#fourth thing is he has to manage being just gay enough through all of it

[justlightlysedated]

five times eddie rebuffs someone's advances by saying he's straight/gay and one time he doesn't have to

dedicated to @frankchurchillsaysrelax for being my cheerleader, love you 🖤

Read on [AO3]

one.

Eddie didn't want to be at this bar. It had been a couple of weeks after Chris had left with his parents and the last thing that Eddie had wanted to do was go to a bar after work, but Buck had suggested it, and Chimney had jumped on it and Hen had ushered him into her passenger seat, since he'd driven in with Buck that morning.

Fortunately she doesn't use the moment to talk about the fact that they're both missing children, but rants about their last call and how their new Captain was becoming a liability in the field, by not trusting their judgements.

By the time they make it to the bar, Buck is holding down a booth while Chim gets the first round.

While Hen goes to help Chim, Eddie slides into the booth next to Buck, and jostles him with his elbow, interrupting whatever he'd been doing on his phone, which was making him furrow his brow in confusion. 

Buck looks at him, raising his eyebrows pointedly and Eddie just shakes his head, raising one eyebrow in return, which makes Buck shrug and put his phone away just in time for Chimney and Hen to come back.

It's after the fourth round, when Buck has managed to convince Hen to play a game of pool with him, and Chimney has gone to the bathroom, that Eddie is sitting alone at the table, trying not to look through his recent messages and despair at how far down Christopher's messages have gotten in the list.

He's interrupted by someone sitting down across from him. Eddie looks up, mouth open to talk, when he realizes that it's not one of his friends.

The woman looks to be maybe a couple of years younger than him, and several glasses of alcohol more drunk than he is. She's got hazy blue eyes and long brown hair that spills down her shoulders as she leans forward suggestively. 

Eddie feels the dread settle in his chest before she even opens her mouth.

He'd been hoping that maybe she just wanted to rest a little bit before rejoining whoever she was here with, but a brief look around the bar revealed a group of giggling girls who were trying very hard to seem like they weren't looking over at them, one of them was wearing a bride to be sash and a crown.

"Hey," she says, prolonging the vowel. "Just saw you sitting here all by yourself, want some company?"

She grins at him, like she's proud of herself for not slurring any of her words. She's looking at him, like no one ever tells her no, and she thinks charming enough to flirt herself into a yes.

But Eddie's just not interested. Even without the clusterfuck his life has turned into the last couple of months, he wouldn't be interested in whatever she was offering.

"Sorry," he tells her. "But I'm not here alone."

He points towards where Chimney had joined Buck and Hen and is very obviously sabotaging all of Buck's attempts at winning. 

She turns to look over quickly, and shakes her head, "They won't miss you, if you want to spend some time with me."

She reaches out to touch the back of his hand, and Eddie immediately drops his hands to his lap, leaning back in his seat to put as much distance between them as he can without getting up to leave.

She's drunk enough to make a face that he's pretty sure she doesn't mean him to see, and is also visibly rallying herself for another try.

"They won't miss me, since I'm not interested in spending any time with you," Eddie says before she can speak, much more bluntly than he usually would.

She furrows her brow as she frowns at him, tilting her head to the side. "Are you gay?"

Eddie snorts and says sarcastically, "Yes, exactly. Being gay is the only reason a man wouldn't be interested in what you're offering."

She scoffs and immediately gets to her feet. "What a waste," she mutters as she walks away, loud for Eddie to hear it.

Eddie rolls his eyes, and promptly forgets all about the interaction when Buck drops down in the seat she'd just vacated, pouting because he'd lost the game to Hen.

Eddie grins at him, and Buck's starts to protest, "You weren't there. She was totally cheating."

Eddie snorts, laughing, and Buck starts to protest, pointing out all of the ways that Hen totally cheated, that segues into a conversation about the first official pool competition and how pool was known as billiards and is still called that in Europe.

Eddie just leans back, staring at Buck as he speaks, thinking he wouldn't be interested in spending time with anyone else.

two.

This time it's not that Eddie doesn't want to be at the bar. He was the one who had suggested to go and make it a group thing when Buck had sighed that Tommy would be too busy working to check out a new lgbt+ bar that had just opened up. 

Well, actually it is exactly like Eddie doesn't want to be at this bar, but the way that Buck had smiled and looked excited when Eddie had made his suggestion was more than enough of a prize for Eddie to put up with being in a crowded bar when he'd prefer to be locked in his room by himself.

He's at the bar by himself, waiting for the bartender while keeping an eye on everyone. Chimney and Maddie had already gone back home, while Karen and Hen were in the middle of the dance floor finishing dancing to the song while Eddie got their drinks, with Buck who was bouncing from partner to partner, dancing like a white boy with no rhythm at all, and somehow charming every single person who was in his orbit.

Even Eddie can't help the smile on his face as he sees Buck bumping into a group of girls and immediately becoming friends.

"Can I h-elp you?" Eddie hears from behind him, and turns around while the person is speaking, which makes them pause mid word before continuing.

Eddie is still smiling as he replies, "Yes, can I get another round on the Buckley tab?"

The bartender looks too young to actually be manning the bar, but he could possibly just have a baby face. His hair is dyed a purple dark enough to look black when he's not under a direct source of light, and his eyes are too big for his face, open wide as he looks at Eddie like he's never seen another person before.

The bartender blinks a couple of times, before he grins, boyishly charming, "Right away."

He doesn't go for the beers and cocktails they've been drinking, but pours Eddie a shot of a mix that looks bright and green and then leaves it in front of Eddie, winking as he says, "Free of charge."

Eddie is at that point of the night where he won't say no to alcohol, so he grabs the shot and downs it without further thought. It was sweet and sour and tasted overwhelmingly of apple. He must make a face because the bartender laughs as he fixes the drinks for Eddie's table on a tray. There is a pitcher of beer, three pint glasses stacked together, two margaritas and four shots of tequila that weren't a part of the original order.

He pours Eddie another green shot, and one for himself, and Eddie takes it again, without question, knocking their glasses together and throwing it back.

The bartender's eyes are on his throat when he sets his shot down, and Eddie tries hard not to frown.

Eddie moves forward a little to pull the tray closer to himself to take back to their table, when the bartender also leans in so they are much closer than before. 

"I get off in about two hours if you wanna stick around. I promise I can show you a good time." 

He's looking at Eddie from beneath heavy lids, and his lips are quirked in a one sided smirk. He looks confident that he knows what Eddie's answer is going to be, and Eddie would like to know what it is about him specifically that makes people think that he'd be interested in anything they have to offer.

"I'm flattered," Eddie says, because oddly enough he kind of is, but he's not going to look into that too deeply. "But I'm very straight."

The bartender gives him a look, like he doesn't believe what Eddie is saying, looking around the bar obviously like he's questioning why else would Eddie be here.

Eddie doesn't rise to the obvious bait, "I am an ally. Not that it's any of your business."

Eddie grabs the tray and leaves before anything else can be said. He almost bumps into Hen since he wasn't watching where he was going.

She gives him a look, and Eddie rolls his eyes. She sighs and grabs one of the shots from the tray and starts leading the way back to their table where Karen was already sitting, waiting, "Can't take you anywhere."

Eddie just snorts, "It's not like I go asking for the attention."

Hen shakes her head, "Nah, you're just too pretty."

Eddie was about to protest when there was an arm slung across his shoulders, and Buck's loud voice too close to his ear. "The prettiest," he says, agreeing with Hen. "I see the pretty privilege of getting free shots also works in gay bars, good to know."

Eddie rolls his eyes once again, but doesn't say anything, hoping his cheeks aren't as pink as they feel.

three.

Eddie is too busy doing his job to actually notice that his patient is trying to flirt with him, at least until she asks him if he wants her  number.

Eddie blinks at her confused, and then shakes his head, "That's not really appropriate."

She giggles at his response, like she can't help it, "It's not like I'm expecting a call right now."

Eddie shakes his head, "I don't date people I meet on calls."

She pouts at that, "Well, we don't have to date immediately. We can get to know each other first."

"I'm not interested," Eddie tries, moving to put more space between them, looking around for someone else to help, since she's obviously feeling better, if she's trying this hard to get his number.

She tilts her head at him, "Are you ace or something?"

Eddie is confused by what she's asking him, but it makes him think about how the last time a woman hit on him, he'd let her assume he was gay and it had made her go away, "I'm gay."

Her eyes widen a little bit, but she doesn't get upset or anything. She smiles at him, "Well, can I still get your number? My brother is bi and we definitely have the same taste in men."

Eddie feels like he's at an impasse, and isn't quite sure what to do when Buck appears out of nowhere, sliding an arm around Eddie's shoulders as he leans heavily against him.

He says something that Eddie doesn't quite catch since his heart starts pounding and his patient gives him a knowing look.

"Oh, I see," she says, and then winks at Eddie before turning around and leaving. Eddie doesn't stop her, not wanting to prolong the interaction. She had already been outside of the building when they'd gotten there, and had only a small cut on her brow. Eddie had checked for a concussion, and to make sure she hadn't inhaled any smoke.

"What was that about?" Buck asks, letting his arm fall from Eddie's shoulders and turning to face Eddie, a confused look on his face.

"Well, she wasn't taking no for an answer, and put two and two together when you came over."

Buck still looks confused. Eddie raises his eyebrows pointedly, and waits until Buck gets what he means.

"Oh," he says, and again. "Oh! I can go clear up the-"

He turns like he's actually going to seek her out, and Eddie reaches out and stops him before he can get too far.

"No," Eddie says firmly. "It was what I wanted."

Buck furrows his brow again, "You wanted her to think we were together?"

Eddie snorts, "I wanted her to think that I was gay. Since that's what I told her."

Buck is even more confused, "But you're not gay."

Eddie is, of course, going to say, of course not, but the words stay stuck in his throat, and the pause is long enough that Buck's confusion starts turning into a slight alarm.

Bobby's voice sounds out, calling them. Eddie just slaps Buck on the arm and runs towards where Bobby's voice is coming from, knowing that Buck is going to bring this conversation back up when Eddie least expects it.

four.

Eddie isn't technically avoiding anyone. Ever since a priest told him to let himself feel joy, Eddie has been indulging in things he'd otherwise reject. Like the truly expensive Mexican hot chocolate cappuccino that they serve in a giant mug with a design of his choosing on top at the cafe that is fifteen minutes away from the station. He'd woken up super early to be here, and to get a chance to sit and enjoy his coffee before he had to go into work.

He's about halfway done, and is contemplating getting two extra coffees to go, since he knows that Buck loves the French vanilla oat milk latte that they make (and maybe it will cheer him up enough to get rid of the literal thunder cloud hanging above his head since Tommy had broken up with him for at least a little bit), when someone drops down into the seat across from him.

Eddie looks up startled to see a handsome dark haired man with too big brown eyes who looked to be in his early twenties, and is even more shocked when they reach out to grab his hand.

Eddie goes to pull his hand back, when the man speaks up, "Please just, can you pretend to be my date. My crazy ex is right over there and he doesn't really understand boundaries."

Eddie wants to ask him why the hell that's his issue, when he looks over to see who the ex is, and sees a buff man sitting at the other side of the cafe and glowering at their table.

Eddie looks back to the guy sitting at his table and sighs, leaving his hand where it is. "If he's crossing boundaries, then maybe you should consider getting a restraining order?"

The guy gives Eddie a look, like he thinks that Eddie is adorable. "Cops don't take anything seriously unless something physical happens, and this face is much too pretty to be punched."

He grins as he finishes speaking, and Eddie really doesn't have anything to say to refute that actually.

"So you think my face is just ugly enough to be punched?" Eddie asks even though he really didn't mean to.

The guy laughs, and picks up Eddie's hand to cradle it between his two, giving Eddie a knowing look that reminds him of Buck whenever he teases Eddie for having pretty privilege, "Fishing for compliments is not cute."

Eddie can't help but laugh, smiling back as he leans forward a little, "That's not what your face is saying."

The guy leans forward as well, smile turning a bit sly, "Oh yeah? What is my face saying then?"

"It's saying that you think I'm very cute."

The guy laughs again, throwing his head back and shaking his head.

Before anything else can be said, the sound of a chair screeching as it was pushed back. They both turned to see the boundaries pushing ex stalking out of the cafe and down the street.

The guy leaned back in his seat and let out a relieved breath.

"Thank you," he says and smiles, squeezing Eddie's hand and making him aware that they're still holding hands.

Eddie feels his cheeks heating up as he tugs his hand away as gently as he could.

"You're welcome," he replies and grabs his mug to try and finish the rest of his coffee as fast as he can.

"My name is Evan by the way," he says, and Eddie just barely stops himself from choking on his drink, coughing a little as he sets the mug down and grabs his napkin to wipe his mouth.

Evan's smile dims a little bit, but he stays smiling.

"Eddie," Eddie responds, pointing at himself, and setting his hand back down to the table.

"Well, Eddie," he says, leaning forward once again. "How about we turn this into an actual date?"

Eddie coughs again, feeling his cheeks heating up.

"While I've had fun pretending, I'm actually straight," Eddie says, and for some reason, unlike all the other times he's used this excuse, he actually feels a twinge in the pit of his stomach, like he wasn't being entirely truthful.

"Really?" Evan says, sounding a bit incredulous.

"Yeah?" Eddie responds, and this time it sounds like he's lying.

Evan raises both of his eyebrows and then shrugs a little, "Okay, but still, let me pay for your coffee as a thank you."

Eddie feels as though his entire face is red now. He blinks a little, looking down at the coffee that he's almost done with, "I already paid for this one."

Evan laughs, "Then let me buy you another one."

Eddie smiles and nods his head a little, "Fine. You can get me a French vanilla latte with oat milk to go."

Evan knocks his fist against the table, nodding his head. Eddie tries not to stare, but ends up staring anyway as he gets in line, and gets the coffee.

He leaves it on the table, sending Eddie a grin, before he leans down quickly and presses a kiss to Eddie's cheek, "Hopefully, I'll see you around."

And then he's leaving, dropping out of Eddie's life just like how he dropped into it.

Eddie just ducks his head down and finishes the rest of his coffee, feeling like the red in his cheeks is never going to go away.

He ends up giving Buck the coffee once he gets to the station, before he goes to change into his uniform.

By the time he makes it up to the loft, there is a teasing mood in the air. Eddie looks around at everyone, who is staring at him in curiosity (Chimney), amusement (Hen), and frowning (Buck).

"What?" he asks, patting his chest to make sure that he was actually wearing a shirt.

"You want me to save this for you?" Buck asks, and turns the paper cup the coffee was in to show Eddie a phone number along with the message, Just in case you change your mind.

Eddie flushes once again, but refuses to actually answer. He's actually about to invoke their collective wrath by saying the Q word, but before he can the alarm rings out. Eddie breathes out in relief, and turns back around.

five.

All Eddie wants is to decompress with his friends, finish eating his burger and then let Buck drive him home so he could pass out for the next ten hours.

So of course, that's not what happens. It's not the first time that Eddie's been hit on while he's out with everyone. It's not even the hundredth time. It is the first time that they are all there when he says, "I'm gay, and really not interested."

The woman goes fully red with embarrassment, and turns around without another word, stalking back to her seat.

Eddie exhales in relief and is about to take another bite of his burger when he looks up to see that everyone is staring at him.

"What?" he asks, letting his burger go to give them his full attention.

Chimney's eyes are still narrowed, while Hen and Buck share a look.

"You're not gay," Hen says slowly, like she's not sure if she should say it or not.

Eddie shrugs, "I tell guys I'm straight to avoid attention as well."

This time all three of them exchange glances. 

"But you are straight," this time it's Buck who speaks. "Aren't you?"

"Am I?" Eddie says, grinning when Buck's mouth falls open as he stares at Eddie incredulously.

Eddie just grins when Hen snorts and picks up his burger again.

Buck leaves it alone for the entire time that they finish eating, and even for the ride back home, but Eddie knows he's not going to leave it alone. Especially not when it's the second time in the last couple of weeks that Eddie has implied that he's not entirely straight.

So he's not surprised when Buck turns off the ignition and follows behind Eddie as he walks into his house and into the kitchen.

"Eddie," Buck says, but Eddie just pretends that he can't hear him, walking towards the fridge to get out a bottle of water. He downs about half of it before he turns to face Buck.

He still has no idea what to say actually. He's sure I don't actually know, isn't going to fly, not with Buck, who would most definitely know that there was something he did know even if it wasn't whether or not he was gay or straight.

The realization wasn't something that happened overnight. It had been slowly coming over the last couple of years, but mostly the last couple of weeks. Every time that Eddie has had to shoot someone down, or let them down gently, there is this feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him that the reason he's giving everyone isn't the truth. And prodding at the feeling revealed one thing. 

That he was already in love with someone else. With Buck.

Eddie looks at Buck now, who looks more concerned and worried than anything else, and he knows that he's not alone in his feelings.

He figured that one out as well right after the first realization. He's not entirely sure if Buck is in love with him, but he has the feeling that if he were to push the issue, Buck wouldn't disappoint him.

"What is going on?" Buck asks after a couple of minutes of charged silence between them.

"I don't know," Eddie says almost at the same time.

Buck's confusion grows even more, "Eddie."

"I mean, I don't know the answer to your previous question."

Buck takes a second to realize what Eddie is saying, and the shock spreads across his face.

Eddie takes a step closer, and Buck moves closer as well, like they're two magnets that are getting too close to each other's magnetic pull.

"So you're-?" Buck asks in a hushed voice, leaving it open ended and staring intently like he can get the answer straight from Eddie's brain if he stares long enough.

"I don't know," Eddie says again. "I'm not really interested in figuring that out right now, though."

Buck looks like he doesn't understand what Eddie is trying to say. So Eddie keeps speaking, taking another step forward.

"I know you didn't rest until you figured out your label, and I'm happy that figuring that out made you happy, but for me, that's not what this is about."

"Then what's it about?" Buck asks, taking two steps forward so that they are less than an arm's length away.

Eddie's breathing hitches, and he hopes that Buck doesn't notice.

"I'm just not interested in casual or dating," Eddie says, voice low, not doing a good enough job of keeping the disgust out of his voice from the fond smile that starts spreading across Buck's face. "Not when I'm-"

Eddie stops speaking, the words caught in his throat. He swallows hard, eyes falling away from Buck's face to some point across his shoulder.

"Not when you're what, Eddie?"

Eddie closes his eyes and inhales deeply, letting the breath out slowly. He opens his eyes again, and inhales sharply, losing the small amount of calm he'd gathered when he notices that Buck had moved so that he was in Eddie's line of sight once again.

Looking at Buck's face, feeling the weight of his gaze right in the pit of his stomach, the seriousness in his eyes, knowing without a doubt that this conversation was something that Buck wasn't  taking lightly,  that he'd be safe no matter what he said, made it easy for the words to come out.

"Not when I'm in love with someone else."

Buck's eyes dart all over his face as his brow furrows. There is just a moment, a blink and you'll miss it moment where Eddie thinks Buck looks disappointed. But before it settles it turns into a warm expression, full of empathy.

"Shannon," he says, nodding his head, lIke it makes sense. And Eddie really can't blame him for thinking that, not with what happened just months ago.

Still he laughs a little, shaking his head as he lifts his hands to Buck's shoulders squeezing lightly, making Buck's gaze go wide and shocked.

"No, idiot," Eddie says, feeling so much fondness, and just an overwhelming amount of love. "You."

"M-" Buck starts to say, but Eddie moves even closer, and presses a kiss to Buck's cheeks, causing him to stop speaking as his breathing stutters.

"Eds," Buck breathes out, a question in his trembling tone.

Eddie just nudges his nose into Buck's cheek, and presses another kiss closer to his mouth.

"I'm in love with you," Eddie says, pressing his forehead to Buck's jaw and closing his eyes. "That's what I know."

Buck exhales slowly, shoulders dropping as he lifts his hands and presses his fingers on either side of Eddie's waist.

Eddie breathes out carefully, and tightens his eyes briefly,  before opening them and lifting his head.

Buck is looking at him, with the same look on his face he always has whenever Eddie gives him a compliment or says something that Buck was not expecting, blue eyes wide and clear and shining bright.

It makes Eddie's heart thud hard and painful in his chest, makes him lean in that much closer, eyes drifting from Buck's to his mouth.

"Eddie," Buck says, voice soft and trembling. Eddie just watches him, waiting for Buck to make up his mind one way or another.

Buck moves his hands when Eddie doesn't say anything, sliding them up Eddie's chest, making Eddie's breathing hitch when he presses careful fingers to Eddie's face, tipping his jaw just slightly. Eddie moves into the touch eagerly, pressing even closer, moving one hand to Buck's shoulder and sliding it to cradle the curve of his neck, feeling the thundering heartbeat beneath the palm of his hand.

"Eddie," Buck says again, this time sounding more steady.

Eddie still doesn't say anything.

Buck exhales once again, shaking his head a little as a smile curls the corners of his mouth, just slightly.

"I'm going to kiss you," Buck says, like he needs to be clear as to what is about to happen, even though Eddie's been sure of where this is going from the moment that Buck didn't push him away when Eddie kissed him on the cheek.

"Are you?" Eddie says, smiling.

"Yeah," Buck whispers, voice even lower.

"Then what are you waiting for?" Eddie asks, maybe sounding a bit petulant.

Which makes Buck laugh, a small puff of laughter that Eddie can feel wash across his face.

"I'm trying to build anticipation here, Edmundo."

Eddie wrinkles his nose at the use of his full name, "Well, I've been waiting, for years really, so I think anti-"

Buck kisses him mid sentence, and Eddie's entire mind goes blank, the chaste kiss washing away every single thought he's ever had. It's all replaced with this feeling, warm, slow and sweet, pouring through his entire body.

Eddie pushes closer, wrapping one arm around Buck's shoulder and the other low on his back, pushing into the kiss.

Buck slides his hands across Eddie's jaw and to the back of his neck.

Buck moves back slowly, and Eddie has to fight the urge to pull him back into another kiss.

He opens his eyes, and can't help but smile at the dumbstruck look on Buck's face, lips parted, eyes wide, cheeks rosy red.

"Oh," he breathes out, and Eddie's smile turns into a laugh and he leans forward slightly, pressing their foreheads together, and lets his eyes fall shut.

plus one.

Once again, Eddie is at a bar when he would rather be at home. This time he couldn't even convince Buck just to head straight home after work.

Chris was at a sleepover and they had a rare night to themselves that they could take advantage of, but Maddie had complained that she hadn't seen her brother to just hang out in weeks, and Chimney and Hen had also made comments on how they had secluded themselves for long enough and it was time to get over the honeymoon stage.

So here he was once again, feeling a bit more tired than usual. A feeling that wasn't helped by the three beers he'd already drunk. 

At one point he finds himself lying down on his crossed arms on the table, face turned towards Buck, eyes partly closed.

He feels the table jostle twice as someone or multiple someone's leave. Only humming in acknowledgement when Maddie says bye by ruffling his hair, in a move that she must've learned about from his sisters, when she and Chimney head out.

Eddie only realizes they are alone when Buck leans a little closer, pressing one hand high up on Eddie's thigh to get his attention.

Eddie focuses on his face, cheeks flushed with color like they always get when he's had more than three beers.

Eddie lifts his eyebrows in question.

Buck just smiles at him, as he leans back, hand sliding away from Eddie's thigh, and he lifts one of the empty bottles on the table so that Eddie can see it, shaking it a little.

Eddie lifts his head up, nodding, before propping his elbow on the bar and leaning his chin on his palm to watch as Buck gathers all of the empty bottles to one corner of the table. 

Buck looks to Eddie before he gets up from the table and reaches out to press the tips of his fingers right beneath Eddie's eye. 

"We'll go home after the next round," he says.

Eddie just smiles back and watches him as he leaves, sighing as he goes.

He knows he must look ridiculous with the sappy, love sick grin on his face, but he thinks that it's something that he's allowed, after years of denying himself the pleasure of simply looking at Buck.

Eddie is just planning on staring until Buck comes back. He loves to see the way Buck ducks his head and flutters his eyelashes when he sees that Eddie hasn't stopped looking at him. Eddie is still looking at where Buck is waiting for the bartender to get to him when someone walks into his line of sight.

It was a woman with long brown hair, wearing one of those form fitting dresses in a bright pink color that stopped at her midthigh.

Eddie blinks a little, eyes darting away, and feels someone sitting down at the table. 

He looks to the side to find a man in a sports jacket with shaggy dark hair.

He grins at Eddie, "Mind if I sit here for a bit?"

Before Eddie can respond the woman who'd been walking towards him is sitting down right beside the man. They lean into each other in a way that shows that they are well acquainted, and Eddie feels oddly like he's in the middle of a trap.

"You looked a little lonely," the woman says as she sits down. "We were wondering if you want some company."

Eddie doesn't even have to think about it. "No thanks, I'm fine."

"That you are," the man says and they both move almost like a dance. He leans back and she leans forward.

"We were actually wondering if you'd be interested in coming home with us," she says, reaching out like she's gonna touch Eddie's arm, but Eddie sits up immediately, putting himself out of reach.

"What makes you think that I would be interested in coming home with you?" Eddie asks, feeling both genuinely curious at the answer and a little bit over this whole thing.

They look at each other and then back to Eddie. "You're hot," they both answer at the same time.

Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes. He doesn't know why he was expecting any other answer.

Eddie wants to say that that's not a good enough reason, or maybe tell them that they weren't nearly interesting enough for Eddie to even think about doing a threesome.

Before he can say any of that, two beers are set down sharply on the table, the condensation from the cold glass splattering everywhere.

Eddie looks up, and just sees Buck's face, brow furrowed, mouth in a determined line, for a second before Buck is sitting down in his seat, or well mostly in his seat, while also throwing his leg over Eddie's lap. Eddie barely has time to say anything else, when Buck wraps his fingers into the open collar of his shirt and pulls him into a kiss. 

Eddie makes a muffled sound of surprise but quickly gets with the program, hooking his left arm around Buck's shoulders and pressing the fingers of his right hand to the side of Buck's face, kissing him back.

Buck presses fingers to Eddie's throat, making him gasp and he wastes no time licking into Eddie's mouth and kissing him wet and deep and filthy. The same kind of kiss he gives Eddie right after blowjobs like he's determined to lick his taste out of Eddie's mouth.

It's not a kiss that is entirely acceptable in public. Especially when Eddie drops his right hand to Buck's thigh, itching to tug him right into his lap.

Eddie forgets all about where he is and the audience they all had, world narrowed to Buck and the hot press of his mouth against Eddie's.

After a while, Eddie starts to get dizzy and it's only then when Buck pulls back. Eddie gasps raggedly, blinking his eyes open, not understanding why the kissing has stopped.

Buck laughs, low and short, right against Eddie's mouth and leans in a bit to nudge their noses together.

"I missed you," he says even though they've only been apart for less than ten minutes.

That fact doesn't stop the smile that crosses Eddie's face.

He's expecting to be kissed again, so he's not really pleased when Buck turns and speaks to someone else, dislodging Eddie's arm around his shoulders.

"You're wasting your time. He's not interested and I don't share."

He bares his teeth at them, a move that he'll probably be mortified by when he's sober tomorrow, but Eddie just finds it extremely hot.

He doesn't hear anything else as he cups the back of Buck's neck in his hands and tugs him back into another kiss. 

Eddie muffles whatever other words Buck was going to say with his lips, licking into Buck's open mouth and kissing him just as thoroughly as Buck had earlier.

Buck sinks into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Eddie, fingers digging into Eddie's back as he tugs him in closer. Eddie drags his hands into Buck's hair, tangling his fingers in his hair and digging against his scalp.

Buck moans into his mouth, and Eddie can't think of a good enough reason why it would be a bad idea to push Buck back into his seat and drop to his knees.

That is until the table is jostled, and it digs into Eddie's hip.

Eddie pulls away from Buck glaring at whoever interrupted them, only to see a completely unaffected Hen. Karen was downing one of the beers that Buck had gotten.

"Maybe you should continue this at home?"

Eddie turns back to Buck, who is still looking at him with hooded eyes, bottom lip trapped in between his teeth.

"How about that?" Eddie asks, getting Buck's attention. "Wanna go home?"

Buck swallows hard and nods his head, "Yeah, let's go home."

Eddie grins and leans back in for another kiss before getting to his feet and holding his hand out.

"Let's go."

Buck grabs his hand and gets to his feet, and then rushes them both out of the door. Eddie laughs, but lets Buck drag him wherever he wants to go.

[silkeared]

hey , isn’t that JASPER FINCH ? i’ve heard that they’ve lived in bearhold for  FIFTEEN YEARS . rumor has it that they can be rather NERVOUS and SELF-DESTRUCTIVE , but hey , that’s just in their nature as a WEREWOLF . they totally make up for it by being LOYAL and ENTHUSIASTIC . if you’re looking for them , you can probably find them at their work as an ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN  at GREAT BEAR LIBRARY .

full name ⸻ JASPER JOSEPH FINCH . nickname(s) ⸻ JAS, LITTLE BIRD . age ⸻ TWENTY FIVE . gender identity ⸻ DEMI MAN . orientation ⸻ GAY . pronouns ⸻ THEY/HE . hometown ⸻ MANCHESTER, ENGLAND . current occupation ⸻ ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN . species ⸻ WEREWOLF . faceclaim ⸻ JACK WOLFE . influences ⸻ ORPHEUS ( hadestown ) , GEORGE SANDS ( being human ) , PONYBOY ( the outsiders ) .

jasper has always been cursed with violence. his father, an alpha from a small pack in manchester, england, sired four children, and the youngest—and only boy—couldn’t have been more of a disappointment. they were born a human and turned the moment they were old enough to be weaned, against their will and forcefully behind his mother's back. his father had always dreamed of his own pack and, finally, that was exactly what he had. jasper's savagery was underdeveloped because of the change, the beast forced upon him rather than innate, a cavernous part of his being that had never bloomed. an intelligent strain of the pack, the finch boy was kept close by, although he was judged with side glances barbed words. something wrong. something to be ashamed of.

and so, he merely survived. jasper watched his siblings grow up, kill early, evolve into their full forms. all three of his sisters survived and knew exactly what to do—family secrets were shared between them when the moon was round, and full, and bright, and the other finch’s would return to the family home disheveled and broken, but alive. the blood of an animal thrummed through his veins with every passing lunar cycle. so long as he protected himself, if he stayed out of danger and remained on the periphery of the pack, he could remain safe. perhaps become an author. perhaps become somebody that wasn’t tied to long nights in the forests chasing a rotisserie chicken around a tree. jasper was the one to neatly fold clothes and hide them in the undergrowth for his family to retrieve when they came to their senses in the early hours.

his father was quite the expert in making jasper feel as though he was worthless. throughout his wife’s fourth pregnancy, a human who had been brought into this world by mistakenly loving a beast, he had hoped for a son to carry on those strong family genes. in the end, it was his daughters that had been born into brutality. instead, jasper was more comfortable with his nose buried in books of the mundane, of sprawling narratives that featured humans doing human things. there was something beautiful about the normal, once he had come to terms with never being able to experience such a thing. his hazel eyes would watch people going about their daily lives—grocery shopping, booking appointments, riding buses—and there would be a churning, sprouting seed of jealousy twirling in his stomach like something rotting. if only he didn’t smell dying animals from three blocks away. if only he could enjoy the moonlight without a sickly sense of guilt.

when maren finch killed her schoolteacher on an early full moon, the family were forced to pick up their life and move elsewhere, somewhere they weren’t known. they had heard the monsters in bearhold looked after and cared for their own; his father decided that it was somewhere they would be safe. the idea of leaving jasper behind to pursue normality was discussed; norma finch was distraught at the idea of abandoning her darling son, and so the four finch children and their parents upped and moved across the world to the supernatural-steeped town in the hills.

so far, he has managed to avoid bloodshed. instead he prepares the wolves for the cycles of the moon and uses the scraps of humanity that he still clings to in order to better the pack. there is a part of him that feels as though he is a spare part, something that is long overdue a severing. resumés stuffed through letterboxes secured him a position at the local library as an assistant where, in lulls of customers, he is able to enjoy books on the beauty of love, the little humdrum details that he would never know. jasper clings to those foreign familiarities, the stories of enjoying the mellowness of flowers instead of a stinging, oppressive stench of pollen that burned his nose in tiny thorns. heightened sensation brings heightened sadness, heightened loss, heightened ache.

[denimbex1986]

'If All of Us Strangers managed to reach inside you and grab at that gooey centre, then I’m genuinely truly happy it did. It’s special to have a film that you’ve connected with, especially enough to make you cry, and I understand when your relationship with a film is strong enough to make you resistant to criticism. I don’t believe a film being about sensitive issues absolves it of criticism, though, and I will criticise, so you’ve been warned.

All of Us Strangers is a film about loneliness. Our protagonist Adam is a gay man living in London alone, with no friends, no partner, and no family. He is still heavily grieving the loss of his parents to a car crash when he was twelve. We have clichéd circumstances already, but that’s not my main issue at all. If the exploration of Adam’s grief wasn’t addressed so heavy-handedly, I would be more forgiving of this basic premise.

The thing is, Haigh is afraid you’re going to forget the film is about loneliness. Many scenes deal too transparently with the fact that Adam has been practically alone his whole life. “I can’t even begin to imagine how lonely you must have been”, Harry says to Adam after learning of his deceased parents. This line, in essence, encapsulates the film. Adam’s loneliness consumes him to the extent that he can’t connect with others. Later, his ghost-mother remarks how being gay is “a lonely kind of life”. Adam replies, “If I am [lonely], it’s not because I’m gay. Not really”, reminding us again how lonely he is. It’s an engaging concept on paper: the specific loneliness that comes with being gay, paired with the loneliness of losing parents at a young age, but there’s a lack of trust in the viewer’s ability to understand obvious themes, which produces dialogue that feels clunky, dramatic, and wholly unrealistic.

In this, Haigh loses the subtlety that All of Us Strangers so badly craves. There’s nothing abstract about Haigh’s vision; it’s as if he’s frightened of being unobvious, of allowing for interpretations. And I don’t mean the practical interpretations of whether or not Adam is hallucinating, seeing ghosts, etc. I mean emotional interpretations; the script is emotionally manipulative to the viewer. Characters say exactly what they feel when they feel it, which in turn means viewers are being told exactly what to feel and when, instead of the film working to elicit emotions naturally. It’s over-reliant on delivering emotional beats and the predictability of this becomes arduous. Andrew Scott might as well have broken the fourth wall several times just to let the audience know they should be sad at this part, by the way.

All of this builds to a resolution that is undeserved. And here’s where I’ll get a bit more spoiler-y, so tread carefully. All of Us Strangers purports to be a queer story but ultimately falls victim to the over-used trope of gay tragedy. We are told that Adam, having finally gained closure for his parents' death through their ghostly hallucinatory presence, is a lot more mentally unwell than we previously thought. He is lonely, yes, but he is also sick, guilty, and not at all on the road to recovery like viewers would have assumed — completely undermining his journey up until this point.

There’s a trauma-porn element to the plot twist, a question of how much more this man can go through, can suffer. I would never argue that it should have ended happily, or that gay characters must always be happy and sane because that’s antithetical to storytelling as a whole. But I question what the film was trying to demonstrate about this experience, about this loneliness brought on through guilt and grief. Adam is not a good nor a bad person, he is a character built on his delusions, living in a world separate from others, the only true character in the story. But unlike similar cinematic characters, his illusion has a sense of meaninglessness. Suddenly, through this plot twist, the trauma Adam has spent the duration of his arc processing isn’t even the point of the film. It’s rendered purposeless in the face of a deeper, darker delusion.

What struck me when thinking about this was the lost story thread of Adam’s screenplay, which is swallowed by the developing plot and never revisited. Is Harry a character in it, too? He was originally writing about his parents, which prompted him to fall into his mind and fantasise about them in the first place. It’s not good criticism to think of what could have been instead of focusing on what’s there, but I can’t help but feel cheated out of a story connecting Adam’s grief and coping mechanisms to his desire to create. An artist forcing himself to process trauma for his art, to assemble fake realities to right the desolate world he resides within. The film had room for additional exploration of this theme (or any other theme, really), but it gets so wrapped up in its commentary on loneliness and the twist that it forgets to generate any other ideas.

For all my complaints and dislike of All of Us Strangers, all performances are fantastic, and Haigh sure knows his way around a camera. The scene in the nightclub is electric, dizzying, with bursting neon light. A scene of Adam alone on the London tube is harrowing; reduced to a child again, alone, lost, and afraid. When Adam first sees his father’s ghostly figure across a field, there’s a genuine sense of unease and peril. Scenes without dialogue stun with their keen eye for light, space, and movement. There is an originality hiding in All of Us Strangers, lost to the sparsity of its message and the hollowness of its emotional centre.'

[chocoholicannanymous]

I'm adding a third part of this (and very unalike myself promising that there'll be a fourth part, sometime soonish).

Not beta'd, also my spellcheck is for some reason not functioning at all, so. WYSIWYG.

“So. Seems I worried about this place being boring for nothing. Want to fins some place to...get reaquainted?”

Kurt's first reaction is annoyance, and he's about to unleash a snarky comment about prefering Sebastian silent when he spots a couple of Warblers walking towards them. Not Blaine, thankfully, but both of them would tell Blaine anything and everything without hesitation.

“Please, just, not here.”

“Are you not out?” The sleasyness is replaced by concern, and Kurt feels relief that he hadn't had time to be rude to the other boy.

“No, I mean, I am, but... I'm trying to keep my head down. It's, it's complicated.” He glances down the hall where the two Warblers are closing in, curious looks on their faces. “If you want to talk we can go for coffee after school?”

Half an hour after his last class Kurt hurries through the door of an unfamiliar café in Westerville. Sebastian's seated in a corner, two lattes in front of him, and Kurt walks over.

“Sorry I'm late, I got held up.”

“That's okay. I only just arrived myself. Apparently you're quite the character as half a dozen guys felt the need to stop me on the way out to talk about you.”

Kurt groans.

“Yeah. So, how did a boy like you manage to become public enemy number one in a private school?”

He sounds amused, which... Maybe everything's not lost. It doesn't sound as if Sebastian's already made up his mind about Kurt being in the wrong. Everyone else has already been, or so it's felt like, on either Blaine's or Rachel's side. This is the first time Kurt has the chance to tell his side of the story.

He's going to take it.

“It's so stupid, but, it's all because of Blaine. Long story short, I met Blaine before I transferred to Dalton and had a pretty big crush on him. Fastforward to a couple of weeks ago and me asking him to go to a party with me. Well, he got drunk and made out with someone else. A girl. Which, I didn't expect it. Him trying to hit on one of the guys I could have seen – not liked, but understood. A girl though...

“I told myself it was the alcohol, only next he went on a date with her talking about how maybe he was bisexual instead of gay. I didn't exactly take it well. I said some stupid things, lashing out because I was hurt, and he got angry.”

Kurt sighs, because he knows he screwed up, but he's also still hurt by Blaine compairing him to Karofsky. They really messed up.

“It's tempting to cast him as the villain in this story, but honestly we were both wrong, and in the end he's just a stupid teenager. Same as the rest of us.”

“Huh.”

Sebastian looks at him, like he's trying to figure something out, and Kurt just waits.

“If you brought him to a party he wasn't invited to, the others there must have been your friends, yes? This girl too? “ Kurt nods. “Wow, that's...”

“Yeah. The thing is, I was alwas going to be hurt seeing Blaine go after someone else, but to have it be Rachel? My so-called friend? And to then have her chose him? That was a slap in the face, to say the very least.

“Rachel spent months acting like my friend, like I mattered, and worming her way into my confidence. And silly me, I thought she meant it. I thought she was thinking about the future, where we're both planning to go to New York after graduation. I thought she wanted to make sure we were good enough friends to support each other then.

“Except she spent months doing that, and encouraging my crush on Blaine, and then she was all 'who cares about you' and that just...”

It still hurts. Maybe the Rachel-part even hurts more than the Blaine-part by now. Because while he hadn't actually dared to believe he'd get the guy this time either he'd believed he'd still have his friend. Instead she'd shown herself willing to throw away his friendship for a boyfriend.

They sit in silence for a while. Strangely it doesn't feel stressful, and Kurt relishes the feeling.

“Okay. I'm going to be honest, this sounds a bit crazy. But unlike those guys at Dalton you have an actual story, and I don't think you're lying to me. So unless I find out you have been, or that you're really phobic, I think we'll be fine. Day 1, and I already made a friend. Success.”

Sebastian smiles in a satisfied way, like he's managed something huge, and Kurt can't help but smile back.

A friend sounds great.

Becoming friends with Sebastian is easier than Kurt's entirely comfortable with. Part of him fears it's all turn out to be a joke, or that Sebastian will fall under Blaine's spell like he himself did – Blaine hasn't made a move yet but is clearly still interested in Sebastian – and that Kurt'll be left behind. And even if that doesn't happen, well, what are the chances that Sebastian will still be his friend when he ends up leaving Dalton?

The question weighs on him until one day it just slips out.

“Wait, you're leaving soon? Are you graduating early?”

Kurt snort. “I wish.”

He's not stupid, and had looked into early graduation during freshman year. Anything to escape McKinley. He'd given it up though as none of the faculty had been willing to help him and it had been too much to handle on his own. Then of course sophomore year and glee had happened, and his situation had improved.

“No, but I don't think I'm going to be able to stay at Dalton for long. Unfortunately it's not going to be up to me. Dalton's expensive, and while my dad does well he can't afford the fees here in the long run.”

He's not supposed to know this, not yet, but again, he's not stupid. He knows what Dalton costs, he knows basically what the family finances look like, plus he'd overheard his dad and Carole talk about it last time he was home.

“Honestly, I'd never have been able to go here at all if if not for the fact that I wasn't safe at my old school. Right now I'm just hoping I'll be able to finish out the year, since it'll look better on my records than transferring twince in a school year.”

“Wait. You weren't safe there? And you're still going to go back? Are you insane?”

“No. I'm just not naive. It is what is, and nothing gets better by me throwing a tantrum about it.”

Sebastian still looks upset, but he keeps his mouth shut, aside from muttering that Kurt's not getting rid of him that easily

Which is better than Kurt would have dared to hope for – on all accounts – so he'll take the win.

The thing is, he wants to go back to McKinley. He wants to be with his friends, and get to sing with them, and he wants to have time with them without having to pull out a planner. He wants to go to New York with the New Directions.

But most of all he's wanted to be away from Blaine and his entourage.

That's why he hasn't fought to stay.

The thing is, he should. Because McKinley isn't just glee and friends, it's bullying and Karofsky. He knows it's a pretty big chance the death threat wasn't serious, was just panic and fear of being outed. But if he's wrong... It's just stupid to take that risk.

(He also doesn't mind Dalton as much with Sebastian by his side.)

So after agonizing for a week he swallows his pride and goes to talk to Miss Pérez, and gets a cold shower.

“I'm sorry, you thought what?”

“We expected an application for a grant from the emergency transfer fund, but as it never came and the bills were promptly paid we assumed we'd made an incorrect assumption about your family's finances and that it wasn't necessary.”

“There is funding for that? Can I, can we still apply? Because you weren't wrong, and that could be the difference between me being able to stay here and being forced to transfer back to McKinley, and... He's still there.”

Kurt doesn't know what he looks like, but he can feel his hands shake and see the widening of Miss Pérez's eyes and hear the softness in her voice.

“I'd have to confirm with the headmaster, but I think it should be possible. Just, if I may ask, if money was an issue then why didn't you apply at once?”

“I didn't know I could, that it existed. As far as I know dad didn't either.”

“Are you saying no one told you?”

Kurt shakes his head.

“Maybe they did, but Miss Pérez? I had just been told that the bully who threatened to kill me would be allowed back to school. I was in shock, and I know dad was furious. Neither of us were in a good place to take in much outside of the fact that Dalton had a spot for me and I would be safe here.

“Maybe it was mentioned, but we just couldn't take it in then.”

Kurt's not angry, not really, because it is a possibilty that his dad had missed it and it's basically a given that if anyone told him he would not have registered it. He's just relieved to hear about it at all, even if it is several months later.

“That would be understandable, but that's why we have written information. Not to mention this is something that your mentor should have been instructed to take up with you.”

“I didn't have a mentor. I didn't even know about the system before you asked me to take on Sebastian. I think... I was already friendly with Blaine, and quite frankly attatched myself to him like was the only thing keeping me afloat. He showed me around, and the rest of the Warblers pitched in too. It just got overlooked, I guess.”

Miss Pérez looks upset, but they both know it's possible. She'd caught something nasty after a vacation abroad, and had been absent for the first month of his time at Dalton. Things were bound to have fallen through the cracks during that period.

As it turns out, he very much can still apply and for his entire time at Dalton. The rest of the semester will be free of charge, as will the first half of the fall semester if he comes back. After that he'll be expected to pay half rates, but Miss Pérez points him towards several possible scholarships and grants. She also informs him of her intent to go after the McKinley schooldistrict for part of the money, seeing as not only are they the ones who allowed Karofsky back, they've also never kept the students safe.

Kurt may have pointed her towards JBI's blog for evidence. Maybe.

Apparently he is willing to fight to stay safe.

“I'm bored.”

Sebastian's pouting a little, and Kurt's never going to admit how well it works for him. He's also not going to admit that he too is bored. With Dalton's faculty at a conference they've got the day “off” – with assignements of course. He and Sebastian have spent the day not only doing those but powering through every bit of homework they know about. They've been at it since 8am, barely breaking for lunch – Kurt will argue that it doesn't count as a break if you're talking school between bites – and by now he's studying for a test that's still three weeks away.

They've done good work and deserve a break. He turns towards Sebastian intending to suggest ordering pizza and watching a movie when the other boy speaks up again.

“Wanna make out?”

“What.”

“Make out. You know,” Sebastian winks.

When Kurt doesn't respond Sebastian's face falls a little.

“Wow, it's a good thing I have a healthy ego. Otherwise I'd start questioning things. Boys I've made out with usually understand the concept of making out.”

“I understand it. I just don't understand why you're asking me, that. As strange as it may sound to you I'm not in the habit of making out with my friends.”

He refuses to think about how he'd have said yes in a second if Blaine had asked the same question two months ago. Also he's not counting Brit.

“Why not? Making out is great.” Seeing the glare Kurt sends him Sebastian lifts his hands and loses the levity.

“Look, I'm trying to graduate early. I don't have the time for a boyfriend.”

“You've got time for me.”

“And we're doing what? Homework. Something that will help me with my goal. But okay. Let's say I go find a guy to date. I'd have to find time for that outside of school and homework, because somehow I doubt a boyfriend would be okay with spending hours doing homework and even if I found someone who was I really doubt they'd be useful when studying.

“None of that changes the fact that I miss having someone to make out with. And wouldn't you know? I've already got you. A good study partner, who speak French–”

“Lots of guys take French.”

“Exactly. They take French. You speak it. I might not be planning to move back to France full time, but I don't want to lose it either. Speaking French is...soothing, and you give me that.

“You're also goodlooking, sharp as a knife and deliciously salty. You accept me. Not to mention I already know kissing you is fun.”

And well. Sebastian has a point. A whole bunch of them.

It's not the romance Kurt's spent years longing for, but romance feels like a soiled concept at the moment. He's still hurting from Blaine, and it's not like he's spoiled for choice.

Sebastian is right. The kisses they'd exchanged at the masked ball had been fun. Fun, and more.

“Okay.”

~ TBC ~

Put Your Mask Back On (Glee)

For day 2 of the kurtoberfest.

Because surprisingly enough Mr Schue is right about at least one thing: sometimes it’s all about the journey.

Keep reading

[mourntheantagonist]

back on my parents!harringrove bullshit for just a moment

okay!

It’s like, six years later and Billy has already hightailed it to California almost immediately after signing those discharge papers. He has a pretty cushy life given the fact that the government set him up nice and well with a house on the beach and a huge fucking check that would last him a good amount of time. life was good, in that regard.

But he was lonely, and no matter how many times he reminded himself that Neil Hargrove was over a thousand miles away, he was still always there in the back of his head whenever billy stood outside of a gay club, hoping to meet someone. he’d always turn right on his heel and go right back home, alone.

And there was his neighbor, a woman in her late 20s or early 30s who would always come out to watch him surf. She’d bring him dessert when she made extra, he’d put her trash cans out to get picked up when she forgot to, they were friendly. They were both lonely. And one thing led to another...

It was only a couple of times. Maybe four or five in total before she eventually sensed something was off. He was always so disconnected. That’s when he told her, and she was nice about it. They stopped the sex and went back to being friendly neighbors.

Then about nine months later she pops out a kid, and he looks exactly like Billy. Blue eyes, blonde and curly hair.

His neighbor tells him repeatedly that he doesn’t have to be involved if he doesn’t want to. She tells him that he’s off the hook completely if that’s what he wants. But as soon as he looked into those eyes for the first time, that option was immediately off the table.

They raised him together for the first two years of his life, until the woman eventually fell ill. It was sudden, and they weren’t given enough time before Billy became a dad all on his own at the ripe old age of twenty three.

He was terrified. Sure the situations were different, but this child would have to grow up without a mother, just like he did, and look how that turned out. Even after two years raising his son, seeing him take his first steps and say his first words and celebrate multiple birthdays, after every milestone, he felt completely unprepared. He felt unfit to be a father without her.

But he did it. Against all the odds, he managed to be the father nobody thought he could be. He would always ask himself “what would Neil do?” and promptly do the opposite. And in raising his son, that feeling of loneliness he had when he first moved to California was filled by an even greater joy than he could snag at any nightclub in town.

There was only ever one place happier than being home with his son, and that place was so appropriately called “The Happiest Place on Earth.”

Disneyland, of course.

That’s where Billy takes his son for his fourth birthday. They went through the haunted mansion and spun around in the teacups and got their picture taken on splash mountain... but his kids favorite part, the reason he was constantly begging for Billy to drive them up to Anaheim for the day, was so he could meet all of his favorite Disney characters.

Billy brought a camera along with them and took photos of his kid standing with Mickey and Minnie, Snow White, Peter Pan...

And Prince Charming...

It’s Steve.

Billy recognized him almost immediately. His smile was so wide as he interacted with Cinderella and Billy just stood there and stared at the first thing from his past to finally resurface in California, and surprisingly, it was one of the good things. He was only pulled from his trance by his kid tugging at the hem of his shirt dragging him towards the prince in question for him to take another picture and get their autograph.

It took just about every fiber of Billy’s being not to ruin the Disney magic and call Prince Charming by his former title, King Steve.

Steve stayed in character for the entire interaction, and Billy kept somewhat of a distance and just took the picture. But Steve noticed Billy. His eyes stopped on him for a moment too long, a second of time where he was out of character and allowed himself to put the pieces together about the guy he was looking at, the father to the kid he was signing an autograph for.

But even so, Billy left the park that day without saying a word to Prince Charming about his past engagements in Hawkins Indiana, with a certain California peasant.

But, not even a day later, after coming home from picking up his son from preschool, there’s a message on his answering machine.

And it’s Steve.

“Hey, uh, this is weird. Sorry. It’s Steve, Steve Harrington. Y’know, the guy from Hawkins... and uh, yeah, we saw each other at Disney and I thought maybe I’d give you a call and maybe we could catch up? My number is...”

Billy dialed the number almost immediately as he wrote the last one on the back of a receipt, and Steve picked up just as quickly.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Steve? Uh, it’s Billy... Hargrove.” Billy was fucking shaking, the last time he was this nervous he was holding the hand of the woman giving birth to his child.

“Hey, sorry to be all creepy, but I got your number out of the phone book and... I don’t know... thought it would be nice to meet up with a familiar face. California is really-”

“Terrifying?” Billy guessed.

“I was going to say intimidating, but yeah, that too.” He laughed. “It’s definitely not Hawkins that’s for sure.”

There was a brief pause, like neither of them really knew what to say.

“So, you got demoted?” Billy asked.

“Huh?”

“You used to be King Steve, but now you’re a prince.” Billy said, and he could hear Steve’s laugh on the other end.

“Well, actually I’m friends with Prince Charming. Or at least that’s what I’m supposed to say so I don’t get fired.”

“Ahh got it.” Billy said, “Gotta keep the Disney magic alive for the kids.”

“That’s right!” Steve exclaimed. “You’re a dad! How the hell did that happen?”

Billy didn’t really want to unload all of that onto Steve with their first conversation, and over the phone for that matter, so he deflected it instead. Another time.

“Did your parents never have that talk with you?”

“Oh shut up!” He laughed. “Anyway, that’s awesome dude, I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

The rest of the call went on like that. Just basic catching up and eventually making plans to meet up for coffee later that week.

And it would have been so innocent, just old friends catching up if it weren’t for that one fucking slip up when Billy said.

“It’s a date.” and it was too late to take it back.

But after a brief moment of silence, when Billy felt the world beginning to collapse in on him, Steve responded.

“Yeah. It’s a date.”

[fallindomino]

how i would have changed s2 of hsmtmts

obvious disclaimer but im not a screenwriter or anyth so im not claiming what i want is best, this is just for fun lololol

okay so first of all nini would still have dropped out of yac but she wouldn’t have gone back to east, she would have transferred to north bc she was too ashamed to tell anyone she left at first and maybe she still wants to explore who she is away from ricky and the others

nini could join north’s batb and this way maybe we could have some playful rivalry with lily and nini and more scenes with antoine shdhdjdj also it could have been a great opportunity to flesh out lily’s character so those scenes where she reaches out to ricky and her confession at the end of the season actually make sense lol

speaking of ricky ,,, i think he should have left the play at some point hear me out. he only joined in the first place because of nini and barely wanted to do it at all once he realized he wasn’t gonna be able to perform with her. he could have joined crew and been a manager with natalie or smth considering he rlly does see the theater gang as a second family. also this would leave so much room for ej and ricky development and bants since ej joined the av club and began to pursue film. they could have some convos where idk ricky asks ej how he figured out what he wanted to do after duke didn’t work out and ricky could actually develop some interests that arent the play or nini ,,, maybe fucking art club i mean he did p good on that centerpiece for carlos’ quinceañera.

with ricky not being the beast anymore i think seb should take his place that would be soooo good. and since seb isn’t chip anymore carlos won’t make those snide comments about chip being a small unimportant role and we can just cut that whole fight bc it was dumb and bad. we could still have seb being insecure that carlos is only dating him bc there aren’t really any other gay guys at school. in a heartbeat is great and i did like ricky being supportive in the background it was kinda funny too idk dhdjdjfj

ooh i almost forgot abt rini ahshdj okay so i still think they should break up. but in my version there’s no ricky pulling an ej 1.0 and deleting comments off of nini’s insta, cause with ricky in art club and nini at north trying to figure out what she wants i think one of them would realize that they’re going in different directions and only got back tgt because they made each other feel safe cause what they had was familiar. this could be triggered by ricky mentioning smth abt nini at yac and then nini breaks down and tells him that she dropped out and is at north and doesn’t know where she’s going. and then they can both realize they aren’t good for each other rn and have a less tragic mutual break up.

honestly i really liked the scene of nini taking charge after miss jenn freaked out cause with the character detail of nini giving every person in the cast of productions she’s in a thank you note she just seems really like someone who is suited to lifting others up. this could still be explored at north, maybe she could help lily through her issues that were briefly implied in ep 11 and nini realizes she wants to be a drama teacher and encourage kids to go off book and put themselves into their acting, something she couldn’t have at yac.

okay now ej ,,, so like i said in ricky’s section, more bants between them cause i feel like friendships kinda fell by the wayside due to all the relationships so more friendship !!!! also the scene where ej tells his dad he’s not going to duke shouldn’t have been an ending scene, it should have been fleshed out with his dad pushing back saying how he pulled all these strings to get him in and ej saying he doesn’t wanna go if his own hard work couldn’t get him there. and also more scenes of ej doing av club things !!! and realizing he rlly likes film and wants to do it OMG IT WOULD BE SO COOL IF HE BROKE THE FOURTH WALL AND ASKED THE DOCUMENTARY CREW ABT THE FILM INDUSTRY god i would love that. the only scene we rlly got of ej doing film things was at the quinceañera which made me kinda sad. uhhh also i just wanted to specifically mention how ej got mr mazzara that job at cal tech bc it really showed how he wanted to be there for people not just for gina, who he had a crush on, but for mr mazzara who supported him outside of romance, so i wanna keep that for sure.

gina !!! okay so i mostly liked her arc in this season, the only changes i would make would be to flesh it out a teeny bit (god this hypothetical s2 would have to be like 22 eps at least shdjdjdjfj) anyways besides ashlyn singing home to get gina to stay i think there should be a scene where they actually talk in her room abt how gina feels safer when shes on the run (second chance reference ilysm) hhhh and also a scene of her and carlos actually working out compromises for their choreo cause i liked that bit of development too and fleshing that out would make gina an even better foil for lily, who felt a need to hog the spotlight like gina used to. with gina’s own arc fleshed out her character would feel more whole independently from romance and portwell would be even more rewarding than it is in the current s2. the only thing i would really change abt portwell is that they would kiss !!! in the finale but thats bc im biased.

ashlyn should have gotten a more fleshed out storyline about being insecure about not being a good enough belle or the typical belle. there were some throwaway lines when north did their typical dramatics but the only two real scenes that showed it were when ash talked to big red about it and when she was telling nini she wanted to do a run in “home” bc lily did it. ashlyn should get more screen time where she has to grapple with the reasons she doesn’t feel good enough and big red can still support her but also gina too bc i would like more roommate besties interaction.

kourtney could still date howie, that harry potter shit was cute but there needs to be smth else for kourtney’s arc. idk she’s still into fashion so maybe she could be out here trying to create her own line or smth? this doesn’t have to be resolved in s2 like making a wholeass line takes time and she could work on it into a potential s3. kourtney just didnt get much outside of howie and the stuff at the beginning of the season where she said nini inspired her to be independent and that's why she got a job was just dropped?? so i think that fashion could fill that for her if she’s still dating howie cause like having her whole arc just be the pizza place kinda overlaps w big red’s mini arc abt how he wasn’t settling for hospitality, its what he wants to do with his life.

ik what ur thinking. anna, even if you added more episodes, where would u find the room to add all these plotlines?? well first we cut (most of) the seblos fight, so thats some time saved. honestly most of the time that we r going to gain is going to be from cutting ms jenn’s time. things like ms jenn’s and nini’s car ride would get cut, but mostly all of ms jenn’s romances would get cut down. considering she’s the teacher and isn’t actually a character with an arc how does she have THREE love interests this season?? like all of the weird tension between her and zack can be cut, like just some short scenes of them being competitive can stay. all of the stuff with ricky’s dad can go bye bye we don’t need it. i did like her w mr mazzara so most of that can stay i just didn’t like how he said he would give up cal tech for her, ew no that would be gone.

the MENKIES !!!! this is the last thing im gonna address cause in a perfect world every character would get a long fleshed out arc but then the season would be waaay too long and also im mostly trying to work within material the show gave so this is mostly made up of “realistic” deviations from what actually happened. lol idk what that even means it just makes sense to me. but anyways!! uhhh bro idk i thought them dropping the menkies was funny but it also made the finale really BAD lmao. in this finale, seb is the beast, east still had to deal w the fact that they’re underfunded compared to north but no one is injured, lily is less of a poorly written character and maybe ppl are even rooting for her, and wow i just realized i never actually said what role i think nini should have in north’s show. OOH she could be student director instead of lily cause lily both being in the play while also directing was weird considering omg i just checked and according to her wiki page shes a FRESHMAN?? and they let her be student director? lol hell nah. okay so with all that in mind ,,, the menkies should have been the season cliffhanger instead of portwell. east and north should both be nominated, both schools perform at the menkies, and then the award winner is about to be announced and THATS when it cuts to natalie and the end of the season.

one, this actually gives more tension for a summer s3 as we would be waiting to see the consequences of whichever school won. also i bet people would be wondering if nini’s gonna be transferring back to east or staying at north. people would also prob wonder if ej would be getting the scholarship if east won and what that would mean for his interest in film.

lmao that got longggg and idk if anyone’s even gonna read this but it was fun to do :D

[casspurrjoybell-17]

HEART'S REDEMPTION - CHAPTER 7

*Warning: Adult Content*

The more Ian Foley knows about Sam Asato the less he knows what to think of him. 

Sam had told Ian all about Demons and stuff over the seven hours they spent on the road today but to be honest he didn’t understand much. 

There were too many names to remember, too many ‘levels’ and ‘realms’ and too many rules. 

In the end, Ian gave up trying to learn anything and just listened. 

It keep Sam busy and Ian liked the sound of his voice. 

The most important thing, as far as Ian was concerned, is that Sam can see the damn things and tell if a person is possessed or not.

‘That’s good enough for me.’

There had been no trouble since the diner but they’d stuck to the back roads and they’d barely stopped all day. 

Ian’s truck already stands out an with a few bullet holes and and a busted rear window, it’ll be hard for anyone to miss it.

‘I need to get it fix as soon as possible.’

So when their route took them through this little hamlet and Ian spotted the garage with the sweet pick-up out front, he knew it was time to call it a day. 

Ian can tell Sam is nervous about stopping but he hasn’t had a good nights sleep in three days and he’s determined to sleep in a real bed tonight... demons be damned. 

Now that they have both settled in, Ian figures they might as well get some supplies and some things for Sam. 

‘Sure it’s not my habit to shell out cash for a guy I just met but Sam id different. He needs me and I want to help.’

The town is small... just a few streets... but it has a thrift shop and after making sure it’s demon free, they go in and manage to find Sam a few decent outfits. 

The rest of what they need they get from a drugstore nearby. 

As they are walking back to the motel, Ian’s eyes are drawn to a little street-corner pub and he proposes a detour. 

Sam ensures it’s possession-free and then Ian treats himself to curly-fries, a cheeseburger and a rich dark stout.

‘Not exactually heart-healthy but nobody lives forever, right?’

Sam orders a grilled-cheese and a cola and they pick a small table near the back, away from the window. 

When the server brings the food, Ian eyes him with suspicion... he’s not the same one that took their order... but Sam shakes his head in reassurance. 

Not a demon this time. Just a waiter.

“Here you go, handsome,” the waiter says, putting Ian’s plate down with a wink. 

“Enjoy.”

“Oh. Uh... thanks,” Ian replies, looking up in surprise.

The waiter flashes Ian a big smile and he’s almost certain Sam’s eyes flash red for a second but it might be a trick of the light.

“Name’s Carlos,” the waiter says.

“My pleasure to serve you this evening. If you need anything. Just... give me a call.” 

He winks again and saunters away and Ian finds himself checking him out. 

He looks to be in his late-twenties, has long dark hair in a ponytail, a medium complexion and a nice face.

“Is that your type?” Sam asks and Ian looks over at him to find him watching with an unhappy turn to his mouth.

“Er... no. Not really,” Ian says. 

“I was just surprised. People don’t usually peg me for being gay at first sight.”

“I don’t think he did,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. 

“I think he just took a chance because you’re hot.”

“I am?”

“Well... Yeah.”

Sam blushes, a light pink flush spreading across his cheeks. 

It’s adorable and Ian clears his throat and takes a sip of his beer to hide his smile. 

Unlike at breakfast, is almost too good and after the fourth time Carlos stops by to check on them, Sam tells him ‘We are fine’ with a tone that clearly translates as ‘fuck off’ and the waiter leaves them alone until they have finished their meal. 

When Carlos brings the check however, Ian notices the waiter has written his name and phone number on the copy of the receipt.

“Carlos, eh?” Sam smirks. 

“Are you going to answer that?”

“Nah,” Ian shrugs, leaving the receipt on the table with a nice tip. 

“I’m not after a casual fling and we won’t be here long enough for anything else.”

“But otherwise... you might?” Sam asks Ian as they leave and start walking back to the motel. 

Ian considers for a moment before answering. 

“No,” Ian says. 

“Probably not.”

“Why not?” Sam asks, frowning. 

“He’s hot and clearly into you.”

Ian doesn’t answer and Sam doesn’t press. 

Ten minutes later they are back at the motel and so much time has passed that Ian thinks that maybe Sam has forgotten about it and will let the issue drop. 

No such luck, as it turns out.

“You should have keep his number,” Sam comments, dumping the bags of clothes on his bed. 

“I mean, you never know.”

Ian takes a long breath, studying the awful, confetti-themed carpet at his feet. 

He’s been thinking how to say this or even if he should but Sam was leaving him no choice.

“Maybe I look like the kind of guy that goes after anything that moves,” Ian says slowly. 

“But I’m not. Not anymore, at least. My last relationship ended almost two years ago and I’m still not ready to try again.”

“Your boy broke your heart?” Sam asks, halting his inventory to look up at Ian.

“No it was my fault,” Ian says, wiping a hand over his mouth. 

“I hurt him.”

“You found someone better, you mean?”

“No,” Ian says quickly. 

“There was no one better. That’s not what I mean. I mean, I hurt him.”

Sam looks at Ian for a moment, startled.

“You mean... like... physically?”

Ian Foley nods shamefully.

“Just once. But like he said, once was more than enough. And he wasn’t the first. I had done it before.”

Ian takes another breath and scrubs his fingers through his hair.

“It’s like I get to a point in a relationship when the other person knows me pretty well and I just can’t believe that they still like me anyway. I feel like they shouldn’t... like I have to make them hate me as much as I hate...” Ian trails off, leaving the rest unsaid.

“So... you hurt them?” Sam asks quietly.

Ian nods again, feeling the shame burn his face and sting his eyes but refusing to look away from the young man.

‘It looks like Sam likes me for some reason and he needs to understand why it’s a bad idea.’

“Sometimes when I lose my temper or if I drink too much, I talk with my fist. You know, the ‘Form’ you take when you ‘Shift’ reflects your true nature?” Ian asks Sam, trying hard to conceal the crack in his voice.

Sam shakes his head but Ian goes on anyway.

“Ever since I first ‘Shifted’ and took the ‘Form’ of a bear, I’ve been afraid it means that I’m just a stupid brute. That it means... something inside me is bad.”

“But bears are really smart,” Sam says, frowning. 

“They are like really resourceful and playful too. Like if you were an alligator or something, I’d be worried,” he smiles. 

“I’ve watched a lot of nature shows the last few years.”

Ian looks up at Sam, realizing his eyes must be red with buries tears.

“Yeah? Well I’ve only met one other Shifter who took a bear form. He was my boss when I was working to get my contractor’s licence. At first it was such a relief. Another bear and a decent guy. And then,” Ian takes a deep breath and runs his hands over his hair. 

“He got arrested for all kinds of terrible shit... not the least of which was murdering his first wife.”

“Ian,” Sam frowns at him. 

“Just because he was a bad guy doesn’t mean that you’re a bad guy.”

Ian casts Sam a glance.

“I’ve hurt people, Sam. People I’ve cared about. People I’ve loved. They get hurt either by me or because of me and I’m pretty sure that’s bad.”

Sam looks like he wants to argue but Ian goes on before he can.

“That’s why I’m going to Alaska. There are a clan of Shifters up there that are all bears. I want to meet them... to understand what makes us take that shape. maybe if I see it with my own eyes, good people with the same nature as me... i’ll be able to forgive myself for my mistakes and maybe even convince myself that I won’t make them again.”

Sam regards the handsome red-head with his head tilted slightly to one side.

“I don’t know, Ian. I’ve seen a lot of bad people and you don’t look like one to me.”

‘His reassurances carries the lure of some sweet drug and I want it bad. I just can’t let myself have it.’

“Like I said. I hurt the people I love,” Ian snaps. 

“Not random kid-demons I barely know. Anyway, I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life that hurt someone again. So, No. I wouldn’t call ‘Carlos’ even if I wanted to.”

Ian looks at Sam for a moment and sees he looks suitably upset... and well he should after finding out the guy he picked to save him was no Knight in shinning amour after all.

“I’m taking a shower,” Ian says and retreats to the cramped mildew-scented bathroom to do just that.

When Ian is finished, Sam is sitting on his bed, watching T.V. 

He takes his turn in the shower and comes out in nothing but a pair of underwear and a tank top. 

Ian doesn’t know what he expected... pajamas or something... even though they didn’t buy any. 

He takes Ian off guard and the red-haired man’s eyes go on a little journey before his higher brain function can stop them. 

‘Sam is not tall compared to my six-four frame but he is trim and compact, his skin looks almost impossibly smooth and he’s got barely any body hair.’ 

‘I feel like a ginger beast by comparison.’ 

‘His form is graceful and his beauty lands somewhere just to the masculine side of androgynous.’ 

‘He looks back at me and dark lash-veiled eyes flicker up to meet mine and his pink lips part as though he too is taken by surprise.’ 

‘I feel a shock like a little bolt of lightening through my soul.’

And then the sexy human-demon hybrid laughs, breaking whatever spell he’d been weaving.

“Gotcha,” Sam smirks flopping onto his bed. 

“But you know,” he adds. 

“If you want this... it’s all yours.”

He trails his own hand up his leg to his hip and across his taut stomach.

“You said you would stop that,” Ian reminds him, feeling a little angry. 

“So, stop it.”

“Fine. But damn. You’re no fun, you know that?” Sam says, lying back with a puff of frustration.

“There are other ways to have fun you know?” Ian grumbles.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. You have to find that out for yourself. Where your passions lie... all that crap,” Ian informs him, lying down on his own bed and turning off the light. 

“You’ll help me though, right?” Sam asks quietly. 

“I mean, I don’t think I know where to start.”

Ian doesn’t answer right away, letting the silence settle between them like a curtain. 

Finally the older man lets out a breath he’d been holding and answers the young man.

“Sure,” Ian says. 

“I’ll help you.”

“Thank you, Ian,” Sam softly. 

“You’re a good... friend.”

Ian makes a noncommittal noise in return and closes his eyes. 

But the vision that was played in his brain... as the song says... still remains and he finds himself in a very uncomfortable state. 

A hard pinch and a good mental shake takes care of it though and pretty soon he falls asleep, listening to the quiet  drone of the T.V. as Sam sits up late.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

72 Hours In Montreal [Part I]

A/N: Many moons ago, the incomparably lovely @im-an-adult-ish​ pitched a Montreal concert fic idea (jokingly, I think), and quite a few of my followers fell in love with it. They were even kind enough to vote on which Queen member should be the love interest, and there was a clear winner: John! 

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and at last, here is the first of three chapters of this new mini-fic. I’m going to tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy. 💜

Series Summary: John Deacon is a rock star at a crossroads. Y/N is a world-weary employee at a Yankee Candle shop. They’ll only ever have three short days in Montreal together...or will they??

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (not graphic). 

Word Count: 6.8k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @escabell​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​ @deacyblues​ @tensecondvacation​ @brianssixpence​ @some-major-ishues​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @youngpastafanmug​ @simonedk​ @rhapsodyrecs​ ​​​ @joemazzmatazz​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​ @namelesslosers​​ @inthegardensofourminds​​ @sleepretreat​​ @hardyshoe​​​ @sevenseasofcats​​ @jennyggggrrr​​ @madeinheavxn​​ @whatgoeson-itslate​​​ @herewegoagainniall​​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​​ @pomjompish​​ @allauraleigh​​  @bluutac​​ @johndeaconshands​​ 

The obnoxious British men are still laughing. The one with the mustache, suspenders, and illogically tight red leather pants is standing on the tiptoes of his equally red Adidas shoes to paw candles off the top shelf so he can sniff them. The blond one has no less than eight jars balanced precariously in his wiry arms. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is billowing through the shop speakers.

“Oh my god, he’s gonna break something,” you moan in a whisper, covering your eyes but peeking through your fingers. Your apron is suddenly too tight around your waist; your cheeks are roaring with blood as you envision the inevitable confrontation: Sir, unfortunately you ruined some of our giant tacky overpriced candles and so now you have to pay for them. So sorry. Paper or plastic? We take Mastercard.

“Who?” Kevin asks. He’s holding a broom in one pudgy, pinkish hand and a dustpan in the other. He has surrendered.

“That one. Suspenders and moustache guy. Red shoes guy. Dorothy without Toto.”

Kevin cracks a smile. “That is frighteningly accurate. He is rather whimsical, isn’t he? Maybe he’ll click his heels and disappear back to London or wherever.”

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore,” you mutter in commiseration. Actually, to be perfectly literal, you’ve never been to Kansas in your life.

“Wait, I think I might have met that guy before somewhere.” Kevin squints with great concentration. “He looks oddly familiar…”

“Hm.” You check your eyeliner wings in your reflection in the cash register screen. From what you can tell, they’re every bit as tragically asymmetrical as you remembered. Spectacular.

“Staring won’t make it better,” Kevin notes, very unhelpfully.

“I know,” you reply, miserable, toying with your bangs so you can hide behind them.

“How does that even happen? The right one is practically a 90-degree angle. The left one looks like you drew it on with a Sharpie.”

You groan. “I’ll try to scrub them off during my break.”

“If you’re not too busy helping me sweep glass off the floor, sure,” Kevin says. “I told you, I took an electrical engineering class as an elective once. I could totally take a look at your bathroom.”

“I thought you said you failed that class.”

“No, I said I got a D in that class. Ds aren’t failing.”

“Well now you’ve convinced me.” You scrutinize your reflection again, frowning. You rent a rather dilapidated one-bedroom apartment above a bakery just a few blocks from the Yankee Candle shop. The apartment always smells like powdered sugar and baking bread, which you like. What you don’t like is everything else about it: the peeling paint, the low water pressure, the windows that you can’t wrestle open, the occasional mice, the shoddy electrical wiring. On any given day, there’s an approximately 27% chance that the bathroom light won’t turn on when you flip the switch. This morning you had been on the losing side of those odds, and with the only mirror in the apartment being the one mounted over the sink—and the overcast November skies outside offering painfully little natural light—you had haphazardly guesstimated your way through your makeup routine before dashing off to work. Your guesstimation skills, apparently, are not all that great.

“If he’s The Wizard of Oz...” Kevin points his broom handle from the snickering moustached man to the gangly, poodle-haired one who has been trying to decide between two candles—Christmas Cookie and Cinnamon Stick—for twelve uninterrupted minutes. He’s wearing a parka spotted with patches: a NASA emblem, a soaring rocket, a smiling green extraterrestrial face, Saturn and its rings. “That guy’s gotta be Star Wars.”

“Or Alien,” you suggest, clutching your chest and pretending to die melodramatically.

Kevin laughs. “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Close Encounters of The Third Kind.”

“What about that one?” Kevin nods to the guy who has large blue eyes and bleach-blond, fried tufts of hair sticking out in every direction and a grin that is simultaneously childish and foxlike. Under Pressure comes on the shop speakers, and the British men all start cheering and high-fiving each other, leaving their candles momentarily tucked under their arms or quivering precariously on the edges of wooden display tables. You are entirely mystified. “God, he’s gorgeous.”

“Bye Bye Birdie,” you decide. “Beautiful. Charming. Beloved by all. Perhaps a little dangerous. I can picture teenage girls sobbing themselves to sleep as he gallantly marches off to war.”

“You think he’s gay?” Kevin asks hopefully.

“I don’t think he’s dressed well enough for that.” The blond man is wearing a shapeless, polka-dotted sweater that has ‘NIVEA’ spelled across the front, for reasons that are difficult to fathom.

Kevin sighs, crestfallen. He suffered a nasty breakup with his boyfriend Patrick two weeks ago, and is enthusiastically on the hunt for a rebound to distract him. “You’re probably right. Okay, last but not least.” Kevin aims his broom handle at the fourth and final British stranger. “What shall we call him?”

You consider the man who has wandered away from the others. He’s wearing Levi’s, a black bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, a mop of unwrangled auburn hair, thoughtful lines that break around the corners of his hidden eyes. He is browsing unhurriedly, perhaps even distractedly, through the fruit-scented candles. He picks up a jar of Macintosh Apple, sniffs a few times, then sets it back down precisely where he found it. He even spins the jar so it’s label-side-facing-outwards again. You warm to him immediately.  

“One of the James Bond movies?” Kevin offers. “He seems…enigmatic somehow. Esoteric. Yet still clearly leading man material.”

“Casablanca,” you say, not tearing your gaze from the stranger. “I can imagine him waving off some old flame on a foggy, night-draped airport runway, breaking hearts with sparse words of wisdom. Can’t you?”

“Oh, that’s exactly right!” Kevin sighs again, dreamily, yearningly. And whether he’s yearning for his ex-boyfriend Patrick or Bye Bye Birdie a.k.a. NIVEA-sweater man or passion or sex or love or maybe just the ineffable high that accompanies the beginnings of things, you couldn’t say.

You peer at your reflection in the cash register screen once again, feeling more self-conscious than ever. “Maybe if I—”

“Freddie!” Star Wars cries, and you whirl just in time to see The Wizard of Oz, whizzing around and giggling and preoccupied with teasing NIVEA-sweater man, stumble into the six-foot-tall tower of Christmas Tree-scented candles and send countless jars crashing to the tile floor.

“I knew it!” you unleash in a rush of misery and exasperation, the biting threat of tears in your eyes and the back of your throat. And of course, it isn’t just about the mess on the floor, it isn’t just about having to tell your manager and hoping to God he doesn’t fire you. It’s about your derelict apartment, it’s about your fucked up eyeliner, it’s about everything that’s happened in the past eighteen months; it’s about the never-ending feelings of helplessness and inertia and predestined ruin, it’s about not being able to get fifteen meters down the street before life throws up another red light, another jagged sinkhole gaping like ravenous jaws. And none of that is these ridiculous British men’s fault; yet still, in that moment the fury you feel towards them is overwhelming.

“Jesus christ,” Kevin mumbles, stepping out from behind the counter to survey the damage, his hands still clutching the broom and dustbin.

“You couldn’t just mosey around and ask which candles are on sale and maybe sniff one or two like a normal person?!” you explode. “You had to come in here acting like goddamn animals and destroy like a third of our inventory?!”

“I’m so sorry,” The Wizard of Oz sputters, looking at you and Kevin with wide, profusely apologetic dark eyes. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man are helping him to his feet, albeit with very spirited chidings. Kevin is grudgingly asking if he’s alright. Casablanca is already trying to sort through which candles are broken and putting those that survived aside. And when he casts furtive glances from behind his aviator sunglasses, they’re directed not at Kevin or The Wizard of Oz but at you.

“Freddie, bloody hell,” NIVEA-sweater man laments.

“I’ll pay for them all,” The Wizard of Oz tells you. “I’m so, so, so terribly sorry, you’re absolutely right to be cross with me, and I’ll pay for everything. Here, let me get my wallet…” He digs around in the pockets of his preposterously tight red leather pants.

“Uh…sir…” Kevin begins uncertainly, not wanting to break the bad news.

“It’s going to be hundreds of dollars,” you inform The Wizard of Oz. “Maybe over a thousand. You’re really going to pay that? Or are you just going to wait until we start sweeping up and then sprint out the front door the first chance you get?”

“Hey,” Kevin warns you quietly. He wants you to keep this job probably even more than you do. You are, by his own admission, far and away his favorite coworker.

“No, no, darling, please, let her scold me, I deserve it.” The Wizard of Oz at last locates his wallet. He sashays to the counter, brushing nuggets of glittering glass off his clothes, and counts out two thousand Canadian dollars in hundreds. “Will that do? You can keep the change as compensation for the inconvenience. And we’ll help clean up as well, has anyone got an extra broom?”

As you stare down at the money, shocked into speechlessness, three hulking men dressed in black come barreling into the shop.

“Lord in heaven, Freddie, what happened?!” one asks. He has a thick beard and an Irish accent and closely resembles a grizzly bear.

“I made a complete ass out of myself and am now trying to win the affections of this marvelous creature,” The Wizard of Oz replies, flourishing a hand towards you. “Is it working, dear?”

“Kind of,” you admit, still stunned.

“Oh my god.” The broom tumbles out of Kevin’s grasp and clatters on the floor. He points at The Wizard of Oz. “I know where I’ve seen you before. You…you…you’re Freddie Mercury, right?”

In reply, The Wizard of Oz only flashes an enormous, toothy, dazzling grin.

“Oh my god,” Kevin says again, a starry, awed smile rippling across his round face.

“Please don’t make his ego any bigger,” Star Wars pleads.

“And you’re Brian May!” Kevin replies. “And you’re…” He turns to NIVEA-sweater man, snapping his fingers, trying to remember. “Robbie…no, Ronnie…uh…Ricky…?”

“Roger Taylor.” But it comes out like ‘Rogah Taylah.’ NIVEA-sweater man extends a hand for Kevin to shake, not the least bit offended. “It’s a pleasure. Sorry about the candles.”

“No problem, sir!” Kevin squeaks as he takes Roger’s hand, beaming. The men in black—the band’s security, you’ve gathered—have descended upon the crime scene, confiscated Kevin’s broom and dustbin, and are rapidly clearing glass and chunks of candlewax from the floor and discarding the mess in a trash bin that usually collects only chewed gum and unwanted receipts.

“So I guess I probably shouldn’t have yelled at you,” you tell Freddie Mercury guiltily, all the venom in your voice evaporated. You’re no Queen superfan, true, but everyone knows the words to Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. And Another One Bites The Dust. And Killer Queen. And Crazy Little Thing Called Love. And Somebody To Love. Your thoughts are suddenly a racing, indecipherable blur. Your knees are boneless. You’ve never met a celebrity before. Well, not unless you count professional hockey players, which you definitely don’t.

“No, you absolutely should have,” Freddie retorts. “I was dreadfully discourteous. I’m positively mortified about it. I should be punished severely. Have you got anything behind the counter to whip me with? A riding crop, perhaps?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry I called you an animal.”

“I’m sorry about the candles. There, now we’re even. Wait, not quite yet.” He calls over to Kevin: “Darling, how would you and your friend like front row seats at our show tonight?”

The squeal that bursts out of Kevin is not human.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Freddie Mercury says, very pleased.

“This is really too generous of you,” you protest, although your heart isn’t in it; Kevin might legitimately strangle you if you screw this up, and you’re finding that you want to see Queen in concert too. It’s something to interrupt the powerless, unrelenting monotony; it’s like something that might happen in a movie or a dream.

“Nonsense!” Freddie announces cheerfully. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man—or, rather, Brian and Roger—are chatting with the security guys and nodding along as the bearlike Irishman reviews the day’s itinerary.

You peer over at Casablanca. Now that the floor is mostly clear, he’s migrating towards you and Freddie. You glance apprehensively down at your reflection. “Goddammit,” you mutter, manipulating your bangs again, wishing you could disappear. “I meet a rock star for the first time ever and I look like this.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kevin says, obviously lying.

“I like it,” Freddie tells you, propping his elbows on the counter and resting his chin on his knuckles. “It’s very goth raccoon chic.”

“My bathroom light wouldn’t turn on this morning and I was late for work and I guesstimated and that was clearly a poor decision.” Poor decisions are my expertise, you think instinctively, and feel a tug of something you don’t quite have the words for. Shame, grief, disappointment, a raw sting like a flame beneath your palm, a dread like a child who’s lost their mother’s hand.  

“I’ve offered to take a look at the wiring!” Kevin exclaims. “I told you, a D is passing!”

“Kev, babe,” you reply. “I really, truly appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ll probably just make it worse. And then my landlord will hate me and keep my security deposit and write me awful references and I’ll have to live in an endless string of ancient, hideous apartments until I die.”

“It’s an electrical problem?” Casablanca asks, pushing his aviator sunglasses up into his unruly hair. His unveiled eyes are a blueish grey—they remind you of one of the candles, maybe Beach Walk or Bahama Breeze—and very direct. He stares at you and you stare back, and at some point you realize that everyone is waiting for you to answer.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess so. Sometimes nothing happens when I flip the switch. That’s the extent of my handyman knowledge, unfortunately.”

Casablanca nods. “I could take a look, if you like.”

Not Beach Walk. Not Bahama Breeze. Warm Luxe Cashmere, maybe. “Now that really is too generous. I couldn’t possibly put a rock star to work on my terrible apartment.”

“John’s got a degree in electrical engineering, that’s right in his wheelhouse,” Brian counters.

“Yes,” Roger says, grinning, teasing in a way that has absolutely no malice in it. “He’s more of an engineer than a rock star anyway, isn’t he?”

“Seriously?” Casablanca—John, you mentally correct yourself—doesn’t seem much like an electrical engineer. But Roger’s right: he doesn’t really seem like a rock star, either. What John seems like is steady and abiding and perceptive, attentive, unflinching. He studies you like some people study paintings, like you once studied paintings; not in a passing-by-in-a-crowded-hallway type way but in a patient way, a methodical way, with the quiet that comes from knowing that vision in the frame is older than you will ever be and will still be hanging on that wall when you’re bones in a box somewhere.

Freddie lights a cigarette and puffs on it decadently. Smoking definitely isn’t allowed inside the Yankee Candle shop, but you aren’t about to snap at Freddie Mercury for the second time today. “Oh, let him tinker around in your flat, darling. It’ll make his day.”

“Is it far?” John asks you.

“No, really, Casa…uh, I mean, John, I appreciate the offer more than I could possibly express but I—”

“It’s just a few blocks north,” Kevin says, and tosses you a wily smile.

“How convenient!” Freddie trills. “When does your shift end, dear?”

“Not until 5:30.”

“She can take a long lunch break.” Another smile from Kevin. “Honestly, there’s not much to do around here now that the Great Candle Massacre of 1981 has been remediated.”

“Splendid!” Freddie says, radiant.

You shake your head, very slowly. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“Then you clearly haven’t lived enough,” Freddie quips.

“Fred!” Roger presses. “Are we going to the bookstore down the street or not? That was the whole deal, we suffer through your candles, you suffer through our books.”

“You didn’t seem to be suffering,” Brian says.

“Of course I’m suffering. That cashier over there almost murdered me,” Roger slings back.  

Freddie sighs and rolls his large, dark, expressive eyes. “Yes, darling, of course, don’t give yourself an aneurism. We’ll go to the bookstore, John can rendezvous with us later.” Now he turns to you. “We’ll send a car to your flat at 7 to pick you and Kevin up for the show tonight. Don’t let John leave without knowing your address. Wear something deliciously opulent. Lots of sparkle. Maybe furs.”

“I make eight dollars an hour,” you tell him.  

“Or you could just wear nothing.”

“Sparkle and furs it is.”

Freddie chuckles and turns to the men in black. “Chubby, my dear?”

The towering bearlike Irishman replies: “Yeah, I’ll go with John. Don’t wreck anything else while I’m gone. Don’t get yourselves deported before the show. EMI will have your heads on spikes.”

Freddie pretends to be scandalized. “Causing destruction? We would never.” He saunters towards the shop door, jingling the bells as he swings it open, and waves like royalty. “See you tonight, darlings!”

“Bye!” Kevin shouts after him. And then, after Freddie, Roger, Brian, and the two non-bearlike men in black have departed: “Oh my god I just met Freddie Mercury and he’s amazing and he knows I exist and he spoke to me and tonight he’s sending a car to take me to a concert and I’m going to have front row seats and what if he invites me to have a drink afterwards oh my god.”

John, evidently unaffected, prompts you: “So your place is just a few blocks away?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my coat…”

The man in black—Chubby, as Freddie had introduced him—fetches your coat off the rack by the door and holds it up so you can slip inside it. No one has ever done that for you before.

“…Thanks…?” You button your coat, feeling a little like royalty yourself at the moment.

John pulls open the door, the tiny metal bells jangling, and gestures out into the streets of downtown Montreal. He’s wearing his aviator sunglasses again; the November wind gusts through his hair. You catch threadbare ghosts of cigarette smoke and cologne that the breeze lifts from his skin like pages of a book. And he smiles, just barely. “After you.”

You walk north together along the path of the sidewalk with your hands in your pockets, your breath fog in the cold, weaving through the bustling crowds of tourists and holiday shoppers, Chubby trailing not far behind and displaying his talent for keeping watch while not letting on that he is. To even your own horror, you can’t seem to shut up.

“John, this is so kind of you, this is completely unnecessary, you really shouldn’t feel like you owe me anything because Freddie already paid for the candles twice over and I was totally unprofessional for yelling at customers, even annoying customers, and Kevin and I are already getting a free concert tonight and so—”

“Okay,” John says firmly. “You have to talk about something else now.”

“I can’t talk about anything else. All I can think about is how ridiculous this is.”

“Have you lived in Montreal long?” he asks, very casually, as if you’re strangers in line next to each other at Starbucks.

“My whole life.” Minus a little over three years, but you don’t need to get into that. “My parents live over in Verdun, right on the St. Lawrence River.

“Sounds scenic.”

“It certainly is.” You’re trying not to look at John, because every time you do it’s hard to stop. You look at the cars rolling by instead. “This is super embarrassing, and I don’t mean to offend you, but what exactly do you do in Queen?”

He’s not offended; he thinks it’s hilarious. “I’m the bassist.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, bassists are quiet and reliable or whatever. Bassists don’t terrorize Yankee Candle employees.”

“You’re not a Queen fan?”

“I’m a casual and appreciative listener, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I couldn’t pick any of you out of a lineup, clearly. Roger is the drummer, right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Drummers are feral, almost universally. Which means Brian must be lead guitar.”

“And what do you think of lead guitarists?”

“Word on the street is that they are brilliant yet micromanaging egomaniacs, but I don’t want to bash your friend or anything.”

John chuckles, like there’s some joke you aren’t in on yet. “No, please, bash away. So you prefer bassists.”

And finally you do look at him, and you regret it immediately; because now you’re caught in the thoughtful crinkles around his eyes and the barely-there stubble of his cheeks and the playful curve of his lips and how the wind ruffles his auburn hair the same way it steals leaves off of slumbering trees. You almost walk right past the bakery. “Oh, wait, we’re here.”

You lead John and Chubby upstairs to your chronically irritating apartment. John removes his sunglasses, inspects your bathroom light switch, then asks if you have a specific kind of screwdriver. You bring him the toolkit that has lived beneath the kitchen sink since before you moved in and he roots around, finds what he’s searching for, and unfastens the light switch plate from the wall.

“Please don’t electrocute yourself,” you fret, as Chubby meanders around in the living room and tries not to intrude. “If you die your groupies will never forgive me.”

“Who says I’ve got groupies?” John replies, amused.

“I just assumed all rock stars do.” Your eyes flick down to his hands as he fidgets with the wiring; and you notice randomly—or, maybe, not all that randomly—that he’s not wearing a ring. You’re still ruminating over that when he returns the light switch plate to the wall, secures each of the four screws with a few deft twists of his wrist, and performs a test flip. The light turns on immediately.

“Mission accomplished,” John says mildly.

“What?! No, no way, no freaking way.” You flip the switch again. The light turns off and on obediently. You try it at least five more times. Perfection. “…How?!”

“Just a few loose wires. No great hardship.” He tucks the screwdriver back into the toolkit.  

You gape at him. “That took you…like…two minutes.”

“Aren’t you glad my band wandered into your candle shop and almost demolished the place today?” He rests his hands on his waist; his sturdy, skillful, ringless hands. “Anything else I can fix for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He stares at you. You stare back.

“Stop looking at my fucked up eyeliner.”

John laughs. It’s a delightfully clear, disarming sound. “That’s not what I was doing.”  

“I should fix my makeup and go back to work now. And you should probably go help your friends burn down the bookstore or blow up a Starbucks or do whatever else is on your agenda for today.”

“Soundcheck and dinner, actually,” John says. He slides the toolkit back beneath your kitchen sink, meets Chubby by the front door, and pauses there to give you one last lingering, laden gaze. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“In my best furs,” you purr in your most convincing Freddie Mercury impression.

“Or nothing at all,” John suggests levelly. And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

It turns out better than you thought it would. Your tan, knee-high suede boots are celebratory without being too uncomfortable. Kevin brings you a faux fur jacket that he stole from Patrick during the breakup. You find a glittery black dress in the back of your closet that you once loved, then couldn’t stand to look at, then forgot existed entirely; but tonight it’s like you’re seeing it with brand new eyes. It fits even better than you remember. In the mirror, you look like a stranger and a hauntingly familiar acquaintance and yourself all at once.

Chubby arrives in a black limousine at precisely 7pm, parks along the curb next to the bakery, and honks the horn twice. You and Kevin dash down the narrow steps and climb into the backseat, finding complimentary cigarettes and bottled water and chilled champagne. As the limo rolls though Montreal under changing traffic lights, Kevin prattles on about the band, their history, their albums, their tours…and John in particular. He tries to tempt you. You resist valiantly…for the first fifteen minutes, anyway.

Finally, you sigh in capitulation. “Okay. Fine. I get it. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s divorced,” Kevin says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I saw it on the cover of a tabloid a while back. Very contentious, spicy stuff. He’s got like eight kids.”

“He does not have eight kids!”

“Okay, maybe not eight. But he has a lot,” Kevin insists.

You rearrange your hair with deliberate flippantness. “What do I care if he’s divorced?”

Kevin grins. “You know why you care.”

“Stop,” you plead.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he definitely likes you. And you like him. And I haven’t seen you like anybody, ever, in the…wait, let me count…the nine whole months that I’ve known you. When was the last time you even had a boyfriend? When was the last time you got laid? Oh my god, it hasn’t been nine months, has it?! That’s way too long to go without sex. No wonder you’re so serious all the time. It all makes sense now. You poor thing. You’re in dick withdrawal.”

“Assuming that’s my problem—which it isn’t, by the way—if I wanted to get laid there are far easier ways to accomplish that.”

“Sure,” Kevin says. “But you don’t want just any dick. You want British bassist dick. John Deacon dick. Casablanca dick.”

“This friendship is terminated.”

Kevin cackles, pouring himself a glass of champagne that bubbles over the top and spills onto the limo floor. “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I’m glad we can do this together.”

You fill a champagne flute with bottled water and clink your glass against his, smiling. The limo is turning into the parking lot of the Montreal Forum. “Me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The backstage room that Chubby escorts you and Kevin to after the show is full of chatter and heavy smoke and roadies and fans and musicians and journalists, trays of hors d'oeuvres, wine and Stella Artois and vodka and tequila and rum, the electric promise of things that will go unmentioned in the morning. There are stacks of stereo speakers in the corner rumbling out Another One Bites The Dust. You and Kevin camp out on a green velvet couch—making small talk with each other to avoid making it with anyone else—until the band arrives.

John is still wearing his concert outfit: blue pants, blue shirt, a black leather jacket that gives him an edge like a knife. He passes out a few polite nods; but Freddie and Roger are undeniably the suns in this room, and the guests their planets. Freddie is soon surrounded by a constellation of followers and whisks Kevin away with him. John, meanwhile, comes straight to where you’re sitting on the couch and stands in front of you with his messy hair and his veil of cologne and his mystery-candle-blue eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks in that calm, measured way that you’ve learned he has. “Rum and Coke? Moscow Mule? Hurricane? I’ve been on a mojito kick recently.”

“I don’t drink.” And you wait for the inevitable awkwardness that usually follows that sentence, when he says why? or seriously? or maybe just oh in wilted disappointment.

Instead, what John says is this: “No problem. Rum minus the Coke?”

You smile up at him. You can’t help yourself. “That would be perfect.”

There are innumerable drinks already poured on a table, dark carbonated liquid trembling in red plastic cups as the bass from the stereo speakers quakes through the crowded, droning, smoke-hazed room. John moves from cup to cup, taking tentative sips before shaking his head and putting them back down on the table. After each attempt, he casts you a rueful smirk before continuing on to the next cup. At last, he finds two unadulterated Cokes and brings them to the couch: one for you, and one for him. He sits beside you with one of his legs crossed over the other, a lit cigarette in his right hand, a red plastic cup of Coke in his left, and his eyes on you in a way that isn’t hungry or arrogant or restless but merely, benignly contemplative. You find yourself thinking of paintings in museums again, you even start to feel a little like one; and you wonder what colors he sees in you, what types of brushstrokes, what signatures scribbled in the corners of the canvas, what shadows painstakingly penciled in to mimic the angles of the sun.

You tell John about growing up in Montreal, about autumn strolls along the St. Lawrence River, about snowfalls and Mont-Royal and Chinatown and the Notre-Dame Basilica, about the exhilarating turmoil of the Summer Olympics in 1976. You tell him about how Kevin is in his last year at Concordia University and works part-time at the Yankee Candle shop for money to invest in his hair gel and travel fund. You tell him so many things he doesn’t notice all the parts you leave out. In return, John tells you about himself; not about John Deacon the bassist of Queen, but about the understated man who likes cars and electronics and the Beatles and tea in the evenings beside a roaring fireplace. And when his arm comes to rest on the back of the green velvet couch, and then across your shoulders, and then around your waist, it doesn’t feel strange at all. You lean into him as you exchange stories and clandestine giggles until you’re nearly in his lap, and that doesn’t feel strange either. And you haven’t had a drop of alcohol—you haven’t in almost a full year, in fact—but you feel a little drunk tonight, because your cheeks are hot and the room is blurry and the world is brimming with a pure, rose-gold, uncomplicated happiness.

The other band members periodically stop by to say hello, clutching their drinks and making stilted pleasantries as you and John smile drowsily up at them, looking nothing like the soberest people in the room. Chubby and the rest of the men in black are simultaneously omnipresent and scarce, which you are beginning to think is a requirement inked into their job description. Kevin, having been fully absorbed into Freddie’s entourage, is beaming and flushed and extremely, blissfully tipsy. And they all watch you and John not with scandalized sideways glances but with warm approval swimming in their gleaming eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you yet,” you tell John when you are alone again. “For improving my dreadful apartment. So thank you. You really didn’t have to do that. I hate that I marred your time in Montreal with unpaid labor.”

He shrugs it off. “I like fixing things. It’s what I’m best at.”

“Besides being an internationally acclaimed rock star, you mean.”

“I’m honestly not so sure I’m cut out for the rock star life.”

“You are, though. I saw you. I watched you all night.”

John just stares at you, and then he leans in even closer, inhaling deeply. You can feel the heat of his breath on your collarbone, your shoulder, your neck; goosebumps spring up across your skin like stars at twilight. “What the hell is that? Perfume? Lotion? Shampoo?”

“It’s probably sugar and baking bread, because I live on top of a bakery.”

“Does Yankee Candle make anything that smells like you?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “They definitely do not.”

“They should,” John murmurs. And with the rough whirlpools of his fingertips he turns your face to his so he can kiss you.

It should be kind of humiliating, right? Making out with some guy you just met on a green couch in front of thirty strangers, your hands getting tangled in each other’s hair, your lips meeting again and again, taunting darts of the tongue and quick painless bites and stifled moans and grasping tugs at clothes that you’re starting to wish weren’t there at all. It should feel embarrassing, you should feel overexposed, here in this land of unfamiliar expectations and accents and faces. But no one seems to be watching too closely. This must be so tame in the world of rock stars, it occurs to you; almost wholesome. And you can’t remember a time you’ve ever felt more at peace.

“There’s a pool table in the next room,” someone says, startling you, and you break away from John to discover Roger perched on the arm of the couch, grinning coyly as he sips his emerald glass bottle of Stella Artois. “I mean…you know. If you’re into that. John’s got all sorts of moves, we played for days at a time at Ridge Farm. You could challenge him to a round or two. Place bets. But be warned…he’s a total pool shark.”

“Is he?” you ask mischievously, clasping the lapel of John’s leather jacket. Even if you freed him, he shows no indication of retreating. He’s raking his knuckles back and forth along the length of your thigh that your little black dress leaves exposed, never venturing above the hem.  

Roger winks. “Just thought you might want to know.” Then he hops off the couch and disappears into the crowd again.

John is trying to keep his eyes locked on yours, and no lower. He’s trying to not be even vanishingly forceful. He’s trying not to sway you. But you know exactly what he wants. “Do you…?”

“Show me how to play pool,” you whisper. And you lead him through the shuffling bodies and boisterous, increasingly intoxicated laughter and cumulus clouds of cigarette smoke to the door on the other side of the room.

Beyond the threshold you find a pool table and not much else. It’s terribly unceremonious; it’s absolutely perfect. You can hear Blondie’s Call Me playing back in the packed room where the rest of the band is still reveling, the bass crawling through the walls to radiate in your eardrums, your bones. You lock the door and reach out to flick off the harsh florescent lights, but John stops you. You don’t have to ask him why. He wants to be able to see you. He asks if this is okay—again, wordlessly, with the forthright blue of his eyes—and you nod. And then he kisses you as you drag him in, breathing in his cologne and nicotine, tasting the virgin Coke on his lips that he drank just for you.

John tears off his leather jacket. You toss the faux fur that Kevin lent you to the floor. You climb up onto the pool table, and John follows you. You yank off his shirt, link your suede boots around him as he positions himself between your naked, down-soft thighs. And then John stops.

“Look, I have to be honest,” he says. His hands tremble as they cradle the small of your back, just barely. “I’m newly divorced, and I’m really out of practice, I mean really out of practice, and this is not at all my usual way of doing things, and if I’m total rubbish or only last like thirty seconds or something I just want to apologize in advance and swear that I’ll do absolutely everything I can to make this worth it for you. Because I like you. I really, really like you.”

“I’m a little rusty too,” you confess with a small, sheepish smile. But he doesn’t need to know exactly how rusty you are, or in how many ways, all those layers of blood-hued ruin that spin webs from the skin down to the marrow.

John seems relieved. “Then maybe we’re even.”

You’re not even, you’re nowhere close; but it’s comforting that he thinks you could be.

John kisses you again. His hands find the zipper on the back of your dress, and then the tiny metal clasp of your bra, and then the black lace of your panties…and then everything else as well.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterwards, you return together to the green velvet couch in the next room, not with bashful swiftness but with your hands entwined, your eyes satiated and calm, your clothes unapologetically rumpled. The partying is winding down. The song pouring through the stereo speakers is In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. And now you and John don’t talk very much at all; you just sit there with fresh cups of Coke, your head resting against his chest, his left arm draped around you, watching the rest of the universe spin on like a carousel as your feet stay rooted to the earth.

“So you’re the smart one,” you say eventually. “You must be, with an electrical engineering degree.”

“You’d be surprised. We’re rather erudite, as far as rock stars go.” He smiles drowsily down at you. “Freddie’s got a degree in graphic art and design. Roger has one in biology. Brian has the better part of a PhD in astrophysics. He might even go back to finish it one day. He probably will, just to be able to lord it over us.”

“Wow,” you reply, distantly, suddenly feeling very small.

“What did you study?” he asks you.

In truth, you never finished college; but you aren’t going to tell John that. “Something useless.”

John is intrigued, and perhaps a little concerned as well. His brow furrows with grooves like lines of fortune in an open palm.

“I wanted to be a painter,” you explain, smirking at the absurdity. “But the world doesn’t need painters anymore. They have pictures and videos that are just as clear as real life. They don’t need my fantasies or interpretations. They have reality.”

“I think we still need painters,” John disagrees, his calloused fingertips tracing lazy circles around your bare shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yeah. For when reality requires improving.”

You let a few moments of silence tick by. And then you put on your faux fur jacket, finish the last of your Coke, stand and find your balance on the low heels of your boots with exhausted, shaky calves.

John jolts upright, somewhat alarmed. “Hey, you don’t have to—”

“This was great, John. This was the best night I’ve had in a long time. So thank you for that. But I have to go home now.”

“Okay.” He studies you, processing. “Okay, okay. I’ll have Chubby drive you.”

“That’s really not necessary, I can get a cab…”

But John has already waved Chubby over, and the massive man appears serendipitously with an impossible degree of stealth. Kevin finds you, staggering, babbling breathlessly about all of his adventures, showing you where Freddie and Roger and Brian signed his chest with a black Sharpie, repeating the same stories on an identical loop every few minutes. As you leave, you offer John a brief parting wave; and he returns it, like a reflection in a mirror, but he’s wearing a pensive frown and eyes dark with thought. Then again, maybe you are too.

Chubby leads you and Kevin outside to the waiting limousine. You slip into the backseat, ply Kevin with bottled water, open the sunroof so moonlight and cold, reviving November air can flood in like a river.

Kevin is coming down now from the high of the champagne and the concert and the carousing with Freddie Mercury. He blinks, soaking you in, really seeing you for the first time in hours. “Wow, you had a good night with Casablanca. You had a really good night.”

“Yeah,” you reply softly, resting your head against the window and watching the stars and streetlights pass by above like seasons. “And it will never happen again.”

[adhdeancas]

Dean Winchester (and the script leaks last night) possessed me to write this.

Dean happens upon Chuck's latest book: Carry On. Except it ends differently than it really went, and the ending? It's really fucking bad.

tw: suicide mention, transphobia (quickly shut the fuck down) 

Dean doesn’t make a habit of going to bookstores. Not because he hates books, contrary to what Sam might think; he just prefers to buy used books. There’s something comforting about a book that has already been worn and read over and over, that already shows how much the previous owner loved it. Plus, y’know, big corporations are evil and all that. And Dean only allows himself to overlook that when his stomach or his wallet wins over his hatred of the shitty mass-produced products. 

This time it was Jack who won; he’s obsessed with this new fantasy series and the new book just came out, so there’s no way he can hunt it down on Ebay. He makes his way to the fantasy and sci-fi section, eyes roaming over the displays of new releases, and his eye catches on something that turns his blood cold. 

“Supernatural: Carry On, The Final Book of the Winchesters’ Epic Journey” takes up a whole table, the generic and overly serious cover jeering out at him. 

He storms over to the display, anger covering up for the way his body feels light as a feather and like lead all at once, and picks up a book. “Why is Sam always fucking shirtless?” he mutters, the only thought that allows itself from the mess inside his head to his mouth. 

“Book sales.” A voice behind him says. He turns to see a teenager with their arms crossed over their work polo, pierced lip fixed into a customer-unfriendly frown.

“People want to see that?”

They snort, a small grin turning up the corner of their lips. It reminds Dean of Cas. “No. But that’s what advertisers think all ‘women’ want,” They use air quotes. 

He raises an eyebrow and asks. “Women?”

They shrug and uncross their arms, leaning back against the display table behind them. Their nametag says Jadyn. “Supernatural’s biggest block of readers is queer. I’d go out on a limb and say a lot of those the marketers think of as ‘women’ aren’t, or if they are, they aren’t itching to see Sam’s six pack.” Jadyn smirks. 

Dean takes a second to digest that, then grins down at the book, thinking past Sam’s apparently badly-received nudity now. “So how’d they like it?” he asks, waving the book a bit and looking up at Jadyn. Apparently they know a lot about the fans of the books, and for once, he’s proud of the way the story ended. 

Jadyn’s face sets into all hard lines. “Most people fucking hated it.” they say bluntly, then, probably remembering that he’s a customer, correct. “Sorry. I mean, it got some good reviews, mostly from people who like Wincest, but beyond that, it had some problematic plot points.”

Dean winces at the reminder of the ship between him and his brother, then scrunches his whole face together in confusion. “Wait, what? Why?” Why would Wincest fans like it? What was problematic about their end?

Jadyn shifts from foot to foot. “I don’t wanna spoil anything for you-”

“I don’t care about spoilers, just give me the short version.” Dean says quickly. A quiet panic is rising in him, and suddenly he has a horrible feeling that he’s not holding the truth in his hands anymore. 

“Uh, okay… Well, the most obvious thing is the bury-your-gays thing, then there’s the fact that it completely contradicted the rest of the lore. And it was ableist, misogynistic, and messed up, like, every character’s arc.” they take a breath, clearly worked up by it. “Even if they changed any of the details too, it was all built on Dean’s death, and that’s just bullshit. Sorry.” they apologize again, apparently mistaking Dean’s stricken expression to be in reaction to their rant and swearing. 

“No, nah, you’re… you’re okay. Uh, thanks.” he waves a hand and wanders away from them, only remembering Jack’s book when he’s almost to the register. He manages to make his way back and find the damn thing, but he’s still in a fog when he gets to the register. 

“Did anyone help you in the store today?”

“Huh?” he looks up and meets the middle-aged cashier’s gaze for the first time. Brent, from the nametag, looks at him impatiently. “Oh, yeah, uh… Jadyn. Jadyn helped me.” Brent scoffs and starts typing with a shake of the head. “Uh, is there a problem?” Dean asks, a little annoyed at this cashier’s unnecessary attitude. He usually doesn’t care if an employee’s rude, because they have to deal with assholes all the time and honestly Dean isn’t much better, but this one gives him a bad feeling. 

“No, no, sorry. It’s just - “Jadyn’s” got this idea that he’s a girl. Makes everybody call him that name now too. Just-” Brent shakes his head. “I mean, you get it. Their generation, everybody wants to be special.”

Dean glares. “No, I don’t get it, Brent.” He says through gritted teeth. “Seems to me like Jadyn probably deals with enough assholes like you that her asking for a little basic decency is the exact opposite of special. Sounds pretty normal, actually.” He can see the fear creep into Brent’s eyes, and he knows the cashier is reacting to the murderous look in his eyes more than his actual words. 

Brent hands Dean his bag of books with a quiet, “Here you go.”

Dean snatches it away. “Oh, Brent?” he checks over his shoulder to make sure they’re alone and then leans across the counter into Brent’s space. “You should find a new job, one where you don’t have to interact with other people. At least until you learn how to stop being a piece of shit.” He starts to ease away but thinks better about it. “And if you think that’s a suggestion, it’s not. My husband likes this book coming out next month that I’ll need to buy, and if I see you here when I come, well… it would be really embarrassing for you to tell all your little friends that you got your ass beat by a ‘special’ guy, huh?” He pats Brent on the cheek condescendingly and leaves with a huff. 

Damn transphobes. 

He only remembers the book once he’s back in Baby, and he takes the time to drive out of town before he pulls over to read it. It’s an old abandoned church, the cross long since fallen from the roof and the doors hanging off their hinges. He sits on the steps just because being in Baby seems claustrophobic for once in his life, and going back to the bunker to look at this is just… not happening.

Dean only skims the beginning to see that it starts the same. The ground erupting with bodies, hell spitting out its most-conveniently placed nasties, Rowena sacrificing herself, Cas leaving. His throat closes up at that, at Chuck’s description of Cas’s heartbroken expression as he climbs the stairs of the bunker. He clears his throat and skips to the end, right past Cas’s death that he doesn’t have the time to think about right now, past them defeating Chuck and then stops. He goes back a few pages, trying to find the disconnect. 

The story’s different.

After Jack takes on God’s power, in the book, he’s totally fine. Not almost vibrating out of his skin or anything, not crying like the three year old he is because he’s scared. Not like it really happened. He just smiles and leaves him and Sam, and they let him go. 

Dean scoffs, skimming over the story as it just gets more ridiculous. 

In the book, he doesn’t even try to save Cas. They barely even mention him. And they never mention Eileen, either. In fact, Dean notes disbelievingly, practically the only characters in the last few chapters are him and Sam. They’re hunting again.

“What, is Chuck trying to keep the series going?” he whispers to himself, anger flaring through him. They let Chuck live, and he decided to write obnoxious fanfiction about them? He’s gonna kill that shameless little fucker. For real, this time. He deserves it.

In the book, Sam and Dean torture some vampire mime, and they enjoy it. Dean cringes; this is really what Chuck thinks of them. Then they tussle with more vamps in a barn and- 

Dean’s brain stops working. He rereads the scene again and again. 

“There’s something in my… something in my back. It feels like it’s right through me.” 

Dean Winchester dies in a dirty barn, on a piece of freaking rebar. 

More than that, Dean realizes on his fourth read-through. This Dean? He tried to drag out his speech, Dean can tell by the way he pauses for fucking drama. He would never do that. He would never talk to Sam for fifteen hellish minutes when he could be trying. Trying to live, so he can actually get his life back on track, get his family back. No, he made that speech stalling. He made that speech so Sam wouldn’t try to save him. 

“You gotta admit, I had one helluva ride.” He was strangely calm.

Chuck made him kill himself.

Dean reads the rest of the book through blurry eyes, reading an ambiguous and nothing-ending, one where he’s somehow happy to be dead and driving around in heaven alone while Sam raises a kid into hunting and cries about Dean decades after he’s died. Eileen isn’t mentioned. Cas is mentioned once, and Bizzarro-Dean doesn’t even think about seeing him, apparently. The whole book ends with a hug between him and Sam, both dead. Both alone. 

Dean rips the ending up. He tears through the stupid paper covering and keeps ripping the pages up until they’re the size of confetti. His lower lip wobbles. He throws the whole thing against the side of the building, and it tumbles through the broken doorway and drops into a pile of dust and dirt. “That isn’t the fucking ending.” he grounds out, knocking his hand against the flimsy handrail. It gives a little under his fist and he kicks at it. “That isn’t the fucking ending!”

He’s having a panic attack. Again. He tries to take deep breaths, but they’re gulping, too big, they’re making him panic more. He scrambles back to Baby and grabs his phone, presses the first number on his favorites list and waits for him to answer on speaker phone.

“Hey Dean, what’s up?” Sam sounds like he’s been laughing. There are voices in the background, and Dean tries to convince himself one of them is Eileen. 

“Hey Sammy.” he chokes out, trying to sound normal. “You busy?”

There’s a pause, and then the sounds in the background. “Nah, Rowena’s just over.” he says casually. 

“So those voices in the background were-”

“Rowena and Eileen, yeah. They’re trying to convince me we need to go to Mexico. For the beaches.” A smile in his voice. Dean lets out a sigh of relief.  What’s up, Dean? You need something?” The smile drops, and Sam’s worried. 

Sam’s okay. Sam’s okay. “No, nah. Hey, you heard from Donna lately?” Dean just needs to triple-check.

“Uh, no, not since Sunday dinner… Dean, you okay?”

“Yeah, she just- she hasn’t been answering my texts. Just wanted to make sure.” Dean lies quickly. His breathing is still uneven, but his body is settling into uneven shakes. 

Sam sounds skeptical. “Yeah, well, she did tell us it’s been pretty busy at work lately. Y’know, everybody going out for the first time with COVID, getting stupid. Plus, y’know, nowhere’s drowning in EMTs right now.”

“Right. Yeah.” Dean takes a deep breath, a distant memory of Donna talking about that coming back to him.

“Pretty sure you were setting up a D&D session with Charlie while she was talking about that,” Sam laughs. Dean knows he means it as a subtle jab, but there’s too much relief flooding through him to care. Still, a string is pulled taut in him, and Sam can’t fix that completely.

“Gotta go, Sam,” Dean hangs up before Sam can say anything else, and goes to his next contact. It rings for far too long, and Dean’s heartbeat picks back up to thundering.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Cas,” Dean breathes out. “Cas, you know I love you, right?” He needs to test all the bounds of this, to make sure, just to make sure. Make sure Chuck isn’t still fucking with him. Because apparently, Chuck won’t let him be queer. Not in his story. Not out loud.

He can hear Cas’s eyebrow raise through the phone, and his chest is overcome with stupid fondness. “I would be a little worried if you didn’t.”

Dean grins widely. “Like, romantically. I’m in love with you. Because you’re the love of my life and I’m bisexual.” He says it all like it’s a checklist, like he expects some cosmic being to slap a hand over his mouth before he gets each next phrase out.

“Yes, Dean. We’ve been married almost two months.” Cas is smiling. It happens everytime he talks about their wedding. Dean adores it. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, now it is.” His whole body relaxes, still vibrating with leftover panic, but satisfied. “I got Jack’s book.”

“Oh, good. He’ll be so pleased.” Cas pauses. “Dean, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dean eases off the ground and sends a last look at the dilapidated church before climbing into Baby. “Just- read a bad book. I’ll tell you about it later. When I get home.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Jungle Cruise

You may not know this, but I generally really like movies that are based off of the rides and attractions at Disney theme parks. Obviously I like the Pirates movies (the first three, anyway), but I also enjoy The Haunted Mansion and The Country Bears, and Tomorrowland was pretty decent as well. The thing is, all of these films are based off of rides and attractions that are actually really good. Jungle Cruise… is not. Jungle Cruise is an incredibly awkward, stupid, and kind of racist ride that basically lives or dies by how enthusiastic your skipper is about the incredibly lame puns they have to recite as you sail on down the river. You’d have to do a ridiculous amount of heavy lifting to make this into a film that’s at all palatable while still retaining some level of recognizability.

Somehow, they managed to pull it off. Disney’s Jungle Cruise is somehow a remarkably solid adventure film based off of one of the most atrocious rides imaginable… and it even manages to keep all of the stupid puns!

Obviously, a film like this is going to take a lot of liberties with the source material, but in a general sense it takes the Pirates approach by giving a grand story while still paying tribute to the corniness that has endeared some (very strange) people to the ride. Dwayne Johnson is spouting ridiculously bad puns left and right in the first chunk of the movie, and you will laugh as much as you groan; the racist villagers, particularly Trader Sam, are reimagined into a much more tasteful and heroic portrayal; even the dangers in the initial boat ride are all ridiculously fake, just like the ride. But much like Pirates, this is all seasoning for the main dish, the grand adventure that the movie is showing.

Of course, the movie does take quite a bit from Pirates, to the point where you could almost call this a rip-off. Supernatural elements are introduced into the plot, and almost all of them are things we’ve seen before. There’s characters cursed into immortality like in the Curse of the Black Pearl, there’s villains who are fused with parts of the jungle similar to Davy Jones’ crew, much like Jones himself the villains are bound to a body of water, there’s a plot point about conquistadors like the fourth movie… Jungle Cruise does make these elements work, particularly the elements it lifted from the lesser Pirates sequels, but it still does leave the film feeling like enjoyable reheated leftovers more than a brand new dish.

At any rate, the characters are enjoyable enough for a fun adventure flick. Dwayne Johnson’s Frank is his usual charismatic goofball adventure star, and Emily Blunt is fun as Lily, a tough-as-nails female scientist. As characters in their own right, they are standard adventure movie fare, but they’re good in that regard. And that’s not even getting into the pretty interesting twist regarding Frank halfway through the movie! Unfortunately, they do end up having the mandatory adventure movie romance, and I’m gonna be honest with you all here: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is just not convincing to me as a romantic lead in anything, ever. The man is like if a chiseled Greek statue came to life, he has like negative sex appeal. I love the man, I love his movies, but I really just find his romances to fall a bit flat. They keep the big kiss to the very end, which is merciful enough, and I don’t think it ruins the film, but it’s definitely a weak link.

This film is also notable for having Disney’s ten thousandth “first gay character,” as numerous publications claimed (ignoring, as usual, that Hugo the gargoyle from Hunchback is the true first gay character due to being in love with a male goat), and… well, thatpart of the character is a bit underwhelming, mostly because it is vaguely hinted at and even when it comes up in conversation it’s just ambiguous enough that it could be about something else. The character himself is actually pretty fun and enjoyable overall, but if they wanted the representation hyped up they should have been less ambiguous. Hell, I think if he’d had the big romance with Frank, the movie would have been significantly better.

While the villains are kind of derivative of Pirates, I do enjoy their designs. The zombie conquistadors all have cool and unique designs that make great use of the jungle setting, and their motivations and backstories make them effective boogeymen for our heroes to go up against. It also does something I love in films like this, where the major antagonists are real people from history made into villains. Zombie snake hive Lope de Aguirre and snivelling egomaniac Prince Joachim of Prussia? Hell yeah, I’m down with that! The villains are a lot of fun, though again, they do fit into a lot of traditional adventure movie archetypes. I’ve already mentioned that the zombie conquistadors are derivative of, and Prince Joachim feels a lot like an Indiana Jones villain. Much like everything else, though, this all does work.

I think one of the big things that really carries the film is the score. The score absolutely did not need to go this hard for a goofy adventure movie based on Jungle Cruise. The whole thing is epic throughout, but I think the crowning achievement is the instrumental cover of “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica that plays during the flashback sequence showing the origins of the zombie conquistadors. A Metallica x Disney crossover is not something I ever knew I needed, but by God I will take it. Kudos to James Newton Howard for elevating this film with an incredible score!

Jungle Cruise is by no means a perfect film, but it is definitely a fun film. I think your enjoyment of this will really boil down to how much you’re willing to excuse the lifting of elements from Pirates and your love of adventure movie tropes. If you’re down for that, this is a fun and enjoyable watch. I don’t necessarily think you’re missing out on anything groundbreaking if you skip it, but it’s definitely a solid entry in the sadly very small canon of films based on stuff from Disney parks. There’s a sequel on the way (because of course there is), so let’s hope they work to improve upon the flaws of this one and deliver a better and less derivative adventure. Fingers crossed that it adapts Expedition Everest!

[greenbriar-j]

5 times the prince crashed the bookstore

and the 1 time the owner(’s grandson) broke into the palace

-

One.

             The first time was an accident. Sort of. Not really.

             Prince Gabriel did need to buy new ink and maybe a new journal to replace the one Gunther accidentally threw into the fountain the last time Gabe escaped the palace. If he was so pressed, though, he could’ve asked one of his attendants to buy it for him.

             So, yeah, it was kind of an accident. Gabriel donned his “commoner” attire, hiding his immediately recognizable curls under a cap. The clothes he wore were bland, but he had the kind of figure that made every outfit stand out. He snuck out through the window, running to the bookstore to get as much time away from his princely duties as possible.

             It was so boring, all of it. The paperwork, the meetings, the girls.

             Full confession: Prince Gabriel loved girls. Adored them. Thought they were the neatest thing to be placed on the planet. He loved the neighboring princesses, their mother queens, the female attendants – he loved women. He could not for a second imagine kissing any of them.

             Kissing Gunther? That, he’d imagined several times before the guard had caught on and assigned him even more paperwork. Fucking Gunther.

             Not, Gabe grimaced, pushing open the door to the bookstore, fucking Gunther. Stop thinking about fucking Gunther. About fucking. In general. … You’re a disgrace of a prince. At least you’re not responsible for producing an heir.

             Because he was the second prince. Because he was responsible for many things, actually, while also not being responsible for a thing at all.

             “Welcome to Vanilla Pages, how can I help you today?”

             The prince’s head whipped to the sound of the voice. It was not the voice he expected to hear, the almost frail, ever-loving voice of the old Asian lady who’d always been here the last few times he came. This voice was rich, masculine, deep – and, oh, the prince was very, very gay for it.

             “Uh,” he said intelligently. “You’re new.”

             The man smiled at him. “I’m not. I’ve worked here every summer since I was ten. Granny gets a little faint in the summer. The heat and all.” A beautiful hand waved in a beautiful, dismissive gesture.

             Gabe had one thought, and it was this: He himself was feeling a little faint this summer. Somehow, behind the broad shoulders filling out the loose shirt, the scruffy ponytail, the calm yet twinkling eyes, the man was undoubtedly a big teddy bear. “Ah,” he said, again the pinnacle of intelligence towering over his whole kingdom. “What’s your name?”

             “It’s impolite to ask for someone’s name without giving yours first,” the man prompts. “Your Highness.”

             Your-? “The disguise is that bad?”

             “If I say so, will it end in a death sentence?”

             Fuck, fuck, fuck. That smile is unfair. What the fuck. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

             “Then yes, it sucks. The name’s Phuong.”

             “Oh, word? Good name.” I did not just say that. Who responds to introductions with oh, word?

             Gabe could not stand to make any more of a scene. This was fun. It was also very embarrassing. He grabbed a journal without really examining it, checking out and running across the street to the bakery.

             Gunther picked him up there after his own round of flirting with the baker’s daughter. There would probably be a wedding soon. Depending. The guard seemed surprised that the prince turned up on his own, but the prince thought nothing of it. He thought nothing at all.

             Not about the name Phuong.

             Not about those broad shoulders and muscular arms left on full display. The wide, toothy grin.

             Not anything at all.

 Two.

             The second time was a detour.

             “Gabe, I mean this in the most respectful way, but if you do not finish writing a birthday card to the prince of [other kingdom, idk], we will be having a war council within the month.”

             “Gunther, he can’t even read. Why does it matter?” Tossing his head back and stretching his legs out, he acted like the brat he only was for Gunther.

             The guard delivered a withering glare without adjusting his rigid stance. Even the prince has to admit that Gunther seemed to be experiencing physical repercussions for his job. In just a month, the prince had aged his friend by a year, or so it seemed.

             Reluctantly, Gabe held in every protest dangling on the edge of his tongue and penned a birthday note to the two year old prince. “We have to deliver this in person?”

             “Yes.”

             Gabe groaned. He could not think of a prospect he hated more. In a month, he had not managed to gather enough poise to revisit his beloved Phuong at the bookstore. He merely whimpered the name in his sleep, according to an unusually smug Gunter. And now, to be separated by this meaningless trek?

             “To the post, Gabe. Not to [neighboring kingdom].”

             Ever the model prince, Gabriel drew himself upright immediately. “The post, you say,” he repeated regally. “The one three streets away from the bookstore.”

             “That’s the one.” His guard, his best friend, smiled tightly. “I intend to propose along the way, and your stringing this out is not helping my nerves.”

             His royal eyes wider than saucers, Gabe ruffled all of his curls in distress and excitement. “Propose! Why didn’t you say so, you big baboon?”

             “You were sulking, Highness.” Gunther’s smile is wry, only a little amused.

             “I most certainly was not. Agh, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

             In his rush, he sustained more injury to his hands that day than he had in the past year.

 -

             “So…” Phuong glanced at Gabe’s hands, a quick flicker of dark brown eyes. “What happened to your hands?”

             Prince Gabriel hid the offending bandaged digits behind his back. “A mishap while writing the world’s most useless letter.”

             “Oh?”

             “Its recipient can’t even read. OH!” Without thinking, Gabe grabbed at Phuong’s shirt, tugging in his hasty excitement. “He’s doing it, he’s-!”

             He turned, only to find his face alarmingly close to Phuong’s. Why was the other man looking at him anyway? Did it matter?

             The moment was broken too soon by a holler across the street. “GABE! SHE SAID YES!”

             “OF COURSE SHE DID, YOU BABOON!” He fired back, pretending not to feel the heat rising inside him from the sudden close proximity. “He’s going to look so hot at his wedding,” Gabe muttered dreamily, still clinging with bandaged fingertips to Phuong’s shirt.

             “I have something for you,” Phuong said suddenly. “I wasn’t sure when you would come back, but I have something.”

             It was the best news the prince had heard all day. Seeing Phuong while getting his work done and receiving a gift? Only the gods could provide such a setup.

             He was right, for once, that it was too good to be true. Phuong deposited a box of fanmail in the prince’s arms and turned away without a word.

 Three.

             The third time was a disaster.

             “Did you read them?” Phuong asked after the initial pleasantries had been exchanged.

             “The letters?” Gabe leaned on the counter. “Burned them.” He grinned, but back-pedaled when the joke falls flat.

             Phuong swallowed, then busied himself wiping down the counter. “You burned them?”

             “If I read every piece of fanmail I ever got, I wouldn’t survive, Phuong.”

             “I see. I suppose- No, never mind.”

             While he hadn’t burned them, Gabe hadn’t read them either. He had no reason to read confessions of love from women who didn’t stand a chance with him because 1) he didn’t like women like that and 2) he only had a certain pool of suitors to choose from. This thing he was perpetuating with Phuong… It would burn him eventually. But Phuong was still very, very hot, and Gabe was still very, very gay.

             There was no promise of reciprocated anything from the clerk. He was simply doing his job, and Gabe was just a guy that came in a little too often for a little too long. That was all.

             “What’s this about, then? Was there one I should have read? Is it from your sister?”

             “I don’t have a sister.”

             “Your cousin?”

             “Your Highness,” Phuong looks at him, finally. Gabe doesn’t enjoy it, though. Not the way the address comes out so clinical, so distant. “All the letters had the same handwriting. My handwriting.”

             The prince’s throat goes dry. “What?” He whispers.

             “I’m closing the shop early today,” the other man responds in that same distant voice. “You’ll need to leave, Your Highness.”

             Stunned, Gabe returns to the palace.

 -

             Each of the letters is one sentence long.

I hope this finds you well, Your Highness.

 The stars in your eyes shine brighter than mine, yet belong to the same single sky.

You’re a brat.

Gunther came to the bakery today; I’m strangely disappointed by your absence.

A heartless one, you turned out to be.

The stars in your eyes shine on different continents than mine, it seems.

 Foolish of me to write letters to someone I’ve only met once.

Why do I think of you so often, my most hated daydream?

              There’s one for every day of the month Gabe avoided Vanilla Pages.

             “Gunther?” He calls into the air. A maid scurries in instead, apologizing for the absence of his guard, a different guard trailing in behind her. “It’s fine. Will you bring me some alcohol?”

 Four.

             The fourth time was a mistake.

             The very same night, a very drunk Gabe stumbled through the streets. It would be a prime night for assassination, if anyone wanted to put him out of his misery. A shame that no one did.

             Mindless feet guided him back to the bookstore. Fruitlessly, he banged on the shut and bolted door.  

             An angry Gunther dragged him home, and Phuong was never the wiser.

 Five.

             The fifth time was purposeful.

            “Your engagement was decided today.”

             Hollow-eyed, Prince Gabriel blinked at the captain of his guard – a married man now. The wedding had been beautiful. As expected. “My what?”

             “Your engagement, Highness. She’s a very pretty woman, if it’s any consolation.”

             “It’s not.”

             “Phuong is also in very bad shape, if it’s any consolation. Rea said so.”

             “It’s not.” The words came muffled by the pair of hands covering the prince’s face. It was enough that he felt bad about everything. There was really no reason both of them should feel awful. “Gunther, clear my schedule for the next hour. I’m going to the bookstore.”

             “You’re engaged now.”

             “I’m aware. Betrothed men ought to tell other suitors when they’re off the market.”

             The intention is clear, and Gunther seems upset. Unreasonably so. “Your Highness-”

             “I have to, Gunther. I’m going to make him hate me so he can move on faster.”

             “But you-”

             “I always knew how this would end. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

             He was anything but okay. He was gay and in love and engaged to a beautiful woman who deserved the kind of love he could never give her because he was gay and desperately in love with someone else.

             Each solemn step of the way, he bid farewell to each part of the man he had inexplicably grown to love. Goodbye, beautiful hair. Goodbye, kind heart. Goodbye, brown eyes. Goodbye, biceps; goodbye, thighs. Goodbye, hands. Goodbye, stupid love letters.

             He walked in, announced his engagement to the ground, and fled before he could see the other man’s reaction.

 One.

             Phuong considered his life in chapters.

             They were typically large, vague categories of his life that were boring and tedious to live through. Childhood. Teenage years. Adulthood. Gabe. It was only this latest chapter that made any difference in anything he thought.

             Before Gabe, life was dull. Every day, the same. After him, every day was painful – but the good kind of painful that perhaps would lead to something. The second prince bore the name of the messenger of the lord, and that had to count for something, didn’t it?

             Apparently not. For Gabe to cut him off so quickly… If he had hoped to give Phuong any kind of conclusion about what they were and what they meant to each other, he failed spectacularly.

             After milling around Rea’s bakery for half the day, he finally called in his favor. “Rea, can I… Uhm…”

             “If you wait until sundown, Gunther will come home for dinner, and he can take you straight to the brat himself,” she replied before he finished the thought. “Just tell him how you feel, and if it goes bad, you can have free cakes for a week.”

             “I’ll get fat and unattractive.”

             “Honey,” she said in that pitying tone he’d so hoped to avoid.

             “Can I… Have a free cake now?”

 -

             Prince Gabriel and Gabe were very different people, and while Phuong had known this, it didn’t really dawn on him until he saw it with his own two eyes.

             Gabe – his Gabe – smiled and laughed at everything, had horrible posture because he was always trying to get that tiny bit closer to Phuong, and dressed horribly because he thought it’d work as a disguise.

             Prince Gabriel wore tailored clothes that made Phuong a little dizzy because of how they accentuated a man who didn’t need accentuating at all. Prince Gabriel spoke with authority and walked with it, too. He oozed it.

             Phuong didn’t know if this made his job any easier.

             The moment the door shut behind him, the prince groaned and stretched and stripped off his clothes from the day. He flopped face-first on the bed like a child and immediately called for the captain of his guard.

             “Is it okay that I’m here instead?” Phuong said softly.

             Unexpectedly, the prince jumped ten feet in the air. “Phuong?”

             A complicated series of expressions crossed the prince’s face. He looked like he wanted to be upset, but couldn’t, and in the end, he started to cry, reaching for Phuong with grabby hands and a bleeding heart. What a foolish prince, to wound himself like this, when he really didn’t need to be wounded at all.

             “Your eyes shine with stars that are different from mine, but they share the same sky,” Phuong murmured, climbing into the prince’s bed and pulling him into a clumsy embrace. “If you had read that, I thought you’d have understood.”

             “It’s not the same as telling me upfront. I can’t bank my decisions on I think.”

             “I know.”

             And the prince only cried more. This was all his heart had ever wanted, but it still didn’t tell his mind what to do. Could he afford to forfeit his engagement? Would he have to forfeit Phuong again, knowing what he knew now?

             He didn’t know. He didn’t care yet. It was hard to care with Phuong’s finger sliding through his curls, with feathery touches of lips to his forehead.

             “Gabe.”

             “Hm?”

             “I really, really like you. But I get it if you still have to let me go.”

             Gabe tightened his arms around Phuong. “I won’t. I don’t want to.”

             “Okay.”

Spoiler alert: I have no idea how to actually end this but I believe they figure out their way to get together and live happily ever after bc that was the whole point of this but I really can’t be bothered to write it out whoops

[lovelivingmydreams]

My nieces are fanders

Summary: When you meet a super cute guy and land a date with him, you definitively want to gush about him with someone. In Nico’s case that someone is his oldest sister. The visit holds a surprise for him though.

This is part of a bigger story which starts here

Nico was humming to himself as he walked up the driveway to his older sister’s house.

“I can’t wait to tell Marcia all about Thomas!” Félix gushed. It’d been a week since they met him and while they had yet to look him up, deciding it was cheating a little to watch his content and maybe accidentally see more than Thomas wanted to share before they even went on their first date. Ràmon, his morally flexible, deceptive facet, still thought they should at least just check his accounts to make sure he didn’t oversell himself. “I’m sort of known on youtube” might just have been an exaggeration to impress him. Léon, his fury, was already working himself up over being misled when the others came to Thomas’ defense. He seemed rather humble about all his accomplishments. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. “She’ll be so excited for us!” Fabio, his heart, gushed. “Hope mom and dad won’t be too upset that they aren’t the first we told…” Alejo worried as he bit his lip. “We will tell them about Thomas if we come to a stage where we are ‘officially’ dating him,” Diego, his logic, reminds him. It was how they did things. His parents were a bit too supportive sometimes. If he mentioned Thomas, mom would start insisting he come over for dinner no matter how Nico insisted they weren’t that serious yet. His father would ask questions he didn’t have answers for and he would feel entirely too pressured… Best to tell them after he and Thomas got a bit farther. And he really hoped he would get to tell them about him soon. He rang the bell and soon the door opened to reveal a beaming Marcia. “You smelled my cooking didn’t you?” she asked. Nico chuckled. “You caught me,” he confessed as he threw his hands up in surrender while letting her embrace him. “It’s good to see you again hermanito,” she sighed before letting him go and leading him inside. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Yi will be home soon and he’ll entertain the kids afterwards so you can tell me what’s got you sparkling like the fourth of July.” Marcia looked back at him and quirked a brow curiously. Nico blushed a little. He was that obvious huh? His sisters eyes lit up and she was grinning like th cat that got the cream. Well he just confirmed her suspicion. “Okay, sounds good,” he muttered casually. Luckily Marcia let it go for now. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Just a glass of water is fine,” Nico assured her while he leaned against the kitchen counter to watch her work. “Tio Nico!” Nico looked up and saw Marcia’s oldest, his 15 year old niece Carla run up towards him to give him a hug. He embraced his niece with a smile and ruffled her hair. “How are you kids doing?” he asked as the teen girl let go. “Fine. Felicia hasn’t finished her homework yet, but she will be down in a minute.” Nico nodded taking note of cousin’s pronouns for today. It had been an adjustment for everyone when Fabien came out of his room wearing a skirt for the first time and asked to be called Felicia on days she felt more feminine, but they hardly slipped up anymore. “We have something awesome to show you!” Carla continued her eyes sparking with excitement. “Oh?” he asked curiously. “What is it?” “Don’t start without me!” Felicia exclaimed as she rushed through the door and hugged Nico as well. “Now I’m getting nervous,” Nico chuckled as he let his nieces push him into a chair and sit down next to him. Carla was looking something up on her phone while Felicia seemed to be using hers to film him. “Tio Nico. Have you ever been serenaded by a stranger?” Felicia asked. The general confusion in Nico’s head left him with no other response other than cocking his head. “Um… no…?” he replied. His nieces giggled. And then Carla pushed her phone in front of him and they shoved earbuds into his ears. She pressed play and before he knew it he was faced with…. “Thomas!!!!” Félix  screeched in his head. It was unfair of him to look so handsome. And then he started singing! “Nico, radiant and pure. Always so, accepting and secure. Never knew anyone so kind. So funny and sharp of mind. All this to say… Have a nice day.” And then he winked! Nico’s nieces were giggling at his flustered face. Alejo inspected the screen and found a description in the corner. “This week’s #shout out Sunday goes to all the nice Nico’s of the world” he read out as he slowly relaxed. Nothing that insinuated Thomas was thinking of a particular Nico. His nieces had probably just thought it was fun to show him the video. Perhaps they thought he’d be enchanted by the handsome stranger with the voice of an angel seemingly singing for him. They weren’t entirely wrong. “That’s Thomas Sanders. He’s our favorite youtuber,” Felicia explained. Nico nodded a little dumbfounded. “He’s a singer?” he guessed, though he knew he was more than that. But he was not ready to tell his nieces he’d met this man and was going on a date with him next week. “And an actor, and the nicest person alive!” Clara explained. “He lives in Florida and he is gay…” Félicia added not too subtle, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Stop teasing your uncle girls. Set the table. We’ll be eating soon.” Nico was relieved. The rest of the evening he struggled to pay attention to the conversations at the dinner table. His mind was absolute chaos “He serenaded us! Actually serenaded us!” Felix gushed dancing around unable to contain his elation. “And it does sound like he is somewhat successful in entertaining his audience. He was telling the truth it seems,” Ràmon allowed. Leon nodded, calming down significantly. Leon had been part of the deeper recesses of Nico’s mind for a long time. Until one day he was called by a panicked Carla who was hiding from bigots with her sister. Nico had hurried over and gotten them out. But he’d been so close to hitting one of those kids. It had been Alejo who, in his worry for the girls’ well-being, had managed to hold Leon back enough to allow Fabio to reason with him. His writings had taken a much angrier tone for a few days after. Ever since that day,  Nico was aware that he could get violent when angry and he’d been working on managing Leon without pushing him away. Like Alejo he was mostly overprotective of the others and Nico’s loved ones. He just jumped more on Alejo’s fight aspect than the flight part. “He was so nice!” Fabio gushed. “Does he really think all that about us?” Alejo wondered flustered. ���It seems quite likely that he does,” Diego concluded. “Just as we have made some observations about him that may or may not be accurate,” he added, soothing Alejo’s worry a bit. Shifting him more to the excited side of his spectrum. “Well? Spill!” Marcia insisted when they found themselves alone on the patio after dinner. Nico sipped from his glass and didn’t look at his sister while he just spilled the truth. “I met a really cute guy at the mall this week, and we’re going out for lunch in two days.” Marcia barely contained her squealing. “Finally! Tell me everything!” she demanded. And just like that, his excitement at being able to gush about the whole meeting returned. Marcia was a good listener. She knew the story ended well but she acted like she actually thought he might miss his shot with his determination to get some work done and not to bother the mysterious stranger. When he got to Thomas’ confession she was vibrating with excitement. “He sounds so adorable!” Nico flushed. “Yeah… He’s an actor and singer…” “Ooooh, someone to sing your songs!” she exclaimed. “And his name is Thomas Sanders…” Maricia’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. “Now that explains the look on your face when you saw that video…Wait that was for you? If mama ever sees it then she’ll insist you marry him you know that right?” she laughed. So not only did she know of Thomas, she had seen the video in question. “Yeah… She probably will. Have you seen anything else of his?” “I try to be aware of what my kids are watching online. He has two channels and about 3,4 million ‘Fanders’ last I checked.” “Oh my god!!!!” Felix gushed. Overwhelmed by both the cute fandom name and the dazzling number of fans. “Definitely not a liar,” Ràmon breathed in relief. He had been reluctant to get his hopes up until now. He was cautious, wary of things that were too good to be true. Just like Alejo. But their anxious look out was, in his eyes at least, compromised on the subject due to his close tie to the butterflies clouding all their feelings and thoughts. Now however, it seemed that his biggest doubts were adressed, he felt free to look forwrad to the date like everyone else. “He is a good guy, going by his content. And he is really cute.” Nico chuckled. “Yeah he is,” he agreed.

When he got home he was actually planning to freak out a bit more and debate over whether or not to watch some video’s. If for no other reason than to just see him do something he loved. Was that stalkerish? Luckily his phone alerted him to a text. Thomas. It was a cute dog picture. Nico smiled. He did that sometimes. Sent him things just to make him smile. N: You are such a dork. TS: I refuse to apologize for that! TS: I can’t wait until our lunch date! Nico hesitated for a moment. But then he went all in. N: Missing my radiant presence that much? God that was cheesy. Was it too cheesy? He is not like this! Not usually. Or maybe he was and Thomas just brought it out of him. TS: OMG you saw!!!!? N: My nieces thought it would be funny to see how I’d react when a ‘stranger’ serenades me. TS: Fanders!? Oh my goodness that is amazing! TS: You weren’t bothered? I get that it might seem a bit weird. “He is so precious!!!!” Fabio squealed. “I know right? This is not healthy for us! It can’t be,” Félix exclaimed clutching his heart and leaning on Alejo for support. Who promptly stepped away and let him fall to the floor with a grin. “Not a couch,” he reminded his friend who was pouting for a bout two seconds before his excitement overpowered his annoyance. N: It was awesome, don’t worry. I was very flattered. Your singing voice is amazing. TS: Thanks. Should he ask? If Thomas says it’s okay then it’s fine right? N: Okay if I watch some more of your singing? There he asked. No backing out. TS: Of course! Fair warning, if you find vines, some are cringy and sometimes I play a straight man. Vines huh? Wow, that felt like ages ago. Thomas had mentioned his misleading complements when they talked. N: Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Goodnight. TS: Goodnight. “Are we really doing this?” Alejo wondered as Nico typed in ‘Thomas Sanders Vines’ in the search bar of Youtube. One look at the results had Nico in stitches. “He’s such a goofball!” Fabio squealed clapping his hands as he saw Thomas’ smiling face on every thumbnail in various goofy situations. How was he supposed to choose? “Oooh! That one is him reacting!” Félix exclaimed pointing at a three year old video.  Nico nodded in agreement and clicked on the video. First this and then see if he could find some more videos of Thomas singing. He didn’t know it. But he was in for a wild ride.

I might write one more chapter, but then it’s over until Thomas posts his next video in three years. I want to stick to the canon as much as possible. You’ll hear from me if that changes though! Enjoy!

@rich-flower-17 @maryann-draws @selenechris @meowthefluffy @chibibunnis @whatishappeningrightnow @floofyconfusednerd @destinyiscallingus  @98prilla @catsarebestest @falpiancaraxus @queer-mattress-king @verysharkbakerydeputy​ @sarenicide @kitcatgirl600 @stariimayplayz @queer-devil @celestialviper @hennehennehennehoo​ @1americaninapool @firstorderfilms @xxmoonmorquanxx @naturallyunstablegamer @ciannathegiver58 @reeaninenine @pdvzh2 @rubixcubes-and-crowbars @not-a-possum-i-swear @nadja-chamack16 @ayidakira @theclassyghost @such-as-we-are-made-such-we-be @theblackveilinreverse @lucasdrawblog @erinriver5 @theshortgothicpunk @titheinironside @shipsarebeautiful @hoppe-ideas @i-died-50-years-ago @just-a-thing-to-do @the-magicalpotato @ rosethevoid @justfinsworld @supanxietysworld @kay-is-kid @devoteddeceit @friskthefallenmonster @liveonmercury @impalasquiptyseven @frida0043 @meow-face @baguettewoman2020 @sing-it-for-the-gays @perfectly-princely-emo-nightmare @snowcatwhiteangel @to-many-hotpockets @greenlasagagramfel @elliwashere @errors-in-my-heart @xxstill-i-risexx @ontheground15 @stubbornness-and-spite @potatiowatchingyoutube @nina-maee @sablesides @alias290 @s0n-of-a-peach @starlightnyx @idrawdumbstffsometime @shadowqueen88 @stars656 @lets-go-emma-of-the-100-fandoms @avocados26 @hanna10hanna10 @astrozei @thunderboldt1312 @galaxy-girl1999 @toknowaliar @musicobsessed1505 @tired-yeetling @athenashipsthings @firegirl156 @pomegranate-ghost @jerasings @strangest-loser @kittylikesflowers @pollyparrot8 @atdffpetra @altheaudaku @amberpeltsstuff @smallwaffle224 @cdragontogacotar @angelic-cali @fandoms1reality0 @contemplativespectrum @hedgiehoggles @alicethetrueunicorn @disasterlesbon @marguii-14 @emo-nightmare-without-the-emo @onecannotbebrave @confused-bi-and-ready-to-die @aelingalathynius6 @hetacon @booksfoodmusic-minion @maya-custodios-dionach @iwispkid @virgofoxy @simplification @emoghost-boy @hickledickle @crackedcurse @softballobsessed @hi-fellow-demons @mygenderisbees @lavenderchaitea @greekgeekgoddess @kuroyurishion @pauleyester

[morceid]

Beating the Dead Swan

Chapter 2: lonely angels wrapped in silk

read on ao3

<- chapter one

Summary: Penelope gives the profiles of Camille and other victims like her to the team.

Word Count: 1928

Category: angst

Content Warnings: general criminal minds murder stuff

A/N: noting here that this fic takes place in 2005 when criminal minds starts and spencer is 24

It started out a simple equivocal death investigation. Seven women had been found in their apartments, dead with their wrists slashed. Unfortunately not an unusual occurrence, Detective Conner thought nothing of it. Upon trying to contact the employers of each victim, Conner found they all worked for the same people, and decided to mark them down for further investigation just in case. When the fourth victim was found in her father’s beach house just outside of Virginia, the case became federal and handed to the FBI.

The case, being low priority, was given to Derek Morgan to monitor the progress of. 

“You’re completely sure there’s nothing about the bodies that connect these victims?”

“Agent Morgan, if there was anything I would tell you. I think it’s time you tell Detective Conner to rule these deaths a suicide.”

“Alright, will do.” Derek hung up with the coroner. Just then his mobile phone rang with the number of the detective displayed on the top of the screen. Derek sighed.

“Agent Morgan.” He answered.

“Agent, there’s another victim-”

“Conner, listen, they aren’t connected, there is no signature unless you can consider the suicide, I think you oughtta-”

“She was called in by a friend. Not a family member, not an apartment manager, not a coworker, a real friend. Derek, he’s devolving.”

Derek sighed, “Detective, I’ll let you send her body over to the coroner but I doubt there will be anything remarkable.”

There was some mumbling on the other end of the line before Detective Conner gave a response.

“That’s the thing, Agent Morgan, this victim is remarkable. She had piercing holes in her ears just like the others.”

“And how is that remarkable?”

“Her ears weren’t pierced.”

“And you’re sure about that, Detective?”

“Her best friend swears it. Do you think they could be puncture marks?”

“I’m not sure, let me tell Doctor Phyllis.”

Derek set down his mobile phone and dialed the coroner on his office phone.

“Doctor Phyllis?”

“You back again so soon, Agent?”

“Look, we got a new victim, she's got puncture marks on her ears. Not piercings, puncture marks. Can you check the other victims to make sure they’re not puncture marks?”

“Okay, give me a minute.”

Derek heard the sound of doors opening.

“Well, shit, they are puncture marks. On every single ear.”

“Thanks, Doctor Phyllis.”

Derek hung up on the office phone.

“Do I still have you here, Detective?”

“Yep. Were they piercings?”

“Nope. Bring in the girl’s friend and call in the family members of the other victims. We’re gonna need to talk to them.”

Derek hung up the phone and ran up to Hotch’s office.

“Something up, Morgan?” Hotch asked.

“You know that case Detective Conner asked me to look into?”

“The one with the suicides?”

“Yeah, well they might not be suicides. I’m having Conner bring in some people to ask them some questions. You mind if I ask Rossi and Prentiss to help?”

“Of course not, but if we get another case then leave the questioning for Detective Conner, alright?”

“Gotcha, boss.”

Derek gathered Rossi, Prentiss, and Penelope in the break room to discuss the case.

“Babygirl, you want to read out the profiles of our victims?”

“Reluctantly,” Penelope pulled up each of the files onto her laptop. “Danica Wilson, a 45 year old woman, was found by her landlord. She grew up in Victoria, Canada, but when she was 12, her parents got a divorce. Her mother moved her and her three siblings to North Dakota shortly after. All throughout highschool she seemed immensely interested in biology and chemistry. She was really good at it too, she took AP classes and she was a promising student. Unfortunately, her mom didn’t want her to do anything of the sort, and set her up for ballet classes her junior year. To appease her mom she studied the history of dance during college and ended up climbing up from an intern at a dance company all the way to a choreographer. Her love for science was still there the whole way through though, she’s been taking free college courses online for biology for about a year. She was found with her wrists slashed and spread out in a star shape on the middle of her bed. There were no fingerprints anywhere in her home and the slashes appeared to be self inflicted. Her mom died a week before she was found, all of her siblings live in other states, and she didn't have any close friends. She never dated, even though she had perfect brown eyes and blonde hair. According to her siblings she had all of the boys at her school after her. Despite there being no evidence of depression or other mental illness officers deemed her mothers death as a stressor and marked her death a suicide.”

“Then we have Maya Peto, 22 years old, found by her sister.”

“So there’s no age preference?” Rossi asked.

“Precisely,” Penelope continued, “She grew up in Detroit. Her parents raised her in a Christian household and shes been openly gay since she was 18. Her dad died when she was 14, leaving Maya and one sister to be raised by their mother. She did exceptionally well in math, but seemed to have no interest in pursuing it as a career. Instead, she became captain of her dance team in highschool and went to Wirtson’s Dance Academy for college. Her last year there, she was picked by Next Star Theatre Company, the same one as all of the other victims, to be on their ballet team. She was found just like Danica, and would be just like the rest of the victims. Her now ex-girlfriend and her had a kid, his name is Gene, he’s a year old, and Maya had full custody of him because Khloe, the girlfriend, had begun doing drugs about a week after Gene was born. How could lesbians have a child? Khloe was cheating. Maya gained full custody of Gene after a year long legal battle, and she had left him with her sister for a weekend while she baby proofed her house. Unfortunately, when she went to Maya’s apartment to return Gene, she found her dead. It was the anniversary of her father’s death when she was found, so the ever so ignorant officers deemed it another suicide.

“Then we have Annie Carr, 24. A coworker found her. Born here in Virginia, Annie was raised by her dad after her mom died when she was about one. She seemed to have a pretty awesome life. Her dad worked two jobs and she’s never had all that much money, but she was a happy kid. She went to a community college and ended up taking the same internship that Danica Wilson took, but she has stayed in that internship for years, mooching money off of her dad and siblings. Mabel Golden, the coworker that found her, claims that there’s no way Annie could’ve killed herself. She didn’t show any signs of depression or mental illness, though she could be pessimistic at times. Mabel said their boss was threatening to let her go, seeing as she hasn’t improved her work ethic in the last five years. Deemed another suicide.

“The fourth victim was Valentine Orange, 36, found by her father. She grew up in Maryland, started acting and dancing at six, her family was pretty wealthy, and she got accepted into the same dance academy and theatre company as Maya Peto. She also danced on the same ballet team. She told her team leader she was going away for a week to her father’s beach house, and when her father came to get her on the day she was supposed to leave, he found her in the guest bedroom, just like the other victims. The beach house was located in Maryland, and due to Detective Cooper’s hunch, the case got handed to us for an equivocal death investigation.

“Francis Falstaff, our fifth victim, was found by her adoptive mother. She was 22. Both of her parents died in a car crash a month after she was born, so she grew up in a multitude of foster homes. When she was ten her and her sister were adopted by Baron Falstaff and Maggie Falstaff. They seemed to be good parents. They went to all of their school events and paid for both of the girls’ college tuition. Francis was trying to make it into the same theatre company that employed the rest of the victims, specifically to work as a jazz dancer. She seemed to have killed herself, just like the rest of the victims, but her mom insists that she couldn’t have. She had a very promising life ahead of her. When they dissected her room they found an evidence board in the back of her closet. Her sister, Yvette, was stabbed to death a couple years back on the way to a party, and Francis was obsessed with finding the killer. Which is why she didn’t have many friends. When it was all processed, they found that the evidence led to Yvette’s boyfriend at the time. It was assumed that this weighed heavily enough on Francis that she ended up, well you know, on the same day she found out.

“Jane Sweeney, the second to last victim who worked on the Next Star Theatre Company ballet team, was 29. She’s been with the company since she was 20, and unfortunately her private teacher was the one who found her. Her father left when she was young. She liked expressing all of her success, almost narcissistically so. According to some other people on the dance team she was the best dancer and loved flaunting it. She was a kind of queen bee and seemed to value herself more than others most of the time. It just doesn’t make sense for her to kill herself.

“Lillian Bonner was the next victim. She was 54. She taught modern dance at the company. She lived with and was found by her only son, Tyrell, who she had with her husband Ivan. Though they were still legally married, the two were separated. Tyrell, who’s 16, said she was a fantastic mom. She always made sure he was fed and had someone to talk to. He told her practically everything about his life and he is having a really difficult time without her. He doesn’t believe that she would do that to herself.

“Our last victim was Camille Price. She was 25. Her best friend, Spencer Reid, who was on the same ballet team, found her. She was the only one who really had people around her. She grew up in Virginia with her parents and two brothers, one older, one younger. She visited them whenever she could. Everyone in her apartment building loved her, she even made dinner for one of the elderly occupants every Friday. Spencer doubts there is anything that would want to make her commit suicide, and to put the icing on the cake, there were puncture marks on her ears that police mistook for piercings. ‘What were they?’ you ask? Injection sites. How do we know this? Spencer swore that there was no way they could be piercings because Camille never wore earrings the entire 8 years he knew her because the Next Star Theatre Company does not allow their dancers to wear piercings or jewelry.”

“Alright, let’s go see if these people got any info for us.” Rossi got out of his seat and headed towards the interview rooms.

TAGLIST: @hotchrocket @hotpotatowoman @thisdeathtollbringsnopeace @endingsbeginnings @d3pr3ss3d-w33d-wh0re @nonbinary-spencie @moss0ntherocks @scandinavian-punk @drinkingcroissants @penemily @izzyl13 @leomo0n @tiedyedrose1705 @natclis

[bowieandqueen11]

Dating 60s Allison Hargreeves Headcanons

Request: heyyyy can i request a headcanon thingy for allison hargreeves falling in love with a girl from the 60s? 💛 

My gay ass really went oof when I read this thank you <3

Comments are always appreciated!

Okay, so you and Allison meet for the first time a little while after she landed in a random alleyway in 1960s Dallas, so she’s a little more settled into her new life. You meet her during one of her Civil Rights group meetings at Odessa’s Salon.

During the meeting, you sit in the corner and try not to catch her eye, but you can’t help yourself from becoming a blushing mess everytime you feel her gaze settle on your cheek. She sits at a nearby table in the middle of the floor, writing some notes, and smiling to herself every time her eyes flick over to your nervous form.

She gets up early before the meeting ends to grab some leaflets and stand by the door. When you pass by and she hands you one, your heart beats out of your chest and you feel frozen, only nodding with a tight smile when you take it out of her hand on the way out. She, on the other hand, is smiling brightly, having only done that to have a reason to brush her fingers against your own fingertips.

Pulling back as you exit the door, she places her hand to her mouth, feeling as if sparks of electricity is dancing against her skin.

She’d never felt like this before, but if she could only experience love like this in the 1960s, being stuck here would be worth it.

She would choose you again and again, in any time, in any lifetime, she would choose you.

You keep coming in after work to get your hair done, just to see her. You pop in at least once or twice a week, asking Odessa only for Allison until eventually she sees you come through the door, sighs, and just shouts for her name.

You just love the feeling of her fingertips running over your scalp, and the two of you keep on meeting each other’s eye in the salon mirror as he places a few clips in the corner of your hair.

Eventually, after you came in for the fourth day in the row to get your hair done, she couldn’t help but just blurt out if you wanted to go to dinner with her.

She’s surprisingly shy around you at first, only because her voice isn’t completely healed, and she doesn’t want to draw too much attention to it in case people start to ask too many questions. Every time she rubs against her throat, you just grab her hand and bring it to your lips, kissing each knuckle as you gaze into her swirling eyes. The amount of love and fondness in them, and the warmness in her beautiful smile always makes you melt into her arms.

She doesn’t care what people think when they see you two in public, she just throws them a dirty look and squeezes your hand, pulling you closer with a proud smile.

The two of you buy a quaint little house in the suburbs together after a few months, when she really believes all her siblings are gone. The two of you spend weeks collecting and decorating it with a bunch of yellow things - yellow throws, cushions, pillows, candles, everything cosy.

You always bring her back a bouquet of sunflowers when you get home, which makes her fall in love with you even more.

She loves to spend long evenings lying with you on the sofa after a stressful, hard day. The two of you alone together, only the sound of crickets chirping outside and an old timey jazz song floating from the radio nearby is an oasis of serenity for Allison. The moonlight pulls through the living room window and lights her hair like a halo as she lays on your lap, you stroking through it slowly as she rubs her thumb over your knuckles.

A lot of the time, she has nightmares about her family, and the apocalypse, and about her daughter. On these days, you come plodding sleepily down the stairs, rubbing your eyes as you see her sitting on the sofa with her head in her hands. You walk over quietly, her not noticing until your hands are cupping her cheek, and her forehead is resting gently against your abdomen. She smiles into your stomach as you pull her up and drag her by the hand across the house, the two of you spending most of the morning slow dancing across the kitchen tiles.

After a year, she realises she loves you enough to tell you the truth about her siblings, and about her powers.

You’re shocked at first, of course, but you tell her that you believe her and will never leave you.

‘You’re the best part of my life, Allison, and I’m glad you told me the truth.’

‘I’m the luckiest woman in Dallas, Yn, and I promise you one day change will come, I promise you.’

Supporting her whole heartedly during the sit in.

When her siblings finally start finding her, she knows that she really does love you when you learn to love, or manage, Klaus. 

Too many times, you have come down and nearly tripped against his unconscious frame spread starfish on the kitchen floor.

Allison started to come downstairs, only to see you tenderly placing the throw you had wrapped around your shoulders over Klaus’ abdomen, and her heart eyes just grew tenfold.

You become a sobbing mess when she tells you she has to go back to her own time, promising she’ll never forget you, and you made her life more special than she had ever hoped for.

[sapphic-writing]

Screw boys

VENT FIC **** I wrote it for me but maybe you can enjoy it

Mentions of alcohol and bad language

Edit and beta reading are for pussies, we die like women.

Modern AU with Ulla, Donella and Ulf (or in the mid 90's). OOC.

What happens when a college student passes his exams and that the parents of said student own a field on the side of the town, that isn’t rally occupied yet? Well first he thinks he could invite the people of his promo to celebrate their results on a hot summer night. Then he thinks he might as well invite people he knew in high school. A few people ask if they can bring some of their friends with them, nothing crazy. More and more people are invited and inviting. Before you know it, the upcoming party have the reputation of the most crazy party thrown in town for the upcoming decade. And the starter of it isn’t sure he could stop it even if he wanted to.

Ulla, being Ulla, counts herself in the first wave of guests. Mark, a close friend from high school had gotten her into it. And she herself, had gotten her brother and Donella on the guest list, alongside with other pears. The only thing that kept her two acolytes from bailing on this party as they witnessed it growing with horror, was the idea of leaving Ulla alone at a huge event like that, without backup. Ulf especially, being the designated driver.

And they couldn’t have greater regrets, when they found themselves sitting anxiously in the grass. Observing the other teenagers drinking like it was the end of the world.

Ulla had wandered off with Mark, glad to catch up with him, but most of all, she needed to get one thing straight ass there was one thing that had been bugging her for a while.

“Hey, dude. Can I talk to you for a sec?” She asked, now merry. “C’mon, let’s go where there’s less noise. We can’t hear shit here.”

It wasn’t really out of the party, not even outside of the land that the parents of the holder of the event actually owned, because of course people had taken the party well pass it. But they found a tree and it was a good enough thing to lay against.

“Okay, alright. So you remember how you told me about having regrets and stuff, and you wanted to ask me one thing but in the end you didn’t? I wanna know, man. I know it has something to do with me. I need, I need to know what it is. Like, if I want to trust you again.”

“Hmmmm okay, you wanna know?” He asks with a smile, rolling against the trunk to face her. “Do you have regrets about that time we both had a crush on eachother but none of us made a moove?”

“What if I did?”

He detached himself from the tree to stand in front of the girl. “I don’t know. But I mean, it’s never too late.”

“Aren’t you dating Millie?” Ulla asked playfully as he approached her.

“I think she could be okay with this.”

Ulla got closer to him, her breath brushing his lips as she spoke.

“So, now that, out of high school, I take more care of myself, put make up on and make efforts to wear nice clothes, I become interesting to you? Because you find me just so pretty. Better than the girl in high school?”

“You know you’re so god damn pretty now, doll.” And as he was playing with her hair, slowly closing his eyes as as he was opening his lips and getting closer, she spat right in his mouth.

He backed up with a sound of disgust and Ulla took the opportunity to get away from the tree and him.

“Won’t be seeing you again, Mark. But since you were so eager to put your tong in my mouth, I’m leaving you a souvenir. Bon soir.” she finished with a terrible accent and a reverence. Getting out of his sight before he got mad or violent.

Wandering through the many faces of wrecked students, she eventually found her brother at the exact same place he was when she left.

“Where’s Donnie?” She asked. He gestured to somewhere to her left, and she saw her with what was definitely not her first cup in hand.

“I don’t like you.” She told a guy, straight up to his face. The girls around them laughed hysterically as he started crying.

Ulla turned away from the scene and dropped her forehead on Ulf’s shoulder. “I wanna go home.”

“You okay, Ul’?” He asked, putting a hand on her back. She groaned and threw her head backward.

“The second I become fuckable, one of the guys I consider one of my best friends starts to want to do me like I take care of myself only for his pleasur or something.” She look at him in the eyes and tries to play it less hurt than she was. “He ignored my strong personality and one, it doesn’t work. Second, I don’t appreciate.” She continued mumbling a third, fourth and more reasons of ways it had offended her. Ulf nodded without trying to understand more and called the other mess he was in charge of. “Don, we’re going home!” Once she registered the information, she went in their direction without a protest. The girls behind started booing and asking her to stay because she made them laugh.

“Men are shit.” Ulla declared as she threw an arm around the shoulders of an already legless Donella.

“Tell me about it.” She responded as Ulf was helping her not to fall. They started walking to Donella’s parents car.

“Also, we’re not talking to Mark no more.” and before any of the two others could answer, Ulla’s name was screamed not far from where they were. “Ah, shit.”

“God, Ulla. You pissed him off!”

“Like it’s a surprise.”

The scream had made a few heads turn for a second before going back to the madness. The redhead girl let go of her arm around Donella and turned around.

“You want to complain because I didn’t let you screw me? Big, big dick move since your girlfriend’s around.” Indeed, Millie was looking at the scene with confusions. “Better, you want to pretend that nothing happened and keep dating her. So you can cheat more or something.”

He didn’t answer. Ulf’s guess was that he was expecting to find her alone and not with two other people who would completely be on her side. Millie came closer and looked at him, waiting for a reaction from her boyfriend. He looked at her in the eyes.

“C’mon, babe. You can’t believe her. She’s just drunk and jealous and…”

“Tell me the truth.” She calmly said with a determined stair. And suddenly he wasn’t able to hold on her look and he fell silent.

Ulla advanced to be at the poor girl’s side. “It’s okay, Mil. We can take you home if you want.” Ulf wasn’t certain their parents would be okay with a surprise guest, but he wasn’t about to open his mouth right now.

He took the three girls to the car. Ulla on the backseat, against the window, with Ulla next to her to take care of her in case there was a puking accident. And Millie on the sit next to him as the conductor. First they trash talked about Mark. Then uplifted each-other in that way that girls do. Donella did have an accident and they managed to keep the damages in the car minimal.

The next day, Ulla and Millie were dealing with a hangover while Ulf and Donella, who never had had a bad hangover in her life despite being the one drinking the most in the trio, were explaining to the Rusf parents why there was another girl in their flat. Not that they took it as badly as Ulf’s anxious mind had anticipated.

Bonus I wanted to include but couldn’t :

(After Mark called after Ulla, she is talking)

“And what’s with you and red heads? Do you have a fetish or something? You’re gonna try and fuck Ulf next time?” Mark makes a disgusted face. “What? Oooooooh, but that’s gay! You can’t say that to a manly man like me!” She says in a high pitched voice, pretending to look offended. “Well look, I’ll be fucking your girlfriend before you. She is ways more fuckable than you are.”

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: Troublemaker (Before)

Previously on Troublemaker

“See! You’re having a good time!”

The music pulsated through the streets, and Lexa didn’t care that her sister was gloating because she really was having a good time despite all intentions otherwise. The sun was bright and glaring without a cloud in the sky, and downtown was brimming with all colors, alive and vibrant, celebrating. And she as swept up in it, proud and overflowing with the music and freedom of being completely herself and being completely unknown in the crowd. 

It’d been a hard fought battle for her to agree to come with her sister to Pride, but she didn’t have anything else to do, and because of Anya’s need to be an overachiever, something they both ascribed to genetics, she was going to be doing an internship and leaving soon enough, thus cutting their summer together incredibly short. The guilt and her sister’s incessant need to prove a point brought them downtown for the day, and Lexa was almost okay with it.

“I knew you would like it,” Anya gloated, dancing around with her sister in the pulsating group of bodies at the concert in the park. 

“Is it always like this?” 

A gaggle of scantily-clad men moved through in nothing but speedos and suspenders, and Lexa let one of them grab her and twirl her around. The entire day, she’d been absolutely adored and adoring of everyone around her. An inundation of love and support was enough to make her unsure of how to go back to real life.

Her sister watched as Lexa danced, hands up, smiling wide and overjoyed. She enjoyed the fact that her sister came out to her and she could actually do something about it. Though straight, Anya spent her first two years of college taking a crash course in gay when her random roommate was a very out and very proud girl who liked to use Anya as a wngman. She was incredibly helpful in coming up with things to help Lexa feel normal and supported, and Anya was going ot be the best big sister possible. She was that type A.

“Pride is always like this,” Anya promised. “And you get to be super gay anytime you want. Isn’t that great?” 

“You’re worse than mom and dad. They’re like oddly proud to have a gay kid.” 

“Nah, just because you’re you.” 

“Shut up,” Lexa rolled her eyes and moved, wiggling around, goofy and carefree. 

For the entire day, the sisters moved through the crowds, checking out vendors, eating delicious food, listening to speakers, and got decked out in glowing necklaces and rainbows painted on their faces. It was exhausting to be so gay, but Lexa finally understood what she’d been missing in her fear of joining the GSA, and her fear of being out at school. She hadn’t thought about how wonderful it would be to not have to worry about hiding, or at least, not actively living. 

“Thank you,” Lexa offered, as the pair stood on the side of the road for the parade. She hugged her sister as the sun began to set between the tall buildings. “This has been the best day of my life.”

“You’re a sap.” 

“I am not.” 

“You are.” 

“I’m not,” she smiled and danced around, her sister not used to such a carefree girl in front of her. “I’m just super gay-- Oops, I’m so sorr--”

Lexa stopped moving after bumping into someone behind her, not paying attention and living her life too widely and too queerly for such a confined area. She gaped and stared at the body she bumped into, more mortified than she’d been in her entire life. 

The body came attached to a pretty face. A familiar face. A face with bright blue eyes, and a mischievous grin and a messy bunch of wavy blonde hair. A face that had a tongue ring. A face that was attached to the girl who protested the Sadie Hawkins dance, the pep rally, and last year single handedly turned the swimming pool pink for women’s history month.This was the same face that Lexa couldn’t help but stare at anytime she walked by in the halls at school. This was the face that didn’t even know she existed. 

Clarke Griffin stared back in equal parts amazement at the girl who did the bumping. In all of her wildest dreams, she never imagined Lexa Woods, class president, Academic Decathlon team captain, Student of the Quarter, perfect attendance-winning, overall adorable nerd, would be standing next to her at Pride. And not just standing-- dancing, covered in rainbows, and smiling in something other than a primly put together button up shirt with a schedule strapped to her chest. 

“Clarke,” Lexa gulped, unable to say anything else, unable to hide her fear and confusion. “I-I-I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you. I was just… um… ” 

“It’s okay. Kind of close quarters and you were just being super queer,” she returned gracefully as she eyed the entire being of Lexa on summer break. “I didn’t think I’d run into anyone here. I thought everyone left for summer.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

���Oh, I’m always recruiting people for my zine. Intersectional politics and good music with a queer tint. Honestly, it’s whatever anyone submits. We set up a tiny booth,” Clarke explained, rambling slightly. “And I’m kind of gay.” 

“Kind of?” 

This was incredibly new and important news to Lexa, even if she didn’t know what to do with it.The entire school knew that Clarke ran with the same crowd, a crowd Lexa didn’t know anything about other than idle gossip. And it always looked like she was very close to Bellamy Blake. Romantically close. 

“Bi.”

“You have to go?” 

“No-- no… I’m bisexual.” 

Lexa felt her face burn and she wanted to melt into a puddle, right there in the early June evening. Maybe disappear into the sewer and wash away into the sea for the rest of time. But she didn’t. Instead, she just stood there, in front of the biggest badass tough guy hot girl she’s ever seen in her entire life. 

It was the longest they’d ever spoken, and she’d ruined it in under three minutes after learning that Clarke was gay-ish.

“That’s cool,” she finally managed, earning a small smile. 

Clarke pushed some hair away from her face and scratched her neck, using the pause to look at Lexa’s legs. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t try too much. 

“Is this your first Pride?” 

“Is it that obvious?” Lexa sighed, bashful at her display. 

“No, you look cute. I like the festiveness.” 

That didn’t help anything at all. Lexa looked around for her sister who made herself busy talking to other people and not at all available to bail her out of saying anymore words. 

“I’m gay,” Lexa finally blurted after a prolongued moment of silence. 

“That’s cool.” 

“Thanks.” 

A shout reached them over the noise of the parade, and both looked in that direction. 

“I have to um,” Clarke looked over her shoulder at the group that was calling her name. “I have to go catch up with my friends.”

“Right, yeah, definitely.” 

“It was good to see you, Woods,” she grinned as she backed away. “I hope I get to bump into you again.” 

“Right, yeah! Me, uh. Me too,” Lexa nodded.   

With another wave, Clarke was gone, swept up by her friends as they moved through the crowd. Lexa caught the look that Clarke gave her over her shoulder and she smiled because she got a look back. It might not have meant anything, but it still felt kind of good. 

“Your first Pride, and you’re getting chatted up by a grade A hottie. I’m impressed,” her sister slung her arm over her shoulder. 

“That was just a girl from school.” 

“She was not what I pictured for your type.” 

“I don’t-- I don’t have a type,” Lexa furrowed. 

“Everyone does. It just so happens that yours seems to be punk baddies with probable daddy issues.” 

“There’s no way you could know--”

“She was digging you too, by the way.” 

“There’s no-- I don’t-- She wouldn’t-- That was-- No,” Lexa shook her head. 

“Trust me. I’ve seen gay relief, and that girl was gay relieved you were gay.” 

“That’s not a thing.” 

“Don’t be mad because i have my ear to the ground in the gay community,” Anya shook her head. “I’ll have you know that Kaitlyn said I’d make a great lesbian.”

“Please let me die right here.” 

XXXXXXXXXX

The library on Fourth Street was nearly always empty around the end of lunch time. It seemed to empty out come the hottest part of the day with the normal crowd of parents and kids looking to stay busy during the long summer hours came in for story time and craft projects. 

With no particular impetus to move quickly, Lexa pushed her cart of returns through the aisles and rearranged any messy or disorganized stacks she found. But her head wasn’t particularly in it. 

Instead, Lexa thought about Pride, and replayed the entire interaction with a certain mild degenerate who had a pretty smile, who called her cute, she realized, halfway through overanalyzing it again for the hundredth time. All she could wonder was if this is what having a crush felt? And if so, was it possible to have crush after just three minutes? Nothing really prepared her for this. How could it? He didn’t have time for a crush. She only had to focus and get into the school she wanted. And then she could be who she thought she might want to be. 

“Hey Woods.” 

Lexa stopped as she turned to the next aisle, only to find the exact subject of her internal debate. There was a book tucked into her elbow as she retracted an arm reached out to grab something on a top shelf. Lexa looked to her bare arms, and then to her hips where a flannel was tied, and only subtly hiding her short shorts and some of the long legs and Lexa was gay. 

“I know it’s a library, but I’m sure you can talk a little bit,” Clarke smiled. 

Sunglasses tucked and holding her hair up out of her face, the girl had a motorcycle helmet tucked into the same elbow as the book. 

“Hey,” Lexa managed. 

“You work here?” 

“Yeah, just doing some little things, stacking, kids story time and stuff.” 

“Sounds fun,” Clarke nodded. She leaned against the shelf behind her and watched Lexa push her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. This was the Lexa she was used to seeing, and it did nothing to make her less interested, which was insanely weird. 

“Here for anything good?” 

“Uh, just some of the summer reading for Lit. And I’m kind of interested in a few SAT practice books. I took it already, but there’s one more that I can take before applications are due, and I’d like to see if I can do a little better.” 

It certainly wasn’t the reason Lexa expected, but she should have known better to expect anything from someone she really didn’t know other than through stories of stories of stories from other people. 

“Sounds like you have a busy summer planned.” 

Clarke laughed and ducked her head and Lexa tried not to be entranced by the action. 

“Have to keep busy between the protests and debauchery.” 

“Right, same.” 

“Everyone kind of left for the summer, it seems. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?” 

“I was thinking the same thing,” Lexa agreed. “I miss my friends, but I’ve gotten a lot of things done.” 

“I’m sure you’re already done with the summer homework.” 

“No… well, just most of it.” 

“We’re two weeks into summer break, Woods,” Clarke pretended to admonish. Lexa shrugged, slightly guilty. “We’re going to have to find something to keep you busy.” 

“I think work will take care of that.” 

“You’re forgetting that I saw you at Pride. I know that you know how to have fun,” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows slightly. “And I know that you find me absolutely irresistible and cute.” 

“How could you possibly know that?” 

“So you admit it then?” 

“What? No,” Lexa shook her head and pushed her cart down the row, looking for the place to put the next in her pile. 

But Clarke wasn’t ready to leave, and she hung around, pushing off of the shelf only to follow Lexa and hover closer than Lexa could almost handle. 

“You checked me out at Pride.” 

“I did not.” 

“You did. I saw it. And you let me know you were interested in girls. If you didn’t know yet, I’m a girl, so the math seems to be adding up.” 

“Correlation does not imply causation,” Lexa responded quickly. “Your logic is not at all close to sound.” 

“So you don’t like me?” 

“I don’t even know you. If anything, I just find your face and,” Lexa moved her hand in Clarke’s direction, “that, all, pleasing.” 

“Good to know.” 

“Who even walks around telling people that they find them attractive. It’s maddening to have that much confidence.” 

Lexa jammed the book into the shelf as Clarke leaned beside her, grinning that grin that meant she was amused. That was also maddening. All of it suddenly was maddening, and Lexa missed the quiet of her shelves and wished she could go back in time and not let herself go to Pride. Then she wouldn’t have to see Clarke Griffin. 

“I like to have a healthy opinion of myself.” Lexa snorted. “And you should have one of yourself. Want to know a secret?” 

It was the smile that did it. And the eyes. But Lexa looked at Clarke and softened somewhat. It was due to the proximity, she told herself. Nothing else that she could control. 

“Sure.” 

“I didn’t really need these books,” Clarke offered. “I mean, I could have just ordered them online like a normal person. And I live closer to the Redwood Branch.” 

“Then why’d you come here?” 

“Hard to imagine you’re the valedictorian,” she chuckled. “I came to see you.” 

“Me?” 

“Yeah. I saw you at Pride and was intrigued. Thought I might feel it out a little bit.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” 

“Why not, Woods?” Clarke sighed. “I’ve got nothing but time and… well, I didn’t know you were into girls.”

“How can you be so just… How can you just say what you’re thinking?” 

“Lots of practice,” she smiled. 

“I could never imagine just… just… just…” Lexa waved her hands around slightly as she tried to explain what she couldn’t. “I couldn’t just do that. What if it went badly?” 

“Is it going badly?” 

“No, but-- wait. Maybe. What I mean is…” It didn’t help that Clarke was leaning closer and Lexa was stuck in the stacks with a girl that was flirting with her and she’d never had that before and it was way better than she could have ever imagined. “Wouldn’t ou have been embarrassed if I just ignored you or something?” 

“Oh yeah, big time,” Clarke nodded. “But my dad used to tell me to do one thing every day that scared me. Figured I’d get it done before dinnertime today.” 

She was charming and honest and refreshing and unlike anyone Lexa had ever met. It was a whirlwind. 

“I have to finish this before my shift ends,” she tore her eyes away from Clarke’s and looked back at her cart. 

“Right, yeah, definitely,” Clarke agreed. 

“I should do that.” 

“I should go check these out.” 

“Maybe I’ll see you around this summer.” 

“Yeah,” Clarke grinned. “Maybe.” 

Lexa stood there as Clarke turned back toward reception.

“Clarke-- I um,” Lexa watched as she turned around. “I’ve never flirted… with anyone, really.” 

“That is surprising news.” 

She could tell from her tone that it wasn’t news, and Lexa pursed her lips and set her jaw. She stood a little straighter, steeling herself. 

“I hope I see you around.” 

“We do seem to keep running into each other.” 

With a final smile, Clarke winked and disappeared. 

XXXXXXXXXX

Standing outside of the house on the corner, Clarke looked at the perfectly trimmed hedges and the flag that hung by the door. The lawn was manicured and neat, the house was beautiful, lit up and glowing with life inside in the waning light. It was in the suburbs and insanely suburban. A tire swing hung from a giant oak. A basketball hoop hung over the garage. 

For the life of her, Clarke wasn’t sure how she ended up here, except that she made herself stand awkwardly in front of Lexa Wood’s house. Three years ago, she met Lexa as a freshman, and instantly had a crush on the girl who argued with her in history class. But Clarke also decided to avoid having a crush on the cute girl who pushed up her glasses and tried very hard to be absolutely perfect. 

She still kind of always had a crush, despite her refusal to admit it. For the past three years, Clarke tried to make Lexa smile from time to time. She’d do something stuipd and make sure Lexa was watching. 

But Pride was one of the few times in the past year they’d spoken. And Clarke was certain that now was her chance, so she took it. And after the library, she spent every day for a week and a  half showing up at the library. She brought Lexa lunch a few times, followed her around the stacks, chatting and fully developing a crush. It was easy to do. Lexa was funny, and serious, and witty, and quiet, and smart, like ridiculously smart, and she wasn’t afraid of Clarke, or intimidated. She debated her with vigor, had opinions, had plans, and more importantly, had dreams. 

Clarke knew why she was standing on Lexa’s front porch, and she knew why she was slightly nervous to knock, she just hated someone being able to do that, in equal parts as much as she craved it. 

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was good before she knocked. 

“Hey,” Lexa greeted her, smiling and pushing up her glasses as she does her best to not look winded from running to the door. 

“Hey,” Clarke sighs,  matching her grin, forgetting all of the thoughts of before. “You look really nice.” 

“Thanks. I, uh, you too. I like the black eye in particular.” 

“Oh, this?” she motioned toward the eye that had a little bruising. “Just, um. Bopped myself in the face while working out.” 

“What were you doing? Boxing?” 

“Krav Maga. My partner got a little overzealous.” 

“Goodness.” 

“I’ll try to be extra charming to make up for my disfigurement. I hope your gentle eyes can make it past my horrible appearance.” 

“I’ll do my best to look past it.”

“Good,” Clarke smiled and handed over a helmet. “Are you ready for the first date?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” 

They walked toward the motorcycle sitting near the curb. Clarke pressed her palm to the flat of Lexa’s back. She handed over a helmet and Lexa looked at it curiously. 

“For your protection. Have you ever ridden on anything like this before?” 

“I’ve driven go karts.”

“Not the same thing,” Clarke chuckled. “Here, I’ll help.” 

The helmet eclipsed her, but Lexa tilted it upwards so that Clarke’s skilled fingers could tighten the strap beneath it. She lifted the visor and watched Clarke work. 

“I feel like a badass.” 

“You are.” 

“Do I look the part?” Lexa asked, smiling slightly as Clarke hopped on the motorcycle and put on her own helmet. 

“Very much,” she promised, flipping down both of their visors. “Hold on tight.” 

The date wasn’t anything fancy, but Clarke was hoping it was enough. They drove to the park, with Lexa’s arms wrapped tightly around her, and she took the long way, nice and slow, just for that reason. 

The park was busy, fully of people ready to enjoy the evening and a movie. Clarke unloaded a blanket and her backpack full of snacks, fully prepared to show off her dateable skills. From what she knew about Lexa, she assumed it was her first first date, and she was going to set the bar extremely high. 

Before the movie started, they talked about nothing in particular, and Clarke was careful to get in a little teasing, which Lexa returned, smiling the entire time, challenging her. During the movie, Clarke let Lexa lay her head on her lap, and shivered because she gave her the only sweatshirt she had. 

Even after it ended, they remained, hanging out in the twilight and talking, hovering, close and unsure and happy. Later into the night, after another trip back to Lexa’s, Clarke bashfully stood on the porch and earned a hug and completely bungled the kiss, unable to read Lexa and unable to make herself that brave. 

“Did you have a good time?” Clarke ventured, leaning against the railing. 

“I really did. Thank you.” 

“Maybe we could do it again sometime.” 

“I’d like that.” 

“Good.”

“Good.” 

“Great,” Clarke grinned. 

“Great.” 

XXXXXXXXXX

It was almost like a game at this point, for Lexa to stumble upon Clarke somewhere in the library during her shift. Rarely was it in the same place twice, and rarely was it when she was expecting it, though she found herself always looking forward to the smile and girl that sometimes brought her snacks. 

For the first month of summer break, Lexa didn’t even realize she’d spent most of it talking to or spending time with Clarke Griffin. It just kind of happened, and she found herself getting attached. She found herself flirting, or so she thought. She definitely found herself flirted with, which was still so wonderful. 

Clarke wasn’t what she’d thought. She was insanely frustrating and still too hot for her own good, and smarter than she wanted anyone to know, while at the same time being absolutely addicted to her moral code and her’s alone. 

In a month, Lexa learned that Clarke was not in a gang, despite everyone thinking it was a gang, but rather had a close knit group of friends that occasionally contributed to shenanigans of a disruptive nature. She learned that she was a hell of an artist, sketching things here and there, and when they ventured out on a hike or spent time lounging around, showed her sketchbook very timidly. She learned that Clarke’s father died three years ago, and that was where she disappeared to freshman year. She learned that Clarke liked to work on her motorcycle herself instead of taking to a shop because she wanted to feel closer to her father. Lexa spent an entire afternoon learning parts of the bike and helping with an oil change. 

For an entire month, Clarke pushed Lexa. She pushed her to go on dates. She pushed her to jump off of the old bridge foundation at the river when they went swimming. She pushed her to watch a few movies she wasn’t sure of. She pushed her to egg street signs for the first time ever. 

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a book about a cute librarian who has a crush on a girl named Clarke. Know where I can find that?” 

Lexa smiled despite herself as she turned the corner in one of the farther aisles in the library’s second floor. 

“I was just thinking about you.” 

“All good things I hope.” 

“More or less.” 

That seemed like good enough for Clarke who returned Lexa’s smile. The two stood there, close in the tight aisle, but used to the proximity. 

“I was wondering if you’d like to come over tonight. We could watch a movie and you could read my essay and give a million edit suggestions. I’ll even let you use your red pen.” 

“It shows up better.” 

“Yeah yeah,” Clarke humored her. 

“I’ll be over after dinner then.”

“Good.” 

“Were you leaving already?” Lexa furrowed as Clarke shoulder her backpack and shifted instead of getting comfortable or even grabbing some of the books to help her put back on the shelves. 

“I have to see a guy about a thing.”

“Just a drive by today, and no snack?” 

“Like I would ever leave you wanting,” Clarke tsk’d as she dug in her bag and pulled out Lexa’s favorite assortment of gummy bears. “I know what you like, Woods.” 

“You’re spoiling me. I’ll have to start working out more often or I’ll be too slow for track.” 

“You’re fit. I mean, you’re--”

“Perv.” 

“Sometimes,” Clarke shrugged. 

Lexa held her bag of snacks in her hand and smiled at them softly. She saw Clarke’s shoes nearly touching her own, and when she looked up, she realized how close they truly were. But she didn’t move. She just stood there and tried to figure out what Clarke’s eyes were saying, because they were furrowed until they weren’t, and then there was a peace there, a decisive calm. 

Lexa felt a hand on her shirt, grasping it near her heartbeat. Clarke paused before she did it, waiting for Lexa to pull away, asking for permission. Only when she got it, did she lean forward and kiss Lexa enough to take her breath away. The only thing Lexa could hear was the blood thumping in her ears, but she ignored it and kissed Clarke back eagerly. 

“Thanks, Woods,” Clarke murmured after a few seconds. “I needed that.” 

“Yeah, no, yeah.” 

“I’ll see you later.” 

“Right, later, mhm,” Lexa nodded and ran her thumb along her bottom lip as Clarke moved, leaving her rooted and blushing. 

“If you liked that, we could do it more often,” Clarke offered as she walked backward out of the shelves. 

“Sounds very good to me.”