#how two bit would hold Marcia’s hand to keep it warm

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Marbit taking their dog for a walk in the snow

[patrick-in-the-junkyard]

Backseat.

Victor Criss X Reader

GIF is not mine.

Notes: Here’s the Vic Criss smut everyone has been wanting, I missed you all and currently my school grades are bitting me in the butt, but it’s a joy to finally get this one out. The setting is based on the song called Backseat by Peer Günt.

Summary: Derry has it’s brand new drive in open for business, and are screening a night of horror. Of course, the Bowers Gang would attend along with that Victor brings his girlfriend, the reader. But during the middle of the movie, things get heated fast.

Warnings: SMUT, Unprotected Sex, Mentions of Sex, Alcohol Usage, Drug Usage, and Langauge  

Words:3K

                                              ------------------------ 

     “Where’s Hockstetter this time? Junkyard?” Henry asked, leading Belch to laugh a little. Henry had a slightly confused look on his face at the now-empty seat next to Victor. 

     “You know that goody-two-shoes new girl? That’s where. He said he will probably arrive later tonight if he's done fast enough.” Henry, then became slightly jealous as he knew he now couldn’t be the first out of his gang to tap it.

     “Whatever, I’ll just hope she doesn’t get any diseases from the fucker.” Henry laid back into the seat, taking a long drag from his cigarette. 

     “Hey! Hey you guys, aren’t we going to pick up my date?” Victor added as he’d been growing impatient all day. Before this moment, he had seen you around Derry High when Henry once pointed you out since according to Henry, you looked very "out of place" in Greta's little gossip group. And it was until when he had accidentally knocked into you when he was chasing a kid who stole his quarter at the arcade downtown. By that point, you guys had talked and had become close over a short period of time.  It was his choice to take you with him since you guys had secretly been a thing, not a single soul knew until now.

     “Chill Criss, we will get her soon. Besides, it’s a few hours till this movie starts anyways.” Belch stated, Henry leaned back into the seat, tapping his foot to the beat of the music.

     “Who is it anyway? Marcia Fadden? Cynthia Stone?” Henry begged to know who his friend had fallen for. While Victor shook his head Henry tossed his cigarette into the tray.  

     “Come on Vic, cut the shit! Who is it?”  Belch was now in on it, curious as well. Victor gave a clue, stating that it was someone in the big Gretta friend group which made Henry fake gag as he thought Vic was talking about Sally Muller.

     “You’ll see when we pull up.” Henry kept an eye out, knowing that he almost knew almost everyone who lived in Derry and their houses.

     “What movie are we seeing anyways?” Henry would be full of disgust if it was another one of those romantic comedies that Belch enjoyed from time to time. 

     "That one slasher movie. The one that has a bunch of sequels... you know? The hockey mask killer!" Belch was the one to decide on which movie to waste his precious gas money on and they had seen a commercial for this film on MTV. Besides Henry was a huge sucker for horror so they all had to at least see it once.

                                                        -------

     It was a Friday night, typical that you had nothing to do except bail on all your friends' plans to sneak out with your boyfriend. It was almost nine o'clock and three hours ago when Victor said he’d be over. You outdid yourself on your outfit, curled hair, nice denim skirt, and a pretty ‘groovy’ top as your mom said. This would be the twentieth night of sneaking out so what could go wrong.

     You spotted the car pull up by your ditch from your window, you took a second to check the lock on your door. There was no looking back as you threw your window open and attempted to jump out. That only made you fall out on your ass, tearing a part of your denim skirt. It took you a solid minute for you to pull yourself up. But before you stood Victor jumped out Henry's door and dragged you to the car. Seeing the light on the other side of the house turn on, he gently pushed you into the back before jumping back in.

     Belch stepped on the gas as soon as the door was closed. You were holding onto Vic for dear life when Henry turned back to take a good long look at you, his eyes tracing your body, then smiling.

     "Criss she sure is pretty, how much would it be to have a turn someday?" Victor gave Henry glare for his ‘joke’ while Belch lightly elbowed him which made him change the conversation to one of their past teachers being a 'Hardass'. Victor patted his lap for you to sit on him, which you obliged giving him a small peck on his cheek. Pressing your face into his neck, his scent was now prominent, cigarettes and cheap cologne. 

     There was a slight breeze from Vic’s side window from being cracked down a little. It danced across your arms making you shiver and snuggle into him even more. His face was bright red and felt as your touch had a complete effect on him, draining the feeling from his body.

     Belch had made a few stops before arriving at the drive-in, first was to his house. He wanted to pick up something which you and Victor stayed in the car with Henry.

     Of course, Henry picked up the most awkward conversation, asking if you guys have already fucked yet and the works. Belch got back in and handed Henry a paper bag. 

     Booze, of course usually a night like this they always had to have a little alcohol. By the time you guys left, it was thirty minutes left until the movie starts giving time to pick up snacks at the Derry Market before arriving on time.

                                                          ------

     Derry had a brand new drive-in movie theater that was finished being built that April, you and Victor alone had only been once this month of May. The car pulled up next to the ticket booth and Belch rolled his window down. But what you hadn’t known was you’d come face to face with one of your main gossip buddies as she had picked up the ticket job.

     "Are you guys here for- holy shit is that-!" Gretta looked up from the little note pad in front of her to see you cracking down the window.

     "And in Victor's lap, damn I thought you had standards." She thought it was hilarious to humiliate you.

     "Gretta I'd give you twenty dollars so you could keep your big mouth shut."  Her eyes lit up and her awful chewing got louder, she was always up for a money deal. 

     "Deal! Just don’t let Marcia see you, she's working concessions tonight and you know she has a big problem with not closing her mouth." She had her hand out from the window of the booth as she watched you dig into your blouse pocket and hand her the twenty.

     "Thank you very much that will pay for your movie, by the way, please don't get aids so I have to kick you out of our group. I’d hate to have it end like that" You sarcastically laughed at her comment while Belch pulled away.

     They parked away from the rest of the cars but not too far from the screen, this made the other people coming in take it as a warning and start to park far away from them. 

     “We are going to wait in here” Victor was fast to call being alone with you in the car leaving Belch and Henry standing outside and looking up at the screen. The movie hadn’t started yet but it was going through previews to upcoming films in an old grindhouse type fashion. There were previews that you couldn’t help but pay attention to, including an advertisement for the Derry snack bar stationed by the ticket booth. 

    Henry spotted a blonde walking by wearing a baby blue tank top and a pair of denim shorts walking past the car. The two of you watched closely as he followed her until you couldn't see him anymore. Belch tossed his cigarette onto the ground and made his way in the direction of Henry. It had become awkwardly silent other than the background sound of the movie.

     Victor took your hand in his, you guys were now finally alone together. 

                                                       ---------

     It was in the middle of the movie when you started to take little focus on the film, making little glances at Victor until he would catch you staring. He couldn't help but feel warm inside and slightly nervous around you. 

     You jolted at the loud noise played through the speaker next to your car and accidentally brushed you hand hard on his crotch making him squirm. You hoped that he didn't feel that but that was out the window when he turned his gaze to you.

     "I'm so sorry, I-" He grabbed your hand mid-sentence, he looked deep into your eyes. 

     His hand moved yours to his area, your heart pounded as you felt his warmth. It was easy to feel that he was starting to get hard, very hard. Without taking your eyes off of his face, you rubbed your fingers gently against him. His lips were parted and his cheeks were flushed pink. He couldn’t help but let out a low groan at your light touches. 

     When finally looking down, the outline of his cock was visible through his baggy camo pants. Taking in the sight of the slight twitching in his pants had made your thighs began to tremble. Mouth agape, you wanted to yell out even scream, this couldn’t be happening to you, Right? The only thing you guys had come close to was a sloppy makeout.

     He then lifted your hand and slid it into his pants, feeling how smooth and long his cock was. You placed a few fingers around the tip, it was leaking with pre-cum. You gripped the base of his shaft, lightly squeezing it and gently moved your hand in an up and down motion. Into the moment, he leaned into your neck. ‘Thank God her hair is not in the way.’ He thought as he started leaving a trail of wet sloppy kisses down your neck. It was when he took his hand and began to move his hand over the hem of your skirt. 

     Leaning back, he lifted his head up and spotted Henry making his way back, causing Victor to panic and sit back, accidentally hitting your arm with his knee. Alerting you to remove your hand from inside his pants.

     His head poked through the right side window eyeing the both of you with a big sly grin on his face.

     "Just checkin' in on the both of you, Belch told me to tell you guys he doesn't want his seats covered in jizz. So keep that in mind." He leaned more into the window, moving his arm around to find his pack of cigarettes that unknown to him were crushed between the seat and the glovebox. 

     “Vic do you still have your pack?” He hated Camels which was what Vic smoked but if there was no other choice said would just say ‘Fuck it.’. Victor took a moment before digging into his right pocket and pulling his pack out. He threw it over to Henry and he took out a couple of cigarettes.  Before he could get his head out the window, Victor asked him a question.

     "Where are you even going-." Vic could smell the scent of pot lingering on Henry.

     "A little side party, cool van, pot, and drinks. You guys should join us after your done with fuckin' each other." With that, Henry stood up straight and headed into the same direction he had come from.

     He patiently waited until he couldn’t see anyone in his direction.

     "We don't have much time. Do you want to just do a quickie?" Victor was very worried about getting caught especially in Belch's car of all places. If anyone were to find out the both of you would be dead meat. You nodded not being able to say a single word without stuttering. 

     “How are we s-supposed to fuck in a tiny space like this?” You brushed the tiny pieces of your hair in your face back, taking in a deep breath. 

     “I have an idea.”

     He gently pushed you back down onto the seat. The only complaint was having it be in a tight space and a two-seat backseat it was deemed to be very uncomfortable. While adjusting your back, you watched as he undid his belt and unzipped his pants only pushing them down to his knees. 

     His cock was flushed and had a slight curve but most noticeably he was painfully erect and craving for your touch. Seeing a sight like that only made you be stuck in a trance more than ever. Leaning over, he pushed your skirt up and over your stomach and removed your shirt for you. Mistakenly he ripped your underwear while taking them off, but it's like you needed those anyway.

     "Fuck me, I need you, Vic-." There you were, lying naked and lazily on the seats waiting and craving for Victor's next move.

      Your left leg was hastily pulled over and placed onto his arm making you lay onto your side. If anyone were to be outside, no one would know what was about to happen as double-checked. He looked out the window to see no sight of Henry or Belch just a small group at one car minding their own business. 

      In his hand, he took the reddened flushed tip of his cock and pushed it into your pooling entrance, only taking a second before thrusting the rest into you.  His now grip on your leg tightened, to him the pleasure was unbearable. To you his cock was the perfect fit, making you let out a low moan.

     "You alright sweetheart?" He had completely stopped all movement, holding still, the pressure of your walls gripping his cock almost enough to bring him over the edge. You nodded giving him a reassuring smile. Leaning down he left a small peck on your cheek before glancing down. From his view he could see how neatly tucked inside he was in your wet folds. He began to turn up his pace, watching your reaction to him lowly moving his hips.

     His hips lightly met yours as he was afraid to make the other people outside notice beside he didn't notice the car already was shaking slightly. His body was now completely flushed and couldn’t help but let out loud whimpers, almost fulfilling his urge to drop your leg and just pound you into the seats. He moved his free hand from his side and placed his thumb at your clit.

     He shifted you up pushing your bottom half up towards his hips, fucking up into you. The pleasure was almost too much for you as his thumb worked, moving in slow circles while he thrusts into you. You couldn’t help but let out a loud series of moans as you became close 

     “Are you close princess?” He could feel you tighten around him, about a few more thrusts and you’d be sent.

     “I'm so close, please Vic faster!” That was it, the last straw. He dropped your leg and leaned down. He didn’t care at this point about anyone seeing him at this point. Both of you could hear the wet sounds of his cock going in and out at a hard and fast pace. It was until you let go, letting out the loudest moan and tightening around him.

     “S-Shit! Fuck princess, I’m cumming!” Victor whined into your neck as his hips stuttered. Then halted, he was letting out the prettiest of groans while draining his load into you. His cock twitched as he came inside you leaving you full. The heat was unbearable, your head was burning up and your breath was heavy.

     You both laid there, your back into the seat until Victor lifts himself up and slowly pulls out, hoping to not get anything on Belch’s seat. While pulling up his pants and fixing his belt he watched while you were stuck laying in euphoria. 

     “You're so pretty like that.” He couldn’t help but say, to him you looked like a dream.

     Before going to help you clean up, he began to crack the window down to cool things down for you but was met with a semi-whisper from outside.

     “Psst hey fuckers, You guys put on a really nice fuckin’ show. By the way, nice tits princess.” Patrick pressed his face onto the window while licking it, taking in the sight of your half-naked body. Victor was angered and jumped out the door as fast as he could chasing Patrick until he couldn’t see his lanky figure through the cars. He came back after taking another second to look for Patrick, climbing back into the car. 

     After helping you put your shirt on and your skirt down he couldn’t help but stare into your eyes with a big smile on his face.

     He was in love, madly in love.

     “Hey princess, are you ready to get out and go find the rest of the gang?” He wanted so badly to kiss you again

     “Sure thing.” You leaned in giving him a peck on the lips

     You both were madly in love.  

     You both got out making sure to close the door and made your way around the cars. Eventually, you found the van where Henry stood amongst other people with his shirt off and Patrick lighting the dry grass on fire. Hand in hand, Patrick came up to you both, not taking his eyes off of you. Victor’s grip on you tightened as he stood over you.

     “You guys should fuck more often so I could get another peek at the peep show.” Victor was about to tell him off but before he could Belch stepped in.

     “Oh come on Pats, fuck off.” He laughed and handed Vic a beer. His hand gives you little squeezes, reassuring you that everything will be all right besides tonight will be a long night of fun partying together. 

                                                         --------

     The movie was now almost over and you both were drunk and stoned. The rest of the boys watched as you and Victor held onto each other while saying drunken ‘I love you’s back and forth. Henry was sorta disgusted and slightly jealous since that blonde left him with blue balls. Belch and Patrick just stayed dozed at the scene going on in front of them.

     It was about to change into the final midnight movie. By this time your only concern was getting home just before dawn.

                                                          --------

Taglist: @pattycake-hockstetter​ @forgottencandy​ @bowersgangvslosersclub​ @xx-kurt-cocaine--xx​ (If you want to be added to the taglist for more Bowers Gang content, just inbox me)

[belladonnaandulriched]

the dead of night | chapter nine

Scott's point of view

“All the best pins you can possibly think of, my friend,” said Marcia as she set down a small glass box of pins down on the wooden table before us. I stood next to Nancy at this large heavy wooden table covered in spare fabric and sewing tools: I noticed a small stack of checkerboard fat quarters in front of Joey and Hannah, the latter of whom picked up a black and white square the size of a dinner plate and held it before her.

“Why would I want pins?” Geddy asked her as he ran his fingers through a piece of that smooth hair on the side of his head.

“Why not?” Nancy followed it up.

“To think Marcia and Sonia made you and Lars outfits outta these,” Hannah remarked to Joey in a low voice.

“It fit him quite well if I do say so myself,” Marcia pointed out. I watched Hannah hold the fabric closer to her and run the surface of it with the tips of her fingers. She was feeling the texture of the checkers. She then let the fabric unfurl down her chest; she held it there as if checking to see how it would look on herself.

“The black and white goes well with your complexion,” Nancy pointed out; indeed, it did. It went almost hand in hand with Hannah's olive complexion.

“That blue and white one would go well, too,” Marcia noted, “the two of them would look so cute with their outfits paired together!”

“Except mine had kind of a li'l low neckline,” Joey recalled with a gesture to his chest, “and it buttoned up, too.”

Hannah's face lit up at the sound of that.

“I wanna see it,” she declared with an eager tone to her voice.

“I wanna see it again, too,” said Marcia.

“Li'l fashion show with Mr. Joey,” Geddy cracked.

“The party doesn't start 'til Mr. Joey shows up,” Joey announced. Sonia strode into the room right behind him and Hannah with her lips pursed and her expression serious.

“Right, Sonia?” Joey asked her with a twinkle in his eye, albeit one that he only showed to Hannah.

“Right, what?”

“The party doesn't start 'til Mr. Joey shows up.”

“Oh yeah!” She flashed a glimpse over at Hannah and I wondered what both women were thinking.

“His little tum was peeking out, too,” Sonia added as she stood on Joey's other side; she gestured to his waist. Her finger was quite close to his body, and she gestured close to his hip bones and the lower part of his waist. What happened here when none of us were looking? Moreover, what happened here when Hannah wasn't looking?

Marcia and Sonia then peered at one another with smirks on their faces.

“We should make all these guys and gals ensembles, sis,” Sonia suggested.

“Agreed.”

“Could you perhaps fashion me a hat?” Geddy requested.

“What kind of a hat?”

“Nice little porkpie to go with his long flowing locks, maybe?” said Nancy.

“Well, let's see...” Marcia hesitated for a second as she eyed the crown of his head. “I think we have some of that stiff filling for a brim—if not, we'd have to hustle on down to Syracuse. But, the bakery is closed for a little bit for renovations so I have time just in case. We both have time, actually.”

“Do a little fitting of sorts?” Sonia suggested with a nod back towards the other side of the shop, and I wondered if Frankie could join in on the fun with us.

“Four men and two ladies—gonna be quite the load for us, Sonia,” Marcia concluded.

“Hey, we once clothed more than that when we first opened the shop,” Sonia pointed out. Marcia then picked up some yellow measuring tape and extended one end of it with her free hand. It looked as though she was about to strangle both me and Geddy with it.

“Shall we?” she said with the smirk back on her face.

Sonia escorted us to a back room, which had a small wooden table and one of those wooden mannequins about the same height as Frankie. Meanwhile, Geddy, Joey, and I were shorter than him so I wondered how this whole thing would play out for us.

Geddy got down on his knees so Marcia could measure the crown of his head for the hat. She then wrote it down on a small notepad there on the table, before she moved onto his arms and legs, and then she wrote those down, too. Within time, she moved onto me and my hairy arms and stout legs. She locked eyes with me at one point; I wanted to tell her that I was married, but then I remembered Pearl wasn't even within my frame of mind. I wanted to tell her that I had my eye on Kristina, but she was nothing more than my childhood friend.

Sonia soon came to me for my waist measurement. It was so strange feeling my waist be so slim again, and yet Sonia hung before me with her thumbs close to my belly button like she was feeling up there. Her eyes met with mine and she showed me a small warm smile. I returned the favor even with my thick eyebrows and whole mess of body hair. A hairy Jew boy face to face with an enigmatic little seamstress was something I did not expect out of this little time excursion, but I could relish in it regardless of anything.

“Quite the hairy fellow, aren't ya?” she teased me as she glanced down at my forearms.

“Just a little bit,” I answered with a shrug of my shoulders. She gestured for me to come in closer.

“Can you keep a secret?” she whispered right into my face; her breath smelled like peppermint. I kept Kristina a secret from Pearl for twenty years; I knew that whatever Sonia wanted to tell me, I could keep my lips sealed for her. I nodded my head because Geddy, Joey, and Frankie, as well as Marcia stood right there right behind her. Hannah and Nancy, even though they were in the next room, they were within earshot of us. But I nodded my head regardless of anything.

“Joey is, too,” she whispered. I frowned at that.

“Well, I—kinda knew that,” I confessed as I struggled to keep my composure. I wanted to chuckle at that. I gazed past her to look at Joey's thick head of jet black curls.

“Not like that,” she continued; she kept her voice down low to an airy whisper. I paused for a second, and then I thought back to that conspicuous twinkle in her eye. I raised my eyebrows at her.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” The smile returned to her face again. “But don't tell Hannah, though. I mean, it was before they got together, but—” She shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head side to side. “i—yeah. Pretty recently, I had kind of a little thing of sorts with Joey.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip because he was literally right there and Hannah was within earshot of us, but then again, I might have been worrying over things for no reason. At least, that was my hope.

“And I'm not gonna lie—I envy Hannah a little bit,” she continued.

“Don't blame ya,” I blurted out, to which she gasped at me. She gave me a playful slap on the shoulder before she stepped away to measure Geddy and Joey's waists and hips, although I knew she had a vague idea with the latter after hearing that. Marcia sauntered over to me with the pad of paper in hand and her eyebrows raised at me.

“What did she tell you?” she demanded.

“Stuff,” was all I could think of.

“Stuff, like—measurements?”

“Maybe.”

She paused for a second, and then she scoffed and rolled her eyes at that.

“Alright, wise guy, what's your measurements?”

A lie is a lie, but if I could keep Kristina under the graveyard for as long as I did, then surely I could keep Joey and Sonia under wraps, too.

[workofthediesel]

Rest

A Septimus Heap fanfic.

Read also on ao3!

Summary: It's just the flu. It's going around. Septimus will be over it in no time. Marcia's not worried, really.

Word Count: 2464

Marcia paced the length of her sitting room. It was not an activity she took lightly. In fact, she could hardly remember the last time she had paced like this; it had to have been about ten years ago, after her hasty appointment as ExtraOrdinary Wizard, when the Supreme Custodian was moving into the Castle and the Wizard Tower was holding its breath, waiting to see if they’d managed to hide the Princess well enough.

Marcia put an end to those thoughts with a sharp shake of her head. It always upset her to think about those times. But, she reminded herself, they were finally over—the Supreme Custodian’s ghastly reign had come to an end, DomDaniel was gone for good, and the Castle had at last been returned to its rightful heir. Not only that, but she had finally found a talented young Apprentice with whom she could begin to fix all the damage DomDaniel’s Darke Magyk had done.

The thought of her Apprentice brought the current cause of Marcia’s pacing back to the forefront of her mind, and she stopped at the bottom of the stairs with a frown. She listened closely and could easily hear Septimus’s heartbeat and his slightly labored breathing. It didn’t sound any better than it had that morning.

Marcia bit her lip. Septimus had been unwell for days by now, and she’d been hoping to see at least a little improvement.

It had started with what they had both assumed to be a cold. It had, after all, been damp, windy, and chilly all throughout the previous week; Marcia figured she ought to expect something poor to come of it. However, when the cold not only lingered but appeared to get worse, Marcia sent Septimus to the sick bay to get himself checked out. The sick bay duty Wizard sent him right back up to her with a small phial of medicine and the information that it was the flu, it was going around, and that he’d recover just fine with a little bit of rest

Though she had been annoyed that the sick bay hadn’t done anything more for Septimus, Marcia took their instructions to heart. She put Septimus’s lessons on hold and kept him confined to his bed under firm instructions that he was not to get up for anything; he was to spend his time resting and that was it. She would get anything he needed for him.

Despite Marcia’s best efforts, Septimus got no better.

Rather than going down to the sick bay and demanding that they do their job right and make Septimus better right now, she had given in to Septimus’s requests and sent for Sarah. She had shown up at Marcia’s rooms that morning with a large bag of dried herbs and immediately shut herself into Septimus’s room, fussing over her son in a way only a mother could. Marcia had sat on the sofa in the sitting room, listening to their murmured conversation and hurriedly pretending to work when Sarah would occasionally venture out to get Septimus something to eat or drink.

But now the apartment was quiet. Sarah had left hours ago, driven home by the onset of night and signs of a chill rain moving in.

“He’ll be alright,” Sarah had said as she left. “Just make sure he’s resting and keeping up with the instructions from the Physician. He’ll be better in no time, don’t worry.”

Marcia remembered telling Sarah that of course Septimus would be alright; she had full faith in the Wizard Tower sick bay and there was no need for anyone to be worried, least of all her. Sarah had just given her a knowing smile and scurried off.

That had been hours ago. Now the apartment was quiet, the only sounds being the gentle crackle of the fire and the occasional cough drifting out of Septimus’s room. It wasn’t, Marcia thought, the comforting kind of quiet.

Marcia hovered uncertainly at the bottom of the stairs, peering up into the darkness of the unlit hall. She’d spent the afternoon torn between wanting to go up and check on Septimus and feeling like she was intruding. Now that Sarah was gone, she told herself, there was nothing to intrude on. Still, something was holding her back.

She retreated from the staircase and made her way back to the kitchen. The coffeepot was being stubborn, as usual, but after much snapping and just a touch of yelling, Marcia managed to convince it to perform the simple task of boiling some water. That being done, she set about making a quick cup of lemon tea.

As she poured the water into the mug, she had a moment’s hesitation. She was well aware of Septimus’s rather odd tastes, and for a moment she wondered if she should have made cabbage and beet tea or some such nonsense. She firmly shook the thought off; she’d never been one to get experimental in the kitchen and besides, she didn’t have any cabbages. She stirred in a spoonful of honey for some sweetness and set off determinedly for Septimus’s bedroom.

Marcia’s resurgence of confidence lasted her out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and down the hall to Septimus’s room. Then, just in front of his door, it fizzled out. A flurry of doubts flew through her mind. Perhaps he was already asleep and she’d only be waking him up, or else he was feeling miserable and didn’t want to see her.

Stop being ridiculous, Marcia, she told herself. She took a deep breath and knocked more gently than she’d ever knocked in her life.

“Come in,” Septimus’s stuffy voice drifted out from behind the door.

Marcia pushed the door open a crack and tentatively poked her head into the room. Septimus was sitting in his bed propped up by the pillows. In addition to the thick purple winter blanket Marcia had pulled out for him, he was also bundled up in a multicolored crocheted blanket no doubt provided by Sarah Heap. A single candle was lit on his bedside table; combined with the glow from Septimus’s dragon ring, it illuminated the far side of the room with a gentle golden light.

Marcia suddenly felt a little out her element. It was not a feeling she was used to having, especially not in her own apartment. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

Septimus shrugged one shoulder. “About the same,” he said with a small sniff.

“Hmm. I made you some tea.”

Even through the illness, the gratitude in Septimus’s smile was impossible to miss. “Thanks.”

Marcia crept into the room, her usual confident strides replaced with light padding on the balls of her feet—there was a hushed atmosphere to the room, and it gave her the feeling that even something as familiar as the tippy tap of her purple python shoes would be unforgivably disruptive.

She waited a moment for Septimus to push himself into a slightly more upright position, then handed him the mug. She watched him carefully as he took a sip, waiting for any sign that it wasn’t to his liking. He winced and hurriedly swallowed, though Marcia suspected that was from the heat of the drink, because he blew into the mug for a few moments before taking another sip.

With the tea delivered and the reassurance that Septimus hadn’t gotten any worse, there wasn’t anything more for her to do there. For some reason, however, Marcia found herself reluctant to leave. Slowly, she leaned down and rested the back of her hand on Septimus’s forehead, the same way her mother had done when she had been sick as a child. Septimus watched her quizzically but didn’t stop her.

Marcia fought to keep a frown at bay. Though she would be the last to admit it, she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing. Of course, she knew in theory that she should be able to feel any fever-heat radiating off Septimus’s skin, but the truth of the matter was she had no clue what the normal temperature of a ten-year-old boy was supposed to feel like. She thought he felt a little hot, but then again, that’s what she was expecting to feel—it was entirely possible that she was letting her perceptions be swayed by her expectations.

A few tense seconds passed before Marcia drew her hand back. “You’re still warm,” she said, mostly because she felt she needed to say something.

Septimus took another sip of the tea. “Mum says the fever should go away in a day or two.”

“I would expect nothing less. Between the sick bay and Sarah’s herbs, you’ll be well enough to resume your lessons in no time.” Though Marcia had quite a few opinions when it came to the Heaps on a personal level, she had to admit that Sarah was quite skilled when it came to herbs and healing.

“I’m sure I could go back to at least some of them now.”

“Absolutely not,” Marcia said. “You’re still sick, and until you are one hundred percent better, you are not leaving this bed.”

“I wouldn’t have to,” Septimus argued back, “not for things like history or theory. That’s mostly just reading, I’d be able to handle that. I’ve been reading some of The Castle’s Magykal History, and—”

“Septimus,” Marcia cut him off sternly, “you’re supposed to be resting.”

“I can’t help it,” Septimus said with a sniff. “I’m bored. It’s not like I’m trying any spells.”

“And well you shouldn’t. It isn’t safe to do Magyk when you’re sick; very rarely is your head ever clear enough to do what you want it to, and it’s far too easy to mispronounce the words, which can land you in a heap of trouble. That’s the last thing you want when you’re not feeling well, and quite frankly, I have too much on my plate right now to have to deal with any accidental spell damage.”

The corner of Septimus’s lips twitched up into a wry smile. Marcia couldn’t help but feel self-conscious at the sight of it; she had promised herself that she wouldn’t give any lectures until Septimus was well enough to resume his lessons. “Right,” she said, moving towards the door, “I’ll leave you to get some sleep.”

“Um, Marcia?”

Marcia stopped in the doorway and turned to look back at Septimus. “Yes?”

Septimus wouldn’t meet her eyes—he was staring down at his lap, nervously playing with the edge of his blanket. “Maybe you could stay and read to me for a while? That would still count as me resting, wouldn’t it?”

A warm, fuzzy feeling rushed over Marcia, and she couldn’t stop the small smile from slipping out. She didn’t say anything, but she walked over to Septimus’s desk and grabbed the chair. She pulled the chair over next to Septimus’s bed and clicked her fingers. A small cluster of candles obligingly burst into flames, filling the room with a bright warm glow. Satisfied with the amount of light, Marcia sat down, picked up the book on Septimus’s bedside table, opened it up to the dogeared page, and began to read. “Shortly before the disappearance of Hotep-Ra, a great showdown occurred over the Castle between him and two notorious Darke Wizards, who were rumored to have hunted him around the world. It is from this battle that, according to legend, the Bottomless Whirlpool at Bleak Creek was created. The Darke Wizards were said to have, in the midst of the battle, turned on each other. For days, they chased each other across the Castle and eventually up to Bleak Creek, so evenly matched in skill that neither could gain any advantage.”

As she read, Marcia noticed Septimus’s eyes slowly drooping shut. For the first time ever, she was actually glad to see someone falling asleep while she was talking. She didn’t say anything on the matter. She lowered her voice just a touch and kept reading, trying to keep an even pace to lull Septimus further to sleep.

Soon enough, her tactic paid off. Septimus’s eyes slipped shut and his breathing deepened. Marcia allowed herself a small satisfied smile, marking the page she had stopped on and closing the book. She set it back down where she had found it and regarded her Apprentice for a moment.

She knew he was still adjusting to life outside of the Young Army. For the first few weeks after he had moved into the Wizard Tower, he had swung back and forth between pushing his new freedoms as far as he could and naturally falling back into the Army’s strict routines. It seemed to her that he was finally starting to find a balance. His room was neat and organized but he had, with her permission, started painting a beautiful mural of constellations across the walls and had hung up a fine collection of maps. He always listened to here, but he no longer jumped to follow her commands like he thought he would be punished if he didn’t get them done right away. Though he was—like all the Heaps except for Jenna—naturally pale, he no longer looked unhealthily so. In fact, up until recently, he looked to be well recovered—at least physically—from the abuses of his early childhood.

Seeing him look so ill now threw Marcia right back to when she had first found him as a Boy Soldier—stick thin and deathly white, frozen under a mound of snow. It had been mere chance that she found him at all. If Jenna had been discovered a day later, or if they had been just five minutes later coming back, Marcia doubted she ever would have met him. In fact, looking back on the circumstances, she realized that if she hadn’t been there, Septimus would have died. Despite the comfortable heat of the room, Marcia shivered. It didn’t bear thinking about.

As quietly as she could, Marcia stood up and tip-toed across the room. She blew out the candles on Septimus’s desk until the only light in the room was from his dragon ring, softer now as if even it was being careful not to disturb him.

Marcia knew it was time for her to leave, though she didn’t quite want to. She cast one last glance back at Septimus, so peaceful in his sleep. She crept back to his bedside and pulled his blankets up a little higher, tucking him in with a gentle touch. He smiled contentedly as he instinctively snuggled further into their warmth.

As softly as she could, Marcia pushed his hair back and placed a light kiss on Septimus’s forehead. Then she made her way out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter forty (boston cream pies and feathers)

November 6, 1988. Oswego, New York.

“Where are we?” Lars asks me in a muffled voice.

“Right here.”

I turn my head and I can tell we’re back at Black Orchid, even with the coat of freshly fallen snow all around us. I recognize that door, and I raise my knuckles to the panel. There’s silence. Then it swings open to reveal Mrs. Hamilton wrapped in black lace and leather and smelling of rose water. Her face lights up when she sees us.

“There are my boys!” she declares. “Morgan and I were just wondering about you—come on in!”

We step inside the place where we’re met with a blanket of warmth and a kiss from Morgan.

“You guys need to take care of yourselves better,” she advises us, brushing off the front of my coat. “Come on, take a load off.”

“I do not like the way you looked at me when you said that,” I confess, and she bursts out laughing at me.

“Also there’s someone waiting for you on the second level, Joey,” Mrs. Hamilton nods up the stairs on the other side of the room.

“Who?”

“Go check it out. We’ll take care of your clothes for you guys, make sure nothing happens to them.”

She and Morgan offer to take the checkerboard outfits Marcia and Sonia gave us, and then Lars follows them towards the kitchen. I make my way to the stairwell and up to the second floor, where I'm met with the warm aroma of chocolate coupled with fresh baked bread. Cindy and Lupe are seated at the little table before the stage with a quartet of Boston cream pies, each of them the size of my palms, each of them glazed with a thick layer of chocolate: the former has her hair brushed over the side of her shoulder and embedded with tiny specks of silver glitter throughout, and is wearing a little low cut black dress lined with lace; the latter has her hair tousled all around her head, is sporting those hoop earrings, and a little black leather jacket. Cindy adjusts the neckline of her dress right as I walk up to them.

“There he is!” she greets me, and gestures to the chair in between them. “Have a seat.”

I round the table to the chair and nestle down in between them. Cindy pushes one of the pies in front of me and Lupe leans over my shoulder. I turn my head to look at her little chin resting upon the point of my shoulder and her dark eyes staring back at me.

“Hello, lovely,” I greet her in a low voice, feeling the butterflies flutter up inside my stomach.

“Sexy boy,” she whispers to me. Cindy picks up a fork and sticks it into the side of the pie, and holds the bite right before my mouth.

“Eat up, Mr. Stallion,” she commands to me and I open my lips for the bite. Light and fluffy with the chocolate and the crème. Perfect. I swallow and she gives me another bite. Lupe, meanwhile, runs her fingers over my chest.

“Ladies, please,” I insist, putting my hands up as if to resist them.

“Oh, come on, baby boy,” Lupe says to me in a breathy voice, stroking my chest.

“Yeah, you know you want some of this,” Cindy adds, gesturing to the pie in front of me. “A couple of girls who'll take off their clothes for you and some decadent cake to go with it.”

“Not really what I was expecting for breakfast, but I will take it, though.” I open my mouth for another bite of Boston crème pie which is then followed by Lupe laying her hand on the right side of my face for a kiss on the left. Cindy then puts down the fork to do the same for the right side. I've got a mouthful of cake and two girls kissing me at the same time. Ha!

“Please—” I beg in between their kisses.

“Admit it, there's no way you can resist this,” Cindy whispers in my ear.

“The only thing that would make this whole thing better is if Gwendolyn was here dancing for us,” I confess.

“My darling sister has a little touch of the flu, I'm afraid,” she admits, bringing her lips closer to the underside of my jaw. “But I've got you covered, big boy—”

She kisses my neck and that's when I feel my jeans tightening. I'm growing in between the legs at the touch of every kiss from both Cindy and Lupe. I shift my weight to get comfortable again but he's only enlarging. Lupe touches my chest with a caress as light as a feather.

But there's a part of me resisting this. There's that cake right in front of me. I lunge forward to the fork for another bite for myself, but Lupe grips onto my wrist.

“I want—” I plead, groping at the plate of Boston cream pie. “I want—I want—!”

Lars emerges from behind the stairs with a smarmy grin on his face.

“Ooh, free cake!” he exclaims, oblivious to the fact I'm being groped at myself.

“Help me,” I beg of him.

“Oh, come off it, man—look at you! You fucking—STUD!”

“He wants the cake, though, Cindy,” Lupe tells her.

“Definitely. I don't blame him, either—it's quite delicious.”

“Come back any time, though, baby—” Lupe whispers into my ear before kissing my neck again. Cindy licks her lips at me before they both stand up. Lars takes Lupe's seat next to me once they step away; I sink down in the chair with the fork in my hand.

“God damn,” I mutter to myself.

“I'll say,” he adds, taking a bite out of his little cake. “They were all over you.”

“I like the way Lupe was touching me,” I confess, inserting the tines of my fork into the cake for another bite, “—you know, down my chest and all along on my neck. She really knows how to please, that one.”

“She's the youngest, too.”

“Right. It's like it's natural for her. And I'm not the kind of guy who'll have at it with just anyone, either.” I think about my encounter with Dominique in her and Matt's house. She isn't just anyone, and neither are Lupe or Gwendolyn for that matter.

“So how do you want to get back to your place?” he asks me. “I don't feel like opening yet another wormhole, especially after Molly overheard us last night.”

“And it also just seems like overkill, too, y'know? 'Cause I live nearby.”

“Right!”

I take the bite of cake and then swallow it down.

“There is the bus stop up by the country club over here, though,” I point out.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I took it over here on the night before my birthday and that was legitimately how I found Maya. I just happened to be there.”

Lars gapes at me with the tines of the fork pressed to his bottom lip. “Shit, man. Why didn't you add that to your story before?”

“Didn't even think about it 'til just now.”

“Fock man, that explains everything. What time does the next one come?”

“What time is it?”

He glances at his wrist again.

“A quarter to ten.”

“Shit, we gotta go.”

“Oh, snap—I wonder if we can take these with us.”

“I'm sure we can.”

We pick up our cakes and hurry back down the stairs to the first floor. Mrs. Hamilton, Morgan, Cindy, and Lupe are in the next room talking about something as we're headed out the front door. I'm eating the cake with my fingers as we're walking at a rather fast clip down the sidewalk towards the bus stop. The clouds are funneling in from the lake and the winds are picking up: as long as it doesn't snow again, we'll make the bus on time. I lead Lars to the corner and to the left of us, across from the actual bus stop itself, stands the storm drain, now filled with a low snow pile. I stuff the remainder of the cake into my mouth and point at the drain.

“This is where I found her,” I tell him with my mouth full.

“Holy shit,” he breathes out, taking another bite of cake. I guide him across the street to the stop, and within a couple of minutes, the bus lumbers up to the curb to take us back to my neighborhood. Upon climbing aboard and taking a seat next to the window on the left side, I peer over my shoulder to look at Black Orchid again, and the Denny's sign, and beyond that stood the stadium lights lining the hockey rink. I guess I'm just an idiot but it's clear to me now in broad daylight.

It takes us twenty minutes to return back to the stop a few blocks from the complex, and once we're off, I guide Lars away from the bus stop and hold up a finger at him.

“I have to take care of one other thing, though,” I explain to him.

Glancing both ways, I lead him across the street, exactly back the way I first came to Black Orchid, back to my place. But we don't return to my place: I keep walking up the block, up towards the House of Grey. Snow blankets their roof and I see the lamp in the front window switched on. Good, they're home. Lars is right behind me as we stride up to the front door. Before I can knock, it swings open and Billy pokes his head out. There's a look of concern upon his face.

“Hey,” I greet him.

“We're glad you got here,” he says to me.

“Why's that? What's up?”

“It's Brick.”

I think it might be the wind, but a cold chill runs up my spine just now. I glimpse back at Lars, whose eyes are wide with concern.

Billy lets us inside. The house is warm, and Barney and Spence are seated at the table, looking as though they've been waiting for me. I turn my head to the living room and the couch where they had laid him down. He looks normal, like the Brick I've known for years, but there's something off about him.

His eyes look as though they're made of clay.

He's got feathers, feathers like the ones I put on my mask for Halloween and the ones I have in the old headdress, decorating his face, the crown of his head, and all down his shoulders and his chest. But I'm coming closer to find the feathers don't even look real. The stems look as though they're made of wires, like the tiny white wires I saw up in Seattle holding the electronics together, while the plumes are made of this weird glossy blue stuff: they're jutting out of his skin like they're part of his body. Lars gasps right behind me.

That Boston cream pie isn't settling with me now.

“What the—What the honest to God fuck,” is all I can stammer out.

“He's still alive by the way,” Spence assures us. “Like he's breathing and he makes these weird little whimpering noises every so often, but he hasn't moved.”

“We turned the lights out a little bit ago and they glow in the dark,” Barney adds.

“When did—this happen?” Lars stammers.

“Like right after you left,” Barney replies. “They just sprouted out of nowhere as Bill was making us breakfast.”

“Did you take him to the hospital here in town?” I ask them.

“Yeah,” Billy assures me. “They're baffled. They don't know what it is.”

I return to Brick and those feathers in his skin, which is now as pale white as a ghost. He has that exact same look on his face that Maya had just before she transformed into that dragon monster thing. He looks like Maya when I found her, worse than her in fact.

“We don’t know what’s wrong with him, Joey,” Spence confesses in a soft voice. I hear Lars step away from me and into the kitchen to join them. But I'm still standing there, staring at his face and those itchy looking feathers growing out of him. I hope he doesn't turn into a monster or worse. I'll save you, buddy. You’re my best friend. You and I go back years, to when we played hockey together in the back yard. I can’t lose you.

And I’ll save Maya, too. I'll have to save her first if I must.

I’ll figure this one out, even if it kills me.

****************************

And that’s a wrap! Hang tight for book two!

[fiercyy]

Que Pasa Culata de Azucar?

Summary: Jake learns Spanish and does not immediately tell Amy. "Congratulations. It only took you 10 years to learn the language your partner speaks."

Thank you @cats-sarcasm-and-fandoms for the translations!

Amy is the kind of girl who went to college despite knowing she would be pursuing a career in law enforcement. She loved to learn; so, not only did she graduate summa cum laude but she double majored in Art History and Classics. On top of English, Spanish and a smattering of textbook-perfect french, Amy could read and write in greek, latin and hebrew.

It was sort of embarrassing.

Yesterday, he couldn’t figure how to fix the remote for his television so he ended up watching the Young and the Restless for four hours on his day off.

Amy and Jake put forth equal amounts of effort in very different ways, towards very different things. Besides their work itself.

Amy absorbs information like a sponge before wringing it out into the appropriate, color coded and labelled buckets in her head. She remembers literally everything ever and is thus great at crosswords and jeopardy.

Jake absorbs what’s immediately useful and discards the rest.

Every aspect of Amy’s life, besides self-care and emotions, is all-gung-ho all the time.

Jake puts his effort into jokes, into making his life full of zest, n’stuff. He will go to heretofore unheard of lengths for the sheer enjoyment of making others laugh.

Jake would never say this about himself, because he operates based on the idea that he flies by the seat of his pants at all times, and stumbles into everything based on a combination of sheer dumb luck and awesomeness of self.

On a Wednesday, for the first time, (well, not the first time. He probably put some effort into studying for the detectives exam or something. Or passing high school math. There’s got to have been something right?) Jake decides that he should take a page out of his weirdo wife’s book.

Much later, far off down the line he’ll say it was frustration that drove him to this point. That he was tired of sitting alone in a sea of confusion when they visit her family. That his sheer inability to follow the stories of her guilty pleasure telenovella was so insurmountably annoying that he just had to act.

Really it was just a series of amazing, wonderful, Amy-Santiago-Specialty presents. First it’s Hannukah, Then christmas, then his birthday, then Valentines and NO ONE is as pro as his wife at blowing his damn mind, four subsequent gift-giving holidays in a row. He cried at his birthday surprise. Tell no one.

Six months later …

Amy bites her lip and frantically looks around the precinct, ensuring the absence of prying eyes. She very suavely and inconspicuously gets up from her desk and strolls over to Rosa’s area.

“What .” It is not a question, but an icy hiss.

When Amy, who isnt usually cowed that easily, doesn’t speak up, Rosa looks up at her through narrow, calculating eyes. She must see something in her expression because she lets out an immense sigh and turns in her swivel chair. “What do you need?”

Amy opens her mouth.

And closes it.

Opens.

Closes.

Opens.

Rosa’s fingers under her chin bring her teeth together with a snap.

“Forget it,” she says nervously, “I’m being stupid. So stupid.”

“Probably!” Gina, who is across the room and not a part of this conversation, chimes in.

“Forget I said anything.” Amy makes to leave, face contorted in a painful wince. Rosa stares into her soul. Oh look at that. She’s grown roots. “Fine,” she sighs, “I need you to come help me stakeout a house.”

Rosa looks skeptical. “It’s a saturday.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Where is this place?”

“East 47th and Claremont.”

“And you’re being weird about this because…”

Amy leans closer and whispers. “I think… I think Jake’s cheating on me.”

“HA!” Gina shouts loudly from where she has suddenly appeared right beside her ear. “That boy couldn’t, wouldn’t and probably shouldn’t be trolling for booty. He’s getting old, it’s kind of sad.”

“You’re the same age.”

“I am an ageless being made of pure light, descended from the heavens to grace you mere mortals with my presence.” She glances at her manicure, “So what are we waiting for? Are we going out on this stakeout or not?”

“No,” says Rosa flatly.

“Whyyyyyy,” Gina whines.

“Because Jake is not cheating on Amy. This is stupid.”

“But what if he is,” Amy pleads with her, “He’s been being weird. And he goes out every saturday. He says he has a pickup game with academy buddies. He doesn’t have academy buddies. ”

“That’s true,” Gina injects.

“You’re not helping,” spits Rosa, “Don’t legitimize her craziness.”

“Well, he’s also been hitting the gym more, but that’s none of my business.”

“Gina!”

“Please Rosa?” Amy’s eyes shine and her lips puff up in a pout, but what gets Rosa is the furrow of her brow and the very real worry she sees in her face.

“For the record, this is dumb.”

Gina and Amy take this as concession.

Rosa drives, Gina rides shotgun and Amy sits in the back. Together they watch the utilitarian brownstone. After an hour of inactivity the door opens and Jake bounds down the steps. He stops at the bottom and turns to wave at the woman in the doorway.

She can’t be more than 25. Her hair is long and black, bangs curl against her caramel cheek. It dimples when she smiles.

“ Goddamnit!” Amy shouts and slumps forward, head between her knees.

“Man. That boy has a type.”

“This is just great.”

“I will kill him for you,” offers Rosa.

“It doesn’t have to mean that right?” Amy seems to have chickened out of her own paranoia. “He could be here for any reason.”

“Sure he could,” says Gina, awkwardly patting her head. Amy lets out a breath and calms at the gesture. “But let’s be honest, probably not.”

Rosa hits her in the stomach.

“ Ow,” she grits pointedly.

“Come on, let’s head back to the precinct.”

Rosa does her very best to calm Amy down. (“Calm down,” she says.) And she doesn’t tell her this, but she runs the address through the database.

That night, Jake snuggles into her back and snuffles her hair. His warm hand caresses her arm and she feels so good, so safe. It makes her wonder how she could ever doubt him, when they fit together like this. He rubs his stubbly chin against her neck and settles in for the night.

And Amy just can’t let it go.

“Are we okay?” she asks breathlessly.

Jake is silent for a moment before he snorts. “Well, I should hope we’re better than okay at this point. We’ve been practicing for like four years.”

Amy turns in his embrace so they’re chest to chest. She’s so close that his eyes merge into one blurry one. He looks like a cyclops. She shakes her head free of the distraction. “I’m serious. Are we okay? Are you happy?”

Jake is taken aback and sounds afraid when he answers. “Why do you ask?”

She’s about to bring up her fears and feelings, she really is about to tell him the truth. But she imagines his reaction when she tells him she followed him. She imagines what he would say.

She chickens out.

The truth is, Amy is too scared to know. The truth is that Amy is so incandescently happy with her life that she’s willing to lie to herself a little. Maybe a lot. That frightens her, but not as much as the prospect of losing him to some young hot latina because seriously Jake? You are so transparent.

“I’m just… checking in. You know, like an audit. A relationship audit.”

“Why am I attracted to you again?” Her face burns and her gaze falls to his chest. Her shoulders curl inwards of their own volition. “Hey, I’m kidding. It’s just a bit I do,” Jake shucks her under the chin. “Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Jake Santiago, we’ll be married two years in September.”

“Sorry,” she sighs and leans up to rest her forehead against his. “Just been stuck in my head all day.”

“I think it’s sexy that you want to do a relationship audit. Should I whip out the spreadsheet pad? Will there be a physical evaluation of my assets?”

Amy laughs, “Oh definitely. I plan on being very thorough.”

“Santiago-style. I love it.”

“I love you,” she says with a bittersweet note to her voice.

“I bet I love you more.”

“False. But still, I don’t that’s something that I want to gamble on.”

Amy presses her lips against his and holds him tight. She slings her leg over his waist and rolls them over so that she’s on top, gently massaging his chest. “I love you Jake.”

“I love you too, Ames,” and he looks at her with wonderment and pride, the same way he has every day they’ve been together. It’s an expression that spreads warmth from her fingers to her toes and the thought of Jake with another woman flies out of her head. You can’t fake love like that. “You make me happier than I ever thought I could be. For the record.”

“For the record: same.”

It’s an hour and a half before Amy is asleep beside him, breathing evenly with her hands curled under her chin. Very carefully, Jake gets out of bed and sneaks out the bedroom floor and tiptoes into the living room where he left his satchel. He takes out his phone and earbuds then tiptoes back. He very carefully lower himself into bed and curls back up with his wife, who hasn’t budged an inch.

“Te equivocas de medio a medio, you are completely wrong. ”

He silently mouths along.

“ Claro hombre, eso es de cajón. Of course, that is obvious.”

The lease was under the name Marcia Rodgriguez, a 63-year-old mexican woman. It took some doing, but Rosa eventually found an ad that Marcia placed. She tutors Spanish as a second language.

Meanwhile, Jake is having trouble keeping it together. He’s been planning it for months. On their anniversary he’ll take her to the place where she proposed, get down on one knee and propose to her again in Spanish. Small consolation for her beating him to the punch in the first place but whatever. He knows it’ll make her happy. It’s the gift to trump all gifts, even those of the Santiago variety.

He would deny this, but he full on gushes to Boyle about it.

Who in turn, flings proportionate reaction to the wind and lifts Jake in the air, spinning him around. This is when Rosa walks into the bullpen. She turns around and walks right back out. Boyle, embarrassed, sets him down with a sheepish smile. A long pause then-

“Could you do that again? I felt like an eagle. It was magical.”

Amy is quickly losing patience with her mother. She holds her phone away from her for a moment so she can take a deep breath.

"Mama, es mi hermano. Sé que es un idiota, pero ¿qué es lo que quieres que haga?” Mama, he’s my brother. I know he’s an idiot, but what do you want me to do about it?

"Él y Mia lo resolverán solos, yo- no Mamá, sí, ¡escúchame! El domingo no puedo. Si pudiera tomarme el día libre lo haría-" He and Mia will work it out on their own, I- no Mama, yes, listen! Sunday doesn’t work. If I could get the day off I would-

She says it all in a very normal voice. If he still couldn’t speak Spanish he would never know anything was wrong. Amy does that sometimes.  Growing up in a full house meant keeping problems to yourself. It’s something they work on, but this is a family thing, and despite being a part of it, he doubts she’ll bring it up with him. Or ask for a day off for herself.

When Amy’s in the bathroom he phones the Sarge. “Hey, could you put me on the schedule this Sunday instead of Amy? ...Yeah, I know, but I used to do doubles all the time... Once won’t hurt.”

Mateo comes to visit a week before their anniversary. Amy invites him back to their apartment and Jake makes himself scarce for a while. Amy and Mateo were always very close and he moved to Chicago three years ago. It was rough for her at first, he’s glad she has this time with him.

What he didn’t used to be glad about was how Mateo had this annoying habit of talking to Amy in Spanish whenever Jake was around.

Mateo had been the hardest of the Santiago siblings to win over, besides Amy herself. He was closest to Amy in age, only 10 months older. They were in the same grade through all of school. They were inseparable until being accepted into different colleges.

He doesn’t like Jake much. To this day, almost two years into his marriage, Jake still doesn’t know why. He knows it bothers Amy, but he can’t do anything about it.

Well, he couldn’t until now.

Spanish drifts from the living room into the kitchen.

“Siempre hace cosas tontas para llamar tu atención.” He’s always doing stupid things to get your attention. “¿No te cansas de sus estupideces?” You never get tired of his nonsense?

Mateo is sitting on their floral couch, across from Amy on the armchair. He’s spread as wide as he can, taking up the whole thing.

“No, me canso de él dejando su basura por todas partes. Muy doméstico. No es gran cosa.” No, I get tired of him leaving his crap everywhere. Very domestic. No big deal.

This is the moment he chooses to walk further into the room. Alerting them to his presence. The conversation doesn’t end, the thread continued as if he were invisible. He takes a seat beside his wife on the arm of her chair and smiles benignly, feigning misunderstanding.

Mateo has no compunctions about continuing to talk about him as if he’s not there. “Todavía no lo entiendo. Él es tan... Extrovertido y tú eres tan... Reservada.” Still don’t get it. He’s so… out there and you’re so… reserved.

Jake is sort of offended on Amy’s behalf. She glances at him with a furrowed brow, so that even if he didn't understand what was being said, he’d know it was about him. He shrugs.

“Me gusta que sea tan abierto, me hace mejor que él me ayude a relajarme. Él me hace ser mejor.” I kind of like that he’s so open, it makes me better that he helps me loosen up. He makes me better.  

Jake has to fight down a blush.

“Estás bien como estás.” You’re fine as you are.

For the first time in the conversation, he concurs with Mateo.

“Sí, nunca se lo diría, pero cada vez que hace que nos desviemos, es siempre lo mejor. Probablemente la única aventura que he tenido en mi vida." Yeah, but I would never tell him so, but whenever he gets us sidetracked, it’s always the best. Probably the only adventure of my life. “Pero si se lo dices te mato.” But if you tell him though, I’ll kill you.

Jake is suddenly feeling overwhelmed. It’s not that Amy doesn’t say nice things to him, it’s just different when it’s not said for his benefit. In this moment (in all moments) he’s so glad that she chose him, so thankful that she’s in his life. He tries not to blush and fails, but that’s okay. Amy takes his hand and squeezes it.

“So. Who’s ready for food?” he interrupts.

Later, Amy comes out of the shower to find him organizing the previously ordered mess in which he lives his life. She stands in the doorway of the bedroom, clutching her towel to her chest, just watching.

He looks up from the sock drawer, feeling sheepish. The clean laundry had been piled in the corner of the room for three days. What he finds it not a teasing wife but a woman staring into the depths of his soul with dark eyes trained on his hands. Hands which he prides himself on because of their dexterity. Her plump lips part in an o and she blinks slowly. He can see a pink tongue running over white teeth and is struck dumb by it.

“I-I- uh, I’m organizing them by dressiness and color.”

Amy’s towel drops to the floor and she’s on him in an instant. Tackling him down onto the bed. “That is so hot.”

“Are you gonna just leave your towel on the floor?”

“Oh my god.”

“I have acquired a superpower,” says Jake to Charles in the breakroom. “She talks about her problems, I fix them, awesome sex. It’s a win win all around!”

“I dunno Jakey, this seems like a bit of an invasion of her privacy.”

“She’s talking right in front of me. And did I mention how good this sex was because-???”

“So basically you’re trying to justify lying to her.” Jake jumps three feet in the air. “Also, congratulations, it took you 10 years to finally learn the language your wife speaks. Good going, Jake.”

“When did you get here?” he shouts at Rosa. “It’s not lying. I’m using my powers for good. She never would have told me her brother was having marital problems and she never would have asked Holt for the day off to be with her family. Plus, this morning she was on her phone with her mom and said ‘Me gustaría que no oliera a huevos después de perseguir delincuentes’ which means I wish he didn’t smell like eggs after we chased perps. So I put on deodorant!”

“...” Rosa appears unimpressed.

“Come on, I’m telling her soon. Anniversary surprise!”

“Tell her now.”

“No.”

“Tell her.”

“You can’t make me!”

She shoots him a look.

“Okay, maybe you can. But please don’t.”

The death glare she shoots him as she leaves the room makes him question whether she will honor his request.

It doesn’t take long. He’s sitting with Amy, picking at her Pho when Rosa joins them. “Tu esposo es tonto y cree que eres una maniática controladora.” Your husband is an idiot and thinks you're a control freak.

“I am not! And that’s not even true!”

“How did you understand that?”

“Yes Jake,” says Rosa pleasantly. “Is it because you are a super genius and therefore comprehend all languages?”

Amy stares at her husband with suspicious eyes, “No, that’s not it.”

Amy doesn’t speak to him the rest of the day. They sit across from each other in uncomfortable silence where she works and pretends not to feel his stare searing into her face.

He knows he’s in big trouble.

At five o’clock on the dot he gets up from his desk, yanks Amy from her seat and drags her into the evidence lockup shouting, “We’re off the clock dweebs!” over his shoulder.

In the space where they kissed properly as themselves for the first time, where they got together, where they said goodbye before she went undercover, where they killed a man with their hot sexy makeout skills, Jake takes his wife’s hands and drops to one knee. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“¿Quieres casarte conmigo...de nuevo?” Will you marry me...again? Then he laughs and looks around the room. “Debes decir que sí.” You have to say yes.

"Of course!" she flings her arms around him and presses her face into his chest. "I though you were cheating on me, you asshole!"

"Wait what?!"

“Nothing, never mind. Te amo, cariño,” I love you Sweetheart, Amy replies, a little tearfully.

“Yooooo I’d totally forgotten about that. This opens up a whole new arena of obnoxiously cute nicknames, sugarbutt! Or should I say culata de azúcar? Doesn’t roll off the tongue the same.”

[writersriot]

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 19

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Okay, so this time we’re taking a look at Ponyboy’s relationships with Darry and Johnny. This comes on the tail of the last part, with Cherry and Marcia’s boyfriend Socs rolling by the group walking home. The car passes by and the boys are relieved they don’t need to fight.

So then Cherry asks Pony about Darry, since he’s already said a lot about Soda. It’s a long quote, but here we go.

I tried to think of something to say about Darry, and shrugged. “What’s to talk about? He’s big and handsome and likes to play football.” (Pg 41)

[. . .]

My face got hot as I bit my lip. Darry . . .what was Darry like? “He’s. . .” I started to say he was a good ol’ guy but I couldn’t. I burst out bitterly: “He’s not like Sodapop at all and he sure ain’t like me. He’s hard as a rock and about as human. He’s got eyes exactly like frozen ice. He thinks I’m a pain in the neck. He likes Soda -- everybody likes Soda -- but he can’t stand me. I bet he wishes he could stick me in a home somewhere, and he’d do it, too, if Soda’d let him.”

Two-Bit and Johnny were staring at me now. “No. . .” Two-Bit said, dumbfounded. “No, Ponyboy, that ain’t right. . .you got it wrong. . .”

“Gee,” Johnny said softly, “I thought you and Darry and Soda got along real well. . .”

“Well, we don’t,” I snapped, feeling silly. I knew my ears were red by the way they were burning, and I was thankful for the darkness. I felt stupid. Compared to Johnny’s home, mine was heaven. At least Darry didn’t get drunk and beat me up or run me out of the house, and I had Sodapop to talk things over with. That made me mad, I mean making a fool of myself in front of everyone. “An you can shut your trap, Johnny Cade, ‘cause we all know you ain’t wanted at home, either. And you can’t blame them.”

Johnny’s eyes went round and he winced as though I’d belted him. Two-Bit slapped me a good one across the side of the head, and hard. “Shut your mouth, kid. If you wasn’t Soda’s kid brother I’d beat the tar out of you. You know better than to talk to Johnny like that.” He put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “He didn’t mean it, Johnny.”

“I’m sorry,” I said miserably. Johnny was my buddy. “I was just mad.”

“It’s the truth,” Johnny said with a bleak grin. “I don’t care.”

“Shut up talkin’ like that,” Two-Bit said fiercely, messing up Johnny’s hair. “We couldn’t get along without you, so you can just shut up!” (Pg 42-43)

There’s a lot to parse here. So at first, the only nice thing Pony has to say about Darry is that he is tall, handsome, and plays football. That’s very...unfamiliar, you know? A stranger could probably say the same about Darry. But when pushed, Pony spills his true thoughts. That Darry is cold, nearly inhuman, and more than likely would get rid of Ponyboy if he could.

This is an important moment because it again shows Pony’s unreliability as a narrator. His friends apparently don’t even know the feelings Pony is struggling with over his family. I don’t know about anyone else, but my friends know how I feel about my family, about our relationships. And I know the same about them. That might not be true of every friend group, obviously, but it strikes me as odd. Like, if Pony genuinely thinks that about Darry, he’s obviously mistaken since we see that’s not true throughout the book. I think Darry is hard on Pony because he wants the best for him, wants him to succeed despite all the setbacks they’ve had. Yet Pony sees that firmness as Darry not liking him and not wanting him around. But again, that just goes toward Pony being an unreliable narrator, as this is not the only time he misunderstands or misrepresents other characters and their situations.

And even though Pony can recognize that his situation isn’t bad compared to others in the gang, especially Johnny, that doesn’t stop him from being emotionally volatile and lashing out at Johnny. Who does not deserve that from a close friend because even though Johnny would probably like to think it isn’t true that his parents don’t care about him, it is something he believes and wishes were different. So Pony playing on that specific fear of a a kid stuck in an abusive household, it just breaks my heart. And of course Pony apologizes because he doesn’t want to hurt his friend, but the damage is kind of done already.

I love that Two-Bit sticks up for Johnny. And not in a “pet” way but in the way that he sees Johnny as being legitimately one of the gang, one part of a whole. Even if Pony doesn’t always see it in that way. Two-Bit telling Johnny not to talk like he’s not wanted because the gang wants him around just simultaneously warms and breaks my heart. He says they couldn’t get along without Johnny and I just want to cry because of what happens. Foreshadowing? Bleakly, yeah. 

Johnny feels neglected and unloved at home, and the gang is the only true family he has, but you can tell it’s almost not enough for him. It’s hard for a kid who just wants to feel loved by his parents, and no matter how great your friends are, at this age it’s just not the same. The gang treats him protectively but it’s not the same as parental love. These boys just hurt my heart so much.

Now, Pony keeps lamenting the unfortunate situations of the whole gang. Which, this paragraph is about the most information we get in that respect.

“It ain’t fair!” I cried passionately. “It ain’t fair that we have all the rough breaks!” I didn’t know exactly what I meant, but I was thinking about Johnny’s father being a drunk and his mother a selfish slob, and Two-Bit’s mother being a barmaid to support him and his kid sister after their father ran out on them, and Dally -- wild, cunning Dally -- turning into a hoodlum because he’d die if he didn’t, and Steve -- his hatred for his father coming out in his soft, bitter voice and the violence of his temper. Sodapop. . .a dropout so he could get a job and keep me in school, and Darry, getting old before his time trying to run a family and hold on to two jobs and never having any fun -- while the Socs had so much spare time and money that they jumped us and each other for kicks, had beer blasts and river-bottom parties because they didn’t know what else to do. Things were rough allover, all right. All over the East Side. It just didn’t seem right to me. (Pg 43)

Just break my heart some more why don’t you. Johnny’s parents are gross people who shouldn’t be parents. Two-Bit’s mom works to support them, which kind of surprises me that he’s still in school and apparently not working. In that situation with a sister to support as well, you might think he would do as Soda did and drop out to start working, especially since he’s the oldest of the gang. Steve hates his father, but we don’t know why that is. Steve being soft and bitter with a temper should probably tell us his dad at least isn’t a great guy either. Dally’s family isn’t even mentioned but I believe he is with his father out here, but at least Pony acknowledges that Dally didn’t have any other option than to be how he is if he wanted to survive. (Also, I love the description of wild and cunning for him)

All these boys have shitty situations they have to live with. But Johnny is still treated as this innocent who needs to be protected and loved in place of his family. I feel like this is another parallel drawn to Dally, who never had a chance to be anything but a hoodlum, with his innocence being stolen early on in life so he could survive. Johnny and Dally again are two sides of the same coin, and it’s instances like this that solidify that for me.

So what do you guys think about the home lives of the gang? And what about Pony’s simultaneous empathy and understanding of the gang alongside his self-oriented outlook that almost highlights his unreliability as a narrator? 

Until the next part~

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Marcia Wiggins of Cape Whoopies, a brand that makes Gourmet Whoopie PiesSome stats:Product: Gourmet Whoopie PiesRevenue/mo: $25,000Margins: Between 50-60%Online sales: 47%Brick&mortar: 53%Started: January 2013Location: South Portland, MaineFounders: 1Employees: 4Hello! Who are you and what are you working on?Hello, I’m Marcia Wiggins and the founder of Cape Whoopies. We are small batch whoopie pie bakers who love creativity in the kitchen. Our mission is to share the most delicious Maine whoopie pies made with the highest quality ingredients with people all over the country.From the moment we tasted our first whoopie pie, we dreamt of endless flavor combinations with unique ingredients in a true gourmet indulgence. We believe in using only the freshest and finest ingredients, remaining chemical and preservative free, and making everything from scratch.Baking is our passion, and so is sharing our creations. We sell our product on our website capewhoopies.com, Goldbely.com, and Amazon.com if you want to order for friends and have them shipped!We'd love to hear from you, and hope the quality and flavor of our pies exceed your every expectation.We have over 80 flavor combinations and these babies hold in the freezer for a year, in the fridge for 3 weeks or just on a shelf for 14 days.We share a 5,300 square foot space with a coffee shop. Partnering with Rwanda Bean Coffee Company has scaled our total sales up by 40%, at this point of the year. One can only wonder where we will be by the end of the year since the fourth quarter is our busiest season.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Before Cape Whoopies was conceived, I was enjoying being the mom of two kids in high school, the wife to an airline pilot, and an aerobics teacher at my local gym.When my kids had gone off to college and my husband was in the air, I had much time on my hands. There was only so much time you could spend at the gym, so with the newfound extra time I splurged in one of the things I always loved doing: making delicious baked things for friends.My husband and I spend time a local restaurant as a hangout when he was home, so we would go to DiMillos and take our server friends whoopie pies. Why whoopie pies? I had tasted the Maine creation and thought, "good idea, not great execution".As I had traveled much with my husband, tasting the most delicious foods all over the world, like Belgium street food with the most indulgent chocolate, I realized one of the recurrent themes was more flavor can be tasted with less sugar.So I made these whoopie pies my own with different flavor combinations and would bring them to our favorite restaurant employees. Thus entertaining my guests and friends with delightful homemade treats became a real joy… for both parties!There was some divine intervention when Cape Whoopies stepped on the scene. The recipe just came to me! I decided to follow the inspiration and to date we have come from my home kitchen, to a commercial kitchen I built in my basement, to a shared communal kitchen to our own space that is 5,300 square feet and shared with a coffee company.Describe the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.Have you ever had a brilliant idea pop into your head out of nowhere? I call that God. In creating the whoopies, I was in my own kitchen baking when God planted in my head the recipe I use to this day.I was making the whoopies for DiMillo’s and thought, "*What would make this better?" *With the thought plopped in my noggin, I made the product and kept making it.I went from scooping and baking all the cakes sheet pan by sheet pan myself, to having my husband help me. Now we have a team of five, scooping, baking, and filling to bring together what we call Cape Whoopies Gourmet Whoopie Pies.Each cake is uniquely its own, with all having a baseline diameter. Scoop some filling between two cakes and press together, and there you have a pie. You can see how we have a handmade product, similar to your grandmother’s homemade treats.This is something we love about our pies. Yes, they are gourmet, with ingredients like Bensdorp Chocolate from the Netherlands and Bourbon Vanilla Paste from Madagascar, and still they are handmade, with each having their own unique character.I use what local ingredients I can, and I love that! For me, I want the best tasting, not the cheapest, even if the means shopping far and wide.I have gone from making whoopie pies in my home kitchen, learning how to design packaging because I needed packaging...then learning how to pack and ship and what I could expect from my product by trying it to finally making my way to borrowing money for an entire kitchen of equipment and doubling our business last year.For packaging and shipping, initially the challenges were to make sure that the product would make it in heat and in the cold. I contacted a packaging specialist. The specialist conveyed to me everything from how to package the pies tightly without the package being too snug to what packing materials to use for protection from crinkle paper to bubble wrap.Our greatest resulting experiment was testing the temperature for shipping. Placing temperature-tracking computer chips in the packages, we sent pies in heat to a hot place and pies in the cold to a cold place. Upon arrival, we asked the recipients how the pies were- they were delicious and undamaged.The recipients then sent the computer chips back, allowing us to review the temperature during shipping. This reflected the temperature moderation was under control. After four trial runs and no failures, we knew what size box to buy and ship in, temperatures that would results and maintain the product, and packing materials to use.Describe the process of launching the online store/business.My start up costs were in the neighborhood of $20,000 which my friends gave me because they wanted me to be making the whoopie pies they loved. They wanted to buy them for their friends and that was reason enough for them to help me get Cape Whoopies started.Thus began the journey of moving the business from friends to Internet community. The process of launching the business online was relatively simple. I found a software called Shopify and hired a company, Inspire Studios to help me do the initial design of the site which took maybe two days.Through this process, I wrote all the content and plugged it in. I photographed my beautiful pies and plugged the pictures into the site, as well. The entire process from start to finish was six days.Periodically I stumble across a problem that I can’t solve but Shopify is so great that it has Help you can contact to guide you through tough spots. With Shopify you can go to the site and click a link with a chat option and these help gurus will talk to you on the spot. They will explain what to do if it’s a problem they can solve. If not, they have a page of different sites to which they can outsource your case. All in all, Shopify and its Help are great.Even though I don’t have a business background, I’ve realized there isn’t anything I can’t learn as long as I can find a point person to walk me or lead me through the issue. When I look back over the past six years, I recollect how much I’ve learned and I am so grateful for these awesome resources that have helped in the launching of my online store.Gearing up for the launch of our brick & mortar site required a different type of hustle. At this new space on Cottage Road, Cape Whoopies would share the building with Rwanda Bean, a coffee shop. Via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we shared about the building being bought, painted, baked in for the first time, and a bit of the journey it had been setting up.We started advertising the purchase of the place three months prior to doors opening. Between that month of February to our soft opening in May, we advertised only through Social Media and opened the doors May 18, 2018 to our warm and excited South Portland Community. We sent out a press release the week of for our soft opening to local newspapers and TV stations.The week of the Grand Opening in June, we sent out a press release to all the newspapers from weekly local, to the Currier, to the Portland Press Herald and the Boston Globe. We also sent the release to TV stations such as WGME, WBI, for example.For our Grand Opening, which included a celebration of Rwanda Bean stepping on the scene, we had the mayor in for ribbon cutting, the Director of Economic Development, the Consulate from the Rwandan Embassy from Washington D.C., and Rwandan dancers.Cape Whoopies had samples of pies available all day. We made a new whoopie pie and had a naming contest, with the prize being a free dozen pies of your choice. My whole family and friend clan of twelve came and helped the whole day through. It was a really incredible celebration.Initially in sales, we had a big increase and we have indeed been able to keep up with that. Comparing sales the month of May 2017 to sales the month of May 2018, they have increased 81.16%.We kept up with the rise in demand of pies by tracking what is in highest demand and supplying more of that product. Pretty simple. Launching the business via our brick & mortar site has yielded a great increase in demand and sales.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?I worked with a SCORE mentor that taught me that to run a good business you only need three things:A good productA clear voice to get your story outThe ability to gain capital or borrow moneyHe told me that you only need two of the three items to make it but that I have all three in spades. I have taken what he taught me and worked hard.I started my SEO and social media by posting twice a day, myself, and making sure to use the same words to describe products, over and over. Now, I pay my daughter to do it for me and it’s even better than when I did it myself.I don’t do any formal marketing or advertising. I just print cute tee shirts and baseball caps and ask everyone I know to wear them. I ask them to take pictures of themselves in amazing places, wearing the swag, and post the photos saying #CapeWhoopiesAreEverywhere.Example instagram postNow I have customers coming in to buy the tee shirts and hats because they want to be part of the fun, too!In retaining customers, I just think about what engages me, what I think is clever in other companies and then recreate an avenue for myself. It’s not rocket science, it’s much easier than one would think.What are some of the metrics of the business?In the case of my business our margins are in the neighborhood of 50-60%.I am constantly checking my numbers and factoring in how much volume I need to make everything work well. This last year we grew by 150% which was great, until our biggest account decided to cancel their program with us. At first I had some heartburn over it, but as soon as we opened the doors on our new space, sharing with the coffee shop, we are now 42% ahead of last year’s numbers even without our biggest customer from last year.Going into brick & mortar, we really had no choice. It was difficult carrying the batter downstairs to upstairs to bake it at Fork Food Lab communal kitchen. Then also difficult bagging and tagging tray after tray and carrying them downstairs to freeze the pies.Fork is a communal kitchen, which is focused on small businesses. We were outgrowing the kitchen, and the price we had to pay for two tables was not worth the amount of work that was required in maneuvering in the space to create and store our product.The opportunity to move into 185 Cottage Road arose in November of 2017.We looked at the building and tried to rent it. The owner said no. Two days later, our church shared a video about the Cape Whoopies business, which was on generosity.That same Sunday, the owner wrote me a letter saying "I felt like God was hitting me in the back of the head today at church when I saw your video." So in this way, I learned that the owner not only goes to Eastpoint Christian Church as well, but also, a way was opening up where this man would come to rent to us what is now our beautiful new commercial kitchen.Thus our brick & mortar business model began to flourish all the more.Currently, our biggest account is our own front door with Rwanda Bean. Besides this, Amazon.com and Goldbely.com take 2nd and 3rd place. Goldbely.com, a food gift website.Since January 1, 2018, 47% of our sales have been online, with Amazon.com and Goldbely.com adding to the majority of the mix. Since opening up 185 Cottage Road on May 18, 2018, to date 53% of our sales are from our brick & mortar storefront. This is pretty remarkable.We landed an unspoken partnership with Rwanda Bean as we worked side-by-side with White Cap Cold Brew in Fork Food Lab for 2 years. After White Cap partnered with Rwanda Bean, the six of us began joking of finding a place together where we would have coffee out front and whoopies out back. Now the Rwanda Bean brick & mortar storefront is our top account.As for Amazon, they called me in July of 2016 asking to sell my whoopies. As soon as I heard from them, I realized I need to move out of my basement and that is when I found Fork Food Lab.As for Goldbely, we wrote to them and asked if they’d consider reviewing our product. Once we sent it, they loved it. That was now six years ago and they continue to be one of our top accounts.Current operations include daily making 2-3 80 quart batches of filling and sometimes as many as 4 80 quart batches of cake batter and baking, filling, bagging and tagging all of it. We get it into the freezer within an hour and it’s ready for shipping.We are always adding new flavors to our line and constantly receiving interest from potential customers over what we are doing. I continue to have a long term goal to get our product into Dean and Deluca, but am very happy to be sold at Whole Foods Market and Goldbely.com, along with Amazon.com and my own website.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?I have learned that there isn’t anything I can’t learn. I keep my focus on the business and remember that the divine intervention that started the business is still firmly there. Keeping my mind on my goal of making the best tasting, most delicious, and creative whoopie pie that I can... I find I am golden.I don’t worry about what others are doing or saying...I just stand tall in my own aim to be creative with pure food, no preservatives or fake foods for me. I want what I make to be something totally amazing in taste and just like my grandmother would have made.I keep my focus there and don’t fall for mixes or products that may make things easier but ultimately affect the taste. So, my tip for anyone is to keep your focus on your original goal...it’s always the best.In terms of partnerships, I am quite lucky in that I have met an amazing group of people in Rwanda Bean Coffee company and we both had the goal of a great coffee shop with whoopie pies being baked in the background.We do not have a formal legal partnership but we have a great deal of trust in one another and generally the same basic ethic as we all go to the same church. It is my belief that finding those you can partner with is always a bonus. Working together makes things more interesting, more creative, and more fun!What platform/tools do you use for your business?I use Shopify because it is truly the easiest software to use. I did not grow up using computers but even I can maintain my site on Shopify. I also have apps that automatically contact my customers to ask for feedback, give discounts after a year of being a customer and follow them as they leave my site. It’s easy to set up and gives the customer the feeling that we are a full service site, rather than a smaller company striving to grow.We also have an app that allows our customers to purchase swag that is individually printed with our logo, for them. We have not sold very many items but again when a customer sees swag they automatically think bigger company, offering more items… it’s a good thing with no extra cost.I do all my own shipping set up because I partner with goldbely.com. Goldbely allows me to be a third party on their shipping account with FedEx which gives me a discount that is deeper than I could get on my own.Back to the partnership item in the last question, this has been an excellent partnership as Goldbely does a lot of nationwide marketing for me. Pick your partners well and you will cure a lot of problems before you even encounter them.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I have loved the E-Myth series. They also allow you to sign up with them and they send you free booklets about important topics as you scale up. Things like company structure, how to create a meaningful work environment, how to source the best people for the job...they really help set up, scale up and grow your business, and much of it is free.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?If you want to get started in your own business, you need to truly love what you are doing. Have a passion that is so deep that even on the days when its 2:00 am and you are still working, you are loving what you are creating.You need to understand that the amount of push and hustle that you will need to have to make this happen is far greater than you can even imagine, today. Understand that it’s going to be hard in the beginning and be willing to say no to certain things so you can continue to say yes to keeping your business going.I have been creating my business for six years and I love it more, today, than I did even in the beginning.For me, I feel like Cape Whoopies is my alter ego, my child, my creation. It’s all the goodness I have, expressed for others to enjoy. Sometimes people don’t appreciate what you are doing...its okay, just think of a duck and how the water runs off his back and that’s how you let the negative comments go, so you can continue creating your perfectly divine business!If you’re just starting out, keep tuned in to that still small voice that’s inside you that’s quietly roaring about your passion. Forge on! Success requires walking on water while keeping your eyes on the ultimate goal.You will fail and doubt, but keep on. You have to believe in yourself even when others do not. My Cape Whoopies dream, (that is now far greater than I ever imagined), is fueled by keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus, my passion, and lots of hustle and push.Certain attributes I find helpful is having a really clear voice and being outgoing about your product or service. In addition to this, that same attribute aids me in borrowing money as well. The lack of procrastination in my mindset helps in getting things done well.Where can we go to learn more?Our new whoopie pie cafe is located at:185 Cottage Road South Portland, Maine 04106or at Whole Foods Market here in Portland.If you'd like to get to know us better:Our website www.capewhoopies.comInstagram[Email](mailto:marcia@capewhoopies.com)And I invite you to contact me, anytime, should you have questions, concerns or just want to express some whoopie love!Liked this interview? Check out more founders that shared their story on StarterStory.com.