#i got snapped at by a record store owner for asking after a queen record a few years ago :|

[glynjohnsfurcoat]

borap ruined so much……… it used to not even be embarrassing to stan queen but it all went downhill once that guy sang bohemian rhapsody in the back of that cop car

[mattness]

somebody to love [au]

Genres: Romantic, AU, Fluff, Songfic Note: Sorry for stupid little mistakes, it's my clumsy translation:)

1986

At another noisy party Jacob Frye was actively leaning on beer and looking for some girl to whom he'd buzz all ears about the recently released album of Queen. He had already drunk a decent amount of beer, and now he was looking for a "victim". But the third girl turned up her nose, not wanting to listen, how brilliant the Queen's songs are. It's strange that he didn't manage to talk to anyone with the same success as when he was sober. He looked very well: perfectly styled and combed hair, leather jacket, black t-shirt and jeans. Frye was sure that he wouldn't leave here alone today, but hope of a hot continuation of the night for the third time slipped away.

Jacob walked down the corridor with a sigh, where only couples in love hung around. He looked into the living room, hoping to find one of his friends, Ezio or Edward, but they're not there. Suddenly, the gaze of green eyes stopped on girl sitting alone on sofa in front of TV. She looked quite nice, concluded the drunker mind of Jacob, who had already gone with the fourth attempt to prove the genius of Queen.

"Do you know, why the song "Somebody To Love" from new Queen's album is the best?" Frye asked, sitting impressively on the sofa next to the girl, placing his hand behind her.

She looked up from the contemplation of the glass with a drink in her hands, looking with a grin at Jacob, who was ready to smile triumphantly. Well, at least someone paid attention!

"Why?"

"Because it's my favorite song".

"You should have thought of something better for flirting", she snickered, and Jacob raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Is it really that bad?"

"Terrible."

"Then, why you haven't left yet?" he snorted resentfully, not taking his eyes off the girl, who didn't stop smiling.

"I was waiting for a music lover like me to come up to talk", she shrugged, and Jacob smiled broadly, immediately suggesting that they go somewhere, where is quieter. She didn't refuse.

They left the house and went outside, where walked slowly towards the campus park. It was a warm summer night. Jacob didn't stop talking all the way, speaking with pleasure about his favorite band, and girl walked next to him, listening attentively, without interrupting. Soon they sat down on a bench, and Frye suddenly came to his senses.

"I'm sorry. Where is my politeness?" he reproached himself, smiling charmingly. "I'm Jacob. What's your name?"

"Gwen", she smiled, and drunk Frye caught himself thinking, that he'd never seen such a beatiful smile before. Perhaps, his hormones and a strong desire to have sex with someone today spoke in him, but girl was really beautiful.

"And... what do you listen?"

"I also like Queen, but I prefer Elton John", Gwen confessed.

"Elton John is a pop singer", Jacob sneered, but it didn't hurt her at all.

"He's a great pop singer. In general, I listen a lot of things."

"Can I rate your vinyl collection?" he arched his eyebrows playfully, directly hinting at his desires at the moment, which made Gwendolyn laugh heartily. "What? Is that even worse than the first one?"

Gwen gave him a curt nod and a friendly pat on his shoulder.

"Unfortunately, you won't have sex tonight, Jacob."

The girl got up from bench and slowly headed towards to the women's dormitory. Jacob, outraged by this turn of events, jumped up from seat and caught up with her. Now he was walking in front of Gwen.

"Tell me, would you sleep with me?"

"Only to Elton John's songs", she joked, and Jacob rolled his eyes.

"Would you? Seriously."

"Good night, Jacob", Gwendolyn said. Frye saw off his last hope for sex tonight and decided to return to the dormitory with a disappointed sigh. The evening was definitely not a good one from the beginning.

In upset feelings, Frye went into the room, to which his neighbor hadn't even returned yet. This only made him more upset than before. He flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling in silence until he fell into a deep sleep.

The next day, from the morning, Jacob went extremely dissatisfied, and this didn't go unnoticed by his friends. At lunchtime, as usual, they gathered at the same table in the large students dining room, chatting about the latest events and about something else quite insignificant. Jacob didn't really listen, taking to part in the conversation, although he usually always teased them.

"You're so quiet today, Frye", Edward remarked with his mouth full.

"All girls refused him yesterday", Ezio grinned maliciously cathcing his friend's displeased look. "Really, there wasn't a single girl, who would like to listen to your rave reviews about the latest Queen's album?"

"Go to Hell, Ezio", Jacob snapped.

"You should have heard his flirting on a drunken stupor... If I were a not very smart girl, I wouldn't have fuck with him either", Arno laughed, and a loud, friendly guffaw rolled around their table, but Jacob didn't care. Suddenly, he noticed among the crowd of students a girl, who confessed her love for works of Elton John yesterday. Due to the fact that Frye had drunk too much, he didn't really see her, but he remembered, that she was short with dark brown hair. Now, seeing her with friends, Jacob noticed, that she's really attractive. Especially in this light cotton dress with striped tights.

"Hey, what are you staring at?" Edward waved his hand in front of Frye's face, but Jacob didn't react in any way. His friends followed his gaze.

"Oh, what a cute little one", Auditore smiled. "Will you come to her, Jacob?"

Waking up from a slight obsession, Jacob didn't answer anything, jumped up from his seat and quickly closed the distance to table, where Gwendolyn was sitting. He took an empty chair, turned it back forward and sat down with them as if nothing had happened, which caused girls to stop chatting.

"Oh, Queen fan himself", Gwen grinned, her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail today.

Her friends looked at each other with same grin on their faces.

"I want to ask you have a dinner with me", Jacob smiled, ignoring the others. Right now, he was completely engrossed in the big brown eyes. There was a gleam of interest in them. "Agree. You'll like it."

"Only if you turn on Abba's "Dancing Queen" on your player, heavy metal lover", Gwen said with a giggle, looking very pleased, when Jacob was confused, apparently not immediately understanding, what was it.

"But this is —" he tried to be indignant.

"So, this is also shitty music?" girl interrupted, making an impassive face and turning away from him. But Jacob wasn't going to give up just like that. And if he gave up so easily, he wouldn't be himself.

"Okay, okay! We'll listen to all your favorite music, if you agree to have a dinner with me!"

Gwendolyn turned her attention back to him and smiled warmly. Jacob smiled back.

"Fine. Friday evening?"

"No. Tonight."

"But I have —"

"You've already agreed", Frye interrupted with a wink. Girl exchanged glances with her friends, and they nodded approvingly to her. "I meet you after all classes, right? Just tell me number of the audience."

Gwen called the right class and time, and Jacob, smiling at all girls, hurried back to the table to his friends, who'd watched the whole scene from the beggining. Now his mood is just fine.

It was very hard to wait for the evening. It seemed that time was deliberately dragging on too long, delaying the moment of a date with a girl, who seemed to love music as much as he did. At least, she knew who Queen was, and Jacob was ready to marry her. Of course, this is a rather loud statement, but how nice it was for him. That's why he was waiting so long for half past six in the evening to be at the audience number "345".

The bell rang, and the students, one by one, began to leave the history lesson. Jacob looked for Gwendolyn, who had gone out in the company of her friends. Noticing Frye, she said goodbye to them and approached him with a smile.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To a small but very nice bar on the outskirts of Cambridge", he smiled, offering to take his arm. The girl didn't mind.

"Is it far away?"

"I have a car."

Jacob was the proud owner of a red Mustang, a model of the seventy-fourth year, which made him the envy of almost everyone on campus. And he often drove girls on it. Everyone was in love with this car, including him.

Frye gallantly opened the door for Gwen, and she climbed into the salon.

"Will I turn on Queen?" Jacob asked, already sitting behind the wheel.

"Oh, no", Gwen giggled. She took a cassette of Elton John's new album out of her backpack. "Please. Listen to at least a couple of songs, and then, if you don't like it at all, turn on your own."

"All right, a pop fan", Jacob said with a mockery in his voice, and she just laughed, so sincerely that something jumped in his heart. The cassette was in the tape recorder, and the salon was filled with pleasant notes from the song "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word". Jacob began to listen the words, and Gwen began to sing along softly. The song was touching, a little sad, but he really liked it. It even made him think about how lonely he really was, but all the longing was knocked down by the next "Between Seventeen and Twenty", which seems to be perfect for driving.

A completely different plan for the evening with Gwen was born in Jacob's head, very different from the original one. So they stopped at the nearest store, bought food and a couple of bottles of beer. The Mustang was parked on a high hill with an impressive view of the whole of Cambridge. Jacob liked to come here alone, enjoy music and think about everything in the world. It was a private place, but now he is ready to share it with Gwen.

"Do you like Elton?" the girl was curious when the tape ended, and Jacob turned off the engine.

"Exceeded all my expectations", he said honestly. With the next tape, he turned on Queen. While the first songs were playing, the couple talked about everything, getting to know each other better. Jacob liked Gwendolyn more and more, and he saw in her something like a kindred spirit.

As soon as the food was eaten and the beer was drunk, Jacob got out of the car with Gwen. In the cold of the evening, he offered to dance. Exactly at this moment, his favorite "Somebody To Love" started playing. Jacob began to dance and sing along, not taking his eyes off the girl, who couldn't help but smile. Their hands were constantly intertwined. He pulled her to waist, already singing along to Freddie in a half-whisper.

Frye's voice caressed her ears, and Gwen felt a magical warmth spread in her chest. It was something incredible. She had never experienced anything like this with any guy before. Jacob was special. And suddenly she understood, why he liked this particular song so much.

"Why did you stop smiling? What is it?" he asked, stopping when he noticed her sad look.

"I feel like I'm in this song, too", Gwen said seriously, looking into his green eyes. "It seems that it doesn't sound sad, but... its meaning is very close to me. I understand why you like it so much, Jacob."

Frye raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn't interrupt her.

"You're the same. Behind the external fun and recklessness, you hide your loneliness, you just want someone to love you as selflessly and endlessly as you are ready to love someone", Gwendolyn smiled sadly, gently stroking his shoulders, realizing from his discouraged face, that she'd hit the nail on the head. Jacob remained in a sincere stupor for several minutes, gradually agreeing with every word she said.

"I'm sorry if I —" Gwen hurried to add, because the silence dragged on, but she didn't have time to finish. Jacob leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips.

The girl answered with pleasure, smiling through the kiss.

"Can I call you Gwenny?" Jacob asked when the air in his lungs ran out. Gwen nodded, receiving another kiss. "Please be my... my girlfriend, Gwenny."

"If you turn on Abba's Mama Mia", Gwen joked, and Frye laughed.

"I'm ready to turn on anything, as long as you're be mine."

They laughed together and danced to their favorite songs for the rest of the night. As soon as the notes of "Mamma Mia" rang out, Gwen began to sing along, without taking her eyes off Jacob, who was looking at her with the most satisfied look, falling more and more in love with every second. He felt, that he would never be as happy with anyone as with this girl. On the last chorus, she came close, pressing her whole body against him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him a couple of times on the scar on his cheek, and whispered on his lips:

"My, my, I could never let you go."

Jacob smiled broadly, drowning in blissful oblivion and forgetting about everything around him. His whole world now consisted of cassettes with his favorite songs, a red mustang, a beautiful and happy Gwendolyn in his arms, and an evening that instantly stopped being cold. And only the happiest time was waiting for them ahead.

[ironwoman359]

“I can’t believe I finally got you, how incredible is that?” With human!Deceit and tiny!Virgil?

Warnings: Cages, treating a person as a pet, depression

Virgil was quiet as he was roughly transferred from the pen at the back of the pet store to a portable carrier. He didn’t bother shouting or trying to run, he’d tried all that before and it never worked. He stayed silent as he was run up at the register, kept his mouth closed as the woman behind the counter tried to convince his buyer to pick one of the other tinies from the front of the store.

“Really, are you sure about this one? We have this lovely, lively little fellow over here that I think would be just–”

“Thank you, ma’am, but that won’t be necessary,” the man interrupted with a silky smooth voice, holding up a gloved hand to quiet her protests. “I’m sure this one will do just nicely.”

The woman shrugged, before dutifully informing him of their thirty day return policy and handing over his receipt.

Thirty days.

Had Virgil ever even lasted a whole month with a human? No, he was pretty sure his record with a human was about three weeks before he’d been sent back. It was always the same complaint; he was too boring, too lifeless, to depressing. Nobody wanted a pet that would curl up and lie still in the corner of a cage, refusing to engage with its owner.

Whatever.

It didn’t matter to Virgil one way or another. Whether he wasted away in the back of a pet store or wasted away in the corner of some human’s living room, either way he was going to die alone in a cage.

A car door slammed, and Virgil jumped, realizing that his carrier had been set down on the passenger seat of the human’s car. The man fastened a strap over the carrier, buckling it in place before settling into his own seat and starting the car.

Virgil sighed, and leaned back, closing his eyes. Maybe he could catch a quick nap before he had to endure this new human going through the typical poking and prodding stage that every human apparently had to get out of their system when they first bought a tiny.

“Phew!” the man said suddenly, and Virgil winced at the loudness of his voice. Or maybe, sleep had been too much to hope for. “She totally wanted me to take you home, didn’t she?”

Virgil opened his eyes and peered up at the human who had bought him. The man’s eyes were on the road, but when the car came to a stop at a red light, he glanced down at Virgil and smirked. Virgil realized with a start that the man’s eyes were mismatched, one brown, one blue, and he found himself staring despite himself.

The man raised an eyebrow when he saw where Virgil’s attention was, and Virgil quickly looked away, not wanting to anger him.

“It’s called heterochromia.”

“Huh?” Virgil glanced back up, but the human’s eyes were on the road again as he continued.

“When your eyes are two different colors, like mine.”

“Oh.”

“But yeah, sorry about that lady, she sounds like she was a real treat to have as a caretaker.”

The man shook his head, annoyance clear in his voice, and Virgil frowned. Why did this human care so much about how nice the pet store employees were?

“Between that absolute peach of a worker and the fact that it’s way more difficult than you’d think to track down one specific borrower, I can’t believe I finally got you. How incredible is that?”

Virgil snapped his head up, his eyes wide.

“Did…did you say…borrower?” he asked. Distantly, he was aware that that was the longest sentence he’d said to a human since he first had been caught, but he was too distracted by the fact that this human had just called him a borrower. How long had it been since he’d been called what he actually was? It must have been…

“I’m sure you haven’t heard yourself be called that since you were initially captured,” the human continued. “But rest assured, Virgil, where we’re going, you won’t have to worry about being called a ‘tiny’ anymore.”

Virgil hadn’t thought it was possible for him to be anymore surprised after hearing a human call him a borrower, but the instant that his name crossed the human’s lips, he was proven wrong. All the other humans had tried to give him a name, and not ONCE had he ever been asked what he’d like to be called. 

“How…how did you know my name?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, and the man smacked himself on the forehead. 

“Dammit, Dee, you’ve done it again,” he muttered, before glancing down at Virgil with a sheepish expression. “Well, I was planning to ease into this topic a little more delicately, but I didn’t pick you out of that pet store randomly, Virgil. I’ve been looking for you in particular, for some time now.” 

“I…why?” Virgil asked, bewildered, and the man, Dee, sighed again. 

“Well, if I gave you all the reasons, we’d be driving all night, but here’s the short version. My best friend, Thomas, he has a big house out in the country that his Aunt Patty left to him. He discovered a couple of wild-born tinies out there, or borrowers, as we found out you’re actually called. He became friends with them, and they opened his eyes to a lot of the injustice that goes on in the Tiny Industries. He decided he’d put all that space out there to good use, and he built a little sanctuary for borrowers. It’s been running for about three years now, and we have half a dozen or so borrowers living out there that were rescued from the pet trade.” 

 “Okay…” Virgil said slowly, trying to keep up with what Dee was saying. It made sense, he supposed, though he’d never imagined a human would decide to take a borrower’s side on anything, let alone build an entire habitat for them. “So…what does that have to do with me?” 

Dee smiled at him, and raised an eyebrow. 

“One of those borrowers is Patton.” 

Virgil sat up in an instant, leaning forward with wide eyes. 

“You’re serious?” he asked, and Dee chuckled. 

“See for yourself,” he said, putting the car into park. “We’re here.” 

He got out of his seat, then came around to pull Virgil’s carrier out. Through the wire bars, Virgil could see fields that stretched out into rolling hills in every direction, what looked like fruit trees in the distance, and the reflection of sunlight off a pond. 

All of that was just the background though, for the big, three story farmhouse that Dee had parked his car in front of. A human was standing on the front porch, and from what Virgil could see of his face, he was smiling. 

“Dee!” the man called, and his voice was bright and full of energy. “Did you find him?” 

“Yeah, Thomas,” Dee said with a grin, holding up Virgil’s carrier a little higher. “I found him”

Thomas clapped his hands, then did something that Virgil thought was strange: he held one hand over to his shoulder, palm facing upward. It didn’t make any sense at first…until they got a little closer and Virgil realized with a gasp that a borrower had been perched on Thomas’s shoulder and was now sitting cross-legged on the human’s open palm. 

Thomas let the borrower off to stand on the porch railing, and tears sprung to Virgil’s eyes as he recognized his older brother. He hadn’t seen Patton since the two of them had been captured nearly two years ago, and had long since given up hope of ever seeing his brother again.

Dee set the carrier on the porch railing and had barely flipped open the door before Patton was rushing forward, tears in his eyes and arms outstretched. Virgil took the last few steps to meet him, catching his brother in what had to be the best hug he’d ever had in his life. 

Patton was crying into his shoulder, gripping Virgil so tightly it almost hurt, but Virgil didn’t mind. His own hold on Patton was just as tight, the fear that this was all some impossible dream hovering at the back of his mind. 

If this was a dream, it was one Virgil never wanted to wake up from. 

Eventually, Patton pulled himself away, cupping Virgil’s face in his hands and scanning it, eyes wide and shiny with tears. 

“You’re here,” he finally whispered, his voice breathless with wonder. “You’re really here.” 

He pulled Virgil close again, and Virgil smiled as he buried his face in Patton’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, Pat,” he mumbled back. “I’m here.”

Thomas and Dee watched fondly as the two borrowers reunited, then Thomas turned to Dee. 

“You might want to visit the family room, Roman kept insisting I tell him when you got back.” 

Dee rolled his eyes before shaking his head. 

“He probably has a seventeenth draft of that script of his to show me. Alright then, I’ll catch you guys later.” 

Thomas waved at him as he headed inside the house, then turned his attention back to the borrowers, who were still locked in an embrace. He smiled, and whispered,

“Welcome to the Sanders Sanctuary for Borrowers, Virgil.”

——–

A/N: Soooo this is an AU now XD I’ve wanted to write about humans who hated how society treated Tinies (borrowers) and established a sanctuary for them for the longest time, and never got around to it, until noooww! If you guys are into it, I’m going to start a sideblog/askblog for this AU, but until then you’re welcome to send me asks about the AU here! I’ll have more info about the other characters and what their roles are, as well as more fics coming soon, but for now, I hope you enjoyed this little ficlet and the introduction into the Sanders Sanctuary for Borrowers/Tinies AU!

Update: the sideblog is @sanders-sanctuary-au, check it out if you’re interested!

-Taylor

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[quirkydeaky]

supercar or supergirl?

AN 80s ROGER TAYLOR IMAGINE

[credit to original owner/poster of this gif]

W/C: 1181

Warnings: swearing, smut! [18+], dom!80s rog

Summary: you have tried encountering with roger before, but you lost your chance. another chance arises when you’re forced to do a job you’d never thought you’d do and your luck is in store.

A/N: this is my imagine from my fresh imagines book on wattpad where original imagines about queen and borhap cast are posted and you can request from many prompt lists or even with your own plot, check it out! profile is @quirkydeaky and i have another book, a fanfiction based on roger that’s almost finished. if you would, give it a read or even give the summary a read and let me know whether its worthy to post on tumblr. all the love <3

.

Being one of those girls forced to dress in short, tight and skimpy dresses was never something you originally thought you'd be into, let alone do.

But here you were, a girl forced to dress skimpy, full face of makeup being applied on your face that took well over an hour, but nonetheless you enjoyed doing it because you were up early and prancing around in the small bathroom of your apartment as the vinyl spun on your record player in the corner of your room.

"Ooh, you make me live; ooh you make me live now honey!" You sang as you cam to a standstill to apply a top up of mascara.

Mascara was your least favourite product to apply because you tended to smudge it while dancing around and it forced you to have to re do your eye make up, which unfortunately you didn't have time to do today, so coming to a standstill, you applied the second coat carefully and successfully managed to not smudge it onto your sparkly eyelids.

You always were torn when you couldn't buy a set of fake eyelashes when you had to dress for the supercar races, but you simply couldn't afford them. Only doing this supercar gig of presenting flowers to the winners around once a month and working at a cafe only three other days of the week meant that paying bills sometime came to a standstill.

Nonetheless, you tried your hardest and managed to make rent every month, while still enjoying living in London while attending University, living the best single life.

Little did you know, that was all going to change today.

-

"And now we have... y/n! Presenting second place too..." The voice blared into the background and you almost lost your footing when you saw who was less then 20 metres away from you in the crowd.

Roger Taylor.

Roger fucking Taylor.

You have had the biggest crush on this man for god knows how long, probably ever since you attended that Smile gig when they were just starting out and some other chick one him over and got his attention rather then you.

Now was your chance.

You stepped up onto the podium, flicking your hair slightly when turning around to hand the bunch of flowers to the supercar driver who was awarded second place.

You stuck your bum out, feeling your dress ride up and you were also praying that maybe, just maybe, that some of your bum was poking out, praying that your uncomfortable g-string would just corporate this one time.

Giving the man a kiss on the cheek and shaking his hand before turning around and throwing it up in the air, giving another reason for the crowd to cheer for you, while making some men swoon at your presence not that far i front of them.

Roger included.

You had caught his eye as soon as he saw you to the side of the stage, not long after looking up from his watch as he had a rehearsal to get too, but when seeing you standing there and with his attitude of a cocky bastard, it gave him a reason to stay for the presentation.

He had been here purposely of a way to relax, writing for the upcoming album was stressing him out, not to mention when the boys had ideas and he didn't.

And he desperately needed someone he could rant his worries too.

He thought he needed it verbal, but once seeing you, he definitely thought not.

Physical was the only option and he could sense it through your being and through your actions that he were guessing - and hoping - were directed towards him, that you were asking for his attention.

The presentation was over and the three girls assisting with the presentation, yourself included, ushered to the side of the stage, but you decided to stay in front of the other two so you could give a knowing eye to the man of your dreams.

And it seemed he was waiting for you to give him that knowing eye, trying to stay still in the now evaporating crowd until he caught your attention.

You gave him a nod with a flick of the head back, telling him to meet you out back, and he seemed to be confused but started moving eagerly towards the back when he had pointed toward that direction and received a thumbs up from you.

-

Ten minutes later and with as little as an introduction of names, you were pushed up against the door of the small change rooms you and the two other presentations girls got, and with them being long gone with the day being over - you had the whole change room to yourself.

Well, not to yourself - but with Roger.

His lips were on your neck, but soon moved towards your lips to stifle a moan as his hands danced around your hips, pulling the waistband part of your g-string out to the side and snapping it off completely, you wincing in pain but in satisfaction at the same time.

Two digits immediately came to rest above your heat, and you squealed in delight as one entered you and one played with your nub of nerves.

"Baby, gotta be quiet for me, yeah? There's people out and about."

You moaned into his mouth as he brought you closer and closer to your climax, now up to his third finger pumping in and out of you.

It had been a while since you had done this, but it wasn't like anything before. Good god, that man knew how to use - and curl, might you add - his fingers.

And when you think the pleasure could stop, a fourth finger entered you while his thumb circled your clit and you swore you saw stars as you immediately came all over is fingers, him being annoyed you came without permission and he decided immediately after looking at his wristwatch that you were going to have to wait.

"Open." He said, motioning towards your mouth and you opened as wide as you could and hummed at the sweet taste of yourself.

"Now, you're going to have to wait for being a naughty girl and coming without daddy's permission," Once hearing this, you whined and stomped your foot repeatedly out of annoyance and he put a hand over your mouth.

"It's either you wait or you never see me again, and I don't think either of us would like the second option, would we baby?"

You shook your head.

"Good girl, well, here's my number, call me tonight and, uh, we can organise to meet at my place again, what do you say?" He asked as he swiped his thumb over your lips before passing you a piece of folded paper.

This man was prepared.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes daddy." You mumbled, puckering your lips for a kiss, which he gave happily.

"Good girl, 'might see you tonight after rehearsal love."

He kept his word, and my, you didn't have one ounce of sleep that night, either.

[metaphoricallyroger]

With Love, From Me to You - iii of iv [R.T.]

Summary: One-hundred ways to say ‘I love you’ over twenty-eight years.

Words: 3,387

Warnings: Implied smut.

Note: This follows both Bohemian Rhapsody’s and real-life events (generally for dates, minor plot etc.), picture whichever Roger you fancy! The title is taken from ‘From Me To You’ by The Beatles.

--

51. (1977):

“Were you seriously just checking out that woman’s legs?” It wasn’t much to ask, you thought, to have a little attention from your boyfriend whom you haven’t seen for weeks.

But apparently, said boyfriend was too engrossed in the leg length of a party attendee.

“Her legs were longer than Brian’s, how could I not look?”

“I noticed too, but that doesn’t mean I stare when I’ve got my girlfriend sitting on my lap!” You screech and ignore his childlike poking to get a hold of your cigarette.

When Roger goes quiet, you look to the left to find him smiling affectionately at you. You raise your eyebrows, waiting to see what he wants.

“Can I hold your hand?”

His cheeky grin wins you over.

--

52. (1977):

The day seems to drag on and on as the rain slides down the windows of the recording studio while Queen tries to lay down tracks for their latest album.

Roger sighs and takes the headphones off after having finished his harmonies and watches Freddie put his own on, ready to do just as Roger had been.

“Taylor, your girlfriend is here,” the sound technician drones into the microphone without sparing you a glance.

Roger barrels through the door of the control room, much to the protests of his bandmates, grinning widely.

“I thought you had work today?” He says, giving you a surprised kiss.

“Got let off early. Thought you could use a distraction,” you smile. Roger returns it, immensely happy to get out of the studio if only for a brief period.

--

53. (1978):

Your head pops out of the duvet, peering at Roger with puffy eyes.

“I’m sorry that I made you cry,” Roger holds up the flowers he nicked from the neighbour’s yard which were really weeds.

“It’s not your fault,” you wipe at your red nose, “I’m hormonal on my period.”

“I really shouldn’t have eaten the last of that chocolate, I’ll buy you more, I swear.” He puts the ‘flowers’ on the bedside table and crawls into the bed.

He pulls you onto his lap, cradling you much like one would a baby.

“You will?”

“I’ll get you two,” he smacks a kiss against your cheek.

--

54. (1978):

Your hand moves across Roger’s forehead as he rests himself in your lap.

“One more chapter.”

“Roger, you’re falling asleep.” You can’t help but smile at the sleepy man who continuously burrows his nose into your thigh as you turn the pages of your book.

“It’s because you’re rubbing my head. You’re to blame here.”

You remove your hand but the fussy Roger grabs it and puts it right back to where it was.

“I think you’re tired because you just got back from tour. But if you insist, one more only.”  

The blonde on your lap is suddenly quiet, asleep.

--

55. (1978):

You and Roger lay side by side late into the night when neither of you can sleep and this usually resorts to a game of questions until one of you falls under.

“Do you ever think about having kids?” He asks one insomnia-filled night. It wasn’t uncommon for questions to turn to the future, but the topic of children was yet to appear.

“With you?”

“With whomever,” he gestures in the air and you can feel the breeze on your face as his hand lands on the bed again.

“I’ve never really liked them if I’m honest.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding dejected.

“I think I’d like kids with you though.” You roll onto your side to look at his shining eyes.

“You would?”

“Yes. Could you imagine tiny Roger’s running around? We might prematurely age Brian.”

“Can we start now?” Despite the darkness, you can see his profile shift as he wiggles his eyebrows.

“We can practise how not to get pregnant.”

“Deal,” he rolls you to your back and climbs on top of you, laughing.

--

56. (1979):

“Have you ever thought about getting married?”

“Are you asking me if I want to get married to you?” You roll onto your stomach and prop yourself on your elbows, looking at Roger as he does the same.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“And you decided that four o’clock in the morning would be a good time to ask?” His tongue-in-teeth grin is all you need to know.

“Seemed like as good a time as any.”

“Alright.” Your hand subconsciously begins to trace around your ring finger where one was yet to appear.

“That a yes?”

“Seems so,” you mock and giggle when he bites your lip, dragging you back down to the mattress of a hotel in Hamburg.

--

57. (1979):

Brian has been graceful enough to lend you his camera after you left your own at home, and you were using every moment of your day with Roger to snap photos of the sights (which mainly included your fiancée in them).

“Love, you’re clogging up the flow of traffic, we’re going to get yelled at.”

“Yeah, but look at all of this, doesn’t it excite you?” Your hands make a sweeping motion over the city. You can’t decide what to focus on, the stores and markets Tokyo have to offer are unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

“Seeing you excited makes me happy. Now come on,” he takes your hand, “let’s go get ripped off by a stall owner.”

--

58. (1979):

“Come on, let’s go outside.” Roger gives you a gentle tap on the arse.

“Why?”

“Because you’re about two seconds away from eating that pencil you’re chewin’.” You’ve decided to quit smoking after years of doing so, and it wasn’t proving as easy as you thought. The pencil acts as a placebo and aided a bit, aside from the fact that you’ll need a new one soon and probably dental work.

“What’s the point in this walk? It’s chilly.” You drag your feet along the concrete of the footpath that’s damp from afternoon showers.

“It’ll keep your mind off it. Besides,” he raises his eyebrows, “you get to look at my perky arse when I walk.”

Roger turns where he is leading you and presses a kiss to your cheek.

“Could you get your cigarette breath out of my face, please?”

“You’ve got cigarette breath too, I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” He plants an even sloppier kiss for effect.

“Not for long anymore, trust me, next time you’re home from tour I’ll be minty fresh.”

“Is that a promise?” He tilts his head, and you could compare him to a puppy if you thought about it.

“More like a threat.”

--

59. (1980):

Freddie has taken it upon himself to be the EMCee of the event and has decided that people have been sitting around for far too long and not having any fun. A soft, romantic ballad that neither you nor Roger knew plays from speakers, clearly showing that you both were not in charge of the music. It’s time for your first dance as a married couple.

“Can I have this dance?” Roger glances up at you from where you just finished talking to guests at another table.

“Thought you’d never ask, Mrs Taylor.”

--

60. (1980):

After sneaking out of your own wedding, you and Roger stand in a conveniently unlocked, large, supply cupboard.

“You sure you want to do this?” You grin, leaning on your husband’s shoulder, “we’re the bride and groom, I think we’ll be missed.”

“Who cares?” Roger bites his lip and smirks. “It’s our wedding, after all.”

“You’re going to have to help me with my dress.”

--

61. (1980):

Whilst in the South of France on your honeymoon, Roger decides on both of your behalf’s that it is important for him to buy a Ferrari.

When you get the phone call that Roger just trashed his car, your fear-riddled mind thinks that he’s been gravely injured. That clearly isn’t the case because your husband is the one talking to you and still swearing in that high-pitched tone he affects when he’s angry.

“You’ve crashed your car?”

“No, I didn’t crash, the bloody things shit itself and caught on fire!” You hear a thump from the other end of the line and can picture Roger kicking the phone box in frustration.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, but my Ferrari is.”

He sounds more upset about the car rather than the fact that he could have died.

“Roger, I don’t care about the car, just about whether you’re okay. Where are you?”

During the time it took him to tell you where he was you had already grabbed the rental car keys and ran your fingers over the teeth of the Mercedes one anxiously.  

“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

--

62. (1980):

A bulky letter awaits Roger as he returns to his hotel room after soundcheck for the concert in Pittsburgh. He picks up the phone to call home, knowing with the time difference you’d be the only one left awake in the house at this time.

“Hey, love.”

“Did you get my letter?” Too electrified to contain yourself, you ask before you greet him, worrying that the letter you gave to Brian to give to Roger somehow got lost in the woes of international travel. You gave specific instructions, that he was under no circumstances allowed to open, and it was to be handed off when Roger became homesick or too stressed.

“Just did, but I haven’t read it yet. Should I now?”

“No!” You screech. “You have to wait until I’m off the phone.”

“So should I hang up now?”

“You have to tell me about your day first,” you know he can hear your teasing tone.

Roger begins telling you about his day, holding the phone between ear and shoulder, discreetly opening the letter and watching polaroids slip out with a smirk.

--

63. (1981):

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you wince, “my stomach just feels a bit off. That’s all.”

“Would you like me to rub your stomach?”

“I’m not one of Freddie’s cats.” Even with those words, you lie between Roger’s legs, back to chest so his hands flit comfortingly across your stomach.

--

64. (1981):

“I figured out why my stomach has been weird.”

“I told you not to eat that old take out. Didn’t you learn from that disaster years ago?” Roger barely spares you a look from the magazine he is reading.

“You’re going to be a father in the near future.”

His eyebrows hit his hairline as you sit next to him.

“I’m what?”

“You, me, parents.” You punctuate each word with a slight kiss.

“Parents,” he trails off, eyes stuck on the inconspicuous bump under your dressing gown.

--

65. (1981):

You were practically falling asleep next to Roger on the lounge at Freddie’s party despite the raucous and debauched atmosphere.

You adjust yourself against his shoulder and brace yourself as another server comes to offer you champagne once again.

“She’s not drinking tonight.” Roger easily dismisses the servers but takes a flute for himself.

“You pregnant or something, Y/N?” You look up at Brian who has a knowing look on his face.

You have a look of elation as you glance at him, causing the band members around you, family really, and their wives to all laugh.

--

66. (1981):

“Look after your Mum, okay?” You struggle to hold back a laugh as Roger gets down to his knees in the middle of the busy airport. He speaks directly to your stomach and his lashes flutter when he feels movement under his placed hand.

“They’ve still got two months before we meet them, I’ll be fine, Roger.”

“I know, I just worry.” His brows draw together as he looks up at you.

“I’ve got plenty of help, and Mum and Chrissy will be a wealth of knowledge. Believe me, this baby is well looked after, and so am I.”

You wrap one arm around his neck and your free hand over his, still resting against your stomach. You had thought that the constant touching on Roger’s behalf would drive you up the wall, and it has to a certain extent, but now you knew you are going to miss it.

“I’m still calling every chance I get.”

“You’d better.” You share a kiss before he pulls away with a smirk after the boys call out to him.

--

67. (1981):

“Watch your step.”

Roger helps you up the stairs to the nursery with a careful hand on your lower back. Typically, him fussing annoys the living daylights out of you but because you knew what he was doing today it was a welcome fussing.

“What do you think?” His hand uncovers your eyes.

“You did all of this?”

You were shipped out of the house to spend some time with Mary while Roger, with the help of his band members decorated and put together the flat-pack furniture you’d been seeing arrive the previous days.

The room has everything a baby could possibly need, and the change table was already stocked with enough nappies, wipes and baby powder to sink a battleship.  

“Well, I did get some help from Fred on the decorating and Brian and John with the cot and such.” He blushes and rubs the back of his neck.

“But it was your idea.”

“All mine.” You wrap your arms around his neck and sway with him gently, kissing his stubbly jawline every so often.

“I think the baby will be very happy here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” you smile whimsically, “especially with this.” You walk over to the cot and pick up the stuffed lion you had given him all those years ago.

“How could I forget about him? He’s important to us.”

--

68. (1981):

“You did well.”

“Only well?” You grin down at the tiny, fragile figure in your arms you have given life to. Roger passed her back once she started to fall asleep, and she now rests with her hand tucked in a fist under a rosy cheek.

“She’s perfect already, I’d say you did amazing.” His eyes are glistening with unbridled joy as he glances down at the yet-to-be-named Baby Taylor.

“Yeah, I don’t think we need anything for Christmas this year,” you joke.

--

69. (1982):

You and Roger practically went into hibernation mode after you had Zoe, and haven’t seen the band since before she was born. They all sit in your living room, passing her back and forth between each other and cooing every time she lets out a little grunt or a happy noise.

“Would you look at that, the little darling looks like Rog.” Freddie notices as he looks down at the baby currently snuggled in John’s arms.

“She’ll have his chin, I bet,” John smiles at the sleeping angel.

“Oh God,” Brian moans, “another Taylor running around.” You can see he doesn’t mean it as he has a small smile on his face when Zoe wraps her finger around his tightly.

Roger feels slightly defensive over his new baby, but he knows Brian is just ribbing him and smirks at the taller man.

“Yeah but this one is extra important because she’s half Y/N.”

--

70. (1982):

Since she was born, Zoe hasn’t slept through an entire night, and it was beginning to take its toll on you and Roger. You both love being parents, but the intimacy you once shared is no longer the same.

The intimacy comes in quiet moments when you’re looking after the baby, and you get to watch Roger’s smiles and one-sided conversations with her. It’s an even deeper form of intimacy that only comes when you share the role of caregiver.   

“Roger, I’m tired, I’m not really in the mood.”

“Want to watch the telly instead?” Roger pulls back from where he was sucking on your neck and settles next to you, already grabbing for the remote.

“Are you sure?” You worry your bottom lip.

You miss being in bed with Roger, and the way he makes you feel when he’s pressed deep inside you, but you’re just so tired.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.” He plants a kiss on your cheek and positions himself so you can lay on his chest, hand rubbing his hip.

--

71. (1982):

Roger pays an extravagant amount for flowers in the shop down the street from the restaurant where your work dinner is taking place. He knows that no expensive bunch of flowers can make up for being late to something that means a lot to you.

“Love! I’m so, so, sorry,” he tries to catch his breath as he finds you, about to get into the car.

“I really didn’t mean to-”

“No, I get it. Busy being a rock star and all,” you don’t even look at him as you unlock the doors, handing him the keys to drive.

“It’s not that at all,” he pleads, “I swear I didn’t mean to be late.”

“Whatever, let’s just go home.”

--

72. (1983):

“Look, Zoe, there’s your daddy,” you coo to the toddler waddling beside you.

“Hi, Bubs!” He calls to her. You and Roger barely stand three feet apart, arms extended in case she falls over. He missed her first steps but won’t miss her fully walking on her own as her little feet stomp over to him to wrap around his knees.

“Hello,” you smile as Roger scoops the giggling girl into his arms.

“I’m so glad to be back,” Roger sighs. You wrap one arm around his shoulder in a hug and let him guide you out of the busy airport.

--

73. (1983):

“Say it, say ‘dada’, Zoe.” You watch Roger with wide eyes as he moves his head side to side with every syllable.

“She’s not going to say it if you tell her to.”

“She will just you wait. Taylor women are very smart, just need some persuasion, that’s all.” He grabs the lion out of her hands and holds it above her fair head.

“Dada!” She finally shrieks and extends her arms to try and grab her lion back.

“See! So smart, just like her mother.”

“I’d yell too if you snatched my toy away.” You still sit down next to the pair and celebrate with them, mainly Roger, because Zoe’s too young to get why this is a big deal.

--

74. (1983):

You’re standing under the warmth of the shower spray when Roger barges into the room, raging about something or other to do with a new song.

“I’m trying to understand, Roger,” you sigh.

“I feel like I can’t tell you anything anymore,” he leans against the bathroom sink. You open the glass door of the shower with wide eyes, uncaring about your nakedness, paralysed.

“What? You’re my best friend, you absolutely can.” You grab onto his elbow when he scoffs and goes to turn away.

“I know I can. I want to, believe me. It’s just … hard.”

“It may take time, but you can tell me anything.  Surely you have to know that.” You hold out your hand and invite him into the shower.

--

75. (1983):

Roger opens his eyes with a groan as the bright mid-morning sunlight streams into the room due to your opening of the curtains and windows.

“It smells like a brewery in here, get up.” You pull back the sheets and begin to remove them, rolling Roger’s dead weight across the mattress as he isn’t making any attempt to move.

“I’m hungover,” he moans.

“Whose fault is that hm? Not mine.”

“Can’t you leave me alone for once? I don’t feel well.” He rests his palm across his forehead and looks up at you with pleading eyes. It doesn’t do anything.

“That would have worked if you didn’t throw up all over my floor at four o’clock in the morning. You’re an adult, not a five year old. You should know when you aren’t feeling well.”

“I don’t know I’m not feeling great when I’m that drunk!”

“I understand that you’re having troubles with the band but if you keep coming home drunk, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to sleep.”

“You’re going to kick me out? Of my own house?”

“I paid for half of this house too, don’t forget.”

You pause and try to take a softer tone, brushing sun-streaked golden hair out of his eyes.

“I just want to help you, Roger. You don’t want to tell me what’s wrong and I’m already worried about you. Would you like a hug?”

Roger half crawls, half wiggles his way over to you.

[wynndygoon]

How I Met A Zoroark- Story

Noma was flipping through records at an entertainment shop at the mall in her city. Looking through the records helped keep her mind off of the breakup with Elise. It wasn’t really a breakup per se, because they are still good friends and there is no hatred towards each other, but they decided to end the relationship because both of their jobs were too demanding and conflicting with each other’s schedules. By the time that Noma would get home, Elise would have to head in to work. The only time they really got to see each other was whenever Elise had to come to Noma to pick up shipments that they had ready, and they figured why not just end the relationship and remain friends.

Noma agreed and while it could have been worse, she was still upset that the first real relationship she had and the first girlfriend she ever had was now just her friend.

‘Maybe I fell too hard for her.’ She thought as she was skimming the tops of the records with her fingers. ‘It’s probably something I did.’ She shook these thoughts away when she shook her head and tried to regain focus on finding the Nico Vega record she wanted and had been searching for for a while. As she moved from record aisle to record aisle and bin to bin, she never really paid much attention to what was going on around her because she was caught off guard when an employee came up and tapped her on the shoulder to ask if she needed any help looking for something.

“No, no. I’m fi- actually, yeah, no, I do need some help. I’ve been looking for the ‘Fury Oh Fury’ album by Nico Vega for months now. You wouldn’t happen to have it somewhere? I swear I’ve looked everywhere else but here and I’m hoping that you all would have it.” She asked with a smile and moving the hair out of her face.

“Oh man, that IS a tough one to find since they aren’t the most well known group around. Let me check our computer to see if it we have it!” The Exploud said as he walked back to the counter and started typing away.

Noma kept looking through the records to pass the time and see if she could find it herself and save him the trouble. After a few minutes of flipping through, she heard the Exploud say the he didn’t have it logged in the computer, but that he could check in the back.

“Oh, you don’t have to, it’s no big deal.” Noma replied with a smile.

“Eh, you seem like you’ve been looking for a while, I really don’t mind to check!” he said as he disappeared into the back storeroom.

Noma smiled and decided to go and look at the best selling aisle and see if there were any that she didn’t already have. As she was standing in the aisle, looking through the covers, she heard her name being called from outside of the store in the mall.

“Noma? Noma Kindling?!” A small, purple Zoroark was standing out in the mall in front of the store waving her hand up in the air towards the Blaziken. By now, the Zoroark was making her way to Noma, all the while she was trying to think of the fox’s name.

“Ayla?” Noma asked.

“In the fur! How long have you been here? It has been forever since you moved away for college!”

“Well, I went to college here at Castelia University, so I moved her when I left home.”

“I never expected you to move to the biggest city in all of Unova. It doesn’t seem like you would enjoy it all that much.” Ayla replied, shifting her shopping bags around.

“I could say the same for you!” Noma laughed. “And besides, I live on the outskirts of town, away from all the noise and busyness.”

“Well I came up here because my boss said that there may be a bar that one of his old friends was selling and that I may be able to get it for a pretty cheap price, so I decided that I would come up here and check it out.” Ayla explained.

“How long are you here for?” Noma asked curiously. She noticed that Ayla’s clothes looked a little bit worn down like she had been sleeping in them for a couple of days.

“Who knows? I’m just looking for a cheap hotel or apartment complex to stay in since I’m tired of sleeping in my car like I have been for the past few days. I also came by here to pick up some new clothes,” motioning to her bags that she had on her arm, “and just trying to get by until I can meet with the owners.”

At this point, all of Noma’s worries and past issues with her split with Elise were gone, more interested in catching up with her best friend since high school than even looking for the record which just so happened to not be in the store because the Exploud had returned from the back and said that he couldn’t find it there either.

“Well, what happened to your whole plan of joining an orchestra? Didn’t you get a scholarship for your talents on the Saxophone?” Noma asked, walking out into the mall and motioning for Ayla to follow her.

“Well, about that, yes I did get a scholarship, but I still needed money to help pay for college because my fucking bigot parents weren’t going to help out, so I got a job working at a bar. You know the one on Nesbeth Drive, Getting’ Lit?” Ayla asked.

“Yeah, the nightclub?”

“Yep! I worked as a dancer there starting out.” Ayla said proudly.

Noma just about choked in surprise. “Wait what?”

“What?”

“You worked as a dancer at a night club?!” Noma asked again for clarity.

“Uh-huh. It’s not like we were strippers or anything. We were all dressed up in the bar’s uniforms and we were there just to have something for the people who were too socially awkward to dance to watch. Everything was modest and there was nothing sleazy about it because the owner and manager didn’t like women being portrayed that way. And besides, we only danced for certain parts of the night when people would vote on what song which dancer should dance to, and even then, there had to be a majority vote per song per dancer. When we weren’t dancing, we were serving as waitresses and bartenders.”

“Huh, honestly, that kinda sounds like a fun job!” Noma chuckled.

“Oh it was, especially once I moved up and became a manager myself. Eventually we also convinced the owner to let us dancers have our own costumes for when we danced, which was more fun because we really became more individualized then. Since a lot of us decided that we wanted to show some more skin, that’s when a lot more people kept trying to get a bit too touchy and we were told by the manager, who was a Pangoro that if any sick bastard tried anything that we didn’t like to beat the shit out of them or call over security. There were a few people who tried to grab a few of us, but that didn’t last long after people witnessed those people get their teeth knocked in. When I became a manager, I didn’t have to worry about that anymore because I mainly worked as a bartender, but I used my illusions to make it look like I was dancing along with bartending so I was able to mess with some people.” Ayla laughed.

“God, wasn’t that scary people trying to touch you and get in your personal space?”

“Nah, cause we were up on a stage, if someone wanted to get up there, they would have to drag themselves up the front of the stage and by then, we would see them trying to climb up and could just step on their hands. Not only that, but most of the customers who saw anyone trying to get up to us would usually tackle them and knock them out themselves, so we were pretty well protected.”

As the two talked and were getting each other caught up in their lives, they walked to a tea and coffee shop and Noma asked what Ayla wanted to drink.

“Oh, oh no, I can’t let you do that after running into you again. I’d feel awful.”

“Oh nonsense, you’re in the middle of moving and I want to do something nice for you! Besides you were always there for me in high school.” Noma blushed and smiled.

“Alright, but I’m paying you back for it later.” Ayla replied.

“Dude, It’s like 6 bucks, don’t worry about it.” Noma laughed while explaining.

After finally convincing Ayla to let her pay for her drink, Noma bought them both some tea and also got them both a danish and they went and sat outside in one of the picnic tables.

“So, you don’t have a place to stay since you’re looking for a cheap hotel and whatnot?” Noma asked after finishing her danish.

“Yeah man, you know of a good place?” Ayla perked up.

“My house. Completely rent free.” Noma offered.

Ayla just stared forward at Noma and was trying to comprehend what she just heard.

“So? Sound good?” Noma asked trying to confirm.

“Noma, we’re best friends and all and you are really fun to hang out with, but I can’t just mooch off you by living with you, especially for free.” Ayla said still shocked at the offer.

“Ayla, it’s no problem. I fact, I’m kinda lonely and would like to have a roommate again. Had a breakup a few months ago.” Noma said stirring her tea somewhat dismissively.

“I’m sorry sweetie. I hope you’re not too upset over him, you’ll find someone better who deserves you and will treat you like a queen!” Ayla said, reaching out and holding Noma’s hand and reassuring her to try to make her feel better.

Noma just chuckled a bit before she said, “Yeah, except it wasn’t a guy and she did treat me right. Maybe it was just the magic of my first girlfriend and most serious relationship I’ve had yet that made it magical.” Noma trailed off for a few seconds before snapping back to the present.

“Whoa, wait what? Girlfriend? Noma, I never knew you swung that way! That’s, well, amazing.” Ayla exclaimed with visible excitement.

As Noma talked on, Ayla was sitting in awe about what she just found out about Noma. They were friends all through middle school and high school is when they became really close friends and was also when Ayla came out as lesbian. It was difficult for her considering that she was in a relationship with one of her best guy friends at the time that she came out and that she had a lot of her friends that she really wanted to date and thought were pretty. Noma was one of those friends that she thought was attractive but quickly moved past the feelings since they were such good friends and didn’t want to ruin their friendship. It was difficult to not ask the tall Blaziken how she felt about her when they would hang out and when Noma would tell Ayla how pretty she was and how jealous she was of Ayla’s natural markings.

“So Ayla, if you are still on the fence about staying with me, would you at least want to go and check out the house?” Noma offered, hoping she would.

“Sure, why not?” Ayla said, already getting up and gathering her bags. “Where are you parked? I’ll follow you out.”

“Um,” Noma laughed, “I really don’t have a car or truck. This city here is not tall pokemon friendly. One of my friends, an Aggron who was even taller than me doesn’t have a car either because all these stupid dealerships only carry small compact cars. I do know how to drive though, besides, I like the exercise!” Noma said while rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment.

“So you walk everywhere? That’s balls dude. Come on, my car is tall enough for you to ride in.” Ayla grabbed Noma’s hand and led her to the car. “It’s only a two seater sports car, so there will be more than enough leg room, you lanky bastard, but you’ll have to hold the bags unfortunately.”

Noma laughed and said, “Maybe if you didn’t spend your whole paycheck on shirts that you’ll wear once and then never again, then maybe you could fit them more easily in your car.”

They both laughed and they kept digging at each other just as they did when they were in high school. When they finally reached the car, Noma saw that it was bright race red and was very low to the ground. Upon closer inspection, she saw that it was a convertible and that the engine was a V-8 Hellcat.

“Holy shit, you’re gonna have to show Joan and my parents this car, they will be so amazed!” Noma said while walking around the car, getting a good look at it.

“Yeah, I’m proud of her, she’s a bitch to keep running though, but gas isn’t all that bad believe it or not.” Ayla said while pressing a button on her key that opened the doors vertically. Noma whistled when she saw this and sat down in the comfy leather seats. Ayla explained some more things about the car as she hopped in and sat the shopping bags down. Noma moved the bags into her lap and looked around the interior of the car and noticed that the entire lower half of the doors and even the section between the seats were filled with speakers.

“Aright, show me where to go!” Ayla said. They left the parking lot of the mall and Noma gave directions to her house. After a good 10 minutes, they pulled in to the driveway and Noma let them both in.

“Well, here it is. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like no problem and no rent!” Noma said while motioning for Ayla to follow. They walked down a hall to their right and then turned to the right again and entered a bedroom. “If you want, here is another bedroom that you can use. It comes complete with its own full bathroom and walk in closet. Unfortunately, we would have to get you some dressers and drawers and stuff, but that shouldn’t be too bad. If anything, I can move the ones out of the guest room to this one.” Noma offered.

“Wait, this isn’t the guest room?” asked Ayla.

“You think I’m gonna let my best friend take a shitty guest room when there is a master bedroom perfectly available? This used to be Joan’s before she moved out, so no one is using it, so feel free to make it your own!” smiled Noma.

Ayla blushed and thanked Noma. Noma said that she’ll be in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do for lunch while Ayla gets moved in. The purple Zoroark moved to the bed and sat her shopping bags down beside her and flopped back on the bed. It felt so good to actually have a bed to just sit on. She looked around the room and saw some photos on the wall and they looked like they were different photos from Noma’s childhood. Ayla got up and moved to look at them. There were a few pictures of her mother and father together, there was one of a very young Noma, who was a Torchic at the time, and Joan, who was a Pawniard, sitting on a swing together with Joan holding Noma in her lap. Ayla couldn’t help but laugh at the thought that Joan was actually taller than Noma at one point. In the next photo she saw another picture of Noma as a Combusken with a giant bow around her neck and an oversized sweater that completely covered her feet. Beside that picture, there was one of Joan and their mom both arm wrestling with Elizzabet looking like she is struggling with all her might to beat Joan and make her feel like she is super strong. Ayla started to tear up looking at all of these sweet pictures of Noma and her family and started thinking back to her own family and how they treated her after she came out to them. While she was deep in thought about her own family, she was snapped out of it by Noma’s voice asking if it was okay if they just ordered some take out.

“Uh- yeah, yeah that, that sounds nice actually.” Ayla stuttered. Placing the picture back on the wall, she walked out in the hall and eventually found her way into the kitchen where Noma was bent over on the counter looking at a menu on her phone.

“Hey, did you get settled in? I know it may be hard to store your stuff without proper furniture, but we’ll get that taken care of right after I place this order. Have you ever had anything from Dragon’s Wings?” Noma asked, still scrolling through the menu.

“Not that I can remember, what all does it have?”

“Well they mainly serve hibachi stuff, but if you would want something different, just let me know, there are plenty of restaurants around here that deliver.”

“Actually, that sounds pretty good right now. I could go for some hibachi steak and some eggrolls right now!” Ayla aid with a smile.

“Okay, I’ll place the order.” Noma said while proceeding to the delivery section of the website. After everything was ordered, Noma clicked on the checkout tab and Ayla laid her hand on Noma’s and said that she would pay, that it was the least she could do to pay Noma back for everything that she has done for her today. It took a lot of convincing, but eventually Noma let her pay.

“Well, if you want, before we move the dressers into your room, we can put all your clothes into the washing machine and get them cleaned while we wait for the food.” Noma suggested.

“Noma, look, we’re good friends and all, but I’m not gonna get naked and-“

“You know I have clothes you can borrow, right? How about this, you gather up all your new and old clothes into the bags and set them in front of the door to your room, I’ll get you some of my clothes that I know will fit you, and you can take a nice shower and get refreshed. I’ll move the dressers and stuff into your room and start the laundry. When you’re done, you can just come and hang out in the living room with me until the food gets here. Sound good?” asked Noma.

“At least let me help you with moving the furniture.”

“Pfft, you kidding? You’re my guest, I can’t have you doing that junk.” Noma said nonchalantly.

“Well…if you don’t mind…I’d like to be your roommate.” Ayla said nervously. At this point, she was overrun by the kindness the red pokemon had shown her and decided that it would be nice to live with one of her lifelong friends. It beats living alone in her car or some dingy cheap hotel any day. “And if I’m your roommate,” Ayla continued, “then I’m gonna pull my weight around here. Besides, I’m not letting you show me up!” She said, nudging the stocky Blaziken.

“Oh yes! I’d love to have you stay here as a roommate! It’d be just like when we would spend the night at each other’s house again! And seriously, don’t worry about helping move the furniture, you’ve had it pretty rough the past couple of days, living in your car and everything, so just let me do this for you.” Noma said, holding up her index finger and winking as she turned to retrieve the dressers.

Ayla stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame and watching Noma as she walked to the other room. If it weren’t for the fact that they had been friends for so long, Ayla would have already asked Noma to go on a date, especially since she found out about Noma’s orientation. She knew the potential for her to mess up such a long friendship and that if they were going to be roommates, then she would rather just suppress the want for a meaningful relationship to keep what they already had. “Well, better go ahead and start that shower.” She said.

Noma had started to lift the dresser up and make her way to Ayla’s room when she forgot that she told the Zoroark to pile her clothes in a hamper and leave it in front of the door and tripped over the hamper causing her to drop the dresser and fall onto the carpet. Obviously, there was a lot of noise, but Noma was hoping that somehow Ayla went deaf just long enough to not hear.

“Oh my God are you okay? What happened?” Ayla said, poking her head out of the bathroom door.

Noma, still lying face down on the ground with the dresser drawers sprawled out everywhere said, “Never better. I forgot I told you to leave your clothes in a basket in front of the door, and I couldn’t see it. But yeah, I’m fine.”

Ayla giggled, “Man, you always were so clumsy. For someone as graceful in appearance, you sure throw people for a loop when you do stuff like that. Here, I’ll help you up.” she said, emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. She crouched next to the Blaziken, who was still lying with her face buried in the carpet who just kept saying she’s fine and that she didn’t need any help. The purple fox ignored Noma’s words and grabbed her by her hand and pulled her up. When Noma was fully sat up, she had a look of indifference and annoyance on her face to which Ayla couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m so sorry, I should have set the basket somewhere else an-“

“Nah, it’s my bad for not paying attention to where I was going. Thanks though, for helping me up.” Noma said while turning to face Ayla. When she finally saw the Zoroark, she quickly looked away as her cheeks flushed up in a brighter shade of red.

“What, you’re not embarrassed to see another woman in a towel are you? Didn’t you play softball and have to use the showers before? Or hell, have you ever been in a locker room?” Ayla asked.

“Oh hush. You want me to move your furniture or not?” said Noma as she stood up, dusting herself off.

“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to strike a nerve. I’ll go ahead and start my shower. And…thanks again, for everything. Seriously, you are amazing!” Ayla said while giving a smile.

After Ayla started the water and Noma heard the shower curtain pulled, she started gathering up the drawers and putting them back into the heavy wooden dresser. Once that was done, she set it in the corner near the bathroom so that Ayla could easily get clothes out after she was done showering. Next she made sure to move the hamper out of the way of the door before going back and getting the rest of the furniture that needed to be moved such as a small cabinet nightstand and the T.V cabinet. A few minutes had passed and as Noma finally set the T.V in the spot in the cabinet, she was exhausted and walked into the kitchen to grab herself a bottle of water and relax on the couch in the living room.

________________________________________________________________

Ayla was standing in the shower, letting the warm water hit her back and wash away the worry that she had been carrying around with her about where she was going to stay. Running her claws through her hair and grabbing the shampoo, she was thankful to be able to wash her hair and her fur from the grime and sweat of travel. Rinsing her hair and holding strands of where her black hair blends into purple, she relished in the silky feel her hair now has and then looked for the soap to wash the rest of the body. After she found the bottle of soap, Mane and Tail, and started lathering up her washcloth. Running the cloth down her body and feeling the dirt and stress just run off with the soap was the best feeling she had experienced in a while. Finally, after getting herself washed off, she let the water hit her back once more for another minute or so before finally turning the water off. As she reached for the towel and started drying off, she breathed in the steam and pulled the curtain back. Before stepping out, she lifted one leg up and rested her foot on the lip of the bathtub and ran the towel over the top of her foot and up her leg. When she got to her hip, she switched legs and rand down the other one. Once done, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around herself and combed through her hair to straighten it out so that it could air dry quicker. As she put down the comb and opened the door, she saw a large t-shirt, some sweat pants, and underwear lying on her bed. ‘I guess these are the clothes Noma left’ she thought to herself. Dropping her towel to the floor, she reached for the underwear first and tried them on. The boxers fit her alright and were comfortable enough. ‘Kinda weird that Noma wears boxers instead of panties, but whatever.’ Ayla thought about maybe getting her a pair or two before, but now she wasn’t really sure. She liked how comfortable they were, but hated how roomy and loose they felt. Next, she reached for the bra and tried it on. After a solid minute of trying to stretch it behind her to hook it together, but eventually gave up. ‘Damn, I knew Noma was smaller than I was, but shit. I’m outta breath.’ She decided to ditch the bra and folded it back on her bed. She looked at the sweat pants and held them up to her and decided not to wear them as well since the waist came up halfway up her stomach because of the height difference between them. She then picked up the shirt that had a picture of a coffee cup on it with “More Coffee Please?” written on it. Looking at it, she noticed it was designed with a stretched out collar and sleeves and was loose fitting even for Noma, like a shirt that you’d wear on a lazy day where you didn’t care how you looked or who saw you. After slipping it on, Ayla realized that it was a little too big for her since the neck line fell completely off her breasts and back onto the floor. She then put it back on, taking a part of the collar in between her teeth and holding it on her as she took a hairband and tied the back into a bunch. It helped a little but was still slack on her, but hey, at least it covered everything! She picked up her towel and walked into the bathroom to hang it up over the shower rod and take a new towel to dry her hair off some more with before putting it up into a messy bun. Feeling refreshed, she decided to finally go and meet up with Noma in the living room and wait for the food, if it hadn’t gotten there already.

________________________________________________________________

Noma was watching a cooking show and taking notes on the names of the dishes that were shown when she heard Ayla’s claws tapping on the hardwood floor as she walked.

“Feel better?” she said while leaning her head back.

“Yeah! Thanks for letting me use your shower.” The Zoroark replied.

“No problem…also, where are the rest of the clothes I laid out for you?”

“So, uhh, It would seem I’m much smaller than you everywhere but my chest. The boxers fit because of the elastic band, but the sweatpants were too big and kept falling off as well, also, I know your chicken nuggets are smaller than mine, but I never knew it was by that much, and the shirt kinda fits, I had to scrunch it up in the back and tie it because it would just keep falling off, speaking of which, where did you find this style of shirt? I love the loose neck designs but can’t seem to find any.”

“Whoa what the hell do you mean by ‘chicken nuggets’?” Noma asked, furrowing her eyebrows at the fox.

“Aww, don’t be like that. They’re cute! I’m just saying, you can’t fit 40 pounds of stuff in a 10 pound bag.” Replied Ayla while she was taking a seat on the recliner across from the red bird.

Noma just rolled her eyes and gave a chuckle before returning her attention to the T.V. “And for your information, I bought that shirt at Level 21 back in Imann city.”

“Well, it’s very cute and I’m sure it looks great on you.” Said Ayla with a smile.

“Quite your shit, I know you’re just trying to make it up for what you said about my bust, which I am quite happy with, thank you!”

Ayla said something about not taking her too seriously which Noma just waved her hand at dismissively and continued watching her show. She wasn’t mad at Ayla, but just miffed, but she figured she may as well get used to it if they are gonna be roommates. To try and how her that she wasn’t bothered by what Ayla said, the Blaziken turned to her and asked if she wanted to keep the shirt, saying that she didn’t wear it much except for pajamas or if she was really lazy and didn’t want to get dressed for anything.

“Sure, I’d love it! As long as you don’t mind that is.”

“Yeah, have it, at least with it being yours, it’ll actually be worn. Also, what do you wanna watch while we wait? Show’s over.”

“Oh, I uh, don’t watch much T.V. so I don’t know what’s good.” Ayla said.

“Oh, shit, well I’ll pull up Netflix and Hulu and we can find a show that you think you’d be interested in.”

Noma began flipping through the selections of Netflix first and Ayla suggested ‘The Hateful Eight’. So they started it up and Ayla mentioned about how she used to watch Westerns a lot and really enjoyed how cheesy they could be but loved whenever the big shootouts would happen. Noma agreed and mentioned that if she liked Hateful Eight, then they’ll have to watch Magnificent Seven to which Ayla immediately agreed to.

About 30 minutes into the movie, the doorbell rang and Noma answered and came back with food in hand. “Alrighty, let’s dig in!” she yelled from the kitchen.

Ayla came into the kitchen and took her takeout box and flipped open the lid and noticed that she forgot to ask for a fork instead of the chopsticks that normally come with the meals. Noma noticed she looked somewhat annoyed and asked what was wrong.

“Oh no, did I accidentally order the wrong thing?”

“Nah, it’s right, I just forgot to ask for a fork instead. With the way my hand is with these claws, it’s hard to hold them right.”

“Here,” Noma said while opening the drawer she was standing in front of and pulled out two forks, “use this till you find one.” She said with a smile. “I don’t really know how to use them either.”

Noma pulled out her chair and Ayla sat beside her and they both started their meals together. Throughout the time they spent eating, they enjoyed some small talk and the stories that they told each other and Ayla felt stronger in her feelings towards Noma.

Noma was feeling somewhat flustered as well and loved it when Ayla would laugh. She missed hanging our with her throughout their childhood and now it was perfect. She also knew that since they are both out of the closet that it may be awkward at times in the future especially since she was thinking of the possibility of going on a date with her just to see how it would go. Maybe it’s the fact that she was feeling lonely and coincidentally, here came one of her childhood friends who just happened to be lesbian into her life that was swinging her to ask Ayla out. She quickly dispelled these thoughts so as to not blush and make herself awkward like she usually does.

After they finished their meals and were putting things away, Noma said something to an unseen person to play some music. Ayla’s ears perked up when she heard “Hotel California” pop up from somewhere in the kitchen. Noma was humming along when she turned to see Ayla looking around for the source of the sound and her ears trying to focus in to where the music was coming from.

“Confused?”

“Yeah, where is the music coming from?”

“I set up a sound system all throughout the house with a smart home AI installed so I can play music wherever. It was expensive as hell, but so worth it for parties and junk. With the speakers being stored in plain sight, you wouldn’t know where to look. See that cabinet above your head?”

“Yeah?”

“Doubles as a speaker. The back extends into the wall and hold the speaker there. There’s plenty more scattered everywhere.”

They continued with their small amount of cleaning that they needed to do which was over pretty quick. They continued to dance and sing along to the playlist Noma had and just had some fun. As the playlist ended after three more songs, they moved back into the living room to finish the movie.

 _______________________________________________________________

After an hour or so, the credits rolled and it was starting to get late and Noma got up and stretched, arching her back and leaning from side to side. “Well, I’m off to bed. Gotta be up at work early tomorrow to fill a big order I got in. Gotta carve a 300 pound arrow out of a block of steel.”

“Holy shit, really? Can your fire even get that hot to cut through that?”

“Yeah, check it.” Noma cracked her knuckles and finger joints before giving a snap and a bright blue flame appeared at the end of her index finger. “I can even control length and temperature as well.” She made the flame a deeper blue and extended the reach from about 3 inches to a full foot before extinguishing it again. Ayla looked surprised.

“Well, goodnight! I hope you enjoy it here! It’s been nice to catch up and hang out like old times.” Said the Blaziken, smiling.

“Yeah, it has been fun. I guess I’ll be headed to bed too.” Ayla said, getting up from her seat.

“You don’t have to, if you want to stay and watch T.V or play video games, that’s fine by me. This si your house as well.”

“I’m pretty worn out myself, maybe tomorrow after you get home from work though?” the purple fox asked hopefully.

“Yeah, we can.” Noma said before stretching again. This time she bent back further than before and stretched her arms back as far as they would go which lifted up her tank top a bit to expose her stomach. Ayla noticed and could not take her eyes off of Noma’s abs and how in shape she was. Her face started feeling warm and she turned her head and looked away. When Noma was done stretching she pulled her shirt back down and apologized for her shirt riding up on her. Ayla said it was fine a bit too quick and Noma turned down the hall and started walking to her room.

“Goodnight, sweet dreams!” the lanky bird said.

“Yeah…you too.” Replied a blushing Ayla. As the clicks of Noma’s talons faded down the hall, Ayla soon followed and turned into her room and shut the door. She hopped onto her bed and folded the clothes that Noma laid out for her earlier and decided to go ahead and ask Noma where the washing machine and dryer was. She walked over to Noma’s room to ask and opened the door but quickly realized her mistake as Noma was in the process of getting undressed. They both just stopped and looked at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time before Noma jokingly said to come in. Ayla slowly handed her the clothes back and shut the door and walked back to her room, turned the lights off, and hopped in bed trying to forget about what just happened.

 _______________________________________________________________

The next morning Noma was up and cooking breakfast for both of them and still laughing to herself about the events that took place the night before and how red Ayla’s face got. Admittedly she was a little embarrassed, but stuff like that is gonna happen some time or another with roommates right? She was finishing up with the eggs and toast when she heard Ayla’s door open and her walking down the hall. She watched the Zoroark turn the corner and quickly look to the floor as soon as they made eye contact.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Noma said while laughing, “stuff like that is expected to happen with roommates.” Noma said trying to cheer her up. Ayla didn’t say anything and kept her head down and didn’t look at Noma. After Ayla went back to her room last night, Noma thought more about the possibility of dating Ayla. Sure, it could potentially ruin the friendship they have if everything goes wrong, but it would be a much better relationship if it worked out than what she could have with anyone else. She knew Ayla well and they are close, so it’s not like they would have any trouble getting along or having to spend time getting to know each other, so she figured why not? She did have to admit though, that deciding to ask Ayla out on a date after being seen naked was probably the weirdest time to ask someone out, but nowhere to go but up from there, she reasoned.

“So, uh… last night was…interesting huh?” the fire type asked. Ayla didn’t respond, but she noticed her turn a darker shade of red around her cheeks. “Well, I was thinking that uhm…maybe to try and show you that it wasn’t a big deal, maybe we could…go out on a date, or something?” She finally asked.

Ayla’s ears perked up and she slowly lifted her head and met Noma’s gaze. The Blaziken was smiling softly and was blushing? Ayla couldn’t really tell since Noma was red already. ‘What kind of game is she playing?’ she thought to herself, but decided that she would go along with it. ‘What kind of person asks someone on a date AFTER they were seen naked?’ “Sure, sounds nice, but don’t you have work today?” asked Ayla.

“Well, funny story, there was an accident with the shipping procedures, no one was hurt or anything, but a bunch of shit got misplaced, so they shut down my floor and only the people involved with the shipments that were supposed to go out today are allowed in to help try and sort everything out.” Noma was relieved that Ayla had agreed to go on a date, but she didn’t plan out anything past asking her, so she stalls for time to try and think of an idea.

“Oh, that’s cool…” Ayla trailed off. She was still confused and her head was spinning by everything that happened in the past day. “So, what’s the plan for our date?” she asked cheerfully.

“Why did you have to ask me that? I didn’t plan this far ahead!”

They both laughed and ate their breakfast. With the tension falling away and both of the worries that they had dissolving, they could both look forward to and plan for their date.

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Born Under a Bad Sign- Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,982

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, angst, language, minor character death, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. If you’re a junkie for this sort of thing, then a tag list is the right thing for you! If you want to be a Queen, I’ll add you to that list too! Any and all comments on these are appreciated.

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

The worst thing about loving someone is the day you lose them. That is how you felt with your mom and John. You never felt like you would feel this way with Sam or Dean but you were.

Sam was missing again.

But it wasn’t like last time. Last time, you felt that he was safe, that he knew what he doing but this time you felt like something else happened to him. Sam has been missing for a week and the first few days, you’ve been calling Bobby and Ellen to see if they knew of anything and always came up empty handed.

You’ve called Jo and despite her not liking the brothers right now, she hasn’t seen or heard from Sam at all. The next few days, Dean has been stressing like you haven’t seen him before. He was going out of his damn mind and as much as you were too, you had to keep it together for the both of you.

It’s been a full week now and no word has come from anyone. Dean was out of his damn mind and he thought driving would help but even then, he pulled over to the side of the road to try and call Ellen again. You sighed and pulled out your phone to call Jo.

“Hey, you still haven’t found him?” She asked.

“No, we have no idea where he is and Dean is about 2 more calls away from actually losing it. I swear, it’s like trying to find John all over again. I don’t know what to do.” You said with a sigh.

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. You don’t have any indication on where he must have gone?” She asked.

“No, I don’t,” You said with a sigh. Your phone started beeping, signaling you got another call and asked Jo to hold on for a second. “Hello?”

“Y/N?” Your eyes widened when you heard the one voice you’ve been waiting to hear from all week.

“Sammy? Sam, where the hell are you? Dean and I have been looking for you for a week!” You said. Dean’s head snapped to you and he hung up on Ellen, walking over to you.

“I’m in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. Room 109.” Sam simply stated.

“Alright, don’t move, okay? Dean and I are on our way.” You hung up and looked at Dean whose eyes were wide.

“He’s in Wisconsin.” You said with a sigh, going with Dean to the car. You bet your ass Dean didn’t waste any time in getting to his brother, not that you knew where he was. You texted Bobby and Jo, letting them know that you found Sam and not to worry.

Dean made it there in record time, skidding to a stop in the parking lot of the motel Sam was staying at. You and Dean rushed out, searching for the room number. Once you got to it, Dean pounded on the door with his fist.

“Sam, it's us. Sam!” Dean yelled. You didn’t receive an answer and you looked at Dean, trying the handle. It was unlocked and you opened it, seeing Sam sitting on the bed. Dean rushed over to him and knelt in front of him.

“Sam, hey.” Dean said. Sam didn’t look good and you bit your lip, walking in and closing the door.

“Hey, Dean, Y/N.” Sam said, not looking up from the floor.

“Are you bleeding?” Dean said, noticing his knuckles.

“I tried to wash it off.” He said, not moving at all. You gasped when you saw Sam’s shirt, seeing it covered in blood. Dean frantically searched for a wound but found nothing.

“Sam, are you okay?” You asked, walking over to him.

“I don’t think it’s my blood.”

“Whose is it?” Dean asked. You walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a cloth towel, rinsing it with water, waking back over to Sam.

“I don’t know.” Sam shrugged.

“Sam, what the hell happened?” Dean asked, sighing in frustration. Sam finally looked up but you noticed something was off.

“I don’t remember a thing.”

“Alright, Y/N, stay here with him. I’m going to go to the store because it looks like he hasn’t eaten anything. Sam, please, change your clothes.” Dean said, grabbing his keys and walking out of the room.

“Shit, Sam, you scared the fuck out of us. What were you thinking?” You said, grabbing his hand to try and wipe the blood off. You gasped when a feeling of dread washed over you and you stared at Sam, getting flashes in your head.

You watched as Sam sliced the throat of a man you didn’t know and a flash of Sam throwing a bottle of beer at a man’s head after finishing it. This wasn’t Sam. You didn’t know why you were having these flashes since you didn’t have them before.

Maybe as you grew older, your powers became more and more solid. You pulled away from Sam’s hand and stared at him in fear.

“You’re not Sam.” You said with wide eyes. You rushed to grab your phone but Sam was faster, grabbing your wrist and twisting it. You cried out in pain and stared at Sam’s eyes. They went from the hazel you loved to deep black and you gasped in fright.

“I know it would be hard convincing you I was Sam. But you’re not going to say anything to Dean or I will cut your tongue out and then kill you. Remember, demons are looking to kill you so don’t make me have to do it.” Sam said in a menacing voice. You nodded, scared for not your life but Sam and Dean’s.

Sam smiled sickly and let go of your wrist, walking to his bag and grabbing clean clothes from it.

“Remember, I will know if you blab so be wise and save your boy toys’ lives.” Sam said before walking into the bathroom. You let the tears fall, not knowing what to do. You couldn’t tell Dean because Dean would do something about it and you had no one else you could tell because they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

Sam walked back out of the bathroom and as soon as he did, Dean walked into the motel room. You couldn’t look at Dean in the eyes and not break down so you looked away from Dean, pulling your knees to your chest.

“What'd you find out?” Sam asked, not caring about you. He knew you would never tell. You loved Sam and Dean too much for that to happen. You thought about using your powers but they wouldn’t be to any use of you.

“You checked in two days ago under the name Richard Sambora. Of course, I think the scariest part about this whole thing is the fact that you're a Bon Jovi fan but your room has been quiet as in nobody’s noticed anything unusual.” Dean said, looking over at you in confusion.

“You mean no one saw me walking around covered in blood?” Sam asked, getting his brother’s attention away from you.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Then how the hell did I get here, Dean? What happened to me?” Sam asked, frustrated.

“I don't know. But you're okay and that's what matters. Everything else we can deal with.” Dean said with a sigh, looking back over at you.

“Sweetheart, you okay?” Dean asked, looking at his brother who shrugged.

“Fine.” Is all you said. You knew Dean could see right through your act but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Dean, what if I hurt someone or worse?”

“Sam,” Dean started with a sigh, not in the mood to hear about this.

“What if this is what Dad warned you about?”

“Hey, whoa, calm down for a minute. Let’s not jump the gun here, okay? We don’t know what happened. We just have to treat this like any other job. What’s the last thing you remember?” Dean asked, sitting next to you on the bed.

“Just you, Y/N and I in that motel room in West Texas, going out to grab some burgers.” Sam said, trying to think.

“Whoa, Sam, that was over a week ago.” Dean said, putting his hand on your back. You flinched when he touched you and so you got up and moved to the other bed, not looking at him at all. You didn’t know how to deal with this and you knew that by doing this, you were just put on Dean’s radar.

“That’s it, Dean, that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew I was sitting here all bloody. It felt like I’ve been asleep for a month.”

“Hold on, Sam, Y/N are you sure you’re okay?” Dean said, looking at you. You looked over at Sam who raised an eyebrow at you and you looked at Dean and nodded with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m just overwhelmed by all of this. I mean, we’ve found Sam in this funky town after a week of searching. You know what I mean?” You asked Dean, staring right into his eyes. You used the code word that meant you were in trouble and you hoped to God that the demon inside Sam didn’t know about it.

Dean stared at you, knowing what was going on with you but he didn’t say a word to you because you wouldn’t have used that phrase unless something was wrong. Plus, if something was wrong, then you would have said it in front of both Sam and Dean but the fact that you didn’t, meant something.

“Right, I understand, but Sam is right here and he’s okay.” Dean said.

“I know.” You whispered, taking your eyes off him and to the floor. Dean stared at you a bit longer before turning to his brother, his senses on high alert.

“Alright, Sam, retrace your steps. The manager said you left yesterday afternoon and he never saw you come back.” Dean said, getting up and walking to the window and looked out of it. He saw a bloody handprint on it and frowned but this whole day has been fucked up that this didn’t surprise him.

“Then maybe we should walk outside and maybe something will come to me.” Sam said, getting up. He walked to the door and made sure that Dean walked out first. You looked at Sam to see him glare at you with those pitch black eyes.

“Don’t fuck this up.” The demon said before walking outside. You let a few tears fall, not knowing what to do with this. You couldn’t tell Dean because both Winchesters would get killed. You couldn’t tell Jo because then she would tell her mom and her mom would tell Bobby who would come down here and then him and the brothers would die.

There was nothing you could do to make this better. You didn’t know what else to do to warn Dean without tipping off the demon in some way. You sighed and wiped your eyes, getting up to walk to the door. A person stepped in your way and you looked up to see Dean standing there.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? You warned me about something but what is it?” Dean asked in a low voice. You knew Sam was around and you knew he was listening in.

“Dean, please, I can’t tell you. We need Sam back and let’s try and figure out what happened to him.” You said, trying to hint at him that something was wrong with Sam. You walked past him and saw Sam staring at you. You walked past him with your head high, not giving the demon the satisfaction of letting you know how much this bothered you.

Dean joined you and Sam a moment later and he stared at Sam in confusion, wondering what you were warning him about.

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith  @mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose @cobrakai1967  @essie1876 @wishedworld @crispychrissy @laqueus-ludovicus @nostalgic-uncertainty @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @potterhead1265 @starswirlblitz @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @stay-in--place @dreaminofdean @posiemax @donnaintx @mikey1822 @alexandriajanae4 @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth @newtospnfandom @mizzezm @goldenolaf25

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester  @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @carribear31 @tacklesackles @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @missselinakitty @iam-a-cutiepie  @kristendansmith @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316 @pheonyxstorm @helllonearth @juniorhuntersam @pouterpufftrain @ruprecht0420 @shut-ur-face-and-get-in-the-car @carriemichelle2012 @aubreystilinski

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @quixoticcat @supernaturalblogging @notmoose45 @crowleysminion @mina22 @tahbehonest @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight @valerieshubin @seninjakitey @flyonlittlewinchester  @aubreystilinski

[allwaswell16]

>>>My Favorite Fics<<<

In honor of Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day, this is a fic rec of my personal favorite fan fics in no particular order. Happy reading and thanks to all the writers!

Just Tell Me the Song and I’ll Sing It by @myownsparknow

Louis is an architecture student who can only think about the future. Harry is a baseball player who can only think about right now. Both are lonely for different reasons. Boybands bring them together.

Why Can’t It Be Like That by @taggiecb

A fashion AU with a royal twist, where Louis doesn't need a stylist, Harry's thrilled to have a real life Barbie doll, and they're both very wrong about each other.

Feels Like Coming Home by @phd-mama

This is a story about love and the power of forgiveness, and how the hard choices we make define us, and change our lives.

I Had Rather (series) by @magicalrocketships (Tomlinshaw)

The first time Louis Tomlinson kisses him, Nick is three sheets to the wind, wearing a pirate hat, and so fucking tired of Louis being a complete and utter knobhead that he's spent the last ten minutes snapping at him. The kiss takes him rather by surprise, all things considered. Or: Nick and Louis don't like each other, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Take My Breath Away by @realitybetterthanfiction

Lt. Harry Styles, call sign Sparrow, is a prodigy when it comes to flying. The owner of an unrivaled Naval pedigree, being a pilot was always written in the stars for Harry. With his trusty RIO, Lt. Niall Horan, Harry has made an unprecedented ascension in the ranks of the Naval aerial combat elite, and has been recruited to the esteemed Premier Delta flight school, carrying on his family’s legacy. What he finds there are unexpected friendships, perilous challenges, and something beyond what he ever thought possible. Because as his father had always told him, before the great Captain Styles went tragically missing in combat, you don’t fall in love with the sky, you fall in love with what keeps you on the ground.

I Walk the Line by @a-writerwrites

Professor Louis Tomlinson is the leading researcher in his field. Harry Styles is Louis’ recently hired grad assistant. Sparks fly between them but something doesn’t add up when it comes to Harry, and Louis is determined to find out what.

Ain’t My Fault by @afirethatcannotdie

Liam posts an ad on the wrong section of Craigslist, Louis is pretty sure they’re gonna get murdered as a result, and Harry’s missing an avocado.

This Ain’t Just a Thing That You Give Up by @lululawrence

The one where Harry is a baker in addition to being a college student who just happens to meet the crazy famous Louis Tomlinson while on spring break. Featuring personal assistant!niall, roommate and best friend!liam, and costar/model!zayn.

Midnight Dancers by @alveronian (Larry/Tomlinshaw)

Nearly a year after One Direction ends, Louis finds himself with a choice to make: go back and fix the mistakes of the past, or take a risk on something new? A tale of three men, two love stories...and two endings.

Fall At My Door by @fullonlarrie

A-list actor Harry Styles and award-winning musician Louis Tomlinson have an acquaintances-with-benefits relationship, so whenever their busy professional lives happen to land them in the same city, they meet up. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. And that’s all it is. Until it isn’t.

Yet in Thy Dark Streets Shineth by @juliusschmidt

Louis’ life has become the very thing he’s always dreaded: routine. His job is steady, his bills are paid, his friends are preoccupied, his siblings are mostly old enough not to need him, and his mom keeps pestering him about attending church. Apparently, the new minister pulls rainbows and unicorns out of his robes. Advent arrives three months into Harry’s first call as associate pastor at St. Andrews. Life is… not perfect. He’s still figuring out how do his job and the holidays bring a whole bundle of extra stress. On top of which, he has no friends or family nearby with whom he can decompress. Louis Tomlinson shows up to worship in the nick of time.

Love Is A Rebellious Bird by @100percentsassy & @gloriaandrews

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too. Don't hum Bolero.

blend into my favourite colour by @rainbowninja

Harry is a barista with a secret Werewolf High fan blog, a desperate crush on a customer named Louis, and a best friend on Tumblr who always makes him laugh. Louis can't figure out why the barista at his favorite coffee shop keeps creepily staring at him, and to make matters worse, he may be slightly in love with a friend he met online. A love square involving two boys, one TV fandom, and one food fight.

Far Away. by @dimpled-halo

Harry returns to London after five years. Stuck in the past with "what ifs" and "what might have beens", he sees that his friends and ex (and possible love of his life) Louis have all moved on with their lives while he finds himself questioning his own life choices, past and present.

And Then a Bit by @infinitelymint

Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.

Twelfth Night by @becomeawendybird

Queen Anne holds a masquerade ball to try and find matches for both her children on Twelfth Night. While anonymity reigns, Prince Harry spends the ball getting to know a handsome stranger.

Naked & Proud by @icanhazzalou

In which Harry runs an organic store, not a nudist colony, and Louis doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Coming Home Through the Dark to You by @londonfoginacup

Harry Styles works at the Fox in the Snow, the most hipster coffee joint around. He's got too many roommates and a best friend he met his first day of university who he might very well be head-over-heels for.

Then We Talk Slow by @letsjustsee

A famous/non-famous AU in which Louis banters back and forth with his new record company on Twitter, only to find out that Harry is the man behind the tweets.

kiss me on the mouth and set me free by @suspendrs 

Louis is a gamer and Harry is a beauty guru, and VidCon is a good place to fall in love.

You’re Writing Verses About Me by @all-these-larrythings

Everybody knows that Louis has never been one for serious boyfriends. His reputation around campus precedes him, which is why he doesn't think twice before proudly telling his mother about his new and completely fabricated relationship with his oddly quiet and completely gorgeous new roommate Harry to shut her up about his lack of commitment. It's the perfect lie; a flawless plan, or at least it was until Louis' ordered to bring his fabulous new boyfriend home.

A Match Made in Aisle Three (Everybody Cut Footloose) by @flamboyantommo

The one where Louis is a drama student/cashier who assists Harry in buying a bottle of lube, and is also the only guy that frat boy Harry has trouble talking to. Also featuring Sophia as stubborn matchmaker and Liam as accidental wingman.

If Tomorrow Never Comes (We Had Last Night) by @suddenclarityharry & @all-these-larrythings

Based on this Tumblr prompt: "Accidentally called your number while drunk asking for a ride and you actually came au"

driving me crazy, but i’m into it (series) by @jaerie

Harry is a camboy trying out something new and Louis ends up on the other end of the line.

You You You by @isthatyoularry

The one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

Unbelievers by @isthatyoularry

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Fall Into Your Gravity by @zarah5undercover

AU. In which Harry is an overnight pop sensation and Louis steals plants, Zayn pulls Liam's proverbial pigtails and Niall's really just pleased there are more girls for him.

burn to ash by @bethaboolou

The fic where Harry spirals out of control, the band breaks up, and then he shows back up, five years later.

Have You Coming Back Again by @crazyupsetter

It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym. Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.

The One Where Harry Really Doesn’t Have Ten Cats by @loaded-gunn

The AU where Harry is a pet-sitter for the rich and famous, and Louis is rich and famous.

After Hours by @mizzwilde

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are the bane of each other's existences. Unfortunately, they're already in love--even if they aren't completely aware of this minor detail. [A "You've Got Mail" AU]

Want You More Than A by @donotdialnine

Falling in love with your step-brother’s best friend is a disaster enough. When he happens to be the boy everyone loves and you’re a nerd who wears sweater vests and cries during rom-coms, it takes it to a whole new level.

Rise up like the sun by @tommosgun

“I wasn't taking a sneaky pic.” Louis blurted out, the guy stood at one of the urinals taking a piss. “You were.” The guy answered coolly. “I would've taken a pic with you if you'd just asked.” “No I didn't want a pic with you.” The guy turned his head, quirking his eyebrow sardonically. “No you're far too cool for that, you just wanted to violate my privacy.” Louis squeezed his eyes shut.

let me make a thing of cream and stars by @missandrogyny

It doesn't explain why he's lying on the floor, with Harry Styles, of all people, planking on top of him.As in, seventeenth most influential person in London, pop-star-turned-rock-star Harry Styles. The same Harry Styles who has had countless model girlfriends, left, right and centre. Also the same Harry Styles who has been the subject of Louis' wet dreams since he was about eighteen.(Or: Louis is a Radio 1 DJ and Harry is a pop-star he interviews.)

no pressure, no diamonds by @karamelised

Louis is a thief, Harry a grifter. They are thrown together for a huge diamond heist in Paris, where their past soon catches up to them.

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hay’s Excellent Adventure--Part IV

I settled up the bill that morning while everyone else cleaned and loaded the car. I came back out triumphantly. “Hey guys, guess what,” I called. They were done loading and basically just waiting for me, so no one really responded. “The owner wanted to compliment us. She said we were the cleanest, politest, quietest teens she’d had come through for a while.”

Jeff piped up, “Yeah, because we did all our fighting and screaming out in public.”

I ignored that and went on. “Anyway, when I told her we were headed to Ogunquit, she called up a friend of hers who has a motel up there. He’s giving us a deal: a set up almost exactly like we had here, only with three queen-sized beds, for the price of one room. Sound good?”

We had made sandwiches again and we took them into town, eating them on the sand of the beach in my dream. I must have turned bright scarlet when I realized where we were, but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. This time I made my own sandwiches and labeled them with my name with Vanessa’s Sharpie. The ham and turkey with cheese on white definitely tasted better than the peanut butter the day before.

When we were done eating, we scrambled back up the beach and through town to the parking lot where we left the car. Haley stopped in one store and came out with a travel pillow, while Jordan and Adam picked up a few souvenirs. I hadn’t bought anything, but I wasn’t really upset about it. I had enough memories to last me a lifetime.

As we arranged seating for the car, Hay announced that Jeff was going to drive and that she was going to take the passenger’s seat. “What about your turn?” Jordan asked her.

She didn’t look directly at him, addressing the whole group instead. “I did most of the driving around town, and I’ll do the same thing at Ogunquit if you’d like.”

Jordan was relentless. “Yeah, well, what happened to my turn in the passenger’s seat?”

Hay turned on him, eyes blazing. “You forfeited that when I punched you in the face,” she spat.

Jordan recoiled as if she’d hit him a second time. He climbed into the middle seat with Adam, while Vanessa took the back. I looked after Jordan for a moment, confused, then sat down next to Vanessa. Jordan was directly in front of me and directly behind Hay.

I guess that Jordan decided that Hay was off-limits after that comment, so he turned his frustration to an easier target: me. My head was where he wanted to put his head, and we kept knocking them together; somehow, that was completely my fault. If I turned around to talk to Adam, I was in his personal space. If I spoke to Vanessa, I was “too loud.” It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, Jordan found some excuse to snap at me.

After twenty minutes of near-constant snarking, Hay turned the radio off. “You know something, Jordan Pike?” she said. “You are a miserable human being, and you’re making the rest of us miserable too. I have a song for you.” She began digging through her knapsack, searching for the right CD. A few minutes later, she came up triumphant and put it in the player. She then began fiddling with the player, searching for the right song.

When happy, upbeat music finally started, she cautioned us, “Not this part...wait until I tell you to listen. This thing doesn’t have a button to skip through to the middle of the song.”

Jeff flicked his eyes over at her from the road. “Nobody knows how to make drama like you do, huh, Hay?” he asked sarcastically. “You tell him you’re going to insult him through song, and then you drag it out over five minutes just to make the tension worse.” Hay flicked him off.

“Okay, here you go. No, wait for the chorus. The chorus is about Jordan.” I listened to the music, surprised to find it was a CD I’d never heard before. A couple of people were discussing how one had been laid off, and then started singing about it. It sounded like it might be from a musical, but I wasn’t familiar with it.

Finally, the chorus began, and Hay began to sing along. She has a very nice singing voice, but she doesn’t share it too often. “It sucks to be me,” she sang, “It sucks to be me. It sucks to be broke and unemployed and turning thirty-three. It sucks to be me.”

Vanessa leaned forward from the back seat. “This is Avenue Q, isn’t it?” she asked, delighted. Hay nodded, and I shot Vanessa a questioning look. “It’s a musical,” she responded, “Like Sesame Street for adults. Sex and drinking and unemployment and cursing. Sounds awesome. I’d love to go see it sometime.”

Hay grinned. “Me, too.” The song continued on, talking about why it sucked to be a variety of different characters, and Hay continued to sing the chorus. At the end of the song, it changes to ‘It sucks to be you.’ By then, we were all laughing, even Jordan.

When the song ended, Hay moved to stop the CD player. “Wait!” Vanessa cried, “There’s another song I want to hear.” She climbed into the middle seat, between Adam and Jordan, causing both of them to yell at her. From the middle, she leaned forward and whispered in Hay’s ear. Hay smiled and Vanessa leaned back, settling in between our two brothers. “This one’s dedicated to Adam,” Vanessa said sweetly.

Hay began flipping through the songs. “For some reason, they’re not in order on the CD, so give me a minute to find it.” She would listen to thirty seconds of the song and then name it and skip to the next. “Everyone’s a little bit racist...Fantasies come true...For now....”

I leaned forward from the back seat. “They’re in alphabetical order.”

“What?” She stopped the CD for a moment and looked at me.

I spoke a bit louder. “The songs...they’re alphabetical.”

Hay thought about it for a moment. “Oh, you’re right. I wonder how it got recorded that way.” She skipped through the CD silently for a moment, guessing where she’d find the song Vanessa had requested. Finally it started blaring from the speaker. “Vanessa, will you sing Trekkie for me?”

Adam groaned. “First you let her pick out a song for me, and then you let her sing? I’m never getting in a car with you again, Haley.”

Hay grinned like the Cheshire Cat and started singing. “The Internet is really, really great.”

“For porn!” Vanessa yelled.

“I’ve got a fast connection, so I don’t have to wait...”

“For porn!”

I don’t think I have to tell you how the rest of that song went. Adam blushed furiously. I think he was even more embarrassed in the car than he was the day that Mom had caught him using the family computer to surf for pictures of naked women. He buried his head in his hands. Vanessa put her arm around him as she sang one of the choruses. “The Internet is for porn, the Internet is for porn. Me up all night honking me horn to porn, porn, porn.” He shrugged her off.

When the song ended, Vanessa was laughing so hard she was gasping for air. Hay repeated one of her character’s last lines, “I hate the Internet!” and then joined her.

Jeff spoke for the first time in a while. “Hey, guys,” he said, “Sorry to interrupt the party, but we’re getting low on gas. Probably should have filled the tank before we left. Anyway, I’m going to pull into that service station up ahead.”

We rolled up to a gas pump. Jeff ran inside to use the bathroom, which I figured was the real reason we had stopped. Adam and Vanessa wandered off to a little ice cream hut that was on the edge of the service station. I paid for the gas and then came back out to pump it.

Jordan climbed into the back seat and was digging in the trunk for a bag of snacks we had misplaced. Hay was hanging out of the car as I filled the tank. I turned to her. “Where’d you get that CD from?” I asked her.

She grinned a high-watt grin. “From one of the stage crew,” she said, “He was singing the songs backstage all the time. I made him lend me the CD and I made a copy.” Hay scooted out of the car and came up beside me. “You know, I have some songs on that CD that are for you, too. Two of them.”

I put my arm around her as I waited for the pump to stop. “Oh, really?” I asked.

She gave me a hug but didn’t respond. After a minute, she wiggled loose. “I feel like ice cream,” she said.

I squeezed her shoulder. “You feel like Hay to me, but whatever.”

Hay laughed. “You want some ice cream, too?”

I shook my head and removed the pump from the tank. She ran off to where Vanessa and Adam were chowing down on ice cream cones. Jordan came out of the car, looking perturbed. I walked toward the building, intent on a bag of chips, and Jordan followed, right on my heels.

He tailgated me straight into the building and while I was inspecting the chips, he stood right behind me. “May I help you?” I asked him finally.

Jordan released a breath that sounded like a hiss. “Do you have to flaunt it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

His expression looked pained. “Your relationship with Haley. We know you guys are together...you gotta rub it in our faces this whole trip?”

Suddenly, a couple of pieces of information clicked together in my brain. Adam had come on the trip because he wanted to spend time with me. Jordan had come on the trip because he wanted to spend time with Haley. Adam had tried to warn me. I bristled, though I wasn’t quite sure why. “I’m not dating Hay,” I said in a low, irritated voice.

“Oh, right. You are so full of shit.” Jordan rolled his eyes. “You think I’m blind and deaf? I saw you guys just now. You’re all over each other.”

I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation again. I sucked in a breath through a clenched jaw. “We are not dating.” I looked around the convenience mart. No one else was there except the bearded, scary-looking dude behind the counter. “We’re just friends. You ever see us kiss? No. Because we’ve never kissed!” By this point, I was yelling right into Jordan’s face.

He took an involuntary step back. “And why should I believe a word you say?”

I pounded my hand down on the shelf in front of me, causing it to vibrate. “Because I’m fucking gay, okay?”

Jordan reeled back from me in surprise, probably as much at my venom as at my statement. I grabbed a bag of chips off the shelf and walked over to the checkout. Jordan ran back out the door and I saw him climb into the car. I plopped some money down on the counter, and the counter guy looked down at me as he gave me my change. “Good for you, kid,” he said, “I’ve been with my partner for almost ten years. Coming out’s always the hardest part, but it’s better than living a lie.”

I gave a noise that was half laugh, half sob and ran out the door myself. I sat down on the ground around the corner and began to sob full on, loud, choking noises that wracked my whole body. Luckily, I quickly cried myself out. I was just sniffling and wiping my eyes when Jeff appeared beside me. “Everything okay?” he asked.

I looked up at him. “No,” I replied, “but not any worse than normal.” My chips had fallen to the ground and I picked them up. Somehow, in my haste, I had grabbed low sodium, flavorless baked chips. Ew.

Jeff began to speak but stopped, shaking his head. “We’re ready to go when you are.” I jumped up and ran ahead of him to the car, rubbing my eyes with my hand, hoping to avoid any further conversation that I definitely wasn’t in the mood for.

When I got to the car, Jordan was in the way back. Hay, Adam and Vanessa were in the cooler, dipping their hands in among the ice to wash off ice cream spills. I climbed into the middle seat on the other side from them, right in front of Jordan. He looked up at me. “Did you mean the last thing you said?” he asked, his voice a little unsteady.

I looked back at him. “Yup.”

He didn’t change expression, and I could see he looked like he was fighting back tears. “Okay. I, uh, well, I just needed to know.”

I forced myself to smile at him. “Well, now you do.”

***

When we started off again, I was behind the driver’s seat, with Vanessa sitting bitch between me and Adam. Adam had originally intended to sit in the back, but the vibe Jordan was giving out was enough to make him change his mind.

Although no one but Jordan and I knew what had happened, everyone could feel that something was different. Hay found a CD that was mellower and put it in the CD player. She and Jeff started talking about their overlapping musical tastes in a low voice. Vanessa pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of us all in ‘our native environment’—everyone except Jordan, that is. When she’d pointed the camera at him, he’d grabbed it from her and thrown it into the front seat. Hay retrieved it undamaged, and Vanessa figured out that it was best to leave grizzly bears alone, no matter how fun they might be to photograph.

An hour passed uneventfully. Vanessa had put her camera away and was reading The Bell Jar. Adam was staring out the window, munching on a bag of Funyons that I could smell from the other side of the car. Jordan was either asleep or just completely uncommunicative. When Hay’s latest CD ended, she started digging around in her bag for something new. I put aside the crossword puzzle I’d been half-heartedly playing with and leaned across Vanessa into the front seat. “Hay, you got the CD from Grease?” I asked.

She frowned at me. “Yeeeeeessss....”

“Put it in? Please?”

Jeff took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced at me. “What’s this, By? You got a thing for Olivia Newton John or something?”

I shook my head at him, making a terrible face. “Ew, no. It’s actually a recording from our school production last fall. Hay played Rizzo.”

Vanessa pinched me on the shoulder and I moved out of her personal space. She continued my plea. “Come on, Haley, put it in.” Hay shook her head and glared at us both. “Jeff, help us out here. She was the star of the show. You’ve got to hear her.”

Jeff grinned at her and peeked out from behind his sunglasses. “Better put it in, Hay. They’re not going to quit until you do.”

Hay threw her hands up. “I know when I’m beat. I’ll put it in if you play Tom Lehrer later.” I gave her a bewildered look. “Oh, don’t give me that face. I know you have at least one of his CDs in your bag. I’ll give you fifty bucks if you don’t.” I just continued to look at her, my expression unchanged. “Ugh! I hate when you do this to me, Byron. I’ll get you back one of these days.” She removed a CD case from her bag and put it in.

We listened quietly for a while. During one of the songs where Haley wasn’t singing, Adam piped up and asked, “You going to do the musical again next year, Haley? I hear they’re doing Guys and Dolls.”

She shook her head violently. “No way. I wouldn’t have even done Grease if...”

Even Jordan was staring at her now. I finished the thought. “...If I hadn’t dared you.”

All the eyes except Jeff’s turned on me. “What?” Vanessa said, confused.

I shrugged. “We started daring each other to do stuff about a year ago. Stupid things that didn’t really affect anything.” She’d dared me to spell my name wrong on an assignment I’d turned in; Bryon Pike had gotten a 100 percent and the teacher hadn’t noticed. I’d dared her to use a certain spicy adjective in her next writing assignment; she’d managed to work it in successfully. “After a while, the dares started to get bigger. I dared her to try out for the play. She auditioned for Patty Simcox and got Rizzo.”

Hay was blushing a bit. “The teacher said I was the only one with the sass to pull it off, which I think is an insult.”

I waved that off. “It was a compliment and you know it.”

We grew quiet as Hay as Rizzo started singing, “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.” When that ended, Jeff changed lanes and then pulled his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “So, Haley, if someone dares you to do something, do you have to do it?”

She turned and looked at him, an ‘oh, shit,’ look in her eyes. “Depends on who’s daring. I do have to do whatever By dares me to do. It’s a matter of pride. Plus, I know he’ll give me shit about it for the rest of time if I don’t.”

Jeff let that hang for a second. “Well, what if I dare you to do something? Do you have to take the dare?”

Hay’s eyes got even wider. “Depends on what it is, I guess.”

“What if I dare you to kiss Jordan?”

Everyone in the car snapped to full attention, waiting for an answer for that question. Nothing happened for a moment, except that Hay turned to face forward as if she were internally debating and didn’t want the rest of us to see. Jeff checked the rearview mirror and met my eyes. And in that second I knew that he knew exactly how Jordan felt. Whether Jordan had told him or he’d picked up on the clues, he was in on the secret.

Hay turned back around. “Vanessa!” she barked. “Switch seats with me?” I could see some tension around her eyes, like she wasn’t really sure she was making the right choice, but the tone of voice told me she was determined to follow through on this. She knocked everything off the middle seat of the front bench, where the seatbelt is broken. Vanessa climbed in between Hay and Jeff, trying really hard not to kick Jeff or otherwise force his attention off the road. After this was accomplished, Hay did the opposite, climbing between me and Adam, and Vanessa scooted into the passenger’s seat and buckled back up. Hay looked at Jordan in the backseat, eyes now as determined as her voice, and joined him back there.

Three sets of eyes were glued on the back seat; one watched intermittently as the road conditions allowed. Hay froze for a moment, then put her arms around Jordan’s neck and pulled him close. Jordan’s eyes grew like saucers, and his expression said he doubted she was actually going to kiss him until the second it started. The kiss went on for just a fraction of a second longer than I would have expected; by that time, Jordan’s hands had found their way to her shoulders. Hay pulled back and for a second she smiled, but before Jordan’s eyes opened she turned it to a scowl. While he watched, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand like he’d left a bad taste on it, and then climbed back into the middle seat, looking at Jeff from the relative safety between me and Adam. “Satisfied?”

Jeff grinned and pulled down his sunglasses. “Oh, yeah,” he said, trying not to laugh.

Jordan’s face was bright crimson. He picked up a magazine and pretended to be fascinated by the article in front of him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Adam and I looked at each other over Hay’s head. I gave him a questioning glance and he nodded, with the silent implication of, “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

Hay settled into her new seat and buckled her seatbelt. We were all pretty much looking at her still, and it was her turn to blush again. “Just for the record....I hate you all,” she said.

***

Ogunquit was so not what I was expecting. In some ways, it wasn’t much different from Camden; in other ways, they were nothing alike. Let’s just say that Camden was so much more...conservative. Adam took a look around as we drove down the main strip and turned to me. “Byron. You picked the gayest town on earth.”

I looked in the same direction he had and saw two guys holding hands walking down the street, passing another pair of men doing the same. I shrugged. “Hay picked it out.”

Adam cocked his head at her. “Haley. You picked the gayest town on earth.”

Hay looked helpless for a second. “I read this book,” she said for the second time in two days. I suddenly started picturing a book: How to Get Your Best Guy Friend to Come Out Already. She’d picked this town as some kind of message to me.

I must have blushed because suddenly several sets of eyes were on me. Vanessa leaned over the seat. “What’s the matter, Byron?” she asked. She was the only one looking at me who didn’t know. “You got a problem with ho-mo-sex-u-als?” She dragged it out in a Mr. Rogers kind of way.

Hay spoke under her breath. “Yeah, a jealousy problem,” she quipped. Adam laughed, but I think only he and I heard her. Vanessa looked at us like we were crazy—which, admittedly, had been her look for most of the trip. She then picked up the map and started studying it.

“I think this town’s pretty cool. I like any town that’s this accepting of everyone,” Jeff piped up. He turned onto a side street and then into a parking lot. “Did you guys see that teen club back a couple blocks? It’s said it’s ages sixteen to twenty. We have to go there one night.”

Hay threw her hands up, glad to have found an ally. “I know, right? I saw that in the travel guide. Vanessa, you got a state ID?”

Vanessa nodded. “I had to get one last summer so I could get a job. Thank goodness, right? I’d have to kill you all if you went into a club—even a lame, alcohol free one— without me.”

We all tumbled out of the car and looked around. “So, this is Ogunquit,” Jordan said, like he’d been expecting something grander.

Vanessa looked at him. “This is a parking lot. All the good stuff seems to be that way.” She pointed back toward the main drag.

“Well, then, let’s go that way.” Jordan seemed to be taking charge for the first time since we’d left home, and, being surprised and a bit bedraggled, we let him.

As we followed Jordan, Hay turned into a walking guide book. “So there are two parts to Ogunquit. This is the village. Pretty much everything I was interested in is here in the village, but I hear Perkins Cove is beautiful.” She paused for a minute as we passed another gay couple. In a low voice, she continued. “The village is also home to Ogunquit’s very active gay social scene.”

“We hadn’t noticed,” Adam joked as we passed maybe the third gay-themed business in a couple blocks.

Obviously, tourist season was not in full blast, or even a trickle, but we still got a feel for the town anyway. Just about everyone we passed said hello to us. Like we did our first night in Camden, we just browsed shops and went inside in ones and twos. Hay dragged me into one of the gay-themed gift stores and made me look around with her at all the kitschiness. Some of the items were typical to what you’d find in a regular gift shop, with a unique Ogunquit twist.

“Oh, look, By, you have to have this!” Hay squealed. It was t-shirt that read ‘I went to Ogunquit and all I did was come out’ in rainbow letters. Even though I protested and vowed to never wear it, she picked it up and went to check out. By the time she and I left the store we were both laughing hysterically.

Adam and Jordan were once again sitting on a bench, not shopping, when we came out. Hay was silently shaking with laughter, half doubled over. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Jordan quirked an eyebrow at us. “Something hit your funny bones?” he asked.

I was having trouble breathing, but I managed to start calming down a bit. “Show them the shirt, Hay,” I said.

She was gasping for breath herself. “Are you sure?” she wheezed, looking at Jordan and then back at me. I nodded and she pulled the shirt out of the bag, which I had made her carry. It was folded with the message on the inside. “I bought Byron a present to celebrate him making history this trip.” With that, she shook the shirt out and showed it to them.

They both took a look, and did a double take. Adam started to laugh right away. Jordan looked uncomfortable. “You sure you want everyone to know like this?” he asked.

I studied him for a moment. “Well, I wasn’t planning on wearing it out to dinner tonight or anything. But yeah, I want to tell people. I’ve been gay for eighteen years. It’s about time I accept that and let other people accept it too.” Jordan’s expression changed, and suddenly he looked guilty. “I was planning to tell you, you know. Just not like it came out. And I’m sorry I got so worked up.” Adam and Haley exchanged a look, like they might be missing something, which, of course, they were.

Jordan ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, still looking guilty. “No, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed anything. Next time I’ve got a problem with you, I’ll come and talk to you about it instead of letting it build up like that, okay?”

I grinned at the rare show of humility. “To be fair, this was totally an imaginary problem with me, wasn’t it? All in your head?”

He started to protest, but when he realized I was kidding, he grinned back. “You son of a bitch,” he said.

I shook my head in mock disgust. “Don’t talk that way about your mother, son,” I said. Adam joined the two of us, putting his arms around us both.

“Aww,” Hay said, stuffing the shirt back into the bag and jumping in front of us, holding a fake camera to her face. “Where are Vanessa and her camera when you need her?”

“What about me and my camera?” Vanessa came up behind Haley. She took a good look at us triplets, still embracing, and shook her head. “Oh, my God. You three are so gay.” Hay looked around in surprise, hoping no one who might be offended heard Vanessa, but no one was near, not even Jeff.

Jordan looked at Adam, and then over at me. “Nope, just one out of three,” he said. I gaped at him for a moment, and then we all started to laugh.

Vanessa looked at him in surprise. “Wait, what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The whole story probably would have come tumbling out, for the third time in as many days, if Jeff hadn’t come racing out of one of the stores down the block and shouted at us as a group. “You guys. You have to come see this swimsuit in here. It’s got piano keys all over the ass! Come on, guys!”

Nothing like Jeff on a shopping spree to provide a good distraction.

***

We finally managed to drag Jeff away from the shopping, but not before he’d bought us all matching Ogunquit t-shirts. “I’m bound and determined to wardrobe everyone,” he’d said.

Hay had held hers up to her front. “We should all wear these on the way home. It would freak people out.”

We stopped at a takeout Chinese restaurant and placed an order, which Hay then held steady with her feet as we hunted down our motel. It was a little farther out of town than the other motel owner had made it sound, but other than that, she’d been spot on in her description. I’d gotten us checked in and we took our delicious-smelling food inside, leaving our bags in the station wagon.

Hay set the food down on the small table in the corner of the room and we all swarmed it. Every last morsel of watercress and every piece of rice was gone before too long. I looked mournfully at the empty containers. “We should have ordered more,” I moaned.

Jordan tossed a bag of potato chips at me. “Here, you can have these,” he offered.

Hay looked at the snack. “Nothing like barbecue chips to go with Chinese barbecue chicken,” she snickered.

Adam opened the door. “Hey, who’s going to help me unload the car?” he called over his shoulder as he walked out. Everyone but me followed. I quickly ate up the chips before Jordan changed his mind and then joined them.

It only took us a few minutes to bring in the bags, and then we scattered. Adam and Jordan went outside to take a look around. Jeff had turned on the television and was watching the news, with Vanessa providing commentary. I had no idea where Hay had gone—to the bathroom in the girls’ room, I assumed. I took out my crossword puzzle and tried to finish it. I was missing enough letters to drive me mad.

Some time passed. Vanessa went to use our bathroom. I tossed the puzzle aside in disgust. “Seen Hay?” I asked Jeff, who was now engrossed in a game of Wheel of Fortune. He merely shook his head. Since I’d last seen her headed into the other room, I went to the door and opened it without a second thought.

The room was dimly lit, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure what I saw. I stepped a little farther into the room and squinted. The only light burning was a small lamp on the far side of the bed. It illuminated a back, leaned over the bed, head bent forward. He was kneeling on the bed, over someone else; the other person lay face up on the bed, her arms around his neck. Her shirt was hiked up under her breasts, and his hands were caressing her bare back. Their eyes were closed and they only noticed each other as they kissed on and on. I backed back out of the room without either one of them noticing.

When I was back in the other room, I closed the door quietly behind me and then pushed up against the door, my heart pounding. Jeff looked at me quizzically. “You okay over there?”

I wanted to scream at him that, no, I was not okay. I had just seen my brother making out with my best friend. All I wanted was to erase that image from my memory. I shook my head, less in answer to his question than to clear my head. “Got any brain bleach?” I asked.

Jeff blinked. “Uh,” he answered eloquently. I forced myself away from the door and joined him on the bed. “You going to tell me what’s going on?” he added.

I reached across the bed and took the remote from next to his thigh. “Nope.”

Adam came in from outside, carrying a big bucket of ice, which he dumped unceremoniously into the cooler. I was holding the remote but just fidgeting with it. “Byron…you’re as white as a ghost. What’s the matter?”

I shook my head again. Jeff cocked his head to one side. “Don’t bother; I haven’t been able to get a peep out of him.” He reached over and took the remote back from me, wrestling it out of my hands. “Something spooked him in the other room though.”

Adam looked like he was going to continue the questions, but the bathroom door peeked open and Vanessa’s face appeared in the crack. “Haley?” she called.

Jeff looked at Adam, then at me, then back at Vanessa. “Absent,” he replied.

We could only see a sliver of Vanessa’s face, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Can you go get her?” she whined.

“No,” I piped up. “She’s, um, busy.”

“Please?” Vanessa pleaded. “I need something from her.”

“Vanessa,” I said, starting to lose my patience a little bit, “I am not going to interrupt Haley right now. Is there anything any of us can help you with?”

Her face clouded over. “Not unless any of you has a tampon,” she snipped.

Jeff, Adam and I looked at each other. “I don’t know about the others, but I’m not in the habit of carrying those around,” Adam told her.

Vanessa scowled. “Well, Haley is, and if I’m not mistaken, she probably has a whole box of them in that oversize purse of hers. So if you’re not willing to go stop whatever’s so goddamn important that she’s doing, could you at least bring me some goddamn tampons!?” She slammed the door shut behind her.

Jeff looked at us. “Are we going to get Haley’s purse?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It’s in the other room, and like I said, she’s busy in there. More than my life’s worth to interrupt her now.”

Jeff and Adam looked at each other, probably wondering what exactly was so taboo that I wouldn’t interrupt it. “Guess one of us is going to have to go buy some tampons,” Jeff said slowly.

Without a word, Adam and I turned to each other and shook a fist three times. Jeff stared at us until we slammed our fists down, in unison, into our other hand. I kept my fist rounded, but Adam laid his flat. “Paper covers rock. I win!”

I grumbled under my breath as I grabbed the car keys off the table. “I’ll come with you,” Jeff offered.

As I was pulling on my shoes, Adam picked up the remote control and started flipping channels. “Seen Jordan?” he asked.

“Yeah, I have,” I said, and then walked out the door, causing Jeff to run to catch up.

***

I had barely pulled out of the parking spot when Jeff turned to me from the passenger’s seat. “Okay, spill,” he demanded. “What was Haley doing in there that’s got you so worked up?”

I eased out of the parking lot and drove a short way before I responded. “She was on the bed with Jordan.”

Jeff raised his eyebrow. “Were they...?”

I let out a breath. “No, thank God. But they were about a minute from second base.”

He watched me for a moment, and I tensed up even more at the visual inquisition. Finally he spoke. “Well, that’s a good thing, right? Honestly, I might have only been around you all for four days, but I can see she basically clings to you. I’m glad you two have each other, but it isn’t really healthy for you to be everything to one another, right?” He paused, looking straight ahead for a moment, making a pained face. “Oh, my God, I sound like my therapist.” A funny little laugh escaped his mouth.

I glanced at Jeff briefly, concerned. He pulled himself back together and looked at me again. I took a deep breath. “You’re right, though. Remember, I said yesterday, I worry that she’s always alone when I’m not with her. But her and Jordan...well, just two days ago, she punched him in the face! She called him a miserable human being not twelve hours ago. And just now, she was letting him feel her up. It’s just not like her, you know?” Jeff shook his head and made a ‘hmm’ noise and I continued. “I’ve been hanging out with Hay for three years, and in that time, she’s never had one date. Lots of guys asked her out, at least that first year, so she could have gone on dates and had boyfriends, and she never once said yes to any of them. So for her to turn on a dime like that...it just concerns me, okay?”

Jeff smiled kindly. “I understand. I just think it’s not maybe as big a deal as you’re making it out to be. Haley knows Jordan. She’s known him about half her life. Maybe she figured out about his year-long obsession with her. Or maybe he told her, I don’t know. Maybe she just figured she was ready for something more than a hug from her best friend, and he was right there. Whatever. In any case, is it really a bad thing if she gets together with Jordan?”

I thought about that for a minute. “No,” I said slowly, still mulling it over, “It’s not. I think I just rather would have found out by one of them telling me rather than catching them in the act.”

He laughed a little, and then turned sober. “I hate to even say this, but I think there’s a little more to it than that. I’m only saying it because I’m your friend, but could it be possible that you’re a bit jealous? Not necessarily of Jordan kissing Haley specifically, but that they have someone to kiss at all?”

And damn him, he was right. That was definitely the hardest part of being in the closet: you can’t just find a guy, like Hay had suggested I do, and have a good time. Because someone will definitely find out and then everyone will know. And anyway, I didn’t know any other gay guys to even find and get together with. I blushed, grateful that it was dark, and pulled into the parking lot of a twenty-four hour grocery.

I went to get out of the car when Jeff put a hand on my arm. “Hey, Byron?”

“Yeah?” I turned to him. Jeff spent a moment trying to get the words out, and then shook his head. He looked away and bit his lip. I could tell he had lost his reserve again. “Hey, no worries, Jeff. Whatever it is, you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Anyway, you were right. Maybe you should just revel in that for a moment.”

Jeff grinned with his mouth, but his eyes looked sad. “What was I right about?” he asked.

I smiled for real at him as I climbed out of the car. “Everything. What else?”

***

By the time Jeff and I got back, Haley and Jordan had rejoined the crew and Vanessa had been rescued from the bathroom. I handed her a box of tampons and she just grunted. “You owe me big time,” I told her.

Adam and Jordan were on one bed, and Hay and Vanessa were on the other. Vanessa opened the box and dug out a tampon, which she handed to Hay. “Thank you,” Hay said, stuffing the extra in her pocket. Vanessa tossed the box aside and they went back to the magazine they’d been poring over when Jeff and I had come in the door.

Jordan was sharing a bag of chips with Adam and watching a hockey game on television. Neither he nor Hay gave any sign that they knew that I’d walked in on them, or any sign that they’d even done what I’d seen them do. I looked over at Jeff, who shrugged at me. There wasn’t any room left on the beds, so we sat down at the table in the corner. “Adam? Can we borrow your cards?” Jeff asked. Adam jumped off the bed and pulled out box of two decks, which Jeff then shuffled together. “Okay, By, you gotta teach me the secret behind that spite and malice game so I can kick everyone’s ass next time.”

I shook my head at him. “I suck at cards.”

“So? We’ll suck together.” He handed me the deck. “You deal.”

We were only halfway through the game when Jeff started yawning. He turned to the group as a whole. “So. Sleeping arrangements? We could stick to the same rooms we had last time. Or we could let Jordan and Haley have the single room and the rest of us bunk up in here.”

Absolute silence followed that statement. Hay dropped the magazine, her face blazing scarlet. Adam and Vanessa stared at Jeff, confused. Jordan’s mouth dropped open. I ducked my head, trying not to get involved. After a moment of crickets chirping, Hay found her voice. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, looking venomous.

Jeff smiled at her. “Oh, come on, Hay. Byron walked in on the two of you.” So much for trying not to get involved. I burned as bright as Hay and looked at the carpeting. Even so, I could feel a couple faces on me.

Hay jumped up and ran into the other room, slamming the door behind her. Vanessa looked questioningly at Adam, who nodded at her, and she followed Hay into the other room, calling after her. That left the four of us guys alone in the room together. I still had my eyes on the floor.

Jordan looked over at Jeff, looking like he was going to give him hell, but then stopped and grinned. “What the hell, Jeff?” he asked, not sounding upset, but rather giddy.

Jeff took a look at Jordan’s stupid goofy grin and chuckled. “Sorry, dude. Was it supposed to be a secret?” he asked.

Jordan got control of his expression a little bit, but he still looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time. “No. At least I don’t think so. I mean, Haley said that she isn’t sure what this is, but I think that just means that we aren’t officially dating or anything.”

Adam thumped Jordan on the shoulder. “So what exactly are we talking about here?” he asked.

Jordan’s smile turned mushy again. “Second base,” he said.

Adam looked impressed. “Whoa, dude. How did this happen? You were about her least favorite person on earth earlier today.”

“The power of an apology, maybe? Either that or I’m just that good of a kisser.” All three of them smirked.

I shuffled a foot around on the floor and inadvertently caught Jordan’s attention. “Hey, Byron. You and me are cool, right?”

I finally looked up. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?”

He looked a little embarrassed. “Well, Jeff said you saw me and Haley while we were....”

I shook my head, lowering it again, hiding behind my hair. “It wasn’t exactly my favorite image, and I’m going to need a lobotomy to get it out of my head, but that’s alright. I’ll get over it.” I scuffed my shoe around some more. “But I gotta tell you, man. You hurt her and I’ll kill you.”

Jordan laughed. “I’d expect nothing less out of you.”

***

I wish I could say Hay was as easy going about what happened that night as Jordan was, but I couldn’t. Not even close. And for some reason, she held me entirely to blame for everything.

I found that out the hard way the next time I saw her, after everyone was showered and dressed the next morning. Vanessa came in to get some breakfast. She discovered the milk had soured, so she and Jordan ran to buy some more from the grocery. Adam was styling his hair and Jeff was munching dried fruit and watching PBS kids. I knocked on the door to the girls’ room, and when I didn’t get an answer, I went in.

Hay was on the bed, flipping through a notebook of some kind. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her, just like any other time. Only this time, she shoved me hard and knocked me off the bed. “Ow! What the hell, Hay?” I spit as I sat back up, rubbing my arm where she’d shoved me. Suddenly I was glad she hadn’t punched me like she’d done to Jordan. She’s got strong arms.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” she asked, putting the notebook aside and standing over me.

Oh, crap. “Can you be more specific?” I asked.

She leaned in closer. “I mean, spying on me and Jordan last night.”

I sputtered. “I was not spying on you. How was I supposed to know that you guys were in here together? Isn’t there some kind of code for that? Like leaving a sock on the door knob or something?” She leaned in even closer, her eyes blazing. “Okay, okay. Bad joke. But honest, I just walked into the room, saw you two on the bed, and walked back out. No spying intended. I wasn’t even going to mention it to you.”

“But you told Jeff.”

I hung my head. “Yeah, I told Jeff. Listen; imagine if you walked in on me kissing your brother.” She involuntarily shuddered. “See? I had to tell someone. And he talked me down a little bit. But if I’d known he was going to blurt it out like that, I wouldn’t have.”

The outside door to the other room opened and Vanessa and Jordan returned. “We’ve got milk!” I heard Vanessa call. Haley whirled around and stalked out the door, leaving me behind without a goodbye. By the time I’d gotten off the floor, brushing off my butt (and my pride) and made it into the other room, she had a bowl of Lucky Charms and milk. I walked in through the door, and she walked back through it without acknowledging me, slamming it behind her again.

Jordan quirked an eyebrow. “What’s with her?” he asked, nodding toward the still vibrating door.

I picked up a box of Cap’n Crunch and poured a bowl. “She’s mad about last night.” Jordan wrinkled his brow. “Not about what happened between you. But about how everyone found out.”

Jeff looked chagrined. Jordan moved to join Hay next door, but I physically stopped him. “Don’t. Wait ten minutes before you talk to her.”

He looked irritated. “Don’t be a know-it-all, Byron. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

I let him go but shook my head. “Forget that I’m your brother for a minute. Forget I’m a guy. Just think of me as Haley’s best friend, okay? When she’s this upset, she needs some time to calm down. Otherwise, she’ll say something you’ll both regret.”

Vanessa interjected. “He’s right. When I went in there last night, she tore me a new hole. Even though I didn’t make out with her, or ‘Peeping Tom’ her, or share her news with the whole world,” she said cheerfully. Jeff and I both winced at the phrasing, but she plowed on, unabated. “After a few minutes she calmed down and apologized for it. And then we worked together to come up with as many insulting names for men as possible, in alphabetical order. We got stuck at Q.”

I ignored the second half of that statement for the time being. “Anyway, Jordan, trust me on this one. Eat your breakfast, and then go talk to her. And I do think it should be you who talks to her anyway, even if that makes me sound like a know-it-all.”

We all ate quietly for a while with Sesame Street as our only sounds. Finally Jeff put his bowl down. “Couldn’t come up with a Q?” he asked Vanessa thoughtfully.

***

After we ate, Jordan went into the other room, and a few minutes later, he led Haley out to join us. He had one hand gently on her back, guiding her, and she looked unsure of herself. Jordan made a joke with Vanessa, still standing there with his fingers on Hay’s shoulder blade, and when Hay realized that no one was going to make a single comment to her, she visibly relaxed a bit. Jordan noticed and eased his hand around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. She looked up at him and smiled her thousand-watt smile.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t beach weather, we’d decided to spend the morning at the beach. When we’d managed to find a news broadcast, they’d said the temperature was supposed to go down for the next couple days, meaning that this was the closest we were going to get to a “nice day” in Maine in April. We all put on our windbreakers and hoodies and piled into the car.

The beach was ridiculously beautiful, even though it was maybe fifty degrees outside. We spread out a picnic blanket, and I swear, we all regressed to being seven and eight for a couple hours. We built sandcastles and tossed a ball around.

By lunch time we were covered in sand, sunburn and windburn. I ate the last of the ham in a sandwich and then took a walk down the beach alone. When I got far enough away that I could barely see everyone else, I came across a pier, one of those decorative ones that isn’t used for boats or fishing. I sat down at the end of it, staring out to the sea and thinking about everything that had happened so far this trip.

I didn’t even hear Hay come down the pier, despite the fact that it must have creaked many times over. She sat down beside me, far enough away that we weren’t touching, but reached her hand out to poke me in the side. I didn’t acknowledge her; I wasn’t ready for her to intrude on my thoughts. Finally she scooted a bit closer, still not touching me, and spoke my whole name. “Byron?”

“Hmmm?”

She looked at me and I could tell I was annoying her. But I could also tell she felt like she deserved it. “I’m sorry about before,” she said.

I still didn’t look at her, but I finally spoke. “You know I’d never purposely do anything to hurt or embarrass you.”

Hay sighed. “Yeah. I know. I overreacted.” She put her hands into her lap and grabbed the bottom of her hoodie, twisting it over and over. “This is just something I haven’t really done before. Getting close to a guy in this way, I mean. I just wanted time to think it over and maybe even enjoy this relationship or whatever it is.” She chuckled a nervous chuckle. “I also was afraid that you’d be unhappy about this.”

I shook my head. “I just want you to be happy. Even if that means you’re letting my doofus brother slobber all over you.” She let go of her hoodie long enough to smack my arm. “Ouch! You already bruised that arm earlier today. Leave it be, will ya, Hay?”

She smiled a real smile but her hands went back to the jacket. “Do you really mean that? I was afraid you’d be, I don’t know, jealous or something.”

It was my turn to chuckle. Still looking out over the water, I responded. “Jealous of Jordan for getting to kiss you, or jealous of you for having someone to kiss?” Hay’s mouth twitched, and she looked like she was about to say something, but I plowed on. “On the first, no, sorry. Gay, remember?” She smiled. “On the second? Yeah. Definitely.”

Hay smiled, a little sadly. “Well, what about Jeff?”

“What about Jeff?”

She laughed a hollow laugh. “Remember when I told you that I knew you were gay because you didn’t hit on me? Well, I had that fact confirmed for me by the way you kept staring at one of the guys in my algebra class. You are so transparent when you like a guy, Byron.” She patted my knee. “So I know you like Jeff.”

I threw my hands up. “So what if I do? He’s straight, Hay. Remember, the ex?”

She waved that away. “Trust me on this, By. Jeff likes you, too. Maybe even more than you like him.”

My cheeks grew warm as I remembered Jeff’s arms around my body. “Weren’t we talking about you, here?” I demanded.

Hay laughed again, a little happier this time. “What’s there to talk about anyway? I came, I saw, I made out.”

I turned to her finally, leaving the calming waves of the ocean on the edge of my vision. “Yeah, but why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said: why now? I’ve been your friend for three years, and in all that time you’ve never even been on a date. And you could have, so it’s not like you were just waiting around for some guy to ask you. If I remember correctly, even that guy in your algebra class that I had a huge crush on asked you out.” She laughed again, back to sounding fake. More ‘ha-ha’ than her silent, happy laugh. “So I just don’t get it. Why not go out with some of those guys?”

The sky had started to darken with clouds, and now her face did the same. “Maybe not enough time had passed,” she said, sounding sad and lost.

I grabbed the arm closest to me. “Not enough time had passed since what?” I demanded.

Hay tore my hand off her arm with her free hand and scooted away from me, scrambling to her feet. “You’re really going to make me say it?” she asked, now adding angry to the sadness. “This is payback for outing you, isn’t it?” she accused.

“Say it, Haley.”

She backed away from me, down the pier. “Dammit, Byron. Please. Let it go,” she pleaded.

I shook my head as I got to my feet. I didn’t know exactly what she was going to say, but I knew it was big. “Not until you say it.”

She started to cry, angry, hurt tears. “I was raped,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

In seconds I had my arms around her and she put her head on my shoulder. She cried soundlessly for a few minutes, and then wiped her face on my jacket. “I’ve never said that before,” she told me.

I eased up on the hug and put some distance between us so I could see her face. I didn’t say a word, but my expression said, “Talk about it.”

She read it right away. She pulled out of my arms and started walking back down the pier as drops of rain began to fall. “Do you remember a girl Vanessa and I used to hang out with named Diane?” I fell into step with her and shook my head. “I didn’t think so. She was more my friend than Vanessa’s. Well, she had this brother. Three years older than me and Diane. Gorgeous. His name was Dominic.”

I thought about that for a moment and remembered a Dominic Dumschat who was two years ahead of me in school. Hay was right. He was gorgeous, but more than a little arrogant. I nodded or her to continue.

“Well, the summer before high school, Vanessa and I went over to Diane’s to hang out. Dominic was there, and he started flirting with me. When we left, he followed me out of the house and asked me out. Vanessa said I shouldn’t do it, but I said yes.” She sniffled. I found myself wishing I was one of those people who carried tissues in his pocket. “The first two dates were okay. On the first, he kissed me goodnight. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it felt like the first one that counted, you know?” I knew exactly what she meant. “On the second date, he drove me home in his car and he reclined both our seats back and kissed me for a while. I was so thrilled because here was this cute senior making out with silly little freshman me.”

She stopped for a moment. Jordan was running down the beach toward us, holding an umbrella. He was still far enough away that he couldn’t hear. The rest of her story came out in a tumble of words. “But on the third date, he took me in the backseat. I was thinking, maybe we’ll lie across the seat and mess around like we had the night before. And that’s how it started.” She started to cry again. “But when he hit second base, I panicked and told him to stop. He told me not to be a tease. And then he pulled out a condom....” Hay was crying too hard to go on, but she didn’t really need to, anyway. I had the picture. More of the picture than I wanted, in fact. Suddenly, I knew that if I ever saw Dominic Dumschat again, I’d kick his ass.

Jordan joined us a moment later. “Everything okay?” he asked Hay, looking at me like I was the cause of her tears.

I answered for her. “I just told her a really sad story that ended with a dog getting hit by a car. I cried the first time I heard it, too.”

Jordan may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. He didn’t believe a word I said. “Um, okay,” he said, knowing that something more was going on. He moved to put an arm around her again, but she sidestepped him. He looked hurt and confused at the same time.

I caught Hay’s eye. “You got some tissues in that huge purse of yours?” I asked. She nodded, slowly, her tears subsiding again. “I’ll go to the car and get them for you.”

She caught my hand. “No. Jordan, do you mind? Please?” He nodded, unhappy, and took the car keys from her. After he was out of earshot, she continued the story, picking up ‘after.’ “Vanessa and I got into a big fight over it. That was the day you walked me home. She basically told me it was my fault.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “She told you it was your fault you got raped?”

Hay looked up at me over her shoulder. “Well, I didn’t say the word. I told her Dominic had gotten ‘handsy.’ She said you should expect nothing less with a seventeen year old and that she’d told me not to go out with him. I think she was really surprised when I cursed her out.” She started walking to where we could see Vanessa, Adam and Jeff smashing the sandcastle we’d worked on for hours.

I followed. “She wouldn’t have said that if she’d really known what happened.” Hay nodded, and she started walking directly in front of me. Probably so that I couldn’t see her face. “You’ve really never told anyone this before? Not even your mom?”

A head shake. “No,” she said, her voice muffled by the wind and the rain, “I didn’t want to get in trouble. My mom would have never let me go out with Dominic. Too old. So I told her I was hanging out at Diane’s when we went out.”

Jordan met us, holding Haley’s purse. She had stopped crying but her face was wet from tears and rain, so she pulled out a tissue anyway. Jordan watched her intently as she wiped her face and stuffed the tissue in her pocket. “Thanks,” she said, grinning at him. Jordan smiled back, and Hay reached out to take his hand. He looked shocked and pleased as he squeezed her hand and they walked back to our crew. I followed, a few steps behind, wishing I had a tissue for my own face.

***

We had planned to leave the beach and take a walk that afternoon, but the weather had different plans for us. We went back to the motel, tired and wet, and in some cases, emotionally drained. Hay begged off and went to the girls’ room to take a nap, while Vanessa decided on a hot shower and also retreated to the girls’ room. The four of us guys all looked at each other, not sure what to do with the next couple hours. It’s not as if there were too many options.

We played a few rounds of bullshit with the cards before we got bored with that. Vanessa had rejoined us by that point. I got up to use the john, and when I came back, Jordan and Vanessa were gone. “Emergency chocolate run,” Jeff explained.

Adam flipped on the television and the three of us vegged in front of the set for about an hour. I looked at the alarm clock between the beds and blinked. “They’ve been gone a long time for chocolate,” I commented. Jeff and Adam exchanged a look. “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

“Oh,” Adam said, like the thought had just occurred to him, “Jordan might have decided to maybe let Vanessa drive the car around for a while.”

I sat bolt upright. “What?”

Jeff was extremely casual about it. “She mentioned that your parents had never let her try driving in the rain.”

Internally I was screaming. Both Jeff and Adam were watching me closely, so I took a deep breath. “Oh.” They stared at me, waiting for me to blow a gasket. I turned my back for a second and took another breath. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said, barely looking at them.

I walked calmly into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I was pretty sandy and gross, but I mostly just wanted to get away from them. As I washed my hair, I thought hard about how other people saw me. There’s one thing I’ve never understood. They tell you not to give in to peer pressure or worry about how other people think of you all the time while you’re growing up. But at the same time, they tell you to do this or that to make yourself look good or fit in. We wear deodorant and say please so we don’t offend others. There comes a time when you can’t have it both ways.

Old Byron would have flipped out that Jordan was letting an unlicensed driver behind the wheel of the car. New Byron, whoever he was, wanted to say, “Screw them. If they wreck the car, it’s on them. I have nothing to do with it,” and let it go. I wasn’t sure that New Byron was so much better.

I turned off the shower and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look any different than I had a week ago. Same long brown hair. Same blue eyes. Same face that probably needed a shave. Yet I felt different. Older, maybe. More mature. Definitely more honest.

Jordan and Vanessa were back by the time I came out of the shower. “Bring me any chocolate?” was all I said to them.

[jessicakehoe]

Ian Williams’s “I Want It All. I Want It Now.” Chapter 3: Broke Up, Broken Up

Below you’ll find the third chapter of Ian Williams’s fictional story, “I Want It All. I Want It Now,” from our Summer 2019 issue. To read from the beginning, click here.

Toronto, Montreal

Vein

Late summer, Ella took me to the airport. Together we lifted my bags onto the scale to be weighed. I’d been booked for a lot of work that summer: an ad campaign for a beauty brand in Toronto, a fitness spot on TV in Montreal and a fashion shoot in Mexico.

Ella said, I’ll keep an eye on your druggie boyfriend.

She still called Hudson my boyfriend, even though we’d had a conscious uncoupling after the music festival. No one’s taking minutes, but, for the record, I’d consciously uncoupled him and not the other way around.

He’s not a druggie. I felt the need to defend him. I had bought him a Sackville & Co. gold grinder for his weed. I said, A little pot does not a druggie make.

We’d had this conversation before. I had never seen Hudson use anything more than a little pot, and, even so, there was a difference between trying a drug and being an addict. He might have tried something. I tried cocaine in high school. I wasn’t an addict.

Ella tilted her head. Just high school?

Don’t look at me like that.

She shook her head. I caught a whiff of Daisy.

I should be worried about you, I said. You’re the one who was on friggin’ methadone.

Naloxone.

Naloxone, I repeated. She had projected her problem on him. I needed a break from them both.

I have something for you, Ella said.

She rooted around in her Gucci bag until she found a row of condoms.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he cheated on you with more than one woman. Ella made a tourniquet around my arm by tying two condoms together. As she was working, she listed names: Molly, Roxie, Aunt Hazel, Mandy, Kitty.

Ella drummed the inside of my elbow as if searching for a vein. Then she pushed me toward the security area with the condoms tied around my arm.

Tat

According to Instagram, Hudson got a tattoo. It was on his ribs—about the size of a passport photo. Very discreet. If he squeezed his arm against his torso, he’d cover it up. It was still red in the image. Caps. Serif font.

Seeing it on his body, I felt like he had communed with my mother and she had given me over to him. Or he had taken me over. I was on his body forever. The words weren’t beads I borrowed from Ella’s closet.

Ice

Hudson used to describe Sephora as the makeup version of the Apple store: brightly lit, clerks everywhere, an air of sterility, futuristic, clean to the point of being antiseptic.

I was sitting on a stool in the Bite Beauty section wearing all black, knees together, hair pulled back. I was one of 15 models hired for a one-day social media campaign. Women had been invited into the store to get their makeup done and have the chance to win a modelling contract. Each woman would sit next to a model while a clerk did her makeup similar to that model’s; then Sephora would snap some photos, post them on Instagram and ask people to guess who the model was. It was a Dove kind of idea—celebrating the beauty of ordinary women.

The woman on the stool in front of me was more than 10 years older than me. I’d say she was 37. We sat facing each other like reflections. My future self. Her past. Pale. Blunt nose. Faint eyebrows, like a Dutch portrait. Overall, she was austere and well maintained but starting to finely crack.

Her manners were European. She said, You are one of those challenging models.

Is that good? I asked.

Unconventional. She had three stripes of tester lipstick on her hand. The middle one looked the best on her.

I was starting to get offended.

Where you’re pretty if you have one ugly feature.

Oh. I said nothing about her nose. Just, Oh.

I guess that’s what sells, she said, looking into my eyes. She was feeling the boldness of becoming beautiful. Ella would describe her face as aristocratic.

Are you a student? she asked.

In Vancouver, I said. I wanted to impress her. Grad student. M.B.A.

Which is your primary identity?

Excuse me?

Slowly. Are you a student or are you a model?

Both. (I want it all, and I want it now.)

Or are you someone’s girlfriend?

I looked at her left hand. She had a diamond. She was one of those women who would be cruel to other aspiring women in her company. Worse to women than to men.

I don’t often feel teary, but my mother’s birthday was coming up (always a difficult day), and Hudson had posted that IG photo a few days ago; plus I was worried about whether or not I was toned enough for Montreal in a few days, plus it was high summer and I was—I’ll admit—lonely under my sunglasses, and now this ice queen was stabbing her pick into my heart.

I couldn’t wet my makeup. I said, You look like a lawyer.

Young love, she said. Caustic. She smiled a little. Squinted. You’re not going to be a challenging model forever.

I’m going to need you to stop talking now, the clerk said to the woman to save me.

Lawyer, she mouthed and touched her large nose.

Muldoon, the Beagle

But things got worse. A few days after Sephora, I had just slathered on sunscreen and was biking sprints through The 6, along Lake Ontario, when my father called.

He was putting down Muldoon, a black and white beagle with a coat so shiny it appeared metallic.

He just wanted to say goodbye, my dad said.

I had known Muldoon his whole life. His owners—the coolest, sweetest people—were hardcore punk rockers who had paid me to dog-sit as a kid.

My dad turned on the video. There was Muldoon. His ears were flopped forward like two leaves at the side of his head. When he heard my voice, he sniffed the screen. His eyes were noble.

I told Muldoon about Doggy Heaven. About my mom. He blinked slowly.

My dad said his girlfriend was spending the week with him. Then he hung up. Or, he thought he did. I watched my screen go black as he put his phone face down on the counter. Our phones were still connected.

I could hear the moment Muldoon died. I heard shuffling, then muffled voices, then silence, then a shift in the silence—like the hum of the AC going off.

FT

Mom would have been 60 today. Happy B-day, Ma! On her last birthday before she died of breast cancer, I got out all of her Fashion Television tapes and we curled up on my parents’ bed and watched hours and hours of Jeanne Beker, the synth-pop theme song, fashion weeks, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista, Milan, haute couture.

It was my present to her—even if she slept through many of them with a silk scarf on her head.

Backup

In Montreal, I was a fitness model for a morning lifestyle show. Pretty much, I was the equivalent of a backup dancer (that’s what Hudson would call me) for the demo of an Instagram workout video.

I powered through some sit-ups backstage and planked. Club pump. The male model did some push-ups and sprints up and down the hallway; then he patted himself dry and squeezed Gatorade into his mouth. Good energy, this guy Denis. He double high-fived me, low and high.

You got this, he said. Cute little French accent.

Cute little everything.

I unzipped my hoodie. Denis the hottie did some lunges to show off his quads. I did some cat-cow stretches. The audience applauded. We jogged onstage.

Denis adjusted his shorts partway through the segment. He was trying to manage his boner.

At the end of the segment, he ran up to me from behind and lifted me off the ground.

You were amazing, he said.

We followed each other on Instagram.

We had lunch after the segment, and lunch turned into a walk, which turned into dinner. Denis was a big talker. A happy, friendly spaniel. A simple man who needed simple adjectives. So transparent I could see through his face into his brain. He went to bed early, woke up early, went for a morning run, peeled his clothes off at the door and showered, made himself a paleo or keto breakfast, juiced kale and ginger for a midday boost.

So, after dinner, we went to bed early together, woke up early together, went for a morning run together, peeled our clothes off at the door and showered together, made ourselves a paleo or keto breakfast together, juiced kale and ginger for a midday boost together. Times eight days.

I imagined this was what marriage would feel like: Denis parting the curtains in the morning. Denis parting his hair. Denis high-fiving me over laundry. Denis planning ski trips. Denis cuddling with the dog. Olympic sex. Denis to the death. As he was loading my luggage into the trunk of the cab, he said, You are the most—

Compatible person I have ever met, I finished.

We had been finishing each other’s sentences all week.

I saw, of course, this tweet. I slid, platonically, into his DMs. I don’t know why I had reached out to Hudson in the first place.

Sorry about the band, Hudson, I wrote, and removed the heart emoji before sending. The response came quickly.

Any chance you’re in L.A.? I could use your face.

But I know you’re always the one following me. In brackets he let me know that my face is better than the smiley emoji he uses to sign off. I left him with three dots, as if I’d be writing him during my whole flight.

It was late—my flight was delayed—and my loneliness was so astringent it was drying out my skin.

Airplane mode

Waiting for the flight to take off for Mexico, I smelled Santal 33 on the man next to me. I missed how Hudson touched me. Lots of men touched me, styled me, posed me, cinched me, adjusted my hair and jaw as necessary, but Hudson had a range of fabric in his fingers. Most men were cotton.

I looked at my phone.

I imagined him staring at his phone.

I switched my phone to airplane mode and stowed it so I wouldn’t be tempted to reread all our messages.

About three hours into the flight, the Santal 33 smell was so bad that it drove me to join the mile-high club. Not with the dude next to me, no. The half-mile-high club, then, alone, in the bathroom at the back of the aircraft, when the flight attendants turned off all the lights.

You may use your cellular devices at this time.

Odile’s story isn’t finished yet. She clearly isn’t over Hudson, but will he fight harder than Denis? See how it all pans out in Chapter Four and follow @the.real.odile on Instagram for real-time updates.

The post Ian Williams’s “I Want It All. I Want It Now.” Chapter 3: Broke Up, Broken Up appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Ian Williams’s “I Want It All. I Want It Now.” Chapter 3: Broke Up, Broken Up published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

[robertmcangusgroup]

The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – News From Around The World

Wednesday 29th November 2017

Good Morning Gentle Reader….  Hump Day is with us.. Well that got me thinking this morning while Bella and I were exploring the streets of Eastepona..  I know it’s not referring to a Dromedary Camel that’s for sure so when did they start calling it “Hump Day” Well, Starting around 1965, Wednesday began being referred to as “hump day.” Smack dab in the middle of the traditional work week, arriving at Wednesday symbolizes that we've made it over the hump and the weekend is in sight… So now you know, the things you learn from The Daily Tulip astounds me.. And I write it!

WOMAN'S FORGETFULNESS LEADS TO $190,000 LOTTERY PRIZE…. A woman who won $190,000 from the Washington state lottery said she wouldn't have won if she hadn't forgotten the slip of paper with her intended numbers. The Wenatchee woman told Washington's Lottery officials she made a list of special dates and anniversaries to use for her Hit 5 lottery ticket, but when she arrived at the Plaza Super Jet store in Wentachee she realized she didn't have the paper. "I wrote down the numbers from special dates and anniversaries in my family, but left the paper at home so I ended up just using QuickPick," said the winner. "It's a good thing I forgot it!" The QuickPick ticket ended up winning the woman $190,000 in the Nov. 4 Hit 5 drawing. The woman said she is planning to put the money toward home renovation and traveling to New York to see her favorite musical, Jersey Boys, live on Broadway.

TOURIST SNAPS PHOTO OF SEAL BEING CHASED FROM IRISH FISH SHOP…. A visitor to an Irish town captured a photo of local celebrity Sammy the Seal being chased out of a fish store after trying to steal a snack. Derek Byrne tweeted a photo he snapped on a seaside road in Wicklow, Ireland, when he spotted a fish shop employee chasing a large seal across the street. "Just witnessed this giant seal being chased out the door of a fishmongers shop in Wicklow town," Byrne wrote. Commenters informed Byrne that Sammy the Seal is a local celebrity in Wicklow and is famous for making near-daily treks across the road to attempt to steal from The Lighthouse, a fish store and seafood restaurant. The store has employed several measures to ward off the thieving seal, including once chasing the animal with a large photo of U.S. President Donald Trump… I think an orange man with yellow hair is enough to scare most things….it does me!

BRAVE PASSENGER MAKES QUICK WORK OF SNAKE ON COMMUTER TRAIN…. A snake found stowing away on an Indonesian commuter train was quickly dispatched by a fearless passenger in an incident caught on camera. The video, recorded Tuesday aboard a KRL Commuterline train from Bogor to Angke, in Jakarta, shows passengers scrambling to get away from the snake slithering around the overhead area. A passenger and a rail employee track the snake's movements until the commuter manages to climb up and grab the serpent by the tail. The man, in one swift motion, swings the snake and smashes its head against the floor, apparently killing it instantly. The passenger then casually tosses the dispatched snake out the train's door. Officials with KRL Commuterline operator PT KCI said the snake is believed to have been intentionally brought aboard the train by an unknown passenger. "It's difficult to know for certain [who brought the snake]. It's going to be difficult because no one is going to confess," Eva Chairunisa, PT KCI's vice president of corporate communications, told The Daily Tulip.

DOG ESCAPES WISCONSIN ANIMAL HOSPITAL, WALKS HOME…. Police in Wisconsin said an escape artist dog managed to fly the coop at an animal hospital and turned up on his owner's patio. Oak Creek police responded just after 10 p.m. Sunday to the Brentwood Animal Hospital, where a dog had vanished during a suspected break-in. Police said they found the front door of the facility was slightly ajar, a glass deadbolt door was unlocked and nothing was missing other than the boxer named Bear. Hospital staff told police Bear was notorious for escaping and his kennel had been outfitted with zip ties for extra security, but he apparently managed to escape anyway. Police contacted bear's owner, who told police she returned from a vacation about 5:30 p.m. that same day to find Bear waiting for her on the patio at her home. Police reviewed security camera footage from the owner's home and saw bear walk up to the house about two hours before the woman arrived home. Investigators said they do not know how Bear managed to escape or how he found his way home. A blind dog named Sage escaped earlier this year from her family's California home and wandered for seven days in the Santa Cruz mountains. Owner Beth Cole said she had almost given up hope of ever finding the blind Labrador retriever due to cold temperatures and mountain lion sightings in the area, but Sage was found by some hikers seven days after wandering away from home… Where a seeing eye dog when you need one?

TOWN DUBS SALT-SPREADING VEHICLES 'DAVID PLOWIE,' 'GRITSY BITSY'…. A British town that asked the public to name its new salt-spreading vehicles announced the results: "David Plowie" and "Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney." England's Doncaster Council held a series of "World Cup" Twitter polls to allow the public to name the gritter vehicles, which plow snow and spread salt on icy roads, after collecting suggestions from the public and convening a "comedy panel" of civil servants to compile a shortlist. The names chosen by the polls were "David Plowie" and "Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney." The names beat out other suggestions including "Spready Mercury," "Grit Van Dyke," "Walter the Salter," "Basil Salty" and "Gritney Houston." The gritters join a fleet of named vehicles in the town that already included "Mr. Plow," "The Subzero Hero," "Gritney Spears," "Brad Grit" and "Usain Salt." "It's amazing that so many people have got involved in our gritter naming competition, and some of the suggestions are brilliant," Deputy Mayor Glyn Jones told the BBC. "We look forward to Usain Salt, David Plowie and the rest of the gang keeping our roads safe this winter."

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, Wednesday morning… …

Our Tulips today very Purple and are called "Queen of the Night" and in my opinion are simply stunning…..

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Wednesday 29th November 2017 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus