#finally continuing the vacation lesbian post series

[asvterias]

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟧: 𝖶𝖾𝗅𝖼𝗈𝗆𝖾 𝖳𝗈 𝖢𝖺𝗆𝗉 𝖧𝖺𝗅𝖿-𝖡𝗅𝗈𝗈𝖽

the cast // series masterlist

chap. 1 || chap. 2 || chap. 3 || chap. 4 || chap. 5 || chap. 6 || chap. 7 || chap. 8

‼️ DISCLAIMERS FOR THIS CHAPTER ‼️

Foreshadowing, Reader is once again pulling bitches 😏, Adrianna and Reader are 100% besties!, Reader kinda being naive, Luke trying to flirt with a lesbian but she’s clueless as hell about it 😭

Bold alone are the Dreams

Italics alone are the Reader’s thoughts.

word count: 5.1k+

author’s note: anyways, i hope you liked this chapter! please don’t be a silent reader and interact within the chapter.

tag list: @s0r0ws @starvviss @kjisbae17 @lov3rgiiirl @starless-nightz @random-girls-loves @coolgirl458

🌊 🐚 ✘ 🔥🗡️

CHAPTER 5, EPISODE TWO

Chiron toured the siblings throughout the outskirts of the camp. “This is a sacred valley. Humans can’t see it, monsters can’t enter it. The world can’t touch it. Great care was taken to bring you two here, and great sacrifice.”

Your eyes traveled to a group of boys, tending to a flower bed, goat legs for humans, the same ones as Grover’s, so they must be the same species.

The three of you ventured into the forest, lantern posts every few feet away, directing the journey. Two owls landed on the tree branches above you, staring down at you as you continued to walk through the forest.

“So, there’s something I gotta tell you. I lost your pen-sword thingy,” Percy remembers.

“Oh, yeah, me too,”

“Hopefully those weren’t your only ones,”

“Check your pocket.”

“No, we lost it the other night, on the hill.”

“Check your pocket,” Chiron repeats.

Sharing a glance with your brother, you two checked your pocket, pulling it an object…the same pen.

“Unless you surrender it, it will always find its way back to you. Magical objects don’t obey the physical laws of the ordinary world. Your pen, my wheelchair, they’re all a part of your father’s world, as are the two of you now.”

“Speaking of our father, do you know where he is or who he is?”

Just like that, someone else dismisses your statement. “I have something to show you,” It was really starting to get annoying at this point. Why couldn’t someone be honest and straightforward at this camp?!

Stopping at a clearing, you observed the scenery ahead of you. It was beautiful, you’d admit that, but this wasn’t a vacation, it was a sanctuary for fellow demigods like you.

“Twelve cabins, for twelve Olympian gods.” He gestured to the specific cabins.

Children walked and ran around the vicinity, an arrow arranged at the front, guiding the different cabins with the gods’ names on them. “Each cabin is home to the children that god has claimed.”

“Great, which ones are we?”

Chiron pauses, looking down as a frown overtook his face. “You have not been claimed, neither of you.”

“What? Do we need to get a blood test or something to find out? It can be done, but my brother gets squeamish at the sight of needles…and blood, but no worries, I’ll hold him down or we can knock him out for a while.” You suggested your insight. “Unlike him, I have self-control,”

“No, no, no, that’s not how it works around here, Y/N,” he chuckles at your thought process.

“Well, when do we get claimed?”

“The gods reveal their design in their own time, not before. Your father might claim you tomorrow, it might be next week, it might be–“

“Never,” You cut him off with an unconvinced yet dejected expression.

“Even now, he still wants nothing to do with us. What are we even doing here? There’s no place for us here.”

“There is a place for you two.” He points to the nearby cabin behind you, “Here…Hermes, gods of travelers.”

“His cabin is home to both his own children and the unclaimed.”

“No, what is needed is for another Hermes cabin to be constructed and built another one.”

Finally walking into the cabin, Chiron looks around at the busy campers. “Everyone. Everyone.”

Percy reaches out to stop Chiron. “Wait– wait a minute.” It was no use, Chiron didn’t hear him.

“Everyone.” He claps his hands together, silencing down their conversations and gaining all their attention. “This is Percy Jackson and Y/N Matthews. I trust you will see to whatever he needs.” He introduced the two siblings.

“I know you feel powerless, but you’re not. All will reveal itself in time.” After that, he left the cabin.

You nudged Percy forward, quickly sauntering over to the two sleeping bags on the floor with your belongings. Sending a hard scowl to everyone who shared a weird glance at your brother, forcefully breaking their eyes off of you two.

Once you approached your belongings on the floor, you groaned in annoyance. Kneeling down on one knee, and opening your bag, you searched for the mini clear bag of seashells your mom gave you a few days ago. You smiled in appreciation, tightening your grip on the object.

“That’s them. I think that’s the girl who killed the Minotaur and her brother.” Your ears perked up at a boy's voice who seemed to be looking your way.

You glared at the boys, dropping your item back in your bag, standing up to your feet, and keeping Percy behind you as the main boy walked up to you.

He was cute, but not your type.

“Listen here, Prince Charming and his goonies, I don’t have the energy for this and neither does my brother. Try again tomorrow, maybe we’ll be prepared for this bullshit of being a bully, got it?”

He had curly black hair, a notable scar on his right cheek, and a toned body.

“Heard what happened to you on the hill. And I just…wanted to say I’m really sorry. I know what you’re going through, believe me.”

Wait a damn minute. He’s good-looking and has a nice personality, oh something’s definitely wrong with him. Either the universe is being too nice or he isn’t what he pretends to be.

You nodded in surprise at his empathy, “Uh, thanks for that, I guess.”

“I’m Luke.” He held his hand out, wanting you to shake it.

“Y/N,” you shook his hand, warningly of the boy’s true intentions.

“Great name.”

“Thanks, you have a basic name.”

He laughs slightly. “So, I’ve been told,”

“My name is Percy, she’s my older sister,”

“Cool, I’m Luke,”

“…I know, I heard you the first time,”

You were sitting at a mini campfire beside Percy in the middle of the desert as the night sky peaked. He watched as the sand slipped between his fingers and you smiled in contentment.

It was the same voice from your previous daydream, coming from a binding light in the far distance. “Ah, he left you two here, left you with nothing. I know how you feel. You want what’s been taken from you. You two want justice…” A sudden sandstorm crawls at your feet, shaking you back into reality and startling you awake from your sleep.

You shoot up from your bed, gasping in heavy breaths as you remember your surroundings. Looking down at your brother, who slept peacefully, you exhaled a breath of relief with your hand resting on your chest.

Your hand rummages through your hair cloth, scratching the braids underneath the fabric.

“You okay?” Luke asks, arising from his bed.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just nightmares.” You breathed out.

“We all have them, you know. Intense, recurring nightmares. That’s normal here. And the daydreams, and the ADHD, and dyslexia.” He explains to you, “Demigods just process reality differently than humans do. For the first time in your life, you’re just like everyone else.”

“Do you also have a sleeping pill to reduce these nightmares or are those nonexistent with decent fashion sense here too?”

“Sorry to say we don’t,” He chuckles, “But there are other ways to cope,”

“Oh, yeah, like what? Take a walk around the camp. Or maybe, a late-night swim should ease it up,” You feigned interest, unwrapping your hair cloth and tossing it in your bag.

“I like you, you’re funny.”

“I’ve been told sarcasm is my greatest quality,” You smiled, getting up out of your sleeping bag, and yawning as you stood up.

“Do you wanna take a walk?”

“Sure, I’ll wake Percy up.” You shuffled over to wake him up but Luke’s calm voice stopped you.

“No. No, perhaps maybe just you and me. You should let your brother get some more sleep.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and shrugged at his explanation, standing upright and retreating back to him.

“Really? What’s there to talk about?”

Before he could admit it, your brother Percy stirred awake, a tired groan escaping his lips.

“Looks like you owe me a walk and talk, later,” You wink at him, giggling slightly as your brother groans again.

“Sure,” he blushes, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Percy stood up, walking over to the two of you, groggily wiping away the exhaustion out of his eyes.

“How’d you guys sleep?”

“Like a baby,” You sarcastically respond.

“Decent enough,”

“So, Luke, are you also…do you not know who your–“

“Am I unclaimed? No, Hermes is my father.”

“That’s good…right?” You gave him a shrug.

“Not as great as you think.”

“Right, sorry, Luke.”

“That doesn’t matter, we’re all on the same team here.” He brushes off the topic of his father.

Are we really though? Your intuition disagrees with the dark-haired boy, but you decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. You just met him anyway, no need for judgment so early.

“Why is that okay? Why do they get to bring us here to just ignore some of us?”

“Spend too much time trying to figure out why the gods do whatever it is they do, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Sooner you stop worrying about that, the sooner you can enjoy what this place actually does offer,”

“And what’s that?” You inquired, fixing your braids.

“Glory,” He tilts his head, glancing at you. Percy noticed the interaction between the two and scrunched in disgust.

You walk ahead of the two, excitedly cheering upon seeing Adrianna by the door.

“Don’t gain a crush on my sister, she isn’t into you like that.”

“What?” He splutters, astonishment written all over his face. “I don’t have a crush on your sister!” He hastily defends the assumption.

“Hmmmm…well whether you do or don’t, a word to the wise, she loves girls, like absolutely loves girls, and completely despises the majority of the male population.”

“Okay…thanks for the heads up,”

“It wasn’t meant to put you at ease, it was meant for you to back off my sister completely.” Percy implied, “So no more weird longing looks at her, or subtle flirting either. She loves girls and is definitely a 100% girl kisser. Stop searching for something that isn’t there, it’ll only affect you here, got it dude?” He insists, raising an eyebrow.

“Totally, got it.”

“Good,” he huffs, “That’s all I wanted to say,”

The two boys catch up as you all walk around to explore the camp. Luke was accompanied by one of his many half-siblings, Chris Rodriguez, and a dear friend, Adrianna Smith who shared the same kindness to the Jackson siblings.

“Demigods have always fought for glory. They used to call it kleos. It’s like this stuff that attaches itself to your name.”

“What if I don’t want any more friends?”

“Then you have me,” He smiles down at you.

“And space,” Percy shoves Luke aside, bringing you closer to him.

“Personal space is very important too and it seems Luke forgot about it. Don’t you worry either, dear sister, I’ll always be here to remind him.”

“Good, I guess,” You agreed, oblivious to his statement.

“At first this place can be really shitty,” Adrianna starts, keeping her arms looped with yours, “But I trust you’re gonna love it..or tolerate it in the end,” the blonde shrugs her shoulders, “It’s really up to you,”

“Stop being such a debbie downer, Adrianna,” Luke rolls his eyes.

“Can’t do that, it’s my passion,”

He continues, “Glory makes you bigger, scarier, more important. People listen closer when you talk, they work harder to be you and they think twice about messing with you.”

All of a sudden, a girl bumps into Percy and exclaims in protest causing the random girl to turn her head, now facing you.

Sparing one glance at the boy, and pushing against his chest, easily shoving him to the ground. Percy lands on the ground with a grunt, as the girl sizes you up, standing beside Chris.

“Give him a break, Clarisse, it’s like his first day,” Luke tells the curly-haired girl.

She briefly looked at Percy and then shifted her gaze onto you.

“Yeah, I bet…” she jeers, cockiness and sarcasm in her tone. “So these are the two newbies, huh?”

Her dark brown eyes flicker from you to Percy, a malicious intent as she smirks. “We’ve met before, right? You’re the same cute clueless girl with the annoying brother I talked to at the infirmary cabin.”

She was nice to you earlier, but now she’s being mean? Probably uses that as a defense mechanism to put her walls up, you could see right through her.

Your face remained stoic, currently incapable of displaying any emotion of gratitude to the girl. This was not the time to approach a bully, much less a self-appointed popular girl at this camp.

You were tired, your body was exhausted and your stomach grumbled in irritation or hunger, possibly even both. This familiar girl bullying your brother wasn’t what you had in store for today, out of all days. Why couldn’t today, out of all days, be peaceful?

You shove her back, using much force to have her stumble back, “What’s your problem?”

Clarisse looks at you in bewilderment and scoffs, “Excuse me?”

“Did I stutter? You bothered my brother first so it’s only fair! Do you feel entitled to bully my brother?”

The curly-haired girl glares at you, stepping up closer, “If I were you, I’d watch my tone when talking to me.”

You step closer to her, “My tone’s staying the same, you got a problem with it, use all that pent-up anger for something good and prove me wrong but if you’re all talk, pipe the fuck down and stay out of my way.”

“Here I was thinking you were nice and quiet, guess I was wrong. So how you doing, clueless?!”

“Fine until I saw you.”

“I doubt that, clueless girl,”

Yeah, you highly doubted that yourself.

“Stop calling me that!”

“No! I like that nickname for you so I’m keeping it!” Taking two firm steps closer to you, she looks you up and down, “If you want me to stop, then make me, Matthews.”

“Another time, I suppose.”

“No, no, no! Do it now, Matthews, unless you’re too much of a pussy to put me back in my place,” She got closer to your face, noses touching and lips barely hovering over the other.

“Well, you are what you eat.” You retorted back, “Does that apply to you too, LaRue?”

She scoffs, ignoring your remark.

“Never in a million years would I ever kiss you.”

“I never specified which girl you would kiss. Which meant I was on your mind for you to be thinking of kissing me.” You teased her. “Never say never, LaRue,”

Her eyes flickered briefly towards your lips, she looked flustered, immediately covering up her blush. She nods her head, feigning to be understanding, and distances herself a few inches away. Considering her impressed by your assertive tone she changed the subject almost immediately.

“Wait, so you’re the siblings who killed the Minotaur, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Hmmm…I don’t believe it.”

“We’re not asking you to nor do we really care if you believe us, it already happened, we have the proof as well.”

Clarisse partially smiles, eyes trailing down your figure, checking you out as she clicks her tongue, “I like you, you’re quite bitchy, just my type.”

“I’m surprised you’re capable of having a crush on someone,”

“Me too,” she confidently admits, “But I guess someone might change that.”

“Keep on dreaming La Rue.” You scoffed at her flirty remarks.

“You never know, pretty girl.” the nickname rolls off her tongue smoothly.

You hate to admit how sultry her voice was, hanging off that nickname made you flustered. And with that, Clarisse and her posse of half-siblings left as Percy got up from the forest ground.

“Wow, no one’s really stood up to Clarisse like that before,” Luke admits, blowing out a breath of surprise.

“She seems nice.”

“I’m taking it that she’s this camp’s bully.”

“Ares kids, they come by it honestly.”

“She’s not gonna let you live this down,” Chris informs you, observing how your eyes still follow Clarisse’s figure.

“Yeah, I know,” you glance at Clarisse walking off in the distance and drift your attention to your younger brother, “But no one bullies my brother, that’s my job.” you ruffle with Percy’s blonde hair as he rolls his eyes at you.

“Haha, very funny…��� Percy sarcastically replies, swatting your head away from his head.

“You’re right, I am the funnier sibling.”

“Says who?”

“Says you. You just said it!”

Luke chuckles at your sibling banter, “C’mon guys, let’s finish the tour.”

“Why don’t they mess with you?”

“They know better.”

“Luke’s the strongest swordsman at camp,” Chris boasts.

“To which I still doubt to this very day,” Adrianna interjects.

“How would you know, you’re always in your father’s workshop all the time,”

“So they leave you alone because of ‘glory’?” Luke nods his head, allowing Percy to continue, “So if I get glory, Clarisse wouldn’t mess with me either,”

“Exactly.”

“And people think I’m a big deal?”

“Well…” Adrianna trails off, “They think Y/N is a big deal, considering she actually killed the Minotaur, but it’s good to have hope.”

“So that means, our dad has no choice but to claim us,” he assumes, looking at you.

Luke and Adrianna shared a skeptical glance.

“Listen here, little dude, you can’t force the gods to do anything,” The blonde girl advised.

“Well yeah, but it would make it harder for him to pretend that me and my sister don’t exist, right?”

“Or our dad could be really great at ignoring his biggest responsibilities and many years of child support.” You commented.

“Maybe,” Luke squints his eyes.

“To which one?”

“To which one what?”

“Were you responding to me or Percy?”

“Umm…” he blew a breath of uncertainty, “I don’t…Adri knows who I was referring to…”

“Firstly, Adri is reserved for Y/N only, not anyone else. Secondly, yeah dude you weren’t being specific,” Adrianna adds.

“Traitor,” Luke scoffs playfully.

“I think that’s you!” Adrianna remarked.

You saw him tense up at the remark and your curiosity got the better of you. Why did he tense up like that? Is there more to the story Luke is letting on? Does he truly seek good intentions for you and your brother, Percy?

It took him a while to finally answer the question.

“Maybe for both,”

“And the world may never know,”

“Great, right back where we started,” You sighed.

“Nevermind, Luke, guys.” Chris clears his throat, sending the awkward atmosphere, “Let’s put your skills to the test, see if you’re really deserving of glory,”

“Well, great. Where do we start?” Your little brother’s eagerness was clear as day.

You can never figure out if Percy’s pessimistic or optimistic, however, you were a more ‘go with the flow’ kinda of girl.

You witnessed the girl in the wheelchair, using a bow and flaming arrow, aiming her weapon at the practice target, smiling when it landed the bullseye.

“A good source of glory are feats of skill,” Luke states, handing you a bow and arrow. “So, we gotta figure out what you’re good at.”

“Well, I don’t have it anymore, guess my glory was fun while it lasted,” You shrugged, turning to walk away, patting Luke’s chest, “I’ll see you around,”

Luke reached out his hand to grab you but Percy’s unimpressed gaze stopped him. Percy shoots him that ‘Don’t even think about it!’ stare. Adrianna found it funny how oblivious you were to this current situation and relished the boys’ tactics. So to taunt Luke even further, she grabs hold of your hand, smirking when you accept the kind gesture.

Adrianna tugs on your arm, dragging you back to her, “It doesn’t hurt to try,”

“It may hurt for the bystanders,”

“Stop being such a worry wart, it promotes wrinkles and you can’t have that on a pretty face.”

“You think I have a pretty face?”

“How could I not?!”

“I do have a pretty face, don’t I?”

“Dare I say the most gorgeous one at this camp,” She winks.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Adri,” you playfully reprimand.

“I’m quite certain I can handle things firsthand, I’m a hands-on learner,”

“Oh really?”

“Wanna find out?” She checks you out. You’d be lying right now if your cheeks weren’t so flustered, and tiny butterflies didn’t erupt in your stomach.

Luckily, your brown skin diminished any sight of blushing, only others to assume, just the way you’d prefer it to be. For others to be unsuspecting and unaware.

This was how best friends act all the time anyway so you played along, just for the fun of it.

“Are we here to flirt or are we here to train?!”

“I can do both at the same time,” Adrianna tilts her head at the Castellan boy, enjoying his torment to the fullest, much to his dismay. She glanced at you, a smirk appearing, “How, Y/N, what about you?”

“I’ll need some practice,”

“And I’ll be happy to teach you,” She smugly states, moving closer to you, and settling beside the wheelchair girl.

You shuffled with the bow in your hand, feeling uneasy with the weapon placed in your care. Adrianna hands you an arrow, and the wheelchair girl lights up the tip of the arrow with a generic gas lighter.

“Is this safe?”

“Probably not,” The girl shrugs.

“So you decide to put us all at risk because of your uncertainty?” You asked incredulously, “Oh I’m loving this camp!” You stepped closer to the target, aiming your weapon at the target, closing one eye for better perception, pulling back the arrow, and releasing it toward the target. You held your breath, watching the arrow hurl towards the target, smiling when it landed, missing the bullseyes by a few inches.

“Told you that you’ll love it!”

“Not bad for your first try,”

“Told you,” Adrianna grins.

“Your turn, Percy!” You shoved the two-pieced weapon in his arms.

“I wanna be very clear about this. I’ve never done anything like this, and it looks super dangerous.”

“Ehh and you and Y/N never double-teamed killing a Minotaur before either, ‘til you did,”

“Y/N did all the work,” Percy mumbles, “Why does everyone keep forgetting that?”

The girl moved to light the tip of the arrow on fire, but he pulled away, “I wouldn’t,” He warned the girl.

“Trust me, he wouldn’t,” You stared at the girl who chuckled in your direction, backing away from Percy a bit.

He stepped forward, fixing his posture on the arrow, stretching the arrow back, and releasing it into the air. Too bad his aim was horrible making it fly over to the group of spectator campers. Scaring everyone else, they ducked down, trying to dodge the flying arrow and Percy tripped onto the grass himself.

Your brother blinked once, staring at the distressed faces of the campers, and hesitantly asked; “Should I try again?”

There were many clamors of disagreements after that, earning boisterous laughs from you and Adrianna. Obviously, Percy is now a safety hazard towards bows and arrows, so hopefully he will become more resourceful with another weapon soon.

Next, you two ended up in the camp’s workshop, bustling with sweating eager kids rushing around to create variations of weapons for later use.

“Now we’re in my domain,” Adrianna laughs, ushering you and Percy to wear aprons, gloves, and safety glasses.

“I’ll handle Y/N, Luke you got Percy,”

Luke agreed, disappearing further into the workshop with Percy.

“So your godly parent is…”

“Hephaestus, god of forgery. None of those titles matter anyway if you’re just gonna be a shit dad to your children.” She mutters, eyes lingering on the ground. You could hear the hurt in her voice as she strained to maintain an emotionless tone.

“Adri…” You longed to comfort your friend but refrained from doing so.

“Don’t know why I said that, but continue.”

“Adri…”

She hums, encouraging you to continue.

“Everything isn’t okay, you can tell me anything. I know we just met but–“

“Maybe another time,”

“Whenever you feel comfortable,” You rubbed a hand over her shoulder.

“Great, now back to figuring out your skills.” She points to the inflamed metal.

“I don’t deal with melting shit of any kind, I’m barely even trusted to cook on the stove by myself,”

“Relax, Y/N. Just follow after me,”

You place the safety glasses over your eyes, grabbing the hammer. The melted metal was already in place as you repeatedly hit the hammer against it, hoping to mold the heated metal. It was going well for a while, until you lost control and the heated piece of steel flew across the air, landing on heaps of bags.

Your eyes widened when those bags caught on fire and Adrianna grabbed your hand, pulling you away from the disaster.

That was an epic fail!

Apparently, when you reunited with Luke and Percy, the same occurrence happened with your brother. Now some Hephaestus’ kids were currently disposing of fires, accidentally created by the two siblings.

Great minds think alike, you guessed.

“When’s lunch, I’m starving,”

Chris laughed at your question.

“What’s so funny about that? I was serious.” You deadpanned, glaring at him. “I never joke about food, keep that in mind.”

His laughs came to a halt at your seriousness as he cleared his throat, dismissing the slight embarrassment he felt.

“Oh, I love you already, I don’t fuck about my food either,” Adrianna laughs, skipping over to wrap an arm around your shoulder. “C’mon let’s ditch the boys, I have a hoard of snacks to keep you occupied until lunch,”

You giggled at her suggestion, instantly agreeing, allowing her to drag you away to her cabin.

“Seems like Y/N and Adrianna are getting along pretty well,” Chris comments.

“Yep, that’s good.” Percy smiles in recognition, pleased to see you content and not in a gloomy depressed state, troubled by your losses.

He knows you’re burying the pain and suffering, at least for his sake. Regardless if you were putting on a mask to protect him, your brother was highly aware that certainly, you admired having a friend of your own and the happiness it came with.

The siblings meet up at the dining pavilion, Percy sits in between you and Adrianna with Luke and Chris across from them.

“Is there a Greek god of disappointment?” Percy asks, letting his question linger in the air before resuming, “Maybe someone should ask him if he’s missing a kid.”

“I think they should, you know,”

Percy turns to you, “Oh, gee, dear sister, you sure know how to brighten my mood,” He sarcastically replies.

“I know,” You giggle, “You’re blessed to have me, all of you are, but my future girlfriend will be the most blessed to be dating me,”

“No doubt about it.” Adrianna winks.

“Are you two flirting?” Percy squints his eyes.

“Yes, but in a platonic way,”

Luke attempted to encourage the blonde boy, but Chirs beat him to it as he stared at his brother in confusion.

“Oizys…but she’s a goddess, and her whole thing isn’t really a disappointment, it’s more like a failure,” Chris stated blankly, playing with his food, obviously not reading the room.

“Now I know who never comes to me when I need consolation,” you shake your head, chewing your food.

His brother, Luke blinked incredulously, rolling his eyes at him, and turned to Percy.

“We’re gonna find the thing that you’re good at. I know it.” He reassures the blonde boy.

“Yeah, but do you… like truly? Don’t give him false hope,” You reinstated.

A chiming bell cuts the conversation short, confusing you and Percy.

“Our turn.”

“Our turn for what?”

“Burnt offerings,”

“The gods like the smell, so it gets their attention before you say a prayer,” Luke confirms.

“They like the smell of burnt mac and cheese?”

“You telling me that I must waste my blessed food on deadbeat immortal gods?! Nah, fuck that, Imma eat every ounce of my food. What did those gods do to earn my leftovers, nothing at all,” You exclaimed, raising an eyebrow.

“They like the smell of begging,” Adrianna includes, standing up with her plate.

“That’s believable, but it’s not worth the sacrifice of my food, it’s too precious,” You defended your food, “And also…I ate everything from my plate,” You trailed off, staring down at your empty plate.

“It’s fine, I’ll share with you,” Adrianna suggested.

“You’ll burn what you’ll miss the most, then they know you really mean what you’re about to say, so they listen.” Luke finishes, leaving with his plate alongside Adrianna.

Later that night, you headed to bed early, exhaustion deep in your bones. Adrianna had spent the entire day with you, departing from you with a comforting hug, and going to her own cabin.

You felt Percy shuffled against his sleeping bag, causing you to groan and stir slowly awake.

“Where do you think you’re going?” You whispered to him, rubbing out the tiredness away from your eyes with concern written all over your face.

“Just gonna talk to my mom,” he clarifies, holding his bag of blue candies in the air.

“Do you want me to come with you?” You began to remove your blanket.

“No, no, I’ll be fine, stay here.”

“Be safe,” you whispered to him with a small grin.

“I will,” he reassures you with a small smile and he snuck out past the many campers in the cabin.

Reassured by his disappearance, you laid back in your bed, snuggling into the cover sheets as sleep peacefully claimed you once again.

Day 1 at Camp Half-Blood seemed to be decent at least.

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[holocene-sims]

gorgeous gorgeous girl ❤️

[ngkiscool]

Buck up, people, another round of NSFW!

As always, all the fics are focusing on supporting characters, this round they are M or E. The description includes rating, word count and main characters. This week there are cw, please mind the tags!

Next week is open to suggestion - would you like to focus on a character that hadn���t got enough attention? Continue with the vibes? Please send ideas and recs for stories that focus on supporting characters (as in, Aziraphale and Crowley are not the main ones). Self recs are encouraged!

What You Can't Get From Books by souljelly - rated M, 644 words, focusing on Anathema and Newton. Summary: For the Good Omens Kink Meme: Anathema/Newt, library sex.

Heaven Incorporated by Langerhan - rated M, 1.9K, focusing on Gabriel, Michael, Sandalphon and Uriel. Summary: Michael is the first one of them to be granted a corporation. Her fellow ineffable beings are fascinated by it.

When You're Standing Oh So Near by orphan_account - rated M, 1.2K, focusing on Gabriel and Sandalphon. Summary: The thing about Heaven, was that you didn’t need miracles. Things happened to be where you needed them, and didn’t happen to be where you didn’t need them. A table, as a surface to place a photograph, that ceased to be when you turned your back and no longer needed it. An office that was only an office when you opened the door. The door, which was only sometimes a door, and usually wasn’t there at all.

An Average Day for R.P. Tyler by Caedmon - rated M, 619 words, focusing on R. P. Tyler and OC. Summary: R.P. Tyler is a perfectly respectable pillar of the community. Just don't stoke his ire.

Purgatorio by AEpixie7 - 8.3K, rated M, focusing on Michael, Lucifer and Gabriel. CW - Emotional Manipulation, Lies, Trauma, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism. Summary: Michael is sent to Earth on a forced vacation due to her bad attitude following the foiling of Armageddon. She finds herself in the employ of a mysterious businessman, but he is more familiar than she realizes.

I Can Still Recall.. Our Last Summer by BeezandBitches - rated M, 16K, focusing on Anathema and other characters. CW - Recreational Drug Use. Summary: A series of oneshots about Anathema and her lesbian relationships with the most powerful forces of Heaven, Hell, and Earth. (A summer prompt series inspired by a post by @luke-x-percy on tumblr)

Our Side Yule: Transition by vampydoo - 1K, rated M, focusing on Sergeant Shadwell and Madame Tracy. CW - brief mention of injections, brief body changing mentions, Minor Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy, Subtle mentions of sex work. Summary: Little fic for the Our Side Yule Prompt "Transition"."She danced and sang with the crowd she felt the safest in, joining hands and screaming out loud to Christmas songs. She saw romances blossoming and comforting happening, as tears rolled down her cheeks. They caressed and cooed over her, wiping away her tears, as she realised the community she finally had.

The Third Quarter by WaldosAkimbo - rated E, 1.5K, focusing on Eric the Disposable Demon. Summary: One of Erics many many strange tasks in Hell is the Third Quarter Office Activity. Let off some steam. Get to know your neighbors. And the Erics? Oh, they have a hell of a time.

i met her at church, but she can be satan. by thundersfox - rated E, 1.7K, focusing on Adam from Eden, Adam young and Lilith. Summary: I'm not human. I have no man's pride to lead me like this, and I'm not interested in fighting. It's entirely the weakness of your sex, not mine. I'm a woman. I use any and all weapons to get what I want.

Unsafe At Any Speed by @copperplatebeech - rated E, 4.5K, focusing on Michael and War. Summary: Gabriel’s fellow archangels decide that just because the last charge didn’t happen, there’s no reason they can’t ride. A clandestine call to the Horsepersons and some quick selection of gear later, they’re ready to try touring the famous Mountain Course on the Isle of Man. War remembers old times in the field alongside Michael and decides she has more to teach her than riding.  “Well, they’ve left you to me,” said War with a slow, broad smile, the breeze lifting her vivid hair as she held Michael’s eyes with a thoughtful gaze. “War and the Angel of Battle. Good pair. Let’s show you what it’s like to burn some road, shall we?”

Authors - if you wish that your Tumblr account will be tagged, instead of the AO3, please comment or DM me the handle. Thanks :)

Bonus - master list with all past recommendations!    

Thanks for reading, and remember - sharing is caring!

[haaam-guuuurl]

Jane the Virgin Post-Series HCs

Because I just finished watching it and as much as I really was satisfied with the ending, I've got these characters on the brain and as much as they say that the last scandal was revealed, we all know they still have a lot to deal with. So these are just things that have got to happen after the credits roll

Jane eventually uses the new book money to buy a house for her and Raf and their family - with the white picket fence and everything, all the stability Jane didn't have growing up and all the love Raf didn't have

She wants to buy her Abuela a house too, but Alba refuses, she loves their house, full of memories and happiness. So, instead, Jane buys the place next door so they can expand

Rafael continues on as a real estate agent, likes the whole normal job, normal routine, normal life thing, but he wouldn't be Raf without a little ambition, and she wouldn't be Jane without encouraging him to follow his dreams, so, many years later, after more preparation, planning, and security, he does buy that lot and builds his hotel from scratch

Also, and though he is (finally) okay with his parents, there come the times he wonders about them, or misses the normal childhood he never had. In one of those times, he gets really into baking, and cooking, convinced it must be in the genes. He thinks he's great. He's not. Not at first, at least. But Jane doesn't have the heart to tell him. Eventually, though, he gets better at a few signature dishes. In another of those times, he decides to learn Italian. That one goes better, since at least no kitchens got burnt

Eventually, once the kids start growing up, and he starts missing the cute little early years (also, before he buys the land and gets swamped with a new business), Rafael changes his mind and he and Jane do adopt another child. They finally do the parenting thing together from the beginning, and Mateo is the most excited and tries-to-be-helpful-but-sometimes-makes-a-mess-in-an-adorable-way big brother ever.

Jane keeps writing, though she is largely busy with the massive success of her second book, which does, years later, get turned into a telenovela, which both Jane and Rogelio executive-produce

Xo and Ro live in New York while This Is Mars is filming, and Xiomara goes to school, dealing with the highs and lows of international fame in the superstar central of the world. They come back to Miami for parties, and holidays and vacations, and, eventually, when the series ends, move back for good.

Xo is a nurse, working hard and slowly falling in love with it, eventually studying to be an NP, because she's always looking for new heights and challanges. She doesn't lose her passion for singing and dancing, though, but slows it down, makes it more of a hobby

Rogelio starts taking smaller, but still spotlighted roles, and in a few years, retires to behind the scenes stuff, producing other shows, helping young stars, but, mainly, to spend time with his family

Petra and JR are back together and date, for a few years, just comfortable with each other and dealing with every new crisis one step at a time (including, but not limited to, Petra's crazy mother and long lost triplet). They do get married, and Petra plans the huge celebration down to the last detail, but in reality it's more of a formality, because they've been commited to each other and a family for years now.

Also, Petra does franchise the Marbella, and becomes a bonafide hotel mogul and entrepreneur, building basically an empire the twins will inherit and continue

(And her success does mean that the lifestyle book she and Jane had been writing that was benched is picked up once more, and they get to work together again)

Plus, some minor things:

Jane and Rafael and Michael (and Charlie) keep in touch and are actually in good terms. Finally, with no less drama, and everyone happy with their own families, they can be friends and support each other

Luisa stays clean and moves on from Rose, and becomes the cool/weird lesbian aunt for the kids she was always meant to be

And they all keep on dealing with dramas and complications (like Rose's network and bouquet of doppelgangers, Petra's family, maybe Xo's fragile health, Ro's literal dramas, Jane and Raf's risky, dream-following businesses, new kids and custody twists and turns with adopting ...) like a true telenovela, but they have the love and the heart to make it through it all together, as they always have, as a family.

[last-flight-of-fancy]

fatedeniedhope replied to your post “* sees people confused over various kh plot points * * is not people i...”

I would like yo know a bit. Only play kh 1 and chain of memories and half way to kh 2

oh boy there is a *lot* to cover here then!

I don’t mean that to sound intimidating, kh just has a tendency for long, sprawling interconnected plots (many of which are still unresolved even now)

i am also doing this entirely by memory, so if i’ve skimmed something i shouldn’t have its because my brain has stopped registering it as important; feel free to ask for clarification, i wrote this in one sitting because i was avoiding doing laundry XD

putting a cut because i am overviewing a Lot of game here and tbh there’s still a lot of stuff i am skimming or skipping entirely. I’m just trying to hit the highlights.

i don’t know where you stopped in 2, so i’m just gonna give a brief overview

-there is a boy named roxas

-he’s being hunted by these strangers called nobody’s

-things get weird

-turns out he’s sora’s nobody, as nobody’s are created when a person is turned into a heartless (which sora did during kh1)

-roxas returns to sora (”looks like my summer vacation is.. over...” whoops there goes my heart) and normal sora gameplay resumes.

-DIDNEY WORLDS

-turns out everyone forgot sora for a year bc of what happened in chain of memories (and also 358/2. dont worry about that yet we’ll get there). kairi sends out a bottle to “the boy she can’t remember” trying to call him home. (yes this is important)

-organization 13 (all what? eight of them left?) pops up, xemnas is cryptic, and they say their goal is to recreate kingdom hearts via sora killing heartless, since apparently only killing heartless with a keyblade sends the trapped hearts to Kingdom Hearts

      -this version of the tale persists through 358 as well. it’s.. half right.

-bla bla bla, shenanigans. there’s ansem (the boss from kh1) and a guy named diz. That isn’t who either of them actually are. It’s actually Riku (who tapped too far into the darkness trying to capture roxas for the whole twilight town scenario at the beginning of the game, thus altering his appearance to look like the guy who posessed him for a bit) and THE ACTUAL ANSEM (ie, the ruler(?) of radient garden before it fell, and the guy heartless ansem stole his name from.

-anyways

-sora goes off searching for riku, bc as far as he knows, he’s still lost out in the darkness.

-he’s not, he’s fine, but he’s super embarrassed about the whole ‘looking like the enemy’ thing and won’t let sora find him.

-sora casually murders most of the remaining organization members (only most of whom shot first)

-this continues on until axel attempts to kidnap kairi, who ends up in twilight town for a bit hanging out with the hayner/pence/ollete trio, before being slightly more successfully kidnapped a second time.

-and then she gets kidnapped again by saix. Axel apologises to sora over this. in his defence, he’s pretty desperate at this point (he just wants his friend(s) back)

-sora storms The World That Never Was, kairi is rescued by Namine.

-the trio finally meets up (namine disapeared at some point? yknow, i actually dont recall what happened to her in between these scenes), sora and kairi share a slightly awkward but sweet hug, and after a moments trepidation over ‘Ansem’, kairi tells/shows him its riku, at which point sora bursts into tears.

-i ship a lot of ot3′s, but sorikai is the OG ot3

-anyways

-namine and roxas have a very symbolic moment refusing with their Other’s, Namine opens a portal back to destiny islands so they can go home.

-everyone except sora and riku make it through, and thus commences several final fantasy style boss fights

-they win, of course, riku’s injured in the line of battle, and they limp out, having traversed several realms during the course of this battle, they’re now trapped on a beach in the realm of darkness. it’s the same beach everyone else seems to end up on in this place. There is only one beach in the RoD apparently

-they stay there a while, and then they pick up a message in a bottle; it’s from kairi, “to the boy she can’t remember”

-Feelings make a door to the light open, and sora and riku fall like actual comets from the sky and everybody’s reunited and happy. huzzah!

-.... well for a while anyways.

-should i get into the whole xemnas/xehanort/ansem thing here?

-eh

-okay so

-lets swing back into Birth By Sleep for a bit

-(im sorry if kh can’t hit any of its plot points in order i think its fair neither do i)

-BBS takes place roughly nine years prior to kh1, with the exception of bbs’s prologue, which i would estimate as being an additional four years prior to that

-during said prologue, we meet Master Xehanort, an incredibly old dude with brown skin, gold eyes, and a white beard. even newcomers to the series will probably recognise that only one type of person gets those colours in these games.

-we also meet baby Ventus, Xehanorts apprentice. He looks exactly like Roxas.

-shenanigans happen, Xehanort splits Ven’s heart in two, creating Vanitas, who is Ventus’s darkness.

-Vanitas’ whole shtick is he wants to be reunited with Ventus, ostensibly to create the X-blade (yes it’s pronounced exactly the same as ‘keyblade’ and yes, every single kh fan ive ever talked to has found this annoying af)

-unfortunately being split in two like that puts ven in a coma, and xehanort takes the unresponiseve body to destiny islands to dump it like unwanted ravioli

-luckily for ven, “a brand new hear” hears his hurt and reaches out to help, filling out the gaps left in his and allowing him to start recovering

-the heart is sora

-actual, literal baby sora reaching out to help people before he can even walk yet. 

-the game never spells this out explicitly, which makes it an easy plot point to miss if you aren’t paying attention

-ven doesn’t recover immidietly though, and xehanort sends him to live with his old friend Master Eraqus and his two teenage apprentices, Aqua and Terra

-here’s where we time skip, ventus is fully recovered, terra and aqua are young adults and about to take their Mark Of Mastery exams for becoming keyblade masters.

-Terra fails because he has darkness in his heart and also xehanort rigged it against him

-aqua passes and becomes a master. I love her very much.

-terra journey’s out to try and figure out where the darkness comes from

-vanitas taunts ven saying terra’s leaving him bc ven’s stupid or something and ven panics and chases after him (he’s like 14 and has a bit of a hero worship thing, stupid decisions are par for the course)

-eraqus sends aqua out to both spy on terra (he words it nicer but thats the gist of it), which aqua doesn’t particularly like but trusts her masters judgement and does it, and bring ventus home, which she is more on board with

-the biggest tragedy in bbs is that no one talks to each other

-stuff happens, they learn some stuff, aqua’s route has So Many Lesbian Feels with every single princess she runs into it brings me great delight

-Ventus learns the whole ‘fight your darkness to become the X-blade’ plot, eraqus learns this too and tries to kill ven. Terra busts in at the last moment and saves ven, at this point using his dark powers fully.

-#terrawasright

-eraqus dies, which i don’t think terra fully intended to do (he just wanted to save ven) and if you recall the scene in kh1 where kairi catches a falling sora only for him to burst into a bunch of floating glitter? imagine that but with two grown men

-aqua’s just trying to figure out whats going on. she gets to meet kairi (saves her from some heartless and then puts a charm on her necklace to keep her safe) and then meets Mickey, who will be our future duex ex machina

-they all meet for the final battle.

-ven asks his friends to murder him

-no one does that

-what the fuck ven

-they fight, and a lot of stuff sorta happens at the same time

-1: terra fights xehanort, who has essentially been spending the whole game prepping terra to be his next host. xehanort is a body snatcher confirmed. xehanort wins, terra becomes the fanon-named terranort.

-2: ventus fights vanitas. vanitas reveals his face, and he looks exactly like a colour swapped version of sora. (also voiced by the same voice actor! it’s actually surprsingly difficult to notice this if you don’t have some kind of clue already because haley joel osment does and *amazing* job). ventus wins, the X-blade is not forged, but as a lot of this battle takes place in his heart, the effects are bad and ven falls into a coma (he reaches out once more, and another hearts answers. “you can stay here a while, I don’t mind” says the other heart. yes its fucking sora again. too good, too pure)

-3: aqua gets knocked out to start with, but then she fights vanitas controlling ventus’ body, which eventually gets sorted out. terra’s dissapeared at this point, and she takes a comatose ven and hides him in the land of departure, which she uses a secret mechanism to turn into Castle Oblivion (and thus, impossible to navigate  without her key)

-aqua goes to hunt down terra(nort), and finds him in radiant garden. they fight, aqua wins, but when he begins to sink into the darkness she sacrifices herself to save him (which is how he ends up as one of ansem’s apprentices and mostly without any memories)

-aqua will spend the next ten years in the realm of darkness

-bbs is such a goddam tragedy

-OKAY

-time to fast forward

-so sora and ven are connected, which is why vanitas and roxas look the way they do, which brings us to

-the case of xion

-and 358/2

-the worst game to play but my absolute favourite in terms of slow-burn pacing and emotionally investing you in the characters

-this game pretty much just deals with the year sora spent asleep, and the kids time in the organization.

-roxas wakes up with no memories, is inducted into the org, and told “kill heartless with your keyblade”. He’s more or less a zombie at first, and accepts this without question.

-a week later, a new member is introduced, named Xion, who also has a keyblade, and is also a zombie with no memories at first

-Axel, the org’s assassin, is basically told to babysit them both

-he’s not really into it at first, but those natural Big Brother instincts kick in Hard about five minutes later and from that point on he’s mostly just trying to keep them both alive.

-oh, also Lea, Axel’s somebody, met Ventus in bbs, so that was probably a little weird for him.

-as the game goes on and these kids essentially learn how to human and try to figure out what makes them different, the Big Plots stew in the background. Axel and Saix have some kind of plan that Axel apparently isn’t sticking to, and Axel questions his loyalties more as the game goes on and circumstances force him to choose between two kids Who Did Nothing Wrong, and his oldest friend.

-Xion learns they are a replica, a la Repliku, created as a backup to roxas if he could not fulfil his duty in creating kingdom hearts. their connection with roxas, and through him sora, has the unintended side effect of flitering memories and feelings into and through Xion.

-this is why putting sora back together takes so long

-Xion, between the pressure of being an org member in general, and the mental load from being caught between three+ people in a very literal sense, has a breakdown. Riku finds them, and despite a pretty rocky start between them, helps them through it.

-Xion leaves at two different points, the first time, Axel brings them back. “please don’t hold back, Axel. Promise.” “Everyone always thinks they’re right”

-excuse me i have to lay down again after thinking about how emotionally wrought this scene is.

-(the alternative is he has to kill them. he does everything he can to avoid that, but it’s clearly approaching an unsustainable situation; the org is running out of patience for dealing with the ‘clearly defective replica’, xion doesnt feel this situation is right, and axel just wants to keep everyone alive.

-yes typing ‘clearly defective replica’ physically hurt me. xion is a perfect bab and xemnas can fite me

-Xion leaves again

-Roxas, learning pieces of this but not all, runs away from the org. cue titular “no one would me” “that’s not true!” scene from 2

-(this leads to what is a hilariously depressing scene of roxas on the clocktower looking at his life and going “where could i even run to? I havent got anywhere to go” because he’s never known anything other than the organization and whoops i made myself sad again)

-namine explains to xion that sora can never wake up so long as they have his memories. The only way for them to release the memories is to die. It’s a hard decision.

-Xion meets roxas on the clocktower, feigns insanity, and goads him into fighting them (”do you see my face, roxas? is it a boys face? don’t you see. I have to make you a part of me too.”)

-cue more ff style boss fights

-xion dies

-look i can’t go into detail on this one i’ll start crying again, xion dies, everyone forgets they ever existed, and roxas gets to watch them shatter into dust in his arms.

-in the brief period where the memories are quickly vanishing but Not Quite Gone Yet roxas goes into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and storms the World That Never Was

-this is where Riku catches up to him, and from there its a pretty straight shot into the beginning of kh2

-which im sure if you played these in chronological order would be *some kind of mood whiplash* i bet

-okay what have i missed

-recoded happened. the only important part here is that malificent and pete find out about the black box and malificent being malificent of course she Has To Have It

-”but whats the black box??” you ask

-good question

-we still dont know

-its  origin point is in KHUx though, 

-which is the multiplayer mobile game set during the Keyblade War of ages past. each weilder also has a companion dream eater named chirithy

-there are five unions, each headed by a leader and represented by an animal (unicorn, bear, snake, fox, and leopard)

-#anguisforlife

-these five (plus one more, named luxu) are each given roles by their master (the Master of Masters, or also known as MoM). He also tells them there is a traitor amongst the warriors of light. it’s unclear at this point how much of this he is directly steering. He also doesnt specifiy Which warriors of light, probably on purpose so everything happens as it should.

-so figure, trying to figure out who the traitor is is a pretty direct cause to no one trusting each other and eventually going for each others throats

-there is a page from the book of prophecies he gives only to luxu, who he tells that his role is to see the future with this Special Keyblade (and specifically the Eye in it). You might recognise it as xehanorts keyblade (and then you’ll start to see the Eye in a whole bunch of other ones too, notably in soul edge, way to dawn, and void gear)

-luxu fucks off, and everyone else goes about their business

-the first half of khux details how these unions came to  be rivals, and then how they fell into war with each other and destroyed the light. the second half detailed how Ava, leader of the fox union, created a fifth group known as the dandelions, specifically picked to survive the fall of the light and rebuild.

-ventus and lauriam are two of these leaders. No, we still don’t know how they got from one point to the other.

-one of the replacement leaders, strelitzia, got murdered and replaced by someone else. i think this plot point has been resolved in japan but i havent checked yet

-strelitzia is lauriam’s sister. she also knows elrena.

-and if you’re bad at anagraming like i am, lauriam=marluxua, and elrena=larxene

-so yeah figure that one out for me

-also i love strelitzia she has like two scenes total and i was already ludicrously attached help

-(Yes i screamed very hard during that One Scene in 3. we dont even see her face but it’s heerrrrrrrr)

-anyways

-right the black box

-luxu is seen carrying it off in the Back Cover movie as he wanders into exile. we still dont know whats in it. and that’s basically that.

-which leaves just Dream Drop Distance

-sora and riku take a Highly Modified mark of master exam under yen sid.

-things go wrong almost immidietly

-sora gets trapped by the xehanorts in a deep sleep, where they plan to use him as one of their 13 vessels of darkness

-there has to be 13 for some reason

-13 darknesses, and 7 lights, and when they clash it’ll make the X-blade

-because reasons

-it’s fate or something

-riku rescues him

-there is time travel involved now

-because at this point the 13 darkness now include; heartless ansem, master xehanort, xemnas, young xehanort, xigbar, and saix.

-more time travel will be involved later, but to keep this in mind the rules of time travel here are

     -you cannot take your body with you

     -you lose any future knowledge you gain if and when you return

-things are obviously wibbly here because it’s half in the dreamscape, but just. keep those rules in mind when you play 3.

....... im sure im missing a bunch but i just spent two hours writing the most casual pre-kh3 synopsis ever i hope you can forgive me XD

[the-revisionist]

Hi! Just to say, I LOVE your fics! Could you possibly write Things you said on New Year's Eve for Caroline and Gillian? If that's not a good one, then literally any of them will do I'm sure you'll write it perfectly! Thank you

Anon, hope you’re still reading…thank you for kind words and the prompt! Sorry this took longer than anticipated! 

This is a companion piece to “Completely Undressed and Mostly Sober in the South of France.”  @farminglesbian had suggested a continuation of that in some way and since she controls the Lesbian Empire on the European Continent in an Unspecified Rural Location Where They Are Inclined to Wear Lederhosen I must obey or I may never be allowed in Europe ever again.  

This story is a bit of an exercise in style. For dialogue I did not use traditional quote marks. So, you know, it might work, it might not, it’s OK and you can say so, I’m a big girl and I have a lot of wine at the ready, but please don’t be a twat about it. 

This one is post-series 4. 

faithful misrepresentations

i. it’s time to get the brioches

At 5 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, she apologizes for not shaving her legs.

The morning, blue and black with jagged frost etched across a darkened windowpane, rests at the edge of Caroline’s mind. It’s so terrifyingly early that she doesn’t really want to know the time but cracks open a reluctant eye anyway; the bedroom’s digital clock coolly burns a 5:05 on the inside of her eyelids, the blunt serifs morph into an SOS and she thinks, good God, I am awake at 5 in the morning, this is what I get for sleeping with a farmer. Because Gillian stirs warm and restless against her, driven by the undeniable rhythm of blood that always has her racing against the sunrise and who, because she is apparently the master of not only the unwanted spontaneous confession but also the truly baffling nonsequitur, opts not to say good morning but rather randomly and needlessly apologizes for not shaving her legs before this, their trip to France.

Blind as a kitten, Caroline reaches for her and, half-asleep through a tangle of warm limbs, hones in on her calf; the soft hair tickles, the solid muscle undulates, the raspy glory of skin warms Caroline’s palm. There is a scar on this calf, invisible in the dark but vivid in her mind as a distinct but delicate comet tracing a pale horizon. It was, Gillian told her, caused by a jutting, broken spoke on a wheelbarrow.

That’s when I learned not to do farm work while wearing shorts, she had said.  

Caroline replies to the apology by mumbling don’t mind into a pillow; sleepiness translates it into dun mime. She’s cresting the wave back into sleep when she realizes that Gillian is not moving, not rising out of bed with a stretch and a groan and a curse word. Which is odd, because Gillian likes routine. Every morning they’ve been here she’s up before the sun, making herself tea, reading for a bit, and then walking a mile to the village to fetch brioches from a baker amusedly tolerant of an Englishwoman who flirts with her grown son and insists on conversing in rusty French. By the time she returns the brioches are stone cold but she revives them in the oven, makes coffee, and wakes up Caroline by cannonballing onto the bed like a kid on holiday. Winter clings to her skin and clothes but her morning kiss is persistent and sweet and like waking into a warm, summery daydream and not a chilly old French farmhouse lacking proper heat.

She forces herself into a higher level of coherence, clears her throat, firms up a question: You’re not getting up?

Not yet, comes the reply.  

In the dark she aims badly for Gillian’s forehead and gently smashes her palm against a nose.

Are you sick?

No. It’s just—we don’t have much time left. Here, I mean. Want to enjoy it.

They return home the day after tomorrow.

By staying in bed as long as possible, Gillian adds as needless clarification.

Under two blankets and a comforter movement is heavy and surreal, a sluggishly sensual underwater ballet. The blankets move as Gillian slides on top of her, exposing Caroline’s shoulder to a rousing chill, which is briefly warmed by Gillian’s mouth before moving along the inlet of the collarbone toward her breast. She spreads her legs, Gillian settles in between them and presses into her, and even though it’s all so new between them—so wonderfully new, she thinks, as Gillian traces the inside of her thigh—she identifies the variance in tempos and moods better now and knows this time will be slow and sweet and hopefully she won’t bang her skull against the quasi-antique headboard again.

You’re giving up brioches for me?

Nah. I’ll get ’em later. Just delaying gratification, as it were.

So—how delayed is gratification when all you’re doing is merely sublimating it with another pleasure?

Even though they can barely see one another in the porous dark, a bluish outline of morning light traces the contours of Gillian’s face and hair and Caroline can see a hitch of expression, a shift of lines as she smiles.

Shut up, you, she says.

ii. continental beauty

For one horrible aching moment—while wiping down a quartz countertop aged to such an extent that it looks as if it’s survived a hundred years of everyday bacchanals, and this is why housework is dangerous and housewives go mad, she thinks, it sets the mind loose to dwell on so much of life’s chaotic cruelty—Caroline realizes that she never had this opportunity with Kate, that is, a long romantic getaway and not just a mucky weekend at a nearby hotel. Even on that modest level she fucked it up nearly beyond repair. Even on vacation with her husband of eighteen years always she felt—she knew—she was a fraud, nothing but a character in one of his novels. Maybe it’s a sign; maybe it means something. Here in this farmhouse in the Rhone Valley hundreds of miles away from home, she waits for the shoe to fall into a dreaded Grand Canyon of unspecified anxiety.

They spent months not talking about what they needed to talk about. It was easy enough to blame a host of things for this: demanding work schedules involving obstreperous students and sheep, parenting thickheaded boys, coparenting a toddler with a knobhead whose taste in women was obviously on the decline, a bountiful supply of excellent wine from a beautiful young woman who simply would not go away, and complete, sheer cowardice. Acceptance of the status quo has always come easily to Caroline, particularly in this instance because she was getting good wine and properly laid on a regular basis—thus her mother’s interrogations and condemnations, her secretary’s prurient questions (“You have it off with Brokeback Shepherd yet?”), and generally everyone’s bewilderment and clumsy emotional tap-dancing around the subject were all easily ignored.

Then last month, during one of those boisterous family dinners where, as was not uncommon, Gillian looked at her in an indescribably aching way—followed by a self-chastising frown, slight shake of the head, and a protective hunch of her shoulders that seemingly closed off any possibility of rapprochement—Gary announced to all present that renovations to his vacation home in France were finally complete. During this interminable period he had gone from referring to the house as a chateau to deeming it a money pit. It was actually an eighteenth-century stone farmhouse, its interior now as rustically authentic as one envisioned by a nouveau riche entrepreneur from Yorkshire, and Caroline twitchingly recalled Gillian’s proposal earlier in the spring—that they would go there for a few days during the summer and work shit out. But summer ripened and withered away and the promise, representing everything that was seemingly lost between them, lingered bitterly.

After dinner Caroline stood in the doorway of Gillian’s kitchen observing their motley, contented family—Raff playing Legos with Calamity and Flora, Lawrence attempting to show his grandfather and Gary how to play Halo Wars 2 on an Xbox, and Celia, post-two glasses of wine, going on about the life of the theater to the clearly bored yet admirably patient Ellie. She felt Gillian’s presence at her side—churning and restless as a spoon stirring a pot, staring at her feet, then a lamp, then her son, and finally fixing that burning gaze of hers on the woman next to her while the back of her hand glided over Caroline’s knuckles, thus causing the latter to force out a surprising hybrid of a squeak and a gasp.

Let’s—let’s do it, she said. Come with me to France.

Five minutes later they were purchasing plane tickets on the mobile.

Five days into this trip she has learned many things about Gillian: she slavishly embraces routine whenever possible, she likes brioches, she’s reading Middlemarch for the third time now but Caroline cannot imagine why because she herself has never made it past page 50, she’s capable of lingering over a cup of tea and not gulping it down because she’s not running late or has a hundred things to do in a day, she thinks MI6 was involved in Princess Diana’s death, she’s takes no firm side in the great over vs. under toilet roll debate—don’t people have anything better to do than argue about toilet paper? she had said—

—and she is an admirer of great beauty because now she barrels through the door after tromping around the countryside for an hour and breathlessly announces, I’m in love.

Caroline imagines herself unseeded by either the baker’s handsome son or the buxom young woman who works the vineyard nearby, the latter spotted the other day during a wine-tasting tour and whose sumptuous cleavage was the focus of surreptitious glances from Gillian. After half a lifetime of stealthily admiring the physical beauty of women, Caroline knows these covert maneuvers when she sees them. Alas, all she has to counter these continental beauties are certain oral skills and her talent for making a certain orange-ginger biscuit that Gillian loves and who knows, perhaps that will save the day, perhaps even as sun perpetually sets on the English empire all that truly matters is cunnilingus, tea, and biscuits.

I’m confident of your ability to attract, she wants to tell Gillian. But not my ability to hold you.

But while hanging up her coat Gillian starts rambling about a ram, a sheep with a fancy French name. She saw him posing on a hillside, broodingly apart from the herd, a Heathcliff among sheep. His markings and coloring exquisite, his horns symmetrical, his poise exceptional—

Before Gillian can declare herself high priestess of this mythic creature’s cult, Caroline—dimly aware of the unseemliness of jealousy over a sheep—interrupts rudely: What’s it called again? A rum-ball merino?

Gillian rolls her eyes. Rambouillet, she says. She grabs a cup for tea. A Rambouillet merino.

Ripe for plucking, the word hangs in the air and Caroline ravenously seeks its source in a kiss. She holds Gillian’s lower lip gently between her teeth, tongue running the plush length of it, tasting salt and mystery because, frankly, women have always been unfathomable to her.  Sweetly, wonderfully unfathomable. She starts to unbutton Gillian’s thick, lined plaid shirt—only to discover, underneath, a second plaid shirt thin and soft with age. At which she breaks off the kiss and bursts into laughter.

Jesus Christ, you’re like a flannel onion. Layers and layers.

It’s cold, in case you haven’t noticed, Gillian says—also laughing—as she sits the empty cup on the counter.

I’m trying to warm you up, Caroline replies as she sets in on the second flannel layer. In case you haven’t noticed.

Tossing her arms around Caroline’s neck and pulling her into another kiss, another embrace, Gillian says, I’ve noticed.

She doesn’t feel too distressed about fucking Gary’s sister on Gary’s distressed leather couch—burnished leather, she thinks he called it and the color was Churchill cigar—because there is an old blanket on it and as they fall onto it she doesn’t care about much at the moment except the wonderments and sensations of skin and taste, wondering if Gillian has ever called anyone else baby, Caroline can’t quite imagine that she has and would like to reserve that titular honor as her very own, wondering when the last time someone went down on her properly because her reaction and sheer enjoyment of it make Caroline feel like Aphrodite incarnate coming down from on high and she has to cling to Gillian as if she’s riding a rollercoaster by the skin of her teeth.

Afterward she’s sprawled on the couch wrapped in the comforter Gillian dragged out the bedroom, staring at the crisscross of the ceiling’s dark wood roof beams and with her head pillowed on Gillian’s bare thigh. With one flannel shirt back on, Gillian sits cross-legged while drinking one of Gary’s very pricey local Syrahs and pretending to read Middlemarch, pretending because she’s humming, which she usually does while absorbed in the comforting repetition of a task like washing dishes or mending a shirt or soothing a baby and in this instance the task at hand seems to be slowly, rhythmically running her fingers through Caroline’s hair. I like your—your hair, she had said the other day, shy and stammering and nervous after they made love, as if the gentle offering of a compliment would somehow be virulently rejected, and while Caroline loved the sweet awkwardness of it she hated the man who made Gillian terrified of revealing the slightest vulnerability.

She stares at the shadowed, foreboding ceiling beams, thinks that Gary should have picked a wood of a lighter color because the dark beams make her think of crucifixions.

Say it again, she says to Gillian.

What?

The name of the sheep.

Rambouillet.

Oh, she sighs, that’s lovely.

Unexpectedly Gillian drags her finger, damp and dribbling Syrah, across Caroline’s lips, as if soothing an infant with a taste of milk. You’re really weird, she says.

I’m not the one in love with a sheep, Caroline replies.

iii. the search for intelligent ovine life in the Rhone Valley

The afternoon winter sun, useless and pale, emanates as much heat as the moon. They are out in search of the great Rambouillet merino. Gillian insists she needs to get a better photo of the sheep so she can submit it to something called “Google sheep view” and Caroline, who is perfectly fine with not knowing what the hell that is, is nonetheless curious to know what the fuss is about and accompanies her. Leading the mission, Gillian stalks the dirt backroad that runs behind Gary’s farmhouse with her usual dogged, determined pace. She’s been in a bit of a mood since lunchtime and Caroline knows enough to let her be until she’s ready to talk; it’s likely, though, that she dreads the thought of returning home to the questions, the judgments, the expectations that will be laid at their feet.

She trails behind. Outside of the Yorkshire countryside she has navigated most of her life, her sense of direction is rubbish and she hasn’t a clue where they really are. She sighs and burrows deeper into her scarf. It’s the coldest day of the trip thus far. The stiff, expensive boots she purchased for the trip are pinching her toes and the too-high arches dig into her soles. In the distance she sees the vineyard that they visited days ago, the spherical red caps of the buildings distinct against the pale sky, and has a wince-inducing guilty thought about Olga.

Shortly after committing to this journey, she officially ended it with Olga. It was not so much a breakup as an act of disengagement; some days she actually convinces herself of this. Regardless it required some semblance of fortitude to finally override the guilt-ridden, passive-aggressive lust that propelled the relationship on her part. Olga took it well. She also took a case of an amazing Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley that she had initially gifted to Caroline and now presumably would bestow upon another boozy, middle-aged lesbian—or, more likely, her ex—both nonetheless worthy of her considerable charm and refined palate, while leaving Caroline to the tender mercies of a sheep farmer overfond of cheap Lambrusco.

She stops for a moment to look at red roofs jutting into milk-white clouds and dwell in the newness of everything—place and memory, time and love—while accepting the sense of loss that perpetually nips at her heels. Snow flurries waltz to the ground.

Then she notices that up ahead on the road Gillian has stopped and turned around. Head tilted, she critically eyes Caroline as she would a lagging, miscreant ewe—as if to say, come along now.

Grimacing, Caroline takes long strides to catch up. She apologizes on arrival, insincerity muffled through the cashmere scarf.

Gillian carries a long, sturdy branch found earlier on the road. Alternately she’s been using it as a walking stick and brandishing it as a weapon, whacking at husked, brittle weeds lining the road, sadistically poking at stones. Idly she whips it around her body while frowning at Caroline.

What were ya doing back there? she asks.

Contemplating life’s mysteries. Appreciating the sublimity of nature. Oh, and staring at your ass. Not necessarily in that order.

Bashful at the compliment, Gillian lowers her head and grins. Then, wryly: So you weren’t stopping ’cause those boots are hurting you?

Not a bit, Caroline lies.

You’re limping, she says, and then nods in the direction of the winery. D’ya think they send out Saint Bernards with little wine flasks to rescue snotty English bitches who don’t wear proper footwear whilst they wander about the countryside?

That would be marvelous.

Gillian points up ahead at a copse of trees. The gesture is so startling and beautiful and confident that Caroline wants to seize her hand—ungloved, snowflake caught and melting on her thumbnail—and kiss it.

Right up there, she says, past those trees, is a shortcut through the wood to the vineyard. If you can make it, we could walk there. Couple glasses might revive you for the walk home.

And if it doesn’t?

Reckon I’ll have to drag you back somehow.

Cavewoman.

Nah. I’m not that strong, Gillian says with a roll of her shoulders, but I’ll give it a go.

Au contraire.

That’s the first bit of French out of your mouth since we got here.

You’ve been doing well enough for both of us, Caroline says, so why bother? She leans into Gillian, quietly pleased at the arm that automatically wraps around her waist. Then she presses her face into the crown of Gillian’s hair, kisses it, and says, I’ve always believed—she begins shakily, pauses clumsily—always known—you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Gillian pulls back and stares at her, unsure if what she’s saying is an obvious revelation or a faithful misrepresentation of the brutal facts that comprise her life. She thinks that Gillian usually skews toward the latter as a default viewpoint, and realizes it may take a lifetime for her to sort it, to undo it. If ever. What surprises Caroline is not this but the belief, settling into her bones and countering her own misguided self-assessments, that she is finally brave enough to be fully present in Gillian’s life.  

On the walk home, both of them tipsy and tired, they see the Rambouillet merino ambling across an open field into the setting sun. And he is beautiful.

[bestnewsmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/do-not-install-windows-10-creators-update-download-microsoft-warns-some-users/

Do NOT install Windows 10 Creators update download, Microsoft warns some users

A new urgent Microsoft message has been released, urging users without a tech background to avoid downloading the new Windows 10 Creators update manually

  The new patch has been available for two weeks now but Microsoft is wary of those who may not know enough about the update to be able to work through the general issues when installing the code.

This is due to the fact that older machines may not be compatible with the Windows 10 patch, running the risk of creating big issues for those who go ahead and download it.

The tech giant has removed the automatic upgrade option from PCs that they think may struggle, although that hasn’t barred access entirely.

Owners can still find and manually download the Windows 10 Creators Update, leading John Cable, director of program management for Windows servicing and delivery, to offer this advice.

“Blocking availability of the update to devices we know will experience issues is a key aspect of our controlled rollout approach.

“We decide what to block based on user impact, and blocking issues are a high priority for us to address as quickly as possible. During the time it takes to address an issue, we want to limit the number of customers exposed to that issue.

Windows 10 Creators Update – the best features Tue, March 28, 2017 Windows 10 Creators Update is nearly here – here are some of the best features in Microsoft’s newest release

PLAY SLIDESHOW The new Paint 3D app makes creating models easier than ever MICROSOFT 1 of 10 The new Paint 3D app makes creating models easier than ever

“It’s important to note that when customers use the Software Download Site to manually install the Creators Update they bypass many of these blocks.

“Therefore, we continue to recommend (unless you’re an advanced user who is prepared to work through some issues) that you wait until the Windows 10 Creators Update is automatically offered to you.

“When your device becomes eligible for the Creators Update rollout, you’ll be prompted to make some important choices on your privacy settings before the Creators Update can install.”

One known issue flagged by Microsoft is connected to Broadcom Bluetooth LE radios, which sees connection problems when running alongside the Creators Update.

“Our feedback process identified a Bluetooth accessory connectivity issue with PCs that use a specific series of Broadcom radios, ultimately resulting in devices not reconnecting as expected,” Cable added.

“Once identified, we posted this issue to our Windows community forum, provided user guidance on troubleshooting, and blocked additional devices with these specific Bluetooth radios from updating.

RELATED ARTICLES Windows 10 BLOCK – Users left unable to use Creators Update Windows Phone is DEAD – Microsoft signals end of its mobile phones Windows 10 creator walkthrough of latest gaming features Play Video “Once a solution is available, we will update our forum post and remove the block.”

The update includes a number of features targeted at business users, including improvements to Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection designed to protect users against network attacks.

It follows the news that Windows 10 was blocked by hugely-popular anti-virus software Webroot earlier this week.

The security program pushed-out a flawed signature update on Monday that mistakenly targeted hundreds of crucial Windows files – incorrectly identifying them as malware.

  Webroot closed and blocked the critical system files – crippling Windows 10 machines.

The anti-virus targeted all versions of Microsoft’s latest operating system, including Windows 10, Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and Windows 10 Creators Update, which rolled-out earlier this month.

The glitch hit both business customers and consumers running Windows.

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7 Comments SubscribeRSS 6 days ago Turdburger Running great on both my Haswell desktop and ancient laptop(I5-480M), best update yet IMO ReplyShare0 7 days ago ClaudeWhitlock I have updated 2 computers with Creator with NO problems. However when I updated my main machine. An Asus/ Intel I7 3770k/ 16G Ram etc.. It all went to hell. Edge would not connect to the internet, No way to fix it. I had to remove the update. That went well. ReplyShare0 7 days ago BrianDavies I’ve have had no issues at all with Windows Creators Update and my two 5yr old laptops run faster than they did prior to the update. I’m thrilled with it.

@orderic If you mean you’ve switched to Android then you obviously only use computers for entertainment. Android is great for fun, but totally rubbish for productivity compared to Windows. I’ve never had a crash in Windows 10 as I didn’t with Windows 8 or 8.1. I use heavy graphics software daily. ReplyShare0 7 days ago HaseebQureshii I have 4690k paired with r9 380 and this updated made my computer useless, its went extremely slow and some of the programs would not even open. I had to clean install an older version of windows 10. So this new update does not really have anything to do with slower machine’s just broken and not optimized ReplyShare0

7 days ago Order My laptop got the distance test after they kept trying to download Windows 10. It was so slow I just got fed up with it. A friend of mine cannot éven get his laptop to boots up. As the yanks have suéd VW for the emissions scandal can we sue Microsoft? I now have a Samsung tablet it’s 100% better. ReplyShare0 7 days ago KawataAndare I Have a trouble with windows creators update. when using WINDOWS APP my PC going to restart after start app (Egge Browser and some Windows Store App) few seconds with STOP CODE. I was done SFC Scan also. but Same Problem ReplyShare+1

8 days ago Johnny_BGood Beware uploading the Creator update. I had countless problems last weekend following upload. Stopped me accessing the login prompt screen. Finally, after a day of trying and failing to load a clean trouble free copy of Windows 10, I succumbed to a factory reset which took me back to Windows 8.1. At least I won’t be suffering any further Windows 10 updates. ReplyShare+1

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