#it just annoys me when I get a book and emblazoned across the cover is reviews from all the newspapers that could fit about how it's

[regicidal-defenestration]

Most annoying advertising trend is "the new [existing media]!!!" because maybe 7 times out of 10 it's doing a disservice to both the new and old thing

[thedarling]

Aperol.

12:15 p.m. Text from my mother, "I just looked at your Tumblr. There's so much personal stuff on there."

... It's... a blog.

12:16 p.m. Whipping out my Word processor to shoot some fic drabble to a friend for our anon piece. The insanity continues/here we go again.

1:05 p.m. Wow, that very easily just wrote itself. Must be because I'm so well-versed in relationship hell/toxicity now that I've familiarized myself to Colleen Hoover's work. Despite how much I dislike the persistent 'Twilight' to '50 Shades...' to '...Ends With Us' media that many, many people seem to crave, this all gives me hope that I'm not a terrible writer. Because, kindly, that stuff sucks. Glamourizing red flags - I HATE it. But he has money! He just said he only wants to fuck her like twenty times. He's charming! He just told her he knocked on 20+ doors at her high-rise until he found her exact apartment. He's a neurosurgeon and he's so accomplished! He's fucking weird. I've been regaling people with my synopsis for the past few days, meanwhile, I continue to choke down this EXTREMELY waitlisted audiobook from the library. Somehow I managed to grab the print copy and I'm terrified my eyes will erupt. My apologies if you enjoy this stuff because, as someone who has endured SA and stalking behavior, this shit fucking sucks. I'm hoping that when I get to the end of this dumb thing it'll provide readers with some resources like 'how to renew your no-contact order' and 'how to leave an abusive relationship' or, better yet, 'how to avoid a terrible fucking partner'. Hoover paints this picture like these pieces of shit are so obvious. No, abusers are subtle, they turn on you slowly, and tighten the screws until you're completely under their thumb. If they're successful, they make you financially bound to them, and, god forbid, you leave then THEY have all the resources to bring you back (cops are NO fucking help, I can tell you that). That's a real fucking horror story for you, not some rosy romance novel these publishers will paint them out to be. I understand the book is supposed to turn and we see the POS's true colors but I'm sad and annoyed that the protagonist is just listlessly going through life as though everything this fictional character has presented to her wouldn't be a sign that she should RUN.

2:22 p.m. Still perusing Black Friday sales online and my friend can't find any journals that don't have Jesus's name emblazoned across the front cover or somewhere inside. First of all, where is she, and second of all, WHERE ARE THE PAGAN JOURNALS, TARGET.

3:16 p.m. ugh. Diving back into this audiobook...

[ko-fanatic]

Paint on the Wall, Black in Our Minds (part three)

Rating: Teen and up, but dark themes present

Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club

Trigger Warnings: Suicide attempt, self harm, eating disorders (anorexia), depression

Summary: It seems he’s willing to sacrifice a little for the sake of being seen as normal, but that’s normal... Right?

Other parts in this series: Part one | Part two

Kyoya swallowed thickly, feeling too tall and awkward as he stood at the front of his new classroom beside the teacher. He never liked being so... prominent. Stared at. Part of the reason he hadn't done a face reveal on the blog, despite the literal years of asks and curiosity from his followers.

He forced himself to ignore his sleeves. Constant tugging would only draw attention, after all, and Fuyumi had helped him secure his shirt to his fresh bandages with a couple of white stitches. He had no clue what to do when they had to come off and he would have to consciously make sure the gnarled wounds were fully covered at all times, without something to anchor his cuffs to. Still, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it; when he wasn't fighting back the churning of his stomach.

The nutritional shakes sat heavy in his gut, anxiety only making it worse - like usual. Honestly, vomiting in front of this entire class of strangers would be like the crowning turd on the flaming garbage pile that was his life right now.

"Alright, everyone," The teacher began, chatter stilling and far too many eyes burning into his thin frame like a brand - NOT NORMAL.

Logically, they were simply looking, but he couldn't help but try to dig for "proof" that they hated him on-sight. Learned behaviour was a bitch, but he really needed to stop making this worse for himself. His father and brothers' lives were completely uprooted and changed for him and his recovery, after all; he needed to try and not screw it up...

"This is Kyoya Ootori, transferring from the Tokyo area," The teacher introduced, clapping Kyoya on the shoulder and nearly making him fall over - both from shock and the fact that he could be taken away by a strong breeze, at least if Akito was to be believed, "Why don't you introduce yourself, Kyoya?"

Fuck, this was the worst part. He had to talk, but not too much or too little, and make himself seem like a well-rounded and well-adjusted person who definitely isn't a cutter or suicidal. The emo hair didn't really help...

"Well, as sensei said, I used to live in Tokyo, but my family decided that a change of pace was needed. We've been living here about a week now, and I hope you all take care of me," He bowed, not looking anyone in the face, not wanting to know if he'd already made a misstep. He simply straightened and took his seat in an empty chair in the middle row. Not too near the front - teacher's pet - or too near the back - weird loner.

He let himself release the breath he was holding, getting out his books and pen from his satchel, allowing the teacher’s lesson just wash over him. He could do this. He could get through two years in this place, middling through, as long as he didn't give anyone a reason to dislike him. Be so plain that it was impossible to actively hate, even if no one liked him.

It helped that the lesson seemed to be something he'd actually been taught by the tutor at the hospital and was told he was competent at. He didn't have to worry about making himself seem like an idiot if he were called upon, but still decided to note down questions and answers in his notebook so he could have an answer on hand immediately, rather than fumbling and stuttering. He couldn't stand the thought of being seen as unintelligent, to the point that the suggestion at all sent an army of fire ants under his skin.

It was something contradictory, he supposed; the wish to be invisible juxtaposed with the want to be recognised as special for his intellect. He felt eternally annoyed by himself, honestly, but this wasn’t exactly the most irritating of his traits, and so he brushed the internal monologue to the side.

Papers were handed out by the teacher, saying that they could talk amongst themselves as they completed the work, albeit quietly. Usually, Kyoya would just sit in silence and get through the work, every so often interrupted by snickering behind him and the odd physical annoyances; balled up paper, pinches, the usual adolescent mischief.

Not here, though.

People chatted in their little groups, paying no mind to him. Well, an occasional glance, but no snorts of derision, as far as he could tell.

“Hey, I love your hair!”

The exclamation startled him, shoulders tensing on instinct and his pen falling to the floor. Eyes snapping from his work to the person before him, he was met with a bright smile quickly turning bashful, blonde hair, and a pair of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

“Oops, sorry!” The boy apologised, “I’m not great with volume control. I just thought you looked really cool, y’know?”

Kyoya didn’t respond, wracking his brain for a normal response to the compliment, the simple two words “thank you” seeming so far from his grasp. He wouldn’t call it “cool”, too edgy for his own good, even if he preferred to keep the shaggy fringe because he could hide under it, and it wasn’t like the hospital had a hairdresser’s on site, and with moving and all –

And now he’d been quiet for too long, so he forced his mouth to actually move.

“Th-thanks,” He stammered, gaze instantly fleeing from the pretty boy in front of him, hair falling into his eyes as he stared down at his desk, biting at the inside of his cheek. He hadn’t meant to stammer, but fuck! He really wasn’t expecting such a direct approach to starting a conversation. In fact, he hadn’t really expected anyone to interact with him at all, even if he was fresh meat, “It’s rather overgrown, though…”

“Ah, but you look just like an anime character! So awesome!” The other enthused once more, earning a reminder to keep quiet from the teacher, and Kyoya kind of wanted to die of embarrassment then and there, “You said your name was Ootori, right?”

“I… don’t know about that,” He muttered, which was true, “Yes, you’re correct.”

“So, Ootori-kun, considering you’re new in town, I guess you haven’t had much of a chance to meet the locals yet?” The blonde grinned, “You can join me and my friends at lunch if you like! I know that being the new kid sucks.”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t use his words today, apparently. Well, few words were probably best; an idiot who didn’t speak was much more tolerable than one that did, even if his aversion to be labelled as such send a near-visible shiver up his spine.

Still, the blond seemed undeterred.

“My name’s Tamaki, by the way. Tamaki Suoh.”

He smiled, and it was warm, yet left him feeling unbearably cold. Lunch meant a meal, and he needed those, but for him that included a couple of bottles in his bag. The name was emblazoned in red across the front, several groups of kanji pronouncing the drink’s high vitamin content and other such things – including the weight gain effects. That wasn’t normal, at all. So, between classes, he simply got rid of the problem.

He dumped them in the bin.

[unlockthelore]

Where The Heart Lies

An average day in the Elric-Rockbell residence includes a great deal of bargaining, bantering, and bickering. And they wouldn’t have it any other way. From the story One is All, All Is One on AO3. For more updates, follow the one is all all is one tag on this blog.

Winry ignored the pins and needles digging into her knuckles as she twisted the bolt a bit tighter. Aching fingers curled around automail ones turned to and fro to test the range of movement. Wires exposed from beneath the joint panels cast thin shadows over her work desk until the arm was set down beside its counterpart upon a small metal stand. Pain throbbed in her shoulders as she leant back, massaging against the hollow of her throat then rolling her shoulder blade. Papers with half-written scribbles and designs overshadowed both the ones with lilting script and the harsher ones depicting numbers and addresses to which parcels would be sent.

She sifted through each one with heavy-lidded eyes, stacking them aside then peering at them closely to ensure she had the correct pile. Once the grain of her desk could be seen, she raised a brow as the white order papers gave way to colorful ones. Slipping the page free of her work, she smiled faintly at the drawings in crayon and pencil. Her desk chair creaked as she shifted backward, and she slowly rose to her feet. The buzzing in her legs and deadened lead feet ignored in favor of wandering over to her bulletin board, rummaging around in a small box of tacks for a new pin.

The picture was tacked up aside of a photograph of two smiling children covered in dirt and pond slime while their father, who fared no better, held them from behind with a sunny grin. Her fingers brushed against the photograph. His joy, as beloved to her as an order for a custom-made piece, brought a smile to her face. Immortalized as it was through photographs — a moment frozen in time — she could remember the day vividly. Her eyes drifted close for a moment, and she ran her finger over the dried wax from the crayons, the drawing reminding her of what she had to finish.

A gentle creaking interrupted the silence as she stifled a yawn, her wrist covering her mouth. Den’s head poked through the opening then butt against the wood to push it open further, trotting through with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“Hey there,” Winry mumbled, rubbing her fingers through her hair, her headband pushed up from where it slipped beneath her goggles. “Seems we’re both up pretty late, huh?”

Den, of course, gave no other answer beyond a panting bark. His tail whipped against the boxes emblazoned with the symbols of Rush Valley as he trotted inside, bumping his head against Winry’s leg while she walked back to her desk. “I should be done in a little while,” she said, scratching behind one of the hound’s floppy ears. “As long as it’s not too late, Ed won’t notice a thing.”

She sat down and stretched her arms above her head, fingers joined and cracking at the joints before falling to her lap as she deflated with a sigh. Balancing her job with everyday life was a struggle, but it was definitely worth it. She glanced at the photograph on her desk — wide and filled with so many faces of friends they’d made along the way and of family that’d come later. Ed and Al, whole just as they had promised, sporting big smiles at the end of their journey.

It took them so long to get to where they were now. Deciding to work from home and to send orders out to her clients was a no-brainer. If she could spend time with her family and continue her passions, then she was all the better for it. She could practically hear Ed telling her not to give up and all of his belly-aching about taking care of the little things while she put her hands to good use at what she did best.

“Dork,” Winry muttered under her breath, rubbing Den’s head at the confused snuffling. “Don’t worry about it…”

Her stomach growled, and she grimaced, pressing her hand to it and sitting upright. When was the last time she’d eaten anyway? Glancing around her desk for the clock she kept, she raised a brow at the plate and steaming mug set at the corner of her mess. Her fingers curled around the mug’s handle and brought it close to her nose. Dark chocolate cocoa greeted her with its bittersweet scent, a touch of honey sweetening her tongue as she took a sip. The plate housed a sandwich with the corners cut crisply, and upon further inspection, just a bit of everything as she liked it.

Winry was confused but grateful, taking a hearty bite as she continued working with her other hand. Den curled up by her feet with his tail thumping at the legs of her chair rhythmically. With that, and the sound of her wrench cranking and burners hissing, she barely noticed her surroundings, and time seemed to slip to a crawl.

“Hey, you gonna spend the whole morning working?”

Winry shrieked at the cold touch on her shoulder and whipped her head around, wrench raised and clutched with intent to throw. Golden eyes widened in concern, and shock mirrored the stricken expression on her husband’s face, his hands immediately raised in a familiar defensive pose. Her face warmed as a blush appeared across her cheeks, heart thumping as she lowered her weapon.

“Ed?” She muttered, rubbing at her eyes to ensure that he actually was there. After a few strokes of his stricken expression remaining and then a few more of it gradually turning to one of amusement, Winry huffed. “What are you doing up so late?”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Could ask you the same thing,” he said, reaching over to flick off the desk lamp.

“Wh—“

Protest parted Winry’s lips quickly, but snapped them shut when she noticed that without the amber glow, the room was still lit. Curtains drawn over the window, normally dark as the world was at night, were now faintly lit with blue dawn light.

“When did it get to be morning?!” Winry whisper-yelled, jumping up from her chair and hurrying to the window. “And we have so much to do today. How did I lose track of time?!”

The curtains were thrown open, and to her dismay, the sky was already beginning to tinge a light blue. Smudges of hillsides and grassland on the horizon blanketed in mottled shades of grey and black. Mortification aside, realization dawned on her that she must have been in her workshop all night. She cast a longing look over her shoulder at the blond man skimming over the order slips with a finger pressed to the papers to guide along as he read.

“I don’t know,” Ed murmured, and Winry wished she could gauge whether he was upset or neutral. Usually, when his head was stuck in a book or when he was in the middle of reading, he always had this blasé, distracted tone. “This is a pretty big order, isn’t it?”

Guilt twinged at hearing the genuine interest in his voice. Winry eased the curtains shut then pressed her hands together, fingertips to knuckle then back, feeling the ache in her joints; but it was nothing compared to the one in her chest.

“Ed,” she started gently, swallowing when he gave a distracted hum in reply. “You didn’t…”

Her words trailed off, and after a moment of silence, Ed lifted his head to glance towards her. His puff of breath was soft. Lips curved into a smile that made his disinterested look gentler, an arm offered to her which she gladly took, pressing close to his side with her hand flattened to his back.

“Nah, it wasn’t one of those nights,” he assured. His voice was deep and warm, lips brushed against the crown of her head. Winry wanted to tell him to wait until she’d bathed. Her forehead was likely clammy from sweat, and she could hardly imagine how her hair smelled, but neither must have bothered him as he pressed a smile to her cheek, accompanied with another kiss. “I just woke up when I noticed the bed was cold and realized that my wife was somewhere else.”

Winry huffed and poked his side, ignoring the jolt in her stomach at the raised skin from one of the scars bisecting his stomach.

If Ed noticed, he didn’t say anything, continuing on his tirade with a haughty tone and a light squeeze to her shoulder. “Poor Den was in and out of the room so often, you didn’t even notice him.”

Almost as if to punctuate what Ed said, Den barked and panted, looking up at them expectantly. Ed tipping his head towards the canine with a raised brow as if saying see? Winry tucked her arms around his sides and hugged him close to her. Whether it was from the exhaustion from or the weight of knowing he was on his own, she didn’t know, but the guilt was heavier on her than usual.

“I’m sorry…”

“Hey, come on…” The snobbish tone was replaced by a softer, tender one. Ed’s hand, calloused and large, set against her shoulder and pressed to hug her closer. “I know how into your work you get, Winry. It’s fine.”

She wanted to disagree, but he was just as stubborn, and she knew he only meant what he said. It was one of his more annoying traits. A light kiss was pressed to the top of her head despite the smoke in her hair, and when he pulled away, Winry lifted her head to meet his gaze.

“Just promise me that you’ll take a break.” His eyes were almost brown in the weak light, cheeks rounded with joy. “Alright?”

Winry sighed softly then pressed a kiss to his jaw, delighting in the brief flicker of surprise. “I promise.”

It was difficult to tell if he was blushing or not, but she had a sneaking suspicion from the way his eyes darted away from her. Years of marriage, two children, and a host of experience between them, yet he still turned red when her lips grazed his skin. Some women might have found it immature, but none of them would ever get the chance to be with Edward Elric.

“And drink your water,” he mumbled in that quiet, pissed-off tone he often used when he was embarrassed, arms withdrawing from around her as he turned away.

Winry giggled. Seconds from calling out a retort that she normally would, she paused and glanced toward her desk. The plate where her sandwich had lain was gone, and in its place were peeled apple slices on a small saucer. The mug she’d been nursing for the better part of a few hours was also missing, replaced by a cool glass of water misting on the sides with a coaster set beneath it.

“… Wait….”

She distinctly remembered having gotten herself cocoa and food before she shut herself in her workshop. Den kept coming in through the door by pushing it open and eventually, she gave up on shutting it. Engrossed in her work as she’d been, she hardly noticed when her meals kept replenishing themselves. Grateful to take another sip or bite so that she could continue with what she was doing.

“That was you, Ed?!”

He tensed in the doorway, his loose hair falling over his shoulders and whipping around to drape down his back as he pointed at her. “Hey, don’t sound so surprised. Sickness and health, remember?” His nose wrinkled, voice lowering as he whirled his head away. “I’m taking care of you just like you took care of me, so get used to it.”

So that’s what it was. Fondness swelled in her chest as she took a few steps toward him, careful of Den’s wagging tail as she passed by.

“… Ed…”

“Wh— Hey, what’s with the eyes?” He turned to face her, lips pressed into a frown. “I know you’re tired and all, but — mmmph!”

He really did talk too much. Winry smiled against the soft touch of his lips to hers, sighing gently when he drew her into a tight embrace. While she knew that she didn’t smell the sweetest , he still carried the scent of musty books and chalk. Her heart thudded at the familiarity and how easy he coaxed her lips apart. The bittersweet taste of dark chocolate met with a charming hint of mint. Winry’s fingers nestled in Ed’s hair when they parted, a smile curving her lips and brushing against his own.

“I love you too, Ed.”

The puff of Ed’s breath was soft against her mouth as he laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“What, wh— ah!” Winry shrieked as she was lifted up in his arms, her ears burning at the tight squeeze around her thighs.

“I’ve been refilling your drink and getting you food for the last hour, and you didn’t even notice,” Ed complained , tucking her close to him as he carried her into the hall. “You’re tired. Come on, Den.”

Winry squirmed, though it was mostly for show. She did feel exhausted and could barely keep her eyes open. Knocking her fist against his shoulder blade as he carried her down the hall, grumbling all the while.

“But you just said that if I promise to take a break, I can keep working!”

“That was before I realized being a gearhead was frying your brain!”

“What was tha—”

Their arguing was interrupted by the soft patter of footsteps. Winry peered past Ed down the hallway where the faint light from the windows cast shadows over a squirming bundle dragging across the floor.

“Uh-oh…” Ed mumbled, looking over his shoulder. “Here, I got her.”

He set Winry down on her feet, slipping away from her, pressing a light peck to her forehead before he jogged down the hall.

“Nina?” He called in a hushed tone, reaching out for the squirming bundle. “Hey, where’re you going…?”

From beneath the quilt, a little girl with sandy blond hair poked her head out, her wide blue eyes watching him curiously.  “Daddy…?”

Winry smiled slightly, leaning against the door while Den sat at her feet. Edward muttered to their daughter while chasing her into the living room. “Come back here, where’re you off to?” He asked, scooping her up in his arms, blanket and all.

Nina sniffed and rubbed her hand against her nose, trying to keep a grip on her blanket with the other. “Hungry…”

“Yeah?” Edward bounced her lightly, glancing over his shoulder at where Winry stood.  “Well let’s eat the apples your mom didn’t want, huh?”

“Who says I didn’t want it?” Winry called after him as he stepped into her workshop.

“Hey! Back to bed,” he called, pointing a finger around the doorway. Nina’s giggling joined Winry’s chuckling, her squealing laugh, likely from Edward tickling her, breaking the morning quiet. “You’re going back to bed too after a snack.”

Winry shook her head and started climbing the stairs, covering her mouth to stifle a yawn.

“Geeze, when did I get to be the responsible one around here?”

That’s part of having a family, Ed. Get used to it.

[quarterfromcanon]

Habits

Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 25 - Pet Name [3,599 words]

“Wanna get high and help me name my starfish?”

Valencia lifted her eyebrows. The sight of Heather on the doorstep toting an aquarium and a backpack full of recreational materials was not what she’d expected to find outside her apartment that night. However, after the recent decrease in communication between them, the surprise was far from unwelcome. “Hello to you, too.” She stepped aside to allow her friend to pass.

Heather carefully set her new sea creature atop the kitchen counter, under the cabinets. She gauged the distance from there to the living room and nodded to herself. “She’ll be safe here,” Heather elucidated upon noticing Valencia’s quizzical response.

“I should preface by saying I don’t smoke pot. Or anything else, for that matter.” Valencia returned to the couch. She turned off the TV and tossed aside several throw pillows to make room for a second occupant.

Her unexpected guest took the vacant spot and put her book bag on the floor. “I can teach you,” Heather volunteered as she withdrew the supplies from their hiding places.

Valencia glanced at her stack of rented DVDs beside an empty takeout box. Meanwhile, Heather rummaged through unseen contents and grumbled about the stash slipping all the way to the bottom. Valencia watched her for a moment - hair falling over her cheek, biceps still bearing indents from the heavy fish tank, a faint trace of spilled water across her shirt - and reached a conclusion. She rearranged the clutter on her coffee table. “All right. I wasn’t really doing anything tonight anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Heather remarked dryly. She produced a purple lighter, papers, cardboard, glue, and the sought-after Ziploc bag. “Before we get started, do you have cucumbers?”

Valencia blanched. “One, I think. Why?”

“It’s good for the dry mouth effect,” Heather explained. “That and water. But we need to prep ahead of time because you do not wanna be wielding a sharp knife when you’re on this stuff.”

“Got it. I’ll take care of those and you can finish setting up here.” Valencia departed for the kitchen, feeling strangely observed by the starfish in the corner. She sliced enough cucumber to cover a plate and put the rest of the produce back in her fridge. Once a water bottle was tucked under each arm, she shuffled to the living room with the dish balanced on her palm. Valencia positioned one drink on each end of the table. She set the plate in the center.

Heather held a finished product and the lighter in her hands. She sparked a small flame, touched the fire to the end of the paper, and twiddled the joint in circles between her thumb and forefinger. Heather talked Valencia through the breathing counts by likening it to yoga. Then she detailed the best inhalation technique for drawing the hit into her lungs. 

Valencia worked to commit the advice to memory despite mounting uncertainty. She gave Heather’s demonstration full attention and tried to duplicate it once the second toke was offered to her. The sputtering aftermath seemed unavoidable, but it could’ve been worse without the tutorial.

“Why do you have a starfish?” Valencia asked once the cough subsided. 

“Marine Biology. She’s basically the biggest part of my grade for the next three months.”

“Important starfish.” Valencia flexed her fingers. Her brow furrowed at the subtle numbness in her extremities.

“Yeah. We get to refer to them by name in our reports, so I’m trying to figure out something that’s, like, academically serious but still reflects her personality.” Heather contemplated the tank from a distance. “Oh, right, I almost forgot.” She fumbled with a different compartment of her bag and tossed Valencia a hefty paperback. 

Valencia missed the catch. The purchase whacked the corner of the couch, causing it to ricochet into her lap. “What’s this?”

“I thought it might give us a place to start.” Heather twisted the cap off her water and chugged.

Valencia held the book away from her face. Her eyes went slightly crossed at the number emblazoned across the front. “One million... No, wait, damn it. Not that many zeroes. One hundred thousand baby names? Holy crap! Heather, I don’t think people consider this many options for their human children.”

“They do according to the store where I bought our mid-high munchies.”

Valencia tried to whistle but couldn’t accomplish the sound. She gave up the effort and shook her head instead. “We’re going to be here a while.”

Heather plucked up two slices of cucumber. She pressed one against Valencia’s palm. “We’ve got time.”

Valencia followed the unspoken command and sampled the serving. She grabbed Heather’s wrist. “This tastes like rain.”

Heather snorted. “What?”

“Try it.” 

Heather complied and her eyes widened. “It does.”

They consumed a few more before Valencia’s elbow bumped the book and she remembered their intended task. “Oh shoot. We were supposed to be finding a name for your little buddy.” Her forehead creased as she attempted to concentrate. “What kind of name?”

“Maybe we could start with real stars?”

“The celebrity kind or wish-upon-a?”

Heather cackled but held up two fingers. “That one.” She leaned against the pile of throw pillows. “Polaris. Vega. Mira.”

“The Sun,” Valencia added tentatively.

“Also true.”

“How about the word for star in other languages?”

“What would that be in Spanish?”

“Estrella.”

Heather leaned forward until she could see her starfish in the water. “Estrella,” she repeated, dragging out the final vowel. “I kinda dig that.” 

“We have a keeper?”

“I think so.”

Valencia pouted at the tome under her hand, still unopened. “Well, that was easy.” She chucked it away. The thunk of impact when the book slid to the bathroom door made them giggle.

They readjusted on the couch until they were angled toward one another, legs overlapped at the ankle. 

“You know, before you showed up tonight, I kind of wondered if maybe you were mad at me,” Valencia admitted.

Heather reached for the joint where it rested at the edge of their shared plate. “Why would I be upset with you?”

Valencia frowned. “I don’t know. We haven’t been hanging out lately, and I guess I got worried. I haven’t seen you since Rebecca and I came back from investigating Anna.”

“Things got kinda busy after that.” Heather exhaled slowly. “Speaking of getting busy, how was that barfly rando you left with? Rebecca was all pouty you turned her down for Friday Night Lights to get laid. Because, y’know, priorities.”

“We didn’t really do anything.”

“He passed out before things got to that point? The guy was pretty far gone already.”

“No, he was conscious when I saw him last.” Valencia sighed and lolled her head to the side. “I panicked and ditched him in the parking lot.”

Heather traced the design on the nearest pillow. Her head bobbed almost imperceptibly with every rise and fall of the stitching, as if she were experiencing each crest and valley like a winding road. “Why’s that?”

“I didn’t know how to go through it.” Heather gave her a dubious look and they both laughed. Valencia rolled her eyes. “Well, okay, I knew how, but I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life. He was all over me under the lamppost and it was like I was out of my body thinking, ‘What am I going to do? Invite this not-so-sexy stranger back to my place and pray he’s not a murderer?’ I don’t even remember what excuse I made. I just bolted and shouted something over my shoulder. Locked my car doors and sped off.”

Heather stifled a snicker with a fist against her mouth. “Wow. That was a next level hard pass.”

Valencia hid behind her fingers, wincing. “I know. I feel bad but, at the same time, I don’t regret it.” She lowered her arms and twitched her shoulders. “So Josh has some hot new girlfriend and I’m still single. Who gives a shit? Let her put up with the sports clutter all over the house and his annoying nostalgia for his mom’s Bagel Bites.” Valencia paused with a wistful expression. “Oh, but those do sound good right now.”

Heather plunged a hand into her backpack and produced a recognizable red box with a yellow label.

Valencia’s jaw dropped. “You’re a genius.”

They went to the stove and arranged the treats on a pan. Valencia set the oven to preheat then hopped onto the counter with her legs dangling over the ledge. Heather visited her pet. “Hey, Estrella, how’re you doing over here? V, check it out. I think she kinda moved a little. She answered when I called her.” 

Valencia beamed and tapped her shoes against the lower level cabinets. “I’m glad she likes it.”

“Since you picked the name, it feels like that makes you an honorary part of this.” Heather slid her fingertips across the cool glass. “Like a godmother or something.”

“Except we didn’t have to immerse her in water for the christening. She’s already there.” 

“Maybe, for ocean life, you’re supposed to lift them to the sky? Sorta like Simba.”

“I’m not reaching in there.” Valencia shook her head emphatically until dizziness made her stop. “Let’s just pretend we did.”

“It’s the thought that counts.” Heather bent low to drape her arms along the counter in front of the tank. She folded both hands beneath her face and stared at the grains of sand. 

Valencia studied Heather with heightened sensory detail. The soft, even sound of her breath reached Valencia’s ears as if there were only centimeters between them. She became convinced it might be possible to count Heather’s eyelashes from afar. Everything was so bold and focused when she looked closely -- the small mole visible beyond the opening in Heather’s deep-cut tank top and another on her neck, the subtle indentation in her chin, the slope of her nose, the piercing through her perfectly sculpted eyebrow, and the way the light bounced off the water to dance across her skin.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Valencia mumbled.

Heather turned to her with a smile. “And you’re high as fuck.”

Valencia considered the current perch she occupied and gulped. Her muddled thoughts latched onto a more literal interpretation of the word ‘high.’ She became suddenly anxious. “I don’t know if I can get down from here.”

Heather moved to stand before Valencia. She braced her knees and extended her arms. “On three?”

Valencia jumped off without warning. Heather yelped when Valencia’s feet landed on hers, but she steadied her companion with a firm grip regardless. “I didn’t count,” she croaked.

“Sorry.” Valencia pulled away slightly to look into Heather’s eyes, but not far enough to break the hold.

Beep.

Heather dropped both hands to her sides. “Oven’s ready.”

Valencia blinked and nodded. She slid the pan onto the metal rack and closed the door. Then she settled cross-legged on the laminate to stare through the foggy glass at their food.

Heather laughed. “Dude, you’ve gotta set the timer first.” She punched in the appropriate number of minutes and offered to help Valencia rise from the floor. “C’mon, let’s wait in the living room.”

Valencia accepted Heather’s assistance but felt a strange pang when her friend’s fingers released hers once more.

They flopped on the couch. Heather flailed as the stacked throw pillows came tumbling down over her head. “Your furniture is attacking me.”

Valencia guffawed but angled forward to rescue Heather from the onslaught. They batted half the square cushions in various directions until only the ones supporting Heather’s spine remained. Valencia took in the mess and her lower lip protruded. “Wait, I didn’t leave any for me to lean on.” 

Heather shifted to the left and patted the empty space beside her. “Just share mine. This thing is like a gigantic bench. We can both fit next to each other.”

Valencia snuggled into place. “Okay.” She rested on her side and hummed contentedly. Her arm wound across Heather’s middle. “You’re so warm. The last person who was on this couch with me was Josh.” Valencia stuck out her tongue. “I’m so much happier with my girl. You and Rebecca are way better company.”

Heather tensed. The bridge of her nose scrunched and her eyelids clamped shut. “V, I have something I’ve got to tell you. But I think you should take another hit first.”

Valencia made a grabby gesture in the air. Heather responded to the silent request and fetched the joint for her. Valencia took a drag with remarkably improved technique and only minor throat clearing. She passed it back to Heather, who indulged in another toke before freeing her hands again. “So, what did you want to say?” Valencia prompted.

Heather grimaced. “Okay, so, you know Anna?”

Valencia’s mouth turned down at one corner. “Unfortunately. What about her?”

“She’s gone.”

“She died?”

“No, no.” Heather waved the misunderstanding aside. “She broke up with him.”

“Oh.” Valencia’s eyebrows rose. “So Josh will finally have to figure out how to be on his own. It’s about damn time.”

Heather took a deep breath. “Not quite.”

“He’s already with someone new? That is so typical.” Valencia scoffed and folded her arms.

Heather met her gaze. Her features were etched with sympathy. “Valencia, it isn’t someone new.”

Valencia struggled to comprehend what that meant. She had to speak the thought process aloud just to make sense of it. “Somebody old? An ex. But Josh only has two of those and he’s not with me so...” The realization washed over her with painful understanding. “Rebecca?”

Heather inclined her head in confirmation.

“But we connected,” Valencia protested feebly. “We refreshed. We healed.”

“I know.”

Valencia pushed her fingertips against her temples. The truth kept slipping in and out of her grasp, a devastating déjà vu she instinctively fought to reject. “When?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Heather sank deeper into the couch. “Rebecca was staying with Paula right after she kicked Scott out, and I got this text about Josh going over there to find her.”

“He ran right from one woman to another. Again.” Valencia’s lip curled.

“That’s what I tried to tell her when I texted back.” Heather tugged off her beanie and clenched it in her fist. “But you know how that goes. You try to stop Rebecca doing a thing and she doubles down. They’ve started going out in public and I didn’t want you to see without knowing ahead of time...” Heather draped her palm over Valencia’s left wrist. “I’m so sorry, V.”

It took additional effort due to her dulled sense of touch, but Valencia found Heather’s hand with her right and clasped. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. No one else showed up at my door to be honest, but you’re here.”

Heather studied the place where their skin met in silence, but there was still intense guilt and regret behind her eyes.

Valencia let her forehead fall against Heather’s arm. She felt Heather’s chin rest near her scalp. “I’m really lucky to have you,” Valencia murmured.

“Same here.”

Beep.

Heather’s laugh escaped on a tremulous exhale. “Oh, shit. The bagels.”

Valencia returned to the kitchen. Heather moved from the couch to the chair where she could monitor snack-related proceedings. Valencia opened the oven and squinted as heat spilled from the interior.

“Don’t forget you need those glove thingies,” Heather cautioned.

“Good call.” Valencia pulled the handle of a nearby drawer and found her floral pair of oven mitts. She moved the tray over the burners then leaned her hip against the counter while she waited for everything to cool. “Heather, what am I going to do?”

“... Eat the Bagel Bites?”

“No. I mean, yes, I am, because they look and smell like a dream. But the Rebecca and Josh thing.” Valencia wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I’ve only got enough room in my head for one thought at a time -- like how I’m pretty sure I can hear the cheese sliding down that far left bagel right now -- but tomorrow’s going to be different. I can’t stay high indefinitely to avoid this.”

Heather nodded. “I think you’ve gotta let yourself feel your feelings. If you wake up sad, have a good cry. If you wake up pissed, go kickboxing or something and let all that aggression out. They’re gonna want your forgiveness, but you don’t have to give that to them until you’re ready. They need to respect your emotional right to cope in whatever way works best. Both of them hurt you, and they don’t get to dictate the self-care required to recover from that.” She looked down at where she was sitting and smiled. “I’m like textbook armchair psychologist right now, literally and figuratively.”

Valencia’s lips twitched. She dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Heather tilted her head to the side and her eyebrows quirked. “Okay. That is a feeling. Not any of the ones I was expecting, but like, do your thing.”

“It’s not that,” Valencia clarified as she gasped for oxygen. “I just realized something.”

“What?”

“Heather Davis. HD. Your initials are the same as High Definition.” The amusement overtook her again. Valencia whimpered at the resultant sting behind her rib cage. She ran her wrist under both eyelids while Heather chuckled appreciatively. “I’m sorry; the weed is just making that weirdly funny to me for some reason. But I think I have your new contact name for my phone.”

“It’s perfect. Go for it.”

Valencia tried to access her back pocket and ended up patting her jeans in confusion. “Wait, I can’t find it.”

“That’s because you’ve still got your Minnie Mouse hands on.”

“My...?” Valencia held out her arms and realized she still wore her patterned oven mitts. “Oh! Crap. Hang on, how do I take this one off when my fingers are stuck in the other one?”

Heather wheezed. “Don’t worry. I’ll come help you, you confused cartoon character.”

She walked over to catch hold of the troublesome material. “Pull.”

Valencia wrenched her hands free and gave an excited shout. “Yay, they’re back!”

Heather patted Valencia’s shoulder. “I think they were there the whole time.”

“Probably.” Valencia gasped, making Heather jump. “Hey, do you know where we should eat these bagels? Under the dining room table.”

Heather’s eyebrows drew closer together. “Don’t people usually put their food on top of the table?”

“Doesn’t matter. This will be better. Trust me.” Valencia wandered off with the pan in both hands. 

Heather stood still for a minute while she tried to trace the logic behind the suggestion. Ultimately, she shrugged and followed Valencia’s lead. She passed through the living room, grabbed the two water bottles along the way, and sidestepped the Venetian screen. Valencia was already there, dragging two living room pillows and a thin blanket alongside her as she crawled out of sight. 

“It’ll be like a fort,” Valencia reasoned. “Just us against the rest of the world. Only you, me, and modified food starch allowed.”

Heather shook her head affectionately. “Stoned you is basically a junk food craving third grader. I love it.”

Valencia’s face poked into view. “If you’re cootie-free and you know the password, you can join me.”

“Is the password ‘pizza,’ by any chance?”

“Duh. Get down here before I polish them all off myself.”

Heather ducked past the surrounding chairs, back bent to keep her head from bashing against the table. “You’re right; this is so much more comfortable.”

Valencia put a Bagel Bite against Heather’s lips. “Why be full of sarcasm when you can be full of mozzarella?”

“You have a point.” Heather caught the bagel between her teeth and groaned. 

“Good, huh?”

Heather popped the remainder into her mouth and held two thumbs up. “Best three dollars and ninety-seven cents I’ve ever spent.” She tossed Valencia a water bottle and they drank.

Conversation fell by the wayside as they ate across the rows of mini pizzas. By the time they got down to the last few, they were both stretched out on their sides with one elbow propped against their respective pillows. Valencia finished her final bagel and shifted to a reclined position. “This table fort might have to double as a cave. I think I could hibernate from now to spring.”

Heather stowed the empty pan atop a chair, clearing the path for them to get more comfortable. “Sign me the fuck up. Home Base and Miss Douche can figure out how to get by without me until, like, at least mid-March.” She hugged the throw pillow and settled on her stomach. Valencia fanned the blanket over their legs. “So it’s cool if I crash here?” Heather checked, eyelids fluttering closed despite her best efforts to prevent them from doing so.

“Of course.” Valencia got situated with one hand flung above her head. Her natural sleeping position accidentally brought their arms into contact again. She debated moving a few inches to allow more room between them for sleep. However, since Heather didn’t seem to mind their proximity and Valencia found the nearness comforting, she let it go.

A few minutes ticked by without a single noise, save for their relaxed breathing. Valencia was on the brink of dozing, but she licked her lips and tried to express one last sentiment. It traveled through the stillness in a whisper. “Heather?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for trying to protect me.”

Heather drowsily rolled to the side, bumping against Valencia in a slow motion body-check before returning to her spot. “No problem. Everyone needs someone in their corner, right? You can count on me.”

[meanwhile-on-spn]

Meanwhile...

Season 1 Ep. 3 - Dead in the Water

Previously on Supernatural: Three friends try to recreate Stand by Me.

---

“You promised me he wasn’t coming!” Lucas whined in a way that would be embarrassing if his friends saw. Of course she couldn’t keep a promise when it came to her new boyfriend.  He hadn’t been around very long, yet Paul was always inviting himself over and invading their lives.  

“Lucas, he wanted to come. Paul just wants to celebrate your birthday with you.”  His mother said, placing a lock of hair behind her ear and crossing her arms.  This wasn’t a good sign, the pose normally meant she was getting angry. “He even brought a gift for you.”

He rolled his eyes and turned to leave the kitchen.

“He’s not welcome.  I’m going back upstairs.”  He could hear his friends laughing and didn’t want to miss out on the matches.  He walked quickly to the front hall and turned to head for the stairs.  

“Come back down for cake soon!”  His mom yelled after him.  He kept walking, heading for the stairs by the front door, nearly bumping into someone.  He looked up to see an older man wearing his normal crusty plaid shirt, baseball cap, and dad jeans. Lucas made to walk past Paul, but the man awkwardly moved in front, blocking his way again.

“Happy Birthday dude!” Paul said through a large smile.  He went to hug Lucas, but when he took a step back, Paul paused, then took something out of his coat pocket instead. “Here take this, I’m going to go see if I can help your mom with the cake.”  He pushed a small wrapped box into Lucas’s arms. Than with the stupid whistling that he always does, he stomps into the kitchen.

The package in his hands was lumpy and wrapped poorly with weird bulges in the paper and a store-bought bow perched in the middle. He scowled at it, a present from Paul was bound to be bad, probably stupid baseball jersey.

Lucas nodded, then ran upstairs not bothering to look at the package.  He heard his friends making weird noises from down the hall. It sounded as if they were mimicking the sounds of explosions and gunfire around mouthfuls of snacks. 

“Lucas!  Finally you’re back!  You mentioned you liked this band, but I didn’t know you had so many concert posters. Aren’t these guys like super old?”  His friend Artie said, smirking, as he pointed at a poster on the wall.  There was a collection of 70s and 80s style posters in an array of colors. They all had one similarity and that was a zeppelin flying across the poster with a band name written across the top.

“Come on, man they’re a great band!” He exclaimed, only sounding slightly defensive.  Lucas dropped the gift in the pile on his desk, with the rest and walked over to sit next to Artie on the floor. 

“I guess.  My dad plays their tape in the car all the time.  It gets annoying after awhile.”  Artie replied, crossing his arms. He was focused on the tv, controller in his hands, twisting this way and that as if it controlled his character better.

“It's such dad music.” Elijah said it like it was a slur. Elijah liked to think he invented good taste, which always made him fun to rile up. He made it easy too, all you had to do was say that Tarantino was a hack.

“They are a classic! Way more well known than your EDM DJs.” Lucas snapped back watching at Alijah’s face got slightly red and his playing started to slip.

“When did you start listening to them?”  Sid asked, controller in his hands, twisting this way and that as if it controlled his character better.

Lucas smiles watching as Sid landed a hit on Elijah’s character, “Around the time when we moved.  A friend introduced me to them.  All I can say is Zeppelin Rules.”

The room goes silent as the boys all look at Lucas.

“Alright then, David just destroyed Sid, you sub’ in Lucas.  I bet you can’t beat him!” Elijah smiled, flicking his moppy hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah right, did you forget this is my game?”  Lucas smiled and grabbed the controller from Sid.

A few minutes later David was yelling and cursing his luck.  Just as he was asking for a re-match, they heard a voice yelling from down the hall.

“Kids, Food is ready!” His mother called from the kitchen.

“One minute mom.” Lucas replied by starting up a new round to kick David’s butt again.

“Come on Lucas! If you don’t come now you won’t have time to open your gifts!” His mother called.

“Better hurry before I eat all the cake!” Lucas rolled his eyes, Paul was trying to be funny again. His friends however, began to shift, getting up to head into the other room.

“Cake sounds good to me!” Sid said, happily jumping up and heading for the door. David sighed.

“Fine but I want a re-match before I leave!” He said, pointing the controller at Lucas. 

“Coming mom!”

---

As the sun started to set, Lucas was sitting at the mahogany table surrounded by wrapping paper, crumb covered plates, and his excited friends. He was inspecting the back of the game David had given him, when his mom placed a lumpy package in front of him.

“Don’t forget this one!”  She said looking expectantly at him, She turned and smiled back at Paul. once she was close enough, Paul had his hand around her waist, with a big dumb smile on his face. Gross.

Lucas hadn’t forgotten, he was just more excited to open his friends’ gifts. They got him things he actually wanted like new games.  He also wasn’t expecting much from Paul, it was probably going to be something he didn't want but it would impress him mom. Like, a book on submarines in world war one or underwear, sensible and boring. 

He heard his friends mumbling to each other as he unwrapped the camo-print gift.  Inside was a crushed brown rectangular package.  He quickly shook it and felt the weight shift, but it didn’t make a noise. It was too big for a game and two small for a nice sketchbook.  As he opened the box he sighed, seeing the contents were clothing, sensible and boring.

He was about to give a fake thank you, ready to throw the half open package into his closet, but then he saw the logo.  Blue, Gold and orange faded together to make up the illustration of a fleet of zeppelins flying through the sky. Emblazoned over the top of design was United States Tour ‘77 Led Zeppelin. It was faded and cracked, from years of it being washed, dried, folded and loved.

Paul had given him a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He pulled out of the paper and could feel something more solid wrapped in the faded fabric.  Slowly unfolding the shirt he found a CD copy of their first album. Lucas stared down at the gift, at a loss for words.

“I hope you don't mind” Paul actually sounded slightly nervous, “the shirt being too big. It's original. I got it at my first concert.”  Lucas just stared at him, he still had his stupid hand around his mom. Still had that stupid hat and flannel shirt on. Still whistled his stupid tunes. Now though, he seemed so different. Like a man he never met before, like a man that he could see driving around in a muscle car, shooting guns and zig zagging across the country.

“You’re giving this to me?” This shirt had to be worth hundreds of dollars.

“Of course, it’s your birthday.” Paul said like it was absolutely nothing, His mom was beaming at the man. She looked so happy and Lucas couldn't really remember the last time he saw his mom like that. She didn't like to talk about it but he honestly didn't remember much before they moved. Just that she felt like they had to. To many bad memories back in Lake Manitoc. “And I know how much you like them.” Paul continues pulling Lucas out of his thoughts.

Looking back at the shirt a massive smile grew on Luca’s face.  Maybe this guy wasn’t so bad after all.

Can we talk about how incredibly dark this episode was. like out body count practically doubled in this one episode alone.

Onscreen Body Count: 10

[southsidestory]

Things Not Seen

RATING: Mature

SHIP: Rey / Ben Solo | Kylo Ren

SUMMARY: It can’t be love, what he’s feeling. Not the real thing anyway. It’s irrational and possessive, too unhealthy and unwanted. But whether or not this is the kind of love he’s been taught to revere, Ben thinks about Rey through the rest of Christmas break. He daydreams about his professor's smart mouth, the way her expressions always start at the curve of her lips. How she tasted when they kissed.

WARNINGS: emotional and physical abuse (not within the reylo relationship), religious fanaticism, grief / mourning, depression, past suicide attempt

NOTES: This story is for the @reylofanfictionanthology’s 2017 Anthology, Celebrate the Waking! My celebration / theme was Reunion. Thank you to @xxlovendreamsxx and @reylotrashcompactor for their help as betas for this piece. <3

PROVERBS 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart,

for everything you do flows from it.

—

Ben takes Intro to the Hebrew Bible in the spring of his freshman year because he wants to get a headstart on his 200-level courses. Most of his classmates have no idea what their majors will be, and they change their minds every few weeks, but not Ben. It’s Religious Studies for him, which he knew before he even sent out his college applications.

Old Testament is an eight o’clock class, and because Ben likes to be early for everything, he shows up at 7:45. He unpacks a clean notebook, his freshly printed syllabus, a new black pen, his NOAB (New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th Edition, which he despises), and his personal Bible (King James Version, which he loves).

There’s only one other student, but she looks so out of his place that he almost wonders if he’s in the wrong classroom. She’s tall and leggy, with brown hair pulled up into a high bun. Her blue jeans are nearly worn through at the knees, her sneakers battered and cheap. Scholarship student then, which is rare enough at a college like Litton. But she’s also too old for a 200-level RS class, typically populated by sophomores and particularly motivated freshmen, like him. Probably some senior who’s hoping to wile away her last semester in low-level courses while she works on her thesis.

“This is Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” Ben says, not quite making it a question.

“It is indeed.” The girl doesn’t look up from her phone, which she’s tapping at aggressively. From the beeping sound that she hasn’t bothered to silence, he thinks she must be playing some kind of game.

She’s pretty, despite her ordinary clothes and messy hair. She also looks utterly unprepared. The only thing she has with her, apart from that noisy phone, is a thermos.

When she shrugs out of her fleece, he sees that she’s wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath. Dark green, with an image of a Bible across the chest, the proud words “Jewish Zombie Saves the Universe” emblazoned across its cover.

“If you don’t like Christians, what are you doing in an Old Testament class?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

The girl finally sets down her phone, looking startled and amused. “Excuse me?” she asks. The start of a patronizing smile is tugging at the corner of her mouth, like Ben is simply the most adorable thing she’s ever seen.

He gestures at the offensive shirt and says, “You’re obviously not Christian. Probably not even an RS major.”

She snorts. “Well you’re not wrong.”

Ben doesn’t like being laughed at. Never has tolerated it well. Thirteen years of relentless bullying throughout public school will do that to a person.

“What are you then?” he asks, even though he doesn’t have to. He’d bet his tuition that she’s an atheist.

“Human,” she says, and now her smile has a sharper edge to it. Good, he’s glad to be getting to her a little. “But I suspect that that isn’t the information you were fishing for.”

Ben rolls his eyes, then busies himself with rereading the syllabus, anything to keep from talking to this obnoxious girl. He shouldn’t have engaged her anyway. Pastor Snoke always says it’s a waste of time to bother with people like that.

She goes back to playing on her phone, and they ignore each other until 7:55, when the other students start filtering in.

“Hey, Professor Jones!”

Ben looks over, and for a moment he wonders how he could have missed the professor arriving—until he realizes that the student who spoke is talking to the rude girl in the awful green shirt.

“Hi, Rachel.” She smiles and asks, “Did you have a good holiday?”

Rachel says she went on a ski trip to some resort in Colorado, but he barely registers any of that, because the girl—no, his professor—smirks at him, and Ben stares at the table, cheeks scalding hot. He hasn’t been this humiliated since Todd Baxter pantsed him in the seventh grade, exposing his privates to the entire middle school during a pep rally.

I want to die, Ben thinks. I want to actually die.

He grips his left wrist, squeezes until the pressure calms him. Then he shoots his professor the nastiest look he can muster, because she just let him talk to her like she was a student. Allowed him to make an ass of himself, and now she’s wearing a self-satisfied grin, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world.

Professor Jones starts class at precisely eight o’clock, which Ben would appreciate if he didn’t dislike her so much.

“Welcome to Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” she says. “I’m Rey Jones. You can call me by my first name, if you’d prefer. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that it will diminish my authority over you, because it doesn’t.”

She says this lightly enough that the class laughs, but Ben can tell she means every word. This woman might be young for a professor, but she’s tough as nails. How in the hell did he take her for a student?

Some suck-up who claimed the seat to the left of Professor Jones compliments her shirt. “I guess Jesus is pretty zombie-ish, huh?” he asks.

Professor Jones shrugs. “Actually, if we’re applying fantastic terms to Jesus, he’d be more properly categorized as a lich than a zombie.”

Everyone besides Ben laughs again, and Professor Jones smiles. “All right, please introduce yourselves. I had most of you last year for 101, but I’d like to put names to the new faces.”

Professor Jones asks each of them to give their name, year, major, and one interesting personal fact. Ben listens to his classmates just attentively enough to discover that he’s the only freshman in this course. Evidence of his over-achievement usually makes him feel proud, but right now he’s too annoyed for that.

“Ben Solo,” he says, once it’s his turn. “Freshman. I’ll be majoring in Religious Studies as soon as I’m allowed to declare. This isn’t very interesting, but it’s a fact about myself: I’m awful at judging someone’s age.”

A subtle smile flickers across Professor Jones’s mouth before she looks to the next student.

It’s a standard first day, just discussing the objectives of the course and the texts they’ll be studying throughout the semester. At least it’s only a fifty minute class, and Professor Jones kicks them out a quarter-hour early. “Use this extra time to get started on Friday’s reading. You’ll probably need it.”

Ben stuffs his things into his bag and hurries out of the classroom. He doesn’t look back to see if his professor is laughing at him, because he’s certain that she is.

—

RS 270 quickly proves to be Ben’s most difficult class. Logic, Intro Greek, and Southern Literature are almost too easy to keep his attention, but Hebrew Bible is something else entirely.

Professor Jones assigns twice as much reading as his lit professor, and she expects her students to keep up with it. Her classes are discussion-oriented, fast-paced, and demanding. As much as he’d prefer to hate her style, Ben actually thinks Professor Jones is one of the best teachers he’s ever had. She has a way of explaining difficult ideas with great clarity while still conveying the complexity of the concepts. To her credit, she doesn’t seem to hold their conversation before the first class against him.

She’s intelligent and engaging, if blunt, and she’d probably be Ben’s favorite professor if he didn’t hate her approach to the Bible. It isn’t that Professor Jones is mean or dismissive of his beliefs, but he questions whether she has any respect at all for the texts she’s teaching. She shows him how to see the Old Testament in new ways, to better understand its books through the cultural contexts they emerged from. It’s fascinating and eye-opening—if a little galling to be utterly schooled on Biblical knowledge by a woman who probably has a stronger faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster than in God.

By the middle of the semester, he can’t help but think of her as Rey. Half the class calls her by her given name, just as she invited them to do, but there’s more to it than that, an urge Ben can’t quite explain, that makes him want to know her better

—

Rey always returns his papers within a week of their due date, the margins littered with annotations in green ink. Suggestions to improve his arguments, questions, sometimes rambling comments that seem to have little direction or purpose.

She writes A- at the bottom of each one, along with some note about his paper as a whole. No matter how stingy or effusive her praise is, the grade remains the same. The essay she hands back after spring break says, Perfect. A-

That’s what finally drives him to her office. He finds Rey hunched over her desk, scribbling in a notebook, the sleeves of her plaid shirt rolled up to her elbows. He expected her office to be disorganized, considering her perpetually sloppy hairstyles and wrinkled clothes, but it’s spotless and neat.

“Ben,” she says, without looking up from her work. “It’s five o’clock on a Friday. My office hours ended at three-thirty. I know you know this.”

He closes the door, takes the seat across from her, and lays his latest paper on her desk. “If my work was perfect, then why did you give me an A minus?”

Rey sighs, sets down her pen, and looks at him. “Because you can do better.”

“Better than perfect?” Ben asks.

“Your papers are excellent. More cohesive than mine when I was your age, and that’s saying something.” She points to the wall, at a dozen framed awards and diplomas. BA from Stanford, MA from Indiana University, PhD from Duke.

Ben shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Rey says. She leans forward, frowning. “Your arguments are well constructed, and your ideas are clearly expressed, but it’s all very safe. I think you know how to write to appeal to your professors’ interests—which is a great strategy if your only goal is to graduate summa cum laude in three years. But if you want to develop your own voice? Not so much.”

“Are you kidding?” It takes all of Ben’s self control not to shout when he says, “I bend over backwards to write the kind of papers you’d want to see, and that’s not enough?”

Rey flips to the third page of his paper and taps the second paragraph. “Your analysis of the Pentateuch reads like a response to my last book. What’d you do, check it out from the library?”

Ben snatches his paper out of her hands, and he doesn’t care how rude that is.

“I don’t want to read a paper that’s engineered to flatter my ego,” Rey says sharply. “Next time, write about something that matters to you, instead of something that matters to me.”

Yes, he checked out her book, and yes, he read it from cover to cover, but she’s wrong about why he did that. It had nothing to do with flattering his professor, because Ben never imagined that she’d notice the influence of her writing on his own work. He’s been reading through Rey’s bibliography all semester, consuming every book and journal article that she’s authored.

Ben isn’t about to admit that, so he stands and says, “See you on Monday, Professor Jones.”

—

Ben lives in the library throughout finals week, researching and writing for six days straight, only stopping to take short naps and coffee breaks.

His asshole roommate, Armitage, orders him to stop crashing into their dorm at all hours of the night and day just to rest for thirty minutes and head back to the library. Apparently this is disrupting his beauty sleep.

If Ben wasn’t a Christian, he’d tell Armitage to fuck off. Instead, he finds a nice, out-of-the-way nook in the library and takes his naps there, curled up in a fluffy armchair.

Ben spends countless hours on his final paper for RS 270, a close examination of the Book of Job, exploring the role of suffering in faith. He’s never put so much of himself into an academic project, his passion and his convictions. If Rey slaps another A minus onto this one, he’s going to give her a piece of his mind.

—

Ben snatches the manila envelope out of his student mailbox, rips it open, and flips past all the green ink that litters the margins of his final paper, looking to the grade and the comment at the end.

Insightful and original. Better than perfect. A+

ECCLESIASTES 1:18

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;

the more knowledge, the more grief.

—

Going home is different when you don’t have a real home to go to.

Ben would never say as much to Pastor Snoke, but sometimes he misses his mother. Maybe it’s just nostalgia borne from separation, because when Ben lived with his mom, he spent most of his time wishing to get out from under her roof. They fought whenever she was around, which wasn’t often. Neither of his parents spent much time with him, but there’s no point in resenting his father over that, not anymore.

Ben ran away a month after he turned eighteen, and Pastor Snoke welcomed him into his family’s home, just as he promised he would.

Mom had given him far more freedom. She never kept up with where he was going or how late he’d be out, but strangely, Ben feels less confined in a house where there are rules. Pastor Snoke’s expectations may be high, and the punishments for disappointing him harsh, but at least he knows that someone is paying attention.

Ben tries not to think about his mother on the way back to Cottontown. He spends the bus ride listening to music and rereading Rey’s comments on his final paper. He traces her handwriting, fingers lingering on the uneven curves and sharp points. You should be proud, she’d written on the back.

He finds Mrs. Snoke waiting for him at the bus station. She hugs him and says, “We’ve missed you so much, Ben.”

“Missed you too,” he says, before pulling away.

Mrs. Snoke makes pot roast for dinner, one of Ben’s favorite meals, and Pastor Snoke allows him to say grace. He feels less like an intruder, a lost boy interloping on a real family, when he holds hands with his mentors and asks for God’s blessing. Afterward, Mrs. Snoke washes the dishes. She always cooks and cleans, an arrangement that Ben has never felt comfortable with, because he knows what his mother would think of it.

—

Starbrook Church of Christ has the largest congregation in all of Cottontown, and sometimes Ben worries that he isn’t worthy of inheriting it.

He’s known that he’s going into ministry since he was sixteen, when Pastor Snoke saved him and offered him a place at his church. But it wasn’t until January of last year, after he ran away, that Pastor Snoke told him he’d like for Ben to lead the Starbrook congregation someday.

“You’re as good as a son to me, and you have what it takes. The drive, the talent, the uncompromising faith.” He’d looked at Ben with such confidence, and it was elating, intoxicating, for someone to believe in him like that. How could he say no?

Ben leads Bible study on Sunday mornings, teaching little kids about the Passion, the Three Wise Men, Jesus turning water into wine. This was easy last summer, because he’d wished someone had taught him these things as a child. So much would have been easier if he’d been raised in the faith instead of having to find it for himself.

It isn’t so easy this summer. He hesitates. He doubts. There’s only goodness in teaching a five-year-old to love her neighbors, but when Sarah asks why only boys can lead activities, he doesn’t know what to say.

The correct answer is, Because this is how God made us. Men lead and women follow. This is the way it’s meant to be. But Ben’s mother is a leader through and through, and he just spent a semester following the most brilliant woman he’s ever met. He wants to believe, but by the end of summer break, the right answer doesn’t feel so right anymore.

—

Some of Ben’s classmates resent his rigidity, but he has nothing on Armitage. His roommate obsessively organizes his notes, keeps his desk spotless, and maintains a system of color-coded calendars so that he’s perpetually early to all of his classes and extracurricular engagements.

On their first day back at Litton, Armitage kicks Ben’s unzipped suitcase and says, “Keep your clothes in your dresser this year. If I find dirty socks laying around they’re going straight in the trash.”

“Don’t touch my things,” Ben says.

He’d love to punch Armitage in his sneering, pink face, and maybe that’s showing, because his roommate makes some excuse about going to the library and disappears for the rest of the night.

It doesn’t matter. He’d rather be alone anyway.

—

The Litton College Catalogue is clear about the nature of RS 233: Pain, Suffering, and Death.

A seminar that examines critical issues and problems of crisis experience involving pain, suffering, and death using various disciplinary perspectives and pedagogical methods, including interviews with healthcare professionals. Designed primarily for students considering health or human service vocations (e.g., medical professions, counseling, social work, ministry), but also of interest to others.

Ben signed up for this class last semester, when he was too enthralled by Rey’s instruction to care what she was teaching in the fall, because he knew he would take it. Now RS 233 is almost here, and he spends all night dreaming about his father. In the shower, he scratches at his left wrist until the verse tattooed there is obscured with abrasions, blood-spotted and sore. The ache of it reminds him that he’s here and alive, grounds him until he’s calm enough to pray.

When Ben walks into class fifteen minutes early, Rey says, “Back for more?”

He claims a seat two chairs down from hers and fidgets with his sleeve, tugging it lower over the bandage on his wrist. “I like a challenge.”

“Well, that’s good, because this class isn’t for the faint-hearted.”

Rey runs a hand through her hair, which is as messy as ever. That should probably be off-putting, but Ben finds it charming. It’s an effective distraction, if not a very smart one, to focus on his pretty professor instead of the father he buried five years ago.

He tries to smile. “I don’t think anyone faint-hearted would sign up for Pain, Suffering, and Death.”

Rey rests her elbows on the table and leans forward, just the slightest bit closer to him. “Are you all right?”

Ben hasn’t talked about his father with anyone besides Pastor Snoke, but for some reason it’s almost easy to tell Rey, “I’m not sure I should have signed up for this class. I think it’s going to hit too close to home, and I can’t afford to let—for personal issues get in the way of my education.”

Rey nods slowly. “If that’s how you feel, there’s still time to drop it.”

Ben’s stomach lurches, sickened into knots, but it uncoils when Rey says, “I wish you’d stay, though. Studying this sort of thing can be good in the long run. Difficult, but cathartic.”

Ben doesn’t drop the class. He tells himself it’s for the good it might do him, but the truth is, he’s slightly less afraid of facing his grief than losing the chance to see Rey three times a week for the next four months.

—

He spends the first half of sophomore year interviewing trauma surgeons and hospice nurses, reading everything from medical philosophy to The Stranger. It’s fascinating work, but every bit of it reminds him of his father.

Ben is usually outspoken, but he doesn’t contribute one word to the group discussion on euthanasia. Rey keeps shooting him worried looks while other students are speaking, and he thinks she might mean to corner him after class, but he doesn’t give her the chance. Ben rushes out as soon as nine-fifty hits, goes straight to the nearest bathroom, locks the door, and bends over the sink, gasping for breath. He turns on the cold water so that no one standing outside the restroom will hear him crying.

—

Here’s what Ben knows of pain, suffering, and death: there’s no reason to it, no divine plan that can possibly explain why his father had to die slowly and painfully before his forty-ninth birthday.

He remembers the blisters on Dad’s chest, where radiation treatments had burned his skin raw; the wet, rattling sound of his father’s breathing; the blood he left on napkins when he coughed; statistics about his lung function and the size of his tumors, numbers and scans that never offered any hope. Ben remembers asking Mom what DNR meant, how the smile she gave him trembled when she said it was short for do not resuscitate.

Pastor Snoke has explained the mysteriousness of God’s mercy a thousand times. Before his baptism, Ben searched inward for answers, and since then he’s read enough Christian philosophy on the problem of evil that he could write a dissertation on it. He’s grasped at every straw, and for awhile, Pastor Snoke’s promises gave him the comfort he needed to breathe. But no explanation is comforting anymore, and Ben doesn’t know what to do.

—

When he doesn’t turn in a final paper, he receives an email from Rey, warning him that his grade will decrease by ten percent every day that it’s late. He ignores her, and she sends another email telling him to come to her office. If he doesn’t turn in this paper, he’s going to lose his scholarships, Pastor Snoke’s patronage, and his home.

Good. At least if he drops out, there’ll be no one left to miss him, and it’s not as though he deserves any better.

Ben shuts down his laptop and takes a nap.

He doesn’t drag himself out of bed until lunchtime the next day. Baked chicken has never been less appealing, but he’s starving and food is food. Three bites in, Ben remembers feeding his father his last meal, not that he’d known it for what it was at the time. Now he can hear winter wind rattling the window frames, the clank of silverware hitting ceramic plates. Chatter, laughter, and arguments buzz around him, all of it rising toward the vaulted ceiling and echoing around the refectory.

He leaves his plate where it is and goes outside, into flurrying snow. Ben walks slowly, tries to stay calm, but he can’t breathe and all he can think is that he has to get out of this school, out of this town, out of this place, out of here—

He barely stops short of knocking over Rey. She has to grab his arm to keep from slipping on the icy sidewalk, and he wishes that he could feel the warmth of her touch, but there are too many layers between them. She’s always beautiful, but with her nose ruddy and the tips of her ears hidden under a grey hat she looks girlish too, more like the student he mistook her for the day they met.

Ben wants to touch her, hold her, kiss her, and it isn’t the sudden desire that surprises him; what surprises him is that this desire isn’t sudden at all, and he’s been lying to himself for almost a year.

Rey looks up at him, frowning. “Ben? Are you all right?”

He wants to answer, but his voice feels stuck, caught at the base of his throat. When she pulls away, panic digs its way into his chest, squeezing his lungs until he grabs her shoulders and says, “Don’t.”

Rey’s eyes are wide, her expressive mouth slack, wind-chafed cheeks flushing from pink to red. But she stops, stays still under his hands.

Ben lets go of her and steps away. He’s hot all over, must be blushing from his hairline to his toes. It’s from embarrassment, mostly, but yearning too, and that only makes the embarrassment worse. He runs away, cutting across the lawn to the wooded copse behind the refectory, then further, until he reaches the labyrinth. It’s nothing special, just a circular pathway made up of frost-glazed stones that twist and twine around each other, but he’s come here to pray in the past.

Now he’s breathing hard, more from cold and anxiety than exertion, and he can’t find the focus to reach out to God right now. He sits at the wooden bench, rests his elbows on his knees, and bends forward, lacing his fingers together over the back of his head. He breathes deeply and picks out five things he can hear, the way his high school therapist taught him to do: snow-bearing wind, the crunch of icy grass beneath his feet, chirping birds, some skittering creature in the woods, his own restless breathing. Then four things, then three, then two, then—Rey’s voice, calling his name.

Ben sits up, rubbing his gloved knuckles over his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Rey freezes, looking more confused than concerned now, like she hadn’t stopped until this moment to consider the wisdom of running after him. She stands straighter, steadier, and says, “You looked like you might be… unsafe. I only want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Unsafe?” Ben grasps his left wrist, at the tattoo of Hebrews 11:1 that hides under his sweater sleeve. The verse stretches halfway to his elbow, inking over the scar underneath. “I’m not planning to off myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He’d hoped to deter her with crudeness, but Rey crosses her arms over her chest and says, “That’s exactly what I’m worried about. You’ve seemed depressed for months, you never turned in your final paper, and now—”

Ben shrugs. “And now I’m running off behind school buildings to cry like a little boy. Got it. Your concern is duly noted, Professor Jones.”

“If you need help, there are counselors you can talk to—”

“What good is talking going to do?” He shakes his head, pulls at his sleeve, and whispers, “Talking won’t bring him back.”

Rey takes a careful, half-step toward him. “Who won’t it bring back?”

“My dad.” Ben makes himself smile, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to break down again. “He signed a DNR after his last bout in the hospital, let a bunch of nurses shoot him up full of morphine, and died two weeks later. I was there when it happened. I let it happen. I just—just stood there and watched him die—”

“No,” Rey says. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

There’s an impossible softness in her eyes, sympathy bleeding into pity. Looking at him this way is the cruelest thing she could have done, and it drives Ben to his feet.

“I was fine before I met you! I had it figured out, all the answers I needed. Losing him only meant saying goodbye for now, not forever, and now I don’t know what to believe.”

His insides have been turned outward, every nerve in his body raw and exposed. He wants to get away, wants to free himself of this pain. Ben goes to Rey, stands so close to her that he doesn’t feel like a student anymore. Only a man, strong and tall enough to tower over a woman he wants to touch. It can’t even the playing field, but it creates enough of an illusion for him to pretend that the imbalance between them doesn’t matter.

Rey’s gaze darts up and down the length of his body, like she’s assessing him. Ben can’t tell whether or not she’s trying to evaluate a threat, so when he leans down he does it cautiously, gently, giving her plenty of time to stop this if that’s what she wants.

She makes a soft noise when he kisses her, then gasps as he runs his hands down her back, her waist, her hips. She tastes like nothing Ben can place, and he wonders if all kisses feel this way, like he’s drunk (or maybe awake) for the first time—

Rey tears herself away and wipes at her swollen lips with the heel of her hand. She’s shivering, shaking her head, saying frantic, regretful things that all mean this was a mistake.

Ben bites his lip, but there’s nothing of her taste left there. Any trace of their kiss has already faded from his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t thinking straight.”

He walks away before Rey can challenge any of his lies, and he isn’t surprised when she doesn’t follow.

—

One week into Christmas break, Ben checks his final grades. He expects to see his first academic failure, but instead he finds that he received an A- in Pain, Suffering, and Death. Ben knows that it’s only a misplaced apology, or possibly a bribe for his silence, but he hopes that Rey simply thought he deserved to pass.

I CORINTHIANS 13:4

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

—

It can’t be love, what he’s feeling. Not the real thing anyway. It’s irrational and possessive, too unhealthy and unwanted.

But whether or not this is the kind of love he’s been taught to revere, Ben thinks about Rey through the rest of his break. He daydreams about her smart mouth, the way her expressions always start at the curve of her lips. How she tasted when they kissed. He only risks jerking off in the shower, where the noise of running water will cover his gasps, and when he touches himself he pictures Rey. Her long legs wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back to expose the pale curves of her throat, the sounds she would make if he pleased her.

He thinks Rey might have kissed him back. Ben remembers her leaning in, deliberately opening her mouth to his in the fraction of a second before she pulled away. It’s probably a figment of his imagination, a consolation his memory has constructed to soothe the sting of her rejection, but he wants it to be true. He wants it to be true so badly that he can’t be sure it is.

Not that it matters. Even if some part of her does want him, Rey made her feelings clear enough at the labyrinth.

At first Ben prays for freedom from this infatuation that’s buried itself under his skin. When that fails, he prays for the wisdom and patience to move past it in time, but if anything, he only feels less wise and more impatient as the days between Christmas and the New Year crawl by.

When Ben forgets to say amen after Pastor Snoke’s eloquent grace, he gets slapped. Shame shivers along the ridges of his spine, but Ben swallows down the impulse to hit back, to argue, to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Pastor Snoke cups Ben’s cheek, the same cheek he struck, his touch gentle now.

“I know you are,” he says, smiling. “Now eat your dinner.”

—

Ben wakes with the smell of cigarette smoke in his nose, the sour ash scent that never quite faded from the living room curtains, even years after Dad quit smoking. He dreamed of blistered skin and bloody napkins. Of his father’s tumors, showing silver and nebulous against black X-ray film, like clouds drifting across a night sky. Innocuous, almost pretty, for such ugly, dangerous things.

He misses Rey.

Ben speaks to his blank, empty ceiling for ten minutes, begging for forgiveness and help, when something unwelcome tugs low in his belly. Uncertainty, mistrust.

“Are you even there?” He has to whisper the question. It’s too dangerous to give much voice to.

Ben hears nothing, feels nothing. So he does what he always does when doubt creeps in. He slides his fingers along the tattoo that marks his left arm, mouthing the words without looking at them. This ritual eases his fears, even if it doesn’t bring much reassurance that someone is listening.

—

On the last Sunday before going back to school, Pastor Snoke takes Ben behind the church and says, “You’re distracted, falling down on your responsibilities here and at school. I know you almost lost your fellowship because your volunteer hours barely met the minimum requirements. That isn’t acceptable.”

Ben knows that Pastor Snoke has connections at Litton. It’s half the reason he was accepted into such a high-profile school when his high school GPA was less than stellar, thanks to his disastrous freshman year. He wonders whether it was a snitch from financial aid or the Casterfo Fellowship committee who told Pastor Snoke about his rocky semester.

“You’re right. I’ll do better, it’s just—” Ben resists the urge to shrug, because Pastor Snoke hates it when he doesn’t stand up straight. “I had a difficult few months.”

“I don’t want excuses. I want improvement,” Pastor Snoke says. He grasps the back of his neck in a gesture that might be fatherly if it wasn’t hard enough to hurt. “If you hadn’t lost focus, you could have found the guidance you needed to do well. The Lord never gives us more than we can bear, Ben.”

Then I wish I wasn’t capable of bearing so much.

“Of course. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

Pastor Snoke’s frown deepens. He looks upward meaningfully and says, “It isn’t my disappointment you should be worried about.”

Ben nods as respectfully as he can manage, since it seems he can’t say anything right today.

—

He’d been disappointed last semester when he couldn’t fit any of Rey’s classes into his spring schedule. Now Ben is thankful that his only RS class is Living Religions with Professor Îmwe. Advanced Greek and Astronomy are a welcome respite after the academic hell he went through last fall, although Krennic’s class makes him want to rip his hair out. It’s more his professor’s attitude that bothers him than the subject matter, but Ben still hates sitting through ninety minutes of poli sci every Tuesday and Thursday.

At the end of January, Ben goes to Rey’s office. She’s there, naturally. She works so much that it makes him wonder what kind of life she has outside of this college.

It’s the first time he’s seen her in more than passing since the day they kissed. Her hair is in a loose braid instead of its usual bun, and she never bothered to take off her coat, despite the space heater running in the corner.

Ben walks inside without knocking, points to the heater, and says, “Those aren’t allowed on campus. It’s pretty irresponsible for you to have one.”

Rey shoves a stack of papers into a folder, staring steadily at her desk. “Did you need something?”

Ben pulls the door shut behind him. He takes three deep breaths, sends a quick prayer heavenward, and says, “We should talk about what happened at the labyrinth.”

She finally looks up. “No, we shouldn’t. It’s better left alone, and—well, I assume you won’t be taking more of my classes anyway.”

“Why would you think that?” Ben asks.

Rey stands up and lays her hands flat on her tidy desk. “Because it’s not appropriate.”

Ben grips the edge of her desk and bows low enough that, if he worked up the courage, he could kiss her again.

“What I feel for you isn’t appropriate, whether I’m in your classes or not,” Ben whispers.

Rey straightens, backs away from her desk, and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She moves with the swift clumsiness of restless fear, so far from the confidence and composure she usually exudes. Rey is a brilliant teacher and an accomplished scholar, but under that, she’s just a person. A regular person like any other, and he’s been an idiot for keeping her on a pedestal.

“We’re not going down this path,” Rey says. “It would only hurt both of us.”

His desires are unwise, but maybe not unreturned, and if Rey wants him back there’s a chance—

“So you don’t want what happened between us to compromise my education, but you’re excluding me from your classes, which are the best in the whole department.” He walks around the desk and closes in on her space until she’s backed against a bookshelf. “In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s going to compromise my education.”

The top of Rey’s head barely brushes his chin, and her soft breath warms his throat. Still, her voice comes out firm, almost harsh, when she says, “I’m sorry, Ben, I am, but I don’t see you like that. You’re a great student and a—a bright kid—”

He cups Rey’s face between his hands, strokes his thumb over her cheek, and watches her gaze flicker toward his mouth. She bites her own lip, then turns away, breaths coming in short, sharp pants.

“You’re not as good at lying to yourself as you’d like to be,” Ben says.

Rey pushes him, and the shock of being struck makes him stumble.

“Get out,” she says. “Get out, and don’t come back.”

She sounds more broken than fierce, but he does as he’s told.

Later, alone in his bed, Ben realizes that he always follows wherever Rey leads him, and no matter how much he’d like to, he can’t get around the distance between her authority and his. She’s ten years older than him, smarter, better educated, with the power to ruin his future if she wants to. No matter how fiercely they disagree, in the end, he dances to whatever song Rey plays. Maybe that’s the problem.

—

Ben has managed to get through nearly two years at Litton without making a single friend. It wasn’t difficult; he’s always had to work to earn anyone’s affection or interest, and until college, his peers seemed to enjoy making his life hell. At least here he’s mostly ignored.

He can’t stand Armitage, and Armitage returns the (lack of) sentiment. But by virtue of sharing a room, they spend more time with each other than anyone else, and they agree to live together at East Village apartments next year. Better the devil you know, Ben supposes.

They’re both awake at three o’clock in the morning on a Thursday in April when Armitage closes his business textbook, pulls a fifth of whiskey from the bottom drawer of his desk, and asks, “Do you ever drink, Father Solo?”

“I’m going to be a minister, not a priest,” Ben says, but for once Armitage’s ribbing only makes him laugh. “And no, I don’t drink.”

Armitage takes a glass from the pretentious shelf of dishes next to his mini-fridge and fills it with whiskey. “Shocker.”

“I used to,” Ben says. “I used to drink all the time. Too much.”

The look Armitage gives him isn’t quite one of respect, but it’s close. “Really? I never would’ve guessed you for a budding alcoholic. Were you a man-whore too?”

Ben closes his laptop, turns to his roommate, and says, “No. I didn’t want to be close to anyone. I just wanted to…”

Disappear. He wanted to disappear, but even if Armitage is being decent for once, Ben can’t share that truth.

Armitage turns up his glass and drinks half the whiskey in one go without even flinching. “Well, here’s a piece of advice, for whenever you manage to foist your virginity off on someone: fucking doesn’t require intimacy.”

Ben ends up drinking whiskey too, then passing out. He wakes up with a dull headache after a night of dreamless sleep, feeling empty, wrung-out, and blessedly calm.

—

Ben goes to his first Greek party the weekend before finals, where he avoids getting wasted by winning game after game of beer pong. Even when he spent half his time drunk or hungover, Natty Lite was never his drink of choice, and his aim has always been excellent.

His beer pong partner is Jyn, a junior who’s famous for calling Professor Krennic a cunt in the middle of the refectory last year.

Her boyfriend Cassian has been stalking the edges of the party for the last hour, clearly pissed off except for when he looks at Jyn. Ben gestures at him and asks, “How long have you two been together?”

“Ages. For better or worse.” She makes a perfect shot. The ping pong ball sinks into a red cup at the opposite side of the table with a satisfying plop. Bodhi—another RS major who Ben knows in passing—drinks his beer, pulls a face, and tells Jyn in the most polite way possible that she’s the worst friend he’s ever had.

Ben considers flirting with Jyn. He’s heard from two-hundred-pound football players that Cassian isn’t one to fuck with, and he hasn’t been in a fight since Pastor Snoke saved him. It might feel good to be hurt, even better to hurt someone else.

After their third win, Jyn claps him on the shoulder and says, “If I keep playing with you I’ll never get drunk.”

He smiles at her, cool enough to be on the safe side of friendly. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

Ben drinks soda for the next hour, doesn’t start any fights, and ignores Jessika Pava when she flirts with him. He leaves while the party is still going strong to walk around campus. Loneliness makes him feel even more disappointingly sober, so Ben goes to the labyrinth. The woods are green and lively, full of the impending promise of summer, but he can see this place covered in frost, can almost taste the sting of winter wind.

It isn’t his fragile faith that held him back at the party, because there was little temptation to resist. Ben isn’t particularly interested in getting drunk, or fighting, or testing out Armitage’s love-life advice with a girl he barely knows. All he truly wants is Rey.

—

Ben should have declared his major months ago, but he’s been putting it off. When he finally files the appropriate paperwork, he also picks up a blue form for requesting an advisor change. Now that he’s officially a Religious Studies major, he needs a professor from the RS department to mentor him.

Rey blushes when he shows up at her office with the request form. They small talk for a minute, the most they’ve spoken to each other in three months, but then she says, “You know I can’t be your advisor.”

He smiles, as brightly as he’s capable of. “Of course you can. You’re the best.”

“My credentials have nothing to do with this. Try Professor Îmwe, or maybe Malbus—”

“Malbus hates me. Îmwe is great at his job, but he teaches world religions, and I’m going into ministry. You’re an expert on the history of Biblical interpretation, American religions, and modern theology. Which makes you the perfect advisor for me.”

“Ben…” Rey looks at him with such softness that it sends an ache through his chest and heat to his belly.

He shrugs. “I don’t see the problem.”

Her softness turns sharp in an instant, and she says, “Yes you do. Don’t be obtuse.”

“I’m not being obtuse,” Ben says. “But I am hoping you could clear something up for me. I should’ve failed 233 and lost half my scholarships, but instead, here I am with my semester paid for and my GPA intact. Harassing you about being my advisor, because you won’t talk to me for any other reason.”

The silence between them grows thick, heavy with the gravity of what they’re saying—and not saying. Ben chews the inside of his cheek, waiting. Hoping.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, so low and small that her voice would be lost if not for the stillness of this room.

“For which part?”

“I gave you that grade because you’re one of the brightest students I’ve ever had, and you didn’t deserve to lose your education over grief.” She glances down at her desk. “And I’ve been avoiding you because it’s the best thing I can think to do in a situation where nothing seems right.”

Ben counts five things he can see in this office. Bookshelves crammed into a space far too small for them. Rey’s degrees, decorating the only free wall. Fountain pens and folders scattered across her desk. A flowerpot in the window, housing a plant that’s either dead or very neglected. And Rey, so beautiful with her cheeks flushed, eyes greener and glassier than usual.

“You knew I was going to kiss you. You knew, and you let me do it.”

Rey is looking at him, and at least she has enough courage, enough respect for him, to meet his eyes when she says, “Yes.”

Running away hasn’t served him very well so far, so maybe it’s time to stand his ground.

Now or never.

“Let’s see each other,” Ben says. “No more dancing around this thing, trying to fight off something I want, and that I’m pretty sure you want too.”

“Do you realize what you’re suggesting? The consequences we could face if we got found out?” Rey picks up a pen and fidgets with it, turning it over and over. “I’d lose my job. The administration would watch you like a hawk for the rest of your time here, and most of your classmates would crucify you.”

Ben can’t keep a grin off of his face, because she isn’t saying no. It almost hurts to smile so widely. “Then we’ll be careful.”

Rey opens her mouth, but says nothing, and he can see it, the nervousness that’s keeping her quiet, and he can’t—he just can’t let her back out when she’s so close to giving in. Ben stands up, walks around the desk, and gets on his knees before Rey. He feels ridiculously like a man about to propose.

“Please.” Ben grasps her hips, then wraps his arms around her waist. Pulls her closer, to the edge of her seat. She’s a tall woman, but light. Easy to manhandle.

Rey grabs him by the front of his shirt, and Ben scrambles to his feet. He doesn’t let go of Rey, doesn’t stop touching her even once, as she stands, hops up onto her desk, and pulls him down for a kiss.

It’s wet and messy, all hunger, tongues, and sharp teeth. She’s biting at his lips as much as kissing him, like she means to take him apart one piece at a time.

—

They made it to Rey’s apartment, even into bed, but not out of all their clothes. Ben’s pants and boxers are tangled around his knees, his shirt unbuttoned. Pressed flat against the mattress with Rey on top of him, he feels frantic and overcome, drunk on the taste of her, the sight of her undressed from the waist down, riding him.

He slides his hands under Rey’s shirt and bra to grasp her breasts. They’re small, soft, her nipples peaked under his hands. He moans, rocks up harder, faster, meeting her movements. Each thrust draws a high, keening noise from Rey, quiet but desperate. And he loves all of it: pleasing her, feeling the warmth and wetness of her sex around his cock, watching her thighs work as she takes what she wants from him.

Rey looks down at him like she’s needed this every bit as much as he has, and it’s good, so much, too much—

“Wait,” Ben hisses, but he can’t stop lifting his hips, bucking up into her. “You’ve gotta slow down, or I’ll—I’m—”

“It’s okay, I want it, I want to watch you come.” Rey pulls her shirt over her head, then her bra, so he can see her, all of her, while she—

Ben bites his knuckles to keep from shouting, but he still moans loud enough that her neighbors can probably hear it through these thin walls. He can’t care, because he’s close, so close, and then he’s there. Lost under Rey, buried inside her, while bliss hits him in waves. He can hear her whimpers beneath his own, goading him on, coaxing him to the end until he’s wrung out, boneless and spent.

The room hasn’t quite settled around him again when Rey falls to the bed by his side.

“How was that?” she asks, breathless.

By the confidence in her voice, he thinks she already knows. Which is good, because all Ben can muster the intelligence to say is, “I don’t have the words for it.”

Rey laughs. “Well that’s a first.”

Then she nods in the direction of his groin, and says, “You might want to get rid of that condom.”

“Right.”

Ben would rather not think about the condom. He hadn’t known how the hell to put it on, which clearly wasn’t lost on Rey, although she had the tact not to comment on it. He goes to the bathroom, throws the condom away, and cleans himself up.

He undresses before climbing back into bed, and has to smile at the soft, stupid expression that steals over Rey’s face when she sees him naked.

“You’re really something else, you know that?” Her voice breaks on the question, and it might be as satisfying as the sex to witness the effect he’s having on her.

She lets him hold her close and play with her hair. It’s soft and fine, almost wispy, and prone to snagging when he runs his fingers through it.

“Did you come?” Ben asks.

Rey shakes her head, then nudges his calf with her foot. “I’m not too worried about it. I expect you’ll make sure I get mine before the night’s through. You are an overachiever after all.”

“Well that’s certainly true.” Ben tries to smile, but it feels weak.

“What is it?” Rey asks. “You look sad now.”

He untangles his fingers from her hair. “I don’t want to be a disappointment.”

Rey sits up, cradles his face between her hands, and looks at him with such steady, blazing attention that as much as he wants to look away, he can’t.

“Ben. Listen to me: there’s nothing disappointing about you. Not one thing.”

He should pull away. Making love once, holding each other, basking in the smallest sliver of her affection—that’s all it takes for Rey to claim every part of him that matters.

This is foolish and selfish, no good for either of them, but Ben thinks maybe, despite that, what he’s feeling could be something like love anyway.

ECCLESIASTES 6:7

Everyone’s toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is never satisfied.

—

Ben barely studies for his last exam because he goes to Rey’s apartment every night he can spare. They spend most of that time making love, then lying together in the aftermath, getting to know one another while they share tender touches and quiet words.

The night before he leaves for Cottontown, they’re entwined in a pile of inside-out clothes on the living room floor, breathless and grinning at each other.

Ben props himself up on an elbow, leans over Rey, and says, “Tell me something about yourself. I want to know you better.”

She laughs. “You already know me as well as anyone does.”

“I do?” He almost laughs with her, but then Ben notices that the smile around her mouth is empty in her eyes.

Rey touches the crook of his elbow, slides her fingers along the skin of his left forearm, following the lines of his tattoo and the scar underneath it.

“If I share something personal with you, will you tell me about this?” she asks.

Ben kisses her forehead. “Sure.”

It isn’t as if the worst of it (of him) isn’t in plain sight anyway.

“My parents dumped me at a hospital in Arizona when I was six. They left me there.” Rey looks up at the ceiling, the smallness of her voice fading into the shadows. “They left me, and they never came back.”

“That’s terrible,” Ben tells her, because it is, and because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Rey shrugs, still looking upward. “I guess so.”

He imagines Rey as a little girl, lost and alone until someone found her. Lost and alone even now, maybe, if he’s the closest thing to a friend that she has.

“Your turn,” Rey says.

Ben lies on his back beside her. He thinks there might be a water stain on the ceiling, but with only the waning blue of twilight to see by, he can’t be sure.

“I missed my dad. Missed him all the time, so I found ways not to think about him. I bullied kids who were smaller than me, just to have someone to hurt. Then I started fights with seniors, to get someone to hurt me. I drank all the time, so much that even my mom noticed. And she wasn’t—” Ben scrubs a hand over his face, counts five things he can hear, and says, “She was a good mom, but she was busy. Always so busy, dealing with a million things that were more important than me, and after Dad died, she found enough distractions to keep her even busier.”

“Like you did,” Rey whispers.

“No, not like me,” Ben says. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ve guessed where this story’s going. Nothing helped, not in the long-run. So I tried to do something that would end the pain for good.”

He doesn’t tell her about bleeding all over his bathroom floor, the flood gushing from his wrist, so bright and warm that it terrified him. He was too scared to hurt himself further, but frozen, determined not to call for help. He sat there, curled up on the tile, turning his white bathroom red red red, until his mother found him.

“Why’d you tattoo over your scar?” Rey asks. “To hide it?”

Ben shakes his head. “I tried to kill myself because I was hopeless. So when I found my faith, I wanted to cover up my scar with the thing that gave me hope again.”

Rey scoots closer to him, wraps an arm around his waist, and says, “That’s beautiful.”

No, it’s stupid, Ben thinks, but he keeps that to himself. His ability to believe has become a meager thing, too shameful to share, even with Rey.

In the silence between them, Ben offers his hand. Rey takes it, and they stay this way for a long while. Lovers who only love with their bodies, holding hands in the darkness.

—

A year ago, having sex before marriage sounded impossible, if tempting, and now he’s done it. It isn’t until he’s back at Pastor Snoke’s that Ben feels the gravity of his choices. He learned how to fear God in this house, and how to fear Pastor Snoke even more. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, because respect begins with awe, awe requires intimidation, and intimidation is born through fear. But Ben’s fear of God has waned with the awe he used to feel, and without enough respect for the path he set himself on, he simply doesn’t care enough to keep away from Rey.

At church, he’s an imposter among the faithful, the sort of wolf in sheep’s clothing that Matthew 7:15 warns about. It’s easier to see the hateful lies he swallowed, now that he better understands why he was so hungry for them.

Pastor Snoke reads Psalms 139:13—for you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb—and when he condemns the women who end their pregnancies, Ben thinks of Rey at age seventeen. Six weeks along and living out of her car. She told him, in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, that she had an abortion, went to college, and tried not to look back.

Not so long ago, Ben believed everything Pastor Snoke is saying now.

He stands, runs out of the church as fast as his legs will carry him, and finds a quiet place behind the church to hide. It keeps him from vomiting in the front pew, but then he thinks of what will await him at Pastor Snoke’s house. Hours in his locked room, or maybe a simple slap to the face. It’s too late to go home, and he can’t risk losing his place at Litton, his place beside Rey—

Help me please help me I can’t do this alone somebody help me—

Ben doesn’t know if he’s praying to his father or God, but maybe if he calls out loud enough and long enough, someone will answer.

—

He doesn’t have to go to church the next week, because the bruise on his cheek still hasn’t healed.

Ben spends all of Sunday morning writing a letter to his mother. It starts with I’m sorry and ends with please forgive me, but he can’t bring himself to deliver it. His home is only five miles away, but with the blame and betrayal he’d have to cross to get there, it might as well be a thousand.

He never has been brave. It’s a hard truth that Ben accepted years ago, after he had to look away from his dying father, and in the blink of an eye, missed the most important moment of his life.

—

Ben talks to Rey on the burner phone that he bought right after finals. He hides in his closet and keeps his voice pitched low, feeling more like a child than a twenty-year-old man.

“I miss you,” he whispers.

“I…” He hears Rey take an unsteady breath, her voice two hundred miles away, yet right in his ear. “I miss you too.”

Ben chews his lip, worrying the bruised flesh between his teeth so that the sting ties him to the present. “So, what are you teaching next semester? I’m taking Malbus again for—”

“I don’t want to talk about work,” Rey says, snappish enough that its sharpness rings in Ben’s ears.

“Well then what do you want to talk about?” he asks. “Because it doesn’t seem like you want to talk about us either, and those are the only two things we have in common.”

“Don’t be dramatic. It just seems—it’s not right for us to mix this up with—” She sighs, then her voice lowers, softens, when she says, “I don’t want to confuse you. There’s what we’re doing… and then there’s what we are to each other. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Their affair and their relationship lead to the same thing for him. He isn’t a student fucking his professor; he’s just a man making love to the woman he’s devoted to. But he only says, “Yeah, of course. I get it.”

—

“I expect better from you this year,” Pastor Snoke says. “Don’t let anything steer you away from the right path, no matter how tempting it is. If you’re not vigilant, it’s easy to be seduced by the world, to forget what needs to be done. Remember my lessons.”

Ben nods, fidgeting with his keys—keys to a gently used Toyota that Pastor Snoke gave him a week ago.

“I’ll do my best. And you won’t have any reason to hear about me this year, I promise.”

The drive back to Litton stretches on and on, the same highway view repeating a thousand times. The sidelines broken by meadows, cornfields, and roadside woods, dotted with billboards for churches, jewelry companies, fast-food restaurants. Plain black promises on white canvas claim that THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, half a mile down from a Hustler Hollywood.

By the time he reaches his school, Ben needs a shower and a nap, but the first thing he does, even before unloading his belongings into his new student apartment, is search out Rey. Her office is locked and silent, but it’s easy enough to find her in the library, wandering through the stacks with three books already under her arm.

She’s beautiful. Hair pulled up into three buns today, something new and a little silly that makes her look younger than thirty.

He pretends to examine a book near her and whispers, “Go to the restroom down the hall and wait for me.”

There’s a smile that Rey is trying to hold back, but it shows at the corners of her eyes. “Well hello to you too, darling.”

Ben pulls out a heavy book on the phenomenology of religion and flips to a page on Eliade. It’s boring, but reading it gives him something to think about besides the ache settling between his legs, tightening his throat, beating in his chest. Lust, homesickness, love. He glances around, checking for students that he already knows won’t be there.

“I need to kiss you,” Ben whispers. “Need to get my mouth on all of you.”

Five minutes later, they’re locked in the third-floor bathroom, kissing and biting at each other, pulling at clothes. Ben holds Rey against the wall, one arm braced over her head, the other unbuttoning her loose jeans. She’s a tall woman, but when they’re pressed close this way, both on their feet instead of in bed, she seems small, slight. Easy to have however he wants, so long as she wants it too.

Rey shivers when he tugs at her zipper, a shiver that turns to steady trembling as he yanks her pants and plain cotton underwear down her hips and thighs, lets them drop to her ankles.

He gets on his knees, and he loves it, loves everything about this. The sharp jerk of Rey’s fingers in his hair as she guides him closer, the whimpers she muffles around her own knuckles. The mindless calm that settles over him as he lets her take charge, giving orders and pulling his hair and bucking against his mouth. He loves the taste and smell of her, the heat and salt musk on his tongue. Wet, so wet, even more so as he unravels her with each lick, all slick warmth across his mouth and around his fingers, crooked inside her. He feels it when she comes, the quivering of her sex that he’s touching from within.

Then he pulls away, climbs to his feet, wipes the mess from his mouth with his shirtsleeve, and turns Rey around so that she’s facing the wall.

“Do you have—?”

“Yeah. I made a pitstop on the way here.”

Ben unfastens his jeans, gets them down to his knees, tangled with his boxers, and pulls a condom from his pocket. God bless Hustler, he thinks, and he doesn’t even have time to feel guilty about it before he’s inside her, and then that’s all he cares about. Rey, pressed flat against the wall, letting out the quietest of whimpers every time he thrusts. Rey, moaning his name again and again, telling him to fuck her, to have her harder, faster, to make her feel it tomorrow.

I love you, he thinks, when he’s close, when he comes, when he’s falling down from the high of pleasure. And later still, after they’ve straightened their clothes and parted ways, and he’s lying in his bed alone that night, he thinks it again: I love you. I love you so much that it’s tearing me apart.

He wishes Rey was here, to sleep beside him. That he could wake up next to her each morning, until he’s earned the intimacy of her heart as much as the intimacy of her body. That he could fall asleep in her arms at night, taking turns being each other’s protectors.

It’s becoming misery, to need someone so fully, and be needed back only in the basest, barest possible way.

—

Ben wonders how long they can keep this up. By December, he can hardly stand it. He turns twenty-one just before finals, and Rey promises to take him for a drink when the new semester starts. Plans for something like a date sustain him through his exams, distracting but elating, and he’s motivated like never before to do well.

He aces every exam, doesn’t even need to see his grades to know it, and when he tells Rey, she laughs. Throws her arms around his neck and says, “You really are brilliant. It’s a shame how well you know it, though.”

During Christmas break, he’s lost. Divergent schedules and the need for discretion keep them apart more often than not, but at least at school he has the privilege of seeing Rey. Even if it’s only a glimpse of her, walking around campus or grabbing a meal in the refectory (where she always goes back for second helpings of the dishes she likes).

When they’re together, he needs her so fiercely that it feels like something inside of him, something deep-seated and important, is being pulled from its place. Ripped out and exposed, made raw before this woman who owns him. And when they’re apart, he aches. That same part, that necessary piece of self, hurts to be away from Rey.

But she doesn’t feel the same. It’s obvious from the reservation he often feels behind her touch outside of bed, the gentle way she always cues him to leave her home before sunrise, that Rey’s desires run shallower than his own. She’s glad to use him and be used, but nothing more.

And Ben knows, as much as he doesn’t want to, that this isn’t sustainable, could never stand the test of time. An uneven love will eventually overbalance.

—

It ends as abruptly as it started, on a cold night in April.

A storm rages outside, and a clap of thunder startles Ben awake. Muzzy-headed and still boneless from lovemaking, it takes him a moment to register that Rey isn’t beside him. He climbs out of bed, pulls on his jeans, and wanders through her apartment, calling her name.

He finds her outside, on the patio, grasping the railing with a white-knuckled grip. As if that hold is the only thing that might keep her from hauling herself right over the balustrade and falling three stories to the pavement below. Ben grabs Rey by the arm and yanks her around, because he can’t tolerate it, seeing her lean so close to the edge like that.

Lightning flashes, a fork of purple-white fire branching across the sky, illuminating the whole darkness, and the whole of them, standing half-naked in the watchful night.

She’s crying. He’s never seen Rey cry before, and he knows, even before he asks, “What’s wrong?” that this is it. This is the end.

“I can’t—” She sniffs, runs a hand through her soaked hair, and says, “I can’t keep doing this, Ben. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The wind is cold on his skin, ferrying a thousand icy raindrops that beat against his body, that could eat him alive, and for a moment, that’s all he can feel. The wind, the rain, the cold.

Then the rest of it hits, and he runs inside, to get away from Rey more than to get away from the storm. He pulls on his shirt and shoes, grabs his backpack from the coat closet, and rushes into the hallway, down the staircase, running as fast and as far as he can when he can’t think, when he can’t breathe.

“Ben, wait!”

Rey followed him outside, still dressed only in a drenched sweater, long enough to cover any sight of her panties. She’s shivering, hair soaked flat against her face, barefoot and sobbing in the rain.

“Let me explain! Please—”

He rounds on her, doesn’t even think before he pushes her against the brick wall. “Why? You’re kicking me out, aren’t you? So I might as well go.”

She bites her lip, looks up at him with swollen eyes, her lashes wet with tears and rain. “I’m trying to do the right thing by you. This is hurting you. I can see that it’s hurting you, and I—” Rey looks down, and he knows that whatever is coming next will be awful. “I don’t feel the same way you do, Ben, and you deserve better than to be strung along.”

“Strung along?” He leans closer, bows low enough that he could kiss her mouth if he wanted to. If she wanted him to. “You’ve tied me up into knots, wrapped me around your little finger. Do you really think there’s anything right left that we can do here?”

She tilts her head back, angling her lips a shade nearer to his own, showing her throat to him, like prey.

“I love you,” Ben says, and finally, the words are out. He’s free of carrying them around like a weight on his shoulders, growing heavier each day they go unspoken.

Rey only nods, then whispers, “I know.”

It’s not her rejection that hurts the most. That, at least, he saw coming. It’s the softness in Rey’s eyes, the cloak of her pity that settles over him, that hits hardest.

He kisses her, presses her against the wall more roughly, taking her mouth and caging her body with his own so that, at least in this way, he can be the one in control. Bigger and stronger, with the power to make her whimper and kiss back and moan. To quiver under his roaming hands—

Rey pushes him. She isn’t strong enough to throw him off of her, but Ben still backs away.

They watch each other. Rey cries so hard that her chest heaves, and the rain keeps falling, the heavens keep roiling with a spring storm. Indiscriminate, unmoved by the display below them.

When Ben walks away, he doesn’t look back.

SONG OF SOLOMON 5:6

I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but did not find him. I called him but he did not answer.

—

His faded faith must be written all over him, because Pastor Snoke asks him flat-out in the middle of June, “Do you even believe anymore, Ben?”

This is the time to lie, to claim a faith he’s been leaving by the wayside for years, inch by inch, verse by verse. Lying would protect him, secure his final year of school, keep a roof over his head.

He thinks of blood on the bathroom floor, and his father’s last breath—the one that he looked away from, the one he missed, because he’s a coward. He thinks of Rey, crying in the rain, throwing him aside like trash. If he’s learned anything, it’s that there are many ways to give up, and some hurt more than others. But this one isn’t going to hurt at all.

“No,” Ben says. “I don’t believe in any of it, and I don’t think I ever really did. I just wanted to be free of my grief, and you dangled the Word over me like a worm over a hungry fish. So I took it.”

Suddenly Pastor Snoke’s wholesome face turns into something ugly, low, and foul. The scar across his cheek stands out, white and twisted with the sneer around his mouth. For the first time, Ben thinks he must have earned that mark.

“I thought you were the son I never had,” Snoke says. “But you’re just as much a disappointment to me as you were to your father.”

Ben punches him, and it feels good, it feels so satisfying, to finally hit this man back.

Snoke barely flinches, but it isn’t his pain that Ben wants anyway. Just the simple act of reclaiming himself, of taking back a small measure of the power that he handed over—no, that Snoke took from him.

The pastor touches his mouth, and it comes away bloody. “Get out, and don’t ever show your face here again.”

“Don’t worry,” Ben says. “I won’t.”

—

There aren’t a lot of resources for homeless twenty-somethings in Cottontown. After Snoke sent him away, he walked around for two days with nothing but the clothes on his back. All of his money came from Snoke, and he hates to spend even the thirty-two dollars in his pocket on food.

His mother’s house is so close. He could walk there in no time, he could say that he left the church and beg to come home. But he doesn’t have any right to that home, doesn’t have any right to her forgiveness, even if she’d grant it.

He borrows a stranger’s phone while he’s shopping for bread and bologna at Walmart, dials his mom’s number, then hangs up before it can ring. He calls Rey after that, and even though he doesn’t expect her to pick up, it still hurts when she doesn’t answer.

Ben smiles at the little blue-haired lady who let him borrow her ten-year-old flip phone, thanks her, and leaves the shop without buying anything.

—

The summer heat is a new hell, the kind that almost makes Ben believe in the devil again. Every day is a fresh exercise in heat exhaustion, so he finds the coolest places to lurk. Shaded park benches, the community center, under the red-striped flower shop awning.

Mrs. Miller, the shop’s owner, gives him ice water and invites him inside whenever he likes. Ben uses her bathroom to wash up with hand soap, but he knows he still looks ragged and dirty. He won’t repay Mrs. Miller’s kindness by lingering in her shop, driving away customers.

He goes to the Hope Center at the beginning of July, and when he explains the situation with Pastor Snoke, they agree that it’s terrible, just terrible, that a man of God would do such a thing.

Ben shrugs. “I would’ve run away if he hadn’t kicked me out first.”

I’m good at running away.

The women at the center help him find an apartment by the middle of July, and the first night he sleeps inside, cradled on an air-mattress in a cool bedroom, he almost cries.

The next day, when he brings Mrs. Miller a box of chocolates as a thank you gift, she offers him a job.

Working at the shop is easy enough for Ben. He’s always been meticulous, attuned to the fine details of things, whether it’s the nuances of a religious text or the careful pitch of Rey’s cries as he drew her closer to coming. That pays off once his days are consumed by caring for and arranging flowers. Mrs. Miller teaches him that too much baby’s breath only makes arrangements look tacky, the meaning of flowers is useless information unless you’re trying to sell Valentine’s arrangements or guilt-roses, and no, carnations never stop smelling like funerals.

August comes, and August goes, taking the start of a new semester at Litton with it.

—

His mother walks into the empty flower shop on September 29th at exactly one o’clock in the afternoon, and Ben knows he’ll remember this day for the rest of his life. It’s going to be tucked away in his memory for safekeeping, like flowers between the pages of a Bible.

She doesn’t see him at first, too busy examining a display of white roses, so Ben takes a moment to watch her. Her long dark braid is streaked with silver now, the fine lines by her eyes more prominent. She looks as beautiful as ever, but older. Of course she does; it’s been three years, eight months, and six days since they last saw each other. Not that he allowed himself to count, until recently.

“Mom…”

It chokes out of him before he even means to say anything, but she turns immediately, her brown eyes going wide, wider, then glassy with tears. She doesn’t let them fall, though. His mother has never been an easy crier, not like him.

“Ben?”

It stings to hear so much reservation in her voice, hope colored by disbelief, by mourning.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says.

Ben steps around the counter, gripping its edge to keep himself steady. His mom walks over, holds out her hands, trembling, tentative, and asks, “Can I hug you?”

It isn’t until he has her wrapped in his arms that Ben realizes how much he’s missed this, missed her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Mom, please—”

He doesn’t even know what he means to say. Don’t hate me? Still love me? Let me come home? It doesn’t matter, because she burrows closer, and buries her head against his chest. Was she always this tiny, this delicate?

They finally fall away from the embrace, but then his mother stands up on the tips of her toes to cup his face between her hands. “You’re so tall,” she says, crying now, finally crying like he is. “When did you get so tall?”

Once they’ve (mostly) managed to let go of each other, Ben locks up the shop, calls Mrs. Miller to tell her what happened, and follows his mom to her car. His voice is stuck in his throat all the way back to Peachtree Street, and as soon as they reach the house, he almost starts crying again. His mom repainted the siding from white to a soft, sunny yellow, and there’s a garden around the porch now. It’s his house, but not as he remembers it.

There are a few cars parked in the driveway and on the lawn around it, one that he recognizes as his grandmother’s, another that he thinks might belong to his godparents, Bail and Breha.

“What’s everyone doing here?” he asks.

“Oh, shit, I didn’t even think to tell you. The family gets together on the last Friday of every month now, sweetheart. After you left—well I thought it might be a good idea for all of us to stay close.”

Before Ben can figure out what to say, his mom smiles at him, as warmly as if no time has passed at all. “Come on. It’s the perfect day for you to come home.”

—

His grandmother sobs for ten minutes straight and won’t let go of him until Mom says, “All right, give him a chance to breathe. Don’t want to run him off again.”

Ben laughs, more out of shock than good humor, but he’s thankful that there’s so little his mother finds too sacred to make fun of.

“This is a day for family, Ben,” Uncle Luke says, smiling. “Once you’ve had some time to let that sink in, it might be good for you to think about it.”

Ben hugs Uncle Luke once more, then his cousin Finn and Breha, then his mother. He can’t get enough of pulling her close, smelling the comforting floral scent of her perfume, one thing that’s still the same after all this time.

The house is loud and boisterous, overwhelming but beautiful. Once, the noise would have bothered him, but now he doesn’t care. Through the laughter and the music and hollering from one room to another, all Ben hears is joy. A home full of joy, when he needed it most, and he can only be thankful for his family’s warmth and grace.

Maybe Luke isn’t wrong. Being here, today of all days, makes him believe for the first time in a long while that something greater than himself could be at work.

—

That night, after everyone else has gone home, Ben stays up until the early hours of the morning, talking with his mother. He tells her about living with Pastor Snoke. About college and Rey, and feeling lost without her. Most of all, though, they remember Dad together.

When dawn starts creeping through the windows, warming the kitchen with golden light, his mom says, “He’d be proud of you, Ben. So proud.”

They laugh and cry and laugh again, and this is it, he thinks. This is what he needed all along. Time for the sharp edges of his grief to wear down, and someone to share this with, the burden of love cut short. There’s no magic cure for loss, but he can do this. He can keep going.

—

Ben is lying in his childhood bed, listening to morning birdsong outside his window, when he finally calls Rey.

She answers on the second ring. He doesn’t even get through a greeting before she says, “Ben! Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried out of my mind. First you don’t answer my calls, then you never show up at school? I’ve—I didn’t know what—I was afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

Rey takes three shuddering breaths, and he thinks she might be trying not to hyperventilate.

He sits up, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his head, and holds out his hands. Then he feels stupid. It’s not like he can touch her from here.

“It’s all right, I’m all right. Now, anyway. I’m home—with my mom, I mean, and—”

“I lied,” Rey says. The words come out in a rush, like she’s been holding them in since the last time they spoke, letting honesty fester in some hidden corner of her heart.

“Lied about what?” Ben asks.

He can hear her mouth opening, the start of her voice, trembling over the line. It gives him the illusion that she’s close enough to kiss, despite the distance between them.

“I told you that I don’t feel the same way you do,” she says. “I lied.”

They spend all morning on the phone, talking through hard truths and simple ones. Being together, truly together, won’t be easy. But this time, they agree that it’s a risk worth taking.

HEBREWS 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

—

That afternoon, Ben goes to the creek behind his house. His mother would probably find this silly, but he’s always found more meaning in ritual than she does. He takes off his socks and shoes, rolls his pants up to his knees, and walks into the hungry water.

Ben wants to cast off this person he’s been for the last eight years: arrogant and selfish, whether devout or doubtful. He’s done this once before, stepped into living water in the hopes that it might wash him clean, but this is different. Today, Ben isn’t running away. Today, he’s walking toward something.

He looks up, unsure of who he’s speaking to, or if anyone is even listening, but certain for once that it doesn’t matter. “Hi,” he says. “It’s been awhile.”

[cinnaminsvga]

Neighborly Etiquette | Yoongi

→ summary: Based on this prompt [x]. You and your boyfriend live across from Yoongi’s apartment, much to his chagrin. Your laughter and dancing and bed creaking were seriously annoying him, until it stops. Then, Yoongi finds himself knocking on your door. And no, he’s definitely not there to comfort you. No way.

→ genre: neighbor!au, fluff, slight angst

→ words: 2.6K

Yoongi’s nights usually consisted of laughter and dancing, but it definitely was not him doing either of that. In fact, he was too busy yelling an annoyed “shut the fuck up” at the infatuated couple living adjacent to his apartment to ever engage in such frivolous activities. Why laugh and dance in his goddamn underwear when he could produce more music? He certainly could not understand how the people living next to him could ever waste such precious time on useless things such as love and happiness when you could be doing something productive. Like grumbling at the obnoxious sound of a squeaking bed from next door. If anyone asked if Yoongi was jealous, you would be sure to expect a proper bitching from him.

Yoongi was never shy when it came to expressing his disapproval at your nightly levities. He always made sure to tell you, as he exited his apartment the next morning to see you waving a giggly hello, that your nighttime exploits were “seriously ruining his creative process.” But alas, his complaints fell on deaf ears, since all you could do was send him a sly smile in response.

So really, in hindsight, Yoongi should have been glad when the laughter finally stopped. The black-haired gentleman who had frequented your apartment stopped coming over, and Yoongi knew this was true because the bastard’s car used to park in Yoongi’s designated parking space all the time (not that he had a car, but it was still the thought that counted). Your usually smiley face failed to make an appearance in days, but this thought was only slightly concerning to the busy Yoongi. After all, he could not afford to think about the absence of his neighbor when he could barely even afford to have a moment of sleep.

And so, your absence extended into weeks, then into months, until so much time passed that Yoongi could not even remember the last time he saw you smile. He had seen you leave the apartment occasionally, with not even a tight-lipped smile sent back to his slightly more awkward one. On the odd evening, he would hear another concerned neighbor knock on your door, but still to no response from you.

It was complete radio silence, and Yoongi did not like that.

No, Yoongi was definitely not concerned about his neighbor. Nope, not even a bit. He was just used to routine, and your odd behavior had extended for so long that he was sure it was the reason his music was starting to sound much too sappy for his liking. So yes, he has been knocking on your door for 10 minutes now, but no, it was not because he was worried.

Of course not.

“Really, Y/N? You’re going to ignore me for this long? Isn’t this against neighborly etiquette or something?” Yoongi groaned, opting to use his head to knock on the wooden door. Big mistake on his part, as the resounding thump just made his already rising headache worsen.

For another minute, only the sound of Yoongi’s breathing could be heard throughout the hallway. Yoongi could only roll his eyes, wondering if he should give up already. After all, he would definitely not have been first to leave, seeing as how there was an already growing pile of gifts from the other kinder neighbors. Just as he was about to stomp back into his home, he was surprised to find the door finally inching open. Yoongi’s eyebrows rose up in question, not really expecting his pestering to have worked.

You did not open the door for him, but instead peered at him through the crack. “How would you know anything about neighborly etiquette?” You responded quietly, a smile still absent from your face.

Yoongi halted, staring blatantly at the shorter girl. Thinking back, Yoongi never really expected you to respond. Now that you have, Yoongi did not really know what to do. (In retrospect, maybe Seokjin-hyung was right. Yoongi was totally socially inept.)

He was not sure what he was expecting to see when you opened the door. Maybe tears flowing from your eyes? Maybe a glare from you because he had disturbed your peace? To his shock, he instead found your once mirthful eyes completely devoid of emotion, completely dry of tears but definitely tired. Tired? He could relate to that.

Did Yoongi know how to comfort a crying girl? Not really. But did he know how to deal with an emotionally dead sack of a girl?

Not really either.

...

Where was Yoongi going with this?

“Erm,” Yoongi eloquently replied, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “I was just…. Can I have some tea? I’m all out of tea. Yeah.” Yoongi mentally berated himself, but mostly because he hated tea and now would have to deal with the possibility of having to accept the dastardly drink out of politeness. (See? Yoongi did know some etiquette.)

You stared blankly at him, a quirk of a brow the only indication that you might be suspicious of his intentions. Before Yoongi could begin to think of another excuse, you merely shrugged after a few seconds, opening the door for him.

Yoongi shuffled into the home, and immediately blanched at the sight.

Your normally pristine apartment (not that Yoongi regularly went to your apartment; he has seen it from the corner of his eye once or twice) was now completely wrecked. Piles of books were scattered on the floor, unwashed clothes (Yoongi will pretend he did not see the pink thong on the couch) decorated the living room, and boxes of old takeout were littered in the kitchen.

Before Yoongi could even get a word out (honestly, what would he even say?), you only chuckled darkly at the mess. “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty disgusting, aren’t I?” You shrugged, pushing some of the clothes off the couch and plopping down carelessly. Yoongi toed the books, glancing at the very obvious lovey-dovey covers and sappy titles.

“Uh, I was going to say you were pathetic, but disgusting is true too.” Yoongi replied, shoving the rest of the clothes off the couch and onto the floor. (Yoongi had touched the thong.)

You only groaned in response. Your hair was tied into a limp ponytail, most probably unwashed for who knew how long. You were also wearing a pair of sweats that Yoongi was sure had belonged to your boyfriend, obvious from the local university’s football team’s logo emblazoned onto the side. You honestly looked pretty sad.

“I heard that,” you grumbled, chucking a textbook in his direction. Yoongi dodged, blushing slightly because he definitely did not mean to say that out loud.

“Well, it’s true. How long have you been hoarding all this shit? And I thought that I was a lazy bastard.”

“Who are you calling lazy, lazy? Besides, I thought you wanted tea. I wasn’t even sure that you liked tea.” You paused, eyebrows scrunching (cutely, but Yoongi didn’t think that. No way.) “I see you drinking black coffee from the coffee place down the road.”

“Ok, yeah. I hate tea. It was just an excuse so you would let me in.” Yoongi sighed, failing to notice that you had known what his favorite drink was. “I was knocking on your door for 10 minutes.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Why’d you want to come in? I didn’t see you much as the caring type. You always told me to fuck off whenever we—I was noisy.” You corrected hastily, abruptly standing up and walking to the kitchen. The awkward moment quickly passed. “So, what? Black coffee?”

“Uh, yeah.” Yoongi replied dumbly, standing up to follow her to the kitchen. “And yes, I am definitely not the caring type. I was just making sure you weren’t dead and that I didn’t have to call the cops.”

You turned your head slightly at his direction, offering him a sly smile. “I always knew you were a softie.” Finally, a smile, Yoongi thought. Even thought it was kind of sarcastic, it was still one step forward.

Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Give me my coffee so I can leave.”

Your hands stilled from their ministrations. Yoongi looked up, wondering why you suddenly stopped moving. Almost hesitantly, you turned towards him shyly, a sudden change in attitude that almost scared Yoongi. You, shy? Smiley girl turned zombie was suddenly shy?

“What is it? Why’d you stop?” Yoongi asked. You only fidgeted a bit, fumbling around with the cups and sighing heavily.

“Erm, this is kinda awkward,” You started, and Yoongi could not help but scoff internally. Kinda?

“Well? Spit it out.”

“Could you stay here? With me? It’s kind of lonely and I...” You trailed off, a heavy blush decorating your cheeks. Yoongi’s eyes widened comically, surprised by the sudden question. He coughed awkwardly, his cheeks mirroring yours.

“Wait! Um, actually, I take it back! I’m sorry for being so awkward, I was just—“ You blubbered, waving your hands quickly. “Oh my god, I would never ask you for such a thing, I just, uh...”

Yoongi cut you off. “I’ll do it.”

You stopped your rant. “Uh, you’ll what?”

“Um. I’ll stay with you, sure. I don’t really mind. Not like I have anything better to do.” He said, scratching his neck in embarrassment. God, you were both socially inept. (Seokjin snickers in his apartment, but he does not know why.)

You giggled, and Yoongi could not help but think it sounded like music. Maybe he should put it in his mixtape? (God, that was gross. What’s up with him?) “You, without anything better to do? Aren’t you Mr. My Creative Process Is Always Disturbed By Your Stupid Ass Merrymaking?”

Yoongi scoffed. “Hey, I’m trying to be nice here! Do you want me to stay or not? Because I’m perfectly fine with leaving you to become a dead slug all day. Who cares? Not me!”

There was a silence for a while. Yoongi scolded himself internally. Stupid, stupid! Now you offended her and she probably hates you even more and god why are you so goddamn cute when you’re laughing—wait you’re laughing?

You had started laughing at his mini outburst, and after a minute, Yoongi grinned proudly at his achievement. If his nagging got you laughing, then he guessed that will have to do.

“You’re so ridiculous, you know that?” You finally gasped, your laughter finally dying down but your smile still lingered on your face.

“However,” He continued, raising his finger. “I have one request.”

You furrowed your brows, urging him to continue. “Shoot.”

“We clean your damn apartment. It’s fucking gross.”

“You’ve been wearing the same shirt for a month? Gross!”

“This pizza box has been here since last week? What are you, a rat?”

“Oh my god, you read the entirety of the Nicholas Sparks collection? Unbelievable.”

“You’re telling me that you’ve been drinking tea all this time because it reminds you of him? Monster.”

A month ago, you were sure that you were as good as dead. Losing your first love to another woman was always something you never thought would happen to you. Ever since he had left, your heart had always felt hollow.

Yet somehow, life decided to give you another chance. This grumpy man whom you had always thought acted like some weird old uncle was actually making you feel things again. Yoongi’s nagging caring had awakened a part within you that you thought had died. It was true that you had not smiled in over a month, and you were sure that nothing would ever be the same again. But somehow, along the way, Yoongi reignited something in you. It was a bubbly feeling, where it started from your chest and flowed freely to your head to your toes. It was warm and safe. It was Yoongi.

Were you scared?

“Yes, I’m disgusting. I get it!” You laughed, shoving the last of your laundry into the overflowing washing machine. “Mind you, I still remember that time you had to call the plumber because your huge turd blocked the entire plumbing system.”

Yoongi glared daggers at you. “We NEVER speak of that again, promise?” He said, poking you in the stomach. You clutched the offending part quickly, a look of fear passing your face before leaving just as quickly.

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?” He asked, a wicked grin forming on his mouth. His eyes squinted in glee while yours widened in fear. “Don’t tell me...”

“NOOOOOOOO!”

Yoongi cackled. “TICKLE FIGHT!”

The two idiots rolled around of the floor; Yoongi tickling you while you (tried) tickling back.

“H-hey! That’s not fair! Y-you’re not ticklish?!” You screamed, trying as best as you could to defend yourself from your attacker.

Yoongi had your arms pinned above your head, his gummy smile never leaving. “Not my fault that the gods have blessed me with superhuman abilities.”

The tickling fight finally caught up to the both of you, as both your giggling slowly came to a stop. You noticed the compromising position you were in, and coughed awkwardly to get Yoongi’s attention. He immediately let you go, a soft pink hue coating both of your cheeks in embarrassment.

“Uh, well...” Yoongi coughed, looking at his watch. His eyes light up in fake surprise. “Would you look at the time? It’s almost 2AM... I think it’s time for me to get to bed.”

Yoongi stood up, offering you a hand as well. He pulled you up, your eyes trained to one another. Yoongi could not help the way his eyes lowered to your lips, and the same could be said to you.

The air stilled, and Yoongi could not help but think this was like one of those scenes in the romance books you so obviously liked. God, he hated himself for being such a loser, but he really could not stop looking at you. Despite your messy hair and puffy face, he never realized just how great you are—

Hold up.

Yoongi was not going to fall in love with this girl. Nope. He definitely has not been in love with this stupid, grinning fool ever since he moved into his apartment and set his eyes on you. No, he had not been jealous when he found out you had a boyfriend. No, he was not secretly pleased when he broke up with you. No, he did not love your laugh, your stupid smiley face, your tea loving tendencies... There were definitely no warm feelings in his chest whenever you said his name.

Nope. Nadah.

...

Was he scared?

“Uh, yes... I think I should get going now.” He cleared his throat. He quickly detached his hand from yours, both of you blushing harder after realizing holy fuck we’ve been holding hands for how long now???

As he turned to leave, your voice stopped him.

“Um, I wouldn’t mind some help tomorrow. You know, for the laundry? If you aren’t too busy, I might add.”

He turned his head to you, eyes focusing on the shy smile lighting your face. The stupid butterflies in his chest erupted into a dance (Damn, how pathetic can you get Yoongz?) and Yoongi could not help the grin spreading on his face.

He nodded. He closed the door.

You heard the soft pattering of his feet and the closing of his door from across the hall.

From your apartment, you whispered to yourself, “See you tomorrow.”

From his apartment, he whispered to himself, “See you tomorrow.”

[starshua]

l.c ❥ the first forever

chan x reader; 100wtsily

gif; mine

word count; 4.2k

synopsis; your fated meeting with your soulmate finally comes; fluffy soulmate!au + wtsily prompts “can i kiss you?” + “can i have this dance?” + a lil junhao

✎ this prompt was so cute i’m actually emotional i live for soulmate aus. also i had to add in the junhao i’m sorry sldjskfd

“y/n, are you afraid to meet your soulmate?”

Looking up from the novel in your grasp, you turned to Minghao with a raised eyebrow. The boy grunted at your quizzical look, running an indignant hand through his hair. The movement drew your gaze to his wrist. You eyed his timer, instinctively taking note of the dwindling numbers lighting up his skin. He noticed and gently shook his wrist, watching as the strange digits dissipated into nothing.

“Not really,” you answered him, relocating your focus to his anxious expression. Sure, you were rather nervous, but not afraid. “I’m sure my soulmate is right for me, so...is there really anything to be scared of?” Minghao considered this and let out a melancholy puff of air, unintentionally blowing his bangs away from his forehead.

“I guess you’re right. I’m the one that should be nervous, anyway.” You nodded in agreement, sighing through chapped lips. You were both painfully aware: Minghao’s time was running out. From the time you two had first met, you had been mindful of who would encounter their soulmate first. For years, you had teased him about his potential partner, meaningless wonderings of what-ifs and maybes floating past your unguarded lips. He had laughed it all off, refusing to make any concrete decisions about the person he would spend his life with, but you had never failed to see the faint dusting of rose on his flushed cheeks when you revisited the topic.

“I want it to be a surprise,” he repeated time and time again until finally you ceased your musings and allowed Minghao to dwell on the subject by himself.

Well…mostly by himself. “How long?” you asked him, your steady voice betraying the erratic beating of your heart.

He didn’t even spare his wrist a glance. “Twenty-three hours and forty-two minutes. Give or take a little, I guess,” he said, his smile trembling like a leaf in the wind. You nodded like the admission didn’t affect you at all and directed your attention toward literally anything else. Tenderly, like you were afraid of making too much noise, causing too much of a disturbance, you flipped the page of the little book in your lap. It was a distraction at best, and it didn’t help even a little. You were keenly aware of the date and time that he would meet his soulmate—always had been—and you were even more acutely conscious of the fact that you would meet your soulmate a mere twelve hours and sixteen seconds later than he.

“Do you want me to be there?” you asked softly.

Minghao met your look of concern and flashed a gentle grin. “y/n, you’re my best friend. Of course I want you there. Who else is gonna keep me from shitting my pants?”

Laughter erupted from your chest as you absorbed his silly remark. Your giggling illuminated the apartment, bringing life to the desolate atmosphere. You cradled your stomach, laughing harder, as your spectacle of amusement brought pain to your sides. You two were being ridiculous, you thought. Hadn’t you just said that you weren’t afraid?

The bright sound of your laughter cajoled Minghao to join in the cadence of your mirth, a bout of his own merriment easily bubbling up in his throat. It felt incredible to laugh, to let the whole soulmate thing be fun even for a reason as arbitrary as this.

Slowly, the two of you calmed down and resumed your conversation, the gray settling back in. You discussed things of little importance and exchanged knowing looks, both of you silently aware of the building tension. Thoughts of your best friend meeting his soulmate tomorrow afternoon swirling around your mind as you skirted around the topics of love and destiny. From the fear and apprehension in Minghao’s eyes, you decided that staying silent was for the best. Not every inevitability needed to be discussed.

After an hour of chatting and idly exploring the programs on TV, the two of you called it a night and headed off to your respective spaces. You buried yourself underneath your covers, thoughts of the next day’s events racing through your head, disorienting you. It was becoming so very hard to think. Eventually, though, the gentle sound of rain pattering against your windowpane silenced your active mind, its gentle lull resonating in your ears. Soon, the feathery touches of sleep danced at the edge of your consciousness until, finally, your eyelids fluttered shut and the world of dreams overtook you.

This is it, you told yourself as you sat down across from Minghao. The relative quiet of the café did nothing to ease your anxieties; the sounds of baristas chatting and coffee cups clinking filled your nervous ears, lighting all of your senses on fire as you shifted in your seat.

You looked at Minghao. On the surface, he looked entirely too calm, maybe even bored. Only the continuous shaking of his leg and the constant darting glances around the room alerted you to his anxiety.

“So what do you think they’ll look like?” he asked suddenly. You placed a hand on his shaking palm and shot him the most reassuring grin you could muster.

“Hao, does it matter? You’re gonna love how they look no matter what,” you told him. With a light laugh, you continued, “Stop worrying! All you need to do is make sure they love me almost as much as they’re going to love you.”

“If they’re my soulmate, they definitely will,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “My soul won’t be complete unless I have both of you.”

You smiled at him and ruffled his hair in an effort to take away from the cheesy atmosphere. He grinned—a small, playful thing—and smacked your hand away.

As the two of you sat and chatted, you stole periodic glances at his wrist, each time taking a mental note of how long you had until his life changed for good. Minghao, on the other hand, was actively trying to keep the timer out of his sight. He was scared—terrified, really—of what was ahead. What kind of person would his soulmate be? Would the two of them fall in love due to their own feelings or merely because of fate? Was he really ready to meet his soulmate?

His thoughts were interrupted by the alarmed shout of a young man as he avoided an angry woman storming by. In a flurry of limbs, the young man landed with a hand braced on the table in front of Minghao, the other resting on a chair just behind your friend’s back.

“Hi,” the stranger breathed out sheepishly. Minghao returned his shy greeting and stared into the stranger’s eyes. There was something oddly familiar about him…

Minghao gasped and lifted up his wrist. A glaring row of zeroes sat there, almost daring him to question their ruling. The stranger blinked down at Minghao’s wrist and lifted his own, revealing the same drained timer. Their wrists let out small beams of light before the clocks dissipated into dust, their destinies finally fulfilled.

“I, uh. I’m Minghao. Xu Minghao,” your friend stuttered out. The other boy introduced himself as Wen Junhui before rushing off to the back of the café, returning breathlessly only a few minutes later with three drinks and some casual clothes on.

Minghao brushed off Junhui’s actions, telling him to go back to work and that they could talk later. The young man, who insisted on being called Jun, told the two of you that his boss had let him off early as soon as she heard about her new employee’s soulmate. Minghao flushed at the term, unmistakably still adjusting to his new situation. You had never seen him like this, and, frankly, you were loving it.

Upon closer inspection, so was Jun. Every time Minghao did anything remotely cute (a frequent occurrence, though you’d never tell him) it was like a new star lit up in Jun’s eyes. As adorable as it was, you needed to go. Third-wheeling was not on the agenda.

You excused yourself as subtly as possible, making up some activity that you had forgotten about. It wasn’t convincing in the least, and the wink you sent Minghao’s way as you left didn’t help your case. (The blush that raged across his face was so worth it.) You rushed out of the café before he could yell at you, a simple, “See you at home!” flying over your shoulder as you slipped out through the door.

Six hours. Only six hours until I meet my soulmate.

Not that you were counting. Except you were, and it was driving you crazy.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Your phone screeched, stealing your attention as text notifications flooded your screen. They were all from Minghao, who was begging you to leave the apartment for a few hours so that he could have some time alone with Jun.

You groaned and sent him a text reminding him of your own soulmate issue. “Of course, I’ll be out! My timer stops at midnight, you moron,” you grumbled as you glanced over his apologies. You couldn’t even really blame him; if it were you, you would probably annoy him just as much.

And soon it would be you. The clock on the wall told you as much, emblazoning the time as if for the sole purpose of tormenting you.

Just a few more hours, y/n. You can do this, you told yourself. Not that you had a choice. Whoa, that was negative. You needed to get out of the living room. There were far too many stressors.

Well, if you were going to meet your soulmate tonight, you might as well look good for it, you decided. The outfits you had picked out with Minghao just a few days prior sat waiting in your bedroom. Each one would look incredible on you, you knew—Minghao had made sure of that—but the nervousness was creeping in, and your confidence was wilting.

In the hour it took Minghao to come back home, you had tried on every single article of clothing in your closet and redone your hair four times. It was a waste of time, naturally, because your favorite look was one your best friend had already chosen as his favorite days ago. Maybe he deserved more credit than you gave him.

“Hao?” you called, walking to meet him at the front door.

Minghao shut the door and turned to you, taking in your appearance. “y/n, you look amazing!” he marveled. He reached to fiddle with your sleeve, subtly slipping his hand out of his soulmate’s grasp. “We should choose each other’s outfits more often.”

You laughed and gave him a little twirl, showing off the full look.

Jun let out an appreciative hum and joined Minghao in front of you. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.

You lifted your wrist, summoning your timer so that he could see its dwindling numbers.

“Ah. Good luck,” Jun said. “It’ll turn out fine, though. I promise.” His gaze strayed to Minghao, affection swimming in his eyes, and you smiled. Maybe he was right.

“Since the festival is tonight, do you think you’ll meet your soulmate there?” Minghao asked.

You pursed your lips and considered his question. You hadn’t really thought about the festival at all, but as you pondered it, it seemed like the right choice. You weren’t sure if it was merely a sudden desire to join the festivities or if fate was giving you a little push, but either way, you decided to go.

“Yeah, I do, actually. Is it weird that I’m so sure?” you wondered.

Your best friend gave you a lopsided smile and shook his head. “Nah, I had a weird feeling about the café earlier. I think you’ve gotta go with your gut on this one, y/n,” he told you.

Jun nodded in agreement. “I felt the same thing this morning when I walked in for work.”

That was reassurance enough. You thanked them, grabbed your keys, and stepped out of the apartment, markedly aware of the four hours and thirty minutes that remained until you would meet the person that was destined to change your life.

It was going to be a long night.

Three minutes and thirteen seconds.

Your apprehension was so palpable you could almost feel it gathering around in your throat as you swallowed. Your mind strayed, and the bustling street faded, separating you as you stumbled through the crowd. You had spent a lot of time running into friends at the festival, staying about an hour with each group that you had come across. When your clock had reduced to a mere fifteen minutes, you had said your goodbyes and drifted off into the sea of people.

You found yourself staggering past boisterous individuals and massive hordes of wild teenagers until, eventually, you slipped away from the throng and wandered through an empty park. Stopping by its fountain, you stared down at the inky water and caught a glimpse of the remaining two and a half minutes from the liquid’s reflective surface.

With a quiet groan, you traipsed your way to the other end of the park, pausing only when you heard the whisper of a violin’s song grace your ears. You turned to see an older gentleman playing a romantic tune amid a swarm of awed onlookers, a proud grin lighting up his wrinkled face.

You took the time to pause and appreciate the melody waltzing through the air, a peaceful smile slipping past the anxiety and stress of the evening. The moment was disturbed, however, by a chest slamming into your side. With a start, you looked at the offender and opened your mouth to speak. Bitter words died on the tip of your tongue as you stared, captivated and wide-eyed, into the stranger’s eyes.

“Oh my God I’m so sorr—whoa,” he said, a reverent breath slipping past his parted lips. You blinked up at him slowly, only realizing that this scene was oddly familiar when you instinctively clutched at your wrist. Sure enough, when you checked your clock, you discovered that the numbers had already fallen to nothing. Seeing your actions, the boy exposed his own wrist to you, shyly displaying his similar lack of time.

“So...you’re my soulmate, then?” he asked quietly as if even he couldn’t believe it.

The timers disappeared from your wrists, and you nodded. “My name is y/n. And yours…?” you asked.

“Chan. It’s nice to finally meet you, y/n,” he returned. The sound of your name on his tongue sent shivers down your spine. Ecstasy and intrigue bubbled within your chest as he stuck out his palm, his enticing smile effortlessly speeding up the already rapid beating of your heart.

“Can I have this dance?” he asked with a voice so soft that you almost didn’t hear him. You gave him a small nod, and immediately he whisked you into his grasp, twirling and twisting you this way and that. You landed lightly in his arms, and a dizzy grin snuck its way onto your face.

As the two of you continued to dance, the crowd began shifting their attention from the violinist to you. Strangely enough, you didn’t mind; Chan’s confidence and natural affinity for dance seemed to be rubbing off on you. Quickly, your movements became less reserved, and with a playful shrug of his shoulders, Chan led you through some more complicated steps. He made you feel light as air as he spun you around, his warm hand on the small of your back the only thing seeming to anchor you to the ground.

Your dancing ceased as the song came to a sweet end and the violinist lowered his bow. The crowd clapped quietly as the two of you held your finishing position with you flush against each other’s chests. He was breathing heavily from the exertion, and his breath ghosted over your face. It smelled pleasantly of peppermint, and it mingled with yours as you stared up at him. Chan smiled brilliantly—it was already starting to grow on you—practically radiating the elation you were both feeling.

You laughed heartily at the enthusiastic viewers around you and returned Chan’s look with a blinding grin of your own. “Wanna go somewhere with fewer people?” you asked.

He raised a playful brow and leaned in even closer, sending heat all across your face. “Are you that eager to get me alone?” he teased.

You huffed, embarrassed, and smacked his chest lightly, suddenly conscious of the hand gently gripping your waist. “Is it wrong to want to get to know my soulmate?” you pouted.

Chan shook his head and reluctantly released his hold on you before taking your hand in his and leading you away from the sea of people.

“W-where are we—?” you started curiously. Chan shushed you, laughing as you huffed petulantly behind him. He led you through winding streets and weaved between countless festival booths, an excited grin remaining ever-present on his face.

You let Chan guide you through an unfamiliar park as you closed your eyes. The sound of tree branches swaying in the wind flew above your head as the long, dewy grass reached mischievously for your ankles. A warm breeze gusted through the air and swirled around you, bringing with it the scent of a balmy summer evening. The aromas of fried food and delicate sweets paraded along, chased and overshadowed by the smell of nature as you fell deeper and deeper into the night.

Chan finally stopped, and you opened your eyes to face the brilliance of the shining stars above your heads, nearly getting lost in the gleam of the galaxy. “We’re here,” he murmured. The deep rumble of his voice did wonders in bringing you back down to Earth.

A large fountain sat in front of you, its water quietly flowing out into a beautiful basin. Its trickle was so hushed that you hadn’t even heard it over the pounding of your heart within your chest. You took note of the stone path leading from the edge of the pool to the center of the fountain, and marveled at the pure artistry of it, enjoying the way the moon shone on the reflective surface of the liquid.

“Ready?” Chan asked. You were about to ask what he meant when he stepped up onto the ledge of the fountain and hopped in. You expected a splash, but then he waved you over from his place atop the stone path and continued walking along it. At the center of the structure sat a bench, and he moved calmly toward it as if he had done it a million times before.

Peering over the edge, you glanced over the steps jutting out above the water’s surface. Well, you thought, they look safe enough. You swung your legs over the barrier and gingerly made your way down the path to Chan.

You were slower, and he stood patiently as he waited for you to catch up, amusement coating his expression all the while as he watched you take careful strides from one stone to the next.

Once you were close enough, he stretched out his hand for you to take, and, bashfully, you placed your palm within his grasp and intertwined your fingers carefully with his. The two of you sat down on the bench just in front of the gushing fountain and spoke, quietly sharing details about yourselves and the lives that you were living.

As you looked around, you noticed the lack of water flow from the tallest spout on the fountain. With a curious furrowing of your brows, you turned to Chan and asked, “Does the top of this fountain not work?”

The boy directed his line of sight to the highest point of the structure and squinted at it. “Hmm...I don’t know,” he said slowly. He stood and lightly tapped the bottom of the fountain with the tip of his shoe before returning to his seat by your side.

“Huh, I guess no—” you started, quickly being interrupted by a loud grumble. You sent a quizzical glance toward the source of the sound and watched in silent apprehension as water gushed sporadically from the top of the fountain. A single stream of liquid dumped itself upon your heads before sputtering out, the spout having returned to its previous barrenness.

The two of you sat in shocked silence before bursting out into bright, cacophonous laughter. In your eyes, Chan looked positively ridiculous; his hair clung messily to his forehead as tiny droplets went flying off of him with every cackle he released beside you. You didn’t look any better, of course, but the hilarity of the situation sent your worries about your appearance out the window. In truth, underneath Chan’s raucous amusement, he was wholly enraptured by the luminosity of the smile on your face.

It all felt so right—as if the moment was destined from the very start. Gazing at Chan, you couldn’t help but believe that every moment with him was meant to happen. Every little word, every breath, every look was one more fated instance to fill your soul to the brim. Every second with him was destiny winding its endless, ingenious string of fate more tightly around you, infinitely and intrinsically connecting your two souls together.

Gradually, your cachinnation died down, and you were able to return your focus to Chan. Having already settled down, the boy was watching you intently with a smitten fire to his gaze. He stared, flitting between your eyes and your lips as he leaned toward you, each incremental movement increasing the volume of your pounding heart.

Just as you felt his eyelashes fluttering against your cheek, he opened his mouth and spoke so inaudibly that you might not have heard him if the words hadn’t faintly brushed against the corner of your mouth.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, his eyes hooded and dazed.

You swallowed thickly and licked your lips at his question, loving the subtle intensity reflecting in his shining orbs. “You talk too much,” you replied.

He was about to retort when you pressed your lips to his in a brief kiss, retreating before he could even really process what had happened. He blinked in surprise as amusement spread across his face like wildfire. Without hesitation, he moved to press his lips against yours in a more sensual, relaxed kiss. Almost unconsciously, you threaded your fingers through Chan’s hair, eliciting a satisfied sigh from him. He smiled into the kiss and rubbed soothing circles into your hip with his thumb, relishing in the way you gripped his shoulder just a bit tighter when he dragged his teeth against your bottom lip and tugged.

Slowly, you broke away from the kiss and moved your hands to rest on his chest. You stared at him and giggled breathlessly, the sound pleasing Chan’s ears in the same way chimes did as they danced in the wind.

“You know,” he started softly, “we’re still completely soaked.”

He was right, of course—the uncomfortable weight dragging down your clothing verified his reminder, and a chill starting to set in.

You groaned, contemplating your options. “Well...we’re only a five-minute walk to my apartment. We could go there if you want?” you offered.

Chan swallowed a teasing comeback when he saw the shy fidgeting of your hands in your lap. “Sure,” he agreed.

The two of you walked to your apartment hand in hand, talking and laughing through barren streets. You told Chan about your day and warned him about your roommate and his own soulmate. Chan just smiled and said he couldn’t wait to meet them.

Soon enough, you came upon the doorstep, and, gingerly, you unlocked the door and let yourself in. Immediately, Minghao threw his door open and sprung out of his room, unquestionably full of energy and anticipation.

“y/n! How was meeting your soulma—” he began excitedly, stopping when he saw Chan by your side. An impish grin slid across his face. “...So I’ll take that as a good sign, then?” he asked slyly.

Your cheeks burned as you rolled your eyes at him, acutely aware of the hand holding yours. “Oh, shut up, Hao. Hand over some of your clothes, would you? We’re soaked, and Chan needs something a little less...soggy,” you told him.

He raised his hands in a sort of okay, fine gesture and disappeared off to his room, returning with a few articles of clothing and a sleepy Jun trailing behind him. Jun waved at you kindly and rested his chin on Minghao’s shoulder as you showed your soulmate the way to the bathroom.

Returning a few minutes later in your pajamas, you introduced everyone to Chan and caught up a little on what you had missed at home. After chatting for a few minutes, Chan realized what time it was and began gathering his things. He explained that his friend Soonyoung was waiting for him back home and that if he didn’t come back soon, the boy would likely never let Chan live it down.

You reluctantly said your goodbyes and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek, enjoying the blush that spread across his cheeks. As soon as the door clicked shut, you turned to the two boys and grinned.

“Hao, I have so much to tell you.”

[flslp87]

A Family Addition for Captain Swan

Having a baby can bring every emotion from exhilaration to terror.  Come along on the journey with Emma and Killian as they experience all the emotions that creating a new life can elicit.  Chapter 1- Pregnant -Emma’s POV - here, Chapter 2 - Pregnant - Killian’s POV - here, Chapter 3 - First Doctor’s Visit - Emma’s POV - here, Chapter 4 -First Doctor’s Visit- Killian’s POV - here, Chapter 5 -Heartbeat - Emma’s POV - here, Chapter 6 - Heartbeat - Killian’s POV - here ; Chapter 7 - First Movement - here; Chapter 8 - Ultrasound - here;   Chapter 9 - Cravings - here; Chapter 10 - Delivery - here.      

It can also be found on FF as well as on AO3. 

Thanks to @duathadun for her excellent wall work and for @hellomommanerd correcting all my mistakes.  

Doctor’s Visit - Killian’s POV

Rated - K   Words - ~4700

~~~~~

"Good morning, you two." 

"Morning, Mom," Killian heard Henry say to her quietly. 

Turning toward her from where he was standing at the stove, Killian noticed that she looked rested, "Morning, love.  Shall I make you two or three of these little strips of pig fat?"

"No, you eat the bacon.  I bought an extra bearclaw yesterday that sounds really good right now.  I'm even going to add a little peanut butter to it."  

He turned back to the stove, thinking that sounded truly awful and flipped over the bacon when he heard her mutter, "Seriously?!"  Immediately following the single word a loud noise was heard and then in a raised voice she exclaimed, "HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO BE TOLD TO TAKE CARE OF THE EMPTY CONTAINERS?" 

Quickly placing the food onto a plate, he turned toward the table, "Swan, now take it easy. It's not good for you to get worked up.  Here have some eggs." He set the plate down but noticed her eyes were glassy and her body was vibrating with obvious frustration.  He wanted to go to her and take her in his arms but she wasn't ready for that yet.  She still had a few things to work through on her own.  His Swan.  So brave, yet so stubborn.  

He knew he had somehow touched a nerve when she looked at the plate and swallowed hard before uttering, "I don't want eggs!  Didn't you hear what I said?   I want my bearclaw and I wanted peanut butter but NO!"

His heart heavy, he watched as she grabbed the bag and her pastry and left the house with a forceful shut of the front door.  Wiping his hand across his mouth he glanced over at the lad, who was sitting staring at the closed door, the look on his face a combination of sadness, hurt and love, "You alright?"

"I'm fine Killian.  I'm sorry about the empty jar."  He hung his head as if awaiting punishment.  

Killian laid his hand on Henry's shoulder, "Son, you know it's not you, right?" He nodded his head. "But maybe in the future if you eat all of something you can put it on the list." 

"Sure thing, Killian.  And Mom?  She will be fine?" 

"Aye, Henry.  She will be fine.  Now grab your pack so you can catch the bus." 

While the lad ran off upstairs, Killian put the kitchen to rights and packed him a quick lunch. On the way to where the bus stopped, he once again promised him he would check on Emma.  

Henry climbed onto the bus and stuck his head out a window. "Don't forget to get those maps off the Jolly you promised.  I need them for my project." 

Making a mental note to get them later, Killian pulled out his phone and when David answered, got right to the point, “David, it's Killian.  Emma left in rather a hurry again this morning," the tone of his voice expressing just as much frustration as he assumed his Swan was feeling.  

"What set her off this time?"

"I believe it was the lack of peanut butter."

"Peanut butter?" 

"Aye, peanut butter.  I've yet to understand the importance of such a substance on a sweet pastry."

They spoke a bit longer with David sharing strategies that had proven successful with him when Snow was carrying both Emma and Neal.  Finally completing the call as David said, "Thanks for the head's up Killian.  I'll let you know when she arrives." 

After he said goodbye, Killian thought about going to the Jolly to get the maps but decided a detour by the Sheriff's station to check on Emma was first on his list.

cs~cs~cs

When Killian walked into the station, it was to find David sitting on the corner of his desk staring across the room.  "David, how's Emma?" 

David glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, "I don't know.  I sent Snow in there."

"Chicken?"

"Damn straight.  Emma can he quite passionate went annoyed." 

"I quite enjoy my Emma's passion." He winked at his father-in-law.

David gave him a disgruntled look. "Watch it, Pirate." 

"Sorry," he retorted with a shrug of his shoulder, before pulling out a chair and sitting down.  "What happened with Emma?"

David told him as much as he knew about what happened with Emma, but mainly they sat and stared at the door waiting for Snow and or Emma to exit.  Really hoping he would get some time alone with his wife, he watched the door and as soon as it opened and Snow came out alone, he made his way toward Emma's mother, "She alright?"

Snow patted him on the shoulder as she walked past, "She will be now that you're here.  Go on in."

He opened the door as she was drying her face and heard her say, "I thought you were going to wait outside for me." 

"Well, love, if I waited outside, I couldn't do this."  Reaching her, he put his hand around her and forcefully pulled her to him, covering her lips with his.   Using both arms, he tightened his hold until no space separated them and deepened the kiss hoping to take some of her burden upon himself. 

She groaned in protest when he released her lips but when he kissed her cheek and then buried his face in her neck, she quieted and held him even closer than before.

"Alright, Swan?"

Seeing her leaning on him caused his heart to soar but her words brought an ache to his chest that she could feel so vulnerable, "Killian, I'm sorry about this morning. I just..." 

Wanting her to look at him, he tugged on her blonde hair until she met his gaze, "Aren't used to being taken care of," he finished for her.  "I know that Swan, but," he took a half a step back and laid his hand over her still flat stomach, "it's not just you these days." 

"I realize that but it's all so new and this alien inside of me..." 

"Alien?" He frowned at her, "Like the lad's Wookie?" 

She must have realized that she had confused him because she grinned and clarified, "Sorry, baby inside of me. Better?" 

"Aye, but someday," he tapped her nose, "I am going to be a 21st-century father after all." 

"That you are.  Well, Daddy," she looped her arm through his, "baby is hungry.  Have time to buy us eggs at Granny's?" 

Thinking he would like nothing more than to make sure she had a healthy meal, he escorted her to Granny's and watched her consume a meal fit for his Princess and his child before dropping her back at the station and making his way to his other lady, the Jolly Roger. 

cs~cs~cs

Having promised Henry that he would bring him the maps for his project, Killian climbed aboard the Jolly Roger, taking a moment to admire the old girl's smooth lines even after hundreds of years of service.  As he strolled around deck, memories of the last time he had taken her out for a run washed over him.  Emma standing on the bridge, her back to his front, the breeze blowing her blonde tresses around both of them and her laugh, gods he loved her laugh, wafting through the air.  

Descending the stairs to his quarters, the memories were more apparent in the chaos around him.  The contents of the table strewn across the floor, the blankets haphazardly tossed aside as he and his swan had been in such a hurry to have each other that tidiness had been the last thing on their minds.   About eight weeks ago, he thought, a moment forever emblazoned on his brain.  

Shaking himself from his reverie, he sorted through the shelf looking for the maps he had promised Henry.  Pushing a book aside, another fell off onto the floor and bending over he picked it up. "What to Expect When You are Expecting," he read, his interest piqued at the title.  Tucking it into his satchel for perusal later, he continued his search for the items required, and after locating them made his way home. 

Arriving home, his thoughts on the book he had on his person, he removed his jacket and absentmindedly tossed it over a chair.  Leaving the items for Henry in his room, he pulled the book out and, getting comfortable, climbed up on the bed to read.   He was quickly immersed in the tome, it providing a wealth of knowledge, the likes he had never known. 

He was amazed to read about the creation of life and how through their love, a small piece of him had located a small piece of her and had formed one, even now multiplying and dividing rapidly creating a tiny human.  How wondrous, he thought and so engrossed was he that a slight noise caused him to jump and look over his shoulder, "Swan, you're home!  Come sit." He rolled over and patted the bed.  

As she crawled towards him, he noticed that she just as lithe as always, and meeting her halfway, he sunk into the kiss until she moved back far enough to reach for the book. "What has you so enthralled there, Captain?" 

Showing her the title, he exclaimed, "This book is bloody brilliant, Swan.  Did you know that our little one started as a single cell?" 

He noticed she had slight shadows under her eyes, but other than that she appeared happy. "I remember that from biology class.  What else did you learn, Einstein?" 

Killian cocked his brow, "Swan, I'm much better looking." 

"I should have known you had read Einstein." 

"Shall I explain the Theory of Relativity?" He wagged his brows at her, his face taking on a reddish hue before he looked down. 

She leaned toward him and just as he was readying for a kiss she licked around the shell of his ear, "Must be a good book.  Where did you get it?" 

"Oh, I found it on the Jolly.  Must have been left by Belle."  He laid the book on his lap and turned toward her placing his hand on her stomach, "By my calculations, our little lad or lass is eight weeks along which means it's time to make an appointment with the doctor." 

Emma scrunched her nose up, "I have an appointment with Dr. Whale tomorrow." 

"That is good news." He glanced down before once again meeting her eyes, "Shall I accompany you?"  

"You would really do that?" She smiled at him shyly.  

"Aye, love, there is nothing I would like more." Then curious why she would think differently frowned slightly, "But I have to ask, why you would even wonder?" 

She sat there for a few minutes, staring over his shoulder as if trying to decide what to say and then asked again, "Are you sure you want to go? You might find the doctor's visits of this realm, especially for a pregnancy visit, well," she shrugged her shoulders, "rather odd, I guess you could say.  I would hate for you to be uncomfortable." 

His only thought to assure her that he was going to be there for her always, he lifted her shirt and bent over and kissed her stomach, just under her belly button, where their child lay.  

Her fingers running through his hair massaging his scalp felt so good, he relaxed into it and rested his cheek on her belly thinking of how beautiful she looked to him.  He couldn’t wait to see her growing large with their child or that magical day when their child was born and they were able to bring him or her into their home.  As he continued to stare at her, her eyes filled with tears and one leaked from the corner of her eye. 

“Thank you for being you and wanting to be a part of this baby's journey."

Lifting his head off her stomach, he leaned closer. “Swan, you, Henry and now this new wee one are my world.  You know that, right?"

"I learn that more and more every single day."

Needing to kiss her, he aligned their lips, "Then I must be doing something right." 

"Oh, I think you are doing plenty of things right," she smirked at him.

"Let me try a few and you can let me know which ones you like best,” he whispered before he tossed the book on the floor and kissed her, communicating in a language as old as time.  

cs~cs~cs

The next day he busied himself until it was time for the appointment and arriving at the station she looked so delectable, he couldn't contain himself and closed the distance between both their bodies and lips, not letting her go until he heard David's repeated throat clearing behind them.  "Sorry, mate." Killian smiled at him

"I can tell," David replied sarcastically, but ruined the tone with a grin. "Go on, you two, I'll hold down the fort."

As they walked, Killian lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, "How is our little one treating you today, Swan?"

She groaned when she answered him, "Not so bad now, but earlier was awful."

"I'm sorry love, I wish I could take some of your pain."

"Believe me, Killian, I would give anything to share some of this nausea with you," she giggled.

He rubbed his thumb back and forth soothingly along her hand, "On second thought, maybe I don't wish that." 

"I'm sure you know a thing or two about being sick, considering your friendship with rum." 

Grinning down at her as they resumed walking, Killian noticed that the more he teased, the more relaxed she appeared.  With that in mind, he set out to take her fears away and felt as if he had succeeded when she asked shyly, "Do you have any specific questions that you want to ask Dr. Whale?"

Her question surprised him and his, "I may ask questions today?" seemed to take her by surprise. 

"Sure, if you have one that you don't think I can answer." He felt her gaze on him as she asked, "What?"

The myriad of emotions that were swirling through his system, he hadn't been able to put a label on because he felt that his contribution at this time was so inadequate.  Squeezing her hand to show her he was still with her, he responded, "I just wish to be here for you, love.  Together, remember?" 

When she stopped walking and wrapped her arms around his waist, he felt that he truly was the luckiest man in the world and her simple, "I remember.  Here we are.  Ready?" made him feel as if he were ready for anything they would face. 

His confidence growing stronger with each passing moment aided with the strength of tone in his voice when he answered her. "Aye, that I am.  Let's see what we can learn about little Jones today, shall we?"

One last hug and her "We shall," carried them into the hospital to find a seat in the waiting room. 

Sitting there next to her with their fingers interlaced, he watched as one by one the others in the room disappeared through the double doors.  When the nurse called her name, he wasn't sure what to expect as he followed through into the examination area.  

He listened as the nurse greeted them, "Good afternoon, Emma," and handed over a cup with a, "you know what to do," before pointing over her shoulder.  Her last instruction of, "Just put your name on it and leave it on the tray," was a curious one but since Emma didn't act confused he didn't ask any questions.  

He started to follow her as she walked towards the closed door but once he realized where she was going he hung back a little, allowing her to let him know what she needed. 

Before reaching the door, she glanced over her shoulder, "I'll just be a bit."

"Are you sure you don't need some help?"

Her eye roll and sweet voice saying, "No, I’m good," assured him that she had things under control and so he winked and countered with, “That you are," just before she closed the door. 

While she was behind the closed door, he leaned against the wall and watched women walking in and out the other doors, some carrying stacks of paper, others empty-handed.  It was generally chaotic and after more than one strange look, he was happy when Emma returned and they were once again moved. 

Following the nurse into another room, this one smaller with a bed and cabinets, he recognized some of the objects on the counter from the book he had been reading.  Upon hearing the nurse say, "Everything off," and leave the room, he turned to his wife who was nibbling on her bottom lip. "Need some help yet?" He asked her following it up with a lascivious wink. 

"No, I can handle it."

"Just offering my services." 

While she was undressing, he watched her, noticing how delicate she appeared, as if the sickness caused by the babe had taken its toll on her already thin form.   Plagued by a variety of feelings as she sat on the table wrapping a cloth around her legs, he wished he could take her in his arms and, he wanted to think, share his strength, but who was he fooling, she was the strong one.  

As his first sojourn with the medicine of this realm had not been so pleasant and to help him understand what the visit would entail, Emma had explained the process.  He had to admit it was all very odd as she has promised and based on the current stage of his Swan's attire, he feared the worst was yet to come.

“Out with it." Her voice drew him closer to where she was sitting. "You can ask me anything."

Unsure how to voice what he was feeling, he waved his hand at what she was wearing, "Is this necessary?" 

When she pulled him closer he leaned in for a kiss savoring the all too short moment.  Releasing his lips, she whispered, "He has to make sure I'm healthy.  It's routine. Remember, we looked it up in the book?" 

"Aye, we did but..." and he bent to kiss her one more time until their moment was interrupted by the opening of the door.  Killian looked up just as Whale walked in and gave him a little smirk, as if he knew exactly how bad his timing was, "Emma, Hook, I understand congratulations are in order." 

Meaning to move further away, Killian was surprised when Emma laced their fingers keeping him close to her as she answered questions.  Noting that the questions appeared to be about her general health, Killian let himself relax and listened with interest.  He had just about convinced himself that the worst was over until he felt her slide down and saw Whale adjusting what appeared to be metal stirrups at the end of the table.  What the bloody hell, he thought while unconsciously squeezing her hand tighter until she made a small sound, and when his eyes met hers whispered, "It's ok." Knowing she wouldn't lie to him, he relaxed his hold on her hand but vowed to keep an eye on Whale, as he was determined no harm would come to his Swan. 

Unable to see what Whale was doing, they waited and when the click of metal was heard, his gaze was immediately drawn back to what the doctor was doing.  The gleam of silver caught his eye and his only thought was that Whale was holding something that resembled a torture device and that he planned to use it on Emma.  He opened his mouth to express his concern when a tug on his hand pulled his gaze away from what was happening at the end of the table and back on his wife, who was looking at him with equal parts consternation and embarrassment, "It's part of the process.  I'm fine." 

"But Swan...," was all he managed before Whale turned with instrument in hand, scooted closer to the table and lifted the blanket, and before he was fully aware of what he was doing he had let go of Emma's hand and grabbed the monster's wrist, demanding, "Just what the bloody hell do you plan to do with that?" 

As if from a distance, he heard, "Killian, please.  Just let him finish."

The tone of her voice struck a chord deep inside of him causing him to give her a sheepish smile and, "Swan, but that thing..." was all he got out before letting go of Whale's arm.   Taking her small hand in his, he kissed her fingers as a silent apology before turning back to the foot of the table.   When Whale and his metal device moved under the cover of the blanket, Killian schooled his features to remain neutral. 

Feeling his face heat at how delicate the situation seemed, he tightened his jaw waiting for the end and feeling too many emotions at once to capture and hold onto just one.  Love, guilt, frustration, embarrassment, gratitude, each one moving through his mind like the wind moves through the sails of the Roger.  So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he hadn't realized Whale was leaving until he heard the closing of the door.  

Even though Emma was still on the table, Killian pulled her tightly against his chest and leaned his head onto hers, "I'm sorry, Swan."

"Sorry?  What are you sorry for?" confusion evident in her voice. 

Gathering his thoughts, he lightly rubbed his hand in circles on her back, "I'm sorry for all the unpleasantness you are being forced to endure.  The illness that plagues you, morning and night, those metal torture devices," indicating what he was referring to with a tilt of his chin. 

She pushed back into his arms causing him to loosen his hold, "Killian, you know how babies are born, right?

Staring into her green gaze, he narrowed his eyes at her before answering, "Why of course, Swan, I’m not daft."

Her hands cupped his face, "Killian, I love that you're empathetic with what is happening to my body, and yes the sickness is unpleasant, as is this part of pregnancy," she paused a moment and bit her bottom lip before continuing, "but when we hold our baby for the first time, all the unpleasantness will be but a memory."  She leaned in and fused their lips in a passionate but all too quick kiss.   "Better now?"

He did feel better, "Aye, Swan, are we ready to go?" 

"I need my clothes first," she dimpled at him.

He picked up and handed her the clothing, feeling better but suddenly feeling the need to get out of this small room and get some air.  Wanting to reassure her though, he quipped, "Need some help?" even though he knew she would turn him down. 

When she smiled at him and gave a flirty comeback, he let the breath he had been holding out and started walking to the door. "There's nothing I would like better, love.  I'll just wait right outside.”  

Shutting the door, he walked to the end of the hall and leaned back against the wall, once again feeling a flood of emotions rolling through him.  Taking a few deep breaths, he pulled out his phone to check the time and noticed that there were three printed messages waiting for him.  The first was from David - you will question your skills as a father many times over your child's life Killian, but never question whether it's something you deserve.  You are a good man, a good husband to Emma and a good father to Henry. This child is very lucky and I can't wait to welcome him, or her into our family.  

Wiping his eyes, he moved on to the next message from Snow White - Be there for Emma and let her be there for you.  A child is an extension of both of you and a gift created from the magic of your love.  Treasure him or her each day but never forget to love each other as that is the greatest gift of all. 

And the last was from Henry and it simply read - you are a great dad to me and I am looking forward to meeting my new brother or sister.  

Slipping the phone back into his pocket he felt much of the fear leave his body and being replaced by an inner peace such as he had never known. Allowing his thoughts to roam free into the future, only returning to the present when he heard Emma's sweet voice, "Killian? Are you ok?" 

He kissed her cheek and wrapped his arm around her turning them toward the offices, "I'm fine, love.  Shall we go see what the good doctor has learned about our little one?"

It wasn't far and by the time they arrived at Whale's office, he was waiting for them, "Emma, Hook, have a seat."

As soon as they sat down, he got right to the point, "By my calculations, you're 8 weeks pregnant.  You're healthy and have had a successful pregnancy so I don't anticipate any difficulties." He stopped and looked pointedly at Emma, "You said you are having morning sickness?" 

When she only nodded her head instead of explaining her full discomfort, Killian quickly jumped in and explained, "It's more like all day sickness. Is this normal?"

The doctor explained, "Some women have that and at this point, I'm not concerned, as it tells us her body is doing what it's meant to do.  Just sip on ginger ale and have crackers handy. By your next visit, you should be feeling better and we should be able to hear the baby's heartbeat." He felt a little better about the morning illness but knew that he would be keeping a close eye Emma's appetite. 

Whale concluded the visit by asking if they had any more questions and handed her a prescription as they walked out the door. 

Walking out of the office holding Emma's hand, Killian noticed a board on the wall with parents and their new babies, most taken just after birth.  What must that feel like he wondered?  That first time your child is laid in your arms, so small and helpless.  He couldn't even imagine, but he remembered the look on both David and Snow's faces when they were in the hospital after Emma's brother had been born.  And this time, he thought, the babe would be his and his Swan's. Their own little Cignet to love. 

As they left the hospital he allowed himself to review all that had happened while at the doctor's visit.  From the strange and unusual means of a pregnancy visit to messages that had come from Emma's parents and Henry, his family.   So lost in thought was he that when his stride was interrupted he didn't realize at first that Emma was the cause until she asked him if he was alright.  Wanting to reassure her, he let go of her hand, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close, "Aye, love, I'm fine.  Why do you ask?"

"You're just quiet.  I thought you would have a million questions after the visit."

Realizing that he had been so lost in his thoughts that he had made her feel ignored, he set about rectifying the manner and quipped, "All is well.  I was just thinking about that promise you made me earlier." 

"Promise?" She looked up at him with a smile that was equal parts hope and dare. 

The look on her face hit him right in the solar plexus, nearly taking him to his knees with how much he loved her, and with the need to show her right this very minute.  Relieved that Henry was at Regina's, he stalked toward her, "I believe," he caught her and pulled her close, "you told me I could help you out of these." 

Already starting to unbutton his shirt, she replied, "I did, so what are you waiting for?" 

She felt so good in his arms, he wasted no time in moving them to the sofa and keeping her lips and hands busy for quite some time.  

~fin

[theconservativebrief]

Fall is, without a doubt, the best time to buy office supplies. Yes, office supplies are sold year-round, but fall’s back-to-school vibe spares no one, even those of us who haven’t been in school for years. Fall is when the planners come out to play.

For me, this is the happiest time of the year. I love buying useless little journals and covering my desk with piles of colorful sticky notes. Fall and its corresponding school-and-office-supply bonanzas are a sign of a fresh start: I love telling myself that these journals and sticky notes will make me more organized and therefore more productive and therefore better at my job and therefore happier. Is it true? Not exactly. Does it matter? Not at all.

There’s just one small problem: So many of the office supplies that are marketed towards women are incredibly condescending.

Allow me to give you a few examples. There’s this day planner, which reminds you that ”every day is a fresh start” in the bouncy, stylized cursive script that The Goods’ Eliza Brooke dubbed “bridesmaid font.” The hundreds of notebooks that have “She believed she could, so she did” written across the cover, often in that same font. This Kate Spade “planner companion set”, which you can use to fill your affirmation-emblazoned notebook with stickers that say “the world was hers for the reading.”

(You are the “her” in this situation. The world is yours, baby!) This pencil pouch, which lets everyone know that you are “very busy” (We are all very busy, because capitalism stops for no one.) These pencils, which would like to remind you that “you got this.” Or these pencils, which announce to the world that you are not only a “boss lady” but also a “goal digger.” Or any of these boss lady name plaques.

A set of empowering pencils from Etsy. OneStitchAway/Etsy

These products are a far cry from the boring legal pads and other cubicle accoutrements of yore. They’re kind of fun and seemingly innocuous — after all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a notebook that dares to be anything other than black or navy blue.

The point of these various fancy desk accessories isn’t just to help you get your work done. It’s to help you get your work done while reminding everyone that you are a woman who works, just in case the labor you do on a daily basis isn’t enough of a reminder.

The issue isn’t that some office supplies are marketed toward women, but that there don’t seem to be any equivalent products for men. Of course, men already have structural power — they don’t need a notebook to remind them that they’re capable of achieving their professional goals.

These products are the logical extension of the genre of professional self-help books that seem to solely exist to tell women that if they stop apologizing in emails and learn to “power pose,” they, too will ascend to the ranks of the She-E-Os.

The point of these books is to blame women for their own professional shortcomings, or at the very least, to rationalize why women are paid less money and taken less seriously than their male coworkers. The accompanying office supplies are meant to give women a way to rectify those perceived shortcomings. For a price, of course.

It’s not enough to be inundated with this advice day in and day out; you have to carry it with you constantly, in your head and on your notebook.

Men already have structural power — they don’t need a notebook to remind them that they’re capable of achieving their professional goals.

Even if life is easier for working women than it was a few decades ago, the fact remains that most workplaces weren’t designed with women’s needs in mind.

A 2017 report by Lean In and McKinsey, which surveyed more than 70,000 employees at 222 companies, found that corporations hire women at lower rates than men at all levels. Once they are hired, entry-level women are 18 percent less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues, which contributes to the oft-cited pay gap between men and women. They also receive less face time with managers and other senior-level staff and are given less advice on how to advance. All of these issues are compounded for women of color in general and for black women in particular, the report found.

Across industries, men are generally paid more than women, and women of color are paid less than both white men and white women. A 2017 report by the National Women’s Law Center found that black women who work full time, year round are paid 63 cents for every dollar white men make. That figure is 57 cents for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women, 54 cents for Latinas, and 87 percent for Asian women, though there’s also a wage gap between different groups of Asian women.

A notebook with “she believed she could, so she did” drawn on the cover, from Etsy. IceyDesigns/Etsy

That’s just at the corporate level. A 2018 report by Fast Company found that women who freelance tend to receive lower rates than their male peers, and they’re less likely to receive payments on time. Minimum wage workers, most of whom are women, are rarely granted the same amount of paid leave as those who work at the corporate level. Women at all levels also experience sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting said harassment, which can have detrimental effects on not only their job performance and earnings, but also their mental health.

Given these difficulties, it seems trivial to get annoyed about a planner that encourages me to treat every day as a gift or whatever. Honestly, buy whatever maniacally happy shit gets you through the day; the last thing any woman needs is yet another “don’t” on an endlessly long list of things they shouldn’t do at work.

But what infuriates me about these professional products geared towards women is that they seem to occupy a realm where structural issues are only alluded to through inspirational quotes about overcoming adversity and being a girlboss. The world of women’s office supplies is pastel-colored and impossibly peppy. (I’m fine with the pastels, but I don’t love the pep.) This is a world where, given the right combination of planners and pencils, anything is possible. It is a world laden with positive affirmations, because reality is so bleak. It’s a world where she believes she can, so she does.

Then again, I doubt a planner that says “That ignoramus who sits next to you is going to get a promotion before you do because he’s a dude” would be a bestseller.

Original Source -> #Girlboss notebooks and “Feminist AF” pencils: the case against “empowering” office supplies

via The Conservative Brief

[takumithetankengine-blog]

A Cat and her Two Dogs Chapter Two is UP!

The saga of “dame mas Sophelina” continues. @dlartistanon

You can begin reading 1C2D on FanFiction.net here and on AO3 here. Chapter one on Tumblr is here!

Chapter Two: Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie | The Lost Button

The following day was a Sunday. Better yet, it was a Sunday with no plans.

For any self-respecting teenager, obviously that meant indulging in the simplest of pleasures: sleeping in, eating snacks, and wearing pyjamas all day.

The last vestiges of a steamy dream disappeared from her memory as she sat up in bed with a stretch and a yawn. Several worn mangas with library barcodes on their fronts dropped as she did so, clattering to the tile floor with pointed thumps beside other mangas.

'Wonder what time it is? That was a good rest.'

Nina grabbed her flip-phone from her side table. The display showed the time was 9:21, with orange text below it reading 7 New Messages. Nina absently flipped the clamshell to see what they could possibly say. The gist of it, beyond Ophelia's triple-texting theatrics and Soleil's bad spelling, was like this:

Ophelia (10:04pm) Good night, Nina!

Soleil (7:51am) Hey Nina, I have to tell you something. Can I come to your house later?

Soleil (9:16am) I'm on my way over now. I have chips.

'What? Way to give me no notice!' Nina didn't care that much about her appearance, not around her friends, but she still threw her blanket off of her, sending more mangas to the ground. 'Darn her! What could she possibly have to say that can't wait?!'

Nina retorted through text, "Fine. They better be good, I woke up for this."

And it was at that moment that the door downstairs was knocked. Considering Soleil usually stepped in, either it meant Ophelia was there too, or this was major.

'Kissing-one-of-your-best-friends-major?'

Nina pulled her blanket around her like a cape and went to answer the door. Soleil grinned awkwardly at her. "Sorry about the short notice. It's just really important. Can't stress that enough."

"Uh-huh. Where are those chips you mentioned?"

Soleil unzipped her padded jacket, and a bag of potato chips rolled to the floor. Nina picked it up and said, "Fine. Come in."

They settled in the simple living room, as neither of Nina's parents were home. They never were.

Nina deftly opened her chip bag and popped one into her mouth. "Okay. Cut to the chase."

"Um… Well, it's about the dance last night. I… think Ophelia might like me."

She was being shy, twiddling her thumbs and never keeping eye contact for over five seconds. 'Are you serious?' thought Nina. "Lemme explain! Umm… What I meant to say is, I want to give things a shot between us. And because, like, it'd change the entire group dynamic, you should give me your blessing before I try."

'It feels real. Last night, it was a dream, but now? Totally real. She's beating around the bush in a big way, too.'

"It's customary to ask for others' blessing before you snog someone on the dancefloor."

Soleil's cheeks lit up. "You saw that?"

"I see a lot of things. And to be honest, I saw this coming."

Soleil bit her lip. "Well… Let me explain. I've never felt this way about a girl before. I always really, really like them, and I really, really like Ophelia too, but I think this is love." Her eyes began to twinkle. "I know her so well, and even though I see her everyday, I get a warm feeling in my heart. Everything she does makes me feel so happy I can't lose… And I promise, I'll never break her heart. I-I might've dated around a lot, but I'd never cheat on her or be a jerk." Her gaze met Nina's, nervous. "So, d-do you say yes?"

'But asking me is already moot point, isn't it? She expects me to say yes. And how could I say anything else?'

Nina crossed her arms, grinning wryly to the best of her ability. "You don't really need my blessing. But you have it - go ahead and try pursuing her heart."

Soleil's gaze lit up. "Thank-"

"But may the Gods help you if you break it. You better not try to get in another girl's pants. Don't so much as look at them."

Soleil's posture straightened even more. "I'll never, ever, ever break her heart. Not even close. If you think I'm even close, snap me out of it."

"You better not. And you bet I will."

'She's acting serious for once. Maybe this'll really work.'

"You're the best friend ever, Nina!" Soleil was all smiles as she threw her arms around Nina in a hug. "I'm so happy - thank you so, so much!" It felt strange to be there - Nina never was much for physical contact - but it was even weirder when Soleil pulled away and said, "I won't let our friendship wall to the wayside either, Nina. And I'll never, ever, ever hurt Ophelia. I promise."

Nina closed her eyes and sighed, pulling the . "You better not."

'Only time will tell.'

XXX

"Nina! I have excellent news!"

The next time Nina saw them, it was the next day before class. They were approaching together hand-in-hand, Ophelia waving to Nina as she led Soleil ahead. For her part, Soleil was smiling, more flustered than usual but otherwise overjoyed.

Nina snapped the manga she was reading shut. Ophelia came to a stop and said, "The rehearsal and the practice have been cancelled for today. Such means that I'll be spending the entire afternoon in the presence of my beau!"

'Beau?'

"We were thinking it could be our first date," Soleil explained. "Our first date as real-life girlfriends."

'They've been dating for, like, a day, and they're ALREADY have nicknames? How sweet. And LAME.' "That's fine. I need to sink some time into my fanfics anyway."

"I shall be the first to read that update," Ophelia replied, pumping her fist into the air. A necklace that wasn't there before bounced as she did so, drawing Nina's attention to it.

It was a simple silver chain with a white button attached as a charm. She glanced over at Soleil… and, surely enough, there was a necklace that wasn't there before replacing her usual choker, concealed mostly by her popped collar.

"Should be pretty good," Nina replied absently. 'Curious…'

"Anyway, we should probably get going to breakfast. The line's gonna get long if we don't get in it. Today's Muffin Monday… today's flavor is raspberry!"

"Then let us go onwards!" Ophelia exclaimed, turning to her. "To see to it they are eaten by a chosen heroine!"

Ophelia dashed off. Soleil stared after her for a second before she pursued her with a laugh. "Hey! Save one for meeee!"

'Playing like puppies, chasing each other to get food. Shouldn't have expected anything else.'

There was a tradition back at their middle school: if someone fell in love, they would gift the second button on their school shirt to the one they loved. The reasoning was that the second button was the closest to someone's heart.

'Melodramatic and sappy. Obviously Soleil would love it. Wouldn't pin Ophelia as the type to eat it up, though.' Nina crammed her hands into the pockets at the front of her red hoodie jacket. 'Whatever. Soleil better not screw this up.'

XXX

Homecoming's hype passed at an alarming rate. The school had been racked by a flurry of breakups, first times, and rumors of cheating for a grand total of about two weeks before it faded to the background.

To Nina's slight surprise, Soleil and Ophelia were lasting. Now, that surprise wasn't a slight against Soleil's character - Nina trusted her very much - but she had a reputation for short relationships. A week passed into a month and there was no sign of that famous wandering eye.

There was a time that she thought the wandering eye was totally gone. And that was at hockey practice one early December afternoon.

Ice hockey wasn't really a major-league sport at most schools around the nation - in most districts, basketball, or a form of soccer or American football overtook it in importance. But Rexcalibur high was in the northern part of the country. The higher north you went, the more serious you were about hockey.

Of course, at major sports, there were cheerleaders. Even when astroturf was ice and balls were pucks.

That begged a little explanation. The huge red and gray-emblazoned hockey stadium of the school was big enough to sit a thousand, all elevated above the action. There were two big platforms across from one another. One was for a referee or announcer, who kept non-sporty fans posted. The other was larger and covered with red astroturf. That was where the cheerleaders were.

Soleil would show off, do as well as she always did - maybe score a goal from a yard or two further back. Then she'd skate close enough to the platform to catch a glimpse up their skirts… And other times, after a particularly good practice, Soleil would take one of them on her back and do a victory skate around the rink.

It'd been so embarrassing to watch that Nina kept a hand over her eyes at all times, trying to focus on something, anything else. Even when Ophelia was there she'd been a scalawag.

Now, though?

"You smell so nice today, Ms. Captain," said one the cheerleaders, hand running across her arm. "And you're just as strong as ever…"

Soleil grinned, slight blush on her cheeks. "Thanks! Having cute girls like you and my lovely, chosen girlfriend around always helps me be at my best." She shot a glance to Ophelia, who was sitting beside Nina. Ophelia blew a kiss at her and then returned to reading her book.

"You have one? I'm sorry, I thought I heard you were single."

"I do! She's the greatest, most beautiful, most wonderful girl ever. But thanks for the compliments!"

Now practice was just annoying. Nina growled. 'Shallow bitch. She didn't give a care when she was single.'

"Are you sure you have no weekend plans? Because me and some girlfriends are going to a bowling club this Saturday night, and we'd really like someone strong like you there…"

Nina stormed over on the outer edge of the rink, eyes blazing. "Leave her alone. Or didn't you get the memo that she's taken?"

An ugly glare came at her. "What's it to you, weirdo? Why do you give a care?"

"Hey! Don't call me best friend a weirdo!"

Nina crossed her arms. "You can step away from 'Ms. Captain' right now, or you might find your reputation ruined tomorrow. I have your dirt. I have the pictures."

Cheerleader-girl's eyes narrowed. "Fine. You can have her. I have better things to do."

Then she snootily left. Nina kept glaring daggers at her even when Soleil said, "Gee, Nines, that was scary! You didn't have to bust out that scary stalker knowledge on her over that."

"Like heck I'm gonna let her tempt you," Nina retorted darkly. "I can't stand people like that. Absolutely shallow! She wouldn't have given you a second glance if you weren't already seeing someone."

"It's not illegal to look. And I'm so cute that she couldn't be able to help it, sooooo…"

"...You're kidding, right?"

"It's true. Besides, I wasn't-"

A shrill whistle blew somewhere behind them. Coach Keaton called, "Positions!"

Soleil turned back to her with a grin. "Thanks for trying to keep me in line, Nines - I appreciate it lots! Stay on my case, and with both of us trying and there's no way I'll fail. Just keep up the good work."

Then Soleil skated away.

XXX

Time seemed to go at a quick rate as the winter holidays came upon them.

Had time ever gone so fast in middle school? It felt as if it was rushing past, an unstoppable river. Back then, the years had felt so fast compared to those of elementary school, of juice boxes and recess time. Back then, the time before the holidays seemed to be special and exciting, wrought with coloring pages, cutting paper fir trees, or even Santa-decorated sheets of times tables.

Now it was a time of holiday gossip, the first play of the year, the first big hockey game of the season in the final week, and midterms.

'Not to mention, it's fanfic season. Huddling for warmth, mistletoe, sharing winter sweaters… heheheh, so many juicy situations to write.'

Nina's fingers were deft over fabric as she organized accessories. The backroom of the theatre wing had a ton of stuff, hanging from shelves like bats in a cave; the whole place had the unsettlng feeling of claustrophobia all over it. Each accessory was dirty and probably hadn't been washed for years.

The sound of a sewing machine buzzed in the background. Her fellow first year and a theatre friend Forrest Nohr threaded ornate pink fabric through it, focusing intently on the stitching. Just looking at the boy brought about waves of inspiration. 'Boys making passes at him, believing him to be a girl… falling in love what was on the inside… scrumptious.'

"Hey, where do the pig noses go?" Nina asked him, having found three of them knotted together.

Without even a glance from his work, Forrest replied, "I'd put them with the animal parts. The actors will find them tonight for the farm scene."

Nina did as she was told and threw them into the large, clear container filled with furs and fangs, not even bothering to untangle them.

The play would be a rendition of Alice in Wonderland, with a modern twist. The wonderland would be New York city, where Ophelia would star as a girl from the countryside in a brand new land, guided along by family friend and love interest, who would be played by Shigure Hoshido. The opening night was the next day, and that night was the final one of full rehearsal, four hours of being in full costume for actors.

'Four hours and midterms next week… Geez.'

Just then, the door flew open. Ophelia was there, wearing a simple, yet puffy blue and white dress. "Come! It's nearly stage time!"

Nina ditched a cape in the appropriate pile and went to her side. "Good luck fixing that," she remarked to Forrest before following after Ophelia. Her steps were a lot less bouncy than usual. "You okay, Oph?"

"The chosen star is never phased," Ophelia replied. "But I do have a few problems."

"I'll take care of them. Name the problem people."

"It's nothing like that, not even people!" Ophelia looked briefly panicked. Nina had been told before that she could get a bloodthirsty look in her eye when she got fired up.

She muted her expression and Ophelia continued, "I don't have enough time for anything. After tonight, I'll still have to study for my Biology exam, my very worst subject. I haven't read a book in days. I haven't even eaten since this morning."

Nina frowned. "You didn't eat lunch?"

"I wanted to get more studying in with the Science Guru," Ophelia murmured.

They brushed past a set of sophomores who were pushing a staircase onto the stage. Now they were on the black-topped stage that overlooked the auditorium. "Are you for real? That sounds awful. I'm sorry."

"I'll be fine despite feeling fizzle and flop. As Soleil would say, I should keep my chin up and a smile on my fair face."

"You do that. Just forty-five minutes until break, and then I'll find you something to eat." 'Even if the vending machine's out, it'll just take a quick lunch box raid. Some of these kids are rich.' Nina flashed two thumbs-up, "You can do this."

Then she jumped off the stage and walked up the ramps and steps of the auditorium aisle to reach the sound and lights room at the very top. She took a few moments to get things in order for the first scene of the play (with dim lights and a spotlight over three people, it'd be a bit complex).

'Poor girl. She's hardly even been herself lately. Hasn't seen anyone who isn't in theatre in almost a week, I'd wager.'

'It's putting a serious drain on her, and it's not even close to over. After tonight, there are three performances, and perfection is the rule.'

While his back was turned, Nina grabbed a bag of chips from his lunch box, and hid it under the table.

Nina hadn't promised she'd get them legally, after all.

XXX

"Hey, Ophelia? Close your eyes and open wide."

Somewhere, deep down, there was an ember of a hope that the status quo would return. The days of adjusting ruffled scarves, having little homework, and knowing everybody's name.

Ophelia's cheeks lit up a bit as she did as Soleil instructed. Soleil gathered some yogurt on the tip of the spoon and slowly put it into her mouth.

'Though, if my previous experiences were any indication, they lost their buttons back then. Was there ever a status quo after all if this was happening this whole entire time and I just didn't notice?'

Ophelia swallowed and opened her eyes once more. "That was delectable, like a supernova of raspberry flavor in my mouth!"

Soleil grinned affectionately, meeting her gaze directly. "I don't even know what that means, but you are it."

'Why is it I think about this while just hanging out with my friends? This'd make a great fanfic but now it's just weird!' Nina interrupted the cheesiness with, "'Delectable' means delicious. But when talking about a person it means attractive and likable."

"Thanks, Nina! See? You're both, so I'm two hundred percent accurate. You're so cute."

Ophelia smiled back, blushing. "As are you, chosen partner." Then she yawned.

"You look tired," Nina remarked. 'Compensating for lost time with their sappiness, it seems.'

Soleil gave a nod, giving Ophelia a concerned look. "We're all tired. Oph and I're gonna skip sixth hour together to take a nap."

"That's not a bad idea, and I can spoof the attendance for you," Nina commented. Then she double took. "Wait a sec, you, Soleil? You never skip."

Soleil grinned ruefully. "I don't like it, but Oph can't get canned for not paying attention again in math. If she sleeps on the job she might get detention, which would mean an earful from the theatre peeps."

"You realize that if you get caught you could be suspended from the team, right? I love shirking society through minor disobedience, but there's a reason I'm on no team."

"Oh, that's the one thing I'm sure of. You can tell us where to go to avoid being caught."

"...Fine. Go to the media center. If you go to one of the back couches, the librarian won't care. Stick to the green one in the very back, and security cameras won't even see ya."

Soleil grinned. "Got it! Thanks."

"You never asked my consent for this," Ophelia replied, a hint of a whine in her voice.

"You need it, my Dusk, trust me. 'Sides, it's math." Then Soleil leaned in and kissed her forehead.

'She's talking the talk, but she's never skipped class before. Like, ever.' Nina looked pointedly away as Ophelia softly replied, a blush on her face. 'It's reassuring she's willing to do it to make this relationship work.'

"It'll be fine. Now, close your eyes and open wide. The raspberry train's back."

Nina's stomach squirmed when she left them to their own devices, heading to sixth hour at the end of lunch. Soleil's willingness to do anything for Ophelia, with the honeymoon phase of their relationship seeming to stretch for so long, pointed to at least one fear of Nina's quelled: that Soleil's free heart would cheat.

When Nina came to check on them again after sixth hour, she did so from behind a bookshelf at first. Soleil was sleepily playing with a bit of Ophelia's hair, gazing at her lovingly. Ophelia herself was asleep, her head in Soleil's lap.

Her heart throbbed. 'Damn it. I really am lonely.'

'The thing is, things are too simple, too happy. The happier they are, the harder they'll fall. If they don't argue early on, it's gonna be harder when they do.'

Nina grimaced, but forced herself to smile again as she turned the corner to the other side of the shelf. Soleil didn't look up until she cleared her throat; when she noticed Nina, she regarded her with a smile and a casual wave. "Is class already over?"

"Sixth is. As far as attendance records read, you were there for every second."

"You have outdone yourself, Nines. You have everyone here so under control that it's scary."

Nina smirked. "Someone in this group has to know the system. Are you guys going to seventh hour? Oph and I aren't going to be doing much in theatre. Being showtime tonight and all."

Soleil looked down at Ophelia's sleeping form. "If she won't miss anything, I'd love it more than all the bunny blankets in the whole wide world."

She sounded so genuine that even Nina couldn't find it in her to snark. "Then I'll tell your teacher. You two have a good time resting, okay?"

Nina made to get out, but then Soleil exclaimed, "Wait a second!" Nina turned with widened eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

Soleil opened and then closed her mouth for a second, then she said, "I dunno. You've been working real hard lately, too. Gathering information to work the system, updating your fics, studying, theatre. Aren't you tired?"

Nina stuffed her hands into her pockets. "I can deal."

"Okay. That's a bit of a shame. This couch has space for three, y'know."

"Maaaan. I thought the day you'd encourage me to skip would be the one pigs flew."

Soleil giggled. "Well, why don'cha consider it? I miss you too, Nina."

'That'd be nice. Really nice.' Nina grinned, about to consent, but then she noticed Ophelia. "No thanks. We can't really do much with her here sleeping, right? Three's a crowd."

Soleil blinked, then chuckled. "Sorry. If you don't want to spend time with me right now, just tell me this. Do you want to talk about anything at all? Are you sure you're okay?"

'There's plenty we could talk about. Ophelia, extracurriculars, just as friends.' She thought of the squirming sensation in her stomach whenever she saw them being romantic. The loneliness in her heart.

Nina hesitated for a long time. Then she said, "What a stupid question."

"Huh?"

"I'm fine. As I said, I can deal. Don't worry about me."

Soleil looked very worried, though. Her smile was gone. "Nina…"

Nina softened. "Sorry. I'm a bit loopy and tired, is all. I'll nap when I get home. I have to get to class. Oph might not be doing much, but the tech team has a load to do."

"Dohhh, come on. We don't have to talk if you don't want to. You're my friend, too. And I can take a period absence, trust me."

Nina searched her face. Genuine concern, of course. The girl couldn't fake it if she wanted to. Those puppy-dog eyes were a bit hard to resist, though. Nina sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Only because I'm tired."

Then she settled herself on the couch, putting a good bit of distance between her and Soleil… or, more specifically, between herself and the happy couple. The happy couple who was too happy to last, or so Nina thought.

Soleil side-eyed her for a moment, as if baffled at the distance, but soon just sighed and leaned her head back.

Nina grimaced and ignored her, trying her best to drift into a dreamland of her own.

'Even if Soleil's would be faithful, It's gonna happen. They'll argue, and it'll be big. Maybe they'll get past it, or maybe not, but no matter what, it's my job to pick up the pieces.'

The closest Nina got to sleeping was a doze, enough to refresh but not relax.