#i unfortunately wake up at least once or twice during the night for brief moments and tbis is what I used my moment of consciousness on

[chaoticas-hell]

Fun fact- I woke up in the middle of the night (sadly a common occurrence) thought "Kevin Day is Bi" then immediately passed out again

[mercy-burning]

Losing You Twice / 1: If I Hated You

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and it turns out Y/N isn’t the only one struggling with the breakup. Category: Smut (18+), Angst Content Warnings: Language, drinking/getting drunk, penetrative/unprotected sex (If I missed anything, please let me know!) Word Count: 5,538

SERIES MASTERLIST | MASTERLIST

“My bedtime is the darkest, that’s when I’m brokenhearted. The nighttime is the hardest. It’d be easy, if I hated you.” —FLETCHER, If I Hated You

FEBRUARY 13th

It was Valentine's Day weekend, which sucked this time around. Every year for the past three years Y/N looked forward to Valentine's Day, but that was when she actually had someone to spend it with.

Well, someone she actually cared about, anyway... Whether or not Spencer actually knew it, she did really care about him. She was just stupid and didn't say it when he needed to hear it the most.

And now Valentine's Day was on Saturday and Y/N was still without him. Not alone, but still without the man who'd spent the significant holiday with her for the past three years. Memories of their dates and 'afterparties' flooded through her mind as she got ready for work like a montage, a cheesy love-song playlist she'd found on Spotify acting as the soundtrack.

Eventually she sighed and turned it off, opting for something more loud and obnoxious, and therefore not tainted by Spencer's memory. She applied what was left of her makeup and added a pair of earrings before turning the music off altogether and shoving her phone in her bag alongside her keys and other necessities.

Even though she wasn't emotionally prepared for all the cheesy Valentine's things she'd see and hear and experience throughout the weekend, it was still kind of nice to see that things in the bank never changed during the holidays— Everything in her life was so severely different at the moment, that if Marjorie had somehow decided to throw out all her elaborate decorations for each holiday, no matter how small, Y/N would have thought the world was truly ending.

Speaking of, she was met with Marjorie's brighter-than-the-sun smile almost immediately once she set her things in the breakroom.

"How's my little macaron this morning?" she chirped, Y/N chuckling slightly at the nickname— She brought macarons from the bakery down the street on her first birthday she spent at the bank, and ever since then, the older woman had adorned her with the namesake.

"She's alright, Marj... Better now that she's seen you..."

"That boy still on your mind, hon?"

Obviously Marjorie's intentions were good, but Y/N couldn't stand to think about the situation at all, least of all at work... So, setting her jacket on the rack, turned away so that her coworker wouldn't see the visible discomfort on her face, Y/N squeezed her eyes shut and cleared her throat. "So, what are your plans with Geno tomorrow night? Anything special?"

There was a brief pause before Marjorie cleared her throat as well. "Nothing short of our usual dinner plans, my dear. He's been so caught up with work at the Mill lately, I think we're just going to spend the night relaxing."

"Hm," Y/N said shortly, finally turning around and giving her the best smile she could. "Maybe I should take a page from your book and stay in..."

"You weren't going to?"

"No... Britt's been nagging me about getting out there so we're going out tomorrow night. We both haven't been single in a long time, so... Should be fun."

Marjorie didn't look convinced. Either way, she nodded with a smile and walked over to Y/N with something glittery and bright red in her hand— A cheap beaded necklace to clip her nametag onto. She draped it over Y/N's neck and patted her shoulders. "Well, I want you to have fun. And remember that you still have to come to work on Monday. Whatever shenanigans you get into should be reserved for Saturday night only so you can rest properly on Sunday, got it?"

Y/N laughed, thankful for the playful tone in Marjorie's voice. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Oh, I joke, I joke," the older woman said with a bright laugh, turning to walk out of the break room. "A little..."

The smile on Y/N's face only really lasted until after Marjorie was out of sight, then she went into her bag and clipped her nametag onto the red beaded necklace with a sigh.

Was she excited to have a good night out with Britt? Of course. Hell, had it been literally any other day of the year, she would have been practically bouncing off the walls with excitement at the idea of going out to a bar, letting men hit on her until she finally let one of them take her back to his place for the night.

But it just felt like it was too soon.

Either way, she was glad that she'd get to see Britt again, after she'd been on vacation for Christmas and New Year's to see her family and only got back a few weeks ago. She'd seen her on Facetime of course, and they met up once for coffee right after Britt got back from her trip, but a well-needed night out and quality time getting ready together was something that had been missing from their friendship for almost a year.

Y/N knew Britt would most likely spend her time trying to hook them up with end-of-the-night dates, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad...

Even still, sleeping alone the night before was probably one of the worst spells of loneliness she'd ever had. It was normal to be sad spending the first Valentine's Day in years away from a significant other, but knowing how things ended between them—bitter and stained with words left unsaid—this time was just... cold.

And that was putting it lightly.

Y/N laid in bed that night, her eyes wide open and staring at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars that adorned the ceiling. They used to give her comfort, but now they just reminded her of all the nights she'd spend with Spencer, listening to him tell stories about the constellations. They were some of the most peaceful memories she had.

And now those, too—those stars that had grounded her pretty much all her life and reminded her of the better days—were tainted by her inability to properly communicate.

She almost thought about taking them down.

But if she was really going to get over him this time, for good, then she'd have to learn to make new memories with the stars. Even if it was painful. Even if replacing those memories and writing new ones over them absolutely tore her soul to pieces.

And, as if that pain wasn't enough, that night Y/N dreamt of him, making love to her amongst the stars in every galaxy, only to wake up the next morning cold and alone.

FEBRUARY 14th

She promptly decided that she hated his guts.

It was Valentine's Day, Y/N was respectfully buzzed, and courtesy of two beers and four shots of tequila, she'd just deleted Spencer's number from her phone.

"I'm done," she said, waving a hand at Britt and shoving her phone in her purse. "He doesn't deserve my wallowing."

"Yeah!"

Britt was significantly the more drunk of the two, resulting in a fit of giggles after gaining some stares from the people around them at her sudden outburst.

Y/N smiled, finishing off another shot and shaking her head. "We need more!"

"More shots!" Britt hurried off to grab them, leaving her friend behind with a half-drunken smile that also only felt half-genuine.

Sure, she decided she hated Spencer's guts, but her heart didn't exactly agree well with that sentiment. Even after deleting his number from her phone, after downing all that alcohol, her heart still ached.

Y/N knew deep down that getting over him was going to take some time. A lot of time... But maybe one night of distraction would help.

So the shots kept coming, and by the end of the night, Y/N was just about at her limit.

Which was near black-out drunk. And when you're that drunk you tend to make decisions you wouldn't soberly condone.

Britt got into a cab, and she begged Y/N to come with her, but she assured her friend that she had someone to come pick her up. Eventually the cab driver got tired of their inability to decide, and when Y/N told him to go, he did, leaving her alone on the side of the street at 1am.

Unfortunately, it was incredibly cold, and she didn't really have anyone to come pick her up. And that's where the bad decisions started.

Y/N pulled her phone out, a long sigh escaping her as she dialed the number by heart.

Would he even pick up? He hadn't answered any of her calls or texts before, so why would it have been any different now? Not to mention it was Valentine's Day Weekend. With her luck, he was probably in bed with someone else. Someone who wasn't her. As she listened to the dial tone repeating in her ear, images of him wrapped up with somebody else—sleeping in the bed she'd slept in many times before—clouded her drunken brain and made her more angry than anything.

Her gut twisted, and she almost hung up.

But then the low buzz of the dial tone abruptly stopped and in its place came his voice.

"Y/N?"

Her name on his lips, even through the phone, was grounding, the anger in her system melting away and revealing a coat of drunken relief.

"Spencer! You answered!"

"Yeah... Are you— Is everything okay?"

"Pff, yeah, 'm-fine. Just really fucking cold."

"You're not outside, are you?"

"Duh, I'm outside... I wouldn't be cold in-side... Besides, I didn't call t'alk bout the weather, I need you t'come pick me up."

There was a brief pause, and for a moment Y/N didn't think he was going to say anything she wanted to hear. She swayed on the sidewalk, shivering and praying that he would throw her a bone, even if she'd regret it all in the morning.

"Where are you?" he said finally, and despite herself, she smiled.

FEBRUARY 15th

Spencer couldn't believe he was picking her up at near two in the morning.

Honestly, he'd initially thought about ignoring her call again, but remembering the day it was and taking note of the time, he figured she was most likely in some type of inebriated trouble.

His instincts were right, of course, but he wished that he could have been wrong. He wished she'd only been calling to drunkenly ramble on about how she missed him or maybe how he was stupid and she never wanted to see his face ever again, because that was normal. At least then he could have hung up after she was done and never thought about it again— it was a normal step in any relationship that helped move things along. They could have gotten on with their lives and it would have all been over.

But of course it was never that simple.

Y/N was never that simple.

He pictured her on the street near some bar, alone and cold and drunk, and of course he would have been the only one she could call to rescue her. After all, he'd been pretty much the only thing she'd ever known to make her feel safe.

Still, he wished he was capable of only giving her a ride home and then leaving.

But again, it was never that simple.

It was easy getting her into the car— that wasn't what he was worried about. Rather, it was the fated moment where she'd ask him to stay after he finally got her tucked safely into bed that worried him. Because it was bad enough that it was Y/N... It was her in all her alluring glory, and he'd never been able to deny her anything no matter how badly he tried or wanted to.

Now add on the fact that she was drunk, and most likely sad on their first Valentine's Day apart, and it was a recipe for disaster.

Even if she'd broken his heart, Spencer still cared about her.

Which is why he inevitably agreed to stay, at least until she fell asleep.

He knew her well enough to know all the ways she'd try to get him under the covers with her, so it was a familiar amusement that settled in his being when he was finally able to get on top of the covers with her underneath. But as he entertained her silly little questions with the right answers until she fell asleep, Spencer noticed something else accompanying that amusement.

Guilt.

And then anger for feeling guilty about her sadness— sadness that could have been avoided had she just gotten over whatever was holding her back and either returned his "I love you" or  told him she wasn't feeling the same way just yet.

All she had to do was talk.

He had a right to feel upset about Y/N holding back when he'd been nothing but patient, spending almost every year of their relationship trying to make her see that she had nothing to be afraid of. He'd given her every chance to talk about what she was feeling, whether it was happy or not, and every time she pushed it all away in favor of sex.

That wasn't what he wanted in a relationship, so he ended it. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So why was he feeling so fucking guilty?

He blamed his good nature and innate need to please people, to make them feel good and happy. But he also blamed Y/N and her adorable drunken sleeping face.

He watched as she slept, willing himself not to forget the way she hurt him. She'd completely stolen his heart and shattered it at the same time, and if he was being honest, she still held some of the pieces. But he couldn't get them back, not if he didn't want to risk shattering her own heart in the process.

It felt like they were tied together by some strong, invisible force that wouldn't break unless both of them broke right along with it.

So... maybe he could afford to leave those pieces of his heart with her. He'd have to if they were going to get out of this alive. Not unscathed, sure, but alive nonetheless.

Once he was sure she was deep in sleep, Spencer quietly and carefully got off the bed and navigated through her apartment, getting her a glass of water and leaving it on the table next to her bed. And because he couldn't help it, he cleaned up some of the clothes that were scattered around her floor, depositing them into the hamper and straightening out a few more things that were out of place.

He looked over at her sleeping figure one more time, sighed, and then left, keeping her bedroom door open just a crack.

***

Spencer knew he shouldn't have stayed longer.

Despite his better judgement, he'd plopped himself down on her couch after making sure she was sound asleep, hoping to catch his breath and sort through what he was feeling before he got behind the wheel. But of course, it was 2am and he was exhausted, and he couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes and drifting off.

And now he was sitting up, looking around the apartment through the lens of morning.

Though the curtains were sheer, they didn't provide much light, but enough of it showed him just how familiar the space was. Y/N hadn't moved anything around. The same art was on the same walls, the potted ivy plant on her mantle sat un-watered and withering, and every book and record and DVD on her shelves was in the exact same spot as they'd all been the last time he was there in December.

Meanwhile, after the breakup he'd re-arranged everything. He was so sure that they were through for good this time around that he wanted a clean slate. Not that he wanted to rid himself of her memory completely, but if he was going to move on from the hold she'd had on him, he had to do something...

And yet, he ended up at her apartment the morning after Valentine's Day all the same.

He heard the shower running faintly a couple rooms away. You didn't have to pass the couch to get there, so maybe she hadn't seen him sleeping and he could get away cleanly.

Spencer scrambled off the couch, thankful that he hadn't removed his jacket or his shoes and that he could just sprint towards the door without having to find any of his belongings.

But as luck would have it, the second he took a step, the shower turned off. He had to get out of there quickly, but if he did then she'd definitely know he'd stayed overnight. But if he went quietly, he wouldn't have enough time before she caught him.

Maybe I could hide...

He shook the thought with a roll of his eyes, settling on the clearest course of action, which was to make as quick of a getaway as he could. He'd try to be quiet as well, though the creaky door was going to be nearly impossible to get through without a sound.

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard her voice.

"You didn't think you could spend the night and then leave without saying goodbye, did 'ja?"

The pure amusement in her tone made his stomach churn, and it wasn't unpleasant in the slightest.

Spencer turned and smiled softly, avoiding looking at her completely. "Sorry. Didn't want to bother you."

"You're never a bother."

That sentiment held less amusement and more sincerity, which was what guided his eyes to meet the woman who said the words.

His stomach twisted again when he saw her, exactly like he knew she'd be— wrapped in nothing but a thin towel with near-dripping hair cascading down her back. Her legs were bare and exposed, the towel not only thin but short, which meant that her chest was also practically spilling out of it. Despite the obvious and inevitable hungover look in her eye, there was also a good splash of that mischief that'd always been there— the kind that spelled out trouble.

He needed to get out of there.

"Well, um... I'm glad I got you home safe," he said, clearing his throat. "I should... I should go."

"You sure you don't wanna stay for breakfast?"

Spencer could have sworn she was teasing him, dangling her body in front of him like a meal they both knew he wouldn't be able to resist. But then she added, "I've got everything I need for your favorite omelet," and he exhaled with a small smile, exhausted with his own mind for convincing him that she was out to pull him back in.

Still, he declined. "No, I... I shouldn't. But, uh, thank you..."

"You sure?"

This time when he looked up at her, she was closer. She was gently striding forward to meet him, and he half thought about backing up towards the door until he realized he was already there.

"I—I'm sure. Really."

"But you drove around all night just to take me home when I was drunk, the least I can do is feed you..."

"Eh, it's alright. It's... Nothing I haven't done before."

She stopped then, her eyes briefly dropping to the floor. It was like her whole demeanor changed—just for a second—from the prowess she'd always been, to what seemed to be a woman filled with sadness and regret. It didn't last long though, just enough for Spencer to notice it before she looked back up at him with that wicked gleam in her eye and a remark right at the tip of her tongue.

"Still. I feel bad, making you do all that for me... Especially now."

He wasn't sure what to make of this... It seemed like she was sincere, but she was also alluring, calling to him like a siren leading him to his ultimate demise. And while he'd come to know that as merely a part of her nature, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that she was doing it on purpose.

She was in a skimpy towel, after all, and she definitely knew how to use that to her advantage.

It didn't help that he didn't have the courage to leave. Everything inside of him right then longed to drop that towel and indulge himself once more. Putting aside all the heartache and the differences they shared, all he felt in that moment was the need to touch her— to get lost in her and never be found again.

She was his fatal flaw, and it was painfully obvious.

Spencer knew he shouldn't have stayed longer...

He was over to her in just three strides, throwing off his jacket and tossing it aside before cradling her face with his hands and bringing their lips together for the first time since Christmas Eve.

The small whine in her throat signaled that she hadn't expected it, but welcomed it all the same. The moment she lifted her arms to wrap around his neck, the towel fell to the floor, and there was no going back.

"What about breakfast?" Y/N breathed out once they pulled away for air.

Spencer contemplated, studying her face, seeing the way her eyes sparkled, and decided on the two words that sealed his fate.

"Screw breakfast."

Their lips were melded together almost as soon as the words left his mouth. And it wasn't long before every other part of their bodies were melded together as well.

Y/N helped him take the rest of his clothes off as they danced around the entryway and the living room. Everything was open, no walls separating the living room from the kitchen, so to compensate for the lack of breakfast they'd be eating, they migrated to the kitchen counter once Spencer had off everything but his boxers.

He trapped her against the cool marble of the countertop, her back hitting it solid and sending a shiver up her spine. Meanwhile his hands roamed her body, unsure of where to be other than on her at all times, whether it be her waist, her stomach, her arms, her breasts, or her ass. He wanted to feel all of her, and quite frankly she wanted the same.

She even told him so, in her own way, by bringing one of her legs up and wrapping it around his waist, pulling him closer to her as she wove her fingers through his hair and tasted his tongue with her own.

The action elicited a groan from his mouth, low and desperate. Spencer settled his hands on her waist and gripped it tight, silently telling her what to do.

So she jumped up and he helped guide her swiftly onto the counter. Her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist again, and he found himself grinding into her hips, urgent to feel every part of her. And thankfully she was feeling rather desperate herself, because she rolled her hips up into him in return, breaking their mouths apart just briefly to speak.

"Fuck me..."

There was so much he wanted to say to her in that moment— how badly he was feeling about keeping her entertained while he was slowly deteriorating inside from her emotional detachment and rejection, how much she frustrated him, and more prominently, how she was so goddamn impatient and that he was getting there...

But all that he could manage was a broken, desperate whisper of her name.

It was all he'd ever known.

All that frustration... All that anger, heartache, passion, and time apart combined beautifully into those few syllables that made up her name and tore him apart from the inside out.

And his hands were just as destructive.

Spencer deftly dropped his boxers to the ground and pushed forward, almost losing all sense of self the moment the head of his dick finally made contact with her cunt. He made his way inside of her and then used both of his hands to grip her waist and bring her closer, their mouths connecting harshly as they found one another once again.

His grip was bruising— not possessive in any way, but desperate, like he had to cling to her for dear life or he wouldn't live to see another day. He held himself inside her, sighing and whimpering into her mouth as she clenched around him. It was so familiar, so comfortable and exhilarating that he almost didn't even want to move. He thought about staying there, still inside her forever.

But as always, Y/N was insatiable.

She wrapped all her limbs around him and held on, rolling her hips and seeking friction in any way possible when she briefly tore her lips away from his.

"I need you, baby, please..."

Even as his heart started to rumble in his chest, well aware of the fact that she still probably didn't love him the way he loved her, Spencer gave her everything. He pulled out and snapped his hips forward again, setting a strong, steady pace that had Y/N's eyes rolling back, and the payoff of hearing her sigh out his name was more than enough to keep him going.

Her nails dug deliciously into his shoulders, the faint sting adding something reminiscent of gasoline to a fire. The flames grew taller and brighter the more he fucked her, and with each gradual increase of volume and intensity, it was a wonder the whole kitchen around them hadn't literally burst into flames.

That's how they always were.

Together like this, so lost in the high of each others' bodies, it was easy to forget the things that made their relationship so hard. It was easy to let all the negativity slip away into the throes of pent-up, well-needed sex. The high they gave each other was merely that— A high...

A distraction.

And while that's exactly what Y/N needed, what she preferred in most cases, it's what Spencer recognized as completely unhealthy, despite his coming back to it every time.

It's also why he dreaded the moment ending. Because once they came down from the high, all that's left would be sadness, regret... Guilt... Their fire burned hot, brightly and wildly, but in the aftermath would lay only a thick layer of deadly smoke between them— hard to navigate, and nearly impossible to breathe in without suffocating.

So they simply burned and burned and burned...

Spencer gripped her so tight he was sure to leave her with bruising. And in turn Y/N dragged her nails down his back and dug them into his ass, her palm laying firmly over the muscles that aided in fucking her into the marbled surface. She whined out curses and moans, and he cried out broken whispers of her name, pet names, and curses alike.

Even once she'd come, he kept going, willing himself to hold on as long as he could. She whined into his ear at the overstimulation. And rather than keeping her legs wrapped around his body, she decided to spread them wide, perching her heels up on the counter as far as she could go and anchoring her fingers through his hair.

And though she might not have had enough orgasms in her to keep up with him, she welcomed it all the same—She welcomed the burn just as much as he did.

Even still, no fire can burn forever.

All concept of time was lost by the time Spencer finally collapsed forward, completely spent and barely standing on weak legs after coming twice. Y/N held onto him tightly to keep him upwards, lightly massaging his scalp with gentle fingers and closing her eyes as she focused on his breathing— the way it fanned over the skin of her bare shoulder and how it sounded, perfectly in time with hers...

It was the most peaceful she'd been in a long time.

She felt him pull out of her, the both of them groaning at the feeling, and a little at the mess it would make.

Spencer gently peeled his body off of hers, sniffing once and avoiding her eyes. "Sorry... You just got out of the shower..."

"It's fine," Y/N breathed. She begged him silently to look her in the eye, but he remained still... Most likely thinking. She could practically see the cogs turning in his brain.

So, in an effort to lighten the mood a bit, she added with a breathy laugh, "Besides... It's nothing I haven't done before."

The callback to his words—and memories of all the times they'd found themselves in this position before—got Spencer to laugh a little, but he still wouldn't meet her eyes.

Finally, he cleared his throat. "I'll... I'll grab the wipes?"

"Oh. Sure," Y/N returned with a thankful smile. It was hopeful, too, though the moment he was out of eyesight, it turned rather sad.

She'd known that behavior before, seen that hesitation in his movements and that sound in his voice.

It was guilt.

Regret.

Probably a bit of self-hatred, too.

When he returned, a pile of her clothes in hand and the bag of wipes on top, she took them from him with a kind smile and cleaned herself up while he put his clothes back on.

The silence was more uncomfortable than anything either of them had ever experienced.

So much so, that Y/N couldn't even muster up the courage to ask him to stay for breakfast— and she always did after one of their post-break hookups.

Maybe this time really was different.

Spencer was just at the door again when she stopped him.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice was so small, he almost didn't hear it. "For bringing me home..."

But he paused, turned, and finally looked her in the eye.

He almost sunk to his knees right there...

Seeing her, arms crossed like she was trying to keep warm, as her head hung low and she looked up at him through sad, hooded eyelids...

It reminded him of the woman he fell in love with.

But in his peripheral, he saw the towel on the floor and was reminded of the woman who'd shattered his heart.

Spencer cleared his throat. Once upon a time he might have returned her thanks with, Anytime, but... Honestly he wasn't sure there could ever be another time. For his sanity, he'd have to avoid 'anytime' at all costs.

So, he settled on, "You're welcome."

He was glad to see her return his kind smile with one of her own, even if it was tainted with sadness, and a small wave goodbye.

Maybe this time it would stick.

Even still, as he closed the door behind him and made his way to the parking lot, for some reason it didn't quite feel like goodbye.

And some of that deadly smoke that settled in his lungs as he drove further and further away from her apartment was inclined to agree.

***

Neither of them could sleep that night.

While Spencer stared out the window of the jet, a little annoyed to be called out on a case so late but at least thankful for the distraction, Y/N laid in bed, staring at the stars on her ceiling.

The same constellation caught their eye.

Columba.

The Dove.

She hadn't even meant to arrange the stars like that, but one night after a date, they were laying in her bed and Spencer pointed out that the cluster of plastic stars right in the corner of the ceiling looked like Columba.

Y/N fondly remembered Spencer telling her about how it was originally named to represent Noah's dove, which searched for dry land during the great biblical flood and returned carrying an olive branch to make news of its recession— of peace at last.

The memory made her smile. It tugged at her heart and made her dreams of him even more vivid.

All the same, Spencer noticed the constellation outside the jet window and remembered that same night. The smile on her face as he told her the story, the feel of her fingers gliding softly over the bare skin of his forearm...

It was the first night since he'd met her that he thought it.

I love her...

He almost told her then, too, but he was afraid it was too soon. So he refrained.

Looking back, Spencer was starting to regret that— Maybe without that extra time together, breaking up would have been easier. But instead, he gave her more time. He gave himself more time to fall deeper in love with her, and in the end it still wasn't enough.

Now they were both looking at the same constellation, one made of plastic and the other of gas, wondering if their flood would ever recede.

And in the event that it did... Who would be the dove, and what would be their olive branch?

“You know I dream about getting back together in the future, I could focus on you. But if I leave right now, I hope that you don’t find someone that touches you the way that I do...”

***

SERIES TAGLIST:   @reidyoulikeabook​ @yourmisosoup​ @fortheloveofcriminalminds​ @bellzo17​ @altsvu​ @flipperpenguins​ @mcumorningstar​

TAGS NOT WORKING: @reid-to-me @totallyclearwitch

[cozycryptidcorner]

Étienne the Fae, Part One of Two

This was commissioned by the illustrious and fantastical @monsterfolkandfiction​! Thank you so much, and I hope that everyone enjoys this story as well. A second part is being drafted now.

tw: disordered eating, manipulative and abusive mother

You shouldn’t have gone into your grandfather’s basement.

You shouldn’t have gone into your grandfather’s basement. .

There were voices. Lots of voices, and you thought that a show of brilliance might grant your grandfather’s coveted attention above your cousins’. The door was unlocked, how could you not sneak a peek down the forbidden stairwell? So you crept down, hand on the rail for safety, eyes wide in the hopes of spotting something.

You remember how to summon him. Always. You’ve blocked out everything else about him, but you always remember how to call him back, even if you never will. Only in an emergency, you would always think, glaring at your mark as though he can see you through the mottled purple flesh.

You wipe a bit of sweat from your face, chewing on your lower lip as you glance over your shoulder at the ticking clock—almost midnight. The little vagrant who caused the muddy disaster you’re cleaning is asleep already, hand clutching her rag still as she lays limp on the wooden floor.

Maria is a good kid. Troubled, yes, a mischief-maker for sure, but she’s good. She’s just the type who needs a little guidance, that’s all. You didn’t bother trying to wake her back up, mostly because you know it would do no good, and honestly, it’s probably easier to finish the mess yourself without dealing with a cranky, tired child. Besides, it’s not that big of a deal, it’s not like she hasn’t managed to clean up her messes before.

Just a little bit, you tell yourself as you scrub the rest of the mud from the floor,she’s lost.

It doesn’t take you much longer to finish up the mud, the water in the bucket sloshing an earthy brown the more you pollute it with the dirt slurry on your rag. None of the nuns have walked by the entrance, which is good, because you don’t exactly want to face them. You wouldn’t even have to come up with an explanation, they’ll know, especially the head of the abbey. The last thing you’d want is for Maria to be whipped with that reedy switch some of the nuns carry around to punish unruly children.

After dumping out the bucket of dirt, you wipe your sweaty palms on your apron, letting out a bated breath. The moon has already sunk behind the hills, the night only lit by the dim candles you managed to steal out from the servant’s noses. While one might think that a place of worship would have plenty of access to such supplies, it seems like everything is scarce in the days where the darkness licks and poisons like a snake.

“Are you alright, young sister?”

Though you jump, it’s only Sister Anya, a soft, young-looking nun looking down at you with the utmost concern.

Her pale hair is highlighted by the candlelight in the most martyr-like way that you feel the urge to fall on your knees and plead for her to pray for you. Everything about her is ethereal, almost almost horrendously beautiful, blue eyes so deep and dark your lungs fill with water as though drowning when you look at her.

Trying to steady yourself, you place a hand on the wooden bannister, then nod, shakily.

She glances at the bucket you’re holding, and her gaze softens considerably. “Were the children giving you a difficult time today?”

Since you know Anya isn’t one of the nuns who believe that pain is the path to godliness, so you’re more willing to express any frustrations you might have with her. So you shrug, then roll your eyes, trying to force your tongue to work but settle for gestures instead.

Sister Anya places a hand on your shoulder sympathetic gesture.” Your nerves are high today, hm?”

Thankful you don’t have to bother explaining yourself, verbally or through a thousand of different hand positions, you nod.

Sister Anya lets out a gentle sigh. “I’m so sorry, dove, the children ought to know not to press against your patience.”

Again, you shrug, walking over to the door in order to dump the muddied bucket, before passing it to her waiting hands.

“Again,” Sister Anya says softly, “I know that you’re not obligated to be here, but you know that the children love you. Even if they aren’t always so well behaved.”

You nod in acknowledgement, having had this conversation with her before. No matter the chaos the orphanage children might instil during sunlight, you always return, knowing that the kids truly mean well at the end of the day. Memories of blood bubble in your throat, your empathy digging too deeply in your past that you feel a sense of fear.

Quickly, you bid your leave, knowing that you should have long been back in your bed. God, if your mother finds out you’ve been loitering this late-

“Oh,” Sister Anya concedes, “of course, should I walk you back?”

Quickly, you shake your head, not wishing that she put herself at risk for your own sake. After once more asking over your assuredness, Sister Anya concedes, though her concern is not at all lacking. You know that the woods host a very numerous amount of creatures, though none have dared to ever bother you. The contrast has been so stark against the countless first-hand stories than you’ve heard that you’ve almost convinced yourself that you’re invisible to their otherworldly eyes, although you still hold healthy regard for what you might not understand.

Still, on the way back, all the negative attention you might receive is brief and fleeting, most crackling within the woods retreating as though you were about to set fire to the numerous dried foliage of the coming winter. Besides, your family estate is alarmingly close, you should be within the safety of its walls shortly after embarking, the sprites and critters almost obnoxiously ignoring your presence. Ever since… the incident, you haven’t needed to take the same precautions as the rest of your peers, and thus you manage to get yourself home earlier than someone might have estimated.

There is a lot to be happy about your life, you suppose, staring blankly up at the family portrait up on the wall. Happy mother. Happy father. Their absolute disgrace of an eldest child, which is you, unfortunately. You know that there are children in that abbey who would kill to have the same privileges you do, warm bed, food whenever you need, and water that doesn’t have a rusty undertaste of dirt, so you try not to feel… ungrateful.

You lick your lips, peeking out from the hall to check for anyone making their rounds, then quickly and quietly walk by the window towards your room. It’s late, so no one should be up, but that’s never stopped your mother when she’s in one of her worse moods, and just as you predicted, you hear her rapidly approach. Now entering panic mode, you move twice as quickly, slipping into your room and shutting the door quietly behind you.

Your muscles are stiff, fingers shaking, as you desperately try to pull the pins in your hair that kept everything marginally in place as you worked, knowing that you should be at least in your nightgown at this time. The scent of roses is thick, putrid, and always the choice of perfume for your mother. You suppose that it’s nice that you can at least smell her before she fully arrives, but now you can hardly look at those flowers without feeling a pinch of anxiety flowing through your chest.

The door wrenches open, your mother neither gentle nor willing to give you those extra precious moments where you might hide something. Your brush is in hand, and you are in the process of working through the knots that had accumulated through the day, but by the look of her face in the candlelight, your supposed innocence will be deeply in question.

“Where have you been?” Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, it’s all you can do to not wince when she speaks.

I was at the orphanage, mother. You can’t even look her in the eye.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to work among those pathetic waifs, girl.”

Mother doesn’t even bother with your name, especially when she’s angry. And, judging by the tone of her voice, she’s incensed by something, only you don’t even know what it is she’s accusing you of, so you can’t even offer up any meagre defences.

“Did I say you were allowed to stay until the night turns to morning? What kind of a reputation are you trying to gain, you stupid, ungrateful child?”

The only ‘men’ in that orphanage are younger than eleven, but you know that this outburst isn’t at all over your chastity.

She raises her hand, and you flinch, but the strike doesn’t come this time. Instead, she walks up behind you, snagging the brush out of your hand and begins an aggressive grooming routine. “You should be grateful for what I give you and stop trying my patience. Everything I do for you is always met with silence, do you think the Bennet girls treat their poor mother like this? Or has the devil cursed me with you?”

You know that any attempt to escape her gnarled, rough fingers would be met with even more violence, so you sit still, digging your fingernails into the cushion of your chair. Everything in your body is on edge, your jaw is tight, your stomach still, all your muscles frozen in place to keep from crying out as the onslaught of your scalp continues. Silently resigned, you stare at yourself in the mirror, hating everything you see in the reflective glass.

“You would think that the gods would give me a child who shows a modicum of mercy for her poor mother, but no, all I get is this pathetic excuse of a lady. I know everyone goes behind my back and talks about what a joke you are, and yet you don’t even care enough about the person who put you into this world to even care enough to change.”

Your throat is dry, your eyes are not. Stubbornly, though, you refuse to give her tears, because she’ll only think that crying is a method of trying to guilt her into stopping. So you’re quiet, and you accept the onslaught of verbal terror, trying to let it all wash over you like water running over stones in a river.

“I should have never let you stay that summer with your grandfather, he put in all the wrong ideas in your head. And where did that get him, anyway? In a casket, six feet under.” Eventually, she tires herself out, as she always does. As she places the brushes back on the vanity, she notices the little jar of candies you like to keep around for both yourself and your younger siblings. Her brow furrows, and she takes it, “you don’t need to eat more than you already do.”

You don’t turn to watch her leave, letting the dull slamming of the door speak for itself. Once you’re certain she’s not going to come back for another round, you reach up and start braiding your hair for the night, fingers separating the strands and weaving them together. A strange sort of numbness takes over your body, a tugging emptiness draining your chest and veins of any life. When you lay your head on the pillow, there’s dampness on your cheek that you hadn’t noticed prior.

Luckily for you, in the morning, you are left to be ignored once more. You suppose that you are grateful that your mother only seeks you out when she is angry because that offers more freedom to do as you please when she isn’t. A strange thing to enjoy, but you are still willing to count your blessings nonetheless.

Every day goes by more or less the same. You pretend to be a fancy lady for the minimum amount of time, though thankfully you’re so often ignored you can slip away and head down to the orphanage. You have no official schedule of volunteering, since some days your mother is more persistently present than others, but the nuns are thankful for your appearance more or less.

And you tell yourself that you’re satisfied with everything. It’s a lie, and you know it’s a lie, but the moment you begin to move past that safe little untruth, you think your world will fall apart. So you wait. And you watch. And you’re silent.

The day your mother is uncharacteristically cheerful is the day you feel genuine fear.

She’s humming while going over the cook’s menu ideas. Humming. And she requested to see you… which… is rather unusual. As you walk in, you try to peek over her shoulder, though she shifts the papers ever so slightly out of your sight, offering a warning grunt in your direction. Still unsure of where she might be taking this nonexistent conversation, you take your book and sit on the other side of the table, trying to keep calm.

“There’s going to be a wedding,” she says in a sing-songy voice.

Normally, when your peers are wed off, she takes it like a personal attack, as though each girl is mocking your family by daring to marry before you. Now you’re even more nervous, trying to think over which of your siblings could be of marrying age. Surely they haven’t roped any poor waif into marrying your idiot brother, right?

“Tell me what colors you think would be appropriate for a spring ceremony,” she says, so dreamily it shakes you to your core.

You open your mouth, but your chest is so constricted by fear that it can’t possibly push air through your throat. Instead, you just look down and shrug, trying to steady yourself as you sit. God, you’re so hungry. That breakfast never really fills you up, but you never dare try to scavenge for more food in the daytime.

“I didn’t think you would have the good sense to know, anyways,” your mother dismisses your opinion with the wave of her hand. “A light lavender, maybe? Oh, perhaps daisies would be lovely, but that might seem too ‘country…’ or would that be fashionable?”

You nervously let her ramble, wishing you had it in you to just… get up. Leave. Go someplace where you would be alone and lie down. Your body itches to be surrounded by the greenery in the garden, let yourself become one with the earth. Never worrying about the court, about gentlemen of good breeding, or your mother again. She’s taking tea with biscuits, enough food on that platter to share, but you know better than to try to reach your hand over to grasp one.

But fate is a cruel mistress, and your mother even crueler. You don’t have much more warning than the click of your father’s office door as he and an unfamiliar person exit, and adrenaline laces along your veins. You don’t like how your mother looks at him, you don’t like how he looks at you, and you would very much like to no longer be perceived as a physical being. As your mother stands, you follow suit, just out of shock.

“Mr. Andreas,” your mother croons, a shiver of horror running down your spine.

The stranger nods, then glances over you with a critical kind of look, one that makes your insides squirm so uncomfortably you almost vomit.

“We’ve agreed to the terms,” your father says, then nods in your direction. “The wedding will be set in the spring.”

You’re dizzy, all the blood rushing from your head.

To make things worse, your mother is closer, the pungent scent of flowers invading your lungs with such a pervasive efficiency you can’t even breathe. She’s holding your hand, squeezing your pulse so tightly you know the blood is pooling out between her fingertips, and says, “say hello to your fiance, darling. Don’t be rude.”

It feels like a blink. A quick moment of absolutely nothing, your soul floating up above you like a spectre, and then you’re back. And in bed.

It’s dark outside, and a candle faithfully burns on the table by your bed. Leaning over, you blow it out, knowing that someone not nearly as blessed as you could use the precious light more. Your window rattles, a black shape writhing and clicking against the glass, but it doesn’t break through.

Your head feels empty, a thick, persistent kind of nothingness frying the different pathways to thought. Something important happened, something…. something you should be wary of, but it takes you quite a long time to remember the day’s events until a glimpse of that man’s smarmy face surfaces.

Engaged.

The word makes you gag, but there’s nothing in your stomach to retch. You have no clear idea of how long you’ve been in bed, but as you place your feet on the cold ground, a wave of empty dizziness fizzles through your head. It’s a hungry kind of dizziness, one where your body is at its last leg trying to keep itself upright.

There’s a hot, white pinching in your chest as you rise to a hand, legs and arms shaking like a leaf in a storm. Kitchen, you have to get to the kitchen, your vision blurry and faint. Still, you do your best to keep yourself together as you silently slip out of your room.

The halls are eerily silent, candlelight keeping the night’s terrors at bay. Servants occasionally make rounds to make sure the light doesn’t snuff itself out, but you’ve long timed the carefully coordinated efforts. Arms wrapped around your chest, you slowly make your way back to the kitchens, careful to dodge any straggling staff in the halls.

For the most part, the kitchen is rather modestly sized in comparison to the rest of the house, something the servants and cooks gripe about during the wasteful parties your parents throw to uphold some kind of ridiculous facade of class and wealth. But for you, in your occasional midnight snack, it’s just the right size to feel homely, but also with enough books and crannies for you to duck behind if someone unexpected makes a surprise cameo.

But today, it looks like the last person you wanted to see has been anticipating your visit though.

“Really,” your mother says, arms crossed, the steady glare of rage on her brow, “you faint to embarrass me and then, instead of apologizing, the first thing you think to do is to eat more?”

You swallow thickly, knowing you’re about to get an apocalyptic lecture.

“Look at yourself, girl,” your mother makes a wide, gestural sweep over your body, “your obsession with eating is what made you so difficult to marry in the first place. No one wants to marry a whale! And now that you think you’ve landed a man, you can settle back to your old bad habits?”

You shake your head, clammy and afraid.

“Of course not,” she doesn’t raise her voice, not once, and that somehow makes everything worse, “I told you all you needed was to lose those flaps at your waist, but you can’t even adhere to the diet I’ve set you on.”

If you faint again, she’s going to claim you only did so to guilt her, so you hold your dizzying head together with spit and empty determination. There’s a half-eaten loaf of bread covered on the stove, mocking you with its closeness, laughing at your desperation.

“Everything I do for you, and all you give me in return is your spiteful attitude.” She sighs dramatically and shakes her head. “Go back to bed, girl, I can’t even look at you without feeling disgusting. I don’t know how you can live the way you do.”

You don’t. But you accept the out, shakily wobbling back to your room, hearing your mother call out behind you.

“The engagement party is three days away. You know the rules.”

No sneaking food. Of course you do, she doesn’t allow you to forget it. You go back to your room and lay down on the bed, trying to ignore the painful punches in your starving stomach. Breakfasts in the morning. Breakfast in the morning. Breakfast in the morning.

The party is the epitome of everything you hate.

Bright, gaudy, the food so rich and plentiful despite the nearly starving children barely a mile away. Already you’re mentally calculating how much food you can sneak out to the abbey as soon as the night comes to a close, figuring that you might even be able to make two trips if you truly had to. Sister Anya would protest against you moving through the night, but you’ve never had any issues with the sprites.

Folding your hands together, you try to remain present in the moment, but you quickly find your fingernails scratching invisible streaks down your arms, landing on the palm of your hand... to the mark on your wrist. The doctor speculated that it must have been some kind of chemical burn, mostly because there seemed to be no other explanation about it. A toxic liquid spilt onto your wrist when you were wandering somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, and so now you must bear the speculations and the whispers whenever someone new catches a glimpse of the marking.

It’s an odd kind of thing, all angles and thin lines, coalescing in a shape that seems too particular and sharp to be an accidental blob. When you press your thumb down and close your eyes, though, you can see the exact moment you received it, smell the harsh sanitized basement, but somehow catch a whiff of summer lavender.

Could this be your emergency?

Quickly, you try to fill your mind with a thousand other thoughts, flooding your head to the point that scent is once again a distant memory. Everything that followed that day was filled to the brim with misfortune and misery, and you don’t wish to relive it in the slightest. Not until you absolutely have to.

Your mother is right, the duke is only interested in the land your father offers. To her, though, that’s some kind of blessing. For you, however, seated at the table, it feels like the darkest wickedness. Only once does that man glance in your direction, and you can see his nose briefly wrinkle as he silently dresses you down, as though he feels that fucking you would be some kind of burden that he would skip if allowed.

Everything about him fills you up with a strange sense of terror. It’s the way he holds himself, you think, looking over his posture and general facial expression. Tall. High. He might not be the largest man in the room, but he certainly acts the part, stepping over those he doesn’t necessarily deem to be equal.

To your parents though, that’s just a sign of good breeding. Something that you somehow don’t possess, even though ancestry is theoretically squeaky clean. Through your eyelashes, you observe him, lips glued shut with the waxy lipstick smeared against them. You want to crawl out of your skin, melt into the floorboards, fade into the wall, but you’re stuck in place beneath your mother’s critical glare.

Knowing exactly what she might be thinking, you try to mingle, but everyone has long learned that you’re not the type for conversation. Your search for a discussion amounts to you wandering circles around the ballroom, doing your best to seem interested in what’s going on, but ultimately being ignored.

Eventually, you end up back at the table, filled to the brim with foods so decadent and delicious your mouth waters at the scent. Cautiously, you look over your shoulder as you reach down, to find your mother staring at you from a nearby corner. Your hand freezes, and you retract it, almost ashamed.

The mark on your wrist throbs, gently reminding you of a possibility you can allow yourself to have.

Biting down on your tongue, you merely pour yourself some of the lemon flavored water laid out to the side, hoping to fill your stomach if only for a few moments. Everything is too bright, too much, you’re drowning in the absence of everything you could possibly want.

Even though you know your mother will be at her wit’s end, you snag a champagne flute and decide to go back to your room. The bubbles burn as you drink the flute down faster than should be done, retreating back through the crowded hallway. On your way out, you see a servant carrying another tray of alcohol, and you recklessly switch out your empty cup.

Bitterness swells in your throat. You don’t fucking deserve this, you never have. A part of you wants to burn the mansion down and let the sweeping darkness devour the ashes, but you’ve never had the courage or smarts to pull such a feat off. You spot another platter of champagne and make the trade once more.

Just as you begin sipping the brightly flavored alcohol, you bump into someone sturdy. Hard, dark, tall… your fiancé, unfortunately, you notice. Quickly, you lose all confidence you had been building up and instead curtsy out an apology.

“When your father said you were as quiet as a mouse I didn’t think it was possible,” he laughs, almost good naturally, “I didn’t think a woman could be quiet even if her life depended on it.”

The tops of your ears flare.

“But this is a nice surprise, I think it might make up for your other shortcomings.” He waves his hand in your face, as though you are deaf, not mute, then laughs again. “I suppose we’ll see whether or not you can squeal on the wedding night.”

An almost extinct temper raises its ugly head, you’re furious, but above all else, you’re embarrassed. The alcohol makes your anger boil over more, and to add insult to injury, he doesn’t seem to take the hint to stop talking.

“At least you wouldn’t be able to complain. I hate it when women think they deserve to be heard.” And just like that, he abandons you, wandering off towards a group of people you recognize as your neighbors.

Angrily, you drink more of the champagne, going up the stairs and trying to keep yourself calm. But you’re not calm, you’re furious. At yourself, at your parents, and at that babyfaced ass who has the audacity to mock you in the middle of your joint engagement party. By the time you get to your room, your face is hot and boiling with rage, the empty champagne flute mindlessly left on some random surface, and you bury yourself in the bed. You’ve drunk a fat more tonight than you have in years.

You can’t call a servant to help you out of this satin nightmare, not without your mother being informed, so you’re stuck trying to dislocate both your shoulders in order to reach at the strings lacing the top together. Nothing seems to be working, and you are getting more and more frustrated with your progress, each fucking second wasted on your struggles, making you more upset at the overall predicament.

And then, a thought.

Your drunken mind thinks it’s brilliant. The last thread of your sanity warns you that it’s stupid. But both parties involved agree that it would be very, very funny.

Your thumb finds the mark on your wrist.

Call an eternal being forth just to untie your corset? Absolutely ludicrous. Stupid, even. But definitely hilarious. At least, your drunken mind thinks it’s funny. Slowly, you trace the mark around with your indent finger, your eyesight blurry with drink.

Touch the mark. You place two of your fingers against the pulse of your wrist. Recite my name. Three times, unbroken.

It’s not an incredibly complicated ritual. You’ve recited it in your head many times, staring out of your window, tongue making the motions in your mouth. One favor, you get only but one favor, and every single day you’ve had to deal with another one of your mother’s lectures, your father’s criticism, or some other critical motion from most other people in your life, you’ve thought of him.

But now, while drunk, and after the party, it seems like a fine time to bring him forth from the Otherworld. If only to cause a bit of much-needed chaos. You close your eyes, urging your tongue to move, and you say-

“Étienne. Étienne. Étienne.”

Nothing happens. There is an overwhelming silence, one that causes your body to collapse further into the mattress, your brain slowly shutting itself off in a desperate attempt to sleep off the inordinate amount of alcohol that you’ve consumed. Your tongue and mouth are dry, almost as though they were stuffed with towels and cloth, a hazy exhaustion blocking your vision from comprehension.

And you’re asleep.

You don’t exactly know how long you were asleep for, only that you wake up with a throat as dry as the Dark Desert, lips cracked and bleeding, wrist tingling almost painfully like a thousand little pins are piercing into your flesh, though your face is oddly wet. The candle flickers at your side, likely lit by a servant, illuminating red dampness left on your pillow. A headache pinches between your eyes as you try to process those different elements.

“Here,” a smooth, low voice says, a gloved hand offering up a linen handkerchief.

You accept it, then realize who the hand belongs to. Quickly, you scoot yourself back right up to your headboard, spine pressing almost uncomfortably against the heavy wood.

He’s silent for a moment, eyes so dark and blue you feel like they’re sucking you in as though they’re a whirlpool, and you’re adrift in an ocean clinging to a piece of wood. Then he laughs, shockingly youthfully, hand over his mouth as you yank the handkerchief out from his fingers, pushing it up to your nose to catch the continuous drip of blood. Your mouth tastes like hot copper laid out in the sun, and droplets of redstart swimming in your vision.

“My dear,” he says, cocking his head to the side, curiously, “you called me here.”

“No I di-” fuck, the memory of what must have been only a fe hours prior swimming upward in your mind. “Well, I didn’t mean it.”

“Unfortunately whatever your intentions are, I cannot leave until your wish is fulfilled.” Luckily, he doesn’t seem at all annoyed. Only mildly disinterested in what your problems might be.

“Can’t you just go back?” You ask, voice losing its rasp as you swallow a mouthful of blood.

“That’s not how this works,” he says, almost disappointed in your desperate attempts to make him leave.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You’re shaking,” He observes, settling on the edge of your bed.

It’s as though the spirit of your mother possesses your body, vomiting out a sentence about your chastity as a lady, “there’s a man in my room, at night, with no chaperone present.”

A perfectly manicured eyebrow pops up. “You know I cannot hurt you.”

“It’s not about you, it’s- it’s about my reputation as a lady-”

The other eyebrow follows suit, and he’s looking at you so sceptically it appears he thinks this is some sort of trick. He reaches over and grabs hold of your hand, drawing your wrist close as to double-check for the mark. “I don’t remember you being such a meek little thing.”

“I was ten the last time we met.” You say, trying to keep your voice even.

“And you bit me, if I remember correctly.” And he smiles, as though the memory of a precocious child is somehow a fond one.

This can’t be happening, you can’t be having this conversation with him. A conversation. Talking. You swallow thickly, raking your nails through your scalp, trying to breathe. “I was only trying to defend myself! You- you ki- you killed-”

“He deserved it,” he says, and you are unfortunately inclined to agree.

You can’t tell if the droplet of liquid running down the side of your cheek is blood or sweat. Taking in a shaking, angry breath, and you stare down at your hands, eyes stinging. Ah, tears, okay. This is fine. Everything is fine.

“Ah, darling, I’ve forgotten myself.” He reaches over, and you flinch, so he quickly retracts his hand. “Let’s try again. What do you want from me?”

You think back to all the tiny, ugly little pinpricks of insults you’ve garnered every goddamn day of your life since the incident. You think about your husband to be, you think about your mother, you think about your long-dead grandfather. Everything hurts. Everything is wrong. Slowly, you close your eyes and breathe, trying to keep yourself together, just for another few moments.

“I’m to be married to a nearby heir,” you say.

He cocks his head.

“I don’t want to be.”

[vanderlindemorgans]

dark blue tennessee

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 4.8k

Summary: It was one thing being without him while he was alive. It was another to lose him all together

Warnings: Major character death, grief-induced alcoholism, descriptions of blood and injuries, vague allusions to suicide. None of this is beta read so please don’t shoot me for any grammatical errors!

None of this seemed real to you. None of it felt real. It would have brought you some comfort if it wasn’t - that way you could reason with yourself that this was all the result of some horrific nightmare, that’d you’d wake up with a small gasp in his arms, safe and away from whatever dark terror had enveloped your mind. You weren’t one to usually have nightmares but when you did he would always be there, his embrace warm and tight, a single hand running through your hair in a soft pattern, and his unmistakable southern drawl whispering into your ear. 

This wasn’t a dream however. No matter how wrong it felt, how surreal and horrific the whole situation was, it was all real. Perched on the edge of a barstool, you glanced over at the almost empty bottle of whiskey beside you. You thought it would take the pain away, dull your senses and let you pretend for two seconds that he wasn’t really gone, but if anything, the whiskey made it worse. Everything reminded you of him, day in and day out, every morning you woke up and all you could notice was that he wasn’t there. His clothes were, his Stetson perched on a hook on the back of your bedroom door, his stupid belt buckle that you’d always mocked him for...but not him. You couldn’t bear to box away any of it. It may bring you pain to see all these items laid out, as if they were expecting their owner to return someday, but shoving it all in the back of a closet seemed so...disrespectful to you. It would be almost the same as forgetting him in your mind, and you refused to. 

It had been only two weeks since you first received that fateful call, the one that you prayed to high heavens you would never hear. Thank god you were home when you got the call - if you’d been out with your friends, or heaven forbid at work you don’t know what you would have done. It was a moment that you often replayed over in your mind, if for nothing more than the torture of reminding yourself of the day you had broke like glass shattered on a white cloth. 

Trailing the pad of your finger over the edge of your glass, you tossed your head back as you downed yet another glass of liquor. Every detail of that memory stuck out to you, even the most insignificant things that no one else would ever mention. You’d taken the day off work, already feeling shitty straight up from the moment the day had begun. You’d been making something to eat, just some toast because you couldn’t be bothered with anything else, and right when you were searching the fridge for a jar of jam you had heard the phone ring.

Without a second thought you’d scooped it up in your hands and answered it, thinking it would be one of your friends calling to try to get you to come out with them to some bar or something that night. You hadn’t guessed it would be anything important. “Hello?”.

“Hi, am I speaking to Y/N?”. You furrowed your brow at the response, not immediately recognising the voice. You considered hanging up for a brief moment but something in you told you to stay on the line.

“You are. I’m sorry, who is this?”. 

“My name is Ginger Ale. I’m a colleague of your partner, Jack Daniels. I’m very sorry to have to inform you this way, but he’s perished in a horrible incident”. 

Everything around you seemed to collapse in that moment. The whole world might as well have fallen away around you the minute you heard those words. It was a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It often comes so suddenly, and so unexpected that you feel like you’re climbing the stairs to your room in the dark, thinking there’s just one more step than there actually is, and feeling yourself plummet down into the abyss below. It was nothing like you’d ever experienced before - you might as well have been falling deep into the shadowy chasm right at the moment. Your grip on the phone tightened as you struggled to find the words, or any words really, to say in response as tears started to gather around the corners of your eyes. “W-what? What do you mean...he’s…” you trembled, stumbling on your feet as you fell against the wall in a daze, the world somehow seeming both screaming loud and quiet all at once. 

“He was injured badly during his last mission - multiple gunshot wounds from a certain run in with a couple of gangsters. He was...he was barely alive when we brought him in” Ginger explained, trying her best to comfort you but you barely took any notice of her words as the same thought played over in your head. He’s gone. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead, and you could have stopped it. It’s all your fault. 

“Aren’t you guys supposed to have that weird gel stuff that heals gunshot wounds? Surely...surely he could have been saved, right?” you asked frantically, your cheeks streaked with tears and flushed with grief. It took everything in you not to fall apart right then and there, dropping the phone to the floor and screaming out in sheer agony of the pain that was ripping through you. 

“Not this time, sadly. I’m really sorry, Y/N”. There was a small pause on the other end of the line before Ginger spoke again, her tone indicating her hesitance at divulging such information to you. “He also insisted that we don’t bother, that he knew his time was up with this one. I was watching him on this mission - he went into it all quite recklessly, which isn’t completely new for him but…”.

“But?” you asked, prompting her to finish her sentence but she never did. A heavy silence hung between the both of you, punctured lightly by the sound of your heavy breath which you tried desperately to keep in check. Some small part of you was still in some sort of disbelief, wanting to fervently deny that any of this was happening. This is just a dream right? I’ll wake up back in bed, I’ll get up and call Jack, and he’ll be alive and well. None of this is real. It can’t be real...

“I want to see him. Please, just let me see him. Let me at least say goodbye”.

_

You hadn’t taken much notice of your surroundings on your way to Statesman Headquarters - everything might as well have been a blur to you from the moment you stepped through the doors to the second you walked off the platform of the elevator towards the medical wing. As soon as you spotted him all sense of decorum and logic was thrown out the window, any sense of composure melting away to nothing the very second his body came into view. Ginger had been beside you, probably as a general gesture to ensure you wouldn’t entirely lose it once you gained a single glimpse of him but alas, as soon as the elevator pulled to a stop and the doors pulled open to reveal a lifeless Agent Whiskey lain across the stretcher, everything you had ever known seemed to fall to pieces from under you. It was as if your entire world had collapsed, had stopped revolving the minute you laid eyes on his lifeless form. Without another seconds hesitation you rushed towards him, tears beginning to cascade down your cheeks as you bore witness to the unfortunate result of the tragedy that had struck.

It was as if the floodgates had opened right then and there - once you started crying, the tears just wouldn’t stop. With every ounce of your being you wished that somehow, by some godforsaken miracle, your touch would bring him back, that his eyes would magically flutter open and would greet you with those enchanting brown eyes that you had come to know every day of your life since the moment you had first met. That he would maybe, if only by the simple wish of your heart, say the one thing you were always angling to hear truthfully, in a way that you could put more than a simple faith in. As if you were a broken record, you couldn’t stop repeating his name over and over, like if by some divine intervention that alone would turn the clock back and have him lying next to you, his hand caressing your cheek and firing one of his signature flirty quips at you as you woke up in bed, catching a whiff of that ever-present scent of whiskey that mixed beautifully with his cologne. If only it were that simple. If only that were possible.

Instead you laid a hand against his cold forehead, now devoid of any warmth of life it once felt. Some would say that the dead looked almost peaceful in a way but you saw none of that: even in death Jack somehow looked anguished, like there was something left behind that he wanted to say but simply couldn’t go back to. 

“I can’t feel you anymore…” you murmured, your voice wobbling violently. Leaning down towards him, you cradled his head between your palms, whispering his name softly and feeling your own tears decorate his cheeks. Ginger, or maybe somebody else, said something in the background that you couldn’t take any notice of, your mind fixated only on the man you loved and the unfortunate reality that presented itself to you now. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

_

The funeral had only been held a week afterwards. From a planning perspective, it was easy to organise his final affairs - for whatever reason you’d been named as the executor of his will, a fact that came as a shock to you once you had been served the information by the attorney. The two of you weren’t ever married, although you had attempted to float the idea once or twice, and his mother was still alive so it seemed odd to you that of all people to be left in charge of his estate Jack chose you. Emotionally, it had been a taxing revelation for you: on top of having to carry the stinging pain of finding out the man you loved had died, you had to be the one organising his affairs. You knew after leaving the medical wing of Statesmans Headquarters that day that you wanted nothing more than to let your own sorrow overcome you and let yourself fade out of existence, his voice haunting your every waking moment until you finally decided to let go entirely and throw yourself off the brink of insanity. That’s what you felt you deserved anyway.

His funeral had been the worst of it. You had silently prayed that maybe you would have numbed yourself out a bit. The most agonising part of it all were the hoards of people coming up to you asking how you were. It took everything in you to stop yourself from confessing everything. If they knew, they’d hate you. They’d blame you. The gossip would start, the theories and rumours flying high, the whispers you could hear in your head as if they were real. Somehow you’d pulled through, despite the inclination to break down at any given moment. But of course, that wasn’t the end. You’d buried him, now you had to face the mortifying reality of living without him. 

With every passing day the memories became stronger. You never told any of them what had happened the last time you saw Jack - you couldn’t tell them. It had been eating at you from the inside ever since you picked up the phone that cursed day, tearing apart your mind and leaving nothing in its wake but heartbreaking grief and despair. It’s your fault. You’re the reason this happened. If you two hadn’t fought, if you hadn’t told him to fuck off on the phone that night, he wouldn’t have gone on that mission. You killed him. You’re a murderer. 

All of these thoughts and more wormed their way between different glasses of whiskey, letting you lose track of both time and how many glasses you had. No matter how much you drank though it never dulled the grief nor the guilt that you’d been torturing yourself with from the moment you woke up every day to the moment you went to sleep. Actually, even in your sleep you couldn’t escape it, being plagued by nightmares and the like increasing in degrees of terror the longer they went on. It was why you now avoided any sort of conscious effort to sleep, only succumbing when you’d become so drunk that you had bent yourself over the back of the couch and cried as much as your body would let. 

You swore to never let anyone know what had happened, that Jack and you had technically broken up a few days before his death. It already ate at you enough that you had to run over the memories in your mind, every last word you spat at him on repeat for your own infinite suffering. “It feels like wherever we go, she’s there. And she’s so beautiful, and perfect, and dead. I can’t compete with a ghost, Jack”. Scowling to yourself, you scooped up your glass and took yet another sip, feeling nothing but regret towards how everything played out. You didn’t regret what you said - on some level, you still felt it was true. You knew Jack would forever hold a candle for his ex-wife, but you’d grown tired of feeling like you were second place to a dead woman, as if the only reason he kept you around at all was to fill a void that could only truly be filled by the one person he could never have back. It had been selfish of you, in some way, but you’d deserved more. You loved Jack with everything you had, and you wanted him to feel the same way back, and although he swore he did you could plainly see that wasn’t the case.

“Darlin’, please, don’t be like this. You’re my only love and you know that. You’re being ridiculous about all this”

“Then why do you still wear your ring? Why do you get dismissive whenever I try to bring up moving in together, or marriage, or anything. It’s been two fucking years of this. You can do whatever you want, Jack but I’ll tell you one thing: you’ll be doing it alone. I’m out”. 

“For fucks sake…” you cursed, slamming your glass back down on the table with a loud thud, your words slurred beyond all comprehension. A few drops of whiskey sloshed out of the glass onto the countertop, creating a small puddle on the marbled surface but you didn’t much care. What was the point in caring anyway?

You still had to pack up his home, a reminder that only contributed to your pain. You were supposed to have taken care of that before now, at least a week ago but you couldn’t bring yourself to enter his home. I’ll do it tomorrow...maybe. Yeah, tomorrow. Deciding firmly on that, you sipped the last of the liquor and stumbled off the seat of the barstool, the world spinning around you as you fumbled your way through the dim light of your apartment to where your bedroom was, throwing your intoxicated body amongst the heap of unmade bed sheets and burying yourself within them, crying until you passed out in a deep slumber. 

_

Standing outside the door to Jack’s penthouse apartment, you stared forward with a muted expression upon your face, the key to his place gripped firmly between your fingers as if it would disappear from your hands at any moment. You’d been there for a good five minutes by then, meaning to break out of your state of catatonia to only be stopped again by yourself, kicking off a seemingly endless cycle in which you remained stuck in front of his door. You knew you had to go in there eventually: it wasn’t like everything of his would magically disappear if you just ignored it. It was still hard though, since you knew the moment you stepped through the door you’d be hit by the unmistakable scent of him. Almost like you were crossing a threshold of sorts, only with a feeling of emptiness on the other side instead of anything resembling happiness. Seeing his things would only remind you of how he wasn’t there among them, where he should be, which spiralled onto other thoughts, such as reminiscing on his gorgeous brown eyes and that honeyed southern accent you adored on him, and everything else that once made your heart spark with love. You felt your breath tremble as your knuckles turned white from holding the key with such might. This was a bad idea. You weren’t ready for this. Maybe you should just go home and call it a day. 

No. You have to do this now. You might as well rip the bandaid off, lord knows you’ll have to do it eventually anyway.

Keeping your breath paced, you raised your shaking hand to the lock of the day, slowly inserting the key and twisting it until you heard the unmistakable click inside. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you pushed open the double doors and pulled yourself inside, your high heels clicking on the linoleum floors.

Everything was exactly how you’d last seen it, how Jack had last left it. Not that you expected any different of course. The only people who had probably been there in the past two weeks since his death were people from Statesman to collect various bits of the agency's technology and other gadgets Jack had left lying about. You never knew much about his life as part of the secret service: during your relationship Jack had preferred to stay off the subject of his job as much as possible. He even said himself that you shouldn’t have known about his double life in the first place but when it became too obvious that keeping it from you was going to hurt your relationship with him in the long term he’d sought permission from his boss to have you cleared on the most basic of intel. That never bothered you in the slightest - the least you knew about the agency, the better, a view Jack wholeheartedly agreed with you on. You didn’t know him as Agent Whiskey, top agent to Statesman Secret Service trained in espionage. You knew him as Jack Daniels, the cocky womanizer who chased anything in a skirt, the gentleman who had always managed to sweep you off your feet whenever he was around, and the man you had once dreamt of marrying before things went south. 

All around you were familiar places and objects, things that brought back so many memories yet felt hollow and empty as you looked upon them now. If things were right, he’d be there too, perhaps in the kitchen preparing dinner for you, knowing that you couldn’t resist coming over again even if it was the third time that week. Or maybe he’d be on the couch, reclining back with a glass of whiskey and a book, turning his head back to take a gander at you, shooting one of his signature smirks and making a remark about how incredibly gorgeous you looked. Without him, the space felt sullen and void of life, the dust settling on every surface from remaining untouched for two whole weeks by then. 

Taking a deep breath, you stepped forward and tried as best you could to sort out your thoughts, detaching it as much as you were able to from the memories being back in that apartment brought. His mother already came to you and asked to have a box of certain things belonging to Jack given to her. You knew she was already going through a hell of a rough time herself, her only son winding up dead. She never knew about his life as an agent, being fed a cover story by Statesmans team in order to maintain their secrecy. A bit of you felt jealous of her for that. She would never know the truth, whereas you had to live every day for the rest of your life knowing what happened, being made aware of your own part to play in his fate every hour, every minute, every second. 

The rest of it, well, you had no idea what to do with it. You thought it would be best to box up as much of his personal items as you could, either to keep for yourself or to hand back to his family, and arrange to have the rest of the furniture sold or given away to a charity shop or something. Moving towards the living room, you began to scoop up the different framed photos you found around the apartment. Some were of him as a kid, either on a horse or in different shots with his family, already sporting that heart melting smile of his. A lot of them were of you and him on various dates - one you stopped to pour over was of the two of you at a diner in Brooklyn, you taking the photo and Jack taking a sneaky swipe of your sundae in the background while you were distracted. You remembered that day so well: he’d just come back from a particularly rough mission in Russia, one that he’d had to stake out for weeks, so it was the first time you’d seen each other in about a month. You looked at how happy you were in that picture, the sight of such joy bringing tears to the corners of your eyes. What you wouldn’t give to have those days back, the easier times, before the distance, the fights, the feelings of being second place to a ghost and of course, his own tragic death at the end of it all. 

At last you made your way to his bedroom, clutching onto the stack of photo frames as if they were a lifeline. You fought with everything in you the urge to just drop everything and crash down onto his bed, cradling one of his shirts in your hands to try to get a whiff of him, pretending that he was still there for only a few seconds. Rather, you walked over towards his bedside table and set the stack of frames down, crouching to your knees and biting back the teardrops threatening to fall from your eyes. It’s ok. You don’t have to do it all in one go. Just gather together some of his personal stuff, and then you can leave.

Opening the drawer, your eyes flitted between the various trinkets and things he’d accumulated, searching to see if there were anything personal that his family might want back when your gaze was instantly drawn to a stark white letter shoved towards the back of the drawer. Scooping it up in your hands, you furrowed your brow as you inspected it further, only to have your breath catch in your throat once you saw your name written in his unmistakable cursive on the front.  

Immediately you stood yourself up from the floor, your mind rushing into overdrive while you stared at the letter in your palms, hesitantly trailing your fingers up to the top of the envelope to tear it open. Out of all the things to find in Jack’s drawer, you definitely weren’t expecting this. You had no clue what it could be, when it was written or even if you should read it at all. Should you just put it back in the drawer and pretend you never found it? Though you supposed it was a bit too late for that, on account of you practically ripping the top of it open. With a hint of uncertainty, you reached into the envelope and lifted the letter out onto your lap, opening it to reveal its contents. 

The first thing you noticed was the date in the top right corner - April 22, two weeks ago, a day before he went on that mission and met an unkind fate. That alone was enough to make your heart stop, so when your eyes travelled down the page to read the rest of the letter, you might as well have dropped dead right then and there from the sheer pain that was struck through your heart.

I was a damn fool for letting you get away. You and I both know that my dearly departed wife will always hold a special place in my heart, and I know you understand that. I didn’t want to admit it until now but I had been becoming distant - every time you brought up marriage, or anything more I’d get scared. Scared of...well, a lot of different things. Of repeating the same tragedy with you, in some way. Some part of me was worried marrying you would be dishonoring my late wife’s memory as well. It’s no wonder you walked out when you did. I don’t blame you for your choice, but please allow me to say my piece at least. You never were second to anyone, sweetheart. As much as I will always love Lily, my heart belongs to you here and now. Missing you like this is such sweet sorrow, won’t you come back to me? No matter whether or not you chose to forgive me, or even entertain the idea of givin’ me another chance, I just want you to know that I love you, honeybee. I’ll be waiting for you today, tomorrow, and forever, down in dark blue Tennessee.

- Jack

Every word you read was like another stab to the heart for you, the tears that you had fought so hard to keep in now pouring down your cheeks, small sobs escaping your throat as you collapsed back to the floor with a thud, your heart racing a million miles a minute. There it was, all written down in hasty cursive script - the apology that he never got to give, hidden away in the back of his bedside drawer like an afterthought. Knowing him he’d probably written it out and intended to give it to you before he left for his mission but decided against it for whatever reason. And that final sentence...Tennessee. He mentioned Tennessee. The place where you’d grown up, where you’d lived almost your entire life before moving to New York. The place where you’d met Jack all those years ago, down in a local bar. You’d been visiting your parents for the week, he’d been there meeting with an investor for Statesman. By some stroke of luck you two had crossed paths, hitting it off and becoming infatuated within mere moments, one thing leading to another until eventually you’d woken up in his bed the next morning. The way you’d initially thought it’d only wanted a one night stand but then became something more. It was all flooding back to you now, triggered by only a few sentences written down on a letter that was never sent. You didn’t know what to do, or what to think. The only thing you could do in that moment was lean your head back against the bed and choke on your own sobs, muttering his name over and over for what felt like forever, holding the now crumpled and tear stained letter in your hands.

The hours ticked by, though you took no notice, and when you do eventually move, it’s not to leave the apartment. Your eyes barely leave the ground when you walk, stumbling from room to room in search of a bottle of wine or something stronger to drown your own sorrows in, kicking off your shoes haphazardly and without much care. When you bump against the liquor cabinet, you can hear something fall and shatter off the top, and when you walk back through the shards of glass with the bottles in your hands, you don’t even wince when one pierces your foot. With thin streams of blood trickling from the cut on your sole, you’ll flick the top off the first bottle you reach for, letting the lukewarm liquid slip down your throat, spiralling you down deeper and deeper into a drunken stupor until finally, the moment comes where you can close your eyes and slip into that familiar void of darkness that you greeted with open arms, those last conscious thoughts being an apology of your own that no one ever got to hear. I’m sorry, Jack...

[thousandsunnywrites]

FILE 1: WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SMILES

⤷ word count: 1,7k

⤷ a/n: there’s no major romantic shet here, but it’s like the foundation of what’s to come

[BLACK LIVES MATTER]

⤷ TRIGGER: mentions of pills & death

“Roronoa, check the mission board.” A stack of papers land right in front of his propped feet, waking him from his light nap. Standing in front of him was no other than the assistant chief, Law. “In two weeks, we’re raiding the SMILES House.” 

Yawning, he glanced over, doing as told. Law’s right. After extensive research, their department accumulated enough information to obtain a warrant to bust down this illegal business. Doflamingo is a smart man, he evaded the police’s eyes for years now despite his brother being the chief. His eyes skimmed through the raid team while taking a mental note — Usopp, Chopper, Law, and him, along with a bunch of other extra names. Supposedly, this ambush is the most difficult in the history of the New World Station, errr, at least that’s what Zoro hears in the coffee room. 

Chief Corazon-- the name everyone addresses him as, only a select few know his real name-- lead this station ever since the retirement of ex Chief of Police, Sengoku. You and Zoro transferred into this department not long after graduating law school. As Chief puts it, it’s a miracle how you never crossed paths with Roronoa during school-- maybe he just got lost while trying to do so-- because you complement each other so perfectly: you’re academically strong, while he’s strong physically. It’s no hair-puller to know why he’s constantly paired with you.

Zoro’s train of thoughts halts as a very loud, and jumpy girl emerges from the corner, latching onto his arm almost immediately upon seeing him. “Zoro,” you cooed like a little bird, expectantly. Prior to this day, Zoro wagered that it’s easy to drive around while patrolling the area because anyone can do that, and you took him up on his little bet. It was hard, knowing the shortcuts and hidden roads within the area, but it was easy when you get the hang of it. Unfortunately for Zoro, he was blessed with confusing right with left, north and south. Call it whatever you see fit, but you can’t deny it’s like taking candy from a toddler.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” he sighs, bringing out the iconic Starbucks cup, filled to the brim with your favorite coffee, Venti-sized. “Expensive-ass woman. You know how much that cost me?”

“Oh hunny, I know, you’re lucky I’m not asking you to pay for my rent,” you take a sip as Zoro nods along. Yeah, he’s aware of the rent surge for your apartment. That landlord of yours, what’s his name, Bella… Belle-something was a big pain in the ass, charging twice as much to splurge on gambling. He’s heard this rant so many times, he can recite it word for word.

“Y’know if you’re having a hard time with rent, then just leave. Go somewhere else.”

A pout forms on your lips, hand waving animatedly to dismiss his suggestion. “Easy for you to say, you own a house. Besides, it’s the only available one in this area. I don’t wanna go outta town. It’s hard enough to wake up on time in the morning-- what more of waking up 3 hours earlier?” You pinch his cheek, earning a groan from the man. Remind him again why he puts up with you.

“Don’t forget about our first-not-fake-date tonight,” you wink, body shimmying out of excitement. Sometime last night, you concocted the perfect date with Zoro to flaunt in front of Sanji. Zoro is to take you to the nicest park he can find and do a surprise picnic-- not much of a surprise if you orchestrated it-- whilst giving you a necklace with his initials on it-- again, nothing special especially if you’re gonna buy it. Zoro wonders why he’s even letting you use him, but then again, you pay for the propaganda, and he doesn’t have anything better to do. No rent money worries, no girlfriend to tend to, no stress that plagues the average adult. 

“Doesn’t sound like we’re dating if you call everything we do a ‘not-fake’,” his lips downturn to a very displeasing frown that marred his big-tough-guy look, while he attempts to pry your clammy fingers off said face. He doesn’t know the first thing about love, but sure as hell he’s not a dumbass.

Law pulls you aside to escort you to the Chief’s office, leaving Zoro to revert his focus back onto his reports, overlooking the new cases. A killer clown running loose, gathering a circus to cause more trouble. Nothing more than clout for a rep. 

The Massacre Solider’s, as the media dubbed, killings suddenly halted.

The Revolutionaries protesting and planning a riot downtown against the government, led by the infamous criminal dubbed as Dragon.

Firefighter accidentally sets the workplace on fire after reheating meat for too long. Damn it, Luffy.

“Hey, Zoro!” The familiar long nose approaches him, friendly as ever. “We’re partners today for patrol! Thank god it’s you.” He sobs out the last part, body turning milky white while remembering the horrid flashbacks of almost being shot at by an angry woman for notifying her about her illegally parked car in a handicap spot. The world is a scary place.

Usopp let out a huffy sigh after seeing Zoro’s nose scrunch in distaste. “No offense Usopp but Y/n is and has been my partner,” his arms crossed, gaze not leaving the paper.

The persistent sniper slides next to Zoro, slinging his arm over his shoulder despite the other shoving him off. “Yeah but the chief said that he’s borrowing her for today.”

Great.

It’s not like Zoro dislikes Usopp, it’s not like that at all. It’s just he knows he’s going to babysit the scaredy cat. Amazing how he’s a coward, yet one of the finest sharpshooters he knows. Nobody doing it like him.

The hectic, sharp alarm lights the room red, causing the policemen to spring to action. The once-chattering room fills with the sounds of rapid footsteps, police sirens, incoherent yelling, and the urgent news.

Local wealthy landlord found dead on the street, SMILES cause of death, victim unidentified.

They made it through the yellow tapes and through the crowd with the help of Usopp’s directions, and Zoro instantly remembered that face-- really, how can he forget that face when you constantly bitched about him nearly everyday. That cocky smile never left that bastard’s face despite half of the pearly whites being gone.

It was Belle...

Belle-something.

It was Belle! 

He passes by him on the staircase whenever he visits you for nonsense. The medic hoists the mass onto the gurney, and drives off, leaving the remaining team to survey the area.

His colleagues told him that the victim OD’ed on SMILES, but the marimo knew better. Although faint, his sharp eyes can see the smudged trail of blood coming from another area. This isn’t a typical overdose. Belle was dead by the time the team got here. He was murdered somewhere else and dragged into the streets for a show. A declaration. A warning. 

In short, he was murdered. And probably from the same guy who started this whole SMILES addiction.

Meanwhile as the news blared in Chief Cora’s office, your heart sunk when the anchor broadcasted the victim’s face after receiving identification for a brief moment. It was Bellemy! Holy Gorgonzolas, that’s your landlord! Crap! As fucked up as it seemed, the only thought that initially crossed your mind was Does that mean I don’t have to pay for rent? More importantly, he’s dead! Not that you feel deep remorse... he did call you a whore last week and scoped your apartment without your permission.  

“It’s a message,” Cora puffed on his cigarette, the dim lighting of the room accentuating the smoke, “He knows we’re onto him.”

He ashed his cigarette in his heart-shaped ashtray, before relighting. Paper slid across the table, a confidential report wide open. Attached to the report was a headshot of a man with fancy, bird-eye-like shades. 

“His name is Doflamingo. Known as God of the Underworld. Dangerous man,” Cora said dryly, and straight to the point. “That kid that was on TV worked under him. Bellemy.”

Your brows furrow as you flip through the pages, examining the details with careful precision. “So the assets belong to this man?” 

“Legally. I didn’t find any contract that says that Bellemy shares this property with Doffy. Doffy must’ve not liked that one of his henchmen opposed his will. We can only assume that his death was the price to pay and to promote the SMILES. Other than that, Bellemy’s apartment lots are illegally owned, so we can also assume that it’s going to be confiscated when the police connect two-and-two together. You get where I’m going with this, right?” His eyes glanced over his shoulder, expecting you to catch on with the elaborative hints he dropped. It took a while, but it clicked.

“And now I’m homeless.” Hands thrown in the air, you sighed in defeat. First it was losing your bike in the walkway, next it was having to sneak in your own office like a burglar for a last-minute report that could’ve cost your job, and now it was being thrown on the streets because you lived and paid for an illegal apartment. 

Law interjected your whine with the clearing of his throat. “You don’t have to be.” He was silently watching the events unfold before him, taking in your reactions along the way.

“You can live with us,” Corazon proposed, cutting off whatever Law was going to say. That offer left both you and Law with your jaws hanging wide open. After a second, Law collects himself and musters a very confused what. 

“I was going to say to find someplace outside of town to live!” His disbelief coated his every word, and went unnoticed. “Are you sure?”

Cora simply nods, a thumbs up affirming his decision whilst trying to convince you to take up his offer.

“Please,” Cora’s hand found its way to your shoulder, lightly squeezing it. “It’d be beneficial for both you and us. You’re part of the brains of this operation so it’s better to keep you near us. And you did say you’re homeless now.”

He nudges you once more, after seeing your silence. “C’mon, beggars can’t be choosers.”

With that one line, you concede. 

You pull out your phone and send a simple text to your date, telling him you’re taking a raincheck to pack up your shit. He never responds. Had you known the consequences of agreeing, you would’ve stayed on the streets if that could mean that he’d still be here.

[thelastpilot]

Knighted- Chapter 7

Oh snap. IT’S HERE

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

Now ill admit while the later scenes were fun as heck to write i had to cross a lot of time in the beginning so its a lot of telling but its gets better, i just need to set up a thing and then i can do all the fun parts. For those of you who havent read it, its a Royalty AU. Aw yeah

Enjoy!

Nino’s job, when all was said and done, was exactly as he had defined it to be before.

His job was to be dangerous and stand in front of a door, and oh man was he standing in front of one right that very moment.

An important door. Nothing more important than important doors and deciding who was important enough to enter important doors, now that was important. Now surely he wasn’t remotely important enough for this particular door but he sure was allowed to be watching it, and he was currently, right that second, watching the hell out of that door.

God damn he was so bored…

Nino shifted in place, repressing a sigh and trying not to resent the elegant stone hallway he waited in. He was very close to the center of the castle so the architecture was at its finest, the hall he was helping to watch was literally attached to the throne room so it was about as deep into the castle as one could get. Normally he’d be excited about this since it was clearly something big, but when he had made his way to his post he became aware of just how many guards had been called. The hall was very large and had a good amount of entrances, but even for all those entry points the number of guards had seemed large to him. Essentially his entire unit was present, so he was a little chagrined to realize the assignment was nothing special.

Still though, it was a little odd. It spoke to the sheer volume of important people who had been called to this meeting, and part of him fought off a vague sense of unease.

When they had first stood by and allowed entrance, he had watched noble after noble pass through, whispering hurriedly and wondering why they had been summoned, a few looking stoic and calm as if they already knew.

Again he wished he had been stationed inside instead of out here, and he suppressed another sigh. Eavesdropping was one of the perks of the job to be honest, he might not get to make any decisions but at least he got to listen to some of them. Unfortunately, fancy people were usually careful about exactly where their guards were, so even when they paced the hallways and passed him by at his various posts he only caught bits and pieces, never enough to interest him.

It was drilled into the royal guards repeatedly that doing anything with any information you might happen to overhear was treason, and of course Nino had no genuine intentions behind knowing anything, but it was human to wonder. Something to think about other than doors at least.

It had been a little less than two weeks since his escort mission with the princesses, and though he had really tried his best not to expect anything fun he was dying for something interesting again. He had been pushed back to door duty like he had expected once he returned, getting congratulated by his Captain for seeming like he did a pretty good job but not giving him anything better really. He was off the guest rooms at least and had a little more variety than normal, but it was usually doors. Patrol once! But mostly doors.

It wasn’t all dull and he still felt a lot of pride in his job, but he kept reflecting on that huge pinnacle of pride he had felt marching through the gates, bearing his seal and standing tall above the others, even just for a second. He was back to his normal armor and his normal places but he had a taste for it now and he was looking desperately for more opportunities to prove himself. Still though, he had been lucky for even that one shot, he had a feeling he was going to have to be patient.

He had seen the Princess twice since then, though she hadn’t seen him. They weren’t always required to wear their helmets inside the castle since it mostly just served to restrict vision, but one of the times she had passed him he had been forced to be wearing it. Some fancy someone had been visiting and seeing guards at the entrance with all the bits and pieces was impressive, he guessed, made them all look more uniform, but it meant that she had missed him. Not like she should have been looking for him, or like she might have even noticed but still, he had been essentially invisible in a line of identical copies as she went out with her father to greet whoever it was. Earl of whatever, he hadn’t really been paying attention.

The second time he hadn’t been wearing a helmet, or any of his armor actually, and she had missed him again. He had no chance of standing out that time, not like she did, and her gaze had passed right over him.

He had been in town in plain clothes for his own purposes, enjoying some time off and spending a little money he wasn’t used to having yet. He had just bought a toy for his little brother he thought he might like and had been heading back to the castle to either send it or store it until he might see him again, when he got caught up in a large crowd around the castle gate. It didn’t take long to figure that she had caused the disturbance, people of the kingdom calling out to their princess as she made a brief appearance of some kind. She was swarmed with guards obviously and far from the people she waved to, but he thought that she must still enjoy it. He imagined it must be pretty nice to have people crowd to you and call out to you adoringly, but as her eyes passed over him and cast out over all of the people who stood there he thought, maybe not. She stood tall and beautiful and separated, unable to pick out any of the faces or know their names.

There were parts to both sides, he supposed.

He had seen the twins only once, and they had actually been close enough to notice him. They were together, like always, walking obediently behind a pair of handmaidens taking them off for some lesson somewhere. He had been guarding a boring door during a boring day and was actually starting to space out a little when he turned at the sound of someone approaching, waking up instantly to see the two little girls.

It felt kind of silly, but he wanted them to notice him, sad when he saw how quiet and orderly they appeared. They were just children, but not here he guessed, not when their backs were pulled up and straight by the draw of the castle.

They were perfectly practiced, and as they started to pass by him he knew he didn’t have much time to do anything, or even really have the opportunity to. However right as they were walking by, the senior guard he was paired with straightened to attention and gave a formal salute in acknowledgment. Nino quickly copied him, thrilled when Etta looked up at the movement and looked over them both. As soon as her eyes landed on him he gave her his warmest and friendliest smile, and a little nod of his head for good measure.

He couldn’t deny the warmth that shot through him when she recognized him, her face lighting up and smiling back instantly. She waved at him and he risked a little wave too, and another for Ella when her sister got her attention. They only had a brief moment, unable to stop or slow but they told him good morning and said his name, and he said good morning as well. They looked over their shoulders for awhile once they passed him, glancing back a few times more as they walked the long hallway. They whispered to each other and smiled at a memory, hopping a little as they went. And suddenly they were children again.

He smiled thinking about it, trying to focus on his appointed stone hallway but distracting himself. It had made him wonder at what Alya might have done if she had seen him, that she might smile at the memory too. Her teasing goodnight hung in his mind and he shifted his weight again, aware of the fact that she was somewhere inside.

It must be really important then, this meeting. The King and Queen were both in attendance, as well as the entirety of the council and their board of advisers. Alya had entered with her parents from another entrance, he had just heard of them being there from the less important important people who came through his door. He couldn’t imagine the twins being allowed though, not if it was something tense or gruesome.

Nino turned at a sound, any change at all enough to catch his attention when his post was so monotonous. He saw the guard appointed on the other side turn as well, both of them aware suddenly of a distant shouting from inside. Nino barely had time to shoot the other guard a look before a whole rabble of voices picked up in response, a whole crowd of people abruptly trying to be heard. There was a loud booming voice above all others, and then suddenly there was quiet, the room returning to its state of discussion in an instant and he knew that this must be the king.

The other guard raised an eyebrow, making a slight face of ‘yeesh’ before leaning back, both of them returning to their stance but still straining to listen.

It was completely impossible to hear any words, not even when a single voice shouted out in disgust, but the tone none the less worried him. He tried to just mind his business, but his thoughts turned to Adrien. He was definitely inside as well and he wondered if he would tell him if he asked… probably not though. Not like it was any worry of his.

He had managed to see Adrien once so far, and it had been honestly incredible. He had stolen a moment of his time during the night, going to his room after his last shift had ended. He had been in his room alone like he said he would be and seemed ecstatic to see him though he tried to hide it at first. He was quick to give some half-assed pretense to his own guard who was stationed outside and rushed him in, and the moment they were clear he dropped all formality like he did whenever they were alone.

He had clasped him warmly on the shoulder and ran off to grab him a drink, surprising him with his eagerness as they found a moment to just be people, like Adrien sought so desperately. It was a little difficult at first, but again Adrien’s genuine nature always got the better of him. It never took long for him to forget that they were from utterly different places, even as they discussed their differences. They talked about farming and castles and cities and people. They discussed home and harvests and horses and wine, and they talked about fighting too. Nino was unsurprised to learn that Adrien had extensive training as a swordsman, having briefly saw his skill first hand when they had met in the woods what seemed like years ago now though it was only in reality a handful of months.

It had been forced to be brief, but it felt important, and good. It was nice that from the very beginning he had someone who was wholly on his side.

Now though Adrien was alone with whatever was burdening the state, but there was nothing he could do for that. He could listen but he doubted Adrien would speak, and suddenly he hated that he could give so little to him in return. Nearly nothing, except maybe friendship… from time to time.

They were all so far from him. And he was as close as he figured he would ever be. Closer than a farmhand at least, but more distant that a friend.

He could only be so much.

… but that wasn’t that sort of the point of all this?

Nino frowned to himself as he stared out at nothing, only servants in sight as they waited to enter since the meeting was surely drawing to a close. He tightened his grip on his spear and grappled with himself, wondering again just how many rules he was daring to break here. Even his place at this damn door was a risk as far as societal norms were concerned, though for the most part that scandal had simmered down.  Still, he should just be happy. And he was! He was grateful, but time and again he found himself wanting more, and wanting to do more and be more. He wanted to be a friend to a lonely prince, and he had already done a lot to be things he shouldn’t so why not? Isn’t that why he had snuck off to see him in the first place?

Ugh.

He was going to get hanged one day.

Nino snapped out of his grumbling commentary at the approach of a murmur, a budding sound building up inside the hall. The other guard he was with turned to face him and Nino mirrored him quickly, preparing to stand by as the nobles cleared the room.

The doors were opened by another luckier pair of guards from inside, both of them a higher rank than he or his companion. Promotions came with the cooler gossip, he supposed.

All four guards stood by in their various positions as people much wealthier than him filed out, and suddenly his perfectly memorized boring stone hallway was crowded with men. Some were old, a few were young, and all of them seemed…

Nino looked around, trying to keep the movement subtle so as not to stick out, but slowly scanning the faces he saw, noting how all of them appeared… unsettled. They all seemed keen to whisper but kept it tucked inside, waiting for another moment alone to discuss things too important for unimportant people to overhear.

Nino refocused as more disconcerted council members shuffled past him, all of them without exception engrossed in thought or some raging emotion they were keeping to themselves. Though the crowd was thick it was eerily devoid of talking, and Nino felt unease crawl beneath his armor.

Another man shifted in discomfort, though the burden he bore on his shoulders was not weighted in chain mail. Instead it was sagged with the mantle he carried, and his neck ached with the ghost of a crown he could not forget.

The Good King sighed, allowing himself a slight expression of frustration, if nothing more. He reached up a weary hand and held his face for a moment, looking at nothing and thinking of everything.

“Why do I feel like the more people who talk the less anything happens…” he heard his daughter mutter nearby, definitely intended for him to overhear and a much deeper sigh built in his chest before his queen spoke for him.

“The voices of the council matter Alya-,”

“Of course they do, the council I have no problem with. It’s the ten men speaking for one opinion each that takes up so much time,” Otis looked up in time to see his daughter sat with her back straight defiantly, matching her mother’s gaze. “How many times do we have to listen to these people repeat themselves? We have said nothing new!”  

“Alya!”

“The entire meeting! That entire meeting was three things said five hours ago and a hundred iterations on each!”

“That’s enough,” Otis spoke pointedly, and though Alya’s mouth was open she hesitated, and slowly closed it.

He watched her for awhile more, Marlena looking between them both before standing. She silently fixed her deep purple gown and stepped away, leaving the King with his daughter alone for a moment, the hall deserted except for a few trusted guards.

Otis watched her carefully and was unsure of how he felt about the way that Alya challenged him, refusing to look away even if she remained silent like he had ordered. Defiant in what ways she could be, and he couldn’t decide if he was proud of that or not.

“I understand your frustration Alya,” he said after a while, the first to look away as he usually was between them. “I was always the same, and clearly in some ways I still am.  It’s frustrating to go through these paces, but even if the people echo each other we have to listen to each. All of them deserve a chance to speak, and we can not proceed until we have heard them.”

“I know that…” she said slowly, her understanding at war with her impatience, and he understood that too.

“Then exercise it. It is necessary now, soon we won’t have the time to be patient. We must listen while we can listen.”

The lull in conversation was thick with energy, and Otis was bracing himself for whatever Alya had brimming up from beneath the surface of her obedience, when the sound of a heavy door swinging open distracted them both and suddenly he had two incoming targets.  

The connecting entrance to the throne room had been opened wide, allowing two little princesses to barrel inside from where they had been playing together with their handmaidens. They stormed by their mother who had gone to let them in, bringing a sudden and desperately needed warmth to the grim hall they wallowed in.

Ella ran forward to climb into her father’s lap, her sister doing the same to Alya who seemed to accept that for now at least her time to argue had been lost. Otis was sure he had not heard the last of her opinions, but by his own advice he knew it was important to hear her too. Just hopefully when she was prepared to be a little more constructive.

Otis lifted up one of his youngest and allowed himself to be distracted by relief, glad to have his family here with him. He had more discussions on this matter to endure, but for now he could just indulge the babble of his twins, preferring this din to the one that had previously dominated the hall. He gently wrangled a wayward lock of his daughter’s hair back into place as she spoke, ignoring her probing questions about the meeting and asking her instead about her games.

The twins took the bait easily, dropping the subject of their failed eavesdropping without much persuading. Alya was still ruminating quietly but did not shrug off her mother’s gentle hand when she came up behind her.

It took Marlena a little effort, seeing as Otis was happy to remain where he was, but after a few gentle pushes she managed to get both Alya and Otis to their feet, the two of them carrying a twin each as she gently guided them to their rooms for some genuine alone time. She did not have much more time to see her husband before he was called away for more arguing, and she wasn’t willing to lose this moment just yet.

Their group moved together towards the side entrance, choosing the most direct path to their rooms instead of the way they had come and allowing their guards to converge and trail behind them, more up ahead standing to the side to allow them to pass. They passed over the cold stone floor and yearned for the warm sunlight their sheltered walk back would give them, and would have been content in their family’s quiet moment had an eager little nine-year-old not suddenly shouted,

“Hello Nino!”

The King looked down at his daughter in his arms with confusion, following her distraction and about to remind her to be polite when he spotted the guard she was practically falling out of his arms to wave at, and the poor guy looked like he was going to fry.

Nino was stood less than five feet away from the entire royal family, having been taken by surprise because he was kind of spacing out, but standing at electrified attention when he realized that the King and Queen would be passing through his watch. He had already been on full alert, straightening himself to stand as tall and firm as he could to look as impressive as the guards around who outranked him. He hated that he had done nothing to fix his appearance and resented that he was not dressed in full armor, having not anticipated their proximity at all. But this?

This was way, way worse.

Nino was stood ramrod straight as Ella excitedly greeted him, Etta now leaning over as well and calling to him too. From behind the great stature of the King he was aware of Alya sliding into view, noting him with a smile that quickly evolved into a smirk as soon as she saw how caught out he looked.

There was a moment where he did nothing, the King and now Queen fully regarding him where he stood, all of them looking at him while he just totally stood there, frozen.

It was the slight hesitation in Ella’s wave that broke him out of it, his heart torn between refusing to move and saying something back, cause was he supposed to?? The rule was speak when spoken to wasn’t it? So-…

“H-hello Your Highness,” he answered quickly, Ella’s face lighting up when he acknowledged her. He tore his eyes away from the powerful presence of the King and smiled as best as he was capable. He gave another to Etta, too scared to risk a wave but bowed instead, sparing another ‘Your Highness’. He thought he might be allowed to lapse into silence, but then Alya spoke up suddenly as well, clearly expecting her own.

“Hello Nino,” she greeted him, smiling as he bowed but only because he seemed so uncomfortable, not for any desire for formality.

“Hello Your Highness,” he said again, getting hung up on a ‘Nice to see you again’ or anything else and deciding to say nothing more. It took everything he had not to squirm, the Queen assessing him and asking her oldest present,

“Do you know this guard?”

They were all still stood in the doorway, the other guards getting tense at the proximity as well and Nino could see them shooting each other glances behind Alya’s back, probably wondering what was happening just like he was.

“Yes Mother,” Alya supplied happily, her smile audible in her voice. “Do you remember our trip out into the field a few weeks ago? Nino was assigned as our personal escort, he made quite an impression.” Alya then stage whispered without really trying to hide anything, saying so that even he could hear, “Do you remember that bunny story the twins were telling?”

“Bunny story?” The King echoed aloud, and Nino thought he might collapse on the spot. To his absolutely profound relief however the Queen did not acknowledge her husbands questioning look, instead turning towards Nino with recognition.

“Oh yes! My daughters spoke of you, the guard who came from the territories. My husband mentioned you as well, I had wondered how you’ve been doing. It is nice to finally meet you.”

Nino wasn’t sure what he looked like in the moment, looking into the Queen’s face and affronted with a powerful intimidation but also… admiration. The Queen was lovely and powerful, looking him in the eye and not shying away. She looked every bit like her children, but also holding a grace that they did not yet have, an elegant purple and gold dress cascading around her and trailing slightly on the stone floor.

The Queen’s gaze was an intense and unwavering as her daughter’s, and though he was taller than her he felt infinitely small in comparison. Still though, she smiled gently and greeted him with interest, like two people passing in a hallway.

“I-it’s an honor, Your Majesty, to meet you,” he barely managed, bowing as deeply as he was capable of.

He could hear Alya’s tittering laugh though he dare not look away from the Queen, and he was sure he looked pathetic in the moment, so desperate to be viewed as impressive as the others but sure he was failing. Then again, he didn’t see any of them getting talked to.

The King hummed suddenly, wrangling his daughter back into place in his arms. Ella looked up at her father, asking innocently, “Can he come with us? I want to ask him things.”

“Yes! Like, have you done anything fun?” Etta piped up.

“Have you found anything new?”

“What were you doing?”

Nino wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he was expected to respond when the King quietly corrected, “He is working right now my dear. Don’t distract the guards from their duties.”

Ella pouted as the King stepped forward, making it clear he intended to enforce the sentiment, even if he himself looked entertained.

The Queen laughed a little as her family started to head out again, sure the guard would appreciate a little room to breathe from underneath their attention. However she did not miss the warm, yet nervous smile he gave to her daughters, nor the tiny wave goodbye he risked when he thought she wasn’t looking.

The twins were beaming over the shoulder of their father and sister, and though she only glanced back once Alya was smiling too, noticing her mother watching her and looking forward down the corridor.

Marlena could hear the guards whispering as they left, no doubt interrogating the new guy about what had transpired, though she hardly thought it was gossip worthy. The new recruit was hurriedly defending himself, and she had to restrain a chuckle as they finally moved out of earshot.

She turned her attention forward again, enjoying the sight of Ella sitting up in her father’s arms telling a story as he just stared at her in amusement.

Etta took turns telling it with her sister as they walked, Alya occasionally nodding her head in confirmation whenever her father looked over at her in confusion.

However to all of their surprise the King eventually frowned.

“He sounds easily distracted,” the King muttered, and Marlena watched as Alya suddenly jumped in, instantly defending him.

“He was alert the entire time father, it’s why he even went with them. He played with them so he could keep a closer eye on them without ruining their fun, and he wasn’t too proud to do it like some of the others may have been. He wanted to make them happy while not compromising their safety, that’s what you want from the guard isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Etta agreed from her sister’s arms. “He said we could play as long as we let him play too, he didn’t make us stop. We found the whole family of rabbits again because he helped.”

“And he gave them such a nice memory,” Marlena added in defense, matching her husbands unsure glance backwards with a slight shrug.

“Hm…” the king hummed again, looking down at Ella as she continued to squirm in his grasp.

“He was very nice to us. I like him.”

“Are the other guards not being nice to you?”

“No they are. But…,” Ella paused thoughtfully, nodding as she said, “He’s nicer. He smiles more.”

Otis hesitated, then decided to say nothing, mulling this over as the twins drifted towards new topics. They did not notice their father’s distraction, as he distantly replayed the shouting and the nothingness of the meeting they slowly left behind them.

His steps felt loud to him, in the corridor.

Heavy.

He thought of those five repeated grating arguments, and accepted that the world around their gentle home was growing more dangerous, more restless. And for his daughters, he wanted them to be happy and safe, chasing pleasant memories of rabbits burrowed in a field before they were too old. Before they were forced to listen in frustration like Alya.

As much as he could let them play he would… without risking them. He and the farmboy were alike, in that way.

---

“N I N O  L A H I F F E”

The name was shouted so loud, and so suddenly, that Nino nearly sliced his hand open in a fountain of blood, the sword he was cleaning jerking away from him as he jumped and clattering loudly to the stone floor of his chamber. One of the other guys he shared it with was in there too, sitting on his bed across from him, frozen stock still and staring at him fearfully.

Nino’s heart was instantly racing as the captain’s voice echoed through the guard rooms, and he knew she knew he was in there, and he had absolutely no idea what he had done wrong.

When she yelled his name a second time he scrambled to his feet, skittering into the hallway and nervously barking a reply. “Y-yes Captain!”

The plain stone chambers of the guard were uncharacteristically full, many of the simple wooden doors swinging open so the fellow members of his unit could poke their head out and look at him, and then the captain. However, as soon as they saw the fiery woman stood at the end of the hall with her armored hands planted firmly on her hips they instantly retreated, leaving the new guy to die.

There was a pretty decent handful of frightened looking men behind her as well, a couple gauging whether or not they could make it to their rooms before anything happened but too scared to pass her.

The short woman said nothing else, just standing there in the main chamber at the mouth of the hallway, waiting for him.

She watched him cooly as he approached, Nino unable to keep himself from glancing at her weapon which was, for the moment, still sheathed. He had never seen her without her armor on before and now was no exception, her entire visage terrifying and he was racking his brain for why he was in so much trouble right now.

He stopped about eight feet away from her, hands tight to his side as he stood at attention.

“Why, the hell, is it Lahiffe,” she finally spoke, “That I keep hearing your name, everywhere I go?”

Nino paled slightly, managing a weak and questioning, “Ma’am?”

“For having no solid name I sure have been hearing about it a lot, far more than a member of the guard should be getting mentioned by anybody.” She paused for effect, crossing her arms. “Let alone the Royal Family.”

She examined his expression, unsurprised to see wild confusion running rampant. So she continued, staring him down and speaking firmly.

“You’ve been making noise, and I don’t know what you’ve been doing but you’re sticking out and I can’t really make up my mind whether or not I think that’s a good thing. Only thing I can think of is that special assignment I gave you and now, all of a sudden, I keep catching your name. Even though we’ve done hundreds of these types of jobs Lahiffe, every single day, for the first time since I’ve had this rank,” she paused, drawing in a deep breath and freezing him solid with a look, “I’ve gotten a request.”

“...request? Ma’am?” he said fearfully.

“Yeah. A request. For you. 

From the King.”

[spnmcrphangirl]

Free Write Friday - Cancun #26 02/22/2020

This is going to be the first post of at least four pertaining to my four-day vacation to Cancun.

The Plane Ride There

Have you ever had the chance to see the world from a different perspective?  You may have without knowing.  But maybe you didn’t take the chance to savor it.  You didn’t take the chance to consider how your perspective is different.  

Let me rephrase.  Have you ever been on a plane?  We flew to Mexico for our vacation.  I haven’t been on a plane since I was 7 or 8 years old.  I’m 16 now, and the perspective I gathered from the initial plane ride was unexpected to say the least.  

The plane was set to leave at 11 am.  We had to be at BWI airport at 8 am for international flights.  It took an hour to get there, so we had to leave at 7 am.  This is normally when I have to leave for school, so I woke up at 5:50 am, as usual.  

I set up the blow-up bed for my grandmother, much to the dismay of my husky.  He sleeps on my bed, even when I’m gone.  My grandmother watches him, and has to sleep on the blow-up bed so that he can still sleep in my room.  He knew I was leaving because of the blow-up bed.  He’s extremely smart for a dog, which is unfortunate due to him being extremely stubborn.  

The car ride to the airport wasn’t exciting.  I don’t think it had hit me yet; I was going to fly to Cancun, where it would 70-80 F and sunny everyday, compared to a measly 30-40 F and rainy Maryland.  I would be missing four days of school, which I was a bit anxious about, but by the time we were driving over, the anxiety had passed.  It was a bit funny to me; having my second semester classes for three days before saying “see you next week” to my new teachers.  

We were in long-term parking before 8, able to find a spot close to the first shuttle stop.  I was tired, but I always am that early in the morning.  I had my glasses on instead of my contacts, because I desperately wanted to sleep on the plane if I had the chance.  

We stood at the shuttle stop, shaking from the cold.  I was wearing capri-length leggings because I knew it’d be cold on the plane, but would be very warm when we arrived.  We waited a bit for the shuttle, and had to go through 15 other stops around the parking lot before getting into the airport.  At least the bus was warmer than outside but it was chilly when the door opened.  

We had to stay in the airport for about three hours.  First, we tried to use the self-service kiosks to check ourselves in, but they kept being unable to scan our passports (stay tuned for the flight home post for why) and we had to do manual.  Manual wasn’t much harder than the self-service and it didn’t take much of the time we had allotted ourselves.  

My sister and I got TSA-pre but my mom didn’t, most likely because only two people were supposed to go on the trip (my mom’s work sent her and a plus one, but she paid for a third herself since it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip).  However, my carry-on had to get opened because apparently, books cannot be seen through on the x-ray, and they rifled through my bag.  They sent it through the x-ray twice before going through it, which sent my anxiety through the roof.

We spent the next three hours in the airport, talking to my mom’s coworkers and eating.  I didn’t eat much in the airport because the flight was going to be four hours and I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t be hungry when we got there, since the shuttle to the hotel was also an hour.

We boarded the plane and I found myself sitting beside one of my mom’s coworkers and her husband.  I had the window seat and resigned to looking out at the wing.  I didn’t want to sleep before takeoff since there is an information briefing before takeoff.  I read my book, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson while I waited.  My stomach churned.  I didn’t dislike plane rides, but I had forgotten what to expect and was anxious about it.  

At takeoff, I gained my perspective.  I saw the buildings get smaller and smaller, wondering how humans had built all that.  Maryland was a brown mudpit from above.  The Bay looked murky and brown, the landscape looking barren as winter in Maryland is at its worst during February.  But still I looked at the buildings in awe.  How some got smaller but others still looked large in comparison.  

But my heavy eyelids brought a close to my brief dose of perspective.  I slept in fitful fifteen-minute increments until hunger forced me awake.  I ate my sandwich; a six-inch sub with roast beef, provolone cheese, and spinach.  

I fell back asleep, only to wake up when we were coming back over land; crossing over the tip of Florida and some of the islands before hitting land in Mexico.  

I knew Mexico would be beautiful even before we landed.  The land was covered in trees, a true forest rather than the dreary concrete forest that lays over the United States.  The bright green landscape stretched below the plane, like a fluffy blanket.  

Mexico’s landscape made me reconsider my awe at the accomplishments of people.  I thought, preserving the green trees was a bigger achievement than the large buildings.  While Mexico is considered ‘poorer’ than the United States, they are certainly richer in happiness and culture.  

I couldn’t find sleep on the descent; the excitement was overwhelming.  The moment the doors opened on the plane, warmth flooded the cabin.  The flight attendants asked us to close the blinds to keep the sun out of the plane, to prevent the temperature from rising too high.  They warned us to turn off our phones lest Customs take them from us.  I didn’t have service anyway.  (Pro-tip: order international service when vacationing.  Especially if your friends or family need to contact you).

The line in Customs was not too long, and there were two very cute boys seemingly around my age that my sister and I promptly spotted.  After getting through Customs, my sister and I ran to the bathroom while my mom retrieved our luggage and we made our way to the shuttles.  

Stay tuned for the First Night post next week.

[middledumpling]

i like the way you smile

fandom: gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun

summary: everyday he walked past the dim windows of the tattoo shop next door and wondered about the owner with the bright orange hair and the beautiful smile

notes: soulmate!au for day 3 of @gsnkfandomweek 

The sun was just beginning to break over the mountains but Mikoshiba had already been up for hours. Truth be told, he hated getting up early, but there was something about the stillness in the air as the world was waking up, like it was holding its breath in anticipation of something, that made it worth it. He tilted the spout of his watering can back and stood up from where he was crouching on the ground. Those were the last of his various indoor plants and flowers watered. All that was left was to decorate the sign board and set the displays outside his door before he could officially open for the day. Mikoshiba rummaged through the top drawer for his chalk pen. Uncapping the pen, he began to outline some daffodils that would serve as a border to the text he’d add in later. Drawing flowers had always been a special skill of his and required almost no concentration, so inevitably his mind began to wander to the store next door, as it was wont to do these days. His small flower shop was unfortunately located right next to a tattoo parlour. It hadn’t been an ideal location for him. Mikoshiba was terrified of illicit yakuza activity and scary people in general, so he had always hurried past the tinted windows with averted eyes in order to avoid seeing any of the store’s employees or clients. But one day he had seen a small girl, at least a head shorter than him, stride confidently into the store. She had been wearing a long sleeved, poofy dress with two large ribbons in her hair. The sight was so odd that he stopped right there in the sidewalk to see what would happen. Nothing happened, of course. It wasn’t until later than he found out she was the owner of the store. But what had started as mere curiosity had slowly evolved into interest and then into a small crush. “You don’t even know her name,” his friend Kashima had pointed out. She had even offered to go and find out for him, but Mikoshiba had staunchly refused. Even if he knew her name, he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. He knew himself too well. Mikoshiba placed his chalkboard pen back down on the table and leaned back against his chair, staring at the way the early morning sunlight filtered through the store. The world didn’t feel beautiful anymore but terribly, terribly lonely. ... The bell over his front door jingled. “Welcome to Mikoto’s Flowers!” Mikoshiba greeted. “Oh—it’s just you.” Kashima laughed and brushed her windblown hair back into place. “Don’t sound so disappointed,” she said. Before he could say anything else, she went on. “Anyways, I know you told me not to talk to the tattoo girl but—” Mikoshiba heart lodged itself firmly into his throat and he leapt to his feet. “What?” he yelped. Kashima’s hands flew up in defence. “I just talked to her that’s all! I didn’t even say your name. I just mentioned I was interested in getting a tattoo.” Mikoshiba stared at her. Since when was she interested in getting a tattoo? Suddenly the pieces clicked as he watched her absently run a hand over her bare wrist. It was still strange to see it blank, when for the past however many years he’d known her it had been scrawled with lines of text. He flopped back into his chair and ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “You’re a hopeless romantic,” he complained half-heartedly. Mikoshiba glanced up just in time to see a soft smile spread across her usual charming face. “Hori-chan-senpai said that it wasn’t necessary, but I think I’d still like it as a momento,” she said decisively. “And besides, it was just lines of script anyways. Nothing to be embarrassed about!” Yeah, it was nothing like his. Mikoshiba’s face burned as he tugged down the sleeve of his sweater so it covered the black line of ink on the inside of his wrist. It was only one sentence, but it sure made an impact.

Too late, Kashima seemed to realize her blunder. “Not that having an embarrassing line is completely awful! It’ll fade either way once you meet them.” Mikoshiba sighs, running an hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. But still. If I meet my soulmate and want this line tattooed on me again, promise me you’ll stop me.” Kashima nodded solemnly. “I won’t stop you.” “Thanks—hey!” While they tussled, Kashima put him into a headlock and grinned down at him. “I found out her name by the way,” she said. Mikoshiba glanced up, suitably distracted. “It’s Chiyo. Sakura Chiyo.” Mikoshiba mouthed the name to himself. Sakura Chiyo. The name suited her. ... It was still dark outside. Mikoshiba walked down the silent street, breathing in the crisp air of the morning.

As usual, he passed by the tattoo parlour on his way to the store. Before he realized it, Mikoshiba was hovering just outside the glass window of her storefront, watching her putter about the store, cleaning this or shifting that. There was no other way to describe it. She was just so… adorable.

But she walked around with a quiet confidence, with the kind of presence that had caught his attention in the first place. Their eyes met through the tinted glass. The girl—no, Chiyo—looked startled at first. Mikoshiba froze in place, embarrassed at having been caught staring in the first place. Then her lips quirked up into a smile as she waved at him. Mikoshiba had enough presence of mind to let out a quiet eep and wave back before ducking into his own store, blushing all the while. ... It was Valentine’s Day. Regardless of the fact that it was his birthday, his shop was swarming with people. Roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, assorted bouquets—everything was being sold at a rapid fire pace the way it did every year. The bell above his door jingled, signalling the arrival of yet another customer. “Welcome!” he yelled in the general direction of the front door. Milkoshiba rang the customer in and when glanced up, his heart nearly stopped in his chest. The customer that had just entered was Chiyo from next door, and when she caught his eye from the front of the store she wiggled her fingers at him in greeting. Adorable.

I’ll come back later, she mouthed sheepishly, pointing at the door. Mikoshiba nodded and waved back before his attention was completely seized again by a customer asking his opinion on flower languages. Later, after the chaos, Mikoshiba bemoaned the fact to Kashima. “I could have talked to her!” he exclaimed. “What would you have said?” she asked, eyebrows raised in question while perched on a nearby stool. “I would’ve, I dunno, introduced myself or something,” Mikoshiba groaned. “Or like, been all suave and given her a flower while saying ‘This is just for you, it’s on the house’.” “Maybe it’s better that you didn’t talk to her then,” Hori piped in, leaning casually against Kashima’s back. “Or you could always go next door you know, and introduce yourself like a normal person?” Kashima asked. “No, that’s not an option. I’ll just pine here until I die I guess.” “Please don’t,” Hori said.“You’ll ruin the linoleum.”

“I hate you both,” he complained. ... His phone rang once, twice, and then a third time  before he picked up. “Hey, are you free right now?” she asks, her tone peppy even through the static

“Yeah, what’s up?” Mikoshiba asked, phone cradled between his ear and shoulder during one of his only days off. “We just got our new script and we need some extra people to help read. You down?”

Mikoshiba hesitated. He stared at the screen of his TV, where Yukino was waiting for him to ask her on a date.

“I’ll buy you that new figure that came out. Limited edition, right?” Kashima wheedled.

His decision was made in an instance. “I’ll be there in five. Where are you?”

“Nozaki’s house! We’ll leave the door unlocked so just come right in.” And with that, she hung up. Mikoshiba grabbed his wallet and keys and headed out for the day. He stepped out into the sunshine, only mourning his cool and darkened room for a brief moment before he was cheered up by the thought of the limited edition figurine waiting for him at the end of the night.

It was a quick train ride to Nozaki’s house.

Nozaki was a bit of an eccentric mangaka, but then again, weren’t they all? Mikoshiba helped pen in flowers for him to make a little extra cash on the side and so he could tentatively call them friends.

Mikoshiba cautiously pushed open the door.The house was already alive with yelling and impassioned monologuing. Mikoshiba’s stomach twisted a little at the thought of how many people would be in the room, but he had to do this.

For Yukino, he decided, and pushed open the door.

He opened the door to total chaos. Hori had his back to him and was yelling his lines impassionately at a girl standing in front of him. Kashima was clearly long gone, her admiration for her senpai’s acting throwing her sanity out the window. And Nozaki was sitting back near the window, obviously enjoying the scene before him.

Hori moved to the side at his arrival, and Mikoshiba looked down at the girl, making eye contact with dizzyingly familiar purple eyes.

“Hey,” Sakura Chiyo, owner and tattoo artist of Ribbon & Ink Tattoos, said determinedly. “I know I cheated but I just can’t decide who I love more! You’ll forgive me right?”

Mikoshiba choked. His jaw dropped as he tried to process not only the turn of events, but his entire perspective on the concept of soulmates. There’s a burning sensation on his wrist and he glances down to see the black ink that had accompanied him for most of his life fading into unblemished skin.

“Your line!” Sakura snapped, and Mikoshiba jolted.

“Um,” he stammered, and suddenly a script was deposited in his hands. Mikoshiba scanned the page desperately. “The world may burn and the stars might twinkle out of existence, but I will always love you and therefore, I will always forgive you.”

He peeked up at Chiyo. The realization of what he just said registers in his mind and he feels his cheeks blaze red at the cheesy and embarrassing line. She stared up at him, wide-eyed and shocked, only breaking eye contact to glance down at her arm.

Hori, who had already finished his next line, trailed off to stare at the silent couple.

“...huh,” was all he said. Mikoshiba’s face burst into flames.

At this point, even Nozaki, hopeless in any type of romantic matters, caught on. “Oh ho,” he said, the statement made worse somehow by his usual deadpan face.

Kashima was beaming.

Mikoshiba targeted her, because he’s blushing so hard he can’t keep his gaze on Chiyo—his soulmate. Lord, even the thought of it was crazy.

“You set this up,” he hissed at her. She shrugged haplessly at the accusation, seemingly unable to keep a smile off her face.

“Let’s give them some privacy,” Hori interjected, dragging Kashima off by the back of her collar. “Nozaki, you too.”

In an instant the room was clear. Mikoshiba simultaneously loved and hated Hori-senpai at that moment.

There was a light touch on his arm, and he turned to see Chiyo holding her hand out. Up close, she was even tinier than he thought she was.

“I’m Sakura Chiyo,” she said, smiling bashfully at him. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

[bisexualklausmikaelson]

this thing upon me, howls like a beast [2/3] ;

a/n: here’s part 2! Click here for part 1 if you haven’t read it yet! this one’s like twice as long but alas, I could not help it. I took a month to write it for a reason lolz. enjoy!

―

Klaus arrives at their home at exactly 6:45am.

Hayley grinds her teeth together, lets the sound cause her nausea before she breathes in deeply through her nose, and out her mouth. She squints her eyes and tries very hard not to throw him across the room.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses, only slightly opening the door and she’s full on bedhead, unbuttoned pyjama top, that tousled look―

God, Klaus thinks, she’s so beautiful.

“I’m taking Hope to school,” he says, with confidence.

“Who in the world told you to do that?” she asks, while rolling her eyes.

He sighs and looks around the room. It’s quiet, peaceful even. He recognizes Elijah’s ridiculously tall bookshelves that are almost touching the ceiling, Hope’s toys lying on the floor, the smell of cinnamon radiating off of Hayley’s hair.

It all felt like…home.

“I want to help out,” Klaus announces. “I overheard you and Elijah the other day, discussing on getting a babysitter since you both work and you two need someone at home to look after Hope, perhaps I could be of assistance, I―” He stops, looks at again, and notices how she’s getting annoyed with him already. He chuckles humorlessly. Hayley Marshall never was a morning person.

“Okay,” her tone is harsh and intimidating. “Enough yammering,” she orders.

“Does that mean I can help?” he immediately assumes.

She slowly raises her head to meet his gaze. Hayley takes in a sharp breath and blows her hair out of her face when she releases it. She can’t believe she has to explain this to him. Again.

“Why do you want to do this?” his eyes grow a little wide at her question. “Because you feel bad? Look I told you, you have no reason to feel guilty. I chose not to involve you, it’s not like you knew about her,” she whispers, making sure that no one hears.

Still, he is as stubborn as ever. Klaus decides he’ll use the softest tone he’s ever mastered. Because, surely, he had grown kinder over these passed few years.

“I just want to be there for her,” he admits, without hesitation. “That’s all,” he shrugs.

She studied his features and attempts to detect any sense of malice or dishonesty. But, she sees nothing. She wants to hate him for it. She can’t even remember the last time she saw him looking so pathetic.

(Oh wait she does, he looked at her in the very same way on her wedding night).

“Fine,” she finally gives in. “You can drop her off at school, but that’s it. I still want to find a real babysitter,” Hayley voices, in a rather serious tone.

He nods before he leaves with a satisfied look on his face.

―

Hope Marshall is truly the smartest little girl Klaus has ever had the pleasure of meeting.

He adjusts the car mirror and spies her looking out the window and waving goodbye to her mother. She’s always in these boyish clothes, blue jean overalls and a loose tee and never forgets her favorite sneakers that light up. Klaus knows that Hope prefers her monster trucks over her Barbie dolls. Knows that she’s afraid of the blow up things in front of gas stations, knows that she doesn’t like the smell of coffee. But loves the scent of a nice cup of licorice tea.

He knows because that’s his favorite tea. He chuckles, figuring that at least she got something from him.

“You know,” Hope says while he drives. “All these random visits you’re making are starting to get pretty suspicious,” she slowly comes to that conclusion, sitting on the edge of her seat, wondering what he’s going to say.

“What random visits?” Klaus quips.

“Well first,” she speaks softly, with a finger on her chin. “There was that time you came by during dinner, then when you claimed you ‘forgot’ your coat, and now you’re dropping me off at school!” Hope exclaims.

He laughs again, unable to meet her wit.

“I assure you, sweetheart,” he sings. “That those are all just coincidences,” Klaus attempts to convince her by sounding casual. But the slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips and glimmer in his eyes gives him away.

“You expect me to believe that?” Hope questions.

He leans back in his chair, smirking. “What’s your theory?” Klaus wonders.

“You like my mom,” she tells him, with a large grin. “It’s pretty obvious,” Hope mindlessly mumbles, catching him off-guard.

He gazes onto the on-coming traffic, exhales loudly when he realizes that this was going to be a long ride. Although, he does look forward to spending quality time with Hope. And that thought alone allows a smile to creep back on to his face.

“You’re strangely well-adjusted to that idea, aren’t you?” he smugly tells her, reminding her that her mother is married, to his brother no less.

“What can I say?” Hope shrugs instead. “I’m an adaptable child,” she whispers.

He throws his head back in laughter.

“That you are, little one,” Klaus agrees.

He turns on the radio while he reverts his focus back on her, and how she just simply goes back to staring out the window. He wonders what’s going on in that little head of hers.

―

Hayley washes the dishes,

―and every other inch of their house.

She needs distractions, and cleaning is as good of a distraction as anything else.

You see, her life had become so ordinary, filled with such mundane activities. She’s got her husband her kid, her job at the local bank. She comes home from her nine-to-five, cooks and cleans, helps Hope with her homework, tucks her in, sleeps next to Elijah―

It’s all so very…boring.

(But, this is what she wanted, isn’t it?)

―

Klaus comes by almost every morning to get Hope.

And each time, she’s more and more eager. Hayley doesn’t know what kind of sugary drinks or sweets Klaus is feeding to get her so riled up whenever she sees him. But, whatever it is, it sure is working. Deep down though, she’s probably aware that her daughter is just as attached to him as she thought she’d be.

When she sees Hope with her father, her heart does that weird tumble. And it’s loud…louder than its ever been quite honestly.

―

She needs a break from it all. From all the normalcy that is her life.

So, she goes to a bar. There’s dancing and music and sweaty college kids behaving like animals all around her. And she looks back to see a couple sharing a smoke in the corner, and she remembers for a brief moment, that once upon a time, that was her.

Careless and young and so fucking in love.

“So this is where you’re hiding,” a voice sneaks up behind her, and she’s not surprised to see Klaus Mikaelson, of all people, offering her a glass of cold water.

“I’m not hiding,” she begins, sounding already drunk enough to pass out. “I’m getting a drink, flirting with…what’s your name again?” she points to the bartender, looking rather confused.

He rolls his eyes as he cleans a glass. “Marcel,” he reminds her.

“Oh right!” she exclaims, taking another big sip of her beer.

Klaus sees the bartender making eyes at her. He’s never been one to tolerate anyone hitting on Hayley. Even after all this time, the mere fact that another man was even looking at her still managed to get under his skin.

Call him possessive, if you must. Either way, someone should really consider naming a pathological condition after him.

“Hands off mate,” Klaus orders Marcel. “She’s married,” he sings, pointing to the big fat diamond on her ring finger.

“Do you have to ruin my fun?” Hayley sighs. “I wasn’t gunna sleep with him,” she specifies, and her head unintentionally (intentionally?) falls on his shoulder.

He can tell she’s doing pretty bad, other wise, she wouldn’t dare let her guard down around him. “You’re wasted,” he says. “What’s wrong? Is marriage not all it’s cracked up to be?” Klaus wonders.

Her jaw tightens slightly before she answers him.

“You’ll be happy to know that my life is pretty dull right now,” she mumbles softly, nuzzling her head into the fabric of his sweater. It smelled so…familiar. Of smoke and strawberries and the boy she used to love.

“After all that commotion at your wedding, you’re still…unhappy?” He asks, sounding like a total pest.

She doesn’t need to be reminded that her life is a string of unfortunate events, leading up to absolute nothingness.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happy, to be honest,” she admits.

He centers his gaze on her eyes, the way she looks up at him is almost too reminiscent of before.

“C’mon now, that’s not true,” Klaus attempts to console her. “I’ve seen the way you smile at your daughter, you don’t call that happiness?” he mentions.

“And look at where I am now,” she meets his match, frowning. “I’m a shit mom,” she realizes.

It takes every ounce of self control in him to stop himself from kissing her. To stop himself from holding her in his chest and telling her that everything’s gunna be okay. “Now, I don’t know much about parenting love, but I do know that you’ve raised Hope to be a smart, strong, and independent little girl,” he says instead. “And last I checked, ‘shit moms’ don’t do that,” he offers, with a small laugh.

And she wants to tell him that she’s relieved to hear that from him. That his opinion matters to her the most because he’s turning out to be a not-so-shit dad. That’s more than she’s ever wanted from him.

“Marcel, another round of shots?” Hayley orders, while avoiding Klaus’ gaze.

(Maybe she’ll tell him those things some other time).

―

She falls asleep in his couch, listening to old music and the sound of pouring rain.

He’s always going to be there. Whether she wants him, whether she doesn’t want him. He’s always going to protect her. And she was going to have to accept that, at some point in her life. Otherwise, he’d just keep coming back to her, right when she needs him most.

(It’s not really a secret or anything, but she’s going to keep this thought to herself; she likes having him around).

―

And she wakes up to the smell of pancakes, of chocolate chip muffins, of coffee and cigarettes.

“Breakfast?” he tells her, like it’s the most obvious thing.

She shakes his blanket off of her and joins him in the kitchen. “Since when do you cook?” Hayley questions.

“I took lessons a few years ago,” Klaus informs her. “I figured if I’d be living on my own, I might as well learn how to feed myself,” he smiles.

It hits her right then and there, that this is the first time he’s ever cooked anything for her. Back when they were together, their breakfasts consisted of beer and weed. And now, here he is, a chef in the making.

“You’ve changed a lot, since before,” she mentions.

“My dear,” he calls her, like she’s his. “We must all grow up someday,” Klaus says, serving her some pancakes.

Hayley takes her time to observe his environment. His bachelor’s pad is a total mancave. With clothes hanging over chairs, and scribbled phone numbers from random girls on his fridge, she guesses that some things remain the same.

“I’m sorry,” she suddenly confesses. “For not telling you about Hope, I never apologized for doing that to you,” Hayley goes on to say.

“It’s alright sweetheart,” he assures her. “After all, I was a different man back then,” he honestly says.

“I just didn’t think this could ever be us, you know? I mean, you in the kitchen, making breakfast? Us having a peaceful meal together? This feels like a joke,” her hands are unsteady as she speaks, shaking uncontrollably while she struggles to rationalize their current situation.

“I know,” he finally breaks the silence. “We weren’t good for each other before, but now―”

“Klaus,” she cuts him off. “No, it’s too late for that now,” she says, after taking exactly seven breaths before rejecting him, once again.

He doesn’t back down though, not after he’s come so far.

“Just hear me out,” Klaus stammers. “If five, ten, even twenty years from now, if you decide you want to try things again,” he stops when he notices a small tear rolling down one side of her face.

She might not be as brilliant with words as he is, but this was her life. And, as charming as he is, she wasn’t going to let anyone else control it.

“Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” Hayley exclaims. “I’m married, to your brother no less,” she reminds him.

“But you’re not happy,” he points out. “And maybe I can’t be half as noble as ‘Lijah but I’ll be damned if I went down without a fight,” his tone is strong and resilient. He’s been waiting long enough, silently and from a distance.

This time, he thinks, he’s going to win her back. Even if he has to come out of it covered in claw marks. She’s going to be his.

“Thank you for the offer,” she says before leaving.

And she vows that this is the last time she’d allow him to get so close to her heart.

―

[botwriter]

Masked - Chapter 3, The Chosen Hero

Read this on FF.net  ☛

Hyrule field looked much different at night. During a sunny day, it looked like paradise - full of wildflowers in bloom, breezy and quiet. Now, as Zelda found her ways through the tall grass, she was just grateful that it was a clear night. Without the moon, she wouldn’t be able to see a thing - and despite all of her previous courage, the further she got from Robin, the more and more it faded away. He was likely still fast asleep. If anything happened, there would be no one around her to help.

No - it’s no use thinking like that, she reminded herself, I have to be more self-reliant.

It didn’t help that she had no combat training, nor no weapon to defend herself with. Was it any use being ‘self-reliant’ with no resources? She could run, but she had never even been a particularly fast runner. As she passed Lake Kolomo and spotted a camp of sleeping Yiga nearby, she let out a sigh. What if she’d made a grave mistake? At least, seeing Hyrule Castle looming in the distance was reassuring. She wasn’t that far.

She distracted herself by thinking about Robin as she walked. He had saved her once - no, twice already, from the Yiga forces. Had he been following her? He was born into the royal guard, but… from what he’d said, was no longer part of it… Zelda shook her head. What was becoming of Hyrule if someone that talented found it necessary to leave the royal guard, to leave knight training? But he was supposedly loyal if he was looking after her so well… then again, not being able to see his face was worrying. What if he really was yiga?

She pushed the thought away. No… he had what must have been the sword that seals the darkness… but what if it made a mistake? There were too many questions. And there’d be no answering them, not yet. She had to get home first.

By the time she saw the Yiga patrolling the sacred grounds, it was already too late. Their patrols had caught wind of her earlier, and even as she ducked into the grass and stayed perfectly still, it was no use. Their footsteps surrounded her, and Zelda panicked, trying to run - but ropes caught both of her wrists and dragged her backwards.

“No! Help!” she yelled as loud as she possibly could, hoping maybe, just maybe, a nearby knight patrol could hear her. Three yiga wrestled her to the ground, pinning her as her wrists and ankles until they were tied together, and finally she was flipped, laying on her back on the grass. Before she could yell again, one of them held a sickle to her throat, cold steel pressing softly against her neck.

“Ssssh,” he cooed, “don’t wanna wake up all of Castle Town, now. You’re gonna answer some questions.”

Of all the challenges she’d had as Princess, this was the toughest so far. Zelda felt like she was having an out of body experience. She couldn’t process that she was being threatened - her life was being threatened - if she didn’t answer. All she could do was grit her teeth, fight the tears escaping from her eyelashes, and think about home. Mom, why is this happening?

“What do you want?” she snapped, her voice shaking despite her efforts to sound angry. She was terrified, but what the yiga said next surprised her so much, she nearly snapped out of it.

“Tell us where the Chosen Hero is.”

The… chosen… hero?

“We know he was traveling with you!” “We saw his sword.” “He’s Ganon’s only threat.”

She almost fought back then - what do you mean, Ganon’s only threat? - but her thoughts were preoccupied. The Chosen Hero. She had seen Robin’s sword, too. The way it glowed was just like in the texts she’d studied. And if Calamity Ganon was returning, as all these yiga made it seem… not to mention the influx of monsters lately… that would be the next natural step. But… Robin - an ex knight trainee, a man of the royal guard who was… well, probably her age, having the sword? And not telling anyone? Could he be the hero - is that why he left?

“I don’t know what I am now.”

His words echoed in her mind, but the feeling of sharp silver pressing against her collarbone brought her back to the present.

“Well!?”

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted, absently struggling against the rope tied tightly around her wrists, “I left him a few hours ago. He’s probably long gone by now.”

The yiga’s nostrils flared.

“Well, where was he?”

“South,” she answered a little too quickly, “that’s all I know. I don’t know outside of the castle very well.”

“Useless,” one of the older yiga hissed, “let’s just kill her before she slips out of our grasp again.”

The yiga holding a sickle to her next hummed - he was clearly thinking about it. Zelda’s eyes widened.

“Master Kohga wouldn’t be happy, but better you’re dead than escaping… although you do make a good trap for the Chosen Hero.”

“He’d just beat you again,” Zelda protested, and the yiga laughed.

“Don’t you remember you two running away last time? But then again, I’m impatient. I say we end it.”

There was a muttered chorus of agreement from behind him. Zelda struggled against the ropes, and the yiga pressed his sickle further into her skin - she let out a muffled “mm-” as a hand covered her mouth and she felt several drops of blood trickle down her neck.

“Can’t have you screaming if I can’t kill you in one hit,” the yiga said with a malicious tone, tilting his head at her, “with a weapon like this, it might take a few before it’s over.”

Zelda was sure she would have cried if fear hadn’t taken over every part of her body. No, no, no, no- this can’t be how it ends - this is all my fault, I never should have left him, and he’s the Chosen Hero- a vision of Robin fighting Ganon alone with the sword flashed into her mind. That couldn’t be it. No. She was supposed to seal away the calamity. She had yet to even awaken her power, and now she was going to die as a broken Princess… broken. Not to mention, it wouldn’t even be a fast death - the princess of Hyrule, brutally stabbed to death, a mere hours trip from Hyrule Castle…

The yiga wound up, his arm lifting and the sickle glinting in the light of dawn. Zelda shut her eyes tight, but the pain never came. Metal clashed with metal, and when her eyes shot open, she finally saw it - glowing bright blue in the morning light, the sword that sealed the darkness was wielded ahead of her, by - unmistakably - Robin. He flipped it deftly in his hand, deflecting two more attacks and sending the offenders running. When he turned to her, she still couldn’t make out his face, just a pair of bright eyes under his hood and messy blonde hair. He used a fallen sickle to cut her ropes, then helped her stand, and - for just a brief moment - held her close enough that she could smell his hair. It was nice.

“Reckless,” he muttered in her ear, and then turned quite quickly again to face off with the yiga. The rest of the camp had come by now, surrounding them - though there were only maybe 10 or 12 of them, it was still far too many for him to take down on his own.

“I hope you have a plan,” she said quietly, standing back to back with him.

“You’re one to talk.”

Despite his sarcastic remark, it seemed Robin did have a plan, as Zelda heard neighing from nearby. A platoon of castle knights had approached and were surrounding the yiga, who panicked immediately. Some used smoke bombs to disappear, others tried to run, and several were captured or straight-up killed by the knights.

“Princess!”

The knights ran to her. She smiled, but when she looked back at Robin, she saw them drawing their swords on him - and he was ready to fight back? Why?

“Stop- stop!” she protested, as they clashed; his bright blue sword had been knocked away, and one of the knights kicked him to the ground.

“Stop!”

Unfortunate as it was, Zelda knew her knights. Whether or not she ordered them to do something, it would always be a moment too late; too many of them were corrupt, happy with a position of power over others. She was fed up.

As the knight readied another kick, Zelda jumped in between them; hard metal hit her back, and she fell forwards into Robin, who caught her hurriedly but fell all the same. They toppled into the grass, and Zelda grimaced at the pain searing through her back from the armored boot.

“Princess!”

She could feel Robin’s hands holding tight to her, even as she was dragged back upwards by the knights. She reached back for a second, and caught only a glimpse of worried bright blue eyes before Robin, too, was lifted up by the knights, his hair falling back down and covering his face.

“Princess - why-”

“He saved- my life-” she stammered, still winded somewhat from the kick to her back. “By my orders, no harm will come to him,” she finally said, quite breathlessly.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” the knights asked Robin, shaking him as they held him up by his arms. He didn’t look up, even as Zelda watched, desperately wanted to go to him - anything but these knights.

“I’ll see you at the masquerade,” was all he said. They left in two separate parties then. Zelda needed medical attention, and there would be no use fighting the guards on it. Robin, meanwhile, would surely end up in the dungeons… but she could visit him later and talk to her father about the sword, and him being the Chosen Hero… yeah... it’ll be fine...

Zelda woke in the evening that day, tucked neatly into her bed with a warm compress still on her forehead. Fresh flowers had been placed on her nightstand, and as she sat up, a shuffling nearby told her she wasn’t alone in her room.

“Father,” she breathed with a smile, seeing the King come around the corner from her four poster bed.

“Zelda. I’m glad to see you finally awake,” he sighed in relief, sitting down on the edge of her bed and taking one of her hands into his. “Now… what is this nonsense about Robin Hood?”

Zelda’s expression dropped. Of course, the knights would have told him all sorts of lies before she was able to tell her side of the story… they must have thought she’d been taken.

“He saved me - twice - and helped me get back to Hyrule Castle,” she explained hurriedly. “I left him because I wanted to get home faster, and that’s why I was captured. He must have alerted the knights.”

King Rhoam nodded solemnly.

“And… he wields the sword that seals the darkness…”

“That’s the other thing,” Zelda said excitedly, “we need to talk to him. He’s definitely-”

“A petty thief,” the King interrupted, and Zelda gasped in return.

“No, that’s not it-”

“I’ve heard stories of this Robin Hood before,” the King continued, shaking his head as he stood up from the bed and paced in Zelda’s room. “While it seems he has good intentions, how does one have the funds for all this medicine? The time to help so many? He’s clearly a no-gooder, stealing and disguising it as good deeds.”

“That can’t be true,” she protested, “he saved me, he’s the only reason I-”

“You were captured by yiga! He must have had a deal with them. I’m sure they’re getting everything out of him right now.”

“Father!”

“Get ready for the Masquerade tonight, Zelda. I know it’s been a rough few days for you, but that’s no reason to not be in attendance… not when there is so much uncertainty about.”

So it really was no use. Zelda was left in her room alone, but she wasn’t interested in crying into her sheets. Robin had saved her - now it was her turn. But cleverness would be her only way of possibly getting to him. The usual route to the dungeons wouldn’t work… but she knew another way.

When she stood, she braced herself on her nightstand table; that knight’s kick had done a deal on her, but she was glad at least that it hadn’t hit Robin instead. It would, however, be a pain to dance with… and she had only a few hours before the masquerade started. If she wasn’t there, her father would no doubt suspect something and come looking for her… so she had to be quick.

She got ready first. Hair washed and brushed, dress on, face cleaned up. She donned a silk scarf around her neck to hide the cut the sickle had given her… wouldn’t be any good for anyone else to see that.

Zelda knew she’d have to go straight from the dungeons to the masquerade. For a moment, she looked at herself in the mirror before leaving; it was disappointing, being in a blue dress when she’d desperately wanted to dye one white. She met her own gaze in the mirror, thinking briefly of the comfortable smell of Robin's hair, the way he had held her close, and reached for her... a heat rose in her chest. Really, what was with all of that, and more importantly, why did it make her feel like this? She felt responsible for him, but it was more than that, now - his voice, that glimpse of blue eyes...  The girl sighed, fiddled with her filigree bracelets for a moment, and then hurried out the door, heading towards the outside of the castle. All that climbing she’d done with Robin was going to come in handy, and quickly.

The outside of the castle was surprisingly free of the usual security, which she attributed to the masquerade. As she clambered downwards, dress flowing in the wind, she remembered what Robin’s parting words had been: see you at the masquerade. So he was absolutely nobility. Otherwise, how would he have even known of it? But how was he planning on getting there? He’d been arrested.

When she finally found the trapdoor entrance to the dungeons outside, Zelda was careful to keep her dress lifted from the floor as she crept through. It had taken at least an hour for her to get down to the cells, and once she did, she was shocked to find the knight guards slumped against the cages… alive, but clearly defeated in some sort of battle. She bent down to the first one she found, lifted his helmet, and gently shook him until he came to. Brown eyes blinked open, surprised to see her staring down at him.

“P-princess - that knight-”

“Robin Hood?” she asked with a small smile, tilting her head.

“No,” he shook his head, and Zelda looked at him quizzically.

“He used to be a knight. He was one of - no, probably was the best knight trainee we’ve ever had… he took us out one by one once we got in here. Said he had a-” the knight coughed- “dance to attend to. He’s going to the masquerade.”

“I’ll find him, and send some help down for you,” Zelda said with an assured nod, but before she could stand to leave, the knight’s hand shot up and held her wrist.

“Princess - his name is Link.”

[theliterateape]

American Shithole #20 — Vacations, Part One: Camping Is For Masochists

By Eric Wilson

This is as good a week as any to introduce my series on vacationing: American style. The president has been overseas; leaving rotten chum in his filthy wake for allies and enemies alike. At least he gave us all a break here domestically from our daily mouthful, I suppose.

My good friend and housemate just returned from two weeks in Iceland, Scandinavia, Europe and Russia, while I have been dog sitting on what was supposed to be a staycation for me (it wasn’t) — providing more than enough material for future articles on the topic.

Part Two of this series is a piece I wrote before American Shithole. It was to be my first feature for Literate Ape; one in which I found myself on a miserable LA weekend getaway for an Eric Clapton show. Unfortunately, the night before I submitted my draft some asshole murdered 58 people at an outdoor concert just down the street from where I live, and I didn’t feel it was an appropriate time to share that story.

In fact, I slid into a funk that week, and I hardly interacted with anyone for  a while. A few months later Trump called Haiti and unspecified African nations “shithole” countries, my inner fury was rekindled, and American Shithole was born.

So I will be returning periodically to this series that never got off the ground. It was always my intention to write a few pieces on the American vacation. I know it's a boon for comedy. Holiday travel is a goldmine for humor in general; in my case, even more so because I truly suck at vacationing, and terrible things always happen.

Staycations — if I am to judge them by the last two weeks — have me faring only slightly better.

The good news is: things are looking up, baby! This was my least disastrous vacation (okay, staycation) yet, even though I slept fitfully, had only a very limited amount of fun, and as expected, terrible things still happened (even though I stayed at home), I still feel like it was a success. More on this later. 

If you’re wondering how it’s possible that a mostly unpleasant staycation was my best vacation ever, it’s because my experience with vacations includes heavy hitters like suicide, sickness, hurricanes and other natural disasters, being thrown off a bridge embankment — and camping, which I’m sorry outdoor aficionados, but camping is just the worst.

I am convinced that folks that choose to go camping over a plethora of other vacation destinations — sunny beaches, moonlit resorts, islands with sexy people, places with people of any kind, coordinates that include a nearby lavatory, locations that aren't teeming with wildlife looking to eat you, etc.  — those people are fucking closeted masochists. Here is how many times you should go camping in your life: one-half of one time. You should attempt to sleep on rocks, in a damp tent, with a wet blanket, soaked shoes — like some sort of cold burrito for bears — hungry, exhausted and homesick, just one-half of once. Then pack up in the middle of the night, drive home, and never look back.

In my lifetime I have been camping roughly a score of times. That’s twenty, millennials. (Well why didn’t you just say twenty then, fuckface?)

While I cherish the time with my father (an avid, well-respected angler and outdoorsman), and I do genuinely love the remoteness and beauty of the wilderness, I have camped nineteen and one-half times too many in this life.

I assume I have never taken to vacationing as an adult, at least in part due to my experiences on vacations as a kid; which were at times awful. Or perhaps just some of it was traumatic, and that is all that I remember.

On one of the first camping trips I can recall I was eight years old, and while we were in the Grand Tetons the mother of my best friend at the time committed suicide. She shot herself while her son and I were camping together. I'm still haunted by that quiet drive home. I can’t imagine being my father and having to tell a child his mother was gone. I can’t possibly fathom what that was like for my friend.

That event set the tone for every subsequent camping trip over the next forty years.

I have been on trips that didn’t involve camping; although only a handful. I have taken one cruise back in the nineties — we were hit by a hurricane. The captain made a late decision to turn the ship around and head back to LA, missing our ports of call, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, and Cabo San Lucas. Half the ship was throwing up for hours as the swells throttled that behemoth vessel like it was a tug boat in a bathtub with a fat, unruly toddler.

I have never forgotten the generous 25% discount offered by Carnival on our next Carnival cruise adventure, as compensation. Thank you Carnival Cruise Lines, I will never stop telling people of your boundless generosity — I hope you don’t mind that I roll my fucking eyes every time that I do.

On my next vacation (other than sporadic wilderness treks whereupon I fall into rivers, catch zero trout, or get bitten by nasty critters) I spent a month in Belgium, France and Spain during the summer of 2001. I picked up a lung infection on the flight over that dogged me the entire trip. I also fell asleep shirtless on the beaches of Biarritz, after not running with the bulls in Pamplona — probably one of the few smart moves I made. I got drunker than my normal drunkenness to ease the pain of my scorched backside, and somehow managed to offend a tiny British woman; who subsequently shoved me off a bridge.

Besides a brief sojourn in Dublin shortly after 9/11, I haven’t been back to Europe since — or anywhere else of note for that matter. Except camping of course, I have heartily not enjoyed plenty of camping.

I was also taken to Disney World by my mom as a young lad. I cried on the roller coaster, so she took me on the Tea Cups. I cried on the Tea Cups.  

I found out much later in life that my vacations — the majority of which involved camping, I think I’ve mentioned already — were not the vacations my friends from later on in life enjoyed when they were kids. The key word here is enjoyed.

They traveled to exotic places that offered not only luxuries such as food and lodging, but culture and entertainment.

I stared at trees.

My European friends seem to have it all sorted as well. They enjoy paid holiday at least twice a year for as long as they can remember — to wonderful destinations all over the world. Yes, that European socialism sounds like a real nightmare.

Yet, before this bit of light entertainment is taken as some sort of whingeing by my friends at home and abroad, I would like to mention that I am very thankful to have had any holiday trips at all — as I know millions have never been afforded a single vacation in their entire lives.

Except camping, but I have made the case that camping doesn’t count.

We can all agree, right? That camping doesn’t count?

It’s not a vacation if what you are doing is indistinguishable from survival training. Preparing for the coming apocalypse by eating baked beans straight out of a can is not a vacation.

That being said, I have a feeling staycations are the vacations I will look forward to in the future, until it is time that I shuffle off this mortal coil. I am fine with that, although wary that the comedic arc of my creative endeavors will suffer. Granted, this staycation over the last few weeks was rough — and I will get to that story someday soon — but at least I was home.

I don’t know what it is about travel, but I never seem to enjoy myself the way it seems everyone else does on vacation. How about you, dear reader, are your holidays all they're cracked up to be?

On a more somber note, I watched a lot of Parts Unknown this past weekend — I imagine quite a few of us did — and I would like to take a moment to honor one of humanity’s great travelers, Anthony Bourdain. I looked up to Anthony. He had suffered, he was honest, he had integrity. I had always hoped that one day I would be able to call him my friend. As a writer, entertainer, culinary master and cultural ambassador for the world, he was peerless.

Bon voyage, Mr. Bourdain — you will be missed.

B.S. Report

Two of the families of the Parkland student activists were Swatted last week. If you don’t know what Swatting is, that’s when someone calls in a phony emergency — usually involving imminent danger — whereby a SWAT team is deployed to an unsuspecting household, in hopes that they will shoot innocent people accidentally.

So yeah, that’s what conservative gun-loving fuckheads would wish upon the surviving family members that dared to stand up to the NRA. Trump’s base truly is a festering hive of dickless cowards, with no sense of compassion or empathy, and nothing but shit for brains.

4LWjr.

[reesesxxpieces-blog]

Tyson Wright‎ to Spencer James

Tyson had some business to do out in Philadelphia. His label wanted him to make a few stops on the east coast in order to start a promotional tour for the upcoming release of his new album, and it just so happened that his promotional tour started with a stop in Philadelphia where he would be staying for a few days to handle a few public appearances and a handful of radio interviews. Unfortunately the label didn't have a lot to spend on accommodations, so whether it was a booking mistake, or a money saving move, Tyson had been booked into a hotel that wasn't in the best part of the city. That was ok with him for now though as he hoped to keep busy enough to not need to spend a lot of time at the hotel during his stay.

Once he had checked himself in, Tyson sent off a quick text to Spencer. "Hey Spence, I'm in Philly for a few days doing a promotional tour. Let me know if you'd like to get together." He knew she was probably busy, but it was the least he could do to let her know that he was in Philly for a few days. The two of them had kept in touch, but hadn't seen each other very often since their days in Dallas. Spencer had moved on to Philly for her career, and Tyson had moved back to L.A. once his music career began to take off. The two of them though had an unspoken special bond as they each knew each other's deepest and darkest secrets. Things that no one else knew about each other. And it was that bond that had kept them in contact, even as they had moved to opposite sides of the country.

Spencer James

With the rise of the sun was the rise of two little guys, one aged two and one seven months.  Breakfast consisted of a bottle for Rhys and pancakes for River while she and John were downing coffee like it was the only thing keeping them alive.  In truth, it was the only thing keeping them moving.  The nights were late and the mornings were early, but the two little blonde haired boys didn’t know the difference.  Just after breakfast, Rhys was in his swing, being lulled back to sleep while River danced around in the living room watching his favorite cartoon that seemed to haunt Spencer’s dreams.  She and John were on the sofa where Spence attempted to grab a few more minutes of sleep curled up against him.

In the beginning, not working had been difficult for Spencer as it was so engrained in her blood that she didn’t know any different.  These days, however, she was struggling to see how such a thing would fit in her life anymore leaving the woman torn between the desire to work and for the investigation against her to be lifted and her enjoyment of being with the three most important men in her life.  Hearing her phone, she never quite knew what the thing would bring be it good news or bad, but as she reached over to the coffee table to draw it into her hands, finding Tyson’s name there against the screen, she couldn’t help the smile that met her features.  It had been too long since she’d seen him and she’d love nothing more than to get together with him, even if it was just for coffee.  “Yeah, that sounds great.  I should be free this afternoon if that works for you?”

Tyson Wright

Getting his things situated in the hotel room, Tyson positioned his suitcase in the corner of the room on an end table. Never one to unpack and actually use the dresser drawers in hotels since he usually wasn't one to be in one place long enough to bother, Tyson was used to the life of living out of a suitcase while on his tours. It was almost like normal for him, though it had been a few years now since the last time he did any tours that lasted more than a few days. He had grown accustomed to the simple life of living in one place, but now that he was restarting his musical career with his solo album, he was going to have to fall back into the old tour life.

Finishing his rearranging of his things, Tyson's head had just met the pillow on the bed when he heard the familiar buzz of his phone vibrating on the table. Reaching over, he was expecting it to be Chelsey letting him know she was just getting home from her night shift at the club, but instead he saw it was Spencer already replying back. "This afternoon sounds great. I've got an interview at noon, but will be free any time after 1." He sent back to her before adding one more comment. "Name a time and place and I'll be there." He finished typing before hitting send once more as he let the phone fall from his fingers onto the bed next to him.

Spencer James

Watching River dance in the living room to the same theme song she’d heard twice already that morning, she let her eyes fall closed once more, attempting to drown out that damned song.  Needing a break from it, but it was his favorite and so it would play again and again as John and Spencer attempted to wake up a little more, or catch a few more minutes of sleep, either way.  Rhys had dozed off once more as his little self couldn’t take much more than a few hours awake and the mornings always held shorter times between.  

As the alert came through on her phone, she let it sit for a minute before the repeat alert would sound since she hadn’t opened it previously.  She reached beside her to grab the phone again, propping it against her thigh as she eyed the words on the screen.  “How about 1:30?  We can grab lunch?  Then if you are free for dinner, tonight or tomorrow night, I’ve gotten pretty good at a couple dishes.  Could cook and have you over to meet the boys?”  Suggesting a couple of things there, thinking maybe they could make the most of his time in Philly, she’d see what he thought about it first before discussing it with John to see if he was interested.  The young woman Tyson knew in Dallas couldn’t boil water, but things had changed, a lot, as he’d soon find out.  She was somewhat domesticated now by way of the home, the chores, and the boys, but it seemed fitting of her just the same.

Tyson Wright

Feeling his eyes grow heavy after the early morning flight, Tyson soon found himself dozing off into a silent slumber. He was clearly tired from the traveling as even the buzz of the incoming text messages didn't wake him up. Luckily, his trip to dream land was brief, otherwise he would have slept right through the morning appearances that his label had for him leading up to his noon radio interview. Opening his eyes a bit, Tyson took a moment to rub the sleep from them with the palm of his hand before glancing over at the clock on the night stand. Realizing he'd gotten a solid 45 minute nap in, Tyson knew he better start preparing for the morning. Before those preparations began though, he looked at his phone and all the notifications flashing on the screen.

Pulling up the conversation with Spencer, Tyson chuckled a bit. Clearly she was changed since he last knew her because the woman he knew in Dallas would have killed someone with her cooking. Typing away at the screen, Tyson wrote back. "Lunch at 1:30. Sounds perfect. And I'll take you up on dinner as well. My schedule today is empty after my interview. So I'll take my chances and hope your cooking skills have improved." He pressed the button to send his reply away, then quickly opened up a FaceTime call with his girlfriend Chelsey back home. She was about to head to bed after her night shift, but Tyson couldn't begin his day with at least seeing his beautiful woman while he began to change and clean up for his day.

Spencer James

It was nearly an hour before she’d hear her phone go off again with Tyson’s confirmation there at the screen that he would meet her for lunch as well as come by the James home for dinner that night.  She was quick against the keyboard on her phone’s screen to type her response, catching his little comment about her cooking that would easily strike her.  “Not hard to improve from nothing,” she wrote, commenting honestly.  “See you at 1:30.  I’ll text you the address.” A moment later, she was forwarding him the address for a restaurant just a few blocks away that would provide them the opportunity to catch up, but also keep her close enough to home in case John should need her for anything.

Later that day, she helped John get both boys cleaned up and put down for their naps before she was to leave.  Getting dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, she pulled a sweatshirt over top.  Thankfully there had been a slight shift in the temperatures and she wouldn’t have to wear her winter jacket, even though she’d still complain about the cold incessantly.  Bidding her farewells to John, she promised she’d make it up to him later.  After lunch with Tyson, she’d make a run by the grocery store to work on things before he’d come by for dinner that night, giving her a few hours to get things ready.  Arriving at the restaurant just before 1:30, she took a seat in a booth in the corner, waiting for him to arrive.

Tyson Wright

Tyson saw the confirmation of their lunch plans come through as he was finishing up his FaceTime call. Saving the address to his address book, Tyson took a quick look at where the restaurant was and saw that it would be no problem for him to find. Finishing up the preparations he needed to make, Tyson soon had to head off to the first of his meetings. Changing into his black ripped jeans, Tyson then slipped into an Oakland Raiders t-shirt, his black leather jacket, and a baseball cap. Grabbing his things, Tyson was soon out the door of his hotel room, making his way out of the lobby as he hailed a cab to his first meeting of the morning.

The next few hours went by quickly. Tyson immediately found his rhythm as he was promoting himself. Even though it had been years, it didn't take him long to be back on the top of his game. As he finished up the last of his interviews, Tyson looked down at his watch and saw he had just enough time to make it to lunch. A short taxi ride through the city and Tyson arrived at the restaurant. Handing the driver a few bucks, Tyson then made his way inside and spotted the brunette sitting alone at an empty table. Making his way over to her, Tyson cleared his throat as he stood there. "This seat taken?" He asked with a small grin as he was glad to see Spence after a few years apart.

Spencer James

Her phone would serve as her entertainment as she awaited Tyson’s arrival, casually sipping on a glass of water, no lemon.  It wasn’t much longer before she’d hear the clearing of his throat, followed by words that might’ve gotten him killed if he was anyone else.  Lifting her head, the voice was instantly recognized, prompting a smile at her features.  “Tyson,” she stated, rising to her feet to greet the man properly.  “Long time, no see,” she offered, reaching up to wrap her arms around him in a friendly embrace.  Holding onto him for only a moment before she was stepping back and taking her seat once more.  “I wasn’t sure what you would want to drink, so I just ordered you a water, but feel free to get whatever else you might prefer.”

Tyson Wright

Watching as he could see that he had nearly startled his long time friend, Tyson soon felt the familiar curve of the corners of his lips curling upward into a slight grin. "Yes it has been." He said as she mentioned how long it had been, his arms wrapping around her as he returned the gentle friendly hello. Once she had stepped back, Tyson found his seat across from her as they both found their respective seats. "Water is fine with me." He nodded before taking a small sip of it. "Still too early in the day for a stiff drink." He grinned. "So how are you? You look great. Life must be going well for you out here." He said, starting right off with all the typical questions one might ask after not having seen someone for years.

Spencer James

Once they were both in their seats, she picked up her water, taking a long sip from within as he began with his own questions for her and compliments to boot. She nodded her head as she swallowed down the water before answering. "Yeah, I mean. A little older, but aside from that, I think I'm about the same." It was a lie. She wasn't the same. Nothing about the woman was as he would have remembered her. The girl that stood for justice now played for the other team. Her husband looked nothing of the type of guy Tyson was accustomed to seeing her with, sporting a cut more times than not. In truth, she wanted to show him all of it, and soon she would for the most part, but for the moment she'd play it off as if she were the same old prom queen, goody goody that he'd known previously. "I am good. I got married, had a baby, and I'm about to adopt John's son from his previous relationship. I really have nothing to complain about aside from... typical family stuff, I guess you could say? How about you though? So you're doing music now?"

Tyson Wright

Tyson leaned back and got comfortable in the booth as he listened to Spencer talk. From the sounds of it, she hadn't changed all that much other than the fact that she now had a family. "Really?" He said with a nod as he took another sip of his water. "Two children? I never saw you as that much of a family girl." He said with a nod. "But I'm happy for you. It sounds like things are all going very well for you." Tyson slowly started to scan the menu while he heard her begin to question him about his life. "Yes, was in a band for a while. That's slowed down but now I'm working on my own solo album. Should be coming out here later this year." He finished with a pause. "But other than that, things have been very good. Started dating a great woman, and actually we just recently bought a house on the beach and moved in together." He explained before seeing the waitress heading back their way to get their order.

Spencer James

Although many never saw her as the family type, Spencer had always known she wanted it all.  The husband and children.  It didn’t surprise her to hear him say he’d never pictured her as such, as most would have agreed with him, but it wore well on the woman to say the very least.  “Yeah, I guess things change,” she offered as the waitress arrived at the table.  After placing her own order for a cheesesteak and a tea, she waited for Tyson to place his own order before the waitress would leave and she’d pick up where they had left off in the conversation.  “A solo album, huh?  That’s pretty cool.  And congrats on the girlfriend,” she added, though it was this one that would puzzle her a bit.  Last she knew of Tyson, such commitment wouldn’t have been something he would have been down for, battling an addiction that no one much knew about, but she had her own suspicions over it.  “You guys are in… California?” she asked, not entirely sure, but guessing because he’d said a house on the beach, though it could have been any number of other places.

Tyson Wright

Tyson listened as Spencer placed her order. He had heard about the famous Philly Cheesesteaks, and even though he was undecided as he was looking over the menu, the fact that Spencer had ordered one was all he needed to convince him. "You know what? I'll go with the cheesesteak as well. And a black coffee please." He smiled at the waitress before watching her walk away to put their order in. Returning his attention to his friend across the table, Tyson listened to her speak. He could tell that she was happy with how things had changed in her life. She clearly had no regrets with the way things had turned out, and it was pretty obvious that she was happy with her family.

Hearing her turn the conversation around to be about him, Tyson nodded to confirm everything she was saying. "Yes, yes." He said with a short pause. "Girlfriend and we are living just outside Los Angeles." He said, the mention of his girlfriend bringing a smile to his lips. "Who would have expected me to have a girlfriend, right?" He said with a laugh. "But yes, things are great. I guess you could say I'm in remission from my....problem." He said before pausing to take a sip of his water. "But I haven't paid for sex in about 6 months." He looked down at the table, breaking the eye contact with the brunette across from him as he continued to speak. "I mean, I still have the urges every now and then. Especially around attractive women. The urge to find their price. But I guess the difference is that I'm happy. I'm thankful for what I have, and don't want to lose that, so I'm able to resist those urges." He finished, the fact that he was even talking about his addiction being an improvement on things as he wouldn't have even admitted he had a problem a year ago.

Spencer James

As the conversation traded off to Tyson, Spencer felt a bit of relief.  Although the opinions of others didn’t matter to the woman at all, not a single person from her life approved of her marriage to John and she really wasn’t ready to deal with that one yet.  For the moment, Tyson could imagine John to be just like any of the guys she’d ever dated before, though it had never been many, and leave it at that.  Instead, she’d let him tell her about his life and his girlfriend, which was a bit of a surprise, but she held genuine happiness for him on the matter.  “No, I wouldn’t have, but I’d always hoped it for you,” she confessed as the life he’d been living was not one that he was ever comfortable with or proud of, thus meaning the man needed a change for his own sake.  

Hearing him continue on, confessing the urges he still faced, she nodded her head as their drinks were brought over.  “It’s good that you’re able to resist them.  Maybe one day those urges will go away altogether,” she offered, not really sure if it would work that way or not, yet it would be what her hope would be for the man as she knew if John were having such desires, he’d be a dead man, but the possessive nature of their own relationship bled through to extremes no one else would ever fully see or understand.  “Your girlfriend know about your past with it though?” she asked, prying a bit there, but only speaking whatever question rose up in her mind.

Tyson Wright

Tyson looked up at the waitress dropped off their drinks. "Thank you." He smiled before returning his attention back to his friend that was across the booth from him. Listening as she spoke about how maybe some day his urges would go away completely, Tyson nodded. The truth was that he didn't expect it though. From what he had heard, people with addictions never fully lost their urges, but they learned how to resist them and ignore them so that they were practically non-existent. That is really all he was hoping for. The urges would let him know he was still a human, but if he could resist them, then that would be good enough for him.

Hearing Spencer's next question, Tyson paused. "No." He said. His answer was straight to the point and the truth. "I mean, she works at a strip club. And used to dance there some. Which is how we met. But no, she doesn't know about my problems." He paused. "I guess with the fact that we met at a strip club, she could maybe guess a little. But I guess part of me is worried I'd lose her if she ever found out. And for the first time in a long time, I don't think I'd be able to replace her." He finished saying as he admitted to his fear of losing her. A fear that had started when his first girlfriend ever, the one he thought he'd spend the rest of his life with, had left him in high school.

Spencer James

It wasn’t her place to say anything more on the matter.  Although she’d like to say that he should be honest with his girlfriend, she didn’t know the woman, nor did she know if she could handle what Tyson would have to tell her.  In truth, it wasn’t Spencer’s business and she understood why Tyson would hesitate telling her, even if that might not have been Spencer’s approach to things.  “Yeah, but Ty, you can’t worry about that forever.  The her leaving you part, I mean.  If she’s gonna be there, she’s gonna be there.  And if she’s not, then she’s not,” she offered, though knowing she’d not want to hear the same about her own husband, but yet it was the truth.  

Within a few minutes, their food was brought to the table, prompting a smile out of Spencer.  “This,” she suggested, her eyes cutting down to the sandwich before her, nodding her head slowly as the man was in for quite the treat.  “This will ruin any other cheesesteak you ever try.  I promise you.”  It wasn’t too long ago that Spencer thought she knew something about cheesesteaks, only she knew nothing about them until the first time John introduced her to a real cheesesteak that wasn’t called a Philly cheesesteak at all.  Just a cheesesteak.  And she could never go back to any other kind ever again.  

Tyson Wright

Tyson knew what Spencer was saying was right. He owed it to Chelsey to tell her about his past, even if it meant that he might lose her. If he ever wanted a real future with her, she would have to know about his past. About the addiction he would fight for every day the rest of his life. He just had to be in a good place himself to be able to tell her. He had to be in a place where he could handle it if she were to walk away. "You're right Spence. She needs to know." He said with a slight pause. "And I'll tell her. I just...I have to wait for the time to be right." He finished saying as he spotted the waitress returning with their food.

Watching as the food was set down before them, Tyson could see the excitement in Spencer's eyes. Listening as she explained to him how great this was going to be, Tyson grinned and nodded, now expecting the best. "Well let's find out just how great this is." He said with a chuckle as he picked up the sandwich and began to dig in by taking his first bite. "Oh god." He said, pausing to chew and swallow the bite he had taken. "It's probably a good thing I don't live here if this is any indication. I'd way 500 pounds from eating these things all the time." He laughed. "You were right. This is amazing." He finished before happily taking another bite.

Spencer James

She had no disagreement with Tyson’s theory of waiting until the time was right.  It was a lot to swallow and any woman would have her rights to have reservations.  It was something that he could fall weak to at any point in time, but she’d deserve to know the risk, as well as be a support system for the man she loved.  Spence offered a soft smile with a nod of her head, agreeing with him without ever speaking a word.

Watching Tyson’s reaction to the sandwich, it was clear that she’d done right by him, just as it was done right by her nearly two years before.  “Right?” she asked, a broad smile taking her lips before she was taking a bite of hers, instantly missing the fact that her husband wasn’t there beside her to share it with her, or argue over it, as they normally did.  “When I first had one of these, I thought I knew what a cheesesteak was.  But just like us in Texas with our Mexican food?  This is one of the many things up here that is definitely all theirs.  We just think we know something about it until we try it and then we realize we knew nothing, nor could we ever go back.”

Tyson Wright

Tyson listened as Spencer spoke up about the food. Hearing her words, he understood exactly what she meant though. It really was the case. The Mexican food in Texas really was so much better than it was in any other state. And clearly this cheesesteak was the same way. He'd never be able to eat another cheesesteak anywhere else without now realizing that it was no where as good as the real thing.

"But enough about me." Tyson said as he continued to eat the rest of his sandwich. "What's life like here in Philly?" He asked as he continued to eat looked up once again at the woman across from him. "It seems like everything is pretty fast paced here. Is that true?" He asked. "Not quite as laid back as Texas, or even in L.A." He finished before giving her a chance to speak. The truth of the matter was that Tyson knew that the east coast lifestyle was much more fast paced than it was back on the west coast. That wasn't really a secret, but it definitely was something that you wouldn't believe until you actually experienced it the way Tyson was now on his tour for his new record.

Spencer James

In truth, she didn’t want it to be about her.  It was always easier when things were about the other person and in her experience, most of the time they wanted to talk about themselves anyway.  It was better that way.  There weren’t too many people in her life that didn’t have something negative to say about her relationship, her husband, her choices in general, all culminating in a very guarded woman when it came time for her to talk about herself at all.  Hearing his questions, she could handle them.  They weren’t personal in the slightest and for that, she was grateful.  

Placing her cheesesteak down, she reached for her napkin, wiping the corners of her mouth before she’d swallow the bite and nod her head.  “It is fast.  You get shoulder checked on the street with no apologies issued.  You get cut off without a wave that says sorry.  It’s pretty much the exact opposite of everything I’d come to know.  I miss the slower pace and the casual conversations.  I miss knowing everyone had somewhere to be, but knowing that you could still take a minute to chat with someone or offer a smile.  I don’t realize much anymore how different it is since I’ve been on a leave of absence from work for the last… well, 8 months.  In the house, it feels the same.  And in truth, I like it that way.  Limited outside interaction works for me.”  She lifted her steak again, knowing that the social butterfly he’d once known her to be was gone and this would be a strong indication of it.

Tyson Wright

Tyson listened as the brunette spoke up. There was a hesitation in her voice. One that he could tell was hiding something. It was almost as if she was holding back. There were clearly a lot of changes that had taken place since he last knew her. She clearly wasn't the same woman that he'd known back in Texas. She wasn't as out going or social. That much had clearly changed since from the sounds of it, Spencer hardly left her house here in Philadelphia. Not that change was a bad thing. Hell, Tyson himself had changed a lot too. There was no denying that. It just meant that there would be some things that required getting used to. But Tyson knew that was not a one way street. There were changes in his life that Spencer was going to have to adjust to as well.

"Well it sounds like we've both had some changes in our lives since Texas." He said with a nod as he looked over at Spencer once more. Picking up his cheesesteak, Tyson took a few more bites before stopping to wipe his face clean for a moment. "So, tell me." He said as he looked toward her once again. "How should I spend the rest of my day here in Philly?" He asked. "Are there things I should see? Or do you have plans for me already?" He asked with a small chuckle.

-January 11, 2017