#father who was there/wasn’t wanted there: lottie

[evie-doesnt-write]

Lottie during Shauna’s pregnany

[smolvenger]

The Baronet Seeks A Wife, Chapter One.

A Crimson Peak Multi-Part Fanfiction.

Thomas Sharpe x fem! Reader Arranged Marriage AU.

Summary: England in the 1890s. When your spirited sister, Charlotte, defies your family by running away from her arranged engagement to Sir Thomas Sharpe, you are the one who must keep your family from scandal and ruin...by taking her place as the baronet's bride.

Word Count: >7K words. You may want tea and scones as a repast as you read this.

Warnings: Angst, some hurt/comfort, and fluff at the end. I attempt to convey the period as accurately as I can bc if you don't like it or find it interesting why write it. Period accurate attitudes of gender and social class. Mentions and discussions of sex, but no smut (yet...let me just say...after Bridgerton season 3 episode four...I have *ideas* heheheheh). Brief mention of childbirth. The fear of domestic violence is mentioned, but not portrayed. Grammar and spelling mistakes. If I miss something and you see something that could be triggering that I didn't mention, then it is your responsibility to please please please tell me. I will take full accountability for how I portray marginalized groups and sensitive subject matter and make sure to better my writing and make sure affected parties are protected.

A03//My Ko-Fi//My Etsy Shop//Masterlist//Wattpad

Taglist: @asgards-princess-of-mischief @jennyggggrrr @five-miles-over @fictive-sl0th @ladycamillewrites @villainousshakespeare @holdmytesseract @eleniblue @twhxhck @lokisgoodgirl @lovelysizzlingbluebird @raqnarokr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @michelleleewise @wolfsmom1 @cheekyscamp @mochie85 @fandxmslxt69 @skittslackoffilter @mischief2sarawr @jijilaufeyson @steasstuff @anukulee @kimi01985 @goblingirlsarah @foxherder @giona45-5 @goddessgirl43

London, 1898.

“I won’t marry him!” your sister cried.

You have seen this scene plenty of times. You could recount it like a play production you had seen too much. You were sitting in the parlor, trying to read a book and rest your feet. But your mother and your older sister, Lottie, were on each other’s last nerves.

‘Lottie, you have to!” your mother insisted.

You found you couldn’t focus on the words. You only sat there in stillness, watching in silence. A maid walked by the door, her eyes flicking over to the scene, but then she kept walking down the hallway.

Your mother pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed as if in pain. 

Your older sister, Charlotte, was curling her fists on her side. The red dress, the new one father ordered for her at the shop, only made her seem angrier. She was literally burning with the fire of fury.

Mama let out a huff. Then she glared at Charlotte, her arms akimbo.

“Listen to me. Right. Now.” your mother began.

You felt bad for your mother. There was a lot on her mind. To have both daughters out in society at one time. They agreed it wasn’t fair for one daughter to go about having fun when the other couldn’t. Charlotte was older, so she was more experienced in being out in society. She made her debut it seemed ages ago. You recalled your own debut. You had your turn to wear white and curtsy before the queen before she dismissed you for the next girl. You were already beaming with excitement. Ready to enter the glittering, grown-up world of the London social season. Prepared to dine and dance in pretty dresses every April until August.

But every year, it seemed the bags under Charlotte’s eyes increased. Now years had passed since then. And mam still had two daughters who were still out. And unmarried.

Charlotte dreaded going from your country home to London for the warmer months.She hated the constant balls, parties, meals, picnics. She at least liked riding her horse in Hyde Park but loathed she couldn’t go faster. She would sneak out to smoke cigars. Bugs and reptiles fascinated her more than gossip. She scribbled down notes. She turned prickly if any man asked for a dance. She spoke boldly and even swore. She enjoyed the horse races and polo games and sports, but the art of feminine flirting was beyond her.

But your parents had plenty of money and two daughters. But only so much money could support so many seasons. And as the eldest, the pressure was on Charlotte. There was the occasional brave soul who proposed marriage to her. Only to face the inevitable, flat rejection.

So Mama and Papa took matters into their own hands.

Mama met enough people who networked her to cross paths with a single baronet. They porposed a marriage between him and Charlotte, to which he agreed. Your sister was engaged after a mere three meetings with the fellow. Not that you had a chance to meet him either. So no rejection. No proposal. A ring on Lottie’s finger forcibly placed on her like a child force-fed turnips to her mouth.

“Lottie, do you know how much that dress costs? The very one on your back? Every season, your father and I make sure you and your sister have new gowns so you may be presentable in public. That is what they demand- that eligible ladies always dress in fresh new clothes. So any gentleman will not scoff at you wearing yesterday’s rag. You may not like it- but this is for your future. For your family’s future.  May I remind you- You are the eldest. You must make a good match not only for your sake- but your sister’s future. If you marry well-then she will be set up to succeed. There are plenty of decent men with more than enough money to make you comfortable here. Every year, they ask to dance with you. Every year, at least one proposes. And every year, you say no. ”

Charlotte huffed, folding her arms.

‘I didn’t want to marry them. Any of them. I wouldn’t make them happy and they wound’t make me happy at all.”

Your mother glared down.

“You have had more than enough chances to secure yourself forever. Do you want to live at the mercy of your father’s charity all of your days? If he cut you off this minute and threw you out of the house, you would have nowhere to go, and no way to survive. Lottie, do you realize how many seasons you have had? Do you realize how much we must pay more and more for you both to be presentable when you are out? Do you realize how much this is costing us and yourself?” she scolded.

She caught her breath. Charlotte was breathing hard, and you could see glimmers of tears in her eyes. Mama stepped closer.

“Charlotte…you’re no figure of pity. Not yet. You have had plenty of chances- they still call you the Wild Rose of London. Your face won over dukes, earls-so many girls would have loved to be in your shoes!” she said softly.

Mama was right. Charlotte was considered the beauty of the family. When she made her debut, heads turned to look at her. Everyone, you included, thought she would make a match easily. After all, your father was in charge of a great business that made a lot of money. You were now part of the upper crust. So a pretty face, a decent family reptutation and a sizable dowry with her bold, vivacious character would have won someone’s heart. And in a way they did. The first man who proposed to Charlotte you thought was going to be like shooting a sitting duck.

Even though “spinsterhood” did nothing to dampen  your sister’s face,you were all proven wrong. Very, very wrong. 

Lottie slouched as much as she could in her gown and frowned. A habit she never abandoned as a child.

“Your father had to take action. You will be a part of the esteemed Sharpe baronacy and he will reap the monetary benefits. He is a nice man, pleasant, charming, and he will take care of-”

“So am I nothing more than a thing you auction off at a bazaar? Not a person with a heart? With feelings?” Lottie combated.

“We were going to be driven at this rate to ill repute, and financial ruin all because you wouldn’t marry!” your mother argued.

“Then why not let me wear an old dress?” Lottie shot back. “Or have me not do a season! Let me remain a spinster and paddle my own canoe!” 

“Sir Sharpe will take care of you. He promised it!” Mama assured.

“Being stuffy old Lady Sharpe and wasting my life in balls and parties is going to drive me to insanity! An arranged marriage- mama, it’s practically medieval!” Lottie shouted.

Your mother folded her hands.

“Your father has set it in stone. There is no point in this conversation. You are going to marry Sir Thomas Sharpe, and that is final!”

Your sister jumped up. She stormed off, slamming the door shut childishly as she huffed off to her room.

Your mother turned to you. You sat in your own blue tea gown, not expecting company. For a night of no events in the London season was a special treat. All of the picnics, lunch parties, park trips, operas, theatre, and balls were fun- but back to back, it was exhausting. But hearing your mother and sister yell at each other was ten times worse than the exhaustion. 

You stood up.

“Am I….a bad mother?” she asked. You saw tears in her eyes too.

You put a hand on her shoulder, a fine, matronly gown of dark green brocade. You offered her a handkerchief. 

“I only think you are a desperate mother put into a difficult situation.”

“She won’t listen to me. Much less your father…she only listens to you anymore. I hate we must do this…and I hate myself,” she sniffled. 

You patted her shoulder.

“Mama, let me speak with her. Let me help patch things up. Make her happy,” you offered.

She nodded. You exited the library, walking up the stairs to Lottie’s bedroom. The odd servant paused in their dusting to curtsy at you. You wold give them a nod and a smile, before you continued. Walking past vases of daffodils and over velvet rugs, you found the door locked shut. Crying coming from inside.

You knocked on the door.

“Go away, papa!” she fussed.

“Lottie, it’s not papa, it’s me!” you assured her.

Your sister went over and opened the door, letting you in and shutting it after you entered. With it’s wine red wallpaper, the place seemed to be dark as the sun was dipping outside. Her desk empty of any papers and her hat set on top. Her colllections of newspapers piled on one chair near her parasol. The drawer where she hid her cigars was kept with a lock and a key she dared not tell even you.

“Lottie…I’m so sorry you have to do this, and how miserable it makes you…it sounds like a nightmare,” you admitted.

You could see tears streaming down her face.

“Do you remember when I was eleven and asked mama and papa for a pet snake? They know how much I love snakes- they’d give me little toy snakes. I wanted a real one. I’d call her Cleopatra for the irony of it. But they said no. Every year I asked and they kept saying no.would always say no. They try….but they can’t love me, or understand me. And I keep trying to please them…and I keep failing and now…they’re throwing…”

She sat on the bed and began to cry. And you hugged her.

“Here….here…” you said. “My poor girl, my poor Lottie!” you cooed. 

“I want to go places. Have adventures and jolly, capital times.  I want to run, and explore and see things! Not be stuffy old Lady Sharpe in some stupid house having babies until I’m killed from it!” she mourned.

She shoved aside her journal and laid down on her bed. Tears streaming her face.

“It’s what you deserve…Lottie. A life like that! But now,  we need to think of what we can do and not what we can’t do,” you suggested.

You paused, thinking for a second. You leaned closer as she turned away. A gentle hand on her side.

“Sir Sharpe…you’ve met him, haven’t you? What is he like?” you asked.

“He talks about his stupid inventions all day,” she muttered from her side. “And he won’t answer anything about what his dead sister was like or what was in that old mansion.”

There were only three things you knew about Sir Sharpe as of this morning. He was a baronet. He grew up in a mansion called Allerdale Hall. He lost an older sister. But that was it. Now thanks to Lottie, the sum rallied up to four.

You leaned closer, more mischief in your voice. You hushed to a whisper.

“What does he even look like? Perhaps he’s at least handsome! Maybe at least…on your wedding night…” 

Lottie turned over, wrinkling her nose. 

“I’m sorry, YN, but he’s ugly! He has a big forehead, and big ears, and a big old nose!” she cried. Her voice far too loud for the question you asked.

She grabbed her pillow and hugged it around her.

“Don’t get me started on my marital duties. I could retch at the thought of it. If Sir Sharpe even thinks of going to bed with me, I’ll box his big ears off!” she decalred.

Part of you couldn’t help but laugh a little. Even Lottie’s own pretty, pink mouth was curved up in a small smile at her own words.

“Practice on that pillow!” you dared.

She hit the pillow again and again.

“This I’ll give Sir Sharpe and -this! I’ll give Sir Sharpe!”

She reached over and got her parasol and gave it a few more good whacks. Feathers were starting to burst out from it and litter the floor.

“Heavens, at this rate you’d have killed him!” you commented. 

“He would have earned it!” she replied.

‘“Then you’ll be a criminal and I’d have to bail you out of prison!” you replied.

“Oh no! Then I guess we must be outlaws and run off and live like Robin Hood and the rest! Better than listening to Mrs. Mean drone on about governesses!”

Both of you burst into laughter. The Means lived up to their name and every reception they found a new group of people to complain about. You both heard it all and had to silently look at each other to promise to only laugh at them when it was done.

You both laughed, smilng bright. How you missed the easy days of your younger years. You could play about and get in and out of trouble. You and your sister knew where to strike to hurt each other, but couldn’t live without the other. You fought as intensely as you played. You did everything side by side. You took her hand and hugged her again, even though she was still sniffling.

Lottie sagged her shoulders. Her hold on the pillow loosening.

“But…I’m unhappy. I wake up every day with this and I’m miserable. Like I can’t get out.” she sighed.

“Think of this….” you reasoned. “I hear husbands are easier to manage and persuade then fathers! Once you have money and you’re not under their thumb, you can go about as you want and do what you want! Idon’t think Sir Sharpe would stop you….”

You paused. A horrified shiver ran through you.

“Not that I…know much about him. Do you think he….did he ever…ever…hurt you?” you asked.

She shook her head.

“No, he hasn’t been less than gentlemanly. And he wouldn’t hurt me in any way after we’re married, I’m sure.” she replied.

You both sat on the bed and held hands.

“Then don’t be afraid, Lottie…maybe marriage isn’t a prison, but your key to freedom! Once you’re a married woman, you can do whatever you want and Sir Sharpe won’t stop you. And if he does anything, tell me. And I’ll box his ears!” you replied.

Lottie’s tears were drying in trails down her cheeks. Yet she smiled in spite of herself. Then you hugged one last time.

“I should ring for some cakes and mint tea from Anne! That will cheer you up!” you said.

As you rang the bell for them. Anne, one of your maids, hurried up. She took the order and promptly left. She returned with a tray in only ten minutes. You both relaxed on chairs as the tray balanced on a mahogany table.

Turning, you saw Lottie write about in her journal.

“Oh, croissants! My favorites,” Lottie cooed. She picked up one and began to dig in.

“I’m just glad you have thing that make you happy…I just want you to be happy, Lottie,” you said.

The pastry returned to her plate.

“And…YN…”

Her mouth opened as if to speak. Then she stopped. She reached over and held your cheek. Studying you carefully, as if you were a piece of art. A work she could only admire in person once before she had to leave. Something she had to commit to memory. There was a sad smile on her face.

There was a sad smile on her face.

“I want you to be happy too…”

She kissed your forehead and you smiled. As she helped herself to a big slice of strawberry cake. Her eyes were tired, crinkly.

“I think Lady Charlotte Sharpe has a ring to it. Like the heroine of a book!” you said.

Charlotte turned to face the window. The sun melting down and the sky promising night.

“But this isn’t a book, this is reality…” she responded.

She looked at you and then at the ring on her finger. The engagement ring already commissioned. Costly and pretty, but useless and ominous on Lottie’s hand.

“I think you would have liked him...” she said.

“Sir Sharpe will be nice to have as a brother,” you replied.

She looked at you. But said nothing as she nibbled on her croissant. As the tray was partially emptied, you excused yourself. But Lottie caught your arm. You saw her lip quiver. She leaned closer, her voice quiet. And Lottie was not a person who liked to be quiet. 

“I’ll always remember that your words. That we must do what we can and not dwell on what we can’t. Thank you, Y/N. Thank you for the tea, too.”

By dinner time, she was quiet. She dressed nicely and ate modestly. Then went to bed without a word to you.  As you went back up to change for bed. How unlike her! Your sister was chattiest at night! But you but shrugged it off. She was probably just exhausted. London’s balls lasted from night until six in the morning and you would be lying if you said they didn’t take a toll on you too. And you would need some rest if there were to be callers, a garden party, and maybe a horse ride in the park  the next day.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

When you awoke the next morning, the sunlight streamed like melten butter into your room. Outside, it was another lovely day in May. People were already tittering about the Ascot opening later this month.

Your maid helped you into your day outfit of a white lace skirt and a blue skirt with flowers patterned with silk. You only hoped Lottie had improved. Before breakfast, you would check.

You knocked on her door.

“Lottie! Good morning!”

No reply.

“The chef is making us bacon! It’s going to be delicious!”

No response. 

You beat your fists against the door.

Nothing. And she was a light sleeper.

“Lottie?” you called out louder.

You realized the door was unlocked and opened easily.

She was gone. Servants followed you inside. Her bed wasn’t made, there was no sign of her.

“Is she in the garden? Is she riding in Hyde park this early? ” you asked Anne. But the maid shook her head.

Then, to your shock, you saw there was a piece of paper on it. And a ring. Coming closer, you saw it was her engagement ring.

You felt the world pause as you read her handwriting.

“Hello everyone,

You need not fear, for I am not hurt or seduced by some scoundrel.

I cannot be Sir Sharpe’s wife.

I love all of you. But I cannot do this. This is not what I want for my life.

I shall be safe, do not worry.

But do not try to reach me for some time.

All of my love.

Charlotte Y/L/N.”

Breath knocked out of you. You stood frozen. You hardly heard your parents rushing in. You didn’t feel your father snatching the letter from your hands. Looking down, they were still in the air and shaking.

Your mother began to sob.

All of your plans were canceled. A private detective was hired and Charlotte’s lady’s maid was fired for permitting this. Though the sobbing maid insisted she didn’t know where Charlotte went. All day long, people scurried about in a panic. 

You felt tears well up in your own eyes. Alone in your room, it was your turn to burst into crying.  It was already as if your dear sister was already dead.

You recalled the letter said she was unharmed. She wasn’t about to be left pregnant with some scoundrel’s bastard. She hadn’t…taken her own life and for her to return only as a corpse. As far as you knew, no news meant she was alive and safe. That would have destroyed you. Taking hope in that, you went back to put on a brave face to your family.

There was the odd caller in the afternoon. But their noses were upturned. Knowing they would report anything and everything. The slight smiles on their faces as they looked about made you want to scream.

Why didn’t Charlotte think about this? The next day, your grief boiled to a silent rage. By running off and vanishing, it meant there was a scandal. And now society would all turn their faces away from you. They would frown and whisper and gossip. The unvirtuous daughter who ran off. And no one would want to go to your parties or dinners. No one would want to see you or associate with you. And no man would ever want to marry you, knowing you were the sister of the runaway spinster of a disgraced family.

That last part pained you. Not that you knew from Charlotte there was shame in being a spinster. But…you hoped to fall in love. Not just to marry a man of stability, to meet a wonderful, nice man who made your heart patter fast. To be kissed and receive valentines and dance and have him drop to his knees, begging for you. Just like in the fictional books you loved. 

But the days dragged by. The detective returned after a week and shook his head. And the hope for anything good in your future seemed more and more like a fiction itself.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

You paced about in the gardens one afternoon. It was better to do something with your anxious energy. Two weeks and no sign where Lottie vanished. You sat by, hoping the coolness of the breeze drifting through flowers would calm you. But not even the loveliness of an English June could distract you.

Anne stepped forward and curtsied.

“Pardon me, Miss. But your father wants to have a word with you in private,” she announced.

She led you up, taking you to Papa’s study. It was a room in dark green, his favorite color. A few books lined up the walls and his desk was placed behind the window. Your father was staring outside when he turned around as you were brought in.

“Ah, sit down, my dear,” he requested.

You obeyed. Sitting on the wooden chair before his desk. Your father brought out a decanter of brandy and poured himself some in a little glass. You noticed it was a generous amount. Not that you would blame him.

He poured himself a second glass and offered it to you.

“I have some news with you, Y/N…” he began.

“Have they found her?” you asked with hope.

“No. And that is exactly why I have to tell you this…”

If there was no update, then what could it be? You wondered. You took the cup and held it in your hands. A little hesitant to drink it yet since it was still so bright in the day.  It didn’t feel right to drink such a spirit so early to you. Something was brewing- you just had to let him say it. 

“The engagement between your sister and Sir Sharpe it was…it is still and shall be beneficial. To us and to the Baronet. We must be respected by all sorts of society through connection to the baronacy. He needed the money- his own little toys wouldn’t be enough to sustain a gentleman’s life. And with Charlotte’s disappearance- you understand why we don’t have as many visitors as we do?”

“It’s a scandal, papa, I know.” you replied.

“But…we must return to society. We cannot show up defeated. We cannot let them beat us. We cannot become a laughingstock or a figure of pity.”

Where was he going with this? You held your tongue and folded your hands. The drink carefully balanced over your lap. He was only repeating everything you already knew.

“There is one way out that solves all our problems. Especially if at this point, Charlotte isn’t to be found…”

“We can’t give up on finding her, on making sure she is safe!” you insisted.

“We have more immediate matters..” he continued.

You raised the glass to your lips, taking only a sip. It burned down your throat onto your churning stomach. Your father looked directly into your eyes.

“ I have one daughter left who is out. But YN, I don’t think there are many gentleman who will want to associate with a ruined family. No gentleman will consider you marriage…But…”

“But?” you prompted.

“But there is one gentleman who doesn’t think so…” he continued.

“Who?” you asked. You put both hands over your cup.

Papa looked directly into your eyes.

“Sir Sharpe.”

Your throat tightened. Part of your vision went dizzy. You began to piece together where this was leading. Nausea gripped your insides as your hold on the glass turned into a grip.

“He knows he needs our money and to be back into society. We still need the respect of his title…and we have a daughter left who must be taken care of…”

You found yourself hyperventilating. Words choked out of you.

“Am I…am I…”

“YN, you are going to marry Sir Sharpe in your sister’s place this coming month.” he announced flatly.

A sound came out of you. You put a hand over your mouth. You now knew what Lottie felt. Your whole body went tight. You had to catch your breath. How glad you were to be sitting, for your legs were already shaking bad and your vision was spinning. You looked down at the floor, trying to pull yourself together. Your father kept talking.

“Now, I know this isn’t pleasant. Especially for a romantic such as yourself. I know you have yet to be formally introduced to him. But, Y/N, my dear- we have to be practical about these matters. There is no respectable solution to this problem at this point, if Charlotte is to not return.”

He was right. As twisted as this was, was there another option? 

Who would want to associate with a family who couldn’t keep an eye on their eldest? Who would want to invite a family who let their daughter run away to their breakfast party? Who would want to court the sister of the woman who ran off from her own marriage? Who would want to marry the daughter of disgraced family? 

The more you thought about it, the more you realized there were few options. You were now too socially stained to marry anyone. Your days would be spent alone. Sitting in your house as others lived their lives happy and free, laughing at you behind closed doors.

Your family had no other options out. 

A marriage to a man who belonged to a knighted family would earn you respect. It would be telling society that at least one man from a respectable house saw worth in you. You would still go to events not as a figure of pity and ridicule, but as one of them- even ranking above them.

You didn’t want to be a figure of ridicule. Someone who everyone would smugly turn. Whispering to each other “how glad I am that I’m not her!”

You had to marry. And marry well.

You would never be proposed to at this point. There would be no courtship. No dances. No poetry. No marriage proposals. No valentines. No love letters. No Passion. No balls. No laughter.

But there was never going to be a proposal like this.

No future. No safety. Nothing if you denied your father or refused him or rebelled as Lottie did.

You would just be tied and tethered to a ruined family all of your days. But becoming Lady Sharpe would free you from that. You could start anew. Spring again like a wild tiger breaking out of its cage to bear her claws.

And this was your only chance.

“Yes, papa. It will be an honor.” you replied. You would do your duty, as all daughters must.

Father walked out from behind, abandoning his drink. He put a hand on your shoulder and then pulled you for a hug.

“There’s my brave girl,” he said.

He released the hug.

“Alright, Sir Sharpe is going to visit at dinner tomorrow. And my associates at work will be there too, to celebrate. That way, you will have a formal introdution and you won’t be walking down the aisle to a complete stranger.”

You felt your fists grab your skirt. With your free hand, you grabbed your cup of brandy and downed it in one gulp. The burning ran through your body, and you prayed it would calm your racing mind.

“Do I need to wear my nicest dress?” you asked. You at least didn’t want Sir Sharpe to think he was settling from the society beauty. Downgraded from the Wild Rose to her frump sister.

“Considering he has already said yes to this arrangement, I doubt wearing your ugliest dress will do anything to about the matter,” replied your father.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

Anne dressed you in a cream dinner dress of country silk and velvet. Your sleeves puffed like clouds. there was lace as a “belt” around your waist. The bottom showed an underskirt that was a color between light brown and pink. Anne had hair like yours, and knew how to style it as you liked. Your dress almost white in the light. Already you were going to meet Thomas looking like a bride.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed seven o clock. You thought you would sweat through your dress. Part of you was tempted to lock the door and not step a foot out the whole night. But you knew you could not delay the meeting anymore. At this rate, you would just meet him on your wedding day. You just had to get it over with.

Besides, you were going to spend the rest of your life with him until only death or divorce did you part. You were just holding back the inevitable. 

“You look beautiful, miss,” she gushed as she looked at you.

“I wish I was as pretty as Lottie, sometimes. Or as brave as her…” you lamented quietly.

“Don’t compare yourself to her, miss. You know she has her own sufferings. And it will only make you more unhappy.” Anne advised, giving you a pearl necklace. She attached it to you from behind. 

 Both of you looked at your reflection in the mirror. Anne leaned in closer with an encouraging smile. “Just think of all this like armor to a battle, Miss Y/N. You can’t give up the fight, yet.”

I can be brave, like Lottie. I can fight, like she can. You thought. How could you be as stupid as to forget your own advice to her not long ago? You would do your best to find the way to make it a good situation. Manipulate your position and standing to your favor, even. For that was what women always did. For being the “weaker sex”, they always found a way through to survive. So what made you think you would just cry and pity yourself all of your days?

You reminded yourself of this. Still you felt heart racing hard as if the gallows was what awaited you next month and not the altar. Holding your head high, like a queen in her palace, you walked out of your room and downstairs.

A few women had shown up in the foyer. They eyed you greedily but you would not give them a figure to be pitied. You kept a stoic face as they offered a few tepid congratulations. But you felt so buzzed with anxiety, you only half heard.

“We’re so happy you found a husband,” said one.

Husband- husband! A husband! A fiancee! How was it that it happened already? And with no romantic proposal in a moonlit garden away from a ball. Just in an office that smelled of whiskey with your father relaying that you were now engaged. And your husband- no, you weren’t married yet, no need to panic now. Though you saw no men around, you knew that your fiancee was under this roof. 

You didn’t feel ready. You felt like you were just an adolescent playing dress up and not a grown adult. 

“Ah! There you are, YN!” your father greeted as he walked over, dressed in his evening tuxedo. He offered his arm.

“He’s in the library, sharing a drink with the other men. I think it’s time I introduce you both,” he announced.

Swallowing, you took his arm. The one thing keeping you afloat in the ocean of turmoil raging inside you.

Papa walked you over to the library. Your heart picked up as if you were running. In just a few short seconds, you would see the man you were bound to for the rest of your life. Your mind was itself running at a hundred miles a second and you felt yourself shaking like a leaf.

Father turned to the door and your fears screamed inside of you.

You dreaded what your sister said. Her voice ringing in your ears bemoaning Thomas’s apparent ugliness.

“He has a big forehead and big ears and a big old nose!”

He was ugly. You had to settle for that. But what made you were frightened was that perhaps he was a bad person. Perhaps he would hurt you, betray you, break you even.

Wait…didn’t Lottie say herself he wouldn’t treat her in that way? But…you weren’t Lottie! He could act completely differently…

No…you were forming an entire judgement on someone you hadn’t even met!

But, even if he wasn’t handsome…perhaps he would be a nice man. Men didn’t have to be handsome to be good. They could be kind, respectful, patient, gentle, genuinely kind husbands.

So which one was he? A kind, pure soul? Or an irredeemale monster?

Both? In between? Neither? There was only one way to find out. And the answer was standing with the other men beyond that wall.

You took in a deep breath, your father opened the door.

The dark green, musty library already smelled of cigars. Lottie would have loved it. There was a bit of laughter, as their smoke floated to the air. Cups of whiskey was passed and there was talk of this and that issue in Parliment. So many men in black suits like a horde clamored around, as if each one was copied from the other.

Your father cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen, may I introduce to you my daughter, Miss Y/L/N.”

Once, it was Lottie who was “Miss Y/L/N” and you just went by Miss and your first name after. But now that she was gone, you were promoted up. You were Miss Y/L/N and the family’s fortune and future were already on you like a yoke you had to drag across the field.

“It appears that for one of you, you are about to be a very lucky man next month…” your father continued.

One by ones, heads turned to see you. Some in curiosity. Some in boredom. Some in hunger seeing your neckline. You were already making guesses as to who your fiancee was with each passing face. Already one man had a curled mustache. Another had grey hair with busy sideburns. Another round spectacles and short brown hair with a mousy face. Most of them were wrinkled, lined with grey, with a gruffness to their demenaer.

“Sir Sharpe,” your father announced, turning his head.

Your eyes followed at once. That is him- you thought. That  is him! That is him, that is him, thatishimthatishimthatishim-

An old man patted a hand on the shoulder of another. The younger had hair had longer, dark curls He was so deep in conversation with someone that he almost forgot. The grandfather nudged him. The younger figure paused.

“Thomas! I believe your lady is here.”

Then he turned around. 

Thomas Sharpe was the handsomest man you had ever seen. 

The breath you had was knocked out again as you took him in. What on earth was Lottie thinking? Looking at him, you began to question her taste and strength of vision.

Thomas was a tall man with a hair full of raven curls. Slender, but not thin for he had a broad chest. Soft blue eyes that only contrasted with his dark hair and a face the color of porcelain. You now understood the fairy tale of Snow White and why she was the fairest in all the land. For the male equivalent was here before you. He had high cheekbones and large hands. He looked like the hero of a Bronte novel, but one if the author confirmed his handsomeness rather than his ugliness. 

He looked into your eyes and he smiled at you. Butterflies fluttered around your stomach and you could feel your eyes widening.

Your father gestured at him and he walked over.

“Sir Sharpe, this is my daughter.Your fiancee.” your father announced.

“Miss, I am glad to finally be acquainted with you. You look beautiful, tonight,” Sir Sharpe greeted. 

He raised your hand to his lips and looked right into your eyes as kissed your hand. A gasp could not even escape your throat. Something was stirring beneath you when his lips touched your gloved hand. You felt a sensation you dared not name in the most private part of you. 

Finally, steeling yourself back to the earth, you remembered basic etiquette.

“Thank you, Sir Sharpe. I am glad to make your acquaintance as well,” you replied with a curtsy.

Sir Sharpe sat across from you at dinner. You hardly said a word unless someone asked you something. 

You couldn’t believe this. You couldn’t believe him. You somehow found your appetite again and ate. But you felt self conscious with each bite. Thomas was watching you- what was he seeing? Would he judge you? You moved even more carefully and properly as you could.

 Every time your eyes met,  Every time he looked at you, a heat rushed through your whole body and your eyes would return demurely back to your plate or the napkin on your lap. When he smiled at you, you felt as if you could die. You had to remember your feet was touching the ground as you wiggled your toes in your pointed shoes.. 

He spoke poliely when asked to, but mainly listened. There was polite talk about the weather or the Ascot opening race. Thomas would ask you about what you thought and you found your replies were timid. You didn’t want to make a wrong move, you didn’t want him to hate you, you didn’t want-

Then your father stood up, raising a glass.

“Now, everyone,” he declared. “Let us have a toast. To Sir Sharpe, the delightful Baronet who I have the honor to call my son in law not long from now. And to the marriage of my beloved, dutiful daughter-”

You found yourself looking down. Dutiful, dutiful. This was why you were here. Lottie was not dutiful and broke everything. But now here you were to fix it all. For everyone’s sakes, including yours. It would have be you thrown to face the unknown of marriage to this unknown aristocrat. Yes, he was handsome. But he was still a stranger.

“Cheers!” toasted your father.

Everyone replied with cheers as they clinked glasses. Thomas gave you another smile and clinked yours. You felt yourself become timid. His looks, his smiles, and you were acting no better than an loony adolescent.

Thomas delayed going to after-dinner sips of brandy with the other men. He remained in the parlor with the women sipping on coffee and went to you. He led you over to a corner away from nosy mamas. He spoke lowly, for you to hear.

“How are you, Miss Y/L/N?” he asked.

“If I must be entirely honest, I am afraid,” you confessed.

His eyes softened at you. They were the color of a spring sky. You had never seen eyes as blue as his.

“YN, I know this is sudden. And I’m shocked as you are. But…”

He offered his hand and you took it. Your glove over his skin. Then he placed his other over yours, and already you found yourself chilled comparing his large hand to your own. To feeling that one bit of touch. For now you were almost married, and to touch was permitted.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me…I will try to make you happy, with everything I can.” he promised.

“Nothing will happen to me. You won’t hurt me. And you won’t let anyone hurt me, will you?” you asked.

A shadow of sadness passed over his face.

“No. I won’t.”

[coalswriting]

competition gone wrong - lottie matthews

summary – after lottie doesn’t return to the cabin from her competition with natalie, (y/n) looks for her. (approx 2.3k words)

a/n – hello i am probably Not back because uhh. i’m very busy, but i am rewatching yellowjackets with my friend whenever i get the chance :^) i just watched s2e4 so i wanted to write something based on that. did not proofread this so it’s probably a mess too!! sorry in advance. i desperately need to sleep LOL.

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the heat of the distant sunset beat down on your back as you struggled to walk through deep snow. though it was unbelievably cold, you didn’t stop your trek, looking around at your surroundings cautiously.

the others had gone with natalie to uncover a frozen moose that she had found while you? you were looking for lottie. you had a bad feeling since the moment their weird competition was established this morning; you were all sitting, still drowsy from the early hour mixed with the cold room, and nat had gotten into an argument with someone about food, mari perhaps? long story short, lottie was volunteered to challenge nat on who would find food faster. it had almost felt like lottie couldn’t fight for herself – everyone had so much hope in her, and she didn’t want to let that falter.

truth be told, you didn’t believe in hope. it was a dangerous thing; too much of it led to ignorance, and that only took people so far. humanity was greedy. they always pinned their deepest desires on anything but themselves, whether it be an omnipotent force, or even just a seventeen-year-old girl with a strange understanding of the wilderness. either way, you believed in lottie, not because you had ‘hope’, but because you knew that you would climb to the deepest depths of tartarus for her if it meant keeping her safe. and thus, here you were, walking around a deadly silent blanket of snow, weaving through trees, looking for lottie matthews. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

when you first enrolled in wiskayok high school, you were a bit of an outsider. your family had moved from houston. they always told you that it was because your father had received an incredible job opportunity in wiskayok, but you knew it was secretly because you would return home from school, covered in bruises with tearstained cheeks. you were considered a loser in your old school and fell victim to all the bullying. girls constantly pretended to be kind to you, only to spread rumours behind your back, boys would ask you out, and then laugh in your face, and you constantly dealt with rubbish stuffed in your bag, or gum tangled in your hair. school faculty didn’t do much, probably because many of your bullies’ families funded the school. they claimed that the bullying would stop with time.

besides, it wasn’t too much of a loss on your family to move; wiskayok wasn’t anything special. housing prices were dirt cheap, and your parents were respectively an engineer and a hairdresser. they could find work anywhere.

your first day at whs was in the middle of the second semester of 8th grade. your brain managed to block out much of the anxiety, but as you stood in the middle of the cafeteria double doors during lunch, it all began to set in. you felt like a startled, hurt animal, mouth slightly agape, scanning the room for a free seat, anywhere. students peered up at you, studying you, like you were a strange specimen in a lab. suddenly, you felt a harsh shove on your shoulder as a deep masculine voice muttered “out of the way, loser!”

you inhaled sharply, regaining your balance, and shaking yourself off. you felt yourself shrink as some witnesses began to laugh. then, you felt a hand on your shoulder, and you turned around to look at the source. she was the most beautiful girl you had ever seen; she was a bit taller than you and had long flowy chestnut hair with curtain bangs and the deepest brown eyes. you felt like you were getting lost in them. her eyebrows furrowed, as she seemed to repeat herself.

“are you okay?”

“huh?” you spluttered, regaining your consciousness. you felt sick to the stomach, and your hands developed a newfound sweatiness. “yeah, sorry.. i’m okay.”

“those jocks are dickheads,” she dismissed, then she smiled at you, and holy shit. that weird sickness in your stomach became fifty times worse, and you had to forcefully rip your eyes away from her out of a genuine fear that you would die on the spot. “i’m charlotte, but everyone just calls me lottie. are you new here?”

“i’m (y/n),” you finally said, finding the confidence to make eye contact again, heat spreading up your spine. you hoped your cheeks weren’t going red. “i’m new, yeah. i moved from houston.”

“oh, wow!”, her eyes almost seemed to sparkle with admiration, “that’s a huge city! what are you doing down here in little old wiskayok?”

before you could reply, a ginger girl appeared behind lottie, looping an arm around her neck – you would later discover her to be vanessa palmer – “lot, stop torturing the newbie. cmon, i’m starving!”

lottie laughed, swinging the ginger’s arm off her, “okay, okay!”, she giggled, before turning to you. once again, she put her hand on your shoulder. “you want to come and sit with my friends? well, our table is the girls’ soccer team, but i’m sure they won’t mind you joining us. oooh, maybe you could try out! do you like soccer?”

she seemed to talk a lot, you noticed. you weren’t too sure if it was because she was as nervous as you, or if she was just a very chatty person, but you liked it. you liked her. she was nice.

eventually, you did try out for the girls’ soccer team, the yellowjackets. and surprisingly, you somehow got in. with that, you became closer to the team, especially lottie and van.

however, when the plane crashed on the way to nationals, four years later, everything changed. you were still enamoured by lottie, but she was different now – not smiling much and very quiet. van seemed like a stranger to you, and you had seen a side of taissa, natalie, and shauna that you never thought you’d see. they were imposters. and jackie and laura lee? you shuddered as you thought about them, alongside all the others that had passed away during the initial crash. they were once your friends, but you never had given yourself the chance to process their deaths. even as you sat upright in the middle of the night, crying tears of mourning over them, it never felt real. the concept of them dying was artificial in your head, and despite seeing their bodies, you concluded that you would probably never convince yourself that they were really dead.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

the snow had begun to pile on heavily and you could see your breath with every steep step you took. you were growing desperate now, the sun setting at a faster pace than you expected. you guessed that you only had about an hour of sunlight left before you would be plunged into darkness with only the merciful moon to guide you. it was probably wiser for you to turn back and continue your search tomorrow, but you knew you couldn’t stop yourself from looking for her if you tried.

suddenly, turning a corner, you saw a form a few metres from you. your breath caught in your throat, as you shuffled (as fast as possible) towards her – lottie.

“lottie?” you gasped, wiping snow off her face, confirming her suspicions. “lottie, do you hear me?!”

your voice was a little louder now, laboured with thick panic that stung in your throat like bile. her cheeks were rosy, contrasting her pale, greying face. you didn’t want to see her meet the same demise as jackie, so you whipped your thick jacket off, and after a struggle, you managed to get it on her. realistically, this was an incredibly stupid decision, but with adrenaline coursing through your veins, you felt unstoppable. and damn, did adrenaline take you far.

“hang in there, lottie, not yet, please…” you murmured, carrying her with all your might. about fifteen minutes had passed, and your thighs were burning. lottie’s starved form was heavier than you expected, and your energy was running out. you felt yourself collapse into the snow, the cold wetness seeping into your skin. then, you heard the urgent voices of mari and akailah as they called your names. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“don’t beat yourself up over it,” lottie smiled warmly, putting a cup of hot chocolate in front of you. you had fumbled an important game mid-season, and it seemed like mari and taissa were mad at you. playing with the strings of your hoodie, you met her eyes, your stomach doing backflips. in a way to cheer you up, lottie had taken you on a ‘date’ – her words, though you wish they were a reality – to a café, and then a walk through the park.

you leaned back against the worn fabric of the seat, groaning. “is it that obvious that i’m thinking obsessively about it?”

“yes, (y/n),” she laughed, poking you in the forehead. “you always beat yourself up after our games; it’s like you never let yourself be proud.”

you reached to slap at her hand, but she pulled way before you could make contact, “i just always like to know what i could’ve done better. i’m not that great at soccer, i don’t even know how i got on the team!” you groaned, “like you’re all so perfect, and then i’m constantly messing up somehow.”

lottie went quiet for a moment, studying you as if you were an ancient scripture, like everything you presented was important to her. “you are so much more than you think (y/n),” she said, admirably, “you are one of our most adaptable players, and you’re so, so, analytical. you bring so much to this team, and you don’t even know. why do you think i always pass the ball to you in a tight situation?”

before you could answer, she continued, “it’s because you’re so damn dependable!” then lottie laughed, and winked at you, “also, you’ve a super sexy bod, and i always catch myself admiring you in the changing room.”

you choked on your hot chocolate, feeling your heart suddenly beat much faster in your chest. a ghost of a blush lined lottie’s cheeks as she reached over the table to put a hand on yours. “look, (y/n),” she murmured, voice suddenly soft, “i uh…”

you awaited her answer, feeling a sudden tsunami of anxiety wash through your body. you wanted to hide, but you wanted to hear more of what she had to say. lottie’s cheeks grew even more pink, before she tore her eyes away from your (e/c) ones. after a few seconds of silence, she looked up at you again, much more composed than she was only half a minute prior, “want to ditch this joint?”

and that, is how the two of you ended up in some isolated part of the public park, laughing and huffing, out of breath. “fuck your long legs, lot,” you gasped, leaning against a tree. lottie’s laughter boomed through the flora, as she tackled you to the ground. the both of you wrestled a little, but after a few minutes, lottie reigned victorious. she brushed your hair out of your face, staring at you.

“wh-what’s up?”, you whispered, and you swore that she could definitely feel the thumping in your ribcage.

lottie smiled at you, gently. but this time, it wasn’t her normal smile – this smile was full of fondness. “just admiring,” she muttered, and before you could process anything, her lips were on yours.

you never talked about your feelings after that day.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

a loud ringing invaded your head as you slowly regained control of your senses. everything was so bright, and you felt uncomfortably warm, if not too hot. as you tested the movement of your limbs, you felt something wrapped around your stomach. your strength slowly came back, and your eyes fluttered open.

you were in the cabin.

“huh?”, you said to nobody in particular. you almost jumped out of your skin as a husky voice reverberated near your ear.

“thank fuck you’re awake, (y/n).”

you craned your neck slightly, meeting lottie’s captivating brown eyes. you moved to pull away, but felt, what you now figured out was her arm, wrap tighter around you. looking down, you noticed that you were in the tub, and you were naked.

“w-what happened?” you gasped, reaching to cover yourself. lottie half-sighed-half-chuckled as she sunk her nose into your hair.

“i almost died, and you saved me. akailah and mari found us together, and based on the footsteps, you carried me a long way. thank you.”

you went quiet as you recalled what happened; how you had hurried through the snowy landscape, taken your jacket off for lottie, and carried her before losing consciousness. there was no beating the in-love-with-lottie allegations that van had made against you before the day of the plane crash.

“why did you do it?”, lottie continued, “the wilderness wanted me to die, so why?”

you felt your throat stiffen as your brain whirred with various answers. after a moment of silence, you decided to listen to your beating heart and come clean. there wasn’t much reason not to since you would all probably die out here.

“because, lottie matthews, i’m in love with you.”

you began to regret everything when lottie didn’t reply. however, she didn’t disappoint you for long.

“i don’t regret kissing you in the park that one time.”

you broke into a laugh, “is that all you have to say?”, and you felt her squeeze you before planting a kiss on your shoulder.

“i think you know how i feel. you’re the only one who keeps me grounded, and you’re always there for me. i never feel lonely when i’m around you.”

that was enough confirmation for you. sometimes less was more, and you leaned into lottie’s touch in the tub, enjoying the feeling of her skin on yours.

well, until taissa told the both of you to stop hogging the hot water.

[m4rdb]

An insight into the characters based on their approach to the “Allie problem”

If good writing means that every scene has the potential to say something about a character at their core, then the girls' attitude towards the "Allie problem" is an interesting example.

Taissa

The one who comes up with the very plan. This establishes her as ambitious and extremely rational, but it’s the type of rationality that without grounded moral principles could degenerate into violence and cruelty at any time. It’s what we see with adult Misty and Walter, who are both so practical-minded that resorting to murder is nothing more than a smart option to choose to them.

Like Jackie says, Taissa has so much fight in her. The way she handles the Allie situation shows that if she has a goal, she’ll do whatever she finds necessary to obtain it.

How does that translate into their time in the wilderness?

Taissa’s the first to make the call that they should leave the plane and find water. She’s the one who sleeps in the attic when everyone else wouldn’t, she’s the only one who tries to tell Jackie she shouldn’t leave. And in season two, she’s the one who says, “We need to find a way to stay alive, and it can’t be her [: Lottie]”.

Then we see them drawing cards. We’re not shown how they get to that very decision exactly, but it’s important that we know that the two things are tied. The hunt that follows, their first conscious hunt (let’s not forget about Travis), wasn’t supposed to happen—it’s rather the consequence of the designed sacrifice refusing to take on the role.

Though there’s an obvious religious aspect to it, drawing cards isn’t just letting fate/the wilderness decide in their place so that they don’t blame themselves. It’s also the girls’ attempt to give the ritual some semblance of logic and structure—on a normal day, they would draw cards to decide who gets which task. They’re using the same mechanism, except that they’re now deciding who should die and get eaten. And it starts with Taissa’s very rational and straightforward remark about needing to survive.

Natalie

She openly and passionately goes against Taissa’s plan. Despite being presented as the outsider who doesn’t really engage with the team and disregards rules by smoking and doing drugs, she’s the one who fights to play fairly. She most likely doesn’t care about Allie personally, but she’s a teammate, and they should treat her as such.

While Tai’s ultimate goal is winning at Nationals, Natalie doesn’t want to win more than she wants to be a team (T: What’s your plan, then? / N: I dunno, play like a fucking team and win? It’s worked so far.).

It’s quite ironic—yet not that surprising—how, despite being opposites, Natalie and Jackie share a similar mindset about this.

The scene establishes Natalie as a sympathetic character with grounded and noble moral principles, no matter the adversities. In the wilderness, she’s the first and possibly the only one who acknowledges Travis’ grief and sees through his unsufferable attitude and understands that, as much as questionable his methods are, he’s trying to make sure Javi gets over their father’s death and wants to live on.

It's also meaningful that Natalie’s not there when Jackie and Shauna fight and Jackie ends up leaving the cabin. The night earlier, Natalie was the one who let her out when Lottie and the others locked her in and went to hunt Travis down. Natalie basically saves the girl who just had sex with Travis being perfectly aware that it would hurt her, and she doesn’t even know. Viewers do know, though, and we’re instinctively led to think of her as even more noble and deserving of empathy.

Jackie’s death certainly comes from an irrational choice, but the deepest reason is the others’ lack of sympathy towards her at the end of the season. It could be delusional, but I can’t see Natalie turning a blind eye on the whole thing, had she been there.

Jackie was their captain when they had a normal life. Natalie becomes their leader thanks to the constant effort she’s put into the group ever since they landed there—and possibly, as the matter with Allie shows, even before that.

Lottie

Lottie’s phrasing for her refusal is telling. She says, “It doesn’t feel right.” It’s not that she thinks it is, or that it seems like it is. She feels like they’re not meant to go through with it. A simple yet fitting choice of words foreshadows Lottie’s spiritual nature and her connection to the wilderness as well as her role of prophet/messiah.

It’s also important that she’s not shown as particularly proactive. She does express her opinion, but she’s not as passionate as Natalie about it, who instead actively tries to convince them what a terrible idea it is and interferes with Taissa’s plan on the field. This shows how Lottie never cared be a leader, but rather follows where her feelings lead her.

Van

We’re not really shown Van’s reaction until they’re in the locker room after the scrimmage. We just learn that she’s impressionable, as she almost throws up at Nat’s mention of Allie’s bone being visible, and that she’s so devoted to Tai that she won’t let Shauna talk shit about her at the party.

Laura Lee

Of course, nobody would even dream of telling Laura Lee about an act of such misconduct. She would never go along with Taissa’s plan, she wouldn’t even fathom doing something like this. She’s more clueless than Jackie, because Jackie at least did notice something was off on the field. Even at the party, Laura Lee is the only one who still has no idea there were such tensions.

Her blissful ignorance keeps her kind and pure, apart from the ruthless tendencies of the team. It doesn’t change once they’re in the wilderness—Laura Lee dies trying to help her friends, and she fortunately never gets to witness their worst moments.

Shauna

Unsurprisingly, Shauna’s a tough one. Her attitude towards the Allie situation is as ambivalent as it will be for the rest of the story towards everything else.

Shauna keeps her thoughts for herself until Nat and Lottie leave and it’s just her and Tai, and even then, the first thing she says is, “Jackie’s not gonna like it.” The moment she’s asked to make a personal decision, she talks about what Jackie would think, and it’s not because she herself doesn’t know what to think, it’s just what she chooses to say outright. If anything, Shauna isn’t against Taissa’s plan entirely, and bringing up Jackie rather sounds like an excuse so that she doesn’t dwell on her own dark thoughts.

When Taissa says, “Then we probably shouldn’t tell her,” we expect that to upset Shauna—she wouldn’t keep things from Jackie, right? They’re best friends. While it does upset her, it still doesn’t stop her. We understand why later in the episode, when we discover that she’s no stranger to keeping secrets from Jackie, between her affair with Jeff and the admission letter to Brown (it also recontextualizes their first scene together in Shauna’s car, where Jackie addressed literally both).

On the field, when Taissa plays aggressive and forces Allie to play under pressure, Shauna tells her, “It’s not helping,” and once Allie’s on the ground, she’s one of the girls who runs to her first and tries to comfort her. Even though she didn’t openly disagree with Taissa’s plan, she didn’t want or expect things to escalate the way they did. She’ll make the same mistake when Jackie leaves the cabin, Taissa tells her to go talk to her, and Shauna just goes to sleep, underestimating the consequences of it.

Her ambivalence—if not hypocrisy—is shown later that night at the party, when she tries to pick a fight with Taissa while drunk. I think some part of her felt guilty to an extent, so she tries to fight with Tai out of remorse and because she wants to make her look like the only culprit, since she hates that she was so close to being complicit in it. Who calls her out when she defends Nat from Taissa’s slut-shaming at the party? Natalie herself slams in Shauna’s face that she is complicit.

If Shauna had told Jackie, she would’ve put a stop to it for sure. In the 2019 script for the pilot, Jackie says, “You should have told me about Taissa and Allie.” Shauna’s choice to keep the secret directly anticipates their falling out towards the end of the season. Shauna’s continuous lying drives Jackie mad until she explodes and they have that fatal fight.

Shauna’s the one who tries to act as a person who has it together but really doesn’t. She has the potential to be a good person, friend and mother, but she ends up flunking everything and she barely understands why.

Finally, she tells Tai that she’s “a fucking sociopath”, which, considering everything that happens later in the series, is sort of rich.

Jackie

Like Laura Lee, Jackie has no clue the whole “freeze Allie out” strategy is even happening. Shauna didn’t tell her, she was left out, and she doesn’t find out until Allie’s already hurt and there’s nothing she can do about it.

She watches the others as they rush to help and comfort her and handle the situation, but she doesn’t partake in it because she’s too shocked to move. After the scrimmage, she tries very hard to do as Coach Martinez told her—as captain, she’s meant to glue them together (“When it gets tough out there, these girls are going to be looking for someone to guide them. Can you handle that?”). It’s more than that, though—the way Coach put it, if Jackie can’t do that, then she isn’t really anything special. She’s not as fast as Shauna and her footwork isn’t as good as Lottie’s, and there’s something else that Taissa’s better at, too, though Jackie stops Coach before he can tell her that bit. But nobody seems to care about what she’s saying, and Natalie storms off.

Jackie’s inability to handle the Allie situation and lift the others’ spirits foreshadows her incompetence as well as her progressive loss of influence in the wilderness—in Lottie’s words, “You don’t matter anymore.”

Allie’s accident marks the beginning of Jackie’s downfall even before the plane crashes.

[happysparklingshadows]

𝙻𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚠𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜 ('𝟿𝟼)

Note: Sorry for being away for so long, depression came and kicked my fat ass this month. Chapter 4 of Certain Hunger is coming out September 25 so watch out for that, and i hope you like these headcannons! Comment your own and reblog if you like!

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙻𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚎 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜

♡ Lottie is a Pieces Sun and Libra Rising 

♡ Lottie’s favorite color is Purple, Royal purple, to be specific. 

♡ Lottie is a cat person through and through. She likes to be very gentle with animals and take things at their speed. If they didn’t want affection, that was okay, they will eventually want something, and Lottie will just be content. 

Lottie's spirit Animal is the Bear.

♡ Lottie, for sure, had a pet cat that was her best friend as a child. Her mother wasn’t emotionally available, and her father thought throwing money at problems would fix them. Lottie grew up believing she was messed up and wished she could just be how her parents wanted her, but she never really understood what was wrong with her. 

♡ Lottie is a Extervert. She loves connecting with people and talking in general. She is the type of person who always makes little friends in public places. It could be an old lady, a frat dude, or a little girl. It doesn’t matter because she is now their friend, and they are talking. 

♡ Lottie likes spicy food a lot, and she would be the person to proudly eat chili without flinching infront of people. 

♡ Lottie’s favorite food is a Spicy King Crab roll and Miso Soup from her hometown Japanese restaurant. She likes to add wasabi to all her sushi, even the Californian roll. 

♡ Lottie's childhood was not horrible, but it was very lonely. Lottie had all the toys, Nannies, and friends to fill her time. She never went without, and she never really had to worry about her basic needs not getting met. But her mother was emotionally absent because her father was a very intense control freak about how the family should be. Her dad came from money, and her mother did not, and she was the collateral damage of two different philosophies about raising kids. She didn't get any reassurance, and she was seen as messed up in some way. If she wasn't perfect or had opinions against her father, he would throw her mental disorder in her face. Lottie loves her parents and will follow what they say to the word, but she holds so much resentment towards them.

♡ Laura Lee, Taissa,  and Van are her closest friends on the team. In high school, Van, Tai, and Lottie always sat together in classes and at lunch. They were their own cliche in the team, and Laura Lee was the innocent add-on they all had a soft spot for. 

♡ Lottie's sex drive is pretty normal, it isn't all that crazy. Lottie likes to have sex 1 or 2 times a week, and she likes to have wholesome intimacy in between. Lottie is a Switch! in her normal setting, but she does lead towards Top! most of the time.

♡ I think Lottie’s main vice that she uses at a party, which might be crazy but hear me out, is cocaine. I believe this because she is 1. a girl from NEW money 2. It’s an upper drug 3. It’s the fucking 1990s. 

♡ ⚠️Unpopular opinion⚠️ I think that Lottie is not ashamed of being rich and taking her father’s money. It’s the culture of her family and their upper-class peers. She is thrilled that she doesn’t have to work or struggle, and she grows to learn that it is a profound privilege never to have to work or struggle in her early adulthood or ever really. 

𝙳𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙰𝚄s/𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎s

♡ Royalty AU! Lottie Matthews would be a Merlin or Head Mage of the castle. I can see Lottie playing some kind of magical role in a fantasy setting and that she would be someone who is seen as crazy still because I feel like it is core to Lottie’s character. She would give you healing potions, and she would give you a protective rune for your armor or a necklace for your journey. She would be watching out for you through a looking glass. 

♡ Delinquent AU! Lottie is a hardcore shoplifter who got busted for stealing $670 worth of clothes from the mall. She was arrested, her parents paid her bail, and she kept doing it. It gives Lottie feelings that she usually has numbed through her many medications and uses Shoplifting to thrill her in her watered-down, milquetoast privileged life. 

♡ Supernatural AU! Lottie is a forest witch for the reasons above in the Royalty AU.  

♡ Superhero/Marvel AU! Spiderman. No other words. 

♡ College AU! Lottie would be a pothead in college and would get into spirituality. I think in every timeline, Lottie gives off goop vibes and would become some kind of spiritual influencer. She would be on Witchtok for sure. Lottie would change majors a lot. I see English, Communications, French, and even a try in Gender studies. She will eventually drop out because she has her dad’s money to fall back on.

����𝚛𝚎-𝙲𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜

♡ Lottie would be the one to tell you that she likes you first, and she would be very blunt about it. Lottie wants to take bandaids off as quickly as possible, so when she has feelings, she just wants to shoot her shot and lick her wounds as quickly as possible. 

♡ Lottie is a firm believer in retail therapy. Lottie has always really liked to go shopping and go to the mall. She likes to try on clothes and make you try on different looks. Want to try goth, preppy, sporty, chic? She would never be shy to buy you some things on her dad’s credit card. 

♡ Lottie likes to take you out on dates to restaurants and lovely places like ballets and theatres. I see Lottie taking you out for a good dinner and going off to see the Nutcracker with hot chocolates around Christmas time.

♡ Lottie is the more anxious partner in the relationship. She will call you and try to talk when you are away from her. She wants to ensure you are always okay and doesn’t like her favorite person being away from her. 

𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜

♡ Lottie leans on you for support when she runs out of her medication. She entirely relies on you to tell her what reality is anymore because she can’t tell with her chemicals being misplaced. Her delusions become very real, the voices seem more real and responsible, and she doesn’t trust herself. Even with her connection to It, Lottie doesn’t trust her perception of anything. She doesn’t ask you about things most of the time. 

♡ Lottie always tells you about her dreams at night, how they happened, and the surreal plots of her mind, and she wants to know yours. She grows to believe that everyone’s dreams tell you something that could bring the Yellowjackets more food and breaks from the wilderness. A deer must be nearby if you see a deer in a dream. If there was a conflict with people or the girls on camp in a dream, that indicates there must be some bad times coming your way (small or big could cast lives) 

♡ Lottie cuddles with you all the time in the wilderness for warmth. Lottie is always cold, even in the summer. She likes to have you physically near her to feel your heat. She is very physically affectionate out in the wilderness. 

♡  Lottie gets jealous quickly, even before the crash, by giving something or someone more attention than you give her. She doesn’t like it. If you are hanging out with your friends on camp, Lottie will wander into the conversation seamlessly. But if you are getting flirted with, or she perceives someone is flirting with you, she goes a little crazy. She gets confrontational, and she becomes somewhat aggressive in her words, but she always comes to her senses and apologies.

♡  Lottie has more sexual desire now in the wilderness, and the freedom of being in love with you makes her want to have sex anytime you move. In the wilderness, Lottie develops a primal kink and a breeding kink out there and begs to get you pregnant (which can't happen).

[allwaswell16]

Incredibly unimportant fic request, but do you know of any merlin/Arthur focused ones? Alternatively I'd just take medieval fantasyish

Hi, anon...so since there aren't tons of these I'll just give you what I found here on your ask, and also I'll link you to my Medieval fic rec in case you want to check that out as well <3

🌸 Medieval Fics

Truth Behind Golden Eyes by MyEnglishRose / @lwtisloved

Louis is a royal servant born with magic in a kingdom where his sole existence is outlawed with a war he has no idea he has a part in upon him. Harry is the prince on whom the burden of mending a broken kingdom falls upon and he might be willing to risk it all for a simple servant if only he admitted it to himself.

Or. A Fantasy AU loosely inspired by Merlin BBC where one relationship has the power to define the destiny of the whole land.

I've Seen How You Sparkle by orphan_account

Their eyes locked again and Harry blushed, suddenly feeling shy. Louis just smiled at him, tilting his head a little as his eyes ran over the younger boy. Harry self-consciously placed his arm over his stomach, afraid that Louis would somehow see through his clothes and notice the druid mark on his right hip. It was a triple spiral, a triskele. Although it wasn’t that big and fairly easy to hide, Harry was always paranoid that he would maybe stretch too much and reveal the mark.

It wasn’t that he actually believed Louis would have him executed, but he knew Louis was fiercely loyal to his father. If it came to choosing between Harry and his father, Harry was honestly not sure what Louis would do.

Or Louis is the Crown Prince of Camelot and Harry is a druid hiding his magic. It would have been a lot easier if he didn't also have to deal with a forbidden love, a dangerous quest and a whole lot of trouble.

Up On The Shore by wordsnnotes / @quelsentiment

Magic has been outlawed on Eroda ever since President Cowell came into power, and all the magic people had to go live on the island of Stonell. Things are not looking good for Harry when he finds out he's a magician and his abilities seem more and more out of control. Thankfully, his best friend Niall's mother has the idea to put him in touch with Louis, a magician boy living on Stonell. They begin a secret correspondence and drama ensues.

Or: Louis hides his feelings under sarcasm, Harry is too sweet for his own sake, everyone is a rebel, the mums are amazing, Harry's dad is a jerk, and I'm struggling to make it understandable without using normal narration.

Had Enough of Silly Love Spells by learnthemusic

“Why would you give him a potion?”

The more Harry received the question, the more he wondered what his intentions had truly been. He knew—had done from the moment he got embroiled in that first romantic saga of Kidan the blacksmith—that tampering with the heart was dangerous. It was too fickle to contain with a spell, no matter how arduous or simple.

Yet he’d gone against his own intuition, and now he was sat in the kitchens with Niall, whose latest conquest was Lottie’s newest maid and who never had any decent advice to offer him when it came to Louis. How was he getting out of this one?

A Merlin AU in which Harry, Court Sorcerer, slips a love potion into King Louis' sleeping draught in hopes of awakening his true feelings for Harry. It goes wrong and Harry puzzles over how to get things back to how they used to be.

you're a king by orphan_account

“and god, this is how louis is going to die. they'll write stories about him. the prince who died because harry styles is an idiot.”

[awesomefringey]

I know fans and especially old-day larries are sick of him and his tweet was the last straw but what if his larry denial wasn’t meant to be denial more like him telling us to stop making everything he does as a larry sign and make theories about literally anything? It isn’t that long when you, tumblr larries, were calling out twitter larries for this, for spreading literally every rumour and making theories of it because those twarries literally take everything as a larry sign. ‘Oh, Louis was staring at one vip box yesterday, there must’ve been Harry!’

‘There was some mysterious shadow in one of the vip boxes watching the show, that must’ve been Harry.’

‘Louis is talking to someone in the van, it must’ve been Harry.’

‘Lottie posted video from zoo and this voice sounds just like Harry so it’s definitely him behind the camera!’

Oooor did some called out Gemma when she named larries mental after some of them were constatly harrasing her in comment section in literally every post with “💚💙” and expecting her to out them?

I don’t want to excuse him for how he behave especially when it comes to dragging that kid lately and pretending to be the father of the year but as long as I’ve seen him being in a great mood lately, his smirk after Umbro 2.0 or playing 7, what if he didn’t to deny larry more like to tell some of fans (twarries) in very unfortunate way to chill because not everything is a sign.

Oh, I totally get your point. It was my instant reaction. Louis must have mocked the “constant conspiring” which is super annoying and exhausting for so many of us in the fandom.

The thing is, it is one of the reasons many have left before.

I’ve seen wonderful people access the fandom with big eyes and amazement until they fell for big Twitter accounts who continuously posted about how Louis and Harry are communicating to us and how they’re warning us, screaming for help, how an end is on the horizon… and then, nothing happened.

I’ve seen these fans being emotionally drained by the victim narrative because they wanted to help but didn’t know how. I’ve seen some needing a break for it, others eventually realizing that all the “communication” was bullshit and how that must mean everything else must’ve been too.

If I could change something about our fandom, it would be the idea that Louis and Harry will be forever victims, okay AND if people could stop babying them, that’d be great. But both creates an environment in which we can’t criticize them ever, even when it is very necessary. (Thinking of the very short notice Asian Leg cancellation and zero personal words from Louis.)

[shhtickerbook]

Wonka Found Family CG headcanons!

These are my individual CG headcanons for each of the “scrub crew” caregiving to a regressed Willy Wonka. I’m planning to continue my fanfiction, in which over time they would find out about the chocolatiers regression. But I can’t wait to share each of their different ways of caring for the little that they love so very much.

Abacus Crunch:

Abacus is one of Wonkas Primary caregivers, it was he who first discovered about his regression, so they have a very close bond. Willy also had zero father figure in his life, his own having left before he was even born.

Abacus is also one of the only people that Willy trusts with a problem he has at night sometimes. His room was thankfully next to his at Scrubbits, Abacus promising that at any time he can just knock on his door and he will help take care of any damp sheets. Usually when this happens Willy needs a lot of comfort and help cleaning up, which abacus is more than happy to do so.

Piper Benz:

When Willy is little and Piper is around, you can be sure that she will have already commandeered him onto her hip. She adores carrying him around, as the chocolatier is rather lightweight. Loving to carry him about whilst she works, explaining and teaching him about how each mechanic works.

Lottie Bell:

At first Willy was a little apprehensive of being regressed around Lottie. Not for any terrible reason, just there was just something about her that reminded him of mamma. But when she took care of him one night, he felt more than comfortable around her. Although she was very quiet when they first met, one thing Lottie loves to do is sing. She especially loves to sing lullabies to Willy, her soft voice soothing him so, and often to sleep.

Noodle:

At first Willy wasn’t sure about sharing his regression with Noodle. After all, he has been the one to take care of her, being her big brother. He didn’t want to change that relationship they had. But when Noodle eventually found out (by accident) she was alright with it after a little explanation. Noodle isn’t so much of a caregiver, but more of a babysitter / big sibling sometimes. She likes to continue her lessons with him, but a little more simplified. ABCS, shapes and colours!

Larry Chucklesworth:

whilst Larry’s standup comedy routines aren’t the most successful with his adult audience, it doesn’t really take too much to make little wonka laugh. He is his best audience, silly voices, peekaboo and more. Larry loves to entertain the little, and even practice new material.

[roanofarcc]

BABYDOLL: CHAPTER TWO. SHIPPED WRECK

jj maybank x fem!routledge OC // read on Ao3

The Routledge twins didn’t share much in common aside from their namesake and their shit-luck. John. B took after their missing father while Charlotte was told she was a spitting image of her runaway mother. However, an affinity for curiosity, secrets, and treasure hunting seemed to run in the family.

word count. 5.1k || masterlist

previous chapter < >next chapter

Sunlight poured through Lottie’s bedroom window, which was a much more welcome sight than the hurricane that swept through the island the night prior. 

After they made it back from surfing the storm surge, Agatha had picked up speed and intensity. Pope split, wanting to ride it out at home to make sure his parents’ shop held up through the night. The twins waited the storm out at the Chateau, along with JJ who arrived during the worst of it, somehow managing to ride his motorbike in the downpour without incident. The three of them drank beer and ate whatever food was left in the fridge, knowing the power would likely go out and stay out for a while. They didn’t want the food to spoil, so they feasted on leftovers from Kie’s family’s restaurant and miscellaneous snacks. 

At some point during the night, after they had to light Lottie’s candles to see one another and place buckets under the weak spots of the roof, JJ passed out on the couch and the twins retreated to their bedrooms. 

Lottie lay in the comfort of her bed for a couple more minutes, contemplating if getting up was worth it. She heard her brother and JJ’s voices not even attempting to be quiet as they trudged through the house with loud feet. With a yawn, she rolled out of bed and threw on a sweatshirt she had hanging up on the back of her desk chair. 

The boys had moved outside. JJ stood on the steps of the porch, sipping on a warm, leftover beer, and watched as John B. started kicking aside fallen branches and blown-in debris. 

“Agatha really did a number, huh?” said JJ, throwing a glance at Lottie as she stood beside him. “The power and cell towers are down.” 

“Damn,” she muttered, even though she expected nothing less. Running a hand through her tangled hair, she watched her brother start tossing sticks out of their boat. 

The rest of the island probably looked about the same as their backyard, if not worse. The people of Kildare knew how to bounce back from a storm, but it wasn’t a quick process, especially on the Cut. They didn’t get the same help or urgency as those on Figure Eight. The only people who looked out for them were themselves, and while that sucked, it seemed to be the only time the community really came together. Any personal feuds were set aside for a couple of days while people offered each other a hand. 

“Hey, John?” Lottie called out. “Do you think DCS will hold off today?” She had been up half the night with the boys and wasn’t ready to try to fool DCS into believing their uncle was taking care of them. 

“There’s no way they’re getting on a ferry today,” he said, jumping aboard the boat. “Which means, we should go fishing.” 

Lottie found it rather ironic that the day following a hurricane often brought beautiful blue skies. The sun shined down on the wreckage, but she wasn’t sure if it was Mother Nature’s way of mocking them or offering them something nice for their troubles. 

Whatever the reasoning was, it gave the Pogues an excuse to spend the day aboard the boat, drinking, fishing, chatting, and ignoring their problems. 

They picked Kie up, who brought a cooler full of beer and snacks, and Pope who pissed off his dad by ditching his chores. 

“Hey, watch this.” JJ lightly slapped Lottie’s arm, grabbing her attention before he pointed at Pope, instructing him to speed up his driving. 

As Pope accelerated, JJ stood at the front of the boat with one foot on the ledge. The wind tousled his hair and sea spray dotted his shirtless frame. He held his beer up and attempted to drink it without bringing the lip of the bottle to his lips. Instead, he let the wind carry the beer into his wide-open mouth. He had tried it a million times, and every time it never really worked. Beer missed his mouth and sprayed back at the rest of the group, which led to them grumbling at the blond. But he showed no signs of stopping until his bottle was emptied. 

Unfortunately for JJ, before he could finish, the boat came to a sudden halt, hitting something below the surface hard. Lottie flew forward, landing on the floor with a gasp. Everyone else toppled over, except JJ, who was sent flying right off the front of the boat and into the water.

“Jesus, Pope!” Kie groaned, helping Lottie back to her feet. 

As everyone steadied themselves, Lottie peered over the front edge of the boat. JJ’s head bobbed to the surface; he spit out a mouthful of water and groaned loudly. “You okay, JJ?” 

“I think my heels touched the back of my head,” he said. “Pope, what did you do man?” 

“Sand bar, I think. The channel must’ve changed.” 

JJ shook his head as he started paddling back towards the boat. “Yeah, no shit.” 

Pope left his post at the wheel and peered over the front, looking at the water with a curious twinkle in his dark eyes. Lottie followed his lead, trying to gauge what could be so interesting about a rouge sandbar, but as she looked at the slightly murky water, it didn’t look like a sandbar that they hit at all. 

“Guys,” Pope yelled, catching everyone else’s attention. “I think there’s a boat down there.” 

“No way,” John B. said. 

Lottie didn’t believe it either, but it was exactly what she was looking at. “He’s right,” she said. “Come look at this.” She waved them over. Kie and John B. looked over the edge of the boat too, and it only took them a moment to come to the same conclusion. 

Kie was already tugging off her shirt as she said, “Let’s go check it out!” They all pulled off their clothing, revealing their swimsuits underneath, and dove into the water right after her. 

It was a little too murky and dark to make out anything overly specific about the sunken boat, but they confirmed that it was not only a sunken boat but a newly sunken one. It didn’t look too worn like it had been sitting under there for longer than a couple of days. If Lottie had to guess, it likely went down with Agatha the day prior. Someone was certainly missing it, but she was really glad, from a quick glance at it, that no one seemed to be still inside of it. 

Once her lungs started to feel tight from lack of air, she made her way back to the surface, breaking through the surface along with her friends, who all were stunned and excited at their find. 

“You guys saw that, right?” JJ asked in disbelief. 

They all nodded, sharing overlapping ‘yeahs.’ It certainly wasn’t everyone that one finds a sunken boat. Lottie felt like a little kid again, giddy and overly curious to know more. It reminded her of when she and her brother were little, and their dad would set up treasure hunts around their yard. It used to keep them busy for hours, exploring and hunting for clues that would lead them to the treasure. Looking back, Lottie was sure their dad only did it to keep them occupied and out of his hair while he did whatever he did in his study, but they had too much fun to care how little he paid attention to them. 

“That’s a Grady-White!” said JJ. “A new one of those costs 500 Gs, easy!” 

If the boat went down during the storm, why would someone risk taking such an expensive boat out during a hurricane? It was possible it had been there longer, but not more than a couple of days. If so, how had no one found it?

Once they all were back on the boat, John B. seemed to have some answers. “That was the boat I saw when we surfed the surge.” He looked between Pope and Lottie, who both had dismissed his comment about seeing someone out in the middle of the storm. 

Kie crossed her arms over her chest at John B.’s words. “You guys surfed the surge?” Lottie could see the slight disapproval and a lecture about how dangerous it was brewing in her eyes. But before she could speak her mind, JJ cut in. 

“Hell yeah! That’s how it’s done, Pouge style.” 

Kie shook her head but dropped whatever she wanted to say. However, she gave Lottie a look that said they’d talk about it later. Lottie returned it with a sheepish smile and a mouthed, “I love you.” Kie rolled her eyes but there was a small smile on her lips she couldn’t hide. 

“Do we know whose boat that is?” asked Pope. 

Popping the small hatch on the boat’s floor, John B. pulled out the boat’s anchor and gathered it in his arms. “No, but we’re gonna find out.” 

“Nah, man. It’s too deep.” 

“Only for the weak and feeble, JJ.” 

Pope said, “Okay, well I’m not resuscitation you. I’m making that clear up front.” 

Lottie didn’t love the idea of John B. exploring the wreak, but he wasn’t one to be talked out of things he already set his mind to. That was how he always managed to find trouble, along with the encouragement of his friends. 

He held the anchor to his chest and stood on the edge of the boat. Pope gave him a mock salute before JJ shoved John B. into the water. 

As he sank into the wreckage, they all waited with baited breath. Lottie kept her eyes glued to a cheap, waterproof watch, a knick-knack JJ had bought her for her birthday a couple of years prior. She had once complained about not knowing the time while swimming one afternoon at the beach, and he showed up a couple of weeks later at her and John B.’s birthday with a messily wrapped box containing the watch. She wore it every time she went out into the water, even though it left an odd tan line on her wrist. 

She watched the second hand tick by as her brother’s time underwater stretched longer and longer. 

Like herself, John B. was a solid swimmer, but there was only so long one could hold their breath and handle the pressure underwater. Lottie started to grow nervous when there was no sign of him returning to the surface. But just as Pope suggested they go and get him, John B. finally appeared, breathless but seemingly fine. 

“Any dead bodies?” Pope asked, morbidly. 

“Any looting potential?” JJ then asked. 

John B. shook his head to both questions. He lifted his hand out of the water, flashing a silver key attached to a keychain. “No, but I found this motel key.” 

“Great, a motel key. How exciting,” JJ said, sarcastically.

Lottie suggested they report the sunken boat to the coastguard and hand in the key as well. She hoped whoever had been inside of it made it to shore safely, but if John B. had seen it out while Agatha raged, there was an unsettling chance that wasn’t the case. Someone could be out there, waiting for whoever it was to return home. She knew how awful it was to not know. It had taken the authorities three months to declare her dad dead and during those months, Lottie stayed hopeful that he’d walk right through the front door like nothing had happened at all. John B. still thought that could happen, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him waiting at that point was more or less pointless. 

An air of panic also tended to follow the day following a hurricane. It swirled around the people of the Cut, who swarmed the dispatched authorities. They weren’t the most helpful, yelling at overwhelmed people to relax as they tried to report their missing loved ones, pets, or belongings. 

John B. and JJ tried to report the boat, but they couldn’t get through the crowd or be listened to. So, they retreated to the rest of the group, still with the motel room key in hand. 

“What’d we do now?” 

John B. studied the key for a moment. “I know how we’re gonna find the guy who owns the boat.” Lottie recognized the glint in his eyes, a look of scheming that likely wouldn’t end well for them. 

The rest of the Pogues recognized it too, but only Pope had an issue with it. “No, no, no! We don’t even know what room that hey opens. It could belong to anyone.” 

JJ grinned, clapping John B. on the back. “I’m in.” 

“Come on,” Kie said to Pope. “We’ll be the lookouts.” 

John B. glanced at Lottie. “You in?” 

She was far too interested in the sunken boat to bow out. “I’m in. But,” she pointed between him and JJ. “You two aren’t snooping around on your own.” 

The blond scoffed, placing a hand over his heart as if he were truly offended. “Are you doubting our snooping abilities, Lot?” 

“One thousand percent.” 

The second the motel came into view, Lottie regretted agreeing to come. The place was a dump, and not just because of Agatha. It looked on the verge of being rundown, the perfect setting for a drug deal or a horror film. 

“If we die, I’m so gonna kill you,” Lottie muttered under her breath to John B. as they docked the boat along the grassy shore. She, her brother, and JJ all jumped out to snoop while Kie and Pope stayed on the boat as lookouts. 

Venturing through the motel’s yard, they wove through a maze of wet mattresses ready to be tossed and replaced. They added to the strong scent of cigarette smoke, seawater, and bad deciduous that filled the air. Luckily, there were many people around, and those who were didn’t seem to be paying them any mind. 

They hiked the stairs to the second floor, John B. leading the way. JJ grabbed hold of him, repeating the short exchange of words he had with Kie before they split way. “Be so careful,” JJ mocked, squeezing John B.’s cheeks. 

“Cut it out,” he groaned, shoving JJ off of him. 

“What was that all about, anyway?” JJ asked. 

John B. shrugged. “Maybe she just wanted us to be careful?” 

“No way,” JJ replied. “Ever since she heard you guys are being threatened with exile, Kie’s been all like, ‘be soooo careful, John B. When are you gonna give me that John D. already?’” John B. pushed JJ again, this time a little harder, sending him knocking into Lottie. She caught his arm before he could tumble over. 

The Pogues had a strict rule, there was to be no Pogue-on-Pogue macking. That just meant no kissing your friends. Feelings always made everything weird and overly complicated, so they set the rule to avoid any of that between them. They didn’t want any friendships to be ruined by something as trivial as kissing or catching feelings for each other. And they all agreed, thinking it’d be an easy rule to follow. But, Lottie had also noticed the weird tension between her brother and Kie as of late. As JJ had said, it started around the time the threat of DCS became more real. 

She knew Kiara better than the boys did, and she knew the tension wasn’t exactly a crush on Kie’s end. As for John B., he had a bad habit of falling for any girl who breathed in his direction. Whether it was because he was a hopeless romantic or a hormonal teenage boy, Lottie didn’t know, but she assumed it was a mix of both. 

“Shut up!” her brother hissed, annoyed. 

JJ, in very typical JJ fashion, was relentless and was not going to let John B. off the hook of that conversation easily. “Seriously, when are you gonna swoop on that, man?” 

“Ugh, JJ.” Lottie’s face pinched up in disgust. “Swoop on that? What does that even mean?” 

His lips quirked up in a smirk. “You wanna demonstration-” 

Throwing a harsh glare over his shoulder, John B. cut JJ off. “You know the rule. No Pogue-on-Pogue macking. Right?” The expression on her brother’s face was unreadable to Lottie, but JJ apparently understood whatever he was trying to convey. He nodded curtly and scratched the back of his neck in discomfort, dropping the conversation entirely. 

“This is it,” John B. said as they approached the motel room door, the last one at the end of the walkway. Lottie sucked in a breath nervously while JJ knocked his knuckles against the door. 

“Housekeeping,” JJ said in a high-pitched voice. No one answered, even after the second round of knocks. John B. passed the key over to JJ, who slowly twisted it in the lock and pushed the door open. 

The room was dark and void of anyone, but not of belongings. Someone had recently been there and left their duffle bag on the bed, along with a pile of clothes strewed about the floor. They split up, searching the items for any sort of identification. 

“He’s gotta be over fifty; he’d got new balances.” John B. held up the worn-out shoes. No names were on any of the clothing and he didn’t leave anything like a wallet or cell phone behind. 

On the nightstand was a collection of papers. JJ shined his flashlight on them as the three of them tried to find anything useful the guy had printed out or written down. “Maybe this is where they were finishing?” JJ pointed to a stick note of coordinates 

“No, that’s off the continental shelf,” John B. said. “That’s Big Swell; no one fishes there.” He could memories coordinates but not remember to pick up milk when Lottie asked him every day for a week. 

Looking through the rest of the papers, she noticed one tucked halfway under the old photo receiver. She picked it up, reading off a series of numbers. It didn’t have the right amount of numbers to be a phone number or a phone passcode. Lottie thought hard for a moment about what the series of numbers could be, until she remembered the one thing nearly all hotels and motels have, even the shittiest ones: safe.  

She flashed the paper to John B. and JJ. “Safe code?” 

John B. snatched the paper and hurried to the opposite side of the room, where a cabinet sat holding a coffee maker and lamp on top. He opened the door, revealing a safe resting on the bottom shelf, along with some of the man’s belongings shoved on the top shelf. 

As he typed in the code, Lottie and JJ hovered above him in anxious anticipation. The little light flickered green and a low ‘click’ sounded from the safe as if unlocked. Lottie half laughed and half scoffed. “What kind of idiot leaves the code of their safe lying around like that?” 

“Someone asking to get robbed,” JJ replied. “Anything good in there?” 

“Uh, y-yeah.” 

Lottie and JJ bent down to see inside the safe. She was positive she had never seen so much cash in her entire life. There were stacks of cash, hundred dollar bills neatly secured in bundles that were packed bottom to top of the safe. Smack dab in the middle laid a handgun, and a large folder was shoved on top of the stacks of cash. 

“Holy shit,” JJ whispered, his hands reaching right inside the safe, but he didn’t go for the money. JJ grabbed the gun. 

“Dude!” Lottie scolded. “Don’t touch that!” 

He laughed, elated as he held the gun like some kind of action movie hero. “This is a SIG Sauer.” 

“Put it down!” John B. said. 

“Come on! We have to take this thing-” 

Lottie shook her head. “We’re not here to steal anything!” 

With a roll of his eyes, he held up his hands in defense, still holding onto the gun and making Lottie nervous. He dug around in his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “At least take a picture of me with it.” 

“You want me to take a picture of you with someone else gun we found in a locked safe of a motel room we broke into?” 

JJ pressed his lips in a thin line, contemplating whether or not she had a point. Lottie almost always had a point, but he liked to push her buttons no matter if it was obvious or not. 

Before they could argue anymore, something hit the far side window, alerting them. John B. peaked out of the blinds. “It’s Kie and Pope,” he whispered. The three of them looked at their friends two stories below frantically waving their arms and pointing toward the front of the motel to warn them of something. 

Lottie hurried across the bed and carefully peeked out the front-facing window. Two police officers stood outside the door. She cursed under her breath as icy dread filled her veins. 

“Cops!” she whispered to the boys. Her mind raced with every awful outcome of them being caught as the cops knocked on the door. If they weren’t arrested, they’d shove her and John B. into the arms of DCS, who’d ship them off to some foster home, far from their home and their friends. JJ’s dad would give him endless hell for being caught, Kiara’s parents would have a good excuse to put her on house arrest, and Pope could lose his scholarship. It was bad, really bad. 

She felt herself start to panic, a tightness pulling in her chest that she could only focus on instead of a plan to get them out of the mess they were potentially in. Luckily, JJ was a lot quicker on his feet and better at wiggling his way out of trouble. He told John B. to get out the window before he grabbed Lottie’s hand and hurried her out after her brother. 

There was a small awning to stand on that covered the window of the room below. The thin ledge was just a little bit longer than the window itself, allowing the three of them to press themselves up against the side of the building, just out of view of someone peering out the window. 

Lottie closed her eyes tightly, trying to calm herself down. They’d had run-ins with the cops before but for stupid things like hanging out at unfinished Kook homes or arguing with the rich kids from time to time. The items in the safe made their ordeal feel more damning. 

Through a small crack in the blinds, John B. watched what was happening inside. On the other side of the window, JJ and Lottie stood in heart-pounding anticipation. It wouldn’t take much for the cops inside to spot them, or someone below to see them very suspiciously hanging out on the side of the building. 

“Everybody’s gotta dip their beak,” the faint voice of one of the cops filled Lottie’s ears. John B. looked over at them with wide eyes and furrowed brows, confused at whatever he was seeing. 

As quietly as she could, she scooted closer to JJ and whispered in his ear, “What’re they doing?” 

He turned to look at her, making them stand nose-to-nose as he mouthed, “Stealing.” That didn’t sound super cop-like. 

JJ tried to shift subtly, but as he did so, something slipped from his hands. The stupid gun. It clattered loudly against the awning before it hit the ground with a thud. Lottie held her breath, positive they were going to be caught after that. 

The blinds were pulled up and the three tried to melt into the side of the building. It felt like an hour before the cop stopped looking for something outside. Lottie heard him say, “All right, let’s go,” and relaxed just slightly, not believing how close of a call that was. 

They waited until they heard the motel room door click close and the cops’ footsteps fade away before they climbed down onto the grass using a drain pipe. The second Lottie’s sandals hit the ground, she bee-lined for the boat with the boys hot on her heels. They weren’t even fully on the boat before Pope started to make their getaway, hauling ass far from the cops and the motel. 

“The cops took everything like it was a crime scene,” said Pope. “Did you guys find anything?” 

Lottie still felt like her heart was about to beat out of her chest, but JJ looked unphased. A cocky smirk rested on his lips. “Did we find anything? Oh, I don’t know, just these bad boys!” He pulled out one of the stacks of cash he must’ve swiped from the safe and the gun he must’ve picked up on their run back to the boat. 

Pope’s eye looked ready to pop out of his head. “Why would you take that from a crime scene?!” He ran his hands down the length of his face, visibly panicked and frustrated. “I’m gonna lose my Merit Scholarship.” 

It was secret that Pope was the smartest of the bunch, the one with already set plans to get out of the Cut and make something wonderful of himself. He was a shoo-in for a fancy, full-ride scholarship that would help his dreams of becoming a mortician a reality. The thing was, those scholarships were only awards to kids who were clean-cut or, at the very least, weren’t getting arrested. Pope had always been the voice of reason among the Pogues, reeling them in when they pushed it too far. He had a future to protect. 

“Hey, at least you have us, right?” said JJ, to no comfort of Pope. 

“I’m living the nightmare.” 

Back at the docks, there was even more commotion than there had been earlier that day. An ambulance and a collection of police officers stood around as a body was wheeled down the dock, bloated and dead. 

The Pogues joined a group of other kids watching the scene unfold with morbid curiosity. Lottie stared at her shoes, more fascinated by them than the dead body that made her stomach churn. 

A woman’s cries flooded the air as she met the gurney with the body. 

“Who is that?” John B. asked one of the kids in the group. 

“Scooter Grubbs,” a girl replied. “He was out during the storm.” 

All of the Pogues had the same thought, it was written not-so-subtly on their faces. 

“Do you know what kind of boat he had?” 

The girl laughed. “Yeah, somehow that dirtbag copped a brand-new Grady-White. Everyone’s out looking for it.” They all shared a look, realizing they were currently the only people who knew exactly where Scooter Grubbs had gone down. 

Back at the Chateau, the Pogues gathered in various levels of unease and curiosity. Pope was outwardly the most worried, pacing back and forth across the porch as he tried to come up with some kind of plan. “Okay, so we didn’t see anything, and we don’t know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia.” 

“Pope’s right, for once,” said JJ. “Deny, deny, deny.” 

“We can’t keep that money,” Kie said. “It’s bad karma.” 

JJ rolled his eyes dramatically. “Not all of us can afford an unlimited data plan, Kiara.” 

“She’s right,” Lottie came to Kie’s defense. “We can’t keep Lana Grubb’s dead husband’s money. What if she needs it for his funeral or something?” It felt wrong to spend it on whatever bullshit she knew they’d blow it on while Lana’s sobs still rang in Lottie’s ears. She didn’t know the woman, but no one deserved that kind of heartbreak, even if her husband was a slightly shady marina rat. 

Pope finally stopped pacing and fell onto the couch, squished between Kie and Lottie. “You know what else is bad karma? Being implicated in a felony. We’ve gotta go dark.” 

“If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree,” JJ said. 

Lottie huffed in annoyance. “Really?” 

John B. seemed to have more sense than JJ. He patted the blond on the shoulder and said, “I don’t agree.” If JJ was outnumbered, he'd have no choice but to go along with their plan instead of his own. 

“What? Why?” 

“Think about it, JJ. This is Scooter Grubbs we’re talking about. He’s the same dude who’s buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. One time I saw him begging for change outside the Save-A-Lot because he needed gas. We’re talking about a dirtbag marina rat who’s never had more than forty bucks in his pocket, and now he’s got a brand-new Grady-White?” 

It was suspicious. No one from the Cut made that kind of money that quickly. The people there were the kind who were born poor and stayed poor. Sure, there were a few success stories, but nothing of grandeur. No one was striking gold in the Cut, certainly not people like Scooter Grubbs. 

“How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?” John B. proposed the question, seemingly already knowing the answer. 

Pope glanced at him unamused. “Prostitution?” 

“No. Why would he be out in the middle of a hurricane? Because he was trying to fly under the radar. What does that mean, JJ?” 

“It means they were straight smugglin’.” 

John B. nodded. “Straight smuggling. And I guarantee you there’s a serious amount of contraband in that wreck.” 

Pope seemed to be contemplating John B.’s words, as was Lottie. They could give that stack of cash to Lana and make their own with whatever was left behind in the wreck. She didn’t love the idea of using contraband to make quick cash, but she’d be lying if she said they couldn’t use it. John B. made some money helping Kooks take care of their fancy boats and Lottie had her lifeguard job, but they both were meager part-time gigs. They didn’t have a parent to support them, bringing home a stable check each week; they were on their own. 

“If it is a smudging ship with illegal contraband inside of it, it probably belongs to someone else and they could come looking for it,” said Pope. “Taking it would be catastrophically stupid.” 

Waving around the bundle of cash, JJ said, “Well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time. All we need to do is figure out a way to get into the cargo hold of that wreck. Until then, we lay low and act normal.” 

“Right, and how exactly do we do that?” asked Pope, looking worn down enough to agree with whatever stupid plan they’d eventually draw up. 

Kie and Lottie exchanged a look, one they had a hundred times before. In unison, they replied, “Kegger,” and set their next mission in motion.

[f444keitflowers]

Yellowjackets characters as Boygenius songs !!

Taissa Turner - Souviner

Always managed to move in / right next to the cemeteries / and never far from hospitals / I don't know what that tells you about me / pulling thorns out of my palm / working midnight surgery / when I cut a hole into my skull / do you hate what you see? / like I do.

Vanessa Plamer - Emily i’m sorry

Headed straight for the concrete / in a nightmare / screaming / now i’m wide awake /spiralling / and you dont wanna talk / just take me back to montreal / i’ll get a real job / you’ll go back to school / we can burn out / in the freezing cold / and just get lost / Emily i’m sorry baby / you know how I get / when i’m wrong / and I can feel myself becoming somebody i’m not / I’m not sorry

Jackie taylor - Cool about it

I came prepared for absolution / if you’d only ask / so I take some offense when you say “no regrets” / […] / once I took your medication / to know what it’s like / and now I have to act like/ I cant read your mind / I ask you how you’re doing / and I let you lie / but we dont have to talk about it / I can walk you home / and practice method acting / i’ll pretend being with you doesn’t feel like drowning / telling you it’s nice to see / how good you’re doing / even though we know / it isn’t true.

Shauna Shipman - Letter to an old poet

I said "I think that you're special" / you told me once that I'm selfish / and I kissed you hard / in the dark / in the closet / […] / you don't know me / I wanna be happy / I'm ready / to walk into my room / without looking for you / I'll go up to the top of our building / and remember my dog / when I see the full moon / I can't feel it yet / but I am waiting

Lottie Matthews - Not strong enough

Always an angel / never a god / always an angel / never a god / I don't know why I am / the way I am / There's something in the static / I think I've been having / revelations / Coming to / in the front seat / nearly empty / Skip the exit / to our old street and go home / Go home alone

Laura Lee - Without you without them

give me everything you’ve got / i’ll take what I can get / I want to hear your story / and be a part of it / thank your father before you / his mother before him / who would I be without you without them? / speak to me / until your histories / no mystery to me.

Natalie Scatorccio - Revolution 0

If it isn't love / then what the fuck is it? / I guess just let me pretend / I don't want to die / That's a lie / But I'm afraid to get sick / I don't know what that is / You wanted a song / So it's gonna be a short one / Wish I wasn't so tired / But I'm tired / If you're not enough / Then I give up/ and then nothing is / I used to think if I just closed my eyes / I would disappear.

Misty Quigley - Stay Down

I wasn’t a fighter til somebody told me i’d better learn / to lean into the punch / so it don’t hurt as bad / when they leave / there you were / turning my cheek / i look at you / and you look at a screen / i’m in the backseat of my body / i’m just steering my life / in a video game / similar accent / a different name / it’s a slow down / so would you teach me im the villain / aren’t I / aren’t I the one / constantly repenting for a difficult mind

[romance-lover77]

Newt Scamander x Fem Muggle reader

Plot: Your’s and Newt’s daughter asks for a baby sibling

Warning: Smut +18 (sorry if the smut writing is horrible) Part 2 is the link below

You’ve been married to Newt Scamander for 5 years now and you guys have a little girl of 4 years, she is a half-blood since you are a muggle. You and Newt met each other during the dark age of Grindelwald since Jacob Kowalski was your store neighbor because you owned a bookstore and coffee shop. One day while Jacob and Queenie were on vacation for their Honeymoon. Newt appeared injured and you happened to find him and brought him to your apartment. You knew nothing about the wizarding world and you had no idea who Newt was. You healed him and Newt had asked if he could stay with you for a few weeks because he had to stay hidden. So Newt and you spent weeks together and in that time you guys bonded and he educated you about the wizarding world/magic and his magical creatures. You fell in love with his magical creatures and with him. He also fell in love with you, deeply. You guys got married when the dark age Grindlewald was over. Now living in London in a cottage with your daughter and your husband Newt.

It was night and you were tucking in your daughter to sleep and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Goodnight Lottie my sweetie” you smiled and Lottie smiled.”Goodnight mommy”. You were about to leave until Lottie spoke. “Umm mommy I actually wanted to ask something for my birthday since it’s coming up”. This really brought you curiosity since it was rare for Lottie to ask for anything, she was exactly like her father Newt selfless and always did the right thing. “ohh yea sure sweetie you can tell me, Me and daddy will try our best on getting you the present you want”. You smile happily. Lottie looked a little nervous and was playing with her hands which made you wonder why she was acting that way. “Well I was wondering if you and daddy can-can give me a baby brother or sister for my birthday”. You were in shock and blushing really hard since obviously your daughter didn’t know how babies are made and where they come from, it actually wasn’t that easy. You really didn’t know how to explain to her that it’s not that easy and you didn’t know if Newt wanted another baby.You would be happy to have another baby but maybe Newt didn’t want another baby. “Sweetie” you sit on her bed where she’s laying. “I’m sorry to tell you but that birthday wish won’t be really easy to grant, maybe me and daddy won’t be able to”. Lottie looked a little sad and looked down “why?”. You felt bad and said “well…. because babies are really expensive and right now we can’t afford to have one right now” . you really tried your best to come up with a lie, hopefully that she would accept it though you did wish you could give her a baby brother or sister. Lottie frowned and said “oh it’s okay mommy I understand”. You really felt bad, you really did and your curiosity took over. “Lottie sweetie, where did you get the idea of wanting a baby sibling?” Lottie, still looking down says “well it’s because I see other kids have brothers and sisters, always looks like they have fun and share. I want someone to share with and play with. and also uncle Theasus always tells me stories about him and daddy having fun as kids. so I thought maybe you know…”

Now you understand it all, Lottie felt lonely since she didn’t have any friends. She acts shy and antisocial just like Newt. She was exactly like Newt, special. and other kids thought Lottie was strange. Which hurt you because she was your daughter she didn’t deserve that. You disliked kids who picked on your precious daughter and hoped one day there would be kids wanting to be friends with her. Now you really didn’t know what to say, but now you wanted to do something about it. You hug Lottie who then hugs you back. “Oh sweetie I know what you are feeling, I'm sorry that you feel lonely, I just want you to know that I love you and that I'm here okay. And I'll see what I can do okay I have to discuss this with your daddy”.

Lottie felt excited and smiled “is that a maybe!?”. You chuckle “don’t get excited your daddy also has to be involved in this, I just want you to know if Daddy and me decide no, please understand. Like I said a baby can be expensive, but if Daddy and I decide yes just know that the baby won’t be here for your birthday it might take some time okay?”

Lottie smiles and says” I understand mommy!, thank you for considering it!”

she kissed your cheek.you loved seeing your daughter happy. “Alright now little missie you gotta go to sleep now it’s late, Goodnight”

You get up and as you're standing at the doorway Lottie says “Goodnight mommy!” you smile and turn off the light and close the door. Now that was the moment that you started to feel nervous that you had to ask Newt if he wanted to have another baby.

Newt has been a bit busy lately with traveling and helping magical creatures around the world. He literally just got back from scotland today and was now working on some paperwork that he had to do. He must be exhausted and you probably imagined this wouldn’t be the right time to ask and discuss but you knew that this had to be the time. So you go to yours and Newt’s bedroom, you see that his suitcase was in the ground and immediately knew that he was down in the habitats taking care of his creatures. So you go down there and see him without his coat on, only his waistcoat or vest and his white dress shirt sleeves rolled up. You thought he looked so handsome, still wondering how he fell in love with you. Newt was taking care of the graphorns and you walked up to him. “Hi honey, what are you doing?”

Newt looks at you and smiles “Hi love, i’m just seeing how the graphorns are doing, is our sweetie in bed?”

you smile because you know how much Newt loves yours and his daughter, you loved how he was such a good Father. “Yes she is sound asleep now and well I know that you’re busy but I came down here wanting to talk to you about something and it has to do something about Lottie’s birthday”.

Newt looks at you curiously and feels kind of worried that it might be something serious. “Is everything okay?”. you smile kind of nervously and play around with your hands and Newt noticed this. He knows that when you play around with your hands it means that you are nervous about something. Newt got kind of worried and frowned .”Oh no no, everything is fine umm you know what I’ll just wait until you come to bed, if not and i know that you are really busy, we can talk about this tomorrow, Goodnight..”. You just speed walk away without letting Newt answer back and you get out of the suitcase. Newt couldn’t focus on work seeing you nervous like this, he got worried so he tried finishing his chores as fast as he could so he could speak with you.

You got dressed for bed and were now laying in bed reading a book that you enjoyed. When Newt got out of the suitcase and locked it as soon as he got out of it. He looked at you reading and noticing how you were a bit shaky. He was about to speak when you looked at him and said “Newt I prepared your bath for you, you can take a bath now”. Newt frowned but he knew he should take a bath first so he can talk calmly with you. So he went to the bathroom.

As soon as he left ,you put your hand on your chest and took a deep breath. You are really nervous to actually tell him, thinking maybe he doesn’t want anymore kids or maybe he doesn’t desire you. And just thinking of making love with Newt makes you so nervous. You and Newt haven’t done it in a while since he’s been very busy with work and you thought maybe he wouldn’t like your body anymore, and you did gain a bit of weight. You were feeling really insecure.

Newt got out of the bathroom and was in pajamas, ready for bed. You tried not to make eye contact with him and he sat next to you in bed noticing how you were avoiding eye contact. Newt then says “My love, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about Lottie’s birthday?”

You gulp and slowly put your book down and still without any eye contact you say “ well….. you see, Lottie did something very unusual, she asked me for a birthday present”.

Newt smiles, his heart warmed because his daughter finally asked for something and thinking that he will happily give anything for his precious daughter.”That’s brilliant!, what did she ask for?”

That's when you gulp and stare down at your fingers and start playing with them. “She asked for well ummm… a baby brother or sister”. Newt’s eyes widened, being really surprised with the birthday wish his daughter wanted.

You noticed the silence and you started to feel the panic and imagined that Newt was going to say how he doesn’t wanna have kids with you anymore.

Newt then spoke with his eyes still widened “what did you tell her ?”

“Well I told her that I had to discuss it with you first but she shouldn’t get excited because a baby can be expensive and well it’s not easy to get a baby, so now we are here to discuss it”.

Newt is now blushing and looks away shyly now, him not making eye contact but you thought this meant that he didn’t want to have a baby.

he then says “what do you think?”

you then take a deep breath and with a shaky voice “well if i’m being completely honest Newt I want to have a baby, and our daughter said that the reason she wants a sibling is because she sees other kids with their siblings playing and that she wants to experience that.” you finally look at Newt in the eyes with a sad expression and Newt looks at you too and sees that expression, while frowning. “Oh Newt.. our daughter is so lonely and you know she doesn’t have any friends and it hurts me. This is a birthday present I am willing to give. I don’t want her to be an only child, I don’t want her to grow up lonely. I know sometimes you dislike your brother Theasus but you guys are there for each other and you guys had your fun times together. I want Lottie to have that.. but I would understand if you don’t want to have kids anymore”.

Newt then hugs you which surprises you because he barely hugs. He then whispers in your ear. “I am also willing to give Lottie her present”. Which sent shivers down your spine then he ends the hug and faces you again and cups your face. “who said I didn’t want kids anymore, I want to have many kids with you y/n even if it’s 8 or more”. Your face turns completely red, feeling your heart beat really fast.

You then clear your throat and look away in embarrassment “Well that means that we have to try and make a baby as soon as possible, it’s been a while since we’ve done it because you’ve been busy with work and we hadn’t had a chance and I’m sorry if i’m not as good as I use to be because i’ve gained some weight”.

Newt just smiles and thinks how cute you are just rambling but Newt did agree that he’s been busy and you guys haven’t had the chance to do it in a while. He’s actually been wanting to do it since forever and was always upset that work wouldn't give him a chance to make love to you. He missed your body so much, he missed caressing it and kissing it. He missed your soft lips against his. He missed you so much that when he would travel he would have to pleasure himself to calm himself down. He also didn’t want to bother you because he wanted to do it so much that he wouldn’t mind how late it would be to do it after he finished work but he knew how tired you were after being a stay home mom. Doing the chores in the house and taking care of Lottie, you would even sometimes help him feed his creatures when he was doing paperwork that he had to finish.

He just smiled and said “you have no idea how i’ve been wanting to make love to you ,my y/n. I don’t care if you lost weight or gained weight or whatever weight I love you, let’s make a baby”.

You smile and blush”I love you too Newt, i’m ready”.

Newt starts kissing you, both your tongues have a fight with passion. Newt starts to unbutton your pijama and lay you down on the bed getting on top of you. He then starts kissing your neck and you close your eyes in pleasure. You start helping Newt unbutton his pijama as well and taking off each other's pants and underwear, all clothing imaginable. Leaving both of you naked and all your clothes on the ground. You saw Newt’s erection making you feel wet down there and hungry for him. Newt then starts sucking on your tits, his tongue slurping them making you let out a small moan. He then starts caressing your whole body and especially your hips and legs. He loves how thicker you got and soft and plump you feel, making him get bigger down there. he kisses you again, your tongues touching and then puts a finger on your clit and starts rubbing it making you let out gasp mixed with a moan “ahhhh! oh my goodness!” You could literally feel his member get even bigger and rubbing your abdomen making you ache for him. Newt then with both hands cups your breasts and starts massaging them while kissing your neck, how much pleasure he was giving you. You literally couldn’t resist anymore. You need him inside you now. you start moving your hips back and forward aching for him. “Newt please I need you ! I can’t resist anymore” Newt agreed he also couldn’t resist anymore and now you were so wet. Newt lifts up your legs over his shoulders and spreads them finally putting his member inside you making you both moan. At first Newt started with a slow rhythm, pulling it out and back in slowly which still felt amazing for you until Newt started thrusting faster making you moan uncontrollably “AHHH!!!!! NEWT! OH MY!!!!! FASTER!!!PLEASE!!!.

Newt was also moaning and grunting in great pleasure. Both of your bodies sweating, the sweat making your skin sticky and making smacking noises, even more friction, skin to skin. Newt was going crazy because now he was pounding you vigorously that it made you eyes roll back making you feel euphoria. “AHHHH-TH-I-I-S F-E-E-LS S-O-O GOOD!. Newt also moaned “Ahh Fuck! Y/N you’re so tight. He started thrusting faster feeling like he was almost coming to an end as well as you. He felt your walls close around his member. “AHHH!!! I’M COMING!!!!” and you came onto his member, Newt still needed a few more thrusts until he came ,spilling his seed inside you. “BUGGAR! ah!”. Both of you panting and sweating, lowered down your legs. He lowered down and kissed your lips and you kissed back. He was still inside you, taking it out making you let out a whimper. Both yours lips separate and he stares at you with so much love saying “I love you y/n” and you too stare at him with love saying “I love you too Newt”

Newt just lays aside you, spooning you and the blankets over you guys.Newt's nose nuzzling your neck and cheek.

“Oh Newt that was amazing, how much I missed doing this”

“I missed it too we should make time to do it more often and I want to impregnate you many times”

You just giggled “first we have to keep trying for this one until I get pregnant, hopefully this is the target”

Then you gasp in horror, making Newt jump a little and freak out a little.

“What’s wrong ,my love?”

You then cover your eyes with your hands feeling shame. “Newt oh gosh, We probably woke up Lottie and she heard us, we were really loud this time and you didn’t put on the Muffliato charm, or did you? please tell me you did”

Newt got pale because he realized that he forgot to put on the Muffliato charm and you guys were really loud that probably even all the creatures could hear in the inside of his suitcase.

Newt slowly says to you “I-I forgot to do it, we were so in the moment that I forgot to cast it”

You also got very pale and covered your face in so much shame .Thinking how you probably traumatized Lottie and thinking what you would tell her if she asked what the noise was coming up from your room last night. you were hoping that Lottie was deep asleep and heard nothing.

It was the next morning and you woke up like being hit by a truck because you only got a few hours of sleep since the rest of the night you couldn’t sleep just thinking of your daughter Lottie might have heard you and Newt last night. You look at your right and see Newt still peacefully sleeping. He did sleep all night because he’s been very tired from work and plus obviously making love takes a lot of energy. Just looking at him sleep so peacefully makes a smile appear on your face and you reach out your hand to his face caressing it gently. You thought “how did I deserve you Newt?”. You get out of the zone, sit up from bed and stretch your arms. “Okay now to get up to make breakfast for both my loves”. you then proceed to stand up from bed but then there is a painful feeling on your abdomen which makes you fall onto the floor with a loud thump, You also start groaning from the pain and that loud thump woke up Newt. The first thing he noticed that you weren’t on the side of the bed and heard you groaning. He immediately got worried and jerked up from bed running to the other side and saw you there laying on the ground in pain. His eyes widened and kneeled to the ground next to you holding your upper half of you body to sit you up, just the slightest movement on your abdomen made it hurt. Making you groan “ah ah ow”. Newt again worried and scared asked you “love are you okay? what’s wrong?”. You look up at him feeling bad for making him worried. “I'm okay Newt don’t worry it’s just that my abdomen is in pain, I think since we haven’t had sex in a long while that I wasn’t used to it anymore and last night you pounded into me a little too hard.” Newt looked horrified and guilty for making you be in pain. “Love, I'm so sorry for hurting you…, you need some rest”. He proceeds to carry you bridal style and places you on the bed. Newt then starts to freak out and cover you with the blanket and fluff your pillow. “I'm going to make breakfast a-and help Lottie get ready and wash the dishes”. Newt starts saying all this too fast until you interrupt him to calm him down. “Newt Newt! please calm down, please don’t feel guilty, it wasn’t your fault i’m the one who told you to go faster anyways it’s because we haven’t done it in a long while and my body wasn’t used to it anymore. I’m gonna be okay, okay? Please don’t worry, like you said all I need is rest”.

Newt calms down and just nods while not making eye contact because he’s embarrassed. You smile and tell him to come to you which he does. You reach out your arms and pull him closer to you. Both your faces inches apart, you start kissing him and he starts kissing back. His hands on your hips and your hands cupping his face. The kiss ended and both of you separated. Just nuzzling each other's noses. “Newt, can you please make breakfast and help Lottie get ready for the day ”. Newt says “anything for you love” and kisses you one last time. Then he separated from you. While you read your book in bed he started to dress up. Putting on his trousers, white dress shirt, waistcoat and his boots. You must admit you couldn’t resist staring at him; he looked so attractive with his waistcoat. He then placed a kiss on your cheek saying “alright love i'm going to make breakfast and help Lottie get ready for the day”. You smiled ,whispered a thank you and he left the room.

He went to Lottie’s room and sat on her bed, where she was sleeping peacefully. He smiled because he loved his little girl and he hasn’t seen her for weeks since he went to scotland for work and arrived yesterday in the afternoon unable to see her since he had to be done with some papers for work for that same day, and take care of his creatures. He then gently starts moving her shoulder so she could wake up. “Sweetie… Sweetie, it's time to wake up”. Lottie opens her eyes slowly and looks up at Newt, it took her a second to realize that it was her daddy. When she did she stood up so fast in excitement and yelled, “Daddy you’re back!I missed you so much!”. She hugs him and he hugs her too. He smiles and says “I missed you too my sweetie”. Lottie then jerks back and is now facing Newt with such excitement “Did you see the dragons!!!?”. Newt chuckles by the excitement Lottie was showing. “Yes I did and they were huge, their skin was very dark, and very spiky and their eyes purple”. Lottie’s eyes widened with amazement and said “wow amazing!!!! I wish I could have seen it!”. Newt chuckles “one day you will when you are older”. Lottie was so much like her father, they liked and disliked almost the same things, Lottie was shy and antisocial like him, she loved creatures just like him, she even looked like him. Green eyes, freckles on face, same nose, same colored hair, but she did get some qualities from you, her mother. She got your face shape, she got your long luscious eyelashes and your lips as well.

Lottie then looked serious, looked down at her hands and started playing with them. Newt noticed this and frowned. He knew what this meant, because you would also do it and Newt learned that whenever you did that meant you were nervous and Lottie had gotten that from you. He asked “what’s wrong sweetie?”

Lottie looks up and says “I talked with mommy yesterday and I told her that I want a baby brother or sister for my birthday and she said that she would discuss it with you. Did mommy and you talk?”

Newt grinned now knowing why Lottie was acting that way. “Mommy and me did discuss it yesterday”

Lotties eyes widened “And!?”

Newt smiled softly, “mommy and me decided that you deserve to have that gift but just so you know it’s going to take some time”

A big smile appeared on Lottie’s face and hugged Newt so tightly. “Oh thank you daddy I love you so much! I can wait!”

Newt again hugged Lottie “I love you too sweetie”

Newt then says “Now it’s time to get ready for the day, I'm going to help you get ready today”. Lottie smiled and got up on her feet and started jumping on her bed “yay!”

Newt helps Lottie pick out her clothes ,put on her shoes, and brush her hair then it was now time for breakfast.

They both got down to the kitchen and Newt started making breakfast while Lottie was on the table drawing. Newt was horrible at cooking even magic couldn’t help him but he was trying, he wanted to help you since he knew that being a stay home mom was also a hard job and also because you were sick. Newt made some kind of burnt porridge pancakes, some burnt scrambled eggs and banana smoothies. He literally did what you usually do for every Saturday Breakfast. As he was making the banana smoothies. Lottie asked him about you. “Daddy I just realized where’s mommy? why isn’t she here?”

Newt while busy answers,”mommy isn’t feeling well today so that’s why i’m making breakfast”. Lottie then furrowed her eyes with worry for you. She then asked while Newt was trying some of the banana smoothie to see how it tasted. “Daddy, is that why I heard mommy yell really loud last night? because she was in pain?”.

Newt eyes widened and spits the smoothie harshly by the shock. Newt’s whole face became red in embarrassment and shame. Lottie did hear after all and now he didn’t know what to tell her. He was hating himself for forgetting to cast that damn spell.

Newt couldn’t make eye contact with his daughter and just slouched a bit, looking at the floor. “w-well sweetie y-yes.. your mom was in pain last night and couldn’t sleep”. Lottie nodded her head in understandment which made Newt ease a bit but Lottie again asked “I understand but why did I keep hearing the bed make noises daddy?”. Once again Newt tensed up, unable to come up with a lie and answered. “w-well since her back is in pain I was helping your mommy and I was massaging her which made the bed make noise”. Lottie then said “ohhh that makes sense, I really hope mommy gets better”. Newt sighs in relief and calms down. Thinking that next time he will remember to put that spell.

A month has passed and you did get pregnant which made you and Newt so happy. You both had to explain to Lottie that the baby was in your stomach and in 9 months the baby would arrive. Lottie never felt more excited though she did feel a bit sad that it takes a long while. You and Newt had told all your friends and family about the pregnancy news. Everyone was Jacob, Queenie, Tina, Dumbledore, Theasus, Bunty, Professor Hicks and Kama.

Newt of course had made more time for you, and some of that time was making love and actually remembering to put the spell on everytime now.

[citygirlcharlotte]

The Sister Halstead (Part 12)

Pairings: Hank Voight x Female OC, Will & Jay Halstead x Sister!OC

Note: Guess who's back!

Warning: None

As I suspected, Henry looked slightly miserable standing amongst my father and brothers who have conveniently found a group of my fathers friends to chat up. 

“Baby?” I said, garnering his attention. 

I could see the relief on his face as he pulled me in for a hug and a kiss on the forehead. 

“About time you got here.” He grumbled. 

“Is that little charlotte?” A booming voice echoed from behind Hank. I turned around to see the mob of my fathers friends suddenly less interested in their conversation and too focused on me. 

“In the flesh, but I’m not so little anymore.” I joked. 5 of my dads old buddies as well as uncle Ward stood gawking. 

“My my, have you grown.” One commented super creepily. 

Jay looked at him like “The Fuck”.

I had to spend the next 10 minutes catching up with those old timers before the baby got hungry and I demanded we get lunch. 

“How was golfing?” My mom asked. 

Jay and Henry let out a groan of discontent while Will and my dad started bragging about their swings. 

“Let’s just say that I’m a better cop than a golfer.” Jay joked. 

“I second that.” Henry agreed. 

Everything on the menu seemed to be calling my name at this point but the steak and lobster seemed to be the best. 

“Seriously, what is this detox you’re on that you eat steak and lobster?” Jay grumbled. 

“It’s a girl thing, you would get it.” I told him, refusing the alcohol that got sent to the table by my dads friends. 

“You’re not drinking again? Good, you’ll be DD.” My mom joked. 

Lunch went by relatively easily with me stuffing my face and stealing off of Henry and Jay’s plates. 

“So Henry, tell me about yourself.” My mom started.

I glanced over, seeing if he would be comfortable answering the question and watching him down his scotch. 

“There’s not much to me ma’am. I spend most of my time being a cop and loving your daughter.” He joked, trying to coast past the subject. 

“Do you have any kids?” She asked persistently. I glared at my mother because she already knew the answer to that. 

“My son Justin passed away.” He replied quietly. 

I gently grabbed his hand under the table as will successfully changed the subject.

“You have to tell us what Charlie was like as a kid.” He gushed, engaging both of my parents. 

“Charlie was her fathers shadow! There’s nothing Charles did that she wasn’t right behind him or attached to his leg. I swear this girl got everything she ever wanted because she batted her eyes and said please.” My mom laughed. 

“I was her favorite until she got over cooties and all the boys came knocking on our door.” My dad added. We spiraled into old boyfriend stories and bad prom nights before someone approached our table. 

“Lottie?” A voice asked. 

I turned to the side to an ex-boyfriend, one I particularly am not fond of. 

“Oh fuck no.” I swore, trying to shoo him away before my mom scolded me for being rude. 

“Daemon, how good to see you!” She beamed, getting up to pull him into a hug. 

I slowly retreated into Henry’s side as Jay moved closer to us. 

“Aren’t you going to say hi?” My dad asked, moving to shake my ex’s hand. 

“Daemon.” I scowled, making no effort to move. 

“Good to see you Lottie, it’s been a while. You haven’t been around much.” He smiled. 

I debated throwing my steak knife at his face but decided better of it. 

“No reason to come back.” 

That earned me a glare from my mother. 

“Who’s this guy?” Jay whispered at me.

“Cheating ex-boyfriend.” I whispered back. 

“Whose these guys?” Daemon asked, eyeing the whispering. 

“Brother, brother, boyfriend.” I carelessly pointed out. This man was not worth any of my energy. 

“Brothers? You never told me you had brothers.” He asked.

“Surprise.”

“Are you in town long? I’d love to catch up.” He tried.

“I don’t associate with cheating ex’s but it was interesting to see you. I hope we never have this experience again.” I smiled, flipping him off before leaning my back to Henry’s shoulder. 

“You cheated on my daughter?” My dad gasped, seemingly not knowing this information. 

“Um, I should go.” Daemon back pedaled. 

“You should run.” Jay smirked.

“Want me to kill him?” Henry whispered to me.

“He’s not worth it.” I smiled, giving him a soft kiss. 

I could hear Will and Jay gaging at the table. 

“Still not used to that.” Jay mumbled. 

“How is it Jay? Your sister dating your boss.” My dad asked, trying to gauge a reaction. 

“Don’t love it but I try to ignore it since Charlie’s happy.” He replied. 

“Here here.” Will agreed, raising his drink. 

“I think it’s cute. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Charlie in love.” My mom commented. 

“Mom.” I whined like a little girl. 

“Just saying.” 

We ended up escaping the country club in favor of lounging my the pool that afternoon. It was hilarious to see Jay and Will on top of flamingo and unicorn inflatables. It was even funnier to see Henry in swim shorts with palm trees. 

“Really honey? This is what you packed?” he complained as he approached me. 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mom subtly checking him out. 

“Mother!” I scolded, hitting her with my book. 

“Sorry sweetie, he was in my line of site!” She defended, cracking up laughing. 

“Leave room for jesus you two!” Will called from the pull. 

“Shut up carrot top.” I yelled back. 

“You have the same hair dummy.” Jay reminded. 

“See sweetie, this is what it would have been like 24/7 if you grew up with brothers. You should be lucky you got a break before this.” My dad commented.

“She loves us. I don’t think she could live without us at this point.” Will laughed. 

“And I don’t plan on it!” 

I ended up getting really tired and turning into Henry's side. He’s gotten into the habit of holding my stomach while we sleep and today was no exception. I personally thought it was adorable. 

When everyone thought I was asleep, that’s when the real questioning started.

“How did you meet our dad.” Jay asked my mom. 

“At a bar. I was barely 21 and about to leave Chicago for college when I stumbled upon your father. I figured why not be a little wild just this once and let loose. I found out 3 months into the semester that I was pregnant with Charlie and tracked your dad down planning to at least let him know but when I got to the house, I saw the two of you running around the back yard and him watching you two from the porch. I knew then that I didn’t want to hurt anyone so I left and never looked back.” I heard her confess. 

“If it makes you feel better, he wasn’t a good dad. Charlie was lucky to have grown up with you guys.” Jay lamented. 

“I heard he passed, my condolences.” My mom offered. 

“Thanks.” Will accepted. 

“We know it’s no consolation but we’re really glad Charlie found you guys. We encouraged her to reach out as soon as the PI gave her your information. We also appreciate you two, really the three of you taking care of our little girl. You guys are her family which make you our family.” My dad explained. 

“We love that girl. I didn’t realize I needed a sister until her and it’s like she’s been apart of our lives the whole time.” 

“That’s because the two of you make me look adopted.” Jay snorted. 

“It’s the hair, what can I say?” Will snorted. 

I found myself tearing up at their little confessional and Henry could feel my tears on his chest. 

“Are you okay?” He asked me. 

“Damn hormones.” I confessed. 

He nodded understandingly before kissing my forehead. 

“And you Henry? Is this for the long run?” 

“It is. I could see us being happy together for a very long time.” He smiled. 

Before we parted the pool, getting ready to clean up for dinner I pulled Henry aside. 

“I want to tell them.” 

Taglist:

@royaltysuite @jadakiss13 @ego-allie-bap @acdassenza @alldaysdreamers @sande5098 @50-21upstead @justaproudslytherpuff @sofiebstar @i-spaced-sorry @yosoy-laprincesaa @drakelover78 @craftyhufflepuff @magmagicstyle @capswife

[abbatoirablaze]

Hidden Love, Chapter 1

Word Count:  2.1k

Warnings:  mentions of death, slight angst.

“Mama...”

“Yes, my sweet prince,” you sighed, looking lovingly at your three-year-old, who had been nestled against your side in the carriage.  You brushed some of his chocolate hair to the side of his face, and you felt a pang in your chest as you thought about how much he resembled his father.  He grimaced as the carriage bumped and looked out the window, “what’s wrong, Edmunt?”

“Can I hear about papa again?” he asked softly, “I don’t like these long rides...I want to hear about him again.”

“Would you like me to tell you of how I first came to know your papa?” you asked in response.

He nodded, “Yes...”

You pulled your son onto your lap, and he giggled, your skirts practically swallowing him up as you held him close, “very well.  But only because we are alone.  You know that I can only tell you the stories when it’s just the two of us.”

“Yes mama...”

“It started off on a day much like today...only it was darker...sadder...and do you know why that is?”

“The viscount!” he said solemnly.

“That’s right, my little prince,” you admitted, “I only got the chance to meet your papa because his father, the viscount, had passed away.”

“Tell it mama...”

“Very well,” you nodded, “I wasn’t much older than you...but I was in a carriage much like this with my own mama and papa, the King and Queen of England.  And we were on our way to their country home, Aubrey Hall.”

“Mama...where are we going?”

“Hush, child,” she said simply, giving you a stern look, “do not ask where we go when we are nearly there.”

“But mama...”

“I’ve told you once. That should be enough, Amelia.” She muttered, “now calm yourself and act like a princess.”

You pouted, before looking to your father, “Papa?”

Your father gave you a sad look and tapped your knee before looking at his wife, “Lottie, our little princess deserves to have it explained to her...you said we were to bring her so that she might understand the ways of the world.”

“I said we were going to bring her because we were on our own way to our own country home,” she scoffed, “this tragedy just happened to occur as we made our leave of the castle.”

“Mama...”

“We are paying our respects to a very loyal viscount!” she told you with a sad look, “or rather, his family.”

“Why?” you asked, “what happened?”

Your mother’s stern looks returned, and she leaned forward, “that is a very rude question to ask someone, Amelia.  I do hope that you will have more grace than to ask such questions when we arrive.”

You leaned into your father, and he wrapped his arm around you, releasing a heavy sigh, “Lottie, she’s barely out of leading strings...she knows not the way of the world and what’s expected of her.  You cannot treat her as an adult when she’s not even old enough for her promised nuptials.  Be patient with her.  I was patient when you-”

“You were no such thing!” she laughed, cutting him off, “both of us chose the lesser of two evils.”

“Evil or not, fifteen children later, and you are still at my side, and we are teaching our youngest the ways of the world!” 

“Exactly, George,” she frowned, giving you a look, “she is but only a child.  A child who is going to the home of a dead viscount as we pay our last respects to a grieving widow of eight children.  She needs to understand things like this as she is to marry in just a few years.  She should understand things like this by now.”

“We’ve never dealt with this before and you know it, Lottie!”

“You’ve allowed her to be shielded for far too long, when you all but insisted that we throw the first fourteen out into the world the second they took their first breaths.” She sighed, “how am I to baby her when we’ve pushed all of our others out of the nest?”

King George’s lips parted, but they closed just as quickly.  He got a nervous look on his face and his hand started to tremble. 

The anxiety grew in Queen Charlotte as she realized what was going on.  He got a distant look in his eye and his lip twitched. 

It was far too late to turn back now. 

And her beloved had been experiencing more episodes as of late. 

But he had insisted on coming with them instead of heading to the country home.

She had insisted on bringing their youngest in hopes that he would speak with the physician as soon as they arrived at the country home, after a short visit to the dowager viscountess of course. 

“Papa...”

George’s eyes slipped from his wife, and towards you as your small hand grabbed as much of his as it could.

The trembling stopped. 

His lip stopped quivering. 

You always could keep his anxieties and madness at bay.

You were the last sliver of his beloved queen, a carbon copy of her before the years of court, drugs, and the ton had changed her personality.

“Yes, my sweet Emmy...” he said after a moment.

“You’ll never leave me, will you?” you asked sweetly, looking up into your father’s eyes.

“No, my sweet princess...I will always be there for you...I will stand between you and the heavens, keeping the madness at bay just as your mother has done for me,” he promised, “but today, we must be there for the people of our kingdom...to show the members of the ton and all of society that their King and Queen, and the whole of the country is here for them.  Can you do that?”

“Yes papa!” you answered with a smile.

Charlotte’s heart settled and she leaned back in her spot as George calmed himself.  You looked at your mother, “mama...can you show me how a queen does that?”

“Of course I will my child...”

“I want to lead a country one day...with the grace and honor that you show your people!” you smiled, looking between your parents.

“You will, my sweet!” he promised, “right Lottie?”

“With the true grace of a queen...” she smiled, breaking at your naturally compassionate demeanor, “I shall bestow my greatest teachings on to you, my child.”

“I love you mama!” you said softly, “I love you papa.”

“I love you too, Amelia.” Charlotte smiled softly, the stony queen completely shattering as she looked at you.

“Mama, talk about papa...”

“I’m getting there,” you sighed, “but no good story is worth it if you cannot properly set the stage.”

He rolled his eyes at you and started to fidget with some of the detail work on your dress, and you found yourself leaning against him, your head resting on his.

“Did you know you loved papa?”

“From the moment that I first saw him...”

“When you see him, mama?”

“His majesty the king of-“

“I need no introductions here!” King George scoffed, pushing the footman to the side, “this is a time of mourning for god’s sakes.”

“Oh my god.”

“Is that the king and queen?”

“What are the king and queen doing here?”

You took hold of your mother’s dress, but she was quick to grab your hand in her own as your father stepped before the two of you.  You looked up at her, and she kept her eyes forward, “eyes up child.  Head straight.  We are power.  We are their comfort.  We represent the country!”

You copied her actions, hoping to come off as a strong princess, though you might have only been a small six-year-old.  When she started walking, you did the same, and the crowd seemed to part for the three of you. 

Your mama and papa on either side, while their entourage of people followed. 

But you stopped at the entrance to the back yard.

And that’s when you realized the throng of people inside the house weren’t members of the ton.  They were members of the village that the viscount watched over; coming to pay their last respects to their lord.

“Viscountess...” your mother said firmly.  The group of children around her parted, and her eyes widened, “Sorrows.  Prayers.”

She dropped to her knees and broke down sobbing.  Your heart ached for the woman. 

Your parents stood stock still as you let go of your mother’s hand.  You heard her snapping behind you, hoping to capture your attention, but you were inexplicably drawn to the woman, who’s own children looked too terrified to move. 

“Ma’am...”

She looked up at you through tears, as your little hand reached out and stroked her cheek. 

You didn’t need to speak. 

It was like the two of you had this unbreakable connection, where you immediately understood her pain, all the while, never having experienced a day of tragedy in your six small years of existence. 

Her hand fell over yours and she clung to it.

“Thank you, princess, for the solace that their majesty’s bring.” She managed to whimper between sobs.

You looked to the eldest boy, “take your mama to bed...she needs rest!”

He didn’t move. 

You looked over your shoulder and to your father’s men, “someone please help her from the ground...or get her a cushion, lest you wish that she sink in the ground with her beloved.”

The woman laughed through her sobs, and you reached out with your other arm, before wrapping them around her.  

“I cannot lift you, ma’am...”

Her sobs racked her body and yours, as you continued to let her hold you.

“Viscountess, the princess-“

“I am fine!” you informed the guards when you felt their presence behind you, “help the viscountess to her feet.”

No one moved yet again, until you heard your father, “what are the lot of you waiting for?  You heard the princess...help the Viscountess up!  Your king demands it!”

She begrudgingly let go of you, and as her son came forward to collect her, so too did another two boys. 

It felt like your heart stopped beating entirely as his eyes caught yours, and while one of the other boys helped their mother up, the other was checking on you.

“Princess...” he said quietly, taking your hands in his own, “I’m sorry about my mother.  I-“

“Son, step away from-“

“I am fine!” you said quickly, cutting them off with a simple wave of your hand.  The boy gave you a look, and your heart fluttered.

“Are you alright, princess?” he asked softly, “our ma-“

“I am fine,” you repeated, much softer, “t-tell me sir, what is your name?”

“Benedict...Benedict Bridgerton, princess...”

“That was my papa?”

“That was your papa,” you said with a wistful tone as you found yourself looking out of the carriage window.  You could see the town coming into view and you sighed once more, “his family became very close to me.  Daphne, the eldest daughter is one of my best friends.  And Eloise, the second daughter.  And a Miss Penelope Featherington, who you have yet to meet.”

“I like Miss Daphne!” your son answered, “we see them?”

“We can see them,” you nodded, “but remember, you cannot tell anyone about your papa...no one knows...”

“Prince Heinrich...”

“Right,” you agreed, holding him that much closer to yourself as you looked at his coat, and how it had the family colors, “as far as anyone knows, you are sired by Prince Heinrich...papa Benedict is only your godfather.”

“Godfather!” he repeated.

“Good boy!”

“Papa knows?”

“Your papa knows,” you nodded, “but it is a secret only known by a few of us.”

“Okay mama...”

“Now...I’m going to drop you off with your grandfather and grandmother...and we’ll have dinner with them, but then mama is going to see the Bridgertons.”

“I come?”

“Unfortunately, not tonight,” you frowned, stroking his hair, “I won’t leave until after you are asleep though...I am to help Miss Daphne prepare for her entrance into society.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a big celebration...I’m sure the queen will tell you all about it,” you smiled, “the celebration happens for a whole season, where all the pretty young ladies and handsome gentlemen enter society in hopes of finding marrying.”

“Mama do that?”

“No, baby...mama didn’t do that,” you sighed once more, “mama was promised to papa Heinrich long before you were a thought to me.  Long before you were a twinkle in your godfather’s eye.”

“You dress up?”

“Oh, we will dress up for certain,” you smiled, “you’re going to be my handsome little date to the balls.”

He lit up, “I go to balls?”

“Oh but of course,” you grinned sweetly, “a charming young prince like you...why you’re out of your leading strings and know how to dance...I’m sure grandma-ma Charlotte would be itching to dance with you!”

He smiled, “I dance with queen Charlotte.”

“Yes baby.  You’ll dance with the queen!”

Chapter 2

[pollenallergie]

🧨 : An unexpected headcanon for Ralph?

18+ only!! mdni

Ralph is surprisingly dominant. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a switch to his core; he’s fully capable of and immensely enjoys fulfilling both roles. However, he definitely has a slight - very slight - preference for being in charge, mainly because every other aspect of his life has been almost entirely out of his control. His career will be his father’s choice; he is the only son in the family, so he will naturally take over the family business once his father passes. His entire social circle is full of Victoria’s friends. Indeed, even most of his day-to-day activities are dictated by the elder Pickering-Harmal-Hill twin; go to brunch here at this time, then meet Lottie Whitehead for a game of croquet at this other time, then go shopping for the next party, etc. You’re the only person who ever allows him to be in control of anything, and he takes full advantage of that.

Of course, he’s certainly more of a soft dom, simply because he finds it hard to ever be mean or degrading towards you. However, he will do his very best to rise to the task if you ask him to be a bit rougher with you. He also doesn’t have many rules - or, at least, none that hold up outside of the bedroom. Ralph doesn’t want to treat you the same way everyone else treats him (always ordering him to sit up straighter, to smile less, to be quiet); he just wants to be there for you when you need someone else to take the reins, so he tends to be - what some would consider - incredibly lenient with you. Moreover, Ralph absolutely loathes having to punish you, which makes it all the better that your actions hardly ever warrant punishment. The two of you had always worked quite well together, even before you became a couple, so there are hardly any severe disagreements; there’s even less outright defiance. When there is defiance of any sort, all it usually takes is a stern, disapproving look from either one of you (depending on who is being the defiant one in the present circumstances) or even a gentle but firm reminder to get the disobedient party back on track; you two click so well.

At first, taking charge wasn’t easy for Ralph; he’d spent a lifetime being bossed around, having his creativity and ambition consistently stifled, so he struggled with confidence issues. Although it didn’t take long for him to acclimate to a more authoritative role, within the first four months of your relationship, he’d already become a natural leader. Now, a year into your marriage, it’s as if Ralph’s always been this self-assured, assertive man - both in the bedroom and out of it. Something about being with you gives him the strength to finally tell his sister to back off and the confidence to defy any person who would have him hide who he truly is; an adorable, vibrant man with a heart of gold, a killer fashion sense, and a strong tendency to giggle when he gets excited.

[astr0disiac]

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 1: ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ꜱᴏᴜᴘ

☆ꜱʏɴᴏᴘꜱɪꜱ:

Tiana feels as though she deserves the suffering she's endured over the past five years after the tragic loss of her husband, Naveen. But Nanami wants to prove that she is capable of giving and receiving love again.

But even the sweetest of kisses can't heal the sourest of wounds.

An office-work romance like no other, filled with love, loss, and betrayal from those Tiana thought she could trust the most.

☆ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 14,719

☆ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: implied/referenced suicide [mild], implied/referenced self-harm [mild], implied/referenced miscarriage, angst, slow burn

☆ᴍʏ ꜱɪɴᴄᴇʀᴇꜱᴛ ᴀᴘᴏʟᴏɢɪᴇꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴍɪꜱꜱᴘᴇʟʟɪɴɢꜱ ᴏʀ ɢʀᴀᴍᴍᴀᴛɪᴄᴀʟ ᴇʀʀᴏʀꜱ☆

Nanami couldn’t read her mind, no matter how hard he tried, and he often did. And every time he tried to navigate the enigma that was named Tiana, he found himself perplexed as to why he tried so hard to untangle the mess that resided in her mind.

Brown skin, even bronzer eyes that shined with the same grace as the lonely moon on a sullen night. Hair in tight kinks and coils as they bounced around her shoulders when she walked down the tiled halls, lips in a slight frown, but not as deep as when she first arrived. Nanami didn’t know what to expect when his cousin Charlotte begged Nanami over the phone to give her friend a job. 

Now, Lottie was always known to get whatever she wanted, especially when it came to her soft-hearted (and bodied) father. Nanami admits that even he would melt at her request; he couldn’t help it, he would spoil her rotten when they were kids and her request knew no bounds. It would also keep her from throwing a fit, which would in turn keep Eli La Bouff off his neck and make him obey her commands regardless. It was just easier to comply with her majesty.

But Nanami didn’t expect Lottie to ask such a request. Giving a random woman a job overseas with no qualifications? No credentials, and barely half a cent to her name? Nanami had a heart, but he was also a businessman, with emphasis on the business aspect. There were so many things to consider; what position would this mystery woman play at the company, or how to properly accommodate her stay in Japan. Whether they would be comfortable in a place where it’s mother tongue differed drastically in syllables and enunciation. He gave Lottie a firm-

“No. Charlotte,” He rarely called her that unless he was serious, “I can’t do that. And so suddenly?”

“Oh, Ken, please!” She begged over the phone, and Nanami could practically hear the tears splatter on the ground as she sputtered into the receiver. “I-I’m begging you! I-I promise I’ll never ask for anything again if you just do this one favor for me, please!”

Nanami ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. He hadn’t heard her cry in so long, especially to this extent. She was in turmoil, but this was a situation where he had to put his foot down. This wasn’t something as simple as a new car, or an exotic pet that she was asking for. Lottie was asking for him to break so many rules and regulations for someone he had never heard of or seen before. To skip processes and engage in underhanded acts that went against his own principles. He was a man who was fair and just, and he planned to keep it that way.

“Lottie,” He tried to soften his voice to ease her sorrows. “It’s not like that. My job is a place of business. Not a charity case. I can’t just go around giving out jobs to everyone in need all willy-nilly. It wouldn’t make a very sound business practice.”

“What do you need to know? I’ll tell you everything-” Lottie sniffled, and Nanami heard frantic shuffling in the background as static popped in his ear. “She knows a lot about business- she even owned one with her-” Lottie stops, gulping down her next set of words.

“She owned a restaurant.” She continues. “She was actually in the process of opening multiple chains-”

“And then what happened?” Nanami raised a brow. He leaned back in his office chair, the leather popping underneath him.

“W-well she…the business went under.” Lottie seemed ashamed to admit this, but it was a truth that was necessary for Nanami to know, and he couldn’t help but frown. “But it wasn’t her fault-!”

“Then whose was it?” Nanami asked in a bludgeoning tone. Lottie felt cold, Nanami never talked to her like this. Even when he told her no, or chastised her it was in a much more upbeat cadence and in good humor, then she would get what she requested regardless. She wondered if this was the same cousin who’d give her the world on a jeweled plate if she asked.

“Businesses don’t just ‘go under’. Her irresponsibility is proof enough that she would be more of a hindrance than a help.”

Lottie didn’t respond. Just soggy sniffles crackling into his ear.

“What do you want me to do? What will it take for you to say yes?” Lottie pushed.

“If you’re her friend, why won’t you help her?” Nanami said, quite more harshly than he meant to say. “Your father has hundreds of thousands to spare- why come to me?”

 “Tia is…a very prideful person. Believe me, I’ve tried, and tried, and tried some more. But she is so hellbent on standing on her own, no matter how beaten and battered her legs are.”

Nanami scoffed. This kind of person sounded almost impossible to work with, especially on a team where multiple people are required to do specific tasks to achieve a common goal. If she decided to shoulder an entire project by herself and it fell through, or if she refused to ask for help from those more experienced than her, it could be disastrous.

“She won’t take anything from me. Not now, and not even when we were kids. She’s always been like that, and I admire her strong will. Sometimes I wish I could be as independent as her.” Lottie sounded reminiscent, her mind reeling memories Nanami couldn’t see. “But I’m not, hell, I’m not even mature enough to help her the way she really needs me to at this very moment. I can only rely on those around me and right now I am relying on you, Nanami. Please.”

“Even if I said yes, your plan has too many holes.” Nanami leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “What happens when she finds out we're related and you used your power to get her such a high position? If you know she doesn’t appreciate your pity, won’t this make matters worse beyond repair?”

“That’s why she can’t find out, Ken.” Lottie exasperates. “I told her she needed a change of pace, new scenery, and she finally agreed to let me help her find a job out of this damn swamp. She doesn’t want to leave, but she needs this, Nanami. You just…you just wouldn’t understand.”

“But in order for me to comply I need to understand, Lottie. How dire can her situation be if she’s trying to leave the country?”

Lottie ignores his question, continuing to voice her good-hearted schemes.

“I’ll be helping her send out her resume everywhere, but I can’t keep an eye on her everywhere. I can’t leave her alone, but I can’t go with her, and I really want to. But you’re so ideal. You can keep an eye on her for me, it’s so simple and efficient, and-”

“And up to me to agree. I’m not a babysitter, Lottie.”

“You used to babysit me.” Nanami could hear her pout as she tried to conjure up justification out of thin air.

“When you were a baby. I’m not hovering over a woman. This is undignifying and unprofessional, and slightly inappropriate when taken out of context.”

“Please, Ken. Will you at least give her a chance?” Charlotte asked in a soft tone, not in forceful or pressing matters like her other demands. It was almost humbling, a sense of responsibility ringing through her hoarse voice.

Nanami purses his lips, fingers drumming on his metallic desk.

“You’ve grown, Lottie.” Nanami sighs, feeling his will bend at the hand of the woman on the opposite line. He couldn’t outright say yes, but the possibility of saying no had shrunk to near impossible. “She’ll still have to go through the process like everyone else, though. At least if she makes the cut, it will make it look more realistic on your end.”

Lottie exhales sharply, nodding her head frantically on the other line, though Nanami couldn’t see it. “Oh, thank you, Ken! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Her voice shrills at the end, and Nanami moves the phone away from his ear to protect his hearing.

“Don’t thank me just yet.” Nanami rubs his forehead, massaging his tense brows. “I’m not the only one who has a say in this. With the minimal credentials she has she may be offered an intern position, which can be beneficial because we offer housing; most interns are either in college or trying to stand on their own after graduating with thousands in debt.”

“Intern?” Charlotte says, disgust riddled in her words. “Tia ain’t everyone else, Ken. She’s too good for a lowly job like that. I was thinking more like assistant or-”

“Charlotte.” Nanami warns her, and she immediately clamps up.

“Right. Got it. Be grateful. Thank you, Ken! I love you so much!” Charlotte exclaims, an exaggerated “MUAH” sound followed by her praises before the line clicks.

All Nanami could ponder as the tone rang in his ear was what had he gotten himself into?

The question rang even louder when a few days later, he received an email titled “tia’s resume :)”, from princesslottie@mail.com; not only was there a lack of capitalization, but also decorum. Nanami gritted his teeth, temple pulsing as he sent her a text.

You can’t just send me an email, especially to this degree of pandering. It’s suspicious.

oopsies

Can you at least pretend that you care?

But i DO care ken :((

Send in her application through the website like everyone else.

shes NOT everyone else >:((

Just do as I say.

This situation gave Nanami such a headache, and seemed to stress him out more than it should have. He doesn’t even know the woman, and her fate isn’t entirely in his hands alone. So why did it seem to weigh on him so heavily as he looked over her stacked resume?

“Well, it seems she has good work ethics.” Nanami muttered, flitting through the thin pages that seemed to make a short story of Tiana’s life. The other executives at the table seemed to agree, some huffing in annoyance as they tossed the booklet aside while others admired Tiana’s tenacity.

“She seems like a try hard, don’t you think?” Satoru said, leaning back in his chair as he propped his heels on the table. “All these different jobs, all this experience, yet can’t keep her own business from plummeting? Sounds too good to be true.”

“But her letters of recommendation are all there.” Getou spoke, eyes skimming the pages quickly, then pushing Gojo’s feet off the long table with a solid thud. “They all said she was a delight to work with: bright, energetic, and gung-ho for whatever she wants. I doubt her previous employers would lie on her behalf, but most are in food service which doesn’t quite translate well in what we do.” He continues flipping through the pages. “Even so, she has some letters from previous professors, though she didn’t finish her initial studies.”

“How would a culinary degree help us anyway? What’s she going to do, cook appetizers to appease our competitors?” Ijichi spoke, shifting his thin glasses.

“She minored in business.” Nanami said with a wary tone, which he covered with the clearing of his throat before anyone took notice. He couldn’t help but feel a slight tug in the back of his neck that made him shift in discomfort; torn between what was politically correct and following his heart. Acting as casual as possible, but not too nonchalant, but not too pushy. He had to let the chips fall where they may and be okay with the outcome no matter who got hurt. His eyes whisked around the table to view his colleagues' expressions: Gojo twiddled on his phone, his feet finding refuge in Getou’s lap, Shoko chewed the inside of her cheek, and the others look either interested in this woman’s debacle while some looked as though they wanted to be anywhere else but here.

“How’d she even open a business to begin with so young anyway, without a piece of paper to her name?” Shoko hummed, blinking slowly. “It took us ages to get to where we were, and we only own a portion.”

“You don’t need an education to start a food business, just yearly certifications and an up to date facility. Don’t be dense.” Mei said through upturned lips. Shoko shrugged indifferently, eyes heavy as she seemed to force herself to stay awake.

“But for it to be so grand? Someone with old money must have been involved.”

“Romantically, to be specific.” Gojo spoke up, his voice cherry as if he discovered a secret that was just too juicy to share. “A quick Google search tells you most of what you need to know.” His eyes lifted from his phone as he slid it across the table to Nanami. The device halted right before it tilted off the edge into his lap, displaying multiple links to articles and news outlets saying most of the same thing; something along the lines of a new restaurant opening in the heart of New Orleans by a bright young woman. But his eyebrows raised in shock when he saw a dark skinned woman standing affectionately close to a familiar young man, poised in front of a large brick building with the words “Tiana’s Palace” in bright, neon lights above the establishment. Nanami skimmed over the article summary, reading it aloud for his fellow friends.

“Tiana’s Palace foreclosed on the one year anniversary of the estranged ‘Prince’ of the Maldonia Estate’s tragic death?” Nanami blinked, eyebrows furrowed as he read the words. He clicks the link, eyes wandering over other facts and events that had been unbeknownst to him as the room filled with hushed murmurs.

“Remember Naveen? She was married to him.” Gojo hums in content, lips slightly curled at the end.

“The runaway son of one of our biggest competitors, Naveen?” Ichiji raises a brow, unable to believe such a statement. “The one who passed a few years ago, Naveen? Are you sure it’s that one?”

“I had heard he had eloped after being disowned by his family, but the fact that he kept his business and private endeavors so quiet even after his passing is quite admirable.” Getou spoke, rubbing his chin.

Gojo tutted his lips while folding his lanky arms. “Apparently their marriage wasn’t discovered by the majority of the public until a few months after his passing, and even now no one makes a fuss about this ‘Tiana’ woman. I’m guessing the Maldonia’s kept it under wraps not only for them but to keep the heat off that poor woman."

“Naveen fucking died?” Shoko looked at the phone in disbelief after it was passed around by Nanami. Mei turns to look at her, absolutely dumbfounded.

“Don’t you remember? We signed a card and sent a care package to Ralph’s house?” Mei says. Again, Shoko shrugs.

“Where have you been for the past, like, four years?” Getou said while shaking his head. Nanami was intrigued, yet at the same time baffled by the information, all the more befuddled that Charlotte failed to mention a detail so important. He couldn't help but frown as he slid Tiana’s thick resume away from him.

“This doesn’t add up.” Nanami spoke in a frigid tone. “His family refused to lend him a dime when he ran away, I doubt they would prop up the woman who caused their son to derail off his path.”

“I mean have you seen her job credentials? The woman must have done some heavy saving.” Ichiji said, impressed as he circled her name on his list of applicants.

“Her tenacity plus Naveen’s keen sense of business probably made them a dangerous duo.” Mei said in agreement, highlighting her name as well. “She had to have worked her ass off. It’s respectable enough.”

“And?” Nanami said. “We have plenty of applicants who have ‘worked their asses’ off for the lowest clearance level that we have with far more qualifications. Are we really going to let her in because of a connection with our competitor?”

“If you put it that way, I don’t see why not.” Gojo smiled keenly. “Seems like a win for us. The silenced widow of the Maldonia family working for G Corps.? I’m sure we could use this to our benefit, bump her up to an assistant or something flashy.”

Nanami opened his mouth to interject but Getou stole the words right from him.

“We’re not using a woman’s grief to our advantage. If that’s the route you want to take, then I’m voting no.” Getou scribbled a quick “x” over her name, and turned away without a second thought. Nanami swallowed thickly. “Giving jobs because of status and connections is not how we do things, we go by work ethics. Bypassing all other levels and placing her into such a high position is absurd.”

“But her ethics are clearly there, you can’t deny it.” Gojo argued back, and Getou squinted his eyes at his partner.

“You’re trying to twist my words.” Getou seethed.

“You’re twisting mine.” Gojo poked out his tongue in a childlike manner. As tension built on one side of the table, Shoko spoke up.

“I’m gonna have to say no as well.” Shoko said. “Not because of Gojo’s scheme, but realistically, she doesn’t have any prospects. She never finished school, and the one business she owned failed miserably. It may have been because of grief, but it doesn’t matter. If you can’t separate your personal life and your business life then you have no reason to work with us.”

“That’s a bold statement to make when Getou and Gojo act the way that they do.” Mei mumbled, but Shoko continued.

“Does she even speak japanese? Will she be comfortable moving across, not the continent, but the world? Will she let her grief cloud her judgment and erode her motivation? If she’s using this job to ‘run away’ from her problems but ends up bringing them here, it could be an unnecessary headache. We aren’t a social club, nor are we some sort of therapy group.”

Nanami pursed his lips, his teeth gnawing at the fleshy part of the inside of his bottom lip.

“What’s that then? Three yes’ and two no’s?” Gojo said, as Getou glared at him. Gojo’s cerulean eyes landed on Nanami, piercing through him with a wicked look. “Nanamin, you’ve been really quiet. What does Mr. Logic have to say about all this?”

Nanami leaned over the table, thinking long and hard about this decision. The fact that he had power in the final say irked him beyond comparison. Too many pieces were in play. Lottie and her schemes, Gojo and his plans; everything seemed to muddle inside of his head as he voiced his decision.

“I said no, Lottie.” Nanami spoke into his office phone, and the other side simply crackled in between the silence.

“You’re dead to me, Nanami.” Charlotte’s initial excitement when her cousin called her with an update shriveled into something bitter.

“Lottie, listen.” Nanami blew a huff of air past his lips. “You…you lied to me.” Charlotte scoffed in disbelief on the other line.

“L-lied? I ain't lie about nothin’!” Charlotte exclaimed.

“You omitted the truth, that’s lying.” Nanami said in a stern voice that seemed to boil from his throat. “She was married to Naveen? You didn’t-” Nanami looked around his empty office, hoping his voice didn’t echo past these thin white walls. “You didn’t tell me that. What the hell, Charlotte?”

“Yeah, because you would have jumped for joy at the mention of that.” Charlotte said. “Why does that even matter?”

“He may have been estranged, but he was still once the heir of our biggest competitor. That puts Tiana in a rough position here.” Nanami’s foot tapped rhythmically on the tile as her name rolled off his tongue like the jade swells of a valley. “The wrong person gets their hands on information like that, and the quiet life you want her to live out here won’t be as such.”

“You said no anyways, so it looks like we’ll have to try for someplace else.” Charlotte said sharply. “Thanks for nothin’.” Charlotte went to hang up the phone, until Nanami’s smooth voice spoke through the speaker.

“I said no to her having an assistant position.” Nanami interjected. “One of my coworkers wanted her to work directly under him, and I disagreed. She’ll work as an intern for now. At least that way, she’ll have a place to stay.”

Nanami moved the phone away from his ear as Charlotte squealed like a pig on the other line, which made the corner's of his mouth tilt slightly at the comparison as he was reminded of her fascination with the color pink. He put the phone back to his ear just as Charlotte came to the end of her garbled praises and thank you’s.

“-ank you, Ken! Thank you so, so, so, so, so, so much!” Charlotte gushed on the other line, her excitement returning tenfold.

“No need to thank me, I was simply doing my job.” Nanami said with a sigh. When all was said and done, he still gave Charlotte what she wanted, even though it wasn’t wrapped in a glittery pink box and instead in the form of a much grander favor.

“But I must ask, Ken,” Charlotte said, her words dragging with a southern drawl. “Why didn’t you just let Tia work under you?”

“No.” Nanami immediately cut her off, severing the possibility from his own mind. “No, that’d be way too obvious, don’t you think, Lottie?”

Nanami didn’t understand why he had this premonition of impending doom lying within his heart. The foreboding feeling was so strong that it made him tug the collar of his ironed shirt away from his slightly damp neck. Maybe it was because he knew of Tiana by association, and didn’t want to cause trouble for her, or for himself in the near future. They would soon be working close together, but thankfully not too close. Keeping a close eye on interns was more so Shoko’s job, so thankfully he could use that excuse to get Charlotte off of his back. It would be suspicious otherwise; a man of great renown aiming to be promoted to CEO of the company interacting with an intern who wouldn’t even be a part of the branch in his current department? It was so absurdly hilarious that Nanami wanted to laugh.

So why was he being put in charge of picking the poor woman up?

“Shoko, aren’t you supposed to be picking up Tiana from the airport? You’re late. Really bad first impression for the company.” Nanami had asked the woman who was swamped with tilting stacks of paper, threatening to spill onto the floor of her office as she scrambled over each individual page.

“Shit, shit, shit…” Shoko muttered, not slowing for a second. “I can’t right now. Nanami, you do it.” 

Nanami scoffed, raising one of his blonde brows. “You can’t be serious? That’s your job.”

“Well as you can see,” She motioned to the papers, careful not to knock them over, “I’m busy doing my other jobs. I know you have nothing better to do.”

“Maybe if you didn’t slack off and let your work pile up on you…” Nanami began, and Shoko placed her hands firmly on her desk, looking up at Nanami with a tired look.

“I didn’t want her working here in the first place. I told you it was a bad idea.” She reiterated. “You gave the final say in her position here, so she should really be your responsibility.”

“Shoko-”

Shoko ignored him, picking up her office phone and dialing a specific set of numbers. “Y'know what, I’ll just get Gojo to-”

“No, no. Nevermind.” Nanami cut her off quickly, holding his hands up in defeat. The last thing he needed was for that fool to make her feel uncomfortable with his curiosity and overbearing personality. There was a silver lining to this; he could meet the woman his dear little cousin was so eager to stick her neck out for. “I got it.”

“I know you do.” Shoko says, returning to the papers. “And take the good company car. It works with everyone else. A ride in that luxury mobile usually makes up for most mistakes.”

Most not being this one.

Nanami stood with a sign in bold writing labeled “Tiana”, and he wasn’t there for ten seconds before a woman paced up to him.

Her expression was anything but happy, but who would be after flying for almost a full 24 hours, and the ride provided for them, which just so happened to be the company she would be working for, was almost two hours late? Nanami’s lips were pressed in a thin line, embarrassed and frustrated that he had to be the face of his company’s, or better yet, Shoko’s incompetence.

“Hm…” The woman hummed slightly, and Nanami’s face twisted into a scowl. He knew what she was thinking; it was knitted between her thin brows. She was dressed for comfort, but still looked very presentable despite being held hostage in an enclosed compartment for hours. She wore a yellow tracksuit with green detailing, and her luggage was a forest green with brown trim; for some reason the design reminded Nanami or something of the early 1900s. She had large brown eyes, a nose that was scrunched in distaste, and that frown. That frown that resided deep within her pigment, embossed in her forehead. Despite looking so soft, she looked bitter, angry at the world, and she had that right at this particular moment.

“I’ll grab that for you.” Nanami said in English, grabbing the large luggage by its handle, brushing her hand in the process. Tiana muttered a “thank you”, hesitating as the syllables spilled from her tongue in a foreign language as she clutched her chest.

Now from Tiana’s point of view, she was puzzled, and a bit dazed from the most recent events. She received an email about an online interview after her resume was approved, and it seemed to go well, but she didn’t expect to actually get the job. It was across the planet, she only did the interview because Lottie pushed her on the matter so much. But to her surprise, she received the position, and while it wasn’t the only job she got a call back from, Lottie was adamant that Tiana chose this specific one. Tiana didn’t even get to see what Lottie threw in her luggage as she shoved things in there, and the next day after she received the news she was out the door, headed to the airport. Tiana fought Charlotte on the plane tickets, but Charlotte claimed she “didn’t want the opportunity to go to waste” and that “Tia should leave right now”, so she allowed Charlotte to buy the tickets, only if they were basic economy with no added perks. After a 17 hour flight and then some, she was sure her ride from her new job would be there waiting for her, but lo and behold, here a man was almost two hours late to take her to her destination.

So CP time exists here too, she thought.

Tiana followed behind the man who definitely had more than an inch or two above her; he was pressed in a blue shirt with a very wacky tie decorating his neck and some loose khakis. A circular pair of shades rested on the bridge of his nose, which was very sharp. In fact, all of his features seemed sharp: his cheek bones, his jaw, even the strands of blonde that sprouted from his head and framed his face. Everything about him seemed so angular, neat, and pristine, he couldn’t just be a mere cabbie.

Tiana let out a sigh, blinking as she took in everything at one time, and it hit her so hard that it almost knocked the wind out of her. She was in Japan. Japan, of all places. No longer near the bayou, miles away from her childhood home, so far from her childhood friend. So far from everything that defined her while simultaneously destroying her. But this…this was good. Maybe this is what she needed, to start fresh. To start over, even if this method seemed a bit unorthodoxed. She hardens her heart, blinking rapidly as she twists the lonely silver band on her finger.

Tiana was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realize she followed the strange man all the way to the parking garage. She didn’t ask the man any questions or anything; just followed a man who held her name written on a piece of printer paper up in the airport. She began to berate herself internally. He could have been anybody. What if this man were trying to kidnap her? Her mama didn’t teach her to follow strange men around all willy-nilly. And while Tiana seemed to be having a battle with herself on the inside, Nanami swallowed thickly, the silence eating him alive as he opened the passenger door to let the woman slide in.

As he shut the door gently, he rolled her heavy luggage to the trunk, popping it open. God, she was pissed, Nanami thought. The tension was so thick it was almost suffocating. Not only was a new employee slighted on their first day in a brand new environment, but Nanami was sure that Charlotte would chew him out for making her wait so long in an unfamiliar place.

Letting out a weighted sigh, he adjusted his tie as he climbed into the luxury vehicle; sinking into the peanut butter leather, pushing the bronze start button, and letting his free arm rest on the wide console as his fingers delicately curled around the steering wheel. The ac whisked around the compartment gently, repelling the late August heat. Nanami glanced at the woman next to him, she seemed to be swallowed by the seat with her back pressed into it as upright as the midday sun, hands folded neatly into her lap, and ankles crossed as she looked out the window. It was so awkward that all Nanami could do was purse his lips. This is why he didn’t deal with newbies, and it didn’t help that he now had a personal connection with her. He felt obligated to go out of his way more than he usually would.

“I apologize for the tardiness. This isn’t how we usually operate, and is a very bad first impression.” Nanami tried to joke, but it fell flat.

“Your name?” Tiana turned to the man, again trying to replicate the language that was foreign to her mouth. The lack of confidence in her cadence didn’t help, and it came out slightly garbled. She twisted her mouth as the man leaned his ear closer to her.

“Hm?”

Tiana felt herself moving away, clearing her throat as she gave up trying to communicate in Japanese.

“Your name? What is your name?” She said, and Nanami blinked as her real voice seemed to settle into his ears. It reminded him of Lottie’s voice, but warmer. A fuller, and stronger tone like the wide trunk of a sturdy oak. The way it dipped and climbed felt like joyfully riding a seesaw on a summer’s day.

“Kento Nanami.” He said. “I am the CMO of G. Corps.”

I knew he wasn’t a cabbie, Tiana thought, but now her nerves became restless as they overcame her initial anger. She smoothened out her sweats, sitting up even straighter (if that were even possible), nodding her head. This man was the boss of her boss's boss. If he caught an inkling of agitation, he would probably fire her on the spot, throw her out the car, and drive off leaving her stranded.

 “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Nanami.” Tiana gripped her seats as she looked over at his hand. “My name is Tiana.”

“I know.” Nanami said a bit too quickly. “I reviewed your application. And had the sign.”

“Right.” She chuckled nervously, and the conversation died. The car crawls forward gently, as Nanami drives out of the dark garage, and makes his way to the busy streets. Battling the awkward silence, Nanami tries to revive the conversation.

“Again, I want to apologize for being so late. I promise this is not a reflection of how we operate as a business.”

Much to Tiana’s dismay, the man just kept talking. She would much rather wallow in her silence as they take her to the apartment complex, and avoid dry conversations such as this. But ignoring him wasn’t the best decision. She turns to him again, providing her undivided attention as she gives him a clear and concise reply.

“I understand. A man such as yourself must be really busy.”

“Well, no…” Nanami’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced back at her, then returned his eyes to the road. While her voice held a sweetness to it, the emotion didn't reach those wide, brown eyes. Nanami wasn’t sure if it was towards him or something else, but a poorly hidden layer of resentment rested under her skin.

“My colleague Shoko was supposed to be the one to be here, and while it’s no excuse, she found herself overwhelmed, so I took the task from her.”

Though she knew it wasn’t personal, Tiana didn’t appreciate being referenced to as a task. She gives him a flat smile before turning back to the window, buildings blurring by as they speed down the road.

“How noble of you.”

Nanami was positive the conversation had a giant “DNR” plastered on it, so he clamped his mouth shut. This is why Shoko should have been here, he thought. She was much more easy going, capable of lightening any bad mood, even the damp one he had to sit in for a few more minutes. Though Shoko wasn’t a cherry person herself, she was always able to make someone comfortable enough to open up. Nanami bit the inside of his lower lip as they rode in silence.

In the silence, Tiana tried not to let her mind wander too far. She found herself repeating the same things over and over, practicing phrases in her head so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself at her new job. Every time her thoughts drifted to places she didn’t want to revisit, she’d repeat those same sentences again and again.

Hello, my name is Tiana. I’m a new intern from New Orleans.

She tried not to think of the subtle bumps on the rode, her senses suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of rough gravel underneath the spinning tires.

Hello, my name is Tiana. I’m a new intern from New Orleans.

She tried not to shake, gripping the armrest opposing Nanami, her nails bending into the leather. When was the last time she was the passenger in a car for more than five minutes? Were car rides always this long? Were the spaces always this compact?

Hello, my name is Tiana. I’m a new intern from New Orleans.

The ac was bone chilling, and the air was so sharp as she inhaled that it felt like it was slicing at her windpipes. She blinked, eyebrows scrunched as her vision became blotchy, as if someone had poked holes in her sight. Not now, she didn’t want to think of this now. The whole point of this was literally to not think about it; to forget about it. To forget about all of it. She wasn’t there anymore. She was okay. She was okay.

Hello, my name is-

“Tiana- Ms. Tiana…we’re here.” Nanami’s voice yanked her out of the memories she had begun to drown in, and she felt immense gratitude for him breaking the silence she was so keen on keeping. As her eyes fluttered, leveling her vision, she saw them pull up to a gated community. It was quite fancy, reminding Tiana of the ritzier parts of New Orleans, but not as lavish as Lottie's home. Nanami rolled down his window, punched in a few numbers in the code box, and the gates opened gracefully as if welcoming Tiana into heaven. Tiana settled herself into the seat as they pulled in, tuning into Nanami’s voice.

“Your apartment key, keycard, and gate code will be found in your apartment. You can change the code to your apartment door to anything, but the password to get in today is four consecutive zeros. Because we house interns and other employees, we do provide transportation to the different sites, including the main building which I believe is where you were assigned.” Nanami said, glancing briefly at Tiana. He had taken notice of her subtle trembling, but chalked it up to nerves. It wasn’t any of his business anyway, so he continued to give her a short tour of the small community. He circles the large pond and fountain, pointing out the pool which would be closing soon, the gym where you could work out, the bikes that employees could use at their disposal, the walking trail that outlined the entire facility. Tiana was impressed, all the buildings were white and trimmed in a sea foam blue. It was very pristine, modernized, and expected of such a large company. At least from here, it looked as if they treated their employees well. She twisted the silver band around her finger, the familiar grooves providing a sense of comfort.

“The main building is about a mile from here, so if you don’t want to take the bus you could have a nice morning walk or use the bikes. Or carpool with others, you become very close knit around here.” Nanami said, pulling up to a set of apartments labeled “A”. As the car stopped, he shifted the gear into park and the engine hummed gently. Tiana lets out a sigh of relief, quickly unbuckling her seatbelt and fumbling with the car door. After a couple tugs, she realizes it’s locked from the inside, and awkwardly turns to Nanami.

“Oh. My apologies.” Nanami says, hitting the unlock button on his side. The doors in the car click in response, and Tiana gives that same flat smile, lips curled into a long, thin line across her face.

“Thank you, Mr. Nanami.” Tiana says, swinging the door open. Nanami swings his door open as well, both closing the door at the same time. Tiana is a bit quicker, waving her foot under the bottom of the car and activating the trunk to open. She then begins clawing at her luggage,dragging it out of the trunk, until it lands on the asphalt with a loud smack. Nanami stands there, watching her struggle, his knuckles on his hips.

“Would you like me to carry that up?” Nanami raises a brow, activating the trunk so that it will close. Tiana shakes her head rapidly, pulling the latch up and balancing it on its two wheels.

“You’ve done more than enough, I appreciate it.” She says, flipping her yellow hood down. A heap of dark curls rest on top of her head, a few stray strands falling in front of those big brown eyes. 

This must be the stubbornness Lottie was talking about, Nanami thought.

“I’m just doing my job.” Nanami says, adjusting his shades. Tiana nods, turning around to walk away, but Nanami calls something out to her before she is out of earshot.

“You don’t have to try to speak in Japanese if you’re not comfortable. A lot of people around here speak in English.” Nanami tries to reassure her. “If you need something, one of the admins should be able to help.” He throws in. Nanami, even if he wanted to, wouldn’t be able to cater to her solely, though that's what Charlotte intended for him to do. Tiana was not his responsibility, and it made him uncomfortable to think about hovering over a woman so closely. Plus, it would look so strange. She will just have to use the same resources as everyone else.

Tiana nods, rolling the large bag up the sidewalk, and begins hauling it up the stairs. Nanami stands there, carefully watching her to make sure she gets in without any hiccups. He watches her lean onto the door, punch in the code, and literally fall into the room with her luggage in tow. The door slams shut, and Nanami’s lips turn upwards into a weird expression.

“Alright then.” Nanami says, pulling out of the driveway.

“Alright then…” Tiana winces as she collects herself. She looks around the room, it being pretty standard for a single apartment. Tiana swallows hard at the word “single”, walking around the tidy abode. Everything was white and beige, and accents of the same seafoam green outside the building. It definitely lacked the cozy touches of home, but it was something she could fix over time. The kitchen had a tiny island with a single stool, a silver fridge with a touch screen and other basic appliances. She flipped on a light switch, a bright white light illuminating the area. As she walked past the open kitchen, she reached the living room, which already housed a large screen television on a wide media cabinet and two couches. A pair of curtains blocked the sliding door to the terrace; Tiana had observed that little detail from the outside when they pulled up. To the left led to the bedroom with a queen size mattress and a nice sized bathroom. Then to the right of the entrance was a small office with a computer resting in a large desk, which Tiana guessed was for working either from home or off the clock.

“They got money, money…” Tiana mumbled, lugging her bag to the fully furnished bedroom. Her body was exhausted, and definitely jet lagged, but she didn’t want to sleep. A small part of her was too nervous to sleep, afraid that memories would torment her during her time of rest. So instead, she found herself leaving the apartment as quickly as she came, and finding one of the bike pods Nanami was talking about. She picks one, scans her newly issued ID card, and starts pedaling. There was so much she had to do to properly get settled, and though she had about two more days until her first official day on the job, she didn’t want to waste it.

So she busied herself, getting lost in the city Sendai, trying to familiarize herself with the large city. Finding nearby stores, markets, and stalls, memorizing the route to the main building, and even purchasing some basic necessities to get her through the week. The beauty about Sendai was that the city followed Tiana’s philosophy of never sleeping. The daytime was loud, and the night was thunderous. So on the following Monday, she allowed herself to close her eyes for just a second in the break room, curled over her fifth cup of room temperature coffee.

“Tiana.” A sharp voice caused her to jump, knocking the coffee across the table, and spilling into her lap. Soft swears leave her lips as she jumps out of the chair. The brown drink seemed to creep everywhere, seeping into the floor, sliding across the white table, and staining Tiana’s gray pencil skirt.

“Shit, I mean, shoot…” Tians mumbles, running to the counter of the room and grabbing a handful of paper towels, the cardboard dowel rattling against the metal rod as she yanks on them. She scurried to clean up the mess, wiping profusely at the table, the floor, then her skirt, and back to the table.

“Were you asleep?” The voice asks condescendingly, and Tiana looks up to a woman in a fitted navy suit with a tie to match. Her kitten heels clicked on the tile as she stood there with her arms folded, eyes glaring down her upturned nose.

“It was my break.” Tiana defends herself, standing and dumping the soggy paper towels into the nearby bin.

“I know it’s your first official day, so I’ll give you a pass. But you really shouldn't be so tired.”

“Well, Ms. Misha,” Tiana began, standing up over the petite woman. “I haven’t gotten quite used to this new sleep schedule. I’m still a bit jet lagged, is all.” Tiana said, swiping at the stain on her skirt. It was such a hideous blob on her outfit, and it frustrated her more than the obvious lack of sleep. The jet lag isn’t the only reason she was tired, her sleeping habits had been poor for a while now. The consequences just seemed to catch her at the worst time.

“I saw you biking over the weekend. Maybe you should have used that time to rest and prepare properly.” Misha said through a tight smile, and Tiana felt her eye twitch. Misha, her boss, had been on her ass like white on rice since she walked in at six in the morning. Upon her early arrival, she and the other new interns for the third quarter went through an initiation of sorts, going over company rules and policies, touring the building, then broken into separate groups. Between six this morning and 1:27pm, which Tiana noted on the clock on the wall, Misha was quick to pester Tiana all day. First she got dress-coded for her skirt being too tight, but how can you penalize someone for filling in their clothes in all the right places? Next it was her hair, and by God, Tiana wanted to pop the woman’s mouth when she referred to it as “untamed”. Then, it was her enunciation of Japanese words. Misha claimed she nor the other interns could understand her, and she will speak to her in English “if she must”. It was just micro-aggression after micro-aggression, and no one stood up for her, and God forbid she stand up for herself. Misha would simply wave her off, walking in the other direction, claiming she had “better things to do”. Now she was tormenting her on her break? Why was she keeping tabs on her outside of company time anyways?

Tiana clenches her hands, blinking softly, a wry smile playing on her lips.

“You’re right, Ms. Misha. I’ll be sure to take note of that.”

Misha gives Tiana a pitying look, her brows furrowed as she feigned concern, looking up at Tiana through her lashes.

“I know it may seem like I’m being harsher on you than anyone else, and the truth is, I am.” Misha says as she places a pale hand on Tiana’s shoulder, causing her to shudder. It took everything in Tiana not to shove the woman off of her. “But in reality, this business is tough. The people are tougher. If you still want to be here at the end of quarter two, you’re going to have to grow some tough skin, and take my corrections and run with it. I promise, it’s for your own good.”

Tiana blinks, adjusting the band on her finger, taking it off and putting it back on.

“I will keep that in mind, Ms. Misha.” Tiana says through pursed lips, knowing it was a load of bull. But there was nothing she could do about it right now. She will take this situation, and run with it until she achieves her goal.

“Good.” Misha smiles, flashing her pearly teeth. She glanced at the clock, pondering something before speaking to Tiana. “Also, can you run and go get some coffees?”

Tiana looked at the clock as time ate away at her break. Now it reads 1:35.

“But my break ends in less than 30 minutes?” Tiana says, then motions to the coffee pot in the room. “And we have coffee here. Why do you need me, again?”

“The managerial team is pretty swamped, and since you interns don’t have too much to do today, it would be smarter to send one of you.”

“And by ‘one of you’, you mean me.” Tiana smiles tightly, and Misha returns the expression.

“Exactly! You were the only one I could find on such short notice, everyone else seems busy. You’ll be doing us a huge favor, might even earn you a permanent position.”

Tiana grimaced. The idea of doing favors to one up someone made her sick. She would much rather prove her worth through her ethics.

“Mhm.” Tiana simply responds, holding her tongue. She begins walking out the room, Misha calling out to her as she leaves.

“And change your skirt while you’re at it.”

From that day on, Tiana became the resident errand girl, because the job wasn’t dignifying enough for a grown woman. Whether it was Misha, other admins, clerks, even interns on the same level as her, people were constantly asking her to make coffee runs for them while spewing bullshit excuses to justify themselves.

“It’ll help you memorize the city.”

“We’ll remember this favor in the future!”

“You can practice your Japanese with the cashiers.”

“We’ll treat you next time!”

“You’re not busy anyway.”

But Tiana was in fact busy. Not only did she have her own set of paperwork to do, but other interns and at some points, Misha herself, her own boss, would throw other tasks at her that were above her clearance level, and way above her paygrade. Through the oncoming weeks, she found herself taking her work home and completing it throughout the night, causing her to turn it in a day or two late. And of course, Misha had plenty to say about that.

“If you can’t handle this much as an intern, then how do you expect to work full time?” Misha would say, right before sending her on a lunch run or something. But Misha wasn’t the only person taking note of Tiana’s slacking.

“Your responsibility, Tiana, isn’t doing so hot.” Shoko told Nanami as she lounged in his office. Nanami exhaled loudly, turning away from his computer and to Shoko.

“Isn’t she in your department?” Nanami frowned.

“But whose fault is it that she’s there anyway?” Shoko said, sprawled on his office couch. Nanami’s frown deepened, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“See, this is exactly why you’re always swamped in work. You’re here, letting others tend to your job without your careful watch. If she isn’t doing so well, and her admin is failing to correct her errors, shouldn’t you go do something about it?”

Shoko stares at the ceiling, pondering what Nanami suggested before shrugging.

“Nah.”

“Alright then.” Nanami turns back to his computer, aware that there was no victory for him within this discussion. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing, actually.” Shoko states. “If she can’t make it past the first quarter, let alone the end of quarter 2, her contract will immediately be terminated, and we can send her home. We’re taking the long way to get there, and wasting my precious raise money in the process, but it’ll prove my point.”

Nanami folds his arms, a bit frustrated. “Your point being?”

“That she used us as a little getaway. She’s a hindrance with a nice track record and we wasted our time.” Shoko said, wiggling her ankles as she threw her head over the armrest.

“I think you’re going way too far.” Nanami says. “What’s she even doing wrong that’s got you so hellbent on getting her out of here?”

“What’s she doing right that’s got you so hellbent on her staying?”

Nanami was taken aback by the question. Was he acting too defensive? He shakes his, waving away her accusations.

“It’s not that. You’re not even giving her a chance. You’re telling me she’s the only intern who's out there doing wrong?”

“No, she’s just the only one I constantly hear complaints about. And if that’s all she has to her name, then I don’t want to deal with her. Everyone else seems to be doing their job quietly, except her.”

“Fine.” Nanami says, an unsaid “I’ll do it” echoing within his skull. This annoyed him to hell and back, and he didn’t want to, but the obligation was evident.

“If things don’t improve, she’ll be terminated at our first quarter debriefing.” Shoko warns. “If she makes it that far.”

Nanami pondered those words, the memory of the conversation overwhelming his mind as he listened to Charlotte rant on and on about something her father failed to do. Suddenly, Charlotte asked the question that Nanami had been dreading to hear.

“How’s Tia?”

Nanami clenched his jaw, knowing that his answer would be far from fulfilling.

“She’s…alive?” Nanami says as a question, more than a statement, and Charlotte begins to fume over the phone.

“Well, that’s the bare minimum, Ken. You don’t know, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Lottie. I just don’t have the time to cater to everyone-”

“Tia isn’t everyone. She is one woman going through hell right now.” Charlotte whines. “She doesn't have any close friends there, Ken. And though she keeps trying to play it off, I know she is miserable right now. She needs someone who’s there right now, and that person can’t be me. Plus, the time-difference early morning calls are causing bags to form under my eyes, and they are not designer.”

“Lottie, what more do you want me to do? You wanted her to get the job, she got the job; I did that. But being a shoulder to cry on is not in my line of work.” Nanami says.

“I’m not asking you to coddle her, just to talk with her sometimes. Let her know that someone is in her corner, ‘s all.” Charlotte asks. Nanami sighs, thinking it over. This was bound to be disastrous. Nanami hadn’t spoken or seen Tiana since the stiff car ride home, and that was several weeks ago. How would he just strike a conversation with her randomly? Not to mention how strange that would look to any outsiders, and that doesn’t even take into account how Tiana will respond to his sudden friendliness.

“I’ll think of something.” Nanami promised, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to keep it. It wasn’t until a few weeks later on a chilly October night that the thought struck him again.

Across the street, he spotted her amongst the crowd; despite not seeing her in over a month he still remembered what she looked like, but admittedly she also stood out quite a bit amongst the homogenous citizens peppered across the street. Her face caught the glow of the crescent moon, a gloved hand gripping a forest green hat as the other clutched a matching trench close to her chest while the wind whipped through the lonely streets. He watched her flee into the market, then found his feet stumbling after her. 

I guess now is as good of a time as ever, he thought, his hands deep within his jacket pockets. He crossed the street with a slight jog, running into the market. His eyes adjusted to the yellow lights as his gaze swept across the aisles. Pursing his lips, he begins wandering the store, his work shoes clicking on the floor as he passes the shelves. He began to wonder, what could she possibly be buying this late at night, and why didn’t she go right after her shift ended? Interns didn’t work a full day, and even if they did, they wouldn’t get credited for it, which was the downside of this internship, and why interns had way more free time than full time workers. She should have had plenty of time to do what she needed to do, and head home, instead of endangering her wellbeing by commuting at night. While internships are easier, they can still be taxing. Maybe this is why her work has been subpar lately. 

While her personal life shouldn’t be of any interest to Nanami, if it affected the corporation, then it was his business.

Only because of that. Nothing more, nothing less (if you didn’t count Charlotte’s death threats).

Suddenly, Nanami bumped into something, or rather, someone bumped into him. Nanami looked down, being met with those brown eyes that seemed to cause him so much duress lately. Tiana looked surprised for a moment, then that frown. That same frown she had when they first met. Nanami had no clue why she seemed so dissatisfied to see him. Nanami scoffed inwardly. It’s not like he showed up late to the store to pick her up tonight or something.

“Oh.” Tiana says softly. “Hello Mr. Nanami, funny seeing you here.”

“Well, for something so funny, you don’t look amused.”

“Hm.” Tiana’s shoulders bounce subtly as soft air blows through her nose.

Nanami tilts his head slightly. Was that supposed to be a laugh?

“You’re out late.” Nanami obviously states, unable to make his observation sound smooth.

“Just…making groceries.”

Nanami blinks at Tiana’s short answers. She left no opening to extend the conversation, making it obvious she didn’t want to be bothered. Nanami could practically hear Charlotte’s voice squealing at him in his head, mixed with this sense of obligation that he couldn’t seem to shake.

“What for? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Tiana’s eyebrows relax slightly as she looks up at the man. I do mind, she told herself, but a part of her knew that wasn’t the full truth. Her past few weeks had been so hellish, that she doubted she would ever have a friendly conversation with anyone here. She had been so used to being on the defense, even more on edge since moving here, that the thought of someone just striking a conversation with her “just because” puzzled her.

She massages the band on her hand, sliding it on different fingers while she answers.

“Well, Mr. Nanami…I’ve been looking for ingredients for the Halloween potluck on Friday.”

“Ah.” Nanami says, completely forgetting about the event. “I had forgotten all about that, honestly.” 

“I thought you weren’t too busy of a man, Mr. Nanami.” Tiana chides. 

“I’m not. I’m just a little behind on the task.”

“A little late. Hopefully no more than two hours this time.”

This time, it’s Nanami’s turn to let out a soft laugh, his head dropping slightly at the memory. Tiana was quite quick with her rebuttals, and to think a loaded tongue like hers would hide behind such a vexing expression.

“Alright, alright. You got me there.”

Tiana felt a bit warmer on the inside for the first time in years. But the warmth was soon sucked out of her when her phone rang, and one look at the caller ID made that frown appear on her face again. Nanami watched her carefully as she swiped across the phone screen, putting the phone to her ear.

“Hello, Ms. Misha. What can I do for you?”

Misha, Nanami thought. Why is she calling so late? And an intern at that.

“No, of course, I can do that for you. No problem.” 

Nanami was perplexed. He watched Tiana finish the phone call, frown and all as she shoved her cell back into her pocket.

“Misha, she’s one of your admins, correct?”

“Yes, she is. Quite the lady, if I do say so myself.”

“I’ve worked with her very briefly in the past. That phrase is an understatement.”

Tiana’s eyes seem to shine when Nanami says that. A look of mischief followed by what Nanami assumed to be her version of a sly smile.

“Mr. Nanami, that isn’t quite professional of you to say about your employees to an intern.”

“We’re not confined to the building, so why be defined by those titles?”

Another puff of air exits the woman’s nose, her curls bouncing as she tilts her head to look up at the blonde. It wasn’t a genuine laugh, but amusement lingered on the corner of her lips.

“Well it’s true.” Nanami says. “About Misha, that is. I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I’m aware of a lot of things, Mr. Nanami, and the things I perceive aren’t really yours to worry about, are they?”

So it’s none of my business, Nanami thought.

“If it affects my job then unfortunately it will keep me up at night.”

“But we’re not confined to the building, so why discuss such matters right now?”

There it was, that sharp tongue that Nanami had become perplexed with in such a short time. He couldn’t help but feel rather impressed, intrigued; not a lot of people dared go toe to toe with him from his title alone, and even if they did, Mr. Logic was always the victor. But out here, under the light of the buzzing fluorescents, they were almost equals.

“Misha.” Nanami says, ignoring her statement. “What did she want this late?”

Tiana’s eyes shift to the ground. “Just a favor for the party.”

“Are you sure? It looked like a lot more than that.”

Tiana blinks, sighing lightly.

“Look, Mr. Nanami. I appreciate your concern, but I promise I am alright. Yes, there are some moments, but every job has them, whether you work across the seas or across the street. It’s just an adjustment, s’all.”

Tiana’s voice sounded so reassuring that Nanami wasn’t sure if she was lying or not. It felt as though more needed to be said than she was allowed to slip, but he didn’t really have the right to pry, at least not right now. Her work performance had proved his suspicion a thousand times over.

“All right. I’ll let it go.”

“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Tiana said, nodding towards the shelves. Nanami became conscious of how long he had held the woman up from completing her task. Nanami nodded, backing up away from her so that she could continue on without his pestering.

“Right, right. My apologies for holding you up.”

“S’alright.” Tiana shrugs, turning towards the shelves, but still glancing at Nanami over her shoulder.

“G’night, Mr. Nanami.”

“Goodnight, Ms. Tiana.”

The conversation left Nanami quite energized as he sat in the car, thumbs tapping on the leathered steering wheel, or maybe the right word was amused. The exchange caused Nanami to gaze through his window at the blue moon, which was carved into a thin crescent. Nanami stared so long that he could still catch its glow whenever he closed his eyes for a brief second. He wasn’t sure how long he was there, before a blur of green whisked past his car. He sat up quickly, watching Tiana stagger with a plethora of paper bags. Raising a brow, he started his car, pulled forward, and rolled down his window.

“Ms. Tiana-”

“Jesus!” Tiana shouted, almost dropping the bags as she jumped at least half a foot into the air. Nanami winced slightly, feeling a bit of shame as Tiana turned towards him. “Lord, Mr. Nanami, you can’t just creep up onto a woman like that in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What are you still doing here?”

What am I still doing here, he thought. Nanami waves his hand, shrugging.

“I got lost in the moon.” He gestures towards the sky. “It’s kind of easy to.”

Tiana huffs, a curly strand brushing out of her face, giving him a questioning look that told that she wasn’t buying his story at all. Nanami turns back to the steering wheel, hands tracing it briefly before turning back to her.

“I was also wondering if you needed help. A ride home, perhaps?”

Tiana quickly shook her head no. The car was an automatic no for her, regardless of if it was Nanami or not. Nanami noticed the way her eyes flickered to the vehicle, so quick to shut him down.

“No thank you, Mr. Nanami, that’s quite alright.”

Nanami looked out into the dark streets. He couldn’t possibly let her walk out here alone. The apartments were almost a 30 minute walk from here.

“Isn’t it a bit dark?”

Tiana scoffs. “I’ve had worse nights in the bayous.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that, Ms. Tiana.”

“What a gentleman you are.” Tiana says. “But even a gentleman respects a lady’s wish.”

Nanami’s lips skew to the side as Tiana refuses to budge. She then sighs, looking up at the bedazzled sky.

“I’m sure you’ll relate to my sentiments with the moon. I like the walk. It helps clear my mind.”

Again, that frown appeared, but it was much lonelier. As sorrowful as the moon when its beauty was shrouded in the earth’s shadow. Nanami’s eyes catch a glint on Tiana’s hand in the moonlight, that silver band he noticed that she took refuge in when anxious.

“I understand.” Nanami concedes, nodding gently. “Enjoy your night.”

Tiana nods back, grateful to finally be let go. Nanami rolls up the window as Tiana continues her staggering stroll into the night. After a while of just her heels echoing on the cold pavement, she heaves a heavy sigh, one that brought a familiar sensation to her eyes.

“Naveen.” She begins, but can’t find herself to continue as his name gets caught in her throat. “It’s been…a minute.”

“I’m so sorry, Naveen. I know I only come to you to apologize, when my heart gets too heavy, but it’s all I have the strength to do.”

Of course, there was no answer. How could he? He was long gone, resting horizontally and abandoned on the other side of the world.

“Did you hear me Naveen?” Tiana called into the night, stalling her steps, waiting for her love to call back to her, to send her a sign, something. 

“I said I am sorry. Please…”

She feels her knees grow weak, and pauses for a second, crouching down on the side of the road. Her stomach churned as memories flashed rapidly across her eyes. Reliving her turmoil over and over. The feeling of metal grinding against bone, skin peeling, screams of agony, and finally sinking in a bone chilling liquid.

“Naveen…”

The name didn’t leave Nanami’s head as he recalled Tiana’s stubbornness, simultaneously dialing Charlotte’s number. It was nearing midnight for him, so he was sure it was early morning for Charlotte. After attempting to call her twice, she finally picked up on the third try, groaning in annoyance while her voice was riddled with sleep.

“Nanami, I swear on all that is holy, this better be-”

“What happened to Naveen?”

Silence envelops both of them as Nanami awaits an answer. Suddenly, he hears the creak of bed springs, Charlotte sitting up as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“What?”

“Naveen…what happened to him?” Nanami repeated. “The articles I found don't say much.”

“Ken…” Charlotte’s voice softened, barely a whisper over the line. “You don’ know what you’re asking.”

“I’m fully aware.”

“That’s not my business to tell.”

“I’m not asking about Tiana.”

“You are, you’re just being indirect.”

“Naveen and I were colleagues once.”

“Competitors.”

“Same difference.”

“Nanami.” Charlotte interrupts, so blunt it causes Nanami’s heart to stall in his chest. “I can’t believe you called me about this. That’s…that’s personal, and it’s something I nor Tiana want to relive. It’s not just Naveen involved, okay? It’s…it’s hard, and I don’t want to discuss it behind her back.”

“Was she- he in an accident? With a car, perhaps?” Nanami pushed, recalling his interactions with her. On the drive from the airport, her trembling and shallow breaths. The way she would rather struggle carrying multiple bags in her hands and strung onto her arms than take the ride home. Nanami could have chalked it up to being unfamiliar, but a tame version of terror resided in those brown eyes.

“I know you said she’s stubborn and refuses help, but walking by herself at night when-”

“That’s enough.” Charlotte immediately shut him down, voice as cold as the tundra. “I asked you to make sure she was comfortable, and sticking your nose where you don’t belong was not in that job description.”

“That’s rich coming from you after asking me for so much.” Nanami threw back in her face, and Charlotte gasped.

“That is not my business to tell. It isn’t- it’s not and you’re just gonna have to wait until Tia’s ready. If she’s ever ready.”

Nanami grew quiet. There has never been this much tension between them, this cloud of animosity. Charlotte had never been this serious with him, nor had Nanami ever pressured her this much. It was like a damn one raindrop away from breaking and flooding their delicate paradise. Nanami clenched his jaw, looking down at his wooden floor.

“Now goodnight, Nanami. Well, it’s morning for me but- well you get the point.”

And the line dies.

Nanami tosses his phone onto his nightstand with a loud clatter. He leans back on his pillows, hands resting behind his head as he stared up at his dark ceiling.

Tiana was a mystery, a woman riddled with secrets that Nanami was cursed to deduce, and all he could do was place the blame on Charlotte to ease that nagging feeling residing in the throbbing muscle hidden between his ribs. Maybe it was because of her history, or maybe it was because of this usual amount of empathy he was beginning to feel towards her. It was strange, and that same strangeness seemed to lure him.

“She’s so stubborn.” Nanami muttered behind his cup, eying Tiana across the office. Everything was so lively in the main office: employees of all levels mixing and mingling, eating food and being grateful for their much needed break, even if the holiday wasn’t as serious. People still took the opportunity to indulge in the recreation. Some were dressed up as simple things like black cats or witches, and a few went all out with fully organized costumes. And then there was Tiana, bustling around as if she were a server instead of an attendee, tending to others instead of relaxing herself.

“Who is?” Gojo said, trying to find who was in Nanami’s line of sight, bright eyes peering over those circular shades that he wore year round, in every environment where the accessory wasn’t even required.

“Ah, no one.” Nanami concluded, walking towards the table filled to the brim with different foods. Now Nanami wasn’t a picky person, but he didn’t eat from just anyone’s house. Some food looked appetizing, made with tender love and care, some looked like it was just stripped of its store packaging, and some looked rather repulsive. But there was one food that caught his eye.

A sweet, tantalizing smell wafted up towards him and it took him aback. He had never smelled something so sweet, yet at the same time it wasn’t overbearingly so, it was as gentle as the tickle of a feather. He wasn’t sure what it was, a pastry of sorts, dusted in flour? Or maybe powdered sugar? Either way, it kissed the dish like a blanket of fresh snow on a golden beach. Suddenly, he felt a gentle jab at his side, and he looked down to see those brown eyes.

Tiana looked rather warm; that same shade of green wrapped around her in a mock neck sweater dress that stopped right below her knees, and thigh high boots. She wore a green headband with two cartoonishly wide eyes on it, and lilypad earrings. Nanami let out an airy laugh, looking her up and down.

“Are you a frog?”

Tiana gave a slight smile, shrugging her shoulders. “How’d you guess?”

Nanami took another sip of his punch. “Frogs aren’t scary.”

“You’re right, they’re terrifying.” Tiana said matter-of-factly, leaning in. Nanami leaned down to hear her, the scent of honey filling his nose.  

“When I was a girl, I had a nightmare that I turned into one. Got chased by some birds, an alligator, then got lost in the swamp. Then to top it all off, when I woke up, there was a frog sitting in my window sill.” Tiana said softly, followed by a nervous giggle. She shook her head after sharing the embarrassing secret, feeling as though she had shared a little more than was asked of her. When she looked at Nanami’s face, she saw a hint of amusement, and cleared her throat.

“And what are you supposed to be?” Tiana said, motion towards his clothes. Nanami looked down; he was still in his work attire. He hadn’t had time to go home and change like the majority, not like he had planned to anyway. Nanami raises his hands, imitating claws with a deadpan face.

“I’m every adult’s worst nightmare.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Working a nine to five for 60 plus years with no promise of retirement. Boo.”

And Tiana giggles.

Not the airy, single shoulder bounce she normally did. Though it was still restrained, it sounded as mystical as windchimes carried by the breeze.

“Very scary.” Tiana says, composing herself.

“Yet not too far from true.” Nanami chuckles.

“Is that so?” Tiana asks. “I’m sure you don’t plan on staying here forever.”

Nanami looks up, lips puckered in thought.

“That’s not the initial plan, but who knows what could happen.”

“Well then what do you want to do, Mr. Nanami?”

The question perplexes Nanami. No one has ever asked him what he wanted to do, not the chairman when he was thrusted into promotion after promotion without ever wanting the responsibility, not his colleagues, no one. He had never told anyone before, let alone been asked. Since Tiana shared a piece of herself, Nanami decided he should as well, at least to make things fair.

“To travel.” He says. “Doesn’t matter where or how. As long as the scenery is beautiful.”

Tiana nods, soaking in the new information. Tiana didn’t take Nanami for a man with the desire of exploration, but with their few interactions, she knew he was more than just a regular salaryman. There was a beat of silence as the two got lost in their own thoughts, until Tiana shook her head. She gestures to the table.

“I saw you eying my beignets.”

“Ben…yay’s?” Nanami says, confused. Tiana nods her head, her cheeks rosy as a small smile begins to break through.

“Made ‘em myself. It was, uh…a favorite back home.” Tiana’s eyes flit to the side briefly. Nanami, while not knowing the specifics, had a feeling she was referencing her restaurant. Though there was this unwavering itch to ask, he wasn’t supposed to know about that. He had to respect her boundaries, even if she hadn’t voiced them personally to him yet.

“Really?” Nanami doesn’t miss a beat, eyeing the pastry. He could say he was uninterested in trying it, but he would be lying to himself. Tiana nods a bit eagerly.

“It’s been a minute since I made them, so I may be a little rusty.” She admits, fiddling with a loose curl from her hair. “And the ingredients are slightly different…either way, I loved getting opinions on my cooking, so if you’re going to try one I have to be here.”

“Is that so?” Nanami looks at the pastry, and Tiana nods her head again.

“Well, go on. What are you waiting for?” Tiana asks, a glint in her eye as she waves Nanami away. Nanami uses a pair of tongs, grabs one, and places it into a napkin. He held it gently; it was so soft, and still warm. He raises a brow at Tiana, and she waves at him again, waiting for him to continue. Nanami looks back at the pastry, and takes a bite.

Nanami’s eyes widen, then his eyebrows furrow as he chews the pastry; the outside was flakey but after that layer was soft bread, his canines tearing into it easily. There was a hint of honey, the substance mixing with the generous amount of confection sugar that dusted the corners of his mouth, the sticky substance sliding down the back of his throat as he made a loud gulping noise. Nanami had never, ever, never in his life tried a dessert such as this. It wasn’t too sweet, and the thick dough used was fried perfectly. It was perfect for a man like Nanami who didn’t care for sweets; something light on his palette. He brought a hand to his mouth, stifling the sound threatening to escape his throat.

Tiana, watching his expression, tilted her head. She felt her throat close, fiddling with that damned silver ban.

“Do you…you don’t like it?” She asks softly, voice breaking as it was barely heard over the chaos of the crowd. She shouldn't of gotten her hopes up so high. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

Nanami coughs, shaking his head, quick to reassure her.

“No, no, I like it-” I love it, Nanami almost blurted out, but it felt a bit out of touch. “I really like it. It’s really good.”

Nanami watched as Tiana’s disappointment shrunk as an unsure smile cracked across her face.

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

“You’re not lying to me, are you?” Tiana eyes him, suspiciously. “If you’re doing this to make me feel better, then-”

“No, no I promise. I wouldn't lie-” Nanami pauses. He quickly changes the conversation, holding up the bitten pastry. “I’m not much of a sweets person, so this is perfect for me.” He says, watching Tiana’s face flow with pride. Suddenly, her eyes seem to fill with water, and she turns away, fanning her dewy eyes.

“Ms. Tiana?” Nanami asked, reaching out towards her. “Are you alright?”

Tiana was having a moment; one filled with relief and sadness at the same time. Her heart felt full yet so empty as she clutched her chest.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…it’s just been a while.”

It had been so long since Tiana felt anything but sorrow. She didn’t know how bad she needed this.

“Been a while since what?” A smooth voice interrupts the two, and they both turn to see a silver haired man, arm linked with another man with long black and cat-like eyes. The one with silver hair was dressed close to a mummy, face covered in tan toilet paper and revealing a bright, cerulean eye behind dark shades. The long haired man had on a tux of sorts, a high collar cape, and fake blood running down his lip. Tiana quickly wipes her face, not wanting to be seen crying over something like this, especially with no context.

“Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve been over the stove.” Tiana says with a sweet smile, and Nanami catches a bit genuinity. Tiana sticks out her hand, her pearly teeth peeking from behind her glossed lips.

“Hello, my name is Tiana. I’m a new intern from New Orleans.”

“Nice to formally meet you, Tiana.” Gojo is quick to take her hand with a tight grip, shaking so hard it sends vibrations up Tiana’s body. She voices her surprise with a slight “oh”, but he didn’t hear it. “I’m Satoru Gojo. I remember you quite well.”

Tiana raises a brow as the long haired man takes her now free hand, shaking it once gently. “Suguru Getou. A pleasure to meet you. I was quite impressed with your resume.”

Tiana’s face flushes quickly, feeling awkward. These people had to be on Nanami’s level to have gone over her resume personally. Awkwardly, she bows her head slightly, about to apologize profusely in Japanese for talking with them so casually, when Gojo stops her.

“Hey, relax. This is a party, not an interrogation.” Gojo says with a shrug. “But like Getou said, we were quite impressed with your resume, right Nanami?” Gojo flashes a look to Nanami, who was clenching his teeth. Nanami wasn’t sure what chaos Gojo was trying to brew, but he knew had to stop it.

“That is correct.” Nanami said, wiping the white from his mouth.

Tiana nods deeply, not far enough to be a full bow, but still displaying recognition as she looked a bit bashful.

“Well thank you, I’m quite honored, and very grateful for this opportunity.”

“Wow.” Gojo says, acting as if he were wiping a tear from his eye. “That makes me feel so full, considering it’s all thanks to me out of the three of us standing here.”

“All thanks to…?” Tiana questions, and Getou gives Gojo a hard jab in his rib, causing him to keel over.

“You know better.” Getou muttered, as Nanami cleared his throat, reaching for another beignet. He grabs one swiftly, as Gojo straightens himself up, wincing slightly.

“Hey, have you tried Tiana’s homemade ben yay’s? They’re really good.” Nanami rambles on, and before Gojo can retort with something to deter Tiana’s credulousness, he shoves the pastry in his mouth. “It’s good, right? Really good.”

Tiana watches the exchange, yet her senses are keen. Obviously the silver haired man was discussing something rather private, and she was the subject of it. She purses her lips as she watches Nanami steer the conversation in another direction, avoiding her eyes in the process. 

Gojo stops muffling protest behind the dessert as he takes a bite, and Getou takes the rest of the pastry before it can fall to the floor. Gojo’s face lights up as he chews, humming in satisfaction as Getou takes a bite as well, nodding with his eyebrows raised.

“Oh, that is good.” Getou says, going for another bite, before the pastry is snatched from his hand by Gojo. Tiana stared at the three men with a look of disapproval. Were these really the men in charge around here?

“Hey, that's mine.” Gojo says, cradling the pastry delicately in his hand while shoving Geto with the other. “This is really good. Really, really good.” Gojo tears his teeth into the dessert, swallowing between short breaths. Tiana’s nose scrunched as Nanami shook his head in disappointment. But at least for now, Gojo was distracted.

“Can you make more of these?” Gojo said, a pleading look. “Can I place a personal order?” He bent down, getting really close to Tiana’s face, and she backed up unconsciously into Nanami’s personal space.

“I-I don’t know…” Tiana’s face was anything but pleased. She felt herself grow more and more uncomfortable under this man’s glare. The pride she felt earlier had shriveled up and died. “I haven’t really cooked or baked in a while…I don’t know.”

“That’s a shame.” Gojo said with a wide smile. “You sure you wanna work here? With food this tasty, you could open a restaurant.”

Nanami felt Tiana go rigid, and Nanami knew he had spoken too soon when he assumed Gojo would play nice for once. Tiana didn’t blink; she couldn’t even breathe. All she could do was stare up into that man’s cold, unforgiving, and prying eyes. Her lip quivered as she tried to mouth something, anything.

“Have you ever thought about that?” Gojo pressed. “Opening a restaurant? I feel you’d be very success-”

“Gojo.” Nanami warned, and Getou yanked his arm, whispering a harsh “Satoru” into his ear. Gojo looked as innocent as a child as he shrugged with his lanky arms up.

“What? I’m just saying.” Gojo said. He then cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted into the office, every syllable hitting off the roof of his mouth.

“Hey, everyone! Come try Tiana’s ben yay’s! They’re absolutely delicious!”

Tiana couldn’t quite understand everything he said, but with one mention of her name and the way the party-goers began to swarm the table, she could put two and two together. Her breath began to shorten as she tried to compose herself, her ear ringing with Gojo’s words as people pushed up against her. Her eyes squinted close.

She felt as if she were drowning all over again.

As the crowd rocked to and fro, Tiana found herself being jostled like a battered raft lost in a rush of stormy waves. She wasn’t sure if the feeling swelling in her chest was fear, sadness, or vomit. She had to get out of there, now. Tiana fought through the crowd, biting her tongue to keep the contents of her stomach and mind from spilling onto the floor. As she darted away, she couldn’t hear Nanami calling after her.

“Tiana!” Nanami called again as he watched her headband get knocked from scalp and scattered across the room. Nanami furiously looked at Gojo, who simply shrugged with a goofy look.

“Are you serious?” Nanami seethed, his brows furrowed in distaste as he marched up to him, shouldering through the crowd, his hands balled at his side. “Was that necessary?”

Before he could get any closer, Getou placed a firm hand on his shoulder, giving Nanami a look of warning.

“Let’s discuss this another time.” Getou whispered, gazing among the crowd, trying to deescalate the situation. It wouldn’t be good to have such a tense conversation amongst the party, especially with inquisitive ears around. But Nanami didn’t care.

“You provoked her.” Nanami said slowly, glaring at Gojo.

“I only asked a question.” Gojo simply replied.

“What are we talking about?” A shrill voice said. Nanami looked down to a shorter woman dressed as a witch. It took him a minute to recognize her because it had been so long, but it clicked as soon as Gojo spoke her name.

“Misha! Right?” Gojo spoke cheerily. Misha nodded her head, but her attention seemed to be focused on Nanami as she stood uncomfortably close to him.

“Yes, we worked together last year.” She said, looking up at Nanami with a sweet smile.

“Right.” Nanami said, obviously irritated. He looked above the crowd swarming the table, trying to pinpoint where Tiana had run off to.

“So, what were you guys talking about?” Misha asked again, bouncing on her toes. “Or was it some sort of corporate secret?”

“We were talking about how good Tiana’s dish was.” Getou smiled seamlessly.

“They were good.” Nanami muttered, glaring at Gojo. “But now they’ve gone sour.”

“Oh, well that’s too bad!” Misha said, waving her hands, dismissing the comment without a care. “I’m sure one taste of what I brought will cleanse your palette. It’s kind of like a soup-”

“I’m not really in the mood, right now.” Nanami said, continuing to look above the crowd. Suddenly, he sees a flurry of dark curls whisk away in the distance, headed towards the elevator. As Nanami continues to try to duck around the people, Misha moves to stand in front of him, blocking his movements.

“But Nanami-”

“Not now.” He says bluntly, gently moving her aside by her waist, and sliding past her with ease. Gojo stifles a laugh while Getou frowns at the interaction. Misha sighs in defeat, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“What’s wrong with him?” She asks, watching him scurry to the elevator.

“Nothing.” Gojo says, turning to Misha. “So where’s this dish you were talking about? I’m still kind of hungry.”

Misha gives a small smile, leading them down the table.

“Right over there in the giant brown pot.” She says, pointing to a pot at the end of the table that had bumps and scratches on the outside that proved it was well loved. Gojo’s eyes glint as he rubs his chin.

“I never knew you were a cook, Misha.”

Misha gives a bashful smile, swaying slightly. “It’s a secret hobby of mine.”

“Really?” Gojo draws out, and she nods. They walk up to the pot, and Misha uncovers the contents, a savory aroma filling the air with a mixture of seasonings and a hint of spice, maybe some sort of hot sauce? The steam rising from the dish mixed with the smell made almost everyone in the area’s mouth begin to salivate. Misha grabs a plastic bowl, scoops a serving in, and hands it to Gojo. Gojo eyed the dish, and tried to restrain from laughing as he swirled the dark contents in the bowl.

“And what did you call this dish?” Gojo asked, a rich sense of amusement in his voice. He watches as Misha tongues the inside of her cheek, then gives a meek smile.

“Soup.”

ɴᴇxᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ | ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʜᴇᴀᴅ | ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ʟɪꜱᴛ

[84t8r41n2]

Mistynat<3

Natalie started struggling with addiction from a very young age, ever since her dad accidentally killed himself, and even before that. She never stopped blaming herself for her dads death, as much as she hated that man he was still her father. The man who held her as a kid. The man who, in small moments of soberness would hold her and play with her when she was 5 years old, but after that was over and he went back to drinking, Natalie watched. She watched and she learned.

When she was 10 she drank her first beer. Her dad had told her to try it, said he was her age when he had his first. She hated the taste of it, the way it went down her throat, but she wanted to make her father proud. So she drank the whole thing. She did it just to make her father proud several more times over the years, until she was a freshman.

By that time she began to like beer. She drank it for fun, or when it was offered. Halfway through freshman year though, she realized she was an alcoholic. Just like her father. She cried about it for days, went outside and shot cans with the same shotgun that killed her father. After all was said and done, she vowed to never drink again. That lasted until sophomore year.

The Yellowjackets had just won a game, nothing serious but still something to celebrate. They went to Lottie’s house, as her parents were never home. Everyone was drinking, it triggered nat. She grabbed a red solo cup filled with water and walked into a bathroom. The bathroom, held a crying Misty Quigley who was covered in fruit punch. At first nat was shocked anyone was in the bathroom, but then realized; its a bathroom.

Natalie stood awkwardly. Looking down, on shifting feet.

“Hi, Natalie.” Misty sniffled out. Natalie, for some reason felt bad, yes misty was weird and borderline creepy, but she was still a person. The person who cheered for their team even if they were losing. So she figured she should sympathize, and be nice.

“Hey, uh are you okay?” Natalie winces at the way her voice sounds. Deadpan. Like she doesn’t care at all, but the more she looks at misty’s shaking, crying form. She finds herself feeling bad for her.

——————————————————————

Misty was really excited to go to this party. Given she wasn’t invited, and got the memo from stalking some girls at school, but it was still a party! Plus she was their equipment manager, the team has her to thank. Without the good equipment they probably would’ve lost.

Misty shows up in a pink cat sweater, and overalls. She finds the outfit cute. She waves excitably at the people around and on the front stairs. They look at her weirdly, although she pretends not to notice. They cant comprehend the way misty operates. She doesn’t blame them. She admits she’s strange, but she feels she wouldn’t be this way if someone, anyone encouraged her interests, or was a genuine friend to her, but misty doesn’t dwell on this thought.

As misty walks in, people scowl, and look uncomfy.

“Hey!” Misty hears as misty sees jackie walk over to her.

“I didnt know you were invited?”

“Yeah i uhm, last minute invitation!”

“Alright, have fun then misty.” Jackie smiles at her and walks over to Shauna.

Misty likes Jackie. In a friendly way, she was always nice to her, no matter how weird she was. Misty appreciated it more then Jackie could know. Misty turned around and found her way into the backyard, slight smile still on her face.

Misty likes to wander. She cant sit still, so she wanders, its what shes doing now, im the backyard. Even at this party. She spaces out and accidently bumps into a boy in their school basketball jersey.

The unknown boy makes a big deal of it. Misty has apologize multiple times, yet he’s still throwing insults at her. Stuff about how she’s a freak, how everyone wishes she was dead. Admittedly way to harsh for a small run in, but she’s misty Quigley. A well known freak. So she guesses thats why this reaction is so bad. Misty senses he’s almost done, when her throws his fruit punch, and the cup at her head. It stains her pink sweater dark red. The punch is gonna keep her hair red for days. She runs back into the house, embarrassed, upset, and really sad her cat sweater is ruined. She looks around for a room to go in while people stare at her. She spots a bathroom with an open door, she darts for it, and closes the door.

——————————————————————

Misty sniffles and looks up at Natalie, with teary eyes, she shakes her head.

“Yeah. Dumb question, seeing as your sweater is totally covered in fruit punch.”

Natalie walks over and sits next to misty.

“I guess if you wanna say what happened to you i wouldn’t mind. Even though i came to escape my own problems.”

“Problem for problem?”

Natalie makes a sort of a grunting noise in response.

Misty repeats her experience, and nat listens. Intently at that. She feels anger bubble up. She’s never been close with misty and she does find her strange but she’s never wanted her to die. Nat hates that someone would say that to misty.

Natalie looks straight ahead.

“They’re wrong y’know?”

“Huh?” Misty sounds surprised, like she never thought anyone wouldn’t wish death upon her.

“They’re wrong, i don’t wish you were dead. You take care of our soccer balls well. I don’t want the quality of them to plummet because some guy told you everyone wants you dead.”

And that gets misty to crack a smile. Misty knows Natalie isn’t good with other peoples emotions. Misty is grateful that she’s making an attempt to comfort her. She’s glad Natalie somewhat cares for her.

Misty looks at Natalie, and quietly signals its her turn to share.

Natalie, starts out slow, about her alcoholism. She doesn’t dive to deep into her childhood, tells misty most about her freshman year realization really, and how all the alcohol around makes her want to drink again.

Misty reacts by asking something unexpected.

“Can i hold your hand?”

That shocks Natalie. She sucks in a breath, and holds it for a bit. Misty gets nervous, and starts rambling about how sorry she is, and it was a stupid question and she promises to never ask or try and touch Natalie again. Natalie breathes out.

“Okay.” Then she grabs Misty’s hand, and misty stops her ramble and stares at their hands, mouth agape.

“Dont gawk at out hands all day, you asked to do this remember?.”

Misty snaps out of it and smiles.

“Of course, yeah, i did.”

“So?”

“Oh! I uh, wanted to say you’re brave, and if it means anything. Im proud, and i think you should be proud of it. Im sorry the alcohol is triggering.”

And at that, nat sheds a tear. An unexpected one but she sheds it, and misty goes back into her panicked apologizing. Natalie will hate herself later for the thing she plans on doing at this moment, but she’s to emotion-filled to care. She’s looked for someone to be proud of her, her entire life, and its Misty fucking Quigley who fulfills that request.

Natalie lets go of her hand, and hugs her. She wraps her arms around misty and squeezes. Not caring that her wet sweater is wetting her shirt, or that misty smells like fruit and spiked fruit punch. Misty hugs back after the shock. She starts to hear Natalie whisper something into her shoulder.

“Thank you misty, god fuck. Thank you.”

Misty smiles and rubs Natalie’s back.

“I hope i helped natalie!” Misty says in a much chipper tone than she wants to, cause she knows she helped nat. She feels good that she did.

And for the rest of the party, the two sat and held eachother, maybe Natalie would ignore her tomorrow, but misty is gonna enjoy what they have right now.