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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

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CSI Rogers And Barnes: The Serious Cereal Serial Killer. Episode 17- At Last Pt. 1

Co-written with @icanfeelastormbrewing

Summary: It’s Tony’s wedding weekend, and the usual fun and antics ensue. Then Steve and Katie take an extra evening in Manhattan, where Steve has a little surprise of his own planned.

Warnings: Bad Language words. SMUT IN PART 2 (NO UNDER 18s and NSFW)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: So this is it. The FINAL CSI: Rogers and Barnes instalment. (Well, bar an Epilogue…) and it’s long so we split into 2. This has been one hell of a ride! It’s been a total playground for us, seeing how many stupid references and ridiculous actions we could fit in, and our first collaboration. We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have. Myself and Storm love each and every one of you who’ve taken the time to read, like, comment and re-bog.

We love you 3000…

CSI R&B Masterlist

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Chapter Song: At Last- Etta James

You smile, and then the spell was cast, and here we are in heaven for you are mine. At Last.

Steve stretched out, rolling over and reached out for Katie only for his hand to meet a cold, empty mattress. He opened his eyes, confused for a second at the unfamiliar surroundings before he realised he was in his room at the Plaza…and it’s the morning of Tony’s wedding. His head was a little fuzzy due to the drinks last night which had gone on late and he could remember sitting in Tony’s suite drinking the bottle of scotch Sam had pilfered from the free bar at the rehearsal party. They had an impromptu party once the girls had left for Pepper and Tony’s and he remembered complaining loudly about why Sam and Bucky got to spend the night together when Katie wasn’t allowed to stya with him.

Jesus what had he turned into? A clingy bastard, that’s what.

He reached for his phone, checking the time which was 9 am. He dropped it back on the bedside table and tried to go back to sleep but he couldn’t. Not without her so he gave up. Firing Katie a quick ‘good morning beautiful’ message, he then kicked off the bed covers and shoved on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Grabbing his kit he decided to head for the pool to make the most of the facilities.

The place was fairly busy considering the time on a Saturday morning, but there was a lane closed off for the ‘serious’ swimmers with no one in it so he made use of that for half an hour before he made his way into the changing rooms and showered. By the time he was drying off in the locker room, Katie had messaged back wishing him a ‘good morning handsome’ and complaining she had a bad head from a lot of champagne. He smiled, replied that he was sure she’d soon get over it when they start again, and then just as he’d done that another message came through. This one from Tony who had apparently ordered a fuck tonne of room service for a breakfast party.

Deciding that wasn’t such a bad idea he replied saying he was on his way, shoved his phone in his pocket, grabbed his kit bag and headed to the elevator. When he got to Tony’s suite he knocked on the door, the faint well natured chatter from inside hit his ears before the door swung open. Rhodey greeted him and Steve stepped in to see Tony led on a chaise in a hotel robe, eating grapes like a Roman Emperor. Steve snorted.

“Having Fun Tony?”

Tony grinned “Am I ever? I love all this. You know, I might get married once every 2 years.” He looked at Steve “You should try it, Rogers.”

Steve rolled his eyes, remembering full well about the ring that was tucked in the safe in his room.

From his spot over by the low coffee table, Bucky shot Steve a glance. He was certain the punk was gonna pop the question this weekend, why else would he have booked an extra night for them to stay in Manhattan on Sunday as well? When Steve suggested it to Katie over breakfast a few weeks ago, he’d simply stated it was an opportunity for them to spend a bit of time together in the run up to Christmas, but if said girl didn’t return to Brooklyn on Monday with a ring on her finger then James Buchanan Barnes would chop of his left arm with a chainsaw.

At that point, Rhodey, ever the tactical, organised man asked Tony what the plan was for the day and Tony simply looked at him, and blinked.

“Aren’t you the best man?”

Bucky sighed “What a waste. I could have been a groomsman….ow!” he hissed, rubbing his side as Sam had elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

Rhodey completely ignored Bucky and looked at Tony “I am, yes, but you’re the Groom.” Tony waved him away “Yeah, yeah. We need to be dressed and in the room for 1. Ceremony is at 1:45, girls should arrive at half past and our stylist is arriving at midday. Easy.”

Steve glanced at his watch and Bucky smirked up at him “Hey, Stevie…only 3 hours till you see her punk…” From besides him, Sam snorted.

“You’re whipped man.”

Steve glared at them both, not even bothering to deny that was what he’d been checking and turned to Tony. “Is Greatmaster…Grandmaster, whatever, your wedding planner coming?” “Right, yeah that….asshole shall be showing up at some point.” Tony rolled his eyes “Fortunately I’m getting rid of him for the day.” He shoved another grape in his mouth and looked at Bruce “Remind me never to hire anyone you or the Bungalow recommend ever again.”

They boys settled down to eat, taking their time, enjoying a bit of banter about the stag do and the previous night’s rehearsal until an hour or so later Tony clapped his hands and stood up.

“Ok boys, suit up.”

Steve made his way back to his room and whilst in the elevator he got another message from Katie. This was a selfie of her in a robe with a glass of champagne having her hair put up. He smiled, responded telling her he couldn’t wait to see her, before the elevator door opened and he headed down to his room. Having already showered he knew he wasn’t in a huge rush so took his time trimming his beard, making sure the lines were crisp before he shrugged on his dress shirt, tying a Windsor in his deep, scarlet tie. Then he pulled on his suit pants, matching waistcoat and then jacket before placing his shiny black oxfords on and stood up. With a little product he styled his hair, making sure it was parted and slicked back as usual before taking a final glance in the mirror, smoothing down his jacket. He had to admit, the suits Tony (or most likely Pepper) had chosen for the Groom’s party were sharp. A black wool blend Tom Ford with a subtle red and gold check detail. Deciding he looked half decent he grabbed his wallet, phone, and room key. Satisfied he didn’t need anything else, he made his way back to Tony’s room.

Once more he gave a rap and the door opened inwards to reveal Grandmaster, smiling at him.

“Good afternoon Mr Rogers, you look dapper.” The man grinned, batting his eyelashes.

“Erm, thanks.” Steve replied in the absence of anything else to say.

“You’re late by the way.” Grandmaster continued.

“What?” Steve frowned, checking his watch to find he wasn’t late. He was never late…

“You’re the last one.” Grandmaster stated, as ways of explanation. “Everyone else is here already.”

“That’ doesn’t mean that I’m late.” Steve shook his head.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Grandmaster replied, batting his eyelashes again.

“Whatever, can I come in?” Steve arched an eyebrow at him.

“Oh yeah, sure. Sorry. I got lost in your eyes for a minute there.”

Steve looked at the man, utterly lost for words. The guy was as nutty as a fruitcake. Steve stepped into the room, turning sideways as Grandmaster did the same smiling at him. He hastily moved into the living area of the suite where Rhodey was doing up Tony’s gold dress tie.

Grandmaster headed over to Bruce, brushing something off the man’s shoulder, smiling “You’ve always been my champion.”

Steve raised his eyebrows before he leaned over to whisper to Sam “How does Bruce know him again?”

“Some Ultimate Fighting online fan group.” Sam said “Bruce and Thor are very into it, apparently, along with one of Thor’s other good friends, Korg.”

“Korg?” Steve looked at Sam.

“Yeah, Thor knew him from his Uni days.” Sam said “They used to be quite political apparently. Tried to organise a protest against fascism but they didn’t print enough pamphlets so hardly anyone turned up.” Steve shook his head, the fact that didn’t surprise him in the slightest was ridiculous, but when it came to this lot, nothing did really, not anymore. It wasn’t long before Tony was ready, and the boys all stood round with one more scotch each before they were ushered, by a now very militant Grandmaster, down to the chapel where the wedding was going to take place in. Once there, Grandmaster headed off to check the function suite was ready for the ‘Post Wedding Meal’. At his muttering of those words, Steve and Tony shared a little grin at the memory of a few weeks ago in Tony’s kitchen.

The Photographer arrived and set about arranging the boys for a few shots. Bucky tried to sneak into most of them, Tony at one point telling him to fuck off from his grooms party shots, which was the WORST thing he could possibly have done, as Bucky then made it his mission to infiltrate as many of them as he could by stealth. Steve had to admit, he couldn’t wait to see the final shots of Bucky popping up all over the place like some kind of nameless assassin.

As they were all having a shot taken just at the doors of the room, Grandmaster bustled back in. “OH. EMM. GEE.” He said, pronouncing each letter, drawing out the vowel sounds. “My crew sent me photos of the girls…you’re all going to DIE when you see them.” He grinned, slapping Steve’s back.

Ducking away from him, Steve checked his watch. 12:15…not long now. But before he could think about it, the first guests started to arrive having been shown the way by the concierge, and it was all to attention and the groomsman duties began.

Approximately 10 or so minutes later, he was just heading back to the door of the chapel having shown the assistant from the lab to her seat when he stopped dead as he saw Katie just outside in the foyer area, locked in an embrace with Tony. He was sure his heart stopped for a beat, fuck, she looked stunning. Her dress was the same colour as his tie, a deep red with a halter neck and a v neckline. It cinched in at the waist, with a fairly loose fitting skirt that had a slit up the side and it accentuated her figure perfectly. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant knot of curls at the back of her head, exposing her delicate neck and shoulders, and the star necklace he bought her twinkled as it sat just below the hollow of her throat. For some reason his mind strayed back to the time he had met her. He’d been invited to Howard’s for dinner a few months after arriving at the 101st and she’d answered the door, dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans, an oversized grey sweater which hung off one shoulder complete with a messy bun on top of her head and the prettiest eyes he had ever seen, eyes which were now popping from underneath a lid of smoky brown and gold eyeshadow. She’d flashed him a smile that day, invited him in, and if he was honest from that moment he’d been a fucking gonner for her. Why he had waited the best part of ten fucking years to even kiss her he would never understand. As he watched her eyes turned to his and she beamed at him. He gave her a smile back as she released Tony and made her way towards him, her leg slipping through the long slit in her dress as she walked giving him a flash of the peep-toe gold heels she was wearing, leaving him actively fighting the image of said heels being hooked around his ears…. Jesus Christ….

“Miss me Captain?” She grinned, her teeth bright white against the deep, blood red lip stain she was wearing.

“Always Doll.” He smiled as she stopped in front of him, blinking as she looked up at him.

“Good, because I missed you too.”

“You look amazing, honey.” Steve complimented her and she beamed up at him, scanning his suit.

“Thanks, you look pretty good yourself.” She said, her palms sliding up the lapels of his jacket.

Steve’s hand slipped round her back as he pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, not wanting to smudge her lipstick. When his palm met bare skin he couldn’t help the groan that left his mouth as he realised her dress was backless. Katie looked at him having heard his involuntary noise, arching a perfectly plucked brow and smirked.

“Yes, no bra Stevie.”

“You’re killing me sweetheart.” Steve whined out but before she could reply, Steve was rather harshly slapped on the back.

“Put her down, Punk you’re needed.” Bucky smirked as he turned to Katie, doing an over exaggerated double take as he looked her up and down “Huh, ok, so you look decent…” “Fuck you Barnes.” She shot back “And tell them they can wait a little, I haven’t seen my man since last night.” “Oh believe me I know. He’s been a whiney little bitch all morning…”

At that point a familiar voice cut him off. “James Buchanan Barnes, wash your mouth out, this is a wedding!”

Bucky grimaced as huge grins spread across both Katie and Steve’s faces. “Sorry Momma R” “Yes, I should think so.” Sarah looked at him sternly.

“Okay, I’m gonna…go…ummm…” Bucky hastily made his retreat, Sarah watching him with narrowed eyes before she turned to Katie, beaming as she gave her a hug.

“Star you look stunning.”

“Thanks Sarah and so do you, I love your dress.” Katie smiled, looking down at Sarah’s light gold knee length gown and Steve had to admit, it had been a while since he’d seen his ma done up. She was quite striking actually. “I love the neckline, and your hair.”

“Yes, thank you for that.” She gave Katie a look and she blushed a little, waving her away.

“Thank you for what?” Steve asked and Sarah looked at him, smiling.

“I had a little surprise this morning. Star arranged for someone to come and do my hair for me.”

Steve looked at Katie, a soft smile crossing his face. “You did?”

Katie shrugged “It’s no big deal.” “Well it was to me, so thank you.” Sarah smiled, before she turned to Steve. “My boy…don’t you look handsome?”

Steve blushed a little “Ma…” he sighed and Sarah chuckled

“Are you going to show me to my seat?” she asked and Steve smiled. He offered his mom his arm, shot Katie another smile and then walked into the room. As they reached the row she was to be seated on he stopped and reached up to brush his cheek. “You look just like your father.”

Steve didn’t miss the emotion in his mom’s eyes and he swallowed a little as she took her seat one down from the end of the row. “Have you…?”

“God, Ma. No, not yet. And I won’t be today either, its Tony’s wedding…”

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, most likely to pressure Steve to hurry up again but she was cut off by a voice from behind them.

“I believe my seat is just there…”

Steve frowned, he recognised that voice. He turned to see none other than Stan Lee smiling at him.

“Mr Lee?” he asked as the elderly man beamed at him “I didn’t know you were invited.” He extended his hand to shake Stan’s. “Good to see you again.”

“You too Captain. May I?”

Steve gave a nod and moved so Stan could drop into the seat on the end of the row, next to his mom.

“Good afternoon Ma’am, looks like I’m on the young’uns row.” Stan beamed at Sarah who burst out laughing. Steve shook his head with a snort and left them to it, making his way back out of the room to find the rest of his team had now arrived, Thor currently giving Katie a huge hug. He greeted Natasha who touched his arm gently before making a bee line for Bruce. He watched her go, smirking to himself, before he turned and raised an eyebrow at Clint. Clint merely shrugged and then introduced the Captain to his girlfriend, Laura. Thor then turned to him, shaking hands with Steve and moved slightly to reveal Gina was stood now talking to Katie.

“Greetings Captain, I bought a date.” Thor grinned.

“I see.” Steve said, raising his eyebrows, not bothering to correct Thor on what he had just said making it sound like he’d purchased Gina in some way...

“Yeah…” Gina turned to Steve. “The way he says it he sounds like he’s bought a bottle of wine.”

Thor shook his head “No, I don’t drink wine.”

At that Katie burst out laughing and turned away, shaking her head slightly.

“It’s a good thing he’s dreamy” Gina said, jerking her thumb at Thor.

Steve’s attention then was then distracted by a loud voice “Miss Stark, you look stunning…” He turned to see flash fucking fire dude, Johnny Storm approaching her and he gave a little groan, rolling his eyes.

“Captain…” Thor asked and Steve turned back to him “Where do we err sit?” Steve floundered for a moment, he really didn’t want to leave the fire bastard alone with his girl so he turned to Bucky who was watching him, a huge grin on his face.

“Buck can you…”

Bucky raised both palms, shaking his head, smirking smugly “Hey, I’m not part of the groomsman party…”

“Fuck you jerk.” Steve shot back and Bucky raised his eyebrows.

“Ok, first off, watch your language. This is a chapel, a place of worship and two…” at this point he dropped his voice and gave Steve a stern look. “Stop with the jealousy, she’s with you. No competition.”

“What is he even doing here?” Steve frowned, completely ignoring what Bucky had said, and the sergeant took a deep sigh. He was just about to inform Steve that he had no idea when a voice sounded from behind them.

“Johnny, there you are!”

Bucky and Steve turned to see a tall, dark haired man and a blonde woman approaching them. The blonde rolled her eyes “Of course he would be here, Hi Katie.”

Katie smiled “Hi Susan.”

“Well this is cute and all but…” Gina spoke again, “like seriously, Captain. Where do we sit?”

Steve groaned and took another glance at Johnny who was bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning as Katie chatted to the 3 people in front of her. Knowing he couldn’t not show the team to their seats, he rolled his eyes and moved gently to loop his arm round Katie’s waist, dropping a kiss to her cheek. A flicker of a smile crossed her pretty face and she turned to look at him, leaving him with absolutely no question she knew he was ‘marking his territory’ so to speak, before he grudgingly turned away to show the team to their seats.

“Smooth.” Bucky observed.

“Shut up.” Steve snapped back as he led his team down to a row half way down the room. This time, when he once more emerged from the room he was greeted by a whirl of gold and blue and he let out a low groan. Grandmaster.

Tony’s eccentric wedding planner started to clap his hands at Steve “The bride is here…get everyone seated, we’re behind schedule…”

Tony, who had been stood talking to someone grumbled to Steve “I wish he was behind schedule, preferably by a week so he wasn’t here.”

Steve gave a snort as Grandmaster turned to Katie and Pepper’s sister “Miss Stark, Miss Potts, the Bride may need your help…” At that he then looked at Steve, didn’t I tell you she looked stunning?” “You said gorgeous.” Bucky replied lazily.

“No.” Grandmaster frowned “Why would I use that word?”

Before Bucky could reply to the very strangely dressed man in front of him, Rhodey then appeared, smiling. “All set.” He smiled, clapping Tony on the shoulder “You ready?” Tony shook his head “Nope.”

Katie smiled, “You’ll be fine.” Steve watched as she stepped forward to give her brother a hug before she pulled back, her hands on his arms. “Mom and Dad would be so proud.”

Tony swallowed before he nodded “Ok, kiddo…don’t make me cry. Go help Pepper, tell her she’s already late.”

Katie rolled her eyes as Tony and Rhodey headed into the room, being ushered along by Grandmaster. She glanced at Steve and smiled. “See you in a minute.”

Steve smiled back, reaching out to pull her to him, dropping a kiss to her lips. “Don’t make it too long Doll.” She grinned and turned, giving him a full on view of the back of her dress, leaving his mouth a little dry and he made his way to his place on the front row, slightly down from where Tony and Rhodey were stood at the front of the aisle. On the way he shot his mom a smile as she beamed proudly at him, Bucky nodding as he sat next to her on the opposite side to Stan Lee. For some reason Steve was nervous. Why, he had no idea. He’d already seen his girl and she’d taken his breath away once already, but here he was, a ball of tense energy. He could hear Tony and Rhodey talking, but he wasn’t focussing, that was until Tony’s voice grew loud and indignant

“That man is playing Galaga” Tony pointed to a man on the second row who was engrossed in his phone. “He thought I wouldn’t notice, but I did.”

“Man, shut up and relax…” Rhodey soothed him.

“I need a drink, something strong…is it bad I can’t feel my left arm.” Tony looked at Rhodey who was about to respond when the music started and everyone stood up. Steve turned his attention to the door which opened inwards and Katie and Pepper’s sister stepped into the room, walking down the aisle.

Bucky watched Steve as he took a deep breath, his eyes on his girl as she glided towards them, a stupid, dopey, gooey-eyed smile crossing the Captains face. “Gross” he mumbled, giving a soft yelp as Sarah slapped him round the back of the head. Fury, who was on the seat to Bucky’s left gave a little snigger. Bucky looked at him and frowned. “What are you doing here? That’s not even your seat, I’ve seen the seating plan.”

“I’m sure you have Barnes.” Fury replied lazily “But given that it’s a stupid ass plan designed by an even more stupid ass planner I’ve elected to ignore it.”

As Katie reached the front row, Bucky saw her shoot Steve a huge smile, which his punk best friend returned, and then there were gasps in the room. Bucky turned and saw Pepper in a gorgeous, yet so simple silk, straight A-line dress, which was embellished round the waist in red and gold embroidery. He glanced at Tony, and was amused to see that the normally composed scientist was literally floundering for air. Bucky then caught Sam’s eye who flashed him a wink which he returned, and Sarah nudged him.

“See, that’s what being in love does to you James.”

Bucky smiled at her as she squeezed his hand gently. Throughout the Ceremony Bucky saw Steve kept on looking at Katie who was on the same row but the opposite side of the aisle. She was watching Tony, her eyes glassy. At one point, Pepper’s sister took her hand and she turned to her, giving her a smile, before they both looked back, Katie turning to Steve. She shot him a huge grin which he returned, and Bucky smiled to himself. It might be gross, but it was cute. He liked seeing Steve happy.

When the ceremony was over, Tony was told he could kiss his bride.

“Well, I’m not one to back down from an honest challenge…” he muttered, stepping forward and sweeping her up in a huge kiss to loud cheers in the room. As music began to play again, the new Mr and Mrs Stark swept down the aisle followed by Rhodey and Pepper’s sister. Steve walked on behind smiling as he reached the end of his row.

“May I Miss Stark?” he offered Katie his arm and she grinned, linking hers into the crook of his elbow and he lay his hand over hers. As they walked towards the doors, he caught his mom’s eye as she dabbed her tears away with a tissue. She beamed at him, and he smiled back, before he turned to look at Katie, dropping a soft kiss to her temple.

**** The meals were eaten, the toasts were done, and tears were shed through the afternoon. But once the reception was done, the drinks kept on flowing right through to the evening party. Steve was relaxed, feeling the buzz from a fair amount of wine, beer and shorts which had been consumed through the day. There was a loud tapping noise on the speakers and Steve glanced up from where he was sat at a table near the dance floor, Katie perched on his lap, as Tony and Pepper were welcomed to the floor for their first dance. The opening bars to Etta James ‘At Last’ last rang out around the room and Katie gave a snort.

“You can say that again.” She chuckled and Steve grinned, his arm curling round her as she watched her brother, her eyes glassy with tears. “You know…” she leaned down to Steve, this should really be our song.”

“Doll, just don’t…”

She shrugged and he gave a little huff of a laugh as she turned back to watch Tony slowly revolving Pepper around the floor, the camera flashing from the photographer. After the first verse the MC invited people to join them, as tradition and Katie looked at Steve. He nodded and she stood up, taking his hand and leading him to the dance floor.

Bucky watched them go, picking up his drink, smiling.

“Look, now there are two Stark ladies!” Thor grinned as the team watched Steve take Katie in a close hold, gracefully revolving them on the spot, the pair of them sharing a laugh at something.

“Not for much longer.” Bucky grinned.

“What do you mean?” Thor frowned,

Besides Bucky Clint gave a snort as the sergeant looked at Thor blinking “You know, I don’t get it. Like, you’re super clever sometimes and others…”

Thor shrugged and then Bucky turned his attention over the table to see Scott Lang, their assistant looking at Natasha.

“Are you gonna eat that peanut butter macaroon or…” Scott began, but Natasha wasn’t listening, she was too busy caressing Bruce’s palm as it lay on the table in front of her so Scott reached out and grabbed it, shoving it in his mouth. On the dancefloor, Steve effortlessly moved Katie around the floor to the song as it played. She tucked her head under his chin and he breathed her in, his hand splaying on her bare back, simply relishing the fact she was so close. He didn’t speak a word, simply allowed the music and being with her to sweep him away, and he was rather unceremoniously jolted back to reality when loud applause sounded as the song finished. The MC congratulated Tony and Pepper once more, Katie turned to give her brother a huge hug, before the man on the mic wished everyone a Merry Christmas and the sounds of Wham, ‘Last Christmas’ rang out, cheers hitting Steve’s ears as suddenly the dance floor filled up.

Almost immediately, Bucky was in front of him, throwing what looked like torn up place cards into the air, holding his arms out “Merry Christmas and Happy 2021!”

Sam, who was besides Bucky looked at him “Its 2020 next year, idiot.”

Steve dusted the paper off his shoulders, picking pieces out of Katie’s hair as she looked at Bucky, frowning. Bucky turned to Sam and shrugged “Yeah I know but I don’t like 2020. Sounds like a shit year to me…although…” he spun to Steve grinning and Steve took a deep breath and shot him a glare, which he totally ignored “It could be a good one eh Stevie?”

“What is he talking about?” Katie looked at Steve.

“God knows, he’s drunk.” Steve shrugged as Bucky made a clicking noise as he winked, pointing at both of them. Thankfully, Sam dragged him away, Katie and Steve both watched them go before Katie turned back around. Smiling, Steve took her back in a hold that was a little lighter this time as the music was more upbeat and they began to dance together once more.

“Hmmm. Last Christmas…” Katie pondered and Steve let out a groan.

“Can we…” he took a deep breath, dropping his head “Can we just not? Please Doll. I’m not very proud of myself when I think about it.” Katie chuckled and her hands came to rest on his shoulders as he moved them in a little livelier dance. “Ok, sorry. But, it worked out in the end.”

“It did. But I caused you a lot of pain along the way.” He sighed, “Too much.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t hang around and give you chance to explain or try and work it out.” Katie looked up at him. “I just ran away.

“I didn’t exactly try and stop you did I?” Steve looked at her.

“No, you didn’t Captain Righteous.” Katie conceded and Steve chuckled as she shook her head “God I was so mad at you.”

“I was mad at myself Sweetheart.” “But if I’m honest, I was more upset that we’d blown our chance.” Steve took a deep breath. “I really thought we had. Well, that I had…”

“Stevie?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you ever leave me again, please.” She said, almost whispered. Steve frowned and looked at her, her face was loaded with emotion and beneath those sparkling green emerald eyes he could see a flicker of fear.

“Hey…” he reached for her hand and raised it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her wrist “Where’s this coming from baby girl?”

Katie sniffed, “Honestly? I don’t know. It’s just, everything is so perfect. It sometimes feels a little too good to be true. And I’m scared that one day I’m gonna wake up and I’ll still be in DC…or that you might have another car crash…or a case getting nasty and you…”

She was losing herself in her head again, something he’d seen her do countless times so he quickly cut her off. “Look at me.” He cupped her face in both his hands “I’m not going anywhere Doll.”

“Promise?”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but he knew full well that words wouldn’t do this moment justice. Instead he dipped his face to hers, catching her mouth in a deep kiss, not caring who the fuck was watching. He poured every single piece of emotion he was feeling into that kiss, desperate for her to understand that he had no intention of leaving her ever again and she must have gotten the message as he felt her relax into his hold, kissing him back, her hands softly gripping at the material of his jacket.

“Erm, stop eating his face Kiddo, this is my wedding.” Tony interrupted “It’s supposed to be about me….and Pepper” he added.

Steve could feel his cheeks growing warm as Katie pulled away from him with a groan and a roll of her eyes as she turned to face Tony.

“How about you go eat your wife’s face and leave us the fuck alone Tones?”

“Rude much?” He snorted “I raised you better than that.”

“You didn’t raise me at all, Tony!” Katie scoffed.

“Ok, it was a figure of…” he trailed off, frowning at something over her shoulder. “What the hell is Thor doing?”

Steve and Katie turned to see Thor was stood his nose almost touching one of the branches of the lit up Christmas Trees round the edge of the room.

“Oh, he was rambling on over dinner about Norwegian Spruce trees.” Katie shrugged, “Maybe he’s trying to figure out if that is one or not.”

“He was rambling about what?” Tony looked at her.

“It’s a type of tree which…” Steve began but Tony cut him off.

“You know what, on second thoughts I’m not really interested.” Steve sighed and looked at Katie who rolled her eyes as Tony continued “By the way, how do you like the décor?”

Steve watched Katie look around and knew what she’s was going to say, because she loved this time of year, turning into one huge, great child over the entire period of December. And true to form, when she opened her mouth to reply, she was grinning ear to ear.

“I gotta say, he might be a pain in the ass but Grandmaster got this right. I love it.” She smiled.

“Yeah, me too.” Tony agreed. “It’s like Christmas but with more me.” Steve let out a snort and Tony clapped his shoulder “Remind me to give you his card.” And with that he left, Steve shooting daggers at him. Thankfully, Katie was too engrossed in what Thor was doing to hear Tony offering Steve the services of a wedding planner. He saw her frown and his attention then flicked to the tall blonde, frowning.

“What is he offering my Ma?”

“Condoms.” A voice shot back, and Steve wheeled round to glare at Bucky who had appeared out of nowhere.

“For fucks sake Buck!” he growled as Katie spluttered out a laugh.

“Just kidding.” Bucky grinned, “They’re sweets. He handed them out before, you two were too busy dancing.”

“Sweets?” Katie arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he said he got em off a suspect…no, not a suspect, a suspects brief, yeah…”

“Bucky, are you ok?” Katie asked him and Steve looked at her, then to Bucky who did look a little, what was the word, spaced?

“Yeah, I feel…great!” He replied with a giggle.

Katie looked at him again before she let out a small “oh.” And groaned a little “Oh God.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, but she ignored him and continued talking to Bucky.

“How many of those sweets Thor has did you eat?”

“3 maybe 4…I dunno…” Bucky giggled, “I want more though.”

At that point, the man in questioned arrived. “Greetings!” Thor beamed at Katie and Steve, holding out a little foil packet “Sweet?”

“Thor, the guy who gave you those, was he wearing suspenders?” Katie asked and Steve frowned.

“Yes, I believe he was, along with a very bright lime green shirt. Nice chap.” Thor mused “He used many Post Its”

At that Steve looked at Katie, giving a little groan as he suddenly understood “Weiss?”

Katie nodded “They were a favourite little party treat of his.”

Steve snatched the bag from Thor and sniffed inside, pulling back immediately, the smell of cannabis sticking in his nostrils. “Jesus how can you not smell that?”

“Wait…” Bucky said, taking a sniff and looking at Steve “These have weed in them? The things I ate?”

Katie took a sniff and wrinkled her nose “Yup, and they’re stronger than I remember.”

“Than you remember? You used to do this?” Steve looked at her and she shrugged.

“Hey, I was younger and dumber…”

“Wait, so I’m high right now?” Bucky pressed and Katie grinned.

“Yep, they’ll wear off in a while. For the time being you’ll just feel very drunk and kinda floppy.”

“Floppy?” Steve frowned and Katie nodded.

“Yeah, like nothing matters, everything is cool. They used to make me a little frisky actually, we once took them before we…” she paled and Steve looked at her, swallowing before he turned to Thor.

“Thor, you didn’t give one of these to my ma did you?” Steve asked.

“Of course, not, no.” Thor shook his head.

“Oh thank fuck” Steve breathed out.

“I gave her two.” Thor concluded. At that Bucky’s giggles suddenly turned into loud laughter as he bent over, clutching at Thor’s arm.

“For fucks sake Thor, you drugged my mom!” Steve exploded as Bucky’s laughter grew louder.

“Sarah’s gonna be hiiiiigh.”

“Where is she?” Steve demanded, ignoring Bucky.

They scanned the room, searching for her only to see her at the other side of the dancefloor with flash fire dude, who was twirling her round to the music.

“Flame on!” She whooped, her hands up in the air as Johnny grinned.

“It’s catchy right?”

With a groan Steve strode over towards them. “Ma? What are you doing? You Ok?”

Sarah grinned at him, her eyes slightly glazed “Hey Son I’m good…just dancing with this young man.” She said, looking at Johnny then back to Steve “He says he’s called the human torch but us girls can call him torch”

Steve glared at Storm as Katie reached his side “The human torch?” he deadpanned “Seriously?”

“Hey,I didn’t coin it, it was the press that did that when we put out that warehouse fire. So called because my uniform caught fire on the way out…thanks to my sister though, I escaped with nothing more than a slight smoulder.” Steve felt Katie shaking besides him and could tell she was holding back laughter. Storm flashed her a wink and Steve grit his teeth before he felt his mom slap his shoulder.

“Don’t you be giving him that look Steven Grant! This brave man is a firefighter…” at that she turned back to Johnny, sniggering. “Now, where is your hose young man?”

“Jesus Christ…” Steve groaned, looking away in disgust.

Johnny opened his mouth to speak but Katie cut him off “Err no. Don’t.”

He shrugged and then looked at Sarah who was laughing so hard she was almost bent double.

“Ok, that’s enough Ma.” Steve decided to do what he did best, take control of the situation. “ I think you need to sit down.”

“Awww, don’t be such a buzz kill Steven.”

“It ain’t the buzz I want to kill…” Steve said, his eyes locking onto Johnny’s as he gave him another filthy glare.

After a little more cajoling they manage to get Sarah to agree to sit down. Steve helped her to her seat whilst she was rambling on about not wanting to be sat with Mr Lee again because he spent all dinner complaining about the booze not being strong enough. As they reached her table Sarah suddenly stopped.

“Actually…I think I need…yeah I need to go to my room.” She looked at Steve and Katie gave a snort.

“Hey, Steve, your ma’s crashing.”

Steve shot her a look. “This is not funny.”

Before she could respond Sam appeared and looked between the two of them, then to Sarah as he raised an eyebrow, an amused smile playing on his handsome face.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

“Yeah, she had one of Thor’s magic sweets.” Katie grinned “You wanna watch Buck, he’s had 4.”

Sam snorted, “Yeah I noticed.”

“I’m hungry.” Sarah suddenly said and Steve let out a sigh.

“Sam, can you help me get her to her room. Doll, you keep an eye on Bucky.” “I want a cheeseburger.” Sarah pointed at Steve and he looked at her.

“Ma, you’ve never eaten a cheeseburger in your life.”

“Shows much you know. A McDonalds on a Friday is my secret treat…although now I told you it’s not a secret.” She raised her finger to her lips “Sshhhh you can’t tell anyone.”

Steve rolled his eyes and started leading his ma to the door, Sam following.

“Bye Sarah!” Johnny called. “Pleasure meeting you!”

“Bye hottie!” she giggled, waving her hand at him as Sam laughed. She turned to Steve, spluttering out a laugh. ”Ha, hottie, see what I did there?”

“Yes.” Steve shook his head as he led her from the room. “Very good, Ma.”

Between Steve and Sam it was fairly easy to get Sarah to her room. Once he’d made sure she was ok and had some water he closed the door and they made their way back to the main room, Steve throwing the sweets in the trash as they passed a can on the way.

“Fucking Weiss.” He grumbled to himself as Sam gave a little chuckle.

When they arrived back in the room, it was clear a fair few of his team had managed to have one of those damned sweets before he’d confiscated them. Gina, Nat and Clint were dancing, all 3 of them with odd looks and dopey grins on their faces. Katie was on the floor with Pepper and Bucky, Bucky swaying on the spot. As Steve watched Sam headed over and winked at Katie, steering Bucky away. Steve felt someone besides him and he turned to see Bruce.

“How’s the team look to you Bruce?” he asked, a smile on his face as Bruce snorted.

“Right now we’re not a team, we’re a time bomb.”

Steve had to concede he was right, as at that moment Clint started miming as if he was shooting a bow, whereas Nat looked like she was throwing knives. Gina on the other hand was stood doing the robot.

“I need a drink.” Steve concluded.

“Good idea.” Bruce agreed.

They head to the bar where Tony was leaning against it, his tie long discarded, lecturing Peter Parker. Steve, taking lead from Tony, loosened his tie and popped the top button on his shirt before he ordered himself and Bruce a bourbon each, offering one to Tony who nodded, and then Peter who asked politely for a beer instead. The 4 men engaged in conversation, and a fair few drinks as Steve was happy to remain where he was, out of the way, every so often glancing around. It was about an hour later when he saw Clint and Natasha slowly walking towards a table, dropping down into a seat, Gina following. Bucky walked over to the bar with Sam shaking his head.

“Feeling ok Pal?” Steve grinned and Bucky blinked, rubbing his eyes.

“What the fuck just happened? It was like someone took over my brain…” he looked at them.

“I think the magic wore off.” Bruce mumbled as Steve gave a snort. “

“God, I really need food.” Buck looked around.

Steve laughed and clapped Bucky on the shoulder, ordering another round of drinks.

CONTINUED IN PART 2....

#csi rogers and barnes #steve rogers #csi au #steve rogers x original female character #katie stark #bucky barnes

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somekindoftuber · 5 years

Text

vld youtuber AU (klance, part 5)

(I apologize if the tense changes all over the place, I’m writing this as a sort of stream-of-consciousness thing because I care more about getting the idea out than writing something that’s grammatically perfect. I’ll probably clean this up and make it an actual fic once it’s all done. Thanks for reading!! :D)

part one | part two | part three | part four

There is a definite shift in Keith’s demeanor after Lance’s last visit.

They play Overwatch a few times a week, and while Keith goes into stern-leader-battle-mode when the game is going, between matches he’s loose, candid. He laughs at Lance’s jokes and makes casual conversation about his job, the garage, tells funny stories about Kosmo. Lance tells Keith stories about the customers he has at the cafe. It’s nice to hear a softness in Keith’s voice that Lance hadn’t heard before.

Keith shows up in nearly all of Lance’s Overwatch videos, even if his mic isn’t recorded. They sort of fall into a rhythm, meeting online every Tuesday and Thursday night to search for servers.

“Y’know,” Keith says one night while they’re in queue. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a sniper type.”

“Eh?” Lance is in his Widowmaker menu at that moment, flipping between two skins to see which one he likes more. “What d’you mean?”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Keith clarifies, and it sounds like he’s smiling. “You just seem like more of a Mercy or a support or something. You’re really…” he pauses. “Generous. Always helping people. Then you get in here and you turn into a cold blooded assassin.”

Lance laughs. “I’ve always played a sniper, though. Gotta have balance somewhere, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They text a lot. It’s all small stuff, like pet photos or memes (which Keith doesn’t understand 90% of the time and Lance finds that kind of adorable). But it’s nice. Occasionally they’ll both have an early shift, and Lance will text Keith photos of the ancient espresso grinder, captioned “this thing wants me dead” surrounded with skull emojis. Keith’s sense of humor, Lance learns, is dry as cracker juice. He gets a photo of a broken rubber floor mat with the question, “what sound does a floor mat make when it splits right before a fitness class?” Before Lance can answer, he gets another photo of the same mat, this time with Keith’s middle finger pointing soundly at it. “That sound,” says the caption. Lance laughs so hard that his boss yells at him for being on his phone during a shift.

August comes to an end, and Pidge prepares for her final term. Lance helps by assisting in an apartment clean out, getting rid of literal clutter to ease Pidge’s impending mental clutter. Lance tries not to think about how this might be their last few months in this apartment together. He’s really enjoyed living with Pidge - he wasn’t exaggerating when he said she was like a sister. Pidge is an extension of his family, ever since they met at space camp all those years ago. She’d been a tiny, fluffy, indomitable ball of pure snark and Lance loved her immediately. Since then, they’d stuck together, seeing each other through some of the hardest times. Lance had cheered his lungs out when Pidge was handed her high school diploma, and in a few months, he’d see her walk across another stage in a cap and gown to receive her bachelor’s degree in Robotic Engineering.

It made him a little misty-eyed to think about it.

Pidge is playing Stardew Valley one afternoon (how the hell did she manage to make such an insanely profitable farm before the end of year one?) when she casually brings up one of Lance’s favorite fall events.

“You gonna go to the Founder’s Fair this year?”

Lance doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Uh, is the Pope catholic?”

“Good.” On the screen, Pidge’s character gives a bouquet to Penny. Dating everyone but marrying no one: the Pidge method. “Hunk is coming in for it.”

“Sweet.”

The Harborville Founder’s Fair was the highlight of every autumn. Right as the summer was fading away and the air was showing a hint of a chill, Oceanside Park would explode into three days of carnival rides, food trucks, fireworks, and everything in between. It was also the best time of year to surf - they didn’t get much in the way of waves here, but there would always be just enough in late September to rent a board. Lance had put in his time off request a month ago, buttering up his boss with the ‘this might be my last September in Harborville’ sob story. Which was sort of true, even if he wasn’t quite ready to face that reality yet.

Lance felt like he was getting closer to Keith. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was the case, but if nothing else, Keith seemed to finally be relaxing around him. There were one or two times when Lance could almost swear Keith was flirting, but he quickly shoved the thought aside. Nope, don’t go there. That’s assuming things. Assuming is dangerous.

The fair is in a week and to make up for missing work on what will be one of the busiest weekends of the year, Lance is working at the cafe nearly every day. He has more steam burns on his hands and wrists from making lattes than ever, and he thinks if he hears the word “pumpkin spice” one more time he might lose it. He hasn’t played Overwatch all week, too tired from extra shifts to do anything other than zone out to Netflix when he gets home.

He’s got two hours left in his Thursday morning shift, then he’s free for the whole weekend. He can practically taste the funnel cakes now - and the Rancho Alegre food truck, the only decent source of Cuban food in the entire state, will be there. God, he’s going to eat until he can’t move.

The morning rush has come and gone and the afternoon crowd isn’t here yet, so Lance is cleaning up the mess of coffee grounds and cinnamon around his work station when the bell on the cafe door sounds. He doesn’t look up as his coworker/supervisor Romelle greets whoever walks through, too preoccupied with wondering how the hell almond milk ended up underneath the grinder.

“Hello,” says the customer and Lance totally knows that voice. He stops wiping sour milk and looks up.

It’s Shiro. And right behind him is Allura and - oh shit. It’s Keith. He’s here, he’s here in the cafe and Lance had no idea he was coming and he probably looks like shit, overworked with bags under his eyes and his face breaking out from stress and he didn’t even shampoo his hair this morning because he was running late --

But then Keith smiles at him and wow. His hair is down and he’s wearing this black and red leather jacket and it should be illegal to look that good. Especially when Lance is such a mess.

“Hi,” Lance says, hating how his voice cracks. “What are you guys doing in town?”

Shiro is pulling out his wallet with his left hand. “We came for the fair. It was always one of my favorite things about going to school here.”

“Oh,” Lance squeaks.

They’re here for the fair. Lance might get to spend time at the fair with Keith. He forces himself to focus on the present before a dozen fantasies of ferris wheel rides and sharing cotton candy can take over his brain.

They all order drinks and Lance claims them before Romelle can even finish ringing them up. Shiro gets a hazelnut americano, Allura orders a tuxedo mocha, and Keith shyly asks for a latte. Lance can tell he doesn’t go to coffee shops often and makes the drinks carefully. He can’t embellish Shiro’s americano, but he uses chocolate sauce and extra foam to draw a bow tie in Allura’s mug. For Keith’s latte, he sends a prayer to the coffee gods to grant him latte art prowess. It works, and Lance is rounding out rings of coffee and foam, pulling through to form a perfect heart.

He slides the mug across the counter to Keith, who’s eyebrow shoot into his hair. He breaths a little “wow” and blushes, taking the mug and smiling. He’s wearing fingerless leather gloves. Lance’s heart flip-flops in his chest.

The three of them find a table near the window and sit, chatting and drinking their coffee. They’re too far away for Lance to hear what they’re saying, and even if he could, he’s on the clock, and the lunchtime regulars are starting to trickle in.

Would it be gauche to text his evening shift coworker and bribe him to come in early so Lance can leave?

Lance thinks Romelle can tell he’s pouting by the way she sides up to him.

“Hey,” she whispers. “Is that the guy?”

He follows her gaze and sees that it lands firmly on the table where Keith is sitting with Shiro and Allura. Keith looks up at Lance, and smiles a little before turning back to his brother.

“Yeah,” Lance whispers back, feeling his face heat up. “The one with the long hair.”

Romelle lets out a low whistle. “Quite the catch,” she says, waggling her eyebrows. “What about the girl they’re with?”

“Allura?” Lance thinks. “I don’t know her very well, but she’s nice.”

“She single?”

Lance rolls his eyes and starts on the next drink. “No idea, you should ask her.”

It’s slower today and Lance is thankful for it. With Keith in the room, he can’t focus on anything - it’s a miracle he doesn’t catastrophically screw up the drinks he’s making. There’s a break in customers and Romelle comes over to Lance where he loading a portafilter with espresso and waves her phone.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she says, and he does not like that voice. That’s her Supervisor Voice. “I’ll call Ryan in an hour early if you get me Cute Girl’s number.”

Lance puts the tamp down. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He looks over at the table where Keith is sitting. They’ve all finished their drinks and will probably be leaving soon.

“Romelle,” Lance states. “You are an evil super villain and I love you. Consider that number yours.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ryan Kinkade is walking in and he doesn’t look particularly thrilled about it. Lance takes off his apron and motions at the jar of cash by the register.

“Ryan, you’re a lifesaver and my tips are yours. Thank you!” Lance clocks out before anyone can argue and walks over to where Keith and Co are sitting. He’s very much aware of how he probably reeks of coffee and looks like garbage but does his best to smile anyway.

“My shift is over, did you guys have any plans?”

Shiro smiles and stands. “I think we were going to head to our Air B&B and check in, actually. We could use a breather after that drive. We can meet up for dinner later, if you want.”

Inwardly, Lance lets out a sigh of relief because this means he’ll have time to take a shower and make himself presentable. “That sounds good! Any place you want to go?”

Shiro shrugs. “Is Vinnie’s still open?”

Lance lights up. “Oh yeah, still as good as ever, too! Want to meet there at, uh - “ He checks his phone, it’s barely 3pm. “Around five? We should beat most of the dinner rush that way.”

They all nod and the plans are made. They walk outside together and Lance watches the three of them get into a very nice Chrysler sedan - maybe Allura’s, given how she goes for the driver’s seat. Once they’re gone, Lance heads for his car and books it home. He immediately washes and exfoliates his face, then applies an anti-inflammatory mask and works at cleaning up the apartment. It was already fairly clean since Hunk will be crashing on the pull-out sofa bed for the weekend, and he has no idea of Keith will ever even see this place, but Lance doesn’t want to take any risks.

He shoots Pidge a text to tell her about their plans in case she wants to join. Hunk isn’t due until tomorrow morning.

Apartment clean(er) and his face mask dry and itchy, Lance hops in the shower and scrubs himself sore. Keith is here and will be spending the weekend here and Lance is equal parts ecstatic and terrified. He meticulously goes through his whole grooming routine, moisturizes, swabs, trims his eyebrows, even files his nails. He checks his reflection once he’s done and thankfully his face is less red, the stress acne barely noticeable.

There’s still about 45 minutes until he needs to be at Vinnie’s so Lance takes his time picking out clothes. He settles for a low cut tank top that shows off his collarbones and a beige button down over it with the sleeves rolled up, finishing it off with a pendant necklace and grey skinny jeans. He examines himself in the mirror and frowns a little. Does it look too much like date clothes?

He doesn’t have time to change because then his phone pings and it’s Shiro, saying they’re heading to Vinnie’s a little early. Lance all but throws himself out the door.

Vinnie’s is starting to get crowded, Lance can already see the line forming when he parks. He spots Shiro and Allura easily, their white hair making them stand out. They’d managed to claim a patio table - no small feat - and were chatting happily.

Lance joins them and it’s amazing how welcome he feels in this group, the way Shiro half-pulls a chair out for Lance. Keith is sitting to his right, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, the black t-shirt he wore stretching nicely over his chest. And if he didn’t know any better, Lance could swear he saw Keith’s eyes sweep down his neck and linger.

They ate and laughed and ate more, drinking fancy gourmet sodas. They make loose plans for the weekend - beach tomorrow, then the fair on Saturday, and maybe brunch before they leave on Sunday. Lance educates Keith in the ways of the garlic knot, the most sacred food item on earth. And when Keith shrugs and says they’re “alright,” Lance feigns offense, gasping and clutching his chest.

Pidge joins them later, looking utterly spent from a long day of classes. Lance gives up his seat so she can collapse into it. He kneels beside the table instead, passing Pidge the last of their pizza and appetizers. Keith gives him a look, then scoots over to one side of his chair, patting the other with his hand.

Lance short circuits, looking from the empty side of the chair to Keith’s face several times.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Get up here. That,” he points to where Lance is kneeling, “Is super bad for your knees.”

“Oh?” Lance slides into place, and it’s sort of uncomfortable with half of his ass hanging off the chair, but he can feel heat pouring off Keith’s body with how close he is. “You care much about my knees?”

Keith goes super red. “I’m a physical trainer,” He said, suddenly very interested in his soda. “It’s my job to care. Doing stuff like that will ruin them.”

“Right.”

Lance glances over at Pidge, who had a garlic knot halfway to her mouth and giving Lance the most predatory grin. He glares at her to shut down whatever evil plans she might be formulating.

They finally finish the food and decide to stop taking up a table, bussing it themselves to save the staff some work. Instead of a bar, they decide to head over to Lance and Pidge’s apartment to chill - half because Pidge isn’t 21 yet and wouldn’t be able to join them at most of the bars in town, and half because Vinnie’s was so loud that they’re all craving some quiet.

Lance is so thankful that his past self had the sense to clean a little more. They all sprawl out over the living room, Lance going to pull a chair from the kitchen to sit on so the guests can have the nice couch and Pidge can curl up in the easy chair. Lance offers up the ice cream sandwiches from the freezer and everyone takes one; Allura seems to be examining hers with great interest, like she’s never had one before.

Shiro talks a lot, mostly about what Harborville was like when he and Matt were in college. About their first apartment that should probably have been condemned, the dogs he’d walk between classes for extra cash. Eventually Lance’s cats come out of hiding to investigate, and Keith goes starry-eyed at Batou’s big green eyes and plush grey coat.

Pidge falls asleep in her chair just after nine. Everyone takes a second to coo at how cute she is before Lance bends down to scoop her up.

“Lemme put sleeping beauty here to bed. If she stays there she’ll be sore and cranky when she wakes up.”

He takes Pidge to her room and sets her on her bed, then wrestles her sneakers off her feet, setting her glasses on the bedside table and draping a sheet over her. When he goes back into the living room and sits in the chair he’d removed Pidge from, Allura gives him a fond look.

“You’re very sweet to her.”

Lance shrugs. “She’s pretty much family. Also, I have to do that all the time. I’ve found her face down on her homework out here more times than I want to count.”

They talk for another two hours. Lance feels a little lonely with Keith sitting on the side of the couch furthest from him, but then again, if he was closer, Lance isn’t sure his brain would work. Allura yawns wide.

“I think it’s time we turned in,” she states. “I’d like to get some rest before the weekend starts.”

Shiro agrees. Lance ends up seeing them off in the parking lot, waving as they drive away.

Hunk arrives just after 10am the next morning, armed with bags of groceries to pack a picnic for the beach. He puts Lance and Pidge on an assembly line in the kitchen, making pork sandwiches, vegetable rolls, hummus wraps, crab and radish tartines, potato salad, and chocolate-dipped clementine slices. He’d picked up a package of Lance’s favorite lemon cream cookies and Lance could almost kiss him for it.

With their precious picnic food carefully packed in an ice chest along with plenty of drinks, Lance shot a group text to Keith, Shiro, and Allura to ask if they were ready for the beach. He got confirmation quickly, and they agreed to hit the north shore near the lighthouse, where the sand was rougher but the tourists tended to be a little thinner.

Parking is a bitch but they find a spot, then wait by the trunk for Keith and Co to arrive. About ten minutes later Lance sees Allura’s Chrysler pull in to a spot. They walk over to meet them and Lance is practically bouncing, because 1) he gets to go to the beach, 2) he gets to go surfing with Hunk, 3) he gets to spend time with new friends, and 4) Keith is here. Everyone is in shorts and light shirts, Allura has this big floppy sun hat that is absolutely precious on her, and Keith’s face is shiny with sunscreen. Lance bets that fair skin of his will still be red by the end of the day.

They find a spot that’s decently clear and set up. Hunk, Keith, and Lance tackle the portable canopy that will hopefully keep them all from becoming completely sunburned while Allura and Pidge set out the sand blanket and arrange their stuff to keep the wind from blowing it away. Once they’re settled, the ice chest is opened and sodas and juice are passed around. The wind is strong today but not enough to be a problem for their canopy, and the waves are large and plentiful. Lance eyes the surfboard rental shack a quarter mile down the beach.

Once they’ve had enough of snacking and chatting, Lance gives Hunk fingerguns and they almost take off down the beach together, making a beeline for the surfboards. Rolo is working it as usual and after some searching they find the perfect boards and duck into the changing tent to get into their springsuits. Lance has the white and blue suit up over his hips and was about to pull it the rest of the way on when he remembers that Keith is sitting out there. Ever since Lance learned he was a Crossfit trainer, he’d started running and working out again. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he was when he’d been swimming competitively, but thanks to months of regular exercise, he at least sort of looked the part again. And maybe he wanted to show off a little. So Lance left the top of his springsuit open and hanging from his hips as they went back to the group with their boards.

“Showoff,” Hunk accused while they were still out of earshot of everyone else.

Lance subtly flexed his chest. “So? I worked hard for this.”

When they got back to the canopy, Lance did his best to act nonchalant as he set his board aside and started pulling his springsuit up over his chest. Keith was definitely looking at him. Mission accomplished.

His flirty nature satisfied, it was time to surf. Lance missed this so much, the first step into the ocean water was like heaven. He and Hunk paddled out until the water was smooth, then sat on their boards and waited. They didn’t have to wait long, Hunk caught the first good wave that came their way, riding it out and away. Lance caught the next one, and it was a crazy high. It just felt so good, cutting through the water with his board, turning, riding through tunnels of blue-green. The waves tossed him, wrecked him, dragged his body against the sand below. But every time, Lance would surface, shake it off, and paddle out for another go.

His legs finally started to shake, so Lance hauled his board back to the shore. Hunk was already sitting under the canopy again, changed out of his springsuit and sipping on a juice box.

“I was gonna give you ten more minutes before I dragged you out of the water,” Hunk said.

Lance didn’t reply, chest heaving as he caught his breath. His board hits the sand and he all but collapses onto the sand sheet, his ears ringing.

A water bottle appeared in his periphery. Lance looked up enough to trace the hand that held it back to Keith, who was wearing this cute little smile. Lance smiled back and took the bottle, downing half of it in one gulp.

Pidge starts pulling out food and Lance blindly eats whatever is handed to him, too exhausted to care what it is. It’s all delicious but with how many calories he burned surfing, he could probably be eating stale saltines and they’d taste like a delicacy. He leans back on the sand sheet and basks in the post-surf euphoria.

Lance notices everyone starting to get up. Allura is holding several frisbees with a gleam in her eye, and most of the group is rising to join her. Keith stands and, after fiddling with the collar of his shirt for a second, reaches back and pulls it over his head, letting it drop to the ground.

Lance is instantly awake because holy shit. Keith is ripped. He’s all tight skin and perfect muscles and - oh.

He’d been wrong when he’d assumed Keith’s tattoo was a wolf. It’s actually a lion, roaring fiercely, emblazoned in dark red ink over his left hip.

Keith takes a hair tie off his wrist and uses it to pull his hair up high on the back of his head. He shoots Lance a loaded glance before walking out into the sun to join everyone else for a game of frisbee tag. Lance memorizes the muscles of his back as he goes.

“Good god, you’re so loud.”

Lance sits up and turns to see Pidge, sitting in the center of the sand sheet in her shorts and green rash guard, with her phone in one hand and a cookie in the other.

“I didn’t say anything!” Lance protests. Pidge just cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Not with words, anyway.”

Lance frowns, then dares to look back out at his friends, finding Keith and tracking his movements across the beach.

They empty the ice chest of food and drink and, after several more hours of beach fun, they decide to pack it in and head out. Lance is going to remember this day for the rest of his life - the image of Keith glistening wet as he walked out of the ocean had finally taught Lance the meaning of the phrase “looks good enough to eat.”

Lance is so, so tired. Surfing wore him out but he still played a round of beach volleyball after that, and then swam some more. He’s going to be so sore tomorrow. He drives himself, Hunk, and Pidge back to their apartments to shower and change before they head over to the Air B&B where Shiro, Keith, and Allura are staying. Lance decides on a regular shirt and his favorite jeans, only bothering to put a single layer of moisturizer on his face.

The Air B&B turns out to be a whole house, with a yard and a little deck where they all gather around faded patio furniture as Shiro hands out beers. He gives Pidge a look as she takes one for herself.

“What?” She says as she twists off the top of the bottle. “I’m gonna be 21 in a few months, I’m in safe company, and I’m not driving.”

Shiro just sighs and sits down.

They talk and laugh for hours. Pidge only has one beer before switching to sweet tea, and Lance is a little relieved. He has no idea what drunk Pidge would be like and he’d rather not find out this weekend - he would be cash money that she’d be ornery as hell. Hunk orders some delivery from their favorite noodle place when Lance isn’t paying attention. Keith looks happy as a kid on Christmas with a giant bowl of pho in front of him, and Lance learns that Vietnamese food is his favorite.

They move inside once the sun goes down to keep from bothering the neighbors. Lance settles into a corner of the faded couch, and is too tired to panic when Keith sits next to him. Hunk launches into a story about his last term at school when he almost blew the breaker for the entire engineering building and Lance tries to pay attention, but he’s worn out and Keith is radiating heat like a furnace. Combine that with his full stomach and a couple of beers and he’s so, so sleepy.

Someone is calling his name and Lance inhales sharply, eyes fluttering open. It was Hunk, who’s smiling at him from across the coffee table. Lance is leaning on something warm and solid. He rubs his eyes and looks up.

He was leaning on Keith.

Lance’s eyes bug out but Keith just looks down at him with this tiny smile and a blush on his cheeks. Lance suddenly feels like the room is a million degrees as he carefully sits up.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pass out.”

Keith laughs softly. “It’s fine.”

They all start to wrap up their stories and conversations. Lance doesn’t know what time it is but it feels late, and since they want to hit the fair tomorrow, they should all get some sleep. Hunk offers to drive home and Lance hands him the keys as Keith, Shiro, and Allura wave goodbye from the front porch.

He almost falls asleep again in the ten minutes it takes Hunk to drive them back to their apartment. Lance helps set up the pull-out sofa, then goes to brush his teeth. He’s practically nodding off at the bathroom sink when Pidge comes up to him and pulls out her phone.

“Thought you should see this,” she says, holding it up.

On the screen is a photo of Keith, and, with his head resting on Keith’s shoulder dead asleep, Lance. Keith is looking down at him and definitely blushing.

The toothbrush stills in Lance’s mouth as he swipes the phone from Pidge’s hand, using his thumbs to pull and zoom. Keith was smiling.

“Please send this to me immediately,” Lance tells her, words muffled from the toothbrush still hanging from between his teeth.

He’s in bed setting his alarm when he gets the text from Pidge with the photo attached. And if Lance hugs a pillow and kicks his feet a little at the sight, who could blame him?

Continued in part 6!

#youtuber au #text #klance

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d00medships · 4 years

Text

i know in my bio it says i’ll never get around to writing fics, and yet here i am, posting a fic that i wrote.

here’s to me being a liar and a fraud (cross-posted on ao3).

33 year-old Keigo is pretty sure 23 year-old Keigo couldn’t have predicted this.

In fact, Keigo is almost positive his 23 year-old self would have imagined his life ended right then and there, with the brunt of Dabi’s metal boots pressed onto his head -- suffocating Keigo entirely as the heat of the villain’s quirk threatened to burn beyond bone from above the hero’s head.

Cornered and down for the count, it made sense why Keigo thought his destiny to die young was manifesting in that moment. With the world closing in on him and his mission seemingly complete, Keigo may not have been ready to go just yet, but he understood if it was his time.

Mission accomplished, at any cost.

Years later, Keigo now thinks his past self was a bit melodramatic.

“Why are your feet so damn big?!”

Touya turns his turquoise gaze away from the Doc Martens he had been eyeing, cool confusion written upon his face. If Keigo were a lesser man, he’d stop to admire how handsome his husband had become in recent years -- the skin grafts had taken well, and however disjointed and discolored they still may be, no one could deny Touya looked much better with healthy skin as opposed to...well, the opposite -- but alas, Keigo had already fallen for this man too many times since their first meeting. This time would not be one of them.

“Do you understand how hard it is to find shoes for you? You’re like, a fucking giant, I swear.”

Touya chuckles, a low sound that still somehow reverberates in Keigo’s heart everytime he hears it. Once it used to only elicit fear, something that could immediately put Keigo on the offensive, but nowadays --

“Well, you know what they say about big feet,” Touya offers, his attention now back on the prized pair of Doc Martens. He turns the shoe over and eyes the number on the sole, only to click his tongue in annoyance a second later. Keigo catches a glimpse of a size -- 30cm. Jesus Christ, this man was a fucking cryptid.

Setting the shoes back down, Touya scans the store for an attendant, but it seems like he and Keigo have the store to themselves. Despite the annoyed look on his face, Keigo knows that Touya isn’t exactly surprised. Even with his skin grafts and dye-free hair, his scars still remained. Anyone with a sharp eye could put together that Touya probably didn’t have the cleanest of slates. In fact, the only saving reason why his technical ‘witness protection’ still worked is the fact that Keigo was the one who actually took his father down (in court, mind you), and to the public, Dabi was dead and buried after coming out on the losing side from a fierce three-way battle between himself, Endeavor, and Hawks.

Dabi being dead also meant Todoroki Touya stayed dead, too. Though he originally was a bit annoyed at what the implications were for his reputation and his once-master plan (to this day, Touya swears he didn’t lose that fight -- he was just that good of an actor), even Touya had to concede that Takami Touya -- average citizen, aspiring children’s social worker, randomly close confidante of the Todoroki family, and husband to No. 219 hero Hawks -- sounded better anyways.

“I don’t even know why we bothered with the mall. You’re just gonna fixate on the same damn shoe you already have at home, then get mad when they don’t have a size that’ll fit your big-ass feet,” Keigo grumbled, “meaning that we’ll have to head back with nothing and order your boots online like everyone else does in the first place.”

“I...,” Touya pauses, as his bored gaze landing on another pair of near-identical Doc Martens, “don’t like your tone.”

Keigo smirked. Touya’s lack of rebuttal was the sign of a win in this battle.

With one last, fruitless glance at the cascading racks of black boots, Touya turns away from the sight with a huff and a roll of his eyes to level Keigo with a look. It’s not The Look™, which usually means Keigo is about to get his ass handed to him (which in a post-Touya-gets-anger-management era has either in a sexy or very much not-so-sexy context, like when Keigo blue-shelled Touya during Mario Kart), but instead one that spoke to Touya’s waning patience for this specific brand of BS.

“Well since this is pointless apparently,” Touya’s voice trails off before coming back at a ten-fold vengance, having noticed a wayward shop attendant behind Keigo who is clearly startled at having been caught hiding from the pair, “and nobody seems to be here to fucking help us,” -- Keigo groans as the shop attendant runs back into hiding; subtlety will never be this man’s strong suit -- “we should at least grab some crepes before heading out.”

“Oh, and you’re paying?”

Truth be told, Keigo actually doesn’t care if he has to pay or not. The sugar daddy aspect of their relationship never really bothered Keigo, nor did it bother Touya even after he managed to get a part-time job (in fact, Touya’s only response to the one-time Natsuo brought it up was, “eat the rich,” and BOY, if that wasn’t a double entendre). At that same dinner, Fuyumi said something about his love language being something like ‘gift giving’, which lead Rumi co-signing Fuyumi by unhelpfully offering up the fact that Keigo has his Venus in Taurus despite his seemingly cold-stone Capricorn heart (whatever that means, Keigo just had to take their word for it), but all he knows is that he likes/loves/needs Touya happy.

“Duh, birdie. What else am I going to spend this money on?” Touya asks. He holds out his hand -- still scarred, still callused, a weary yet strong reminder of what they’ve been through and how far they’ve come -- for Keigo to take.

And as always, Keigo takes Touya’s outstretched hand without hesitation. For them, this is the softest they’ll ever be in public, but it’s enough.

“Well in that case, I want two crepes...with extra fillings,” Keigo chirps, his brisk pace somehow equally matched to Touya’s lazy gait. Fastest hero living notwithstanding, Keigo still cursed his short legs.

“Oh, fuck you,” Touya laughs as he looks at Keigo fondly, and oh, isn’t his laugh a glorious thing. It’s lighter, and less rough around the edges. It’s happy, and at the end of the day, it makes Keigo feel like he’s doing something right.

Hand in hand, the two men walk out of the store and blend into the crowds of the mall. Now one with the masses, it’s hard to imagine either of them as anything more than ordinary, and certainly not once on the brink of tragedy on both sides.

33 year-old Keigo likes this new normal. Even if he could have never predicted it, he’s sure it’s a future that 23 year-old Keigo would have hoped for.

#a birthday present to me #dabihawks #toukei #hotwings #dabi and hawks doing mundane things in the future as a couple is my kink #dabihawks week 2020 #dabi #hawks #todoroki touya #bnha #takami keigo #also YES i have theories on each of their charts #let's just say dabi screams aries moon and venus in scorpio

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badass-women-league · 4 years

Text

[FANFICTION]

- Playing with fire -

[TIVA ALL THE WAY]

Everything is dark. Everything is painful. Everything is confused. Her eyes are still closed when she moves her hand to her forehead. Raising her arm feels like the most difficult thing in the world. Her body is shaking. She can feel the coldness of the floor tiles under her body but she knows that she’s not shaking because of it. Her body is still traumatized by the fierceness of the fight that just occurred. She touches her skin, right above her eyebrow and feels something sticky. She does not remember where she is or what happened. She’s breathing fast but yet she feels like she’s out of breath. Every breath is unbelievably painful. She knows that pain. She has experienced it way too many times. Broken ribs. She looks around her and she sees bodies and blood. She tries to lift herself from the floor. She places her hands on the floor and pushes. A terrible pain hit her and she collapses on the floor. Her left wrist and shoulder are probably broken. She passes out as soon as her head touches the floor. A few minutes later she hears a big crack coming from afar. She gathered all her last strength to focus on the sound. She is still incapable of opening her eyes and even if she could, the only thing she would see, would be blurred. She hears and feels footsteps on the wooden floor. They are coming in her direction. She can’t fight, she’s too weak and wounded. The door opens and the last thing she hears is her name shouted by a familiar voice: “I’VE FOUND HER ! ZIVA !”⠀ And then nothing. Everything is dark again.

A few months earlier. Inside the bullpen.

-“come on ! It’s gonna be fun ! First rounds on me. You’re in McGee ?”

-“no I told you Tony I can’t tonight”

-“raah! come on ! McGeek, you’ll have plenty of time to play your online games another day. We are talking about real party here, with real people and real alcohol”

McGee grabbed his bag and left the room. Tony turned to Ziva:

-“what about you David ? You’re in?”

Ziva was packing her bag. Her mind was elsewhere. She raised her head and said:

-“Sorry. Another day maybe”

-“come on! Don’t tell me that you have an online contest to attend too”

Ziva chuckled:

-“you know I don’t… When I play… I play for real”

She walked past Tony’s desk in order to leave but Tony was not done with her. She has been very absent minded recently and she was not hanging out with him as much as she used to. He asked:

-“going on a date ?”

-“why do you want to know what I’m going to do tonight Tony ?”

-“Why don’t you wanna answer the question Zee-Vah ?”

He looked at her with his smartass look. Her eyes narrowed. She threw her bag over her shoulder and nonchalantly nodded to him:

-“goodnight Tony”

Tony shouted:

-”COME ON! IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT ! THIS IS VERY UN-AMERICAN ZIVA ! EVEN FOR YOU ”

And she walked out with a smile, knowing that Tony now had a thousand of questions in his mind.

She was right. He was now struggling with thousands of questions. Was she seeing someone ? Was it serious ? He could not stop thinking about it all night. She had been more secretive lately. She was receiving a lot more text messages than she used to. She was leaving work early and she was not getting to work as early as she used to. But something was reassuring. He had never seen her walking in the bullpen with the same clothes she was wearing the day before. He had to be sure. He grabbed his phone and dialled her number. After only 2 ringback tones his call was sent to voicemail. She was ghosting him. She had probably seen his name on the phone and she had intentionally rejected his call. She was never doing that. It was like a tacit agreement between them and she was breaking it. Tony suddenly had a furious need to jump in his car and go to her place. She would be mad, but he could pretend that he was worried because she was not answering his calls. He thought about it for several long minutes and then resigned himself that she was probably not at her place anyway.

Same time, on the other side of D.C.

Inside a crowded bar in downtown D.C. Ziva was leaning on a table when her phone rang. She looked at the name on the screen: ‘TONY D’. He was never gonna give up. A man walked to her and placed 2 beers on the table. Ziva quickly tapped on the “reject” button of her phone and put back on her smiling and cheering attitude.

-”Sorry it took me so long. I thought I was going to lose an arm out there”

Ziva chuckled. He grabbed his beer and raised it in front of his face. She did the same and asked:

-”what are we cheering to ?”

He took a moment to think:

-”To all the random things that helped us meet each other ?”

Ziva swallowed hard as she heard his last words. It wasn’t noticeable but it was there.

The next morning. Bullpen.

Tony grumbled when the door of the elevator dinged. He grumbled as he walked to his desk. He grumbled as he threw his bag to the floor and as he collapsed on his chair. Ziva raised her eyes from her computer screen and said:

-”Good morning Tony!”

Tony’s eyes narrowed:

-”There is no good morning here.. It’s monday.. Monday and good doesn’t fit in the same phrase !”

Ziva rolled her eyes and said:

-”looks like someone woke up on the wrong bed this morning”

-”I woke up in my own bed this morning Zee-vah but not on the right side. The real question is did you wake up in the right bed ?”

Ziva eyes narrowed. She knew what he was implying. McGee looked at his co-workers. He could feel the tension in the atmosphere. It was going to be a long day. Ziva was still staring at Tony. She was trying to decide if she wanted to deal with this peacefully or not. She asked:

-”In which bed I woke up this morning is none of your business Tony”

Tony was about to argue when Gibbs rushed in:

-”Our missing marine probably hadn’t the chance to wake up this morning. Grab your gear”

The three agents jumped from their chairs and grabbed their bags. In less than 10 seconds they were on their way to the elevator. As the door closed Tony was staring at Ziva from the back of the elevator. She was hiding something. She was usually pretty secretive about her personal life but this time she was not just protecting her private life, she was hiding something.

Crime scene - Fredericksburg, VA⠀

In the car the atmosphere was tensed. Nobody was talking. Usually Tony was always commenting and complaining on everything, especially on Monday. But today his mind was still focused on the events from last night. The NCIS car stopped in front of a beautiful farmhouse. In front of the house was a horse, with its saddle on. it was covered with blood. Not far from it, a woman was sobbing. The team stepped out of the car. Ziva looked at the horse and said:⠀

-”oh my god. What is that !”⠀

Tony put on his sunglasses and sighed:⠀

-”It’s a horse Ziva. I’m sure you have those in Israel” ⠀

Ziva made him moan with a violent nudge on his side. ⠀

Gibbs intervened:⠀

-”are you two done ?”⠀

Tony apologized before Gibbs gave everyone instructions: ⠀

-”Ziva, the wife. McGee, samples. Tony, pictures”⠀

After 20 minutes of questioning, Ziva came back outside and gave her report to Gibbs:⠀

-”Lieutenant Bobby Bradford. Left his home last evening on his horse. Her wife thought he had stopped by a friend’s house for the night as he used to do sometimes. She was awakened by the horse neighing and she called the authorities right away when she saw the blood on the horse. She says that her husband did not had any quarrel recently or in the past” ⠀

Tony stood up and said:⠀

-”This amount of blood augurs nothing good boss” ⠀

For his only answer Gibbs nodded and walk away to check on the research team. ⠀

Ziva walked to the horse and stroked his forehead:⠀

-”that’s a beautiful Akhal-Teke”⠀

McGee looked surprised:⠀

-”Looks like someone is well acquainted on the subject ?”⠀

-”I used to ride one when I was in Israel..”⠀

Tony could not resist. He took a picture of the horse and Ziva and said:⠀

-”really.. And what else have you been riding recently ?” ⠀

His smartass smile vanished when Gibbs’ hand hit the back of his head. ⠀

-”Sorry boss.. Totally inappropriate”⠀

-”Don’t apologize to me DiNozzo” ⠀

-”Sorry Ziva” ⠀

The team was now searching through the nearby forest to find a trace of Lieutenant Bradford’s body. Tony was walking with McGee. He looked in Ziva’s direction. She had walked away from them when her phone rang. Tony asked McGee:

-”Have you noticed something different about Ziva recently ?”

-”Apart from the fact that you are jealous, no I haven’t noticed anything”

Tony chuckled:

-”Jealous ? Me ? Of Ziva. You are mistaking me with someone else McWrong”

-”You are not jealous of Ziva, you are jealous of the man she is dating..”

Tony was speechless for a second, which meant a lot. McGee was looking at him with a victorious smile. Tony grumbled something inaudible and finally added:

-”Alright McGullible. Then how do you explain that she has two cell phones.. Who needs two cell phones ?”

McGee was about to answer when he noticed that Ziva was coming back to them.

Gibbs reached them too. Tony was hanging onto every words about to be spoken by him, hoping that he might be saved from turning the forest upside down, looking for something that was probably not there anyway.

Gibbs said:

-”Ziver! With me. You two, stay here and keep looking”

Tony complained:

-”Why is she the one coming back to NCIS with you”

Gibbs walked to him with threatening eyes and said:

-”Because she is focused and you are not… Do you have something to say about my orders DiNozzo ?”

Tony ducked his head and said:

-”nothing to say boss..”

Ziva looked at him with a mocking smile and winked.

⠀

A few hours later. Bullpen. ⠀

Tony and McGee walked in. Tony threw his bag to the floor next to his desk. He was grumbling again. Ziva raised her eyes from her screen and said:⠀

-”I’ve already seen that scene today…” ⠀

Tony looked at her and grimaced. He grumbled:⠀

-”We walked for hours in that damn forest for nothing !” ⠀

He was trying to get rid of pine needles on his jacket. Ziva stood up and walked to Tony’s desk. She stopped right between the two screens of his computer and leaned over:⠀

-”Is this really what’s bothering you Tony ? Is it the idea that you did this for nothing or the fact that you did this and I did not ?” ⠀

Tony’s eyes narrowed. He had to stay really focus on her face but her plunging neckline was very appealing for his eyes. He managed to keep focused and said:⠀

-”Well I just hope that your little time here had been useful and that you’ve found something interesting to please the boss man” ⠀

Ziva smirked and walked back to her desk:⠀

-”Maybe…”⠀

Tony was intrigued:⠀

-”What is it ?”⠀

-”You’ll see…”⠀

Gibbs rushed in and barked:⠀

-”talk to me”⠀

Ziva, McGee and Tony stood in front of the plasma screen and Ziva started:⠀

-”I’ve looked through Lieutenant Bradford’s file. No criminal record, no debts, not even a speeding ticket. This man was a saint”⠀

Tony cut her off by saying:⠀

-”Saints do not end up murdered in a forest Ziva…” ⠀

Ziva threw a dark look at him and clicked the remote. She gave her theory about the possible involvement of the victims step brother and waited on Gibbs’ approval. ⠀

Gibbs was convinced by her theory and he sent her and Tony to look for more information about their suspect. Ziva sighed. She knew that if she was alone with Tony he would not stop asking her questions and she was too tired to focus on her lies. She grabbed her coat and followed him to the elevator. ⠀

On the car on their way to Bradford’s house. Ziva was quiet. She was looking through the window, hoping that by some miracle, Tony might forget that she was there.

His eyes were more often on her than on the road. She was tensed. He started:

-“so.. how did you met him ?”

-“how did I met who ?”

-“come on Ziva, I’m not that stupid you know.. was it at a bar ? Dinner with mutual friends ? Oh I forget, you have no friends.. oh don’t tell me it’s one of those dating apps”

Ziva looked offended:

-“I do have friends.. and no I’ve never used those apps… why do you wanna know how we met ?”

-“so you admit there is someone…”

-“I’ve never denied it..”

This was followed by a series of quick questions and answers, each of them trying to trick the other. Tony started:

-“he approached you or you approached him ?”

-“he did”

-“does he makes you laugh ?”

-“yes”

-“as much as I do ?”

-“what’s that supposed to mean ?”

-“first kiss ?”

-“maybe”

-“Is it serious ?”

-“I do not know.. why do you care ?”

Tony stepped on the brakes. Ziva moaned at the sudden stop and caught hold on the dashboard. His eyes still focused on hers. He was fighting the urges to yell her that he cared because he was in love with her, because imagining her in someone else’s arms was unbearably painful and this idea was keeping him awake every night. But this would be worse. Ziva was looking at him, challenging him to answer the question with honesty. But he could not. Telling her would put him in a weakened position. They stayed for an entire minute looking at each other. Quiet, but their eyes were saying so much. Until Tony unfastened his seatbelt and bitterly said before stepping out from the car:

-”We should not let our witness wait”

Ziva looked at Tony walking to the front door. He was hurt, even if he would never admit it and she was the one hurting him. She was making him one of the collateral damage and she hated that.

2 hours later - Back inside the bullpen

Tony and Ziva were back. The investigation was following its course. Everyone was pretty quiet. McGee glanced at his coworkers. They were both ignoring each other politely but he could clearly see that their minds were not focused on the case. Ziva’s phone rang and it dragged everyone out of their drowsiness. Tony pricked up his ears. Ziva tried to speak as low as possible:

-“yes David… yes… tell the Director I’ll be there in a minute”

She hung up the phone and glanced at her coworkers. They were both staring at her. She stood up and walked to the Director’s office knowing that this meeting would bring even more questions.

As she disappeared upstairs Tony turned to McGee and asked:

-“she has a meeting with the Director almost every week..”

-“so what ? She’s working here, there’s nothing strange about that..”

-“when was the last time you had a meeting in Vance’s office ?”

McGee took a second to think and finally agreed:

-“alright there might be something strange about that. What do you think ?”

-“What if she wants to leave ?”

-“Ziva ? Leaving… pff.. no way. She’s part of the team why would she want to leave us ?”

-“Maybe because she met someone.. and that someone wants her to follow him somewhere else…”

McGee had to admit that this was a possibility.

[to know what happens next go read my fanfiction on Archive of our own]

‬

#tony dinozzo #ziva david #ncis #tiva #cotedepablo #michaelweatherly #fanfiction #ncis fanfiction

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igotyoukth · 5 years

Text

Shopping. BTS

Masterlist

Seokjin

Would you be a bad girlfriend, if you abandoned your boyfriend? Probably. But he was making it hard for you to stay with him. He picked up every piece of clothing, pretty or ugly didn’t matter here, and tried them on. Fair enough, other people would look bad in them, while he rocked everything. And it was funny at the beginning, sure. But five hours into shopping with Jin, you were tired of seeing ugly sunglasses and pink shirts. “Just buy anything!,” you finally exploded, when he shoved another pink item into your face.

“I won’t buy, okay!,” he responded just as annoyed as you. He had noticed your bad mood since store number 15 or 16, but this didn’t stop him from being playful. He thought his acts would make you feel better.

“We touched everything in every store, don’t expect me to be all smiles, when you never buy anything,” you tried to calm down.

“You never tell me your opinion, of course I don’t buy things,when all you say is good, great and pretty without meaning it,” he imitated you with a annoyingly high voice.

“Sorry, that I can’t do thousand reviews for the thousand things you try on,” your attempt on staying calm failed.

“You don’t even laugh, when I put ugly things on though!,” he complained.

“Because you don’t look funny, you look good in everything!,” you said a little too loud, two teenage girls stared at you and then at Jin, who was smitten by the compliment he had lured out of you.

“Really? You think so? So I can buy the sunglasses from the last store?,” he blushed a little, as if you never fought.

“No, not those. Those were just ugly.”

Yoongi

It was a first that he asked you to go shopping. He always ordered online, never got out to actually try things on and buy them. You were excited that you would walk around in the mall, maybe grab some coffee and hold hands the whole time.

But of course, that didn't happen. Yoongi rushed into the basic section in h&m and grabbed the same white and black shirts, he owned.

"I need new ones and delivery is taking too long," he plainly said and walked to check out already. You didn't follow him though, picked up bright pink and green shirts in his size. When he finally noticed your absence he walked back.

"Let's go," he told you and waved with his hands. You simply shrugged your shoulders and looked for matching hats. "We have no time," he rushed you, but still grabbbed the pieces out of your hand.

"You have nothing to do, let's go on a date," you whined when he put the clothes back," Hey, I wanted to buy them for you!"

"As if I would wear that." He held up the green shirt from earlier. It wasn't exactly his style, but he bored you with his all black outfits sometimes.

"Then I'm not coming."

"Sure, stay here then," he only responded. You sometimes acted as if you didn't know your boyfriend, of course he would leave you behind.

"Buy me at least some coffee!" He finally nodded at that, and grabbed the pink shirt last second. "You can wear this," he said and went to pay.

Hoseok

He would end up being poor one day. His clothes were just so expensive, you didn't understand how his heart didn't hurt paying these prices. My hands would shake at least, you thought. But no, Hoseok paid without even grimacing a little. Rather, he smiled.

"I finally have every color," he said happily and hugged the huge bag with shoes. The shoes that costed him a frw hundred dollars, but were kind of ugly in your opinion. Not that you would tell Hoseok. The shoes looked like from a different century and used, but Hoseok just had to have them.

"I have an idea where to shop next!" His preference reminded you of an old thrift shop, you saw a few days ago. This way maybe he would save some money, but still get some clothes he liked.

He couldn't complain, even though he wanted to explore other overpriced boutiques, because you always followed him quietly. "Okay, let's go." But he couldn't hide his shock, when he saw the sign of the shop.

"Trust me," you assured him. And you were right, after the shock disappeared, Hoseok found his new paradise. The oversized jackets looked like some designer clothes and there were the most extraordinary sunglasses and hats on display.

"Babe, I found heaven. And only paid 500." Yes, he still spent hundreds, but at least for a lot of pieces. But he would learn, for sure.

Namjoon

What does the author want to say in these lines? You suddenly remembered those words from school, when you looked at the pieces Namjoon picked in his favorite store. He thought of fashion as a way to express himself, but did he really need every color of the spectrum in such a tiny space? The shirt was weird, a little off from his usual style, but Namjoon still stared at it.

“Are you sure you like the design or the designer?,” you asked him when the owner of the shop left you two alone. He and Namjoon were besties. Well, anyone would be besties with Joon, when he left hundreds there every week for pieces that looked like it was done in five minutes. On drugs.

“It will look great with the pants I bought last month.” It was shocking how Namjoon remembered every thing he bought. He would suddenly mention hats or shoes from last year and style them. When he was passionate about something, he was unstoppable.

“I don’t think it looks great,” you repeated yourself. Maybe you were tired or just not as brave as he was with fashion. But Namjoon insisted on his purchase, and told you to wait for the outfit.

And he was right. Mixed with dull colors, the shirt was almost really really good. It wasn’t as eyecatching as you remembered it, it matched his body and skin color.

“You should trust me more,” he said, when he catched you admire his outfit,”Soon, I’ll style you as well.”

Jimin

It’s a well know fact, that Jimin was the gentleman of all gentlemen. So shopping with him was just a dream. He was that kind of boyfriend, that took your purse without a word, paid for everything, still allowed you to buy coffee or little things, so you didn’t feel bad, and always complimented you. Even when you looked just aweful. But as he was a bad liar, you understood. And tortured him for lying so obviously.

“Really? I don’t look fat in this dress?” You turned around and watched him closely. The fit was a catastrophe. The fabric hugged all the wrong places and made it look like you were swollen and pregnant.

“You could never look fat, love,” he replied and tried to look horrified about your question. Or maybe he was horrified of your looks and didn’t fake that one.

“Are you sure, so I can wear this to your parent’s place?,” you wanted to corner him into saying the truth.

“This weekend?,” he asked and avoided your eyes,”I heard it’s gonna be cold that day, maybe you should pick something else.”

“No way, it’s perfect if you think I look okay.” You then walked into the fitting room, to pick out the jacket that was just as ugly as the dress. “I’ll wear it like this, if I get cold.” And with that move, the boy broke down.

“Okay, I give up, you look terrible,” he confessed, defeated by your outfit.

“Be honest with me,” you took the jacket off with a shudder,”One day I won’t realize and walk around like a pig or something.”

“A pretty pig at most.”

Taehyung

The best advertisement was this boy. He didn’t even have to wear the things yet, people just followed him into stores. And when he tried something on, they believed that they could look as good as he did. Many were probably surprised, as the clothes turned into potato sacks at home, when it looked so elegant on Taehyung.

So obviously every designer wanted to work with him. But he still insisted on walking around in unknown indie stores, looking for gems. He made the same face as he did in galeries, looking for art pieces for his room or collection. Fashion was also art to him.

“At this point, you should do your own clothing line,” you said, when you left a boutique. Taehyung was pretty close with the designer, they always discussed the next collections and Taehyung always let them do alterations he had in mind. They should credit him as a co-designer, you jooked sometimes.

“But it’s easier this way,” he admitted with a grin,”And I like one-of-a-kind pieces way too much, to produce something for others.”

“What a selfish man,” you teased him,”You are just too scared, that everything will be sold out, and you can’t wear it anymore, right?”

“How can you know me that well?,” he teased back.

“But think about it, I bet you will be happy to see people wear your designs. It’s like producing songs... for the body?” A light bulb lit up inside his head.

“This is why I love you and your one-of-a-kind mind.”

Jungkook

"If the next piece you pick up is grey sweats, I'm screaming," you threatened Jungkook. His arms were already full with grey or black sportswear, but he didn't stop eyeing the same exact things again. You didn't understand how he still found joy in shopping, when he bought the same thigs over and over again.

"I wasn't going to," he scoffed and changed directions. Yea, sure. He walked into a section, you never dreamed Jungkook to walk in. He would never go in there by himself, so he looked awkward. His eyes wandered between different button ups, and he suddenly looked lost and tired.

"White suits you," you helped him out. He walked over to the corner with white clothes and touched a few pieces. “This one,” he murmured with his tongue between his teeth, as he was stuggling with the other clothes in his hands. You helped him pick out the one he wanted. It was a pretty basic button up, with thin grey lines.

“It looks like the one you wore last week,” he confessed quietly. It made you blush, that he remembered that, and you immediately regretted threatening him earlier.

“You won’t look as good as me though,” you tried to hide your shyness.

“I never could.” You turned into a tomato with his comment, but as he didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable, he added, “Well, you could never look that good in sportswear like me either, babe.”

“Yes, yes, we all have styles that match us better, but variety is always good, right?”

#bts #bangtan #bts imagines #bts reactions #bts fluff #bts scenarios #jungkook #jk #jimin #v #taehyung #rm #namjoon #jhope #hoseok #jin #suga #yoongi #imagine #kpop #fanfiction

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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Have Yourself a Super Merry Christmas 3/3: Christmas Future: I have never known color like this morning reveals to me (Branjie)--athena2

A/N: Thank you so much for all the support on this! Thank you as always to Writ for betaing and encouraging me through this whole thing. Chapter title from In a Week by Hozier.

The very first time Frost and Vanjie meet is on Christmas Eve.

The paths that bring them there may be different–a fire whose smoldering wreckage creates a woman burdened by memories and an ice storm whose piercing shards mold a woman entirely devoid of memories–but those paths converge just the same.

It’s not the last time their paths will meet, paths that will lead to fighting and hatred and forgiveness and healing and loving, even marriage and a daughter.

But the path begins with enemies meeting in the snow.

—

“I wanna put the star on!” Lily squeals.

Vanessa smiles as Brooke carefully lifts Lily into the air, Vanessa placing her hands on Brooke’s hips to steady her, just in case (and just to touch Brooke’s hips).

“You can reach this high, Mommy?” Lily asks in wonder as she attaches the star.

“She sure can.” Vanessa smiles. “I said the same thing as you when she did that the first time.”

Brooke brings Lily back down and she starts placing ornaments on the lowest branches, and Vanessa has to step back and smile. Sometimes she sees the tiny blue Vans with yellow flowers by the back door and can’t believe those little sneakers really fit someone, and that that someone is their daughter.

This is the first Christmas Lily really knows what’s going on, and Brooke and Vanessa have had too much fun shopping, sledding, and snowman-building. Brooke absolutely loves the snow, a human polar bear, and will play with Lily until they’re almost frozen solid and Vanessa forces them inside for hot chocolate. Their backyard is the perfect battleground for snowball fights and an army of snowmen, the house a few miles from the city and everything they always wanted, purchased a few months before they adopted Lily.

“Mama, Mommy says we can make cookies after!” Lily announces, running up to her.

“She did, did she?” Vanessa scoops Lily up and helps her reach some higher branches (‘who’s gonna help you reach them?’ Brooke teases) and smiles as Brooke kisses the top of her head.

It’s been a busy year, one Vanessa couldn’t have gotten through without Brooke by her side. Vanessa’s nights were filled with online business courses and Brooke’s steady encouragement as she and A’keria became co-owners of the salon. Vanessa works mornings there and afternoons at home to stay with Lily, while Brooke takes mornings with Lily before going to directing duties at the ballet company at noon. It’s a lot of shuffling out the door, a lot of evenings where they manage to cook dinner, watch a movie, and read Lily a bedtime story before collapsing into their own bed, but Vanessa wouldn’t change a thing.

That scared woman who refused to let anyone in is still inside her somewhere, coming out in a panicked fear anytime Lily gets too close to the fireplace, but Vanessa isn’t alone anymore.

She no longer needs to burn herself down in order to live.

—

Somehow, Vanessa’s second Christmas without her family hurts worse than the first one.

Last year, the wound was still fresh, not even scabbed over yet, and it wasn’t like she expected to be okay. But this year, she feels like the wound should have gotten better but hasn’t; it’s festered instead of healed. This year, she had expected to be okay, and it’s only making it worse that she isn’t.

A’keria has told her about some Dr. West, suggested that a therapy session might help, but Vanessa refuses. It’s not that she thinks it won’t help, because she knows therapy works; it’s that if she goes, she’ll have to talk about it and she just can’t do that. Whatever thin patches are holding her together would split right open.

Silky and A’keria come over and they eat and exchange gifts, and Vanessa knows they’re doing it to help her feel better, but it’s not working.

When she sees the news report that Frost has struck again, something in her snaps. That Frost bitch has been wreaking havoc for almost a month now, always fleeing just before Vanessa can fight her.

She pulls on her suit as A’keria and Silky beg her to stay.

“Frost beat the crap out of Shuga Rush and Honeybee last week, and you wanna take her on?” Silky argues.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” A’keria adds. “Your ass belongs inside.”

“I’m getting that blue Gatorade hoe,” Vanjie vows as she heads out into the snow.

—

Brooke helps Lily tie her green apron on and can’t believe how little it is, or that she has a daughter little enough to wear it. Sometimes she can’t believe she has a daughter at all, or their cozy house, or that she still gets to curl up in bed with Vanessa every night, even all these years later.

The snow flew early in November and the past month has been spent mostly in the backyard, playing with Lily. Vanessa doesn’t love the snow the way Brooke does, but she’ll still come out and play with them as much as she can. Brooke even got her special thermal gloves so she could make snowballs without them melting in seconds.

Brooke watches Lily’s tiny hands roll out the cookie dough, gripping the rolling pin to help her while Vanessa tosses chocolate chips in her mouth, and the safety of it all, the love in the kitchen, are so great that Brooke has to excuse herself to the bathroom because she doesn’t want Lily to get scared if she sees Mommy crying.

She breathes slowly, the joy of the past three years flooding her, absolutely worth all the fears she and Vanessa had. It hadn’t been an easy decision to walk away from the superhero life, and it wasn’t one they made lightly. There had been several late-night conversations and a few joint appointments with Nina and endless questions to be answered. Is it wrong to put themselves and their wants over a city they’ve been protecting all these years? Is it wrong not to stop crime when they had the ability to do so? Should they feel like every crime to occur after they quit is their fault?

But the fighting took its toll more and more, bruises lasting longer, injuries more frequent, a soreness in their muscles that never went away. What they both wanted was a child, one they would love and support no matter what, and they simply couldn’t be out risking their lives every night with a baby at home.

They hung up the masks (still in the closet just in case) and began the process of moving on.

Brooke doesn’t regret it, even when she sees crime in the news that she could have stopped, and she knows Vanessa doesn’t either. Lily is more than they dreamed of, everything they ever wanted.

“You okay?” Vanessa knocks.

She always knows, Brooke marvels.

She opens the door and pulls Vanessa into her arms. “I’m okay. I just–I never thought I would be so happy, and sometimes it really hits me.”

Happy hadn’t even been a concept at the lab. They only cared if she was physically well enough to follow orders, not what she felt. Brooke never felt much anyway, the drugs like a veil over her that stopped any emotion or feeling from rising too far. In her early recovery days, her emotions were like a shaken-up snowglobe where the snow wouldn’t settle, but floated around helplessly, and she and Nina had spent several sessions just understanding and naming the feelings she had.

“I know, baby. I love you both so much,” Vanessa says.

“Mama, we have to finish the cookies!” Lily yells from the kitchen. Brooke and Vanessa laugh and head after their daughter.

—-

The snow falls thick and full, like pieces of a cloud around Frost. She pauses just to watch it fall, each flake silencing the noise around her, car horns blaring and people shouting and laughing and sirens wailing. It’s much louder than the lab, so loud it hurts her ears, and the snow somehow soothes her.

The lab said Christmas Eve is a good night to strike, and they’re right. Frost has already stolen weapon blueprints from Atlas Labs and sent Black Diamond home with a broken nose. She ducks into an alley to review her missions when a light from a tree catches her eye and momentarily blinds her with its brilliance.

Has she ever held a bulb in her hand, seen her smiling face reflected in its surface as she hung it from a branch? Has she ever gotten a present like she saw people carrying earlier, ripping through the paper to see what surprise awaited her? Was she ever lifted up out of the snow by her mother, like the little boy she saw yesterday?

Of course she hasn’t. She’s being bad. Her breaths are painful and her heart clenches in her chest. She forces out a slow stream of air. She has to focus, she has to–

“So, you must be the famous Frost,” a sandpaper voice booms, and Frost jumps, spinning around to see a short woman with eyes burning bright even surrounded by her black eye mask.

“Who are you?” Frost asks in confusion. She hopes that not too many people know about her, because the lab will surely punish her if she blows their cover.

“I’m Vanjie, and don’t you forget it, Frosty,” the woman–Vanjie–says with a fireblast. Frost has barely stopped it before Vanjie yells something else and runs at her with a punch, and Frost throws one back, grateful for something to stop the bad thoughts she was having.

Vanjie is a good fighter, strong and fast, but lacking control in some of her punches and blasts. Still, Frost has never met an opponent that could keep up with her. It’s almost—fun. Definitely the most even fight she’s had since she started, breathlessly accepting hits and giving them right back. They trade kicks and punches, each move tight and quick and focused, and Frost’s mind starts buzzing, clearing, maybe, all the Christmas lights and car horns brighter and louder, and that means she’ll need another dose soon. She’s not supposed to feel like this.

She would keep going all night but a siren rings out and Vanjie flees, too far away for Frost to track once she clears through a last arc of flame.

Frost almost wishes she would come back.

—

Brooke smiles as Vanessa glares up at her.

“Remind me again how I let you talk me into this?” Vanessa asks as she laces her skates.

“Because Lily really wanted to go ice-skating and we can’t say no?” Brooke suggests.

“Sounds about right.”

Brooke stands, unsure, in her own rented skates, holding Lily’s hand. Skaters whizz past them, laughing and shouting, and Brooke is grateful again for the therapy and meds that help her feel okay in such noisy areas.

“Let’s do this, twinkle toes. I bet you’re gonna be like one of them figure skaters in the Olympics.” Vanessa finishes her skates and stands up, shuffling to the ice rink.

Brooke doesn’t know if she’s ever been skating, but she’s figuring her dance ability might at least keep her on her feet. Vanessa, on the other hand…

“My body ain’t supposed to go this way!” Vanessa yelps, stuck in a half-split on the ice, and Brooke pulls her up as she snorts with laughter.

“I got you, don’t worry.” Brooke tugs along Vanessa with one hand and Lily with the other. She has enough balance to keep herself from falling, and the super-strength to keep both of them steady too, and they make slow laps around the rink while they talk about the upcoming Christmas dinner at their house.

“I think I got this, let’s go faster!” Vanessa says. She pulls Brooke so hard that she lets go of Lily, and it’s just the two of them barreling along.

“I don’t think this is a good id–” They crash into the wall and land in a heap, arms and legs tangled together.

“Let’s do that again!” Vanessa yells, her words muffled by Brooke’s leg, which has fallen over her face.

They untangle themselves and stand up, only to burst into laughter so fierce they fall all over again. Steaming cups of hot chocolate warm them up once they get off the ice, and Lily insists everyone watch Frozen again, her favorite because she thinks Mommy looks like Elsa (if she only knew, Vanessa thinks). Her second favorite is Moana because Mama looks like Moana and screeches like Te Kā (kid’s got a sense of humor, Brooke thinks).

Lily falls asleep laying across the both of them and Brooke places her gently into bed, Vanessa pulling her covers up with a smile shared between them.

—

“I think we should get Lily a dog for Christmas,” Vanessa begins one night. “Might be nice for Riley to have a dog friend.” She’s in her favorite position, head on Brooke’s chest and arm around her waist, thumb stroking the skin on her hip.

“Okay!” Brooke agrees, and Vanessa has to laugh. She doesn’t know why she thought Brooke would be harder to convince. Brooke loves animals, and they already have three; what’s one more?

“I got my dog for Christmas when I was six.” The confession comes out of her without warning, her heart speeding up until Brooke brings a hand up to cup her cheek, and everything slows down again. Vanessa never feels safer than she does in Brooke’s arms, and she tells her all about that Christmas morning, ripping the lid off the box to see that perfect little puppy, how she and her brother played fetch with it every day.

Brooke lets out soft little puffs of smiling laughter, pressing a kiss to the top of Vanessa’s head when she’s done.

“I’m proud of you,” Brooke whispers.

“For what?”

“For just being you,” Brooke answers, and Vanessa hugs her tighter.

They go to the shelter the next night, Yvie and Scarlet taking on babysitting duty (‘If we come back and our child is talking about conspiracy theories, your babysitting career is over, Yvie,’ Vanessa threatens). The worker tells them there’s an older chihuahua named Rosie who would love to have a home.

Brooke kneels down by the cage, speaking softly to the dog. It takes Vanessa back to when they first adopted Henry and Apollo, and Brooke had been afraid she would get in trouble for touching them. It seems like a lifetime ago, but also just days ago, her life with Brooke so beautiful and warm and safe that sometimes Vanessa doesn’t even know how much time has passed.

“Hey there,” Brooke whispers. “You can come out, I won’t hurt you.”

The dog creeps slowly to the front of the cage, tentatively licking Brooke’s hand and allowing Brooke to pet her. “Good girl,” Brooke says. Vanessa smiles as Brooke strokes the fur. Animals, especially ones that had been hurt, always trusted Brooke. It was almost like they knew she had been hurt too, and would never, ever harm them.

“We’ll take her,” Vanessa declares.

—

Vanjie steals Silky’s police scanner and catches Frost in an alleyway. Her neon green boots don’t even have heels and she still towers over Vanjie, which pisses her off right away.

“So, you must be the famous Frost,” Vanjie barks, delighting as the ice bitch startles. Not so tough, is she, scared of a little noise?

“Who are you?” Frost asks.

“I’m Vanjie, and don’t you forget it, Frosty.”

She revs up a fireball, small to keep control, and throws it at Frost’s face, flames dying out when they meet her ice blast.

“Come get me, you stupid snowball!”

Vanjie runs at Frost before she can move, sinking a punch deep into her rib cage that will definitely bruise, if not crack something. She follows it with another punch, adrenaline running through her, and it’s probably wrong that she’s getting such a rush beating another person, but it’s the first time she’s felt anything in months, and even if it’s probably not good, it’s better than feeling absolutely nothing, like an empty shell of a person.

Frost is light on her feet and counters with a punch of her own, and Vanjie admits she’s good. She sees now how Frost has beaten so many heroes. Frost knows how to move those stupidly long limbs, her movements focused and controlled. It’s an even fight, and Vanjie loses herself in it, beyond the stupid jokes she uses to make it all bearable, giving herself over to the anger and satisfaction of every kick and hit. She’s locked in the fight for what feels like hours, Frost keeping up with her, when she hears police sirens. She runs, leaving a column of fire behind her to delay Frost, and is down the street before anyone can see her. Frost doesn’t give chase, and Vanjie’s not sure if she’s disappointed or not.

The scanner is silent, and she decides to pack it in. She passes by an animal shelter, which proudly advertises that all their animals have been adopted. Vanjie had a dog once. Except she wasn’t Vanjie then. She was just Vanessa, with no idea of what was coming. The woman she is now has no idea how to be the girl she was then. The woman she is now has no idea how to be, period. How to live in a world where terrible things happen and she is just left to pick up the pieces.

She wipes away her tears and heads back home. If the shelter wasn’t empty, she thinks she would have taken a dog for herself.

But it’s probably better that she didn’t. It’s hard enough keeping herself alive these days.

—

Brooke and Vanessa send Lily with A’keria and Silky for the day while they wrap Lily’s presents.

“We’re putting all this shit in bags next year,” Vanessa says and Brooke snorts.

Sticky tape remnants cover Brooke’s fingers, Vanessa with two paper cuts on hers from wrapping paper mishaps.

Brooke looks at the bright green wrapping paper patterned with snowmen and elves, and all she can think is that all the best gifts she’s gotten in her life wouldn’t fit in a box (well, Vanessa probably could).

Lily herself had been an early Christmas present three years ago. Brooke can hardly believe she’s three already, that they’ve been through three years of diaper-changing and nighttime-soothing and Sesame Street-watching.

When they had decided to have a kid, IVF had been the first plan. After endless testing, Vanessa wordlessly holding Brooke’s hand through all the needles, and even more waiting, they learned that because of all the changes that occurred in their bodies when they got their powers, neither of them would be able to carry without severe risks for themselves and the child, and their dream of a baby with Brooke’s green eyes or Vanessa’s brown waves was shattered.

That had been a horrible week in their house. They each blamed themselves and started every morning with bloodshot eyes they didn’t mention. Brooke retreated into herself, avoiding the world and apologizing over and over while Vanessa exploded out into the world, screaming at every tiny inconvenience, until A’keria coaxed them into a joint session with Nina. They both cried and were reassured that it was no one’s fault, that they weren’t undeserving of a child in any way, and when the heaviness weighing them down lifted away, they embraced for the first time since hearing the news and it was like coming home.

They started the adoption process the day after their session, their names down at the agency from January. The wait was endless, and the longer it dragged on, the more it seemed that people were mocking them with handfuls of kids in everything from winter coats to rain boots to bathing suits as the seasons changed and they still remained childless. It felt like they would never have a child at all, when the first day of December they got a call that a two-day-old baby’s adoption had fallen through and she could be theirs if they were ready.

They had already painted the extra bedroom in the house in soft greens and yellows, but it remained empty, cheery paint laughing at them and floors collecting dust, because neither of them could bear to fill it with a crib and stuffed animals, fill it with the hope and promise of a child’s laughter, only to have to take everything down if the agency never called.

When the call came, they brought in the reinforcements (bribing Silky with pizza) and bought everything for the nursery and got it set up in hours, Brooke and Vanessa taking the drive to meet their baby right after.

It was a two-hour drive to the hospital upstate, the road stretching forever as Brooke fought between excitement and fear. Eleven months of waiting, of discussing names and talking longingly about taking their kid sledding and to the beach and having a tiny human in their house, and somehow Brooke needed more time, legs shaking with fear that maybe this was all a joke, or that the agency would change their minds and say that Brooke and Vanessa weren’t fit to be parents, and it was only when Vanessa pulled over that Brooke saw she was crying too.

They clutched hands, their intertwined fingers sharing the message of love and support, that they would both be there for each other whatever happened. Vanessa got back on the road, and they walked into the hospital holding hands, bringing their baby home and ready to give her the love that burst out of them the second they saw her.

“How the hell do I wrap a soccer ball?” Vanessa asks with a laugh. Brooke joins in, pulled out of her memories.

“Put it in a bag?” Brooke suggests.

Vanessa sighs and grabs a Frozen gift bag, shoving the ball inside. “Okay, no round presents next year either! What the hell were we thinking?”

“I think I’m gonna need a shower to get all this tape off me,” Brooke says, peeling one last piece off.

“I might need one too,” Vanessa says. She pauses, a mischievous sparkle popping into her eyes. “You know, Lily’s still with Silky and A’keria till dinner…”

Brooke scoops Vanessa off the floor, carrying her bridal-style to the bathroom.

—

The days get closer and closer to Christmas and Lily is exploding with excitement, listing all the cookies she’ll leave for Santa and all the cards she wants to make for her aunts and all the things she’ll make if she gets her toy kitchen. Her little legs kick under the covers and it takes four bedtime stories to lull her into sleep. Vanessa took story duty tonight, and Brooke finishing putting dishes away when Vanessa comes in, shuffling over to Brooke with a groan.

“Bedtime story go well, then?” Brooke teases, massaging Vanessa’s shoulders.

“What I want to know,” Vanessa says in the serious tone of someone contemplating the mysteries of the universe, “is why this Mr. Fox dude is wearing socks. He’s a fox. He doesn’t need ‘em.”

“I don’t think I know the answer to that, baby,” Brooke says, turning Vanessa around to face her.

Vanessa slips a hand under her shirt, fingers running up to her heart–

“Mama, will you read me another story?” Lily asks, appearing in the kitchen out of thin air. “What’s on your tummy, Mommy?” Lily asks curiously, pointing to the scar above her waistline where the doctor shot her.

Brooke stiffens. Vanessa’s hand flies out from beneath the shirt and moves to Brooke’s back, fingers brushing near her shoulder. Brooke knows Vanessa will say something if she can’t, but she wants to try. “Oh, that–that’s nothing, honey. Mommy just got hurt there before.”

“Hurt?” Lily’s eyes widen. She runs to the bathroom and comes back with a box of Star Wars Band-Aids, stretching up to Brooke’s waist and lifting her shirt to stick one over the old scar. “There,” she says proudly.

“Thank you, sweetie. It feels better already,” Brooke says truthfully, blinking away tears as she hugs her daughter.

“Come on honey, I’ll read you another story,” Vanessa offers, taking Lily’s hand.

“Fox in Socks?” Lily asks hopefully.

Vanessa nods, throwing a grimace over her shoulder at Brooke on the way out. Brooke lingers in the doorway, smiling along as Vanessa reads in her rough voice, watching her kiss Lily’s forehead after she falls asleep. Brooke remembers when the emptiness inside her almost consumed her, but now it is love powerful enough to do the same.

—

“Do you think we’ll ever have to tell her? How do we even say something like that?” Vanessa asks in bed that night, her mind spinning with worries. Lily has already noticed one of Brooke’s scars; how long until she wants to know how Brooke really got them? How long until they couldn’t explain away why Mama’s hand is burning hot and Mommy’s is freezing cold?

Brooke turns to her, understanding, as always, the words unsaid. Will they have to tell their daughter they have superpowers? That they both went through hell? That they used to fight criminals for a living?

“You remember when we first brought her home, and I was afraid to hold her?” Brooke asks.

“Of course,” Vanessa replies, unsure where this is going.

“You remember what you told me?”

Vanessa can’t forget the day they brought Lily home, watching her big blue eyes blink and her tiny fingers flex, their hearts full of all the laughs and challenges and beautiful firsts that were about to come.

Brooke had set the baby carrier on the table and froze, voicing her worries that she would hurt Lily, or make her sick because her hands were so cold. Her worries made every one of Vanessa’s rise up after she fought all day to push them down. What if they did something wrong and caused her pain? What if she was crying and they couldn’t give her what she needed?

And then the answer had come to her. They would do it like they had done everything, from gunshots to lab blowups to death visions.

“I said we would hold her together,” Vanessa answers now, stepping out of the memory and into the present.

Brooke just smiles at her.

“Oh,” Vanessa says. “Oh, shit, Brooke. That was smooth.”

Brooke snickers and pulls her into an embrace. Vanessa nestles her head against Brooke’s chest, safe and secure in the thought that no matter what happens, they’ll always do it together.

—

Frost completes her last mission, stealing a drug formula that the lab says is dangerous for anyone but them, and is on her way back to her motorcycle when something pink catches her eye.

It’s a window display, pastel pink string lights framing the scene, like a picture she wants to climb into and live in. In the center of the display, raised on a pristine white pedestal, sits a pink music box, a small ballerina inside. For some reason she thinks she’s seen it before, that she even held it in her hands.

Frost stares at it, imagining the ballerina spinning, imagining herself spinning, light as air as she leaps–she rubs furiously at her eyes. She’s not in the air, a silk costume soft on her skin. She’s on solid sidewalk, and she’s being bad. Frost has never seen this box before; it’s probably just her medicine making her think that. They had given her an extra dose today, and she had been good and didn’t even squirm when she saw the needle, and the doctor said she might be a little confused.

She has to go back to the lab and give them her report, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the box. She wants it so badly but she can’t understand why. She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything like this, and why a music box?

I could break the glass and have it right now, she thinks, heart racing. She readies an ice blast–no, she’s disobeying, and that’s bad. She’s already had bad thoughts of wanting to stay with Vanjie to clear her head some more, and she can’t be late too; late means punishment. She races back to the lab and gives them her report before dragging herself up into her apartment.

Her body is heavy, being pulled down to the ground, her head pounding. The emptiness of the apartment stares at her, carving a hole into her chest that will never fill. She almost wishes she had a Christmas tree, just like the ones she saw in peoples’ windows, to bring some life to the empty space.

She should eat something, but all she wants is to sleep, to forget the buzzing in her head and the burning eyes of that fire woman. Vanjie. What a strange name.

She crawls into bed, her aching body asleep in minutes, tumbling into dreams of tiny hands holding a music box and a little girl sitting on a bike. The girl has blonde hair, and Frost is close, almost close enough to see her…but she never sees the girl’s face, and when she wakes up, she’s forgotten the dream entirely.

—

Vanessa rolls over, blinking awake, the clock flashing 1:53 on Christmas Eve morning. There’s another dim light behind her, and she turns around to see Brooke’s phone screen, blinding in the dark.

“Baby, why are you still up?” Vanessa asks.

Brooke doesn’t answer, just stares intently at her phone. Vanessa’s trying not to panic, forcing her breathing to slow. It’s not a flashback; she’s seen enough of them to know from Brooke’s eyes that she’s here, not trapped in time somewhere. But Brooke is always so alert and attentive, so why hasn’t she reacted?

“Brooke?” Vanessa asks again. “It’s almost 2, what are you doing?”

She lightly taps Brooke’s shoulder, hoping not to scare her but unsure what else to do. Her heart only resumes its pounding when tears run down Brooke’s face. “Brooke, what’s wrong? Please tell me so I can help you,” she begs, helplessness bubbling up into her voice. She glances at Brooke’s phone screen, sees the picture from yesterday afternoon, the three of them posing with the gingerbread house Lily made.

“I–I was looking at the pictures,” Brooke sniffles, “and I–what if she forgets us? What if what happened to me happens to her and she can’t remember, or what if she loses us and forgets?”

Vanessa’s heart shatters, the shards puncturing every part of her. Brooke is trembling now, and Vanessa pries the phone from her hands, trying to figure out how she’ll keep Brooke together when Brooke’s fear makes Vanessa herself want to fall apart.

“Shhh,” she whispers, pulling Brooke’s shaking body to her and holding on tight. “Brooke, we–it’s okay. It’s okay. The lab is gone. They won’t hurt anyone again. And we…we just love Lily, okay? We can’t protect her from everything, but we can try, and we love her. We love her, and whatever happens, she knows that we love her. That’s all we can do.” Vanessa’s crying now too, shuddering sobs that tear through her body, she and Brooke holding each other to keep themselves whole.

She wishes that nothing could ever harm Lily, but she knows that just isn’t possible. There’ll be things like scraped knees and broken hearts and other hurts, both big and small, that there’s just no protecting her from. She and Brooke know too well the kind of pain this world has to offer. But they also know the love available, the love enabling her to look at Brooke all these years later and still feel calm and safe, like everything is all right. The love present in a scene of them curled up on the couch, laughing at movies they’ve seen ten times, knowing they were safe in each other’s arms. The love that has helped them through all the good and bad times, brought them together with their daughter in an unbreakable bond.

Brooke pulls away, wiping her eyes. “You’re right. It’s just hard, you know? Knowing what we know and still wanting to believe things can always be good.”

“I know. But we love each other, and we love her, and we always will. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”

“I love you.” Brooke is calm again, both of them cried out. Brooke kisses her cheek, the touch soft and warm and familiar, the feeling of home on two cool lips.

“I love you too. Always,” Vanessa vows, pulling Brooke back to her.

Vanessa lets herself get washed away in Brooke’s steady breathing, both of them off to sleep in a few minutes, exhausted after all the tears, and wake up to a Christmas Eve shining bright with possibility.

—

Vanessa gets Lily set up on her chair by the counter, Lily wearing her green apron that doesn’t serve much purpose because she has cinnamon on her forehead and eggshells in her hair. Her tiny hands dip the bread in the egg mixture and Vanessa tells her she’s doing a wonderful job.

Brooke helps Lily flip the French toast in the pan, and the loving look in Brooke’s eyes makes Vanessa warm and renewed after the 2am sobbing session. Lily gets whipped cream all over her nose just like Brooke, and Vanessa knows they’ll always be okay.

The rest of the day passes by in layering lasagna and setting the table and giving Lily two baths (‘she sure can make a mess like you,’ Brooke teases) before finally getting her into the black leggings with tiny snowmen all over them and her Disney Christmas sweater.

Vanessa pulls on the soft red sweater Brooke had gotten her for Christmas last year, Brooke in the oversized blue sweater Vanessa had bought her, feet clad in green Nutcracker fuzzy socks. Vanessa had gotten her more pairs for Christmas this year–a gift for Vanessa as well, because without them, Brooke’s feet are blocks of ice when they brush against her in bed.

The four of them come rushing in all at once, Silky bearing that godforsaken Bingo set, dropping gift bags on the floor and flinging coats at Vanessa.

“Do I look like a human coat rack to you?” she barks, throwing them all on the bed.

“Lily, come say hi to your favorite aunt!” A’keria says, opening her arms.

“We’re all her aunts,” Yvie points out, which is true. Vanessa and Brooke had also appointed Silky and A’keria as godmothers, after realizing that neither of them knew a single man. A’keria had even thrown together a baby shower after they brought Lily home, insisting that no godchild of hers would be going without one.

“Yeah, but I’m the favorite,” A’keria argues, lifting Lily up.

Vanessa lets the night go by, and she thinks of how they’ve all grown, not just her and Brooke but everyone. A’keria is one of the top hair stylists in the city, Scarlet started her new day job as a preschool teacher, and Yvie is assistant director to Silky at the base, and Vanessa just looks around and loves. She watches Scarlet fix Lily’s bow for her and Yvie help butter her bread, watches A’keria and Silky nudge each other and smile without words, and Vanessa finally believes all those words Nina has told her: she deserves to be here, alive, loving her family.

—

“Ugh, could you even imagine moving this toy kitchen set without super-strength?” Brooke asks, the 1am moon glowing through the windows as they arrange Lily’s presents under the tree.

“I just hope Rosie doesn’t make any noise tonight. She a loud little thing,” Vanessa says. They had kept Rosie at A’keria’s for the week, setting the dog up in their bedroom tonight to surprise Lily tomorrow.

“Just like her mama.” Brooke smiles. Vanessa swats at her as she sets down the last of the boxes before they move on to the milk and cookies Lily had painstakingly set out on the coffee table.

“Why did we let her leave out so many cookies?” Brooke groans, taking a large bite of one.

“Tell me about it,” Vanessa mutters. “Next year, I’m telling her Santa wants potato chips.”

They check on Lily one last time. Her arms are wrapped securely around her stuffed elephant, her face calm and peaceful and a reminder of all that Brooke has been given, all she’s grateful for, every dream she never knew she had come true. Vanessa takes her hand, another dream, and they have a few blissful hours of sleep before Lily comes running in at the crack of dawn, somehow hitting Brooke’s hip with one foot and Vanessa’s arm with the other simultaneously.

She and Vanessa trade smiles as Lily pulls them into the living room, shouting and clapping and shredding wrapper paper as the sun rises.

Lily opens the ballerina music box Brooke picked out, and Brooke has to blink away tears when she thinks of the blonde little girl she once was, assuming Vanessa feels the same when Lily squeezes Rosie into a hug.

Brooke knows it’s okay for her to be sad about what she lost and still be happy with what she has. Sometimes you feel a lot of different things at once, Nina had said in one of their first sessions, when Brooke was struggling to process her feelings, and it seems so simple now, but had been so hard to grasp then. She can still be grateful for her present and future while acknowledging the horrors of the past, and she watches Lily smile and sees her big blue eyes shine and Brooke fills with love and hope, holding Vanessa to share it with her.

The others show up at 9 for breakfast, still in their pajamas, sitting on the rug as Lily shows them all her presents, she and Vanessa sitting back on the couch and taking it all in.

“It says turn it clockwise, girl! Clockwise! Ain’t you ever seen a clock?” Silky yells as she and A’keria work on assembling Lily’s toy kitchen set.

“Yvie, if you hit me with that soccer ball one more time–” the rest of Scarlet’s words are cut off as A’keria tells Silky to do the kitchen her dang self, gulping a cup of chocolate milk like it’s hard liquor.

Vanessa nestles closer to Brooke on the couch, resting her head on her chest. Brooke breathes in Vanessa’s coconut shampoo, breathes in the family around her, all the shouts and laughs and love, and thinks that the world has never seemed as bright, the colors as dazzling, as they do on this morning.

She thinks of how fearfully loud and harsh everything was when the drug cloud eased off her, before Nina and proper medication helped her be healthy. Brooke used to think she deserved to suffer, deserved to have loud noises scare her and flashbacks haunt her because of what she had done. She knows that’s wrong now. A bad thing happened to her, a bad thing she didn’t deserve to have happen, and it wasn’t her fault. And she doesn’t deserve to suffer. She deserves the love around her, and she’s going to soak it up as much as she can.

Brooke tilts her head down, looking into the eyes of the woman that started as her enemy years ago and became the person she loves more than anyone, the person that quiets all her fears, the person that makes everything okay.

“This is the best Christmas ever!” Lily exclaims.

Brooke drops her lips down to Vanessa’s, fire and ice meeting in passionate agreement.

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mentalcurls · 6 years

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9.3 NAMACISSI

Oh God I LOVED this clip. I loved it so much. I could die for this clip.

A few scattered thoughts I had while watching it (they might not be in chronological order cause I’m at work and I can’t do my usual watch-stop-write-rewatch thing, sorry.)

So without further ado:

Allow me to be bitter here for a second: this should have happened yesterday. If Martino wasn’t so infuriatingly stubborn in his ways, if his first instinct wasn’t to close in on himself despite seeing how good it was when he opened up to his friends last time, how much support he got, how much lighter he felt, this would have been yesterday and neither us nor him would have suffered as much. That being said of course I love Marti as he is, wouldn’t trade him for the world, so I accept his flaws and the pain they bring.

The boys going to the bathroom together, in a group. Discussing the love life of one of them in the school bathroom. Washing their hands together (actually, unfortunately it is noteworthy that they was their hands at all bc men are often disgusting). Another typically feminine trope subverted. (The only thing missing was one of them fixing their hair, but it wouldn’t have fit the feel of the scene, I think.) Toxic masculinity thank u, next; LudoBesse and Skam Italia writers thank you, now more.

How blue is that scene? The bathroom is of course very blue, the tiles, the floor. The light is cold. Marti is wearing a blue jumper, Giovanni a blue shirt, Elia a blue track top.

(Luchino is wearing warm brown *insert “coincidence? I think not” gif here*)

We cannot be sure this is the same bathroom where 5.4 Pausa took place, but it is very clear that LudoBesse thinks not-so-positive conversations regarding mental health need to be had in bathrooms.

I couldn’t find any particular significance in the order the boys came out of the stalls, but I’m sure I’m gonna read some really interesting theories from you guys soon. Maybe worst to best at reading Marti? worst to best at giving advice?

Luca, knowing the pain of being half-naked in the cold for several hours from the previous weekend is Very Worried about Niccolò, his saviour from the ice prison/cabin, running around naked in the cold

Giovanni and the others watching Martino struggle with the soap dispenser/faucet thing and Gio stepping in to help him and direct him elsewhere just like he does in the conversation when he points out Martino shouldn’t trust the Internet about medical stuff

Giovanni starting his line with “Comunque”. It’s something Giovanni did in 6.5 Effettivamente (and here’s a lovely post by @zkainaat about it) and I’m starting to feel things about it. We talked a fair bit about “Martinese” these last few days and we all agree that nobody speaks it better than Giovanni, we also know Giovanni has a Martino voice and this “comunque” thing also strikes me as something that’s Marti-and-Gio’s, something Giovanni does for Martino to put him at ease or something he picked up from him.

But, even more interestingly, where does this “comunque” also crop up? In our beloved 8.1 Patatine e marmellata, during “Buon viaggio”, of course, with Niccolò singing “Amore mio, comunque vada”. Coincidence? Nico stumbling on a bit of Martinese by chance? Another thing LudoBesse & co. will exploit to make us all suffer? Just me being too obsessed?

Giovanni gives the best advice. I need a Giovanni for myself and I can only aspire to reach the same level of wisdom as Giovanni Mago dell’Amore Garau.

Apparently, it’s a well know fact at liceo Kennedy that the school psychologist is obsessed with celery and I love that. He’s the closest thing we have to the representation of the actual quirky, weird af professors that usually roam the corridors of every Italian high school, but especially (imho) of liceo classico.

So they go to see the psycologist, dr. Roberto Spera. Someone with an actual degree. Thank God. (From what I read online, in Skam og Isak only speaks to Magnus whose mum is bipolar, and that’s cute but it also seems too much of a coincidence. IDK I haven’t seen the og so I can’t tell if it felt realistic, but I definitely like that in Skam Italia the boysquad went to a professional.)

Oh, dr. Spera how I missed you.

Giovanni Garau and Roberto Spera doing the Lord’s work and spreading the Very Important Message that you should not a) believe everything that’s online; b) only look up things online without talking to experts or reading their book/articles/papers etc.; c) self diagnose- or diagnose someone else on the basis of something you read on Wikipedia or WebMD

NAMACISSI. Guys, we knew it was something significant! *pats the whole fandom on the back*

“Is it Buddhist?” no, honey, that’s namastè

Dr. Spera’s desk is blue, he’s wearing blue, but the walls are yellowish and the light is much warmer here than in the bathroom.

Martino tells him everything this time. About Niccolò, about the off-again, on-again they went through, about finally getting together and being finally happy until last Friday.

I wonder how amny encouraging looks and nods Giovanni had to give him to make Marti spill all the tea.

I wonder how many times the boys cut in and how many times their eyes widened and their ears perked up because Martino said something they hadn’t heard about before.

Robert Spera, patron saint of debunking false information and asking the right questions.

And the KING OF SHADE. He disses Trump and reads Maddalena for filth while also shading Martino (”Tre mesi...UNA LUMINARE!”). We stan.

I nearly fell over laughing when he didn’t know what blocking meant and I love Luca for explaining and promising to teach him, I bet poor Roberto has given out his number to subscribe to something and now there are so many telemarketers calling and messaging him trying to sell him the weirdest things.

Bless Luchino. As I mentioned before, I knew what was going to happen in this clip and I loved the things they changed but I also lovelovelove that Luca still got to tell Marti not to believe Maddalena. He’s naive, he has acted plain dumb, he has been ignorant to the point of offense, he is not the most empatically aware, so it’s much more significant when he’s the one to point things out.

And of course I love the wording and I feel for the translators who have to deal with it. And I love that dr. Spera uses the same words (what else could we expect from the man who asked “E se il copilota è andato a pisciare?”)

Luca casually dropping “Ti ama” (He loves you) and “È innamorato di te” (He’s in love with you), nonchalantly, like he’s talking about the weather and my heart doing high kicks and backflips. Can’t even begin to think what Marti’s was doing.

the boysquad Can’t Deal™ with Martino, Gio facepalms, Elia looks away with the far away expression of a soldier who just came back home, Luchino goes for the classic “Ma che cazzo stai a di’?” (WTF are you saying?) hand gesture

dr Spera looks on, approving

“Te l’ho già detto che ti devi fidare degli amici” MARTINO GUARDAMI MARTINOOOOO

dr Spera slips up and talks about the last time he and Marti talked, but he notices his mistake right away and fixes it changing the subject (THAT HOW YOU AVOID BLOWING A COVER, DO YOU HEAR ME 3.4!NICCOLÒ?)

I love that Roberto Spera has one (1) “experiment” that’s so versatile he can use it for all occasions

Luchino not being able to physically support Martino by himself during the experiment though (I desperately tried not to read into this, because I want it to be a thing done for shits and giggles, I want it to be just fun, but my mind keeps replaying “so are you like..transgender?” and “whe two gay men have sex one is the man and the other one is the woman?” and, yeah, on his own Luchino would not be able to support Martino in the metaphorical sense either)

anyways, I love i Contrabbandieri for going to the psychologist’s office all together, both to support Marti and because they’ve already adopted his boyfriend Niccolò and he’s not feeling well, which makes Martino not feel well either and they want to know why-how-when-how can we help

I wonder how Gio will feel when he’ll inevitably get out of Martino that he went to talk to dr. Spera before coming out to him, before talking to him. Will he be hurt that his friend didn’t feel like he could talk to him? Will he feel guilty?

(Let’s not forget that afaik the boysquad still doesn’t know about Filippo. How will they all, especially Giovanni, take the fact that Martino told basically a stranger about Nico before telling them? I need fic explorations of the dynamics that all these characters will create)

Anyways, once again Martino exits dr. Spera’s office with an important life lesson, a new outlook on life and hope, as well as bruises from falling on his ass

(Giovanni and Elia in that position, laughing at their friend are giving me ~feelings~ I don’t know why)

Well, I guess that’s it. My inbox is open if there’s anything you want to discuss!

#skam italia #9.3 namacissi #martino rametta #giovanni garau #luca colosio #roberto spera #elia santini #skamit #contrabbandieri di luchini #the boysquad of loveliness #a. writes #skam meta

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thechrispavon · 6 years

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Okay, I think I'm in the mood to talk about 2018 and the year to come.

(Originally posted on Twitter)

2018 has been... an odd year, I guess? It definitely wasn't as bad as my 2017, but I always think it could've been a bit better. I think I'd give it a 6 or a 7 out of 10, mainly because I think I could've done more. (Plus, my 2017 was flat out horrible.)

I started 2018 finally getting employed. Even though it was only a part time job, it was my first job after I finished my Bachelor's degree in 2016. Constantly applying for jobs and getting no response greatly contributed to my depression.

And even though I occasionally apply nowadays, I at least have my current part time job to fall back on. It makes my job-hunting less soul-sucking. While I take calls for theater patrons who want to order tickets, I slowly got to know my co-workers.

I feel like I didn't really open up until summertime, which was the theater's off-season. I can say I've met a few friends. Some of them have their quirks, but I don't mind. Through working, I've noticed I have more patience than others. And boi, it comes in handy.

Plus, with a part time job, I get to treat myself! AND BOI, DID I DO THAT! I got myself a Switch on my birthday, a bunch of merch at NYCC, several games during Christmastime, a new phone, and that KH3 Deluxe coming next year! I'd hate to flex, but I worked for it. XD

Creatively this year, I've been mentally throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. At the end of last year/beginning of this year, I talked to a producer and showed him my writing work. I was just happy to talk to him.

To be honest, I didn't expect much from the conversation, so being able to show him my work and get feedback was pretty much an honor! Lol Afterwards, I went to work brainstorming and developing new ideas, but they were a hit or miss. I feel like some ideas need more time.

Meanwhile, I managed to finish writing the Children of the Sky Episode 4 Script around October. I was ecstatic. I don't remember when I started that! It was a long time, way before I wrote the Series Bible in January 2018.

Speaking of the Children of the Sky Project: Even though I finished Episode 4 and I'm currently writing 5, I really don't know what's going to happen with the project in 2019. Honestly, I've never been this unsure with the project before.

Children of the Sky is a huge story, and yes, I could continue writing scripts, but I REALLY want to share it with people. I wanted it to be animated. That's why I wrote screenplays. I tried to do it back in 2016 with a couple of people, but it turned out to be REALLY difficult.

I tried to make Children of the Sky into a comic all on my own, but I became absolutely exhausted, because I'm a huge perfectionist. It took me a few weeks just make this one panel. (And looking at it in hindsight, there's a bunch of things I could've done differently.)

I toyed with the idea of turning my story into a video game series, because that would be awesome. (I can dream, okay?) I thought about how battles would play and I even dabbled once into very basic 3D modeling, but honestly? I don't know anyone with that expertise.

I know I could hire people who know how to draw, animate, make 3D models, or even program a game, but with my expectations and standards, I can't afford to properly pay them with my part-time job. And I'm terrified of crowdfunding, because what if people don't like my ideas?

Only recently have I begun to think about turning Children of the Sky into a series of novels. Using my scripts as a foundation, I would have to greatly revise the episodes to properly fit the medium. It will take some time and I don't know if I'm really keen on the idea.

And I haven't even started on my stuff on YouTube!! My "Throw-Stuff-At-Wall-And-See-What-Sticks" mentality REALLY transferred over to that space in 2018. I tried to do vlogs, dabbled in reviews, and I don't know what else. Just some random videos. I need a focus. Or a coach lol.

My Most Viewed YT Videos I made in 2018 were...

Kingdom Hearts III Release Date Reaction

My Manga Collection

Cloud and Sephiroth But with Ed Edd n Eddy Sound Effects

Devilman Crybaby Fast Review

Reacting to KH3 is Hard

VA Demo Reel

The KH3 Release Date Reaction was just good timing, because I released it RIGHT after it was announced. FF7 with Ed Edd n Eddy was just a meme. And my demo reel only got that much views because I marketed it to Voice Actors on Twitter often.

Right now, I don't know what I'm doing for YouTube! Lol I've been debating on doing a video on how Kingdom Hearts means so much to me, but I'm hesitant, because I don't know how people are going to take it! XD But outside of that? I have no idea!

Let's change the subject to voice acting!

This past summer, I came out of a massive hiatus. Before then, I hadn't been doing voice acting in YEARS. What prompted me? Some idiot I worked with once decided to go to recording studios and anonymously slandered a couple of well known voice actors.

But that absolutely PALES in comparison to the whole Mylez Dimitrovski fiasco. The worst thing? I worked with the guy a couple times. I kinda chatted with him. But I knew NOTHING about his shit. Only hints I get from other voice acting friends in the past.

I missed voice acting during my hiatus, but nothing really inspired me. I was so pissed off about these two that I felt COMPELLED to actually get back into it.

I met some voice actors online because of this, but I still honestly feel like an outsider to the voice acting community. I quickly became aware of how my quality isn't as good as anyone else's. Plus, getting rejected auditions still feels like crap today as it did years ago.

I got to Round 2 of Now Voice This and I was very shocked. I did not expect that at all. I just submitted a few days before the deadline and tried not to think too much about. When I saw my name in Round 2, I didn't believe it. My first thought was, "You're kidding, right?"

But now, I unfortunately have to take another voice acting hiatus, because my family and I will be moving soon. The new house will be closer to work. It'll still be in the same state, so no California or Texas for me!

I'm concerned about where to record in the new house, because most of the place has hardwood or tiled floors. Reverb's gonna be horrible. Maybe I could ask my parents to install a studio? I would need to upgrade my equipment, because I don't think my Yeti's gonna cut it anymore.

But yeah. For the past couple of years, my parents have been thinking about moving and have been looking for houses. They just bought the new house last month. So it just created this weird seismic shift in my life. 2019 is really going to be marked by my family and I moving.

I've been in the old house my entire life. Sure, I was on a college campus for 4 years, but the old house was my childhood. I don't know what's going to happen in 2019. I just want to get used to the new house and play Kingdom Hearts III.

#I made a thing!#telegraphs

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years

Text

@nxbulaholic

This is certainly one of the more unique profiles we’ve ever gotten… I like the flower flourishes, haha. A few things here… I’m not sure who Darcan is? You didn’t really clarify. I googled the name and all I came up with was this Broken–Pieces rp group? Which uses the same flower quirk that you do, so I’m assuming you’re working on a character for that! In fact it seems like you might’ve already submitted her? But that’s fine, we’ll get working.

So the basics of this character are that she’s someone with anger in her heart. She seems guided by intellect, but she’s actually guided by emotions. She’s a conspiracy theorist, dodgy, and involves herself in drama…. Alright, I think I can work with that.

Xamona Orcigo

I’m sure it’s uncomfortable to get a name change suggestion for an established character, but maybe… Ustakl Krygaf.

Ustakl functions as a reference to the Üst akıl (mastermind) conspiracy theory in Turkey, which expresses the belief that some external actor is attempting to systematically weaken and dismantle Turkey, up to implying that ripped jeans were a form of “code talking” and even that the external actor is responsible for the 2017 Turkish earthquake.

Krygaf is a reference to the etymological root of Crytology. It would basically mean Code Creator, which is in a way a reference both to her conspiracy theorist nature And the title I’m going to later recommend for her (because she doesn’t read as a breath player to me).

Age - 8 sweeps

Pronouns - She/Her

Nicknames / Other known Names - Mona

I think this can stay even if you change her name, because- get this- Mona Lisa conspiracy theories? Surprisingly common. And ambiguity is a common theme around the Mona Lisa anyways. Maybe there was a troll Monalisa in the ancient times that is a famous painting today and she’s nicknamed after it because of some of the uncertainty surrounding her and her smile.

Wriggling day - August 13th

Title - Mage of Breath

I want to make the argument that she’s a Sylph of Mind. She passively creates ideas from whole cloth by interpreting information in unique ways. She might be able to inspire action in others through these ideas and threads of logic that she’s creating. The people around her might be pushed to move in certain ways depending on the information she gathers and asserts.

Her inverse would be Prince of Heart, which is also fitting. This inverse implies that she would destroy Through heart as well as destroy heart. She would actively use her emotions as a tool to smash with and would hurt other’s feelings in the process. Destroying all these feelings in the way thus inspires people to act in certain ways or come to certain conclusions, wrapping back around to her passively creating thought.

Discourse also has a bit reputation with Romance Drama so her calling out her exes would be another way of Passively Creating Thought by actively destroying hearts.

Dreamer Class - Prospit

Considering her tendency to close off from others/not let people know her true colors, her involvement in a rebellion, her anger towards purples that presumably stems from her past, and her interest in discourse, I’d say she’s probably actually a derse dreamer!

Symbol -

Libus

~ Sign of the Vibrant

Which means I’ll be changing her sign to Libza, the Acute. I think this is a fitting title for her, because it means shrewd, but also means present in a painful or overbearing amount.

Blood color - Teal

I think she makes a really good teal. I think you should emphasize her ethical center, though!. Does she fundamentally believe people can’t change? If someone was called out 10 years ago will she continue to hold them in exile? Does she value a sense of moral superiority over the basic tenants of kindness and mutual respect? Is she one of those bloggers who is like, a total dick to people for no reason but never gets called out because she’s like, technically got good politics, but GOD she’s a dick?

Alignment - Darcan’s Rebellion

You should definitely elaborate how she found out about him and why she decided to join in your backstory.

Typing Style - all in lowercase and always uses prefered and more obtuse vocabulary, TYPES IN ALL CPAS WHEN PISSED OFF AND MAKES A FUCKTION OF SPELLING MISTAKES

I’m sorry to say that this is kind of an overused quirk by this point, especially for characters with explosive tempers. I think if you want to make a character who co-opts the social justice scene for her own social benefit and to manufacture a feeling of self-worth, you should look at the communities of people online who Really Do That, those people who take the sjw language for themselves and mutate other community’s language and smash both into a condescending bullshit pile.

Example: if you think goldbloods are just purple shills you. are. valid. unu

uhm okay you stupid fuckboy. purplebloods are inherently violent but go off i guess???? unu

OKAY LISTEN UP YOU MOTHERFUCKERS. YOUR HEMOELDER IS GONNA LEARN YOU A THING unu.

Use the ‘unu’ emoji at the end of every sentence and distort actual sj conventional speech as much as you can, basically.

Strife Specibi - taserkind

Edit: I really can’t stop thinking about this so I have to suggest it. You could also possibly have her have teakind as a backup? Like a literal cup of tea. For an “And that’s the tea” joke, of course.

Lusus - Quetza the 31st (a three headed snake lusii)

Honestly can I recommend a two-faced golbat-like lusus?

One of the uhhh bigger names in nasty inconceivable discourse right now has a golbat-themed blog (no namedrops here)- and there’s also the Leelah Alcorn scandal, orchestrated by the now deactivated user, Zubat. Seems like the zubat line is a little cursed by discourse >_>. golbats look like they’re Yelling so it’s great for a character like her who has a tendency to Erupt, and the two-faced nature implies her tendency to not present her True Self immediately.

Ancestor - Contessa Blackfin

I don’t know much about the narrative story you’re going for here, but maybe she could’ve been killed by a purple?

Personality - Xamona could usually be described as the type of person who would try logic and reason instead of violence, it’s actually the other way around when you get to know her. She has a deathly fear of Purplebloods and is basically racist towards that specific caste, she’s quite willing to go to extreme lengths to prove her points and is rather manipulative towards trolls who don’t know her true colors. If anything she could be compared to that of a conspiracy theorist.. or a Tumblr user with an extreme amount of history relating to discourse.

I’m guessing things are more egalitarian between the castes of landdwellers in this au in order for the prejudice narrative to make sense? Because otherwise being wary of a class of people who’ve historically exploited yours and who have powers Specifically meant to keep lowbloods down while inside a totalitarian highbloods nation is kind of good sense. Just a little.

Still though she’s such a dick I love this bad personality. I think she should be the type to hold a grudge and the type who accuses everyone of being out to get her.

Relationships - [TBA]

<strike>Nikalo - Is EXTREMELY suspicious of.</strike>

Strengths -

- Xamona is very agile and could dodge enemy attacks with ease

- Despite her seemingly fragile figure, she could put up quite a fight with those of higher blood than her

Keep in mind that her being a teal is starting to dip into the blueblood range, so she’ll be naturally stronger than Jades and below.

Also, make her someone who’s really good at preparedness. If she’s paranoid, make her someone who’s already ready for an attack. Make her the kind of person that when she walks in a room, she’s already thinking, “Where are all the exits? What can I hide under? What could I use as a weapon?” This helps her avoid situations where she’s backed into a corner- and makes it all the scarier when she IS helpless.

Weaknesses -

- If you get her to talk about her plans, she’ll keep talking and talking..

- If she’s cornered, Xamona will be at her weakest when it comes to fighting back

Backstory - [TBA]

Hmmmmm, maybe you could make her have romance drama with a purple that ended in a little bit of turmoil? Some eye-scarring turmoil?

Quote - “CALL ME A HIPSERT ONE MORE FUCKING TIME.”

Voice -

Mahiru Koizumi

Themesong -

Into the Basement

Design:

There really wasn’t a lot I felt the need to edit. I gave her horns that look more like her new symbol. I know this au isn’t especially concerned with canon compliance, but blind eyes are bright red from what we’ve seen! So I edited it to that. And I moved her symbol and changed it to the new one. We’ve seen that on Alternia, symbols always appear in blood color and never another color, even a neutral one.

I also did a new ref sheet?

Though not much changed there.

Thank you for sharing!

-CD

#nxbulaholic #xamona orcigo #ustakl krygaf #xamona #orcigo #ustakl #krygaf #tealblood #review #redesign #cd review #submission

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asipasi · 6 years

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A New Journey (written January 2018)

I wrote the below during my first Weight Watchers Journey right as I made goal. I thought I knew it all then. I thought I had it figured out. I was going to maintain my goal weight forever and ever. And I did, for a while. I was a WW receptionist, as it afforded me the luxury to “have a job” while we moved, and to get some discounts on the awesome snacks. I try not to be judgemental, but sometimes I judged “my regulars” who gained weight or the lifetimers who were 20 or more pounds over goal. I was never gonna go there again! I gave away all my “fat clothes” so I wouldn’t have an excuse.

It went well for a while even through the long roadtrip from GA to CO when we moved and through a trip to NYC with my friend, I held steadfast. I will always blame my brother-in-law’s return from deployment as the starting point of my decline, as there were a lot of pizza nights, going out to restaurants and such. But really, that is just an excuse. I’m a big girl, I could have made better decisions. It is hard when you live in a family and you don’t buy the groceries and everybody else can eat whatever they want without a problem. But it can be done.

Anyways – the weight kept creeping up and soon I had no choice but to buy bigger clothes again. I told myself it was “just for now”. I will loose this again soon, but I have to have something to wear in between. Another lie. Soon you are in the mindset of “whatever, there is nothing I can do, I’m just meant to be a fat kid.” And you get more depressed, and you eat more, because it doesn’t matter anyway. I had no more room in my closet and was forced to pack up my “thin clothes” and get fat clothes again. But this time I did not give them away. I still have them.

I tried the new WW system and could not get into it. Without meetings (and I was too ashamed to go to meetings as a lifetime member so much over goal, remembering vividly my own judgements), I did not understand the new plan. So I dug out all my old stuff, books and calculators and tried to do it again on my own, but that also didn’t work, because all the support tools were geared for the new plan. I gave up again. I did a short stint on Shakeology, which had worked for my sister, but not for me (and I felt so deprived). I started realizing that once again, I tried to not be in photographs or made funny faces, to hide my weight. I also wanted to get back into horsebackriding and I was horrified having to tell somebody my weight so they can pick a horse for me – would they even have a horse that can carry my weight. I felt so bad for the horse that would have to have me on their back. I finally decided that I can’t let it go on.

One of my best friends had just started again and was raving about the new freestyle and the free foods. I re-signed with WW online. I was skeptical. I loved the strictness of the old plan I was on 10 years ago. Then all you could possibly do is use fitpoints (and I didn’t exercise, so I didn’t use them). And now you have all these free foods, weekly points and fit points? Granted, I have way less daily points to use (then I started out with 35, now I have 24), but I was going to give it a shot. It has worked for me before. As a matter of fact, it’s been the only program that has ever worked for me. So I was willing to trust it. And it is working again! I made it to 5% in three weeks – that’s insane! It’s crazy. I’m not complaining, but it is literally blowing me away. Just this past week I had a couple of days that I had to dip into the weeklies and I went out for dinner. I lost 4.1 lbs. Ten years ago my average weight loss was 2 lbs a week. I know that it may turn out to be the same again. But for now I’m ecstatic. It seems that the difference this past week to the week before (when I lost 2 lbs) was that I ate way more “free foods” – salad and salmon. So there you have it.

I know freestyle doesn’t work for some people. They crave the strictness or “more control” of whatever was before. And I know where they are coming from. See above! Whatever the program was that came before freestyle didn’t work for me. And I know I never gave it a fair shot and I may not have done it right, because I was trying to do it without support. But freestyle seems to work for me. Just because a food is free, doesn’t mean that I will overindulge in that food. But it makes for great snack options. It makes for great options when I have used too many points already. I don’t have to go hungry. I don’t have to deprive myself. And that is what is going to get me to sustain it this time.

I know I was eating crap, I know my portions were creeping up, I know I was eating too much chocolate. Now I have control over this again. I’m accountable. And if I want chocolate, I can have it. And however many points that costs me doesn’t mean I have to go hungry for dinner. I can eat a salad with salmon and still not go over.

I’m not sure why freestyle doesn’t work for everybody. I’m not a nutritionist. It seems to be working for me. I also love the control of tracking. I’m trying not to use my weekly points. I know you’re supposed to, but for me that is creeping into dangerous territory. I am not swapping my fit points. Not yet anyway (all I am doing right now is counting steps). I am swapping weeklies first. Maybe when I start exercising I’ll start using fitpoints. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m going on vacation to Brazil in a week. For 10 days I will be somewhat cut off from WW. I will try to track, but I don’t even know how to find all the foods I am going to try in my app. I know I will be eating a lot of fruit and veggies, but there is other stuff, too. I know there will be a lot of alcohol. But I also know my BFF is going to make me exercise. So hopefully I won’t gain too much back. Or maybe I won’t gain anything and just plateau. I would be ok with that. I don’t want to stress out over it. But for the first time in probably a couple of years I am hopeful that I can get back to goal and that I will be able to maintain it for the rest of my life.

Highest Weight 240lbs

Goal Weight 160 lbs (lifetime April 2009)

Starting weight (1/8/18) 230.3 lbs

Current Weight (1/28/18) 218.1 lbs

Height: 5’8”

February 15, 2009

INSTEAD OF GIVING MYSELF REASONS WHY I CAN'T, I GIVE MYSELF REASONS WHY I CAN!

I think that's a good tagline for my blog today. I wasn't going to write this until I actually achieved goal, but I am 1.8 pounds away and I just blew my mind a couple of days ago, so I decided it was time. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is the story from the beginning:

A little over two years ago my size 20 jeans started to get snug - and really, I needed a 22 but I could never find jeans that I liked on me anyway. I actually had to look into men's jeans. Somehow I had gained 40-some pounds since I moved to the US. Now - I was always the heavy kid, never small by any means. But I thought "well, I'm getting older and I'm likely to gain more weight as the body's metabolism slows down. If I gain at the same rate I'll be close to 300 pounds when I'm 50." That scared me! A LOT! Apart from borderline high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes was another concern for me (runs in the family). At one point my hair actually started falling out like crazy. Then it got greasy so fast and so much that it never looked clean - even right after I washed it. I wore my hair in a ponytail for months, because I didn't know what else to do. I started getting winded just walking up the two flights of stairs to my appartment. I couldn't really blame that on "being out of shape" anymore. I knew I had to do something, but the prospect of having to lose 70 to 80 pounds seemed daunting to me. I have never been able to stay on a diet long enough to lose that kind of weight. And I was afraid that if I didn't lose it fast I wouldn't stick with it.

Then my friend Angie lost a lot of weight on Medifast. I looked into it, but I could not imagine following that strict plan. Nevertheless her weight loss pushed me into more research. Then my sis decided to check out Weight Watchers. I had always thought that all those companies are like little "secret societies" or something. I thought "they are a business and they're only after your money, trying to sell you their high-priced foods." I was reluctant and decided to see if it worked for her. She was successful immediately and was gung-ho about it - she had the best time and loved going to her meetings. So after a couple of weeks I decided to give it a try. I'm not the "rah-rah meeting" type of girl, so I decided to go it on my own and signed up online. I was willing to give it a month or two and see what happens. I couldn't imagine it working without me doing any kind of exercise and because I thought "I'm not really eating that much now - there is no way I can eat less in order to lose any weight"

Well - my eyes were opened. On the program I had to eat sooooo much that I seriously doubted their sanity. Some days I couldn't even get all the points that were alloted to me and I had to drink some extra milk or eat a yogurth at night in order to get them all in. Yet - the first week I lost 3 pounds ... and the second and I kept losing usually at a pace of 2 pounds per week. Turns out I wasn't eating enough and I surely wasn't eating the right kinds of food. Every week, then every month I waited for that point when the shoe would drop and I wouldn't lose anymore. And I did hit a couple of plateaus - but generally I kept going down. Hallelujah! As I said, my eyes were opened. I learned portion control and better eating choices. I learned to read and pay attention to nutrition labels. I had to restructure my life. But that's what it's all about. It is not a diet. It is a lifestyle change. That is one big realization to make and that thought had always scared me in the past. Why? Maybe because I thought it meant I could never ever have the foods I loved anymore. No more pasta, bread or chocolate..... But now I learned that this wasn't true at all. I could still have all that stuff - just not as much and in different ways. So ... that's what "lifestyle-change" meant.

So here I am a little over two years later and (almost) 75 pounds lighter. Losing is at a much slower pace now and not as easy anymore. However, it is still going down and not back up. I am NEVER going back. I know, I know "never say never" but in this instant I can and I will. I don't EVER want to be where I was anymore. How did I let myself get to that point anyway? I gave away all my big clothes. As soon as they started falling off of me and looked really baggy I gave them away. No more holding on to something "in case" I gain some weight.

So this is where the "mind-blowing" episode comes in. Sis took me to get a new pair of jeans that fits right instead of her hand-me-downs, which are starting to slide down as well. I bought a size 8! ...... I have never in my life been a size 8! I didn't know or think that I could be a size 8. I have wide hip bones, so I thought..... but apparently I can! It just is mind-boggling to me. I mean - I see my before pictures and I can hardly believe that that is me. And I see myself now in the mirror or in pictures and I can see the difference. But my mindset is still not all caught up. In my mind I'm still the pudgy ugly duckling. And then every once in a while I look at a new picture or I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I go "WOW - is that me?" Like - sometimes I will walk by a picture window and catch a reflection of myself and not recognize myself, I will literally not realize that this is me. It is a very weird and schizophrenic feeling. Don't get me wrong. I am very, very proud of what I have accomplished and I am celebrating. But it is also weird and strange in a way and somehow the brain needs some time to catch up.

For example, the 8 is still snug. There are still some areas on my body that I do not like. There are still a few more fat-pockets than I would like. And I guess that - in my eyes - won't allow myself to measure up to those beautiful Hollywood women with their perfect bodies. (no... no... I know.... ) But if I look at where I have been I am certifiably skinny! That doesn't even sound right - "me" and "skinny" in the same sentence. But I am! And only now do I realize how much I loathed myself, and how much I was in denial then. I still do not "love" my body, but I am definitely proud of what I have accomplished and I do want to show it off. Gone are the days of bulky sweaters and XXL T-shirts to drape over the pants to hide the belly and hips. I will actually buy clothes that are close to my body and that show contours. Who would have thunk it? So what if a little roll still shows above the belt-line? It's there - I'm human. Maybe it'll go away, maybe it won't. I know I have some more work to do. I have to start exercising and try to tone my body, get rid of some of the flab of extra skin and weak muscle tissue.

But for the first time in my life I'm mostly ok with how I look in my body!

Thank you so much to Angie and Sis for inspiring me to start, to Cynde for supporting me and not unintentionally sabotaging me but always being right there with me when I tried to figure out what I can eat - especially in the beginning when I was like a lunatic with my "complete food companion" and my points calculator, and again for Sis for the continuing support and encouragement. We did it SIS!

If I can only inspire one other person to take that step and trust this program to work, then all my hard work has been worth it and it's the best thanks of all!

#weightwatchers #freestyle #weightloss

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so-taylorswift · 7 years

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back in los angeles | tomlinswift

CHATZY PARA// LOUIS & TAYLOR GET BACK TO LA, HAVE SEX, HANG OUT WITH THE CATS, BURN CHICKEN, ORDER PIZZA & SNUGGLE IN FRONT OF A FIRE. :) so not much tbh and not in that order ayy WHEN// OCTOBER 29th-ish IDK WITH// @louistomlinsonx

Louis: It felt weird, landing in LA and not getting in a car and going straight to his place. After partying last night in New York and taking Taylor's jet back to Los Angeles, the boy hadn't given it a second thought when the driver asked where to and Taylor said her place, it just felt... Natural. He wanted to spend time with her, and she wanted to go home to see her cats, so why not go there. He couldn't see Freddie because Briana had him with her family, so why spend time away from her before they had to be separated by an ocean. The drive hadn't been too long, and as soon as he arrived, he placed his suitcase near the door and took a seat on the couch, right next to where Meredith was sitting. He offered the cat his hand, knowing full and well that she wasn't exactly a people kitten, but was surprised when the little fur ball came closer to it and rubbed herself against it, asking to be pet. The Brit complied instantly "Tay... Babe... Taylor, look... It's happening!"

Taylor: Being able to think about how she was now travelling with her boyfriend was a strange thought that Taylor didn't think she'd be able to have for a little while yet. It did make it easier to explain why they were travelling together from Tennessee to New York, to California all in the space of a couple of days. It also made it a lot easier to decide that they'd be staying at her place, being taken straight there from the airport as soon as they landed. It mad Tay smile a little as they got out of the car to think that this was where Louis had dropped her off a little over a month ago after their dinner together. So much had changed since then, and she was beyond happy about it. Her own case was abandoned next to Louis' as she made her way through to the kitchen to get them something to drink but his voice pulled her back into the downstairs lounge area. "What's happ- what?!?" Taylor was a mixture between impressed and offended at how happily Meredith was rubbing her head against his hand. "How did you..? I mean? Don't move!" she pulled her phone out of her pocket, aiming to take a snap of this moment as proof that miracles really DO happen.

Louis: Louis chuckled and looked at his girlfriend, shaking his head "I don't know. I just saw her and went like this with my hand and she moved herself. I swear I didn't do anything" He said, looking up at her with complete and utter disbelief. His hand rubbed gently at Meredith's back, her eyes shutting down as she moved only a little closer to Louis before curling up in a ball and just sitting there. "Don't get me face on it if you wanna put it online" He said with a laugh, not really knowing how much she wanted their relationship to be out right now.

Taylor: She was just stood there with her phone in her hands, blinking blankly as her eyes shifted between the cat and the man. Did it make it even more of a burn that Louis didn't have to put in any affort to gain Meredith's love? Kind of. But it mostly just warmed Taylor's heart to think that Meredith was giving some kind of silent approval. "It's cool. I mean... I feed her, play fetch with her, gave her a sister, let her star in music videos.. but I'm not bitter at all," she said with an amused smile, shaking her head a little. When she'd joked that Meredith was Louis' biggest fan it wasn't meant to become true. She bit her bottom lip and nodded a little upon hearing his request, trying not to think too much into it even though it made her feel a little disappointed. Not that she was going to put it online anyway, "of course."

Louis: He moved his hand on the kitten's back and felt it purring, the smile splitting up his cheeks "D'you know what, I've never been a cat person... I'm more of a dog lad, but these guys may just change me mind" He said as he turned his head to see her. He saw her smile drop, and he really didn't know why, so he assumed it was because of what he said about the cats. Standing up, he went over to wrap his arms around her waist "Well, not just them, their mum is pretty fit and I'm sure she can get me to do just about anything with a bat of her eyelashes and a smile" He said, pressing a kiss on her cheek.

Taylor: Her phone was soon tucked back into her pocket, photo opportunity forgotten as she just tried to forbid herself from ruin a relationship from over-analyzing things when she was only a couple of days into it. That would be a new record, even for her. As soon as Louis started to move towards her, the thought was mostly forgotten anyways as she wrapped her arms around his neck loosely. "Just about anything? So, you'll put in a good word for me with Meredith? Let her know I actually am cool?" As soon as he'd kissed her cheek, Taylor had moved to press a quick kiss against his lips. "Just about anything, though? I'll keep that in mind."

Louis: Seeing her smile made Louis smile just the same. The concern on her face had left as quickly as it had appeared, so he was happy about it right now. He tightened the grip around her waist pulling her closer when she kissed him, nodding when she spoke again "Oh, absolutely, I'll go tell her right now to go easy on her mum" He said. The way she said 'just about anything' turned him on a little bit, he wasn't gonna lie, so he hummed back and bit on his lower lip, nudging his nose with hers "Anything you wanna do, just run it by me... Or me new best friend, Meredith" He said with a chuckle.

Taylor: Tay made a little 'pfft' sound and rolled her eyes lightly, "your new best friend? You know what? That's fine. Me and Dibbles are best friends, too. Cooler best friends. And you're not allowed to hang out with us," she joked, childishly sticking her tongue out at Louis. Her point wasn't backed up at all since Olivia hadn't even come to greet them when they'd walked through the door like she normally did, the white fluffball obviously choosing to keep sleeping instead of come and say hello. But Taylor ignored that fact, just like she was ignoring the way that Meredith was eyeing Taylor from the couch and seemingly jealous over Louis' shift of affections.

Louis: Louis smirked at the way Taylor was acting jealous. It probably was absolutely fake, and just to mess with him, but something about her acting like that, claiming and acting so possessive over him made him about 50% happy and 50% kinda turned on. He kissed her quickly on the lips, before moving his kiss to the side and finding the corner of them, and then lining down to find her neck and prep it with soft, sweet kisses "Mhm, someone's a little bit jealous. You're afraid that I'm gonna become Ollie's favorite too, babe?" He asked, his hands slowly moving down to land on her bum, resting there.

Taylor: Tay's laugh was small, lost somewhere as her mind went a little fuzzy from the way that his lips were tracing shapes on her neck. Ever since they'd officially gotten together all she wanted to do was touch him and be intimate with him like this. Partially because she wanted to make sure that this was all real, and then also because the beginning sparks of a relationship were everything to her and she wanted to make the most out of the way that her skin caught fire every time that he touched it. "See now, I have no fear of that one. Ollie and I.. we're like this -" she held up her hand, fingers crossed to signal how tight they were. "You better take it easy, boy, or I'm going to have to hop straight back over to team Freddie.."

Louis: Louis smiled against her skin, he was loving how he could do this, how it came natural to him to just walk up to her, wrap an arm around her, kiss her senseless if he felt like it, because she was his girlfriend... He still couldn't believe how she had agreed to be in a relationship with him, with how complicated and work-oriented their lives were, but he was so happy about it. "I'm sure you are. I just came in to fill the gap Mer felt when you got Olivia" He said with a smile, pulling away and looking up at her "You're switching to team Freddie again? That's just terrible... Go ask him to play you Jet songs and be a romantic git for you" He said, moving his head and speaking in a mocking tone

Taylor: "Fill the gap? Oh, right. 'Cos it's not like Meredith was grateful that she could now share the burden of having me as a mom," Taylor joked, very self aware regarding the situation when it came to Meredith enjoying being left alone by her 99% of the time and the other 1% being a pure miracle. "Hey now, I never said I was officially switching back. I just said that if you don't take it easy.. I'll have to consider it. Gotta keep my options open, right?" A small smile played at her lips as she thought about Louis being a 'romantic git', "I don't think anyone could play the role of 'romantic git' as well as you, no matter how hard they try."

Louis: Louis let out a chuckle, his head turning to look behind his shoulder and find Meredith still sitting on the couch looking at them. "As much as I don't appreciate you calling me a git, I'll take it and be the only one in your life for now" He said with a big smile. "She does like being alone too much... Maybe we can make her a bit jealous, make her see who's stealing mummy away. You know how you always want what's not yours, huh?" He asked, leaning back in to catch her lips in his, taking the pathetic excuse as far as he could and kissing his girlfriend deeper this time, one of his hands still on her butt and the other one coming to find the side of her face.

Taylor: "Babe, I don't even know what the word 'git' means, I'm just rolling with it," Taylor admitted, still not used to his British slang. Was git even a bad word? It sounded harsh, but his smie was infectious and it knocked her out of her thoughts in time for her to smile back at him. She laughed at how ridiculous he was, trying to make a cat jealous, but her laughter was cut off by his lips on hers and her arms securing their place around his neck so that she could hold him close against her. Her head spun as she kissed him back with a hand slipping up into his hair, and she knew she'd never let there be a day where she could no longer kiss him like this because it made her feel like she was flying.

Louis: Kissing Taylor could turn a man crazy, Louis Tomlinson was living proof of that. After a kiss, he felt like he could do anything, absolutely anything, and right now, the one thing he wanted to do was never stop. The feeling of her hand going up, her fingers against his scalp, made the boy moan quietly and pull the kiss even deeper, his hand dropping from her ass to the side of her thigh and scaling up. The room was quiet, mixed only by the sound of their kissing, so when he heard a cat meow that didn't come from behind him, he opened his eyes and there she was. Pulling away gently, he chuckled "Hey, Olivia"

Taylor: Taylor had been lost in some kind of dream world where the population consisted of only Louis Tomlinson. Every piece of focus in her body was on him and the way that their lips moved together to the point where she hadn't heard anything and was confused when he pulled away from her. Her eyes looked in his to see if she'd done something wrong, before she followed his eyeline and looked down at the ground. "Dibbles!" Taylor crouched down straight away, hand going out to pet the cat straight away. "Hello pretty angel princess kitty cat," Tay cooed as she picked Olivia up, standing up and facing Louis. "The day that Meredith lets you hold her like this, the world will literally start spinning."

Louis: Louis looked at his girlfriend and how she so very quickly detached from him to go to her cats. In his mind, Meredith and Olivia meant just as much to her as Freddie did to him, so a part of him understood completely why she reacted that way. Watching her bring Olivia over, he petted her head and smiled "We're taking it baby steps at a time, but the next time you see us, we'll be super best friends" He said, reaching around the small cat to press a kiss on Taylor's cheek before he turned around and went back to sit on the couch next to Meredith, placing his hand on her back only to get a quick hiss "Alright, maybe not"

Taylor: Her attachment to her cats was mostly rooted to the fact that it was one of the few normal things in her life. She'd had Meredith especially for so long, and it was one of the few things in her life that just hadn't changed over the years. "It's good that you're taking it slow - all good situations happen in their own time and not when people try to run before they can walk," Taylor said wisely as though offering genuine advice that wasn't about a friendship with a cat. The blonde laughed as Louis got hissed at, pouting a little as she scratched behind Olivia's ear, "aw, it's okay. Remember. Baby steps," she repeated his earlier words.

Louis: Hearing her talk, Louis smiled at the words she had said. Things were often coming in too fast for him, everything being thrown at him left and right, a baby, the band, the falling apart of the band, now the solo career, and as stupid and meaningless as Taylor may have said it, it made him smile. He patted the space next to him on the couch, calling Taylor over. Her mocking tone made him stick his tongue out to her "Wah wah, baby steps" He mocked her, looking down at Olivia "Mummy's being mean, Ollie."

Taylor: She made her way over to where Lou was sitting, taking the seat next to him on the other side of where Meredith was sat. "Don't go telling my daughter these things and trying to make her feel pity for you, that's just mean," she said as she used her spare hand to cover op Olivia's ears. "Look at you right now, though, surrounded by cats. Living the dream." Settling the cat down on her lap, Taylor expected Olivia to curl up and possibly start to go to sleep but instead the white cat jumped down and got comfortable on the rug. "Well.. fine then. We should go take our stuff upstairs, but it's so much effort," Tay complained as she leaned back on the couch.

Louis: Louis smiled and quickly kissed his girlfriend's cheek as soon as she took a seat next to them. "Just keeping it real, right, Dibbles?" He asked, looking down at the kitten who looked mildly annoyed by Taylor's hand over her head, so he wasn't surprised when he saw her jump ship as soon as she could "See? Punishment. For being rude" He said with a nod as if he were speaking the truth. Hearing her talk, he groaned a little bit, rolling his eyes before looking at her "Alright... Come on, girl" He said, huffing quietly before standing up and going to the door, grabbing both suitcases and making his way up the stairs.

Taylor: "If this is the kind of cruel, inhumane punishment that I have to face then I never want to be rude ever again," Taylor pouted in the saddest voice she could figure up and with her lips firmly pouted. Nodding, Taylor hesitated lazily for a few moments before pushing herself up from the couch and following him. "You don't have to take them both, babe," Tay said as she followed him up, already knowing that he wouldn't let her help. When her dad and Austin saw this side of Louis, Tay knew that they'd have no problems with the fact that she'd decided to be with him. Taylor grabbed one of the cases when they reached the top of the stairs, figuring he'd at least let her roll it down the hall on the wheels. Reaching the room, she pushed the door open and wheeled it in before placing it by the bed. "So, what's the plan whilst you're in LA? Like, what kind of stuff you gotta do?"

Louis: Louis scoffed and shook his head when Taylor tried to grab one of the suitcases. He had to admit, it was a little tricky to fit both of them and him in the staircase frame, but with a bit of wiggle room he managed to get upstairs. Very reluctantly, he allowed her to grab the handle and roll it all the way to the room, doing the same with his bag and stepping inside the room. Without the champagne in his system and already having been with Taylor for a bit of time, this room looked very different than the one a couple days ago, but he smiled when he saw the way the horizontal lines still formed by the bed before she flicked the lights on. Leaving his luggage by the door, he walked over to her and shrugged "Not much. Got a couple meetings here and there, wanna see Freddie if Bri doesn't mind. What about you?"

Taylor: It was almost like some kind of automatic reaction for her that when he made his way over to her, her arms reached out to wrap around him. Almost as though holding him close to her was a full time occupation. In fact, she wished that it was. "Well," she said simply, thinking through her schedule for a moment as she tried to remember. It was less than two weeks until the album was out, so her memory of her commitments was getting a littla fuzzy. "I am.. going to a couple meetings, too. I have an album release party thing with my label that I get to invite fans to. A couple friends have hit me up but, most of the time I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow let alone what I'm doing in a week, y'know?"

Louis: Louis smiled when she saw how her arms opened up and welcomed him in, the exact same reactions he had whenever she walked closer to him. His hands found their way to her hips, thumbs tracing circles over them before wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her in for a hug. She listed what sounded like the busiest week coming up, and Lou looked at her with a small smirk "Well, not gonna lie, that sounds like a fun time but also very busy" He said, taking a step with her towards the bed and throwing himself backwards onto it, bringing her down on him with his arms "But I think I can help with that, you know, to destress you. Wouldn't wanna get too wound up, would you?" He said with a smile, his lips finding her cheek quickly.

Taylor: She loved the 'Honeymoon Phase' of a new relationship where everything was different and exciting and you were still figuring things out about each other. Taylor could only hope that it'd never go away and she'd always have her arms open for him whenever he was anywhere near her and she'd always find herself endlessly happy over the sound of his voice. Realistically, little excitements like that didn't last when you got more familiar with one another, but she could only hope. "Well it should be busier - interviews and stuff, but I'm not doing any of that this time around so I get to spend a little more time hanging out than I would've if I had to do all of that stuff." Taylor allowed for herself to be pulled forwards by Louis' falling backwards, trying not to put all of her weight on him as she nestled into the familiarity of his body. "Oh yeah? You know - you're so selfless. De-stressing is definitely a thing that I'm going to need, boy." Taylor leaned down to press a kiss to his lips, smiling a little against them before letting her body fall to the side so it was lying next to him and curled up into his side, arm against his chest.

Louis: Louis smiled at the way she kissed him with a smile on, and said a little prayer, hoping that he'd now and always be at least a part of the reason as to why she smiled, because it was one of the most beautiful things to see. Kissing her back before allowing her to fall on her side, Lou wrapped his arms around her and brought her closer, pressing a kiss to the side of her face and taking a deep breath, inhaling all of her perfume and feeling so high on life. "Mhm, that's me. Always want what's best for you, girl."

Taylor: Louis always managed to make Tay feel special, the arm across his chest pulling herself closer to him and holding herself there for a few moments as her eyes slipped shut. Lying next to him was so comfortable, and there was nothing she wanted to do more than just retire to bed all day with him by her side. Tay couldn't let herself be that lazy, so instead she mumbled out a "what time is it?" as she fumbled around to pull her phone out of her pocket and answer her own question. "We should probably think about what we're going to do for dinner. I'm feeling lazy, so ordering in is solid but.. I kind of want to see if you're as good at cooking as you are at making a hot chocolate," she teased, remembering how close the milk came to being ruined.

Louis: Louis looked sideways, watching Taylor's eyes slip shut and wondered if she had always looked this peaceful or if it was just him looking at things through rose coloured glasses still. His free hand slowly went up to her hair, his fingers running through her blonde locks in an attempt to just make her feel more comfy, her eyes shutting down, wishing he could stay like this forever. Her question caught him off guard, but the following statement made him laugh "Oi, firstly... You're wrong, I'm not as bad as you're implying. And secondly... I cannot cook to save my life, Swift" He quipped back, admitting defeat "But I'll give it a fair try"

Taylor: She was used to being the center of attention but Taylor's favorite thing was to have all of Louis' attention to herself. She could feel his eyes on her and it made her feel so happy and comfortable. "I'm not implying that you're terrible, babe, no need to get all defensive! I'm sure you're fine, maybe there's some hidden talent in there that we can crack into. This time you get to wear the apron, so you can feel all professional and get in the zone."

Louis: Lou shook his head, taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a sigh "Alright, whatever you want, girl, but if I burn your kitchen down, then I'm not being held accountable for it, alright?" He teased her, squeezing gently on her sides to tickle her for a couple seconds before he nudged her up "Come on, let's go make us some dinner"

Taylor: "As if! You burn my kitchen down, you'll be having to do a lot to make it up to me," she winked, smirking a little until she was knocked out of it by the tickling in her sides. She groaned after being nudged, not wanting them to move but too hungry to change her mind, and she pushed herself up off of the bed before reaching her hands out to help Louis up. Once she'd done so she didn't let go of his hand, instead squeezing it softly as they walked down the hall and wondering if she'd manage to get him shirtless again like last time.

Louis: "As long as that making up gets me a happy ending, I'm more than willing to burn down everything" He said with a smirk, kissing her neck once or twice before she starting spazzing and eventually stood up. He took her hands and stood up, only letting go of one before starting their walk towards the kitchen, their fingers interlocked and a tiny squeeze returning hers. "Alright, what are you feeling like, girl?"

Taylor: "That was not supposed to be encouragement," she said, failing to sound frustrated because of her quiet laughter over how ridiculous he was. "Well," she said as they got to the stairs, thinking as they started to go down and through to the kitchen. "It depends what I have. I feel like I have some chicken that should be good still, we could have that? Aaaaand, I probably don't really have many vegetables right now." Rounding the corner into her kitchen, Taylor opene up the fridge to have a look. "We could do stuffed chicken? Maybe some fries, too? That's about as far as my cooking abilities reach, I'm afraid babe." She turned to look at him, waiting for his approval on the meal choice before grabbing everything in case he had a better idea.

-- lost stuff because i’m an idiot who doesn’t save a chatzy often enough but basically they start making the food and get into a heated, passionate debate about whether they’re called fries or chips (hint: they’re called chips) and also i can’t believe i didn’t save the part where lou asks tay if she wants to double date with harry and colton. she finds it a little awkward but agrees, they joke about her not being over harry, all is cute all is happy --

Taylor: "Fries are fried potatoes, obviously. Well then with that logic, why are they called chips? Shouldn't everything that's a chip off of something be called chips? Aren't 'crisps' also chips because they're chips of potato? Do you call carrot sticks chips?" she asked in return, getting amused when he had to take a deep breath. She slotted the slices of pepper and onion into the gaaps she'd sliced in the chicken, making sure that they fit and were stuffed in there properly. "You have a great ass, I refuse to believe that anyone can compete. Be proud of ya butt." Taylor reached down into a drawer, pulling out a grater as she started to grate down the mozzarella so that she could stuff that in the chicken alongside the vegetables, "I can see what you mean. And I get it. I just can't believe it's taken longer for me to get my head around this when really, it's not a problem for me since he's your friend and all. I guess I'm just a worryer who needs to chill out."

Louis: Louis looked at her, his eyes wide open as he really couldn't believe what she was saying "Because they're chips.. I, no, crisps are crisps because they're crispy! And - Who the bloody hell has carrot sticks?! What are they even!?" He said, now cracking in a smile and just laughing. He could get into the worse argument mood, but one look at Taylor and he was just gone. Watching her get busy with the chicken, Louis placed all the cut up potatoes on a plate and took the board to the sink, plopping it in and washing his hands before walking back towards her. "You could still be... I dunno, weirded out by it or something, it's completely normal and alright. But you do worry too much" He said, wrapping his now clean hands around her waist and pressing sweet open mouth kisses on her neck and shoulders, his hips pressing onto her back and his arms snaking around her waist.

Taylor: "So a chip stops being a chip when it's crispy and then it becomes a crisp?" Taylor tried to wrap her head around British logic, but it was impossible for her as she shook her head. "Nope. And I have carrot sticks, thank you very much Lou! With hummus. Or do you call that paste in Britain since you have to name everything after its exact form?" she teased, unable to stop herself from laughing along with him at this point. Tay pulled a couple of trays out of a cupboard and moved the two chicken pieces over. She sprinkled some olive oil, salt and pepper over the top of the chicken before adding some more mozzarella and moving to put it in the oven to cook. As she returned to deal with the fries, she felt Louis' arms wrapping around her waist and she naturally leaned back into his warmth. "If only someone could give me some kind of reward for each time that I was told I worry too much. It'd be great." It was a token personality trait of hers to worry, but she felt it all slipping away from her as he kissed her neck.

Louis: "A crisp is a crisp when it's like, cut like... You're shitting on my leg and I hate you so much" He said with a smile, rolling his eyes and laughing. "Hummus is a thing everywhere, it's like bloody guacamole, it's literally everywhere" His words were slightly annoyed, but mainly toying with her. He loved what they had, it was so relaxed, so free, he could be himself and he knew not only would she not mind, but she liked it. Watching her come back, he could feel the worry leaving her body in some way, feeling her relax in his arms. He used his face to nudge her face sideways so that he had more room to kiss her neck, his fingers slipping under the waistband of her pants "Well, I think I've got an idea to help you loosen up, baby girl"

Taylor: When he said he hated her, Taylor couldn't help but laugh properly as she felt some kind of victory over this situation. "Okay, so we're not going to have an issue arguing over hummus? Just my carrot sticks - oh wait, chips.." she pointed out, smile never leaving her face as she allowed him to nudge her and go in on her neck. The feeling of his fingers against her skin paired with his lips on her neck made her shiver a little under his touch, "I - let me finish this first. I need to put them in," she was speaking about the fries, not wanting to say it out loud to further their little argument.

Louis: The smile on his face when he saw her smile and how hear head fell to the side so effortlessly, how she shivered and melted under his touch, it brought a whole new level of pride to Louis. Hearing her last words, the boy smirked "I think there's a couple more important things to put in right now" He teased her. He was getting more gutsy, his hands now going lower under her trousers, his lips going up to find her earlobe and tug at it gently.

Taylor: The lower that his hands went, the less that Taylor was thinking about the abandoned fries on the countertop. Her eyes had slipped shut, all that she was focusing on was the feeling of his breath against her ear and how her ass pushed back into him firmly. "You won't be saying that when you're eating chicken on it's own," she offered weaklyina last attempt to get him to release her so she could finish what they'd started, because there was no way that Taylor would be able to bring herself to move from his arms.

Louis: Having Taylor's body answering back to his this way was everything he wanted, and everything he needed in order to know that food could wait a little longer. "I can live with that tonight" He whispered into her ear, his boxers tightened by the moving of her ass over him, causing him to let out a heavy breath through his lips close to her neck. While one of his hands steadied her hips, the other one moved slowly under her knickers, one finger sliding between her lips.

Taylor: Feeling his hand move lower and lower made Tay moan softly from anticipation, her head falling back on Louis' shoulder as he steadied her hips. The moment that his fingers dipped under the line of her underwear, all thoughts about finishing up the food were well and truly gone and replaced with new priorities as she felt his finger moving down until she knew he could feel how wet she was already. He had the kind of effect on her, where he kissed her neck and suddenly her body wanted him and there was some kind of gravitational pull that wouldn't allow her to stop it. "Oh," she breathed out, so quiet he probably wouldn't have heard her if she weren't still laid back against his shoulder. Tilting her head to the side, all she could feel was his finger and all she could smell was his cologne, lost in some kind of safe heaven where Louis was the only thing that existed.

Louis: His middle finger slipped between Taylor's lips, and the feeling of how wet she had gotten just because of him was sending him to a new kind of paradise, one that made him instinctively move his hard on against Taylor's ass, letting out a soft breath against her shoulder as he gently bit into it. Her small exclamation, like a call for attention, made him smile against her skin, finger slowly going down and teasing at her entrance before coming back up to rub at the bundle of nerves "yeah, girl? d'you want something?" he whispered in her ear, kissing the spot behind it.

Taylor: She could feel the bulge in his trousers pushing against her ass and she met his force against her with the same in return, moving back against him just enough for his dick to rub against her. As he bit her shoulder, it only went to turn Tay on even more from the prospect of biting and being more rough, exploring that side of each other more as they grew more comfortable with each other since making it official.To answer his question, Taylor's mind jumped ahead but only because it was the one thing on her mind. "Want you to fuck me, babe. I wanna fuck." She was murmuring out into the air of the otherwise silent kitchen, her own hand moving around to grab at his hip and pull him so that his dick pressed against her harder and she was essentially willing away the fabric that seperated them.

Louis: The way she was grinding her ass onto him was driving Louis crazy, he really didn't know what all of this was gonna derive to, but right now, he really didn't have anything else other than Taylor in his mind, but what really did it for him was the way she spoke, so decisively and how she took control into her own hands and reached backwards to push his hips even closer to her ass. "Well your wish is my command, princess" He spoke before he slipped his hand from her pants and with one swift move of his hands on her sides, he turned her around. Instantly his lips founds hers and his hands found her ass, pulling Taylor both close to him and hoisting her up onto the counter, now her centre and his already incredibly hard dick being able to grind at the same level. He couldn't stop himself as he kissed her, he needed his clothes to just disappear but he didn't to be an inch away from her in any way, shape or form.

Taylor: The desperate whimper that fell from her lips was uncontrollable as he pulled his hand out of her underwear, the black lace springing back into place against her skin and the warmth of his hand disappearing. She turned easily, lips moving against his hungrily and she moaned into them as his hands found her ass. It wasn't quite the same as having his hands down her front and moving against her arousal but it was a solid second option, her hands finding the counter behind her and pushing her feet up off of the ground to help him in lifting her up onto it. His dick pressing into her was too much now she could feel it rubbing directly against her through the fabric, their mouths moving together desperately. Tay moved her hands down his front to his jeans, moving to undo them so quickly that her hands were fumbling a little and her mind was pre-occupied with the kiss. Eventually the buttons were undone, zipper pulled down and she'd reached her hand down into them.

Louis: Everything was rushing, it felt nothing like the first time they'd gotten it on. It reminded him of their first kiss, in the middle of the dance floor, and then outside pushed against a wall, back here then, it was just so many memories, and Louis couldn't keep his head in one place, especially when she felt Taylor's hips moving and grinding against his and all of a sudden, her hands were on his jeans, making the Brit moan against her lips. A gasp escaped his throat when she felt one of them inside his pants, hips moving to feel the contact he had been aching for.

Taylor: Taylor's hands were moving quickly and as soon as her hand had dipped down below the waistline of his underwear she could feel how hard he was. She used her spare hand to push the jeans down a ittle, hand gripping him and moving slowly as she breathed in his moans through the kiss. As her hand pumped his dick, the other pushed up and under the hemline of his shirt to touch as much skin as she possibly could. She was hungry for more contact but she was too busy moving their tongues together and nipping at his lips to have the willpower to pull herself back from him and pull the shirt over his head.

Louis: Louis felt his legs turn to jelly as soon as Taylor had his hand on him. This felt like payback for the slow way he had teased her with his hand in her pants, but in a sick, twisted way, he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. "God" he moaned against her lips, taking it in turns to bite on her lower lip, tugging at it gently, and letting his tongue roam freely inside her mouth. Her warm palm started moving up and down on his shaft and that's when the Brit couldn't take it anymore. Unlatching his lips from hers, he had to let his head rest on her shoulder, teeth biting down on her skin "Fuckin' hell, yes, babe" He tried to put himself back together but all he could do was move his hips, thrusting into her hand. He wanted her. He needed her.

Taylor: She smiled into the kiss in a way that showed how she felt victorious over this situation, the way that he moaned against her lips leaving her feel so ridiculously happy that she could pull sounds like that from his mouth. The way that their kisses moved together made Taylor moan in response, caught up in how perfectly their tongues moved together in a way that made Taylor realise that she hadn't had this kind of chemistry with someone before in a really long time. Her wrist was still pumping his dick, twisting every now and then as she tried to earn herself some more of his moaning. "Yeah? You like that?" she moaned against the side of his neck, pressing soft kisses there.

Louis: The sounds that came from their bodies filled up the room. It was moans, kisses and breaths that just made an echo around the whole kitchen. His chest rose and fell heavily, his eyes squeezing shut as his hips moved at a beat with her hand, every time she moved it a different way producing a new wave of heat and sensations all through his body. Her moan so close to his ear made him grunt, breathing through his teeth and his hands, previously placed on her hips, fingers now digging into her skin "I need you. Now" He said with an animal growl coming from his throat, his eyes opening wide to look behind her. Nothing seemed too dangerous, so with a quick move of his arm, he moved everything that was behind Taylor on the counter island that sat in the middle of her kitchen and pushed her back, both as gently but as urgently as he could, so that she was laying on her back. His hands addressed the situation of her own trousers, popping the button and sliding them down and taking them off alongside her ballet flats, the visible wet patch on her underwear driving him crazy before he pulled those down as well. His lips went straight there, tongue pressing flat down over her clitoris while he managed to kick off his own pants and shoes, leaving them both bottom naked.

Taylor: The way that Louis could contrast from being soft and sweet with gentle kisses and heart eyes to being rough and confident like this, prepared to make them both feel as great as they possibly could. The way that she could feel his heavy breathing through the rise and fall of his chest and hear the sounds coming from his lips just made her desperate for more, wanting sex now and craving for his fingertips to dig into his skin like that all over her body. Craving small bruises and marks to be left everywhere as a celebration of marking the fact that she was officially his. The animalistic growl made her stop the movement of her wrist, almost flicking a switch in her that couldn't wait any longer. Taylor let him push her back easily, trusting him entirely and too weak to have fought against it even if she had wanted to. His hands grabbing at her trousers and all but ripping them off was such a turn on and his lips were there so quickly she hadn't expected it at all and her hips instantly bucked up off of the kitchen counter in response. The movements were so quick but as soon as her mind caught up, the curse words started to fall from her lips. "Fuck, Lou. That's so fucking hot, babe." The words came out desperate, her begging for him to move his tongue laced in her words.

Louis: The sweet, soft and loving Louis had been taken over by the strong, dominant and sex-driven Louis, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde personalities, human versus animal, and right now, Mr Hyde was taking all the marbles. One of his arms were linked around Taylor's thighs, bringing her closer to the edge of the counter so that he could suck, flick and nip on her sensitive spot. Meanwhile, feet toed at his shoes to kick them off and his free hand was pushing all the clothes down. Once that was done, his eyes dark blue with lust looked up at her and he used his arms to push himself on the counter. Placing himself right over her, he kissed her once more before pushing himself in, as far as he could go, his head falling to the side of hers as he felt her around him. For the first time... Fuck. He couldn't do anything about it, not now. He'd have to improvise later, just trust that pulling out would work, but the feeling of having all of Taylor under and around his dick was something unlike he had ever felt before.

Taylor: Feeling Louis' arms wrapping around her thighs and pulling her close was so sexy, just the way that he'd pull her closer like that so that he could give her what she wanted. Her head had fallen back against the hard countertop with a small thud, not hard enough to feel any pain but she just couldn't control her body when he was going down on her like that. The eye contact that she eventually made with him told her nothing about what he was going to do next or what he wanted for her to do, and Louis positioning himself above her caught her off guard for a moment. Grabbing him by the shirt, she pulled him down to her so that she could kiss him again and wrapped her legs around him because she knew exactly what she wanted from him. Taylor didn't expect him to do it, though, remembering his preferences when they'd had sex before and the element of surprise made her moan louder than she would have done otherwise. Feeling and knowing that his dick was in her like that was so hot and intimate, her hand came up to lace in his hair as she, too, tried to pull herself together.

Louis: Everything that had happened had been leading up to this moment. He had no idea if it was the fact that he was actually really really hot for her or how he hadn't even thought of slipping in a condom because deep in his mind he actually really did trust her, but how he felt right now was sky rocket high. Feeling her legs around his waist and his lips on hers, pressing her down and kissing her like there was no tomorrow, Louis started moving his hips, pushing in and out of her with short but strong movements, moaning into the kiss. His forearms against the hard marble allowed his hands to mesh into her hair, moaning quietly into her lips.

Taylor: Being pushed back against the counter under the length of Louis' body was hot, the discomfort of the situation completely removed by the fact that her mind was too busy in heaven to really take any of that shit into consideration. Her usual method of grabbing at bedsheets to keep herself from descending into a mess underneath him was replaced with her hand grabbing at the fabric of his shirt. She'd never done anything like this before, but she needed Louis in a way that she hadn't with any other guy she'd been with. That kind of lust for someone pushed her out of her comfort zone and made her recognize how he was so different from anyone else she'd been with, and she appreciated every single one of those differences.

Louis: His fingers gripped tightly on her hair, tugging at it gently with the swaying of his body, moving at an exact tandem with hers, small grunts and moans escaping his lips into hers. Their tongues warred with each other, and in a situation where most of the times he'd rather pull back and talk to her, get some kind of feedback, he was in some sort of frenzy right now, he couldn't get enough of her. His knees pushed up from the counter as he tried to find a new angle to push against Taylor, the new support allowing him to use one of his hands to grab at her waist and make the thrusting even harder.

Taylor: For the most part, Taylor's moans were getting lost somewhere in Louis' lips and any part of her logical thinking had been abandoned on the side alongside the rest of their food. Lou was fucking her relentlessly, her body bouncing back to meet his hips each time and all that filled the kitchen was moaning and the hot sound of skin-on-skin. His new angle hit her just in the right spot, her eyes opening so that she could see her boyfriend each time that he hit it. The harder that he pulled her towards him using his hands at her waist, the harder he hit that spot inside of her and her moans grew loud and desperate. "Right there, baby - fuck. Harder and right there, Lou."

Louis: Louis growled quietly as he picked up his pace and did exactly what Taylor asked. That was him, and especially right now, he'd do anything to get to hear that voice again begging him to do things, the moans that could play on repeat forever and the desperation in her voice that clearly showed that everything he was doing was pushing her to the edge. He took her words and did it, thrusting harder into her, the sound of the bodies colliding filling the room as he grunted, his fingers so tight on her waist she was worried he'd leave a permanent indent "Oh.. Fuck yeah, baby girl... You like that?"

Taylor: She was truly a mess underneath him now as he made her feel like her head was in the clouds each time that he fucked back into her, an arm reaching out as though pointlessly searching for something to steady herself with but just knocking some of the stuff on the countertop onto the floor in the process. Not that Taylor cared, of course, her attention never leaving Louis as she took in the way that he was reacting and becoming beyond turned on from what she was seeing. Tay opened her mouth to respond to him, a series of moans slipping out instead. "So perfect," was her lame first attempt at answering his question, "you feel so fucking good, babe. You're so hot, I-" she accidentally cut herself off with a moan, reaching a hand down to touch herself as she couldn't be patient when it felt as good as that.

Louis: The sound of... Something, what it was way beyond his point of focus, brought him back a little bit, his eyes trying to find something but landing straight on Taylor once again, the sight of her writhing and fighting herself under him was a sight for sore eyes. He bit on his lower lip when he saw how her hand was going down to touch herself, trying to pull himself back. He knew she told him she was on the pill, but a part of him knew better, and Louis tried to push the knot back, to stop himself from just letting go. Instead, he kept pushing inside of her but had his mind still on that. "You look so fucking beautiful" He said with a groan, the hand that was on her waist now dropping it so that it went back against the counter and he pushed himself down and further into her. His now free hand went to push her shirt up and move her bra aside, his mouth latching onto her breast, tongue flicking at her nipple viciously.

Taylor: Her eyes never left Louis and so she could see his reactions to everything that she was doing. The way that he watched her hand travel down her own body, his reaction to that movement making Taylor smirk a little. She felt confident and sexy with his eyes on her like that, something about the way that he brought out the best in her and constantly made her feel comfortable around him. Between Louis' mouth on her nipple and the way that she was rubbing herself in time with his dick fucking into her, Taylor had no chance when it came to lasting much longer. Her spare hand found his back, nails digging in a little as she could feel herself getting closer.

Louis: The feeling of Taylor's nails scraping down his back, even if his shirt was still on, he knew it'd leave a mark and as much as his mates would tease him if he went back home with them, they wouldn't see how beautiful Taylor looked right now, and they wouldn't know how worth the pain they were. The stinging of her fingernails on his back brought animal Louis back, a growl coming back again that made his thrusts even harder and deeper, finding her numbing spot with his tip every time he pushed, and his lips now switched sides to her other breast. He could feel her tightening around him, making him moan against her nipples before going back up to her lips, kissing her "Come on, baby girl, let go... I wanna feel you all around me"

Taylor: Her resistance of letting her body win and allowing herself to cum was because she just didn't want it to be over. She wanted to keep Louis this way forever; all of his attention focused on her, hips fucking himself into her relentlessly, eyes clouded with a sexy layer of lust and mouth littering the air with curse words and grunts. Easily, the sight in front of her was the most attractive she'd ever seen, so it annoyed her to no end when her eyes slipped shut and she felt herself lift her hips up off of the counter a little and her hands grab onto his shirt desperately. "Baby m'so close," her words barely came out as a mumble, returning his kisses even though she was essentially just moaning into his mouth at this point and she felt her body give in. Her knees went weak, her hips dropping down to the counter again as the orgasm hit her. Taylor pulled back from kissing Louis since she couldn't even focus enough for that anymore, his name spilling from her lips amongst her moaning as she felt her muscles going tight around his dick.

Louis: Feeling her hands grabbing at his shirt, he knew she was closer and closer by the second. He wanted to make sure she got off before he did because he couldn't really do it at the same time "Do it, baby" He whispered back at her, kissing the corner of her lips, he could never get enough of her as a whole. Louis kept pushing in, his mind half focused on Taylor and half on himself, the spasm of Taylor's walls around him indicated she had indeed finally let herself go, and the look on her face did the same thing. He kept pushing in, holding the air in his lungs as if it were the same thing, he moved to allow her to ride the orgasm out, filling her face and neck with short, sweet kisses, the hand that was in her hair brushing off her eyes. He waited until she was calm once again before pulling himself out of her, still hard, but she was worth it.

Taylor: It took a few moments of Taylor regaining her ability to process any logical thoughts before it properly occurred to her that Louis hadn't been able to orgsam himself. For a brief moment she was confused before it occurred to her that of course he wouldn't since they hadn't used a condom. Tay let the thought about how hot it was that she'd finally cum properly on Louis' dick pass through her mind before she licked her lips and spoke for the first time since getting coherant thoughts back, "d'ya wanna fuck my mouth, baby?" Her hands reached out to place themselves on his hips and attempt to pull him forwards towards her, eyes trained on his dick and thinking about how big and hot he was going to be in her mouth.

Louis: Louis was still over Taylor, since the counter didn't really allow him much space to fall beside her. His eyes were closed and head was resting on her shoulder, but his senses came back to him when he heard her speak. "I... You'd do that for me?" He asked. He never ever just expected head. He knew it was something that could be awkward for some people, just like some lads didn't like to eat out their girls... Idiots, in his eyes, but still, normal. So when Taylor offered, it did startle him a bit "I'd... I mean, I'd love to" He said, leaning down to kiss her lips softly.

Taylor: As his head rested on her shoulder, she threaded her fingers through his hair softly and enjoyed the sweet moment as they both got their shit together. Taylor was a bit confused by his reaction, not sure if it was because he didn't want to or if it were something else, "of course I would. I want to." After returning the soft and sweet kiss, Tay lifted herself up so she was being lifted up on her forearms against the counter behind her. The lack of space meant that the couple would have to make do with the room that they had, and so Taylor reached out a hand again to try to pull him forwards so that she could take the dick in her mouth.

Louis: Again, complete and utter surprise. And not because he didn't want to or he wasn't excited, oh no, he really... Really was. Getting to fuck Taylor Swift was great. But getting to fuck every single bit of her was even better. Louis moved with her, slowly lining himself in with Taylor's mouth and waiting for her to open it before he gently stuck his cock in, the warm feeling of her lips around it again making him shudder. Boy, was he not gonna last long at all "Oh... Fuck"

Taylor: As she felt Louis' dick against her lips she licked it softly and teasingly before opening her mouth and letting him in. He was sexy as fuck as she looked up to make eye contact with him, taking him as deeply as she could manage and letting herself get used to the feeling for a moment before pulling her head back. The way that she was propped up on her forearms meant that she couldn't move back completely and then take his dick in her mouth all over again, but it did allow her to move back a little way before taking him once more.

Louis: The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, but after the way Louis had been fucking her senseless before, it was very -very- hard to hold himself back. The boy moaned quietly, biting on his lower lip and moving his hips to match the movement of Taylor's head "Fuck.. God, that mouth of yours" He said with a grunt, this time pushing in a bit further until he touched the top of her mouth, God he was gonna kill himself.

Taylor: She smirked a little - or as best as she could with her lips wrapped around his cock - as he cursed, happy that she could have this kind of a control over him as she let her tongue play with the head of his dick. She moved her tongue around it before focusing on the tip and flicking her tongue over it a couple of times. Careful that she could take it as he pushed hismelf in deeper, she felt him touch the top of her mouth and held it there for a few moments whilst moaning softly sos that he could feel the vibrations. After a moment she pulled back again, faster this time as she aimed to work up a rhythm and allow him to fuck her face properly and get him to cum for her.

-- lost stuff because i’m an idiot who didn’t save it AGAIN but he came, they realised they were on their come down when they realized the chicken was burning. tbh only like two replies are missing here --

Louis: Louis couldn't help it but just laugh. There they stood, bottom half naked, hair's a mess, burnt chicken in the oven and even so, he had just had one of the best moments of his life. While Taylor run to the oven, the boy bent down and picked his briefs up, sliding into them. Walking towards where she stood, he wrapped his arms around her, pressing lazy kisses over her shoulder, this time not sexy but just full of love and sweetness. "Seeing as the chips are on the floor and that's basically charcoal... D'you wanna order pizza?" He asked, his lips finding her cheek with a quiet chuckle.

Taylor: At first Taylor was super annoyed, her perfectionism shining through and getting agitated at the fact that not only did half of their meal not make it to be cooked, but the half that did make it ended up being ruined anyways. That was nowhere near the perfection that she strived for, yet Louis' laugh somehow made everything about the situation lighthearted and she couldn't help but laugh as well. She abandoned the chicken, telling herself that she'd deal with it later, and immersed herself in Louis' arms. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," she agreed with only a little of her frustration showing through her voice. "Let me just -" she pulled away reluctantly and fished around in her jeans for her underwear and slipping them off, ditching her jeans and shoes there on the kitchen floor and making a mental note to deal with them later as well. "I can't believe we just did that," she said after a moment, referring to them letting the chicken burn.

Louis: Louis unwrapped his arms from Taylor's waist and allowed her to wander off and find her underwear. Not that he'd ever complain about seeing her naked, but something about what had just happened and now both of them just being free in their underwear made the Brit chuckle, shaking his head and pushing a hand through his hair. Once she did come back, he wrapped his arms around her and showed her a smile "That as in our first kitchen sex?" He asked, leaning down to capture her lips in his briefly "Get used to it, I plan on christening every single surface I can take you on" He spoke close to her lips, a cheshire smile on his lips as he caught hers again.

Taylor: Taylor laughed because no, she hadn't been referring to their first kitchen sex, but his words made her stomach do flip flops as her mind raced through everything else that they'd get to do together and a smirk reached her lips. "Mm, can't wait to see where's next, babe," she spoke lowly in between kisses, arms wrapping around her boyfriend's neck and holding him tight against her for a moment and letting herself think about how lucky she was that a man who could get anyone that he wanted has chosen to be with her. "C'mon, let's get pizza," she said after a few moments, one last kiss to his cheek before she let go reluctantly and bent down to get her phone out of her abandoned jeans pocket so she could bring up the app for the nearest pizza place.

Louis: Louis smiled between kisses, his arms bringing Taylor as close as he could to him. The promise of pizza with Taylor was good, but the idea of getting to do everything else he wanted to do with Taylor slightly overshadowed it, and he couldn't wait for it. Watching her bend down, the Brit walked past her, but not before pinching her bum, and reached the other side of the counter, winking at her once she looked at him with a laugh.

Taylor: She'd pulled her phone out of the pocket by the time that she felt him pinch her ass, tossing the clothing aside and standing up before laughing and turning to look at Louis. "You just can't get enough, can you babe?" she said through laughter, moving over to grab his hand and start heading back through to the lounge area as she scrolled through the app after using her thumb to unlock the phone. "This is the part that really tests our relationship, to see if you judge me for getting pineapple on my pizza.." she stood, staring down at her phone to figure out what she wanted before passing it over to Louis to decide what he wanted. When her hands were free, she turned her attention to the fireplace in her lounge and went about lighting it. Nothing made Tay more happy than cosy nights in, and one snuggled up with Lou would be even better.

Louis: He laughed at her reaction, rolling his eyes and shaking his head "I don't think I'll ever be able too, darling" He said. Once she reached out to grab his hand, he took it gladly and followed her, falling on the couch with a thud, sighing happily. His legs were happy they could rest again. Kicking them up onto the coffee table, he watched her pull up the pizza app and laughed when she ordered hers Hawaiian style "Oi, I'm an equal opportunity pizza lover, so I'll never judge you. I'm a man of simple pleasures, so just cheese is best for me" He said with a big grin, taking the phone from her and ordering his before sending it. "D'you need help, love"

Taylor: Looking down, she scrunched her nose up a little as he said what he was ordering, "just cheese? I know you were nice enough to not judge me for getting pineapple and I appreciate that but.. I'm kind of judging you for just getting cheese?" she asked as she kept sorting the fire out, shaking her head a little from where she was crouched down in front of it. "You're good, babe, but thanks -" when it had gotten going, she stood back up and made her way over to let herself fall back on the couch next to Lou. She was grateful for the simple comfort of his body next to hers, feeling so relaxed in a huge contrast to how she'd felt fifteen minutes ago.

Louis: "Oi, don't be a git" He teased her with the little British slang she hadn't yet gotten used to, but he knew she would... Or at least he hoped she would. Watching her come back to him, he opened his arms and just welcomed her in, looking down at her before finding her lips to kiss them gently, before popping a kiss on her nose and smiling "Hey" God, he hadn't been this happy in a very long time.

Taylor: Taylor didn't exactly know what a 'git' was but the tone in his voice meant that she couldn't take it offensively so it seemed like he really didn't mean it that way. The sight of Louis pulling her in with open arms made Taylor endlessly happy, and she allowed herself to fall into them and swung her legs so that they were resting over his. Her laugh came out more like a giggle as he kissed her nose, leaning forwards to kiss his cheek in exchange, "why hey there, handsome."

Louis: Louis' arms went around Taylor's waist tightly, pulling her towards him. It was a contrast, how his arms were still in the same position, but now he just allowed his head to rest over hers and a happy sigh came out of his lungs instead of a moan. "I like this... I really do" He verbalized without even thinking about it, allowing himself to get comfortable.

Taylor: Louis' happiness was evident in his voice, the way that he was holding her, the way that he seemed so relaxed. It reflected onto Taylor, making her feel happier than she already was because of the fact that she knew that she was making him happy as well. "Me, too. I like you," her voice was soft but she put more emphasis on the 'you', tucking herself into underneath his chin and being grateful that he couldn't see the ridiculously goofy smile that had spread over her face. "But hey, I'm glad you're liking this. I'm glad that the deep feeling of regret hasn't settled into you just yet," her voice was playful, arm snaking across his chest in return.

Louis: Hearing her say that she liked him would never ever get old. Any way she said it, in any tone, would still make him smile like an absolute idiot and... Nothing would ever probably change that. Changing one of his hands to her shoulder, he rubbed her arm up and down. Her words made him chuckle, shrugging "Just yet is the right term, and yet is the key word... Let's hope that never gets here, alright?" Het told her, kissing the top of her head "Where's the girls? D'you reckon we scared them off?"

Taylor: Upon his asking about the cats, Taylor brought her head out from where it was resting against him and looked around. He was right - there was no sign of Meredith and Olivia. This probably meant that Mere had Ollie in a headlock somewhere in the house and was trying to steal her lunch money. Then it occurred to her - what if they'd seen them fucking on the counter? Tay moved to look at Louis with her mouth open a little, mortified at the thought of her babies seeing her like that - "Oh god, do you think they saw? And they ran away from home?"Taylor moved so that she was reaching across Louis to get to a side table that sat next to the couch. She reached down to pull open a little drawer on it, grabbing some cat treats and closing it again before taking her seat next to Lou. Pausing for a moment, Taylor tried to hear if the movement of the packaging had attracted any cats, but she didn't hear any footsteps or see any cats emerge, "oh my God, they hate me."

Louis: Louis looked at the sheer concern in Taylor's face and tried his best to stay serious and be a comprehensive boyfriend, but as soon as the concern turned into something actually real, he couldn't help it but just crack up a smile before trying to scoff a laugh down. "Are you... Babe, I'm sure they didn't see, and if they saw, they're fine" He said with a smile. Watching her stretch over him, he lifted his hands up to give her more space, rubbing her back a little before she got back upright. The sound of the treat bag made Louis look around, but no cats were seen "Don't be silly, girl, I'm sure they're napping somewhere"

Taylor: "It's not funny!" Taylor said instantly, thwacking Louis lightly with the back of her hand before she resumed looking around for the cats to come running at her. "You're sure? How sure?" she asked, moving the packet around even more in the hope that at least Olivia would come to love her, "because right now I'm not so sure. Poor girls are probably traumatized."

Louis: Louis flinched at the swat of Taylor's hands, putting his hands up in surrender and chuckling "Oi, no violence!" He said with a chuckle. The desperate way she moved the packet around made him smile and roll his eyes. "Girl, they're not... I'm sure they don't even understand it, don't worry about it. D'you wanna go look for them?" He asked, taking the packet of treats from her to prevent her from flinging it about the room in hopes that it would attract the kittens.

Taylor: "Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just a worried cat mom," she apologized, reaching over to kiss him quickly before resuming the shaking of the packet in a desperate attempt to get the cats to love her. "Of course they don't understand it.. Meredith is only six, Lou," she gave Louis the most seriously concerned look that she could but her last statement had been ridiculous even for her and she couldn't hold back the amused smile. "Maybe I should. I am kind of worried now, they normally love lying in front of the fire and getting food," she ended her talking with a pout as he took the packet away even if it was for her own sanity and safety so it didn't end up hitting one of them over the head when she shook it too hard.

Louis: Louis smiled into the kiss and rolled his eyes with a sigh. "You know, you're adorable when you're worried" He said with a smile, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and bringing her in for a short hug, kissing the side of her head. Hearing how Meredith wouldn't understand 'just because she was six' and not because she was a cat made him chuckle, rolling his eyes. The packet of treats was now set down on the table where it had come from, and seeing as how his girlfriend would not settle down, the boy moved around her and stepped up, offering his hands to her then "Come on then, let's go for a kitty hunt. And I promise I won't get too handsy"

Taylor: "Oooh, you say that now," Taylor said quietly, letting herself be pulled into the hug as she thought about how she spent a majority of her time worried about something that she probably didn't even need to worry about. Like now, for example. She felt bad that they couldn't just sit down and relax for the evening, but a kitty hunt was what Taylor needed to ease her worrying mind and so she took his hands and got up off of the couch. "'Kay. We can find them, bring them back here in front of the fire and then finally have a relaxing evening, I promise." Taylor made her way around the couch, hand still holding Louis' and swinging between them as she figured to start with the bottom floor of the house. The nearest room was the music room which held her piano, guitars, song books and such. The door was slightly ajar so a cat could've been in there so she nudged it open with her foot and flicked on the light - no cat in sight.

Louis: She did look absolutely gorgeous. Worried, not worried, any time, he looked at her and he was in awe of how she was so effortlessly beautiful. Letting their hands link together and bringing the back of it to press a kiss, he quickly reached out for the treat bag before Louis followed Taylor outside of the lounge area. "Alright, where have they hidden before, baby?" He asked, looking around for little sneaking places for the girls.

Taylor: "Okay, I'm about to throw a lot of information at you right now, so buckle up, babe," she warned as she tucked some of her curly blonde hair behind her ear and looked under the piano. "Meredith likes to be under things. So she could be under a bed, a chair, if she gets into a closet then she might be under some clothes in there. I've found her under bedsheets and once she was like sandwiched under my pillows. Olivia prefers to be up high. So she might have gotten on top of anything. So it's like, searching high and low for these two. It really is a mission." Taylor could already recognize how ridiculous they looked from a third party perspective. Two grown adults in a shirt and underwear, hunting down a pair of cats with their evening instead of doing actually cool things with their time. "Dibbles, you up there?" Taylor was now standing on her piano stool, looking on top of the shelves of songbooks and awards that lined the walls before giving up and mentally marking that room down as a 'no'.

Louis: Louis couldn't help it but keep his eyebrows up in sheer surprise. He had never been a cat person, to be honest, so the fact that someone could know so much about them was astonishing. Let alone that, not only one cat but two, so he really did admire Taylor for getting to know her cats well enough to know as a fact where they could be hidden. Watching her start searching for Olivia, he decided to take the hateful one. "Mer... Meredith?" He spoke, bending down to the ground and looking under the book shelves and chairs "Nope... Ollie?" He asked, looking up at her

Taylor: Taylor didn't want to admit it out loud but it made more sense for Louis to look for Meredith considering the cat actually liked him - and no, she wasn't still bitter about that. Nope. Not at all. Tay shook her head 'no' in answer to Louis' question, hopping down from the stool and moving to vacate the room and close the door behind them so it was a definite 'no cat' zone. The house was pretty big, but luckily where they'd only just gotten back most of the doors to rooms were shut and so it'd make their hunt a lot easier. Moving along the hall,she poked her head around the door to look into the dining room but there wasn't much furniture in there really and after checking Olivia wasn't disguised sat on any of the dining chairs that were tucked under the table, Taylor looked at Louis and shook her head 'no' before closing the door.

Louis: Louis went from looking like he was having fun and laughing about it to getting a little serious and sad when they went into the second room and they weren't there. Not because he was worried they'd run off, of course not, but because of the look Taylor had on her face. It killed him to see her like that, it was like one of those mums who lost their kid at Waitrose, and he hated it. He reached out for her hand as he followed her into the next room, pulling her close "I'm sure they're in here somewhere, love"

Taylor: Taylor nodded, knowing that the girls had to be somewhere and they'd find them eventually. She was just grumpy because the cats weren't running up to her and wanting cuddles but they were cats - they were never like that. Tay just lived in hope that they'd at least come to her for food. As they were walking to the next room, Taylor stopped and put her hand on Lou's chest. "Hang on a minute! When we went upstairs we left the bedroom door open, didn't we?" she pointed out, thinking about it for a few moments before she was at the stairs and taking them two at a time until at the bedroom again.

Louis: Louis followed a very mopey Taylor around and sighed, wishing he had a magical cat detector to be able to tell them where the hell the two cats were. He was walking around, looking around low and high places for them, before she put her hand on his chest, startling him completely and starting to talk. He had no idea what she said, she spoke way too fast, but as she turned around and started running up the stairs, Louis couldn't to anything else but follow "Alright, love... Explanation please?"

Taylor: She was right, they had left the door open. Taylor could hear Louis following cluelessly behind her and she slowed down a little, waiting for him to catch up before she pushed the door open a little more than it already was. At first glance there were no cats, but she had a feeling they were in here somewhere. "See, before in my singledom when it was just me and the cats, I'd probably be in bed by now watching something on the TV. Like.. seriously, since August the three of us would be in bed by now and I'm thinking they might still be in that routine.."

Louis: Louis was a little out of breath when he got up the stairs, mainly because he had wasted his energy... Elsewhere, but he was getting back up at it, so when he got up to the room next to Taylor, he took a deep breath. Looking around the room, nothing really seemed different. Standing behind her as she spoke, Louis laughed and shrugged his shoulders, kissing her cheek from behind "I don't see the wrong in there... And I don't see why it has to change, except three there could be four" He said in a sugestive tone

Taylor: "I don't see the wrong in it either, I mean, it's a little lame - but I'm very lame." Taylor turned a little to look at him, smiling softly, "you're more than welcome to join us, Lou, but we gotta find them first." Tay walked into the room, looking around a little up high to see if Olivia was on any cabinets and checking on top of her bed for any lumps in the quilts that the cats might have crawled into. "I'm just gonna check in here, babe," Tay said to Louis as she walked over to the door to her closet. It was already a little ajar, but she pulled it open some more and walked into it. She pulled one of the comfy benches to the side with the shelves on it, standing on it to peek into the top units where she stored seasonal clothes she didn't use all of the time. Taylor knew that Olivia liked to jump from shelf to shelf to get to the highest ones sometimes. "Aha! Gotcha," Tay held her hand out to a white ball of fluff and the cat came over, friendly as ever.

Louis: Louis smiled widely. He loved this. He hadn't really felt like this, so comfortable in being homely... In thinking of the idea of a home, with anyone until Taylor came along, and he had had his fair share of long relationships. Taylor just made it easy. Watching her walk away and speak when she found the cat, he clapped his hands "Alright, one down, one to go. Where's your sister, Dibbles?" He asked, walking over to her and petting the small white cat.

Taylor: Usually she shut her closet door, or at least her bedroom door, but obviously having forgotten this time and the cats finding their way in there meant that it made sense that they hadn't heard the movement of the treat bag. But now that Olivia could see that Louis was holding it, all of a sudden he was her favorite thing in the world and she was rubbing her head against his hand in attempt to get what she wanted. Laughing softly at how adorable Dibbles was, Tay hopped off of what she was standing on. "She's not going to tell you that. She's loyal to Meredith. But we'll find her, I know it."

Louis: Louis smiled widely at the little cat, the treat bag on his other hand making noises "Oohh, you want some of these?" He asked, shaking the treat bag around a little bit more before looking up at her mum. He offered his hands for Taylor to take when she got off, but instantly put them down when she did it all by herself. Opening the small packet, he placed a treat on the palm of his hand, waiting for Olivia to take it once Taylor got close. He looked down at the bag and then back up at Taylor "Have you ever eaten one of these?"

Taylor: Taylor bit her bottom lip, determined to bite back the smile that was going to take over her face as Louis interacted with Olivia. She then started to look under things for Meredith. Under the shoe racks, under the vanity at the end of the room, under the hanging clothes in one of the closets that she'd left open. When Lou asked her the question, she stopped to turn to look at him, "are you asking because you're curious to try one? I won't judge you, boy, I promise."

Louis: The cats were so important to Taylor, it gave Louis some pretty important flash forward looks. He wanted kids. More kids. A million kids, if it were up to him. Even though he didn't want them right now, and as much as he thought Taylor was really special and maybe more than just special, he didn't wanna name any names. But seeing her interact with her cats... He knew she'd be a wonderful mom, and he'd be a lucky guy to be the father of those kids. "I... Dunno, I mean, I proof-eat anything Freddie eats... Maybe you did the same"

Taylor: "Maybe I'm a bad cat mom - a fact that would break my heart - but I've never proof-eaten any of their treats." Her attention turned back to searching for Meredith, getting the impression that she must be in the bedroom instead of in the wardrobe room but wanting to be 100% sure before she ruled it as a 'no'. "Maybe you should take one for the team and proof-eat it for them now? Be the parent that they deserve."

Louis: Louis laughed and shook his head "Oh no, you're not a bad mum... You're just not a top mum. A 10/10 mum" He tried to guilt trip Taylor into eating a cat treat, chuckling, but the tables turned on him as she offered him one "Oi, I'm not their dad" 'though I could be' he thought "You're mum. Maybe you should become top mum"

Taylor: "So.. I'm a 6/10 mom? Slightly above average, not quite the best?" Tay wondered out loud, eyebrow arching up at Louis as she started to catch onto what he was trying to get her to do. "No, maybe you're not their dad, but Meredith already likes you more than she likes me and Dibbles is pretty fond of you right now," Tay gestured towards the white cat who was perched on the edge of the shelf and paying close attention to the treat bag Lou was holding. "Maybe you need to show me why they love you so much, and try the cat treat with them. It's something you can bond over."

Louis: Louis laughed and looked down at the treat bag, his eyes going over his shoulder at Olivia who was now just looking at him, as if she had been caught red handed. "D'you know what... I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it for the wellbeing of your cats" He said "Come here, Dibbles" He called the kitten out, taking a seat on the bed. The moment the bag tore open, Olivia was right next to him. He picked out two tiny treats and placed one on the bed for the cat and, timing it, he took one in his mouth at the same time. "It's... Dear.. It's not as bad as you think, but it's nowhere near good, how'dyou eat this crap, Liv?" He joked, trying to pass it down his throat.

Taylor: Taylor wasn't entirely sure what was happening, following Louis over to the bed and putting her quest of hunting down Meredith on pause for a moment. Olivia followed the bag, concerned with nothing else other than getting the food and, as soon as the treat was on the bed, she happily tucked in. Taylor's eyes were on Louis, though, head cocked to the side in curiosity as she waited for the review. "Well maybe I need to find some cat treats that you like, babe. So when all three of you are good, I can treat you all the same thing." Taylor was shaking her head in amusement as Lou finshed up the treat, but at least happy to see that the commotion had caused Meredith to come out from wherever the hell she was and jump up on the bed next to Louis and start pawing the bag.

Louis: Louis chewed on the little treat the turned to crumbles in his mouth. It didn't really taste all that bad, tasted closer to granola than anything else, but granola and... Dirt. And it just tasted like what cats smell like. So when he heard her talk and tease him again, he rolled his eyes. Those same eyes shot open when he felt the bed bounce "Hey Mer" He said with a grin, opening the bag and putting down another treat for Olivia and giving one to Meredith. "So when I'm a good boy I get a treat? I think you should taste them too, come here, give me a kiss"

Taylor: Taylor had gotten comfortable, back leaning against the doorframe to her closet as he watched the two cats and her boyfriend interact. It was an endlessly happy sight. It looked and felt like home to her, and it made her feel so happy that she could almost push aside her jealousy at the fact that Meredith already preferred him. Almost but not quite. After he'd given the treats a review of 'nowhere near good', Taylor wasn't really keen on giving them a go. So when Lou requested a kiss, she shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, still leaning against the doorframe. "That's definitely not going to happen, we've got pizza coming and I'm not gonna let your gross tasting kisses ruin my appetite."

Louis: Louis looked at her and laughed "Did you hear that, girls? Mummy doesn't wanna give me a kiss, after I proof tasted your treats. I could've been killed if it was poison for people... She clearly doesn't appreciate the struggle I go through. And only after.. What, a short time dating?" He addressed the cats, shaking his head towards Taylor before turning back to them, two more treats coming out of the bag as he pet them while they munched happily.

Taylor: Taylor's head was shaking a little in disbelief, entertained by the situation and by the way that the cats were watching him as though they understood what he was saying. "Is this gonna be our first argument, 'cos you can't go using the kids against me - that's just not fair," she tried to reason, although the smile she was failing to hold back really undermined her statement. "You did a brave thing, eating those treats. You should be super proud of yourself. The cats love you eternally now, I don't need to try it. I don't want to steal your glory, babe."

Louis: "It doesn't have to be an argument if you just come up here and kiss me" He said with a laugh. Closing the bag of treats up and setting it on the bedside table, the boy stood up and walked over to Taylor, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close to him "Oh come on, baby girl... Give me a kiss" He said, his hands sliding down onto her bare thighs and rubbing small circles on her skin lovingly.

Taylor: "It doesn't have to be an argument if you just stop trying to get me to taste gross stuff," she countered, head shaking 'no' as her arms reached out to wrap around Louis in return. "You're not going to give up, are ya?" she asked, moving to the side and giving him a kiss on the cheek and pulling back with a 'mwah'. "There you go. You're welcome." Tay was sort of hoping for the buzzer to go saying their food was there, legs ready for a quick escape if he was going to go for a proper kiss.

Louis: Louis narrowed his eyes at her. He was extremely appreciative of the cheek kiss he got, but no, he wanted her to taste the same terrible cat taste he had, so as soon as she pulled back, he scoffed "Cop out, absolute cop out... Come on, baby" He said, putting his hands over her butt and pulling her close to him, as if they hadn't had enough closeness on the kitchen counter, the heat of Taylor's body was something he'd always want.

Taylor: She bit her bottom lip lightly waiting for his response, laughing because yeah.. it was a cop out. Pretending to think about it for a moment, she eventually leaned forward to press her lips to his in a quick closed-mouth kiss. It was the kind of kiss that little kids probably gave each other, innocent and cute and definitely not what Louis wanted as she pulled back. Within a breath, she'd wiggled out of his arms and was running down the hall and calling out behind her, "brush your teeth, loser."

Louis: The sound of her laughter was right up there with Freddie's voice and her moans as some of the best things in the world to hear. He'd do anything, just about anything, to hear her laugh, so if this was making her laugh, he'd do it forever. The cute quick kiss had him smiling, which meant he let his guard down enough to have her run away from him. He gasped at her words and looked at the cats "Excuse me girls, I'm gonna go get your mum now" He said before breaking into a sprint down the hallway "You're gonna be brushing your teeth for weeks when I get you, Swift"

Taylor: Taylor wasn't exactly sure what she'd planned would happen from running away, since Louis could probably catch up to her in seconds. But she was giving it a shot, already at the stairs by the time that Louis had come out of the bedroom and taking the stairs as quickly as she could without falling flat on her face. "Bring it!" she shouted over her shoulder, jumping up on the couch in the lounge and grabbing at the cushions. Knowing that he'd catch her if she kept trying to run, having some kind of attack was the first thing that she thought of and she was ready to launch them if he tried to get close.</p>

Louis: If anyone had told him a month ago that he'd be running after Taylor Swift while they were both in their underwear after having sex on her kitchen counter trying to kiss her after eating a cat treat, he would've told them they were off their heads. But right now, thinking it to himself, nothing ever felt more natural. He'd chase after her every day if it got him to spend the night with her, and he was just mad for that girl. Running down the hallway and hopping down the stairs, he saw her armed on the couch "Oh this is the game then?" He said, crossing his arms over his face as a shield expecting the ammo being thrown at him as he moved forward.

Taylor: Tay tried to map his movements ahead of time, only planning to resort to the cushions as a last option because she only had two of them and for every one that she threw at him, she'd be giving him one to throw back. "This is the game, and you're gonna lose so let's all be pals. Let's draw a line under this, you go and brush your teeth and I'll wait for the food and we can move on.." her voice was calmly trying to reason with Louis, but she could tell it wasn't getting anywhere. She had her foot on the arm of the couch furthest away from where Louis was approaching from, ready to throw the cushions at him and jump over.

Louis: It was like a Terminator movie, Louis was showing no signs of backing out, and neither was Taylor. Not even after her small peace offering, the Brit shook his head "Oh no, forget about it, girl" He said with a laugh, walking up to her and trying to grab at her, dodging pillows and grabbing the few he could before throwing them behind him. If she didn't have them and he didn't either, they're less missiles he could be hit with.

Taylor: "Well shit," Taylor laughed as she was cushionless. She'd at least anticipated them being thrown back so she'd have another shot at throwing them, she knew that just generally running laps around the house wouldn't get her very far against him. Her feet were now back on the ground, backing up and away from Louis with her arms outstretched in front of her as though she were ready to karate chop him if he got within a reaching distance. "We should not be resolving conflict like this with the kids upstairs, Tomlinson."

Louis: Louis smiled widely as she saw Taylor reaching around, trying to find more cushions, and finding nothing. Bingo. He kept walking, getting closer and closer, seeing her back up and following that same path until she hit one of the living room walls. His hands went straight to her waist before they found the wall, pinning her there, his forehead went to find hers, so close he could feel her breath on his lips, his nose bumping on hers "Taylor Swift... I'm gonna give you one last chance to kiss me willingly or I'm gonna make it real uncomfortable for you" He teased her with a smirk.

Taylor: Tay really was anticipating a defeat at this point, but she wasn't going to go down without a last attempt to avoid the gross taste. Her back against the wall and stuck there against Louis' body, Taylor was starting to lose her train of thought from how close they were. The most annoying part was that she let herself look down at his lips and he was making her want to kiss them, but she couldn't let him know that. She still didn't want to taste gross cat food and so she pressed her lips together tightly, shaking her head to indicate that she wasn't going to even part her lips to talk, let alone to let him kiss her.

Louis: Louis smiled, shaking his head "So this is how it's gonna go down?" Louis would never do anything to Taylor, much less anything she didn't want to. If she ever gave any real signs of being uncomfortable, he'd stop right then and there and hate himself for bringing her to such a point, but this was all fun and games to him. He begun kissing her lips a couple times, short sweet kisses, before going to her cheek, down to her neck "Come on, baby girl, give me a kiss"

Taylor: The short and sweet kisses were hard to fight against, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him and return them but she knew that they wouldn't stay short and sweet for long. "Why can't you be a normal boyfriend and not eat my cat's food? Then this wouldn't be an issue.." she pointed out, very aware of any possible sudden movements from Louis now that she'd opened her mouth again. Deciding it wasn't a good idea, her lips closed tightly again even though her hands pushed up under his shirt to feel his wam skin and to hold him close. Her actions completely opposed one another in terms of displaying what she wanted, but she didn't care.

Louis: Louis chuckled at her question, the breath of his nose coming out hitting her skin and by default his own lips "Normal's a setting on the washing machine, baby girl. A little more time with me and you'll figure out I'm far from normal" He mumbled against her neck, pressing wet, open mouthed kisses all over it. He didn't realize until he started feeling it up in his stomach, but his hips pushed against Taylor's, pressing her and grinding against her on the wall.

Taylor: Taylor couldn't fight the smile from appearing at his words, thinking to herself how she honestly didn't think that she could have him any other way. With each kiss to her neck it was like she forgot what they were even running around the house about, her hands moving across his skin and around to his back to pull him closer. The way that he moved his hips could make even the most stubborn person forget what they were being adamant about, her lips parting so that she could let out a soft moan under her breath.

Louis: The feeling of her hands over his body only pushed Louis even further as to what he wanted to do... Wait, what did he want to do? His mind was fuzzy, and his hands had left the place where they had been strategically placed to hold Taylor down and were now going up her sides. Her moan just drove him off the cliff, making him split away from her neck and gently place his hands on each side of her face, his lips instantly finding hers again, but the reason couldn't be further away from what he had in mind ten minutes ago. Now, he just needed to kiss her.

Taylor: His hands moving up her body like that was making Taylor relax, her muscles sinking into the comfort that she felt whenever she and Louis were in such close proximity. The kiss was welcomed by Taylor, any memory of her climbing over a sofa to get away from him completely wiped by how intoxicated she was with him. It was only when the kiss got deeper, mouths parting together to bring their tongues together, that Taylor was brought back to reality as she felt the rough and dry taste of cat food in her mouth. Pulling away quickly, her nose was scrunched up and head shook quickly, "I'm so glad I didn't eat a whole one of those, jeez."

Louis: Louis hands moved from her face, one went to tangle in her hair and the other one find a place of comfort on her neck, her body still pressed against the wall by the force of his own, and everything right now was incredible. At least for him. When she pulled away, the Brit was brought back with what could only resemble a bucket of cold water, but her words had him chuckling. He opened his eyes just in time to see her scrunch her nose up "Told you I'd get my kiss" He said kissing the tip of her adorably scrunched up nose.

Taylor: Taylor opened her mouth to respond, but the buzzer went for the gate and all that came out of her was a sigh. She didn't want him to take his body away from hers or for his hands to move away, but the poor delivery person was waiting. "So. Which one of us is putting our pants on so we can get the pizza. 'Cos the poor driver doesn't want to see this," she exaggerated her words by bringing her hands down Louis' back to land on his ass, taking the opportunity to pull him tighter against her.

Louis: Saved by the bell... Or cursed by it, at this point, he had no idea. His Calvins had gotten obnoxiously tight again, and the moment Taylor's hands landed on his ass and pulled him closer, he groaned quietly and bit on his lower lip, his hand balling up into a fist and placing it on the wall with a short chuckle "God, you're gonna drive me crazy, baby girl" He said, reaching down to press a kiss on her lips quickly before breaking the contact from their bodies. Jogging to the kitchen, he grabbed his trousers and slipped them on, not even bothering with shoes before he opened the front door and walked up to the gate. He took the pizza from the boy who looked heavily confused with why it wasn't real Taylor Swift opening the door, but he thanked him and walked away, and so did Louis. Once back inside the house, he slammed the door shut "Pizza's here"

Taylor: A small, innocent smile crept onto her face when he said that she was driving him crazy, as though it was entirely unintentional. Masking her disappointment at Louis' knew clothing, Taylor busied herself by getting them both somethiing to drink. A glass of water for each of them sat on the coffee table waiting for them as well as a couple of cans of soda. Tay wasn't the kind of girl who used plates and cutlery for takeaway pizza, so the thought hadn't even crossed her mind to get those as she looked up at Louis from the couch as he came back in the room. "Nice! And you got yours with just cheese, right? I was thinking, you could add the girls' treats as your own topping!"

Louis: The nice chilly LA breeze was good to calm Louis down, get his head back down from the cloud where Taylors' hands had put him on, so in a way, he was kinda happy he'd gotten this turn to get the pizza. God knew that if they hadn't been interrupted, he'd have her against the wall screaming like she was an hour ago. Putting the boxes down on the coffee table where she had set everything up for their dinner, he heard her suggestion and it had him rolling his eyes "Git" He quipped back before kissing her lips quickly and sitting down beside her.

<<b>Taylor: She chuckled at the name that he called her, returning the quick kiss before grabbing the remote and switching the television on. "What do you want to watch, babe?" she asked Louis as she flicked through the options, not liking anything that was on since all that seemed to go by the screen were commercials. "Netflix?" she asked after a moment, turning her attention to the pizza boxes and figuring out which one was hers before flippig the lid open and grabbing the garlic mayo dip that came wedged in the box.

Louis: Louis made himself comfortable on the couch, kicking his feet up on the table and then placing the pizza box on his lap. He loved this, how comfortable they were together. It reminded him of the nights in he used to have with Freddie where they'd do exactly this but with slightly healthier food... Maybe they'd be able to do it together, all three of them at some point. Maybe. "Sure love, whatever you want, I'm not too fussy" He said, picking up the first slice and taking a bite out of it.

Taylor: "That's not very helpful," she pointed out, glancing sideways at Louis and seeing that her boyfriend really was more concerned with his pizza than what they'd be watching. They hadn't been together long enough by this point for Taylor to know what kind of thing he liked watching, so she settled on the Big Bang Theory - everyone loved that show. Whatever they watched, they'd probably end up talking through it anyway. As soon as the series had been selected, Taylor's attention turned back to the pizza as well as she picked up a slice and took a bite. "I still can't believe we burnt the chicken."

Louis: With a mouthful of pizza already when she started to talk, Lou turned his head around and gave her a smile, shrugging and puckering his lips up to send her a kiss, just like what Freddie did. He kept munching through the pizza, his feet moving with the little song that played during the Big Bang Theory intro as he kept happily eating. Her words made him chuckle, putting his pizza down and turning his head to look at her "I've burnt chicken far too many times, so that's no news to me. What is though, is that I can't believe we had sex on that counter. I don't think I've ever shagged anyone on something that small"

Taylor: Rolling her eyes at Louis' childishness, Taylor got lost momentarily as she thought about how someone could look that good when they're just casually eating pizza. She looked back down after a few moments, not wanting to look weird for staring at his eating. Taylor shifted, annoyed that the cushions were halfway across the room and instead tucking her feet underneath her and pulling the box onto her lap. "Well.. I'm honored that my kitchen counter and I hold the record?" Taylor half-asked, not sure how to respond to something like that.

Louis: Louis smiled widely at her. He noticed her staring, but he wasn't gonna point it out, mainly because he was guilty of doing the same thing when she wasn't looking. Or when she was sleeping. She just looked so peaceful.. So happy. Reaching out to grab her hand, the one that wasn't holding the pizza slice, he brought it to his lips and pressing a short kiss on the back of it, he winked quickly at her "Here's to many more records, Swift"

Taylor: Taylor had come to realize that the reason why being with Louis was so easy was because he made it so clear how he felt. The simple movement of a quick kiss to the back of her hand told the blonde everything that she needed to know and it felt like a huge contract from past relationships where she'd never know quite where she stood. It was early days with Lou, and anyting could happen. She just hoped that this one thing would never change. Taylor responded by squeezing his hand softly, "sounds perfect. I aim to hold 'em all. Other than the bad ones.." For a couple who held a lot of world records between them, Tay couldn't help but think that daft ones like this would be the most fun to break.

Louis: Louis was putting away pizza faster than he realized, but the moment he felt Taylor squeeze his hand back, he locked their fingers together and placed it back down on the couch, in the middle of their bodies, but he wasn't letting it go. Something as simple as eating pizza and watching the telly was turned into something incredible with her. The voices from the box droned on as he kept eating. He turned to her and looked down slightly "If I tell Bri I wanna see Freddie tomorrow, d'you wanna do something with us?"

Taylor: Their fingers intertwined and crossing the gap between them was a move that was definitely welcomed by Taylor, since she hadn't been a fan of the gap between them in the first place. She was in the middle of dunking the pizza crust in the dip when Louis asked the question, but it made Taylor stop what she was doing and look back at him with a big grin on her face. "you mean it?" Her blue eyes were wider with excitement and a little bit of surprise that he'd asked her. She was surprised because she knew how important time with Freddie was to Louis and the fact that he wanted her there meant the world to her. And she'd get to see Freddie, of course. "Of course I would, that sounds perfect."

Louis: Louis looked down at their fingers and then back up at her, the excitement on her face making all the fear leave his eyes. Of course he was scared, he was terrified of what Brianna may do when she found out that he had a new girlfriend and that she was seeing Freddie whenever he was, but then she looked at him, big blue eyes smiling at him, and he was gone "Alright... Brilliant. I'll talk to her and try and pick him up early tomorrow, we can go have something to eat "

Taylor: Taylor saw him looking down at their hands and so she squeezed his again, mostly from excitement. She didn't even consider that her going along with them might end up causing trouble, since in Tay's head she didn't know the situation well enough to anticipate that anything bad could come of it. "Sounds good to me. I've been waiting a while now for my second date with Freddie - it's cool that you don't mind chaperoning again."

Louis: Louis looked sideways at her and narrowed his eyes, a smile propping up both the corners of his lips up in his cheeks "Again with you switching teams? Taylor Swift, you cheat" He said with a laugh, letting go of her hand to poke her side quickly before reaching to grab it again, giving it a squeeze and yet another kiss on the back of it. He had gone through his pizza in a blitz, so he closed the lid on the box and placed it down on the table again, leaning over to rest his head on her shoulder with a happy sigh.

Taylor: "What can I say? I like to keep everyone happy," Taylor said innocently, as though she was continuously switching sides for their sake and not for her own. Only midway through her pizza, she figured she was full for now and there was nothing better than cold pizza for breakfast, so she put the box on the coffee table and had a sip of water before leaning back, arm coming around Louis' shoulder and holding him close. Her own head rested on top of his, eyes slipping shut in a moment of genuine contentedness where everything was silent other than the vocie of Sheldon Cooper in the background. "You know, you and pizza might be my favorite combination of all time."

Louis: Louis narrowed his eyes and looked at her with a concerned look on his face "Let's hope you don't feel like making other lads happy, huh" He teased her, knowing full and well that she'd never cheat on him... Right? He wasn't gonna give himself the time of day to think about that, they had just started this and Taylor looked like the kind of girl that wouldn't do that, her songs showed how she had been through it herself. Her words came out like a lullaby, making him smile and close his eyes as well, head turning a second to place a kiss over her shoulder "You're my favorite and I like you" He said, squeezing her hand.

Taylor: Even if he had meant it seriously, Taylor couldn't take what Louis had said seriously because the thought of her even paying any attention like that to another guy whilst she was in a relationship was legitimately laughable to her. She knew what the felt like, and she'd never do it to anybody else. Plus, she could already tell that she'd be a complete idiot if she fucked things up with Lou. "I don't think you have anything to worry about there, babe," she said after a moment, "'cos you're my favorite, too. Can we just do this every evening?"

Louis: Louis smiled and looked up at her, his lips quickly finding her nose and kissing it quickly. "Good, because I'm not that good at sharing, to be quite honest" He confessed, squeezing her hand. Lifting his head up, he shuffled his body along the couch until he was comfortable that his whole body would fit on the long seats and his head could rest of Taylor's lap, and when he was sure of that, he slowly sunk down until he had assumed that position "Alright, now we can do this every evening"

Taylor: His kissing her nose made her laugh a little, humming a little in response to his statement. Taylor always went into everything - relationship, friendship, whatever - trusting them entirely. She was an 'I trust you until you prove yourself untrustworthy' kind of girl instead of people having to earn her trust, and it had screwed her over on more than one occasion but she couldn't help it. Taylor put her whole heart into believing that Louis wouldn't feel like making other girls happy in the way that he made her happy without giving it a second thought. Her arms came up, giving Louis space to move and when his head was in her lap, instantly one of her hands moved to comb her fingers through his hair soothingly. She looked down at him, her eyes basically having huge heart eyes symbols in them as she realized just how happy she was. This moment needed to be framed. "Good. I'm going to hold you to that, baby." A small smile later, her head fell back against the sofa so her face was angled upwards, fingers still stroking his hair, "I haven't felt this relaxed in a really long time."

#&. ⸢l.tomlinson⸥#&. ⸢back in los angeles⸥

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whorchataaa · 4 years

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Podcast: Life with Binge Eating Disorder

At one point, Gabe weighed more than 550 pounds. Today, he and Lisa remember and discuss the extreme pain and slow healing process of living with binge-eating disorder. Gabe shares his shame in being so overweight, his intense relationship with food, the story of his gastric bypass and the difficult process of learning new coping mechanisms.

How did Gabe’s bipolar and panic attacks tie in with his binge eating? And, importantly, how is he managing the illness today? Join us for an open and honest discussion on living with an eating disorder.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews!

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Binge Eating Disorder” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Welcome, everyone, to this episode of Not Crazy. My name is Gabe Howard, and I am here with my ever present co-host, Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is Food is love, food is life by Edwina O’Connor.

Gabe: Ok. There’s so much to say about this. But food is life. It’s life. Oxygen is life. Oh, that’s so deep, you should put this.

Lisa: It’s profound.

Gabe: Like this is like live, laugh, love.

Lisa: Right

Gabe: You need food to survive. So we all get that you have to eat to live. But food has sort of taken on a little bit extra, right? If I give you a cupcake, it means I love you. If it’s your birthday and I don’t get you a birthday cake. You don’t need a birthday cake to live. We do these things to express love, right?

Lisa: So it works both directions, giving people food is love and accepting their food says I love you back.

Gabe: Woo! And that’s where we really sort of get into, I’m gonna go with crux of our discussion today, which is binge eating disorder. Many people don’t know, I used to weigh 550 pounds. I’m six foot three. My top weight was five hundred and fifty pounds.

Lisa: You realize your top weight was a lot closer to six hundred and fifty pounds.

Gabe: That’s not true. I never weighed over 600.

Lisa: I’m willing to bet that you weighed over six hundred.

Gabe: I did not. I know for a fact.

Lisa: The day you had gastric bypass, you weighed 554 pounds, but you’d been on a diet for several weeks and you’ve been fasting for several days. I’m willing to bet you lost 20 or 30 pounds at least.

Gabe: There is one thing that fat people know more than anything else, especially fat people who have lost a lot of weight, they know their top weights.

Lisa: Ok, well, never mind. Go back, unpause.

Gabe: No, we don’t need to pause at all. I think you should leave this in there. I want people to see how often Lisa pauses to correct me.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Gabe: Do you think that there is a difference from a storytelling perspective between weighing five hundred and fifty pounds and weighing six hundred pounds? I mean, just I guess I maybe I qualified for This 600-lb Life.

Lisa: Yeah, see, there you go. I didn’t set the limit. Somebody else did.

Gabe: Well, I’m not going to retroactively go back and try to be on a fat-sploitation show. But just the thing that I want the audience to know is that I weighed over five hundred and fifty pounds. Now, the weight that I weigh today, which according to the BMI chart is in fact obese, is 260 pounds. I’m six foot three and I’m a big guy. I’m broad shouldered. I’m not a small person. But 260 pounds is is less than half of 550. I lost a person. I lost a person and change.

Lisa: Yeah, it’s very impressive. This was a long time back. You had gastric bypass in 2003 and you’ve kept it off all these years.

Gabe: Let’s move past how I lost the weight and let’s talk about life as a five hundred and fifty pound man. Because I thought that I just ate a lot. Like, I thought that I needed to go on a diet. And when you first met me. I don’t know. You know, the more we tell our story, Lisa,

Lisa: The crazier I sound?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, I’ve noticed that.

Gabe: You met a man that weighed five hundred and fifty pounds with untreated bipolar disorder. And you were like, yeah.

Lisa: You were very engaging. You Gabe magicked me.

Gabe: Gonna get me some of that.

Lisa: Yeah. You carried it well. What can I say?

Gabe: Oh, really? I just I dressed so well? You know, you get the right tailor, you can hide anything with clothing.

Lisa: It’s amazing. Yeah.

Gabe: But back to our point, I thought that I just ate a lot. I thought I was just overweight, like so many Americans and I.

Lisa: You’re remembering the story a little bit different. By the time I met you, you had already been diagnosed with binge eating disorder.

Gabe: That’s not true. That is completely untrue.

Lisa: That is true.

Gabe: That’s not true. Nope.

Lisa: That is true.

Gabe: No.

Lisa: That is true. I don’t know what to tell you.

Gabe: No, it is not true.

Lisa: I never thought that you were just, just fat. You know what I mean?

Gabe: You had me join Weight Watchers.

Lisa: Although Weight Watchers is obviously not designed for people with serious eating disorders, it is a mechanism to keep track of what you eat.

Gabe: Yes, an umbrella is a mechanism to not get wet. But would you hand it to a hurricane?

Lisa: I’m not saying that it was the best choice for you.

Gabe: Is this what you recommended, like for Katrina?

Lisa: But what were the options?

Gabe: Like medical intervention?

Lisa: You were doing that too.

Gabe: I wasn’t doing any of that. We can fight about the timeline until we’re blue in the face. But here’s what we know, I weighed five hundred and fifty pounds and I wasn’t doing much about it. Why do you keep

Lisa: I disagree.

Gabe: Why do you keep shaking your head? I love how you’re shaking your head.

Lisa: You told me not to talk. So I shake my head. By the time we started dating, you were already trying to get a gastric bypass.

Gabe: Here’s the thing, though, that I think you’re not considering. You’re tying together Gabe trying to get gastric bypass with Gabe understanding that he had binge eating disorder and those two things are not in any way related.

Lisa: You don’t think so?

Gabe: I didn’t know any of this stuff. I did want gastric bypass because I was 24 years old and I weighed five hundred and fifty pounds. I saw gastric bypass as a quick fix, which we’ll get into that later in the show. But let’s focus on binge eating disorder. Have we established that Gabe was overweight and had issues with food?

Lisa: You were very overweight and you definitely had clear issues with food. As I might have said to you at one point, you were, in fact, circus freak fat.

Gabe: You did.

Lisa: Sorry about that, that was rude.

Gabe: I don’t know how our relationship made it.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: I think that the divorce was probably inevitable.

Lisa: I’m pretty sure I said that after you lost the weight, but I’m not positive.

Gabe: Let’s talk about our language for a moment. You and I weren’t, we’re not big language police. We kind of think that the goal should be communication and context, not so much the words. But I got called fat a lot. You, Lisa, saying that I was fat, it does not offend me. It does not bother me. But other people doing it, it did. As you can imagine, weighing five hundred and fifty pounds. I got a lot of sideways glances, stares, giggles, comments, and it hurt my feelings a lot. And the other reason I kind of bring this up is because why are we so cavalier about it? I know how damaging body image can be, because, again, even though I weighed five hundred and fifty pounds, even though I couldn’t walk from my car to my office desk without taking a break, the only thing I cared about was how I looked. I didn’t care that I would lose my breath standing up. I cared that I wasn’t pretty enough and that maybe I couldn’t find a girlfriend.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: You weren’t worried about the health?

Gabe: No.

Lisa: Not necessarily worried about the health consequences, but it wasn’t things like you had trouble getting upstairs? You weren’t concerned about stuff like that?

Gabe: I wasn’t. You know, I was 22, 23, 24, I was invincible. I cared that I couldn’t find clothes that fit me. I cared that I was ugly. I cared that women wouldn’t want to sleep with me. I’m not trying to make Lisa out to be a bad person. But Lisa and I were not exclusive because Lisa gave me a fake name when we first met.

Lisa: Well, I wasn’t going to give you my real name.

Gabe: That’s fair. I was circus freak fat, apparently. I’m just saying that these are kind of the things that went through my mind. But what I was really surprised to learn and tying it all the way back to you thinking that I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder when we met because I was trying to get gastric bypass, is my entire motivation for getting gastric bypass was wanting to look better. I did not know that I had binge eating disorder until I was in the steps of gastric bypass. One of the things that I had to go through was a psychological examination where they started talking to me about why I ate. And I ate because it made me feel better.

Lisa: Everything surrounding gastric bypass was a lot different back then. Insurance companies were paying for it in a different way. The surgery was still relatively new. It was kind of a halcyon days for gastric bypass. And there were still stand alone surgery centers that specialized in this. You just don’t see those types of programs anymore. You don’t see the ads on TV anymore. And every surgeon was doing it. Every hospital had a program. You specifically went out of your way. Well, at the time, I thought you had gone out of your way to find this really good program with really high success rates. And one of the reasons they had such a high success rate was because they were so comprehensive. They had all this psychological counseling and nutritional counseling and this really long waiting period and on and on and on. And at the time, I thought, oh, there’s a health care consumer. He has made the best choice for him. Good job. But I found out later, no, he just knew this lady who went there. So he was like, sure.

Gabe: You’re half right and half wrong. When I looked at the other places they kind of scared me a little bit. I know this is a stupid thing to say, but one of the reasons that I felt comfortable at the bariatric treatment centers was because they had wide chairs.

Lisa: I remember that.

Gabe: When I walked in, they had these wide chairs that I fit in.

Lisa: They were like benches.

Gabe: When I went to the other place, it was just in a regular, it was a well-known hospital. I don’t know. I had to pay more money to go where I went. So in theory, I could have picked the cheaper place. So.

Lisa: Through a variety of good decision making and luck, you ended up at a place with an excellent program that was very intensive in the pre surgical period. They had a lot of psychological and nutritional counseling, which most programs did not have then or now.

Gabe: So here I am, I walk in and they’re like, why do you want to have this? And I say, because I’m ugly and I don’t want to be ugly. And they say, OK, that’s what we get. Like, what are some things that you would do if you weren’t this size? And, you know, I said I wouldn’t sit in the handicapped seats at hockey games, for example. I would sit in booths instead of tables. I would ride roller coasters again. But in the back of my mind, what I was thinking is I would get laid more. I felt so bad because I felt so ugly and I tied that directly to my weight. Now, I didn’t know that I had bipolar disorder at this time. I did not know that I was untreated. There was obviously a lot going on, but those were my initial reasons. That’s why I wanted to do it. And through that process, I ended up at an eating disorder clinic and I remember my very first appointments. Were you around for that appointment or had I already gone to it and told you about it?

Lisa: You know, I don’t remember if that was your first appointment. Very early, I remember going to the eating disorder clinic. Yeah, it was just like a whole other world. It was so odd to go there because obviously most people getting treated for eating disorders are anorexics because those are the people who are most likely to die of their eating disorder. So they’re the people most likely to get treatment. And most of the binge eaters were quite large. So it was this bizarre mix of very, very small, mostly young women, just painfully thin young women and extremely overweight, you know, 20 some, 30 some year olds. And I went to one of their family support groups and the majority of the people there, their family members, family or friends, were anorexic. And they had the exact same behaviors, the exact same attitudes, the exact same everything. Even though their problem was that they didn’t eat enough. And your problem was that you ate too much. That really went to show that eating disorders were not about the food. It was about the psychological thing.

Gabe: Well, that’s interesting because while it was psychological, it was also about the food. For example, if I was feeling sad, I needed birthday cake. Because birthday cake was tied to happy memories. You couldn’t just give me 20,000 thousand calories in.

Lisa: Veggies? Salad?

Gabe: Man, that’s be a lot of salad and veggies, but

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I needed like the foods that I grew up with. I guess a better way to say it is it was about the psychological connection to the food.

Lisa: Yeah. So I looked up the definition of binge eating disorder, because how do you know when you’re binge eating and how do you know when you’re just over eating? Binge eating disorder is characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food very quickly and often to the point of discomfort and a feeling of loss of control during the binge, experiencing shame, distress or guilt afterwards and then not regularly using unhealthy compensatory measures such as purging, because that’s a whole other eating disorder. And this was interesting, I actually didn’t know this until today. The binge eating occurs on average at least once a week for three months. And this is how you can get diagnosed with binge eating disorder, which was not its own separate mental illness until 2013 with the new DSM.

Gabe: You know, all the eating disorders have things in common, right? And the thing that it has in common is this unhealthy relationship with food. A healthy relationship with food is that you eat to survive. You start to get into a gray area when you eat to survive but you also enjoy what you eat.

Lisa: Oh, I don’t think that’s fair. You can eat to survive and enjoy what you eat. You probably get into a gray area once you get overweight. And I am overweight.

Gabe: The goal of food is not enjoyment. The goal of food is sustenance. The reason that we get in a gray area is because who’s ever eaten that extra bite? Because it tastes so good. That’s a gray area. You do not need that extra bite. But also, why do we have foods that go with holidays or occasions? That’s a gray area, right? There is no reason on Earth that we need to celebrate our occasions with food.

Lisa: But that’s an evolutionary thing. What encourages the animal to eat? Because it’s enjoyable. It’s pleasant. Otherwise we wouldn’t eat. We’d all starve to death. So it goes together. Humans throughout time would not survive if they did not find enjoyment in food because then they wouldn’t eat and they’d all die.

Gabe: Well, I disagree with that. Why can’t it work the other way? We don’t eat, so we feel pain. We feel hunger.

Lisa: It’s both.

Gabe: I suppose alleviating that hunger provides joy. I don’t know why we fell down the rabbit hole on it’s a gray area. But I do I think that it’s important to establish that sometimes our relationship with food, while healthy, is a gray area. There is absolutely no reason that we have to have cake on our birthday. But I would venture to guess that anybody who didn’t get a birthday cake or some sort of special dessert on their birthday would feel that they were left out or that they missed something.

Lisa: Well, that could be its own separate show about the emotional relationship to food and American’s relationship with food, because we just have this ridiculous eating pattern that nobody else has. Nobody in history has had previously.

Gabe: So would you say that that’s a gray area?

Lisa: Ok, fine gray area.

Gabe: Lisa, the point that I am making, when I was sad, I ate. That is what I learned by going to a nutritionist and examining my relationship with food. And I think that everybody in America has sort of a messed up relationship with food to a certain extent. What I called the gray area, but it was just so extreme.

Lisa: When you were sad, you ate to comfort yourself. When you were happy, you ate to celebrate. When you were angry, you ate to calm down. When you were fill in an emotion, you responded to it with food and to a lesser extent, so do I. Which once again is why I’m overweight. But it was very extreme, and still is extreme for you.

Gabe: But I don’t think it’s fair to call it extreme anymore.

Lisa: Why?

Gabe: It was extreme before I got help. I don’t think it’s extreme anymore. I do think it’s outside of the normal lines.

Lisa: Ok. Well, that’s just a semantic argument, it’s much more than for the average person. How about that?

Gabe: Well, I’m just saying, if my relationship with food is extreme now, how would you classify it before I got help? When I weighed five hundred fifty pounds, what word would you use there?

Lisa: Even worse.

Gabe: Well, but we need a word here. We’re using extreme for my relationship with food now.

Lisa: Horrifying. I would call it horrifying. I think you have lost track of how far outside of the norm you still are. You are much better than used to be, obviously. But I think you’ve normalized in your mind a lot of your behavior, and it is not. This is not the way the average person, even the average American, reacts to food.

Gabe: It’s the way you react to food.

Lisa: Well, yes, but that’s not a good measure because I am also overweight. But it’s worse with you. It’s a lot worse.

Gabe: Give some examples.

Lisa: Whenever we go out, there has to be food. It’s not fun for you if there’s not food. All activities have a food that goes with it, a food that must go with it. You can’t go to a movie and not have popcorn or snacks. There’s no enjoyment in the movie if you don’t do it. You can’t go to a Blue Jackets game and not get concessions. You know, a lot of people say, oh, well, I like to have a beer while I watch the game. No, it’s a whole different level for you. You would rather not go at all than go and not eat.

Gabe: You think that’s out? Popcorn at a movie theater? Me wanting popcorn and a movie theater?

Lisa: No.

Gabe: You’ve decided that is extreme and outside the norm? So I’m the only one?

Lisa: The level at which you want popcorn at the movie theater and the level of distress you go through, if for some reason, you can’t have it. If I told you in advance, hey, the popcorn machine is broken at the movie theater. You wouldn’t go. Even if it was Star Wars on opening night. You would not go.

Gabe: I think that is untrue.

Lisa: One of the things Gabe and I don’t know if you remember this, that I think really showed the emotional relationship you had with food is a few weeks after you had gastric bypass. We were in the parking lot of your apartment building. And I don’t remember, we had argued about something. And you got so upset that you started crying and you actually said, I just feel so bad and now I don’t even have food. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even have food.

Gabe: I remember.

Lisa: The idea being that was what you were going to turn to make yourself feel better. And this was so soon after surgery that you couldn’t and you were devastated at that. You were so distraught because you just couldn’t come up with anything else to soothe those emotions.

Gabe: My mom and grandma were staying with me. I asked them to come and take care of me. You know, I was single.

Lisa: Well, you needed someone, major surgery.

Gabe: But, you know, fish and house guests smell after three days. And they had been there for a week. And I was ready to get my privacy back. And I had asked you to stay to kind of be a buffer. And you said that you were ready to go home. You’d been there for a while

Lisa: Oh,

Gabe: And I walked you out to your car. So we didn’t really argue. I had pleaded with you to stay.

Lisa: I don’t remember that part.

Gabe: Just, you know, come on, come on, come on. And, you know, you were like, no, I gotta get going. I’ve got to go back to work. So I had walked you out to your car and you asked me what was wrong. And I just, I just started crying. And then, of course, I had trouble standing because I just had surgery and I fell down next to your car.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I was going through so many emotions. And my coping mechanism at that point was eating. And I didn’t have it. I had not learned new coping mechanisms yet.

Lisa: Just how emotional you were at this loss. Almost as if your best friend had died.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And it was one of the things that really drove home to me how much your emotions were tied up with food. That there was this thing you had always been able to turn to and now you couldn’t and you didn’t know what to do or how to behave. And it was heartbreaking.

Gabe: You know, on one hand that a devastatingly sad story.

Lisa: It was.

Gabe: But the reason I’m snickering is because do you remember my neighbors walking by? And one of them said hi to you

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: But of course, as they rounded, they see this 550 pound guy hunched over in his bathrobe on the

Lisa: On the ground.

Gabe: On the ground. They’re just like, OK. I, yeah.

Lisa: When a really large person hits the ground, people, people react.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: And then your mom thought that you had just fallen

Gabe: Yep.

Lisa: Because she didn’t know that you’re upset and you didn’t want her to know how upset you were.

Gabe: Pandemonium.

Lisa: So she started getting all upset because she thought, well, we’re not going to be able to pick him up. He’s fallen down and we can’t lift him back up. So there was humor in it. Sort of. Looking back.

Gabe: You know, hindsight,

Lisa: Mm hmm.

Gabe: Hindsight is always funny-funny.

Lisa: Fun times. Fun times.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe: We’re back discussing binge eating disorder.

Lisa: In order to have the diagnosis of binge eating disorder, you need to have three or more of the following: eating much more rapidly than normal, eating until feeling uncomfortably full, eating large amounts of food when not physically hungry, eating alone because of feeling embarrassed or by how much you’re eating, and feeling disgusted with oneself, depressed or very guilty afterward. And when I read that, the thing that really struck me is eating much more rapidly than normal. It was amazing how fast you could eat. Like you could be a competitive eater.

Gabe: One of the things that really struck me is the things that I used to do to hide how much I was eating. Like, I would order pizza and I would say, you know, hey, I need two large pizzas. And they’re like, OK, do anything else? Well, hang on. Hang on, guys, you think two large pizzas is enough? Hang on, hang on. You got like a special for three. Go, go ahead and. There was just me. There was literally just me. I wasn’t even married. I was just. I was.

Lisa: So, you were pretending there were other people on the phone to the pizza place because you didn’t want them to know you were ordering for yourself?

Gabe: Yeah, and I would go through drive-throughs and I would order multiple value meals. Same level of, you know, I’d like a number two and number three, both with Diet Cokes. All right, what sauce do you want? You know, my girlfriend likes your barbecue. So let’s go ahead and grab that. And on that other one, I think my buddy said he wanted no ketchup. Yeah, these were all for me.

Lisa: Right. And you knew that.

Gabe: Oh, yeah. It was important to me that nobody thought that I was eating all of that food. Also, if I had, like, appointments. I was going out to lunch or something for work or business, I would eat before I went.

Lisa: You remember that night with the pizza?

Gabe: Yep.

Lisa: And I ate more pizza than him. And I thought, huh? I’m a giant cow person and I need to eat less pizza. But no, it turned out that you had ordered two and eaten a whole one before I got there. And now were pretending that this pizza had just arrived and we were now sitting down together for the first time. When you had, in fact, already consumed an entire pizza.

Gabe: Yeah, and I hid the box.

Lisa: Yeah, you would hide the box or the wrappers.

Gabe: It wasn’t even like I said that I ate. I didn’t want you to think that I was a giant fat ass. That was important to me.

Lisa: One of the things that was interesting when we went to the eating disorder clinic is you did try to hide how much you would eat, but you didn’t have a problem with eating in front of me. One of your doctors told me that was a little bit unusual, that most people literally do not want to be seen chewing in front of other people. But you never seemed to have that particular problem.

Gabe: Well, I didn’t have that problem in front of you.

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair. You want to tell the story?

Gabe: I don’t want to tell the story, but I think now you’re going to have to. The people just heard you give the punchline away.

Lisa: You go.

Gabe: We were at a pizza buffet, all you can eat pizza buffet, and I was eating and I looked up and you were looking at me and.

Lisa: I had stopped eating by this time and was just watching you.

Gabe: And I said, what? And you said, wow, you can really put it away. And I was like, that’s so mean. I’m just trying to eat my lunch. And you’re just like, I don’t know what to say.

Lisa: I remember that day because we were eating and then eventually I’m not eating and I’m just watching this because it was like watching. Oh, I don’t know, a snake swallowing its food or something. It was like watching some sort of extreme physical feat. It was amazing. Like, ignoring that it’s pizza, I would not have thought the human body could chew and swallow that rapidly, that a human being could do that. And you couldn’t look away. I do recognize, especially looking back, that was really mean. But I kind of feel almost justified in it. This thing I was watching in front of me was just so stunning and so extreme. How could I not stop and stare and comment on it? It was just incredible in a really, really horrifying way. Yeah.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: It was disturbing.

Gabe: When I got to the eating disorder clinic, you know, they put me through a lot of paces and I started to realize that my relationship with food was not good. I mean, my weight, you know, over 550 pounds, my girlfriend looking at me in disbelief as I ate, the side glances, the comments, not being able to fit into things like roller coasters or booths or I had to sit in the handicapped section. I needed the seatbelt extender for my mid-sized car. It’s not like I was in a tiny car. I had a Ford Taurus. A family car. And I needed a seatbelt extender.

Lisa: By the way, you’re welcome.

Gabe: Yeah, that was all Lisa. I just didn’t wear a seatbelt before.

Lisa: Because I don’t let anyone ride in my car without a seat belt and I thought, what kind of fool doesn’t wear a seat belt? And then, lo and behold, you didn’t wear a seatbelt because it didn’t fit, because he couldn’t wear a seat belt.

Gabe: Remember when I said it doesn’t fit? And you said, bullshit? Show me. You didn’t believe me.

Gabe: You’ve seen how far those things stretch out.

Gabe: Didn’t fit.

Lisa: So, yeah, that was really shocking. And just within a couple of days, we had seatbelt extenders for all the cars of everybody we knew.

Gabe: Yeah. Thank you. That.

Lisa: They will give them to you for free if you ask.

Gabe: Just call the dealership or call the manufacturer and they will mail them to you. Also side note, if you’re on an airplane, just ask the flight attendant when you get on. Just whisper I need a seatbelt extender and they will bring you one or hand you one. Highly recommend doing that as well. Very, very important. But here I am at the eating disorder clinic. I finally got a surgery date. And what was it like a month and a half before I finally got gastric bypass after like two years of fighting for it is when I went to the psychiatric hospital.

Lisa: Yeah, like two months before. But you already had the date scheduled

Gabe: Yeah. And so as I’m losing the weight, I’m also getting treated for bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Right. That’s what comorbidity is. You had a lot of things going on at one time. This is one of the reasons it’s so difficult to treat mental illness and binge eating disorder because there’s all these factors coming together. And how do you tease out what’s what?

Gabe: I guess I don’t remember the specific day that I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder. I do remember my aha! moment. I had to do a few things and one of the things that I did is meet with a nutritionist. And she had flash cards and she held up the flash cards. And she was like, what has more calories? And the only one that I remember was she held up a donut, cream filled, icing, and she held up a muffin. She said, Which one has more calories? And I said, the donut. I know this one. Muffins are a diet food. And she said, no, the muffin has more calories. And I said, how is that possible? Muffins are healthy. Muffins have less fat. But they have way more sugar. But I thought a muffin had less calories. It didn’t.

Lisa: Lots of people don’t understand the specifics of nutrition or aren’t quite sure what the right foods are to choose, etc. That’s why they have eat this, not that. What does that have to do with binge eating disorder? Why was that your aha! moment?

Gabe: Because up until that moment, I thought I completely understood what was going into my body, why I was eating it. And that was the first thing that let me know that, no, you’re just wrong. You’re just wrong. I did not understand how any of this worked, but I thought I did. That’s the part I’m getting at. If I can be so wrong about what constitutes a healthy meal, then what else am I wrong about? And she helped me understand that I don’t know what’s going on. I clearly do not have a good understanding of my relationship with food, food in general, nothing. And that opened my mind.

Lisa: So your lack of understanding of nutrition made you feel like, hey, maybe I don’t understand a lot of things about eating and how I eat, and therefore maybe I should consider that these people are telling me something of value rather than something I can dismiss?

Gabe: Sure. That’s a fancy-schmancy way of putting it. But what I actually thought in the moment is, holy shit. I don’t know what I’m eating. I do not understand food. I am putting food in my mouth and I think I am making healthy choices. You know what I used to eat and I thought it was a health food? A Snickers bar. Because the advertising was packed with peanuts, Snickers really satisfies. I was hungry and I needed a snack to get to the next meal. So clearly peanuts. I was eating a candy bar with peanuts, but I thought I was eating a nutrition bar. I thought I was eating something healthy because the advertising got to me. I did not understand what I was putting in my mouth, but I’m supposed to believe that I understand the psychology behind my desire to eat? No. That’s when I started to become much more malleable. That’s when I started listening. That’s when I wanted to understand why I was making the choices that I was making.

Lisa: Well, what did you think before, though? What did you think your relationship with food was up until then?

Gabe: I thought that I overate, like everybody, but I also thought that it wasn’t my fault because after all, I didn’t get a good metabolism.

Lisa: Oh, metabolism.

Gabe: I believed in that. Aww, my metabolism that’s broken. I don’t have good genes. It’s not that the people who weigh less or are a healthier weight or are healthier in general are making better food choices. No, no, no. They won the genetic lottery.

Lisa: It was not something that you could control. It was just this swirl around you that was impacting you.

Gabe: Right. Yeah. I didn’t believe it was my fault at all. It was bad luck. Everybody else was eating just as much as Gabe. But because of their bodies, their metabolism. Oh, well, she just has a good metabolism, and that’s why she’s not overweight. I have a bad metabolism and that. It’s not my fault. It’s just I didn’t even realize I had any control. I.

Lisa: So stuff just kind of happened to you. You weren’t directing the action.

Gabe: Yeah, I was the victim. I very much felt that I was a victim. That my body had somehow failed me. That it wasn’t in my control or my fault.

Lisa: Well, did that matter though? I’ve been cursed with a bad body, which means that I must now make different choices than other people.

Gabe: Yes. And one of those choices that I thought I needed to make was to have surgery to correct it.

Lisa: Oh, ok.

Gabe: See, I thought that surgery was the magic cure. People have said to me, you know, surgery is the easy way out. It’s not. I don’t know who believes that or why they say it. I don’t know why there is a moral value in what method you use if you are super morbidly obese like I was. But I gotta tell you, spending four days in the hospital, being cut from the top of my chest to below my belly button, opened up, having my insides rearranged, the six week recovery time, the vomiting on your mother, the crying in the parking lot, all of the problems going through two years of therapy and nutrition appointments and re learning everything, with the aid of the therapy, over the next year and a half to finally lose all of the weight and then having to have a secondary surgery to remove the massive amounts of excess skin and male breasts that I had then developed. I had a full mastectomy. So, attention, listeners, I don’t have nipples.

Lisa: He likes to get that into every conversation.

Gabe: It’s you know, it’s a fun fact. I just. Then people look at me and they’re like, Oh, you had surgery? You did it the easy way.

Lisa: Well, I think that people what they don’t understand is that the surgery is not magic in that you can still eat. You’re not somehow prevented from chewing. You can still eat. You just react differently to it. And as evidence of surgery is not the easy way out, the failure rate is really high. And what is the definition of success, you ask? Someone has had a successful gastric bypass if they have kept off 50% of their excess weight over the course of five years.

Gabe: Well, I’m successful.

Lisa: You’re very successful.

Gabe: To be fair, I went from five hundred fifty pounds all the way down to two hundred and thirty at my lowest weight. Now, my average walking around weight is about 260

Lisa: The failure rate for gastric bypass, depending on the numbers you look, is up to 70%. So after five years, 70%. It’s now been 18 years for you. So even if you gain all the weight back tomorrow, even if you weigh 700 pounds tomorrow, you have had a successful gastric bypass. And then also let’s do some approximate numbers here. Say that you had 300 pounds to lose. Right. And you lost 280 of them. You realize that you could gain, right now, 130 pounds and still be successful. You could right now weigh over 400 pounds. And when it came time to count up all the gastric bypass numbers, you would be in the success category. So when some people say, oh, Gabe had a successful gastric bypass. No, you didn’t just have a successful gastric bypass, you had the A plus, gold standard, amazing of gastric bypasses. Because you could weigh substantially more than you do now and still be a success. You have plenty of people in your life now who never knew you then. People don’t realize how much weight you have lost and this backstory that you have. They just look at you and you look normal

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And they think, oh, there’s Gabe.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: No one’s gonna describe you as thin, but you’re perfectly normal. You’re perfectly normal weight. Nobody stares at you in public. And that makes people think that you’re done, that you no longer have this messed up relationship with food, that you’re no longer struggling. And that’s not true. I don’t think you get enough credit for that. You are actively struggling with your weight and with your eating disorder on a daily basis. And it just doesn’t show anymore because you’re not so fat. People look at you and they think it went away. It didn’t go away.

Gabe: I still want to give you a little push back on, is it OK that we’re using the word fat so cavalierly?

Lisa: Seriously, that’s what you’re going to get out all this?

Gabe: No, I, mean, thank you for all of the kind words.

Lisa: We’re both still fat.

Gabe: I kind of wonder if I was listening to the show and we just kept saying, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat.

Lisa: Well, but you’re adding the pejorative. What does fat mean?

Gabe: Overweight, I guess.

Lisa: Overweight or heavy or excess weight or more weight or something like that. Why are you adding extra words? It’s like when people say, oh, no, you’re not just bipolar. Yeah, I know. Why are you adding in words? I’m saying to you, hi, I’m bipolar. That’s not all you are. You’re also blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I know. You’re the one who added all the baggage to the word. I was just fine with the descriptive phrase, fat.

Gabe: Are we taking it back?

Lisa: Not even that necessarily. Just why are you adding in this pejorative of fat is inherently bad and we shouldn’t throw it around so cavalierly? You were heavy. You were big.

Gabe: It’s true.

Lisa: The word for that is fat. And I would like to point out, for the record, that both of us are currently fat.

Gabe: I guess that is my question. As much as I love you, Lisa, you are not the same size as you were when you were 23.

Lisa: Yeah, even then, I was not thin.

Gabe: So are you, are you fat now or would you prefer that I say nothing because I’m not dumb?

Lisa: Well, don’t get me wrong, usually I do not care for it when people tell me I’m fat because they mean it as a pejorative. But as a simple description, am I overweight? Am I heavier than those charts and everything? Or even heavier than I personally would like to be? Would I like to be smaller than I currently am? Yes, I am fat. Accept that. I’m also blond and relatively short. Accept it. Yeah, I’ve got a big nose and I’m fat. There you go.

Gabe: Your nose is gigantic.

Lisa: I know. I hadn’t noticed how huge it was until we started doing this so much and with the video and all. I knew it was big, but, oh, my God. Like a toucan. This is the part where you say something nice, like it’s very attractive or, or, you know.

Gabe: If I had that ability, we would not be divorced.

Lisa: Fair, fair. So anyway, we could talk for a long time about all the high points of amazing stories surrounding Gabe and his extremely disordered eating and the struggles of gastric bypass. And to hit a few, when he said the whole thing about struggling after surgery and throwing up on your mom. He didn’t mean his mom, OK? He threw up on my mom. He didn’t vomit on his own mother, although you actually did that as well. He vomited on my mother. That’s the story he’s telling.

Gabe: In a fancy restaurant.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah. And the reason why it makes me, people are like, oh, why are you angry about that? The poor little dear, he got sick. I told him not to eat that. I told him it was gonna make him throw up. He ate it anyway, and then he threw up on my mother. That’s all I’m saying. That’s OK. We’ll get that over now. Are there any high point stories you’d like to hit? Do you remember how you’d written that list of things that you wanted to do once you lost the weight?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And one of them was buy clothing in a normal store.

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Sit in a booth at a restaurant

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And ride a roller coaster.

Gabe: The roller coaster.

Lisa: And we went out. We were at the mall. He went off to go shop. I’m looking at clothes. And then he comes over to me and goes, Well, I asked them for the largest size they had and it didn’t fit me. And I thought, aww. And I said, well, honey, it’s okay. It will. You’re still losing. It’s okay. And then he goes, and that’s why I got the size three down,

Gabe: It was.

Lisa: Because it turned out that he had gone below the largest size they had in the store. He was so excited.

Gabe: It was. It was a good day. The booth. Do you remember one year

Lisa: I remember.

Gabe: For Christmas. You got me a gift card to every restaurant that I couldn’t go to because they only had booths.

Lisa: Yep. There had been a lot of places that he couldn’t go because they didn’t have tables. They only had those fixed booths and there’s nothing you can do. And yeah, occasionally he would try because someone would ask him to go to that restaurant. He’d try to squeeze himself in. And, oh, God, it was so painful to watch. You would say things like, oh, no, I can fit in that chair. Dude, you cannot fit into that chair. Please don’t make all of us uncomfortable by trying. Please stop.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Just, it was terrible on so many levels. Yeah. I got you that for Christmas one year. I did like a ten dollar gift card to all these restaurants you hadn’t been able to go to. And you insisted, even as we were walking in the door, that you would not fit. And I thought, yeah, you’re, dude, you’re going to fit. And then you crawled into the booth and started like wiggling around to show how much extra space there was. And of course, listeners can’t see this, but the look on your face right now and how much you’re smiling like it’s just the greatest thing you could ever remember. It’s, that’s so sweet.

Gabe: Do you remember when we went to the amusement park?

Lisa: Uh-huh.

Gabe: Because, remember, roller coaster is on there. And again, I was worried. You said that I was at the right weight and we went up to the first roller coaster and I said, will I fit? And the gentleman said.

Lisa: The ride attendant.

Gabe: Yeah, the ride attendant said, I’m not sure, but we have a seat here.

Lisa: And you know, these lines can be very long. You might be in line for an hour or more. So they have one of the roller coaster cars sitting at the front of the line, so you can test it. Because no one wants to wait in line for an hour, only to be told, hey, you don’t fit in this seat. Get out of line.

Gabe: So the roller coaster attendant was super nice. I sat down in it and as he was pulling the thing down, and he said, we just have to make sure that it will latch over your shoulders because of your height. And I said, you’re testing this because I’m tall? Of course, he’s just this kid. He just looked at me like I was a crazy person. I was like, oh, my God, I just, no, I was asking because I’m fat.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And for real, I just wanted to, like, hug him.

Lisa: When you walked up to him and said, hey, I’m worried that I might not fit, he thought you were saying I might not fit because you were tall.

Gabe: Yup.

Lisa: It never occurred to him that you were saying because you were fat.

Gabe: I cried. This poor kid. He’s like 19 years old and he’s like, Why is this man crying?

Lisa: You turned to him, you said, oh, my God, you said that because I’m tall. And he was like, Yeah? He was so confused. And you spent the next forty five minutes repeating that. Oh, my God, he thinks I’m too tall. Oh my God, he said that because I’m tall. Yeah you did. You started to cry a little bit. You were so excited.

Gabe: That was a good day. Lisa, you touched on comorbidity a little bit. I believe very strongly that I, of course, do have binge eating disorder, but I also believe that it was driven by the excess of untreated bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I was doing pretty much anything that I could to manage the emotional overload of depression and grandiosity and mania and suicidality. And anything that could provide me even a moment of joy, whether it was drugs, alcohol, food, sex, spending money, I would do. What do you think the intersection of all of this Is?

Lisa: Well, obviously, having gastric bypass was an amazing choice for you, and it worked out great. And who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t had it done? But I actually recommended at the time that maybe you not do it because you had just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and everything was changing so fast. And I thought, well, hey, maybe his eating disorder isn’t actually the thing. Maybe this has always just been an almost symptom of bipolar disorder. And once he has that under better control, he’ll just be able to control his eating and he won’t need to go through the surgery, etc. And of course, you have a gastric bypass, you were losing a pound a day. Think of how delicate that balance of all your different medications are and then think about how you get that balance when your body is changing so rapidly.

Gabe: One of the things that I think about in terms of comorbidity, is mistaking feelings, and the big one is that it took a long time to be diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder because I honestly thought that panic attacks were hunger pains.

Lisa: Yeah, you would say that all the time.

Gabe: Every time that I would have a panic attack, I would think that I was hungry. Which, of course, created a Pavlov’s dog effect where a panic attack was very much associated with food. And in fact, more importantly, the cure for the panic attack was associated with food. So every time I have a panic attack, I would have to eat.

Lisa: We’d be standing in line or something, and I recognize now that you would start having a panic attack, but what you’d say, you’d turn to me and say, I’m hungry and, oh, I’m so hungry, my blood sugar, ack. I actually thought back then, I thought, well, I mean, he is really heavy. So, I mean, I don’t know what that does to your body chemistry and stuff. Maybe he really is feeling hunger this often? And looking back on it, yeah, those were panic attacks. And you had them a lot.

Gabe: I did. I really did.

Lisa: Well, what happened? When did you figure out that it was actually not hunger? I mean, what do you do now? One of the things you told me years ago is that when you had the urge to binge that you didn’t even try to stop the urge anymore. That was impossible. It never worked. Just forget it. That what you did instead was try to substitute different foods. So instead of bingeing on chips or pizza, you were now bingeing on strawberries or yogurt.

Gabe: So, a few things, you are right, making healthier choices does help to try to put those feelings or emotions at bay in a healthier way. Some of the things that I do now when I have a panic attack is one, I understand that it is a panic attack. So sometimes I can stop them just because I am aware of what they are. And I have all kinds of other coping skills, you know, sit down for a moment, count to 10, remove myself from whatever is causing the panic attack if I can see the cause. Splash water on my face.

Lisa: All the thousand and one coping things that you have for panic attacks.

Gabe: I mean, yeah, there’s just so many coping skills. You know, salty snacks help. Once again is probably in the gray area, it’s not the healthiest choice. But, you know, sometimes, like eating saltines, eating crackers, eating pretzels.

Lisa: Pretzels, so many pretzels.

Gabe: I try to find a healthy choice. You know, sometimes sitting, drinking a diet soda, eating some pretzels, counting to ten, taking a 20 minute break. These things help. But remember, before, all of this would happen, I would go eat a large pizza. I would go eat two, three, four, five, six thousand calories in order to get rid of that panic attack. And because I didn’t know it was a panic attack, I was having multiple of these a day. This would happen once or twice a day on top of all of my regular eating.

Lisa: I tried to look at it now as kind of a harm reduction thing. It is not the greatest for you to sit down and drink that much Diet Coke or to consume that many pretzels. But in comparison to the things that you were doing to deal with this before, this is much better. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t do any of this stuff. You wouldn’t have panic attacks to start with. You wouldn’t need the coping mechanism to begin with. But since you do, this is a much better choice than what you were using before.

Gabe: I’m certainly in more control today than I ever have been in my entire life. But it’s not perfect. I still binge to this very day.

Lisa: Well, that’s a question, how often would you say you binge these days? Because it used to be daily. What is it now?

Gabe: Maybe once a month.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: I would say that I start to binge maybe once a week. But that’s an advanced skill, right? I put all of the food on the plate. Like I’m ready. I am ready to just binge. And I realize before I get too many calories, oh, this is bad. And I’m willing to get rid of the food. I’m willing to wrap it up and put in the refrigerator or push it down the garbage disposal or just not eat and I never would have done that before, because, after all, that would be wasteful. So I’m proud of myself for being able to stop. I still order too much. I have an unrealistic view of what a serving is. One time I had four people coming over, so I ordered three pizzas. Three large pizzas, and it was you. And you said, why did you order so many? I’m like, well, there’s

Lisa: There’s four of us.

Gabe: There’s four of us. And you said, you realize that if you ordered two pizzas, that would be half a large pizza per person and you ordered more. And you have chips. I was like, huh?

Lisa: He does that all the time. You always have way too big of servings. It doesn’t matter what size pie you have. It’s a little tiny pie, or if you get, like the giant pie at Sam’s Club, you will count how many people are in the room and cut the pie into that many pieces regardless of pie size.

Gabe: I want to make sure that everybody gets enough pie. I am learning. I am learning to let people cut their own pie and to ask other people to cut for me. I also had to accept along the way that I can have seconds before I thought that I had to take all the food that I wanted now.

Lisa: So obviously food is love, mixed up with all this emotion. A lot of it, you can tell is very clearly rooted in your childhood. Have you figured out the origin story or the backstory on this? Why did this hit you? Where does this come from? Your brother and sister don’t have this problem. They’re normal weight, maybe even thin. Nobody else is at the level that you were.

Gabe: Nobody else is bipolar in my family either. There’s

Lisa: That’s fair.

Gabe: You know, I’m a foot taller than every member of my family. I’m the only redhead. For those paying attention, that does, in fact, make me a red headed stepchild. I’m the only one with severe and persistent mental illness. I don’t know. I had to find a lot of coping skills. You know, some of the questions that I asked myself is, you know, why did I gravitate toward food and sex? Why didn’t I gravitate toward

Lisa: Right. Yes.

Gabe: Toward alcohol and drugs?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: So I think that sometimes

Lisa: Or extreme sports or any other thing?

Gabe: Or whatever. I think that sometimes there’s just no answer. I don’t know why my brother and sister don’t have this problem. Of course, they both have kids and I don’t. Why did that happen? I mean, just it just did. And on and on and on.

Lisa: You don’t really think it’s a worthwhile problem to even contemplate, then. You just feel like, hey, these things happen and. Because on TV, people can always pinpoint it to like one specific experience. Oh, it was the day that I was so sad and my great grandmother gave me cake, you know? But you’re saying in real life, no, you don’t have anything like that.

Gabe: I think that there is that. When I was sad, my grandmother did give me cake and my mother gave me cake and my mother would make the foods that we wanted on our birthday. And food is love. As you said, food is love. My family loved me a lot. I don’t know what you want. We celebrated every single success with food. We licked our wounds with food. We went to the buffets all the time. Buffets were huge, huge things when I was growing up. What do you want? Name something and I will tell you how food is involved.

Lisa: Well, yeah. But almost everyone can say that.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Why did it hit you different than anybody else?

Gabe: I have no idea. Why does your brother ride a bike 100 miles a day and you don’t?

Lisa: Yeah, that’s fair.

Gabe: I have no idea and I don’t think you do either. Lisa’s brother, like for real.

Lisa: He’s an athlete.

Gabe: If you Google super athletic bro dude, I’m pretty sure Lisa’s brother comes up. And if you Google refuses to go out in the sun, hates to walk, Lisa comes up.

Lisa: Look at me, for God’s sakes. You think the sun is safe? The sun is not safe. I could burst into flames.

Gabe: You have the same parents, were raised in the same small town, raised in the exact same way, grew up on the same foods.

Lisa: That’s fair.

Gabe: How come he likes to ride a bike a thousand miles uphill for no apparent reason?

Lisa: That’s true.

Gabe: And you don’t like to talk about bikes?

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair.

Gabe: Remember when your husband bought you a bike and you just started laughing at him uncontrollably?

Lisa: What were we going to do with that? Oh, we can go for bike rides. That’s just stupid. Anyway.

Gabe: Lisa hates that bike so much, she won’t even use it as a clothing rack.

Lisa: That’s true. That is true. It’s in the garage now. We’re probably gonna get rid of that the next time we move.

Gabe: I think that reality television is really skewed people to believe that mental disorders, mental illnesses and issues have to have some triggering event.

Lisa: An easily found one.

Gabe: Whether it’s substance use disorder, whether it’s hoarding, whether it’s. The reality is, you don’t need any of this stuff. Does smoking cause lung cancer? Absolutely. But there are people who do, in fact, get lung cancer that never smoked a day in their life. Yeah. There’s not always a clear and present cause for these things. Sometimes there are. Sometimes the thing that we think is a clear and present cause isn’t. We’ve just assigned it to that.

Lisa: That’s fair.

Gabe: I work with families all the time and they’re like, oh, my God, the mental illness started when he lost his job. OK, well, let’s talk about what he was like before he lost his job. And they would tell me all of these things that are clearly symptoms of mental illness. But in their minds, it was the job loss that triggered the mental illness, even though there was a decade’s worth that they ignored. And I think we do that to ourselves, too. Lisa, what are the takeaways? I mean, binge eating disorder, it’s played a major role in my life.

Lisa: Yes it has.

Gabe: And I know that it’s played a major role in other people’s lives. And I think largely that a lot of eating disorders don’t really get the respect that they deserve. They’re dangerous and people die from them and.

Lisa: The death rate is a lot higher than you think.

Gabe: Why do we as a society not take eating disorders seriously?

Lisa: I don’t know, maybe because we live in a time of abundant food? Which has not always been the case for humanity, isn’t the case everywhere in the world. Maybe because you can’t see it?

Gabe: We take substance abuse disorder seriously.

Lisa: Probably because you can’t have an all in. Right. Oh, you’re an alcoholic? Never have another drop. That’s it, problem solved. You have to eat. That was always, because a lot of the treatment things that you did were focused on this food as addiction model or 12 steps, et cetera. When complete abstinence is not an option, how do you manage an addiction? I did not notice until after you had gastric bypass, every other commercial is for food and the food looks so good. And it’s always for food that’s bad for you. No one ever has a commercial for carrots, you know. No, it’s a commercial for fast food or pizza. And it’s so desirable looking.

Gabe: And cheap.

Lisa: Yeah, and cheap.

Gabe: And cheap.

Lisa: There’s a reason why marketing is everywhere, it works.

Gabe: One of the things I think about is the fast food restaurant that advertises fourth meal. Fourth meal is not a thing. They’re advertising it as if it’s real. Don’t forget fourth meal. And now second breakfast is a thing. The marketing is literally tell you to eat when you do not need to eat. And we’re proud of this, you know, fourth meal, second breakfast. It’s exciting.

Lisa: Well, and if you’re the average person, no problem. It’s like alcohol ads. The alcohol ads are telling you that, hey, when you’re having a good time, you got a beer in your hand. All celebrations go with alcohol. And for most people, hey, that’s fine. No problem. That’s the ad. But if you’re an alcoholic, that’s a real problem. How do you get over that? Most people look at the fast food and are like, oh, yeah, I might stop there for lunch, but for you, it’s a whole thing.

Gabe: It is, and it is very difficult. I’m so glad that I lost the weight. And when people look at me now, like you said earlier, Lisa, they don’t see it. I have deeply entrenched issues with food, things that I struggle with every day. And because I’m a normal body weight, we’ll just go with that, nobody realizes this is a problem and it makes it difficult to seek out community. I remember when I went to my first binge eating group, I was really large and the other members of the group were also very large. And in walked this man who was thin. He was thinner than I am now, and I consider myself to be a normal size. And he was lanky and he just talked about his struggle and how he ate a whole gallon of ice cream on the way there. And we were mean to him. We did not pay attention to him. We did not offer him any help. We as a group were not kind to him. And now I kind of feel like I’m that guy.

Gabe: I don’t want to go to the binge eating support group because I’m afraid that they’re going to look at me and say, you know what? You’re thin. I’d kill to look like you. And I understand. I understand why they would want to have the success that I’ve had over the last 18 years. So I don’t know where to get support or. I’m very fortunate that I can afford traditional therapy and that I have a therapist and I have good supports. And of course, the online communities are really, really helpful. And I’ve advanced to a stage where I don’t need as much support as I used to. But I do remember. I remember what an asshole I was. I don’t think I said anything, but I certainly didn’t put any effort into trying to help him because in my mind, he didn’t need it. And that’s an important lesson I want to get out there. Binge eating disorder is not dependent on your looks. It’s not dependent on your weight. It’s not dependent on your size. It’s dependent on your unhealthy relationship with food.

Lisa: And the important thing is that you’re so much better now. The struggle isn’t over. You’re still struggling with it. But it’s night and day. You are so much better.

Gabe: I love it when we have microphones. You’re so much nicer to me when we have microphones. I’m just going to carry around.

Lisa: You know I think you’re better.

Gabe: A podcast kit and just every time you get, like, mean to me, I’m just gonna, like, thrust a microphone in your face and be like podcast time.

Lisa: To think we’ve been arguing all these years for free. How wasteful,

Gabe: Ok. Listen up, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. Obviously, the whole world believes that food is love, but you know what else is love? Subscribing to our podcast, sharing our podcast, rating our podcast, telling everybody that you can about our show. The official link for this show is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. Share it everywhere and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

Lisa: Don’t forget, there are outtakes after the credits and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person? Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

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Podcast: Life with Binge Eating Disorder

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Computer Generated Transcript for “Binge Eating Disorder” Episode

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Gabe: Welcome, everyone, to this episode of Not Crazy. My name is Gabe Howard, and I am here with my ever present co-host, Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is Food is love, food is life by Edwina O’Connor.

Gabe: Ok. There’s so much to say about this. But food is life. It’s life. Oxygen is life. Oh, that’s so deep, you should put this.

Lisa: It’s profound.

Gabe: Like this is like live, laugh, love.

Lisa: Right

Lisa: So it works both directions, giving people food is love and accepting their food says I love you back.

Lisa: You realize your top weight was a lot closer to six hundred and fifty pounds.

Gabe: That’s not true. I never weighed over 600.

Lisa: I’m willing to bet that you weighed over six hundred.

Gabe: I did not. I know for a fact.

Gabe: There is one thing that fat people know more than anything else, especially fat people who have lost a lot of weight, they know their top weights.

Lisa: Ok, well, never mind. Go back, unpause.

Gabe: No, we don’t need to pause at all. I think you should leave this in there. I want people to see how often Lisa pauses to correct me.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Lisa: Yeah, see, there you go. I didn’t set the limit. Somebody else did.

Lisa: Yeah, it’s very impressive. This was a long time back. You had gastric bypass in 2003 and you’ve kept it off all these years.

Lisa: The crazier I sound?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, I’ve noticed that.

Gabe: You met a man that weighed five hundred and fifty pounds with untreated bipolar disorder. And you were like, yeah.

Lisa: You were very engaging. You Gabe magicked me.

Gabe: Gonna get me some of that.

Lisa: Yeah. You carried it well. What can I say?

Gabe: Oh, really? I just I dressed so well? You know, you get the right tailor, you can hide anything with clothing.

Lisa: It’s amazing. Yeah.

Gabe: But back to our point, I thought that I just ate a lot. I thought I was just overweight, like so many Americans and I.

Lisa: You’re remembering the story a little bit different. By the time I met you, you had already been diagnosed with binge eating disorder.

Gabe: That’s not true. That is completely untrue.

Lisa: That is true.

Gabe: That’s not true. Nope.

Lisa: That is true.

Gabe: No.

Lisa: That is true. I don’t know what to tell you.

Gabe: No, it is not true.

Lisa: I never thought that you were just, just fat. You know what I mean?

Gabe: You had me join Weight Watchers.

Lisa: Although Weight Watchers is obviously not designed for people with serious eating disorders, it is a mechanism to keep track of what you eat.

Gabe: Yes, an umbrella is a mechanism to not get wet. But would you hand it to a hurricane?

Lisa: I’m not saying that it was the best choice for you.

Gabe: Is this what you recommended, like for Katrina?

Lisa: But what were the options?

Gabe: Like medical intervention?

Lisa: You were doing that too.

Lisa: I disagree.

Gabe: Why do you keep shaking your head? I love how you’re shaking your head.

Lisa: You told me not to talk. So I shake my head. By the time we started dating, you were already trying to get a gastric bypass.

Lisa: You don’t think so?

Lisa: You were very overweight and you definitely had clear issues with food. As I might have said to you at one point, you were, in fact, circus freak fat.

Gabe: You did.

Lisa: Sorry about that, that was rude.

Gabe: I don’t know how our relationship made it.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: I think that the divorce was probably inevitable.

Lisa: I’m pretty sure I said that after you lost the weight, but I’m not positive.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: You weren’t worried about the health?

Gabe: No.

Lisa: Not necessarily worried about the health consequences, but it wasn’t things like you had trouble getting upstairs? You weren’t concerned about stuff like that?

Lisa: Well, I wasn’t going to give you my real name.

Lisa: I remember that.

Gabe: When I walked in, they had these wide chairs that I fit in.

Lisa: They were like benches.

Lisa: Veggies? Salad?

Gabe: Man, that’s be a lot of salad and veggies, but

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I needed like the foods that I grew up with. I guess a better way to say it is it was about the psychological connection to the food.

Lisa: Oh, I don’t think that’s fair. You can eat to survive and enjoy what you eat. You probably get into a gray area once you get overweight. And I am overweight.

Gabe: Well, I disagree with that. Why can’t it work the other way? We don’t eat, so we feel pain. We feel hunger.

Lisa: It’s both.

Gabe: So would you say that that’s a gray area?

Lisa: Ok, fine gray area.

Gabe: But I don’t think it’s fair to call it extreme anymore.

Lisa: Why?

Gabe: It was extreme before I got help. I don’t think it’s extreme anymore. I do think it’s outside of the normal lines.

Lisa: Ok. Well, that’s just a semantic argument, it’s much more than for the average person. How about that?

Gabe: Well, I’m just saying, if my relationship with food is extreme now, how would you classify it before I got help? When I weighed five hundred fifty pounds, what word would you use there?

Lisa: Even worse.

Gabe: Well, but we need a word here. We’re using extreme for my relationship with food now.

Gabe: It’s the way you react to food.

Lisa: Well, yes, but that’s not a good measure because I am also overweight. But it’s worse with you. It’s a lot worse.

Gabe: Give some examples.

Gabe: You think that’s out? Popcorn at a movie theater? Me wanting popcorn and a movie theater?

Lisa: No.

Gabe: You’ve decided that is extreme and outside the norm? So I’m the only one?

Gabe: I think that is untrue.

Gabe: I remember.

Gabe: My mom and grandma were staying with me. I asked them to come and take care of me. You know, I was single.

Lisa: Well, you needed someone, major surgery.

Lisa: Oh,

Gabe: And I walked you out to your car. So we didn’t really argue. I had pleaded with you to stay.

Lisa: I don’t remember that part.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And I was going through so many emotions. And my coping mechanism at that point was eating. And I didn’t have it. I had not learned new coping mechanisms yet.

Lisa: Just how emotional you were at this loss. Almost as if your best friend had died.

Gabe: Yeah.

Gabe: You know, on one hand that a devastatingly sad story.

Lisa: It was.

Gabe: But the reason I’m snickering is because do you remember my neighbors walking by? And one of them said hi to you

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: But of course, as they rounded, they see this 550 pound guy hunched over in his bathrobe on the

Lisa: On the ground.

Gabe: On the ground. They’re just like, OK. I, yeah.

Lisa: When a really large person hits the ground, people, people react.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: And then your mom thought that you had just fallen

Gabe: Yep.

Lisa: Because she didn’t know that you’re upset and you didn’t want her to know how upset you were.

Gabe: Pandemonium.

Gabe: You know, hindsight,

Lisa: Mm hmm.

Gabe: Hindsight is always funny-funny.

Lisa: Fun times. Fun times.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing binge eating disorder.

Lisa: So, you were pretending there were other people on the phone to the pizza place because you didn’t want them to know you were ordering for yourself?

Lisa: Right. And you knew that.

Lisa: You remember that night with the pizza?

Gabe: Yep.

Gabe: Yeah, and I hid the box.

Lisa: Yeah, you would hide the box or the wrappers.

Gabe: It wasn’t even like I said that I ate. I didn’t want you to think that I was a giant fat ass. That was important to me.

Gabe: Well, I didn’t have that problem in front of you.

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair. You want to tell the story?

Gabe: I don’t want to tell the story, but I think now you’re going to have to. The people just heard you give the punchline away.

Lisa: You go.

Gabe: We were at a pizza buffet, all you can eat pizza buffet, and I was eating and I looked up and you were looking at me and.

Lisa: I had stopped eating by this time and was just watching you.

Gabe: And I said, what? And you said, wow, you can really put it away. And I was like, that’s so mean. I’m just trying to eat my lunch. And you’re just like, I don’t know what to say.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: It was disturbing.

Lisa: By the way, you’re welcome.

Gabe: Yeah, that was all Lisa. I just didn’t wear a seatbelt before.

Gabe: Remember when I said it doesn’t fit? And you said, bullshit? Show me. You didn’t believe me.

Gabe: You’ve seen how far those things stretch out.

Gabe: Didn’t fit.

Lisa: So, yeah, that was really shocking. And just within a couple of days, we had seatbelt extenders for all the cars of everybody we knew.

Gabe: Yeah. Thank you. That.

Lisa: They will give them to you for free if you ask.

Lisa: Yeah, like two months before. But you already had the date scheduled

Gabe: Yeah. And so as I’m losing the weight, I’m also getting treated for bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Well, what did you think before, though? What did you think your relationship with food was up until then?

Gabe: I thought that I overate, like everybody, but I also thought that it wasn’t my fault because after all, I didn’t get a good metabolism.

Lisa: Oh, metabolism.

Lisa: It was not something that you could control. It was just this swirl around you that was impacting you.

Lisa: So stuff just kind of happened to you. You weren’t directing the action.

Gabe: Yeah, I was the victim. I very much felt that I was a victim. That my body had somehow failed me. That it wasn’t in my control or my fault.

Lisa: Well, did that matter though? I’ve been cursed with a bad body, which means that I must now make different choices than other people.

Gabe: Yes. And one of those choices that I thought I needed to make was to have surgery to correct it.

Lisa: Oh, ok.

Lisa: He likes to get that into every conversation.

Gabe: It’s you know, it’s a fun fact. I just. Then people look at me and they’re like, Oh, you had surgery? You did it the easy way.

Gabe: Well, I’m successful.

Lisa: You’re very successful.

Gabe: To be fair, I went from five hundred fifty pounds all the way down to two hundred and thirty at my lowest weight. Now, my average walking around weight is about 260

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And they think, oh, there’s Gabe.

Gabe: Yeah.

Gabe: I still want to give you a little push back on, is it OK that we’re using the word fat so cavalierly?

Lisa: Seriously, that’s what you’re going to get out all this?

Gabe: No, I, mean, thank you for all of the kind words.

Lisa: We’re both still fat.

Gabe: I kind of wonder if I was listening to the show and we just kept saying, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat.

Lisa: Well, but you’re adding the pejorative. What does fat mean?

Gabe: Overweight, I guess.

Gabe: Are we taking it back?

Lisa: Not even that necessarily. Just why are you adding in this pejorative of fat is inherently bad and we shouldn’t throw it around so cavalierly? You were heavy. You were big.

Gabe: It’s true.

Lisa: The word for that is fat. And I would like to point out, for the record, that both of us are currently fat.

Gabe: I guess that is my question. As much as I love you, Lisa, you are not the same size as you were when you were 23.

Lisa: Yeah, even then, I was not thin.

Gabe: So are you, are you fat now or would you prefer that I say nothing because I’m not dumb?

Gabe: Your nose is gigantic.

Gabe: If I had that ability, we would not be divorced.

Gabe: In a fancy restaurant.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And one of them was buy clothing in a normal store.

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Sit in a booth at a restaurant

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And ride a roller coaster.

Gabe: The roller coaster.

Gabe: It was.

Lisa: Because it turned out that he had gone below the largest size they had in the store. He was so excited.

Gabe: It was. It was a good day. The booth. Do you remember one year

Lisa: I remember.

Gabe: For Christmas. You got me a gift card to every restaurant that I couldn’t go to because they only had booths.

Gabe: Yeah.

Gabe: Do you remember when we went to the amusement park?

Lisa: Uh-huh.

Lisa: The ride attendant.

Gabe: Yeah, the ride attendant said, I’m not sure, but we have a seat here.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And for real, I just wanted to, like, hug him.

Lisa: When you walked up to him and said, hey, I’m worried that I might not fit, he thought you were saying I might not fit because you were tall.

Gabe: Yup.

Lisa: It never occurred to him that you were saying because you were fat.

Gabe: I cried. This poor kid. He’s like 19 years old and he’s like, Why is this man crying?

Lisa: Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, you would say that all the time.

Gabe: I did. I really did.

Lisa: All the thousand and one coping things that you have for panic attacks.

Lisa: Pretzels, so many pretzels.

Gabe: I’m certainly in more control today than I ever have been in my entire life. But it’s not perfect. I still binge to this very day.

Lisa: Well, that’s a question, how often would you say you binge these days? Because it used to be daily. What is it now?

Gabe: Maybe once a month.

Lisa: Really?

Lisa: There’s four of us.

Gabe: There’s four of us. And you said, you realize that if you ordered two pizzas, that would be half a large pizza per person and you ordered more. And you have chips. I was like, huh?

Gabe: Nobody else is bipolar in my family either. There’s

Lisa: That’s fair.

Lisa: Right. Yes.

Gabe: Toward alcohol and drugs?

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: So I think that sometimes

Lisa: Or extreme sports or any other thing?

Lisa: Well, yeah. But almost everyone can say that.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Why did it hit you different than anybody else?

Gabe: I have no idea. Why does your brother ride a bike 100 miles a day and you don’t?

Lisa: Yeah, that’s fair.

Gabe: I have no idea and I don’t think you do either. Lisa’s brother, like for real.

Lisa: He’s an athlete.

Gabe: If you Google super athletic bro dude, I’m pretty sure Lisa’s brother comes up. And if you Google refuses to go out in the sun, hates to walk, Lisa comes up.

Lisa: Look at me, for God’s sakes. You think the sun is safe? The sun is not safe. I could burst into flames.

Gabe: You have the same parents, were raised in the same small town, raised in the exact same way, grew up on the same foods.

Lisa: That’s fair.

Gabe: How come he likes to ride a bike a thousand miles uphill for no apparent reason?

Lisa: That’s true.

Gabe: And you don’t like to talk about bikes?

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair.

Gabe: Remember when your husband bought you a bike and you just started laughing at him uncontrollably?

Lisa: What were we going to do with that? Oh, we can go for bike rides. That’s just stupid. Anyway.

Gabe: Lisa hates that bike so much, she won’t even use it as a clothing rack.

Lisa: That’s true. That is true. It’s in the garage now. We’re probably gonna get rid of that the next time we move.

Gabe: I think that reality television is really skewed people to believe that mental disorders, mental illnesses and issues have to have some triggering event.

Lisa: An easily found one.

Lisa: That’s fair.

Lisa: Yes it has.

Lisa: The death rate is a lot higher than you think.

Gabe: Why do we as a society not take eating disorders seriously?

Lisa: I don’t know, maybe because we live in a time of abundant food? Which has not always been the case for humanity, isn’t the case everywhere in the world. Maybe because you can’t see it?

Gabe: We take substance abuse disorder seriously.

Gabe: And cheap.

Lisa: Yeah, and cheap.

Gabe: And cheap.

Lisa: There’s a reason why marketing is everywhere, it works.

Lisa: And the important thing is that you’re so much better now. The struggle isn’t over. You’re still struggling with it. But it’s night and day. You are so much better.

Gabe: I love it when we have microphones. You’re so much nicer to me when we have microphones. I’m just going to carry around.

Lisa: You know I think you’re better.

Gabe: A podcast kit and just every time you get, like, mean to me, I’m just gonna, like, thrust a microphone in your face and be like podcast time.

Lisa: To think we’ve been arguing all these years for free. How wasteful,

Lisa: Don’t forget, there are outtakes after the credits and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

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