#i don’t think i miss that house or that god awful state but i think i do miss who i was a bit lol

[sscrambledmeggss]

one of the worst things a girl can do, is to look up old pictures of their childhood house, on like zillow or something. Like yes, you hated that house *so* much while living there, but also it was beautiful. it was home, and you can never go back, and you know deep down you don’t want to go back. but you do, and it makes you feel so so sick.

[sorchathered]

It would’ve been you

Pairing- Bob Floyd x female reader

Summary- you’d finally admitted your feelings to Bob, the only problem? He doesn’t remember any of it, and now he’s got a new girlfriend.

Warnings- angst, a little bit of smut, Bob being a dummy, reader also being a dummy.

A/N- Hey babies! Let’s celebrate me finally getting back to the states with a new fic I wrote (one of three) on my 14 hour flight last night, not beta read, fuck it we ball. 😂😂

———————————————————————

Bob’s new girlfriend was awful.

No really she was. Natasha had been sending you emails for weeks about how bad things had become, and until you’d stepped back on shore you had scarcely believed it yourself.

It had been twelve weeks since you left for your special detachment. Twelve weeks since you drunkenly fell into bed with your best friend Robert Floyd.

You’d had a party at you and your roommate Natasha’s, sort of a “good luck hope you don’t die” drunk fest as your front seater Jake Seresin liked to call it. Too many drinks were had and inhibitions were pretty much non existent by the end of the night, Bob offering to help you clean up which resulted in drunken confessions of love and hands roaming bodies until the early morning hours.

It has been perfect, messy, but perfect. You’d scarcely hoped he felt the same and had been holding a candle for him for an embarrassingly long time. When you woke that morning you were in a lavender haze of ooey gooey feels, sneaking out of your room to shower and pack your things as you thought about what might be in the future for the two of you when you made it back from the mission.

But when Bob woke up with the hangover of the century and didn’t remember a single bit of the night before? Everything went to shit. You were too embarrassed to tell him the truth, if he didn’t remember then maybe it didn’t mean what you thought it had meant, and maybe he hadn’t been ready to cross that line with you after all. So you bottled it all up, pushing forward with the mission and kept contact to a minimum. He never said it but he knew something was off, you never missed an email when he wrote and lately you’d all but ignored him entirely.

About 6 weeks into your deployment, Nat hit you with a bomb you never expected- Bob had started seeing someone. You let it all out in your bunk, cried until your tears could have floated the carrier you were on and then some. You should have said something, you knew that now, and it was too little too late.

When you made it back Nat was bursting at the seams to give you all the gossip, you weren’t ready to hear it but she was quite literally bouncing on her toes to give you the tea so you settled in after a shower and let her blab.

“She’s awful y/n!!! Some wannabe instagram influencer who is on her phone constantly and oh my god she is rude!! She puts on this sweet little angel vibe for Bob but as soon as he leaves the room she’s like Cruella de Vil with blonde hair. I’m totally convinced she only wants to be with him for the military girlfriend vibes, she posts all these pictures of them together and tags them with little stupid hashtags about how she’s a military girlfriend and blah blah blah.” She says with a scowl as she pretends to fake wretch and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Is he happy with her?” You ask quietly, too afraid to look in her eyes, she’s too perceptive for her own good though; she’s known something changed between the two of you but hadn’t been able to place it.

“Honestly? He looks miserable, he hasn’t seemed like himself since you blew out of the house the morning of your deployment without so much as a goodbye. I don’t know what happened and I won’t ask, but I think you two need to talk. He misses you.” She took your hand in hers and gave you a kind smile, she was a bulldog in her field but she was the kindest soul you’d ever met. “I miss him too Natty, I really do.”

Bob had really liked Lauren in the beginning, she seemed like such a sweet girl, her socials full of pictures of her rescuing dogs and going on adventures, he could really see a future for them. But then she started only wanting to hang out when he was at the bar with his navy friends, always on her phone posting pictures of him in uniform, and bragging on her tiktok about being a Navy pilot’s girlfriend when that wasn’t even really what he did and she never seemed to listen enough to actually care about getting to know him for who he was. It had become exhausting, and he couldn’t talk to the person he wanted to the most because it felt like you’d completely ghosted him over the past few weeks. Bob was at a loss, he didn’t know what had changed between the two of you but as soon as Natasha announced to the group chat everyone was going to dinner to celebrate you and Hangman making it home he only had one thing on his mind- corner you and find out what the hell he’d done to piss you off.

When he got to the Hard Deck that night everyone was already in full party mode, drinks and pizzas littered the back wall of the bar as everyone danced along to Rooster’s rendition of “Benny and the Jets” on the piano, you perched right by his side singing the harmony and bursting into giggles as he wiggled his eyebrows at you. You were breathtaking, you always had been to Bob but he’d never had the courage to tell you how he felt, always burying it when the feelings bubbled up in his chest. He was glad he hadn’t brought Lauren with him, he couldn’t clear the air between the two of you with her around, and honestly he was still wondering if he even wanted to continue a relationship with her in the first place. He would unpack all of that later, the song had ended and you’d noticed he was staring at you, your skin flushing bright red at his gaze.

You knew he’d be here, but even after weeks away you weren’t sure you were ready to face him. Did he remember what happened? Did it change anything? It certainly had to you, how could it not? You’d admitted your deepest feelings for him and then had the best sex of your life, only for him to completely forget it ever happened. It was devastating, but there wasn’t any way to avoid him so better to just rip the bandaid off now and get it over with. You sat your empty beer down on a nearby table and made your way to where he was perched at the bar, ginger ale and peanuts occupying his hands as he looked you over with a nervous smile.

“Hey.” Oh god really? Hey? That’s all you could come up with? You cringed internally at the waver in your tone, you can be held responsible for millions of dollars of military tech but Bob Floyd is somehow the Achilles heel in your confidence? Jesus.

“Hi” he said softly and smiled back at you, “we’ve missed you around here, you didn’t answer any of my letters and I was starting to get worried about ya.” He fiddled with the top of the plastic cup holding the peanuts and tried to look anywhere but in your eyes, this was already the most awkward conversation he’d ever had and that was saying something for him.

“Look, Bob I don’t want to prolong this but I get it ok? We all do stupid things when we’re drunk and I won’t hold it against you. I heard you have a new girlfriend and I’ll respect that, I just…I need some time. I meant every word of what I said to you that night and if you just said it back to be kind-“

“Whoa hold on a minute, what are you talking about honey?” He thrust a hand out to catch yours and watched horror cross your face, what the hell had he done?!

“Oh-oh my god. You still don’t remember. Fuck, I- I’m sorry Bob I can’t do this right now.” You all but ran from him towards the back door and out into the night, you were fairly certain you were going to throw up or pass out. Maybe both.

Bob’s head was swimming, he stood up to follow you and had a moment flash behind his eyes. You beneath him, arms around his neck as the two of you ground into each other in your bed. He’d thought that had been a dream…it had been…right? The more he tried to think of it the more the memories came back, watching you come undone beneath him as you cried out your love for him, his hands tangled in your hair as he made the same confession. Natasha came up behind his rigid form to press a hand to his shoulder and he jerked back with a gasp, deep blue eyes wild and filled with panic. “Hey, whoah! Easy Bob, what’s going on?” She put both hands on his biceps as if to steady him but it couldn’t stop the room from spinning.

I-I’ve gotta get outta here Phoenix, did you see where y/n went? I royally screwed things up I have to see if I can fix it before it’s too late.”

She pointed towards the back door and he was bolting for it before she could say anything else, he couldn’t believe how much of a fool he’d been.

You were crouched in the sand a hundred feet or so from the bar, gasping in deep breaths as tears clouded your vision, head in your hands and body shaking. You should have just said something the morning after it happened, why didn’t you just tell him then? He still didn’t remember and if he didn’t remember then it must’ve not meant anything to him, now he was with someone else and your chance had all but evaporated. Had you completely lost him now? You didn’t know if you could bear not having him in your life, even if he wasn’t in love with you, losing your closest friend would be too much to bear.

“Y/n?” You heard him say softly behind you, he had always had an uncanny ability to sneak up on people and you supposed you should’ve known he’d come. He was the kindest person you knew, even if something made him uncomfortable he still worried about others. Selfless.

You swiped the tears away as best as you could before you stood and looked at him but it was no use, the second you locked eyes the tears were back.

“Robby, fuck I’m so sorry. I should’ve brought it up the morning after it happened but I-“

“I didn’t remember. And you thought it best to leave it be.”

“Y-yes” you said shakily, and you saw anger flash across his handsome features, a look you weren’t used to seeing from your beloved WSO.

“Damnit y/n! All that time wasted! If-if I’d’ve just known-“ he was shaking his head in frustration and you realized with a shock that he may not have remembered- but he meant what he said.

“Wait- wait, are you saying you meant it?” You said with a whisper, Bob looking at you incredulously like you’d grown three heads or something ridiculous.

“Is that what you’re worried about? That I didn’t… Jesus of course I meant it! How could I not? I think I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you and I feel cheated now! I’ve had you in my arms, kissed you, made love to you and I don’t remember it, but the worst part is knowing that you kept this from me. We could’ve been together this whole time! I’ve been pissing my time away with a girl who couldn’t give a rats ass about me and you’ve been right here all along.”

You were so sure he’d said it in a drunken mistake, braced for the worst that it wasn’t registering that he was telling you everything you wanted to hear, tears still spilling from your eyes as you blinked up at him, and a sound of frustration escaped his mouth as he yanked you into his arms, pressing kisses to your forehead and cheeks, and you melted into him as it finally settled in that this was real.

He took your face in his hands as he tipped your head up to look at him, swiping the tears away with his thumbs while you tried to bring yourself back down from the meltdown.

“Damnit girl it’s always been you, I don’t know how you could’ve thought otherwise.”

You laughed out at your stupidity and leaned up into him as he pressed a chaste kiss to your lips.

“Now listen, I want to do this right, so before I let myself drown in you like I want I have something I need to do. Stay right here, wait for me.” He kissed you again and released you, already missing his warmth you let out a whine.

He chuckled and swiped a loose curl behind your ear, “in order to make love to you like I want, I have to speak to Lauren. I want a clean slate for us baby, give me a few minutes and I promise after this I’m yours until you’re sick of me.”

“Never gonna happen” you said with a grin and he mirrored you with a brilliant smile of his own.

He had a renewed confidence he hadn’t felt in months as he made his way back inside to get his phone, passing Hangman by the dart board with his arm braced against the wall and a very familiar blonde haired woman shamelessly flirting with him.

Doing a double take he confirmed with a laugh that is was in fact his girlfriend trying to shoot her shot with Jake Seresin and oddly enough it didn’t even surprise him.

“Hey Seresin, glad to see your back.” He said with a smack on the golden haired aviators back, Jake cocking his head to the side with a smirk.

“Baby on Board! Good to see ya, glad to be back home. This is- uhh I’m sorry sugar I don’t know that I got your name” he said gesturing towards the girl and she looked at Bob like a deer in headlights.

“Lauren, her name is Lauren. By the way, whatever was going on with you and me? It’s over sweet pea. I think you two will be very happy together, you like TikTok right Hangman? She’s real big into all that influencer shit. Anyways, you two have a good night, I’ve got somewhere else to be.” He said as he walked off winking at Natasha as she cackled from her perch near the group.

He bounded out into the sand to find you right where he let you, lighter than air as he looped an arm around your waist and pulled you in to kiss you like he’d wanted. You gasped into his mouth as he nipped at your bottom lip and slid his tongue into your mouth to taste you. It was perfect, all your little sweet noises as you grasped at his collar and rubbed your body against his.

“Robby” you gasped out as his lips drifted down your jaw and to your neck and he felt lightheaded over all of it. “What’s on your mind baby” he said as he smiled against your skin and you shivered in his arms. “Take me home? I think- I think we need a do over. Want you so bad.” He couldn’t think of anything better, tossing you over his shoulders as you shrieked and giggled he carried you to the parking lot and placed you gently in the passenger seat of his old beat up truck.

“Let’s get you home sugar, we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, hope you weren’t planning on sleepin’ tonight, I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep my hands to myself.”

You all but crawled into his lap in the bench seat as you ran your hands through his sandy blonde hair,

“I love you. Don’t you dare keep your hands to yourself, want you to love on me until we can’t move anymore, take me home and make me yours.”

And he did. Six months later when he put a ring on your finger it was a surprise to absolutely no one, he’d always pick on you for hiding the truth and you’d never let him live it down that he had forgotten making love to you in the first place. It seemed so silly now looking back on it, knowing you two were meant to be. He’d always been the one, and now he always would be.

———————————————————————

🏷️ tagging people who might be interested- @attapullman @bobfloydsbabe @bobgasm @roosterforme @seitmai @jessicab1991 @sebsxphia @fandom-princess-forevermore @nerdgirljen @lenafromthenordiccoven @sio-ina-bottle @sunsetsimpsblog @auroralightsthesky

If I missed anyone I’m sorry I’m running on three hours of sleep 😭

[elliesdoll]

pt.2 to my angsty loser!ellie drabble 𝜗𝜚

nsfw! ellie gets caught and that’s literally it. i hate this so bad but it’s whateva

(part 3 will have lesbian gay lesbian boob vagina butt sex i promise. no more ellie masturbating)

find pt.1 here! & pt.3 here :3

daily click! don’t buy tlou free palestine

after ellie’s pathetic masturbation sesh, she vowed to herself to fucking pull it together.

she wasn’t gonna let herself mope over you, because she knew you had an active sex life. she forced herself to be fine with it. to be fine with the people you decided to bring to your bed. she wanted to be near you without feeling this suffocating feeling of yearning and lust filling her insides.

and if that meant tucking her feelings to the deepest pits of hell, then so fucking be it.

a few weeks had passed since that little moment you and ellie had. the one where she had showed up to your house in the middle of you hooking up with someone.

the morning after, she has awoken to a string of texts from you, all apologizing for that awkward moment.

11:34pm

ellie i’m so sorry you had to see me like that. i didn’t mean to come off rude.

i wanted to go after you but i couldn’t really leave her alone in my house lol

els?

i’m really sorry. i hope u don’t think you can’t come to my house ever again ☹️ i actually thought it was sweet you showed up like that.

2:12am

goodnight ellie. i hope things aren’t awkward between us.

god, you made her feel awful. you were too fucking sweet to her. the way you never missed a single night when telling her goodnight, even after something like that. she rubbed her swollen face, mainly from crying, and typed a short message to you.

9:47am

hey, sorry for rushing away like that. idk why i did that lmfao

and things aren’t awkward at all, i shouldn’t have just showed up unnanounced

no els seriously! you should do that more often. tbh i wanted to hang out with you more than that girl… but yk i couldn’t 💔💔

she smiled at your kind text, glad that you two could just put it behind yourselves. her moment of relief was quickly replaced by disgust, when she saw the state of herself and her bed. her inner thighs sticky with dried cum, and her sheets below her still damp with all the extra release.

“gross..” she mumbled to herself, getting up and immediately throwing on some boxers and a tshirt, feeling way too vulnerable being naked like that. she went to the bathroom and cleaned herself up, then threw her sheets in the wash.

since then, you two have been fine. you do your weekly hangout sessions, where you grab food and talk about anything for hours on end. it’s almost as if nothing happened.

until one of your sleepovers.

you always convinced ellie to spend the night at your house, at least every other week. whenever it’d get dark outside and ellie would start to get up, you’d give her that irresistible pout and “ughhh, c’mon els.. just spend the night. it’s too dark out for you to go home.”

and every damn time, she agreed. how could she ever say no to you?

one night, you and ellie are high out of your minds, talking about god knows what. all giggly and soft, you two exchange jokes and stories that really make no sense. but, to you two, it’s the funniest thing in the world. after a laughing fit between the two of you, you wipe your tears and sigh.

“god, i love you.”

you say, still catching your breath from that tummy tensing laugh. the words were just an expression of admiration for her. but to ellie, they were so much more.

“i love you too.”

she says, looking you in the eyes. she’s high, so she’s not thinking too hard about how sincere she sounds. but she really should’ve, because that soft tone of her voice and the glint in her eyes make it sound way too fucking real.

“woah,” you let out a nervous, breathy chuckle. “that was a bit theatrical.”

“wh..what do you mean?”

ellie asks, getting a bit nervous. she’s not her usual, stuttery self though. she keeps it together. thanks to the weed.

“just the way you said i love you. it felt like… deep.”

you move your hands as you talk, and ellie just shrugs. but she knows she’s fucked. before she could stop her feelings from resurfacing, she gets that familiar tingle in her belly and pounding of her heart.

“shut up,” she rolls her eyes, trying to play it off.“you’re dramatic.”

her voice wavered with those last words. fuck, her voice wavered. why did she feel like she was gonna have a breakdown any second now? she had to get the hell away from you.

“gotta piss. be back in a bit.”

ellie says quickly, so quick you don’t even have time to retort to her calling you dramatic. you just sit there, confused. you could’ve sworn you heard some uncertainty in her voice, but you let her go.

meanwhile, ellie made a beeline for your bathroom. she shut the door and leaned her head against the wood. she let out a deep sigh, trying to calm herself. the fact that she felt the most intense feeling that she couldn’t even describe over a mere “i love you” had her cringing.

she just couldn’t get over you. the entire night, she tried her best not to think about how good your tits looked in your pajama top, or how badly she wanted to just shove her face into your ass in those little shorts.

her thinking over these details led to the predicament that she’s in right now. sweatpants around her knees, legs slightly spread as she rubs one out while leaned up against your bathroom sink. her eyes are shut and her head is thrown back, letting out the quietist grunts she could muster.

she knew she shouldn’t be doing this, she promised herself that she would stop. but god, you made it hard. she was so wet, it made her cheeks flush red. the simple thought of you had her literally dripping around her own fingers.

you were still in your room, biting your thumbnail as you wait for ellie. you start to get worried, thinking you made her upset by commenting on how she said ‘i love you’. so, you being the thoughtful friend you are, go to check on her.

you quietly walk to the bathroom, putting your ear against the door. you were going to knock and mutter a little “els? are you okay?”, but the sounds you heard made you lose all the words in your mouth.

soft, sharp inhales and tiny sticky noises is all you can hear through the door. it’s a bit hard to listen to, since the soft buzz of the yellow light in there overpowers it. what the hell is she doing in there?

you knew this was wrong. an invasion of privacy to the max. but your curiosity was getting the better of you, and you were worried. you put your hand on the doorknob and slightly twisted it, not expecting it to open. but it did.

did ellie forget to lock the door?

ellie doesn’t hear the soft click of the door opening, too lost in her own pleasure as she practically humps her own hand. it had been too fucking long since she could touch herself to the thought of you. her only guilty pleasure.

her head was still thrown back, eyes squeezed shut as she rubbed her clit at a shockingly fast pace. and you saw it all. you had opening the door just enough for half of your face to see through the opened crack. your whole body froze at the sight in front of you.

she was so captivating. her face looking all fucked out, her pale thighs that were so tensed up, the shininess of her slick that smeared on the heel of her palm. even the quick glimpses of her gorgeous auburn bush that you could see if her hoodie rode up enough.

your tummy felt weird. first, you felt guilty for eavesdropping on your best friend. second, you were confused why the fuck ellie decided now would be the best time to masturbate. third, you were turned on. disgustingly turned on, at that.

a few seconds of watching ellie made your panties get all sticky and wet, and that burning hot feeling in your lower belly. you couldn’t look away.

“ohh, fuck— please,”

your brain short circuited hearing ellie say that. god, she was so lost in her own pleasure. so lost that she accidentally knocked over your toothbrush and hand soap on the sink, causing her to jolt and snap her eyes open.

she looks down at the bottle of soap and toothbrush that landed in front of the bathroom door. the door that’s cracked. her eyes shoot up, and there’s where she sees a glimpse of you running away. a quick flash, but she knew it was you.

she is so fucked.

I HATE RHISNSO BAD RRRR😡

btw i finished this literally like 3 days ago and didn’t wanna post it hut i did anyway ☺️☺️

[jjkilll]

the one where you hate to admit it but jk is right

- pairing I debate captain jk x co-cap y/n

- warning I smut, fingering

- song I you right - doja cat

- wc | 1.4K

——-—-—-—-✫-—--—-—-——

you were co-captain of your university’s debate team. you hated your captain jungkook. he was a know-it-all and you honestly thought you’d be the captain. you thought you deserved it. his mother was the dean of the university so naturally your brain to nepotism.

he was smart and funny, extremely handsome but you’d never admit it to his face. it’d make his head swell. you always found him attractive but that know-it-all attitude had you ready to swing.

he’d always find a way to correct you or use your statements to try and make a better point than yours. you hated it, you almost hated him. the humor, tattoos, biceps, and glasses saved him.

you were at his house going over the points for your upcoming debate.

“okay, but the scarcity of fresh water is insane.” you start explaining. “nearly 1.1 billion people don’t have fresh, safe, and drinkable water.” you finish.

“i understand but 1.1 billion doesn’t even make up half of the population of the world. it doesn’t even make up america’s population. so to say that majority of the world doesn’t have access to clean water is a stretch.” he states matter of factly.

“i just mean in most of most of mexico, and several in africa and europe struggle to find clean water.” you try not to get frustrated with him and try to explain your point further.

“then say that. don’t use such general words. state facts and only facts.” you sigh at his words.

“you are so fucking annoying, my god.” you snap, almost instantly regretting saying anything. he chuckles.

“i’m annoying? do you know how annoying it is to correct you all the time?” he spits. “your a smart girl so for the life of me i can’t even begin to understand your idiocracy.”

“idiocracy? seriously how are you calling me smart and stupid at the same time.”

“i mean i am the captain,” he says with a smirk.

“that doesn’t make you smarter than me, dumbass. that’s just a classic take on nepotism.”

“oh… low blow,” he says with a huff.

“you always think you’re so fucking smart and you always have to be right. i don’t get you.”

“awe, you love me.” he smiles putting his hand over his chest.

“you’re a dick,” you say.

“yea yea, go on to your next point miss generalization,” he mumbles before standing and taking his hoodie off. his shirt rides up with it and you see his body.

holy fuck was he smoking hot. his happy trail had you ready to tie your hair up. you didn’t realize you were ogling him until he cleared his throat.

“maybe you’d make a clear point if you stop staring at me.” he says flopping back down your sofa. “i wasn’t staring at you.” you lie.

“sure,” he says simply.

“you are so haughty.” you scoff, he chuckles. “awe that’s a big word for elmo.” he jokes.

“you know what?” you say slamming your notecards on the table. “what?” he stands walking over to you. “i hate you and your fucking attitude. i hate how dense but somehow detailed you are. i hate when you correct me and make me feel like im an idiot in front of everyone. and what i hate the most…” you start but stop.

“what? tell me, please baby… i’m dying to know.” his nickname catches you off guard. he was so hot being all condescending, you were conflicted. he scoffed at your silence.

“you know what i think? i think…” he starts closing the space between you. “i think the only reason you hate me so bad, is cause you wanna fuck me.” you scoff rolling your eyes. “oh you’ve lost your everlasting mind.” you speak trying not to be shocked at his vulgar choice of words.

“i get in your head, but you can’t help but be attracted to me. it’s so clear that you want me. all of this is unnecessary, you could’ve just asked.” he smirks.

“i hate you.” you spit getting ready to walk away but he grabs your hand pulling you in. you’re chest to chest, “say it again.” he asks. you look up at him, god he’s so fucking sexy. “you usually never shut up and now you don’t have a thing to say. funny. i love the effect i have on you. i make you lose your mind.” you look so little next to him, you hate how needy you feel. you want him so bad.

he holds your face in his hand stocking your cheek with his thumb. he smiles brushing his thumb over your lips. “say you want me.” he whispers. you are absolutely soaked, if he doesn’t touch you soon you might explode. “please.” you whine. “please what?”

he rests his thumb on your lip and you open your mouth and suck on his finger. “ohhh so such a sweet girl. tell me what you want.” he coos.

“please touch me.” you squeak. “awe such good manners,” he says before kissing you deeply. you stumble backward onto the wall. your tongues dance together and he explores your mouth.

“you’re such a good kisser, your lips are so pretty,” he says breaking the kiss but quickly kissing you again.

you grind against him needfully, “awe you are so cute. so needy for me. i love seeing you like this.” you whine craving him. “please just touch me.” he smiles unbuttoning your shorts before kissing your neck.

he slides his hand down your shorts and starts rubbing your clit. you moan but he’s quick when kissing you. you moan into his mouth. “god i’m fucking obsessed with you.” he says breaking the kiss, “all that shit talk but i have you crumbling under me.” he kisses your lips again before plunging a finger inside of you.

“oh shit!” you moan grinding against his hand for more friction. you lean your head back trying to slow your breathing and not be so worked up. you fail, as your breathing is heavy and the pleasure is unfathomable. let out a string of curses before he speaks, “you’re so tight, baby. it’s only one finger. my dick is gonna stretch your little pussy out.” he starts to quicken his pace you are slowly losing your mind. you’re so close you can barely breathe. “please- please make me cum.” you plead.

“beg for it,” he replied quickly. he loved watching you fall apart on his fingers. the little quick-witted sarcastic girl he knew minutes away was long gone. you didn’t want to beg, but you were so desperate and so so close.

“please make me cum jungkook. please ill do anything.” you don’t even recognize your voice, so whiny and pathetic. “open your mouth.” you obey quickly and he spits in your mouth his fingers fucking you faster. “oh my god please.” you repeat like it’s your mantra.

“cum for me, baby. cum on my fingers, let me taste.” his words along with his fingers make you fall apart, your moans are pathetic and squeaky. you grind against him as you cum. he pulls his finger out, covered in you. he looks at you, your eyes low and you look fucked out. he sucks your cum off his finger and smiles.

“guess i was right.” he says kissing you so you could taste yourself. “mm, you taste so sweet.”

your legs are weak from how hard you came.

“i correct you because i believe in you. you are constantly on the right path you just need to delve deeper, you speak so generally, they’ll kick our ass if we don’t come up with facts,” he speaks.

“stop talking about the fucking debate,” you say trying to catch your breath. he laughs grabs your hand, and walks you over to the couch. you plop beside him shorts still unbuttoned. you lay back and he starts to button your shorts but you stop him, noticing the tent in his pants.

“nuh-huh, i want you to fuck me…rough.” you say looking up at him. “ooh, what happened to your manners?” he smirks. “shut up and fuck me,” you say, and he raises his brow. “please?” you add.

“absolutely, baby.” he smiles

“wait so i really was right?” he asks excitedly. “hurry before i change my mind.” you roll your eyes leaning your head back. “cute but we both know you won’t.” he kisses you.

“now come ride this dick, pretty girl.”

——-—-—-—-✫-—--—-—-——

[celiastjamesoscar]

Would That I

Pairings: Sam Carpenter x fem!reader

Summary: You accidentally ran into someone at a frat party, and she quickly became your best friend. But you fell for her sister, who wouldn’t even give you the time of the day (this is a shitty description)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of weed, alcohol consumption, small joke of role playing sex, jokes about getting salmonella and dying, slight angst. Let me know if I missed any!

My Masterlist

AN: Came from this request here!

Word Count: 6.8K

You could smell the alcohol and weed in the air before approaching the house. It was Halloween night, and you were going to a frat party with your friends, even though you had zero intention of staying longer than ten minutes. You were just here to ‘shake babies and kiss hands,’ as your friend Miles would say.

He was the one hosting this frat party, so of course, you had to show your support for your friend, even though you hated parties and drinking. He was one of the biggest recruiters for his frat house and very well known across the campus for his promiscuous activities, but he wasn’t your typical frat guy. Yes, he loved to drink, party, and sleep around, but he was a nerd. He had been his high school’s team captain of Scholar Bowl his junior and senior year, and led them to a state championship win. And he was also extremely socially awkward; it pained you to watch him interact with people.

“What the actual fuck are you wearing?” Anika questioned as you walked up the stairs to the house. She and Mindy were patiently waiting outside for you, and they both laughed at your outfit. “What? This is a vintage Gucci,” you stated as you did a twirl for the girls.

You were dressed up as Alan Garner from the hangout, and Anika hated to admit it, but you pulled off the cheap fake beard and wig. You also had a fake baby strapped to your chest with cheap sunglasses covering your eyes.

“You are really asking me that, Mr. Worldwide?” You jabbed as you eyed Anika up and down. The girl wore a god-awful bald cap, a black suit, and a white shirt with a shitty penciled-on goatee. “Haters gonna hate,” Anika replied as she pulled a pair of sunglasses out from her jacket pocket and put them on.

You scoffed at the girl before looking at Mindy, “I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“I’m going to have a BF if you insult me,” Mindy scolded as she stared you down. She wore a jean skirt with white pantyhose topped off with a jean jacket and a pink shirt that said ‘Dude, where’s my couture’ in red letters.

“Was this your idea?” You asked with an eyebrow raised.

Mindy scoffed at your words, “Of course not! I wanted to go as Vector but Chad wanted to match,” she said as she rolled her eyes, “So now, I’m from White Chicks instead of Despicable Me.”

“I think you would have made a very sexy Vector,” you admitted with a smile.

“Thank you. At least someone,” Mindy sent Anika a glare, “thinks it would have been sexy.”

Anika rolled her eyes at Mindy, “I told you I’m not having sex with you while you are dressed up like Vector!”

“Okayyyy, this just got weird,” you interrupted as you walked past the fighting couple but stopped just before the door, “you two coming?”

The two quickly stood up and followed you into the house. The smell of alcohol and weed was enough to turn your stomach as you opened the door. You saw partygoers dressed in all different kinds of costumes as you pushed through the crowd and made your way into the kitchen. “I shall have a bottle of Smirnoff, and what will my lady have?” Mindy asked as she dug around the cooler full of alcohol. “I shall have the same, my lord,” Anika replied, and you almost gagged at their conversation.

You politely pushed past Mindy and fished around for a bottle of water, and you quietly rejoiced when you pulled up the last bottle. “Seriously? Water?” Mindy questioned as she glared at you. “Yes, seriously. This is a frat party, and I only know three people here!” You exclaimed while holding your water.

Mindy muttered a quiet ‘whatever,’ and you were going to retort when you felt someone throw their arm around you and pull you into a hug. “How’s my favorite homo doing?” Miles questioned while ruffling your hair. “I’m fine, Miles. Thanks for asking,” Mindy butted in with a slight smile.

Miles let out a small laugh as he left your hair alone and gave Mindy a fist-bump, “I’ve missed you too, Mindy, and you as well, Anika.” Anika smiled at the man as she also fist-bumped him. “Well, me and Y/N here are going to go hunt for some Latinas to hit on, you two gay-bo’s have fun,” Miles said while pulling you off into another room.

“Really? We are going to ‘hunt for some Latinas?’” You questioned as you followed Miles into the living room. People were elbow to elbow, and you had to shout over the loud music to converse with the man. “Obviously! I know your three main things you look for in women, and I bet we can find someone here who is all three,” Miles replied as she slung his arm over your shoulder while scanning the room for a potential hookup for you.

You scoffed at your best friend’s words, “I do not have three things I look for in a woman. I only care about her personality and her thoughts on Dr. Pepper.”

A sound of fake gagging caused you to send a death glare at Miles. “I forgot you're a Dr. Pepper whore,” your friend joked as he started listing your three interests on his fingers. “Number one: you love Latinas, same here. Number two: you love emo chicks; same here again. And finally, number three, you love a woman older than you, and guess what? Same here too!”

“I hate that we are basically the same person in different fonts,” you mumbled under your breath as you shoved yourself off Miles, causing you to bump into a stranger accidentally.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” you quickly apologized as you faced the woman. She was close to a foot shorter than you, but had a beautiful smile and seemed like she had a charming personality. “No, it’s okay,” the girl replied slurredly. You could tell this girl was hammered out of her mind, and you had seen the eyes of preying men on her.

Not knowing what to do, you asked her, “Hey, I know we just met, but would you want to go outside with me?” The question was an innocent one; you didn’t want to leave an intoxicated girl who was pushing five feet nothing to fend off men like Frankie. “Sure,” the girl replied with a smile as she grabbed your hand and pulled you outside. You sent Miles a scared smile as the man responded with a comical smile and a thumbs up.

You followed the girl out to a small wooden swing and sat down next to her. “So, what’s your name?” You quietly asked. You had no intentions on hitting on this girl even though she was your type; you were just in need of some new friends, and you thought she could be a good addition.

Not that Anika and Miles were bad friends, you just needed someone else to hang out occasionally.

The girl reached her hand over to you while saying, “I’m Tara; it’s nice to meet you.” You gently shook her hand and sent her a grin, “I’m Y/N. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The further the night went along, the more you talked with Tara. You two quickly discovered that you both shared a love for art and elevated horror, and you even exchanged numbers with the girl.

“Oh shit,” Tara quietly mumbled as she stood up from the bench. You gave her a puzzled look before standing up as well, “is everything alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just my sister is freaking out about me right now,” Tara replied as she texted someone back, presumably the sister in question. “You aren’t in any trouble, are you? Because I can try and help to get you out,” you offered, causing Tara to chuckle at your words.

“Thank you, Y/N, but I think Sam would kill you if she ever met you,” Tara joked while looking up at you before returning to typing.

A minute passed before Tara sighed and closed her phone. “Well, I better get back home,” Tara said as she moved in to hug you, but your fake baby got in the way.

You gave Tara an awkward smile as you pulled the girl into a side hug and whispered in her ear, “Babies, am I right?”

“Why do you even have that thing?” Tara asked while flicking its head.

You quickly wrapped your arms around the baby’s head and shielded it from Tara. “Hey! Do not hurt my baby Carlos!” You exclaimed.

“Carlos? Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am serious. Do not hate on his name.”

“Why did you pick such an outlandish name?” Tara asked with a smile as she crossed her arms.

You scoffed at the girl’s words, “‘Carlos’ is not an outlandish name, Tara. And besides, it’s from the movie The Hangover.”

Tara chuckled at your words, “Oh my god, my sister loves that movie; she watches it all the time.”

“Is your sister single?” You asked with a playful smirk.

“Ha! Yeah, right. Good luck with that. Sam is pretty reserved,” Tara stated as she slowly started to walk toward the road.

“How come? If you don’t mind me asking,” you asked while following Tara and stopping on the sidewalk beside her.

The girl shrugged while pulling out her phone and texting someone. “Her last relationship ended badly. And ever since then, she’s just been closed off to everyone except me and always stalking me,” Tara admitted while putting her phone away, “but you’ll get a chance to meet her; she’s on her way to pick us up.”

“Us?”

“Yeah, only if you want to come over. I know we just met, but I feel like we could be friends,” Tara admitted with a smile as a black car pulled, parked, and the driver got out.

Tara continued talking to you, but as soon as you saw the driver, you couldn’t hear anything else. She was, to put it lightly, the most attractive woman you have ever seen. She had dark eyes that captivated you and a stern look as she approached you and Tara.

“Who’s this?” The alluring woman asked, and you could only think, ‘You’re future girlfriend’ with a giant smile.

The younger sister beamed at her sister’s question and placed a hand on your back, gently pushing you toward the woman. “Sam, this is Y/N. She’s my friend,” Tara stated.

“Hi,” you breathlessly replied with an awkward smile as you stuck out your hand toward Sam. The woman looked you up and down before scoffing and slapping your hand away. “How come you’ve never mentioned her before?” Sam questioned while crossing her arms.

“Because, Sam, we just met tonight.”

At that, Sam’s eyes instantly widened as she stared at her sister. “Are you serious?! You don’t even know this stranger, yet you came outside to be alone with her?” Sam exclaimed as she checked her sister over for any injuries.

“I’m fine, Sam. And besides, Y/N isn’t that bad,” Tara laughed as she felt Sam’s hands check out of her body.

Sam stopped her movements and looked Tara in the eyes, “And how do you know that?”

Tara huffed at Sam’s question and turned to face you, “You aren’t going to murder me, Y/N, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” you joked with a playful smile, but Sam didn’t find it funny.

“Well, at least I get a heads up this time,” Tara chuckled, completely ignoring Sam’s bewildering expression.

Sam took in her sister’s words before shaking her head, shocked, “No, absolutely not. Come on, Tara, we are leaving,” Sam said as she walked to the driver’s side.

“Can Y/N come over at least?” Tara asked with puppy dog eyes and a small frown. Sam hated it when Tara did this, and her younger sister knew it always worked. Of course, Sam knew that Tara was only doing this to get her way, and Sam never denied her sister.

With a quiet ‘goddamnit,’ Sam allowed you to come with them.

“Thank you,” you said once you got into the back of the car and buckled up. You only got a small grunt in response, but you took it as a win.

The car ride was filled with low music and the occasional conversation between the sisters as you admired Sam. You were sitting behind the passenger seat, allowing you the perfect side view to look at Sam. Unbeknownst to you, Sam had caught you staring at her in the rearview mirror but made no verbal comment. ‘Fucking weirdo,’ she thought to herself as she quickly glanced at your love-sick eyes in the mirror.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arriving at the Carpenters' apartment, Tara gave you a quick tour of the place and introduced you to their roommate Quinn, who naturally took a liking to you.

While you were on the couch talking with Tara, Quinn walked into the kitchen and found Sam glaring at you.

“She’s certainly something, isn’t she?” Quinn questioned while twirling her hair around her finger. You had taken off the fake beard, wig, and sunglasses and left your baby and baby carrier next to the door, and Sam had to admit, now that she saw your entire face, you were undeniably attractive.

Sam side-eyes Quinn before looking back at you and then back to the redhead. “I thought you were strictly men?”

Quinn chuckled at Sam’s response, “How can I thoroughly enjoy sex if I’ve never been with a woman? They know the female body better than anyone else.”

Not being able to form an argument against Quinn’s words, Sam nodded her head in agreement.

“Wish me luck,” Quinn said as she gently slapped Sam’s back before entering the living room, sitting right next to you.

And for some unknown reason, Sam felt a tinge of jealousy shoot throughout her body, making her hate you all the more.

You and Tara stayed up watching movies while Quinn occasionally hit on you. And when it came time for people to start turning in, Quinn gave it one last shot.

“Well, I’m going to bed,” Quinn said as she rubbed her hands on her thighs before standing up, “you can always come sleep with me, Y/N,” she finished with a wink before walking into her room.

Once she was gone, Tara apologized, “I’m sorry about her. She’s like that with everyone.”

“Eh, I don’t mind the boost of confidence,” you replied with a smirk. Tara laughed at your words, and her eyes darted to Sam’s door as it opened.

Sam walked into the living room and glared at you before looking at Tara. “Alright, Tara, I think it’s time for Y/N to go home,” Sam stated as she crossed her arms.

Tara let out a small groan as she threw her head back before standing up. “Alright, Alan, let’s go,” Tara replied as she pulled you off the couch and walked toward the door with you.

“What are you doing?” Sam questioned while watching you, and Tara put on your shoes. “I’m taking Y/N home?” Tara replied with a puzzled look.

“Nuh-uh, nope,” Sam responded as she walked over to the door and stood before it, “you are not leaving here this late at night with her.”

With a scoff, Tara looked between you and her sister, “Well, what do you want her to do then? Walk home?”

“Yes,” Sam immediately replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“So it’s not safe enough for me to walk with her, but she can go alone?”

Sam took a few seconds to think about it before responding, “That is correct.”

Tara sighed; she knew there was no point in arguing with Sam, but she got a bright idea. “Well, since you won’t let me take her home, you can,” Tara suggested as she removed her shoes.

“No!” You and Sam exclaimed at the same time but for different reasons. Sam didn’t want to take you home because she did not like you at all. While you, on the other hand, didn’t want to be left alone with the woman because you knew for a fact you would be a blushing mess and wouldn’t be able to form a sentence.

“I’ll take her home,” a voice called from behind you, and you turned to see Quinn leaning against her door frame. The redhead wore a sheer white blouse, and you could see her red lingerie bra.

“I’m fine with that,” you replied too quickly with a smile on your face.

But Sam scoffed at your words before moving to grab her keys. “Absolutely not. Come on, Y/N. I’ll take you,” Sam stated as she pushed past you to open the door. You gave Quinn a small wave and told Tara you would text her as you gathered up Carlos, your fake beard and wig, along with your sunglasses, before following Sam out to her car.

“Thank you for taking me home. I appreciate it, Sam,” you commented as you buckled up. Sam huffed in response as she started her car.

“How do I get to your house?” Sam asked after a few moments of driving down a random street. You told the woman your address, and Sam wanted to scream when she realized it would take almost thirty minutes to get to your house due to traffic.

The car was filled with the heavenly voice of Lana Del Rey as you leaned your head back against the headrest and looked over at Sam. You couldn’t explain it, but Sam was exactly what you would imagine a Lana Del Rey song would look like.

“Stop staring at me; you’re creepy as shit,” Sam said once she felt your eyes on her.

You awkwardly cleared your throat as you uncomfortably shifted in your seat while staring at the floor. “So, Tara told me your favorite movie is The Hangover?” You questioned while fidgeting with your fingers.

A few seconds passed before dryly said, “Yes.” And even more, seconds passed before she added, “I hope Carlos had a fun night.”

You lightly chuckled at the woman’s words as you messed with Carlos’ plastic hands, “Yeah, he had a blast tonight.”

Sam responded with a small ‘mhm’ as she continued driving, enjoying the awkward silence that filled the air.

When Sam arrived at your apartment, she realized that you lived in the nicer part of New York, and she loathed you for it. Not only were you a nuisance, you were more than likely a spoiled rich brat, and Sam could not wait to get rid of you.

“This is me,” you quietly mumbled while getting out of the vehicle with your items in hand as Sam rolled down the window to talk to you, “Thank you for the ride, Sam. I appreciate it,” you said as you pulled out your wallet and handed the woman a ten dollar through the window.

She looked between you and the money before staring into your eyes, “I’m not having sex with you for money.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and shook your head. “What? No. No! That’s not what I was implying,” you quickly defended before looking at Sam, “Why would you think?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders before speaking, “Because all you’ve done tonight is stare at me, so you either want sex or want to kill me,” Sam suggested.

“Why would I want to kill you?”

“Because you’re being creepy as shit! And you told Tara you were going to murder her.”

“Okay, fair enough. But I was completely joking about the whole murder thing,” you replied with a small laugh that Sam clearly didn’t find funny. You didn’t know about the past traumas the sisters have gone through together, and Sam knew that you didn’t know, but it didn’t make her feel any better toward you.

“Whatever,” Sam replied as she took your money before driving off.

“Goodnight, Sam!” You exclaimed while the car pulled away, and you sighed before heading to your apartment. Sam might not be the biggest fan of you right now, but you vowed you would win over the woman’s heart, no matter what it took.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winning over Sam was much more challenging than you initially thought it would be. Every time you visited Tara at her place, Sam wouldn’t even acknowledge you, and anytime you would try to talk to her, she would quickly dismiss you. But you were ever the persistent type, and you knew you would eventually wiggle your way into her heart.

It had been exactly four months since you met Tara, and the girl was planning a memorable evening for you two to celebrate the milestone in your friendship.

You approached her apartment door and knocked thrice. Within a few seconds, the door slowly opened and revealed a grumpy Sam. “What do you want?” The woman questioned while looking up and down, her eyes moving to your right hand, “Why do you have flowers?”

“These are for you, actually,” you replied with a smile as you handed Sam her flowers. Sam studied you before reaching out and accepting the flowers, “Thanks, I guess.”

Now, Sam would never admit this even if someone held a gun to her head, but the way she felt knowing that you had gotten her real flowers and not some cheap fake ones from the Dollar Store, it was different. No one had ever brought her flowers before, and especially not in a romantic way, if that’s the game you were playing at.

The Latina studied the flowers and couldn’t help but chuckle at them: lavenders and violets; how subtle you were.

“So,” you said with a cheesy smile, “I’m here to hang out with Tara.”

“Tara! Your weird friend is here!” Sam shouted into the apartment before walking into the living room, with you a few steps behind her.

‘Sweet, that’s exactly how I like to be announced,’ you thought while moving to sit on the couch. You silently watched as Sam walked into the kitchen and threw away the flowers, and it pained you to see the beautiful blooms go to waste.

A few seconds passed when an overly excited Tara came into the living room and jumped onto the couch right next to you.

“Alright, here’s the plan: we order pizza, watch a movie and make some cookies, and then drink wine and paint. Deal?” Tara asked with eagerness and a giant smile on her face. “Sounds like a deal,” you replied while matching her grin. “Good,” Tara exclaimed while jumping off the couch and hunting for her phone to call in the pizza.

When the pizza arrived, you and Tara ate at the kitchen table along with Sam and Quinn. Naturally, the dinner was a bit awkward, as Quinn kept on hitting on you, and Sam would glare at you. You weren’t going to lie; you enjoyed the redhead's attention and were more than eager to answer her questions about your hometown and what you were majoring in.

Once you four had finished the pizza off, Tara set up a movie in the living room while Quinn left to go meet up with one of her many gentlemen callers, leaving just you and Sam in the kitchen.

The Latina watched as you pulled out some cookie dough and began preparing. “You know, you could always help,” you said while turning on the oven and pulling out a baking pan, and cleaning it off.

“I’m good,” Sam dryly replied as she crossed her arms and continued watching you work. You felt uncomfortable with her eyes burning into the back of your skull, “Stop staring; you’re creepy as shit.”

Sam huffed at your words before letting out a sound that sounded like a slight chuckle. “You’re one to talk,” the woman retorted while watching you eat a raw cookie dough bite, “you know you can get salmonella and die from that, right?”

You lightly chuckled at Sam’s as you finished eating the cookie dough, “Then I will be the first person in the history of the world to die from salmonella.”

You ignored the quiet ‘thank god,’ Sam muttered under her breath as Tara entered the room. “How are the cookies coming?” The girl questioned while eating a raw piece of cookie dough as well. “There wouldn't be any if you two keep on eating them,” Sam stated as she pushed you away from the pan and set the pieces of cookie dough on it.

“Why did you do that? I am perfectly capable of setting them out myself,” you said while watching Sam finish placing the cookie dough on the pan. “Because you and Tara would just eat it all,” the older woman replied as she put the pan in the oven and closed the door.

“If you say so,” you retorted as you entered the living room with Tara. You sat on the couch first and allowed Tara to cuddle up next to you as she pressed play on the movie.

You two enjoyed the peaceful comfort that had fallen over you when Sam called out, “Cookies are done,” while walking into the living room. “Seriously, you two? Shrek?” Sam asked while she watched the screen. “Yes, Sam. Shrek is amazing,” Tara retorted as she pushed off you and practically flew into the kitchen.

You gave Sam a tight-lipped smile as you walked past her and ate some cookies with Tara. And soon enough, Sam joined you two in the kitchen.

The woman stared at you as you finished your cookie and walked toward you. “You have something on your lip,” Sam said as she reached out and gently wiped away a piece of chocolate from the corner of your lips. You felt your heart explode at the contact and your knees weaken; you thought you would surely die if Sam kept this up.

She let her thumb linger on your lips before gently swiping it across your bottom lip with a smirk on her own lips before walking off to her room. She didn’t know why she did it, but it stirred something in her as she watched your shocked expression and lustful eyes dance across her face.

“What the fuck was that?” Tara asked as she shoved you once Sam was out of earshot.

“Huh uh,” you replied with a love sock grin as you stared at the hallway Sam disappeared into. The more petite girl gave you a look of disgust before pulling you into the living room to drink and paint, but your mind kept on drifting back to the beautiful woman who hated you as you worked. And before you knew it, you had accidentally painted a picture of Sam. In the painting, she was leaning against a doorframe wearing a skin-tight gray long-sleeve shirt that highlighted her muscles with jeans. A casual outfit you had seen Sam wear numerous times, but she still looked breathtaking.

Her eyes amused you the most in the picture; even though it wasn’t a close-up painting, her dark eyes still seemed to pull you in, and you could faintly see the monster she hid behind them.

You fell head over heels for Sam Carpenter that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once every month, you would go over to Tara’s apartment for wine and painting, and it was probably the one night you looked forward to every month.

Not because you got an excuse to drink and stare lustfully at Tara’s controversial hot sister, but because you enjoyed creating the most horrific art pieces with the girl that no one should ever see.

“What the hell is that?” Tara drunkenly laughed one night after a few too many glasses of wine.

“I don’t know!” You said while watching Tara’s tone. You had created what was supposed to be your version of Sully from Monsters Inc but had made a giant blurb of blue and purple with the slightest resemblance to Ed Sheeran.

“Will you two keep it down?” Sam asked as she walked into the living room, wearing nothing but a bra and shorts.

You choked on your spit when you saw the woman and nearly fainted when a single drop of water ran down her defined abs.

“Sorry about that, Sam,” Tara replied with a drunken smile before returning to her painting, entirely ignorant of your lustful state.

One moment you were sitting next to Tara, and the next, you were in the kitchen next to Sam.

“Hey,” you husked out with a flirtatious smile and a nod as you leaned against the doorframe, trying your best to act sober and calm simultaneously.

“Hi,” Sam suspiciously replied as her eyes racked over your body and took in your drunken state.

“How you doin’?” You asked, and Sam couldn’t help but laugh at your shitty attempt to flirt with her.

“What do you want, Y/N?” Sam asked while getting out a bottle of water and facing you. You shrugged your shoulders as you pushed off the doorframe, “Would you like to come paint with us?”

At the mention of her sister joining in on the activity, Tara yelled from the living room, “Sam! Sammy! You have to come and paint with us!”

Sam sighed at her sister’s words before walking into her room, throwing on a random shirt and grudgingly sauntering into the living room and picking up a blank canvas as she sat beside you.

You three worked in silence as the soft sounds of Hozier filled the air. Sam would occasionally sneak a peek at your work, but you would always hide it. And when she finally got a good look at it, she wished she hadn’t seen it.

“Y/N. Why the fuck did you paint a naked lady?” Sam demanded as she stared at your artwork.

It was a sloppy picture of a woman wearing a white dress with one boob hanging out, and Sam had to admit, those had to be the biggest boobs she’s ever seen. The lady in the painting wore a faint black hat, and somehow, she looked familiar to Sam.

“Do not hate on my lovely wife, Samantha Carpenter. I shall have you know that Lady Dimitrescu is one of the finest women I have ever seen!” You defended while looking over at Sam’s artwork, “And what did you come up with?”

When you leaned over and saw what Sam had made, you couldn’t hide your disappointment. A frown pulled at your lips as you looked at a shitty painting of Sam stabbing you with a knife.

“It was a joke,” Sam whispered as her heart broke at your saddened expression. When she first started it, she felt good about it, and it made her happy. But now that she looked at your hallowed eyes and frowning lips, she wished she hadn't made it.

“No, it’s okay,” you replied as you cleared your throat and stood up, “Well, this has been fun, but I’m going to bed,” you finished as you walked off to Tara’s room and shut the door. You ignored the feeling of Sam’s eyes burning into your back.

“Way to go, Sam,” Tara scoffed as she stood up from the couch and went to her room to check on you. She knew of your feelings for Sam, and Tara tried her best to get her sister to warm up to you, but no matter how hard she worked, Sam refused to bridge.

But Tara didn’t know that Sam went to bed that night with regret plaguing her heart and mind as she went to sleep with the thought of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that awkward night, you stopped coming to the Carpenter’s apartment as much. At first, you would say that you would have homework to catch up on, which was true, but then after a while, you completely stopped coming over at all.

Of course, you would talk to Tara every day, but when she invited you over, you would miraculously have something else to do that prevented you from coming.

“It’s because of Sam, isn’t it?” Tara asked you. The two of you were back at another frat party for Miles, and you were enjoying a peaceful conversation outside when Tara finally asked the question that had been plaguing her mind for weeks. “Pshh, no,” you replied with a shrug.

“Y/N, stop lying to me; I know it’s because of that picture she made,” Tara stated as she stared up at you, “Sam didn’t mean it.”

You scoffed at your best friend’s words while rolling your eyes. “The fuck do you mean she didn’t mean it, Tara!” You exclaimed.

“I mean, she felt bad afterward.”

“Yeah, right. You’re just lying because you want me to come back over.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tara replied with a smile.

You two continued your conversation while occasionally people-watching until it was time to leave. Sam had slowly started to loosen up with Tara, so she was letting her sister go out more as long as she was there to pick up the girl. “Alright, Sam is on her way,” Tara commented when she read a text. You nodded at the girl’s words and tried to hide that you didn’t want to see Sam.

You hadn’t talked to the woman since that night, and you didn’t want to. Even though you were hopelessly devoted to Sam, you were hurt by how she treated you. You had been nice to her, and she would reject all of it, and weirdly, it hurt you to see Sam push you away.

Tara picked up on your pondering thoughts and reached a hand out, and rubbed it up and down your bicep. “Y/N, Sam is a grumpy asshole who is overprotective; don’t take it personally,” Tara said while reaching up to pinch your cheek with a smile.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Sam said as she approached you two. You quickly slapped Tara’s hand away from your face before looking at Sam. You had missed the dark-eyed woman and were glad to see her again, but you were still upset with the woman.

“No, you’re good,” Tara replied as she started following Sam to her car with you beside her.

The walk back to the vehicle was peaceful and filled with small banter between you and Tara, while Sam kept quiet until you ran into a group of drunken girls.

You could tell that they meant trouble before you were anywhere near them. The group was small, only consisting of three girls, but you could tell they were trouble as they stared down Sam when they walked past.

Sam pulled Tara into her side as the group walked by, and the woman said nothing when one of the girls shoulder-checked her.

“Come on,” Sam whispered while pulling Tara closer to her. You sent the group of girls a glance while walking, and you noticed how they stopped and turned around, and began walking behind you and the sisters.

“Hey!” One of the girls called, and Sam didn’t have time to react when she turned to face the girl and had a red slushie thrown on her.

The girls called Sam anything from a murderer to a liar, even to a whore, but Sam continued walking with tears in her eyes. She could handle all of the conspiracy theorist nuts, but she couldn’t handle having Tara see how she was treated.

So, when one girl called Sam a murderer again, you turned around and threw a punch. The sound of bone crunching rang throughout the air when your fist made contact with the girl's nose and was followed up by the girl's cries.

“You need to get your psycho girlfriend in check, you fucking murderer,” another girl cried out as she checked on her friend. You chuckled at the girl’s words and were getting ready to retort when you received a punch from the third girl.

You stumbled backward into Sam, and to your surprise, she caught you and whispered a quiet “I got you,” while you steadied your feet. “Come on,” Tara said as she dragged you and Sam away from the group.

The three of you walked briskly to Sam’s car as blood poured from your nose. When you reached the car, Sam opened her glove box and handed you some tissues, which you graciously accepted. You sat in the back seat while Sam drove, and Tara tried to talk to you.

“Tara, I love you so much, but I am in so much pain right now,” you choked out as you pressed the tissues to your bloody nose. Tara didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but your nose was definitely broken, and she was not going to be the one to put it back in place.

“How are you doing back there?” Sam asked while quickly glancing back at you. “My nose is in my brain!” You exaggerated while holding your nose, and Sam chuckled at your response as she continued driving.

When you got to the Carpenter apartment, the blood had stopped pouring out, and you were thanking the gods as it had completely covered the tissues in crimson blood along with your chin. “Sit on the couch; I’ll be right back,” Tara said as she pushed you and Sam onto the couch.

Tara disappeared into the bathroom and grabbed a first-aid kit before returning to the living room, and she laughed at the sight of you and her sister. The slushie on Sam’s shirt matched the blood that had dried on the tissues and stained your chin, and you both looked like you had gone through hell.

Tara moved the coffee table closer to you and started to work on cleaning it up when Sam stopped her. “I got her, Tara. Go to bed,” Sam softly spoke as she moved the first-aid kit closer to her. Tara gave her sister a questionable look before muttering, “Okay,” and walking off to her room.

You watched as Sam pulled out some alcohol wipes and gently cleaned up your nose, and you let out a slight hiss as the alcohol seeped into a cut on the bridge of your nose. “I’m sorry,” Sam apologized as she finished cleaning your nose, “It’s broken.”

“I know,” you groaned, and Sam lightly laughed at your response. “I can pop it back into place for you,” Sam offered.

“Hell no,” you replied, laughing, “I would need lidocaine with epinephrine injected into my nose and then lidocaine sprayed into my nose! Then you would need a device to basically reach my brain and put a shit ton of pressure on my nose with it and your fingers to fix it!”

“Well, I’ll take you to the ER tomorrow so we can get it fixed,” Sam asked as she got up from the couch and saw the backpack you had left over before you went to the frat party with Tara.

“Y/N, what’s this?” Sam asked as she moved your bag and pulled out a painting. You whipped your head around at the woman’s words and instantly stood up from the couch and moved to her side. “That’s nothing,” you quickly said as you tried to prevent Sam from looking at it, but it was too late.

When Sam picked up the painting, she felt her stomach do involuntary flips, and her breath hitched in her throat; it was a painting of her and not just a normal one. She noticed imperfections about her that you saw as perfect through the gentle brush strokes, and she felt herself fall for you.

“I’m not one of your French girls,” Sam joked as she set the painting back down, but you noticed the smile that threatened to appear and how her eyes bravely traveled to your lips before returning to your eyes. “Goodnight, Y/N,” Sam added as she gently placed a small kiss on your cheek before going to her room.

You had no idea how you did it, but you somehow managed to make Sam Carpenter fall for you and you could not wait to see where it would take you.

[atschoolunfortunetly]

Sonic and Tails Wholesome Wednesday: My Comeback

I LIVE! I going to be honest with ya; this is simply a draft I rewrote in my free time. I don't know if I will be posting every single Wednesday again. I can try but don't have hope. In any case, enjoy the story!

~~~~~

Tails was working away in his workshop with no distractions. He was near completion when a knock on his door startled him and his head nearly whipped around so fast that one would think he broke it.

Sonic walked in without Tails saying a word and had one expression on his face that Tails knew meant he was in for a lecture. Disappointment.

“Tails,” He began tiredly.

“Sonic,” Tails greeted back, hoping not to show nervousness on his face.

“What happened to the mint ice-cream I just bought yesterday?”

Oh, and here Tails thought he did something seriously wrong. Nerves left his body as a slight grin grew on his face.

“...I ate it.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

Silence before Sonic let out the biggest sigh Tails had ever heard come from his mouth.

“Tails.”

“Sonic.”

“You know the consequences, don’t you?”

Tails tried not to chuckle, “I have fifteen seconds to hide before you hunt me down?”

“Nah, that’s for if you had the last chili-dog. The punishment for this is,” Sonic paused for dramatic effect, “Death! Execution! Thine bloodline ends here brother!”

“Gasp, you’re gonna kill me? How could thine? I thought our bond was stronger than this!” Tails spoke dramatically.

“Our bond shattered when you ate an entire carton of mint ice cream by yourself even though I told you not to. I’ll grant you this question though brother, how do thine wish to go out? Your choice,” Sonic smiled, trying not to laugh.

“Uh, hm,” Tails faked pondering, “How about no? No death at all.”

“No? Thine denies his fate!? Then I shall choose!” Sonic declared before tapping his feet and snapping his fingers, trying to think out a way he can continue the bit.

Tails took this opportunity to get up from his chair and bolt for the nearest window. Sonic, having too much fun, used this chance to run into the house to pick up two plastic swords before meeting Tails outside.

He tossed one of the swords over to Tails and twirled the other in his hand, “Thou can’t escape his fate! We shall duel!”

Tails looked shocked at first before giggling. He then got in a fighting stance with a grin, “Fight we shall! Only one brother can make it out alive!”

The plastic swords clashed as Sonic and Tails began going back and forth with swings and jabs only barely missing their marks. Sonic decided he would put some actual effort in and Tails began losing…badly. He tried his best, honest! But his arms were getting tired and his moves were getting sloppy.

Tails tripped over his own feet, landing backwards on the ground getting his fur dirty. The fake sword in Sonic’s hand poked him lightly in the chest. His brother had a big grin on his face while Tails was simply trying to catch his breath, not caring that they lost their little game. His stomach let out a growl and Sonic sighed.

“When was the last time you ate?” He asked.

“Uh…” Aw crud, what was the last thing he ate? “I…I think I accidentally ate a fly just a bit ago. Does that count?”

“No, eating unlucky flies does not count,” Sonic flatly stated before pulling out his phone, “Pizza or Chinese?”

“Chinese, we had pizza yesterday,” Tails answered with a sigh.

“Alrighty, you go in and take a shower and the food should be back by then.”

Tails pulled himself off the ground with a smile and looked Sonic in the eye, “Next time, I’m going to win!”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh huh!”

Sonic chuckled, “Alright then, when you do I’ll buy another carton of mint ice cream.”

Tails laughed and made his way back inside without replying. Sonic simply shook his head with a smile, “God, what would I do without this kid.”

[gretavanmoon]

an omnipresent force• ch 2

Chapter 2- DARK ENIGMA

Jake x reader (we'll get there... I promise)

Words: 12.4k

A/N: Semi-AU// Set six years in the future, the world has decided to cast humankind aside, starting with the poisonous entities that are destroying her the most.

Warnings: Dystopian Horror Cursing, Smoking, Mention of Drugs, Feelings of Fear and Uncertainty, An Apocalyptic World, Hunting, Violence (mention of firearms), Kidnapping, Wounds and Pain, Blood, Death & Dying, Burials, Lying, Deceit, Sadness, Panic Attacks, Use of Restraints, Mentions of Sex

Cheatham County, Tennessee

Five days later

Y/N

The old wood of the rocking chair squeaks beneath me as I gently move my body back and forth, snuggling into my thick afghan wrapped around my body. There is a light dusting of snow on the ground, and I’d spent the majority of the evening out here on the porch, taking in the scene of my grandparents’ farmland before me. The lead in the pencil I’ve been writing with all evening is starting to dull, but I press a little harder to get the last few sentences written down into my journal. 

December 29, 2030

Day five back at Pap and Gran’s farm. We didn’t do much today except peel some potatoes and boil chicken for broth. Gran’s state has deteriorated since we made it back here. Paps and I truly thought that maybe bringing her back to her home would make her feel better, but she’s only gotten worse. Part of me thinks that she might have just wanted to find her peace here, in her own home, in her own surroundings before she decides it’s okay to let go. Awful of me to think that, isn’t it?

I miss my Mom. And I miss my dad, and I really, really miss my brother. Having nearly no time to mourn them has truly put me in a weird headspace, I don’t know how I’m making it day to day. Sometimes I think back to that fear I felt when I first realized I had to get the hell out of my house when I found the faultline in my foundation, that feeling that it could all come crashing down on me at any second, burying me in walls and furniture and drywall to the point I can’t breathe… That’s what this feels like. Like I’m standing in my basement again, just waiting for the whole thing to crush me. 

The only thing that is keeping me going is Paps and Gran. And the fact that if I stop, then they stop. And Gran is already slowing to a crawl. 

I pull out my pocket knife from my pants, opening the blade and sharpening the graphite in my pencil a bit before licking the tip, and getting back to work. 

I’ve lost nearly 16 pounds, and my hair feels so thin. I can feel my muscles starting to wear out, and the joints of my bones are beginning to ache. Lack of nourishment, I guess. But I don’t let it stop me, and neither does Paps. We are still getting up at the crack of dawn every single morning to look for roaming wildlife to catch. Thankfully we were able to get our hands on six chickens, a rooster, a goat, and the neighbor’s old Blue Heeler, Hank. Hank sits by my Gran’s side day in and day out… I think he remembers that she used to throw him scraps out into the front yard.

The strangest thing happened to me yesterday, and I feel embarrassed to even admit it in this stupid journal. 

For the first time in months, I got the overwhelming urge to want to fuck. 

I wish I could write that in invisible ink like we used to do in text messages, yikes. But, I guess I have to realize that I am still a living, breathing woman who still goes through her monthly cycles, and still possesses the urges associated with it all. God, I  fucking laughed out loud at myself. I haven’t seen another man close to my own age since we left Nashville and I saw a group of young people throwing a cinder block through the front glass of a coffee shop. For fucks sake I’m so embarrassed. 

But I actually even dreamed about it last night. Real, true, romping sex in some strange place… it was so real that I woke up in a cold sweat with my heartbeat between my legs. Shit. I don’t even know who it was with, but that part didn’t matter. I used to love those pointless, carnal dreams that made you blush in your sleep. But damn, now? That’s as close as I’m probably ever gonna get. 

I had to spend the rest of the day fighting the flashbacks while spending time with my literal grandparents. Ignoring the fact that I used to daydream about it, then make a phone call to whoever, and make it happen. It used to be so easy. Shit, I miss random hookups. Fucking hell. 

Now I’m spending my days collecting freshly laid eggs before a pack of wild dogs come and kill my chickens. Goddamnit.

ANYWAYS. 

Tomorrow is my 33rd birthday. And I don’t even care. It feels silly to even think that even though the world is pushing me off the literal land I stand on, I still have to age. I still have to deal with being a human. And mourn the loss of my family. What the fuck. Just lost the last of my immediate kin, I’m digging up last season’s potatoes from the ground and nursing my sweet Gran as she lies in her bed in pain, and I’m having sex dreams. Really, really fucking good sex dreams. If I could roll my eyes with paper and pencil, I’d be doing it right now. The human experience is so fuc

My thought process is stopped when I hear the sound of something I haven’t heard in literal days. Weeks? I don’t know… But I hear it, the faint sound of a tune and a melody coming through an old, staticy speaker. I close my pencil into my journal and stand, realizing I’d been sitting outside for a while now as the stars had become bright and the moon sat high in the sky. 

My brow furrows as I listen harder. It’s Billie Holiday. I push the front door open and enter the warm house, firstly noticing the crackling fire that Paps had kept burning all day. I then saw him standing in the dimly lit corner, fiddling around with his old vinyl records and adjusting the volume of the music. The wall behind him is stuffed full of records, floor to ceiling and two shelves wide… all full of the music he filled mine and James’ lives with since the time we could walk. He’d been collecting his entire life.  Truly, I owe my love of music to him. 

“Paps…” I say softly as I enter the living room. 

“Hey youngin’, sorry if I disturbed ya…” he said, puffing some pipe tobacco smoke up into the air. I used to tell him he needed to quit, but now… what’s the use?

“You didn’t, Paps.”

“I sorta… forgot that music exists,” he chuckled, opening the cover of a Bill Monroe album and inspecting the inside.

I place my hand on his back, giving him a few pats as I lay my head against his shoulder, watching the record spin on his antique hand-crank phonograph. “I kinda did too, actually,” I reply, admitting it to myself. “What made you pick Lady Day?”

He shrugs. “Not sure. Always loved her voice, hated it when she passed. She left one hell of a legacy, though, huh? Your Gran sure loved her, that’s for sure,” he mumbles on, looking back to the daybed we had set up for Gran in the living room so she could be closer to the heat of the fireplace. 

“Love her, Don. Not loved. I ain’t dead yet,” we both hear Gran stir from under her blankets. The both of us erupted in a fit of laughter at her unbridled and filterless sense of humor. 

“Hell’s fire, Jane. Didn’t think you’d be able to hear us,” my Paps laughs as he places the cover back down on the table and goes to join her at her side. I follow behind. “Did we wake you?”

“You did, but that’s okay. No better way to be woken up from a dreamless sleep than by some pretty music,” she says, propping herself up on her pillows. She still has so much strength, and though she’s weakening by the day, I’m still astounded by her ability to get up and even walk herself to the restroom. “And!” she boasts with her crooked finger in the air. “No way I wanted to miss my favorite granddaughter’s birthday when the clock strikes twelve,” she adds with a reassuring nod. 

“Gran, you don’t need to stay up this late! It’s almost midnight now, go back to sleep,” I push her, not wanting to miss one second of any rest she can get, while also wishing that she and Paps could sit up and reminisce with me until the sun comes up. I’d give anything to have just one more hour with my parents and James.

“Oh, child, I’m fine!” she pushes my hands away, pulling herself back up. “You’ve gained another year. This day and age, that means something, you know?” Her voice is weak, but she still sounds like herself, her southern drawl coming out to play as she tries to fluff the pillows behind her. 

I nod in understanding. “If you say you want to stay up, we’ll stay up!” 

There really isn’t such a thing as a true bedtime, anymore. I’m up at strange hours of the night, take many naps throughout the day… time doesn’t matter, aside from the rooster reminding us of when the sun is about to come up every morning. 

But we still set the clock, and we’ll change the batteries. The Grandfather clock against the back wall reminds us of each hour, every day. And how lucky we still are to have each and every one, no matter how long they drag us on. 

Gran taps her fingers along to ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ as Paps sings quietly along, and I place a few new logs onto the fire to keep it burning. The smell of this house has always stuck out to me– matured wood, the scent of the barn wafting through the cracked windows, the Murphy’s Oil Soap that Paps was always obsessed with cleaning the floors with… it’s all still stuck here, unmoving in time. Just like the photos on the walls, the dinnerware filling the shelves, and the wall that’s covered in pencil markings and dates, marking mine, James’, and my father’s height growth over the years. 

It’s all still here, exactly where they left it. Exactly where they carved things into the load-bearing beam that runs the span of the house. The wearing in the wood of the floor where Gran stood for fifty some odd years in front of the stove cooking meals. The screen door that hangs haphazardly on the front door, the screen ripped and aging as it served its purpose keeping the flies out of the house for however many summers.

A time capsule. And by god, were the three of us overjoyed when we pulled up and found it not sitting at the bottom of a sinkhole.

“Have you got any Sinatra?” my Gran asks, pulling me from my deep-thought trance as the Billie record spins now, without any sound. 

“Of course, sweetheart,” Paps agrees as he stands to replace the record, knowing that he’d give my Gran anything she could ever ask for, just like he always had. 

He makes his way back over to his setup and finds exactly what he’s looking for, switching the vinyl out and putting the needle back down. Gran tilts her head back onto her pillows as she hears Frank’s voice come over the crackly violin sounds. 

“Ol’ Blue Eyes,” she mutters before sitting back up and grabbing at my hands. “You know, Y/N, I didn’t always love music, it was your grandfather’s doin’ that got me to fall in love with it.” Much like he did for me, actually. “Of course I’d go to the dances at the school and I knew a few songs here and there, but it was when I met him that I truly found my love and appreciation for it.”

“He’s had that effect on us both, then, hasn’t he!” I jest, smiling and squeezing at her frail hands. We both glance at him still standing by his collection, eyeing the spines of the covers and pulling them out to look over. I truly did owe a lot to him, he taught me more about artists than I could have ever taught myself. Older ones, especially. He knew the stories that were never recorded in interviews and tabloids. He knew, because he kept them all in the back of his mind as if they were his own family stories.

“That man got me to follow the Dead around for nearly six months before I told him he’d better get me back to Tennessee so I could have me a garden,” she went on, making my face warm with a grin. I’d heard the story a hundred times before, but I’d sit and listen to it a hundred times more, if time would let me.

“Oh, shoot, Jane. We had a good time,” Paps interrupted, scowling at her as he puffed his pipe. 

“Didn’t say we didn’t, Don!” she pokes back, and I can tell they’re about to get into one of their little playful spats. “Your grandfather and I tried LSD for the very first time while we sat in a drum circle after a Dead show in Kansas City,” she said, her eyes wide as she still held my hands. 

Now that, they’ve never shared before. 

“Gran!” I exclaim, truly surprised.

“Now Jane!” Paps barks from his place.

“What?!” she replies, shrugging her bony shoulders. “It was a damned good time and I can honestly say I came back a changed woman. Nothing wrong with that, now is there? I’ve lived one hell of a life…” she trails off, earning a scoff from Paps as he waves her off. “There should be nothing stopping you from still living your life, Y/N. Do you hear me? The Earth might swallow us up, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep running, keep on living, you understand, child?” she asks, moving her cold hands to cup my cheeks.

“‘Course I do, Gran. I promise,” I relent, and I envy her ability to speak to me with this regard, knowing that the end of her life is near.

“Good,” she pats the side of my face. “Don, how about a little acoustic for a dying old woman?”

Paps drops his shoulders. “Now Jane, do ya have to keep talkin’ that mess, or am I gonna have to make you?” he teases.

I laugh and stand to go into the kitchen as Paps makes his way over to the corner, plucking his old acoustic from its place. I re-wet Gran’s cloth in the icy water, wringing out the dripping water and returning to place it back over her chest. 

Paps sits beside us on the daybed, the smoke rising from his pipe as he plucks at his strings, his feeble but strong hands re-tuning them to where it sounds best. My grandfather is, and was, a very handsome man. Strong and built like an ox. I can see why Gran followed him around chasing after the Dead for six months.

Finally he strums a perfect chord, raising his eyebrows at Gran as she smiles back at him. “Guess it’s a good thing I never got my hands on an electric, hm?” he says as he bites the end of his pipe. 

Neither Paps or I have shown any signs of the rash, at all. No where. And neither of us could fathom why.

The two of us sit and listen to Paps play a plethora of familiar tunes, his fingers still agile enough to float over the strings and play little snippets of all of Gran’s favorites. I can feel Gran’s body relax as she listens to him, her mind probably floating through a million memories of watching him play over the years. He hums along a little as his eyes close on their own, listening to himself play. I swear I could sit here for days. 

After a few minutes, his fingers contort and play a little more harshly, strumming out a tune that hits a nerve buried so deep within me, I almost cry right there on the spot. His very own rendition of one of my favorite songs in the world, You’re the One. 

“Paps…” I murmur, almost whining.

“Hush, child, let me see if I can still pull through these chords,” he shushes me. And he does. I want to scorn him for bringing up the music that was made by my favorite band in the entire world. But then again, in later months, Greta had become one of his favorite bands, too. 

“Babe, ain’t no denyin’, that I got you in my head…” he sings to Gran, making her cover her face with her hands. He plays through about half of the song before he stumbles over a note or two, and decides his hands have gotten too tired. 

“How dare you, Paps. You know that struck a nerve…” I say, scowling at him. 

“Oh, quiet, now. You used to walk around the house singing their songs for days on end. Watch those silly videos of them, hell. How many shows did you go to?” he asks, truly schooling me on my own obsession with that band.

“Twenty-three,” I mutter under my breath. 

“How many?”

“Twenty-three! Okay?” I play along with him, the both of us knowing that he attended the last five of them with me. 

We’d traveled over to Kentucky for his first time seeing them live after I’d shown him a few of their songs. He was hooked after his first play of From the Fires, ripping the album cover from my hands to read along with the lyrics. After that we moved on to Anthem of the Peaceful Army, Garden’s Gate and so on, each play enrapturing my grandfather even more than the last. 

“These kids have some damned promise, that’s for sure. This is a sound I haven’t heard in ages… and their talent? Boy…” he’d said. I still remember the day I surprised him with tickets to his first show, watching him fall in just as much love with them as I was. Swaying along to their classics, singing along with the lyrics he’d learned to love. He learned their names, he learned their personalities a little. He even met a few of the friends I’d made along the way, flirting with them as we’d all stand in line before a show. 

It was Paps and Gran’s travels with the Grateful Dead that inspired me to follow Greta Van Fleet around on their tours. Not for six months straight, as I had to hold down my job, but nonetheless. Twenty-three shows I went to over the course of nine years. Strange Horizons all the way up to their last tour before the world shut down. I had tickets and plans to meet up with my group of friends for a show after Greta had gotten back from Greece, but, of course that never happened. 

Paps grew to love them just as much as I loved them. Love them. For so many years, they were my escape. My solid rock to land on as the headaches of daily life surrounded me. I made lifelong friends through them. Traveled to other countries to see them, with my friends by my side. I watched them grow into men, as I had grown into a woman right alongside them. Watched them evolve, grow, and retreat into silence before exploding back onto the scene with something brand new and fresh, roping me right back into their world. Obsessing over every little detail they fed us. Digging deeply into the meanings of songs, and discussing all the lore with my cohorts on social media. I can account many of my life’s milestones to at least one song of theirs. 

Now, when I find the world more quiet than it ever has been in my lifetime, I find myself reminiscing on those times, some of the best times of my life with that band, and my friends that felt more like family. I catch myself humming their songs, just trying to keep myself centered and rooted to the earth as it literally is falling apart beneath my feet. Greta was always my solid foundation, and even during the End of Days, they hold true to that assignment.

The grandfather clock finally decides to strike midnight, signaling my 33rd birthday.

“I’m sorry we can’t celebrate like we normally would, sweetheart,” Paps says as he continues lightly strumming.

“It’s okay, Paps. Just having the two of you still here with me is celebration, enough.” And I truly mean that. I watch as Gran’s sullen eyes fill with tears as she watches the two of us, and I know I’d give anything to keep the two of them alive as long as I possibly could. But her rash is worsening by the day, and Paps and I can tell that though she puts on a tough exterior, she’s suffering inside.

Gran had fallen back asleep peacefully to the sound of Paps’ acoustic, and we covered her up and threw another few logs onto the fire to last us a few more hours, at least. Paps kisses my forehead after he places his guitar back on its stand in the corner, wishing me a happy birthday as we both retreat to our beds.

+++

The next morning, I wake to myself shivering; Paps and I both must have slept through the night without waking up to tend to the fire. I stretch my muscles and rub my eyes, but I’m instantly startled  by the sound of someone coughing. I throw on my robe and slippers and rush to the living room, finding Gran sitting up in her bed, coughing terribly. Paps and I are by her side in seconds, asking her what she might need to get through the fit, but she just shakes her head. 

Her skin is cold and gray, and it looks as though her muscles are shaking uncontrollably. She’s almost completely covered in the rash, now.

“Do you want to get in the tub, Jane? Do you need to get in the water?” Paps begs of her, kneeling by the bedside. 

She shakes her head more. “No,” she chokes out. Her throat sounds scratchy and dry and we offer her water, but that, too, she rejects. Finally her coughing subsides and she relaxes back, and Paps and I share a knowing look. A look that we’ve both shared three times, when everyone else finally succumbed to the rash. 

This is so fucking unfair. Why don’t I have the rash?! Why can’t I take this pain away from her? Why am I not suffering, too?!

“I’m ok Don. I’m ok,” she mutters, her voice barely her own. 

We both sit there with her for hours, until the sun is noting midday. We hold her hands, caress her face, talk to her, tell her stories… anything to get her to pass with as much comfort as we can. She coughs, still, but each time she begs us to carry on with talking to her. I watch as my grandfather finally sheds a tear, wiping it free from his face as he sniffles through it. 

“Don’t you dare cry for me, Don,” Gran says. “We’ve had a beautiful life together. Beautiful… family,” she struggles to breathe. My chest feels heavy, too, with the overwhelming amount of sorrow it’s holding. I want to throw my fist into the wall, curse everything that has ever lived. I feel a rage building up in my stomach, one that is beginning to burn with so much fury that when it finally awakens, I’m not sure I’ll be able to contain it.

“I love you, I love you both…”

And with one small exhale, she ceases to breathe any more. 

We both allow ourselves time to weep at her bedside for a minute or two before I finally stand and open the windows, uncaring of how it will chill the house. I wanted to let her soul be free. 

+++

It took me about three hours to dig my grandmother’s grave, as the ground was hard from the cold and one shovel can only dig so fast. Hank the heeler was by my side the whole time, sitting and watching guard as I threw the shovels of dirt into a neat pile. I insisted Paps let me do it alone, and he spend a little bit of time with her to say his goodbyes.

 It was cathartic, really, putting my body through physical grunt work as I let the tears fall freely. I wept for her, for the rest of my family, for the heartbreak of my grandfather. But mostly, I cried for myself. I shouldn’t have, it felt selfish to, but I had hardly allowed myself any time to feel sorry for me. Fuck, a person can only take so much. My heart was already broken into a thousand pieces, but the numbness of the past few months had shielded my ability to listen to myself. My body somehow must have felt the need to get it out, so that I could put a brave face on for Paps. He’d need me to. So, as a rare bit of bright sunlight came down and scorched my arms, breaking through the freezing cold wind, I allowed myself to cry again.

It’s almost sunset, now, and Paps had wrapped Gran up in a few white sheets, topped with a pretty lace tablecloth that she had woven many years ago. It used to cover the dining room table, but it did seem fitting for it to be with her, now. 

I give Paps a sweet smile as I make my way into their bedroom, sitting on her old chest as I open the top drawer of her armoire. There, arranged still so neatly, was all of her expensive jewelry that she hardly ever wore. Gold bracelets, diamond rings, emerald-encrusted pieces… all if it is so precious, so valuable, and so completely worthless. 

I take a second to collect it all up and slip it into a canvas drawstring bag, making sure first to keep just one piece out for myself. She’d have wanted me to, I’m positive of it. 

A sterling silver ring topped with the prettiest piece of deep blue turquoise. Her grandmother had given it to her many years ago, and she only ever wore it to special occasions, but it fits perfectly on my middle finger. And if I wanted something to remember my grandmother by, it would most definitely be this. 

I go back into the living room and gently grab my grandmother’s cold, bruised hands, replacing each piece of precious jewelry onto her fingers and wrists wherever I can fit them, stacking them one on top of the other. 

“Should we add her books, Paps?” I manage to ask. 

He shakes his head solemnly. “No, might be best to keep things like that above ground…” 

Paps and I make our way out to the barn as dusk falls, and I light the few candles he has placed around on the shelves and tables. It’s dilapidated but in a good way; the walls and ceiling showing wear of many, many years of hard work. I watch as Paps grabs up one of the candles and walks to a swing door I’d never really noticed before, using some force to pull it open and propping it with a cut of a two-by-four. My eyes take a second to adjust to the darkness as he walks further inside the room, illuminating the space. There in the center of the small room is a pine box casket.

“Paps, what in the world? When did you…?” I breathe, walking closer to it. I notice that it has my grandmother’s name carved right in the top, the letters painted in black.

“About fifteen years ago, I’d say. Jane and I always said we wanted to be buried right here on the farm, when our times came. Guess we never told you kids about that. Your parents knew, a’course, but we never dreamed they’d go before us…” 

Paps pulls his blue handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his nose, his eyes still dripping with remnant tears. 

“It looks really good, Paps. You did a great job,” I commend him, but he pays no mind. Instead he blows across it, relieving some of the old sawdust from its home on the lid. He pulls the top open and inspects it again, pulling a few pieces of straw from the inside. 

“Help me get it over to the site?” he asks, and I realize I’d never even asked him where he wanted me to dig the grave. I just picked the prettiest place that I could. Something tells me he would have picked the same place, too. “Under the willow?” he asks. 

Great minds.

“Under the willow.”

We lower the casket onto the wheelbarrow and roll it across the back yard and along the fenceline, right beside the weeping willow tree. It was Gran’s favorite place to come and lie in the grass with a book. Hank walks alongside us, his snout on guard for any wild packs that may be a threat to us. 

Together, we lower the pine box into the hole I’d dug, making sure it was level at the bottom. “Want me to go get her?” I ask. 

“I’ll get her,” he responds as he takes off back toward the house. The wind is whipping my hair across my face, now, as the stars are beginning to show themselves, and I can’t stop myself from crying again. This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be standing beside a grave I just dug, with a casket my grandfather built, watching his back walk across the tall grass to retrieve the body of the love of his life. This shouldn’t. Fucking. Be. Happening. 

In the moonlight, I finally see the figure of him coming back through the shadows with her in his arms. I silently thank the heavens above that he is a strong man, still yet, with more brute strength than any man his age should have. Just like James.

I help him lower her inside, but not before the both of us place kisses on either of her cheeks. I work to cover her back up with dirt as he stands behind, Hank begging his hand for a pet.

“You wanna say a few words?” I ask him as I throw the last shovelful of dirt on top, wiping a hand across my cold-sweat forehead. 

He takes a quick, chopped breath. “Sixty-two years wasn’t nearly enough with you, sweetheart. Won’t ever be enough. Thank you for every single laugh, every single tear, every single argument and happy moment. Thank you for our beautiful children, and grandchildren, and thank you for filling my heart with more joy than any man should have the privilege of havin’. You sure made my life worth livin’. Give ‘em hell up there in heaven, Janie. I know ya will. I love ya to the moon.” He sniffles again as he gives in to Hank’s requests, finally leaning down and wrapping a strong arm around the dog. I sidestep and wrap my arm around him, too, and we stand there in the wind until we can’t stand any more.

JAKE

“RRRUHHHHH!” I growl loudly as I wake up from unconsciousness in a full-on panic. My eyes are shifty and dry as I work to sit myself up quickly, my hands still bound at my back. The tape is gone from my mouth now, though. 

It’s dark, and it's cold, but I’m indoors. I just can’t fucking see a god damned thing. 

“Hey! Help!! Can anyone hear me?!” I yell, my voice echoing hard off the walls that surround me. My voice feels dry and knotted in my throat as I try to swallow what little moisture I have in my mouth. When I get no response, I crack my neck sideways as pain sets in over my body, and not just from my arms being bound. I feel as though my legs have been hit with something hard, and my back feels like it’s bruised and sore. What the fuck? What the fuck!

“Heyyyyy! Somebody come and fucking talk to me! What do you want?!” I yell again, my heart rate flying as reality sets in that I’ve been kidnapped from the cabin. Alone. 

The last thing I remember is being alone in the back of that truck, rolling around as whoever was driving had little care for it’s cargo in the back. Maybe that’s why I feel bruised and beaten. Or maybe it’s not. 

Yes, alone. In the truck… six intruders… weapons… it’s all coming back now, in little spurts of memory. Where is everyone else? Where is my family? When was I brought in here? I feel bile rising in my throat as I feel a panic attack setting in, and I grind my hands against one another so as to try and free them from their ties. But it’s no use, of course. It only digs them into my skin more. 

I sit in silence listening to only the sounds of my uneven breathing, trying to calm myself and make a plan of action. No time to fall into fear, Jake. 

I maneuver my body around to get to the walls, standing on my sore legs to turn and let my hands run along them. There’s nothing there– no windows, no chairs or furniture. Just a box. I diligently run my hands along every one. Four walls. With nothing. Nothing but– 

A door. 

I turn my body to try and find a doorknob or whatever to open it, and when my hand finally grasps the spherical knob, I realize that the mother fucker is locked. Of course. I turn and slam my shoulder into it a few times to see if I can pry it, but it’s no use. “Hey! You son of a bitch! Let me out of here!” I yell again, getting mad, now. 

“Quiet, Jacob,” a voice I do not recognize suddenly fills the room. My stomach drops. 

I open my mouth to reply, but nothing really comes to mind. The voice is male, but distorted. Quiet? QUIET? 

“Who the fuck are you? Open this door and come and talk to me!” I yell again, my body suddenly feeling like my blood is going to pulse from every orifice of my body. 

There is a long pause. 

“I said quiet, Jacob,” it repeats. 

I grit my teeth. This voice is really pissing me off. 

“I’ll be quiet when you come in here and fucking show your face!” I yell even louder this time.

There is another long pause, and finally, I hear the metallic screeching of the heavy door opening. I waste no time in trying to push through it, relying on only my hearing to know what is going on, just as I had back at the cabin. Everything is so fucking dark.

But I get nowhere. I’m stopped by my body running into two stern and sturdy men again, pushing back further into the echoey room. I nearly lose my footing, but I press forward again, determined to get through that fucking door. But they stop me again, thrashing my body back so hard I hit one of the walls. It nearly knocks the breath from me, but I catch it. “Who are you? What do you want? I want to see my fam–”

“It’d really do you good to stay fucking quiet, like we told you to.” Suddenly I feel a gloved hand cupping across my mouth, stopping me from speaking. The man’s face is close to mine, whispering in my ear as he pins me back against the wall with his other arm. “Do you understand? Can you keep your voice down?” It asks, a little more lax. 

After a few seconds, I nod, but my mind doesn’t have the time to process another plan. Maybe if I cooperate, they’ll let me the fuck go. His hand slowly falls from my mouth, and I stay quiet, nothing filling the room now but my haggard and nervous breathing, again. “Who are you,” I whisper, my tone demanding. 

I notice that the second man must be standing behind the one still holding me to the wall, hearing him huff a laugh under his breath. How can they fucking see me? 

“Let’s just say that if you play your cards right, we’ll be your new best friends,” the man says as he releases my chest, allowing me to breathe. I hear the tear of velcro twice, realizing he must be taking his gloves off. 

“I don’t need any more fucking friends. I have plenty back at home,” I bark, still gritting my teeth as I stay at a quieter level. 

They laugh again. “Home? You mean the cabin you were holed up in? Barely surviving?” the man behind the first asks sarcastically. 

“Home is where my family is, actually,” I bite.

“Aww, isn’t that cute,” they laugh at me again as I hear that they’re both standing, now. I should try and run again, right? But it might get me knocked unconscious again. Maybe not. Not yet. 

“Little Jake Kiszka, maybe you really do have the heart of gold everyone says you have,” the first one says. “Maybe being rich and famous didn’t get to you, after all.” 

“What the fuck are you talking about? Who are you? How do you know my name?” I ask. 

They both scoff again. “You’re fairly fucking famous, my guy. Lots of people know your name,” the second one blurts. My guy? Who–

“Well it’s pretty convenient that I don’t know yours, seeing as how you have me fucking tied up in a pitch black room. Can we cut the shit? Or am I gonna have to try and run again?” I ask, completely over this game. Suddenly, I don’t feel very threatened. 

“You won’t get very far if you do, Jake,” the first one whispers, and I hear his boots step closer to me again, and his breath hot on my face. “Listen to me, and listen closely, okay? Are you listening?”

“Yeah, fuck, I’m listening,” I say.

“We told you to stay quiet for a reason. You’ve been captured by an outfit that’s been around for a long, long time. But you weren’t caught for just any reason,” he goes on, barely audible. 

“What does that mean? What reason?” I ask. 

“They’ve got reason to believe that you know.”

“Know what?” I ask, confused. 

“Why the fucking world ended. Or actually, how. Your brothers, you all wrote about this, didn’t you? In your music?” he goes on, and if I wasn’t confused before, I sure as shit am now. 

“What?!” I squeal, almost laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

“Hmm-mm. They aren’t kidding. Does it feel like they’re kidding right now? No.”

“Why do you keep saying they? You are the one that’s got me locked up, right now,” I retort. 

“Because we’re pretending,” suddenly the other one is in my ear. “They think we work for them. The brunt work. The dirty jobs…. Like kidnapping you,” he says. 

“Listen Jake,” the other interrupts. “We know you, we know who you are. We were… we were fans of your band, back then. But these people, the ones who hired us, they trust us. And they have worse plans for you than holding you in a dark metal box with your hands tied…”

“Why me? Why did they take me?” I ask. 

“Your music, your songs… you fucking predicted more about all this than you think you did,” the other explains. 

Josh’s dreams. 

“We didn’t predict shit, we were just writing fucking songs, we didn’t–”

“All of it is real, Jake,” the first whispers, his lips brushing my hair. “The stories you told, the worlds you built… all of it exists, and has existed for a long time.”

“I don’t get it,” I say, blinking my eyes in the darkness. 

“The lyrics you wrote about, the Garden you all dreamt up… It exists. In a complete other realm.”

I damn near laugh in their faces. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right? This is a joke?”

They stay quiet for a beat. “No jokes here, Jake. Just know that more is happening than you could ever even fathom. It’s not just the end of the world here. It’s the end of the world there, too. Well, it’s about to be, if the battle is lost,” the second says. 

“You’re both insane, and I’m in on some kind of prank. This is all a joke!” I argue. “We didn’t create that world...”

“No, you didn’t. But you knew about it. You wrote songs about it, didn’t you? You told tales of a Battle, wrote songs about war and peace, lyrics about the water rising, and the air so thin…”

My head is spinning. I’m getting a headache. And I could really use a fucking cigarette.

“Yeah, global fucking warming, who didn’t know about that?” I defend. 

They both laugh under their breath. “Let’s just say you guys literally wrote the time and space of another world as if you’d read their history books. And, lived there alongside them.” 

There’s no fucking way. This is absolutely ridiculous. 

“What do you mean if the battle is lost?” I ask, the question coming from my mere curiosity. 

The second crouches down in front of me again, from what I can tell. “Our world here has already begun to end, right? Technology itself is murdering us by the boatloads. The thing we created. It’s omnipresence became too much for earth to handle, started to suck away at her resources and poison her. Poison her natural way of ebb and flow. So she said fuck you humans, I don’t need you. You shall all suffer my wrath, and I’ll use the poison that you created to kill you,” his voice had gotten a little dramatic, as if he was reading a romantic tragedy. 

“Okay Shakespeare, we get it,” the first says, and I can’t help but laugh a little. “Here’s the thing… the other realm is suffering, too. What happens on earth is mirrored in that realm, but the mirror isn’t a clear reflection. It’s more of a…”

“Cloudy and messy shadow of what happens in our realm,” the other says. 

“Yeah, actually,” the first agrees. “It happens here, it happens there, just not the exact same way. So their world is suffering, too. But they’re going to try and stop it.”

“How are they going to do that?” I ask.

“...Have you not figured that out yet, man? Don’t you think that uh— capturing a few guys who have predicted it all to a tee so far and using them for information on what’s to come next wouldn’t be a nice and easy route for them?”

“You’re shitting me, right?” I say blankly. “You kidnapped me because they think I know what’s going to happen next after the world ends?”

“Mm, kind of. You’ve gotten it all right, so far.”

No, Josh has. Apparently.

“That and… a pretty good other reason,” the first mumbles. 

“What other reason?”

“You don’t have any signs of the rash yet, do you?” the second inquires, throwing me off. How would he know that?

“No… but what’s that have to do with all of this?�� I say, my mind spinning. 

“You’re an immune. Just like us,” the second says with a bit of pride in his voice. 

“An immune? How the fuck do we know that we just haven’t gotten it yet?” I press. 

“You’ve seen how fast that shit kills people,” the first scoffs. “Don’t you think you would have at least shown a little bit of a sign of it, by now?” 

He’s right. It’s been months since the first sign of the rash, killed more people than I’d like to discuss. And quickly, too. But my whole family… none of us have shown signs…how are we all so lucky?

“Maybe the earth decided that she’d keep a few of us, the ones who aren’t fucking assholes,” the second barks, earning what sounds like a slap to the chest from the first. 

“I don’t think that’s how it worked, idiot,” he says. “Anyways, we’ve already spent too much time in here with you, Jake. But listen. Remember we’re all pretending. They’re going to push you, they’re going to make us push you. But we want you to know we’re on your team, even if we act like we’re not. They’re out collecting immunes as we speak, trying to put everyone into some type of commune to protect the longevity of mankind. But you’re special, because they think you know. They’re special because they’re immune. You following me?”

“When they kidnap more immunes they’ll group me with them, but treat me differently because they think I can help them, got it,” I say, catching on fairly easily, for some reason. 

“Bingo,” the second clicks his tongue. 

“Do the people who hired you live in the other realm, too? Like, why do they care?” I ask, feeling like I just read the plot of a fantasy novel.

“Think of it like a family intertwined between both worlds. They’re able to bounce back and forth, but they all take up space in both places. One realm can’t live without the other. That’s why they’re trying to stop the end of their world there, so they have somewhere to be if our’s ceases to exist,” the first explains. 

“That’s fucking confusing,” I whisper. “If ours ceases to exist, one can’t exist without the other. Isn’t Earth already too far gone?” 

“Maybe her inhabitants are almost wiped, but as a planet, she’s still got a long way to go before rejoining the cosmos. If the other realm is saved, it could power Earth enough to stop her eradication. Plus we have immunes. Earth won’t completely die, she’s just trying to do a hard restart, if that makes sense,” the second one adds. “She’s sick, and she’s trying to make herself healthy again.”

I let out a huff as I try and wrap my head around the dystopian film I’m apparently a part of now. Half of me thinks these guys are lying to me. Playing games to distract me. But then again, why would they be wasting their time?

“Play dumb, Jake. Pretend you don’t know a goddamn thing. Especially when they start to question you about what you guys wrote in this last album,” the first says, standing to his feet and putting his gloves back on, from what I can tell. “This isn’t gonna last forever, we’re going to put a stop to this.”

“You are? How?” I ask, pulling hard on the ties around my wrists. 

“We are. With your help,” the second whispers. “There’s a whole group of us who plan on breaking free of this shit, we’ve just got to trust each other that we can run. Gather up the other immunes once they’re captured and create our own destinies.”

“But, if we don’t go along with them, won’t Earth completely shit out on us? If their realm dies too?” I ask. 

“Catching on quickly, Jake. I’m impressed,” the first whispers. “If we recreate our own line of mankind from the immunes, everything will be okay. We just want to do it out from underneath the thumb of these selfish motherfuckers. We can do it on our own.”

The two of them turn on their heels and start to walk toward the door again, leaving me sitting in the floor. “Hey, where is my family?” I ask. 

“They were assigned elsewhere. Separated all of you, we don’t know where they ended up. Sorry, man,” the second says. And within seconds they’re both gone, and I’m alone, yet again.

Y/N

I trudge back inside the house now under the cover of darkness, after having spent a few minutes outside trying to breathe and calm myself. Paps has lit a few candles inside, and I can see the warm glow of them through the windows making the house look like a jack-o-lantern. I smile a little at the thought. As I push the door open and lock it behind me, I turn and notice he’s stood by the kitchen table, a few more candles lit across it. There in front of him are two bowls of potato soup. 

“Paps, this is so nice of you,” I mumble as I hang my afghan on the back of a chair. “I thought you said you weren’t up for eating tonight?” 

“Your Gran would have been ticked if she knew we were too upset to feed ourselves, you know that’s a fact,” he says, pulling my chair out for me. I take a seat and I can smell the herbs he’s put into the soup.

“You’re right…” I agree. “She wouldn’t have been happy with us at all.”

“Plus, figure you could pretend one of these candles is on a birthday cake, and blow it out. Since we didn’t get to celebrate you the right way,” he adds as he takes his own seat. 

“I think I could do that,” I say, picking up my spoon to dig in. “Thank you Paps, you’re really too good to me.”

“We’re all we’ve got, sweetheart.”

As we eat, I watch as Paps’ hands seem weaker now, and how they shake a little as he brings his spoon to his mouth. He’s done an excellent job on the soup, but we both know we’re choking it down, both of our stomachs too wrought with nerves and heartbreak to enjoy it like we should. 

As we clean our bowls, he pushes one of the candles toward me, holding his hand out to motion for me to blow. The candle is old and burned through almost all the wax, but it still smells of pumpkin and apple pie. “Don’t forget to make a wish, sweetheart. And make it a good one,” he says, giving me a sweet wink from behind his glasses. 

I take a deep breath and wrack my brain, feeling like making a wish right now is selfish. Normally, I’d wish for a happy next year, health and fortune for my family, or even for the next man that walks into my life to be the right one. 

But all of that feels stupid now, pointless to request of the universe. 

Next year isn’t even promised. 

Over half of my family is gone. 

And no man is destined to walk into my life to better it in the least, let alone offer me kinship of any kind. 

So instead I wish for Paps to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible, and that the universe bestows good things upon us both. Because like he said, we’re all we’ve got. 

+++

After I’ve cleaned the dishes and tidied the kitchen, I’m stopped in my tracks from the same sound I heard coming through the walls last night– the sound of quiet, staticy music. 

I find Paps with his record player again, cranking the handle on the side as the sound begins to spill from the horn. For a second, I’m happy that he’d kept this old thing, knowing that without it, we wouldn’t be able to hear music at all, probably ever again. 

I step up beside him and watch it spin, listening to “Lovin’ You More Every Day” by Etta James drift into the air. I know that Gran loved this one, too. It was one of the songs they danced to at their wedding. 

So I take his hand in mine, pulling him to stand with me on the old oriental rug in the middle of the room. I begin to sway around as he gently places his hand on my back, swaying right along with me. We’re dancing a little too slowly for the speed of the song, but neither of us care. We’re just enjoying our time, wishing that Gran was here to clap for us after the song ends. But as it comes to a close, we’re met again with static, waiting silently for the first note of the next song. 

“You’re a bit too big now to stand on my feet,” he says through a stiff smile. 

“Maybe so,” I giggle. “But it was your training that got rid of my two left feet…gave me a sense of some rhythm…” I grin. 

He smiles again as he sniffles through some more tears. “I’m sorry I won’t be there to dance with you at your own wedding, sweetheart,” he mumbles as he pulls me close, and my heart shatters into a million pieces. 

“Now Paps, don’t talk like that…” I argue. “Lord knows I’m not gonna find a man who can dance better than you, anyway.”

I hear a chuckle run through his chest. “May be, sweetheart. May be.”

We sway along to a few more songs before we’re both yawning. “Believe I’m gonna hit the hay,” he says solemnly, patting me on the head a few times before making his way to throw a few more logs onto the fire. 

“Me too, I’ll see you in the morning?” I ask, realizing that this will be the first night in over sixty years that he is going to sleep knowing he won’t wake up to the love of his life. 

“When the rooster crows, my sweet. Love you.”

“I love you, Paps,” I say as we part ways, drifting off to our respective rooms. 

I’m thankful the weather isn’t too horrendous tonight as I snuggle into my bed, pulling the covers onto my chest. I relax, but leave my candle lit, staring up at the ceiling and recounting the day. The look on Gran’s face as she finally met peace, no longer feeling the wrenching burn of the rash that had enveloped her body. Poor Paps. I can’t even imagine what he’s feeling, right now. 

I grab my journal back up and flip to the page I’d left off on, realizing I’d stopped in the middle of a thought. Instead of finishing it, I start a new one. 

I write about Gran’s passing, how and where we buried her, how I adorned her hands and wrists with all her old jewelry, and how Paps had made me a special birthday supper. I try to be as detailed as possible, leaving nothing out as I let my hand flow from print to cursive. My eyes begin to get heavy as the candle light flickers, and I realize just how exhausted I am. How mentally and physically drained I’ve become, simply from trying my best to stay alive. 

My eyes close a little, drifting down onto my forearm that’s covered in tattoos. My dad hated them, but Paps and Gran always told me they were an expression of my life at the time, like a roadmap of all of the things I loved, when I loved them. Keepsakes I’ll never part with. I always thought it strange, that coming from grandparents from an era of humans who normally found tattoos distasteful, but. 

But they were right. I have over twenty tattoos, but my forearm is dedicated to the band that I knew and loved so much, and who brought me some of the happiest times of my life.

The first one sits right in the crook of my elbow, a simple sun and crescent moon that I got right after I fell in love with From the Fires. Then words, right below that, reading ‘In an age of darkness, light appears’ in small font, wrapping all the way around my arm. Under that, a swirling symbol that resembles a radar, 13 lines that make an almost complete circle to commemorate the song that reminds me to step back into the natural world. Beneath that, a sword and an arrow, parallel with one another. And lastly, a symbol that truly represented their fifth album, lines shaped into what looks like a bird in flight. 

I never got to get a tattoo from this last album. And honestly, the darkness of the theme of it made choosing what I would have gotten a little difficult, anyway. 

I run my hand over the dark black ink and my mind begins to sleepily drift. I wonder what my friends are doing right now…are they alive? Are they sad, too? Are they still clinging to the good times we shared to keep their minds from falling into the deep depths of solitude?

My fingers stop over the Age of Machine tattoo, the little ridges of the skinny lines still rigid on my skin. I think about how much this tattoo reminded me to unplug and drown myself in nature every chance I got. How that song truly motivated me to do the exact opposite of letting myself be pulled into the false world of social media, and spend my time in my garden, or swept up in a book. Strange, now… thinking about how it made me feel when I listened. Haunted, dizzy, and uneasy. Scared, almost, but cautious. Ominous and anxious, but in the most peaceful way. Now I’m glad of the inspiration it gave me. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten the rash. It’s almost like that song was warning us of what was to come…

What are the men who wrote this music doing right now? Are they okay, too? My heart wrenches in a different way than it has, yet. Yearning to know of the state of people I had never met, yet worried about the wellbeing of for so many years of my life. “Silly,” I whisper to myself. But, it’s not silly. It’s just the heart they helped me find within myself to care about other people so deeply.

I close my pencil into my book again as I blow out my candle, thinking of all the nights I went to sleep excited to wake up before the sun and double check the luggage I’d packed, grabbing a quick coffee before I hit the road to travel to god knows where to see my friends and my favorite band again. Carefree, and careless. Living my life the way I wanted to, choosing the road ahead to achieve that happiness I’d always chased when it came to hearing their music live. Life unchained, the way Gran lived hers. 

+++

Just as my body is relaxing into a well-deserved sleep, I’m awoken by a loud rumble, a deafening sound so deep that I feel it in my bones. I shoot up in bed, realizing that the bed below me is shaking, vibrating. I pull the covers back quickly, rushing down the hall to find Paps already coming toward me with his candle in hand. 

“What’s going on?!” I yell above the loud rumbles. 

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” he yells back, and we both make our way to the large picture window in the living room. The moonlight illuminates the hillside of the farm, revealing a giant faultline that reaches from one side of the field all the way to the next. 

“Shit,” Paps mutters as I feel panic setting into my gut. “Faultline.”

“What’s that mean?! Paps, what is it?” I ask in succession, watching as the crack as wide as a river is eating up the ground.

“Probably another sink hole. Or one is going to happen nearby, I’d say,” he barks as he turns and rushes back to his room. “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to run,” he hollers. 

What?! Run?? We can’t run! 

“Paps, but the house! We’re alread–”

“Get your backpack. Get dressed, hurry! We’ve got to get away from it!” he commands, his voice booming. The house begins shaking again as I run to my room, throwing on my pants, jacket, and boots, and tossing my heavy emergency backpack over my shoulders. I make sure to secure my toboggan onto my head before stuffing my journal into the free pocket of my backpack, rushing back out into the living room to find Paps ready and waiting. 

I hear plates and dishes falling from the shelves of the kitchen, and books falling off the shelves of the living room. It’s just like an earthquake, except I had watched a crevice form in the ground, right before my eyes. My hands are shaking, and I am already broken out in a cold, panicked sweat.  We rush to the truck, throwing our things into the bed as we climb inside. 

“Hank! Where’s Hank?!” I yell, looking around for him. 

“Leave him, we’ve got to go,” Paps says as he turns the key in the ignition, hearing the engine purr to life for just a second, before shutting right back off. He tries again, pumping the fuel pedal to get the block to heat and the glow plugs to light. “Fuck, fuck!! Come on, baby! Don’t do this!” he yells, trying to coax the machine. But it’s to no avail. The battery has died.

We open the doors and clamber to grab our bags again, realizing that on foot is our only means of escaping the growing faultline. We take off rushing down the dirt road, still hearing the deep rumble of the ground separating behind us. I wish I could describe the sound, a noise unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. The cracking and snapping of deep roots, the crashing of trees, a low bellowing sound so deep that it sounds like it came from hell, itself. Unreal. And utterly fucking terrifying. 

My legs carry me, and luckily so do Paps’, straight down the long driveway and back onto the main road. I hear the wood of the house start to creak, and more wooden-sounding bangs. Fuck. Please, not the house… 

“Should we go to the woods?” I pant, knowing that Paps is just as out of breath as I am. 

“No, to the knoll,” he points, panting too as he motions toward the top of a high hill. When we finally make it there, we stop, taking a breather as now it feels as though we’re far enough from the field to get a better view of everything that lies beneath. And there, right in the center of the field is another sinkhole, giant and deep and dark with half the farm swallowed up in it. 

Luckily, the house is untouched.

“How on God’s green Earth…” Paps breathes as he lets his hands fall to his knees, trying to catch his breath as the two of us look down on the scene in front of us. Like it was straight from a horror film. 

“Had to of been Gran. She wouldn’t let the devil himself take her home, if it was the last thing she did,” I say, earning a breathy laugh from Paps. 

“You’re goddamn right, sweetheart. You’re goddamn right,” he says, finally catching his breath. “We need to run, we’re pretty close to this thing, still.” We take off again, rushing back down the road as we still hear the ground shaking below us. We hear trees falling in the distance, and we begin running again. I’m truly thankful for Paps’ stamina and heart right now, his legs getting him to safety even at his age. 

“Keep going, Paps, not much further,” I encourage him, just in case he needs it. “We’re okay, we’re okay…”

Suddenly, I see a set of headlights in the distance, barreling down the road towards us in a cloud of dust. When it finally approaches, I flag it down until it stops beside us. An old man is sitting in the driver’s seat, his face just as panicked as ours. “Hop in! Hop in!” he says, and we listen. Paps and I rush to the passenger side and slide into the cab, the man already hitting the gas before Paps can even shut the door all the way. 

“You’ve got to turn around!” I say, “There are sinkholes this way!”

He turns the wheel harshly, and I’m glad he listens to me. We rush back the opposite way, zooming down the road so fast I can hardly fathom what’s happening. Pure panic. 

“We’re alright, Paps, we made it out,” I try and calm him, reaching for my canteen of fresh water and offering it to him as he catches his breath. 

Suddenly we’re being thrust forward as the man steps on the brake, and I’m close to cursing him before I notice he’s stopped before another faultline in the road. “My god…” the man says, opening his truck door and climbing out. 

“No, no… what are you doing?!” I yell, wondering why in the hell this man is getting out of our escape vehicle and walking towards the crack in the ground. I watch as he steps closer to it, inching his steps as he peers down over the edge. “Is he insane?! Are you insane? Please, come back!!” I scream, but he doesn’t listen. The ground shakes again, throwing the man off balance as it makes him stumble, swallowing him right up into it. 

“Oh my god!!” I yell as Paps lets out a guttural scream. My hand covers my mouth as I yell in disbelief, watching as the man is there one second, and gone the next. 

“Drive, Y/N, drive!” Paps urges me, pushing my arms to scoot to the driver’s seat. I throw the truck in reverse, pulling the door closed as I rush to get us away from it all, pushing the pedal to the floor as my eyes scan for more faultlines. It feels as though we’re surrounded by them. My heart is pounding, now, as my body does the necessary work on auto pilot. 

“Keep going! Keep going!” Paps says as we get closer to town, and away from the vibrating ground. After a few minutes of shaking panic, it feels like the buzzing of the ground has subsided, and I can finally take a deep breath. A shaky one, but a breath nonetheless. 

As I finally allow my eyes to adjust and my hands to stretch, I’m finally feeling in control of my body again. Okay, okay, I’ve got this. Just keep driving. “Paps, you okay?”

“I’m okay sweetheart, you okay?”

“I’m good, I’m good,” I breathe, taking another deep breath in to calm my shaking body. “God, why the fuck did he do that?”

“Couldn’t tell ya, dumb and curious, I guess,” he says, taking another drink from the canteen before offering it to me. “Head toward the city, we’ll need to find a place to hunker down, tonight.”

And though my heart is still pounding as his words hit me, I take the right turn off the state route to head to the interstate, both of us in high hopes that the city will offer us more than it did when we left it. But honestly, I’m losing faith. 

I’d been driving for nearly twenty minutes on the empty road before I take a cutoff exit, determined to cut our drive time down and conserve fuel. The exit leads to a sideroad that is heavily wooded, but I know it will get us to the city more quickly. As the headlights shine down the two-lane road, I notice some kind of dark, shadowed figures standing down in the distance. I blink a few times, trying to see what is there. 

“Is that deer?” I ask Paps. 

“Can’t tell, it’s too dark,” he says, so I slow my pace. My headlights do little to light them up, but the closer we get, the more human they look. Tall, dark… just standing there?

And they aren’t moving. I bring the truck to a stop, my headlights almost no help at all as the figures begin to close in on us, instead of moving out of the road. 

“The hell is this, what’s happening?” Paps yells as the figures have us completely blocked from continuing down the road, now. My panic returns. I hear Paps cock his shotgun. “Drive, drive!!!”

My foot smashes the pedal to the floor, but the truck doesn’t move. The tires screech as I continue pushing it, willing the truck to keep going. But it won’t. It’s like I’m running it into a brick wall. “What’s happening!! Why won’t it go?!” I scream, my hands gripping the wheel as the truck begins to fishtail from the force of the tires on the ground. The lights from the truck are completely gone, now. We’re in total darkness. “Paps!”

“I’m here, I’m here, honey!” and I feel him grab my hand. Suddenly the truck doors slam open, and my body is being grabbed and pulled from the seat. I thrash and kick at whatever has grabbed me, but nothing works. It’s too strong. I feel a painful hit to my head, and my ears scream as I start to lose consciousness. I feel a dark cover be put over my head and secured, completely blocking my vision altogether. “Paps!!!!” I try and yell, but I’m slipping quickly into unconsciousness as my voice is barely a squeal. My hands are being tied in front of me, and all I feel is cold. 

+++

I wake up in a cold sweat, my hands still bound as I sit with my back against a metal wall. My breathing is ragged as I try and take in my surroundings, and I realize I still have the covering over my head. I wince in pain from the impact of whatever hit my head earlier. I hear others beside me, many crying, panicked voices whimpering in the same room. I try and make a sound, but my voice is hoarse from screaming. I try and speak, but there is tape over my mouth. What is happening, where is Paps?!

My heart is pounding in my chest as I try to raise my bound hands and remove the covering, but it’s secured tightly. I’m in pitch black darkness, and I can’t see a fucking thing. I try to stand, but my muscles are weak and sore, and I can hardly will them to move, let alone stand. It’s unclear how long I was knocked out, and how long I have been sitting in this cold, metal room, but it feels like only a few minutes have passed. I feel tears begin running down my face, I feel so helpless, so exhausted. So blind.  

Suddenly I hear a loud noise, like a heavy metal door being thrust open. I see a light through the covering over my face, and I try and yell again. But nothing comes out. Just like in those nightmares where you are unable to make a sound. I hear footsteps come into the room, heavy boots pounding against the concrete floor. My covering is forcefully removed, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the bright light. 

Finally, I’m able to see eight or ten others with me, all of us sitting with our hands bound, lined up against the walls of this room. Some beside me, some directly across from me. I watch as two tall, masked men work their way around the room, removing each and every face covering. A woman, a man, a teenaged boy, an elderly lady… and then, Paps. I make excited eye contact with him as I feel a squeal leave my taped lips. He’s safe. He’s here. 

I watch as the rest of the covers are removed one by one, the person seated directly across from me being saved for last. They leave him sitting for a few seconds as they exchange what looks to be laughs with one another before one of them gently kicks his legs a little before undoing his head covering. 

The man’s face is beaten and bruised, his brown hair tangled and long and falling in front of his face as he winces in pain. They throw his face covering back down to the floor beside him, laughing again as they turn and leave the room without a word, locking the door behind them. 

I peer to the hair-covered face again to get a better look, and I swear if my mouth wasn’t taped shut, I would have screamed out in disbelief. 

That’s Jake fucking Kiszka.

He feels my eyes on him as he finally looks up to me, noticing my awkward stare. Neither of us can speak. I feel myself smiling under the tape, what are the fucking odds? What is happening?! Where the fuck are we?

His eyes grow wide as he realizes I know him, and he stares back at me in utter confusion. Do I tell him I recognize him? Shit, he can probably tell I do, by now. For some odd reason unbeknownst to me, I maneuver my tied hands to slowly pull up the sleeve of my shirt, showing him the splattering of tattoos that line my forearm. I know you. I watch his eyes see them as I straighten my arm out, willing him to see them, recognize them.

I watch his chest rise and fall as he begins shaking his head slowly side to side, his breathing picking up significantly as he looks at me with red, swollen eyes. 

No? Is he telling me no?

Just as I hear the sound of the heavy footsteps coming back down the hall, I watch as Jake slowly lifts his bound hands to his face, his pointer finger sticking up in front of his taped mouth. 

My stomach falls as I realize he’s serious. Not only is he telling me no, he’s telling me to stay quiet.

Tags: @gretavangroupie @britney-gvf @sacredstarcatcher @wetkleenex-gvf @farfromthehomelands @takenbythemadness @writingcold @builtbybrokenbells @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @fleet-of-fiction @milkgemini @gvfpal @ageofcj@dancingcarbon @highway-tuna @stardustjake @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @gvfmarge @gracev0609 @myleftsock @literal-dead-leaf @peaceloveunitygvf @ageofbajabule @slut4lando @jordie-gvf @sadiechar @tinydancer40 @rosabellagvf @capnjaket @lyndz2names @thetroublegetssoloud71 @gretavanomens @spark-my-nature @josh-iamyour-mama @anythingforjtk @alwaysonthemend @danieljlmwagner @klarxtr @fortunatelytinybasement @demonrat444 @gretavansara @watchingover-hypegirl @hippievanfleet @digitalnomadz @raviolilegs @lipstickitty @hippievanfleet @klarxtr @strange-whorizons @do-it-jakey-baby @myownparadise96 @gvf-luna @starshine-wagner @cassiesgreta @joopsandjangs @whimsiliz @kiszkas-canvas @whimsiliz @joopsandjangs @broken0mens @scoreofinfantryvines @whereiskeara @do-it-jakey-baby @miravanfleet @heckingfrick@kiszka-canvas @whimsiliz @joopsandjangs @broken0mens @scoreofinfantryvines @whereiskeara @do-it-jakey-baby @miravanfleet @heckingfrick @jenniferkiszka @jjwasneverhere @gvfmarge @pineapple-photographer @vanfleeter

[jqmalikhsgib]

too sweet

five

when yn and eddie made it to texas yn didn’t waste time heading to her grandmothers house. she needed to know that she was okay.

yn didn’t know what she would do if something happened to her grandma. this woman went out of her way to raise her when no one else would.

yn loved her grandma more than anything. when she arrived she sees her uncles car outside. she excitedly rushes to the front door to greet her family.

eddie stayed close to her. he was a little nervous meeting her family. but he was also really excited. he was prepared for anything that’s thrown his way.

“granny!” yn yelled as she walked into her childhood home.

“darling?! what are you doing here?”

yn grandmother hugs her tightly.

“i was worried. you said you couldn’t make it and didn’t tell me why. i wanted to see what was going on? if you were ok.”

yn grandmother chuckles. “baby, we wanted to come but the kids got sick. nothing to worry your pretty little head over. im glad you came though. i miss my grand baby.” yn grandmother kissed her on the cheek.

eddie stands there holding yn hand gently before she turns around. she grabs eddies hand tightly. “granny, this is eddie, my boyfriend. eddie, this is lauretta, my granny.”

eddie shyly puts his hand in front of her. lauretta shakes her head before grabbing him and hugging him tightly.

“don’t insult me, boy!”

eddie laughs as he hugs her back.

“how long are you two staying?”

yn looks at eddie. they never really discussed anything. they cut their trip to indiana short. they didn’t expect to be here. yn knew her schedule was free for a little while. she didn’t know if eddie had an event coming up or not.

“im free for the next two weeks, baby. anything you want.”

yn smiles hugely.

“i guess we’ll stay however long you want us!”

“don’t be silly, baby. you know id keep you here forever if i could. have you two eaten? your uncle made some soup earlier for the kids.”

“that sounds good!” eddie states.

yn goes to help her grandmother with everything before she shakes her head and points to the table. yn hesitates before sitting down next to her boyfriend.

her grandmother makes two bowls for yn and eddie before microwaving them and handing them both a bowl.

eddie and yn thank her as they start to eat.

“where is uncle pete?”

“he’s next door. talking to westly. you know how those two get. probably talking about football. your aunt sara is at work currently. you know she’s really loving the new nursing home she’s working at.”

“yeah?”

“she goes on and on about one patient. i think her name is heather. very nice lady! sad story though. her daughter passed away a few months back. her sons the one who put her in the nursing home. apparently his wife asked him to so they can sell the house.” yn grandmother shakes her head.

“that’s awful. i couldn’t ever do that to my uncle wayne. i don’t care who im married to. that man raised me!” eddie shakes his head at the thought. yn smiles as she grabs his hand.

“that’s right!” yn grandmother nods her head.

the three of them chat more before they all hear the front door open.

“mamma!?”

“in here, baby.”

they hear footsteps as yn uncle comes into view with a smile.

“is that my niece!”

yn gets up and hugs her uncle tightly. “hi, uncle pete.”

“hi, baby! what are you doing here?!”

“came to visit. my boyfriend and i are staying for a little while.”

“boyfriend?! oh, god! please tell me he’s not one of the little boys you use to bring over?!”

yn giggles as she shakes her head. “no! not this time uncle pete. got myself a man! eddie, baby.”

eddie stands up as he walks over to his girlfriend. yn holds his hand gently, caressing it to keep him calm. she knows how nervous he get around new people.

“hi, im eddie, sir.”

yn uncle gives him a blank stare. eddie gets more nervous before pete laughs and hugs eddie.

“im just messing with you! listen, if you treat my niece right you’re good with this family. but trust, if you hurt her we will hunt you down. tell him about the boy who made you cry after prom?” pete asked as he looks at his niece.

“oh, god no! i try to forget that day.” yn shakes her head as she thinks about the night her high school boyfriend broke up with her at prom. it was one of the worst nights of her life.

“you never told me you went to prom?”

yn hums “all four years!”

“quite popular!”

yn shakes her head. “not really. i got to go because i helped set up the prom my freshman and sophomore year. i was a bit of a nerd. the first two years i just sat back and watched. i only went the last two because my boyfriends at the time. my junior year i was dating this cute guy,”

eddie cleans his throat.

yn shakes her head and giggles “not as cute as you. but he was a bit of a geek. he was a senior and asked me to the prom. we broke up before he moved away to college. i think he’s married with like two kids now!” yn turns to her grandmother. she knew if anyone knew it would be her.

“kevin?! oh yeah! he’s got a steady job up in seattle somewhere. his husband works in law.”

“husband?”

yn nods. “he came out like right after he moved. too afraid of what people would think of him here and what his parents would say. i had no clue either. my grandma was the one to tell me after i introduced them. i told her it’s no way.”

“oh, honey! everyone saw it.”

“to be fair i was oblivious and i really liked him. it wasn’t like he was like offensively stereotypical. he was just a guy, you know?”

“it’s okay. i get it! i didn’t know mike was gay either. in fact no one saw it coming. he loved el like no other. i think it’s a repression thing. trying to fight so hard because you’re afraid of what others may think.”

“i say be who you are! who cares what others might think! people are gonna judge you no matter what.” yn uncle comes into view as he hands eddie a beer.

“thank you.”

“i agree! look at your grandfather and i! no one thought we’d end up together because he came from money. he left his entire life behind to be with me. he couldn’t have cared any less about the money or what his family wanted. that’s real love.” yn grandmother hums.

once yn aunt sara comes home she greets yn and eddie before going to check on the kids. yn grandmother goes to the kitchen to start dinner.

eddie excused himself as he got a phone call. he heads outside and talks to whoever was on the phone.

yn aunt sits besides her right after.

“so, eddie huh? that’s different.”

yn blushes.

“yeah. figured it was time for me to switch things up. date a man this time.” yn shrugs.

“does he treat you right?” yn uncle asked.

“he does! he’s the type of guy to buy flowers instead of showering me in jewelry. i like that! he’s such a gentleman! i don’t understand how lucky i got with him.” yn shakes her head in disbelief.

“im glad. i can tell he makes you happy. you’re glowing! do you think he’s the one?”

yn turns to see eddie still chatting on the phone. he smiles at her from the window.

“i don’t wanna jinx anything. but i do, yeah! i really don’t see myself with anyone else.”

“im just concerned, baby. i mean he’s a rockstar, right?! they’re the type to have groupies. i don’t want you getting hurt.” pete explained.

yn uncle pete was more like her father if anything. he helped her grandmother raise her. even before her mother died and father was sent to prison, he was there. with her mom being sick and her father committing atrocious crimes, he was the the one to take care of her as much as he could. pete was just being a concerned parent. she loved that her family were involved in her life.

“i understand your concern. eddie has grown and matured over the last few months. he’s committed to this relationship. if i suspect even an ounce of something i wouldn’t give it a single thought. i would leave and hopefully never see him again. but he’s been the perfect boyfriend, uncle pete. so much better than any man ive ever dated before. he listens, he showers me in compliments, he talks about the future, he does the smallest gestures most men today don’t do. he still opens the car door for me! he’s the perfect man.” yn finished.

“as long as you’re happy, baby! he seems like an amazing guy. should i start planning the wedding?” yn aunt smirks.

eddie walks back in with a sigh. yn aunt scoots so he could sit next to her.

“what’s wrong?”

“that was my uncle. apparently my dads trying to get sympathy points from us. he got ‘injured’ in prison. now he wants us to visit him whenever he gets out of the hospital. this isn’t the first time this happened. he plays victim, ask my uncle to come by, and begs for a load some of money. he’s got himself in trouble again im sure and owes someone there some money.”

yn sighs as she rubs her boyfriends back.

“we know what that’s like!” pete scoffs as he thinks of his own brother that’s in prison.

“im sorry you have to go through that eddie. no one should have to deal with a family member who only cares about themselves.” sara shakes her head.

eddie shrugs his shoulders. “it is what it is. hopefully my uncle won’t go. knowing him though, he’d still try to help him. it’s his brother so i get it. i just wish he knew the man couldn’t give a single fuck about any of us.”

“dinners ready!”

the next two days yn and eddie spent with her family had been amazing. eddie noticed his girlfriend had been more cheerful around her loved ones.

he loved seeing her smile and laugh more. it’s been an amazing sight. eddie also enjoyed getting to know yn family more and more. the more he talked to them, the more he thought of his own family back in hawkins.

currently the family was outside for the cookout yn grandmother planned the night they arrived. yn grandmother invited everyone, including the entire neighborhood.

everyone gathered around, chatting, drinking, playing cards, dancing, you name it. yn was currently standing next to a group of women and laughing. eddie smiles as he watches his girlfriend catch up. he takes a sip of his beer before walking over to her.

eddie wraps his arms around yn and kisses her right below her ear. she shivers before she smiles, turns, and kisses him passionately.

“hi.”

“hey, beautiful. missed you.” he whispers.

yn kisses him once more before they hear someone clear their throat. yn turns back around with a blush on her face. “sorry.”

“don’t be sorry! you gonna introduce us?”

“right! eddie, these are my best friends. tina, penny, and quinn. guys, this is my boyfriend, eddie!”

“hi, eddie.” quinn waves

“he’s hotter in person, yn!” tina smirks.

“don’t mind her. tina’s a bit flirt! it’s nice to meet you, eddie.” penny states.

“you too. yn talks about you all the time.”

“same here!”

“eddie! come meet your uncle andy.” yn grandmother grabs eddie. yn turns and smiles as he shrugs and waves his hand.

“he really is cuter in person, yn. never thought you’d date someone like him.”

yn knew what everyone meant when they said that. she wasn’t the type to date guys like eddie. eddie was the complete opposite of everyone yn dated in the past. she grew up in a black neighborhood. most of the guys she’s dated were people of color. she has dated guys outside her race, don’t be confused, but she’s never dated a white man who’s into heavy metal, a rockstar, and very nerdy all in one. in fact, if she was seen with someone like eddie back in high school, they’d make fun of her for dating the ‘cultist freak.’

people would still be cruel to eddie even in her neighborhood. but yn wouldn’t have cared. if he treats her right, why should she give a single fuck what others might think? she’s happy. that’s the most important thing that matters.

“he’s really great! the perfect gentleman.”

“hopefully not too perfect.” tina smirks.

yn blushes.

“stop!”

“come on! you use to give us deets all the time. at least tell us, is he good?” quinn asked,

yn turns to look at her boyfriend as her uncle andy talks his ear off. she turns back to her friends with a huge smile.

“best ive ever had!”

“better thank dre?” tina asked.

“god, so much better! he’s actually a very good lover. he’s such a giver! fuck, i hit the jackpot with eddie.”

“holy, shit! where can we find someone like eddie?” penny asked.

yn bites her bottom lip. “he’s also such a romantic! he buys me flowers every single date we have. even if it’s just us watching movies at home. ive never been pampered in my life.”

“okay, million dollar question,” tina starts.

“don’t even ask!” quinn looks at her with an eyeroll.

“come on, you guys aren’t dying to know!”

“leave it alone, tee.”

“what?”

“does dre know?”

“tina!”

“i told you to leave it.”

yn sighs at the question. dre was the man she left when she decided to take her music career seriously. he was her best friend before they started dating. yn begged him to come with her. she loved him with her whole entire chest. he was really the first person she’d ever truly loved.

but dre couldn’t leave. he had responsibilities here. if he left he would be leaving his mom to take care of his little siblings. she’d already been through so much, he couldn’t leave her.

yn knew that would be the end of them. and every guy after dre wasn’t serious. she was just trying to mend her broken heart. that is until she met eddie.

yn couldn’t even compare dre to eddie. dre was her first love but eddie would be her last. she never felt this way before. eddie had her whole entire heart and soul. if her and eddie ever broke up, she knew she’d never recover.

“if he’s been on social media, keeping up with what ive been doing, i don’t see how he doesn’t.” yn shrugs.

“may i asked the hard questions then? since tee already brought it up.” quinn started.

yn nods. “if dre wanted to get back together? if he decided to pack his things and be with you? follow you everywhere. would you get back with him?”

“no.” yn didn’t need to think about it. dre was her past and she’d hope that maybe in the future they could remain friends.

“damn. don’t get me wrong girl, i love that you’re happy! i just thought you and dre were like, endgame. i never thought you’d love anyone ever again. the way you were with him was undeniable. it was always you and him. feels weird that it’s not like that anymore.” tina states.

yn turns to look at eddie once more as he excuses himself and walks over to her.

“your uncle andy is one character!”

“sorry. he just loves telling long stories about nothing. he’s hilarious though.” yn states.

“that he is! i see where you get your humor from, baby.” eddie smiles as he kisses her gently.

“so, eddie, where are you from?” tina asked.

“hawkins, indiana.”

“never heard of it.”

“it’s a small town. nothing but nosey people getting into your business.”

“we know what that’s like!”

“amen to that!” quinn states with an eyeroll.

“you got any siblings?” penny asked.

“kinda! biologically im the only child. but i got a few kids i consider being my siblings.”

“how many?”

“seven!”

“that’s a lot! sure you wanna claim that many?” quinn jokes

“meh. they’re quite annoying sometimes. i love ‘em though.”

yn friends continue to ask eddie questions. trying to get to know him a bit better. they all see why she’s attracted to him. he had a wicked personality and he was funny. he was also a little nerdy which they knew was something yn likes. he was perfect for her.

“yn?”

yn turns around. she gives the person a half smile. her friends all go silent.

“dre, hi.”

dre goes to hug her. yn gives him a small hug as he squeezes her.

“i heard you were back in town. didn’t know how true it was.”

“yeah. im here visiting my family for a few more days.”

“it’s so good to see you! how have you been? i heard you were nominated for a grammy.”

“yeah! pretty fucking amazing, actually! im excited to see what happens.” she states.

“congratulations! i knew you’d make it big.”

yn smiles.

it was silent for a few minutes before yn clears her throat with a smile. “dre, id like you to meet my boyfriend, eddie!”

dre heart sinks at the word ‘boyfriend’

“hi.”

“hi, man.” eddie shakes his hand.

dre clears his throat. “we should catch up before you go.” dre states.

“of course, yeah.”

“i should head back. i just got off work. need a bit of a shower.” dre states before he nods and walks away. eddie runs his hands up and down yn back. he knew who dre was already. the two of them talked about past relationships. he knew how hard it was for her to leave him behind.

eddie saw the hurt look on the guys face. he wouldn’t know what he would do if he was in dre’s position. his own heart broke for the guy.

“you okay?”

yn turns and wraps her arms behind her boyfriends neck. “perfect.” yn kisses him passionately.

“love you, sunshine.”

“and i love you, rockstar!”

the next morning yn hears eddie laughing in the kitchen. she gets out of bed and wraps her rope around her waist before heading to the familiar sound.

yn sees eddie sipping a cup of coffee while her family laughs along with eddie.

eddie smiles as he sees his girl. he gets up and pulls out a chair for her. yn smiles and kisses him gently. she sits down as her grandmother serves her a plate.

“what are you all laughing about?” yn asked as she takes a bite of her toast.

“just telling eddie about the time you use to run around the house with nothing but a diaper and that red cape you use to love.”

yn shakes her head. “i was saving the world uncle pete.”

“oh, yeah! you were definitely our little hero.”

“it’s okay, babe. im sure i was the same way as a kid.” eddie shrugs.

yn hums. truth be told she loved how her family was getting along with eddie. he was definitely making a huge impression on them. it made her heart swoon seeing it.

after yn finished up her breakfast, her and her aunt got ready to do a little bit of shopping. she made sure eddie would be alright with being alone with her uncle, cousins, and grandmother. when he assured her he would be fine, she kissed him goodbye and left with her aunt.

yn and her aunt sara are super close. she considered her more of a friend than anything. she shared things with her aunt sara that she couldn’t share with her grandmother. or well, at least things she felt more comfortable sharing with her aunt. when she first got her period she told her aunt, her first kiss, her first time, her first heartbreak. it was all shared with her aunt.

it’s why it wasn’t much of a surprise she asked the quiet question in private.

“so, how does eddie treat you? i want all the details!”

“i told you already! he’s the perfect gentleman.”

sara rolls her eyes. “that’s not what i mean and you know it? give me the raw details. are you two living together? talking about marriage? kids?”

“we do talk about the future, yeah! i think he’s gonna ask me to move in when we get back home.” yn giggles.

“yeah?! how do you know?”

“because he wanted us to meet each others family all of a sudden. it was random when he brought it up. i mean, he’s even made room in his closet for me and moved things around the house, he got me a key so i can come over any time i want even when he’s not home, he’s asked me about my lease to my apartment a million times, it’s just tiny clues.”

“what about an engagement? i know you two have only been dating for, what?”

“seven amazing months!”

“do you see yourself married any time soon?”

“id marry eddie tomorrow if he asked.”

“really?!”

yn nods.

her aunt squeals.

“stop!” yn blushes.

“im just so happy for you! i love to see you smile. and you got this beautiful glow. it’s about time you found someone who treats you right. besides dre, i don’t think your uncle and i have liked the men in your life.”

“eddie and i are still very young though. he’s only twenty-eight. i don’t know exactly how he’d feel about marriage right now. i do know that he loves me though. every time he says im his forever, i feel it aunt sara. i know he means it with his whole entire existence.”

“im glad, honey. i know we don’t talk much about it, but your mom would be proud of the woman you are today. she’d also really love eddie. he’s funny, caring, charismatic, charming, and he’s beautiful might i add.”

“he really is!”

“come on, let’s get some food for the house and some snacks before your cousins lose their ever loving minds.”

when they get back to the house, yn sees her grandfathers truck. she knew he was out of town on business but she didn’t know if he’d be back in time to see her.

she runs to hug her grandfather and he kisses her cheek. “hey, baby! your granny told me you were in town. had to hurry up and finish my business trip to come see you.” he states.

“so glad you’re here, pops! have you met eddie.”

“i have! he’s a nice young man. a keeper if you ask me.” yn smiles.

she goes over to help get the groceries before eddie stops her.

“nuh uh! i get the groceries. you go relax, yeah?”

“exactly! in fact, all you ladies in the house! we got this.” yn uncle gently turns his wife around.”

“that’s right son! never let the lady carry the groceries.” yn grandfather states.

the men continue to get the groceries out of the car as yn, her grandmother, her aunt, and cousins sit in the living room.

“how was the store?”

“yn ran into a few fans actually.” sara smirks.

“yeah?”

“it was just a few teenagers.”

“they told her that her music inspires them. how empowering and women are.”

“that’s a mouthful.” eddie made himself known as he sits beside his girlfriend. he kisses her gently.

“women are the strongest creatures.” pete states.

the talk a little about women empowerment before eddie clears his throat.

“i was thinking i could take you guys out tomorrow night. since yn and i only got two more nights left. i wanna treat her friends and family.”

“oh eddie, you don’t have to do that. you don’t need anymore points from us! we love you like family.” pete half jokes.

“yeah, baby. it’s okay.”

“well, as family i wanna treat you all out! any place you want! im paying.”

“in that case, im all for it.” yn uncle andy finally makes himself known. he’d been watching some old football game. not paying too much attention to what’s going on.

“oh, stop it!” yn grandmother hits andy with a towel gently.

“alright.”

“okay, great!

later that night yn hears eddie chuckling on the phone before spotting his girlfriend and hanging up.

“who was that?”

“just dustin. hey, have you invited your friends for tomorrow?”

yn wraps her arms behind eddies neck. “no. we really don’t have to invite everyone eds. my family is already pretty large. you know not everyone was able to come to our cookout right? most of the people there were just neighbors.”

eddie shakes his head. “i already booked the whole restaurant, baby. i want everyone there. i just wanna treat the family. they’ve done so much.”

yn hums. “okay, fine! but on our last night i want a hotel. missed you.” she whispers as she kisses him passionately.

“yeah?” eddie smirks.

“mhm. haven’t had you in forever. it’s been torture eds. and you won’t fuck me here. no matter how many times i beg.” she rolls her eyes.

eddie chuckles as he shakes his head. “baby, you don’t know how bad i want to fuck you until you’re begging me for mercy,”

“then why won’t you?” yn interrupted.

“because this is your families house. i won’t disrespect them in their home. plus what i plan to do to you, i know you won’t be able to keep quiet.” eddie smirks.

yn body shivers.

the couple heads back inside before heading to yn bedroom and falling asleep in one another’s arms.

the next night yn spots all her friends and family. she smiles as she greets everyone. when she turns she spots dre. she smiles and gives him a wave.

it didn’t feel right not inviting him. he was her friend before they dated and she hoped to get that back.

once yn sees everyone is here she ask for menus. that is until eddie stops her.

“wait, we’re missing some people.” yn frowns before she sees eddie’s friends and family. eddie waves for them to join them at the main table.

“yn, it’s good to see you again.” wayne hugs yn tightly.

“you too! when did you guys get here?”

“last night. eddie had got us a last minute flight. you know how he is.” steve shakes his head.

“alright, now that’s everyone! we’re ready for our menus.”

once the menus were past around and everyone got their food and drinks, they all chatted amongst one another. yn enjoyed having both hers and eddie’s family together. it was a beautiful sight.

with yn family being as large as they are and eddie having a big family of his own, the place was definitely packed. she was very glad eddie booked the whole restaurant. otherwise the whole restaurant would be filled with too many people or they’d have to dine somewhere else.

“this place is fancy! where did eddie find this place?” quinn asked.

“yeah! and the lobster, it hit every single time.” tina states.

yn was going to answer until she heard someone ring their champagne glass.

“sorry, sorry, sorry! im just—i wanna say how happy i am to finally meet the boy, or should i say man, my granddaughter has told us about. he’s such a gentleman and im glad you found someone who treats you like a queen. you deserve all the love he gives you and more. it’s why i was very honored when he came to me and my son to ask us for something so beautiful and special. as you know, i have this ring that was passed down to me from my mother, her mother before that, her mother before that, and so on. and because i didn’t have a daughter of my own, i never got to pass it to my own daughter. but i now can pass it onto my granddaughter.”

yn was confused until she turned and sees eddie down on one knee. he was holding her grandmothers engagement ring. yn mentioned to eddie before that she’d want to be proposed to with her grandmother engagement ring. she said it was passed down from generation to generation. it meant a lot to her and a lot to her family. as she sees him down on one knee, the ring in his hand, and the sparkling look in his eyes, she started to cry.

“yn, i know we’ve only been together for seven months. but it’s been the best seven months of my life. i swear baby, none of this was planned. but when i saw how you were with your family and thought about how you were with mine, i just knew i didn’t wanna waste a single moment. i want to be with you for the rest of my life. it’s why i got your grandfather to come home early, why i got your aunt to ask you questions about marriage, why ive been sneaking on the phone with dustin, why i would do absolutely anything for you. you’re my forever, baby. ill say it to you for as long as i should live. i love you and that’s why im asking you to be my wife. will you marry me, yn?”

yn wipes the tears out of her eyes before nodding her head. eddie grins hugely as he puts the ring on her finger and everyone claps. eddie kisses his now fiancé on the lips.

“congratulations!”

everyone begins hugging one another as they celebrate yn and eddies engagement.

once everyone gets home yn and eddie begin to pack their bags. yn looks down at her ring and smiles. she couldn’t believe she was actually engaged to eddie. yn was super excited.

eddie kisses her gently. “why don’t you get in the car. i got the rest, baby.”

“you sure?”

eddie hums. yn kisses him once more. she says good night to her granny and promises to come by tomorrow morning for breakfast.

when she gets outside she sees dre. he was leaning against her car smoking a cigarette. yn slowly walks over.

“hi.”

“hey. congratulations.”

“thanks, dre.”

dre laughs. “i always thought that would be you and me, you know?”

yn hums in agreement.

awkward silence took over for a few. dre sighs before he steps closer and grabs her hand.

“i—what if i decided to go with you?”

“what?”

“leave this behind. you and i can go off and elope like we said we would. you can live your dream of being a rapper, i find a job or just go on the road with you. i just—what if we just took off now?” dre asked hopeful.

“dre—”

“come on, yn! you can’t say you still don’t love me. don’t you?”

“not like that, dre. i will always have love for you. before you were my boyfriend you were my best friend. you’ll always be the first guy i truly loved. but eddie, he’s my last and my only.”

dre lets go of yn hand.

eddie walks over to them as he unlocks the trunk. “everything okay, baby?”

yn smiles and nods. “i was just saying bye to dre.”

eddie looks between the two before nodding. he puts their suitcases in the trunk.

“ready?”

yn gives dre a sad smile. “ready.” she states before getting into the car.

i tried to finish this up and rushed the ending. but i hope you all still like it. i promise more drama will come in this story. but i just got an idea for another story writing this!

[wavetomyheart]

“I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved you.”

a/n: Took a while but here’s the second part ‼️ Took me so long for ts to turn out booty… 🥲

As I’m processing what the hell just happened over the phone, his words linger in my mind. If I barely had the guts to call him, how the hell can I face him in person? I start running my fingers through my hair in distress and take a deep breath. Okay, it’s not like this is my first time meeting him, but it is the first time ever since we broke up. I haven’t spoke to him yet nor seen him face to face. The only time I would see him was in magazines for his interviews. I hated seeing him look so good especially if he wasn’t mine anymore. My thoughts were disrupted by the door bell ringing. “The fucking devil is here..” I quickly let out a sigh as I got up to get the door. I was greeted by a familiar blonde tall guy leaning over the doorway. I saw his eyes move to the inside of my empty house. “Guess you were telling the truth.” His eyes shift back to me, “Why did you have to wait last fucking minute to tell me?” My face looks like a mix of anger and confusion.

“You’re mad because I didn’t tell my ex i’m moving to another town? I don’t get it, we weren’t on talking terms so I don’t understand why I had to let you know?” He quickly speaks before I can get anything else out, “I get it, I do okay but you were more than just an ex to me. You were a big part of my life, and we meant something to each other. I don’t care if we weren’t talking, I want you to tell me everything that’s important. What if you never called me huh? Our breakup would’ve been the last time I’d ever see or talk to you.” I can tell he’s being genuine, I was about to speak but my words were cut off by a warm embrace. I hug him tightly as if I never want to let him go. I felt Atsumu tightening the hug even more, burying his head into my shoulder. I can feel his warm breath on my neck, “Don’t leave me alone, I’m feeling how you felt the day I left you. It’s a god awful feeling.” His voice slightly muffled. I smile at his current state, “Yeah? Well it was about damn time you felt what you put me through.” My words did not match my actions as I run my fingers through his hair, as a sign of comfort. “As much as I don’t want to leave you, I have no choice. I already got the place and everything Tsumu.” He quickly looks up at me, I saw his cheeky smile pasted all over his face. “Been a while since I heard that.” I slightly smile as I scoff, “Yeah I bet you’d missed me calling you that. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.” I say quietly almost like a whisper. It was silent for a while, it wasn’t awkward. We were just taking in each other’s presence. He speaks up after clinging onto to me, “Nah, I should’ve reached out sooner. I couldn’t set aside my damn pride, yer more important than it. Let me make up for our lost time.” I saw the smirk on his face getting bigger. I slightly shrugged my shoulders as I spoke, “How can I possibly decline this offer?” Without hesitation he takes me by my hand and drags me outside. He waits until I lock my door before taking me to wherever he has in mind. “Are you not going to tell me where we’re going?” He starts chuckling, “Why would I ever ruin a surprise?” He opens the car door before I could reach the handle, “What a gentleman” I scoff as I get in. He puts the playlist we both made for each other on the aux, I look at him with admiration. I didn’t think he would still listen to our songs. After a while of catching up with each other we arrive at what was once called “our spot.” It was an unknown park with a small pond, it had beautiful flowers surrounding it. We sat down at a bench, facing the beautiful view. “Yer know, I came here quite a few times hoping I would see you. I never did, so I stopped and only came when I missed you.” Hearing this confession made my heart ache. I felt a lump forming in my throat but quickly tried to shake it off, “I couldn’t handle seeing you which is why I never came.” I rest my head on his shoulder, “Just because you never saw me here, doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you. I missed you so damn much that I wanted to come here every single second of the day just to see if you would be here. If only I had the courage maybe just maybe, we could’ve resolved this sooner.” He suddenly grabbed my hand and kissed it gently as if he’d scared I would break. “Theres hella things we could’ve done sooner if we weren’t so scared, but yer know what? We made it back to each other so fuck the past.” He chuckles, I can tell he’s trying to lighten the mood. “Damn right.” I lift my head back up and stare at him, with love written all over my face. “I love you.” We both stare blankly at each other as we both said it at the same time, laughter fills the place. He leans in for a kiss, it was gentle and sweet. As he pulls away, he moved strands of hair away from my face. “I missed you.” “I missed you more Tsumu.”

[commbowman]

Prompts for comfortable intimacy: guide and tie.

(The tie will come later lmao. Also I hope you don’t mind that I chose these prompts 😳)

- @frankpooleunofficial

—

It was one of the busiest gatherings of the year, and Frank had decided that it was getting boring.

Sure, he appreciated the generous donations from politicians to the state space program, but it was more of the same thing all the time. The next big bank-breaking mission hadn’t been announced yet, but Poole was forced to be there instead of just being invited, so he assumed it must be the night. Oh well; he could have fun and avoid the press until after all that was said and done.

Suddenly, an obnoxious voice pierced his sense of tranquility, and he saw Dave Bowman cornered by a group of chattering older men. Some people obviously can’t take a hint, he thought. At least I can read a face when I try.

He decided his new mission was to get Dave the hell out of there, then sneak out for a bit. He’d come back just before the board began its speeches.

“Hey! Hope I’m not missing out on too much,” he teased.

“No, not at all,” said one of the men.

“Nope, we’re just making conversation.”

“Good,” he started. “Well, I hope you boys don’t mind if I steal your buddy here, do ya? I need help finding something and I think he saw where I put it.”

Frank moved in beside Dave. He could practically hear the other’s teeth grinding.

“Oh, you go ahead! We won’t keep you two.” Thank god.

“Thanks,” Frank slipped his hand around his friend’s waist and pulled him through the crowd, guiding him through a horde of people dressed in fancy evening gowns and pressed suits.

They made it to the front of house with few witnesses, and Frank slipped into the coat check without a sound. Dave was still following, and he squinted as they entered the dark room.

He never minded gatherings like this, there was decent food and sometimes a good conversation or two. Sure, most of it was begging for money but he found a way to get something out of it.

All that was required of him was to be nice and answer a question or two if they really needed him. One of many. Except lately he had been gaining so notoriety, and don’t get him wrong he likes it. As much as anyone would when their hard work pays off with attention, as much as anyone in the field ones their five minutes of fame. But he wasn’t expecting the downside so soon.

They swarmed him.

His gaze locks onto Frank, the first young face he’d seen for the better part of an hour. He made his eyes large in the universal symbol - help me -. His smile grew faker for the rest of the group, harder to maintain without breaking his jaw.

Oh darn! Looks like I’m needed elsewhere. Aw shucks fellas…

“Oh that’s right, I know just where it is,”

He’s helping.

Stop helping.

Move.

Dave moved as quickly as he was directed to. Swift and infinitely grateful for the escape. All the tension left his shoulders as they maneuvered through the well dressed crowd.

“Thanks for saving me out there,” he said in the dark of the coat room. Dripping with relief, he grabs at one of the coat racks to ground himself as his eyes adjust.

“You’re my hero,” he chuckles.

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Prologue? Pilot? IDK Man I Just Work Here

part 1.1

{hello and welcome to the very first chapter of the full house au. i know @moreover-clover and @redley-of-many-noodles offered to beta this fic for me; i appreciate that and i may very well take you up on it for later chapters, but tbh i have homework that really needs to get done and i will not be able to focus on anything else until i get this out of the way, so... hopefully its not terrible i guess. that said, i did initially start writing this in past tense and then decided to do it in present instead, so if anyone notices a typo/tense error, feel free to point it out so i can fix it lol

trigger warning for mentions of injuries and death

now without further ado...}

~~~

Stumbling past the automatic glass doors, covered in blood- but is it his own? Or does it belong to the barely conscious man he’s dragging along beside him?

Probably both.

The bright white lights overhead burn his eyes and the sharp sterile scent of chemicals does the same to his nose- this is not a pleasant place to be, but it’s the only place to be right now. It’s their only hope of not losing yet another person to this alternate dimension shit that’s been plaguing their lives for three years.

Seeing Eddie’s crumpled, torn-apart body in the Upside Down, watching Dustin sob over him- that had been bad enough. They may have had almost matching wounds, but Eddie’s were deeper, and there were twice as many of them, and, god, that could have been him, it should have been him.

Dustin’s devastated and the world is ending and we’ve lost someone else and dammit didn’t I tell him not to be a hero?

But then he’d found a pulse. The faintest flutter, but it was there, and it spurred him right back into action, adrenaline pumping overtime through his veins even as he was ready to collapse. Both of them might well be on death’s door, but they had hope.

And then, just as they made it back through the gate, they had gotten the call over the walkie about Max.

The panic and despair threatened to settle back over him, driving him into the ground with its weight. He had been trying so hard to keep her safe since they realized she was Vecna’s next target, and now…

They were supposed to meet up at the hospital, so that’s where he went. He has to see the kids and he has to keep Eddie breathing and maybe just maybe he’ll get a chance to get his own wounds looked at, if there’s time. Robin will never forgive him if he lets rabies take him out.

So he and Dustin have Eddie slung between them, barreling clumsily through the Hawkins ER like a lopsided bull in a proverbial china shop while everyone else stares on in confusion and horror at the state they’re in. If anyone recognizes the fallen king or the target of the ongoing manhunt, they don’t say anything, and for that one tiny thing in the long and awful list of what’s happened today, he’s grateful.

There are, however, voices aimed in his direction, lilted up at the end in interrogation, but he can’t afford to think right now; he can only keep moving forward, giving weakly shouted answers to questions that go in one ear and out the other. His mind is clouded with fear and the desperation to get all his important people back together in one room so he can see that they’re all still alive. If they aren’t, if someone is missing, if Max doesn’t make it, if no one will treat Eddie-

He’s vaguely aware that he’s begging at this point, but he doesn’t care. His brain is too busy listing.

Robin, Nancy, Erica, Lucas- they’re together, they’re with Max. The Byers are all the way in California; Mike is probably on his way back right now- what a mess to come home to. Dustin- he’s with me. Safe. Eddie- also with me, not safe, probably dying.

They may not have known each other long, but he does feel tears prick his eyes at the thought- they had literally marched into hell together, after all. A nurse offers him a tissue- when did they get here? When did he sit down? And why is the room spinning like the Starcourt ceiling last July?

He doesn’t get an answer to any of his questions, doesn’t even get to voice them, before the room is going dark and Dustin’s frantic voice at his side is sounding further and further away, until everything goes quiet.

~~~

The silence is broken by a harsh ringing noise, followed by muffled voices, the latter growing clearer as the former slowly fades out. He knows those voices.

He jolts upright, sending a sharp trail of pain through his lacerated torso, but is momentarily distracted by the fact that he had somehow wound up in a hospital bed between blacking out and waking up. As soon as his mind catches up to speed on his new whereabouts, he looks wildly around the room- not exactly a typical hospital room, but that hasn’t registered yet- taking stock of every face he can see, every voice he can hear.

To his immense relief- and also confusion- he sees Max in a bed just like his right across from him, Lucas and El at her side. She’s in bad shape, but she appears to be alive, at least.

Thank god. Wait- El? What is she doing here?

The next thing he sees is the entire Byers family- plus two extra guys, one of whom looks familiar but way paler and thinner and more beaten up than Steve remembers- squeezed onto a couch at the far end of the room.

Weren’t they in California? And- hold on- is that Hopper? Isn’t he dead?

Wait.

Am I dead?

Before he can have an existential crisis, though, something snaps him out of it. A hand on his shoulder, rougher than he would have liked, to be honest, but grounding. Dustin- who he realizes must have been sleeping in the chair between him and the next bed over- has just woken up in time to catch him doing the same, and the kid looks thrilled. Exhausted, emotionally drained, but thrilled.

“Steve! Guys, he’s awake!”

All eyes turn his way, just about everyone accounted for, it seems, and somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders how Robin and all the kids got here with their usual chauffer currently out of action. But then he notices something else. Something that honestly shouldn’t be as startling as it is, considering everything else going on.

All the parents are here too. And they look… well, about how they can be expected to look, given the circumstances.

“Good, I’m glad you’re alright,” says Karen Wheeler, arms crossed over her chest, menacing gaze sweeping the room. “Because my son came home in the back of a pizza van, begging us to take him to the hospital, where apparently you and two of his other friends have been half-dead all night in the middle of these so-called ‘earthquakes,’ and I’d really like an explanation. From all of you.”

~~~

The room was dead silent, the parents staring in wide-eyed shock as the long-winded, traumatic narrative drew to a close.

“So… I guess you guys need some time to process all that, huh?”

Dustin’s question was met with a sudden cacophony of returning inquiries, sharp and frantic and tinged with bewilderment, overlapping one another in their haste. It was hard to tell who said what through the haze of whatever painkillers they put in his IV.

“How the hell did we not know about any of this?”

“Hawkins is cursed?”

“Why didn’t any of you say anything?”

“All this has been going on under our noses for years?”

He had been expecting disbelief, accusations of letting their imaginations run away from them, but… their tale connects a few too many dots, makes a little too much sense, considering how strange and malevolent life has become in their formerly sleepy little town.

“Are- are you guys- mad?” Will asks, even though he, out of all of them, has the least to worry about.

Before any of them could answer, Mike jumps in, “Because, if you are, that’s really not fair, we’ve sorta been through a lot as it is-”

“And that’s exactly why we’re mad- no- furious. Our kids have been going through hell right in front of us and we had no idea! Of course we’re going to be upset about it! You guys could have died, and we would have had no idea what happened!”

“Well, yeah, I guess, but- we didn’t. We’re fine, mom…”

“You are absolutely not fine. After everything you just told us about? There’s no way you could possibly be fine. This whole thing is so far outside the realm of fine.”

There’s a heavy pause after that; it’s not like anyone can disagree with her. When no response comes, she turns her fierce, teary eyes on the older teens.

“What about you guys? You- Steve, Jonathan, Nancy- you’ve known about all this the whole time! Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you come to us for help?” It sounds like an accusation, and yet… there’s more pain in her voice than anything. Her targets wince, crumple, while Robin and Argyle- whoever that is- just sort of awkwardly shuffle about off to the side, none of them meeting Mrs. Wheeler’s gaze.

It's Joyce who ends up breaking the tense silence.

“In their defense, Karen, Hop and I knew about all this too. The thing is- we weren’t allowed to tell anyone.”

Having become one of her anger’s new targets, Hopper quickly explains, “The Hawkins lab freaks made us sign a bunch of NDAs, take a vow of silence on the whole matter, basically. It was the only way to get them to cooperate. If we had gone around telling people, we could’ve put everyone in even more danger. And besides, before now, would you have even believed us? If we had told you there were monsters like something out of a sci-fi movie hunting folks down, taking over minds, opening portals to another dimension- right in the middle of Hawkins?”

“Would you have believed your kids?” Joyce adds softly, addressing all her fellow moms in the room.

At that, Karen deflates. She exchanges a look with Sue and Claudia, and speaks for all of them when she says, “I… I guess not. I want to say I would have, but… it’s all too crazy. If we hadn’t seen what we saw today, and if you all didn’t have each other backing up your story, well… honestly, I would have thought you were making it up.” Apparently the Wheelers had almost driven right into one of the rifts- one of the very obviously otherworldly rifts- on their way here. Well, they had to find out somehow.

“And that’s another reason we couldn’t tell you. We didn’t want you to think we were crazy,” Nancy explains.

Lucas tacks on, “We also didn’t want you to send El back to the lab, or to any other messed up place that would lock her up and hurt her.”

El nods seriously, a fearful expression flashing across her face as she takes a step back, bumping into Max's bed. Lucas places a reassuring hand- the one not occupied with holding Max's- on her shoulder.

��Oh- honey, no, we would never do that. Don’t worry. We actually owe you a lot, it sounds like; I can’t thank you enough for saving my children’s lives. You’ll always be safe with us, as far as I’m concerned.”

“But that’s the thing,” Susan interjects, not taking her watery eyes off her comatose daughter. “They’re not safe, none of them are, not here. And they haven’t been for a long time, it seems. I don’t know when they will be safe. I hate to say it, but I don’t think our kids should stay in Hawkins.”

This triggers a rush of protests from the kids, voices once again blending in a way that’s difficult for Steve to keep up with.

“But- but Hawkins needs us! Now more than ever!”

“Yeah! We have to stay and fight!”

“We can’t just let Vecna have our town!”

Hopper motions for everyone to settle down. “Listen, kids. I know you want to help, but you’ve been fighting this battle for too long as it is. You all never should have been involved in something so dangerous in the first place.”

“Right, what he said. I mean, you’re just kids, for god’s sake!” Claudia adds in, although she still looks mostly stunned by everything she’s just found out about.

“This is not your responsibility. We’ll stay here and fight, and you all will get somewhere safe, somewhere far away from all this.”

This does indeed sound like a direct order from their returned-from-the-dead resident chief of police. What comes next, though, is much gentler, fatherly, and he’s definitely looking right at El when he says it.

“Let us take it from here, okay?”

~~~

{i decided to break this up into 2 parts; idk when ill post the second half but it should be fairly soon. also dont know when ill put it up on ao3 as i dont currently have an account there, but im definitely planning to bc with as much as i have planned for this au so far its going to be a pain in the ass to read it all here lmao

edit: its going to be 3 parts instead of 2

Link to part 1.2 here}

[twostepstyless]

Good for Wilma

Fic Advent Calendar Day 16

Advent Calendar Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Authors Note: Harry has planned a date night for the pair, after a missing boot and a kleptomaniac dog, Y/N feels guilty that Harry always plans their dates and it turns out their neighbour is a bit of a harlot

As always, reblogs, likes and feedback of any and all kinds is appreciated and encouraged!

Sorry for the late posting of this one - G xo

Word Count: 1.9k

SFW

———

“God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” Harry said in genuine awe as Y/N stepped into the bedroom from the bathroom. 

Y/N had just gotten out the shower, wrapped in a fluffy towel, scraggly hair dripping down her back, residual mascara, from her morning out at a coffee date with her friend Audrey, staining her under eyes as she padded through to the bedroom, chipped polish decorating her toenails. “Are y’trying to be sarcastic or funny or something?” she looked at him through the mirror on the wall as she quickly swiped away the black mascara from under her eyes with a cotton pad. 

“Not at all, y’just take m’breath away sometimes,” Harry shrugged, smiling at her reflection fondly. 

“I look like I’ve just crawled out a swamp,” she spun to face him, hiking up the towel that began to slip. 

“A really pretty swamp though,” he stated before he walked to stand in front of her, stooping to press three little pecks on her lips. 

“I feel like you’re buttering me up for something, or you’ve done something you shouldn’t have,” Y/N narrowed her eyes at his innocent expression, too innocent almost. 

“Can’t a man compliment his girlfriend before he takes her out on a little festive date, hm?” Harry asked. 

“He absolutely can, and I appreciate it always, but I just get the feeling you’re up to something,” she swatted Harry’s hand away which was currently tugging at the knot that kept her towel tied. 

“Me up to something? Not a chance,” Harry smirked before heading to their adjoining bathroom himself, “think y’can be ready to go in an hour and a half?”

Y/N was still suspicious, “mhm,” she hummed in agreement before heading into their walk-in to sit down at the vanity in there. 

*** 

Harry had told her to dress warm for the date night he’d planned for them and stipulated comfortable shoes. 

“Y/N/N?” Harry called upstairs, “you about ready, sweets, we need to get a move on.” 

“I’ll be two minutes, I can’t find my other bloody boot,” Y/N yelled back, voice muffled from being tucked away in their walk-in wardrobes.

“What boots?” Harry shouted, this conversation would be a lot easier, and quieter, if he just walked up the stairs but why do that when they could just roar across the house to each other. 

“The black ones,” she called. 

“With the laces?” Harry asked. 

“Uh-huh,” he heard a clatter from the closet echo downstairs as Y/N began tossing shoes behind her in the search. 

“I think I saw Vinnie with it the other day,” Harry recalled seeing their dog trailing the shoe round by the laces in his mouth. There was a pause in the thumping of shoes being tossed aside as Y/N heard what he said before she appeared at the top of the stairs. 

“You what?” 

“Vinnie was carrying round y’shoe the other day, it was so cute actually, just had it hanging out his mouth as he pulled it round by the laces,” Harry smiled as Y/N made her way down the steps with a sort of limping hobble from only wearing one boot. 

“Why didn’t you take it off of him?” she stood in front of him, her height kept changing as she switched her weight between her socked foot and the one with the boot on. 

“Aw baby, he looked so happy, didn’t want to waste his fun,” Harry said softly. 

“I swear to Christ Harry, if he’s chewed that shoe…” she sounded threatening, “you’re in for it,” 

“Don’t make promises y’cant keep,” he winked before she threw him a look over her shoulder as she shouted out to their happy golden retriever.

“Vinnie, baby, where did you put mummy’s shoe?” she cooed as she made her way to his big bed in the living room.

“I think he just liked having it to look after it for you, gorgeous,” Harry tried to spin the story, so it sounded cute. 

“Harry Styles, you are so lucky he’s an angel of a dog,” Y/N fought the shoe out the back of his bed where Vinnie liked to hide his special toys, the shoe was, thankfully, still perfect. 

“Right then, get the boot on Cinderella, we’ve got places to be,” Harry made his way back to the front door to grab his tote bag that had his supplies in it for the evening. 

*** 

“Y’still not telling me where we’re going?” Harry had been driving for around 25 minutes, it was dark outside, and Harry had kept her significantly distracted with useless chatter and the singalong of Christmas songs he took part in with the radio, so she didn’t notice any of the road signs. 

“If y’wait 5 minutes you’ll find out,” Harry grinned as he took a turn into the car park. He pulled into a reserved space and leaned over to adjust Y/N’s woolly hat on her head before grabbing his bag out the footwell and got out the car, with Y/N following hot on his heels. 

“Wait-hang on, Kew Gardens?” Y/N asked, as she took in surroundings and recognising it immediately. 

“Mhmm,” Harry hummed, lacing their fingers together as they walked to the entrance, “knew you always wanted to do the Christmas walk, so here we are,” Harry sounded proud of himself for managing to take her somewhere she’d wanted to do for a long time. 

“How’d you manage this, it sells out every year, y’didn’t drop an H-bomb, did you?” she teased, giggling as she nudged his sides. 

“No actually,” Harry said smugly, “I was on the bloody website the day the tickets went on sale, set an alarm for like 3 in the morning because I was still in L.A. Took me three goes to type m’card details in I was so tired,” he snorted remembering squinting at the bright light of his phone screen while he was in bed, one eye still closed as he typed blindly. 

“God,” Y/N groaned, quickly fanning her face as tears sprung to her eyes. 

Harry looked over panicked, “wait, why y’upset, I didn’t fuck this up and think it was you who wanted to do this when it’s actually my mum or someone?”

“No, no, it’s me, I’ve always wanted to come here, you’re just so perfect, aren’t you? I just can’t believe it sometimes. I told you about this one time, once. Years ago at that and now you’ve brought me, and y’just plan the most special things for us all the time, and you’re lucky if I take you to a drive thru McDonalds or Starbucks on the rare occasion I pick you up at the airport or from wherever,” Y/N spilled out as they stood in the car park.

“I love our drive thru dates,” Harry said seriously. 

��I know y’do, but it’s just, you always plan the most perfect things and I feel bad I don’t do any of the planning,” Y/N toed the ground, feeling guilty. 

“Right, don’t start with that rubbish. First of all, I like doing the planning and you hate it, so that clears that one up. Secondly, we spend so much time apart, I do not care if we’re doing the planned dates, or we’re two McFlurries deep gossiping about the neighbours. Which, sidenote, I’ve got something to tell you about Wilma from 4 doors down, its scandalous,” he widened his eyes for dramatic effect. “So can we leave the worrying about not planning or planning things out in the car park, because that alarm was far too loud and woke me up far too early to not fully enjoy this, got it?” Harry said, a fake threatening glare on his face, as Y/N nodded shyly. With a kiss to her temple, they made their way inside. 

*** 

Harry’s tote bag contained all the items he deemed essential for the date; his film camera which turned him into an amateur photographer, snapping pictures of Y/N bathed in the Christmas lights and display that led them round the 2-and-a-half-kilometre walk. He had a flask of hot chocolate they split as the air turned colder and colder. He had a few snacks packed in plastic containers because they weren’t eating until after and he didn’t need a hangry Y/N on top of an emotional one. He also had rammed an extra scarf in the bag to wrap around her as they stopped to watch the light show projected onto the palm house a few times over because they were mesmerised by it. 

They walked slowly. Taking in every light and decoration strung around the botanic gardens. It was approaching two hours later as they made their way to the exit. “Well?” Harry asked, “did it live up to your expectations?” 

“So good, H, so good. Thank you for bringing me,” she kissed his cheek as they stopped by their car as Harry fished through his pockets for the key, “I can officially tick that one off the list,” she sighed, dreamily.

“There’s a list?” he quizzed, unlocking the car, and opening her door for her as she slid in while nodding her head. “Can I see the list?” Harry urged as he got himself comfortable in the driver’s seat, turning on the car to heat them up and defrost the windows that had frozen over very quickly as the temperatures plummeted.  

“I don’t think you need to see it; I think you just know. You’ve managed to tick off about half without even knowing about them,” Y/N pulled off her gloves as the car heater kicked in and Harry began to drive them out. 

Harry originally had reservations for dinner but as he was driving back, he saw something that made him change his mind and change lanes quickly to alter their destination, much to the disgruntled driver behind who sounded his horn at Harry’s quick move as he waved his hand up in apology. 

He drove them in before rolling down his window and turning to Y/N, “well what do y’want?” 

Y/N looked up to see the golden arches of McDonalds drive thru illuminating the car and Harry’s smiling face. 

Y/N blushed under his gaze before Harry turned out the window to rhyme off the usual order without waiting for Y/N to answer. 

“Why’re we here, what about your reservations?” Y/N asked.

“Turns out I was craving one of our drive thru dates – Oh and two mcflurries as well please,” he directed the last part out of the window to the drive thru screen, seeing the items be added to their order on screen. “Plus, where else am I supposed to tell you that Wilma from four doors down has got three boyfriends on the go who don’t know about each other,” Harry gave her the gossip he previewed earlier.

“Shut up!” Y/N cried out as Harry drove round to the first window to pay, “Wilma from four doors down? Wilma who’s 83?” Y/N asked. 

“The very same one,” Harry pulled into the food collection bay, as the ended their date night in the most perfect way; together.   

———

Advent Calendar Masterlist

Main Masterlist

[cowgurrrl]

I really have this image of the twins just being tiny crackheads when they are little and Joel has to look after them when the wife is at a premiere and she just comes home to carnage and him just being in awe of how great she is at handling all of it and how she makes it look easy. We love a man who appreciates his wife!!!!!

Omg yes

The girls are just little psychos when they’re toddlers and it doesn’t help that they’ve built their own little mutiny with Sam or that the three of them have the stubbornness of every single Miller who’s come before them so when Joel takes over solo parenting for the night so you can go to a premiere, he doesn’t know what he’s expecting but it’s not what happened.

They use Sam as a distraction (my poor sweet people pleasing boy) to sneak ice cream out of the freezer and run to their rooms as fast as they can when Joel catches them. Unfortunately, he trips over the kids’ shoes in the living room and that’s who they end up locking themselves in the girls room with ice cream. Joel had to get tools out of the garage to open the door but he didn’t call you. No, he parented the hell out of those kids and got them to bed somewhat on time (thank god for Daisy zoomies and child exercise videos)

When you get home, the house is in a familiar state of disrepair but nothing too insane and Joel slumped on the couch defeatedly. “I dunno how you do it.” He’d say and you’d look at him, confused, as you dump your heels on the floor and climb into his lap, your dress bunching up around your knees.

“Do what?”

“This. Keep them alive. Not lose your mind.”

“I never said I don’t lose my mind.”

“Well, ya don’t act like it.” He says and you hum as you play with the curls at the nape of his neck. “Seriously, I didn’t think I was gonna make it. Thought they’d tie me to the couch for you to find.”

“They’re insane but they’re not that crazy.” He chuckles like he doesn’t believe you and you two sit in silence for a few minutes, recharging from the stressful days you’ve had. You like going to premieres. You always have. It’s just not as fun without him by your side. Him being right beside you at every event just isn’t the season of life you’re in right now. One day, it’ll be different and the things will be older and independent and you’ll miss the days when they wreak havoc on your house. Just not now.

Joel mumbles something into your shoulder and you have to pull back to hear him. “What’d you say?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everythin’ you do. You take care of the kids… like it’s nothin’ or you make it look easy, at least. Tonight just reminded me how lucky I am to have you.” He says and you feel yourself blushing before you can even think to stop it. “I don’t wanna parent with anyone else. Ever.”

“Thank you.” You smile shyly and he nods.

“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”

“I know,” you say. “‘S just nice to hear it sometimes.”

“I’m gonna get better at saying’ it cause tonight was a shitshow.” He says as he kisses your cheek and you laugh.

“The girls lock themselves in their room again?” You guess and he groans.

“With Sam and ice cream. It wasn’t even six o’clock yet.”

“Aren’t you glad we never tried for another kid?”

“Jesus, don’t remind me.”

[mamodewberry]

Holiday Fever

Time for the annual Sad Bastien Christmas drabble. Not too sad this year, but he's still not very happy about it.

Rating: G

Words: 1,361

Summary: Baz is sick and hates it more than usual. Good thing he has Chris.

Bastien preferred being cold to being hot. Much easier to warm oneself up than cool down. But with the constant chill in the air of Swiss winters, brought illness. Global pandemic aside, Bastien was what many would call a germaphobe: everything was cleaned and washed properly and handled with care, touched only when necessary. His parents liked the house tidy, yes, but he wasn’t sure when he himself adapted such hygienic practices. Something within his control perhaps. 

Christophe never felt the need to call him out on it. At least verbally. That crooked smile and the way those green eyes teased him with fondness without a word were unfair sometimes. Over the years Christophe adapted and contributed to Bastien’s practices, intentional or not. Even if just around him.

But no matter how careful he’d been, year after year avoiding indoor crowded spaces (although that was for an unrelated reason), potlucks, public bathrooms, etc he wound up sick. It didn’t make sense, how could his body betray him like this? He wanted to blame something or someone, but that was energy his brain couldn’t spare once Christophe had put him to bed. 

He didn’t like being sick. Hated it. There was so much to do, especially a week before Christmas. But mostly he didn’t like feeling useless. Not allowed to perform his duties he’d established in the household or professionally. When others took time off work for being sick, he was happy to have them away so not to spread their germs, and Bastien should feel the same about himself but… he was the responsible one that didn’t get sick. Took care of Christophe when he got sick, which admittedly wasn’t often (thank god). 

Feebly he relinquished his tablet with the to-do’s to Christophe, who rummaged through the drawers for his own stylus to use and a face mask. Bastien watched Christophe’s eyes widen at the line items, then soften. Not as bad as he thought or did he think Bastien was exaggerating? He huffed at the latter as well as his miserable predicament. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Christophe said.

“All of it?” Bastien was skeptical. 

“As much as I can.”

“Thank you for being honest.”

“I’m not incapable, Baz. Just not as thorough. The priorities will take priorities. That’s what bold means, right?”

“Right.” Christophe often accompanied him on errands. It wasn’t like it was foreign to him. He could do it. The shopping. The cooking. The cleaning. Read off reports to Josef. “Your license is valid, yes?”

“Yes it’s valid and yes I remember how to drive.”

“Right, of course.” Ugh his head was foggy. Why did fog hurt? “Your family’s party. What will--”

“We’ll see how you are in six days. Don’t want to cancel prematurely.”

“But I’m supposed to make the buche de noel. Your mother loves it so…”

“She does, but I know for a fact she’d rather you not worry about it and rest. And if we have to miss out this year, that’s okay. Maybe we can do something for New Year’s instead.”

No, that wouldn’t do. Bastien frowned. Christmas was more ruined than Christophe was letting on! “But…”

“No buts.” Christophe leaned in and pressed his mask-covered lips to Bastien’s forehead. “I’ll take care of things.” He then turned and bent over to pick up Sabine then placed her on Bastien’s chest. She pattered her paws in rotation a couple times before settling into a loaf. “Keep Daddy in bed.” 

Unfair. No one was allowed to move a comfy cat. 

“Get some rest, mon amor.” 

The next few days were torture. 

It hadn’t been the first time Bastien had been sick, but it no less made him feel awful about it. Mostly had been days he’s stressed himself out into a state of burnout that Christophe forced him into bed before he fell asleep at his feet and passed out. But this? Hearing Christophe downstairs in the kitchen and living space cleaning and cooking and sweetly humming, he didn’t like it. No, the humming he liked, it was nice. Everything else, though!

He was able to calm when Christophe brought him a meal and its taste was good. They’d lived together for years so of course he was used to the tastes of the house and could mimic it well enough. Yes they both ate well. The cake for the Giacometti’s party however, that Bastien knew was too large a task for his beau.

What was worse? Arriving empty handed or skipping it all together? 

By day five and the symptoms only lessening by fifty percent, Bastien knew they wouldn’t be going to Christophe’s parents. No dinner around the table, no cookie baking or poems for Samichlaus and finding the hidden gifts around their lovely home. They saw them at least a month ago, but a hug from Nina sounded really nice and now Bastien would have to wait. 

Christophe’s hugs would suffice. The ones Bastien allowed at bedtime before Christophe retreated to the guest bedroom because Bastien would not be able to live even more with himself if Christophe were to get sick, too. Sabine remained dutiful and at his side. 

Bastien wanted to tell Christophe to go to the Christmas market without him so he could still experience the joys of the season. 

“We went the second week of December, love,” Christophe reminded him with a smile.

Surely once wasn’t enough. Especially if they were going to miss the party and mass. 

“I’d never go do something I know you love without you. I have more than enough Christmas cheer here.”

Bastien frowned with skepticism. 

“Our eve meal is almost ready. If you’re up to eating.”

Oh he would eat everything in sight even if his stomach wasn’t entirely agreeing on solid foods at the moment. He wouldn’t waste Christophe’s efforts. Or disappoint himself. Too many days he dwelled on what he was missing out on for his own enjoyment. If Christophe said it was fine for him, it was, but Bastien couldn’t say the same for himself. “Yes. I would like to eat,” Bastien finally said, knowing Christophe was waiting for his answer. 

“Can we eat together downstairs?”

It was odd to be on this end of permission. Shouldn’t Bastien be the one asking to be free of his insisted quarantine? Still, he couldn’t deny how much he wanted to. “I’d like that.”

Christophe took hold of the comforter and pulled it back and offered Bastien his robe and toed his slippers toward the bed. 

Slipping his arms into the sleeves, Bastien took Christophe’s offered hand and stood into his slippers. It was unnecessary to need assistance down the stairs, but Bastien appreciated it all the same. 

Whatever Christophe had made smelled wonderful. 

As they descended, Bastien noticed the fireplace had been lit, the main lights dimmed, and a small table had been set up in front of the tree. Struck by all implications and sentiments, Bastien let Christophe lead him to the table and down into one of the chairs. He barely registered Christophe saying he’d be right back with their Christmas dinner.

When Christophe returned, a plate of fondue chinoise, mixed greens, and a single zimtsterne was placed in front of him. The star design on the fondue was charmingly homemade. And if it weren’t for how much he loved the cookies, he would have chided Christophe for putting dessert on the dinner plate. Judging by the shape and thickness of the frosting, Bastien knew they had to be Nina’s doing. 

Christophe returned with his own plate and two glasses of wine. “I asked Mother what they were having tonight and gave it a go. She offered to bring it over to us, but I convinced her a plate of her zimtsterne would be perfect.”

Being ill would dull his taste buds naturally, but the atmosphere, the thoughts and care put into it, it would be the most wonderful meal he’d ever had. 

He’d worried about nothing. Christophe took care of everything.

Christophe really was Samichlaus in his own way. 

Tears burned in his eyes. “All of it is. It always is. How could I expect anything different?”

[artificialintolerance]

[ LOG #1 ]

january 23rd.

i needed somewhere to compile my thoughts, seeing as i’m currently on ‘slenderman sabbatical’ according to nik and tim. i’m not allowed to post videos, or research slenderman, but they never said i couldn’t make a blog and research things adjacent to slender. ( that’s my justification anyways. )

they’ve both been keeping a close eye on me, especially when i first woke up. they tell me it’s because they don’t want me to go hurting myself or someone else again anytime soon. i think they’re paranoid, but maybe throwing that word around so loosely makes me a hypocrite.

i left the house for the first time in a week just last night. my brothers were eager for me to go. probably because i’d spent the last five days arguing with them nonstop, right for, the moment i woke up. maybe they needed the break.

i guess it also helped that they knew i wouldn’t be alone. kit, freyja and larry were all present, all night. first dinner, then bowling, then the arcade.

not once when we were out did i think about it. any of it. besides readjusting my sleeve a few times to ensure the bandages weren’t seen, i had a stress and worry free night. i ate good food, had fun and made plans for future getaways.

i didn’t think of slenderman. or the mask. or the fact that it’s missing. or the symbol. or ezra and what i did to her.

….

maybe i’m a little less carefree now.

i thought that without the mask, things would hit the fan and fast.

when i went to sleep on january 15th, i expected not to wake up again. and when i did wake up, the night of january 17th, in a dark room, i momentarily worried i’d stepped into some awful ‘afterlife’, if you can even call it that. i thought maybe all of those “i was legally dead, nothing follows!” stories were true. but soon the sound of the fan blaring in my face bought me back to my senses. i stood on legs that hadn’t walked in 48 hours and found my way to the door.

nik was ordering dinner when we came face to face. they didn’t seem to relieved to see me up and at ‘em, but i guess i had just put them through a really stressful couple of days.

tim came out of his room shortly afterwards. we ate, we talked. they set out the rules. they wanted me to take a break for at least a month from all of the research i was doing, the videos, all of the reaching out to others, said if i didn’t notice any changes in my mental state, i could get right back into things. i tried telling them that was too long, but they wouldn’t hear it.

“or what?” was a question i shouldn’t have asked. the ‘or what’ is that if they see any activity besides their own on my twitter or youtube accounts, they’d report me.

“to who?” is the question i didn’t ask. psych ward, prison, i didn’t wanna know. we left the conversation at that.

a friend of mine reached out over discord this morning, told me they may have found the company that produced the mask. we’re talking more about it some time over the next few days, and i’ll post whatever updates i find here.

god knows i have nothing better to do.

[julianxhawthorne]

Who: Julian and Beyza

Where: Julian's Yacht

When: Julian's Birthday Party

Summary: Beyza turns up to the birthday party late and Julian shares that he is trying things again with her sister, Melisa. Beyza did not take to the news very well.

Tagged: @beyzaxsenkan

Note: This was written on Discord

Julian made his way through the crowd again, running a hand through messy hair, acting as normal as he could after his private interaction with Melisa. He found himself keeping an eye on the Senkan, stealing glances and knowing smiles of what had transpired between them. It certainly was a happy birthday. Even more so when he spotted Beyza in the crowd, whom he hadn’t seen as of yet. “Hey you! I began to think you wouldn’t come anymore.” He smirked at her, pushing his way in between two people holding a conversation so he could reach her, steering towards a more quiet spot. “Did you try the bar yet? This bartender is insane.”

Beyza had gotten to the party a little later than she had planned. Dev was refusing to go to sleep for her dad and wanted to go with her, but she kept telling him it was a grown up party. Finally, her son was too exhausted to stay up and she was able to make it to the party. She spent a little looking for Julian, but ended up getting a drink and talking to a few people before she heard Julian's voice. She smiled as he approached and then stated to lead them to a quieter spot. "Yeah, I have a drink. I just got here, though. Dev wouldn't sleep." She explained. "Happy Birthday, by the way." She smirked at him. "Seems you pulled in everyone, huh?"

“Aw no, little bud. I would have cleared the dance floor for him.” He wasn’t serious of course, he knew that a yacht filled with drinking and swoozing people weren’t the place to be for a kid. He would make it up to him, he had promised him a day outing a while back, which he still had to do. “People love me, Bey. I keep telling you, yet you’re always surprised.” He grinned, wrapping his arm around her shoulders so they were both facing the crowd. Though people were more interested in free drinks and food, of which there was plenty. “It’s a great party. I feel like im twenty again.”

She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you would've. Don't tell him that or he'll be more upset he couldn't come." She said and sipped her drink. She looked out amongst the crowd and nodded. "Mmmhmm. Not sure if it's you or if people wanna think they're young again." She said with a shrug. "Right instead of, what? Forty now?" She teased him and reached up to touch some of his hair. "Is that a gray?"

“Oh no I’ll tell him it was horrible. The people sucked, they didn’t have Coca Cola and the music was 80s style. Horrible. Just horrible.” He slurred, squeezing her shoulder, catching a familiar figure in the crowd as she passed through the people. “Hm, what? Me? Beg pardon.” He scoffed, dodging her hand when she reached to touch his hair “it is not I don’t do aging. That’s a you thing.”

"Thank you." She smiled at the man before nodding and looking up at him, completely missing her sister in the crowd of people. "Yes, you." Beyza laughed. "I'm still young. You, however, are about to join us parents. Those grays will start coming and your back will start hurting." She smiled at him. "You'll be ditching this thing for a house and we'll be coming over for family barbecues."

“Never, I will die young when I’m seventy!” He called out, which earned him some cheers from those around them, even if they had no idea what he was rambling. Julian however chuckled, picking up a champagne flute that was passed around, taking a sip from it. “I do like barbecues. And I am building a house, so.” He spoke, his tone a little lower. “Mel is here. Gave a gift from baba.”

"I'll make sure to mock you for that when you're ninety in a nurshing home." She smirked and looked over at the crowd as they cheered back at him. "God, you're like a frat boy." She shook her head and looked back at him. "See. Already stepping into dad life." She took another drink before she almost spit it out and her face fell. "What? Why is Melisa here?" She asked and looked amongst the crowd. "I was just there. He could've given it to me to give to you. I'll tell her to go. She shouldn't be here."

“If I make it to ninety just kill me.” He snickered, feeling the buzz when the crowd cheered. It was as she said, like back in his college days. People liked him by then too and he was quite easily one of the popular students around. His only regret now was that he didn’t use it more responsibly. At least he got his business degree. “According to ma, I need to start really soon on that.” He huffed, but looked at Beyza when she overreacted about Melissa, for which he simply hushed her. “It’s fine, I invited her.” He slurred his words, lifting the flute to take a sip but found he’d already emptied it. “We’ve been talking.” And then some. “She’s trying, Bey.”

"No. I want to fully document you as an old man." She grinned at him before nodding. "I dislike that woman, but she has a small point. Don't tell her I said that though." Beyza smirked at him for a moment and her eyes furrowed while Julian hushed her. "What? Why would you do that?" She asked, but she knew why. He was falling for the poor-me act Melisa was doing. "You shouldn't be talking to her. You need to distance yourself from her. She's going to break your heart again and you're just falling for it." She said and rolled her eyes. "She is not trying. She's feeling guilty and once she feels she's made her pathetic amends, she'll bail again. Or the second things get too hard. Whichever comes first."

“You’re cruel. Why do I keep you?” His mother had that effect on people. Sometimes he questioned if even he liked her or not. But despite her meddling and controlling his life, she was his mother and he loved her. Even if she did tire him out. It was probably a good thing he had been drinking to the max. One glass less and he would’ve rolled his eyes at her objections. Now he just looked at her, knowing that she meant well and wanted to protect him, even if it was frustrating. “Then it’ll be on me, if that happens. You can tell me that you told me so.” He shrugged, looking down at his feet. He cared about what Beyza thought, and the last thing he wanted was to lose her. But was it so bad he wanted what was best for him? “I need to know, Bey. I need to know if what she says is truth right now.” He looked up at her once more. “You know I never loved anyone like I did her, I have to try again. And if it doesn’t work out I’ll concede to you and ma and marry whatever girl she picked out for me.” He let out a sigh, nudging her with his arm. “Do I have you in my corner?”

"Because if you didn't, I'd spill all your secrets." She smirked at him. She downed the rest of her drink andsighed. If they were going to be talking about her sister, she was going to need a lot more drinks than just this one, but she didn't feel like making her way to the bar and possibly seeing the woman. "You know I will to." She crossed her arms and stared at Julian. She hated seeing him like this and was so scared he was going to get hurt again. She let out a sigh and stomped her foot before pursing her lips for a moment. "Don't concede to your mom. You should marry for love, but… why her? I was here when she left. We were both a mess and trying to repair our hearts." She had broken things off with Henry then too. He got a new job and wanted her to go with him, but she couldn't. Not with her family like it was. She had to step up and being the oldest with Melisa gone. She had to stay and put the pieces of everyone's lives back together. "What if Henry was back? Would you support me being trying again with him? After you saw how hard it was?" She touched his arm. "I'm finally wanting to open my heart again and you… you're about to be a dad. You can't be like you were when she left again. Not with a baby. I just don't see why you don't try with Verity or anyone else. But not her."

“Why anyone else if I can have her?” He knew it made no sense. Not after the heartbreak and the promises they made to each other that they would never go back, but no one challenged him like Melisa did, no one held his attention like she did, and no one else made his heart skip a beat whenever they touched him. Basically, no one else could handle him, understand him, like Melisa did. And he had to believe she was genuine about wanting to try again. “If you loved him, I would. And I would also be there to pick up the pieces if it didn’t work out.” He agreed the timing wasn’t right, not with the baby. But if he could see past her leaving for six years, she would have to see past this. “Because Verity and I don’t love each other. Not like that anyway. And I made a promise to my parents, she’s already got candidates lined up.” He stopped a waitress as she passed by, placing his glass on the tray and grabbing two champagne flutes, one which he handed to Beyza, finishing his in one single swig. How medieval it felt, arranged marriages. “I’m not telling them about the baby, either. Time is ticking for me already and this will only set ma off.”

"You just haven't met that person yet." She said and looked out into the water. The urge to jump in and swim away was a powerful one. Beyza looked back at him as he continued and huffed. "You know how I feel about Henry." It was different, though. They had a mutual break up while Melisa just left Julian. There was nothing mutual about it. Her going back to Henry wouldn't be like Julian going to Melisa and she figured maybe, just maybe that would mean he wouldn't. And yet, here they were anyways. "You don't know each other like that, though. There hasn't been time and now Melisa is here ruining everything." She sighed and took the drink, downing it as well before looking at him. "What are you going to do when the baby is here, Julian? Have you even told Melisa?"

“Bey..” he sighed, a thought repeating like a mantra that she meant well, she meant well, she meant well. He nodded at her words, knowing all too well what had transpired, and though Julian had six years to get over Melisa, be angry and move on, his heart had different plans. “We’re friends, and we both have a high drive and we figured, why not? We have no interest getting to know each other like that.” He forced a smile when someone waved at him, gesturing back at them before he turned his head to Beyza with a frown. “What do you mean what am I going to do? It’s not a one or the other type of situation, Beyza.” God he needed a strong drink. “I’ve only told you and Sydney and I’d like to keep it that way until we had the appointment.”

"Then there's someone else. There's millions of people on this earth. So many that wouldn't hurt you like that." She got quiet when he saw someone grab his attention and she looked back out at the water; tensing her jaw for a moment. "I mean, what are you going to do when it is here with your parents. You can't hide a baby." She looked back at him. "Not to your parents and not to Melisa." She rolled her eyes. "Then what? What's the plan after that?"

“People are boring.” He sighed, turning his back to the crowd and instead leaning against the railing of the ship. She was like that Angel on his shoulder, and he was leaning towards the devil more, which only made it hard on him. “I’m not going to hide a baby, just until it’s all out of the woods and Verity is okay with people knowing. You know how my parents are, they’d smother the girl.. after they’re done judging her.” He shrugged, not knowing why this was an issue. “The plan is that I’m going to be a dad. My parents will be grandparents, and Mel can either stay or run away. Whether I have a newborn or a three year old, would it have made any difference? She either accepts it or she doesn’t and I’ll have my answer. I just… we’re taking it slow, and that doesn’t involve me dumping everything on her there is to know.”

She looked behind her at the crowd. "Really? All these people and the mutliple women you've been win in your life are boring?" She said to him and shook her head. She understood where they were coming from not telling people yet. It was so fickle the first few weeks. She was scared out of her mind to tell people with Dev. The thought of how much she wanted Melisa then crossed her mind and she pushed it away. She wasn't about to open all the emotions she had towards her sister right now. "Not like they have room to judge after the whole Stevie situation." She mumbled and looked back at the water. "And if she leaves again? You can't just go into that place you were back then when you have a baby. Taking it slow or not, you should wait to even give her a chance. See if she leaves." She took a deep breath. "You're not going to listen, are you?"

“People don’t challenge me. They comply and they please. The team challenges me to be better than I am right now, you challenge me, so did Mel. Everyone else just…“ he let out a deep breath, looking down at the ripples in the water. A somewhat sinister laugh escaped him when she mentioned Stevie, giving her a look. “They’ll make room. Anything to turn attention away from their own mistake and stupidity. If that meant exploding the news of a Heywood baby, they would. Shamelessly. Appearance was everything, and they’d take every sliver of good news to cover bad press. And he didn’t want to subject Verity to the madness until she was ready. If people saw her with a bump, no one would direct it at him, especially his mother. That was the thing about friend with benefits. Anonymity. “I won’t. It’ll suck but I won’t. I’m cautiously feeling the water.” It wouldn’t be the same. As opposed to a long relationship suddenly ending without fair warning, compared to them trying again and it falling through. At least he would have his answer. “Do I ever?” He hummed, looking at her and daring a smile. “I love her, Bey. And if it works.. If I can finally be happy… is that a bad thing?”

"Not everything has to challenge you." But she knew the feeling of it all and there was a thrill to being challenged. And she knew more than well that Julian liked that. "Figures. Use a grandchild to boost the image for them. I can see your mom framing pictures now." She rolled her eyes. "You are not. You're diving in. I'm staying as far as possible because she is Jaws and I don't like sequels." She looked at him. "How can you forgive her?" She looked away again. "She abandoned us and left us to pick up everything. You, Stevie, Baba… it's like you don't care and…" She felt the tears threatening her eyes and she stopped herself. "Never mind. You don't care."

“I’m sure she has a whole box of frames she selected for specific photos. I don’t know how else she’s getting them so fast.” He loved his mom, but her need to put duty and appearances first was infuriating. “But I’m not. I — I’m being careful. I have a career now to focus on, a child on the way. I can’t afford diving in head first.” He told her, watching her as she avoided his gaze. “I haven’t forgiven her completely, Beyza.” Julian quietly spoke, as much as he could with the music in the background. “I’m giving her leeway because she did lose her twin, and she almost lost her life herself. I don’t know what that does to someone mentally, do you?” He reached out, nudging her hand with his little finger. “I do care. But I have to see this through. Give it an ending if that is what it takes.”

"I have a few thoughts." She said before shaking her head. "Then you should be as back as I am. Testing anything is too much." She clenched her jaw while she continued to not look at him The tears were coming faster and faster and since her sister was back, it was harder for her to keep it all in. Melisa opened wounds Beyza thought she was healed from, but apparently that was wrong. She moved her hand quickly as he nudged it and she stepped back. "She's not the only one who lost people that day. Why does she get a pass and I'm just being unreasonable?" She snapped at him and stared at him for a moment before looking away and wiping her cheeks. "Fuck this. I'm going home. You can enjoy your birthday and your water testing." She turned to him. "She is not allowed to be around my son. Do you understand? If you have Devrim, she is not there or you won't be seeing him either."

Julian tried to hide the disappointment when she moved away from him, hating that this was growing into a situation where he had to choose between the two. He hoped she wouldn’t put him in that position, but he’d understand if she would. “You’re not being unreasonable, stop twisting my words, Bey.” He stood up straight, hating that he brought it up in the first place. But it never felt right keeping something from her, and he wouldn’t start now. “Don’t go, please. I’m sorry, okay?” Julian tried, a disappointed look spreading across his face at her words. “You know I won’t do that, come on, Beyza. Why even bring that up.” He loved that kid, and whenever he had him over it was just the two of them going out to do something fun. He wouldn’t involve people without asking, never did before. “Stay.”

"But you're not listening. No one is. You all are happy to see her and you don't care what she did." Dhe gripped the railing and shook her head. "It's what you think. That I should give her a chance and because I'm not, I'm unreasonable, right?" She stopped as he apologized and looked at him. "No. I can't be here. Not if she's here and not with you supporting it." She said and looked at him. She knew he wouldn't let Melisa be near Dev, but she needed to say it. She was just so angry. "Because it needed to be said." She took a deep breath. "Is she staying? Would you kick her out?"

“I care. Have you considered that maybe I’m just tired?” He sighed, lowering his head, which he shook at her next words. “I’m not telling you what to do, nor do I think it. I’m just being transparent with you because I value you more than anything, Bey. If anyone is accusing someone of being unreasonable it’s you, not me.” Julian remained silent, feeling the bass from the DJ blasting party music pulsing through his legs. His good mood had definitely left by now, which wasn’t her fault, it was his. He should’ve thought this through. “I don’t—“a breath. “ I don’t even know if she’s still here.”

"You're not the only one." She was tired of holding everything together. She was tried of feeling like she failed as what was once the oldest position and tired of also being it. She was tired of trying to help everyone and the two people who she needed support from the most were letting her down. His words hit her hard and she felt the wall that was building quickly around her and she felt cold. Alone. She just wanted this to stop. "I'm only trying to protect you." She said lowly, not sure if he could even hear her over the music and the crowd. She stared at the water more and wanted nothing more than to feel the safety that came with being in it. "I just want you to understand. I'm sorry." She could feel the wall finish building around her and she felt more alone on the boat than anyone could ever know. "Go find her. I think I'm gonna go for a swim."

“I know you are. And I love you for it. I wish things could be simpler.” He knew what a fractured family was like. Even if he had his siblings and his parents and he was on speaking terms with them all, it wasn’t what he rather had. He would’ve loved to receive an attaboy from his father. A smothering hug from his mother, for Sydney to be able to properly mourn the loss of her husband. It was hard for him to let people in, but the Senkan family had replaced what he was lacking, which was why this hurt all the more. “I do. I do I just.. I don’t know why I..” he stopped, running his hand over his neck instead. He didn’t really feel like partying anymore. “The water is colder than it looks, don’t.” He warned her, stepping away from the railing. “I’ll be below if you .. you know.” Wanted to talk.

She just listened to him and kept looking out on the water. She didn't want to keep arguing. She just wanted to not feel like this anymore. By his change of time and demeanor beside her, she knew she ruined his party for him. She never meant for that. the weight of everything was on her and she hated the feeling of it. "You forget I'm used to cold water." From her job, she could withstand the temperature of the water. Her body was used to it all by now on some level, but she knew the lake would be cold regardless. She let him walk away for a moment before sighing and slipping write behind him as he went below deck. "I didn't mean to ruin your night. I'm sorry. I should've stayed with Dev and let you have your fun."

Julian thought it was lots different from the water at the aquarium. But fair, it had slipped his mind. He hoped Dana had kept in mind to hire lifeguards as well in case drunk people decided to take a dip in the backyard pool. The evening had certainly turned sour, but she was the last person he blamed for that. He could always blame it on the amount he had had to drink that finally settled. He turned to look over his shoulder when she spoke, shaking his head in disagreement. "You didn't, okay? I should learn to keep my mouth shut every once in a while.. Which you know is difficult." He shrugged, taking one more step down. "If you're not staying, at least give Devrim a hug from me, okay? Tell him the party sucked without him."

She sighed and moved passed him down below so they could talk. She couldn't leave things like this with him. She could never. Julian meant too much to her and the never ended in this. Honestly, they never got like this about anything and to her, it was more proof Melisa was ruining things by being back. "Come on." She said and looked at him from down there and waited for him to join her. "We would've done this no matter what, you know? We have different sides to this and and we just want the other to understand." She sat down. "I do get your side. If Henry showed up even tomorrow, I don't know what I'd do. But I also think I'm finally moving on. I think I'm falling in love again." She looked down at her hands. "I just feel alone in my stance. I know Hazal feels the same, but it's different with you and Baba. And I feel like it's up to me to either welcome her back or not and either way I'm letting people down and I can't shove my feelings aside. I don't want her here, Julian. I wish she stayed gone."

Julian sighed, walking down the final steps. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her anymore, it was that he didn't want to talk at all. Growing up in a system where swallowing down your emotions was expected, he wasn't particularly good at it hashing out your feelings. He hated the divide, that no matter what he did, he would end up hurting someone, which only made this harder. At least the below decks were off limit to anyone, except him of course. At least Dana hired security to make sure no one would come stumbling down. "That's good though, you deserve that." But he hadn't found anyone he could fall in love with. He'd been with plenty of women in the last six to seven years that he could safely say no one was able to tug on his heart strings, and it wasn't for the lack of trying. "No one is saying you have to do anything, Beyza." He replied, nodding when she mentioned she had wished she'd stayed gone. He felt his body sway, and not due to the yacht staying afloat atop the water. Silently, he moved over, sitting down next to her on the small sofa, running his hand over her upper back before resting it on his lap, staring down at how he began to dig his nails under the ones of the opposite hand, as if he was interested by some dirt underneath it. "It would have made things easier." he agreed, jaw twitching. "You know that I wouldn't do this if I had to, right?" He carefully asked, words slightly slurring. "If I needed to? Just to know for sure."

"You deserve it too." She told him. They both had gone just as long without finding someone and she wished he had more time. The thought of her sister hurting him again made her want to make sure he didn't see her at all and protect him. She just wished he'd help a little there. "But it feels like it." She looked up at him. "No one is forcing me but what happens in a year when she's still here and you're closer and Baba wants her around more and I can't do it? I lose you both? Or I try and Hazal can't and I lose her? Or Dana?" She looked down and felt him sit by her. She was slightly comforted when he rubbed her back but he stopped and they both were sitting there not wanting to go into the details of how they felt. Beyza preferred to keep it inside. There was so much she felt that she never told Julian. So much she never told anyone. She wouldn't tell anyone. She had to be the strong one, after all. The one that patched everyone up, but was staring to feel unappreciated for it all. That it was for nothing. "I can't support it, Julian. I just see her getting off too easy and it's not fair. If Baba hadn't forgiven her, if you weren't doing this… maybe she'd leave and we could continue our lives like they were."

Julian remained silent while Beyza spoke, ashamed because he knew that what she said was the truth. He knew that right now he had no filter and that he probably wasn't making the best choices in his current merry state, but if it felt good, wasn't it the right choice? And yet, he understood all too well what Beyza was talking about. It was the position he was in right now too, either he'd lose Melisa, or he'd lose Beyza. "You know that mom and Simon never approved of her? he eventually spoke, picking on the skin at the corner of his thumb. "They were very transparent about it, yet I never had to choose. I'm saying that you won't have to either. There's no Jules without Beys, you know?" He looked up at her again, clenching his jaw and furrowing his brows as he felt the odd feeling of heaviness and swelling behind his eyes, one he was trying to prevent from escalating. "And what if I promise it will be the last chance? One chance to prove she has to put the work in." He breathed in, releasing it as quiet as he could. "I don't need you to support it, I only need you and me to stay as we are. You know you're important to me, right?"

She looked over at him and then down at his hands. She put her own over his and gripped them. "I remember, but it's different." She said and rubbed his hands. "You say that now, but in ten years when I can't be near her and you guys have a family, what then?" She bit her lip so it wouldn't quiver with the building emotion. "I still don't like it. She should've listened to me when I told her to leave you alone." She looked away from him. "You're important to me too. I've lost so much, but I gained you and I do love you." She said and hung her head.

"Do you really believe that you'll want nothing to do with her in ten years?" he asked quietly, flexing his fingers so that he could capture hers between his. Her confessing she told Melisa to leave him alone left him silent. Did it mean Melisa was actually serious about mending things if she ignored her sister's warning? "Oh." Was all he could bring out, refraining himself from focusing on the fact she tried to influence his life, like his parents would do, bringing up the mantra once more that she only meant well for him, unlike his parents who would do it for the family. "I'm not going anywhere Beyza." He eventually spoke, letting go of her hands and instead wrapping an arm around her to pull her against his side, resting his cheek atop her head. "Even if you piss me off, I'll show up for whatever, you know that."

She shrugged. "I don't know. What if I do?" She knew it was all up in the air and they didn't know what was going to happen, but she couldn't say for sure. She just wanted some security that her and Julian would always be there. She squeezed his hands and sighed. She leaned against him as he pulled her to his side and wrapped an arm around him as well. "I'd do the same for you too. You know that." She and and closed her eyes. "I love you, Jules."

"Then we'll make it work. It takes the world to end to get me to stop seeing you. You know that." And it would be terrible, surely, having to spend time with her behind Melisa's back, but he wasn't going to drop Beyza for Melisa. But he also wouldn't drop Melisa for Beyza, not unless Melisa gave him no choice. He had been very clear about that. "I know, if anyone I can count on you." which wasn't in question. "I love you too." He sighed, slightly swaying. "But don't let ma hear that, or we'll be the ones getting married here."

"I hope that's true." She said and sighed as she leaned into him. She would never ask him to chose between her and her sister. All she could do was wish that Julian saw what she did and didn't get hurt in the process. "I know I can count on you too." She said and laughed a little. "Please. As much as I like being around you, I don't think I could be married to you." She sat up a little and looked at him. "I'm sorry I brought your mood down. You should be having fun up there."

"It's a promise." And he meant it. It just didn't take away from the fact that he had to try, see if it would work out, grant himself happiness. He hoped one day Beyza would see it like that too. "Yeah, you're too high maintenance. It would never work out." He joked, turning his head to face her. "Nah, I like talking to you more. But I am for getting a drink, though."

She really wanted to believe his promise, but she was so scared that things would end up ruined anyways. She hoped they wouldn't be, but she was scared of how things would be if she could never forgive her sister. She scrunched her face up and nudged him. "Me? You're the one panicking over grays here." She teased back. "That was talking, huh?" She smiled and nodded. "I'll let you get back to it all. I may stick around for a bit, but I should go."

"I never panic. I'm as cool as a cucumber." Julian joked, yet instinctively ran his hand through his hair nevertheless. He wasn't actually showing grey hair, was he? "One drink?" He asked, taking her by the hand and getting up on his feet. "I expect one birthday shot with you, or you're not allowed to go. "Maybe he would party some more afterwards, still plenty of people to see. But he wanted to have a good ending with her too. "Cmon, let's go upstairs."

"Sure you are." Beyza rolled her eyes, happy to be back to this joking friendship her and Julian usually had. "Fine. I'll do a shot." She smiled and stood up as she took her hand. "How can I leave your party without doing one?"