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maryannecrimsworth · 2 years ago

Note

Version 1 of the sequel of Only Silence(without you), honestly super duper excited, THE SONG FOR THIS IS "Billie Eilish - Happier than Ever". Ive already talked about it in the reblog of OSWY but ill be putting it in summarized form instead of ramble form.

Wednesday x Singer!Reader

After that last concert in Jericho, you and your crew left without any problems and you started your preparation to move on from Wednesday with putting away that Crystal ball that the Addams Family gifted to you to be in contact with Wednesday, you touch the Crystal ball and reminisce all those talks between you two, you let out a breath that you didnt know you were holding and decided on contacting them to inform them of the break up between you two, anxiety and paranoia would strike you. You think that they will not take it well, you think they will hunt you for breaking up with Wednesday. You take a deep breath and took that leap of faith and called them and informed them of your situation (you decide their reaction, would they be understanding or will they cut you off from their lives), and you also inform them of you putting away the crystal ball and that if they need you, just give you a letter or text.

The fact that the concert was the last one of your tour, you were afraid that with nothing much to do, your head might get filled with thoughts of her, but surprisingly you were a lil inspired so you write and write, compose and compose until you are satisfied. You gave yourself a pat on the back, you have outdone yourself as you knew your song is gonna go big but your grin becomes a melancholic smile. You look up at the ceiling and clench ur fists while letting out a stuttering breath and you lay down and sleep for the night hoping that the night will wash your feelings away.

The next morning you ask your manager if you could do a live stream Q&A cuz you always liked to do fan interactions. After a few days of pleading, Your manager gave in and you gave a cheer also telling them ur inviting a famous friend. Past forward a week later, everything was prepared and all set up, you and ur friend are side by side answering questions about ur tour and life etc etc. By the end of the stream, you sneakily said that you have a song cooked up and grabbed ur instrument and started singing the song.

(NOW ITS UP TO YOU AUTHOR FOR THIS TO END CUZ LEGIT ive run out of things to type for this and do please have fun -love, Tundra)

After listening very carefully to all the songs you suggested, I chose one --- and this version practically wrote itself. I hope you like this pure sadness

Sequel(1) of Only Silence(Without You) / Sequel (2)

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x Singer! Gn! Reader

Warning: Memories; heart-break; moving on; sad end; reader pranks the local church(no offense directed at any religion, it's just the reader's background)

Author's note: This is the Version 1(aka angsty end). There will be an Version 2(aka hurt and comfort) soon

I am alone(In The Stars)

Reason.

That was what Wednesday kept looking for: reason.

For what reason did she remain quiet? For what reason did she ignore your letters, your calls? For what reason did she choose Tyler, for what reason did she kiss him, knowing his lips would never taste like yours? Why did she ruin you, you two — her everything.

The person who never cheated, lied, or used her — you were always there for her, no matter what; bad or good, criminal or legal, and now you weren’t.

You were not by her side, and you would never be again. You were her partner, a part of her life — a part of her, and now you are missing.

Now you are gone, far away and her day feels empty. She sits on the last seat of the empty church, and her body shivers as her mind remembers you. She itches, scratches, trembles like she’s sick, like something has been violently ripped from her — like a phantom limb lingering, hurting, aching, screaming and bawling in despair, even though it is not really there. And this is what hurts: its absence, your absence. You are missing. She misses you.

And the church's quiet inside just made her notice how empty she felt without you.

Sunday mornings were your favorite

I used to meet you down on Woods Creek Road

It was almost comical how you behaved. Every single week, every single Sunday, you would sneak into the church — under the priest’s nose, to your aunt’s disgrain — and watch the saints and symbols as if they were real deities. As if your father could be among them, singing with the choir, listening to the sermon, watching and praying like you were. Then someone would yawn, a teen would scoff, an old man would curse and you were shattered. The deities disappeared, being placed with pale, old statues, as you stood up and laughed. You laughed loudly, scornfully, wickedly and the whole church would look at you. The priest would grasp your arm as you shoot questions at him, your aunt would slap you in the face and take you out of the temple. It was your theater, your show, your little spectacle to make all the believers shiver and tremble in their feet. To make them regret rejecting you and your father — to make them remember what you have done on your first day in the city. On the day you first met her.

Your posture was as straight and confident as always: you were not older than 10, but you lifted your chin and watched the people in the funeral as if they were plebs, farseers, as if they were worms. Worms crawling up to your father’s corpse, on display in the middle of the pulpit — you despised them, you despised their hypocrisy, you despised how they pretended to care after kicking your father out of town. After expelling a man in need, a man with a newborn — you — and acting as if they were right, as if they had the right to do it.

No deity would allow this, no deity would accept believers this dissembling — no deity would allow its followers to sin like this in complete silence.

So you broke the silence — you interrupted your aunt's speech of empty, lying words — you made the statues sing and sob while the believers turned pale. The symbols and faces you always look at sang in a motionless choir — the Saints spoke and rebuked their bad testimonies, Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus scolded all the relatives you have never talked to. Your family trembled and cried, begging the heavens to stop, begging for forgiveness, promising they would be better — the priest was in despair, and screams took over the church until your laughter arose. Sitting next to Wednesday, hidden by her side, watching the chaos with her, you were witnessing your own show from outside, feeling pleasure for the despair of your family.

And before she could notice, Wednesday was laughing too. Your aunt got you before you could talk to her — but you saw her. You heard her low laugh and turned your head in an abrupt motion, and you saw her. You smiled at her while you were being dragged out of the church.

You did your hair up like you were famous

Even though it's only church where we were goin'

That was where she met you. That was where she always met you — at church, on the Sunday morning, and she would watch your show, your display of anger and revolt, and she would smirk back at you as you were being kicked out of the temple once again. In the beginning, you were testing her — you wanted to know if she was truly enjoying your spectacle. She was — and that’s why you kept doing it.

At church, then at her house; after a few months meeting at the temple, changing nothing but a few glances, you followed her home — to the haunted mansion of the city — and waited for the dusk. When the silence came and the fog arose among the gravestones of the Addams' yard, you started to sing. Your voice sounded like thunder at first, shaking the whole building with a supernatural power.

“Hello darkness, my old friend!” The singing resounded inside her room, and Wednesday jumped from her seat immediately — her eyes wandered fastly around the place, looking for the source of the song. “I've come to talk with you again.”

She opened her window and saw you standing in the middle of the garden.

You were smiling at her.

You will never sing to her again.

Now, Sunday mornings, I just sleep in

It's like I buried my faith with you

She was the only one in the church now. The funeral was over — the dead had already been buried, the priest had already spoken, the widow had already cried. The sky and nature were mourning — the whole city was quiet, grieving, reminiscing. Ever since you left, silence has taken over everything. Wednesday used to enjoy it, but now it tortured her — now, while the outside was quiet and still, her mind was disrupted by you; by your singings, by your voice, by your serenades and by your letters. By every single part of you she had lost.

I'm screamin' at a God, I don't know if I believe in

'Cause I don't know what else I can do

‘Ma noirceur’. It was how you signed all your letters: to Ma noirceur. My darkness; that was how you used to call her when you were alone. In front of other people, you called her Nessie, because she was as ‘mysterious and scary’ as the Loch Ness monster — and because it fitted her. An unknown monster, hiding in the depths of water, powerful and lonely, unreachable for the cowards and ordinary — just like her: you saw how Wednesday behaved, how her blank expression was nothing but a barrer, and you smiled at it. “Lucky me” you used to say “that I’m quirky and bold!”

“You mean dumb and reckless.” She used to argue back. Then you used to laugh and kiss her.

Used to.

Just like you used to leave messages in the crystal ball she was now holding.

“My parents have no say in the matter.” Wednesday said to Thing after watching him gesticulate. “Neither do you.” She shoved him out of the bench; he fell to the ground and signed angrily to her. “Leave me alone.” She ordered, without lowering her gaze to him — without letting her watery eyes be seen.

The air in the graveyard behind the church was even heavier than before; the oxygen was thick, cold, a warning of the coming storm. The heavens were about to cry, to tear up, to paint the whole city with their melancholy and grieve — and still, they were silent. The clouds moved fastly in the sky, but there was not a sound in the air: no wind blowing, no rain dropping, no branch cracking. There was only Wednesday and you, inside her mind.

I'm still holdin' on to everything that's dead and gone

I don't wanna say goodbye, 'cause this one means forever

In days like this, sad, cloudy Sundays, you would take her home after church, and stay: you would smile and make her parents laugh with your awful jokes; you would teach Pugsley some of your worst prank; you would arm-wrestle Thing, and lose every time; you would nag Lurch until he played the piano while you sang for all of them; you would woke up all the spirits of the cemetery with your voice and all the Addams would watch your performance; then you would say good night, and leave the house for a few minutes. The rain would fall, the grass would turn to mud and Wednesday would look out of her window. And she would see you there, sitting under a dry tree, waiting for her.

“You will die under this rain.” She said, stepping slowly closer to you.

“I will only die in your arms, Ma noirceur.” You reached her, and she moved like she had done so many times before: she sat by your side as your arms enfolded her tightly. “That’s better.” You whispered in her ear, your hot breath reaching her face as she turned to look at you. The water falling down on both of you froze your bodies, you were cold, trembling, soaked, and yet, somehow, your voice made her core burn; her face flamed while you smiled at her. But you were kind — you never stared at her for too long, you never laughed or talked about her blushed cheeks, you never asked her to hug you back; you simply held her as the sky collapsed above you.

You flinched every time a lighting shone on the heavens, and your hands loosened around her ever so slightly.

She never knew — and she would never know — if you did it on purpose. If moving away after embracing her so kindly was some kind of intentional torture. Because, for her, it was: her skin shivered as you distanced yourself, and she grasped you closer in a reflex. In an urge. In a need she would only show to you — only then, under the rain, when the sounds of the thunders and whispers of the winds sounded like the most beautiful choir around you. When, under her touch, you were hers, and hers alone; When you smiled while her lips found yours.

While her world spinned at the perfect pace, even though her heart was beating like never before.

You tasted cold, soaked yet sweet; natural, like dew, and her head got light once you moved slightly away.

“I love you, Wednesday Addams.” You spoke between laughs before kissing her again.

You were completely different from Tyler.

Tyler’s lips were warm, bitter, almost dry. His kiss made her stomach churn as yours torched her whole skin. He opened her eyes while you could keep her in the dark forever.

Now she missed it: she missed the darkness, she missed the rain, she missed you.

The storm wasn’t the same without you. The silence reigned without you by her side. It was torture, of the worst kind.

Then she asked herself again: for what reason?

For what reason did she make you go forever?

Now you're in the stars and six-feet's never felt so far

Here I am alone between the heavens and the embers

“The dead will miss you, my dearest.” Morticia sounded sad. It was disturbing to hear such a sweet, calm voice speaking like this. Like you were dead. You felt like you were — and now, you were indeed dead for the Addams. No matter how much you loved Gomez, Morticia and Pugsley, you couldn’t handle seeing them. You couldn’t bear talking and laughing with them while every single thing made you remember Wednesday — made you remember the boy she kissed while ignoring your letters. Made you remember her betrayal.

“Are you sure you don’t want to meet one last time?” Meet her. Gomez was still hoping for a reconciliation between you two. “You can always come here, you know that, mi cariño.”

“I know, sir, and I appreciate it.” Gomez frowned as you spoke. You haven't called him "sir" in years. “But I don’t think Wednesday would like it.” You tried to smile, but failed. Tears were about to fall from your eyes again. “I’m really sorry but I think…I think it’s really over.” You whispered. “Please send Pugsley my goodbye.”

You lost Wednesday. Now you lost your family too.

“We will, Y/N.”

“Adíos.”

Oh, it hurts so hard

For a million different reasons

You took the best of my heart

And left the rest in pieces

“Come on, Y/N!” Your friend held your feet and dragged you across the bedroom floor. “We didn't make your manager go through hell to back off now!”

“I hate you!” You grunted from the ground, your voice muffled by your hands. “Let me suffer.” You whined. “This is what makes a good artist!”

“Exactly! Turn this into something!”

You took your hands off your face.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean ‘stop crying and get yourself together!’” She grabbed you by your shoulders and made you sit up. “Let’s answer the questions from the fans and then you can play your new song.” Your friend held your face, forcing you to look at her. “Please.” She pleaded. “I haven’t heard your voice in days.”

“I don’t have a new song.” You mumbled.

“You do. I know you do!” She bit her lips, shaking her head in order to not shake you. “Get. Up.”

A week. You were in your bedroom for a week now and you wrote like never before. You have already done most of your new album. There was only one song missing — the song you have been mulling inside your head over and over again, incapable of singing it. You remained in silence for days because you could not force yourself to sing it — you could not say goodbye for her, not yet.

But you had to.

“HELL YES!” Your friend cheered as you stood up. “I’ll grab your guitar!”

I'm still holdin' on

Holdin' on, holdin' on

Your phone vibrated inside your coat’s pocket. You saw the screen and frowned immediately: an unknown number.

The call was answered and you held the phone to your ear.

“Hi, Y/N.”

Wednesday.

“I…I have to…”

You closed your eyes — a tear ran down your cheek as your breath faltered. Your whole body trembled as you struggled to remain in silence.

“Y/N?” You put the cell phone away. “Are you there?”

You ended the call.

I'm still holdin' on to everything that's dead and gone

I don't wanna say goodbye 'cause this one means forever

Now you're in the stars and six-feet's never felt so far

Here I am alone between the heavens and the embers

Wednesday continued to sit alone, watching the rain fall over the cemetery while your friend returned with the camera and your guitar. She stayed silent as questions and likes popped up

on your cell phone screen. The rain mingled with her tears as your eyes finally dried.

It was over. It was over.

The last question from your fans finally made you accept it.

“Any new song?” Your friend read the question on the screen. You were already holding your guitar by the time she turned around to smile at you. “What is your answer, Y/N L/N?”

You started to sing.

It was your goodbye.

Oh, it hurts so hard

For a million different reasons

You took the best of my heart

Left the rest in pieces

@tundra1029 @unknownvibesve @carolcunha7 @myfturn

#wednesday addams x you #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x you #wednesday x gn reader #wednesday addams #benson boone #in the stars #wednesday x reader

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somethingpersonarelated · 3 months ago

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🎭, 👓, 🔫, 🎶

okay SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ive been waiting my whole life for this

🎭 Though Akechi is my favorite character I usually tie him with Ann because I've been attached to her since I was 15 so. YEAH. but when I played again at 20 Akechi hit me like a wave I've been nonstop writing about him since. he just really scratches the itch for analysis and fic

👓kanji. i played p4D first and then my fav was Naoto but when I played p4G I really fell in love with kanji. it didn't matter what the game did I still loved him the most by the end of it.

🔫probably not surprising but mitsuru! i love her so much, her backstory, her interactions with her father, her succession to the kirijo group and what I've seen of her in arena. she's just an it girl

🎶okay i'm going to cheat because the two justice arcana songs are my favorite: Heaven from p4 (especially the super live version... its so good) and No more what ifs. I've actually done covers of both that I want to redo because I do not know how to mix for the life of me but we move

#ask game!#ty!!!

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spatio-rift · 9 months ago

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Hello! I wanted to ask your favourite ships and the ones that you don't really like and why

Hiiii thank you for asking i love to talk about stuff like that and procrastinating on work. i think in recent years ive been enjoying comedic dynamics the most ^_^ i love to laugh and the best kind of dynamics (romantic or otherwise) to me are ones that are funny first and foremost. and theyre best when theres something compelling about it but still a lot of room to play around.

a funny thing ive noticed also is that for most of the media i really really like i care about a platonic unit including the ship/at least one character more than the ship itself? like strky > imakasa, taka (oto) > suika, $quad > kubometo.... like the shipping is funny but the platonic unit is where i get the warm feelings from.

now to actually answer the question ^_^

my favorite ships are the ones cited above as i said mainly because theyre hilarious to me. but i also like that suika dont necessarily like eachother but grow to care deeply for eachother, and the plausible possibility of a history together in oto as kids from how much they know about each other despite being so hostile in early hebi. what happened there... its funny asf but It Could Be That Deep. and also i like the idea that they still hold a massive grudge against sasuke literally 15 years after he fucked them over even though the man doesnt care and probably doesnt even remember. ive always liked the idea that they could have bonded when they reunited during the war over both being mad at him for treating them like dirt but alas kishimoto decided karin still being into sasuke and beating the shit out of suigetsu was funnier.

kubometo and imakasa have a lot less going on, mostly i just find them absolutely hilarious. imayoshi in knb is mostly presented as weird menacing and creepy from seirins pov so imakasa (and strky) is a fun way to play around with his sillier traits, because in that unit hes not a scary opponent determined to do everything in his power to win, hes not an eccentric senpai that never says what hes thinking to his teammates... around kasamatsu and other dudes his age hes just a gay little freak. its refreshing!

i will not pretend kubometo has anything like this going on. its just really funny to me! so many things in saipsi are, but this one really scratches an itch for me. i would actually say that trying to make it deeper than it is and write about it seriously makes it a lot less interesting for me. well thats just my saipsi philosophy in general ^_^ if you start thinking too hard about it it becomes less funny, which is a capital mistake when enjoying a gag manga.

Erm ! for the ships i do not like.... there are so many but out of respect for some beloved followers i wont mention the ones that i really hate just because im biased as hell and no other reason (lol). lets just talk about a few that i have actual arguments for.

for saipsi i dont mind a lot of things as long as it is made funny by people who like it (otherwise i just do not care) but when it comes to saiko and kusuo im sorry we need to stop what is happening here. Out of every possible pairing in saipsi why these two. asou made saiko because financial power was the only thing he could think of at the time that was left to be a challenge to kusuos powers, and then he never really pitted them against each other because it was (offense number 1) already done (kusuos dynamic with kokomi and her divine beauty esp in earlier saipsi revolves around the exact same thing) and (offense number 2) literally not even funny.

their main reasons for interacting are 1) one sided rivalry because of kokomis crush on kusuo, which was abandoned Very Quickly and thank god for that because it wasnt funny at all and made saiko less likeable with each panel (and it encroached on makotos reason for existing in the work as well) 2) The Purge, except saiko never ever learns who that cyborg ciderman cosplayer that humiliated him was. kusuo barely registers in saikos mind past his introduction like he really doesnt care. the ones that consistently and meaningfully interact with him are always nendou, aren and kaidou, kusuos just always around so we actually witness it. it actually matters a lot to me that saiko is one of the only characters that are in the (extended) friendgroup not because of kusuo but mainly because of first kokomi and then nendou. so why make him and kusuo a thing?? theres nothing there! (heavy breathing) sorry if you like saisai i had to get it off my chest.

i think one other ship that i really do not like now for Actual Reasons is hanaima from knb. i used to be a Huge fan but as with a lot of things in this godforsaken fandom my enjoyment of it was really soured by people who just Did Not Get It. hanaima is the ship for people who want a ~Dark and Edgy~ dynamic in a highschool basketball manga. people who like it generally dont understand hanamiya and imayoshi as characters and the actual dynamic they have, they just want to write about abuse and poor little meow meow hanamiya and yandere sadist imayoshi and stuff like that. One! hanamiya is not scared of imayoshi he just hates him for being annoying and weird and not letting him do whatever he wants which is injure people and ruin their dreams! Two! imayoshi is kind of a freak but he is kind! whatever awful thing you think imayoshi did to hanamiya in middle school that explains why hanamiya doesnt want to do anything with him now is complete bullshit! its not about imayoshi being evil or an abuser or anything like that ITS ABOUT HANAMIYAS EGO! at most imayoshi is just annoying because messing w people hes fond of is his favorite past time!

ah well there are more things that people get wrong about their characters and dynamic but lets not increase my heart rate too much i wouldnt survive it. if i had to sum it up i think ships i do not like are either just offensively unfunny or like, the idea of the ship goes against established character so forcing it to happen makes them awfully ooc to the point of being near unrecognizable. like i know anything can happen in the mind of a fan but i like these characters for a reason, you know?! Erm well i dont know how to end this rant now so ill just say thank you for asking and sorry if its a boring read, just talking about myself and all ...!

#but to be honest even with the ships i do like... i only like the way *i* do it #because nobody really gets it the way i get it <- not to say im above everyone else but just we enjoy VERY different things about it #so i could make a similar rant about all the things i do not like about how people portray suika etc etc #its kind of hard to talk about stuff i dont like! ultimately its more like 'im neutral on this but people do it badly so i dont like it'#i dont want to ruffle feathers if i get really honest about the things i actually straight up do not and never will like

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caatfaace · 3 years ago

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hi uh- im kinda bad at this but i was worndering if you could write for oikawa comforting a ftm reader, ive been really dysphoric lately so yeah :')

Perfect Boyfriend

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Oikawa Tooru x (Trans!Male) reader

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!!WARNINGS!! Gender Dysphoria, aches from binding but reader does not overbind

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Please DON’T read/interact if you do not identify with male/masculine terms in any way (She/her + She/They's I'm looking at you

One thing you appreciated was how much Oikawa Tooru had genuinely cared to learn about your struggles. You found yourself sneaking into his room late at night to nuzzle into his chest and you never had to say a word for him to know what was wrong. Oikawa would whisper gentle words that lulled you to sleep that consisted of anything from “My sweet boy” to “My handsome future husband”. It was lame and cheesy but it filled you with the euphoria that you needed to keep going on your journey. No matter how hard it was.

Sometimes, however, that itching discomfort wouldn’t go away. Sometimes you were stuck with that feeling for weeks and weeks with no end. Every time you went to do anything, something just didn’t feel right. As if it didn’t work right. It didn’t matter if you knew your body was natural for other people who were born with the same parts but it didn’t feel natural to you.

Oikawa, obviously, would notice the shift in your mood (that super freaky setter sense played a part in your relationship just as much as it did on the court). He noticed every tiny change in your mood, regardless of how much of a shift it even was. It was no surprise to you that he noticed it this time. At the exact moment volleyball practice was over he practically dragged you to his house. Leaving no room for argument you just went along with it. Not that you wanted to argue–in a way you were grateful he was doing this in the first place.

“Don’t forget to take off your binder, Y/N!” Oikawa chirped to you while changing into his own clothes. Another thing Oikawa did when you felt particularly bad. He avoided his usual teasing nickname of “L/N-chan” because of “chan” being a more feminine term. Not to say he didn’t love to get on your nerves, he just knew when to shut up. Surprisingly.

You grunted and flopped down face first onto his bed but only after tossing your (color) binder to his face. Your upper back and ribs ache from a long school day spent in a binder, every day for a week. Not like you overbind, you wouldn’t even get the chance to do so. Oikawa would insist you proved you took your binder off as soon as a timer he had saved on his phone went off. The alarm was set up from the moment he knew you would usually put it on and to the moment you usually got home. You had no clue how he even got the data to estimate it so perfectly. To be fair, it was helpful. Even if it's a bit annoying.

You felt your chest tighten and choked out a sob. When the tears started they didn’t stop. Dampening the pillow beneath you as your shoulders shook with each broken sob and whimper that escaped you.

Oikawa sat beside you, the mattress sinking beneath his weight. He stared at your shaking form and ran his hand down your back. You didn’t say anything in response but god it felt good for your aching bones. He was always so loving to you, but why could he ever even love you? You weren’t built in the same way most boys are. You weren’t born one. Could you be enough for him?

Oikawa gently rubbed his palms up and down the upper areas of your back. Humming a familiar tune that you could recognize but not name.

“You’re my handsome boyfriend,” Oikawa smiled, “such a handsome boyfriend.”

You hummed in acknowledgment. Feeling the feelings of gender dysphoria eb away. Not completely but enough to make you hate your existence a little less.

“We can run away to Argentina together.” he leaned down to press a kiss to the back of your neck. “They’re good when it comes to Transgender issues. At least better than Japan is. We can get you anything you want. We can make your life more comfortable.”

“That sounds nice.” You smiled into the pillow and rolled over so you were on your back and staring up at the brunette.

His eyes were so filled with love, eyes that acknowledged you as who you are. That’s what you looked up to see. All your doubts melted away like ice in the spring. They’ll return someday…but for tonight? They are nothing but water. Only thing you had to worry about right at this moment was the boy who stared right back at you.

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thank you so much for the request : ) you lovely being I hope dysphoria is getting less as bad for you and im SO sorry its a late fic

find request information here

#haikyuu x male reader #x male reader #oikawa x male reader #oikawa fluff #oikawa x reader #x reader #haikyuu x reader #oikawa x trans reader #trans reader #oikawa comfort

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writingsfromhome · 4 years ago

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Bad Timing IV

A/N: To all the soft hearted crybabies requesting it: here’s part 4 to dry your tears from part 3. Thanks for all the interaction with this series, you guys are the best! <3<3<3<3

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

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I take my coffee to the little patio in the backyard of my childhood home, breathing deeply. It was a couple weeks since the traumatic incident at the bank, the one where I nearly died and found a way to live again. The higher ups practically begged me to take paid leave, I had a feeling they just didn’t want me to take anything to court. I’d told them I would take the month, and knew I would hand in my resignation thereafter. I enjoyed my job as much as the next person but it was too much for me. It felt like closing a door on a chapter of my life that I wanted to move on from.

And now, I could truly relax, I wasn’t running away from anything for the first time in my life. After everything that happened in that small restroom at the back of the bank, Harry and I came to a peace. And I’d only moved on from there.

“You’re up early,” my dad comes into view, a cup of tea in hand. “Your flight doesn’t leave until tonight right?”

“Yeah, just thought I would appreciate the views before I go back to a city,” I move my feet off the chair so he could sit.

“You can come here anytime.”

“I know,” I wrap my hands around my mug. “Coming here it just...reminds me of mum. And it’s hard...”

“This is how I stay connected to her,” he pats the table between us. “She loved this place, her garden and those darn birds she fed all the time.”

“You feed them now,” I look to the birdfeeder filled lovingly to the brim with seeds.

“I do it because...” he says quietly. “It’s what she would want.”

I think about my mum, what she would want. It hurt when I thought about how she left me, married and happy in love. And then how much hurt I went through, always wishing she was there. In some way I know she knew--wherever she was. But I wish I could hear her, I wish I could have a love like she had.

“So, when do I get to meet this new boy of yours?” My dad asks.

“Dad, you know his name’s Alec.”

“I would if I met him, put a face to the name.”

I roll my eyes, my dad was a bit overprotective after everything that’s happened in my life. I think he felt guilty in a small way, him and Harry always got on--we teased them about their bromance. He was just as blindsided as me. But I’d told my dad everything that happened the first night I came over. He hadn’t judged, just listened, hugged me tightly, and left to make me a cup of tea. That was the most expressive my dad got.

After Alec took me back from from the hospital, I asked him to stay. And he had stayed since, making it official from casual to dating. It was scary but life was too short to hold back I had learned. I had to hold onto a good thing when I had one.

As for Harry, he hadn’t called me since that day he visited me. I’d left him a couple texts--when I was discharged home, and again to ask him how he was doing a week later. He’d sent a thumbs up and that was it. I thought we were okay, but he blew me off even when I tried to call him. It hurt a little, but I’d been so busy packing and getting on, that I let him be for now. I would wait until after visiting my sister to find out where his head was at.

H’s POV

It’s been nearly a month since I walked out of Y/N’s hospital room, and we’d just about tied all the lose ends from the case. The only thing about it all that lingered on my mind was Y/N. I missed her more than I had all these years apart, but I sat in the ache of wanting. It was time I catch up to the consequences of my past actions. I turned to writing, starting again after years of thinking I no longer had a passion for it. It felt freeing.

She’d texted me, called me too. I tried not to respond even though everything in me wanted to pick up the phone and ask her out to dinner, invite her over for a movie, ask her if she wanted to take my car and drive out somewhere like we used to after exams in uni. But I let her be, imagining that she was happy somewhere. With Alec, or whoever she wanted to be with.

The last thing I expect, is for her to be standing outside my station late Thursday night.

“Y/N?” I almost don’t recognise her. Gone was her stern bun and smart suit. Strands of her hair frame her face, like a piece of art on display. She has on a loose jumper and tights, a bum bag strapped across her chest that she roots through for something.

“Harry!” she drops her hands. “I’ve only been waiting here for...20 minutes, when your receptionist said your shift ended?”

“I had to finish up some paperwork. Why didn’t you call me?.”

“It’s not like you would’ve answered.” her hands on her hips, attitude dripping from every inch of her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“You look different,” I dodge the topic.

“I know,” she zips up her bag. “I had the month off, officially resigned today. I have absolutely nowhere to be. So I’m looking the part.”

“It looks good,” I say truthfully. She looked relaxed, like the Y/N I used to know. “You quit your job?”

“I had enough of that bank,” she shrugs. “I went to see my dad for a bit, and visited my sister. She’s doing well.”

“Ah,” I was glad she’d taken a break. She was glowing. “Seriously Y/N, you look really good.”

“You,” she points her finger at me. “Are not allowed to say things like that after ghosting me. I thought we...came to an understanding. You left me again.”

I open my mouth to say something, but her words hit me. She was right, I’d left her again. Fuck.

“Yeah,” she crosses her arms when I go speechless. “You admitted to your mistakes, apologized, and then left me. How do you think that’s made me feel?”

“I thought it was best if I left you alone,” I walk out of the way from the entrance and she follows me to my car, parked in the lot. “I just wanted to give you space--a chance at being happy.”

She scoffs, leaning against the driver’s side door. “Thought it was best for who, Harry? Who are you to define my happiness? It would’ve been nice just to hear you were doing okay!”

“I’m sorry!” I stumble for another excuse but I come up with none. “The truth is, seeing you with Alec that day I...it was hard for me. I couldn’t be around you like that.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I...” I look at her, looking at me expectantly. She was a woman with an agenda, she had come here looking for answers and wasn’t going to leave until I gave them to her. “I want you to be happy, all that shite. You can’t do that with me around. And it’s hard for me seeing you with someone else...I can’t stand to be in your life like that. Where I’m just...your ex.”

“So you’re saying, it took me nearly dying for you to realize?” Her eyebrow quirks up.

“In a way,” I huff. “It just, took me being around you to remember what I left, when we ended things. It also made me realize the mess I left behind-”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself,” she calls me out like nobody else could. It makes me laugh nervously and she takes it the wrong way. “Don’t laugh, I’m serious! I’ve felt sorry enough for the both of us for years. And maybe Y/N from a month ago would’ve wanted you to suffer a little bit, but not anymore. This last month...I’ve just felt so free and happy Harry. I get what you mean now, I get it. And I’m alright.”

“That’s great, I’m happy for you Y/N.”

“Yeah, I mean I get it, but you did go about it in the worst possible way-”

“I know.”

“I’m not done,” she pushes my shoulder. “Anyway, just because you did some shitty stuff, you don’t deserve to suffer okay? Move on. Onward. Not backwards.”

I’m taken aback again when she pushes herself off my car and wraps her arms around my shoulders. I slowly envelop her into me, savoring the feel of holding her even if it’s just for a moment.

“You deserve happiness,” she says in my ear. “If that means ghosting me, I won’t fight it. You just...have to let me know.”

“That’s not called ghosting,” I say as she separates herself from me. I want to pull her back but I stuff my hands in my pockets.

“Potato potato,” she waves her hand. “I should go. Just...take care of yourself Harry.”

Y POV (1 year later):

“That’s wonderful news,” I smile at my client who gathers their materials back into their portfolio. “I’ll have my assistant forward the contract over tonight. I look forward to working with your team.”

I shake hands and watch them leave the room before collapsing into my chair. I knew starting your own business was hard, but this last year was a bumpy road. I’d started my own consultation business, and only had two clients. This was my first big-deal contract I’d signed; I was promised two whole years with this team!

I reach for my phone to tell Alec, but I remember we weren’t talking. Well, I wasn’t speaking to him--he’d told me last night before my big meeting that he’d been offered a promotion at work. But the catch was it was in the Edinburgh offices “which works out perfectly for us! Your sister lives there, we can visit them often...what do you think?”

I’d been so angry then. Firstly, he’d sprung the news on me the night before a big day, and second he’d already made the decision for us. I was so angry I’d just gone quiet, and told him I had a big meeting the next morning.

My fingers itch though, to tell someone. My fingers hover over Harry’s name.

Every since I confronted him last year at work, he disappeared again but not completely. He texted me a few times, once on my birthday, another during a heat wave in the city asking me if I wanted to grab drinks. I wasn’t available and he hadn’t really texted me since. I knew he was a phone call away, and he knew the same of me. Yet neither of us ever picked up the phone to call each other. I wasn’t sure why, but we were still giving each other space.

Well fuck it, I think. I call him and he picks up on the fourth ring.

“Y/N?”

“Hey, are you busy?”

“Uh no--hold up, wait. Not you...Sorry Y/N give me a second.”

I bite my lip, he could be at work, I should’ve texted him.

“Hey,” Harry’s tone is different now, softer and the background noises quiet to almost nothing. “Sorry it was so loud in there, we’re celebrating a birthday--Serena, the receptionist you remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I have a vague picture of her in my head. “Don’t let me keep you from the festivities-”

“Why did you call? S’no big deal, I’m not a big cake person anyway.”

“Ooh, cake? Eat a slice for me, I don’t get enough sweets living with a health nut...” I trail off realizing who I was talking to.

“I’ll save you one if you swing by?” Harry suggests after a beat of awkward silence. Another second passes as I consider what he’s asking: he wanted to see me.

“Uh, okay! You don’t have to ask me twice,” I grin, a strange bubble of excitement making it’s way through me. “My office is actually not too far from your station. I’ll walk it.”

“Your office? Where are you these days?” Harry asks as I slip my bag over my body and head out the door. I was exactly an 8 minute walk from his station--I’d mapped it when I found the place cheap online.

“I’m renting a whole office! It’s all very professional--I mean it’s like, one and a half rooms..oh and I have to share the toilets with the whole floor-”

“That’s good, so there’s no way you’ll be caught dead in there if you’re sharing it with the floor,” I hear the laugh in his voice.

“That’s a very insensitive thing to say,” I scold him.

“It’s been a year, c’mon Y/N.”

“We almost died!”

“We weren’t going to die. You’re alive right now!”

“Thanks to a really bad detective and a toilet seat,” I say and relish at the sound of Harry’s laugh on the other end of the line.

“That’s not how you thank someone who saved your life,” Harry finally says when he’s done laughing.

“You didn’t save my life, I was never going to die in the first place remember?”

“Touche,” he laughs. “Get over here faster, I want to see your face.”

“I’m trying!” I speed up. The background noise grows louder on his side again and he apologises. “S’alright. Anyway I just called cuz I had good news and nobody to share it with immediately.”

“Tell me.”

“Long story short, I started my own consulting firm! Finance advice--stuff like that, and I signed my first long-term contract! With an actual client not just for like, a project! I’m-” I squeal, I couldn’t help it. “It’s such a big deal for me I’ve been struggling just breaking ever since I started up.”

“Y/N I’m getting you the whole bloody cake for that,” Harry says. I finally turn the corner to his station, nearly jogging at this point.

“Only if Serena doesn’t mind.” I joke.

“In that dress, who would mind,” he says. I pause on the street, he could see me. I squint but he’s nowhere in sight. And then there, he steps out from the steps and waves. I don’t bother taming the smile on my face and neither does he.

“I see you Detective,” I shout.

“I saw you first!” He shouts.

In an instant we’re rushing towards each other, bodies crashing as I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze hard. It felt like a reunion.

“How did we go this long without seeing each other,” I say when we pull apart. “I’ve actually missed you.” With the closure between us and no baggage weighing our memories down, I’d actually begun to feel nostalgic about Harry every time I thought about us--usually the friendship, not quite the marriage.

“I don’t know,” Harry pulls me close to him again. “I think we gave each other too much space this time around. We’ve got to find a better middleground.”

“I think we’re standing on it.” I joke.

“Hey, Styles!” A voice calls from the entrance. “Stop snogging your girl and come back in here. Serena’s wondering why you’re running away from her big day.”

“I’m not snogging anybody,” Harry calls back. “And I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Bring her with ya, we’ve got plenty of cake!”

Harry looks down at me and I raise an eyebrow. “You think they’ll let me have more than a slice?”

“I’m their commanding officer, I can tell them to let you have as many as you want.”

“Lead the way,” I grin, half excited to see Harry and half excited for the baked goods. Harry grabs my hand and leads me in. Unfortunately, enough people recognize me from the bank heist that Harry has to explain we’ve known each other for a while. Fortunately, enough people remember me to ply me with sweets to make up for Harry screwing up my case. I have zero complaints and celebrate the day with free cake.

H’s POV

My phone vibrates with Y/N’s text, she was here for lunch. Ever since she called me a couple weeks ago and we decided we couldn’t live without staying in contact, we tried to pop over for lunch whenever we could. It felt like old times. Being Y/N’s friend again was what I was missing out on. I was finally living the version of my life that felt right. I had a bounce in my step, I felt happy when I woke up. Even my officers teased me, trying to allude that I was getting some until I threatened them with paperwork. But I was brighter at work too.

I text Y/N that I would be a few minutes more, and when I finally go into the lobby to meet her she’s having a conversation with Serena.

“Man of the hour,” Serena says as I walk up. “Your girl’s here.”

“I can see that, thank you.” Serena insisted on calling Y/N that despite telling her multiple times we weren’t together.

“Serena was just telling me all the wild things she got up to for her sixty-fifth,” Y/N winks at Serena. I didn’t want to be part of that conversation so I drag her by the arm out of the station.

We walk in silence towards a small sandwich shop around the corner from us. I grab her swinging hand to catch her attention, and she gives me a small smile before turning away. But she keeps her hand in mine.

She’s unusually quiet, and I wait until after we’ve ordered to broach the subject. Before I could, she blurts out: “Alec's got to give his final answer today.” I nearly choke on my sandwich. She’s told me her predicament last week when I noticed she looked upset and wouldn’t let her be until she told me. I was gutted, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to go.

“I...that means, hm.” I gather my thoughts--and all my emotions too. “Have you decided if you’re...moving with him?”

“I dunno, this is an amazing job offer. I could be closer to my sister too but...I just don’t know. My life’s in London, my new practice too. How can I leave it all?”

“That’s tricky,” I say even though deep inside I was relieved it sounded like she wasn’t going. “Couldn’t you just move your practice there? Travel to London when you had meetings? You could always stay with me if you needed.”

She huffs, there was more she wanted to say but she keeps it in. I push her to open up. “It’s just, he sprang this on me a couple weeks ago and he just expected me to follow him. I love him, I do. But that’s asking a lot! It’s only been a year or so, and it’s nice to know he’s serious enough about me to want me to go with him. I just...”

“And we only just reconnected again,” I try to sound lighthearted but when she looks at me I can tell she knows I feel more than I’m letting on.

“Can you imagine?” She raises her eyebrow. “If I told him I’m staying because I just reconnected again with my ex...”

“Ex-husband makes us sound older than we are.”

“We are old,” she puts her sandwich down and sighs. “You wear orthopedic shoes Harry.”

“I won’t take offense to that,” I look down at my shoes. They were comfortable on the job. “So...I’m not factored into your decision at all? Whether you want to stay or not?”

I see the emotion in her eyes; she was conflicted. “I dunno,” she finally says.

“Don’t let me hold you back,” I say even though I wanted to beg her to stay. “You love him right? Maybe you should...”

She stares ahead, her face falling. I knew Y/N’s face before a cry, so I reach my hand out and clasp hers over the table. She squeezes my hand once before removing it, I felt like I did something wrong.

“Anyway,” her face brightens up again, though the look in her eyes stays. “I watched that new movie you recommended and it was awful...”

She changes the subject swiftly, and I don’t object. I didn’t know how to tell her to stay without being selfish, and I didn’t know how to tell her it was okay to go and act like I was telling her the truth.

But near the end of my shift, the evening receptionist buzzes me she was letting my girlfriend through. I don’t bother correcting her.

“Hey Y/N!” one of my officers calls out to her when she walks into the floor. “We’re all planning on throwing you a party.”

“For what?” She stops by his desk. I notice Detective Cole eyeing her, before joining in.

“He actually has a life now, he’s usually a lot more bossy with us.”

Y/N turns to me, eyebrow raised. “I’m afraid the party’s a little premature. But I’d never say no to cake.”

My heart sinks, she was going. I watch her walk towards me and she notices my expression, the smile is gone from her face by the time she reaches me.

“I told Alec I would try it out, 6 months. See how it goes...I can see my sister more often, help her out with my niece...” It sounds like she’s coming up with excuses to justify herself to me.

“That’s...” my words get stuck in my throat, the lie was too big to get out. “Your sister will love that.” I settle with. I take her hand and walk her out to a more private hallway. “When do you leave.”

“Two weeks,” she bites her lip. “I-I’m gonna miss you Harry. We just got into a flow and-”

“We’ll still talk.” I pull her in, I couldn’t bear to watch her face fall apart in front of me. And I didn’t want her to see my own face crumbling. I tuck her under my chin, “We’ve got phones, and you’ll be in London sometimes for work right? We won’t be like before, we’ll still talk.”

I know she can feel my heart racing, and I want her to know what she was doing to me because my mouth can’t seem to tell her. I hold her for a little longer, and when she goes, I know my unit won’t be throwing any parties for her in a while.

Three Months Later:

I’m in bum mode by 8pm that Friday. I’d had a long week, a tough case with no breaks and finally had an evening off so I changed into sweats the second I got home, taken a hot shower and washed the week off.

The knock on the door surprises me. The peephole doesn’t distinguish who’s outside, a hood covering their face. I decide to open the door, to find a teary Y/N hundreds of miles from home.

“Y/N-”

“I wanted you to tell me to stay.” she says to me immediately. Her tears continue dripping onto her cheeks. I stare in confusion, wondering for a moment if my lack of sleep had caused me to hallucinate her.

“Wha-”

“When I told you about the move...you told me I should go. I wanted you to tell me to stay Harry! I thought you would’ve told me to stay.”

I move aside silently, so we weren’t having a conversation where my neighbours could hear.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know!” she throws her bag, coat, and phone down on the floor in a heap. “You just were! I thought when I told you, you would say-”

“I didn’t want to tell you what to do with your life based on what I wanted! I thought I already established that!” Suddenly we’re arguing.

“You never had an issue before!”

“Well look where it lead us,” I move away from the door and back to where I was previously relaxing on the couch.

“A country apart!” She’s hot on my heels. “Didn’t you want me to stay?”

Some part of me is still completely confused what was going on, but Y/N’s fiery frustration overflows into my cup and an invisible force pours it down my throat.

“Yes. Yeah! Of course I wanted you to stay!”

“So why didn’t you say that?” She cries.

“I was trying not to be selfish!”

“Well you just pick the worst times to be selfish!”

“I never said I was good with my timing.” I mumble.

“Don’t treat me like-like some fragile porcelain Harry!” Y/N gets right into my face. “I’m not! I’m different, I’ve grown from that fragile place. I don’t need you walking on eggshells around me, I just want you to be honest!”

“When am I not honest?” I shout back.

“You haven’t been honest with me for months! Just say what you feel Harry, stop bloody holding back all the time! I just want the real you!”

“Fine!” I explode. “I love you Y/N! I love you so much it physically hurts me to be near you and not be able to hold you. I want to be able to kiss you like I used to, I want to go back in time and warn myself to get it right! I want to tell you how amazing you are and how sorry I am every day. I can’t! We’ve both got our own lives! I’m not being dishonest I just don’t want to fuck with your life again! I’ve accepted that I’m nothing more than an ex and your best friend!”

That stops her in her tracks. Her chest heaves as she swipes at her cheeks, and then she pushes her hands into my chest. I stumble but catch myself. She pushes me again, big tears rolling down her cheeks, and I stumble onto the couch. She turns and paces to the door and back.

“What are you even doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Edinburgh?” I finally ask the question I should’ve asked the second I saw her.

“Sure,” she throws herself onto the seat next to me and buries her face in her hands. “I...I didn’t want to be there. I just had to leave, and I couldn’t stand my sister going on about what a catch Alec was. How I should feel lucky. I had to get away. I never should’ve left London...I just thought maybe Alec was my chance at a fresh happy future, and you told me to go so I thought you didn’t want me to stay. But I fucked up there too, and I just had to go. And I came here with nowhere else--I can’t even live in my own home for three more months...”

She trails off. It was a lot of information to process. I don’t know how long we stay on the couch like that, a foot apart in silence.

“Everyone I know will probably think I’m just an idiot for coming here of all places, but this was the only place that made sense because I--Harry I think I...” She glances at me. “I...”

“I know,” I say after she struggles to say what she wanted to say. But I knew.

“But I feel so guilty, I’m doing to him what you did to me...it’s not fair.”

I didn’t think about it like that, I realise. But this situation was more complicated than that, I tell her. We had history, she’d moved to a whole new country for him, he must know somewhere Y/N didn’t actually want to move. But the parallels between her situation and ours are clear as day. I don’t know what to say.

“Stay the night,” I put a hand on her thigh. She doesn’t move it off. “Get some sleep, when you wake up tomorrow, make your decision. You know how I feel...and you know how you feel.”

“You’re right,” she lays her hand on top of mine. I thread my fingers through hers and hold on. Her puppy eyes tear me apart, I want to gather her in my arms and kiss her misery away. But I don’t want to add to her guilt.

“Let me get you something to eat, you’re probably hungry.” holding her hand was getting painful. I leave her alone in the living room, so she could collect herself. If someone told Harry three years ago this was where I would end up, he would’ve laughed in their face.

Y POV:

I couldn’t believe I did that, I think as I sit on the 5 hour ride back to Edinburgh. I felt untethered yesterday, after arguing with Alec all week because I was just miserable when I wasn’t in London. My sister’s pressure to be happy with what I had, I felt like I had no one to turn to who would understand me. And that had driven me into Harry’s arms, the train ride there fueling my frustration and anger. It had accidentally exploded in Harry’s direction when I got to his place but I was glad for it. He’d told me how he felt. And it was complicated as hell for me but somewhere deep inside, I knew where this was leading.

When I get back home to a worried Alec, we sit down and have a hard conversation. It breaks my heart leaving him, but after one last night together I pack most of my things and head to my sisters. The irony isn’t lost of me, hers was exactly where I went to when Harry and I split.

My sister tries to be supportive but I by the time the three months are over, I feel suffocated with her overprotective nature, and the full house she lived in.

“You’re just going to do what you want to do aren’t you?” She asks the day she drops me back off to the station. I’d spent the rest of the three months at hers--I couldn’t go back home to my house anyway and something about going back to London for another man felt wrong. I’d seen Alec a few times in those months. The last time was last night, we’d shared a few drinks and maybe some kisses. But it was a final goodbye last night, heavy but final.

“I don’t want to be a bad person,” I say. “I just don’t want to feel stuck somewhere because I feel bad.”

“You’re not a bad person,” my sister brushes my hair behind my shoulder as she hugs me tight. “I love you. Mum would be so proud of you for following your heart, you always did play it too safe.”

“I guess my rebellious phase just came a little late.”

“Ever since you met that Harry guy, you quit your stable job and haven’t been the same since,” she wags her finger at me like a stern maternal figure. She breaks character when she laughs and hugs me again. “M’gonna miss having you here. The kids loved having their aunt around.”

“I’m sure they’re happier having their play room back.” I joke to cover up how sad I felt leaving them too. Even though most days felt like we were walking all over each other, it felt like growing up in our small childhood home again; a nice reset before I headed back to London.

The train ride goes by quickly, and I settle back into my home over the weekend, getting my furniture out of storage and cleaning up after the last tenants. I’d been gone only 6 months but the second I walked through the door, I knew I was home again.

Letting Harry know I was back makes me nervous so I put it off for the week. I show up at his flat the following Saturday, wringing my hands as I wait for him to answer. I didn’t even know if he was home.

“Y/N,” a shocked voice says as I turn to walk away. Harry studies me as I stand awkwardly in his hall. “You’re back.”

I hear what he doesn’t say: you never called me after you showed up three months ago. and what happened to you?

“Hey,” I brush past him into his flat, fiddling with my jacket as he locks the door. “I’m back in London.”

“I can see that.” He eyes me. “Alone?” He asks, and again I hear the words he doesn’t say.

“Alone,” I smile. “I just needed...time to figure things out. I’ve been staying with my sister.”

“Full house?” He says, knowing it before I had to say it.

“So full,” I laugh, and just like that everything is okay. He takes my jacket from me and hangs it in his closet, like he knew I was going to stay a while. “There were too many mornings when I woke up to my niece just staring at me, waiting for me to wake.”

“Aw, they must miss you now.”

“Yeah,” I follow him through to his living room. I remember the last time I was here, sort of embarrassing looking back. “I was missing London though. And...you.”

He looks up. “Are you-”

“Harry,” I swallow what I need to say. His gaze is laser-sharp and it’s slightly intimidating to admit something like this. I’d given my heart to him before, and here I was giving it again after I’d spent years healing from what he did to it. It felt right, but also foolish. I guess love would always feel a little foolish.

“Y/N,” he says after I don’t say anything.

“So,” I walk up to where he stands near the window, the afternoon sun illuminates his handsome face. I reach up to touch it, no longer able to keep my hands to myself when he was so close. My breath catches as he closes his eyes against my palm, his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

“Y/N,” he keeps his eyes closed, like I would disappear if he opened them.

“I’m finally home,” I tell him, feeling the familiar lump in my throat as my eyes tear up. He opens his eyes then, they’re also pooling with unshed tears. It makes me laugh; he arches a brow. “We’re both here, in each other’s arms finally and...we’re crying.”

“We’re not a very typical pair, are we?”

“Nothing typical about us.” I say and he chuckles, kissing my wrist. My heart stutters in my chest.

“You’re either crazy or just incredibly forgiving, giving me a second chance at this.” Harry says outright.

“It’s us I’m giving a second chance to,” I slide my hands up, locking them around his neck.

“D’you think we’ll get the timing right this time?” He whispers as he lowers his face.

“We better,” I keep my eyes on his mouth, the one I’ve thought about kissing for the last three months. And then, finally, his lips are on mine and I nearly cry out of relief having him in my arms. Harry, being my Harry again.

His hands clench the fabric around my waist as he pulls me closer to him, his lips leave mine and he kisses my cheek, my jaw, my temple, before he crushes me to him.

“Harry I-” I couldn’t breathe, but my strained voice gives that away and he lets me go. I’m surprised to see the tears now trailing down his face. “You’re crying,” I swipe at the fallen tears.

“I’m just so happy,” he takes my hands off his cheeks and clasps them against his chest. “Y/N I’ve only dreamed of this, I didn’t think the universe cared enough about me to let me have this reality.”

“You and your poetry,” I smile.

“I guess you’re my muse,” He pulls me back to him, this time in a sweeter kiss that lingers. Tears pool in my own eyes as my heart tries to process the enormity of emotions I was feeling. “C’mere, I just want to hold you.”

He leads me to the couch and I lay down next to him. We take in each other, face to face, the grins reflected on both of us is impossible to wipe off.

“I love you Y/N, to the sun and back.”

“Isn’t it the moon and back?” I ask.

“Sun’s further out,” he smiles like he was expecting the question. I laugh, he kisses the tip of my nose and pulls my leg over his, his arm snaking around my waist so I’m snug against him.

“What am I gonna do with you Styles,” I brush one of his curls back.

“You’ve got forever to figure that out,” he says simply. My heart races at the thought. We’d bungled the first round we spent together, but after all these years apart I had a feeling that we really would have forever this time around.

With all the emotions fluttering inside of me, all the baggage unpacked and out of sight, and Harry’s loving expression looking back at me; I believed in us.

1.5 Years Later (H’s POV):

The house is quiet when I get in--it was half past 11 and I knew Y/N was probably asleep. I texted her a couple hours ago I would be home soon but time had slipped away as I worked. I hoped she wasn’t upset.

I move stealthily through the hall, eventually making my way to our bedroom where she lays sleeping. She’d left the lamp on beside her, and I move around to her side so I can close it. I notice the open book beside her--she fell asleep while reading it again. I set it down on the drawers and tuck her hand into the covers, the subtle diamonds on her finger glows yellow under the soft lamp light. Just looking at the engagement ring sparks a rush of love for the woman before me.

Y/N had surprised me a couple months ago when she proposed to me. We’d were dating again for almost a year and a half--this time it really felt like we’d gotten the timing right on our relationship. We were happier and more in love than we’d ever been. During a candlelit dinner one night, she had pulled a chair up beside me and presented me with the ring and an ultimatum.

Apparently she’d noticed that I was always on edge--like I was waiting for her to realize that she didn’t actually forgive me for all the awful things I put her through. And she was right, but it wasn’t until she said it out loud that I realized it was an anxiety I had. I was waiting for her to realize she could do better than me--leave me the way I left her. But she proposed to show me she wasn’t going anywhere, and she showed me her own ring her father gave her--her mum’s ring.

I was blown away by her observant love, again, how she knew me better than I knew myself. I reassured her I wasn’t going anywhere either, not now or ever. And we decided we didn’t want to set any dates, we were taking it slow. Being engaged was a promise and that was all for now. I wanted to live up to Y/N’s standard, give her and her family a reason to trust me again--not only would they kill me if I ever did anything to her, but I’m pretty sure my own family would kill me too. They were over the moon when they found out we were giving it another go.

“Harry?” Y/N mumbles as I slip under the covers a little while later.

“Sorry for coming home so late,” I whisper. “I got a bit carried away with the case.”

“What’s new,” she shifts to face me, the moonlight from the windows barely illuminating her face. “M’just glad you’re home.”

“Me too,” I pull her towards me. Home, it was this house we’d moved into last year. But mostly, it was this beautiful woman in my arms who opened her heart to me despite everything. I don’t know how I got so lucky. I tell her that.

“S’not luck,” she mumbles. “The universe--our stars are finally aligned.”

“My star was pretty dim, I’m surprised yours found it.” I tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her temple. “You found it by luck.”

“No. Your star’s always burned the brightest in my universe,” she tucks her face into my neck. “Even when I didn’t want it to be, it was still noticeable.”

“You outshine me in every way in mine,” I lean away so I can hold her face close, resting my forehead on hers. “I love you so much.”

She smiles in the dark, and leaves a kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I love you, and I’d love you more if you came home on time.”

I chuckle, “I’ll try. Tomorrow.”

“Mhm,” she says sleepily. I’d let her sleep, I think as I pull her leg over mine and hold her against my chest. Even though I hated coming home by the time she was asleep, finding her in our little safe space, and being able to hold her close as we fell asleep was my favourite part of the day.

***

The day is nearly over but the paperwork on my desk says otherwise. I sigh and slump in my chair, this was the worst part of my job.

I begin filling it out, and I’m not even halfway through when the phone rings. Serena’s on the other line, “Styles, your patient fiancee is here for you. I don’t think she’s staying patient for long though.”

I tell her I’d be out, smiling as I put down the phone. Y/N was making sure I kept my word from last night, and I would. For her, I would get in extra early tomorrow just to be sure I had the evening with her tonight.

“So when do I get the invitation to the wedding?” I hear Serena say as I walk out to the lobby. She’s putting on her coat to leave and Y/N’s bundled up herself. “And then when do I get to see the mini Styles’? I better be around to see them!”

Not many would, but I notice the slight tension in Y/N’s shoulders at the sensitive topic. I step in.

“You’re worse than my mum,” I tell her. “And she’s actually going to be the grandmother.”

“We just want to see our babies’ babies before we bite the bullet!” Serena shrugs, walking out from behind the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow Harry, Y/N it was lovely seeing you as always.”

We wave her off, and then I wrap my arm around Y/N and we walk out to my car.

“That’s the first question everyone continues to ask me,” Y/N says as we walk. “When the date is.”

“Does that bother you?” I check in.

“A little, but only because it leads to even more questions when I say we haven’t set a date.”

We get into the car, and I ask her the other question I wanted to know: “And the baby thing? Does that...bother you?”

She turns her body to look at me, tilting her head as she tries to read me. “It doesn’t...does it bother you?”

“No,” I say honestly. “I’m happy where we are. All that stuff can...come after. I’m just-I’m happy with you.”

“Good talk then,” she grins. I can’t help but lean over for a kiss then.

“Well I don’t mind the baby making part,” I tell her. “But I think the actual babies can wait.”

She pushes me away as her cheeks flush like we hadn’t been dating and married and dating again for over ten years. “Sometimes I think you’ve just got one thing on your mind.”

“Yeah,” I say as I start the car. “That’s you.”

“Is that what distracted you so bad when you were working on my case? Because you were totally distracted and we almost died-”

“We were never going to die!” I say over her--this was a common topic of conversation between us.

“I was going to bleed out and die!” She tries to speak over me.

“Oh now you were going to bleed out? You were never dying!” I shout even louder. And we keep going for most of the way home until Y/N catches sight of a dog at a crosswalk and begins to coo at it through the window.

“Maybe we should get a dog,” she starts on another of our reoccurring topics. I sigh, ready to launch into why we should wait. And that’s how the rest of the ride home goes. Not that I minded, I could discuss the same topics with her over and over for eternity.

“You’re just threatened by a dog,” Y/N continues as we park and head up to our front door. “Because then my love would be split between both of you.”

“Yeah sure, that’s it.” I roll my eyes at her silly reasoning. But I still grab her hand in mine and kiss it as we walk in. My stomach flutters when she gazes at me as the door closes behind her.

“I’m going to wear you down soon,” she says as she takes my coat from me. I take them both out of her hands and leave them in a heap on the staircase, kissing her so she stops talking. She smiles against my lips, knowing that she was wearing me down, and I’d give her anything she asked for. Anything to make her happy. I loved her infinitely.

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noirshadow · 3 years ago

Text

Subtext Ch 5

Subtext AO3 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

The wait is over - Aleks and Alina have dinner and a little more. Plus, a new development at work.

*A/N: Happy new year, besties! Please check AO3 for the updated tags. Finally earning its E. 😉

——

Zoya and Genya were waiting up when Nikolai and Alina got back. Nikolai had already texted Zoya a quick preview from the car so they were already itching for a full debrief as the front door opened. Alina toassed the shoes that were dangling from her finger onto the floor and staggered onto the sofa between the girls. Sighing deeply - as if to exhale the pressure from the night, she sunk back into the sofa. Nikolai went to the kitchen and came back with two large glasses of water and pouches of Liquid IV - handing one set to Alina before plopping himself at the foot of the L-shaped couch, leaning against Zoya’s legs.

“TELL US EVERYTHING.” Genya pressed, turning to face Alina with her legs crossed, leaning forward. She had a throw wrapped around her shoulders, looking like a concerned mother. Hair up in a messy bun with soft velvet knotted headband framing her expectant face.

Alina gulped some of the electrolyte-infused water, trying to figure out where to start. She recapped the night even the work parts. For her interaction with Aleks, she tried to recount it faithfully without leaving anything out - quoting word for word. Saying it out loud let her relive it, warmth flushing through her as the flesh memory of his gaze burning through her and her own feelings bubbling over came back to her in a flash.

“So that’s it. He was just super complimentary and asked me to dinner next week to talk about my script.” Alina said, unaccustomed to the words in her mouth as her brain attempted to keep up - still processing the events that transpired.

“You know i told you he has not dated anyone or been interested in anyone, as far as i know as long as I have known him. This is huge. I mean, I am not surprised, because it’s you, but still…” Nikolai said, before taking a big gulp of his water.

“I honestly didn’t know. He was so cold the first few meetings and he’s just so incredibly business-like at work. But he kept just saying how great I looked and he just keep looking at me.” Alina blushed through this bit.

“Don’t even. I was there. He was straight gawking and he couldn’t take his eyes off of you, Lin.” Nikolai countered.

“Oh my god. I knew it. From what Nikolai was just saying, Aleksander is probably just a bit socially awkward. But wow, what a gamechanger. Don’t even pretend like this is about the script. It’s so great that he wants to help but this is clearly a real date. And I am not surprised either - you are such a catch and you deserve this. Shit - we need to go shopping for your dinner!!! You have to look amazing.” Genya bursted with excitement.

Zoya nodded in agreement. “He definitely sounds a bit socially inept but he clearly really likes you. He hasn’t even fully gotten to know you and he’s so willing to help. I’m so happy for you, Lin. How are you feeling about it all? You just realized your own feelings last week.”

“I know. I feel nervous but also excited, I guess. It’s been awhile for me since I had something like this, you know?”

Zoya reached over and gave Alina a one-sided hug. Genya sprang in and joined to sandwich her. Alina was so grateful for her friends. She was still in shock from the evening but their pep talk really bolstered her. They were right and she did deserve this. She never really had a meaningful relationship after Mal, if that was even one, and she didn’t really know how to do it anymore. She had been so focused on her career goals and writing that she hadn’t really had room to give love a chance.

She hugged back, sincerely, so happy and already feeling better about the week ahead.

“Oh fine. You all know I never like to be left out.” Nikolai smirked, reluctantly jumping into the group hug.

“Thanks, guys. I love you all. Thanks for everything. But I need to crash - I’m absolutely exhausted.” Alina looked at each of them gratefully. Giving one last extra squeeze, she curved her spine forward, pulling herself up, peeling herself from the comfort of the couch.

——

Alina woke up late on Saturday and was surprised to see some texts from Aleksander.

Good morning, Alina. I hope you aren’t too tired today after last night. It was great to see you and I’m excited about dinner. How about Friday? We can go together after work?

Do you like seafood?

Alina’s heart flipped. She was barely awake but the sight of the texts jolted her to full consciousness. She paused for a moment, thinking, and then responded.

Hi Aleks - I’m ok, thanks. Yes, I love seafood and Friday sounds great.

Really looking forward.

She added this last message with a slight trepidation. Alina was nervous - she hadn’t had a real date in ages - but after his open professions yesterday, she felt she could afford to be a bit more frank.

She threw her phone down on the duvet and laid back down, sinking into her pillow. This was really happening. Alina tried to compartmentalize her feelings. It had all happened so quickly. There were her personal feelings for him that were now fully grown into its own entity within her. Then, there were the other anxious emotions triggered by the fact that he could help her career. She had to remember not to forget that part. That was still a major element of her life and she didn’t want to lose that or forget it. She wanted her cake and to eat it too - both the potential for love and a real chance for her career.

Mentally locking in this resolve, she sprung out of bed.

——

“Morning, Alina!” Tamar chirped, setting down coffee. Alina was on the early shift this Monday. It was a quiet morning, after the premiere, and she spent the hours yawning and counting down the minutes till Tamar showed up with their Starbucks.

“Hey Tamar. How are you - how was your weekend?” Alina asked.

“It was quiet. I slept a LOT after Friday. It wasn’t even that crazy of a premiere but with work being what it is generally, most weekends are just catch-up, you know? What about you? Did you you have fun on Friday?” Tamar queried back.

“It was really fun Friday - and thanks for picking up the slack with Pekka. Nikolai was right - he was sort of a dick! And same - rested a lot on weekend, but I went for lunch and shopping on Sunday too. The reason is…well…let me fill you in from Friday before Vasily gets in…” Alina preceded to tell her about her interaction with Aleks. She still couldn’t recap word for word - it was too soul-baring for a new friend - but she told her coworker most of the main details.

Alina had debriefed Tamar a bit the previous week about the updates with Aleks. Her coworker was shocked at first, unable to fathom it - partly due to the rumors that ran rampant in the office about him. But with the information sinking in, she, like Alina’s roommates, was pleasantly shocked and supportive at the new developments.

Tamar’s mouth gaped open. “Girl, it is too early in the morning for this and I have not had enough coffee. I should have gotten a venti. But holy shit. This is incredible. Of course you got through to him!! I can’t believe how nice he’s actually being. He’s never a dick but I have never heard him compliment anyone. I mean, I guess I can now from everything Ivan said last time but I have never witnessed it myself. I will need every detail from your dinner!”

Before Alina could say another word, Vasily walked in, clearly not in a good mood. He didn’t acknowledge them and went straight into the room, slamming the door shut, the glass vibrating in the aftermath. With the dark cloud hanging over the air, the two girls didn’t dare continue their conversation. They quickly got to work.

The start of the week passed quickly. After the premiere, there was surprisingly still a lot to do. PR and publicity managed the press coverage - copies of the trades were all passed around until seemingly memorized and continously recited by all staff. If a film was bad, the reviews had to be suppressed until the wide opening. Luckily, as was usually the case with all of Kaz’s films, this one was already a critic darling. But also unluckily, because it was a hit, the whole office was busy booking an endless cycle of talent junkets and keeping momentum up in the news and social channels before the official release in a couple weeks.

Alina was daunted by the amount of work. Even as a lowly assistant and not working in PR, her days were filled booking and rebooking appointments and managing all the talent schedules. Because of this, she scarcely had time to think about Friday - which was probably a blessing, as she was still incredibly nervous for it.

On Wednesday, as things were starting to get back to the standard level of crazy busy, she got a surprising Slack from Amy, Heleen’s assistant.

[Rinkova, Amy]: Hey Alina, do you have time to stop by Heleen’s this afternoon - like 5ish? Your calendar looked clear.

Alina reread the words carefully. Why would Heleen want to talk to her? It must be about her script but surely she was way too busy to be chasing Alina for it.

[Starkov, Alina]: Hey Amy, sure - i can make it. I’ll just swing by then. Thanks.

Alina glanced up quickly at Vasily’s office. He was facing the window, on the phone. Leaned all the way back in his chair, his shiny amber brown wingtips were propped up on the Roche Bobois credenza that sat behind his desk. She looked at her phone screen and saw he was on with Pekka. It would definitely be awhile so she went over to Tamar’s and sat on the edge of her desk.

“Hey, you busy?”

Tamar was fully briefed on the previous semi-odd Heleen interactions so Alina wanted her advice on this.

“What’s up?” Tamar said looking up. She pushed up her thick Warby tortoise-shell frames that she wore for computer work and glanced over at Vasily, no doubt also checking his status.

“Amy asked if I had time for Heleen this afternoon. I haven’t talked to her since the premiere and I never actually sent her the script yet. Is it weird she’s chasing me?”

“Hmm…I mean, she does like to help new talent. But given that you have no rapport with her, it’s a bit weird. She’s never read any of your stuff before?” Tamar quizzically inquired.

“Nope. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for any help I can get but she sure seems to be trying hard. And I feel a bit weird about it as I kind of want to wait till I meet with Aleks and see what he says.” Alina knew firsthand from her school experience how writers could easily get completely inundated with edits and suggestions from too many people.

“Oooh, that’s a good point. He did offer first. I guess just see what she has to say. I mean, personally I would rather have Aleks take a look - he’s the one who manages the most writers and Heleen mainly deals with actors. Look what he did for Kaz, you know? But damn, Alina. Looks like you’re golden either way. All these people vying to help you!” Tamar admired.

Just then, Vasily came out. “Oh good. You’re both here. Can one of you book me dinner tonight with Pekka and his guest. Can you get a car sent to pick up my wife? 4 total for 8pm. I’m thinking Mastro’s. I’m going out for a bit to check on a shoot. I’ll be back before dinner.”

With a little airy wave, Vasily strolled out before either girl could say anything else. The rest of the day went pretty quickly. Before she knew it, it was already a couple minutes past 5.

“Shit. Hey Tamar- running to Heleen’s now. Be back soon.”

“Good luck!”

Alina quickly ran a brush through her hair. She had on a black silk headband with a little knot at the top. She checked herself in the little compact mirror she kept in her desk. Today, she had on a tight dark mustard sleeveless turtleneck with flowing wide-leg black pants. She adjusted the tuck of her shirt and smoothed it out. Heleen always looked so glamorous so she wanted to make sure she at least could make as good of an appearance as possible.

Heleen’s office was on the floor below. While she was a bit further away from Magnus and Aleks, as Alina walked out of the elevator, it struck her that it might have been on purpose. The floor seemed to be Heleen’s kingdom. Only her clients’ posters were on the wall and the all the decor of the office seemed to have the same elegant opulence of Heleen’s style. All white and muted greys. There was an ornate overembellished feel to the place too. Even all the assistants and agents on this floor seemed to dress the part. Such a contrast to the standard corporate of Alina’s floor with a few contemporary touches. Even the partners’ floor, which was definitely more grandiose, still had an understated sparse, modern feel. It didn’t try too hard.

Alina approached the end of the main hallway and greeted Amy, who was sat at her desk. “Hey Amy, how’s it going?”

“Hi Alina! Good timing. Heleen’s just got off a call. I’m all good - can’t wait for this day to be over. This week has been insane. We have gotten so many calls for Natasha since the premiere. I’m soooo tired.” Amy whined.

Alina nodded sympathetically. She always liked Amy. She was a cute diminutive girl who always had a positive outlook even in the most stressful situations. She had gotten chatting with her at the assistants’ drinks a few weeks ago and immediately liked the girl. “Sorry. But you got this! If you need anything, just let me know.”

“Thanks - you can go right in.”

Alina swallowed, pulse pounding a bit faster in the anticipation. She walked in. No time for a first impression as she was hit by a wall of Tom Ford Black Orchid that skewed any attempt to gauge her surroundings. Alina’s eyes struggled to keep from watering. Maybe it was the warmer then usual room, but the perfume seemed to have fermented thickly in the air and the heavy scent was seemingly out of place for a regular workday.

“Hi Heleen. You wanted to see me?” Alina said thickly, the scent coating her mouth.

“Alina, hi. Yes, please sit. Can i get you anything? How are you doing?” Heleen gestured to the fluffy Poliform Mad chair.

Alina took in the room as she sat down. Similarly to the rest of the 18th floor, the room was richly decorated. Unlike the vibrancy of Magnus’ office or the clean black of Aleks’, Heleen was direct opposite. White everything with silver accents. The whole thing looked like a showroom. Besides the plush chair she sunk into, there was a white sheepskin on the floor surrounding crisp white BoConcept leather couches. Unlike the glass desks of the other agents, Heleen had a gilded silver-painted desk - Baroque almost in style, Although opposite of the rest of the modernity, this and the other bits of Belle Époque looking pieces, actually worked well in some weird juxtapose of new and old.

“I’m fine, thanks. Can I help with anything?” Alina inquired politely.

“Rather, can I help you with anything? I see that you still haven’t sent me your script. Well, I don’t have much time so I am going to cut right to the chase. But firstly, can i trust you?”

Alina felt a bit nauseous as Heleen stared her down - pointed gaze as direct as her question. She couldn’t think what trust was needed. What was she going to say? She knew the nature of the job was keeping a bunch of confidential information but as she didn’t work for the agent, she didn’t know what this could possibly be regarding.

“Of course.” Alina paled in apprehension.

“Well, please don’t speak to anyone about this, and especially not Magnus or Aleksander. I know you’re a close friend of Nikolai’s but i don’t want this to get around - at least not until after this week.”

Alina nodded, not saying anything - cueing Heleen to continue.

“I have been working on this for a long time now and it’s about to kick off in a few weeks…I am leaving to start my own agency….And I want you to come with me.”

Alina was in shock. This was the last thing she was expecting and she also didn’t know why she would want her to come. The senior agent had no idea on her credentials working for Vasily or anyone else, for that matter.

“Oh..um, that’s really exciting for you. Um..thank you for the offer but I just started here so should probably at least stick it out a year, before considering something else, you know?” Alina tried to keep it courteous and be as deferential as possible. She didn’t want to offend the woman.

“No, Alina. You mistake me. I want to sign you. You know I already think you’re a promising writer. I think you’re ready. I will sign you as one of my clients and bring you over along with my others.”

Alina almost slid out of the furry chair. She couldn't help but gape, mouth dropped open is sheer astonishment. This was the last thing she was expecting from this conversation. She sat there in silence as Heleen continued studying her face. After several long seconds, her brain willed her mouth to speak - to break the silence.

“Oh wow. Um. Wow. This is honestly such a surprise. I don’t even know what to say. I am really, um, flattered by this. But wow. Like, firstly, thank you for the offer and even considering me. I think I would just need to think about it. Could I - could I have the weekend?” Alina stalled.

She definitely wanted to wait for her dinner with Aleks. She knew she promised secrecy to Heleen but with also what was blossoming between them, whatever that was, there was no way she could make such a huge decision without speaking to him - let alone Nikolai and Genya and Zoya. Furthermore, this was a complete blindside and she would need time to process it. Why would Heleen take such a risk on her for her new agency?

“I know it must seem like a shock, but as i mentioned last Friday, I have had my eye on you and I always am open to helping up and coming talent. I think you have potential and I would love to help you achieve your goals. Just think about it. Monday is absolutely fine. The wheels are in motion already. I’m springing it on Magnus and Aleksander this Friday. I just confirmed the final touches to our new office space so I am ready to go. A bunch of agents are coming with me and all my clients so we will be ready to hit the ground running.” At this, Heleen paused, sipping her Perrier from a silver straw.

“And, I would personally oversee you and you would have access to all our resources. Think it over. Don’t hesitate to reach out this week if you have any other questions but I look forward to your response.” Heleen smiled her 100-watt winning smile that seemed to shed years off of her face. A face that was a winning sales face and hard to say no to.

“Of course. I won’t say anything. Thank you again for considering me. I’ll definitely come back to you by Monday.” Alina said softly, already in her own head, thoughts swirling. So Aleks would already know when she met up with him. She wouldn’t have to deal with any fallout of breaking a promise.

At that, Amy knocked and opened the door lightly. “Heleen- you have Natasha on 2.”

“Thanks, Amy. Alina- let me know, will you? Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice evening.” Heleen gave another curt nod and picked up her phone.

Alina nodded and gave a small wave before turning and following Amy out the door.

“Everything ok?” Amy asked.

“Ya, thanks. Just a bit in shock.” Alina confessed.

“I gather she told you about the announcement? I’m going with her. You should consider it. We’ll get paid much better than here.” Amy offered.

Alina looked up in surprise, examining the innocence on the other girl’s face. Clearly Heleen had left out the small detail that Alina would be moving over, not as staff but as talent.

She thought it best to keep it that way. She replied laconically, “Ya, she let me know. Well, see you later. Good luck with the rest of your day.” Alina thought it best to say as little as possible for the moment.

Amy said her goodbyes and Alina trudged slowly back to the elevator. When she got back down to her desk, Tamar was waiting for her expectantly.

“How did it go?”

“Oh, hi. All ok.” Even with her friend, Alina thought it best to proceed cautiously with spreading this around the office. She felt badly about not sharing but she didn’t want to get blamed for jeopardizing Heleen’s exit. It was also a hefty weight on her. In the short time, she did feel loyalty for the company and her coworkers and knew this move would have a huge effect. But she knew who she had to talk to. She pulled out her phone.

Hey guys. Are you all around tonight? Can we have dinner? I just had a bomb dropped on me. Need your advice. @Nikolai, especially you, if you can make it. How do you guys feel about Monty’s? I can pick it up on the way home.

Her phone pinged back instantly with replies from her friends.

Ooh. With my powers of deduction, I am sensing this must be work related. What did my brother do now?

Of course! Everything ok? Can we have a hint - I can’t wait till later!! I’ll be back at 7. Please get tons of tots and i want my burger as a lettuce wrap.

What’s up?!? You ok? Of course, I’m free. I’ll pick up some wine from TJ’s on my way home. Ditto on tots and sweet potato fries. Can i add a Chocolate Dream shake too?

And no, Niko - you can’t have any of it.

Thanks, guys. Everything is ok. I met with that other agent, Heleen, today. And she was the one with the bomb. Will fill you in on all of it later.

As the day wound down, Alina packed up, hurriedly saying goodbye to Tamar before walking out. Consumed by her own thoughts, the remainder of the day had passed quickly and quietly for the two girls.

When Alina walked in the front door, the living area was empty. She went into the kitchen setting down the bags of Impossible burgers onto the dining table. She took the rest of her stuff to her room and was washing up in the shared bathroom when Zoya came in.

“Oh hey Lin. You’re back. Gen just got back too and is changing. Nikolai’s just chilling in my room. We’ll come out now. You ok?” Zoya gave a one-shouldered hug to Alina, sensing her stress, before walking out.

Alina went to her room and also got comfortable - changing into joggers and her favorite NYU hoodie. She fished out her phone from her giant Rebecca Minkoff tote and went out to the living room. The burgers were set on the coffee table and a giant plate, normally used for charcuterie, sat in the middle overflowing with the assortment of tots and fries. The tiny cups of sauces ringed it like a guard of honor.

“Hey Alina. We are eating in here. Thought it would be more comfortable.” Nikolai called out as he started pouring out the chilled rosé into four stemless wine glasses.

“Thanks,” she said, as Genya and Zoya walked out, equally clad in a variety of athleisure.

“Yummm - i am starving.” Genya intoned, plopping next to Alina on the long L part of the couch and giving her friend’s arm a little squeeze.

Alina felt already much better with the understated but meaningful actions of support by her friends already. Feeling lighter, she took a bite of her burger before starting on recounting the events of the day.

“Wow - good for Heleen. I know she was always a bit jealous of Aleks and how much my dad values him, but didn’t know she had the balls to leave. And to start a new firm.” Nikolai said, a bit impressed.

“I agree with you, Lin. You gotta wait and talk to Aleks about this. If something is really happening with you guys, you need to let him know and get his take. He obviously knows Heleen a lot better so he might have some further insight.” The ginger friend popped a tot into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

“It is a bit rando that she is being so helpful when she barely knows you? I wonder what her angle is. And you’re right - Aleks has already read your script so regardless of the personal side, you gotta see what he has to say on it first.” Zoya advised, setting down her empty burger wrapper.

Alina was always grateful for both girls who always had sage advice, but in this situation she was especially attentive to Zoya’s, who was leery of everyone at the best of times but whose constant skepticism had kept Alina out of numerous scrapes in the past.

“Thanks guys - appreciate the advice. As I looked Heleen straight in the face and said I wouldn’t say anything, I’ll wait till Friday to talk to Aleks, which works out super well as that’s when she’s going to do it.” Alina mused.

“That’s nice of you. Him and my dad are for sure going to flip their shit when they hear. My dad personally brought her over with him when he started LMA and he just has such an old-fashioned belief in loyalty. He’s so old-school he’s most def going to take this as a personal attack.”

“Please don’t say anything, Nikolai. I have enough going on with this decision that I don’t want to get involved with that drama. I wish she hadn’t told me cause now I randomly have to deal with the weight of it too, you know?” Alina pleaded.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I won’t. I don’t even work there, remember? As your rival, I should be happy the place is imploding. Maybe take a stab at grabbing some clients in the fallout…” Nikolai winked.

“Oh my god. It’s already 9!! The Bachelor finale is on. Everyone SHUT UP.” Genya screamed, scrambling for the remote.

Behind her, Zoya rolled her eyes but smiled at her trash TV smitten friend. Alina laughed and leaned back into the sofa pulling out her phone from the seam of the couch to check it.

There was a text from Aleks.

“Oh god. A text from Aleks, guys.”

Genya paused the TV and turned. “Hold up. Clayton will have to wait. What did he say?!”

Zoya and Nikolai also turned, eagerly waiting for Alina to respond.

Hi Alina. For Friday, I booked something that I think you’ll like. Not super formal - don’t worry. Looking forward. I’ll meet you in the parking lobby on B1 on Friday. Have a good evening.

She handed the phone over to Genya and the couple clambered over to read over her shoulder.

“Oh my god - if he said this, it must be actually really nice. He’s a partner, right? Making them big bucks. Don’t see him roughing it at Monty’s or something. I’m dying to know where he will take you. Thank fuck we bought you that new Reformation dress.” Genya professed.

“You look so hot in that, Lin. Borrow my black Prada block heels. Just in case — since you dont know where you’re going — you don’t want to be stuck in stilettos.” Zoya said wisely.

The busyness of the rest of the work week served as a wall that initially blocked her nervousness for the date. As Friday got closer, it melted away, leaving in its wake a nervous energy prickling through her like tiny electric shocks. A tinge of nausea also developed, lingering around, absolute unwelcome. It’s not like she never had a first date before but over the past few weeks, after she first broke the ice with her confession to her friends, Alina gradually realized just how much she actually liked Aleks. Even if she barely knew him. But the complexity of his personality that she had thus far uncovered intrigued her. And this was all without adding the complication of her script as well, nor the new development from Heleen.

——

Needless to say, when Friday morning came around, Alina’s nerves were palpable. Even though Genya was between projects, she woke up extra early to help Alina with her make-up and getting ready. The trick was to still look relatively normal for work but be able to jazz it up for after. The square neck, below-the-knee, slitted dark green dress was just about doable for the office with a thin cardigan on top and flats. Thankfully, working in this industry, there was actually a wide gamut of workwear and the definition of appropriate was generously loose.

“Ok. So before you go, just put on this Huda lip. I got it in one of my subscription parcels so it’s brand new and the berry will go great with the dress. Also, just remember to change the shoes. And LEAVE the cardigan at work please!! Show off that figure for once, for the love of God.” Genya said firmly, pressing the lip into Alina’s hand.

“Thanks. I will. I’m so nervous, I hope I don’t faint.” Alina said.

“Girl, stop!! You’ll be fine. You got this. Cannot wait to hear about every sordid little detail after. Good luck, love you.” Genya gave her friend a final squeeze.

With her friend’s support, she resolved to be emotionally stronger. She had to be - both for tonight and in this industry to actually make it. Be strong and bold. With that she grabbed her bag and left the house.

The drive to work was a blur. Alina was consumed in her thoughts, muscle memory the only thing leading the car, propelling her to work. When she arrived, she saw that both Zoya and Nikolai had texted their support for the evening. She loved her friends so much and their messages completely bolstered her confidence. Smiling, she headed up to the office.

The day was pretty uneventful. The excited anticipation of the evening caused the entire day to drag. Minutes felt like hours and the suspense was palpable. To add to that, she had to sit in a meeting with Pekka and Vasily, taking notes, and with their two winning personalities, the half hour meeting felt like an actual eternity.

As a slight distraction, through the day, Alina eyed her coworkers curiously for any hint on the Heleen news. She hadn’t seen her since Wednesday and had no idea what time she was going to drop this revelation. She had lunch with Tamar and Ivan and examined Aleks’ assistant’s face for any clues but if he knew, it didn’t show. Their conversation was benign and they barely spoke about work topics.

Alina had forced herself to not look at the clock for the past while and finally when she allowed herself to look up, she saw that it was already past 6. She hadn’t wanted to tell Tamar when the dinner was until after as someone else’s excitement would just churn up more stress. However, Vasily was still in and had another agent in his office. With her boss not looking likely to leave anytime soon, she resigned herself to having to let her friend know, just for the sake of coverage, if anything. Just as she was about to ping her, Vasily came out with Misha.

“Ladies- we are going for drinks. I should be good for today - feel free to leave now. And have a great weekend.” Vasily pulled on his suit jacket and buttoned it, the cloth tight around his girth. He and the other agent, gave a small wave and left immediately.

Great timing, Alina thought, a sigh of relief. Crisis averted on having to divulge to her friend. It was also still early enough that she would have time to properly get ready to meet Aleks at 7. Surprisingly, Tamar, who always was working late, was already packing up.

“Oh thank fuck. I am supposed to meet my girlfriend at 7 in Studio City and I was for sure going to be late again and she was going to kill me. Do you mind if I head out first? The contracts are all printed for Monday morning so I think we are good on everything.” Tamar looked over, face pleading and a little pitiful.

“Of course. Go go. I’m wrapping up too. Just need to finish one last email to Fedyor. Have fun - see you next week. I’m on coffees on Monday!” Alina cheerfully shouted as Tamar grabbed her stuff and started hurrying away.

Once she saw her turn the corner, Alina reached into the bottom drawer of her desk to grab the Vogue tote packed with her shoes and make-up. She beelined toward the bathrooms. Another pro of this industry: the bathroom had an amazing floor-length mirror complete with ring light and a nice vanity area. As instructed by Genya, she touched up her powder, adding a smidge of illuminator on the apples of her cheeks and sliding the rich berry across her lips. She stepped in front of the long mirror. She took off her cardigan and smoothed out the dress at the waist, impressed with the final result. She did look good.

Speeding back to her desk, her screensaver flashed - 6:56. She quickly scanned her email - nothing new, which was unsurprising for Friday evening - and then shut down quickly.

She darted toward the elevators praying she wouldn’t run into anyone. It was mercifully empty. It helped that the entire PR team was out and a lot of the assistants had scurried out early when their bosses had left for various boozy lunches. Stepping into the empty lift, she pressed B1. She took a few deep breathes to calm the nerves as it descended, feeling the drop in her turbulent stomach.

Ding!

As the door opened, she spotted Aleks leaning against counter of the empty valet stand scrolling through his phone. He straightened immediately when he heard the elevator chime.

“Hi Alina. Wow, you look incredible.” He sauntered over and gave her a light peck on the cheek.

He acted so natural, it threw her off so that it took her a minute to collect herself. “Thanks - you do, too.”

He was wearing his standard uniform dark suit - this time, a deep charcoal suit with a muted cobalt tie.

“I’m sorry we are meeting here and not in the actual main lobby…I thought it might be best in case anyone saw us and um…well, you may have heard, the reception girls are quite…aggressive.” She glanced at him and although he wasn’t blushing, it was probably the least composed she had ever seen him.

Alina couldn’t help it but she grinned evilly. “So I’ve heard.”

That actually helped break the ice for her and she felt a bit more relaxed. She wondered if he had sensed it and made the joke to ease her stress. If so, she was appreciative.

They got to his car - prime parking spot next to Magnus’ empty spot, his embossed name tag on the wall reflecting from the overhead lighting. The alarm beeped in answer to the disarming click and Aleks quickly swept around, opening the passenger side door for her.

Alina slid in. “Thank you. So, where exactly are we going?”

“Are you super hungry? I don’t know if you know, but I live in Pacific Palisades. It’s gorgeous on the coast at this hour. I thought we could go up to Nobu in Malibu, give us a chance to check out the views. But, if you’re super hungry, Ivan booked Catch as a back-up and we can go straight there now.” Aleks said looking cautiously over at her for a response.

A tiny flutter escaped in Alina’s stomach. Her attempts to remain stoic were quickly failing. The fact that he had booked multiple restaurants for her to choose had her giddy. Adding the coastal romantic sunset for a first date or whatever this was had her swooning.

“Wow, that sounds amazing. To be honest, I’ve only been to the beach a few times since I moved out here. It would be nice to see it. And I’ve never been up that way. I can wait to eat - let’s do it.” Alina agreed.

“You’ll love it. It will take about 40 minutes. Hopefully we can still catch the end of the sunset.” Aleks smiled, turning back to focus on the drive.

He was not wrong. The drive was breathtaking. As soon as they hit the coast, it was like they were no longer in the smoggy city. The sun was sitting low on the horizon, a minuscule half-circle still exposed and too bright to look at. It emanated a fiery ribbon of orange framing the cerulean blue of the Pacific.

They had talked a little about work and the mundane occurrences of the day, but as they hit the PCH, the silence set in as Alina fully drank in the view. Even as the sun fully submerged itself, disappearing into the horizon, the purple and pink twilight shone bright - swirling into an ombré, as it tried to keep out the impending, inevitable dark.

The view and the company made the drive feel quicker than it was. They didn’t speak much but every so often the pair locked eyes, both sets radiating joy. Aleks’ eyes seemd to dance whenever Alina looked at him.

“Mr. Morozova. I hope your drive was pleasant. Your table is ready, please come this way.” Aleks nodded, discreetly handing the host a folded $20. Alina was impressed. This was very different to her previous dates. Even just with the valet, everyone seemed to know and respect him.

As they walked through the restaurant, Alina found it hard not to gawk. One entire side of the restaurant was completely made of glass and hanging right over the sea. Their table was past the wide bar area that opened out to a patio of more tables. Their table was further in the back in a more subdued, darker area of the restaurant. At the square table they sat across from each other right against the glass. Alina looked down. If she leaned her head, almost touching the window, she could see the tides churning.

“Is this table ok for you?” Aleks questioned. Alina’s stomach was a flurry again at Aleks’ attentiveness to her.

“Yes, it’s gorgeous. It feels like we are sitting in the ocean.” Alina replied.

“That is exactly why I like it here. It’s a bit of a drive for work but the views are so worth it. I live alone - I don’t have much family - and I work a lot, so this is what I do to treat myself. It brings me peace.” Aleks confided.

Alina nodded in recognition. She had her parents and her found family with her close friends but she understood the loneliness, even surrounded by people. His openness at his feelings also tugged at her heart. She colored a bit thinking back to when she thought he was a cold-hearted asshole.

“I can see that. The ocean just brings a serenity - from the views and I personally just the sounds it makes. It’s calming and I could listen to it all day.” Alina concurred.

“Well, that got a bit depressing. Take a look at the menu, do you know what you want to eat?”

The food arrived - a colorful assortment of sushi and fish plated exceptionally artistically on modern Japanese-style ceramics. Alina knew LA was known for sushi and Nobu was famous in that regard but she hadn’t expected to love it so much. She had let Aleks lead in the selection and he picked a diverse range of their specialities including yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno, which Alina loved, and their famous miso cod.

As they ate, Aleks was forthcoming in his chat, more like the version Nikolai and Ivan mentioned, and less the one she saw at work. He talked about his upbringing and losing his parents young. Alina felt for him and her heart ached thinking of him going it alone to make something of himself. She felt a maternal need to take care of him - to give him someone to rely on. It deepened her feelings for him as she got to know him better.

After the plates were cleared, they sat back finishing the last glass of sake to cleanse the palate. The hot beverage was restorative, soothing her and comforting her with its warm embrace.

“So, you must have thought I was a real asshole when we first met. You had seemed so surprised when I offered to help you that I knew you must have taken our first meeting with a grudge. You caught me on a crazy day and if you hadn’t noticed, I tend to really absorb into work - it’s like an alter ego.” Aleks explained.

Continuing on, “I owe Magnus everything and maybe…maybe because I have that weight of this debt, I give myself pressure to stay laser focused at work.”

“I get that,” Alina assented. “I have wanted to be a screenwriter for as long as I can remember. Everyone told me how difficult it would be. Knowing that, it’s dictated a lot of my life decisions. I want it so much that sometimes it’s hard to think about anything else, you know?” Alina took a sip - tongue loosened by every drink.

“I know the feeling. I was one of the youngest agents so I know what it’s like to have the constant need to prove yourself. I was super focused and would have continued down this solitary path of forever working if it wasn’t for you…” Aleks forced her to hold his stare.

“Me?” Alina said meekly.

“You, Alina. I don’t know if it was the emotion I saw on your face from our first meeting or what, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. Thoughts of you kept creeping in, no matter what I was doing. When you started taking over the Fedyor meetings, I thought I would going to explode with the pressure I felt. I thought I could help you with your script and that would be a way for me to be able to see you at least, in a more personal setting.” Aleks said slowly.

Alina’s breath caught in her throat as the words seeped in, her mind struggling to fully process the weight of them. She stared down at her cup, completely unable to meet his eye now.

Aleks continued, “And while that was an excuse, your script is amazing. And when I read it, I knew that you had real talent. I knew before that I wanted to help you, but then when I read it, I knew you would make it. With or without my help.”

If the previous words had caught Alina off guard, these smashed into her like a giant wave.

“I thought I could keep it strictly professional. That it would be enough. But when I saw you at the premiere, I knew I couldn’t. I hope this doesn’t freak you out but I am completely mesmerized by you.” Aleks said tenderly.

Alina looked up now, she put her hand on the table - as if to steady herself. “Oh Aleks. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you either. Even when I was just angry and thought you were a dick.” She cracked.

He reached over and grabbed her hand on the table, thumb gently caressing the top of her hand. A beat passed and then, “Do you want to see my place?”

Alina nodded.

——

As they reached the driveway and parked, lights turning off, they sat there, paused for a moment. Alina could hear her heart beating through her chest. Suddenly, at the same time, turning towards each other -a frantic kiss ensued. Hands roving, unable to wait any longer. The tension built up from all those weeks started to dissipate like a wild balloon flying around as it deflated. Alina breathed heavy into him, gasping for air. Their foreheads touching, Aleks brought his hand up cupping her neck. Alina met his with her own hand locked around his wrist.

“Let’s go inside.” He whispered as Alina nodded, their noses touching. Opening the door, the cool salty air actually settled her. It was refreshing and as the light wind met her skin, it brought her back to earth. Lowered her temperature back to normal, her heart rate evening out.

Walking around to his side of the car, Aleks extended his hand, smiling, to grab hers and take her inside. Even in the heat of the moment, Alina couldn’t but admire the stunning house. Set right on the cliff, it was modern and light, but wasn’t out of place in this natural setting - organically nestled into the scenic background. As they walked through the door, her amazement flooded back. She knew he was rich and didn’t have a family but this was next level from anything Alina had seen. The Lantsov family home was bigger but it was the style and feel here that astonished her. While it was definitely grand and luxurious, there was somehow a homey and welcoming feel to it all.

The entryway was open with a high ceiling two floors tall. To the left, a giant sunken living room that led to a full wall of windows opening onto a large patio right on the water. The room was inviting, a mix of mid-century modern with some more comforting touches like a few plusher chairs and pillows strewn in to offset the austere style. The color scheme was still the same as his office, lots of blacks and greys with concrete and matte black metalwear throughout. Despite the darkly muted decor, it actually worked because it didn’t overshadow the real centerpiece of the house: the dazzling azure sea.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Aleks asked.

“Sure” said Alina, feeling a bit awkward in the limbo - the commencing action in the car unresolved but not quite enough steam at the moment to keep it going.

“Go ahead and sit down. I have a nice Castello I can open - be right back.” He squeezed her arm, gesturing to black L-shaped sofa that looked out to the ocean. Alina tucked her legs under herself. He had opened one of the window panels and the cool air along with the soft lapping of the waves calmed her. She watched him pull out two glasses from the immaculate kitchen and open the bottle on the marble counter.

He walked over and proffered her a glass before settling next to her. Seeing her snug on the sofa, he asked with concern in his voice, “Are you cold? I can turn on the fire.”

Aleksander signaled toward the expansive glass fireplace that sat on one side of the room. Alina turned to study the pebble-filled piece to the left of them. She shook her head.

“I’m ok. And your house is really nice. I can’t believe you live here alone.” She exclaimed, looking around more at the high ceilings.

“I do love it. It’s a bit extra for one person, but like I mentioned, I love living by the ocean.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a bit looking out, lulled by the waves, sipping their wine. Finally, Alina set down her half-empty glass. Completely emboldened by their raw confessions and helped along by the ample sake and wine she had now drunk, she was ready to break the limbo.

She leaned over, put her hand on his knee slowly moving up his thigh. She unraveled her legs from under her, pushing up, kneeling, inching towards Aleks. A look of surprise, and he leaned to set down his glass. He pulled her closer, almost on top of him. His hand reached her chin leading it towards him, meeting her lips with his own.

Alina leaned further pushing him down with her weight. Arms reaching up around his neck, bracing for a firmer position. His hand moved down her spine, sending electric shocks with each touch. Reaching the edge of her dress, he slid his hand up and under, a shortcut through the high slit.

Suddenly, he pushed away a bit. Backing off slightly so they were inches apart. “Let’s go upstairs.”

The next few moments were a blur for Alina, his arms around her leading her up the stairs and to his room. The whole time, his mouth against her collarbone and her neck, blanketing it with his kisses. He pushed her up against the wall of the built-in closet. Alina’s eyes barely had time to register the sparsely furnished room and the wide ocean-view window before her eyes closed, to better feel every sensation of his kiss in her mouth. He pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, his tongue entering and exploring, eliciting a small moan from her.

He peeled her from the wall and turning her gently, moved her to the bed. His eyes never leaving hers. She lay back, arms around his neck pulled him down with her as his hands supported her waist to softly land on the cushioned mattress.

“Are you ok?” He asked, care flooding those depthless dark eyes.

“Yes” she breathed.

He planted a kiss on her mouth, moving it down to her neck. Simultaneously, he reached around and unzipped the back of her dress, pulling it off her shoulders. His mouth continued to rove, down her chest. Goosebumps rose in the wake of his touch as Alina lifted up slightly for him to pull down the dress completely, taking her underwear with it.

With one hand, he loosened his tie, coming up for air as he pulled it over his head. She ripped off his crisp shirt - no longer unwrinkled and buttons snapping in her grip. He wiggled out of it as she reached behind unhooking and throwing off her bra. Examining her full body on display, he cooed, “You are absolutely exquisite.”

He grinned, straightening out, kneeling over her as he unbuckled his belt. Alina’s hands reached out to help, pulling down the zipper as he slid down his pants and a pair of tight boxer briefs. It didn’t leave much to the imagination but seconds later, she was privy to the real thing - his length already completely hard.

She was about to grab it when he snatched her wrist, grinning. “Not so fast. I have something else in mind first.”

Alina caught by surprise as he began to slink down the bed, his arms spreading her legs as he went. She squirmed a little, half in excited arousal and half at the uncertainty of it.

“What’s wrong.” he breathed looking back up at her.

She looked to see him settled between her spread legs. “Nothing. I’ve…I’ve just never done this…or had this…done…before.”

“Oh Alina, my sweet. How you have been denied. Relax and I promise you will enjoy this. I want you - I want every piece of you. And I have been waiting for the first taste.”

Aleks’ head dips, mouth starting on her inner thigh. A shiver goes down Alina’s spine at the touch. He moves on reaching her center and sliding his tongue across her entire core. The shiver turns into a full-blown tremor threatening to rip her apart. She opens her mouth, breathing heavily.

He continues on sucking and nibbling at her core. With this a moan erupts from her mouth, completely involuntarily. Pleasure floods through her veins, as if her blood was carrying that instead of oxygen.

“So wet, my sweet. I am glad you are enjoying your first time.” Aleks said as his head dipped back down, tongue pushing gently into her entrance.

White light erupted behind Alina’s eyes as these new and unfamiliar sensations left her blind. His touch completely enrapturing her.

At that moment, she could feel her center tightening, so close to release.

“Yes, my sweet. You’re almost there.” He murmured, tongue returning to the bundle of nerves - her throbbing clit threatening to erupt and break her at any point.

“Don’t stop, Aleks…” she manages to breathe out.

One more lick and she was gone. Completely dissolved in pleasure. Her whole body liquifying from the tremor, the release rippling through to the ends of her fingers and toes.

“There you go, Alina, my sweet. ” Aleks comes up kissing up a trail from her stomach up the middle of her panting chest, still struggling to catch her breath.

He sweeps her hair back from her face. She looks into his eyes. Ever black but filled with a bliss she had yet to see before.

He presses a kiss to her face. His hand reaching down and adjusting himself, entering her slowly. He starts to pick up pace and Alina feels the familiar rush of the tension building in her core again. Her whole body contracts and she can feel that he’s getting closer now too - both of them eliciting gasps at the same time. Her hands are on his back, nails digging in, little marks of claim, as the pleasure rises. He hits the right spot and she can feel herself ready to release again. His finger finds her core and presses down. Like a switch, it shatters her, splintering her body into a thousand pieces. Endorphins flooding through her once more as she seems to be floating - out of body - completely unable to feel her limbs.

“Oh Aleks.” she moans breathlessly, still tightly holding onto him.

As a response, he releases too, constricting and relaxing his body in a matter of seconds and collapsing gently on her. He doesn’t pull out for a moment, his body so close to hers, completely soaked into every inch of her. Reluctant to break the connection. Finally, though, he rolls over leaning back into the pillow. His arm is still under her and he turns back to look at her. Alina turns on her side to face him. He reaches his other hand and places it on her face, his thumb smoothing her brow.

“Alina, my sweet. You were amazing. You don’t know how long I’ve imagined that in my head.” Aleks purred, hand moving down to rest on her neck in a gentle cupping.

She reached up and wrapped her arm around his neck pulling in for another kiss. It was slow - not the frantic kisses of earlier - but more meaningful. Lips pressing, holding steady. She pulled away slowly and tucked her herself under his chin, closing her eyes to fully bask in his warm embrace.

“I’m so happy.” she breathed.

#darklina fic #aleksander morozova #alina starkov #shadow and bone #modern au #hollywood au #fic: subtext #grishaverse #darklina

2 notes · View notes

hedgefairy · 4 years ago

Text

So I'm stuck in Berlin, which, you know, it could be worse, but I really wanted to edit that 18th century breeches video. Anyhoo, now I have time and nothing else to do, so here's

Bridgerton, Episode 2

Missed Ep. 1? Here you go.

We start off with a birthing scene, is it the Dukey? It's the Dukey! Daddy Duke does some patriarchal screaming and Mummy Duke promptly dies, because of course she does, we can't have a happy childhood for the brooding hero, c'mon!

Dukey also has a mistress (present day Dukey, not baby Dukey). Is that Opera Girl? I have real problems telling these people apart, especially the Bridgerbros. I somewhere read that it's something that features extensively in the books, them always getting confused for one another, but in the series it just comes off as "these guys all look alike". Make it a plot point or something, but without it being acknowledged on screen this just screams "we didn't know how to make white brown-haired Regency bros look distinct"...

Where, Dreadlock Gent Extra in the background again!

I'm just not a fan of the colour coding between Dukey and Daphne, she basically does a Wendy Darling closet cosplay (don't get me started on that stupid hair... Yet) and he's all dark colours, it's all light female, dark male, even with their overall colouring (her being whiter than brioche and he being a POC) and character (she's a perfect angel and he's super broody) and I just don't dig it. Give me interesting shit, not this obvious sleeping aid! Also, Daphne doesn't even wear a spencer, girl, it doesn't look like it's that hot outside and you look like you're able out in your nighty.

Notes say "Horrid Featherington dresses, the spoon is def. not silver", which yes, antagonist fashion, and ffs, send the underpaid intern who didn't go get strappy shift Ersatz tops to a thrift store for some decent silverware. I can lend you some of mine, but ugh, really, its not that hard. The budget was obviously there.

Do we finally get plot? Eloise the Spirited goes walking with Penny and her hair just... isn't,and yes, she wants to go to uni (of course, because she's not like other girls™, don't get me wrong, YES, but I'm a bit tired of modern ideas being shoehorned into historcal settings because there is so much cool historical feminism and equality discourse and I'd love to see some of that in mainstream-ish popular culture), but Penny is very preoccupied with Cousin's pregnancy.

Of course Daphne's and Dukey's super clever ruse works like a charm, tons of suitors flock to Daphne's parlour. Lord B (you remember, her super asympatico brother who is a straight-up hypocrite) is super agitated about it.

Is that Dreadlock Gent in with the suitors?

Lord B continues to be a bitch about Horrid Suitor™ (who still has a broken nose which I very much approve of).

Oooh, shirtless boxing! AND gossip! Enter Lord B(itch) who of course wants to throw hands with Dukey. I really like Dukey's boxing bro, and the breeches. I want those! Well, I kinda made some, but the notes are from when I was just making them, so, err, yes. The notes also say "bad defense work, boring footwork" and I'm not sure if I meant Dukey or Lord B, but let's just assume it's both.

More Baby Dukey flashbacks! Daddy Duke sucks. So. Much. Let him kick an actual puppy already, we get it. Fun fact: When I hear Hastings (which is Dukey's last name, but I didn't bother remembering) I automatically think of the battle.

Yay, Penny visits cousin who's all rapunzeled up in her room for being pregnant. Turns out, lol, she got knocked up because church was so boring she started flirting with a guy and they totally hit it off (I'm not sure if it's canon, but I like to think they got it on in one of those confession boxes - idk if that's the term, I'm not catholic - or behind the organ or something juicy like that). Oh god, I hope they don't kill off the baby daddy because he's a soldier.

I refuse to believe in the existence of those high heels on the feet of that acrobat.

Lady B gets invited by the Queen and elatedly let's Daphne wear the family diamonds.

I just noticed that it's just Gossip Girl meets Pride & Prejudice. Ugh. I mean, that could have been a really good thing, but no.

Cool Old Lady™ (aka. Lady Danbury) calls Dukey out for dressing so drably. I like her.

"Make yourself terrifying" is a fucking cool piece of advice.

Oh, look, Dukey and Daphne are having fun while Horrid Suitor™ looks on, and Lord B tries to intervene like the little bitch that he is. Turns out Horrid Suitor™ is horrid inside and out and still insists that Daphne basically contractually belongs to him and I just don't have enough middle fingers for that shit.

We get another flashback of how horrible Daddy Duke is.

So the two women who are not into the whole (tiringly chemistry-free) romance thing are Eloise and Penny, one of whom walks like she's trying to emulate a seventy-year old with back problems and the other is the only non-thin person on screen aside from Horrid Suitor™ (and of him I suspect that it's to underline how very unattractive he's supposed to be). It feels all a bit very caricature-ish?

Horrid Suitor™, who has a shiner now from both Daphne and Dukey (I approve), tries to blackmail his way into marriage. It's just so laughably evil? What's this subtlety thing people keep talking about?

Wait, Eloise smokes? Yay! I mean, I don't encourage that, but in this case it's actual rebellion against the perceived ideal woman. Also, it explains her voice. Also, middle Bridgerbro gets a fucking line! WTF! I wasn't prepared for this! Their interaction is really sweet, I think its my favourite so far in the entire series.

Is the portly guy at court meant to be George IV? He's not. Aww. Also, cocain and/or snuff. Queen Charlotte is being ominous and braggy.

Enter Horrid Suitor™'s mum for gossip, because of course he's not only unsightly, of bad character, a sexual harrasment on legs and all the stuff, he's also a mama's boy. Which is bad, I suppose, because it implies unmanliness and being soft, which has so many unfortunate implications in itself. Ugh.

Cousin gets a line!

Eloise feat. bad "tomboy" hair (I feel personally attacked for some reason) and Daphne have a conversation about how they are super traumatised by their mother giving birth to their siblings.

Some of the background dresses look really bad.

Dukey and Daphne switch to first names, that's SO ROMANTIC! Aaah, the chemistry! (no.)

Ooooh, so Dukey not marrying is his revenge against Daddy Duke. His bloodline dies with him. Also, he just hadn't met Protagonist Girl yet, so it would have been such a waste, right?

And this concludes Ep. 2, which had surprisingly little in terms of annotations. I could delve more into the unfortunate implications of Horrid Suitor™ being a mama's boy but I'm still writing all of this on my phone and I need a break. So,

To be Continued.

Probably soon, because the trains still aren't going.

#Bridgerton #Hedgewatch #Stuck in Berlin #Berlinstuck #Maybe it's better on drugs?#Bridgerbore

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discordrpbythalia · 5 years ago

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I WILL KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP ;

Many young people dream of their WEDDING. They imagine the dress, the flowers and their lover standing at the ALTAR. When they close their eyes, they can almost smell the wedding CAKE and hear the cheesy LOVE songs. And all of their friends are there, smiling and praising all of the BEAUTY in the room – and all attention on the HAPPY COUPLE. What most don’t imagine is their wedding gown soaked in BLOOD. They don’t imagine the SCREAMS as their friends are cleaved in half. They don’t picture their Prince Charming with a MURDEROUS grin on their face. Unfortunately, life is LESS like a romantic COMEDY, and much more like the HORROR stories we all pretend to not be AFRAID of. HARPER’S ISLAND, located an hour from Seattle’s coast, is the destination for one of these happy unions. Family and friends from all across the country have gathered on one half of the happy couple’s BIRTHPLACE to take part in the ceremony. As a special treat, their family has paid for A WEEK of vacation on the local hotel for ALL GUESTS. What most of these ignorant guests don’t know is that TEN YEARS AGO, a SERIAL KILLER was on the loose. JOHN WAKEFIELD killed TEN PEOPLE before he was SHOT by the local sheriff – but it has been said that he will NOT be the LAST. Many LOCALS are uneasy with having this many strangers gathered on the island, all remembering the killings a little too well. When wedding guests are KILLED off ONE BY ONE, the locals and the newcomers must take a deep breath and admit that A NEW SERIAL KILLER might be walking among them. ( keep reading for more information !! )

SO YOU BETTER TRY AND KEEP AWAKE ;

THIS IS AN IC DISCORD SERVER. This blog serves only to organize those who have not yet been accepted.

THIS IS WAVE 2.

There will be a second arrival of muses, and POTENTIALLY, a new murderer. There is already a current murderer. New additions will be ‘late arrivals’ to the wedding week.

In this group verse, your character will either be a part of the wedding party (as family of the groom/bride or friend of the groom/bride) or one of the locals. As an added bonus, you may audition for the secret role of the new serial killer as well. The identity of the serial killer will only be known by the killer themselves and me, the admin of the group. Together, we will make decisions on which character to kill off next. Please note this means your muse may (and is likely to) die. I will always contact the next victim and ask them to post a drabble of their death. After their death, I will reveal the identity of the killer so that they can smugly follow the rest of the plot.

Events will be posted, and though they will not ‘officially’ be held, interactions based on them are highly encouraged. This could for example be a bonfire, a rehearsal dinner, a picnic, a bachelor/bachelorette party, etc. It is not a new day until I have made the announcement; this is because a lot of things can happen in one day when people are dying like flies, and to make sure everyone has had the chance to interact based on the latest event/twist/death. Characters are, of course, allowed to not follow the wedding events and go on their own adventures.

This server and plot are set up to encourage extensive pre-established relationships between characters. Histories are encouraged – exes, childhood friends, jealous lovers, old flames, sibling/family interactions are encouraged and are fairly necessary for this. All plotting may be done in server or privately, as long as the mod is kept updated about important interactions.

This server is all about SECRETS. IC secrets should be given and are encouraged. All secrets must be made known to the mod for plot use.

KEEP YOUR LEFT EYE OPEN ;

The RULES: i. Do NOT share any plot knowledge you may have. This includes the identity of the killer, who will die next, and any other potential twists. If you play the killer or if your character has been killed, I need to trust that you will not ruin the surprise. ii. No OOC drama or godmodding other players. IC drama is certainly encouraged, but if there is an issue between anyone, please take it up with them privately or approach a mod. iii. Both canon characters and OCs are welcome. As this is a discord server, faceclaims do not come into play. We will not be accepting duplicates of the same muse unless a twin or family au is worked out between the players. iv. Send your application and verse-related asks to this blog until you are accepted and provided with the discord server link. v. Stay updated and active! This server will likely move fast, and interaction is key. If you go inactive for too long, it’s likely your muse will become plot fodder and murdered, or simply removed from the server. I understand real life will always come first, please just try to keep up to date. vi. ALL players must be 18+, and their muses 21+. THIS IS NOT A SFW SERVER. We will not be writing explicit material, but it will be trigger-heavy and fairly uncensored. vii. Each player is allowed up to two (2) muses. This is encouraged, in the case that one is killed early, you are not simply sitting in the ether watching the fun happen !

AND YOUR RIGHT TOE TWITCHING ;

The APPLICATION form: Mun name & pronouns: Mun age (18+ only!): Role: Are they related to the bride/groom, are they friends, are they a local? Stereotype: What stereotypical (horror movie) label could fit them best? Secret: If they have any secrets from the rest of the locals/wedding party, now is the time to write them, or if there is anything the mod should know. If not, leave this space empty. This part of the application will not be shown to others. Brief Biography: Suggested length is about a paragraph. Tell us about who your character is. Please include name, age (muses must be 21+!), and pronouns in addition to brief backstory. Here is a SERIAL KILLER APPLICATION form: * everyone can apply as the serial killer; I will choose one. Motive: Why would they start killing guests (and locals)? Style: What would your character’s killing style be? Are they humane; do they keep trophies; do they like hearing the screams; what are their favorite weapons? Justification: How does your character justify killing people? Do they want entertainment; do they want to show how clever they are; do they think the victims had it coming?

CAUSE I’M IN THE KITCHEN ;

After application ACCEPTANCE: you will be sent the Discord server link. All future interactions, ic and ooc, will happen in-server.

WITH A KNIFE THAT’S ITCHING FOR YOUR RED BLOOD ;

A current list of MEMBERS:

Regina Scott / 37, she/her / The Wedding Planner / written by Thalia

Ianto Jones / 23, he/him / The Brother of the Bride / The DJ / written by Jacklynn

Ophelia Smith / 21, she/her / The Bride / written by Meg

Rory Williams / 23, he/him / The Groom / written by Gabe

John Smith / 60, he/him / The Wedding Guest / written by Charlie

Shelby Wyatt / 28, she/her / The Ranch Owner / The Local / written by Thalia DECEASED

Sam Mullin / 30, she/her / The Bartender / The Local / written by Tara

Bree Tinsley / 22, she/her / The Bridesmaid / written by Tara

Garcia Flynn / 48, he/him / The Cop / The Local / written by Harper

Zara Young / 28, she/her / The Personal Assistant / written by Jacklynn

Josh Lyman / 37, he/him / The Wedding Guest / written by Ellie

Spencer Reid / 29, he/him / The Cop / The Local / written by Ellie DECEASED

Mels Zucker / 23, she/her / The Local / written by Alex

Irene Larra / 45, she/her / The Wedding Guest / written by Alex

Ezekiel Jones / 27, he/him / The Wedding Guest / written by Harper DECEASED

Glenda Jones / 47, she/her / The Mother of the Bride / written by Charlie

Max Ward / 22, he/him / The Wedding Guest / written by C DECEASED

Jonathan Smith / 50, he/him / The Father of the Bride / written by Meg

Gabriel Waverly / 21, they/them / The Local / written by Gabe

Ronan Lynch / 21, he/him / The Local / The Dockworker / written by Ellie

Donna Moss / 30, she/her / The Wedding Guest / written by Callie

Clara Oswald Williams / 28, she/her / The Sister of the Groom / written by Thalia

Gwen Cooper / 23, she/her / The Wedding Guest / written by Thalia

#murder mystery rp #discord rp #slasher rp #group verse rp #mystery roleplay

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raineedays · 5 years ago

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Rwby spoilers

So I keep up with rwby in passing. I haven't watched watched an episode for a few seasons and its because of how repetitive/redundant the writing is. Its like miscommunication trope the show. Overdramatic, but you get the point. Idk. I just feel like RT has a bad habit of using specific plot points over an over instead of moving the story along. Its like, different place, different characters and same plot points.

And I dont want to get into the controversy of clover in regards to lgbt rep and tropes. Thats a whole ocean I dont want to get into (its all valid tho :/)

But specifically, the way RT uses death is starting to get annoying. Its a crutch that spans almost every rt show they got. And the tldr of what im about to say is : Shocking people over and over just desensitizes the audience.

Pyrrah's death was meaningful because she was a fully developed character with an arc. It set stakes, and the fact that her arc ended "prematurely" so to speak, was on purpose. She was a hero who died young, she died thematically. Her death was the entire point the show was trying to make. Kids in a war. Die. It made sense that she died. It was set up and executed. Her character was meant to die.

And it was shocking. And I was upset in a good way. I was upset because pyrrah died not because she was killed off.

But then rt did what all "great" writers are doing and just kept pushing it in order to reiterate the stakes we've already been acquainted with, and started twisting their twists to make the show "unpredictable". And it got boring fast. Rwby isnt a show that can rely on spontaneous or constant death. It just doeant match the theme. And it ends up looking like a cheap attempt to keep a show "mature" and "serious". And the constant twisting doesnt keep anyone on their toes. Its lowers engagemeng because it creats a lack of faith in the writers ability to maintain character/plot consistency. I know some people like it when characters are always at risk of death...but i dont... you can like it. Idgaf. But i dont.

When torchwick died I was bored. It was tone deaf and ridiculous. He died for no reason. I was upset because they wasted a good character. Like kill him sure. I didnt expect him to live anywhere close to this season. But they couldve utilized his death for literally anything but a gag. He died and i was bored. I predicted it because i could tell they ran out of things for him to do and i knew they were itching to remind us how deadly remnant was.

When adam died I was meh about it. He was built up and killled. I felt blake and yangs development made up for the fact that he was kind of a nothing villain. Adams "death" (i kinda feel like they framed it in a too ambiguous way to call it an actual death :/) and every other aspect of his arc was too rushed to feel satisfying. The writers ran out of things for him to do so he died.

Clovers death actually made me roll my eyes. Like? Ok??? His death did literally nothing. He died to regress crows character arc which is a thing that can be pulled off successfully. But after just 1 season of interaction? Boring. Like? They obviously wanted him dead the whole time. Which is whatever. But like? Why am I supposed to care about clover dying? He wasnt a god of a soldier that proved how powerful the antagonists are. He wasn't a pivotal force. They wanted a twist. And it was boring. It was straight up the ending of got. They wanted a shock and twist and it made his death soooooo boring. And i expected it. I saw clover and qrow in gifs and figured he was gonna die. He was such a boring character thematically that at some point i kinda thought the writers were going to use an actual twist to make him interesting. Like for a hot second i was like "wow. Are they actually gonna pull off an interesting dynamic by having a would be villain actually be a good guy?" And they didnt do it and i was bored.

This is messy cuz im just typing as i think. But idk man. Rwby is trying and failing to dance on the line of "no one is safe, and youll never guess the bad guy" and its getting boring. Like clearly most people are safe, and the bad guy tropes are obvious. The only characters dying are ones we fully expect to and the twists their pulling are doing 360s. Its...just...boring... team rwby has made zero progress in the fight with salem and that could be a good thing if the main cast wasnt being tripped up by the same "government bad ur alone" story beat.

I just feel lik id be way more invested in the show if it wasnt so predictable. Its ok to have bad guys become good guys. Its ok to have the nice soldier stay nice. Its ok for a character to keep making positive growth. Its not boring to watch people team up successfully. They want team rwby vs the world and its just so boring.

Edit: But dont get me wrong....i actually still enjoy the show... im just not excited about it anymore. Ive gone from super fan to casual. And you can totally disagree. These are just my midnight thoughts. If u love rwby more than every cool. I just think the story is starting to suffer because of its reliance on edgyness.

#rwby spoilers #idk #its late

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etherealvoidechoes · 3 years ago

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and gonna post ya cyberpunk stuff sometime soon? interested in what ya cooking up from tags ive seen

Eventually. Want to draw my Corpo V trio before I really start blabbering about ideas. Also torn between watching a few playthroughs or seeing if any of my friends have the game and we just share Steam libraries for a bit. I see myself spending hours in character creations trying to make each V match what my brain is coming up with.

Enjoying the tidbits I’ve been reading on the wiki and some parts of playthroughs I’ve watched. Cracking up with some of the interactions with Goro; he’s so out of his element. My main V will eventually have some fun politely toying with him during some chats once they’re off on a better foot. Oh, and she’ll have “fun” with Silverhand until they reach an understanding.

Otherwise got lots of ideas swimming in my head. Probably will watch a full play through of the “Corpo-Rat” mission as I do have a slight itch to write that out to give some slight backstory of how the V’s get resettled after that with my main V’s help and Jackie’s.

So here’s the jist of that below

So my main V, Varsha, is going to be much older than what’s canon(doesn’t look it!) and she’s been in the corpo business much longer, having been to different corporations before being headhunted by Arasaka and has been with them for the past 30+ years, shifting around divisions but has counter intelligence firmly under her belt.

The other two will be the canon age and are still somewhat fresh faced mid-tier working in counter intelligence. She just decided to take them under her wing one day and has been a fine mentor and big sis to the two.

So let’s just say she gets absolutely pissed for the position Arthur Jenkins puts them in(besides also being ticked at his boneheaded actions before hand) and steps in. Had a feeling the two would get terminated, but with Jackie’s help, keeps them from being arrested and then tells the agents to rely to Susan Abernathy that she wants a meeting about the whole thing and let the young V’s get some of the stuff Arasaka doesn’t own from their apartments. It’s laced with a few veiled threats and her resignation, the latter confuses everyone, but the agents do as she says as they leave. So she gets a weird suspension/blacklisted without being truly fired as there’s a bunch of tape to work through and someone high above doesn’t really want her to leave leave.

The young V’s ask why she’s pretty much about to throw away everything to save their necks and Varsha’s just gonna smile while telling them she’s been thinking about leaving the corpo life for some time. Wanting that taste of freedom and considers the two family. She had Jackie and another person to thank for that thinking.

And that’s what I’ll share for now about that. Have to study the lore some more and watch some playthroughs to get the gist of some of the characters better.

#asks #cyberpunk 2077

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lovebunnie · 7 years ago

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nick carraway and jay gatsby are both gay and heres why

its 11:30 at night and i have class tomorrow but ive been itching to make this post for about a week so im gonna do it. this wont be centered as much around jay and nick being in LOVE, since id have to read and analyze it a bit more to make honest to god claims and opinions for that, but these r some of the reasons that point to both of these characters being completely gay. also, im going to be issuing some points from others sources, but ill include links to the original texts which i recommend reading!

so the great gatsby was written in 1925, a time full of alcohol, financial bliss, and parties like u would not believe. many of these themes are prevalent in the novel, making themselves known all throughout. even the term ‘gatsby-like’ is extremely well known. needless to say, this book is extremely well known in every front. one of the ones i saw the most was calling the great gatsby ‘the greatest love story ever written.’ and before i read the novel myself, i wouldnt have been able to tell u any different. but when u read it, and really, how u analyze it, really shapes how u see the characters. to some people, it really could be an amazing love story. but to me, this story is written about someone obsessed with a facade, denying himself who he is, and a man who watches his downfall and can do nothing to stop him.

one very important thing to acknowledge is how this novel is told: its told completely in nicks perspective. we only know how he feels, we only know these characters based on how nick sees them. it is immediately biased towards nick. and what he does is describe a hell of a lot of people. but it is very distinctive in the way he does it; men and women are very differently described.

nick describes daisy in her voice and the power it has over people. all of nicks flowery language goes into daisys speech, but not in great length about what daisy looked like. with jordan, nick does a bit more describing in the way she is ‘small-breasted’ and had the ‘shoulders of a young cadet.’ these traits are masculine, and we know from the novel that nick does enjoy jordans company and he does say he ‘enjoys looking at her.’ hell, even the name ‘jordan’ is traditionally masculine. nick sees jordan leaning more towards masculinity than femininity. but even still, the flowery language is not as grand as it could be, not as we know nick can get.

its when nick is describing men that things get bold and expressive. even while describing tom does nick go into great and intimate length with him; ‘ He had changed since his Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding boots could hide the enormous power of that body he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage -- a cruel body’ the author of this paper literally said this passage ‘pulses with sexual energy,’ and this is for a character nick doesnt even like. it obviously means more in the way nick describes him, has more heart and passion put into it.

and now gatsby, who nick, in the final chapters, dwells on even more. we know gatsby is attractive, that much we can tell without nick even really having to describe him. but even in a single paragraph about his smile does it provoke more feeling than anything else about daisy or jordan; ‘ He smiled understandingly-- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you might come across four or five times in your life. It faced --or seemed to face-- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.’

like. damn nick. this is only about gatsbys smile. this was no accident or cruel twist of fate; nick is enamored with jay and obviously finds him attractive and also enjoys looking at him, like jordan. nick sees men and women differently. this could be chocked up to ‘it was the olden days’ and ‘sexism,’ but nick isnt rude to these women, nick is simply not interested in them, at all.

but how do we know nick is gay? wheres the textual proof? its written out word for word, you just have to know where to look. and where to look is at the very end of chapter 2.

so chapter 2 does a lot for the plot; it basically introduces nick to the life these people live and makes him see how unappealing it is. we meet a large cast of characters and expand on others, like myrtle, her sister, and most importantly to the subject of nicks sexuality, mr. mckee.

mr. mckee is described as a ‘pale feminine man’ and nick offhandedly describes the smudge of shaving cream on his cheek. weird right? later in the night, nick describes himself as ‘ Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.’ nick has been LOOKING at this married man all night and cleaned him up when he was messy like come ON. plus, a ‘pale feminine man’ could very easily be a stereotype of a gay man, especially in the 1920s.

but then comes the most important part about nicks sexuality in the entire book: the ellipses.

the great gatsby is relatively short, only about 200 pages or so, give or take. fitzgerald would not include anything he wouldnt need, as he is also an expert in metaphors and making things seem as they are not. everything is masterfully placed and paced, making it seem to flow like water.

the scene in question describes mr. mckee and nick on an elevator, leaving the party. mr. mckee walked out, leaving his wife, and nick decided to follow. heres the scene:

Come to lunch some day,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”

“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”

. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.

“Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook’n Bridge. . . . ”

Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o’clock train.

LIKE. WHAT.

those ellipses separate the time between nick and mr. mckee on the elevator and nick and mckee at his home, with one in underwear and then nick leaving for the train at 4am. there is a large gap of time missing from this, and nick decided to leave it out while fitzgerald decided to keep it in. it means something, and the use of ellipses gives the audience enough to know what is happening without explicitly telling them. it is the authors ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ to the audience. think of the environment nick was in; tom was cheating with myrtle, the heavy metaphor of the eyes watching over the sins we think no one can see. this party was full of mischief and nick fucked a married man.

mckee does not seem intoxicated, he invites nick out to lunch while gripping the elevator handle, which are always objects shaped like dicks. plus in the novel, the scene does feel somewhat out of place; nick does not spend too much time discussing the interactions between mckee and himself, it seems thrown in. i get the impression that nick almost didnt want to include it it his writing, and put it in last minute. however, nick is fictional and i dont have much to go on off from an almost 100 year old book. its open to personal interpretation, but it seems like nick and mckee had sex and nick left on the 4am train, leaving mckee in his underwear at his own home looking through his pictures.

even at the beginning of the novel, nick is planning on living in a house with another man before the plan falls through and he goes to washington dc. could this be a failed boyfriend? we cant say. but it is a possibility.

nick carraway ends the novel mourning his friend jay gatsby, moving back to the midwest alone and away from the glitz and glam of new york. his ending does not involve getting married and having kids and riding off into the sunset, which seems bittersweet for our narrator. however, given the way things planned out for other characters, this is the best ending we could hope for for nick, one away from the destruction and one where he can at least begin to to to be happy again.

and now we move onto jay.

ill admit, this has little to do with textual evidence; i cant point out a place where jay fucks a dude or describe the way jay sees men and women; with nick being our narrator, again, he only know his perspective. but we do hear things about jay from other characters, how he acts and acted before nick and the type of man he is.

wolfshiem describes jay as ‘ very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.’ this means that jay knows women and knows when to back off, never advancing on someone he had no claim to. this is very important to me for several reasons.

1. it implies jay is not a cheater

2. it implies jay has been around enough women to know who is who

3. it shows jay is respectful

this also says to me that jay is not bi; he only has eyes for daisy, and not other woman. and those eyes for daisy are questionable.

we know daisy and jay had last seen each other 5 years prior to the events of the novel. in that time, jay had collected numerous things about daisy, built a house just so he could see her, and blew thousands of dollars every weekend for parties in hope that daisy would show up, even obtaining money illegally just to impress daisy.

jay gatsby is obsessed with daisy.

this is obvious from the text, the behaviors he puts forward are strange and creepy in pursuit of daisy. gatsby stares longingly out the window, cant hold a conversation with nick, and flat out bolts out of a restaurant to avoid embarrassment. he is an awkward guy, no doubt. and he lives his life as trying to be someone else, specifically, the man he thinks daisy wants from 5 years ago. when the car crashes with myrtle, all gatsby cares about is how daisy feels; when hes literally about to get ganked all he thinks about is daisy, daisy daisy daisy.

this isnt love, and i think deep down, jay knows it. this is the equivalent of dudebros who go above and beyond to prove they arent gay but end up the most gay of them all. gatsby is compensating for his feelings and trying to push the limit to deny himself more and hide back into the closet. he wants to seem the most manly he can get and basically say ‘wow i love women! i love women so much! look what i did for this woman! look at how much i love her!’

daisy is the first person jay felt he could be himself around, could begin to feel happy. and when he went to war, he no longer had something to push all his feelings onto. plus he was surrounded by other men, and for someone so in denial about their own sexuality, it probably drives them to pretty bad places. pretty obsessive places. he needs daisy, not because he loves her, but because he needs to security blanket. he needs to feel validated.

those glaces and stares out at nick feel like cracks of the real jay poking through, one who likes men but cannot admit it to himself. after all, as a man so attached and desperate for the ‘american dream,’ back in the 1920s, that did not include marrying a man. jay lives with internalized homophobia and tries to calm his nerves with his pretend love of daisy.

i could go on and on about this forever but its 12:30 and i have class.

if u take nothing from this, let me leave u with these main bullets:

TL;DR

nick fucked a dude

nick describes men erotically while he describes women very dully

nick almost lived with another man

jay is obsessed with daisy to repress his emotions

the separation and wartime made things worse for him

his internalized homophobia causes the plot

his longing stares out the window at nick are cracks in his facade

ty and goodnight

#space.txt #the great gatsby #natsby #jay gatsby #nick carraway #I SPENT AN HOUR ON THIS #YALL #idc if no one reads this i had fun writing it #ut yeah nick fucked a dude confirmed

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timclymer · 5 years ago

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Barbara’s Ovarian Cancer Story Part II

Ovarian Cancer: Process and Survival

Post Surgery

Read Part I for information regarding diagnosis and surgery…

The next few weeks after my discharge from the hospital, were very busy. My sister, Nance, and my mom decorated the house and Christmas tree. My sister Lauren visited from Washington and cleaned, cooked and lent invaluable support to all of us. There were visits to the surgeon for follow-up and the oncologist for the initial visit. John and my sisters accompanied me. It was so very helpful to have someone else ask questions and write down information. It can be an overwhelming experience, especially when you’re a little “spaced out” on vicodin for pain management, as I was. I signed on to be part of a clinical study using different combinations of medications for eight instead of the normal six cycles. Laurie had brought a book with her that offered a lot of information on how to deal with an ovarian cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatments. One suggestion was to research clinical studies. There is a great deal of “cutting edge” research out there but you may have to hunt for it, do your homework, and bring the information to your doctor. My oncologist’s office was conducting a trial, I was accepted, and I was scheduled to begin treatment on December 21.

Even though I was dreading the whole process, I knew I had to approach it in much the same way I did the surgery, almost like an athletic event or a race. I wanted to go in as strong and as prepared as possible and with a better “attitude.”

Attitude is defined as a manner of acting, feeling or thinking that shows one’s disposition, opinion and mental set. We may not be able to control a situation, but we can choose our attitude about that situation- victim or fighter; passive or aggressive; depressed or striving toward joy and happiness; caught in the “why me’s” or searching for the “what can I learn from this.” With the help of many people and through much reading and research, my “attitude-adjustment” process unfolded.

A booklet entitled “Preparing for Chemo” suggests several things that I immediately put into action.

1) Get your hair cut short so that when your hair starts falling out, it’s less traumatic and won’t clog the shower’s drain. (This worked for the drains but I was still traumatized.)

2) If you plan to wear a wig, shop for it before starting chemo. My sisters and my dear friend and hairdresser Patty, helped with both of these steps. Watching my long hair fall to the floor was very hard and yet made me feel the tiniest bit more in control of what was happening to me. To my surprise, everyone loved my new hairdo. The compliments boosted my ego when I really needed it. Nance and Laurie accompanied me to the wig shop. Laughter is very good medicine-and we laughed a lot as we all played with the wigs before settling on two very nice ones. Four hundred dollars later I was armed with my hair prosthetics and a sore belly from laughing. At this writing, I am sporting my own very short hair after nine months of wigs and hats.

3) The booklet suggests having a dental check up and cleaning before starting chemo. Also important is giving your home a thorough cleaning and perhaps scheduling someone to come in once a week thereafter- a clean house can minimize exposure to infectious agents.

4) Building up strength through exercise and a good diet can help minimize some of the side effects of chemo. This booklet and other helpful literature, is available through oncology offices and offers good practical information. I also found the library and the internet to be good resources.

Shortly after my homecoming, from the hospital, I received a telephone call from Lindy, a volunteer with the Cancer Society (set up by my husband and the cancer support staff at the hospital.) She had been diagnosed and treated for Stage IIIc ovarian cancer seven years ago. Hearing from her gave me a real boost and some good tips for dealing with the upcoming chemo. She shared her experiences with surgery, hair loss and complete recovery! She is still cancer free! In addition to advice on make-up to camouflage the fact that one has no eyebrows or eyelashes, she told me how helpful acupuncture was for her. She felt that it really minimized some of the chemo side-effects and “rebalanced” her body’s energy. I had had a few sessions of acupuncture many years ago, and I immediately knew that this would be right for me. I believe in its efficacy and definitely feel the sessions have been very beneficial.

My first acupuncture session was four days after the first chemo treatment. The meds they gave me to prevent nausea worked very well. I didn’t have much of an appetite and felt a little achy and tired but the only real side effect I experienced was a terrible, hand-wringing itching and tingling in my hands and feet. Amy, my acupuncturist, has worked with several people undergoing chemo, is very knowledgeable, and had a good treatment plan in place for me. I scheduled to see her 2 days before and 4 days after every chemo session. After my first visit with her, I did feel better, more energized and the itching had definitely dissipated a good deal. She gave me some suggestions on supplements and some Chinese herbs to use.

The side effect of itching, burning and tingling is called neuropathy and is fairly common with the types of chemo protocol I was on. After my second and third sessions, the symptoms worsened! I turned to the internet to learn more about neuropathy and what, if anything, I could do about it. I found an article by Cindy H. Makencon, website: http://www.ovarian-news.org, entitled “coping-Tips for dealing with neuropathy.” She offered a great deal of helpful information including reports of studies on the benefits of taking fairly large doses of L-Glutamine Sulfate and Chondroitin. I forwarded this information onto Carolyn, the research nurse in charge of my clinical study, and she shared the information with the oncologist. I had already started taking L-Glutamine when I met with him. He had further researched and developed a new treatment plan for me which included large doses of L-Glutamine, a change in one of the chemo meds, and the addition of a medication called neurontin. The combination of all these things worked! The neuropathy gradually subsided and I’ve had no further problems.

I believe a few other factors contributed to my being able to handle the chemo pretty well. I continued to increase my exercise regimen, progressing to walking everyday and then back to the gym for step-classes, albeit modified, and lifting light weights. Exercise builds muscle strength, increases oxygen and blood flow and for me, was and is a real physical and mental energy boost.

I came across a book entitled: “Herbal Therapy & Supplements- a Scientific and Traditional Approach” written by Merrily A. Kuhn, RN, Ph.D. and David Winston, a herbalist and ethnobiologist. The book was part of an at-home study course that I needed to complete for my RN Continuing Education Credits. The book offers a comprehensive guide to many common and some less common herbs and supplements, their uses, adverse effects, contraindications, and drug-herb interactions. After careful research, I started using several herbs and supplements designed to minimize chemo side effects and boost my immune system. I was careful to use things that do not stimulate estrogen in the body as my cancer was estrogen-receptor positive. I started taking these supplements one or two things at a time in smaller doses in order to monitor any unfavorable reactions, before adding more. Most importantly, I notified my doctor that I was taking supplements and having acupuncture.

At the end of this article, I will offer a complete list of the supplements and herbs that I have been using and some information regarding the rationale for each of these additions.

For several months, our kitchen counter resembled a drug and supplement store. I had to write up a daily schedule of what to take when. It was worth it! Once the neuropathy was under control, I tolerated the remainder of the chemo treatments pretty well. I was able to work full time and exercise, and my appetite and energy levels were good. Physically, acupuncture, exercise, diet, and supplements were, and still are, valuable tools which helped me deal with the chemo and recover from its serious effects.

On another level, the emotional and spiritual aids were an even more powerful part of the healing process. Previously, I mentioned my visualizations regarding pre and post operative healing and seeing myself healthy and cancer free. Now, it was time to take it a step further and include it as a powerful adjunct to the chemo medications. Rather than seeing the meds as a poison, I started to visualize it as “nectar from the gods,” washing through me and being taken up by my immune cells as a potion to destroy cancer cells. A few weeks before my first treatment, I read an article about a young local girl who had battled cancer at age 16. She wrote a book about her experience and included her thoughts on seeing her chemo as “nectar from the gods.” I admired her outlook and incorporated it into my work. My husband, John, created a special tape for me to listen to while receiving the infusion of chemo. This guided exercise included relaxation, healing messages, and suggestions for picturing my immune cells taking care of things and using the chemo effectively. Before each chemo session, even before they started the IV, he would do a relaxation exercise with me. This ritual became a very important part of the process. By working on my “attitude” towards the chemo and by connecting with these parts of myself that can be powerful self-healers, I felt I was taking back control of what was happening. Feeling that you are part of the healing process instead of a passive receiver of medications etc., is very empowering.

Rituals and routines are very comforting, especially when you’re experiencing stressful times. My “chemo ritual” evolved from the very first session. The night before, I meditated and did my healing visualizations at bedtime. John drove me to the oncology center. I selected my chair and we settled in with his relaxation exercise. My sister, Nance, arrived bearing muffins and silly magazines. After visiting and chatting, John left for work and Nance and I munched muffins and laughed at the National Enquirer stories. About an hour before the infusion was completed, my brother, Tom, would arrive for a visit and to take me home. Somewhere in the session, my sister, Laurie, would call from Washington to check in and often John would “pop in” in his travels. I always had company and felt lovingly supported. Sabrina included me in her meditation every morning and my mom would stop by the day after the session for tea and a chat. Every three weeks from December 21 through May 27, we followed this routine. The nurses and my family got to know one another and we became a real team!

Returning to work seven weeks after surgery was another normalizing routine that made me feel like I was taking back my life. Except for the day of chemo and the following day, I have worked full time, feeling productive, healthy and normal. My co-workers have been very supportive and caring. They even threw me a graduation party to celebrate the completion of chemo.

Even before my last chemo, I was researching what to do to prevent a recurrence of the disease. I found information on a clinical study for Ovarex, a vaccine designed to prevent a recurrence of ovarian cancer. After many phone calls, letters and haggling with my insurance company, I was accepted into a study being conducted at Stanford’s Cancer Center in Palo Alto. It involved monthly infusions for the first three months and then every twelve weeks for the rest of the year, with routine labs and CT scans. I have experienced only mild side effects and feel fortunate to have access to one more tool.

This past year has been one of lessons for me. I would have preferred the “universe” had given me a gentle tap on the shoulder instead of this Giant Thump on the head to let me know I had things to learn about myself and how “I am” in the world. Here are some of the things I have learned from this experience:

1. Pay attention – perhaps if I had agitated more forcefully with my doctor that something was NOT right, she would have responded with more attention. LISTEN to your body and trust your intuition.

2. Don’t take anything for granted – people, job, health, hair. When you face the loss of these things, you realize how special people are, how the day-to-day routine of a job is a gift, how precious good health is and even how much better a “bad hair” day is than NO HAIR!

3. There are a great many sources of invaluable information out there through people, libraries and the internet. Taking advantage of these resources allowed me to create a comprehensive plan to restore my health and fight the disease using a combination of Western and alternative therapies.

4. We do have choices in how we deal with a crisis – probably the best choice for me was to reach out and ask for help. The more people I told about my health issues, the more positive energy came my way. I felt empowered rather than vulnerable and armed with my helmet (a wig, which, by the way, I got complements on) and my armor (acupuncture, supplements, chemo, prayers and visualization) I was ready to do battle. I was “Warrior Princess” instead of cancer patient.

5. Laughter is GOOD MEDICINE!

At this writing, my labs and CT scans are completely normal. I am back to my normal routines of work and exercise. I am sporting a “Jamie Lee Curtis” hairdo. I am excited about decorating and shopping for Thanksgiving and when we all come together, we’ll have a lot to be thankful for! Before we dig into our feast, I will be asking each person to write on a piece of paper, one thing that they are grateful for. Each of us will then withdraw one of these papers from the basket and try to guess who wrote the message. It will be easy to guess mine. I am grateful for all the love and support from my family and friends (with a special thanks to my son, Matt, and my husband for shaving their heads to support me and to my son, Mike, and his band for dedicating songs to me at concerts and their fund raising for the Cancer Society.) I am grateful for the prayers and best wishes that came my way from people I do not even know. I thank you!!! Well, of course, that’s more than one thing on my piece of paper but so what! It’s time to celebrate!

Happy Thanksgiving 2004 and celebrate every day of your life.

Barbara’s Complete Ovarian Cancer Fighting Supplement List:

Three Imperial Mushroom Capsules – available through acupuncture office

A) Reishi- Immuno stimulant: enhances immune system; use is sanctioned by the Japanese Health Ministry as an adjunct treatment for cancer; Increases activity of chemotheraputic agents and reduces adverse effects such as nausea, decreased white blood cell counts; helps protect the liver against damage caused by viral, drug and environmental toxins.

B) Shitaki- strengthens immune system response; improves survival times of cancer patients when used concurrently with chemo.

C) Maitake- best known for cancer fighting properties; many doctors in Japan use it to lower blood pressure and blood lipids; effective as an anti-tumor agent and immune system modulator.

Echinacia- used in Germany along with chemo in the treatment of cancer. May enhance white blood cell counts in persons undergoing chemo.

Cat’s Claw- reduces side effects of chemo; used in clinical practice in Europe for cancer & HIV; has important immune enhancing properties; helps increase the number of T-cells, the true soldiers of the immune system. In Austria, it is used together with conventional treatment (chemo, radiation &/or surgery) to treat hundreds of cancer patients per year.

Graviola- scientists have been studying this herb since the 1940’s – four studies were published in 1998 re: significant anti-tumor properties and selective toxicity against various types of cancer cells (without harming healthy cells; Purdue University has conducted a great deal of research on the Annonaceous acetogenins family to which graviola belongs) much of which has been funded by the National Cancer Institute or the National Institute of Health.

Acidophyllis- rebalances intestinal flora (especially important when you’re taking a lot of medications.)

Multivitamins with Vitamin E

Calcium Supplement

IP-6 with Insositol- has been studied extensively for over 20 years; has powerful effects on the immune system.

Wheat Grass Juice- increases hemoglobin; rebuilds the blood; improves body’s ability to heal wounds; washes drug deposits from the body; neutralizes toxins and carcinogens in the body.

Green and White Tea- Chinese believe green tea is a cure for cancer and a longevity tonic; boosts immune system function; research being done all over the world and in the US by the National Cancer Institute re: anti-tumor activity. Both green and white tea are excellent antioxidants.

Website for researching herbs- Plant Database Raintree Nutrition

I used the guided relaxations/visualizations CD’s from the Stress Education Center-Dstress.com

1. #209 Stress Management for Pre and Post-op Survival

2. #208 Stress Management for Healing

Reference:

Health Update from SELF Magazine by Jennifer Nelson November, 2004

Ovarian cancer: a not-so-silent killer

“Early diagnosis is crucial. When disease is caught before it spreads, 80 percent of women will survive.”

by Barbara Ehlers-Mason, RN and L. John Mason, Ph.D.

Written in November, 2004, one year after the Surgery for Ovarian Cancer, in November, 2003

Stress Education Center (707) 795-2228 website: http://www.dstress.com

Source by L. John Mason

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/barbaras-ovarian-cancer-story-part-ii/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/187451427000 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

#Home Solutions FOREV

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homesolutionsforev · 5 years ago

Text

Barbara’s Ovarian Cancer Story Part II

Ovarian Cancer: Process and Survival

Post Surgery

Read Part I for information regarding diagnosis and surgery…

A booklet entitled “Preparing for Chemo” suggests several things that I immediately put into action.

1) Get your hair cut short so that when your hair starts falling out, it’s less traumatic and won’t clog the shower’s drain. (This worked for the drains but I was still traumatized.)

At the end of this article, I will offer a complete list of the supplements and herbs that I have been using and some information regarding the rationale for each of these additions.

1. Pay attention – perhaps if I had agitated more forcefully with my doctor that something was NOT right, she would have responded with more attention. LISTEN to your body and trust your intuition.

5. Laughter is GOOD MEDICINE!

Happy Thanksgiving 2004 and celebrate every day of your life.

Barbara’s Complete Ovarian Cancer Fighting Supplement List:

Three Imperial Mushroom Capsules – available through acupuncture office

B) Shitaki- strengthens immune system response; improves survival times of cancer patients when used concurrently with chemo.

C) Maitake- best known for cancer fighting properties; many doctors in Japan use it to lower blood pressure and blood lipids; effective as an anti-tumor agent and immune system modulator.

Echinacia- used in Germany along with chemo in the treatment of cancer. May enhance white blood cell counts in persons undergoing chemo.

Acidophyllis- rebalances intestinal flora (especially important when you’re taking a lot of medications.)

Multivitamins with Vitamin E

Calcium Supplement

IP-6 with Insositol- has been studied extensively for over 20 years; has powerful effects on the immune system.

Wheat Grass Juice- increases hemoglobin; rebuilds the blood; improves body’s ability to heal wounds; washes drug deposits from the body; neutralizes toxins and carcinogens in the body.

Website for researching herbs- Plant Database Raintree Nutrition

I used the guided relaxations/visualizations CD’s from the Stress Education Center-Dstress.com

1. #209 Stress Management for Pre and Post-op Survival

2. #208 Stress Management for Healing

Reference:

Health Update from SELF Magazine by Jennifer Nelson November, 2004

Ovarian cancer: a not-so-silent killer

“Early diagnosis is crucial. When disease is caught before it spreads, 80 percent of women will survive.”

by Barbara Ehlers-Mason, RN and L. John Mason, Ph.D.

Written in November, 2004, one year after the Surgery for Ovarian Cancer, in November, 2003

Stress Education Center (707) 795-2228 website: http://www.dstress.com

Source by L. John Mason

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/barbaras-ovarian-cancer-story-part-ii/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

#Home Solutions Forev

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rheasunshine · 7 years ago

Text

As I delve a little into what happened yesterday during my second half infusion of Ocrevus, I want to be very clear that “weakness” is not at all meant to be a taken as derogatory, or a stand-in for failure. I do not intend “weakness” to bring up feelings of inadequacy or defeat.

Weakness, in this piece, means vulnerability, means softness, means disarmed – and the context of these words are meant to evoke in us the power of our humanness and to speak to the testament that though we are all fragile, that fragility bonds us together and opens up the pathways for empathy.

As I wrote about in my last piece, my decision to start Ocrevus was not an easy one and the long-term side effects were scary and the short-term ones turned out to be terrible. This all comes with the territory of long-term disease management and medications. So I won’t re-hash that and I’ll start with yesterday morning.

(Full disclosure, as I’m writing this, I’m currently basking in the warmth of 7.5 mg of Vicodin, 50 mgs of Benadryl, plus the haziness of sheer exhaustion. Also, my skin is burning at a level best described as “infuriatingly distracting” and I have no feeling in either of my legs, so every once in awhile I’m taken out of writing mode to try to figure out how my laptop is floating in front of me because I can’t see the lump of legs beneath the blanket and so the whole “out of sight, out of mind” comes in to play.)

Knowing that we would have to leave for Duke at 5:30 am on Tuesday morning, I went to bed at 7 pm Monday night; not surprisingly, I woke up at 1:45 am, anxious and pissed. But I got dressed, combed my hair and took a “Let’s Do This” selfie in an attempt to get myself pumped up. I was thinking I looked pretty good for 2:30 am, especially since I was fighting a panic attack and couldn’t take anything for it (so there would be no interactions with the pre-medication they give you at the infusion center).

We headed out right on time, and despite the Tropical Cyclone warnings, there was only a light rain falling. Thommy and I took the obligatory “WE’RE ON A ROAD TRIP!” photo at the first red light we came to, and then he took an adorable shot of the two of us once I inevitably passed out in the passenger’s seat.

Durham rush hour traffic was reliably crazy, so we rolled up to Duke Hospital with 15 minutes to park and check-in. While I nervously waited for them to call my name I couldn’t help but notice the obnoxiously optimistic vending machine taunting me. Similarly to adding the words “in bed” to the ending of fortune cookies, I sometimes like to add the words “my ass” to the end of inspirational quotes. In case the image is too small for you to read, let me assist you in recreating what I read in my head yesterday morning as I waited for the IV toxicity:

“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it … my ass.”

Despite my obsession with quotes and my belief in their ability to empower and embolden us, sometimes the only thing that pulls me along in life is sardonic humor. Apologies to C.C. Scott.

Anyway, the appointment started out great – especially the first three things. For starters, the scale was broken!! After just getting weighed in at a doctor’s appointment on Monday (yes, I truly do spend most of my life at doctor’s appointments), I was really not looking forward to it on Tuesday. Most people dislike getting weighed in on those hideous contraptions anyway, but for someone with anorexia it’s an even harder proposition. Sometimes I do the weigh-in backwards, but most times my sadistic side takes over and I can’t avert my eyes. I’m going to be writing a special post about my upcoming 10 year anniversary from Renfrew and one of the things I’ll be talking about is some ways people with eating disorders engage differently than regular folks with seemingly benign tasks. For example, on the day before a scheduled weigh-in, I usually dehydrate myself and often times use a diuretic or laxative (despite the fact that I am chronically dehydrated and have diarrhea anywhere between 5-15 times a day). I also wear as few items of clothing as possible. This is much easier to accomplish in the South, but regardless of the fact that I am always cold, I usually wear shorts and flip flops to appointments so I can take them off before stepping on the scale. At the infusion center, none of these preemptive steps are possible because those places are kept at what seems to be “just-below-freezing”, so I’m forced to wear jeans and shoes. I digress: I didn’t have to get weighed in.

The second good thing was finding out that they try to keep you with the same infusion nurse for sake of continuity of care. I loved my nurse the first time and I was ecstatic to be back under her care. The last positive to happen in quick succession was the fact that she was able to get the IV in on the first try. Last time, it took 3 pokes (plus the delay of waiting for the “IV Team” to show up). Then, things started to take a turn for the worse.

Despite assurances last time that were going to double ALL my meds to start (including the Benadryl, which is a god-send during these infusions because it either knocks you out or keeps you in a “I Don’t Give a Fuck” haze), I was informed that only the Pepcid and the steroids would be doubled. That was the first time I wanted to cry in the infusion chair. I held it in. I dug in hard, gritted my teeth, focused my energy and willed myself to stay ahead of the thundering rumble of disappointment I could hear building up in the background. Thommy must have taken a picture at this moment, which I didn’t see until later, but perfectly captured the internal pep-talk.

And then he asked for a picture, grinning. I tried to smile back.

Then, as my nurse administered the normal dose of Benadryl, none of the twilight-like sedation that had blissfully overcome me during the first infusion took hold. It might as well have been saline. Again, the tears swelled up from my gut to the edges of my eyes – but I blinked them back down and just let the crashing wave of disappointment and frustration wash over me. All my senses and emotions were so heightened that it felt more like drowning than washing, but I didn’t want to give up on the day so early in the process.

The day marched on. Thommy did some work and I mostly stared ahead at the wall, or occasionally at my phone, but mostly I just looked at the IV. A little blood had started to flow back into the tubing, a hazy mixture of red blood and opaque medicine creating a pink swirl in the line. I don’t know why it was mesmerizing. Something about blood leaving my body was calming; it was just the smallest amount, really, but it was beautiful. It didn’t even scare me that I wished it was coming faster, or that the tubing wasn’t there, or that the earlier moments of “washing disappointment” turned to a wistful hope that the droplets of blood would turn to tiny streams, then currents. Visions of crimson liquid on pale skin lulled me. It wasn’t the meds but this vision that acted like the Klonopin I hadn’t been able to take earlier, and my eyes closed. Thommy must have looked up from his laptop shortly after this and captured with his phone what must have seemed to him like a momentary respite from the struggle and a rare moment of calm. It was. But for all the wrong reasons.

***

As we hit the mark in time where I had experienced a reaction during the first infusion, I was ecstatic to realize I wasn’t having one this time. I stubbornly decided (as one does when they think they can control everything around them) that I was NOT going to have a reaction this time and we were going to get out of there on time, beat the Durham rush hour and be back home after “only” 12 hours. It was not to be. 30 minutes later when they once again bumped up the infusion rate, I started to get the faintest tingle around my ears and the outline of my face. Then a little on my neck. I tried not to think about it; I certainly tried not to touch it. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself while surrounded my hawk-eye nurses and an even more attentive husband, who for reasons that entirely escape me, seems to actually like looking at my face. I again tried to convince myself the increasingly hard to ignore burning was simply a matter of psychosomatic manifestation. No allergic reaction to see here. Maybe if I pretend to sleep, no one will look at me.

Then I coughed. Just once. But Thommy looked up. I shook my head nonchalantly: “I’m fine, just a tickle, it’s fine.”

Then another cough, deeper this time: “I’m fine,” I laughed, “seriously, go back to work.” Then 3 more in quick succession, harder and rumbling, ones that forced my body upwards in the chair.

Fuck. Me.

After 2 minutes of “Should We Get the Nurse” ping-pong, he poked is head above the nursing station. I could hear the mumbling and I shot Thommy the coldest death stare I could muster and like a mother scolding an insubordinate child, I mouthed “SIT. DOWN.”

“Never mind, she’s ok.” Thommy said with a sheepish chuckle. It was his turn to try to laugh it off. But it was too late and here she came, arms crossed, smiling. It wasn’t my nurse (she was on lunch), but one that had remembered me from last time and had come over to say hi when we first got there. “Good to see you again,” she had said. She was young and very pretty. It’s strange, but even after just two visits, they seem like a family to me.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I laughed, waving my hand in an attempt to shoo off the inevitable. I try to act like the smartest person in the room when in medical settings, like it simultaneously makes everyone up their own game and also allows me the upper-hand. I do it because pretending I’m in control is the only way I’ve found to survive all this shit.

I don’t remember exactly who said what, but among the three of us, words like “itching”, “just a little irritation”, “cough”, and “I really am fine,” got tossed around. No dice. In quick succession, 3 nurses and the PA who oversees the floor and is probably the sweetest person I’ve ever met in a medical office were standing and sitting around me. Then I started to fucking cry. Not sobbing, not hysterically, but a stifled stream of tears finally made their way out of my eyes and down my already red and itching face. The nurses and Thommy tried to console me, thinking what, I’m not sure. The darker part of my nature thought maybe they believed I was weak – easily rattled – being a brat.

I doubt anyone actually thought that but those were the assumptions pounding against my skull as I tried to explain that I was only crying because I didn’t want to stop the infusion, I just wanted to get through it like (seemingly) everyone else did and go HOME. I wanted them to understand that my body does not know any other mode than “self-sabotage.” It is a betrayer. It lies and it breaks and it defies logic. I wanted them to ignore what they were seeing, go against all ethical and practical guides of medicine and just let me have my reaction in peace and get the fuck out of there. As I explained that, minus the expletives, the PA sat down next to me and placed her hand on my knee that was huddled up next to me as I did my best to place myself in the fetal position in the chair. Her eyes were the warmest shade of brown, and empathy and sympathy shot out of them like laser beams set to a better frequency than mine. Excitedly she said, “we won’t stop like last time!! No, no…” she comforted, “we will just stop the drip while we give you more Benadryl, more Pepcid and some Allegra, and then I promise you we’ll start right back up.” There were some hesitant, doubting looks on the faces of the nurses surrounding her. The PA must have noticed that too because she added – “I’ll start it back up myself if I have too.” I agreed, but kept crying.

They all started shuffling around doing what had to be done and within a few minutes, my own nurse was back. They explained to her what had happened. They tried to explain why I was upset. I started to defend myself, but she stopped me.

“Of course you’re crying. You’re tough and happy for as long as you can and you do what you have to do and then all it ever takes is one final thing, the straw that breaks the camels back, to put you over. It’s not pain, you can handle that; it’s just frustration at one more thing not working out the way it should and you just have enough. You’re ok.”

I cried harder. She actually fucking got it. I’ve known her for a total of maybe 18 hours in my life and she completely understood the secret language of my tears in that moment.

They infused more meds and I watched the clock tick. And then, when my time was up, and every nurse was with another patient, the PA (who works in administration and oversees the floor, and who was wearing high heels, a skirt and a blouse, but who had promised me that this little setback wouldn’t get me off track to go home on time), found gloves and started my drip back up herself.

The state of medical care of this country is currently broken. I know this because I am a professional patient. But the level of care I’ve received at my infusion center, and especially at the hands of this PA at that moment, healed so many fractures for me.

I still had well over an hour to go when my nurse left for the day. She came over to say goodbye and that she’d see me in 6 months. She said a few things, all so genuinely sweet that I wanted to cry again. Then she said “it was truly a pleasure being with you today.” I could only nod. When she left, Thommy turned and said, “she loves you.”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking about all the times doctors and nurses would fawn over Memere, even as she experienced the worst that hospitals have to offer. “I learned that from Memere.”

***

In my ongoing commitment to showing how “real” complicated and ongoing illness and disability can be, I allowed Thommy to post a picture he took of me crying to Facebook. We try to document as much of our lives as possible, and while most people who know me know that I’m incredibly open and honest about what all the colors of life look like, there are lines I try to draw. I’m struggling with that right now as I’m drafting my Renfrew piece, because despite the trigger warnings and the explicit language I’ll use to shy away people who shouldn’t be looking at it, I know if they’re anything like me they’ll be compelled to do so anyway, and so I haven’t decided if I’ll use pictures to help illustrate what my personal weight and health struggles have looked like over the last 18 or so years.

When we finally got home last night, I kept looking at that picture. I really had to fight the urge to take it down. I still think displaying vulnerability, depression, anxiety and self-harm are ways that help me fight against them. I know not everybody feels that way and I do worry maybe it’s too triggering for people. And maybe I’m delusional, but I do feel that if someone is battling their own demons in secrecy, and maybe feels like no one else understands, that they might see one of my pictures or posts and realize that weakness does not have to equal defeat or inadequacy or failure. Sometimes – hell, most times – weakness is permission to feel vulnerable, hurt or broken while simultaneously seeing the strength that all those feelings require. It is permission to be human, and to let others know that not everything they see or read from people they consider “strong” is the whole story. Strength requires too much energy sometimes; it needs its’ counterparts to be whole. When someone tells me I’m strong, I want them to know that, while it’s often misquoted and not used in accordance with the original source material from “A Farewell to Arms”: we are all broken, that’s how the light get’s in.

So today, as I sit here, I am bloated from the steroids and terrified about how much worse it’s going to get in the coming weeks. I am in incredible amounts of pain radiating from all over, and both legs are numb. I am starving, but I won’t eat. My face is broken out in hives (as are my neck, chest and shoulders), and I am dizzy and nauseous from all the medicines. I am worried about money because our car just needed $1,100 worth of repairs. I am feeling like a horrible friend and daughter because there are things I’m supposed to be doing for my friends and family that I just can’t. I feel like the “World’s Worst Wife” (a title I bestow on myself often) because Thommy is stressed and anxious and I can’t be as attentive or patient as I should be.

I am feeling my humanness today: hard. I am still crying. But I’m urged to remind you that while it’s not necessarily fair to feel this way, we are okay. And if you need to reach out, reach out. And if you want to share your struggles with social media but worry people might think you’re being “dramatic,” tell that voice to shut up and share what you want. You have no idea who it might help. Or how it might help you.

What’s the point of being strong if you can’t define strength on your own terms?

What’s the point of struggling in silence because you’re worried about what other’s might think? People who would turn their backs on you deserve to be walking away.

What do you need today? Ask yourself – then ask for help if you need it.

If you’re doing OK today – ask someone else what you can do to help them.

Results may vary. You may make someone’s day.

Or you may save it.

In strength and solidarity,

Rhea

In Defense of Weakness As I delve a little into what happened yesterday during my second half infusion of Ocrevus, I want to be very clear that "weakness" is not at all meant to be a taken as derogatory, or a stand-in for failure.

#Anxiety #crying #Duke #Human #ms #Ocrevus #pain #quotes #steroids #strength

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