#it would also be panini. but that means 'little bread' and again there is no bread here | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alloftheimaginesblog · 4 years ago

Text

Life Without Colour (PART FIVE)

Soulmate AU: Your vision is in black and white until you meet your soulmate. You and your boyfriend, Steve Rogers, aren’t each others soulmates but you love each other. He introduces you to his friends, the Avengers, and a very odd thing happens.

Characters: Steve Rogers x Plus Size Female Reader, Bucky Barnes x Plus Size Female Reader

Note: ignore that i don’t even question bucky being able to get through security at the airport, i couldn’t think of how he would be able to get through the airport security bc of his metal arm so i’ve skipped that detail completely. i hope it doesn’t detract from the story!

this is nearly 6000 words!

Taglist: @domainoflostsouls forgetthisbull handon-h-art yourspecialcrush giulsgotmusic mrsbarnes-rogers luosymekawa linzeyzarcone forgetthisbull calamityreads talgra marina-darling btsforlif lamoursansfin classic1985 lovesicksofi fandomsfallnomore thebivirgin classygladiatorcupcake

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours. You had long since stopped trying to figure out what state you were in and where you were headed. Bucky had been driving non-stop aside from two bathroom breaks at a small gas station in the middle of nowhere. You had stopped crying a long time ago, too drained and too tired to continue. You felt horrendous. You hated this, you absolutely hated this but you had no choice in the matter. The car had been silent for the whole way aside from the quiet chatter on the radio. Bucky hadn’t wanted to speak in fear of upsetting you further. He had been driving you out of state to go to an airport that would be a little harder to find. It had been Fury’s idea, to go to an airport that Hydra wouldn’t look for straight away. It gave you a little more time to get away without being watched.

You took a break from watching the blur of trees and roads to glance at the clock on the dashboard; 13:42. You hadn’t eaten yet, barely had anything to drink either and you knew that you weren’t far away from a dehydration migraine. As if on cue, your stomach rumbled loudly. Bucky, without speaking, reached behind his car seat and produced a rucksack and dumped it on your lap with a, “Here. There’s water and some snacks in there. We’ll get a proper meal when we’re at the airport.”

You dug through the bag, producing two bottles of water. You opened one and offered it to Bucky, he accepted with a nod, draining half before handing it back to you. You offered him a muffin but he shook his head. You dropped the bag to between your feet and began to have your water and muffin. It helped curb the hunger, at least for a while, and you felt a lot better once you had something in your stomach. After a while, you sank back into your seat with a yawn.

Bucky glanced over at you, “We’ve still got a few hours to drive, you can sleep if you want.” You looked at him and he gave you a small smile, “It’s okay. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

You thanked him quietly before closing your eyes. It didn’t take long before you fell asleep and your soft snores filled the car. Bucky looked at you for a couple of seconds, smiling to himself. Man, it’s gonna be a long few weeks.

It only felt like you’d closed your eyes for a few minutes when Bucky was saying your name, gently shaking your shoulder. Groggily, you opened your eyes to meet his blue eyes and it almost gave you a fright seeing them. Sometimes it still surprised you to see colour and especially when Bucky was around... colour seemed to be brighter and those deeper blue eyes seemed so bright in person.

“We’re here,” he said, pulling back quickly, not wanting to upset you by being too close. Bucky was very careful of boundaries, he always had been but especially after the Winter Soldier incidents. He knew what it felt like to not want to be touched or have your personal space invaded so he was always careful to not overstep.

“You’ve got the fake passports and stuff, don’t you?” You asked him, yawning and stretching in your seat.

He nodded and told you that they’re in his bag. In order to help the process of becoming anonymous, Fury had fake IDs and fake passports made for the two of you. They’d even gone so far as to create two new backstories for the pair of you just in case anyone ever questioned the pair of you. You and Bucky got out of the car, your legs ached from having sat in the car for hours upon hours. It was dark outside now, you didn’t know the time. Bucky grabbed the bags out of the car and handed you the two passports to hold. As you walked into the airport, you flicked to it. Miss Jane Smith and Mr John Smith. Two very common and obvious fake names but you hoped that it wouldn’t be picked up.

The check in process was much easier than you anticipated, the passports passed the ID checks and soon, the two of you were through security and heading for the food outlet. Bucky had told you to keep your head down for most of the time and to avoid direct eye contact with cameras. The airport was relatively quiet which was good in the sense you didn’t have to worry about people around you noticing Bucky. Bucky led you to a small café which was quiet and the two of you sat at the back. Everything was kind of passing in a blur and it only seemed like a few seconds until Bucky was back with your food.

You began to eat in silence and it was then you realised where you were going, “Estonia?” You asked quietly, making sure to not be overhead.

Bucky nodded as he took a bite of his burger, “Managed to find a secluded house, already furnished. The owner agreed to let us stay for a discounted price as well.”

“I’ve never been,” you shrugged, taking a bite of your food, “Where are we right now?”

“Pittsburg,” he said, glancing around the café to make sure no one was taking notice of the pair of you, “Steve thought it would be a good idea to leave from an airport a few hours away from New York. Hydra and Rumlow would check New York airports first once they realise you’re out of town.”

You smiled sadly as you looked down to your food. Leave it to Steve to think of everything. Bucky told you that the flight would be leaving in an hour and it would be a long ass flight but it was okay because you were exhausted and you could absolutely sleep for a good portion of the flight anyway.

You sighed, “When can I take this stupid disguise off? I’m so uncomfortable!”

Bucky studied you carefully, “When we’re in the safe house.”

“Do I look stupid? I feel stupid.”

“You look... different. Not bad just different,” he paused before speaking again, “I prefer you as you are though, without the wig, contacts and flashy clothes. I think you look much better when you’re being yourself.”

You didn’t know how to respond to that with anything other than a nod. It felt foreign and wrong to receive a compliment from him, even though it was a genuine, friendly compliment, it felt wrong. The two of you didn’t say much after that.

After eating, you and Bucky went to get some plane snacks. You grabbed some water and some treats, you also wandered to the book section and picked up a book. As you were walking to the books, you saw a little boy and girl pass wearing matching Captain America t-shirts. Your breath caught in your throat as you watched them pass. It seemed to hit you in that moment that this was real and this was truly happening.

“(y/n)?” Bucky asked appearing behind you.

You turned to him, “Sorry... I just can’t believe this is happening.”

Bucky nodded before gesturing to the check out, “Let’s get this all checked out and then hopefully we’ll be able to go to our departure gate.” He didn’t really know how to help you without overstepping or potentially upsetting you. He didn’t want you to get upset in public so he thought that he could keep you distracted and that would help ease your worries. It helped, having him there to guide you and distract you from possible sad thoughts helped a lot actually.

You found your airplane seats quick, the two of you were bang smack in the middle and you were both in a two seater section. Bucky let you go in first, saying that he preferred not to look out of the window when taking a flight. You sunk into it, keeping your head down and wrapping your arms around yourself to get warmer. As Bucky sat beside you, tapping his foot and his hand on the armrest impatiently, you looked at him curiously, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “Just... not a big fan of flying.”

You pulled out the magazines which were in the pocket of the chair in front of you and handed him them, “I find that reading the safety procedures always helps. Also reading the magazine where you can just check out the meal deals and the perfume deals help a bit.”

Bucky took them off of you and began to flick through them. In the meantime, you closed your eyes. As the plane began to move, Bucky tensed beside you and you opened your eyes to look at him, his hands were clenched around the arms of the chair, jaw clenched too.

“Hey, show me that,” you said, sitting up straighter and pointing to the magazine. He looked at you and then handed it to you. Bucky had been helping you out by distracting you from being sad, the least you could do is distract him from being anxious. You leaned over, probably a little closer than you would’ve felt comfortable with in normal circumstances. Bucky stiffened as he smelled your perfume when you came closer. You took no notice of the closeness.

“Look at that!” You said, pointing to the menu that they were offering that night on the flight, “What would you have?” Bucky shrugged and you rolled your eyes, “C’mon. I’d have the chicken curry and the cheese and ham panini and then I would absolutely have the tiramisu afterwards. What about you?” You held it closer to him for him to study.

“Uh... I mean, I suppose the lasagne sounds nice. The breaded mushrooms too, I like those. Never had tiramisu but it sounds nice enough so I’d give that a go too.”

“No way,” you said shaking your head, “I would order the tiramisu and you would order the chocolate and raspberry mousse and we’d share them both.”

Bucky snorted slightly, “Sure thing, whatever you want.”

You flicked through more of the pages, “Ooooh,” you said noticing the deals on the perfumes, “I love airplane and airport deals. I only ever buy my perfume from duty free, honestly. No point in buying it full price anywhere else.”

“I still find it crazy that there’s a shop on an airplane.”

You nodded, “I mean, it’s pretty weird but I’m not complaining about the deals. Some of the stuff you can buy is so bizarre though. I was on this flight once, going on holiday with my family when I was younger, and they were selling t-shirts with a picture of the airplane we were in on them saying ‘I rode in this plane and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’.”

“That sounds like it’s a total dad shirt,” Bucky laughed slightly. He looked a lot younger when he smiled. He was always so stony and serious but when he smiled or laughed, it knocked years off him. He was already a handsome man but when he smiled, he was just... wow.

You burst out laughing as he said it, “My dad did buy it and he wore it so proudly!”

Bucky laughed with you, finding his nerves easing up as he spoke to you. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to you about anything other than the fact you were soulmates so it felt rather nice to talk to you on another level. It was still prettty strange but it was nice. Steve always told him that you were easy to get along with so he wasn’t too surprised. As you continued to chat, you gasped audibly when you came to the ‘collectibles and merchandise’ page, “There it is!”

“No way!” Bucky grinned as he looked down at the picture of the t-shirt exactly like the one you described, “Oh, god, it’s hideous.” The two of you lapsed into laughter again, talking and looking at it before Bucky happened to glance out of the window, “We’re in the air?”

You looked out, “Yeah, we took off about fifteen minutes ago actually.” Bucky breathed out an impressed laughter, “My distraction technique always works. Keep the mind occupied on something else like the ugliest t-shirts in the world.”

Bucky smiled, “Thank you and thanks to the ugliest t-shirt ever-” it was then that a man wearing the exact t-shirt you had been slating got up from the seat in front of you and shot you a dirty look as he walked past, “Oh, shit.” It was hard to keep your laughter in but somehow you both managed it.

As you calmed down, Bucky sighed, “No, really, thank you for that.”

You smiled as you handed him the magazines back and sunk back into your seat, “And now, I sleep.”

When you woke up a few hours later, you found yourself to be sitting alone with no Bucky Barnes in sight. You looked up to see a flight attendant coming down the aisle, “Excuse me,” you said with a smile, “do you know where the man sitting next to me went?”

She smiled, the same warm smile that every flight attendant has, “Yes, your husband is in the queue for the toilet, he should be back in a few minutes.”

You nodded, she went to leave when you caught her again, “Sorry, can you do me a favour?”

When Bucky came back, he was pleasantly surprised to see you sitting awake, smiling at him, “Good sleep?” You nodded, “Don’t worry, you didn’t snore... too loud.”

Your cheeks burned as he teased you, “Shove it, Barnes,” you scoffed, “I bought us a present.”

He frowned, “A present?”

You grinned as you held up two t-shirts, the exact same one that you both said was the ugliest shirt in the world, “No way!” He laughed, clapping his gloved hands together, “Oh my god, they’re worse in person.”

You laughed as you handed him his, “You’re so welcome. I will make us wear these at some point by the way, don’t think you’re getting out of it.” You’d never seen Bucky smile so wide with pure joy radiating from him. It was nice to see; it made you feel a lot better about the situation that was happening. You and Bucky hadn’t broached the subject of being the other’s soulmates, you actually really didn’t want to have that conversation anytime soon, but it was nice to know that at least you got on a little bit.

The fact that the pair of you were laughing so soon felt wrong. It felt like you were betraying Steve for merely getting along but it was nice. You were scared of what was going to happen and Bucky had been anxious about flying so the pair of you had nothing to do but talk to each other. Sure, it wasn’t a particularly interesting conversation but it was something. It was still a little awkward and a little weird at times but you could look past that for a few minutes to just appreciate the fact that Bucky was doing this.

Soon, you were curled back into your plane seat, your own jacket draped across you, “Thanks,” you said quietly as sleep began to take over, “for doing this for Steve. I know that it’s not ideal and I know you probably don’t want to be stuck with me for weeks. I appreciate it, Bucky.”

Bucky nodded and didn’t say anything. I’m not doing it for only Steve, I’m doing it for you too. He watched you for a moment longer before closing his own eyes and resting into his own seat.

The rest of the flight went by in a blur, you slept some more, read your book and ate some food. It wasn’t long before it was time to land and Bucky could not have been more happy than in the moment the wheels of the plane landed on the runway. The airport was a relatively quiet which meant that security and getting your bags was a lot faster than anticipated.

Soon, you were waiting with Bucky in line to get a rental car. To your surprise, when it was your turn to speak to the receptionist, Bucky slid a wad of cash over the counter, “I want a car to keep and I want it off book.”

The receptionist, who was a middle aged man with salt and pepper hair, eyed Bucky with narrow eyes and Bucky stared right back at him. You glanced between the two men wondering who would give up the staring contest first. After a pregnant pause, the receptionist shrugged and dug around in the drawer next to him before pulling out a car key, “Grey sedan in Lot C, registration plate ends with RUS. It’s old and a little worse for wear but for this price, best I can do.” He glanced from left to right before sliding the keys across the table. Apparently he seemed to accept the bribe. You raised your eyebrows, looking between the man and Bucky.

Bucky thanked him with a nod before taking the keys and picked up his and one of your bags before walking away with you in tow, “Wait,” you said quietly, rushing to keep up with him, “You just bought a car?!”

Bucky nodded, “We needed a car. This one will do for a while, keeps us off of the radar for a while.”

Finding the car was easy, the hard part was trying to keep up with Bucky. He took long, quick strides that were hard to keep up with. The car was parked alone in Lot C. It was a little old, with some dents and scratches in the doors from previous bumps and accidents and some of the paint had chipped but aside from that, it seemed to be fine. Bucky loaded the bags in the trunk before getting into the driver’s seat. You settled into your seat and Bucky said that it would be a forty minute drive but could do it in half the time if the road’s were quiet. Then, you both set off.

You couldn’t stop staring out of the window, looking at every single detail of Estonia. It seemed like a dream that you’d be waking up from any second now. Your hands fidgeted with your jacket sleeves as you stared out to the vast unknown. What would become of you and your relationship, you had no idea. You didn’t know what was going to happen and you had absolutely no clue where you would be going. A wave of uneasiness crashed over you as you tried to swallow down the nausea.

The drive seemed to simultaneously be the longest and shortest drive ever. Seconds felt like years and minutes felt like nanoseconds. You just wanted things to go back to how they were two months ago when things were easy and simple and life was without colour. You glanced over at Bucky, wishing that it had been anyone besides him that was your soulmate. Bucky was a decent enough guy from the short time you’d been with him, I mean, he was willing to take you to a safe house for god knows how long after meeting each other less than three times so obviously he was a good guy but... even if you and Bucky ended up friends, ended up falling in love... nothing could ever happen. You just couldn’t do that to Steve.

Oh, Steve.

You wondered what he would be doing just now. He would probably be in the gym with Sam, boxing his feelings and emotions about the whole situation out. That’s what he usually did when things were tense or when he was stressed, he would go to the gym and work out for hours. Sam would usually go with him, being his comic relief to make things less stressful for him. You had never been so thankful for Sam Wilson than in that moment of realisation. You had been so focused on what this meant for you and how this would affect you that you’d practically overlooked your boyfriend’s feelings.

Steve would be blaming your kidnapping on himself, even though it wasn’t his fault that Hydra were dickheads. He would be devastated that he’d had to send you off with your soulmate, knowing fine well that you could easily come back home in love with Bucky. It had been so hard for Steve to make that decision but it had to be done. He wished that he could’ve came with you but it was his mess to clean up and he couldn’t just let his friends do it. He wasn’t that selfish even though he wished he could have been. Steve would rely on Sam pretty heavily over the coming weeks. Sam had been such a good friend to Steve in the few years they’d known each other. Sam understood Steve, they shared the same values and same morals and that was something you liked about Sam. Sam wasn’t afraid to stand up and fight for what was right. You knew that Steve would be in good hands with Sam at his side.

Little did you know, Bucky was thinking of Steve Rogers too as he drove. It was surreal that he was driving with you, through Estonia, to a safe house where you’d be for weeks, potentially months. It scared Bucky, honestly. He liked you, not in a romantic way (yet), but he had heard all about you from Steve. All of those months that Bucky was in Wakanda, Steve called every week to check on him. Every week, Steve would talk about you. He remembered the things he would say about you. ‘She’s great, Buck. She’s got this smile, this really wide smile that I’ve only seen a handful of people have in my life. You know the one I mean. That genuinely happy, makes you smile when you see it smile.’, ‘You gotta meet her, Bucky. She’s everything I’ve been looking for and even though we’re not soulmates, we are.’, ‘It’s crazy. After Peggy, I never thought I’d fall in love again but (y/n) came into my life when I needed her most. Every day, I wake up thankful for her. My god, you have to meet her. You two will get on so well. She keeps my on my toes and is hilarious.’

Bucky glanced at you, a familiar pang of guilt shooting through him. You were his best friend’s girl and he could never do anything to pursue you because he cared about Steve too much. Steve was the one person who had given him a chance and had stuck by him through everything. Steve deserved you, Bucky didn’t.

It wasn’t long before Bucky pulled into a driveway. You looked around, realising that you were deep in the woods. It was an off road cabin that seemed to be pretty far from civilisation, “This is it.” Bucky cut the engine before getting out of the car. You stayed put, staring at the cabin in front of you. From the outside, it looked a little run down but very liveable. It was made with a dark oak wood which blended in well with the trees. Passers by would have to do a double take at first because of how well it blended in.

You got out of the car, grabbing the rucksack that had been by your feet. Bucky appeared beside you, carrying all of his and your bags, “Ready?”

You didn’t look at him, eyes stuck on the cabin in front of you. This was it. This was your future. You were unusually terrified as you stared at it. As soon as you stepped into that cabin, your future would change forever. Everything would change. Life as you knew it with Steve would completely change as soon as you walked into that cabin. With your heart beating fast, you took a breath and nodded, following him up the stony path and to the front door. He unlocked it and swung the door open before disappearing inside. You hesitated at the front door, staring at the line on the floor to mark the cabin’s entrance.

“I love you, Steve,” you whispered before stepping into the cabin and closing the door behind you.

The cabin had an old musty smell to it, the smell of emptiness. Clearly, no one had lived here for a long time. The décor was simple and pretty outdated but it was nice. Bucky had flicked the lights on throughout the cabin and was checking each room just to double check. You wandered through each room. The living room was simple with a couple of recliners and a small couch with a small TV on an old coffee table. You’d be surprised if the TV still worked with a thick layer of dust coating it. There was a large fireplace in the middle of the side wall which would be nice on a cold night. The kitchen was nice with everything that the pair of you would need to get started in the wooden cupboards and on shelves. It had a small table in the corner of the room, looking out of the window. Bucky told you that tomorrow, he would go get some shopping and food supplies until then you had the water and a few more snacks.

Next, you ventured into the bedrooms. Yours and Bucky’s separate bedrooms were adjacent to each other. Bucky had dropped his bags in the slightly smaller room. You went to object but the look on his face told you not to even bother. Bucky’s room was smaller yet still spacious enough for a double bed and a wardrobe. Your room was pretty much the same though as well as a wardrobe you had the chest of drawers as well. The shared bathroom was beside your room and it was... well, it was just an outdated bathroom. And that was it.

The cabin wasn’t particularly big or luxurious but it was much than you had expected. You seriously were expecting to sleep on the floor on a bug infested hotel but Bucky had done pretty good. You’d long since abandoned your disguise, feeling much better when looking like yourself. As you wandered around again, checking cupboards, finding extra duvets and pillows in the wardrobe in your room, you remembered something important. You dug around in your bags until you found it; a picture frame. Bucky knocked on your bedroom door. You turned to him, “You don’t need to knock,” you said.

“Come so I can show you something.”

You followed him into the living room as you held the picture frame in your hands. He stopped in front of a painting on the wall moving the painting to reveal a safe, “Oh, wow,” you said surprised.

“I got this safe installed and I’m putting this gun inside it, okay?” He told you, taking a gun from his back pocket. You jumped slightly, not expecting him to wield a weapon in front of you, “This is for emergencies, got it? I’ll teach you how to use it but for now, I’m locking it up in here, okay?”

“I don’t want to use a gun-”

“Neither do I,” Bucky said, cutting over you, “but I have to at least show you how to use it just in case, okay? The code is 0407-”

“Steve’s birthday.”

Bucky faltered before nodding and continuing, “Yeah, Steve’s birthday. Type that in,” he typed it in, “and it’ll unlock.” He dropped the gun inside of it before closing it over, “Re-type the code and it locks. Got it?”

You nodded.

“I always have at least one weapon on me at all times, okay? I have my gun and I have my knife. I’m only putting this here and showing you just in case, okay? We’ll probably never have to use it but it’s just in case something happens, just so I know that if I can’t get to you, you can have some way to protect yourself.”

Again, you nodded. Bucky eyed you carefully, making sure that you were okay with this. You didn’t really know how to feel about it. You weren’t surprised that he had weapons but it scared you the thought of you having to use them. Hopefully it would never come to that though. He could see the toll this was taking on you and you’d barely been gone a day. He was about to ask what you had in your hands when you wandered over to the fireplace and put the photo atop. It was a photo that you had once upon a time hated. It was you and Steve laughing as you posed for a picture in front of your Christmas tree. Nat had taken it on Christmas Eve. You wore a dress that hugged your curves a little too tightly for your liking but Steve had loved to see you in that dress. He always said the colour complimented your complexion so well and now that you could actually see colour, you could see where he was coming from. You loved that picture now, you remembered the night fondly where he twirled you around, telling you how beautiful you were every other minute. So yeah, you could see your protruding stomach and your bigger arms but you loved it. You smiled as you looked at Steve’s smile, heart soaring as you looked at him. Steve could make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. With him, you truly believed it. Your weight never defined your worth, you defined it.

Almost instantly, Bucky lunged for it, grabbing it and almost tumbling into you, “What the fuck?!” You hissed, leaping backwards. You hadn’t expected the dark haired super soldier to lunge from across the room, almost knocking you off of your feet to grab the picture frame down.

Bucky released a sharp breath, “The window,” he said gruffly. He pulled the curtains shut quickly, “We can’t put any photos up.”

“Why the fuck not?!”

He rolled his eyes, Steve had warned him that you could be stubborn, “In case we’re being watched. If someone’s tailing us, they might look through the window and have our identities confirmed if we put photos up.”

You rolled your eyes, “If someone’s tailing us then I’m pretty sure that they know our identities already. Give me it back.”

“Fine but you’re not putting it there,” Bucky said.

You glared at him as a bubble of anger boiled in your stomach, “My god, how am I meant to stay here with you for weeks if you’re such an arse over a photo?!”

“Yeah?” Bucky scoffed, “I didn’t have to come here, (y/n). I came because Steve asked. I came for you.”

You were breathing heavy as you glared at each other, “Yeah well maybe I don’t want you here.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be here!”

“Keep the stupid picture.” You turned on your heel and stormed into your bedroom, slamming the door shut behind you. You knew that you weren’t angry at Bucky, you knew that the two of you were tired and hungry. You knew that you were a flurry of emotions from having your life flipped upside down. You knew that Bucky was looking out for your safety but you were pissed and he was the only person near you so he would have to deal with it.

Bucky sighed heavily as he fell onto the couch, pursing his lips and pinching the bridge of his nose. Yeah, Steve, she’s fucking brilliant.

It was hours later when you rolled over with a huff. Sleep wasn’t coming easily. You were still too pissed off and because you were still so pissed off, you were only getting more annoyed. You knew that if the anger faded, you’d probably end up crying and you didn’t know which was worse so you just stayed angry. You wished that Bucky would’ve just been able to talk to you normally instead of treating you like a child. You would’ve absolutely understood the picture fiasco had he not leapt over the table and yanked it like a dog stealing someone’s dinner from the table.

You sat up in bed. Usually, if you couldn’t sleep you’d watch TV or go on your phone but you didn’t feel up for watching the tiny TV in the living room and you obviously didn’t have a phone so you couldn’t do much than think. You’d need to see if there was a cheap CD player and CDs in town so that you could at least have some background noise. The cabin was eerily quiet at night. It was a different surrounding in a different country and everything just felt a little uneasy. You were used to New York where the hustle and bustle was part of every day life but the woods was so quiet aside from the rustling trees... it would take some getting used to.

With a huff, you grabbed your dressing gown from the bag on the floor and made your way into the kitchen. You grabbed a glass and filled it with water before taking a long drink. You didn’t know why you wandered into the living room but you found yourself venturing in and it was then you noticed, in the dim light from the moon, you saw a note and the picture of you and Steve that sat on the coffee table in front of the TV. You picked up the note.

I’m sorry about freaking out over the picture, it’s been a long day. Steve warned me you were stubborn but I wasn’t prepared, I guess. Let’s not put it on the fire place until we’re absolutely sure that no one’s tracking us. Until then, it can go here where it’s not facing a window. Hope that’s okay. It is a lovely picture of you and Steve... Again, sorry. - Bucky

You smiled slightly as you read it before slipping the note into your dressing gown pocket and going back to bed. So Bucky Barnes was decent after all.

#reader insert #life without colour #lwc #plus size series #plus size reader #reader #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x plus size reader #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #bucky barnes #steve rogers #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x plus size reader #bucky barnes/reader #steve rogers/reader #bucky barnes x reader x steve rogers #marvel #avengers

255 notes · View notes

cinnaminsvga · 4 years ago

Text

🤬 | seokjin

the sleep deprived series (n.): drabbles that i write when i’m sad and tired

→ frenemy!seokjin ft. e2l and the magnificent get-along sweater | 2K words → a/n: this is dedicated to my homie @jincherie who has been, as they say, wiping her ass everyday only to shit again. i can’t really do much to actually alleviate your circumstances except maybe making you smile, so i hope this can be your tiny ray of sunshine amidst the crap. this fic literally makes no sense because i wrote this within one hour so i’m sorry but pls know that ilysm!!

“Where’d you even fucking get this abomination?” you growl, struggling fruitlessly against the coarse fabric. In your fidgeting, your elbow knocks into Seokjin’s broad chest, causing more damage to your weak joints than anything. Even so, Seokjin grunts overdramatically, stepping on your toes in retaliation.

“Yoongi-chi, you know that I love you very much—” Seokjin seethes, his teeth clenched almost painfully as he fights to restrain himself from ripping the sweater in half, a la Hulk style. “—but I will not hesitate to stab you once I get out of here.”

“Not my fault that you both are acting like a bunch of toddlers,” Yoongi snorts, hip jutted out in contempt like the homosexual that he is. “And to answer your other question, I bought that sweater online after your last fight, when you two were literally wrestling on the kitchen counter. I didn’t know whether I walked into some intense BDSM play or a WWE ring.”

“You bought a fucking get-along sweater for us? What are you, some sort of Christian camp counselor?” you growl, kicking your legs out in an attempt to hit him. The slimy twink bastard jumps away gracefully, landing onto the loveseat opposite the couch that you were sitting on. He crosses his legs, opening his arms wide when your traitorous cat jumps onto his lap, looking to all the world like a terrible Bond villain from the 80s.

“If I was Christian, I would not put the two of you into a sweater together,” Yoongi says. He strokes your cat, who purrs loudly before pointing a contemptuous glare back at you, as if she was enjoying your torture too. Dumb cat. You never liked Miko anyway.

Yoongi continues, “Anyone would two eyes knows that you both are just one brawl away from fucking each other into the next dimension. Lord knows that your sexual tension could power the entire city.”

It’s Seokjin’s turn to snort, who has been relatively quiet in comparison to you. He’s also less fidgety, but that might be because he at least has the advantage and comfort of occupying 90% of the sweater space due to his oceanic shoulders. You once described him as “horizontally imbalanced,” which he did not find slightly amusing.

“I would rather place my balls into a panini press and feed them to Miko than to ever fuck Y/N,” Seokjin fake-gags, squirming uncomfortably in his seat. “It would be less hot for me to actually grill my penis than for me to sink into her hell-ish cunt. I swear, you could bake bread in there with how much yeast has accumulated from—“

You headbutt his chin before he can finish, squawking indignantly. The satisfying sound of his teeth clacking together in pain is momentary but worthwhile. “Excuse you, but it’d be an honor to fuck me! I’ve got that S-tier pussy! If my pussy was in a gacha game, people would spend thousands of dollars just to roll for my mystical coochie!”

Yoongi smirks. “So you admit that you do want Seokjin to fuck you!”

“What the fuck! No! That is—what the—I don’t!” You stammer, face flushing as you struggle to regain your footing in the conversation. Yoongi’s eyebrow raises, intrigued by your slip-up. “That is totally not what I meant, and you know it!”

Yoongi picks at his nails, pointedly avoiding eye contact. “Sorry, I don’t speak hetero. Prithee, explain thy peculiar mating rituals to one who does not walk the straight and narrow path.”

You slump back against the couch, forcing Seokjin to follow and fall backward with you. His shoulder hits you square in the boob, causing you to groan in pain. “Yoongi, just let us out of this thing before I lose a limb to this walking inflatable tubeman,” you plead, ignoring Seokjin’s glare.

“I resent that,” Seokjin inputs, but no one pays him any mind. Your attention is focused solely on the smirking kitty man in front of you, who grows smugger as time ticks on.

Everyone in your friend group is aware of the weird relationship you have with Seokjin. Ever since you met him in your freshman year of university, things were never peaceful between the two of you. It was always constant bickering, squabbling, competing… everything. Even Jungkook, Seokjin’s other sworn enemy, doesn’t argue with the elder as much as you did.

For three years, everyone just assumed it was your weird kindergarten schoolyard way of showing affection for each other, and at the beginning, it might have been. You and Seokjin, both of whom have never dated in their lifetimes despite being moderately popular while growing up, are unsurprisingly emotionally stunted and never learned how to just be nice to people you like. Affection who? Compassion where? To the both of you, physical connection can only be achieved through hair tugging and nipple pinching, and not even in the sexy way.

But at a certain point, things were starting to get tiring. Your arguments only grew larger in scale, to the point where it was getting hard to differentiate whether the bruises on your neck were from pinches or something else.

“I just… Ugh… When are they gonna fuck, hyung? I’m actually getting tired of their constant fighting,” Namjoon had lamented one afternoon, just a day after your last altercation with Seokjin. It had been a big one, where Seokjin nearly lost a tooth when you had landed a neat uppercut squarely on his jaw after he called your toes ‘a foot fetishist’s worst nightmare.’

Yoongi’s boyfriend had been staring listlessly into his bowl of soup for the past hour, and he was honestly starting to get worried when it looked like Namjoon had started muttering to himself in a foreign language. Yoongi almost thought he might have been scrying for a prophecy, begging for an answer to their most pressing question.

“What do you want me to do about it? Lock them in a room and let them out only after they’ve done the deed? Mixed bodily fluids? Performed the monkey dance to its climax?! No thanks, I don’t wanna be near them when that can of worms finally explodes,” Yoongi grimaced, shivering at the thought.

Namjoon shook his head quickly, face paling with him. “Heaven forbid. Maybe you can keep it PG? How about getting one of those get-along sweaters or something. I think they used those in kindergarten.”

Yoongi sighed. “Yeah, but the question would be how I’d get them into it.” He flaps his noodle arms around in demonstration. “I’m not exactly in the running for world’s strongest twink. Plus, years of fighting each other means they’re both stronger than I am.”

Namjoon shrugged. “Easy, just dare them to wear it. Make it into a competition. Nothing gets them more riled up than when they’re trying to outcompete each other.”

And so, that’s how the two of you had gotten stuck in a 3XXL Hello Kitty sweater that Yoongi had bought from Ebay. It has yet to be decided whether spending $40 on expedited shipping was worth it.

“Look, Yoongi-chi. We both promise that we will stop fighting once you let us out of this,” Seokjin says, smiling sweetly at him. Had Yoongi been younger and much more prone to the alluring temptation of the Straight Man™️, he might have caved. But Yoongi is older now, plus he knows when Seokjin is lying better than any polygraph test.

Yoongi rolls his eyes, waving him off. “Fat chance. You’d probably stop fighting for approximately three hours before getting mad about mint chocolate ice cream or something.”

“Hey! Give us some credit. We both agree that flavor is abhorrent, so we would never argue about that,” you retort, with Seokjin nodding furiously in agreement. You glance at him. “And I feel like we’d last at least six hours without fighting. What was our record again?”

“Five hours and twenty-two minutes,” Seokjin says.

You hum thoughtfully. “Okay, I can promise at least five hours and thirty minutes. Maybe.”

Yoongi groans, rubbing his temples in frustration. His souring mood even makes Miko jump away in fright, and the two idiots trapped in a sweater can immediately feel the dip in temperature. Uh oh, here we go!

“I am absolutely sick and tired of the two of you dumbasses fighting all the time! It’s embarrassing as hell trying to bring either of you anywhere in public because everyone mistakes your little catfights for strange foreplay or whatever,” Yoongi glowers. The two of you shrink into your seats, ashamed.

“We’ve only gotten kicked out of one Costco—” Seokjin defends.

“But we did get fined for public indecency at the beach when I pulled your trunks down, which was totally unfair, by the way,” you mutter.

“You literally threatened to, and I quote, ‘Suck the soul out of Seokjin’s dick until he dies.’ How the hell is that unfair?!” Yoongi exclaims.

“It was a death threat! I would’ve accepted a charge for attempted murder, but that was not going to be a sexy blowjob, I assure you—”

Yoongi holds up a hand to silence you. “Face it, you both like each other. Whatever! Sure, you guys are the token straight people in our friend group, but that doesn’t make you bland as hell! Well, actually, it does but…” Yoongi pauses, wondering if it was worth lying. It takes a second for him to refocus. “Where was I? Oh right—“

Yoongi clears his throat, starting again. He heaves a deep breath, shoulders sagging tiredly as he puts on the sincerest face he can muster. “Listen, I just want to say that I care a lot about you, okay? And it sucks seeing the both of you hurting every time the other person says something really mean that neither of you even mean! If anything, will you please stop for me? If you really cared about our friendship, will you do it for me?”

There is a heavy pause as Yoongi strives to get his breathing back in check, his impassioned speech causing his fragile grandpa heart to race. He can feel his cheeks darkening in embarrassment, unused to using his “hyung voice” on Seokjin or you. Separately, the two of you are very reliable, never really needing him to scold either of you. Together, however… that’s a different story, but as the next eldest hyung, it really only fell to Yoongi to fix his friends’ mess of a relationship.

Screw age hierarchy. Yoongi would love to see Jungkook try to get Seokjin and you to fuck. Would absolutely pay to see the twerp squirm as he tries to even say the word “penis.”

After a while, Seokjin and you share a look. Yoongi watches with bated breath as he waits for either of you to speak, but he can sense some unspoken conversation happening between you. Perhaps, after years of exchanging blows, you had somehow knocked brain cells into each other and now share a weird psychic connection. Or, more likely, the two of you actually like each other and understand each other on a deeply personal level, so personal in fact that you could probably finish each other’s sentences, like—!

“We refuse,” you both reply in tandem, your joined voices echoing throughout the apartment. You both had said it so in sync that Yoongi might have imagined the other person speaking, but no—you both really did just say that to his face. In front of Miko. In front of his goddamn imaginary salad.

“Excuse me?” Yoongi squeaks. He cleans his ears with his fingers but finds no cotton there. These bitches! How dare they just throw his speech to the gutter! That shit took brain cells to think of, and he is not in the business of wasting his precious minutes by using them for productivity.

You shrug, leaning against Seokjin’s shoulder. He can see the ghost of a smirk tugging at your lips, thoroughly enjoying Yoongi’s confusion. “You heard us. We’ve made the executive decision to double our efforts, actually.”

Seokjin nods, not even shoving you off his shoulder like he normally would whenever you made contact with him. What? “Exactly. Honestly, we’ve been fighting for so long that we’ve kinda been just doing it for the bit at this point, and the fact that it annoys you so much is just the icing on the cake.”

Yoongi stares at them. His brain doesn’t feel like it’s connecting to his body at all; he feels like he’s floating. “So. What you’re saying is—“

“We know we like each other. Whatever. But we also like fighting, so who gives a shit if we’re having fun at the end of the day?” you shrug, pinching Seokjin’s cheek for good measure. As per usual, the elder retaliates by grabbing your finger with robot-like accuracy, before biting you there like a ravaging beast.

“And before you ask, no, we aren’t really dating. Yet. We kinda just wanted to piss as many people off before actually becoming official. We honestly didn’t think that you’d be the first one to crack.” Seokjin says, your finger falling from his mouth. The imprint of his teeth marks on your skin are plain as day, but you don’t look remotely bothered by it. In fact, you’re practically cooing at his ‘baby teefies’ like a psychopath.

“I—“ Yoongi stutters, at a loss for words for once in his life. He stands from the chair, but his knees give out from under him, causing him to tumble to the carpeted floor. He holds his head in his hands, shell-shocked. “So… That means…”

“Yeah, we’re kinda just freaky, I guess.” You muse before laughing hysterically when Yoongi begins to sob. “Hey, you’re right! We did make Yoongi cry! Do you think we could make Namjoon piss himself in rage when he finally confronts us too?”

Seokjin cackles, shaking your hand underneath the sweater. “If anyone can do it, I know that we can.”

And so, the two of you stand up clumsily to your feet, not bothering to escape the ridiculous sweater as you both waddled out of Yoongi’s apartment. From outside his door, Yoongi hears the sound of a new fight commencing, your shrieks resonating down the hall and for all the world to hear.

#btsghostie #bts scenarios #seokjin x reader #bts x reader #bts reader insert #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #bts humor #e2l #kim seokjin #seokjin scenarios #jin scenarios #bangtan #bts fanfic #the sleep deprived series

269 notes · View notes

pressedinthepages · 4 years ago

Text

Family Business

Chapter 3: Date Night

A/N: Whoops, our hands slipped. Myself and Margaret (@sometimesiwrite) have completed another chapter about these two silly boys! In this episode, Eskel sees a new side to Julian, and they finally are able to go on their first real date. But will all go as planned? Only time will tell.

also, I, Erica, will not apologize for making Lambert extra sexy.

Warnings: discussion of past death of a loved one, super soft flirting, loss, mourning, brief mention of religious-based homophobia, slightly NSFW texting (nothing explicit), unnamed character being an ass to a hostess, maybe...another k*ss?

Previous chapter: Here! Erica’s Masterlist: Here! Margot’s Masterlist: Here!

ENJOY!

Eskel’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he passed a latte to the last customer of the breakfast rush. It was 10:24. Perfect. Plenty of time to clean up, check the espresso, and… take a look at the notification he knew was waiting for him on his lock screen. He checked around as he rinsed the cloth for the steaming wand and wiped the countertops. Geralt was sipping away at a glass of ginger-apple-kale juice (typical), and Lambert was busy cleaning off the panini press, apparently hellbent on breathing in as much of the cheesy bread fumes as possible (he always did love the smell of a grill top). No new customers. All clear. Eskel pulled out his phone and saw a text notification—Julian.

Still up for helping out? I am...stressing.

Eskel smiled at his phone screen and thumbed in his passcode. I’ll see what I can do, but as you know, Lambert had to dress me yesterday so… you have fair warning.

Three little dots floated on the screen. Julian was typing. Eskel glanced around to make sure no one was waiting for help and that Lambert was minding his fucking business.

Ok, option one:

And then, an actual photograph of Julian sitting in front of his mirror wearing a tastefully loud dress shirt—black with white vines and flowers. As Eskel examined the photo more closely, he realized that the young man was also wearing a… a well-fitting pair of dark boxer briefs. Thankfully, the hand not holding the phone was resting in his lap and obscuring anything salacious. Eskel blushed bright red and immediately lowered his phone. He breathed out slowly. Okay. Okay! This is… this is okay. This is a normal adult thing to do. Eskel’s mouth was very dry as his phone pinged again. There was no reason to be feeling embarrassed or… Then again, maybe he hadn’t meant anything by it. After all, Julian was younger, less inhibited, had fewer hangups about modesty. And even if he did mean to be an absolute scoundrel, this was… healthy. Yeah. Healthy. Eskel arrived at the conclusion that, at the very least, Julian trusted him, and he clung to that as he opened his phone back up, desperately wishing he wasn’t at work.

And option two:

Now Julian had on a pair of pants, thank Christ. But Eskel couldn’t help but laugh. They were bright red corduroy bell-bottoms and potentially the most atrocious things he’d ever laid eyes on, even with his self-reported lack of fashion sense. Julian was also sporting a navy vest. But this was no ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill kind of vest: it was decorated with large jewel-tone flowers emulating stained glass, and covered so much of the base colour it was barely visible. What was perfectly visible was Julian’s bare torso underneath. Arms, shoulders, and the top of his chest were on full display, while a coquettish tilt of his head gracefully extended his neck. Jesus. Eskel could just make out the crease and dimple of a grin on the side of Julian’s face in the mirror as he turned his head away. You cheeky little bastard.

Eskel’s fingers hovered over the keypad for a moment before settling on a reply. He didn’t want to encourage him too much and risk an… awkward situation at work. On the other hand, he still deserved a little credit for boldness. Well, those are two very different options Julian.

Julian’s reply was almost instant. I CAN HEAR YOUR JUDGEMENT FROM HERE.

Eskel chuckled, Only of your fashion choices, I assure you ;)

Meanwhile, across town, Julian gaped at his phone in amused surprise. He...that bastard winked at me...good. Julian looked over the piles of sequins, florals, polyester, and lycra he’d stripped out of his closet, feeling quite pleased with himself. His eyes tracked to the one chair in his bedroom on which he’d carefully draped his already-ironed outfit for that evening. (Oh come on, give me some credit. I’m not completely helpless. I know how to dress for a date).

Julian shucked off the pants, a favorite, and let the vest fall to the floor. He carefully pulled out a pair of bright, sparkly golden boots and zipped them up to his knees before striding back to the mirror. He snapped a quick picture, cropping it to show just enough and still be considerate of the recipient. His phone shwooped it back to Eskel, and Julian worried his bottom lip while he waited for a reply. Had it been too much?

Eskel’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he handed a coffee and a muffin to a customer. He reticently reached into his pocket. How far was he going to take this? His heart beat a little faster as he opened his phone to reveal the photo. “Yup okay, that’s…” He closed his phone and leaned heavily on the counter, exhaling a little too intentionally.

“Mouth a little dry?” Geralt was beside him holding a glass of water with a slice of cucumber happily floating inside.

“I—what? No, I’m…”

“Texting with the Boy? Just drink the damn water and try to keep it cool.”

“Yeah, that’s great advice, Geralt, thank you.” He drained the water in a few gulps and heavily set the glass back on the steel counter, “Jesus.”

Geralt said nothing, but took the glass away, giving his brother an encouraging pat on the back. His amused laughter was audible, though, as he grabbed his iPad for inventory.

Eskel took a deep breath and opened his phone again: Perfect. You’ll fit right in.

Eskel sighed as the bell on the door chimed three times in quick succession, a line already forming as his new customers looked over the cold case. Right on time. His phone vibrated once more in his pocket while he started taking orders, and he stepped over to the espresso machine as Lambert took over the register.

***

Julian ran his hand through his hair, letting it flop artfully back down as he gave himself one last once-over. He had on a dark pair of jeans which he’d rolled up just high enough to show a peek of his bright fuschia socks, which somehow didn’t class with his red Doc Marten brogues. The shirt he’d actually chosen to wear was navy blue with red, fuschia, and turquoise plaid accents on the inside of the cuffs and collar, pearlescent buttons glinting down the front. He’d arranged his sleeves carefully for an optimal pop of colour, and he’d left just enough buttons open to be both casual and flattering—showing off a hint of chest hair and clavicle—while still being subtle.

Julian’s phone let out a muffled ding from...somewhere in the room. “Shit, where’d I put my…” He hadn’t heard back from Eskel all afternoon. He probably got busy, he told himself, but a part of him still couldn’t help but worry he’d pushed too far too soon. In his joyful impulsiveness, he’d lost track of the fact that they hadn’t really talked about anything—boundaries, preferences, that kind of thing. It made sense that they hadn’t, they’d only just had their first date (kind of). But after the fiasco of the previous night, he’d wanted Eskel to feel wanted, appreciated.

He eventually did find his phone, tucked just barely under the edge of his bed after a somewhat frantic shaky-handed scramble. How it ended up there, he’d never know. A text from Eskel blinked at him from the screen and Julian’s lips turned up in a soft smile as he unlocked his phone with a cold thumb.

Sorry for the late reply, had a bit of a busy day. Just finishing getting ready, can’t wait to see you :)

Julian held his phone to his chest and sighed, happy and relieved, turning to the mirror propped up against his closet door. “Okay, Jules. You can do this. He likes you. He kissed you. He was flirting with you this morning, and you did not scare him off. It’s just dinner. Everything’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be lovely food, and...wait, where are we going again?”

Right on time, his phone dinged again. Here’s the address for the restaurant. Should be about a fifteen minute walk from your place.

Great, thanks. See you soon :) Julian looked at his watch. Shit. “Okay. Time to go.” He paused with his hand on his doorknob, “Uhh, phone, wallet, keys… do I need a jacket? What temperature is it?” It was an awkward temperature. Jacket would be too warm. No jacket would be too cold. “Oh my God, fine, I’ll carry it.” With that, he locked the door behind him and clattered his way down the musty, worn stairs of his walkup and out onto the sidewalk.

Eskel nervously loosened his tie a little, not wanting to look too rigid, and adjusted his sleeves. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. It’s just dinner. He likes you… Jesus, he better like me after all that.” He gave his hair a final mist of salt spray (he may have been out of touch with fashion, but the one thing he would always pride himself on was his hair). His mind wandered back to their kiss the previous night and felt a thrill tingle through him. It had been so unexpected and so… was heartfelt the right word? It had been passionate, but not just in a sexy way—though it had been that, too. Eskel was discovering that Julian was proving himself capable of a great amount of emotional depth as well as unbelievable cheek, and he was genuinely looking forward to seeing him again.

He glanced at his watch. Here’s the address for the restaurant. Should be about fifteen minutes from your place, he typed hastily, wanting to give Julian a grace period in case he really was struggling to figure out what to wear—though Eskel had strong suspicions that he already knew full well what he was planning on wearing and that the morning’s texts had been for his sake alone.

Eskel carefully pulled the tan jacket over his shoulders and peered around his living room in case he’d forgotten anything. His eyes landed on the framed photo above the fireplace. He took a tentative step forward, “Hey, Jo. You’re still lookin’ real good, you know that?” He took a few steps closer, and modeled his outfit. “Not bad, right? I’m, uh, listen, I’m going on a date tonight. I’ve met someone.”

He leaned against the mantle, hands resting on either side of the recently-dusted frame, a melancholy settling over him as he looked at the familiar face. He shok himself out of it, “I think you’d like him. A lot, actually. He’s, well he’s a lot of things, but he’s…he cares. And I think he could make me happy if I play my cards right.” He smiled, “Thought you’d want to know.” He glanced at his watch, “Alright. Wish me luck.”

He gave a loving wink to the photograph and turned to the door, feeling for his keys in his pocket before letting it lock behind him.

The breeze blew gently through his hair as he waited for Julian outside the restaurant, going over the list of Fun Things To Ask On A First Date in an article he had pulled up on his phone. It was a cool evening, but it was clear that winter had more or less had its last laugh: the crocuses were starting to come up in the planters on the sidewalk, and the air had that sweet smell that only came with warmer weather. A beam of sunshine illuminated the sidewalk and passersby as Eskel kept an eye out for his date. He wasn’t waiting long, though, and smiled wide as he caught a glimpse of well-coiffed chestnut hair and a flash of bright blue coming towards him.

Eskel greeted him with a kiss on each cheek, but he was quickly pulled into a firm hug. Julian pulled back so his blue eyes could give Eskel a proper once-over.“You look unbearably handsome, Eskel, how dare you.”

“Julian, you look very nice. Can’t help but notice you’ve worn, let’s see, none of the options you tormented me with this morning.”

“Are you disappointed?” Julian asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Nope,” Eskel replied simply, opening the door and letting his date enter first.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Julian cooed as he brushed past catching a whiff of mellow cologne—smokey and sweet with hints of cedar and maple. They were greeted by a young woman at the host stand who smiled gently at the two of them.

“Hey, Jess” Eskel smiled in return, carefully placing his hand at the small of Julian’s back.

“Eskel! It’s been a while since you’ve stopped in, I guess the cafe’s keeping you three pretty busy. I’m so glad it’s doing well!” Julian glanced back and forth between the two of them as the gears finally clicked into place. Jess led them to their table, tucked away in a private corner, and Julian slunk into the booth as she walked away.

“You didn’t tell me that this was your dad’s restaurant!?!?!” Julian hissed lightheartedly.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to think my whole family would be watching us,” Eskel cheeked as he filled Julian’s water glass from the carafe on the table, and was met with a quizzical look. “In all honesty, it’s one of the few places I can always get a table on short notice this late in the week. Besides, it’s comfortable.”

A few more gears clicked. Of course. This was a public place where he not only knew the staff, but also knew the space like it was his home: he’d worked the bar, served guests, hosted… He felt a sense of ownership and belonging. It didn’t matter whether people stared and whispered, because he knew the placement of every single piece of glassware and cutlery, and they didn’t. The restaurant itself was like family to him.

Julian nodded understandingly, and grinned as their server approached the table. He was tall, with honeyed skin and dark wavy hair, startlingly green eyes, and an impeccably-groomed goatee. “Hello there, can I interest either of you in any drinks to start off?”

They each ordered a glass of red wine and Eskel sat back, quietly observing his companion. Julian’s sea-blue eyes were flicking back and forth over the menu before him, his brow furrowed at the sheer number of different options, some of which contained ingredients printed in Italian.

“Can I make a recommendation?” Eskel cocked his head with a smirk.

Julian pursed his lips for a moment, glancing up at his date before gluing his eyes back to the menu. “Yes. I am terribly out of my depth.”

“I said the same thing to Lambert last night. Listen, why don’t I order for us, and we can both relax a little?”

Julian’s eyes swept over the menu one last time, “Please, God, yes.”

“Anything you don’t like, aside from spicy?” Eskel asked, taking Julian’s menu from his helpless hands.

“Not a huge fan of alfredos.”

“Well, that’s fine, we’re both drinking red and that doesn’t pair with cream sauce, I wouldn’t allow it, anyway,” he answered back. It was an offhanded comment, but Julian caught the radiant heat off Eskel’s flare of confidence as the restaurateur casually glanced over the menu. This was a different Eskel, completely in his element with absolutely no doubt in his mind that he was correct about every decision he was about to make. Julian wanted to jump across the booth and pick up where they’d left off the night before. Instead, he sipped his wine, savouring the palette as it tingled the back of his throat and warmed his stomach.

“You’re very sexy when you talk about wine pairings.”

Julian watched a pretty pink flush spill up Eskel’s chest and neck, just barely tinging his cheeks. Their server had impeccable timing, choosing that exact moment to make a beeline to their table. “And how are we doing over here? Ready to order?”

He may have been briefly flustered by Julian’s comment, but Eskel’s tone immediately shifted into that of a professional in his home environment, “We’ll start with the carpaccio with the truffle oil, please, and then I’ll have the penne calabrese, and he’ll do the spaghetti carbonara. And could we get a bread basket before the starter, please?”

“Of course. All delicious choices, I’ll get everything started for you.” Their server left them once again, and Eskel felt Julian’s fingers brush over the back of his hand.

“I don’t know how to explain this,” Julian murmured, barely loud enough for Eskel to hear, “but that was incredibly attractive.”

“What, ordering food?” Eskel laughed but didn’t move his hand away. Instead he let himself relax into Julian’s touch.

“Well, yes, but there was more to it.” The musician’s slender fingers gracefully coasted over the landscape of knuckles and veins—accentuated by years of pouring neatly from full bottles and carafes, and carrying water glasses and full plates. “It was your demeanour; the way you held yourself, looked out of your eyes, it all shifted a little. It was subtle, but it’s… sexy.”

Eskel smirked and leaned back in his seat, letting Julian’s fingers lazily fiddle with his, “Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s—you’re confident and in your element. You’re highly skilled.” Julian paused for a moment, scanning this new Eskel in his natural habitat, “You could take over and serve this entire restaurant if you needed to. Couldn’t you?”

“Easily,” Eskel answered, his brow set in easy certainty. His expression quickly softened into an easier smile, and he gave his date a little wink. “But don’t tell the—”

“So sorry to interrupt,” their server had glided his way over to the table with surprising stealth, “but the chef was wondering if he could have a word with you, Eskel.”

Eskel sighed, clearly having wanted to avoid playing Backup Owner for the night, “What, about the order? Or is it something else?”

Their server shook his head, his dark locks shaking over his forehead, “He wouldn’t say, just asked me to bring you back to him for a moment.”

Eskel deflated, looking conflictedly back to Julian. It was part of his life, being in the restaurant business meant being on-call almost any time during business hours for any number of things. Still, if this date was going anywhere meaningful, he didn’t want to start their entire relationship by abandoning him to tend to a work crisis. Julian reluctantly let his fingers drift away from Eskel’s hand, “Go on, I’ll be fine here, it sounds important. Just don’t get roped into working in the kitchen?”

“I may be a workaholic, but I’ve never once abandoned a date at the table. Back in a sec.” Eskel heaved himself out of the booth and followed the waiter around the dining room and through the doors to the kitchen, fully ready to step into his Owner’s Son Who Used To Work Here shoes.

However, it wasn’t the head chef waiting for him. It was… the owner’s son who used to work there.

“Hey! How’s it going out there?”

“Lambert. What are you doing here?”

“Well, you never let me wear my chef’s coat at the cafe, so-”

“Sorry, let me try again: what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Okay, okay, fine, I’m here to spy on your date. Happy?”

“Of course not!”

“You’re both looking good tonight. I mean his shirt? Bold, makes a statement, mature-yet-playful—although I have some questions about his taste in footwear. But hey-hey-hey, is he holding your hand? It looks like it, but I can’t see the wall side of the booth from the pass—”

“Lambert…” Eskel could have sworn he felt his hair actually bristling, “I cannot fucking believe you—that you would have the-the the audacity to think it would be appropriate to just—I mean, on a Thursday. How many people’s schedules did you have to mess up in order to work tonight?! Do you even remember how to be back here?”

“Please, I’m a professional. Like riding a bike.”

A metal spoon fell to the floor with a loud clatter and Eskel took a long, deep breath, “Listen, we’ll talk about this later—and believe me, we will talk about this later—but right now I have a very handsome, very thoughtful, very patient date (who does, in fact, have very soft hands), waiting for me in the dining room.”

“Okay, okay, go, I’ll text you later. But hey, hey, listen: you’re doing great, big guy. Really great. Love the menu for tonight. And the wine pairing? Ballsy to order the wine first but, damn, when you know, you know.”

“Thanks, Bert.”

“Go get ‘im, tiger!”

“Unbelievable,” Eskel muttered as he went towards the kitchen door. “Corner!”

Eskel strode back to their table, and found Julian looking intently at something in front of him, chewing on a slice of bread from the basket that now sat on the edge of the table. As Eskel got closer, he saw it was a phone, and immediately felt the lack of weight in his own pocket.

As if sensing him, Julian looked up, his eyes sparkling under the comfortable lighting in the booth. “W-pray tell, my chivalrous date,” he murmured as Eskel came to a hesitant stop at the edge of their seats, “why do you have a list of Fun Things To Ask On A Date?”

Eskel slowly, carefully slid into his seat across from Julian, feeling the tips of his ears starting to burn. “I-uh...found the article earlier...a-and, well, like you, I was feeling a little nervous... here, you know what, we can just forget you ever saw tha-”

He reached for his phone, but it was quickly held out of reach, “Oh, nononononono, we are so doing this,” Julian smiled wickedly, his chestnut hair flopping as his head bobbed with glee. Eskel dragged his hands up his cheeks and rubbed his eyes dejectedly, glancing around to see if any of their fellow restaurant goers could help free him from the private hell that was going to be the next twenty minutes.

“Question One: What’s one thing you want to ask me but you’re too nervous to?’ Ooooh starting dramatically,” Julian twinkled his fingers for punctuation.

“Oh God, do we really have to—”

“Oh yes. We do. Come on,” Julian waved him on in encouragement, “no wrong answers, I promise. Only a bit of fun.”

Eskel groaned, leaned back in his seat, and folded his hands in his lap. “Alright, fine. How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” Julian answered without hesitation. “How old are you?”

Eskel grimaced, “Forty-two.”

“And yet you don’t look a day over thirty.”

“Hey, I work in customer service, I know a placation when I see it,” Eskel smirked playfully. “Let’s—can we move on to the next one?”

Julian grinned sympathetically, turning back to the screen. “Question 2: zodiac sign?”

“Hmm, late February, that’s Pisces, right?”

Julian smiled and nodded, “Indeed. I’m a Taurus. Stubborn-yet-endearing, thank you very much.”

“I don’t know all that much about star signs. What does all this mean?”

“Well, it means we’re compatible, in theory. Pisces are generally loyal, empathetic, intuitive, private… Taurus tends to be stubborn, patient—can be a little possessive, but I’m working on that. According to one horoscope, I apparently ‘dislike synthetic fabrics’ which is patently false as previously demonstrated by the contents of my closet.”

“Yes, and thank you for that, by the way. It was worth almost having a heart attack at work.”

Julian winked as he scrolled along down the list. “Glad you enjoyed that, because I know I certainly did. Now, what’s your lOvE lAnGuAgE?”

Eskel frowned, “What’s a ‘love language?’”

“Oh, it’s how you show and accept love. Here,” he opened the quiz on a new tab, “You can do it while I’m in the restroom.”

Eskel gratefully accepted his phone back and watched Julian meander his way to the men’s room. He breezed through the quiz questions, thinking he may as well be with his niece at a slumber party and wondering whether they were going to be playing Never Have I Ever next.

“Physical Touch, apparently,” he answered, pocketing his phone as Julian slid back into the booth.

“Well, we’re proving very compatible this evening. I’m the same. With some gifting thrown in from time to time. Where’d you put the phone?”

“You mean my phone? In my pocket.”

“Well, give it, I want to keep asking you questions!”

Eskel leaned his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his hand, “No, I don’t think I will. Later. I want us to enjoy ourselves. Actually enjoy ourselves. And the carpaccio will be up soon.” As irritated as he was with his younger brother having commandeered the kitchen, he was looking forward to the promise of an impeccable dinner. He was feeling more relaxed now, largely thanks to the joyful enthusiasm of his date, but he didn’t want to rely solely on the dubious contents of a Cosmo quiz to make a meaningful connection. Julian let himself get lost in the freckled honey-nut-hazel and the secret sadness tucked behind them. Eskel, too, took the opportunity to look, really look, at Julian’s almost-too-blue and the subtle edge hiding amongst the kindness and charisma. And so they just...looked at each other for a moment. No pretense, no joking. Taking each other in.

Julian startled at the sudden sensation, but smiled as he realized Eskel had taken his hand. He’d broken their eye contact to make sure he didn’t knock anything over in the process, but now that he’d found his bearings, the cafe owner looked back across the table to his date, “You know, I… want this to work.”

The young musician’s eyes grew big and his cheeks flushed hot with the sudden outpouring of sincerity. He already cared about Eskel more than he thought he should after so short a time, and it was both a shock and a relief to know that Eskel might be experiencing the same thing. “W—I—”

“I know that it’s early. And I know there’s a lot we still don’t know about each other. And a lot that we’ll need to figure out, and maybe we won’t be what the other needs and that’s fine. We can always go our separate ways. But I want you to know that I’m… taking this seriously.”

Julian tried to put words together, but was cut off by the re-return of their overly-handsome waiter. A large plate of thinly-sliced raw beef tenderloin was presented, prompting an abrupt release of their hands. Eskel thanked the waiter, and Julian’s stomach rumbled as he scrambled a bit to close the gap in their conversation. But what could he say to that?

He intercepted Eskel’s hand on its way to a slice of bread, “Thank you. Really. I’m taking this seriously, too. I mean that.”

Eskel gave a small sideways smile, “Let’s eat.”

Julian carefully took a portion of the carpaccio, set it on his own little plate and took a bite, and oh god the most delightfully combination of flavours and textures met his tongue. They ate contentedly, not sharing many words, but also finding it hard to look away from each other. What an excellent evening. The food was exceptional, the wine was warm and bold—hell, the whole week had been so pleasantly unexpected that they both settled into a kind of trance.

After a few minutes and with not much appetizer left, Eskel topped off their water glasses. “Alright then, my turn,” he said, dusting his hands free of bread crumbs and wiping his mouth on his napkin.

Julian blinked and swallowed abruptly. “For…?”

“Picking the questions,” Eskel pulled his phone back out and kept it well within his grasp. “Come on, there are actually some good ones in here, believe it or not.”

Julian nodded and shrugged, “Ask away.”

Eskel cleared his throat as he scrolled through the list, finally settling on his three questions. He learned that Julian worked days at an artisanal candy shop in town where he was in charge of making marshmallow animals, which he clearly enjoyed as well as having the skill and patience to do. The next question revealed that Julian had an irrational hatred of polenta, and Eskel despised parsnip, citing that they “taste like carrots wearing perfume.” The final question turned the conversation to their childhoods which proved a little more serious. Julian, it turned out, had grown up in a small, predominantly Christian town. Needless to say, his well-meaning, churchgoing parents had had a difficult time adjusting to the fact that their one and only precious little angel was, in fact, undeniably homosexual.

Eskel’s phone found its place in his pocket once more while he collected his thoughts. “I’m sorry if that brought up any—”

“No no, it’s fine! It’s a part of my life, it made me who I am now.” Julian gently set his now-empty plate aside.

“Do you, uhm, are you still in touch?”

“With my parents, you mean? Yes. We had a bit of a rocky start when I came out, but once I shipped off to university and they had some time to think a little, we started over. It’s—they try. They don’t always get it right, but they try.”

“Could be worse, I suppose. Still...”

“Family’s what we make. Sometimes we’re born with family, and sometimes we find it. Sometimes it’s a bit of both. We’ve all come a long way in the last few years.”

“That’s good to hear, I’m happy that they’re able to be supportive.”

Julian nodded, stroking his thumb over the back of Eskel’s knuckles. “Enough of my sob story, your turn. Best part of your childhood.”

“Well, once we got old enough that Lambert wasn’t ‘the baby’ anymore, we started running around causing havoc. Of course, I always tried to keep the peace, but my brothers are fucking maniacs. It’s not that I never got into any mischief myself, I was always just...better at not getting caught. I don’t think that either of them know the definition of the word ‘subtle.’”

“No, not from what I’ve gathered,” Julian smirked as he cast a quick glance at the kitchen doors. Eskel followed his gaze and caught a hint of Lambert’s hair ducking out of view and he shook his head.

“Truly? He is the bane of my existence. I love him to death, but he may end up in the fucking wall tonight,” Eskel sighed, rubbing his weary face as Julian laughed brightly.

Their server came around with their main course, and refilled their wine glasses before leaving them to their dinner. “Now, I know it’s tempting to eat the whole thing,” Eskel began as he dusted fresh parmesan onto their plates from the little bowl between them, “but we do still have dessert. My advice: don’t be a hero. We can bring home leftovers.”

“You’re going to kill me with all of this,” Julian sighed as he spun his fork in the fresh spaghetti before slurping it up. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he tried hard not to make undignified noises at the dinner table. Eskel chuckled joyfully and ripped a slice of bread in half, dipping into some of the sauce. Julian thought if Eskel committed to their…. whatever this was… even half that much as he was committed to his food, he could count himself pretty damn lucky.

“Is this how you grew up eating? Just this? Casually? Every night?” Julian wondered aloud as he continued to stuff his face as gracefully as he could.

Eskel shrugged, “More or less. Of course, we dress it up for the restaurant, and it wasn’t always pasta. Same idea though, especially when Ma was still around. Pops is pretty protective of the recipes nowadays.”

“He’s very protective of all his children, then,” Julian winked, twirling his fork for another mouthful of pasta. “When did—I mean, if you don’t mind the question, when exactly did your mum… uh?”

Eskel smiled, “No, I don’t mind. Geralt was ten, I was nine, Lambert was… five I think? He doesn’t remember much, bits-and-pieces here and there, but Pops gets out the photo albums once a year on Christmas.”

“Wow, so he like, raised you.”

“Pretty much,” Eskel nodded proudly. “He stepped up well. Of course, everybody makes mistakes. But here we are! He kept us all alive, and that wasn’t an easy feat.”

Julian shook his head with a laugh, “No, I bet not. I imagine he’s proud of you, though.”

Eskel shrugged, “Yeah. We try not to bring too much shame on the family.” A little hazel-eyed wink lightened the mood and the two continued to enjoy their meal and each others’ company. Eventually, Julian pushed his plate back.

“I absolutely cannot eat anymore if I’m going to have dessert. This was delicious.”

“I’m glad you liked it. It’s a favourite of mine.” Eskel got the attention of their waiter, “Could we get these boxed up please?”

“Absolutely. Any interest in dessert?”

“Two espressos and a tiramisu, please. And two spoons. Thanks.”

As they waited for their dessert, Julian reached across the table, waggling his fingers for Eskel’s phone. “My turn, please!”

Eskel begrudgingly handed Julian his phone, and he immediately opened the page back up. “Are you… a morning or a night person?”

“Night. I hate mornings.”

“Ironic, since you chose to open a coffee shop.”

“I know. I still haven’t forgiven myself. You?”

“I can be a morning person if I need to be, but I prefer staying up late. I write better in the evenings.”

“You have about a minute and a half before the espresso gets here,” Eskel said with a smirk, his ears having pricked at the sound of the espresso grinder kicking on.

“Okay, okay. Last one: why didn’t your last relationship work?”

Eskel went quiet. Cleared his throat. Stared at his hands on the tabletop. “I’m not going to avoid that question, Julian, but I’m going to table it for now because I don’t want to answer it here. Later,” he added with an affectionate touch to the back of Julian’s hand.

The musician tilted his head sympathetically, “Of course. And obviously, you don’t have to tell me. But if you want to, I’ll listen whenever it feels right.”

Eskel nodded and straightened his tie, giving himself something to do with his hands. “Thank you. I do want to. Just...not right this second.”

“I completely understand,” Julian reassured him before chancing a glance at the kitchen door which was swinging suspiciously.

The waiter returned with their parceled pastas, and then once again shortly after with a beautifully layered, barely-holding-together tiramisu, and their coffee.

Eskel sipped on his espresso as Julian daintily dug into the dessert-y corner nearest him: it was the creamiest, moistest, most delicately sweetened tiramisu he’d ever tasted. “Dear sweet Baby Jesus and the Mother... Eskel—and I need you to answer me honestly—do you, or do you not, know how to make this? Because if you do, I—you’re not going to have to work very hard to keep me around.”

Eskel smirked and set his now half-empty cup down, “It’s a family recipe, we can all make it. It was kind of a rite of passage growing up. You know Papa trusted you in the kitchen when he put you on Dessert Duty.”

“Maybe you could teach me someday?”

Eskel narrowed his eyes over the rim of his small demitasse cup, “Hmm maybe. Not yet, though. I still have no proof you’re not working for a rival restaurant. Someday. For now, I have to entertain the possibility that you’re a double agent.”

He took his own hearty spoonful and flashed Julian a bright smile as he chewed. Lambert had prepped this. He could tell. Every element was executed with clinical precision, from the saturation of the biscuits to the subtle eggy sweetness of the custard—even the dusting of cocoa on top was perfectly proportioned with the rest of it. Lambert had truly, from start to finish, outdone himself, and Eskel couldn’t help but think his younger brother’s hijacking of the kitchen was about more than just spying on his date. No, he’d wanted it to be perfect, as good as it possibly could be; though of course he’d never say it. He didn’t have to. Lambert was a snarky pain in the ass with a heart the size of a cruise ship. This was him saying it.

Having polished off the remains of their dessert and espresso, Eskel went to the restroom and settled the bill while Julian put on his jacket, and the two made their way to thank the hostess one last time before heading into the now-dark evening. As they approached the host stand, however, Eskel stopped walking. He was in earshot now, and didn’t like what he was hearing.

“...don’t understand, what about that table?” An irritated middle-aged man and his dinner companion were standing in the doorway.

“Once again, sir—and I’m very sorry—but that table is reserved and there’s a one-hour wait without reservations.” Jess was clearly flustered, but holding her own as Eskel hovered nearby.

“Well, then, where are the people whose table that is?” The man blustered, pointing to a recently-vacant, un-bused table.

“I’ve phoned them, and have been assured they’ll be here within their five-minute wind—”

“You know what, that’s okay, we’re going to take a seat, thank you,” the man pushed past, no longer even looking at Jess, clearly speaking solely for the purposes of shutting her up. On his way, he collided with the broad-chested, half-Italian-half-Polish son of the restaurant’s proprietor.

“That table’s reserved,” Eskel said, coolly. Julian felt a shiver down his spine as this new Eskel he’d caught glimpses of all night took full form. He seemed to occupy twice the amount of space he had before and the vague threat of physical force loomed in the distance like a far-off thunderstorm. Oh my. Julian took a few measured steps back, not sure quite what to expect. Still, it wasn’t fear that whirled in the pit of his stomach. Rather it was something much warmer, a mix of admiration and curiosity that turned over and over as he watched the scenario unfold.

“Excuse me?” The man’s watery eyes flashed indignantly as he looked Eskel up-and-down. He scowled and made to step around, “Mind your own business.”

“This is my business.” Eskel once again put himself between man and table. “To be more precise, it’s my father’s business, but we’re a close family.”

“Well, then, you should train your staff better. This girl has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. We have a reservation! We told her we had a reservation, and now she’s telling us we have to wait an hour because of her incompetence. It’s a liability to your business, having staff that can’t handle simple things like reservations, can’t keep track of a simple thing like that, you ought to fire that girl!”

Eskel looked over the man’s head to Jess who shook her head, shrugging helplessly as she pointed to the reservation list. “This woman,” Eskel continued, “has been with us for seven years and has helped us to streamline and optimize our reservation system at least three different times. She’s more than competent, she’s an asset, and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You think you can come into my father’s restaurant—any restaurant—and insult the hostess, refuse to abide by carefully structured systems and policies, and force your way to a table that’s meant for someone else? There is no table for you this evening.”

Julian’s eyes widened as he watched from his safe distance, pretending to scroll on his phone so as not to draw attention to the fact that he was hanging onto every word of this interaction. Eskel was magnificent: grounded and calm, his tone still polite but inarguably authoritarian. Julian would stake his life on Eskel not being a violent person if he could avoid it, but for someone his size, even the vaguest possibility of an altercation would be enough to make an opponent question their choices.

“What?!” the man blustered again, utterly aghast at being denied.

“I will repeat myself once: you are not welcome in this restaurant tonight. Within five minutes of walking through that door, you’ve abused and disrespected the staff, and abused and disrespected the policies of this establishment. I wish you and your companion a pleasant dining experience elsewhere.” The crossed arms as a final punctuation were almost over-the-top, but the gesture drove the point home.

Julian glanced over to Jess. She was clearly finding the whole experience immensely gratifying (who wouldn’t? It was every service worker’s dream come true). But there was something more behind her relieved expression that told Julian she was also deeply touched. It was easy to see why: Eskel at peak protectiveness may as well have been a lioness or a mother bear warding off a potential threat to her young. Besides, he was clearly enjoying himself.

“Unbelievable. This is unacceptable. I’ll make sure the Star and the Herald hear about this.”

Eskel said nothing, but gestured with an open palm towards the exit, taking a few steps forward. The irritant had no choice but to vacate the premises. There was a moment of silence as the dust settled and after a deep breath, it was Eskel who broke the silence, “Sorry about that, Jess. Are you okay?” He tapped her elbow in familiar reassurance. She nodded, taking a sip of water. It was fine, she was just a little flustered. “Want to step out for a minute or two? I can watch the door. That is—if…” he gestured to Julian, having suddenly remembered exactly why he was there in the first place. He received a flippant wave and a shrug (‘yes of course you can send the flustered hostess on a break’) and took Jess’s place at the host stand while she went through the kitchen to get some fresh air.

When she returned, Lambert poked his head out the kitchen door and whistled to get Eskel’s attention, “‘Ey! Tutto bene?” All good?

“Stiamo bene.” We’re fine, Eskel answered with an easy shrug. “Chiamerei Papà.” I’ll call Dad. He held the door once again for Julian as they made their exit, pausing to say goodnight to Jess with a familial kiss on the cheek and a reminder that his number was still on speed-dial for a reason. The two stepped out of the restaurant and,—after a final pause for Eskel to call Papa Vesemir and explain what happened—fell into a slow and comfortable amble.

The two of them walked leisurely, their shoulders bumping back forth for a while. Julian glanced up into the sparkling stars overhead and back down to where the moon shone over Eskel’s skin. He noticed that Eskel seemed a little tense, and he knew that it wasn't because of the most-recent incident. No, a question was pressing very loudly into the creases of Eskel’s forehead, and Julian so desperately wanted to know the answer—not to be nosy, but so that he could help in some way, maybe. But in the last few days he’d already gotten the sense that Eskel was a private man, and that any amount of prying would only lead to friction.

Eskel’s hand fidgeted nervously with the keys in his pocket as they wandered down the ambling side streets of Little Italy—most of them one-way with barely a car in sight in contrast with the busy main drag. He thought back to the photo above his fireplace. If he was going to take this step, it was now or never. If it went badly, there was no great loss. A good few dates, maybe the possibility of something more, but no heartbreak. If he waited, he would only run the risk of making things much worse for much longer. They wandered into a small park where a modest bridge stretched over a pond filled with ducks and small fish. They crossed halfway and stopped in the middle, relaxing in the little pocket of nature tucked away inside the large city.

Eskel took a deep breath, worrying his lower lip slightly with his teeth, and Julian couldn’t tear his eyes away as he watched him gather his thoughts, wondering exactly what information he was about to be smacked with. Does he have a secret family no one knows about? Maybe he’s a secret agent. That’d be coo- no, Jules, stay on task, he’s clearly going through it.

“So…” Eskel kept his eyes trained on the far side of the pond, watching the ducks float and mingle under the stars.

“So…” Julian said, resting his elbows gently on the old, weathered wood of the bridge rail.

“You asked earlier about my last relationship, and I would like for you to have an answer.” Eskel sighed and ran his hand down his face, discreetly scratching at the long scar on his cheek. “It’s...it’s not a happy story, I’m afraid.”

Julian stayed quiet, letting Eskel take the time he needed to say whatever it was he needed to say. His hand twitched to reach for him, but he pulled back. Let him have space. Does he need space? What if he doesn’t want space? Damnit, Julian, he’s a grown man, he’s fine just let him… be.

Eskel turned and leaned against the railing with his arms crossed in front of his chest. When he spoke, his words felt rough in his throat, but it felt good to be saying them. Felt right. “I was married before.” Julian’s eyes widened as he raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know why, but Eskel had given off a strong bachelor vibe, not at all what he would have expected from someone who’d already been settled down before. “College sweethearts, got married the summer after we graduated, got situated together as best we could—you know, nice apartment, grown-up furniture, houseplants. We made plans to move out of the city, saved up enough to put a small downpayment on a home somewhere quieter. And we did. Front lawn, backyard, space for a garden. It wasn’t much and it was right by the tracks, but it was ours. Packed everything up, rented a U-Haul (we didn’t have much stuff)... A week and two days after we moved in, a drunk driver ran a red going 100 in a 50 zone and ploughed into the passenger side door—damn near tore the car in half. I wasn’t alone.”

“Oh, shit,” Julian breathed, his eyes welling with tears, “I-I don’t know what to say, except I am so sorry…”

Eskel shook his head, still adamantly staring into the distance, his voice a little thick, “Thank you, Julian, you don’t have to say anything. I just… I wanted you to know. I’ve moved on, but I still love her, if that makes any sense.”

“I understand. Thank you.” Julian rested a hand on Eskel’s shoulder, and received a grateful squeeze from Eskel’s hand as it came to meet his. “So… I do have one question. If it’s alright, if not I can save it for another time if you’d rather not—”

Eskel shrugged dismissively, “No, no, it’s all on the table, you should be able to ask. What’s on your mind?”

“It’s just… you said… her?”

Eskel nodded, “Yes.”

“So you…”

“Found someone I loved.”

Julian nodded, feeling the tears finally break through and trickle down his cheeks, cooling in the night air. He cleared his throat, “Eskel? Could I maybe—unless you want some space, which is fine, you can just tell me but—could I hold your hand? I just, I feel like I want to but don’t know if you—”

Eskel slid his hand over the rail and grabbed onto Julian’s hand, their fingers intertwining gently. Julian squeezed, scooting a little closer to Eskel so that he could feel the warmth radiating from beneath his soft suede jacket. Julian sighed softly, mirroring Eskel as they both looked over the water. “Why now? Why me?”

Eskel finally looked over, and Julian met his eyes. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright and full of mourning and pain and something lighter, something that felt a lot like hope. “I think you came along at a good time.”

“Did you… I mean… have you been with many—”

“I’ve gotten all the rebound out of my system if that’s what you mean,” Eskel smirked brightly and Julian was surprised at the relief he felt to see joy come back to his companion’s face. He nudged Julian’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. At least, when it comes to people. Clothing is a different story, I’ve said as much myself. I like you, Julian. And I meant what I said about taking this seriously. You know, I… this might sound odd, but I like the way you make me feel. It’s a good feeling. And if it’s alright with you, I’d like to kiss you.”

It was slow and fluid, the way Eskel turned to face Julian, gently sandwiching him between the bridge railing and his own warm body. He didn’t crowd, didn’t press, but the soft wool of his sweater met the crisp cotton of Julian’s button-down and a thrill turned in Julian’s stomach as two large hands cradled the sides of his face. Julian swallowed and reached a tentative hand to Eskel’s right cheek. He didn’t flinch or pull away, but almost leaned into the musician’s cool fingers as they traced the jagged lines.

“May I?” Eskel’s whisper was almost plaintive and Julian could feel his breath trembling as he nodded.

Their lips crashed together and they both breathed deep in a mutual swell, noses filling with cologne and freshly laundered clothing, and the crisp smell of dampness that rose from the chilly water below them. Lips, hands, tongues, hair, bodies pressed closer, their breaths misting in the cool spring air. Only the soft sounds of sleepy ducks and the latent rumble of distant traffic could be heard as the two sunk into each other, relished one another. For Eskel, it was part-relief, part-comfort, hope and reassurance. For Julian it was also hope, but a hope that he could be good enough, be someone for Eskel to rely on, trust in. And so far, much to his amazement, he seemed to be succeeding.

When they did finally part for air, neither of them seemed keen to stray far. Eskel leaned his forehead against Julian’s, his eyes still closed as he caught his breath. Julian, however, couldn’t keep his eyes still, drinking in every ounce of Eskel that he could reach. “You, uh…” Eskel swallowed in a gulping breath, “you still have time to run for the hills.”

Julian chuckled and touched their lips back together sweetly, unhurried, a soft peck in the moonlight. “I’m not running anywhere, I promise.”

Julian could feel Eskel’s smile pressing into his own lips, and he knew he was a goner. “Good. That’s very good…”

They stood there for a while more, lingering in each other’s space as the moon peeked out from behind a cloud, hazy and golden. Though, as more clouds threatened to cover the stars in a dewy mist, Eskel murmured in Julian’s ear, taking his hand and leading him down the path towards Julian’s apartment. They took their time walking back, chatting quietly, sometimes playfully bumping shoulders until they finally reached Julian’s door. It was late, almost 10pm as they stood at the front of the walkup, both feeling slightly chilly.

“I would invite you in but… roommate. And I haven’t told her I’m seeing anyone, so. Not that I expect—er, I mean, whatever you, uh—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Eskel said calmly with a hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Plenty of time.”

With that, they said goodnight, and Eskel promised, once again, to text when he got home.

Meanwhile, Lambert had his back pressed up against the side of the restaurant, its windows dark and oblivious to the shenanigans taking place in its side alley. The usurping chef moaned as his bottom lip was gently pressed between a set of teeth, tugging gently, wantonly, with the promise of leaving him tender and swollen and wanting for nothing by the end of the evening. He knew what Lambert wanted, the smarmy asshole was an open book, and the waiter was always happy to oblige. Besides, Lambert wasn’t the only one getting something out of it. Oh no, this was an equal transaction, enthusiastically participated in by both parties.

Lambert threaded his fingers into thick, dark waves of hair and swallowed the moan he received in response. He felt the pair of hands around his waist slide down to his backside and squeeze tightly, grinding their hips together sloppily, desperately.

“I uh-” Lambert gasped between their lips, “I wanted to thank you again for helping out tonight, Aiden. It uh, I know how much Eskel needed that and-”

“Quit being such a sap and shut up so I can kiss you,” Aiden growled, pushing Lambert harder against the cold brick wall at his back and Lambert was very quickly at a loss for words. Did he have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to go into the cafe? Yes. Was this just the beginning of a—hopefully—very long night? Aiden hooked a finger in Lambert’s belt and began tugging him towards his car. Yes, yes it was.

***

#family business #collab #eskel/jaskier #eskel/julian #fluff #modern au

10 notes · View notes

welcometophu · 5 years ago

Text

Into the Split: Revolution 2

Twinned Book 3: Into the Split

Revolution 2

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Monday dawns with perfect spring weather. It’s warm enough that Nikolai doesn’t need more than a t-shirt, and as he and Seth walk to Teas Please, they see several PHU students in shorts, sundresses, and sandals. The combination of Spring Festival Week and the good weather lends an air of celebration to campus and the surrounding homes. Towels are spread on lawns, music plays loudly, and people are everywhere outside, tossing frisbees and footballs, or basking in the sun while studying.

Nobody cares that Nikolai and Seth walk hand in hand down the street. Some kids wave cheerfully, and one apologizes after diving in front of them to capture an errant frisbee.

“I think I’ll miss this place when we go,” Seth says quietly as their near miss darts off again, flinging the frisbee at his friend. “Not enough that I want to stay, but there’s something about this—”

“It’s innocent,” Nikolai agrees. “Freeing. It’s like it’s easy to live here.”

“That’s it, yes.” Seth’s thumb slides along the edge of Nikolai’s hand. “We can go get food. We don’t have to scramble for a place to sleep. If we stayed longer we’d have to work somehow, I’m sure, but right now, we’re just able to enjoy everything. I’m going to miss that part.”

Nikolai grabs the door to Teas Please when they get there, pulling it open for Seth to go through first. Nate spots them and waves, calling out, “I’ve got them,” as the hostess at the front pulls two menus from a stack.

“I guess Nate will be with you shortly,” she says with a small smile, handing them the menus while they wait.

Seth holds the menus as they follow Nate into the back of the restaurant. A group is already at the u-shaped table, but Cass sits at a table for two next to it, and the table next to her is empty. She looks up as they approach and sighs heavily, standing up to help squeeze the two smaller tables together into one space.

“I’ve got lunch break coming up,” Nate says. “Give me your order and I’ll get everything in at once and bring it out, or—” He breaks off, frowning as he leans in close to Cass. “Hey. Want a Mallory special?”

She rolls her eyes and sits back, arms crossed over her chest. “Whatever. It was good before.”

Nate hesitates a moment, then nods. “Okay, fine,” he says before he walks away.

Nikolai has the chair opposite Cass, with Seth next to him. She’s piled a light sweater and purse on the bench next to her, effectively making it so no one could get close. “Are you okay with us sitting here?” he asks.

She looks at the ceiling, shakes her head. “No. But it’s fine. I knew when I came here that I’d probably end up with half my sorority or some other random group of people I know coming in eventually.”

“Then why did you come?” Seth looks for a moment like he’s going to say something else, but his expression gentles instead.

Cass shrugs. “Nate’s here. The food’s decent. I don’t have most of my classes this week because the professors know no one’s going to show up anyway, except for this one stupid exam I have on Thursday. That professor’s a total dick; he made the exam this week just because it’s the festival and he knows people will be out drinking on Wednesday.” She tilts her head to look at them more directly. “That’s Election Day.”

None of that makes sense, but Nikolai nods like it does.

“Would it help if I—” Seth cuts off, his hand in the air when Cass glares at him.

“Don’t,” she says curtly. “I don’t need any kind of Talent induced high, or the equivalent of an emotional back rub. My emotions are just fine the way they are and I will deal with them, thank you very much.”

“Noted,” Seth says, his hand falling back to the table.

It occurs to Nikolai that Nate never asked him and Seth what they wanted to eat. He supposes they’re getting a Mallory special as well.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Seth offers. He doesn’t shrink away when Cass glares at him, just watches her with the same quiet consideration he’s given Nikolai his whole life.

Cass blinks first. She picks up the napkin wrapped around silverware and carefully unwraps the fork and knife. She lays them on the table, flattening out the napkin before putting it on her lap. “I’m fine.”

Even Nikolai can tell she’s lying. “You don’t sound it.”

“This semester—this school year, really—has been… a lot,” Cass says slowly, her voice tight and words careful. “This,” she gestures at Nikolai and Seth, “is just the end of several months’ worth of too much to deal with.”

“And you’re the kind of person who would rather bottle it up than rely on anyone else,” Seth says. When she tries to skewer him with a glare again, he just spreads his hands palm down on the table. “It’s an observation, not a judgment. You have your reasons, and given that I don’t know what they are, I can’t say whether this is a good or a bad thing. But you seem pretty miserable just from body language alone. I’d know even if I couldn’t feel it radiating off of you. Not that I’m listening on purpose. I can’t help it—you’re doing the emotional equivalent of empathic screaming right now. I’m kind of surprised that Heather hasn’t tried to hold you down and smother you in happy. She seems kind of like the type who’d do that.”

“Heather isn’t very good with negative emotions.” Cass has a small smile at that. “She likes being our social director, because it means she gets to work hard at making people happy. On the other hand, she’s also very easy to fool. A thin layer of pleasure over everything else and she doesn’t try to dig any deeper than that. I love Dax. I love sex with Dax. And I generally have fun at house events. Just the Dax parts are enough to keep her from looking for more.”

Her head tilts as she considers him more closely. “Is it because you haven’t seen me as much with Dax, or because you don’t know us as well? Or am I slipping?”

Seth nudges his glasses up his nose. “I think it’s the first. I’m just getting my first impressions of you now, and I don’t have that formed opinion of you as a part of you-and-Dax. If you asked me, I’d say your closest friends are… hm.” He leans back in his chair, tapping his chin with one finger. “You rely on Dax, but that’s a comfort thing. Like he’s that blanket you take everywhere. And he kinds of treats you the same way. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s like you both take each other for granted the way people who’ve been together forever do. Then there’s Mac and Carolyn and you have this weird love/hate thing going with them. You’re like that with all your sorority sisters, but you’re afraid of Heather, which is why I know you don’t like Empaths.”

“Or Telepaths,” Cass admits, “but I’ve only ever met one person who could really get inside my head like that.”

Nikolai’s surprised by that statement. It’s a more common Talent than that. “You may not know you’ve met them. Most Telepaths are more instinctive, like Empaths,” Nikolai says.

Cass’s expression twists into something vaguely constipated. “Lovely.”

“Then there’s Nate,” Seth continues as if they hadn’t interrupted him. “You have this really weird level of comfort with him, but it’s like you’re afraid of him at the same time, and other times you look at him like you have no idea what he’s even doing there. But you trust him and I think you hate yourself a little bit for that.”

“Cass hates herself for trusting someone?” Nate nudges her sweater and purse out of the way so he can drop into the empty spot on the bench next to her. He pushes a plate in front of her, piled high with salad and a thinly toasted sandwich cut into four wedges decorating the rim interspersed with what look like homemade thick-cut potato chips. “One Mallory special. Kim’s bringing out a shared meal for the two of you,” he tells Nikolai and Seth.

He keeps his own plate in front of him, with a three tiered sandwich made of thick, dark bread. Nikolai can smell the peanut butter, and the strong scent of smoke and maple. “What is that?”

“Bacon peanut butter club,” Nate says. “Take a peanut butter sandwich, then slather the top of it with mayo and some cranberry sauce, add lettuce and bacon and a third slice of bread, and there you go. It’s disturbingly good.”

“Ew,” Cass says, but she still holds out one small triangle of her toasted sandwich and accepts a quarter of Nate’s sandwich in return.

A girl who must be Kim arrives with one of the three-tiered contraptions, but instead of small bites on each plate, each one is overflowing, and she carries another plate in her hand. “Mallory apparently thinks you’re starving,” she says as she sets it between Nikolai and Seth. “I hope you’re in the mood for some citrus. You’ve got a carrot and leek non-dairy creamed soup with fresh lemon and ginger, and a spring salad with candied orange peel and walnuts. The sandwich is a chicken and brie panini with apple slices; I’ve had that one and it’s really good and I wish we’d put it on the menu. And for dessert, a lemon berry crêpe with a dark chocolate drizzle.”

Kim straightens up, glancing at the booth next to them where the patrons are filing out in a burst of noise. She lowers her voice, nods at it. “It’ll take me five to get it cleaned up, okay?”

Nate grins. “You know us so well. I don’t think we’re expecting anyone else but I wasn’t actually expecting anyone at all in the first place, which is how it works. If that booth’s emptying out, I figure there are more people incoming.”

Cass rolls her eyes but doesn’t speak, her mouth full of Nate’s peanut butter club sandwich.

As soon as Kim finishes cleaning the table, Nate nudges Cass, and they all pick up their things to move into the booth. There’s plenty of room to spread out, and Cass slides all the way down to the end, leaving space between her and Nate.

“So,” Nate asks. “Who do you hate yourself for trusting?”

Cass holds out another of her toasted sandwich triangles, and Nate silently passes her another quarter of his club sandwich in return. “You, obviously,” she says, before taking a bite. “I don’t trust people easily.”

“But you do trust me,” Nates says. One hand on his heart, he smiles at her. “I’m honored.”

“I’m going to throw chips at you soon.” Cass brandishes her piece of sandwich, and Nate laughs.

He stops mid-motion as he turns away, then lifts a hand, waving as he slides further down the bench and closer to Cass. He makes enough room for Mac to slide in, but Carolyn lingers at the end to kiss Serina.

“I’ll come by later or if you’re still here when my shift ends we can, I don’t know, go somewhere else then,” Serina says. She leans up on her toes and kisses Carolyn’s forehead. “Eat some real food. You’ve been buried in the library so much you’re going to turn into a book.”

“I’ve been eating,” Carolyn protests. “I swear I have, but Pawel—” She glances at Mac. “We should bring home something for Pawel. He’s—”

“He ate an apple at breakfast,” Seth comments.

Nikolai thinks that was his whole breakfast. Sort of. “I saw him eating a bowl of cereal a while after that. He’s drinking a lot of coffee. And he eats granola bars. If you put one next to him, it’s gone when you come back. What he’s not doing is sleeping.”

“I tried to stop in and he threw me out and told me you were here,” Mac grumbles. “I bumped into Carolyn on the way over. He needs to take care of himself. He’s no good if he’s so worn out he passes out.”

“I think he’s too grouchy to let go,” Seth says.

“Like a toddler,” Mac insists. “He’s like a toddler who doesn’t want to miss anything and won’t nap.”

Serina gently pushes Carolyn onto the bench. “I have to go work.” She wiggles her fingers at Nate. “See you when your break is over,” she calls out to him, and he lifts a hand to wave back.

Nikolai watches Cass as Mac and Carolyn settle in. She doesn’t tell them to leave, but she doesn’t seem welcoming either, focusing instead on her salad and her remaining toasted sandwich triangles. Mac reaches past Nate to steal a chip from Cass’s plate. Carolyn pulls a laptop out of her bag and opens it up along with a dark purple notebook.

“I have information,” Carolyn says. She looks at the others, frowning slightly. “Not that we came here to meet. We need to order food. But since some of us are together, I thought I could catch you up.”

“Pawel is there every second of the day, but he’s not actually telling us anything. So yes, please, talk to us.” Seth makes a go on motion. “Have you made any progress on the Ritual?”

“Pawel’s still looking into it, but I don’t think the original ritual can be reversed. Not as it was.” Carolyn’s fingers move quickly over her keyboard, then slow as she finds what she’s looking for. “According to what we’ve learned, I think that if we tried to reverse what was done, we might destroy the Split completely, but that could backfire and either destroy all the Shadows—effectively committing genocide against an entire Lineage of Talented humans—or it might end up encouraging another global Emergence, and consume more Talents with vestigial Shadowwalker blood while also pushing them into the Dreamscape. If we close our world, that means we are effectively destroying lives and sending them to other worlds to wreak havoc.”

“That’s not an ideal solution,” Cass mutters dryly.

“Exactly,” Mac replies. She steals another chip, easily dodging as Cass swats at her hand. “Which is why reversing the Ritual is off the table for now. But Pawel’s desperately researching a different Ritual and making plans that don’t involve sleep.”

Carolyn scrolls through her document, frowning as she reads something on the screen in front of her.

“I’m half afraid to ask, but what kind of Ritual is he considering that won’t end up with us all turning into our inner Shadowwalker and succumbing to the dark side?” Cass asks sharply.

“We need a place—or rather several places—where the liminal spaces between reality and the Dreamscape are weak.” Carolyn touches her screen as she reads from it. “The idea is to create a Ritual that transcends this one world. If we have the worlds in contact when we work against the Split, that should protect us. Them.” She motions as if to indicate unseen Shadowwalkers.

Which is exactly what Nikolai had thought they’d been talking about, only this seems a bit more specific. “What about the Benford house?” Nikolai asks. “The Berman place here. We could feel it in our world, before it was cleansed, and here it hasn’t been touched.”

“Would it end up with you dragging us all into the Dreamscape?” Cass asks. Nate gives her a confused look, and Cass points at Carolyn. “When she brought that Shadowwalker back. She dragged everyone into the Dreamscape with her somehow.”

“That was Mattie’s crossover, and has nothing to do with this,” Carolyn replies. She closes her laptop with a soft thunk and crosses her hands on top of it. “It was a unique situation that I think was caused by her soul being so close to the reality and my own Talent still being in the process of Emerging. Not to mention Del’s presence and our history.”

“I think that if you’re looking for somewhere that blurs the line, that’s probably a good place.” Mac’s words nudge the conversation away from Cass and Carolyn glaring at each other. “You think it’s a liminal space?”

“It’s close to the Dreamscape,” Carolyn agrees. “It was close enough that Del and I were able to get us there accidentally. Do you think the cleansing of the Benford place would mean it’s not as close now?”

“You know what happened to the wards,” Nikolai reminds her. “Everything kept coming back to that one place, and I think that points to it being exactly the kind of place Pawel’s looking for. I’ve been to the Berman house here—”

“So have I,” Carolyn says softly.

“Then you’ve been to both, too. You know what I mean. They aren’t the same, but they correlate,” Nikolai says. “Alia won’t like the risk, but I think Val could be persuaded. The Alia and Val of our world,” he amends, because now there’s a Valentine here, too, and talking about them is potentially confusing. “I don’t know what Alia here would think about it, and it’s probably not something Valentine really gets to talk about. It’s not her home.”

“The Alia of this world isn’t a fan of magic,” Mac admits.

“But she’s getting better.” Carolyn closes her laptop, opens the notebook instead. She shows a page with cards drawn on it, and neatly penned writing beneath. “She actually came to me for a reading a couple of months ago, and I told her to start a revolution. Which is exactly what seems to be happening.”

Mac makes a hmm sort of noise and steals another one of Cass’s chips.

“I actually need to get back to work.” Nate slides his plate in front of Mac, the sandwich gone but a pile of crispy chips still remaining. “Let me out, then you can finish my chips. Leave Cass’s alone.”

Mac and Carolyn slide out to let him go, but Carolyn doesn’t manage to sit down again before her phone sings out. She looks at the number, lips pressed together as she silences it. “I’ve got to go,” she says, shoving her laptop and notebook back in the bag. “I’ll get something to eat later.”

“Want me to bring something back to the house for you?” Mac offers as Carolyn is already walking away.

“Actually, yeah, that’d be great. I just need to—” She stops several steps from the table, turning back to say, “Make Nikolai and Seth take something home for Pawel.”

“If he’s eating granola bars he’ll eat whatever they put out, probably, yes,” Mac agrees.

“And tell Serina that I—”

“Had to go. She’s right there,” Cass points. “Kiss her on your way out. I’m sure she gets it.”

“She probably doesn’t really get it,” Mac murmurs as Carolyn catches Serina and kisses her cheek on the way by. “Serina’s kind of swept up in this because Carolyn is, but she hasn’t really been a part of it. It’s all happening around her. Alaric and Nikita are on her floor. She’s got Carolyn. But she’s not Talented and she just kind of goes with the flow.”

“But she’s there for Carolyn,” Seth says. “Right? Sometimes when one person’s the raging river of chaos, it’s good that the other one’s the stable rock.”

Nikolai reaches under the table to slide his hand over Seth’s knee in silent thanks for being his rock. “Are you saying I dragged you into this?”

“You are the Dreamwalker who dismantled wards so badly that you not only got us thrown out of Havenhill, we left the world entirely,” Seth says. The sharp words are softened by a fond smile, and Nikolai can’t resist stealing a kiss.

“Is that what I look like?” Cass murmurs.

“All the time,” Mac whispers back. “Only you tend to look even more like you’re going to jump Dax any second. What I’d like to know, though, is when you and Nate started trading food like an old married couple?”

Cass blinks. “You stole my chips, not him.”

They’re distracted and it’s a perfect time to steal another kiss that tastes of blueberry crêpe and bittersweet chocolate. While Cass and Mac bicker and laugh in the background, Nikolai can just enjoy the moment here with Seth.

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Want to support me? – Patreon | Ko-Fi | Reblog & Comment

#welcome to phu #welcometophu #into the split #phu twinned #twinned #its revolution

2 notes · View notes

strawberriestyles · 6 years ago

Text

Part 4: Pentagram

(BANNER MADE BY MY TALENTED SWEETIE PIE @adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy)

Harry X Reader (AU)

In which you’re persuaded to help a young witch named Harry.

Read previous parts here.

Word count: 5.1k+

Author’s note: HEY HI HELLO. There will be one more part and a short epilogue after this. WE’RE NEARING THE END. I’ve had and am still having so much fun with this series. Fantasy is my favorite thing to read, and to be able to blend that with fanfiction has been super cool and experimental. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do. PLEASE LIKE, REBLOG, LEAVE FEEDBACK. It’s super helpful to writers and can also aid in motivating them. Xx

“Hello, dove.”

When you glance up from your books, you’re unsurprised to find Harry standing at your table. You’ve been wondering when he would show up. But you start at his use of that pet name. He holds a steaming coffee in one hand and an entire meal in the other, and he doesn’t ask permission before he slips into the booth across from you, setting his refreshments down on the tabletop, laying the plate of food on top of your book.

“Had a lot o’ trouble finding yeh today."

“Why’s that?” you ask as you sift your way through the contents of the sandwich he’s placed before you.

“Dunno. Maybe whatever magic’s in your blood is sparkin’ up. Yeh’re gettin’ hard to trace.”

“You trace me?”

“Not with a spell or anythin’,” he says with a shake of his head. “Jus’ been pretty easy to kind o’ feel out your presence. Air feels weird around yeh.”

“Well, that makes me feel good about myself,” you mumble with a thick sigh. “Why did you buy me a panini? I’m not hungry. And how do you know that you picked something I like?”

“Well, I was guessing based on what I know about yeh, but yeh could have said thank you.” Harry sips his coffee and leans his head against the back of the booth. "Or yeh could at least not act rude about it. Just thought yeh could use a good meal right about now. Wha’s wrong?”

You sigh again and settle your chin into your palm, picking at the sandwich bread with your free fingers.

“I have all these midterms coming up. And they’re not for my major-required classes they’re just general classes that everyone needs to graduate. Which is stupid because why do I need to take a college-level math course as a Latin major? That makes no sense. Any career that I end up—“

“I get it,” Harry says with a soft chuckle. “But it might come in handy. I liked t’skip out on my Latin studies when I was younger, and look where that got me. I need a mortal t’help me perform fuckin’ spells.”

“Well, first of all, I’m not all mortal,” you tell him with a frown.

“Mortal enough,” he mutters, twirling his coffee cup to stir its contents. You ignore him for the time being.

“And second of all, that was rude of you. Are you upset that you need me? Because I can just stop helping you at any time.”

“No, Y/N, no.” Harry smiles that annoyingly amused smile of his. “Not upset that I need yeh t’help me with translations. Just upset that I can’ do ‘em myself. Makes my mum crazy proud o’ me, I’ll tell yeh that much. Eat your food, please.”

Despite your prior statement, you do find your stomach aching for the panini he’s ordered you. It’s nearing eight thirty in the campus library. The other students that have been working throughout the day have already trickled out in search of their own dinners or a Netflix recovery session from all the studying they’ve suffered through. You wish you could join them. The fluorescent lights above you haven’t helped to keep you peppy and motivated.

You cave and take a grateful bite.

“Thank you,” you whisper to him when you’ve finished chewing. “I actually haven’t eaten for about six hours. I’m just stressed out.”

“Well,” he says, leaning forward with a quirk to his lips, clearly smug, “tha's perfectly fine, because I think I have the perfect way to relieve your stress. Yeh ‘bout ready t’be done for the night?”

There are surely mountains of work for you left to do, preparations to make, papers to map out—but with your mouth full, you give him a desperate nod.

***

“Was that your first time on campus?” you ask.

Your voice quivers with a faint wariness. Nicks, for whatever strange reason, has decided that she doesn’t mind a close proximity to you. At least for today. She’s sitting on the arm of the couch, just a foot or so from your elbow. Granted, she’s not paying you much attention at all, but it’s a start.

“No.” Harry is laying down a large, thick black cloth. It’s stitched with a white design that only becomes clear as he pulls the fabric out flat—a pentagram. Like a satanic blanket. “I took a few classes a couple years ago. Just t’see what you mortals learn in your higher education.”

“Not a mortal,” you remind him. “Speaking of…”

As Harry skims a page full of his notes from the spell in his book, you remember the warning he gave you that first time you ever helped him. It’ll burn the eyes right outta your skull.

“Can I actually look in the book? If I’m not fully mortal, I mean.”

“No.”

You sigh and Harry begins to lay items out around the edges of the cloth, just outside of the pentagram’s circle. Closed jars and bottles, a bowl of ground up somethings that you’re not sure you want to ask about, something that looks like criss-crossed bones tied together with twine.

“What are we doing?” you ask. “I thought the spell wasn’t going to happen until tomorrow night.”

“’S not,” he says, sprinkling some red powder over the inside of the pentagram. When he stands up he hands you a different sheet of paper with his usual translations and begins to arrange the candles that the two of you made last week at the five points of the pentagram. “This is just a preparation.”

You frown as you lower your eyes to the Latin scribbled out in front of you. They’re odd commands about the arrangement of the items around the pentagram. You glance up at the cloth intermittently to second check Harry’s placements.

“Um,” you mutter after a few minutes, “this says something about a human fingernail.”

“Yeah. Where does it go?”

“Is there any point in me asking you where the human fingernail came from?”

“No.”

You shake your head as you point toward the pentagram. “It’s supposed to go where those bones are right now. And the bones are supposed to be two places counterclockwise.”

Harry rearranges his items while you scan over the rest of the Latin, right up until the words make you freeze. As he stands back up to survey his work, you toss the page to the other end of the couch.

“’S that it?” Harry asks when he turns around again. He travels back toward his shelves and pulls down the jar of Hellfire that the two of you prepared a few weeks ago, still burning dark and ominous, even with its lack of oxygen. He reaches his hand inside and scoops the flames out, kneeling down to light each of the candles and then returning the remainder of the fire to its glass jar and replacing it on the shelf where he found it. He glances up at you when you still haven’t answered him.

You nod your head, perhaps too vigorously, and he sits down beside you, his ringed fingers splayed out over your thigh.

“Harry, I…”

Your voice trails off as he settles his cheek into your shoulder, his lips prodding at the curve of your jaw. You let your eyes fall closed for only a short moment before throwing yourself onto your feet. At the sudden motion, Nicks hightails it from the room.

“What are you doing?” you demand, pressing your lips together as you stand before him.

“Says we’ve gotta fuck, righ’?” Harry asks. So nonchalant. "I may be shit at Latin, but I do know the word for orgasm.”

“Harry.” You let out a disbelieving, airy laugh and shake your head. "You’re just assuming I’ll have sex with you because some dusty book says so?”

“Well, I was hopin’ yeh’d want to.” He gives you that signature smug look that often makes your blood run with heat and his arms settle over the back of the couch. Then he raises an amused eyebrow. “Wha’? D’yeh want it t’be more romantic? I’ve already got candles lit and everythin’.”

“Those are ritual candles burning at the points of a pentagram, Harry.”

“Good observations.”

Your jaw tightens and you turn toward the door. “I’m leaving.”

“Y/N, stop.”

“No, you can’t just expect—"

“Please.” Harry’s footsteps follow you. He doesn’t touch you as you reach the door, but the tone of his voice makes you stop. You fiddle with the zipper of your jacket slung over your forearm. “I need your help. Can yeh help me?"

Your teeth close around your lower lip as you stare at the front door. Candlelight flickers against the walls, painting Harry’s shadow just beside yours. “How do I know this is what the book actually says and that you’re not just making it up?”

“I guess yeh’ll just have t’trust me,” Harry answers. You hear him lean against the wall. "Would it be so bad if I wasmakin’ it up? That I’d wanna have sex with yeh even if the book didn’ say so?”

Your eyes close. He has a point. Haven’t you been drawn to him from the beginning? Didn’t his kiss from last week leave you reeling for days afterward? What would be the harm, really?

When you turn around you’re still hesitant, but Harry stays where he is, his eyes steady as he watches you.

“You make me a little uneasy,” you whisper.

“‘M sorry.” Harry straightens up just by a little bit and smiles very softly. It’s not an expression that you’ve seen on him before. “Get that a lot, actually.”

“It’s not anything you do, really,” you assure him. “It’s just…”

“Yeah. The witch part.”

You bite at the corner of your mouth to keep your laugh at bay. When he smiles at you again, you close the few steps between you and rise up onto your toes, pressing a kiss to his lips with almost the same amount of confidence that he kissed you with last time.

“Yeh trust me?” Harry mutters when your mouths part for a short moment. You fall back on your heels and he looks at you, all hazy-eyed.

“Depends,” you reply. “Are you gonna slit my throat in the middle of this and make me a sacrifice to the devil?”

Harry chuckles to himself and grasps your hips. His fingers press into your skin and you drop your jacket as he pulls you sharply forward. “Not today, dove.”

You fold. Harry gathers you up in his arms and kisses you hard, hands roaming, lips feverish. You lower your fingers to the hem of his shirt and he lets you go only long enough to peel the layer away from his skin.

The trip back down the hall is a mess of clashing teeth, bruising lips, stumbling over each other’s feet. By the time the two of you reach the couch, you’re in your bra and underwear but Harry is somehow still wearing pants. You fumble with the button and zipper of his jeans as he leans against the arm of the sofa. He distracts you with wet kisses that trail down your jaw, fingertips that pluck at the straps of your bra. His pants pool at his feet and he wastes no time shedding his boxers right along with them.

It’s almost as though Harry can sense your persisting wariness as he kisses at the top of your chest and toys with the clasp of your bra. You see his free hand lift beside you and then lower, palm toward the floor, slowly, in time with the dimming of the candles lit around the living room. You sputter out a laugh that makes his teeth scrape against your sternum. Your bra falls to the floor beside his pants and boxers. He sits back on the couch’s arm, that smirk on his face, unashamed, waiting for you to slip out of your underwear.

“You swear this isn’t some weird sacrificial ceremony or something?” you ask him, thumbs poised in the sides of your panties. “You’re not gonna hurt me?”

“Not unless yeh want me to, dove.”

Harry grasps your wrists and pulls them toward your knees, dragging your underwear down with them. His eyes lick back up your body like flames until he’s focused on your face again, and you swear that for a moment they glow that electric blue. But then he’s standing straight again, hands hot against your bare waist, lips prodding at yours, and he’s walking backward with a confidence that you can feel in every step. He begins lowering himself to the ground, dragging you down on top of him, and it’s only when you break the kiss that you find the two of you are positioned in the center of the pentagram, surrounded by odd relics and candles, their wicks lit with Hellfire but their wax still unmelted.

Harry lays back on the blanket, his head positioned in the center of one of the pentagram’s triangular spokes. You’re perched on his hips, very aware of every bit of bare skin that touches him. His fingers curl around the thickest part of your thighs and he says nothing, only blinks lazily up at you.

You pull your lower lip between your teeth as you shift, reaching between you to wrap your fingers around his hard dick. You guide him to your entrance and all of your nerves diminish when he’s inside of you. His hands tighten on your flesh as you sit back. Slowly. Gently.

You settle your palms over his ribs, fingertips curling into the tattoo of a butterfly painted there. The light in the room flickers as you roll your hips to acquaint yourself with this experience—Harry sprawled out on the floor, his hair mussed from your hands as he draws his tongue in a stripe across his lip. You don’t know if it’s the pentagram or Harry or if it’s only your imagination, but your senses feel heightened. A brush of his thumb over the bend in your hip makes your entire body shiver. Like he knows exactly where to press. But it’s still all so foreign.

“Go ‘head, dove,” he whispers, as though he knows exactly what you’re thinking. He stretches out his neck and gives you that smug look—it’s the familiar in this uncharted territory that you needed. A touchstone. “Fuck me.”

Your fingers curl further until you can feel your nails digging into his skin. Harry only flutters his eyes closed. You lift your hips up, forward, feel his cock dragging against your walls, lower yourself back down. Harry lets out a huff of air. He pushes against your thighs, urging you on. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm once you ground yourself to the feeling of him inside of you, thick enough to make you ache. Your body works for you without the need for thought.

“More,” Harry mutters after a minute. It’s not gentle. It’s demanding. One of his hands drift up your stomach to spread across the area between your breasts. Your belly lurches as the fingers of his other hand grip into your waist with a bruising strength, and you whimper, picking up your pace.

“There yeh go,” he praises. He lifts his head up far enough to watch your hips meeting, to see the way your legs quiver. His hand sneaks back to grab at your ass. There’s no question to his movements, only a dauntless fluidity that makes a thin sheen of sweat collect at your hairline. He kneads your cheek and tips his head back against the pentagram. His own skin is growing slick beneath your hands. “Yeh’ve gotta come, dove. Can’ do that if yeh’re holdin’ back on me, yeah?”

Harry lapses back into silence as you find a beat in this candlelit room, quickened by the pressure of his fingers, by the draw of his unsteady breath, by the urgent pulse of his heart beneath your hands. Your knees are chafing against the cloth laid out under the two of you, but you don’t slow. Sweat trails along your scalp and into the tracks of your hair as you tilt your head back. You close your eyes and find the image of Harry’s face imprinted there, cut into slivers between the glint of regular candlelight and the shadow of Hellfire.

You’re jolted out of your own mind when Harry delivers a harsh smack to your ass. You can feel yourself tensing around his cock, even as he rubs soothingly at the sore area of your bum. You’ve stilled on top of him, your chest heaving, a guttural moan poised at your lips. It’s translated into a gasp as he flips the two of you around, settling your head gently within the pentagram where his was positioned. He’s slipped out of you and you don’t think going without food for a week could leave you feeling this empty.

“Let go for a second,” he whispers when you’ve latched onto his arms where they frame your head. “Wanna try somethin’.”

You loose your fingers from his biceps and settle back against the cloth beneath you as Harry reaches to the perimeter of the pentagram’s circle to grab a candle. The Hellfire burns steady and straight, unswayed by any air flow. The wax around the wick looks melted, liquid, but it doesn’t run down the sides. It’s unnerving. Especially when Harry leans back and tips the candle over your chest. Hot wax spills and stings the skin between your breasts. You gasp, pushing Harry’s hand and the candle away, stomach thrashing up against him, but he surrounds you like a cage.

“Hey, relax,” Harry says, settling his hips between yours at last. He leans down to kiss you for the first time since the two of you have entered the pentagram. His lips graze down your neck after leaving your lips, along your collarbone to your shoulder, a peck to the outside of your breast. He lets out an airy chuckle. “Yeh like it, don’ yeh?”

“What?” you mutter, tilting your head forward. The wax has hardened and begun to cool on your chest. He still holds the candle in his hand.

“Nipples are hard,” he observes, raising a brow. “Yeh like it. Hurts for just a second, yeah? A good pain?”

Your response is swallowed back down your throat as Harry tongues your hardened nipple, teeth grazing along your skin. The fingers of your right hand tangle up in his hair, yank at the roots as he sucks your nipple into his mouth. More hot candle wax spills across your skin, this time along your upper belly. You shy away from the quick sting but it only lasts for a moment and you find yourself moaning as the wax dribbles up the side of your body, heats your other breast. The flame of Hellfire still doesn’t sway. It also doesn’t burn up toward the ceiling as a regular flame would. It remains in line with the candle.

Harry sighs at the sound of your moan and hurries to return the candle to its place on the pentagram. He reaches down to stroke his cock once, twice, and then thrusts into you without a warning.

“Jesus,” you gasp out. It feels different when he’s the one moving. He takes no time to find a rhythm, just fucks into you with all of the force of his hips. Your ankles curl around the backs of his knees and the hand not buried in his hair grapples for a hold on his back.

“There’s no Jesus here,” Harry mutters, lowering his face into the crook of your neck. His teeth tease at your pulse. “Yeh feel like a fuckin’ goddess, though—fuck. Tha’s what I wanna feel.”

He moans when your walls clench around him. His thrusts drive deeper, arms trembling on either side of you. One hand lifts to lay across your side, over your ribs, and you can feel the dried wax there heating up, dripping down to pool beneath your back.

“Wanna fuck yeh harder,” Harry groans. “D’yeh want it harder? Can I fuck yeh harder?”

“Please,” you breathe out, “please.”

The air is forced from your lungs as Harry’s hips smack back into yours. Your body is tingling beneath the weight of him, thighs aching at the stretch of his hips between them. The skin behind your ear heats with pain as he sets his teeth into it. And he’s fucking you relentlessly, desperately, so urgently its making your mind grow fuzzy.

“I—” You can’t even finish your words. The pits of your stomach are coiling up like a spring. The fuzz in your mind is making your vision grow dark around the edges as you stare up at the wooden ceiling. All you can do is squeeze at Harry’s back, tighten your hand in his hair.

“Yes, fuck yes,” he grates out. The hand covered in melted wax snaps to the back of your thigh, angling your hips up and yanking you to meet his thrusts as he fights to finish himself off. “‘M gonna come.”

Your throat is thick with words that can’t escape as he fucks you over the edge. One hand falls to the blanket at your side and curls into the fabric. You let out only a strangled moan. Harry grunts as he feels you coming around him. He pulls his face out of your neck and props himself up on his arms, tipping his head back against his own shoulders until he’s jerking into you, swearing into the silence of the house. This time you’re positive that you see that blue glow around his irises before his eyes close. You shake while he empties himself inside of you and all at once the flames around the room are snuffed out.

Harry huffs out a breath of exhaustion and lowers himself back down on top of you, forehead smearing sweat along your shoulder. You can see almost nothing at all while you gasp for breath. Your body still buzzes in the darkness. You can smell the subtle sweetness of smoke from the extinguished candles.

There’s a pressing silence filled with nothing but heavy breathing. Harry’s become almost a dead weight on top of you. You can feel liquid leaking from you, his skin sticky where it meets yours. The knowledge somehow doesn’t worry you.

“Thank you, dove,” Harry whispers right into your ear. His lips plant a wet kiss to the edge of your shoulder, waxy hand thumbing at your hip.

The moon peeks out from behind a thick layer of gray clouds. It seeps through the grimy window above your heads, filters through the wisps of smoke that hang about the room, illuminate the drops of sweat that linger on Harry’s back. You close your eyes for a moment—only a moment—and when you open them there is a face at the edge of the pentagram, just beyond it. An entire body mere inches from your feet. His eyes are wide, still, staring down at the two of you, graying hair frazzled around the lines of his frozen face.

Air is drawn loudly into your lungs but then it traps itself. You can’t scream. You can’t exhale. Your body tenses, fingers pressing into Harry’s spine, his scalp. He feels the shift and lifts his head to look down at you. Blocking your view of the stranger. But you can still see him behind your eyelids as you blink.

“Wha’s wrong?” he asks when he sees the wild look in your eyes. His brows pull together, fingers smoothing up your jaw. “What?”

The face looms up again behind the mess of Harry’s hair, leaning over the two of you, its expression still frozen in place, and the air finally finds a way to escape your chest.

You scream, shoving at Harry’s body, scrambling out from under him. He doubles back for a moment before you reach the edge of the pentagram and he catches at your knee, pulling you back toward him. The cloth is pulled beneath you. Candles topple over and the twined bones are sent scattering across the wooden floor. “Stop—” You swipe at his hand and he catches your wrist too. “Stop, Y/N, stop!”

Your lungs are heaving as you struggle against his grip and spin your head to survey the room. It’s empty. There’s no one else here. Not even a suspicious shadow.

“I thought—” You stop struggling and shake your head. Your fingers are trembling. “There was a man standing right there,” you whisper to him, pointing to the spot just outside the circle. You sound crazy. At least you think you do for just a moment before you remember that Harry is a witch and the two of you just had sex inside of a pentagram, surrounded by candles burning with flames from Hell. You squeeze your eyes shut. You can feel a headache coming on.

“Okay, okay.” Harry shifts onto his knees and wraps his fingers around the back of your neck, nodding. “Okay. He’s gone now though, right?”

“You believe me?”

“Of course I believe yeh. Why wouldn’ I?” Harry leans in to kiss your forehead. It’s so gentle, so sincere. You can feel your pulse beginning to slow when he pulls back and you tip your face into his chest. He slides his hand down your spine and rubs at your lower back, still slick with sweat.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble.

“Don’ be.” He pulls you away from his chest and kisses you with a slowness that you find gratefully comforting. “’S dark in here. How ‘bout we get some candles lit and get yeh cleaned up, yeah?”

You nod and let Harry help you up to your feet. He steps gingerly out of the pentagram and makes his way to the nearest candle, on the wall by the hall to the kitchen. His fingers close over the wick until it sparks to life and illuminates his flushed face. He gives you a soft smile and reaches for his boxers by the side of the couch.

“C’mon, dove,” he says once he has them pulled on, "I’ll make yeh some tea.”

***

“Yeh okay?” Harry asks as he comes back into the room. He’s carrying a hot mug of tea. You notice the way his hair is still standing up around the sides, where your fingers have left it tousled.

You give him a short nod and continue peeling at the dried black wax encasing your ribs, holding your shirt up with one hand. Harry sets the tea on the floor in front of the couch and then sits down, turning your body away from him. He picks at the wax on the back of your thigh, in the vague shape of his hand.

The room is much brighter around you. Harry has lit every candle in the vicinity that wasn’t meant for rituals and spells. But you still find yourself glancing cautiously into the corners every few minutes. You can still see that jarring face whenever you close your eyes.

“Hey.”

“Sorry,” you whisper, turning your attention to Harry when he’s finished ridding your thigh of wax. He shakes his head and helps you finish with the wax coating your side.

“No, yeh’re spooked. ’S okay.”

You chew on your lip. Harry finishes and brushes his thumb over your skin.

“Was that supposed to happen? Did you know that was going to happen?”

“What, the guy?” Harry asks. He allows his hand to fall to his lap as you take a step back from him and shakes his head. “No, I didn’ know that was gonna happen.”

“Well, do you know who it was?” You pull your shirt—Harry’s shirt—back down your abdomen to meet the line of your underwear.

“Think I might.” He says nothing more and you shake your head.

“You’re not gonna tell me? Really?”

“I can’ right now, dove. ‘M sorry.”

“No you’re not.” You let out a dry laugh and rub at your tired eyes. You know he’s not going to give you any more information. You’ve grown used to his secrets and mysteries. It’s really no use pushing. “Do you get spooked?” you ask him instead.

Harry sits back and lets out a soft sigh. “Not really. Not anymore, at least. Used to when I was a li’l bit younger.”

“Right.” You sit down beside Harry, close to his side. You hate to admit it but touching him really is comforting when you’re this shook up. His hand falls to your opposite arm and rubs gently at your skin. “You haven’t really told me about when you were younger. Do you have siblings?”

“Have an older sister.” He gives you a tight smile. "She’s a much better witch than me.”

“You always say things like that but I don’t think you’re bad at any of this.”

“Yeh should tell m’mum that.”

Something topples over onto the floor and you jump, hand finding Harry’s in your panic. When you turn your head, you find Nicks prowling around the edges of the pentagram, pawing at the items the two of you haven’t cleaned up yet. Harry chuckles quietly.

“Drink some tea, dove.”

You shake your head in an effort to clear it as you lean forward to grab the mug off of the ground. It’s warm and sweet-smelling as usual. For the first time since he’s begun brewing the tea for you, you sip it without hesitation. Harry kisses your temple.

“Do you not like your mom, then?” you ask, settling your cheek against his shoulder.

“Like her just fine. I just happen to disappoint her. Sucked at Latin because I thought it was borin’. Fucked up a bunch of spells. Tha’s part of the reason I moved across the fuckin’ Atlantic.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper out. You feel dizzy. Maybe it’s just everything that’s happened in the past few hours.

“’S okay. Pretty close to provin’ I’m not entirely useless. Thank yeh for that.”

Your vision suddenly blurs, so quick and so sudden that you have to close your eyes. The mug falls from your hands, crashing to the floor. Harry catches you as your body slumps forward.

“Shh, shh,” he hushes when you try to speak.

Your limbs all but melt as he lays you back on the couch. All of your senses begin to fade against your will, and you don’t even have enough energy to panic.

“‘M sorry, dove,” he mutters into your ear. “I really am. Hope yeh can forgive me.”

And then you’re pulled into unconsciousness.

Part 5: All Hallows’ Eve

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fic #harry styles smut #harry styles angst #blood moon

123 notes · View notes

aoibaratraveler · 5 years ago

Text

UK Road Trip Week 4

Ok, so I was actually semi productive with this, this week and finished typing it out on Tuesday morning but then my tumblr app stopped working on my phone and then when I tried to use the browser on my phone it uploaded all weird. So I am finally able to upload this from a Starbucks on the bf’s laptop.

Day 22:

I woke up feeling lucky to have done Snowdon a day before because torrential rain came down all night and seemed to persist well into the morning and afternoon and looking at the forecast for the next month...well, its bleak. I did, however, feel much better after a good night's sleep and even though I am a bit sore, I think that I am more than ready to do another hike or scramble like Snowdon because I just enjoyed it so much. If the rain does let up then I would love to do Scafell Pike in England and Ben Nevis in Scotland, the tallest mountains in each. Soon after we woke up, we decided to head to Llandudno for a walk along the coast and to get some coffee but after charging up for a bit and grabbing some pasties from the local bakery, the bf had the grave misfortune of having half his pasty stolen by an aggressive seagull. In fact, most of the seagulls in this town were rather aggressive, one of them swooped down at my head while I was eating my pasty. After this unfortunate event though, the bf's mood took a dip so we decided to leave and head to Betws y Coed where we would be meeting up with T, the bf's friend later on. It was certainly a cute little village but because of the torrential downpour, we couldn't explore much and so we retreated to a hotel for some Welsh cream tea and to have a safe shelter to watch the rain. After a couple of hours T showed up and we attempted to go on a walk to a nearby lake since it seemed to have stopped raining but not even 10 minutes into our walk and it came down hard again and we were properly soaked. Luckily, it was warm rain so I didn't mind it too much. We retreated to T's car where T and the bf reminisced on their uni days. The rain seemed to let up a bit so we took a chance and explored the other side of Betws y Coed where there were a cute train station and a rhino made of metal that encased bottle caps to promote recycling. Near the station there was a lovely little suspension bridge with a backdrop of a field scattered with sheep and a forest. We played poo sticks there for a couple of minutes and then decided to head to a restaurant called Olif for Welsh Tapas and we were very happy that we did because not even a minute later the torrential rain came back which didn't seem to let up for the rest of the night. It was great timing for us. The Welsh Tapas was delicious, we thoroughly enjoyed the croquetas which was a breaded ball of melted cheddar cheese, potato, and leek, yum. We ate, drank, and were merry for a couple of more hours before heading to a nearby nature reserve to pitch up for the night; the rain still coming down with a fury.

Day 23:

Today was a bit disappointing only because we really just couldn't do anything for there was torrential rain for most of the day. We set off from the spot we were parked and drove through the gorgeous valleys that gave off an almost ominously beautiful atmosphere to it because of the rain. We made a stop near Tryfan, a cool mountain that is mostly a scramble that the bf had wanted to take me on but because of the rain he couldn't. We tried to wait out the rain for a bit but to no avail so we retreated to a Starbucks for a few hours and read. When we got hungry we decided to leave and we grabbed some Chinese takeaway before heading to T's place to stay for the night. I got to play with her gorgeous border collie so not a bad end to the day.

Day 24:

Today we initially had plans to meet up with another friend of T's but he bailed on us so T decided to be our tour guide around Snowdonia. We had a delicious full breakfast in her town and then set off to a town called "BeddGelert". It was a lovely little town that had a beautiful nature walk and river and where the legend of Gelert is said to have taken place.

"According to the oft-told legend, Llywelyn, Prince of Gwynedd and the most powerful man in the whole of Wales, had a hound called Gelert. In some versions of the tale, the dog had been given to Llywelyn by none other than King John of England. One day Llywelyn went hunting, leaving Gelert behind to look after his infant son. When Llywelyn returned he found his tents in disarray. There was no sign of his son and Gelert, when he jumped up to greet his master, had jaws stained red with blood. Instantly assuming the hound had killed the baby, the Prince drew his sword and ran the dog through. Only then did Llywelyn discover the unharmed baby lying beneath its upturned cot and the body of a wolf that had tried to kill the child, in the corner of the tent. The faithful Gelert had defended his charge and killed the wolf. The hound was buried with great ceremony and, legend says, prince Llywelyn never smiled from that day onwards." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/e6f11332-ae6f-3364-96a4-1af14401369b)

We had a long stroll around the river and then had coffee and cake at a cafe. We decided to get three cakes and split them; chocolate fudge, coffee-walnut, and carrot. They were scrumptious but personally I liked coffee-walnut the best. Afterward we drove to a place called Black Rock Sands--in English, the Welsh name is supremely hard to pronounce. It was a vast, sandy beach with an outstanding view of the mountains. There were a few really cool caves that we were able to explore because the tide was low. I imagined how cool it would be to swim in these caves and I hoped that maybe someday I'll get the opportunity. We then climbed on top of a cliff edge to get a better view. It was awesome. I wanted to walk across the cliff but T said that if it was closed off then we may risk being able to get down while the tide is low so we made our way back down and walked some more along the beach. After our walk T remembered one more cool place that she wanted to show us which was an ancient Celtic forest within Snowdonia National Park and was surrounding a lake. This forest had so many traits to it that made it feel like you were walking inside a forest straight out of a fairytale, from the most covered slate walls to the ancient trees to the lush green nature enveloping a fallen over tree to the misplaced plant life like bamboo trees. It was such a whimsical walk that felt almost therapeutic. It was nearing 17:30 so we decided to grab a bite at the pub outside the forest but were quite disappointed with the portion sizes they gave us of the chips we ordered so we set back to T's town of Blaenau Ffestiniog and purchased some more (which ended up being too much) chips and a couple of spring rolls that were the size of paninis from a local Chinese takeaway. We ate our takeaway next to a lake for a bit...before being attacked by midges so then we ran to T's car to finish it off. We felt properly full of grease after this so we went for a short walk around the lake (by now you can guess that Snowdon National Park is just full of picturesque lakes, mountains, and forests and is very much the scenery that I've been craving to see all year). We then headed back to T's place, said our goodbyes to her and her lovely parents and dog and then set off towards Conwy to pitch up for the night.

Day 25:

I'm so pleased that I've been able to see so many castles on this trip. Last time I lived in England, I hardly saw any although I saw a few castles in mainland Europe during my 2 month backpacking trip before starting my university exchange in Preston. This past year as well I don't think we saw any castles. We started the morning by driving back through Conwy and having a look at the medieval castle there. I unfortunately didn't get a photo though. We then began our drive out of Wales. We did, however, stop in a place called Prestatyn before fully leaving to nip into a Tesco's and use their facilities and get some caffeine. Here, I had the most ridiculous experience. I've dealt with some, let's say not so knowledgeable customer service people before in supermarkets in the UK but this took the cake. I decided to buy some Redbull and in the UK red bull is age restricted to people aged 16 and over (any energy drink is). But then there is also the think 25 policy here where customer service employees ask to check ID for anything age-restricted if they think you look under 25. This is completely fine because even though I am 25, I'm well aware that I could pass as 18 or younger so I always have my ID on me when I buy energy drinks. The thing is when I pulled out my Canadian driver's license that has my photo and age and everything that a normal ID has and which has been accepted literally everywhere else I've gone to (which is what I told her), the checkouts girl (who looked to be my age or younger) rejected it and refused to sell me the Redbull. I couldn't believe it! At first she looked at it and then immediately showed it to her associate who then said she would go and ask the manager about it. She gave me the absurd reason that because she had never seen this kind of ID before or don't get them often in the store (what do you mean "them"? Foreign ID?) that she needed to check that it was legit...I couldn't believe what I was hearing...so essentially because my ID was foreign and she'd never seen it before, she questioned whether it was real. Well, I've spent some time working at another supermarket here called Sainsbury's and we were taught that as long as the ID has their photo and age and looks like ID then it's acceptable. I said that to her (although didn't mention that I had worked at Sainsbury's) and she just kept giving me the most condescending look and said "you'd be surprised what people could fake! And I can't sell you this item if you are underage" ...well she showed it to her manager and she said that even the manager said they couldn't accept it! I tried to remain calm and reiterate that, that just can't be right but she stuck to her guns and said she couldn't sell me it. I went to tell the bf what had happened and he was equally shocked and angry on my behalf and said I should try and argue it so I decided to go back in, directly to customer service and ask to speak to the store manager myself. The customer service woman herself agreed that my ID should have been accepted but said I should be flattered that they thought I look younger than my age...that isn't the point though? I know I look younger than my age and I'm always happy to show my ID (I don't look younger than 16 though) but the point is that checkouts people (1 of which was apparently the checkouts manager!?) refused to accept my official, government-issued Canadian driver's license because it was foreign to them which is really just due to them being ignorant and clueless more than anything, but that's unfortunately how a large portion of the UK is now...when the manager came, he agreed that my ID should have been accepted. Vindication. So, feeling a bit petty, I went back to the same checkouts girl, asked her which manager exactly she spoke to because I had just spoken to the store manager and he said that my ID was completely fine. She gave me another stupid excuse but I just thanked her as a way of saying "fuck off" in my own way without actually saying it. She never apologized. I then used the self-scan machine right next to her but the coward that she is stormed off and got her friend to authorize my red bull instead while she grabbed a basket and aggressively threw it right next to me to pretend she was putting it away. I gave her a smile on the way out and felt victorious but still in complete disbelief at how unprofessional that whole interaction was. We then drove to the top of a hill that had a gorgeous viewpoint of the entire city that wiped away the frustration of that whole event. We drove to Preston from there and had German doner for dinner and then to the Forest of Bowland AONB to chill for the rest of the evening (my favourite AONB so far).

Day 26:

Waking up in the Forests of Bowland was spectacular with the mountains on one side and the sun on the other, it was beautiful. We drove through such gorgeous valleys and fields, it didn't feel like the England that I'd been living in for the past 11 months. I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to see it but a bit sad that I was missing out on sights like this all year. Once we'd driven through the forest, we filled up on petrol at ASDA and freshened up in their washrooms. We then headed into the city of Lancaster where we first had dessert for breakfast at a place called Kaspa's (oh my I'm going to be working off a lot when we get back home). From there we ventured off and walked around the city and up to the Lancaster castle which served as a prison for some time but now houses the Crown Court and is open to the public in some parts. I was pretty tired owing to having a restless sleep the night before with the storm being easily audible from inside the car. At about 5 we decided to set off towards the lake district and Scafell Pike. This drive was probably just a bit more amazing then the one we had this morning. It was absolutely stunning, the bf had to pull over so I could take more photos but my camera most likely doesn't do it any justice. Just absolutely breathtaking and just what you want to end the night on before going to bed.

Day 27:

Ahh! Scratch what I said about need 2 1/2 to 3 months for the UK and Ireland (well I suppose you can do if you want to take your sweet time), we have covered so much ground and expect to cover a lot more by the 31st, so this trips need at most 2 months and we reckon if we were to do the whole of Ireland then we could probably do it 10 days but we're still saving that for another time. You know those days when you feel like you did a lot but didn't really accomplish anything? This would have been one of those days. I don't know, I guess it was because of the rain as well but the bf and I were also feeling pretty grumpy all day and were short with each other a lot. We had parked just outside Scafell Pike hoping that maybe there was a chance we could wake up and the weather would be great for a hike but it had rained all night and it didn't look like it was going to let up in the morning so unfortunately, we had to give up on the idea of hiking Scafell Pike at least at this part of the trip. The bf told me it always rains in the Lake District and that it's hardly ever sunny but I was really hoping that I would get to see the lakes in all their glory. There was nothing around (except for the lakes and mountains of course) so we decided to drive 15 mins North West out of the lakes to a small seaside town called Seascale. It was very quiet there and we found a small, family-run cafe that served breakfast, cakes, coffee, and tea. We managed to freshen up there and made a new plan for the day which was to drive to Windermere, Grasmere and then watch the Liverpool game somewhere. Well, when we got to Windermere, it was absolutely packed with tourists and still raining which just made us more grumpy. The bf and I don't do well in big touristy crowds. We walked around for a bit and then the bf got more coffee but we quickly gave up on trying to enjoy ourselves since it was just so noisy and busy and the visibility of the lake was horrendous because of the rain and honestly I was just really bummed out about not being able to see the lake properly. So off we went to Grasmere. It was a tiny village but really cute. The reason we went to Grasmere was because of the gingerbread shop that's been there for hundreds of years with an old recipe that claims to make unique gingerbread that is crumbly and gooey. Well, let me tell you that, that claim is not unfounded. There was a big line outside the shop too so you know they're popular. They weren't mind-blowingly delicious or anything but they were yummy. After that, we were at a loss of what to do. The weather was miserable so we couldn't really do anything outdoorsy which is also sad because half the point of this trip was to explore Britsh nature and wilderness and do a lot of hikes but we're in the second half of this trip and that seems unlikely to happen now. Especially since I'm kind of running out of funds for this trip now. We debated whether or not to go to a hotel for afternoon tea but it was getting too late for that. We settled on just cutting our losses and leaving the lakes early. We decided to drive straight up to Glasgow. On the drive up I could really feel how burned out the bf was getting and I started feeling really guilty. I'm used to roughing it up for long periods of time but I don't think he is. I mean we've both been grumpy today but for different reasons. I'm sad this trip isn't going as I hoped it would because of the weather and not being able to save up enough this year and he's just tired and growing more and more irritable as the days go on. I booked us a night's stay in an Airbnb for the day after because we both need to do laundry anyway and he just needs a good night's sleep. Once we got to Glasgow, we watched the game (Liverpool won, yay!) and then we drove up to a country park to pitch up for the night.

Day 28:

When we woke up it was rainy and windy so we decided to head to a nearby shopping mall from the country park to charge up with some coffee. After a couple of hours there we drove into Glasgow for some sightseeing. This proved to be a bit difficult because we soon found out that Glasgow is an outrageously expensive city with exuberant parking charges. It took us a while to find something, but after around 45 mins of driving around we chanced upon a car park that was behind a pub that looked to have absolutely no parking charges or restrictions and seemed to be somewhat of a mostly unknown free car park. After double-checking that it really was free we set off to explore the city. Glasgow is really cool. It has an interesting mix of old school buildings and historical architecture as well as more modern ones with a TON of incredibly artistic graffiti on the side of buildings everywhere . We walked around for a while and tried the famous deep-fried Mars bar which I thought was yummy but it wasn't to the bf's taste. We were still hungry so we grabbed lunch at a place called Bread Meats Bread because I heard that they do great poutine and boy was I right. The poutine was massive and absolutely delicious with tons of gravy and cheese curds, probably the best poutine I've had in the UK. We also got a pastrami sandwich and a fried chicken grilled cheese melt that were both oh so good and served in some pretty spectacular toast. After exploring more of what the city had to offer which included a Tardis propped up in the city square and a statue of a colourful laughing child. At around 4 we decided it was time to head to the Airbnb that we booked for the night but not before stopping in Morrisons to grab some instant noodles for the road. This Airbnb was lovely, clean and just what we needed to have a proper charge up. We took the rest of the night easy, did our laundry, played with the host's dogs and had a shower. The host, herself, was also really friendly and was into all the same fandom as us from Marvel to Doctor Who to Game of Thrones to Harry Potter. The tv in our room was also massive so we watched an episode of Doctor Who before calling it a night.

6 notes · View notes

thetravellingvagrant · 5 years ago

Text

Day 14: Cusco - In Which I Ride Through A Desert (National Park) On a Horse With No Name (It Was Called Treacle)

We were up earlyish again, today, for the second of our booked excursions in Cusco. This day, however, we had eschewed the ATVs to instead ride around a lovely big national park on horseback, like the rough and ready cowboys that we (I) definitely are (am).

We hauled ourselves out of lovely warm bed and into horrible cold flat and, after a frankly joyless breakfast of children's cereal, which, by this point, I am utterly sick to my back teeth of, bade a temporary goodbye to our apartment and all its resident ants and headed to our horsey pickup point: San Blas temple.

After a few (twenty) minutes wait, our driver, Marciel appeared from nowhere, like a little Peruvian goblin and ushered us into his car. He spoke no English, though insisted on speaking to us at length, anyway, so lots of smiling, nodding and saying “si” and just hoping ensued.

Marciel drove us up through the outskirts of town and, annoyingly, alongside the Saqsaywaman ruins, where he stopped, insisted we get out and take pictures from an infuriatingly better angle than we had enjoyed a couple of days ago, thereby making the incredibly gruelling uphill walk now entirely pointless on every conceivable level. Don't tell Sam, though, even though she knows and was also there.

After around twenty five minutes total drive time, we pulled up alongside the actual, for real ranch, with horses and men in hats and everything, and were quickly greeted by our incredibly lovely guide, whose name, unforgivably, I have totally forgotten- I'll call him Ruben, because I think it was probably something like that – and Robert, another punter, also from Britain, whom you could tell just by looking at, was definitely in Peru to do Ayahuasca, but was fairly nice, regardless.

After a brief bit of small-talk, which I hated, we were assigned our horses. I had, from nearly the exact moment of booking this particular tour, some month and a half prior, been insisting that my horse would be called Treacle, because for some reason, it seemed to annoy Sam and I found that incredibly funny. In actuality, my horse's name was Caramel, which I'm sure you'll agree is startlingly close to my original guess and indeed definitely close enough for me to continue referring to it as Treacle, throughout this post, which I will.

After only a single incredibly ungainly failed attempt to get on top of Treacle, before finally cracking it (meaning I managed to get into the saddle- I didn't punch the horse) I was up and on horseback and officially a cowboy. Yee haw. Neat. Wowzer.

I had never ridden a horse before this point, never really having had the cause, interest or availability to, but despite feeling constantly for the first half hour or so like I was definitely going to slip off my saddle to the side and be trampled under Treacle's magnificent, pounding hooves, it wasn't all that bad, at all. It was a bit like driving a living car, I suppose - one which could arbitrarily decide to go mental and kill you at any point. I concede that does actually sound quite bad, now I read it back, but it really wasn't.

After a while, I found my bearings and settled into clopping around like I was in a very, very slow version of Red Dead Redemption. No sooner had I begun imagining myself as a cowboy, clad in a poncho, shooting all the natives to bits with a very big gun, however, than we stopped, demounted and went for a bit of a wander around the nearby Temple of The Moon.

Neat.

The temple, despite not getting to go inside it – site of delicate historical significance my arse – was incredibly neat. It was created by the Incas, as a sort of partner to the nearby Temple of the Sun, only this one was used to worship...yeah, the Moon. Exactly. You're really good at this. Apparently, though, due to the Spaniards being undeniable bastards and smashing up, murdering or building over everything Incan they could find, some savvy natives decided to cover the entire temple in soil to hide it. I have no idea how they might have accomplished this, or if indeed it is even true, but Not-Rubem says it was, and honestly? I trust him more than you. What this meant, however, was that for many years, up until even the last six or so, a lot of the temple had remained undiscovered by modern eyes and indeed, was still, in part, in the process of being excavated. It also had a hole in its ceiling, where the moonlight would shine through during clear nights, illuminating an alter, where they performed ritual sacrifices and if that ain't the most HP Lovecraft shit, I ever heard.

Our brief, though interesting interlude now completed, I hopped back onto Treacle (first try) and we continued our sojourn. Now quite enjoying myself, even when Treacle arbitrarily broke out into a gallop for a while, terrifying me ever so slightly, we climbed up through the valley along winding paths and eventually reached a genuinely very impressive viewpoint. I'd describe it as breathtaking, but at that altitude, everything is, so it would be pointless to do so.

Still pretty alright, though...

Afterwards, we sidled back down the path, Ruben talking about all the different wildlife we had seen (including apparently an Andean Condor, which I didn't realise at the time are actually quite a rare find, but also, still just birds so basically a bit shit) and plant life we were passing, making me feel every inch the outdoorsman, despite how much this sentence implies the opposite.

Despite a couple of interludes, wherein Treacle unexpectedly galloped, or launched himself over tiny puddles in the most overly dramatic way possible, crushing my hands and genitals against the saddle in the process, I was now decidedly enjoying my time on horseback and had begun to feel so comfortable that when Ruben suggested that we gallop back to the ranch on the final strait of road, I eagerly(ish) agreed. Sam's horse, however, whose name neither of us can remember, but whom she dubbed “Li'l Asshole” was not so gallop-inclined and so, once back at the ranch, we did have to wait for some time, while Sam and Li'l Asshole trotted along at entirely its own pace, which was close to that of molasses. I befriended that ranch's cat in the meantime, however, so didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, I only wish they could have taken longer.

We lunched at the ranch, “enjoying” a little packet of salted crackers, a melted chocolate cake bar and a bottle of water (and also, the ranch's cat, Arthur, now sitting on my knee, purring loudly like a big idiot) and the smalltalk began, once more.

Robert told us that his plans for the rest of his time in Peru were to attend a three week ayahuasca retreat (I fucking knew it). I mean, again, he was a nice guy, but for fucks sake, Robert. Grow up.

Conversation then turned to Machu Piccu. Robert asked us if we had been; we told him we had not. He asked when we planned to go and we told him that we had no plans to do so. We had been wavering on going, since initially booking the trip. Wonders of the world are neat and all, but when viewing them with with literally thousands of other people at the same time, for about an hour and at a cost of several hundreds of pounds, it just didn't seem that worth it and by the time we had reached the point of saying “fuck it, lets just spend the money and do it”, all of the limited entrance tickets had sold out.

Ruben, however, chipped in to tell us that the travel agency for which he and his ranch worked would have some available tickets and he may be able to hook us up for tomorrow, should we still want to go. We told him we were definitely interested and he made a quick phone-call to check availability and prices. Four hundred and fifty dollars. We weren't that interested, fuck. We sadly declined Ruben's proposal and vowed to come back at some point in the future instead, perhaps to walk the Inca trail for like eleven days to get there, which apparently, even that you have to pay for. Walking. You have to pay to walk there. Get your shit together, Peru. Absurd.

A little dejected to not be going Piccu-side, we said our goodbyes to Ruben, Treacle and Li'l Asshole and clambered back into the taxi to be briskly driven back to San Blas temple. Once there, we also said goodbye to Robert, who at the point of writing this, is probably off his little tits on drug-soup, and headed to a cafe we had had our eye on since arriving, for a bit of lunch.

Once inside, I opted for half a basil, mozzarella and tomato panini (which turned out to be absolutely gigantic; I could not even fathom eating a full one) and a frankly monstrous slab of tres leches cake. The food was incredible and honestly, definitely the best thing I had eaten on this trip. All other food I had eaten thus far (including the chicken roulade, from the previous night, which at the time, was lovely, though in comparison was like chewing through a bag of soot) can eff off into the bin, where it clearly belongs.

Now feeling a little sleepy - we had been up since like 6am, had a fairly physically demanding day and now, as I say, were full to the brim with bread and cheese – we decided to head back to the flat, despite it only being around 2pm, to nap and otherwise relax for the rest of the day and indeed, to figure out what to do with our last remaining day in Cusco, tomorrow. Tentatively, our plans were to go and see some of the other, less amazing ruins that the city and surrounding are had to offer. Did we actually do that? Who knows! You'll have to read the next entry to find out! (We didn't. We're lazy and have spent all our money.)

#cusco #peru #travelling #vagrant #horse #treacle #travel #photography #myhorseiscalledtreacle

1 note · View note

sixbillionstars · 6 years ago

Text

Before Game of Thrones and the newest Star Wars films, flights to Iceland only left from Denver, Washington DC, Baltimore, or New York. When I learned that the voyage embarks from Port of Hamburg, I figured I’d be flying into Berlin. And after years of watching closely for new United States destinations between the two main Icelandic airlines, this made my heart sing knowing full well St. Louis had recently become a Wow Air destination with cheap flights to many European cities, and of course... stopovers in Iceland on the way.

I won’t go much into how long I had anticipated this experience, however I will say it was a painful wait. First it was celebrities one by one slowly making their way as it grew appealing to more and more travelers suddenly during my freshman year of college and onward. Then it was friends who happened to have stopovers, who could afford it before me, or who were nearer to new departure cities before me... In those ways it was thrilling to feel inches and inches closer all these years. I even had a whole trip planned once to visit Iceland by myself to celebrate the New Year and hang out a week before and after. For a plethora of important reasons I had to cancel that trip, which to this day I still stand behind. So sadly, the most suitable and affordable window of time I had to work with to be in Iceland this time around was twenty hours, since it was a stopover, but a solid twenty hours we spent. An old friend used to joke all the time, “what if you go and absolutely hate it?” which was a possibility I have weighed heavily, even after countless hours over the years reading entire wikipedia pages of tiny, unpronounceable coastal villages with their black sands and fjords, delving into Vimeo videos of Icelandic scenery, and my favorite, the man in a lopapeysa sweater teaching you how to knit. I knew damn well I’d have to come back after such a short time even if it did turn out not so ideal. But after a seven year wait, I am happy to announce that it truly was everything I could have hoped for and even so much more. Maybe because I already knew where to look, or at least where I wanted to look, or maybe it really was calling me all this time.

I was taught a German expression today "Knapp daneben ist auch vorbei” which means, “coming close is the same as missing it.” It’s been circling my mind like an echo of congratulations from the void for just finally being able to do the damn thing.

It is now late into Thursday, our second day in Berlin. Yesterday was spent locating our Airbnb, experiencing jetlag, showering, etc... completely pretty much rebirthing ourselves after twenty hours with none of the checked luggage I truly thought the Keflavik airport would let me access during that amount of time.

I can’t exit this post though without telling a couple of the stories from those hours (and some pictures!) It was by far the most eventful twenty hours of my life...

As soon as we landed, it was time to grab the rental car. I picked out a lovely whatever the car was. At first the reservation said manual shift, which was exciting because I learned to drive on a manual but also I knew the Icelandic roads would be more vulnerable to drivers so I wasn’t sure how revisiting a skill like that there would go. Luckily we ended up with an automatic somehow anyway. Since the Wow air flights are so cheap, they get off by charging passengers for every other thing including meals, so I had not eaten since Missouri by this point (mainly because I wanted to sleep). I felt weak and tired at the rental counter so I asked my friend Alicia to get me something at the cafe nearby. She came back with the first food we were to behold: a caprese panini, but instead of panini bread, it was the body of Christ or something. I apologize to anyone that offends--I mean it in the sense that it was cracker bread meant specifically for religious purposes and not to feed a malnourished traveler. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted good, however the depth of my ketosis and the richness of the pesto was too much. Literally as I stood at the counter facing my first ever Icelandic stranger and transaction, I felt the sudden urge to vomit and ran to the nearest trashcan while Alicia had to sign everything for me in a VERY crowded airport. I don’t think any of us knew how to react honestly, though the woman at the counter was very sweet and brought us bottled waters after seeing my pale sweaty face, despite not totally knowing how to ask if I was okay in English.

Getting to Þingvellir was not an issue, however the drive there involved more of the previous situation sadly. While the girls caught up on sleep, I found our way out of Keflavik onto the highway and quickly back off of it after having tried a couple more bites of the Jesus panini. The first time around I wasn’t entirely sure if it was that was what made me ill or just all of the conditions at once. This time I knew it was that. There was nowhere to even pull over as all of the road space in Iceland is very carefully planned, with roundabouts every few blocks and signs placed not too often or too scarcely. So I stopped in the middle of the road out of sheer desperation -- one of the few very crucial things I had JUST been told you’re not supposed to do with an Icelandic car. I had already begun out the window as I drove simply because my mind was already racing for options. What is the best way here - puking on myself and cleaning that up? No - my luggage I thought I could have today is on its way to Germany. Puking solely into the car? Hell to the no - I don’t care if I bought the insurance, we have the whole route ahead of us and back. Okay well in the time it took to ask myself those questions, all of the above happened anyway. Everywhere. Alicia and Morgan immediately woke up of course and without judgment scrambled into their things for a new shirt and pants for me, helped me clean the car, et cetera, alllllll while locals were angrily and confusedly passing me on this tiny exit I had chosen under the impression it was low-trafficked. Did I mention I chose not to wear underwear on this day of all days? Yes. In my first hour in Iceland I was forced to change BUTT NAKED pretty much on the side of the highway. Needless to say, we threw the Jesus panini away as if it was the one ring to rule them all.

Þingvellir was breathtaking. Every little plant, moss, lichen, dewdrop was so quietly and calmly welcoming. The wall of boxy-looking rocks you may have seen in Games of Thrones was to the left of this photo, with its waterfalls and all. It was confusing finding the dive spot where our snorkel tour was, but once we arrived all of our sorrows were gone. First we met Luis, a cheery Mexican from Cancun, then Manuel the French man who helped us into our dry suits, and then Juan from Madrid was our guide through the crevice of the opening between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.

The moment I entered the water my heartbeat changed for good, not just because of the chilling 2*C temperature, but because it was then I realized I was really, really there. Until that moment, it was all a dream. Simply putting my mask down to see what was below... I still cannot find the words. Our suits were designed to keep us warm, so the crystal clear stream swept us and this rad Australian couple in our group gently along the divide as if it were a lazy river. Silfra is the only spot on Earth where one can touch two plates at once, and I cannot emphasize enough that the land itself gives you that vibe alone, whether you do the tours or not. For as long as I live I don’t think I could forget how it felt to lay completely still on top of the water looking down, like just another little seagull feather or algae, feeling one with the whole damn country.

Finally.

After a pit stop at a petrol station for edible food and something to make the car smell better, we rerouted from planning a drive all the way to Vik (3.5 hrs there and back) to just spending the time comfortably in Reykjavik where we could get back to the airport by 3am, when the rental was due, and for our flight at 6am.

Downtown was as quaint and beautiful as I had imagined, though of course a completely different layout than what I originally pictured. This happened in New Mexico too when I moved there after a year of picturing the places where my friends’ stories from their phone calls were playing out. We found a cute bar to meet locals in called the Smokin’ Puffin, which turned out to have just opened three weeks prior. Made many friends, including Moe the bartender/plant geneticist from Iran, and Joanne, a bubbly expat from the UK.

Hallgrimskirkja and the walk to it however was the crowning jewel of the evening, with apartment windows all open, most of them displaying cute decorations and cats and succulents of all colors and sizes peering out.

I knew it was a rather large church, I suppose I was not prepared for just how large. Walking past the infamous Leifur Eriksson statue to approach the entrance with its tiered architecture and powerfully rhetorical lighting, I lost my breath again. It was a bittersweet goodbye, though I am nearly grateful we did not stay overnight so I couldn’t get too attached to Iceland’s physical presence.

Was honestly just taking a photo of this sweet cat, and realized its owner was behind him drawing. I almost cried.

Moe’s specialty cocktail: coffee martini :)

Me in my very attractive after-puke outfit with this handsome Iranian plant geneticist bartender who was really sweet to me anyway.

#iceland

2 notes · View notes

kannemeinel · 5 years ago

Text

That first night we decided to go ‘camping’ or, as much ‘camping’ as my friend would allow…apparently she draws the line at tents and found these little cabins. They turned out to be so cute, perfect, that we went back for a second night, because we love the idea of having a fire, roasting marshmallows, and in the crisp fall air, it was delightful.

Also, what more do you really need? I mean, we were able to cook, use their dishes and silverware, and while I had been prepared for ‘real’ camping, this was a great substitute. There were bunk beds for two children (they were small) in the first cabin as well as our full-sized bed (we didn’t have the same cabin the 2nd night because we hadn’t been sure where we would stay that second night, more on that later). There was room for several more people but we had it all to ourselves. That night after we overpaid for wood, we had a gorgeous fire, with additions (color packets) to make it even more beautiful.

Pathetic first attempts, and then I got out my pyro-card and got to really make a fire! We used a fire-starter packet, which beats rubbing two sticks together all hollow. Furthermore, I’m not willing to keep trying in the sprinkling rain we had been combating all day.

Click on the picture to be taken to Amazon to learn more about this awesome product.

As you can see, adding those packets to make colored flames, really is beautiful as heck!

These made colorful flames and I’m going to try other products next time to see which I like the best. Click on the picture to read more about them and where I got them off of Amazon.

Did I mention the panini maker? Wonderful invention, wish it did have a longer handle though and the end wasn’t thin plastic that could (theoretically) melt. It did have a smart little metal tag that flipped around the end to hold the panini together, so the contents, this time, our sandwich stayed inside.

OMG, talk about delicious dinner with Canadian bread from Trader Joes. I’d brought cheese from WisconSIN. Did you know that Colby cheese is lactose-free and I can eat that? We also added some of these fantastic crackers, again from Trader Joes. Click on the picture of the panini maker if you want to know more.

These added a ‘spice’ to the panini’s and with the smokey flavor from the fire, the combination was delish! I don’t know if it was the copper or what, but they were hot and didn’t stick, easy to clean up…we made these, several panini’s, each night.

Now, what campfire is complete without marshmallows, right? I got these wonderful telescoping sticks from Amazon a couple of years ago for campfires and because they can hold hotdogs or brats too. The tops, the fork as it were, twist off and are easily washable. The handy carrying case keeps them in my tote, just nicely.

We even had TRIPLE stuff marshmallows! They were leftover from last year’s campfires, but does a marshmallow really go bad? Apparently, they do get a little hard, but after one, you don’t want another anyway! They are just THAT big. Now for the big debate, how dark do you want your marshmallow? Do you like it a little brown or charcoal?

I have a confession…last year we were in Provincetown and had a campfire and friends and some strangers shared our fires. Unfortunately, they decided to use my marshmallow sticks to poke at the fire which made me a little tense as I didn’t want to bend these marvelous telescoping sticks…so, I found me a telescoping poker for just that purpose. Friends are now welcome again, lol

Then, on to my indulgence of getting a little popcorn, because, after all, what’s a trip without it? We hooked the computer up to their TV, watched movies I had brought along, and ate popcorn. Although, with this one, you do have to watch that you don’t burn it. We’ve seasoned this popcorn maker well!

On the bad side of this, the black ‘paint’ inside peeled, so we did pull that off and had oiled it as recommended. I also burned the wooden peg on the top of it a bit. We will see how well it holds up on our next fire. I did like how long the handle was on this and it does require a little coordination to fit it together.

Then finally, I bought a bag to hold all of the ‘fire’ accessories, it ripped right off the bat when I zipped it closed, sigh. I’m waiting for the replacement and we will see how it holds up.

I did like the idea of putting those fire-related items right in there and didn’t overly stuff it but things like the panini maker, the popcorn maker, and the poker needed a spot. I slipped in the other packets, in baggies so they wouldn’t spill. It’s a nice bag to keep for those nights you know you are going to have a fire.

As to the KOA campsite, it is late in the season and only die-hard campers were there. This one wasn’t as pricey as others we found. We could have been in other cabins that didn’t have the accessories we did in ours, like running water, a toilet, a shower (a must, sorry, too fastidious to not have one) and heat. It was relatively quiet, although this one was by one of the freeways. There was this one dude in a white pickup truck that kept driving through which made my spidey-senses crawl. He had a fifth-wheel camper at one end so we wondered why he kept driving around.

The next day we weren’t sure we where we were going to spend the night so we packed up and went on our way. The campground has garbage pick up, so handy as we put the bag out by the end of the small driveway in front of our cabin. A really nice place over all.

Stayed tuned for more of my trip!

Night 1 ~ Buffalo, New York That first night we decided to go 'camping' or, as much 'camping' as my friend would allow...apparently she draws the line at tents and found these little cabins.

#buffalonewyork #kannemeinel #kannemeineltraveling #Buffalo #Buffalo New York #Camping #KOA

0 notes

brokebuckkmountain · 7 years ago

Text

More stories from the grumpiest barista on Earth

customer: (stands in line for ten full minutes)

customer: (reaches front of line)

customer: Oh wait, I just need to reload.

———————————-

customer: (sticking card into the machine)

customer: (without removing their card) Oh, and I want these almonds too.

———————————-

customer: (standing several feet from my register)

me: Actually, I’m gonna ring you up right over here.

customer: (like I’m a goddamn idiot) What, you can’t hear me? (then got very angry when I asked them to repeat their order)

(Forreal why do customers stand so far away form your register like, yes register one is open but I like it over here so fuck you)

———————————-

The amount of drinks and pastries I’ve had to give away for free because the customer yanked their card out before the machine was done reading it and left the store is ridiculous. Or how long I’ve had to wait and tell customers “You pulled your card out too soon.. Wait until it prompts you to put it back- no not yet, wait til it tells you. If it says insert card, then yes you can insert your card. What now? Well if it says don’t remove your card, then don’t remove it. Not until it beeps- okay you removed it, now we get to start all over.” Meanwhile, my line gets longer and longer.

———————————-

customer: (several feet from register)

customer: (holding up impulse item) I want this! How much is it?!

(HAND ME THE ITEM SO I CAN SCAN IT HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN TO A STORE BEFORE)

———————————-

I had a family order five different caramel drinks from me (macchiatos and frappucinos), but they didn’t know who wanted what and kept losing track of how many drinks they wanted and yelled at me because I was ringing them up for what they asked for, not what they really wanted.

———————————-

me: (making a mocha, which comes with whipped cream unless specified otherwise)

customer: (turns to her friend and scoffs) Ugh, did you want whipped cream?

(Because I’m at fault for following the recipe. Not you, customer who doesn’t know what goes in their drink. You’re always right, remember.)

———————————-

On a similar note, I’ve had customers ask for no drizzle or whip or something and say “Yeah, they just decide to add that stuff to my drink even though I don’t want it! Like why do they just decide to do that?”

Baristas aren’t making artistic decisions with your drinks. We are following the recipe. If what you want differs from it, then tell us. Your preferences are not the standard.

———————————-

A woman mobile ordered a cascara coconut milk latte (which has the milk in the title), and when she came to pick it p, she complained that we made it with coconut milk because she wanted 2%...

———————————-

I had a customer stand at my register and ask me for directions while one the phone. She wouldn’t leave. I had a very long line.

———————————-

customer: Can I have an earl grey tea latte?

me: Sure, what size?

customer: So, it’s a London Fog basically. You’re gonna wanna steep the tea bag in water, then-

me: I know what an earl gray tea latte is. I just need to know what size you’d like.

(Hipster mf really tried to mansplain a menu item to me, the barista who worked at the store. I was so annoyed. It was as if he had practiced his little spiel in his head, and he was just looking forward to explaining how to make the drink to me.)

———————————-

me: (literally shuts my cash drawer)

customer: Here’s a quarter, I want even change.

me: My cash drawer is shut, the transaction has ended and I can’t open it again.

———————————-

So a customer wanted dark roast while we were brewing more of it, he said he was willing to wait. When the dark roast was done, I asked my customer support (who was pouring other coffees) if he would pour it and hand it off, because I had a line out the door. Fifteen minutes later, when the rush had finally died down, I turned around... to see he had never called out the dark roast. Later that day, the same coworker was getting warmings, and he said he’d get the cheese danish in the oven for me. Ten minutes later the woman who ordered it wandered over and yelled at me that she hadn’t received it. I turned around to see that my customer support had put it in a bag and left it next to the oven. The same coworker frequently tries to snag register from me and starts making me do customer support stuff (and I do it, because I’m not gonna just let the jobs not be done because he’s the one that should be doing them. But it’s annoying). He also fucks up a lot, no call no shows a ton, and still tries to act like he knows more than all his female coworkers. After doing basically nothing during a huge rush, he then wandered over to my coworker and I while we read something and shouted “Whatchu need?! Whatchu need?!” in our ears. He’s my second least favorite coworker. My actual least favorite coworker does the same shit to me, but he’s probs getting his own damn post.

———————————-

Variations of “I want the cheese from this sandwich on this bread with this kind of meat, cut like this, okay?” Um, no. This is a coffee house, not a cafe. The sandwiches are pre-made.

———————————-

One girl was on the phone the entire conversation while asking for incredibly modified drinks and food, and was super rude in the way she gestured to me. Someone got decaf.

———————————-

Why do so many customers walk away from the register, then when I begin helping a new customer, they cut in and demand their receipt. You walked away bro.

———————————-

Yes, Starbucks serves two smoothies. But please stop modifying them like you’re at Jamba Juice. If this is where you’re coming to get your health nut smoothies, I have bad news for you about the the ingredients going into the drinks.

———————————-

customer: Can I have a (whatever)?

me: Unfortunately, we’re out of that one.

customer: No you aren’t.

me: Um... yes we are? I’m sorry, is there something else I can get you?

customer: I see one in the case!

me: Oh, I can’t actually serve you that one. The case is not kept cold enough.

customer: But I want it.

me: And I don’t want to lose my job when you sue because of food poisoning. Would you like anything else?

(this happens all the time)

———————————-

customer: (seeing me write on a hot cup) You got that it was hot, right?! (or the same with the cold cups)

———————————-

These two super rude customers started complaining to the new guy on bar that their drinks tasted wrong. “I drink this every single day and it just doesn’t taste right. No you don’t have to remake it but..” BUT you’re fishing for a freebie. My coworker and I stepped in and squashed that bullshit right quick. Nice try, I watched him make the drink properly. And you don’t get the drink here every day, because I’ve never seen you before in my life. Either let us remake it or GTFO.

———————————-

These two customers asked for the most obnoxiously modified drinks ever (and I could barely understand them because they didn’t quite know what they were asking for and had super heavy accents). The drinks must have been at least $8-something each. Then they handed me two free drink coupons that Starbucks hasn’t given out in years. My ASM accepted it, but I’ve heard of other Starbucks getting these super old fake coupons lately too. What the fuck people.

———————————-

Apparently this is like a new health thing, but imagine my coworker’s and my shock when a woman asked for two butters to be put into her latte.

———————————-

This one woman was informed by my coworker that we were out of whatever she ordered, and was getting something different. She clearly had some questions about what my coworker said, because she came to my register and wouldn’t leave, asking me a million questions even though I had a line out the door and couldn’t answer any of them.

———————————-

customer: I want a mocha frappuccino, no mocha drizzle. (the drink doesn’t come with drizzle)

me: Okay, that’ll be ready for you down at the bar!

coworker: (puts drizzle on it, even though it doesn’t come with that)

customer: (after having her drink remade, she still decided to wander back to the register side, come almost behind the food case,and start condescendingly going “Is there not a box for you to put the no drizzle? I’m just curious. There’s boxes, right? I don’t see ‘no drizzle’ on my cup, so I’m just wondering.”)

me: (because I’m not a dick and don’t want to throw my coworker under the bus and subject her to this bullshit, I just want the lady to leave because it’s 7:30 am and I have a long ass line) No there is, sorry about that! Have a nice day.

manager: Oh, you were actually right. It was (girl on bar) who messed up.

me: (internally) No shit, but it was still me who got shit on in front of all these customers.

———————————-

While I was in the middle of ringing a woman up, my manager started to work on something on the second register. The next customer in line assumed she was ringing and went to her. When my manager informed her she wasn’t actually ringing and that I would be with her in a second, she tried to cut the woman I was helping off and have me ring her stuff. When I told her I was in the middle of a transaction and would be with her shortly, she got super pissed.

———————————-

customer: Can I have an Americano with four pumps?

me: Four pumps of what?

customer: Coffee!

me: Do you mean four shots of espresso?

customer: Nevermind, four regular Americanos with no foam.

me: Americanos don’t have foam. They’re just espresso and water. Did you want a drink with milk?

customer: No foam!

me: Americanos never have foam. Foam comes from milk.

customer: Nevermind, just give me four drip coffees!

———————————-

customer: I want a trenta black tea. (sees me reaching for trenta iced cup) No, hot!

customer: Unfortunately, we don’t sell hot beverages in trenta size. The largest size I can give you is venti.

customer: (insanely rude) Pretty sure I said venti. Just get it.

———————————-

So this customer ordered a panini, and I saw the new guy doing warmings so I assumed he’d get it and went back to ringing my long line. It turns out he did not do this, which was kinda my fault for assuming he’d know to do that. The customer came back five minutes later to yell at me for his sandwich, so I apologized and put it in. While it was cooking, I started to help a couple. In the middle of my sentence, the original customer walked up and screamed “Yo! My sandwich!” The couple looked at me and said “You can just grab it, we’ll wait, That was so rude.” When I came back to them, they kept repeating how rude the first guy was and how sorry they felt for me. It was literally the first time anyone had been nice to me all day. I accidentally charged their venti drinks as grandes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

———————————-

customer: Coffee!

me: What size?

customer: Regular!

me: Okay, one grande coffee-

customer: No, I want tall!

(Regular isn’t a size, but it sure as hell isn’t the small one)

———————————-

customer: (who is apparently enough of a regular for my coworkers to know her name) One large mint majesty tea. Oh, I want six honeys.

me: Okay, sure! (hands her drinks and honeys)

customer: (in the most entitled way possible) Oh no no no, you put those in for me, thank you! (with a nasty smirk)

(About a week later she came back in. My coworker put the tea bags in, and had me do the honeys. She came back and demanded to know who made her drink. Apparently she had spilled some on her hand and it hurt her. She didn’t want us to do anything about it, she just wanted us to know how mad she was. As soon as she left, I turned to my coworker and said “Wow, hot water is hot? Who knew!” I’d like to hope she won’t come back, but she works too nearby.)

———————————-

me: Hi, how are-

customer: Banana loaf. Yes warmed.

me: Okay, anything else for you?

customer: Do you have the new iced cappuccino?

me: You want an iced cappuccino?

customer: No, it’s this new thing where they make the foam cold. I had it at another Starbucks in (big city). You guys must not know about it yet. I’ll take a frappuccino.

me: Sure...

———————————-

I had a line out the door and a family ordered a bunch of drinks and a cheese danish. There was a bunch of warmings before theirs, and I wasn’t even getting them, so I went back to ringing. They shouted at me from across the store about their goddamn cheese danish.

———————————-

customer: Do you guys sell..um..cappuccinos? Do you know what I’m talking about?

me: (internally) THIS IS A GODDAMN COFFEE SHOP ARE YOU JOKING

———————————-

customer: Can I have a cinnamon delicioso?

me: Um, do you want one of our cinnamon dolce drinks?

customer: No, it’s a specific drink. I always get it at my Starbucks. It’s a latte.

me: And it’s not just our cinnamon dolce latte? Whats in it?

customer: Cinnamon dolce syrup in a latte...

me: (trying not to scream) Okay, how about I just get you a cinnamon dolce latte?

customer: Sure. (picks up gum pack from counter, notices it’s barely wet from when I wiped it down earlier) Oh my god, is this bleach?! (starts smelling back of gum pack).

me: No...it’s just water and sanitizer. We use it to clean. It’s perfectly safe.

One of the most wtf customers I’ve ever encountered...

———————————-

One morning I was trying to call out a sprouted grain bagel for David, and this woman at the end of the bar impatiently snatched the bag from my hand and marched away. Then came back because she ordered an everything bagel and I had “made it wrong”. No, her name was not David, in case you were wondering.

———————————-

customer: I’ll have the slow roasted ham and swiss with cheddar instead, cut in half, only slightly warmed-

me: Okay, I can not do like, a lot of that.

———————————-

customer: (makes big show of giving me a dollar tip) I’ll take those lattes fast.

———————————-

One day a customer saw I was on my lunch and in line for food. She still decided to ask me if we had more of a certain protein box in the back and asked me to go look for her. I figured it would only take a second so I did it. Then she asked for more. While I was running back and forth to get shit for her on my lunch, she let people take my place in line, so that when I was done. I had to wait a really long time.

———————————-

me: Okay, that’ll be $7.25 please.

customer: (shoves $10 bill in my face without deigning to make eye contact)

me: Okay, $2.75 is your change, have a good day!

customer: No dammit, I wanted you to put $10 on my card!

———————————-

I have a regular who frequently (and rudely) orders a trenta iced coffee, no ice, no sweetener. One day we were in the middle of getting more and she started yelling at us about her coffee. She also refuses to give her name because “no one esle is ordering this”.

———————————-

I had a customer drop $200 on Starbucks cards like it was nothing. Meanwhile, I’m stressed about paying for my classes...

———————————-

customer: I’ll take a Pike’s refill.

me: Okay, I’ll be right back with that!

customer: (when I came back) It was supposed to be half caff!

———————————-

me: (hands off latte to customer)

customer: (rudely) This is too much ice

me: (looking at latte that I definitely made with light ice, as specified on the mobile order ticket) You want less ice than this?

customer: Well I asked for it, didn’t I?

me: Okay, let me remake that for you!

(I had literally just gotten onto the bar, and we were super busy. Also, as someone who always asks for light ice, and doesn’t always get it, I think this is stupid. If your drink is actually wrong, I get it. But having me remake the entire beverage because you want less ice in it is so stupid. And while I was waiting for the shots to pull, I started working on other drinks. This little teenage nightmare did not seem happy about that.)

———————————-

I had a customer, after the transaction was over, suddenly grab the tip jar and yank it really fast to the edge of the counter. It happened super quickly and I panicked, thinking she was stealing it and going to run. Then she went, “You should leave this here, so everyone can see and tip you!”

Girl... wtf... you don’t just grab people’s tip jars like that...

———————————-

My coworker and I also literally watched a guy grab two bags of coffee and try to walk out with them.

———————————-

I was in the middle of helping a customer when I saw coffee on the floor. Thinking someone had spilled, I looked a little closer... to see the woman had intentionally dumped it everywhere and was aggressively punching the cup. Turns out she’s banned from our location and I just didn’t know.

———————————-

I had a customer (who has been super rude to my coworkers before) come in while I was wiping down the door at night (and he yanked open the one I was cleaning, not the other one, and smirked at me) right before close. He then did not leave no matter how many warnings we gave, and finally, when it was a minute and a half til close and he was the only one left, we informed him he had to leave. He glared daggers at us, worked a little bit longer, and finally got the hell out.

———————————-

A customer walked in during 8 am peak and asked for a coffee traveler. I told him it’d be a bit of a wait (as I assumed any grown ass adult would know) and he said he needed it fast. Then asked for 8 venti coffees. We were brewing more and said it’d be about 4 minutes. He said “If I get less than 8 can I get it in less than 4 minutes? I’m in a hurry.” We told him no so he stuck to the 8.

Homie had less than 5 minutes to spare and wanted an entire goddamn traveler. Dumbass.

———————————-

I wound up barring during a crazy rush, with my manager and district manager sitting two feet away. In the middle of this, I had to stop because this dumb mf ordered a cascara coconut milk latte and wanted me to blend it, hoping it would come out like a frappuccino. I told him that wouldn’t work, and if he wanted one like that he could order a coffee frappuccino with cascara syrup and coconut milk. He told me he was ordering it for a friend who liked coconut and caramel, and he needed me to “help him out”. So I begrudgingly made him a coconut milk caramel frappuccino (which I don’t think he paid for, even though that is a more expensive drink). Then, after holding up my line, tells me when I give it to him that he wants a bunch more whipped cream and drizzle. Like, you fucker. I’m so backed up because of you.

———————————-

customer: I want a mocha with no coffee.. a hot chocolate, actually. Almond milk

me: Okay, do you want the whipped cream and mocha drizzle?

customer: No, I hate coffee!

me: Mocha... is chocolate. There’s no coffee in mocha drizzle...

———————————-

So we all know those customers that order two shots over ice in a grande cup with pumps of vanilla (or whatever), and go to the condiment bar to give themselves a cheap latte. Well today, a woman who mobile ordered and did exactly that then walked up to my register and asked for whipped cream to be added, because she wanted her “lattes” with whipped cream (like I couldn’t see on the sticker that they were iced espressos). You know you’re cheating the system, do you have to rub it in my face? Ugh.

———————————-

I had a customer walk up while on the phone, order one thing, and then resume shouting into his phone and pacing in front of my register. When I tried to tell him his total, he said “I also want a (whatever).” This continued on repeat for five minutes. He’d order one thing, shout into his phone (even other customers from across the store looked annoyed), add one more thing when I told him his total, talk more on the phone, add another thing, etc. He also kept saying “sorry beautiful” as if that made up for it, and at the end said “god bless you beautiful!” and walked away. He tipped 15 cents.

———————————-

I also experienced for the first time a customer who talked on the phone and stuck her finger in my face when I tried to ask her what she wanted. I’m not kidding. She did it three times. Stuck her nasty ass finger right in my fucking space. She’s lucky she still has that finger.

———————————-

The other day we were crazy busy (the day I almost started crying on the floor). I’m talking one person on register, one person on bar, not enough time to even brew more coffee or get warmings. Eventually customer support came back from lunch and helped save the day. Still, we were like, running out of cups, coffee, lids, literally jumping over spills and trash bags because we didn’t have time to clean up busy. My manager and ASM sat in the back this entire time.

#its been a long few weeks and im ready to fight #work #barista #barista problems #barista life #starbucks #customer service #ppl are dumb

9 notes · View notes

letters-from-alex · 8 years ago

Text

Dear Friend,

May 23, 2017

Part I It’s been fourteen days since I’ve last written to you. I’m very sorry for that. I’ve actually been really busy lately. I’m on vacation visiting my dear friend Marie. She’s the one that sends me letters in the mail. It’s been lovely staying with her. She’s made me feel at home: making me dinner, buying me gifts, and letting me do all the things I want to do. Lately we’ve been watching a lot of tv shows and movies and reading and writing. It’s a good feeling to be doing things you don’t usually do. It feels productive to me. I won’t tell you where I am, but I will tell you that I’m still in Texas. I’m a lot more north than usual so it’s very strange to be in a town that has sixty-seven degree weather at the moment. I’m really not used to it at all. I just checked the weather back home - it’s eighty-nine degrees and cloudy. I bet it’s really humid too. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cool here, so I didn’t pack any long sleeve clothing. It’s a wonderful feeling though, to be somewhere different and to not be in ninety degree weather for once. I like being a little cold. I’d rather be shivering than sweating my ass off. I’ve been here for almost a week now. A part of me doesn’t want to go home, because for once I’m really happy. But the other part of me knows that I can’t be here for long. I left my problems at home. I feel so stress free, not having to worry about them. Like the fact that my ex-boyfriend is going to Finland. Like the fact that he hasn’t paid our car; I took it away from him and now I have to get it repossessed; It’s going to ruin my credit, but it has to be done; I want to cut all ties with him. Like the fact that I don’t have to worry about work and seeing my case manager. Like the fact that I don’t have to do so many things for my parents. The only problems that traveled with me was my financial ones. I’m running out of money and this trip probably made that worse. I left the people who don’t care about me at home. Like Voldemort and other people that I thought I could call my friend. Like my friend Diana - She told my ex-boyfriend about Taylor after he and I went to Applebee’s with Josh and Sabrina one day. She was our waitress. She honestly had no right to do that and I don’t understand why she had to keep tabs on me for him. I found this out because one day, when my ex and I were fighting about the car, he had the audacity to bring up Taylor. He texted me, “Hey. Be careful with your new boy. He’s been around the block. Just because we have animosity between us doesn’t mean I want you to get hurt. Don’t let your guard down. I had class with his twin. And if you think I’m doing this to mess with you, then you obviously don’t know me at all. All I’ve ever done for you is look out for you. Have a nice life.” This made me so upset. Diana had obviously told him about Taylor because she is the only person that still talks to my ex. It’s so sad that little does she not know that he did nothing but talk shit about her when she didn’t say goodbye to him before she left back to California. Now that she’s back, I thought she and I could be friends again; not after this stunt. My ex can have her and continue being a fake friend. I wanted to tell him so many things that he didn’t want to hear. I was so upset and hurt and in so much pain. Why does he have to keep up with me? I don’t want him to keep up with me. It’s pathetic. I don’t give a shit about him anymore. Why can’t he just not care about me just the same as I don’t. Instead, he decides to stir the shit pot of emotions that I have locked up inside that want to come out. I just want him to leave me alone. If he wants me to be happy, then he shouldn’t have left when I needed him the most, as a friend. I just left… Everything. Even the people I do love and that love me back. Like my parents, Josh, Jenna, Angel, and Aaron. That’s the only part of me that does want to go home. I want to go home to my family and my good friends. I miss them very much. They are my light. And I know I can go to them for anything. They keep me strong. I don’t know what I would do without them. Part II This city I’m in - it reminds me of home. There isn’t much to do and there’s a lot of other cities next to this one. So, if we decide to take a trip to some other town, it takes about twenty minutes. Like I said, there isn’t much to do, but we are making the most out of my time here. For example, just the other day, she and I decided to take a drive to a neighboring city to walk around the mall there. I bought myself a Dragonball Z statue of Teen Gohan from GameStop. It was an early birthday gift to myself - it’s a few weeks away. I also bought myself a a face serum from Sephora. We were at the mall for over an hour. When we were done window shopping, we rode to Best Buy so I could buy a new screen protector for my phone. I was lucky enough to find the last one there. Then, we went to Staples so Marie could buy some blue ink for her new pen. That’s also when I bought my first calligraphy pen. When she saw it, she said I had to buy it because I’m a “writer” now. Am I? So I bought it. Afterwards, we walked to a Barnes and Noble that was nearby. That’s when I bought my first journal. Marie said I should get it so I could write down all my thoughts. So, I did. Later, on our way back home, we stopped at a Panera Bread. I had never been there before and Marie really wanted me to try it. I wanted to try something new, so I thought - why not? She parked the car and turned to me. “Do you want to take down your book so we can read when we’re done eating?” “Yeah, sure. That sounds like a good idea,” I said, smiled, and continued. “Hey. I can take my journal too. Maybe I can write about what we’ve been doing today.” “Oh my gosh. Yes. You should!” With excitement, I grabbed my newly purchased journal and a book called The Reason by Lacey Sturm and walked into Panera Bread. I’ve had the book for a good eight months now. I haven’t bothered finishing it because I get so lazy. I do hope to finish it soon. I walked in with Marie and was a little confused with the set-up. They had kiosks on the side so people could order their food themselves. “Do you want to use these so we can look at the whole menu?” Marie asked and pointed at the high-tech looking kiosks. “Yeah. I know I’m probably going to take a long time deciding anyway.” That comment ended up being very true. I didn’t know what I wanted to eat. I also didn’t want to try something too risky. But I also didn’t want to try something safe. I was so indecisive. There was so many options. After about five minutes of thoroughly navigating the menu on this ten inch screen, I figured out what I wanted to eat. I decided on a turkey and ham sandwich with a few vegetables and a cup of chicken noodle soup on the side. I also ordered a papaya green tea that turned out to be very delicious. Marie and I sat down by the window secluded from other people. In fact, we were alone for a good twenty minutes in the section we chose to sit at until some lady and her daughter decided to dine-in a few tables away. It didn’t take long for our food to come out. Within ten minutes, an employee brought out our meals. The sandwich waiting to be eaten by me looked so delicious and the soup was still steaming hot. I took my first bite of my panini - God, I was right. Delicious! The soup was just as good. Marie got a turkey bacon club on a croissant bread with a broccoli and cheese soup. I didn’t try her sandwich but I did try her soup. It was sadly better than mine. I knew I should’ve gotten that one instead when I was being so indecisive at the kiosk. Didn’t matter; I enjoyed my meal nevertheless. When we finished our meals, Marie started reading a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller and I started writing in my journal. I wrote about our day, which I have already mentioned to you earlier. Then I started to read the book that has been on chapter six for the past eight months. I only read one chapter while I was there. I would’ve read more, but we had to leave if we wanted to take a walk at the park before sunset. So, I closed my book, took my journal with my first entry in it, and left with my best friend back to her apartment. I guess I should start calling it home. For now… Part III I will admit that it feels a little strange to be so far away from home. I haven’t traveled alone (without family or a boyfriend) in about six years. The farthest I’ve driven alone was San Antonio when I wanted to visit my lesbian friend Renee. Irregardless of the fact that this city reminds me of home, it definitely doesn’t feel like it - I’m surprised I haven’t had an anxiety attack. As I said earlier… I miss my parents. I miss my dog Zoey. And I miss my friends - especially Josh. I felt really bad that I left the day before his birthday. So, to make it up to him, (before I left) I bought him a cute birthday card and wrote him a note. I also wrote him a two page letter and sent him some money. I left it in my mailbox and thankfully it was delivered to him the next day. He was really happy and surprised to get something like that from me. He only read the card on his birthday. Josh said that he was scared to read the letter because he thought it said something bad, like that I was moving away for good and wasn’t going back. Thankfully, I don’t intend on that. I do want to go back home, eventually. Just yesterday, two days after his birthday, he finally read the letter. He thought it was really sweet and it made him smile a lot. His girlfriend wanted to read it too, but he didn’t let her. She just read the card, and when she did she said to him, “Dude, I think Alex is in love with you.” He laughed and said that we are only friends. I am in love with him… But, I know I can never be with him. I’m just grateful to have him in my life as a wonderful friend than not at all. I care about him too much and I don’t know what I would do without him. He’s always been there for me when I needed him. I couldn’t ask for anyone better. He makes me so happy, and he doesn’t even have to try. I didn’t think the card was enough. On my way over here, I stayed in San Antonio for a night because I didn’t want to drive straight here on the same day. While I was there, I stopped at a few stores at North Star Mall. I went to this novelty shop called Think Geek. I found a lot of Rick and Morty stuff that I got for his birthday. I don’t plan on sending them to him, because I want to see his face when I give them to him. I also bought him an animated movie called Princess Mononoke and had it sent to his house. He just got it today. He was so surprised. He texted me. “Oh my god Alex! How many things did you buy me?” I replied. “Why?” “I got the movie. Thank you Alex. Oh my god.” He was obviously speechless. “Aww. Do you like it? Did it make you smile? It got there quick! I just ordered it on Sunday!” “Yes. Of course! I love this movie.” “I got you a lot more things. But I won’t send them to you. I want to see you open them.” “Oh my god. You’re insane.” “You love me.” “I do,” he confirmed. That made my heart clench. He’s so cute. I missed him so much that I had to ask him if he could FaceTime me. We didn’t talk until late in the night because he was busy playing a raid on Destiny all day. So to kill time, I started watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I with Marie. In the middle of the movie he finally called me on FaceTime. I paused the movie, walked to the blow up mattress that was behind me, and answered him. The phone took a while to connect us. After a moment of looking at a black screen, I saw his face for the first time in a few days. I know it seems pathetic of me to say that I missed it because I just saw him last week, but I can’t help but want to always see him. He was shirtless and I could see that he got a haircut. It looked nice and clean. “Hey Josh,” I said with a big smile. “Hey Alex,” he replied and mirrored my smile. His smile is so crooked and his teeth matched it just the same. He doesn’t like his smile, but that’s what I love the most about him. Then it’s his eyes. He looks tired all the time, but somehow I’m attracted to that. “Your hair looks good! I like it.” “Oh. Thanks. The girl that was cutting my hair messed up the back. She was annoying me” I couldn’t help but giggle. “What? Why do you say that?” “Because. She wouldn’t shut up. She just kept on talking and talking. She wouldn’t shut up!” He repeated. “I literally just wanted to tell her, ‘Bitch. Shut up and just cut my fucking hair.’” I bursted out laughing! Josh was on speaker so Marie heard what he said too. She was laughing just as hard as me. I couldn’t catch my breath. Then when I was just about to, I’d turn to Marie to catch her still laughing! This, of course, made me laugh even more… “Why are you laughing?” Josh asked. He laughed and then continued, “If Marie is telling you things about me then you need to tell me. What did she say? Why are you laughing?” He repeated. I took another moment to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. “She didn’t say anything. We’re just laughing at what you said! It was so funny!” My stomach started to hurt from all the shrieking giggles. It was the good kind of hurt though. “Alright. I guess Alex,” he said as he gave me that compelling stare of his. The rest of the conversation was mostly about his day and mine. Like what I’ve been doing lately while I’ve been away. I told him that I’ve been writing a lot - physical letters. I told him about my adventure to the neighboring city. I told him how I’ve been feeling. And how Marie and I have been doing a lot of cute things together. He told me his girls weren’t there which was odd because it was a Monday. Usually, they are back by Sundays from the mom. He also mentioned that he got written up at work because someone decided to show up two hours late to cover his shift. The managers knew he wasn’t going in and this girl, the one that took over his shift, knew what time he had to work and decides to show up late. Then he’s the one that gets written up? I don’t see how that was fair. A few minutes later, the conversation started to die out. We had nothing left to talk about. Coincidentally, he got a phone call from his girlfriend. “Hey. Sabrina is calling me. I have to go.” Josh said in a rush. “Alright Josh. I’m glad we were able to talk tonight.” “Me too Alex. I love you. I’ll talk to you later.” “Love you too. Bye-bye.” I hung up my phone with a smile. It wouldn’t go away. I almost forgot I was with Marie. She was quietly watching videos on Instagram on her phone. I got off from the air mattress and walked up to the empty chair by the bar. I looked at Marie, gave her a smile, and she gave me one right back. She didn’t say anything - she didn’t have to. I hovered my hand over the computer to press play as I asked her, “Are you ready?” “Yas queen,” she said. We both laughed. I pushed play and we continued to watch the magical world of Harry Potter until the night ended… Part IV I don’t know when I’ll be back home. When I leave here, I plan on going to visit my friends in Austin. My good friend that would like to be referred to as Fisto Roboto said I could stay at his place for a few days. I asked him last week if I could go visit him and stay at his apartment. He never replied, but the next day he sent me a Snap of him in a cap and gown. It was graduation day for him. I sent him a message on Snapchat. “Oh my god. You look so freaking cute! Congrats! I hope you have a wonderful day.” He replied. “Thank you so much! I hope you have a great day too!” I thought it was really strange that he sent me a photo on Snapchat, but not reply to my text the day before. Was he ignoring me? Did he not want me visiting him? I didn’t bother asking him again because I didn’t want to be annoying. To my surprise, a few days later, I noticed that my text never went through to him while I was at Panera Bread with Marie. That’s when I saw that my iMessage didn’t go through and my send button turned green. I decided to send him a message on Snapchat again. “Hey! Is your phone not working? Or do you not have an iPhone anymore?” “No iPhone,” he responded. I felt a little relieved. “Oh. No wonder. I texted you last week! I wanted to ask you something!” “What is it?” “I’m not sure if I should ask. I don’t want to be annoying.” “Don’t be afraid to ask me something silly boy. Just say it.” I got a little nervous as I typed out the words. “Well. I texted you because I wanted to know what you’re doing the weekend of June 2nd.” “Hmm. I don’t have any plans. What’s up?” “I was hoping I could stay over for a few days if you weren’t busy. You can tell me no!” “Haha. Yeah of course! You know you’re always welcomed here. On June 2nd, I’m free after 5:00pm. Now that I’m done with school I have a lot of free time.” “Oh my gosh. Okay! That’s awesome! We can go to the arcade and go drink!” “That sounds like a lot of fun.” “Yes it does. Let me know if anything changes!” I was already getting so excited to see him. Given our history, I’m expecting something to happen with him, but sadly, he has a girlfriend. “Alright. I will!” The conversation ended there. Today, we continued that conversation. I texted him. “Fisto Roboto.” “Alexxxxxxxx.” “I just wanted to tell you that I hope you have a great day today!” I like to send cute messages like that when I’m thinking about someone a lot. “I hope you have a great day too!” “Thank you!” “Alex. When are you planning on staying?” Oh no. Something must have come up. Why would he be asking me otherwise? Ugh. I knew it was too good to be true. “June 2nd! Why?? I can go a little before or after? My schedule is really flexible.” “June 3rd and 4th: Campfire and wedding proposal to attend.” I knew it. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay. “Oh! Alright. Should I go a few days before then? Maybe the 31st of May?” “I’m saying you’re invited too, if you’d like to go. Haha.” I dropped my jaw. I was in utter shock. I couldn’t believe he was inviting me! Why isn’t his girlfriend going? I thought. “Oh! Okay! That sounds so fun! I’ll go!” He never replied after that. I’m honestly really curious now to know if he’s still with his girlfriend or not. I’m anticipating so much to happen if he and I decide to go drinking and he somehow accidentally gets drunk. I also wonder where I will sleep when I stay with him. I wonder if he’ll let me sleep on the same bed as him… I don’t want to sleep on the pull out sofa-bed in his living room. I like him a lot and think he’s so cute. I know I won’t let the opportunity go pass by if it decides to be offered to me. And by “it” I mean his body. It’s getting me excited just thinking about it. I want to be with him already. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens when the time comes. For now, I will continue to be stress-free. For now, I will continue to have a good time with my best friend. For now, I will continue to keep writing about my life. All these things are too calming for me to give them up. I need to take advantage of this moment, because I know when I get back home, all the problems that I left behind will still be there. Waiting for me... Waiting to tear me apart again. Love always, Alex

51 notes · View notes

littleoldrachel · 7 years ago

Text

Fourth chapter is up! Read it here on ao3, or here on ff.net, or under the cut.

100 Ways to Say I Love You

Summary: In which actions speak louder than words, Sirius and Remus sort of fall in to a relationship, and even though neither of them have said those three all-important words, they both know it anyway.Or: 100 Ways to Say I Love You by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.

Previous | chapter 4/100 - “Come here, let me fix it.” | Next

Based on this post by p0ck3tf0x

Tw for anxiety like woah, terrible parenting, mentions of vomit but no actual vomit.

3. “Come here, let me fix it.”

There isn’t a single part of Sirius’ body that isn’t trembling, and he keeps forgetting to breathe – then concentrating too hard on it, then panicking and forgetting once more. He’s pale and sweating through his suit, and he knows that checking his watch every four seconds is helping nothing, but there’re only two hours to go – or one hundred and twenty-one minutes, or seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-sixty-seconds, seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-nine-seconds, seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-eight-seconds-

In approximately two hours, Sirius has the biggest job interview of his life, and he doesn’t mean to be melodramatic, but he literally doesn’t know how he’s going to survive until then (how fast does your heart have to beat before it gives out?). Which is why Remus – wonderful, supportive, kind Remus – is going to come and keep him distracted until then, because otherwise he will actually have a heart attack, and keel over right here in this bustling street, and wouldn’t that just be a tragedy?

Remus is late, which isn’t unusual for him, but with every extra second on his own, Sirius can feel himself slipping further and further towards a panic attack because fuck, why does he think he can do this?

(He can’t – his parents were right, his teachers were right, he’s not good enough, he’s never going to be good enough-)

The thing is – this interview is kind of a Big Deal. It’s not that he doesn’t like working at The Marauder Corner – he does, and he’ll be eternally grateful to Frank for supporting him. He finally feels like he knows what he’s doing now, and he hasn’t screwed up an order in three (three!) days. He’s figured out how to smile for tips, who the nicest regulars are, and he’s starting to feel safe there – he’s comfortable. But… in the meantime, he has a hard-won First Class Bachelor’s Degree in Illustration & Graphic Design going to waste, and after everything he went through with his parents to be allowed to study it, with his mental health to actually complete it, it’s driving him a little bit crazy that he’s not doing anything with it.

It’s not that he hasn’t been on the hunt for jobs; it’s more that freelance illustration is hard to get in to, it’s hard to find regular clients, it’s hard to make a decent living, and for once in his life, Sirius just wanted one thing to be easy.

But this interview could change all of that. Queerllustration is a small company, who produce web comics for both educational and entertainment purposes, and they’re currently looking for a new, full-time Graphic Designer. As the name suggests, they make art about LGBT+ people, created by LGBT+ people, for LGBT+ people, and Sirius has been in love with their work since he first stumbled across their nonbinary superhero character, Eclipse. Working for them would be the absolute dream – he just has to convince them he’s good enough.

(Which is going to be difficult, considering he can’t even convince himself).

“Hey, you,” the voice is warm and gentle, and the touch on his arm is light, but Sirius still flinches sharply, and Remus withdraws immediately. He looks breathless and tired, but he’s smiling brightly at him, even if his eyes are a little crinkled in concern.

(Six thousand, six hundred seconds to go).

“Alright?” He tries for a confident smile, burying his face in Remus’ shoulder briefly as he pulls him in for a hug, but his insides are still liquid.

“Have you eaten yet?” Remus asks, still not quite releasing him (probably for the best – Sirius’ knees have forgotten how not to shake, which is making standing a Problem), and peering inside the café.

Sirius is torn – if he says no, Remus will make him eat something, and then he might be sick – what if he vomits all over the interviewers??? – but if he says yes, he’ll be lying to Remus. The thought of lying to him, even over something so trivial, makes him feel just as nauseous as eating will. In the end though, he doesn’t have to choose, because Remus knows him well enough to mutter, “no then,” whilst steering him gently towards the door.

It’s a mark of how anxious he’s getting, that Sirius doesn’t even register Remus sitting him down at a table, queuing, ordering and paying – and Sirius notices things, his anxiety won’t let him not document every tiny detail of a situation, to the extent that it’s overwhelming and too much, but now, he’s losing entire pockets of time, and he’s terrified.

There’s a large pumpkin spice latte sitting in front of him, and moments later, a tomato and mozzarella panini slides across to join it. Remus slips in to the seat opposite with his own food, and Sirius tries to smile his thanks – his heart tugs a little at the fact that Remus knows him so well – but it comes out as more of a grimace.

He clears his throat, hand clenching the table leg to give him something to ground himself on, and mumbles, “thanks, Moony.” Remus gives him a thumbs-up, his own mouth already full with an egg salad sandwich, and Sirius seizes on this detail, this normalcy. “I thought you didn’t like the egg sandwiches here?”

Remus swallows with difficulty, and shrugs. “S’alright. There aren’t many kosher options, this is fine.” Sirius nods absently, and shifts his grip from the table leg to around his mug – it’s a little too hot to hold, but the burn helps him to concentrate. Remus tracks this movement with a frown, and then continues, “anyway, we’re not here to talk egg sandwiches. How are you doing?”

Sirius forces himself to take a sip of his latte, eyes closing briefly in pleasure at its warm sweetness. (If Remus were a drink, he’d be a pumpkin spice latte, he thinks vaguely, then catches himself and nearly chokes on his drink). “I’m – uh – okay?” he says, and Remus rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, no, try again.”

“I’m – I’m not. Uh. Okay,” Sirius whispers to his panini, and Remus’ fingers hover momentarily above Sirius’ wrist, giving him time to pull away, before gently closing around it. Sirius pulls his gaze up to meet Remus’ eyes, and kind of wants to burst in to tears at the sheer concern and care he sees there. He’s clenching his drink so tightly that his knuckles are white but his fingers are still fucking shaking.

“Would talking about it help?” Remus asks softly. “Or do you need to be distracted?”

Sirius shakes his head helplessly, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t- “

“Breathe, Pads,” Remus slides his hand down to Sirius’, where it’s clamped around the mug, and unpeels his fingers slowly, intertwining their fingers together. Sirius gazes at their hands for a second – he’s lost and scared and shaking, but he’s also anchored to Remus – Remus isn’t going to let him get hurt.

Sirius lets out a shaky breath, and takes another sip of his drink, swallowing down the anxiety for a moment. “Can you – I don’t – can we talk about something else for a bit?”

“Anything,” Remus squeezes his hand, then lets go, and Sirius instantly misses his warm grip. His fingers scrabble for something to fiddle with, land on his panini, and begin tearing it in to strips. Remus glances at him, but doesn’t try and stop him. “So, did you talk to Prongs and Lils after last week?”

Sirius pulls a face. “Sticking with the difficult conversations, are we?”

Remus shrugs, biting in to his sandwich. “You tell me.”

“I did, yeah.” The bread is thoroughly shredded now, and Sirius absent-mindedly begins separating the ingredients in to different piles. “He cried, I cried, everyone cried.”

Remus snorts, but not unkindly. “I think I’d be more worried if Prongs didn’t cry, to be honest.”

Sirius lets out a huff that ordinarily would have been a laugh. “It went like you said it would. He – he was really upset I ever thought they wouldn’t want me around. Said I’m – uh –“ his voice cracks a little. “More special to him than I’d ever know.” He flaps his hand a little, unable to vocalise everything the conversation had mended in him – that it had filled in cracks in his heart that he hadn’t even realised were forming. Of course, it won’t last – his anxiety will be back again soon enough, worming its way in to his weak spots. But for now, at least, he knows that James loves him unconditionally and would never want him to leave.

(It doesn’t hurt that James has doubled his number of daily reassurances, and started leaving him little post-it notes saying you’re so loved all over the place).

“I’m really glad,” says Remus, bringing him back to the present. The anxiety surges back in an unpleasant wave and he takes a breath, desperately looking for another distraction.

“I got a message from Reg on Facebook,” he blurts suddenly – then regrets it, because he’s not ready to unpack that yet at all, but nor is he ready to tackle the topic of the interview.

Remus looks momentarily bewildered at the abrupt subject change, but then raises his eyebrows curiously.

Sirius looks down at the heaps of separated food in panic, and stuffs the bread in to his mouth so that he has time to think. He swallows with difficulty, and says, “he was just checking in, I think. I haven’t read it properly. I – uh – he wanted to know that I wasn’t homeless, I think.”

“That’s… good?” says Remus cautiously.

“Yeah,” Sirius says, only it comes out with too much forced-cheerfulness, and they both wince. “I mean – I think so. Part of me, this is going to sound insane, but… what if my parents are using him to find me?” He glances at Remus’ expression, expecting to see scorn or disdain, but Remus just looks thoughtful.

“I don’t think Reg would do that to you. Maybe he never stood up to your family, but I don’t think he would actually turn on you like that.”

Sirius blinks a little, feeling a lump in his throat and a prickling behind his eyes. “Thank you for not telling me I’m being paranoid… I – thank you.”

Remus nods, still looking thoughtful, and there’s a comfortable quiet as Remus finishes off the rest of his sandwich, whilst Sirius chews through the pile of bread, and makes a start on the tomato slices.

Then –

“So,” Remus says, glancing at his wrist. “You have an hour to go.”

Sirius jolts, the panic racing back down his arms, his legs, through his fingers and toes, and paralysing him in an icy chokehold. He forces a breath in before he completely freaks out, and another, fingers clenching the table hard. Remus’ hands find his own, wrapping around them in a comforting grip. “Sorry, I – I just thought we could maybe talk about the interview? If that might help?”

“Give me a sec,” Sirius manages, and Remus immediately removes his hands, retreating apologetically. Sirius wants to scream because that’s not what he meant, but words are too hard at the moment. They sit in silence for a few minutes whilst Sirius tries to get his fucking shit together, and then Remus leans forwards again nervously.

“We don’t have to, Pads,” he says quietly. “It was just a suggestion, we can-“

“Can you – uh – “ Sirius scrubs at his face. “Can you, like, look at my portfolio? I’m not asking for like – praise – I’m not trying to be modest – I just – all I can hear is my dad screaming at me that I’m not enough and ripping up my art -and I – I just need- “

“Padfoot, I’d love to see your art. Anything you want to show me.” Remus brushes a reassuring thumb over the back of Sirius’ hand, and reaches for the portfolio leaning against his satchel.

Sirius watches Remus open the folder, but then looks away quickly, unable to watch Remus’ expression change. Objectively, he knows that it’s good – he didn’t get a first for nothing, he knows that the bold colouring, the quirky characters, the attention to detail – it’s all good, he is good. But is he good enough? And what if it’s too similar to the stuff they already do? He took inspiration from Queerllustration for his final project after all; they might decide he’s just an overenthusiastic fan with no real creative talent of his own. He tries his best to shove down the voice that sounds a lot like his father’s, and picks at the remaining tomato seeds, feeling like he’s awaiting a criminal sentence.

Remus lets out a little gasp, and Sirius can’t help but look up sharply. Remus’ expression is – a myriad of things: warmth, awe, surprise, delight – and he leans over the pages to look closer, shoving his glasses further up his nose. He’s stopped on a city scape scene – it’s London by night, the silhouette of a caped and masked figure standing clearly against the night sky, and Remus is currently tracing the tiny shimmering stars, with his mouth in a little ‘o’ shape. He glances up, catches Sirius’ eye, and shakes his head disbelievingly. “Every time I think you can’t get any better, you blow me away, Pads." He runs a finger over the tiny details of the golden streetlights, the miniscule red buses, the shadowy skyscrapers with their hundreds of minute windows, and looks back up with a beam. “This is stunning. And-“ he flips back a few pages, to a watercolour of a collection of animals. (Watercolour isn’t his strongest medium, but he was particularly proud of how these turned out – the gentler shades allowed for a dappled light effect – and besides, it was important to show he could be diverse). “I love this, it feels so… familiar in a way? It’s just so lovely, I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I think this is one of my favourites.” He reverently presses his fingertips against where the wolf and the black dog are touching snouts, at the way the rat is scampering up the buck’s back.

(Sirius can’t quite explain what Remus’ words are doing to him. It’s almost like he’s being punched in the gut, but with a warmth and an affection so strong that it takes his breath away, something soft and fragile blooming in his chest and pressing back against the panic nestling in his lungs).

“Do you mean that?” he croaks out at last, whilst Remus continues to pore through his artwork – the costume designs, the portraits, the fight scene – with occasional exclamations of admiration.

Remus looks up, his expression earnest and kind. “Of course, Pads. I don’t – you’re so talented. I just – you’re phenomenal, and I mean – I don’t know anything about art,” he smiles a little self-deprecatingly, “but I know that Queerllustration are fools if they don’t hire you.”

Something akin to relief sparks in Sirius’ heart, and it’s not enough to quench the anxiety still resting there (nothing is ever enough), but it loosens its grip a little, it plants a brittle seed of hope there, and Sirius can smile without feeling like he’s about to shatter. He idly pops a mozzarella slice in to his mouth from the small, final heap of food, and returns Remus’ grin as best as he can.

“Thank you,” he says softly, wishing he could convey exactly how much Remus’ reassurances mean to him, how much Remus means to him. (It’s not like James and Lily and every single one of his friends haven’t offered their own reassurances, of course they have. It’s just that there’s something about Remus’ compassionate smile, his kind honesty, his general Remus-ness that makes Sirius feel like he could accomplish almost anything).

“Of course,” Remus says, giving him a look that’s so full of care and warmth that Sirius can actually feel the glow it bathes him in. He bites his lip, and then says, “can I ask – what is it that you’re most afraid of? Like, I completely understand why you’re anxious – I just – what – argh,” he flaps his hands in frustration, “I’m fucking this up.”

“You’re not,” says Sirius quickly. “I get what you’re trying to say.” Remus looks relieved, as Sirius chews on his mozzarella thoughtfully. “I think the thing is that if - if I – uh – if I fuck this interview up, I – everything my parents ever said about me is-“

“Still all filthy, awful lies,” says Remus fiercely. “Nothing they have ever said about you is true, none of it, Padfoot, I swear it.”

The protectiveness causes the little seed of hope in his chest to swell, and he finds himself blinking back tears again. (Remus is a better friend than he deserves – better than anyone deserves).

“Did you talk to your therapist?” Remus says, more gently.

Sirius looks down, feeling the guilt drop in to his stomach like a stone.

“Hey, no, it’s okay if you didn’t. I was just asking.”

“Please don’t hate me,” Sirius begins.

“Never,” says Remus vehemently.

“- I, uh, I maybe haven’t been to therapy in three weeks?” He’s too ashamed to meet Remus’ eyes – whilst he hasn’t lied directly to any of them, he’s been feeling awful about this ever since the first time he got to the office and couldn’t face walking through the door. He’s been longing to tell someone honestly – but they’ve slowly stopped asking and checking up on his sessions, trusting him enough to be a fucking adult and get the help he needs. But they didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell, and it went on and on, and every time he missed it, he got more and more anxious about going back-

“I don’t – what happened?” Remus doesn’t sound angry, or shocked, or annoyed. Just concerned and a little confused, and it’s the care that gives Sirius the courage to look up at him again.

He shrugs, “the sessions were kind of helpful… but I got so nervous about going, and then one week, I just couldn’t go. And then it sort of… spiralled?”

Remus’ face is kind and understanding. “I get it,” he clears his throat. “I did a similar thing a couple years back. Things were fine until bam, suddenly they weren’t, and I just went straight back home to bed without going to my appointment, and I couldn’t bring myself to get out again.”

(Remus gets it. He actually gets it – and as much as Sirius loathes the idea of Remus suffering in any kind of way – physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever – the fact that he gets it and he understands makes Sirius feel less alone, less ashamed, less like a fuckup).

“What did you do?” Sirius asks, because he vaguely remembers this, but Remus used to struggle far more frequently than he does now, and he knows that as a group, they handled some of them better than others.

“Some pretty great friends told me that I didn’t have to stick with that therapist if it wasn’t the right fit. That there were other options. That they would still love and support me, no matter what.” His voice wobbles a little, but he looks determined. “The point is, the same applies here. You can try someone else if you like. Or look in to other treatments – maybe your meds need adjusting? But whatever happens, we all love and support you, and – uh – I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us before.”

“It wasn’t that,” says Sirius hastily, “it was more that I was just embarrassed I couldn’t function like an adult. Like – you all have real jobs, and you all manage everything, and have your shit together, and I’m just a hot mess-“

“I promise you, we don’t have our shit together,” says Remus. “Yesterday I cried because I couldn’t pick which pair of socks to wear. Alice rang me to tell me she ate an entire box of Coco Pops in one sitting and was freaking out in case they weren’t halal. Wormtail has reapplied for uni four separate times. None of us have our shit together, if that helps.”

Sirius grins in spite of himself because fuck he adores his ridiculous, crazy, wonderful friends. Remus continues, “we could have been better though. So I’m sorry, and we’re all here for you for whatever you need.”

“Ditto,” Sirius says softly, nudging Remus’ ankle with his own, and Remus’ gaze drops, his shoulders tensing. Sirius frowns, “you know that, right?”

Remus doesn’t meet Sirius’ eyes as he says, “yeah sure,” and then gets up to return their plates to the counter. Sirius frowns after him, making a mental note to actually have an honest conversation with Remus about his mental health, but then checks his watch and blanches because he has twelve-hundred-seconds, eleven-hundred-and-ninety-nine-seconds-

“Come on,” Remus is back, and pulling him to his feet, and Sirius goes in a sort of daze. He does feel better than he did before; he’s not losing pockets of time anymore, and the food sitting in his stomach is a weight that keeps him somewhat grounded – though not as much as Remus’ hand around his wrist.

It’s slightly better when they get outside – the light breeze coupled with Remus’ nattering soothes his frayed nerves a little, and he takes a few deep breaths, fragile but not shattering, the hope in his heart holding him together. The short walk goes by too fast, and before he knows what’s happening, the two of them are standing outside a building covered in rainbow art.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” says Remus, pulling him in for one final hug, allowing Sirius to cling a little longer than usual. “You’ve got this, we love you, you’re amazing.”

Sirius nods. “I’m amazing,” he repeats, and Remus bursts in to laughter.

“Damn straight you are!”

“Take that back! There’s nothing straight about me!” Sirius says, in mock-affront.

“I apologise,” says Remus solemnly, and Sirius beams back – his head is spinning with how much he adores this man; there are very few people in the world who can momentarily make him forget his troubles like that, who can build him up with compliments and smiles, but Remus is one of them.

“I’ll call you later?” he says, making to walk in through the door.

“Wait,” Remus calls, and Sirius turns back to him. “Come here, let me fix it.” He gestures at Sirius’ tie, and Sirius flushes, but allows Remus to retie it, straighten the knot, and tuck it back in to his jacket. “Very handsome,” he says with a cheeky, dimpled grin, and Sirius sort of melts. “And you’d better call.”

“I will,” Sirius promises, and then strides in to the building, before the anxiety can do so much as hiss that he’s going to let them all down.

Three hours later, Sirius is on the evening shift at the Marauder Corner, when he gets a call from an unknown number. He smiles apologetically at Frank, who rolls his eyes but lets him slip in to the kitchens, and he answers breathlessly.

(The conversation that ensues is brief but it’s enough – it’s more than enough – it’s everything).

The job is his.

(He did it, he actually did it, fuck his parents, fuck his teachers, he is amazing).

He manages to splutter his acceptance, his gratitude and hangs up, then cries so hard he almost makes himself sick, and rings Remus, who sounds all sorts of choked-up-proud-love-care-happiness. When he finally gets home, having spent the rest of his shift in an overjoyed daze, making clumsy mistakes and spilling sugar and coffee grains everywhere, it’s to a surprise party, and he is overwhelmed with happiness and love and warmth.

James shouts out a quick warning before he tackles him to the ground in a hug. Alice, queen of baking forever and ever, has made him a gorgeous rainbow cake, topped with smarties. Peter gives him a flower crown, which Kingsley steals halfway through the night (“because I look so good in daisies, I should just wear them always”) and -

Remus waits until the excitable chaos has calmed down a little before approaching Sirius. “Hey, you,” he says, dropping in to the just-vacated seat next to Sirius. James has his head in Sirius’ lap, but he shuffles along, plopping in to Peter’s instead, and starting a sign conversation, complimenting Peter’s new violet hair.

“Hey, Moonbeam,” Sirius smiles back at him, leaning his head against Remus’ shoulder. Remus allows him to tuck himself against his side, slipping an arm around him.

“I know I said this before, but I’m so bloody proud of you, Pads,” he says softly, and they’re both watching Frank and Lily dancing, but it’s somehow just as intense as if they were holding each other’s gaze.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Sirius murmurs back, finding Remus’ hand, and squeezing it. Remus doesn’t move for a second, and then, very slowly and deliberately, he raises their intertwined hands to his lips, and presses a gentle kiss against their fingers.

Sirius doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move – doesn’t want anything to break this spell, because they are on the verge of something, something is about to change between them –

But then there’s a smashing sound, and Kingsley is staring, wide-eyed, at the floor, looking guiltily at where he’s dropped a mug, which is now in pieces.

And the moment is lost.

Remus extricates his hand, and stands up without looking at Sirius. He walks over to James, who’s fretting a little trying to make sure nobody gets shards of china in their feet, and makes his excuses, claiming a stomach-ache and tiredness.

And Sirius just –

Watches him go.

#littleoldrachel writes #writing #fic #wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #100 ways to say i love you

5 notes · View notes