#i just wrote this. idk what came over me i just felt suddenly very compelled to write samwena

[angelsdean]

In the end, the descent into Hell is easy. 

The stairway to Heaven had crumbled. The pearly gates were closed. Sam’s fervent prayers fell on absent ears. 

He was fresh out of cosmic beings to leverage for favors. Well, except…. 

It was strange how easy it had become to traverse the realms of the afterlife. Before, a ticket to Hell would cost you your soul, or a nasty encounter with a Hellhound. Now, a simple spell would do. Day trip to Hell, who would’ve thought? 

Down, down, down he goes into the muggy depths of the Inferno. Into the first chamber. Then advancing through long, winding corridors. He encounters no one. Strange. Finally, he arrives at the heavy doors to the throne room. They open before him, a chest cavity expanding, and there in the center sits Rowena in red, the bloody heart of it all. 

“Samuel.” Her shrewd eyes rake over him. She doesn’t look at all surprised to see him. 

“I take it you were expecting me.” 

“I sensed you the moment you stepped through the portal. Being non-corporeal gives one a certain omniscience. Little happens within these walls that I don’ know about, my dear.” 

Sam internally shudders at the word omniscient, thinking of Chuck and the maddening uncertainty he brewed in them when he claimed such powers. 

“What brings you here?”

The question draws Sam back to the present. Right. Rowena may be able to see all within her tiny kingdom of Hell, she's in the dark about all that has transpired on Earth since Sam’s last visit. The truth of it, the words he must say next, stick in his throat. He can’t—He hasn’t said any of this out loud. Hasn’t spoken to anyone in the weeks since everything happened. These were the facts: 

They defeated Chuck. 

Jack then vanished. 

And then Sam had to burn Dean. 

And before any of that, Cas had sacrificed himself in a move that Sam still did not fully understand. Dean had been sparse on the details. And now he couldn’t ask him at all. Because Dean was—He—

“Dean died.” 

His voice warbles around the words. They don’t sit right in his mouth. He shouldn’t be saying them. 

“Oh, Samuel.” Rowena appears before him in a blink, a hand pressing to his cheek. 

“They’re all—they’re gone. Dean. Cas. Jack.” Tears spring forth. He hasn’t cried either. He hasn’t let himself. But now, with Rowena opening her arms to him, he sinks down, down, down till they are both on the stone floor, Sam cradled in Rowena’s embrace as he sobs. “They’re dead and I have no one left. Nothing. They’re just all gone!” 

Fingers comb through Sam’s hair in a soothing shush. “There, there. Shh. I’ve got you.” Then, more forcefully, tipping his chin up to lock eyes, “I’ve got you.”

Samwena ficlet be upon thee! inspired by ruminations on this post

[fluffymisha97]

Why not?

So I wrote this story back to back with another one called “Reasons not to date”. So they might have some similarities and maybe one is better than the other idk.

Summary: Chris wants to date the reader but there’s something holding the reader back.

Warnings: Language 

You were slightly pissed off at Chris. He’d gone running his mouth in front of several of your mutual friends practically telling them that he wanted to date you; to call you his girlfriend. Not that you had been asked about this little arrangement. Well that was a lie. Chris had asked you out 4 four times throughout out your friendship. You’d known him for years now and really cared for the guy…as a friend… mostly.

Chris didn’t see anything wrong with what he’d said earlier. He had been raised to always tell the truth. You however were still mad at him for embarrassing the both of you. He probably didn’t feel the slightest bit affected. You tried to keep your head cool as he drove you home.

“Come on, Y/N. You can be mad at me for telling the truth and standing by my feelings.”

He flashed you a smile. That smile could make any woman weak in the knees…BUT no. You had to stay strong, cool, and collected. You’d to ignore him and his ridiculous ideas about things that could never happen. Because the whole this was just absurd.

“Chris, what you told the others tonight was just too funny you know. The part about you wanting to go out with me, that had me cracking up.”

You began laughing hysterically trying to get him to see how foolish this seemed. His smile faded for a second before appearing once again.

“Well that wasn’t a joke sweet Y/N. I’m very serious about this and…”

“There’s also something called obsessing and as a woman I feel compelled to tell you that it’s not attractive look on anyone, not even you.”

That was a lie. That man was always attractive and he had found a way to ruin it for any other man. Not that Chris knew this or anything.

“Hey, be honest with me and this is for real. Why don’t you want to give this a chance? You know it as much as I do. That we just ‘click’ on some many levels. We have the same taste in music, movies, literature, food and so much more. It’s quite compelling evidence if I should say so myself.”

“Chris you’re forgetting a lot of things while what you’re saying sounds great and all. It’s not all there’s to it. So, can we please drop it.”

Chris looked deep in a thought and you leaned your head against the car window thinking he’d let it go. And he did for a while. As you got closer to your rented apartment, you felt uneasy about Chris who had been quiet for 30 minutes. He was not the kind of person who stayed silent for that long. It felt as if a storm was brewing.

You walked to the front door while Chris was hot on your heels. As you unlocked the door and was about to turn around to say goodnight. Chris started to talk, and you quickly covered his mouth. You did a little head shake as he looked confused.

“Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Thank you for driving me home tonight. We’ll talk later, okay.”

You leaned up on your toes to embrace him in a short hug. His hugs were always so comforting without him even doing anything. He reluctantly let go of you and watched you go inside. He too felt uneasy about how the night had turned out. But nevertheless, he got back in the car and drove off to go home. But after driving for 20 minutes or so, he found your words haunting him. He wanted to know why it seemed impossible for you two to get together. It may have been desperate, but Chris didn’t care or gave anymore thoughts as he turned the car back around.

You’d gone to bed with a night cap and were watching some bad tv-show when you heard knocking on the door. You looked down at your watch and it was almost midnight.

As you waddled downstairs to see who was coming over a such a late hour. As you opened the door, you came face to face with a nervous and jumpy looking Chris. A few sweat drops coated his forehead. He walked straight past you and came to sit on one of your kitchen chairs while waiting for you patiently.

“Chris, what’re you doing here?”

Suddenly Chris was having second thoughts about coming back to you.

“Y/N, I swear on my ma’s life that if you just answer me this, I’ll never bring it up again.”

You stood in front of him waiting for him to continue.

“Is it really just me who feel something whenever we get together? Just a tiny spark even or do I repulse you?”

“Chris, it doesn’t matter if I feel something or not. It can’t happen what you’re asking for.”

You spoke in a calm and cool manner. You stood with your arms crossed and hoped your body wouldn’t betray you.

“The hell it matters… If it’s mutual then that is more than enough reason to explore the possibilities…”

“NO, Chris.”

Chris shook his head feeling the frustration arise as he slammed his hand down on the table making you jump.

“Christ! Why not, Y/N?”

“Because you mean too goddamn much to me. I don’t want to risk losing you, okay! I’m afraid of what’s going to happen if we go down the road together. There’s your truth. I’m not willing to risk our friendship for the ‘maybe, possible chances’ of us being a couple. It’s too risky. I can’t afford to lose you.”

Chris let your words sink in as you stood in front of him, chest heaving and eyes becoming glossier. Your lips trembled for a bit.

“You’re one of my best friends. You’ve always been there for me and what we have is something else. Why can’t you understand that? That I want to protect what we have.”

You turned away from Chris wanting to hide the tears that fell. Chris rose from his seat and walked over to you and put his arms around you.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

Chris felt like an idiot for pushing you. He also felt shitty for not trying to see things from your perspective. He’d been so caught up in his own world which he saw clearly now but it still didn’t ease the ache in his heart. The feelings were still there, and he couldn’t turn those off just like that. 

After a while you moved to sit on the couch. No one said anything as you looked at the black tv-screen. Chris gently grasped your hand and held it tightly.

“Y/N, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. And I should’ve tried to see things from your point of view. It was really shitty of me.”

He sounded sincere and really apologetic about it. And you believed him because you could always tell when he was lying.

“This is just so scary Chris. I haven’t felt like this for so long and it’s not supposed to happen not with you…Yes, I have feelings too but what if this goes to shit? I don’t know if I can bear the thought of you not being in my life.”

“Y/N, you don’t know what the future might bring. No one does, but we do know what we’re both feeling. Maybe this will end up amazing and maybe…not.”

“So, you’re willing to risk everything for a big ‘if’?”

“I guess, I’m not willing to not do anything about this. Not knowing that maybe I’m missing out on the best thing. But life is about taking risks you know. And say we do this, and it ends in crap. You have my permission to screw me up really bad.”

He was right in some ways and the also scared you. But it was the feeling for him and his feelings for you, that scared you the most. It seemed surreal in many ways. And after tonight this would change one way or the other.

You agreed to take things very slow and see what happened. He was right no one knew what tomorrow would bring you. You felt anxious about it but whenever you looked a Chris you felt yourself calm down again.

So you ended up taking one of the biggest risks in your life and this day today you couldn’t imagine having chosen differently. Because it was worth it.

[redrabbitspod]

This is in no way meant to be rude or disrespectful and I am fully aware that you can do whatever you please but I feel like Neil is getting so out of character. He clearly started to develop more of an own personality but he definitely has been through so much and he is just so..cheery and happy and clingy all the time(which if you’re like that is in no way wrong or bad) and now he reminds me so much of Nicky in AFTG. It’s really hard for me to still see Neil.

OOC: This is very long, and while we think everything leading up to it is super important to our thought process (and yes this is something we’ve thought about) the bit in bold is the heart of the point we try to make. (Please read the whole thing though!)

Hey, I’m actually really happy that you sent this in because I’ve been wanting to talk about it. I know that there’s a post going around that we both wholeheartedly agree with about Neil reaching far past ooc and becoming very ���fem’. Jeni and I had a really long talk about this because we were worried that our Neil would be perceived or mistaken to fit in that trope. And while I think your concern is EXTREMELY valid (note: people can write the characters however they want. It’s fanfiction, they can do as they please, like you said, we just did not want to go that direction), I have a few points as to why I disagree. 

On surface I definitely get that. Idk if you’ve read the entirety of RRP, but I know for those of you that just read the asks (Im sure there are a lot), it DEFINITELY seems that way. But we went into RRP right off the bat letting people know that these characters will fundamentally be different. In Andrew’s case, we know he’s extremely soft now and we bring that up a LOT in the fic. Both himself acknowledging it and all the other characters around him. But we went in knowing he was going to be very different from canon - mainly because we took out the plotline that he was ever put on meds. In Wish You Were Here, the story we are writing post-season 2, we will be mentioning that and how we twisted it. Because in canon, that shaped his entire character. The medication changed the physiology of his brain and we hated the fact that something so abhorrent was forced upon him by the courts that we didn’t do it. And as a result, Andrew’s character is completely different because he’s able to tap into emotions that were blocked in canon. He’s able to grow in ways that he was not able to before and besides the fact that this is set a good while after college and especially his sophomore year that we saw in canon, he was going to change. We definitely know that them admitting that they love each other, making strides in their relationship both physical and mental, opening up, expressing, for his character may seem extremely ooc for some, but we had to take into account what would’ve happened if we took the thing that shaped his character in canon away. I hope we’ve done him justice. 

Now onto Neil. Neil we work over a LOT. And when Jeni brought this up to me because of the post, there were glaring things in my mind that automatically said no. This doesnt apply to our Neil even though to some it may seem that way. Here’s what we’ve done at least very consciously to make sure that our Neil holds integrity to his canon character, that he holds merit and a backbone to back up how he’s grown throughout our series. 

From day one, we knew that they knew each other. We knew that an event from the past not only shaped how Andrew approaches life, but how Neil does as well. Childish sentiment and nostalgia kept Neil in Arizona for so long, which we imply throughout season 1 and start the ball rolling in the first chapter. For the both of them, they held onto the boy they met at the Grand Canyon through everything they’d been through. When shit got tough, it was each other they thought of. And on some wild whim, Neil hoped one day Andrew would walk through the Book Nook’s doors and he’d see him again. Not because Neil had a crush, because he didn’t. But because Andrew was the embodiment of strength for him. 

New York was really important to us. Neil standing his ground and letting Andrew know exactly what he’d done to him, was what the entirety of Season 1 and EVEN season 2 culminated and came back to. Neil being able to say no, fuck you asshole, and always express exactly how he was feeling, was so vitally important to us. ESPECIALLY when it came to Andrew. Those few weeks of New York we wanted to build a bridge if you will. Andrew’s intentions were always genuine and well-meaning and Neil knew that, but survival instincts and what’s been ingrained in him stuck. They started to have a little give when he came to realize that he felt something for the man before him. But he never lost that fight for himself. That HE has to ALSO be okay. And I think we see a lot in that trope of Neil that he loses the fight, the backbone, the integrity that makes his canon character so compelling (even if he is a martyr). 

One thing we worried people would misinterpret was how fast we pushed their characters together. We definitely get that. In our world we didnt really have the luxury of really stretching it out like some may have, just because we were working with real-time. And honestly? As we wrote, the drive to push them together because they were so connected and intertwined just fell genuinely and organically. For us, it only made sense and not because of canon, but because of the story we’d written already. It made sense to us for Andrew to be the one to hold himself back and Neil be the one reaching out - Neil be the one exploring and beginning to recognize what want and really, agency over himself AND his wants, was. Neil was the one to ask for their first kiss here, Neil was the one to initiate them all afterwards, Neil was the one that asked Andrew to touch him, Neil was the one that asked what they were in Arizona, Neil was the one to bring up sex. And in return, Andrew was peeling away layers of himself, feeling accepted, and wanted, and understood in ways he’d never been before. And honestly? Feeling honored that they were both experiencing emotions in ways that they both never felt before. We see their relationship has an equal give and take, a push and pull. And I’m saying all of this because it’s honestly and truly really important for why we’ve made Neil’s character the way that he is. 

Going into season 2, we knew that happiness could not last long. They both had things to sort out, they both had hurdles to hop over, bridges to cross, whole fucking oceans to swim. Before season 2 started, before we had anything written or really even solidly planned, we knew they had to break up. Jeni even had the scene written back in either july or august. We knew that in order to continue trying to give integrity to their characters and relationship, how far they’d grown but also that growth is not a linear path, we needed to break them up. And in the lead up to that, we made sure that Neil was not only looking out for Andrew or trying to, but that he was looking out for HIMSELF. Unlike in canon, he didnt automatically have the foxes - not in his head at least. Of course he knew he had a home there, he knew that he had friends, but they weren’t like canon because he didnt grow WITH them like he did in canon. In his mind, he really only had Andrew and if there was no Andrew, why stay? And when their fight happened we made sure that Neil had value enough in himself, care for himself, love for himself AND for Andrew that they couldn’t let this go on any longer. Neil left because he knew he deserved better. He knew Andrew needed help and he couldn’t provide it. And he held onto that. In fact, Andrew even held onto it himself: 

“Is there no hope, then?” Andrew asked, unable to help himself.

Neil sighed and Andrew was grateful that he at least didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what Andrew meant.

“I don’t know, Dr- Andrew.” Was it possible for his chest to hurt even more? He wanted to curl in on himself, but settled instead for clenching the sharp corners of the pack of cigarettes in his pocket into the palm of his hand. He watched as Neil bit the inside of his lip and that little indent appeared. Maybe he feels it, too . “Part of me wants to say fuck it all and let’s just go home. I hate this... But I hate what you’ve been putting me through these last couple of weeks even more. I can’t do that again,” he stopped talking once more and inhaled a shuddering breath. “You broke my heart, Andrew. I know I sound dramatic and stupid, but I don’t know how else to say it and - I don’t know how to do this, for fucks sake.” He finally turned to him, but the eye contact was brief and before it was even there, it was gone. “I came into this knowing nothing about relationships and I know even less about breakups. I don’t know how to navigate this.”

“You think I do?” Andrew asked. He didn’t mean  for it to sound so bitter, but there it was.

“I don’t know with you,” Neil shrugged. “I feel like you keep everything so close to your chest, that there are whole sections of you I’m missing. And listen, I don’t blame you. You should be able to choose what you want to share. But I can’t help that it makes things hard when you’re falling apart and I don’t know why...”

Andrew let go of the box and put both of his hands in his lap. Grinding his teeth together, he heard the beginning hum of Bee’s buzz , but took a deep breath to try and keep her at bay. Clearing his throat, he looked back to the stadium and that stupid orange fox paw, before he murmured, “What if I offer you a piece?” - suddenly and quickly said, it was as if his mouth was trying to outrun his mind, despite the second he took to contain it. He’d known this would eventually come - that he would have to do this. And besides, Neil deserved an explanation, even if they never got back together.

“Andrew-”

“I’m not offering with hopes that we’ll get back together right now, Neil. I’m working through shit the best I can. Therapy is helping, but I know it’s a process. I just know you deserve an explanation. And I haven’t wanted to tell you because it’s fucking horrific, but I was also afraid that it would send me even further down the spiral if I talked about it. Now that I have a space to vent through, I don’t think I’m so afraid of the fall.”

This part was so important to us for both Andrew and Neil’s character. And in the entire build up to the break up and directly after, Neil held onto the fact that they needed to talk. He kept bringing it up. Because he knew that if they didn’t it would escalate just like it did before. 

“I wouldn’t risk being with you again if I didn’t think things would be different. I’m not better and to be honest? I probably wont ever be better. I’ve spent my entire life dealing with my shit by myself because that’s just how it was. I’ve avoided relationships because I never trusted anyone with my baggage and I didn’t think it’d be fair to pile it on someone anyway. So when it comes to talking about shit - I’m not used to that. Bee was the only person I’d ever told everything to, and she doesn’t even know all of it.”

“I know that,” Neil said, leaning forward as if to show Andrew how much he actually understood. If that was the case, Andrew believed him. “I know you, Andrew. I would never force you to talk about something you don’t want to. That’s not what I’m trying to do. But , I need you to work with me, and if not me, someone else. Don’t take it out on me when you’re going through shit that neither of us can control. It’s not fair and it makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong and I can’t fix it.”

Now. Now we’re up to your points. I promise all of this was important for me to explain, because I know there’s literally SO MUCH that we’ve written, that shit happening now can get in the way of everything that’s happened before to lead up to this. 

We fully recognize that Neil is definitely happy. But he’s not happy-go-lucky and we tried really hard to make sure he didn’t lose his integrity - his backbone - the things that made Neil, Neil. 

Something I realized throughout this series was that I was getting worried that the focus of season 2 was so heavily on Andrew. I was seriously worried about that. But then I realized that Season 1 was focused solely on Neil. Season 1, Neil was a fucking wreck. It was Matt AND Andrew comforting him, Matt and Andrew bringing him down, Matt and Andrew trying to protect him, take care of him, find him, search for him, all of that. But even through Neil’s horrific anxiety and all the bad shit that happened, it was still Neil that pushed himself up from the ground, pulled Lola back, and gave Andrew the in. It was Neil that fought with the doctors and nurses to see Andrew and make sure he was okay. Even still afterward though, it was Neil discovering and Neil understanding and a lot of Neil, Neil, Neil. 

Season 2 is heavily focused on Andrew. We’ve already seen Neil’s story and his growth. Its Andrew’s turn to try and again, build his bridge to getting better. But with that, it was Neil that made the strides to speak and handle Ichirou, it was Neil that figured out things with his uncle, it was Neil that ultimately had the gun, brought Andrew for practice - took it out and demanded Andrew get behind him this time. It was Neil that looked Andrew in the eyes as the cops patted them down and desperately tried to tether them together.  It was Neil that kept reassuring Andrew they were going home. It was Neil that snapped the moment the cop tried to put his hands on Andrew to show them where their things were when they left the prescient, and ANDREW that allowed himself to be pulled into Neil’s arms in that moment, because he knew that he was the one thing that was SAFE. It was Neil that held Andrew that night and Andrew that LET himself be held as he broke down. 

That was one chapter ago. And we really tried to illustrate at the end that they have a life ahead of them now. They have a future - a future that is spread out and it’s bright and full of possibilities. They have a future where they can do what they want. They have a FAMILY. They have nieces, Aaron, Kate, Bee, the entire TFN team. Neil had nothing and now he has something. He has hope. 

Promise Im coming down to the end omfg. This is why our Authors and End Notes are so fucking long i swear to fucking god. 

This BTP chapter, we wanted to explore that fucking unbridled happiness. That elation of fuck - we have the world out in front of us. We don’t have any killers on our backs, Hailey is safe, Robin is safe, Jean is out, the Moriyama’s are taken care of, Stuart isn’t begging Neil to join the Hatford Branch, Aaron and Kate might be moving back to South Carolina, they’re married and all of that isn’t terrifying. It’s COMFORTING. So yes, this BTP chapter was bright and cheery. Neil was most certainly happy and showing it. Jumping on the bed, kisses all around, getting excited over ZOO BABIES and a ZOO CHOO train. But just because we show this side of him where he gets to go on a road trip and experience real and true fucking freedom for the first time, doesn’t mean that we’re all of a sudden shedding everything that we’ve built for his character. I don’t think that’s what you meant, but I mean it when I say we take the characters, the integrity of the characters, very, very seriously. Also in this chapter, Neil takes a homophobic asshole to task and not in the way that a lot of people do, but by quietly hinting at the threat because Neil doesn’t need bells and whistles. In fact, he even talked about how being happy was something his mother frowned upon: 

Because the way he looked at Neil when a butterfly landed on his finger or when he snuggled up to a goat in the petting zoo let Neil know that Andrew was happy. And he was happy.  That was something Neil never really had in his life. His mother didn’t care if he was happy, only that he was alive . In fact, the less happy he was, the fucking better. By her logic, he was less likely to go rogue if he didn't feel like there was something to be happy about outside of her. 

Neil’s finally had a moment to enjoy and let go and we know exactly how that can come off, but we have an entire future planned for them and the book they’re about to explore. Spoiler Alert: It won’t be all “butterflies and rainbows”. But all of this does not mean that all of a sudden we’re giving in to tropes and changing his character entirely because of one chapter. RRP and it’s characters mean too much to us. 

So I definitely get where you’re coming from and I’m so fucking sorry this is so long omfg. And I respect your view because we definitely worried that people would see them like that. But we have a reason for almost everything we do in this fic and really, we just wanted to see the boys happy here. We don’t believe he’s like Nicky and we don’t believe he’s clingy, but everyone interprets these characters differently, and you’re certainly entitled to that opinion. We hope this just makes our thought process on Neil’s development a little clearer. - The Creators

[julemmaes]

Pinky Promise - Chapter Five

A/N: I want to dedicate this chapter to @queenestarcheron whose comments literally give me life and the main reason I’m writing this story basically. I’m sorry for this chapter and I really feel like this is just the start where everything goes bad and then bad and then bad and uuugh I’m sorry

I wrote this whole chapter listening to Let’s Hurt Tonight by OneRepublic and idk, if you like to hurt like I do I’ll advice you read it with the song on repeat;)

Fic masterlist

Word count: 5,659

Nesta had only been awake for ten minutes and already felt all the fatigue that Monday would bestow upon her. She was staring at the ceiling counting the seconds until she had to get up and get ready to go to work and when the phone started vibrating for the third time that morning, Nesta huffed and went to the bathroom.

The headache was completely gone and it seemed as if she hadn't gone through all the pain that had caused her to be unable to walk last night. She just hoped that it wouldn't come back to haunt her, because the idea of being as vulnerable in front of everyone again as she had shown herself the night before at such a delicate moment in her life gave her goosebumps.

Elain had left her some kind of medicine on the kitchen table with a yellow post-it on top of it said 'I hope you're feeling better. I bought them for you, so put them in your purse before you go out.' with two little hearts drawn around an elegant E.

She was trying not to make too much noise to wake her sisters when she heard a grunt coming from the living room. She froze with the kettle in her hand and arched her eyebrows, walking slowly towards the sofa.

There, lying without restraint on the cushions, was Cassian. He was wearing one of his pyjamas that he kept in the apartment and held one of the pillows that she always used to his chest. He kept his neck bent in a uncomfortable position and she knew that she should have moved his head to avoid him a despicable stiff neck, but even the risk that he might wake up and hover over her, following her all over the kitchen as if she could collapse at any moment prevented her from feeling pity for the man.

She remained to look at him for a moment too long, hand on her hip and the desire to put her lips on his rosy and fleshy ones.

If she lingered too much, she would not be able to leave the house.

Closing the kitchen door behind her, she had breakfast quietly, preparing some cold rice and leaving three equally full containers for the others. Elain would work all day, Feyre would have classes overlapping and she would not be able to find a minute to eat, forgetting all about it, and Cassian would be on shift at the bar and would end up eating the first thing that came his way and he already ate enough leftovers from his customers to pass up a fried meal for once.

She passed in front of the living room and opened the door with her bag on her shoulder. She looked at the sofa and could only see Cassian's toes and puffed, irritated with herself. She quickly laid the stuff on the floor and approached him, taking his head in her hands and arranging it in such a way that he wouldn't be paralyzed by the pain as soon as he woke up.

Cassian moved grimacing and put his head back in the previous position. Nesta frowned, "Why don't you ever do what I fucking tell you? Not even in your sleep," she whispered slowly.

***

"Nesta?" Clare seemed shocked to see her come in through the back door, "What on earth are you doing here?"

Nesta looked around, genuinely confused by what was happening, "It's Monday, isn't it?" then slumped, groaning, "Oh god, did I get the days wrong again?"

Clare shook her head, "No, no, it's Monday and you're on time," she said as she approached her. Nesta sighed. "Only, Cassian sent me a message late last night saying that you were really very sick and that you wouldn't be able to make it," she explained, smiling at her.

She probably thought it was sweet and nice that her centenarian boyfriend took such good care of her that he felt compelled to call her work and take the day off.

Sometimes she was amazed at how much Cassian didn't seem to know her at all.

Then she closed her eyes, thinking how wrong what she had just said was.

No one knew her better than he did, and if he had called his boss to take the day off it meant that she had been really sick the night before.

She shook her head, taking one hand to her forehead, "I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine."

From behind one of the shelves, Emerie appeared with a mountain of books in her arms. As soon as she saw her, she wrinkled her forehead, "You look like shit," she said to her as a greeting, still continuing to place the new arrivals on the shelves, "Shouldn't you be at home resting?"

"Did he text everyone?" Nesta asked, opening her arms wide.

Clare shook her head no, "No, but he sent me a very long message and sounded very worried," she shrugged, "I thought it was something serious. I would have sent you a message mid-morning, I didn't want to risk waking you."

Emerie agreed with her, going back to the other room to get more books.

"It's all a mess and he shouldn't have sent you any messages," sighed Nesta, walking towards the staff room and raising her voice a little, "It's been a very long week and I have to tell you many things, if we don't have too many customers I can do it even before lunch."

Emerie appeared almost running into the little room where they took their lunch breaks and where they rested when people were not too numerous. Her eyes were wide open and there was an amused glint there, "I can't believe it," she snorted, "The longest lasting couple in history fought."

Nesta glanced at her, but said nothing. Emerie smirked.

"Wait Nes!" they heard Clare screaming, who arrived with a box that must have weighed more than her. Emerie raised an eyebrow and Clare looked at her frowning, "I couldn't hear what she was saying...".

Nesta snickered, "Don't worry, you were just missing Em fucking with me."

Clare walked up to the middle of the room, placed the box on the table and started to open it, "So?" she spurred her to speak.

"It's a really long story and knowing you, you wouldn't survive if we were interrupted halfway through the story." Nesta seemed hesitant and the two girls exchanged a quick and confused look.

Emerie stepped forward, "How serious is this?"

Nesta looked her in the eye for a few seconds, "A I-don't-know-if-we're-still-together kind of serious." she nodded, reducing her lips to a thin line.

"Holy shit." whispered Clare.

Emerie opened her eyes wider and suddenly became serious, "Did he cheat on you?" she didn't even give her time to answer, "Because if he cheated on you I'll take a day off and go kill him."

Nesta chuckled, despite everything, "He didn't-" then stopped, thinking that what he had done had been a betrayal anyway. She shook her head.

"That's a start and I can cross the killing off my list," said the friend, offering her a half smile.

Clare seemed as shocked as Amren when she had told her that Cassian wanted to enlist. Nesta felt sick at the idea of having to ruin her day with such sad information and regretted a bit that she had introduced the topic.

Emerie clapped her hands, waking everyone up from that trance they were stuck in, "As much as I love teasers and all that crap there, if you're not going to tell us now we'd better get back to work, because in-" she looked at the clock on the wall, whimpering, "sixteen minutes we have to open and we won't have even a spare second to sort out the last releases."

"Shit," said Nesta all of a sudden, "it's the 12th, isn't it?"

Emerie nodded, completely knocked down by the information.

"I'd say it's time to get to work," murmured Clare.

Without saying a word, they all walked towards the "fantasy young adult" section. They marched as if it was their last hour and were about to be hanged in the square. And it actually was a little bit so, because the last book of the most acclaimed saga would be released and none of the three were ready psychologically to welcome the hordes of people who would enter the store that day.

Clare had thrown worried looks her way all morning and Emerie hadn't offended her more than twice, which was weird, because she never missed an opportunity to toss them insults or make puns.

This was bothering Nesta.

Her mood had even worsened when around noon, Cassian had called and then sent her a message when she had not answered:

"Are you completely insane? Where are you?"

Those words had made her arms itch with anger.

"If you're at work, stay there, I'll pick you up and take you home."

And then again:

"What made you think going out when you were practically dying in pain last night was a good idea? You need to rest and let your body recover."

To that, Nesta had apologized to the client she was serving and sent a quick response:

"Don't you dare come and get me or I swear to god Cassian this is the time I'm going to get seriously mad. I don't want to fight about this too. I woke up, I was fine, I went out. Period."

When he hadn't replied, Nesta had sent another message:

"I need a distraction and I need the money. Don't come."

Cassian sent her a simple, "Alright, sorry. See you." and she went back to work.

She hadn't failed to notice, however, that he hadn't written his usual love you at the end of the message.

Now, Emerie was looking at her with fiery eyes and Clare had stopped eating, one hand in front of her wide open mouth.

"Are you joking?" Emerie seethed with rage.

Nesta shook her head, sighing, "The worst thing is that I can't reason with him."

Clare placed the cutlery in the plastic container, "And his brothers? Az?"

Her colleagues had met the magnificent trio when she had started working at Clare's mother's bookshop soon after her father's death. They needed money and both she and Elain had found a job almost immediately, Elain in a small diner on the same street as their apartment and Nesta in that magical place. Cassian and Azriel used to pass by practically every day she worked to bring her food - considering how many times she forgot to take care of herself because of the mess that was her life - and it didn't take Clare and Emerie more than half a second to realize that there might be something between her and the younger of the two boys. They had had the opportunity to get to know the others in the group during the various birthdays and parties, but they had never had a very close relationship with Rhysand. Probably because she herself had never gotten beyond seeing him as her boyfriend's brother.

Looking at her two best friends at that moment, she realized that whatever she decided to do with Cassian, they would support her, because they were there when it had all started and they would be there when it would end. Whether it was in two days or seventy years.

"Azriel knew it and didn't tell me anything for a month." Nesta confessed, picking at her nails.

Emerie snorted, "That fucker."

"I said the same thing," smiled Nesta, "but he was actually only respecting what Cass demanded and it's not his fault my boyfriend is dumb."

"This may be a low blow, but have you tried calling his mother?" asked Clare, looking more and more upset.

Nesta tilted her head to the side, "I don't know if she knows..." she rubbed her hands on her arms, trying to whip off some of the frost in the room, "And I don't want to be the cause of the heart attack she's going to have in case she doesn't know and I barge into her living room saying 'Hey, help me convince your son not to enlist'."

"Then you really should go and tell her everything," said Emerie, leaning forward on the table, "If she really doesn't know, she might be so shocked that she reacts so strongly and convinces Cassian to give up."

Clare looked at her with her mouth open, "What are you talking about, you pshyco." she muttered.

Nesta nodded, "Yeah, the fuck. I'm not trying to kill Vera."

Emerie seemed offended, "I'm just saying that if she has an excessive reaction-"

"Which would not be excessive for such a thing." mumbled Clare.

"-you might not have to do anything and leave it to the woman to beat him."

Emerie seemed offended, "I'm just saying that if she has an excessive reaction-"

"Which would not be excessive for such a thing." mumbled Clare.

"-you might not have to do anything and leave it to the woman to thrash him."

Nesta stood up, shaking her head and throwing the lunch papers, "No, I'm not going to betray him like that."

Clare was still looking at Emerie as if she had four heads, "Who hurt you?" she whispered, "Like, that's the sickest thing I've ever heard in my life."

Emerie's features softened as always when she addressed their boss, "Right? That's sick!" she exclaimed smiling.

"I didn't mean it like that," said Clare, "I meant that that's literally the best way to completely ruin things with your partner." then she turned to Nesta, "Please don't go to Vera."

Nesta raised a hand, "That was absolutely not my intention." she said, "And what's more, this is still fresh between me and him and we haven't really talked about anything yet," she said.

Emerie interrupted her, "Well, actually you've been fooled with the whole enlistment process explaining. That's the last thing you should have done."

Nesta frowned, "What do you mean?"

"He's probably thinking you've already accepted it. If you only asked about the first part, that means you can discuss the rest later, once he's finished training."

Clare grimaced, "It shouldn't be like this though. And I don't think Cassian thinks Nesta accepted."

Emerie reached out to the girl, touching her arm with a knowing smirk on her lips, "I've read enough romance novels to know the situation is worse than it seems.

Nesta would normally be annoyed that the people in the room were talking about her and their lives as if she wasn't there, but she seriously needed an outside view of all that mess.

"This isn't one of your books, we're talking about Nesta's life," Clare pointed out to her, looking slightly annoyed.

"Fiction mimics reality." she shrugged, then turned to Nesta, "I'm just saying that before talking about what he's going to have to do specifically to get in, you had to discuss what it will all involve." Emerie stared her in the eye, more serious than ever, "The problem Nesta, it's not the present, it's not the fact that he will have to run and eat well for the next two months and that he will have to stay out for two days to do tests on tests. I'm sure you don't give a damn about all the acronyms of names either," said the friend getting up, "The problem will be that you will have to stay months, years, away, when you have been inseparable in the last ten. I don't remember a time when you have been apart for more than three days".

Clare nodded and Nesta' head was starting to hurt.

"You got sick because you spent two days without him while you were thinking about whether or not to leave him. You got sick from the stress." the girl pointed out to her, "And tell me, who took you home? Who took care of you?" she asked, "I'm not trying to hurt you or fight with you, but with everything that's going on right now, you need to sit down and write a list of things you're going to have to start doing on your own. Before he leaves."

Clare squinted, "Em, maybe we should stop-"

"Not because you are not capable or because you are not independent, Nes. We all know very well how strong you are, but there are things, there are daily habits that will have to change completely."

Nesta knew that.

But there were so many things to discuss. So many aspects to see together with Cassian.

She felt a lump in her throat. Emerie had always been cheeky with her and she knew that she was doing it for her own good, that she would tell her everything that any other person was too shy to admit. Or that they took for granted.

But for Nesta at that moment, nothing was taken for granted and she couldn't think of anything.

"And even though he keeps saying it's not a suicide mission, he doesn't know. He can't afford to say things like 'I won't die', 'I'll come back safely, 'nothing will change'.  Because it's just bullshit and you can't let him think that," concluded Emerie.

She just wanted to cry. And scream.

"It's difficult." Nesta sighed trembling.

Clare stood up at that point, going over to her and putting her hand on her arm and giving Emerie a stern look. She took a deep breath, "I know, I realize it's not easy, and that's why you have to talk. That's why you can't leave discussions halfway open and not pick them up the next time. If you do that, you convince him that that topic is closed and that you accept it as such."

Nesta bit the inside of her cheek and, ironically, the conversation ended there.

They remained silent for the rest of the lunch break and then Nesta said goodbye to them, having to go to class.

She had not even left the bookstore, that she had already dialed Cassian's number on the phone. It only took two rings before he picked up.

"Hey, sweetheart," he trilled, "everything okay?"

Nesta gritted her teeth, feeling the tears swell in her eyes. She heard Cassian moving on the other side of the phone, "Nes, are you alright?" he sounded worried by the tone of his voice. She closed her eyes, stopping next to her car. She couldn't speak.

"I'm probably talking to myself, but babyy!" he yelled into the microphone, making her flinch. He sighed deeply, and Nesta imagined him as he settled back into bed to rest a few minutes before he went to work too.

The sound of the call ending set her off and with frantic movements she managed to open the car and get into it, driving towards the university. She received a message just as she started driving and didn't allow herself to check what he had written until she was in front of the engineering building.

The text read "Baby did you buttdial me or couldn't I hear you? Anyway, call me if you need anything, love you."

She was about to lose her whole life and heart, wasn't she?

"Buttdialed you. I need to talk to you."

She didn't even had to wait for a reply, the three dots already there the second she pushed 'send'.

"Tomorrow?"

Nesta did not answer, not knowing whether seeing him the next day would be a blessing or a condemnation and thought. And thought.

And thought.

She thought during class and while walking from one lesson to the next.

Was she the one who was in the wrong?

Was Feyre right? Maybe she should have let Cassian's career take its course.

Maybe their relationship didn't start to last. Maybe Nesta would have found someone else.

She parked her car in front of her apartment, seeing that the kitchen lights were on, while the Spacecraft Structures and Mechanisms lesson was playing out in her head.

She dropped her head against the steering wheel, trying to swallow the emotion and not to burst into tears.Couldn't he have waited for her to get her master's degree before dumping this into their lives? She could have handled it much more easily if she hadn't also had the stress of exams. Or maybe not.

The phone rang and Nesta almost screamed for the scare. She grabbed it and saw that it was Feyre and wrinkled her forehead, looking up at the window on the second floor. She saw both sisters looking at her laughing and felt that some of the heaviness she had gathered during the day eased up. She smiled at them, refusing the call and getting out of the car.

The second she entered the home, she was enveloped by the warmth of the small apartment and the smell of what she knew very well was their mother's old macaroni and cheese recipe.

Feyre arrived running in front of her, followed by a festive Elain who appeared shortly afterwards. They were both smiling as if it was Christmas morning and she relaxed even more.

"Are you okay?" asked the little one. She knew it wasn't worry, what she heard in her voice, more the desire to know how her day had gone and Nesta nodded, yawning.

Elain flapped her hands in excitement, "Can we eat now?

She grinned, taking off her jacket and shoes, "I'm going to put on my pajamas, you start without me."

Feyre squeaked with happiness and ran to the kitchen and Nesta was relieved to see her so relaxed. Monday had a completely exhilarating effect on her little sister. Feyre basically only had labs that day and could get completely lost in painting for hours and hours and it was forbidden to use phones in art classrooms, so she wasn't really distracted by calls or messages.

She heard Elain speak loudly and warned her that she had to tell what she had missed the night before at Mor's. When she returned to the kitchen, she sat down and smiled at everything she was told, commenting on each thing with the right calculated expressions and perfect exclamations when needed, but she felt empty, numb.

She went to bed early, saying that she still had to recover from the headache the day before, but when she woke up the next morning, she did not feel better. She didn't feel anything at all.

The conversation she had had with Emerie had upset her and she could not understand why. Her friend hadn't told her anything she didn't already know.

She felt like she was just going through the motions, studying all morning and memorizing stuff on her books and manuals and when she had to leave home after lunch to go to work, she didn't even know who she was anymore.

Tuesday was Emerie's day off thankfully, and at the bookstore was just her, Clare and Matthew, one of the students who, like her, needed some money to get away from home and a temporary job. He and Carlos had been working in the store for so few weeks that Nesta didn't even know their last names and was surprised to be able to remember the boy's name.

Clare had asked her how she felt several times and Nesta had not answered, not even able to speak without risking breaking down completely.

***

"Cassian." murmured Nesta, lying on the sofa, wrapped in a wool blanket. Turning the fabric in her hands she almost smiled, remembering the Christmas when Vera had gifted it to her, "Where are you?"

"I didn't know if you'd want me and I stayed home, but I'll be there in five minutes if you-"

"I need you," she said in an even smaller voice. They were used to spending Tuesday nights at her house watching a movie and when she came home and hadn't found him, there had been a moment of panic when she assumed something bad had happened.

Cassian moved on the other side of the phone, "Nes, I-" he stopped, "I know this is not a good time and there are a lot of things that are upsetting you about this whole situation, but," he took a deep breath and Nesta closed her eyes, resting her head on the armrest of the sofa, "I can feel that you are unwell for other reasons and it hurts me not to be able to do anything about it, so I offer you one thing," he said in a serious voice.

"I just need you here." whispered Nesta, more exhausted than ever, "I'm tired and I'm angry and I need my boyfriend, you don't have to offer me anything, Cass, I just need you to come here and pretend that everything is about to change." Nesta's words broke at the end and she swore faintly, cursing herself for being so compliant when it came to Cassian.

"My offer was the same." he pointed out, "Do you want me to stay on the phone while I come?" he asked her. She heard the sound of keys and a door being slammed and was relieved to learn that he would arrive in less than twenty minutes.

She shook her head, "No, I don't want you on the phone while you're driving, you know it."

"Yeah, I know," he chuckled, "Alright, see you in less than the blink of an eye."

She smiled and the second the call ended, she regretted not accepting his proposal to stay and talk.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, Cassian was kneeling in front of her and was looking at her with a grieving expression on his face and a half smile on his lips. He reached out to her and caressed her cheek, making her breath catch in her throat.

"Hi, sweetheart." he murmured to her.

With strength she didn't know she had, she managed to pull out, "How can you do this?" she asked so quietly that she wasn't sure she had spoken either, "How can you act as if nothing is happening?"

She knew that she wasn't being fair, she knew that she had asked him to come over there and pretend that everything was normal, but the second he saw his eyes, something inside her broke even more.

"Doesn't it weigh on you, at all, that I'm so upset? That I can't think straight and that I feel so numb sometimes that I can't even recognize the reflection in the mirror? My thoughts? And not even a week has gone by." her eyes filled with tears and the smile on his lips was gone, "Because I miss you, Cassian, and-" she sobbed, pushing her face against his hand, "and I love you and I don't want to lose you and everything you're doing now makes me think it's not like that for you. That you don't want me back, that you don't want a life with me."

Cassian stood up, holding out a hand that she didn't hesitate to grab, she sat up and he stood next to her, looking her in the eyes, "Nesta I love you, you are the reason I wake up in the morning." his chin trembled as much as her body, shaken by the crying, "And the fact that you are suffering because of me makes me feel so bad that I can't breathe sometimes, I feel like I could die. And there isn't a day that I don't wake up and think about how much I want an eternal life with you." a lonely tear slipped over his face and Nesta sobbed, her face twisting in a grimace of pain. Cassian put both hands on her face, pushing his forehead against hers, "And I miss you so much. I haven't kissed you in a week and it's like a piece of me is dead."

Nesta tried to speak, but it was difficult in the midst of the sobbing, "And- and how do you think we..." a sound of pain scratched her way up her throat and Cassian wrapped her in his arms, pulling her closer so that she was sitting on his legs. She put her head to his chest, clutching his shirt with her fingers, "How do you think we will be able to go weeks, months, years without seeing each other, without being able to touch the other, if even a week has led to this?" she said exasperated.

Cassian passed a hand over her hair, kissing her temple, "I can't stay here."

Nesta violently detached herself from him, "Why?!"

He didn't answer, he just looked at her, with shiny eyes and a contracted jaw, and she burst into tears even more loudly, "I need you here!"

"I know."

"You need to stay," she shouted.

"I can't," he sighed trembling, "Don't-"

"Yes, yes, you can!" she said, looking at him with exasperation, "You can!"

Cassian nodded once, "Then I don't want to."

Those five words were like a punch to the stomach and dampened her breath. She got up from the couch, from him, and carried a hand to her throat and as if there had been a tap, a switch, the tears stopped flowing, and the pain became such that it no longer existed and for a second, a miserable and useless second, Nesta thought she had found the answer.

She was about to speak, she was about to tell him.

To leave. To never come back.

To stop loving her.

And yet, when she opened her mouth, something completely different came out, "I'm tired." she whispered, completely drained from any emotion. Cassian remained motionless and Nesta's body did not respond as it had always done, it did not react.

Cassian reached out his hand to her, "Come here," he begged her.

He didn't have to repeat it a second time that she was straddling his lap. She bent forward and closed her eyes, breathing his scent, placing a hand on his chest, right above his heart and feeling it beating. When she looked at him, his eyes were black with emotion and darting on her face.

Nesta's mind was screaming.

"I love you." she murmured, staring into his eyes and then, she pressed her lips against his and the sound that burst out of Cassian's chest was devastating. Earth-shuttering as they closed their eyes as they breathed from each other's mouths, while a week of repressed quarrels and rages and pains inflicted by the other were poured into that kiss.

His movements became more frenzied as his hands slid to her hips and pushed her against him and Nesta moaned, or sobbed. She felt the moment when every sorrow, every ache and hope, every memory, broke the surface and the numbness that had accompanied her in the last two days exploded and she began to lose herself.

She felt like she was falling into emptiness and had to break away from Cassian, starting to breathe frantically. Too fast.

Cassian cradled her face, his expression worried expression, "What is it?"

Nesta looked at him with her eyes wide open.

She looked at the wrinkled skin on his forehead and the way his eyebrows were expressive enough to give away any emotion he felt. She looked at his nose, following its contours and at his lips, swollen and red and shiny, moving as he spoke and touched his hair, long and dark and soft and so familiar to the touch.

She was still falling into that void and felt that she was about to lose control over everything. She saw every laugh and every moment of happiness leave her body. She saw every smile that had been aimed at her. She saw the love of her parents and the devastation her father had gone through when her mother had left them. She saw Azriel's smile the first time they spoke and saw the young Feyre and Elain running around in the garden of their childhood home.

It was all slipping through her hands and she was screaming and couldn't grasp any of those memories. She couldn't.

She saw Cassian kneeling in front of her. She saw him smiling with watery eyes as he walked down the aisle and saw him crying as he held a blue puff to his chest.

Everything was slipping away.

"Look at me!"

And Nesta did it. She looked him in the eyes and hit the bottom. She stopped falling and everything that had left her body fell on her with such force that her back bowed.

She kept looking into his eyes while all sorts of emotions swirled there. In that dark, usually light, brown that Nesta had learned to love in all those years.

She was not ready to let him go.

"Nes look at me." he muttered again.

She burst into tears and fell forward, on him, while Cassian stroked her back and whispered to her that everything would be alright.

Nesta didn't know if everything was going to be alright, but as she got up and climbed up the walls of that hole in her mind, as she picked up every good and bad thing that had happened in her life, as she accepted that thing between them, as she reached the top, where Cassian was waiting for her hopefully, she didn't realize that there was something, someone at the bottom. Someone who was trying to scream and get noticed by her.

And the more Nesta cried in Cassian's arms - the more the Nesta in her mind went up and up - the more she lost herself.

Nesta reached the gate, accepting this new challenge that life was presenting her with, without realizing that she was leaving everything she believed in at the bottom of that well.

acotar taglist (if you want to be added or removed just send me an ask or dm me)

@sjm-things @kris10maas @awesomelena555 @sannelovesreading @queenamydien29 @ireallyshouldsleeprn @messyhairday-me @ncssian @observationanxioustheorist @my-fan-side @booksstorm @maastrash @sayosdreams @thedarkdemigod @courtofjurdan @thewayshedreamed @ladywitchling @nahthanks @archeron-queen @sleeping-and-books @bri-loves-sunflowers @thegoddessofyou @ghostlyrose2 @claralady @queenestarcheron

[mylivejournalsucks]

how i quit drinking

hiii. k, so i talked about quitting drinking in my AMA's and got a lot of questions/curious vibes so i thought i would expand a bit.

i had a pretty "normal" relationship with drinking until a few years ago when i started drinking more at home. it became very common to split a bottle of wine, which would invariably sometimes turn into a bottle of wine solo every night. it was slow and insidious, which makes sense because alcohol is progressive. it's very common to drink more, little by little, and then before you know it, you're in what feels like quicksand and can't dig yourself out.  eventually i became accustomed to going through life with a mid-grade hangover. my work and relationships didn't suffer which, in a way, made it harder for me to acknowledge there was even a problem. alcoholism, to me, was synonymous with burning your life to the ground but here I was! still an ultra productive Virgo getting shit done so I'm fine, right?

we don't have the language or nuance to describe what constitutes as a drinking problem.  it's very binary: you either have an issue or you don't. but i would argue that a lot of people exist in the grey; they don't like their relationship with alcohol so they try to scale back. maybe it works for awhile but eventually they find themselves right back where they started. that was very much my pattern. i'd go through booze heavy periods, chill out so i could gain an illusion of control, and then start back all over again. it was exhausting. i was constantly disappointed in myself. why couldn't i go back to the way i used to drink? i survived a painkiller addiction, getting hit by a car....but somehow, i can't restrict myself to two drinks?! rude.

quitting drinking altogether seemed psycho. i mean, our culture worships at the altar of booze. WE ARE OBSESSED. it's sewn into the fabric of our society. we can't imagine parties or vacations without it. pasta without a glass of red? babe, no. alcohol is the only drug where you get judged for NOT doing it. it's unhinged!! (this is probs because it forces people to look at their own relationship with alcohol, which can be LOL levels of terrifying.)

then the pandemi hit and all my probs with alcohol were suddenly in HD. I was drinking more and more, not even getting drunk because my tolerance was so high. every day i'd make a promise not to drink and then 5pm would roll around and the thought of not unwinding with a glass of something legit terrified me so i would. it was so depressing and also so boring!!! every day had the same flat blank quality to it. it felt like i was stuck in the world's least compelling groundhog's day.

six months earlier, i bought a book recommended by edith zimmerman at the cut called how to quit drinking by allen carr. i didn't read it at first—i wasn't ready— so i just put it on my bookshelf and waited for it to be like, "PICK ME UP, BITCH!"

my "rock bottom" was unremarkable. i had dinner, drank a bottle of wine, felt barely buzzed. i went to bed and was jolted awake at 3am with a hangover. this wasn't uncommon. it'd happen a few times a week and every time i'd wake up and be like, "okay, this needs to stop. tomorrow is the day i make real changes." then i would fall asleep, wake up, and forget all the honest feelings i had felt earlier.

but this time was different. i went on my phone and read more articles from edith zimmerman about her sobriety. i came across an interview she did with annie grace who wrote a book called This Naked Mind. curious, i read the first few pages. her opener was literally her talking about how, when she was drinking, she'd jolt awake in the middle of the night hungover and be honest with herself about the state of her drinking. then she would fall asleep, Men In Black memory erase that honesty, and wake up repeating the same cycle. L-OL. DRAG ME, BABY!

it was witchy reading someone articulate my exact reality. it was also confirmation that i did have a problem. it might not be a problem that was causing me to lose my job or put my life in danger but it was a problem. i woke up the next day, committed to not pushing those thoughts out of my head like i usually did, and read allen carr's book and annie grace's book. i haven't drank since.

in essence, both their books dismantle our collective belief that alcohol is amazing, that it is a necessary part of our life, and to be without it would be a chore and less fun. these books are basically like, "actually, babe, alcohol is a scam and here's why." they articulate alcohol's effect on the body and the brain (spoiler: it's not good, hon....) but they don't do it in a scare tactics kind of way. it's very matter-of-fact and driven by science. IDK, it just fucking clicked for me. granted, the book wasn't some magic trick. i had to get to the point where i was ready to change. edith zimmerman said something like, "i no longer believed in alcohol and what it purported to do for me so it was time to take out that belief system and replace it with something new."

the key for me was seeing alcohol for what it is; literally poison. when i did dry january, there would always be a moment when out to dinner, i'd want a glass of wine but then i would use my willpower and white knuckle my way through it. the craving would pass and i'd be so grateful i abstained but there was still this feeling of "awwww,..wine...that would've been nice." now i'm like "ew, get that away from me." i'm truly nauseated by the smell of alcohol now.

everyone's journey to sobriety is different. a lot of my friends got sober working a program and doing AA, which is amazing. this is just what worked for me. i was hesitant to share this shit because it's not a traditional path and i haven't been sober for a large amount of time. but fuck it. if one person reads this and is moved towards sobriety, it's worth it.

[rorykillmore]

and this fic is for @propheticnightwing ! who let me have free range of what i wanted to write for her. i had to think about it for awhile because we’ve had so many wonderful dynamics over the years, but... i think one of the most defining and special to us is sly and carmelita. so i wrote a christmas fic for them! i also decided to do something a little different and set it in the midst of sly 2 because i love that game and i feel like it’s a really interesting, relatively unexplored time in sly and carmelita’s relationship.

also weirdly, this is the one fic that i felt compelled to write in past tense instead of present tense? idk why, it just felt right

but anyway fate, thank you so much for another wonderful year of our friendship. i know that this one has been particularly rough for you for far too many reasons and while i wish and hope things get better, it always kind of awes me how even when you have so much going on you always manage to reach out to me and make me smile. i’m speaking 2019 into an existence as a year that will hold good things for you and also many more meaningful rps, fun hangouts, and rounds of Hollywood Talk for us!! thank you for being there for me all these years. i really mean that.

“Enjoying the ambiance? You know, there’s a great view of the northern lights that’s only about a ten minute climb from here.”

 “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for a view from a prison cell.”

There was nothing like being up north for the holidays! Or something. Sly figured he probably should’ve been feeling festive - and granted, he was cautiously optimistic about the gang having plenty to celebrate just now, with the Contessa arrested and Neyla evaded - it was just.

It was a little bit challenging to get into the holiday spirit when he was freezing his tail off and trudging through what felt like several feet of snow. And he was the one member of the gang who actually had fur.

“How you holdin’ up there, Murray?” he asked on cue, watching from his vantage point atop the sheer ice-and-rock formation he was settled on as the hippo worked to haul the satellite equipment they needed onto the back of one of Jean Bison’s biplanes.

“Righteous,” huffed Murray over the comms. 

“Not too cold down there?”

“I’m heated by the fire of my unrelenting determination, Sly!”

Sly couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Bentley’s voice crackled to life next over the line -- he was working from the van, so he’d lucked out this time around. One of the perks of being the team’s tech support, Sly supposed. “Just make sure no one gets the drop on him, Sly. Installing this equipment undetected is the very crux of this operation.” 

“I got it covered,” Sly assured him, adjusting the range on his Binocucom and scanning Murray’s surroundings just in case. Still nothing but empty, snowy wilderness. “You’re gonna let us know whether or not it actually works, right?”

“Affirmative. If everything goes according to plan, it should be fairly evident, fairly quickly. The next time Bison touches base with Arpeggio, I’ll be able to track their line of communication...”

“And we’ll be able to keep tabs on Arpeggio’s blimp,” Sly finished for him, unable to keep the eager edge out of his tone. “Nice.”

“And then maybe we can all go out for hot chocolate, or something,” Murray suggested. “I might have been exaggerating a little about the fires of determination part.”

Admittedly, it would have been a little more convenient for all of them if Jean Bison had chosen somewhere other than the rugged Canadian north for his base of operations, but maybe that would’ve defeated the whole point. It was fine, Sly assured himself. Everything had gone (almost shockingly) according to plan up until now. All they had to do was secure the rest of Bison’s Clockwerk parts, snag whichever ones Arpeggio had nestled away on his airship, and then the gang could finally take a well-earned vacation.

Just as he’d started to actually let himself feel relieved at the prospect, of course, something went wrong. Almost on schedule.

“Murray?” Sly murmured, suddenly snapping his attention and adjusting the Binocucom to hone in on the glimpse of movement he’d spotted in his peripheral vision. “Might wanna pick up the pace, pal. I don’t think you’re alone out here anymore.”

“What is it, some of Bison’s guards? I can probably take ‘em.”

“Nooot quite.”  Sly swallowed, taking in the (even from here) unmistakable features of the Interpol officer they all knew and loved.

Well. Former Interpol officer. And he guessed ‘loved’ might have been kind of debatable, depending on which member of the team you asked.

“Inspector Fox!” Bentley groaned, obviously having tapped into the Binocucom’s visual feed. “This is going to turn dire. Murray, how close are you to having all that stuff packed up?”

“Uhhhh....”  Obviously Murray was not quite as confident about facing off against Carmelita than he had been about taking on a half a dozen armed flashlight guards. “Gimme just -- another second --” 

Sly watched anxiously as he hauled the last piece of equipment on board and then scrambled for the pilot’s seat.  “She’s gonna hear the engine. I’m going in for a diversion.”

“Sly-- !” Bentley started to warn, but Sly was already on the move, making his way quickly down the rock wall with the help of his cane. He took the last few meters of his descent in a precarious leap, landing with a soft thump on the ground below and sinking a few feet further into the snow below him than he’d planned.

Predictably, the scuffle didn’t evade Carmelita’s attention. She rounded on him almost instantly, and Sly gave her what he hoped was a charming smile, trying to seem undaunted under the heat of her surprised, angry, (beautiful) amber eyes.

“Cooper!” she growled, her ears flattening.

“Inspector,” Sly greeted as pleasantly as he could, holding his hands up carefully in the air (although he wasn’t entirely convinced that would keep her from shooting him, at this point).  “Enjoying the ambiance? You know, there’s a great view of the northern lights that’s only about a ten minute climb from here.”

She leveled her shock pistol on him dangerously.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for a view from a prison cell.”

“And here I was enjoying us actually being on the same side, for awhile.” Sly tried to figure out whether there was a subtle way to free his feet from the powdery snow they were now caked in. In all honestly, he hadn’t actually expected Carmelita to give up chasing him just because she was currently on the outs with the law -- her standards weren’t that flexible, even if Interpol’s apparently were. But it was as good a stalling tactic as any.

“You know as well as I do that bringing in you and your gang is the obvious way to clear my name.” She kept her gaze locked on him, and Sly didn’t dare move quite yet.

“Only because Neyla set us up,” he pointed out instead. Maybe it had been the wrong thing to say -- something flashed in Carmelita’s eyes that was a little less guarded, a little more raw. “Wouldn’t it be more satisfying if you got your job back because you exposed her? We could take her down together. -- You’d get the credit, obviously.”

As focused as he was on making sure Murray had time to get out of there, the offer was sincere. Still, he was a little surprised when she actually seemed to hesitate. “I don’t see what you or your gang stand to gain from having me reinstated.”

“Maybe nothing,” Sly admitted freely.  “But does it matter? You’re a good cop. We both know it. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and Neyla doesn’t deserve to get away with it.”

He tried to radiate nothing but sincerity at her. He knew Bentley would gripe at him later - or pretend to - about how helping Carmelita time and time again only ensured that their jobs were that much more complicated, and their lives that much more dangerous. But in spite of it all -- Sly knew Bentley respected her too. And he knew he’d agree (begrudgingly) that clearing Carmelita’s name was the right thing to do.

So he watched her hopefully. Maybe he wasn’t imagine the way she wavered, or how her expression seemed to soften, if only a fraction.  For a second, Sly almost even thought she was going to lower the pistol.

But then her resolve turned to steel, and she was sizing him up again.

“If I want to clear my name, I have to prove I’m not willing to resort to the same tactics as she was. No matter what the cost.”  Carmelita took a slow step toward him.  “Working with a criminal just makes me look like a hypocrite.”

Sly wanted to say something else, even if the words hadn’t fully formed in his mind yet -- but then the unmistakable rumble of a plane engine broke the comparative silence of the wilderness around them. Murray had finally gotten the biplane up and running.

It startled Carmelita enough that she spun around, maybe having judged the noise to be closer than it was and deeming it a threat, and with a slight pang of remorse, Sly knew he had to take his chance.

He just hoped it wouldn’t make his earlier sentiments seem any less sincere.

Hauling himself up and out of the snow suddenly, he turned and made a run for it, making the snap decision that scaling the rock wall again was a more sure way to lose her than risking an open pursuit across the tundra. He’d made it up a few meters out of her reach by the time she’d turned and pinpointed exactly where he’d gone -- a moment he recognized for what it was when he heard a resounding, enraged, “Cooper!”

Now came the hard part. Sly sprung again, latching onto a higher crevice with his cane and using it to haul himself further up -- and that was when the first blast from the shock pistol collided with the wall, narrowly missing him.  Dodge and climb. He’d done it before. Was practically an expert at it, by now. The trick was to never stay in one place for more than a second -- so he sprung again, and then again, trying to make his ascent wildly unpredictable. Once or twice, the shock pistol blasts came so close that he felt the heat singe his fur -- but then he was up, all the way up, scrambling away from the cliff’s ledge.

He only risked pausing for a second to glance back at her. And he kind of wished he hadn’t -- the look on her face wasn’t as funny as it usually was whenever he managed to slip away from her. And even knowing that not all of her current anger and hurt was directed at him didn’t make Sly feel much better.

He slipped away before she got the chance to gauge what to do next.

“Everything okay, Murray?” Sly asked over the comms once he’d had a few heartbeats to compose himself.  

“Me and the supplies are airborne!” Murray affirmed immediately. “What about you? You get away from Inspector Fox okay?”

Sly hoped his slight pause wasn’t noticeable. “Five by five, pal. I’m headed back to the safehouse now.”

“That was pretty crazy, Sly.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Offering her Neyla was a smart move,” Bentley cut in reasonably, though Sly could tell from the slight edge to his voice that he was a little ruffled.  “Too bad she didn’t take you up on it.”

Sly contemplated staying silent -- but he knew if he let this weigh on him, it would probably sour things.  “I dunno, guys. I feel pretty bad for her. Her reputation’s in shambles all over some false charges, she narrowly avoided being brainwashed by a psychiatric maniac, she’s stranded out in the frigid middle of nowhere for the holidays -- and now every time we slip away from her just feels like another slap in the face.”

There was a moment of awkward silence on Bentley and Murray’s end.

“So... what are you suggesting, Sly? That you turn yourself in?” Bentley was clearly struggling not to sound dubious.

“No! Look, I know that’s not an option.” Even if he would’ve considered it under different circumstances - couldn’t hurt to turn himself in as long as he had a plan to break back out, right? - he knew the stakes were too high now to take a detour like that.  “I just... I dunno. I feel like we should do something nice for her.”

“‘Nice’?” Bentley still sounded doubtful.

“I think it’s a cool idea,” Murray put forward his vote of confidence. “I know Inspector Fox is, like... scary, and stuff, but I never wanted her to get hurt! But what can we do all the way out here?”

Sly didn’t answer right away.  In fact, it was a few moments before the answer came to him -- cheesy and, well, slightly crazy as it was.

“Can you guys do me a favor when you get back?” he asked suddenly.  “Just -- go into town and see what you can scrounge in the way of Christmas supplies, or anything like that. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“What are you planning, Sly?” Bentley asked slowly.

It would’ve taken too long to explain - and then convince them - so Sly only responded, “I won’t be long. Promise.”

But he changed his course as he spoke, wondering if he’d be able to gauge which direction Carmelita had gone in if he headed back to the cliff. Would she have tried to follow him, or given it up as a lost cause and gone back to... wherever she was staying?

He’d just have to hope it was the latter. He had some tracking to do.

It’d been a day and a half since Cooper had slipped away. Again. Not that she’d been counting. 

(She was trying to ignore the date in general, actually -- the inescapable fact that it was Christmas Eve was neither improving her mood or making her feel very festive.)

More often than not, Carmelita worked holidays anyway, if she was being honest with herself. It wasn’t like most criminals took the day off, and her family was far enough away to make visiting difficult unless she wanted to take a few days.

But there was something about this year that just felt sad.

Maybe it was the obvious fact that she’d lost her job, or had been framed by her partner for a conspiracy she’d had no part in. Or the reality that she’d missed her chance to catch the thief she’d practically spent her career hunting, yet again.

Hardest of all to admit was that it would have almost been nice to have his company, even if he technically would’ve been in her custody.

Scratch that. Hardest of all to admit was that she’d been tempted to take him up on his offer. That she was still sitting here, in the pitifully empty cabin she’d been stowing away in, questioning his sincerity.

Sincere or not, she knew she couldn’t have given him any other answer. Having her integrity damaged for her was bad enough, she couldn’t damage it herself. And yet.

Well, she was going in circles. Carmelita knew herself well enough to know that the only cure for that was finding some way to keep herself busy. So she rose to her feet, eyeing her coat and shock pistol where she’d hung them both by the door.

And then something thunked bluntly against one of the cabin windows. She tensed suddenly, her ears trained on the noise.

After another moment, it happened again, and this time she caught what had made the impact: snow.  Some idiot was throwing snowballs at her cabin! 

It was the stretch of long, bad days all stacked up rather than this one small thing, but Carmelita skipped the coat, snatched her shock pistol off the hook on the wall, and stormed out into the crisp winter evening.  “If this is one of you thugs’ idea of a joke --”

But it wasn’t Bison’s goons.

It was Cooper.

Tossing another snowball in one gloved hand, wearing a smirk so audacious that she had to stop and process his goddamn nerve.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he said to break the silence.  “Couldn’t let you spend it alone.”

Maybe if she’d stopped to think for a few minutes - maybe - she might have found the whole thing odd. It was reckless, even for Sly, to seek her out and provoke her with no warning or apparent cause.

But Carmelita didn’t have a few minutes.

What she’d had was a very bad past couple of days.

And it seemed he wasn’t going to let her stand around and dwell on it. He threw the snowball - it missed by a foot or so, Carmelita couldn’t say whether he’d actually intended for it to hit or not - and then he was tearing off into the night.

She found her voice again. A snarl. “You picked the wrong night to piss me off, raccoon.”

And then she was on his tail.

He’d planned this. She was sure of that now, although to what end she had yet to find out. Probably he and his gang had needed her distracted for some job they were pulling off, and she’d been stupid enough to take the bait.

That much had been clear when he’d led her on a wild goose chase for almost forty five minutes, with no apparent escape route in mind.  It wasn’t Cooper’s M.O. He had all sorts of places to duck into and hide around here, she was sure, but instead he’d kept her running for the better part of an hour.

By the time she’d figured out what was up, she feared it was probably too late to stop whatever Bentley and Murray had no doubt been up to all this time. But she also had to admit to herself, however furiously, that she couldn’t do any deeper investigation into the matter in this weather without her coat, so she’d eventually stormed back to her cabin, angry enough to spit hellfire.

She’d conjured a number of scenarios in her head by the time she arrived. The gang had pulled off a train robbery. Or they’d tracked down Jean Bison and robbed him directly. Or they’d gone for one of the local sawmills, for whatever asinine reason -- supplies?

The one possibility she’d discounted as absolutely too ridiculous, too idiotic even for them, was that their target had been her. And yet she was practically at her cabin door when Murray came bursting out of it, with Bentley scrambling frantically in his wake.

“Get a move on, Murray, Sly said we had five minutes -- five minutes ago --”

They saw her in that exact moment, and froze at the same time she did.

“Sly,” Bentley spoke slowly, presumably into his communications earpiece.  “We’ve, uh. We’ve got a problem.”

Carmelita stopped him there, raising her pistol again. “Not another word.”

“But Inspector --”

“This is low, even for you morons. Hands where I can see them.”

Bentley and Murray exchanged a very awkward glance, and then slowly lifted their hands into the air.

“Hey, look, we can explain --”  Murray started, but Carmelita cut him off with a look.

“Step into the cabin. And then you’re going to give back whatever you possibly decided was valuable enough to be worth all this trouble before I put you in handcuffs.”

Neither of them moved for a moment. She took a step forward, eyes narrowed.  “Now.”

Very slowly, Bentley turned - and then Murray after them - and they filed rather miserably into the cabin. As they should, Carmelita thought bitterly. She braced herself to take in whatever ransacking of the place they’d done (really, it wasn’t like she was keeping valuables out here, what had even been the point) before she followed them inside.

-- Was it brighter in here than when she’d left, or were her eyes still adjusting?

It took a moment to process that the extra light was coming from the sprawling, decorated Christmas tree in the corner. And the icicle lights strewn haphazardly around the frames of the cabin’s two windows. 

Purely out of shock, Carmelita lowed her weapon a fraction as she took in the rest of the scene in front of her.

It wasn’t just the tree, or the lights -- a small pile of presents had been bundled at the trunk of the former. A (kind of ugly, hand-knit) stocking had been hung from the fireplace, and on the table was a large plate of --

-- Holiday cookies?

“They’re store-bought,” Murray commented a little sadly, noticing where her gaze had gone.  “We couldn’t get all the ingredients we needed to make ‘em from scratch. But they’re really good! -- Not that I, uh. Tried one already.”

“I knitted the stocking, though,” Bentley provided helpfully.

Carmelita wasn’t sure what to say. She took it all in wordlessly for another moment.  “You broke into my cabin.  To decorate it for Christmas.”  She wasn’t sure if that made them even more stupid than she’d originally thought or not.  “ -- Why?”

Murray and Bentley exchanged another look before Bentley tried fumbling out an answer. “Because... ah... because...”

“It was Sly’s idea!” Murray blurted. Bentley elbowed him sharply.

For all her training and experience, Carmelita forgot momentarily that she was meant to be keeping her eyes - and her weapon - on the criminals. Her arms suddenly felt heavy enough that she had to lower them to her sides. Sly? 

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, managing to sound more suspicious than confused.

Bentley seemed resigned to the explanation, at that point, so Murray continued, “We were supposed to be out of here before you showed up, but uh... I guess Sly couldn’t keep you fooled as long as he thought.”

“He usually can’t,” Bentley put in dryly.

“But he felt bad about the other day, and the whole thing with the Contessa, and he said he thought you deserve something nice for Christmas.  ...We all did, I guess.”

Carmelita felt her cheeks warm underneath her fur. For a moment, all she could do was stare at the pair of them, not quite fully processing the reality of the situation. She knew she hadn’t exactly made the Cooper gang’s lives easy, now or... ever  - not that they deserved to have it easy, when they were thieving criminals - and yet they had gone out of their way to do all of this for her.

Sly had done all of this for her.

She couldn’t understand it.

“Why?” she asked again, because it felt like the only thing she could say.

This time a new voice answered. “Didn’t I tell you once that being on opposite sides of the law didn’t make us enemies?”

She whirled around, and her first, exasperated thought was Why do people keep waltzing into my cabin like they own the place? But even that was banished quickly from her mind when she saw Sly standing in front of her, once again.

This time, Carmelita wasn’t quite sure how to feel.

“Sorry for giving you such a hard time earlier.” Sly scratched behind his neck awkwardly, evidently a little fidgety in the wake of her silence. “We needed a way to get you out of the cabin for awhile, and... provoking you seemed like the easiest plan, I guess?”

Carmelita swallowed. “I can see why Bentley usually does the planning.”

Behind her, Bentley snorted briefly, and Sly even managed half a sheepish looking grin. Carmelita paused another moment. “If you think this means I won’t chase you anymore --”

“Didn’t even cross my mind,” Sly assured her lightly.  “Our lives wouldn’t be nearly as exciting without you. Just -- you deserve the night off. It’s Christmas Eve. Maybe for a little while, things don’t have to be so terrible.”

The shock pistol was starting to feel heavy and awkward in Carmelita’s hand. She laid her ears back against her head and considered him for awhile, almost overwhelmed by the sincerity in his warm brown eyes. She wasn’t oblivious, of course. Sly had flirted with her before, but she’d always assumed that was just... Sly. And there’d been the kiss they shared back in Russia, but Carmelita had told herself that was a ruse to ensure that he and his friends escaped -- mostly so she didn’t think about it so much afterwards.

Considering the possibility that what Sly felt for her was more serious than that had always been too dangerous. And considering the possibility that she returned those feelings had always felt too stupid. But who did something like this for someone they only considered a friendly rival at best?

At length, Bentley cleared his throat awkwardly to break the silence, and Murray added uncertainly, “We, uh... should we leave?”

Carmelita glanced back at them. And then she shifted her gaze forward to meet Sly’s again, hesitating. She could see the same question in his eyes.

“Tomorrow,” she said finally, “We all go back to doing our jobs.” Gingerly, but gaining confidence with every passing second, she took a step towards Sly. Then another. He tensed just slightly, and she paused.  “...But tonight, I think we could all use a break. Why don’t you boys stay.  ...For a little while, anyway.”

Sly’s ears lifted, and a smile started to spread across his face. Carmelita found herself returning it. Briefly - carefully - she lifted one gloved hand and touched the side of his face.  “Thank you,” she added more quietly.

Her hand dropped, but Sly’s smile didn’t.

“In that case,” Murray started jovially. “Who wants cookies?”

“There’s uh -- also a few presents for you,” Bentley provided, still sounding slightly apprehensive. “One from each of us.”

Carmelita half-turned towards the tree, unable to keep from eyeing it almost dubiously.  “Should I be afraid?”

“Only a little,” Sly assured easily.  “And -- hey, if you wanna pretend to be distracted for a few more minutes, we can put up some finishing touches. Maybe, say, mistletoe... ?”

Murray sounded like he might have choked on his cookie, and Bentley rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses.  Carmelita, for her part, made a show of rolling her eyes, but she couldn’t quite keep the smile off her face.

“Don’t push your luck, ringtail.”

[terriblesportsimagines]

Lmao Idk I just thought of something dumb of miyuki and or kuramochi sending memes to their gf maybe you can do a hc or scenario Idk I love this blog I just wanted you to do it XD

Okay, I have to say, I fucking love this ask.  At first I was like “Damn it, this will be hard…” but it ended up being fun. 

Miyuki came out a little angsty, but Mochi’s is one of the most favorite things I’ve written.

Also, I wrote this just assuming that they would know western memes because of course I don’t speak Japanese so researching Japanese memes is too time consuming.  Benefit of the doubt lovelies!

Miyuki Kazuya

You don’t know what you were expecting.  You knew yourboyfriend, and knew he was an idiot troll.  Still, you’d asked a seriousquestion, one would think you could expect at least a somewhat seriousresponse.  But nope, when you swiped your phone to unlock it to read thewaiting message, you saw only a really stupid image of a stick figure making aface, the worst kind of meme.  You instantly rolled your eyes and groundyour teeth.

He’d been doing it all day.  Honestly, you didn’t evenknow how he found the time to find all the damn memes, because he should bepracticing.  And yet, he replied to all your messages in good time, betterthan normal even, though he not actually replied to a single thing you said.

You were starting to lose your patience with him.  Youknew exactly why he was doing it too.  You were trying to get him tocommit to meeting your parents during the Golden Week break and he kept puttingyou off.  It was pretty classic Miyuki tactic of avoidance.  Hedidn’t want to do it, or was scared to do it, but also didn’t want to actuallysay no and upset you.  It was like he thought that you didn’t realize thatwas exactly what he was doing.

You’re the worst.  If you don’t want to go just sayso.   You typed and hit send before going back to what you weredoing.

Sometime later you opened your messaging app to see apicture of an American actor holding up a wine glace, a smirk on his face withblurry fireworks in the background.  You were familiar with this meme,despite its western origin and it made your eye twitch.  He was basicallysaying Congratulations on recognizing the obvious.

Well, fine, if he was going to be like that, then you’d meethis pseudo silence with real silence and see how he liked it. Bloody jackass. 

God, sometimes you just wanted to punch him in his perfectface.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to notice that youwere ignoring and/or avoiding him.  To be fair, he was busy with thespring prefecture tournament and trying to rally the team after their thirdround loss in Senbatsu, but still.  You felt like a boy should at leastrealize when his girlfriend was suddenly missing from his life.  Maybe youreally didn’t mean that much to him, and that was a depressing thought.

When he finally caught up, having realized your ire, it was four days later and he had to corner you in the hall duringlunch.  “You’re mad I don’t want to meet you parents.” He stated, a frownon his handsome face, his body blocking out all others in front of you.

Considering it took him four days to even realize you wereupset with him, you weren’t overly surprised he hadn’t figured out why youwere upset.  “That’s not why I’m mad,” you replied, closing youreyes. 

“But you are mad, at me,” Miyuki retorted, lips twisting andeyes reflecting concern.  “If that’s not it then why-”

You weren’t the type to play games, he’d gotten your messageand now you would be straight with him.  “Kazuya, if you’re not ready totake that step, that’s okay, I understand.  But tell me that. Deflecting me with stupid memes just makes me question the validity of ourwhole relationship.”

His eyes widened, then a second later darted away, hisshoulders rounding just a bit.  “Sorry,” he bit out like it was pullingteeth, and it probably was, because he had trouble with apologies andmeaningful emotions.  “I… didn’t know how to respond and I… didn’t want tohurt your feelings.”

“Well, mission not accomplished.  You know itbothers me when I’m serious and you aren’t.” You sighed, overwhelmed by theurge to touch him.  Your fingers searched out and skimmed along his belt,comforting yourself and maybe him.

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly.  “I… can’t.”

The guilt and shame was written all over his body, and ithad you reaching.  Despite the fact that you were in the middle of thehall at lunch, you wrapped your arms around his waist and hugged him. “It’s okay, Kazuya, I get it.  There’s no rush.”

He had no real problem with public displays of affection,though he still tensed when you initiated.  This time, however, he justreached back, gathering you against his chest and burying his face into yourhair.  “You really didn’t like my memes?  I’m hurt, ____-chan~” Hemurmured, a decidedly wicked edge to his tone.

“You really are the worst.” You replied, though there was asmile on your face as your cheek touched his collar bone.  “If I ever seeanother meme from you we’re over.”

Miyuki laughed.  “Sure~”

Kuramochi Youichi

When your phone went off the first time you weren’texpecting much.  You got texts all the time, and though you weren’tcarrying on any current conversations there was nothing to say your friends orfamily couldn’t start one.  You weren’t even surprised when yourboyfriend’s name popped up when you looked at it.

He was in a different class, so it wasn’t uncommon for himto text you during breaks, especially if had been a couple of days sinceyou’d been able to get together.  Opening the message, you realized it wasan image, which you opened quickly.  The second you saw it and read it yousnorted loudly and laughed, earning weird looks from your classmates.  Itwas a comic meme with poorly drawn faces, one male and one ‘female’ with blondhair and a pink bow.  Girlfriend seems to be in a weird mood… thefirst panel said over the male face.  Then in the second, Babe are youokay? Said the male face, Yeah, I’m fine said the female.  Thelast panel was the female turning into a weird blue faced, sharp toothed trollwith a curling mustache, I’m actually upset about many things that I willhold against you without you knowing!!

It was very hard not to laugh hysterically.  It hadbeen a few days since you’d been able to spend any time together, so the jokewas on point and extra amusing. 

Compelled to reply, you did a quick internet search andfound a meme you liked – an American actor in an 80s movie with fluffy hair anda confused and horrified expression, When my boyfriend can’t understand whyI’m mad.

You could practically hear your boyfriend’s cackle from aclass away.  It was pretty distinctive, but he was loud.  It made yougrin and wait in anticipation for his response.

It came surprisingly quickly.  The picture popped up onyour phone a couple of minutes later.  It was a picture of the weird fishalien from Star Wars and read It’s a trap!

Giggling like a mad woman, you did another search and cameup with the common meme Overly Obsessed Girlfriend.  This one read, I don’tlike to blink because I miss you when I don’t see you.

His reply was a picture of the main character from Futuramanarrowing his eyes.  Not sure if actually a good girlfriend or just agood liar.

“Are you okay?” One of your classmates asked you as yourshoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter.

“Yeah,” you replied.   I have the bestboyfriend.  Your heart thrummed with affection for your silly boy.

Time was running out so your meme-war was going to have tocome to an end.  But you were determined to win it and found exactly thememe to do that.  It was the baby making the achievement fist meme and itread, Dream about having the most amazing boyfriend, wake up and rememberyou do.

The bell rang, thus ending the break so you put away yourphone, still smiling and feeling really good about the rest of the day. It was a little harder to concentrate than normal, mostly because you keptthinking of Kuramochi’s grinning face, but that was okay.  It was a goodenough feeling that you didn’t even mind.

Lunch time finally hit and you stood up from your desk,wondering if you should try to find your boyfriend.  You really did misshim after all.

As it turned out, you didn’t even have time for that much,because a second after you stood up he was there, filling up the doorway toyour classroom, eyes shining under the artificial lights.  “___-chan!” Heshouted, grinning so wide it split his face in two.

You took less than three steps in his direction before hewas in front of you, picking you up and swinging you around, completelyheedless to your classmates who stared and giggled.  “Mochi!” Youcomplained half-heartedly, the effect ruined by giggles.

“Ah, sweetheart,” Kuramochi sighed happily, hugging youtightly.  “I adore ya, ya know?”

You smiled and cuddled as close as you can get.  “Rightback at you~”