#imagine in a universe they never got together but had a fling and she goes to watch that movie only to be hit with the fact thay | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nohoney · 4 years ago

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Tell Me (When You’re Ready) - 4.1

notes: Part 4 of the Us Series also on ao3

Us Series Masterlist

warnings: 18+, drug use, polyamory, low key manipulation, toxic relationships, cheating

summary:

He’s never been involved with anyone else the way he’s been with you, you’re all he thinks about and wants to have. It’s more than just liking you, this instinct to care for you, this obsession and desire he feels over you, he calls it love, it must be love.

4.1 ✧ 4.2 ✧ 4.3 ✧ 4.4

At first glance, Touya didn’t really think much of you the first time he had seen you.

You were just another random party goer to him, one of many he saw whenever he attended those kinds of things, easier to just sell to his clientele if they conglomerated in these kinds of functions, though with the slightly older ones they have to blend in better since they’re technically crashing a house party. University students, upcoming freshmeat, recently graduated alumni and some of their plus ones or more, it’s so easy to tell who the veterans are versus the greenhorns.

The ones who can hold themselves together versus the ones that need to be carried, the ones who can hold there liquor versus the ones that need to be babysat, the strong versus the weak.

And you were that in between, walking around cross faded with eyes that looked lost in space but when someone put a hand on your shoulder then you would come back to earth, but not with your feet touching the ground. Like your feet just barely skimming the surface but still wanting to float in the sky, streaming through a pleasant haze just a bit longer until the high ends and you’ll have no choice until it’s time to walk amongst the animals again.

You sat on the couch with a few girls, talking amongst themselves and no doubt grouped together to protect one another from the predators; who could resist drunk and weak girls, especially the ones who looked the most broken. The eyes of the boys on your group and hoping to try to break into the circle and pick off the weakest to break away the pack. They get especially eager when the group wants to drink more, but you and two friends decide to go outside to smoke a joint instead.

“I’m drunk, I need’a go outside.”

The first words he ever heard you say, though not the first he’s heard but it sounded cute the way you slurred them out.

His eyes followed you briefly, holding hands with a friend as you made your way to get to the outside for a smoke.

“Yo Dabi! Good to see you man!”

He passed discreet little baggies, pink and blue tablets, little pills, he always gets a pat on the back from the boys and winks from the girls.

The girls like him, more than a few offering a little something extra when he makes a successful sale. Two of his whores are at this party, the decent flings he goes back to every so often when he wants to get his dick wet and when they want his goods.

Good dick and good drugs, it’s nice to get a two for one sale.

The second time he sees you at the party, he’s just leaving a room and fixing his belt while you sit at the top of the stairs with a friend. You and your friend are engrossed in your conversation, more than likely a similar talk happening somewhere inside the house party because you talked about your regrets of the way you and your ex broke it off, just more drunk girl talk. “It was so… so fuckin’ stupid dude, I was drunk and he showed up. We fucked but whe’ I woke up the next day, I fuckin’ left and just didn’t talk to him again.”

The second thing he ever heard you say but Touya literally passed by three girls half an hour ago that had a similar conversation, yours was nothing special.

Touya always denies drinks, offers of lines and other things when he goes to these kinds of functions, he needs a clear mind when he deals. He’s not dumb as fuck when he’s high or when he’s on, he can handle himself quite well and could sell just as well even if he were, he just doesn’t want to be relaxed around people that he doesn’t know that well or trust. It would have been nice if Keigo tagged along but the fucker’s Adderall hadn’t worn off in time to accompany him. Keigo gives him a good break from the others, kinda resets him and then he goes back to his business.

But Keigo isn’t around so Touya settles for plowing girls in random rooms of the house to give him a brief recess and then he’s back out there.

The third time he sees you, you’re leaning against the body of a young man just a little taller than Touya but nothing in the way he holds you shows that he has any ill intentions towards you. It feels rare sometimes to see two people having a platonic friendship, especially between two people of the opposite sex. Touya’s already sold your friend whatever he wanted but sticks around to make conversation, though it’s an excuse because he can’t help but note the way you’re being held in your friend’s arms. He tries to not make it obvious as he talks but truthfully, Touya wanted to just look at you. It’s obvious that there’s nothing romantic in the way your friend holds you but for some reason, it doesn’t sit well with him.

Even with his eyes up on your friend, he can see how you cling to your friend’s body with your arms wrapped around him so securely and with so much trust. Touya notes how you’re practically purring as your friend pets your head, sometimes massaging the tips of his fingertips against your scalp and then rubbing your shoulder in comfort. And he can see how you peeked up at him a few times, your curious eyes on him but Touya recognizes the cloudy way you look up at him. It’s not out of interest in the way you looked at him but probably just wondering why he was around.

Eventually you stop looking at him and choose to shut your eyes, concentrating on your friend petting your head instead.

“You want to try anything (Name)? Dabi’s got the best shit I’ve ever had, pretty fucking primo.” your friend had offered but you shook your head and said no. And goddamn if it wasn’t the cutest no that Touya’s ever heard in his life, the third thing he's ever heard you say. “Girl’s been pretty curious about wanting to try coke but she hasn’t worked up the nerve to actually give it a try. You know what, lemme buy a half off you too and maybe this’ll be the night that she finally gives it a try.”

Touya went home wondering if you lost your cocaine virginity that night.

That question wouldn’t be answered until a couple month’s later after you and him shared a philosophy class together. Touya remembered you very clearly but for some reason, his gut twists a little when you spoke to him the first time and it’s clear that you didn’t remember him from the party. He decides to forgive you for not remembering him because he feels like he can’t stay mad at you, not with that cute face you have.

But it’s just like at the party, you don’t seem particularly interested in him but Touya’s interested in you so he decides to seek you out more. He starts to crave your attention but he doesn’t want to look like a fool if it’s a one-sided attraction so he lays the charm on you, calls you pretty names that he’s never used on other girls. At first Touya thinks that you can just be girl number nine, hopefully another easy hole for him to use when he has an itch to scratch.

Now Touya’s fucked a lot of girls. He’s taken innocent girls virginities before and he’s had some pretty wild sex with the campus sluts, but there’s something different about you. You’re not a prude, not in the way you flirt back and insinuate wanting to take a seat on his face sometimes, but you’ve got some untouched parts of you that he wanted to lay a claim on. He’d show you new things and hold your hand over what you’d be too scared to do on your own or with others, he’ll watch over you. Imagine his giddiness the first time he ever cut lines of coke for you, it turned out that your cocaine virginity belonged to him this entire time.

"Oh... it's not that bad!"

You took that line so good, how about you take my cock next?

You tease him, playing coy one moment and then acting like nothing happened next.

And normally with bitches that do that shit with him for too long, Touya drops them pretty fast and moves on to the next. A little flirting and teasing is fine but he’s not looking to play a long term game with that kind of bullshit, it’s either happening or it’s not.

But with you it’s different.

You’re different.

Touya starts to obsess over you so slowly that he doesn’t even recognize it at first. All he knows is that he has to have you, he ghosts four of his whores in favor of being with you even though there wasn’t a guarantee that he would get in your pants. He just dropped the ones that he sought for sex only, the other half are still his clientele so he keeps those ones around, plus they're still decent lays. Keigo notices it, the way his friend talks over some girl that he hasn’t even fucked yet and letting go of four of his side whores has him thinking, ‘Wow, she must be something to get Touya’s attention this bad.’

The semester starts to come to an end and he still hasn’t bagged you yet, he calls you his doll but you haven’t let him play with you. He places one of his whores face down and ass up after she does a few lines, imagines that it’s you underneath him and what you might sound like and its your ass he’s grabbing. Touya can imagine it, you weak underneath him and begging for his cock but when the bitch under him whines out ‘Dabi’, he almost loses his boner. He tells her to shut the fuck up and bite the pillow, doesn’t want to hear her stupid sounds because he wants to envision you instead.

But even imagining you calling him Dabi feels wrong, Touya rolling off your pretty lips as he paints your insides white… it blows him over the edge.

In his mind that’s what he wants, but you don’t get the right to call him by his real name. He doesn’t know you like that so you’re just like everyone else for now, referring to him as Dabi. At some point he figures that this fixation he has on you will burn out soon. And yet Touya finds himself drawn further to you, wanting you more and more, doesn’t want you to wander too far away from him and wants to know who you’re with when he’s not by your side.

And he wanted to fuck you too, so fucking bad.

His first try was with a night cap at his place, the first time Touya ever had a girl over in his space. But it seems you know your limitation on alcohol and don’t let him pour you an extra drop, wanting to be able to drive yourself home and be in decent shape for your lectures. He smokes you up one day and it goes in a good direction, you were relaxed and sending him some good signals that lead to the two of you making out. It didn’t go further because he got a phone call from his mother that he couldn’t possibly ignore, but you thought ‘Oh a mama’s boy, that’s so sweet.’

It’s the third time that he finally gets you, playing music in his car that gets you in the mood and that gets you naked in his backseat. He doesn’t know what made you ready all of a sudden but he didn’t stop to ask as you fervently sucked him off. You were more riled up than him, so excited to get his dick and that eager look in your eye when you commanded him to blow your back out. And he sure did not disappoint, he never disappoints when it comes to his dick.

And a relationship persists forward to the surprise of both of you, liking each other more than you thought you would but there were no labels yet, Touya wasn’t used to having a girlfriend so he didn’t want to call you that at first and you weren’t sure if you wanted him to be your boyfriend. Neither of you really spoke about what you were to one another despite the attraction and the lazy build of emotions that neither of you were aware of in the beginning. All Touya knew was that he wanted you to be around him more and be waiting for him when he returned back to his apartment.

It’s difficult to say when mutual attraction turned into the of you catching feelings for one another. You and Touya were hooking up for a couple of weeks after the end of the semester of the one class you shared together, and while he was aware that you were a little disgruntled at him fucking the girls he sells to, he didn’t think it was that big of a deal at the time. Didn’t he make it obvious that you’re different from them and that he only cared about you? So what if he got his dick wet from other girls aside from you? He’d been doing it before he started seeing you but he always came back to you afterwards, so why were you so pissed?

“It’s just business doll.”

It wasn’t official between the two of you yet so there wasn’t much you could say at the time. You just figured that if Touya liked you so much then he would stop and Touya figured that since you liked him just as much then you would understand.

But Touya remembers that night when he left to go sell at another house party, trying to spend time with you before he had to leave but you wouldn’t let him. He knew you were mad again because he just came back from selling to one of his whores which meant that, ‘Yes, she offered her pussy when I got there so we fucked.’ He honestly did not understand where your jealousy was coming from. You were there, sitting in his apartment and spending nights in his bed, he was doing shit with you that he’d never done with anyone else and you were still getting mad at him.

How did you not get that you were different from the rest of them?

But Touya wasn’t going to put more effort into making you feel better when you didn’t want to be cheered up, so he left to do his usual thing.

And when he came back to his apartment earlier than expected, which was only one in the morning, he found that your car was not in the guest parking and therefore you were not waiting for him inside his home. He tried ringing you to find out if you went back to your place but it went straight to voicemail so he goes to your home in hopes that you would have been there instead. But you’re not there when he arrives and you don’t answer his texts and phone calls still don’t go through."Fucking bitch! Where the hell are you?"

Touya can stay up until three in the morning at most if he’s not on anything but that night was the only night he had ever stayed up by just being angry alone. He was riled up and emotions all over the place, hands shaking so bad that he needed to punch something, almost considered putting his fist through his wall. He was fucking furious because he knows immediately that you went out to be with someone else, went to get fucked by some scum because you wanted to be a vindictive little cunt about what happened earlier.

He had practically barged into Keigo’s place and shook him awake in his bed because he didn’t know who to turn to.

“She’s out getting fucked. I fucking know she is!”

“Wha-? Touya…” Keigo groggily sat up in his bed and brushed off Touya's hands off his shoulders, blonde hair a mess from tossing and turning but he gives his friend his undivided attention. He hadn’t met you yet, had only seen pictures and nudes of you that Touya shared with him, but he’s pretty shocked over how outraged Touya is. He’d never seen his friend get so worked up over one girl before, so it speaks volumes to him to see Touya so unhinged. “What makes you say that? Maybe she’s out with friends or something. Just because she’s not back in her place doesn’t mean that she’s getting with another dude.”

But Touya’s gut said otherwise and he insisted that it was right.

“Okay man, I’m going to put some things in perspective for you. I don’t know this girl but it’s obvious that you’re into her… like a lot, but I can’t really blame her for going out to be with someone else if that’s what she’s doing right now. She can still go do what she wants just as much as you can. If you guys haven’t defined what you are to one another, especially with how you operate, then you don’t have much of a right to be telling her what to do.”

Touya was livid when you returned to your apartment, angry that you had the audacity to be so spiteful with him and furious at the thought of you underneath someone that wasn’t him. It fucking hurt him because he didn’t fuck the whores to make you angry, they didn’t mean anything to him compared to you. But in the aftermath of hatefucking turning into lovemaking, he still mulled over Keigo’s advice, deciding that maybe it would make you happy to call you his girlfriend if it meant that you wouldn’t go behind his back again. You're his favorite, his number one, his only one, if reassuring is what he has to do then he'll put up with it as long as he doesn't have to say it too often. And fine, if it really bugged you that much then he decided to make it fair by giving you permission to sleep with who you wanted provided that you always came back to him the same that he did with you.

Except that after he put it out there, he immediately regretted putting the offer out but knew that a fight would surely begin if he decided to take it back. Once again the thought of you being with someone else had got his teeth grinding and gave him anxiety. You’re his fucking girl, his precious doll that deserved to be put on a throne and be given whatever you wanted. Touya wanted nothing more than to protect you from assholes who didn’t appreciate you like your dumbass ex-boyfriend.

“(Name)’s really great, I’m glad the two of you are together. Though are you sure you’re okay with her seeing other guys too? I know you said it to be fair to her but I see you get bent out of shape if she’s even around just one of her guy friends.” Keigo puffed on cigarette, tapping some of the excess ash off the tip before returning the filter to his lips. “You really going to be okay if she decides to get picked up by another dude?”

Touya let out a frustrated sigh as he lit his third cigarette in a row; you’d be pissed if you found out but he was fortunate that you would be out for a few hours so he had time to clean away the evidence. “They’re gonna treat her like shit, I know the assholes out there would but if I take it back, she’s going to get pissed. She didn’t even fucking apologize for fucking someone else behind my back. I don’t want her to be used by someone else, she’s not a whore.”

“Correction, you mean she’s your whore.”

The only one who understood his way of thinking was Keigo.

There’s a night where you sleep in your own apartment while Touya and Keigo sit outside your complex, leaning against his car and just looking at the balcony that they know is attached to your place. A six pack of beer sits on the hood of the car, two slots empty as they each hold a bottle in their hand. Keigo quietly admits to him, “I think I might like (Name) Touya. Like I think I like her a lot, more than just wanting to fuck her and more than just as a friend.”

Touya quietly takes in Keigo’s confession and just nods his head, still looking up at your balcony and hoping that you’re sleeping well. He’s never been involved with anyone else the way he’s been with you, you’re all he thinks about and wants to have. It’s more than just liking you, this instinct to care for you, this obsession and desire he feels over you, he calls it love, it must be love. He hesitantly admits back, “… I think I love her.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah, wow…”

“You really think you love her?” Keigo asked after polishing off his first beer. “What about that whole arrangement thing? If you tell her you love her, she might question you since, you know, you’re still fucking other girls. If you love her then she’ll expect you to be monogamous with her.”

“If she still takes me up on that arrangement, I don’t think I can handle it. Only people who love her should be allowed to fuck her.” In other words, only he should be the only one to have you. No one else loves you like Touya does, he’ll fucking kill any asshole that thinks they can use you as their fucktoy. When Keigo asks again about the other girls, he growls at him and tosses his bottle onto the concrete. “I’m fucking working on that, alright. I just… don’t know how to fucking commit. It’s too fucking hard to do this by myself.”

Keigo just pops the cap off another bottle and hands it to Touya. “Would it help if I joined the relationship? I’m sure we can work something out with (Name), provided she’s willing.”

Touya would observe you and Keigo together, you oblivious to his friend’s flirtations at times and mistaking it as him just being very friendly. He could see golden eyes wandering down your body, already knowing what you looked like without any clothes and how pretty you look when you’re gagging on a dick because Touya’s shown him your nudes and recorded videos of you. Keigo can try to hide and put up a front that he’s just lusting over you but Touya can see that his friend has got that little lovestruck glint in his eyes when he looks at you; and honestly, he’s not even upset about it. The vision of you and Keigo together, it makes him comfortable rather than the anxiety he feels when he thinks about you with someone else. They obsess over you together, you blissfully unaware of how tortured Keigo was sometimes that he couldn’t plow his cock into you because you saw him as just a friend.

So he takes up Keigo's offer.

He was hoping that the transition to introduce Keigo into the relationship would go smoother, but it only comes up after a fight when he brings you with him to a house party for the first time.

God, Touya didn’t mean what he said to you that night when you and Keigo rolled together; he was just frustrated because he didn’t know what he could do to show you that you meant more to him than you knew. No matter how much he reassured you, you kept on letting your stupid insecurities get in the way!

“C’mon man, one minute you’re telling me you love her and now all of a sudden you’re breaking up with her?” Keigo scolds him, unaware that you leave the both of them behind and duck into the house.

“I’m not trying to break up with her! I’m just— fuck, she just doesn’t get that… fuck!”

He’s at a loss of words, he doesn’t want to be mad at you but you couldn’t get over your hangups over the side whores. They weren’t his other girlfriends, not his side bitches, or anything like that. Touya literally only sees them for probably twenty minutes max on the occasion they hit him up, nothing compared to all the time dedicated to you. They can claw at his dick however much they want, that’s all they want from him anyway aside from the pills and powders he sells to them. If it gets them to shut up then fine, but Touya will never spend a second longer with them when he’s finished using them. He doesn’t give a fuck if they whine about not cumming, he never promised them an orgasm when he gives the whores his cock.

He obsesses over you, not them; he cares for you, not them; he only wants you, not them.

Stop being jealous, it's just you!

Keigo finally talks him down but they realize that you’re not around.

Touya searches the outside perimeter of the house while Keigo searches inside. You’re rolling, barely able to take care of yourself and they have no idea where you are. All the worst case scenarios run through his head like you wandering into the night and getting kidnapped, hit by a car while walking down the road, he wonders if you’re still at the house and possibly getting raped because you can’t fight back if someone forces themselves on you. He drives himself crazy with his own imagination and you won’t answer your fucking phone!

To his relief Keigo informs him that he found you locked inside one of the bedrooms, having mixed cocaine, ecstasy, and alcohol because you were upset about what happened. He’s a veteran, Touya’s mixed plenty of times within his boundaries of tolerance but you’ve never done it before so he worries instantly for your wellbeing. The only thing that he can think of what to do to help you is to bring you a fresh bottle of water, you’re probably dehydrated as hell.

He feels awkward as hell when he arrives to the room, standing off to the side as Keigo fusses over you. He’s able to comfort you with the right words in your state of mind, adding in kisses and sweet caresses to your body to help calm you, something that Touya feels unable to do at the moment. But Keigo fixes you up and nods for him to approach you, a little hurt that you whine for Keigo to stay.

But he has to admit his mistake, that he should have been more attentive to you when he brought you with him, even if he trusted Keigo to look over you the entire time. You’re upset, of course you’re upset with him, and he doesn’t want you to be mad at him anymore. So he decides to give you a right he should have bestowed to you a long time ago, you’re not allowed to call him Dabi anymore. It’s the only way he knows to make it up to you and show you that you’re important to him.

Don’t be mad at me anymore babydoll, I’m yours.

You’re a stubborn little thing at first, still insisting on calling him Dabi but he made you come around. His name falling from your lips just sounds so perfect, it sounds right as you choke up on pleasure and come undone with a scream of his name.

Touya imagines that night you went behind his back because you were mad at him, freezing for just a quick moment that you would do the same thing the next time you became angry with him, except now he had given you full permission. You hadn’t taken advantage of the arrangement and didn’t seek anyone out so far, he’s thankful for that, but he has to lock down Keigo into the relationship so that he can secure you.

Touya literally walked out of the house earlier to find you and Keigo making out, surely you can’t believe you can do that on ecstasy and still believe that everything is platonic. He has to put the truth out there, you deserve to know it, no one else would treat you so good like they would.

“He thinks you’re adorable. I talk about your pussy all the time with him. How fucking cute it is, how tight it gets when you get choked, and when you cum all over yourself. He wants to fuck you open so bad.”

“Touya, don’t say that! He’s just a friend!”

“A friend who wants to fuck you.”

He probably could have been more eloquent with his words but he gets his point across to you regardless.

“I gave you permission to fuck who you want doll, Keigo is not the worst person you could choose. In fact, I’d like it if he were the one to keep you warm for me.”

And he can see how realization hits you, Keigo further supporting the claim by coming onto you as well. What you used to perceive his actions as friendly, you thought otherwise now. It’s a truth that you can’t unlearn now that he’s put it out there, but he hopes that you fucking take the bait. If you reject Keigo coming into the relationship, he truly won’t be able to handle the possibility of you seeking someone else out.

He’d fucking go crazy.

That is not an exaggeration.

Everything goes smoothly though, you returning hand in hand with Keigo with that cute, embarrassed look on your face when you asked where the ‘proper threesome’ should take place. He doesn’t know what Keigo said to you or what you said to him in order to reach the desired conclusion but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter because he got what he wanted.

You’re right where Touya wants you.

It feels good to know that when he’s out, Keigo is there to be with you in his place.

Everything feels perfect when he’s with you, he won’t lose you to anyone, you’re so fucking good for him, so fucking loyal to him and Keigo that even when you have your own doubts, you fall in line with what he wants anyway. He knows what’s best for you, what you need and what you don’t need. You don’t have to worry about anything because you’re watched over and cared for. He cares for you all the time like when you’re drunk, high, rolling, cross faded, sick, depressed, and everything in between.

But admittedly there are moments when his own anxiety gets the best of him, sometimes Touya looks at you and suddenly wants to run to the hills. He pops a few oxys to try to calm him down sometimes but they’re not always effective. When the pills don’t help, he hopes one of the whores hits him up to ask for a pill or a baggy and he can pretend that he’s living his old life before you came along because that’s what he’s most familiar with. He thinks you’re too good to be true at times and he follows the instinct to self sabotage by still returning to the whores. And every single time without fail when he returns to you, he feels his chest constrict as soon as you’re in his sights.

It’s no secret to you when he goes out to see them, he comes back smelling like artificial fruit or sweet candy, and he sees how you bristle when he tries to come near you. You’re angry at him but choose to remain silent because it’s an argument that’s long exhausted, he feels guilty that he still can’t commit himself to you fully but swears that one day it will happen. One day he’ll defeat that monster inside him that tempts him to ruin everything he’s built with you. But until then, Touya wants to make it up to you every single time. Food and drinks are an easy way to placate you but his favorite is when you agree to house roll with him because no matter what you end up gravitating to him during the roll and lean on him during your come down.

Sensual make outs while on ecstasy when you’ve reached the peak and then comfortable silence during the come down as you wallow together in a brief period of depression, it’s when he feels the closest to you.

And you don’t know this because he hasn’t been ready to say anything, but he’s already told you that he loves you.

The first time he says it, it’s past the six month mark of the relationship and just a little after Keigo is inducted into it as well. Nothing special in particular had happened to make him say it, you went to bed early because you stayed up way too late the night before and you just needed the extra hours of rest. He smoked a joint to relax, hopped in the shower to clean up, and he tip toed quietly in the room to make sure he didn’t disturb you. You barely flinched as he turned on the light in the room, unaware at how much Touya stared down at you as you slept. He took in your features and marvels at how peaceful you look when you’re asleep.

“I love you.” he says for the first time to you out loud.

You shift a little and emit a quiet, nondescript sound and he panics briefly that you might have heard him. Relief floods through him as you simply mumble and nuzzle the pillow, continuing to rest and none the wiser to the confession that Touya spoke into the air. But a weight is off his shoulders as he climbs into bed with you and is ready to sleep alongside you.

So he tells you he loves you when he knows you can’t hear him like when you’re deep in slumber, when you have your headphones on and just blast your music, or just right when you walk out the door after kissing him goodbye. He’s brave enough in those moments to say it but not brave enough to actually tell you just yet.

There’s one night where he thought you were going to say it first, and if that was the case then Touya would happily reciprocate it back.

You were hanging onto him for dear life as Touya rammed his cock into you, your hands clutching his shoulders and the back of your head digging into the mattress with your back arched off the bed. Touya had been mean to you all night by edging you, pulling out just as you’re about ready to burst and relishes in your desperate cries. You promise him you’ll do anything he wants but please please please, don’t just leave you like this. It’s only when you’re at your most desperate that Touya decided to give you the orgasm he’d been denying you.

“Such a desperate fucking whore. Were you thinking about my cock the entire day you were out?” Touya growled into your neck before nipping down on a sensitive spot as he jackhammers his dick into your pussy. “You were fucking drenched in your panties when you walked through that door. You love my dick so much that you think about it all the time huh?”

Your hands clutch onto his shoulders and Touya’s hips move to fuck you until you pass out from cumming so hard. You’ve been fucked stupid plenty of times and you just blearily look up at him as he utterly uses you to his satisfaction. There are plentiful memories of when you’ve told him you loved his dick in the frenzy of the moment, nothing but praises for his cock and how good he rams it in and out of you. It’s so fucking cute when you’re dick drunk and you slur out all your words. But Touya swears that you say it a little bit differently, straining his ears to make sure he heard you right. His hips don’t falter in their pace but he wants to know that he’s hearing what he thinks he’s hearing.

“I love… it…. cock… I love… yo…” shaky breaths leave your lips, shuddering gasps as your whole body trembles at what is sure to be an earth shattering orgasm. “S’fucking good… love ih… Love… yo— ahhh!”

Your whole body tenses and your back arches off the bed as high as your body allows, toes curling as you cum all over Touya’s cock and he cums alongside you. But even in the wreckage of your orgasm, you’re still choking out those breathless words that he was straining to comprehend just a few seconds ago. He wanted you to enunciate more, he should have slapped your cheek and made you speak clearly otherwise he would edge you again but the idea comes much too late now that you’re a boneless, brain fucked mess beneath him with his cum leaking out of you.

He fucked you too good, you’re asleep within seconds after Touya pulls out of your pussy and he’s a little disappointed that he couldn’t draw those words out of you.

Turquoise blue eyes look down at you, so vulnerable and pretty right before him. You look perfect and so comfortable in his bed that for a few seconds he’s inconceivably happy. You’re completely unaware of the power you have over him, how easily you could kill him without even trying. He’ll break if you leave him and he’ll break you if you try to leave him.

Don’t leave me.

You stay curled up in the bed and snuggled into his pillow even though you have your own on your side of the bed. A few minutes have passed and Touya thinks it’s safe to say it again, confess his heart into the silence of the room and while you’re unconscious to avoid being vulnerable; he’s just not ready yet. It would make his life so much easier if you said it first out loud but he also thinks that it would make you really happy if he were to say it first.

He knows you’ll be happy once the words are put out there, whether he says it first or you do.

Until then, he says it quietly and in the safety of his room while you rest peacefully.

“I love you.”

#dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader #todoroki touya #dabi #bnha x reader #bnha #tw drugs #tw toxic relationship #us series

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tthankstoyou · 4 years ago

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headcanons of glee x the álbum lover? (lover by taylor swift, obviously)

for example, when i heard "it's nice to have a friend" i think on kurt singing it to mercedes when she's supporting him in his coming out or in marley singing it to unique bc she's the one who always treats her right <3

Thank you sm for the ask!!!! This was a lot of fun to do <3

• I Forgot That You Existed - Rachel would sing this when she was finally able to get over Finn in s2 instead of ‘Firework.’ She would open ‘Comeback’ with this song (which fits the theme of that episode perfectly)

• Cruel Summer - Mercedes would sing this in ‘The Purple Piano Project’. JBI would interview her and say “Is it true that you and Sam Evans had a fling this summer?” and she would be like “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” After that, she’d walk away from him & sing this while a montage of them spending their summer together played.

• Lover - Imagining we got episodes showing Klaine being all lovey dovey in NY, Kurt would sing this in s5 after Blaine moves in. I’ll breakdown how the lyrics in the second verse would fit perfectly with them: “We could let our friends crash in the living room. This is our place, we make the call” correlates to how they let Sam stay with them until he found a place. “And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you” is about Sebastian, Eli C, Rachel, and Tina. “I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all” They were dated 3 summers in a row & now they’re engaged, it goes with them so well.

• The Man - Skank!Quinn would sing this. Shes done putting up with all of the shit that the boys in Glee club had been giving to her, which is a reason why she left and joined the skanks. She sings this as a middle finger to Mr. Schue. She finally decided to let all of her feminist frustrations out.

• The Archer - Quinn would sing this after Finn breaks up with her at Sue’s sisters funeral. She would leave the car and start singing as she walks away. This would be one of her most vulnerable songs she sings on the show, she feels unlovable with never being able to keep a boyfriend or her parents. She would definitely let herself cry while singing this.

• I Think He Knows - I said this in a different headcanons post, but I think it would be so adorable if Sam sang this to Kurt in glee club (in a universe whre hevans actually happens 😪)

• Miss Americans & The Heartbreak Prince - OKOK Quinn would sing this when she transforms into a skank, kind of like a makeover scene but it’s her crying while chopping her hair off and dying it.

• Paper Rings - This is the Klaine anthem! Kurt and Blaine would sing this together after Blaine gives him the ring made out of gum wrappers <3

•Cornelia Street - Dani would sing this about Santana! A lyric I think fits well is “You hold my hand on the street, walk me back to that apartment.” That line fits so well with Santana walking Dani home after shifts 🥺💗

• Death By A Thousand Cuts - Kurt would sing this after Blaine cheated on him in s4. He’d sing this an episode or two after the breakup when he’s in the stage where he’s filled with anger towards Blaine.

• London Boy - Kurt would obviously sing this when him and Adan start talking.

• Soon You’ll Get Better - The New Directions would sing this at Burt’s hospital bed instead of a religious song that Kurt asked them not to sing.

• False God - Santana would sing this about Brittany in s4 before their breakup when she’s coming back to Lima to visit her.

• You Need To Calm Down - The New Directions would sing this with Kurt as a lead. It would be an ending group number in ‘Theatricality’ after they stand up to Karofsky and Azimio.

• Afterglow - Santana sings this after she breaks up with Brittany in s4. She’ll start singing this as she starts packing up her stuff to go back to the Univeristy of Louisville.

• ME! - They sing this as an ending group number in ‘Born This Way’ (not replacing btw, I’m forcing them to sing two ending songs at the end of this episode lmao)

• It’s Nice To Have A Friend - I’m going to go with your Marlique headcanon for this song, nonny! I think it fits them perfectly since this is the friends to lovers anthem. They’d sing this as Marley confesses her feelings to Unique in the last episode all of the newbies are in.

• Daylight - Kurt would sing this in ‘Silly Love Songs’ after Blaine tells him that he wants the Warblers to help him serenade his crush & right before Kurt finds out the crush isn’t him.

#i always forget how many songs this album has #and they’re all bops!!!!#anyways lover is probably my favorite album of hers #it fills me with so much serotonin #taylor swift #glee #headcanons #long post #asks #nonny #brittana #klaine #samcedes #finchel #skank!quinn #marlique #(blah i don’t feel like tagging everyone)

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mandoalorian · 4 years ago

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What the Pedro boys are like at college

This is my first time doing one of these so please be nice! Yep, TUWOMT isn’t out yet but I have read the script and I have written for Javi Gutierrez here. If you don’t want spoilers, maybe don’t read his scenario. I’ve made it so Javi’s is the last one so you can skip over it easily. I write for all the main Pedro characters! These include:

· Din Djarin – The Mandalorian

· Javier Pena – Narcos

· Frankie Morales – Triple Frontier

· Maxwell Lord – Wonder Woman 1984

· Jack Daniels: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

· Oberyn Martell: Game of Thrones

· Dave York: The Equalizer 2

· Pero Tovar – The Great Wall

· Ezra Prospect – Prospect

· Marcus Pike – The Mentalist

· Max Phillips – Bloodsucking Bastards

· Dio – NYPD Blue

· Javi Gutierrez – The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

· I DO NOT WRITE FOR PEDRO PASCAL.

Please please request a ‘Pedro boy’ scenario HERE. You can also request for me to write a one shot HERE.

Masterlist

Enjoy!

***

Din Djarin: Does college exist in Star Wars? I’m not sure… but if we take a moment to imagine Din being schooled by the Mandalorian Creed. He learns the history of Mandalore, about the great leaders such as Satine Kryze. He learns the importance of ‘the way’ and studies the art of weaponary, learning how to use guns, detonators, vambrace, and whistling birds. He learns about the legacy of the darksaber and, as we already know, he trains with the Rising Phoenix. I imagine Din likes to keep himself to himself and has been a loner his whole life. He places his trust in his fellow Mandalorian’s but they are not his friends. They are simply just his allies. Being schooled in the Mandalorian Creed would be physically exhausting but it’s something Din can manage. After all, he doesn’t have a choice. This is the way.

Javier Pena: We know Javi always wanted to leave Texas, and I think college was the perfect time for him to venture out. He didn’t choose a school with a pristine academic reputation, but instead, he picked a school that had the best renowned night life so he could go out and enjoy drinking and partying. Javi wasn’t a complete wild card. He was the kid who seemed to be good at almost everything. He was able to graduate top of his class with honours in Criminal Law.

Frankie Morales: When Frankie was younger, he loved helping his dad work on the family car and he even scored a part-time job at a garage when he finished high school. At high school, he never really found interest in the core subjects like English, math, science, history… and so when it was time for college, he wanted to develop on his hobby. Frankie chose to major in engineering, with a minor in transportation and logistics. This was perfect for him. In his second year, he went from looking at cars and motorcycles, to different forms of aircraft. He remembers one morning, he sat in the pilot seat of a helicopter after the fuel compressor had went bust and he had never felt more at home. On a whim, he dropped out of college and was lucky enough to get a place in piloting school. Frankie stuck by Santiago throughout college, but while Santi went out and partied, Frankie would slump down in his chair, drink a few beers, and be ready to head back to his dorm at 9pm. He had a few flings in college but had no interest in pursuing an actual relationship. It was important to him that he used his time in college to discover what he really wanted to do with his life.

Maxwell Lord: He probably went to Cornell, or Harvard. Maxwell could’ve gotten in from his family name alone, and if he wasn’t the most academically bright, no doubt his mother would’ve paid him into college, but Maxwell had always been smart. He was home schooled his whole life and so college was a big change for him. He worked hard. He showed up to every class early, and handed in homework and dissertations early, and used his charm to schmooze with the teachers, doing all he could to make sure he got the best grades. Maxwell majored in Business and Economics, and minored in Marketing. He didn’t have much choice in what he studied in college because he had his life set out for him the moment he was born. Maxwell didn’t have friends, but that’s not to say he was a loner. Everyone on campus knew who Maxwell was, and everyone knew the kind of family he came from.

Jack Daniels: Despite Jack and his high school sweetheart going their separate ways for college, they couldn’t stay away from each other for long. He was a Political Science major but never really cared much for it. He had a lot of friends, was a care free spirit and attended parties. He is someone who has natural academic ability but his failure to attend class and do homework meant that he, inevitably, began to drag behind. Realising political science isn’t for him, he dropped out of college and moved in with his high school sweetheart. He much preferred it that way, and he was able to be with her all the time. Having his company meant that she was now distracted from her studies and when she fell pregnant with their first child, they decided to run away from college all together and start a family far away.

Oberyn Martell: Is there college in Game of Thrones? I’m not sure, but a modern! Oberyn would major in classical studies and minor in philosophy. He is a prince, after all. He excels in both subjects and picks up languages such as Latin and Greek easily. It comes natural to him. He passes with flying colours and never has to try too hard because the words of Aristotle and Plato were engrained into his brain ever since he was old enough to read a book. As prince, he knows it is important to graduate with honours and that it’s his priority but that doesn’t mean he can’t make time for fun. He doesn’t commit to any relationship during college but does embrace his sexuality. He’s kind, gentle, and respectful. He’s a really great lover, but an even better friend.

Dave York: Dave studied criminology and forensic science at college. He was able to learn the ins and outs of criminal psychology and the process that cops and forensic teams go through when trying to trace a murder. His knowledge in this subject sure helped him in later life. He passed with flying colours, but never wanted a career in crime – or at least, not a career you’d need a degree in. But his newly received qualification, Dave decided to join the CIA as an operative where he met Robert McCall. He played good guy for a long time, but his bad intentions linked to criminal activity traced all the way back to college. He met his wife in college, and truthfully, she was the only thing who kept him from spiralling into criminal activity at an earlier stage.

Pero Tovar: Again, I am almost certain college didn’t exist during this time period but if we make it a modern AU, I think Pero would have majored in geography and minored in cultural studies. He had a goal to travel the world and see all the magnificent places. Pero was a grumpy adolescent, and seemingly he never really grew out of it. He had a group of people he hung out with who were similar to him but he never really considered them friends. He didn’t partake in extracurricular activities and he would just focus on studying. But he did have a flare in art which was lost on him during later life. He used painting as an emotional outlet and a means to express his feelings.

Ezra Prospect: I guess this is a modern! Ezra then. He studies geology, and he’s really smart. He does a lot of reading, but he actually prefers non-fiction over fiction. His interest in geology goes past his degree, and he actually collects a variety of rocks and gemstones, going into deep research about them and believing that certain ones possess healing powers. Ezra has a partner throughout his time in college, and they spend a lot of time with each other. Ezra’s partner encourages Ezra’s love for geology and finds his passion endearing, even encouraging him to earn an income from his knowledge! You help Ezra use the rocks that he collects to create bath salts and make jewellery to sell on and earn profit.

Marcus Pike: Marcus was an art and design major, and all his teacher’s loved him. He was never the best at the practical side, but he excelled in art history and his knowledge on the subject was outstanding. Marcus had one long term relationship during college but his partner ended up breaking his heart. It took a long time for Marcus to recover, but he’d always been one for second chances. He’d hope that he’d never get his heart broken again.

Max Phillips: Max was a bit of a player in community college; a jock, who studied his undergraduate in Physical Education. When Evan had Max kicked out for sleeping with his girlfriend, Max went and studied Sales Management at a university just for Vampires. Filled with a feeling of wrath and hatred for Evan, Max made it his mission to ruin him. No more time could be spent partying in his fraternity, playing soccer for the college team and sleeping with the cheer leader’s – Max made it his goal to graduate from Vampire University with a top major and steal the job of leading Sales Manager from Evan. And that’s on holding grudges.

Dio: Yeah, Dio didn’t go to college. He dropped out of high school when he was fourteen. In his youth, his hobbies included making fire and stealing from the rich.

Javi Gutierrez: He’s a film major of course! He was born into a rich family, we know that, and comes from a very financially privileged background. His parents knew that he did not have to pursue a degree in something that would ensure him a job, because Javi would be well off no matter what, and so they were fine with Javi doing something he was truly interested in. Javi has loved literature, art and movies his whole life. He minors in screenplay writing and excels top of his class, constantly impressing those around him with his ability to memorise anything from one liner quotes to whole scenes from movies. He shares his extensive knowledge of trivia, and all his lecturer’s firmly believe that the film industry is something that Javi could one day potentially succeed in. However, Javi is awkward. He shy’s away from all the partying and spends Friday night’s in his dorm, munching on popcorn and watching classic movies. A relationship is never in question for Javi because of his family circumstances, so he just lays low and focuses on his studies. As soon as he graduates, he heads back home to Mexico and his dreams of being a famous Hollywood screenplay writer seem so distant.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #din djarin #frankie morales #javier pena #agent whiskey #maxwell lord #ezra prospect #javi gutierrez #pedro boys

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herpronuonsarefemslash · 3 years ago

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TEASER - Bioweapons and Beef Stew - Chapter 2

Kara's pod goes into the wrong wormhole and she ends up in the Mass Effect universe. SEE MORE HERE: https://www.patreon.com/alephthirteen/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=Bioweapons%20and%20Beef%20Stew

=====

Shepard anchors her fingers around Liara's hipbones and pushes herself away. Tendrils twitch and try exposing Liara's hungry sex to cool air.

Her yelp of protest is not far from what she's heard humans call hiccups.

She's also kept her walls up. Somehow. Somehow a human, with no innate defenses against the meld--bar perhaps, her own stubbornness--has kept Liara at the edges of her mind. Pleasure has built and built and built, but she hasn't been allowed the meld, so she can't come. Not really. She's asari. She needs more than a muscular twitch, a burst of neurotransmitters and a gush of slick to release the pressure.

Crude but effective stasis fields pin her feet to the carpet while muscular arms are more than enough to pin her hands. At her request, they turned the lights off so that Liara's self-consciousness about her appearance wouldn't stop them. In her defense, she had expected to be drowning in the sparkling void of meldspace seconds after Shepard touched her, where there is no universe but each other and where any doubt she might have about whether Shepard is pleased with what she's seeing would be solved instantly because she would just know.

Shepard is just exploring rather than doing anything and it's driving her mad.

Fingertips walk along the skin because humans can't see in full darkness. Tiny, quiet huffs to draw Liara's scent, followed by a tilt of the head that makes hair tickle across the asari's skin and a pause. What she's noting in those contemplative moments, Liara shudders to imagine. Lazy drags of tongue at the crease of her thighs, from mound up to her breast and returning down the plane of her belly almost to her azure and then damnably retreating, at the inside of her wrists, one lashing lick against each of her ribs, a fierce suck under her chin that must have left a mark. Shepard's mouth is everywhere except the places--azure, tender spots on her back, the neck folds, her crests--everywhere except the places that might make her come or make her do what this damnable human thinks is coming.

Liara feels like she's a platter of food at a restaurant in the Presidium, nibbled and sampled and reviewed but not actually enjoyed to the fullest.

It's been hours, she thinks. Days. Weeks. Athame's mercy. She might have been lying here long enough for a galactic extinction cycle while Shepard explores.

Surely human soldiers are taught not to torture prisoners?

She tickles the hand holding hers fast and Shepard releases her. She pulls hard enough to bring her arm up and lay it out across her belly, and pokes at her lover's omnitool until she can get the lights on.

"Let..." she huffs.

"Yes?" Shepard asks, looking up from where she'd rested her chin on Liara's lap and fluttering her lashes oh-so-innocently. "Let you what?"

"Let me come."

"I need to meld, Shepard. I'm not sure if you're familiar with asari reprod-FUCK!"

The professor in her started lecturing. She was distracted too long and Shepard took the opportunity to turn her face down, climb over her and push her cheek to the sheets with one rough shove.

Shepard's tongue is laving across the jewel at the back of the skull, where all of Liara folds and crests meet. It's too good. It's too much. It's too much by light-years.

"Keep talking," Shepard snarls. "I love that you're smart."

She tries to explain about the layers of pleasure her body needs from a mate and about Tevura's Three Blades, about the sacred threes that echo throughout her culture. Maiden, Matron and Matriarch. Plaything, Lover, and Bondmate. Touching, Sampling and Blending. Tries to explain the way biotics, sexual pleasure, the meld and motherhood aren't separate aspects of being asari but that taken together, they are being asari, and all else are little tricks they use to experience those gifts.

Every time she catches her breath enough to speak, Shepard's teeth or tongue latch on to a neckfold, or dance through a crevice between, or a nip at crest-tip or her lips curl around the jewel where crests and folds meet and suck with building ferocity that makes Liara sag and moan into the bedsheets.

Finally, Shepard retreats.

"A good start?"

Liara calls on her biotics, flings Shepard into the air and then pulls her back to the bed, pinning her with as many points of stasis field as her pleasure-melted brain can concoct. She climbs on top and straddles Shepard's hips with her own. Surely now her tormentor understands. She must be able to feel Liara's azure weeping slick onto her...what did she say humans called it?

Shepard's grin--her damnable grin--is so wide it splits her face.

"I want you to make me come. You're a terrible lover, Shepard. Goddess knows how many times you've brought me halfway and refused to do more."

Shepard chuckles.

"Then as a matriarch's daughter, I think you should take what you are owed, princess."

Was it that easy? The entire time? Goddess. I did admit that I was a virgin. She was waiting for me to

take the lead...

"Let me in, Shepard. Now."

With little more than a nudge, Shepard's psyche yields and Liara's spilling into her mind, their mind, this space where two are one. Memory rushes and crashes like floodwater through a desert canyon.

Smoke and fire and blood and screams. Burning cities. Little children clinging to her exhausted, dirty body while she shushes them. Face after face sneering before Shepard's pistol or her biotics ends them.

She's a killer and a protector. She uses warpfire to melt a batarian slaver's skull down slowly, like a candle under a heatlamp while she takes his victim and pulls the crying turian child into her side to hide the violence, gritting her teeth as his spiny head scratches narrow wounds into her arm.

Pleasure blooms like a supernova behind Liara's eyes. It's as if all the half-ruined orgasms Shepard gave her collided and tangled and collapsed to a pinprick and exploded into something far more.

Meldspace thins as she can't maintain it against the trembling waves reaching down every nerve and then rippling back. She can feel and see her surroundings again and she sees Shepard's panting and spent, smearing a palmful of Liara's own slick over her belly. Her knees are damp from the soaked sheets.

"You're a messy one, Liara T'Soni. Good thing you look so sweet when yo-"

Liara leans down and covers her human's mouth with a kiss before she can say another stupid thing, swallowing whatever jibe or joke or tease while thanking Athame that the meld helps her know she's not wasting a proclamation of love.

=====

Oh.

She's messed up because she's hard and because the cause of it is painting wet breath across her wrist. Liara is using her right arm as a pillow and she's probably never getting it back. She's shifting in her sleep, dragging the firm curve of her ass against Shepard's throbbing, weeping cock while her hand holds firm around her back, fitting Shepard's body close and preventing any possibility of a gentlewoman's retreat.

Sex dreams spill from her bedmate's brain into her own and Liara murmurs half-words in Serraci, including her name.

If this is what morning wood is like, she's going to give Alenko thirty percent less shit when he shows up grumpy at a ninety-second wakeup evac drill.

"Please," Liara groans, voice sleep-scratchy and thick. "I need to feel you. Right there, Shepard. You feel so good inside me."

She tries to shake the sleeping temptress, and all she gets out of it is a catlike state that makes lifting her off about as likely as juggling a droplet of water.

"Lee."

She mumbles something else, something filthier and in English borrowed from her brain and shifts back, pressing as much of Shepard's skin against her scales as she can.

Her little Bluejay's brain bombards Shepard with images of exactly what she's imagining and some miraculous asari reflex guides Liara's hand across her skin, like she'll sleep better if the other body in the meld feels pleasure.

Liara wakes with a moan. Shepard is on top of her, pinning her with her weight alone. Her knees are inside Liara's, keeping her spread. Fingers are dancing through her crown, evading the hungry pulsations of the tendrils and fingers are on her crest-tip, squeezing hard as Shepard dares. She's sucking her jewel again and she sobs and moans and smears pleasure across her pillow from drool-slicked lips.

"Shepard..."

The lips abandon her jewel, but Shepard doesn't retreat, her breath ghosting across the tortured nerves. "Easy, baby. I could feel you dreaming. I'm sorry," she pants. "I had to have you."

"That's why we have the dreams, siame. To lure. When I do, wake me like this, please," Liara manages to croak out between her pants. "Always wake me like this." Then she feels it pressed against her ass.

Hard and hot and veiny, Shepard's pulse counted out in drumbeats. It must feel alien to Shepard too, this new organ, but she hides it well, jogging her own hips slightly and smearing something slick from the trembling tip.

"Can..." Shepard gulps.

"I want you inside, Shepard."

"Meld, so I don't hurt you."

=====

The intercom crackles.

"Update for you, commander."

"Joker," Shepard snarls. "I swear to god, if you were listening, I will have you Cat-6'ed for your porn collection. If you're lucky."

"No, ma'am. But congratulations to you and the doc. Got an unidentified object off our bow. Lifepod, we think but doesn't match any known models. Came in for a close pass. One aboard. Looks like a human female, twenty or a bit younger. Systems are powered and it looks like she's in cryo."

Shepard raises her hand to her omni and mutes the channel.

"Feel like solving a mystery, Bluejay?"

Liara turns her head to steal a kiss before Shepard dismounts her. Seed and her own slick pour out like a tide.

"I would love nothing more, Commander."

"Careful," Shepard teases, landing a teasing slap on her ass. "I might get jealous of the abstract concept of knowledge."

#femshep x liara #abo #mass effect #kara zor el #crossover #alpha!shepard

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storiesbyjes2g · 4 years ago

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Genetics & Story Summary

Genetics

Even though we all know Melany looks nothing like Kameron, she doesn’t look exactly like Brytani either. Like, most of the time, I don’t feel like I’m looking at a younger Brytani. But they look so much alike I can’t tell what the differences are. Last night I decided to find out how they are different. I found Brytani in another save and aged her down. I aged Kameron down and took off his beard and skin details so we can really see him. I also took away Mel’s details even though they don’t change her much. I made a picture with them all side-by-side to compare.

How about I never really realized Melany had a dimpled chin! And, how cool is it to learn Kameron gave it to her! (I feel like she should write a song about him called Dimpled Chin lol) I’m guessing her cheeks come from him because Noemi also has high, cute chubby cheeks as well. Mel’s face seems to be a little longer than Brytani’s, also compliments of Kameron, but I knew that one already. There is something about their eyes though. I can’t really tell what it is, but they are not the same. Are Brytani’s wider or something?

As far as skin tone goes, Mel is right in the middle, a shade darker than Brytani and a shade lighter than Kameron. I still think it’s funny how EA measures what is light and dark, but we won’t get into that in this post...or maybe ever lol.

Story Summary

This may get long, so I’ll put it under the cut.

Recently I welcomed my new followers and told you about my story. I appreciate everyone who has hopped on for the ride! 😘 So many of you have joined in on this silly little legacy drama, and I don’t want anyone to be lost. I’m going to catch you up so you know who everyone is and what’s going on because I don’t expect you to go back to the beginning, although it doesn’t take very long. I did that a few months ago. It was fun!

Ok! So you’ve met Melany and her parents. Kameron started this whole thing as my guy to save Strangerville. Afterward, I figured I would continue playing with him and give him a much deserved good life. He had the world famous celebrity aspiration, so he started hanging out in DSV and rubbing shoulders with celebrities. That’s how he met Brytani Cho and thus creating our dear, sweet Melany. But, Brytani is not about that relationship life, and things fizzled after he attempted to propose to her.

It didn’t take long for her to leave. Bye Felicia.

Kameron and Melany left Strangerville for a new life in Oasis Springs. He joined the intelligence branch of the military and moved up the ranks. It was tough being a single dad, but he made it work.

Brytani was hyper-focused on her career and made very little time for Melany, and Kameron held that against her. Needless to say, their relationship was never the same, and co-parenting was no walk in the park. Melany, however, attempted to make the best of her mother’s visits, though she wished she visited more often.

Eventually Kameron moved on completely and began dating. He had a few flings and a few dates, but when he met Nadia, he was like a moth to flame.

They messed around a lot, and it didn’t take long for him to ask her to be his girlfriend. They dated for a while before he asked her to move in. He needed to see how things would work with her and Melany. It delighted Kameron to see how well they took to each other. I mean, Melany was an exceptional kid. Who wouldn’t love her? Nadia did and took her role in Kameron and Melany’s lives very seriously once she understood the family dynamics.

Nadia’s pregnancy and the engagement happened around the same time. They had a son named Nathaniel Courtney Pierson, whom they call Nate. Life was very busy with a new baby, new house, and new city (Willow Creek). Once life settled down a little, they were married in Sulani.

It should be noted that Melany began playing the violin at a young age. Kameron took her to El Selvadorada once, and it rained almost the whole time. She was going through a loud phase and picked up the violin; she loved it. She completed all 5 child aspirations which gave her a boost at learning adult skills. By the time she was a teenager, she had maxed the violin skill and had written her first song! She also started a SimTube channel. Between her two celebrity parents and the videos, she was a 4 star celebrity by her teen birthday.

Teen life for Melany was pretty average—aside from the celebrity madness. She had a group of friends she loved. She was on top of her studies and made A’s. She didn’t give her parents any trouble.The only complaint she has was with her mother. Brytani retired and came around more often, but still not often enough. By this time, Melany’s little sister, Noemi Amiah Pierson, was born, and she saw what she missed by not having two parents in the same house. Nadia was an excellent step-mother. Melany didn’t want for anything, and she loved and appreciated her. But she had a mother. Why couldn’t Brytani be like Nadia? Was something wrong with her? Did Brytani love her at all? She was secretly jealous of her young siblings, and those feelings ate away at her. She became withdrawn, cried a lot and made angry videos, but it didn’t help. Brytani was still a deadbeat mom. Melany expressed her frustrations once, but Brytani couldn’t make her feel better. She wasn’t the motherly type and thought Melany would be fine with Nadia not realizing the girl just needed her mom.

Things got slightly better in their relationship, but this would always be a thing between them. Even now, long after Brytani’s death, Melany still feels conflicted about their relationship.

The Piersons moved to Sulani. Melany aged up and went to Britechester University to study Fine Arts. She stayed in the dorms her first semester and had two roommates. That’s how she met her current best friend, Dr. Anissa Thurston. She studied biology and felt a connection with Melany immediately. Being a popular celebrity, Anissa knew everyone would be all over her and act weird. She just saw a fellow freshman nervous about being in a new place and hoping everything would be ok and made it her business to befriend Melany. Little did she know their shared Bailey Kay fandom would create a near indestructible bond.

Like any overprotective father, Kameron struggled with Melany going to college. He wanted her to stay at home for the first semester. And, as one could imagine, he was not ready for boys. Luckily, he made a friend in an elderly gentleman named Myron Churchill. He never had an older friend who could advise him from experience—a father figure. Mr. Churchill’s friendship became precious to him and helped a great deal.

Melany met Nick Wilkinson at a party. She felt uncomfortable about the outfit her friend made her wear on top of everyone looking at and whispering about her being a celebrity and all. Nick approached her and started a conversation. He made her feel better and was terribly cute. All they did was talk, but he definitely left an impression on her.

Brytani died, and Melany withdrew from school for the rest of the year. Nick called to see how she was and to express his condolences, and that’s how their friendship began. He was a huge movie buff and studying drama at Foxbury Institute to become an actor. He also was a huge nerd and avid gamer. Melany is also a gamer as Kameron was a gamer geek and raised her on video games and sci-fi. They were “friends” for a long time before he asked her out. After dancing around each other for so long, it didn’t take long for them to begin an official relationship.

They graduated, and Melany goes back home to Sulani to figure out the rest of her life. At this point she had written and licensed 7 songs and had a few small performances. She loved performing but wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a full blown artist like her idol, Bailey Kay. Also, up until this point she had only been a musician. Few know this, but Melany is also a singer. She keeps it private, but the girl is talented. Despite this talent, she never considered being a singer or writing lyrics to her songs. But sometimes she hears words in her head. They repeat themselves and won’t go away, so she began writing them down. After having this experience a few times, she felt her music life changing and needed professional advice and reached out to Bailey Kay (after much coaxing from friends and family) who gave her some wise words.

Eventually, Melany decided to live in Brytani’s mansion in Willow Creek which she inherited. The thought of living there used to give her pause, but she wanted to be closer to Nick and her friends because traveling from Sulani to San Myshuno and Del Sol Valley was getting to be too much. Besides, she was a grown woman now and needed to get on with her life. Also, she felt like she caused the problems Kameron and Nadia had briefly in their marriage. She invited Anissa to live there as her roommate because she didn’t want to live alone and wasn’t ready to have Nick move in yet. But, soon after, he approached her about the idea and she agreed it was an excellent idea.

That’s pretty much where we are now. Melany and Nick are living their best lives together. Nick is a dynamic actor and getting more popular by the day. Anissa finally got a job as a doctor and is looking forward to dating since getting over the breakup...that Melany caused. Yikes. We’ll hear from her about that soon, so I won’t steal her thunder, but I will say it almost ruined their friendship!

I hope this was helpful for the newcomers and nostalgic for the OGs. If you have questions along the way, just ask!

#The Piersons #catch up

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shireness-says · 5 years ago

Text

and he called her love amongst the snowflakes

Summary: Being a princess is no guarantee of a perfect Christmas. Spending the next two days snowed in with her brother's hot bodyguard just might be, though. Rated T for language. ~6.8K. Also on AO3.

A/N: Merry Christmas, @owlways-and-forever! It was an absolute delight to be your @cssecretsanta2k19. I hope you’re having a wonderful time with your family - in the meantime, here’s a little bit of a modern royalty AU for you!

Super thanks to @snidgetsafan for her last-minute beta skills, and @let-it-raines for her help with a title.

Tagging the usual suspects: @kmomof4, @thisonesatellite, @profdanglaisstuff, @ohmightydevviepuu, @scientificapricot, @optomisticgirl, @spartanguard, @winterbaby89, @thejollyroger-writer, @searchingwardrobes, @snowbellewells, @stahlop, @teamhook

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

~~~~~

“What do you mean, you and Dad won’t be home for Christmas?”

“Now Emma,” her mother sighs. “I never said that. I just said we won’t be home on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, like that’s better,” she grumbles under her breath in a manner very much unfitting of the Crown Princess of Misthaven.

“Emma.”

“Ok, fine,” she concedes with as much attitude as she thinks she can get away with. “What do you mean, you and Dad won’t be home for Christmas Eve, a totally separate thing that’s not at all like Christmas?”

Her mother - Queen Mary II of Misthaven, if you want to get official, though Emma doesn’t quite want to when she’d rather act childish about Christmas - doesn’t even bother to respond to that particular bit of sarcasm. “I know you’re upset, sweetheart, but there’s nothing to be done about it. The snow’s just coming down too hard, and it’s supposed to keep up tomorrow too. As much as we both want to be home with you and your brother, neither of us can control the weather.”

What’s the damn point of being Queen, then, Emma thinks, mostly jokingly. Mostly. She still has a small self-preservational instinct, however, so she does not voice this out loud.

“We knew this was a possibility when we went,” her mother continues. “We knew the weather might turn. We hoped it wouldn’t, but we had to go anyways. We couldn’t miss this hospital opening, Emma, not when they named it after your grandmother. At the end of the day, we are here to serve our citizens.”

Emma mouths the last words along with her mom, having heard them many times. It’s not quite a catchphrase in their family - that distinction goes to her father’s very sappy “I will always find you”, the one thing that can reliably make both his children gag - but it does get repeated an awful lot. Call it their motto, or something. The lines just get more blurred when your family life and your professional life is so entwined.

“I’ll miss you,” Emma finally says after letting the line sit silent for a moment. That’s what this all comes down to, after all - as much as Emma understands why her parents had to fly across the country, and as much as she knows that they can’t control the weather, it’s Christmas time, and she wants to spend it with her parents.

“We’ll miss you too, sweetheart, and your brother too. Dad and I will be home as soon as we can, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.” What else is there to say?

“They’re waiting for us, but I’ll talk to you later. Give Leo a kiss for me. I love you, Emma.”

“Love you too. Say hi to Dad for me.”

As comparatively well as Emma holds it together on the phone, that evaporates as soon as the call disconnects and she lets out a screech of frustration. It’s immature. She doesn’t care. She’s allowed to want her family on Christmas… Eve. Eve.

(It’s technically still the night of the 23rd, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

Barely seconds later, a dark head pops into the room. Killian Jones - her brother’s security officer. Emma wouldn’t say she has a crush on him, but… she kind of has a crush on him. He’s just so goddamn handsome and charming, and she’s only human, even if she is the princess. They don’t cross paths very often - just on summers and school holidays, when Leo was home from boarding school and now from uni - but when they do, Emma can barely tear her eyes away. Damn, can that man wear a suit.

(Mostly, Emma just blushes a lot whenever he’s around, embarrassed by her own lustful thoughts. It’s a miracle no-one has called her on it yet.)

“Everything alright in here?” he asks, craning his neck towards all the corners, as if some kind of assassin might have made it through multiple layers of security at the palace just to crouch in the corner of a private sitting room. Just doing his job, she guesses. “I thought I heard some kind of shriek from the hallway.”

Emma colors a bit at being caught. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just —” She abruptly cuts off. “Is that an entire tub of cheese puffs?”

It’s Killian’s turn to turn a bit pink. “Aye. Your brother is playing one of his games, and you know how he gets. Likes his junk food.”

“Spoiled rotten, you mean.”

“I’d never say that,” Killian protests.

“Yeah, says the man bringing a tub of cheese balls up from the kitchens when His Spoiled Highness still has working legs!”

“You know, it sounds an awful lot like you’re deflecting, Your Highness,” Killian points out. His eyes still manage to twinkle with restrained laughter, even if his ears are still red.

He’s caught her, too. “Just a bit frustrated, is all. You know the stormfront going through up North?” Killian nods. “Mom and Dad got caught in it. They won’t be home tonight after all, and probably not even tomorrow. So… it’ll just be me and Leo for Christmas Eve, I guess.”

“I’m sorry, lo — ma’am,” Killian says softly. He does that, sometimes - start to say one thing, before quickly course correcting back to propriety. She’s always wondered what he’s trying to say - she’s never quite figured it out.

"It's not your fault," she shrugs. "Unless you've got some weird weather powers you've been hiding from me." It would just figure that Killian was the one who could control the weather; just one of the many secrets she doesn't know about him. "When are you heading home? You didn't get the Christmas shift, did you?"

Killian scratches behind his ear as just the tip of the cartilage flushes red. She can't imagine what he has to be embarrassed about; regardless, it's kind of cute.

Not that she's watching. That closely. (All the time.)

"I traded shifts with Mulan," he explains, referencing Emma's own security agent. "She's got... something with her girlfriend's family. Kind of a last minute thing."

"Looks like you're stuck with us, then," Emma comments, trying to tamp down the excited little butterflies in her stomach and the voice in her head that screams score! Very dignified.

Killian grins back. "Looks like I am." They smirk at each other for a minute, some camaraderie simmering between them with an undercurrent of something more. "Well, I'd better get the prince his cheese puffs," he finally says, shaking the container for emphasis. "I'll see you around, Your Highness. Let me know if you need anything."

(It would be horribly foolish to tell him you, so she doesn't say anything at all.)

———

By the time Emma makes her way down for dinner, the snowstorm has started in earnest - big, fluffy flakes that accumulate as soon as they hit the ground. In the little sitting room overlooking the gardens where her family takes informal meals, the swirling flakes make her feel like she lives in the little house in the middle of a snow globe. As much as she wishes their parents were here with herself and Leo, she's simultaneously glad that they're not out in the middle of this.

Leo flings himself into a chair with all the grace of a nineteen-year-old boy. Emma tries not to sigh too loudly at the way his limbs fly every which way, banging against the table and rattling the dishes; she's not willing to turn into her grandmother yet, thank you very much. She loves her brother, but somewhere along the line, he's developed an attitude that's hard to live with. Probably something about the independence of university going to his head, making Leo think too highly of himself. Maybe some girl out there will find it attractive - with their mother's hair and eyes and their father's strong jawline, he'd be a catch otherwise.

(She really must be turning into Grandma Ruth, if she's thinking that kind of thing.)

The one thing that's noticeably absent from Leo's little display is Killian. "Where's Lieutenant Jones?" she asks as the kitchen staff bring in plates of chicken and potatoes and asparagus to place in front of the pair of them.

Her brother shrugs. "I dunno. Probably having dinner somewhere."

That would make sense. It also brings into stark evidence that he's probably doing so alone; around Christmas, the palace always operates with a skeleton crew of staff so that as many people as possible can spend time with their families. There's no reason he couldn't just eat with the two of them. "Did you invite him to join us?"

Leo flushes red and mumbles something at his plate as he reaches for a dinner roll - not really an answer, but at the same time, more than enough of an answer.

“Leo…”

“I didn’t think of it, alright?”

Emma sighs heavily, before standing from the table to track down her brother’s security agent. It doesn’t take much searching; Killian is right outside the door, thumbing through his phone. He hurriedly stows the device away when he sees Emma, practically snapping to attention. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“Nothing, really,” Emma says. “You can stand down, or… whatever. I just wanted to see if you’d like to join us for dinner.”

“Oh, that’s really unnecessary —” he protests, but Emma’s determined.

“I know, but still. It’s kind of weirdly quiet around here, and there’s more than enough food. You don’t have to, obviously,” she hurries to clarify, “but it’d be nice to have you there. I’d appreciate the Leo buffer, at least,” she even jokes.

“Well when you put it like that…”

He follows. And of course there’s enough food, and of course he’s perfectly charming, and of course he has the presence of mind to suggest watching a Christmas movie after dinner to get them just a little more into the spirit of the season. Killian fits like that - unobtrusive, the way a good agent ought to be, but also charming and seemingly super-aware of how to cut through some of that sibling tension that always inevitably exists between Emma and her brother.

The movie is an old classic - one with dancing and singing and two reluctant people falling in love. Emma wouldn’t have expected Killian to like this - would have pegged him more for an action movie fan, or something like that - but he smiles and bobs his head along with the music. Leo is a different story altogether - after not even an hour, he’s already deserted the lounge for his room and video games, leaving Killian and Emma alone together.

“So what would you be doing tonight? If you weren’t here with us.” Emma’s clarification isn’t necessary in the least; however, she’s sitting close enough to touch Killian on the couch, and the thrill of it all is making her babble.

He’s gracious enough not to mention it, at least. “I’ve got a brother,” he explains, “and he and his wife have a little boy. Max. Really cute kid; let me dig out my phone, I’ve got so many pictures on there.”

The little boy on the screen can’t be more than four, with a wide and silly grin on his face and a dinosaur shirt to complete the picture. He’s just as cute as Killian promised.

“That was at his birthday last month,” Killian smiles fondly. “Four years old - growing so fast. Anyways, I usually spend my holiday with them. My sister in law has a huge family, and they’re always happy to let me tag along. Too kind, really.”

“I’m sorry you’re having to miss that,” Emma replies with genuine regret.

Killian shrugs; Emma has already proven she wouldn’t be nearly as gracious in the same situation. “There will be other years,” he explains. “All things considered, it’s not so bad, spending the holiday with Leo and your lovely self.”

“I think you’re the first and only person happy to be spending Christmas with that ball of teenaged attitude,” Emma jokes.

“It’s not so bad,” Killian deflects. “I’ll admit, the constant quips and eye rolling can be a bit much some days, but he’s a good kid underneath. Did you know he paid for all his roommate’s books for the coming semester?”

“No, I didn’t.” Emma shouldn’t be surprised, but she is. She’s gotten so used to the snarky terror her brother acts like around their family that it’s shocking to hear that it’s not always the case.

“Like I said - he’s a better kid than he lets on.” They watch the screen in silence for a few moments; they’re coming up on the finale. Perhaps Emma can convince him to watch a second movie with her afterwards. “I suppose he didn’t tell you about his girlfriend then?” Killian asks with a laugh.

“Leo’s got a girlfriend?”

“He would if he’d just ask her,” Killian snorts. “Her name’s Britta. You’d like her, I think - she doesn’t put up with any of his nonsense. Which, just between you and me,” he says from the side of his mouth like he’s confiding a secret, “he sorely needs sometimes. Anyways, she lives one floor up in their dorm. They have Intro Geology together.”

“He’s really doing alright?” Emma asks softly. Leo is, more often than not, a little shit, but he’s still her little brother. She still just wants the best for him, most of the time.

“He’s really doing alright,” Killian confirms. “Don’t worry - I’m keeping an eye on the boy. For all of us.”

The warm feeling that leaves in Emma’s soul carries her through the rest of the night.

———

Christmas Eve dawns much the same as the evening before - cold and snowing to the point of a whiteout. Emma isn’t particularly pleased about that turn of events, especially since it means that there’s almost no chance in hell of her parents getting home that day.

At least it’s a good opportunity for her to get a lot of work done. Being the crown princess means commitments to various charities and foundations and plenty of reading to come along with them, not to mention the never-ending stream of correspondence. A day just to focus on the things that have been accumulating on her desk will be good for everyone involved.

At least until the power flickers out.

It’s midafternoon, just when the light is starting to dim, and she’s been working on editing a proposal someone sent her via email. She technically can do it in the dim light, but it’s… not fun. Emma doesn’t particularly enjoy squinting. There’s generators at the palace, of course, but they’re directed towards the most essential functions - security, heating, and minimal kitchen operations. Lighting, for better or worse, isn’t included on that list - nor is wifi signal. She’s stuck.

On a hunch, Emma wanders down to the kitchen, to find Leo and Killian raiding the cabinets for candles and snacks. She should have figured; two young-ish guys, food was obviously going to be the priority.

“This sucks,” Leo gripes. “First, Christmas gets screwed up, and then this. Unbelievable.”

“To be fair, the electric company can’t really help the snow,” Killian points out as he extracts a roll of cookies from a cupboard. “A lot of electrical infrastructure is still above ground. It’s easy to get knocked out.”

Emma shoots Killian a sidelong look before swiping the same cookies. “How do you know so much about this?”

“You pick up a few things when you read, Your Highness,” he winks back.

“Are you guys done?” Leo interrupts. “Not everyone wants to watch your thirsty asses flirt all night. I’m not that desperate for entertainment.”

“Oh my god, Leo,” Emma groans back. It’s much more fun to watch how Killian turns bright red to match Emma’s own embarrassment.

“Look, just because the TV is out, doesn’t mean I want to deal with this.”

“Ok, what would you rather do then?” Killian asks in much more measured a tone than Emma would have been able to muster. Probably the benefit of not being related to Leo.

The younger man shrugs. “Scrabble?”

Killian snorts at that, though Emma doesn’t quite understand why. “Are you sure?”

“I like Scrabble,” Leo defends. “I’m going to kick both your asses.”

It’s as good an idea as any to spend a snowed-in afternoon.

———

A couple hours later, Leo is singing a different tune as Killian plays the last of his Scrabble tiles.

“Make sure you mark my latest points, lad,” he prods with a grin. “I want to make sure my lead is really cemented.” Killian has proved to be an invaluable ally in Emma’s personal quest to knock her brother down a peg; unfortunately, Leo is less enamored of the effort.

“Whatever. This is so lame,” the prince says, pushing back from the filled board. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Oh, c’mon, Leo, it’s just a game —” Emma protests, but her little brother is already out the door.

“I thought he said he liked Scrabble?” Killian asks, starting to collect the little tiles back into their bag.

“Oh, he does. He just likes winning, and usually he can beat the rest of us. Finally met his match with your fancy words, I guess,” she jokes, though it kind of falls flat. It’s hard for the punchline to land when its subject has already stormed out of the room.

“Ah. Well, I apologize for that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma excuses. “Though if you don’t mind, I’m not sure I’m up for a rematch - at least not of Scrabble.”

“You got something in mind, Your Highness?” Killian smirks.

“Have you ever played cribbage?”

“Once or twice. I could be persuaded.”

“I’ll get the board then.” Emma stands up, but pauses before actually leaving to do so. “And call me Emma.”

She leaves the room before she can see him react, but barely catches the soft trail of his words as she passes through the door.

“As you wish… Emma.”

———

It turns out, Killian is lying about having played “a time or two.” Either that, or he’s extraordinarily lucky.

(Cheating isn’t fully off the table, either, but she’s trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not that he makes it easy.)

“So that’s fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, fifteen eight, fifteen ten, fifteen twelve, fifteen fourteen, pair is sixteen, and three pair is twenty-two.”

Emma groans as he moves his red peg around the outer curve of the board. They look like such a cliche - Emma in her pajamas, Killian with his tie loosened, sitting in front of a roaring fire with candles scattered on all the flat surfaces as they play cribbage on the floor. The typical picture of two people caught in a power outage. Touching, really. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you’ve got the proof right in front of you. A damned good hand, if I do say so myself. What’ve you got there?”

“Utter shit,” Emma proclaims, tossing her cards down on the carpeting. “Run of three and a fifteen for five, plus a fucking useless ace. Absolutely jackshit.”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Killian cranes his neck to see where her cards are strewn on the carpeting. A nine, an eight, a seven, and that stupid ace. Nothing. “Never mind, it really can,” he laughs. “Tough luck, love.”

That little word - just a small endearment - hits her like a brick. That’s what he keeps trying not to say, all these times. Love. It just took a few permissions from her, and several more drinks than either one should have indulged in, for him to let it slip.

(She just might like it - being called love.)

The real question is what he means by it. It could be a verbal tic; it could be something more. Emma knows how she feels, her persistent crush, but it’s hard to tell how Killian feels behind his unflappable professionalism. Or maybe it’s not professionalism - maybe it’s just how he feels? God, she just can’t tell, and it’s about to drive her crazy.

Emma spends a lot of time studying Killian for the rest of their game. She doesn’t really discover anything new - she already knows the way that he laughs and smiles and teases - but it cements, somehow, that he’s a really good guy. She already knew that, really, but tonight has really driven that home.

The longer she watches him, and the stronger her conviction comes, the more she wants to do something about it. Maybe it’s the rum; maybe it’s the ambiance. Whatever it is, Emma wants to know just how he feels too, and hears herself talk without thinking.

“Hey, Killian, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Emma,” he smiles.

She shouldn’t continue - should just keep her mouth shut and her dignity intact. Drunk Emma doesn’t agree. “I was just wondering —”

By some miracle, a face-splitting yawn interrupts her sentence, saving Emma from herself. Because she was definitely about to say I was just wondering if you, like, like-like me. You know, like middle school.

“I think it might be time for bed there, love,” he laughs, seemingly oblivious to the butterflies he just set swarming in her stomach. Love. God, she’s a sap, and one who reads too much into things at that. “What were you saying?”

“I… can’t remember. I think the yawn knocked it right out of my head,” Emma lies with a laugh. “You’re right, I should get some sleep. You too - you know where there’s a guest bedroom, right? You’re totally welcome to use it.” A stupid thing to say, all things considered, but Emma has progressed to babbling to cover herself.

“Aye, I do,” he assures her. “Now come on, love, up you get and off to bed you go.”

Love.

Emma goes to bed floating on a happy cloud made of rum and his endearments, certain the pairing will only bring her the sweetest dreams.

———

The dreams are sweet. The morning is decidedly… not. The room is too bright where sun seeps through the shades, and her mouth is too dry, and she can already feel the beginnings of a killer headache encroaching behind her eyes. Revenge of the rum, or something.

A glass of water helps a bit, as do a couple of painkillers, but Emma is still less than pleased to hear the knock on her door. She’d much rather spend the day in bed, Christmas together-ness be damned, but there’s traditions in this family she can’t run away from, and every year since Emma was very young, they’ve passed out holly sprigs and candy canes to the visitors at the gate.

Killian smirks when she opens the door, apparently finding some sick amusement in the death glare Emma shoots in her groggy state. God, it’s just patently unfair that he still looks so attractive while she’s so hungover - even in yesterday’s suit and shirt. He’s not quite all buttoned up yet - still a bit of chest hair peeking out the top and his tie hanging loose - and it only makes him look even more delectable.

(Is that still a way that people describe hot guys they have chemistry with? Truthfully, Emma is a little too foggy to know or care.)

“Well don’t you look festive,” he teases. “Is this what they call high spirits?”

“No, that was last night.”

“Touche, love,” he laughs. “Do you think you’ll be ready to greet the people at 10:30? That should give you and Leo an hour or so for the meet and greet. Your mother’s speech is scheduled for noon - though I suppose you’ll be tackling that if she doesn’t make it back in time?” He phrases it like a question; it’s not.

Emma groans at the prospect. “Don’t remind me. And don’t jinx it!”

“Sorry, sorry.” His eyes crinkle when he smiles at her - an extra little detail Emma hadn’t noticed before, but now can’t stop seeing. “I’m sure you’ll be brilliant.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not have to be.” And it’s true; Emma’s perfectly capable of giving a speech, and has done so on multiple occasions, but her mother’s annual televised Christmas address is something else entirely that Emma would rather avoid at all costs and if at all possible. That all depends on her parents being able to make the flight, however. “How’s the weather today? Any better?”

“Have you not even looked out your windows today?” Killian prods gently. Emma isn’t quite sure when they switched to this teasing relationship they’ve apparently established, but she thinks she likes it.

“I was a little busy trying to avoid all trace of sunlight,” she shoots back.

“Well, it’s a lovely, crisp day,” he promises. “I don’t see why your parents shouldn’t be home for Christmas.”

Just to hear it out loud is a huge relief, even if she has enjoyed their little bonding exercise the past couple of days. No matter how much fun she’s had with Killian, it’s still Christmas, and she still misses her parents.

“I’ll see you at breakfast?” Emma asks tentatively, hoping he’ll say yes, scared that he’ll say no.

“I’ll have the kitchens whip up something particularly greasy,” he winks back.

———

The morning is cold, but just as clear as Killian had promised. As much as Emma had grumbled this morning, she actually likes this bit of Christmas tradition - shaking hands, giving their visitors well-wishes, making sure to hand out candy to all the children. It feels like the true spirit of the holiday - giving not for the thanks, but for the smiles, and because it’s the right thing to do.

Still. It’s cold, and as much as Emma had appreciated how wide Killian’s eyes had gotten when she had emerged after breakfast in a full-skirted green coat dress, her skirt and hose don’t offer much protection against the weather. Pants would have been a much more practical choice, but there are expectations for days like these, and a skirt is part of that.

Her relief is palpable when they finally make it back inside. God only knows where Leo gets to - he’s off the hook, at least - but Emma treks back to her mother’s formal office as soon as her winter wear is sorted. As much as Emma hopes it won’t come to that, her mother’s annual Christmas speech is scheduled in twenty minutes, and if Queen Mary is still on the road, Emma will be expected to fill in. It’s not something she’s looking forward to; spontaneity like this never is, though she knows she’ll only have to read from a prompter.

Killian beats her there, somehow; by the time she arrives in the antechamber outside where television cameras and lights are already set up, he’s crouched under the tree, fiddling with the lights and offering an excellent view of his ass. Nice.

He catches her staring, of course. “Anything I can help you with, Your Highness?” he asks with a smirk.

“Nah, just taking in the view,” she winks back. Any fears she might have had about last night only being a product of the outage and the rum are largely quelled by the way he’s acting today - not quite just like normal, but not in a bad way either. Closer. More intimate. More… something.

Emma’s face settles into something more contemplative as she reflects on the change - something Killian, of course, doesn’t fail to notice. “What’s on your mind, love?” he asks, tilting his head in concern and curiosity.

“Nothing, nothing,” Emma hurries to say at first before reconsidering. She still wants to make a move, to see where they stand; more than that, she wants him to know just how much these past few days have meant to her. With that in mind, she takes a deep breath and tries to be a little brave. “I just… I guess I just want to thank you, Killian.” Emma makes sure to look right in his eyes as she says it so he can see how much she means it. “This wasn’t the Christmas I expected to have, obviously, but it’s been… wonderful, really. And you’re a big part of that.”

“Oh, Emma, you don’t need to —”

“Yes, I do,” Emma interrupts. “I know this probably wasn’t how you planned to spend your Christmas - not when you’ve got your brother and his family to spend time with. But it meant a lot that you were here, even if you didn’t want to be.”

By the time Emma finishes, Killian has flushed a brilliant red - even more than just his ears. “About that, love…” he says, tugging at his hair. “It really wasn’t quite as out of my hands as you believe. Please believe me - there’s no reason to thank me.”

“I don’t understand.” He had switched with Mulan, of course - she knew that already, he had told her as such - but that didn’t change that he’d ended up here for much longer than he should have been, thanks to the storm.

“You know that I switched shifts… but not when.”

“What does that matter?”

“Well, it matters because when I told you that I’d be around, that I’d switched… I hadn’t, actually. I arranged that with Mulan afterwards. There was no conflict with her girlfriend’s family, I just… I wanted to be here.”

As surprised as Emma is by the revelation, she still feels like there’s something she’s missing - whatever would make him want to stay when he could have avoided it. “Why?” She asks softly, taking a step closer into Killian’s space. This feels like the kind of conversation to require close proximity - foster emotional intimacy, or something like it. As Killian proved in scrabble last night, he’s the one with the words.

Emma can see Killian swallow as he stares down into her eyes. “I wanted you to have a nice Christmas, love,” he replies, just as softly. Tenderly, even. “I could tell you were frustrated, and upset, and… I know it was the height of hubris to think that I could make that better, but I wanted to try. If I could help make it a happy Christmas for you, love… I wanted to try.”

“For me,” Emma breathes - more a realization than a question.

“For you.”

It’s impossible to miss the earnestness and truth in his words and gaze. That desire Emma felt last night to kiss the daylights out of him has been simmering on low ever since they parted for separate beds, but it flares up again at his confession. He did that for her, because he wanted to make her happy. Carefully, Emma takes that last step into his space, so close that their bodies nearly touch. Slowly, she trails her hands behind his neck and up into his hair to draw him down, lips mere inches apart —

A commotion in the hallway barely gives them a moment to break apart before Emma’s mother bustles into the room. As much as Emma has spent much of the last three days wishing her parents were here, now feels like the worst possible time.

“Mom, you’re home!” she manages to gasp weakly. Killian discretely steps away again; though Emma understands why, she’d much rather continue what they’d started - without an audience - than watch him retreat back into professionalism. Especially when moments ago, she’d just gotten a preview of what his hands might feel like against her skin.

“I couldn’t miss Christmas, now could I?” her mother asks, hugging Emma tightly. “I didn’t want to leave you to take care of the Christmas speech either; I know that kind of thing isn’t your favorite, and you’ve had no time to prepare besides… but oh! It’s just so good to be home again! Your father went to try and track down your brother…”

The queen keeps rambling as she strips off her gloves, but Emma doesn’t pay much attention. Sometime in the last handful of minutes, Killian slipped out the door altogether, leaving only Emma, her mother, and her mother’s security head. She missed her chance, it appears.

(And after all they’d shared these past days… Emma could just screech with the frustration of it all. It’s becoming kind of a habit.)

———

Emma hopes to talk to him after their interruption - tries to talk to him, even, searching for him across rooms. But it’s Christmas, and her parents are finally home, and it’s so easy to lose track of time and get caught up in the hustle and bustle of things. By the time Emma can break away from the festivity for a few minutes, Killian has already slipped out, quietly replaced by Mulan. She knows that he won’t be back for several days - more than earning a vacation and time with his family after giving up most of his Christmas with her and Leo.

She should be able to talk with him once he’s back at work, too; after all, he’s only got three days off (she knows this for a fact - she asked Leo, any hit to her pride be damned). But by the time Killian is back at work, so is Emma, with charity appearances and daily meetings and everything else her usual schedule entails.

Maybe it’s fate that they don’t meet again until New Year’s Eve. Maybe it’s just fortuitous scheduling. Whatever the case, Emma doesn’t get a chance to speak with Killian until the annual New Year’s Diplomatic Gala, of all places.

It could be for the best, maybe; Emma can’t deny that she looks fantastic. Her dress tonight is silver and drapes elegantly across her body, creating a kind of vintage aura, topped with pinned waves, a rich burgundy lipstick, and long white gloves. The diamond and sapphire tiara is just the topper of it all, the icing on the cake.

(Emma’s always liked sapphires, but tonight, the stones don’t seem nearly as blue as his eyes, no matter how much they catch the light.)

She sees him across the room the moment she walks in, along the wall in another tailored dark suit, and she could swear that his eyes follow her too. Killian has a dress uniform, she knows - he wore it to the Armed Forces charity ball last year, and looked quite dashing at that - but tonight’s not the time for that. Tonight, the idea is to be as unobtrusive a presence as possible since he’s on duty, not that it’s going well. It’s hard for Killian to blend in with that face and that suit - or maybe Emma’s just attuned to noticing him.

Regardless, it’s still not the time to talk anyways - she’s still being escorted into dinner on the arm of the Ambassador to Glowerhaven, and there’s still a banquet and dancing to come. Maybe, if she’s lucky, she can steal away later; maybe, with even more luck, she’ll be able to pull Killian along with her.

(They’ve got unfinished business, and Emma still wants to learn how he kisses.)

The garden balcony off the ballroom isn’t exactly an ideal location in late December, but it’s the only place Emma knows she can get a few blessed moments away from the crush of people inside. It’s cold out, nearly trying to snow again; a few rogue flakes drift from the night sky to land on her bare skin. There’s a handful of heat lamps scattered about, but they only do so much, as do Emma’s gloves. This hadn’t been one of her brighter plans, Emma knows, but she and Killian had been making eye contact all night across the room, and she simply couldn’t wait any longer to slip away and hope he follows her.

Just as Emma’s preparing to abandon the plan and head back inside, a warm weight drops on her shoulders - the faux-fur wrap she’d discarded at the dinner table earlier as it got in the way of her eating. Killian smiles at her when she turns her head to meet his gaze.

“I thought you might be cold, love,” he explains. “We can’t have you catching a chill.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think much about the weather when I came out here - I just wanted a little time alone,” Emma admits. “With you.” The last part is added hurriedly when a flash of embarrassment streaks across Killian’s face, and he looks like he might make an utterly unnecessary run for it.

“We never finished our conversation from Christmas, did we?” Killian almost looks a little bashful about the subject, ducking his head and tugging at the hair behind his ear. It’s adorable, truly, not to mention a little fascinating - the way he shifts back and forth so rapidly and confidently between seeming like a smooth master of seduction and a bashful boy who isn’t quite sure what’s happening, but is happy to be there. Fascinating, in the best of ways.

“Oh, I thought that conversation was plenty finished,” Emma teases. She even sways into his space flirtatiously to underline her point, finding some kind of boldness within her that she wasn’t certain she possessed. It must just be something about Killian that brings it out in her. “If I remember right, we were about to move on to… how would you put it? Much more pleasant exchanges, or something like that?”

“Something like that,” he mumbles back. “If I crossed a line the other day… I’m sorry if I overstepped, Your Highness —”

“It’s still Emma,” she corrects with a smile, reaching out to lay a hand on Killian’s arm. “And you didn’t overstep. I was right there wish you.”

“I’d just hate to think that I pressured you into something —”

“Killian, did you want to kiss me on Christmas?” Emma interrupts.

Killian pauses. Emma wasn’t aware a human person could turn that red. “Yes,” he finally admits - just one simple word that sets her heart a-flutter.

“Well, that’s lucky, because I did too. Still do, honestly.”

“You do?” Killian looks like he can’t quite believe his luck.

“I mean, yeah. Christmas could have been… honestly, straight up depressing. But you made it better. And I… I like you. I mean, I’ve been attracted to all this —” she waves a demonstrative hand — “for a while, but I like you. It’s New Year’s Eve, and it’s stupidly picturesque, and I want to kiss you at midnight. If you still want that too.”

Killian breaks into a wide smile. “What if I don’t want to wait for midnight?” he asks, moving so close into her space that she can feel his breath on her face. She twines their fingers together where their hands finally meet. “What if I still want to kiss you? Now?”

“Then I’d say…”

Emma never bothers to finish the sentence, opting instead to lean forward and meet Killian’s lips with her own. Her high heels put her at the perfect height to just barely need to tip her head upwards to find a perfect angle. Killian’s lips are soft against her own - gentle and teasing at first, almost like he’s just trying to learn the shape and feel of them before anything else, but he’s more than happy to deepen the kiss when Emma sinks her hands into his hair to pull him closer. He tastes a little minty, like he just popped a mint before coming out to speak with her - a fact that seems impossibly endearing, even through the pleasurable haze of their kiss. She can feel his hands through the fabric of her dress, firm and warm at her hips, like he’s keeping her safe even now. The kiss is tender, and passionate, and perfect.

(Then Killian tilts her head with calloused fingers at her chin to adjust the angle and sweep his tongue into her mouth, and she gladly stops thinking much of anything at all.)

“That was…” he breathes when they finally separate, breaking apart just far enough to rest his forehead against her own.

“Well worth the wait,” Emma finishes. And then laughs, unable to hold it back. “You’ve been holding out on me, Jones.”

“Call it the magic of Christmas,” he teases back. Fireworks start going off around them; though Emma hazily wonders for a moment if they did that, somehow set off literal fireworks to match the metaphorical ones bursting between them, before she realizes it must be the new year. They completely missed the countdown - not that she cares.

“So how does one go about dating the Crown Princess?” Killian asks, already leaning in for another round of kissing. “I think that just might be my New Year’s Resolution.”

“Stick around, and you’ll find out.”

She’s got a lot of plans for them.

#captain swan #cssecretsanta2k19 #cs ff #captain swan ff #modern royalty au #my stuff #and he called her love amongst the snowflakes #princess!emma #bodyguard!killian #and one hell of a snowstorm #merry christmas!#my writing

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aboysbestfriendishismum · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 56 - Secrets, mix tapes and jealousy

In the previous chapter: the special date set up by Angie turned out to be a disaster for her and it's coming to a even worse end, since Eddie doesn't seem interested into having sex with her. In the end though, they both manage to open up and talk about their feelings and insecurities and they make love for the first time. Despite all that, Angie's still firm on her decision not to tell anything to their friends. We find it out when the couple joins Jeff, Stone, Grace, McCready and Cornell at their usual go-to pub. Jeff sees them getting there together by car but entering the place in different moments to avoid suspects. From his thoughts about the matter, we find out that Jeff actually caught the two exchanging affectionate effusions a few days earlier, when Angie had brought a cake for him and Eddie before a show. At that time, Jeff preferred to silently and secretely leave before they could see him, so that they wouldn't be embarrassed. Thanks to his friends's advice, Jeff can finally put together a bunch of titles for the fake demo tape by Cliff Poncier, the main character of Cameron Crowe's movie, and then challenges Chris to actually write those songs.

“Did she knock him out?”

“Yeah, he went down like a sack of potatoes. And it was a pretty big sack” Angie lets go of my hand for a moment, just the time to mimic the body size of the guy, then takes it again, as we walk to her car.

“With a punch?”

“Actually, two”

“Given what he said to you, I'd have given him more” drunk or not, if you touch a woman you're crap, and if I run into you you're dead.

“You'd have beaten a dead horse, well, a dead sack of potatoes”

“Nuh, you're right: too little satisfaction. Anyway, hats off to Meg, cool girl”

“Yep... and to think that at the beginning I thought she was a vapid Barbie”

“What? You? Having prejudices about someone? It can't be!” I have fun picking on her. When I expressed very similar opinions about Violet she made me feel like shit.

“Hehe yeah, I confess, I made a mistake too, I'm human after all. Anyway, that's how we became friends and everything started”

“That's the perfect example of how something good can come out of a bad story too”

“See, so that guy deserves some credit too after all” as soon as we get to her Mini, Angie takes my other hand too and leans back against the back of the car, pulling me closer.

“Fucking credit. It happend ages ago and I wasn't even there and my hands are hitching to hit him good” it looks like taking me out to dinner to a Thai restaurant in the university district makes her feel safe enough from being possibly seen by our friends.

“Don't be upset” she tries and calm me with a kiss and I'd say it works great. But she doesn't need to know.

“Uhm... I'm still a little upset” I tell her after making a stupid scene, licking my lips and clicking my tongue as if I was trying to taste the kiss, just like a weird sommelier does after a sip of wine.

“Hahaha come on, let's go” she gives me another peck and opens the door, as I walk around the car to get to the passenger seat.

“Angie, I'm the last person who can give lectures about Seattle's street map, but weren't we supposed to turn left?” I ask her after our turn at the second crossroad.

“Oh... 'cause... you wanna go back home, right?” she's reaching for something in the glove box with her hand but freezes, as if I had caught her doing something wrong and I can notice her suddenly saddened eyesin the dark too.

“No, I mean, not necessarily”

“'Cause I thought it's still early and...” she puts both her hands back on the wheel and shrugs her shoulders at the same time.

“It's early indeed” it's always too early for me when it's time to say good night.

“I thought... well... we could hang out a little, go for a drive”

“Ok”

“But I can take you home if you want”

“No, I don't wanna go home”

“I didn't even ask you if you're busy tomorrow morning”

“I don't have shit to do tomorrow morning, Angie”

“Maybe you're tired”

“I'm not tired”

“I'll take a U turn as soon as I can”

“Angie?” I take her right hand from the wheel and kiss it.

“Yeah?”

“Take me for a ride”

“Ok”

“Where are you taking me?” I ask her as I let go of her hand and this time she opens the glove compartment and takes out a caseless cassette, putting it into the car player right away.

“To some place... you'll see” she smiles as Jim Morrison starts to sing.

Yeah, I'm a back door man

I'm a back door man

The men don't know

But the little girls understand

“Do we have a long way to go?” I ask a while later, as Brian Ferry's just admitted Love is the drug he prefers and we take Greenwood Avenue.

“No, we're almost there”

“Almost... can you be more specific?” I like to tease her and see her faces.

“Less than ten minutes and we're there. Are you getting bored?”

“Never, with you”

“So why are you so impatient?”

“I'm not impatient, I only wanna know if this place you want to take me to is within the borders of the United States or not. 'Cause if you, by any chance, are taking me to Canada, so our friends don't catch us, I warn you I didn't bring my passport”

“Ha ha” Angie gives me a nasty look, then her hand happens to land on my knee, which she gently squeeze.

“We're not crossing boundaries then”

“No, we're not”

“Where are we going then?”

“You'll see, soon”

She turns left at the next crossroad, then left again and the trees become thicker.

“I already know anyway: you're taking me to a park”

“Maybe” she lets go of the wheel and put her hands up wide open as to say who knows.

“No! You're taking me to the beach” I correct myself when, after a short while, the road goes downhill, plants thin out and I can see the horizon better.

“One thing does not exclude the other”

“I love watching you drive manual, you know?” I tell her, completely dropping the subject, lost in her driving movements.

“Haha my father taught me when I was twelve. And you?”

“Actually, I can't drive manual”

“No?? Really? You can't drive with a clutch?” she lookes at me shocked for a moment as she drives gently through the curves of the basically desert road.

“Hehe for real, I swear, I never tried”

“I'll teach you!”

“Thank you. I bet you're a good teacher”

“Good but strict”

“That's just perfect”

A yellow sign indicates a dead end street and that's when I figure out we've got to our destination. Angie turns into a rather narrow road on the left, then stops at some kind of natural open space, a clearing among the trees, with the front end of the car facing the wide free view of the ocean.

“Wow”

“From the upper parking lot the view is better but here it's quieter” she remarks as she turns off the car.

“I see” I look around and we're actually well hidden from the houses along the coastline.

“Do you like it?” she questions as she unwraps her scarf and throws it on the back seat. And from the speakers the Stones fade out and Nico's both smooth and scratchy voice comes in.

Here she comes, you better watch your step

She's going to break your heart in two

I have very little to watch out for by now. I'm in too deep and my heart is hers. It's not broken but she can do whatever she wants with it, even though she doesn't have false colored eyes and she's not an evil femme fatale like the one in the song.

“Yes, I like it here...” she can be a little tease though, with that smile of hers that... wait a minute “Angie?”

“Yes” she replies as she unbuttons her coat.

“I have this small sudden nagging question”

“Hehe that is?”

“Did you take me here to fuck?”

“EDDIE!”

“Fuck in a Mini Cooper?”

“HAHAHA”

“Why are you laughing? I only asked a question” actually I'm having such fun too but in subtler way.

“You just really don't know how to beat around the bush, right?”

“No, you should know by now... so?”

“So, I took you here so we could stay here, together, alone, and chill”

“That is, fucking”

“Not just that!”

“But also that”

“Well... if you want to, yes” she admits and I can see her blushing in the dark. This thing about initiatives is getting out of our hands. I'm not complaining though.

“I want to. But to do that, we could have gone to my apartment. I mean, it'd have been even better”

“Uhm not sure about that” she shakes her head not convinced.

“Both for the temperature and for the comfort”

“You're forgetting a small detail”

“What?”

“A not so small detail, who lives with you and his name is Jeff”

“Jeff knows when it's time to mind his own business, he's a smart guy”

“Too smart, that's the problem”

“Umph...”

“And you don't have such a view at your place” she retorts pointing through the windscreen.

“Whatever the place, the view is always spectacular when you're there”

“So basically you're telling me you wanna go back home” she looks down and plays dumb because she'd rather die than take a compliment.

“No, I wanna stay here and enjoy the view from up close” I hug her and my hands slip under her coat, pulling her closer for a kiss. The first one of a long series.

“So, did you like this... initiative?” she asks pulling back from my lips and still playing with my hair.

“Hehe yes, I liked it a lot. I'd just like to know how everything's gonna happen... from a, you know... technically”

“Just use some imagination”

“Next time you wanna have car sex, tell me first and I'll take my truck”

“Hahaha it's not that larger than this inside, you know?”

“But it has a bed, you know, in the back”

“Hahaha very comfortable and most of all very private”

“It depends on where you go...”

“Oh my god, you had sex in the truck bed??” Angie pulls away from me and looks at me as if she saw a ghost.

“A couple of times, yes”

“Fo the pleasure of the pervs and the voyeurs”

“I first made sure nobody was around”

“You're such a showoff!”

“There was nobody around, you asshole”

“Hehe there's nobody around here either”

“Right”

We looked at each other for a second, stop laughing and basically throw at each other at the same time. Angie shrugs off her coat and somehow flings it to the back, then climbs over me and straddles my legs. All this keeping her lips stuck to mine.

“Recline the back rest a little” she whispers into my ear.

“Like this?” I barely touch a side lever and find myself in a completely lying position in a second.

“Haha a little less than that, here, like this. Maybe try and go back a little too” Angie helps pulling me up a bit, then reaches for another toggle, under my seat I guess, and pushes it back, so that she wins some more vital space.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes, don't worry”

“Are you sure? You've got one knee against the door and another on the seatbelt attachment”

“I've never been more comfortable” if I don't like beating around the bush when I speak, Angie is the one who doesn't waste any time with actions., 'cause she's already trying to unzip my pants. She makes it and it only takes her a few seconds to make me go completely nuts. Then she pulls away all of a sudden and sits back on the driver seat.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“Wait, I just have to remove... some obstacles” I see her unlacing her shoes, fidgeting with her jeans , and I guess with her panties too, before straddling me again. I pull everything down too in the meantime to make the whole dynamic easier. I don't pay attention to the fact I haven't seen her launch anything else towards the back seat and only when I touch her I realize she's still wearing one leg of her pants.

“You do things halfway” I smile against her lips.

“What if we have to get dressed quickly?”

“You thought about everything, didn't you?”

“You know I'm a neat person”

“Uhm I can see that. The tape too...”

“Which tape?”

“The sex mix tape we've been listening to since we left the restaurant”

“What?!” Angie springs up, I don't know if it's for my remark or for the way I'm touching her.

“Don't even try to pretend it's not a car sex compilation”

“It's not!”

“Tim Buckley has just said he wants to be your victim of love” and I relate to him a lot.

“It's a mix... kind of romantic maybe... that's just how it turned out”

“It's such a romantic mix that he asked you to whip him and spank him straight away”

“Have you ever heard about metaphors? And you even write songs”

“Metaphors. Sure. So when Eric Clapton talks about making love against the wall, is it some metaphor too? And I won't say what comes later in the song, that's even worse, 'cause I'm sure you already know” I unbutton her sweater and her shirt together, while she shrugs and tries to play dumb.

“It's just a great song”

“They're all great” I hold her and manage to pull her back over me.

“I don't wanna listen to shitty music when I drive” she states before taking my breath away with a kiss.

“Or whenever you sneak off with your boyfriend” I immediately give her a taste of the same medicine

“I'm neat” she stares at me before her witty reply. By the way... this tape... did she do it for the occasion? I mean, especially for tonight or for me anyway? Or is it a ready to use mix tape she keeps in her car in case she needs it? And if that's the case, who did she use it with? Did she make that tape with someone else in her mind? But most of all, why do I have to think about this bullshit right now?

“You forgot one thing though...” I'd better focus.

“What?”

“I'm not ready to be a dad”

“Uh! No... I got them, don't worry” all her confidence disappears in one second, Angie sits up and turns around, not only to try and open the glovebox but also to hide a little hint of embarrassment.

“You're my favorite neat freak”

“Actually... ehm... you wouldn't run that risk anyway... since... you know, I'm on the pill but, I mean...” she starts stuttering and opens the box without looking at me.

“Ok”

“I'd rather keep it that way, for now, I mean, I think it's better if we use them all the same... if it's not a problem for you...”

“Angie”

“At least for now, since... well... we just... and considering what happened before...”

“ANGIE?”

“Yes?”

“I sad it's alright, stop being paranoid, ok?”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure, we'll think about it later, right now it's great this way”

“Ok”

“Now come here”

“Here where? I'm already here”

“I mean, closer”

“We're in a Mini, I can't go that far”

“I'm cold and lonely down here on the passenger seat. And I want you. So come back here” I pull her close, tugging at the hems of her shirt and she gives in, either 'cause she's afraid I'll tear it up or because I convinced her with my words.

“The needy puppy look is almost more powerful than dimples” she rolls her eyes and smiles as she comes back to me.

“Really?”

“I said almost”

I still don't understand how can Angie have all this power over me, how can she disarm me and surprise me every time. Even a crazy stupid thing, like driving up to an unknown hidden place for some night acrobatic contortion in a small car, something I haven't done for almost ten years, becomes special with her, and not just for the act itself. Right now I'm totally enraptured by the girl whose body is over mine but not just because she's literally over me. The truth is she's over, under, inside, outside, on my shoulders, between my legs, in my head, in my blood, on my skin and all around. I make love to her in the most uncomfortable way and place but my only thought is that I want her closer, and closer, as if it was even possible. My only thought is not a thought because I can't think now, it's only an instinct, a sensation, a need, like hunger and thirst. I kiss her and through my closed eyelids I can see colors and bright dots, waves of light like electric shocks given from sudden lighting bolts. And the jolts of electricity become closer and closer together and more intense and I think I'm going crazy, 'cause I've never felt something like this. Until Angie disengages her mouth and uses it to speak.

“What the- OH FUCK”

So, I don't know if it's because of Angie, but we got each other so twisted up that we didn't notice the police car appeared who knows how long ago, from out of nowhere and parked a few yards from here with the lights on.

“Oh oh”

“OH OH? The fucking police is here and all you can say is Oh oh?” Angie comes back to reality much more quickly than me. I'm still kind of dizzy.

“What should I say? Would shit be more appropriate?”

“Yes, definitely”

“Are you getting dressed?”

“Oh of course not! I'll just stay here, waiting for the cops butt naked” Angie frantically gets dressed, whereas I do everything at a slower pace. I can say it's also easier for me.

“Don't panic too much, they may think you wanna hide something”

“Hiding something is exactly what I'm trying to do” she hurriedly pulls up her pants and starts buttoning down her sweater, ignoring the shirt underneath, and that might be on purpose or not.

The moment we hear someone knocking on the window we're both startled. Angie looks at her left, then right in front of her, then towards me and shakes her head with an imperceptible movement before wearing the most innocent expression I've ever seen on her face since I first met her.

“Good evening, officer” she addresses one of the guys who killed our fun tonight after rolling down the window on her side. From the shadow I see through my window, I can say his colleague is on my side.

“Good evening... although good night would be more appropriate, what do you think?” we got the cop who tries to be funny. Fuck.

“Well, yeah, hehe!” Angie decides to go along and I agree with her plan “How... ehm... how can I help you?”

“Uhm let me think, why don't you start by turning on the light and give me your document, miss?”

“Sure!” Angie stretches out towards the back seat and the policeman knocks lightly on the windscreen of the car with his billy club pointing at the space where the rearview mirror is, to catch her attention and let her understand she has to switch on the interior lights first. She gasps then obliges, before starting to look for her papers again.

“Keep calm” I whisper as she takes her beg and gives everything to the officer. I'd rather be the driver, I'm afraid Angie will get nervous and do something wrong. I think it's the first time the police stops her.

“Thank you, I'd like to see the ones of your... friend too... please” the guy gives me an extremely bad look and at the same time someone knocks at my window. As I turn around I see a female silhouette gesturing for me to wind it down.

“Good evening, here it is” I take out my wallet very slowly, find my driving licence and give it to the policewoman.

“Angelina W. Pacifico... Idaho, huh?”

“Yeah, I moved here a few months ago” Angie deliberately adds something as an answer to a question no one asked, trying to look willing to cooperate.

“1972. Wow, it almost seems true hahaha!” the officer waves the document in the air and laughs through gritted teeth looking at his partner.

“It seems? Of course it's true!” Angie gets upset and I go pale in a second because if she starts responding to his provocations, we'll be dead.

“If you say so... I'll check it out”

“Feel free to check, so you can see for yourself!” fucking dead.

“Why don't you also give me your registration doc, so I can check that too, miss”

“Alright! I'll give it to you immediately, then you can also frisk me, him and search my whole car, my conscience is clear!”

“Do you know you've just given me a great idea, Miss Pacifico?” the jerk laughs again and I hope Angie will soon take that angry look off her face as I see her getting out the car documents.

“26 years old. Aren't you a little too old for that girl?” the police woman asks me after she's checked my licence and I decide to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately someone else has a different opinion.

“I AM OF AGE! How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Shut up!” the officer's yell catches me off guard since it comes from my side. Apparently he has come to get my document from his colleague. After that he goes back to their car for the checking.

“Angie, don't talk, please” I hiss and hope she'll follow my advice.

“Wether you're of age or not, he's still a little older than you” the woman leans down on the car door and talks gently to Angie through the window.

“That's not a crime” she says in a lower voice and I don't even know if the officer heard her. Maybe she finally understood what the correct behaviour is.

“You're going to the University of Washington, right?” the policewoman asks. She clearly wants to chit chat to kill time and ease the tension.

“Yes, how do you know?”

“The bump sticker”

“Oh right! Yeah, I moved here for that, to go to college”

“With your family?” ok, the Good cop/Bad cop operation has officially started.

“No, by myself”

“So, you're living on your own, you've got an apartment...”

“Well, yeah”

“And you?” this time she talks to me and to do that she points her flashlight right at my face.

“I don't go to college”

“I mean, don't you have a place?”

“Sure”

“So what the hell are you doing here? In a car? Well, something that looks like a car” she goes on switching off the flashlight and using it to vaguely point at Angie's car and I abruptly turn towards her, 'cause I know this could be enough to get her mad and we'd be fucked. But she keeps on with her quiet act.

“We were going for a ride”

“A ride?”

“Yeah” I repeat.

“But you were parked”

“We stopped for a minute” my girlfriend promptly replies.

“Stopped to do what?”

“Chat” a mechanism has tacitly established by which we take turns giving answers, so this time it's me speaking.

“Talk” Angie adds.

“Listen to music” the answer was suggested by the tape, which goes on and now it's time for... The rain song?? Holy fuck, Angie, couldn't you be more obvious? And she got the nerve to say it's not a car fuck mix tape. The cassette alone would be an evidence of public indecency in court.

“Enjoy the view”

“Yeah, actually as soon as we got here we noticed how focused you were on the view” the woman rolls her eyes and barely holds a laugh. We'd laugh too if we weren't under interrogation.

“She didn't make it clear what kind of view she was talking about... you, you gotta try and be more open minded, please!” the comedian colleague is back and gives Angie her documents back through the open window.

“Right!” the woman exchanges an amused look with her partner, who's back with the questions.

“Right, so, if I search this bumper car, will I find drugs or not?”

“Of course not, officer” she replies with no hesitation and I hope it's true 'cause if he actually finds something, we'll be in double deep shit.

“Guns?”

“What? Please, I hate them”

“And what if I give you a breathalyzer? What will I find?”

“Nothing, 'cause I didn't drink. He did, he had something to drink, but he's not driving, I'm driving, so...”

“Yeah, I see, I got it from the start that you're the one who leads, that was quite obvious hahaha” the cop can't hold himself and bursts out laughing in the end, followed suit by his partner, who scolds him though, also revealing his name to us.

“Barlow!”

“Ok ok, do you know why we stopped you?”

“You didn't, we weren't moving” Angie whispers in a very low voice as she gives me the car registration to put away into the glove box. But it's not low enough.

“Don't try to be funny, Miss! Do you know it or not?” don't tell him that if he does, then you can do it too. I know you're dying to tell him but don't do it, please!

“No” we both reply at the same time. Thank god. At least she knew about this: with the police, always say you don't know.

“'Cause you think that fucking in a car in a public place is a normal thing, right?”

“It's not public if nobody's there, is it?” my girlfriend tries but she'll be very disappointed.

“On what rulebook did you read this?” he answers sarcastically.

“I hope you're not studying law, darling��

“No. I study cinema”

“Uh! So you were rehearsing a scene! That's what it was!” these two are having the time of their life with us.

“Barlow, shut up! Ehm ehm we're patrolling the area because there have been some robberies lately. There's a gang who targets couples who come here at night to park, like you guys”

“So if I were you, I'd change my habits a little” the guy adds as he starts breathing again after his fucking laughter fits.

“You have an apartment each, just go there”

“O'Hara, can't you understand? There must be some cheating going on here! He leaves his girlfriend at home with an excuse and meets his younger mistress, am I right or am I wrong?”

“NO!” Angie reacts outraged and I feel this night will last much much longer.

“You can tell us, I mean, this surely is not a crime” Barlow leans down and folds his arms against the window opening in the car door, almost diving inside.

“There's no girlfriend at home”

“So she's the cheater”

“No one's cheating on anyone, I'm her boyfriend, we're together”

“Ok so, help me understand: you're together, I mean, in a regular relationship, she's legal, you both have a place... annoying roommates?” agent O'Hara counts the elements that don't add up to her on her fingertips.

“No, I mean, not too much” Angie looks at me as she replies, as if she was looking for a suggestion or, most likely, 'cause she finds it all unreal, just like me.

“So why arent' you at home?”

“You gotta ask her” I don't know why I answer like that, I can't even say if I did it for real, I don't even notice. It just comes out like that, spontaneously.

“Eddie?!”

“Tell us, Angie, why aren't you at home?” the comedian gets curious and calls her by her first name.

“Because... because it's a new thing”

“And we got that, also considering the... the enthusiasm” he goes on, earning the umpteenth fake nasty look from his partner.

“She doesn't want to tell our friends” and I guess this is me again, freewheeling talking.

“Why? Is there some ex?” O'Hara questions and now we went from interrogation to gossiping.

“No. I mean, yes,” Angie corrects herself when she sees me making a face “but that's not the reason”

“What is it then? Don't tell me you're ashamed of him? I'm not particularly attracted to long-haired men but he seems a good looking guy to me, after all”

“I'm not ashamed at all, he's... he's very good looking, he's perfect, in everything” are we going from gossip to confessions? Wait a minute, what did she just say?

“It's just... well, we know the same people, it's a whole group of friends. And some of them play in a band, with him”

“Musicians, huh? We'd better do a search after all” Barlow tells another shitty joke but his colleague ignores him and focuses on the current topic.

“And are they closer to you or him? Are they more your friends or his?”

“Well, I got to know them a few months before but... I'd say they're friends of both of us in the same way”

“Ok, so you're both afraid to lose them and to make him lose them, if things went wrong, right?”

Angie nods in silence to O'Hara's words and I'm completely stunned. Lose them? Suddenly a new light is shed on the situation, a new point of view I hadn't considered before. Angie told me she doesn't trust herself but she trusts me and I didn't fully believe this version. She's always been worried about our friends, 'cause they're kind of nosy and always intruding in other people's private life, but I never figured out they were the actual object of her insecurities. The guys.

“I'm afraid they'll judge me or him. I'm afraid I can create problems in the group and that we'll end up parting ways” Angie's still confessing and I wonder if she needed to be pressured by the police to finally tell the truth. But is it Angie, who never talked, or is it me, who never understood?

“But it's just a normal thing, dear! Take each other, leave each other, take each other again, break up again, get together with another guy of the gang. It happens all the time among groups of friends but that doesn't necessarily ruin the friendship” O'Hara lights up a cigarette and from good cop she officially turned into big sister or aunt, the one you can tell everything to.

“Well, I don't know, I've never had a group of friends, I mean, not so big. I've never had so many friends” now everything's clear, shit. She's never had them and she doesn't want to lose them.

“Angie, even if something went wrong between us, don't worry, our friends would kick my ass, not yours. And if one of us has got to take the brush off, well, it's gonna be me” I try and reassure her but looking at her face I guess I'm failing.

“And do you think that would hurt me less?”

“It's like watching Oprah live” Barlow says, totally hooked on our show.

“Angie, friends will be friends. The truth is friends do care, yeah, but not that much. Don't get me wrong, friends love you, give you advice wether you asked for it or not, they can get in the way and root for you or him, but in the end they just want you both to be ok, together or not. At some point they stop and say it's up to you, guys, in the best sense possible. And if they disappear in the end, well, it means they weren't true friends”

“Maybe, maybe you're right”

“Sure I'm right!”

“Right or not, you can't come here and have sex anymore, do you understand?” the cop, who was basically collapsing on the car door, stands up straight and gives a couple of punches against the roof of the car, maybe to wake himself up.

“Sure”

“It won't happen again”

“Fine. It's getting late, let's go O'Hara”

“Go home, guys. And drive safe, Angie, ok?”

“Ok, thanks officer”

“Good night”

We roll up the windows at the same time, Angie starts the car and waits.

“Why aren't they moving?”

“They're waiting for us to go first, to make sure we are actually leaving” I explain and smile for the fact that she didn't understand that. And this quick scene is like a little representation of her innocence. Sometimes I forget that she's so young and has little experience of everything, and no, I'm not only talking about how to handle the police when they pull you over.

“Oh right, I didn't think about that” Angie snorts and we leave.

“That was so weird” we're back in town when Angie finally breaks the silence.

“Yeah”

“Such an embarrassing moment”

“Very embarrassing” it opened my eyes a little though, so it actually turned out to be useful. Since we left we haven't mentioned what had happened, we haven't mentioned anything because we just kept our mouth shut and only exchanged quick looks and smiles and sang a few songs. Now that everything's started sinking in, it's time to return to the core of the matter and do the talk, this time only between us.

“It never happened to me”

“To me neither” I had dealt with the police before but not for this kind of infringment.

“I've been there many times and I never saw the cops there, these robberies must be something recent”

It takes me a while to register what she said, maybe 'cause I'm still thinking about the infraction we were committing on these front seats like an hour ago. But when I figure it out it's like I've been awaken with someone throwing a bucket full of ice at my face.

“Never? Do you mean... you'd been there already?”

“Sure. If not, how could I know the place?” she calmly answers, so either she's crazy or she doesn't know where I'm getting at or she doesn't care.

“With who?” Angie's mouth opens up forming a small O and so I guess now she does know where I'm getting at.

“What do you mean, with who? With... with Meg”

“With Meg”

“Yeah, she's been living here for so long, she knows the area. She took me there”

“She took you to the beach at night to do what?”

“To go for a ride! To just stay there, drinking, smoking, gossiping, normal stuff”

“And that's it?”

“Hahaha why? What else do you think we were doing there?”

“I mean, you went there with Meg and that's it? But you said you've been there many times”

“And with you?”

“Ok, so, with Meg and I... and no one else?”

“Well...”

“Angie?”

“Not just you two...”

“Have you been there with Jerry?”

“...”

“Angie, I'm talking to you”

“I know, it's only me here” we're at the traffic lights and Angie looks around inside the car, even giving a glance at the back seat, before turning back to look at me.

“So?”

“I didn't go there with Jerry”

“So would you swear to me that you didn't take me to the same place where you used to park with your ex boyfriend?

“No, I didn't!”

“Ok”

“With Jerry.. ehm... we used to go to the upper parking place on the hill”

“WHAT?!”

“What? Why are you mad?”

“Why? What do you mean why? You took me to the same place where you fucked your ex and I'm not supposed to get mad?!”

“I never fucked Jerry there”

“The fact it was a different paking lot 50 yards away doesn't change anything, Angie”

“I mean I never did it with Jerry in the car!” she exclaims as she gestures an apology to the guy in the car behind us, who's just honked at us because we didn't go immediately when the lights turned green. What the hell does this fucker want? Is he in a fuckin' hurry or something? Fuck you man.

“Didn't you?”

“No, I never... I never had full sexual intercourse with Jerry in a car”

“This use of very, very specific and technical terminology looks kind of suspicious to me”

“We kissed and stuff”

“I don't wanna know” she says it and I'm already imagining it, I mean, I can imagine even if she doesn't say anything. My imagination doesn't need further help.

“But you practically asked me”

“I'm not stupid, I get that you didn't fuck him there, but still you did something. That's the same to me”

“Who cares who I took there first, now I got you, I'm with you”

“I care because... because it's weird, it gives me a... bad feeling... I don't like it”

“I told you as soon as we got there that I had already been there, but you didn't say anything then. Why are you suddenly upset now?”

She's right actually, she told me, I don't remember the exact words, but she let me know. The truth is I was so enraptured by the situation, by her, her scent, her gestures as she was taking off her coat, her big eyes, her naughty heart-shaped smile... I was like drunk and didn't understand shit.

“Maybe I hadn't noticed then, and now I did”

“I come from another state, I don't know many places. If I want to go to some quiet place with you, of course I have to follow... ehm... the beaten road”

“Well let's just stay home then and avoid going anywere else, problem solved”

“If you say so... Jerry's been in my bed too, shall we stop going there too?” Angie gives me a perplexed look and I know, I know I'm crazy, that I'm the sick one, that retroactive jealousy makes no sense. But I'm so fucking mad right now!

“Could you... could you just not remind me, please?”

“But... are you jealous of Jerry?”

“No” nooooo, I'm not! Why do you think that?

“Ok. Also because it'd be really stupid if you were” there you go.

“Exactly”

“Because I'm not interested in him, there's no chance at all I could be into him ever again and go back to him anytime soon” are you sure about that? I mean, on your part I know there's no chance. But Jerry, he still has hope. He told me! And this is a piece of information I'm gonna keep to myself.

“I know”

“Fine”

“Did you use the tape with him too or is it exclusively for me?”

“I did the mix tape yesterday, for you, for the occasion” she retorts tiredly as she rolls her eyes.

“Ok”

“Are you happy about that?”

“Very happy. I like it”

“Thank god”

“And how was Jerry's tape?”

“Jesus... Jerry never had a tape”

“I don't believe you”

“Believe what you want, I could as well not answer, because in the end that's none of your business. Yet I answered and told you the truth” she's right, what she had with Jerry is none of my business. And I'm acting like a jerk.

“Sorry”

“It's ok”

“I'm stupid sometimes”

“I noticed that”

“Then it goes away and I'm back to normal”

“I hope so”

“Can I borrow the tape? I wanna make a copy”

“I hope it goes away soon, very soon”

“Here we are” Angie stops one block away from my condo, as she's been doing lately every time she takes me home.

“Look, Jeff's not the bored meddler housewife who waits at the window to check who I'm going out with. He doesn't give a fuck, I'm not Stone” I joke to ease the tension, which is still on despite my apologies and the shit I say.

“Friday”

“Friday what? What happens?”

“You're playing at the Ok Hotel on Friday”

“Yes”

“And we're also celebrating Jeff's birthday, that's gonna be two days later”

“Right”

“And on Monday you'll start recording Eleven”

“Hahaha the name's Ten”

“But it's eleven songs! It doesn' t make sense, I told you!” she finally turns around to face me and her hands move to the lower part of the wheel.

“What's the point? It's also our first record, should we call it One? Or First? Hehehe”

“You can laugh as much as you want, when you won't know how to call your tenth album, then we'll see who'll have the last laugh”

“The tenth? Do you believe we'll last that long?”

“Sure! But you'll split up right because of that record, 'cause you won't agree on how to call it, and you'll be torn between... I don't know... a surfing brand and a Seattle Supersonics bench player”

“Hahaha that's if the Seattle Supersonics will still exist by then”

“Why wouldn't they?” she asks suddenly serious, in her typical adorable way of focusing on totally secondary aspects.

“Do you ever think about the future? I mean, future future, like in twenty or thirty years” I do. Now, for example, I'm picturing myself twenty years from now, taking to you in a car, maybe as we get back home from a Sonics' game.

“Uhmmm no, I mean, not in detail. But I'm eager to know if Kubrik was right about 2001 or if in 2019 we'll have android replicants slaves like in Blade Runner. Yeah, that's something I often think about”

“Hehe I mean your future, what's gonna happen to you personally, where you'll be at. I mean, where you picture yourself and what do you see yourself like... stuff like that” I ask her again and I'd want to confess that sometimes I do think about my future. And she would make fun of me, 'cause someone used at living the moment who thinks about the future doesn't make sense. But I'd pretend I didn't hear her and I'd say that I don't know if I'll get there but sometimes I like to think of myself in twenty or thirty years, maybe with shorter grey hair or no hair at all, living off my music, married, with two or three kids. And that's how I'd scare her to death and she'd definitely run away from me.

“Well, no, honestly I don't. I only hope I'll get my degree before then”

“What? A control freak like you doesn't plan her future? You surprise me”

“You can't controll the distant future, like the past. The only thing you can have control on is the present. Or the near future” she shrugs as her eyes wander through the windshield.

“You're living the moment too, then? Should I expect you to climb some building in your free time?”

“Hehe no but my planning time is short term. For example, this time I planned until Friday, as I was telling you, before we got lost in one of our typical nonsense conversations” I love our typical nonsense conversations.

“What happens on Friday?”

“I though we could do it on Friday”

“Do what? Climb some building? I'd start with something iconic, like that Hat'n'Boots shit at the gas stations, what's its name...”

“I thought we could say it on Friday”

“Say what?”

“About us... to our friends”

“Uh” I can't believe that. Am I dreaming? Yes, come on, the cops story was too weird, of course it's all a dream, I should have known.

“Since everybody's gonna be there for different reasons, I think that could be the right time. So, you know, we'll say it just once” she keeps talking and strangely I didn't wake up yet.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

“You don't have to do it just because two fucking cops told you to”

“It's not for that”

“Neither because I got mad for no reason a minute ago”

“Not even for that”

“Why then?”

“Hahah you've been pestering me to tell everybody from the start and now you're making a fuss?” Angie lets go of the wheel and turns around towards me completely.

“I'm not making a fuss, I just want you to be sure and it seems strange to me that you got convinced in a couple of hours”

“I didn't get conviced now, I've always thought we'd say it sooner or later obviously. Now I realized the moment has come”

“Has it?

“Yes”

“Ok”

“Great”

“We're doing it on Friday”

“Alright”

“And how do we do it? I mean, practically, how will we do? Should I get on stage, point at you and say into the mic Just so you know, that girl down there is my girfriend?”

“If you dare doing something like that, you won't even be alive for Pearl Jam's first album, much less for the tenth” she threatens me so good that I'm scared for real.

“Should I get some posters printed?”

“We won't have to do anything special, we'll just act normal”

“And how will we communicate with our friends? Telepathically?”

“We'll act normal, do as we always do when we're alone and they're not around”

“Do you mean tear our pants off and jump on each other?” I know, I know I'm ajerk. She's finally opening up and I just talk bullhsit. But I can't help it, that's how I am, especially when I'm happy.

“Eddie!”

“You're fixating on public places, huh? I didn't know this... exhibitionist side of you, ouch!” I insist as I try and dodge her slaps.

“You're such an ass!”

“Hehe come on, I was kidding”

“I'm talking serious stuff and you make fun of me”

“I joke because I'm happy for your decision”

“Anyway... I meant normal stuff, walking hand in hand, hugging, kissing, but without showing off too much, discreetly but so that everyone understands. And they'll come to ask us Do you have to tell us something? or Are you a couple? and at that point we'll only have to say yes, short answer, no further explanation needed”

“You're a genius”

“Do you think it'll do?”

“Sure it will do, I think it's a very good idea”

“Ok, it's a deal then”

“And since we're telling everybody next Friday, could you please drive me home?”

“Hahaha no”

“And maybe come in with me”

“Is it Friday already?”

“Uhm no”

“Forget it then”

“How long is it until Friday?”

“Not that long. Good night” Angie gets close to give me what in her intentions was supposed to be a quick kiss but I can't resist and hold her for much longer.

“You're freezing, put your coat back on” I tell her as I unwillingly pull away from that cold hug. Cold in terms of temperature only.

“You're right, I left so fast that I forgot to put it on” she follows my advice and grabs it from the back seat.

“So... good night” I kiss her once again, open the door and get out of her car.

“Good night, I'll call you tomorrow, ok?” I nod at her and smile internally. I love when she calls. Then suddenly, right when she's about to start the car again, I remember a not so small detail.

“Angie, wait!” I knock against the car door on her side a couple of times, she brakes and rolls the window down.

“What's wrong? Did you forget anything?” she asks as she looks around inside the car.

“What does W stand for?”

“What?”

“The cop, when he was reading through your driving licence, he said Angelina W. Pacifico. What does W stand for?

”Oh. That W” she stiffens and the engine goes off, I don't think she turned it off on purpose.

“Yep, that one” I lean down and look at her through the open window, waiting for an answer.

“It's a first letter”

“I got that. The first letter of...”

“Of a name”

“Ok, and what's this name?”

“My second name”

“That is...?”

“That is... a name starting with W” she gives me a pained look and I feel she's not done with her blabbering.

“Hahaha what's that, another of your secrets?”

“Exactly! Good night, Eddie” she's about to wind up the window but I put my hand in the way and stop her.

“Hahaha good night my ass, tell me your name!”

“Do I have to?”

“You're my girlfriend, I gotta know your full name!”

“I don't know your full name”

“I was born Edward Louis Severson III, I was Edward Jerome Mueller for a while and now I'm Edward Jerome Vedder, 'cause I took my mother's last name”

“Jerome and Louis are lovely names” she remarks, focusing on the names and completely ignoring the anagraphic mess that is my identity.

“I bet your second name's lovely too”

“No, it's not”

“W as in... Wendy?”

“Nope”

“Wanda?”

“No”

“Wilhelmina? Winifred?”

“No and no”

“Winona”

“I wish. It's not even a name”

“It's not a name, what does it mean?”

“It's a name that is not a name, it's... it's a thing”

“A thing? Wait... hippie parents, right?”

“Ehm... yeah, something like that”

“Willow!”

“No”

“Water”

“No, good night Eddie” she restarts the car and at least my desperate expression has the power to bring back a smile on her face.

“Shit, you can't leave me like this!”

“Yet I'm doing it, nighty night!” Angie goes away just like that and leaves me here, alone, to rack my brain on the umpteenth mystery, a new thing I don't know about her and I'm looking forward to know.

“No no no, Grace, I'm sorry but I have to tell you: you got it all wrong. What about this guy here? Where did he come from? Do you wanna go? Just go! How much space do you need to pass a Granada diesel?” without taking anything away from my dear father's car, it's not exactly the fastest model produced by Ford.

“Why?”

“Do you want me to pull over? Is it enough or do I have to get out and help you push your car? Oh there you go! Good boy! What do you mean, why? Do you see any logic in it?” the asshole passes me and I can go back to torture Grace.

“Well, apart from the night guard who was about to catch us, it was nice and it seemed like you were having fun”

“I was! The night pic nic at the abandoned factory was cool. And also running from the guard. Well, if you can call it running. You were as slow as a snail. If the guy was at least a little in shape, he'd have got us”

“He'd have got me, since you fled without even waiting for me” she sulks.

“I was waiting for you in the car”

“Sure”

“With the engine on, I had a detailed plan in my head”

“I can imagine”

“Anyway, the date was an 8, I didn't mean that”

“What else then?”

“The cassette. It's all wrong” I'm not saying she has to be on Angie's level, she's sort of a black belt in the art of making mix tapes. But this is a complete mistake. If I had known, I'd not have asked her to bring something to listen to in the car.

“Hahaha they're songs I like, how can they be wrong?”

“It's not the songs, it's how you put them together. You broke every rule for the creation of a mix tape” the songs, taken individually, go from ok to amazing. Some even surprised me. I had no idea Grace knew bands like Cock Sparrer or Japan, which have got nothing to do with each other. And of course one comes after the other in Grace's mix.

“Do rules exist for that?”

“Sure they do!”

“Tell me one of those so-called rules”

“Well, first of all, you've got no theme”

“A theme?”

“Yeah, a theme, a common thread, something they have in common”

“The theme is: Songs I like”

“Nuh-uh that's not how it works. You gotta tell a story and not just throw in random tracks. You mixed songs of different genres, decades, mood, even different languages!”

“I love that song by Ofra Haza!”

“Slow ones, then fast ones, then all the slow ones. No! And you can't just pick a lo-fi tune and then follow with a super produced song”

“I'm not a musician, I don't care about technicalities, I just go with my feelings”

��What kind of insane feelings bring you to the point of putting Bootsy Collins right after Bauhaus?”

“They both set... an atmosphere” Gracie shrugs but I go on with my rant.

“And you selected live tracks too... live tracks... in a compilation... uhm... that's a no-no”

“Ok, so how do you grade the cassette?”

“Unclassifiable. Try again”

“And how do you grade these instead?” she crosses her legs to show me her new pair of boots. As if I hadn't noticed them already.

“A 10, of course. Pete, your ex, advised you good” they're brown, with thin tight laces and some sort of side floral embroidery.

“Pete is not my ex and you know it. And don't pretend to be jealous, nobody falls for that”

“I'm not jealous, I was simply acknowledging his refined taste” and they look great with those corduroy shorts.

“And by the way, I didn't buy them there, I found them in a thrift shop downtown” I bask in the belief she bought them especially for me, because she knows the effect they have on me.

“They're not bad. Although you didn't buy them from Pete” on the other hand though I don't want her to think I'm some kind of perv who can't get an erection without seeing a nice pair of boots. And generally I don't want her to believe I'm that kind of person you have to necessarily surprise every fucking time with something weird and over the top. That's the impression I got but maybe it's just me. I mean, the date thing is funny but mostly because it's our thing and not because of the peculiarity of the date choices.

“You're an asshole, Stone. Did somebody ever tell you?”

“Yeah. But it sounds better when you say it” I reply, quickly taking her hand and kissing it and I really wanna see her comeback to my masterstroke.

“Sounds better than my mix tape too?” she's good too, I have to admit it.

“Definitely. Also because it doesn't take that much...” but she doesn't know yet how much I like having the last word.

“Right. As much as it took me to realize you're an asshole” she retorts with a wink. The last word, she loves stealing it from me so much.

“Are you sure you don't want anything?” Grace asks me from the bathroom, while I focus on one of the fishtanks.

“Sure, I'm full” she must have prepared like twenty sandwiches for the pic nic, plus the wine. Yeah, I'm full.

“Can't you make a tiny little room in your stomach for dessert?”

“I think I don't have any room left in any internal organs, even if I wanted to. Maybe into my ears, I could try but...”

“Not even for this dessert?” Grace comes out and the way she shows up is not new to me but not less extraordinary.

“Well... maybe... just a little bite...” I think my internal organs are exploding the moment Grace walks up to me, wearing nothing but her boots.

I instinctively back up but I don't know why, this fucking instinct must be broken because I have no intention to escape her attentions. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed by her beauty. Maybe I'm still a little tipsy.

“Perfect.” Grace walks my way but instead of hugging me, she passes me by and walks up to the kitchen. I see her move away one of the chairs, maybe the new one, then place her hands on the table to jump on it “So, what are you waiting for? The meal is ready”

“From which porn b-movie did you get this quote?”

“Hurry up or I'll put my clothes back on”

“Ok”

“What are you doing tonight? Are you sleeping here?” I'm still trying to remember who I am and where I am and what kind of truck has just hit me, when Grace shows up again in the kitchen wearing pyjamas, brushing her teeth.

“It depends”

“On what?”

“If I can sleep in your bed I'll stay, otherwise I'll go back home” I don't know what gave me the strength to come up with the topic that could bring to a big heavy discussion. Maybe I reached such a balance in our relationship that I can openly talk about everything. Or maybe it's just that my lower back hurts, my leg hurt, all my bones hurt and I'm sleepy, so I'd rather sleep on the closest most comfortable surface.

“Ok, see you tomorrow then” Grace points at me with the toothbrush, then sticks it back into her mouth and goes back into the bathroom.

“Come on, Pebbles, why do you always act like that?” I get up from the couch, pulling up my boxers and pants, trying not to lose balance, then set up to go to the bathroom to speak face to face like normal people do. But the face to face thing becomes literal when she rushes out of the door like a fury and we almost crack heads.

“What the hell did you just call me?” she asks barely holding a laugh.

“You said your last name means stone, right? I can't call you... She-Stone, that would be weird”

“Stonia?”

“No”

“Stonette?”

“Why can't we sleep together?” I drag her back on the crux of the matter because knowin her, and me, we could go on like this for hours.

“I told you why, it's complicated” Grace walks away from me and stops in front of the couch, as if she wanted to sit there, but then changes her mind and goes on to take a sit at the kitchen table, on the chair right beside the entrance.

“I know but time has passed. And you gotta start somewhere to... get used to another person's presence, right? Let's go step by step, together” I take back the chair Grace had thrown on the side half an hour ago and I sit down, right in front of her.

“I'm not the only one who has to get used to something new, Stone” her words tell me there's clearly something else and I'm not stupid, I've known for a while that it's not just a matter of being used at being single. There's something that's making her insecure. At first I thought it was something in her room, like the tons of stuffed animals or some real animal, some weird pet she didn't want to tell me about. Then I figured out it's more than that. I thought he could have OCD or something like that, something that makes here panic as soon as someone enters in the picture and threatens her balance. I mean, just think about what happened with the chair thing. Maybe she arranges her things on her nighstand following a determined use order or she makes her bed using set squares and a ruler and the thought that someone could mess it up makes her go nuts. I guess she only manages to sleep in her empty bed. Then I thought it could've got something to do with her past, maybe with the long illness she never wants to talk about. Maybe she's taking meds that fuck her up a little or that she simply doesn't want me to see. I even went as far as to thinking she could take some drugs. But no, not Gracie. And what would be the connection with her bedroom?

“Ok, if you tell me what I have to get used to, maybe I can start right now and you can follow suit, what do you think?”

“I wish it was that easy”

“I know it's not easy or I wouldn't have waited so long before putting the squeeze on you”

“Are you putting the squeeze on me?”

“Yes, just talk”

“Do I have to?”

“I won't leave until you tell me what's wrong. For real”

“Oh.” maybe Grace has just realized that I'm being serious and that I won't put up with her elusive explanations anymore “Ok”

“Don't be scared, it's... it's just me.” I stretch my arms out on the table to take both her hands in mine and finally she looks up to me “And you know how smart I am, I can comprehend anything, don't worry”

“Hehehe I know, I can trust you”

“That's it”

“I gotta trust you, I mean, I knew this moment would have come, I have to tell you sooner or later. I can't hide it from you forever. Despite your particular preferences.

“What do you mean?”

“Ugh I can't believe I'm about to have the talk, again” she covers her face with her hands and then runs them through her hair.

“Again?”

“That must be why I became allergic to steady relationships: just to avoid having the same talk each time. But then you came and blew up my plans” Grace takes my hands once again, squeezes them gently and smiles, before letting them go and focusing back on the table cloth's print.

“Which talk?”

“It's not easy for me to feel comfortable with a man... in intimacy”

“Really? 'Cause my joints and I didn't notice” I try and joke to ease the tension but I'm not sure I should. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and let her speak.

“I'm not only talking about that intimacy but rather in general”

“'Cause you need your space and-”

“No, it's not about that. It's... it's a physical thing, Stone”

“Physical?”

“I know, knowing me, one would thing the problem is in my head. And won't deny that, it's a fact that I'm not completely in my right mind”

“Well... you said that, huh?” I shrug and reply to her half smile with a full one.

“But the main problem, well, it's about my body”

“Your body can't possibly have any problem, Pebbles”

“Because you haven't seen all of it, Bam Bam” considering the gravity of the moment, I decide to ignore the nickname. Also because I called for it.

“I haven't, really? What else is there to see, more than I already saw?”

“I'd say that your strange fixation gave me a sort of advantage this time. Or disadvantage. Because thanks to that, I could postpone the talk forever pretending the problem doesn't exist, so it really depends on how you look at it”

“My strange... Gracie, I'm not getting what you're trying to say, could you be clearer?”

“There's something odd in my body, something you haven't seen yet”

“Has it got something to do with your past health problems?”

“Yes”

“Oh Grace, a couple of scars won't make me uncomfortable!” I stand up, ready to take her in my arms and squeeze her to death as a punishment but she keeps sitting, glued to her chair.

“Hehehe scars... I wish it was that!”

“Is it worse?”

“The problem is not something I have but rather something... I don't have”

“I must be dumb, I didn't notice anything”

“Do you know what an osteosarcoma is?”

“Given the name, I'd say a bone disease” the technical medical term breaks into a so far lighthearted conversation and hijacks it towards a darker destination.

“A tumor, for the record”

“Is that what happened to you, years ago?”

“Yes”

“But you won against that fucking tumor, I mean, you're alright now”

“But that fucking tumor left its mark anyway, Stone”

“Grace, seriously, there's nothing that could push me away from you. I know I may look like an uptight fucker but I'm not easily impressed” I'd better avoid telling her that I don't really like needles though.

“Do you know how they cure osteosarcoma?”

“Chemotherapy?”

“Chemotherapy and surgery”

“Ok”

“It started from the big toe, an extremely rare circumstance the doctors said”

“You always have to stand out, right?” I try and keep things light and Grace smiles keeps going along with me but I'm not sure this is the best attitude although I'm not showing it.

“Then it spread to all the toes, then the rest. It was all so fast, one week before I felt good, I lived my life as usual, then my foot hurt while I was jogging and one week later I was risking to lose my leg or worse, to die if it reached vital organs”

“But the super docs did their magic thing and cured you and got you back in shape” I sound like the annoying child who doesn't wanna hear the drama parts of the good night story and wants to get straight to the happy ending so he can fall asleep in peace.

“Yeah, they saved me. At a small cost”

“Grace, I don't give a fuck if your foot is not nice to see, the important thing is that you're here, now, with me, and you can tell this story”

“It's not nice to see because you can't see it, Stone. Didn't you understand? It's not there anymore, I don't have it, I had to have it amputated” I can hear words coming out of Grace's lips but they sound emptied of every trace of sense and meaning. I feel the need to sit down and say something, anything, but whereas I manage to do the first thing, my second goal seems strangely impossible. Maybe for the first time in my life I don't know what to say. I mean, there are so many things I'd want to say that roll in my head and they all seem stupid, shallow, flat and completely useless.

“Stone?”

And I don't even know how to move now. What do I do? If I back up, I'd look detached. If I get closer, she'll think I'm flaunting a quietness I realistically can't have right now. Same thing if I look at her feet. But if I purposedly avoid looking at them, she'll convince herself she scared me.

“Say something, Stone. Or if you don't wanna say anything, at least close your mouth, you've got it wide open for fifteen minutes” Graces reaches for me over the table and closes my jaw with a light pressure of her hand. Her hand so delicate, sweet, gentle, like her. I can't believe something so terrible could happen right to Grace. Ok, nobody deserves such pain and the world is full of horrors. But I wanna be free to get mad at such an injustice.

“Is it the left one or right one?” I finally speak. And I say something stupid, of course.

“What difference does it make?” Grace looks at me as if I was dumb.

“I just asked”

“The right one”

“And do you have a prosthesis?”

“How would I stand up and walk otherwise?”

“But you wouldn't say it, I mean, when you walk, you walk normally. You're just-”

“As slow as a snail” she finishes my sentence and it's like when in crime movies they give you the ultimate hint and it lights a spark for the detective, who starts going backwards through all the key points of the investigation. In my specific case, all the times I made fun of Grace for being slow.

“God, I'm a jerk” and here's the sudden realization.

“Jerk or not, you couldn't have known this”

“Yes but I feel like shit all the same”

“Stop thinking about it and you'll be better. So, what do you wanna do now?”

“What do I wanna do?”

“From my personal experience, I can say men fall into two categories at this point. I wanna know which one you belong to”

“It depends on the categories” I answer, more and more uncomfortable on this chair. Maybe it's because it's the new one. Yeah, that's it. Grace is right, she's always been right, not all chairs are the same.

“Those who don't wanna see and those who want to look”

“Oh”

“And inside the before mentioned categories, we can find two subgroups: those who don't wanna see that but ask me to show them, because they want to pretend they don't care, and those who are actually curious and would like to watch, but they say no because they don't want me to think they're gross”

“I, well, I guess I belong to a brand new category”

“That is?”

“The ones who don't know what to do”

“Hehe well, that's surely a more honest category” Grace stands up and I immediately do the same.

“Did you tell somebody else? I mean, to our friends?”

“No”

“Why didn't you tell me before?”

“That's not exactly something you say during small talk, what do you think? Hi, I'm Grace, I'm an aquarious and my favorite color is red. Oh and by the way, I only got one foot”

“I... I need... yeah, I mean, I gotta get out” how can I tell her I need to leave without looking like a jerk? I have no idea, and that's why it comes out like shit.

“Are you leaving?” she asks as I take my jacket and start putting it on.

“I need some fresh air”

“Oh, ok”

“And I have to clear my mind.” as I try to put my arm into the second sleeve for the third time unsuccessfully, Grace has pity and helps me “Thank you”

“Are you ok, Stone?” I honestly don't know the answer to this question and I don't even know why.

“Sure, everything's alright.” I take her face into my hands and kiss her “It's just... I didn't see that coming, I have to... process it, figure all this out, that's it” I tell her and myself.

“After all these years, I still haven't found a better way to say it”

“Well, you won't need to find another way now anyway”

“No?”

“No, 'cause you're with me now, you won't have to say it to any other guy” I offer a more sincere smile to Grace, also because she deserve nothing less, and kiss her again.

“Thank god. See, you're not totally useless then”

“Good night, Pebbles”

“Night, Stone” I get out of Grace's apartment, then leave the building, then get into my car and that's when I realize I have been holding my breath the whole fucking time.

#pearl jam fanfiction #grunge fanficion #eddie vedder fanfiction #eddie vedder #stone gossard #pearl jam #chapters

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stonyiscanon · 5 years ago

Text

Milkshakes (Bucky Barnes x Reader) CAFÉ AU

Notes: okay but busboy! Bucky makes me want to drown thank you very much. To the person who commented that I should do a Bucky fic, thanks lol, I hope I did okay, this is my first Bucky fic *cue gasp*

Warnings: angst if you squint, insecure! Bucky, oh no! a few bucks in the swear jar, SHITTY WRITING LET’S GO

Words: 4.0k

Summary: The evolution of Bucky’s relationship with you over time.

You come into this café Bucky works in every day. It’s only now that Bucky’s worked up the courage to take your order. (The Avengers working in a café, that should be enough for you to read this.)

WE LOVE A GOOD STRANGERS TO BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS TROPE

Bucky clocks into Sugar & Spice, the café he’s been working at since he had started high school with his best friend and roommate Steve, every morning at 7:45, since they open at 8. Well, he’s really supposed to clock in at 7:30, but he can’t be bothered to wake up that early. So, when he comes in, all the staff are already getting ready for the day.

Normally Clint and Thor are together doing something stupid, (Bucky doesn’t know how they’re not fired yet), whilst Steve frantically tries to fix whatever the hell they inevitably broke. (This morning, it was a kettle the staff uses to make tea.) Natasha is always calmly wiping down the counters, and it’s all accompanied by Tony screaming at them to do work with shitty café music playing, as Sam and Wanda sings terribly from the kitchen while cooking up their breakfast menu of the day.

Even though he’d never admit it, Bucky loves this place and the dim yellow lighting everyone’s always complaining about. He takes a deep breath and smells the mixture of everyone’s morning coffee, Tony’s obnoxious cologne, and Sam’s infamous breakfast pancakes everyone came to the café for, and he smiles. He’s home, after all.

That smile lasts for about three seconds before Bruce yells something about Bucky being late. So, he claps Steve on the back, hastily ties his apron on, and whizzes around the room, setting cutlery and jugs of water down, getting ready for the breakfast regulars.

Every day at the café is pretty much the same. Everyone universally refers it as ‘The Cafe’, since everybody knows that Sugar & Spice is a dumb name. The morning goes by rather quickly, it’s his turn to deal with annoying customers every other day, pretty much all the same people come around, and the part-timers, Peter and Shuri, comes at around 3, by the time school ends for them.

So Bucky knows exactly what he’s doing on the dot. By 8:30, the café is pretty much packed with early risers. Pepper, Tony’s wife, drops in for a break from her morning jog to say hi, and sometimes she’ll have a coffee, but she’s always out by 9. Stephen Strange and T’Challa are both morning regulars, and Bucky knows their order by heart, and he always has them ready before they even get to the café. They’re both lame as fuck anyway, getting black coffee, a plain croissant and reading the papers every morning.

Why you would have a croissant without chocolate, Bucky will never understand.

Around 10-ish, the people who drank too much last night will usually come in for Nat’s hangover cure in a cup. Except nobody really asks what’s in it, because nobody really wants to know. Bucky tries to ignore the fact that this café attracts a ton of alcoholics. Usually Peter Quill comes around now, more often than not because he got too drunk last night, and Thor always takes his order. (Just to spite him, since Peter clearly hates Thor for being perfect.)

The rest of the day goes by really fast too, and before he knows it, Bucky’s saying his goodbyes at around 9pm, with Steve, and they both go home on their bikes.

The only thing Bucky’s never sure about is you. You’ve been coming to the café for maybe around half a year now, sometimes just for a drink, a coffee in the morning. Sometimes you’ll drop by during lunch, grabbing a sandwich and running out quickly. Bucky doesn’t know why you leave so soon during lunch. Probably work. Sometimes you’ll drop by after a long day and you’ll have a drink with Nat. You don’t come with friends very often, but sometimes you do, bringing them along for dinner, usually.

In the winter, you’ll come in shivering, bundled up in massive coats and scarves, and getting a hot chocolate. Every time that happens, Bucky physically swoons.

No matter what, you always take a seat at the bar with the high chairs that are almost annoyingly too squeaky that everyone complains about, even though no one actually can be bothered to fix it. You’ll laugh with Nat, as she’s usually at the bar, preparing drinks, and Steve will often take your order. To be quite honest, Bucky pretty much knows nothing about you, but here are the things he does know.

He knows your name is Y/N, since apparently, everyone else is pretty close with you. Guess that’s what happens when you come into a place daily for two years. He knows all your usual orders by heart, even though he’s never the one to take your order, since he’ll force Steve to do it every time. He knows you’re funny, sweet, kind and charming.

He also knows that looking at you makes him act like he’s a fucking sixteen-year-old on prom night and he hates it. Whatever happened to the charming, sweet, womanizer Bucky Barnes? Down the fucking drain, that’s for sure. For two years, he’s tried to approach you and talk to you. And for two years, Steve has called him a coward. Bucky doesn’t know what washes over him when he sees you. He’s normally great with the ladies, if he does say so himself.

But every time you come into the café, whether it be in the morning, afternoon, or night, his heart jumps and his mouth freezes and he can’t do anything but stare at you as all the other staff members greet you with a smile.

He hates it so much.

So, this morning, when he clocks in, and doesn’t hear his stupid friends freaking out as usual, he knows something’s up. Everyone grins at him like they know something he doesn’t and Bucky has to touch his forehead, wondering if they drew something on his face without him knowing again.

“What is it?” He asks, looking at everyone suspiciously.

“Guys, what did you do? I swear, if I go over to my apron to find that Tony drew dicks all over it, I will kill all of you in your sleep.” It’s kind of sad how no one reacted to what he said. Bucky decides that he probably threatens people too much.

Everyone smiles at him again, going back to work, and in two seconds, the whole café is back to normal, topping it off with Sam screaming his horrible rendition of Marvin Gaye in the kitchen.

They clearly had been talking about him before he came into the café. Boy, Bucky was really regretting sleeping in now. He marched over to Steve, and hissed in his ear.

“What the fuck is going on? If this is a stupid prank I swear to God, Steve--”

Steve smiles weirdly, and he sighs, saying, “Go back to work, Buck, you’re imagining things.” Steve is almost too much of a good person, and how bad he is at lying makes Bucky wince, because it’s way too obvious that he’s not telling the truth. The bead of sweat trailing down from his temple gives it all away.

So Bucky sighs, deciding to torture the information out of his friends later, and get to work. Everything seems to be in order, and he almost forgets the events of that morning, all up until three o’ clock, when Shuri and Peter come in, and even they seem odd. Peter’s maniacally grinning about twice as much as he normally does, which is alarming, because nobody ever knew that lips had the capability to even stretch that far.

At five forty-five, there’s a slight ring from the door that Bucky doesn’t notice. Everyone else does, though. Clint almost pushes Bucky to the front cashier, and yells out some sort of excuse that Bucky can’t hear and Clint speeds off into the kitchen. Steve runs to the staff bathroom, yelling something about really needing to go, and Nat almost flings the wet towel she was using onto the counter with the high chairs, and yells to Bucky that she needs a drink, and asks him whether he would clean up while she was gone.

Begrudgingly, he agrees and extremely confused, he turns around to see which customer he had to seat only to see you standing there, bundled up in a scarf with a soft smile on your face.

Oh, those fuckers.

Swallowing his fear, Bucky attempted to speak up, you know, bring on the usual Barnes charm, but he probably looked more like a frog, opening his mouth like he was gaping.

“Are you alright?” You asked, seemingly worried, because of course you are, Bucky thinks, how fucking adorable.

“I don’t think I’ve spoken to you before, but I’m a regular here.” You smile, and introduce yourself. “I’m Y/N.” You peeked at his nametag, and smiled, holding out your hand.

“Hi, James.”

“Bucky.” He flashes a smile, hoping he doesn’t look as terrified as he is on the inside. “Call me Bucky, doll.” He reaches out and grabs your hand and almost melts. Damnit, how gorgeous. Yeah, that confidence didn’t last very long when you moved forward and sat at your usual spot, and Bucky tripped over his own feet following you.

Shuri throws a towel at his face and gestures to the counter you were sitting at.

‘Clean.’ She mouths, and Bucky’s so very tempted to throw it back to her, but he stalks over to your chair and starts to wipe the countertop, awkwardly averting his eyes from you and the counter, thinking of all the ways he could kill his co-workers after this.

“Are you new?” You ask, completely oblivious to how weird the Café was today. Bucky noticed though, and he glared at all his friends, who were hiding behind the kitchen door, spying on them.

Bucky suddenly realized why Steve wanted to watch The Parent Trap yesterday night.

“No, I’m not. I guess we’ve just never met before.” Bucky’s heart stops when you smile at him, and his body releases tension that he didn’t know he was holding in his muscles. Deep breaths, Buck. He thought to himself.

He flashes a sharp smile at you as you look up from the menu.

“Yeah, Probably. Nat or Steve usually takes my order, but I thought I knew everyone who worked here. You do seem familiar, though.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, with a nervous look on his face. “You seem familiar too.” He can almost hear the entire staff face-palming behind him, but he desperately attempts to ignore them.

“What milkshake flavors are there? I’ve been coming here so long, for some reason I’ve never sat down and had a milkshake.” It takes Bucky a full five seconds for him to tear his eyes from your face and realize you had asked him a question.

“Chocolate, vanilla, caramel and strawberry.”

You groan, pouting a little bit, and Bucky can’t decide whether his heart just broke because of you showing any sign of sadness or just how goddamn adorable you were.

“I can’t decide,” You say, still pouting. Bucky’s about to suggest Vanilla, since that’s his personal favorite, but you speak up again. “Is there any possible way you can just take all the milkshake flavors and put it in one cup with a straw?”

Bucky breaks out a smile. He knew there was a reason he liked you so much.

“Sure, doll. Is that it?” You nod, smiling at him. That smile. Bucky spent a minute behind the kitchen doors with a goofy smile on his face until Natasha slapped him and told him to get his shit together.

“I guess we’ve just never met before” Tony says mockingly, popping out of nowhere and laughing his ass off. Sam shoots him a toothy grin.

“Oh, yeah, doll. There’s that infamous Barnes charm, huh?”

If Sam Wilson and Tony Stark ended up dead the next morning, Bucky definitely didn’t have anything to do with it. Peter Parker, a ‘literal angel child’ according to Tony, says something sweet about how you seemed really into him, but Bucky pays no attention to him. He’s more focused on how he’s so whipped for this girl he doesn’t even know, that a fucking fifteen-year-old is expressing sympathy towards him.

He sighs, scooping a small scoop of every single ice cream the café had and dropping it in a blender. Maybe tomorrow he’d be less awkward.

He didn’t get more comfortable the next day. Bucky actually somehow managed to trip over your shoes when you came in for lunch, and landed on Steve, also effectively covering himself in the spaghetti Steve was holding, all while Clint and Thor laughs their asses off about it as he’s wiping spaghetti away from his eyes.

You giggle, but only for a second, as you help him up and pluck away a few pieces of spaghetti in his hair that was sticking out.

“You’ve never looked better.” You tease, a playful smile gracing your lips.

Bucky decides that being covered in spaghetti wasn’t the absolute worst thing after all. Well, until he finds out Tony filmed the whole thing and posted it on YouTube where it already accumulated over three thousand views before Bucky persuaded (read: forced) Tony to take it down.

Bucky does, however, get more comfortable around you over time. The week after the spaghetti incident, he cracks some joke about Nat that he can’t even remember anymore. The only thing he remembered was how damn melodic your laugh sounded. Were those stars in your eyes?

Jesus Christ, he was whipped. The entire café watched every single day as Bucky scrambled to take your order with that goofy smile on his face. You both exchange numbers after you complained that you only got to see him when you were at the café, and ever since, Bucky checks his phone periodically every 10 minutes, just in case you send something he doesn’t want to miss.

You start traditions like every other Friday was a movie night, and every Tuesday was a takeout board game night. You slowly wormed your way into his life and Bucky would be a liar if he said he didn’t love it.

“Bucky!” You squeal as he throws the leftover popcorn kernels from the bowl at you.

“You asshole! I’m going to have to vacuum this later!” The long forgotten movie about a superhero named Eagle or something was playing in the background, but Bucky had already stopped paying attention to that a while ago.

Watching you watch a movie was quite possible the most entertaining thing Bucky’s ever seen. Sometimes you would get so entranced, you’d shove popcorn in your mouth and miss, leaving some popcorn bits on your nose and the rest falling in your lap.

Bucky smiles, and he doesn’t know it, but this was the start of your forever.

“Oh my god,” Steve says in-between laughs and his seventh beer one night at some random bar they stumbled into.

“You’re falling deep, Buck.” Even drunk Bucky, who had already consumed God knows how many cans of beer, tried to deny it.

“Of course not!” He says, but Bucky has a sinking feeling in his gut and he can’t decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.

He misses Steve and Nat exchanging knowing looks every time you come to sit down for another every-flavor milkshake. Over the span of the next half-year or so, you and Bucky chatting whilst you sipped on a colourful milkshake underneath the dim lighting became a regular in the café.

Bucky remembers almost everything about your relationship. He was introduced to you as a stuttering mess and slowly became your best friend who crashed many nights at your apartment when Steve started dating Peggy. He calls you things like doll, or baby, or sweetheart, attempting to act like that’s normal for best friends to do, even though he knows damn well it’s weird. Sometimes he looks in your eyes, and he knows you feel the same feeling in your gut when you stare at him. He’s sure of it. But every time Bucky opens his mouth to say something, he freezes.

More often than not, some old lady would stop you in the streets, crooning about what a lovely couple you both were, and Bucky knows it’s definitely not normal for best friends to be acting like a couple.

No matter how many times his friends urge him to ask her out, he always hesitates. The words ‘She doesn’t feel the same’ and ‘Just best friends’ would usually come out of his mouth. But in the end, Bucky’s just a coward. Whenever he tries to be the confident, normal guy around you something goes wrong.

Because you make him feel like a person, and he’s so afraid of asking you out and ruining everything he’d rather than tear his own heart apart, so it doesn’t get broken by you. ‘She’s happier like this’, Bucky would think. But he’s not happy, and doesn’t he deserve to be happy too?

Bucky doesn’t know why he’s always so willing to put himself in pain. He tries to ask you out almost fifty times before he just didn’t bother counting anymore. It’s not that he doesn’t like your friendship, this is possibly one of the happiest times in his life. And at the same time, he’s miserable.

“Hey, doll?” He says, coming into your apartment with the spare key that you leant him.

“Hello? Hey, if you’re in the bathroom, can I crash here for the night? I don’t even want to know what Steve and Peggy are up to in our apartment right now.” Bucky gets no answer, and he’s confused. It’s Wednesday night. Where could you possibly be? He sends you a quick text and he hears a slight ding coming from your dining room table. Your phone sits there, his text illuminating the screen. Wherever you went, you didn’t bring your phone with you. Bucky had a bad feeling.

He’s about to have a breakdown when you come into the apartment, clearly puzzled.

“Buck? Why are you here?” You say, your arms together holding a large package.

“Oh, thank God. I came to stay the night, but you weren’t here, and you left your phone, I thought something must’ve happen- ” He stopped, noticing something.

“Y/N? What’s that?” He asked, pointing to the large, colourful flowers wrapped up in your arms.

‘Oh!’ You say, seemingly glad that he asked.

“Ryan from the next door gave me these. Aren’t they gorgeous? He’s a nice guy.” You say, humming about as you fished an old vase from the bottom of your sink.

“That’s why I left my phone here. I just went over to pick these flowers up. You really shouldn’t worry so much, Buck. One of these days you’ll get a heart attack.” You’re softly singing as you fluff out the flowers and place them into the vase that’s filled with water.

“Perfect.” You murmur, then you turned to him, throwing the TV remote and a pack of microwaveable popcorn at him.

“Come on, old man., We’re going to watch Inception. I still can’t believe you haven’t watched it. It even won an Oscar for something I can’t remember.” Bucky stays behind in the kitchen for a bit, clutching at the bag of popcorn that was threatening to pop in his tense grip. He had a terrible feeling sinking deep in his chest as he looked at the flowers that you set on your kitchen countertop.

“You don’t even like dahlias.” Bucky says, plopping down onto the sofa, hands full of popcorn. You frown, reaching out and grabbing a handful and stuffing it in your moth before saying,

“Yeah, but it’s still sweet, isn’t it? Besides, how the fuck you know so much about flowers? Didn’t even know they were dahlias, I just remember telling you I don’t like the look of those big, poofy flowers.”

“Yeah, but dahlias aren’t romantic. He should have gotten you roses, or beautiful lilies, or-” Bucky caught sight of your weirded-out look and thought he’d better shut up before you found out he liked spending time in a flower shop during middle school.

“Whatever. Never mind” He grumbled instead, ignoring the confused look on your face, and pressed play, beginning to watch what apparently was ‘Leonardo DiCaprio’s third best movie’ Obviously behind Titanic and Wolf of Wall Street.

That terrible feeling remained in his chest.

It’s 8:00 PM and Bucky’s about to clock out, he hangs up his apron, about to close up when you come over running, and for a moment he’s absolutely stunned you exercised willingly.

“Are you guys closing up already?” You say, panting. Bucky wonders whether you ran all the way from your office to the café.

“Ugh. My day went terribly. Can we go inside so I can rant? Actually, I’ll just tell you on the way to your apartment.” You’re rambling, and you look so cute bundled up in all your coats, facing the bitter Brooklyn cold. Bucky stares at you and he swears he fell in love in that moment. What was so special about it, he didn’t know. Looking at you, wrapped up in all your layers. You breathed out, smoke coming out from your lips from December’s freezing temperatures. You ran all the way from work, to tell him about the bad day you had, Bucky liked that he was the person you went to.

“God, my lunch date was terrible, you were right, Ryan is a douche and I hate dahlias. I detest them. You were completely right, lunch dates are awful, and he’s a terrible person. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen, remind me to always do that. My boss was in a horrible mood and he must have-“

Bucky steps towards you, and cuts you off, by placing his lips on yours. He can tell you’re taken back, but he’s so angry at himself for not doing this sooner, because kissing you must be the best thing he’s ever done in his entire life. Your hands are stopped midway, about to stop this madness, but then your frozen lips begin to melt and turn warm against Bucky’s.

And before you know it, your hands are slowly sliding up to his hair, tangling your hands into his hair and his arms are wrapped around your waist. He kisses you passionately, none of you even seem to realise you’re in the middle of the street. Bucky was making out with you in the middle of Brooklyn, and he doesn’t give two shits about who was watching them. The end of the world could happen right now and he’d continue kissing you like his life depended on it. He feels you smiling into your kiss, and he feels downright giddy. You almost push against him, almost as if you’re making up for lost time.

You bring your hands down and push his chest away, still processing what just happened. Bucky runs his thumb over your lip, and for a second he’s feels scared. Why did you push him away? Oh, shit, was I not supposed to do that? You smile, leaning into his touch and relief flushes into Bucky. You speak, so quiet Bucky barely hears you and your voice is hoarse.

“Took you long enough, huh?” Your hand is placed on his cheek, and your hands are so cold Bucky’s surprised you haven’t gotten frostbite yet, but he doesn’t care. Bucky blinks, feeling something land on his head, and he laughs as he spots the small flecks of white landing on the ground.

“As if this couldn’t get any more cliché,” He muses, whispering into your ear. “It’s snowing, doll, look.” You tear away from his body but he keeps one arm pressed against your waist as you walk home to your apartment. Boy, was Steve going to get a surprise when he woke up the next morning.

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pernatius · 4 years ago

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Lost in Space Part 4: Ch 5

Ch 4

Summary: Having lost Earth, an unnamed Space Explorer is haunted by a mysterious, black figure as she begins to drift away from those closest to her.

Part 1: ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

Part 2: ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

Part 3: ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

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Her horse comes to a halt. She gets down and turns to help me off. Lit before me is the ship. Hesitantly, I headed towards it. With every step I took my feet sunk into the sand, making a soft crunching noise. The closer I came to it, the larger its mouth, its doorway, became. I felt immensely small compared to it. Instead of creating a warm atmosphere the light from my crown causes it to become even more haunting. As I turn my head, I shine it across the ship’s interior and as I do I see the ghostly figures of Skeema, Mikrovos, Saamuki, and Ashley all laughing. The feeling that it gave me should be nice, but it’s empty. We never got to laugh together and maybe we never will. Thinking about it, about Syco, has my grip tighten on the ship’s doorway. Hearing her get back on her horse, I turn around and ask right when she’s about to head off, “Wait.” Stopping her horse, she turns to me. I gulp as I can feel my dark companion looking at me, judging me, from the darkness behind me. I point at my crown. “Don’t you want this back?”

“No, I made that for you. It might help you out again soon.”

Again, she’s about to leave, but I stop her for the second time. “No, wait, that’s not it. What did your brother mean back there? What kind of punishment?”

She shrugs before responding with, “I don’t know. Probably removing my head again. Maybe a little longer than last time.”

“He’s done it before?”

“Yeah, remember how I said that wasn’t the first time he acted that way? I brought another off-worlder a couple of years ago.”

“Does it hurt?”

She takes a moment to think about her answer. “A little-No, a lot, actually, but it’s whatever. It’s not like it’ll kill me.”

“Why are you acting nonchalant about this,” I flail my arms in the air, “I get he’s your brother and all, but that isn’t caring, and trust me I know when someone is.”

“Even if I do agree with what you’re saying, what am I supposed to do about it? Leave him? Where am I supposed to go?”

Placing my hand on my chest, “You can come with me. I mean I don’t have a planet unlike you. I don’t know where I’m headed to now, but all I know is it’s certainly better than staying here.”

“Thanks, the offer is tempting, but I’m sorry. I can’t accept it.” Hearing her say that, breaks my heart, but I try not to show it. Smiling, though not as real as S1Y’s, I accept her decline. So, I turn back towards the ship. As I do, she continues with, “I hear it’s getting intense up there. Be careful.”

“Same to you...um.”

“Licata. My name is Licata.”

“Be careful, Licata.”

“Thank you. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.”

The door closes. I’m left to wander inside the ship alone, but not blinded thanks to the literal health hazard above my head. Heart racing, as I move towards the glowing, blue screen, my hand shakily touches it. The ship’s lights turn on, giving me a sigh of relief because the ship isn’t utterly damaged. Then, I motion for the ship to ascend out of its sandy prison and as it does I find Licata on her horse racing off back towards her brother and friends, towards a pain I hope doesn’t last too long.

I’m hundreds of feet off the ground, but I wave at her anyway. I know it’s silly. I mean there’s no way she could see it up here, but she turns and looks up at me. If she had a face I imagine it to have smiled.

I look down at Vecta and I remind myself that sometimes we have to lie to ourselves so we can forget the painful truth, so we can keep going. So, I lie to myself that I’ll be able to see her again because I don’t know what’s next. All I know is that the impossible lies ahead because I don’t know when or even how, but I plan to get Syco back for this. From him starting another war to causing all of them to be in that zombified state, I plan to fix all of that. However, I don’t know where to even start.

Circling the ship, circling me, is the unknown. I stand in the middle of some black canvas with hundreds of glowing paint splatters. Each varies in color and size. Further out in front of me, a faint dot is seen exploding. It shoots out a ray of colors from brown to yellow and sparkles of purple. I had witnessed a supernova, which gets me to conclude that it’s probably a sign I shouldn’t start there. So, I steer the ship to the nearest dot, planet.

Proudly landing the ship perfectly, I stride out with my chest puffed out. When I step onto the planet, I see someone exit their ship in the corner of my eye. With us making eye contact, especially them looking at me funny, I hurry back into the ship. I’m reminded that I’m a human, a species low on the universe’s totem pole, thousands of lightyears away from where her homeworld is supposed to be. I can’t just walk out like I own the place. Like I’m not doing anything illegal. I have to think of something soon unless I want to get kicked off this planet as well, or worse. Pacing back and forth, I remember about Saamuki’s spacesuit. So, I rush to get it and when I pull it out I see two large holes punctured through the chest area. “Oh, yeah. Right.”

Remembering the last and final time it was used, I throw it aside. With that being my only option, without a disguise, I take a seat and slouch with my arms crossed. That’s when my faceless companion makes their appearance. Beginning to quit this whole insane plan, which I need to repeat and emphasize that it’s absolutely impossible, especially now, I look at them with annoyance.

They replicate my crown on their head, grab it, and fling their arm. A staff similar to Licata’s is now wrapped underneath their fingers.

“I can’t believe I’m attempting to try to have a conversation with you again, but I don’t need some staff. I don’t need another weapon. I need something to cover me. Besides, I don’t want to burn my hands anytime soon.” My attitude gets them to swing their staff at me. I rub the now pained site. “What the hell?”

Instead of answering me with words, they have their staff vanish and grab my crown. Again, they make a staff. This time, they swing the end that’s being swallowed by fire at me. I yelp, but the fire goes right through me. Upon my shock, they turn the staff into a rope and fling it at me. I catch it right when it’s about to hit me.

“Okay, I get it. I think. It’s just an illusion. Magic? Maybe it’s hi-tech? I mean either of those explains how it’s able to float on my head, but whatever. That doesn’t matter. Just tell me how you made,” I nudge towards the piece of rope in my hands, “this.”

“Relax.”

“Relax? How on Ear-space can I relax? After everything I’ve been through.” Someone on the other side of the door is heard knocking. “And now with that? How can I relax?”

“Ashley. Mikrovos. Saamuki. S1Y. Skeema too. They all believe in you. They may not have acted like it half the time, but they do. You know they do because if they didn’t I wouldn’t be saying these things.” They morph into a complete copy of me. It weirds me out, but it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen.

“I-,” for a moment that figurative saying about a cat getting one’s tongue happens to me, “That’s the most I’ve heard you say, but thanks. I needed that. Well, I mean thanks for me reminding me? You’re me, apparently. God, this is so weird.”

After they smile, they disappear once again. Another knock is heard. I let out a long, soothing exhale. I tell myself it’s time for me to learn. It’s time for me to mature, or at least learn to finally calm down, so I can think with my head rather than rely on my impulses. If I want to do it. If I want them back, or at the very least try, I have to relax. I close my eyes.

Reopening them, I don’t get what I imagined. What I hoped, but it’s still useful nonetheless. Getting out of the ship once again, I greet the woman that was knocking on the ship as Licata’s species. The woman is slimy, light green, and covered in red dots. She could be considered completely naked if it wasn’t for the several badges on the right side of her chest. On each, they’ve been etched with words, but they’re much too small for me to read. In a rough, scratchy voice she asks, “I got a report you have a human on board this ship.”

“Human? I’m certain I have none of those. Why would I?” I let out an obviously fake laugh, which gets her to look oddly at me.

“Well, I can’t merely write your word in my report. Move aside.” I do and she checks around. Seeing her slime drag across the floor, across what’s now my ship, grosses me out and annoys me because I somehow have to clean that up later. “What a surprise. You don’t. I told that man it’d be impossible to find a human this out in space, especially after Earth’s imprisonment.”

“Imprisonment?”

She opens her mouth and slides her hand down her throat. A pen and paper, which are drenched in her slime, are taken out. She points her pen at me before saying, “You haven’t read about it yet? It’s all over my feed. Everyone’s been talking about ever since this morning.”

Earth isn’t gone. I didn’t cause the death of millions. Ashley and I still have a home.

“Do you know where Earth is? Do you know where it’s being kept?” I grab her shoulders and give her a slight shake, which I soon regret.

Grabbing my wrists and moving my now slimy hands off of her, “As if that kind of information would be public. Besides, it doesn’t matter if it was because it’s only a matter of time before Earth gets what’s coming to it. Those humans broke one of the highest laws of the universe.” She writes down some notes for her report.

“Okay, do you at least know how to get to Saamuki?”

“Who?”

“She’s The Eyes of the Underworld’s sister.”

“Why in the universe would you want anyone that has to do with one of the universe’s worst criminals?” She squints her eyes on me, suspicious.

“Ugh, I don’t have time for this. I’ll go ask someone that does.”

Pushing her out of the way, I head towards the bridge leading to the city ahead, but before I’m an earshot away from her I hear her mutter, “Why do I always get the weird ones?”

The city up head is a combination between New York City and Tokyo as the buildings are squished together with bright neon lights attached to them, but subtract the rectangular shapes their buildings tend to be and replace them with circular and triangular shapes. Also, there’s a giant, white celestial body a bit too close to the highest skyscraper. Midway through my concentration of walking towards the city, I hear someone giggle. Turning to the sound, I see a child, who looks like a human mixed with a fish, standing on their tippy-toes with a red balloon in one hand and the other holding onto the bridge. I first write it off as just them being weird until I see a group of gigantic fish splashing from point to point in the water below us. It’s scary to watch, as their size reminds me of the serpent, but because of how elegantly they move they replace that with a sense of awe. Getting closer, moving next to the child, I see the waters change color every time a fish hits the water. Every second of their show then on has me as hooked as the child. As much as I’d like it to last just a tiny bit longer, it ends with one of the fish shooting out water into the sky, which has the child clap. I clap too soon after.

Once the child turns away I too turn away. As they head elsewhere, I continue my walk towards the city. Even though my face doesn’t show it I’m smiling because, as random as that was, I take that as a good sign. I take it as a sign that the road ahead won’t be as terrible as I first thought because it showed me that even in the darkest times, when things seem impossible, they’ll always be something beautiful, something absolutely amazing, to help you get back to the light. To remind you that the unknown is just that. Just the unknown. Bad things will always happen on the roads you don’t know, on the roads you’re not comfortable with, but that doesn’t mean good things will never happen while on them. The unknown attracts both the bad and the good. You just have to keep walking forward until you find what you’re looking for.

#198 #lost in space #writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #my wrting #creative writing #spilled ink #wlw #scifi #fiction #fantasy

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ohheyalex · 5 years ago

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Not Going Anywhere//

#titans #dickkory #gar logan #rachel roth #my writing

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settle-down-frohike · 6 years ago

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1 and 53?

1. Historical AU53. Mutual Pining

Thanks @how-i-met-your-mulder for the prompt!

It’s 1965 and he’s a Boston-born boy come south, idealistic and fresh from journalism school, convinced its his destiny to document the real truth and expose the injustice of Jim Crow Alabama. But undercover journalism isn’t without peril, and he’s too green and too cocky to heed any kind of warning. He learns quickly he may be in over his head. His cover as a hopeful Klan member is almost discovered at a raid one night, and he narrowly escapes through the woods when a tiny ankle trips him up and a pale hand reaches from the shadows. He makes out a pair of phosphorescent blue eyes before she jerks him along and whispers, “Follow me.”

She’s a born and bred debutant, just like her mother and her mother before that. Her accent is all that remains of the red coats in this country, and her closet is as pretentious and delicate and as a lemon meringue pie. Her daddy is a tobacco farmer who’s last name has been attached like a parasite to most of their obedient small town for generations. He dabbles in small town politics with a foolish eye on the governor’s chair, is head deacon at the first baptist church, and stuffs his red hood and robe in back of the gun closet. Next fall, she’s got a seat waiting for her at Auburn University and her name already might as well be on the Phi Mu roster. But her mama has been quietly helping her squirrel away a Berkeley nest egg, and they’ve got plans for a law degree. This is one generation these women won’t see silenced.

She snaps at him to keep his head down, irritated already at his curiosity overriding the instinct to play it safe and save his hide. He chuckles inwardly at the contrast of girlish freckles and the ease at which she seems to boss around a complete stranger. Not to mention the extra syllable added to, “git day-own”. They wait until the last of the shouting has faded into the darkness before she stands and shakes the pine straw from her hair, picks at a few blackberry briars clinging to her socks. “I’ll take you as far as the edge of the woods this way,” she says. The sticky summer heat has baby fine tendrils loose from her pony tail, framing her face and the full moon backlighting them like a halo around St. Mary, “you can find your way back from there.” She takes off, tromping ahead and navigating the thick brush with ease, and it takes him a moment to catch up, stumbling as he goes. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” She stops and huffs, reluctantly considering any idea of conversation, and whispers, “Katherine” over her shoulder, “Kat,” and jerks slightly when his hand grazes her shoulder. He sticks out a hand, half expecting it to be bitten off. “Will… I’m Will…um, I-“ “Listen ‘Will’, whoever you are, I was expected home over an hour ago, and we don’t have time for small talk. If you’re at the diner come Sunday afternoon like you’ve been every week so far, we can talk then. Now watch your step, there’s a firebreak about 10 feet ahead. I can’t carry you out of here and the dogs’ll be back come morning.” He nods obediently, suddenly quite humbled by her charity, and keeps silent the rest of the way.

Nerves steal his appetite despite the savory smell of the plate in front of him. He’s jumped at every jangle of the bells on the diner door as the church crowd floods in. The glances have turned less hostile in the last three weeks, from suspicious whispers to wary nods, lately there’s even a few appreciative smiles, especially from the young waitress who seems to be wearing a bit more makeup than last week. At half past twelve Kat walks in, shouldered by three other girls in similar frothy confections. She makes pointed eye contact, and then easily disguises it by waving and grinning eagerly at the old man behind the counter. Her friends navigate toward a booth in the back. Kat shoulders up next to his seat, cramming her petticoat between stools, and places a milkshake order, the same pony tail now swishing to and fro in one silky-smooth manicured curl. Her face is jovial when she reaches out a hand in mock-introduction, her voice is dusky and gravely serious, “Listen. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here. But the man you saw in red Friday night was my daddy, and I intend for this nonsense to stop before the summer’s out. Whatever it is you’ve got planned, it’ll have to wait til August.” And he’s nodding, struck dumb. He should focus right now, she’s the key to it all. She’s a source. The Source. But she’s distractingly pretty. The Anne Margret poster on his dorm room wall had nothing on this tiny siren, a fist of fury now resting soft as a petal in his oafish palm. He finds himself momentarily lost in the memory of their first meeting, surprised at the way the hot, shiny flush in her cheeks had left an indelible impression. He feels suddenly as though he’s trespassing, embarrassed to have assumed he might be the only one bent on revolution here. It dawns on him that he hasn’t answered her, staring at their adjoined hands. He looks up,Intending to gather his wits. The ice in her voice has thawed a bit, “I think we could help each other, you and I. If we play it smart.”

She’s angry at the intrusion. She had a plan, damnit. Gather the proof, one anonymous letter to the paper, and she’d leave a path of destruction with no one the wiser. But there’s something about this boy, with his lack of propriety and devil may care grin. She looks forward to their meetings with shameful obsession. Those elegant hands. He’s bussed tables with those hands. He’s dried her tears and gallantly led her into rooms stuffed to the brim with their enemies with those hands. He’s working class and Irish catholic and the only thing more important to him now than the name he’s looking to make for himself might be her. One night, curled up on the front porch swing with a mint julip her mother snuck out by the back door, she imagines they give up the ghost and run away together. The merciful evening breeze cuts through the oppressive summer heat, flowing under her night gown like a secret. She imagines it’s those hands. There are times when she wants nothing more than to fling herself into his arms and beg him to take her away from all of this, to hell with revenge. And worse, she suspects he feels the same, with his peat moss eyes and earnest gaze. When he told her to be careful, his voice had trembled. She wants to kiss him and be kissed, to touch and be touched, give it all over in favor of a life with a kindred spirit. It would be so easy…. and then she remembers her mama— coolly using her fathers ego to blind him to her betrayal, the risks she’s taken to free her baby girl.She remembers her friend, Cecil, and what it felt like to have her innocence singed away at her first sight of a burning cross.

They have him and they know. And they will kill him. A bought-off sheriff will do no good. She’s the only one in this town who knows where to find them, and so she does. He’s beaten and bloody but alive, a noose around his neck and a truck ready to drag him to a traitor’s death across 500 wooded acres to the swamp. Never mind hiding a body, no one would be able to recognize him anyway. His eyes plead with her to run, but she’s finished hiding. She marches out into the clearing, fires her mama’s over-and-under once into the air, shoulder screaming in pain, and calls that red-hooded bastard by his first name. It ends tonight. To hell with it all.

#not quite back #I’m kind of back?#blame this on the heat wave rolling through here #it’s literally 80 at night #I’m slowly easing my way back in here #working through these prompts #myfic #I’ll prob pop in and reblog in the morning

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indulgnces · 5 years ago

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the list of wanted plots I promised in my intro! i wanted to post this before i started to hit people up for plots, so if you liked my intro I’m gonna hit you up soon, but if you also like this I’ll also hit you up all the same! it got long bc i can’t help myself so i put it under a cut. for her connections, i really want her to have like, people who care about her in general, but damn was it easy to come up with antagonist relationships instead oof

AUDREY ROSE | TWENTY-ONE | STUDENT | DESCENDANTS

mutual annoyance audrey is a polite, but stuck-up priss. she tries to be nice, but WOW is that hard to do around this muse. they could be a grump, they could low-class, they could be crass, they could be crude, they could be all or none of the above! whatever they are, they are very much Not audrey’s kind of people, just like audrey is very much Not their kind of people. and yet, they have found themselves crossing paths more times than they would like. every time they do, some form of bickering or snide remarks are made, whether they mean for it to happen or not.

frenemies because of course audrey has frenemies. a true friendship does exist between these two. they spend hours at each other’s places getting ready for dates or balls. they gossip about the latest trends, have bachelor/bachelorette viewing parties every week, host impromptu slumber parties when the other had a bad day. and yet, there always seems to be an air of competition between the two as well. fake smiles when one gets more attention than the other when they go out, strained congratulations when the other achieves an advantage, be it career or relationship. they can’t help it. they’re too similar, too used to being the best of the best that when put together, it’s only natural to try to one-up each other from time to time.

classmates audrey’s in her senior year at university in truman, majoring in hospitality management and minoring in art. because she’s audrey, she’s not the type to go through college entirely unnoticed. i imagine she’s still cheerleading in college, probably in a sorority, and definitely a part of a couple of different organizations. if there are any other muses also attending this unspecified truman university, i’d love to strike up some sort of connection!

bad influence i just really want to see audrey dye her hair that vivid pink again! girl’s got a bad side underneath her polite demeanor. she’s holds herself to a higher status, and while life is Good in truman, the chaos that was her emotional state pre-truman still lies underneath all the pretense. she often feels like she’s on the verge of snapping and she doesn’t know why, doesn’t know how to handle it or make it go away. she just knows she doesn’t like how she feels on those days, when the anxiety runs high, and she tends to find herself coming to this muse for help. often found at the bottom of a bottle or on a clubbing adventure, though the real itch is scratched when they find themselves doing more daring pursuits, like a motorcycle ride through the city, or light (light!!!) criminal activity like trespassing or recreational drug use. she likes to hold herself to a moral high ground, so this is a side of herself she does like to admit exists, but it does - she doesn’t know why it does, all she knows is engaging in bad or reckless behavior seems to do the trick in curing her tension, and this muse is the one shes goes to when she needs to engage.

ride or die please, please, i’m begging for this. audrey needs someone who is THERE FOR HER. her a1, her other half, someone who is there for audrey come hell or high water. she had no one like this in her past life even though she desperately wanted/needed that, so having someone like that for her in truman would just be the one thing this girl needed to fully turn her back on all her past memories. why be stubborn and try to cling to a life of loneliness when in this reality, she has this muse, and knows she’ll never be lonely again? an actor is probably the most likely person to fill this role (oof and wouldn’t that hurt to find out later on that the thing she needs most is fake af and was just inserted in her life for entertainment purposes), although non-actors can take this role as well

unlikely friends in no universe but the truman universe does this friendship work because it makes no sense. these two are seemingly not compatible. they have different backstories, different personalities, different goals in life. but they say opposites attract for a reason, and that seems to be the case with them. they could have started off as a mutual annoyance that blossomed into a true friendship. or they could have instantly bonded, the circumstances right for these two to find each other, and maybe see a little bit of each other inside the other. whatever the case, these two seem to work, and they’re not gonna question why anytime soon.

exes who ended on good terms, who ended on bad terms, who still have lingering feelings, whatever! could be real exes made in the last seven years, could be fake exes they think as real (high school sweetheart ben who? first kiss chad what? first girl crushes mal/uma hmm? non existent! they happened with these muses instead).

and then there was sex aka the title for all connections where sex is involved. i’m talking flings, i’m talking one-night-stands, i’m talking friends with benefits, i’m talking fuck buddies. audrey Does Not do causal sex, thank you very much. she is a woman of high class, a believer of true love and romance and happily ever afters. casual sex does not fall into that romance spectrum for her. at least, she says it doesn’t. and then comes these muses. her secret flings, her desperate one night stands, her itch-scratching fuck buddies. ask anyone in audrey’s life, and they’d scoff at the idea of this prude trying to get her rocks off just as audrey scoffs at the idea of getting laid for the sake of getting laid. but these muses know the truth. on more than occasion, audrey has found casual sex as the temporary remedy to her problems. there’s a deep sense of loneliness inside her that she can’t seem to shake, and on the nights when that loneliness threatens to eat her alive, she resorts to sex to fill the void. enter these muses, the useful but probably ultimately discarded bed warmers.

friends all for muses audrey has formed friendships with. people audrey actually cares about who cares about her as well. maybe they’re not best friends, but they enjoy being around each other when they are together. they know that when she’s being bossy, she’s just trying to be helpful. they can clap back at her when she’s getting mean, or can easily get her to sidestep off her pedestal for a minute to come back to the real world for a few. they ground her in ways she desperately needs, while offering her companionship and appreciation all the same.

and that’s all i have the inspiration to write blurbs for! some others that I really like though are

owners of the same pets: audrey’s an animal lover!! particularly with birds and cats, tho small dogs can capture her heart as well. idk how this can even happen, but i like the idea of it so gimme

unrequited: im a hoe for pain and angst, and unrequited love/crushes always just do something to me!! i want it for her (but also don’t bc bb doesn’t need the pain)

crushes: could be unrequited, could be one-sided, could be mutual, idfk: i just want some cute pining in my girl’s life

enemies: i put mutual annoyance up there bc that’s the most common antagonistic relationship audrey will probs have tbh, but wow am i down for all kinds of enemies!! rivals, lovers turned enemies, friends turned enemies, saying rivals again bc audrey’s the type to have rivals she’d be jealous over (*cough* MAL *cough*) - any enemies, i’m down for!

#truman:plot #♦ audrey rose — wanted.

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clarketomylexa · 6 years ago

Text

That’s What Best Friends Do

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Clarke is taken back. Her and Octavia have been exchanging cheesy ‘I love yous’ since the second grade and there isn’t any real reason for it other than ‘that’s just what friends do’. She shrugs and purses her lips. “I don’t know,” she says plainly, and amends the words Octavia tells her, “that’s just what best friends do.”

read on ao3

They meet in the first grade.

Lexa is sweet and Clarke thinks she is cool in her own quirky way.

She moves in on a Sunday and she stands on the other side of the picket fence as they talk, in a green sweatshirt with tiny, little pugs on it and one leg of her denim overalls rolled an inch higher than the other, rainbow piñata socks on show underneath scuffed up sneakers. Her hair is braided into a crown around her head—a style that Clarke files away among what Octavia likes to call a ‘fishtail braid’ and how to tie her shoelaces for later—and she has a scar above her top lip that Clarke imagines she got doing something exotic.

She’s so much cooler than the kids in her grade that Clarke almost wants to yell out how unfair it is that she won’t be going to her school in the Spring.

“But Oakside is so far away,” she laments, hands fidgeting with the Barbie doll tucked beneath her arm. Most of the kids her age in their cul-de-sac go to Ridgeview. Privately Clarke thinks Octavia is the only one worth talking to though, because she has it on good authority that Miller picks his nose and Bellamy just tries too hard.

She isn’t allowed to tell people that though so she watches Lexa shrug.

“My cousin goes there.”

Abby calls her from the porch a moment later and Clarke is forced to say goodbye to her new friend to wash up for sinner. She thrusts the topless Barbie over the fence in a form of peace offering—Lexa’s eyes bulge out of her head and Clarke wonders if she’s never seen a Barbie before so she makes a mental note to invite Lexa over to play with them—and tells Lexa with the utmost importance that she will talk to her tomorrow.

“I made a new friend today,” she tells Abby and Jake from her stool by the kitchen sink as she methodically washes her hands like the chart tacked to the wall tells her to. Jake says she’s a ‘sociable child’ which Clarke thinks is adult speak for ‘will talk to anything that moves’ because once she made friends with a duck in the park that had one leg and an eye that didn’t open. But if being ‘sociable’ means she can talk to Lexa again Clarke will accept the title gladly.

When she closes her eyes she can see Lexa’s pretty braid and the way her eyes aren’t quite one colour but not two either. Like what would happen in art class when Clarke mixed turquoise and forest green together on her plastic pallet because she was using what Miss Henry called ‘artistic license’. Maybe God or whatever Bellamy’s new theory on who created the universe used their ‘artistic license’ when they were making Lexa too.

It makes an awful lot of sense when she thinks about it.

“Clarke you’re wasting water,” Abby reminds her, ferrying pasta bake and green salad from the island to the table and Clarke dries her hands obediently and tucks her stool into the scullery to claim her chair.

“Her name is Lexa,” she continues. “She has piñatas on her socks. She lives next door.”

“The Shepard house sold?” Jake asks.

Abby nods. “I met the new owners at the open house last month. She’s a lawyer,” she looks at Jake in the way Clarke has noticed her parents do when they are talking about ‘parent things’. “I don’t think he’s in the picture anymore.”

“What picture?” Clarke pipes up, distracted as she uses the spoon to scrape the cheesy, bread crumb topping from the side of the dish. She likes drawing. Her favourite is when they finish their worksheets quickly on Friday afternoons and her teacher tells them to bring a piece of paper and a book to lean on, and takes them to the playground to draw the plants and the bugs. The boys in her class spend the time throwing sticks at each other but Clarke always finds a corner to tuck herself into and a lady bug to examine.

She likes the colours.

“Your Mom means that Lexa’s Dad doesn’t live with her anymore,” Jake explains. He takes the spoon from Clarke and scoops the stuck piece of pasta bake onto her plate before topping it up with salad and ignoring the way she frowns at the limp lettuce leaves.

Thinking on it, Clarke nods without ceremony. “If Lexa’s Mom’s a lawyer,” she posits, “can she arrest Nate for stealing my gel pens?”

Nate sits across from her in art class and has a habit of stealing her stationary when he thinks she isn’t looking because he likes colouring his notebooks with sparkles. It’s annoying because she refuses to tell on him and Abby says she doesn’t want to buy her more if they are going to continue to go missing so she has to resort to using Octavia’s ones without the good smelling scents.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, honey,” Abby laughs.

“That’s prob’ly for the best,” Clarke smacks her lips in thought, “he sticks them up his nose.”

Clarke invites Lexa over two days later to play with her Barbies and Lexa sits on her lawn in a bright pink long-sleeve with patches shaped like fried eggs on the elbows and socks that have milk and cookies on them.

When she jokes that Lexa is wearing her breakfast, Lexa smiles so wide Clarke thinks the world will split in two.

She invites Lexa to the lake three months later.

It’s a five hour drive to the house that has been in Jake’s family since he was Clarke’s age but it’s one that they take every twenty-second of June when Abby has cover at the surgery. The house is big and old, with a deck and a new paint job and big windows that overlook the lake. If you squint on a clear day, you can see the proud, white facades of the houses on the other side with their boat sheds, trellises and peaked roofs.

A jetty sits in the water and a tree clings to the bank with a tire-swing Jake had fastened to the middle-most branch—against Abby’s better judgement but she never can stop her husband when he has one of his ideas—so that when you stand as far as you can up the bank and let go you can fly out far enough not to touch the bottom of the lake. It’s Clarke’s favourite thing since she learnt how to do a handstand on the side of the garage.

Not that Clarke has to sell it really, because after three months of Barbie Dream house in the front yard Lexa is nodding as soon as she mentions it would mean spending the summer with her. She explains diligently that there is a double bed in the room Clarke usually stays in—because Abby said that sometimes people don’t like sleeping in the same bed as other people—but that they can sleep in the bunk room instead, or Jake can pull the trundle bed out.

Lexa just nods.

She is fairly sure that is she asked Lexa to jump off a cliff, she would walk straight off it, piñata socks and all but then Clarke would miss her too much.

She stands on the Griffin’s porch on the morning of the twenty-second, in cactus socks and second-hand short-alls—the pants cut down to her size—with funky patches sewn into the bib, thumbs working their way under the straps of her backpack as her mom thanks Abby profusely.

She’s a pretty lady, with Lexa’s smile and round glasses who looks both flustered and relieved as she sweeps a hand over her daughter’s forehead and admits in a way Clarke knows she is supposed to pretend not to listen to that Lexa is having trouble making friends. Which Clarke thinks is ridiculous because Lexa is sweet and funny. She wears her hair like a crown and has been rolling the legs of her pants up at different lengths for three months because Clarke said she thought it was cool.

Clarke’s chest aches when Lexa won’t look up from the tips of her shoes and she thinks that Lexa’s mom mustn’t know what she’s talking about.

Clarke has been doing multiplication in math.

She knows that two and two is four, and three and three is six.

And if that’s true then she thinks Lexa and summer must equal something like ‘better than good’—but not ‘bestest’ because Lexa says ‘best’ is already a superlative.

Clarke doesn’t know what a superlative is, but Lexa can define words like ‘diversification’ so she thinks Lexa must be right.

They swim until water rattles in their ears and Jake teaches them to fish off the jetty after they stand on stools to help him pull the rods down from a shelf in the boat house, carefully showing them how to thread the bait onto the hook and cast the line into the water. When Lexa can’t get her hands around the line, face contorting unhappily, Jake heaves her onto his lap and repeats the process patiently until her frumpy frown straightens out.

They go out on the boat on hot days; Jake makes the boat corkscrew so that the water froths out in a V behind them, and when Clarke begs, he flings them writhing and giggling into the water by the strap of their life-jackets and fishes them out again while Abby rolls her eyes.

It’s in the quiet moments though, when the lie on the grass in damp swim suits and sunscreen-sticky skin, that Clarke discovers two very important things.

The first: Lexa does this thing when she is happy where she scrunches her eyes and throws her head back to laugh and it’s so ‘positively lovely’—which is another thing that Lexa says a lot—that Clarke makes it her mission to make her happy every day of her life.

The second: every time Lexa is happy, it makes Clarke feel ten feet tall. It’s a feeling that starts in her toes, ticking the soles of her feet and shooting like growing pains up her legs until her stomach is hot and her cheeks are pink and she feels stronger than before. She is pretty sure that if she were to climb the tallest tree on the bank and let go, she would fly and not fall.

She thinks about it as she sits, chin sticky with lemonade popsicle on the jetty.

Lexa lays sprawled on her back, legs akimbo and arms stretched out into the sky. Her fingers are splayed and her whole face is contorted so that she can squint up at the sky and trap the sun in the circle of her fingers. She has freckles peeking out shyly from the bridge of her nose and when she notices Clarke staring, she drops her hand and smiles. It’s lopsided—like her pant legs and her socks—but it’s whole in a way that makes Clarke’s stomach flip-flop.

“Want to see something cool?” she pokes Lexa in the soft of her ribs with her pointer finger.

Lexa nods, pushing herself up onto her elbows, intrigued, “uh huh.”

She folds her legs and cocks her head. Clarke makes sure she is watching before she picks her way up the jetty, where the grassy verge tangles with the roots and rocks.

The tire swing is tucked over a low branch—at her mom’s request because technically Clarke isn’t supposed to use it without ‘adult supervision’ but Lexa talks like an adult sometimes with her ‘therefore’ and ‘henceforth’, so she thinks it will be okay—and stands on a rock that juts out into the water with one leg, reaching out with the other until she can feel the tire under her fingers. Grinning, she pulls it into her hands and hooks a leg over the rope, taking three steps back and launching herself off the bank.

She lets go when the tire is just about to swing back like Jake taught her and surfaces just out of the shallows, hair in her eyes and heart thumping against the cage of her chest. When her ears unclog, Lexa is whooping and the jetty bends and gives beneath her uncoordinated victory dance.

“I can go higher,” Clarke garbles, mouth full of water.

Lexa’s whole face shoots upwards in disbelief. “Cannot,” she says.

“Can to,” Clarke insists, arms flailing as she doggy-paddles inelegantly to the shore.

Their life jackets are hooked over the railing of the deck and it crosses Clarke’s mind that maybe she should go and get hers, but if she does Abby will see her through the kitchen window and she gave them instructions not to go in the water when she went in to put lunch together.

She fishes the tire swing towards her and steps back as far as the rope will go this time, rooting her toes firmly in the soggy grass. Lexa is staring at her in wide-eyed apprehension but Clarke sets her brow until it furrows above her eyes and her stomach whooshes out from under her as she kicks off the bank, mud stuck between her toes.

It dawns on her when the air is whining in her ears that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

Her foot catches and before she understand what is happening she is careening back towards the bank, heart stuck in her mouth.

Lexa lets out a sharp yelp, as Clarke’s hand slips. She lands face down in the dirt, the air punched out of her chest, still for a moment until pain blooms across her right cheek and a cry escapes her mouth before she can recognise it as hers. She hears a shout when her ears stop ringing, and rolls with a hard gasp onto her back as Lexa’s head and shoulders swim into her vision, awful worry crunching her face. She pets Clarke’s hair as Clarke blinks up at the sky, voice trembling as she coos ‘it’s okay, Clarke’ and ‘I’m here, Clarke’ in a high, thin voice that Clarke can’t help but think is less soothing and more unsettling, until the thick goo that seems to be sitting on her lungs seeps away and she can breathe.

But then her mom appears—all grumpy line in the place of her mouth—wiping her hands on her pants as she squats on the grass and Clarke thinks she is going to puke all over again.

“Mom,” she squeaks, whining as the right side of her face throbs hotly.

Abby takes one look at her—wet swimsuit and lank hair, blood pooling beneath her eye and Lexa’s hand squeezed tightly in a balled fist—and tsks, tucking a hand under her to sit her up and Clarke sways before falling into her chest, whining ‘it hurts’ into the soft neckline of her shirt.

The first-aid kit is found and Abby asserts that it won’t need stitches.

She gets a talking to about not doing what she’s told—which Lexa stands through too, fingers wound through Clarke’s in a way that makes it hard to focus on why ‘insubordination’ is a bad thing—and she wears a hulk band-aid on the bony jut of her cheek for a week.

Lexa traces it with a feather-light finger as the lie, side-by-side in the double bed beneath the lazy turn of the ceiling fan in the room that has been Clarke’s since she was three years old. She wears llama pyjamas and is unapologetic about not wanting to sleep on the trundle bed Jake offers to make up for her, instead, pressing herself into Clarke to feel for the bump of the scab forming under the band-aid with a frown in the way that makes warmth curl under Clarke’s ribs.

“I did it on purpose,” Clarke says, eager for anything to get rid of the crunch between Lexa’s eyebrows. She wants to reach out and touch it but her hands shake so she doesn’t.

Lexa blinks slowly, “nuh uh,” she says without heat.

“Did to,” Clarke fists her hand under her chin and nudges Lexa’s nose with her own. She smells like bubble-gum toothpaste and the Griffin’s shower-gel and the wonderful notion that Lexa is hers wafts in her mind until she can’t help but smile. “Now I match you.”

Lexa reaches up to touch the shallow half-circle above her top lip like she’s forgotten about it, fingers tapping her teeth for a minute before she shakes her head. “Yours is cooler,” she says definitively, “I got mine falling off my bike,” she explains, “you got yours flying.”

Lexa smiles her world-splitting smile and Clarke thinks that while swimming and the fireworks Jake sets off for the Fourth of July are all well and good, bedtime might be better. It’s a secret she will take to the grave along with how she only pretends not to like broccoli but the stripy wallpaper and floral sheets of the room feel impenetrable and Clarke builds them a fortress out of cotton sheets and shadows cast from soft lamp-light; a place where Lexa is hers.

She wraps her fist around the top of the sheet and pull sit over their heads until they are breathing the same hot air.

“You’re my best friend,” she says wondering why her throat gets hot and tight as she does so. The words have been sitting on her chest since the day they met—a secret locked tight like the acorns she keeps in the sticker decorated box beneath her bed that is so true she feels it in her bones every time Lexa talks.

Lexa’s eyes go big. For a horrible second, Clarke thinks that it was the wrong thing to say and her stomach flip-flops but not in the way she has come accustomed to it doing when she is around Lexa—this flip-flop feels like the warning kind that comes before Clarke has to go in search for her mom in the middle of the night because she ate too much ice-cream in one go and it winds itself into a knot so tight the only way out is up. But then, Lexa mumbles ‘best friend’ under her breath like she wants to taste it and nods, smiling so warmly Clarke wants to wrap herself up in it like a blanket and never crawl out.

“I’ve never had a best friend,” she admits, cowering behind the words like they will change Clarke’s mind. When Clarke doesn’t reply, she peers at her intently and Clarke recognises the look that she gets when she is helping Clarke with her addition and subtraction worksheets. “Is it different from just being a friend?”

Clarke thinks about it for a moment.

“Yes,” she eventually lands on, “and no.” Lexa nods. “It just means more,” Clarke whispers, “it just makes it more special.”

“Okay, then,” Lexa decides. “You’re my best friend too.”

Lexa is soft when she sleeps. With her admission she goes limp like pasta when you put it in the pot and Clarke manoeuvres her happily, all gangly limbs and knobbly joints, until she can tangle them together like a puzzle—the kind that isn’t meant to unravel—and when Abby comes to check on them, if it weren’t for the different colours of their pyjamas, she wouldn’t know where one started and the other ended.

They talk during the year but it isn’t the same.

Lexa gives Clarke a pair of socks for her birthday with tiny little sloths embroidered into them—Clarke knows they cost her whole allowance and for that it means the world. She presents them with as much importance as when she knighted Clarke in the woods behind the lake house with an old plank of timber they found in the shed and she hangs over the fence every day after school with her lopsided smile and embroidered overalls, telling Clarke about the books she reads and her nine-year-old cousins shenanigans until her mom calls her in.

Sometimes, when Lexa’s mom is working she stays at Clarke’s on Saturday nights and on those days, Clarke can almost pretend it’s summer. They stand on stools in the kitchen side-by-side as Jake stirs the pasta sauce and lie in Clarke’s twin bed at night, watching the glow-in-the-dark stars. But Lexa is all angles unfortunately—she looks forlorn whenever someone mentions it to her, but Abby insists that she will grow into her lankiness—and while in summer it provides places for Clarke to tuck herself into comfortably, during the year, the positions she has to contort them into to make them fit clench at her chest.

She presses sloppy kisses to Lexa’s forehead to tries and convince herself otherwise, but Clarke comes to the conclusion that Lexa isn’t hers during the year when Lexa regretfully turns down an invitation to go bowling when Jake offers to take her, Octavia and Bellamy one Friday night.

She stares at her toes when she tells Clarke that her mom said no and she looks so much like the snail that Clarke found on the back path without its shell one morning that she pester her for more information.

Two weeks later, Clarke has to say no to backyard pizza with Lexa and her mom because of Octavia’s seventh birthday party—a slumber party that ends at eight when they all inevitably fall from their sugar highs that Lexa isn’t invited to despite Clarke’s best efforts.

Octavia doesn’t like Lexa. She says she’s ‘too colourful’ with her stripy shirts and rainbow patches even after Clarke explains her theory about ‘artistic license’ and Clarke thinks it’s a horrible reason not to like someone. When she asks her mom Abby tells her that Octavia is probably feeling left out and Clarke thinks that maybe, she isn’t Lexa’s during the year either.

The thought is so distressing, she lies awake with it at night, raggedy Ann doll squeezed under her armpit as she stares at the spot where the wall meets the ceiling. She twists her finger over the woollen curls.

Summer is four months away but suddenly, it becomes the center of her universe.

Clarke is nine years old and Abby has set them loose to play in the thatch of trees beside the house.

They pick through the leaves in shorts and t-shirts while their bathing suits dry over the railing and play catch with the neighbour kids until they are flush faced and breathless. Lexa wears popcorn socks beneath her sneakers and Clarke slips a hand, fingers splayed, over her mouth to mask the sound of her heavy breathing as they crouch in a heavy crush of limbs behind a tree. They are pressed so close together Clarke can feel the rapid pat-pat of her heart and when the Monty and Jasper run past in a flurry of kicked-up leaves and pine needles, Lexa licks a wet stripe across Clarke’s cupped palm with a fierce brand of mischief in her eyes until Clarke squeals away.

They spend the rest of the afternoon as the taggers but Clarke can’t find it in herself to complain.

The next day tag becomes boring and they think of a new game.

Clarke remembers the story book that she packed in preparation for the lazy hours her and Lexa were sure to spend lounging on the grass—a thick tome her grandmother gifted her for Christmas completed with the words ‘For Clarke’ scrawled inside the front cover in her thin, looped writing that Clarke equated to the threads of the spiderwebs that hung from the beams in the shed. It contains everything from fairy tales to folklore.

She lays it on the picnic table and points to the characters illustrated in battle garb, assigning one to each of them.

Clarke is the sky princess, thrust from her cloud-top home—Olympus, Lexa corrects her quietly, pointing to the illustration of a tall, columned building gleaming atop the point of a high mountain. Her inspiration comes from a short story about a boy named Hercules that Clarke knows nothing about except for the fact that she dimly remembers watching a Disney movie about a boy who was half-god and half-human and had an angry goat instead of parents. She drapes a strip of gauzy fabric over her shoulders rummaged from the depths of the house, a dress-up left over from her aunts’ childhood summers, and threads flowers through her hair, feeling suitably wispy and ‘effervescent’, which Lexa tells her means ‘like air’.

Lexa is the warrior queen whose territory Clarke falls unwittingly into. Clarke thinks it suits her—she peers at the illustration of the woman with braids and leather armour, riding a horse with a sword in her hand and battle-paint on her skin and the slight downward turn in the corner of her lips is so similar to the way Lexa’s face contorts sometimes and she congratulates herself for putting two and two together. Ignoring the short yelps when she mistakenly tugs a stray curl, she clumsily threads Lexa’s hair into a braid the way Octavia taught her at recess. The outcome is less than good. Lexa bears more resemblance to the mangy cat that stalks the neighbourhood begging from scraps than a warrior-queen but she smudges wads of dirt over her eyes to fix it ignoring the way everything inside her goes warm and melty when she smiles—like the s’mores the make in the fire-pit at night in when Lexa is in pyjamas that smell like the Griffin’s detergent and socked feet.

Jasper and Monty grow restless, encroaching on the bubble Clarke has built for them with bored whines and Clarke thinks it’s lucky that Santa Claus never gave her a baby brother for Christmas two years ago because she got Lexa instead and Lexa smells much better than a boy. She assigns them characters anyway; the palace guards, and they search the ground for suitable ‘spears’ wielding gnarled sticks with as much menace as nine-year-olds can.

She kneels before Lexa’s throne—a fork in the twisted branches of a tree—with a circlet made from daisy chains in her hair, head bowed and launching into a wistful monologue of her harrowing journey to the ground, complete with fierce dragons, and a sea-witch who tried to barter unsuccessfully for her voice, while Monty and Jasper level their sticks at her in mock-fighting stances.

Back straight, Lexa blinks at her behind her crude war paint and Clarke thinks time stops.

Later—after they are called into lunch by Abby—they lie, sprawled out in the grass in the sticky heat of the day. Lexa has her bathing suit on beneath her shortalls instead of a t-shirt and her hair has dried in soft corkscrew curls around her hairline so that if she wasn’t peering so intently down at the book she has spread out before her, Clarke would reach out and wind one around her finger.

Instead, she feels like her body is humming with energy she doesn’t know what to do with.

Jake always likes to explain his work to her, he sits her on his lap and draws out maps of electrical circuits, explaining the mechanics of them and Clarke feels oddly similar to an overloaded circuit right now. Like she is plugged in to too many things and it’s making her unable to sit still.

Fingers splayed on the grass, she kicks up into a handstand, grinning at how Lexa looks upside down and the way she mouths the words she’s reading like it will help her remember them better. When she stands back up, the blood rushes back to her head and she peers over Lexa’s shoulder.

“What does ‘fealty’ mean?”

The word sits on the top line of the page in neat, Times New Roman font and it tastes so elegant rolling over Clarke’s tongue she can’t help but ask.

Lexa cranes her neck to look up at her, squinting one eye against the glare of the sun. A swathe of sunburn tints her cheeks red. “It’s like a promise,” she poses like a question, grappling for the right explanation, “or a vow.” Clarke cocks her head. “It’s like when you make a promise to someone,” she tries again, pushing herself up onto her knees so that from her angle, Clarke blocks the sun, “like, ‘I’ll love you ‘till the end of time’.”

Clarke has to rally herself against the sudden burst of dizziness that hits her in the chest with the force of the tee-ball bat in gym class. Lexa kneels in front of her, freckled-nose and braided hair, and if Clarke thought time had stopped before, now it ceases to exist entirely. The world has become just them; this sticky-sweet moment that has wound itself so eagerly around her chest.

Fourth grade science class has brought rudimentary explanations of the universe—how everything they touch is made up of things called ‘atoms’ and how when she looks up at the sky, she has to imagine the biggest thing she can possibly comprehend and then quadruple it and it won’t be nearly a one billionth of what is really out there. To Clarke it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense, the vastness of it all makes her head spin but the one thing she does understand is how the earth rotates around the sun because it’s similar to the way she thinks she rotates around Lexa.

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Lexa doesn’t come with them in the summer between sixth and seventh grade.

With help from a contact at work her mom gets her to the top of the waiting list for a sleep away camp in the Maine and Lexa pulls up the website on the Griffin’s computer in the kitchen on Saturday night, scrolling through page after page of girls in tennis whites and soffe shorts, playing field hockey and toasting marshmallows around a campfire.

“I don’t really want to go,” Lexa says quietly, nose wrinkling at Clarke’s silence. Behind them Jake dices vegetables for tacos and a bespectacled Abby checks through Clarke’s book report for spelling eras but the comforting familiarity does nothing to stop Clarke souring at the blindside. “My mom thinks it will be good for me.”

Clarke is getting tired of what Lexa’s mom thinks will be good for her.

The woman is sweet and kind. She has heard her parents talking about how she ‘does her best’ for Lexa which she knows is what adults say when they are commiserating the hardships of single-parenthood but in her worst moments Clarke wants to shake the woman until she understands that Lexa’s quirks don’t make her ‘unique’ in the way that people talk about people who are different, they make her special.

So what if Lexa likes books better than people? Clarke likes girls better than boys and nobody is up in arms about it.

Sometimes it feels like Lexa’s mom aches for her to fit in more than Lexa does.

She can’t stop Lexa from going though, and the morning before they would usually leave for the lake sees her standing on Lexa’s front porch instead, with a horribly permanent pout on her mouth that she can’t shake. Lexa stands before her in sneakers, navy shorts and a tee with her camps logo printed on the front in bold white letters, her hair in two, tight braids and she looks so startlingly un Lexa-like stripped of her embroidered socks and circle of braids that when Clarke winds her arms around her neck in a dramatic goodbye, she finds herself mouthing a silent prayer to whomever is watching to put her best-friend back together again.

Hooking her chin over Lexa’s shoulder Clarke makes her promise to write weekly, hating the tears that seem to be squeezing their way out from beneath her eye-lids, and Lexa swears a solemn vow to do so, nose tucked into the crook of Clarke’s neck.

When it’s time to let go Clarke reluctantly untangles herself and retreats back to her own front yard, pressing herself against the white fence and waving vigorously as Lexa’s mom loads her and her trunk into the car and the Sedan inches its way out of the driveway.

“You’ll see her in August,” Abby reminds her, arms tucked over her daughter’s shoulders, “we can buy some stamps and you can write to her whenever you like.”

Clarke nods dumbly, trying not to let the whole affair feel like an awful betrayal.

When they make it to the lake two days later after a near silent five hour drive, it rains for the first time in as long as Clarke can remember.

In lieu of her best-friend, Abby has extended the invitation to her sister-in-law and her kids and Clarke stares at her cousins—five-year-old twins and a nineteen-year-old who is more interested in her boyfriend who insists on calling Clarke ‘squirt’ at age twelve-and-a-half than she is in Clarke—wondering how she is supposed to bestow the honour of her summers on people who are so clearly unqualified.

She wallows in the absurdity of it all as she is relegated to the bunk-room, watching with her stomach churning and a hot, angry thing she doesn’t care to understand clawing at her ribs as her Eden is invaded by her cousin and her Air Jordan wearing boyfriend with his stupid, unbrushed mop of hair. And even though Clarke is relatively sure a five story drop onto concrete wouldn’t do any damage to the twins—they’re dim-witted at the best of times and they paw at the t shirt Lexa bought her for her birthday like it’s something they are allowed to touch—her aunt decides it’s best if Clarke takes the top bunk, despite the fact that puberty is beginning to bring her her promised growth spurt and folding herself into the top bunk is a feat worthy of a contortionist.

The bout of water-logged days mean the boat stays in the shed and the twins grow restless in the sticky-wet heat. Clarke takes it upon herself to commandeer the role of ‘moody teenager’ two years too early and sprawls out on the wooden floors near the closed glass doors and punches the buttons of her Nintendo DS until Mario stops obeying her commands as the rain beats at the window panes. She thinks it’s pathetic fallacy, or whatever her English teacher had said when she explained the way authors use the ‘external environment’ to show a characters ‘internal emotions’, because if she could peel back a layer of herself and peer into her soul, she is sure the unhappy, slate-grey of the lake is what it would look like.

She hopes it isn’t raining on Lexa too.

They cut their trip short and Clarke is sitting with her chin in her hands when Lexa returns.

Her ponytail sticks to the nape of her neck where it is secured with an elastic, remaining stubbornly in her t-shirt and shorts even though Aurora invited them around for pizza and too cool off in the Blake’s pool—even the promise of seeing their newly acquired black Labrador puppy wasn’t enough of a bribe to get her to give up her post.

Her and Lexa have been exchanging letters once a week without fail over the eight weeks of Lexa’s session, detailing each other in on the smallest things. So much so that Clarke thinks she is the one who has been rotating through six activities a day and sounded off to sleep by Taps at precisely nine-twenty but it hasn’t been nearly enough. It’s stupid, but she needs to see Lexa again with her own eyes, as if to make sure she hasn’t disappeared into thin-air like a product of her imagination.

“Clarke!”

When she looks up, Lexa is standing three feet away from her, tanned and slightly breathless. Her mom’s Sedan is still inching its way into the drive, which means Lexa took a flying jump from the passenger door while the car was still in gear to find her. She’s wearing tiny, navy running shorts and her camp tee—slightly faded from almost daily washing and eight-weeks’ worth of sun—hangs off her teenage frame, knotted at her hip so that the hem rides up to reveal a long triangle of skin that makes a hot, aching thing build in the pit of Clarke’s stomach. Instead of deciphering it, she propels herself from her crouch on the porch to fling her arms around her best-friend’s neck, instantly recognising the way Lexa seems imperceptibly broader and stronger in her arms. Her shoulder blades flex beneath the press of Clarke’s hands as she draws her desperately closer and when Clarke prods a finger at the offending strip of skin at her waistband—teasing her mercilessly about her bare midriff—gone is the softness Clarke usually finds there when she curls into her in their shared bed at night.

Instead she is long limbs and lean muscle, her cheeks are dusted with sunburn and her hair is lighter, but the worst? Her freckles are on show and this time it isn’t Clarke who has put them there, but a girl by the name of Costia who’s neatly printed name is in the center of those scrawled on the back of Lexa’s shirt in permanent marker.

They lie on the mesh of Clarke’s trampoline after Lexa has hauled her trunk up to her room—her mom gave her four hours before she had to return next door and sort out her laundry—with cans of diet coke sweating in their palms as Clarke recounts the story of walking in on her cousin and her boyfriend being more intimate than strictly necessary on a family-friendly vacation.

“I almost barfed,” she giggles heartily, “I wanted to end it all right there but my mom talked me down from the ledge.”

“Oh, the dramatics,” Lexa sighs, grinning. She takes a sip then looks at Clarke seriously. “Was it really that bad without me?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Clarke says softly. It wasn’t bad so much as it was empty, completely void of all of the things that made summer summer and Clarke has been left with the odd feeling that she is returning to school having not had a holiday at all.

Lexa screws her nose up and nods, “if it makes you feel better camp sucked too.”

“No it didn’t,” Clarke laughs, curling onto her side, “but thank you for making me feel better.”

Lexa piques a brow. “Are you call me a liar?” she accuses, feigning a hurt look. When Clarke shrugs, she flings a leg over her hips and pins her to the taut mesh of the trampoline with her arms by her ears and Clarke tries not to gasp at the electric shocks that skitter across her skin when they touch. Instead, she collapses into laughter, tipping her head to the side as Lexa knees her beneath the ribs, demanding ‘take it back, take it back’ in a low, teasing voice.

“Fine!” Clarke gaps, writhing against the assault, “fine!” She paws at the smooth length of Lexa’s thighs where they sit nestled against her waist. “I believe you.”

Clarke has a hard time pinpointing exactly what happens next.

Somehow she raises her head and simultaneously, Lexa goes to lower hers. The result is a cacophonous collision of foreheads and noses; Clarke opens her mouth to whine in pain and finds a mouthful of Lexa’s bottom lip instead, eyes bulging as her pulse skyrockets to a speed she thinks surely signals a cardiac arrest.

Lexa makes a noise that resembles something close to an ‘oof’ then her fingers come to Clarke’s cheek in concern. “I’m sorry,” she smiles ruefully—it’s the same lopsided, word splitting smile she has always had and it does something to quell the stagnant uneasiness that has taken root in Clarke’s spine, if not the smouldering build up of who knows what in the pit of her stomach—and runs her thumb in a practiced motion over the short, white scar beneath Clarke’s eye.

“It’s okay,” Clarke whispers. She fiddles with the edge of the tie-dyed bandana that is wrapped and knotted around Lexa’s wrist, trying not to focus on the impending sense of doom she feels as her body betrays her.

#clexaweek2019 #day 3 #only one bed #clexa fic #childhood friends #clarke griffin #lexa

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