#its funny how i went crazy on the soda and phoned it in on the cake cause i was so tired

[buggbuzz]

did the "all about us" art collab trend with my bestie @starcades-prize-box :D!!! soooo much fun and their side came out gorgeous, totally worth how long it took

template is under the cut, as well as some silly game screenshots of us together :)

[pbandjesse]

I have come home. I am very glad I did because my feet hurt so bad and I'm so tired and I just cannot get clean enough I can't. That's a coming home problem. And I am clean now and it's great.

Actually did sleep pretty well though. After I finish my post I would hang out for a little while longer and Callie would eventually come back to our room and we talked and laughed and we're just having a really good time. Her sister brought the fridge so now we have that and we were just joking around and having fun. And then we would go to sleep. It would take me a little bit of time but then my phone lost service so I was able to fall asleep very easily because I'm a monster who sleeps cradling their phone. And I woke up startled because she accidentally slammed the door but I was able to fall back asleep and it was fine. And I felt okay. My stomach hurt really bad. But I think that was mostly just stressed and anxiety. I got washed up and put the little outfit on and I felt kind of dirty but I tried my best to not be as dusty. I still failed though.

I left the cabin and walked up to the nurse's office. Decided that I did not want to join for breakfast. I had slept in really late and while I still had plenty of time before my first program it was most of the way through breakfast and I decided I'd rather just have a yogurt. So I went up to arts and crafts and I poured myself some Cheez-Its and I had half of the fancy yogurt I bought and had a little bit of soda. But really I just want to drink water right now. It's been so dry that I feel dehydrated. So I would hang out and read my book and wait for my first program.

The book is really sad and it's nonlinear storytelling so it's like you're getting memories and snapshots from this girl. And I do enjoy it but it's very different than what I was expecting. Not in a positive warrant I get away just different. I'm still enjoying it though. Even though it's very sad.

My groups today were great. No complaints. I was very stressed out because people kept telling him new things that were wrong in the schedule like I doubled people. And I was just basically like can I not be in charge of this anymore. And by the end of the day I would not be. But I could not really have that conversation for a few hours.

Instead I just focused on my group's best I could. I had some very lovely people and I think I am making myself very popular among the new staff. A lot of the boys are very sweet to me. Not shocking. And I think it's funny how often they compliment me by telling me that I don't look 33. And I'm like all right? I don't think I look much different and I did any other time. I look more what I like to refer to as refined. Then I did when I was 18. But I don't look much different than I did it 25 or 29. I was looking at pictures from a few years ago today and I was just like that's still me.

But they're all very sweet and I had a lot of boys stepping up to help me with stuff today. Carrying boxes and such. And all of my groups are just really cute. Specifically in the morning I had silver City and they were so good. And made some really cute pieces. And top bar was really nice as well. I always have funny conversations with them. Like about Taylor Swift and very long music. Like I really loved a Mars Volta song that was technically 32 minutes long. And they were like excuse me. But I couldn't remember if it had curse words in it, even if they would be in Spanish. And I didn't want to risk it.

At lunch Kelly came up to chat with me and Heather would come as well and we would talk about how well arts and crafts is going and how happy everybody was up there. How I kept getting feedback that people's groups were crazy and loud all day and then they come to arts and crafts and they're perfect and silent and they're like what is happening. And I'm just like it's the magical power of arts and crafts. It's the best and that's why I love it. I can set the kids up to do their projects and set them out on the material and I can sit to the side and help when needed but mainly work on my project and have a good time with the kids. Arts and crafts is the best.

But having Heather up there was really interesting because I got to chat with her too and talk a little bit more about things that were and were not working in the schedule and mistakes that had come up. And it came up that Ann is putting schedule that I made into an Excel sheet which is what apparently they've used for years which is fine I don't care but I don't really use Excel or Google sheets so I'm like okay that's fine. And I would send a text after she left to clarify do I still have to edit it then or should and just take over. I don't really have much time to work on the schedule and while I really enjoyed making it and I think some parts are great I knew that there was mistakes and I knew we were going to have to fix them I was just hoping that we were going to be doing that weeks ago. And then Heather was like no we still want you to do it and I was like okay. But it turns out the way that she was meaning it was like yeah you can totally still do it because she thought I was sad to lose this task. And it was just such a miscommunication of needs from everyone. And I'm really glad that we talked for realized because later in the day I would tell Elizabeth that I just could not handle it. And I'm so glad I did because I was able to hand off this project and immediately the stress that I was feeling went away like Chloe had asked me like 15 minutes before "are you okay?" and I almost burst into tears. It was very close.

But it was okay for now. I went to lunch late but wait got excellent fake chicken sandwiches. I have a little salad. A little potato salad. And I had to break the news to Geoff that you cannot have the children dress up as Native American people anymore that it's just not okay and you cannot do it. That we need to be aware of cultural competency stuff and that is not it. I understand you did that as a child here but we do not do that anymore because we are growing and changing and learning. And so I would get some articles from the ACA that does our accreditation about how we can be better about Native American stuff and not completely getting rid of it but how it can be respectful and like a chart thing that lets you kind of figure out hey are you being chill or is that wrong And I was just like this is really what we need to be aware of before we start doing things that we used to do. Like I'm not even letting him make dream catchers. Unacceptable.

So I had to be a dream killer. Apparently that's my nickname with some of the boys anyway. Because I tell them that they can or cannot do things in their lives. No you are not a Lord for buying one foot of land in Scotland. That has been proven to be fake. No you would not jump on the roof and do a backflip. No we are not doing tie dye. Dreamkiller over and over again.

I would go to arts and crafts and spend like 15 minutes reading my book and I would try to just hang out my hammock but then I was doing other stuff on my phone so I was a little distracted. But soon my group was there and it was day camp and they were so sweet. Both of my day came groups were great. So I'm a little more creative than others. But I was still really enjoying all of their ideas and work. I always have to be so careful with my examples because if somebody leaves something unusual or particularly good everyone's going to try to copy that one and not use their own brain. And that was happening a little bit with a three-dimensional car someone made. It wasn't even good. But it was a rectangle and with wheels and everyone's like oh my God I got to make that and none of them good. So not as many like stands out but the one child that made the turtle on the side of the arts building. Chef's kiss. Adorable. Ridiculously cute.

My last group of the day would be stockade. And this group was so nice. It was a lot of the boys that I knew from last year and they all want to learn how to do bracelets. And I think what particularly sold it for me was Randall, one of the new counselors. He is so nice to me and he's always like Ms Jesse Ms Jesse. Because he wants to learn things and he's so nice. And I taught him and a whole bunch of the boys had to make cardboard loom bracelets. I had some doing seven so I'm doing six but all of them cut the string too long because I had to run down to the office to sign a CPS form. (The guy doing that by the way I thought I was very funny. And then he was like wait fullwiler isn't there someone else named forward I was like oh my God that's my sister-in-law and also today is the anniversary of me getting engaged. That's so nice.) And when I came back other Jeci had tried to get the all the boys started but he forgot that with my bracelets it's one arm and with regular bracelets it's two arms and so everyone had string that was so long. So I just had them folded over and they all made double size bracelets which honestly look better anyway. They're a little bit more confusing for some people because you have to take both strings but they got it right away and like a few of them had some lumps in their pieces but overall excellent bracelets and they were all really nice to me. And that's my favorite thing.

At the end of it though I was like oh my God I'm done for the day but then I remembered that I was going to be meeting with all of SSC to figure out how we can integrate them into teaching some stuff during the summer. It turns out all of them really want to do that. So we're going to have them try to lead handicraft and camp skills. And I am just really happy with them they're so sweet wanting to do more. Like I get not wanting to sit around for multiple half hours a day. If they were adults I think they would get it a little bit also if they had their phones. But they've been playing a lot of apples to apples and a lot of Uno and they really want some more tasks. I understand. I am glad that they are interested in we are still figuring out how that's going to work but I think it's going to be great.

This is a little bit where I got upset in the office and had to ask Elizabeth like hey can someone please take this and she's like oh my God yes we just didn't want her feelings. I was like no the feelings involved just so glad to have this task no longer in my hands. So I texted all the village directors and Mirren was so sweet and was like oh my God I'm so sorry you got so upset and all this nice stuff and then Charlotte was just like okay. Nothing else. So you know still not positive that she likes me all the time but I'm trying to just accept her who she is. Even if it hurts my heart a little bit.

But I was just like left with all of this lightness from not having to do this schedule any longer. Like yeah it sucks that I couldn't make it perfect because I want to make everything perfect all the time and surprise everyone by how great I am. But it didn't worry out this time and that's okay. I just want everyone to have a good summer and now I can focus on being the best specialty stuff ever which is all I ever wanted. And also the best specialty senior staff which is a new thing that I want.

And I decided that after all of that emotional upheaval I needed to go home. I would feel a lot better if I went home. I didn't cry but it was a close thing. So I texted Celia to see if she would be willing to meet me at 5:45 rather than 7:00 to get ice cream. And she was like yeah cool. So I went down to my cabin and collected some clothes had my jewelry box and my eye cream. You know the most important things to me in the world. And then I walked up to arts and crafts and said goodbye to Callie and the kids And I went to the ice cream store.

I got there a little bit before she did and when she got there I was so happy to see her. I was being very silly and I pressed my face up against the glass of my car. And she like was mogging me from her car. And then we got out and we went and got our ice cream. I got a very classic Sunday with their two special flavors which had very silly names that I can't remember right now. But almost cake batter and one was peanut butter with chocolate pieces. There was other stuff going on but they were both very good and I got it as a classic Sunday with hot fudge and whipped cream and a cherry. It was excellent.

We would sit and chat for an hour or so and just talked about books and life and work and all the things going on and all the nice things people have said about Celia lately when I was telling him that I was hanging out with her and they're like oh she's so nice she has So many facts. And she was like oh blush blush blush.

she found it up really nicely when she was like I want to hang out with Jesse forever I want to go my friend forever. And I'm like I also want that but also I'm so tired and I want to go home. So please say goodbye after watching a child chase a bunny around the backyard of the ice cream shop. Because it clearly was a house at one point. Very cute though. Not knocking them.

And I had a super easy drive home because there was no traffic. So it was 28 minutes from the ice cream shop. And when I got home I was just so happy to be here. My parking place is a little down the street but at least it's on our block. And I got inside and I got to hold sweet pea for a while and I had to carry Ruby because she had gotten stuck in the studio again or battery died. And then I worked on cleaning the frog tank a bit and feeding them worms and making sure everyone was alive. Do have them are huge now and one is very small so I'm worried that the one isn't eating enough so I put a double portion of worms. And I cleaned out a bunch of the snails. Which I've gotten very bad but at least the water's clear. That is the one positive of the snails. And then I worked on crab cakes tank for a bit. Added some more moisture because there is no humidity and I didn't realize how important humidity was apparently for him. And I would add a bunch of new food for him I know he's not supposed to eat fruit very often but I thought maybe a blueberry as a treat just doing courage him. And he was motor and walking around and digging. But he definitely is going to need a bigger tank sooner rather than later. And the next week or so I'm hoping to get to the store to look for something that I can make into a giant tank. The problem is all the tanks at the store are fish tanks and I need something shallower and lighter. So I think I'm in might work. We will see what I can find.

I would take a nice long bath. Scrubbed everything shaved everything washed my hair. It was very nice.

And I started watching cabaret again because the only thing I can think about for some reason. I think I will try Chicago next if I can find an old version on YouTube. But the 1993 version of cabaret with Alan Cumming is excellent and it is just been stuck in my head since I watched it last week.

now I am sitting in our bedroom and James just got home from their baseball game and they are so sweaty. So I'm hoping they go clean themselves up before they join me again but I'm really excited that I do get to spend some of our engagement anniversary together. Probably just about the same as I spent with them on the day we actually got engaged which was the first day of camp 2021.

Now though I am going to say good night. And I hope you all have a wonderful evening and a beautiful Friday. Tomorrow marks the end of the first week of camp. I think we did pretty good overall. I hope you all sleep great tonight and take care of yourself. Until tomorrow

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Ya know, I truly hope Miss Renesmee Carlie Cullen fully dedicates herself to just....being as out there and iconic as possible

first things first- ANYTHING with the loch ness monster on it, she owns. Posters, shirts, jackets, shoes, folders, buttons, iron-ons, there is always at least 5 pieces of Nessie merch on her at all times

once she gets old enough to start high school, the cover story is her and Edward are siblings that Carlisle and Esme took in, and sometimes her classmates will ask her what her biological parents were like and she will flat out be like 'oh, they're vampires' and Edward and Bella are like. 5 feet away trying not to scream

every Halloween she'll show up to school in an elaborate Nosferatu costume

goes out of her way to photobomb people in increasingly ridiculous ways so there will Always be a photographic record of her and in like 100 years she can get a huge kick out of teens on the internet trying to make a conspiracy about her

joins as many school clubs as she can, even if she has no interest in them- she just Really wants a concrete record of herself to exist lmao

ICONIC at school theater though. One of those demon theater kids that come to rehearsal purely to cause chaos and nothing else, but her voice is incredible so she secures every lead. One time she somehow managed to star in a show while also playing in the school band for it- her classmates still have no idea how she pulled it off

Always brings blood out in public in a CLEAR THERMOS and it stresses her family out so much but everyone else thinks she's just like, weirdly into tomato juice so the Cullens can't stop her

to everyone's surprise...her biggest chaos enabler is Jasper lmao. everyone thought he'd be a logical, responsible uncle but they're just. A Problem together. He'll 100% assist her in any prank she wants to pull, he gets her fake id's when she wants to sneak into a club with friends, he bails her out of jail without telling her parents, they figured out if she gets high and he reads her feelings he'll get high too and it's. So fucking funny.

she's always carrying some random instrument around school- like for a while it's a guitar or a harmonica, fine, but then she'll start lugging a cello around, a tuba (she doesn't even play, she stole it off a guy who was annoying her) and it escalates until one day she's wheeling a piano around the building. no one's even sure how she got in in the doors of the school. She keeps running kids over in the hallway with it

You know the Catherine Tate Lauren Cooper skit with David Tennant? Where she's being a terrible student and then perfectly recites Shakespeare? 100% Nessie

when she starts getting dates Jacob keeps trying to wing man and be over supportive and give her a ton of girl advice and it's embarrassing as hell so one day when he was on a spiel about How To Woo A Lady she looks him in the eyes and goes 'oh really? did that work on my mom?' and the Cullens fucking LOSE IT. Jacob had to go live in the woods for a few days because he couldn't cope

Emmet and Jasper: arrive to school in their jeep. Rose and Alice: arrive in a convertible. Edward: arrives in his dumb volvo. Bella and Jake: arrive to school on motorcycles. Nessie: arrives to school on a unicycle while juggling

one year she ended up getting nominated for prom queen and Edward read the minds of the teachers tallying the votes so he knew she won and he and Bella were so excited!! they're like we're gonna take so many pictures of our baby looking like a princess! And then she emerges from her room, actually drenched in pigs blood. Like she just did it to herself and went to the dance and accepted her crown like that

she regularly commits crimes against fashion. If she comes out of her room and sees Alice contemplating turning herself over to the Volturi, she KNOWS she's picked a great look

somehow gets ahold of Aro's cell number and sends him selfies of her blatantly breaking vampire laws captioned 'whatcha gonna do'. he keeps blocking her but she keeps managing to get through to him somehow

she illegally sells soda out of her locker and does people's homework for cash, while also paying other people to do her homework for her. she organizes every single senior prank. she's never gotten a detention in her whole immortal life because every teacher just Adores her for some reason

had 100% used her powers for deserved evil before. Like, if someone's being a dick at school, she'll sneak into their room at night and give them nightmarea threatening them to be a better person lol

sometimes she'll show up at the hospital unannounced and ask Carlisle, in front of his coworkers, 'yo can I raid the blood bank?'

her bedroom looks like a library. every wall, floor to ceiling books.

she's been publishing trashy romance novels under a fake name for almost 40 years now and no one in her family knows

one birthday Jacob takes her on a trip to vegas and they get wasted, at some point they were laughing about how ridiculous their lives are and they're like 'wouldn't it be fucking hilarious if we had a baby'. they then black out, hangover style, and wake up like a week later with a payment on her card to a fertility clinic. Jacob's like 😱 and Ness is just like 'you get to be the one to explain this to my parents'

Their kid is absolutely hilarious, they were correct, and at some point they realized 'wait...drinks blood..doesn't sparkle...can shape shift...we've somehow created a classic pop culture vampire' lmao

Edward had to threaten them to get them to not name the kid Vladimir

Also to be clear: Nessie and Jacob have the EXACT same dynamic as Will and Grace. that's canon.

says its her goal to star in a live action all female production of mamma mia and Carlisle is like 'honey you know you can't do anything on broadway or in hollywood' and she's like, 'no, in real life. I'm gonna go to greece and attract a bunch of women with abba songs' and he's like,,,,,ah

she loves all music but she goes out of her way to Only play stuff she knows Edward hates lmao

one day she remembers she doesn't need to breathe and can see under water and just. books herself a ticket to scotland and Finds The Loch Ness Monster

she actually personally finds a lot of monsters and cryptids like her hybrid aura just attracts all kind of weird shit and she LOVES it. She stops writing trashy romance novels and starts writing autobiographies of her traveling and hanging out with paranormal beings and everyone just assumes its fiction so she becomes a best selling fantasy author lmao

100% she's very into witchy stuff and only like...half in a trendy way. She's like what if on top of everything I've got going on I can cast spells? Think I deserve that power

when she's a couple decades old she catches Edward looking grossed out one day and she asks him what's up and he's like 'I really dont need to hear what creepy teachers think about my daughter' and she's like. oh. Dad we are gonna get SO MANY pedophiles arrested shdndjdn she gets him to expose teachers and she baits them then calls the police. queen.

She finds out she can get tattoos but they fade completely out of her skin within 5 years so she's always getting crazy tats

posts selfies on social media of her just like. hanging out with mountain lions or chilling on top of the space needle. her classmates think they're all photoshopped obvi but it drives her family insane

imagine you're 15 and you're on a nice hike in the woods and you come across your one classmate half naked, sacrificing a bear in some ritual, blood dripping down her face, bigfoot chilling on the rocks behind her filming the ritual on her phone...like on one hand, what would you do, but on the other hand. you've known this girl for a bit and you aren't surprised at all

anyway. stan Nessie Cullen.

[surveysonfleek]

1619.

What do you do with your plastic grocery bags after you unload your things? save them and reuse them

Are you afraid of being electrocuted? not something i’ve really thought about but yeahhhh that would hurt haha

Have you ever slept in a water bed? no :( i’ve alwaysss wanted one as a kid and obviously never got it. are they even a thing anymore?

What do you think about Britney Spears comeback? good on her! i’m glad she’s finally free. not sure about a music ‘comeback’ though

Ever bite your tongue twice in a row while eating something? not twice

Do you cook your own meals or do your parents? both

Did you sleep in or wake up early today? i woke up 2 minutes before my alarm went off

How do you feel about having sex during your menstrual period? i prefer not to tbh

How do you feel about anal sex? never say never but i dont think im interested

Does your ex have a job? i dont know anyone personally thats an adult that doesnt. no one can afford to not have a job when youre living in a city like sydney

Have you ever slept in a car? yes

Do you think the drinking age should be lowered to 18? its already 18 here

What was the last term of endearment you used (babe, hun, dear, etc)? love

What were you doing the last time you were in the bathroom? peeing

Without naming any names, say something to somebody. stop complaning

How often do you use Flickr? never. i did back in the day when tumblr was more popular

Have you ever peed while on the phone? yeah

Have you ever been on a blind date? no

Do you have a crush on the last person you texted? hes my fiance. more than a crush

Have you ever got into an argument with the last person you kissed? yes

Has anyone made you cry in the last 3 days? no

Have you ever liked somebody who was nice to you, but horrible to everyone else? haha nope

Share 3 nice memories you have of the person you fell hardest for. the day he proposed. such a funny feeling, it sorta gave us a spark that we hadnt felt in a loooong long time. our first trip alone together which was in san francisco. still one of my favourite cities of all time. it’ll be 10 years this year which is crazy :( any time we visit our land together. hoping we can have a house built and move in by the end of this year.

What did you do yesterday? worked

Choose 5 friends, and briefly describe their relationship status. the five people i thought of are all taken except one

Have you ever made any of your friends cry? i dont think i have actually! 

Does anyone disgust you? no

Is there anything about your life at the moment that you’d like to change? only one thing and thats my diet and exercise. iim such a lazy ass

Do you regret anything you’ve done in the last 7 days? nope

Do you keep a diary? And if you do, has anyone ever read it? no

What would you do about someone who was sending you mixed messages? id find a time to speak to them one on one and ask them straight up whats going on

What are the 3 unhealthiest things you’ve eaten most recently? chips, soda and ritz

How’s your appetite atm? full

Is anything annoying you at the moment? yeah. i have some wax melts on and it smells amazing but now its too overwhelming and giving me a headache

Out of all the conversations you’ve had recently, which one has made you smile or laugh the most? i was talking to my workmates today, our workplace does id tags which lists our favourite food and movie and we were going through everyones, it was hilarious.

Describe the last situation in which you found yourself feeling awkward. meh everyday

What makes someone a good friend? at this point in my life everyones really busy. i love my friends who i dont have to speak to everyday but the love is still there when we catch up. and its also a two way street, its not always me or them reaching out

Do you look decent in your most recent photograph? haha no

When was the last time you wanted to laugh, but felt like you couldn’t? i forgot haha

If they decided to stop making chocolate tomorrow, would you care? it would be a shock but id stock up and get over it

What’s your relationship with the last person who put their arms around you? my fiance

What were you doing at 4 o'clock this afternoon? showering

What will you be doing in 30 mins? tiktok probably

Was today better than yesterday? it was kinda the same tbh. today is better because its nearly the weekend (i queue my posts)

Will tomorrow be better than today? sure will be! friyay!

[staygold-ponyboycurtis]

Another short story of mine!!! Let me know what you think :)

"When Sandy went to Florida… it wasn't Soda, Ponyboy. He told me he loved her, but I guess she didn't love him the way he thought she did, because it wasn't him." Sandy confronts Sodapop about her pregnancy. What really happened between them?

He could see her Mustang slow down at a stop sign, then turn left onto the road. He smiled. The car was a light, powdery blue color. Light and sweet. Like her. Nobody else in town owned one like it. Her father had bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday and he happily brought it back to its glory. She slowed the car into the driveway. It raised his spirits a bit. After all this time, he was still crazy about her. Just seeing her put him in a better mood. It was funny to him how other people could have that effect.

Sodapop slung the dirty rag over his shoulder and wiped his calloused, oily hands on his jeans. Darry had complained about a ticking noise that clicked every time he pressed the brakes in his truck. Sure, Sodapop could've had Steve fix it for him - God knows that he was more talented with cars. But Soda needed something to ease his mind. He was anxious and worried sick and felt like a caged animal in that house. He hadn't worked in days. He needed to occupy himself. There was something methodical about working on a truck.

He leaned up against the car as Sandy hopped out. She looked hurried. Frantic. He furrowed his brows, unsure of what to make of it. She was wearing her red skirt – a favorite of his. He thought about how it matched her eyes; red-rimmed and swollen. Like she had cried over something.

She took a good look at him and cocked her head to the side. "Sodapop," she said slowly. "You don't look good at all. Have you been sleeping?" He turned his head and caught his reflection in the window. He stared at himself in all of his blood-shot, dark-circled, unkempt glory. He wore his anguish like a polished medal.

He scoffed, shaking his head. Ironic. She was preaching to the choir here. "Ponyboy is still gone and we haven't heard anything in a while. We can't get in touch with him and it's killin' me. It really is."

She nodded once, understanding the emotional toll Pony's absence was inevitably taking on him. She had gotten a sob-ridden earful a few nights before. She had gathered the courage on the way here to say what she needed to say. No going back now. Just say it, she thought. Just get it over with.

He stepped closer to her. He reached his hand out to touch her face and stroke her cheek like he always did. She winced under his touch. "Where've you been?" Soda asked softly. It sounded whiny and petulant. "I called you every single day. Your mom said you were out and your dad said you were at a friend's house – I called Cindy and she said you were-"

"I'm pregnant, Soda," she said curtly. It came out quick, as if it were one syllable. Like ripping a Band-Aid off. She didn't want to cover up her failures. She looked at Soda for a split second, then back to her feet. Her mind was instantly reeling.

He stood there for a moment. Shocked. Confused. Excited. Everything else in between. In hindsight, he figured that he also looked pretty foolish. His eyes lit up instantaneously. Sandy may as well have told him that he won the lottery. But that was just Sodapop's way.

She worked over the look on his face and stepped backwards cautiously. A look that said, No, you're not getting the point.

"Sandy!" he shouted excitedly, throwing the rag onto the ground and rushing towards her. "Do you know what this means?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Sodapop, no- it's not- I'm not… what I'm trying to say is you're not-"

"I mean, we're both a little young, but everything happens for a reason, right? You can move in with us. You can finish high school and by the time the baby comes-" he rambled rapidly.

"Sodapop, will you listen to me for a second? I can't-"

"Why aren’t you excited, Sandy? You love kids-"

"You're not the father."

He stopped in his tracks. "What?" he managed out in a betrayed, weak voice. She saw the liveliness drain from his demeanor. Like popping a balloon with a sewing needle. Quick. To the point.

This time, she was the one stepping closer to him. As if the limited space would make the point clearer. She reached her arm out and he recoiled. His eyes bore holes into her.

"What do you mean?" he asked again in a louder, more demanding voice.

"It was a mistake, Sodapop," she said. "I didn't think this would happen."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. A classic Darry reflex. "Who was it?" The idea of violence crossed his mind then. He wasn't above a fist-fight.

"Soda, I don't think-"

"Who, Sandy?" he asked, an awful mix of sadness and anger in his voice.

"It doesn't matter, Sodapop," she said quietly. "It doesn't change anything."

"Did you tell him?" he asked. "That you were pregnant? Did you tell the father?" The words hurt coming out of his mouth. They just plain hurt.

She paused for a moment. Looked him, at her feet, then him again. Took a breath, tried to say something, then lost her words. She noticed his face and weakly mustered out, "No. And I'm not going to."

"Then let me do it."

She shook her head, confused. "Sodapop, I don't understand. What do you mean?"

He put his face close to hers. "If you don't tell the guy, then no one will know, Sandy. You can have the baby and I can raise it like my own. As far as anyone has to know, it's my kid." It seemed brilliant. He commended himself for coming up with such an ingenious plan. Could it be that simple?

She turned away from him, towards the car. He wasn't getting it. He never would. To him, it wasn't about her cheating or being unfaithful. He would forgive her for her infidelity. It was about her living a disadvantaged life as a single teen mother – a life he didn't think she deserved. And she would never be worthy of someone like that.

"And what, Sodapop? Live here with your brothers? Live off of your paycheck at the DX? It wouldn't be enough."

"Then let's get married," he said. "Get our own place. I'll get a better job. You can graduate."

She opened the door to her car. "My parents would never approve, Soda. You know that."

He threw his hands up in the air. "Who gives a shit what your parents think? I bet they weren't too hot about you gettin' knocked up. Who the hell are they to tell you what to do with your life?"

"Soda," she said, urging him to lower his voice. "You're making a scene."

"Well, hell, Sandy! What else are you going to do?"

"I'm moving to Florida. To live with my grandmother. Tomorrow. I'm going to raise the baby out there." She gripped the top of the door.

"You can't do that," Sodapop pleaded. "You'd have a better life here. With me."

She scoffed incredulously. Her eyes filled with tears. "C'mon, Sodapop. Wake up and take a look around. We both know that's not true."

He rubbed his eyes. Hearing this news – especially now – shot his emotions to shit. He couldn't control it. Sadness wracked his whole body. She started to climb in her car. He walked towards her. Was it really worth the pleading? Her mind was already made up. It was painfully obvious that his feelings were not considered in her decision-making. He was merely collateral damage.

"So this is goodbye?" he asked, trying not to choke on his tears.

She rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, I guess it is."

Sodapop propped his elbows on top of the car. He covered his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," he murmured into his palms.

"I can't mess up your life, Sodapop," she said. "This is my problem, not yours. You don't deserve to get dragged through the mud for my mistakes."

He stepped away and looked at her. He shook his head in disbelief. "Did you ever even love me?"

She started the car. "We're sixteen, Soda. Did we even know what love was?"

He started to walk towards the house. He thought about Darry's selflessness when he took custody of him and Pony. He thought of his parents – how they lived together and died together. Unified. He thought of his dreams of marrying Sandy - having kids and growing old together. Was he too naïve? He had known what love was. Did he anymore?

"Goodbye, Sandy," he said blankly. He ran his fingers through his hair and watched her buckle her seatbelt. She put her hand on the door and turned towards him.

"Thank you, Soda. For everything. I know you'll never be able to forgive me, but I couldn't leave without telling you. I'm sorry."

He nodded once. He wouldn't look her in the eyes. He had lost so much this week. He could almost laugh at his misfortune. Not bothering to see her out, he walked back inside. Had he been brought back down to Earth in that moment, he may have gotten one last glance at her. He didn't realize it would be the last time he ever saw her. Perhaps he still wouldn't have looked back.

The lights were on when he walked in. Darry was hanging up the phone in the kitchen, probably calling someone about Ponyboy and Johnny. He had left no stone unturned. Two-Bit swore he could be the F.B.I's most valuable tool in a crisis. For how bad Sodapop looked, he figured that Darry looked twenty times worse. He looked three times his age.

He had the sudden urge to give him the tightest hug he could physically muster. Instead, he stood in place, frozen. Astonished.

"Hey, Soda," Darry said bleakly. He was worn out and distracted. "Did you fix that damn clicking?"

"Yeah." It sounded faraway. Absent-minded.

"I saw Sandy pull up to see you. What'd she have to say?"

He cringed at the question. Innocent coming from Darry, but painful nonetheless. He planned to fill him in when it didn't hurt so much to think about. He exhaled, leaning his back against the wall. He shook his head, fighting tears. "Nothing that I didn't already know about myself."

Darry looked at him, confused. Before he was able to open his mouth and pry, the shrill ring of the phone pierced the room. He rushed over to it, gripping it with white knuckles. Soda watched from the living room.

"Hello?...Yes, this is him….Are you sure?...Are you sure?...Of course….He's there now?...Oh, thank God….Yes….Yes…We'll be right there." He slammed the phone onto the receiver and turned towards Sodapop, beaming.

"They found him, Sodapop," he said. Soda was ripped out of his misery for a split second. For a brief moment, he forgot. Ponyboy is alright, he repeated to himself over and over again. He's alive.

"They're at St. Michael's Hospital downtown. Let's go," Darry boomed, rushing to pull his boots on. But Soda didn't move. He stood plastered to the wall, like he was nailed there. Darry looked at him skeptically.

"Did you hear me, Soda? Let's go." He walked over to him, touching his arm gingerly. "Are you okay, bud?"

Sodapop looked in his eyes. He was jittery and panicky; roaring with anxiousness. The room spun with the gravity of his broken heart. Did knowing Ponyboy was safe change that? No, he thought. His heart still stung. It was a different kind of heartbreak.

"I'm gonna puke," he hollered, quickly pushing Darry to the side and racing to the bathroom just in time to empty his guts into the toilet.

Darry followed him into the bathroom, patting his back as he coughed. "Alright," he said sternly. "You're telling me in the car."

[3starsquinn]

Study Mary || Connor & Orion

Timing: Weekend of 10/17, right before Rio’s birthday

Setting: The Scribrary

Parties: Rio and @connorspiracy

Summary: Rio gets the chance to show off the Scribrary to Connor so they can try to research Bloody Mary. Their search yields minimal results.

Orion has grown accustomed to this. Apparently, the friends that he had been making around town were all just involved in the supernatural as he was. Rio had lists of things he needed to look into at the Scribrary, why not had a ghost of legend come to life to his queue. He pulled into a parking lot on the campus where he was supposed to meet Connor and sat in his car until Connor got there. “Hey!” He waved, “So the building is in the woods behind the campus. Cars can’t get there anymore, so it’s a bit of a walk. The place isn’t exactly… modern. I’ve been trying to clean the place out but it’s really outdated. You ready?”

Connor had several Go Pros on him, along with his regular camera and phone. He didn’t know exactly how much Rio wanted him to film, if anything, but he was curious about this place, and was interested to get it on camera. People made documentaries about crappy things all the time. Why should this be any different? “What, no state of the art streaming set ups in every room?” Connor shook his head. “You should be ashamed,” he teased, giving Rio a wink. “Alright. Lead the way then. Blanche and Adam mentioned you’re kind of the book bloke, so I figured if anyone can find something on Bloody Mary, it’d be you.” He followed wherever Rio led, interested to see the place where Rio housed his books. “Isn’t it a pain in the arse coming here all the time? You ever thought about digitalising it?” 

Orion led the way through the woods. The terrain wasn’t perfect, but it had been worn down from the myriad of trips that Rio and some others had taken to the place. Although he had been more open and willing to show the place to people he still kept access pretty limited. As it was, he had only actually shown a few people how to get into the building. Everyone else needed an escort. “Ha ha. Very funny. I haven’t really gotten the chance to set up internet yet. It’d be a bit difficult to explain that to Spectrum.” Regardless, he appreciated the compliments from Blanche and Adam. He wasn’t sure he believed the kind words, but it was still flattering nonetheless. “I’m pretty used to the hike now, actually. Before I moved in with Winston I sort of lived here for a bit. Unofficially.” Rio’s favorite part about showing the building off to people was getting to the empty clearing where it sat shrouded by magic. “Actually Winston and I are working on digitizing it! They’re building a website and everything and I’m working on moving things over but… well you’ll see for yourself. It’s a lot of stuff to switch over.” Rio moved towards the rotting tree, using the same method his uncle had shown him so many years ago to make the building visible. Once he was done it was as if an invisible fog began to lift as the building slowly became visible. “So uh- The building looks old but I promise it’s safe. The library is a little cleaner than the rest of the space.”

Connor followed, grateful he hadn’t worn any of his nicer clothes for this trip. “This town and its bloody forests,” he joked, grunting as a branch snagged on his jeans. “How’d you even find this place?” It didn’t seem like the sort of place you’d stumble on by accident. Which was probably a good thing, because having all this information out in the woods stuck him as pretty risky. “Winston’s your room mate, yeah? I think Blanche or someone mentioned they’re into computers and gaming and stuff.” He watched as Rio found the way in, raising an impressed eyebrow. “Damn, should’ve filmed this part so I can come back later without you,” he teased. “I’m not scared of rotting old buildings, mate. Look who you’re talking to.” He turned on the GoPro to take some shots, and pulled out his phone too for good measure. He’d probably set up a steady-cam when they were settled in. “Are there ghosts here? It seems haunted as fuck,” he snickered, but followed Rio inside, wide-eyed and impressed. “Damn, I could spend hours exploring this place.” 

“Well this building used to belong to a group of people called the Scribes,” Orion began explaining, though he didn’t want to focus too much on them and bore Connor to sleep, “They used to keep records of the supernatural. My uncle wanted to be one of them. He showed me this place when I was a kid.” Rio was actually surprised that Connor hadn’t met Winston yet given the way the town usually worked, “Yeah! I moved in with them and our roommate Ricky a few months ago. Winston’s a genius with all the computer stuff, way better than me.” Probably not the best resume seller when Connor had just officially hired him to help film and edit, but Rio tended to be painfully honest. Especially when it came to complimenting Winston. “Ha! Okay, yeah fair point. You are alarmingly unafraid of sketchy architecture.” Rio opened the front doors and made his way down the hallways, winding back through the building and towards the library. “Your guess is as good as mine, honestly. I’ve never seen but, but I guess I wouldn’t. You might like to hear that this place has a ton of rooms that are locked and I still can’t get open.”

Rio wiggled his eyebrows and grinned, clearly something that might pique Connor’s curiosity. At the end of the hallway, Rio pushed the big door open into the massive library, book shelves going two more levels and sprawling from floor to ceiling. “Yeah it’s uh- pretty crazy right? This is why I’m still working on digitizing” Rio shrugged but found one of the old work desks and jumped up on it, pulling his laptop free from his bag and opening it up. “But I do have the place mostly organized. My guess is we should start in the section about ghosts and spirits?”

"Oh yeah. I think I've heard of 'em. Used to safeguard supernatural knowledge, have big old archives and stuff. I guess that makes sense." Connor knew about ghosts, demons and the varying types of supernatural to the extent that was expected for someone who made his living filming videos about it, but when they made their way to the massive library, he was struck with the realisation that no matter how much he tried to learn, there'd always be more to know. The fact both excited and intimidated him. "This is sick, mate," he said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm as he scoured the shelves. "Right, where’s that section then? We should start with Bloody Mary, yeah? And then maybe possessions and polters, see if we can find something that'll help Nadia and my mate." 

Orion liked seeing people’s reactions to the place. It reminded him of his own reaction when his uncle had brought him here so many years ago. Rio had always been fascinated with books and learning, so his excitement wasn’t surprising. But he liked seeing how his friends reacted to the space. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.” Rio laughed, pointing over one of the tables, “I keep a hoard of snacks under the table over there. I got soda and junk food if you want to grab anything.” Rio would swoop by and grab something once he figured out exactly where they would start looking. Though he was far from ever completing his goal of completely digitizing the place, Rio had gotten the place fairly organized and had mostly made sure that things had stayed organized. To the point that Rio asked when people borrowed things they just returned them on the tables so Rio could be in charge of putting them back.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be an entire journal labelled Bloody Mary. But until then I think we will just have to scour the section on spirits and hope for the best.” Orion wished he had something more concrete, but for now he could only hop up from the table and lead Connor towards the ghost section, taking a small detour to grab a drink before doing so. The ghost section stayed on the first floor, mostly because it was one of the more common ones he had pulled information for. Side effects of his friendship with Blanche no doubt. “Pull anything that looks like it might be useful and we can start going through them, okay? Some of the old Scribes kept journals and I’ll grab them just in case something like this has appended before.” 

"I love places like this," Connor enthused, hands running along the spines of the dusty books on the shelves. He could see why Rio and Winston were having a tough job digitalizing everything. "It's like a supernatural treasure trove. Do they have anything else cool? Old artefacts or anything?" His inner supernatural geek bubbled to the surface for a few moments before he remembered why they were here, and he gave a shrug. "Something cool to look into after we sent Bloody Mary Bloody Packing," he said with a goofy smile. "It can't all be doom and gloom." Connor had a knack for finding the silver lining in dark situations. He liked to think it was part of what made him fun to watch. 

"Ghosts and spirits and ghoulies... but first, snacks." He went to where Rio had pointed, a bag of gummy bears and Lays potato chips. He'd just have to wipe his hands before touching the books. He munched on Rio's offerings as he perused the shelves, doing his best to contain his curiosity and only dig out what they actually needed. "Here's one on Malevolent Spirits. Maybe she's in there." He placed it on the pile, along with whatever Rio had pulled. "Ghosts of Scottish Legend? Sure, why not." Within a few minutes, they had quite the pile to get started on. 

“Me too, obviously. I still have a whole makeshift bedroom set up just in case I stay here too late.” Orion laughed, happy to have another person to share the knowledge with. “This place has a ton of stuff that I still don’t know about, honestly. I’ve always just been too afraid to explore the place by myself. Plus some of the doors are magically sealed. I can’t get them open.” Rio hadn’t put much thought into trying to get them open, honestly. He was curious by nature, but that curiosity wasn’t nearly as strong as Rio’s fear of danger. Way too many things could be behind that door.

Rio didn’t waste any time once they had built their stack of books. Rio wasn’t much fun once he dove into research. He had an ability to completely block out the world while he was skimming the pages. Rio flipped through pages quickly, scanning for keywords that might give any inclination that Bloody Mary had shown up before. Bonus points if there’s a way to get rid of her. Or them. Did evil spirits identify with a certain gender? Rio wasn’t willing to interrupt his reading to entertain the question. He finally perked up from his spot once he had find something interesting, mindlessly waving his hand and smacking against the table top to grab Connor’s attention. “Hey. Look at this. This chapter talks about a female spirit that anyone can see. Not just mediums or undead. The description sounds eerily like how I would describe Bloody Mary.” He handed the book of to Connor to take a look at and see for himself.

"A bedroom?" Connor teased, giving him a playfully flirtatious snicker. "My book collection brings all the boys to the yard?" Luckily, Connor wasn't actually trying to get laid, so he didn't really care if his jokes were shit. "Damn. I'd make it a challenge to open those doors." A task for another time, definitely, but one Connor certainly wouldn't forget. "How'd you come to know about this place and be the designated book-lord, anyway?" he asked, still snacking as they worked through pages, and pages, and more pages. 

Interest piqued, hopes perhaps just a little bit higher than they'd been before coming in, Connor leaned in to get a closer look at the passage Rio was talking about. "Did they give her a name? I've looked up 'Bloody Mary' in a bunch of these indexes and most of them so far take me to passages that say she's just fictional." 

“Ha ha. Hilarious.” Orion rolled his eyes at Connor but laughed. He handled the shameless flirting surprisingly well, considering how he used to be whenever someone pretty so much as spoke to him, let alone flirt. But Rio supposed a lot of that anxiety was taken away once he had started dating Winston. “It’s more like a community room anyways. It let my Scribes have a place to crash if they were deep into research. The place has a bunch of bunk beds.” Something from Connor’s tone of voice told him that the room research would be coming up at another, less chaotic time. “My uncle knew about the Scribes. He was training to be one right before the Scribes bit the dust. He brought me here when I was a kid. I think I might have been the only one in town that even knew the place was here until I started to show it to people.”

“Um, give me a minute” Orion pulled the book back towards him to scan through further, flipping pages until he finally found the word, “A theory. Right here, he says that it has a lot of similarities to modern day myths about Bloody Mary. I don’t think this guy ever confirmed anything though.” Rio flipped a few more pages, “Looks like he did some sort of study. Tried to gather a bunch of people to see who could see bloody mary.” Rio passed the book off to Connor again.

Connor edged closer to Rio to get a good look at the book. “Lemme see that…” He replaced whatever book he’d been nose-deep in with the one Rio had been reading. “You know, I think this might be her.” He read through the rest of the page, his eyes zeroing in on something down near the bottom. “Oh, mate…” He pointed to the passage, reading it out loud. “The spirit targeted only those who had taken human life; those who were innocent were spared.” He flipped through to the next page, which was so heavily water damage that it was barely more than a blur. “Great. The part about how they got rid of her is gone.” 

Though it hardly helped many others in this town, Orion breathed a sigh of relief that Bloody Mary only targeted murderers. It was a bit of a relief to know that he didn’t have to worry about the ghost trying to kill him. Whatever confidence he had dropped when he realized that the same couldn’t be side for the majority of his friend group. He knew for sure that Winston, Blanche and Nell had been involved in the resurrection of Nell’s sister. He also knew exactly what they had done in order to bring her back. And Rio wasn’t naive enough to believe that Adam had never taken a life. The anxiety spiked again and Rio forced it down by focusing instead on Connor’s words. “Great. Water damage. Of course.” Rio sighed and slid off of the table to grab his laptop. “I’m going to see if there’s anything else in here by the same Scribe that wrote that. If we can’t find anything then maybe… try to find some sort of spellcaster? If this thing was summoned, maybe someone knows ways to reverse it.”

Connor’s throat was dry, his cheeks warm as the feeling of concern overcame him. “Does that mean those high school kids who’d summoned her killed someone?” he asked, mostly to himself. “Or maybe the rule doesn’t apply if you summon her. Like, you sort of take that risk upon yourself by bringing her into the world.” He pulled out his phone to take a photo of the pages, sending them along to Nell, Adam, Jasmine and Blanche. “That’s a good idea.” Unlike Rio, he knew nothing of any potential murderers among his friends, but his interaction with Adam down at the river stuck out like a sore thumb in his mind. Adam didn’t know if he’d killed that girl or not. He’d been too drunk to remember. It had been an accident, but maybe Mary wouldn’t see it that way. “We really need to find a way to get rid of her.”

“Good question. I’ve heard summoning stuff is dangerous anyways. Maybe they did something wrong and that’s how they ended up dead. Either way it’s sad.” Orion couldn’t imagine willingly being part of something like that back when he was in high school. But he didn’t know the context of their situation. Regardless, now Rio and Connor and whoever else was around were stuck with cleaning up the mess. “Well, I can tell it’s going to be a long night. Maybe I can talk Blanche into picking up a pizza and meeting us here. Turn this into a study party? I have lots of energy drinks. Plus beds if you want to crash part way through the night!” Maybe they’d get lucky and come across something useful.

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The First David Job

leverage 1.12

sophie organized the notecards for the intervention

- - - - -

Sophie: Drunk again?

Nate: Are we still unclear? I'm a functioning alcoholic, you know? And the trick is not to get hung up on the "alcoholic." But celebrate the "functioning" part of the sentence.

- - - - -

Nate: Yeah, I- I know all this.

Hardison: No, no, no. See, while you are well-versed in dead-guy art, I myself am not. My entire criminal career is based on technology built after 1981. So I am riveted. Quite so. Please, do go on.

- - - - -

Hardison: Man, am I glad I don't have to break in there. That is one sick security system.

Parker: What, with our tools? Give me three days of prep, it'd be like taking diamonds from the French national bank. That's like taking candy from a baby.

Hardison: I got it.

Parker: A very easy thing to do.

Hardison: Got...it

I love her

- - - - -

Parker: Oh, look, little buddy. (picks up fake statue) That's your new home!

Hardison: Can you please not play with the little naked man? Please.

Parker: I'm not. (sets the statue down)

- - - - -

Eliot: You guys--you know each other?

Ian: Of course. Maggie is Nate’s ex-wife.

Eliot (nervously): Oh.

eliot being completely RATTLED lmfao

- - - - -

Parker: Which conversation do you want to listen to?

Hardison: That's what stereo was invented for.

- - - - -

Hardison: Now, Nate, is Maggie a very good Art Inspector?

Nate: Yeah, she's the best.

Parker: No, no, no, we can't let your ex-wife anywhere near our little naked man!

parker: don’t talk to me or my naked son ever again

- - - - -

Hardison: No, no. Nate, we haven't done any prep. We don't have our tools.

Parker: You want me to break into a secure storage facility with whatever I can scrounge up at the buffet table?

Nate: Pretty much, yeah.

Parker: Cool. I think Sophie left some dresses in here. (turns to look through things)

Hardison: I'll go, too. I, uh, I got a white shirt. I can go wait staff.

(Parker takes off her shirt and Hardison looks the other way, turning the fake statue away from her as well)

hardison is a bashful lil respectful boy and we stan him for it

- - - - -

parker walking in in that amazing dress and everyone looking? good, it’s what she deserves (I’m gay)

- - - - -

Parker: Door's got a silent alarm. (to Sophie) You should hide. (to Hardison) We should pretend to make out.

Hardison: Make what?

(Parker grabs Hardison and they begin to kiss and she pushes the door open a little)

[Founder’s Reception]

(Nate and Eliot turn to look at the building as the sounds of making out come over the comms)

[Museum]

(Sophie goes around a corner out of sight)

Hardison: Let's talk about-- A little bit--

(Parker and Hardison continue to make out. Two guards approach and seem embarrassed. One clears his throat)

Guard: You, uh, bumped the door there. Sets the alarm off.

Hardison: You know what?

Parker: Oh.

Hardison: We, you know how it is.

Parker: Sorry.

(guards walk away and Sophie rejoins them)

Parker: Makeup. (takes makeup from Sophie) Come on. (goes through door)

Hardison: Can we talk about the pretending? That was nice.

(Sophie pushes him after Parker and returns to the party)

poor hardison’s heart must be beating wildly

- - - - -

Eliot: Which one of you did she kiss?

(Sophie sighs)

IMAGINE IF IT HAD GONE THE OTHER WAY THO

- - - - -

parker’s laser grid dodging skills are legendary + her delight when she stands up to see the first david !!!

also we stan a QUEEN who broke into a vault with only a glass of ice, a roll of aluminum foil, gum, and eyeshadow (and a fake makeout sesh)

- - - - -

Hardison: You did not just think about this on the way in from the van.

Parker: Some people do crosswords

- - - - -

Maggie: I-I just, I’m just trying to tell you that I still care.

Nate: No, I-I was –

Maggie: Care what happens to you, I mean. I've never stopped caring about you, Nate

maggie is such a genuinely good person and we love her for it

- - - - -

Parker: Ready?

(Hardison uses his phone to access remote system)

Parker: Come on, come on.

[Parking Lot]

(alarms begin to blare an all the cars)

[Security Control Room]

Guard 1: Hey, the vibration alarm just went off in the restoration room.

Guard 2: Wait. (points at monitor) Look. The car alarms all went off in the parking lot.

Guard 1: Little earthquakes.

Guard 2: Just another tremor.

that’s so smart tho???

- - - - -

Parker tosses the real David to Hardison who catches it)

Hardison: Wha-you-- Don't throw the David.

Parker: You caught it, didn't you?

Hardison: You're crazy

I would have had a HEART ATTACK

- - - - -

Maggie: Adam!

Eliot (turns): Uh, yeah?

(Eliot stops as Nate continues away)

Maggie: Let me give you my number.

Eliot: Great.

[Leverage HQ]

Eliot: I'm sorry your wife gave me her phone number.

Nate: Don't want to talk about it.

Eliot: I-It was only to coordinate where we were gonna go anyway.

Nate: Not talking about it.

hardison is enjoying it so much in the background dnjsjajsjsnnsnn

- - - - -

(Parker puts the statue on the table between them)

Parker: We just stole an $8 million statue on, like, our day off! (she shakes their shoulders happily)

SHES BABY

- - - - -

Pilot: Uh, work? W-what are you talking about?

Hardison: Spot inspection. FAA. Now, look, I want to see this plane's TCAS, VRSM, and 8.1 FM spacing in operation to make sure it's fully functional and in compliance with the new FAA regulations.

Pilot: New regulations?

(Hardison takes out a pen and writes on a clipboard)

Hardison: Pilot unaware of latest regulations.

Pilot: Oh, the new regulations. Of course. Please, come this way. I'll take you right up.

Hardison: Oh, no, no. It's cool, it's cool. I don't need to go up. Just taxi me around the building.

Pilot: Taxi? I thought you need to get up in the air.

Hardison (writes on clipboard): Uncomfortable with black authority figures.

Pilot: Sir, please don't write that.

Hardison: Oh, I will write a letter to your mama if I feel like it.

Pilot: This way, please. It's in order. I-I promise. This way. It's okay. (to copilot) FAA, he's a hard-ass.

(copilot tries to get bags)

Pilot: Screw the bags. Let's go!

this was really funny but also SUCH A GOOD WAY to con people

- - - - -

quinn’s hair did nothing for him in this episode. i said what i said.

- - - - -

(Sophie and Nate get into his car and leave while Quinn continues to take pictures from the open door of the hanger. Eliot walks up behind him)

Eliot: I'm gonna count to three.

(Quinn turns and hits Eliot hard, knocking him across the floor)

Eliot: Nate, we're blown. W—

Nate: Eliot, what’s--

(several feet away, Eliot’s earpiece is lying on the floor. Eliot tries to scramble away, but Quinn kicks him in the ribs, throwing him back, and kicks him several times more)

Quinn: That rib's broken.

(Eliot manages to get to his feet)

Quinn: He said you'd be tougher than this.

quinn: *is a really good fighter*

eliot: *surprised pikachu face*

ALSO the reason eliot was beat up so bad in the beginning was because he kept on trying to get back to his comm every chance he got INSTEAD of truly fighting back. his first priority was warning his team over his own personal safety and ugh we stan a man who cares about his family

- - - - -

,,, imagine you’re driving on a highway and see a chick jump off a bridge onto an armored car, pick its lock and then BREAK INTO said armored car ,,, wyd

- - - - -

poor hardison was ready to relax ,,, he got a soda and made himself some popcorn too

- - - - -

(Quinn and Eliot both stand hunched over, breathing hard)

Quinn: Why won't you go down?

(Eliot laughs, blood falling from his mouth to the floor. Quinn comes at him again, but Eliot catches him and knees him in the chest several times before pushing him away. Quinn falls to his hands and knees, gasping for air)

Eliot: Now that rib's broken.

(Eliot hits Quinn in the face hard, sending him to the floor. Holding his ribs, Eliot walks to the earpiece and puts it in)

payback is sweet

- - - - -

Sterling: Mr. Spencer?

(Quinn is still unconscious as Eliot walks out the hanger doors, breathing hard, limping and holding his ribs)

Eliot: Hey, Sterling. I got some dental work with your name on it. What do you say me and you hook up so I can give it to you?

- - - - -

Sophie: Sterling knows us. He knows how we think.

Nate: So we think like somebody else

THEY THINK LIKE THEIR KIDS

- - - - -

Nate: With a couple broken ribs and a concussion, I don't think Eliot can take out six guys.

(Eliot looks like he’d give it a try)

Nate: You know, but then I thought, "what would Hardison do?"

(Hardison looks at Nate in surprise)

(Eliot pulls out his phone and accesses the computer system, sending a high pitched whine into the comm. devices of the guards. They all bend over in pain. Eliot punches the one closest to him. Nate grabs Geary and slams his head down on the table. Hardison hits another guard in the face with his tied hands)

THAT MEANS ELIOT WAS ALSO THINKING LIKE HARDISON IF HE KNEW WHAT TO DO WITH THE PHONE AND WAS READY FOR IT

also YEET hardison is a badass but wbk

- - - - -

(Parker runs for Sophie. Sterling and his men run for Sophie and Parker. Parker reaches Sophie first and the dive from the roof, Sophie screaming and Parker laughing all the way down)

parker is the only character I’ve ever seen that can scream “yeehaw” and “yahoooooo” without it sounding ridiculous

- - - - -

(Eliot walks into the lobby, holding his ribs. He turns to yell over his shoulder)

Eliot: Hardison!

(Eliot follows Nate toward the door)

Hardison (breathing hard): Wait, Eliot. Eliot, come on.

(Eliot goes back inside)

Eliot: You've got to be kidding me, man.

(Eliot goes to help Hardison carry the painting out)

Hardison: Bring it out, come on.

Eliot: This is just weird.

Hardison: I painted this

okay so we all know that hardison actually hit a lot of cash in the painting but also, eliot actually goes back to help instead of just rolling his eyes and leaving hardison behind. eliot can get annoyed with him but he’d never leave him behind. not even on day one when hardison fell in the exploding building in the nigerian job. eliot was there for him then and he will be there for him for the rest of their lives.

ALSO I really hope eliot got his ribs checked out sometime soon after

- - - - -

Sterling: You're fired. Dust the whole place for fingerprints, okay? I want a forensic computer spec—

(the monitors come to life, showing Hardison’s face)

Hardison: Hey, Sterling. Get out of my house.

(display changes to a 30 second clock that begins to count down)

Sterling: Run. Run!

(all of the men run from the office, coming out onto the street)

Geary: Maybe he was bluffing.

(the entire floor of the building explodes, shooting fire)

Sterling: That's the funny thing about con men. They don't bluff.

- - - - -

the third “scattering scene” of the series

[nazariolahela]

Best Beloved: Chapter 7

A/N: Hey y'all! This story is told in dual first-person narrative, from Kaia (F!MC) and Damien’s POV. The first half of this story takes place during Kaia’s freshman year and Damien’s senior year of college. The second half is two years after Kaia graduates. There will be sprinklings of canon in this fic, but we’ll try to step out of the box for the most part. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @burnsoslow​​ @lady-calypso​​​​ @irishwhiskys-blog​​ @loveellamae​​

Synopsis: What happens when you find yourself crushing on your best friend? For years, Damien and Kaia have been friends, while secretly harboring feelings for one another. Everything changes one night after a little too much alcohol and years of pent up feelings. Can they control their emotions and salvage their friendship, or will the feelings they hold for one another destroy everything they have?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: One relationship progresses, while another comes to its end.

Kaia

“STRIKE! Suck it, Kaia!” Victoria shouted as her bowling ball struck all ten pins.

It was Thursday night at the local bowling alley — humorously-titled Split Happens — and my friends and I were hanging out for College Student Night. Nadia initially had the idea for me, her, Steve, and Hayden to double date, but, then I invited Vic and Drake, and it ended up being a group gathering. We invited Sloane, but she had other plans.

Hayden returned to our seats holding two drinks and a basket of fries. He set the fries on the seat in between us and handed me my drink. We’d gone out a few times since the night of the homecoming dance. For our first date, he took me to brunch at this cute little café off-campus. We talked for hours about everything from our favorite professors to our personal lives. He also told me stories about his dog, Dipper. We’d gone out three times after that, each date ending with a hug or a peck on the cheek, and a promise to call or text the next day.

“Your roommate is funny,” he said, grabbing some fries from the basket before shoving them in his mouth. I turned to where Victoria was sitting and saw her eyes glued to Drake’s backside as he bent over to pick up his bowling ball.

“She’s something. I got really lucky in the roommate department.”

He nodded. “Mine sucks. Wanna trade?”

“Ha! Not after the stories you’ve told me. I’m lucky Vic only brings Drake to the room when I’m not there. And no overnights, thank the gods.”

“Well, at least she respects your personal space. I found some lacy underwear in my bed last week. And I know they weren’t mine. Red is totally not my color.”

I laughed and reached for a handful of fries at the same time he did. Our hands brushed and I almost dropped mine at the contact. He looked down at the basket, then back up at me, and smiled as he popped the fries in his mouth. His tongue darted out to lick the granules of salt from his lips, and my eyes followed the movement. The two of us stared at each other until we were interrupted by Nadia slumping down in her chair next to me.

“You’re up, Kaia,”  she sighed.

I set my drink down and walked toward the ball return. Finding the pink and white marble ball, I slipped my thumb, middle, and ring fingers into the finger holes, hefted the ball up, and walked up to the foul line.

I stared up at the scoreboard and surveyed my status. It was the tenth frame and I was only six points behind Victoria, so I just needed to knock seven pins down and I’d beat her. We started the game out friendly, but she let her competitive streak get the best of her, and it ended up getting chippy towards the end. Naturally, Steve was smoking all of us. It was stupid how athletically gifted he was. Hayden was in second, followed by Drake, Victoria, then me. Nadia brought up the rear, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was too focused on swapping spit with Steve once her turn was up.

I pulled the ball close to my chest and lined up my shot. Inhale. Exhale. I swung my arm back, before propelling the ball forward and releasing it. It rolled down the lane, teetering towards the gutter. I squatted down on my haunches as the ball rolled down the lane, waving my hands as if my psychic powers could redirect the ball back towards the pins. The ball reached the pins and clipped the sixth and tenth ones, causing them to wobble, before toppling over and taking the ninth pin with them. I groaned. Shit. I had two more balls to get at least four pins in this frame.

Behind me, Victoria giggled. “I got this in the bag,” she loudly proclaimed. I whipped around and narrowed my eyes in her direction as she squeezed Drake’s arm and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Don’t celebrate too soon. I still have two more balls this frame,” I said as I walked back to the return.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Hayden watching me. I turned my head towards him and we locked eyes. He smiled and took a sip of his soda.

“Any advice?” I asked.

He stood up and stalked towards me, his massive frame shadowing my much smaller one. He guided me towards the lane and stood behind me, positioning my body.

“The first thing you want to do is square your shoulders,” he said, placing one hand on each of my shoulders, straightening my posture. The touch of his hands burned through the thin fabric of my t-shirt.  “Then, when you go to release, keep your backswing moderately high, it will give you a modest ball rotation and your release will be smoother.” He dragged his hand down the back of my arm to my elbow, sending goosebumps all over my body. He hooked his fingers in the crook of my arm and pulled my arm back to mime the motion.

“Also, try to rotate your wrist clockwise. This will cause the ball to hook in the opposite direction so you don’t sink it in the gutter,” he said, wrapping his large hands around my tiny wrist, and rotating it. His fingers brushed the underside of my wrist ever so gently and I sucked in a quick breath.

“O-okay! I think I got it,” I stuttered, pulling my hand from his grasp. I slipped my fingers in the grips of the ball and narrowed my eyes at the seven remaining pins. I tried to ignore Hayden’s burning gaze behind me as I lined up my shot and released my ball down the lane. Everyone in our group fell silent as the ball made its slow (okay, maybe it wasn’t that slow, but it sure felt like it) descent down the lane towards the remaining seven pins. I heard Victoria gasp as the ball struck the front pin dead center and took out the remaining pins.

When the pin sweep dropped and swept away the discarded pins, I whipped around and leaped into Hayden’s arms. “You’re a genius!”

He chuckled and squeezed me against him. “What do you mean? That was all you! You kicked those pins’ asses.” He set me back down and I ran over and high-fived Steve, Nadia, and Drake. I plopped down next to Victoria and she rolled her eyes and held up a hand for a high-five, smirking as our palms connected.

“Yeah, yeah. You got me.” She looked over at Hayden, who was talking with Steve about gods knows what. “So, how’s it going with you two?”

“Things are good. We’re taking it slow. Getting to know each other. I really like him. He’s funny. And so cute. How’s everything with you and Drake?”

She visibly blushed, and I reached over to grip her forearm. “Vic! Tell me EVERYTHING!”

“He’s amazing. We’re together almost every day, and the ones we aren’t, we talk on the phone every night. I’m crazy about him, Kaia. Dare I say, I might be in L-word.”

Victoria and Drake had been seeing each other for about two months and it warmed my heart to hear that she was head over heels for him. I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. “Oh, Vic! I’m so happy for you. You deserve to be happy.” I pulled back and noticed her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just that saying those words out loud, it feels real.” She looked away from me and I followed her line of sight to see her staring at Drake lovingly. She quickly wiped her eyes and stood up from her seat. “Alright. Enough emotions. You guys wanna play another game?”

“I’m up for it if everyone else is,” I replied. The rest of our group agreed and we set up for another game. When it was all said and done, Steve won (again) followed by Drake, and Hayden. Victoria ended up finishing two pins ahead of me, with Nadia once again bringing up the rear. We gathered our coats and returned our shoes to the rental. As we stepped out of the alley, the wind picked up. I tugged my jacket tighter against me. These late-October temps were pretty unpredictable and I was thankful I brought a heavier jacket.

I waved goodbye to my friends as Hayden wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me to his car. He opened the door for me and I winked at him as I slipped into the passenger’s seat. I watched as he jogged around the back of the car and climbed in the driver’s side.

“You hungry? Wanna go grab a bite before I drop you back off at your dorm?”

“Sure,” I replied. He nodded then fired up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

“Did you have fun tonight?” I asked.

He turned slightly, keeping his eyes on the road. “I did. Your friends are fun.”

I smiled. “I’m glad you said that. I was worried about how you’d get along with them. They can be a little much. Especially my cousin and my roommate.”

He laughed. “Your cousin is a trip! And her boyfriend seems nice. Your roommate, on the other hand...”

I turned in my seat. “Why? What did she say to you?”

“Nothing bad. But she cornered me near the restrooms and asked me what my intentions with you were.”

“And what did you tell her?” I asked, amused.

“I just told her that I wanted to get to know you and see where things went. My intentions are pure. Nothing inappropriate. Yet.” He laughed and wiggled his eyebrows.

I smirked and shook my head as we drove. A few minutes later, we pulled up in the McDermots drive-thru. I ordered a McBurger while Hayden got the Wild-Style Double McDermot Deluxe burger. We sat in the parking lot and ate our food in comfortable silence.

When Hayden finished eating, he balled up his sandwich wrapper and turned to me. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Well, midterms are almost over, so I’m definitely catching up on sleep, but I can make time to see you. What did you have in mind?” I asked, throwing my wrapper in the take-out bag.

He smiled. “Well, we could go check out that new Keanu Reeves movie that hits theaters tomorrow if you like action movies.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Text me this weekend and we’ll play it by ear.”

He nodded and put the car in gear, then pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to campus. We chatted about midterms for the rest of the ride. When he pulled into the dorm parking lot, we exited the car and he walked me to my room.

“So, I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” I said as I unlocked my door.

I swung it open and stepped over the threshold of my room then turned back to him. He leaned one arm on the doorframe, staring at me with those dark eyes. “Looking forward to it.”

We stared at each other for several beats, then he leaned in and pressed a searing kiss to my lips. I froze at first, not sure how to respond, but then gave in to the kiss. I gripped his biceps to steady myself as the kiss grew deeper. After what felt like hours, he broke the kiss and stepped back. Both of us stared at each other as we tried to catch our breaths.

“Sorry. I had to do that,” he said.

“Don’t apologize. It was nice,” I replied.

He smiled and cupped my cheek in his palm. “See you,” he said, then strode down the hallway towards the elevator.

I slipped into my room and shut the door, leaning against the back of it. I brought my fingers up to my lips, still feeling his kiss. I couldn't lie, I did like it. Almost as much as I liked the one Damien sprung on me at homecoming.

What the... Why was I thinking about him? Things with Hayden were never going to progress if I kept carrying a torch for Damien. I groaned and flung myself onto my bed. I was in deep shit.

***

Damien

I walked in the door of my childhood home and sighed. I loved coming here. It made me feel like I was whole. I missed home. Even before my dad passed away, I made an effort to come back at least once a month. More, if needed. Stepping aside, I let Alana walk in front of me and guided her toward the living room. The smell of empanadillas wafted through the house as my mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen. 

“Is that you, mijo?”

“Yeah, Mama! Alana and I are here.”

She bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, then took my face in her hands. She pulled me down to her height and kissed my cheeks. “My boy! So good to see you.” 

She then turned to Alana and her eyes lit up. “Hello, dear. How are you?” she asked as she placed a hand on Alana’s shoulder.

“I’m good Mrs. Nazario. How have you been?”

My mother nodded “Good, good. It’s always nice when my children come home.” She patted Alana on the cheek and ushered her to have a seat. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Water’s fine for me,” Alana replied. 

My mother nodded then motioned for me to follow her to the kitchen. We entered and I spotted my youngest sister, Lucilla, leaning against the counter. “Dames! So nice of you to join us,” she smirked as she bit into an apple. 

I moved forward and wrapped my arm around her neck, pulling her to my body, as I rubbed my knuckles against her scalp. She grunted as the apple she was holding dropped to the floor. “Hi, sis. Did you miss me?”

Lucilla reached over and pinched my sides. I yelped as I released her from my grip. “How could I miss you when you never go away?” she said as she leaned over to pick up the apple. “Did you bring your girlfriend?” 

I looked to Mama, then back to her. “Yeah, she’s in the living room. Can you bring her some water?”

Lucilla rolled her eyes then opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “That’s fine. We can catch up and talk shit about you.”

I swung my leg out to kick her, but she dodged me at the last second, laughing as she burst through the kitchen door to the living room. My mother chuckled to herself at the interaction. When my sister was out of the room she turned to me, smiling.

“How are you, my boy? School going well?”

I nodded, leaning beside her against the counter as she slipped the next batch of empanadillas into the deep fryer. “Yeah. Just finished midterms. I’m ready to be done already. Just gotta get through the rest of this semester and next.”

She smiled. “I’m so proud of you. Your father would be too. Just hang in there for a few more months. It will all be worth it. How is the internship going?”

“It’s great. I’m loving every minute of it. I think I’m going to pursue a career in Intelligence after graduation.”

Mama’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my boy! That’s so wonderful. I can see it now. My son will have a fancy government job in Washington D.C. I’ll never have to worry about you.”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. I hated hearing that my mother worried about me. Especially when she had her own heartache and my younger sisters to worry about. I wiped a stray tear from her cheek and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be alright.”

“I know you will. But it’s my job to worry about you. As long as you’re taking care of yourself.” She pulled the empanadillas from the deep fryer and set them on a towel to cool. Her eyes darted to the kitchen door and she lowered her voice. “Everything alright with...” she jerked her head towards the living room.

I sighed and dragged a hand down my face. “Where do I start?”

My mother wiped her hands on her apron and guided me to the kitchen table. “Sit. Do you want something to drink?”

“Rum if you’ve got it,” I replied. 

She moved over to the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of spiced rum. I smiled. It was my father’s favorite brand. She placed the bottle and two tumblers on the table and took a seat across from me. “Spill, my boy.”

“I don’t know, Mama. It just seems like our whole relationship is toxic. We barely spend time together, and when we do, we argue the whole time. She gets crazy insecure and accuses me of cheating on her just because I hang out with Kaia, and it-”

“Wait...Kaia? Kaia Park?” my mother interrupted.

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

My mother pursed her lips and stared at her hands. “I didn’t want to say anything back then, but I always wondered what happened between you two.”

“Mama, nothing happened between us. She was always too young for me. The last time anything happened was four years ago.” I purposely omitted the incident at homecoming, but my mother knew about the graduation party. She mentioned that Kaia seemed off in the days following, and stopped coming around the house after I left for college. It wasn’t until Nadia told Carina, who told Ma what happened, that she finally put two and two together.

“You were always smitten with that girl, no matter how much you lied to yourself.”

“Mama. It wasn’t like that. We’re best friends,” I said defensively.

“I know better, mijo. I watched you two when you were together. You looked at her like she was the only girl in the room. And she you.” She chuckled and took a sip of her glass. “You two were attached at the hip. I never suspected anything until that summer before your junior year. She came over one time when you weren’t home and your father found her hanging out in that treehouse. When he asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted to be here when you got back. He said he knew at that moment that you weren’t ‘just friends’ in her eyes.”

I swallowed a sip of spiced rum, the liquid burned as it went down. “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean anything. She had a crush on me. I already knew that. But I never pursued her. She was underage.”

“Understandable. But do you remember your senior year of high school? When that boy she was seeing broke her heart? You went over to his house and threatened to beat him up if he even looked at her again.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she was my best friend and she was hurting,” I said.

My mother shook her head. “Guess how many times I caught you glaring at him while you watched them together? Every time he showed up at her house, you sat on that front porch and stared. If looks could kill, that boy would have dropped dead before he reached the front door.”

I twisted the tumbler in my hand. “I...I don’t know what to say…”

“You don’t have to say anything to me. You need to be honest with yourself, first and foremost. Then, you need to be honest with Kaia.”

The faint sounds of laughter came from the living room. I glanced at the door before turning back to Mama. “Won’t matter. She has a boyfriend. And I have a girlfriend. Who I love. And who’s sitting in the next room.”

My mother cupped my cheek in her palm. “Oh, mijo. You know I love you, and I want you to be happy. But that girl. She does not make you happy. I can see it in your eyes.”

Damn, she was good. How did moms always know what kids didn’t? “I have a lot to think about. But thank you for being there.” I sighed and finished off my rum, then collected both glasses and put them in the dishwasher. 

Mama brushed the hair from my forehead and kissed the top of my head. She put the bottle of rum back in the cabinet and went back to preparing dinner. “Go tell Alana and Lucilla that dinner is almost ready.”

I swung the door open and saw my sister and girlfriend sitting on the sofa, looking through a photo album. A bottle of wine sat open on the coffee table accompanied by two glasses. Alana’s water bottle remained untouched. “Hey! Mama said dinner’s almost ready, so go wash up.” 

Lucilla rose from the couch, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, okay.” She collected the wine bottle and glasses and retreated into the kitchen. 

I turned to look at Alana, who set the photo album down and examined her nails. “Did you and your mom have a nice chat?”

“We did. Were you getting my sister drunk?”

She laughed humorously. “It was one glass, Damien. And she’s not driving anywhere. It will be fine.”

“She’s only 16, babe.” 

I glanced down at the photo album which lay open on the coffee table. Photos of my sisters and me when we were kids filled the pages. I picked up the book and went to close it when one picture caught my eye. It was Nadia, Kaia, Carina, and I. I was maybe 17 at the time. We were sitting on the porch swing outside Kaia’s house. Nadia and Carina sat on the end, making funny faces, while Kaia and I were squished in the middle. My arm was slung around her shoulders, and I was gazing at her. Then, it hit me. I finally saw what my mother was talking about.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath. I looked up to see Alana eyeing me suspiciously. I opened my mouth to say something when my mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready. Come eat!”

Alana turned on her heel and stomped towards the kitchen. I closed the photo album and put it back on the bookshelf behind the sofa. I raked my hand through my hair and made my way towards the kitchen. This was going to be a long dinner.

A few hours later, Alana and I were on our way back to campus. We drove in uncomfortable silence for most of the trip. We were about 10 miles from school when she turned to me, breaking the silence.

“How long have you been in love with her?”

I swallowed. Welp, better to rip off the bandaid now. “I don’t know exactly. I guess I’ve been lying to myself this whole time.”

“And to me…” she trailed off.

“Alana-”

“Don’t, Damien. Okay? Just...don’t. I’m not an idiot. You know, I didn’t want to believe it, but the signs were right in front of me this whole time. The stolen glances. The emotional unavailability. I guess I thought you'd eventually get over whatever it was you felt for her. I’m just sorry that whatever we had wasn’t enough to keep you interested.”

I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry too. To be honest, I knew this relationship was doomed when you turned down my marriage proposal. I think I stuck it out, hoping you’d eventually change your mind. I wish we would have just called it quits then. It would have saved us both a lot of pain.”

She nodded. Neither of us said another word until we pulled into the campus parking lot. She reached out to open the car door, but stopped and turned to me. “For what it’s worth, I did love you. I guess it just wasn’t enough to spend forever together.” She gave me a weak smile, then got out of the car. I watched her walk away, a heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders. When she was out of sight, I got out and made my way to my dorm. 

When I got inside my room, I threw myself on my bed and sighed deeply. I knew breaking up with Alana was the right thing to do, but I still felt like shit about it. I needed to get some things off my chest and there was only one person I wanted to talk to. I pulled my phone from my pocket and thumbed through my contacts until I pulled up her name. I opened the text app and typed out my message. 

[maxmcyfield]

so it's you again   |  20/08/2011  10:08PM

back to the og’s because i will never ever tire of them they’re literally the best. ofc for @jokermoreau​ idk this is just a lot of retrospect on percy’s part about how she felt about dylan growing up lmao

“Congratulations on your debut, Arrum!”

The video her parents sent to her manager a couple months back before played quietly in her earphones, and Percy couldn’t help but smile. The drive from Busan back to Seoul was pretty long, so she didn’t have anything to do other than relax a little in the car. 

Her parents, specifically her mother, had sent many videos to her manager over time .It was all she’d been doing since all the Lady Pink members were allowed their own phones again (thank god for a successful debut) - but also she didn’t have much free time outside of work since getting said phone. From her hosting gig for Inkigayo to getting cast in her first ever drama, free time was scarce, especially since she had eyes one her all the time.

Still, finally being allowed a phone of her own gave her that tiny bit of freedom once again and it was different, getting to see these videos sent in the past year on her own device, at her own time. Gave it some sort of new levity.

It was interesting to also see more of these videos up close. Her mother had gotten so many people she used to know so closely back in the US to send a bunch of videos to congratulate her. Like Mim Flynn (who she’d started to text with again), and her old friends, and even her old dance teacher. All of whom were so nice to see.

But it was a true delight to see Rohit Thakur on her screen, saying congratulations. She could tell it was taken during one of the classic family friend get-togethers, but it filled her with a kind of warmth she missed. Rohit was something of an uncle to her growing up and seeing him proud of her made her smile. 

She was just about to swipe to see the other videos when she realized the video wasn’t stopping like she thought it would. Huh. The first time she saw this video, she assumed it was the end when the video shifted around and they were all in kind of a rush so she didn’t wait any longer to give her manager his phone back. But it kept going for another minute, the screen showing the moving ceiling, the being blocked off by what she assumed was a hand, and then suddenly a new face was on the screen.

“Hey! Percy slash Arrum, congratulations on your first single-”

It took a long second before she realized it was Dylan Thakur’s part of the video that she never saw.

Dylan Thakur! Oh wow it had been so long? He looked so much different than she remembered. He had a full beard now in the video  -  looked like a real man now. Handsome, definitely, even more than she could care to admit. Though he still had that same infectious smile, undoubtedly, as he went on about listening to Lady Pink’s Venus and loving it. 

She wondered briefly when was the last time she saw him just as the video actually ended. It felt like forever ago, but there was no mistaking her memory of seeing him off at the airport not long after he had graduated. She could recall how upset she was when she realized he wouldn’t be around as much as he was before, but ultimately accepted it because she knew he was moving to New York to pursue his dreams. Of course, at twelve, her crush on him had maximized to its full potential at that point. Someone who was as charming and well-liked as high school senior Dylan Thakur helping her drive her home after they both finished school and treating her to snacks every once in a while? Her innocent baby crush on him was massive. 

It was still nothing in retrospect - just a fleeting infatuation on someone who seemed to care for her but still took her somewhat seriously. Anyone at her age then had a crush on him - and they did, especially her friends. Still, reminiscing got curiosity to spark it’s edges over her and very quickly, she started Googling. (The nap she was planning to take could wait for when she got to the dorms.)

What she found was nothing short of amazing either. Not only had he become a member of SNL just like he said he would, but he was an Emmy award nominee who had a comedy special! A comedy special that was really funny, no less. It took a lot in her to not laugh out loud in the car as she watched it on her phone, curled up in the backseat.

Was this really the same guy she’d basically grown up with?

The one who’d cheer her up when she’d been crying over not getting the last scoop of ice cream? Who had been the only one she could conceivably hang out with all those family friend get-togethers? Where they’d play video games together all night and he’d sneak soda from the fridge while the adults were too busy chatting the night away.

Percy could still feel the echoes of the memories  -  nostalgic and warm all the same, of the feelings she had for him all those years ago. Her friend when she didn’t have any friends. Her first crush. She missed him, definitely. Even if it had been awhile since she even thought about him - and to be fair her life for awhile now didn’t really permit her to think about anyone or anything else other than debuting.

But now that she was here, her debt nearly fully repaid, with her own phone again... Would it be weird to text him out of the blue? She could ask her mom for his number or something. Reconnect and all that. See how he was.

She absentmindedly started to tap on her screen to get to her mom’s text page. And then started at the keyboard-

Wait. 

What would she even say? ‘Hey remember me?’ ‘Thanks for the video you sent like two months ago?’ ‘I used to have a huge crush on you?’ 

No, this was crazy. She couldn’t just text him like this - would he even reply? Even more, what would her mom think if she asked for his number? Nothing good, that’s for sure. Not when she’d been asking about boyfriends even if she clearly knew about the dating ban Percy was still under. 

Nope, nope. Abort mission. She quickly exited the text page and decided to just watch youtube instead of continuing down memory lane. No more of that nonsense. She had a lot to focus on anyways. Like getting ready for her first table read and going through more activities as an Inkigayo MC. No time for other things.

Maybe she’d get to meet Dylan Thakur again one day, when she’d come back to the states for a break or something. But for now, she forced herself to not think about him.

[blurry-fics]

Chapter Five

Pairing: None

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1839

Author’s Note: Finally getting to the good stuff! As always, I would like to thank all of you for the continued support. Also, don’t forget to take the survey if you haven’t yet! It closes tomorrow! (And thank you for 700 followers!! It still blows my mind that people want to follow me)

Your eyes moved quickly between your phone and the sidewalk in front of you as you made your way towards the pizza place Josh had told you to meet them at. You were nervous, but the need for you to navigate was helping to keep your mind busy. The plan had been for you to drive since the restaurant was on the other side of town, but Matthew had made sure that wasn’t an option when he stole the car that morning and you had been too shy to ask Josh to pick you up.

You were only about a block away when you got a text from Josh saying they were outside. Figuring that you were too close for it to be worth letting him know where you were, you slid the notification out of the way and quickly closed the map app. Everything was going to be fine, you were sure of it. Or at least, that’s what you wanted to believe.

Josh was easy to spot with his now bright red hair. The man next to him, who could only be Tyler, looked different than you had anticipated. You had expected someone who looked similar to Josh with brightly colored hair and equally vibrant tattoos. Instead, dark bands covered his left arm and there wasn’t a single bit of color on him aside from his shirt. It was an interesting contrast.

“Hi,” you smiled as you drew closer to them. “You must be Tyler.”

“That’s me,” Tyler smiled, holding out a hand.

You shook his hand and then turned to Josh, who held his arms out for a hug. That was unexpected, but you wrapped your arms around him and gave him a quick squeeze.

“Nice to see you again,” he said as he let go. “The hair looks nice.”

“Thanks,” you smiled. “I could say the same to you.”

Josh smiled and shook his head a little.

“Should we head inside?” Tyler asked, nodding his head towards the door. “It’s kind of cold out here.”

“Let’s do it,” Josh said.

You followed the two boys inside, taking in your surroundings as you did so. Various paintings and posters covered the brightly colored walls and early 2000s music was playing through speakers. It screamed “stereotypical pizza joint”.

The three of you sat at a booth towards the back of the restaurant. You slid into one side while Josh and Tyler sat across from you. Neither of them looked at the menu, obviously already knowing what they wanted from having been here so many times before.

“What should I get?” you asked as you looked over the menu.

Much to your surprise, Tyler was the one who answered you, “The triple topping pizza is really good, although cheese is always a safe option.” Josh nodded his agreement.

“I think I’ll try that then,” you said, putting the menu back in its place.

“I’ll go order,” Tyler said, standing up once again.

“Can you get me a drink?” Josh called after him.

“Me too!” you added.

“Sure thing,” he said without turning around.

Once Tyler was out of earshot, Josh turned back to you and leaned forward, “So, first impressions?”

“He seems nice!” you smiled, trying to stay positive. “Quieter than I expected, though, based on what you had told me.”

Josh rolled his eyes, “He’s being shy. Just wait for him to warm up.”

You nodded, hoping that he was right. The last thing you needed was another person in this city that couldn’t stand you.

Tyler returned a few minutes later with a number and three empty drink cups. He set the number at the end of the table and then Josh joined him to go get drinks, saying he would get yours for you. It didn’t take a genius to know that it was just an excuse for him to ask Tyler the same question he had asked you.

“Here you are,” Josh said, setting your drink in front of you.

“Thank you,” you said, taking a sip.

“So, Josh tells me that you moved here about a month ago,” Tyler said.

“Yep, all the way from California.”

“How are you liking it?”

You let out a nervous laugh. Josh still hadn’t heard the full story of the move to Ohio, and you weren’t sure if you would be able to get through the story without crying yet.

“It’s complicated,” you said, avoiding eye contact as you played with a nearby napkin.

“Why is that?”

You spent the next twenty minutes giving Tyler and Josh the full rundown of your life for the past month, from learning that you would be moving to Ohio to the tension that still existed between you and Matthew. The only pauses were to answer the boys’ questions and when your pizza arrived halfway through the story.

You had done pretty good about not crying until you got to the very end. The fear of finding a place to live and supporting yourself started to creep in. When the tears started to pool in your eyes, you quickly excused yourself to the bathroom. Crying was not about to be part of your first impression on Tyler.

You grabbed a couple paper towels from the dispenser and lightly dabbed at your eyes. They were still a bit puffy, so you splashed some cold water on your face. The boys probably thought you were crazy, but worst case scenario you would move back home and never see them again.

Once you had calmed down and no longer looked like you had been crying, you walked back out to the table where the boys were talking. They went quiet as soon as their eyes landed on you, causing your stomach to twist in discomfort. More likely than not, they had been talking about how dumb you were being.

“Sorry about that,” you said, sitting down and taking a sip of your soda.

“It’s totally fine,” Josh said.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry if that was a sensitive topic. I had no idea,” Tyler said.

“No, it’s ok!” you reassured him. “I chose to talk about it.”

Both of the boys nodded as they briefly shared a look. You tried to brush it off.

“So, music. Tell me about that,” you said, hoping a topic change would help clear the air.

Tyler’s face instantly lit up, “Tour starts in just over a week. I can’t wait to be back on the road again.”

“Tour?” you asked, eyebrows raising in question. Josh hadn’t mentioned a tour.

“Yeah, we leave in a week and two days,” Josh explained. “We’re playing shows all over the US for the next couple months.”

“Oh,” you nodded, trying to ignore the way your stomach felt like it was sinking. “That sounds super exciting.”

Tour meant that Josh wouldn’t be in Columbus, and if Josh wasn’t in Columbus then you wouldn’t have anyone to fall back on. It would be just you and Matthew, and that wasn’t something you were looking forward to.

“It is,” Josh smiled. “I can’t wait.”

“Hopefully I’ll get to come to a show,” you smiled. “You guys do play a show here, don’t you?”

Both of the boys nodded. “It’s one of the most fun to play,” Tyler explained.

“I bet,” you smiled.

“So, Y/N,” Tyler said. “Josh showed me some of your photos last night.”

“He did?” you said. You could feel the color coming to your cheeks almost instantly.

“Yeah. They were amazing. Are you considering pursuing photography as a career?”

“It’s my dream,” you smiled, worries momentarily forgotten. “I had a small business going back in California, but I obviously had to leave that behind. I’m trying to get something going here, but it isn’t easy to start over.”

Josh smiled at you, “How would you like to come on tour with us as our photographer?”

Your jaw dropped as soon as the words left Josh’s mouth, “Are you serious?”

Tyler was laughing a bit at your reaction, “Dead serious.”

You could hardly believe what you were hearing. It was like every problem that you had was suddenly gone: you could move out of the apartment you shared with Matthew, go back to doing what you loved, and finally be happy again.

“I hate to ask this because I’m thankful for the opportunity alone, but how much would I be making?”

“Funny you ask,” Tyler smiled, reaching into his pants pocket.

He slid a folded up piece of paper across the table to you, which you slowly opened up. Your eyes scanned the page until you saw the number.

“No way,” you grinned. “This isn’t real. You guys are messing with me.”

“We’re not messing with you,” Josh said.

“This is more than I was making back home!”

“You have talent, Y/N. We need that,” Tyler explained.

You slid out of the booth and waved your arms frantically at the boys. They were laughing at you as you pulled them each into a tight hug.

“I’m never going to be able to thank you enough,” you said, fanning yourself a bit to keep from crying again.

“Your photos are going to be more than enough thanks,” Josh said.

There were a million questions that you wanted to ask, but you knew that they could wait for a later time. You were still waiting for the moment when you would wake up from this dream on the couch in Matthew’s living room to the sound of him slamming the door for the millionth time.

You shook your head, “I really can’t believe this.”

“Believe it,” Tyler said, clapping a hand down on your shoulder. “Because you’re coming on tour with us.”

“Tour,” you repeated. “Wow, I never thought I would hear that.” You turned to Josh, suddenly remembering the conversation you had on the phone last night. Your brain had been so preoccupied with everything else that it had completely slipped your mind, “So this was your offer?”

He smiled, “Yep. We just had to make sure that Tyler liked you enough to bring with us.”

“I passed the test?”

“Yes you did,” Tyler laughed.

“Alright, well we actually have a lot of preparations left to do before we leave, so we should probably head out.”

“Right, I need to start packing as well,” you smiled.

Josh and Tyler started to walk off, but you suddenly remembered the long walk you had endured to get here. Not wanting to repeat that experience, you decided that asking the boys for a ride probably wouldn’t hurt. Besides, it wasn’t like you had to hide the fact that your ex was terrible to you anymore.

“Hey, guys?” you said. They both turned to look at you. “Can I ask one more favor?”

“Sure,” Tyler said.

“Can I get a ride home? My ex stole the car.”

“Yeah, come on,” Josh waved you along.

You fell into step with them, not even bothering to hide the smile on your face. Things were really beginning to look up.

Tage (Let me know if you would like to be added!

@svintsandghosts @a-stumpsexuals-world @ohprettyweeper @jigglypuff1999

[zootopianlovers]

A cafe night

Heya Everyone ! well I wanted to surprise @nekomimiranger so I asked to some friends to help me by letting me use their zoosonas and do a very funny and nice story :) ( @soranii314 , @odd-the-motoring-fox, @nexijay & @laverne-wildhopps ). Thanks to @laverne-wildhopps for helping me editing all the mistakes ... that were a loooooot xD and to everyone to stand my crazy idea. to @nekomimiranger I love you babe, I hope you enjoy your surprise, you’re he light of my life and I’ll always be there for you <3

anyways is cheesy, funny and little spicy .. so if you don’t want to read... this is your chance...

...

....

CHANCE LOST !!! So we staaaart ! 

“Today is the day!” Cass thought when she woke up.  

She had been thinking about this opportunity since the day she had received a call from his work place, when they told her that they were very happy for the twenty three year old snow leopard turning four years of work in the kindergarten school where he worked at. He loved to work with little ones ever since he was in college and he started a trainee part time job in a local kindergarten in Outback Island. She was trying to think a way to celebrate this good news because she had returned from covering her work hours at her job, when she thought of an ingenious idea!. She knew Andy is a very forgetful person, so he wouldn’t remember this due to all his work. So that is when the mission “Surprise coffee” was decided of!

She noticed her very handsome and sexy snow leopard, who was sleeping next to her, waking up.

“Good morning, sweetie.” He said, still a little sleepy and trying to kiss his fiancé.

“Good morning, handsome. How did you… No… No.. No.. ! Remember that I have terrible breath in the morning?” She said sheepishly before he could kiss her on the lips.

“It’s worth to die for.” He grinned.

“Nothing is worth to die for I want my future husband to live” She joked, giggling.

They chuckled, she took a mint pill and finally kissed him. They got up from bed and prepared for the day. Cass smiled to herself, remembering the four days of vacation ahead of her. She went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for her beloved, while he was taking a shower. She found this the innate moment to call her close friends Chase and Gloria.

“Hello?”  Gloria giggled in the background, before she turned to the phone making Cass smirk knowingly, that Chase was teasing her again.

“Hi Gloria! Sorry for calling this early but hey. Remember you wanted to meet up to collect some tickets, for your vacation in Pawaii, at the airport? I wanted to talk about something there. Important. You think you can be there earlier?”

“Yes, of course. Chase and I will meet you there. ASAP. We will leave in an hour.”  

“Sounds perfect! And before hanging up, I wanted to ask you, do you have some time this evening?”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chase spotted the lovely ocelot wearing a pink dress pulling Gloria through the crowd to get to her. When they finally met, they greeted each other and proceeded to get the tickets for the couple as promised, all the while Cass explaining her idea to her friends. She also asked them to keep the idea a surprise for Andy, knowing his nature to forget important dates, this being his own achievement at his own work place. She laughed as told how she played along this morning with the snow leopard, letting him assume that it was but a normal day. This kindergarten so happened to be the one where the infamous Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde brought their kits down, to Andy’s kindergarten - due to the good mannerisms and the wonderful way he taught the kits. Cass had also invited two other close friends - a couple, Su and Jay - down to the The Jungle, a cafe located in suburbs of The Downtown. Everyone had all agreed to meet up there by the set time Cass had provided.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was 4pm, and just as his lovely ocelot had asked him to, he stood in the designated spot she had asked. They were to get some lunch together. A few minutes later, in the distance, he could make out Cass’s car.

She usually doesn’t take the car… unless… His thinking was interrupted by Cass yelling his name, her head outside her car window, as she parked her car.

In that moment Cass jumped out of the vehicle, waving and running towards him, congratulating him for his great work.

“I thought you had forgotten about it.”  Andy said surprised and happy that she had remember.

“I couldn’t forget such an important day, hun.  I felt you would. Seeing as how you were mumbling to yourself all morning about your work. If it wasn’t for Principal Marsy you wouldn’t have remembered at all.” She chuckled.

“Well, you know me!”

“Of course I know you. You are my future husband.

“I hope I do that job correctly”

“ You already do.” She gave a reassuring smile.

They quickly finished their lunch, much to Andy’s dismay who wished to have a bit of dessert before leaving, walked to their car and gave each other a passionate kiss, before driving out to where Cass had planned the surprise, unknown to Andy still. Funnily enough, Andy didn’t know is that after that meal, they would go on a very funny date, one that everyone would remember.

An hour and a half later, they arrived at The Jungle. Cass gave a sigh of relief. Just in time...

Cass leapt out of the car in a flash, which again, astonished Andy, making him suspicious of her behavior because she wasn’t someone to be overly hyped about coffee, unlike some people Andy knew. So, this meant that there was more to this.

When he entered the cafe, and spotted Cass, he noticed the happy smiles of his friends, all waiting to congratulate him on a job well done! As he approached them, each one shook his hand or gave him a hug as they greeted and welcomed him to sit their table. A delicious apple pie sat atop the counter, making Andy’s mouth water. His favorite dessert! He smirked at Cass, seeing a huge grin on her face, as realization dawned on him.

Jay, the hazel-eyed arctic wolf, asked Andy in a cheerful tone, “Congrats, man. You’re doing pretty well. We’re all so proud of you.  So How is to live finally together and being engaged?” He gave a playful nudge with his elbow.

”I wouldn’t ask for more. It’s awesome to cuddle and see movies with someone.” Andy replied, smiling at his sweet ocelot, who was talking animatedly with the other girls.

“Yes, but he doesn’t like horror movies.” Cass faked annoyance and then smiled.

“What? No!” Su, the small white bunny, wearing a black hijab, exclaimed, turning her attention to them.

“Don’t worry. No ghost is gonna come get you when you have a fierce girlfriend as Cass.” Jay teased him, putting one paw on his shoulder.

As they all sat down, a waitress, a black panther, came with a menu to jot down their orders. She wore a normal cafeteria dress. A problem arose when the waitress, as she took the orders, behaved in a very flirtatious manner with Chase, Gloria’s boyfriend. Once she left to get the drinks for all of them, the girls tried calming the light brown bunny down, as she ranted about the waitress trying to steal her fox. As they tried speaking to her, the green-eyed panther had returned with their drinks.

“So. One glass of water, a hot chocolate, two sodas and two beers. One for the handsome fox right there, right?” She winked at him, and that’s when the arctic fox stood up angrily, startling the waitress and those around him.

“I’m sorry, but I am not interested. Could you please stop flirting with me? It’s making my girlfriend, as well as me, very uncomfortable. So, I would recommend you to stop if you know what is good for you.” He spoke in an serious tone, glaring at the waitress.

The waitress made an angry face, as if she was not used to be turned down. She huffed as she turned around and left them alone. When Chase faced back, Gloria jumped at him and kissed him on the lips.They all cheered and made a toast for that act of love and of course, to Andy.

The night was almost over. They all sat merrily, talking about future plans. They all wanted to get married and have little balls of fur running around. They all made a promise, that when the time came, they would take all of them together on wonderful adventures. Chase talked about the Pawaii vacation that he and Gloria were planning. Su and Jay talked about how they wanted to move to bigger house.

They finished their respective drinks soon and started to say their goodbyes, promising to do this more often, maybe going to a theme park next or just a meet up at someone’s house. The first ones to leave where Chase and Gloria in their Alpha Guilia, which amazed everyone with its beauty.

Su and Jay decided to leave as well, waving at them as they walked away, leaving Cass and Andy alone behind the shop, in the parking lot.

“Did you liked your surprise, babe?”

“Very much, mi amor. Thank you.” Andy held Cass’s face with his paw and went down to give her a tender kiss. Both smiled as they broke the kiss and entered their car.

When Andy started the engine, Cass turned around to him and said, “You know.. There might be another surprise for you.”  She winked and smiled devilishly at him.

“Oh? Something I should be scared of?”

“You know me sweetheart. Usually, of course. But this time, we need to lose some clothing.

“Let’s go home then!” Andy said, as he started to drive a little faster when he knew what extra little surprise was waiting for him.

Cass chuckled, and glared playfully at that cute and handsome snow leopard, who happened to be the love of her life, with great expectations for that night.

The End…? ;)

~Cass

[ily-like-a-banana]

Pull of Fate (ft. Hansol & Seungkwan)

♡ : how long will you be able to escape fate?

It’s happening again.

You halt in your steps, the sound of fellow nurses murmuring in the nearby hallway slowly fade. The sight of your hands reaching out towards the microwave to pop in your poor excuse of a lunch melt into a different picture altogether in a nanosecond.

You try to blink but it does nothing.

He’s strolling along the Saturday morning market - towards the side, booths made from light-colored wood are adorned with an assortment of fresh flowers: sunny daffodils, blushing carnations, scarlet roses. You know very well where the market is located - it’s a fifteen minute bike ride from home. Living in this small town your whole life guarantees you this.

He stops walking, stretches his hand out towards a bunch of sunflowers, your favorite. His thumb gently caress over the smooth golden petals, probably in admiration. He seems to look up, gaze meeting with what you presume to be the owner of the booth - a man in his late 40s with a balding head and warm chestnut eyes, wrinkle lines appearing on the corners as he smiles.

Louis, the scratched name tag pinned near his breast pocket, reads.  

Louis seems to be asking something but you don’t hear anything. He’s looking at you - but not really looking at you - and then smiles when an arm reaches out, picking out the sunflower and hands it over to Louis to have it wrapped before paying for it. An arm seemingly yours - but not really yours.

Within an abrupt intake of air, you are brought back to the nurse’s pantry. The saucer you meant to slide inside the microwave slips off your fingers, making contact with the floor with a pitchy clink. In the distance, you can hear the telephone ringing, the murmurs of doctors and nurses collectively and hurried footsteps along the hallway.

“Hey,” Jeonghan greets as he enters the pantry in his pink scrubs, pushing his glasses further up his nose as he leans on the wall beside you. He must have noticed the daze in your face so he goes, “rough day?”

It’s only six in the morning and the end of your shift is nearing. The caffeine in your system is starting to wear off and your legs tired and sore.

I just saw through my soulmate’s eyes, you want to say, I have been for the past two months.

But instead you force your eyes to meet Jeonghan’s honey ones despite the shaken up expression still swimming in yours. With a languid smile and a slight nod in your head, you mutter, “yeah, rough day."

You come home to the smell of pancakes wafting through your apartment, the sound of something sizzling on the pan and utensils clanking against each other rousing your senses.

“Hansol?” You call out, peering towards the kitchen from the door where you toe your shoes off and drop your backpack.

“Over here!”

A smile makes its way to your lips as you approach the tall male in the kitchen, his back facing you as he diligently flips a pancake on the pan. You take in the honey colored curls on his head, his broad, lean back and the lopsided smile he flashes when he turns to look back at you.

“Hi,” he says shyly as he opens his arms to which you nestle into with evident keenness. He places a gentle kiss on top of your head as he murmurs a softly spoken “welcome home.”

All you can do is hum in response, breathing in the hints of labdanum and woody notes on his shirt. You finally sigh in contentment. He feels like home.

“I made you breakfast,” he says with pride.

Your nose crinkles in amusement and laugh, “did you really come over to my apartment just to make me pancakes?”

You lean back to look at him, golden freckles in his eyes, swimming in a pool of golden honey, standing out against the rays from the sun, his arms still wrapped around your waist.

“Mmhmm,” he grins, “and I think I got it down this time.”

You lift a brow with a mixture of teasing and skepticism, looking over his back towards the stove, “are you sure about that?"

Hansol’s eyes suddenly grow wide and checks on the pancake behind him. He panickly reaches out for the spatula on top of the counter and lifts the pancake to show a ring of black burntness.

You laugh, turning off the stove yourself and patting Hansol on the back. “You did really well, Sol.”

He flashes you an embarrassed smile, “I cooked two more pancakes earlier. I swear, it’s cooked to perfection.”

Indeed, you notice the small table on the kitchen is made up - a plate of pancakes and a glass of juice set on top of blush pink placemats. You smile at him,“thank you.” You tiptoe your way up to meet his lips with yours to steal a quick peck, smiling into it. “I love you.”

“Very noble of you,” he laughs, tucking your hair behind your ear gently, “and I love you too.”

You’re very very certain Hansol is the one.

You’ve grown up together.

Your parents love him.

His parents love you.

He’s sweet. Kind. Smart. Funny. Talented.

(You hit your head against your pillow in frustration along with a gruff sigh.)

But he’s not your soulmate.

“No one really knows why it happens but it’s something that runs down in the family.”

You had merely blinked back at your mother in silence to which she just smiled patiently to. “I know it sounds really crazy,” you lift your brows and nod in definite agreement, “but it’s also exhilarating. When I met your father, it feels like I’m meeting someone I already… know, but also not really.”

You scrunched your brows at your mother, evidently lost in her attempt at explaining the whole deal. With a sigh, she finally gives up trying to get such a complex concept sink into your thick skull. “You’ll know when the time comes.”

Yet, here you are now, not knowing despite her reassurance years ago. Whenever you finally realize your mulling isn’t going to take you anywhere productive, you shut your eyes, pulling the blanket over your head and will for sleep to take over you.

You’ve made up your mind days later how you're going to deal with this whole situation.

I’m going to avoid ever meeting my soulmate.

Anyway, only you know about it. You're certain he doesn't go through episodes seeing through the other’s eyes like you do. Sure, your mother might question you about it but you'll figure out how to cover it up.

It should be simple enough to just stuff this soulmate thing inside a dusty, old box and push it far back a chained closet and throw the key away.

Then you'd live happily with Hansol, never speak of the episodes ever again and win at life.

“Penny for a thought?” You jump a little in surprise, turning around to see Jeonghan yet again in his scrubs with a clipboard in hand. “Hey,” you breathe out. You have been leaning over the railings for a few minutes now, facing the large windows that take up most of the space of the hospital’s walls. The skies are starting to show a deep blue shade - a sign that the sun is to make its appearance soon.

“You've been a little off lately, I notice.”

You muster up a tight smile in response. Landing a job in a prestigious hospital is thrilling but extremely taxing. But Jeonghan is your little bit of sanity in the whole building. He's your confidant so you understand when he looks at you inquisitively, his silence an open avenue for you to tell him the reason why you've been out of it for the past few days but you know this is not something he'd understand.  You squirm under his gaze and look away.

The tall male then decides to clear his throat to fill the silence when he notes that you aren't going to speak up. “Alright, well, shift’s over. Head home and rest up.” He reaches out and squeezes your shoulder comfortingly, “I'll see you tomorrow.”

You watch the tall male walk away, his pink scrubs slowly disappearing by the hallway.

Hansol: hey love

Hansol: check your drawers when you get home

Hansol: our plane’s about to take off :(

Hansol: see you in two months

Hansol: I love you

For when you get home from work and feel tired.

For when you're finding it hard to fall asleep.

For days when you need inspiration.

For when your faith is wavering.

For when you're doubting yourself.

For when you want to talk but I'm not available.

For when distance is making things difficult.

For days when you really need to hear how much I love you - but I'll make sure to let you know everyday.

The envelopes where the letters are enclosed feel like a physical form of Hansol’s comforting presence - the smoothness of the paper somehow reminds you of his fingertips skitting over your skin and the familiarity in his handwriting wrap around you like a tight hug. You fish out your phone from your pockets.

You: i just got home and saw what you left for me. you're the most thoughtful person :(

You: im going to miss you

You: in two months time :)

You: I love you, too

”I've got time. I'll do it.”

“I'll sub for you, no worries!”

“I can do it, no problem.”

Throwing your body on the nearest chair, you heave out a sigh. It feels like every fiber in your muscles ache, your hair in a state of pitiful mess and your eyes feel like a tonne heavy.

You hear someone pull up a chair from across you, but with your head almost hanging off the chair in exhaustment, you don't bother checking who it is.

“You look like you just went to hell and back.”

Jeonghan.

Something that sounds like a grumble and a gruff sigh escapes your lips in response. Recently, you've noticed that the episodes happen when you're too idle. It's been 4 days since you've tried to test out your hypothesis and so far, the results are proving your guess right ever since you've started drowning in work ruthlessly.

“Here, have some.”

Pop. Sizzle. Metal can sliding over the table.

You limply lift your head to see the small can of your favorite strawberry soda.

Managing a grateful smile, you look at Jeonghan with pure appreciation. “What would I do without you?”

The latter shrugs. “I know.”

You laugh, reaching for the can and gulping down the sweet liquid like a champ.

“Hey, slow down! Don't chug, you've got all the time in the wo-”

Before Jeonghan could even finish his sentence, your pager goes off, catching you off guard and almost snorting soda in the process. 

“Wish I did,” you say as soon as you toss the can into a bin. You pat Jeonghan on the shoulder before running off.

-

The loud wailing from the ambulance sirens signals everyone to get on their feet. The doors to the emergency hall bursts open along with a few members from the ERT. “Seungkwan? Seungkwan, are you still with me? Can you hear me? We're at the hospital now, okay?”

Blood. There is blood everywhere. You've handled emergency cases before but your surroundings seem to haze. You're running; you know this because you keep an equal pace with the stretcher being pushed by an emergency team where a man your age lay, pale and coughing; coughing up blood. And then without warning, it starts to happen again, your vision losing focus and you start to feel panic rise in your chest.

No, no, no, not now, not now.

In a split second, your hands lose its grip off of the stretcher and you halt in your footsteps.

His vision is blurry, barely making out reds and blues and hazy faces. He tries to focus on something, his eyes lift to the dark skies before it shifts to a bright, white ceiling and the sharp smell of hospital supplies hits his senses.

And then you see yourself- through his eyes - standing by the wall frozen.

The episode ends and your eyes meet with his, seeing him for the first time. Blonde hair matted by blood, an oxygen mask over his mouth, eyes barely open but you know... you know he sees you.

You will your legs to move and it does, unsure at first with reluctant steps until your strides elongate, catching up with the stretcher. Someone has taken your place but you follow along anyway, the noises from people shouting commands and the responses that come after blur to white noise in your ears, your eyes just focused on the male - on your soulmate. His eyes try to remain on you through a small space between a resident and an intern, never leaving your gaze. 

Before he's wheeled into the operating room, you catch him cast you a small smile and then his eyes flutter shut and the doors swing close.

[kpopboysreact]

I’ll Be Waiting - GOT7 JB Scenario

I decided to start titling my scenarios :D

Thank you to the anon who sent this ask in! “Hi, how are you doing? Can you do a jaebum scenario the s/o works at 24h convenient store and JB is always there at midnight to eat and work, they start to have a crush in each other, I don't know, I hope you can understand and thank you very much have a great day!!!”

There he is again, the same guy who enters the small convenience store you work at every night. He comes in at midnight, browses the aisles for a few minutes, then goes over to you to buy an orange soda. He always sits down at the table closest to where you were stationed at the counter and would pull out his laptop, typing away at something that must have been of great importance. You don’t know much about him, but from the common courtesy that comes with seeing each other five days a week, you’ve learned that his name is Jaebum, he has a job, and he’s very funny. You’ve asked him about his day several times and he’s responded with all kinds of crazy stories that never fail to entertain you. You watch him saunter through the aisles, trying to act nonchalant when he comes over with the orange soda he loves so much. Only this time, there were two bottles in his hand.

“Changing it up today?” You asked him as you rang up the bottles. When you finished, he handed one to you.

“You look a little off. Have something to drink.”

You took the bottle from him slowly.  “Are you sure?”

“Well I’ve already paid for it and I can’t drink two.”

You smiled and cracked open the bottle, savouring the crisp hiss of the carbonation as he went to sit down at his usual table. “Why don’t you join me?” He asked you. You raised your eyebrows.

“I’m sorry?”

“I can’t imagine you get many customers this late. You could stand to take a little break.” He pushed out the chair opposite him with his foot. “Have a seat.”

You didn't take much time to decide, soon sliding out from behind the counter and taking the seat across from him. “Thanks.” He nodded and sipped his orange soda. “No work today?” You asked him, noticing he hadn’t taken out his laptop yet.

“I could stand to take a little break, too.” He smiled at you and you found yourself smiling back.

“So…what do you do?”

“I’m a trainee about to debut under this company.” You didn't know too much about the popular kpop genre that became a staple in South Korea, but you’ve picked up on a little bit of it during your time there.

“Would I know the company?”

“Probably, but that’s not as important as the bad. They’re all very skilled.” “I’m sure you are too. You must be the visual.” You froze. Why. Did. I. Say. That.

He laughed. That was the first time you heard his laugh, and you knew you didn't want it to be the last time. “I’m not. That would be my hyung, Mark. I’m the leader and one of the main vocalists.” “Could you sing something for me?” You asked enthusiastically, your chest pinging when he blushed.

“Not right now.” He said under his breath, chuckling at your pouting face. “Ah, don’t make that face! I’m going to be singing at my older sister’s café tomorrow night. Do you work Saturdays?” “I don’t.” “Good, then you can come listen to me. Could I get your number?” You raised your eyebrows. “To text you the time and location.”

“Oh, yeah! Sure.” Jaebum handed you his phone and you entered your number into his contacts.

The rest of your conversation was spent talking about pointless things such as orange soda and working the nightshift at a convenience store. But really, you couldn't focus on anything but the excitement bubbling in you to see Jaebum sing.

You never even considered having feelings for the man, who was practically a stranger, but as you got ready to leave for the café you couldn't help but put in just a little extra effort to make yourself look your best. Not only was the outfit you had on both cute and sexy, but it was incredibly comfortable. You never wore it unless it was a special occasion, and you hoped Jaebum would love it as much as you did.

The atmosphere of the café calmed down your nerves that began to build up on the drive over. You saw Jaebum the minute you walked in, or rather, he saw you.

“Y/N!” He called your name and waved you over. You caught him look you up and down quickly. You bowed to each other before he spoke again. “I’m really glad you could make it.” “I wouldn't miss it! When are you going on?”

“I was just waiting for you.” “Oh, then it’s good I decided not to bail.” He stuck his tongue out at you and left to move towards the makeshift stage set up towards the opposite side of the café. You found an empty seat close to where he was and turned your full attention to him as he began singing. It was a slow, compassionate song about falling in love slowly. Your eyes teared up when he hit the high note in the climax perfectly. It was as if his voice were a cloud slowly drifting by and you were a cloud gazer, puling so many different images from the tunes he sung. When his song ended, you stood up and started applauding before anyone else in the café. Your heart skipped a beat when he smiled in your direction. He walked towards you after securing the microphone in its holder.

“What did you think?” He asked earnestly.

“It was amazing. I can see why you’re a main vocal!” He smiled, his whole face lighting up. “That means a lot to me.” He moved closer to you and lowered his voice. “So, I was wondering…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Would you maybe want to-“ “Jaebum!” You heard a woman’s voice call out. “Come help me over here!”

Jaebum closed his eyes and smiled thinly. “That would be my sister.” He sighed. “I should go help her.”

“Okay.” You responded, a little disappointedly. “What were you going to ask me, though?” “Ah…” He shuffled his feet. “I’ll ask you on Monday over a couple of orange sodas.” He smiled, bowing to you before rushing off to help his sister.

“I’ll be waiting.”

- Admin Sammie

[maddierosipal]

Excerpt from My Mom The Intergalactic Terrorist

From its place in my pocket, my phone began to buzz, filling the air with the silly ringtone I’d chosen for my mother; the X-files theme, I thought it would go well with the cartoonish alien I’d selected for her contact image. With a sigh, I pulled it out and mashed the answer button in frustration.

“Galileo,” my mother’s voice came.

“What?” I asked.

“What do you want to smell like this week?”

That was her way of asking what scent of body wash I wanted. For some reason, she’s convinced that people bathe to make them smell like something else and they put a lot of importance on said smell.

“Do they have anything like nature-ish? Any waterfall or stream?” I asked.

She went silent on the other end, but I could still hear the background noise of the grocery store, so I knew she didn’t hang up. I could hear her grab a bottle on the other end, making a thoughtful noise as she looked it over.

“How about Ocean Breeze?”

“That works.”

“Wonderful! And what would you like your hair to smell like?”

Groaning, I rolled my eyes, pinching the space between my brows. As I stepped, my foot connected with a loose stone, sending it skidding ahead of me on the sidewalk. I kicked it once again when I caught up to it but after that it was out of my sight.

“Just get me something clear. It doesn’t matter the smell.”

“Alright, but don’t get mad at me if I pick something you don’t like.”

She takes this all too seriously.

“You don’t have to call me every time you go grocery shopping mom.”

“But I do! I want to make sure I get the right stuff,” She complained.

“Whatever, I’ll see you at home.”

“Ok son, beep.”

She thinks you’re supposed to say beep when you turn the phone off. I think it’s because she heard the phone beep and thought it was another person. Whatever, I wish she’d go back to whatever planet she came from, and return me to whatever family she abducted me from.

Before I could put my phone away, it buzzed again, this time it played the text notification sound that I had set for my buddy Nikki; Area 51, an excellent match to the history channel “Aliens” meme, the one with the guy with funny hair, that I had chosen for her photo.

“Earth to space cadet. Come in space cadet,” the message read.

“This is space cadet. What’s the problem?”

Nikki insists on calling me space cadet, that or Stargazer.

“Food supply running low. Requesting backup.” Translation: “My parents are out of town again, and I don’t want to cook for myself, so can I come over and bum a meal off you guys?”

“Of course.”

Mom may be the strangest person in town, but she’s never been one to turn down a hungry child. I could already smell what she was cooking when I walked into the house. It smelled like spaghetti, one of the things she’s actually good at cooking. That’s not saying much though, all you have to do is boil water and make sure you don’t overcook the noodles.

The big pot on the stove was steaming and gurgling. My mother stood over it, watching to make sure it didn’t boil over, holding her soup spoon at her side like a soldier holding her sword.

“Nikki’s coming over, so we’re gonna have to set a place for three,” I said as I opened the fridge to grab a soda.

“Ah! Galileo, don’t sneak up on me like that,” my mother yelled, whipping around with her spoon in the air.

“Sorry, did you hear what I said about Nikki?”

“Oh, yes, we should be good. I made plenty of spaghetti.”

With that, my mother went back to watching her cooking. While she finished up, I got to work getting out the plates, bowls, and silverware. At our house, we have a strange conglomeration of tableware. We have chopsticks, forks, spoons, knives, cheese knives, ice cream scoopers, nutcrackers, tuning forks, fondue forks, and skewers all in the same drawer. A typical family would keep their usual tableware in one drawer and everything else in another, right? Not our family. Mom insists that all of these objects are used for eating and should, therefore, be stored together. What’s funny is watching her eat with a tuning fork.

When I set the table, I make sure to grab what we need for whatever we’re eating. If my Mom does it, there’s no telling what she’ll put on the table. You might end up with a punch bowl to eat your dinner out of with the fondue fork she brought you. That’s why I like it better when I do it. A knock on the door alerted me of Nikki’s arrival. Our doorbell doesn’t work; we don’t have enough visitors to warrant getting it fixed.

“I’ve got it,” I said, leaving my mom to finish up the food.

Nikki is my best friend, but I have to say she’s a total geek. She wears her curly hair up in two pigtails that look more like puff balls than anything, her two front teeth have a tiny gap between them, her bag is decorated in space memorabilia, and her clothes are always covered in alien propaganda. She’s one of those who loves sci-fi movies and staying up late watching alien conspiracy videos. If I have to hear about the Roswell UFO one more time, I’ll probably lose my mind.

“May I come in?” She asked, shuffling in place.

“If you aren’t scared of getting probed,” I teased.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she stepped over the threshold of my house, taking off her shoes hurriedly. Nikki’s Mom and dad own a company that does something with fuel, she explained it to me once, but I forgot. Her mom’s the president and her dad’s the CEO, so they’re often out of town on business. It’s not like they don’t like her or anything, they just don’t want their kids getting caught up in everything.

Nikki is the oldest of five, three boys and two girls, and they’re all a different shade of dark. Nikki’s the lightest, then her younger brother Dave, then John, then Sarah and Jamal are about the same. Her mother’s pretty light and her dad’s pretty dark, so some took after their mom and some their father. It makes a lot of people question if they all have the same dad, but they do.

“I brought something sure to tell us if your mother is an alien,” she whispered, checking to make sure my Mom was nowhere nearby.

“Oh god, what is it?”

Slowly, she pulled the device out from her bag, making sure to keep it hidden. It looked like a calculator and a GameBoy had a crack baby. There were all sorts of buttons and wires poking out in all directions. When she pushed the on button, the screen turned on, displaying nothing but white.

“What do you think?”

“I think you made someone on amazon very happy.”

“Come on Galileo, this is the Invader Finder 2000, does that sound fake to you?”

“It sounds like your parents need to monitor your spending.”

She didn’t like that too much. As she glared at me, she pushed a button, and a tiny little blue dot appeared on the screen.

“This machine scans the area for aliens, if it senses one, the blue dot will turn red. It’s supposed to do a bunch of other stuff, but I haven’t figured it all out yet,” she explained.

Of course she hadn’t. More than likely it didn’t have all the settings it claimed it did. She’d probably get home, push a button and it’d spit out the quadratic formula.

“Time for dinner,” My Mom called.

“Let’s take this baby for a test drive, shall we?” Nikki offered, proudly heading toward the kitchen.

Rolling my eyes, I followed behind her with my arms crossed. At least tonight I’m getting dinner and a show. The kitchen table was set with the large spaghetti pot in the center and the container of sauce sitting next to it. There was also a plate of buttered toast off to the side. My Mom noticed Nikki’s little device immediately, but she didn’t seem alarmed at all.

“Ooo, what’s that?” She asked, taking her place at the table.

“It’s a new game I bought,” Nikki lied.

“That sounds fun.”

There were no serving spoons or tongs for us to get our food with. Reaching into the pot, my mom grabbed a big handful of pasta and put it on her plate before dumping a load of sauce on top. Next to go for it was Nikki, after eating with us so many times, she was used to my mother’s craziness. She kept the device hidden under the table in her lap, where she could check it occasionally during the meal.

Once everyone had gotten what they wanted, we started eating. While Nikki and I twirled our pasta into little bites around our fork, my mother grabbed at her pasta with her hands, shoving what she could into her mouth before slurping the rest up like slimy intestines. Her face was covered in red sauce after only a few bites, making her look like a cannibal.

“Thanks again for letting me join you, Ms. M.”

“No problem Nikki. I don’t mind at all. Speaking of, where’d your parents go this week?”

“France. There’s supposed to be some big alternative fuel event going on,” Nikki replied, glancing down.

“That sounds cool. Did they tell you what it was about?”

“The only thing I remember was that it had something to do with some old algae. I didn’t really catch everything.”

“Algae? That sounds so cool!” My Mom replied excitedly, placing her sauce-covered hands on the table.

“I guess.”

Of course, the little light on Nikki’s screen stayed blue no matter how close she got it to my mother. Occasionally it would beep, but that was about it, and it wasn’t even loud enough to hear. It seemed she was getting desperate as she was trying to lean without looking suspicious.

“Say, Ms. M, wanna try my game out?” Nikki offered, holding out the little device.

My Mom tilted her head in curiosity, taking the device like it was a snake whose pattern she didn’t recognize. I guess since it was coming from Nikki she trusted it. As soon as the little device passed from Nikki’s hands, the dot turned bright red, then the entire screen turned to static before fading to all black.

“Oh no, I broke it!” My mother panicked.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure I can get it working again,” Nikki reassured her, trying to hide the triumphant grin on her face.

Groan, now I’m going to have to listen to her talk about how it’s “proven” now. Rolling my eyes, I went back to eating my noodles. Sadly, Nikki proved my suspicions right, as soon as dinner ended, while my mother started cleaning up, she dragged me back to the living room with an insane look in her eyes. Once she made sure my mother hadn’t followed, she pulled me down to sit next to her on the couch.

“Did you see that? Proof! Hard evidence. I can’t wait until my fans hear about this.”

Now when she says fans, she’s referring to the 200 people that follow her blog on Tumblr, although I’m pretty sure at least a fourth of them are porn bots. She’s continuously posting crazy stuff about Aliens on there, and she even has a whole segment dedicated to my Mom, but I refuse to read it. I’m scared to see what kind of crazy stuff she’s done that I don’t know about.

“Yeah, right. You saw how that thing was glitching out, it probably just short-circuited, and that’s why the dot changed color,” I explained.

“Come on, Stargazer, how come it only did that when I handed it to her? It didn’t do that all throughout dinner, so what was different?” Nikki questioned.

It’s hard to argue with her when she gets like this. No matter what I say, she’s going to turn it down because she’s already convinced herself, so I might as well just not even try.

“I don’t know. Maybe keeping it on so long made it overheat or something? It was just a coincidence, don’t get too excited.”

“Yeah, right. You just want to ruin this for me,” She said, already typing up a blog post on her phone.

“Would either of you like a cold cream sandwich?” My Mom said, appearing out of nowhere with three ice cream sandwiches in hand.

“Sure thing Ms. M,” Nikki laughed, taking the sandwich that was closest to her.

I took the one in the middle, leaving the last one for my Mom, who happily took it and sat down in the empty recliner next to the couch. The three of us tore the packaging off and dug into our sweet treats. Nikki and I took our bites slowly, trying not to hurt our teeth from the cold, but my Mom ate the whole thing in just a few huge bites. She visibly cringed, but still continued to take massive bite after massive bite.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Gali. Thanks for letting me come over, Ms. M!”

Once she finished her ice cream, Nikki stood up to leave; her typical dine and dash maneuver. She had to be back home by a particular time, or the nanny would yell at her.

“No problem, my dear, feel free to come again,” My mother offered.

“See you at school, tinfoil head.”

Turning around, Nikki gave me the “loser” hand gesture before running off, nearly tripping on the uneven step that leads up to our front door. I headed up to my room after she left. Without her, I didn’t really have a reason to be out among the living, so I retreated into my sanctuary.

My room is the only place in the house where everything makes sense. Unlike the rest of the home, it looks like a sane human being resides within. The walls are covered in posters of my favorite shows and bands, my desk is neat and organized with my laptop in the middle, my clothes are put up, and my bed has matching pillows and bedding. It’s not a huge room, but there’s plenty of space for me to be me.

The bed creaked loudly when I flopped onto it. I pulled my phone out, plugged my headphones in, and turned on some of my favorite music. Personally, I prefer Techno, but I’m not opposed to a good rap song every once in a while, it all depends on what kind of mood I’m in, and right now I’m in a techno mood.

As my ears were filled with fun technological sounds, I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about Nikki’s stupid device. Not gonna lie, it was odd that it messed up right when my Mom touched it, but that doesn’t really mean anything. That was a piece of junk anyway. My Mom may be weird, but that doesn’t make her an alien.

Wanna see more? Check it out on Amazon.com

[redditnosleep]

I've Been Seeing A Man In My Backyard For The Past Two Nights

by Opinionson

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (Final)

Hi everyone,

For anyone who has been reading this I am alive and well but far from safe. As my neighbor and I were waiting for the coast to be clear, I saw my garage door open and at approximately 3:27 am, and right then my neighbor and I booked it to his car. As we were leaving I saw the light turn on in my bathroom and I nearly threw up realizing how easily he got in and how I had been just a sitting duck an hour prior. I have been fantasizing over and over of how if I had stayed in there, my neighbors would have called me telling me he was in my driveway and i would had heard my garage opening with dread just knowing I was absolutely fucked. Once we were in the car we sped off to the police station.

Police gave me the usual rundown of questions in this type of situation like; Whether I knew this man, when and where my first encounter with him was, and whether I could identify his car/if I managed to write down his license plate. I told them he had only come two times prior, and that both times it was too dark to tell even with the street light. When the man had parked in my driveway one of my neighbors who had still been on the lookout said she that she saw the car was a grey Volkswagen with no license plate. She went on to say she saw the man type in the code to my garage, go inside and turn on each of my lights, as though he was checking the whole house. The man had stayed there for 5 minutes according to her and proceeded to get back in his car without taking anything and sped off down my street. She notified the police immediately and they have been searching for him since then.

Nothing has come up. We returned to find that the house had been left relatively unscathed. The police did not find even a trace of DNA. Whoever this man was, he was meticulous as all hell, and somehow had gained the knowledge of what my garage code was. It makes me shiver to think he may have been watching me even as I typed it in earlier in the week. God only knows what other knowledge he has to track me down. My parents have still yet to return home from their trip as their plane was delayed, so as of right now I am alone and still at the hotel with only a bottle of Jack Daniels to console me. A couple police cars has been stationed around the area of my house looking for the guy and they are all waiting upon his arrival. I am not leaving this hotel until this fucker is caught. I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight. I am hoping this is the night he finally can’t track me.

The police have advised me to stop using any form of social media that can be indicative of where I am. That means no snapchat, no instagram, no facebook; nothing. They told me that I can use my laptop as long as I remain as low profile as possible. This means all I can do now is wait for the police to call me and tell me that the stalker has been caught. Now I am gonna try and figure out just who this guy is and why he might try to be stalking me.

Theory 1: My 9th grade Italian teacher. So I went to a private school and this teacher had basically been one of the biggest lunatics I had ever met in a school system. He was very outspoken in the way he described politics and very mean spirited during his time teaching. He would always make fun of students, had sometimes fallen asleep in class, and would always make perverted comments towards girls I knew. So one day, I decided to write an email to the Dean asking him to please fire the man from his teaching position and explaining the unacceptable behavior he had while working. It worked, and I have never seen the man since. Now the reason I think he could be a possibility is because he never particularly liked me, in fact I feel as though he singled me out in a lot of instances and picked on me. I don’t know if he ever found out I sent the email, but if he did I am extremely worried. I can’t tell if it was him or not when he spoke in my backyard, as I was in full adrenaline mode while I was screaming at him. I would say this is not a likely suspect but I’m just not sure.

Theory 2: My Christian deacon from back in second grade. I used to be part of this church program a while back when I was in elementary school. Out of all the head figures there one that always stood out to me: Deacon Anthony. He was a middle aged man, very soft spoken and he had always been very particularly nice to me and my friend Kevin. He would often bring us candy, talked to us about our home life, and treated us more fairly than the rest of the kids. One day my friend Kevin had told me that Deacon Anthony had asked Kevin if he wanted to go home with him to hang out. Kevin said no to him and told me. I told my parents about this and they had immediately contacted the church and told them about it. After that I never saw Deacon Anthony again. My parents later told me that they had contacted the board and he was removed from the church. If this is the guy, he must have had a massive personality shift after that incident because the way the man happily told me to “HAVE A NICE DAY” did not match up with the one he had when I was younger.

Theory 3: My classmate Derek from 8th grade. Derek was one of those insecure types who would always get off to making other people feel small. He was your standard 8th grade middleschool shiteater who deserved nothing but a good ass whooping, which unfortunately never came. However what did happen was I had started a rumor about him that I wish to not bring up, but it pretty much ruined his reputation and made him a laughing stock. He never found out it was me as far as I could tell, but from what I heard from my hometown while I went off to public school is that at our local public High School the rumor hadn’t stopped, and he turned into one of those quiet kids who never talked. Keep in mind, this kid literally had told my whole friend group to stop hanging out with me, so as far as I can tell this revenge was extremely justified in my mind. This may in fact be the prime suspect as he would most likely know where I live. I tried finding any sort of social media about him but nothing came up. This guy is a ghost and I have no idea what he has been up to.

Theory 4: Some complete stranger who I have no association with. Maybe this is just a genuine old school stalker who takes pride in picking out their prey from a random crowd. No one I have seen in this town for the past week has seemed particularly odd. The only one that comes to mind was this weird cashier at 7/11 who seemed particularly in love with his job. He may have some form of asperger's syndrome or just maybe he just takes pride in being a cashier but he was always very polite with his customers when he had been interacting with them. I had gone in to get a soda from the fountain and as the store was empty he had asked me:

“Hey is that all you're getting”

I said “Yeah this is all”

So he continues “Oh well congratulations! It’s free!”

I thought, sweet a free soda, this guy is the shit. I thanked him a ton as he was smoking a cigarette outside and I said “Have a good one” and left. Now I know what all of you must be thinking. This is definitely the guy. He’s a fucking cashier for crying out loud! Well, I am just not sure. This guy was probably in his thirties, seemed extremely grateful for his low end job, and just seemed content with what he had. He didn’t strike me as a stalker, but then again I haven’t been back to the store since so he maybe still be there or not there at all. Time will tell. I might have to stop by tomorrow and do a little more investigating.

As we speak it is 11:00 pm again, and I am staring out my hotel window scrolling through reddit. I am still dreading the moment I see a car with flashing high beams pull into the parking lot, so I will probably just be looking out my window all night again. I will post more updates if necessary. I appreciate you all, bye for now.

Edit 12:43 am: I'm reading all your comments guys and just so you guys know I can't get ahold of a gun as easily as most of you think. I live in a state where that shit does not fly the best think I have right now is pepper spray and baseball bat.

Edit: 1:37 am: Call me a lunatic but I left my room to get some fresh air. I couldn't stand being in this small ass hotel room one more second. I was bugging out like crazy though. Every person I saw seemed like a threat to me. I started talking with this one guy in the hotel lobby. Says he's been traveling from state on some sort of self indulged journey across the country. I asked him if he has any experiences with stalkers and he told me that he had been receiving anonymous calls a couple years back of from some guy. I asked if he has ever encountered one in his backyard or anything and he just looked at me funny. I explained to him the situation and he wished me the best of luck. Nothing out of the ordinary but it was nice to have some real human interaction while I am losing my mind.

Edit: 1:46 am: Alright one of the janitors must be fucking with me. I spent the last 10 minutes searching for my phone and asked someone outside my room to call it for me. I listened for the ringing and its in the fucking safe and the password is not the one they gave me. What the fuck?! This is fucking ridiculous! Whoever fucking did this is going to get torn a new one. I'm going to the manager right now to get this sorted out.

Edit 2:08 am: I'm demanding a different room. I am not staying in that same fucking room one more second. The whole staff is in there now trying to figure out the safe pass word. Meanwhile the manager is looking for the janitors who have been in my room to ask what the fuck they were thinking. Fuck this. I'm tired, I'm worried, and now I just lost my fucking phone. FUCK!

Edit 2:24 am: Its not the garage code guys I checked. Even if it was why would it be and how would the fucking stalker even get into my hotel room let alone rewire my safe?

Edit 2:26 am: Guys I'm not leaving the hotel ok I already paid the money to stay here I dont have any other place to go thats not 100 miles away. I have no car, I got here in an uber car and atleast here there is over a hundred people staying here. The stalker is not gonna come into a hotel full of people.

Edit 2:40 am: Ok now you guys got me worried. I'm sitting in my hotel room, all alone with no phone. No way to call an uber. No way to call the police. I'm starting to think one of the janitors got bribed to do this. I now not only have no way of driving away from here, but I have no way on contacting any family or anyone for that matter of getting me away from the hotel. I'm going to wait another 45 minutes and if they don't open the safe I am demanding they call an uber for me and I'm driving the hell out of here.

Edit 2:53 am: Someone just knocked on the door saying the safe is open. I told them alright and then they asked me to come get it. I asked him if he can slip it under the door but he said I need to go get it myself. I told him I would in a couple minutes and that he'd be waiting. I don't know what to do guys you're all fucking with my mind.

Edit 3:10 am: The man said that my phone is in the main lobby if I want it. I am on my laptop next to my window and I could have sworn out of the corner of my eye I saw a car flashing its high beams. I don't know if I should hold out till morning or get my phone and leave...

Edit 3:14 am: Guys I am not waiting until 3:24 for this guy to fucking come into my room and jump me. I am packing and getting the fuck out of here. I'll keep you guys posted on mobile when I get my phone back.

Edit 3:16 pm: Alright guys I'm staying a friends place for right now. Just to clarify when I said not a trace of DNA was found I meant that there was nothing that was found to trace this guy back. Like a glove or figure prints on the garage key pad. The police did not do a full investigation obviously. The guy still hasn't been found. My neighbors have told me no one has been back to the house and my parents are currently staying at my aunt's down south. I got my phone back and there was a missed call from some guy named Nick Sullivan. Whats strange his name was never put in my contacts. I have never met anybody named Nick Sullivan in my life and I don't know how it was in there. I tried calling back and it just went to voicemail. Creepy shit none the less. Maybe I'm just paranoid I don't know. I'll see if I can make another update tonight. Bye for now.

Edit 4:24 pm: I just posted an album on imgur of pictures I took yesterday when I went back to my house. See for yourselves.

Album

[cactus-titty]

18-25th October

It feels like an eternity since my last post but its really only been about a week. I can’t really remember all the things I did so I’ll look back over my photos and talk about each one based around it.  A lot of the time I’ve been at home doing work so sometimes there hasn’t been much to talk about. The 22nd was planned to be Tsubasa’s wedding which Kaito and I were going to go together. I found out a little while before that also another guy that went to City College, Jordan, was going to come and would be arriving in Japan on the 21st. He was mainly Kaito’s friend but Kaito said he was busy that day until later so he asked if I could hang out with Jordan until then.

I met him at the train station around 1pm on the 21st so I could show him around. We had Gyoza and then found a bar with cheap drinks on Doutonbori. We were there until quite late and then once Kaito finished work we went to his house to meet him. I had to stop off at my house on the way to grab my suit and everything I needed since I would stay at Kaito’s house and then go early the next day to Himeji city. All three of us had some drinks and I was able to see Kaito’s mum for the first time since I was here last. Shes really nice.

The next day I strangely felt hungover. I also realised while I had brought my suit and tie and dress shoes, I forgot my dress shirt. I felt like an idiot but since I was kind of hungover I was just giggling about it. I wore my tie with the shirt anyway hoping no one would notice so much. Also just taking the tie off and wearing t-shirt only didn’t look that bad.

We took the train to Himeji and it took quite a while, maybe an hour and 20 mins. Once there we made our way to where the wedding was being held. Immediately I saw some people from City College who I hadn’t seen since then. We had the wedding ceremony, then after that wen’t for the feast. Overall the wedding felt very epic. The ceremony itself was nice and the area where we all ate had a big like view camera set up almost as if it was a stage to see the performer better and there was lots of pre-prepared videos and even videos that were immediately prepared from the ceremony played throughout the feast. There was about 6 courses, they were small but they were gourmet. Also it was all you could drink alcohol. I held off on the alcohol most of the day up until after we started eating but I started drinking about 2 or 3pm. At my table was Jordan, and two other guys had been to New Zealand. Once went to city college and one was living in Wellington. Other than those two there was about 5 other people that had been living in Wanganui. Most had gone to City College but one went to Wanganui High School. Even though I didn’t know them well or at all in the past I felt I immediately made friends with all of them. I felt kind of pissed that there was a ‘foreigner table’ which is where all the non native Japanese speakers were placed. It was a good thing for one of the guys at the table because he was Korean I think and couldn’t speak any Japanese but also I would have been very happy to suit with all the Japanese guys who went to city college. We took a picture of everyone from the ‘wanganui crew’ with Tsubasa the groom who obviously himself went to City College.

Looking at this photo I’m wishing I was able to cut my hair in time. I tried to order clippers but they didn’t come fast enough then it was too late for me to find a place to cut my hair. I’ve cut it now though. The guy to the right of me is the one that was doing an exchange to Wanganui High School. Hes from Tokyo and I made friends with him and he said we should hang out when I’m there so he’s kind of my third friend from that area. The guy to the left of me I knew at City College kind of, but him and I were both shy back then so we didn’t become friends. Now he said we should hang out some time if I’m ever in Hiroshima, which I plan to do.

 The feast, or dinner, or whatever it’s called went till quite late. About 4. Then we had the after party that started at 5. There was again, more drinks and more food to be had. This place seemed really cool because when the event started they showed a video about the rules of the place, except they actually made it a joke and it was really funny. It said something like “We ask everyone stay in your… NO SIT WHEREVER YOU WANT!” and just a whole lof of things like that. They also started like a gameshow where you used an app on your phone to participate in quizzes, the questions were based around the bride and groom, and also one question was who can chug a bottle of cola the fastest, and they got me to be one of the participants. So I had to go up in front of everyone and then say a little something and then after people voted for who they thought could chug the fasted, all four of us started. Even though I got voted for the most (I guess coz I’m a big foreigner they would assume I’m a fatty who loves cola) I couldn’t even finish it, but besides that, another guy finished it within 4 seconds I was shocked. Also impressed with myself having no problem getting up in front of everyone and also speaking Japanese even thought it was only a little.

I didn’t get many photos of the place, but here are two. It was dark outside by this point. After this, our group discussed what we were going to do from now and we told them that us three (Kaito Jordan and I) were going to take the train back. The others decided to stay until the next day. They had thought about coming to Osaka with us (the two in the photo to the left and right of me in the large group photo and also the second guy from the left) but decided against it. Once we got to station ready to leave it turned out all trains were stopped due to the incoming typhoon with no indication of whether or not they would start again.  The wind was pretty crazy. I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t really that bad compared to Wellington but I guess it was still worse than that.  Yusuke’s umbrella broke and it was crack up. In fact, everyone’s umbrella broke except mine because I know how best to hold them in the wind so they don’t turn inside out.

We contacted our friends again and we all ended up hanging out at an Izakaya drink and eating even MORE in the hopes that later the trains would start again. I pretty much drank all day but somehow was fine. 

After the after after party, we went back to the station. The trains were still stopped. Just some were going, one of the guys got to go home. The other two had a hotel in Himeji so they left. Us three sat down at the station and waited for about an hour. There was still scheduled trains even till 12:30 am so we wanted to see if it might be going. But nothing. We ended up just going to sleep on a train that was sitting at the station. It was a terrible sleep but it was free. At 6am we woke up since thats when the first train of the day should start. But still nothing. The first train didn’t come till 9am and since there had been no service for nearly 12 hours it was absolutely packed. People had to squish in and it made the trip which should have taken just over 1 hour take 2 hours. I was stuck standing the whole time and squished to the point where my chest was noticeably compressed. I just relaxed and closed my eyes. Good thing I genuinely don’t mind being in that situation normally. I was so tired though and just wanted to go home so it was kind of hell. 

Because of all this Jordan actually missed his flight back to Tokyo. It was pretty stressful coz there was just nothing anyone could do. If he wasn’t able to get back to Tokyo by that night he would have also missed his flight back to New Zealand. I showed him to the station to buy a Shinkansen ticket to Tokyo. He ended up making back to Toko. I just wanted to sleep. I think i got back to my house 1pm. I just slept. 

The next days were a blur I didn’t really do anything. But on the 24th my friend Carling and her boyfriend arrived to Osaka to spend a couple days leaving on the 26th. We had a plan since long ago that she would stay and I would show her around. First place I took them to was Sushi train since they were hungry for lunch. Then we did some shopping for snacks. Later we went to Dotonbori and I took them to an Izakaya with drinks for only 300 yen each. Carling is a vegetarian and they had a few nice things for her like butter corn, cabbage dipped in miso paste, and edamame. Me and Jordon (her boyfriend, same name as the Jordan from the other day) got some meat skewers. They were both so into Calpis chuuhai (calpis soda mixed with alcohol) and were mad they didn’t know about it earlier since before Osaka they were in Tokyo and went to some other places. 

They also had never been to karaoke yet so I took them to a good one. We got a few more drinks there too. 

They loved karaoke. They paid for my food and stuff throughout the day which was really nice. 

The next day we had planned to go to Universal Studios Japan together, but I realised I felt too tired and also needed to do some work. For the morning they went to Kobe without me and I did some work. Around 4pm they came back and we went out for dinner with Sae to a really cool place that had lots of local vegetables from all over Japan and also pizza. We told them Carling was a vegetarian and they were very understanding and checked which items were ok since some things had chicken stock in it and the dipping sauce had anchovy based flavouring. Not what you’d normally expect in Japan since usually they will assume somethings vegetarian but completely forget about everything in it that’s actually not. They gave her special stuff.

I didn’t take any photos of this place sadly but after that we spent a bit more time at a cafe that also has alcohol. I had a cocktail and a jin and orange juice. Carling and Sae has a sangria. It was fun bringing Sae because she can speak good English.

They had their flight to Korea the next day and were getting tired so we said goodnight to them and me and Sae hung out for a bit longer and had 2 more drinks and McDonalds. I brought my speaker to a park and we had a little party.