#but also you’re an adult if i hear you calling a man a golden retriever (especially if that man is matty healy good god)

[luxurycatscratchpost]

hand to god one of the funniest possible lyrics to write. i dont even care that the album is genuinely bad, i adore this. yes, girl, sometimes wanting to fuck that guy is a trial worse than what jesus went through.

[voiceswithoutlips]

Calico - Chapter One

— pairing: Hybrid ot7 x Human Reader (Female) — genre: hybrid AU , fluff, angst, slow burn (like real slow), eventual smut — word count: 1.8K — Rating: M — warnings: trauma, mention of past abuse. 

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— chapter summary: 

Y/N runs a animal shelter, Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. What will Y/N do when her sanctuary is threatened by an unexpected hybrid?

— A/N: This is going to be a series, I’m just getting back to writing, so I’d really appreciate your input and feedback <3

Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 3.5 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6

“So do you like your new puppy?” I asked the little girl that was trying to hold a squirming golden retriever pup. She frantically nodded her head. How cute!

“Congratulations on the new addition to your family! We’ll send someone for an inspection soon but I don't see how there can be any problems,” I reassured the parents. They were proudly beaming at their daughter, I doubt they even heard what you said. 

“I’m going to name him Bubbles!” Sana squeaked excitedly as the family left with their new pet. I suppressed a giggle, I was a sucker for cuteness. 

Seeing one of our animals get adopted was the best feeling in the world. Running a shelter was not the easiest thing in the world, grumpy animals, grumpy humans and an abundance of body fluids to clean up but it was rewarding. Calico was a no-kill shelter, a privately owned animal shelter. The upside was that we didn’t have to rely on the government for funding, the downside was the paperwork. Every animal that came to the shelter had to be meticulously checked and catalogued. 

The legalities were another headache. Most animals that came to Calico were rescues. We worked with several animal rights organizations that collected evidence and built cases against the owners. Sometimes we got rescues that weren’t exactly legal so we had to get the evidence and build the case ourselves. That’s why Calico had Song Hwa, a badass lawyer. She was just five feet tall but she could stare down men twice her size. 

“One down, two to go,” Jason said as he plopped down on the couch in your office. He was the head veterinarian at Calico, overseeing the health of the animals. He was also my best friend. 

“We have three potential families visiting tomorrow. How’s Hector doing?” I asked as I stretched in your chair. 

“He’s good but I’m still against the name Hector. He looks more like a Raphael,” Jason said with a frown. Last week one of our animal handlers Shownu found a box near the shelter’s gate. There was a small turtle in it, the poor thing was injured. Jason had to amputate his left hind leg because it was infected. 

“I’m not naming him after a mutant turtle. He’s a one legged turtle from the sea, he’s a pirate and nothing you say will change my mind,” I had named him after Hector Barbosa from Pirates of the Carribean movies after I won the rock paper scissors tournament against Jason. 

“Dorks,” Hana scoffed from the corner. She was the one who dealt with the potential families, showing them around the shelter, doing background checks and whatnot. I was the one who sealed the deal and dealt with the paperwork. I was terrible at social niceties, somehow I always ended up saying the wrong thing and had the worst timing in the history of humanity. 

Before Jason and I could retaliate Moonji burst through the door. “He’s back, Yonu is here,” he was breathless. He must’ve ran here all the way from the gates. Moonji was the other animal handler, he was a retired botanist with a wife and two daughters. 

We all collectively sighed. Yonu was a proud member of Animal Liberation Front, an extremist group or as the government would like to call them “animal rights terrorists”. Once in a blue moon Yonu would drop by without a warning to drop off rescued lab animals, he had a thing against scientists. The problem was that they were illegally acquired so we had to lie on the paperwork. Every time Yonu visited Calico, it was a stress fest for everyone, well everyone except Yonu. 

I reluctantly made my way to the exam room. Yonu was standing there bickering with Song Hwa with a box of rabbits.��

“We are NOT taking in the rabbits unless you tell us where you got them!” Song Hwa put her foot down. 

“It's classified,” Yonu said with a grin. 

“Then take them back,” Song Hwa was staring daggers at him.

“Yonu, you know we need to clear the legal side of things,” I shook my head, he knew how things worked. Usually he would brag about his conquest, giving us in depth details about his adventures. Sometimes he brought back research and documents for evidence.Something didn’t sit right with me. Where did he get the rabbits? Why wouldn’t he tell us?

“Sorry sugar, can’t share the details this time,” I sighed at his nickname. One day Yonu discovered that I didn’t like sugar in my coffee and he decided to start calling me Sugar. He was one annoying bastard. 

Jason was already weighing the rabbits and taking their temperature. No matter what methods Yonu used to ‘rescue’ the animals, we always took them in. Song Hwa always said I was too soft, she didn’t know how wrong she was.

There were seven rabbits in total. All white with long ears and pink noses. They were unusually small. “Yonu did you kidnap kittens?” I frowned as I leaned in to take a closer look. 

“No they are all adult males,” Jason interjected. He was checking them one by one, taking their blood to run tests, checking their limbs for any injuries, it was a routine procedure. 

“Aren’t they too small?” they were.

“Maybe they are like those toy poodles… toy bunnies?” Song Hwa suggested. It could be or maybe their growth was stunted. Either way, I didn’t like it, something was off about this, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. 

Jason was running blood panels in the lab as I took over the paperwork. The rabbits were safely left in a hatch outside in the garden. Yonu had miraculously disappeared as soon as we turned our backs and I was starting to get a headache. 

The rabbits barely showed any movement when they were being examined. They were practically limp in Jason’s hands. They had clearly been abused. I didn’t like the blank look in their eyes. Most of the time if the animal was scared it’d get defensive and lash out, it was a good sign, it meant that it still had its faculties. These rabbits didn’t make a squeak as they were moved to a new place, it was worrying. I just hoped they weren’t too far gone. 

“We have a problem,” Jason said as soon as I entered the lab. He was sitting in front of the computer, double checking the results. 

“This day just keeps getting better,” I murmured as I leaned in to see what he was looking at. Not that I could make any sense of it. 

“One of the rabbits is a hybrid,” did I hear that right?

“Come again?” did he just say what I thought he said?

“We have a hybrid in our hatch,” my heart sank.

The presence of a hybrid posed a threat to Calico. Not because he was dangerous, but because he was stolen. The laws regarding hybrids were still primitive in most countries. They were basically slaves to the system, regarded as sub-human. Hybrids were considered as property, something to be owned. Rare animal hybrids were highly sought after by the wealthy to show off their status. So technically the rabbit hybrid in our hatch belonged to someone, we had no right to keep him here. If his owner found out, they would sue us. If the government found that we were keeping a stolen hybrid they’d shut us down. 

“Let’s just send him to a hybrid shelter,” Shownu huffed. The staff was gathered in your office for an emergency meeting.

“Most of those shelters have terrible conditions. Why not just keep him here, we have license to house hybrids, it's not that big of a deal,” Jason said. 

“Might I remind you that he is stolen. We can’t keep him here, we have a shelter inspection next week,” Song Hwa frowned. 

Few months ago we had decided to expand Calico to accommodate hybrids too, we had enough room to do so. We had constructed a hybrid “enclosure” as per the government guidelines. They had sent us the requirements. … they wanted us to put people in cages. We all collectively agreed that no hybrid will ever be housed in that place. No matter what anyone said, they were still human. 

“We can’t just abandon him, who knows what those lab people did to him,” Hana retaliated and an argument broke out. I knew they loved this place, they all wanted what’s good for the shelter. This wasn’t this first time we had to lie but having a hybrid was different. None of us had ever dealt with a hybrid before, even if we decided to keep him, what then? But I knew I couldn’t hand him over. Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. And that rabbit hybrid needed our help. 

“Enough. We took in the animals that Yonu had brought before because they needed help. We’ve lied on the documents and it’s no different this time. That hybrid needs our help, we just need to come up with a plan,” I passed the verdict. Not everyone liked it but I knew they’d never let me down. 

After the stressful day all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Jason and watch TV. Our house was on the edge of the property, secluded in the forest. It was a country cottage with a private garden. YouI stopped by the rabbit hatch on my way back. The poor bunnies were all squished together in a corner, scared of the new environment and the open space outside. 

I couldn’t tell which one was the hybrid as I leaned in to take a look. Looking for him was no use. Maybe talking would work. I sat down beside the hatch with a sigh.

“I know you’re there,” I said quietly. “It must’ve been scary huh? Being taken from the lab. Yonu, the man who brought you here, he’s a good person. He only wanted to help. His methods aren’t always ….well savory but his heart was in the right place. Do you know what this place is? It's called Calico, it's a shelter for animals. We take care of animals who need help and find them a new home. 

“This is my sanctuary. Nobody will hurt you here. You don’t have to be scared. You are safe here, I’m going to keep you safe, okay?” One of the rabbits was looking at me, he quickly ducked his head as he caught my gaze. I smiled, he was listening. 

“You must be hungry huh? Rabbits only get veggies and greens, don’t you want to eat pizza, and ice cream, and pancakes, maybe some sashimi…” I rambled on about food, about Calico and the staff, inside the hatch a bunny was listening intently to my stories. 

Next

[gucciwins]

Frosty the Snowman

Harry and Y/N love the holiday season but Harry takes the teasing a bit to far and well Y/N decides to give it right back. 

Word Count: 5126

A/N: hello! thank you so much to @goldenbluesuit for organizing this wonderful christmas fic challenge. thank you for allowing me to participate, kate. i’m so happy i got to be a part of it. merry christmas and happy holidays to you all. sending you all a big hug and lots of love. 

_____

Christmas has never been much of importance in your life.

That was until you began dating Harry.

 Harry and his family loved celebrating in particular because Harry was gone for so many months of the year. They loved giving gifts, and Harry loved spoiling his family. He was a true family man who loved to be doted on by his mother and teased relentlessly by his older sister. His smile never leaves his face when he's with them.  

Ever since Harry found out how you spent the holidays alone drinking wine and hot chocolate on and off and binging all the best holiday movies. He declared that was not acceptable and that furthermore and until the end of time you would be spending it with him and his family. 

The first year was something out of a storybook, a house full of kids and adults, Christmas music all day, and a big festive dinner. Gifts passed around, photos being taken to be added to the end of year scrapbooks. Lots of stories being told; honestly, it overwhelmed you. 

Anne found you outside wrapped up in Harry's coat that you swiped before slipping out unseen. She stood next to you, overlooking her garden with you. "My son loves you; he's brought you here not to overwhelm you but to let you know that you have a family here, and you always will." You let your tears run free, feeling comforted, and loved. "I've never seen him shine as bright as he does when he's with you and when he's speaking of you. We all want you here as much as he does." Anne then pulled you into a long hug, the motherly hug you never got growing up.  Reminded you not to stay out too long. 

Three Christmases later, you now take part in family traditions, helping Anne cook dinner and staying in sweats and playing family games all of Boxing Day. 

It's what makes your move to London with your boyfriend of four years easy. Knowing they want you there, knowing that the love Harry has for you won't fade, you've gone through many hurdles together, and it only strengthened your bond to one another. 

Four years together, and you're still learning new things about each other, like Harry having to have coffee first thing in the morning, bread was a must-have always in the house, and that he owned more mugs than he needed. He picked up that you adored your shoes, meaning you wouldn't throw them out until they were ripped and beat up enough for a new pair. Also learned that you rather eat lots of fruit during the day than making food in the kitchen because it meant more dishes that would be needed to wash. You loved doing the laundry, Harry knew it was to steal his shirts, but he didn't mind. He always knew where to find them. 

The one thing that really surprised him was your love for Christmas music; you knew every song, maybe couldn't remember the name, but you would be able to sing it. It never failed to make him smile; you even knew ‘Feliz Navidad’ and didn't butcher it as he did. 

Your love for Christmas music was signified because you never celebrated the holiday, and music was easy to access. It was what you immersed yourself in. 

This is why Harry is confused when he hears you begin to sing ‘Frosty the Snowman’ under your breath, then switching to a soft hum in the tune of the song as you start to place your freshly washed sweats in their drawers. 

Harry was not sure why you did that; you loved singing out loud. You had a decent voice, as you liked to say, but why switch. 

You're clueless to Harry watching you, deep in thought, trying his best to analyze you. 

Then Harry gasps; it all clicks, making sense. 

You raise your head to look at him, shutting the drawer with your hip. "What?"

"You don't know the lyrics." Harry accuses. 

"To what?" You step towards the bed, wanting to finish the rest of this to finally go down and each lunch. 

"Frosty the Snowman."

"I do." You defend.

Harry smirks, crossing his arms. "Prove it."

"No." 

"Why not?"

You frown before taking a deep breath and begin to hum the song correctly to Harry. 

"Okay, you know the tune, now the lyrics." He gestures for you to go on.

"Frosty the snowman..." Your voice dies down, you rake your brain for the correct lyrics, sending a smaller prayer you're right. "had a shiny nose?" 

"Oh, this is golden, love." He's laughing now. It's filling up the room. 

"Harry," You whine. 

"You call yourself the Christmas Queen." Harry is holding his stomach, his laughter getting to be too much. "Next, you're going to tell me you don't know the lyrics to 'All I Want For Christmas Is You.'"

"How dare you, that came out in our birth year." You're over making fun of you. 

"Okay fine, but really so many years, and you never learned. You said you love all Christmas music, and well, that's a classic, dove."  

You run a hand through your hair, your fingers getting caught on the tips for not brushing it out. "I never actually got to make a snowman, so I never listened to the lyrics."

"Are you secretly a Grinch as well?" Harry teases.

You throw a balled-up shirt of his and hit him square in the face; it quiets him down. "Conversation over." 

You walk out of the room, leaving him alone, to his chuckling. 

_____

In your home, something was always baking. 

It was either Harry trying to better his last bread or you baking a new vegan cake that Gemma sent you. 

It's something you both loved to do.

For you, though, it was your own form of meditation. No matter the time of day, if you felt your head spinning, you'd just head to the kitchen and begin to take out ingredients letting that be your only focus. The Great British Baking Show also brings a lot of comfort to you, Harry happily laying his head on your lap, your hand running through his hair as you just let the show play on and on. 

Now, you're in the kitchen for a whole other reason; you're baking gingerbread cookies, from snowflakes to snowman and even little reindeer. Harry has invited friends over for a fun holiday decorating party. It sounded like a good idea until he left you to do it all yourself as he ran errands that he pushed off for a week. 

Thankfully, there were no distractions during the time it took you to make one hundred cookies because there would be casualties during the decorating. Just as you were putting the last dozen on the cooling rack, does your phone ring causing it to cut off Paul McCartney's singing of 'Wonderful Christmastime.'

As you pick it up to answer, you check the caller id and see that it's Gemma calling. 

Gemma forgoes a greeting and goes straight to the reason for her call. 

"You don't know 'Frosty the Snowman!'" She exclaims more than asks. 

"I'm going to kill him." You groan into the phone. 

Gemma laughs, "No, no, please don't. Mum likes you too much to see you behind bars."

"Gem, he's been relentless." Thinking back to the past few days and how he'd randomly come up to you and just begin to sing the lyrics to you, not shutting up until you tickled him too much to continue. "Please don't let it come up later." 

"I've got you," Gemma assures you. 

"Thank you."

"As long," Gemma begins, but you groan jokingly into the phone. 

"Go on," You sigh, knowing this is how the eldest Styles sibling acts.  

"As long as you tell me what Harry bought mum for Christmas."

"Alright, fair." Very well, Harry would most likely spoil this himself the closer the holiday arrives. 

Just as you were about to spoil Harry's gift, he walks through the kitchen, saved by the devil himself. "I'll tell you later when you get here." You tell Gemma, smiling at Harry as you bid his sister goodbye.  

"Who was it, love?" Harry asks, kissing you lightly on your lips, being able to taste the gingerbread on your lips that makes him beeline to the cooled cookies. 

"Gems, a huge birdie told her I don't know the lyrics to a popular song." You lean against the counter, smiling as he has a cookie in hand already; he is also a big reason you made so many. 

"Hey," He says, offended, a cookie half shoved in his mouth. "I'm not huge." 

"Never said it was you, hun." You smirk. "Thanks for fessing up."

He pouts, not liking that you outsmarted him. 

"Might want to watch the cookies." You pinch his love handles, snatching what was left of the cookie from his hand and heading upstairs. 

Harry watches you walk away, upset that you stole his cookie; also, he knows you love his winter gains. 

_____

You and Harry are up fairly early, he likes to go on a run around the neighborhood, but you like going to the park. This morning you skipped your run because Harry was meeting up with a friend for breakfast. 

Sure, you got up at your usual time at 7am and began to prepare yourself breakfast. You usually drank coffee with Harry and seeing as he wasn't here, you decided to skip it, instead going straight to the fridge to get the fruits and orange juice to make a smoothie. Something simple, not wanting to clean much after. 

As you finally settled on the couch, getting ready to read Educated by Tara Westover, a book Gemma recommended to her then gifted to her. Tara's memoir is her story of how she comes from a Mormon background and recounts how she educated herself to go to college and learn about the world. It's a Friday, and what better way to spend it lost in a book. 

You had just flipped it open when your phone rang, alerting you to a message. As much as you didn't want to check because you were finally in a comfortable position, you knew it could easily be Harry checking in who gets worried about not getting a reply even five minutes after. He's a worrier at heart. 

As you retrieve it and settle yourself back down, not at all comfortable anymore, you see it's a message from Iz. She was the first friend you made on your own that Harry didn't introduce you to. Iz saw you at a coffee shop you began to frequent and complimented your tote bag that had wildflowers embroidered on it. You thanked her and shared you made it. Iz was shocked, just throwing compliment after compliment. You offered to make her one, but she said you had better teach her instead. Thus, a friendship began. 

Her message read: 

Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Listen in! 

It was definitely a strange message coming from Iz, but you did as told. 

Greg James was saying goodbye to his special guest, no idea who it was. "Before he signs off, he's going to play you one of his favorite Christmas songs," Greg says, then silences, allowing his guest a moment before speaking. 

"This week's Christmas song is in honor of my girlfriend who loves singing Frosty the Snowman... without knowing the lyrics. Happy Holidays."  

Your jaw drops. 

That your boyfriend's voice. You are the girlfriend. 

He went on record. 

Harry really went on live radio to tell thousands that you don't know the lyrics to a Christmas classic. 

You want to laugh because you never expected this from him and are annoyed that something personal now the whole world will know by the end of the day. 

You can't wait until he arrives home.

"Harry Edward Styles!" You yell as you hear Harry open the front door. 

He looks sheepish. "Yes, my darling angel."

"You told me you were having breakfast with Greg James, not that you were going to be on the Breakfast show."

"I took muffins, and they provided coffee, therefore, breakfast." Harry defends

"You exposed me to all of the UK to not knowing 'Frosty the Snowman.'"

"No one knows you're my girlfriend." Harry tries to brush it off.

"We've been dating four years; I'm not that much of a secret. Anne posts me on her story from time to time, and your friends follow my Instagram, fuck; you've introduced me to Greg." You're not angry, more annoyed than anything because he won't let this go.

"It's just to give everyone a good laugh; no one is going to hold it against you." 

"No, just my boyfriend and everyone who listens to the Breakfast Show." You cross your arms before storming up the stairs away from Harry. 

"Love? You're not actually mad, right?" Harry asks, pushing the bedroom door open. 

"You even got Iz on it!" Your turn around with a pout on your face. 

Harry laughs. "I honestly thought she wouldn't go through with it."

"Well, I see where her loyalty lies." 

Harry steps close and pulls you into his chest. You sigh, wrapping your arms around him. He knows how much you love his hugs.

"I promise this is the last I mention of it." 

You frown into his chest, not at all believing him. Harry pats your bum, and you take that as the queue to look up at him. He's smiling down at you, leaning in to give you a quick peck. "I promise." 

"Okay, then." You lean in and kiss him, firmer this time and much longer. Harry sneaks his tongue in, instantly getting a moan out of you. 

"I know how you can make it up to me." You gasp, pulling away, 

Harry raises an eyebrow at you. "Do tell." 

A smirk on both your faces as you guide him to the bed, very much hungry for something that wasn't breakfast. 

_____

Harry has the Christmas playlist running; it's a Sunday, meaning they spend it at home doing absolutely nothing. To be truthful, they rolled out of bed past ten and still have their pj's on. Not at all bothering to change, why waste more clothes if no one will see them like this in the comfort of their own home.

You cooked grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and now are playing a game of scrabble.

Harry puts down the word 'light,' then reaching his hand into the black pouch to pick five letters to have seven once again. You are looking back and forth between the board and your letters, thinking of the best place to place your word. 

"I've got a question," Harry says, looking at you, wanting all your attention as well. 

"What is it?" You're focused on your letters. Rearranging them, not putting down the 'q' in your hand. It's currently useless but will eventually give you a word to win the game. Not that you both ever keep points, oh no, that stopped after you beat harry 120 to 66, and he flipped the board, causing letters to fly everyone. You still claim that there are missing letters. 

"Frosty is a cute name."

"Reminds me of that Wendy's dessert. I'm still not sure what made it so good." You say, maybe you should get up and eat some. Harry did just pick up new flavors that he had been wanting to try something about them being richer in flavor. 

"You're getting off track." 

"Sorry, Frosty is cute for what?" You don't let him answer before you're speaking again. "A dog, did you get a dog?" You pause, looking up at him, "a cat, did Anne find a stray and wants to give them to us?" You wait, but Harry is about to crush all your excitement. 

"None of that." He shakes his head at you, and disappointment fills you immediately. 

"Well, can this conversation end then? I'm disappointed." 

"Darling," Harry chastises you for not letting him go on.

"Go on then, mate." You gesture him to continue. Shifting your attention away from the game in front of you.

Harry frowns, his eyebrows pinching together in the sweet way that makes you want to rub them out until he's relaxed. "Why'd you call me, mate?"

"Oh, I've called you this before." You brush off Harry's reactions; he's always dramatic. 

"I'm not your friend." He states.

You furrow your eyebrows and tilt your head and really look at Harry. "Well, of course, you are boyfriend," You emphasize, dragging out the word. "You're my best friend." 

"You can't say boyfriend anymore. I'm your fiancé now." Harry states proudly, but you feel a little dumbfounded, not knowing why he is saying that.

Your eyes widen when you look down at your left hand, and no ring rests on your left ring finger.

"Fuck, I missed your proposal, and the ring got lost." You pout, trying your best to stop the smirk from coming out.  

"Darling, I'm sorry." Harry quickly apologizes. "I'm still your boyfriend, but I will be proposing soon." He promises. "Shit, you were supposed to not even know. I really am bad at hiding things."

"Fuck, you really are." You laugh, "but boyfriend sounds cute. Can't I still say boyfriend when you do?" 

"Doesn't fiancé sound nicer?" Harry tries. 

You shrug. "Not as fun, husband is nice."

"You're rejecting my future proposal, then." Harry is teasing, and you can tell by the sparkle in his forest eyes. 

"Of course not, you dummy. You can be my fiancé and my boyfriend." You tell him like it was the most obvious answer.

"Seems like a lot of work."

"Rude." You stick your tongue at him. 

"Right, love, well try to remember I'm your husband once we're married, no more boyfriend."

"I will, hubby. You're going to be my hubby."

You both go silent.

You burst out laughing, "That's awful, I hate it."

Harry chuckles, nodding his head. "Yeah, I do as well."

"This is why I'm the brains in the relationship." 

"Right," Harry rolls his eyes at you, not at all agreeing.

"Uh, darling, I went to uni and got two degrees while you only finished school at sixteen before going off to steal millions of hearts around the world." 

"Including yours." He teases.

"I was always more a Zayn girl." You correct him.

Harry throws his arms up, "Can never let me win, can you?" 

"Nope"

"We're off-topic." Harry realizing how far they strayed from their starting point. 

"Where did we start?"

"Frosty." 

You sit back, resting against the couch; you take him in and smile at how cuddly he looks in the purple robe that he stopped letting you use. "Well, go on."

"Seeing as-" He pauses, hearing the familiar opening notes to the song he was thinking of. 'Frosty, the Snowman' is now his favorite song. "Perfectly timed, as you don't know the lyrics to Frosty the snowman."

"Gosh, you're never going to let this go," You grumble. 

"Nope. I figured we will have a little fun with this."

"More fun than the breakfast show." 

He gives you a pointed look.

You let out a long sigh, "Let's hear it." 

"You learn all the lyrics and sing it for me, and I'll let you get us a dog or cat." Harry's grinning at his idea, knowing you'll agree without a fight. 

"Can we go to the shelter?" You look like a kid on Christmas morning who had just received their presents from Santa, and in a way, you have.

"Yes, we can. Only if you can learn the entire song." Harry tells you again, wanting to emphasize the singing.

"Done deal." 

"Great, I'm giving you a week." 

You smile wide, nodding, looking, finally focusing back down at your words and the ones Harry has placed. You put down the word 'queen,' and this wins you the non-official game. Harry looks down at his poorly hidden score sheet and curses under his breath. 

"I win." 

Safe to say you lost more letters that day.

_____

It's been a week, and Harry is patiently waiting on their bed as you get ready in your shared closet. Your shared closet is large and mainly holds all of Harry's clothing. You definitely have a nice share of clothes filled with gifts from friends as well as Harry's friends and your treasured thrifted pieces. You smile at yourself in the full-length mirror. 

Harry really can't begin to imagine what you have in store for him. 

The speaker is set out and ready, and all that is needed is for you to make your entrance.

You shake out your hands in hopes of ridding yourself of the nerves. You look yourself over one last time before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open. 

"Close your eyes." You call out. 

Harry rolls his eyes but does as he is told.

You walk over to the speaker and press play, letting the music fill the room, making your way to stand in front of Harry, who slowly opens his eyes.

He gasps; he feels himself start to get hard. His eyes can't seem to take everything in fast enough. You smirk, loving the reaction you got out of him. It gives you the extra boost of confidence you were needing. 

You stand there, hand on your hip in a sexy snowman outfit to go with the performance you are about to give.

The dress, if you can consider it with how short it is, has three black buttons in the center. The material hugs your chest nicely, giving Harry a nice view of your breasts that are close to popping out. The dress hugs your waist and begins to flow out right past your butt. You wore your favorite black heels that Harry sometimes begs you not to take off. You had on a plaid scarf and a black hat that matched it perfectly. 

You were the human version of the snowman except for a more rated r version.

Harry is sitting his mouth wide open at a loss for words. You blow him a kiss before letting the song lyrics flow out of you.

Frosty the snowman

Was a jolly happy soul

With a corncob pipe and a button nose

And two eyes made out of coal

You sway your hips side to side, singing, enjoying the ravenous stare he was giving you. You throw the hat, letting it fall at his feet, but not even that breaks the gaze he has on you, not wanting to miss a single movement of yours. 

Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale they say

He was made of snow

But the children know

How he came to life one day

You take a few steps forward, but never enough to allow him to touch you, and he's craving it; you know he is. His hands are gripping his thighs, his knuckles turning whiter by the seconds. 

He still hasn't said a word. You have him mesmerized. 

You sing the lyrics proudly, knowing you practiced all week for this moment. The moment Harry will never forget all the teasing he had been doing, always forgetting you win these battles. 

There must have been some magic in that

Old silk hat they found

For when they placed it on his head

He began to dance around

"Baby," Harry breathes out, putting a hand out to touch you, but you take a step back before he can do so. 

You smirk, shaking your head no at him. You were having a lot more fun than you expected. 

You bend over, slipping off your heels, never breaking eye contact with Harry; he could very easily see up the dress that you had nothing underneath. His green eyes turned dark, and you swore your heart stopped, and you were sure he was about to attack. You were the prey, taunting him until he had enough, but surprisingly enough, he took a deep breath, and his composure was back well, just a bit of it.  

O Frosty the snowman

Was alive as he could be

And the children say he could laugh and play

Just the same as you and me

You stopped right in front of him. Harry's eyes trained on your red lips, hanging out to every word you were singing. You reached a hand back and began to unzip the dress. The grin on your face excited for the next reaction you were about to receive. 

Once you reached the bottom of your back, the dress fell to the floor. Harry let out a loud gasp. Your breasts on display, the small owl tattoo on your hip staring at him, he could see how wet you were, and all he wanted was his head between your thighs as you screamed his name. 

You were a dream. You missed Harry's touch. It was the reason you stepped close enough for him to finally pull you in. 

He led them down the streets of town

Right to the traffic cop

And he only paused a moment when

He heard them holler "Stop!"

Harry has no expression on his face as he sits you on his lap. He lets his head fall into your next, feeling how wet you are through his thin sweats. You move to stand up, but he grips your hips tightly, thrusting his hips against yours, searching for some kind of relief or a reaction from you because you still haven't stopped singing. 

"Baby, stop singing." His hand is cradling your cheek as his lust-filled eyes stare at you. 

You shake your head, not letting him distract you. The only piece of clothing left was the scarf, and Harry lets out a growl before ripping your scarf off your neck, throwing it off to the side.

Now you truly sit there naked in his lap, and you feel all the control you have over him. The song is coming to an end, meaning you've got to remove yourself from your favorite place to sit but knowing you'll be back there soon enough. 

Frosty the snowman

Had to hurry on his way

But he waved goodbye, saying

"Don't you cry I'll be back again someday"

You sing the final lyrics in his ear before walking away to turn off the speaker, an extra sway to your hips, knowing Harry is very well still watching your every move. You stand a delighted look on your face as you wait for his praise. 

"Those were the longest two minutes of my life," Harry says; he puts a hand over his heart, feeling like it might just burst out. "I'm never going to be able to listen to this song in public or around anyone that isn't you." 

You smirk, thrilled to hear that.

"What did I do to end up with someone as beautiful and perfect as you in my life." He confesses. 

"Probably stopped a war in a past life." You throw out jokingly. 

Harry puckers his lips and makes grabby hands at you. "Kissy, please?"

And who are you to say no? He spreads his legs, letting you step in between. You slip your fingers into his hair, pulling back with enough force to have him let out a moan. You lean down and connect your lips in a hot kiss, one that has Harry gripping you tightly wherever he can get his hands on. You moan as he slips his tongue into your mouth, and you happily give up the control to him. 

You pull back and rest a hand on his chest, preventing him from pulling you back for you. You wipe your thumb over his bottom lip that now has some of your red lipstick. "Seems like I won, sweets."

"I feel like the real winner here," Harry tells you cheekily, sneaking a kiss to both your boobs. You giggle, not at all surprised by his action. 

"Well," You fiddle with the collar of his shirt. "Why don't you show me how winners celebrate?" 

"With pleasure." Harry groans standing up quickly and pushing you back against the best. He strips as fast as he can, not without a small stumble; you're sure to keep your giggle quiet, knowing very well how easily he gets embarrassed. 

He is quick to get on top and kisses you hard. His kisses are always soft, but it seems the teasing seemed to flip a switch, one that you will happily remember to look to turn on again on a later date. Tonight, you are ready for an endless night of pleasure and love. 

Harry connects their lips, ready for an endless night of pleasure and love. 

_____

Christmas cards were a lovely tradition. Harry insisted they started because he wanted to show off his beautiful girlfriend to his friends and family. He also liked them handwritten because it added a nice personal touch. Who were you to argue about it?

This year you were the one excited to send them out. 

It read: Merry Christmas from our beautiful family to yours

You and Harry sat in front of the fireplace, four stockings hanging behind you. Harry made you sit in his lap, wanting to show off your matching two-piece buffalo plaid pajamas. You both had the biggest grins on your face, eyes shining bright. Next to you, laying on top of a box that was wrapped with blue sloth wrapping paper, was a one-year-old Australian shepherd that had spent the better of six months in the shelter because the small pup was quiet who didn't do well with people, but that changed instantly the minute he met you. You decided on the name Frosty for him. Not only did Harry get you the dog of your dreams but a small kitten as well. You brought home Snow, a six-month white Birman kitten who was the rut of his siblings, and how could you just not bring him home with you with his big blue eyes staring at you begging to add to your family because he had lots of love to give. At least that's what you told Harry what the look he was giving you meant. The two siblings laid next to each other, both surprisingly staring right at the camera, making it their best Christmas photo yet. 

A photo can honestly speak a thousand words because one glance at this photo tells you how much love there is in that home and their relationship. 

Christmas was all about spreading joy and love, and well, Harry accomplished just that for you.

_____

thank you so much for reading! i honestly hoped you loved it and would love to hear what you thought so send me a message if you like. 

i love you!

[twerkinwithhazza]

Pumpkin Seeds

Author’s Note: UH OHHH BACK AGAIN. I’m back yall finally off hiatus all because my phone is broken LOL. Anywho tumblr is a totally different place and most of my mutuals are adulting now. I would love new tumblr friends and I’m gonna try to continue this writing stuff but I’m busy with adult things now lol and it really depends on if you guys like what you see. Please excuse my rustiness this my first imagine in years... literally. I’ll get better with time. This was also slightly edited but I know there bound to be some mistakes. Anyways watch the Golden music video for clear skin and I hope you guys enjoy!  I think it's so adorable that whoever requested this thought this request wouldn't speak to me lol ! It definitely did because this went from a blurb to a full blown imagine.

psst you can read my other work here!

Warnings: smut smut smut and more smut and possible shitty writing, dirty talk, light choking, and some cursing.

Glossary: (y/c/n)= your cousins name + (y/m/n)= your mothers name

Request: hi!!!! if you are wrtiting for Harry please can you do one where missus and Harry are at a family party and have a quickie in the bathroom? don’t worry if it’s not speaking to you lol xxx

Normally you and your husband loved spending time with your families. Harry was always playing a balancing act between filming music videos, doing interviews, writing sessions, and an occasional date night in the house that always involved a Postmates order from your favorite restaurants and the two of you binge-watching Netflix on shuffle. As much as the both of you enjoyed stuffing your face with poke bowls from Poke Papa and watching True Crime stories, it wasn’t exactly romantic or fulfilling for the both of you, just enough to hold you over until his schedule clears up. So when Harry finally got a weekend off, you guys were ecstatic! You spent the week cleaning the house and meal prepping so no Postmates would be needed and Harry used his free time in between interviews for shopping for special toys and pretty lingerie he wanted to see you model for him. Flirty text messages were sent back and forth during small work breaks about your plans for the weekend and now all the two of you had to do was make it Saturday.

You’re not gonna like this...

The 5 words that destroyed you and Harry’s weekend plans. Anne called while you were organizing your closet and announced that her and Gemma, along with your parents and favorite cousins were coming to town to spend time with the two of you. You tried to convince her that maybe a small dinner party at that new fancy restaurant downtown would be a perfect spot for a get together but she was adamant about coming over to cook the two of you a homecooked meal. Breaking the news to Harry was the worst part, he was clearly devastated (you swore you saw the man shed a few tears). Now here you were stuffing your mouth with Anne’s famous juicy cooked duck instead of your husband's juicy di...

“(Y/N) can you pass me the mashed potatoes”

Your dad’s strong yet muffled voice interrupted your train of thought and broke you out of your horny trance as he chowed down on his meal. Pushing the dish over in your dad's direction allowed you the chance to look around and take a glance at Harry who was making small talk with one of your favorite cousins. He was wearing a black button-down shirt, of course with a few buttons loose, and his cross necklace bounced on his chest as he laughed at your cousin's crazy work stories. You focused on his fingers, his infamous rings adorned his hands, you noted that they were slightly damp from eating and the condensation on his glass cup. As you were drinking in his appearance a small damp spot was forming in your panties but given that there were too many eyewitnesses including, yours and his parents so you chose to just clamp your thighs shut and stuff your mouth with more mashed potatoes. 

Harry deserved his credit as a husband. Despite his calm demeanor, he was very well aware of your little ordeal yet still managed to give interview advice to (y/c/n) and compliment your mom’s cocktail mix. He was quite amused by how increasingly frustrated you were becoming. He noted your concentrated face as you munched harshly on a string bean, hands clenching onto the fork for dear life. He decided to do a little temperature check to truly see how far gone you were.

“So what are we thinking for dessert pecan pie or crumble cake ?”, Harry questioned as he stuck his fork in his mouth, pulling it out again once all the gravy was licked clean. Your eyes finally met and you can tell that he was tossing the ball in your court, it was your job to show him how you wanted the game to be played.

“Mmm I don’t know I guess I’ll have some pecan pie but I really wish I had some pumpkin seeds”, you flatly said as you finished sipping your wine, maintaining full eye contact with him.

Pumpkin seeds. You and Harry were “outside of the box” thinkers, you had to be with his life as a celebrity not exactly pairing well with your shared sexual fantasies. You had code words to indicate to each other when you were craving the other one's touch, but you knew that using the same words around friends, family, and other public figures for too long would possibly cause some suspicion. So your code words changed with the seasons, literally. When the leaves started turning that classic golden yellow and auburn, your code words changed thus came the use of the word Pumpkin Seeds.

Gemma and your mom shared a glance, raising their eyebrows in collective confusion.

“Pumpkin seeds.. For dessert ?” Gemma finally burst out., both of your mothers soft laughter followed in the background.

“Heyyy” ,Harry pouted as he bopped Gemma on the nose with some gravy ,“ I have you know Pumpkin Seeds are one of our favorite midnight snacks”. 

“Gross“, Gemma stuck out her tongue and wiped her nose. You couldn't tell whether she was referring to the gravy on her nose, your choice of midnight snacks, Harry’s smug statement followed by a wink at you, or a combination of all three.

“Well we can be concerned with dessert once we break out the baby pictures, I’ve been dying to see the infamous skinny dipping picture (y/m/n) has been telling me about”. Anne clapped her hands together and hopped out of her seat heading to the kitchen. Your mother followed behind but not before instructing you to head up to the attic to retrieve the pictures. You glanced at Harry but he seemed occupied cleaning up the dinner plates with your dad. You let out a frustrated huff and made your way up to the attic to grab the photo albums. 

As you shuffled through old boxes holding Harry’s old tour outfits and your little knickknacks from your travels, you heard the attic door open.

“Pumpkin seeds huh?”, Harry lightly chuckled letting the attic door close and leaning against the door frame. 

You refused to make eye contact with him, continuing to shuffle through the bins locating a few photo albums as you went , “It was only a matter of time Harry and you know it. Our weekend got stolen and we haven’t... ya know in like two weeks. So, yes Harry I want some damn pumpkin seeds.”

You let out a huff. You didn’t mean to come off so sassy and aggressive but you were frustrated… sexually. Your cousin was getting more Harry time in the 3 hour family dinner than you had gotten in the past two weeks. You stacked the photo albums gently on top of each other and cradled them in your arms, finally turning to face your husband but you didn't have to look very far. Harry had closed that gap between the two of you, gripping your face and making you look up at him causing you to drop the albums in shock. 

“Well let’s get you your pumpkin seeds then”

That’s all it took and sparks turned into a flame, you and Harry’s bodies connected and a feverish makeout session broke out. You both were so hungry for each other after weeks of neglects and it just felt so damn good to finally connect. Harry’s wet kisses were making their way down your neck, nipping and sucking as he goes. You knew he was getting into it and normally you would be completely here for it if your kitchen wasn’t flooded with family members waiting to laugh at your baby pictures.

“Baby.. we… fuckkkkk”, You moaned out as Harry popped one of your nipples out of his mouth before moving to nip on the next one. “Baby we can’t your mom is downstairs… we have to go”, you finally let out and glanced down at your husband as pinched your nipples between his finger tips. “When has that ever stopped us”, he slyly laughs. In one swift motion, he turned you around pulling your back into his chest pulling down your skirt. You couldn’t even get words of protest out, Harry had his hands wrapped around your neck and was already freeing himself from his pants and boxers. He pulled your panties to the side and let out a hiss as he watched a string of your arousal stretch from your dripping flower to his fingers.

“Baby please just do something”, you huffed out a soft moan as you waited in anticipation. The grip around your throat tightened as he entered you, both of you letting out a sigh of relief. Harry completely bottomed out inside of you, touching that special spot that only he could. Your walls clenched around him, holding him in snug almost as if your pussy was begging him not to leave. Normally the two you were very vocal during sex from dirty talk to his loud moans and your even louder cries of pleasure. However you both knew that wasn’t possible right now and kept your moans down as much as you could. Harry was not making it easy though and the noise coming from the two of your bodies colliding were basty in the best ways possible. With every thrust of Harry’s hip you could hear your wetness coating Harry dick and as Harry picked up the speed his balls roughly tapped on your clit, only adding to your pleasure. You could barely form thoughts let alone sentence, Harry was literally fucking you silly and using your G-Spot as punching bag for his dick, The sounds and the pleasure were clearly getting to Harry as well, the grip he had on your hips grew tighter and his eyes were squeezed shut. 

“Bloody fucking hell you’re so tight around me, can’t even take it”, he groans and throws his head back as he roughly draws your hips into his. It didn’t even feel like it was possible but Harry picked up the speed of his thrust continuing the assault on your poor needy pussy even further. The pleasure was all too much and that oh so familiar feeling hit the pit of your stomach and you were starting to lose your composure. Your moans were getting increasingly louder and your grip on Harry was growing tighter. Harry knew his wife and he knew your dam was getting closer and closer to breaking and he was determined to get you there. He placed a hand over your mouth and moved his other hands down to your clit rubbing it in slow circles. “ Look at you” he cooed cockily, “Taking me so fucking well like a good girl should. Barely let out a scream ‘cus you don’t want your parents to hear how much of a cock whore you are”. He knew you wouldn’t last long with the way he was talking to you and he was absolutely correct because his words were driving you insane. As the pressure was continued building up in your stomach, you felt the telling twitch in Harry’s dick that let you know he was approaching his end too.

“Gonna give me what I want uh? Gonna cum all over my cock and let me cum in that tight little pussy of yours. You gotta hold it in.. don’t want to leave any drops for our guest to find huh? Gonna be a good girl and hold all my cum in you?”, Harry grunted into your ear as you whimpered against his hands. You were seeing stars and feeling butterflies in the pit of your stomach and you knew it was only a matter of time before you both came undone.” Oh baby”, you whined and your head fell down as the pressure from your stomach finally was released as your orgasm spilled out all over Harry’s dick and thighs. The gushing feeling from your orgasm and your weak whimpers and cries drove Harry overboard, burying his face in your neck and his roughly groaning as he released inside of you. The two of you stayed connected for a bit, thighs stuck together thanks to your shared orgasm with Harry’s arm wrapped around your waist supporting both of your weights up as you composed yourselves. When he finally pulled out of you, you kept every drop he gave you tucked inside your tight walls just as promised. 

“So those Pumpkin Seeds huh”

[kpopmalereader]

prepare ; won kunhang

• summary: you and hendery take your first vacation together, a trip to meet your family and visit your hometown • pairing: won kunhang x male!reader • word count: 2117 • to do

You walk into your apartment, expecting to be greeted by your golden retriever of a boyfriend. Seeing the kitchen and living room unoccupied would make you think he left already, but his shoes strewn across the entranceway and the covers you folded this morning spread over Hendery’s spot on the couch makes you believe he’s still here.

You venture further into the apartment, hearing a groan come from your room. You stop for a second before hearing mumbling and another cry. The second is louder than the first, and you start to grow worried.

“Okay, okay, okay.” 

You hear him repeat the word more times than you can count and slowly open the door. He’s standing in front of the full-body mirror in button-up shirt and slacks. You watch as he straightens his back and smiles. It’s a much smaller smile than you usually would see from him, and it does nothing to help your understanding of the situation. “Hello, it is very nice to meet you. I’ve heard,” He stops and shakes his head. “It is- It’s very nice- It is-”

He groans again and ruffles his hair. He leans down and fixes what he just messed up, straightening his shirt.

You step into the room softly. You don’t want to disturb what he’s doing but also want to make sure it isn’t undue stress doing him in.“Whatcha doin’?”

He sighs and turns, shoulders slumping. He seems almost sad, and you walk forward, picking his chin up. “I’m trying to practice for when I meet your parents,” He mumbles. “We leave today, and I don’t want to get there and say something that makes them think negatively of me.”

You turn him around and stand behind him, pointing at his face in the mirror. “That is Won Kunhang. He is one of the best people I have ever met. I am very in love with him. I have told my parents and my entire family as much.”

“I want to make a good impression.” He states, criticizing himself in the mirror. 

“You will.” You ruffle his hair, giving it it’s natural fall instead of the gelled-back style he had it in. “By being yourself. You can wear this shirt because you look good in it, but why don’t we untuck it, and you can stop worrying about using the exact right words when meeting my parents.”

He turns and leans against the mirror. His eyes are downcast, and your heart aches for him. He whispers when he speaks. “I want them to like me.”

“Love,” You sigh and wrap your arms around him. “They will because you are the sweetest, funniest, and most caring person I know. No one can resist loving you, Hendery. I couldn’t.”

He reaches up and picks at his bottom lip. You take his hand and hold it against your chest. The concerned expression doesn’t wipe from his face, and you hold his cheeks.

“Hello, it is very nice to meet you. I’ve heard great things about you, and I’m glad you invited me.” You smile at him and nod your head. “That’s all you have to say.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s what I did when I met your parents,” You kiss his nose lightly. “If you want, you can even add a few things about me that you like. Say they raised me well.”

“If I wasn’t your boyfriend- if I was your sister’s boyfriend or your cousin’s... Would you like me?”

You wrap your arms around his neck. “If you weren’t my boyfriend and someone else in my family got to you first, I would be devastated I couldn’t date you.”

He looks down at you. “But would you like me?”

“Yes! Yes, I would like you. And I would be willing to bet my parents would have looked at me and said they wanted me to find someone like you.”

“Really?” His voice is small and hopeful, and you nod your head, trying to convey everything to him.

“Really. I promise. My parents will love you. My cousins will love you. My aunt will say she wishes everyone in our family could find someone like you. My nieces and nephews and little cousins will love to play with you and want to spend the whole trip with you. Now, put this shirt back in your suitcase so we can go.”

*

Hendery rubs his hands together. He breathes in and out deeply, preparing himself to knock on the door. You hold his hand lightly, swinging them slowly. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

He smiles, and his face falls again. He scrunches his face and smiles again, making small changes to his facial expression. He rolls his shoulders and squeezes your hand. He nods.

You bump your shoulder into his and reach over, knocking on your parent’s front door. It takes a second for your mom to get to the door, but when she does, Hendery’s grip on your hand grows even tighter. You smile at your mom, and she envelopes you in a hug. She pulls back and holds your face. “It’s been too long!”

She lets you go and turns to Hendery. “Hello!”

“Hel-” He’s cut off as your mom wraps him in a hug, patting him on the back. “Oh.”

“Come in, come in! Find a seat.”

You smile at him and pull him inside. He follows right behind you, bumping into your back when you stop sooner than he expected. You smile, introducing him into countless family and family-friends and people you’re not sure are related to but have come to every event since you were born.  Hendery sits next to you as you eat, asking hushed questions about people he’s met.

You hook your foot around his ankle and smile at him. “Not so bad, huh?”

“Get their honest opinions of me when I’m not around.” He mutters before stuffing his face with your mom’s home-cooking.

*

Music plays throughout your house, bouncing off the walls and entering through crevices and cracks in the building. Hendery wakes up in your childhood room alone. He sits up and sees the door cracked. He can hear your voice singing and laughing along with the song. He walks through the house quietly, not wanting to disturb the normality. He rounds on the kitchen, seeing you, your mom, and a young child dancing around the kitchen with wooden spatulas in hand.

You turn around as you dance, spotting Hendery standing a few feet away. You point to him and call him in, throwing your arms in the air. “Join us.”

“I like the view.”

You shake your head and dance over to him. You stick the spoon in front of his mouth, smiling wide. You stop singing, looking at him with hopeful eyes.

He sighs and grabs the spoon. You giggle at continue to dance along, singing the song as loud as you can without it being categorized as yelling. He starts singing along quietly, swaying back and forth with the music. Your mom looks over and smiles, picking up the young family member. They dance together, and she not-so-subtly hip-bumps you closer to Hendery. You grab his hand and start dancing with him, forcing him to loosen up. He watches you for a while before really joining in, hopping and moving with you.

Your laughs ring through the kitchen and up the stairs. You pull him closer and kiss his cheek. “Still nervous?”

*

You walk hand-in-hand with Hendery. You seem calm. Content. He’s enthralled with your face, your smile, how the feeling of belonging flows from you without stop. You point at a storefront not far in front of you, waiting for him to look up. He pulls himself from watching your face and looks over.

“That is a restaurant. It’s only been there for about a year. Before it was a restaurant, which no one really likes, by the way, it was an antique store. And it was run by this man, he was great, he was one of the nicest people ever, but he retired a few years back and closed it down. He searched for someone to take it over, but he didn’t have any kids, and no one around here knew how to run a business.” You shake your head. “He and his wife moved a little while after the shop turned into a restaurant.”

You smile softly. “My mom worked next door, it used to be a little boutique, and sometimes her shifts would last longer than school, so I would come here instead of going home. Sometimes I would sit behind the counter next to the piles of hangers, but I would visit Mr. Claude some days. He would show me around the different finds, telling me that there was always something great about everything.”

Hendery watches you as you look at the not great restaurant. The wind blows your hair to the side, and your eyes sparkle. “He would point to an old, stained china set that nobody would buy and tell me all about how if someone could clean it up, they would see that it was an amazing set that was passed down from generations, but something happened where it was accidentally given away, and the original owner’s great-great-great-great granddaughter had spent her entire young adult life looking for it but could never find it.”

“Or! I would beg my mom to buy this ancient stuffed bear, but she thought its eyes were creepy, so she never got it for me. He would keep it by the register and tell me that I should look for someone I thought was worthy enough to have it. And an older woman walked in one day, and I told Mr. Claude she seemed nice enough to take care of him. And, by some miracle for my 7-year-old self, she got some stuff and walked up to the register and started talking about how the bear looked exactly like one she had when she was a kid and how she would love to buy it, but she only brought enough money for the other things. I just lit up and looked at Mr. Claude like it was the best thing ever, and he told her if she could promise to take the best care of it, he would give it to her for a discount. I was amazed. I didn’t stop talking about it for weeks.”

Hendery smiles along with your story, your excitement at remembering your story exuding off of you. It makes him excited, and he never wants you to stop talking.

You point at a big, white marble building up the street. “That is the library. It is the oldest building in town, even the Court House is younger, and I spent most of my high-school years there.”

You gesture across the street. “The building there is the old school-house. There’s a park behind that everyone chips in to fix up and replace every few years for the new kids in town. The school-house is mostly used as a museum now, but sometimes Town Meetings are held inside. I don’t know why we have Town Meetings.”

He watches you, not worrying about running into the street-lights, too focused on listening to your recounts of stories. You continue to speak. You tell stories he can’t wholly follow sometimes, not knowing most of the people you refer to or the place names. He watches your hands fly up when you repeat something exasperating someone once said about your small town and giggle to yourself as you remember old inside jokes he doesn’t want to ruin with asking questions about it. After a few stories, you realize you’ve been talking for a while and look a bit flustered, ears turning red.

“Sorry, I know you’re probably not that interested.”

“No. No. Tell me everything,” He nods and holds your hands tighter. “I don’t want to miss any details.”

You sigh happily, bumping your shoulder into him. “When I lived here, I didn’t like it much, but after I moved, I realized I really did. Everybody knows everybody, and it’s nice being able to walk everywhere. I don’t know…”

Hendery kisses your temple. “It’s sweet. I like seeing how happy it makes you. Maybe we can get a house somewhere like this in the future.”

“Seriously?” You look up at him with a bright smile, eyes shining endlessly.

He laughs and nods his head. “Yeah, of course. We can buy a vacation house and visit on breaks. We’ll get to know everyone, and you’ll get new small-town stories to share.”

You bite your lip and nod slowly. “I would like that.”

[clairenatural]

look at you, strawberry blond

destiel, 1.8k. pining, fluff, growing up together, etc! minor character/parental death, vague mention of John’s A+ Parenting. based on the mitski song  (this is a repost because the first one got deleted)

I love everybody because I love you

Castiel first learns what love is when he’s eight years old and Gabriel, sixteen, is grumbling about driving an hour out of his way to find his girlfriend the rare chocolates she likes for Valentine’s day.

“Why?” he asks his older brother, and Gabriel sighs, melodramatic as always.

“That’s love, little bro. Remembering the little things and then putting in the time to make it happen.”

Cas thinks about when he told Dean his parents don’t let him eat candy. He thinks about how Dean has given him half his Kit Kat bar every day for the last year.

He thinks about the time he scraped his knee falling off the jungle gym and Dean spent the rest of recess picking dandelions to make him feel better. Yellow is his favorite color.

“Oh.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older, Cassie. Love is about sacrifice, and commitment--” he goes on, but by the time Michael cuts him off, yelling from his office that you’ve only been dating for two months, Gabriel, stop preaching to Castiel, Cas has already sprinted up the stairs to his bedroom.

A broken piggy bank, $1.50 in pocket change, and several pleas to Gabriel later, and Castiel tucks a king-sized Kit Kat into Dean’s valentine box.

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

When you stood up, walked away, barefoot

It’s eight years later, one summer in high school, when Castiel realizes that there’s a difference between loving and being in love, and that he is, in fact, in love with his best friend.

He realizes this as he watches Dean walk away, sandals discarded and unnecessary in the soft grass, back to the picnic tables to get them both more fruit punch. It’s the annual junior class picnic, the official welcome to being upperclassmen, and the August sun casts a warm glow over Dean’s freckles, and Castiel knows.

Two seconds later, he watches Dean nearly get hit by an errant frisbee and completely forget his punch mission in lieu of playfully tackling its thrower, Benny Lafitte. He watches Lisa Braden, giggly and glowing and perfect as always, yelp as she’s almost caught in the crossfire, and Dean winks at her as he releases Benny.

He swallows thickly and turns his attention back to the patch of grass they’d been laying in, flattened where Dean had been just a few moments before. He wishes he hadn’t come to this particular realization.

And the grass where you lay left a bed in your shape I looked over it and I ached

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

I love everybody because I love you I don't need the city, and I don't need proof

Castiel goes to college in Chicago and pretends like the two-hour drive between them doesn’t mean anything. And it doesn’t, until Dean’s father gets a job back in Kansas halfway through his freshman year. Dean goes with him even though he’s an adult because the alternative is letting Sam deal with John alone, so Castiel spends most of that summer in Lawrence, dodging both his friends in the big city and his family back in Pontiac. He tells them all that he’s studying Kansas’ role in the Civil War, assisting in research back at the University, but he and Dean spend two months going on road trips with Sam.

His sophomore year John dies and Castiel flies back for the weekend, explaining his sudden departure as a family emergency and getting an extension on two papers. Dean holds his hand at the funeral but won’t look him in the eyes for two hours after, even as he refuses to leave Castiel’s side.

The boys move in with Bobby but that summer Dean shows up in Chicago, explanations lined up about not worrying about Sam anymore and wanting to see what about the city made Cas keep coming back. Castiel gets an internship and pretends like that was the plan all along. He quietly cancels his plane tickets to South Dakota.

All I need, darling, is a life in your shape I picture it, soft, and I ache

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

Reach out the car window, trying to hold the wind You tell me you love her; I give you a grin

Dean stays in Chicago. He moves into Castiel’s empty room when his original roommate moves out, he finds work at an auto shop, and he starts taking mechanic classes at a community college. Castiel isn’t sure why—he doesn’t want to ask. Afraid to look the gift horse in the mouth and risk having his happiness bitten off.

Then Dean starts talking about a girl. Then Castiel meets the girl, Cassie Robinson, and it all makes sense.  

He pretends it doesn’t sting every time Dean brings her up, that the way his face lights up doesn’t burn, that he doesn’t feel physically ill the first time he meets her.

By the time Dean tells him he’s in love, gushing about Cassie in a way eerily reminiscent of Gabriel twelve years earlier, it’s turned into a dull ache that Castiel has mostly contained in the back of his chest. They’re on their way to Cassie’s apartment, the first stop on their way to a cabin spring break of their junior year, and the ache is suddenly threatening to break through his ribcage.

But the sun is warm on his cheek, and the radio is playing a soft summer soundtrack, so Castiel allows Dean’s happiness to wash over him long enough to forget who—or, more importantly, who isn’t—causing it. He grins at his best friend before turning his gaze back out the passenger window of the Impala.

Oh all I ever wanted was a life in your shape So I follow the white lines, follow the white lines, Keep my eyes on the road as I ache

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

Look at you, strawberry blond

Dean and Cassie break up, and Dean drinks for a month, but Castiel getting into Stanford for grad school distracts him just long enough to go back to normal (a normal that does not involve thinking about how Dean nearly kissed him when they were both drunk the night he got his acceptance).

This new normal involves staring graduation in the face, and California beyond that, and moving out of his Chicago apartment somewhere in this middle, which also involves coming to terms with moving away from Dean.

Until Sam gets his own acceptance to Stanford a few months later. Then Dean starts sending him links to two-bedroom apartments, and using “we” when talking about the move, and looks just as confused as Castiel when he asks about it.

“Well, yeah. I mean, with you gone, and now Sam—You thought you were going by yourself?”

And even though Castiel vaguely thinks this is a bad idea, and living with his best friend who he’s been in love with for his entire memory had been hard enough for the two years they’d been doing it, he can’t say no. Because every time he gets up the nerve to say something Dean calls him over and shoves his laptop into Castiel’s face, talking about hiking trails and flower fields and front lawns and dogs, and that quells any doubt he had.

They move to Palo Alto, into a townhouse with a lawn and a communal garden. Dean adopts a golden retriever.

Fields rolling on, I love it when you call my name

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

Can you hear the bumblebees swarm? Watching your arm

Two months into Castiel’s first year of graduate school they have a picnic, taking advantage of the lingering warmth of the California fall. Sam is off in the field playing with Zeppelin, obviously having used the ‘come meet my brother’s dog’ excuse to invite the pretty blonde woman (Jess?) chasing the golden with him. Dean is rambling about Star Trek and Castiel is paying half attention, the majority of his focus on the reading in front of him because professors don’t consider picnics an extension-worthy excuse.

He’s just started to get invested when he hears a yelp and looks up to see Dean Winchester, his best friend, most trusted confidant and the possible love of his life, swatting a bumblebee. Cas gasps, reading forgotten, and lunges across the picnic blanket to grab Dean’s wrist. “Dean.” He chastises, and Dean gives him a look.

“It’s a bee, Cas.”

“It’s a bumblebee, which are essential—”

“To our ecosystem, yeah, but it’s pretty essential to me that it doesn’t sting me.”

“It won’t sting you if you don’t swat at it.”

“You didn’t see the look on it, man. It meant business.”

“Bees are attracted to sugar. You probably just smell good.”

Dean grins. “You calling me sweet, Cas?”

And, well, no. He isn’t. He’s talking about the empty pie tin next to Dean. But the words make him realize just how close they are, how far he’d moved into Dean’s space in his efforts to stop his hand, how the force of the movement had pushed Dean almost back onto his elbows.

He opens his mouth to respond the way he usually does to Dean’s cavalier flirting, but the words don’t leave his mouth—which is, somehow, he swears, closer to Dean’s than it was a second ago. Just as Castiel is preparing to push back, clear his throat, and add this moment onto a growing list of almost-but-not-quite moments stretching back years, Dean sucks in a breath and closes the gap.

Castiel reacts before his brain can fully comprehend what’s going on, bypassing any shock entirely and kissing Dean back immediately. He lets go of his wrist, instead bringing his hand to the side of Dean’s face, stroking his cheekbone with his thumb. Dean pushes himself back up and wraps an arm around Castiel’s waist, pulling him essentially into his lap, and then they’re kissing, and Dean smells like summer and tastes like apple pie, and Castiel suddenly understands more than ever why bees are always buzzing around him.

It feels like a lifetime until it’s over, until they’re just staring at each other and out of breath, both scared to say anything and break the magic they’d accidentally created. The silence is only broken by a shout from across the grass, followed shortly by a tennis ball that nearly misses them, followed by 65 pounds of golden retriever that does not miss them and nearly topples Castiel in his pursuit of the ball. And then Sam comes running after the dog, still shouting—apologies, this time—and then there’s Jess, laughing hysterically, and then Castiel has to scramble out of the way because Zeppelin has made a U-turn, interpreting the whole commotion as a game of keep-away.

Dean meets his eye above the chaos and grins, and the sunlight hits his dirty blonde hair, and it’s so breathtaking Castiel almost forgets to smile back.

I love it when you look my way.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Letting Go.”

Wrote this today, hope you like it, and hope you all have a great day :)

“We have to take him to a hospital.”

His hearing echoed, his ears rang, and his body felt cold and numb. He hurt all over.

“No! That's the last thing he needs right now.”

“Not to be rude but, are you stupid! The last tie i checked, I am the only one here with a Doctorate in actual doctoring.

The world swirled slowly to the left and then to the right.

“Last time I checked I’ve been in his shoes before. You have any idea what they are going to do, they are going to assume he jumped off that bridge on purpose. They are going to strap him down, which is going to make things worse, they are going to bring in psych, who are then going to determine that he should be locked down. That is the last thing this man needs right now, and believe me I have been in his shoes.” he faded out and then back in again.

“Than what do you suggest.”

“You’re a doctor aren’t you, so as long as we have you, he is going to be fine. Let's just get him back to my hotel, but I am telling you the last thing he needs is a noisy smelly hospital room.”

“And how are we going to get him back?”

He faded back in and back out again, “I can carry him.”

“He weights over two hundred pounds.” “Than I will take lots of breaks.”

He faded out again, this time for a long while, waking up only briefly an unknown time later. He was lying, uncomfortably over someone else’s shoulder and staring at the ground as it passed by below him. Little streaks of light dotted his vision from the pain, and he felt back unconscious before he could really understand what was going on.

***

Kier Lindsay stared down at the young man, watching as the strange little alien creature got to work. He had once heard that multitasking was pretty much impossible for humans as the brain was too interconnected to allow for it, but his creature didn’t seem to have any problems. All four of its arms seemed to work independently of each other as it stitched the unconscious man back into one piece. Looking him over the doctor had determined that he had managed to fracture his good leg and some of the bones in his right arm and side, but otherwise he was less injured than they had hoped. 

Then again this was without considering the psychological duress he might be under at the moment.

He grimaced thinking about it.

He had been there before, he had been there and he had hurt a lot of people in the process.

He continued to watch as the alien stitched the other man up with great precision…

Man? 

Honestly he wasn’t much more than a kid, his face was still smooth, unscared by time . Not a hint of white showed in his blond hair, and as he slept, the lines of his face were soft enough that Kier couldn’t shake the feeling that he WAS nothing more than a child.

A child who had had responsibility placed on him far to soon.

To be only in you late twenties and have command of an entire galactic armada.

That was too much to ask for anyone, much less someone like him. Kier couldn’t shake the thoughts as he stared down thinking about how despite technically being an adult for a long enough time, he doubted this man had ever been given a chance to grow up, at least not in the right ways. Turned to the academy at age fourteen, he had been doing adult jobs for longer than most people. He had been thrown into an environment where intelligence and performance mattered but social opportunities were sort of lacking, and then to be thrown right onto the enterprise and into war before trying to recover and immediately turning back to the one group of people that had failed him so badly…..

Adam vir was just a kid, an overly optimistic too trusting kid who had been taken advantage of by the system time and time again. He was like a golden retriever hurt by his master but still loyal enough to come crawling back.

It almost made him sick to watch, but he knew just by looking at him that he would never consider leaving. 

Even if it were for his health.

Kier sighed and sat down by the bed staring at the boy with his chin cupped in one hand.

He had a son about Adam Vir’s age, a boy that was just beginning to pull his life together into some semblance of controlled. It had taken him a lot of mistakes and a lot of experience to figure out who he was, and he ached for the realisation that this man probably never got that.

He knew the feeling all too well.

He shook himself a little, dad mode was something you couldn’t really just turn off, at least not in his case. If there were people younger than him, he felt the automatic obligation to adopt them whether they wanted it or not.

Young people deserved guidance from someone who was older and the more people to do it the better. Lindsay hadn’t seen any of Adam’s family members at the trial, which didn’t necessarily mean anything, but he also got the impression that maybe the had avoided telling them on purpose, which was another red flag he was going to have to discuss with the boy woke up.

If he woke up.

***

He woke up some time later, though he couldn’t have guessed what time. The room was dark aside from the blue light of the TV. A little bit of natural light filtered in from the window, but rain clouds dotted blanketed the sky above. Rain pattered against the window in sheets obscuring the city landscape.

He groaned and tilted his head to the side.

A soft whimper, and something warm and wet ran over the back of his hand.

He tilted his head to the side.

The room was small, only big enough for a queen sized bed, a tv and a small desk. There was adoor to a small bathroom right next to a door that likely lead out into the hallway. The hotel room was small, but clean.

And it wasn’t his.

He turned his head a little further, gritting his teeth against the pain as his bleary eyes fell on the silhouette of a man sitting at the end of the bed. He was slightly hunched forward one hand resting on his knee as he flipped through the channels.

“Adam, can you hear me.’

He turned his head a little further to the right, to where Kril was standing beside him, a look of concern on his face.

The silhouette turned to face him, no more than a balck blob against the light. It was impossible to make out his face.

“Where am I? He croaked

The man stood and stepped forward, stepping out of the way of the TV and allowing some light to fall on the side of his face, “My hotel room, sorry about how cramped it is, but until yesterday I was kind of short on cash.”

Adam blinked, the cogs in his brain grinding to a slow start as he stared at the man’s face, which was familiar but he just couldn’t…

“Cigarette.”

It was the first word his brain could think of to describe the man when he finally recognised him, and in his goggy state it was the only thing he could think of, “Where do you even buy those these days.”

“Lets just say if I could quit my smoking habit than maybe I wouldn’t be so short of cash…. Anyway, how are you feeling.”

“Like shit…. What…. What happened.”

The other man sighed and pulled up the chair from the desk, sitting next to him, “You must have had a pretty bad PTSD attack. Looks like you jumped off an overpass and then rad headfirst into a brick wall.”

He grunted, “that explains a lot I guess….” he paused, “I thought…. I thought I was doing fine. I felt…. Fine and now…” A hand rested on his shoulder, “I know, I understand.”

Adam blinked, squinting at him slightly in the darkness, “Who are you/”

“The name is Kier but most of my friends call me Lindsay. I don’t know why, guess our days in the army just sort of rubbed off on us, now we only refer to people by their last names really.”

“What were you doing at the trial.”

The man smiled a little sadly, “Watching some assholes git their comeuppance, oh, and being awarded about five million dollars compensation.”

It took Adam even longer to digest that, “You….. you’re Steel eye-” The last two words came out as a squeak.”

Lindsay turned on the light by the bed, bathing them both in a warm yellow glow. Now that Adam could get a good look at him, he saw an older man probably in his late forties or early fifties. His hair was steel grey but well groomed, and he had the body of a man half his age. He wore only a tattered flannel rolled up to the sleeves and a white T-shirt. The back and sides of his arms were dotted with familiar circular scars  all with a silver sort of sheen.

And, surprisingly, little silver dots….

Iron eye implants.

He turned his head to stare up at him, “You…. you are one of the five.”

“Yep, we never met during the war but I’ve been watching your career on the news for some time now. Some real impressive stuff kid.” he smiled, smiled and easy smile of someone who actually meant it.

Adam felt a sudden pang of guilt and shame.

For a moment he couldn’t figure out what it had stemmed from, until he realised. This man seemed fine, and here he was a complete wreck.

“How are you….. Ok after all that?” he wondered almost bitterly.

Lindsay shook his head, “Don’t start with that. I've jumped from one war to another my entire life. I have more experience than you.”

Adam went quiet, “So you were fine…. After steel eye.”

The man snorted, “No… no no, not even close.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking.”

The man shrugged, “Lost both my legs in the war, one above the knee and one below. When I got home my family didn’t have enough money to get me good prosthetics, so I was pretty much wheelchair bound for a year or so.” he sighed, “I came back a shell of a man to a family who really needed a father. It was so bad for a time, everyday I thought about just…. Not being there anymore. I didn’t  talk to my wife, I didn’t talk to my kids, and when I did speak I was angry all the time or apathetic.” His shoulders slumped, “For a time, I didn’t have much of a relationship with my middle daughter or my oldest son. I had drug withdrawals so bad I even wheeled myself halfway across town to try and find something…. Heroin maybe, anything that might take the edge off,” He snorted sadly, “I see it as a blessing now that no one would sell to me. I went over the edge drinking, and chain smoking and trying to bum pills off of any doctor I could find. Luckily with regulations on pills these days, I wasn’t given any.”

Adam felt his mouth go dry, “That bad.”

He nodded, “Woke up screaming most nights because of the dreams. For a while my kids moved out of the house because my wife was scared for thor safety.” He held up a hand, “Even during that time I would never have hit them intentionally, but my dreams were getting so bad that I would wake up flailing, and I would jump at the smallest sound. Anything could set me off.”

He sighed sadly, “But my wife bless her soul, is the strongest woman I know.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a photograph showing it to Adam with a look of pride so profound  it made even Adam’s heart ache.

What he saw was a nice family. Two younger kids, a teenage boy, and a woman.

She had short black hair spiked up and dark lipstick on, and the look on her face was indicative of someone full of mischievous humor.

“My angel. She stayed by me even though she should have left. I tried to get her to leave, even made my behavior worse at one point to drive her off. She SHOULD have left me, but she didn’t. I had the mot amazing support system. She held me from falling any further into it, and my little girl, my little girl Bethany, that little girl pulled me out by my hair and dragged me back to reality. She was too young to realise how horrible I was being, and she just thought I was sick. No matter how much my wife tried to keep hr away from me, she always came to see me somehow, with ‘medicine’.” 

He smiled, “Generally it was just a tube of baby M&Ms. I refused at first, but she insisted, and the one day I decided to take them just to quiet her down, she told me that I would be all better.”

He waited with pent up breath.

“That night, I slept without nightmares…. The placebo effect is a hell of a thing if a child can convince a grown ass man that M&Ms ar medicine. I woke up and my head had never been so clear in my entire life. I saw what I was doing to them, and to my little girl and to my other kids…. I have never cried that hard in my entire life, but it was just what I needed. Some emotion to break the cycle of anger and apathy. It wasn’t an easy road from there, but I finally got smart and started listening to my wife. Somehow managed to get my kids to forgive me, and from there we worked as a team to get me back on my feet.” he patted the cigarette in his pocket, “This is what remains from those days…. Can’t seem to quit, but working on it.”

Adam was quiet for some time, 

“It was that hard on your family.”

“It was. I am glad they stayed but at the same time I wish they hadn’t been so hurt by me.

He sighed and leaned his head back, “I don’t think that is possible for me.”

A hand turned to rest down on his shoulder, “I know it sounds hard right now but…. I have a theory if you want to hear it.”

He sighed, “Shoot, it's not like I have any other bright ideas.”

“What are you?”

“What do you mean.”

“I mean when all the trappings are stripped away from you, your job and your title…. What makes you…. You.”

He paused for a moment, opened his mouth and then closed it, “I…. Im a….I….” The other man waited, his eyes sad.

The only things Adam could think of were related to his job.

When he was silent for some minutes, the man patted his arm, “All these years of service and you've never taken time to construct a framework for yourself that can survive outside of your job. If you keep defining yourself by what you do and how well you preform than you aren’t going to last. You constantly do everything for everyone else, but why not think about doing something for yourself for once, be completely selfish. Don’t go on vacation because, I bet this will calm me down and make me a better leader when I return, go on vacation because you bloody well want to job be damned.”

Adam opened his mouth to protest, but the man silenced him.

“Even if you love your job, you need breaks from it. You need to set the line to where your job ends and you begin, otherwise you won’t have a personality left when you are done. Take some time to fix YOU before lending yourself to everyone else.”

He rested his head back, “That sounds….. Difficult.”

The man patted him on the arm, “You’ve proven you can do hard things, now is just the time to do another hard thing.”

Adam nodded but inside his head he was beginning to feel a little hopeless. He knew that Lindsay was right. He knew that he was messed up, and everything he had done up to this point was just going to be a bandage. 

And until he was fixed.

He was going to have to give up a few things.

He hated the idea of hurting people like Lindsay had described, so…. So that meant doing something that he wasn’t going to like.

“Do you…. Do you mind if I…. speak with you…. On occasion.”

The man smiled, “I already put my number in your phone if you need me. I work law enforcement now so I might be busy, but if you need my help Ill do my best.”

***

He didn’t want the court’s blood money. He would have tossed it away if he could, but he knew that was just his confused mind talking. Money was money, so he mostly gave it away. Gave it away to his parents for their retirement, and to his brothers and sisters for their kids college funds. He gave some to his brother to get him a better house in a new area, but he kept some for himself. It would have been irresponsible not to buy himself a house, to get himself a place away from his job and the ship.

He didn’t know where to buy it at first thinking that earth was too mundane but anything further out was too far removed. So, he bought a little private property on the moon. It cost a shit ton of money but, he had that in spades now. He only told his family about it.

They weren’t exactly happy with them when he finally told them where he had been. They had wanted to be there to support him, but he couldn’t find t in himself to feel bad that they hadn’t see the pictures and the videos he had been forced to see. He apologized and promised he would do better in the future.

He felt disconnected from himself.

Out of touch.

The crew of the Omen was just as angry with him, perhaps even more so than his family.. The intervening days that led him back to his ship feeling detached was like…. Some sort of horrible dream. He felt like he was slipping backward down a slippery slope and watching the light fade away from him. 

He was scrambling on the rocks but couldn’t find purchase.

Perhaps it was the idea of what he had to do next that hurt  him so much. Hurt him so much that he didn’t want to think about it, but he knew he had to. He didn’t want to but he knew he had to. It was the only way he was going to be able to feel ok about himself, about fixing himself.

Maybe things would change when he finally came back.

Maybe when he recovered, he could change what he was about to do.

And maybe he was about to ruin it forever.

He walked down the hallway of the engineering corridor despondent, like he was watching himself in third person.

He reached out a hand that didn’t feel like his and knocked on the wall of the ship.

A familiar face turned to look at him from her workspace in the dark. Sunny stood and paused to look at him, “Adam, are you alright.”

“Sunny…. We…. need to talk.”

She paused eyes narrowing in confusion.

“Are you ok.” she repeated.

He walked in taking a seat on her work bench and staring down at his hands.

“Is this about, the trial….. I mean yes I am a little mad that you didn’t tell me. Is it because I’m a Drev, is it because it would have looked bad. I know I don’t understand human politics, but maybe….”

He held up a hand, and she grew quiet.

He sat for a long moment fighting himself on the inside,and then forcing himself to look up at her. He could feel hot tears prickling at the back of his eyes though, for some reason he couldn’t get them to fall.

She deserved that he at least LOOK at her.

He felt sick.

He just wanted to throw up. 

This…. This was the hardest thing he had ever done. 

“Sunny…. I… while I was away, at the trial.”

She stared at him slow horror and confusion passing across her face.

“Well, I learned some things about myself. Number one being that, I….. I never recovered from what happened to me. From Steel eye and the war. Ive been bandaging it up for the past few years assuming that I can fix it, but at this point…. I wonder if I ever will.” He took a deep breath and locked eyes with her, “I’m broken, and until I can fix myself…. I think its best if-”

“No, no no no that's not how this works.”

He continued speaking, “I think it's best if we take a break.”

“NO!”

“Sunny I love you but I. I am not Capable of being what you need or deserve.” he stood reaching a hand forward, “I can’t subject you to myself like that.”

She jerked away from his hand, “that should be MY decision it would be OUR decision.”

“Sunny please…. I am so sorry.”

“On my planet, battle pairs fight WITH each other no matter how hard the battle is.”

His voice shook timorous and fading fast, “And on my planet, sometimes loving someone means letting them go.”

[ofdogsandchocolate]

‘Cause you said forever, now I drive alone past your street

-He promised her they were forever. And they were, Till they weren't.-

Young, dumb, and in love. That's what Percy and Annabeth were. They were fourteen when they got together. Previously best friends since birth, but they both had formed a crush on each other. She asked him to the Halloween dance, and they both slowly started falling after that. Falling in love, that is. Annabeth had been told that it was scary, falling. That it's something you'll regret, that you'll come out empty handed. That you won't be able to get back up if you do. But, she couldn't help it. One look into his sea green eyes, and she was gone. Sometimes, though, she did get scared. Scared that he would leave her for someone else, like his father left her mother. Scared that he would change into a person she couldn't love, or vice-versa. But, Percy would just hold her close, and promise her that he wouldn't leave her. That they would be forever. She wanted to believe him, so she did. They battled the struggles of high school together, as well as got accepted to the same college. A college both of them dreamed of attending. Annabeth was waiting for some higher force to come down, and tell her all this had been a simulation. She was leading a life the rom-com girls wished they had. She was 18, and was still in love with her one and only. High school couldn't separate them, and so far college hadn't, so what couldn't they overcome together? They were forever, they always would be. Things were good. Really, really, great.        

                                                            o.0.o

College was hard, money was tight, and people were mean, but Percy and Annabeth got through it.

Four years of college was enough for them, and they already had decently paying jobs, so they were all on their own. No school, or superiors to guide them. They were finally full fledged adults.

Annabeth thinks Percy must have not gotten the que, because he sure acted childish sometimes.

The two of them had been trying to bake cookies, but neither of them were meant for the kitchen. Flour was all over the place, the counter was stained faintly blue in one spot, and the apartment smelt of...burnt-ness.

As the blonde Woman took her oven mitted hand and retrieved the tray from the hot oven, Percy coughed.

"God, woman! You burnt out cookies!"

Annabeth rolled her eyes, and slams the hot tray onto the stove top, the cookies that were supposed to be blue, a greenish brown color. She placed a hand on her hip, and turned to her boyfriend.

"Maybe if you hadn't forgot the baking soda, they would've turned out a little better."

The man mock gasped, "How could you blame this on me! You're the one who added all that salt. It only called for half a teaspoon!" Annabeth violently untied the lady-bug apron that, was much to small for her, and threw it over at the guy.

"You idiot-"

Her sentence was interrupted by flour. Flour that Percy threw at her. Flour that landed right into her mouth.

If you didn't know, flour doesn't taste all that great.

The woman started to cough violently. It was so dry, she couldn't swallow it, but it was sticking to the insider of her mouth aswell.

Annabeth reached around herself, trying to get a handful of flour to throw back at Percy. She finds the back of brown sugar instead, but figures it should do.

She threw a handful of the sugar blindly towards were Percy's voice was coming from.

"Ah!"

The blonde, who's hair actually looked more white than blonde at the moment, groaned as Percy began to laugh. It must have been super funny, watching her struggle. She wiped the flour from her eyes, so that she could see. Percy was standing at the Island, rapidly scooping up more flour into his hands.

Annabeth chuckled darkly.

"Oh, it's on."

Let's just say, the two of them were finding floor everywhere, for months.

                                                       o.0.o

One Saturday Morning, Annabeth and Percy were laying in their bed.

The bed that they shared.

They were both crammed over to one side, Annabeth head in the crook of his armpit, with Percy's hand resting upon it, combing through her golden curls.

It didn't particularly smell like roses, but it was nice.

She didn't know, since she was staring up at the ceiling wordlessly, but Percy was smiling widely at her.

He didn't understand how someone could be so beautiful, inside and out. And, how someone like her could ever love someone like him. He thought about the glittering diamond ring that sat in his underwear drawer. The ring he bought 2 years ago, when he was 22.

He was planning on popping the question soon. But, he was patient. He wanted it to be perfect, for her.

Percy turns back to Annabeth, who was now staring back at him. They smile at each other.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said turning over on her side, to get a better look at him. Percy followed in her movements. "You, of course," he exclaimed booping her nose with his pointer finger.

Annabeth laughed. "Well, I would hope so. You sure your not thinking of anything else? Anybody else?"

Percy knew she was joking, but Percy took it to himself to answer seriously. "No. I'm thinking of...forever."

The two held eye contact as a smile grew onto Annabeths face. "I like the way you think, Mr. Jackson."

Percy smiled. "Yes, me and Ms. O'Leary shall have a wonderful life together."

Annabeth snorted, and shoved her face into the pillows. "Yes! I wish you two the best of luck," she said, her voice muffled by the pillows.

Percy laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"I love you."

Annabeth took her face out of the pillows to look at him. "Right back at ya."

                                                        o.0.o

It was a month later, and Percy and Annabeth were ready for a movie marathon.

(They both immediately agreed Harry Potter, for obvious reasons.)

Once they were all situated on the couch, Annabeth scrolling through the TV, Percy spoke.

"We don't have ice cream, do we?"

Annabeth's eyes stayed put on the television. "No. We finished it the other night."

He thought for a moment, before getting up from the couch and slipping on his shoes.

His girlfriend finally looked over too him, her eyebrows raised. "Um...were do you think you're going, mister?"

Percy looked back at her, smiling as he pulled on his coat. "Getting us ice-cream, of course."

He walked back over to Annabeth, who was now propped up on her elbows, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

"Blackberry rebel?"

"Blackberry rebel."

He gave a chaste kiss to his girlfriends lips, before walking back over to the door to their apartment.

"Don't start it without me!" He called out as he reached for the door nob.

It didn't feel any different from the other times Percy had gone out to fetch something. It felt normal. It was normal.

Right?

Then why did Annabeth feel so anxious all of a sudden? She got chills, but she told herself it was nothing.

Until she couldn't.

"Hey!"

Percy spun his hear around back to Annabeth, who was sitting all the way up. Her heart was racing, but she didn't know why.

Her boyfriend looked at her warily. "What? Is everything ok?"

Annabeth nodded uncertainly. "Um...yeah. Yes, I'm fine, just...be careful. It's dark."

Percy nodded, and reopened the door. Once it was all the way open, he threw his head over his shoulder.

"I love you."

Annabeth tried her best to calm down her heart, and give him a smile.

"I love you too."

The scariest thing, is that it felt like a goodbye.

                                                         o.0.o

An hour and 30 minutes. It should not take him that long to drive to the market down the block and get ice cream.

Annabeth paced around the living room.

Were is he? Is he okay? What if-

No. No, he's fine.

                                                        o.0.o

He wasn't fine.

Hours passed, and he still hadn't show up. Annabeth crossed her fingers, and wished that he would appear. That he would walk in the door, plastic bag with Ice-cream and pretzels, unharmed and happy.

That wasn't the case.

Annabeth was at the point were she was grabbing her keys frantically try to get out of the apartment, and trying to find Percy. Just as she walked toward the door, a rang was heard from the couch.

My phone. It could be Percy.

She sprints across the living room, and searches through the blankets and crevasses of the couch, to find the vibrating device in between the cushions.

East Coast Emergency Center.

A hospital?

Annabeth's mind thought the worst, and she answers shakily.

"H-hello?"

The feminine voice on the other side said, "Hello. I's this Annabeth Chase?"

A scared sob rose in the woman's throat, her chest tightening. "This is her."

The person sighed. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your partner Percy has been in a car accident."

Annabeth gasped, a hand coming to her mouth. Tears started to form in her eyes, as she said. "What- Um. Is he okay?"

"Sadly, he was gone when the ambulance found him. I am- so, sorry."

Annabeth cried as she began to crouch on the floor. "Oh my- I- I- Ill be there as quickly as I can," her voice wobbled off as she hung up.

She was in shock as she drove to the hospital. Sobbing, but not particularly thinking straight. It felt unreal. 15 minutes prior, she just thought Percy had gotten mugged, but-

He was gone.

Percy was gone and their forever was over.

                                                          o.0.o

                                                seven years later

                                                          o.0.o

Annabeth liked to dive through the suburbs sometimes.

To see the life she could of had, and cry, and laugh, and just think.

She also visited the cemetery from time to time. Not as much as she used to, but a couple times a year.

Her friends had told her she should move on, that it just wasn't meant to be. But they didn't know him like she did. They didn't know how important she was to him.

So, Annabeth still visited him. Put blue flowers on his grave, sometimes talked, sometimes wrote a little note.

She didn't know if he heard, or if he was even there, but it felt nice, just imagining that he did.

Annabeth looked down at the soft gray stone, and the little trinkets and flowers scattered along he bottom. She smiled, as she reached into her pocket to take out the small enveloped note.

She kissed it lightly, before setting it down lightly at the base of the stone. Straightening her back, he took one long breath, her eyes stinging. But this time, with happy tears.

"I love you, Seaweed Brain."

And it finally feels like a proper farewell.

                                                          o.0.o

Hi, Percy.

How are you? I hope you're well. I'm okay, thanks for asking.

I haven't seen you in so long, I don't really know what to say. Which hurts to think, since you were such a large part of my life. Which also hurts to think about, because you aren't that anymore. I don't think of you everyday, and it scares me. You're face isn't always on my mind, and I hate it. I know you would want me to move on, and while I care deeply about your opinion, I deem that stupid. I know its been a long time. Hell, I'm 30. Can you believe that? An actual grown-up.

I might find another person, at one point i time, but I will always love you. Because, well, how can I not? I always hated how easily you made me love you. One of your worse traits, for sure.

Anyways, what I'm trying to do here is a...final goodbye. A way were I can finally try to let you go, or at least partially. I've just held onto you in my stubborn mind, and I think it's time to try and get better.

Because I know it's what you would have wanted.

I never got to say goodbye to you, and I think that's the hardest part for me. That I never got to see you one last time.

So, this is it. This is me, letting you go.

I think it's the best for the both of us. Not necessarily to move on, but to start healing.

We got our forever. Our little forever that only us got to live. Thank you for that.

Goodbye, Percy Jackson. I had a lovely little forever with you.

                                                    o.0.o.0.o.0.o

I seriously have no idea if this is the type of stuff you post on tumblr, but...here I am! Yeah, just a little thing I wrote.                   

(Very much based off of Drivers license, by Olivia Rodrigo. Beautiful song.)

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

TATMILB, CHAPTER 5

Penelope spent her life writing love letters, which didn’t seem like a terrible idea until the letters were mailed out and Schneider received one of them. Hoping to fool their exes, they agree to fake a relationship. But are they lying to everyone around them, or to themselves? aka my To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before-inspired AU.

Penelope x Schneider, ODAAT. available on ao3 with extra author’s notes.

Chapter 5: Penelope agrees to fake date Schneider and they work out the rules during Alex’s baseball game. Penelope enjoys Nikki’s visible fury at their public affection, and braces for Lydia's reaction.

On Penelope’s left, her Mami was pulling out snacks and explaining the hodgepodge of containers they were stored in. On her right, Schneider was facetiming Elena, showing her the rest of the family and a shaky view of Alex on the field.

“Okay, okay, I gotta go,” she heard her daughter say, laughing at Schneider from another continent. “I’ve got class. Thanks, Schneider. I’ll call you guys this weekend!”

Penelope rubbed her palms on her jeans and stood, almost knocking Schneider’s phone out of his hand when she reached for him.

“We’re going to get snacks!” she told a very suspicious Lydia as she gripped his hand and led him out of the bleachers.

“But we don’t need anything! I brought all the food!” her Mami called as they left.

“Okay,” she told Schneider, as soon as they were standing near the food trucks and out of earshot.

“Okay...?” He blinked at her, in that friendly but confused way of his. Like a really tall golden retriever--he wanted to be accommodating, even when he had no clue what was going on.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she told him, shoving her hands into her pockets. Part of her wanted to bounce from foot to foot, that was how nervous she was. The whole idea was still insane, obviously. But she’d made up her mind.

“The more I thought about it, the more I think you have a point. If Max sees me with you for a while, he’ll get the message that I’ve moved on. I do not want to debate our past, it hurts too much. And I don’t know why you’d want to try and be more than junk buddies with Nikki, but if you want to make her jealous, well...”

Penelope snuck a glance at the bleacher two spots away from theirs, where Finn’s mom could usually be found.

“I could be real good at that.”

Schneider beamed like she’d just offered to throw him a party, rather than engage him in a conspiracy to trick their exes.

Lupe, what are you are doing? She wondered in a flickering moment of indecision--but she shut that down hard. This was her best option. This could make the whole mess go away.

“Yeah?” Schneider asked.

“Yeah. Yes. Let’s do this thing.”

Schneider was still smiling, which was why Penelope was so unprepared for him to lean down and kiss her.

No warning, no preamble--he didn’t even ask, she thought, her mind whirling with shock--Schneider just leaned down and slid one hand under her hair to cup the nape of her neck and then his mouth was on hers.

He was...well, he was a good kisser when he actually tried.

She filed that fact away, to deal with later.

Even without the warning he definitely should have given her, she knew it was all for show, so Penelope let herself go along with it for exactly three seconds more. She counted them in her head, while the rest of her enjoyed the way that Schneider’s mouth was firm and warm and gentle.

When he pulled back, his eyes were crinkled at the corners, beaming delight down. He had both hands on her shoulders, steadying her. She was surprised to realize that she needed it.

Penelope was a little dazed as the rest of the world came back into focus. She could feel her Mami’s eyes laser-focused on them, and the murmurings of some of the other parents in the surrounding stands. She wasn’t an idiot, she knew more than one of the kids’ classmates had asked them if Schneider was her boyfriend over the years--and that some of their parents wondered the same thing.

She actually caught a glimpse of Nikki in her peripheral vision, fuming as loudly as a silent person could.

Satisfying as that was, she shook his hands off her shoulders. “Listen, if we are going to do this, we need to come up with some rules, you get me?”

Schneider held both hands up, an immediate don’t-hurt-me posture that he fell into with her automatically by now. Fair enough, she thought, since she could hurt him, and they both knew it.

“You can’t just kiss me like that. That was not okay. You hear me, Schneider? You didn’t even ask, you just--”

“I know, I’m sorry, I was really excited and it felt like, well, like sealing the deal. You know? We’re going to be a pretend couple, why not start now?”

“I’m not saying we can’t start now.” She exhaled, sharply, tugging her shirt down as though she could tug her sense of gravity back into place with it. He’d knocked her off balance too much--she didn’t like knowing he was capable of that.

“What I’m saying,” Penelope continued after a calming breath, “is that we need ground rules. You were right before, about blurring the lines. Pretending to be a couple is one thing, but we are friends. We can’t lose track of that, mess up where we stand...and you may be big into meaningless affection, but I’m not.” 

“Okay, and I hear what you’re saying, Pen, but if we act like we’re just friends...if we stay the same, nobody is going to believe we’re together. You were not hands-off with Max,” he reminded her unnecessarily. “And Nikki knows my sexual habits well.”

Penelope couldn’t help pulling a face at that. “Please don’t make me throw up next to the food,” she muttered in Spanish so he wouldn’t understand her.

“That’s why I’m saying we need rules. Boundaries we agree on in advance, so we both know what’s okay, what we’re comfortable with. So we don’t get...confused.”

“Alright, alright, I gotcha.” Schneider nodded and grabbed a stack of napkins, thanking the man running the stand with casual Spanish that made her eyebrows fly up. When did that happen?

Schneider dug a pen out of his pocket--she wasn’t going to ask why he was carrying a pen--and scrawled ‘Rules’ at the top of the first napkin. “So, what do we both think is okay?”

“Handholding,” she started with. They’d done that already, anyway, as friends. That wasn’t even weird anymore. It’d be weird to know that everybody else thought it meant more than it did, but what about faking a romance with her best friend wouldn’t be weird?

“Casual touching,” Schneider offered up, waiting for her nod before he added it beneath handholding. They’d been like that with each other since he became part of the family--and if Penelope was honest with herself, she was more affectionate with him than he was with her, anyway. It was just how she was.

“Now, about kissing,” Schneider said, looking at her across the snack counter they were using as a writing desk, as though she might hit him.

“Yeah.” Penelope bit her bottom lip, thinking it over. “You’re right. If we’re going to do this, we have to be willing to sell it. We’re both adults, and if it were a real relationship, we would be...physical, with each other.”

The way she stumbled over the word, over the thought--the way her mind pushed back against the idea of seeing Schneider that way, accepting him as a person who was also a man capable of being sexy and attractive? She couldn’t really explain it. But she also couldn’t avoid it anymore.

“So, how about this? We’ve already kissed. Back there.” She waved behind them, feeling like such a dork, but pressed onward. “It went okay, right? The world didn’t end. We’re fine.”

Schneider watched her, his forehead furrowed. “I agree.”

“So let’s say that kissing is okay. Within the rules. That’ll make this look like our other relationships. Not suspicious. But we should have a signal that means back off, if it’s too much for either of us.”

He considered it for a moment. “That's good. It could be something subtle, like pressing on the inside of your wrist. Gets your attention, but not anybody else’s.”

She tried to imagine that playing out in her head, her heart skittering past the picture of actually kissing Schneider, and nodded. “Yeah, that should work.”

Schneider’s pen hesitated after he added that, hovering over the napkin. “What about forehead kisses?”

She didn’t know why that seemed important, the way he said it, or why he even asked, when they’d basically just agreed to regular public makeouts, but she smiled a little, trying to reassure whatever part of him made it sound wobbly.

“Sure. Forehead kisses are fine.” 

Penelope took a deep breath. “Okay, Schneider, this is the biggest sticking point for me.” She jabbed a finger into his designer t-shirt clad chest. “We cannot tell anybody that this is fake. Nobody.”

“Alright.”

“I mean it. Not even my family. If we’re going to do this, really do this, then you have to willing to fake it with my Mami, with Alex, everybody. I do not want them judging this decision, it was bad enough that my mom had a stroke when Max and I broke up. And Elena’s so far away, I wouldn’t even know how to explain lying about something this huge without basically telling her it’s okay to lie--and she’s in London! Who knows what she could be lying about all the way over there?”

“Take a breath,” Schneider told her, and waited while she did, his hands on her forearms. He watched her settle back down before he answered her.

“It’s fine. It’s a pact. This won’t be the first time we’ve kept each other’s secrets, right? It’s just that this time we have the same one.”

“Okay, so you think you can do it. Not gossip with anybody about this.”

He mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing the key away. “When your mom presses me for information, I’ll just redirect her using the Force.”

Penelope rolled her eyes, and his dramatic gasp got the attention of the people in line next to them. 

“Don’t tell me you’re not a Star Wars fan. Come on. They’re foundational for our generation. They changed the face of the movie industry forever. I know the first one can be a little slow, but they’re so worth it.”

“I’ve...actually never seen it.” 

“How is that possible? Elena’s a total scifi geek, and Alex loves superheroes. You raised those kids.”

“I didn’t raise them alone! Victor watched Star Wars with them. I never had to.”

“It’s not something you do because you have to,” Schneider replied, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Well, if we could get back on track here,” Penelope said, pointing to the napkin. “Magical space movie powers aside, you’re gonna hold up okay against my nosy family?”

He shrugged. “You’re fake-dating an addict, remember? I used to be an expert at this. Lying is muscle memory.”

Shifting gears, he thought out loud. “We’ll have to make sure we’re all over each other when we chaperone Homecoming this year. Definitely can’t let that opportunity go to waste.”

“Yeah, because dances are a pretty key ingredient to romance,” she agreed, not bothering to keep the bite out of her words. “You just want to have your ‘nobody puts Baby in the corner’ moment to show off for Nikki.”

“My what?”

“Your Patrick Swayze dance movie thing.”

He shook his head, and she scoffed. 

“Dirty Dancing, Schneider. The lift, above his head? The singing along to the song?”

“I haven’t watched that. Heard it’s good though.”

“Oh my god, in what world have you watched the Star Wars movies but not Dirty Dancing? It’s a classic.”

“Fine.” Schneider put pen to paper again, showing her the napkin, where he’d added ‘Star Wars + Dirty Dancing double feature’ on their must-haves list.

Penelope laughed. “Okay.”

“We’re in agreement about the dance, though, right?” He checked with pen in hand. “If my side of our deal is to convince Nikki that I’m relationship material, the romantic parts are important. She needs to see my smooth moves on the dance floor. She needs to see me romancing you.”

It felt risky. It felt stupid.

Going out with him was just like hanging out as friends, with more affection. Faking it to make Nikki jealous would be kind of fun because she couldn’t stand Nikki, and it should help keep Max at arm’s length where she needed him to be.

Faking it for her family would be harder, but not impossible.

But pretending to be a couple at Homecoming?

The last time she went to Homecoming was with Max. The idea hurt. And scared her a little. Did she want to pretend that Schneider was her boyfriend under genuinely romantic circumstances?

Was there any universe in which that would be a good idea?

She doubted it.

He was not wrong about the logic behind it, though. So she nodded, and kept her thoughts to herself.

“I can bring you flowers a lot,” Schneider decided. “To your work, to the house, everywhere.”

Penelope was about to say how romantic and sweet that was, until Schneider finished the thought with, “Nikki hates it when I get romantic with her, so maybe seeing how much you appreciate it will change her mind about what a good boyfriend I could be.”

“You have to visit me at work!” She blurted out, remembering it at the last minute.

“Huh?”

“Yeah. Like, lunch visits to stop in and say hi, or maybe picking me up after my shifts sometimes. Especially when I have my residency days at the hospital.”

“Oh. Right, right, right. Gotcha. Make him jealous. That’ll be a good time for the flower drop offs,” he noted, jotting it down on the list. “Now here’s the big one for me. You have to make time for a standing Friday night date, and you have to come with me to Alex’s first travel game.”

“What? No way! Schneider, you know how busy I am. You take him on travel games because I can’t. And I don’t have time to date for real, why would I--”

“Because, Penelope.” He drew her name out for emphasis. “If you want to make your family think this is real, then we have to date. Otherwise they will not buy it. No chance.”

“But the travel game? Those are overnight. Are you saying we’d have to share a bed, and...”

“It’s not a proposition,” Schneider said patiently. “You know what Alex’s travel games are like for me. I take him, he plays, he hangs out with his friends, and Nikki hits on me from the moment we arrive to the moment we leave again.”

“Oh.” Yes, okay, he had probably mentioned that, Penelope thought, but she didn’t exactly make Schneider’s love life a priority when it came to her limited brainspace.

“So, if we’re saying we’re a couple, and you don’t come on the travel games--at least the first one, to make a statement--then Nikki’s first move will be to show up at my door at 2am. If we want this to work, I need Nikki’s booty call to be met with your sexy girlfriend energy, like a forcefield that reminds her I can do better.”

Penelope couldn’t decide if she wanted to be be offended at the idea that her value lay in being a girlfriend-shaped buzzkill...or if she was weirdly flattered that he saw her presence as enough to make Nikki feel inferior.

There was no choice there that made her feel less gross as a person, so she shrugged and moved on.

“I get it. With Elena overseas and my job a little less hectic, I should be able to swing a travel game. We’ll trade off sharing the bed.”

“Noted.”

It was ages away. There was no way they’d still be trying to win over/repel their exes by then.

No chance.

She held out her hand for the pen and initialed the napkin, watching as he did so after.

“We should get snacks to take back to my mom,” Penelope decided, uncharacteristically.

Not that any of this was really characteristic of her. But it would help stop her Mami from blasting questions at them right away when they got back, and even a few seconds breathing room would be a blessing.

Schneider paid for all the food.

She chose not to argue. Her head hurt. She had a rich boyfriend now. Fake boyfriend.

Whatever.

He had money and she was all out of energy for negotiating. Plus, Schneider’s smile when she waved at him to go ahead and cover the cost was almost worth it.

He so wanted to share and help and offer himself up to everyone else.

As fake boyfriends went, she could do much worse.

****

As soon as they passed their additional snacks to her mom and cheered Alex, who was finally up at bat, Schneider took full advantage of his hands being free.

Penelope had agreed to the lie, but that didn’t mean she knew exactly how to fake a relationship. Where was she supposed to start?

Schneider had no such confusion, at least that she could see. He shifted himself closer than he usually stood at Alex’s games, and slung one arm over her shoulder so she was snuggled up against his side until it was time to cheer and try the wave.

It did feel very couple-y, she decided. He was good at this.

Nikki was glaring at them from her own seat, and every time Penelope caught it in the corner of her eye, it made her feel vindicated. Schneider deserved better, and lord knew why he was even hoping to convince Nikki to be his girlfriend at all, but since he was…well, that was Penelope’s best friend that Nikki liked to treat like dirt.

She took some joy in pissing off the woman who had dented his heart.

The daggers her Mami was shooting at both of them, the silent fuming and the restrained tension radiating off Lydia, Penelope knew that would last as long as Alex’s game did.

So, much like Schneider next to her, she just kept going through the motions. He focused on being her boyfriend now, and she focused on being the supportive mom for her talented sports kid, and she knew that Hurricane Lydia would land on them both as soon as they got home.

She was pretty sure the only reason her Mami didn’t explode even sooner than that was because it would’ve been dangerous to them driving home, and with her precious grandson in the car she wouldn’t risk it.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 13: Paper And Ink]

A/N: Can I just take a second to say how happy I am to see all of your reactions to my little fic?! I have never been a super popular writer on Tumblr but I like to think that I have some of the cleverest, kindest, most thoughtful readers around. Your support for and emotional investment in my stories makes me so, so, so happy. Please enjoy this latest chapter...it’s the longest one yet! 💜

Also, MAJOR shout out to @writerxinthedark​ and her constant insanely astute observations!! Girl, I’m shook. Do you have ESP or what...? 👀

Chapter summary: Roger tries to reach a compromise, John tries to offer solace, Chrissie tries out some retro science, Y/N tries to process some alarming new information.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language! Discussion of substance abuse! Babies! Drama! Angst!!!

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​ @simonedk​ @herewegoagainniall​ @stardust-killer-queen​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​ @pomjompish​ @writerxinthedark​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

“You can’t leave,” John pleads. One of his hands—strong, nimble, a gold band on his wedding finger—is clutching the wooden bedpost. Chrissie paces back and forth beside him, gnawing her thumbnail until it bleeds, silent tears streaking down her ruddy cheeks.

You throw your open suitcase onto the bed and start yanking things out of drawers: panties and bras—the practical ones, not the sexy ones, I won’t be needing those in the immediate future—jeans, velvet dresses, sweaters, socks, mittens, scarves. It’ll be cold in Boston. “I’m going home.”

“Love, please...” Chrissie sobs.

“I’m not staying here.” Your voice is surprisingly steady, resolved even. “I’m not going to stay in this house with him. I’m not going to follow him around the world watching him fuck other women and humiliate me in tabloids. I’m done, I’m going home.”

“You have a contract with the record company, you’re the tour nurse!” Chrissie protests. “Jesus christ, they could sue you for non-performance! When does the band leave, a week from now?!”

“Six days,” John says softly.

“Six days!” Chrissie shouts at you.

“I’m not going. They can sue me, that’s fine.” I don’t have any money anyway. None that’s actually mine.

“You can’t leave,” John says again. His greyish eyes are wide and restless, desperate; you didn’t know it was possible for him to be this agitated. He’s not Queen’s unflappable bassist today.

“Yeah? Observe.” You pick the pink conch shell up off the dresser—the one John found for you on the beach in Ostia, during a tour that feels like a lifetime ago—and tuck it gently into a corner of your suitcase where it will be cushioned by knit sweaters. “John, I have a bunch of your sketches downstairs. There’re some on the refrigerator, some framed in the living room, a couple on the dining room walls...will you go get those for me, please? I can’t leave without them.”

John just stares at you, blinking and thunderstruck.

Next to the empty space on the dresser where the conch shell once lived is the Canon F-1. You consider the camera for a moment, then snatch it up and move to hurl it out of the second-story window.

John jolts out of his paralysis. “No no no no, I think you’ll regret that.” He gently pries the Canon out of your grasp and places it back on the dresser.

“What the hell are you going to do in Boston?!” Chrissie wails. “All your friends are here now! Your life is here!”

“I’m going to get a job at the hospital and marry some boring, predictable man and get a house with a white picket fence and fill it with two exceptionally average children”—if I can have them, and that’s a big if as it turns out—“and a golden retriever and live out the rest of my days in blissful, prosaic anonymity. Thanks for asking.”

“Oh come on, you don’t want that!” Chrissie snaps. “You’ve never wanted that, that’s why you came to London with the band to begin with!”

“I don’t want to feel like this!” you scream, and all those tears you didn’t know you were biting back start spilling out in hot, torrential streams. Your breath hitches; your throat burns. Like wildfire. John pulls you to his chest, murmurs that everything will be okay, cradles the back of your head with his palm. You know he’s exchanging a glance with Chrissie over your shoulder. That’s why she brought him here, after all; to help talk you off the ledge, to help convince you to stay.

“What a fucking mess,” Chrissie says in despair.

“It’s my fault,” you choke out.

“It’s not,” John whispers.

“It is,” you insist bitterly, sobbing into him. “Everyone warned me and I ignored it because I’m a complete idiot and now I’ve gone and ruined my life.”

“You don’t have to go!” Chrissie implores. “You can stay here. With us, with me and John and Mary and Freddie and Brian. You have British citizenship, you can get a job at a hospital in London if you really want to leave the band. You can stay with me and Bri for as long as you need to until you’re back on your feet, or with Freddie...they’d give you any amount of money you needed to get started...they’d be heartbroken if you left, love, you’ve been there for them through everything, since Queen was just a bunch of nobodies, since we were all flat broke...they’re never going to forget that loyalty you showed them, that faith. They’d do anything to repay you.”

You sigh shakily as you untangle yourself from John and wipe your eyes. “If I stay here, I’ll spend the rest of my life dodging Roger at birthday parties and holidays and restaurants. And being known as the wife he fucked around on. I’ll be a pitiful mess of a person. They had a photo of me in the News Of The World, did you know that? A tiny little circular photo under a huge, glamorous one of Dominique. ‘Look everyone, check out the dashing rock star’s sad, pathetic, unremarkable, soon-to-be-ex-wife. Surely you can appreciate why he’d shop around.’”

“Yes, I saw that part,” Chrissie says softly. She understands some of what you’re feeling, surely, and yet she must also have a sensation of gratefulness; plenty of musicians wander like tornadoes, touching down and sowing chaos wherever their compulsions take them, but few wives have the misfortune of seeing their names and faces paraded through the tabloids. Suddenly, Chrissie isn’t the most-wronged wife in Queen anymore.

You bury your face in your hands. “Oh god. My parents might even hear about this. They could be buying wine and Cheetos at the grocery store and see my husband and his girlfriend on the cover of a magazine in the checkout line.”

“I’m so sorry,” Chrissie replies, her voice hoarse. John crosses his arms over his chest and says nothing; but he kicks the wooden bedframe hard enough to send a crack down the center of the footboard.

Downstairs, you hear the front door open. Chrissie and John whirl to you, panicked.

“Hey, love of my life!” Roger’s chipper voice vaults up the staircase. Someone hasn’t checked the headlines yet. “Baby? You home?”

“Do you want me to stay?” John asks you.

“No, I can handle it.”

“Are you sure? Because I’ll stay for as long as you want me to. I’ll hide in the goddamn bushes outside the window if that would be helpful.”

“No, John.” You smile and climb onto your toes to wrap your arms around the back of his neck, to hug him goodbye. He’s warm and comfortable and sheltering. He feels more like home than this house ever has, isn’t that strange? And for a second, just one, you wonder what your life would look like if there had been no Veronica, no Roger.

You’d still be in Boston, you idiot, you chastise yourself. You never would have come to London with Queen if it wasn’t for Roger. And You’re My Best Friend wasn’t about you.

“Thank you,” you tell John. “But I have to do this part myself.”

“Okay. Don’t you dare go cart yourself off to Heathrow without telling me first, alright?”

“Sure,” you say, not meaning it. I can’t let him stop me.

“Good luck,” Chrissie frets, wringing her hands, twirling her wedding ring. “Call me, okay? I’m going to be a nervous wreck until I hear from you. I’ll chew my poor fingers to the bone.”

“I’ll call. I promise.”

“Hey baby!” Roger materializes in the bedroom doorway, pushes his prescription sunglasses up into his windswept blond hair, peers around the room at you and John and Chrissie. And you’re suddenly reminded of how a room changes when Roger walks into it, how everything shifts somehow, becomes brighter, more alive, brimming with magnificent potential; how cavernously empty the world would feel without him in it. Chrissie glares at him with her arms crossed, nostrils flaring, tapping one fashionable riding boot against the hardwood floor. “Uhhhh...am I interrupting something?”

“Bye, love.” Chrissie kisses you quickly on each cheek and breezes out of the room. You hear her boots clopping as she descends down the staircase. After a moment, John follows her.

“You despicable prick,” John hisses as he passes Roger in the doorway.

Roger is mystified. “Baby, what’s going on?” His eyes flick to the hastily packed suitcase, to the cracked footboard. “What the fuck happened to the bed?”

There are so many ways to ask the same question. When did you decide that you needed to have her? Who is she to you? How could you do this to me? What did she give you that I couldn’t? Instead, what you ask him this: “Have you seen the News Of The World today?”

His brow furrows into deep grooves. “No...” But something primal flashes in his vivid blue eyes, just briefly. Something like fear. He knows he’s done things that would hurt me. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unearth them all.

You grab the magazine off the bed and hurl it at him. Roger picks it up off the floor and flips to the front page. His shoulders slump, one hand comes up to cover his mouth, he exhales in a deep sigh; his whole body shifts the same way a room does when he walks out of it: dims, deflates, goes bloodless. He calmly lays the News Of The World on the dresser, folds his sunglasses and sets them down as well, rubs his eyes with the heels of his calloused hands. Then he turns to you.

He’s going to deny it, you think, revolted. He’s going to deny it just like Brian did, try to patch things up in some weak and gutless way, placate me so he can drift off to sleep at night imagining he’s a good husband.  

But Roger isn’t Brian. He never has been.

He asks you quietly, in surrender: “What do you want to know?”

Your stomach plunges into freefall, because this is real. Maybe there was some part of me that was hoping this was a mistake, some naïve and hopeful sliver of idealism left over from childhood, from a time when everything in the world was either good or evil and nothing lived in the treacherous shadows in between. “How long?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, Roger, it matters.”

“Not long.” He waves a hand glibly. “She...ah...well she thought I was pretty maddening at first. It took her a while to come around to the idea.”

You flinch like you’ve been slapped. “Jesus christ, Roger. Thank you, that’s great, thank you for that information.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he protests, exasperated. “I’m really not, I don’t...I just don’t...bloody hell, I don’t know how to do this.”

“To do what? To fuck around?! Obviously that’s inaccurate—”

“No, to confess!” he shouts. “I never confess, I never admit it, I just avoid or deflect or deny it, and when that doesn’t work anymore I just walk out because usually I don’t care enough to have the conversation. But now I do so I’m really, really trying to give you what you want. I thought you wanted answers. So ask me whatever you want to and I’ll tell you the truth.”

Everyone lies. Everyone disappoints you. I knew that, I really did...but somehow I let him convince me that I didn’t. That he was built of nothing but light. “Do you love her?”

“No,” he replies instantly. “It’s a fling, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t corner her somewhere and tell her that you’re planning on breaking up with me.”

Roger winces. I wasn’t going to end up like Josephine, that was the first promise I made to myself on British soil. And look where I am now. “No. Never.”

“Why, Roger?”

He looks away, runs his hands through his hair; he genuinely doesn’t know how to answer.

You stare at him in disbelief. “Are you even sorry...?”

He speaks carefully, purposefully. “I’m sorry you had to find out, that you were hurt by it. And I’m really fucking sorry about that headline. Discretion is extremely important to me. I never would have let that happen, but you know...” He shrugs, smirking guiltily in that disarmingly bewitching way that he does. Stop, you warn yourself, feeling something in you grasping for reasons to stay. “I haven’t been thinking especially clearly lately.”

“Yes, between the coke and the drinking and the pills you’re quite the disaster, aren’t you?” Scalding tears slither down your face. “So you’re not sorry you did it. You’re not sorry that you’re an addict or a cheater.”

“It’s not about that. It’s...” He searches for the words like premonitions in tea leaves. “Yes, there are drugs and parties and women. There are a lot of those things. But I’m not addicted to any of them. I’m addicted to being Roger Taylor, drummer of one of the best bands in the world. It’s everything I am, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to be. I never want to live in a world where that’s not who I am anymore. You understand that, what it’s like to feel caged and miserable, you know what it’s like to want to experience things. And so if it takes coke and pills to get up on that stage every night and drum under those blinding lights until it feels like my arm is split open again, okay, no problem, I’ll do it. If women are a part of the lifestyle, a part of being free, then I’ll take advantage of that. And why the fuck does it matter? Why do so many people think that fidelity is the ultimate manifestation of love? Plenty of faithful people hate each other. Plenty of people who screw around are irretrievably in love with one person, are fucking owned by them. I love you. I want to come home to you. I want to raise my children with you if that’s a possibility, and if it’s not then fine, whatever, I’m gonna love you all the same. You’re still on my list, Boston babe. You’re always going to be on my list. Why isn’t that enough?”

“John doesn’t cheat,” you object helplessly. Even if he has all the reasons in the world to.

“No, he doesn’t. But he’s a very different kind of man. A better one, probably. But you’ve always known who I was. And I never promised you an ordinary life.”

You shake your head, hide your face in your hands, can’t force the words to leave your trembling lips. It’s not enough for me. Maybe I thought it could be, but it’s just not.

Roger says, gently: “I know we said the marriage didn’t mean anything”—yes, that was your condition, wasn’t it?—“but that’s not completely true. It’s not just paper and ink. It does mean something. It means that you’re the person I want to take care of, the person I can rely on to provide for my family and friends if something ever happened to me. It means that I love and trust you in a way that is unconditional. That you’re my best friend.”

“I don’t want to live like this, Roger,” you whisper.

“So what’s next?” he demands. “So you’re going to take that suitcase and run back to the States and...what, get a job at the same hospital you were so desperate to escape from? Back out of the tour? Abandon the band and the friends you have here?”

“If that’s what it takes to get away from you.”

For the first time, you hurt him; you really hurt him. You see it ripple across his face like cold, swirling ocean waves. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’ve already decided, Roger.”

“Come on, baby, please, we can work this out—”

“I’m not interested.” You zip the suitcase closed, heave it off the bed, and drag it towards the door.

“So even if we can’t work it out,” Roger erupts, bolting to the doorway, to stand between you and whatever a life after him looks like. “Don’t leave the band. Leave me, just me, but not the band. I know you don’t want to leave them. I know they’ll be devastated if you disappear, not to mention they might legitimately murder me over it. Bri can be a twat, sure, but he’s convinced you saved his life. You and I might be the only people on the whole fucking planet who can see how brilliant John is, who understand him. Freddie’s convinced you’re some kind of good luck charm, you know how superstitious he is, he’ll start having those meltdowns again where he insists he can’t sing five minutes before a show and that the band is doomed, the tour will be a complete disaster. We need you. And I want you to keep the job you love, the travel, the mansion, the money, I want you to have all of it. You’ve earned it. You shouldn’t lose it because of me.”

And as you clutch the handle of your suitcase, your mind dashing from one logistical step to the next—grab my passport and some cash out of the safe, collect all of John’s sketches, call a cab to take me to Heathrow—you start remembering things. But you don’t see them like flashes, like misty reveries, no; you feel them like heat from a roaring fireplace, like Mediterranean pebbles digging into the wrinkled soles of your feet, like the deafening screams of crowds filling the Rainbow Theater, the Hammersmith Odeon, the Apollo, the Budokan, Madison Square Garden. Memories of excavating shards of glass from John’s hand in a New Orleans mansion crawling with fantasies and nightmares, of toasting pink champagne in the lobby of the Chelsea Register Office, of museums and parks and beaches and apartments filled with threadbare couches and extravagant dreams, of Christmases and New Year’s Eves, of Roger convincing you to come to London with Queen on a June morning in 1974, cradling your face in his rough hands, promising you everything you’ve ever wanted: ‘Love...Accept. The fucking. Offer.’ And you could run to the other side of the world, sure; but you’re never going to be able to carve those memories out of your bones.

You let go of the suitcase, and Roger’s smile lights up his face like the sun.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Careful...careful, love...” Roger contorts himself to keep the umbrella over you and the Boston cream pie you’re carrying as rain pours out of a sinister grey sky. You both hurry beneath the roof that covers the front porch and ring the doorbell. Freddie answers wearing a tight green shirt, jeans, and an enormous toothy grin.

“Oh, for me?” he squeals, eyeing the pie.

You step inside as Roger stays out on the porch to shake off the umbrella and finish his cigarette; Chrissie hates people smoking in her house, and one should get what they want on their birthday. “Obviously, it’s for Chris. But I suspect she’ll share.”

Chrissie appears in a blue dress, her wide-set pale eyes alight as she gazes at the pie. “At last! I finally get to try one of these! And yes, Freddie, I’m only going to have the teeniest tiniest piece, so there will be more than enough to go around.” She embraces you and takes the pie. “Is this homemade?! It is, isn’t it?”

“Happy birthday, Chrissie,” you announce with a tired smile. Queen leaves for the News Of The World Tour in two days. You’re leaving with them, to everyone’s palpable relief; Freddie and Brian have never mentioned the headline to you, but they know about it of course. Everybody knows. It’s an elephant in every room, an ancient beast that quakes the floor when it walks.

“I’m going to miss you like crazy,” Chrissie tells you. “I always do.” But she’s a little thankful, too; because spending months away on tour is undoubtedly preferable to a permanent absence, a visibly missing piece like a chip in a tooth.

“I know. I’ll call.”

Roger steps inside the massive Chelsea home. “Happy birthday, Chris!”

She promptly spins away, ignoring him, and ferries the pie off to the kitchen. Freddie wraps an arm around Roger’s shoulder and steers him into the living room where Mary, John, a perpetually pregnant Veronica, and a host of assorted Mullens and Mays are passing the twins around like footballs and chatting over appetizers and tea and cookies. Biscuits, you correct yourself. And the shrimp cocktail are called prawns.

“What did you say your name was?” a middle-aged, rotund, bearded man asks John disinterestedly. “Josh? James?”

“John, actually. I’m the bassist.”

The man frowns as he gobbles down a shrimp. “Oh, how odd, I’ve never even heard of you.”

“Yeah?” Roger pipes as he sails over and claps the man aggressively on the shoulder. “Well let me introduce you. This is John Richard Deacon and he wrote You’re My Best Friend, you’ve heard of that one, right? He learned the electric piano to compose it. Yes, he doesn’t just play bass, he has all sorts of gifts. He’s massively talented. He builds amps and manages finances and can sketch pictures that look like freaking photographs...”

You wander into the kitchen where Chrissie is slicing herself a miniscule portion of Boston cream pie. “Oh fuck it, it’s my birthday. I’m having a proper piece of pie, thighs be damned.” She goes in for a second attempt. “You want any?”

“No, I’m alright. I haven’t been feeling well.”

Her brows knit together in concern. “Not compulsively consuming your own weight in snacks to avoid socializing with strangers? That’s unlike you.”

Well, since you asked, I was feeling even more piggish than usual until I found out my husband was fucking somebody else, and also that the entire country knows about it. “Yeah, weird.”

Brian enters the kitchen. “Oh, pie!”

“You want a piece?” Chrissie asks cheerfully. So they’ve made up somehow. Like they always do, like they always will.

“Yes, absolutely, but I’ll get it myself, love. You go enjoy yourself. It’s your day.”

She beams up at him and journeys out to the living room. You are in no rush to join her. Watching Roger charm the crowd, allowing him to dazzle you, to lull you back into his orbit like the subsidiary moon of a vast, ringed planet...no, you have no stomach for that at all. You pour yourself a glass of red wine and try to swallow without tasting it.

Brian’s doting demeanor evaporates like he’s taken off a mask. He sighs, mixes himself a Vesper, sips it as he leans against the kitchen counter and studies you warily. “How are things?”

“Paradisiacal.” Each night you sleep in the guest room with the blue-grey walls and the seahorse-patterned blankets. Roger tried to give you the main bedroom, still sleeps in a spare room in case you ever decide you want it; but you like that the blue room is smaller, more humble, that it smells like John’s brand of cigarettes, that there is no gaping emptiness where Roger usually is. Roger doesn’t try to talk to you about Dominique. He is attentive, optimistic, easygoing, affectionate; he lights the fireplace in the living room and brings you hot chocolate, he wears the red hat you once knit him every time he leaves the house. But he left the paperwork showing he’d sold the apartment—the ‘London Love Nest,’ isn’t that what the headline called it?—out on the kitchen table where you would see it. You know he’s waiting for you to forgive him, as if that’s an inevitability. And every once in a while you feel a guttural stab of fear that he might be right. Someone puts Hotel California on the record player out in the living room. “Every time I hear this goddamn song I get acid trip flashbacks. I start thinking of sharks for some reason.”

“It reminds me of...” Brian’s gaze goes murky. “Well, of a girl from New Orleans.”

The one from the hot tub. The one with a peach tattooed on her shoulder blade.

“We have a stop there,” you say. “You know, on the tour. We’ll be there for a few nights.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten.”

No, perhaps that’s all he’s been thinking about.

“How are you these days, Bri? Two beautiful children, adoring wife, We Will Rock You becoming a fantastically successful single...your world must seem pretty golden.”

“You’d think so.” He peers out the window where raindrops are clinging to fogged glass and the November skies are illuminated with episodic flashes of lightning like Morse code. At last he says, very softly: “I think I married the wrong person.”

“I think I did too.”

Bri raises his eyebrows and clinks his Vesper against your wine glass. “So we were both right. Fantastic. Cheers.”

You gulp down the rest of your wine, feeling your stomach roil in protest. You pour another glass. Brian drains his Vesper.

“You want me to escort you out there?” Brian asks, gesturing towards the living room. “I’ll happily redirect everyone’s attention towards the twins if you’d like. They’re very convenient conversation starters.”

“No, thanks Bri. You go ahead.”

“Alright. If you insist.” A smile ghosts his lips. “I’m really glad you’re coming with us, love. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. And I’m sure things won’t feel easy for a long time. But Queen wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now get out there before I punch you in your fragile liver.”

Brian laughs, sets his glass in the sink, and disappears into the living room. You stall in the kitchen by yourself. You sip wine, browse through the family photos displayed on the refrigerator, listen to the polite chatter of the guests from a distance. Eventually you venture towards the living room before losing your nerve and veering down the hallway towards the back porch. Outside the rain is falling torrentially, the sky rumbling with thunder. John is sitting on a wooden bench under the roof and smoking as he gazes out into the storm.

“Hey,” he says, sliding over to make room for you on the bench.

You sit down beside him and hold out your hand. He stares at you for a moment, puzzled, before passing you his cigarette. You take one long drag and give it back to him. John blinks at you, stunned.

“That’s extremely bad for you,” he teases.

“So is getting hammered and driving into cop cars.”

He clutches his chest. “Ouch. I felt that in my soul.”

You shove him, chuckling. He points down at your boots. You swing your feet up to rest in his lap, and he lays his left hand on them while he smokes with his right.

“Go ahead,” he says. “I know you might not want to talk about it. That’s fine. But if there’s any baggage you’d like to unburden yourself of, I’m listening.”

I’ve got baggage, all right. I’ve got enough to fill a Boeing 747. “Everyone warned me. Everyone told me it was a terrible idea to fall in love with him. Everyone except you, John. Why is that?”

He’s slow and deliberate when he answers. “I never wanted you to be with someone because...you know...because you thought you should be with them. Because they were the ‘smart’ choice or the ‘safe’ choice or whatever. I wanted you to make your own decisions, whatever those were. I wanted you to be with someone...whoever that was...only because you wanted to be. Because you loved them.”

You nod. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

“I told you once that it didn’t mean anything to someone like Roger when he...you know. When he does what he does. I was telling the truth then, and I’m telling the truth now. I don’t think it meant anything to him. And I don’t know if that kills any of the pain I know you’re feeling, but I hope it does. Because you being in pain is the absolute last thing I’ve ever wanted. Are you angry with me for not trying to change your mind?”

“No,” you say immediately, and you mean it. “Not at all.”

“Good. Because they took away my driver’s license for a year and I’m probably going to need a lot of rides from you.”

You laugh, a brash authentic laugh, and John grins over at you.

Chrissie hauls the sliding glass door open and steps out onto the porch with a frustrated huff. “I know this party is technically for me, but when you’re the mother of infant twins sometimes all you really want is a smoke, a nap, and a bottle of vodka.” She lights a cigarette and plops down into a chair facing the bench.

“How are you, Chris?” What you mean is: Have you screamed much at your husband lately?

“I’m doing pretty well today, actually.”

“Is that because you’re genuinely happy or because you’ve trained yourself not to be sad?”

Chrissie smirks. “You’ll find those feel like the same thing after a while.”

“No, I won’t find out. Because I’m not staying with him.”

“Love...” Chrissie begins.

“I’ll stay in London. I’ll even stay with the band. But I’m not going to stay married to him.”

“Y/N, please, maybe you should think about this,” Chrissie presses. “I know you love him. And I know he makes you wonderfully happy when times are good. Maybe that’s all we can ask for, you know? Wives in our predicament. Maybe we can learn to cherish them when they’re with us, bottle up the magic, store it on a shelf to tide us over until they come back home. No one else is going to light you up the way he does. There’s only one Roger Taylor. Withdrawal from that is going to be hell.”

You glower out into the wind and rain and say nothing.

“And that woman, Dominique Beyrand? I’ve asked around about her, she’s got some husband back in France that she goes home to when she’s not working here. It’s just a fling for her too, it’s nothing serious. I don’t think there was any chance he would have ever considered actually leaving you for her.”

“He bought her an apartment, Chris.”  

“Men do stupid things that don’t mean anything all the time. Isn’t that right, John?”

“Sure,” he offers ungenerously.

You stop yourself before the words tumble recklessly from your lips: Maybe you’re trying to convince yourself more than me, Chrissie. “I’m divorcing him,” you vow quietly.

“Okay,” Chrissie capitulates. “Okay. I’m sorry, love, please forgive me. I only got two hours of sleep, Teddy was crying all night.” She puffs on her cigarette and sighs mournfully. “I hate to say it, and I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I guess it was sort of lucky you never got pregnant. Can you imagine trying to split up when you have children together? Working out custody and finances and holidays, having to pretend like you don’t want to disembowel each other all the bloody time...it would be torture.”

John glares at her, his left hand still on your boots.

“Yeah,” you respond; but now you’re distracted, because you remember the reason why you had been so determined to ignore the phone when Chrissie called to warn you about the News Of The World headline. Because the kitchen phone was right next to the calendar, and the calendar would report in no uncertain terms that your period was due.

When was that? A week ago?

You can’t be late. You’ve never been late.

“Oh god,” you breathe.

“What?” John asks, concerned.

In reply, you lurch off the bench, stumble to the edge of the porch, and vomit red wine into the wet grass like a gush of blood. Chrissie soars to you and rubs your back as you retch into her lawn. “Oh no, you poor thing!”

“John, go away,” you choke out as he approaches. “I’m humiliated, I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“You saw me in a jail cell. I’m staying.”

You turn to look up at them. They read the raw horror and shock in your eyes. John’s jaw falls open and he shakes his head, firmly in denial. You could relate.

Chrissie gasps. “Oh, bloody hell.”

“No fucking way,” you wheeze. “After all this time, after all those months of nothing...”

“You better take a test,” Chrissie says. “Come on, I have a kit upstairs.”

She pulls you to your feet and leads you to her bathroom, deftly avoiding the increasingly intoxicated crowd downstairs. John waits just outside the door as Chrissie rummages around in the closet for the test kit. It’s a contraption that looks like a chemistry set, with a dropper and a test tube and a stand with a mirror. You piss into a paper cup—successfully although not with flying colors—and wash your trembling hands in the sink with a piece of pink soap shaped like a seashell. Then you lay on the cold linoleum floor with a folded towel for a pillow and a bucket within reach. Chrissie trickles a few droplets of urine into the test tube, mixes in the contents of a small plastic vial, and places the test tube in the holder that suspends it above the mirror.

Chrissie explains to John: “If she’s pregnant, the chemicals will form a brown ring in the tube. If there’s no ring, we’re in the clear.”

“How fitting,” you chuckle from the floor, dazedly, cynically. “That would be the only ring I’ve ever gotten.”

It takes two hours. The three of you loiter in the bathroom, Chrissie and John perched on the rim of the enormous garden tub, fidgeting and chitchatting anxiously. They alternate popping downstairs, mingling just long enough to not arouse suspicions, bringing back biscuits and bits of toast that they futility try to coerce you into eating. Chrissie doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes in the house, she never has; but now both she and John are chain smoking as they wait and periodically get up to check the test tube.

“This isn’t real,” you whimper. “This can’t be real, right? There’s no way the universe has this ironic a sense of humor.”

“Wait, something’s happening.” John waves Chrissie over to the test kit. She examines it.

“Love...” Chrissie begins, her voice tentative, her eyes glossy.

“No,” you insist. “No way, no fucking way, I don’t believe this...”

Chrissie turns the kit so you can view it, so you can see what she does reflected in the tiny mirror: a single dark ring that informs you you’re carrying Roger’s child.

[path-of-my-childhood]

The Rolling Stone Interview: Taylor Swift

By: Brian Hiatt for The Rolling Stone Magazine Date: September 18th 2019

In her most in-depth and introspective interview in years, Swift tells all about the rocky road to 'Lover' and much, much more.

Taylor Swift bursts into her mom’s Nashville kitchen, smiling, looking remarkably like Taylor Swift. (That red-lip, classic thing? Check.) “I need someone to help dye my hair pink,” she says, and moments later, her ends match her sparkly nail polish, sneakers, and the stripes on her button-down. It’s all in keeping with the pastel aesthetic of her new album, Lover; black-leather combat-Taylor from her previous album cycle has handed back the phone. Around the black-granite kitchen island, all is calm and normal, as Swift’s mom, dad, and younger brother pass through. Her mom’s two dogs, one very small, one very large, pounce upon visitors with slurping glee. It could be any 29-year-old’s weekend visit with her parents, if not for the madness looming a few feet down the hall.

In an airy terrace, 113 giddy, weepy, shaky, still-in-disbelief fans are waiting for the start of one of Swift’s secret sessions, sacred rituals in Swift-dom. She’s about to play them her seventh album, as-yet unreleased on this Sunday afternoon in early August, and offer copious commentary. Also, she made cookies. Just before the session, Swift sits down in her mom’s study (where she “operates the Google,” per her daughter) to chat for a few minutes. The black-walled room is decorated with black-and-white classic-rock photos, including shots of Bruce Springsteen and, unsurprisingly, James Taylor; there are also more recent shots of Swift posing with Kris Kristofferson and playing with Def Leppard, her mom’s favorite band.

In a corner is an acoustic guitar Swift played as a teenager. She almost certainly wrote some well-known songs on it, but can’t recall which ones. “It would be kind of weird to finish a song and be like, ‘And this moment, I shall remember,’'” she says, laughing. “‘This guitar hath been anointed with my sacred tuneage!'”

The secret session itself is, as the name suggests, deeply off-the-record; it can be confirmed that she drank some white wine, since her glass pops up in some Instagram pictures. She stays until 5 a.m., chatting and taking photos with every one of the fans. Five hours later, we continue our talk at length in Swift’s Nashville condo, in almost exactly the same spot where we did one of our interviews for her 2012 Rolling Stone cover story. She’s hardly changed its whimsical decor in the past seven years (one of the few additions is a pool table replacing the couch where we sat last time), so it’s an old-Taylor time capsule. There’s still a huge bunny made of moss in one corner, and a human-size birdcage in the living room, though the view from the latter is now of generic new condo buildings instead of just distant green hills. Swift is barefoot now, in pale-blue jeans and a blue button-down tied at the waist; her hair is pulled back, her makeup minimal.

How to sum up the past three years of Taylor Swift? In July 2016, after Swift expressed discontent with Kanye West’s “Famous,” Kim Kardashian did her best to destroy her, unleashing clandestine recordings of a phone conversation between Swift and West. In the piecemeal audio, Swift can be heard agreeing to the line “…me and Taylor might still have sex.” We don’t hear her learning about the next lyric, the one she says bothered her — “I made that bitch famous” — and as she’ll explain, there’s more to her side of the story. The backlash was, well, swift, and overwhelming. It still hasn’t altogether subsided. Later that year, Swift chose not to make an endorsement in the 2016 election, which definitely didn’t help. In the face of it all, she made Reputation — fierce, witty, almost-industrial pop offset by love songs of crystalline beauty — and had a wildly successful stadium tour. Somewhere in there, she met her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, and judging by certain songs on Lover, the relationship is serious indeed.

Lover is Swift’s most adult album, a rebalancing of sound and persona that opens doors to the next decade of her career; it’s also a welcome return to the sonic diversity of 2012’s Red, with tracks ranging from the St. Vincent-assisted über-bop “Cruel Summer” to the unbearably poignant country-fied “Soon You’ll Get Better” (with the Dixie Chicks) and the “Shake It Off”-worthy pep of “Paper Rings.”

She wants to talk about the music, of course, but she is also ready to explain the past three years of her life, in depth, for the first time. The conversation is often not a light one. She’s built up more armor in the past few years, but still has the opposite of a poker face — you can see every micro-emotion wash over her as she ponders a question, her nose wrinkling in semi-ironic offense at the term “old-school pop stars,” her preposterously blue eyes glistening as she turns to darker subjects. In her worst moments, she says, “You feel like you’re being completely pulled into a riptide. So what are you going to do? Splash a lot? Or hold your breath and hope you somehow resurface? And that’s what I did. And it took three years. Sitting here doing an interview — the fact that we’ve done an interview before is the only reason I’m not in a full body sweat.”

When we talked seven years ago, everything was going so well for you, and you were very worried that something would go wrong. Yeah, I kind of knew it would. I felt like I was walking along the sidewalk, knowing eventually the pavement was going to crumble and I was gonna fall through. You can’t keep winning and have people like it. People love “new” so much — they raise you up the flagpole, and you’re waving at the top of the flagpole for a while. And then they’re like, “Wait, this new flag is what we actually love.” They decide something you’re doing is incorrect, that you’re not standing for what you should stand for. You’re a bad example. Then if you keep making music and you survive, and you keep connecting with people, eventually they raise you a little bit up the flagpole again, and then they take you back down, and back up again. And it happens to women more than it happens to men in music.

It also happened to you a few times on a smaller scale, didn’t it? I’ve had several upheavals in my career. When I was 18, they were like, “She doesn’t really write those songs.” So my third album I wrote by myself as a reaction to that. Then they decided I was a serial dater — a boy-crazy man-eater — when I was 22. And so I didn’t date anyone for, like, two years. And then they decided in 2016 that absolutely everything about me was wrong. If I did something good, it was for the wrong reasons. If I did something brave, I didn’t do it correctly. If I stood up for myself, I was throwing a tantrum. And so I found myself in this endless mockery echo chamber. It’s just like — I have a brother who’s two and a half years younger, and we spent the first half of our lives trying to kill each other and the second half as best friends. You know that game kids play? I’d be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And Austin would be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And I’m like, “He’s copying me.” And he’d be like, “He’s copying me.” Always in a really obnoxious voice that sounds all twisted. That’s what it felt like in 2016. So I decided to just say nothing. It wasn’t really a decision. It was completely involuntary.

But you also had good things happen in your life at the same time — that’s part of Reputation. The moments of my true story on that album are songs like “Delicate,” “New Year’s Day,” “Call It What You Want,” “Dress.” The one-two punch, bait-and-switch of Reputation is that it was actually a love story. It was a love story in amongst chaos. All the weaponized sort of metallic battle anthems were what was going on outside. That was the battle raging on that I could see from the windows, and then there was what was happening inside my world — my newly quiet, cozy world that was happening on my own terms for the first time. . . . It’s weird, because in some of the worst times of my career, and reputation, dare I say, I had some of the most beautiful times — in my quiet life that I chose to have. And I had some of the most incredible memories with the friends I now knew cared about me, even if everyone hated me. The bad stuff was really significant and damaging. But the good stuff will endure. The good lessons — you realize that you can’t just show your life to people.

Meaning? I used to be like a golden retriever, just walking up to everybody, like, wagging my tail. “Sure, yeah, of course! What do you want to know? What do you need?” Now, I guess, I have to be a little bit more like a fox.

Do your regrets on that extend to the way the “girl squad” thing was perceived? Yeah, I never would have imagined that people would have thought, “This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it.” Holy shit, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, “Oh, this did not go the way that I thought it was going to go.” I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to do. The patriarchy allows men to have bro packs. If you’re a male artist, there’s an understanding that you have respect for your counterparts.

Whereas women are expected to be feuding with each other? It’s assumed that we hate each other. Even if we’re smiling and photographed together with our arms around each other, it’s assumed there’s a knife in our pocket.

How much of a danger was there of falling into that thought pattern yourself? The messaging is dangerous, yes. Nobody is immune, because we’re a product of what society and peer groups and now the internet tells us, unless we learn differently from experience.

You once sang about a star who “took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out.” In 2016, you wrote in your journal, “This summer is the apocalypse.” How close did you come to quitting altogether? I definitely thought about that a lot. I thought about how words are my only way of making sense of the world and expressing myself — and now any words I say or write are being twisted against me. People love a hate frenzy. It’s like piranhas. People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it. I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless. I wrote a lot of really aggressively bitter poems constantly. I wrote a lot of think pieces that I knew I’d never publish, about what it’s like to feel like you’re in a shame spiral. And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong. That was really hard for me, because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s really hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me. And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse.

But some of your former critics have become your friends, right? Some of my best friendships came from people publicly criticizing me and then it opening up a conversation. Hayley Kiyoko was doing an interview and she made an example about how I get away with singing about straight relationships and people don’t give me shit the way they give her shit for singing about girls — and it’s totally valid. Like, Ella — Lorde — the first thing she ever said about me publicly was a criticism of my image or whatever. But I can’t really respond to someone saying, “You, as a human being, are fake.” And if they say you’re playing the victim, that completely undermines your ability to ever verbalize how you feel unless it’s positive. So, OK, should I just smile all the time and never say anything hurts me? Because that’s really fake. Or should I be real about how I’m feeling and have valid, legitimate responses to things that happened to me in my life? But wait, would that be playing the victim?

How do you escape that mental trap? Since I was 15 years old, if people criticized me for something, I changed it. So you realize you might be this amalgamation of criticisms that were hurled at you, and not an actual person who’s made any of these choices themselves. And so I decided I needed to live a quiet life, because a quiet personal life invites no discussion, dissection, and debate. I didn’t realize I was inviting people to feel they had the right to sort of play my life like a video game.

“The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead!” was funny — but how seriously should we take it? There’s a part of me that definitely is always going to be different. I needed to grow up in many ways. I needed to make boundaries, to figure out what was mine and what was the public’s. That old version of me that shares unfailingly and unblinkingly with a world that is probably not fit to be shared with? I think that’s gone. But it was definitely just, like, a fun moment in the studio with me and Jack [Antonoff] where I wanted to play on the idea of a phone call — because that’s how all of this started, a stupid phone call I shouldn’t have picked up.

It would have been much easier if that’s what you’d just said. It would have been so, so great if I would have just said that [laughs].

Some of the Lover iconography does suggest old Taylor’s return, though. I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album, where it’s very, very autobiographical. But also moments of extreme catchiness and moments of extreme personal confession.

Did you do anything wrong from your perspective in dealing with that phone call? Is there anything you regret? The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch. That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn’t just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things.

I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, “This guy who’s antagonizing me, I just want his approval.” But that’s where I was. And so we’d go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19. But the 2015 VMAs come around. He’s getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand — I didn’t illegally record it, so I can’t play it for you. But he called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hourlong conversation, and he’s like, “I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,” and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, “MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!” [His exact words: “You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award ’cause it got them more ratings?”] And I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk shit. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, “You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.” So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.

The line being “. . . me and Taylor might still have sex”? [Nods] And I was like, “OK, good. We’re back on good terms.” And then when I heard the song, I was like, “I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.” And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don’t want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it’s the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened. [West denied any involvement in Pusha-T’s revelation of Drake’s child and apologized for sending “negative energy” toward Drake.]

When did you get to the place that’s described on the opening track of Lover, “I Forgot That You Existed”? It was sometime on the Reputation tour, which was the most transformative emotional experience of my career. That tour put me in the healthiest, most balanced place I’ve ever been. After that tour, bad stuff can happen to me, but it doesn’t level me anymore. The stuff that happened a couple of months ago with Scott [Borchetta] would have leveled me three years ago and silenced me. I would have been too afraid to speak up. Something about that tour made me disengage from some part of public perception I used to hang my entire identity on, which I now know is incredibly unhealthy.

What was the actual revelation? It’s almost like I feel more clear about the fact that my job is to be an entertainer. It’s not like this massive thing that sometimes my brain makes it into, and sometimes the media makes it into, where we’re all on this battlefield and everyone’s gonna die except one person, who wins. It’s like, “No, do you know what? Katy is going to be legendary. Gaga is going to be legendary. Beyoncé is going to be legendary. Rihanna is going to be legendary. Because the work that they made completely overshadows the myopia of this 24-hour news cycle of clickbait.” And somehow I realized that on tour, as I was looking at people’s faces. We’re just entertaining people, and it’s supposed to be fun.

It’s interesting to look at these albums as a trilogy. 1989 was really a reset button. Oh, in every way. I’ve been very vocal about the fact that that decision was mine and mine alone, and it was definitely met with a lot of resistance. Internally.

After realizing that things were not all smiles with your former label boss, Scott Borchetta, it’s hard not to wonder how much additional conflict there was over things like that. A lot of the best things I ever did creatively were things that I had to really fight — and I mean aggressively fight — to have happen. But, you know, I’m not like him, making crazy, petty accusations about the past. . . . When you have a business relationship with someone for 15 years, there are going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. But I truly, legitimately thought he looked at me as the daughter he never had. And so even though we had a lot of really bad times and creative differences, I was going to hang my hat on the good stuff. I wanted to be friends with him. I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of “Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.”

He accused you of declining the Parkland march and Manchester benefit show. Unbelievable. Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me. The fact that those two are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun — it’s really hard to shock me. And this was utterly shocking. These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.

In some ways, on a musical level, Lover feels like the most indie-ish of your albums. That’s amazing, thank you. It’s definitely a quirky record. With this album, I felt like I sort of gave myself permission to revisit older themes that I used to write about, maybe look at them with fresh eyes. And to revisit older instruments — older in terms of when I used to use them. Because when I was making 1989, I was so obsessed with it being this concept of Eighties big pop, whether it was Eighties in its production or Eighties in its nature, just having these big choruses — being unapologetically big. And then Reputation, there was a reason why I had it all in lowercase. I felt like it wasn’t unapologetically commercial. It’s weird, because that is the album that took the most amount of explanation, and yet it’s the one I didn’t talk about. In the Reputation secret sessions I kind of had to explain to my fans, “I know we’re doing a new thing here that I’d never done before.” I’d never played with characters before. For a lot of pop stars, that’s a really fun trick, where they’re like, “This is my alter ego.” I had never played with that before. It’s really fun. And it was just so fun to play with on tour — the darkness and the bombast and the bitterness and the love and the ups and the downs of an emotional-turmoil record.

“Daylight” is a beautiful song. It feels like it could have been the title track. It almost was. I thought it might be a little bit too sentimental.

And I guess maybe too on-the-nose. Right, yeah, way too on-the-nose. That’s what I thought, because I was kind of in my head referring to the album as Daylight for a while. But Lover, to me, was a more interesting title, more of an accurate theme in my head, and more elastic as a concept. That’s why “You Need to Calm Down” can make sense within the theme of the album — one of the things it addresses is how certain people are not allowed to live their lives without discrimination just based on who they love.

For the more organic songs on this album, like “Lover” and “Paper Rings,” you said you were imagining a wedding band playing them. How often does that kind of visualization shape a song’s production style? Sometimes I’ll have a strange sort of fantasy of where the songs would be played. And so for songs like “Paper Rings” or “Lover” I was imagining a wedding-reception band, but in the Seventies, so they couldn’t play instruments that wouldn’t have been invented yet. I have all these visuals. For Reputation, it was nighttime cityscape. I didn’t really want any — or very minimal — traditional acoustic instruments. I imagined old warehouse buildings that had been deserted and factory spaces and all this industrial kind of imagery. So I wanted the production to have nothing wooden. There’s no wood floors on that album. Lover is, like, completely just a barn wood floor and some ripped curtains flowing in the breeze, and fields of flowers and, you know, velvet.

How did you come to use high school metaphors to touch on politics with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”? There are so many influences that go into that particular song. I wrote it a couple of months after midterm elections, and I wanted to take the idea of politics and pick a metaphorical place for that to exist. And so I was thinking about a traditional American high school, where there’s all these kinds of social events that could make someone feel completely alienated. And I think a lot of people in our political landscape are just feeling like we need to huddle up under the bleachers and figure out a plan to make things better.

I feel like your Fall Out Boy fandom might’ve slipped out in that title. I love Fall Out Boy so much. Their songwriting really influenced me, lyrically, maybe more than anyone else. They take a phrase and they twist it. “Loaded God complex/Cock it and pull it”? When I heard that, I was like, “I’m dreaming.”

You sing about “American stories burning before me.” Do you mean the illusions of what America is? It’s about the illusions of what I thought America was before our political landscape took this turn, and that naivete that we used to have about it. And it’s also the idea of people who live in America, who just want to live their lives, make a living, have a family, love who they love, and watching those people lose their rights, or watching those people feel not at home in their home. I have that line “I see the high-fives between the bad guys” because not only are some really racist, horrific undertones now becoming overtones in our political climate, but the people who are representing those concepts and that way of looking at the world are celebrating loudly, and it’s horrific.

You’re in this weird place of being a blond, blue-eyed pop star in this era — to the point where until you endorsed some Democratic candidates, right-wingers, and worse, assumed you were on their side. I don’t think they do anymore. Yeah, that was jarring, and I didn’t hear about that until after it had happened. Because at this point, I, for a very long time, I didn’t have the internet on my phone, and my team and my family were really worried about me because I was not in a good place. And there was a lot of stuff that they just dealt with without telling me about it. Which is the only time that’s ever happened in my career. I’m always in the pilot seat, trying to fly the plane that is my career in exactly the direction I want to take it. But there was a time when I just had to throw my hands up and say, “Guys, I can’t. I can’t do this. I need you to just take over for me and I’m just going to disappear.”

Are you referring to when a white-supremacist site suggested you were on their team? I didn’t even see that, but, like, if that happened, that’s just disgusting. There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.

You took a lot of heat for not getting involved. Does any part of you regret that you just didn’t say “fuck it” and gotten more specific when you said to vote that November? Totally. Yeah, I regret a lot of things all the time. It’s like a daily ritual.

Were you just convinced that it would backfire? That’s literally what it was. Yeah. It’s a very powerful thing when you legitimately feel like numbers have proven that pretty much everyone hates you. Like, quantifiably. That’s not me being dramatic. And you know that.

There were a lot of people in those stadiums. It’s true. But that was two years later. . . . I do think, as a party, we need to be more of a team. With Republicans, if you’re wearing that red hat, you’re one of them. And if we’re going to do anything to change what’s happening, we need to stick together. We need to stop dissecting why someone’s on our side or if they’re on our side in the right way or if they phrased it correctly. We need to not have the right kind of Democrat and the wrong kind of Democrat. We need to just be like, “You’re a Democrat? Sick. Get in the car. We’re going to the mall.”

Here’s a hard question for you: As a superfan, what did you think of the Game of Thrones finale? Oh, my God. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. So, clinically our brain responds to our favorite show ending the same way we feel when a breakup occurs. I read that. There’s no good way for it to end. No matter what would have happened in that finale, people still would have been really upset because of the fact that it’s over.

I was glad to see you confirm that your line about a “list of names” was a reference to Arya. I like to be influenced by movies and shows and books and stuff. I love to write about a character dynamic. And not all of my life is going to be as kind of complex as these intricate webs of characters on TV shows and movies.

There was a time when it was. That’s amazing.

But is the idea that as your own life becomes less dramatic, you’ll need to pull ideas from other places? I don’t feel like that yet. I think I might feel like that possibly when I have a family. If I have a family. [Pauses] I don’t know why I said that! But that’s what I’ve heard from other artists, that they were very protective of their personal life, so they had to draw inspiration from other things. But again, I don’t know why I said that. Because I don’t know how my life is going to go or what I’m going to do. But right now, I feel like it’s easier for me to write than it ever was.

You don’t talk about your relationship, but you’ll sing about it in wildly revealing detail. What’s the difference for you? Singing about something helps you to express it in a way that feels more accurate. You cannot, no matter what, put words in a quote and have it move someone the same way as if you heard those words with the perfect sonic representation of that feeling... There is that weird conflict in being a confessional songwriter and then also having my life, you know, 10 years ago, be catapulted into this strange pop-culture thing.

I’ve heard you say that people got too interested in which song was about who, which I can understand — at the same time, to be fair, it was a game you played into, wasn’t it? I realized very early on that no matter what, that was going to happen to me regardless. So when you realize the rules of the game you’re playing and how it will affect you, you got to look at the board and make your strategy. But at the same time, writing songs has never been a strategic element of my career. But I’m not scared anymore to say that other things in my career, like how to market an album, are strictly strategic. And I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to. And so I’m sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business. But, it’s a different part of my brain than I use to write.

You’ve been masterminding your business since you were a teenager. Yeah, but I’ve also tried very hard — and this is one thing I regret — to convince people that I wasn’t the one holding the puppet strings of my marketing existence, or the fact that I sit in a conference room several times a week and come up with these ideas. I felt for a very long time that people don’t want to think of a woman in music who isn’t just a happy, talented accident. We’re all forced to kind of be like, “Aw, shucks, this happened again! We’re still doing well! Aw, that’s so great.” Alex Morgan celebrating scoring a goal at the World Cup and getting shit for it is a perfect example of why we’re not allowed to flaunt or celebrate, or reveal that, like, “Oh, yeah, it was me. I came up with this stuff.” I think it’s really unfair. People love new female artists so much because they’re able to explain that woman’s success. There’s an easy trajectory. Look at the Game of Thrones finale. I specifically really related to Daenerys’ storyline because for me it portrayed that it is a lot easier for a woman to attain power than to maintain it.

I mean, she did murder... It’s a total metaphor! Like, obviously I didn’t want Daenerys to become that kind of character, but in taking away what I chose to take away from it, I thought maybe they’re trying to portray her climbing the ladder to the top was a lot easier than maintaining it, because for me, the times when I felt like I was going insane was when I was trying to maintain my career in the same way that I ascended. It’s easier to get power than to keep it. It’s easier to get acclaim than to keep it. It’s easier to get attention than to keep it.

Well, I guess we should be glad you didn’t have a dragon in 2016... [Fiercely] I told you I don’t like that she did that! But, I mean, watching the show, though, maybe this is a reflection on how we treat women in power, how we are totally going to conspire against them and tear at them until they feel this — this insane shift, where you wonder, like, “What changed?” And I’ve had that happen, like, 60 times in my career where I’m like, “OK, you liked me last year, what changed? I guess I’ll change so I can keep entertaining you guys.”

You once said that your mom could never punish you when you were little because you’d punish yourself. This idea of changing in the face of criticism and needing approval — that’s all part of wanting to be good, right? Whatever that means. But that seems to be a real driving force in your life. Yeah, that’s definitely very perceptive of you. And the question posed to me is, if you kept trying to do good things, but everyone saw those things in a cynical way and assumed them to be done with bad motivation and bad intent, would you still do good things, even though nothing that you did was looked at as good? And the answer is, yes. Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now.

That sounds healthy. Is this therapy talking or is this just experience? No, I’ve never been to therapy. I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything. God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all. She knows exactly where I’m coming from. And we talk endlessly. There were times when I used to have really, really, really bad days where we would just be on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I’d write something that I wanted to say, and instead of posting it, I’d just read it to her.

I somehow connect all this to the lyric in “Daylight,” the idea of “so many lines that I’ve crossed unforgiven” — it’s a different kind of confession. I am really glad you liked that line, because that’s something that does bother me, looking back at life and realizing that no matter what, you screw things up. Sometimes there are people that were in your life and they’re not anymore — and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. I told the fans last night that sometimes on my bad days, I feel like my life is a pile of crap accumulated of only the bad headlines or the bad things that have happened, or the mistakes I’ve made or clichés or rumors or things that people think about me or have thought for the last 15 years. And that was part of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, where I had a pile of literal old selves fighting each other.

But, yeah, that line is indicative of my anxiety about how in life you can’t get everything right. A lot of times you make the wrong call, make the wrong decision. Say the wrong thing. Hurt people, even if you didn’t mean to. You don’t really know how to fix all of that. When it’s, like, 29 years’ worth.

To be Mr. “Rolling Stone” for a second, there’s a Springsteen lyric, “Ain’t no one leaving this world, buddy/Without their shirttail dirty or hands a little bloody.” That’s really good! No one gets through it unscathed. No one gets through in one piece. I think that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to grasp. I know it was hard for me, because I kind of grew up thinking, “If I’m nice, and if I try to do the right thing, you know, maybe I can just, like, ace this whole thing.” And it turns out I can’t.

It’s interesting to look at “I Did Something Bad” in this context. You pointing that out is really interesting because it’s something I’ve had to reconcile within myself in the last couple of years — that sort of “good” complex. Because from the time I was a kid I’d try to be kind, be a good person. Try really hard. But you get walked all over sometimes. And how do you respond to being walked all over? You can’t just sit there and eat your salad and let it happen. “I Did Something Bad” was about doing something that was so against what I would usually do. Katy [Perry] and I were talking about our signs. . . . [Laughs] Of course we were.

That’s the greatest sentence ever. [Laughs] I hate you. We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, “If we had one glass of white wine right now, we’d both be crying.” Because we were drinking tea. We’ve had some really good conversations.

We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, “I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.” And I was like, “Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.” So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, “Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.” Because it takes me a second.

If you watch the video of the 2009 VMAs, I literally freeze. I literally stand there. And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I’m probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it’s gone, it’s past, and I’m like, “I was overreacting, everything’s fine. I can get through this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything harsh in the moment.” But when it’s actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I’ve tried so hard to squash it: “This probably isn’t what you think.” That’s something I had to work on.

You could end up gaslighting yourself. Yeah, for sure. ’Cause so many situations where if I would have said the first thing that came to my mind, people would have been like, “Whoa!” And maybe I would have been wrong or combative. So a couple of years ago I started working on actually just responding to my emotions in a quicker fashion. And it’s really helped with stuff. It’s helped so much because sometimes you get in arguments. But conflict in the moment is so much better than combat after the fact.

Well, thanks. I do feel like I just did a therapy session. As someone who’s never been to therapy, I can safely say that was the best therapy session.

[my-fanfic-library]

Something Different {BBC Dracula x Reader} [24]

Masterlist

[F/N] = father’s name

[B/N] = brother’s name

~^*^~

You tugged open a drawer, pulling out some underwear, before moving down a drawer to pull out some clothes that you always kept here in case you were forced to stay (like last night). Your body was sore, especially your stomach.

On the bed, Dracula was watching you as you dressed, loving the way the golden light hit your body and licked you in an angelic hue. The side of the bed that you had slept on was cooling quickly and Dracula hated the feeling of you slipping away. If you weren’t already worrying about what your parents were going to say when you dared to venture downstairs, he’d most definitely have you back in his arms. He eyed the wall. He would love to ram you up against it, make you squirm beneath him. Maybe throw you up so that your heat was in line with his face, legs wrapped around his head, back against the wall.

“Drac,” your voice broke his thoughts and he looked over at you, in just a pair of black lacy thongs and matching bra, “stop drooling, you’re soaking the sheets.” You winked.

“I believe the person who quite literally soaked the sheets was you.” It was his turn to smirk.

“Yeah but...” you trailed off, flushing, “get dressed.” You hissed in embarrassment. 

Dracula chuckled, pushing himself up to follow your orders. He knew you were already freaking out, he didn’t want to stress you any more. Within minutes, you were both dressed and you were staring at the door. Dear god, you were certain that the whole of London had heard you last night.

~^*^~

You sat opposite your mother, hands in your lap as she glowered at you. Dracula was sitting besides you, opposite your father who was lighting a cigarette.

The tension swirled in the air.

“You not hungry, Drac?” Your father spoke, breathing out a cloud of white. He pointed to the plate with an untouched full English.

“I’m afraid I’ve lost my appetite this morning, I’ve already eaten.” Dracula smiled politely and you shot him a look. When had he snuck out?

“What? After all of your strenuous activity from last night?” You gawked at your father. He had that look on his face that you knew all too well. He was doing this to get a rise out of your mother.

“[F/N]!” She shrieked.

“What?” Your father shrugged, taking another drag. Dracula smirked, “I’m just saying. If I’d been that busy, I’d be eating like a pig.”

“You are a pig.” She grumbled, “I cant believe you [First]!” And he had started her off... you shot your father look, “Doreen three doors down heard you! Not to mention you kicking poor Chelsea to the curb like that!”

“She had it coming.” You muttered.

“She did not ‘have it coming’!” Her face was turning purple as you started to sulk at her outburst, “she was only being nice!”

“Mother, being nice is laughing at a joke or asking if somebody has a pet! Not climbing all over them when you know they’re in a relationship!” You snapped back, narrowing your eyes. Both men were watching, very clearly enjoying the commotion.

“You didn’t need to do that to her! Oh my goodness, what are the wives going to be saying about this?” She dramatically put her hand to her face.

“Oh, you just worry about the gossip, eh?!” You slammed your hands down on to the table, “don’t worry about how your own damn daughter feels about some bitch trying to sleep with her boyfriend!”

“[First].” Your father said sternly, “don’t swear at your mother. And don’t hit the table, it’s real mahogany. None of that veneer shit.”

“You just worry about your table, [F/N]! Don’t worry about your poor old wife being abused by her only daughter!” Your mother cried out, in hysterics all of a sudden.

“I just told her! What else do you want me to do?” Your father defended.

“My god, I liked that Daniel fellow more than this...” your mother whispered.

“Mother, I had sex with Daniel in your bed when you went to Tenerife for two weeks. We also had sex on your porch swing, which is how it broke!”

Your father and Dracula had to conceal their fits of laughter at your confession and your mother’s subsequent shock that followed. A high-pitched sound of distress came from her ajar mouth.

“I KNEW IT WASN’T MRS. DENNINGS’ CAT!”

“Oh, and another thing - I don’t give a damn who heard me last night! I don’t care if all of London heard me because I love him-“ you pointed to Dracula, “and if I want to scream and cry at the way he makes me feel in the privacy of my own bedroom, then I will!”

Now, bearing in mind that Dracula hadn’t really felt anything in around 473 years (the length of time it had been since his heart had last beat), the way that you defended yourself by screaming for the whole street to hear that you loved him-. Well, there was a pang of something in his chest and the need to be as close to you as physically possible grew exponentially. You really were something different. Falling in love with a vampire, disobeying your own mother, working for an organisation that is definitley doing different to what it says on paper, yet the whole time regaining your innocence and your goodness. Your emotions wrapping you up and controlling almost every single thing that you did. You loved him - and he was certain that he loved you even more.

“[First] [Last]!” She cried out, face almost bulging in her despair, “how could you do this to me?! I’m going to be the topic of all of their gossip for weeks!”

“I don’t care! And neither should you! It’s gossip! Half of it isn’t even true!”

“How could you say that?! Barbra heard from Clarissa last week that Jenny has some man on the side and Sally has photo evidence!”

“That’s her cousin, mother!” You cried out, frustration filling your body. How someone could be so hung up on all of this trivial stuff was beyond you.

“Still! Everyone is going to be talking my daughter - the savage who beat poor Chelsea to the street and then who screamed the street down having angry sex afterwards with a man her father’s age!” You could tell that she was getting worked up and you sighed.

“Right. If you are going to dwell on this, then I am going to get up, walk out of that front door and you can consider yourself childless.” Her jaw dropped.

“[First].” Your father warned sternly.

“I’ve completely had it with you, now, worrying over everything everyone says about everyone else. They’ve twisted your mind so much that you’d actually try and control your adult daughter? You’re just upset that I wouldn’t go with Mark, but he’s a creep. He takes pictures up women’s skirts and goes to bars to hit on literal teenagers. And if you can’t accept that I am with Dracula, the man that I love, and you would rather worry over all the gossip that comes from it, then I am done and you can just have your son in Thailand who hasn’t been bothered to call in four years instead of your daughter who moved down the street just to be near you. I can’t take this anymore.”

“[First] [Last] will you get a grip of yourself?” Your father spoke lowly, tapping his cigarette onto the empty plate to rid some of the ash.

“You won’t leave me.” Your mother whispered, “you can’t. Because you know you’ll need me when he gets bored of you.”

Snap.

“Fuck you.”

You rose, glaring at her in a thousand ways. Your heart throttled in your chest. Now she’d done it. You knew that she loved you. Of course she did, but she would never let things go. She had always critiqued both your brother and yourself with every choice the pair of you made, but ever since your brother had left, she’d began to spend nearly all her time with the wives gossiping. She had become a tyrant and it was eating you up. You were tired of her constant criticism. You were tired of having to live to appease her friends. You weren’t doing it anymore.

“This is why [B/N] left.” You sneered, “because of you. Because he was in love with Kannika but you just wouldn’t stop trying to force him into a way of life to appease your friends. But not me, I won’t do it. Now I’m gonna go grab my shit. If I haven’t got a sincere apology from you before I open that front door, I am gone. Just like [B/N].” Your mother was staring at you in horror, tears in her eyes. Now your father was looking at your sharply.

You turned, fleeing the room and storming up the stairs. It only took a moment for the door to shut behind you and for Dracula to be blocking it once more. Once your dress was bundled in your arms, you turned to look at him.

“Move.” You growled.

“[First], you don’t want to do this.” He spoke softly.

“Yes I do. Now move so that I can teach her a lesson.”

“No matter your age, it isn’t a child’s place to teach their parents a lesson.”

“What? So you’re just gonna let her talk about us like that? Like we’re some freaky couple or something? No, move.” Now it was him that you were glaring at.

“[First], this is your mother. You don’t want to cut her out.”

“Very clearly I do. Move!” You bellowed.

“I am not moving. You are going to sort this out.” His voice darkened with his growing anger.

“Oh, I am, am I?”

“Yes.”

“And since when did you become the boss of me, huh? Being your girlfriend doesn’t make me your property, Dracula.” Your eyes narrowed. Now you were trying to pick a fight with him, too. He knew that you didn’t mean it but he couldn’t help the anger bubbling in his gut. You were being a brat.

“I am being serious. You need to calm yourself down, recollect your mind and go downstairs and have a civil conversation with your mother.”

“Alright. You go back down. I’ll calm down and meet you down there.”

Like fuck you were. Dracula, wanting to believe with every fibre of his being that you wouldn’t flee, gave you all of his trust and left the room. You were so gone with the anger. It hadn’t really settled down since last night. Grabbing your bag that you had brought last night, making sure your phone was in, you pulled out a backpack from your wardrobe and stuffed it inside, along with your dress and both of your shoes. Dracula had retrieved the one you threw at Chelsea - most likely when he went out to eat whilst you were sleeping.

And then you did something that you hadn’t done since you were seventeen years of age.

Clambering onto the bed, you tugged your backpack on and drew up the blinds to free the glass of the window. It was unlocked, and you pushed it open. You swung your leg over it was maybe only a foot away from the roof of the extended front, and you lowered yourself down. Carefully, you manuvered over the tiles, so that you could drop down by the front door, instead of the large window which would give you away.

Were you really going to do this? You had no idea what Dracula would do when he found you gone and the window open. You knew that this would break your parents’ hearts. You knew that Doreen three doors down would tell the whole city that you had fled your own home in the morning. You had to do this. Enough was enough.

Your feet hit the path, the pressure of dropping spreading through your legs. You turned and rushed to the gate. When you made it to the fence, you ducked down and waddled in a squat so that they wouldn’t see you rushing past.

“She’s going to calm down and then apologise.” Dracula explained to your mother, who was in genuine tears at the thought of both of her children leaving her in anger.

“She’s not.” Your father spoke.

“I’ve just spoken to her-“ Dracula began, but your father cut him off.

“I’ve just seen her run down the front path.” He lit another cigarette as he spoke.

Another pang of something hit Dracula in the chest. This one was painful. He ran to the door, skidding as he did so and rushed out. He caught a glimpse of you turning the corner.

“[FIRST]!” He made a dash for you. But once he reached the corner and began to sprint down the road, he realised that you had disappeared, “I’m going to kill her.” He whispered, feeling an intense wave of pain in his chest - something that hadn’t occurred in almost five centuries.

~^*^~

You sat across from Jack. You were still angry, but for his sake, you decided to just calm yourself. A cup of hot coffee sat steaming in front of you. The scent wafted into your nostrils and you sighed.

“Rough night?” Jack teased. You guessed he had heard some of your night with the Count.

“Rough morning. I climbed out of the window. My mother’s’ furious with me and she can go fuck herself.” You grumbled.

“What did you expect? She’s been trying to set you up with Mark for the better part of ten years and you waltz in with someone definitely not approved.”

“I didn’t realise a 26 year old needed her mother’s permssion to date.” There was a pause, “let’s not talk about it-“ your phone buzzing cut your off. You dug it out of your bag.

Dracula.

You switched off your phone and turned your attention back to Jack.

“What is it that you wanted to say?”

“I mean, I needed both of you here, to be honest...” he trailled off.

“Dracula doesn’t matter. Just tell me.”

“Alright. So, you know his lawyer, Renfield?”

“Yeah?”

“Well he told me what happened at the apartment. When he fought Dracula over you...”

“Right...?”

“He came to Robin Hood’s Bay, expecting you to have fled there. He’s totally gone beserk, [First]. He’s trying to track you down.” Your heart began to falter.

“What do mean he’s trying to track me down? What does he want with me?” The horror beginning to lace your words was drowning your tone and you began to rut your leg up and down under the table.

“He’s a vampire, [First]. He wants your blood. Specifically yours.”

You completely froze up. This was it. You couldn’t outrun a vampire, you knew that from Dracula. One way or another, he would find you, and eventually, so would Renfield. Essentially, Jack had come to tell you that you were sooner (much rather than later), going to die.

“What- I-... what are we-? What am I gonna do?!” You whispered in a panic.

“I don’t know. Do you think you could get to [B/N] anytime soon?”

“He’d find me, wouldn’t he? All he’d have to do is find out where my brother is and he’d find a way to get to Thailand.”

“Alright, well, is there anyone else that you could stay with?”

“...no...” you whispered.

Jack bit his lip in thought. An idea occurred to him. He knew that it would work. The only problem, of course, would be you. Making you agree to it would be so difficult.

“Why don’t you stay with Daniel for a while?”

You began to laugh at his words, after an initial pause of “what the fuck”.

“Yeah, right!”

“I’m serious. Literally no one would think about you going there.”

“Yeah, I’m being hunted by the most dangerous creature to exist, let me just go suffer for the last few days of my life by spending them with my cheating ex.”

~^*^~

You glared into the familiar emerald orbs, loathing the hand on your shoulder that forced you through the threshold of the apartment. You stepped away from the touch, looking around. It was small and cozy, quite homely. Clearly there had been a downgrade after you had left.

He looked at you, and then at Jack. Jack had never been so serious in all of their years of friendship, and he thought that he’d never see you again. He took in the sight of you. You had gone through your final change of adulthood during your split, your face maturing one last time, leaving you looking even more beautiful than the last time he had seen you. You had grown just a little taller, almost matching his height now.

Stepping backwards, he sat down on one of his two sofas and motioned for you to sit. Jack steered you towards the material and forced you down like a disobedient dog.

“What can I do for you?”

It was the first time had spoken a full sentence since that day and you remembered his voice speaking all sorts of things to you. Jack rummaged in your bag. He was about to do something that he knew would break your heart. He had to. Your safety was number one priority.

“She needs to stay here for a while.” Jack explained, pulling your phone from the bottom of your back and switching it back on.

“Why?” He leaned forwards. His hair had grown quite a bit and the blond locks fell into his eyes a little.

“It’s a long story, and you won’t believe it. So all you need to know is that someone dangerous is after her. She needs to be kept safe.”

You couldn’t speak. Your heart was pounding in your ears. You were shaking a little. Ever since you had ran away from this city, from this very person sitting in front of you, you had forced your heart back together without getting closure on the pain. Right now, it felt almost as raw as it had done. You could be married to him right now. None of this would be happening. You could be a mother, with a house and a loving husband. Yet you weren’t. You were here, sitting across from the man you had fled from, fleeing from a monster who wanted to kill you.

“She can stay.” He spoke, unable to take his eyes from you. It had been so long.

“Thank you, Daniel. I’ll pay you for extra food and stuff.”

“I’m not a pet.” You growled to Jack.

“No one said you were.” Daniel answered for him.

You couldn’t reply. You didn’t really care what Jack was doing on your phone. Maybe you would have if you had looked over.

[DraccyBoifriend: where are you?]

[DraccyBoifriend: come back.]

[DraccyBoifriend: you need to sort this out.]

[DraccyBoifriend: [First]. Please.]

[DraccyBoifriend: 6 Missed Calls]

[You: it’s over. we’re through.]

~^taglist^~

@vampiregirl1797 @avalanet @bunnyreese12 @nerdonpluto @teamceleries @grifffins @hitbythunder @winterseoul @mymagicsuitcase @angeli-fucking-cat @benedictethegoddess @bloodhon3yx @nifflersravenclaw @writteninthestars288 @labelladrama @frankcastlesgrunts @angelicdestieldemon @quakerlasss @aliisa-jones @wolverinexmenn @clairedragonessbaker @cryiner @mitsukatsu @piratewhore @your-pixels-are-showing @tardisnesss @ladydovahkiin180 @catwomom @god-of-dramatic-death-scenes @th3rah @viper-queen @mephdcosplay @greghouse7 @faeprinces @kokoro-no-yami @trishaferdream @therealmoni @crazytxgradstudent @sansthelonelypunster @crowley-needs-a-hug @girlonfireice @wasntpriscilla @ivanna6026 @savebensolo-ordie

[originofjaehyun]

Interlude: No More Drama | Part 5 | Day Dream

Interlude: No More Drama Masterlist

Word count: 3,496

Warnings: None

Part 5 | Day Dream

“Oh you and I falling further for love.”

Prev • Next

The amber flickers at the end of his lighter, lighting up one of the ends of his cigarette. He took a deep breath and exhaled the smoke into the air, leaving a trail of grey smoke. A tall dapper figure approached him, with the sound of the ice hitting the plastic glass filled with deep-brown liquid.

“Mind if I join?” Johnny said to him, already hung his cigarette in between his lips.

“I can use a company,” passing him his lighter, this is the usual afternoon after lunch for both Johnny and Jaehyun. They would go for a cigarette break at the smoking area while catching up on things. It can be work-related, or sometimes on personal subjects.

“So, it’s been three months. How’s everything?” Johnny asked while passing back the lighter after successfully lighting up his cigs.

“If you’re asking me how she’s doing, I think you know it better than I am. You’re constantly emailing her with the project. I bet you talk to her more than I did.”

“Seriously?” He lets out a puff, filling the room with his smoke. 

“Dude, it’s been three months and there’s no progress? I won’t be surprised if [Y/N]’s going to leave you for another man.”

Jaehyun tried to keep his calm, inhaling another breath of his cigarette, “It’s not like that,”

“I’m just… trying to be careful. We went on a few dates and she’s wonderful. I feel like every time we went out, even just to the nearby street food stalls, everything just sparkled and I could listen to her laughter every day.”

Johnny furrowed his brows, “You know that doesn’t add up, right? Did you hear yourself? You’re smitten, Jaehyun!”

Glints of flame appear on the end of Jaehyun’s cigarette. He is lost in his thoughts, not answering Johnny.

“Hey, look. I know you’re in… a difficult situation Jae. But think about it, she might be the one, but she might not be either. There’s no harm in trying, right?”

“But what if she’s the one, Johnny? The last thing that I would want to do is to hurt her feelings.”

Johnny used the hands that he didn’t use to hold his cigarette to support his forehead, grumbles, “I get it, and I get you can’t just tell anyone out of the blue about it too. But I hope you can give this one a chance. It’s been a long while since I saw you all over someone, and I know [Y/N]’s is not as weak as you thought she was. She’s amazing, I think she’d be the one you can tell about this.”

There’s a pause in between, space only filled with their huffs. The smoke waltzes in the air, making the room tasted like a jaundiced tar.

It’s been too long since he was selfless.

“Now you said it that way,” Jaehyun said, exhaling the grey smoke, “I might have to put my dib on her first. Who knows, someone might steal her away.”

Crescent moons emerged from Johnny’s eyes, “That’s what I’m talking about!” He then used his free arm to embrace Jaehyun, pulling his shoulder.

“By that someone,” Jaehyun then rolled his eyes to Johnny, “I mean it’s you.”

It replaces the dark, cloudy room atmosphere with laughter.

–

“Baking class?”

“Yes, I thought I can prove to you that I can cook fairly well.” The sound of the car’s engine was heard from the other side. It seems like Jaehyun just went home, and it’s almost 10 PM.

“Well cooking and baking is an entirely different thing, you know?”

“And that is exactly why I think the baking class is a great idea. I’m a great cook, if I may say so. I baked a bit during high school but that is when I…”

He paused.

“Jaehyun? Hello?” You called for him, wondering if the signal was disturbed.

“Oh yeah, I was saying,” He cleared his throat, “I think it would be fun. I actually already booked two tickets for us in advance, because the class that I’m taking is actually quite popular.”

That’s very sweet. You thought to yourself, “What if I say I wouldn’t come? That’s very brave of you thinking that I would just agree to it.”

He chuckled, “I don’t know, I guess I’ll take Johnny. I pretty much know his schedule and he’s free that day. I think.”

You burst out in laughter, “Two male adults taking a baking class? That’s adorable!” You pictured Jaehyun and Johnny both in aprons, decorating their cakes as you tried to bite your laughter. “You sure I wouldn’t get in your way to have the perfect date with Johnny?”

“Of course I would prefer to do it with you!” He sulked, “I mean, we’ve been going around coffee shops and I think a different date setup would be nice, no?”

“I'm just kidding, Jaehyun.” You decided not to tease him any longer, “I’ll see you on Saturday?”

He can finally sigh in relief, “Great. I’ll pick you up at your place. I’ll be there at 10 AM?”

“Wait, when is the baking class again?”

“It actually starts at 12. I think we’re not going to make anything that’s overly complicated so it won’t take that much time, but I thought we could grab some coffee first before we went to the class?”

Sweet as ever.

“But it’s Saturdaaay, don’t you think I deserve to have more time with my bed?” You whined, pretending that you have the cutesy charm when in reality you almost don’t have it at all.

You can hear the familiar sound of him letting out a soft chuckle at the other end, “I promise you I can give you better cuddles than your bed? Or we can cuddle first if you want… then I can bring coffees to your place instead.”

“Oh how smooth of you!” You shrieked, grateful that he’s not in front of you to witness your flushed cheeks.

“I’ll take the first coffee offer, thank you. I would probably need it anyway to fill up my daily caffeine intake.”

He laughs, genuine but there’s a slight hint of disappointment, “Alright, I’ll see you on Saturday. I almost reached my place so I’m gonna end the call.”

“Sure, I’ll see you soon.”

You paused before continuing, “Jaehyun?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll also take the cuddle offer if that’s ok with you.” You said to him before planting your face to your pillow out of embarrassment.

He finally laughed, lovingly, “Sure, [Y/N]. I’ll give you plenty.”

–

You took a sip at your hot latte, surprised with how perfect it was.

“How do you know my coffee order?”

He smiled, proceeded to blow his own cup while he guided you to walk to the baking class’ direction, “We went to a lot of coffee dates, [Y/N], it would be weirder if I don’t know your usual order.”

Jaehyun insisted that he would be the one who’ll take the take-away order. He asked you to just sit down and wait at one of the waiting chairs at the cafe. He told you that you’re going to walk to the class from the coffee shop since it is within walking distance but you know he actually wants to talk to you for a bit before going to the lesson. 

You took a glance at him, how could a person be so attentive? You wonder. He took a sip of his own coffee, immediately pushing the cup away from his lips then sticking his tongue out, indicating that the coffee is currently too hot for his liking.

“Aw Jaehyun, I didn’t know you have a cat’s tongue! You always order an iced americano so I never know.”

“Well, today is special since we’re walking outside, and it’s still quite chilly to get myself an iced americano,” He said while licking his lips, trying to subdue the numbness, “But yeah I guess there’s another free fact I give to you, huh?”

He stretched out his hands, asking for yours. Shyly, you took his hand and you intertwined your fingers with him. The weather was indeed rather cold, but Jaehyun's hand was warm. You walked together while he would occasionally swing his hand in excitement. He’s like an adorable golden retriever. You can’t help but to grin every time, and it is contagious as he would lovingly smile at you too.

You finally reached the shop, where the sign reads Kitchen Beat. The store was indeed well known for their pastries. It is a humble bakehouse, but it has recently become very popular due to a reality-show coverage. The cakes they sell are nothing that’s overly groundbreaking, but the taste feels very authentic and feels like a passed-family recipe, therefore gathered loyal customers. Because of that, they’ve been expanding their business to having limited baking class each month. 

“We’re here,” Jaehyun reaffirms that you will certainly attend a class here. “The class is on the second floor. Let’s go.”

He said while still refusing to let go of your hand. The store is busy, but not bustling with people. The atmosphere is cozy, and it feels like Christmas. 

“Hi!” A warm smile came from one of the staff, “Are you going to join our baking class today?”

Jaehyun replied to her smile, dimples poking both of his cheeks, “Yes, I already book 2 slots under the name Jeong Jaehyun.”

The staff nods, while checking the tablet she’s holding. “Yup, two adults for the couple, I assume?” She glanced at the sight of your hands that are still holding Jaehyun's.

“Oh!” You flustered, reactively letting go of his hand. “We’re actually not.”

“Yet.” Jaehyun intercept.

Your cheeks start to flushed in the color bright pink while you shoot a glare at him, embarrassed at why he’s so open about his feelings. The staff burst in laughter, “Well I hope our cakes can help you with that. They really are very good.”

“Please go to the room that has the label Kitchen One. We’re waiting for two more couples to come before we can start our class!”

You and Jaehyun walked to the designated room, and after a few steps you threw a slap onto Jaehyun’s arm.

“Ouch!” He rubs the part of his arm where you landed your slap. “What was that for?”

“Why did you have to tell her about us! You can just lie to her or something.”

“Oh?” He raised one of his brows, “So I can just tell her that we are official?”

You smacked his arm again, followed by him pretending that he’s hurt when in reality you know he can handle your soft punches. 

“You really are like a little firecracker, feisty as always.”

He opened the sliding door, exposing you and him to the audience inside. You are about to reply to his teasing, before you suddenly saw the change of the color on his face.

“Jaehyun?”

His apron was tied very well to his slim waist. His eyes met Jaehyun’s, only causing Jaehyun to tense his jaws. That person immediately approached where you and Jaehyun were, as Jaehyun stopped his steps after that person called him. He was another stunning man, and it makes you wonder what Jaehyun did in his past life to be surrounded with attractive people. 

“Taeyong.” Jaehyun’s voice was low, and faint, signalling that he didn’t want to be the center of attention since now few pair of eyes were in your direction.

“What are you doing here?” Taeyong finally breaks the tension in between them. His tone is not aggressive but you can sense that it is very territorial.

“I’m joining the class. I should be the one...” Jaehyun saw the name tag hanging on Taeyong’s apron. “Right, it makes sense for you to teach here.”

The silence grows louder. Jaehyun still remained in his position, not moving a single inch. You want to try to calm him down, trying to ask him to enter the room first and continue the conversation at one corner instead of in front of everyone. Taeyong finally saw your figure that has been hiding behind Jaehyun.

“So, you got plenty of time,” Taeyong looked briefly at you, “But you can’t afford to contact him?”

“Taeyong.”

“Do you know how much he holds on? Can you imagine how he would feel if he saw you neglecting him, just to see you having the time of your life with some random girl?”

“Yong!” Jaehyun finally raised his voice, “She got nothing to do with this. And if that is how you saw me, by all means label it to me, but don’t drag her.”

Realizing that now you have full attention of the other audiences that had been rudely eavesdropping onto Jaehyun and Taeyong’s conversation, you decided to step in, “Jaehyun? I think we should… move to the side for a bit.”

You can see his facial muscles start to relax. It seems that your voice managed to calm him down. He then holds your hand, trying to find an empty kitchen island so that you and him can start to prep yourself for the class, brushing Taeyong off.

Taeyong tried to stop you, fortunately the staff earlier came in with the last two couples. There were six couples in total, including you and Jaehyun. Thankfully Taeyong got stationed at the other end, and you tried your best to distract Jaehyun from him. You can see Taeyong took a glimpse at your table, every now and then, but you make sure Jaehyun didn’t notice it.

“Good afternoon everyone!” A woman in her mid-40s gathered everyone’s attention. “I’m going to be your main instructor today and we have few teachers that are stationed nearby you to help you during the baking process. For today’s class, we are going to bake our signature fresh cream cake. It’s pretty simple for beginners and it is very suitable to be eaten at this time of the year!”

She clasp both of her hands, “Alright now! Shall we begin?”

–

“I’ll put the cake in the fridge first, yeah?”

You’re back at your place, as there’s no way either you or Jaehyun going to finish a whole cake by yourself. You decided to eat them after having your dinner outside.

The baking class started off pretty rough, with how sensitive Jaehyun was. But you choose not to pry to his personal issues. So you just playfully smudge some cake flour, poking it to his dimples. He almost got his revenge but you’re in luck because the teacher was looking at him and told him not to play with the ingredients. Afterwards, the Jaehyun that you know is back, the warmhearted Jaehyun. It’s also a good thing Taeyong didn’t bother you much during class, as he was also occupied with teaching the other students. He did try to talk to Jaehyun after class, but Jaehyun just simply told him that today is probably not the best time for them to talk.

“Do you want to open the beers now?” He asked you while you’re busy re-arranging the content of your fridge.

“Ah, just leave mine on the counter. I’ll catch you up at the balcony.”

Jaehyun nods in agreement, leaving your share at the counter as instructed. He took his can and walked to the balcony. You’re almost done and you can hear the sound of his lighter.

You opened your can, making him turn his head to you. You walk to his side, resting your head to his arm. 

“You’re not going to ask?” 

You look at him, you were about to fire up your cigs, postponing it by drawing them out of your lips, “I believe you’re going to tell me on your own once you’re ready.”

“I know whatever happened today is probably something that I should never dig without your permission. Besides, it would also feel nicer if you’re going to tell me from your own will. Feels like you fully trusted me, you know?”

You ended your sentence with a smile, causing him to move his head downwards, before making another eye contact with you.

His lips are now pressing together, exposing his smile, “And this is the very reason why I’m grateful that I fall for you.”

You didn’t expect him to suddenly confess like this, so you are a bit taken aback with it. You awkwardly shift your gaze somewhere else, fidgeting on your unlit cigarette.

Jaehyun puts down both his cigarette and his share of beer, moving closer to you. He swiftly crossed his arms over you, forcing you to be within his arm and look at his eyes once more. 

“Oh, uhm, well…”

“I actually don’t understand why you do, actually.” You said as you look at the direction of the skyline, feeling too embarrassed to see him eye-to-eye. “I’ve mentioned that there are prettier girls than me, I bet you’ve met better ones in any other aspects too…”

“[Y/N], I wish you could see how much I love you.”

He cuts you before you could continue. He locks eyes with you and you could see just how deep they really are. The soft warmness of them wraps around you affectionately, but not in the way of those cheesy romance novels. You can tell that what he’s trying to say was true.

“Yes, I might be attracted to you because you’re different. The first time I saw you and talked to you, I can see a bit of me in you. You know, I probably longed for you because you don’t fawn on me in the first place.”

“But that night when I saw you again at Wolfgang’s, I just know I’m not taking anymore chances. The dates we’ve spent, you’ve let me discover a side of me that I didn’t know. I never know I could expose my feelings to someone like this.”

You can feel the heat starting to pile on your face, showing your now flushed cheeks over his confession. Noticing that the wind was a bit harsh, he pulls you closer in his arms. Not that you need another heat-pack, human-sized for it matters, you can also feel Jaehyun’s starting to get very warm too. You return his embrace, snuffling your face to his chest.

“The more days I spend with you, the more I fall for you.”

You swore you can feel the butterflies in your stomach start to fly in every direction. 

“I’m glad I found you. Loving you feels like I’m dreaming.”

He lets out the most genuine smile, eyes glistening with his droplets showing how sincere he is. “[Y/N], I really like how we are right now but I guess I’m quite the ambitious man.”

“Will you let me take care of you?”

You would regret it if you kept hiding in his hug, so you didn’t. You saw him directly to meet his gaze, and can’t help to admit that you feel the same way too.

“You know, Jaehyun, you’re an oddball. You just fall for a stranger, how dangerous could that be?!” 

“But then again, I guess I’m an oddball too. I don’t know, it’s probably the wind, but it keeps pushing me, one step at the time closer to you. And you’re warm, and I like that.”

Realizing where you’re going, Jaehyun couldn’t hide his smile.

“I guess, I’m falling further for love?” You said as you smile at him, making his smile grow even wider that you’re scared his dimples might be poking his cheeks a little bit too hard right now.

“If you’re sure you’ll have me, then I’ll be glad to have someone like you to take care of me. Only if you promise you’ll let me take care of you too.”

Your reply instantly filled him with joy, as he rushed to hug you tighter. 

“Thank you,” He said while caressing your head, “I promise I’ll treat you well.”

“Also,” He continues, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, nor did I try to hide anything from you. It’s just… the timing is not right yet. I promise you when everything is all good, you’d be the first person I tell.”

You let go of his hug, so that you can see him in the eyes, “Jaehyun, I understand. There’s no need to rush anything, yeah? I still love you for who you are and I don’t think that feelings could change that easily.” You cupped your hand to his cheeks, making sure Jaehyun knows that you’re being sincere.

Just before Jaehyun could reply, his phone rang.

He looked at the caller’s name on his screen, “Sorry, I think I should take this call. Do you want to smoke first? I’ll go inside for a while, I’ll come back soon.”

You nod, and he only answered after he’s inside so you didn’t catch the caller’s name.

How you wish you’d push yourself to know who the caller was.

A/N: Hehe eek is this chapter too sweet? I hope you guys are still around for the fluffy chapters T_T

[emrysarthurpendragon]

Where do you think you're going?

Arthur’s POV:

 I stare with wide eyes at the collapsed building. It can’t be. Merlin can’t be … he can’t be dead! Buried alive and gone to the land of Avalon. Gwaine hand stops me just in time from running inside when the stones started falling. I scream in despaired, yells my friend’s name but no answer came. In anger, I turn my sword to a mercenary. The man dared to laugh at my distress, and, of course, I killed him. I killed him coldly and feel no remorse. Not even a hint of regret. Cover with dust, I push Gwaine away and hurry to the fallen tower. My hands shake with fear as I collect one cold rock after another. The dust makes me cough, my eyes are watering with unshed tears but still I work harder and call his name.

“Merlin! Merlin!” the desperate words of a man, a lover. I loved him, I still do, and he has to come back to me. I’ll do whatever it takes. “Merlin, can you hear me?!”

 An eerie silence falls on the group. We are all listening for something, even a muffle noise from beyond. Percival approaches me and with his force, he starts moving rocks too. I notice how some prisoners want to help, to use their magic and save my friend, but they are too weak. I can’t blame them, even if I will give my throne to a spark of the ban art right now. Something, anything to find him. Find them. Just when I formulate that wish inside my heart, something happens. Hope rushes in me. Here, right where I picked up a pebble, I find a hand. Not Merlin’s, it is too small, but it clearly belongs to someone. Probably the child we came here for in the first place.

 “Over here!” I call. The frail fingers move, not much, but the person is still alive if not in a good shape. As a time, my knights, brothers and friends in more ways than I can describe, help me. The more we collect the tower’s fallen parts, the more we realise magic was at work when the building collapsed. A golden shield, thin as skin, covers the child’s arm. Before long, we free her entire arm and are met with bright red clothing. Camelot’s cloak. Meaning Merlin is now closer than ever. Once again, I hear myself call his name. What if he died? The mere thought scares me. I can’t lose him. Not after my father and Morgana. Not when he is the only one keeping me sane and alive. No one can replace him in my life. If there was a drug for me, it would be Merlin. His presence gives me strength and hope. Hope for a brighter future, for a prosperous reign. He makes me see the good in myself and the others. Without him, I may end up like my father. I cut my thoughts when an adult body appears. It’s my warlock, firmly curled around the child. He protected her from any harm. Gently, I unwrapped him – pardon the poor comparison – and call for Percival. I hand him the girl, barely human with all the dirt and coagulate blood on her, before focusing again on the dark-haired man. He does not move. He does not even seem to breathe. Blood is pouring from the back of his head, where he’d been hit earlier. I’m scared. What if I cause more damage by moving him? Had he always been so light? Elyan helps me carry my former manservant to a clear place and we check his injuries together. We are no physicians, but a first look makes us notice things like a concussion – well, he had a tower falling on him, it does no good – broken ribs and maybe more. We also notice his soft breath. He’s alive…

 “We need help; but we’re too far away from Camelot. He may not make it,” I say, worried creating wrinkles between my brows.

“The same goes to the girl,” says Leon, who volunteers to care for the girl. I guess he just wants to feel useful, by saving a child when he couldn’t do the same for his own daughter. He never told me about her … or her magic. Did he believe I would have handed her to my father? Was I that kind of prince in my early life? Before Merlin came and changed my world? “She suffers severe malnutrition and abuse I can’t even name.” My knight voice turns into a growl and I can only guess what he means. I noticed the burn when we pulled her from the debris, I can’t imagine what they had done to her. I close my eyes, fighting nausea. Now is not the time for revenge. Especially when we took off most of the men involved.

 Hours later, both knights and former prisoner set camp into a new clearing. We decided to move once the wounded had been taken care of and now, I allow myself some rest. Merlin is lying motionless beside me, sometime shifting with unease and I pray for whatever God to help us. Near him, the child rests too. She looks healthier now. Or at least, Leon and Percival cleaned her, so she looks decent, and wrapped in a couple of extra-size clothing and blankets. Sir Leon even added his cloak, so she now looks like a baby carefully swaddle. I won’t be surprised if, back to Camelot, my friend adopts her.

 “You two are quite the pair,” I whisper to myself, running my fingers through Merlin’s messy hair. “Of course, you have to find a child of magic and end up in danger together. What am I going to do with you, eh? There are quicker ways to kill me.”

Even the joke sounds lame in my ears. I must be tired. I decide to call it a night and, after my thoughts quieted enough, I find myself drifting to sleep. For a while at least.

 * * *

 The sun is barely rising when my eyes shoot open. I felt something. A touch on my shoulder. My instincts make me places a hand on my sword, only to find the cause of the ‘threat’. The little girl is up, her eyes burning gold and sitting next to my face. What I felt was her small finger booping my nose. The moment she noticed I’m awake, she tried to run but fell, her legs too weak to carry her. How does she come here? Crawling on the floor?

“Hey, don’t worry. I won’t hurt you,” I say awkwardly. I never interacted with a child before. Especially a wild one. “My name is Arthur, I’m Merlin’s friend.”

I gesture to my unconscious knight and jump when a voice pops in my head.

“Emrys?” asks the small, cute voice. “Emrys hurt. I’m sorry,” she continues, her breath fastening and the wind blowing harder. Is that the kid doing?

“It’s not your fault. Merlin is an idiot. He would have got hurt anyway,” I try to joke, resulting in a pinecone falling from a branch to my head. I saw how the thing snapped and, judging by the look of pure horror written across the girl face, I knew she was behind it. To ease the tension, I laugh openly. Probably the best reaction, since the little one tilts her head, confuses like a cat. She moves closer and places her hands on my cheeks, studying my traits when I am laughing.

“What’s this?” she asks, still not using her voice.

“What’s what?” I ask, confuse. Were all kids so ‘not specific’?

“This!” she mind-says, mimicking the smile I had not long before. She also tried to produce a laugh, but not so well. The fact she does not even recognise a smile or what it means crushes me. Even with a father like Uther, I had happy moments in my life. Saddened by that knowledge, I sober off before answering the best I could.

“It’s a smile. That’s what you do when you are happy. And if you are very happy, you make a noise too, and it’s a laugh,” I’m bad at this, right? “You can laugh too if you think a joke is funny. Like, I think it was funny when you make than pinecones fell on me.”

“Funny?” the cat look is back again. She seems to proceed all the information like they are new to her. “Not mad? No punish?”

“Of course not. You did nothing wrong. You were unhappy because I say Emrys is an idiot, right?”

This time, the kid nods and locks her golden eyes into mine. The wind disappeared some minutes before, and I can’t tell what she is using her magic for now.

“Emrys is strong. I love him.”

“So do I, I love him and respect him. He’s a dear friend, and I like teasing him from time to time.” Shall I feel worried for the child claiming her love for my warlock?

“Teasing?”

“Uh… You have a lot of questions, haven’t you?” I ask, chuckling. “But I have one too. What’s your name?”

She blushes for a second and lowers her head. Her fingers play with the grass beneath us. I can see her mind rushing, searching for the information locks in her brain.

“Gaia?” she finally says, “Where papa?”

“I don’t know where’s your dad. You know his name?”

For the first time, I see something other than fear on Gaia’s face; she is judging me. Like I just ask the stupidest question ever. There is actual ‘are you dumb’ look in her eyes. So much like Merlin now that I think about it.

“His name is Papa!”

Right. Of course. Papa. There were not hundred men with that name, according to children. Ok. Think, Arthur.

“It’s a very common name, can you tell me something else?” and please, not that her mother’s name is ‘mama’ or ‘mum’ or ‘mummy’.

“Show you! Come, come!”

Curious, I let the child sit on my knees – I guess she feels I’m safe? – and cup my face with his hands. Magic invades my mind, but it does not hurt. It feels like I am welcoming something I longed to meet before. It’s both foreign and familiar while Gaia leads me to a strange place. In this vision, she’s not the scared little girl anymore. She’s a teen, strong and confident, leading the way through what she endured before we found her, ignoring the pain they may cause, to a secret door. The gate was barely large enough for a rabbit. I look up at the young woman, confuse.

“Push the door, and you will see my happiest memories. They are from before I was taken.”

“You look older,” I blurt before I could stop myself. No shit, Arthur.

“I was older once, in another life,” she tells me. Another life? Like … reincarnation? Like, she lived, died, and came back again? Well, her life sucked until then.

“You’re right, but it’s all in the past. There is more to life than what happened. With your help, I may retrieve my memories and who my parents are now. I’m afraid my magic locked away all the happy memories when my younger self realised no help was coming.”

“Wait, you can read my mind?!” Arthur asked, horrified.

“We are in my head, what do you expect, Queenie?”

“Oi! You sound like Gwaine, I don’t like it.”

We share a laugh but, after she tells me I’m the only one – with Emrys – able to unlock her memories, I place my hand over the wooden surface.

 Something clicked and the scene morphs into something else. I’m in a courtyard, watching a family in the distance. Blurry at first, they become sharper as I walk. A child, maybe around three or four-year-old, laughs and tries to escape her father’s grasp. I can’t see the man, as he is turning his back to me, but he is blond and clearly busy tickling that version of Gaia. The girl squeals happily and locks her arms around her dad. From behind, Yseult walks with a soft smile, one she never had since the incident.

“It’s nap time, my love. Kiss papa and off to bed.”

“Oh noooo! Wanna play more, pwease?” she asks, giving both her parents the best puppy eyes one could imagine. I almost yell for them to allow her more time, and I’m just visiting the memory. Wait … did I say Yseult? Like, Yseult Leon’s spouse? Could it be? I take a step back and sure, he is my friend – younger – holding his baby girl against his chest. I see him gently kiss her curly blond hair and promising her a story if she just agrees to sleep.

“I even have a surprise for you, if you are nice and follow your mother’s orders,” Am I dreaming, or does Leon sounds like the kind of parents who have a hard time parenting, just because their child is too cute? I’m sure he just makes up that gift story.

 The scene changes and I’m now in beautiful gardens. Gaia is gasping at what her father just gave her. A pendant, with a small quote engraves behind. In her hand, a wooden sword hangs, forgotten for now. “I love you, papa!” she squeals, laughing when Leon picks her for a kiss.

 Another moment, Leon is on his horse and Gaia clings to his cloak. She is sobbing uncontrollably and scream.

“Don’t leave, Papa pwease! Bad men are coming, please! Please! I’m scared!” she is probably between four or six years old now. Leon shakes his head, silently begging Yseult to take their daughter. When her mother pulls her away, the noble child shrieks. I can feel the panic that took her then, her magic flying around and summoning the wind.

“I’ll be back soon, baby. Be a good girl.”

 It is now night. I don’t know how much time has passed since Leon’s departure, but Gaia is in bed, clutching a small sword in a hand. I don’t know where she finds it, but I’m sure nor his mother or a servant gave it to her. Her blue eyes stare at nothing but blackness. Until they heard the alarms. There are screams coming from the village and soon, from inside the house. I see Gaia rushing out of bed, her small arm barely able to lift her sword. She’s brave for her age, I notice, as she’s not calling for her mother. More children would have, that’s what people do when they are scared. They beg for a parent. An eternity pass and the door opened, revealing two men. One fly across the room and I cheer for Gaia. It’s not a kingly reaction, but I’m alone, so I guess it’s ok. The other laughs when he sees the little girl stands proudly and pointing her sword at him. With a single blow, he makes her lose her grasp on the weapon and she shy away. She was terrified, of course. The man tackles her to the floor, and I curse. Why can’t I help her? It’s all in the past, but I want to save that girl, to give her the life she deserves. Of course, I am amazed when I see the way she burns the mercenary’s hands when he took her, but all I can think is her current state, in the real world.

 The scene vanishes and I’m now back in the clearing. Gaia watches me as if nothing happened and I smile at her. I also take notice of all the curious glares send toward us, meaning the moment lasts more than a minute.

“Arthur? You okay?” Lancelot asks, and I nod, sitting more comfortably with Gaia still clung to me. “Hello kid, is Arthur all comfy?”

“I’m not a pillow, Lancelot,” I say, still smiling when Gaia nods seriously. Ok. Maybe I was. “She showed me her last memories with her parents, oh and she talks her lot,” I point, winking to the child who hid even more against me. I’m not sure, but I think I have a thing, like a natural talent with little humans. I mean, I’m friends with Merlin, and he’s a child in a man’s body. “Only, she uses her mind. Can you … can you fetch Leon and bring him here?”

The man nod, quickly checking on Merlin before the leaves. Emrys is still out, but I have a good feeling. Maybe because a sorcerer we saved comes to me while I wait for my friends.

“Emrys will be fine. Druids are coming to heal him. They heard the King and Queen’s call.”

“The … what?” I ask feeling dumb again.

“It’s a long story. A legend among our people. Emrys will tell you when the time comes.”

I nod my agreement. I guess I just must wait and see then. For now, I’m amazed by the magic around the camp, with people acting as if they were not with people from a kingdom where their kind is killed for what they are. Is this Camelot future? Once I lift the ban? I have that dream, and I’m sure Gaia has too, if I believe the way she uses her gift to create small sparkly butterflies. Red, blue, or golden insects that vanish when she notices my two knights.

“You summoned me, Sire?” Leon asks his eyes studying the strange pair we are forming with our new addition. “I see our young guest is feeling much better,” he adds, and I nod.

“I think her magic helps a lot. Her eyes keep glowing since she wakes me.” But I focus on the main topic right away. Leon waited long enough, right? I stop Gaia’s game and she looks up, worried and confused, before I turn her face toward my most trusted soldier. “See that man? His name is Leon, he travelled for a long time to rescue you. He’s a brave knight and always keeps his promises, even when it’s hard.” Gaia tilts her head; I can see her picks all the pieces together. She’s still somehow in my brain and the blurry face of her dad is becoming clearer in her mind. Leon, on the other hand, struggles to see where I’m going with my reasoning. “Sir Leon, may I introduce you to the young Lady Gaia?”

 I almost laugh at the way the gap at each other, like fishes out water. Leon moves slowly, unsure. He stops when Gaia places her tiny hands over his face, searching for something or showing him a memory. Then, Leon just breaks in front of us. He is crying, for real. Sobbing with an equally crying little girl in his arms.

“Yes, you were right … the bad men came, and I wasn’t there. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” and for the first time, we heard her voice. She speaks in a small whisper, with the tone of someone who scream more than enough in her life.

“You came…”

 And he did, even if it took them years. I can’t help but smile at them. A family reunited. Merlin on his way back to health when druids came later in the day and used their magic. Maybe there was hope. I have to believe in it.

 “You’re right, Sire,” a voice whisper. A druid stands beside me, his hand behind his back. “There may be dangers here, waiting for you and seeking revenge for your father’s actions. But I think you are on your way to become the Once and Future King. If you ever need our help, my people will answer.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Don’t thank me yet. Raising a magical child is a lot of work, she may drive you crazy before you accomplish the prophecy.” I can sense a laugh, a mockery behind his words and my smile soon match his. I should lift the ban of magic soon after we return to Camelot then.

“As long as she’s happy, I’m sure we can work something out.”

 The druid laughs even more, but I don’t ask questions. For now, all is well.

[peonybane]

Agape and Pragma: Chapter 13 [UNCENSORED]

Pairings: OT7 (BTS) x Reader

Word Count: 3.7k

Genre: Hybrid AU, Fluff, Angst, Sci-Fi, Crack, Smut

Chapter Specific Notes: ANGST, some fluff

**WARNINGS**: hybrid prejudice, verbal abuse, mentions of psychological abuse, [the uncensored version will contain discussion of rape (male victim) and ptsd, the censored version will not]

Summary: Your entire world had be torn asunder by just one lab test. Time heals all wounds, but does it really? What will it take to feel whole again?

Hybrid Types: Peacock Jin, Serval Yoongi, Golden Retriever Hoseok, Gray Wolf Namjoon, Scottish Fold House Cat Jimin, Great Dane Taehyung, and French Lop Eared Rabbit Jungkook

a/n: And the story is back. Much to everyone’s surprise, this will NOT be a happy chapter. So I do advise that if you are sensitive to the warning above, please head on over to the censored version of this chapter.

<— Previous (Chapter 12)

[CHAPTER 13 CENSORED]

“Namjoon… you don’t have to come with me.”

“No.”

He went around the car opening your door for you. His gaze was sharp as he held his hand out for you. You felt so small like this. Despite him trying to look kind and reassuring, the dark aura hanging around him and the way his ears and tail were on high alert made you feel like a small child being chased by some sort of beast.

Namjoon sighed, letting his hand drop to his side as he knelt down in front of you. The two of you were level with each other as he cradled your face in his large hands, making you gaze down at him with a trembling lip. He smiled gently and his gaze softened. He stroked your cheek with his thumb. 

“Hey… I want to come to be there for you. As the Alpha… it’s my duty to protect you, all of you, from your fears. To protect you from danger. Besides,” he chuckled. “It was either me or Yoongi.”

You immediately made a face, making Namjoon laugh. Checkmate. When Yoongi found out that you had run into Taka, he was ready to run off to kill him… even though he had never actually met Taka before, per se. “I guess you’re right, Joonie.”

Despite the sad smile on his face, his tail gave him away: he liked being called ‘Joonie’ apparently. “Come on. Let’s get this over with and then go home and make a cuddle pile. I’m sure Jimin and Yoongi will be more than happy to spoil you.”

You nodded your affirmation as he stood up, helping you up as well up onto your feet. Once the car was locked, he gave your hand a reassuring squeeze, making you smile up at him. Taking a deep breath, you paused before entering the little cafe.

Ideally, you wouldn’t be here. But Taka had forced your hand when he DM’d you on the one social media site you had forgotten to block him on. Unfortunately for you, Jimin had looked over your shoulder as he walked past you to the kitchen in time to see the message, prompting him to call over the others. Jungkook and Hoseok insisted that you talk to you him to set him straight. After all, they knew Taka in the past and knew that he would not let this go… not unless you went on the offensive.

So thus, the plan was hatch: you’d meet him in a public space, hear him out, then put up fronts, shutting him out of your life once again. Hopefully, for good this time. You grimaced at the memory of everything you had to do to get him to leave you alone the last time. 

You sighed as you spotted him sitting at table. He knew, that in the past that you loved it when he rolled up the sleeves on his button up. And here her was, dressed to make your heart pound. Or at least would’ve made it pound in the past. 

Oh, this was going to be fun.

Taka smiled at you, waving you over. “Butterfly! Over here!”

You could practically feel Namjoon bristle next to you. You squeezed his hand reassuringly. The smile on Taka’s face fell when he spotted Namjoon, practically attached to you at the hip. Namjoon pulled out your seat for you, making you smile a little as you took your seat, before he sat down himself. Taka eyed Namjoon with thinly veiled disgust. 

“I didn’t know we were going to have company. I thought it was just going to be us two.”

You curtly replied, “And what in God’s name made you think I’d ever want to be alone with you ever again?”

Taka sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess you’re right. But really though. I thought we could be mature adults about this.”

You felt sick. He knew how much being called childish bothered you. He also knew that you’d call him out if he called you that directly. But he was sneaky. Too fucking sneaky.

Before you could reply, Namjoon said, “Yeah, because cheating on someone and getting them sick is mature.”

You stared at Namjoon, wide eyed. If the rest of the cafe was listening in on your conversation, they would’ve gone so quiet, a pin could’ve dropped and it would’ve been heard. Nervously, you glanced over to Taka. Anger flashed for a moment in his eyes. But he hid it… just like he always did. He never gave anything away… not unless he wanted to you to know. 

Taka laughed dryly. “So, you brought a mongrel to ‘fight’ for you, huh?”

Namjoon visibly tensed at the word. You’d didn’t see it, but next to you, you could practically feel it. And you knew what he was feeling: it was the same fight or flight response you had.  “Taka— leave him out of this. Namjoon has nothing to do with you and I.”

Taka laughed once more, this time, to try to alleviate the tension in the air. “I’m sorry. You’re right, Butterfly.”

He reached across the table to grasp your hands but you pulled them away, setting your hands in your lap. The smile that had crept up to his face to try to seem friendly faded a little. The fake joy dying completely from his eyes. “Don’t mistake what this is, Taka. I’m here to hear you out one last time. Then it’s goodbye. Forever.”

“Then I suppose I best get right to it then.” He paused. “Butterfly, let’s start over again.”

On one level, you knew this was coming. But that didn’t keep you from feeling shocked. 

One second. 

Two seconds. 

“What?”

He smiled at you again, clearly pleased with your shock. “I’ve changed. I realized too late that you were the greatest thing in my life. I want you back. I’ll never hurt you again.”

You snapped. All the pent up anger inside you exploded. “Why? Because you’ve already done enough damage?”

Your voice rose, gaining the attention of those around you. “You’ll never hurt me again because you hurt me enough emotionally not to date for at least four years? Because you took away the most important thing in the whole world to me?”

You stood up abruptly, startling Namjoon, who stared up at you, pleading. He grasped your hand. For a brief moment, you wondered if it was to stop you or to reassure. But to hell with it. You were going to let everything out, here and now. 

Your voice wavered as tears started welling in your eyes. “Because you’re the reason for these scars?!” 

You showed Taka your forearms, revealing the thin, barely there scars from all the times you tried to tear your wrists open in your sleep. 

“Because you’re the reason for all the nightmares in which I could never save my baby that will never be?!”

You lifted your shirt showing him the scars on your stomach that were similar to the ones on your arms— the ones you gave yourself, trying to rescue the child that would never be born from inside you.

Namjoon stood up, encircling his arms around you. He pushed down your shirt as you continued to cry, causing a scene. Everyone around you whispered, but you didn’t care. Enough was enough. You were done protecting him. In a way, this was cathartic— having the world know what a dirtbag Taka was, even if it was at the price of your own pride. 

You whispered, your voice breaking between each tear that rolled down your cheeks, “You took everything from me… the only reason I can stand here now, as strong as I am is because of those who love me… because— because of those who would never abandon me.”

You could see the implication dawning on Taka’s face. The way he glanced over at Namjoon told you everything. It was as if now that Taka had be exposed to everyone within this cafe, he threw all caution to the wind. 

Taka stood up as he scoffed at you. “You actually think a filthy mongrel could give you everything you desired? You think that because he’s a fucking freak of science that he’ll accept you?! From birth he could never be what you needed. He’s nothing more than a bitch that could never give you what you want! He’s nothing but a monster that—“

You didn’t know when Namjoon let go of you, all you knew was that he grabbed Taka by the collar and lifted him in the air. For a brief moment, you were scared of him— you were scared of Namjoon. This wasn’t your Namjoon. This was a feral animal that had been beaten, that was cornered— and was ready to do whatever it took to escape.

“Namjoon!”

You tried to get him to let go of Taka but it was useless. You pleaded with him as members of staff ran over, trying to diffuse the situation. Namjoon growled before delivering a hard punch to Taka’s face, effectively breaking his nose if the distinct ‘crunch’ was anything to go by. “Joonie! This isn’t you! Let him go!”

At the sound of his nickname he glanced down at you… and the man you knew returned. The moment he dropped Taka, you noticed that Namjoon had turned clammy and pale. You’d seen this before— both in yourself and Liam— he was having a PTSD episode.

You cradled Namjoon’s face in your hands. “Shhhh… it’s ok. It’s ok. I’m here. You’re ok.”

Taka nursed his bleeding nose as he shouted at you, “What the hell! That freak needs to be locked up in a cage like the animal he is!”

Namjoon’s breathing became erratic again, he visibly shook. Oh god, what were you going to do?

Before you snap back at Taka, the cafe manager, a Shiba Inu Hybrid perhaps (you were pretty sure his name tag read Hakyeon on it from some other time you’d been in), stepped in to intervene. “Sir, I’d like you to please leave. Or else I’ll have to get the police involved. Hybrid discrimination will be tolerated here.”

Taka began to argue with him, probably about how Namjoon attacked him, but you didn’t hear any of that. Instead, you focused on getting Namjoon calmed down enough to leave.

As soon as his breathing was regular enough, you had him lean most of his weight on you as you propped him against you, leading him out of the cafe. You couldn’t help but think to yourself, Sorry, Amber, looks like we can’t go to this cafe for a while… or ever.

You led Namjoon over to the car. You hesitated. Maybe going home wasn’t the best option at the moment. You looked around you. Luckily, there was a small ‘greenbelt’ nearby with a bench. You were lucky that he was being so compliant, letting you lead him over. You sat him down and you sat down next to him.

The two of you sat there for a little while, letting Namjoon calm down. You wouldn’t push him. You couldn’t. You knew he was in pain. And to push, when he was so exposed, so fragile, would shatter the trust you had built with him. Instead, you leaned your head on his shoulder and took his hand in your own, reassuringly squeezing it.

“I know you’re curious.”

You jumped a little at his voice. “Yes… but you don’t have to explain anything to me if you don’t want to. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think I’ll ever be truly ready. But… I can’t keep this locked up inside me anymore. I just… I can’t.”

His voice wavered. You turned to him, hugging him tightly. “Tell me. If I had known you were suffering….”

He cried into your hair for a few minutes. You hurt. Your heart ached. But there was nothing for you to do except be there for him.

“No one knows about this… not even my editor.”

You brow knit together. Why would his other editor know about… whatever this is? He pulled away from you. His gaze was distant. He was somewhere else. Somewhere you couldn’t be. “You’ve read Reflection, right?”

You nodded. He continued, “Do you remember the section of the book about being taken prisoner in a war zone?”

How could you not? That part of the book was painful. It was terrifying. W.H.H.O. (World Hybrid Health Organization) often tried to avoid war zones since Hybrids were often considered prime targets— ‘freaks’ were fodder in the war zones. But sometimes it was unavoidable. Namjoon had been one of the few who that ended up in a war zone in an effort to help a group of Hybrid girls that had been taken to be… used. Based on what he said in the book, Namjoon had volunteered to provide medical aid. 

But things didn’t go as planned. 

He had been taken prisoner by the insurgence. Something that had been a rare thing in the war zones. From that excerpt in the book, he explained how he had been tortured for their amusement and everything he felt… but there was something in it that felt off. Like there was something missing. 

That was one of the only real criticisms of Reflection— that there was something missing. Something that changed the whole tone of that story from that part onward. 

“Yes… I know it. It was hard to read but I remember it.”

Namjoon took a deep breath. “There’s something missing in it. Something that I couldn’t bring myself to write.”

His hands trembled. You took his hands in your own, squeezing them once more. You whispered, “You don’t have to talk about.”

He gave a pathetic laugh. “After what I just did, you deserved to know.” He paused looking into your eyes. “I was… raped.”

You tensed. You didn’t know what to feel. You knew something happened to him. You just didn’t think it was… rape. You stood up abruptly, causing him to stare up at you before you stood between his legs and hugged, trying to use your own body as a barrier to protect him from the rest of the world.

Something inside him broke as you held him against your smaller, softer body. He wrapped his arms around you, his hands digging into your back and his tears soaking your shirt as he wailed against you, the sound more heart breaking than before. “‘Mongrel,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘animal,’ ‘monster’— those were all things they called me as they tormented me— as— as they raped me! I was back there— I— I can’t! I— I— have to be in control— they—” he hiccuped, “they can’t control me anymore!”

All you could do as he cried was hold him to you as tightly as you could. Your own silent tears fell as everything started to click for you: his need to protect, the need to be in complete control, the nightmares, the hesitancy towards affection for the others in your relationship. It all made sense. On one level, he was still afraid of his own sex. 

His cries slowly died down as you continued to stroke the base of his ears, muttering words of reassurance, being careful not to let your own voice waver. He was there for you and he got hurt. Now you had to be there for him. You continued to stroke his hair and ears, keeping him close to you as you sheltered him. 

After awhile, he calmed down. All that was left between the two of you were some sniffles. When he finally dared to look up at you with red, swollen eyes, you smiled at him, leaning in to kiss his eyelids. “You ready to go home?”

He nodded and stood up. You both walked back over to the car and got in, and started the drive back home.

As you drove back, you found yourself lost in your own thoughts, connecting all the dots. He was rarely physically affectionate with the others, and the reasoning behind it was obvious now. But thinking about it, you weren’t necessarily sure why he was willing to share you with Jimin on the first night. Or even why he was willing to touch him. Mulling it over, all you could conclude was this: Jimin was the Omega of the pack. Jimin, while having his moments of sass, would always defer to Namjoon. Jimin was also smaller, and for the most part docile. He was never a threat to Namjoon. Jimin also had this… gift. He knew, just… knew what everyone emotionally needed. You couldn’t help but wonder if your first time with your lovers were with Jimin and anyone else if Jimin would’ve been as submissive as he had been with Namjoon.

You were so lost in thought and on auto-pilot that by the time you parked the car, Namjoon had to call your name a couple of times before you registered that you needed to get out of the car. You scrambled in embarrassment. As you started heading for the door, you turned back and noticed that he hadn’t joined you still. You took him by the hand and led him to the door. “How about some cuddling and a movie? Maybe something to eat, too?”

Namjoon hesitated, but eventually nodded, letting you lead him into the house. The moment the two of you entered, it was as if the usual liveliness that plagued the house came to a screeching halt. It took you moment before you realized why… they could smell the pain rolling off the both of you. 

Six pairs of footsteps thundered for the door. Namjoon tensed as they approached. Somehow, he was so small, especially when he unconsciously tried to stand behind you. As if sensing the fear, Jin and Yoongi approached more slowly, getting the others to slow down, too. You made eye contact with Yoongi and it was like he understood everything. He nonchalantly called to the others, “Hey Jin, think you can scrounge up some of that fried bread from earlier? And Tae… did you say you wanted to make a pillow fort? Why don’t we go ahead and do that tonight.”

The others hesitated by followed Yoongi’s commands. As they dispersed, you mouth to him, ‘thank you.’ He shrugged. Acting like he didn’t know what you were talking about. But his eyes dilated and his ears took on a more… relaxed position, making his earrings jingle and let you know that, in fact, he was quite happy with being praised, that he was doing the right thing.

Still taking Namjoon’s hand in your own, you led him up the stairs to his room. You asked him if he wanted you to help him change. But he blushed, mumbling something about him being fine before he closed the door between the two of you. You had to stifle the giggle that threatened to bubble up in you as you went back to your own room to change.

As soon as you were changed into a more comfortable attire, you headed downstairs to find that, indeed, Taehyung had constructed a… pillow fort? It wasn’t necessarily a pillow fort, so much as he’s covered as much area of the floor in the living room as possible in blankets, quilts, and pillows. Most of them had already gotten comfy on the ground or couch… all except for Namjoon. You looked around for him, only to have him come up behind you, hugging you tightly to him. 

You smiled, squeezing him arms. You whispered to him, “Come on. I’ll be the big spoon and you be the little spoon.”

With a tender smile, you took him by the hand, leading him over to the cuddle pile as he blushed. Where Yoongi and Jimin had previously been cuddling together, they looked over at the two of you before wiggling apart, making room for the both of you. Namjoon hesitantly laid down on the ground and you followed suit. Once on the ground, you nuzzled Namjoon around so he was part way on his side, just enough room for you to wedge yourself between him and Yoongi, your front to his back as you hugged him, briefly burying your face in the crook of his neck. 

He wasn’t ready yet to let one of the others behind him but… he seemed alright with you. You gazed up at his face, checking to see if this was alright, for you to be at his backside like this. It seemed to be alright, if the slight tail wag against your thigh was anything to go by.

Jimin seemed to have sensed the nervous energy coming off of Namjoon. So, rather than throwing himself at Namjoon to cuddle as he would’ve done with any of the others, he cautiously approached, making himself as meek and as small as he could. After a moment’s hesitation, Namjoon brought him to his chest for a hug, not letting go. You had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing as Jimin began to purr. Yoongi spooned you from behind, nuzzling your neck as he kneaded at your side. You smiled into Namjoon’s neck.

Jungkook laid on the couch above you, switching between messing with Jimin’s ears and stroking your hair. Hoseok settled in on the other side Yoongi, nuzzling him. Jin settled on the other side of Jimin on his back, petting Jimin’s tail that flicked playfully. Finally, there was Taehyung, who wedged himself between you and Yoongi, though he settled on him back, his head resting on your bottom like a pillow, letting him watch the movie more comfortably. 

You weren’t sure what movie was playing, not that you cared. All that you cared about in that moment was your boys.

The smell of them, their heat. It’s what Namjoon needed— to know that he was safe. And as much as you didn’t want to admit it… it was what you needed. Their strength, their love. In that moment as you silently cried into Namjoon’s back, you had everything you needed.

As always, reviews, comments, asks, and tags are always loved! ~Peony

Also, please note that I do NOT do tagging lists. Please see my FAQ for why.

[CHAPTER 13 CENSORED]

Next (TBD) —>

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[kookadoodle]

Absence Make The Heart Grow Faint

PLOT: A misstep leads to you calling up your grandparents’ veterinarian, who is no other than Kim Seokjin himself.

PAIRING: Seokjin x reader GENRE: fluff, comedy, E2L!AU WARNINGS: mild chocolate poisoning (dog) WORDCOUNT: 6.7k A/N: ended up writing uwu stuff again x

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When your grandparents told you that they were planning to go on a cruise this summer, you knew what that would entail. Being their most trusted and beloved granddaughter (since you are their only one but that is irrelevant), you knew that they were going to ask you to housesit and look after their golden retriever, Daisy. And of course, you said yes. Not only is Daisy the best and your grandparents the nicest but their beach house is definitely the coziest place, you have ever been. Sunny, relaxing and cabinets filled to the brim with snacks and sodas. How could you say no? Impossible. As you get comfortable in the Uber you ordered, you think back on all the memories you have made at the house. You have spent a lot of summers at their beach house growing up, playing badminton in their backyard and going swimming in the ocean, whenever you liked. It was truly some of the best times you have had, and you remember them fondly. But visiting your grandparents has always come with a price, and there is one person, in particular, to thank for that. A boy, who would never leave you alone despite your complaints against him. He always had such a cocky attitude, and your insults would repel off him as bullets would a bulletproof hero. If only he knew the insane comparison that you are making in your thoughts. He is not a hero at all, but he would hold it against you if he had heard, claiming that you see him as one. You can just imagine the stupid look on his face. The look he always wore around you that tainted your beautiful memories. Going back now after so long, you hope that you will not run into him again. Considering the kind of boy that he was, who knows what kind of man, he has become.

“Y/N!” your grandmother says joyfully when she sees you stepping out of the car in front of the house. “Come and give me a hug,” she says, stretching out her arms to embrace you. You smile when you hug her since the familiar scent of her perfume brings back the past. It has been a while, so it feels good to see her again. “Was the drive here alright?” she asks as she places her hands on your cheeks and looks at your face. You barely get to answer before she hugs you again. It makes you giggle kind of childishly. Your grandparents always make you feel like a child again. Seeing that the house still looks the same has an impact on your mood as well. Suddenly, Daisy comes running, and you kneel down to greet her. “Hi Daisy!” you smile widely at the sight of her. She might be a bit older now, but she is still a happy and energetic dog. She excitedly licks your hands to show you her love, which you do not mind when it is her. “There she is,” you hear your grandfather say, and you see his warm smile when he approaches the two of you. “There he is,” you reply in the same manner, and he hugs you, making Daisy step back. Being the only granddaughter of theirs, you were spoiled, and whenever your parents would try to set rules for you in their presence, your grandparents would object and allow you to have fun. It made you love them more. Your grandfather briefly caresses your cheek with a kind smile, making you know that he is happy to see you. You smile back the same. It might not have been years since you saw them last, but it has since you were here at the house. It feels good to be back. “Let’s get your bags inside,” your grandmother then says, leading you towards the house while your grandfather follows the two of you with your luggage in hand.

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You carry your bags upstairs to the guestroom and place them down on the floor in front of the full-sized bed with the fresh sheets and big fluffy pillows. It has been upgraded from what you remember, and that is only a nice bonus. The drive here made you quite sleepy, but if you lay down now, you might fall asleep and throw off your rhythm, so you decide to wait even though naps are tough to postpone. You go downstairs and join your grandmother in the kitchen instead. “Would you like a glass?” she asks, referring to the juice that she is pouring herself. “Yes, please,” you say and take out a glass from the cabinet. You place it next to hers, and she pours you some. “You already know everything about the house, but we got a new alarm system that your grandfather will take you through later. I also wrote it down for you if you forget,” she explains. You nod at her words. “I wrote down the number of the veterinarian we use for Daisy too, just in case you need it,” she adds. “I hopefully won’t, but thanks,” you say and sip your juice. “We already told Seokjin that you are looking after Daisy for a while, and he said that you are welcome to call him about anything if you need him,” your grandmother says, and it makes your expression drop. “Seokjin?” you state surprised when you recognize the name. “Yes, the one you used to play with when you visited here those summers. He has become a very skilled veterinarian and a close friend of ours,” she smiles, oblivious to the fact that his name sends shivers down your spine. “You told him that I was coming here?” you ask with raised brows. “Yes, should I not have?” your grandmother asks worriedly. Seeing the look in her eyes, you decide not to tell her anything. You do not want to unsettle her right before their cruise trip. “No, that’s fine,” you sigh with a smile, hiding your frustration. “I was just surprised that he still remembers me,” you say instead. Her expression lightens again. “Oh yes, he sure does. He often asks us how you are doing,” she says warmly. “A very nice man… and handsome too,” she adds with a playful tone. You tsk, and it makes her chuckle a bit. “I’m sure,” you reply uninterestedly. “But I probably won’t even see him while I’m here since I plan on taking good care of this girl,” you say as you pet Daisy. You take a treat from the jar on the counter, giving it to her. She eats it all up with joy, smiling at you afterward with her tongue hanging out. Such a cutie, you think. “Of course, you two will be fine, but the number is on the fridge if you need it,” your grandmother offers before she takes her juice with her to the backyard. You follow her and spend most of the day with her and Daisy outside, watching your grandfather do yard work.

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The next morning arrives, and it is time for them to leave. After saying goodbye to your grandparents and sending them off, you decide to take Daisy with you down to the beach. The weather is perfect for a quick run. Before you left home, you decided to make it a routine to run every morning with Daisy, since the exercise is good for both of you. You might as well get started. Running towards the beach, you quickly realize how out of shape you are, and even Daisy seems confused. She is used to running with your grandfather, and it is a bit embarrassing to admit that he is a better runner than you. Luckily, he does not need to know that. Daisy will not tell on you. When you reach the waters, you decide to walk for a bit, so you take off your shoes and let your bare feet sink into the sand beneath you with every step. There are only a few people around and none of them have dogs with them, so you decide to let Daisy loose. “Daisy, go swim!” you say and gesture to the ocean, making her run and jump into the water. You catch your breath as you watch her, resting your arms on your hips. Daisy stops and looks at you expectantly from the water. You look around for a stick, and after finding one, you throw it out and let her chase after it. She retrieves it for you, and you throw it out a few more times, playing with her. She loves it. “Well, well,” you hear from behind you, and the familiar voice makes you turn around. Of all people, it is him. Kim Seokjin. You had a feeling that you were going to run into him at one point, so why not now? Just your luck. “I thought, it was you,” he says with a smile as he approaches. You look at him as he steps closer. He has definitely grown up. You remember him as quite a scrawny young boy, but he has become very adult-like with wide shoulders and toned arms. However, he still has his youth, especially in his eyes, which you notice, when he is up close. “Hi,” you say politely. “What are you doing here?” you ask as you notice that he appears to be alone. “Walking with a friend,” he says and gestures further down the coastline to a tall dimpled guy with his white fluffy dog on a leash. The guy is busy looking for something in the rocks. Whether it is shells or maybe crabs, you have no idea. Your gaze returns to the man in front of you. “You seem happy to see me,” Seokjin states sarcastically, making you aware of your own reaction to his approach. Honestly, it fits your mood around him. “Well, it’s been a while,” you say, trying not to be too rude. Luckily, Seokjin is not easily offended. “How long has it been? 7 years or so, right?” he asks casually. It might be long ago, but you still remember how awful it went. Seokjin remembers too but a bit different than you. “Yeah, I guess that’s right,” you confirm with a calm nod. You try to seem busy, but he does not pick up on it. He keeps standing there, and you wait for what he will say next. You are not sure what to expect. “Let’s do something while you’re here, so we can catch up or something,” he suggests as he looks at you, but you do not meet his eyes. You take a breath and decide that it is best to be honest with him from the beginning. “Honestly, Seokjin. We aren’t really friends, so I don’t think it’s necessary,” you say frankly, and as the words leave you, you realize just how rude it is. But to be fair, Seokjin was a pain in the ass back in the day, and you always begged him to leave you alone. He kept following you around all summer, teasing you and it was annoying. You find it hard to believe that he has changed, and his current approach suggests that he has not changed a whole lot. He was not a bad guy or anything, but you just wanted to be by yourself back then, and he did not respect that. Maybe this time he will. “Wow, okay,” he laughs. He knew that the two of you were at odds, but he did not expect you to be like this already. “You really haven’t changed at all, huh?” he grins with disbelief. “Neither have you,” slips from your lips as his comment annoys you. You should not let it get to you, but it does. Seokjin just has a way of getting on your nerves. His smugness does not help. “You don’t even want to give me a chance to surprise you? I might if you’d let me,” he states, wriggling his brows at you as if it makes him more believable. You scoff. “When pigs fly, Seokjin,” you spit back. It makes him laugh, and the sound annoys you. Luckily, it does not reach windshield-level. “You’ll change your mind, Y/N,” he smiles with confidence. Taking it as his cue to leave, he finally steps away and catches up with his friend. “I won’t!” you yell after him, wanting to get the last word, but it is not as satisfying without a response. Typical of him to leave you with that feeling - one of the things that you resent him for. He always wins.

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The days go by pretty quickly and suddenly, Saturday is here. You manage to keep your morning runs going, and you slowly find yourself getting a bit better. Returning home from them gives you a rush of pride and energy, which is nice. But on the 5th day, the weather starts to change. You look out the window and see that it is pouring down and quite windy outside. “Guess it means a short walk today, Daisy,” you say, and Daisy sits by your feet and looks up at you, tilting her head at your words. She gets up when you take a step, and she knows where you are going. As promised, the walk is quite short because of the weather. You had planned to take Daisy with you into town but seeing the rain splash against the ground makes you reconsider. Maybe a day at home is not so bad. After the walk, you decide to clean up the house before getting comfortable on the couch with the book, you brought. At least bad weather is good reading weather, so it is not entirely useless. Daisy lays next to you with her head on your thigh as you read. You brought some dark chocolate with you from the kitchen, and it is lying on the coffee table before you, opened and ready to be eaten. You already cracked it into pieces, making it convenient to eat while you read. A couple of chapters in, you take a break and go to the bathroom. You close the door on Daisy, making her stay outside. Unamused, she runs back to the living room and waits for you. You take your time in there and decide to borrow some of your grandmother’s lotion that she has recommended to you. It smells nice. When you finally return to the couch and plump back down into the seat, you notice that the chocolate wrapping has fallen to the floor. You furrow your brows, wondering how it fell down. You do not remember seeing it fall. Picking it back up, you see that the leftover chocolate is missing. You kneel down to look for it under the table and couch to see if the pieces had slipped out of the wrapping, yet you find nothing but a clean carpet. Weird, you think to yourself. You definitely remember that there were a few pieces left. Daisy jumps up onto the couch, and you sit down next to her. She tries to lick you on the cheek, but you dodge her with a grin, finding her cute. Suddenly, though, as her breath hits you, you smell chocolate on her. You carefully open her mouth to check, and you realize that she must have eaten the chocolate. “Oh no,” you say aloud. This is bad. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs from what you know, and dark chocolate is really bad. “Daisy, are you okay?” you ask worriedly as you look her in the eyes and run your hands against her head to check on her, but you have no idea what to check for. You pull out your phone and search the web for help. You read several pages on what to do, and they all tell you to contact a vet. Apparently, the amount of chocolate that you believe Daisy has eaten is dangerous, considering the amount of cocoa it contains. “Oh, what should I do, huh?” you ask mostly yourself as you pet her. She seems fine right now, but the web says that it can take hours before the effect shows. There is only one thing to do, really, and you absolutely dread it. You have to call Seokjin. Despite your intuition, you dial the number on the fridge and wait for him to pick up. You cannot believe that you are calling him up after you so specifically rejected him a few days ago. It is embarrassing, really, but necessary. At least, you have a reason to call. “Hello, this is Kim Seokjin,” you hear him say. “Seokjin, it’s Y/N. I need to ask you something,” you say a bit abruptly. You sense that he is surprised. “Oh, Y/N. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he says smugly, proving that he has not forgotten about you at all. You brush it off. “Listen, it’s about Daisy. I think, she ate some dark chocolate just now,” you explain, ignoring his arrogance. He senses the slight panic in your voice. “Really?” he asks at first with disbelief. You sense that he thinks, you have another reason to call than a sick dog. “I’m serious, I think, it’s bad,” you state. Seokjin’s tone changes, when he fails to hear the familiarity in your voice. You are not messing around. “How much did she eat?” he asks in a professional tone. You pick up the wrapper to try and measure it. “I’m not sure, but I think about 2-3 pieces,” you guess. You watch her, and she seems fine for now. However, you cannot help but worry since Daisy is your grandparents’ baby, and you cannot have her blood on your hands. Your mind immediately goes there unwillingly. Seokjin can sense it through the phone. “Okay, listen. Daisy is a big dog so it might not be enough to poison her, but you should keep a close eye on her. If she starts to seem odd, like panting or if she vomits, you call me again, and I’ll come by to treat her,” he explains calmly, yet it does not calm you at all. “But the web says that if she is treated early, she has a better chance. I don’t think, we should take the risk,” you state, and Seokjin can hear the nerves in your voice. He sighs, and you cannot make out why. He takes a moment to reply as if he is thinking his options through. Finally, he speaks again. “Okay, I’ll come by and watch her with you,” he says, and you hear him rising from his seat. “I’ll just drive by the clinic and get some stuff on the way, but it won’t take long, okay?” he explains quite soothingly, even though you sense that he is dissatisfied with the situation. He probably does not want to spend his Saturday with you, but you can say the same about him. It is not like you have a choice, so why should he? “Okay, good,” you say as you sigh a bit relieved. “I’ll see you,” you say and end the call. After hanging up, you sit with Daisy on the couch, not letting her out of your sight. “Don’t worry, girl. Seokjin is on his way,” you tell her comfortingly, but really it is you, who need to hear it. But not because you need him or anything.

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It takes about 25 minutes before Seokjin pounds on the door. You open it up and let him rush inside. You notice that the weather has gone even worse than earlier, and Seokjin is trying to shield himself with the collar of his jacket. You close the door behind him, feeling resistance from the wind. Daisy gleefully welcomes Seokjin as she normally would, and he embraces her without a word or glance at you. “She hasn’t been weird or anything, so I think, she’s fine for now,” you state, wanting to update him. After saying hello to Daisy, Seokjin’s shoulders relax as he is finally inside, shielded from the storm. He places down his bag by the wall before taking off his jacket and shoes. His black hair is wet and dripping from the tips. “That’s good,” he replies as he looks at her. He kneels down before her and examines her briefly. “I don’t see any symptoms, but I brought some medication with me. I’ll treat her just so we’re sure that she’s fine,” he says and grabs his bag by the wall. “Some of the medication is vomiting inducing, so maybe we should treat her in a room without a carpet,” he suggests with a dry smile, finally meeting your eyes. You nod at that. “Sure,” you say. You lead him to the bathroom with the tile floor. “Daisy, come here,” you say, making Daisy sit down in front of Seokjin. You sit down beside him, but Seokjin can sense your nervousness in the way your eyes look at him. Almost like a maiden in distress. “I got everything here, why don’t you go and wait in the living room?” he asks friendly, but really it is an order. He remembers that you are a bit squeamish with things like this, and honestly, he would feel more confident without you watching him. Your presence would just put more pressure on his shoulders, considering how much you judge him already. “O-okay,” you say, and without thinking too much about it, you do as he says. He is the vet after all. You close the door behind you and leave Daisy with him, knowing that despite your relation to Seokjin, she must be in good hands. He knows what he is doing, so you leave it to him.

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The waiting seems quite long. You think about Daisy and how bad you feel, leaving that chocolate out for her to get to. You know that you should not blame yourself too much since it could have happened to anyone, but it happened to you, so you still feel at fault. You consider checking in on them a few times, but you stop yourself. You do not want to disturb them or make Seokjin think that you doubt his competence. He knows far more about this type of thing than you, so you should just stay put and wait. Finally, you hear the bathroom door open, and a few seconds later, Daisy comes walking. She is calm and a little tired, when she jumps up on the couch next to you. You pet her gently as she lays herself down to relax a bit. “She will be fine after resting,” you hear Seokjin say as he approaches you. You look up at him and meet his eyes, but you cannot read them. “Good,” you nod. His words calm you a bit. “I already cleaned up in there, so you won’t have to do that,” he adds as he packs his things into his bag. “Thank you,” you say with a kind smile, but Seokjin does not see it. You cannot tell if he is being professional or if he is annoyed with you. On one hand, he is doing what you asked him to, but on the other, his tone is almost hostile with you. No smiles, no jokes. “Do you want a glass of water or maybe some juice?” you decide to ask. It feels best to at least offer him something after what he just did for you. Seokjin looks at you for a second before he nods. “Sure, water would be fine,” he says and clears his throat, noticing that it feels a bit rough. You rise up and Seokjin follows you to the kitchen. Normally, Daisy would follow too, but you tell her to stay put, hoping she will relax instead. She does. You pull out two glasses and fill them up with water from the fridge before sliding one to Seokjin. He raises the glass to meet his lip as he takes a sip. You do the same. “Thank you for coming here and saving my ass,” you say, wanting to lighten the tension between the two of you. You do not have to be friends to be friendly, you think. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies shortly. The vibe is a bit awkward between the two of you, and you are not sure what to do about it. “I’m sorry for dragging you over here on a Saturday,” you say, forcing yourself to be nice. When it comes to Seokjin, you have never apologized or wanted to in your life, but you guess that there is a first time for everything. “Well, I did it for Daisy and your grandparents, so it has nothing to do with you,” he replies unbothered. It makes you scoff, which he notices. “What?” he asks. “Why do you have to be so rude?” you ask annoyed, deciding against being civil. “You won’t even accept my lame apology,” you add mumbling. Seokjin takes a big gulp of his water before placing the glass on the counter. “Honestly, I don’t really want to be here with you,” he states, and you are taken aback. Asshole, you think to yourself. “I’ll go now. Thanks for the water and call me if Daisy needs me,” he says and takes his bag with him to the front door. You stay put, not wanting to rush after him. He is a jerk. You hear the front door open and close again, hearing him leave. Whatever, you think and try to shake him off you. Daisy is better now, so he did what he came here for. You join Daisy on the couch again, picking back up your book.

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After reading a few more pages, you suddenly hear something in the house. The sound comes from down the hallway at the front door. Seokjin already left, so it has to be something else. At first, you only furrow your brows as you listen in. You hear something again, and this time, Daisy lifts her head in curiosity. You put down the book and decide to go check. “Daisy, stay,” you say, wanting her to rest. Being a good dog (and a tired one), she obeys. The seconds it takes before you are closing in on the target is all the time you need to get anxious. Your thoughts run wild, and before you are at the front door, you have a candlestick in your grip as a weapon. Just in case. “YAH!” you yell out as you are surprised by Seokjin’s presence when he suddenly appears from one of the rooms. He is just as shocked by you. “Why do you have a weapon!?” he yells back. “Why are you still here!?” you yell again, and the two of you just look at each other with widened eyes. “I-,” Seokjin starts, but it seems weird to say it out loud. “Have you seen the weather outside? It’s crazy!” he exclaims, finding it reasonable enough. You finally lower the candlestick, and Seokjin appreciates it. You step up and open the front door, yet as soon as the wind and rain rush in, you close it back up. Looking back at Seokjin, he raises his brows in confirmation. “I know, right?” he says. “Why didn’t you say anything? I thought that you left 10 minutes ago,” you scold him, finding it really strange that he just stayed without saying. You place the candlestick down before heading back towards the living room with Seokjin following behind. “I thought, I could just wait for a bit and then leave when the storm settled down,” he explains, and you shake your head. “Jin, that’s weird,” you scold him again. “Yah! I didn’t want to be here with you, remember? And I had just pissed you off, so I didn’t want to go back to your bitter ass,” he spits back. You quickly turn on your feet, and it halts him in his steps. “You are the bitter one! I was trying to be nice,” you defend, yelling a bit louder than you wanted. You then notice how Seokjin is now close to you and towering over you with his tall frame. It is not what you had in mind when you decided to turn, so it throws you off. A smile makes its way on his lip, and your brows furrow at the sight. “You’re actually cute when you yell,” Seokjin states, totally unbothered by your scolding. “Aish!” you whine, pushing him away in irritation. It only makes him laugh as he sees you stomp back into the living room in anger. It reminds him of the good old days.

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An hour passes, and the storm only worsens, which means Seokjin cannot leave just yet. You are sitting on the couch in each of your end with Daisy between you. Giving him the silent treatment, you had quickly decided to pick up your book and get back to reading. His presence should not stop you. All the two of you can hear is the rain splashing against the windows, and the sound of you turning the page occasionally. “Could we do something fun? I’m bored,” Seokjin finally sighs after watching you read for over half an hour. You keep your eyes on the page before you. “Like what?” you ask uninterested. He rests his head against the backrest of the couch, trying to think of any suggestions. “We could mess around,” Seokjin suggests with a laugh, knowing it will tick you off. “Okay,” you say and put down the book. Seokjin is surprised. “W-wait, what?” he asks and sits up in a slight panic. “Sure,” you say. Seokjin freezes for a second, having not expected you to say yes. You raise your brows expectantly at him, and his eyes widen. “I- I didn’t-” he stutters, and you burst out laughing. “I’m messing with you,” you say and give him a playful punch. It makes him force a chuckle that is mainly a sign of confusion on his part. “Oh, right,” he says with a dry laugh. “Let’s just watch a movie,” you say and get up to put one on. Seokjin is a bit unsettled, not knowing what to think of your teasing. After choosing a movie, you sit back and watch it with him. But after an hour, the power suddenly shuts off, and the screen goes black. The two of you look at each other, not knowing what to do. “Maybe we should mess around, then,” Seokjin says and leans towards you. “Get off!” you scold him as you push him away with force, making him laugh. “I knew it,” he says, and his confidence is weirdly enough restored.

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“Keep the light steady, I can’t see anything like this!” Seokjin exclaims as he fumbles in the dark. “I’m trying,” you say back, focusing the flashlight on the backup generator from afar. Seokjin looks back at you still standing on the staircase. “Maybe if you came over here, it would actually help with the light,” Seokjin suggests. “I don’t like the basement,” you say with a nervous laugh. It is a bit embarrassing, but you have always stayed away from the basement whenever you visited. It creeps you out. Even Daisy is standing upstairs in the doorway, looking down on you guys. “Well, I can’t fix it if I can’t see, Y/N,” he states, and you guess that he is right. It makes you huff. “Okay,” you give in and make your way to him despite hating it. “Just light right here,” Seokjin says and wraps his hand around yours to adjust your aim. The brief contact feels nice. He has warm hands, and yours are ice cold. “Maybe after this, we should find a pair of mittens for you,” Seokjin chuckles. “Do you have terrible circulation or something?” he asks, and you wonder how he can take something as basic as blood circulation and make it sound like an insult. “Hey, don’t mock my circulation,” you say. Seokjin just grins. “Maybe we should find a pair of oven mitts instead, so you can also use them for cooking dinner later,” he jokes, finding himself hilarious. You, however, do not find it as funny, so you aim the flashlight at his face instead, blinding him. “Yah, stop! Okay, I give,” he says with a laugh. You aim the light back on the generator, smiling proudly of your achievement. “If anyone is cooking later, it will be you,” you state. Seokjin does not move even after his laughter settles. It makes you wonder, and you get impatient. “Neither of us will be cooking if we don’t turn this thing on, Seokjin,” you state, gesturing for him to fix it. “You just blinded me! I’m waiting for my vision to return,” he whines. “Oh, right,” you say and laugh too. You forgot about that for a moment. Oops.

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“I can’t believe, you couldn’t turn it on,” you state as the two of you exit the basement. “Aren’t you supposed to be a man or something?” you ask. Seokjin scoffs. “I’m a veterinarian, I spend my time on other things than backup generators,” he defends as his masculinity is clearly hurt. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that it isn’t connected to the house right or something, cause I tried everything,” he adds. The two of you make your way back to the living room with Daisy. Without power, the only light you have is from the outside, leaving you in almost complete darkness. The storm is pretty bad, and once in a while lightning strikes out of the blue (or grey actually), lighting up the room for a second. You would not consider yourself a scaredy-cat, even if Seokjin disagrees, but you have never been a huge fan of thunder. It makes you feel incredibly small and unsafe. However, you try your very best to not let it show since Seokjin is sitting next to you on the couch. You do not want to hear it from him. In all honesty, Seokjin can tell, but he does not point it out. He knows you a lot better than you think. To you, the worst part about all of this is the heat shutting off. If you thought your hands were cold before, you are in for a surprise. You rub your hands together to try and warm them up. Seokjin notices your freezing form. “Don’t your grandparents have a board game we can play?” Seokjin suggests, wanting to distract you from it. “I think so, I can go look,” you say, and he nods. You get up and make your way down the hallway, stopping in front of the closets. You open them up and look it through, finding one that is playable by two. Bringing it with you, you finally return to the living room. “I found scrabble,” you state as you enter the room, but you are distracted by the sight. Seokjin has found candles and placed them on the coffee table with room for the game in the middle. He is lighting each of them up as you walk in. He sits down on the floor with a smile. “I thought, it would be cozy,” he says softly. You nod gently in return, unable to find words as you are a bit in awe. You had not expected him to have such a change in his demeanor. You sit down on the floor across from him and unpack the game, placing it between you on the table. As you look up at him and meet his eyes, you notice the way that the warm light from the candles gently displays across his features. He suddenly looks so soft. You forget about the lightning outside as you find yourself distracted by him. You hand him his plate and the little bag of letters after taking some for yourself. Seokjin reaches in and pulls out random letters, placing them on his plate. You place yours as well, yet you notice that his eyes are on you. “Are you cold?” Seokjin asks, seeming a bit worried. “Yeah, I guess,” you say, chuckling briefly. It makes him look around and get up to grab the blanket on the couch. He walks over to you and kneels behind you to wrap the blanket around your frame. “Is this better?” he asks gently by your ear, letting his hands linger. You find yourself nodding again without words. It feels surprisingly comforting to have him so close, feeling his warmth against you. You do not know how he manages to stay so warm, but he does, and it makes you want to keep him beside you. He lets his hands drop from your touch, but he stays next to you. “Y/N, can I ask you something?” he then says as he gets comfortable on the floor behind you. You turn a bit to look at him. “Sure,” you say softly. “Do you really not consider me a friend?” he asks without looking at you, and the way his voice almost cracks suggests that he has had it on his mind for a while. “What do you mean?” you ask. You know what it is that he is referring to, but you need a few extra seconds to think. “When we met on the beach a few days ago, you said that we aren’t friends, and it just confused me,” Seokjin explains, meeting your eyes at last. You notice the way his brows have a slight crease, and you wonder if he was hurt by your words then. It makes you feel bad. “I shouldn’t have said it like that, Seokjin. I guess, I just don’t think we are friends in the traditional sense, since we kinda have this love-hate relationship,” you say, yet as the words leave you, you panic a bit. They sounded a lot more intimate than you wanted. “Love?” Seokjin repeats, and a smile shapes at his lip. A warm one. You find yourself speechless, not knowing what to say to that. “I mean-,” you try, but you do not know how to save it. The word has been said. “I know, what you mean, Y/N. You don’t have to explain it to me,” Seokjin then says, saving you from the embarrassment. To embarrass you is not what he wants at all. Besides, he would have said the same thing, had it been him. He clears his throat before getting up and returning to his spot on the opposite side from you. You wrap yourself further into the blanket, letting the intimacy stay. “Seokjin,” you say, capturing his attention. He looks at you attentively as he waits. “Even if we aren’t friends in the traditional sense, I still consider us close,” you say, wanting to make clear what you meant. You might be hard on him and claim to dislike him, but it is not true. You have always liked him a lot, even when he annoys you. You should be better at owning up to that. Your words warm his heart and make him smile, finally getting to hear it from you. “Good,” he says, letting you know that he agrees. You do not have to see him every day to know that you share something special, and Seokjin has always cared for you a lot despite the distance. After all, maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder in your case, even if it is difficult to say aloud. Things do not always have to make perfect sense to be right. It just has to feel right, and this does. “Okay, let’s play,” he says, moving the focus onto the game. “What’s at stake?” you ask, wanting motivation to win. “Whoever wins gets to decide where we’ll go on our first date,” Seokjin determines, and it makes you laugh fondly. “Sure, why not,” you agree, finding it reasonable. However, playing scrabble in the candlelight is first date material, so in fact, you both already won.