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scapegrace74-blog · 4 years ago

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Ginger Snap, Chapter 5

A/N Know what this fic needs? More Geillis. No really, I think you guys are going to like where I’m going with this. Just bear with me. Only one more chapter to go after this one, plus an epilogue. Thanks for coming on the journey with me! With due credit to Sia, this chapter’s title is Fire, Meet Gasoline.

Previous chapters are best enjoyed on my AO3 page, because I have a bad habit of going back and editing them after they’ve been posted.

Geillis Duncan drove much the way she approached life, which was to say without much regard for rules and at white-knuckle speed. I gripped her Range Rover’s leather cushion and swallowed any exclamations of dismay as we ricocheted through Edinburgh’s late afternoon traffic. When we finally slid into an underground parking spot and emerged into the bustling festivity of the Princes Street Christmas Market, I felt the tension of imminent disaster abandon my shoulders.

“Where to first, then?” Geillis asked, looking far too animated by the prospect of accompanying someone while they did their Christmas shopping.

Geillis and I had kept in touch and met for coffee a few times over the past months. When I explained that I wouldn’t be taking any more cooking classes at Ginger Snap because Jamie was giving me at-home lessons, her reaction was a moonbeam grin.

“Look at ye, wee vixen! I ne’er wouldha thought ye had it in ya, Claire. Tho I canna say as I blame ye.”

No matter how much I protested that I was together with Frank and that my relationship with Jamie was purely professional, she refused to believe me. The ongoing absence of a ring from my left hand didn’t help.

“Now,” Geillis exclaimed once we’d taken in the sights and sounds of the market, “let’s have a keek at yer list. Where should we start?”

I pulled out my phone and opened the Notes app. As she read, my friend’s nose wrinkled in confusion.

“Trouser socks, shoe stays, Moleskine notebook, Rive Gauche... who are ye shopping for, yer grandparents?”

“No,” I protested. “The first three are for Frank. The perfume is for me.”

When I explained that Frank had made a list of the items he would like to give me for Christmas, Geillis grew incensed.

“Ye mean he has ye doin’ his gift buying fer him? Tha’s the least romantic thing I’ve e’er heard. Do ye even like Rive Gauche, Claire? And dinna lie tae me, fer I can read yer feelings all o’er yer face.”

Truthfully, I didn’t much care for the flowery scent. My personal taste ran more towards woodsy or herbaceous aromas. But it was Frank’s favourite, and it pleased me to please him. Or it had. I was beginning to wonder when it would be my turn to please myself.

“Right,” Geillis interrupted my thoughts. “Marks and Sparks will do jes fine for yer wee granny list. And then you and I are going shopping fer yer real gift.”

Geillis was a force to be reckoned with in a retail environment. She navigated like a guided missile from one department to the next. Twenty minutes later, we were back on the pavement, which glistened with the colourful reflections of decorations strung above.

“Your car is the other way,” I explained as Geillis turned left.

“Aye, tis, but our destination is right o’er here. House of Fraser. See? Tis practically calling yer name, Claire.”

Inside the venerable old building was an astonishing multi-tiered arcade reaching over five stories to a massive skylit ceiling. The central space was dominated by a fifteen metre-high Christmas tree (a Fraser fir, of course) and every archway of every arcade was dripping with lights. The impression was like stepping into a Fabergé egg.

Geillis dragged me, slack-jawed, towards the ladies’ wear section. Circling the racks like a hawk on the wind, she eyed my body, sizing me up quite literally, then thrust several pieces into my hands.

“Geillis,” I hissed, wary of the sales staff hovering nearby, no doubt smelling an excessive commission in the offing. “I don’t need a new outfit. And I certainly don’t need,” I shook the garments in question, “something like this. Wherever would I wear it?”

“Well, fer starters, ye’d wear it tae dinner t’night. I dinna wish tae offend ye, Claire, but I canna in good conscience allow ye tae set foot in the Timberyard dressed fer a job interview as a primary school teacher.”

With that she shoved me in the direction of the changing rooms. Deciding to humour her, I was unbuttoning my top when two lacy bits of nothing came flying over the door.

“Start wi’ these. And dinna think I willna notice if ye’re no’ wearing them!”

I stripped down to my panties, bemusedly wondering how she knew my exact bra size.

Upon seeing me exit the dressing room in her choice of clothing, Geillis let out a squeal of delight. She insisted I rip out the tags and leave the store wearing my new outfit, declaring it was her Christmas gift to me.

I felt tremendously self-conscious as we walked towards the restaurant. The aubergine velvet jeans clung to my legs in an unfamiliar way and the black turtleneck, while technically not revealing, hinted at kink with its many heavy zippers and fastenings. Together with my unruly hair, unstraightened for once, I felt like another woman entirely. I didn’t recognize her, but I felt like she might be someone I’d like to get to know.

The Timberyard was a modern restaurant in a rugged old warehouse, not far from the farmer’s market I’d visited with Jamie. We were joined there by several of Geillis’ friends, and we ate, drank and laughed until my sides were sore.

As I wobbled to the loo, I noticed the bartender following me with an appreciative gaze. It had been a long time since a man had looked at me that way, and it gave me a guilty thrill.

We left the restaurant just before midnight. I pulled Geillis into an impulsive hug.

“Wha’ was that for, hen?” she asked.

“Nothing. Everything. Just, thank you for being you, Geil.”

“Och, tis my pleasure, lass. I only want tae see ye happy. Now, what do ye say to a digestif?”

After only a slight protest on my part, the two of us piled into an Uber. Our destination was another restaurant, this time in a converted whisky warehouse by the harbour in Leith. It was well past last sitting, but when I mentioned this to Geillis she explained away my concern.

“I ken the owner, who’s also the chef. Tis a popular spot fer locals in the restaurant scene tae meet after they close up fer a few drinks afore heading home tae their beds.”

Inside, the walls were rough stone, supported in places by industrial metal beams. The kitchen was open to the main dining area, and I grinned as I thought of Frank’s strong opinion on the matter. Near the back of the room, lit by dim naked bulbs and the glow from several open fireplaces, was a huge square table surrounded by nearly twenty chairs upholstered in bright yellow plaid. Around the table was gathered a motley assortment of men and women, all talking and laughing and sipping on a variety of drinks. And in their midst, his copper hair shining in the firelight, sat Jamie.

A shout went up from the table as Geillis approached. I hung back, tugging at the hem of my new turtleneck as though I could stretch it to cover my arse. Besides Jamie, I recognized Jenny, Angus and Murtagh, but I only had eyes for the big ginger chef. He sat at one corner, probably in deference to his long legs which were stretched out before him, wrapped in black denim. A black leather jacket hung over the chair behind him. He looked dangerous. It was a very good look for him.

Dragging me by the elbow, Geillis nudged and bumped Angus to one side despite his vulgar protests, then practically pushed me down into the chair directly next to the chef. With a smug smile of satisfaction, she then retired to the opposite side of the table.

I looked anywhere but directly at Jamie, but I could feel his butane eyes on me. I was certain he would scorch right through my outer layers and down to where Geillis’ choice in lingerie burned against my tender skin. The noise from the rest of the table faded away.

“Ye look bonnie t’night, Arsonist.” His voice was low and gruff and it sent a quickening through my veins.

“Thank you, Jamie. It was Geillis’ Christmas gift to me, and I feel, well... let’s just say it isn’t my usual look.”

“It suits ye, I think.” He reached out and lightly touched the silver tab of a zipper that ended near my wrist, setting it swinging. I swallowed and looked frantically around. Several open bottles of liquor stood nearby. Grabbing the nearest one, I poured myself a generous serving and knocked it back, all in one go. I tried to steady my breathing.

“Look, Jamie...”

Just then a blond man in chef’s whites called to Jamie from across the table. An exchange involving a lot of Scottish cursing and an off-colour reference to someone’s lobster pot ensued. I tried to convince myself I needed to leave. It was late, I was half-drunk, and whatever I intended to say to Jamie should definitely wait for another moment. Maybe never.

A hand on my thigh broke my preoccupation.

“Sorry, Arsonist, ye were sayin’ something?”

I wet my lips, frantically trying to recall anything but the feeling of Jamie’s strong fingers, stroking me through the velvet of my jeans.

“I...”

At that moment, the woman on Jamie’s far side broke into song. The rest of the table cheered and clapped along, and it was impossible to hear anything except the concussive pounding of my heart against my eardrums.

Jamie grabbed my clammy hand.

“Come wi’ me,” he instructed, grabbing our outerwear and pulling me towards the door. Geillis watched our departure with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.

Outside the air was dense and cold, a briny slap after the stuffy warmth of the restaurant. Jamie obviously had a destination in mind, and we walked hand-in-hand along the cobbled streets for several minutes before finally emerging at the port. A jetty struck out into the inky sea, and it was there that we ended up. Besides a few gulls and the winking of a nearby lighthouse, we were all alone. The sodium street lights caught Jamie’s curls and made them burn.

“Forgive me, Arsonist. I couldna hear myself think in there. Tho, come tae think of it, tis no’ much better now.” Rather than release me, as he spoke Jamie stroked my hand, running calloused fingers over each vein and every knuckle. I don’t think he even realized he was doing it, but it stole every thought from my head.

“No ring,” he remarked, stroking the finger in question.

“No,” I whispered in response.

And then it burst out of me, like a tidal wave of feeling that I never saw coming. I told him everything. My childhood roaming the globe with my uncle, pre-occupied and rootless, dreaming of stability. Meeting Frank at Harvard, and realizing that he represented all the things that my life to date had lacked: structure, security, a solid foundation, a home. And how it took moving to Scotland and coming into contact with a group of near-strangers to make me realize that the price I had paid for that stability was higher than I’d ever imagined. I’d given up my dream of becoming a doctor. I’d become so lost in Frank’s vision of who I should be that I’d almost lost sight of who I actually was.

By the time the flood of words left me, I was in Jamie’s arms, crying into his leather jacket. He hushed me with quiet murmurs and languorous stroking of my hair, as one would a child who has woken from a nightmare.

I stepped out of his embrace and rubbed my sleeve across my face. I must have looked an absolute mess, but he still watched me with those earnest, patient eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I began, “I don’t know what...”

“Claire,” he interrupted. I’d never before realized just how many consonants were in my given name. “Ye dinna need tae apologize tae me. But ye may want tae consider an apology tae yerself.” At my raised eyebrow, he continued.

“I’m no’ the kind of man tae tell another what they should and shouldna do. But ye strike me as someone who’s made decisions fer the right reasons, yet ended up in the wrong place.” Here he paused, as though carefully weighing his words. “There’s no sin in changin’ yer mind, Arsonist. Tis very well tae be hungry, so long as ye ken what ye hunger for.”

“And what do you hunger for, James Fraser?” The provocative words had left my lips before I had the chance to censor them. His answer came in the form of a blistering look that left no doubt as to its meaning. Then he gathered himself, banking the fire I’d unconsciously ignited.

“Many things. Regular, ordinary things, mostly. My family’s health and happiness. A faster bike. My own restaurant.”

“Like Tom’s there?” I asked, gesturing towards the harbour.

“Och, Tom is a braw chef, and worthy o’ every accolade tha’s been showered upon him. But the hospitality scene in Edinburgh is cut-throat, an’ suitable locations cost a fortune. Nah, Jenny and I want tae buy back our childhood home in the Highlands. Tis called Lallybroch, and when our Da passed, our Mam sold it tae her brother. We’d turn it inta a country inn, wi’ Jenny running the lodging side o’ things and I the dining. Tha’s the dream anyway,” he ended with a shrug.

I rested my hand on his forearm. “That sounds like a wonderful plan, Jamie.”

Before he could reply, an enormous yawn burst from my lungs.

“Time tae get ye home tae yer bed, Arsonist,” Jamie grinned. “Come, I’ll give ye a ride.”

“Wait, haven’t you been drinking?” I inquired as we walked back down the jetty.

“Three years sober,” he explained with no hint of embarrassment. “I went somewhere pretty dark after my Mam died, an’ it took a near-fatal crash tae scare me straight.” His eyes squinted in a poor approximation of a wink as he added, “Besides, there are better ways tae chase a rush than in the bottom of a bottle.”

“Such as?” I asked brazenly.

Which was how I found myself on the back on a black motorcycle, my arms twined around Jamie’s waist. Rather than take me directly home, he steered us north, following the coast. It was very late, with hardly another vehicle about. We merged onto the motorway, and Jamie picked up speed. My thighs tightened around his lean hips, the vibration of the motor beneath us shivering up my spine. As we emerged beneath the hastate lights of the Queensferry Bridge, I stretched my arms wide, icy air ripping against the sleeves of my jacket. I laughed, although no-one could hear me. I yelled, and only the wind yelled back. I was flying.

***

It was nearly dawn when Jamie pulled up in front of my flat. My legs thrummed, my eyes were dry with fatigue, and my heart ached, but I felt better than I could ever remember. I handed Jamie back his spare helmet and shook out my curls. He watched me in that half-sleepy, half-vigilant way of his that I now recognized as desire.

“I don’t know what I could ever say to thank you, Jamie.”

“Ye needn’t say anything at all, Arsonist. Nae matter what ye decide, it has been my very great honour tae get tae know you.”

Without another word, he kick-started the engine and drove off into the early morning mist.

“Goodbye,” I whispered to his vanishing shadow.

***

The lamp above the couch was lit, and Frank lay still beneath its glow. I realized he had fallen asleep waiting for me to come home. Instead of regret, what I felt in that moment was pity.

The sound of my jacket being unzipped woke him. He blinked in confusion and then in shock.

“I’m very sorry if you were worried,” I began.

“Worried? Do you have any idea what time it is? My God, Claire, I don’t know what to make of you these days. You’ve never behaved irresponsibly before, and now you’re out at all hours and you’re wearing,” he gestured wildly with his hand at my new outfit which I had, quite honestly, forgotten I was wearing. “And your hair, Claire!” he finished, as though the manic state of my curls was definitive evidence of my fall from grace. Despite my exhaustion, I stood tall.

“Frank, we need to talk.”

#my writing #outlander #ginger snap

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pathetic-has-been-rockstar · 4 years ago

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Finding Warmth

Pairing: Crowely x reader

Written for: @spnchristmasbingo

Square filled: sharing a bed

Warnings: none

Summary: Chuck is gone, Amara is in charge, and the world is finally free. You're heading to the bunker for the first proper Christmas celebration with Team Free Will, but you're forced to stop along the way. When the former King of Hell shows up, you manage to surprise him, and discover a new side of the demon.

Words: 2644

Beta: @raspberrymama

my work can be found on AO3, here! If you’re interested in the whole series, you just have to click here!

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The road to the bunker is pretty long, and the radio doesn't bring reassuring news. Apparently, there's a snow storm raging somewhere, and the roads aren't going to be open for long.

With a sigh, you peek at your car's clock. It's well past nine, and you're hungry and tired, so you decide to pull over at the first motel sign you see. You book a room, head to the gas station next to the motel and buy a couple of sandwiches, a cupcake and a couple of soft drinks. You're in the mood for some beer, but you're tired enough as it is.

Walking back to your room, you make a call.

“Hey there, Dean!”

“Kid! We were starting to worry. Where are you?” You smile at the concern in his voice. Since Chuck is gone and things have changed, he became almost overprotective in regards to his little found family.

“Still a state over. Snow storm raging, closed lanes. I've managed to snatch the last room in a motel, tomorrow morning things should be better.”

“Crap. I'm sorry. Anything we can do?”

“Nah, don't worry. I'll have some food and hit the bed, it's been a hell of a drive so far”, you quietly thank yourself for being reasonable and driving something maybe less fascinating but definitely more comfortable than the Impala. Dean's voice brings you back shortly.

“Take some rest and stay safe, ok? We'll check in tomorrow, but you keep us updated”.

“Won't miss. Night guys.”

You quickly hang up and walk in your room. It's pretty cold, close to the road, and the bed doesn't look really comfortable, but it still beats the idea of sleeping on some shoulder of the road.

Once you're done with your dinner, you try to turn on the tv, but it doesn't work, just like the heating, apparently. Bored and slightly frustrated, you make yourself a cup of tea using the courtesy set, then pick up your phone and send a text.

A moment later, a familiar British accent rings behind you.

“Hello, darling.”

You turn around in your chair, smiling at the king of Hell. As usual, he's clad in black, looking both impeccable and mildly bored.

“Hello, Crowley. How are you?”

“I'm curious, actually. How can I help my favourite non-hunter on this fair night?”

The day he won't tease you about the fact that you still refuse to label yourself as a hunter will be the day Hell freezes over, probably. You laugh it off, and make your request, hoping he's in a good mood.

“Do you have a way to bring me to the bunker that's not through a snowstorm?”

He tilts his head, looking at you.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I need to get to the bunker, but the snow...”

“Do I look like a bloody taxi service to you?”

Alright, he's not in a good mood. You shake your head, feeling the tiredness of the day washing over you, and you shift a bit in the chair.

“You don't have enough juice anymore, do you?”

He gives you a cold glance, and doesn't even bother denying. He pulls up a chair and sits, stretching his legs under the table and looking at you.

“Why are you in a rush to get there, anyway? As far as I know, the Wonder Brothers are on holiday break.”

“Yes, they are. I'm part of that break.”

He looks surprised, then he pouts for a second before talking, like he does when something doesn't go the way he wants.

“Of course you are. Well... since you summoned me for a stupid request, I'll take advantage of it. Which means... I'm staying here.”

You choke a little at the idea. You're not going to complain about spending a night with him, but the idea of doing it like that, without anything to steal, hunt, or kill just feels a bit weird. It's also the first time that you two spend time together alone after the whole Chuck affair and his return from the Empty.

“The whole night?”

He nods, eyeing the bed with a smirk you know too well.

“You fear we'll run out of things to do, love?”

“Oh, please. It's freezing in here.”

“One more reason to take advantage of the bearer of Hellfire, love.”

You laugh off his swagger and take it for what it is: the very essence of Crowley, and a clear attempt to play his favourite game of making people uncomfortable. Then, you remember something.

“Yeah, sure. Hang on, I gotta pick up something from my car.”

You grab the keys of your car and rush out of the room, leaving a very bemused Crowley behind you.

That's not how he was expecting a nightly summoning to go... nor what he was hoping for. You don't seem particularly interested in replaying that only night in which you fell between his arms, but that doesn't mean he won't play his cards to get there.

He walks to the table and picks up the cup of what looks like tea, but smells like chemicals and bad food colouring, until he hears you stepping back in the room and closing the door behind you.

“Here.”

Crowley raises his nose from your cup of “tea”, which he was curiously smelling, and looks at you with a confused expression.

“... what... what’s that?”

“A box. Inside it, there’s a thing I’d like you to have on my behalf. It’s called a present, or gift. Mortals do this thing of exchanging them at Christmas. Remember that?”

“... you got me a present. A... a Christmas present.”

“Yeah.”

“You... got the King of Hell a Christmas present.”

“Former king of Hell, last time I checked. If you don’t want it I can always take it back, you know.”

Setting the cup back on the counter, Crowley’s stare shifts from your hands holding the box to your face, studying your features. You seem good willed enough.

“I didn’t say that”, he mumbles.

“Well, take it, then. Careful, it’s fragile.”

Crowley finally takes the box from you, brushing your fingers with his ones in doing so, and noticing the slight pink tingeing your cheeks for a moment.

The box is wrapped in brown paper, but you drew a geometric pattern on it, snowflakes-shaped. Then, watching more carefully, Crowley sees a pitchfork here and there in the middle of the snowflakes, and he smiles. You really put some effort in that, and you're glad he seems to appreciate it.

“You surely do have a certain sense of humour, kitten.”

“There’s not a single good enough reason to be dull”, you brush off his compliment, but it surely flatters you.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

With a snap of his fingers, the wrapping paper opens without tearing, making you smile. You stand, awkward, and watch Crowley carefully examining the wooden box in his hands, until he sees the name branded on it. Immediately, he grins. You certainly know him.

“Kitten, of all the surprising things you could have done, this goes easily up in the top ten.”

“I am surprising, after all.”

You shrug, awkward. You're happy that he liked the present, but you keep hoping that he won’t ask you the most obvious question, the one whirring through your mind since you decided to give him one bottle of the finest whisky in the world.

“Indeed. Just... why?”

“One of my clients saw a bottle you left at the store and asked me if I was interested in whisky. I treat him pretty well, so he sent me a couple of these, and I thought you might like it.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“It's just... tradition, you know?”

Crowley shakes his head, carefully setting the bottle on the table of the motel. You both are well aware that what you gave him is rare, coveted, and incredibly expensive. It surely is not a token exchanged to respect a tradition.

“No, it's not. And you put me in a difficult position, now. I haven't gotten you anything.”

You smile, a bit disappointed by the fact that he deemed that present as a formality.

“It's fine, actually. You must be terrible with presents.”

“Pardon?”

“Of course. You were a king, used to being revered and obeyed... when was the last time you gave someone a present, just because you felt like doing it? And don't mention paying Dean's bar tabs, that doesn't count. It must be something you picked out, not a deal.”

Crowley thinks about it for a second, then scoffs. You got him, and yet he's not particularly bothered. There's something in the way you tease him that he really likes. Perhaps it's because you're not scared of him, or maybe because you don't seem conflicted about him. No awkward shuffling and senseless musings about right or wrong. Even after your night together, you simply moved on, like you would have done with any other one-time lover... even if perhaps he didn't exactly appreciate that.

“Alright, kitten, you got me. But I'm sure that, if I had a chance, I could certainly surprise you with a nice present”.

“Ah, now. I gave you something... it's already impossible to be spontaneous.”

“I don't think this game has fair rules.”

You laugh and relax on the uncomfortable chair. “Of course it doesn't. Christmas is a very tactical time of the year. If I surprise you with a present, you will be forced to be nice to me until next Christmas. I'm an evil genius in a very hot body.”

He laughs, his eyes roaming your forms.

“While I can definitely see that... I'm sorry, love, but you lack conviction.”

“Meaning what?”

“I am quite the epitome of the villain... and that speech lacks the necessary emphasis to be believable. In fact, I think you like Christmas quite a lot, and you took real pleasure in giving me something.”

“I've never been so insulted in my life!” you mock him, making him laugh. You've always taken a certain pride in being the one able to make Crowley genuinely laugh, and his humour is one of the things you appreciate most of him.

He snaps his fingers and conjures two crystal glasses from thin air. They're made of crystal, finely etched, and you recognize them as a part of his personal collection, one you've often seen in his hand. He gives you a questioning look.

“... what is it, your highness?”

“I was wondering how upset you'd be if I were to share my present with you.”

You think about it for a second, then solemnly look back at him.

“You know... I think a quality check is in order.”

“Just what I thought. Let's see if mister Gordon and mister MacPhail have honoured fifty years of ageing.”

When Crowley pours you your whisky, you immediately take a deep breath of it, studying the articulate aroma. You rarely had the chance of drinking something this old, and you're always curious about it.

The first note is sweet, like apple and honey, followed by a hint of smoke, and that promise is kept when, after a proper toast with your favourite demon, you indulge your dram. The sweet and thick taste is balanced by a sour note, and it leaves a peaty finish on your tongue. After the first few sips, it's already going to your head, and you lick your lips. The smoky finish reminds you of something similar, far more tempting.

Something that's currently sitting in front of you, telling of a deal he made with the owner of a distillery in the Speyside, a couple of centuries ago. You try to engage in conversation, at first, but time flies, the bottle empties more and more, and pretty soon you're half asleep.

You almost miss his laughter when he stands up and places his hands on your shoulders, helping you up on your feet. You protest weakly, closing your eyes.

“Come on, kitten. Let's get you to bed.”

“... no... I don't want to, it's cold...”

“I'll see to it. Do you trust me?”

The warm voice purring to your ear is a dream, a promise of comfort and warmth that you’re not willing to give up, but you also know you’re not supposed to indulge.

“... I shouldn't...”

“But do you?”

You drop your head on his shoulder, rubbing your face against the fabric of his suits while you nod.

“... yes.”

“And thanks to Christmas magic, this time you won't pay for this mistake.”

Crowley laughs next to your ear while he effortlessly carries you to bed. With a snap of his fingers he takes off your shoes and clothes, substituting them with a comfortable flannel pyjama.

You curl up under the thin sheets, shivering in the cold bed, and close your eyes, trying to relax. You hear another snap of fingers and you feel Crowley slipping in the sheets behind you, wrapping you in a warm embrace.

You'd like to protest, but he's too warm, and you're tired. All you manage to do is let out a muffled sound, before snuggling closer to him and falling asleep right away. You enjoy the best night of sleep you had in months.

The following morning, you open your eyes and, for a second, you don't see anything. It takes you a moment to realize that you must have turned in your sleep, and your face is now pressed against Crowley's chest. One of your arms is folded between you, while the other is draped on his side. You pull back, suddenly awkward, making him laugh. Your breath hitches imperceptibly when you feel the soft rumble shaking his chest, but you hope he didn't notice.

“Morning, love.”

“I... hi. How... how are we... did we...”

Crowley runs a hand through your hair, pulling them away from your face. “We shared the only bed, yes. I think we could have done something more interesting, but you were drunk, and quite exhausted.”

“I wasn't drunk, just... never mind. What time is it?”

“Barely 9. We still have plenty of time to get to the bunker.”

“... we?”

The kiss on your forehead is so light that you wonder if you imagined the light prickle of his beard on your skin, but Crowley lingers there for a moment before answering your question.

“You surely need a copilot to get there in one piece, and you can't die while you're one up on me.”

You finally chuckle and slowly, very slowly, you disentangle yourself from Crowley. One of his hands moves on your side, and his fingers sink in the fabric covering your skin. The shiver running down your back has very little to do with the room temperature.

“... alright, you can come with me, then. Let me just take a shower and...”

“No rush, love. Actually, why don't we...”

Your phone buzzing furiously on the nightstand interrupts Crowley. You give him an apologizing look, then grab your phone and pick the call, groaning.

“Yeah?... yes, Dean, I... alright, sure. Thanks. I'll get going”. You hang up and turn to Crowley, blushing. “He... he heard that the roads are open, but the weather cast says it's snowing again this afternoon. We'd better get on the road.”

Before he can say anything, you stand up, grab your bag and walk into the bathroom, locking the door behind you. On the good side, you're so confused and excited that you barely notice the cold. On the bad side, you're so confused and excited that you almost try to use your mouthwash as skin tonic.

Crowley , still lying on the bed, smirks at the stained ceiling. He's seen how nervous you are around him, and he congratulates himself on his decision to come with you at the bunker. He's never been a fan of holidays, but it looks like things might change soon.

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Thank you for reading! I truly hope you enjoyed this little story. Every kind of feedback is very much appreciated, just as much as likes and reblogs!

Please, do not repost my works or part/s of it on different places, not even if you give credits.

#spnchristmasbingo #reblog #crowley x reader #spnfic #fanfiction #writers on tumblr #fluff #christmas fluff #crowley x fem reader

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lonelypond · 5 years ago

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Yen For Success

NicoMaki RinPana, Love Live, 1.9K, 1/1

Summary: Maki’s stuck studying while 1Kiss runs into choppy waters.

Yen For Success

WEAKEST MEMBERS OF MUSE ATTEMPT IDOL KNOCKOFF GROUP

WHY ISN'T HOSHIZORA HEADING A BOY BAND

IS NICO NI MANIPULATING HER YOUNGER BANDMATES

HOW HEFTY IS HANAYO

Nishikino Maki leaned back in her desk chair, unpleasant headlines screaming from multiple open tabs. She glanced down at her phone, no relief there. Rude comments on the 1Kiss TWIG feed as well. She wanted to throw her phone across the room. Her two best friends and her one true love aka 1Kiss were finally landing bigger venues, but they'd also landed the wrong kind of attention. The buzz was leaning bad and Maki knew from Nico's worrying how hard that could be to recover from. Their last two concerts had only had half the seats sold. Plus, even the normally enthusiastic 1Kiss fans were being exceptionally harsh about both Rin's and Hanayo's appearance and Maki knew too well how much her friends struggled. Nico's confidence was practically undentable, but Rin and Hanayo…Maki dropped her head in front of her laptop, reminded of the other times she wanted to help but couldn't...or Nico wouldn't let her. Nico...Maki raised her head, a gleam in her eye. Nico wasn't here. Nico was probably too busy trying to stitch together Rin and Hanayo's self esteem to suspect that Maki might try to intervene.

"Call Umi." Maki's voice was clear, determined. This was a problem a Nishikino could solve.

###

Nico was sitting in her hotel room, staring, at a loss for ideas. Rin had refused to even come out of the room on their afternoon off, here in Cancun. Hanayo was holed up with her, refusing to eat. Nico had gone for a run, stopped at a beautiful beach, texted a selfie to Maki with a too deeply felt 'Nico misses you." But Maki had college exams to study for. Nico would see her over Christmas and then in a few months when Maki joined them for her ronin year.

A brusque knock on Nico's door startled her. She moved to the spyhole, heart pounding, to see two familiar heads, one fair and one dark. Kotori and Umi. Nico yanked the door open and grabbed them both in a hug, before pulling back with an embarrassed cough,

"What are you doing here?" Nico glanced from one to the other, "you" pointing to Umi, "are in Japan, and you" back to Kotori, "are in France."

Kotori giggled, "We decided to have a weekend rendezvous" Kotori leaned into Umi "and see our favorite band in concert."

"How, who…?" Nico shook her head, "I don't care. Nico's just glad to have some backup. Rin's a real mess."

"Nico!" a squeak come from behind her visitors as Hanayo opened her door, "TONIGHT'S SHOW JUST SOLD OUT!" Hanayo raised her eyes from her phone to see two familiar but unexpected profiles. "KOTORI! UMI!"

"They're having a sexy tropical getaway." Nico chuckled. Umi went pale in contrast to Maki's usual flare of tomato shade embarrassment but it was almost as much fun.

Hanayo just grabbed them and held on, sobbing. Nico manuevered them all into her room so they could talk about the biggest problem.

"Rin won't even talk to me. Or even pick up her phone to watch cat videos. She's been ignoring Maki's calls as well." Hanayo sat on Nico's bed, eating the chicken rice soup Nico had ordered her.

Nico smiled, glad that Maki was trying to reach out to Rin. Nico hadn't had a chance to talk to Maki this week, their rehearsal schedule was brutal, but the Nico knew the redhead must have seen the recent rush of bad press. Maki...Nico glanced at Umi speculatively, but the dark haired archer and poetry student just smiled kindly. Nico shrugged, her attention back on Hanayo. But it was Kotori who seized on a solution, "Obviously, we need to go shopping. How long until sound check?"

Nico glanced at her phone, "Three hours."

"I already checked with the concierge about cute local shops. And the driver knows how to get there." Kotori put her hand on Umi's shoulder, "If you'll just go get Rin, we can get started."

"But our costumes are already…"

Kotori's golden eyes met Nico's and the number one idol saw a challenge there. When had she ever let what should happen stop her…

"All right, go get Rin, let's try out a new look for 1Kiss." Nico turned away to pull out a long linen shirt that nicely layered over her shorts and tank top. She also didn't want to see the look on Kotori's face. It would tell her too much. "Nico knows you'll find the best bargains."

"Uh huh."

###

Many more photographers than Nico had expected, and a crowd of fans waiting when they pulled up backstage. Rin had a gorgeous frilly skirt covered with vibrant birds and flowers, a simple white linen shirt, and the cutest slouched two toned straw cloche hat Nico had seen yet. She bought a similar trilby for Maki, since the redhead liked both hats and gifts from local artisans. Plus, knowing Rin and Maki, they'd put them to good use dressing for one of the now traditional RinPana NicoMaki seasonal double dates. Nico and Hanayo always had so much fun guessing what kind of look the two were going to surprise them with. Kotori had dressed Nico in a simple red and black dress and Hanayo had gone for sportif, with an Atlante F.C. jersey, cute shorts, and a matching 1Kiss beanie. On stage, for an additional change and shout out to the local culture, Kotori had found matching swimsuits and sarongs with vivid blue orange splashes of colors that would look better on Rin and Hanayo than Nico, but for once the idol didn't mind. Rin had been glowing as Kotori fussed over her, Nico finding the perfect matching pearl hair accessories for the three of them. The boutique owner had helpfully refused to mention prices and Kotori just flashed a card that Nico thought she recognized to take care of the tab. So she caught some video of Rin spinning happily in her new skirt and hit send, knowing Maki would feel lighter after seeing it.

The concert was a SCREAMING SUCCESS. Both Idols and the audience were hoarse by the end. TWIG was buzzing with shots from the concert, Nico pulling fans on stage to dance, livestreaming on TWIGTube with the screaming audience in the background, Rin down in the front row, teaching everyone their latest dance steps, her face ecstatic. That's what the people wanted to see, Nico thought as a stream of hearts and comments raced across the screen of her cell. This was the energy boost 1Kiss needed. This was who they were.

###

Maki grinned at her laptop screen. Rin was bouncing up and down on her hotel room bed while Hanayo was unwinding with a bath.

"It was AMAZING, Maki. The best night ever. The crowd knew ALL THE SONGS, even the new ones. Sold out, people lined up at the back." Rin flopped back onto the bed, "Now I know why Nico's so addicted to making people smile."

"That sounds...fun."

Rin snorted and rolled up, "Oh Maki, you know you would have loved it. And Nico practically glowed."

Nico always glows, Maki thought as she frowned at Rin, "I'm fine here."

Rin shook her head, "You can say you miss music, Maki. It's okay."

Maki sighed, "I do miss all of you."

"Maki must be lonely." Rin started bouncing again, "So write us a song for the next concert."

"Write your own."

"Hey, you wrote Hanayo a rice song, where's my ramen song?"

"And how catchy will that be in Central America?"

"Ramen is an international sensation. Students love ramen, students love 1Kiss...instant hit."

Maki couldn't hide her grin. It was great to hear Rin being obnoxiously, stupidly, wonderfully Rin, "Sure, sure...keep telling yourself that."

"I will. AND I'll tell you and Kayo-chin and Nico and Umi and Kotori and..."

As Rin rattled off an ever growing list of names, Maki's phone buzzed. Nico.

Nico: Exhausted, but had a wonderful concert. Nico can hear Rin through the wall so you've probably heard how it went ヾ(≧∇≦)ゞ

Maki: Yeah, she's trying to get me to write a ramen song.

Nico: Hey, we did well with a burger song once.

Maki: d(-_^)

Nico: really great that our biggest fan club donated tickets to local fans.

Maki: oh did that happen, that's cool.

Nico: And Kotori picked out the cutest outfits,

A selfie of Nico in bed, sheet barely pulled up flashed across Maki's screen.

Nico: Not that I'm wearing it now (⌒.−)＝

Maki blushed.

Maki: Rin sent me a snap of you onstage. It's my new screensaver.

Nico: Stalker.

Rin had moved from ramen to the hats Kotori had found them. Maki made encouraging noises as she continued her conversation with Nico.

Maki: Maybe. I miss you.

Nico: I miss you.

Nico: But Nico needs to sleep now. Rin plans to drag us and Umi and Kotori to the beach for breakfast.

Maki: If she's stopped talking by then.

Nico: (°o°)(°o。)(。o。)(。o°)(°o°)(°o。)(。o。)(。o°)

Nico: Maki…

Maki: …?

Nico: Nico will thank you properly when I see you.

Nico: But don't ever do that again (｀^´)

Maki laughed. Of course, Nico knew what she'd done. Nico knew everything. Rin startled out of her story, asked "Maki?"

"Sorry, just texting Nico. Keep going. She's looking forward to breakfast on the beach."

Rin bounced up, "It's so weird being on this side of the Pacific; it's like the world is backwards."

Maki shook her head at the silliness of Rin and typed a response to Nico's jab.

Maki: I won't have to. You're the number one idol trio in the universe after all.

Nico: And don't you forget it.

Maki: (#^.^#)

Nico: (● ∀ )

Nico: See you soon.

Maki: Not soon enough.

Nico: True. Have sexy dreams about Nico (๑ 3 ๑)

Maki: I don't sleep ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Nico: Silly Maki （＾。＾；）

Maki: *shrugs*

Maki slid her phone to the side and focused on Rin, who was winding down the perfect beach breakfast list. "So tell me about Nico."

"Oh, she was so wow, Maki, from the first step on the stage. It was like she was drinking the energy in the air. I'll send you her solo."

"Cool."

"So how's your studying going?"

Maki groaned, "Slow…"

"You can do it. You're the smartest person I know."

"Thanks, Rin."

Her phone pinged at her. A 1Kiss alert.

Rin For The Win in Cancun. "1Kiss bops into audience hearts with their cutest looks yet. Is Muse designer Minami Kotori responsible for the redesign? Local eco friendly fashion is a big win for the planet and 1Kiss with their biggest crowd ever."

Yep, Maki thought, they'd do just fine from here.

"Hey, Rin. Check your alerts."

"Ooohh, they used a really great snap of Kayo-chin."

"Yeah, she should make the local jersey a thing. Lots of crossover fans."

"Ooohh, good idea, Maki-chan. I'll tell her. And I know all the teams."

"Yeah."

Maki put away her books. Time to talk women's football with Rin. She could stare at the selfie Nico had sent her later. Some nights were girlfriend nights, Maki thought, but sometimes it was nice to just vent and ramble with Rin, whose eyes were gleaming life bright again.

"So who's your fave Atlante player?"

"We actually met a whole bunch of fans, Maki, when we went to dinner after the concert. It was so cool. Let me tell you what happened when Nico…"

Maki settled back on her couch, happy to hear stories about her three favorite people conquering Cancun. With maybe a little help from her, Maki thought, hugging a Nico sized pink pillow, glad to still be part of it.

A/N: I've been missing 1Kiss and going back through my files and found this mostly finished bit of business so I polished it up. Enjoy.

#NicoMaki #RinPana #KotoUmi #Nishikino Maki #Yazawa Nico #Hoshizora Rin #Koizumi Hanayo #Sonoda Umi #Minami Kotori #1Kiss #I love Rin Maki bff-ing #1Kiss is fun

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seungmin-wrecked · 5 years ago

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Literally no one cares but here's my worst travel story:

So I go to a school 2-3 states away. Which according to Google, the college is a 9 hour drive, however, bc my family can't just drive 18 hours in one day to come get me and drive home, I normally take a train that goes across states. This train ride is about 6/6 and a half hours long. Not to mention :) the time you can buy tickets for this train at midnight and 3 am depending on which station you're leaving from (so if I'm heading back home, the train leaves at midnight. If I'm heading back to campus, the train leaves at 3 am). Keep this in mind :)

So the drive to the train station is a long one. It's about 4/4.5 hours long of a drive since the train station is in another state than the one I live in. So my dad decided to book a hotel like 15 min away from the train station, but not in the same city as the train station since prices were cheaper that way. We left the day before my train was supposed to leave so March 7th. We left our house at like 1 pm, and I had slept till 11 am since I had stayed up a bit late the night before. I slept in the car on the way to the hotel and was feeling pretty good!

We decided to waste some time looking around the town we were in, ate dinner at 3 pm, and actually had to go hunting to go find a place to print my train ticket since I had forgotten to (we eventually found a Staples 3 towns over and an abandoned mall that had bad vibes from the outside). Time passes and we head back to the hotel about 7 pm, but there's still a bunch of time before my train left. My boarding time that day was 4 am since daylight savings time was ending so we were supposed to jump forward, so it was really like my train was still arriving at 3 am. Amtrak suggests getting to the train station at least an hour before your train is supposed to arrive, so my dad and I agreed to leave the hotel at like 1:15 am. My dad fell asleep, but I was still pretty awake since I had gotten so much sleep already so I decided to read Manga on my phone until it was time for us to leave. We left the hotel on time, arrived at the train station early and thank goodness it was pretty empty. I managed to sit by myself and the train ride was relatively nice! Like it usually is.

Now here came the issue. The city I was arriving in, I knew about three people who lived there. One person I couldn't ask a ride from, another one I could have but there were already issues there, and so I asked the third person I knew there first. She was able to come get me!

.... Once she got off work!

...... At 1 pm.

Now I'm still very thankful she agreed to come get me, and I always will be. I have no idea how else I was supposed to make it to campus without her help, even though I would only be on campus for two weeks before getting kicked off.

However, my train arrived at 9 am. I had barely any money in my bank account and I had too much anxiety after sitting at the train station to get up and go get something from the vending machines, not to mention, I had no small bills on me. It was nearing 24 hours without substantial food, what I had eaten were some gummies my friend had gotten me for my birthday on the train, and that's it. It also came to my realization that while I was sitting there in the train station my p****d had started. There was no one in the station until about 11, since there was another train coming.

This lady approached me when there were like 5 other people at the train station (4 of them were Amish) and she asked me if she could borrow my phone to contact someone because she had left her phone in the Lyft she took to get to the train station. I figured why not and opened the app on my phone to dial phone numbers. This lady messes with my phone a bit and then hands it back to me with a new tab open with Lyft's customer service page open. I figured she was going to call her phone! Nope!!!! Now remember that I was reading Manga in the hotel room? Well I still had the tab up, and I can assure you that it was the one she opened the chrome browser up to. You'll never guess what fucking Manga I happened to be reading :)))) it was fucking Sekaii Wa (I can't remember the rest rn) but it's that one explicit bl Manga, and I remember being at a part where one of the character's may or may not have been naked :)) so I was fully screaming internally at this point. This lady had seen bl p*** on my phone and had given NO REACTIONS. She had to come ask to use my phone a couple of times bc she was trying to figure out what to do and at one point she just. Walked away with my phone.

After that had happened, a girl who looked very nervous came over and sat next to me, and asked me about how the train works since it was her first time. I also had to pee very badly at this moment too; I had needed to pee since I got off the train but was too nervous to get up and just go to the bathroom, not to mention I didn't have anyone to watch my stuff. I answered her questions and then asked her to watch my stuff. At this point I could create a temporary solution to the monthly problem happening and continue on feeling better about that situation since all of my pads/tampons were in my suitcase.

At this point it was 1 pm. For those keeping track, that is the time that my friend said she was going to be in work till, and a total of 22 hours since I had last eaten anything substantial. I was on my monthly, starving, sleep deprived, because also at this point I had gotten barely two hours of sleep on the train, which means about two hours of sleep in total for 22 hours also, and now irritated. I eventually get a text from my friend letting me know that she just got off work and was going to head home to shower and then come get me. I was just happy to know she was close to getting me.

3 pm rolls around. She arrives. I am tired, starved, irritated, in pain, and now surprised since my friend was NOT the only one to come get me. Oh no. Her mother had driven her and her sister to come get me. Which her family is lovely, they're so nice and really helped me out right before Christmas break when I needed to stay somewhere in the city before going to the train station at midnight. They pick me up, all is good. I'm still super hungry.

I am mildly lactose intolerant and when I am on my monthly, coffee messes me up (this is important for this next part).

Her mom turns towards me and goes "we're headed to Starbucks, would you like something?" my immediate response? Yes. Absolutely. My brain that is reminding me of the already horrid situation I am in, and telling me not to get coffee won though and told her no. I thought we were going to leave immediately after we came back to my friend's house. But oh no. She had laundry to finish, a resume to finish, and her mom wanted to take her to the grocery store to pick up stuff for her room. I went with for everything and ended up buying the oddest assortment of things (including almond milk, mandarin oranges, and canned soup).

My friend finished everything at about 6:30 pm and we were good to leave. I am so hungry at this point. Her mother had given me a slice of banana bread she had just baked and I had to refuse anymore bc I knew I would have eaten the whole thing given the chance. That was the most food I had eaten since 3 pm the day before. For those, once again keeping track, that is 27 hours. Again, I am in pain, irritated, hungry, and tired. We get into the car and as soon as we pull out of my friend's driveway I turned towards her and said "Can we please stop at the closest McDonald's. I am so hungry" she laughed and said sure. We passed at least 5 McDonald's. She then hits me with the "there's a Burger King like 45 min away, close to the school, can we go there?" and I just nodded my head bc I was just happy to be given the chance to eat.

We get to the Burger King and I am not kidding you. I ordered a Bacon Whopper with a side of large fries and large drink bc I was so hungry. I ate all of it before pulling into the driveway of my school. That burger is the size of my head and has enough fucking mayo on it for it to be it's own producer plant of mayo. It was heavenly.

I got all my stuff to my room (which was on the third floor of a building that only certain people could use the elevator) and passed out on my bed for an hour, woke up to tell my friend I was on campus. Did Not Touch My Luggage. And then passed tf back out till the next morning :)

TL;DR: I had the longest and worst travel of my life that lasted from 1 pm on a Friday till 7 pm on a Saturday, where I barely slept, ate, used the bathroom, and got heavily embarrassed.

#Thank you #This was very therapeutic for me :)

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shookethbrooketh · 6 years ago

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Christmas Constellations

Summary: Phil works putting up signs at a department store, and the signs never stop getting bigger and better. All the department store chains never cease to attempt to one-up each other, and this holiday season Phil’s has decided to try to beat out the competition with inclusiveness and feature a gay couple in their ads. As annoying as putting up a whole line of ads is, Phil can’t help but find himself infatuated with one of the men in the picture. After staring at him for too many shifts in a row, Phil ends up obsessively wondering if he’s single and if he’s even gay. Eventually he decides that there’s only one way to find out.

Warnings: Alcohol, Food, Cheating (sort of)

Word Count: 13.3k

Artist: @snekydingdong Beta: @diamond0604

A/N: This is one of two fics I’ve written for the @phandomreversebang, and as much as I love the other one, this one is definitely my favorite. I’d also like to give a MASSIVE thank you to my beta, Rachel, who was absolutely incredible. I hope you all enjoy!

Read it on Ao3

“We have something extra special for you today!” Cheryl, Phil’s manager announced, her tone coated in a false sense of cheeriness, even though Phil could have told from a mile away that she was just as miserable as the rest of them. The only thing giving her the incentive to even attempt to spur excitement in her workers was the extra money in her paycheck. “Today, we’re going to be revealing this year’s Christmas advert!”

There was a collective groan from all the employees, but Phil didn’t bother. Logically, he should have been the one groaning the loudest, since he was the one who would have to put up all the signs, but the adverts were no new news. It was the first of December, and it was the same thing year in and year out. It was that shitty, shitty time of year once again.

“Come on, guys! Christmas is exciting!” Cheryl tried to egg them on again, but to no avail.

“More work,” Gail muttered, and Phil snorted. She seemed to be joking, but only to a certain extent; she didn’t want the Christmas rush any more than Phil did. Gail, a short woman with long, red hair, was by far his closest friend in the store, and they had the same, terrible sense of humor.

“Not that I don’t love Christmas,” Phil chimed in, “the holiday itself is great; I just can’t stand the signage. There’s so much of it, and there’s so much stuff to stock, and not enough room to put it on the shelves. Not to mention the millions of customers. I love the holiday season, but I hate the busy season,” he ranted.

“Well, do you want to see the ad, or not?” Cheryl huffed, gesturing to the small flat screen they’d carted in to show the video.

“Sure,” Phil replied. “Might as well become get to know the people we’re going to hang out with for the rest of the month.” He couldn’t help but dread the piles and piles of signs he’d end up forced to hang up and then look at with the same few faces on them.

Cheryl turned on the television, and Phil kicked back in his chair. It opened with a little girl looking out her window at falling snow. She appeared dreamy, and she reminded Phil of when he watched the snow fall as a child. It was completely dark, the only light coming from a lamp outside. Her father appeared behind her. “Isn’t the snow a beautiful sight?” he asked.

She smiled and turned to him. “It reminds me of stars in the night sky.”

“Cheesy,” Phil heard Gail mumble.

“You know,” said a male voice through the screen. “I thought that when I was growing up too.” From the other side of the girl appeared another man, and Phil’s brain short circuited.

“We’re gay now?” he heard a coworker say.

“Oh, they’re GAY gay,” Gail, the local lesbian, joked.

Normally, Phil would have responded with some witty yet stupid remark, but his eyes were glued to the screen. He couldn’t tear his stare away from the second of the two dads. There was just something infatuating about him. Well, really, in Phil’s opinion, from his curly, chestnut hair, to his eyes, twinkling like the stars around him, to his flawless smile, there really wasn’t anything about him that wasn’t infatuating.

By then they’d been magically transported to space and were floating around and pointing out festive shapes in the stars.

“Space? Come on, how random can it get?” Gail criticized. “Amirite, Phil?” she added, reaching out and punching him softly. “Phil?”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” he responded blankly, still refusing to turn his gaze from the screen.

Gail raised her eyebrows for a moment before smirking in realization. “Philly has a crush!” she whispered excitedly.

“Do not!” Phil whispered harshly, finally glancing away to give her a dirty look.

“Whatever you say, buddy.”

Phil and Gail spent the morning printing and putting up signs, as they usually did on Mondays or days when sales started. As much as Phil hated the manual labor of either carrying or climbing the ladder, the job was always made tolerable by Gail’s presence, but that day things were a bit different.

“You really can’t take your eyes off him, can you?”

Phil shook his head, tearing away from the actor’s face as it printed from the massive printer. “What?”

“I get we’re the only two gays in the store, but do we really have to act like the only two gays in the store?”

Phil rolled his eyes and groaned at her. “What does it matter anyway? He’s just an actor; it’s not like I’m ever even going to meet him, let alone have a chance with him.”

“So you just think he’s hot.” She narrowed her eyes at him in questioning.

“I just think he’s hot.”

“Fine,” she said, pulling the last poster out of the printer. She took a good look at the man on the poster as they went to get the ladder, “honestly, I’ll give you that. He’s pretty attractive, and I’m a lesbian.”

“Glad we can agree on something.” Phil sighed, pulling the ladder out of storage. They silently went about their normal routine of carrying the ladder out together to where they’d hang their first sign. It was completely normal for them; they’d always follow the same route through the store to hang the signs. They even knew exactly when to switch who was climbing the ladder and who was holding the other steady. It was a sort of a sacred morning routine for the two of them; although climbing a massive ladder to reach the ceiling of a retail building terrified Phil, it was worth it to be able to spend a morning alone banting with his best friend. It was their morning, and no one could take it from them.

Well, maybe the man on the poster could.

“Phil!” Gail shouted, and Phil had to grasp the ladder so tight his knuckles turned white to keep from falling.

“What? You scared the shit out of me!” he shouted angrily down at her. Luckily no one noticed, since he was too distracted by his own exasperation to remember he was screaming obscenities to an entire family-friendly retail store.

“You’ve been up there staring at that damned sign for a minute now! Just put it up and get down!” she breathed up at him. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment before carefully hanging the sign and coming down. As much as he hated to admit it, the attractive man on the poster was already starting to keep him from doing his job.

“Time to switch?” Phil asked, taking his end of the ladder as they carried it to the next stop.

“I swear, Phil, if you get distracted and drop me, as soon as I recover, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Understood.”

Somehow, Phil managed to stay focused throughout the rest of their signage. The death threats, however unrealistic, might have played a part, but Phil liked to convince himself it was due to his own self control rather than his primal instinct to stay alive.

The afternoon was long and fairly uneventful; Phil spent most of his time helping out on a register to help with the beginning holiday rush.

After they finally clocked out, Phil and Gail walked into the Underground together to catch trains back to their flats. “You really like that guy, huh?” she asked, catching Phil off guard.

“What?” he questioned, starting to sweat. “I mean, yeah, he’s cute, but I don’t know if I’d say I really like him. I’ve never met him.”

“Hm,” she grunted as her train arrived and she stepped in.

“Hm?!” Phil shouted back at her. “What the hell is hm?”

Later that evening, it became very obvious what “hm” was.

At first, when Gail texted him a link, he was simply terrified, as she had a horrific tendency to send him either cursed videos or terrible memes, but when he opened it, he found a surprise he wasn’t quite sure if he could call pleasant.

There, on his screen, through YouTube, was the very ad they’d watched in the break room that morning. There was the same curly-headed, gay dad he’d been pining for all day. And he still couldn’t take his eyes off him.

It took him a few replays of the video to even remember that he was living real life. He’d fallen into an abyss where the only thing on his mind was the actor’s face until he got a Twitter notification. “Oh, shit!” he yelped, throwing his phone down on the couch beside him in a sudden attempt to keep himself from watching the video for a second longer. He sat for a moment, deep in thought about how utterly pathetic he was, and picked up the phone and swiped away the YouTube tab. “This is ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “I need some fresh air.”

It wasn’t that cold of an evening, but it definitely warranted a light jacket. He threw on a hoodie and stepped outside, hands in his pockets. It had already grown dark, but, for a retail worker, he lived in a pretty good part of London. His neighbors were fairly nice, and there was little crime in the area, so he felt save as he wandered the sidewalks in the dark.

He got bored of walking quickly, but he didn’t want to go back to his flat, so he sat down on a bench and looked up at the stars. They were underwhelming, given he was in the center of London. He couldn’t help but wish he could see them all. “Why am I so weird?” he asked the void. He glanced around to make sure there were no people around him to avoid an awkward encounter before he continued talking. “Like, what kind of person has a crush on the actor in a Christmas ad anyway? It’s so overwhelmingly stupid.”

He put his head in his hands and blinked hard before jolting back up. “What does one even do with that? Am I just supposed to walk around all day staring at him for the next month?”

“I wish I could fix this.”

He watched the sky as he spoke, and snow began to fall. It immediately began piling up on the concrete around him. He was in a sort of a concrete jungle; he was sat on the lone bench on his street, and his surroundings were solely buildings and road. It was nice to see snow add some beauty to the grey. He was surprised, though, as it didn’t feel nearly as cold as it would have to be to warrant snowfall, and they didn’t tend to get snow that early in the winter, but he smiled at the snowflakes as they fell onto and melted off of his black hoodie sleeves. Phil had always loved snow.

There was a certain something about snow that just made him smile. He remembered watching the snow fall as a child and being so excited. Snow was uncommon in London, and it was even less common for it to accumulate, so when it did, they almost always got out of school. Snow, for him, just brought back a childlike glee he didn’t get from anything else.

He sighed and stood up, making the short walk back to his flat. He paused before opening the door to his building, taking one last look at the beauty of the falling snow. He watched as each individual flake fluttered to the ground, and his breathing slowed. It was calming, more than anything else. When he got back up to his flat, he made himself some popcorn and put an anime on his television. Finally at peace, he smiled as his phone was left discarded on the other side of the couch.

“You sent me the ad?” Phil laughed at Gail the next morning.

“Yeah, and you didn’t even thank me! Busy, eh?” she asked, nudging him with her shoulder.

“Oh my God, no!” he squeaked, his face going red. “That’s just weird,” he added in a normal voice.

“Okay, okay,” she said, raising her hands as if to defend herself, “but I’m sure you at least enjoyed it in a completely wholesome and appropriate fashion.”

“I did,” he said, folding his arms and holding his head up high. “However, I ignored it for most of the evening.”

“Well, that’s great! I’m proud of you!” she said, reaching over to give him a pat on the back. “Good luck ignoring it for most of the month.” She pat him a bit harder after that line, and he almost fell forwards. “See ya out there!” she called over her shoulder as she left the break room and went out to the floor.

Phil sighed. “This is gonna be fun.”

Whether or not it was fun was debatable. Trying to ignore the posters was not only not fun but also nearly impossible; they were massive and all over the store. But every now and then, when he did take a look, that could have definitely been considered fun.

A couple weeks passed uneventfully. Well, if you count Phil’s suffering as uneventful, that is. Nothing new happened, but the old was still garbage. It was like the actor was taunting him; everywhere he looked it felt like he was being laughed at.

“You have a crush on a poster!” the cardboard man seemed to say.

Phil didn’t even want to start with the other man. “I get the hot one, and you don’t!”

Worst of all, Phil had been pushed so far that he imagined rude lines being spoken to him by inanimate signs.

“Pathetic,” he sighed as he stared at the poster during a rare slow hour at the register. “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey was playing in the background, and it couldn’t have been more accurate. He was enamored by a picture.

“Man, you’ve really got it bad for him, haven’t you?” Gail asked, appearing at his side after closing her empty register.

“Yes, Gail, I do!” he shouted, and her eyes bugged out of her head.

“Well, that was unexpected.”

“Yeah, well, I give up. I’ve been trying to get rid of him for the last two weeks, but I can’t stop staring at him, and I watch the fucking video five times a day! It’s an obsession, and I’m losing my mind!” he shouted, all his frustration finally pouring out.

“Well,” Gail dragged out, a mischievous look in her eye, “I may be able to help you with that.”

“I can’t tell if this is a wonderful idea or a terrible one.”

“Oh, it’s definitely both.”

Phil groaned, rolling his eyes back in his head. “What is it this time?”

“What if we find him?” she asked, eyes wild.

“Gail, how the hell are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know, but we’re in London, and the Internet has a lot of power. I’m sure we can find it somewhere.”

Phil took a deep breath. At that point, he was desperate. “Fine.”

“Yay!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her toes. “Your place at eight.”

“Wait, what?”

“See you there!”

Sure enough, Gail showed up at Phil’s flat a couple minutes even before eight. He was a bit annoyed that she was early, given that he had five minutes left in his episode of Bake Off, but he turned it off and went to answer the door anyway.

“Ready to find this bitch?” she said cheerily, clapping her hands together. She seemed to have a bit too much energy for Phil’s taste.

Phil bit his lip. “Well, when you put it like that, I’m not-”

“The answer is yes,” she interrupted, carelessly tossing her backpack onto Phil’s couch and heading straight for his kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“What?” she asked, already popping a bag of popcorn into the microwave. She’d been over to his flat enough times to know exactly where to find the popcorn. “I’m hungry.”

Three minutes later, they were settled on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and open laptops. Apparently Gail’s backpack was packed only with her laptop, her charger, and a good portion of her candy stash. She seemed to be under the impression that they’d be up late and need some sugar.

“First step…” she trailed off, one hand browsing the Internet as the other stuffed her face with popcorn, “the YouTube video. See if there’s any traces from there. Look at all the intricate stuff, like the tags.”

“YouTube has tags?” he asked, dumbfounded as his mouth fell open. How much about his precious Internet did he not know?

“Exactly.”

Phil leaned onto Gail’s shoulder as she expertly opened a screen he had never seen before and began scrolling through it looking for names. Phil began to wonder how many people she had stalked on the Internet.

“Nothing,” she said, closing the tab. “Now what?”

“I don’t know! This was your idea, and, quite frankly, it scares me.” Phil receded to a corner of the couch and put in earbuds, deciding to simply rewatch the ad. “Do whatever; I don’t particularly want to be a part of it.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, getting down to business. As much as Phil tried to ignore her, he couldn’t; he still found himself looking over at her screen. One moment she was on Twitter; the next she was on some sort of Twitter-like website that seemed to be a search engine. After his third rewatch, he closed the ad tab and opened Tumblr. He glanced over at her screen and saw her cropping an image of the actor’s face.

“Now what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just gonna run his face through the database,” she said nonchalantly.

“The database?” Phil shrieked. “What the hell is the database?”

She shrugged. “Just the database.”

“Alright, that’s it!” Phil shouted. “No more stalking.”

“But-” she stammered.

“Go home, Gail,” Phil said, straightfaced and stern.

She sighed and packed up her things, leaving without a word. Phil felt a bit guilty; he hoped he hadn’t upset her too much. She was a great friend to him, as was obvious with her going to these lengths to help him. He just didn’t particularly want that help. At least not in the manner she was going about it.

Of course he wanted to find the actor he was crushing on; hell, he’d been dreaming about it for two weeks. He just didn’t want to stalk him. He loved Gail, but she had a tendency to go too far, especially when it was either related to the Internet or the gays.

Phil chose to avoid Gail for a few days as the holidays drew near. He wasn’t ignoring her; he was just giving her space. She never approached him, so he never approached her. Eventually, they met on their way to the Underground and had a casual conversation. It was more of a colleague one than a friend one, and Phil could barely endure it, but it was a conversation.

Eventually, the holidays rolled around. The twenty-third was one of the worst days, but it didn’t get worse than Christmas Eve. Phil and Gail both would have loved to take the day off, but they didn’t have much of a choice. All the other workers had families they needed the break to spend the holidays with; since they’d each come out, their families didn’t like them much. Without an excuse or a place to go, they were lucky to even get Christmas Day off.

About halfway through the hellish day, Gail approached Phil at the register. Their shift had just ended, but Phil was working a double, and Gail had just clocked out. She was checking out two microwave dinners, a box of microwave popcorn, and a few candy bars. “Got plans?” he muttered.

“Not yet,” she replied, not making eye contact with him.

“Who’s the second dinner for?”

“Maybe I’m just buying ahead!” she exclaimed, acting offended.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, growing quieter on the second word.

“But I was thinking maybe it could be for you… If you wanted it.” She looked up at him, obviously extending an olive branch to end their argument, if one could even call it that.

Phil smiled as he rung up the dinners. “It’s on me.”

After Phil got off work, he headed straight for Gail’s apartment. The two spent the evening on Gail’s couch eating absolute garbage, and it was the best night either of them had experienced in as long as they could remember. Not once did they discuss their conflict or the man from the poster; they simply ate their junk food and watched an anime.

Phil was already tired from his double shift, but his eyes began to droop around the sixth episode. “Hey, Gail?” he reached over to her, but she had already fallen asleep. He picked up his phone and looked at the time; it was 12:13. He smiled at Gail, picking up the blanket she’d fallen asleep with and tucking her in. “Happy Christmas.”

Phil took a cab home and managed to sleep in late. He didn’t have any celebrations to attend that Christmas, so he simply sat in his lounge and watched as many Christmas movies as he could find. He loved the holiday, but it was difficult to do so when he had no one to celebrate it with.

The next day was Boxing Day, and it was all hands on deck at the store. Phil could barely stand the crowds; Boxing Day made him wonder how completely normal human beings could act like such animals. Every now and then he’d see someone who he went to school with come in for the deals. Normally, he’d be embarrassed to be seen working retail in his thirties, but when he saw one of his old classmates fighting an old lady for a vacuum, he realized he probably wasn’t the one who needed to be ashamed. Regardless, the Boxing Day crowds scared the absolute shit out of him, but the one decent thing about working that day was the fact that he rarely had to interact with them. Phil’s Boxing Day job was always signage.

Sure, he had to go in early to take down the Christmas signs and put up the Boxing Day ones, and he had to stay late to change Boxing Day signs to normal sales signs, but it was worth the long day to avoid human contact. He occasionally had to work a register, but most of the day was spent printing out the signs for the next round of sales.

Luckily, he wasn’t the only one working that schedule. Gail was right there with him on the “Hell Shift,” as they’d decided to call it.

It was still plenty dark outside as they took the ladder to the first of the Christmas signs; the doors would open in a few hours, and there were already plenty of people camping outside. Boxing Day was insane. “So,” Gail said as they set the ladder in place, “guess you’re glad to get rid of these, huh?”

Phil shrugged as he climbed up the ladder. “Kinda. I’ll definitely be glad to be rid of the curse of my irrational love for this man, but I won’t miss his face.”

“It’ll always be on YouTube,” Gail joked quietly. She seemed to be acting a bit odd, but Phil chose to ignore it and blame it on the ungodly time of day.

They went about their morning and took down most of the signs. All the posters and displays had been collected, and all that was left was one hanging sign. It was Phil’s turn to climb up, so he made his way up to the colossal face of the actor he’d been gushing over a month and sighed. “Goodbye, mystery man,” he said as he took the sign from its hinges and replaced it with the Boxing Day sign.

On the ground, Gail exhaled, stomping her foot. “Damnit, Phil, I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” he asked, a little worried as he climbed down the ladder.

“I know who he is.”

Phil nearly fell and broke his leg. “What? How the hell did you find out?” he shouted as he reached the ground.

She bit her lip, looking down at the floor so as to not make eye contact with Phil. “I may or may not have put him in the database.”

“Gail! I literally told you not to do one thing and one thing only.”

“I’m sorry!” she shouted, blowing steam from her nose as she ran her hand through her hair. “I’d already pushed enter when you got mad, and when I opened my laptop after I got home it was just… there. I never told you because I didn’t want you to be angry.”

Phil closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Obviously he wasn’t happy with the means by which Gail figured out the identity of this man, but he couldn’t deny the childlike glee he felt when she told him. He still had butterflies in his stomach, and his heart rate still hadn’t recovered from the fact that he jumped and almost fell off a ladder. “What’s his name?”

“Daniel Howell. Dan for short. I looked him up on social media, and according to his Instagram he frequents a bar downtown. I can send you the address if you want.”

By then it was too late to turn back.

“Sure.”

For once, Boxing Day was bearable. Phil had a certain livelihood about him throughout the day that he’d never felt on such a busy day; he even interacted pleasantly with a few customers. All the joy was solely due to the fact that he’d have the chance to meet Dan at the end of the day.

Dan. It was odd for Phil to think of the man as an actual person with an actual name; until then, it had been completely unknown. Learning more about Dan only made him more and more interested in him.

The day finally rolled to an end, and Phil giddily caught Gail on her way out of the store. “Well?”

She cracked a smile, pulling out her phone. “Impatient?”

Phil simply nodded as she sent him the address. He went home and changed clothes before setting his GPS to the address. It was time for a drink.

The bar was fairly nice; it seemed like the sort of place a commercial actor would go to. It wasn’t a home for deadbeats, but there certainly wouldn’t be any bouncers standing outside. There were a few tables around the bar area where people could order and eat a limited selection of food, and then the room opened up to a dance floor. He sat down at the bar and ordered a margarita to sip as he watched the bar scene unfold around him. It was a bustling place, with music and dancing; the bar and seating section was the only calm place in the room.

It had a good vibe to it, Phil thought. If that was the sort of place where Dan hung out, they would surely be compatible. It was chaotic, but in the best possible way. Phil surveyed the room as he had a few drinks, but there was no sign of Dan. Phil sighed, heading back to the bar to pay his bill. He put his head in his hands; he’d finally had a hint of how to find Dan, and he’d come up empty-handed. He’d been waiting a month to meet this guy, and he couldn’t even figure out how to find him. It was stupid of him to think he would find Dan the first night anyway. No one who isn’t a drunkard goes to a bar every night. Hell, it was probably a good thing that Dan wasn’t there all the time. Not being a drunkard was definitely a plus when looking for a boyfriend.

Phil crashed on his couch and pulled out his phone. On it he found multiple texts from Gail containing links to Dan’s social media. Phil smiled; Gail never failed to provide for him. He would certainly have entertainment for the rest of the night.

After reading up on Dan, Phil made a few conclusions. Firstly, he was definitely gay. Secondly, he was either single or didn’t particularly like talking about relationships on social media. Phil would take that bet. Thirdly, it was clearly worth his time to return to the bar. So Phil made his way back to the bar every few nights in search of Dan. Eventually the scene got boring, and he insisted on bringing Gail.

“Damn,” she said, looking around at the bar as they walked in, “this place is nice.”

“Yeah,” Phil said blankly, having gotten more to used to the bar, “it’s alright.”

They took seats at the bar and had a few drinks. Phil was relieved to have finally brought Gail, as she decided to call an Uber so neither of them would have to drive home. After spending enough time at that damned bar, it was about time he could get wasted.

The two each had a good few drinks, and Phil lost more and more hope with each one. “Gail, there’s no hope,” he said, not yet slurring his words, although he knew he was almost there, “I’m never gonna find him.”

“Do you wanna go home?” she asked, sipping down the last of whatever drink it was. Phil had lost track.

He nodded sadly and pulled his wallet out, handing it to Gail. “Pay for our drinks; I gotta piss.”

She giggled drunkenly and nodded, calling for the bartender as Phil slipped away towards the bathrooms.

The bathroom had a push door, and Phil simply walked straight into it and flung it open. To his surprise, there was a body on the other side, and it got a faceful of door. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry!” Phil exclaimed, his drunkenness immediately fading and being replaced by embarrassment and a bit of fear. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, mate,” the stranger said, clutching his face, “just be more careful next time.” He straightened up and pulled his hand away from his face. “Do I look alright?”

Phil froze. There he was, looking into the eyes of Dan Howell. The dark brown eyes stared back into his, and he couldn’t tear his own eyes away. His brain froze along with his body; he was too mesmerized to even be able to think. And then it hit him; he bashed his crush’s fucking face in. “Yeah, you look great!” Phil exclaimed, a bit too bouncy. “I mean, you’re fine. Nothing bad happened. Your face looks like a completely normal face.” He scrunched up his face; that could not have gone any worse.

But Dan was chuckling. “Your face also looks like a completely normal face. Do you wanna go get some drinks?” he asked casually. “I can get you home, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Phil’s eyes widened, and he struggled to keep his mouth from falling open. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he was too nervous to get it out. His brain was working fine, but he was so terrified his body refused to cooperate with it. “Uh, yeah! I’d love to!”

“Nice.” Dan carefully pulled the door in and gestured for Phil to walk out. “This way you can’t hit anyone.”

Phil rolled his eyes, his nerves gradually melting away. He was still plenty nervous, his body a bit stiff, but at least he wasn’t fully panicking anymore. He had himself under control, despite not having a clue how to speak to Dan. Somehow, he had begun to go with the flow, and it appeared to be working. Dan seemed nice, with a compatible sense of humor to Phil’s, and he even seemed to like him already! Phil still had to pee, but he supposed he’d take what he could get.

“By the way,” Dan said, elbowing Phil as they made their way through the crowd, “you’re repaying me for that by buying our drinks.”

“That’s more than fair,” Phil chuckled.

They reached the bar where Gail was sitting. She took one look at Dan, and her mouth fell open so wide she could have fit her entire drink glass in it. “This is my friend Gail,” Phil said, giving her a look that told her she was acting ridiculous. She promptly shut her mouth. “She was about to leave, wasn’t she?” he said, gritting his teeth for the last two words.

“Oh, yeah,” she said with a grin. She stood up, grabbing her coat and patting Phil on the back, slipping him back his wallet. “See you at work.”

And then she was gone, and Phil was left alone with Dan. They ordered drinks and sat silently for a moment until it got maddening.

“So, you’re gonna tell me I’m hot and then not talk to me when we get drinks? I see how it is,” Dan said. His voice was intimidating yet obviously not cruel. Phil could tell Dan didn’t mean to scare him, but he was already a bit terrified of him, so his tone of voice, albeit joking, definitely didn’t help.

“I-I’m sorry; I’m just quite awkward around attractive people.” He delivered the compliment confidently; there really was no point in beating around the bush.

Dan shrugged, a slight blush stroking his cheeks. It was the first time Phil had seen him be anything but perfect. His curls were just as bouncy as they were in the ad, and when he smiled, he showed deep dimples. He had perfect teeth and chiseled cheekbones; he was truly perfect. “I get that. I used to be like that too until I started acting.”

“Oh, you’re an actor?” Phil asked. He wasn’t exactly sure why he said it, but it was barreling out in a desperate attempt to not make him seem like a fan. He wasn’t sure if Dan was even aware he had fans.

“Yeah, actually. Not any sort of famous one. My biggest gig was a department store Christmas commercial. It wasn’t much, but I got some money out of it, and I finally got to play a gay guy on screen. The whole ordeal, both the commercial and my acting career in general, really upped my confidence.” He looked Phil up and down, and Phil could tell he was aware of how nervous he was. “You should try stepping outside of your comfort zone some time; it really helps.” The bartender slid them their drinks, and they each took a sip.

“Believe me, I’m trying,” Phil said, spinning around on his barstool and gesturing to the room around him. The room was buzzing with activity; it was the last place one would expect to see Phil Lester. Phil was one to keep to himself, and that particular bar was a place for anything but. On the dance floor, a few dozen drunken people were screaming Despacito. Normally the scene would have scared the hell out of Phil, but he had more important things to worry about.

“Not a bar man?”

“More of a quiet bar man.”

“Well, then it’s time to try something new,” Dan said, slamming his drink on the table and taking Phil’s hand. Phil’s face flushed bright red, his body seizing up with nerves when Dan touched him, but Dan didn’t seem to notice. “Let’s go dancing.”

“Wait, what?” Phil barely had time to respond before he was whirled away from the bar and into the crowd, his only tether to reality being Dan’s hand. His nerves shot back up to an all time high, but the alcohol reaching his bloodstream was working to calm him down. He knew for a fact that he would have been shaking from head to toe had he been sober, but the sedative relaxed his nerves just enough to keep him cool. Phil wasn’t quite sure how to feel, or if he was even feeling in the first place. All in all, the only word he could think of to describe it was… exhilarating.

Phil wasn’t particularly experienced in the field of club dancing, but Dan attempted to help him. “Just bop, my dude!” he yelled over the blaring music. Phil tried to bop around and enjoy himself, but he just felt awkward. He was being jostled by people dancing around him, and one of the annoyingly bright dance floor lights was shining in his face. Had Dan not been there, he would have bolted immediately. Dan could obviously tell he was uncomfortable, because after a few minutes he grabbed his arm and pulled him towards a circle of people with one young man, no older than 25, break dancing inside. Phil didn’t even know dance circles existed outside of grade school dances. “Here,” Dan said, making a path for them to reach the front of the circle, “all you have to do here is enjoy yourself.”

Phil took a look at the man dancing inside the circle. He seemed to be enjoying himself; who was to say Phil couldn’t enjoy himself too? It wasn’t exactly a tall order. So he clapped along to the beat and watched as people around him switched in and out of the circle. It was like a dancing tag team, and eventually Dan slipped from the ranks and made his way into the circle himself.

Phil, the drunkenness starting to settle in, was very amused by this; Dan moved so gracefully to the song, feet keeping perfect balance with the time as he rotated on a nonexistent axis. His hips swung to the music, and Phil found it very attractive. Phil couldn’t help to smile at the sight of it. Somehow, Dan was even better in person. Not only was he prettier, but he had a certain aura that made Dan never want to leave his presence; he was the life of the party, but he would still take the time out to make sure Phil was enjoying himself.

“Come on!” Dan shouted, reaching out and pulling Phil into the circle.

“Wait, I don’t know about this!”

“Dance with me!”

Luckily, Dan already knew dancing wasn’t Phil’s affinity, nor was being put on the spot. Dan more than willingly led the way, spinning Phil in circles until he felt like he might throw up. It was all a blur to Phil, the world moving too fast for him to keep track. He ignored the urge to vomit, though, as it was overcome by pure joy and maybe even a little bit of love. His heart was racing, about as far up in his throat as the drinks he was struggling to keep down. As the song drew to an end, Dan tipped him back into his arm and launched him back up, gasping for air. People around them applauded, and the circle began to dissolve as a slower, less danceable song started to play.

Phil hadn’t felt that alive in years.

“That was incredible!” he shouted. He was being quite loud, but he didn’t even notice; he was high on adrenaline and completely oblivious to the world around him. All he saw was his own hand being held by Dan’s as they trekked back to the bar.

“Wasn’t it? I told you stepping out of your comfort zone would make you more confident! You did great!” Dan shouted back at him. At that point, they were well out of the range where they’d need to shout over the music, but neither of them cared.

They spun back into their seats and ordered another round, neither of them getting up again until Phil finally remembered how badly he had to piss. By that time, the night was winding down, and it was about time for each of them to go home.

Phil paid for the drinks (his wallet was hurting that night) as Dan got an Uber. Phil’s flat was closer, so they would go there first. They stepped out into the cold, sobering air and slid into the back of the Uber. Unsurprisingly, being outside for ten seconds didn’t make them any less drunk.

“Hey, Dan?” Phil asked, resting his tired head on Dan’s shoulder.

“Mmm?”

“I like you,” he said, smiling up at Dan’s glowing face.

Dan smiled back. “I like you too.” Dan gasped, pulling his phone out. “Do you wanna call me?”

Phil, somehow understanding the meaning of that sentence, perked up and nodded excitedly before pulling out his own phone and trading it with Dan’s. They each put in their numbers and started a text conversation to make sure their drunken thumbs hadn’t mistyped a digit.

The streets were relatively empty, given the time of night, so they got back to Phil’s flat quickly. Phil opened the door and the frigid air began to pour into the car. “Phil, wait!”

Phil slowly turned back to Dan, too intoxicated to realize what was coming next.

Dan leaned in close but stopped himself, eyes widening. “Can I kiss you?”

At least he was a respectful drunk.

Phil responded by leaning in himself. At first he ran straight into Dan’s nose, but rather than feeling awkward they simply both giggled before connecting their lips. Phil’s body panicked at first, but it quickly relaxed into the kiss. He thought he would have been overexcited, as he was earlier in the night, but the kiss was comfortable; he felt almost as if he were at home in Dan’s arms. It was a short kiss, but it sent warmth through Phil’s body despite the cold air blowing against him.

Phil slipped out of the car and got one last look at Dan as he closed the door. “Text me.”

The morning sun shone through the window as Phil blinked his eyes open. He groaned, feeling as if the sun was directly assaulting his brain. He was hung over, quite obviously so, and the sun definitely wasn’t helping. He picked up his pillow and forced it against his face, refusing to let any light reach his eyes. The morning was not treating him well.

Suddenly, Phil jerked up straight in his bed, remembering the previous night. “Ack!” he exclaimed, the light aggravating his headache. He dragged himself out of bed to close the blinds before searching his sheets for his phone. Eventually he found it and lowered the brightness before fumbling for his charger. He was a bit annoyed that his drunken self had forgot to plug in his phone, as he always charged it overnight, but his annoyance faded as soon as he unlocked the phone and saw it still open to his conversation with Dan from the night before.

It was an odd relief to see the conversation on his phone; it served as proof that he truly did have Dan Howell’s phone number. Until that point, a small part of him had been convinced the entirety of the night before was just a dream.

Should he text him? Was it too soon? Phil hadn’t even had a date in over a year. He hadn’t a clue where to go from there. Without the drunkenness protecting him, he was left with all his normal social anxieties. He decided to text Gail and ask for advice first, but she was of no help. She simply keysmashed into oblivion in excitement that Phil got Dan’s number. So Phil decided to leave it for a few minutes to get some food and try to cure his hangover.

When he came back, Dan had made the decision for him; he had a message already waiting for him. Phil gasped and snatched his phone off his bed, eyes glued to the screen.

Dan: hey

That was underwhelming. However, Phil still felt the overwhelming need to start a conversation, and a good one at that. He wanted to see Dan again, and he couldn’t fuck that up. He’d been head over heels for Dan since he saw him on a damn poster, and it was a miracle that he managed to meet him. He’d gotten so far; he had to make it work. He just had to.

Phil: Hey! Does your head hurt as bad as mine?

Dan: fuck, it really does. i feel like garbage atm (but tbf i am)

Phil: I mean me too but you’re not garbage :p

Dan: don’t use :p it’s 2019

Phil’s heart raced; was that wrong? Did he fuck up? His eyes darted wildly around the room in panic. How could he fix that? Did Dan think he was lame? He typed the only thing he could think of.

Phil: sorry

Dan: lmfao it’s fine :p

Phil: Hey!

Dan: hehe :)

Phil: This is unfair

Dan: as it should be :)

Dan: so do u wanna meet up again sometime?

Phil: hell yeah! When?

Dan: tonight good?

Phil: Sure! But we’re not getting hammered tonight I have work tomorrow morning

Dan: fair enough

Dan: meet u at yours at 6?

Dan: i’ve got plans covered :)

Phil: rad!

Dan: seriously, don’t say that. it’s 2019.

Phil: :( you’re no fun

Phil: See you tonight :)

Dan: see you :)

Phil struggled to get through the day without texting Dan. He already missed him, and he wanted to keep talking to him, but they hadn’t even gone on a date yet. He couldn’t just text him all day. So Phil spent the impossibly slow day watching anime and scrolling through social media. He texted Gail in the morning, but eventually he abandoned that conversation because all she did was remind him of his upcoming date. Time only managed to pass slower and slower.

Finally, the clocks rolled around to 5:30, and Phil started getting ready. Anxiety crept into his stomach as he tried to pick out an outfit. He didn’t want to overdress, but he didn’t want to underdress either. He tore through his closet looking for anything that was presentable enough to wear on a date; usually Phil wore either quirky jumpers or his work clothes. Finally, after making an absolute mess of his room, he decided on a nice, blue button-up with and a pair of black jeans and went to look at himself in the mirror. Hands shaking, he slicked back his quiff and took a deep breath. He looked good, he told himself in a futile attempt to calm his nerves.

After the saga of choosing something to wear, it was nearly six. Phil barely managed to finish getting ready before he heard his doorbell ring. He rushed to answer it and was relieved to find Dan dressed about as casually as him. “You look great,” Dan said with a smile. Phil couldn’t help but notice Dan’s dimples pop out of his cheeks; he was absolutely adorable, and Phil nearly froze both from nerves and from infatuation.

“As do you!” he blurted out. He hadn’t a clue if he’d come across as such, but he was just about as nervous as the night before.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah, let me just grab a coat.” Phil peeked around his door and pried a dark coat off the hanger. It was a heavy coat, but the night was cold and Phil hadn’t a clue where they were going.

The taxi Dan took to Phil’s apartment was still waiting for them, and they piled into the backseat. The driver took off without instruction; Dan must have told him where to go on the ride there. They were silent for the majority of the cab ride; Phil was much too anxious to speak. Every time he even thought about saying something, he felt nauseous. He knew there was a chemistry between them that would come out if they started talking, but he didn’t know how to initiate that conversation.

“We’re almost here; don’t look,” Dan said, pulling Phil towards him so he couldn’t look out the window. Phil blushed a bit as his thigh grazed against Dan, but he was starting to get at least a little bit more accustomed to Dan’s physical presence.

Phil laughed. “Dan, I live in London. I know where we are.”

Dan furrowed his brow in fake anger as the cab stopped. He paid the driver and slid across the backseat to follow Phil out onto the curb.

“You know, I’ve never actually been to the planetarium before.”

It was Dan’s turn to laugh. “Clearly you haven’t, because this isn’t a planetarium. This is a restaurant called The Planetarium.”

“Oh,” Phil said in a small voice. “That’s misleading.”

“It’s awesome though. The ceiling is clear, so you can see all the stars. And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s getting dark.”

“A starlit meal?” Phil asked as they entered the dark restaurant. There was a fountain in the center of the restaurant that was sculpted in the shape of the solar system. Water rolled over the planets as they rotated around a lit sun. It was an architectural feat he’d never seen the likes of before. The rest of the dining area wasn’t any less impressive; every table was lit by candlelight, and he was probably the most casually dressed person there. “That actor’s salary must go a long way,” he joked.

“Howell,” Dan said to the hostess. He even had a reservation! Dan had obviously put plenty of effort into this date, and Phil wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. He felt a warm love in his stomach because of it, but he also felt like he had some high standards to live up to.

Dan turned to Phil and smiled. “Definitely not. Usually I struggle a bit, but that Christmas advert paid the big bucks. That’s only a once in a few years sort of gig, though. I was quite lucky to have it.” He seemed fairly modest about his career, but he was obviously proud of the advert, and Phil certainly couldn’t blame him.

“Oh, no, you shouldn’t spend your money on me! You should save it!” Phil whined, his mouth falling open. He felt….guilty, almost, for drawing that much money out of Dan’s wallet. The anxious feeling in his stomach had been fading, but that brought it back just enough to bother him again.

“Nonsense,” he said, waving his hand, “sometimes you’ve just got to live in the moment. It’s worth it.”

Phil wanted to respond, but a waiter was ready to take them to their table. They were seated near the fountain, allowing Phil to admire it from closer up. “This is incredible,” he said, eyes glued to the water flowing down the orbit of Neptune as he took off his jacket.

“It really is,” Dan responded, a soft smile on his face. It was a smile Phil hadn’t seen yet--one of content. Dan appeared almost mesmerized by the fountain. He gave a peaceful smile, and it gave Phil some peace as well. “It gets better, though,” he said, tapping Phil’s hand to get his attention. “Look up.”

It was a clear night in the dark restaurant, and when Phil looked up through the clear ceiling he could see the entire night sky. The moon wasn’t in view yet, but the stars glimmered overhead and reminded him of Dan’s commercial. Phil was amazed that the stars were so visible from the center of a restaurant dining room, especially since they were in the middle of London; he could see every constellation in the sky. “Wow.”

“Wow is right.”

They picked up their menus, and Phil was astounded once again. The food was just as expensive as he assumed. “Dan! I can’t let you pay for all this!”

“Then don’t.”

“Okay, well, I certainly can’t pay for it.”

“Then let me.” He smiled slyly and Phil rolled his eyes. There was no winning that battle.

Phil ordered the least expensive thing off the menu and watched Dan order some fancy fish he couldn’t even pronounce the name of. Of course, neither could Dan, but Phil assumed that was a common occurrence, as the waiter simply laughed and took down the order on his notepad.

“Glad to hear you’re still a normal person who can’t pronounce foreign names,” Phil said.

Dan chuckled. “I’m no celebrity, nor can I speak French.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not French, but okay.”

“Too bad, because we don’t have our menus anymore. Now we’ll never know.”

Phil snapped his fingers in fake disappointment. “Darn.”

They both broke out into a quiet laugh as Phil’s anxiety dissipated. The conversation was all he needed for his muscles to finally relax. He knew he’d be able to speak with Dan; he just had to get it going, and once he did, it went wonderfully.

The wait for their food was obnoxiously long, but they managed to entertain themselves with conversation. Phil was shocked; a few minutes earlier, he hadn’t been able to speak with Dan, and then suddenly he couldn’t stop. It was magical, to him, in a sense.

“I blame your freaky fish,” Phil said, becoming tired of waiting for the food. “I just got pasta and chicken.”

“Maybe it’s your crazy chicken!” Dan argued.

“Are we just putting adjectives in front of meats now?”

“I guess so.”

They laughed again, a constant of the evening. The people around them were giving them looks; they definitely didn’t belong in that restaurant. They were two normal people in a house for extremely rich people, and they weren’t faring well. But neither of them cared, and they just kept on laughing. The laughter brought Phil a certain joy he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember; it had been so long since he’d smiled so much his cheeks started to hurt, and he didn’t realize how much he missed it until he was doing it again. When the food did come, he was almost sad the conversation had to slow down.

The food was incredible. Of course, for those prices, Phil would have been angry if it wasn’t, but he enjoyed his simple pasta dish, and Dan seemed to enjoy whatever the hell he had on his plate.

After the food was eaten, the waiter came back and read them the dessert menu. At the end, they looked at each other.

“Solar system sundae,” they said in unison. The waiter simply smiled, nodded, and walked away.

They spent the next twenty minutes demolishing the biggest ice cream sundae either of them had ever seen. It was in a circular pan only a couple inches deep, and it had a simple vanilla base, but it was then coated in chocolate fudge and had planets drawn on it in different syrups and icings.

“Dan…” Phil trailed off, his breathing heavy. “Can’t...eat...any more ice cream,” he breathed out, hand shaking as he shoveled another bite into his mouth.

Dan laughed, but he wasn’t doing much better. “It’s so good...but I’m so full!”

“On three,” Phil said, “we put down the spoons. Okay?”

Dan nodded. “One.”

“Two.”

“Three!” they yelled at the same time, each of them slamming their spoons down on the table. There was a collective groan from the two of them.

“I don’t want to move,” Phil complained.

“Luckily,” Dan choked out, “you barely have to.”

Phil raised an eyebrow as Dan gestured to a patch of fake grass Phil hadn’t noticed before. There were benches around the grass where couples sat and chatted, but Phil much preferred the concept of lying aimlessly on the grass and admiring the sky. “Would you like to stargaze while you digest?”

Phil smiled both at Dan and at the concept of lying on the floor for a while. “I’d love to.”

Dan paid the check, and they stood up and made their way over to the stargazing grass. Phil laid down and looked up at the constellations, snuggling up under his jacket. “Hey, leave some blanket for me!” Dan said, jokingly nudging Phil as he laid down beside him. He promptly pulled some of the jacket onto him as he nestled up to Phil.

“The stars are amazing,” Phil said dreamily, “how did we get lucky enough to have such a clear night?”

“Dunno,” Dan whispered back, “same way I got lucky enough to find you.”

“That was so cheesy,” Phil teased.

“And so is this.” Dan leaned up and pressed his lips to Phil’s, and Phil’s body filled with life. It was their first kiss they shared with neither of them being intoxicated, and it was just as wonderful, if not more. In that moment, that was all Phil felt: wonder.

After a moment they pulled apart, and Phil smiled. “That was definitely cheesy, but I’ll give you a pass because I’ve always wanted to kiss someone under the stars.”

“Glad to check that one off your bucket list,” Dan said, beaming.

They returned to their original position of simple closeness, and Phil was more than content. He felt like he could lie there in Dan’s presence forever. He so wished he could, but he knew he couldn’t.

“I don’t feel gross anymore, do you?” Dan asked him in a whisper. It was a simple conversation, but it felt like an intimate experience kept just for the two of them. Phil shook his head. “Are you ready to go?”

“Am I going home?” Phil asked, and Dan nodded. “Then not really,” Phil replied, “I want to stay with you.”

Dan chuckled, breaking into a smile. “You know, me too.” He paused for a moment, deep in thought. “How about this?” Dan sighed happily, “You’ve got to get some sleep and work tomorrow morning, and I’ve got some lines to learn for a shoot tomorrow. We meet up at the Eye tomorrow at seven and go see a movie. You know, just for the sake of being together. Does that sound good?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

They hailed another cab to drive them home, and they refused to break contact throughout the ride. Thighs pressed together, they felt as if they were at home in each other’s presence. They each craved the same feeling of safety that came from simply being in the same space.

This time, Dan’s flat came first on the route home. It was a simple building, a little bit nicer than Phil’s, but it was nothing special. It was a bit comforting to see that Dan truly was no celebrity; he was simply a normal person, perfect for Phil, the most normal person on the planet.

They kissed goodbye and let their touch linger as they separated. As they pulled apart, Phil felt as if a part of him was being dragged away from his person. Neither of them wanted him to leave, but it was necessary. There was an empty feeling in the air as the door shut and the space between them began to grow, but Phil was comforted with the knowledge that they’d meet again in a short day.

He sighed as he leaned back against the headrest. Finally, all his emotions truly began to hit him, and he couldn’t help but smile. After all those hours spent staring at the posters, he’d finally gotten to truly know Dan, and damnit, Phil was in love with him.

Phil hated the day at work leading up to his second date with Dan. Not only did he have to wait, making the day longer, but he also had to put up with Gail annoying him the entire time.

“So, how was the date?” she pried, raising an eyebrow as she elbowed Phil.

“Good,” Phil said, monotone.

“Second date?”

“Tonight.”

She squealed like the fangirl she was. “Where are you going? What are you doing? Are you excited?”

“Yes, Gail, I’m excited,” he said, rolling his eyes as he put up a sign. Of course it had to be sign day; everything had to fall into place for Gail to have as much time as possible to bother him about Dan. “We’re going to the Eye, and I don’t know what we’re doing. Apparently he likes planning dates.”

“That’s so cute. I can’t believe this actually worked out!”

“Neither can I, but you know what I believe?”

“What?”

Phil turned to face her and gave her a stern look. “You being so utterly annoying about it.”

Gail pouted, refusing to make eye contact with him. “Sorry. But you’ve got to admit, it would never have happened without me.”

“Fine, fine. Just come up with at least ONE other conversation topic.”

“Deal.”

Although it certainly didn’t cease, the annoyance decreased throughout the day. Their morning routine was basically back to normal, despite seeming to last twice as long as it did. Phil and Gail worked adjacent registers in the afternoon, and she actually managed to help the time pass.

Mid-afternoon, they started a conversation about their favorite television shows and only stopped talking whenever a customer showed up at either of their registers. They probably weren’t supposed to be spending so much time talking. In fact, Phil knew they weren’t supposed to be spending so much time talking. But the conversation made the shift manageable, and he couldn’t have been more thankful for that. There was no better reminder of why he was friends with Gail.

“Good luck,” she said to him as he left for the Underground after his shift. It was the first time in hours she had mentioned it, but this time it was in good faith. He nodded, a soft, genuine smile on his face.

He took the train home simply to change into nicer clothes and then headed back out to catch a train to the Eye. He managed to lay out an outfit before he left that morning, so he would be a bit early, but he didn’t want to risk something happening on the train and making him late. Besides, he was starving. He knew he’d get dinner with Dan, but it couldn’t hurt to pick something up in between the station and the Eye.

Phil stepped onto the platform at the station nearest to the Eye at 6:30. He stopped at a Starbucks on the way and picked up a small muffin to snack on as he walked. He managed to arrive fifteen minutes early and take a seat on a bench near the Eye. He looked up at the wheel and let it mesmerize him as he nibbled his muffin. The slow circulation of the Eye was quite calming. Watching it slowly rotate numbed his mind and effectively calmed his nerves.

He finished his muffin and pulled out his phone to check the time; it was 6:03. Phil raised an eyebrow and glanced around him; Dan was nowhere to be found. He quickly shot a text to Dan saying that he was there and on a bench and opened a game on his phone. Dan must have gotten caught up in traffic; either that or the tube managed to fuck up. Neither would be surprising. He played a couple levels of his game, and Dan still hadn’t arrived. He texted asking Dan if he was alright; by then he was fifteen minutes late.

Phil sat for a few more minutes and stared at the Eye, the main source of light in the night sky. The spokes of the wheel were lit in various colors; the rhythmic change from color to color was soothing before, but it didn’t relieve his fear anymore. It was getting late, and Phil was freezing. Phil dialed Dan’s number, but he didn’t answer. He bit his lip; he was starting to get concerned on multiple levels. Was Dan alright? Had something happened? Nearly as bad, had he simply ghosted Phil?

Phil tapped the ‘Favorites’ tab in his Phone app and called the first number on the list.

“Gail?”

“Yeah?” she answered. “Why are you calling me? Aren’t you on your date?”

“Should be,” he said, disgruntled.

“What happened?” Her concern was evident; for once, Phil was grateful for how much she cared about his love life.

“How long do you stay before deciding someone stood you up?”

He heard a sigh through the phone. “Oh, Phil… I’m so sorry.” He wasn’t planning on crying over it, but hearing her sympathy made him fight back tears. Phil struggled to maintain even breaths, the pain pooling in his throat from restricting his tears. He wasn’t angry at that point; he simply felt like human garbage. He was in his thirties and he needed sympathy over getting stood up on a date. It was pathetic. “Did you text him? Call him?”

“Did both; he didn’t answer.”

“Do you want to come over and hang out with me?”

Phil’s first instinct was to say yes; bad dates were Phil and Gail’s best nights. Whenever one of them had a bad date, they’d go to the other’s flat and eat enough ice cream that they didn’t care anymore. That wouldn’t work this time; the ice cream simply reminded him of Dan. Besides, something was nagging at him, telling him to go somewhere else.

“Actually, I think I’ve got another idea. Thanks for the offer though. Be sure to keep it open; I may show up later if this ends up sucking ass.”

“It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Phil wiped the freezing tears out of his eyes and stood up, taking one last look around for Dan. He took a deep breath and marched back towards the tube station. He had new plans.

After a few Google searches, Phil found himself at the bar where he first met Dan. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d brought himself there; he assumed his brain thought it to be a good way to grieve. Again, he didn’t understand why, but there he was, rolling with his impulse.

He stepped into the bar and took a seat, ordering a glass of liquor. He usually was one for more fruity drinks, but at that point he just craved the warm, familiar feeling of drunkenness. He wanted to feel the way he felt when he fell for Dan in real life. He wanted a fuzzy mindset that would wash away his sadness. He didn’t care how he got there.

A couple drinks later, someone swiveled into a stool a few spots down from him. “Phew,” they exhaled, obviously coming straight off the dance floor. “Usual,” they said to the bartender.

Even drunk, Phil would recognize that voice anywhere.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He turned to Dan, his eyes piercing into Dan’s skin with anger. His vision was a bit blurry, but he could still see Dan’s fear.

“Oh, shit, Phil, I-”

“Don’t ‘oh shit’ me! You blew me off!”

“No, I didn’t mean to, I genuinely just forgot, I swear!”

Phil’s mouth fell open, his body shaking with rage. “You forgot? You forgot you had a date! That’s significantly worse than just blowing it off!” he snarled.

Dan exhaled through his nose, trying to find words. “Listen, I’m sorry. There’s more to this than meets the eye.”

Before Phil could respond, a man came from the direction of the bathrooms. He approached Dan and put his hand on his shoulder. “Hey, babe. You got our drinks?”

Phil’s body relaxed, the tension in his muscles relieving as he realized he hadn’t the remaining energy to be angry. At that point, he wasn’t even sure he could call his emotion anger. More, he felt a certain understanding he hadn’t had before. Finally, he knew what was going on, and as much as it hurt him, it was almost relieving.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said to Dan, taking out some money from his wallet for his drinks and slamming it on the bar, “there is more to this than meets the eye. Thanks, Dan.”

He pushed himself off of the barstool and stormed off; Dan didn’t bother to follow him. He pulled open the door and stepped outside, letting the cold air hit his face. As the cold sobered him, his feelings didn’t change. Phil took a train to Gail’s flat, not because he wanted to spend time with her, but because it was farther away than his own home. All Phil wanted in that moment was to put as much distance between him and that bar as he possibly could. He succeeded, and he never went back to that bar again.

~ Five Years Later ~

“Finally.” Phil sighed as he crossed a red x over the fifth of July on his calendar. The sixth was circled for a very special reason. “One more day and I can get out of this hellhole.”

It had been three years since Gail found a new job. It paid twice as much as her shitty retail job, and it actually had room for improvement. Room for a better life.

Of course, she and Phil remained friends, but they didn’t see each other nearly as often as they used to. She still lived in her old flat for a while, and they met there often, but then she found a girlfriend and moved into her flat. Phil even went to their wedding, but it wasn’t nearly as happy for him as he hoped it would be. He basically watched Gail get her life together while he was still stuck in the same rut.

Shortly after Gail left, Phil decided to go back to university. He’d started going after secondary school, but some things had come up and he ended up having to quit, throwing him into the dead-end retail job he’d held for twelve years. As he watched his only friend move up in the world, he decided he couldn’t sit still any longer.

Of course, he still had to work his retail job for money while he got an education, which basically made his life a living hell. He couldn’t work as many hours, and he never had any free time, let alone time to try and find someone to settle down with as Gail did. Undoubtedly, it was the worst three years of his life.

But finally, he’d finished his degree from years ago, and he’d gotten a job in filmmaking. He would be working on a commercial, and he started July 6th. Although he was absolutely terrified to start the new job, he felt as if he was a prisoner finishing his sentence; he could finally leave his old job.

His last day at the retail job was undoubtedly the best; they even had a party for him. He didn’t particularly care much, as he had virtually no friends in the store without Gail there, but the cake was good, and there was nothing that had ever given him more joy than walking out of the store for the last time.

The next morning, after an anxious night of little sleep, Phil walked in to his first day on set. He would be the assistant to the director of the commercial, and it paid about as much as his retail job did. From there, he’d hopefully be able to move up in the industry. It was scary, but anything was better than retail.

“Phil!” the director called out, walking towards him with a spring in his step, “good to see you. Meet our actors.”

A few adults followed behind him, and all but one waved at him. He didn’t take much notice in them; he was doing his best to pay attention to the director. “Meet Emma, Riley, Will, and Dan.” He looked down the line at all the faces and gave a smile and a wave to them each as he said their names. But when he got to Dan, his smile quickly turned to a frown. He’d gained a few age lines on his face that he didn’t have before, but it didn’t take from his features; he was still as attractive as ever, if not more. Other than that, he simply appeared more mature. In front of Phil was a man who knew the ins and outs of life.

“Hi, Dan,” he said, his voice quiet and stern.

“Hey,” Dan said, a tint of shame in his tone.

The director simply looked confused. “Do you two know each other?” Each of them nodded, and he nodded in understanding. “Ah, well, whatever happened in the past is in the past now. Let’s get going with production!” The director clapped his hands, and Phil turned and walked as far away from Dan as fast as he could. The last thing he wanted was to ruin his first job in the film industry by causing drama with his ex-boyfriend.

The morning went seamlessly; they got all the shots they needed with the first set and took lunch while the crew replaced it with the next. Phil took his lunch and kept to himself, eating in a corner away from all the actors and even from the director. Still, he couldn’t avoid the inevitable.

“Hey, can I talk to you?” As expected, Dan was standing over him, wringing his hands. He was biting his lip in an anxiety Phil had never seen from him before; usually Dan was the confident one, but he was a nervous wreck.

Phil sighed. He didn’t much want to talk to Dan, but he decided it was probably best to just let him talk and get it over with. “Sit down,” he said, defeated.

“I just wanted to say...I’m really, REALLY sorry about what happened a few years ago. If you don’t want to hear me out, I completely understand, but I’d really like to explain myself.”

Dan? Showing him respect? What a feat. “Might as well listen. Maybe it’ll be fun,” he said, straightfaced and full of resentment.

“Okay, so you’re still mad. I can’t blame you. But let me just explain what happened,” Dan pleaded.

He paused, and Phil gestured for him to continue. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“Well, I was in a long term relationship with a man who I was in love with. He, however, didn’t love me, and was extremely manipulative. He had broken up with me about a week before I met you. I was empty, and when I found you, I felt like a little bit of that void he left inside me was filled. So I went out with you, and I made plans for a second date. And I swear, I really did plan on meeting you that night. And that was when he texted me.” Dan sounded almost ashamed of his past relationship; he’d obviously been taken advantage of, and he wasn’t happy to admit it.

“I want to stress how head over heels I was for this guy. He had me in his trap; I would have done anything for him. He told me he missed me, and I fell right back in. I know now that I should have ignored him. I should have gone with you instead. But this guy just had some terrifying control over my brain. He was my number one priority, to the point that when he texted me I completely forgot you even existed. I know, that’s shitty. That’s what you told me when it happened. But believe me...my relationship was fucked up.”

“Clearly,” Phil interrupted, still struggling to let go of his years-old bitterness. He couldn’t help but feel a bit sympathetic, but he wasn’t particularly ready to react positively.

“I… completely understand if you can’t forgive me. Obviously I’d love it if you could, but I probably wouldn’t be able to forgive me either. Just know that I’m not that person anymore. I’ve been to therapy; I’ve dealt with my shit…. it’s been a wild five years.”

Phil chuckled. “Same here.”

“So, are we okay?” he asked tentatively.

There was a long pause for thought before Phil could answer. First, he thought back five years. So much had changed since then. Five years was a hell of a long time, and Phil, too, had become a different person since then. But he still remembered the happiness he felt on the one date he had with Dan, eating ice cream and lying under the stars. It was a certain type of joy he wasn’t sure he’d felt yet. Plus, Phil decided Dan had somehow gotten even more attractive as he aged.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

Dan exhaled, a smile of relief crossing his face. “Good.”

As the shoot went on, Phil learned that Dan wasn’t lying. It was obvious just from how he interacted with both Phil and others that he really had changed. Even back then he seemed like a nice guy, but now it was on a different scale. The way he cared for other people, the way he cared for himself...he really had dealt with his shit, and he’d grown from it.

After a few days, the shoot wrapped up. Phil wasn’t worried about his future; he’d worked with the director to line up a few more shoots to work at. The first shoot went off without a hitch, and he was content with the fact that he might have a future in the industry. Things were going well for him; he was ready to move on with his life.

But Dan wasn’t.

“Hey, Phil, wait up!” he heard Dan shout from behind him as he was walking to the station to take a train home. Dan ran to catch up with him. “Okay, okay,” he panted, trying to gather himself. Phil stopped walking to give him a chance to catch his breath.

“Listen, Phil, I know this is a long shot, but-” he blinked hard, and it was obvious that he thought he was being ridiculous, “I like you. I liked you years ago, and now that I’ve met you again, I still like you. I know things went horribly last time, but I’ve gotten rid of those terrible influences that drove me to hurt you, and-” he threw his hands at his sides. “it just doesn’t feel right to let you walk out of my life again. I shouldn’t have let you leave the first time, and I can’t make that mistake again.”

He stood in silence for a moment, looking like a deer in headlights. Phil smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Is this you asking me out?”

A small bit of color entered Dan’s previously pale face, but he still appeared a being of pure fear. “Yeah! Yeah, that, um-” his eyes darted wildly around the parking lot; he obviously didn’t think he’d get that far, “could I take you out for some drinks? Maybe? Tomorrow night? I promise I’ll show up this time.”

Phil smiled. Something told him this was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. “Yeah, I’d like that.” He watched as pure relief replaced the panic on Dan’s face, and he couldn’t help but smile wider. “Same apartment. See you tomorrow.”

“Great!” he shouted as Phil began to walk away. “Seven?”

“Seven!” Phil called back to him.

“Awesome!”

Suddenly, Phil turned on his heel. “Oh, and Dan?” A few feet had been put between them, and Phil began making up the distance. “If you fuck this one up, I will NEVER talk to you again. Deal?”

By then, he was standing right in front of Dan. He stuck his hand out, and Dan, regaining a small amount of confidence, offered Phil his own.

“Deal.”

About a year later, Phil took great joy in inviting Gail to his own wedding.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phic stuff #dong and ping #phandom reverse bang #prb #tw alcohol #tw food #tw cheating

27 notes · View notes

itsadrizzit · 7 years ago

Note

2, 5 and 8, please!

THANKS! Answers are under the cut because, as usual, I get LONG WINDED! I just love talking about my work, okay?

Fanfic Day Meme

2. What is your favourite snippet of dialogue?

Can I be EXTRA and give you some from all my fics (the recent ones anyway?) I feel like they all have this one moment that’s like…ah ha that dialogue bit was PERFECTION

Maybe It Will All Come Back to Me

‘You’re not half as charming as you think you are. Now stop arsing about, I want coffee.’

‘Fine,’ Vincent said, turning back to the stove. ‘I know how dangerous it is to get between you and your coffee. I’d hate to put my life at risk.’

‘Smart. I knew there was a reason I liked you.’

‘Not my devastating good looks and captivating personality?’

‘Just make coffee.’

‘Hmm okay. But only because I fear for my safety if I don’t.’

Merry Christmas, Here’s to Many More

“What are you watching?”

“Great British Bake Off.” Vincent said, nonchalant, as though this were a thing he did every day at eight thirty in the morning.

“Great…what? Have you been watching a baking show for three hours?”

“There’s nothing else on. I’ve seen all these already, but when I tuned in they were making stroopwafels and it made me think of home so I left it.”

“Hmm.” Chris could understand that. Honestly, he could go for a stroopwafel and coffee himself right now, but he had a match tomorrow and needed to be careful what he ate—even on Christmas.

Then his brain caught up with Vincent’s words and he lifted his head from Vincent’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, did you say you’ve seen all these already? Since when do you watch Great British Bake Off?”

Vincent shrugged and pursed his lips, eyes turned to the floor, his cheeks tinged with the barest hint of pink. “I…well I started watching it when I moved here, honestly, but I’ve been watching back seasons while I’ve been away and I watched the latest season online. I confess I’m a bit hooked.”

“But…” Chris started and then stopped because Vincent could watch whatever he wanted but why hadn’t he heard about this baking show obsession before now? “You don’t bake, do you? Unless you were holding out on me for all those months.”

“No. I just…It all looks so good and I can’t actually eat cake because of training, which I know is sort of like torturing yourself, but the whole idea of it is just…” a pause and then he set himself, jaw strong and his voice firm as he lifted his eyes from their fixed stare at the floor. “I really like cake, Christian, leave me alone.”

We’re Less Than Half As Close As I Want to Be

Vincent looked down at the bag in his hands, then squinted at the screen, “You got me a Denmark shirt?”

“Open it all the way up,” Christian said. “I promise it will make sense eventually.”

Vincent lifted the adhesive flap and slipped the shirt out onto his lap. Fabric cool and smooth against his hands, although the underside had ridges in it where the designers had ruined an otherwise sharp and sleek kit by carving an outline of a viking into it.

He hoped his uncontrolled eye roll had been obscured from Christian’s view when he held up the shirt to examine it.

“This shirt is terrible,” Vincent said.

Christian let out a snort of protest, which Vincent ignored, then said, “Turn it around. The front is just regular.”

Vincent did as he’d been instructed, flipping the shirt over at his hands and staring at the back. It wasn’t much better than the front, really—bizarre font that made most of the players’ names nearly unreadable. This one no different. White lettering stark against the bright red background.

He blinked at the shirt for a few seconds. Staring. Processing. Taking it all in. Trying to understand what this was supposed to mean.

“Christian what the hell?”

“I got you a shirt.”

Vincent lowered the shirt to his lap so he could stare down at the screen. “I see that, but…I’m not Danish.”

“No. You’re not. But I am.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Vincent said. “None of this makes any sense. It’s a Denmark shirt, but it’s not your shirt. It’s…mine? Or, well, it has my name on it. But your number? Or mine? Although not your number, really, or my number but…”

Stay in My Eyeline

Hard to choose for this one because everything Daley says is great, but I love Chris and the Belgians, so…

“Why would any of us make it easier for you to continue making these abysmally bad life choices, Chris?” Toby asked.

“Please don’t make me call him.” Chris was ordinarily above begging, especially when he knew his friends would hold it over him for as long as they could, but these were extenuating circumstances.

“Christiaan ,” Toby said in the disapproving tone of a Dutch opa he reserved for whenever Chris was being particularly stupid about something involving Vincent. “If you want to do something this monumentally idiotic, then you’re going to have to work for it. I’m certainly not going to enable you.”

“Nor I,” Jan said.

“Well I’m not doing it,” Mousa said with a shrug. “But don’t think I don’t want to find out what happens when you do. I sort of wish we could watch it over a group chat.”

Chris threw a hand in the air. “I thought friends were supposed to help and support one another in their time of need.”

“How badly do you want to do this, Chris?” Jan asked. “Bad enough that you’re willing to go through all of this? Think on it.”

His friends were being insufferable, but Chris couldn’t blame them for it. The whole thing was probably hilarious, really, if you weren’t the one who had to call your ex and ask him to get you tickets to watch your current boyfriend, who was on the same team as your ex, play a match. With the added complication that as far as Chris was aware neither of them knew about his involvement with the other.

When had Chris’s life gotten this complicated? All he’d ever wanted to do was put his head down and play football, not end up in a string of problematic relationships with members of the Dutch National Team.

“And what am I supposed to say to him when I call? ‘Hi, sorry I’ve been going out of my way to ignore you for five years. Can you get me a ticket to your match today? Thanks, that’s so great of you. Just so you know, this doesn’t make us friends or anything, I just really need a ticket and you’re the only one I can call. Okay?”

“Overdramatic much?” Mousa asked, raising one eyebrow.

This May Be My Last Song

I cut this one for length because I needed to get the whole thing in but it was LONG, so I took out some of the narrative.

“We’re sort of a mess, aren’t we?”

“Hmmm,” Christian said. “A beautiful mess, yes. After all, here’s me all businesslike and telling you to leave me behind and go to Brighton and then the next second getting all sentimental because you’re laying in bed making that face.”

“What face?”

“Your ‘I really want to fuck you right now’ face.”

He scowled down at the phone where Christian’s face was quirked into a wide grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he laughed at Vincent.

“I don’t have a face for that.”

“Mmmm.” Christian’s voice shaking, with laughter this time, and none of this was funny thank you very much. “Not true. You have a face for everything. Lucky for you, that one is particularly hard to resist.”

“Stop laughing! I do not have an I want to fuck you face.” His voice a bit louder than he’d intended. Echoing off the walls and through the sparse, open space.

The click of a door handle a second later and Tonny’s voice around the corner. “Do I want to know?”

“It’s…uhhh…” Vincent said, flashing a warning look down at Christian as he scrambled for the button to mute the audio.

“None of my goddamn business,” Tonny said, lifting his headphones from the bedside table and sliding them around his neck. “I’ll just…be over here. You…keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing. Don’t worry about me.”

Heat rising in Vincent’s cheeks. “I…ummm.”

Tonny held up a hand and shoved his headphones over his ears. On screen, Vincent found himself staring at the ceiling of Christian’s hotel room, phone abandoned on the bed as Christian continued his fits of laughter.

Vincent had just straightened up, earphones in hand, when Tonny slipped his headphones off the ear closest to Vincent.

“To be fair to whoever that is, you do though,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact.

Vincent’s face burning hot now, and how did Tonny know anything about his sex face?

“I…oh my God, what?” Vincent’s head in his hands because this was not happening to him.

“You have a face. For everything. Definitely for that.” Tonny shoved his headphones back on his ears and flashed Vincent a thumbs up.

Vincent flopped onto the bed, shoved the headphones into their port, and tapped at his screen, still showing the dull white of the hotel ceiling tiles. “Are you done?”

Darkness as Christian’s hand closed around his phone, then a finger jabbed at the screen before Christian’s gasps of laughter burst into his ears.

“Oh. My. God.” Christian gasped out in English before switching back to breathless Dutch. “Your entire face right now. Who was that? He’s fantastic. We should be friends.”

Vincent glared down at Christian. “Tonny. Who apparently has seen my non-existent sex face. Godverdomme, Chris stop laughing.”

I refuse to select one from Five Times Christian Eriksen because there are MANY of them and my co-author wrote most of the funny bits anyway,

From the Loose Ends podfic, I will just go with a line that made me laugh out loud at the way I delivered it EVERY SINGLE TIME. It is in Chapter 9 when Eric and Dele are drunk and in Portugal and Eric misspeaks and then Dele makes fun of him for it and the way I read that line was honestly just MINT. You can listen to just that clip here (right click it to open in a new tab).

5. What’s your favorite headcanon you use in fics?

Ummm…I think my favourite is that Vincent used to watch Christian when he played at Ajax. Even though Vincent was at Feyenoord and he was supposed to blindly HATE all Ajax players he’d saw Christian playing in a match vs the Feyenoord first team when Vincent was still on the Feyenoord youth team and he basically became fully infatuated with him in that borderline obsessive first crush way. He’d record the Ajax matches and watch them late at night in his room and he’d watch all the interviews and videos of Christian and the Denmark matches when he could get them. It’s one of the main reasons he went to Spurs because he knew Christian was there and he wanted a chance to play with him. So when they first meet Vincent already knows a ton about Christian and he has to act like he isn’t the biggest fankid in the world and try to just be cool like…he is your teammate and your peer now, you can’t just stare at him and gush over him. Meanwhile Christian is his usual oblivious self who has no idea that Vincent has had a crush on him since he was a teenager.

8. How often do people catch onto your little details?

Honestly…I have no idea. I don’t even know if *I* catch on to my little details. If any of my readers out there want to weigh in on this I’m happy to know. Same with podfic…how often do people catch the little effects I put in. Sometimes they are in your face, but sometimes they’re pretty subtle so I wonder if anyone notices them or not.

This is an interesting question. No one has ever really mentioned them to me, but I am always interested at the things people do pick up in my writing because I’m like oh, you’re right, but…I never meant that to be a thing, but there it is! So it’s always a fun surprise, even for me.

Thanks! Fun as always. Sorry I got a bit out of control with the dialogue. Dialogue is one of my favourite things to do.

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craniumhurricane · 7 years ago

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i’ll have the eggplant emoji

So I started writing a fic back in February and intended for it to be a Valentine’s gift for @katchyalater but that never happened SO! Merry Christmas Kac!

On AO3!

Bellamy: Can I come over tonight?

Clarke: It's Saturday?

I thought you had a date tonight??

Bellamy: I did

It ended earlier than I planned.

Clarke: Shit!

Yeah sure

Did you make it to dinner?

I'm ordering takeout

When Bellamy lets himself into Clarke’s apartment he's wearing what she considers his “dating outfit”; a pair of nice dark wash jeans with a blue button up and a jacket that has those weird elbow patches that he somehow pulls off. He’s even got contacts in instead of wearing his glasses which is really a shame. He’s adorable with his glasses and artfully messy hair. Not that it matters, all forms of Bellamy are attractive to Clarke. But she refuses to let that get in the way of helping her best friend. She’s already got a beer waiting for him on the coffee table which he immediately grabs and twists off the cap before taking a pull.

“Food should be here soon,” she tells him as he sits down next to her on the couch. “And the cat will come skulking out once she realizes you're here. Bad date?”

“Just what I came for,” he says with a rueful smile and then frowns, bringing the bottle up again but pausing before it reaches his lips. “We broke up. Or rather we aren't seeing each other anymore. Fuck, I don't know. Do you consider it dating after only four dates?”

“Some people might but hey, what are labels really?” She shrugs and takes a sip of her own beer.

“Thanks,” he says with a smile before finally taking the swig.

She really does feel bad for him. Not that Clarke liked Echo. To be honest she couldn't really stand her, but Bellamy hadn't dated anyone since Gina broke up with him two years ago for reasons Clarke doesn't even know. It was amicable and the two of them are still friends but Clarke just wants her best friend to be happy. And for all intents and purposes, he did seem happy with Echo. Even if she was a royal bitch to most of his friends.

The cat comes out from the hallway and Bellamy seems distracted trying to get her attention so Clarke clears her throat and asks, “Netflix or Discovery Channel?”

Which is how they end up finishing the six pack Clarke had in the fridge and starting in on the bottles of weird foreign beer that her mom gave her as a Christmas present last year. They're watching some cheesy romance movie that came on after a Parks and Rec rerun marathon and were both too lazy to reach for the remote. The cat is curled up in Bellamy’s lap and Clarke's not sure when his head ended up on a pillow in her own lap or when she started carding her fingers through his hair but she's not going to comment on it.

“See and that's all it really takes,” he says suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence and gesturing at the TV.

Clarke knows he's nowhere near drunk. They've gone to Gina's bar more times than any of their friends and those drinks usually consisted of hard liquor which Gina was very generous with. Bellamy has spent more than one occasion holding her hair back and in return she's held onto his glasses and few times for him. She's pretty sure they're both fine right now, if maybe a little tipsy.

“Emotional manipulation until you have the girl right where you want her but surprise! You’ve been a good guy all along?”

Bellamy frowns and then suddenly sits up, dislodging the cat from her position with an indignant meow. He's back to sitting next to her on the couch but now he’s close enough that their shoulders graze each other. “No, just a simple gesture to show you like someone. Like,” he gestures at the TV again, “sending flowers. All these kids today sending dick pics and eggplant emojis. People still want to be courted. Gestures that are cute and thoughtful are way more intimate than grainy photos of hairy dicks.”

Clarke stares at his profile for a second and feels a slight blush creep up her neck and onto her face that she will blame entirely on the alcohol. It isn't until he turns to look at her that she realizes that he probably wanted a reply.

“Do people send you hairy dicks often? Isn't manscaping supposed to be a thing?”

He laughs, like she knew he would, and shoves her lightly which gratefully creates some space between them. “Shut up and put Netflix on.”

Bellamy helps her clean up the takeout boxes and leaves without any fanfare about two hours later. Clarke offered to walk him halfway but he turns her down mumbling something along the lines of it being only a 10 minute walk. She crawls into her bed and aimlessly scrolls through her social media feeds, actively ignoring the thought that hasn't left her alone since Bellamy had mentioned it when they were lying on the couch.

She pauses once she gets the text that he made it home, interrupting her scroll through Tumblr. She considers it for half a second and then opens a new tab in her web browser and before she knows what she's doing she's found a reasonable florist in the area that makes deliveries.

“That’s all it takes,” she breathes as she types in the delivery information.

She'd like to think she's the type of person that wouldn't obsess about it but let's be real; she is definitely the type of person to obsess about it. She spends most of Monday morning checking her phone every 5 minutes for the time. Not sure if the delivery confirmation or a text from Bellamy will come first. She's honestly not sure which she wants to receive first.

Thankfully she actually does get swept up with patients at the clinic and is gratefully distracted until close to her lunch time.

It's just after 11:30 when she's walking Mrs. Kane out that she gets a text from Bellamy. He has combination lunch and office hours from 11:30 to 1:30 which is why she indicated this as the best time for delivery. Clarke quickly announces to the front that she'll be in her office before she hurries in and shuts the door. The text is a picture of the arrangement but she’s too distracted by the blinking dots that indicate he's still typing to really appreciate them.

Bellamy: [image]

Thanks for the flowers, Princess.

I'm really not that upset over Echo but I appreciate the gesture.

Clarke stares at the messages and waits for more... But none show up. She exits out of her texting app as if that will refresh it but when she goes back in there's still nothing. Now she's scowling at her phone because that idiot didn't get it!

Or maybe he doesn't feel that way about her?

Once upon a time she thought he did but the timing wasn’t right. She had just gotten out of a rough relationship and wasn’t looking for anything serious. And then, when she was ready, he was dating Gina. Next was Niylah for her followed by, most recently, Echo for him. When she was ordering the flowers, Clarke didn’t allow herself to debate over whether it was a good idea. She just thought, with both of them single, that this could finally be it. But maybe it was too late. Maybe they missed their window.

Halfheartedly, because she knows he'll think it's weird if she doesn't reply, she types out a response.

Clarke: Glad you like them.

And a part of her means it. Her friendship with Bellamy is more important to her than unrequited feelings. Still, she pockets her phone and doesn't think about it for the rest of the day.

It's later that night, when she's sitting at home with a bottle of wine, that he sends her another picture. He’s brought the flowers home and put them in one of the shitty vases she made when she thought pottery was going to be her new hobby. An assumption that she had been so so wrong about. He mostly kept it as a reminder that not all her ideas are good ones but she has to admit that the arrangement does look good in it now that she actually looks at it. The vase is simple, if a bit lopsided and lumpy, yet colorful and with the flowers it looks very... homey. He has them displayed in the center of his kitchen/dining table where she knows he does all of his grading.

Bellamy: [image]

Look, your vase has a real purpose

Other than taunting you

Sorry, couldn’t resist. I really do appreciate the flowers though

A goofy smile returns to Clarke’s lips and a flicker of hope reignites in her chest. She decides that she isn't giving up that easily. The gesture was sweet but maybe not grand enough...

Bellamy teaches at Ark University and Clarke knows his schedule as well as she knows her own which is how she knows he has lecture hall on Wednesdays. She plans her next delivery accordingly.

She purposefully took a late lunch and at 2pm she shuts herself in her office, pulls her phone out, and waits. At four minutes past the hour her phone lights up with a selfie of her and Bellamy at the fair, indicating a phone call.

“Hi,” she answers with a smile.

“I think the florist you used messed up your order.”

She startles upright in her chair, “Wh-What?”

“You ordered a delivery for Monday, right?” Bellamy asks before barreling on as if he's distracted, “They just came in at the end of my class with five more arrangements. You might want to call them and make sure they didn’t charge you for all of these.”

She blinks a few times. Of course, of course, he would worry about something like that.

“No, that's right,” she says carefully.

“Which is why you should call them,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing to do. “Tell them you only wanted the Monday order. The guy already left and I doubt they'll take these back so I'm giving them to my students.” She can hear him shuffling and talking to other people.

“No! That's not what I -”

“Related note; this does not help me get my students to stop hitting on me,” he says pointed.

She’s slowly moving from exasperated to frustrated. The smart thing to do would be to wait for his attention to be back on her and slowly and calmly explain that it's not a mistake and that, yes, she did send another five arrangements to his place of work, in front of his students, so there would be witnesses.

But Clarke's brain doesn't always work when she's frustrated and now this declaration of love is a thing. She's not backing down yet.

“We can work on that,” she says with determination.

Bellamy's taking his classes on a field trip to the museum on Friday and won't be home all day. The clinic is only open until noon so Clarke has a free afternoon. It's the perfect opportunity.

Clarke has a key to his apartment because of course she does. He had given her a key after that one time when she waited outside in the hallway because he was running late and felt guilty about it. She uses it all the time to let herself in so she really doesn't feel bad about using it now...

She smiles when she sees the original flowers she sent him on Monday are still in the vase she made and are still sitting on his kitchen table. He must be changing the water every day because they still look really good considering they're a few days old.

She doesn't have long to admire them because the delivery guys are right on time. Clarke lets them in and begins directing them on where they can put stuff. Once they’re done unloading, she gives them a generous tip and sets about adjusting the arrangements herself. If five wasn’t enough for him to get it then maybe fifteen will do the trick.

In a true moment of feeling sappy, she decides to put her note in a card holder in the original arrangement.

After one last look around she gives herself a nod of approval and locks up as she leaves. She manages to keep the skip out of her step but not the smile from her face as she walks the few blocks to her place.

She’s playing with the cat and still smiling when Bellamy calls just after six.

“What the hell, Clarke?!” he yells into the phone in lieu of a getting. Loud enough that the cat startles and runs away.

“I had to get your attention,” the smile is a little hard to keep with him yelling at her.

“And bringing on an allergy attack was the way to do that?”

She feels the frustration begin to set in again, “Didn’t you see the card?”

“What card? Clarke, what is going on?”

She lets out a strangled noise. “The card on your kitchen- you know what, I'll be right over.”

When she arrives at Bellamy’s apartment she uses her key once again to open the door. He's standing in the middle of the room, eyes darting around to each arrangement as if he's unsure where to begin before his eyes land on her.

He sniffles and that does make her feel a little guilty, especially when his eyes are slightly red.

“Seriously Clarke, what the hell?”

She squares her shoulders like she's preparing for a fight and walks over to the table where she had left her note. “You said a simple gesture would work but apparently, with you, that isn't the case. So I had to go bigger.” She pulls the note out and whirls around.

He's frowning at her when she turns around so she just thrusts her hand out and shoves the card into his chest.

“And when that didn't work I decided I had to go even bigger,” she gestures around the room.

His eyes drop to read the note and there’s suddenly silence in the room. She doesn't know if it’s as awkward as she thinks it is but thankfully he starts talking before she can start rambling.

“You love me?” he looks up at her with something that looks like hope in his eyes.

All at once she lets out a breath and feels the tension drain from her shoulders only to be replaced by nerves and that damn blush again. “Well, yeah.”

Instantly, he closes the space between them and kisses her. Clarke's hands immediately go to the hair at the nape of his neck as if they were magnets just waiting for permission. Likewise, she can feel one of his hands thread through her hair while the other rests on her cheek.

They break apart for air but he doesn't go far, just rests his forehead against her’s with his eyes closed. “I'm in love with you too,” he says and suddenly they're both smiling at each other before she’s surging forward for another kiss.

They continue to make out for a few minutes before Clarke breaks out into a fit of giggles.

“What?” Bellamy asks as he pulls back to look at her.

She’s still chuckling but the look on her face is fond, “I should have just sent you an eggplant emoji.”

“Shut up,” he says with absolutely no heat, unable to keep his own smile off his face. “But yeah, could have saved yourself the trouble.”

“I'll remember that for next time.” But she doesn't think she'll need it.

#no one cares ashleigh #bellarke fanfiction #my fanfiction #i'm going to post this and run away because omg #basically kac is amazing and i want to give back #also apparently my standard time to post fic is after midnight

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snelbz · 7 years ago

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Welcome Home {Feysand Fluff}

So for those of you that don’t know, @tacmc got engaged last month! We’ve been best friends for over 15 years, but we currently live over 9 hours apart. So a couple of weeks ago, I went up north to visit her so we could go wedding dress shopping and she found the dress that was MADE FOR HER. (Spoiler alert: I cried.) But I realized, I’m yet to get her an engagement present. So, Tara, my darling best friend, enjoy a mini-engagement present of a Feysand Fluff. I love you so much and I’m so happy for you and Troy!

Feyre put the car in park and pulled her golden-brown hair out of the ponytail at the back of her neck. She ran her fingers through her hair, attempting to shake the tangles and knots that had collected from the long double shift she'd worked at the Illyrian Bar and Grill, in downtown Velaris. Looking up at the small home whose driveway she was parked in, she couldn't help but smile. The weekend before, she and Rhysand had put out the Christmas lights and decorated the house. With the dusting of snow that had fallen before she got off work, it was picture perfect. Pulling the wad of bills out of her pocket, she counted through them one more time before getting out of the warmth of the car. She totaled it up to just under $300, which wasn't bad considering the slow night they'd had.

Pulling out her phone, she checked her email and saw that 3 more of her paintings had bids on them and she breathed out a sigh of relief she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Their house payment was due in less than a week and with the money she'd made tonight and the checks for her art, they'd be able to cover it and groceries, with about $500 to spare for Rhys's student loans.

Feyre loved her husband more than life. She married her longtime boyfriend straight out of high school and had spent the most amazing past 5 years with him, but with nearing $80,000 in student loans, every spare nickel and dime they had went to paying them off. It helped that he now had his degree from the Prythian School of Law, but being entry level, he was only able to find a job as a civil litigation lawyer for a small private firm in Velaris, making barely $42,000 a year. Luckily, Feyre's sister and Rhysand's best friend owned a bar in town and were willing to give Feyre shifts whenever she wanted, even if that meant opening at 11:00 in the morning and closing at 3:00 am.

The snow was steadily coming down now and unless she was the one to open up, she knew the Illyrian would be staying closed the next day. Glancing at the clock radio in her car, she saw that it was 3:27 now and it was already down to 17 degrees. Zipping her coat up a little higher, she cut the engine on her car and grabbed her purse, running up the porch steps to the front door. Fumbling to get her keys out of her purse, she sighed, knowing Rhys would be asleep. He'd had to be at the office at 7:30 for a deposition that morning and she couldn't wait to curl up in bed next to him.

Her stomach growled as she turned the key in the knob and she groaned. Okay, she couldn't wait to curl up in bed next to him after she ate something real quick for dinner.

Opening the door, she was surprised to see not only the light on in the kitchen, but to smell the most intoxicating scent coming from there as well. Tentatively, she set her keys down on the small table in the entryway and walked down the hall. As she entered, she saw Rhys leaning on the counter, a glass of wine in each hand. "Welcome home, darling."

Feyre's mouth was hanging open. After finally remembering how to speak, she asked "What's going on?"

Rhys came over and took her purse, placing the glass of wine in her hand. "I thought you might be hungry." As if on cue, Feyre's stomach growled as she looked at the food neatly plated on their table. Honey lemon chicken, scalloped potatoes, roasted asparagus, and a small salad. He laughed and pulled her chair out. "And it looks like I was right."

Feyre sat down and looked at the plate of food in front of her as Rhys headed to the fridge to put away the wine and turn down the lights, instantly her eyes narrowing. She knew for a fact that Rhysand couldn't cook for shit, but the food looked and smelled so amazing, she didn't know how he'd managed to pull something like this off. That is, until she glimpsed the to-go containers from the restaurant across the street from Rhys's office poorly stashed in the pantry closet. But she didn't say anything and she smiled at him as he sat down across from her.

"You didn't have to do this, you have to be exhausted, baby." She reached across the table and grasped his hand in her own, sliding her thumb across his platinum wedding band.

"Oh, I am, but I know you are too, and I knew that you were going to come home and eat something you weren't going to enjoy before falling into bed." His violet eyes were sparkling in the candlelight between them. "So I figured we could spend a little time together and have a good meal as well."

Feyre looked at her husband and couldn't help the tears that began to form in her eyes. "Thank you, Rhys. You have no idea how much this means to me."

He leaned forward and she did the same, pressing his lips to hers. "Anything for you, Feyre Darling. Now eat up! We don't want your dinner getting cold."

They ate, talking about their days, Feyre regaling the story of the horrible, drunk customers she'd had at the end of the night and how they refused to pay their tab until Cassian came out of the back office, and they saw how large her boss really was.

"I hate that you have to work so late, I don't feel comfortable going to bed until after you get home, but with how early I have to be at the office..." His voice trailed off and Feyre smiled sadly at him.

"I do what I have to do for us. With the paintings I posted today and my tips, we'll be able to take another small chunk out of your student loans! You'd do the same for me if the tables were turned."

"I would," he smiled, and then took a deep breath. "So. Speaking of, I received a phone call today."

Feyre's heart nearly stopped beating. "What kind of phone call?"

"It was from the Attorney General's office. I applied for one of the available Assistant Attorney General positions they had in their Civil Rights Division. I had an interview with the Deputy General and one of their Senior Counsels last week. Feyre, they want to offer me the position. At $78,000 a year with benefits." For the second time in one night, Feyre was absolutely speechless. She couldn't believe it. He hadn't told her he'd applied for this job, but after it took him so long to find the one he had, they'd become so discouraged. It wasn't surprising he hadn't told her if he didn't want to get her hopes up. She tried to speak, but she couldn't figure out what to say. Rhys got out of his chair and knelt in front of her own. He took her face in his hands. "Baby, you can quit serving. You can focus on your art. We can pay off my loans as we go and you can finally do whatever you've always wanted. You could go to art school."

By this point, the tears were starting to stream down her face and the food was forgotten as she kissed him and began to laugh. She couldn't stop smiling and she hugged him. He picked her up, spinning her around, as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She laughed and clung to him as she said, "Congratulations!"

Since the day they got married, they'd been struggling to save money. Something always happened and what little bit they'd had saved from their meager salaries had to go to a blown transmission, a new AC unit for their house or to his loans. But now, they could really start to save money and start their life together.

As she kissed him, Feyre knew exactly what she wanted. She could already paint, so why go to art school? "I want to start a family."

Rhys smiled at her. "We will, darling, I promise."

"No, Rhys," she laughed. "I don't think you understand. That's what I want. I want us to have a baby."

He stared at her. "You want to start our family?"

"Yeah," she said, laughing.

"Okay, then let's have a baby!" He kissed her hard and smiled at her.

"I don't think you understand, Rhys. I mean like..." She rubbed her body against his. "I want to start our family, now."

Rhysand's eyes lit up and he pressed his lips against hers in a hard kiss. As he lowered her to the kitchen floor, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled back to look into his violet eyes.

"I love you so much," she breathed.

He pressed a feather-light kiss to her forehead before claiming her lips again. "I love you, too, Feyre, darling."

#feysand #fluff #feysand fluff #feyre #rhysand #rhys #acotar #acotar au #acomaf #acowar #throne of ashes and beauty #my fanfiction #fanfiction

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astrodances · 7 years ago

Text

Nothing Fancy

FF.net link  AO3 link

Merry Christmas and Happy Christmas Truce to @playerpiano-la! I’m your Secret Santa! Your request for “amethyst ocean or anything having to do with dani” was like a blank check to me, and boy, did I cash in. As a result, here’s some fluffy platonic Tucker and Dani (with a dash of the lovebirds)! I hope you enjoy!

Tucker was thrilled that it was finally Friday night.

After one of the most grueling weeks ever at school, coupled with ghost patrol every night, he'd circled Friday all for himself. He had the house to himself for the weekend, his friends were busy, and he had not one, but two new video games waiting by the TV. This was going to be good.

Or so he thought until his phone buzzed next to him on the couch. New text message.

"Ding-dong!"

Tucker didn't recognize the contact number, and was even more confused by the message itself until the doorbell echoed the text. Curiously, he got up and wandered from the living room to the front door.

"Dani?" he asked after opening it.

The younger halfa stood out on the porch nonchalantly, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her hoodie. "Hey, Tucker!"

He opened the door wider, letting light from the house spill out onto her. He looked down at his phone then back up at her and asked, "Did you just text me?"

Dani gave him a dorky smile. "Ding-dong!" she confirmed, then shrugged. "Got a new phone."

Making a mental note to add her new number to her contact later, Tucker nodded. Dani had gotten quite a few life upgrades ever since the Fentons adopted her a month ago. He was glad to see that tech was included in the deal. "Awesome, man!" He leaned against the doorframe. "Anyway, not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?"

Another shrug. "Eh, Danny and Sam are having a 'date night'-" She added extra emphasis with air quotes. "-at our place. Took over the entire living room. And I didn't want to be a third wheel, so...I came to see if you wanted to hang out?" She looked up at him hopefully.

Without a second thought, Tucker answered, "Sure!" His solo game night could wait, as much as he wanted to play. He knew all too well the feeling of being third wheel to Sam and Danny, date night or not, and he wouldn't let Dani fall victim to that. He stepped aside to let her in, sweeping his arm in a grand gesture. "Enter if you dare."

Dani slugged him on the shoulder with a laugh as she walked in. "Thanks!" After taking off her shoes at the door, she asked, "So...what were you doing before?"

"Just was gonna play some games. Nothing fancy." He nodded towards the living room TV. Granted it would've been fancy to him, being a new game and all, but as far as his free nights went it'd been shaping up to be pretty typical.

She walked around the couch and picked up one of the game cases laying on the coffee table before squealing. "Oooh! You got the new Mario Kart?!" She reached down for the other case then glanced at him. "Can I play?"

Tucker seemed surprised. He didn't peg Dani as the gamer-type, but then again he hadn't with Sam either, and he learned his lesson the hard way there. And at least this way, he'd still get to play tonight. Mario Kart was better multiplayer, after all.

"You're on!" He smirked, then set up the game as Dani got comfortable on the couch.

The two dueled it out with their digital personas for a couple of hours. They lost track of who had the most wins, but neither refused to admit defeat. At some point, Dani stretched her arms out and leaned back into the couch.

"Dude, I'm hungry," she stated.

"Same." Tucker had barely spared a thought to anything else while playing, but now he noticed the hunger kicking in.

Dani looked over at him. "I think Nasty Burger's still open."

He nodded. "It is, but I don't really wanna go out." He looked at the clock on the shelf next to the TV. It was already 11:17.

"Aw, come on. We can get it to-go. It'll be a fun adventure!" She sat back up, a renewed pep in her eyes.

There was a moment's hesitation, then a sigh and, "Fine. But you're buying."

"Nuh-uh." Dani held up her remote. "We'll play for that. One more race, loser buys."

"Ugh, you and Danny, I swear..." Tucker grumbled, side-eyeing the female carbon-copy of his best friend.

Within a few minutes, Tucker wound up victorious. He pumped his fists in the air, snickering as Dani yelled at the TV. Her attempt to sabotage him with a blue shell had failed.

"You suck!" Dani joked.

He just stood up triumphantly and threw his controller to the side. "Let me just grab my jacket and keys, and then we'll go so you can pay up."

A pillow met the back of his head as he started up the stairs.

"Since when did you get your license?" Dani was watching Tucker climb into his car, unsure whether she should actually get in herself.

"Since like...four months ago. I just don't drive too much since pretty much everything's close by." He hesitated, then glanced at her. "What? You afraid?"

Dani glared at him, sticking her tongue out. "Only if your real driving is as crazy as it is in Mario Kart."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "As long as you don't throw another blue shell, I think we'll be okay," he teased, which earned a scoff. "Hop in!"

Dani got in, mentally preparing to phase out of the car at a moment's notice should his driving get hairy. But the thought of food soon took over as they rolled down the street. She rolled down her window and stuck out her hand, letting the cool night air whip by it.

They took their time getting to Nasty Burger, since they weren't in any real rush. Tucker had some music playing low on the car's speakers, and Dani would point out weird signs every so often. Only Amity Park would have cheerful billboards about ghosts on every block.

When they finally got to the restaurant, there were just a couple other cars in the parking lot. Nothing fancy, just another late night for the employees as people stopped by for a quick bite. But Dani and Tucker carried in a lively good mood that even made the cashier break into a smile.

Tucker ordered first.

"I'll get two double-doubles, fries, and a large Coke." He looked to his right and held out his hand. "Danielle?"

Dani elbowed him as she stepped forward, laughing when he groaned. "I'll have the same, but with a chocolate shake instead."

The cashier rang up their total, then looked up expectantly as she told them the price.

Dani begrudgingly started to pull her wallet out, but Tucker stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Just put it on Daniel Fenton's tab. He'll be here tomorrow," he explained.

The cashier shrugged and took note of the payment in the system, then went back to the kitchen to help with the order.

"Not that I have a problem with making Danny pay, but why?" Dani questioned. "I lost the game."

Tucker shrugged innocently as they walked over to a table to wait for their food. "Eh, you guys have the same name. Technicalities." He winked at her. Plus, he saw it as a sort of payback for Danny making Dani feel like a third wheel, but he wouldn't tell her that. He had her back.

After they got their food, they walked back out to Tucker's car. Dani drank happily from her milkshake, leaping from one parking block to the next with just the slightest help of her flying ability to make each jump last. There was something about the cold air that was making her extra happy.

"Maaaan, I love midnight food trips!" she exclaimed loudly.

Tucker smiled. So did he, and he was glad she made him go out. "They're the best!" he agreed.

When they got back in the car, he settled in for a moment, snagging a couple of fries from his bag as he considered what was next. "So hey. I'm guessing Danny and Sam are still having their date night. Wanna just spend the night at my place? We can play more games and watch some movies?"

"I'm down!" Dani nodded. "Can we just stop by Fenton Works so I can sneak in and grab some stuff?"

"Can do!"

Tucker made quick work of the drive to Fenton Works, parking by the house next door so as to not accidentally interrupt his friends. He kept the car on to keep their food warm while Dani snuck around the side of the building, flew up, and phased into her room. It was a couple of minutes before she came back down with an overnight back slung over her shoulder. Instead of getting back in the car though, she hovered near the driver's window, which Tucker rolled down.

"What's up?"

Dani's eyes were deviously green. "Danny and Sam are still downstairs, doing their cute-gross cuddly thing," she explained, before reaching into her bag and pulling out two dart guns. "I wanna prank 'em."

Even though her smile was scaring him right then, and he didn't even know what the plan was, Tucker couldn't help but agree. "I'm so in."

After explaining her plan, Dani gave Tucker one of the dart guns and grabbed onto his arm to phase him through the front door. She kept them invisible once inside, positioning themselves right next to the TV. They watched the couple cuddling on the couch for a few minutes, waiting for the right moment to strike. Finally, Danny looked over at Sam and pulled her in for a kiss.

POP!

Before their lips could meet, two foam darts smacked into their cheeks. Sam shrieked in surprise, and Danny swore a Fenton's curse, jumping up out of instinct. Before they could figure out what hit them, Dani yanked Tucker out of the house within seconds, keeping them invisible until they were back in the car.

"Go, go, go!" Dani commanded while catching her breath.

Tucker started his car and booked it down the road, turning at the first available corner. Adrenaline kept his foot on the pedal. He didn't slow down until they were at least a good mile away from Fenton Works. By that time, they were both doubling over with laughter.

"Dude, did you see Sam's face? I haven't seen her that scared since we first started fighting ghosts!"

"Right? And I thought Danny was gonna break out a Fenton Bazooka!"

They continued to laugh without a care in the world, until Dani's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked the caller ID.

"Damn, it's Danny! He wants to video chat. Play it cool," she said, waving her hand towards Tucker to stifle his giggles. She slid her finger across her screen and held the phone up to answer. "Hey cuz, what's up?"

Danny gave her the evil eye. "Where are you?"

"I'm hanging out with Tucker, remember?" She pointed her phone towards the driver's seat. "See?"

"Hey, dude!" Tucker waved at the camera, before watching the road again.

"Uh huh...and why are you guys out right now?"

Dani rolled her eyes. "Jeez, mom. We were just getting some food at the Nasty Burger." To make her point, she picked up her milkshake and took a sip. "Why?"

"So you wouldn't happen to know why these-" Danny held up the two darts in his hand. "-just hit Sam and I in the face?"

"Nope."

"Nuh-uh." Tucker kept his eyes firmly on the road, trying to keep his voice level.

Danny sighed, then spoke away from his phone. "It wasn't them, Sam. I'm gonna search the house just in case. If this was Youngblood, I swear..." He shook his head then turned back. "Well, you guys have fun with your food. See ya later."

"Later!" Dani couldn't hang up fast enough. As soon as the call ended she burst into laughter, Tucker joining her. "Oh my god, he's a Fenton through and through!"

"No kidding! Ha, we got them good!" He held up a fist across the center console, which she bumped triumphantly.

The rest of the ride back to Tucker's was spent in good spirits. He cranked up the volume on his radio, and the two sang and danced along to "24K Magic." Dani even rolled her window back down to yell out, "24 karat magic in the aaaaaaaiiir!" She smirked when she heard dogs barking in response.

Magic indeed.

#Christmas Truce 2017 #playerpiano-la #Danny Phantom #DP #my fanfics #Dani Phantom #Danielle Phantom #Tucker Foley #Danny Fenton #Sam Manson #amethyst ocean #Nasty Burger #fun adventures #fluff #bonus: when Tucker and Dani get back #Sam and Danny are waiting with dart guns and chaos ensues #that or the two just go back to video games and movies #both are good and I couldn't choose so...however you see it ending up works!#also besides the song there's a very specific MJ quote I was thinking of with the whole magic in the air thing

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cremedelacremefanfic · 7 years ago

Text

Crème de la Crème: 35.

Ashton

“So you did all that just to prove a fucking point?” Evie asked as we hobbled out her party

No one seemed to notice. August was too busy fussing on the phone, Sean was too busy being the life of the party, I hadn’t seen Aaron in about an hour and everyone else we came with left so my and Evie’s exit went smoothly.

I nodded with my head tucked into her neck “You shouldn’t be so damn complicated.” I murmured inhaling her scent

It was definitely one that I missed. Her skin always had a sweet scent lingering on it. That was one of the aspects that made cutting her off so hard to me. I would get one whiff of Evie and want to be up under her all day.

“Did you even consider my feelings while you were trying out here trying to prove your stupid little point?” she asked

“Did you consider mine every time you were on your bullshit?” I asked

“You’re so full of shit” she kissed her teeth

“Yeah, but you still fucking with me though,” I said as I placed a kiss on her collarbone

“Sadly.”

Caressing her thighs, I kissed her again “Come home with me?” I asked

Her eyes rolled, probably thinking I was trying to run game “How come you get to have an Airbnb and we have hotel rooms?“ She asked, "I like big spaces, plus I’m the boss so I make the rules.” I kissed her neck “So, you gonna come back with me? I wanna show you your present.” I said as my car pulled up

She turned in my arms, a smile spreading across her beautiful face “You bought me a present?” She asked with her eyes wide. I guess she wasn’t expecting a nigga to buy her anything.

“Of course.” I matched her smile

She looked at my car, that was now parked in front of us. She nibbled on her bottom lip, looking around. I knew she was contemplating going home with me.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” She shook her head as she pulled away from me.

I kissed my teeth “What do you mean ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea’?” I mocked her voice. “What’s to think about?”

She squinted her eyes “What’s the big deal? I’m not going home with you plain and simple. I don’t owe you anything, you’re not my man and you don’t have any jurisdiction as my boss on this vacation.”

She was getting on my nerves, there was no need for her to be acting like this. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere with this girl she pulls some shit like this.

I scoffed “This the same energy that put us in this position in the first place.” I said

"Ashton stop, you did that bullshit because you thought I was one of these little bobblehead bitches that your little mind games usually work on.” she chuckled “And you know what? I just realized that you would do anything just to get between my legs. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why we’re friends just so you can fuck.”

Shocked wasn’t even a word that I could use right now. She really had me drawn out to be this fucked up ass individual. Did I want to fuck her brains out?

Yes. However, I wasn’t in it to just get between her legs and skate.

Contrary to popular belief I did consider shorty to be my friend. I didn’t even know why she thought any different.

“We back at this shit again?” I asked “If you feel like I’m just trying to fuck then why you here? Why were you so quick to run back in my arms if you been knew that pussy was all that I wanted?” I asked

Her nostrils flared “You’re absolutely right, you remember that energy you had when we first met? Let’s go back to that, fuck you Ashton.” she said and pushed passed me

I tried to stop her from leaving “C’mon, Eve do-”

“Fuck you!” she said over her shoulder as she stuck up her middle finger

I ran after her and grabbed her arm. "You’re the one who’s always fucking tripping, I told you I liked you and y--"

"Ashton, get the fuck off me! You always wanna throw that “I like you” bullshit in my face to satisfy me but that shit isn't working anymore! You wanna sleep with me and that's all the fuck you ever wanted!" She interrupted me, shouting

"’Cause that's not wha-"

"For the rest of this trip please just leave me the fuck alone. Let's go back to not liking and giving a fuck about each other since that's what works best for us. Leave me alone and I damn sure will return the favor."

“Well, I can’t do that,” I said firmly

She scoffed “What Lil’ rich boy? From the time you popped out of your mother, you’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted at the drop of a dime and when you realized you couldn’t have me you opted to play with my fucking emotions and I almost let you and that’s why it’s fuck you for life, Ashton.” was the last thing she said before turning around and storming off to god knows where. I didn't even know how we got here, but the shit was ridiculous.

If she thought this was over, she had no idea what she was in for these next couple of days.

Evie

“You can’t stay cooped up in your suite for the whole trip, did what he said bother you that damn much?” Tish asked

“Yes, Tish!” I groaned

Regardless of how angry I was, none of that anger was aimed towards Ashton, I was angry at myself. Ashton, the only feeling I felt towards him was hurt. He didn’t understand how small his words made me feel.

I was quick to run back into his arms because I wanted what we have, or had to be real.

“Don’t you feel like you just overreacting? Just a little bit?” I looked at her incredulously

I thought if anyone would understand where I was coming from it would be my best fucking friend.

“No, I don’t think I'm overreacting. You know what, I’ll talk to you later, bye.” I said “No, Evie do-” I cut off our Facetime before she was able to finish her sentence and tossed my phone to the side.

I blew air out. I wasn’t prepared to go back to Ashton and I being so hostile towards each other like we were in the beginning but, if I were honest, times were simpler.

It’s hard dealing with all these feelings when I didn’t know where his feelings for me stood. It’s like I never get to see the side of him like the night we opened up to each other in Malibu, I always got the Ashton in the bathroom at the Christmas party and I wasn’t okay with that, it just took me too long to realize that.

I was too busy being smitten by his charming ways and that vicious tongue but last night made me realize that I didn’t have to deal with it.

Looking at the jeans I wore yesterday hanging on the frame of my bed, I crawled over to it and took the business card out of my back pocket.

Flicking the card, I quickly went over to the hotel phone and dialed the number that was on it.

It rang a few times before there was an answer “Hello? Rick Gonzalez speaking.” his smooth voice floated through the phone

“Rick? Hi, it’s Evie, um are you busy today? I wanted to take you up on offer.” I said

He chuckled “You’re stuck in your suite again?” he asked

I laughed “Not quite, I just wanted to take you up on your offer.” I said

“Well Ms. Summers, put on your best bathing suit and meet me in the lobby in an hour.”

“Deal.”

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

“You look amazing,” Rick said as his eyes wandered over my body. I smiled and looked away towards the beautiful ocean. The water was amazing, it was so clean and very blue.

I smiled. “Why, thank you handsome.” I flirted back. He showed his beautiful smile by grinning widely. this man was so damn fine, it was almost unreal how fine he was.

My eyes drifted from his and landed on the waves crashing against each other, taking in the beautiful scenery. The ocean was absolutely breath taking right now. The sun was going down so the sunset beamed off the ocean.

“You know, I’m shocked that a woman as beautiful as you and of your caliber is single,” Rick spoke softly as his arm wrapped around my waist, pulled me from my deep thoughts.

“Well believe it,” I said as I looked up at him as he looked off to the side.

“You’re friends are coming this way.” He whispered lowly in my ear, his sexy accent turning me on in ways I never felt before. My head snapped back to the guys walking over this way. Sean and Ashton had a look of confusion that turned into anger.

I understood Sean looks because he was always in big brother mode and refused to let me be around any men outside of our little clique. However, I didn’t see why Ashton ass had a frown on his fuckin’ face considering the fact that he didn’t even want me in that way.

That shit was still fuckin’ with me, I didn’t know why it was messing with me like this. I had feelings for his ass and I wished that they would just go the hell away. I needed to get over this man and the best way to get him off my mind is getting to know Rick fine ass.

“What y’all out here?” Ashton questioned once he caught up with us. As soon as he opened his mouth I rolled my eyes at his annoying ass. Where was Adrienne doormat ass when you needed her.

He didn’t need to question me, I wasn’t his woman.

“Don’t answer that, that’s none of his business.” I snapped as Ashton glared at me. I grabbed Rick’s hand and lead him towards the water.

I came to have a good time, If I knew that the guys were coming out here I would have Rick take me somewhere else. Bad enough I feel like these niggas always keeping tabs on me.

Not to mention I didn’t want to have shit to do with Ashton at this moment. I just wanted to have fun with Rick, and that’s exactly what I’m about to do. I’m not letting these niggas ruin my fun, and that’s a fact.

Ashton:

I was pissed, nah fuck that, I was fuming right now. I watched Eve with this Spanish ass nigga, Rick. His hands were all over her and that shit was pissing me off even more. I knew Eve was being petty just to get back at me but she was taking this shit too far.

To add fuel to the fire, she was out here looking good as fuck with this little ass bathing suit on, the little cover up she wore over it was not doing what it was made for. Her ass on full display and letting this nigga touch her ass.

My eyes were glued to them, watching their every move. I didn’t give a fuck if I looked like a damn stalker, I wasn’t taking my eyes off of her. Evie really was out here tripping.

She just knew that I was just trying to fuck her when that shit wasn’t the damn case. I really did like the girl, but in the mind of hers, I was all about playing her.

I noticed that Evie had walked away from her Cubano boyfriend and I took this as my opportunity to walk over to Rick for a chat. As I approached him he wore a sly smirk on his face. “What’s up Ashton?”

“Evie is what’s up,” I said cutting straight to the chase

“What about her?” He asked crossing his arms across his chest

“Well, that’s my girl.” He cocked his head to the side and glared at me. “I know, she probably told you that she was single but she’s not. We just aren’t seeing eye to eye right now, so she’s playing this little stupid game.”

“But she sai--”

“I know what she said, but listen to me, you seem like a good dude and I don’t want you to get caught up in our shit. That’s an engaged woman, I just didn’t want to blow her spot up in front of everyone.” I said

“What do you mean?” he asked

“I mean, that’s my fiancée. We’re planning on getting married in the winter time. We’ve been together for five years with twins at home. Before this trip, we got caught up in some bullshit and she’s been doing petty shit to get back at me ever since and honestly, I would hate for you to be sucked into our bullshit because of her shenanigans.” I told him in the sincerest voice I could muster up.

He mouthed a “wow” before rubbing his head “My bad Ashton, I didn’t know that was your wife to be. I’m going to step off.”

“Thanks, man and I am sorry that’s she’s doing this right now. You know how women can get when they’re trying to get back at you.” I said

“Yeah, trust me, I know.” he nodded

“Thanks for understanding, man.” we slapped hands and I walked off chuckling

#chrisbrown #chris brown #chrisbrownff #chris brown fan fic #chris breezy #Chris brown fan fiction #chrisbrownfanfiction #chrisbrown ff #chrisbrown fanfiction #cbff #fan fic #fanfiction #ff #fan fiction

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imamotherfuckingstar-lord · 8 years ago

Text

Blowjob

Deadpool x Reader

Warnings: It’s fucking Deadpool.

Summary: Your girl Nega hooks you up with Wade Wilson.

The bar was dingy as fuck.

Fuck it was downright biowaste, but it was the place your date picked. And now you were questioning the whole damn thing.

Cursing Nega under your breath for setting you up with her ‘friend’, you hustled into the bar and looked down at your phone. Quickly you texted the number of Wade Wilson, the man you had been talking to on and off for the last week and a half.

“I’m here.”

A second later, your cell buzzed. “Holy shit you’re way hotter in person. Fuck me.”

Another buzz. “Full disclosure, I have a boner.”

Another buzz. “Also my penis is big.”

Laughing your eyes scanned the bar and settled onto a man in a booth tucked into the back corner of the bar. It was Wade in his Deadpool suit and he was wiggling his fingers at you, motioning for you to come over to his table. Gripping you bag, you exhaled and hoped for the best.

“Hey big penis - I mean Wade,” you moved into the empty side of the booth and smiled up at the merc.

“Holy mother of- Negasonic Teenage Warhead is definitely getting a shiny gold plated hair clipper for Christmas!”

You chuckled and waved over the bartender, who was just staring at you.“What’s up with him?”

Wade looked over to the bar and shrugged. “That’s just Weasel. He owes this fine establishment of morally fucked souls.”

Nodding you relaxed and asked Wade if he’d like a blowjob.

“Sweet jesus, it’s been too long. I mean a guy could only do so much to himself. Do you like unicorns?”

“Okay, that was completely my fault. I meant the fucking drink, Wade. And yes I like unicorns,” you smirked and told him to wait there as you got up from the booth.

He watched you make your way to the bar and he made an obscene hand gesture to Weasel, who was pretending to wipe down the bar with a dirty rag.

“Hey, can I get two beers, domestic. Three shots of tequila and two blow jobs.”

You pulled out a credit card from your jacket and handed it over to the man. Weasel did a double take when he took it from you.

“No fucking way,” he muttered in disbelief. “Xavier? Charles Xavier?”

Quickly you snatched the credit card from his grip. “Shit, wrong one. That’s my boss’s card, used it to put gas in the company car. Here, use this one.”

Weasel refused the new card you presented to him. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll put it on Wade’s tab. So you’re an X-Men, huh?”

“Something like that, listen what do you know about this Wade guy? A mutant - I mean mutual friend of ours thought we’d make a good match. He’s pretty…”

“Disgusting. Vulgar. Should be killed, but can’t. He literally can’t die,” Weasel sighed and placed the drinks onto a round tray.

“Yeah, I heard all about Deadpool. But he’s not so bad, yeah?”

The man pushed up his black framed glasses up to the bridge of his nose and sighed once more. “Yeah, he’s not so bad.”

Smiling, you thanked Weasel and took the drinks back to the table. Wade was leaning against the booth, hands folded behind his head.

“Alright, here’s your blowjob,” you teased placing the drink down in front of him, as you leaned took a seat. “Swallow up.”

Wade hitched his breath in false shock and he slid out of the booth, quickly getting down on one knee in front of you. “Marry me. We can live with my roommate Al. She’s not too bad, smells like an old lady. She’s an old lady. You know what? She can’t even put together a fucking HEMNES and that is the easiest one those Swedish bastards came up with! I should get a new roommate. Al’s blind.”

A sharp laugh barreled from your throat as you took in all the information Wade had just spit out in one long breath. “Wow, okay. So if we do this, I say we live at the mansion. It’s pretty roomy and imagine taking the Blackbird out for a spin?”

“I love you. Be my baby mama, I’ll treat you decent. Won’t be around much because of work, but think of all the hot hate sex we’ll have!”

“Listen, Wade,” you reached a hand to his arm, helping him up to his feet. “Take a seat, let’s drink and just feel this out. The date goes good, then sure let’s get married and live with your blind roommate. Hey, I’m pretty good at putting things together, so I can handle the shelves.”

Wade laughed and pulled up his mask, revealing his face to you for the first time in person. He had sent a selfie of himself the first night Nega gave him your digits and about a dozen a day ever since then.

“The mansion is fucking creepy. I mean where the fuck are the other X-Men? Does Stewart have them locked away somewhere?”

“Who?”

“Nevermind,” he waved a hand in the air and reached for his beer. “But really, does McAvoy keep you on house arrest. Can I get conjugal visits with you? Just need a quick five minutes, in and out. And in some more. Maybe backdoor stuff. Does he provide the lube? It’s okay I buy in bulk from Costco. Want to see my membership card?”

Within a blink of an eye, Wade was shoving the card into your face. You grabbed it from him and snorted, the merc was wearing his suit and was giving a thumbs up in the photo. “Cute. I’m going to keep this,” you tucked the plastic card into your jacket and took the three shots of tequila in a row.

Finally feeling brave enough from the liquid courage, you picked up the blowjob from the table. “So, we’re getting married and moving in with Al. Which is fine, but there’s one condition.”

Wade smirked and cocked an eyebrow up at you, waiting for you to go on.

“It might be a deal breaker for you, I don’t know. But,” you scooped a finger through the whip cream and brought it to your lips. Slowly you opened your mouth and licked up the cream from your finger, all while not breaking eye contact with the merc, who was grinning like an idiot.

“I always, always, always swallow.”

Wade groaned back in amusement before quickly jumping across the table to your side of the booth, spilling all the drinks on the table; to which Weasel yelled obscenities at the mec. You laughed as he drew closer to you, his body leaned into your side and his lips grazed your earlobe.

“I’m going to fuck you in every goddamn room of that Heaven’s Gate looking motherfucker’s house.”

Forever Tags: @my-amazing-nerdyness @naih-reedus @maciiiofficial @casownsmyass @adorable-assbutt @jade-taillia @fangirlextraordinaire @indominusregina @feelmyroarrrr @my-rainbow-wonderland @myhopeisinfinite @girl-next-door-writes @policeofficerdean @dontbeamenacetotheforce @melonberri @theothergirl2212 @superisatomboyuniverse @xloudwhocares @crownie-sr @hannahsakorax3 @castieltrash1 @dracsgirl @moonlight53 @makemyownwonderland @dreamwhisper87 @rayleyanns @trekken81@imagine-all-the-imagines @supermoonpanda @sexykitty96 @barely-emily @winterboobaer @goodnightwife @mishaissocoollike

Deadpool Tags: @you-didnt-see-that-cuming @faithexe @ladyarl @plaid-lover-bay25 @fangirle @sarahgrace-1989 @aliyla12 @kydamyankee @heaven-bound-angel @casifer-is-king @siren-not-mermaid @satisfiedpeggy @casiadilla @demondeansdomme @kanojo-ro @amyapathetic @xtryingtoinspirex @captainjimsexypantskirk @weirdpizzaking @deadpools-wife @avengerimscreaming @brooke-supernatural16 @cookiecatsss @marvelfanuniverse @sarcastic15overlord @queenof-wakanda @randompolypodizia @kreborn17 @myhopeisinfinite @harleyquinn500 @earinafae @bkwrm523 @spinsterlocity @xtryingtoinspirex @caffeineaddicttrashcan

#Deadpool #Deadpool Imagine #Deadpool x reader #wade wilson #wade wilson x reader #wade wilson imagine #weasel #mcu #marvel #charles xavier #x-men #negasonic teenage warhead

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upside-nwod · 8 years ago

Note

Yay!! You're back! Can you write something from Mike's pov about how much he appreciates his friends? This sounds dumb lol but I thought it'd be vague enough for you to do whatever you wanted with it. I trust your Suffer Brother capabilities

Um… this got a lot longer than I expected it to. Like a lot longer. And it just barely meets your qualifications? I just couldn’t stop and I don’t even know if I like it lol

Also I tried to use a Keep Reading tab but it’s not showing up for me, but is for some people? Sorry about that. I’m not sure how to fix it.

Available on AO3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10977084/chapters/24442917

Mike awoke in a haze, head swimming. His dark eyes stared up into a pale ceiling that wasn’t his.

Disoriented, he attempted to sit up in order to examine his surroundings but was met with a wave of nausea before crashing back down into the bed he was occupying. As soon as his head landed on the stiff pillows he felt an inexplicable pounding in his head.

Mike waited for the pain to recede into more of a dull throbbing before shifting himself slowly back into a sitting position. The white room he sat in was a tad blurry but it didn’t take a genius to realize he was sitting in a hospital bed instead of his usual bottom bunk.

Upon this realization, he became painfully aware of the IV in his right hand, as well as, the steady beeping of his heart monitor, but muffled, as if it were coming from a tunnel. But that wasn’t all.

Mike Wheeler was always warm. His mother liked to joke that when he was a baby she never needed any blankets because he provided all the heat she needed. So he wasn’t surprised that his palm was a little sweaty, but he was surprised to see a tiny, but slender fingered hand perfectly interlaced with his. It felt so natural he hadn’t even noticed it when he woke up.

He craned his neck just past his peripheral vision to find El curled up in a chair at his bedside. Her knees were drawn up to her chest with a pillow nestled on the back of the chair. However, instead of a blanket covering her, his tan jacket tucked up under her chin, exposing her socked feet.

“She hasn’t left your side since you were admitted,” Karen Wheeler announced in a whisper as she creaked open the door to Mike’s hospital room, coffee in hand. “In fact,” she continued, “I’m pretty sure she stayed awake all night to make sure you were okay. Up until the nurse checked you this morning.”

Mike looked from El, to his mother, and back to El again. His chest warmed at the sight of her, but he could see the slight worry lines still creased in her sleep. He wondered whether they were because of him or because of the hospital’s resemblance to what he thought the lab was like.

“How long have I been asleep?” Mike asked, concern growing on his face.

“You were out like a light after your tests were over yesterday,” she smiled warmly at her son. It pained her to see him hurt like this and her blood boiled at the thought of those bullies, but he was already looking better and that made her spirits brighten. “The doctors said you have a moderate concussion so you’ll be in here for another night, but you can go home tomorrow. But you can’t go back to school until Monday,” she finished.

“Where’s everyone else?” He wondered. His noticed the absence of Ted, Holly, and Nancy.

“Oh, your father is staying home with Holly since we couldn’t find a babysitter, but he wanted to be here. He called the hospital several times for updates,” his mother shook her head. “Nancy is at school, but I’ll call the office and let them know to tell her about you waking up. I believe her and Jonathan wanted to bring the boys over after school, too, if you’re up for it.”

“Yeah, I’d love that,” he said.

“Well, that’s good because I don’t think you have much choice,” Karen laughed. “It was quite the debacle getting your little gang to leave the waiting room, but the chief has a way of getting his point across doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed, then his brow furrowed. “But what about El? Why didn’t he take her home, too?”

Karen Wheeler raised an eyebrow at her son. He liked to think the eyebrow was saying, “Really? You really think Hopper is gonna win in an argument against her? Please.”

The tired boy chuckled to himself and thought back the day Will returned from The Upside Down and had to stay in the hospital for the week. He remembered how bewildered he was when he realized Dustin and Lucas had fallen asleep, meanwhile his leg had been pumping away on the linoleum while he chewed at his fingers for two hours, waiting for news about Will.

But that day will always be remembered as bittersweet. While he knew that while they got Will back, they had also lost Eleven temporarily. His hand reflexively squeezed hers, as if she would disappear again if he didn’t grip her tight. With that slight movement, El’s eyes fluttered open.

She looked at him with wide, puppy-dog eyes. Tears threatened her vision, but she refused to let them fall. Her lip quivered as she squeezed his hand back.

“Hi, El,” Mike smiled.

“Mike…” El choked back.

With that, Karen decided it was her time to exit and phone Ted, who was, surprisingly, the worry wart in these types of situations, to let him know all was well. But she decided to take a few minutes before telling the nurses, hoping to give him and El some time together.

“Do you remember?” El asked Mike quietly.

“Not really,” Mike winced as he touched the bandage over the back of his head.

“Mouthbreathers,” El whispered, looking down. Anger flashed in her eyes before she looked back to the bandaged dark-haired boy with concern.

Mike’s mouth tightened at the thought of the two boys she was referring to. He knew he was in here due to James and Troy, but he couldn’t remember exactly what happened. He remembered riding next to Lucas. Dustin and Will were bringing up the rear, and Max skated between both groups, slowing down and speeding up depending on the topic of conversation. Yet he had trouble recalling El’s presence, or lack-thereof.

“Do you know what happened?” He asked. “I can’t remember if we had met up with you yet,” he said feeling let down by his fuzzy memory.

After getting her bike for Christmas, El started meeting up with the boys at one of the intersections close to the school. The gang would ride around together for a bit talking about their day, planning their next campaign, or just playing around before going to their respective homes. But Mike couldn’t seem to pinpoint exactly where the accident occurred.

El nodded in response to his question, but continued to look down at their hands. Now both her hands were holding onto his left and she rubbed her thumb across his skin like he did with her, silently wishing she didn’t have to think about Mike getting hurt again.

Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought about the way his head smacked the pavement. How he hadn’t responded when Lucas shook him even though his eyes were open. Her breathing hitched when she remembered how he had vomited into a bag in the back of Hopper’s blazer.

“I don’t really remember much…” Mike said to himself, trailing off.

El’s head snapped up instantly and her caramel eyes met his inky ones. He recognized the fear showing itself on her face and immediately regretted opening his mouth. He regretted it even more so when she shut her eyes tight and rested her forehead on their interlocked hands.

He struggled to find the right words to comfort her. The only thing he could manage was stuttering, “I’m okay, though,” in a small voice.

El looked back up at the pale boy in the hospital bed and whispered.

“Promise?” She said.

“Promise,” Mike yawned.Without thinking, he scooted over on the bed and made room for El. He let go of her hand to pat the bed, inviting her to lie with him, hoping she would understand. She eagerly took the hint and scooted onto the bed next to him. It looked tight for two people, but they were relatively small kids so it wasn’t too bad. Besides, they enjoyed one another’s close proximity.

“I’m still kinda tired though and my mom said you didn’t sleep last night,” Mike continued.

El shook her head and looked down. “They hurt you,” she mumbled. “I was… worried,” she finished as she struggled to find the right word.

“Well,” he paused thinking of what to say, “thanks for making sure I was okay,” he smiled at her

With that, El gave him a tiny smile before nestling her head into his shoulder. While she was falling asleep, Mike reflected upon his friendship with the quiet girl who rested next to him.

This girl was one of the most selfless people he had ever met and she probably didn’t even realize it. She saved her friends and sacrificed herself without hesitation. But she still had so much to learn and Mike couldn’t wait to teach her.

Around 3:45 there was a commotion outside Mike’s hospital door. It swung open as four small bodies invaded the space. Lucas, Dustin, Will, and Max all swarmed the bed. They were inclined to envelope him and El a huge group hug before Jonathan and Nancy chimed in shouting at them to stop in unison.

The kids skidded to a halt at the edge of the bed. Mike and El were both awake now and well rested. Mike edged himself up a bit and El followed suit.

“Dude! We have to tell you what happened to Troy at school today,” Lucas said eagerly.

“Yeah, Max had this incredible idea,” Dustin grinned.

“It was nothing really. They had it coming,” their ginger-haired friend shrugged.

Mike smiled at his friends, grateful for their lively presence in the drab hospital room. He looked over at Jonathan and Nancy and thanked them with his eyes for bringing everyone and for staying to hangout with them.

“Wait, wait,” Mike held up his hands. “First I need you guys to tell me what happened in the first place. I don’t really remember anything. I just remember falling off my bike and I could hear Lucas saying my name, but I couldn’t see anything.”

Everyone was slightly taken aback by this news. Nancy spoke first.

“Wait, Mike…” she paused. “Are you saying you really don’t remember anything about how you ended up in here?”

“Not really…” Mike responded.

The gang went on to describe the events that transpired, in detail, to jog their leader’s memory. Apparently, the group had made it to the intersection they meet El at in town when they all started getting pelted with rocks by none other than Troy and James. While El could’ve stopped the rocks with her mind, her friends made it very clear when she returned that she was not to use her powers out in public unless they were sure no one else was around.

Normally, the kids would stay at the corner for awhile and chat before riding somewhere, but under the circumstances, they did their best to get the hell out of their as fast as they could.

They picked up the pace and pedaled away from their assailants but not before Troy knuckle-balled a full-sized stone and pegged it right between Mike’s bike spokes. He had been bringing up the rear making sure all of his friends were already moving towards safety.

When the rock hit, it jammed up Mike’s front tire causing him to flip over his handle bars and land hard on his back. The back of his head hit the pavement with a dull thud, his fluffy hair doing nothing to break the fall.

His friends whipped their heads around once they heard the crash of metal on pavement. It took El less than a second to dismount her bike, not caring if it was damaged by her recklessness, and get to Mike.

“Mike,” she whimpered, kneeling down in front of him. She held a hesitant hand out over his head, afraid to know what would happen if she touched him. Then she saw it; a small trickle of blood coming from where his head lay. It crept out from behind his sweaty head and moved like a slug down the pavement. Any and all rules were suddenly out the window.

Eleven stood at once and faced the attackers who were now holding their stomachs in an effort to calm their hysteria over “frog-face’s” landing.

She lowered her head slightly and did her best to concentrate on the boys despite the overwhelming fire that burned in her stomach. Then, the bits of stone and pebble around her began to shake, slowly at first, as if they were vibrating. Gradually, they picked up speed before rising up to eye level with her.

As the rocks glided up from the ground, Troy and James were completely shocked out of their stupor.

El’s dark eyes focused on Troy specifically and she knew he recognized her. Though her hair had grown out into short curls now she could tell, by the fear in his eyes that he remembered the quarry.

Before the bullies could scurry away, she released the rocks in a flurry of activity. Whether El’s intentions were simply to harm them, or she was still distracted by the unconscious boy behind her. The debris flew forward with such force it’s a wonder the boys across the street weren’t killed. The rocks impaled windows, set off car alarms, and would surely leave rough cuts and bruises on their attackers.

James’ jeans were shredded at the knee caps and he was crawling away to safety. Troy squealed as a stone, as flat and sharp as a dagger, cut across his shirt sleeve exposing the blood that now ran down his arm.

The flurry ended just as soon as it began and sure enough the two boys were rushing down the street, terrified. El turned back to Mike who was still on the ground being tended to by Lucas.

“Then we called the police and Chief Hopper brought you here himself,” Lucas finished.

“He said it was because pizza delivery guys are even faster than ambulances around here,” Dustin laughed.

“Wow…” Mike was at a loss for words. “El, I can’t believe you did that!” He exclaimed.

El simply shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh come on, dude,” Max said, playfully shoving El’s arm. “You totally kicked their asses.”

”I swear she almost killed Troy.” Will remarked. “Max was the only one who could calm her down,“ Will smiled at her and Max grinned sheepishly at the compliment adding her own comment about them being complete wastoids anyway.

“It was so cool,” Dustin pointed out.

As the excitement lulled, Mike finally asked. “So what happened to them at school today?”

To no one’s surprise, Max was quite the prankster. Immediately after the gang left the hospital the night of the incident, they went to their respective homes and they got straight to planning their revenge.

The plan was simple. Max would be the distraction. Her fiery hair and tomboyish style made her easy to pick out in a crowd and made her an even easier target for Troy’s bulling. Lucas would construct “the surprise.” Will would break into Troy’s locker during a “trip to the nurse” and hide the device. Dustin was in charge of the pudding.

Revenge was set for lunch, that way there would be more witnesses. The process was easy enough. Lucas had reconstructed a smaller version of their volcano that won them second place in the science fair a few years prior. It was made out of a two liter, baking soda, and a whole lot of rotten eggs.

Max had “accidentally” tripped Troy, causing him to freak out on her. Consequently, he was late for class and unable to get to his locker before lunch like usual. She knew if he got to his locker then, that he wouldn’t return to it for the rest of the day.

Will and Dustin slipped out of history class easily. Will ad perfected the art of looking sick and Dustin was his “buddy” to make sure he got to the nurse okay. Once the two liter was in place and set up, they waited for lunch.

Will, armed with Jonathan’s camera stuck his little head around the hall corner to make sure Troy was at his locker. The others followed suit, all gripping the wall tight in anticipation.

They watched as Troy lifted the tiny handle to his locker and Max shouted, causing the bully to turn around. Immediately, the two liter fell from the top of the boy’s locker. The pressure inside the bottle was so great that as soon as it hit the ground, it exploded.

The smell of rotten eggs flooded the school and soon everyone was rushing into the hallway to see what happened. There, in all his glory, stood Troy. Smelling like absolute shit, with bubbling pudding staining the back of his trousers, and the wall of lockers behind him.

“Troy shit himself!” Dustin screeched with laughter.

Soon enough, the entire hallway was in tears, even some teachers had to stifle their laughs.

The hospital room erupted in laughter. Even Nancy and Jonathan had to hold onto one another in support. Finally, Jonathan reached into his bag and handed some photographs to Will.

“Is this why you asked me how to use the dark room in the high school?” Jonathan laughed.

Will nodded, grinning.

“Here you go, Mike. I thought you might want some pictures of ‘the big event,” the younger Byers boy joked as he handed them to their bed-ridden friend.

Upon seeing the pictures, Mike started laughing again. His face grew redder and soon enough, he was laughing so hard he was gasping for breath and holding onto his gut.

He may be bullied by Troy, and it may even get worse when he returns to school. But he has something Troy never will; the love and support of great friends like these, even if their methods of being there for one another are unconventional. Like believing in monsters, jumping into quarries, or building the ultimate stink bomb.

#stranger things #stranger things fic #my writing #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #long post

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battypastel · 8 years ago

Text

Perfect Date

@twinksilver, here’s your gift! :) I hope you like it!! + Word count: 3544 + Characters: APH France and APH England + Ship: FrUK Here’s the link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328088/1/Perfect-Date Also posted under the Keep Reading tab.

“Oh, amour! You simply shouldn’t have!”, the Frenchman delighted, the bright lights from the Christmas tree colouring his face, beautifully. Puffing his chest some, wearing a proud smile, Arthur responded with a smooth, “Well, my darling, nothing is too god for you.” And just as Francis was leaning in to give him a proper thank you kiss on the cheek… Arthur woke up. The Englishman was actually rather quick to get up. He was definitely excited. Arthur had been planning this night for weeks and he felt like he had a full proof plan. Pick up his date, take him to the fine restaurant that he’d booked reservations at when he’d planned this night, escort him on a nice walk through the park, and have a lovely Christmas evening with his darling Francis. They’d only recently started dating and it felt like Francis was doing all of the wooing. It’s not that the Englishman felt emasculated by the romantic Frenchman, but Arthur wanted his chance to prove that he could be just as charming and romantic as the other. During the last date to a carnival, sure he had a good time, but he insisted that he handle the next date. He remembered it like it was yesterday: amused with his lover’s enthusiasm, Francis agreed. “Of course, mon cher”, he began with a lifted brow, “I’d love to see what you have planned.” It was genuine. Francis truly wanted to let himself be romanced by the English gentleman, and while Arthur didn’t show his delight on the outside, Francis could easily see through his boyfriend’s tough exterior. He knew that he was beaming on the inside. The Englishman checked the weather for the third time in the past hour. Sunny skies. Snow to be expected late in the night. Sure, it was a bit cloudy, but all of his weather sources said otherwise, so it was fine. *** Finally the time came! Arthur was dressed in his finest Winter date wear, A lovely light brown sweater that tapered into the slightest V-neck shape. His red scarf peeked from the opening of the V-neck and covered his white turtleneck shirt. And his pants were a simple dark denim. Formal, yet casual. The only thing that refused to work with him was his stubborn hair. Oh well, can’t have it all. When the time came, he hopped in his car and headed off to meet Francis. Of course, since Francis was visiting, he’d be taking Francis home with him so the remainder of his vacation could be cheap and they could maximize their time together. It only made sense!

Soon enough, he was pulled in front of the hotel. He gave Francis a phone call as he pulled up to the large hotel doors and soon enough, Francis emerged from the luxurious building with his large suitcase. Arthur was caught off guard by just how beautiful his date was. He was sporting an unbuttoned wine coloured windbreaker with a white plaid scarf lining the sides. Beneath that was an obvious navy turtleneck shirt and a pair of khakis. The short gust of wind made the Frenchman pull his windbreaker closed and button the bottom two buttons. That’s when he spotted Arthur in his car. The blonde waved before trotting over with his suitcase, he curls blown to the sides of his face as he moved against the pressure of the breeze. Arthur returned the wave, smiling a little. Thankfully, he unlocked his doors just before the Frenchman arrived. First, Francis opened the back doors to put his suitcase away. “Bonjour, lapin!”, “Don’t speak your silly language around me”, he responded lightly- Francis knew he was poking fun though. Francis settled in the passenger seat and the two met for a brief pre-date kiss on the lips. “Hello, my darling. Are you ready to start our evening?”, “But of course.” And so, the two caught up and exchanged pleasantries on their way to the fancy restaurant. Once the pulled up, Francis’ eyes grew slightly, “Oh, here? Pulling out all the stops are we?”, he grinned back at his lover. “Nothing is too good for you”, Arthur responded with a wink, and continued with: “And don’t you dare open your door.” Francis chuckled, “My, what a gentleman~”, he cooed. Arthur got out, opened Francis’ door for him, once he got out, the Englishman locked the car, then they walked in hand in hand.

This restaurant was one of the finest places in all of London. Expensive, atmospheric, and beautiful. Arthur put down a little cash ahead when he had reserved so that they could sit in front of the grand fireplace and he was quite proud of himself for reserving such a space. Arthur walked to the podium and was greeted by an older gentleman, “Reservation?”, “Yes. Under the name Kirkland. For six-thirty.” Francis let go of his boyfriend’s hand, caught p in memories from the first time they had come here. He’d completely tuned out as he admired the fine curtains and new paintings. The man flipped pages in the book at the desk. “Ah yes. Kirkland… A window seat perhaps?” Arthur blinked, his brows furrowing some at the mere suggestion, “What?”, he kept his voice controlled, though, “No. We’re in front of the fireplace.”, “Yes, well…”, the man cleared his throat, “I’m sorry to say, Mr. Kirkland, but we’ve double booked”, he didn’t sound sorry, “All seats around the fireplace are booked, including the one you wanted, I’m afraid.” That made him mad.

Glancing back at his lover to make sure he wasn’t listening, he stepped closer to the podium, whispering in an angry, but hushed tone, “Listen, you. I paid extra for that spot. I wanted that fireplace seat!” Something about the aggression in Arthur’s voice seemed to work on the man. He wasn’t threatening to pummel him in the street, but the man knew that this irritated customer could put paychecks at risk if he dared to call management… And this green eyed man seemed just like the type of person to do that. The man took a gentle, but slightly urgent tone: “You can have the meal for free, but I simply can’t give you a seat that someone else has already taken.” Arthur slumped some, defeated. Sure, he could throw a fit, but it would ruin his, and his lover’s date. “Fine. What do you have left…?” A sigh left the Englishman, soft as it was it grabbed the attention of his date. A free meal would be fine, certainly, the seat couldn’t be that bad. The man grabbed two menus and started off into the dining area, “Right this way…” He led the two to a far seat- just across from the seat that Arthur had expected to have. Francis settled in front of the window and Arthur in the chair across from him. “Here are your menus, gentlemen…”, the older man said before handing out the two menus. “Your waiter will be here in a moment to get your drink orders.” Francis knew that something was up by the way that Arthur was steadily collecting himself. He decided to pay attention to subtleties for the remainder of the evening. “You’ve picked a lovely place, mon cher”, he began sweetly. That alone caused a lot of his stress to go away- for now at least. The way the light hit Francis from behind, making the edges of his sun kissed skin look completely white. It made him look like an angel. “Yes, well. Only the best”, he stammered, slightly. You’d think after dating him for so long that his breath wouldn’t be absolutely taken so easily. That wasn’t the case. “Oh, Monsieur Kirkland, you’re too kind~”, Francis always flirted like it was the first date. And while Arthur knew that not every time that they saw each other had to be extravagant, Francis was worth it.

After a few moments the waiter came and got their drink orders before leaving to fetch the drinks and tend to other tables. The two knew that he would be back soon and decided to actually look at the menu. After a short, but fast look through, both men knew what they wanted. They were discussing it as the waiter approached. Francis was watching him from his peripheral. “Okay, so are you ordering, or me?”, “I will. What did you want”, they were talking fast “The Filet.” About that time, the waiter was upon them and interrupted. “Have you two settled on a meal?” he questioned while setting their drinks down, “Yes”, Arthur responded. The waiter took out his notepad to record the orders. Arthur had a surprise for his lover, though. After ordering their meals, he continued on: “Also, for an appetizer we’d like the fondue. And would you bring us two glasses of your finest wine?” Francis was impressed. They didn’t have to pay and Arthur was clearly going to jab at them in any way he could. The worst part was, now that it was established without any rules, none could be established, now. The waiter nodded, “Yes, sir.” And he was off. “My, you’re baring no expenses”, Francis pointed out. Just as Arthur was forgetting how much he initially didn’t want this seat for them, the crowd behind them at the Englishman’s much coveted fireplace began to get loud. Apparently, they had quite a bit to drink. It reminded him that his perfect date night wasn’t going perfect. He turned a bit to look at them. Francis could easily tell that it was bothering Arthur. “Amour-“, Francis began, “Don’t worry, they’ll likely be escorted out. This is the sort of place that doesn’t tolerate such behavior.” He knew Francis was right, but it still bothered him. Mostly because that seat was wasted. There was no way they could take it, even if the couple there were escorted out. “Yes, I know, but…” His ideal spot would be empty and ever teasing him. “But nothing. It’s fine!”, The Frenchman soothed, consoling his boyfriend, “Hrm-“, he huffed a little. Truly, he didn’t feel any better, but he was going to stifle it for his date’s sake. Besides, he still had dinner and the upcoming walk, and even better; the quiet evening. “Yes, you’re right. Although I hate to admit it”, he teased the Frenchman, earning a grin from the other. Arthur was incredibly relieved that Francis believed him. From that point, things seemed to get better. Conversation became a nice distraction along with thoughts of the near future. The food came and their dinner was peaceful. Francis’ joy was a good distraction for the Englishman. After all, his date was just happy to be there and his joy was contagious. He was only reminded of the loud couple when they were escorted away. And about that time, their appetizer was brought- great timing, honestly. Everything was going brilliantly, the conversation picked up and the entrees were brought out. Arthur wasn’t bothered by the empty table as much as he thought he would be- he was having too good of a time. When the meal was almost done, though… Their conversation was interrupted by the rumble of thunder.

Instantly, Arthur’s smile dropped. His attention was brought to the window. Francis paused, turning to follow his gaze. “Oh! Look, it’s starting to rain”, the Frenchman mused. Francis was indifferent, but Arthur? The rain’s presence truly upset him and it was obvious on the Englishman’s face. When Francis turned, his blue eyes widened; Arthur looked absolutely disheartened just from the rain! “Is everything okay?” Arthur visibly sunk when he registered the question, “Yes, it’s fine, don’t worry”, the Englishman managed to get out. Francis knew better. He aimed to get it out of him. “Did you want to head back to your place, amour?”, Francis asked in a soft, gentle voice, “I’m full.” Truth was, He’d noticed Arthur’s odd behavior from the start. “Just… Let me check something”, the Englishman took his phone out, checking the weather radar… … Nothing but rain for the remainder of the night. But the current weather still read only cloudy. He was so frustrated. A long sigh left him, “… Yeah. I’m not hungry anymore, either.” Noticing the two men not looking too happy, the fearful waiter moved back to the two men, “Can I get you anything else?”, “No”, Arthur responded, “We were just leaving.”

*** The two had gotten wet from the downpour while running to Arthur’s car. Thankfully, the locks were electric, so before they were even three feet to the car doors, the Englishman had unlocked his vehicle for them. He had an umbrella, but it had been in the boot of the car since Arthur didn’t expect any rain that day. The car ride was quiet at first, neither of the men talking, but for two entirely different reasons. Arthur was upset that his day had been ruined, and Francis was concerned for his lover. The only thing that made any sound at all was the hum of the engine and some pop song playing softly on the radio. Francis finally decided to speak, “Arthur…?”, “Hm?”, “What about the rain made your mood drop so suddenly?”, the question was genuine and sprinkled with concern. “It always rains here. Why should today be any different?” Thankfully, they weren’t hitting too many red lights. And Arthur’s house was a short trip away. Arthur decided to be somewhat honest, but he didn’t want to tell him everything yet, “Well. I expected the skies to be clear.” The letdown was still very fresh, and he was feeling particularly emotional at this moment. He needed a few minutes. “I had other plans today, and I specifically chose a day that it wasn’t supposed to rain. Or at least rain as much.”, “Plans?”, “Yes.” Arthur clearly didn’t want to elaborate, but Francis wanted answers. “Would you like to talk about it?”, “Not really.” Francis was determined to get it out of him. But perhaps not now, the Englishman seemed as though he wasn’t ready or willing to give answers. He opted to change the subject, “Did you have any plans for us when we got home?”, he questioned, curiosity dancing in his voice. “Something at home?”, Arthur perked up a bit, “I do, actually!”, “Do tell, amour.” Francis’ cool gaze was on his boyfriend, who’d perked up at the mention. “Well, I figured we’d decorate my tree and enjoy some hot cider together.” “Magnifique!”, Francis chirped. Afterwards, he had planned to watch the snow with Francis, but there was no harm in parting the blinds and listening to the peaceful rainfall in his lover’s arms. There was still tonight! Once they got home, Francis shed his windbreaker and scarf and Arthur removed his own scarf, the discarded clothes hanging nicely in the entry way. Shoes were removed and two pairs of house shoes were taken to protect the lovebirds’ feet from the cold hardwood floors. “I’ll put the cider on then?”, Before Arthur could even say yes, Francis was in his kitchen, “You know where everything is?”, Arthur called, a faint smile touching his lips, “Yes, and if I need anything, I’ll call you.” Arthur busied himself by opening the blinds to the glass sliding door so that the rain could be seen and cast a nice light into the room. Paired with that he turned on his ceiling lights. He recently put in some recessed lighting similar to the situation at Francis’ house. He liked how stylish it looked, and it made the room brighter and bigger. “I like what you’ve done with the place”, Francis commented, playfully from the open bar section where he could see into the den. “Why that you, I came up with the idea myself”, Arthur playfully jabbed back, earning a laugh from Francis. “I’ll be right back, keep the cider coming.”

Then he treaded back to his storage room where he kept various decorations. He’d moved his ornament and light box close to the door in anticipation, early in the month in anticipation for this night. The box was fairly light, and an easy push to its destination. Francis stepped out from the kitchen and joined Arthur in the den. “The apples have to boil a bit. Let’s work on the tree.” Arthur could tell that he was excited to do this. How could he say no? “Alright, let’s put the lights on first”, he picked up a box, “These are brand new. They’ll work just fine”, “Let’s test it for good measure…~”, the Frenchman plucked the box out of his hands and pulled the light strand out. Seeking the nearest outlet, he plugged them in. “They all work!”, “Okay, okay, you get on that side, and I’ll be on this side…” They started stringing the branches when Francis piped up again, “Arthur, let’s not plug it in until the tree is complete.” He was like an excited child. Arthur grinned, “Your wish is my command, dear.” They had a fun time stringing the tree. When they got to the tinsel, Francis would continuously catch his English lover with it, pull him close and kiss him, but he’d also try to tickle his cheeks with the shiny silver decoration. It was a lot of fun. By the time that they got to the beaded layer, Francis had to go tend to the cider “Keep going, amour! I’ll be right back!” A soft laugh left Arthur, he was right. Despite being in an ideal situation to finish decorating a tree faster, they were giggling and goofing off. If Arthur didn’t get the string of beads on quick enough, they would be there all night.

So he took the beads and draped them over and through the branches to create a wavy effect. Once Francis was back, he was taking out ornaments and setting them out on the table. He didn’t have many, so it didn’t take too terribly long. By the time they were done, the rich smell of cinnamon and apples wafted through the air, mingling with the fresh pine and the subtle mint smell from the air freshener. It smelled like Winter should smell for the both of them, but what made it feel like Christmas morning already was the presence of each other. It was getting dark and the storm hadn’t let up, but the flashes of lightening wasn’t too bad. As Francis put it: it was a lightshow to celebrate them being together. So what if they missed the walk? This was perfect.

“Ready?”, Arthur questioned, holding up the plug, “Ready”, Francis responded, holding up his phone to capture the memory with his camera. “One. Two… Three.” He plugged it it and just as the tree lit up, the power went out. All of the lights in the house were off, the heater was out, and the icing on the cake for the date was ruined. Instead of taking a snapshot, Francis turned on his flashlight. “Hah. This is one for the books, isn’t it, lapin??”, Francis’ smile instantly left when he saw Arthur’s face, though. His lover was silently on the verge of tears! “Arthur! Oh, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” He reached out, caressing his soft, slightly chubby cheek. “Don’t cry-“, “And why not?? Everything I’ve planned… Nothing has followed through!” Francis took his hand and guided him to sit on the loveseat. “Here. Have a seat. Why would you say that…?” Francis settled next to him and sat his phone away. He pulled Arthur’s legs into his lap and held him close to comfort him while he spoke. “First… We were going out to that restaurant, and I booked the fireplace seat. They double booked and I lost our seat”, “But we had a lovely seat. The way the sky coloured your skin was magnifique. And we still got to eat at the restaurant you wanted, non?”, “Yes, well… I had planned for a walk afterwards through the park, but the downpour put a stop to that plan…”, “Running through the rain to your car was exciting. We can walk another time.” “But the power-“ The two’s vision had somewhat adjusted to the light, and they could see each other face to face in the dim light only provided by the window. Francis cupped his cheeks and spoke gently, “Arthur, as far as I’m concerned, this has been a successful date.” That shocked him. Francis continued on. “We ate at a nice restaurant, sprinted through the rain, and warmed up in your car before spending time together decorating your tree. A date isn’t about being precise. I do not care for schedules or what may be considered a perfect date. Not when I’m with my perfect person…”, he soothed, softly. Arthur smiled. “That’s better. You know what we have until the electric company fixes the power?”, “What’s that?”, “Hot cider and good company.” Francis stood to fetch them each a cup, taking his phone with him to work as a flashlight. Arthur thought quietly to himself with only the steps and clatters in the kitchen from his loving boyfriend accompanied by the sound of the rain hitting the roof, that this was a wonderful, successful night after all.

#fruknewyears2017 #fruk #APH England #APH France #fanfic

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parentingguide8-blog · 6 years ago

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50 Concerned Parents On The Creepiest Words Their Demon Child Has Ever Spoken

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50 Concerned Parents On The Creepiest Words Their Demon Child Has Ever Spoken

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Cataloged in Creepy

50 Concerned Parents On The Creepiest Words Their Demon Child Has Ever Spoken

January Nelson Updated November 24, 2018

These horrifying stories from Ask Reddit will make you second guess whether you want to have kids.

1. When my oldest son was about three, he said one night at bed time, “Mommy I like you better than my fake mommy.”

Me: “Who’s your fake mommy?”

Him: “You can’t see her. She tucks me in after you do.”

2. My niece was about 4 when I heard her laughing in my room. I walked in and asked her what she was doing and she said, “Chucky says if you stick your fingers in your eyes they come out of your mouth.” Then she told me Chucky lived underground. Still gives me chills.

3. Picked him up from daycare when he was 3. Driving home, totally quiet, him just staring out the window…

He randomly asks, “Hey dad, ‘member that time we died in a fire?”

4. My 3 year old daughter was going through the monsters under her bed phase. Lasted for weeks, and it was really wearing on her mom and me.

One night after mom tried to put her to bed, she tagged me in. After 30 minutes, I grew pretty frustrated. In a last ditch attempt, I promised my daughter that there weren’t any monster under her bed. She replied, “I know. Now they’re behind you.”

After that, I let her sleep with us for a week.

5. I heard the one-year-old’s high chair move even though nobody was near it. I asked the three-year-old, “What was that?” and he said, while pointing to the chair, “What is SHE doing here!?”

6. He started refusing to go downstairs (age around 3-3.5), terrified, saying there was an evil ‘angel man’ down there that wanted to hurt the whole family. Consistently drew the same picture of said angel man too.

7. This was terrifying. When I was a teenager I was babysitting for a family with three young children. The boy was about 8 and the girls were in kindergarten. Their parents had driven an hour away to see a play, but still planned to be home early in the night. However, I got a call that they had been in a minor car accident and would be home a couple hours later than planned. They asked several times how/if the boy was sleeping, which should have been a red flag, but I simply said that all the children were sleeping and left it there. About an hour goes by, and it’s definitely nighttime now. I’m sitting on a sofa downstairs and looking through some old magazines to pass the time. Suddenly I hear shuffling on the staircase. The boy was clearly sleepwalking, but his eyes were open and rolled back. He started running his hands along the wall and grabbing family pictures while screaming “they all must go, they all must go” before throwing the pictures down the stairs. Once I overcame a moment of sheer panic, I rushed up the stairs and tried to grab him. Once I’m about half a foot away from him he starts screaming, “If you touch me you die, if you touch me you die,” followed by manic laughter. By this point the sound of crashing glass and screaming has woken up the girls, and I can hear them crying. Totally freaked out, but still focused on keeping the kid from falling down the stairs, I grab the boy by the back of his pajamas and lead him back up the rest of the stairs and towards his room. When we get to his doorway he calmly walks to his bed and gets back in as if nothing has happened. Flabbergasted, I go over to his bed and he is perfectly sound asleep. I can still hear the girls crying so I rush to their room. They are huddled together in the back corner crying. I say, “Oh no no, it’s okay your brother is okay, he’s just sleepwalking, he’s fine!” One of the little girls looks at me and says, “We know he can’t help it, Simon makes him do it.” That was the last straw for me. I didn’t ask anymore questions, brought the girls downstairs with me, gave them milk and cookies, turned on the radio and turned every single light on. Parents walk in, and know immediately what happened. Never babysat for that family again.

8. My oldest kept talking in his bed past bed time. When we asked him who he was talking to he said he was talking to the floating white lady. I don’t remember the description he gave us, but what I DO remember is kid #3 doing the same fucking routine 8 years later…

9. My 3 year old grandson has babbled about plane crashes since he started talking. He would reenact (with toys) a plane chasing another plane and as the first suddenly dropped to the ground he’d yell in a heart-rending scream, “OH NO WE CRASHED!” This was his first sentence. He did this over and over.

Early this summer he’s 3 and I’m reading him a bedtime story. I pause and look up at him and he said to me, “Granny, I was a pilot, my plane was the Kitty Hawk. I crashed into the water when they shotted off my wing and shotted off my face.”

It almost stopped my heart.

He looked so troubled and sad. I told him that he had done his best and I was very proud of him and that he was only a little boy now and needed to not worry about that but if he needed to talk about it he could anytime. I just hugged him.

I researched and Kitty Hawks were used by almost every country early in WW2.

10. Not a parent, but when my little brother was 4 and I was like 18 we were playing with Hot Wheels cars. He just started singing the alphabet song, which is normal for kids to just start singing at random times, but he had a twist to it: “A, B, C, D, E, F, G… Everyone is dead…” I just looked t him for a moment and then just kept playing with cars Kids are weird, man.

11. My son (7)…

Dreamily and out of nowhere: Today is the day I’m going to die

Me: What??

Him: Oh no mom don’t worry, not today, but on this date some other year.

12. When my cousin was a kid, there was a doll at a toy shop that she longed for, for months. She was a fabric doll with a painted face, had red hair made from yarn, and a green, printed dress. She got the doll for Christmas and fairly soon after had a dream that the doll was laughing and pulling out her toenails. She was so freaked out that they had to get rid of the doll. A couple of months ago, my cousin’s 8 year old son came to her after a nightmare about a mean doll and described my cousin’s doll exactly!

13. When my daughter was little she was crying and I went to check on her. She said she couldn’t get the picture to go away. I said what picture? She pointed to an empty spot on the rug. I asked her what it was a picture of. She said it was my car on fire.

I was leaving for a long road trip a couple days later. I never drove so carefully in my life.

14. One night my husband had gone out with friends and I had settled in for some Netflix after the kids went to bed. My son got up and walked past the bathroom to where I was sitting then stopped. He had dead eyes. I asked him if he was ok, did he need the bathroom, did he have a bad dream, and although he turned his face towards me he didnt answer and his expression didn’t change. It was like he was possessed or zombified.

I led him into the bathroom and he followed easily enough but just stood by the toilet. When I told him to pull down his pants he did, but I still had to say, “Now go pee,” like he couldn’t figure it out on his own. He would follow direct orders but not answer questions, wouldn’t talk at all and had a dead expression the entire time. I was getting more and more frantic trying to get him to respond to me or show that he could hear me, I called my husband and told him he needed to come home, something wasn’t right. Sat on the side of the tub panicking and almost crying and he just stood there and watched me impassionately.

After about fifteen minutes he tilted his head, and blood started running out of his nose and down his face. No reaction out of him at all. I grabbed a handful of toilet paper, shoved it under his nose and told him to hold it – he did, blank faced, then picked my phone up to call 911. Before I was done dialing my son said “….Mom? What’s going on?”

It was so unexpected and my tensions were so high I jumped and almost screamed. Told him he was having a nosebleed, he said he didnt remember anything at all. Asleep in his bed and woke up in the bathroom with his mom crying and his nose bleeding. That was the day I realized my kid was a sleepwalker and I was a total wimp of a mom.

15. My daughter was in the backseat looking out the window and just calmly says, “Mommy look at all the people ” She was pointing at a cemetery that just has plaques no head stones so it looks like a pretty field. And she was 2 and there wasn’t a living soul around for miles. I just turned on the radio and acted like everything was fine. It wasn’t.

16. Not necessarily what the kid did, but heard him scream horribly loud on the monitor. My girl said there’s a black figure standing over his bed.

I jump up and as soon as I do the basement door flung open, my dog freaked the fuck out running, I ran upstairs, grabbed my son and we stayed at my mom’s lol.

My fiancee had an existential crises because she now believes in ghosts.

Funny enough I knew the family and dude who died in our house, so I went in the attic and found suitcases right above my son’s room, with the guy who died dead sons things were. Me and my cousin grabbed them and returned the items to the dead sons old wife.

Did an “exorcism” when all sorts of weird shit happened. We recorded it and got video of his camera and mount getting ripped off the counter. The stand held going 100 mph on the outside of a car, and wouldn’t come loose unless a tab was pulled, on top of that batteries died about 20x faster than they should have.

Although after we did that Rex (the dead owners dead son) never came back.

Turns out Rex was a dick in life. So scaring my kid wasn’t out if the question.

17. Not my kid, but I was at my friends place for a cookout. His son opened the sliding glass door, tapped on the side of his house, and said, “I’m going to burn this down.” He then casually walked inside and shut the door.

18. My cousin’s kid:

Middle of the night got dad’s hunting knife out and stabbed the leather couch over 50 times. He’s 5.

19. My one year old will point to a spot on the ceiling, say awwww, make grabby hands towards it then begin tracking whatever it is she sees and blowing kisses at it. I’m pretty sure it’s satan. Nothing good lives on the ceiling.

20. I used to say things my grandfather used to say a lot. Like yelling out in German at our dog. My grandfather died years before I was born.

21. Driving with my (then) 3 year old cousin. Out of nowhere she screamed . I asked her what was wrong and she said it was the . I don’t know who taught her that.

22. Found a picture of a lady in a fancy hat while on a walk. Six year old declared the lady was dead. She then said we should find the grave, dig up the body and wear her skin. We could use the skeleton for Halloween decorations.

23. I’m not a parent but am a nanny. This was a little over a year ago. I asked my 3 year old boy charge to do something simple… clean up a toy or throw out a napkin from lunch, some menial task like that, which he does a dozen times a day. He shook his head, and I reminded him about cleaning up after ourselves.

He said, “I can’t. The man in the floors says no.” I got a little chill and asked him what he meant. He pointed at a heating/cooling vent in the floor and said, “You can’t make me do it.”

It never came up again. So far, no man in any of the floors or vents.

24. Not a parent, but one time my brother at around age 6-7 (he’s 10 now) mentioned an old apartment we used to live in years before he was born. I asked him how he knew about it, and he said “Before I was born, Jesus showed me and said ‘This is going to be your future family.’” Our family / community isn’t religious at all.

25. Not my child but my granddaughter. 7 years old at the time grabbed my face looked me in the eyes and said… “I love you so much I want to cut your head off and put it in my back pack, so you’ll always be with me.”

After I explained to her that she couldn’t do that because I would die, she said, “Oh well that’s life.” She’s 13 now, my head is still attached to my body so I’m good so far. I’ve asked her if remembers saying that to me, she doesn’t and thought what a horrible thing to say.

26. Sleeping in bed, wife was at work, sense someone at the side of my bed. I slowly opened my eyes to see my 5 year old standing at the edge of the bed.

“Whats going on?”

“They’re coming for us”

“What?”

He proceeded to walk back to his bedroom and go to bed. We discovered that he was a sleepwalker, who also suffered from night terrors (the night we discovered that one is another horrifying night).

27. When my oldest daughter was in Kindergarten, she wrote and illustrated her first book titled “I Hope You Die in a Fire.”

28. A few month back. I had just put my 3 year son to bed a couple hours prior and I was downstairs watching TV. I hear him calling out, so I go up to see what he wants.

He tells me that there is a ghost in his room. He’s not really scared or anything only ghost that he is aware of are the ones in some of his cartoons or during Halloween.

So I just look around the room and tell him I don’t see anything and that ghost are not real.

He looks square into my eyes and say. “No Dad, Ghost went in my mouth, down my throat and is in my tummy. “

Hmm. Ok son go back to sleep now. Cause I may not.

29. I woke up one time to my 3-4 year old brother tossing lemon heads on my face. I asked him what he was doing and he admitted to trying to get them in my mouth so I could choke and die. I was like holy fuck that’s a little fucked, and told my parents but they laughed and said it was just him being a dumb but cute kid.

30. “Mommy, will you ever hurt me with a knife” I told her no. She followed up with, “Ok good. I know some moms do that.” She was 3 when this happened. She had never seen videos or anything that showed child abuse, so I’m not sure how she was aware that some parents hurt their kids. She’s also never been abused by anyone.

31. Not my kid but nephew.

He went through this phase of being absolutely terrified of going to sleep in his room (I’m sure all kids go through this eventually). I babysat a couple of times during this phase – we basically had to sit beside his bed and help him fall asleep, and he’d usually wake up shortly after you left the room and start crying.

His reason? “The big dark scary man standing in the corner with red eyes doesn’t want me to sleep.”

32. When my son was about five he started having night terrors. Eyes wide open, he would stare into an abyss of his own devise and scream with the chilling ferocity of hell itself. I would hold him and rock his rigid little body until he loosened back to sweaty deep sleep. What I never told my husband or the pediatrician, or even my mother, was that I was afraid of him during those nighttime bouts of what looked and felt like nothing less than possession. I was afraid of my own sweet child and wanted to run away.

33. When my daughter was 4-5 years old we lived in a two bedroom townhouse. It was just the two of us (mom and daughter, her dad passed away). She always crept into my bed at night but never said why. One day we were cleaning her room and putting away laundry and she got very agitated and said, “Why is he here now? He said he only comes at night.” I asked if she was talking about Dad. She said, “No the boy with no hands.”

We moved a few months later and she’s never come into my bed at night or mentioned him since.

34. My three year old: ‘I want to make everyone not alive’

….ooooookaaay little buddy

35. When my son was 3, he had an existential crisis. He had just discovered death, and every night as I was going to sleep, he would fixate on the fact that everyone is going to die. A lifelong atheist, I found myself talking to him about heaven, just hoping something would reassure him and make him worry less and maybe go to sleep for a few hours. But this nightly anxiety attack over the inevitability of death went on for months.

One night, I’ve calmed him down, he’s quiet for a long time, I think he’s finally asleep, I’m about to tiptoe out of the room, when loud and clear he says:

“MAMA WILL DIE TOMORROW.”

I knew this was just lis latest bout of worry, but he said it with such conviction I spent the whole next day holding my breath. Maybe he knew something I didn’t!

36. I was asking my 3 year old if he remembered being born then I asked him if he remembered what happened before he was born (because of reddit threads like this and the creepy answers they sometimes give). Without missing a beat or any prompting from me other than the question he goes “I was in a helicopter that go round and round and round then BOOM into the ground!”

37. My daughter was about 8 when she asked, “What’s it called when your parents die and you go live with someone else, who are the people?” I answer/asked, “Godparents?” To which she replied, “You and dad should get those.” Huh? Am I dying? Are you dying? I’m confused and terrified!

38. A few weeks ago I was getting breakfast ready for my 3 year old when he nonchalantly told me his Grandma fell down the stairs. About an hour later Grandpa calls us to tell us Grandma had fallen down the stairs.

Also last weekend my 3 year old said my sister was going to visit the next day and guess who showed up for a ‘surprise’ visit…

39. When my special needs son was 10, he had to have a very serious surgery. It was an 8 hour procedure and it was a pretty risky operation. We did not tell him these risks. Right before they wheeled him into surgery, he hugged me and said “Goodbye. Forever…” He made it through and his quality of life was dramatically improved by the surgery. Scariest 8 hours of my life though.

40. Well, this morning I was lying in bed, my almost 2 year old came up, put her face right up to mine and I though maybe she wanted a kiss. Then she said, “Mama, I want eat your eyes please.”

41. Not my parents, but a story they tell me about myself when I was young. When I was 3 we moved into a new home. We were eating dinner in our big, somewhat creepy new house when I stop and stare at the ceiling. My parents ask if everything’s okay. I shush them and reply “We have to be quite. We don’t want to wake up Marcus.”

Well we don’t know any Marcus so my parents silently freak out thinking maybe I saw a “ghost” or something. Long story short when I visited my uncles They would tell me to stay quiet cause their neighbour (Marcus) lived above them. Definitely spooked my parents good

42. Not my son, but a friend’s son said “Uncle (me) is gonna die in the water.”

Me and his dad:”WTF?? How?”

Him: “He’s gonna fall from a bridge and die in the water.”

He walks out of the room laughing. He’s 4.

43. It’s one in the morning, I’m dead asleep with my wife in the living room reading. All of the sudden the baby monitor is blaring my 16 month old son’s laughter in my ear, so I jump up, run into his room, and he’s standing in his crib pointing at the corner of the room and giggling hysterically. I just stared at him for a few seconds before I grabbed him and put him in bed with me.

44. Once when my toddler was hugging me he quietly said “I won’t eat your bones.” Oh, uh…much obliged…

45. When my daughter was around 4 yrs old, she had a habit of waking me up by getting 4 inches from my face and staring at me until I opened my eyes. Once my eyes opened, she’d say, “Mommy your face is pretty. I want to wear it on my face.”

Ok, Hannibal, let’s get some breakfast.

46. I have twin daughters. One day while playing outside, one looked up at the sky and said, “The sky is cracked… and on fire.”

My other daughter looked up and said, “Yes…. the people are screaming.”

Then they went back to playing with dolls. Fingers crossed they’re not predicting the future, everybody!

47. My three year old son said, “Next time I’m a baby, I want to have green eyes.” I asked him if he had been a different baby before being who he currently is, and he squinted his eyes, looked at me like I was an idiot, and said, “Yes, papa.”

48. Not my kid, but a neighbor. Maybe 7-8 years old.

“Hey Mr. Soomuchcoffee, whatcha doin!?”

“Bringing in groceries dude.”

“Can I come inside your house?”

“Oh, nah buddy. I’m busy, and your mom would wonder where you went, I don’t think she’d like that too much.”

“You mean I really can’t?”

“Yeah bud. Sorry. Maybe another time when you mom knows where you’re at.”

“I…I’m gonna use my gun and put a virus in your brain so that you die!”

“I uh….ya. Alrighty then. Welp, groceries bye bye now!”

49. “I want to play “Frozen” but only the part where the parents die in a shipwreck.”

50. A kid once sat near a camp fire and seemed to be lost in thoughts. I asked what he is thinking about. This 6 year old said, “I wish I was high up in space and the whole world was on fire. That would be beautiful.”

is cataloged in Creepy Kids

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, dreamer, and occasional exotic dancer. Her work has appeared on Facebook, …

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