’t I just have feelings for you instead?”

It’s selfish, and Namjoon winces. But you’re so overwhelmed that you miss it, and Namjoon is too nice to point his own feelings out.

“You don’t pick and choose your battles, _____.” He murmurs softly.

“That’s not what my mom told me.” You whimper.

He chuckles, “Yeah. Most people like to believe that because it makes them think that they have a choice over the bad things that happen in their lives. But in reality? They don’t. No one decides what happens to them. You pick and choose how you react to things. How you deal with situations and what you make out of those situations is what you can choose to do. You don’t like me, and that’s fine. You don’t have to just because I’m nice to you, _____. Being nice is the absolute bare minimum and something that everyone should feel and do.”

Your face crumbles, “Why are you so wise?”

Namjoon smiles, “I’m not. It’s called offering a different perspective. Just because I see things one way doesn’t make me any better than you who sees things in another. That’s why we meet different types of people throughout our lives. The good, the bad, the in-between. There’s always something people offer to us in the midst of chaos.”

You sigh.

“I’m sorry, Namjoon.”

He pats your head, “I said don’t apologise.”

“No, but I want to. You’ve been nothing but kind to me and you picked up a shitty situation to be in when Jungkook and Jennie were at the library. Even right after I kissed you. That was … a horrible thing to do. I shouldn’t have done that just because—just because I was confused … you don’t deserve that.”

He doesn’t look angry, and that’s even worst because you want him to react, to call you a bitch and say that you were a horrible person.

“I don’t.” He shrugs while you wince. “But a lot of the times we don’t deserve a lot of things that we get. And that’s okay. You did what you thought was justified then, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. But you’re hurting too, and you’re confused—that’s what drove you to do the things that you did, and even here. That’s why you’re apologising to me, right? Because you’re not as confused anymore?”

You shake your head.

“I am, I’m still so confused.” You whisper.

“Then let me offer you another perspective.”

You look up to him with big eyes as he smiles at you gently.

“You have feelings for Jungkook.” You immediately flinch, even if he didn’t hit you. But Namjoon continues. “You’re trying to keep the picture as simple as you can even if it hurts you in the process. But

“You don’t understand, Namjoon … we … did things … that I’m not proud off …”

“You don’t have to—”

“He was my first kiss. My first … sexual experience. Even if it was just … third base,” You cringe, but Namjoon isn’t judging you at all. “A-and that’s all I was to him. An experience.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Do I, Namjoon?” You say softly. “He said things to me that were so hurtful. And a stupid part of me forgives him but it still hurts every time I think about it and when I see him with Jennie.”

You whisper the words Jungkook’s said to you, and for the first time, you see Namjoon’s jaw harden. The most emotion that wasn’t rationale you’ve seen in Namjoon ever since you first arrived.

“I know it hurts.” He murmurs, holding you close. “And I really don’t want it to seem like I’m justifying his words … but would you want to hear me out?”

You purse your lips and nod nevertheless.

“Jungkook isn’t a bad person.” You blink, you never thought he was. “I know you don’t think he is but you want to. Because of the things he’s said to you because why would a good person say those kinds of things, right? But the world isn’t black and white like that. There’s a grey area where 99% of the population falls into because we operate on emotion and sometimes we say things that we may feel but not necessarily believe in.”

“Jungkook … he’s still young. And I know we’re in college and stuff but he’s still three years younger than I am and two years younger than you. He’s spoken to me about how hard it was to adjust to a high school life where you, Jimin and Tae weren’t a part of. And I don’t know about you but if the only friends I’ve ever known suddenly left because they had to … I wouldn’t know what to do either. He was at a point in his life where his environment played a huge part in the values and internalised beliefs he had.”

You look away as you reflect on his words, nibbling on your bottom lip.

“He mixed around with different groups of people, and I hate this saying but it’s still a common belief to many—especially people his age, almost out of high school. But the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality is more than just misogyny and sexism, but a culture where it feeds off complacency and peer pressure. Jungkook suddenly had to shift from three, good friends who were progressive and influential in an objectively good way to people he was obliged to like because they were his peers.”

You gape at him, purely because you knew that Namjoon was smart and wise but his introspection leaves you breathless and enlightened.

“But that doesn’t change the core of Jungkook,” Namjoon says. “He’s still Jungkook. He doesn’t know how to ask for things that he wants without feeling like he’s betraying his masculinity. And again, I’m not justifying his actions because he’s a grown man too. But he’s lost, and the only thing he knows to uphold this sense of masculinity is by being sexually liberated. Even if he conflates his own emotions with his endeavours.”

“I … I don’t even know what to say Namjoon.” You murmur, eyes looking up through your lashes.

“You don’t need to say anything. I just want you to be honest to yourself, not anyone else. But yourself.” He tells you, carding a gentle hand over your head.

You fiddle with your thumbs.

“What do you want?”

Despite you confiding two different people, you find yourself at a convenience store at 12AM, scarfing down ramen from a cup noodle because your mind was a funny place when it was muddled with a hundred different thoughts. You knew sleep wasn’t an option for you either, and you were hungry. But somehow you didn’t have anything back in your apartment that screamed ‘I’m in a crisis’ enough for you to eat.

Which is why you’re here, while the cashier keeps his eyeball to himself when he sees yet another college student who’s probably having their third mental breakdown of the day.

It is, but not for the right reasons, you think dryly.

You think you’re alone until the chime of the bell momentarily distracts you and you turn your head to acknowledge the next lone customer who may be going through their own set of issues, or had a fucked up sleeping schedule.

But you’re not expecting to make eye contact with Jennie, out of everyone or any stranger you could’ve come across.

She spots you, shoots you a weird look that has you nearly choking on a string of noodles before she moves on to what she came here to do and stops at the snack section, skimming through her options before she settles on a pack of shrimp chips. Your heart churns because they were Jungkook’s favourite. You don’t want to wonder why she picked them.

You turn to your noodles, scarf them down some more because you want to eat your thoughts away even if you’re half-considering to call Jungkook, tell him you wanted to talk. But you knew that if you spoke to him now when you were still sorting out your thoughts, you’d end up in a situation you won’t be ready to deal with.

So when you poke at your food and sigh to yourself, you almost miss the way the stool beside you scrapes against the floor as you cringe.

You turn to shoot a petty glare at the person, and you see Jennie; casually tearing open her chips and popping one into her mouth

You blink at her, and you’re left even more speechless when she juts her hand out as if to offer you a shrimp cracker. Like it was a weird symbol of a truce. Even if you weren’t really … enemies.

“Want some?”

You stare at her, and before you can think twice your lips are moving.

“The crackers or your company?” You say dryly.

Her eyes widen, and so does yours. You didn’t expect to say your exact thoughts and you don’t think she expected a quiet, timid girl like you to have said that—out loud at least. Like Yena said, everyone has a mean bone in them. Some longer and larger than others, but they were still there.

“Wow.” She huffs, but she doesn’t seem offended. “Rude, much?”

You wince and feel compelled to apologise. “Sorry.”

She waves you off and you feel odd to be sitting next to her. You always expected her to be more malicious, a lot more of a bitch. And you frown to yourself because you suppose it’s your own preconceived notions of her due to the association she has with Jungkook that had you thinking of her that way.

“What’s someone like you doing here on a weekday?” She asks off-handedly.

The term ‘someone like you’ doesn’t sit well with you, and you scowl.

“I’m eating. What does it look like?” You retort, and Jennie only raises an eyebrow at your response. Much like an angry kitten.

“Damn, I was just asking.” She mutters under her breath, “I’m hungry. Needed a snack.” She shakes the crackers in front of you, “You sure you don’t want one?”

You can’t believe her as you gape at her easy-going state when she thrusts the bag of crackers into your face yet again.

“No.” You furrow your brows, gently pushing it away as she shrugs her shoulders.

“It’s good.” She reasons, and you don’t know why she’s so adamant about having you take one.

The irrational part of you thinks she wants to poison you, to eliminate you for good so she won’t have to deal with your pathetic pining over a person that wasn’t even yours.

“I know.” You mutter. “I tried it before.”

Jennie nods her head slowly, observing the content of the packet on the back before she turns to face you, “Jungkook introduced this to me. Didn’t see the appeal but it’s addictive.”

You freeze, and your ramen soup is getting cold with the way you haven’t prodded at it for a while and in the air-conditioning in the convenience store. You feel your stomach drop, especially now that your initial suspicions were confirmed.

“That’s nice.” You grit. It really isn’t.

“Did he introduce it to you?” She asks with a tilt of her head.

Why you’re still talking to her, or why she was bothering to talk to you when she’s ignored you all this while—you aren’t sure. But you still answer her despite the spite that forms in your chest.

“I introduced it to him.” You inform.

She hums, unbothered. It only irritates you more.

“Is there a reason?” You huff. “Why you’re here?”

She raises an eyebrow, “I’m hungry?”

You scoff. “No.” You slam the table ever so slightly because even if you were annoyed and confused, you weren’t that brave and you didn’t want to cause a scene at a convenience store at midnight. “Why are you here. Talking to me.”

Jennie blinks at you, then stares at you for seconds too long that you flush under her unwavering stare before she ends up in a fit of giggles. You almost think she’s here to mock you, to call you out on your pathetic and humiliating pining for someone who doesn’t care about you the same way you do to him. But she pats you on the shoulder, and you want to think it’s condescending but it doesn’t seem that way at all.

“You’re an acquaintance. You looked like you needed the company.”

You frown, “I don’t.”

She rolls her eyes, munching on another chip.

“You do. Your posture looks depressing.”

“Excuse me?” You scowl.

“It’s true.” She shrugs. “You don’t seem the type to be here wallowing unless it’s really bad. You seem like you have your shit together.”

And because your mind is already muddled and confused, and filled with irrational thoughts. Her words set you off, and you seem to be underrating or overreacting more than usual. So you snap, you shove your cup aside that the soup nearly sloshes out and send her a glare so blazing that Jennie’s caught off guard.

“And you think you know me well enough to gauge whether or not I’m ‘like this’ or the type to have a perfect mental breakdown regimen because I’m smart?” You seethe. Jennie’s eyes widen. “I have mental breakdowns like every other student and I binge eat when I’m stressed and I fuck up from time to time. I curse, yes! I see your face. Oh does she not curse? Well, look at me, bitch. I can curse like a motherfucking sailor at sea when the fishes come because I’m human. I’m just like you. So fuck off with your ‘you seem like you have your shit together’ because I don’t and I’m so fucking annoyed with your stupid face whenever I see it because it only reminds me of Jungkook!”

The silence is defining, even the cashier stops counting his bills for the night because you don’t hear the rubbing of money together. You feel his stare on your back, and more pressingly, you feel Jennie’s shocked expression linger on your face, and now that you’ve come down from your rage. Your face heats up in embarrassment.

You don’t even recall what you said, except for the fact you’ve mentioned her and Jungkook in the same sentence. And your face pales.

“I …” She chokes.

You flush, before you’re turning away, snatching your belongings to leave and forget this convenience store and never return because you don’t think you can show your face here ever again.

But before you’re able to make a run for it, a hand grabs your elbow that stops you from moving any further.

“This is already as embarrassing—” You exasperate, trying to snatch your arm away.

“For a girl so smart, you’re really dumb, aren’t you?” She deadpans.

You gape, finding enough strength to retrieve your arm as you stare at her with a dumbfounded expression.

“Excuse me—?”

“Firstly, let’s unpack what you just said because there are a lot of things that need to be dissected here.” She says blankly.

You scowl, “Look I don’t—”

“One.” She blinks as if she was doing a presentation for a course and not talking to an alleged acquaintance. “I don’t think you should act a certain way just because you’re smart. You’re entitled to your own mechanisms and I’m not judging you for them. I was simply pointing out my own observations, and I’m sorry for being insensitive.”

You’re stunned to silence, because did Jennie just … apologise to you?

“Two.” She says. You listen silently. “I think you have things you need to talk to Jungkook about, and frankly—I would’ve stayed away if I knew that the two of you were a thing.”

“We’re not a thing!” You cry, face flushed.

She shoots you an unimpressed look, “Really. So that oddly targeted blow-up was because of your mental breakdown and not because you don’t have feelings for Jungkook?”

She’s the third person to call you out the same day, or within the first one in the next. And it’s even more embarrassing because it’s the girl you’ve compared yourself to countless times because of your own insecurities.

“Yes.” You snap childishly.

Jennie sighs, gesturing for you to sit on the stool. You want to defy her out of spite, but you’ve already gotten this far into the conversation and you feel like you’d miss out on something if you left now.

“Why are you mad at me?” She asks.

“I-I’m not mad—” You weakly protest.

“You are. There’s anger in you and if it’s not directed to Jungkook then it’s directed to me. Is it because I’m a woman?”

Your eyes widen, “What—?”

“Let me reword that,” She sighs. “Is it because I’m the woman with Jungkook?”

You flinch at her declaration, especially since she indirectly confessed to being with him, while you weren’t.

“I don’t …” You trail off in a whisper.

“I don’t blame you for being angry.” She says. “But I need you to understand that I would never have done anything with him if I knew that the two of you were together.”

“We’re not.” You blink, and her unimpressed look is still there that makes you speak a little louder. “We’re not together.”

She opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it. You see her furrow her eyebrows before she settles for a response that comes a few moments after.

“Okay, then if you’re not together then why the resentment?” She puts it so simply and now that you’re listening to her, you feel a lot stupider.

“I just …” You croak, fiddling with your fingers, “I don’t …”

She sighs, “Listen. We’re both women here. I know how it feels to be left in the dark when it comes to things like this but there’s no point in being angry at me when in reality it’s Jungkook you need to talk to. If you aren’t together then I don’t understand why you’re angry with me—or with him.”

You sit there in silence, nearly pouting like a scolded child.

“You’re his type.” You say softly.

Jennie pauses before she raises an eyebrow.

“And you believe that?”

You furrow your eyebrows, “I mean, of course?” You mumble, “You’re pretty, confident and sexy. Any guy would like you.”

For a moment, you think you’ve said too much. Looked to vulnerable. But Jennie doesn’t do the typical mean girl thing where she laughs in your face and threatens to expose you. Instead, her eyes soften, and her hand reaches out to hold yours.

“____.” She calls your name gently, and you look away, embarrassed. “You’re pretty. You’re confident. You are sexy.”

You flush, “No. I’m not.”

She scoffs, “_____, there isn’t a set definition of what a pretty woman is like. Nor is there a one-dimensional understanding of a confident woman. There are confident women who strut in their walk and commands all the attention in the room. But there are also quiet, assured women who are intelligent and confident in their capabilities. Both of them are so different, but the one thing that they have in common?” She prompts as your eyebrows furrow. “They’re both women who are worthy of love.”

You blink up at her when her tone goes softer.

“I don’t think I’m Jungkook’s type.” She tells you.

But for some reason you need to deny it, again.

“I think you are.” You mumble, “You’re … you. And you’re probably … experienced.” You cringe at what you say, and you’re mortified if you need to explain yourself to her. But Jennie immediately picks up on it, and you don’t notice how she tenses for a split second but recovers immediately.

“We’ve done things together, yes.” You feel your heart shatter, “But you don’t have to do anything with him for him to like you.”

You sigh, “Maybe. But that's the only way he’s ever wanted me.” You say so softly that Jennie almost doesn’t catch it.

Jennie’s face softens much more, turning into a much gentler expression as she nudges your chin to look at her. And when you do, you feel wounded. You feel so much less assured than you were when you were raging at her. You hated it, how she treated you so kindly when she should’ve been cursing at you like you did to her.

“Do you want to know something?” She asks.

You nibble on your lips before you nod your head.

“If someone doesn’t want you. It’s not because you’re lacking. It’s because they’re lacking the sense to perceive you in a way that recognises your inherent worth to be loved.”

Your breath hitches and Jennie continues.

“I’ve had instances where men didn’t want to sleep with me because I was too confident, too sexually liberated for them. As if who I slept with mattered because it wasn’t them. It was never going to be them.”

“I didn’t sleep with Jungkook.” You tell her, voice soft as if you needed to clarify.

“And you don’t need to. You don’t need to sleep with anyone for them to want you. If Jungkook only wants you for your body then he doesn’t deserve you.” She points out.

You feel your heart clench, and the realisation coming from Jennie only hurts even more.

“But he’s important to me …” You whisper.

“What’s important is not always what’s good for you.” She informs you with a gentle smile. “Your sexuality is yours. And if you want to sleep or be sexual with someone, you do it because you want to. Not because someone coerced you into doing it.”

Your eyes widened, “N-No. Jungkook didn’t force me. I consented. To all of it.” You murmur, “I wanted to do it. B-But I just felt so … lacking? In comparison and … since then all he’s came to me for was just … that.”

Jennie nibbles on her bottom lip, “Jungkook’s not a bad person.” She says softly. And she’s the second person that tells you that. So you know it’s a true reflection of his character.

“I know.”

She smiles, “We both do.” She nods, “But he’s misguided. He’s never had the ability to be with someone he really cares for and I think when that happened—he dealt with it the only way he knows how to.”

You furrow your brows, “But he’s with you.”

She shakes her head with a small chuckle, “No. Not emotionally, at least.” She informs. “And he doesn’t care about me. I know. He’s always kept me at arms-length away, and I’m fine with that because I don’t like him like that either.”

You blink, and your ears turn red. “H-How do you—?”

“How do I separate lust from affection?” She laughs. “It’s because I can. Not everyone can do that, and Jungkook is one of them.”

“But you just said that he didn’t care about you.”

“I’m not talking about me,” She smiles sadly.

Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion until you realise what she was implying. And you don’t want to assume anything, never. Because hope was the one feeling that was worse than fear and you didn’t want to subject yourself to that just yet.

“Oh.” You mumble.

She nods, squeezing your hand.

“I think he misses you.”

You purse your lips.

You missed him, too.

[icehot13]

A lovely commenter on A Matter Decided asked for a little fic of Boba’s POV of the beginning of the fic and I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF BECAUSE HE’S REALLY, REALLY SAD. 

           “Can you order me coffee?” Boba leaned against his doorway, tried not to look pitiful. Peli didn’t even look at him.

           “When’s the last time you left the office?” And – well. Yesterday, technically. He’d spent the night in his office; he hadn’t seen much of a point to going home. Why bother making the drive all the way back to his condo, just to sleep from midnight to six, and then come right back? It was a weak debate he had with himself at least every other week, and then he’d end up sleeping in his office every time.

           “What’s that have to do with it?”

           “Get it yourself.”

           “I’m busy.”

           “No one’s too busy for a twenty minute break.” Peli didn’t even pause in her typing, though she did cast a critical look over her shoulder at him. “Go. Don’t check your email while you’re out.”

           It wasn’t quite a sulk, but Boba did give a sigh she very pointedly ignored before he headed for the elevators. It wasn’t even a good day to be outside; it was drizzling and cold outside, miserable weather to be walking in, so he decided Peli would have to be satisfied with a quarter of a block distance from the office, and went to the nearest Starbucks.

           The line was practically out the door, one of the reasons he preferred to call in orders for someone else to pick up. Maybe it was petulant, but he scrolled through his emails while he slipped into line.

           “Do you know the difference between a macchiato and a latte?” Cara’s voice, from just a few spots ahead in line. Boba ducked his head, hoped she wouldn’t notice him.

           “I only ever see macchiatos come in caramel.” And – okay. That voice had Boba peeking over. That was Din, the most gorgeous man Boba had ever seen at the firm. Boba had a hard time resisting glancing his way whenever he was around.

           “I don’t think that’s the differentiating factor,” Cara said. “Although I’m probably asking the wrong person anyways.”

           “Is there anything wrong with getting the same thing every time? It’s a great drink.”

           “It’s literally just iced coffee, Din.”

           God, he was good-looking. Boba couldn’t stop gazing at the broadness of Din’s shoulder, at the flash of dimple when he smiled. He always seemed very sweet, too, not that Boba had ever spoken to him directly. There didn’t seem to be much point of doing that, it wasn’t like he’d like Boba and had never so much as glanced his way. Still, though; he looked so good.

           And later that afternoon, when Boba found out he was being given a couple more junior associates for his case, asked if there was anyone particular he wanted – it was stupid, pointless, but. He asked for Din.

 --

           Wednesday was bad. Wednesday was really fucking bad. It was embarrassing, that it wasn’t just work upsetting him. Trial prep was a disaster, he had more than enough to distress him at work, but here he was, in a miserable mood because he’d had to, what, socialize for a fucking hour? He’d had to attend a lunch with a few other partners and he hated things like that, because it wasn’t strictly focused on work and he hated that, didn’t ever know what to say or who to talk to and felt so stupid and anxious and was embarrassingly hostile because of it. To make matters worse, Cobb was there, because of course he was, being perfectly friendly and outgoing and effortlessly charming with everyone in the vicinity, and Boba couldn’t even get through civil conversations. He’d been seated next to Emily, who was perfectly nice and asked how he’d been doing, and he’d snapped fine like an asshole. It was humiliating, but better than actually trying and ending up a stammering, shy mess.

           He was definitely taking it out on his team, he knew that. There was no fucking reason to be yelling at Fennec Shand for losing a document that had obviously not left the building, but that’s what he was doing. Was somehow always doing, things just – just got away from him, became too much to handle.

           “I’m just going to run over and reprint,” Fennec said, “we’ll just get another copy, so it’ll be the same and –” God, what was it about this that was so frustrating to him, he hated it, maybe it was the too-familiar nervous babbling, maybe it was that he couldn’t make anything work right today, not finding this goddamn deposition, not himself, nothing. And now he just – just tangled up in how frustrated and angry he felt, and they were just about to all go home for the night, so he’d just, what, take this home with him? He dreaded going home with such a bitterness it hurt.

           “I understand the point of copies,” he snarled back, “what I don’t understand is why you think it’s acceptable to lose documents.”

           “Oh! I remember who has it, they weren’t supposed to leave the room with it. I’m sorry. I’ll go grab it. I can bring it to your office?” Fennec nearly fled, and that was when Boba saw whose office they were in front of, and fuck, fuck, it was Din’s. Din was – was so sweet and soft-spoken, Boba burned with embarrassment at the thought of Din hearing him losing his temper with Fennec. It was just… nothing like how nice Din was. Boba slunk closer to the office, stepped into his doorway. Even that made Din flinch away from him, and Boba wanted to recoil in shame.

           “Sorry,” he managed. “For, uh. Scaring you.” He fidgeted with his watch before he realized he was doing it, tried to stop. “Din, right?” Which was a stupid thing to say, he knew who Din was, but this was what he always did, fucked up simple social interactions.

           “Um. Yes.” Din looked nearly terrified, brown eyes wide behind his glasses. God, he was so handsome. “Do you, um. Is there something I should – I can do?”

           “You’re done,” Boba said, and it sounded so stupid out loud. He meant – their workday was over, that was what he’d meant, but Din was tensing up and looking even more afraid.

           “I’m –done?”

           “No, shit, no, sorry,” Boba babbled out, and this was going so badly, this was the worst. “For the night. Everyone’s going home. You’re not – you’re fine.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looked away, wished he hadn’t even tried to apologize in the first place. “Sorry.”

           That was all he could handle, and he left before he could say anything else embarrassing. God, he was so bad at this, bad at everything like this, and if he hid in his office for another hour before leaving because he didn’t want to run into anyone, well. Wasn’t like going home an hour later made a difference when he was just going home to a different empty room to be trapped in reliving the ways he’d humiliated himself today.

           On the way out, though, there was still a light coming from Din’s office; Boba was determined not to backtrack and take the long way out to avoid him, because that was too pathetic. And – Din hadn’t gone home yet. He was asleep at his desk, and was this Boba’s fault somehow? Did he think he couldn’t leave until everyone else already have, because he thought Boba was angry with him? Had practically accidentally fired him? One interaction with Din, one, and Boba had hurt him. This was why he hadn’t spoken to Din before, this was why he never should have asked to have Din come to his team. He’d – tomorrow, he’d apologize somehow, without actually talking to Din and risking hurting him again, and that would be – not enough, but it was all he could do.

 --

           Sneaking into Din’s office to bring him coffee wasn’t the apology Din deserved, but it was the only thing Boba could trust himself to handle. He went early enough that Din was still sleeping, left an iced coffee on Din’s desk, and spent the morning worrying that he’d overstepped. It was probably the wrong thing to have done, he needed to actually apologize, but he was just – just so scared to make it worse.

           It gnawed at Boba, as the day wore on. He didn’t want Din to… to be scared of him. Liking him was obviously out of the question, but it was unbearable, to know he’d made Din look as panicky as Boba had felt earlier that day. He knew that feeling.

           When he needed someone to pull files and help sorting through them, he pretended to be braver than he felt, and asked Peli to call Din over. He still hadn’t figured out the right thing to say by the time Din appeared, looking so tired and still nervous that Boba blurted out “you look like shit,” which was not what he meant. “I told you to go home and sleep.” Closer, but still not good.

           “Sorry,” Din mumbled, and Boba’s heart sank at the tone. “I’ll go home tonight.”

           “What’re you doing now?”

           “Um. Responding to interrogatories.”

           “I need you to pull these files.” He held out a list, and Din stepped forward to take it from him. 

“Sure, yeah. I’ll be right back.” 

“Hurry,” Boba said without thinking, swallowed back a pitifully frustrated whine. God, he was bad at this. Couldn’t even talk to Din.

Din left to find the files; Boba couldn’t even worry in peace, his phone ringing almost the moment Din shut the door, and he had a brief but frustratingly circular argument with the other attorney about tomorrow’s deposition before hanging up. When someone knocked on his door, he responded with a sharp “What? Open the door!” before he remembered it was going to be Din. “Oh,” he managed, when Din peered around the door, newly anxious look on his face. Boba wanted to cry. “Come in. Sorry.”

“I found everything.” Din looked like he didn’t want to come further into the room. Boba half wanted to give him an excuse to leave, but what if Din thought he was being turned away because Boba didn’t like him? All Boba could do was point him to the table on the other side of the office, pull out a chair for him and take the other for himself.

“Somewhere in this is proof that the patent had been mentioned before March 9th.” He could talk about work. He could manage that.

Mostly, he managed by saying nothing. Two hours passed in silence, before Boba knew he had to bring up ordering in dinner.

“So,” he started, quiet. He could manage this. “I don’t know what you’d do, but –” What he’d normally do, what he would be ordering if he was with the rest of the team as usual, why couldn’t Boba ever get the right words out. “I mean, you can do what you, uh.”

“What’s wrong?” Din asked, so perfectly gentle, and Boba huffed a small laugh. Fucking perfect, he was so bad at talking to Din that Din thought something was wrong.

“Nothing. If I order dinner, do you want to pick what it is? For you?” That was – better. Slightly.

“Yeah.” Still very soft. At least he didn’t look afraid anymore, and Boba was able to get through ordering with him without incident. He sighed at the stack of boxes still left, leaned over to open one of the boxes already on the floor.

“Just had to be hard copies,” he muttered under his breath. “I hate when they do this.”

“Guess they didn’t want to make it easy to defend –” Din started, and Boba nearly laughed out loud. Of course, of course Din would hate defending criminals, and for a moment he’d sounded like when he was talking to Cara, lighthearted and unworried.

“I guess so,” Boba said, smiled down at the papers before him. It was pointless, but he liked Din.

They stayed for another two hours, and if Boba had been alone, he’d probably have stayed a few more, but Din was yawning and Boba couldn’t bear to keep him any longer. “Live nearby?” he asked, as he shrugged on his jacket. Din nodded.

“In the Mission.”

“That’s not nearby.” Was Din planning to take Bart at this hour? Walk? Neither sounded appealing.

“Just a mile.”

“I think it’s raining.” It wasn’t. “I’m going to call a car. Would you – also come?” He barely avoided stammering over the also, but his face was heating up as though he had. Din was probably going to say no, anyways, would rather walk home.

“Yeah,” Din said, and Boba looked up in surprise. “Thanks.”

It was a better ending to the day than Boba could have hoped for; Din was a comforting presence beside him, seemed surprisingly comfortable with sharing a car with Boba, a far cry from how nervous he’d looked earlier. Din paused before getting out of the car at his apartment building, looked back at Boba.

“Thank you, for the ride and everything,” he said, and Boba nodded. “And… and the coffee.” Boba felt himself blushing, dipped his head and shrugged a little.

“See you tomorrow,” he managed. The way Din looked at him, like he was happy that Boba had done something nice for him, like it was a little surprising but mostly just nice – Boba wanted to feel it again.

And if Boba brought him coffee again in the morning, just so Din would look at him like that again – it wasn’t going to lead to anything, Boba knew that. Someone like Din wouldn’t ever want him, couldn’t ever like him, Boba wasn’t made to deserve that.  

Din looking at him like he was good, though – suddenly, Boba wanted things that weren’t meant for him, that he couldn’t ever have, just wanted Din to look at him like that again.

[wheresmynaya]

Hate to Date Ch.7 | Brittana

A/N - And just like that, Lockdown 6.0 is upon us LOL. Good news, more time to write. Bad news, boredom looms. Anyway, thank you to those who have left lovely reviews and/or have gifted me with a coffee through ko-fi. I hope you all know that those emails are some of the first I read when I wake up in the morning - instant happiness! 🥰

Available on ff.net (x) ao3 (x) & under the cut!

Being ambushed by parents ends up turning into a trend for Santana when the following weekend Maribel decides to make a spontaneous trip to New York. Apparently there’s some banquet dinner Eddie is attending which Maribel’s accompanying him to.

The invite was extended to Santana as well, but those dinners are always super boring so she blew it off with an excuse about spending time with Brittany instead since their schedules have been so busy.

What she didn’t expect is for Maribel to make an unexpected pit stop at hers and Puck’s place beforehand, hoping to at least say hi to the happy couple.

Problem is – half of said couple isn’t here.

“Mami, we’re just really busy with this assignment,” Santana tries – hoping that it would be enough to deter her mom for awhile considering Brittany isn’t around. “It’s really getting down to the wire, can’t we see you tomorrow?”

“Ay Santana, I’m already on the way,” Maribel replies in a huff. “It’s only a quick visit and we’ll be on our way.”

“Can’t you just like…skip it and continue on your way?”

“I haven’t seen you since New Year’s and I came all this way to see you – “

“You’re not even here for me, you’re here for Eddie.”

Suddenly there’s a pause and Santana wonders if that little comment just got her into some hot water.

“Why don’t you want to see your mother?” Maribel asks instead. “Are you hiding something from me? You and Puck aren’t up to something again, are you? Roping in Brittany?”

Santana’s eyes go big and it feels like she’s just swallowed a handful of sand. Her heart rate’s picking up and she’s struggling to come up with an answer. She feels like she’s got a hot spotlight on her; thank God her mom can’t actually see her right now!

“We’re not,” Santana finally says. “Like I said, Brittany and I are just a little busy with this assignment…but I guess we can take a break for you.”

“That’s my girl,” Maribel praises. “We’ll be around in about twenty minutes.”

Santana gulps, “Great. See you then.”

Once she hangs up, she grabs the nearest pillow and yells into it. The muffled screams have Puck running out of his room so fast that he clips the doorframe with his shoulder. A loud thud echoes throughout Santana’s room as Puck stumbles and looks around frantically.

“What? What’s wrong?” He asks.

“We’ve got a Code Red,” Santana tells him.

His eyes drift down to her lap then back up as he starts to grimace, “Oh. Do you like…need things?”

Santana scrunches her brow but then she realizes what he’s talking about.

“No, not that Code Red,” She explains. “Mom’s on her way. I need to get Brittany over here ASAP!”

“Oh shit!” Puck curses and takes off to the living to start tidying.

The last time Maribel came around for a surprise visit, she basically tore Puck a new one. Long story short, his version of clean isn’t the same as Maribel’s and they spent an entire afternoon together going through the various cleaning products that should be used around the house and what they should be used for.

Meanwhile, Santana rushes to make the call. She just hopes that Brittany won’t give her a hard time for this, hopefully she answers the damn phone!

“Hi?” Brittany answers questioningly.

“Hey,” Santana replies.

“Did you butt dial me or something?”

“What? No.”

“You just – you never call me.”

“Yeah well…I don’t have much time to explain, but I need you to come over like right now.”

“Uhh, I’m kind of in the middle of something.“

“Brittany, please,” Santana begs. “My mom’s on her way over and she’s fully expecting you to be here too.”

“Oh! Okay, yeah. Why didn’t you lead with that?”

“Because I’m freaking out, that’s why!”

“Okay, well don’t freak out. It’ll be fine. How much time do I have?”

“Not much.”

“Great. Thanks for the warning.”

Santana rolls her eyes, “Look, it took me by surprise too.”

“Alright well, find your cool. We can’t have her suspecting anything’s up.”

Santana nods, already feeling a little calmer. “Just hurry, okay?”

“I’m on my way now. Don’t worry.”

\\

When Maribel comes knocking on Santana’s door, the brunette loses all cool once again because Brittany’s still nowhere in sight. Santana’s looking at Puck, but he has no idea what to do either. Maybe they can stall until she gets here, but how? Maribel would totally think something’s up if they refuse to let her inside!

“Just let her in?” Puck whispers, “We can say Britt went to pick up our take-out?”

“And further confirm that I don’t fucking cook here? No way.”

“Well, what else can we do?”

“I don’t kn –“

“Santana?” Maribel calls out from the hall after another knock. “Hello?”

Puck’s eyes go wide, “She can hear us.”

“No shit, she knows I’m home.”

“Okay, okay. I’m thinking, fuck! Why am I so stressed out?”

Santana and Puck go back and forth trying to come up with some way to stall, but it’s impossible under the pressure.

“I think we have to let her in,” Santana tells Puck in a grave tone.

Puck looks at her uneasily, “I think so too.”

After checking her phone once more for an update from Brittany – there isn’t one – Santana goes to let Maribel and Eddie in. They’re both dressed to the nines, must be a fancy banquet dinner.

“Hi!” Santana greets, attempting to mask her uneasiness.

She’s quickly embraced in a motherly hug while Puck compliments his coach on his sick suit.

“How are you, mija?” Maribel asks as she cups Santana’s cheek. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“Am I?” Santana feels the nerves rattling within her. Where the hell is Brittany?!

“Yes,” Maribel looks her over. “You’re not getting sick are you?”

Santana swallows dryly, “Just tired.”

“Because exams are coming up,” Puck clarifies.

“That’s right,” Santana nods. “Lots of studying to do if I want to ace them.”

Maribel nods, seemingly pleased by Santana’s work ethic.

“Yeah, plus her and Britt have also been super busy with this assignment they’re doing together,” Puck adds. “It’s a lot.”

“Ah yes,” Maribel looks around. “Where is Brittany?”

Santana clenches her jaw and looks to Puck. There’s a guilty smile on his face as he secretly mouths out a sorry. Still though, she has to think on her feet.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Santana replies. It’s not her best work, but it was the first thing she thought of. Maybe they can work with it?

“Yeah, I think she had a bad salad for lunch,” Puck tries again.

Santana glares at him and mouths a shut up that goes unnoticed by Maribel and Eddie.

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Maribel frowns.

“Those salads are always a hit or miss,” Eddie confirms. “I try to stay away from them.”

“Don’t listen to Puck. It’s nothing like that,” Santana assures them. “Anyway, exam prep; super intense, long nights, tedious studying. I’m so ready for it to be over.”

Maribel looks apologetically at her, “Don’t work too hard.”

“That’s not what you taught me,” Santana quips.

“I know,” Maribel smiles. “I hope you’re at least wearing your glasses when you’re meant to. You know what all that reading can do to your eyes.”

“I am…”

“And rest, you still need it,” Maribel insists. “A tired mind won’t retain a thing.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell her.”

The four swivel around to find Brittany coming out of Santana’s bedroom. Her cheeks are a little pink – probably from the run over – but she’s her usual cool and collected self as she saunters over.

Santana’s never felt so relieved to see the girl! Question is though, how the hell did she pull off such an entrance?

“Brittany! Hi,” Maribel greets happily. “Are you feeling okay?”

There’s a glimpse of confusion as Brittany looks to Santana for an explanation.

“Mami, I told you she’s not sick. She was only in the bedroom to finish up a call with her mom,” Santana lies.

“Yeah. That was my bad, Mama Lopez,” Puck speaks up.

“Right,” Brittany quickly catches on. “Just my daily phone call with mom. Sorry about that, we can get carried away.”

“Oh don’t be,” Maribel smiles then glances to Santana. “Where’s my daily phone call?”

Santana fights the eye roll, “I’m clearly not as great as Brittany.”

“Now that’s a first,” Brittany smirks as she curls her arm around Santana. “I think you’re plenty great though.”

Santana finds herself blushing, “Thanks.”

There’s another pleased smile on Maribel’s face as she admires the couple. It’s a look Santana has rarely seen when it comes to her past partners and it makes her chest fill with pride. Even months later, her and Brittany still got it!

“Well, as promised this is only a quick visit,” Maribel tells them. “We really need to get going now, but while I’ve got you here: when are you coming home for a visit?”

Santana and Brittany exchange a look. They weren’t looking to make a visit for another few weeks, at least until after Spring Break. Free time is hard to come by now that they’re getting closer to the end of the semester.

“You know Abuela would like to see you both again,” Maribel adds.

Santana’s brows rise, “Would she now?”

“I think she’s warming up to things,” Maribel says vaguely but Santana gets it. “Wouldn’t hurt to come see her though. You know seeing pictures of you two together on Facebook has become a highlight for her.”

“Told you we’re cute,” Brittany jokes as she hugs Santana to her side.

“I should’ve known, she likes every single one them,” Santana quips.

“She wants to spend time with you,” Maribel explains and looks to Brittany. “She wants to spend time with the both of you.”

Santana quirks a brow at that, “Really? Has something changed?”

Maribel only shrugs. “You’ll have to ask her for yourself.”

Santana and Brittany glance at each other, both suddenly curious about Abuela’s change of heart.

“How about you come down for Spring Break?” Maribel suggests.

“Uhhh,” Santana stammers as she looks to Brittany, “We’re going to have to talk about it first. Brittany might have to – “

“Spring Break is fine with me,” Brittany shrugs.

“I thought you were planning on going home?” Santana lies – trying to get Brittany to catch on. “Spend time with your family?”

The blonde only shakes her head, “Nope. I’d rather stay here with you.”

Santana feels herself deflate; usually Spring Break is her time to finally let loose but she guesses there’s not much else she could get up to since she’s fake dating Brittany. She might as well just use the time to reinforce that she’s capable of being in a long term relationship.

By then, her and Brittany would be together for four months – that’s the longest relationship yet! Surely, that’ll have to mean something to her family.

“Well sure,” Santana sighs in defeat. “I can’t imagine spending my Spring break any other way than by returning to Lima.”

Maribel gives her a gleaming grin, “Perfect.”

\\

Once Maribel and Eddie head off to their banquet, Santana and Brittany collapse together on the couch. Puck hands them both a beer before cracking one open for himself and taking a seat opposite them.

“Way to sell it,” Puck raises his bottle. “Great work! It was cool to see you two in action like that. I can see why everyone eats this shit up. You’re pretty believable.”

“Glad you enjoyed the show,” Santana quips.

“Looks like I came right on time too,” Brittany says.

“Yeah about that,” Santana looks to Brittany. “How the hell did you get into my room?”

“The window?” Brittany shrugs. “I’m surprised it wasn’t locked.

Santana’s eyes go wide, “You climbed through the window?”

“Well yeah, how else would I have gotten in? Through the vent?” Brittany jokes.

“Good thing we’re on the first floor,” Puck chuckles.

Brittany nods and clinks her bottle with his. Meanwhile Santana just stares at the blonde with her jaw slack. Not only did she run over here, she went through the effort of climbing through the window too!

The girl is crazy.

Santana doubts she would’ve gone to the same extent. No way she’d try getting her ass through a window, that’s just too much. But still, she supposes some thanking is in order.

“Well, I appreciate you going through all that,” Santana says bashfully. “I didn’t expect my mom to just pop up like that so…thanks for coming here so quickly.”

There’s a half-smirk on Brittany’s face and Santana anticipates her poking fun at how Santana’s actually thanking her for something, but it doesn’t come. Brittany just continues smiling as she clinks her bottle with Santana’s.

“That’s what fake girlfriends are for,” She tells her.

\\

Over the following days, Santana and Brittany often run into each other at the library. It’s not Santana’s preferred place to study but it’s hard for her to concentrate sometimes with Puck around.

Although Santana and Brittany are in the same place, they often sit separately.

Brittany keeps to her lone table in the study area while Santana sits somewhere in the upper level because she likes the view of the exit. It’s kind of like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, that tunnel being the designated hour she makes herself study.

However, on one particular day all of the tables in the upper level are occupied. Santana finds herself scowling at the randoms before making her way down to the level beneath – where the study area is kept.

Like always, Brittany’s sitting alone near the back and Santana finds herself walking over to her without a second thought. She wasn’t planning on sharing the table with her, just maybe say hi and leave her be, but as Santana approaches the table she finds something unexpected there:

Spanish for Dummies

Intrigued, Santana’s eyes roam the table and find all sorts of similar books on the Spanish language mixed in with Brittany’s actual coursework. Then Santana takes a peek at Brittany’s laptop, trying to figure out what has her so consumed that she’s yet to notice her standing there.

There’s a little green owl going over conjugations – Spanish conjugations – and Santana watches as Brittany jots down notes as she mouths whatever words she hears through her headphones. Santana’s completely dumbfounded and pulls up a chair, the motion finally causes Brittany to jolt and turn.

Blue eyes spark with surprise before the headphones quickly come off. The girl looks like she’s just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but Santana can’t help the fascination.

“Santana!” Brittany gasps. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“It’s the library,” She answers simply. “I’m here to study.”

“Oh, duh. Of cour – “

“Are you teaching yourself Spanish?” Santana interrupts.

Brittany looks from her screen to the books on the table to Santana. She seems a little timid as she minimizes the program on her laptop. Santana wonders if she’s going to attempt to lie, but there’s too much evidence against her. There’s no way she could convince Santana that she’s doing otherwise.  

“Yeah,” Brittany admits with a nervous laugh. “I am.”

Santana quirks her brow, “What are you doing that for? Surely not for fun?”

Brittany shrugs, “The shows on Univision are great but I’m tired of reading subtitles.”

“Really?” Santana doesn’t seem convinced. “That’s like…a lot of work. Besides, I thought nerds like to read?”

Brittany gives her an unimpressed look, “Well…I also figured that if I knew a little Spanish then it’ll give Abuela and I something to bond over. I remember your aunts mentioning this one show she likes so I’ve kind of been binging it.”

“You’ve been binging telenovelas?” Santana asks in disbelief.

“Well yeah, the drama is addicting.”

“Oh wow,” Santana sits back. “So you’re serious about this?”

“Aren’t you?” Brittany replies.

“Yeah, but this is a new level.”

“Don’t you want to be as convincing as you can be?”

“There’s convincing and then there’s this,” Santana jokes. “Your over-achiever tendencies are showing again.”

“You jealous?” Brittany fires back. “I know how much you love it when your mom compares us.”

“I’m not jealous,” Santana turns up her nose.

Brittany smirks, “Just checking. Afterall, this whole thing was your idea.”

“Technically it was Puck’s.”

“Whatever,” Brittany says. “I’m going to do all that I can to make this work because I’m committed. You continue doing…whatever it is that you do.”

Santana tenses her jaw at the jab. It reminds her of the game they played before– the constant one-upping of each other – and she wonders if they’re still playing it.

She thinks about how she accidentally introduced herself to Brittany’s parents as her girlfriend. She remembers how Brittany now has to keep up this façade with them too thanks to the slip-up. She thinks about who this Artie guy is and why Brittany’s parents were wondering where he went.

But most importantly, she thinks about how underwhelming she is as a girlfriend.

She’s nothing like Brittany; she isn’t kind and sweet and she isn’t someone people take home to meet their parents. Santana’s the girl that helps you get over your ex, she’s the one college girls experiment with, she’s down for one night stands, down for no-strings-attached kind of hook ups – she’s not actual girlfriend material.

And oddly enough, she kind of feels bad that Brittany’s stuck with her for the time being. This fake relationship thing wasn’t meant to go beyond convincing Maribel, but that’s exactly what’s happened now thanks to her big mouth.

“You really don’t have to do this, you know,” Santana says after the guilt starts setting in.

“I want to,” Brittany tells her.

Santana sighs; yet another reason why they’re so different.

“Learning a language just to get Abuela to like you?” Santana explains. “Don’t you think that’s kind of going overboard?”

“Not really. It’s kind of fun.”

“Fun?”

“Well yeah, I’ve always wanted to learn another language,” Brittany replies. “Why not start now? Plus I meant what I said about the subtitles thing. It would be so much easier not having to read.”

Santana chuckles as she shakes her head, “How do you find the time? I’m swamped with studying and assignments and cheer practice. Here you are learning another language for fun.”

“I kind of have a photographic memory.”

Santana rolls her eyes, “Of course you do.”

“I’m joking,” Brittany smirks. “I have a bunch of techniques that help cut down on the amount of time you’re actually studying so you don’t spend all your time doing it. I could…teach you some if you want?”

Santana lifts her chin, “I don’t need a tutor.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Brittany laughs. “Why are you always so quick to be on the defense?”

Santana crosses her arms and looks away, “I’m not.”

“Uh-huh,” Brittany grins. “I’ve got a study session with Puck on Thursday. I think it’s actually going to be at your place. We can not share study tips then if you want?”

Santana lets the offer roll around in her head but she doesn’t want to seem too eager.

“I might be around, depends if practice lets out on time.”

“Okay,” Brittany nods then looks at her laptop screen before glancing back at Santana who has yet to move. “So are you sitting with me now or…?”

“Oh!” Santana jolts to stand up. She gathers her bag from the ground and looks around for an empty table, but they’re all occupied.

“I’m not kicking you out, you know,” Brittany tells her without looking away from the screen. “You can stay if you’d like.”

Santana looks around indecisively. She’d rather study alone, but that doesn’t seem to be an option at the moment. She can’t go home either with Puck around, so she guesses staying with Brittany is the next best thing.

“Okay,” Santana replies. “I’ll stay.”

“I’ll clear some space for you,” Brittany says.

Santana moves to the opposite end of the table while Brittany gathers her things in order for Santana to have more room on the table for hers. They sit silently like that working on their respective things for awhile, getting lost in their work.

Brittany ends up leaving the table for a moment and Santana barely notices until she’s placing a coffee in front of her.

“Oh thanks,” Santana smiles at the unexpected gesture.

Brittany doesn’t say anything, just returns the smile as she sits back down.

Another moment later when Santana gets peckish, she pulls out a bag of trail mix. She barely gives it a second thought when she places it between them so that Brittany can have some too if she wants.

\\

When Thursday comes around, Santana ends up leaving cheer practice on time for once. She’s quick to get out of there so that she can wash up and change out of her uniform before Brittany arrives, but she finds that the blonde is already there by the time she gets home.

“What up, Lopez!” Puck calls out to her as he sits with Brittany at their tiny dining table.

Brittany looks up too, her eyes moving from their work to Santana who lingers by the front door. There’s a small smile that begins to curl her lips and Santana finds herself returning it with her own little grin.

“Hi,” She greets as she kicks of her tennis shoes. It was meant for Puck but it seems that it’s directed at Brittany.

“Hey,” Brittany replies.

“How was practice?” Puck asks, just now lifting his head from the work before him.

“Got bumped up to flyer,” Santana says casually although it’s pretty exciting news. She comes around to the kitchen for a drink, “Erica apparently has brittle bones from what Coach says.”

“No way!” Puck cheers, “That’s so awesome!”

“What’s a flyer?” Brittany asks, looking between the two.

“The girls that do stunts in the air,” Santana answers.

“Oh,” Brittany’s brows rise. “That’s…isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

“You worried about me?” Santana teases as she comes around to sit on the stool next to them. She crosses her legs, her cheer skirt hugging her thighs tightly. “Didn’t you say cheer was boring?”

Puck grins as he looks to Brittany for a rebuttal, but the blonde looks stumped.

Actually, the blonde looks distracted.

When Santana realizes that she’s staring at her legs, it’s like a personal victory for her. It was only a matter of time before the skirt wins!

Puck notices the distraction too and glances between his friends, a knowing smirk starting to form.

“Anyway,” Santana says as she finishes off her glass of water.

The sound of her voice breaks Brittany from her trance, but blue eyes are dark with something Santana’s familiar with but has yet to see on her. It makes her smirk; she’s missed having that kind of power over someone. It’s the sexual magnetism, it never fails her.

“Might hit the shower now,” Santana adds before looking to Brittany. “You going to be here much longer?”

Brittany nods, “Yeah. I only got here a little before you did.”

“Okay,” Santana can’t help the flirtatious tone now that she knows she’s got Brittany wrapped around her finger. The teasing is the most fun she’s had in awhile! “Maybe you can show me some things once you’re done with him?”

Brittany gulps, “Yeah sure.”

Puck notices what Santana’s doing and interrupts, “Uh…what’s happening right now?”

“Can it, Puckerman,” Santana waves off although her smile remains devilish. “What’s the point of having a fake girlfriend if I can’t fake flirt with them too?”

Brittany’s face goes a little red as she finally snaps back to reality.

“You call that flirting?” Brittany jokes.

“Fake flirting.”

Brittany shakes her head as she smirks, “I still don’t understand how you pick up any girls.”

“Judging by the look that’s been on your face since I walked in, I think you do.”

Puck looks back and forth between the two again like he’s watching an intense tennis match.

“How about I order a pizza for later?” He suggests in attempt to break up the bickering before it escalates.

“Sounds good,” Santana says without taking her eyes off Brittany.

“Yeah,” Brittany nods. “Sounds awesome.”

“Cool,” Puck replies and looks to Santana. “Go shower now. You’re distracting everyone.”

“She’s not distracting me,” Brittany said pointedly.  

Santana quirks her brow and smirks, “Keep telling yourself that, Britt-Britt.”

She lets her hips sway in that well-practiced way as she leaves the room. She doesn’t have to look to know that Brittany’s yet to stop staring and she struggles to hold back the laughter as she gets ready for a shower.

\\

Despite the teasing game she played earlier, Santana sits in Puck’s place at the tiny dining table across from Brittany with a scowl on her face. This studying thing? She’s had enough of it.

“This is pointless. Education is pointless. I’m gonna become a stripper instead,” Santana huffs.

“You'd probably make so much money!” Puck jokes from his place on the couch.

“Probably? Please,” Santana lifts her chin. “I'd make it rain every night!”

Puck laughs and throws his arm over the back of the couch to look at the pair.

“What do you think, Britt?” Puck presses with a smirk. “Think Santana would make it rain?”

Santana smirks too and looks to Brittany for answer.

“I think…I'm kind of hungry,” Brittany says. “How far away is the pizza?”

Santana’s smirk falls at the way Brittany deflects the question. Since Santana’s return, Brittany’s been a little quieter. Santana figured she’s just stuck in study mode and that she’d loosen up eventually, but she’s still waiting.

“I should probably head over now actually,” Puck realizes after checking his phone.

“Take me with you,” Santana jokes. “I think my brain is turning to mush.”

Brittany sighs, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“You know that’s a struggle for me.”

“True,” Brittany jokes. “Hey, if we finish this chapter tonight I’ll let you use my pretty pens to take notes?”

"Tempting, but I don't need your pretty pens,” Santana says flatly. She rests back in her chair and stares at the ceiling. “What I need is alcohol and several orgasms. I clearly didn't think this fake dating thing through. I've never been so sexually deprived.”

Puck goes to grab his keys, “And on that note – I’ll be back in a few.”

Meanwhile, Brittany just snickers to herself but she isn’t laughing with Santana and it has the brunette frowning.

“What?” Santana questions as Puck leaves.

Brittany shakes her head, “It must be so hard for you to keep it in your pants for once.”

“You have no idea. Who knew that the last time would be the last time. I sure didn’t!”

Brittany shakes her head again and goes back to her work. It makes Santana feel a little on edge and straightens up in her chair.

“I'm obviously joking,” Santana adds and it makes Brittany look up. “What's it to you if I wasn't though?”

“What are you talking about?” Brittany asks.

“Your interest in my sex life.”

Brittany scoffs and looks back to her work, “I'd hardly call it an interest.”

Santana folds her arms across her chest, “So you're secretly some kind of prude?”

“It's not that.”

“Then what is it?”

Brittany sighs and looks up at her again, “Why are we even talking about this?”

Santana notices the change in her tone and perks up. She abandons her work all together in favor of leaning in.

“Because it's way more interesting?” Santana presses. “I know you're trying to deflect, you might as well just answer. If not, I'll assume the reason it gets your panties all in a twist is because you're secretly jealous.”

“I'm definitely not jealous.”

“So it’s the other option,” Santana says. “You’re a prude.”

“No!” Brittany huffs. She softens when she realizes she raised her voice. There’s a timidness to her when she explains, “I just, I guess I believe in developing the feelings part first before the physical happens.”

Santana softens too but for a different reason. It’s more so confusion than anything else.

"Why?” She asks.

“Because with feelings it's better,” Brittany says simply.

“Are you kidding?” Santana quips. “It’s better when it doesn’t involve feelings. I think it’s better when it doesn’t involve eye contact.”

“Wow. Seriously?” Brittany looks at her sympathetically. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. God, who hurt you?”

Santana didn’t expect her comment to strike a nerve. The memory of short blonde hair and a cunning smile sneaks its way past Santana’s defenses as she mutters, “One guess.”

Brittany looks at her curiously before something clicks, “Oh. The girl.”

Santana doesn’t like where this is going and pushes away the overwhelming feelings that beg to bust through. She walls herself up, holds her chin high and swallows back the lump.

“Yeah well,” Santana brushes off. “I think it's pretty unrealistic to go out there thinking every potential lay has to be relationship material first. Where's the fun in that?”

Brittany continues to eye her like she’s wounded and Santana hates it.

“The fun part is getting to know someone first so when it does happen,” Brittany pauses as she bites her lip. “It's meaningful.”

Santana averts her eyes, because staring into Brittany’s makes her feel far too exposed. Instead she retreats in on herself to place she’s comfortable, she takes the attention off of her.

“Gross. Who knew you were such a hopeless romantic,” Santana jokes.

Brittany sighs through a soft smile, “Call me old fashioned I guess.”

“Super old fashioned,” Santana quips. “Like, are you telling me you've never had a steamy quickie with a random? Everybody's got one.”

Brittany looks away and as she smirks, “Of course I have. I’m not that innocent.”

Santana perks up, “Really? Miss Goodie Two Shoes getting down and dirty without before being properly courted? God, I want details…”

Brittany snickers, “Not happening.”

“What?” Santana shifts in her seat excitedly. “Come on, what's a little girl talk between friends or are you the type that doesn’t kiss and tell because lame.”

Brittany looks up at her and smirks, “You saying we're friends?”

“Will it get you talking?”

Brittany laughs, “We should get back to work now. You've derailed us for long enough.”

“Come on, Britt-Britt,” Santana coos jokingly. “We've been at it for hours. I'm burnt out, sober and in dire need of sex.”

“None of that is my problem.”

“Sure it is,” Santana jokes. “The least you can do is tell me a couple of your kinky stories to get me through the night.”

“No.”

“Please?”

Brittany gives her a look, but Santana just bats her eyelashes. It makes Brittany laugh and she softens once again.

“Actually, I might be able to help you out.”

Santana sits straighter, “It was only a matter of time…”

Brittany rolls her eyes, “Get over yourself. Not every girl on campus wants you, including me.”

Santana laughs, “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Britt-Britt.”

“Anyway,” Brittany continues, “I'm talking about a swanky party – a ball even.”

“A ball, you say?” Santana’s interest is piqued.

“Totally.”

“You've got my attention…”

“Well, there’s going to be an open bar, free food, an excuse to dress up and let loose. That ticks off two out of three on your list.”

Santana quirks a brow, “And the catch?”

“No catch.”

“There's gotta be a catch.”

“Okay fine,” Brittany slumps. “It's the Brainiacs’ Ball.”

“The what?” Santana deadpans.

“The Brainiacs’ Ball,” Brittany clarifies. “It's open to all the academic decathlon clubs across the city, this year we’re hosting. The team with the highest winning percentage is named and also the award for Most Brilliant Brainiac is given out. It's the biggest night for the club.”

“Oh, hell no,” Santana chuckles. “There’s not enough free alcohol in the world to get me to go to that. Count me out.”

Brittany starts to frown, “What? Why?”

Santana shakes her head, “One of your matches was enough. I'm not going to a party where I have to be surrounded by all of you at once.”

“It won't be that bad,” Brittany sighs. “It's a night for celebrating. No trivia unless you count the bad puns you might hear.”

“I've seen the guys on your team,” Santana explains. “I can't be liable for the feelings I'd definitely hurt if I were to be around them. I’d be triggered by pocket protector.”

“But you'll mostly be with me,” Brittany tries.

“That doesn’t really help your case.”

Brittany gives her a look, “Well, I kind of need you to go.”

“You need me to go?”

“Well yeah, I don't want to be the only one there without a date,” Brittany reasons. “Plus wouldn't it be suspicious if you didn't go considering we're a thing?”

Santana lets out a laugh, thinking that she’s finally caught on.

“So that it explains it,” She says.

“Explains what?”

“The coffee the other day, sharing study tips, being here,” Santana goes on, “You’ve been setting yourself up to ask me to your dumb ball.”

Brittany tenses, “'First of all, it's not dumb.”

“Sorry. I should've said nerdy,” Santana clarifies.

“I wasn’t doing those things for this,” Brittany tells her. “I was… I did them to be nice. We don’t always have to be at each other. It doesn’t always have to be a competition.”

Santana shakes her head as she gets to thinking. She knows Brittany’s cunning too, she knows that she can play games so who’s to say she wasn’t playing this time?

“I'm not going,” Santana replies. “You can tell people I'm sick or something.”

Brittany lets out a bitter laugh, “Right. So this relationship thing only works when it's in your favor?”

Santana frowns at the harshness of Brittany’s tone, something that doesn’t feel right coming from the blonde.

“What are you talking about?” Santana huffs. “That’s not – “

“We always do what you want,” Brittany interrupts. “Whatever makes you look good but this one time I ask you for something and it's just a flat out no?”

Brittany’s face has gone a little red and Santana’s further surprised – she didn’t think it was this big of a deal. She doesn’t grasp why Brittany’s so worked up all of sudden. Why would she want someone there with her if they didn’t want to be there in the first place?

“Look, it's better if I don't go because if one dork in clunky black glasses wearing suspenders and a hideous bowtie crosses paths with me I won't be able to contain myself,” Santana argues. “I'll end up hurting someone's feelings and you said it yourself, it's a night for celebration.”

Brittany looks at her like she’s hit a new low. Hell, maybe she just did.

“You're unbelievable,” Brittany huffs as she stands and starts gathering her things.

“What?” Santana watches her with a sudden ache in her chest. “You’re leaving?”

“Clearly,” Brittany mutters. “I can’t be around you right now.”

“All because I don’t want to go?”

Brittany shakes her head, another bitter laugh escaping her.

“No,” She says gravely. “It’s because you’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met.”

Santana tenses at the way her words drip with disdain, but at the same time it puts her on the defense.

“Well sorry that I’m not like you,” Santana argues. “Sorry I can’t just slip into character with ease and be your perfect fake girlfriend whenever you want. Sorry I’m not on all the time like you are.”

Brittany just stares at her for a moment, studying Santana’s face before she speaks again.

“Just when I think I’ve figured you out,” Brittany continues. “Just when I think you’re actually a half-decent person and that maybe beneath this prickly exterior of yours, there’s actually something – someone – deserving of…of a friend you go and prove to me that I’m wrong.”

Santana slumps back in her chair, dejected and defeated.  

Even if Brittany didn’t physical hit her, those words sure did. She can’t even speak as she watches Brittany gather the last of her things and storm out. What’s worse is that she swears she sees blue eyes tinging red just before she turns away.

Santana slaps her hand at the table when the door slams shut behind Brittany. She instantly feels the sting of wood on her open palm.

Why? Why does she always have to screw things up like this?

\\

Puck comes through the door just a minute later, looking confused as well.

“So I just passed Britt in the hall,” He says hesitantly.

“Yeah, she left.”

Puck slowly closes the door behind him, “Why?”

“Because,” Santana lets out a long puff of air. She feels the lump forming again in her throat, strange and unwelcome. “Because I’m an idiot.”

“Dude,” His face falls. “Please tell me you didn’t try to make a move on her. The games earlier were cute and all but – “

“No,” Santana quickly answers. “I didn’t do that.”

“Then what happened?” Puck asks. “She looked really upset.”

Santana presses her lips tightly together, she’s almost ashamed to admit the truth.

“She wanted me to go to some ball with her,” Santana says dismissively. “I told her no.”

“You told her no?” Puck quirks a brow.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Puck frowns. “After all the stuff she’s done for you, you can’t?”

“Look, I can see where I fucked up okay?” Santana snaps. “I don’t need you adding to it.”

Puck shakes his head as he backs off. “You really are an idiot.”

Santana agrees but she doesn’t tell him that.

“You know it’s not a good idea,” Santana tries convincing him. “It’ll be nothing but those academic decathlon nerds and not just the ones from Brittany’s team. It’ll be like ten times that! They’ll be from all over the city and you know how I am around the general public especially when I’m provoked. I could screw up and expose us both. It’s too risky.”

Puck doesn’t say anything, just listens to her excuses.

“I can’t do it,” Santana tells him with finality. “I can’t. Brittany might be pissed at me right now, but she’ll see it’s for the best. I’d just ruin her night because I don’t know how to act anyway. She’ll come around, she has to.”

“Sure Santana,” Puck dismisses and goes to flip open the pizza box. “So…does this mean I can have her pizza too?”

Santana just shakes her head, “Shut up.”

[displacedentities]

Night Out

My quickfic for @doodledrawsthings​ Coffee Shop AU! In truth I had this in the books for months and just never got around to finish it ;u; Unfortunately only the muse can decide when it’s time to slap me with enough serotonin to work on this, so I rode the high from recent art and wrapped it up! It’s not as clean as I wanted, but you know what, have it anyway.

-Myst -----

Finally. Another shift in the books.

With a heavy sigh, Luka stretches his back as the clock chimes up on the wall over the glass doors. Deft fingers untie the back before he slips the fabric apron over his head. A light snap of magnets punctuates the white noise of steaming coffee machines, and Luka stuffs his nametag into his pants pocket.

Luka was embarrassed to think about how much of a struggle it was to steady on for the entirety of the workday. Stress ate at him all the time, over so many things. Harriet was priority number one - did he remember to prep her meals for the day? Was she still ok, back in the apartment? Was Professor Popcorn in need of more repairs? Luka would happily handle such a task, of course, but...

He wasn't guaranteed to have thumbs when the evening finally came. There was his time limit to think about.

"Hey Luka?"

Damn, but being cursed was such a pain. Chopping vegetables was a particular bane of his existence. How could he trust himself with a knife like that? Ugh. He hated to make Harriet do it - no child should be wielding a knife before the age of 13, for any reason. He'd just have to MacGyver a solution or something.

"Luka..."

And on top of that, he had the upcoming bills to fret over. Rent was due in a few days, and he'd made a decent amount in tips, but they could not afford to have their upstairs neighbor burst a pipe again. He and Harriet had spent the entire afternoon toweling up their poor carpets to avoid getting mildew. Or worse, bugs. Luka was a fan of bugs, but not in his carpets, or sneaking into the mattress where they could bite his daughter.

"HEY!"

This time, the voice manages to pierce the haze of worry writhing in Luka's brain. Jolting to attention, the auburn-haired adult turns around, blinking owlishly at his colleague, Clover.

The braided redhead is giving him a wan smile, her brows furrowed in worry as she sets down a large bag of coffee beans under the counter.

"You spaced out again, buddy. Did you hear a word I said?" the barista asks, folding her arms over her stained apron.

"Uhh... you said my name," Luka replied, feeling a bit awkward as he chuckles once. "Sorry, I probably missed anything you might have asked me."

"I was asking if you ever go out."

"Ah- what?"

That was unexpected. Go out?

"You know-" Clover holds up her hands to gesture to the world in general, and beyond the coffee shop doors "-out! Like, with friends or anybody?"

Ah.

Luka laughs once, rubbing a hand on one side of his face.

"You mean since I moved into town? Nah, not really. Me and my daughter have only been here a few months - can't say we made many friends just yet."

Nor was that a risk they could take. Who knows how long they could stay here, before he was inevitably found out? One could argue it was a risk just- doing what he was doing now. Trying to hold a job, staying in an apartment; a semi-permanent living situation. They'd been on the road so long, old habits were quite hard to break. And if he was entirely honest with himself, Luka didn't know yet if he felt safe, even six months past the first day he arrived in the rural town of Subcon.

Clover's frown deepens, her arms dropping back to her sides. Her dropped guard betrays her worry, before she tries to play it off with another lighthearted smile and upbeat words.

"Oh come on, it can't have been that long since you've just done something fun for the sake of it. When was the last time you went out with friends and enjoyed yourself?" she asks.

"Why is this important?" Luka asks, his own guard slowly rising. He didn't quite see where she was going with this, but he wasn't sure he'd like it.

Oops- maybe not the most polite way to phrase that, as he sees an awkward flinch on Clover's face. Quick, recover! Luka chuckles once, also trying to lighten the mood.

"You and MJ never really asked me that kind of stuff before. I thought I was hired to serve coffee, not tea."

"We serve both, ya doofus," Clover smirks, rubbing one of her well-muscled arms with the other in a self-conscious gesture. "You should know that, since you've been working here almost four months now. And uh- well, MJ just kind of noticed you always seem very tired whenever you leave work."

Luka smiles back, but it's forced. Careful. Don't give any hints that it's anything serious. Don't be suspicious.

"Oh, that? I uh- I'm not used to the retail scene. I'll probably adapt to it soon."

Clover doesn't seem convinced. Still, her expression is sympathetic, rather than judgmental or suspicious. She leans her back on the counter, looking over Luka's exhausted demeanor and baggy eyes with a skeptical smile.

"I'm sure you will." She rests her hands on the counter. "In the meantime, you should go out for bowling with me and MJ! We were planning this outing for about a week, and maybe you'd wanna come with?"

Luka stops mid-folding of his apron. He turns toward Clover with surprise.

"Bowling? As in- knocking over pins in an alley, bowling?"

Clover rolls her eyes, amused. "No, as in rolling cereal bowls. Yes, that kind of bowling, Luka. It'll be fun! Eat some cheap pizza, knock over pins, watch the uncanny valley animations on the TV screen, the whole shebang. You up for joining us?"

"I uh- I didn't know there was a bowling alley here?" Luka says, his voice pitching up as he gives a sheepish laugh. "I- I don't know..."

Shit.

He could already feel the first touches of his curse starting to well up. A quick glance to his hands- okay, no purple yet. But it was coming.

Luka tucks his hands behind his back just in case.

"I'm not sure, I have Harriet to worry about..." he fumbles, rushing to think of excuses. It hurts his heart a little when he sees the disappointed expression Clover wears.

"Are you sure?" she asks, her tone gentle. "It'll only be a for a couple of hours - I could ask Cookie next door if she'd be willing to handle your daughter for the night. She's a fantastic sitter, and your daughter would have Mu to play with."

Luka opened his mouth, preparing to turn it down- then closed it again, brows furrowed as he chews over the thought.

Only a few hours... hm. His curse's current time limit was somewhere a little short of eight hours, he was sure. As long as he didn't have to pick up a shift at work, he would have most of his day free to spend out of the motel. An outing to a bowling alley couldn't possibly last eight hours, though he'd... never actually gone bowling before.

"I.... don't know... I've never been bowling, I'll just hold you back-"

"Nonsense," Clover says, waving off his excuse immediately. "MJ and I aren't professionals or anything, Luka - it's just for fun! You've never been?? That means you've gotta try it, at least once. Please?"

...mmh. Luka would be lying if he said he wasn't very tempted. But he had so much to worry about! His daughter, his curse... keeping his job, being able to support the two of them. Not to mention, getting used to his slow camaraderie with Clover and MJ. That sort of outing would throw their friendship into first gear.

"It's ok," Clover interrupts his thoughts, standing back up straight as she grabs a rag and finishes wiping down the counter. "You don't have to come, we just thought... you know, it might be fun. You look like you need some serious time to unwind, dude. All we ever see of you is showing up to work, dealing with customers, then you leave. And hey, if you change your mind, the offer's still open."

Luka curls his fingers, foot tapping the floor in small fidget.

"Well, I'm gonna start closing up the back," Clover says, tossing the rag into a laundry bin next to the employee break room. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Wait!"

Clover stops, turning around with the laundry basket.

"What day were you planning to do it?"

What am I thinking?? I can't go on an outing with them!

Unaware of Luka's silent stresses, Clover beams, her smile lighting up once again.

"Saturday! Would that work for you?"

"Mnhg- maybe?" Luka concedes, forcing his own sheepish smile despite his brain screaming No nO this is a bad idea! His mouth continues to run away from him. "Saturday is my errand day - me and Harriet go out for groceries in the morning, and eat out at whatever lunch restaurant she picks. I wouldn't be open until the evening, and Sunday's game day for me and my daughter."

Bad idea, what are you doing?!

"That's perfect!" Clover says, delighted and still not privy to Luka's inner struggle. "If we close the shop at five, we can drive to the bowling alley around 5:30, play a game or two and eat. Should go until about... eight-ish? How's that sound?"

Say no, say NO!

"Sure, sounds fun."

AGH!

"Great!" Clover says, a skip in her step as she lopes off to the back room with the laundry basket. "I'll text MJ to let him know - he's already gone back to his apartment."

"Yeah, I'll uh- I'll text him too," Luka chuckles, scratching behind his head with one hand- and immediately putting a stop to that action, as he feels the points of sharp claws dig at his scalp. Both arms are dropped and tucked behind his back, a big smile on his face. "Gotta give him the full details and everything, haha..."

"No problem- see you!" Clover bids Luka goodbye, waving one hand as she cheerily hauls the laundry bin off into the back.

"Bye!" Luka says, his voice cracking from nerves.

Oh thank god she's gone.

Luka pulls his hands back out into view, and sees the telltale purple staining begin to creep up his flesh. Peck. It was already starting- Clover left just in time. He could already feel the sharp ends of his canines starting to poke into his bottom lip. He didn't have much left of the day in human form- he had to get home right now.

Snatching up his belongings from his locker, stuffing his work apron inside, Luka loops his bag over his shoulder and leaps over the service counter. He missed the rack of sugar packets this time, thankfully, his sneakers squeaking on the tile floor as he bolts out the door. The bell rings as the glass entryway opens and shuts, signaling his departure. Car keys are whipped out of his bag, a slowly deforming finger just managing to push the button to unlock the vehicle as he clambers inside. Just five minutes- he could make five minutes.

The engine of the car roars to life, and Luka zips off out of the employee parking space, trying his best to ignore it as his fingers swell and fuse together, and his eyes reflect golden light in the rear view mirror.

------

MJ's car putters up to outside the bowling alley, fixing his blue-dyed hair with a sigh. Clover, in the passenger seat, drums her hand on the door handle with excitement.

"This is gonna be so much fun," she says, turning to look over her shoulder at the stiff and uncomfortable Luka in the backseat. "I'm so glad you decided to come, Luka- we'll show you the ropes of bowling!"

"Great," the young man says, putting up another shaky smile as his fingers tense around his kneecaps. "Can't wait!"

"That's the spirit," MJ speaks up, giving Luka a quick smile of his own before twisting the key in the ignition. The car's engine dies down, the doors unlocking as MJ shifts the gear into park. "Clover told me you were nervous about hanging out, and that's completely fine by me - if you feel uncomfortable and don't want to stay, just let us know, ok? We'll drive you back to the apartment building, no hesitation."

Luka inhaled deeply, letting out a heavy sigh from the back seat of the car. It felt like his nerves were trying to shake him apart. A glance at his watch-

Was he really going forward with this?

...Yes. He was. As much as Luka worried, Clover had been right. It'd been far too long since he'd taken 'me' time.

Luka puts a hand on the door and pulls the handle, stepping out of the car before he has a chance to psyche himself out.

It's just a couple hours. He still had plenty of time, after his midday outings with Harriet.

Stay calm. You can do this.

The sign above the brick building shines with neon lights, saying 'Pins & Cushions' in bright blue and red. The backdrop is a painting that Luka can swear was painted in the 80s, displaying a bowling ball as it barrels into pins and knocking them askew with a cartoony impact mark.

"Pins & Cushions?" he says aloud, smirking a little bit.

"Kind of silly, right?" MJ speaks up, locking the car behind him with a click. "Sounds more like a sewing parlor than a bowling alley."

"It's because they boasted having cushioned chairs," Clover says, snickering. "You've never been, but most bowling alleys have these awful plastic chairs that hurt to sit on for too long."

"You mean like the chairs in high school?"

Luka's joke earns a quick bark of a laugh from Clover.

"Couched seating areas in a bowling alley was, sadly, a craze that never caught on," MJ says, ascending the concrete steps up to the building. "But this one did, and the place is like forty years old and too stubborn to change, so your butt will thank you later."

When the doors open, Luka is immediately washed with a cocktail of smells he didn't think could- nor should- ever go together. First and foremost is the thick smell of plastic and rubber, followed by the chemical odor of cleaning sprays, and the sizzling smell of burning cheese. Air conditioning blasts them from above as the three young adults enter the bowling alley, the doors sliding shut behind their backs. The sounds hit next - a cacophonous mix of rubber soles squeaking on polished floors, heavy objects falling and rolling, and the clatter of pins falling into the trap at the far end of the establishment.

It was loud, smelled strange, and the carpet looked lifted straight out of an arcade.

Luka was torn between anxiety, and a strange sort of excitement he hadn't felt in a long, long time. This was something new, something unfamiliar- he had hours to enjoy himself, and spend time not worrying about stresses of life. Harriet had a sitter, paid in advance with an alarm for when he would return, and he was out with- friends? Had him accepting this invitation solidified their friendship at this point? ...the thought made a happy butterfly flutter in his stomach.

This would be a great evening, he could feel it.

"Earth to Luka." MJ's amused tone causes Luka to jump. "Something on your mind? You're smiling."

"Oh- uh- nothing," Luka says, scratching behind his head sheepishly. "Just- thanks. For inviting me. I think I really did need this a lot."

"YEAH you do!" Clover thumps him on the back with one hand. "Come on! You have to give your shoes to the clerk so they can give you your bowling shoes."

"Ah, what? I have to take off my shoes on this carpet?" Luka complains, lifting a foot with distaste. "I feel like I'm stepping on twenty-year-old candy."

"It's part of the charm!" Clover sings, already removing one of her sneakers. "It's either this, or slip all over the place on the actual alley floor. You're getting the full bowling experience whether you like it or not, coffee boy."

"Ex-CUSE me!" Luka says with a dramatic gasp, hopping on one foot as he works to remove his own shoes. "I think you will find I'm a coffee man, thank you."

"Coffee twink," Clover counters.

"No, that's MJ."

"HEY! I will call lion's share of the tips for that one," MJ shakes a sneaker at them both in a mock scolding gesture.

"YOU'RE BOTH COFFEE TWINKS," Clover declares to the entire establishment as she fights off her last sneaker, racing for the counter before the others can catch up. "HURRY UP, COFFEE TWINKS, WE NEED TO PICK OUT BOWLING BALLS."

"I have dibs on the galaxy patterned one!" MJ yells after Clover.

Clover gives MJ an evil grin as she takes her bowling shoes and pays the rental fee, tying them before sauntering over to the racks of bowling balls. Her hand hovers over the selection, giving a teasing pause over the bowling ball made with swirled star plastic.

"Don't you dare," MJ hisses from the counter, pointing an accusing finger at Clover as he hands over the money for both his and Luka's rental shoes.

"It's either the tips share, or the bowling ball! You decide!" Clover yells back, drumming her fingers on the coveted starry bowling ball.

"Fiiiiine," MJ says with a dramatic tone, though his smile gives away his mirth. "You know I wasn't going to take the tips anyway, Clo."

"I know~" she says, giggling while she moves on to a different rack of bowling balls. "And you know I wouldn't do that to your poor weak arms, either, Moonie."

Luka finishes tying his rental shoes, thanking MJ before he makes his way down the small stairway to the alleys. It's very bright in this section of the building, with cushioned couches surrounding tables and standing consoles. Metal railings and a chute of some kind were positioned at each alleyway, some with bowling balls sitting idle atop the metal racks.

"So, what now?" Luka asks, the excitement of wading into unknown waters welling in his chest again.

"Pick a bowling ball!" Clover says, gesturing to the racks of heavy plastic spheres. "You'll want a heavy one, but not too heavy for you to lift and throw."

"Go easy on us, Clover." MJ shakes his head as he picks up his favorite starry ball. "Ms. Gun Show and her fourteen-pound bowling ball."

The redhead leans over and scoops up a swirled green bowling ball, hefting it on one arm and pumping it like a weight.

"You might get some guns yourself if you helped me landscape and move sod around my garden, Coffee Twink #1," she says, flexing a bicep.

"I refuse to acknowledge that nickname."

"Sorry, it's our team name now," Clover laughs, "the Coffee Twinks!"

"Hey, I thought our team name was the Comets?!"

"That was before Luka joined the team - now it's a 2-to-1 twink majority, I don't make the rules."

Luka just has his face in his hands, laughing through the whole exchange as he leans on the metal racks.

"You're just as bad as Harriet!" Luka laughs, pushing his hair back out of his eyes with one hand. "I don't even know where she learned that word - Cookie's daughter, probably?"

"Definitely," MJ says with a thousand yard stare, earning more laughter from Luka. "Go pick a bowling ball, I'll get the console up and running for our game."

Wiping tears from his eyes, chuckling under his breath, Luka turns to the racks and peruses the selection. The bowling balls come in all colors - most are black or dark brown, but there's a rather delightful mix of brighter hues like pink, blue and yellow. Some are marbled, some have glitter in the plastic, and a few very beat-up bowling balls have graphics of cartoon characters that were popular in the 90s. Well-loved by the children who patronize this establishment, he was sure. Harriet would love the Scooby-Doo ball - oh no wait. The one themed after a Pokeball, for sure was her poison of choice. And clearly the pick of the litter for many other children, as it was covered in scratches and dents from decades of use.

Ah- there was one themed after a jack-o-lantern! How fitting. He loops his fingers into the grip holes of the bowling ball, and heaves it off of the rack- only to almost crush his toes as the weight yanks his arms to the floor.

That was- heavier than expected!

"Oooooh, nice pick," Clover says, spinning her own bowling ball in her hands. "You sure you can carry it, though? That's a 10-pounder."

"I'll be fine-" Luka says, grunting as he lifts it back up with both hands this time. "Just- caught me off guard, is all."

"Alright, game's all set," MJ announces from the console.

Above their heads, a large tube television flashes blue before displaying a score board.

A loud k-chunk k-chunk k-chunk of machinery draws Luka's eye toward the other end of the alley. Metal rigging and machinery descend from the covered roof of the pin trap. Resembling a large soda crate, the rig drops an array of ten white bowling pins, before unclamping and ascending back into the darkness of whatever creation of god resided in that ceiling.

"You're up first, Clo," MJ says, waving a hand to indicate she should move forward.

"Watch and learn," Clover throws Luka a smile, the competitive taunt dampened by her genuinely helpful tone. "You want to throw the ball so it rolls like this-"

Stepping forward onto the squeaky, smooth polished wooden platform, Clover lifts her bowling ball to her chest. With a quick inhale, she lopes forward two steps, swinging her arm back with the bowling ball, before reeling it forward on the last stride and underhand throwing it into the aisle. The heavy green bowling ball lands with a tHDD before skidding its way down the oiled track, rolling in a long, smooth line. The swirled green sphere smacks into the bowling pins with a loud tHWAKK!!, sending all but one of the pins flying into the darkness beyond. The ball disappears into the hole, and Clover puts her hands on her hips with a huff.

"Damn, almost got a strike." Clover snaps her fingers, shrugging. The green bowling ball clatters back up the chute. She grips her fingers into the trio of holes again, and goes for another throw.

The bowling ball rolls down the course, straight as an arrow for the last pin. The pin spins off the wooden platform into the darkness, earning a whoop from Clover.

"Nice, got a spare!" Clover declares, throwing her arms up in triumph. She sashays her way back to the couches. "Who's up next?"

"I'm up," MJ says, standing from the console. Looping his fingers into his own starry bowling ball, MJ rolls his shoulders and steps up onto the oiled wooden planks. "I'm going to get the first strike of the day, just wait."

"Sure you will," Clover snickers as MJ winds up.

When he releases the ball, it rolls at very high speed- before curving halfway down the track, the topspin he put on the ball causing it veer off course and land in the gutter.

Face flushed, MJ coughs into his hand, suddenly very invested in fixing his shirt as Clover grins. The galaxy ball returns to the trough, and MJ pointedly picks it up again, winding up for his second throw. The bowling ball rocks down the course, and knocks over about six pins, leaving a corner of the triangle still standing.

"Woo!" Clover cheers, clapping as MJ returns to the seating. She reaches over and nudges Luka on the shoulder. "You're up, Luke! Show us whatchu got!"

Heart in his throat, Luka stands from his seat and steps up.

The bowling ball grins up at him, daring him to chicken out. It was heavy in his hand. Still, he walked up onto the polished floor, feeling the rubber on the bottom of his shoes as it grips the oiled surface.

Fighting the weight of the heavy bowling ball, Luka takes a step forward, swinging his arm back before bringing it back around like a pendulum. The ball hits the track with a heavy thDD as it’s released, sent rolling off down the track. Around the halfway point, it spins off course and lands in the gutter with a clunk.

“Aww,” Clover says, leaning over the chair cushion. “And you had such good posture, too.”

“It’s ok,” MJ speaks up, seeing Luka’s visible embarrassment. “It’s your first time bowling! Nothing to be ashamed of. You have another shot before we rotate players.”

Disappointed, Luka rubs at his arm. Well, that was a less than encouraging performance. But he noticed the angle of the spin on the ball. Maybe he could fix that.

The ball clatters up the chute back into the return trough. Luka picks it up with a huff of breath, holding it to his chest as he does mental calculations. If he turned his wrist at just the right point...

Stepping forward, Luka swings back and releases the ball, putting a top spin on the ball at the last possible moment-

The jack-o-lantern face rockets down the alley, the path straight until the very last second. It curves to hit the front pin from the side, knocking every single pin into the abyss beyond.

"OHHHHH!" Clover and MJ exclaim, clapping with enthusiasm as Luka looks stunned.

"You got a strike!" Clover says, applauding with a big grin. "You were totally pulling our legs about being a newbie to this, huh??"

"I think I just got lucky," Luka tries to play it off, feeling an uncommon shyness as he smiles.

Clover shakes her head, not having it.

"Luck nothing! That was pure talent, and you got a strike, dude!"

"Technically that was a spare, but still a strike in my book," MJ says as he rotates the turn order on the console, giving Luka a smile and a thumbs up.

"Oh let him have it, Moon Moon," Clover laughs as MJ throws her a pout. "Our new boy's got game!"

Luka hunches his shoulders, an awkward smile curling across his cheeks as he walks back over to the couches. Clover jumps to attention and makes her way to the track, picking up her green bowling ball for another round as he sits down.

This was... much more fun than he had expected it to be. The background noise of the bowling alley was surprisingly pleasant. He found he could get used to the dull odor of plastic and cleaner- and honestly, that hot cheese smell from what must be the pizzeria was tempting his stomach. But best of all was the camaraderie he could feel sparking between him, Clover, and MJ. Were they officially friends now? Or had they been already, and he was just- in denial? If Luka was entirely honest with himself, probably the latter. MJ and Clover had been nothing but kind and understanding, to him. His sporadic hours and excuses had done nothing to faze them with regards to their treatment of him at work. They still offered him drinks and invited him on this outing, offering even to pay for his expenses, didn't they?

"Hey Luka!" A call from MJ breaks him out of the small reverie. "You're up, again."

"And after this round, we can hit the arcade! I bet I can out-dance you on DDR, Coffee Twinks," Clover smirks.

"No betting. I know you can."

Maybe- maybe he had nothing to worry about.

---

The evening is going fantastic.

The first bowling game had been a pretty close match between Luka and Clover. Clover had the arm strength to pull off some mean and fast throws, but Luka had developed a system. Figuring out how to spin the bowling ball just the right amount had made up for his noodle arms and less weighty bowling ball. It wasn't long before he figured out how to roll a pretty straight record of spares and strikes, with the occasional 7-10 split. After bowling around, they went into the arcade section, with an entire paper roll of quarters to blow on games. A vicious Ms. Pacman multiplayer match had led to MJ smoking all three of them, and as predicted, Clover out-danced both of the boys on the DDR and Stepmania machines. Luka had to collapse over a nearby chair with exhaustion after his matches. He'd finished off the arcade run with a very lucky pull from a claw machine, winning a black cat plush with big yellow eyes that he was definitely going to enjoy giving to Harriet.

The three of them sat around their table at the bowling console again, laughing over a hot cheese and pepperoni pizza.

"No way, you didn't!" Luka gasps, wheezing for air.

"I did! I punched his goddamn lights out!" Clover laughs, slapping one knee. "The guy was being a huge creep, so I introduced him to my fist."

"I hope you didn't get in trouble with the cops or something for that." Luka tilts his head, giving her an impressed and worried look.

"Can't get in trouble if nobody reports it," MJ chimes in, smirking past his soda cup. "He complained to me, but I had the security tapes AND plausible deniability because I wasn't on the floor. Corporate took our side on this."

"Nobody from the city wants to drive all the way out to podunk Subcon for a random dudebro's complaint." Clover sits back on her cushioned seat, chomping into her pizza happily. "Mmmmm- delicious melty cheese."

Luka chomps into his own pizza, exhaling and blowing on it as it nearly burns his mouth.

"Easy, tiger!" MJ smirks around his own mouthful of pizza.

"I know, it's just so good," Luka says, laughing into his hand as he sips some of his cola. "But in like- the way you know it's not that great? Does that make sense?"

"Night in the Woods taught me the Pizza Scale, and I stick by that," Clover says, crunching through her crust to grab up another slice, washing down the bread with some soda. When she reaches for another piece of the pie, she pauses, and lets out a huff. "Oh, that sucks. I guess they didn't clean the bowling balls that well this time. Gross."

"Hm?" Luka says through a mouthful of pizza.

"Your fingers are all oil-stained from the finger holes on the bowling ball, Luka. Big Al needs to wash the bowling balls properly."

Confused, the law student shifts his attention down.

The ends of his fingertips are discolored with ebony purple.

Luka can feel as his brain zeroes in on the first sign of his impending transformation, and begins to shift into emergency mode as it relays the steps he must take in order to avoid further exposure. He'd gone over this information with himself many times over the past five years. It was ingrained in his mind, what he had to do, the information practically screaming at him. But he can't hear it. His ears are filled with buzzing as reality breaks into the facade he'd slowly built up over the course of hours.

No-

No no no-

His pizza slice drops to the paper plate as he fumbles with his bag, pulling out the cell phone from the liner pocket. Shaking fingers tap the screen with frantic speed, trying to turn the damn thing on-

9:17?

They'd been here nearly four hours?!

He'd spent the morning out with Harriet, doing their grocery shopping and walking around the town's outdoor mall as much needed father-daughter time. Eight hours of being in disguise had long since passed.

His time limit was up.

This couldn't be happening. Yet the numbers stare back at him from the glare of his cell phone screen. They even have the nerve to tick over to 9:18 right before his eyes.

This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening! It wasn't fair!

"Luka, you ok? You're turning pale..."

Clover's question just barely manages to pierce the haze, causing Luka to jolt in his seat. Posture stiff and breath shallow, he lifts his head to meet Clover's questioning eyes. She's staring at him with building concern, her smile becoming a frown of worry.

The tension is palpable in the air as Luka struggles to find words. Finally, he manages to say something.

"It's- it's a quarter past nine-"

"Oh shoot-" Clover says, sitting up abruptly as she grabs her own phone.

MJ checks his watch, wincing. "Oof. Sorry, Luka. I guess we lost track of time passing. I'll apologize to Cookie for the overtime, we can finish this round and go-"

"Don't feel good- going to the bathroom-" Luka wheezes, scrambling to his feet as he scoops all of his belongings into his bag and races past MJ's seat.

"Luka!" Clover yells after him, her heightened concern audible in her voice. "Ok, we'll- we'll start cleaning up! Let us know if you need-!"

Her words are cut off by the slam of the bathroom door. Luka's bowling shoes slip over the slick tile floor, his hands gripping onto the cold porcelain of the bathroom sink to steady himself. He brings his shaking hands up to view in the mirror. The blackening purple skin was spreading up his finger joints, reaching his palms.

No- not now! Why now?

Luka clenches his fists and his jaw, focusing every ounce of his will on making the purple go away. He can almost feel a vein pop on his forehead- if he still had veins, anymore- as he strains to make his unwilling body follow his desires. The purple starts to recede at a caterpillar crawl... but it slows. And the harder he tries, the more he can feel his arms struggle to hold their shape - becoming less solid.

"No- no!" he whimpers, clenching his hands into the sink again. The action splatters small droplets of purple sludge against the porcelain, which vanish moments later as the purple staining once more consumes his fingers - and now his palms. "Stop it! Just- let me be human! Please!"

He lifts his head to the mirror. Despair fills his gut as he sees amber eyes staring back at him in the reflection, and the beginnings of an inner glow fighting to come out from the back of his throat.

Luka lets out a wordless sound of sorrow, lifting an arm to pound one fist against the mirror in vain. The reflection is unfazed in its destitution, tears beginning to gather at the edges of its eyes and mouth set into a sob of clenched teeth. The reflection's canine's lengthen several inches as the eyes stare back, accusingly. The purple was starting to spread up its neck, just poking out the collar of the shirt.

"No..."

This wasn't him. But it had been, years ago. This was SUPPOSED to be him.

He curls his fist, watching as the fingers start losing their shape. Fusing together, becoming single digits and his thumbs vanish back into the purple sludge of the limb.

"I was finally-..." Luka whimpers, "...I finally felt human again."

-bang bang bang-

The sound of a fist knocking on the bathroom door causes Luka to yelp and jump back from the mirror.

"Luka? You ok in there?"

It was MJ.

Peck!

Grabbing his bag, Luka books it into the furthest stall of the bathroom. He slams the metal door behind him, fumbling to lock it with his swelling mitten fingers. Alarm shot through his gut as his shirt felt tight around his torso. Already?? This was faster than usual! Had he really pushed it that much?

"Hey man, are you sick? Clover and I are really concerned. Do you need any help in there?"

"NO! NO I'M GOOD!" Luka yells from the bathroom stall, clapping a two-fingered hand over his mouth as he hears the slight reverb echo to his own voice. Dammit! "I'M JUST- I'LL BE FINE!"

He was not fine, he would most certainly not be fine!

"Luka, you sound croaky." It was Clover this time, probably a short distance behind MJ. "Dude, are you sure? MJ, maybe you should go in and check on him-"

"NO!"

No, the reverb was stronger!

"Luka, I'm coming in."

"MJ it's fine!"

Luka could hear the seams of his shirt starting to stretch and strain. The seconds were ticking by as strings started to pop at the neck.

Shit, shit!

Luka turned left and right, the stall cramped and uncomfortable as the ruff of fur around his neck thickens and threatens to burst his shirt open. He needed a way out!

Aha! A small window, to the outside! Wow, that was probably the worst location for a window. And it was so small-

The door creaked as MJ started to turn the handle.

NO TIME!

Luka makes a dive for the window. His fingers catch on the sill, and he hauls his body up onto the tiny ledge, his head pushing up the glass and emerging out into the open air. Squeezing through the narrow space, he struggles to pull his feet through, kicking off the bowling shoes and hearing them clatter to the tiles below.

The door comes unlatched, and MJ enters the bathroom, looking around with a frown.

Luka was gone. And for some reason, his bowling shoes were abandoned on the questionably cleaned bathroom floor.

Just outside the window, tucked next to the wall of the alleyway outside the bowling alley, Luka is panting with adrenaline. He can feel his chest expand further with each breath, the fur mane around his neck already splitting apart his shirt. His fingers had fully lost their human shape by now, coalescing back into the familiar mitts he hated so much. A reminder that, no, he wasn't human. No matter what those people in the bowling alley thought of him, and what he thought of them in return... no matter how much he wanted to be human, again.

"Luka?"

His entire torso now fully drenched in purple, Luka hangs his head, listening as he fights to strip off the shirt suffocating him.

Footsteps, in the bathroom.

"...Luka? What the-... Clover, he's not here?"

"What?? But he- went into the bathroom! He was just-!"

"His shoes are here..."

"His shoes??"

Luka forces himself to stand, wobbling a bit further away from the window as he focuses all of his efforts on keeping his legs. He can't lose his ability to walk, not in the middle of town!

God dammit... god dammit! Why couldn't he just enjoy his night? Now he was wandering alleyways, half transformed, and MJ and Clover were no doubt worried to hell and back. What could he even say? 'Sorry, had to take a break to wolf out in the bathroom'?

-brrring brrring-

The buzz of the phone in his pants pocket- which was getting tight against his waist, he noticed. Luka quickly extracts the phone before it can be damaged by the fabric.

MJ's caller ID stares back at him from the screen.

The decision to trust these two with his information was biting him in his rapidly purpling behind. He'd been so careful not to slip up, and the ONE TIME he makes a mistake... He had another decision to make. He could not respond, and just be a complete asshole, but he could protect his secret a little safer, for just a little bit longer. Or he could pick up, and... he didn't know. Bullshit something? Would they even believe whatever malarkey he could cook up in seven seconds for bailing out of a bowling alley restroom? God, he was terrible at improvised excuses! He was a lawyer, not an actor! But if he answered the phone call, maybe- maybe he could hold on to that feeling again. The warmth of companionship of peers his age, that he hadn't felt since law school. Since... Vanessa. But he couldn't think about her right now. What mattered was his safety- his daughter's safety.

Peck. He didn't even think about that part. Could he really rip Harriet out of a somewhat stable home life, again? She was just starting to get along with Cookie's daughter, and he didn't want to take that precious first friendship from her.

Luka was only pulled out of the downward spiral by the vibration of the phone, which he only now realized had registered a missed call, and was now on the second call. It was still MJ, the picture of him in his Horizon employee cap still smiling from the bright phone screen.

He had to do something. He could feel his legs protest the form they was struggling to hold.

Survival instinct set in. First, he had to get away from the scene.

Stumbling to his malforming feet, Luka jogs away from the alley, ducking away from the Pins & Cushions and avoiding the bright neon sign on the side of the building.

As he walks, a headache hits, and Luka just knows his face was losing more of his familiar features. Didn't need a mirror to know that he was definitely the shade of a bruised plum, and that his eyes were glowing like gold beacons. The sharp teeth at the edges of his mouth were digging into his bottom lip as he dodges and weaves to avoid line of sight from storefront apartment windows.

The woods were so close by, just a few more blocks.

Faster. He had to run faster. But his legs- were fighting him! Already he could feel his steps become lighter, movement more fluid. It was a struggle to keep a walking stride, rather than just- leap into the air. No way was he going to fly a block from pecking main street.

His phone continues to vibrate, threatening the call to drop.

Right when he reaches the sidewalk, Luka pants for breath, collapsing beside the pole for a street lamp while avoiding the amber spotlight. Taking one last rueful look at his phone, he sighs, and presses the answer button with a doughy purple finger.

"Luka?" MJ's voice patches through. The reception isn't great, but it's sufficient. Maybe that was a lucky break, considering what his voice was going to sound like in a second.

"Hey," Luka answers. Yep. He sounded like a toad that swallowed a brass tube. "Sorry- about that."

"Dude, are you ok?? Where did you go?" MJ spoke so quickly it almost interrupted Luka, concern clear and evident in his voice. "You ran or something and- you left your shoes at the counter, and the cat plush for your daughter. Clover got them for you-"

"It's ok," Luka says, wincing. "I can pick them up tomorrow. I- don't feel well, and I have to go get Harriet."

"Luka, we could have driven you home for that," MJ responds, a hint of hurt and confusion. "You know you can tell us if you're uncomfortable, and want to leave, right?"

"No- this- I was having fun," Luka responds, cupping a hand over his mouth to try to muffle the echo. He had to wrap this up. His voice was getting less natural by the second. He really hoped the poor reception would mask it. "Look- I'm sorry MJ. But I really had to go."

"You're not getting kidnapped or something are you?" Clover's distant voice suddenly patches through in the phone. MJ must have his phone on speaker. "Because if you are, I'll hunt them down! Just yell where the car is taking you!"

"I'm not- look, I'm sorry, but I just had to go, ok?" Luka says. "Harriet needs me."

"I thought you were feeling sick?" Clover says, her worried tone now tinted with... suspicion. "You ran to the bathroom, and we were all worried about you, dude." Her voice becomes just a bit distant, as she turns to speak to MJ, but the phone picks it up. “Actually, did we ever hear anything from Cookie...?”

"No- I am-" Luka can feel his lies crumbling, nearly becoming true as he experiences a sensation similar to his stomach heaving from the anxiety. "Thanks for the wonderful evening, I'll pick up my stuff later- bye!"

"Wait-!!"

-click-

MJ's protest is cut off, and Luka set the phone down on the grass, putting his head in the other hand. That was terrible. But he couldn't back out on it now. He would just have to deal with the consequences of that phone call tomorrow.

Not like having shoes or not bothered him, anyway.

Exhausted and resigned, Luka slides away from the lamp post into the chaparral, and begins rapidly pulling his shirt over his head. No way was he going to lose another shirt, not after the last one. This was his last nice shirt, and he intended to keep it as long as possible!

A quiet gasp jolts him out of his frantic folding.

Luka whips around, shirtless, half de-pantsed, and his body a full shade of deep shadow purple. His golden eyes glow in the reflected street light as he freezes on the spot, making eye contact with another human being across the road. It was the stocky mustachioed man from the coffee shop- the regular who came by and sketched quietly in a corner. Pinstriped suit- which seemed to be the only outfit anyone ever saw him wore- an apron, and grey khaki pants. The thick glasses would make it difficult to tell where he was looking, if the man wasn't standing with his square jaw hanging down at his chest, head angled directly toward Luka. Everyone dismissed him as a paranoiac, a hermit who stopped by for his morning caffeine fix and quiet atmosphere to indulge in his imagination. Rumors flew that he used to work for some sort of tabloid magazine, and was fired- or promoted?- for how crazy his stories were.

Whatever the reason, this man was now standing, groceries dropped to the pavement, and staring at Luka. A very half-naked, absolutely not human-looking Luka.

Face suddenly burning hot with embarrassment and fear, Luka grabs his belt loops and bolts into the trees.

The movement causes the man to only gape more, making a wordless noise of astonishment before the forest breaks their line of sight and Luka retreats into the safety of the woods. Luka just barely remembers to grab his shirt and belt from the bushes. Vanishing entirely from sight, stumbling over debris as his transformation takes full hold of his body, Luka wheezes as his heart beats in his chest. After all that, he was seen! Peck! Did he just ruin everything because he wasn’t paying attention? But- but it was just the local hermit, the resident conspiracy nut. That wouldn’t be so bad, right? This wasn’t as catastrophic as being spotted by a teen with a cell phone open. Surely, this was the safest possible person in town to accidentally spot him mid-transformation. Repercussions would be minimal.

Thank god the man didn't have a camera.

[hobbitingryffindor]

Don’t respond after 9 pm

So I've never written fanfic before, but apparently, I'm pissed at Jane. Please be kind, but also let me know if I should continue. I have a few other rules and scenes in mind. I have no idea if this will grow into anything more. Constructive feedback would be great.

___

Maura was ruminating. It was never good when she couldn’t get through her Saturday morning yoga session, but these days, it was becoming the norm. So after she finished her cup of tea, she locked herself in her yoga room, rolled out her yoga mat, and settled in with herself.

She had rules. They were new, and it was hard to keep to them some days, but they were there because she knew better. She knows she deserves more. She may not have had an attentive family growing up, but she knows her worth, or at least she’s gotten better at reminding herself. She knows what they have goes beyond friendship. She also knows it will never be more. Jane just keeps holding back the final piece of the puzzle. She could resign herself to a lifetime of this sexually charged and emotionally mediocre but never fulfilling relationship OR she could take a step back from Jane and a step forward for herself. But last night she forgot. She forgot the first rule she put in place almost a month ago.

1 - Don’t respond to Jane after 9 pm

Recognizing the anxious feeling that started in her chest, she told herself that it was a slip-up and it wouldn’t happen again. But she couldn’t help but grab her phone and reread last night’s messages.

10:36: J - Hey, you still up?

10:42: M - Just finished Bass’ enrichment and heading up to bed.

It had been such a simple response, it just floated out of her fingertips. She was so used to just always responding to Jane.

10:43: J- Enrichment? You can just say that you were in the sandbox hiding food for Bass to find.

10:44: M- Fine yes, I was reading his namesake’s new foreword in “Skeletal biology and bioarchaeology of the Northwestern Plains” while bass dug up the cactus leaves and strawberries I hid in his sandbox.

10:44: J- You make my night of watching the Sox lose seem like an exciting night

10:45: M- What can I say? We love to party over here.

10:45: J- I don’t know when it started, but you’ve gotten really good at sarcasm

10:46: M- You must be rubbing off on me ;-)

As Maura reread that line, she couldn’t help but cringe a little. She really couldn’t stop herself from going there last night, it was yet another small slip up, that showed how their friendship was always a little more than friendship.

10:59: J- I feel like I haven’t seen you at all this week, is the morgue backlogged?

11:04: M- It’s no busier than usual. Actually a little less so without a murder yet this month.

11:04: J- Give it time, Boston can’t go more than 2 weeks without a new murder. Have you been in court on other cases this week? I went to see if you could grab lunch a few times and I never caught you.

11:05: M- We must have just missed each other, I did lunch out of the office a few times.

11:07: J- You going to fancy places without me now?

11:09: M - Really Jane, any place that doesn’t allow jeans, you label as fancy. But no, a friend from my residency, Erica, did a few guest lectures at BCU. I caught one of her lectures and we had lunch a few times.

11:09: J- I see how it is, replacing me with other genii.

Reading this for a second time feels like a needle in her chest, last night it paralyzed her, she didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t replacing Jane, per se. This was also the point last night where she realized her mistake in responding to Jane’s late text. Even now, she still isn’t sure she handled it correctly.

11:18: J- Any plans for tomorrow?

11:20 M- While genii is correct, you can just say geniuses, you don’t have to try so hard. And, no I’m not replacing you. I was planning on browsing Newbury St in the afternoon.

11:21 J- Great, so I’ll pick you up at 2, I’ll carry the bags and then we can hit up Eataly for dinner? We haven’t been there in a while.

11:25 M- That’s okay Jane, I know you don’t enjoy my long shopping ventures, you don’t have to come. And I’ve got dinner plans, I’m sorry. But I’ll see you Sunday night for dinner.

After that, it was radio silence from Jane. Even after all these years, all the social cues Jane’s helped her learn, she still doesn’t know how to read the silence. Last night she was torn. She wanted to hang out with Jane but didn’t. Now she had to live with rejecting Jane’s plans, and what felt like a rejection of Jane herself.

That’s what brought her here, meditating as the sun was rising, or trying to anyway. Maura shook herself out and realized she was going to need a little help this morning clearing her mind. So she opened up the Calm app and resigned herself to a guided meditation. Maura went through the motions of her day, finishing off with an overzealous stop at Diane Von Furstenberg’s on Newbury just because. She still hadn’t heard from Jane and was trying to tell herself it was okay, they were okay, they were just both adjusting to this new normal. Maura hadn’t figured out what this new normal was supposed to be, but she knew she was unhappy with how Jane and she were a couple in every way, except in the way that mattered. Their friendship was unhealthy as it was. If they were only going to be friends, Maura was going to start making space in her life for other friends and possibly a lover or two. She can’t pinpoint when it happened, but her very active and healthy sex life seemed to slowly dry up the closer she and Jane got.

______________

Dressed in her new Midi dress, and a brand new pair of St. Laurent sandals, she waived to Angela across the courtyard as she headed off to meet Erica. Driving to the Chart House, she couldn’t help but reflect and acknowledge that Eric’s timing was creating a good distraction for her. She and Erica had done their residencies together, they hadn’t been best of friends, but she was always warm to Maura and tried to include Maura in her social circle. A few years after Maura moved to Boston, she reached out when she landed in Providence doing a Post Doc Fellowship at Brown. They’d do dinner a few times a year, trade interesting journal articles, nothing special, but it was nice to have a friend outside of BPD. When BCU invited Erica to guest lecture for the week, Maura decided she’d just drop in on the first lecture, which led to a couple of lunches earlier in the week, and a celebration dinner as Erica was just offered a tenure track faculty position starting in the fall. Pulling up to the valet station, she decided that this was just what she needed to expand her social circle a bit. She’d enjoy her evening, celebrate Erica’s new position and enjoy the late spring evening.

______________

Like clockwork on Sunday around noontime, the Rizzoli’s started to filter into her home. Angela always led the parade, bringing groceries and starting the prep process. Over the next couple of hours Jane, her brothers, little TJ, Frost, Korsak, Kiki, and even Susie sometimes would wander in and fill her house. When she invited Angela to live in the guest house almost 4 years ago, she never thought it was going to be permanent, nor did she think she’d enjoy having her there as much as she does. For all of Angela’s meddling and snooping in Jane’s life, she’d been nothing but respectful of Maura’s boundaries and privacy. Maura treasured how their patchwork family considered her house their gathering place, when it was full, it felt like the warm home she yearned for as a child. The amazing dinners, even if sometimes unhealthy, were a vehicle for that love and inclusion Maura had spent over 30 years searching for. She’d found it with Jane and her family, but she still craves more. She wants more than a patchwork family, she wants her own family.

As Maura was finishing up working in the garden beds Tommy and TJ arrived. By the time she’d entered the kitchen freshly showered and ready for Angela to put her to work, she saw Jane and Frankie had joined Tommy in watching a basketball game. Maura greeted everyone while looking at the TV, she noticed no one was wearing a green jersey so she knew Boston wasn’t playing, which usually boded well for her couch and rugs. TJ was in his high chair feeding himself some plain pasta while Angela sang to him. Maura and Angela quickly fell into their rhythm with this week’s batch of Ragu simmering on the stove. By the time the lasagna was in the oven, Frost, Korsak, and Kiki had arrived and, Angela and Maura joined the gang in the living room to snack on some arancini before dinner.

While Maura and Angela always cooked, the most relaxing part of Sunday dinners was when Jane and Maura cleaned up. Never fail the boys would head out not long after dessert and the games were over. And Jane in her way of appreciating her mother would kick her back to the guest house for an early night, while she took charge of cleaning up the kitchen.

“Another glass of wine while you work?” Jane asked Maura while grabbing the bottle

Maura just put her glass in front of Jane while nodding for more. The pots and pans were washed, the dishwasher had already started its cycle and Jane and Maura were moving to the living room to straighten up before settling in to catch up on their week. Normally all this happened with a comfortable level of conversation between them, but tonight, there was a little more silence than usual. With blankets folded and the remote located, they settled into the couch, each sitting against an arm, facing each other.

“You know mom asked me how your date went last night, I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone” Jane started.

“It wasn’t a date, I told you I was going to dinner with Erica, she’s just accepted an offer at BCU.”

“No, you said you had lunch with Erica” with a slight hint of annoyance that only Maura could pick up on. “I didn’t know you guys were doing dinner, I thought you might have been hiding a new boyfriend from me”

“No, no new boyfriend Jane. Although that would be nice or maybe a girlfriend, I haven’t dated a woman since I first moved to Boston”

Jane nodded, her eyes a little bigger than normal, sometimes Maura could swear Jane forgot she was pansexual.

“What about you? You seeing anyone new?” Maura asked, mostly to take the heat off of her. She didn’t know what was worse, talking about her lackluster dating life or trying to appear supportive of Jane's dating life when all she wanted was to be the person dating Jane.

“No, although Frost mentioned his old college roommate is single. I can’t believe I’m even entertaining the idea of letting him set me up.”

“You should at least meet him, if Frost is setting you up, I’m sure he’s a good man.” Maura grinned through a fake smile.

“I don’t know” Jane responded, Maura saw the walls going up “ I don’t want to talk about dating. Is Erica going to move to Boston? You know you’ve never introduced us, are you scared I’ll embarrass you?” Jane half-joked, changing the topic.

“No Jane, you have to stop with the self-deprecating humor, you know I’m not embarrassed by you. And yes, she needs to finish teaching a summer seminar at Brown, and then she’ll move up here.” The next words fell out of her mouth as soon as they occurred to her “I should see if she wants to come to next Sunday’s dinner.” Seeing Jane’s small annoyance grow into jealously, she redirected. “She can meet everyone, but please don’t interrogate her for college stories. You already know I was weird and awkward, you don’t need more things to tease me about!”

Jane took the bait “Ohhhh, I didn’t even think of that! I wonder if she’s got pictures!!

Maura just rolled her eyes, relieved that the tension was broken. She really did want Jane and everyone else to accept Erica, she remembered what it was like moving back to Boston and not having anyone. The rest of the night passed quickly, Maura kept the topics to mostly work or Boston politics. Jane could rant about local politics for hours and it didn’t put Maura at risk of gazing at Jane like she wanted to take her upstairs. A little before 11, Jane sighed and made her excuses about getting back to Jo before she relieved herself on the rug again. Pre-rules Maura might have made some comment about how much wine Jane had and how she should stay the night. Post-rules Maura kept her mouth shut. As Maura locked the door behind Jane, she couldn’t help but hope that just maybe, with some delicate balancing, she’d be able to move on from Jane and keep her as a friend.

________

Later that week Maura found herself at the Robber with the whole group, even Susie joined them. Maura was finding her new footing and it felt nice, it gave her a boost of confidence. Jane no longer acted as her interpreter when Frost made a joke, Korsak no longer felt the need to censor his dirty jokes and Susie actually had a pretty foul mouth once she had a few drinks. More than ever she noticed how breaking down her walls, allowed others to break their own down around her. She didn’t feel like Queen of the Dead anymore, she was Maura. As the night stretched on the table shuffled around a bit, Korsak left to meet Kiki, Frankie and Nina joined, Susie went home and Frost tried his luck with a pretty blonde at the bar.

Maura didn’t even notice how slowly Jane crept to her, close enough that her side was against Maura and her arm draped behind Maura across the back of the booth. But she did notice when the vibe between Jane and her started to mirror that of Frankie and Nina, right down to Jane ordering Maura another drink before checking with her. Maura and Jane were a couple, they couldn’t help it. The small touches, the laughing into each other’s sides, even the stolen glances. It no longer felt like hanging out, it felt like they were on a double date. It was too much for Maura, she excused herself to the bathroom to regroup. Looking at herself in the mirror, she scolded herself. She had to get out of there, she needed more distance. How could she possibly have her own relationship if she always ended up with Jane?

“I didn’t realize how late it had was,” Maura said marching up to the booth. “I’m going to head home. I’ll see you all in the morning? Those cultures should be ready by 10, I’ll page you when I have the report ready.” All of a sudden Maura infused a formalness into the air that wasn’t there before. Frankie raised his eyebrows but said nothing. It was weird for Maura to leave without Jane, or at least inviting Jane back to her house.

“I’ll leave with you” Jane started to get up.

“Oh no, that’s fine, I’m parked just across the street. I’ll be fine, stay, enjoy the rest of your beer” Maura responded with a slightly stern note. Jane nodded, “Party pooper, leaving me with these love doves” gesturing to Frankie and Nina, while they responded with mock offense. As Maura walked away, she didn’t see Frankie lean in and whisper to Jane.

Once Maura settled into bed for the evening she decided it was time for her to get out there. Even if it meant her joining one of those annoying dating sites. It was better to be trying than pining. Last week Erica had suggested How About We, it was worth at least signing up. She decided that it couldn’t hurt more than she was already hurting. While she hadn’t opened up to Erica about how frustrated she was with her’s and Jane’s relationship, she had expressed a desire to get out there more and Erica had offered a few bits of advice. If she couldn’t go to Jane about this, it was nice to at least have another friend to commiserate with about dating. As soon as she completed her profile, her phone beeped and a notification popped up on the screen.

11:17 PM

Jane Rizzoli

You awake?

Clicking her screen off, Maura put her phone on her nightstand and turned over for what would be a very uncomfortable night’s sleep.

[nancypullen]

OMG, It’s Over

The world’s slowest painters finally made their exit on Friday afternoon.  The “three day job” took nine days.  I don’t think they did a great job, and they left behind a bit of a mess - but at the end of nine days I would have paid them extra to leave.  We’ve walked the house and made note of everything they did that we have to fix or improve.  Not major stuff, but it has to be done.  We didn’t have the ceilings painted because they didn’t need it, but the painters touched the ceilings with their rollers in several spots and now we’re stuck trying to match the ceiling paint so that we can touch up those places without it looking like we touched up those places. Or having to get all of the ceilings painted.  I was steamed about that.  They did absolutely no sanding or prep - if there was a nail hole they just painted over it.  Again, I was steamed.  They received a bag  of money for doing a half-ass job.  It looks great as long as you don’t look too closely.

We’re still waiting for an installation date for carpet in just one, small room.  That’s been a saga.  We chose a particular carpet around the 1st of June because we were told it was in stock and readily available.  The guy came out and took measurements.  When we tried to pin them down to a schedule, suddenly that carpet wasn’t in stock after all.  We were assured it would be in on June 16th.  Nope.  Honest, it will be on the morning truck on June 17th.  Wrong again.  No one seems to have any idea if or when it will arrive.  Even worse, in order to get the wrong information we have to call and call and call and leave message after message.  We’re always promised that someone will get to the bottom of it and call us right back and then I think they immediately go into the Witness Protection Program.  Mickey actually spoke with someone this morning and I saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes.  Bless his heart.  I’m stressed over this because Matt is flying in on July 1st and this carpet is for his room.  Normally I’d just stick him in another room, but everyone will be here for the 4th of July weekend.  It’ll be a full house.  His room has been taken down to the sub floor and we can’t put a bed or anything in there until we get some dang carpet! Arrrgh!  It’s one, small room- just a square of beige carpet.  It really shouldn’t be this hard.  We also want to pull up the carpet on the stairs (it’s awful), paint them, and install a runner.  I’m thinking I’ll wait a while on that because this process has been ridiculous.

On a happier note, I found some cute cushions for that pretty rocker and the porch will start cheering up now.

I brought my rickety, little plant shelf up from Mt. Juliet and I’ll start filling that with pretties.  I’ve got the first layers of paint on that small chair that I’m turning into a planter (it’s going to take a while).  The gardens are filling in (my tomatoes have gone NUTS), and at least the outside of the house is looking like a sweet home.  I’m sure the UPS man is very impressed.

On a much happier note than that (I mean, it’s hard to top chair cushions, right?), no sooner had the slow-motion painters pulled out of the driveway than I received a text from Tyler saying they were coming over to spend the weekend.  The grandgirl had been talking about a “sleepover” and they wanted to give it a whirl.  So we spent Father’s Day weekend playing, laughing, eating, and exploring.  By Sunday night we realized we are old.  I wish I could post all of the precious photos here, but rules are rules.  Half the weekend she was a mermaid and the other half she was Wonder Woman. Who needs tv when you have an entertaining four year old around?  My goal today is to find mermaid treasure to toss into the blow-up pool - a few strands of Mardi Gras beads and some diving gems should work.  I should probably turn one of these cardboard boxes into a treasure chest.  That’s some happy crafting! Anyway, we’ve checked a major item off of a long to-do list (paint) and if we can just get a  #$@%&! square of carpet this week, we’ll be in even better shape.  I’ve ordered some artwork to hang over the sofa and I’m terrified.  I’ve never seen it in person and it could be all wrong.  I’d better write in my wish book, it needs to be just right!   I’m sitting on our very comfy sofa as I type this and after weeks in those stinkin’ camp chairs and then another nine days with the furniture covered in drop cloths - this feels like a victory.

I’ve decided that’s enough whining for today.  I’ve got to buy some mulch and then I think I’ll spend the afternoon painting that little chair.  Flowers and stripes and polka dots take time.  I hope that wherever you are, your day is going smoothly and that you get to do something you enjoy.  Make time for yourself, it’s so important. Stay safe, stay well, stay centered. XOXO, Nancy

[theyreonlynoodlesmike]

Melting Wax, Crawling Vines: Part 5 (Vincent Sinclair x Fem!Reader)

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Warnings: cursing, slight voyeurism

Word Count: 2734

@meanduck

Vincent hadn't meant to spy. He didn't know when everyone was coming back, or if any of them were currently even at the house. Sure, Lester had told him that the three of you were leaving town, but he'd been disconnected from his brothers the second you had arrived. He only wandered inside the house because he wanted to see if the three of you were even back yet, and he was surprised to hear muffled voices coming from his room.

In his surprise, he'd managed to step on one of the floorboards that always creaked. He winced to himself, even if he doubted that the pair of you heard it. He took a step forward, pushing a painting slightly aside and glancing through a hole in the wall that only he knew about. 

There, inside his old room, was Lester and you. He couldn't make much out, but he could see his bed. He saw your suitcase and the box, and it didn't take long for him to piece together what was going on. She's staying in my room , he thought to himself. He knew he shouldn't have expected much else. Bo wouldn't give up his room, even if he slept in the basement under the auto-shop half the time. Lester wouldn't give up his room because, while he had a whole other place to stay, his stuff had filled it to the brim. So, it was either his room or their parents room, and Vincent knew it was an obvious choice.

He didn't stay long, and, in fact, left the second his younger brother eluded to knowing that he was there. He didn't really mind that you were taking his room, as he didn't see it as much of a loss. He spent most of his time in his workshop anyways, which did have a bed already in it. The only thing he hoped was that you didn't find the supplies he'd shoved under his bed.

***

You had woken up late, and the sun was high above the horizon by the time you peeled open your eyes. You rubbed your eyes, trying to clear them of any bleariness as you reached towards the bedside table for your watch. It was early afternoon, and you groaned. Your first impulsive thought was that you were going to have to fix your sleep schedule before school started, but you stopped that thought dead in your tracks. You weren't sure where you'd be teaching this year. You couldn't teach back at home, and you'd have to tell your new town that you could no longer accept the position. At least, until your ex was apprehended. You sighed, moving to press your face flat against the pillow. 

You'd stayed up past midnight, planning and prepping for the next night. You knew that you probably didn't need to, that the boys might not have super high expectations for classes. It was more to distract you from any potential thoughts about your ex, to distract you from the creeping anxiety and potential nightmares. Thankfully, you'd fallen into a blissfully dreamless sleep, one void of images of your ex or your sister. You blamed the new town, maybe even the new room. It wasn't your own, and it didn't resemble anything close to where you'd lived. The complete change in scenery probably had something to do with it. You picked at the blankets, wondering if that had anything to do with it either. Your old set had been one that had been brought with you, from the house you'd shared with your ex and your childhood home turned into your sister's home. Perhaps the bad dreams had been clinging to your sheets, like ghosts. You played with the thought, wondering if Vincent had any bad dreams attached to sheets you were under.

You shook your head. You'd been thinking about the mysterious figure far too much. You knew it was just curiosity, but you couldn't wait to meet him if not to just expel the way your mind consistently went back to him. You got out of bed, grabbing a pair of socks to wear so your feet wouldn't freeze on the wooden floor. You looked outside the window, seeing that Lesters car was gone. You guessed that Bo would be down at the auto shop, and you didn't know if Vincent even really lived in the house. So, you guessed you'd have it completely to yourself. 

You saw no reason to change, and you walked down to the first floor in just your sleep shirt and a pair of pajama shorts. You figured, worst case scenario, you'd end up having pizza for breakfast. If there was any left. You went straight to the kitchen, your footsteps silent as you approached, and you nearly jumped when you saw a figure at the sink. His back was turned to you, but you quickly guessed that this had to be Vincent.

He was as tall as Bo, if not a few inches taller. His hair was long and dark, and it looked almost as thought it had a few pieces of wax caught in it. He was wearing a sweater and overalls, despite the Louisiana weather. You couldn't imagine how he could withstand it, especially with working with hot wax all day. Eventually, you cleared your throat so you wouldn't sneak up on him.

You had leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, pressing your shoulder against it as you watched him jump. He dropped his bowl, and he was quick to turn to find the source of the noise. Like Bo had described, he was wearing a mask. You gave him a smile and a wave, knowing not to expect much of a response from him. At least, until you began to teach him some signs.

"Hi," You started, before giving him your name and walking closer. "You must be Vincent, right?" And you watched how he awkwardly swayed for a moment. He had turned so his hip was leaning against the counter, and, despite his size, he almost looked like a caged animal. Ready to run at the first sign of an opening. You walked until you were only a few steps in front of him, and you watched how he gave you a small nod. Your smile widened, and you held out your hand. "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm excited for our first class tonight." You added, and you nearly thought he was going to leave you hanging.

After a long moment and a slightly too long of a silent pause, Vincent reached out to wrap his hand around your own. It was large and covered in wax in some spots, same as the front of his overalls. It seemed he'd just come from wherever he worked, and you supposed his hours were just as off as yours were. But, despite the spots of wax, his hands were warm and soft, and he only gave your hand a soft squeeze before he was dropping it. You tried to suppress your smile, as you guessed that Bo had been right. He really was shy, but you couldn't help but find it endearing.

"So, I'm guessing Bo and Lester went out?" You asked, and there was a shorter pause between his nod. You had moved, walked so you could stand a few steps besides him near the counter. So you felt less like you were trapping him against a wall. His gaze has followed you, and you could see a single blue eye peering out from the mask. Bo had been vague about the description of what lied underneath, but you also supposed that it was simply none of your business. Still, the way his eye stared at you, almost unblinking, realized how casually you were dressed for your first meeting. Subconsciously, you pulled up your shirt. "Do you guys happen to have anything to eat? Any coffee? I don't mean to ask for much, and I can always head to town…" You trailed off, watching as Vincent quickly sprung to action. He had to step closer, reach above you to open the cabinet and point towards the cereals on the lower shelf. He gestured to them, and you were able to guess his answer. Help yourself. And you watched as he turned his attention to a coffee maker. His movements were careful and deliberate, and as you looked around, you saw the kitchen was about as clean as you could expect it to be.

Vincent started a pot of coffee for you, simply because you were unfamiliar with their machine. You picked out a box of cereal, and Vincent was quick to show you where the bowls were. Despite showing you, he still reached to grab you one and then passed you a spoon. Thankfully, he didn't hover and let you pour your own cereal, and you gave him a smile and a quick thank you when he pulled out a carton of milk for you. He resumed his spot next to the coffee maker, hovering by it while you fixed your cereal. You could feel his stare glide over to you, but you kept your smile to yourself as you mixed the milk and the cereal before popping a spoonful into your mouth. It was, at least, breakfast related, so it was better than the alternative. Vincent tapped his fingers lightly against the counter as the coffee started, and you saw that his gaze flicked away from you the second you looked up at him. You did your best not to smile, and quickly had another spoonful of cereal to hide it. You saw that Vincent had pulled out two mugs, so you guessed that he was having one himself. When it was finished, he poured himself a cup and passed you the sugar. He let you fix your coffee how you liked it, and he placed the coffee pot back inside the maker to keep it warm. Once you were done, you helped him put everything back.

"So, I guess I'll see you tonight?" You asked, taking your bowl to the small table stuck just outside the kitchen. He gave you another nod, and you watched as he took his cup of coffee past the stairs. You figured his workshop was up there as you began to eat, idly thinking about what you were going to spend your time doing that day. Once you finished up, you washed both your bowl and your mug, setting them aside in the dish drainer, and went upstairs to change. It was still early afternoon, and you figured you could find Bo before you could find Lester. Luckily, your new room had a bathroom attached to it, so you didn't have to scour the place looking for a shower. 

You grabbed your toiletry bag from your back-pack, and fiddled with the shower for a moment until the water was to your liking. You took a quick shower after locking the door behind you, scrubbing off a days worth of sweat and any of the paranoia that lingered from the day before. Once you were showered, your teeth were brushed, and you were changed, you went down to find Bo. 

The walk was short and the sun was hot, the sky as clear as usual. You could already hear music playing from inside the shop, so you didn't figure Bo would be able to hear the bell of the door ring. You knocked against the open door to the garage, trying to catch Bo's attention from where he was ducked under your hood. He didn't look up, so you called,

"Bo!" And you startled him to the point where he knocked his head against the hood. You gasped, covering your mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry! You just didn't near me knock, so I-" You said, but he was taking off his cap to rub the back of his head and shouting,

"Fuck- Just turn down the music!" He cut you off with his words, and you were quick to whip around and turn it down. You heard him sigh and curse to himself, and you repeated a soft,

"I'm sorry." As you came back to the door of the garage. "I just- I just wanted to check-" But he was cutting you off again and saying,

"It's fine, it's fine. I just couldn't hear you. So, you're finally up, huh?" And you didn't know if the statement was supposed to have a bit of bite in it or if you were just imagining it. You supposed his annoyance was warranted, as he had just hit his head. Still, you bit your lip and quickly thumbed back towards the entrance.

"If you're busy, I can just- I can go explore. Walk around. Maybe pick some stuff up from the store if you need anything." But Bo was quick to say,

"No, no. I could actually use a hand here. Another set of eyes." He said, and you almost didn't note how quick he was to shut that idea down despite his previous annoyance at your arrival. Almost. You thought it was strange, and realized that this was the second time that your idea to explore the town had been shut down. Vincent's had been softer, but this one struck you. 

But he was beckoning you forward, and you were stepping closer and into the garage anyways. You didn't know nearly as much as Bo did, and it seemed more like he was trying to test your knowledge more than anything. You ended up mostly passing him tools and holding a flashlight for him, and when you asked,

"So, any idea what's wrong with it?" Bo's reply made little sense to you. 

"Could be your battery. Your spark plugs. Hell, might even be your engine. Basically, I'm surprised you made it this far with this thing." You simply nodded and tried not to grimace, and you thought you caught the edge of a smile on his face as he turned back towards the vehicle. The only thing you knew was that this was starting to sound expensive, and like it was going to take awhile. After an hour, you asked him,

"Do you mind if I use your phone again? I just wanna let my local sheriff know about what happened." And Bo seemed to hesitate for a moment before he said,

"You gonna faint again?" And you gave him a soft laugh and a shake of your head. "Alright. But remember, it's probably best not to tell anyone where you are." He said, and you gave him a dutiful nod. You pulled yourself off the stool you'd been sitting on, and went to grab his phone. You dialed the home phone number of your local sheriff, and, after telling him everything, he agreed with Bo.

"He's probably right. We don't know how he found you, but stay where you are and don't tell anyone, alright? We'll find him, don't worry." After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "You sure who you're staying with are good people?" And you were quick to say,

"Yeah, I'm sure. They've been real nice to me." You told him, and it seemed as if the sheriff had something else he wanted to say, but decided against it.

"Alright, darlin'. Stay put and stay safe, y'hear? Call back at the end of the week for an update." And you agreed before wishing him goodbye. When you plopped yourself back onto the stool Bo had pulled aside for you, he turned to give you a grin before nodding back at the flashlight. You said a quick, "Oh," And went back to shining it where Bo needed you to. You'd been there for a couple of hours when Lester came by, and you quickly found that that's what the pair of you had been waiting for.

The three of you went back up to the house, ready to start your first lesson. You went upstairs to grab your folder for the first class, finding that Bo had disappeared into one of the rooms. When he returned, he wasn't alone. You set up at the table besides the kitchen, and Bo and Lester took the seats across from you. Leaving Vincent to take the seat besides you. He seemed hesitant, but sat down nonetheless. Finally, you opened your folder to begin.