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theonewiththefanfics · 4 years ago

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Tomato - Tomato (one-shot)

Synopsis: One is an international rock-star. The other is his loyal assistant. Both are complete morons in love. Also - she’s allergic to tomatoes, and it is important.

This started off as something completely else. hope you enjoy :D

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!Assistant!Reader

Genre: fluff, minor angst

Warnings: two idiots pining for one another, swearing, mentions of allergies and EpiPens

Word count: 3492

Being an assistant to someone famous wasn’t all glamourous parties and wild nights out with celebrities. It was scheduling last minute flights and not sleeping for three days straight as you packed a million bags and then repacked because their stylist sent you knew pieces and the old ones no longer fit the aesthetic of the week. It was also making sure that they were up by six AM with a hot coffee at their bedside ready to help them wake up as you lay out a detailed plan of the day down to the minute, while you yourself basically only had a two-hour nap because you had to finish off 568 handwritten notes to be sent out to each of the contacts in their phone. Or at least that’s what Y/N’s life was like being the personal assistant to none other than the modern-day prince of rock Harry Styles. Said rockstar was actually still asleep when Y/N entered his room, ripping open the curtains and letting in the rising sun. He groaned, pulling up the bedsheets that’d ridden down his form during the night. “Not that I don’t like seeing your gorgeous face in the mornings….” he mumbled into the covers. “But I don’t like seeing your face in the mornings when they start at six bloody AM.” Y/N snorted and rolled her eyes, rubbing them in an attempt to get rid of the sleep that still lingered in her own body. “You were the one that said you’re fine with seeing Lambert at eight for a fitting.” “When did I say that?” Harry scoffed, only the top of his messy bedhead seen from the cocoon he’d built around himself. “Would you like me to pull up the text messages, the calendar or the e-mails?” Even with her back turned as she rummaged through his closet for him to put on some clothes, she could sense the middle finger he threw at her, and she smiled. Despite everything, despite the zero sleep and stress always coursing through her veins, Y/N loved working for him. He treated her as a friend, not just some lackey he paid to, but most importantly, comparatively to the other people she’d worked for in the same line of business – he treated her as a human. If something went over the deadline, Harry didn’t scream or yell at her and tell Y/N how incompetent she was, instead he asked what kind of help or assistance she needed to get the job done, or maybe if she just needed some time off to gather herself and look at the problem with fresh eyes. “I hate how organised you are,” Harry groaned, finally throwing the covers off. “If I wasn’t, you’d be in a ditch somewhere.” She heard him scoff and two feet plop against the hardwood floor as he made his way towards her. “Is that how little faith you have in me?” “You don’t even know what day it is!” “Who does in these times?” Y/N shrugged her shoulders and handed him a pair of boxers, some loose jeans, and a flowery Hawaiian shirt. “Are you telling me I’m wrong though?” She looked over to her side, a smirk playing on her lips while he squinted his green eyes at her. “No, but it doesn’t mean I like getting called out, especially this early in the morning.”

With a roll of her eyes and a shove at his shoulder for him to move to the bathroom, Y/N handed him the clothes, moving downstairs to start making him some light breakfast and get herself a cold glass of water. You see, she’d been working as his assistant for close to two years, and they’d grown not only as people around one another, challenging their beliefs and world views, but as friends too. And, well, Y/N would be lying if the emotions hadn’t evolved from platonic to falling in love. Not that she’d ever admit it. He was an international sensation, and she was the girl who got him vegetarian croissants at the airport. She dragged a hand down her face as she clicked the stove on and took out a carton of eggs from the fridge. Y/N knew how he liked his omelette to the T, mostly because when she’d spent the first night of quarantine with him a year prior right as the pandemic had started, Harry had wanted to do something nice because she couldn’t go and see her family any more, so he’d gotten up at seven to make breakfast for both of them. The only problem was, he hadn’t asked if she had any allergies, so as he added bits of tomatoes, parsley, cheese and scallions, Harry hadn’t expected Y/N’s eyes to go wide at the first bite as she dropped the fork. “Harry…” Her tone had been cautious. “What’s in this?” He was sweating. Was his cooking really that bad? He just wanted to do something nice and there he was screwing everything up. “ ‘S just some of my favourite things. I’m sorry I didn’t ask, I just thought you’d like it.” “I do, but this tastes like it has tomatoes in it.” He nodded. “Yeah. It does.” Gently she smiled at him and pushed the plate a bit further away. “Could you grab me a coat, and if you have any – an EpiPen?” “An Epi – oh shit!” When the realisation hit him, Harry was jumping out of his seat, running to one of the cupboards and rummaging through in a panic all the while apologies flew non-stop from his mouth. Y/N in the meantime had gathered her purse and mask, making a call to the nearest hospital to explain the situation to which they responded they’d be waiting for her arrival. “I’m so sorry!” Harry ran up to her, a first-aid kit in his shaking hands. “Please don’t die! I didn’t want to kill you, I promise! I just wanted to make you some breakfast cause you do so much for me, and now you’re stuck here, and – oh god,” he cried. “I’m going to be prosecuted for killing my assistant.” She didn’t mean to, but the snort came out of her nose either way. “Harry.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Please calm down. I’m not going to die.” “You’re allergic!” “Yes, I am, but I only had a small bite. The ER is just a precaution.” Y/N took his palms in hers and squeezed them. “Now take a deep breath with me…” They did so, holding it for five seconds and letting it out for eight. “And calm down a bit. I’ll go give myself the shot, and then I’ll drive to the hospital.” “Let me,” Harry begged. “Please, let me at least drive you to the emergency room. God, I almost killed you with an omelette, it’s the least I can do. I – I could also help you with the shot, I won’t hit an artery, I promise -” “Harry, you’re barely coherent. Not to say anything, but you’d have a bigger chance of killing me in a car crash, than from that tomato.” Y/N gave him a smile. “I’m gonna be fine.” With that, she left him to venture into the bathroom and did the unpleasant part of stabbing herself in the thigh to alleviate her body from the allergy symptoms. She sat there for around five minutes before she felt that the swelling of her tongue and itching in her throat was starting to subside, which meant the epinephrine was working. “Okay,” she huffed, taking her purse from the couch where Harry had been sitting, hugging the accessory. “I’ll be back in probably around two hours. Do we need anything from the store?” He shook his head. “Just come back home, please.” Y/N would never admit how her heart thundered in her chest when Harry said to come back ‘home’. “I will.” She promised. “Don’t you worry. You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Styles. The money’s too good.” She winked at him and then left Harry pouting on the couch, but she couldn’t get through the door, before he jumped up, yelling, “wait! Do I need to get rid of every tomato in the house?” “No,” she laughed. “I’m good to be around them. Even touch them. ‘S just my insides that don’t agree with it when they meet.” “Okay.” He nodded, hands on his hips. “Alright. I’ll uh – I’ll be waiting. I’ll make you something else.” “There’s no need for that, Harry.” His eyes widened at her words. “I swear I’m not trying to murder you!” “Oh my god,” she muttered shaking her head. “Just – just relax. Okay. I’ll send you hourly updates.” He bit his lip. “Make it every ten minutes.” “Harry –,” “Please?” The way he was giving her puppy dog eyes melted her heart. With an eye-roll, Y/N waved at him and promised to update her boss at every possible moment and confirm that he hadn’t, in fact, been the reason for her demise. Well, he was the reason for the demise of her low standards in men, having taken them and thrown them up to the Moon, but unless her feelings were miraculously requited or if one of the Marvel characters, she was obsessed with came to life, she’d have to stick to what was available. And in her mind, that wasn’t Harry. “What are you thinking about?” His voice startled Y/N out of the memory, and she shook her head, adding salt and pepper to the beaten eggs. She shrugged. “Just about that time a year ago where you secretly tried to off me because you were too nice to say you didn’t wanna quarantine together.” The groan he let out was of royal embarrassment, and it put a wide smile on her face, as she took one of the forsaken fruits and started to chop the red ball into small pieces. “You’ll never let me live it down, are you?” Y/N raised her eyebrow at him. “Your failed murder attempt?” She snorted. “Of course not! It’s like you don’t watch the crime shows and murder documentaries when I have them on. You really haven’t learned anything.” Harry stuck his tongue out at her and moved to her side, dropping some chives into the mix as well. “Well given how it wasn’t a murder attempt, I wouldn’t consider it a fail.” Her hip bumped his, and only then did Y/N really give him a once-over. As always, he looked amazing in whatever was on his body, but what made him even cuter in her eyes was the sleepiness still lingering in him. Harry’s movements were a little bit sluggish, eyes half-closed and small sighs passing his lips as he sipped onto the coffee she’d come to his place with. The shirt sat loosely on his body, the first two buttons left open while he’d tucked the bottom of it into the jeans, having found a Gucci belt and cinched it around his waist, giving it a more eighties look rather than the sixties vibe he usually had with his suits. The brown hair was still messy and dishevelled, and Y/N could barely, just barely restrain herself from running her fingers through it, but what she didn’t know Harry was struggling just as much. All he wanted to do was pull out the bottom lip Y/N had gotten in between her teeth and kiss her senseless, to have her fingers dig into his arms and leave crescent shaped imprints on his skin. “So, uh…” He had to start a conversation otherwise his mouth would find itself on Y/N’s mouth in a second. “What’s Lambert got in his schedule? How many outfits is he thinking?” “Two or three, I think,” she said, pouring the mixture on the pan and letting the slow sizzle erupt around them. “He’s got this one suit which I think you’ll really like – all leather, but it needs to be altered.” Harry hummed, and for a second both of them relished in the domestic feel of it all. They’d had many moments like it before, especially during the spring and summer seasons of 2020, and Y/N couldn’t help but relish in her memories at them. “Harry?” It was like her voice snapped him out from a trance. “Could you pass me a plate please?’ “Uh, yeah,” he stammered for a moment and then nodded, wordlessly going to a cupboard and taking out a white marbled plate. That single piece of kitchenware probably cost more than her life insurance, but it was definitely aesthetic if nothing else. Silently Y/N plopped the omelette onto the plate, placing it on the kitchen counter and went to get him a fork, however when she turned around, he was facing her, chewing quite agressively on the inside of his cheek. “You okay?” she asked, coming closer. “I can call Lambert, reschedule it for later. He wouldn’t be too happy about having to wake up and then – “ But Harry shook his head. “It’s not that.” “Then what?” He didn’t say anything. It was like he was trying to decipher the best course of action, and when he ultimately did, Y/N was pressed up against the counter, Harry’s forehead against hers with two ring-clad hands cupping her cheeks. “Harry,” she breathed, out her lips brushing his making the air in her lungs hitch. “What are you doing?” “Something I’ve been dying to do for a year now. If you let me that is.” “I -,” The words were muddled up in her head. Of course, Y/N wanted him to kiss her, she wanted him to ravish every part of her body. The fantasies and dreams she’d had at night would be incriminating proof if her feelings were on trial, but despite it all, her brain was usually in charge and would overrule any decision made by her heart. “Harry, we can’t.” She whispered, voice breaking. “I -,” Horror morphed onto his features as he took a step back. “Did I misread the signals? Did I do something you don’t wan –“ “No.” She grabbed onto his cheeks, trying to calm him down, his body practically melting into hers. “I do.” She didn’t need to explain what she meant. He understood. “So much it hurts me sometimes… but Harry, you’re my boss. My employer. It… it wouldn’t be right.” “Why? How can it not be right, when it feels like the rightest thing in the world?” “Because, Harry,” she huffed. “You’re my boss. And what’s worse – I love working for you!” That made both of them laugh, the tone of her voice as if she was more annoyed than anything else. “ ‘Nd why’s that bad?” He nudged her nose with his. “I’d hope my employees like working with me. What kind of a person would I be if I thrived on them being miserable?” “Because if I didn’t, quitting would be easy.” She raised her eyebrow at him. “And if I quit there’d be nothing stopping us from dating.” Harry bit his lip, finger trailing along her cheekbone. “There’s nothing stopping us now either. There is no clause in your contract that says you can’t date people who you work for or with. Sarah’s with Mitch, and they’re the happiest they’ve ever been. They’re even having a baby…” Y/N gave him a sympathetic smile. “I know. But that’s different. They’re on equal levels. You and I, however… I don’t want people to think I got my job because I slept with you, or some shit. It’s bad enough some already do so.” His brows furrowed, and Y/N saw how his jaw clenched. “Who?” “Strangers.” She shrugged. “I know you don’t look at comments like that online, but I see them. My DMs are filled with that. Gossip magazines. The point is – there are already unsubstantiated rumours about us. This would give them the confirmation they’d need.” “How can it confirm something that’s not true?” “There are still people who believe vaccines cause autism. Even when their ‘proof’ has been discredited and shown to be just complete bullshit, most don’t like to admit they’re wrong, so they’ll look for whatever tells them they’re right.” Harry huffed throwing his head back to look at the ceiling. “So, where does that leave us? In love, but without being able to do anything about it? Because I can’t.” He shook his head. “I won’t be able to just pass you by without kissing you, or not pull you into the bed when you wake me up, or press you against the wall and not have my head between these two gorgeous legs.” Y/N groaned slapping his chest and dropping her forehead against his peck. “That is so unfair. Why do you have to tease me like that!” “Oh, sweetheart.” The rumble was deep and shot a wave of heat straight to her core. “This is no teasing.” The smirk on his face when she looked up at him was shit-eating. “Trust me, if I was teasing, you’d be begging for me.” She’d imagined him between her thighs more times than it was appropriate considering he was her boss, but hot damn, did it feel amazing when his lips crashed onto hers, and she let him. In her dreams, his lips hadn’t been just pressed to her mouth but other places which were more south, but it was still one of the best feelings in the world. The kiss left them both breathless, and grinning and satisfied, yet begging for more, teeth nipping at the soft flesh. “I’ll put out an official statement, if you want,” Harry muttered against her mouth, unable to stop pecking her lips now that’d he’d gotten a taste. “But please, please, please… for both our sanities go out on a date with me.” It seemed like Y/N was the one contemplating the best plan of action now when her brows furrowed and she looked up at him, pressing and unpressing her lips, as the swelling from the kiss grew. “Did you by any chance have a piece of that omelette already?” She had a suspicion it wasn’t just from the kiss. His eyes widened, and then his head dropped to her shoulder. “Not again!” Y/N rolled her eyes lifting his face by the chin so he would look at her. “How about EpiPen first?” “Fair enough,” Harry grumbled unlatching himself from her and going for his keys and wallet, already preparing for the short drive they’d have to take. “But then a date?” She raised her eyebrow, taking out the box Harry now kept under the sink with at least three EpiPen’s for emergencies. “In a hospital?” “We could be going dumpster diving for all I care, and I’d count it as a date.” Y/N rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to do so much better than that; you’ve almost put me in anaphylactic shock twice. Now come on.” She motioned with her head towards the bathroom. “Stab me and take me to the ER.” “Fucking tomatoes,” Harry grumbled, taking her by the hand and not letting it go even for the short walk. “Tomato-tomato, you’re the one that kissed me.” “That I don’t regret.” Y/N smiled, turning towards him, and taking him by the nape of his neck pulled Harry down for one more kiss, groaning at the feeling of his tongue dancing against hers. “Y/N!” He pulled back with a gasp, shock on his face. She just shrugged her shoulders. “We’re already going to see the doctors anyway.” Harry pushed her shoulder and made her sit down onto the toilet. “Take your pants off before my kisses kill you.” “Yes, daddy.” Y/N wiggled her eyebrows as Harry moaned, squeezing her calf. His eyes were dark as he looked up at her. “Next time this happens, you’ll be begging me.” Her wicked smile was so full of happiness he couldn’t help the one that grew on his face. “I’ll be keeping you to it. Now, dear sir.” She handed him the EpiPen. “Hit me with your best shot.” And although it’d been now two times in their lives where Harry trying to do something good and make the other feel just as good had done pretty much the opposite, when they got to the emergency room, their smiles could be felt even under their masks Harry watched with blushing cheeks as Y/N explained the situation to the nurse, especially when one of them threw him an unsavoury glance, eyebrow raised high as if saying ‘again? One time wasn’t enough?’. “No more tomatoes.” He promised. “And also - it wasn’t on purpose!” Y/N squeezed his palm, chuckling. She may not be able to give a shot at eating a tomato, but she sure as hell was going to give Harry one. After all, she had almost died for the man. Twice.

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Harry Styles tags: @breezykpop @girlboss99 @harrystylesdoesntknowiexist @alliyjane @sirtommyholland @raylovessarcasm @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @harryhub

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue @im-squished

A/N: I’m at work and I wanted to write a bit for my book, but hahahahahahaha I can’t stop procrastinating. Also, this was something comepletely else centered around Christmas, then New Year and the Valentines, but I just couldn’t and it morphed into this. Maybe this Holiday season when it rolls around I’ll post it :D

P.S. if anyone’s had a septoplasty (repositioning of the septum) - how was it? how painful is it? kinda starting my journey towards it cause apparently I can’t breathe out of my left nostril, but I’m kinda scared ngl. I’ve read some horror stories about having holes and pieces of the cartilage fall out afterwards :///

P.S.S. what did ya think? my tags are always open, just drop a message if you wanna be added :)

P.S.S.S please don’t plagiarise or repost my work on other platforms (wattpad, AO3 etc)

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x fem!reader #harry styles x reader smut #harry styles x assistant!reader #harry styles au #fanfic #fanfics #one direction #one direction imagine #1d fan fiction #1d

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 3 years ago

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Hello I love reading your writings. Thank you so much for your hard work 💖. I heard there is a new Room system which will be added in the JP version of Twst. (Which I find it too cute btw🥺🥰). This got me wondering if you had a chance to redecorate Ramshackle (after the state it became in Ch.6 *welp*) how would you go about with it? It's Okay if u don't want to answer. 😊. Have a Great day 💜

Oh, thank you 🙏 and yes, I heard about that new feature to be added! To be honest, interior designing/room customization isn’t usually something that appeals to me in games, but I’m looking forward to it in TWST since I actually really like the chibi art style!

I guess I’d have to first see what the avaliable furniture items are, but my ideal room would have big windows to let a lot of light in... and lots of shelves/tables to stack books and to put decorations.

it would be nice if the room gave off the vibes of being outdoors despite being indoors... like maybe a muted and calm periwinkle or lavender for the walls! Flowery lamps, or fairy lights strung up to look like the stars or speckles of sunshine... Potted plants and mushrooms by the windowsill! Something really cozy like that. (Very cottagecore, now that I think about it 🥺)

I’ll also happily add whatever furniture items will attract J word and Rook 👀

#notes from the writing raven #feedback for the writing raven #twst news #twisted wonderland news #question #Rook Hunt thirst #Jade Leech thirst

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ofmythsandmadness · 4 years ago

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touch-starved | d.h.

or...the seven times it takes diego hargreeves to realises he’s touch-starved, and the one time he actually acts on it.

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SUMMARY: diego x gn!reader. an idiot in love, told entirely from his pov as he walks back on a series of monumental moments in his life. WARNINGS: a tad bit of foul language (bc i can never contain myself, jeez). allusion to sexual acts (nothing explicit, but if you know, you know). flowery garbage writing. probably poor characterization. a weird ending. WORD COUNT: 5.7k NOTES: it’s way too late (early?) for me to be putting this out. but after literally driving myself to tears over this stupid thing, i’m forcing myself to publish it and leave it to the world, for better or for worse. it’s...yeah. i hope it’s alright. x

BUY ME A COFFEE HERE. | CHECK OUT MY OTHER WRITINGS HERE.

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THE FIRST TIME HE REALISED WAS IN THE SUMMER.

“Can I say something weird?”

There is a nervous half-giggle that came after the question, like you aren't quite sure how he’s going to take whatever slipped from your gentle, just parted lips. It hangs much longer than the five words you passed to him and he almost forgets what you asked entirely, so hung up on the breathless fashion your chuckle had come.

But when you blink at him and let your beseeching eyes hover over his, he has to let go of the sound and return to the present.

“Sure,” he says dumbly. “What?”

He loses your eyes then and he finds himself following, eager to see what could have lost your attention so fast. His frown digs heavier as you stare at the table he’s leaned over. There isn’t anything there but his harness scattered across the worn wood and a knife in one hand. He’s been idly fiddling with as some show titters in the background, but his weapon (mal??)practices have never been much interest to you before. So...

Slowly a warm smile comes to cradle your cheeks. It rests as delicate as a crashing wave colliding with the great cliffs you had painted once -- like with everything you did, your smile’s a charging force that transforms you entirely and leaves him in awe that anyone could feel something so strongly. He watches with total enthrallment and for once, he’s not ashamed to feel so.

“You have like, really nice hands.”

You drawl the statement out like it’s some kind of joke. Though, the intense look you so briefly shoot him tells him it's anything but. And suddenly he cannot do anything; the knife falls from his hands and clatters to the table and his fingers tremble under your careful stare, paralysed.

“I-I-”

“-I know, weird compliment, but,” you chuckle again, low and soft. You shrug. “I was staring at them and realised how nice your hands are.”

“Uh…” he doesn’t know what to do with that information. What does one say to that? Is thank you enough, or is he supposed to just force a laugh and pretend like he is not completely ruined by the way you look at his hands? Compliments are not a usual weapon of choice, but when they come from your lips -- Diego can die right there and go overjoyed.

“Thanks,” he mutters, folding and unfolding his hands on the table. “I...never thought about my hands like that.”

You brighten. In a flash of pastel movement you were pressing close, close, close to him and reaching for a fist. He’s again powerless, forced to just watch you pull his fingers in between your own, softly running gentle pads against his bruised knuckles. The touch is cool but he feels his body combust at the mere swish of skin-to-skin contact and he realises,

maybe he could crave someone’s touch.

“You should,” you grin, exquisite under your apartment’s shitty lighting and the flashes of whatever’s happening on the T.V across the room. “You could like, seriously be a hand model or something. Go-orgeous fingers.”

And maybe, he starts to crave yours.

━

THE SECOND TIME HAPPENS WEEKS LATER.

He’d fantasized about your touch most of the days between it, but the thoughts had been forced to be fleeting and he had avoided considering the way you looked at him like he could actually hang the moon and stars -- and it only ever caught up to him in the ebbs of night, when he couldn’t sleep and just stared at the ceiling, considering what it would be like to really feel you against his hands and not let you slip away.

He so rarely let the sun touch his skin anymore. It wasn’t intentional to adapt a vampire lifestyle -- but between the shifts that let him keep his dingy ‘home’ and the nights he spends racing around the cursed city, trying to do the right thing (or stick it to his dad, depending on the night and how bleary his head felt), Diego rarely catches himself leaving the gym early than eleven anymore.

A fact that seems to exasperate you, and fuels what you dubbed an intervention. Aka, forcing him to wander around the city just barely kissed by autumn’s chilly embrace. And though he did argue against it (profusely, because he’s still that stubborn sonofabitch), he’s grateful for you still.

“I think we need to make this a regular occurrence,” you sing, tossing a smile over your shoulder. You skip several paces ahead of him as you soak in every bit of sunshine the crisp fall air could offer you. And he flounders and watches as he wonders what it would feel like to have that much energy from merely existing.

“I think I’m gonna have to mandate this. I’ll force you to schedule this into your life, and I’ll take shifts off from work so we can appreciate the afternoon sun while we can. It won’t be long ‘til winter you know.”

He chuckles hesitantly, “the sun’ll still be there in the winter.”

“Sure, but barely. And it’ll be cold then! The sun ain’t nice when it’s cold.”

He laughs again, and you join him. And it’s easy -- because it’s you.

“Diego!”

“Huh?”

You stop then, dropping your hands to your hips and glaring at him. Even from several feet away he can make out the infuriatingly adorable pout that puckers your pretty lips and the way he wishes he could go back in time and learn to paint, so he could capture the curve of your --

“--why are you so slow?!”

“I -- I’m not slow.”

“You are too! You’re dragging your feet like I’m forcing you to go to the dentist or somethin’.” You squint at him as the sun heightens his reach in the great blue sky. “Man, are you that allergic to a good time?”

“Shut up, I’m not that bad.”

The pout gives as easily as honey dripped -- that is to say, he adores the treacly sweet and slow slip from puckered lips to the easy smile you give him. Your entire heart’s behind the look just as it always is. You trot back up the path to him and held your hand out to him, wriggling it in the air.

“What?” he asks, frowning through a slow smile.

“Take my hand.”

“I…” he hesitates again. “Why?”

“Because you’re slow, and I want to make it to the coffee place before next year. Duh,” you drawl, still shaking your hand like one would to a little kid. “Now, come on!”

You pull and he comes without a fuss, dazed as you bumble on about whatever miraculous happenings go on inside your mind. He hardly hears a thing. Every part of his body is fixated on the soft brush of your thumb against his hand, rubbing soothingly -- he isn’t even sure if you knew you’re aware you’re doing it, but he is. Hell, he can’t feel anything else but that.

Maybe your touch could be a tether.

━

HE HADN’T MEANT FOR THE THIRD TIME. Hadn’t planned to make an event out of it, anyways.

“You’re a fool, Diego. You know that?”

Obviously, he responds silently, grimacing as the cloth presses harder into his cuts. That’s why he did it. Because he is a fool. Honestly, that sums up the majority of the things he does in his life. Or doesn’t do, in the case of you.

Is it bad, if as you scold him, he’s creating a list of even more reasons to love you?

“I mean, one of these days you’re going to come here impaled on like, a pole or something and then -- what am I supposed to do with that?” Your tongue clicks like a disapproving mother’s, but your eyes still dance with childlike mischief as you work. “I am not a nurse.”

“Could’a fooled me, with those hands.”

You glare up at him over your lashes, a sight that made his breath hitch. “Quiet, you.”

Diego does as you said -- but not for any bits or for the joke, only because the way you look at him suddenly made his body tremble with the force of a thousand men and all he wants is to grab your neck and drag you up to meet his lips, finally be rid of the burning sensation in his gut that makes him want to ask the most obscene of--

“--does it hurt?”

He blinks, forcing away the images flashing in his mind so he can focus on the real you again. “Uh -- does what, hurt?”

You take that as a joke, laughing low like his horny idiocy deserved such praise. “This, asshat. Does this,” you press harder with the swab, making him cringe, “hurt?”

“Shit -- yes, it hurts! What’s that for?!”

“Had to make sure you were with me still! Sorry,” you hum, sounding everything but. But your grip softens. “You’re lucky. This could have needed stitches.”

Diego snorts. “It’s not that bad.”

“You look like the fookin’ dino from Jurassic Park felt you up.”

“Not that fookin’ bad,” he mocks back.

“Your accent is appalling.”

“So’s yours.”

You press harder; when he scowls, you giggle, pleased to have won the battle again.

The rest comes in silence. You stand between his legs, mopping at his cuts as you are often wont to do when he stumbles into your window. And he tries not to think about the way your weight so casually presses up against his torso as you reach to his temple, parted lips just out of reach. He could do it; he could just reach out and grab your chin, pull you in and kiss you with all the fucking passion that made his stomach roil.

But he doesn’t budge. There is no way you want that and he would never push past that fragile boundary without asking, no matter what the primal part of his mind fantasizes. His eyes fall instead down to his lap, staring at the folds on his pants as your fingers graze across his skin.

“There,” finally comes, along with you stepping away. Your distance leaves a cold chill running down Diego’s spine; he wonders if he asked you to come back, if you would. “Almost done.”

“Almost? What’s left?”

The next few moments move like a movie. The ones he only ever watches with you or with Klaus; the cheesy slow-mo romances, where the two main characters constantly dance around in a will-they-won’t-they that usually drives him nuts. Everything is always so slow in them and he usually hates them -- he did hate them. But when it’s his hands cradled in yours and you are smiling sweet and gentle as a honeybee, hell he’d take every single second of those crap rom-coms, if it leads to that moment more.

You lean in and, holding his hands in your own like an anchor held a boat to shore, press your lips against his temple. The slightest sting from the pressure builds but it falls with the blink of an eye. Your lips are cold, delicate, brushing twice against the cut before pulling away.

“There. Now I’m done.”

Maybe, you’re just some kind of angel.

But then, why are you bothering with him?

━

THE FOURTH HAPPENED SO FAST, he nearly misses it.

You pull him in close, examining his clothes and face for any glaring wounds. When you find nothing but dirt and a couple surface scratches, your worried expression melt into something akin with relief; a shiny-eyed, trembling lip smile that deserves its place in the greatest museums.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” you whisper, seemingly untrusting of your vocal cords. You sniffle. “I was - I was so--”

“--I’m okay.” It sounds more like a revelation than a reassurance and he repeats himself twice, just to make sure you understand. His hands still grip tight to your forearms, holding you to him in case you would disappear, too. “I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

You nod and even as you pull away from his hold, you launch. Your arms lace around his neck and your face instantly finds a place to bury itself, right into his shoulder. Your body shakes; he realises that you’re crying into him, so relieved with him being there.

The embrace is short. Too short. He doesn’t do enough to hold your clinging form, only standing there slightly swaying and just barely grazing your back, He considers it too long and doesn’t act enough even when he wants to beg you to never let go again. And when you pull away, you refuse your tears again, sniffling through a smile and asking if he wants some food. But the embrace remained ingrained in his thoughts like a disease; it polluted everything else until everything was you, just you, holding him and wanting him.

Maybe, he was deserving. Maybe he deserved to be wanted. Was that justification enough?

━

THE FIFTH HE ALMOST DIES.

Not literally that time -- no, he’s done enough of that to you. It’s more of a metaphorical sort, making his heart stop as your fingers just graze against his stubble strewn chin, his breath catching on the lump in his throat as he realises yet again that nothing could be more beautiful than your smile.

Diego is not a formal man, nor had he ever really been. Even at the Academy his uniform was almost always somehow out of place or wrinkled or missing a detail. He hates shirts that buttoned all the way up to his throat and pants that have to be pleated that one specific way for no reason at all. If it isn’t important, he wears whatever is closest to him, or his domino-mask-and-leather getup if he’s ‘working’. Hell, the man isn’t even sure he had ever worn a suit outside of his childhood years and Allison’s wedding.

“You look...different.”

He swings fast around to see you leaning against his doorway. You’re all pink cheeks and cheeky grins. Something about the way you look him up and down makes him suddenly want to hide, slip away so you could not see how stupid he looked in this stupid monkey suit clinging to his arms and thighs like stupid plastic wrap. You probably see him as a circus animal, stuck in some stupid performance outfit and told to juggle fire.

(Honestly, juggling fire would be worlds easier than doing whatever this was, though.)

Slowly, you step into the room, eyes never leaving him. He gulps.

“You look good, Diego.”

He blinks. That is...unexpected. “Y-yeah?” Damn his voice for giving out on him; it comes out squeaky and prepubescent, sounding every bit of uncertainty he feels. “I-I mean, I--”

“--relax, hot stuff,” you wink and his face fills with heat. “You look great. But, your collar…”

Diego glances down only to scowl at the mess of buttons he left around his neck. “Shit, yeah.”

“Let me?”

But you’re already coming to him, though, hands outstretching and delicately folding themselves across his chest. He wonders if you could feel the way his heart beat like there were a thousand drums locked into his chest, or that you knew you smelled like the gods’ ambrosia, honey -sweet smoke dripping from your velvet form. Are you aware how intoxicating your mere presence is?

“Can I?”

He nods dumbly, not trusting his words.

With careful fingers, you weave the buttons together that have been left undone. You then reach up higher, pressing down his collar.

You hesitate against him, hands still folded into the sharp white fabric. Slowly, one set of fingers unfurl and lift to barely brush against his jaw. It’s a mere allusion to what it would be to have you cradle his face in your caring palms and it only leaves him craving more.

Your lips curl up too, coloured as deep as the fabric that clings to your exquisite form. Just the tip of hot pink snakes out of your mouth, pressing slyly to the top lip, riling the hotblood boiling inside him right up to the brim.

“What…” the single syllable comes out strangled and hoarse. You’re strangling the life out of him without even moving a finger. Do you know your power? “What are...what are you doing?”

In hindsight, that’s probably the stupidest question he could have asked.

You baulk and immediately pushed away from him. The fingers glide from his chest and chin and leave him cold. Gone was the confidence you had offered so easily before; he watches, stunned as your eyes fall to the floor, no longer eager to meet his.

“You look good, Diego.” You smile but that time it doesn’t look real at all. “Have fun tonight.”

“Wait, I--”

--you offer a wave and nothing more. Your figure crosses the room and leaves him alone in between the four walls that seemed to press into him without your comforting presence.

Maybe, you could care for him, too. As he wants you too. Is it selfish to think so?

━

THE SIXTH TIME, HE’S ALMOST ASLEEP.

Honestly, Diego isn’t sure how his head had ended up in your lap, or when his body had melted so effortlessly into your own. It wasn’t the alcohol; two beers isn’t enough to kill all of his conditioned issues or turn him into a total sop. It hadn’t even been intentional, nothing about making room or trying to do anything.

But there you are. Your thighs are his pillows and your hands kiss across his scalp, weaving through his hair like it’s yarn to be woven into something beautiful. Once in a while you pause and he thinks that that’s it, you would force him up -- but then you continue like nothing had happened and he continues to lay like a fish out of water across your legs.

Neither of you had talked about the incident before. It was simply avoidance until you both decide to brush it off and move on, forgetting all about the awkwardness. Or, at least, that’s what you silently promised.

But it’s late. Neither of you are thinking. Or, he isn’t at least, when his head slips from the couch to your thinly clad shoulder. And you hardly react when he relaxes even more, silently gesturing for him to use your thighs as a headrest as the movie neither of you are watching drones on. You make some sort of joke, something stupid and it usually wouldn’t be enough to convince him to act so foolishly. But he is tired, and you are you, and it’s all too easy to give in to you.

So he lays. Your hands in his hair. On your lap. Like a baby incapable of even sitting on his own. He should feel unbelievably stupid, right?

“You’ve got beautiful hair,” you mumble, eyes dragging off the television screen to your lap. He barely catches your soft, smiling gaze before it slips back up, but the memory sticks with him long minutes after. “Wish you’d let me play with it more.”

But he can’t bring himself to hate this moment.

He half-snorts, half-laughs because what a funny statement that is. In his state of lovesick, exhausted delirium, Diego hardly recognises himself telling you that ‘you can play with his hair any time you want’.

“Really?”

“Uh…” he had not meant to say that out loud. “I-I--”

“--thanks, honey.” Your hands linger against his temple before stroking down his wavy locks. Honey. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He pulls off of you after a short while -- not because he wants to, because he’s guilty to take your loving hands for his selfish needs. He claims the bathroom excuse and leaves with his head floating in the clouds. The domestic bliss you offer him wasn’t something he thought he wanted, before -- but every time he leaves your bubble, he finds himself more and more starved for your touch.

He leaves your place high on your smile and still stuck on the way you combed through his hair. Even after pulling away yet again, he’s still happy and actually hopeful.

Maybe, he could actually have this, more than just one random rainy night. Maybe he should try.

━

THE SEVENTH TIME, HE ALMOST KISSES YOU.

Almost, because he, Diego ‘number one himbo’ Hargreeves is a self-labelled idiot who loses all cognitive abilities and brain cells when he lays eyes on you, and fails to be able to use them for all the time you’re around him.

And it’s the moment when he finally fully comes to realise the extent of his overwhelming, absolute adoration for you.

He’s never been so bad with that sort of thing. Before he could throw an easy smile and wink his way into a heart he’d no doubt break the following morning and pull a quick-run attraction like it wasn’t anything. But with you? The idea of even your touch turned him bashful and running for the hills, you know...like an idiot.

It takes you pulling him along every single time for him to react and even then, it’s never enough. You’re always left with a pouting lip and that strange, far-off look in your eyes that tells him he’s screwed it up all over again. Every time you get close he’s too blind to react the right way.

Your head on his shoulder, the world’s at peace. He wants you to stay by his side forever. He’ll hold you as long as you want -- hell to his arms, you’re worth the ache or the crick in his neck from bending the wrong way. He’ll let his body waste away and his mind turn to cobwebs if it means an eternity on your balcony, wind in both of your hair and your hands interlacing between his own.

“This is nice,” you murmur. “Yeah?”

He nods. His chin bumps awkwardly against the crown of your head, but you don’t seem to mind.

“I don’t normally like the quiet. But it’s nice like this. With...with you…” you hesitate on the last syllables and the ‘you’ comes out thick and garbled. But he gets it anyways, and somehow he has the emotional strength to pull you even close to his hulking frame. You’re very close to sliding onto his lap and he’d be lying if the idea to just go all the way doesn’t spring to mind. But he doesn’t move.

“It’s nice, knowing you’re here. Safe, alive...with me.”

Diego smiles into your hair. “It is nice.”

Aaand the ‘most obvious statement of the year’ award goes to him. Yet again. Why do you put up with his thick-headed responses? And why can’t he explain the fuzzy feeling in his throat that he gets from being near you, and the desire to give up everything else just to exist by your side? A simple ‘yeah’ doesn’t cover that and he knows that, he knows he has to tell you the entire adoring truth but --

“I like being around you, Diego. You know that, right?”

If he’s being honest...he can’t really believe that. The idea that someone like you enjoys his company is a farfetched concept. But his head bobs up and down again anyways.

“I, uh...I like our friendship.”

Did you -- did you just friendzone him?!

Did he really just --

“--but sometimes…” you snort out a derisive laugh, “sometimes I wish we were a bit more. Y’know?”

He shifts his weight on the chair and stares down at you, unsure what to make out of any of it. “I - uh - whatdoyoumean?”

“I just, I think we’re good together.” You move too, so he can finally see the pretty way the moonlight bounces off your irises. You’re smiling, and he can’t help but smile too, hopeful and eager as a puppy would be. “And I want to, just...man, I wasn’t expecting this to be so hard to say.”

Vaguely, Diego hears himself respond with a grunt (it’s meant to be an ‘it’s okay’, but apparently English isn’t his strong suit).

“I just like having you around. A lot, if that’s not obvious. I know I’m, heh, kind of a lot sometimes. And I’m trying not to be so uh, affectionate because I know that’s a lot for some people and I never want to overstep, or--”

“--you’re not,” he says quickly, finally finding his voice after oceans of gaping. “I like you being affectionate. It’s nice.”

Your smile grows. “Okay, that’s good.” You hold his fingers a little closer and he’s on cloud nine, staring at you like you’re the eighth wonder of the modern world. “Because if I’m being completely honest here, I don’t want to stop. I...I like you. Generally, in the sense of, more than just friendship. D’you get what I’m saying here?”

“Uh…”

“I don’t want to read into things too much, but I can’t stop myself from feeling really strongly about you. And I don’t want to go on like this, without telling you I’m like, head over heels for you at this point.” You blink up at him, pleading for him to not let you down as you finish with, “is there any way you feel the same?”

What Diego should have done, and wanted to do, was to tell her exactly how he felt, and pull her to him and pull the most cheesy, most cliche Hollywood moment in all the world. He’d finally get the girl in the moonlight as the stars sing above him and the world sleeps below and it would be perfect.

What Diego actually does, is leave.

Cold, and alone, with no hand to hold and no head resting on his shoulder. He leaves you bewildered and probably pissed off and he leaves with no explanation at all -- just a garbled sentence or two that adds up to nothing. He drops his shattered heart at the door and wanders home shivering and hopeless, knowing he has just fucked it all up.

As he stares at the sidewalk and plods down the street like a lonely, hard down soul, Diego wonders if he’s deserving of your touch. If he was allowed to open up and feel your affection so strongly as you give it. He wants to like you would probably never believe. He wants to hold you and he doesn’t want to let go again. He’s starved for your touch and he’d trade the sun and stars to keep you by his side, no matter the costs.

But you’re worth more than him. Shouldn’t you offer your heart to a better, kinder man? To someone who knows how to hold you properly, and offer his touch right back? Not someone who shivers away or rejects your kindness like a parasite. But someone brave enough to feed you with all the adoration you’re worthy of. Shouldn’t he be who you seek?

Maybe, Diego muses, the universe is wrong, and the mistress is nothing but a cruel meddler too eager to break his heart.

But maybe, it’s his own fault, and she’s not cruel at all.

His pace quickens a beat, and he suddenly knows what he has to do.

━

DIEGO’S LIKE NINETY-NINE PERCENT CERTAIN THAT NO ONE, no one living soul, had ever said that the eighth time was the charm.

But if he had to be the first, hell he’d ring that bell a thousand times if it got him where he had to be.

He’s running like a madman. And he’s not drunk, even if at least five people have grumbled that about him -- no he’s as sober as the day he was forced into the world. He’s made a thirty-minute walk of hell into somehow a twelve-minute dash through the cold streets of their shitty city and he feels like a god, if gods were desperate sonofabitches who never knew how to acknowledge their feelings until it’s too late.

He takes the stairs, too high on adrenaline to wait for the elevator. He gasps and huffs and pants his way up but he makes it and keels down the hall to your door, falling against it with all his weight. It’s a foolish move but in his defense...his legs are about to give out, and all the energy he’s devoted to this half-baked, foolish, love-drunk plan is very quickly running out.

He pounds against the door weakly. “Hello? Hello? I--”

and then he literally crashes into your apartment.

You both tumble to the floor with a loud thud-thump and he’s so glad you have thick carpeting because he could have probably split your skull right open with the fall. He’s smart enough to roll, so he cushions your upper body with his, but you still groan as you make contact with the floor. His entire bone structure quakes at the feeling of ground hitting him and even with nary a breath in his throat, immediate guilt floods his system.

He falls back and silently screams, wishing he had more tact than this.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I’m...I’m so sorry,” he offers with a smile. He quickly props himself up over your body and tries to look as sorry as he truly feels, though it’s hard as his breath still won’t come and he’s still absolutely exhausted from running all this way.

Why did he do all this again?

Oh, yeah.

“I-I love you,” he spurts, followed by him rolling off and promptly falling into a coughing/choking/hacking fit.

You lay beside him, silent and stunned. He can’t see you as he coughs but his mind tries to put the pieces together, and none of it looks good. You’re probably annoyed, and mad that he’s even there so late and after what happened before, and you’re probably tired, and maybe sad, or hurt, or uncomfortable because you just jumped from friends to him admitting he loves you and --

“-did you seriously run all this way and body me, just to tell me that?!”

He pulls himself together long enough to breathe and then turn so he can stare at you. You’re still beside him, body still pressed against the floor (possibly broken after having a much larger man knock you over, who knows) and you’re…

“You’re smiling,” he responds, like it’s the most shocking thing in the world. “You’re - why-”

“Last time I saw you, you were running out of my place like your ass was on fire. And now you come here, knock me on my ass, and tell me you love me?! Diego...uh...wow.”

Diego just stares back at her. He’s still struggling to breathe and if he’s being honest, he’s not sure if he can function after any of this. He just wasted so much of his courage (something he’s never been good at keeping stock of) on just getting here, how is he supposed to collect himself and head out the door with any sense of dignity? Or answer you in any way, shape or form? How is he supposed to even move when you’re looking at him like that?

Wait, you’re...you’re looking at him like that. Smiling, doe-eyed, honey-sweet and beautiful even after being violently collided with and forced to your shitty carpet…

“I love you,” he breaths, soft but still sure. He grins back at you and he feels like an idiot but he holds strong. “And I’m really sorry about before. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just, all this stuff is stuff I’ve never done before, and I--”

And without another word or even the chance to think, your lips are on his.

Well, they probably were meant to be. What really happens is with a grunt and a swift push, you shift over to him and move to kiss him, only you’re both still smiling and absolute idiots who then just bang teeth against teeth. And you’re left groaning and keeling back, both gripping your mouths while still smiling and,

Ohmygodthisisamessbutohmygodishesohappyandinlovewithyou.

“I’m so sorry,” you groan, muffled behind your hand.

“Me too -- for knocking you over, too!”

“Yeah, that’s gonna leave a bruise.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you chuckle, and lift up again. You hover above him. His nose just barely brushes against yours and he’s straight back into heaven again, even as the embarrassment floods and his teeth ache. “I mean, I would have preferred a bit more warning, but...at least you don’t hate me.”

Diego grins and lifts his hand to push a tendril of hair behind your ear. “I could never hate you.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Mm-hmm. I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

“Please,” you roll your eyes and shove at his chest. His heart beats even faster. “Like I could ever hate you.”

He lifts his head, trying to pull himself up to meet your lips, but you dart away just enough so he can’t. “Can - can we try this again?”

“Mm…” you pretend to consider his request like one would a business proposal. Your thighs tighten their grip around his stomach and a part of him just wants to pull you in and act as his heart pleads. But, given the last time he did that...and the last time you did...he’ll take this slow.

Instead of answering, you lean down and press your lips to his. It’s gentle and leisurely, but he takes every motion in stride. You’re everything he expected and more. Soft petals of reddened flesh against his, your hips just barely grazing against his own, making him want to pull you into his body and never let you leave his side. He’s jubilant and exhilarated and he almost laughs like a baby as your tongue swipes against his bottom lip.

“If it isn’t obvious,” you breathe as you pull away, “from the way I let you tackle me to my floor,”

“I’m really sorry about that,”

You pull his hand up and intertwine your fingers, shaking your ‘head’ no. “I love your touch-starved ass too, Diego.”

“Good, cause this would have been--”

“--no more talking, chatterbox. Just kiss me and shut up.”

And he lets go of the maybes, and just loves you.

SECOND A/N...this ending is just ackwa!?!hiwogh. very annoyed with how it went, but if you know me, you know i suck at conclusions in every sense of the world and i also always leave them to the very last minute, meaning i’m typing this note as i read over the ending and hate it even more. and i’m sorry for the vague messiness of this! I had an idea, failed to deliver it the way i wanted, and a cool thought turned into a half-baked fic. thank you to those who read this, sorry’s also extended your ways because i know this isn’t fantastic. lmao.

- xx

#diego hargreeves #diego hargreeves x reader #tua x reader #umbrella academy x reader #diego hargreeves imagine #hargreeves x reader #hargreeves oneshot

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dailydnp · 3 years ago

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Daniel Howell on Depression and How to Get Through The Night

Daniel Howell is the YouTube star breaking boundaries about depression, who has now released a book to help people with mental health issues.

Daniel Howell is one of the most popular YouTubers out there, with millions of followers and a refreshing line in self-deprecating humour that has made him stood out from much of the braggadocio on that channel. He is also someone who dared to go beyond the jokes and gaming on his channel to reveal his battles with depression to his young audience a few years ago, producing a huge response from people. Now he has written a book about mental health, called ‘You Will Get Through This Night’. A mix of information, advice and laughs, the book is a welcome addition to the elevation of mental health as a national issue, and it manages to be so in a way that is going to connect brilliantly with young people. We grabbed a word with Daniel over Zoom to find out more about it…

When did you decided to write the book and what was the process like?

It was a very serendipitous journey I never planned. All this talking about myself and mental health, and sharing these quite intimate details about my own life, was never the plan. I started my career trying to be funny, just being a clown on the internet, but as time went on two things happened: one, a sense of responsibility creeping up on me where I realised anyone with a platform has an impact on people, and even if you think you’re just being funny, if you do share yourself, people relate to you and you end up resonating with them on some level.

Also just for me, I have always been so career focused, I’m one of those guys that pushes their well being to the back, and after years of me doing that it just got to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore. It was not only affecting my ability to be good at my job, and be friends with people and nice to be around, but creatively it was this real hump where I felt like if I don’t sort my life out, and get on top of these problems that I know are lurking behind me, I’m not going to be able to go forwards.

It was that which led me to talk about my experiences with depression in that YouTube video ‘Daniel and Depression’ that I uploaded in 2017, and that was a huge moment for me. Even five years ago, there was such a taboo around mental health. These days people go, ‘ aren’t we all open about mental health now?’ but just five years ago, it was a completely different world. I thought me bringing up a word like depression would destroy my career. ‘Are people not going to want to work with me? Are my friends going to think I’m strange?’

But I was honestly surprised, for the first time in my life, by the reaction I got from humanity. Because my upbringing led me to being very cynical, to be very defensive and to protect my vulnerability. Actually when I shared something that was so raw, people appreciated it. On some level people were like, wow you articulating it made me understand something I didn’t get about myself, or my mum’s been through this and I finally get it, or now I know what my friends are going through.

When you open yourself up, despite the fear, people appreciate it because this is how people think and feel. We’re all vulnerable, we’re all trying to protect ourselves, we’re all putting on this front, focusing on our careers, pushing everything to the background; but then it’s a truth that when you open up about how you really feel, not only is that a weight lifted for you but it lets other people in.

Then I became the mental health guy. I didn’t ask for it, it became my thing.

The book always had the question of what it might be. People always want to write their life stories, but firstly my entire life story is already out there on the internet, it was there in real time. I thought if I’m going to do this, I want to do a mental health book that just gets straight to the point, it’s not going to be too scientific, it’s not going to be too spiritual or flowery, it’s going to give you the information you need, the tools, the tips, the life hacks, the stuff that science has shown will make a difference, as bare as we can, in bullet point form. And then my job is to make it stupid and funny by using myself as a punching bag doing everything wrong in terms of managing your mental health. For me it’s the book I wish I had five, ten years ago.

Was putting it together enjoyable, once you’d given yourself permission to have fun with it?

Yeah writing a book and collating all these life saving tips on mental health, was good for me. The process of writing the book was like reading it. I needed the experience of putting it together so I could learn from it myself.

What I’ve learnt from just being funny is it’s a bit of an excuse to give yourself therapy. You’ve set yourself the task of telling this story, making this point or joke about something, and in the process of trying to find out whatever this point or joke you’re making, there’s a bit of a moment of self reflection in there.

So it’s fun to have an excuse to tell a story and be funny but for me it’s been emotionally cathartic too.

What are the main things you learned or that even changed you?

One thing was the 360 around your lifestyle. The book is structured practically into 3 parts. The first part is what are things you can do right now to change the way you feel, the second is lifestyle, what changes can you make, and then the third part is looking deeper, at more long term things about readjusting your mindset and working out what makes you as a person.

The process of going through the lifestyle for me felt a bit like a roast. Things like the importance of your social life, the importance of your nutrition, the importance of how often you move, and it was very difficult to be aware of what might just be my personality and preference. I’m an introvert, I’m a bit of a nerd, I like to stay inside, I don’t like to party a lot, and I just learned that if you don’t go jogging you’re going to have more anxiety than someone who doesn’t. It was good to have all that shown up.

A nugget that was quite profound is that you can always change the way that you feel. I was always having days where I was really stressed from what I was working on, or a period where I’d be really depressed, and sometime I would wake up and immediately know I’m not having a good mental health day. When I’m not going to be able to perform, I’m not going to be a very helpful friend. I just used to say to myself ‘this day is a write off’. But what I learned from this book is you can change how you feel by doing something. Your activity directly influences how you feel.

It got rid of the excuses because sometimes it was like, ‘I’m having a bad day I simply cannot do that task’ when you probably can. It’s empowering for yourself to say, ‘Actually if I eat something, if I get a change of scenery, if I talk to someone, if I problem solve to question my thoughts and readjust my mindset, you can change how you think and feel on any day.

With mental health so many people ego through their life thinking it’s this weird mysterious fog that they can’t impact on. Sometimes you feel bad and there’s nothing you can do about it. But actually we’re just weird hairless apes, we’re not that complicated, and there are little things we can do to snap ourselves out of it.

How do you think it’ll fit into the current times?

The idea that this book is coming out when our society is opening up again is almost a divine intervention! There is literally no better time to sort your life out. We’ve all gone through so much, this collective trauma, and the dent to our lifestyles and ability to self-care. Not only have we had all the joy ripped away from us, but people haven’t been able to go to the gym, to get support from friends, and this is a new chapter for everybody.

I’m seeing it as: can take this next step and not fall back into bad habits? This is a good time to put a pole in the ground and move forward in a good direction.

What are the key things you’ll be taking forward?

It’s not just the lifestyle stuff, it’s also about mindset changes. I’m a worrier, one of these people that thinks myself into oblivion. It means I’m analytical but I’m not very present, I spend a lot of time in my head prophesising my own doom. One of the things in the book is realising that you are not your thoughts. If you get a negative thought in your head actually that’s just your brain’s suggestion that you should feel stress about this, that and the other but we don’t have to stay fixated on these worries.

I’ve spent the last ten years in therapy, deeply going into myself asking questions about authenticity, confronting my sexuality, but also it’s been about just day-to-day having a better relationship with my own mind. That when I get these emotions that want to spiral into a panic, or make me feel very stressed, just to talk back to myself with the right attitude and say I don’t need to go down this rabbit hole due to this thought. I can just acknowledge it was an idea my brain had to think about and I can choose to do whatever I want with it. I can choose to solve the problem and break it down, I can ask for help I can give myself a reality check, or I can just acknowledge the thought and say ‘No thank you I’m going to do something else with my day.’

Back to the first depression video – are you aware of the difference between you then and now?

It’s profound, I would say me aged 26 was someone who didn’t question anything. You think you have a career priority and if I have any emotional baggage, it’s just not important right now.

Obviously there was the huge issue of my sexuality which had a huge impact on my mental health. My entire life story from childhood to how I was perceived as a public figure, how I operated day to day, and even my acceptance of a thing that I knew was true deep inside me, I had an incredibly toxic view of that at the time. I needed to understand it. I went to therapy and learned a lot about the way I would talk to myself, the way I would beat myself down and tell myself that things are the way they are and there’s nothing I can do about it. I should tolerate certain situations, and that was all wrong, so I’ve become much better at being fair to myself. Accepting my own vulnerability instead of building up a huge wall; letting it down, being honest with myself which is important if you ever want to change anything for the better. Also you get closer to other people when you feel like they can really see you.

How have conceptions of masculinity affected that?

The whole concept of masculinity was huge in my life. I had a very macho dad, he didn’t emote, he didn’t share anything, it was all jokes and all on the outside. I got to 16, 17, that age when you notice adults for the first time and cotton on to it. I could see the pain he was going through but he didn’t want to confront it. I also went to an all-boys school where there’s no vulnerability, you can’t give a small opening for someone to jab a compass in. That was the culture that shaped me. That continued into my late twenties when I had the moment when I realised being honest with yourself about something going wrong is bravery. It’s not weak to admit vulnerability if it’s going to help you grow. It’s not a sign of weakness to go to the uncomfortable place. Life is a series of uncomfortable obstacles that you put off, but every single time you go over them, you look back and go, ‘oh why did I waste so much time not doing that sooner?’

Is masculinity shifting do you think?

Definitely, roles in society have been so Neanderthal. If you have a personality with a stiff upper lip and it works, good for you, but someone else may feel pressured to hold things in and eventually they’re going to crack. It’s ok to ask for help and to let go of that, that’s what we’re learning in society. Conversations in mental health are so much more normal. There’s a long way to go in terms of judgment and misunderstandings, but I hope the book will spell it out for a lot of people. The book has been fact checked by a psychological professional, Dr Heather Bolton and all of the advice in the book is from evidence based practices that have been shown to have a good effect. It’s not just a nice sounding idea. We all have that friend on Instagram who’s like, ‘Positivity! Yeah here we go!’ And you go, ‘Wow that image had great graphic design it must be true.’ No it isn’t. So we’re in an age of people opening up but there’s also a lot of nonsense on Facebook so when we’re thinking about how we feel and making changes to our lives, we need to trust the experts.

#daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dan #phan #mine #interview

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lotusthekat · 4 years ago

Text

Be Wherever (Whoever) You Are

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: G

Relationships: Lars & Rose Quartz, Lars & Steven

Characters: Lars Barriga, Rose Quartz (Pink Diamond), Martha Barriga, Dante Barriga, Steven Quartz Universe; other characters are only mentioned

Summary: “Hm… I don’t think that’s a problem,” the pink-haired lady tells him. “You can always change your name whenever you feel like it.”

The boy looks up, meeting her shining black eyes. “I can?”

Rose grins at him. “You’re always growing and changing… and I think your name is the perfect way to show that, even if no one gets it. It’s what makes you happy. Isn’t that so?”

He’s quiet for maybe a minute, thinking about what she said.

“Yeah… you’re right,” he says, finally.

“So,” Rose speaks up again. “what’s your name?”

At the age of four, Laramie is already pretty lost. That changes when he finds a really beautiful garden one day.

Word count: 2.000

AO3

A/N: I remember way back then when people had the idea of Lars meeting Rose before the events of the show, and although this might contradict canon, I’m all for this concept!

I do hope I wrote Rose well, and I’m still getting in the hang of writing child characters, lmao... well, enjoy anyway!

TRIGGER WARNINGS - implied character death and bullying

Laramie doesn’t like school.

If anything, he’s sure most kids don’t… but his reason isn’t the same as theirs. As far as he’s concerned, they’re not left alone like he is during recess. Or even during class.

Laramie is only four – almost five – and he’s got a corner of his own, near the small woods. The teachers say he’s not allowed, but honestly, they don’t seem to care when he goes there.

That’s how it is. They don’t care about him. His classmates never invite him to join them, and when he does try, they avoid him like the plague. Like he’s got some dirt on his face or something. Or maybe his face is the dirt they don’t like.

And well, that’s how he ended up here. In the woods. They’re not scary like his teachers say; they’re really small. Harmless. It doesn’t take that long for him to find another way out in the opposite direction.

What he finds, though… is a place he’s never seen before.

It’s a huge garden with pink flowers blooming. This place looks so… dreamy. Like some kind of paradise. It’s very pretty.

Laramie is careful with the flowers as he walks in. Is this what his teachers have been hiding? Or have they never thought of going in there, judging only by the woods behind him? Because that’d be dumb.

The boy looks down, the flowers staring back. Laramie looks around, wondering if this garden belongs to anyone… but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s here, and there isn’t a house nearby. So, he sits down, and for some reason that feels really good. This does feel like paradise.

This might be his new little corner. It’s so far from everything, from school, his teachers, the other kids… it’s perfect.

Laramie smiles for maybe the first time in a while (“now Laramie, you should smile more!” He remembers his teacher say, much to his internal annoyance). He doesn’t care about anything at all right now.

… well, before he hears someone coming.

“I see you like my garden.”

Laramie shrieks, turning around and finding… the tallest woman he’s seen. She’s got pink hair, huge curls falling on her shoulders. She’s wearing a long white dress with a star shape in her belly.

“S-Sorry! I didn’t know anyone owned it!” Laramie blurts out. She doesn’t seem annoyed, though.

“It’s okay,” she laughs silently, “it’s nice to have some company.”

Her voice is so… soft. You’d think his mother was sweet like candy, well, this woman manages to beat his own mom in that.

The woman sits next to him, though not that close, which he likes. Laramie just isn’t good at talking to people, least of all a woman so nice and pretty… her presence is as relaxing as the flowery ground under him.

Laramie can’t really help staring. He knows it isn’t polite, but there’s something about her… something different.

When she looks at him back, though, Laramie looks away the fastest he can. He can tell she’s smiling, anyway.

“Where are you from?” She asks.

“O-Oh, um. I’m from… here. I-I mean, Beach City.” Laramie wants to punch himself, stupid, stupid. “And you?”

The woman hums. “I’ve come from very far… far away from this place.”

“How did you get here?”

“Oh, that’s a very long story,” she responds, her smile… falling a little. She soon recovers, “What matters, though… is that I’m here now. I’m home.”

Laramie nods and doesn’t ask about it anymore.

“How did you get your flowers to grow?” He wonders instead.

“What if I told you it’s magic?”

Laramie raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

She nods with a smile. “Would you like to see it?”

“Uh, yeah?” He says like it’s obvious, but not in a rude way, he hopes. She seems to like it, anyway.

She picks up what seems like a bunch of leaves and kisses them, sparkles coming out. Right then, Laramie gasps at the pink flower in her hands.

“Woah! How’d you do that?”

“Magic,” she repeats, amused.

“Cooool…”

She gives him the flower and he admires it. It is different from other flowers, though. In the center of the petals, there’s…

“… a gem?”

The woman hums. “It’s unlike what you’ve seen before, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“Did you know, I’m still inspired by all the other flowers you’ve got in your home. They’re why I’ve created this place.” She smiles both at the flower and the young boy. “You have a very beautiful home.”

Laramie holds it like it’s a treasure, worth so much that not even money can count. When he looks at the woman again, he does notice the… pink stone in her belly, too.

“What’s that?” He points at it. “Is that where your magic comes from?”

“Yes.” She touches her own belly lovingly. He looks at it, too.

“Wait…” he jumps away in alarm. “Is it moving?!”

The woman laughs. “That’s actually my son!”

“Oh.” Laramie blushes. He scoots closer again. “You’re having a kid?”

“Mm-hmm. He’ll come very soon.”

“That’s, uh, neat.”

She looks at her own belly like she loves her child so much, even before he’s really there. “I can’t wait for him to be born. For him to explore and fall in love with this world like I did…” she speaks, “and for him to make friends with someone as sweet as you.”

“W-What?” Laramie stutters. “Y-You really… mean that?”

She nods again. The woman isn’t messing with him. Every word she says is honest and comes from her heart. Besides his parents, she’s… the only person who’s ever enjoyed being around him.

“Hey, uh… what’s your name?” Laramie asks, realizing he hasn’t before.

“You can call me Rose,” she says. “And what is yours?”

His joy disappears in a second, and he looks away, so she doesn’t see his frown.

“What’s wrong?” Rose wonders, concerned.

Laramie doesn’t really like talking about it. Not even with Mom and Dad… but even if he’s just met Rose, she’s been nothing but nice with him. It’s really the least he could do.

“I don’t… really like my name,” he admits. “It doesn’t feel right.” He scoffs at himself, “Ugh, I know, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, no, I understand what you mean,” she reassures him. “It doesn’t fit you, right?��

“Yeah.” He sighs, looking at the flower, its petals moving with the breeze. “I can’t really be myself, so I just hide from everyone… but I want to go out there and be me, y’know? And I’m not gonna do that with a name as lame as mine!” He exclaims.

Rose doesn’t interrupt him at all. She listens all the way through, and she knows he has more to say.

“I wish I could change it… but no one would get it,” the boy complains. “No one really gets me, anyway,” he mutters in his breath.

“Hm… I don’t think that’s a problem,” the pink-haired lady tells him. “You can always change your name whenever you feel like it.”

The boy looks up, meeting her shining black eyes. “I can?”

Rose grins at him. “You’re always growing and changing… and I think your name is the perfect way to show that, even if no one gets it. It’s what makes you happy. Isn’t that so?”

He’s quiet for maybe a minute, thinking about what she said.

“Yeah… you’re right,” he says, finally.

“So,” Rose speaks up again. “what’s your name?”

It’s a simple question, but Laramie gets what she means.

He’s never had the gut to really say the answer… but now, now might be just the time he stopped being a coward and dealt with it.

Laramie opens his mouth.

“… ‘Lars’?”

“Yeah, it’s my name now! You can call me Lars from now on!” The boy claims, his stance firm and tough.

Mom and Dad stare at him like he’s hit his head hard and forgot everything. Then his mother giggles affectionately.

“Oh, Laramie, you’re so creative,” she says. “What a great nickname!”

“It’s not a nickname, mom!” Lars protests. “Like, I know you guys have other names, but you want me to call you Mom and Dad. So, I want you to call me Lars!”

“Right, son. Whatever makes you happy,” his dad tells him. Lars can tell he finds it cute, too, which is the opposite of what the boy really wants.

“Now, go take a shower, sweetie,” Mom says. “You seem like you had a pretty big adventure today.”

“Yes, mom,” the boy answers with a sigh, walking to the stairs.

“And please do your homework when you’re done, Laramie!” Dad says from afar.

“It’s Lars, dad!” Lars yells back, quickly rushing to the bathroom.

Yeah, he should’ve expected that. Of course his parents wouldn’t get it… But Lars is a pretty cool name, though.

The boy takes the pink flower from his pocket and puts it on the sink, smiling at it before he gets in the shower.

He doesn’t know why he’s got into this.

Steven wants to take him and Sadie on a vacation, because sure. Why not?

So, they’re inside Steven’s house, which is pretty big. Inside there’s a pretty stony place, probably because of that giant statue. There’s also a platform guarding a big door in there.

“You’ve got a nice house, Steven,” Sadie compliments.

“Thank you,” Steven grins. “Now come on, the warp pad is this way! Get ready to have your jaws dropped!”

Lars sighs, staying behind while Sadie and Steven go ahead. He does look around. If you take away that warp thing and the statue, it’s a pretty standard beach house. It does seem like Steven doesn’t have a bedroom of his own, though…

Once Lars takes a glimpse behind him, he’s… stunned, to say the least.

It’s a pretty big painting on the wall, just above the front door. It’s a portrait of a beautiful pink-haired woman, whose eyes are closed. Her hair and dress flow like she’s floating in clouds, fully at peace.

Lars doesn’t know why, but something about her is…

…

“Hey, Lars, you coming?”

Steven’s loud voice takes him off guard, and Lars tries his best to disguise the feeling, “Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“Oh, that’s my mom,” Steven tells him, knowing very well he’d been staring at the painting like a creep. “She’s pretty, right?”

“Your mom?” Lars repeats.

He tries to suppress the shame from when he’d insulted Steven’s mother not too long ago. It really seemed like a tough topic to the kid, and while Lars hasn’t verbally apologized, he’s been thoughtful of not disrespecting Steven’s mom again. Lars didn’t know her, after all.

Either way, she does look… divine in that portrait. He remembers Steven saying that she saw beauty in everything, and even in the painting you can probably see that.

It’s… he doesn’t know how to word that. Lars can say, though, that the painting awes him.

“Come on, Lars! We have a vacation to get to!” Steven pulls him out of his thoughts.

The older boy sighs exasperatedly. Lars doesn’t have a choice now, does he?

For once, he follows Steven in that weird “warp pad”, really not sure how the hell they’d get anywhere. But sure, he’ll let Steven do his thing.

Lars does take one last look at the painting, before the three of them are gone in thin air.

After that day, he went back to visit Rose.

But she wasn’t there.

He went there the day after that, and she was still nowhere to be seen. And every other day after that.

He could only wonder where she was. Maybe she travelled? Or moved away from Beach City?

The garden stayed the same, but Lars never saw the woman again. He didn’t even have the chance to really say goodbye to her… or thank her at all.

Regardless, the flowers stayed. In a way, Lars could feel her presence there with him.

The garden became a little home of his own.

#steven universe #lars barriga #rose quartz #steven quartz universe #fanfiction #bullying mention tw #death mention tw

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lokilickedme · 3 years ago

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The Queen of Springtown

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a true story. There’s a bit of conjecture here and there to fill in empty spots, but not a lot. It’s a story about my grandmother - my paternal grandmother, not my maternal grandmother - I feel the need to specify who exactly it is because mom’s mom has a bit of a story too, but that’s for later.

This one’s about the one I’m going to call Elizabeth. Elizabeth was her middle name, it was a family name, it belonged to her mother and her grandmother I believe, though I didn’t know any of those people so I couldn’t swear by it. The family records are long gone if they ever existed.

Elizabeth’s last name was one of those romantically ridiculous names that still clung to old families at the turn of the century. It had a lot of extraneous letters at the end, a handful of unnecessary and partially silent sounds that looked beautiful in the flowery handwritten script of the time, a noble sounding -eaoux that did little more than tag a fancy sounding o onto the back end. A lot of fuss for such a little piece of sound. And when Elizabeth’s grandfather moved his family from France to Ireland and signed the manifests upon arrival in the new old land, he dropped the -eaoux and shortened the family’s name to four tiny letters and a single syllable. They were Irish now.

Elizabeth’s father carried the new name and the new heritage, and when he was of age he went and married an Irish beauty named - yep, Elizabeth. They say she was redheaded and blue eyed and fair skinned, though no pictures exist to prove it. All that exists is my grandmother, who supposedly looked just like her mama. She didn’t remember Ireland...she was too young when her daddy moved his family to a new land just like his own daddy had done, and she never really told anyone she was Irish. No one actually knew, once her parents were gone.

But you could tell. She looked it - flame red hair, china blue eyes, fair skin. She had the bones of whatever French nobility had been in her lineage from way back, but her colors were the Emerald Isle all the way. A beauty like you’d see in the movies, petite and ladylike and perfectly put together.

But my god that woman had a wild streak that dated right back to the Celts whose blood made up half of what she was.

(continued under the cut because long story)

So Elizabeth grew up in America, the daughter of an Irish mother and a French father. She had brothers and sisters, quite a few, though I never knew any of them. I believe I met two of them when I was too young to remember much about the encounter, but I’ve always found it hilarious that one of her sisters was named Bill. Bill, like the man’s name. I never found out why and I’m not entirely sure there was ever actually a reason. It was just one of those things.

The newly American family settled in Texas. And when Elizabeth was very young - probably not yet in her 20′s, though nobody knows for sure just how old she actually was because it’s likely she tended to fib a bit about her age to get into places she had no business being - she got herself involved with the Texas mafia.

Now let me tell you a thing or two about the Texas mafia. It wasn’t an official operation - not like the Italian Mafioso or the Eastern Syndicates or whatever the hell was going on between Florida and Cuba at the time. But it was every bit as dangerous and vicious and bloody and corrupt as any of those bigger organizations, and it was led for the most part by a man I’m going to call Big Joe.

This was the early 1940′s or thereabouts. Elizabeth was a party girl - up for anything, always out and about, girl-gang at the swing club, the works. And Big Joe saw her in the club one night, it may very well have been his club she was dancing at, and the proverbial first-sight thing kicked him hard in the gonads. This girl was a looker, and she was dancing with everyone in the place, whooping it up, living life like tomorrow it was all going to take a header into the sea. He had to have her.

And he did.

Big Joe was likely in his late 30′s, maybe early 40′s. There’s not a lot of information on him other than a handful of facts mentioned once and only once by my grandmother to my aunt - that Big Joe was a handsome man, big and tough and a snazzy dresser, and he always had enough money in his pocket to take Elizabeth anywhere she wanted to go and buy her anything she wanted to buy. And Elizabeth, party girl extraordinaire, was all up for that.

So Elizabeth and Big Joe become a thing. Everybody knows she’s his squeeze - and suddenly not a male soul in Dallas or the surrounding metropolitan areas will dare to lay an eye on her, not even a quick glance, because she’s Big Joe’s girl. And that means something. Elizabeth doesn’t know quite what it means because she’s likely not even 20 yet, but Big Joe is fun and romantic and he takes her on trips and buys her nice clothes. He buys her a ring, a blood red garnet, a ring that I inherit many decades later. He’s going to marry her, he says. She doesn’t care much one way or the other, she’s having too much fun dancing every night in his club, traveling with him, going shopping, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous of the Southwest. She’s all but a star, protected and adored. Big Joe’s men follow her everywhere she goes when she’s not with him. And Big Joe starts going out of town without her a lot, taking care of business that he never tells her the details of.

She’s cool with that. He’s a businessman, that’s what he’s always told her. Things to take care of out of town. The Boss. He has a lot of operations to oversee, operations that make all that money he spends on her.

She has no idea what he actually does.

All she knows - or cares to know - is that when he comes back to town he ushers her around town in his big fancy black car, buying her furs and expensive dinners, showing her off to society. When he isn’t slapping her around...but hey, that’s part of the deal isn’t it? It’s the 1940′s, and Big Joe is very much a man of the era. Women grew up knowing they’d have to take the back of a man’s hand from time to time, and Elizabeth knew which side her bread was buttered on. She kept Big Joe happy, put a smile on his face, did the old grin-and-bear-it on the rest of it.

And then one night Big Joe comes banging on her door. He’s frantic. He pushes a set of keys into her hand - keys to the fancy black car that takes her everywhere - and tells her to keep it there, at her house. Don’t drive it anywhere, just keep it there. He’ll contact her soon and tell her what to do.

He leaves in another car with one of his men, and that’s the last time Elizabeth ever sees him.

A few weeks later she gets a letter from Big Joe telling her to drive the car into Grapevine Lake, on the far side by the shoals. Don’t open the trunk, he says. Put a brick on the gas pedal and put it in drive. Do it at night and make sure nobody sees you.

That night Elizabeth picks up her best friend and they drive the car to Grapevine to do as Big Joe said, sinking it in the murky green water on the far side of the lake. The two girls - just girls, barely even women yet - stand on the shore watching it disappear into the deep dark.

A week later Big Joe is shot to death. A deal gone bad maybe, or a competitor moving into the territory. Nobody really knows - grandmother never said. Don’t think I haven’t done my research...I know what I know, and according to a nearly nonexistent little trove of newspaper articles microfiched in a tiny little library in Azle Texas that isn’t even there anymore, odds are very likely that Big Joe went down in a shootout with the Dallas Police Department.

Elizabeth never opened the trunk of that car. At least she said she didn’t...it’s one of the many things that nobody ever knew or will ever know, because once she shut the door on that part of her life and moved on, it might as well have never happened. Getting this much out of her was outrageously difficult. Thanks to my very tenacious and very persevering aunt, what I’ve just told you managed to survive. It’s very likely my aunt was the only person she ever told, and it’s very likely I in turn am the only person my aunt ever told. And now my aunt is in her 70′s and in poor health, and this little unknown family story has started poking around at the back of my skull. I don’t want it to be lost. I don’t like the idea of soon being the only person alive who knows it. It’s not a spectacular story, but it’s testament to the fact that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, probably more often than you’d think - and that those ordinary people sometimes take it all to the grave with them.

Elizabeth - my dad’s mom, my grandmother, the one I look like and act like and laugh like, the one whose cheekbones and eyes and hair and size I was born with, passed away twenty-something years ago. She lived through some extraordinary things. After the demise of Big Joe she married an oil roughneck, one of the semi-transient oilfield workers that were prevalent in the Texas Panhandle at the time, and had two children with him - one of whom was my father. The roughneck was the epitome of the James Dean romantic brooding bad boy type, handsome and manly, but unfortunately also a scoundrel who had a second family in another city that he went to every other month when he traveled to another rig for work. She left him when she found out. It was almost unheard of at the time, a young mother taking her two little kids and leaving her husband to be on her own, but she did it. And when my father was 12 she met and married a very tall, very handsome, very Cary Grant-esque railroad worker who loved life every bit as much as she did.

They were together for the rest of her life. I’ve never to this day seen two people more in love than Elizabeth and Jesse. I spent many summers in Texas with them and not a night went by that I couldn’t hear them giggling in the next room after lights-out, talking and laughing quietly until granddad’s wallshaking snores echoed through the house. It just about killed him when her heart gave out. But she was old, and she’d lived a life worth living. There was nothing in her face in those final moments that could ever convince anyone she wasn’t ready and willing to go when the time came.

I’d been married for a couple of years when she died, and my husband and I traveled to Texas for the funeral. The first night there, as my aunt brought out grandmother’s jewelry box and told me to take whatever I wanted, the story was passed from her to me. And when it was all told I opened a little drawer in the bottom of the jewelry box and pulled out an old garnet ring that I’d seen before, when I was a small child snooping in grandma’s stuff. I’d always been fascinated with it...it just looked like it had a story to tell. That’s it, my aunt said. That’s the ring he gave her. That’s all she ended up with.

It was the only thing I took.

The church was so full the next morning you’d have thought it was the final sendoff for some local celebrity. Everybody loved my grandmother, everybody, but this was sort of astounding. Some of them I knew from my childhood, from many many summers spent in the Panhandle, but people came from all over to say goodbye and nobody in the family knew who a lot of them were. They just showed up, some of them cried, some just stood in the back of the church all stoic in black suits. Some were very old. And when it was over and I turned around to watch a group of distinctly important-looking old gentlemen quickly and quietly leave the building, I looked over at my aunt and pointed at them. She arched her eyebrows in that way she always did, that way, the way that said What did I tell you?? - and I wondered if maybe all those years ago some of Big Joe’s men hadn’t pulled that car out of Lake Grapevine and found the trunk empty.

I mean...this is Elizabeth we’re talking about.

#true story

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singeramg · 3 years ago

Text

Random Dream

So here we go again. It’s time for Singeramg’s random dreaming! This time it stars EDGAR RAMIREZ!

Believe it or not it was one of the few semi-normal ones or at at least or normal as it could be without being weird.

*TRIGGER WARNING*

The rest of this story may have triggering plots including blood, fighting and attempted suicide, so if this isn’t your cup of tea you may want to skip this.

So it starts off with me being hungry and wanting to get some food before I miss the bus. The people behind the counter forget about my cheese quesadilla and just as they finish it. I miss the bus. In an attempt to catch it I know I can go to the stop. However I have to cut through a Walmart. I walk into a Walmart and the managers who don’t communicate properly both think I am an employee and start yelling at me to do things.

Me being me starts to go ahead and do them but they both get out of control. I am stocking stuff and talking to another employee about how I didn’t even interview. How I don’t even work there.

So I decided to tell the managers to leave me alone and all I wanted was some cereal. They instantly feel terrible and tell me that I could work there if I wanted and they are sorry. They tell me I can take whatever cereal I want.

So I do then I catch up with one of my best friends who is a guy and we are just hanging out while he waits for his wife to finish gymnastics practice. Meanwhile somehow we start taking these courses and talking to people. Surprise, surprise we meet Edgar. People are nice to him, know exactly who he is but give him space. He is really nice, charming and very friendly to everyone but not showing interest in any particular person who shows him obvious interest. However he makes it a point to speak to my friend and I.

The entire time my friend is teasing the shit out of me whenever Edgar isn’t looking and I’m just like “Shut tf Up!!!!” This crush has blown into a sure fire infatuation and like a school girl again I already like planned a wedding (a/n: ugh I know cringe and so high school, but honestly it’s done in jest. I know I don’t stand a chance) but friend is like “would you tell him already. I for one am tired of seeing you mope around.” I’m like “hell no” (irl I am a punk when it comes to expressing my feelings).

So my friend is being an ass (you how your friends do when you like someone) and in the process he takes my little wedding folder and starts waving it in front of me, but like Edgar is at the table behind us laughing his ass off, just watching me play keep away with my friend who is way taller than me. The conversation calms down and Edgar and I are chatting it up about life. We mentioned something, but it leads to both of us saying someone is handsome/cute (can’t remember which) but I’m instantly heartbroken. I put up and good poker face, meanwhile my friend who was letting us talk knows I’m heartbroken watches Edgar leave to go do something else and then says “I knew it. I knew you should have just told him”

I say “what fucking good would that have done me... I actually did the right thing”

“How if you’re heartbroken *Singeramg*” (he said my real name but go with me here)

I make a face and say “clearly I’m not his type.”

Friend: He didn’t say that *singeramg*

Me: oh but he did. I guess I should know better. School girl fantasies about a grown man. If he wanted me he would had said something but nooooooo I had to go waste my fucking time. I knew better. I fucking knew better than this. I’m not in high school. We haven’t been for a long time.”

I toss the folder into the air, some of the loose leaf papers of all the flowery shit I wrote and pictures of dresses and actual pictures of flowers. (Honestly it was more of a wishlist) From behind me I hear

“What is all of this?”

I freeze, panic and turn around Edgar has the damn folder in his hands but he has not opened it. I run over with a huge smile on my face and snatch it.

“Oh nothing just some event planning I am doing for a friend. Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

My friend who is intent on getting me out of this bullshit says “oh really that’s what it’s is now.”

I laugh and roll my eyes.

“Well let me see it then.”

Edgar says and I shake my head. He and I both know I’m lying through my damn teeth. We wait a second before I start backing up and now he’s chasing me around the table. My friend is laughing his ass off and I take off down the hallway. Intent on finding somewhere to shred all evidence that I have a crush on Edgar. He is still following me. At first I come upon a locked shred bin like the ones you put the papers in to secure and then the company shreds it. But then as I am beginning to put the papers there I see him talking with the people who have the keys and I realize this isn’t going to work so I take the most damning of the papers and start running again. He notices and starts chasing me again so I keep going and find myself running into a women’s bathroom. Happy to rid myself of evidence I toss it in the trash.

I realize I’m not alone and this girl from high school. Who I wasn’t good friends with and particularly a happy person irl was standing in the doorway. She is bleeding from the wrists. I panic and offer to get her help. She still has strength enough to toss herself in front of the door. She says she can’t let me out not until she does what she came to do. I am begging her to let me help her.

Eventually she passes out, and I drag her out the bathroom. Her mother’s shop is around the corner so I take her there. Her mother knew she needed help from professionals but was worried about her image. She blames me for daughter trying to commit suicide and she tries to fight me, meanwhile I am attempting to patch her up until the paramedics get there. Her mother tries to fight me along with a girl who works at the shop.

I fight them off and leave, then we go back to try and find my friend and somehow this girls mother has recruited all of these women for a tv show and put them against me. I leave with the intent to never had to deal with anyone again.

I run away to some cabin in the mountains. I hear a voice tell me after while that “I have to go back.”

So I go back. My friend is waiting on me and he is like where have you been we were all worried sick. I told him I was taking some time to clear my head. He laughs and he sits down.

Friend: We know you didn’t have anything to do with Jenny hurting herself. She’s getting the help she needs and her mom is catching hell for lying on you for a spot on TV.

He pulls put a bag of mango pieces.

I take one and they are so juicy and yummy.

Me: Where are they from? They are delicious!

Friend: They are from San Christian , or Columbia something like that.

Me: They are very good.

I take another piece

Friend: they are from where he is from. He said he knew you like them and would be hungry when you got back

I look at him confused

Me: “He who?”

My friend smirks with another piece of mango and points behind me.

I turn around and Edgar is standing there

Edgar: I told you they were from San Cristobal. And I am Venezuelan you jackass.

He says and they both laugh meanwhile I am confused that he would still be here waiting on me to come back.

He pulls out the most damning page of evidence from my folder. My pretend wedding Vows where I end them saying I am so happy and blessing to become Mrs. Edgar Ramirez Arellano and that I love him.

Turns out he retrieved them from the bathroom that I had tossed the pages away thinking he had no way to get them.

Edgar: You really should put them in water next time you don’t want them read.

I laugh and he pulls me into his arms, kissing me.

Then I wake up.

🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

@angreav 😂😂😂 send help

#edgar ramirez #singeramg randomness #random dreams #I don’t even have an excuse this time #I’m just nuts

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dreamylyfe-x · 4 years ago

Note

heyo i've been watching the eps in real time, but i only got around to watching the gallavich hall of shame today and i loved all of it except the beg which i was really hoping you could help me with cuz i've been extremely upset by it (literally crying oops). so, why would the writers possibly use the phrasing "piece of my heart" and act like what ian felt for his other bfs is in any way comparable to mickey, only on a much lesser level? cuz we've seen it play out that that's just false [pt 1]

Hey! Sorry about not getting to this right away -- real life has been extreme today -- but I wanted to make sure to reply to this ASAP because it clearly bothered you a bunch. This ask has several parts and I’m going to pull the questions from the others so that I can best answer. And I may sound a little glib because I know this really, really bothered you, so I want to make it clear: I completely respect your feelings about this... but I don’t think the show was thinking about how people who love Gallavich would feel about that line. Because they had a brief and it was “write a clip show.”

First: why would the writers make ian flat out tell mickey that doesn't have his whole heart WHEN THEY'RE MARRIED for god's sake.

So that they’d have a fight through which they would introduce themed clip packages that had already been decided on.

Second: i'm just so confused and upset about what the writers were trying to accomplish with this?

Completely understandable that you’d be confused by it, because the primary thing they were looking to accomplish was to have snippets of conversation that would introduce themed clip packages.

Third: why'd the writers chose such vague flowery BS wording for this? plz help me get it

Because nothing in the Hall of Shame episodes can actually add up to anything significant, because they’re clips shows that were put together entirely because Showtime needed to fill time while the show -- which is still shooting -- finishes up.

A few things about the Hall of Shame episodes. The first and the most important: It’s pretty much impossible to write a good clip show. They are creative black holes. I shudder to think how much time the writers were even given to do these things. They all -- All! -- exist solely to fill time. So it’s always “The Golden Girls sit around a table and eat cheesecake and then reminisce about all the times they ate cheesecake.” One of the very worst episodes of Star Trek: TNG exists solely because they ordered another episode at the last minute and it’s -- you guessed it! -- A clip show. The best -- and I use that term loosely -- clip shows are the ones where the have some Voice of God narrator say “Mickey and Ian are the romantic heart of the show, but they don’t always get along! Cue clip package where Mickey and Ian fight about stuff. Voice of God: “But they sure do enjoy making up!” -- Cue clip package of Ian and Mickey making out.

That still sounds pretty terrible. The best idea for a Shameless clip show is to do some sort of Frank-at-the-bar-talking-shit thing and I’m sure they thought of that and then I'm sure they were like “Fuck. We can’t spare Bill for that kind of time.” -- and then they had to do this. This whole thing is born of scarcity -- of time, of means and of new things to put on the tv -- And given the choice, having seen what came out of it, I think I opt for what they did because I truly do believe the Mickey gifs that the Fiona one produced have restorative properties and I am very grateful that they exist.

The Hall fo Shame episodes giveth, and they taketh away. So my advice, in how to approach them is just this:

They aren’t canon

Nothing that happens in them matters

But the parts you like can be as real as you want them to be

So take what you like and throw the rest away

But again, this might be easier said than done, so let me dig a little deeper into what bothers you so much about this line in the context that it happens.

The 87% line is patently ridiculous and I reject its premise. Love is not finite. You do not divide it between people. You love the people you love, the way you love them, and if someone else showed up you’d love them in whatever way you love them and that would not lessen the love you feel for anyone else. You do not suddenly love your child 50% less because you had another child. That is insane. You just love the other child also.

That said, the 11 seasons in which we have seen Ian love Mickey more than he loves anything -- his freaking words -- cannot be undone by one line of dialogue in a clip show. First, because clip shows are innately flawed, but also because 11 seasons are more important than one line of dialogue. Even ONE episode of Not a Clip Show is more important than what happens in a clip show. Every single episode of Shameless is trying to do something much more valid and important with the characters than introduce a clip package.

This problem is also not restricted to the Gallavich episode -- People do a whole bunch of stuff in the HoS episodes that they’ve never done on the show. Carl and Debbie don’t punch each other in the face. Lip doesn’t completely and totally discount every single thing his sister did to keep a roof over their head. Mickey doesn’t act like Ian’s sexuality is a lifestyle choice and Ian is smart enough to know that Mickey Milkovich -- who he loves more than anything -- doesn’t want hear about the mathematical breakdown of how much Ian cares about Other Men.

now i desperately need the writers to fix this and say mickey has ian's whole heart.

This is probably not going to happen because I don’t think Actual Shameless considers that to be a thing that happened. On Actual Shameless Ian watched Mickey beat Ned up and then ran away with him when the cops showed up looking DELIGHTED that Mickey had beaten Ned up. On Actual Shameless Ian can barely stand to have Kash touch him once he’s been with Mickey, because Mickey is all he wants. On Actual Shameless Ian’s most viable non-Mickey relationship crumbles the second Mickey shows up because there’s just no comparison for him. Ian loves Mickey. He doesn’t stop. If something happened to Mickey he wouldn't look vaguely disconcerted and then get into an argument with some third party about whether or not it’s valid to be weirded out when someone you had sex with dies. You know that line, “show, don’t tell”? There’s reason that’s considered better storytelling -- because the stuff you show is the stuff that the audience feels and experiences. If Ian had said he loved Ned in any capacity I would have laughed out loud, because what I was shown was Ian mostly hanging out with Ned because he was missing Mickey, wanted a distraction, liked room service and the occasional nice gift, and... it made Mickey jealous. None of that was about Ned.

And in the end: Ned’s dead, baby. Long live Gallavich.

(it would of course be very nice if Ian would tell Mickey he has his whole heart, partly because it’s true, but also because Mickey deserves to hear these sorts of things, and we all want Mickey to be happy. And I do think Ian probably does tell Mickey that, after the clip show is over -if we acknowledge that this happened at all- because ultimately Ian’s whole life is about Mickey. Mickey is all he ever talks about. Even when he’s being pissy it’s all about how things are going with Mickey and how they are GOING to be going with Mickey. How he feels about his job, how he feels about himself, what his life plan is -- all depends on what is up with Mickey. Mickey is everything to him, and I’m going to assume Ian both shows and tells Mickey that in key ways, because Mickey sure seems happy in the Fiona HoS.)

Anyway -- I don’t know if that helps at all, but that’s my take on this mess. Thank you for asking!

#asks #shameless hall of shame #hall of shame: daddy issues #the only good clip show was #Community's fake clip show

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soysaucevictim · 3 years ago

Text

Taste The Heat

Summary: Remus has many reasons he enjoys doing exercise. It’s healthy. It’s distracting… let’s just say, there’s “self care” and then there’s self care. (Sanders Sides, Gym Rat AU. One-shot. Ao3 link.)

Genres: Slice of Life, PWP (?), Character Study (???)

Characters: Remus-centric. Roman, Patton, Logan, and Janus mentioned.

Relationships: Background Creativitwins (familial)

Warnings: S3xual content, masturbation, AFAB anatomy, frot, exhibitionism, omo (not emphasized), BDSM (mentioned), vomit (mentioned), monsterfucking (mentioned), Remus Being Remus, Trans Masc / Nonbinary Remus

It was a realization he had a couple years into this whole fitness journey or whatever his friends would call it.

Like, he wasn’t naive about basic anatomy.

He thought he knew some tried and true tricks to get the motor running. He’s seen himself some delights in the BDSM scene and he’s yawned about the more vanilla approaches to getting the rocks off. Don’t get him STARTED on all the kudos he dropped on monsterfucker fics. (Okay, actually, he’d love that. Please do.)

Padre and Microsoft Turd would happily tell him he was just making the old ticker good and strong. Which he’d grant them that, it’s nice not being as easily winded as he used to be as a bored-out-of-his-mind couch potato.

Anyways, unlike his brother’s over-achieving ass. He didn’t really walk into his workouts with much of a plan. He just loved how it all felt, loving the stimulation – to melt his stress and restless energy.

Feeling like you’re thirsty for air. Feeling like your body is on fire. Feeling like you’re about to puke your guts out.

Oh, but that’s not the FUN part. (Shocker, I know. Get it? You know “two in the pink...” well, he’d definitely snicker at that thought.)

He was pretty sure those guys or Jannie would happily prattle on about all the benefits of exercise. They’d probably enjoy educating him on the whys and the hows. But all Remus gave a shit about was that it felt awesome.

There were many exercises he loved to experience. Some because they looked silly and were fun to exaggerate.

Like there’s one where he gets to look like a donkey, kicking backwards. Blah blah, good for the hams, blah. He totally brayed just to see the look of embarrassment from his brother.

Or one that looks like a dog taking a leak. Something about hip flexors, or something. He even squeezed his eyes shut and made an excessively long “Ssss…” noise for effect.

Garnering an exasperated, “I hereby disown you as my brother. I do not know you. Good day, sir.”

(After everything the two of them had been through, he knew Roman was never serious about that.)

Or one that looks like you’re literally humping the air! (Not going to lie, that one hits the spot sometimes too. A perk to working out – no one knows if those stray grunts and moans were from exertion or something hornier.)

But there was one type of maneuver that really got him starry eyed.

Jumping jacks.

Why did elementary and high school PE class fail him so hard (hah) that he hadn’t known of their sorcery!? One could go on a tirade about how shitty the state of sex education is and was.

He wasn’t really fond of all the flowery euphemistic shit directed at half the class about the subject. He saw “Carrie”, he knew what to expect. Well, mostly. Granted, having telekinesis as part of the puberty package would have kicked ass. Why’d he have to be in one of the boring universes where that wasn’t a thing?

Anyways, he was in the zone, during one of these workout sessions.

10. 20. 30...

He had a small amount of stiffness in the Achilles while they got all warmed up. Slowly, his calves got to a lovely burn. Being a certain glutton for punishment made that part so satisfying already. But this stage was merely the hors d'oeuvres.

40. 50...

How satisfying it was to bounce to the beat of his music, feeling like all his systems started to tick in time like a metronome. It was already approaching a state of Zen – which his constantly restless brain always appreciated.

60. 69 - pffft. Nonono. Keep going! You’ve barely gotten started!

70. Almost… the blood flow and the way the seam of his shorts rhythmically rubbed against him was starting to feel good.

80. Almost there… the endorphins and happy chemicals had to be kicking in now. The burn falling away from focus.

90. Come on… he knew it was coming. He believed his own sweat and other fluids helped in letting the hood press and slide against his now awake clit.

100. The pressure of his thighs and pelvic floor clenching for every rep and the friction of it all started to make him tingle.

110. Just a little more...

120. Stars. It was like an electric shock that sent a shiver up his spine. He wondered if he pissed himself. He wanted to stop right there and take his hand down to keep that stimulation going to a fever-pitch. But, no, not yet.

He wanted to make this last for as many sets as he could. And his calves needed to recover.

He gave himself 2 minutes tops.

After shaking himself loose, it was time for round two! (FIGHT.)

130. 140. 150…

Anticipation and arousal were already speeding up.

150. He was sweating buckets.

160. 170…

He felt himself start to quiver.

180… BAM. Another explosion. He was certain he was wet now. He wanted to crumple and go manual and moan loudly and ugly. But what eked out of his mouth was a giddy shudder.

He took a few deep breathes and rested another minute or so.

His mouth getting dry on him, he had the presence of mind to chug down some water.

Again! AGAIN!

190. 200. 210…

He was hyper-aware of the feeling of engorgement. He was about to keen again, feeling how sensitized he had become.

220. 230…

Sheer bliss stole his breath. He felt like he was practically floating. He could barely feel his arms anymore.

240. Woof. Words and thoughts started falling apart in his mind, at that point.

He had to to say it was one of the perks of having a "front hole" – multiple climaxes.

Or to put in another way, the savage lands held many adventures. If he was feeling particularly eloquent, which he wasn’t at that point.

Sometimes it was too easy to forget how many sets he managed to get through in a session – often only stopping because his shoulders and calves stopped working anymore.

Oh gods, was he going to be sore for days after this. He was going to hobble around like an old person. Moving around was going to be painful and hilarious. He already felt them start to ache – faintly wondering if he overdid it again and pulverized the hell out of them.

That didn’t stop him from releasing an exhausted cackle, “WORTH IT.”

“What?”

“Man, if working out doesn’t get you hard, I don’t know WHAT you’re doing with your life.”

“Aaand I immediately regret asking the question. Thanks.”

Remus cackled some more and sauntered, okay it was more like he limped, over to the bathroom to finish himself off. He forgot just how much water he guzzled to stay hydrated, so he needed to relieve himself anyways. To be sure, that added to the fun.

Most people would think it disgusting to do in a public bathroom, but that’s a fuck he could never give. No one else was in there anyways.

Being able to just sigh in complete contentment after it all, was enough.

This didn’t happen every day, because he was only human. Regrettably. And he was no stranger to biting off more than he could chew. (Hey, at least it was still only 1-2 with Roman for hospital visits… in recent memory. From workouts, anyways.)

He took that experience to be even more curious about where he can rediscover that piece of euphoria in as many sessions he possibly could, going forward. Besides occasionally rubbing his brother’s nose in beating his records – the only PB he gave a shit about was how many covert jollies he could squeeze out of himself.

If he ever decided to clue people in... the regulars at the gym have eventually learned it best not to ask him to elaborate on what that was about.

Especially not Steve.

#spilled musing #sanders sides #remus sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #not safe for sanders #(don't wanna softblock young-ins on this one but i will if i gotta)#(i don't write a lot of this kind of stuff so yeah)#(if no one follows my fandom blog they might be wondering where the hell this came from)#(more info on this one on ao3)#(remus just loves embarrassing his bro - as sibs are wont to do)#adventures with fitness #(sort of... grief is balls)#(but it was a lot of fun to write!)#gymrat au

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misskikuwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Souvenirs

Bede/Gloria (dressedinpinkshipping)

Fluff & light angst

Isle of Armor spoilers

Bede saw the knowing smiles Gym Trainers Annette and Teresa were giving him as the automatic doors to the Gym opened. Without turning around, it was obvious why they were grinning at him like that. He shot them both a quick, silencing glare. They wiped their expressions clean, and Bede steeled his heart before turning with practiced grace on his heels to face Gloria.

"Morning, Bede!" she greeted him with a cute wave, her sudden appearance making his pulse skip as always.

Already, he could feel an unbidden flush settle on his cheeks. It was difficult not to frown in order to hide it, his brow twitching in frustration at how easily he reacted to her mere presence.

It's just Gloria, he reminded himself. Get a hold of yourself, you damn lovestruck fool.

How could he, when she smiled at him like that?

"I see you've decided to show up to my Gym, unprompted, once again," Bede said. He folded his arms as though unimpressed, using the action to calm his racing heart. "Surely you have other duties to attend to, this close to the start of the next Challenge."

She breathed a short, sheepish laugh, and twiddled a lock of her hair. "I know, I know, but I…" Her eyes scattered from his for a moment, before returning. "There's something I want to show you. Do you have some time to spare?"

Not a favour, this time? He'd become so used to her dropping in for random favours from time to time. Or, more often than not, with an armful of confectionery or cakes to share with him and his Gym Trainers.

Bede cleared his throat to cover up his surprise. "I may be able to spare a moment or two," he said with a shrug.

The nosy stares of the Gym Trainers bored into Bede's back. They knew fully well that he had ample time to spare, having already prepped well in advance for the upcoming Challenge. He bristled with the urge to shoot them another glare, but couldn't do so in front of Gloria without rousing suspicion.

"Great!" She chimed, her eyes twinkled as brightly as her smile, and Bede was glad he had his back to the eavesdropping Gym Trainers. His eyes widened a fraction, breath catching, unable to stop the leaping of his heart under the effect of how adorably excited she was. Such a simple thing delighted her so much, and it left him breathless. How could he deny her when he knew it made her so happy, that she would smile at him like that in return?

"Come on," she beckoned. "Let's get some fresh air. It's such a nice day outside!"

Bede bit back his comment that the air inside was plenty fine, and decided to follow Gloria instead. There was no point in arguing semantics when she was giving him an excuse to get away from the prying eyes of the Gym Trainers. He stepped through the doors after her, and they were enveloped in the cool embrace of Ballonlea's earthy air. Gloria walked with a skip in her step, her delight obvious, and she shot him a grin.

"I just couldn't wait to show this to you," she said as they headed to a quiet, empty spot not far from the Gym.

Bede eyed her curiously. Despite the fact that her emotions, her face, were an open book, he couldn't discern what it was she was excited about. What was it, exactly, that she wanted to show him?

Gloria sat down on a mossy ledge and shucked off her bag, patting the spot beside her. If it was anyone else, Bede would have turned up his nose and adamantly refused to sit on such a damp and grotty ledge. He took a deep breath and relented, taking a seat beside her as she dug through her bag. She pulled out a Pokeball, wonder lighting up her dark brown eyes.

"Here it is!"

"I surely hope you didn't bring me here to show me a mere Pokeball," Bede teased.

Gloria gave his shoulder a playful shove, rolling her eyes. "No, you dork," she laughed. "It's the Pokemon inside I wanted to show you."

Her touch was like lightning, stirring his blood into liquid fire, and he took the chance to shift an inch closer to her. Acting as though he was interested in the Pokeball in her hand. Intrigued by whatever Pokemon she felt was impressive enough to drag him from his Gym, as though he hadn't studied the Galar Pokedex from start to finish.

She smiled at him, their eyes meeting, and the shortened distance between them was suddenly too small. Too close. He could see the speckles of gold in her eyes, warm like honey, and the array of freckles across her nose and cheeks, normally too faint to make out, were like dark stars painted across her skin. Bede suddenly realised why people spent their lifetimes counting the stars, giving them names, as he wanted to memorise each and every mark on her rosy cheeks.

"Don't make any sudden movements or noises," Gloria said. "He's a bit shy."

He straightened, stealing his eyes away from her, and hastily recalled what they were doing here in the first place.

"Sure."

Gloria nodded, satisfied, and sent out her Pokemon. The light from the Pokeball faded, revealing a small Pokemon with dark grey fur. It stood on two legs, fuzzy rounded ears twitching as it gazed around for his Trainer. Its black eyes landed on Bede, the Pokemon jolting in shock, and it scrambled to hide behind Gloria.

"What is that?" Bede couldn't stop himself from asking. His mouth dropped open, and he attempted to get a second look at the Pokemon, leaning to the side to catch a glimpse of it behind Gloria.

She nudged Bede back gently. "See? I told you he was shy! You scared him."

He looked at her incredulously, feeling the heat of her hand on his shoulder. "I didn't do anything. That Pokemon frightened itself."

"It's not his fault! He's not good around strangers." She pouted at him, before pulling back her hand and turning around to comfort her cowering Pokemon. "Hey, it's okay. He's a friend."

Bede raised an eyebrow at her, feeling his heart skip in his chest from the way she referred to him. A shivering tuft of dark grey fur peeked out from around Gloria's waist, and he couldn't stop himself from leaning to the side again to get a better look. Two trembling paws clutched Gloria's shirt, long black claws curled into the fabric. Whatever it was, he hadn't seen anything like it before. He edged closer until his thigh brushed against Gloria's, and he froze with his heart leaping into his throat. He'd been so focused on studying the timid Pokemon that he hadn't noticed how close he was to her. That the earthy air of Ballonlea now carried a hint of soap, a flowery scent that filled his lungs with a rush of heat.

He was too close, but with the frightened Pokemon peering around Gloria's waist at him, he didn't dare move. He couldn't move, or even breathe, this close to her anyway.

"Don't worry, Kubfu," Gloria said softly, stroking the top of the Pokemon's head. "It's alright. This is Bede. He's a very good friend of mine."

A very good friend.

Bede's heart thumped deafeningly between his ears, pounding heavily against his ribcage. With every beat, it became louder and harder, sending waves of heat through his veins. His cheeks began to burn, as Gloria continued, unaware of the way he was smouldering beside her.

"He's actually very nice." She ruffled Kubfu's cheeks gently. "I know he looks like a grump, and he gets this scowl on his face at times, but he's very kind."

Arceus. She was destroying him. Pulling him apart, piece by piece, with her honesty, and he couldn't bring himself to stop her. His heart swelled in a way he'd never felt before. He wanted to hear more. To learn just what she thought of him, and he hung his head by her shoulder, his face ablaze.

He was crumbling into dust and he didn't want her to stop.

"Bede is… someone I care a lot about," Gloria continued, as though he wasn't right there beside her. "He means a lot to me. He's always been there for me, even though we didn't exactly get along at the start." She punctuated that sentence with a laugh that skittered down his back and made him shiver.

Kubfu, the Pokemon hiding behind Gloria, chatted quietly in response.

"You don't have to be afraid of him," she said. "I trust him. He's never let me down before, and… I really wanted you to meet him."

Before Bede could let her words sink in, she took his hand, and he jumped at her sudden touch. She hadn't turned enough to see his expression, or the way he'd flushed darkly from his neck to his ears, and held Bede's hand out towards Kubfu. He leant forward instinctively, his shoulder coming into contact with hers, and she finally glanced at him. Their eyes met. A cold sweat of panic trickled down Bede's back as Gloria stared at him. Her hand frozen around his. Kubfu looking curiously at them both.

Bede yanked himself away from her, stealing his hand back and snapping his head to the side, regretting the fact that he'd let it go this far. That he'd succumbed to her compliments, her honesty, and hadn't tried to stop her at all. He couldn't hide the fact that she'd flustered him now.

"Bede, are you…?"

Panic rushed up this throat. "This- This is your fault! S-Saying things like that out of nowhere…!" His lungs emptied, and he habitually tugged at his collar, as though he could hike it higher than it already was.

"You're… blushing…?"

Her faint gasp of realisation made his blush darken.

"O-Only because you- you said things like that!" Bede barked, finally turning to face her. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes widened as if she'd just realised what she'd been saying.

"Th-There's nothing wrong with what I said!" she squeaked in return. "I was just telling Kubfu about you!"

"You didn't have to say it like that!"

"L-Like what?" She flushed, staring him down stubbornly. "I didn't say anything weird. It was the truth."

"You can't be serious," he huffed. "If you say things like that about me I might… get the wrong idea, okay?"

"The wrong idea about what?"

Bede's heart thumped painfully loud in his chest, the words forming on his tongue. The things he wanted to bark at her, to chide her about, to tell her off for making it sound like she-

"You really have no idea what you sounded like?" He frowned at her, his cheeks still burning. "Saying that you care about me, that I mean a lot to you….I can't believe you can say things like that so easily without realising that you could give someone false hope- uh, the wrong impression, I mean."

She met his frown with her own. "But it's the truth, and you know that's how I feel about you. What's wrong with that?"

Bede grumbled deep in his chest, and raked a hand down his face in exasperation. She was too oblivious, but he couldn't just leave it like that…

"The way you said it…" He forced himself to hold her gaze, measured his words out so his voice didn't crack or stutter. "It sounded as though you had feelings for me."

She stared blankly at him for a moment before she flushed darkly, her whole body recoiling in shock.

"Wh-Wh-What?!" Gloria gaped. "I don't- that's not- I didn't mean it like that!"

"I-I realise that, okay? Calm down!"

She made a strangled noise in her throat, hanging her head in her hands. Kubfu cooed quietly at her side, tugging on her shirt in concern.

"I was just… being honest…" she squeaked, her words muffled through her hands.

"I know." Bede sighed to himself. His heart flopped dejectedly from her unintentional rejection. She always had a way of piercing his heart without realising it. "But you need to recognise that when you say things like that, people might end up getting the wrong idea."

He knew her well enough to steel himself whenever she spoke like that, but it always ended up hurting him regardless.

"Sorry…" She peeked up at him, her cheeks burning in embarrassment, and it made his blood sing. "I just wanted Kubfu to be at ease around you, that's all…"

He cleared his throat. The heat on her cheeks, the demure tremble in her eyes as she looked up at him, made her look so utterly adorable that it became difficult to speak.

"I'm not sure what Kubfu thinks about me now," he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Gloria straightened, pulling her head from her hands, and Kubfu climbed onto her lap. He looked at Bede properly for the first time, their eyes meeting with intrigue.

"What is it?" Bede asked. He studied the timid Pokemon, from its round nose and fluffy ears, to its black paws. "You called it 'Kubfu?'"

Gloria nodded, scritching behind Kubfu's ears. "Yeah. Apparently, he's the 'secret armor' of the Isle of Armor's Master Dojo."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

She laughed. "I guess not."

The Isle of Armor… he recalled Ms Opal mentioning it in passing recently.

"This little guy's a Fighting Type," Gloria said. "He's really shy, and I thought that if I introduced him to the people who are dear to me, that he might open up a bit more."

Bede wondered who else she'd introduced Kubfu to. Who else had she visited before him?

He quickly dashed that thought away. It didn't matter.

Kubfu made an affirmative grunt, pumping his paws in a remarkably similar fashion to the way Gloria pumped her fists in determination.

"Also…" Gloria looked at Bede again, a coy smile on her face. "There's another reason I came to see you."

There it was again. His heart thumped harder in his chest, reacting to the suggestion behind her words. He wondered if she was being deliberately vague, toying with the strings of his heart.

"What is it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow calmly.

Her eyes shifted between his. "Well, it's a bit… embarrassing. Could you close your eyes for me?"

He reflexively stiffened. "Why?"

"It's embarrassing," she repeated, and pursed her lips bashfully. "I can't give it to you until you close your eyes."

He was definitely getting the wrong idea now, his mind racing as he tried to come up with any other reason why she'd want him to close his eyes.

"Please, Bede?" She leant a fraction closer, searching his gaze, his face, and pleading with him.

He hated the way his heart thrummed when she spoke his name like that, how it was impossible for him to deny her. He hated it the way he hated her random visits and unpredictability favours, how she could lean so close to him so casually, batting her eyes at him until he gave in.

He hated it. Everything he thought he hated about her were the things he loved most.

"Alright, fine," Bede relented. "But don't you try anything weird."

She pouted at him. "I won't!"

Kubfu tilted his head curiously at Bede, the small Fighting Type slowly warming up to him. Bede straightened, trying to calm his fluttering nerves, and closed his eyes as requested.

"Don't open them until I say to, okay?" Gloria urged.

With his eyes closed, she sounded so much closer. Her voice so much clearer. He tried to focus his hearing on her, on the sound of a zipper, the faint shuffling as she moved. Slender fingers took hold of his wrist, and he couldn't stop himself from jolting. His blood crackled alight as her fingers slid around his wrist in a featherlight touch. Thoughts span in his head as he waited in pensive silence, feeling only the brush of her fingers and the heavy thumping of his heart. Something firmer than her fingers wound around his wrist, her touch falling away.

Gloria exhaled a sharp sigh. "There. You can open your eyes now."

He drew his eyes open, staring down at the strange bracelet of intertwined twigs around his wrist. It was knobbly and buckled in places, the pattern uneven, and it hung awkwardly and too loose where she'd tied it. It was the last thing he'd expected to see.

"What… is this meant to be?" He held up his wrist, and the bracelet slid a few inches down his arm.

"It's, um, a Galarian cuff. It's unique to the Isle of Armor. They're… usually given to Galarian Slowpoke to evolve them or as souvenirs…"

"Please tell me you didn't pay for something as haphazardly crafted as this," Bede scoffed. "Whatever you paid for it, it was too much, I can see that much."

Gloria curled her bottom lip, shifting her eyes away. "I… didn't buy it," she said quietly as a soft blush settled high on her cheeks.

Bede's heart skipped. His eyes fell to the poorly woven bracelet, the amateurish pattern that screamed handmade, and he suddenly regretted his words.

"I wanted a gift like that to have a bit more meaning, so I learnt how to make them myself and… well…" Gloria blushed in embarrassment. "I-I know it's not that good. I can take it back, if you'd like-"

She reached for his wrist and he yanked his hand away. "It's fine," he said quickly.

Her eyes widened. "Are you sure? I could make another one. I think I have enough Galarian Twigs…"

"I said that it's fine," he repeated, firmer this time. Heat swam across his cheeks, and he held his wrist, and the bracelet, close to his chest. "I didn't realise that you had made this yourself. That… isn't something you can put a price on."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not giving it back. That's what it means."

The surprise on her face, the relief that filled her eyes and brightened her smile, was worth admitting that to her.

"It's a bit of a mess, but that's the first one that I managed to get right," she said with a faint laugh.

Does that mean…?

"You haven't made one for anyone else?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Well, yeah." She laughed again. "I'm not very good with my hands, so making one was difficult enough. Just look at how it turned out."

His lungs filled with air, and he suddenly felt weirdly lighthearted. He stared down at the bracelet, the sight of it wrapped around his wrist relaxing him somehow. The only one in the world.

"I hope it's okay. You don't have to keep wearing it if you don't want to but… as long as you keep it, that's enough for me."

He realised then that he felt no desire at all to remove it. It was his.

That was enough for him.

#bederia #bede #gloria #dressedinpinkshipping #btyu #my writing #I WANTED TO WRITE THIS FOR SO LONG #AHHHHHH #enjoy the fluff ppl

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mediaevalmusereads · 4 years ago

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The Devil Comes Courting. By Courtney Milan. Self-Published (?), 2021.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Worth Saga #3

Summary: Captain Grayson Hunter knows the battle to complete the first worldwide telegraphic network will be fierce, and he intends to win it by any means necessary. When he hears about a reclusive genius who has figured out how to slash the cost of telegraphic transmissions, he vows to do whatever it takes to get the man in his employ. Except the reclusive genius is not a man, and she’s not looking for employment. Amelia Smith was born in Shanghai, and taken in by English missionaries. She’s not interested in Captain Hunter’s promises or his ambitions. But the harder he tries to convince her, the more she realizes that there is something she wants from him: She wants everything. And she’ll have to crack the frozen shell he’s made of his heart to get it.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: graphic sexual content, racism (mostly microaggressions), references to child abduction

Overview: I'm a simple girl. I see a new Courtney Milan book, I read it. I was expecting this book to be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be so raw, emotional, and satisfying in almost every way. If I had to quibble, I would say that I would have liked to see a stronger focus on developing the romance, but as it stands, The Devil Comes Courting is an engaging read that deftly deals with topics such as colonialism, racism, grief, and family.

Writing: Milan's prose, as always, feels effortless while delivering a lot of information. It balances telling and showing well, and evokes a lot of emotion without feeling burdened by flowery language.

The only criticism I have is that in the first half of the book, there are some phrases that characters use that start to feel repetitive. It isn't a big deal, as they're supposed to be repeated (as a way for characters to remind themselves of things), but as a reader, I felt a little irritated. Luckily, this repetition clears up by the second half of the book, so if you also feel annoyed, you don't have to wait long.

Plot: The plot of this novel revolves around Grayson Hunter, a Black man intent on connecting China to America via a transpacific telegraph network, and Amelia Smith, a Chinese woman raised by an English missionary and who has invented a way to transmit Chinese characters via wire.

The first half of the book follows Grayson as he convinces Amelia to abandon her mother's plans to marry her off. Appealing to Amelia's ambition, he convinces her to come to Shanghai to work for him, all while building up her confidence and inspiring her. The second half more or less focuses on the development of the telegraph line as well as Amelia's longing for her Chinese mother, Grayson's obsession with work to avoid confronting his feelings of grief, and the budding relationship between the two.

I really loved this plot. It showed us Milan's nerdy interest in a topic (the telegraph line) while also exploring complex emotions connected to the history of colonialism. I loved how Milan handled Amelia's feelings of being torn between cultures, all without excusing the actions of those who participated in colonialism; despite Amelia having complicated reactions to her past, Milan does come down hard on what's right and doesn't try to redeem people who refuse to admit they have done wrong.

If I had any criticism of the plot, I think I would have personally liked to see arcs more strongly defined. There were some moments when I felt like I was just following characters in their day-to-day activities, and while some of it was interesting, there were times when I was wondering what larger goal the plot was heading towards. This is a minor criticism, however; because of the rich character exploration, I didn't mind following Amelia and Grayson, but if you're a plot person (rather than a character person), you may disagree.

Characters: I love how this book proves that you can have a historical romance about people of color without focusing on suffering.

Amelia, a Chinese woman raised by an English missionary, is quirky in that she's scatter-brained, bright, and kind. I loved that she was portrayed as incredibly smart and ambitious, and that her main character flaw was needing to believe in herself. I also loved how she wrestled with her feelings about her past - Amelia longs to meet her Chinese mother and ask why she left her, and I loved how Milan used that longing to fuel her desire to connect China to the rest of the world via wire.

Grayson, a Black man who obsesses over the telegraph wire as a way to avoid coming to terms with his brothers' deaths, is similarly likeable in that he's ambitious and kind. I loved that he was ruthless in pursuing Amelia (to work for him) but also respected her boundaries and let her make decisions for herself (rather than manipulating her into doing something). I loved the way Milan handled Grayson's grief and how his work on the telegraph was both a worthy project and an externalization of his character flaws.

Side characters were charming as well as helpful for facilitating Amelia's and Grayson's character arcs. Benedict, who is a character from the previous two Worth books, was quite adorable and had a nice little arc of his own. I think Benedict's arc complimented Amelia's and Grayson's well, though it will have more significance if you've read the first two books in the series. I also liked Amelia's adopted brother, Leland, whose arc explores and exposes the immorality of missionary work. Grayson's cousin, Zed, was also delightful in that he pushed Grayson to spend time with his family, which was important for exploring Grayson's complex feelings about his mother.

The book's antagonist (if we can really call her that) is Amelia's adoptive English missionary mother, who I think exhibits the right combination of genuine love for her child and toxic, manipulative behavior. I liked that Milan wrote this character so complexly because it helped explore nuances in the actions of individual colonists. The subtle racism (microaggressions, superiority complex, etc.) worked better, in my opinion, than overt racism (slurs, etc.) because they painted a more realistic and interesting picture of someone who believes she is doing good while actually doing a lot of harm.

Romance: In my opinion, the romance in this book was less interesting than the independent development of the characters. Don't get me wrong - I loved Amelia's and Grayson's interactions. I loved how they teased each other, I loved how Grayson inspired Amelia to believe in herself, and I loved how Amelia pushed Grayson to find happiness. I also very much enjoyed the little numbered letters that they wrote to each other and how their character arcs paralleled one another (both had to do with family).

But personally, I didn't feel like the romantic aspect of this relationship was passionate enough. I got the vibe that Amelia and Grayson were close confidantes rather than lovers - but it may be my own tastes or even unconscious bias, so I don't think readers should take this as a damning criticism.

I did appreciate, however, that the romance didn't fit the mold of a lot of other romances. Amelia never asks Grayson to change re: settling down, and both respect each other's boundaries. They also both don't want children, and neither of them face pressure to change their minds. As a result, this romance felt unique, and the fact that neither character was an upper class person in England helped a lot, too.

TL;DR: The Devil Comes Courting is a rich, evocative romance that explores colonialism, family, and grief without wallowing in misery. The unique, likeable characters on their own are enough to love this novel, but the deviation from romance genre norms (such as setting, social class, etc.) will surely satisfy readers looking to expand their horizons.

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thesurielships · 4 years ago

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New Girl meets the Court of Dreams Part III

a/n: It’s been a year since I updated this. I’m really sorry about that. I had no inspiration for it and everything I wrote felt wrong. It’s also been a while since I last wrote anything, and I don’t know how I feel about this chapter but if I edit it one more time I might just lose what’s left of my sanity.

Without further ado, enjoy :)

Part I, Part II, Part III | Word count: 1.7k

“Okay, guys,” Rhys whispered as he soundlessly closed the door. He tiptoed across the room to where his brothers were huddled. “What’s the plan?”

“Pull the plug off the TV?” Azriel suggested, face impassive.

“Throw the blanket out the window?” Cassian asked.

Rhys glared at both of them. “Be serious.”

“I am serious!” Cassian began loudly then continued in a hushed voice as a lion roared outside. “If I hear a baby penguin do whatever sound baby penguins make for one more time, I will literally go insane. I haven’t had sex in all the time she’s been here. Every time I bring a girl over, Feyre starts telling her THE story and they cry together and console each other!”

“How does it feel to have girls choose a weeping mess over you, Cass?”

Cassian punched Azriel’s arm.

Azriel’s smug grin faded quickly as a horde of giraffes bleated in the living room. “But seriously, this cannot go on. It’s been three weeks of crying and eating ice-cream and general misery. In the movies it only takes a three-minute montage for the girl to get over her heartbreak.”

“How does it feel to only know about girls from movies, Az?”

Azriel punched Cassian’s arm.

“Guys!” Rhys interrupted before they could get into it. “So, any ideas?”

“You talk to her,” Azriel grumbled. “You’re the one who brought her here.”

“Or better yet,” Cassian smiled suggestively, “have sex with her. You don’t move on till you move oooon.”

Rhys punched his arm.

“Ouch, man. That hurt.”

Azriel nodded at Rhys appreciatively.

“Rock, paper, scissors for who has to talk to her first?”

*****

Rhys opened the door, and immediately the grunt of a dozen camels filled the room. He shared a wince with his brothers before stepping into the battlefield.

“Darling roommate, when Az told you to be home decorator, he didn’t mean for you to make the living room wildlife appropriate.”

Feyre glanced up at him, and the sight of her bundled up in a dolphin blanket, tears streaking her face, tugged at his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a small voice. Rhysand’s heart dropped. “It’s just… watching these cute little things growing up and overcoming hardships, being there for each other, really warms my heart.”

She wiped a stray tear off her cheek.

“And watching natural selection at work motivates me to be resilient. That way I can outlive that miserable, awful, piece of shit asshole.” She stabbed her spoon into her ice cream, laughing maniacally.

Rhysand bolted back to the safety of his room.

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Mother’s tits, Rhys,” Cassian cursed. “I didn’t know you were such a coward. Watch this.”

He strutted out of the room, all confidence. He prided himself in his player ways, after all. A crying girl was nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Feyre.”

Her gaze remained focused on the screen where two pigs were rolling in mud.

“Feyre.”

She stared at him then, her eyes unnaturally big in her pallid face. She tilted her head. “If it isn’t my favorite roommate,” she said with a hair-rising smile. “Is your offer from the other day still standing?”

He swallowed nervously, retreating back a step. “What offer?”

Her grin turned feral. “The one about satisfying my urges. All these animal documentaries are giving me new ideas.”

Her cackling laughter chased Cassian as he turned on his heel and dashed back to headquarters. She was still chuckling when Azriel cleared his throat.

“What, it’s your turn to talk to the deranged roommate now?”

Azriel shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I just wanted to say that I understand. I understand what it’s like to feel your world collapse around you, to realize that you lost the person whom you thought was the sole pillar of the universe. Heartbreak is hard. But there is something you could do.”

She kept eating her ice-cream, eyes glazed over as she watched her documentary. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Get closure.”

She finally looked his way, face uncharacteristically somber after the three week long hysteria. “Closure?”

“Talk to him. Burn his house down. Whatever works for you.”

She gave him a sad smile before turning back to her screen. Azriel was dismissed.

He made his way back to Rhys’s room, a cacophony of sounds dogging his steps, none of them her laughter.

***

It had barely been an hour since mother hen and her two chicks had left the house. Feyre let out a deep sigh, reveling in the newfound silence. She had shut off the TV, opting instead to watch the fading light on the ceiling. She was grateful for her roommates’ efforts, she really was. However, she simply was not ready to face what she had lost. Every time she so much as peeked into her soul, she found a yawning chasm that she had no interest in exploring. She was happy to hide in her cocoon of misery and hysteria for a bit longer.

A knock sounded at the door, and Feyre groaned. She left the couch reluctantly, stretching her under exercised muscles and popping her joints. The knocking grew persistent, and Feyre glared at the door.

“Coming!” she shouted as she trudged through the minefield that the carpet had become. It was strewn with ice cream tubs, dirty sweaters - Rhysand’s sweaters, she noted, cringing - tear stained tissues and ripped canvases from her failed attempts to paint.

She finally reached the door, and pulled it open roughly as the visitor began ringing the bell. It was a gorgeous blonde woman, with blood red lips and a body to die for. Her roommate had upped his game, it seemed.

“Cassian’s not here,” she informed her.

“I’m not here for Cassian. At least not in the way you seem to be thinking,” she chuckled. “I didn’t know one of those losers had gotten a girlfriend,” she added, one delicate eyebrow arched as she gave her a once over. “Rhys?”

Feyre blushed, tugging Rhys’s sweater down on her thighs. “Oh, no. I actually live here. I’m their new roommate.”

The stranger’s second eyebrow rose with shock. “Roommate? Mother, I am always the last to know.” She shook her head, unoffended. “I’m Morrigan, by the way. Rhys’s cousin.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Feyre.”

“Feyre?” she repeated, chocolate eyes twinkling with mischief. “Rhys has told me so much about you.”

Feyre’s smile was wry. “What, did he tell you about me emptying his closet or pathetically crying my ass off in his living room?”

Morrigan laughed. “Neither, don’t worry. Do you mind if I come in?”

Feyre opened the door wider, welcoming her in. “Not at all.”

Morrigan strode in, her flowery perfume a refreshing change from the suffocating smell of the living room. “My, my,” she huffed with a small smile, taking in the mess. “You weren’t lying about the pathetic part.”

Feyre hid her wince with a smile. It probably looked more like a grimace.

“How long has it been since the break up?”

Feyre opened her mouth to ask how she knew, but she just said: “Three weeks.”

Morrigan froze in her inspection of the carpet. “This simply cannot do. Good thing I decided to pass by here. I just happen to need a drinking companion.”

Feyre began to shake her head.

“Tut tut tut,” she shushed her. “I am not taking no for an answer.”

***

Rhys and his brothers had been surprised to find the apartment empty when they came back from their run to the supermarket. One look at the living room and they all wordlessly started cleaning before their whirlwind of a roommate came back from wherever she’d disappeared to.

Two hours and a clean house later, Rhys was growing worried. Feyre had spent the last three weeks between classes and their couch, sometimes not even going to the former. For her to just go out with no notice was weird. He was just about to go look for her when the door opened and Feyre stumbled in with his cousin, arms looped around each other and giggling uncontrollably.

“What the ever loving hell?”

“Hello there, cousin.” Mor’s smile was full of mischief. “You didn’t tell me your new roommate was such a cracker.”

Rhys had a bad feeling about this.

“Rhyyys, you didn’t tell me you had a cousin. And that she’s so wise.”

They started giggling again.

Rhys’ eyebrow rose. “Wise?”

“She told me that all the answers I seeked were in the bottom of a vodka bottle,” Feyre said, her eyes bright with wonder.

Rhys suppressed a smile, even as he was overcome with the need to strangle his cousin. “Did she, now?”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Rhys. I was only tending to her wounds, and wounds need alcohol.”

“Is that all you learned in med school?”

“But Rhys,” Feyre interrupted. She was bouncing on her toes. “She was right!”

“I was?”

“I realized that Tamtam is just so overrated.”

Rhys and Mor snorted. “We could’ve told you that.”

“You know what I used to like the most about him? His hair! Such luscious locks, such glittering golden. I even had a tub of paint that Elain got for me that was the exact shade of his hair. I used it to do portraits and stuff. It was all so pretty.” She shook her head. “But look at this!” She grabbed his cousin’s hair with both hands. “Mor’s hair is so much prettier.”

Mor cackled loudly. “You’re welcome to check out the golden below too, if you want.”

She winked at Feyre and Rhys let out an all suffering groan. How were all of his friends flirting with Feyre?

Feyre untangled herself from Mor and tottered towards Rhys. He stopped breathing as her hand moved towards his neck, his face, his hair… his hair?

“Don’t worry, Rhys. Your hair may not be as great as Mor’s, but it’s definitely in my top 10.”

Rhys could only stare at her glowing eyes and her infectious smile as she kept playing with his hair.

“Your eyes are number 1, though.”

“Stars eternal?” he asked wryly.

Feyre gasped. “Are you reading my mind now?”

Rhys’s laugh was low. He could feel himself leaning forward, entranced by the beautiful woman shining for the first time in weeks in front of him.

“Alright,” Mor groaned loudly, and Rhys caught himself staring at Feyre’s lips. “Enough flirting, you two. We have a long night ahead of us.”

“We do?”

Feyre nodded, and Rhys could’ve sworn her voice was slightly breathless as she said: “We’re breaking into Tamtam’s house.”

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