#have i been in a haze for ten years or is brain fog just kind of trucky to navigate retroactively

[horrorsequel]

ever since i stopped taking zoloft and i can experience the world again, im like, wait, hang on, having emotions is so crazy did anyone know about this

[luckystarchild]

Today I was the Ambassador

I had a migraine and sat in my workplace's storage warehouse for a bit to rest, away from noise and in the dark. Glasses off, phone away, just sitting in a chair with my eyes closed in the quiet. I had taken medication that makes me quite loopy, and it had kicked in a little while prior.

Soon a dude I didn't recognize wandered into the warehouse to take a phone call. Loudly. And when he was done, he called out to me from like 50 feet away, "Sorry, I didn't see you there! Hope I'm not disturbing you!"

And I, politely, because I wasn't sure which of my colleagues this might be, and because I'm generally a friendly person who doesn't shy away from social interaction, replied, "It's all good. I have a migraine and am just resting in a quiet place."

To which he replied, "A migraine? What's that like?"

[Long post below the cut, sorry]

For the next ten minutes he stood over me asking questions. What's it feel like? How do you treat it? What causes it? Why do you get them? How bad does it hurt on a scale of 1-10? I reiterated several times I needed quiet, but the hint went untaken, and he kept asking questions. I still didn't recognize him, but I had my glasses off, so I thought perhaps this was someone new, and I felt I needed to be polite just in case.

Eventually, curiosity assuaged, he said, "You never know what a person's going through. For instance, you told me you had a migraine, and I could've walked away. But I didn't, and I came over here, and now I know all about migraines and how bad they are!"

Me: "Yep, that you do. That's empathy for you."

Him: "Yeah! I could've just told you to shake it off. Like I could've told you it's just a headache. But I didn't!"

I was pretty doped up on my migraine meds and therefore not feeling belligerent, nor particularly sharp, but even through that haze I recognized the multiple points of irony studding the conversation. Alas, I was too doped up to think clearly about how to end the interaction, and I just said something like, "People say that a lot to me, to be honest, and I'm glad you didn't."

Him: "People say that a lot? What do you mean?"

Me: "Well, pain is invisible. Some people don't believe me when I say I have a migraine and need to sit somewhere quiet and dark." (No reaction; nuts.) "Some people don't take a minute to empathize. They just tell me it can't be that bad."

Him: "That's terrible. People really say that to you?"

Me: "Yeah. My mother does every time I tell her I have one."

Him: "Oh wow. Do you have a good relationship with your mother?"

Me: "Oh. Uh. No."

Him: "Wow, really?"

Me: "Really. But I came out as queer a few years back though, so the migraines aren't the reason why."

Him: "What's that mean?"

Me: "Which part?"

Him: "That you came out as queer. What does 'queer' mean? How are you queer? Can you explain it?"

This is where I kind of came back to myself through the medication fog. That was a deeply personal question. Many of the questions had been. I only belatedly realized the level of prying happening (see again: medication) and it occurred to me I still wasn't sure who this person actually was. Did I even want to share this with this person? Blearily I put my glasses back on and looked at him. Really looked.

He was wearing a Trump hat. Blue. "Take America Back," it said. Not being the instantly recognizable red to which I am accustomed, and without the aid of my glasses, I hadn't recognized it for what it was.

I also realized I didn't know this guy. He was not a coworker. But my addlepated brain slowly pieced together that there were contractors in the building working on [some maintenance project or another], and this must be one of them.

Normally I would not reveal anything about my queer identity to a stranger in a Trump hat. People wearing them have chased me shouting threats and obscenities based on presumptions they made based on the cut of my hair and my style of clothing alone. Normally I wouldn't be caught dead revealing anything about my gender or sexuality to a stranger in a Trump hat. But here I was, already deep in it, and in an isolated place, and suffering from pain, and being stared at expectantly by someone whose nature and temperament were yet a mystery to me.

But.

Generally speaking, I can tell when someone is asking a genuinely curious question. It feels markedly different from someone asking a shit-heel question that will lead to eventual antagonism. And this guy was not acting like the latter. He looked at me frankly, and his body language was neutral, and while his questions were blunt, he hadn't raised his voice. So far, he hadn't actually been antagonistic. Just blunt, and insistent, and maybe a little tone-deaf.

So, perhaps against my better judgement, I said: "Well, in my case, both my gender and my sexuality inform my choice of the word 'queer' as a personal label. I'm bisexual and nonbinary. 'Queer' covers both gender and sexuality, and for me it feels comfortable to use as an umbrella term." Realizing I did not want to arm this person with a word he shouldn't have carte blanche to use, I added: "But some people in the LGBTQIA community don't like the word 'queer,' so I wouldn't use it to describe a person unless you know that's the term they prefer. The word was once used as a slur, but some of us have reclaimed it, and I'm one of those people."

Him: "OK." A beat. "What's 'nonbinary' mean?"

So I explained. And it took a long time, because (as I soon learned, and expected from the outset) he did not know the difference between sex and gender, nor that male/female are used to describe sex, and that man/woman and male/female are not actually interchangeable terms when discussing gender and sex. He didn't not know there was something called a gender binary, nor that anyone could exist outside it. He didn't know what 'cisgender' meant (he had never heard the term). He didn't know that your sexuality and you gender exist independently of each other. He didn't know the words he could use to describe himself, if he were so inclined.

There was... a lot to cover.

Me: "So, I'm to assume you are a cisgender man."

Him: "I don't know what that means."

Me: "It means you were assigned male at birth and told you were a boy by a doctor/your family, and as an adult, you identity as a man. The identity you were assigned and the one you feel fits you best is the same. It's never changed."

Him: "Yeah! That's right!"

Me: "May I assume you're heterosexual?"

Him: "What does that mean?"

Like I said: There was a lot to cover.

And cover it I did. I was patient. He had some trouble with the lingo, of course, since it was all so new. He got words mixed up, and I fear there were parts I didn't explain properly. I wasn't exactly prepared to have the discussion that day, and I was in pain besides. I spent the entire time on tenterhooks, carefully waiting for any hints of antagonism or mockery in case I needed to fish or cut bait.

No mockery came. He got a little frustrated, I think, when he messed up some words, but he never snapped, or argued, or tried to tell me I was wrong about any of it. He just seemed curious.

"But what does nonbinary feel like?" he wanted to know. "Does it feel weird? Do you walk around feeling weird all the time?"

Me: "Kind of, yeah! Ever since I was a little kid, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I didn't feel comfortable around girls, or around boys. Neither label fit me."

And he listened as I relayed a few anecdotes illustrating how that felt. And when I mentioned that my parents never really understood me as a kid, his brow furrowed.

Him: "They didn't get it?"

Me: "No. My parents were cattle ranchers."

Wide eyes. WIDE eyes. And that reaction cemented a hunch that had been growing in me since we started talking.

I live in Texas. I grew up here. I know how people think, even the ones I disagree with. To me, this guy seemed the type who might vote a certain way due to the influence of those around him, but one who doesn't know much about politics or anything outside his family or in-group. The one whose family "always votes Republican" but has never actually bothered to look up how a tariff works—and I know the type. I know how to work with someone like that. You have to find in-roads to empathy with these folks. Speak their language. If no one has actually fed them damaging misinformation (and it did not appear that anyone had!), there's an opportunity there to do some good.

Thus, sensing we were at the point of terminology overload anyway, I changed tactics. It was time for emotion, and personal experience, and giving him a touch-point for empathy. He was from this state, and the reaction to my folks being cattle ranchers was telling. So I leaned into that, hard.

Me: "We lived in the middle of nowhere, and my folks don't get it at all. There was nothing in my upbringing to really influence this. We were Baptists, on a ranch, in Texas. I didn't know a single gay or transgender person, but here I am."

Him: "So your parents didn't know anything about it at all."

Me: "Nope."

Him: "It was all you, and from when you were a kid!"

Me: "Yeah! They were absolutely baffled when I started telling them I didn't feel like a boy or a girl. It was just how I felt, and they didn't understand for a second."

Him: "Wow. WOW. It really was just a part of you, huh?"

Me: "Yup."

Him: "It's just how you felt inside. Wow!"

I realize these transcriptions, if read looking for sarcasm, could seem disingenuous. But he sounded sincere. He sounded utterly, painfully sincere. He looked surprised, and baffled, but also rather excited. Like he'd learned something new and was happy about that.

We chatted about a few more subjects after that: he wanted to know what transgender means, and why transgender people feel the way they do, sometimes without having the language to accurately convey his questions. But I listened, and I tried my best to educate. I stressed that gender is something people feel, and it can be hard to understand, but that it's up to an individual to know who they are best. And he nodded along, and never once argued, and asked questions frequently along the way.

We get tired, though, all of us. I was tired, and even though he was still asking questions, I think he was reaching information fatigue as well. So eventually I walked back to something we'd discussed before that I thought he could feel good about. End on a happy note. That feeling would hopefully stick once we parted ways, and color the memory thereafter.

"Y'know, you mentioned empathy earlier," I said. "Walking in another person's shoes."

Him: "Yeah!"

Me: "I think it's OK to admit we don't always understand exactly what a person feels, or why they feel it. It's OK to say you don't really get it. But if someone is living their best life, and they're not hurting anyone, it seems like we should just let them live it. That's what we'd want for ourselves, right?

Him: "Yeah, I agree with that!"

Me: "Transgender people are less than 1% of the world's population, too. So when you see people getting really mad over transgender people, it's like...why are they so mad? We're just living our lives. Don't they have bigger issues to worry about?"

Him: "Oh yeah. Much bigger. You're right!"

The conversation ended after that; maybe a few more light remarks, but nothing worth noting. I invited him to ask more questions if he had them and if he saw me in the building again. He said he would, and he thanked me, and we parted ways.

I relayed the conversation to a friend not long later. They stared at me for a second before asking, "Why in the world didn't you just walk away?"

And the honest answer, at first, was that my migraine made thinking clearly too difficult! But once I focused up, I made the decision to continue the conversation.

My reason for staying will probably resonate with folks from various groups: I stayed because in that moment, I had become the Ambassador.

When encountering a person who seems to have never met anyone from your group, and they realize you are a part of that fabled minority, you are placed (whether consciously or unconsciously ) atop a pedestal. In that moment, you are not an individual. Like it or not, you have become the spokesperson, the mouthpiece, the Ambassador of your entire social group. Anything you say can and will be used against your entire social group by whoever has elected you the Ambassador. If you react poorly, or yell, or scream, that person may leave the interaction thinking everyone in your group will yell, or scream, or react poorly to them. If they deem you, the Ambassador, unreasonable or rude, they may think everyone in your group is unreasonable and rude. And they may carry that opinion with them into the world, and they may inflict that opinion onto someone else.

This is unfair, of course. It's awful. Because these questions are invasive, and personal, and uncomfortable. Reacting poorly would be totally reasonable when asked something so deeply personal. Boundaries are healthy, and if you don't feel safe enough to discuss your gender/sexuality with a stranger in a Trump hat, you should absolutely walk away. Your feelings come first.

I'm lucky, though. I have an accepting workplace, and people who love me exactly as I am, and a support system. My state is a terrible place for queer folks, but given the above, I have some insulation from the worst of it. I'm also gregarious, and I've had some training talking to people off the cuff. If there's anyone who can manage playing the role of Ambassador for the afternoon, it's me. I have the spoons, so to speak. I can be the Lorax for half an hour, and I can try (try!) to give the random dude in the warehouse a quick education on my community.

He's just one guy. But he may know others. And if you can get through to even one unlikely person, why not make the time to take that chance?

So that's what I did today. He might not remember the terms we discussed, or the finer details on gender expression, nor the difference between sex and gender. But I hope the man in the Trump hat remembers the queer person who spoke calmly, and treated him kindly, and didn't get upset when asked invasive personal questions. And maybe (just maybe), I hope in my optimistic little heart that if someone else in a Trump hat tells him transgender people are a scourge, he might remember me, the queer kid who wasn't indoctrinated and came from the same Texas roots he did, and say, "I dunno. They're just out there living their best lives. That's what we want for ourselves, right?"

I can only hope I read him right. I can only hope he was truly listening. But even if I was wrong in that, I'm still glad I took that chance. Big things have small beginnings, as they say, and it never hurts to be kind.

(The only lesson I didn't teach him was to be careful asking such invasive questions, but given this all started over a migraine, I don't think I would've had much luck on that front, anyway. Haha!)

[ghost-strawberry]

Taking Control

Prompt by Dekalkomania for Phic Phight 2021. Danny hasn't been feeling himself, blacking out and having strange dreams. Unbeknownst to him, Freak Show's staff was not the only artifact that could control ghosts. Even worse, Jack and Maddie are the ones who get their hands on that object.

"I'm not sure Jack," Maddie murmured, distrust in her eyes. She picked up the object tenderly, examining it. It was some kind of orb, about the size of her palm. Shining red and encased in an intricate wire structure. Even through her gloves a cold temperature leeched out from within it. "This is a great opportunity Maddie! How often do we get our hands on something like this?" It seemed nothing could dampen her husband's elation when faced with such an interesting project. "Of course, it is wonderful to find an artefact like this, and I will take great pleasure in examining it thoroughly, I just wonder how dangerous it could be." She delicately placed the orb in a glass box and slid a heavy metal lid over. She crouched down beside it, staring at it through the glass. There was something... compelling about it. Maddie didn't believe in magic or superstition, she only put stock in that which could be clearly defined and measured with science. Ghosts residing in latter category. This object though, well, it was like nothing the scientist had ever seen before; she had only read about the like in damp ridden, old textbooks on the occult. The swirling crimson pattern seemed almost to move as she stared.

"Let's get this show on the road," she said, reaching for the controls next to her. Maddie deftly flicked several switches on the machine beside the glass case and twisted a dial, causing it to generate a smooth hum. Jack was almost bouncing up and down with excitement. Maddie smirked at his child-like joy whilst maintaining her concentration on the equipment. She had no idea what kind of results they would uncover. The object began to shiver in its cage and Jack observed the fluctuating results, taking notes. In her mind, Maddie dredged up all her limited memories on studying ecto-artefacts such as these and their possible abilities. She hoped it would be some kind of device they could use in their ghost hunting, perhaps to capture, or control the spectral beings? Wouldn't it be great to find something that could properly capture that ghost kid menace: Danny Phantom?

*

The infinite fog rolled towards him in voluminous banks, the insubstantial trees beside him were withered and twisted. Harsh rain lashed down, stinging his face and eyes. The dark earth trembled and cracked beneath his feet. A disembodied voice drifted through the haze. "What?" The rasping words crept out, "how did you get in here?" A face appeared, mouth malformed, twisted and confused. Glass eyes like an insects shimmered in and out of sight. A scent of fear suffused the air. Glowing ruby trails traced an outline around a familiar room. His lips moved of their own accord. "You requested it of me," came out in a drawl. "Turn it off! Now!" Before he could react, complete darkness fell.

*

Nightmares were nothing new to Danny. Something about having died, facing horrible creatures everyday and fighting fearsome ghosts did that to a boy. But this dream, this nightmare last night... it was... different. He shivered in his bed, pyjamas sodden with sweat. He tried to recall what the dream was about. He couldn't remember anything particularly scary about it, in fact, he could only clearly see one image, imprinted on his mind. His mother, wearing her usual blue hazmat suit and red safety goggles. Danny shook of the vestiges of the dream and swung himself out of bed. It probably didn't mean anything important.

*

"Hey Danny-o!" The jovial voice greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. The large, blockish figure of his dad bundled across the room, obviously excited about something. "Hey, Dad," Danny responded, in a monotone voice that was his attempt at expressing his disinterest in whatever crazy experiment his dad was working on. Needless to say, his dad wouldn't pick up on anything as subtle as that. "Got some big stuff we're investigating today! Can't wait to show you!" His white teeth gleamed as he spoke. "Now Jack, don't go getting Danny intrigued. You know we can't show it just yet, not until we know what it does," his mum calmly chimed in as she finished her bowl of cereal. That actually made this project more interesting to Danny. His parents were not the kind of scientists to adhere to any kind of health and safety, or to purposefully shut him out like this. Danny had been allowed full access around their laboratory and usually informed about all of their work since he'd been about ten years old. "So," he said, trying to show a natural curiosity whilst busying himself making breakfast, "what does it do?" "Well, it's basically-" his dad started, but was abruptly cut off by his wife standing up and sharply clapping him on the shoulder. "Basically sweetie, we don't know... yet. And we couldn't tell you anything because we don't know, right Jack?" She turned to look at him pointedly, hand still resting on his shoulder. Danny sat down and started to eat, not surprised. He would have to find out about this experiment another way. "Yes... yes of course." His dad grinned with the secret and shot a sly, deliberate wink to Danny. "Danny, would you be a dear and wash up our dishes from breakfast? We've really got to get to the lab," his mum asked. Before she had finished speaking, a strange rush of feeling rose up in Danny, his stomach turned over like he had butterflies, his hair stood on end. Without meaning to, Danny got up quickly, dropping his spoon which clattered noisily in his bowl. He snatched his parent's dishes from the table and began cleaning them in the kitchen sink. "Yes," the one syllable word dropped out of his mouth, in a voice that didn't seem like his own. It was as if he was watching someone else washing up, with his arms, from the confines of his own head. "Oh... thanks sweetie!" His mum remarked, in a surprised tone, "it would be nice if you reacted like this every time your father and I asked you to do something!" Danny's head nodded, his eyes in the sink and on the task, unable to look anywhere else. He heard his parents footsteps leave the kitchen and go downstairs to the basement. His thoughts tumbled over in his mind, his vision growing darker around the edges. This sensation, it was too familiar. Then, as swiftly as it had come over him, he was back to normal. The dishes lay clean and dripping on the draining board. Danny slumped down in a chair, unnerved. What was that all about? He ran his hands through his inky black hair, trying to make sense of the experience.  His mum had offhandedly asked him to do something, and he had been somehow forced to do it. Remnants of last nights dream came back to his mind, involuntarily. He racked his brains for an answer, for the familiarity of the sensation to explain itself. This must have had something to do with his parents' 'secret project'. He would have to go and investigate this for himself, now. Just as he reached for the power within him to turn into his ghost side, he blacked out.

*

"Maddie... Maddie... Maddie!" Jack shouted, either ecstatic or extremely anxious. Probably both. "Shhh Jack! I know," Maddie hissed through clenched teeth. She was gently shuddering with anticipation. Here it was, just as she had imagined, the ghost kid. In their laboratory! Dozens of mechanical objects whirred and ticked around the scientists. "Are you getting this data?" "Sure am," Jack whispered, pen flying across the page of his notebook, eyes darting to and from various devices and the floating ghostly child in the centre of the room. Maddie observed the phenomenon. It was, just hanging there, weightlessly, with a blank look on it's face. It's eyes were glazed and still and it wasn't exhibiting any of the usual traits they had associated with the ghost kid, namely being aggressiveness. In fact, it wasn't doing anything at all. The glowing, red artefact shimmered in her hand. It was obviously an ancient object used to summon ghosts. Since the phantom had appeared, the lab had grown cold; Maddie could see her breath drift in the air. In her other hand, she had an ecto-weapon directed at the ghost kid's head. If it noticed this, it made no sign. "What are you doing here?" Maddie asked, more steadily than she felt. "You requested it of me." The chilling voice echoed in the basement and reverberated in her mind. "What are you?" "A ghost." It's head slowly turned to look directly in her eyes. The unblinking, icy blue glare sent a shiver down her spine. She raised her weapon. "A human," it continued. "Now, that's not possible. A human can't be a ghost..." "Your son." These words from the spectre sunk into her chest, heavy. "No... no that can't be. You're not Danny, you're not my Danny. This is obviously a trick." Maddie turned towards her husband imploringly, eyes wide in suspicion. "Yeah, no putrid ectoplasmic manifestation is a son of ours!" Jack bellowed, as if he wasn't afraid, notes and pen forgotten. A solid thunk on the metal floor made them both jump. Maddie's eyes shot down to see she had dropped the artefact in her distress. The ghost seemed to flicker, it's face turning from Maddie, to Jack, then to the room around it. It appeared to regain control of it's limbs, it's mouth noiselessly hanging open. Maddie instinctively charged up the weapon and fired, but was left only with a black, smoking ring on the wall behind where the phantom had been. The lab was suddenly quiet. All of their equipment stood still. Jack moved quickly to her side, comforting her. "Don't worry Maddie, it was just trying to trick us." Maddie said nothing, only remembering in horror the look of fear and confusion on the ghost kid's face before it disappeared. In that one moment, it had looked too much like her son, like Danny.

[halothenthehorns]

Lily’s POV on being called a Mudblood by Snape

An Excerpt from my Marauders prequal, We Were-  Chapter 5: Free

Lily rubbed at her temple in frustration as she strained her mind to come up with the counter jinx for wiggling ears. Surely she'd get points knocked off for using Finite more than five times, and there was an exact one, she just couldn't remember-

"Quills down," a voice called from the front of the room. She sighed and watched her DADA exam fly off. Over a hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air and into Professor Flitwick's outstretched arms, knocking him backwards off his feet. Several people laughed. Mary and Ersa came forward to help him to his feet, holding Professor Flitwick beneath the elbows and lifted him back upright.

"Thank you . . . thank you," panted Professor Flitwick. "Very well, everybody, you're free to go!"

Lily stayed in her seat and kept pouring over her scratch paper for the answer still so she could swat herself in the face with it. They still had practical's after lunch, and she just knew this exact thing was bound to come up!

"Erm, Lily?"

She looked around in surprise to see Mary hovering by her desk. Bless and Ersa were standing at the doors impatiently.

"Oh, yes, err, coming," she laughed nervously as she grabbed her bag and realized she'd been the last one in here, she still wasn't used to anyone waiting around for her for once.

Mary had been going out of her way lately to include Lily, and she wasn't going to ask why anytime soon in fear it would end. Ersa and Bless were a tad less enthusiastic, but neither had spoken a word against her as far as Lily knew. She could only guess Mary had told them about what happened, and the fact Lily had been avoiding Severus this past month seemed to have put them in a slightly more easy going mood towards her of late.

"So, how do you think you did?" Mary asked eagerly. "I got all the wrist movements I'm sure, Professor Liz has been great about that, but I'm positive I swapped an incantation or two."

"Yeah, we got really lucky with her our OWL year," Lily agreed. "I can't believe she won the thousand galleon draw and left to travel, I'm so jealous!"

Bless and Ersa actually giggled in agreement, it was a wonderful feeling as they began circling towards the lake. They began taking off their shoes and letting their feet cool in the water as Lily properly answered, "alright, I guess, not as bad as I feared anyways. That question over werewolves was silly, I think, I absolutely missed that. Who's going to look at whether the tails tufted or not when you've got any kind of beast coming towards you?"

The girls laughed in agreement again, and Lily was starting to feel a bit euphoric at how normal all of this felt.

"All right, Snivellus?" Potter's voice once again shattered the peaceful air.

She looked around with everybody else and was not surprised at what she saw.

Potter had, as always, been hovering somewhere near her. Severus wasn't too far off, engrossed in his paper, or he'd just been looking for another fight and trying to follow Potter once more. She grit her teeth, but couldn't seem to force herself to turn away.

It must have been the first reason though, because he didn't react in time. "Expelliarmus!" His wand went shooting a dozen feet away. She grasped her own but forced herself still. Mulciber and Avery were his friends, they'd come along and see this and help him out.

"Impedimenta!" Potter shouted next, and she went as stiff as Severus did when he fell.

'It's not your problem,' she kept chanting at herself. Sev never left them alone, and he never would if she kept stepping in. Somebody had to stop the pattern eventually. He was disarmed now, surely they'd waltz off laughing like braying donkeys.

Instead they began going closer, Potter even looking right at her with a clear challenge in his eye for what she'd do next.

'Don't, don't do it,' but she wasn't sure who she was even hoping for anymore, Sev, herself, or Potter.

"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" Potter demanded.

"I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment," said Black viciously. "There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word."

Several people watching laughed, Bless and Ersa sounded particularly grating right next to her.

Sev was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.

"You - wait," he panted, staring up at Potter with an expression of purest loathing, "you - wait!"

"Wait for what?" said Black coolly. "What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?"

Snape let out a stream of mixed swear words and hexes, but with his wand ten feet away nothing happened.

Lily got slowly to her feet, heart thudding madly away. 'You're just giving them both what they want,' she tried one last time to stop herself.

"Wash out your mouth," said Potter coldly. "Scourgify!"

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape's mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him -

"Leave him ALONE!"

Ersa and Bless cringed away from her, Potter had the audacity to look at her again and ruffle up his hair with a smile he'd finally gotten his reward, and Severus didn't even look at her.

"All right, Evans?" said Potter, he sounded like a complete ponce when he made his voice do that.

"Leave him alone," she repeated. She'd never hated anyone so much in her life, she couldn't ever have just one thing without him ruining it. Not her best friend who now hated her because of him, not even any new friends, surely Mary wouldn't even want anything to do with her after this. She couldn't change her ways, she'd never just stand by and let them be so awful to anyone. "What's he done to you?" Maybe one of them would answer, Severus never had.

"Well," said Potter, pretending to have a brain for a moment as he clearly strained himself to think, "it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean . . ."

Even more people laughed this time, like this was funny, their weekly show they'd been lacking this month now back at the best time ever. She wanted to hex every last one of them, starting with this one. "You think you're funny," she said coldly, "but you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."

"I will if you go out with me, Evans," said Potter quickly. "Go on . . . go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."

Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Sev was beginning to inch towards his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.

She was not responding to give him a chance to recover, she told herself. "I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid." Sev was getting ever closer to his wand. Maybe, this one time that she told them both at once she wasn't playing their games, Sev would walk off with her instead of fighting back.

"Bad luck, Prongs," said Black briskly, and turned back to Snape. "OI!"

He'd directed his wand straight at Potter; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of Potter's face, spattering his robes with blood.

Potter whirled about: a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants.

Many people in the small crowd cheered now. Lily swallowed a laugh for the first time herself, the comeuppance for him never listening to her being thrown in his face like that. Instead, she snapped, "Let him down!"

"Certainly," said Potter and he jerked his wand upwards; Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. Disentangling himself from his robes he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Black said, "Petrificus Totalus!" and Snape keeled over again, rigid as a board.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now, beyond tired of all of this. They eyed it warily, so there were some brain cells left.

"Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you," said Potter earnestly.

"Take the curse off him, then!"

He sighed deeply, then turned and muttered the counter-curse.

"There you go," he said casually as Severus struggled to his feet. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus - "

"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"

Something fell into place, it felt oddly light as it settled around her, this clarity of how he'd always seen her, who he'd really been pretending around all these years. She blinked the fog away for the last time. "Fine, I won't bother in future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus."

It didn't feel as good as she'd hoped stooping to their childish levels of using that insult, she didn't feel much of anything right now except that crystal clarity.

"Apologize to Evans!" Potter roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

"I don't want you to make him apologize," Lily shouted, rounding on him, this was normal, this should make her feel back to normal. "You're as bad as he is."

"What?" yelped James. "I'd NEVER call you a - you-know-what!"

"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can - I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK." A feeling finally began kindling in her chest like she'd hoped, and it was for him, for Severus Snape, for every goddamn student in this whole castle. She turned on her heel and hurried away.

"Evans!" James shouted after her. "Hey, EVANS!"

She didn't look back.

Instead she moved faster as her façade began to crack, the first one came as she found the familiar steps, and she finally collapsed in her potions classroom without a clue how she'd gotten onto her stool as tears began.

There was no brewing potions, the place was empty for exams and felt cold for the first time without the simmering heat and haze of colors. Her own cauldron was already packed away in her trunk. His was in an unused classroom a few doors over, their love potion to beat all love potions still brewing. Instead she sat at their usual desk, shoulders shaking and coughing so hard it hurt because she couldn't stop the horrible sobs from coming no matter how much she wanted to.

Her hair fanned a curtain around her, it was the only color in her blurry eyes until a pretty flash of rainbow danced about when she swiped at her nose. She moved on instinct, but the clasp wouldn't come loose, and she began seething in frustration she couldn't get it off, he'd probably locked it in place back then and she'd been a fool for too long. She started slamming her wrist down on the desk now, she'd break it into a million pieces before she left that thing in place. She fell off the stool and still didn't stop.

A lifetime later and no seconds at all, she was alone with an overturned desk with no idea why the leg was halfway across the room. Her hand was a swollen, ugly mess from the wrist joint, every one of her fingers looked more like sausages and her arm was tingling unpleasantly, but the blueish tint it was starting to resemble was the only bit of color she cared about.

Trying to move her right arm as little as possible, she got slowly to her feet, using the smooth wood for support and hoping she didn't get a splinter now of all times, her mind only on the hospital wing instead of the rainbow links in all corners. Just one thing at a time.

She made it to the hallway and barely registered Professor Slughorn passing her, but he noticed, his great stomach nearly flattened her as he did a double take.

"Miss Evans! We've been looking all over the school for you, you've missed your Defense practical's!"

"Oh," was all she could think to say to that.

His eyes cast over her, and quantified laughably so when he saw her wrist. He escorted her up to the hospital wing demanding who had done this to her, he'd see them expelled, but she didn't bother to answer. She only listened with the most passive of interests later when McGonagall came by to see her and explain she could retake the DADA exam this summer for free, but she'd have to pay out of pocket for the rest if she missed,  as she wasn't excused from them since Madam Pomfrey had already fixed the damage to her arm.

The Matron was kind enough to adhere to her request to put curtains up after a seventh year came in hyperventilating about their final exam, ironically the one time she actually wanted to be alone and the place she'd found a modicum of solitude had people all around, and as always, the worst one of all as night fell.

"Mr. Potter? What on Earth-"

"Won't stop bleeding mam," his voice sounded as cheerfully casual as ever like he was still hailing her in the halls.

A slight creak of bed springs and several uttered charms seemed to prove his point quickly. There was something in her voice Lily suddenly suspected students had been hearing a lot this year, as the usually quiet nurse who always respected the students boundaries of how exactly they'd gotten into their latest magical accident asked in a no nonsense voice, "Mr. Potter, how did this happen?"

"You've never asked that before," his voice was edgy, unsure now, Lily had never heard him actually unconfident before.

"This is Dark Magic Mr. Potter, to not be closing properly! Please tell me, it will help find a solution faster." Silence was her answer, and she gave a resound sigh when it hovered in the air and told in strictest tones, "you stay right there mister, keep pressure now."

Black's voice made her startle, she hadn't realized he was capable of being quiet, let alone here the whole time. "Why didn't you rat out that freak! The only reason I didn't is the last time I opened my mouth you didn't speak to me for three weeks!"

"Like it'll do any good," Potter sounded exhausted, she got the feeling this was not the first time they'd had this argument. "I'm far more concerned where Evans has run off to, can't believe you dragged me down here-"

"You're like snow in July mate! Here, swap out, you're dripping again."

It was so inconceivable, the care in his tone, the human conversation she was living apart from.

"Listen Prongs, all her dorm mates swear on their wand she's not up there, and she wasn't in the dungeons, Peter said some fight went on down there and she's good at avoiding those, right? Shall I go get the map, if you're so worried?"

A smaller pause, she was just lying on her side, staring at the gaudy curtains, hardly daring to breathe.  She didn't know what map would be useful, but she was far too hollow to care. Finally, her blasted answer how he always seemed to know where she was so close at hand, and all she wanted was to make the noise stop.

"No, I guess not, won't do any good now. Pomfrey will have me in here the rest of the night thanks to you!"

"Moony and Wormtail will come down here and tell us when she comes up to the common room," his voice was so soothing and gentle. "Just relax back, yeah?" How close had he come to passing out before allowing this? "Far more importantly, what's Snivilius' punishment this time? I am not joking anymore about tying him up and leaving him in the Forest after this stunt." She reached up to touch her ear, just to make sure it hadn't fallen off in shock as he switched gears like that. There was that familiar cruel tone she knew so well.

"We'll have to plan it, make sure Hagrid can't walk in and stop us, might have to wait tell we get back." His voice was in tandem, and her empty stomach clenched.

She was saved from hearing the rest of that by the nurses return. "Here now, let me see how deep it is- oh yes, you're going to have a scar there dear. Start dabbing this on now, and drink up, I'll be back in just one moment."

The curtains did not part enough for her to get a peek out, let alone them in. She already knew the question on Madam Pomfrey's lips, and begged of her in the softest, most pleading voice, "may I have a dreamless potion? Please?" She was spent beyond her years, begging not to have to face the noise again so soon.

Her face was kind and understanding as she nodded and gave her a gentle pat, Lily wondered just how often people asked to stay here.

She'd lost track of the two, but now their voices trickled back through the curtains.

"James, mate, don't fall asleep yet. Come on, drink some more."  

"Tastes like I'm sucking on a knut," his voice slurred with exhaustion.

"I'll tell Evans you said that!" His voice had a joking tone she wasn't used to hearing, there was no menace or threat in it. "She might actually talk to you if she finds out you don't swing her way!" Another pause, the slightest sounds of the gulping stopped. "Sorry." She could not even begin to imagine the look on Potter's face for his best friend to sound so genuine.

"I just can't believe she really thinks I'm the same as him! I'd never call anyone that, let alone her! Hurts worse than this bloody cut she really- I, I don't know how to bloody-"

"We've been telling you for years she's up her own ass too much mate," he still sounded more apologetic than anything. "Maybe though, maybe this'll finally get her to ease up some, even she can't come back from defending that?"

The final bell for curfew rang just as the door opened again, and the matron did not sound pleased.

"Mr. Black, I will issue a detention if you linger any farther. Go on now, shoo, off to bed with you while I treat my patients."

There was no rebuttal or argument, just the soft thud of the door closing. It was not even the second most unbelievable thing she'd heard today.

"I'm going to patch this on Mr. Potter, yes I know it stinks but please, no don't scratch! We'll try another salve here in a moment, drink some more, you're so pale love. I'll be back in one shake."

The curtains fluttered again as she was handed the vial. She popped the quark without a second thought, a tangible need to tip it all the way back and escape. The blackness inside her began swirling up, behind her eyes, she was finally just allowed some peace as she sank back to the pillows in the quiet.

She woke up on the first day of the rest of her life still alone. With a painful feeling lodged deep in her heart, but finally a sense of feeling at all she would not ignore, she shoved the pattern aside to see Madam Pomfrey was tidying up. The bed beside her was still rumpled, she was tisking and putting away three chairs that seemed to have moved themselves overnight.

She didn't bother to attend her Potions exam that day, but heard the cheers of delight even from a floor above as fifth years exalted. It went in one ear and out the other as she kept replaying it all in her head. Mudblood, dark spells, had there ever been anyone more pathetic than her? And Potter, James Potter, what a mystery that lunatic was...

Madam Pomfrey finally insisted she leave as dinner came and went, reminding she had to be packed for the carriages first thing in the morning. She didn't bother to correct she already was, she knew she couldn't hide in here forever, she'd have to get back on that train eventually.

Lily had hoped Mary had enough kindness in her not to bother her as she lay curled up in her bed in her night things to feign sleep having missed the Feast, but that was dashed as a tentative touch came to her shoulder.

A part of her wanted to hex the girl away, but she couldn't stand another fight, she'd probably evaporate into nothing. Instead she sat up and didn't care why Mary flinched and wouldn't look her in the eye as she whispered, "he's ah, down at the portrait hole. Said he'll sleep there again if you don't talk to him. He didn't believe me yesterday when I said you weren't-"

"Thanks Mary," Lily told her mechanically, she didn't even grab a robe as she slipped out of the door.

He really was there. She couldn't believe the nerve of him.

"I'm sorry," he said the moment she stepped out, but her hand didn't even leave the Fat Lady's portrait to swing shut on her. Every apology in their past might never have existed in this moment.

"I'm not interested."

"I'm sorry!" He actually tried again.

"Save your breath, I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just -"

"Slipped out?" There was no pity in her voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. Nobody can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends, you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

"No, listen, I didn't mean - "

" - to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"

He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole. She never spoke to him again.

[elizabeethan]

You Are Bloody Brilliant

Part 4/6 of my Season 3 canon divergence series, It’s About Bloody Time

Catch up on tumblr or AO3

Summary: “Good morning, baby,” Emma hears through the haze of sleep that is still clinging to her mind. She nearly cringes at the random use of the horrible pet name as she feels a hand softly grazing over the skin of her stomach. “Happy birthday.” Her sleepy confusion grows as she thinks Killian has forgotten that her birthday’s just passed. “You were conceived ten weeks ago, today,” she hears through a small chuckle. “One of the best nights of my life, perhaps, but I won’t soil your innocent mind with any more details.”

A/N: It’s early! This story will be coming to a close soon! I’ll add 2 more parts, but I also don’t think I can resist writing dad!killian so it’s entirely possible that i’ll add a few one shots along the way. Thank you to everyone who has read, liked, reblogged, and commented on this so far. The feedback I have gotten has been so kind and it’s what’s encouraging me to finish this story!

I don't have a beta so... sorry

“Good morning, baby,” Emma hears through the haze of sleep that is still clinging to her mind. She nearly cringes at the random use of the horrible pet name as she feels a hand softly grazing over the skin of her stomach. “Happy birthday.” Her sleepy confusion grows as she thinks Killian has forgotten that her birthday’s just passed. “You were conceived ten weeks ago, today,” she hears through a small chuckle. “One of the best nights of my life, perhaps, but I won’t soil your innocent mind with any more details.” Once her post-sleep brain fog clears up a bit, it’s apparent that Killian is talking to the baby this morning, softly giving the little guy an update on their development.

“You're the size of a prune, which I don’t believe I’ve ever tried before.” His hand moves away. “You've been growing all of your vital organs. And you're starting to look more and more like a little human now that you're developing knees and elbows.” His hand returns for a moment, circling briefly and leaving again. “Your mum should be starting to feel a bit better soon, but you're still sending her to the toilet to be sick every few hours, aren’t you, love?” she smiles, opening her eyes to see his head resting on her hip as he holds his new phone, the sun streaming through the salt-watered windows and making his eyes shine. “She’s also still very sleepy, but growing you is hard work. I think she’s doing phenomenally. She’s been complaining of heartburn a lot, which I didn’t know had a name, and she also might have some headaches.” he says, his voice still low as he presses a soft kiss to her low belly. “You are a troublemaker, aren’t you?”

Emma can’t believe that she’s falling for the most perfect man on the planet. Who knew that when she left him on that beanstalk, she would end up here, willingly sleeping on his ship and happily pregnant with his child?

“Ah, did you say good morning to your mummy, little one?” She chuckles softly now, slowly closing her eyes again as he presses another kiss to her belly and slides a hand up to pull her shirt back down. “Good morning, Swan.”

“Morning,” she grumbles out, pulling a pillow from next to her over her eyes. “What time is it?”

“According to the clock on my talking phone, it’s 7:23.”

“It’s just called a phone.” Her voice is still thick with sleep, but she can’t help but to smile at his inexperience with modern technology.

“That’s an impractical name. It’s used for talking.”

“You just used it to tell my baby that he’s the size of a wrinkly old prune,” she deadpans, eyes still closed.

“Just giving him the facts, love. I believe you would call it science.”

She smiles again before rolling over on her stomach, but as soon as she does, the motion jars her. Staying on the ship with him is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it hasn’t been helping with her nausea.

She groans as she moves to stand, grabbing onto his hand briefly to steady herself as she stumbles through the room to the basin. He’s behind her in a moment, his hand holding her hair and his blunt arm running up and down her back.

Once she’s finished and her face is wiped clean, he hands her a glass of water and a few crackers, their routine finally solidified. She’s even taken to keeping a toothbrush in his desk, which he also hands her.

“Ugh,” she starts after she finishes brushing her teeth. “I love this boat, but it’s not helping the morning sickness. Or afternoon or night sickness.”

“Boat,” he scoffs, rolling her eyes as she pops a Saltine in her mouth and chases it with water. He walks her back to the small bunk and sits her down, kissing her forehead before planting himself next to her. “We’ll have to work something else out, aye love?”

She nods. “I always sleep so well here, but I guess I can’t handle the waves.” It’s true that she’s been sleeping better when she sleeps with him, so each time Henry spends the night at Regina’s, Emma spends the night with Killian.

“Tragic,” he says, his arm sliding around her waist. “Though the applications say you should be starting to feel better soon.”

“Apps.”

“Either way. I suppose now is as good a time as any to show you what I’ve been working on.”

She brings her brows together and looks up to him, seeing his bright eyes shimmering back down at her. “What have you been working on?”

“Perhaps I’ll show you tonight after work.” Emma groans at the concept of going to the station, leaning her head onto his shoulder as he chuckles and holds her slightly tighter and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “I wouldn’t argue if you chose to stay home today, though.”

His use of the word home makes her grin against his shoulder. They haven’t spoken much at all about what they’re doing here, but it almost feels like they don’t have to. He was right when he said not much needed to change between them— aside from the whole baby thing. She supposes that now she doesn’t have to sneak out, and Mary Margaret blessedly doesn’t assume she’s sneaking off to meet her ex.

If anything, she’s been feeling more secure in whatever it is that they share. Something shifted three weeks ago once they saw the little life they created. She’s heard that it’s difficult for dads to feel the full impact of fatherhood before the baby’s born, and if Killian becomes any better of a father than he has been so far, she might not survive the process of raising this kid with him.

This pregnancy is different from her last. She assumes it’s because of the changes her body has gone through over the last 12 years— she was practically a child herself the last time she was pregnant. This time around, she’s noticed that her morning (and afternoon, and evening) sickness is far more severe, as is her fatigue and breast tenderness.

She’s also recently become horny as hell.

For the last few weeks, she hasn’t really felt in the mood for sex because of how sick she’s been, but the nausea has started to fade a bit, giving way to arousal a few days ago when she watched Killian happily research the best apps for tracking gestation and fetal development. It’s the little things, she supposes.

She’s still frustrated from their date night, when she solicited him for sex and then promptly fell asleep, but damn if that wasn’t the best date she’s ever been on.

“Maybe I can stay for a little while longer,” she says softly, pressing her nose into his neck just below his ear. Her favorite part about waking up to him is the fact that he doesn’t wear a shirt to bed, giving her as much access to his fair and tattered skin as she could possibly desire.

“That so?” he asks, the shift in his tone evident. She nods against his neck and nips at his ear lobe. “Are you sure it’s… safe?”

“It’s not like I can get pregnant again,” she says, laughing lightly as her hand runs up his scarred back.

“I meant for the baby, love. Is it… I mean…”

“You're not gonna hurt him, Killian. The female body takes precautions to make sure of that.”

He nods softly, turning his head to press a gentle kiss to her temple. “Are you sure you're in the mood, love? I don’t want you to feel pressured; I know you’ve been feeling sick.”

“Didn’t you read about increased blood flow leading to excessive desire during pregnancy?”

“Aye,” he chuckles darkly. “Although I wasn’t sure if that was something you were experiencing.”

“Trust me, it is.”

He breathes out in a huff before moving quickly to capture her lips between his, his tongue sliding over her bottom lip before she allows him in. His right hand slides up her side again, this time reaching a swollen and tender breast under her shirt, and she hisses slightly.

“Sorry,” he murmurs against her mouth. “It’s okay, it feels good, just sore.”

He nods, sliding his thumb over her nipple and kissing her again before whispering, “I’ll be gentle with you.”

She sighs at the feeling of his skin against hers, reveling in the sensation of being so sensitive to his touch. She’s barely holding it together just from his hand on her breast, so she can only imagine what sex will be like.

When she’s lying down all the way, her back against the pillows and his body nestled atop hers, he stops briefly so that he can back away and pull her t-shirt off, leaving her in only a pair a pink cotton underwear. His breath catches in his throat when he looks down at her, and she can only imagine the thoughts running through his mind at the sight of her suddenly massive boobs.

“Gods,” he mumbles, his eyes finally meeting hers. “You are the most beautiful goddess of a woman I’ve ever had the privilege of laying eyes on.”

She’s blushing immediately, and not just because of how turned on he’s made her. “You're just saying that because I’m pregnant with your kid,” she jokes lightly.

“Aye, but it was true before that, and it’ll be true once he’s born.”

“Could be a she.”

“Either way, I’m the luckiest man alive.”

She can’t take it anymore, she’s liable to start crying if he doesn’t stop with his sappy romantic words (or if he doesn’t get inside her). So, she reaches up and wraps her hands around his neck, pulling him to her so that she can kiss him with ferocity, their tongues dancing together and their lips becoming swollen.

He starts kissing his way down her jaw, her neck, her chest, until he reaches her left breast and starts swirling his tongue around the nipple, making her moan loudly and embarrassingly. She feels the smug bastard smirk against her skin, and she knows that her excessive horniness is not doing anything to tone down his excessive ego.

He releases her nipple with a soft pop and works his way further south, kissing her through her underwear as he scrapes his nails up and down her inner thigh, driving her insane. She’s close to shouting at him to get on with it before she feels him tugging the garment over her ass and down her legs, discarding them on the floor beneath the bed.

Once she’s bare before him, he spreads her at the knees and licks a long strip along her center that causes her to moan much louder than she anticipated, and she knows for sure that she won’t last long. He’s probably grinning as he sucks and licks and kisses at her clit, swirling his tongue so expertly that she thinks she might burst. Once his finger slides in, followed closely by a second, he curls them against her as he continues his work against her clit, and it’s mere moments before she a whimpering mess. She clenches hard against his fingers, her entire body seizing up as she rides out the most intense orgasm she thinks she’s ever had. Although, she seems to think that exact thing almost every time she and Killian are together.

His fingers barely stop stroking inside her as he somehow shimmies his way out of his boxers, the very ones he modeled for her last week when he finally made the switch to modern undergarments. He’s up at her level and kissing her, knowing exactly where she needs him before she can even think about it herself. As he lines himself up against her, he continues kissing her and eventually moves his lips down to her favorite spot below her ear, sucking and nipping and licking the sensitive skin. God has she missed having sex with him.

“Fuck,” he breathes out against her skin as he finally slides into her. She herself is moaning and whimpering at the feeling of being stretched by him. It’s slightly uncomfortable and a bit tender, but she’s able to quickly and easily push those thoughts from her mind when she feels him slide out minutely and back in. “Bloody fucking goddess, you are.”

“Jesus,” she says, throwing her head back into the pillows. “Fuck me.”

“It’s Killian,” he corrects.

She nearly has time to roll her eyes but loses interest in doing so when he begins thrusting harder into her, his hand holding hers above her head as her mouth hangs open in a silent scream of pleasure. He’s propped up on his left elbow, just barely hovering over her face, so she leans up and kisses him as he fucks her to oblivion.

She’s an absolute moaning mess after just a few minutes, and she can’t honestly believe how quickly he’s bringing her to this point. He’s always been great at what he does, but having sex with Killian while she’s pregnant and horny may be the most incredible feeling in the world.

“Killian,” she whimpers, and he lets go of her hands so she can bring one down around his shoulder and dig her nails into his skin and the other to her clit, her heels pressing into his ass to push him deeper. “Don’t stop. Killian, please don’t stop.”

He shakes his head against her neck, sucking on her skin again. “I won’t angel. Come for me, Emma.”

It’s as if that was all she needed, his words pulling a trigger that sets off the explosion throughout her body. She’s seeing stars as she comes with force, squeezing every part of her around him and potentially adding to the scars on his back. She buries her face in the spot where his neck meets his shoulder and bites into his skin, then releases as she lets out a shout. He’s toppling over the edge right after her, grabbing her hand and clutching it in his as he whispers curses and dirty words and loving little statements into her ear.

“Fuck,” she finally mutters once she’s caught her breath. “Morning sex is fantastic, but now I’m ready to go back to bed.”

He laughs against her skin, lifting his body off of hers, and she mourns the loss of his warm weight. “You may have time for a short nap, love, it’s not yet 8:00.”

“Guess it didn’t take too long, huh? I told you I was horny.”

“I’m not complaining, darling,” he assures her as he hands her a cloth and steps away to clean himself.

“Are you still coming tonight?” she asks once she’s cleaned up and lying comfortably in bed.

He sits on the edge of the bed next to her, running his fingers softly against her brow bone as he often enjoys doing. “Of course I am.”

“I’m nervous,” she admits.

“To see your own parents?”

She shrugs, nosing at his palm. “I just get the feeling that my mom is still… I don’t know, unhappy about this whole thing.”

He sighs and moves her over slightly before lying down next to her and kissing the tip of her nose. “Because it was unplanned?”

“Unplanned is the understatement of the year, Hook.” He breathes out a light laugh and nudges her cheek with his nose, urging her to go on. “My mom expected me to get back with Neal. It’s hard for her to see that that isn’t happening, no matter how happy I am.”

“You're happy, darling?” she nods and smiles at him. “Good. I’m just confused about why she wants you to be with him so badly after all he’s put you through.”

She falters slightly, cringing. “Well…”

“Swan, your parents know what happened, don’t they?” She shrugs, shaking her head. “Well that explains things, love. All this time I was racking my brains over why on earth they would want you to be with him, although I suppose I am rather biased. But now it makes sense.”

“I guess so.”

“Why haven’t you told them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Emma,” he starts, leaning up slightly and running his hand along her jaw. “You can tell me anything, love.”

“I’m just,” she sighs. “It’s embarrassing. He completely screwed me over and I was so young and stupid. I still can’t believe I let him get me like that.”

“You were a child, love. No one would expect you to have known any better.”

“Still. I spent my whole life not… not needing them. I turned out okay after everything. And I don’t want them to know—or I guess I'm scared for them to know—that maybe in that moment, I did need them.” He nods. “I don’t want them to feel guilty for what they did because I know that they did what they thought they had to do, but it doesn’t stop me from wondering how different, how much better my life would have been, if…” she sighs, words falling flat.

“Aye love,” he sighs after a moment, kissing her nose again. “But think of what you gained. If that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have Henry.”

“Yeah,” she breathes out, snuggling into his chest and fighting off tears.

“I understand that it’s scary and you don’t want them to know, darling, but it might make things easier for you if they did. You can wonder ‘what if’ for the rest of your life, but it won’t change anything, trust me.”

“I do.” He grins at her, kissing her lips softly, briefly, before pulling away.

“I'm sorry to make you talk of such disconsolate things so early, Swan. I didn’t mean to push you.”

“You didn’t, it’s okay. I know you're right. It’ll just be difficult to get my shit together enough to actually talk to them.”

He nods again, kissing her once more before he moves to get out of bed. “Would you like to nap before work, my darling? I’ll wake you at 8:30.”

She grins now, sighing as she snuggles into the blankets and drifts into a quick and dreamless sleep.

~~~~

When she finally gets to the station, a little late because, try as he might, Killian simply could not get her ass out of bed, her father is waiting for her. He’s taken over patrols for her over the last few weeks, mostly because she couldn’t go an hour without a trash can or toilet within arm’s reach, but she thinks it’s also a protective-dad thing. As much as she hates the idea of someone doting over her or thinking she can’t do her job because of her pregnancy, she doesn’t mind the idea of her father doting over her. It’s still something that she’s getting used to, and just another example of how different this pregnancy is from her last.

“Hi hon,” he says as she sits down.

“Hey,” she says back, taking a deep breath and nearly falling back to sleep on the spot.

“Feeling okay?”

She almost smirks at the knowledge that one of her pregnancy symptoms has been sated for the time being, and nods. “A little better today, actually. I was only sick once this morning.”

He grimaces, an unpleasant sound leaving his lips. “The fact that you’re sleeping on a boat can’t be helping matters.”

“Don’t let Killian hear you call it that.”

“Don’t let him hear you call his boat an it,” David laughs. She smiles too, reaching towards her computer mouse and jiggling it until the screen comes on. “Elsa might come by today, to look at some town records.”

Emma nods at that, excited to have something other than phone calls and paperwork to do today. “Sounds good.”

“Your mother is very excited for tonight. Wants to know if you have any special requests.”

She purses her lips in thought before answering, “I’ve been really craving steak lately. And onions.”

“Steak and onions,” he says, nodding then rolling his eyes with a laugh. “I’m sure she can figure out a steak recipe. She won’t make it for me, so I’ll just guilt her into making it for her pregnant daughter.”

She smiles briefly before letting it fade as she turns her attention back to her screen.

“She is excited, you know. For the baby.”

Emma nearly rolls her eyes, letting out a sigh as she turns back to her father. “Just not for the baby’s father,” she replies, and it’s not a question.

“It’s a lot for her to take in. She thought for the longest time that you were with Neal.”

“And I’m not, I haven’t been for 12 years. I just wish she could see that I’m happy where I am.”

“I know, hon. Just—go easy on her. She’s used to true love and love at first sight and all that. She was raised differently from how you were in this world.”

“Trust me, I’m very aware of how differently the two of us were raised,” Emma snaps, immediately regretting her snarky comment. “Shit,” she mutters. “I’m sorry, that came out sounding a lot more hostile than I intended.”

“No, you're right.” He stands from his desk, making his way to hers and pulling up a chair so that they're sitting close together. “I know that it wasn’t easy for you growing up here. And I often kick myself wondering how different things would be for you if we had been here, or if you had been able to stay. What we did they day you were born… I still have nightmares about it.”

“You do?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Hell, I carried my newborn through a hoard of Black Knights and sent her away through a magic wardrobe for 28 years. I don’t know if I can ever come back from that as a parent.”

She frowns at him. “You did what you thought you had to do, to give me my best chance.”

“Just like you did with Henry. And look at the two of you now,” he says with a smile, although she can feel the grip that her guilt has on her heart tightening. “Raising a baby from the start is gonna be so different.”

“Yeah,” she nearly whispers, her eyes stinging and her throat burning as she holds back tears. She knows what he means, and knows that he means well, but she can’t stop the feelings of guilt and regret from flooding her entire being. How can she raise this new baby after what she did to Henry? After she subjected him to being raised by the literal Evil Queen?

How can she tell him?

“Anyway,” her father mercifully continues, standing from his chair and stepping back towards his desk. “I’d better be off. Patrol isn’t gonna do itself.”

She smiles as he leaves the room, letting it fade immediately as she ponders her regret. Before she knows it, the tears she was barely holding back are free falling down her face as she thinks about what this new baby will mean to Henry.

~~~~

Emma has every intention of telling her parents about her past with Neal at dinner, and Killian couldn’t be more encouraging. When she got back to his ship and told him, his face nearly split in two as he smiled at her. Then he told her that he was proud of her.

But when they arrive at her parents’ loft for dinner, Henry’s there, and suddenly her plans fly out the window. She’s just lucky that her mother didn’t invite Neal or Regina, too.

It’s not that she isn’t elated to see her son, who’s been spending a few more nights a week with Regina. It’s just that she knows that she can’t have this conversation in front of him. She also can’t freely display any pregnancy symptoms for fear of him somehow putting the pieces together.

Once they're sitting down for dinner, she smells the steak her mother has cooked, and her mouth begins watering.

“You requested this, love?” Kilian asks, squeezing her knee under the table.

“Mhmm,” she nods at him, giving him a soft smile.

“It smells delicious, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you,” Mary Margaret says with a strained smile. She places the salad and dressing on the table before stepping away and returning with a bowl of mashed potatoes. Killian serves everyone some salad, then offers her the Italian dressing and she nearly starts dry heaving, shaking her head and reaching for lemon pepper instead.

“So,” Henry says as he starts cutting into his steak. “Are you dating my mom?”

Killian chokes a bit on his Merlot, placing the glass down graciously and patting his mouth with his napkin. “Uh,” he starts, looking over to Emma for relief. She shrugs. “I, um, well I suppose I’m courting her.”

Henry nods pensively, stabbing into his salad and taking a huge bite. “Does courting mean dating?”

Emma smirks at the fact that he will not give this up, and glances over to Killian. “Yeah, kid. It does.”

“So, you're not dating my dad?” It’s Emma’s turn to choke on her drink, trying hard to swallow the water left in her mouth. She shakes her head no, unsure if she can trust her voice. “I figured. You haven’t been coming to dinner lately.”

“Henry, it doesn’t mean that I don’t still love you. And I still have love for him because he gave me you. But your dad and I… we just don’t work anymore.”

“He said he wants to date you, but it’s your decision.” Mother fucker filling her son’s head with bullshit, putting it on her.“But you don’t want to date him.”

“I don’t, kid.” She figures honesty is the best policy.

He nods again, shoveling a large helping of mashed potatoes into his mouth as Kilian reaches down and squeezes her knee again. Her heart is racing, and her palms are sweating at her son’s interrogation.

“That’s okay,” he finally says around his potatoes. “I could tell Captain Hook liked you and you like him.”

“You could?” she asks, smiling slightly.

“He’s not really keeping it a secret,” he deadpans, and Killian laughs along with Emma. David smiles and Mary Margaret might possibly loosen up, a little. (Maybe the wine is helping on that front, too.)

As they finish dinner and move on to dessert—chocolate ice cream, at Emma’s request and Henry’s fierce approval— she continues to ponder her son’s maturity. How can a 12-year-old who’s been through so much be so easy going? She at first thinks she just got lucky, but then she realizes that she played no role in raising him. As much as it pains her to admit, a large part of his attitude is courtesy of Regina’s upbringing of him.

Guilt settles over her again as she thinks about the decision she made 12 years ago. She knew at the time that it was the right thing to do. There was no way she would have been fit to be his mother when she got out of jail. She had no money, no home, and hardly any means to take care of herself, never mind an infant. But there’s a part of her that will always regret giving him up, that part made especially large when she saw the emotional torment he went through for much of his short life.

Knowing what he’s been through with Regina, knowing that she herself played a very heavy hand in putting him in that situation, makes her stomach twist. But knowing that she now has a second baby on the way, one whom she intends to raise with its father when she didn’t do the same for her first, makes her positively nauseous, and she wonders if she’ll have to excuse herself for the restroom before dessert is over.

After they drop Henry off at Regina’s house, they switch places and Killian drives Emma to the pier, slowly and carefully. He’s been doing amazingly well at driving, and she’s surprised by how much he’s been able to pick up in a few short weeks.

Once they arrive, he puts the car in park but doesn’t kill the engine, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning his body towards her.

“Alright, love?”

She shrugs as tears immediately fill her eyes, her throat burning again as her chest feels tight.

“I couldn’t tell them with Henry there,” she practically whimpers, her voice sounding completely pathetic.

“I know, Swan. It’s alright.”

She finds herself struggling to look him in the eyes, so she focuses on the horizon and the boats sitting along it. “I just…” she can’t finish her thought, shrugging again and letting her body deflate into the passenger seat.

“Something else is eating at you, love.”

“it’s… it’s Henry. How can I… how can I raise this new baby when I…”

“Swan,” he starts, taking her hand in his.

“I gave him away. I’m the one who essentially sent him to be raised by the fucking Evil Queen. How can I do something like that and then just… it feels like I’m replacing him.”

“Emma, darling, you're not replacing him. You still have him in your life. He’s here and he isn’t going anywhere because he loves you.”

“it’s just hard to think about telling him. What if he thinks I’m replacing him?”

“He knows why you made the decision that you did, love. You can’t change what’s already happened, so at some point you have to forgive yourself and move on.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that to me today,” she says with a sound coming out of her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.

“it must be true, then.”

“I just can’t shake the feeling that at some point the other shoe is gonna drop and everything that’s been going so right so far is just gonna disappear.”

“I didn’t realize how traumatic this experience would be for you, love. It seems to be bringing back some strong feelings.”

She shrugs. “I guess.”

He nods, pulling her hand up to his mouth and pressing his lips to her knuckles. “Perhaps it would be helpful for you to speak with the cricket.”

“I’m not crazy,” she says defensively.

“I didn’t say you were, Swan. I just think it might be helpful to talk about these things.”

“I’m talking to you right now,” she says, her brows pulling together and a pout donning her mouth.

“Aye, and I’ll always be here for that, love, but it might be nice to have an objective person to speak to as well. I’m pretty pro-anything-you-decide-to-do.” She smiles at him again, finally turning towards him and leaning forward to rest her head on his shoulder. “Just think about it, aye love?”

“Aye.” He squeezes her shoulders and laughs lightly, kissing her temple.

“I know we just got ho—back, but would you like to see what I’ve been working on? It’s almost finished, but it’s probably ready for you to see now.”

She’d almost forgotten that they discussed this briefly this morning, and she’s suddenly excited to see exactly what the hell Killian is talking about, so she nods against his shoulder and sits up.

He puts the car in reverse and starts down the road, struggling slightly to operate the high beams with his hook but driving successfully either way. He slowly makes his way through town, passing through Main Street until they get to the outskirts and he turns right into a parking spot. When she looks up, Emma sees a row of matching apartments lining the quiet street. The one they're parking in front of is lit up with a light that resembles a lantern from his ship.

“What’s this?” she asks when he turns off the car.

“This is my project,” he answers, leaving the car and circling around until he reaches her door and pulls it open. He offers her his hand, but she’s still stunned and hasn’t undone her seatbelt yet.

She’s snapped to attention and clicks the button, taking his hand as he helps her out of her seat. She takes turns staring from him to the small townhouse and back to him.

“Your project…” she starts, unsure of what else to say.

“Aye, love. Just something I’ve been working on upon arriving here in Storybrooke.”

He takes a key from one of his pockets and sticks it into the lock before opening the black front door and gesturing for her to take a step inside.

The interior is slightly unfinished with blue tape lining the walls, and there’s no furniture in sight, but she can tell that the space is beautiful. It’s light and airy despite it being nighttime and the lights being off. He moves to switch one on and stands a few feet back from her as if giving her time to process what she’s seeing.

They're standing in what she assumes will be a living room, which has fully constructed walls that still need paint. To her right is a small kitchen with beautiful black granite counter tops with golden flecks throughout paired with light wooden cabinetry. It reminds her of the Jolly Roger.

She sees a small hallway with three doors lining the space. She takes a few steps towards them, then turns back to Killian as if to ask permission to enter. He nods, and she makes her way forward, opening the first door to her right to see a bright bathroom complete with a tub. The cabinetry and counters match those in the kitchen, and she smiles at the consistency.

She leaves the bathroom and steps over to the door next to it, finding what she imagines would be a small bedroom. The room isn’t too large, but it does have a nice sized closet, soft cream-colored carpeting, and a large window. These walls have been painted a soft white.

She smiles as she turns out of this room, noting that Killian is still standing in the open living room area allowing her to explore on her own. She turns around to the door across from the small bedroom and opens it up to find what she knows must be the master. It’s the size of the small bedroom and bathroom combined and has two doors on the other end which she assumes leads to a bathroom and closet. Killian has an end unit, so this bedroom has a large window on two walls. She opens a door closest to the entrance and finds a deep walk-in closet with bright lighting and a large mirror opposite the door. When she leaves and opens the other door, she finds a huge bathroom with fixtures matching the others in the apartment as well as a large standing shower at least double the size of an average one with stones that match the tan cabinets with golden flecks and black marbling throughout.

Emma is astonished at what she’s seen, unsure what to do or say as she stands in the empty, bare-walled bedroom. She finds that she doesn’t need to decide what to do, because when she turns, she sees Killian standing in the doorway looking nervous.

“I don’t…” she starts, but the words fall flat on her tongue. She doesn’t know what to say.

“I’ve purchased the space and have spent my days finishing it,” he offers quietly.

“How long?” she asks, stepping towards him until she’s almost close enough to touch him.

“Few months, about two weeks after we arrived back here.”

She shakes her head, her mouth hanging open. “Two weeks and you knew you wanted to stay?”

He’s blushing, his cheeks and ears turning a hot shade of pink. “Well, property is a very good investment,” he jokes, not making full eye contact with her.

She laughs awkwardly and shakes her head. “Right.”

“But yes, I knew.”

She starts to cry, obviously. And he gives her the smile that makes her heart flutter, of course.

“Don’t cry, darling,” he says with a soft chuckle as he whisps away a tear from her right cheek.

“This is just…” she waves her hands around between the two of them, words failing her.

“I know it seems like a lot, but I’m not showing you this place because I want you to move in.” She nods slowly, sniffling and wiping tears herself. “I bought it so I could have a project; something to finish. I felt so lost, and I just needed something to take my mind off the fact that I probably had to stop trying to kill the Crocodile, or that Baelfire was alive and well but not the man that I’d hoped he’d grow into. And as I was working, every decision I made I forced myself not to consider what you would think. And I had to kick myself every time I imagined you standing in here with me.” She lets out a harsh laugh before sniffling again. He nearly whispers, “but then you told me about the baby, Swan, and I just… I have so much hope. You’ve given me so much, love.” He wipes a tear again, his thumb stroking along her cheek and jaw. “I just hope that you’d feel comfortable enough to spend time here. And maybe I can make the spare room into the baby’s bedroom rather than the treasure room I was planning.”

She laughs again and leans into him, wrapping her arms around his middle and touching her tear-streaked face into his chest.

“This is a lot to take in,” she finally says against leather.

“I know, love. You don’t need to say anything just yet. I just… I want to be there for the little lad or lass, and you, and I don’t think a newborn should be living on a pirate ship. At least not until he’s old enough to become a pirate himself,” he adds with a smirk that she can hear.

“Could be a girl.”

“And she would be the most fearsome pirate in all the realms.” Without thinking, Emma presses a kiss into the exposed hair on his chest as another laugh escapes her lips. “You don’t have to move in here, Swan. It’s for the baby.”

“The baby lives in me,” she says with a smile, pulling back slightly.

“I know,” he smirks back.

She breathes out a laugh. “It is a lot, Killian, but I love it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out, and she suddenly can’t stop imagining how she might decorate the baby’s bedroom here. Then she remembers that he’s not asking her to move in and she shakes the thoughts from her mind. “Maybe we can stay here, then, instead of the Jolly Roger, once it’s finished.”

“That sounds perfect, love. It should only be another week or two before I can get furniture in here.” She nods, still smiling into his chest and squeezing him tight as his hand runs up and down her back. “We can take it slow.”

“Yeah.”

~~~~

The following Saturday, Emma watches as Killian and Mr. Smee move furniture around the townhouse until he’s satisfied with the layout, and she has to say, he has good taste. He picked out pieces that that fit perfectly with the aesthetic of the house, and since the walls were all painted a soft white last week, it’s starting to feel a lot more like a home.

She thinks back to earlier in the week, when Emma visited Mary Margaret for lunch and was absolutely put in her place over her delusions about their living arrangements.

Emma told her about Killian’s new apartment, about the high ceilings and the soft carpeting in the bedrooms and the hardwood floors in the kitchen. Then she told her about how the baby’s room has a big window overlooking the sea, and how large the walk-in closet in the master bedroom is, and Mary Margaret shot her a look that she couldn’t quite read.

“What?” Emma asked, raising her brows and frowning just a bit. “I’m just surprised that you two are moving in together so quickly.”

“We’re not moving in together!”

“Emma,” she said with a light laugh. “That’s a little bit of a stretch, isn’t it? I mean, think of how much time you’ve been spending together lately. You're telling me that you aren’t now going to spend even more time at his new place?”

“Well,” she started, stumbling over her words. “I mean, yeah, we’re probably going to spend time together there, but that’s instead of the ship.”

“You are moving in with him eventually. Maybe not now, but you two are moving in together.”

“That’s a lie,” Emma defended childishly.

“Mhmm,” Mary Margaret said back with a smirk. “Whatever you say, honey. And are you planning on sleeping in your own bed tonight?”

Emma stared at her then rolled her eyes, knowing that she’s lost the argument because her answer is a big fat no.

Now, as she sits on Killian’s comfortable new couch and practically sinks into the cushions (a beautiful and regal red color, to match the fixtures in the captain’s quarters aboard the Jolly Roger), she thinks she’s ready for a nap at any moment until she watches him reach up to a high shelf to put glasses away and his shirt rides up slightly, exposing a sliver of skin on his abdomen.

And, because she’s actually a child and not a 29-year-old adult, she wads up a tissue and tosses it at him to get his attention.

He chuckles as he turns around, placing a glass back into the box it came out of. “Need something, love?” She nods and then reaches her arms out and makes grabbing motions with both hands because, again, she’s a child. Perhaps a toddler, actually. He makes his way over from the kitchen area and takes one of her hands in his. “Water? A snack?”

“I’d like a snack, yes,” she responds, tugging on his hand until he’s seated next to her and she hoists herself, with great effort and a bit of help, onto his lap.

“Mmm,” he growls as his hand makes its way around to cup her ass. “You’ve been absolutely insatiable lately, love.”

“Mhmm,” she says as she reaches down to kiss his neck. “It’s a symptom of my condition.”

“Your condition?” he snorts, slapping her ass lightly when she bites his skin.

“Mhmm.” She nods into his neck and starts to unbutton the few that are fastened and kisses her way down his torso and feels his breathing catch in his chest.

When she crawls onto the floor and reaches the button on his jeans, she pauses and bites lightly at his stomach, reveling in the feeling of his abs tightening in response. She undoes the button and slides the zipper down, scratching down the tops of his thighs as he sighs heavily and throws his head against the back of the couch.

Once she gets his jeans and boxers off (not before admiring the shape of him through the black fabric), she takes his length in her hand and strokes up and down a few times before wrapping her mouth around his cock. She hums and he groans softly in response, then she glances up at him through her lashes and meets his eyes with hers. She moves her mouth along his soft marble skin for a few moments before she feels the tip hit the back of her throat and his hand grips her hair, his hips spasming. He moves his hand down to her cheek and pulls her up a bit so that she releases him with a soft pop.

“I want you,” he says darkly, and she feels desire flooding her as he helps her to get up off the floor and tug her leggings and underwear down. Once she’s perched on his thighs, she feels his hand tracing down her body until his thumb reaches her clit and she sighs and rests her head on his shoulder. His fingers slide into her easily and he groans. “You're so ready for me, love,” he murmurs.

She hums and turns her head so that she can press her lips to his neck. When she feels him curling his fingers and circling his thumb around her clit, she grinds down against his hand before tugging on his arm. He removes it quickly so that she can reach between them and align him so that he can thrust himself up into her.

She lets out a satisfied groan at the feeling of him filling her to the hilt. She bites her bottom lip, pulling back slightly so that she can kiss him. His hand is running wildly along her back, lifting her t-shirt and sliding along her side until he finds her breast and holds it tenderly. They're still quite sore, and he has gotten used to fondling them gently.

“Bloody vixen,” he mumbles against her neck, nipping at the sensitive spot he tends to favor. “You are bloody brilliant. Amazing.”

As much as she thought she would hate it, especially hearing him talking up a storm on the beanstalk and in Neverland, she never tires of the way he talks to her when they're like this. The things he says are sometimes filthy, but never in a derogatory way and always in a way that makes her feel so much sexier.

“God, fuck, can you—” She lifts her head from his shoulder and makes a small circular motion with her hand and he gets the message. He lifts her body off of his slightly, pulling out of her and then tugging her shirt over her head. She understands what he wants, too, and unhooks her bra, releasing her swollen breasts practically into his waiting hands.

He hums and squeezes gently, obviously pleased with their new size, before she turns away from him and gets on all fours on the couch. He’s practically growling now, feeling her up and down her waist and hip before he leans down and tongues at her entrance, drawing an embarrassingly loud moan from her throat. She reaches back and tugs on his hair as if to say get on with it, and he’s up again, leaning his hips against hers and running his hand along her again before landing on her ass with a light smack.

She’s pushing back against him, falling from her hands down to her elbows before he finally lines up and thrusts deeply into her. She lets out a shout and moves to set her fingers against her clit, but he brushes them away and goes to work himself, bringing her closer and closer with each caress. After several deep thrusts, they're practically falling into the couch with him landing on top of her but not settling all of his body weight on her, his hand still stroking against her clit and his hook digging into the couch next to her. The new depth and angle as he continues to thrust and move his fingers against her sends her over the edge in nearly an instant.

As she falls, her vision goes white, her mouth hanging open and biting into the couch in a silent (or perhaps not) scream. He follows shortly after her, burying his face in her hair and grunting out curses and praises into her ear as his hips continue to twitch against her.

“Fuck,” she mumbles against the fabric of the couch. She’s unable to move, and not just because Killian is still lying on top of her.

“Aye,” he responds. He presses a soft kiss to her ear underneath a curtain of hair. “You certainly are voracious lately, darling. I must say it’s one of my favorite symptoms of yours.”

She hums. “I guess it is better than the constant puking and peeing and sleeping.”

He laughs and kisses her cheek once more before lifting himself off of her and grabbing a box of tissues from an end table, offering it to her and taking one for himself. “Alright?” he asks.

“Yeah, just ready for my nap.”

“Take one, love. The bed isn’t ready just yet, but I can get you a blanket for the couch.”

She nods, reaching for her bra and shirt. Once they're both cleaned up and dressed, she says, “we should start thinking about the baby’s room.”

“Seems a bit early, but sure,” he nods with a smile.

“It’s never too early to start planning. Plus, I’m excited. I’ve never done this before.”

“Aye, love, neither have I.”

She smiles at him as he stands, throwing away the soiled tissues and walking towards a closet to grab a black throw blanket. “So, no secret kids I should know about?”

He chuckles and scratches behind his ear, draping the blanket over her body and sitting next to her. “I was always rather careful. Although I suppose times were different…”

With the way his body stiffens, she knows that her joke has made him uncomfortable. A part of her worries that he thinks he could actually have some secret kids out there.

“It’s okay,” she starts. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, I was just joking.”

“I know, Swan,” he says before gesturing to the couch as if to invite her to lie down. Once she does, he wedges himself behind her and arranges the blanket over them before he wraps his arm around her middle, his hand landing protectively over her belly. “I have no knowledge of any other children, and as I said, I was always careful. I suppose I’ll never really know for certain, though.”

She struggles with how to respond, not wanting to offend him, and settles on a joke. “Should I be offended that you weren’t careful with me?”

“No,” he chuckles. “I suppose I was just so enraptured by your beauty and the fact that you actually wanted to be with me that I lost all capabilities of logical thought.”

She laughs, holding his hand in her own as he rubs small soothing circles over what will soon be a small bump. “I’m happy.”

He pulls her a bit tighter and kisses her shoulder before saying, “good. So am I.”

“I’m glad you're here. With me.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” he nearly whispers.

After a beat, when her eyes are starting to feel heavy and the circular motions of Killian’s hand start to sooth her into near sleep, she lets out one final thought. “I need to talk to my parents about Neal.”

His hand stops for a moment but resumes as he says, “I think that’s a good idea.”

“It’ll help me to move past everything. And maybe if they knew everything, mom will stop wishing I was with him.” He sighs, and she knows she probably shouldn’t have said that. She is on fire today with the offensive comments. “Sorry. Just… I feel like I’m mourning him. Like I knew and loved someone totally different and now I have to get over it all over again 12 years later.”

“It’s alright, Swan, I know what you mean. Baelfire was someone I could have allowed myself to love, as well.”

She nods her head against his chest as he tightens his arm around her middle and falls into a blissful sleep.

~~~~

It’s almost a week later when Emma finally builds up the courage to talk to her parents. She knows she needs to do this, that it’s important for them to know what she went through and how it’s impacting her now. Killian was right, her first pregnancy was traumatic for her, and now that she’s pregnant again, she’s finding that she’s having some trouble with the memories of what she went through.

He offers to go with her on Friday when she goes to Mary Margaret’s loft, but she declines, deciding that she needs to do this on her own.

She’s spent a lot of time at his new place over the last two weeks, and it’s only helping to add to the guilt she feels surrounding Henry. Each time she spends the night, it’s because her son is staying with Regina, but a more illogical part of her feels as if she’s abandoning him all over again by not spending time with him. The fact is, she’s scared to spend time with him because she’s scared that he’ll find out that she’s pregnant. If she’s honest, she’s a bit surprised his blabbermouth of a father hasn’t told him already.

Killian has reminded her a few times that this isn’t something she can hide from Henry forever, and that he’s smart and will eventually figure it out if she doesn’t come out and tell him. He’s right, of course. But she hasn’t really started to show too much yet, aside from what could be passed off as bloating, so she’ll continue to live in a state of unhealthy denial for a while longer.

When she arrives at the loft, she’s filled with dread and discomfort, but she knows she has to do this. When she told them earlier that she wanted to come over to talk, she was sure that they were expecting the worst. Maybe they thought that Killian left her, or that something happened to the baby, or that she was hurt somehow. So, when she arrives, they're both pacing across the floor nervously and jump when the door opens.

She apologizes for startling them, and for scaring them in general, then takes a seat at the table with her father following close behind. Her mother has prepared tea and brings over mugs and the kettle.

Emma starts talking and finds it near impossible to stop. Once she starts retelling the story, the memories are flooding to her mind as if it happened yesterday. The way that she thought for sure that he was the one, how safe she thought she was with him, the confidence she felt as she was piecing together her plan. The love she had for him at such a young age.

Mary Margaret begins crying before Emma even tells them about the watches, knowing that something bad was going to happen. David sits quietly in his seat, his fists and jaw clenched tightly. When Emma talks the police getting a tip, and then about her sentence, she sees his eyes glassing over.

When she tells them about how she discovered she was pregnant, two months into her stay at women’s correctional facility, her mother stands from her seat and hugs Emma tight, sobbing into her shoulder as she squeezes her and muttering out begging apologies into the air. She knew that Emma went to prison and knew that she gave birth while she was there. But learning that Neal left her there and never came back was evidently too much for her to bear.

Emma continues to tell them about how she gave birth to a healthy baby boy while she was chained to the bed and wouldn’t allow herself to look at him. About how she sobbed at the sound of his cries and still hears it in her dreams. About how she doesn’t know how to deal with Neal being back in her and Henry’s lives, especially when he was behaving so possessively.

“I hate him, but a part of me still loves him. He gave me Henry, and when we were together, it was really good. But he… he fucked me over. I was just a kid. He’s the one who called the cops, he tipped them off on where I’d be. And I was wearing a watch, so he got away to Canada and I got found guilty.”

“Emma, I am so sorry. For everything,” her mother sniffles. She’s still wiping tears away, and so is Emma. “I never should have pushed you towards him. When you said you thought you still loved him, before Neverland, I was so hopeful that you would get the chance to be with your first love. I had no idea how much pain went along with that.”

She nods, “I guess I didn’t really realize it either. Me and Killian have been talking about it and I think he’s right.”

“What does he say?” David asks, speaking up for the first time and clearing his throat.

“That the first time I was pregnant was traumatic. And that it’s hard to come to terms with my feelings for Neal when a part of me will always love him, even if only because of Henry.”

David hums and nods his head, adding, “big words coming from the pirate,” with a slight smirk.

“Dad,” she threatens lightly, switching over to a more serious tone. “I know this was unexpected, and a surprise and unplanned and all that, but… I think I’m happier now than I have ever been in my entire life. I was happy enough with Neal, but I didn’t realize that that relationship was kind of… it was kind of messed up. I was only 17.” David clenches his fists again and Mary Margaret looks like she’s seen a ghost as she takes a sip from her mug, the tea having long gone cold. “But with Hook, it’s just… it’s so easy. He’s so good to me. and I know he’ll be a fantastic father. I just want you guys to see that, and see that I’m happy now, with him. I don’t want to be with Neal, and hopefully now you can see why. Hopefully now that I’ve told you, I can really move on.”

It’s quiet in the loft for a few moments before David speaks up and says, “I want to punch him in the face.”

“Me too,” Mary Margaret responds, turning to him and nodding her head.

“I do too, but it was a long time ago and that wouldn’t help anything. Right now, I just need to take time away from him and let myself get over it. Hook says I probably never fully healed from it.”

“Well,” Mary Margaret starts. “I am surprised to hear that Hook was the one who encouraged you to tell us. I’m surprised, but I’m glad.”

“Yes,” David says in response, nodding at her this time. “The way I see it, you're right. Seems like he treats you well.”

“Yeah,” Emma says with a smile.

“I actually spoke with Ruby a few days ago and she told me that I needed to, and this is a direct quote, get my head out of my rear end.” Emma chokes out a laugh as she stares at her mother, who nods at her. “She said she’s known about you two since your birthday, and that she’s certain that you and Hook are… well, she said you're in love. And to ask you about a necklace?”

Damn you, Ruby Lucas.

“She said my secret was safe with her,” Emma grumbles as she pulls the necklace out of her sweater and removes it to show her mother, explaining the meaning of the shining green stone.

She fawns over it for a few moments and says, “well, I’m glad she told me. I think she’s right about one thing,” with a sly smile as she wipes away another tear.

Emma rolls her eyes, but smiles. Because yes, maybe Ruby is right about one thing.

~~~~

~~~~

Tagging:

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz@laschatzi@emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @profdanglaisstuff@elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook

[sloppy-butcher]

Ok,new follower here. So this blog is amazing,you writings are just beautiful. I hope I can become as good as you, beause I would like to open my own blog, but I always think my works are too bad. Anyways, I don't know if you write soulmates stuff, like your partner name is written on your body or thigs like that. If so, could you write something related with Joey and Frank sharing the same male sm reader? If you don't feel comfortable writing for three characters or for a male reader it's fine!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support T_T I love you so much! I encourage you to start that blog because the only way to get better is to try. and if you do start a blog, drop me that link babey

So i spent a hot minute finding which soulmate alternative universe would best fit your request since you didn’t specifically state which au you wanted. Well, i found a reaaallly interesting one. hope it’s okay

This AU states that soulmates share pain. If one is hurt the other shows their wounds or bruises. I think this will work well with Frank and Joey and a survivor!S/O. I have no problem writing for a male S/O (although i will probs just make this gender nuetral as i dont see gender really playing an important role in this (and i prefer gender nuetral tings)) or for three characters. i will have to write this in HeadCanon form as i am very lazy and i dont want to write like a full fic T_T cause you know.... i have toomuch to say

hope these are okay? ily

Soulmate Au HeadCanons: Poly!The Legion (Frank and Joey) with a Survivor S/O

They realized their connection long before they even knew you existed. The theory was that soulmates shared pain and it was obvious to them that they were meant to be together. Joey would share in Franks pain, he could feel the scar that tore across his face and Frank could feel when Joey had worked himself far past his breaking point. They thought they were the only ones connected in this psychic-link, bound by a force too grand and cosmic to be comprehended by simple-minded mortals. But like the universe, fate works in mysterious ways and everything changed when you joined the Fog.

Joey first noticed it when he went to sit down at the end of a particularly gruelling workday. He felt his left shoulder explode into a burning hot pain and his body seized with the sudden shock. He barely held back his cries of a surprise but Frank wasn’t so well-restrained. Joey heard him from across the Lodge and fearing for his friend, ran off in the direction of his call ignoring his own body screaming for him to stop. He found Frank surrounded by a worried Julie and Susie. They looked between him and Joey, expressions from behind their masks piercing through to Joey's soul. They were worried for their friends, Frank’s scream and Joey’s sluggish and limp stature was enough to tell the girls that the pain the two were experiencing was, no doubt, incredibly excruciating. No one knew what had just happened, neither of them had been hurt or injured, and they feared that maybe the two were being punished by the Entity for a lacklustre performance. But both boys assured they did well enough to keep the thing satisfied and when the pain spontaneously faded, the whole incident was pushed out of their minds and momentarily forgotten.

But the pain never stopped completely. It was sporadic, turning on randomly like a lightswitch bursting with newfound anger and agony that would contort their limbs and burn their muscles. And there was nothing they could do to alleviate the pain, no amount of massaging or rubbing could take away the sharp edge of the hurt; there weren’t even enough painkillers in the realm to quell the agony. The only thing the boys could do was just sit there and wait for the pain to decide to go away. It was torture, sometimes the simple act of sitting alone was pure unadulterated suffering. But still, the boys had no idea where this pain was coming from.

It was only after Joey returned from a trial in which he had mori’d a rather annoying and pesky survivor that something started to click. Joey walked into the main lounge of the Resort and found his friends standing around the fire pit waiting for him. Frank had his shirt off and the pants of his left leg rolled up. Ordinarily the sight of Frank without his shirt on would excite Joey but something made him hesitate. A harsh red scar ripped down Frank’s chest and when Frank noticed Joey's reaction he held out his left arm for the other to inspect. Another red wound ran across the forearm. There was no mistaking it now. It was their trademark kill, a stab at the left arm followed by the grabbing of the left ankle then finished with the brutal gutting from the collar bone all the way down to the hip. “We watched it appear.” Julie’s voice wavered with concern. “We watched it appear on him as if...” She broke off ‘as if Joey himself did it to him.’. Joey approached Frank. Through the pinpricks of his mask, Joey could see Frank's eyes and he could feel his pain. Without saying much the girls made Joey take off his own shirt and directed him to stand next to Frank. When Julie stepped back to inspect both boys she raised a hand to cover the mouth of her mask and Susie audibly gasped. They were identical, both bore the exact same scars of the exact same knife.

To be honest, the boys would never have figured out the source of their shared pain. Combined the two barely make up a single brain cell so it was by the grace of God or something else that allowed the truth to finally be exposed. It was in a trial between you and Frank. The killer had been run around for the past ten minutes and with no sign of catching his elusive prey. You were impressed by your capable teammate and when they went down just outside the opened exit gate you leapt into action to save the wounded hero. You ended up sacrificing yourself for them, a worthy trade, everyone else got out except you. And, to you, that was okay. You were okay with this. Frank, however, was not. He was beyond furious at being denied his prey and when he trudged back to your collapsed form he felt his rage overflow him. He stood over you and you smugly returned his glare. That was it. In a swift motion, he punched you in the face. Your nose broke and blood gushed out and into your mouth. You screamed out but your cries, however, were mixed in with the killers. Frank recoiled, clutching at his mask where his nose would be. You watched in shock as he spilt swear words and stomped around you.

Curiously you reached up for your busted face and using your thumb and forefinger you squeezed the throbbing nose. Frank’s cries intensified and he clawed desperately at his mask. Through the haze he caught you staring at him in shocked amusement, which he mistook for condescending judgment. He growled and stormed over to you determined to make you regret everything. Panicking you grabbed your nose again and Frank jumped back. And then all the pieces fell into place. Frank could feel your pain. His eyes widened on your collapsed body and it felt as if his world was imploding. Oh shit.

It took some convincing but eventually, you agreed to meet Frank back at the Resort. He told you there was someone else, another ‘soulmate’ in this trifecta of fucked-up bullshit. You used the term ‘soulmate’ loosely. You had heard the stories about soulmates, people destined to be together would share such a special bond that they would even share pain. But never in a million years would you have guessed that your soulmate (or soulmateS) was, a serial killer. You really wanted it to not be real, you wanted this to be some kind of dream, a sick nightmare you were experiencing while laying on your deathbed somewhere far away. But there Frank was before you at the boundary between snow and forest,  like he promised you, with his partner Joey. You walked up to them and stopped at a safe distance away. Joey seemed to bloat his chest as if to say not to try anything. Frank looked at you and you knew you had to show him. Reaching up you grabbed at your nose which was starting to feel better but was still puffy and red. You put pressure on it and Frank began to shake with the pain. Frank moaned and clenched his fists in an effort to ride out the pain like Joey was but after a moment he relented and shouted at you to stop. Frank turned and muttered something to Joey who never took his gaze off you. You could have sworn that he was a stone-statue because he never moved and showed no sign that what you did had affected him in any way. But then you noticed his slight leg twitch and the irregular heaving of his chest. He did feel it. Frank returned his attention back to you and in the cold silence of realization, you said, “Well? What do we do now?”

You could have forgotten everything, walked away from the nonsensical situation that had been presented before you and continued on living a simple life devoid of drama and tension. But that life would also lack depth, something to make it special and worthwhile. You were presented with your soulmates, a rarity in this hellhole and something about the wonder of what made the universe decide to bring you all together surpassed your urge to stay away. Slowly but surely you introduced yourself into their lives. Your interactions at first were stiff and hollow, fear and uncertainty making you doubt if the boys would respect the bound of soulmates enough to not kill you or at least hurt you.

But time wore on and you became braver. They were gentle, well... they tried to be. And when you spoke with them as people do you realized that you had a lot in common with them both. And eventually, you were confident enough to laugh and joke with them.

Joey was the one who needed the most time to accept that you and he were soulmates. He eyed you suspiciously as you would talk with Frank, feeling some kind of jealousy build up in his chest. He hated how you could get Frank to react in ways he had never seen before. He hated how easy it was for you. One day when he had you alone to himself, he finally broke that long silence between you two. But where he expected a change in personality, a two-face switch, Joey only found genuineness. You were as kind and playful with him as you were with Frank, unfazed by your burden of the circumstance and not worried by his own mistakes and misfortunes. You were strong and he admired you for that. “How do you do it?” Joey softly asked clutching his hand which now held a new red welt. The mood quietened down and you turned to look at him. “How do you handle all this pain each and every day?” You reached out and gently took his hand in yours. Suddenly all his pain vanished at the contact and he slightly gasped at the shock. You were warm and comforting, like the wind of a summer’s afternoon, constant and welcoming. He raised his eyes to yours and you gave him your best smile. He melted. “One day at a time.” You replied squeezing his hand for emphasis. You relaxed and began to pull away only to stop as he held you firm, determined to not let your warmth go.

Frank always had a problem when it came to hurting you in trials. While Joey could suck it up and deal with the pain, Frank could not bear the thought of having a hook run through your shoulder and subsequently his. It was you who finally convinced him that his job was more important than your fleeting health.  You took Frank's hand in yours, engulfing him in your comfort and reassurance. “We can get through this. I will get better.” He breathed out and admitted, albeit to himself, that you were right. This was a momentary instance, a speck of nothing when compared to the kind of torture the Entity would inflict on him. And it wasn’t just himself he had to look out for, it was everyone. He had you and Joey he had to look out for. With a look apologetic regret Frank would mercilessly hunt you down and when he would lift you up and onto the meat hook he could hear you at the back of his mind saying, “Suck it up, Princess.”

They would always feel awful if you had a particularly bad day. You would trudge back to the Resort trying your best to hide from their concerned eyes your bruised limb or uneven walk but of course, they already knew what had happened. Joey would sweep you effortlessly off your feet and he would not let you walk around without his assistance. Frank, although less forward than the other, would follow behind and would pester you with questions, ‘Are you okay now?’ ‘Are you comfortable?’ ‘Anyway that he could help ease the hurt?’ They both were like oversized puppies yapping at your ankles because they heard you make a noise. You’d reassure them that you were fine and after exchanging doubtful looks between each other they would give in and give you some air.

They would listen to your stories. It's one thing to experience the pain and another thing to watch it happen. You’d tell them about how you got your injuries and more often than not you would end up a broken-down and crying mess. The image of looming figures silhouetted against an endless black sky haunts your mind. Although you all share the physical scars, the mental ones stay trapped inside you. When you would become an inconsolable disaster the boys would be by your side in an instant. By the time you regained control over your anxiety, you would find yourself buried in the arms of either Joey or Frank. You face pushed deep into their bodies as if they were trying to shield you from the monster that was yourself. It was scary, they could tell. But you weren’t alone. Not anymore. 

After a long day's work of causing and enduring pain, when your bodies would ache with collective suffering the 3 of you would find a quiet cove to all lie it. The boys would sleep on either side of you, draping their limps over you and almost drowning you in their weight. It felt good to be lost at sea with them, so far away from the pain of the day and from the pain tomorrow will bring. If for a moment, you all were at peace, happy and content in the embrace of your soulmates. 

[sparxwrites]

(An old thing I decided to finish up, because I was sick of it sitting in my drafts. Written for this kinkmeme prompt. Please do go check out the link if you like this fill, because there is a much longer, utterly fantastic second fill there that’s very upsetting and also very much worth reading.)

cw for rape, forced prostitution, “asylums”, distorted reality/distorted memories

[ao3]

There’s not much Caleb remembers from the ten years he spent in the asylum. He’s okay with this, mostly; has made his peace with it, mostly. From what he does remember, though, most of it is inconsequential. The cries of the other patients, the pale white-gone-grey of the nurses’ aprons, the lukewarm baths… these are things he can forget.

One memory, though, he keeps coming back to. Over and over, worrying at the hazy details of it like a loose, aching tooth. He’s not sure if it’s a single memory, or many, so similar that they overlap – fragments of recollection sliding frictionlessly against one another to make an unsteady whole. From the way it shifts, ever-so-slightly, faintly contradictory timelines and variations that he can’t quite reconcile, he thinks it’s probably many. He hopes it’s only one.

(His usual routine is interrupted, a few times a week, by a man that sometimes cares for him. He is taken away from his room, just after breakfast, to another room, a new room. Over time, he learns to hate it – the hard bed, the cold white walls, the way the man straps him down wrists and ankles no matter how loudly he moans, cries, sobs. Never too loudly, though. The man gags him, if he’s too loud. Mad though he is, he’s still capable of learning – with enough negative reinforcement.)

He doesn’t remember it clearly. He’s not sure if that’s a blessing, or a curse, but it is what it is – distorted, fractured memories, seen darkly through a kaleidoscope, clearest when they haunt his nightmares in vivid, unreal technicolour. Flashes of impressions, is all, half memories that stop and start and shift when he looks at them too closely.

(Hands on his skin, hands on his legs, hands between his legs. A mouth on his neck. Weight on his chest. Pain, more than pleasure, a sharp shock of sensation after so long in a grey haze of nothingness. Skin against his skin, awful, unbearable, itching- A stilling, a grunt, pressure on his chest and something wet between his legs. The slow slide out, the wet spilling of something against his skin and the sheets. Clothes, the clink of a buckle – the clink of coins changing hands, and the low murmur of voices. There is sometimes, he remembers, quiet laughter, a slap on his inner thigh or his arse, or fingers between the cleft of his cheeks, probing into him where he’s wet and open and red-raw. Even through the fog, the confusion-fear-wrong of that touch, he shies away from it, unhappy and unable to understand why.)

At the time, he didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand. Now, though… now, he does, and he wishes he didn’t. Pretends he doesn’t. When that doesn’t work, he clings to the idea that this is a fraction of his penance for the evil he has done.

(Often, after that, in his memories, the door opens, closes, opens again- and there is another. The memory loops, jolting and skipping, over and over in a blurred stream of half-impressions that he couldn’t pick apart even if he wanted to. He has no idea how long he spent in that room, how many visitors he took, how many times this happened. It’s all loops, jump-cuts, distortions and fragments, enough to drive him mad if he hadn’t been already.)

Then – and this, this is the bit he struggles with, the bit he worries and prods at and can’t fit nice and neat and easy into the box of horrors-I-do-not-think-about tucked in the dark corners of his brain – he remembers the gentleness.

(The low murmur of soft words, crooning and gentle, and a hand in his hair, petting the greasy, sweat-stiff locks of it. The padded cuffs coming off. He curls into a ball, moaning with animal displeasure, the words he could have used to object stolen from him by his own mind. The hand in his hair stays, though, scritching at his scalp, the voice talking soft and low and calming throughout it all.

When he eventually uncurls, the voice and the hands coax him off the bed, back into his clothes and down the hall at a slow, whimpering shuffle to the bathroom. Coax him into the bath – warm, unlike the usual perfunctory cold scrub from the other nurses – and wash him, hair-shoulders-chest-genitals with careful attentiveness. He stops his whimpering, his whining and groaning, and instead stares with quiet fascination at the drifting soap-suds atop the water. At the patterns they make as he moves his hands. He enjoys the warmth in silence, and the touch, and the quiet, soothing drone of that gentle, easy voice.)

There was precious little that was gentle and kind in the asylum, nurses and healers stretched thin and overworked and drained dry by the unrelenting misery of the place, but this… Caleb remembers, even through the grey fog, the easy, healing peace of that warm bath.

(He stops taking baths, after the asylum.)

[you-exist-in-words]

as boats against the current

we beat on

but for what?

I knew those were the the best moments of my life; what I didn’t realize was how shit the rest would be.

*

We were all wearing sweatpants, makeup free, hair in messy buns. No one gave a damn. The three of us stepped out of the air-conditioned bubble of Leah’s house, and into the soft night air. It was sticky outside, but the breeze blew through us like the leaves on the trees that rustled above our heads. I felt pure and on top of the world.

“Who’s car?” Jessica asked.

I held up my arm, rattling the keys to my parent’s Honda CRV. I was arguably the worst driver of us all, but I had parked at the back of the driveway, and their empty wine glasses in the kitchen sink said I was the best option right now.  

“Shotgun!” Jessica said. She pronounced it in a sing song voice with the emphasis on the second syllable. Usually she would have offered the front seat to Rachel, but she was a little tipsy and in a definitely don’t care mood. 

“Okay,” Rachel conceded. “But I get the aux”. We piled into the car. Rachel plugged in her phone. I started the engine. We rolled down the windows and the sunroof. I cranked the volume. 

Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool to be on TV

So all the folks back home can see me

And that I'm livin' it out

All the things I used to dream about

Mason Ramsey’s cookie cutter, nasally, 10 year old voice boomed through the car speakers and out the windows. We screamed along with the lyrics as I accidentally reversed over Rachel’s boulevard and the car bounced backwards over the curb, heaving on the shocks. It took us the length of the song (3 minutes and 13 seconds) to cruise around the block and pull up in front of Dairy Queen. 

Slight variations of this exact scene played out at least a couple times a week. Sometimes we went to Tim Hortons. Sometimes Rachel or Jessica drove. The feeling was always the same. We were alive with summer nights coursing through our veins like our own personal brand of heroine; the high was endless.

*

“Gin and tonic. A double please. Hendrick. You have cucumber?” I drop my purse and jacket to the ground as I say all of this. The stool screeches obnoxiously against the floor. The bartender nods and starts to mix my drink. 

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing here at 3pm on a Sunday?”

If the room wasn’t already spinning around me like some fucked up solar system I didn’t ask to be a part of, I’d get up and leave right now.

“No.” I say flatly. The conversation mercifully ends there. 

*

“I’m here!” I declared, knocking on the door as I let myself into Asia’s house. A chorus of hellos from various rooms was returned to me by her family members. A moment later, Jessica galloped down the stairs.

“Hiiiiyeeeee,” she posed and smiled with a tilt of her head. Iconic. I threw her back a peace sign and we headed up the stairs to her room. Jessica’s room had changed very little in the ten years I’d known her. Her day bed was folded up into a single, which left plenty of room for the trenches of laundry on the floor. Her suitcase lay open, perpetually half packed because she was always going back and forth from somewhere. One wall was a blackboard that said things we had written years before like Rachel loves you, circled in a crude chalk heart. I left my bag on the floor and crawled into her bed. She went over to her full length mirror and examined her hair. 

“Should I curl it?” she asked. I looked at the time. We only had about 30 minutes before we had to leave and we still had to eat, drink, get dressed, finish my makeup, and walk downtown. At the same time she looked stunning in curls. 

“Try baby pig tails and then if that doesn’t work we can do curls.” I could do my own makeup if need be, and we didn’t really have to eat until later. I got out of bed, pulled off my shirt, went to the bathroom and started priming my face. A few minutes later, Asia’s hand appeared from around the corner and placed a half can of cider on the counter. 

“What do we think of this hair,” she sashayed into the bathroom.

“Ooo very good, definitely yes,” I answered. We drank, we chatted, we sang along to pump up music while she helped me to finish my makeup. 

Not half an hour later, we were dressed and ready in tight black clothes and matching dark lipstick. We put our shoes on by the front door while trying to down the last few sips of our second shared cider. 

The night air blew life into our lungs and song into our souls. Headlights passed like strings of twinkling lights. The sidewalk was our path to anywhere. I held Jessica’s hand because I wanted to share every second of closeness. For once, we weren’t separated by cities, or continents or even air; everything was movement and laugher and lightness.

*

After giving him the Ice Queen attitude the bartender is ignoring me and I find this annoying. I watch him fiddle with glasses and wipe down the already pristine marble counter top. Soft jazz plays in the background. When he turns around again I wave him over, my fresh French manicure catches the light, overshadowed only by the massive diamond on my finger. I put on a cutesy smile.

“I’m sorry for before I’m just having a bit of a day.” I think I might sound crazy. “You know how that happens”. I don’t know if he’s actually unsurprised by my sudden shift in attitude or if his poker face is just good, but he smiles genuinely. 

“Forget about it,” he says dismissively. He starts to turn around again, to do what I’m not sure. Polish the already shinning crystal glasses? 

“You know something,” I start. Trying for his attention again. I wonder why I’ve got to be such a bitch. I lurch a bit on my bar stool, but lean forward into the counter, putting my elbows on the bar for more stability. 

“Everyone is fucked; no one was ever loved enough”. Someone told me that once. But it’s not true. I was loved enough. I just lost it. I laugh out loud, effectively interrupting whatever he might have come up with in response to my absurd outburst. It’s a high pealing sound like bells ringing a hundred miles away. Bells that I can’t see through this fog.

*

We sat in my kitchen in varied states of hungover. Birds chirped from the open window, their energy expanding like the heat of the rising sun. We were all looking at our phones, occasionally showing a meme of something stupid that someone we knew had posted on social media. Hot coffee was already in mugs on the counter. Rachel went to the fridge.

“What kind of milk do you have?”

“I think there’s soy, almond, coconut and regular… orange juice if you fancy a twist,” I mimed a shimmy at this last suggestion. Rachel made a face and put the carton of almond milk in front of us. The fridge clattered to a close behind her. Jessica laughed but didn’t look up from her phone. The stillness of the morning and the quiet of the house, emphasized our togetherness. After a chaotic night at the bar, shrouded in the haze of tequila, blaring music and finally, burritos—the silence was much needed. 

Eventually, I clunked my phone down on the counter.

“I’m hungry, what’s our breakfast plan?”

We murmured back and forth contemplating where we wanted to eat. 

“39 Carden might be good, we could sit on the patio”

“Yeah but they changed their breakfast menu and it’s medium”

“We could do symposium, it’s close”

“But their food sucks and its expensive”

“What about Angel’s, it’s a classic… and cheap,” Rachel suggested.

A general nod circulated between us.

Sitting in the vintage teal and red booth at Angel’s Dinner was like being in a time warp. The world stopped spinning. We could have been 50 years in the past or 20 in the future. This place never seemed to change, and neither did our friendship. Against all odds, some things last.

*

“Can I get a shot of vodka too,” the words feel heavy in my mouth and thick in my brain. I barely acknowledge the bartender, I’ve gone back to ignoring him. The shot appears in front of me. There is no one else around. Empty bar, empty bottle. This is where I find comfort; when you have nothing, it can’t be taken away. I know it’s unfair, but I’m angry at you, at myself, at the state of the world. I feel like a screaming spec in the universe, asking to be a part of it, and asking for it to end.

This is what it’s come to—empty chairs at empty tables… at least Marius’ friends were dead. Mine are just ghosts of the past.

[encomiium]

Five Thoughts an Archangel Has Throughout His Day 6 July 2020 Quintus

i. Promise you’ll be there to see it?

The thought echoed on the end of a dream. A tall boy with curly black hair smiled sadly, either endeared or pitiful, Quintus would never really know. He opened his mouth to answer, but his words were eclipsed by the blaring honk of an airhorn bellowing in repetitive staccato. 

Quin fought to open his eyes through the fog of a sweet dream, staring at the phone on his nightstand screeching repeatedly for a few moments before rallying the fortitude to tap the big orange snooze button. Nine minutes--enough time, he thought, to fall back into such a sweet dream. He focused on flashes of golden lamplight frozen in droplets, clinging to bronze skin, heavy-lidded eyes framed with long, feathery lashes, a laugh like far-away thunder. 

Although he made a valiant effort, his eyes opened again before his second alarm sounded. He didn’t dream very often anymore, but the little glimpses into memories he’d thought had long been lost to the haze of time were welcome surprises, albeit jarring and disorienting at times. Dreaming was among the few human habits Quintus actually liked about his fleshly vessel, along with napping and food. Others, he wished he could have gone without when he was chosen for earthly tasks. It’d be nice not to feel sadness or anger--or anything at all--like his brothers who had only ever known the heavenly void. 

He stood and, although his body would be preserved in pristine condition for the foreseeable and increasingly uncertain future, everything felt metaphorically heavy. Emotional aging could be as painful as physical aging, if any of the poets had lived long enough to describe it. He pressed his palms to the ceiling, stretching high as he yawned into an orange sunrise peeking through long silver buildings and stretching out over criss-crossing roads already crowding with traffic. 

He recalled the dream, once more, only to soothe the ache of his painfully quiet apartment, if just for a little while.

ii. Don’t.

Quin knew it wasn’t fair, but he did think of Isaac. Often. He wondered if he was alright, if he was eating enough, if he was still reading that silly romance book or if he had finished it already. He replayed their last night together over and over in his head, wondering endlessly how any man could be so kind, so generous. He didn’t deserve Isaac’s grace or forgiveness--he didn’t deserve Isaac at all. He worried his lip, knowing that no amount of blessings whispered into Isaac’s skin or clothes could ever be penance enough for the pain he caused. 

Quin stared at his phone, a short “How are you?” sitting over his keyboard. With a few taps, he deleted it and closed the app, deciding that it would be unkind--cruel--to force Isaac into shouldering the emotional load of making Quin feel better. He was a selfish prince whose entire existence could be boiled down to endless broken promises. He could at least make a vague effort to keep his promise to Isaac, that when he was ready, Quin would be there. 

Wiping his hand over his face, he glanced at the clock hanging over the large bookshelf stuffed with unorganized copies of ancient classics and bins of papers he really needed to get rid of. Ten minutes was just enough time to abuse the faculty keurig in the department office for the third time that morning. 

“That tall body needs a lot of caffeine to get started huh?”

Renee, the department secretary, made some variation of that same joke at least twice a week, three years running. At first, Quin thought she was passive-aggressively warning him to stop using up all the K-cups, but he stopped caring shortly after. He didn’t get paid nearly enough to care about his students and the office supply of shitty Starbucks French Roast. Renee would have to pick one or the other. 

He gave her a half-hearted smile and a hollow laugh before grabbing his grey hydroflask thermos from under the Keurig. 

iii. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the--

“Sorry, Jaxson, but I thought you were writing about the, uh--” Quintus frantically rifled through papers strewn over his desk, all of the students practically boring holes in him with their stare as he interrupted a student’s presentation. After a few moments, his heart beating against his fucking forehead, Quin pulled out his list of student thesis proposals and read from it,  “--the ‘Evolution of Queerness Over Different Translations of the Patroclus myth?’”

Jaxson looked surprised, swallowing a nervous lump as he turned towards Quin, “I was, but then I started researching further into potential historical origins for the Achilles and Patroclus story and I really couldn’t find anything--”

“So--” Quin tried to interrupt, panicking.

“Until,” Jaxson continued, his eyes lit up, like they always did when he stumbled upon something marvelous or had a great idea he would hurriedly jot down in his tiny pink moleskine. Some days, Quintus wished all his students had Jaxson’s passion and drive. Today was not one of those days. 

Jaxson’s voice filled the room as he confidently sent Quintus into an out-of-body fugue state, “Until I found this really obscure story about a real Roman prince and his lover, dated more than a thousand years before the first recordings of the Achilles and Patroclus story--with striking resemblances--and I decided to write a piece arguing that this historical event could definitely have inspired an iconic myth!” Jaxson looked like he’d just won grand prize at the Putnam County fucking Spelling Bee, before softening just a bit, “I just--couldn’t find any academic papers already written on this topic and wanted to write something original. Is that okay?”

Quintus drew in a breath, wildly calculating some bullshit way to invalidate a proposal that was better than most--if not all--of the class’s work. He looked out over the students, all of whom were suddenly riveted by Jax’s research, and he knew there was no way he could get away with pulling the you-didn’t-clear-this-with-me routine. One girl with pink hair and baby bangs practically dared Quin to say anything that could even be remotely interpreted as homophobic.

With a quiet sigh, Quin threw on his best poker-face and relaxed back into his chair, though his stomach churned and threatened to expel all of Renee’s shitty keurig coffee with a vengeance if he listened to a moment of this presentation. “Sorry, sounds like a great topic,” he fluttered, attempting to sound as encouraging and chipper as humanly possible, “Please continue.”

Jaxson went on to weave a beautiful--and surprisingly accurate--tale about the tragedy of Quintus Aurelius and his lover, Antonius. Truth be told, he had always wondered if Achilles and Patroclus were only coincidentally adjacent to his own story, and Jaxson made a convincing argument in refute, but as stunning as Jaxson was in front of his slideshow, Quin couldn’t stop himself from flickering his attention to his class, watching their reactions to his life, to his story. 

Many of the women sighed wistfully, even as Jaxson spared no gory detail, a few of the men watched in earnest, truly amazed that in their many years of study (please), they hadn’t come across this particular story. Quintus had always been thankful for the anonymity, but Jaxson, bless him and his big ol’ brain, seemed hellbent on making sure everyone knew about the day that sentenced two souls to an eternity in purgatory. 

Quintus felt ill, his entire body was cold and wracked with shivers every time Jaxson so much as mentioned Antonius. He really did think he might puke. “He was a dedicated and loyal soldier, and even moreso as a lover,” Jaxson mused, flipping through slides with busts and pottery images of the two of them. Quintus couldn’t look at them, instead focusing on swallowing down the bile that kept creeping up his throat, trying desperately to tune out Jaxson and focus on the very interesting grain in the wood of his desk.

“The battle on the Danube with the Marcomanni was supposed to be pretty routine; a defense rally against Germanic invaders to protect Roman colonies,” Jaxson continued, his eyes trained on a rudimentary map of the area. Quintus grit his teeth and swallowed, eyeing the door for an escape, wondering if it would be rude, wondering if he cared at all, but Jaxson was relentless. 

“Quintus and Antonius, as his Captain, overpowered the Germans with relative ease,” he switched slides to one of the many paintings of Achilles mourning Patroclus’s death. This one, however, was horrifically and eerily familiar. “Quintus met with the German general to accept surrender, which usually included their beheading, but Quintus is recorded to have been a remarkably kind and merciful leader.”

“Fuck,” Quin breathed, the word sharp and hot on his lips as he leaned forward on his knees, praying with everything he had for someone to draw him out of his body, out of his shame.

“Quintus did not behead the German general, and chose to spare his life, taking his sword as a trophy instead. Just as he turned to order for the man’s arrest, the German grabbed a nearby sword from one of his fallen soldiers and drove it through Quintus’s heart.”

The class fell silent. Quintus was silent. To the class, it looked like their professor took a moment to scratch his beard on his shoulder. Most didn’t even see it. None would see the wetness he left on his button-down shirt. 

Jaxson finished his presentation with ease, detailing Antonius’s long life alone on the cliffs. Questions rolled in from the students about why they were left out of history, about the validity of his sources, and maybe more that Quintus wasn’t listening to. He’d completely phased out of the class, staring at his desk, fixated on the memory of watching Antonius sob in his tiny cottage over the sea when he tried to reach out to him and tell him it was okay to move on. 

The sound of the class laughing snapped Quin back to attention, looking around for some clue about what was so funny. Maybe if he joined in on the joke, this would all go away. 

“I said,” said one of the boys in the back, wearing a faded blue beanie and a shirt that said Why was Oedipus against profanity? Because he kisses his mother with that mouth. “That guy kinda looks like Professor Reilly.” Quin looked up at the last slide in Jaxson’s presentation, which pictured a bust of the late Quintus Aurelius. Quin didn’t have the slightest idea of when that could have been carved. 

He laughed along, a little too enthusiastically, because in that moment, he realized he’d always just be Quin Reilly, Professor of Classics to these regrettably short lives. 

He stood up, adjusting his pants to sit higher on his waist and shrugging, “Curse of being a white guy, huh? You end up looking like all the other white guys.” The class laughed menially before Quin motioned for Jax to take a seat, “Nice job, Jax, thank you. I’m excited to read your paper,” he lied.

iv. I need a fucking drink.

A very clear and loud thought that occured while he collapsed into his office chair. He turned to look out of his obnoxiously large windows across the quad, watching students filter in and out of the massive antique gothic building--one of the oldest on campus and ironically housing Classics and English. At least his windows were pretty.

He read the same page from a freshman Intro to Classics paper over and over, trying to decipher what this poor child could possibly want to tell him, almost making a game of it in his head as he agonized through the final minutes of his office hours. He just wanted to abandon the facade of a normal human being, flap his wings, and fall into his bed. He deserved it, heavenly duties be damned for just one day.

And then his phone vibrated.

Anything could be more interesting than this probably plagiarized drivel parading as an essay on Homer, so Quin picked up his phone and almost immediately leapt out of his chair with a sudden rush of adrenaline when he read the notification.

“Would you like to go on a walk together?”

He hadn’t even gathered the strength to name the contact yet, but he spent enough time staring at the number to know exactly who it was from. He paced around his office, stopping in the mirror once to look himself over before tapping a quick reply, “Yeah, now?” He deleted that quickly before trying again, “Where should I meet you?” He almost threw his phone against the wall.

“Absolutely.” He hit send before he could second guess himself and amended quickly with a follow-up message, “Any time, just let me know when.” 

He stared at the screen for what felt like hours as his pulse hammered in his ears. When he saw the three dots pop up from the other side of the screen, he already started rifling through his office closet for a nicer shirt and his extra bottle of cologne.

v. Kiss him. 

The thought was loud and violent and Quintus almost flinched from the sheer force of it. Their walk had been so beautiful, anything with Fér was hauntingly beautiful. Quin found it surprisingly easy to call his Antonius by a new name; from the moment he saw him in that museum, looking around with the eyes of a child, still, Quintus knew he would love this man just as he is. Exactly who he is. 

They had settled on the lakeshore together, in the sand, watching the sunset, on a blanket Quin pulled out of thin air. He didn’t do it to show off--maybe a little--but he did want to acclimate Fér to the reality that none of this is normal. Maybe, in a small way, Quin was trying to assure Fér that it was okay to feel a little freakish right now, that it was okay for none of this to make sense, as long as they were doing it together, after so long. 

Quin couldn’t help the doubts. He had always been such a thorough thinker, marking his moves a thousand feet in front of him, analyzing every possibility at every turn, so he worried, as he did so often for everyone he was responsible for. He worried most, however, that Fér might not love him in this life. That, despite the memories flooding back in the most catastrophic way, Fér might even hate Quin for everything that’s happened, for everything he caused.

But then Fér looked up at him and smiled gently, the pinks of the sunset catching the silver flecks at his temple, and he breathed, “This is really nice.”

Kiss him.

Quintus forced himself to duck his head and swallow. The sheer want for it was enough to burn at his lashes, a pit forming deep in his gut. He cleared his throat and smiled, nodding, “It is really nice, thank you for this.” And he really meant it. He took a moment to look at Fér and really took in his features. Fér looked the way Quin dreamed of when he was small, when he created tiny hopes in the secret places in his chest, that when all the work was done, he might be able to just stare at his Antonius for a moment, and for the rest of his life. 

He remembered that he was thankful, as he breathed his last breath, that the last thing he ever saw were those pretty brown eyes, the color of charcoal stained into fingertips.

“Can I walk you home?” Quin asked, the ferocious heat of his thought dissipating as the Chicago cold began biting with the threat of the setting sun. Almost as if on cue, the two of them irrevocably linked by some cosmic force Johnny might have a sweet chuckle at, Fér shivered.

Standing, Quintus held out a hand to easily lift Fér onto his feet. He hesitated, for a moment, before slipping his hand out of Fér’s, grieving the loss of it and trembling at how incredibly right it felt, how easy and perfect. Instead, he slipped out of his coat and placed it over Fér’s shoulders, barely giving him the opportunity to protest. “You should have worn something warmer if you didn’t want me to fuss over you,” he said with a grin, trying to provoke a laugh, a smile, anything more than awkwardness and overt effort in what they were trying to build. 

And Fér did smile. He did accept the coat, with what seemed like a bit of embarrassed resignation. Quintus made another promise that moment, one that he really hoped he would keep. A promise that he wouldn’t stop until Fér believed that Quintus could make him happy, if he had to burn the world down to do it. 

[nurseyleafs]

let me feel my pain in private

read it on ao3: here

The music is pulsating, throbbing, and Derek feels it in his veins. The threat of a headache looms, but he dismisses it into the haze of the night, surrounded by an endless sea of dancing bodies. He downs the rest of his tub juice before Dex has the chance of coming back. He lets his shoulders sway to the unchanging melody of the song and does his best to not bash into someone and spill any more drinks. The music changes tempo and speed a few times before Derek realizes he has gone probably an hour without someone checking up on him. He thinks it's Dex's duty tonight? He wrinkles his nose a little bit, not yet drunk enough to not be embarrassed of the concept of Nursey Patrol. However he is drunk enough that his thoughts are getting lost in the clouds of his mind. He tries to shake away the fuzzy feeling that's numbing his brain, and makes his way to the kitchen for some beer. More tub juice might kill him. He certainly doesn't need that, nor does he want that weighing on Dex for being shitty at watching him. He finds Lardo standing guard over the keg, and her handing him a fresh glass should count for something. Maybe his friends could be a little bit less overbearing. He hasn't broken anything in at least a couple days. Although they do have a point when it comes to Drunk Nursey. The prospect of re-entering the room where the sounds are the most blaring suddenly disinterests him, and he aims for sitting quietly in the hallway. He's managed to slink down to a kneeling position against the wall without knocking over his beer and he's quite proud of himself when he hears shuddering breaths from above him.

The one who is supposed to be keeping track of him, is curled up into a tight ball on the top step and is about ten seconds from tears. Dex's face is scrunched up so tightly that his freckles look like blobs and his hands have turned white from the tension they're holding onto the soft red flannel Dex is always wearing. It's taking too long for it to register what's happening in Derek's brain, but he starts silently making his way up the stairs anyways. The last step before he reaches Dex elicits a horrible shriek but Dex makes no notice of it. He carries on whimpering and tightening his shoulder muscles. Derek eases himself down and carefully places a hand on Dex's back.

“What do you need me to do,” he says softly.

“Nothing,” Dex barely gets out. He's waving for Derek to leave, but his own experience is nagging at him to push just a little further.

“Dude I- I swear I'm fine. 'M just waiting for the bathroom to be open, that's all.”

He's doing his best to turn away from Derek, towards the mysteriously stained wall.

“Bro, there's other bathrooms. I doubt people would care if you used theirs, or hell, if you just need to calm down you could probably chill in Chowder's room.”

Derek quirks his eyebrows up. A stream of protests fall out of Dex's mouth.

“God, I'm just being whiny- I do not need Chowder walking in on me. I'm okay I just can't fucking breathe and want to puke I need a minute-”

Warning signs are flashing through the fog of Derek's mind and immediately took over.

“Nope, this is happening.”

Derek grabs Dex's waist and he crumples. With a little strain, he manages to get both of them to their feet and Dex moves without complaint. He rushes to Chowder's room and pushes the door open just enough to check if there are bodies inside. All clear. He shoves Dex onto the bed and sits down beside him, staring intently at him.

“Alright, can you focus on your breathing? In and out. In and-”

Dex scoffs. “If I could, maybe.” A look of shame rolls across his face. “Can you leave now, please?” He's almost begging.

“I don't want to leave you alone yet, man. You were practically in coral reef mode,” Derek quips. He returns to making eye contact with Dex and it seems as though no time has passed since then.

A moment hangs in the air between them as Dex stares at his grey converse.

“Nurse, I'm trans.”

“Okay.”

“Like, I'm a transgender man. Female to male-”

“No, I got it. Is this an issue with your binder or something?” Dex is a little taken aback.

“Fuck man, most people need a minute,” he chuckles, “I sort of do.”

Derek studies his face for a second. He's not inspecting it for anything, just enjoying how the disgusting amount of turquoise in the room gives him a strange sort of glow. His mind was blank. It's not that the word went right over his head and wasn't processed, but it didn't alter any thoughts he had ever had. He almost wants to conjure up some memory that could suddenly be explained away, but nothing stands out in his brain. He feels kind of bad that this was anti-climactic for Dex.

“You know, I'm well-versed in this stuff.” This gives Dex a sincere smile. “So, you should probably get out of that binder, then.”

“I wasn't kidding when I asked you to leave, Nurse. I'm not showing you my chest.”

“Don't assume I have any interest in seeing your chest. I'm sticking around for safety purposes,” He turns around and pokes at a Sharks bobble-head.

“Yours or mine,” Dex chirps.

“Both.” The bounce of the bobble-head is forceful enough to knock over a signed hockey puck. God damn it. He hears struggle behind him, followed by a soft and meaningful 'Fuck.'

“Do you need a hand?” Derek singsongs.

Silence.

“...yes.”

Derek whips around to see Dex facing away from him, completely entangled in tan fabric. His arms are extended awkwardly and the fabric has bunched in such a way that he can tell it's painful. He swiftly readjusts the hem and lifts it off of Dex's torso to reveal a masterpiece of purple and green bruises along his ribcage. Shock stains his face.

“Dex, you have to be more careful.” He slaps himself mentally, knowing that came across as patronizing.

“I'm fine, those are old bruises,” Dex says, pulling back on his flannel and snapping the buttons in place before turning to face Derek.

“No, dude. I know what I'm talking about. You have to let those bruises heal or you'll fuck up your ribs and organs. This is serious shit.”

Dex ignores Derek and makes his way over to the bed. He unceremoniously flops down, and fixes the pillows to his liking. It has yet to dawn on him. Maybe he's been too subtle. And maybe he's still a little drunk as his best idea is to take off his own shirt.

“Oh my god, do you think you're getting lucky? What are you doing-” Dex laughs, but mixed with confusion and fear. Derek recognizes that fear. He pushes the thought down as he drops his button-down from his shoulders to the floor, his top surgery scars on full display.

“Now you have to listen to me. I have been stealth for so many goddamned years now and I almost didn't qualify for this surgery because I pulled your stupid shit all through high school. I know how much it hurts either way, but don't put that binder back on, Will.”

Suddenly he feels very sober. He approaches the other side of the bed, where Dex is much calmer, and plops himself down so their faces are three inches apart. With a grin, he sprawls out and reaches around Dex to entrap him. Fake attempts at slaps are made on Dex's part.

“What are you doing,” Dex shrieks, “Oh my god, stop!” His words are betrayed by the tremendous smile spreading from ear to blushing pink ear.

“I've decided we are best friends now, you can't help it. Accept me.”

Dex gets a good shove against Derek's shoulder, but not enough to leave a mark. “Uhh, this is offensive. You can't decide we're best friends because we're both trans. I won't allow it.”

The wrestling settles down after a few seconds so Dex can catch his breath and Derek doesn't accidentally punch him in the sternum.

“You know, we actually are best friends now, right?” Derek lets on a serious tone.

“Shut up,” Dex groans back. Derek's face is met with a pillow being slammed into it.

[marypsue]

Duskfall 1 / 2

Part Two || on AO3

...

I’d never given much thought to how I would die.

If I had, though, this wouldn’t have been my first choice. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have even made the top ten.

It wasn’t until the van began to slide towards me that I realised I’d always had some vague, romantic notion of dying in a way that meant something - perhaps in the place of someone I loved. There wasn’t enough time to resign myself to the reality - that I was about to die alone, too young, before I’d really had a chance to have a life. 

In my last, helpless seconds, I found myself dwelling not on how my death would devastate my poor mother, or on how my father would no doubt blame himself. All I could think was that this wouldn’t be happening if I’d never come to Forks at all.

The van’s brakes squealed uselessly as it filled my vision.

...

In the state of Washington, on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, there is a small logging town named Forks. This town is unremarkable in every way, except for one. Forks, Washington receives more rainfall, on average, than any other place in the continental United States. This small town is nearly permanently overcast, smothered under a constant blanket of grey cloud. 

It was Forks from which my mother, seventeen years ago, had escaped with me in tow, leaving my father behind. And it was to Forks that I had now exiled myself.

I had come from Phoenix, Arizona, a city so different from Forks in every way that it might as well have been on another planet. I hadn’t wanted to leave. The year I’d turned fourteen, I’d put my foot down and refused to spend any more summers in Forks with my father, Charlie, and I hadn’t been back since. Forks was a cold, wet, dim, green purgatory from which I felt lucky to have escaped. Despite my sickly pallor and general aversion to all things athletic, sunny, sporty Phoenix was where I belonged.

And yet, it was Forks where I was now dying.

I had no one to blame but myself, of course. I’d chosen to move to Forks, rather than play the third wheel to my mother and her new boyfriend as they travelled across the country for his baseball training camps. Renee had protested, but I knew they’d both be happier without me tagging along. And Charlie had been more than glad to have me stay with him. He’d never been one to cling, but he’d hung around like a lost puppy at first, until I’d convinced him that I wasn’t going to evaporate in the middle of the night. 

And I’d chosen to start at Forks High School in mid-March, rather than waiting until the start of the next semester. I’d thought that the social consequences would be worth not shooting myself in the foot academically. 

I shouldn’t have been worried about my grades - my high school in Phoenix was at least a grade ahead of Forks’. I should have been more worried about my peers.

More specifically, I should have been more worried about a bunch of seventeen-year-olds driving on sheer ice during the one freak snowstorm Forks had seen all winter. The snow had been worse than the rain - cold, in addition to wet - but at least it had broken up the monotony. For the span of a few minutes, I’d even foolishly allowed myself to be charmed by the sight of huge, feathery clumps of snow drifting slowly from the (as always, overcast) sky. 

That had turned out to be my last mistake.

I hadn’t seen the van pulling into the parking lot. I hadn’t seen its driver try to stop, hadn’t seen it start to slide on the ice. I hadn’t noticed it until it was too late to move.

Later, Dr. Cullen would explain that I’d been pinned between the van and the bed of my ancient truck, a ‘welcome-home’ gift from Charlie that had been the one bright spot in my exile. The crash had shattered my pelvis and severed my spine in two places. If I’d lived, I never would have walked again.

I didn’t know that, of course. I was a little preoccupied with being unconscious. 

“They’re going to notice.”

The voice was what drew me from the stupor I had been drifting in, watching the ceiling swim overhead and quietly contemplating my own imminent death. I had been wondering, I realised, how long I had been dying for. How much longer it would take. 

The voice spoke again, tugging me a little closer to the surface of consciousness, and for the first time I felt a twinge of pain from somewhere in my abdomen, around my waist. I tried to raise my head, to see what the damage was, but a kind of sleepy heaviness overwhelmed me. I focused, instead, on the voice. Words were still too difficult to pin down, but I thought I recognised the cadence, the pitch. However, my mind, full of fog as it was, couldn’t quite seem to close the gap between the voice and who it belonged to.

“This isn’t the nineteenth century, Carlisle. Someone will ask questions when she’s declared dead and no one can find her body.”

Somewhere in the room beyond my vision of pale, greenish ceiling, something was beeping incessantly. I wished that someone would shut it up, but I couldn’t seem to form the words to ask. Just drawing breath to try took a monumental effort.

Another voice, this one radiating calm and composure, entered the conversation. “Unless she receives three major organ transplants within the next hour, she is as good as dead. And you know as well as I the chances of that happening.”

I wished that the strange heaviness that made it impossible to move would at least let me breathe a frustrated sigh. At least now I had a timeline for how long I could expect this dying thing to take.

The first voice spoke again, and this time a terrifying coldness came over it, sending chills down my back even through the warm and dreamy haze that had settled over me. “Then perhaps we shouldn’t interfere.”

“Edward,” the second voice said, sternly, and my sluggish brain finally gave a jolt of comprehension. Edward. Of course. I recognised the voice from my very first biology class. Edward Cullen, the boy who’d been so repulsed by my existence that he’d fled the entire school and never come back.

I tried to summon a groan of exasperation. Really, it was just my luck.

“You can’t save them all, Carlisle.”

“My boy, I know that better than anyone.” I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining a tinge of sorrow in the second voice, the one belonging to ‘Carlisle’. “But don’t I owe it to her to at least try?”

“Don’t you owe it to her not to condemn her to an eternity of suffering just so that you and Esme can pair me off?” Edward snapped, and I felt a wave of heat beginning, slowly, to rise up my chest towards my face. The sudden, overwhelming feeling that I shouldn’t be hearing this conversation overtook me, but I couldn’t seem to get my arms to work to come up and cover my ears. “Remember Rosalie? Don’t put us all through that again.”

“Your concerns are noted,” ‘Carlisle’ said lightly. “But I do consider more than your romantic prospects in these cases, you know. She’s still so young, she has so much more life ahead of her - to let her die like this would not only be cruelty, it would be an injustice. Besides, wasn’t she your -”

It was about then that I was distracted by a throb of pounding pain from my abdomen. Suddenly, my voice decided to work. I managed a decent yelp, and the two voices shut up instantly.

“She’s awake - you didn’t tell me she’d be awake.”

“She’s not supposed to be.”

Something cold flooded through the back of my hand, spreading quickly up my arm, and the ceiling began to swim again, the pain slowly dissolving along with the rest of my body. As my vision started to dim, I saw a beautiful face - the kind of face Botticelli might have dreamed of, the kind of face that would have made Michaelangelo weep - lean into my line of sight, and smile.

Then a tidal wave of sleep dragged me under.

...

When I woke up, I was on fire.

There were no words to describe the pain, even if I'd been able to speak them. It would have been like trying to describe a sunset to a person who's been blind all their life. No matter what I said, it would never quite measure up to the real thing.

When the burning finally faded enough that I could focus on anything other than how much I hurt, the ceiling had changed. Rather than the pale, antiseptic hospital green I’d seen before, this was a pleasant shade of warm white, welcoming and soft. 

It took a moment for me to make sure all my limbs were where I remembered them being. 

When I finally managed to sit up, I discovered that the large, elegantly furnished room I'd found myself in was occupied. I vaguely recognised some of the alabaster faces gathered around my bedside, but in this strange setting, I couldn't place where I knew them from. Most of them - three girls, three boys - appeared young, not much older than me, but there was something in the way all of them held themselves, something in their beautiful amber eyes, that made them all seem much, much older. The thought whispered through my head that, apart from their clothing, none of them would have seemed particularly out of place in a sepia photograph.

“What happened?” I managed to ask, shuddering at the rasp of my own voice. My throat ached, stung, like I’d swallowed an entire bottle of hot sauce and chased it with sand. 

The apparent oldest of the boys, the one all the others seemed to turn towards without even realising they were doing so, pushed himself up from the armchair he'd settled into and approached my sickbed. He flashed me a dazzling smile, his sparkling white teeth only the palest shade lighter than his marble-fine skin. I had to stuff down the urge to reach out and run my hand along his forearm where the rolled-back sleeve of his button-down shirt exposed it, to see if it was really as smooth and unblemished as it looked. 

Now that I was looking, I realised that all of them had the same colouration, as though they'd never seen sunlight, and the same tawny, almost golden eyes. And, of course, they were all breathtakingly beautiful. Despite their apparent physical differences, they almost looked like they were all related.

It finally occurred to me where I'd seen them - at least, most of them - before. I'd been struck, before, by how beautiful, how otherworldly, the Cullen siblings - foster-siblings, but no one would know it to look at them - appeared against the drab, mundane background of the cafeteria of Forks High School. Even without anything so ordinary as a high school cafeteria to contrast against, I still found myself fascinated, by the play of light on Rosalie Hale's cascade of golden hair, by the swanlike arch of Alice's slender throat, by the sculpted angles of Jasper Hale's marble face.

Edward, I noticed, was conspicuously absent.

The one woman I didn't recognise, I decided, must be the siblings' foster mother, Esme. Which meant that the man who'd approached me had to be Dr. Cullen. Neither of them, strangely, looked much older than their charges.

In fact, everything about this was strange. Where was I? Why was I here? Was the conversation I'd overheard between Dr. Cullen and Edward - could it possibly have been real? How else could I have come to be here? A multitude of questions rushed forward to the front of my mind, but they all crashed up against each other before they could make it to my tongue.

I couldn't, I realised, hear my own heartbeat.

Despite the burning rasp in my throat, I managed to choke out, "Am I dead?"

Dr. Cullen's brilliant smile looked almost apologetic as he said, "The answer to that is somewhere between yes and no."

...

In the end, the Denali agreed to come to us. I couldn't stay in Forks, not with everyone believing I was dead, and even with seven of them, the Cullens still didn't want to risk traveling up the coast alone with a newborn vampire.

A newborn vampire. The most powerful, bloodthirsty, dangerous being in existence.

Me.

It didn't quite seem real, and the endless, oppressive green dark of Forks didn't help me feel any more grounded. It also didn't help that my new eyes could see a thousand different shades of green, the constant monotone gloom of Washington State transforming into a rainbow of light and shadow before my eyes. Forks had always seemed a little otherworldly, a little unreal, but now it was practically bursting with colour and scent and sound and light - an impossible fairyland. I couldn’t imagine seeing the whole world this way. 

It was almost unfathomable to think that I didn’t need to imagine it. That I would experience it, firsthand, soon enough.

“Don’t worry,” Alice said, sweetly, reaching up to rest a hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.” 

“Because you...saw it.”

Alice winked, and tapped a finger lightly against her temple. That was another thing I was going to have to get used to. Superpowers. 

“And don’t worry about Edward. He’s only avoiding you because -”

Just like that, any hopefulness I might have felt about the whole situation evaporated into the chilly grey pre-dawn air. “Thank you, for the reminder that I’m literally so repulsive that the sight of me drove your, uh, brother away for good.”

Alice let out a little huff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with you. He and Carlisle just need to bare their teeth at each other for a while, get it out of their systems.” Her smile turned knowing as she added, “My ‘uh, brother’ finds you anything but repulsive. Trust me.”

I was beginning to learn that a knowing smile from Alice was far worse than a knowing smile from anyone else.

It took a moment for me to find my voice again. “Oh. Great. Because this was all just going too well already.”

Alice’s laughter was bright as delicate silver bells. She patted my shoulder, once, before reaching up to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t worry, we’ll be right there beside you all the way to Alaska. Have fun, make new friends!” she trilled, before pirouetting away.

She didn’t mention that the only reason she and the Cullens would be beside me was because they would be flanking the truck - according to the plan they’d put together over the phone the night before, two driving ahead, two following, and the other three on foot - in case I went berserk on the highway somewhere. I could understand why. The burning in the back of my throat was incessant and insistent, barely calmed at all by the entire doe Emmett had dragged back for me after Carlisle had decided there was too much risk of me meeting hikers in the woods to go - hunting - myself. In a strange way, I found it reassuring. Maybe I hadn’t asked for this new life, but now that I had it, I didn’t really want to start it out by literally biting someone’s head off.

Still, there was no way I was going to make new friends. I approached the huge black mud-spattered pickup truck that pulled into the driveway of the glass-and-steel phantasmagoria that served the Cullens for a house feeling pretty much the same as I imagined someone would walking up to the executioner’s block. So, about the way I’d felt on my first day of school.

This was different, though. At least facing down Forks High School on that first morning, I’d known that, six hours later, I’d be heading back home, to a quiet dinner with Charlie, who probably wouldn’t ask any awkward questions I didn’t want to answer. That I’d call Renee, my mom, that night, endure her prying about whether I met any cute boys, find out how she and Phil were liking Florida, just talk. That I’d be able to go out on the weekend and maybe talk cars with Jacob Black. That, even if I was alone in a sea of new faces, even if everything went terribly and everyone hated me, I still had somewhere to go back to. Still had someone on my side.

Staring at the impossibly beautiful strangers piling out of the truck to take me away to my new life, I realised I’d never been so entirely alone.

[sharnngan]

Parenting in the Early Mornings

Why I miss the exhaustion

Photo by Reynaldo #brigworkz Brigantty from Pexels

When other parents began a story about how early their children awoke, I would cut them off and say, If the time you are about to mention starts with a six or a seven, I might strangle you.

For the first three and a half years of my daughter’s life, she awoke each morning at 5:01 a.m. I can still see the brutal display of the alarm clock and hear the howling cries of Daddy!, which marked the launch of every day.

If you are a parent without a child who wakes at 5:01 a.m. or earlier, you might be thinking my husband, Chris, and I did something wrong. Like, to name a few possibilities, putting our daughter to bed too early or too late, or allowing her too few or too many naps, or feeding her too close to or too far from bedtime.

You might wonder if we bothered to read the parenting books or if we neglected to consider a calming blue or earthy green paint in the nursery.

You might conclude we were unaware of the benefits of letting her “cry it out,” or of a white noise machine, or of the miracle of the OK to Wake! Alarm Clock, which glows a gentle green to signal when it is time to rise.

None of it worked.

So in the darkness of the early mornings, I would carry our daughter from her nursery into the living room of our New York City apartment. Through our window, I would see the weathered pre-war building directly across from ours without a single light on, still thirty minutes from its first early riser, a woman who fried a single egg each morning before starting a run on her bedroom treadmill. On the deserted streets below, I’d watch the bagel guy’s morning routine. He’d pull his vending cart like a rickshaw towards Broadway where he’d position himself for the commuter rush that had not yet begun.

My daughter would point at the book she wanted me to read, eventually learning to say this one or that one. The first book would be followed by another, and then another and another, which would leave my voice so hoarse that I would occasionally Google the symptoms of throat cancer.

With my eyes still burning from the start of another day, I’d latch onto the hope that our marathon read alouds would ensure my daughter’s future as a reporter, a poet or a professor.

Before having a child, when my husband and I would talk to other parents about their experiences they would mention the nights. How they were often startled awake by a screaming baby who was hungry, soiled, lonely or sick. Parents with toddlers would talk about the incessant challenge of getting a child to sleep at bedtime. How kids could choose from approximately one million stalling techniques, anything from claiming to be hungry despite having just eaten, to the temperature in the room needing to be adjusted for a third time, to a fear of blobby monsters who surely had taken up residence in the closet.

I don’t remember anyone talking about the mornings.

I had this vision that with the help of extra caffeine some version of our pre-child morning routine — involving stillness and the smell of coffee and newsprint — could continue. This is a hilarious thought to remember having. It reminds me of other hilarious thoughts I had about my future life as a parent. Like when I believed parents who said that you can nap when your child naps, as if that time isn’t used for washing out the baby bottles or folding the laundry or mindlessly scrolling through Twitter because you no longer have any executive brain function.

As a responsible parental citizen of the world, I now tell prospective parents that they should prepare to be exhausted by the nights, the mornings and the afternoons. If they are lucky, there will be an hour at some unpredictable time of day in which the haze will momentarily lift and they will feel like a semblance of their former selves.

No one’s going to accuse me of underselling the challenge of parenting a young child.

On the mornings with my daughter, the sound of running water from neighboring apartments would arrive around 6:00 a.m. and signal that we were no longer the only ones awake.

We would move to the floor for play time where I’d sip my coffee, the first of several that would keep me alert and dizzy, as we chopped our wooden vegetables or traveled the world with the Fisher-Price Little People.

Chris would be done with his morning shower at 7:00 a.m. and give me a twenty-minute break before beginning his commute to Westchester for work. He would encourage me to use this time to take my own shower, or to brush my teeth, or to eat my breakfast. But, instead, I would lie face down in our bed. After the brief break, there would be more reading, feeding and play time until our sitter arrived at 8:00 a.m. Then, I would begin showering and readying myself for the workday.

Our pediatrician, upon hearing all the things we had tried in a quest to alter our morning routine, would offer this diagnosis: Some kids just have their time. Hers is 5:00 a.m.

But one evening a last Hail Mary of an idea cut through the fog of my exhausted brain. I would explain to our daughter that she could earn a star for sleeping until the alarm clock glowed green, and that earning ten stars would entitle her to a prize. Unlike previous alarm clock efforts, I would set it to 5:01 a.m., so on day one she would be assured of earning her first star. On day two, I would set it to 5:03 a.m. and award her a second star for sleeping until the green light. Day three would be set to 5:05 a.m., and on and on it would go.

After two months of steady progress, we arrived at a wake-up time of 6:55 a.m., which felt like sleeping until lunchtime.

Now, my daughter is nearing her ninth birthday. It’s been years since the reward charts filled up with regularity before being outgrown. And of all the routines and rites of passage of my daughter’s younger years, I miss our early mornings the most.

In the mornings, before the sun rose and the city came alive, I was kind and patient with my daughter. I overflowed with words and touch and laughter. My daughter needed that from me, and something about my primal exhaustion left me with only that to give.

I didn’t yet know what it would feel like to be the kind of father I am now.

The kind who loses his temper at predictable provocations. Like when I ask our daughter to put down her iPad, and I meet her repeated promises of one more minute with a screaming threat to take it away forever. The kind who needs to be reminded to stop reading his email during dinner. The kind who gives up in defeat along with his daughter when she protests about practicing her guitar.

The kind of father whose impatience and perfectionism has elicited in his daughter a habit of apologizing for even trivial mistakes.

You can be forgiven for thinking this is all a case of nostalgia, but I don’t think so.

Over the last few weeks, as the continuing cruelty of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused my daughter to break down into tears saying, I just want to see my friends and When is this all going to be over?, she has been waking up during the night. She screams Daddy!, just like she used to do in the early mornings, and I race into her room, just like I did then.

She tells me that she has forgotten how to sleep.

I sit at her bedside and I say, It’s okay. I read her a story, and I rub her back, and I pull the covers up to her chin. I ask if she has her teddy bear, the one from my childhood nights, which we reserve for times like these. I remain on her floor, sometimes for an hour, until she falls back asleep. The routine leaves me worn down in a way that I haven’t been since I was a new parent and the city mornings were ours.

As my daughter sleeps, I cry softly in the silence.

There are tears of sadness because it has been a year of this plague and I know she will not get that year back. But there are tears of joy, too. Because I had forgotten I was capable of this and now I remember. I remember that I like myself better in these moments when my child draws out something worthy within me.

The way I liked myself better during our early mornings, which to my great regret, I too often wished away.

Parenting in the Early Mornings was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How Do You Feel About Love?

[ecotone99]

[MF] The old rocker

I have been wanting to write for probably 10+ years, and finally this month something in me actually made it happen and ive been playing around. Put together this short story tonight and would love advice/critique. Don't be afraid to be harsh, I'm not pretending to know at all what im doing. The story doesn't have much mean or reason but it is what came out..

He was seventy-five years old, and dressed the same as he ever had, like a rocker. White sneakers, tight jeans and small white t-shirts. A leather jacket in the colder months. He lived alone and barely ventured from his house, except to go to the bank and supermarket. He had no car, nor a license, so he made good use of the bus stop directly outside his house when needed. His small house was run down, and the garden was not over grown, but completely baron apart from grass. The house was sat in one of the nicer areas of town – a good end of the city. Upon the death of his mother, with great help he had brought this place with his inheritance, leaving enough to live off until his pension kicked in. He had never had any urge to make money, nor any head for it, but he sufficiently managed his essentials. The only kind of leisure that he spent his money on was that of rock music. Mostly on CD’s, he had inherited a decent stereo, sometimes he also brought guitar strings. He listened to rock music and played his guitar daily – although he was terrible at guitar. He had practiced for over 30 years, and though he could play along with his favorite songs, he never had that connection of really feeling the instrument and using it to express himself. Still, he believed after so many years that his taste in rock was incredibly refined. He knew if ever questioned or entered into a discussion about classic rock music, that he would be completely at home and confident in discussing the obscure and fine aspects of the genre, and the thought of it excited him greatly - although he was yet to have had the chance Despite the rock, throughout this simple life he was a sober man, never drinking or taking drugs. A lucky man whose mind operated on the base line of existence, captivated and distracted enough by the sane things, to never really feel a turmoil in him. Never wanting to see that line from above, or below, only right on top of it. And despite the repetition of his life, he escaped endlessly in his music each day and night, before retiring to his small and plain bed. Every morning he rose without a wakeup call before 6am, to go and sit on the bus stop outside his house, to drink instant coffee and watch the sunrise with a smile. The sun would peek up from behind the adjacent houses, closely trailing the golden haze that melted the morning cold and fog, hitting his feet first and then the rest of him as he sipped on his coffee and thought about his favorite bands.

He always felt truly alive sitting here and often thought that as long as the sun rose each morning, he would be happy. He would watch the traffic pickup over the course of a couple of hours, the odd person here and there heading off to work before there was light, slowly building into the commuter frenzy peaking at eight thirty. They were all part of a world that seemed to move at a different pace than him, not that he ever seemed to care, or consider this. On Saturday and Sunday mornings he saw all manner of sights as he sat. Girls coming down the footpath, holding their high heels, stumbling forward as if still wearing them. Inebriated men, still trying to ride the night, walking past directionless. Occasionally solo dogs walked by with pace, not even turning to look or sniff at him as they passed, clearly having somewhere to be. More rarely so a group of teenagers or a worser man would slow and say something nasty to him, but he always cluelessly defused these instances by smiling and sipping his coffee. Those encounters were few and far between here in this part of town. He never greeted the morning people that came by on foot, and in ten years had never talked to or befriended any of them, but the daily dog walkers now expected to see him sitting there as they rounded the bend and it was somewhat comforting for them, although they never admit it - sometimes whispering to themselves as they passed “isn’t it sad, that lonely old man”. The bus drivers all knew not to slow or stop for him. He felt no need or miss of the possible interactions, regardless he had barely time enough to listen to the infinite stories and genius of his favorite bands. He would sit until a little after 9am, multiple coffees down, and then head back inside to put on a morning song. Contact from any distant family was years gone, and didn’t seem to bother him.

One cold august Saturday morning, around quarter to six just as the night died, a young man possibly 20, walked towards him as if fueled by something. As he began to pass, the old man heard an unmistakable sound blasting out from the teenager's headphones, the Grateful Dead's Scarlet Begonias, muffled lyrics of “well there aint nothing wrong with the way she moves”. The man felt a strange feeling in his chest and looked at the kid as he passed. The kid turned, smiled, took out one earphone and spoke. “Morning” he said. “Hello” said the man. The kid promptly sat next to the man and slightly slurring proclaimed “I’ve been up all night; I think I’ll barely make it home”. “Ahh” proclaimed the man. “I’m just having my coffee”. He looked at the direction of the muffled song, still playing out of the headphones, the high frequencies of the guitars dimly jabbing into the morning air. “Scarlet Begonias” he said. The kids body seemed to perk up now, he sat upright and removed the other earphone from his ear. “You know them??” he said, bloodshot eyes wide. He looked down at the old man and noticed now that he looked straight out of a seventies rock band with his tight black jeans and a worn leather jacket. He had on a gold chain and his hair was curly and unkempt. He looked the part just as much as the combination of age and theme looked inappropriate. “Scarlets one of Hunters best” replied the man. “They rocked it over 300 times live”. “Did you ever see them” said the kid. The old man smiled, “no, that would have been nice though”. “Hell yeah” replied the kid. Then he thought of asking about other bands the man liked, or what he had done in his life. He then thought to maybe ask just what the hell he could do in his own life. But the comedown of the nights drugs and drink, was on the tail end of almost 36 hours without sleep, so most of the thoughts he made were conjured by this and then lost or zapped out by his brain, before they got anywhere near his mouth.

Beside him the old man, finally feeling like he had a friend he could talk to, was unfortunately finding himself too with nothing to say – although this was normal for him. He sipped at his coffee and for a couple of minutes they sat there with only the dim sound of the song coming from the headphones, light now starting to raise up behind the house and tree lines adjacent to them, both smiling and feeling something new. “I... got to sleep” said the kid finally. “Yeh, better” smiled the man. The kid stood carefully, bracing himself on the seat, looked at the old man and smiled back. He set off slowly, putting his headphones back in his ears. He found now he felt a little better, walking off thinking of that old man. “He is onto something” he said to himself. “He’s truly living, what am I scared of. He’s old and hasn’t lost anything”. In that moment, growing old didn’t seem as bad to him as it had before. Meanwhile, the old man stared down into his empty coffee cup, and while thinking of his favorite rock bands, decided to go inside for a refill before heading back out to his bench.

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